Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Tragedy of Macbeth with Dana Schwartz

Episode Date: November 23, 2025

You can’t say “Macbeth” in a theater, but you can certainly say it on a podcast! Dana Schwartz joins us (in her third Blank Check appearance on a witch-centered film) to talk about Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, the first solo-directorial effort from a Coen Brother after their amicable split. We’re debating the success of Frances McDormand and Denzel Washington’s performances, learning about the history of Scottish kings, and discovering Ben Hosley’s family crest in the first Blank Check episode devoted to a work of Shakespeare. Trust us, this isn’t homework. It’s fun! Listen to Noble Blood Listen to Hoax  Read Anatomy A Love Story Pre-order The Arcane Arts Read If Roast Beef Could Fly Check out Forbidden Planet Watch Jefferson Mays’ A Christmas Carol Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blank Jack with Griffin and David Blank Jack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show Was Blank Jack By the pricking of my thorns Something Wicked This Way Podcasts that's pretty good Catherine Hunter

Thank you That's why I wanted to do it I don't I think my hunter is better than my Denzel We were just joking Maybe you should do a Denzel Denzel Macbeth maybe you should do it We were just joking That this is a quotable movie

And I made the joke weird There's no quotes page And then I open up the quotes page There are only five quotes on the quote Nobody bothered Nobody right nobody was like Yeah no one was like Someone did sit down here

And tomorrow and tomorrow's speech Someone copy-paced at the time. Someone was like, oh, fuck, come on, it should be on IMDB. It's good writing. You have to imagine the logic is who's coming to the tragedy of Macbeth page for Macbeth quotes. If someone wants Macbeth quotes, there are many places. There is like one or two lines that they did tweak. Give them to me.

I don't have them off the top of my head. And we'll get to this because I think it's like a bigger, not issue, but like concern of the play, but something about Lady Macbeth having children. Oh, sure. They shifted a tense that I was like, they're making a choice. Yeah, they're right, right. But that's fun to do.

It's something to make a little choice. There's also that scene about the one-cent stamps that they add. Right. Where Macbeth is in bed with Lady Macbeth, and he's feeling really down because his stamp art wasn't chosen. What was a really popular song in 2021? Oh, here we go. Right?

I don't, uh, yeah, fuck. Did anything exist in 2021? Uh, most popular song of 2021 was still, uh, uh, feel like I do by Vin Diesel? I'm like, do I remember any? Did Taylor release an album in 2021? Driver's license was the most popular song. Drivers license is so good.

We've also got calling me by your name by Lil Nas X. Oh, sure. Were we going crazy for Bridgerton? Was that the first season of Bridgeton? It's probably around then. So, yeah, it'd be funny if Macbeth was like, like, away. I have to watch season one of Bridgeton.

Rajajon Page. There's future bonds? He's going to pop. I don't know if you folks are feeling this. And the two of you had marriages, children, things that could demarcate that time. You don't like the COVID movie, like the sort of...

No, no, I like this film quite a lot. It's more that we've now had enough distance that I cannot demarcate anything within 2020 and 2021 anymore. Not really. All of that feels like three months. Yeah. I can remember the stuff that happened when I felt like I wasn't a person.

But it's all just one soup. You know how I remember the beginning of COVID is because I had planned to, trip to fly out to New York to record this this very podcast was it bewitched it was bewitched it was the first thing that I was like I don't think I'm supposed to get on a plane right now dude I'll never forget those early like huh I guess we're not going to do our live show like it went from us being like well the live show isn't like two months I mean like two months is a long time well the live show was supposed to be one week after lockdown and then we kicked it to May right right right right

It will definitely be like, they were like, do you want it further out? And we're like, May, this is definitely over. I was in a writer's room that they were like, okay, your guys are going to work from home until April. And we like left food in the writer's room because we're like, we'll be back in two weeks. Was that Shee Hulk? That was Shee Hulk. And everything turned out perfectly. And it turned out perfectly.

The pandemic didn't affect it at all. Nothing. Nothing was affected by anything. Do you know that this is a movie that was truly started filming in February? In February of the 11th. Century. 2020. Okay.

I think it was January or February, and they truly just, like, did what you said, where they were like, okay, let's just, like, drop the lights where they are. They left their expressionist sets. We'll be back in, like, a week.

And then they resumed filming in July. Oh, that's correct. Like, they did this movie, largely, you know, three quarters or whatever. Scott Ruding got canceled in between the beginning of production and the end of production.

He was retroactively removed as producer. That's very. So it doesn't come out until December 2021, but this is like a movie that is slightly pre-COVID and then mostly lockdown, which, thank God, they committed to this visual style that made it easy to be a bubble production. And people, there are no big, like, crowd scenes. It does feel like everyone is at least six feet away from each other. And yet this. Yeah, some people didn't like that. Yes. Like, why is this vibe?

Like, no one's even near in the same room with each other. But it doesn't feel like a COVID movie because it, it. was they came to those decisions organically i'm not worried about it it's all good to me you seem really worried yeah no i'm just saying a lot of the stuff i don't like to revisit the thing i remember i did see this in a theater but it was at the peak of like the uh what was it omicron it was the second wave in december of 2021 where it was like jesus christ is this going to happen every year did you see it in imex i did not i forgot it got a limited imax that's the box office game week we're going to do okay because we already did christmas 2021 and

anyway. And it is funny that it was released in IMAX. Right. Because it came out the same week and as Matrix's Rex. Correct. Yeah, yeah. I saw it. I was dog sitting for my father in the Hudson Valley. And it happened to be during that dog sitting stay that the dog died. Oh no. It was not my fault, but it was an emotionally intense two weeks that also were like, is there about to be another full lockdown? It felt like we were hinging right on the edge of is the government going to say like, hey, let's take another three months off. So I was like, maybe I just stay in this house forever. Maybe this is my new lockdown spot.

And I took an Uber to the story screen beacon theater, which has since been renamed and saw this movie with like one other person in the audience. It's now, I believe, just called the beacon. Correct. I was going to make a very bad in Porte's joke and just say, my lord, your dog is dead. I mean, that's what I had to call my dad and say exactly that.

And he was like, can you say it in like normal language? Anyway, those are my memories about seeing this movie. A film I like quite a bit. You like this film quite a bit? Yeah. I saw this film at the... Wait, what's our podcast? Jesus Christ.

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin. Thou art David. Great. It's a podcast about filmography, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes Doth Bounce, baby. Yeah, they'd off-bounce, baby. All checks are, you know, a fucking poor player, a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets their hour upon the studio, and then has heard no more. An hour. Geez, Shakespeare.

More like three hours. This is the first Shakespeare we've covered. Is that correct? Like, straight up Shakespeare. I guess you're right. Not reinterpretation. Has to be. Yeah, I guess you're right.

Gee, why haven't we done a Shakespeare page? You've never done a brand-off series. We've batted around sometimes. It's a lot of movies. It's a lot of movies. A lot of mustache. It's a lot of mustache. Double mustache per movie.

That's six mustaches. We've never really done Shakespeare. No. Huh? This is a miniseries on the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen together and separately. Today we are covering to date Joel's only solo film. He's making the second one. He's in it right now.

Macbeth, too. Macbeth, too. The redemption of Macbeth. he's back Macbeth reawakening It's called The Tragedy of Macbeth This film is called

The Tragedy McBeth What's the new one called It's like the Queen of Hearts Or the Jack of Spades Or something? I think it's Jack of Spades And it's What's his name?

Josh O'Connor That guy's not in movies And Francis McDorman That's like all we know It looks like it's like a period piece Yeah There was a photo of Leslie Manville and Damien Lewis

I mean I'm not uninterested Give me all that you got but they're filming in the UK and there was a paparazzi photo of Josh O'Connell looking fucking unbelievable. Looking very, very good in 19th century garb. But to date, this is the only solo Joel movie that has been released.

That movie is perhaps not based on anything as an original screenplay? I don't know, yeah. Unclear, but so much of the interest of this movie is that Joel's only solo film we have seen so far is him adapting a pretty unimpeachable work of drama. So this is really a showcase for him as a director And it's called The Tragedy Macbeth

And today our guest joining us For the third time On the podcast Maintaining a thematic trilogy Is that true? Yes, because It's all witches, David. All witches.

Oops, all witches. That's so true. Oz the Great and powerful Tragedy in Macbeth Yes. Dana Schwartz is our guest today. Thank you so much, having me. Of course. We gave

Catherine Hunter Best Supporting Actress at the New York Film Critics Circle. She's amazing in this. Yes. And I was like, that's a cool win by us. And then no one else really bothered to award her anything. So I felt even better about it. It was kind of an Issy Owe-Gada moment. Do you remember when he got

the first, was it NBR gave him Best Supporting Actor and everyone's like, oh, fuck. Is he a contender in silence? Right. And then it didn't happen again. Yeah. Is the only sort of Oscar Juice this movie gets is Denzel's nomination. Denzel gets nominated by everybody.

He got nominated for three Oscars. Cinematography production design? That's right. Pretty undeniable. Sure. Um, but they all did feel a little cursory in that, like, never really felt like a serious, uh, threat to win. No. Um, it lost cinematography to.

Dune. Dune, Dune, Dune. It lost production design to Dune. Dune, Dune. I really like the production design of this movie. Me too. And, uh, Denzel lost to Will Smith, who, I think accepted his award quietly

and with no real... A normal way! I would love to live in some of these rooms. Yeah. Like aesthetics. Not heavy on like cushions though. It's true.

It's not cozy. No. They look a little bit... But it's got a little exposed to the elements whatever they may be. They look a little bit like... Drafoggy. Do you remember Kanye and the...

at Kim's home that he kept posting photos of? Yeah. Where you were like, don't you have kids? How do they exist in this? There's a lot of sharp edge. In a modern art museum. All brutalist. But how do we feel about a puddle room?

Incredible. Yeah. I think it's fun. Blaschen? Yeah. If you're feeling weird about the overthrowing you've been up to. Throw some frogs breath down. Also, this concept of like, look, Macbeth, it's a cauldron forward drama, right?

Yeah. How can we put a new spin on an old cauldron? And they're like, what if the cauldron is the room? Pretty cool. That's why Denzel was at the Oscars. And he told Will Smith, like, the devil. comes for you when you're about to win an Oscar or whatever. You know, though, it is a good thing for all of us that no one put Lady Macbeth's name

in their mouth. That is a guy who would have... Dana, that's very true. Oh, that's true. This is a guy who wouldn't have liked that. He would not have liked that one. But sometimes I'm like he doesn't seem to really case. He's like, yeah, whatever.

But that's, I mean, you talk about this movie's response, which was polite, where they were like, of course, Denzel was Mcbeth. It was a little polite. It was a little point. Cinematography and production design, we can't deny, right? Yeah. This is one year after Nomadland. Francis is just won her

third lead actress Oscar I remember Mark Harris being like she's gonna win again Well that's silly And people were like she can't win four times If you're listening And it was like she's playing Lady Macbeth And she is just like

Unstoppable right now And she basically didn't even get nominations She's not very good in this movie I'm gonna have a hot take I'm sorry to jump in with a hot take I think my two least favorite performances In this movie are Denzel and Francis Interesting

I like I think Denzel's pretty... But I sort of know what you're hinting at. I don't think they tone... The things that I love about this movie, the tone of this movie, I think they're the least dialed into that tone. I agree with you, especially on Francis McDormant, who is straight up awful in this movie. It's also fascinating because...

Who I generally love as an actor, to be clear. It's not as much of a collaborative effort as, say, like Ethan and Trisha Cook. No, no, no, no. She's 100% the creative push for Joel to do this. This is absolutely a movie. made by the two of them. It's a Lady Macbeth movie. Yes. She has Lady Macbethed him into making this movie.

Absolutely. And she just doesn't quite have the right handle on it. Who do we each think is the best performance in this? Alex Hassel. I mean, like, that's the performance where I was just like, who's this fucking guy? I mean, like, Catherine Hunter is awesome. But his face is doing a lot of that work for him.

Yeah, well, it's a good face. I'll take 10 of it. You know who's good in this movie? It's Stephen Root. Stephen Root's great. Stephen Root I love. Should we get to the root of you? We're going to get to the room matter later.

Let's maybe do a little tease of the thing there. I believe I get my putters in Murmots. He's puttering. And to putter in Shakespeare in English is pretty impressive. Very fun. I think Cory Hawkins is, like, unbelievable. He's great. I think Moses Ingram is great in her big scene.

I think basically everyone does a good job. Like, except for Frances, I think it's kind of off for some reason in ways we can't, we can investigate. Like, I think Harry Melling is awesome. It's, like, so cool that Dudley Dursley, like, became what he became and that the Coins love him. Love him. Gleeson. Oh, Gleeson. I mean, feels like he can do it in his sleep, but, like, he's great.

His fucking cremcical beard looks perfect in black and white. Again, Catherine Hunter, we literally gave her best supporting actors. The coffee's brewing. The cauldron is bubbling. I asked Ben to reactivate the rarely opened collection of Nightmare Before Christmas The themed coffees. It's a rainy day in New York, and I hate to say that sentence. But Ben has brewed up a pot of rough weather, which is the zero from Nightmare for Christmas themed coffee, and I think it's cranberry flavored. Oh, no. I'm about to have a great time. No, you are not.

But Alex Hassel was the guy, partly because I did not know who he was. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Cranberry is the Santa Jack coffee. That makes more sense. This is oatmeal cream pie. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Dana and I already remember. on the fact that cream pie should not be in coffee, like, flavor names? Let's hang that from the rafters. This is the 21st century. I'm a little surprised that Zero's coffee isn't pumpkin

flavored since he's got that dang pumpkin nose. What's Corey Hawking up to recently? This is what I want to talk about for a little bit. I'm sorry. I want to talk about this for a little bit, but we got a lot of stuff. Well, what I think is kind of one of the most interesting things about this movie is Alex Hassel's role. He plays

Ross, who if you see a production of Macbeth, you would be forgiven for being like, I don't know who that is. Because Ross is basically just the guy who says things to explain things. He's more of a functionary. Yes. Yes. Ross doesn't have his own Wikipedia page. Right. Corey Hawkins has one

of the juicy roles. Yeah. He's got the big fucking I was from my mother's room untimely whipped roll. Okay. Ripped. Like, I mean, he's got, he delivers the twist ending. I feel like the first time I clocked him was straight out. Compton, where even just seeing the trailer, I was like, holy shit, how did they find a guy that

looks this much like Dr. Dr. Yeah. He's really good. Really fucking good in that. I've never seen this, but the year before, he played Tibolt in the bad Haley Steinfeld, Romeo and Julia. I saw that movie. And then it felt like right out of Strait of Compton, it's like he's getting cast in everything. He's in Kong Skull Island. No, he played, this is interesting. What? He played Tybalt in a filmed Broadway HD production, with Orlando Bloom but not Haley Steinfeld with a condola Rashad Haley Steinfeld did a movie

She didn't do it up a movie But I think it's not Orlando Bloom Because I was about to say Orlando Bloom Haley Steinfeld No I think that's Douglas That's at no good age cap No no no no That sounds right

I was conflating the two things I apologize for that No it's fine it's fine But so he was Tibleton that What he just did was Voyage of the Demeter Yes But this is what

He was in that They make him the new lead of 24 He does a season of 24th, 24 legacy. That was a mistake on everyone's. Black Klansman he's incredible in. Yeah, he's great. That's the one big scene. Yes, but destroys it. Then like six underground, he's number seven. Oh, interesting. In the heights, another big, like, kind of co-lead role for him. He sings, he dances, he's great. He's really good at him. Tragedy Mcbeth. I'm like, this guy is like waiting to explode. And even in this where it's like, so many of his scenes are going to be him and Denzel.

This feels like a kind of passing of the torch thing. And then it's like two years where he does something called Survive I've never heard of. That seems to maybe be a TV movie with him and Sophie Turner. No, dude, there's a quibby. I ordered that one. It was a quibby? Yeah, I ordered that personally. He doesn't do a movie between Macbeth and Voyage of the Demeter.

Well, that's only two years. And then it's color purple. And COVID. Yeah, in Coeur. Chano Lesson. Which, so in color purple, he has Harpo. He's Harpo, that's the, you know, that's not the most enjoyable role, obviously. He is good in the piano lesson.

He's not, to me, the one that pops. Thank you, about. But he's totally good. He did also do Top Dog Underdog on Broadway and got a Tony nomination. Yes. With Yaya Abdul Matea, Wonder Man, of course. Great Wonder Man. Did you see the trailer for that?

Yeah. What's going on? I don't know. What's up? I don't know. How are we doing? I don't know. We can't just do a whole Marvel show set in, like, audition rooms.

That has to just be the first 20 minutes, right? Like, we do need Wonder Man to, like, you know, shoot lasers or whatever he does. The problem with all these Marvel Disney Plus shows now, and Dana, this is something you couldn't possibly understand, is that all of them have basically been sitting on a shelf for three years. Right. And were conceptualized five years ago. Right. Like Iron Heart. Right. They're all just, like, totally out of sync.

They can't even acknowledge our president. Red Hulk. And please, Dana, if you wouldn't mind saluting. excluding. Does he have like two months in office? Like his Wikipedia page, it's like, Thunderbolt Ross, he was a celebrated general. He was president resigned in disgrace after turning into Red Hulk two months in. There was like one throwaway line in Thunderbolts where they were like, things have been a mess since our president hulked out, right? They say something. Yeah. You guys talk about it more.

It should be a little, Congress should feel pretty stressed out that the president. The president turned into Red Hulked out. Right. I think if during a conference, by the way, it was televised. It wasn't like. They can't cover it up. Right. It wasn't like Michael Wolf broke the story. He's like giving a speech in the Rose Garden. He did do it in public. You're right.

And then he roped out and Captain America fought him and he sadly like conceded naked. He did. And it felt like like a little sort of upsetting. And he's in the fucking raft now? He's in the raft. Well, you know, his legacy is now going to be on like internet listicles of like shortest terms of president. Right. William and Harrison.

He died. Red Hulk. hulked out. Like, it's like what happened to the guys, right? Do you think in like history classrooms where they have like the wraparound, like art of all the presidents or the poster or whatever? Does he get a whole of presidents? Is it a mannequin? Is it

red? Does it hulk out? I think he absolutely makes those things, but do they have to be like, we must respect both forms of the president? Does the Red Hulk Trump, no pun intended, the regular form? I don't know. Tudgeon to make that. Well,

Corey Hawkins is in an upcoming film directed by Bart Layton, not a director I like. The Man in My Basement? No, it's called Crime 101. But he has another... Well, but I'm telling you about Crime 101, and then I'll move on to whatever that is,

because listen to who's in this movie. Crime 101. Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghien, Okay. Hallie Berry, Monica Barbaro, Barbaro, Cory Hawkins, Jennifer Jason Lee, Nick Nulte.

What? That's like a lot of guys. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a MGM. Is he the lead? No, he looks like he's about sixth on the cast list here. And then he's in the Odyssey.

The Odyssey's the big thing. That's cool? Yeah. But, I mean, maybe he plays like a rock. I mean, I don't know. It's like a lot of guys in that. He hasn't stalled out. He's one of those guys where like, if he gives a good performance tomorrow,

everyone's going to be like, wow. But even when he was on... My basement was at Tiff. Okay. I think it was, it got bad reviews. Even when he was on, like, that good growth run, I always felt like his name was not sticking with people as much as it should. Yeah, I don't know. I love him.

Yeah. And I think he's great in this. He's phenomenal in this. Yeah. Dana, what's your history with old Bill Shakerspeer? I really like Shakespeare. I was in college a nerd who didn't have a lot of friends or go to parties. But I was a member of a group called Shakespeare on the Green that sort of put on site-specific Shakespeare productions around campus. Where did you go to college? Brown.

Oh, yeah. I didn't even pay you to set that up. Okay. I'm an adult woman. Went to college in Rhode Island. Yeah, small college in Rhode Island. No, I actually directed a production of Arcadia with Shakespeare on the green. Deeper cut.

No, that's not written by one of Shakespeare, so you fucked up there. But I was in Winter's Tale. Yes. Shakespeare? Yes. I've seen The Old Shepherd. Cool. Yeah.

Winter's tale, Shakespeare's weirdest play. Yeah. Does not make sense. Kind of weird. Have fun with it. I like Shakespeare a lot. I have seen a few productions of Macbeth. I enjoy it.

I think it's fun. I like this movie a lot. David, did you ever perform Shakespeare? I did. I think I've said that on Mike. I was Puck in a Midsummer Night's Dream in high school. I wore a sparkly green sweater. Yeah, you were.

I think that is the only Shakespeare I did. I did a little bit of drama, like high school drama. I was not good at it. But I enjoyed the camaraderie and the, you know, sort of spirit of collaboration. You were also going to an all-boys school, right? Yeah, but we would do our plays with the girls' girls. That's what I was asking.

You weren't going Mark Rylance. You weren't dressing up as girls. Flipping around. You weren't Rylancing? We never Rylance. You know, when Mark Rylance did that, it was very controversial because, so what Dana's referring to is Mark Rylance, who we all know, of course, as a big friendly giant who occasionally, you know.

Also, as the Phantom of the Open, Green. What were you going to say? Were you queuing me up to do the voice? Yeah, you could do the voice if you want, or you could do any Mark Ryland. He was also, well, he started out at the R.S.C., the Royal Shakespeare Company, but then he was the first artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe for the first 10 years, which is they rebuilt Shakespeare's theater from, you know, Tudor Times.

You're aware of this? Yes, perfect. reconstruction but they added Dolby Atmos It's a very... Have you been to the globe? I have. Have you been to the globe?

I haven't. It's wonderful. I saw measure for measure there. It's awesome. Ben, have you been to the Shakespeare's Club? No. Have you been to London? Yes.

Yes. Yeah, okay. I did go by the theater. Right. You can also just, it's on the South Bank. You can just go walk. It's crazy. It's crazy to think it's just, you know,

obviously it's not the original. No. And it's about. fine hundred feet from where the original was they actually fucked up really bad yeah there was some other building that they couldn't move or whatever but it's pretty close sure um but crazy of that it's just i mean london's so fucking old it's just crazy

fucking old yeah crazy but he did try doing some all male productions because like that's what they did in shakespeare's time and then some people got mad because they were like it's hard enough for female actors out here and you're fucking taking our roles away again but he was like i'm trying to do a thing I think they did all women stuff, too, at a certain point. I'm not sure. He was in sort of a celebrated production, I believe, of 12th night.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and then I think... I think you're right, David, that to make up for it, they did an all-women's production of Ghostbusters. And people reacted to it very normally. Ben, he answered the call. How do you feel about Shakespeare in general? The Bard.

The Bard. Willie Shakespeare. Well, famously, I've said on this show many times. I'm not a fan of homewere. Resist homework, and I worried that this was a homework-ass movie. It is a little bit of a homework-ass movie, okay? Because it is guys in robes going, like, tossed thou, and it's, you know, like, there's a certain brain-turning-off moments some people have.

A little bit. Now, later in life, have come to somewhat appreciate Shakespeare. I think, you know, he's, like, you know, contributed some stuff. Oh, you think, right, right, right. You know? The guy actually, he landed a couple darts on the board. I get it up for him. Old Bill.

He's done some stuff, you know. Do you think he, um, that it wasn't really him? Because you do, you don't mind a conspiracy theory sometimes. Sure, I love it. So you're just, I'm like, hey, maybe Shakespeare didn't write his plays. You're just like, I'm all in. He didn't do it. No, he's three guys.

Dana, where are you on fake Shakespeare? No, it was a real guy. Oh, I love that. Maybe it's like three guys in a trench coat. That's the dream. And they all, that's why like, you know, one of them brought the comedy, one of them brought the drama. Do you know about the, the William Ireland? Shakespeare hoax? No, what's that? I mean,

this could be a full rabbit hole, but basically it was a guy in the late 1700s who was trying to impress his dad and, like, forged a Shakespeare signature autograph, and the dad was impressed, and then gradually reached a point where he's like, I found a lost play that Shakespeare wrote, that he just wrote. This is like, can you ever forgive me?

He kicked something off, and then he started being like, well, if I can do the fucking signature. They put it on. They put it on the play. It's called, what's it called? Vordegern. okay is it good no no fuck it does make you wonder though like you know they're constantly publishing new books under dr susse right yeah it's like a doctor sues book and you're like we all know he died 60 years ago some other person's writing this but dr sues has become a brand yes it's a part of it's the language and so is it like community season four where it's like yeah you kind

of got the idea but that doesn't mean it's good yes right right but i where they're like hop on I'm almost surprised that no one's been like, hey, we bought the rights to Shakespeare. We're going to start publishing new Shakespeare plays. Right, like kind of- We fed AI. Like there's new James Bond novels or whatever. Right, right, right. That all the new born novels still say like Robert Ludlam and big letters on the top. That's like actually written by.

Yeah. Is that covered on hoax? Oh, it is. Your podcast hoax. Your podcast hoax. Brand new podcast hoax, exclamation point. Fun podcast I do with my friend Lizzie Logan where we talk about his. historical hoaxes, including that one, which is, you have talked about it.

I went down the rabbit hole. It's just, it's very fun for me to have a job where I get to go down to rabbit hole. What's the big, like, uh, uh, upon Wingate? What's the name of the big hoax? I feel like there's the one that has some sort of like code name for what the truthers call themselves. Is it the Iron Mountain? I'm going to figure this. That's like the kind of Qanani. What, like, I don't understand. Like, what's, what's the hoax? I guess it's the one that, uh, Anonymous is built around the idea that like Shakespeare couldn't have been a common person. Oh, a Shakespeare hoax.

I feel like all those, like, it was Bacon, do come from, like, sort of snobbery, this idea is that, like, a glovemaker's son? Right, seemingly regular, have created this. It must have been. It has to be fake. A member of the moral family. Or Francis Bacon or whoever, right.

That's the thing with the Shakespeare author shit stuff, right? It's, like, it's not like there's not enough evidence. It's more just people being like, I just don't buy it. And also, the, The argument that I've heard is like, well, how can someone be so good at tragedy and comedy and poetry? And I'm like, because he was a really good writer. Yeah. There's a reason we, right, we still like his plays because he was good.

Like, it's circular. Yes. Like, you just have to, right. It's the Oxfordian theory, but there's some dumb name I've heard those people call themselves. They're called anti-Stratfordians, if that's what you're talking about. Like, because they're basically like, it wasn't the man from Stratford because that's where he's from. Sure. I guess.

And of course, he had a son called Hamnet. And we'll learn all about that soon. We're about to learn and cry about that fun. Ben and I last night went to go see a house full of dynamite. Oh, did you like it? I liked it. I mean, we'll have talked about it a month ago. I know, I'm just literally interested.

Yeah, I liked it. I haven't seen it yet. I have some hang-ups. I found it a little stressful. Uh-huh. But Ben had just finished watching Tragedy Macbeth. It was storming up. Yeah, it was rainy.

This is real tragedy of Macbeth weather. Yes. And then walked into House of Dynamite, and we walked out of the theater. And Ben's just like, I feel bad. Yeah. For real. That was an awful double header. You probably needed to go see I mean, what's the funniest movie in theaters

right now? Probably fucking House of Dynamite. Yeah, it's not a lot laughs to be had in theater. I did the opposite. The Taylor Swift lyric lyric film. Yeah. Maybe Gabby's dollhouse has a couple laughs, right? Yeah, Arp argued that Whig is on fire in that movie.

That's great. I love that for her. Griffin, David. Ben! Ben! Bone Sound Inc. Worldwide, in partnership with Plank Check Podcasts. I've heard of both of those companies. I've heard of both of those companies. I didn't approve whatever's about to be mentioned. I'm proud to present. Ben Hosley's Slow X-Miss five. Somehow Slow X-Miss has returned?

That's right. They slow now? For listeners out there living in a friggin' hole, Oh, boy. Of no shade. SX? Slow X-Miss is an annual compilation album of alternative and off-be Christmas music. But it got to be slow. Now, this is not SSX, the snowboarding game.

Sometimes it's tricky. This is just S-X. It could be tricky. It could be tricky. Ben, you did in this copy that you provided us. Written copy. Written copy. Written copy, use SX as shorthand.

So you're trying to sort of coin. an acronym here. This is the first time you've done that. I'm testing it out. Can we call this SXV? Yes. Okay. And now, am I wrong?

Is this the fifth time you've done this for? Is it the sixth? It's the sixth time there like an episode zero or something? I started with slow X-Miss zero. Okay, okay, okay. It's the natural way to start. It's a Godzilla minus one. Whenever I'm counting up, I'm like zero.

Kind of situation. One. Right. The second year's installment was Slow X-Miss volume one. Griff, can I read the next line of the copy please? This year, Slow X-Exmus five is being. served cold. Burr, bundle up and sip away them holiday season blues with wintery ethereal tunes. David Ben, our listeners I'd be going, yeah, I know, it's that time of

the year, slow X-Miss, what am I going to do? Go online and download it. Is that my only release option? No, because now in its sixth year, it is available on vinyl for the very first time. For the very first time, the slowest vinyl imaginable. That right, fiscal media, baby, available exclusively through our friends over at Mutant right now. The lovely folks at Mutant have released such soundtracks as sinners. And now

Slow X-Miss 5. It was pressed apparently on 140 GM. What does that mean? It's the grams. The grams, that's the weight. And iced out into a translucent ice blue variant. I like that. Brer.

It's limited to 500 copies. Offered him 45 RPM so you can play a regular slow or extra slow at 33 a third. Isn't that fun? That's really fun. That's really clever. Ben, can you tell us about the lineup this year? It's featuring holiday standards and rituals from the Meridian Brothers, Shannon Lay,

Zach Cooper of Grammy Award winning, King Garvish, Eric Slick of Dr. Dogg, Dave Hartley, friend of the show of the War on Dr. Dr. Dr. with his solo project Nightlands, among others. Among others. And for the analog hogs, the analog haws the majority of the album artwork is practical with an original sculpture by Matthew Rosenquist.

To get your mittens on this record, go to Made by Mutant.com. Also available is a special edition t-shirt featuring Slow X-Miss 5 cover artwork. Plus, we have a five pack of holiday greening cards featuring album artwork across the last five years. So you can send along some holiday cheers. to friends and family, using cards featuring past slow Christmas album artwork. Isn't that fun?

You can explain to them what it is in the card. That's a good icebreaker. Ice, cold, bur. And for any worldwide blankies interested, international shipping is available but for the vinyl record only. Once again, all three products are available right now at made by mutant.com. All right. Anyway, thanks, guys. Burr. The tragedy of Macbeth. I love Macbeth. Have you seen Rickbeth performed Griffin Newman? I don't think I've ever seen it on stage.

I was trying to count how many times I've seen it on the stage on the on the stage. Dana, when have you seen Macbeth? I think I've seen it two times, two or three times on the stage. Who were your Macbeth? Chicago, Shakespeare. Okay. Once in college. And I feel like once more that I'm not placing now.

You, we were texting earlier and you were bragging that you saw Sir Patrick Stewart. I did see the Patrick Stewart production. When was that? I think it was initially 2007, right? Is that right? And it was, you can see it filmed. It was recorded. They did a pro shot.

Rupert cool. It's got this whole, like. uh romanian like uh 60s sort of um oppressive government thing i also saw it with samantha bond as lady macbeth this is what i was trying to remember who was macbeth in this um i'm gonna find it just sit and relax yeah i've watched the pro shot john bean yes the pro shot there's a good pro shot of uh david tenant that one i was a little sad to have missed uh yeah i also i so i've been doing it so i saw a lot of stuff when i moved to England when I was a kid.

And the first thing I saw at the Royal Shakespeare Company, at the Barbican, when I was in England, was Julius Caesar when I was like nine years old. And I, you know, vaguely remember it, but like, not really. And I, so I went back and looked at the programs, because some guy collects screenshot. Paul

Bettney was in it. Wow. What the fuck? Wow. I saw him on, you know, I didn't know who he was. He was Caesar. That was just a young Bettney. Yeah, he wasn't in Caesar. I can find out. Let's see. he played, Bethany played Brutus

and Hugh Korshi played Mark Anthony and Caesar was played by Christopher Benjamin Julian Glover was Cassius like how you I think back on this stuff that I saw as a kid where I think I was, I liked Shakespeare and I was into it but I was still a little kid

so I would get a little bored or I would This is how I felt And I was a, this is so long ago and I just have no memory of these things that had the toast of, you know, later British character actor shit, you know what I mean? Like,

I saw in 96 the RSC Macbeth. This is why I'm thinking about this, which had Roger Allum is Macbeth. He was good. Yeah. And let's see, who is Lady Macbeth? Bird Brennan, never heard of you. Okay. But the reason I saw that

is that my friend from school was in it as one of Banquo's children in like a scene where like all the children were like gathered on stage as part of the fantasy of the, right? And so he had no lines, but he had to go be in the play every night. That's cool.

And I was, like, jealous of that I was like, that's cool. Yeah. You know, like the historical sort of fun fact about the writing of Macbeth and why that scene is really included. What was happening in England at the time is King James of Scotland came over after Elizabeth died. Of the House of Stewart. Of the House of Stewart.

Of the House of the Bible. Of Scotland. And Shakespeare was trying to suck up to him. So he was like, I'm going to write this play about a Scottish king. And also it was popularly believed that that King James was descended from Banquo. Actually, he wasn't because Banko wasn't a real person, but that was like sort of the popular understanding. So even though in the thing, in like the historical text that Shakespeare was basing this story on. Holland Shet's Chronicles.

Hollinshut's Chronicles. Bankwa was like involved in the assassination. In this version, he's like, no, Banko, good guy. And also Banko, you know, going to have a line. of great kings wink wink how are you as far as like the king knowledge legacy stuff unfortunately really good like does that something they really like pushed on you in school what do you think nine year old david moving to britain thought about the fact that you could learn a big list of names of guys from the past i'm gonna guess there's like history about

their do doings knowing you think like age nine david was interested in memorizing that You might have got a little locked in. Yeah, I can see that. But then, of course, there is the kings of Scotland before what Dana is referring to, you know, when the crowns are joined. And, like, Macbeth is a real king. But I'm not, I don't know, how good are you at the kings of Scotland, Danny? Can you do it?

Probably not. No, no. I mean, it's pretty ridiculous. Like, there were a lot of kings of Scotland back then. Their names are too plain. Yeah. They need, like, some kind of, like, extra, like, descriptor nickname. A little rude, given that there was, like, six King David's in Scotland.

Yeah. And there's been zero King Davids in England. Plain. Well, James McAvoy, of course, was the last King of Scotland. But who led up to that? That's just facts. I don't know what to tell you guys. Facts are facts.

Facts are facts. It's pretty weird that that's a movie. Yeah. That they're like, there's an Idiot Mee, I mean movie, Forrest Whitaker won best actor for her. Oh, is he the lead? He's actually kind of not. James McAvoy is.

He's not even the titular character. Who does he play? The Last King of Scotland? Well, not really. He plays like a guy. Yeah. Why is it called out? I don't know.

Did he, I mean, was kind of into Scotland. Maybe, I think. I think he called him a king at some point or some shit. You've seen the last king of Scotland? I have not seen that movie. It's a bad film. I didn't even know James McAvoy was in it. He's not just in it.

He's all over it, baby. That's the crazy thing is they, like, shot this movie where, like, Edie Amin is the supporting character. And then people watch it, they were like, fuck, this performance is good. And then the poster is just giant Forrest Whitaker face. Everyone, more people absolutely have seen, like, the Oscar clip of that movie than seeing the actual movie

full and assume the whole movie is that. That is exactly my understanding of that movie. No, it's mostly James McAvoy being like, God, I gotta get the fuck out of here I'm like living with Idi Ami. He's like a doctor stuck in Scotland. It's that Ediami needs to do a giant fart. I remember that. A real

scene, of course. And he's like, I'm in pain. And he's like, oh, I'm a doctor, I can help you. And then he's like, I think you just have gas pain and like makes him fart. And then he takes a baseball bat. You rock. And he goes behind Idiomeneen he places the baseball bat against his stump. and he, like, pulls really hard.

This is a real scene. This is, like, the movie's big first act thing. Yeah, exactly. And then he's like, you're trying to kill me. And James McVoy's, like, pulling the bat. And then he, like, lets out, like, a fucking blazing saddles fart. And he's like, you are the last king of Scotland. It's kind of analyzed this vibes where he's like, you, you.

Well, then the rest of the movie, yes. And the James McVo is like, I got to get out of here. And he means like, I got to do more crimes. It's like somewhere between, like, analyze this and funny people where he's like, you live in my house. house now you help me with everything um but yes macbeth was of course the king of scotland in 1040 for 17 years which is not bad longer than i've been king of scotland yeah so far by 17 years yeah um but he is based so he's based on a real guy but the theater

theatrical character is kind of made up um but that's cool do you think in in his time because Shakespeare constructed so many plays around famous leaders that there was a kind of analog to Marvel speculation of being like who do we think he's going to do next

and what's his take going to be how much is he going to deviate from the source material? I know that like your job that's like a very funny joke but I do think that people fully now like scholars think there's like quote unquote

lost plays where they were like I think he probably would have written a play about this guy and he didn't And no one, so why are they lost? Because no one bothered to put them in the folio or whatever. Yeah, and it's like, I don't know, maybe he did them and no one wrote them down because they're like, we'll give him this one.

Sure. Right. They're like, they removed all the bad ones from history. They were like, what if we Zazlava a couple of these? So his legacy is pretty perfect. He did Zazlava. But it's just funny to imagine like, where it's like, hey, I hear his next play is fucking Julius Caesar.

And people like, oh shit. But it must have been there. Right. But then once in a while, people like, it's like about a winter's tale. I don't know what he's doing with this one. The message board is literally a message board, right? Where someone is, like, pinning a piece of paper. Do I need to have seen 11th night before I was in this?

Right. All right. Dana, the door's over there. When they announced something like Winter's tale, it must have been like Nolan's speculation where you're like, what does this title imply? Winter. Is it secretly an adaptation of, what was the fucking Blue Thunder? I don't know. I believe that is what you're talking about, yes, Blue Thunder.

Macbeth, let's go all the way back to Macbeth. Where's my dossier for Macbeth, JJ? The play. What do you know about Macbeth, Dana, apart from, I agree. I think the historiography of, like, he's sucking up to King James a little bit being, like, you know, you're the descendant of this cool guy. About Macbeth, sucking up to a Scottish king. Giving us some classic, like, Shakespeare themes. Some scholars, like normal guy Harold Bloom, think that it was sort of influenced by the gumpowder plot.

they did try to blow up King James the first. Those rotten Catholics. Sorry, they're all right. I'm sure King James had it coming. Should I be sympathizing with Guy Fawkes? I don't know. It is kind of funny. I always find it very funny that, like, Guy Fawkes,

because of V for Vendetta, has become this imagery that's like punk rock anarchist when he was a devout Catholic. He was a devout Catholic who wanted to kill James out of religious fervor, and then the holiday where we burn him in effigy is an anti-Catholic holiday. And the whole thing, in just 21st century Britain, you're just like, what's any of this about? Like, nobody here goes to church anymore. But with distance, it's just become, if they hated him, he must have been cool. I think he was all right.

What do you think about King James? He was all right. He was probably gay. Probably gay. You know what he did is what I find kind of interesting about this play, which has, you know, witches. He was a little bit obsessed with witches. Okay. Right.

Sort of the witch hunter king. He wrote the demon-al. Just in fear, you're saying, yeah. I think thought they were pretty real. But I guess people at that time were, like, there was sort of a spectrum of how real do you think witches are? And she was close to heavy on real. But he wasn't goth.

He was like, we have to protect ourselves. Yeah, he was not into witches because he liked them. He was like, we should put these women on trial and torture them. Did you know, right, which is not woke and cool of him. So maybe I take it back on James I first. Did you know that in 1604, he wrote a treatise called a counterblast to Tobacco, which is seen as one of the first anti-smoking, like, publications ever in which he says that, like, he doesn't like tobacco.

He hates that it's come from the new, like, that's the hot new thing. He says that it is hateful to the nose. He's right. I know. He's just, like, in fucking 60404, he's like, why are we all smoking this? This smells bad. I'm just imagine him making people write his entire screed on the back of every tobacco leaf.

Like, it's the warning on a cigarette pack. Hateful to the nose. He basically is like, it's sinful and it smells like Satan to me as well. So he gets a little hard on the, you know, if you're smoking, it's like sort of devil smoke, right? Okay, sure. But still, he didn't like smoking. Yeah. Anyway.

So Macbeth, yeah, written in probably like 16-0-2. 5-3-2, somewhere around there. Can't be dated precisely. Maybe try to work harder. It sounds like a JJ failing. to me there's basically Dana there's basically debate over is it like 1603 to celebrate

James's ascension to the throne or a little after the gunpowder plot which would put it like 1606 okay we don't know they basically just like search the text to try and figure out like what could be a reference to like this it seems like such a fun branch of history but also very niche you know to like go through Shakespeare being like what were they

referencing here is this like a topical thing like him saying this It's like how they reference driver's license in this movie, which date it precisely in 2021. That's why they did that. Do you think that Paramount's about to Greenlight a bunch of movies that are like Macbeth equivalents where, like, our greatest storytellers are pitching films about how good tech billionaires and their children are? I'm sorry. I didn't catch all that. Tech billioners and they're still doing the idea was that Shakespeare was like, I got the platform. Sucking up to his overlords.

Right. Right. Yes. You think I'm correct Yeah, I think you're right Thank you Of course this is You're not supposed to say the name Macbeth

If you're performing it, right? Yes, it's a curse in the theater It is of course a curse into podcast studios as well We've already kind of fucked ourselves But the legend is always If you say Macbeth in a podcast studio You are trapped to endorse brain powders for 20 years And get caught in Manosphere

You like that? I say Macbeth in a podcast studio. Ben's not laughing. I don't understand. Well, this is a very serious play. It's a serious play. It's a serious play. And I'm talking about a serious curse. Michael York says that if you say the name on stage or in a theater, you have to leave immediately, walk around three times, walk around the theater three times, which is like, Jesus.

It's like 20 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And then spit over your left shoulder, say an obscenity, and then wait to be invited back in the building. You can't even go back in. Vampire rules. Right. Patrick Stewart says

If you have played the role of the Scottish thing Then you're allowed to say the title anytime anywhere But that's convenient for him to say Also note he's not saying it So it's kind of one of those things where he's like I mean you know it's weird that you can't say this word And I'm like well you're not saying the word either man I've always found the loopholes of it confusing

Because it is right The thing is oh only call it the Scottish play Right and basically there was a series of incidents During different productions that made people think it was cursed, right? Sort of Phantom of the Opera style. Yes. Certain actors died or got injured, you know, like stage lights falling down and hitting people and shit. Maybe some witches cursed the play. Are you allowed to reference the historical figure, Macbeth, do you think? Well, this is my question. Also, if you're in Macbeth, you do have to say the word Macbeth. And you put it on the

fucking, like, marquee. That's true. They're like, if you're like working in a regional production of hairspray and you say Macbeth, you got to get the fuck out of here, you've just ruined everything. Yet, if you stage Macbeth on Broadway with Daniel Craig, you're saying Macbeth a trillion times a night. So if I went to a Broadway show and yelled Macbeth, like, is that worse than yelling, like, fire? Possibly. And we do need to test this out. And you have to go to some Broadway shows, start yelling Macbeth. Yeah, all right.

Blank check, the business will pay for that. Sure, yeah, I'll get you box seats. Your bail as well. Yeah, yeah. I think the reason for that superstition is because this is a tough play to do, weirdly. Oh, so it's more convenient to be like, oh, I can't do it because it's closed. That's why I got bad reviews. It's like, sort of because like this is a weirdly straightforward play and I think that for

whatever reason, it like, I just remember almost every production I went to when got kind of bad reviews. It's like a beloved role. It's famous. Everybody knows Macbeth. And yet it's kind of, for whatever reason, harder than Hamlet or King Lee. in some way to, like, do a good Macbeth. Patrick Stewart, accept it.

We love Patrick Stewart. Like, every movie version of Macbeth is kind of weird. There's the Orson Welles one, which is kind of good, but the sets are sort of falling down. There's the Roman Polansky one, nothing weird about that guy. Never seen that one. It's interesting. It's similar to this one in a lot of ways. It's very, it's the post-Sharen Tate murder movie, and it's very bleak.

Which it's easy to lean into that with Macbeth. Yes. There's the very dusky, um, Assassin's Creed guy. I love that film. Yep. Justin Currissal. Have you seen that one, Ben? No.

It's the movie that got him Assassin's Creed. A lot of, um, smoke. And it's Fastbender and Marion Coutier. And they were just like, let's just move over to, from one great work. About assassins. Yes. True. But you would, you would love that movie.

Okay. Yeah. It's grimy as hell. There's throne of blood. Which is good. And you. rewatch for this podcast so we do have to shout that now that does rock and it also feels like a lot of the fabric of that transferred over to this into this and if you haven't seen arrows in him at end

of play that's it's true and if you haven't seen assassin's creed highly recommend it i haven't but i did listen to the podcast about it if you if you like the podcast you'd love the movie i'm looking at the the scottish play curse thing it is built into the narrative that it is only a curse to say it when you're not performing it or rehearsing it. Okay. Which doesn't make any sense. But then my memory was... Now it's just a way to be annoying.

I feel like someone says with Beth in it. It's like, sorry! I forgot we weren't rehearsing anymore. My memory was origins of the curse was weird things befalling people working on the show. Yeah. It does seem like origins of the curse were just solely, productions never went well. Right. Bad reviews.

This is what I'm saying. It wasn't a Spider-Man turn off the dark situation. It is, they should now start a new thing where you can't say Spider-Man turn off the dark You can't say Spider-Man, but you can't say turn off the dark People did think A phrase that people love to say That's the problem

People did think Wasn't that phrase created by like Bono's son Yes it was either Bono or the Edge's son Was like turn off the dark Right like bedtime once Right and they were like brilliant Our millions and millions of dollars Of Spider-Man should be called this

Based on a three-year-old not understanding how a light switch works. The actual origin is that, yes, a series of poor productions, but noted, commonly put on by theaters already in financial trouble or that high production costs put theaters in financial trouble, but it was chalked up to witches. They were like, the witches got angry that this fucking show pinned them down, read them for filth, and then they cursed all productions. Although the witch is a very cool character in this play.

Witch is a very cool role. I mean, what role would you want to play? In this one, I'm like the witch. Lany McFeth's a pretty cool role. But I'm not a good actress. Right, you have to, right. You kind of got to break it for that one. That's tough.

I wouldn't, I would be too nervous to have a big part in this. You know what? In this one, Ross is just like close ups of your face, not blinking. I mean, not sorry to say this word, but looking cunty. Like, I mean, he is serving it. Okay. Like, which we love. I mean, I just love that Joel Cohn is like, like, you know, digging into the media.

And he's like, I feel like Ross is just kind of surfing. Serving Cund? Griffin, you're an actor. Is there a role in best? Have you done Shakespeare? I did, I did 12th night. We love it. What did you play?

Potentious Unbearable High School. It was reinterpreted. Oh, no. Let's uninterrupt. No, come on, come on. Being in a Dust Bowl era circus. It was a real carnival rip-off, like a year after carnival. Right.

Everyone had carnivali fever. Deathful era. Yes. Our 80-year-old theater teacher with, like, translucent orange hair who dressed like a 20-year-old from like Search and Destroy was like, this weird thought came to me. So what world did you play? Fabian, who is kind of the Ross in that show where he's just like a character that exists to be the fifth guy in the group. Yeah, I would say Fabian, he's one of the, you know, people in Olivia's household who

also enjoys the pranks that are happening. He's not like sort of doing them. There is no defined character or game where everyone else kind of has a fun thing going on. And Sabina Friedman Sites, who is a successful actor and a producer to this day, they double cast us as Fabian, which doesn't mean we were playing it an alternation. The character that is already underwritten, sorry Bill, they were like, why don't the two of you do it simultaneously. We'll split it into two characters, Fabia and Fabian. And I was a magician. She was the magician's assistant. So was this just sort of a way to make sure everyone

participate. Yeah, it's high school. Absolutely. But so I'm like playing a character is like not a character. And then they also like split us in half. And it was absolutely random who had which line. And then we just did a bunch of magic tricks and shit. Well, that's fun. I wore long johns. I just did a lot of business. Yeah, I played him like a fucking gremlin. I say I play him like a gremlin. I was a gremlin and does that. That's how I played it.

Yeah. Is there a Macbeth character that you would want to sink your teeth into? The Stephen Rupert part, but now it's just because I see what he did with it. It's fun to be copying root. The muttering lunatic. Yeah. But I admit that like I felt, I have not attempted it since. But I, Shakespeare is the thing I can absolutely not get my head around as an actor.

And I think, like, it's one of the reasons I think Denzel is very good in this is he is one of the only people I have seen work the dialogue so thoroughly that it actually feels like it is coming out of his mouth in real time. Well, that's, that's what I find interesting about the Denzel performance in this is it feels like a Denzel Washington performance. It's naturalistic. It's grounded. But the movie around him is very heightened and expressionist. And so to me, there's a- You want someone going bigger. I know what you're saying, Dana.

Right, because he does feel very grounded and no one else is really doing ground it. But maybe that's good to set him apart in some way because Macbeth is so in his own head. Yeah. I don't know. He's such a... He really respects Shakespeare, right?

Like Denzel Washington. He's done it twice on Broadway, both times to unanimously terrible reviews. Yes. But not really for him, more for just like the productions. He's done it in movies twice. he's in much ado. Right.

Which he's wonderful in, but mostly he's just fine as hell, right? Like he's just playing one of the sexy guys. Yeah. Right. He did Richard the third at the public a very long time ago, and I think he got good reviews for that, but that was like when I was a child.

I love that he takes Shakespeare so seriously to keep, you know, doing it. And I like this performance. Did you see the Jake Gyllenhaal Othello? No, I didn't actually, despite being, successful podcaster have like $800 on me to sit, you know, in a hammock suspended from the Raptors. Also, it was just like the insanity around getting a ticket and then the first wave of people see the first preview in there. Like, yeah, kind of stopped. Like, not just like, oh, it's not that good. They were like, it's bad. It's actually actively bad. I'm like, he's also

way too old to be playing a fellow. He's kind of too old to be playing Macbeth. Julius Caesar was the other one he did on Broadway. And that was like, he played Brutus and that, I think. And that was, that was like, what, at this point, almost 20 years ago. No, it was like 2005, was it? I mean, I never want to age shame anyone and be like an actress is too old for a part, which is a thing, you know, that Hollywood loves to say. But I think it is interesting and noteworthy that this is a production of Macbeth where Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are explicitly past childbearing age, which I think informs the text in an interesting way. Sure, and also past the age that most people lived to in this era. Macbeth, King of Scotland, lived to the age for about 51.

How old sends out when he made this? 66? I'm just telling you. Yeah. Although a 51-year-old in the 10th century probably looked like 85, right? Sure. Yeah. I'm going to open the dossier.

Buster Scruggs is the last film that the Cohn brothers made together. After that, Ethan said, I'm sleepy. I want you to take a rest. Yes. I'm tired of making movies. We've made too many. We made too many westerns. I'm exhausted.

they are very on you know they they insist we did not break up as Ethan puts it it was just me going ugh right that's I'm trying to do you know what I did see was an Ethan Cohen play around this time in LA either a play as a poem or a poem as a play yes I did not care for he has a play a new play running currently at the time that we're recording this episode off Broadway that I have heard is quite good from everyone I know who's seen it. But that seemed to be the narrative at the time of, you know, Ethan has all these other things he does. He publishes poetry and writes books and does knights of one acts and whatever.

He's maybe going to go off and do all that. He's tired of the machinery of film production. And so it was taken as like, maybe they're just on a hiatus until Ethan gets the bug again. And then this announcement comes out and it's like, oh shit, Joel's going to do stuff solo. which I think was not taken as a given at first. I have heard with the DGA, if you split as a duo, it is very, very hard to get back together. Maybe there's like a Cohen exception

because they are the Coen brothers. But who knows what will happen if they do reunite? Right. Do they go back to the old school Joel directs Ethan produces to avoid DJ business? I don't know. I'm going to say this. I think I can say this and we could cut it out later.

But we talked about it in our Barton Fink episode in this series that our buddy Chris White. was talking about that being an issue where then he and his brother couldn't work together again and not understanding like fuck is the solo movie is going to prevent us from ever getting a proper

co-in collaboration a new friend of the show Seth Rogan was telling me after listening to that episode he's also of course been credited as a director with Evan Goldberg yes that Favreau has been pretty high on the DJ board for a number of years Johnny Favs

and after their battle to get approved to co-direct on this is the end And Favreau brought the two of them onto the DGA board to be like, we need to rethink all of this. Right. This is like an annoying rule. I think there's a greater flexibility in the last 10 years only. They've become less rigid about it. But, yeah, I don't know.

It's a weird moving target. So, in 2016, Francis McDormand, I guess had been basically bugging Joel for a while to direct. her in Macbeth on the stage she did it in 2016 She played Lady Macbeth and The Witch Is that right? He just says Lady Macbeth I'm not sure

With Conliff Hill, great British actor or is he Irish? I want to miss Yeah, he's Irish, sorry Wonderful actor Whoever knows these days from Game of Thrones But I saw him in like Lots of British stage stuff back in the day

But Dan Sullivan directed it Joel didn't do it. He was not interested in live theater, basically. But he tells her, it's something I could get my head around as a movie. Like, it's not, I don't really want to do theater, but, like, I'm not uninterested in Macbeth. So, it's not like he's long wanted to do the Macbeth movie and, like, only his split with Ethan Cohen allows this to happen. It's more, as JJ puts it, he saw his wife do it on stage and was like, that's cool. That's something I could do.

Maybe I could build something around that. But that also makes sense at the moment that he doesn't have another movie lined up. And Joel had been the guy who seemingly kept being like, come on, another one, another one. And it's such a non-Cohenzy thing. Like, so it's sort of like, that's a great way to do something different. There's no humor in this, really? No. I mean, tiny bits, but it's not the tone of the Coen brothers.

My big take in my review at the time was Macbeth is a very Coensy character, like in that he is a guy who gets in way over his head on his scheme that he does. doesn't really like have a plan you know what i mean and then like keeps trying to be like okay well what if i do this but you know he does have a coensy thing and the cycles of death like that's another thing looming over the text that is just like yeah death coming for us all uh in meaningless ways um right um cohen's friends with uh hanford words woods who's an academic who had taught shakespeare what's going over their brain uh at montreal's dawson college and so uh he helped explains Macbeth to Joel Cohen. Cool. And yes, he says it does prefigure a lot of 20th century tropes in American Pulp Fiction,

a couple plotting a murder. It's not... Dog outside. A dog hates murder. By the way, I just want to throw out... McDormon was one of the three witches in that production. She was double cast. That's cool. I like that. It's a cool idea.

Yeah. That seems like a cool interpretation of, like, who's influencing with... here um and cohen i mean cohen just says a lot of stuff about shakespeare a lot of people would say which is like yes he was a genius of literature but he was also a constant entertainment entertainer and he was alive to aspects of storytelling and you know like like people i feel like dig into shakespeare and realize like these plays are thrillers they're exciting like it's not just boring homework right right um they're sex jokes they cut about there's some sometimes they make a sex joke like they're swords of penis you know um

There's about 15% of dialogue cut. Macbeth is, I would say, the shortest tragedy already. So it's not that hard to get it into, like, nice movie length. You don't have to do a major excising. But the Coins love coming under two hours. That's true. It's one of their favorite things. And this is a pretty, like, this would be a tough hang if it was, like, two hours, 20 minutes.

Yes, yes. This is not a high-energy movie. No. JJ has copy-paste A gigantic amounts of text of Joel telling me what he decided to cut or not

but I cannot monologue for 20 minutes I'm going to quickly copy paste the words you're fired into our group chat to see how he responds to that now

now to what Dana is saying though this is a postman of Pauls and McBeth Cohen acknowledges it was interesting that at this point in his career

and in Francis's career They're older. He wanted it to reflect an older couple. He thinks like, you know, there's only one really good marriage in all of the heterosexual relationships in Shakespeare, he says. There's only one good marriage, I guess, because most Shakespeare is by people who will be getting married later. And he's like, and it's the marriage of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Yeah, they're plotting to kill people, but they do. The union is fairly strong.

They listen to each other. so he wanted it to be this kind of like substantial older couple so they change the line i can tell you the original line is macbeth says bring forth men children only for thy understand metal should compose nothing but males and denzel says should have composed nothing but males so it's sort of acknowledging that they are past childbearing the the absolute lack of a biological error that they are doing all of this and there was no bloodline that can that to me made this a little bit harder for me to emotionally understand where if there is absolutely no possibility of a biological air then why are you so mad that Banquo's kids are going to become someone's going to have to become king after you but what does it have to be bank won't what about Ross that guy looks great but I also think that kind of goes into the Cohen of it where it's like this This guy's just getting in over his head. He's just, like, overthinking everything.

Well, someone just says him, you should be the king. And he's like, I shouldn't be the king. He's like, I don't know, maybe you shouldn't. He's like, all right, I'll be the king. And now he's the king. And he's like, fuck, what do I do now? Is Macbeth a beta? McBeth is a bit of a beta cuck.

No, he's not. Is Macbeth a beta? I mean, the thing about Macbeth is he gets told, not just the king thing. He gets told that no one can beat him. That's tough news to hear. You don't want a witch to be telling you that or whatever, right? Because, like, then you're going to start behaving real odd. Yes.

If you're like, I'm invincible. Yes. And I do like that the Cohen interpretation is like he starts doing some equalizer shit. Yeah. In the final act, when guys are charging it with swords and he's just like, I'll just fucking like headbut you. Like, you can't kill me. But which said so. He also views everything and everyone as a threat to kill him.

Yes. That is true. Birds coming out of his head. He's like, not today. So obviously, first actress attached is this. a sort of little-known actress named Francis McDormand. And they're like, okay, who's going to be like a worthy adversary? And they ponder this guy, they've also been like batting around his name once in a while,

Denzel Washington. There is no physical release for this movie. Hopefully they'll be corrected at some point. Yeah, that'd be nice. This is an Apple Plus original film co-produced with 824 and IAC. On the Apple TV app, there is like one special feature they have attached to it that's a featurette where everyone talks other than Joel it is all of the regular close collaborators it is most of the main actors they're all talking about how great Joel is and what

his vision was and how they serviced it but Ellen Chenoweth who's cast a lot of the Cohen's movies yes was just saying like the project is Joel wants to do Macbeth and francis is set for lady Macbeth and she's just like it immediately becomes an incredibly short list right of like who is in the right age range can hold their own again her and is classically trained, has experience with this. Jared Leto. Yeah, it was just Jared and Denzel. And Jared, you know, is the king of the box office.

There's a reason we keep put him in these... $33 million guaranteed for whatever he fucking makes. And no more. But really, give him troubled IP. Give him IP that's never quite click. Stuff that isn't on its own two feet, he will keep it on on its own feet. And I guarantee you it will open $10 to $15 million. below projections.

But here's why it's worth it because he's such a good guy. And a great actor. The performances are always so memorable. It truly is. He's a zero tool player. Yes. With this.

You always make the joke that like when they keep greenlighting these movies with him, you're like on paper he looks good, but it's a canard. Yeah, it's crazy. Because right, you're like, he's an Oscar winning actor. He's been in hits. He was the Joker. Right. The Joker, that's a role people have won Oscars for, not him.

The Joker that everyone loves? Right. Yeah, he was a Joker. There was a Joker sandwich where on either side the pieces of bread were people winning the Oscar for playing the Joker. And it turned out in between the two pieces of bread was nothing. What do you mean? He had a mouth on his hand. And so instead of his regular mouth, he could also give you hand mouth.

He was damaged. The tattoo said so. It did say that. It is funny that as far and away his biggest. hit. And they're like, I guess the guy's got box office goods. And you're like, along with his Oscar. They cut his performance down to six minutes. He is barely in that movie. You can tell there's an hour of footage left on the cutting room floor. No, they were like, if Denzo wants to do this, that's a fucking miracle. That like solves all of our problems better than we possibly

could have imagined. Yeah. I mean, that's a guy you want signing on. They had had lunch. Joel said like, they had had lunch with him, like, five or six years prior. Okay. And had a sort of general, like, it would be so cool to do a movie together someday. Chat. And then apparently Ethan had said, Buster Scruggs, and Denzel was like, I have to go. That part didn't happen. Do you want to play all of them?

But he, like, loves Francis McDormand, so they have very, very similar work styles. Awesome. Yeah. And so they have lunch again, and they're like, Macbeth, and he's like, yeah, cool. Denzel's favorite Cohen Brothers movie? Lady Killers? Oh, brother, where art thou? Not lady killers.

He says, I don't even know why. It's just so weird. But he likes the Cohn brothers, and he likes Shakespeare. He played a fellow in college. He played it later opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. For $1 billion, he could go see it. Had he ever played Macbeth on stage? He had never done Macbeth.

He had, in later years, played Richard the 3rd, as I said, and Brutus and Julie Caesar. He also apparently did Coriolanus, but he did not. had never really read Macbeth, he said. Like, he never really, you know, delved into that one. He said he turned on one of the films, doesn't even say which one. Watched for two minutes and turned it off and was just like, I don't want to, like, you know, be affected by anything else. His take on, uh, Macbeth is tired, he says.

Sure. Says they're older. They're like, look, this is our shot. Our do. Give it to us. Drastic times make for drastic measures. And the clock is ticking. He's coming back from war.

None of their chairs look comfortable. No. They had not invented comfy chairs. They were hundreds of years before someone put a pillow on a chair. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but this is what I think is interesting about them being older. It does reflect a modern hell we live in of people refusing to retire. Are you saying this is a Biden with Beth? Not even Biden as much as I think more like CEOs and shit, right?

but even like senators and all this shit like our buddy scott gardner always calls it filibustering but he's just like these people refuse to let go their fucking chairs in any environment and this idea of like why would you go through all this fucking effort why what retire chill out and instead these people just seemingly get hungrier and hungrier when they're going to have less and less time to even enjoy the fruits of their labor like what's the point why are you fighting for this, you know, the Jay Leno thing of just like, you don't touch your tonight show money, you don't have kids, you're 75, what are you saving it for? Why are you still on the road tumbling down hills? Don't like yourself on fire. Right. Like, just chill out, my guy.

He didn't light on fire, himself on fire. A car lit him on fire that he was in or whatever, whatever that was. And the car yelled, stop collecting us. There's also a very like boomer sense of entitlement to it. This is what I'm talking about. Yeah. Brendan Gleason gives his son a title that Macbeth gets jealous and threatened by. And he's like, well, I just want to battle. I should also have that. Yes. There's a freak

out of the younger generation and a fundamental condescension of you guys just don't get it. I actually need to keep doing this because there's no one who could do this in my step. Yeah. Leno might be a good Macbeth though. That is an interesting thing to explore.

Do you think Leonard is like a good tipper? Like he better, right? Yeah, I think he is. Right. Does he like get good gifts? He's sort of notoriously generous, right? Okay. I'm glad to hear this.

He was, yeah, I assume he doesn't pick out the stuff. He was always, I feel like by reputation, incredibly generous to his entire staff for his entire run of Tonight Show. But it is a confounding thing where you're like, that's his fucking legacy, that he hosted the Tonight Show for 20 years, that he has never touched a scent of that. and that he lives off of touring money only. And so he still does like fucking 150 dates a year. And that alone pays for all the cars.

He also wrote a children's book despite not having any children. I don't know what it's called? What? Do you know what I'm talking about? No, I don't. The first beef could fly. It's called if prospeed. Jimmy Fallon also wrote a children's book.

He at least has children. I have. Jimmy Fallon has written like 15 children's books. I went down this rabbit hole. He's like. Any looking it up? He's hitting every holiday. It's like one sleep till Christmas, one sleep till Halloween.

I want to say he co-wrote a Spanish one with J-Lo. You're talking about Fallon? Yeah. I will say you really realize when you're shopping for children's books, how many celebrities will just slap their names on to children's. It has become the, like, fucking high-end liquor. All I know about it if roast beef could fly because I think Scott Arkerman talks about it a lot on Comedy Bang Bang, which makes, sounds right?

That sounds right. Yeah. Is that it's like some childhood story where, like, his dad threw a roast beef out the window, but it's been turned into, like, a nice story. Okay. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Uh, Jared Lido, just checking with him. I had that opened up.

Should we get him to write a children's book? Should we get him to write a children's book? Absolutely. He has made one movie that's grossed $100 million domestic plus. Is it suicide squad? Yeah. Number two is what, Griffin? Did Fight Club not?

No, not close. 37. Is number two panic room? Yes. Yeah. Which almost made $100.95. And of course, he's not the star of that. Right.

But there's a direct correlation. The higher up he is on the call sheet, the lower the grosses go. If you cast him, I genuinely think a witch's curse befalls you. Yes. Because like Blade Runner 2049, people kind of wanted that to do better. And it didn't quite, you know, it did okay. Morbius, obviously underachieved. The recent haunted mansion, obviously underachieved.

House of Gucci. People were hyped. It did okay. Yeah. How's Tron Ari is doing. Poorly. Not so good But even

Now Tron Aries The character is doing great Oh he's doing great It's also funny That those movies are called Tron Tron is a character Yes He is not present

They've now made two films Where Tron isn't really He appears in the second one He's not in the third one But they're hiding him in the second one You're after the fact you're like Oh that was Tron Yeah

I was going to It's a thin man situation Yeah a little bit A little bit Absolutely What was I going to say About Jared Laro? I don't know

you love him i love him he's really good you know no no i was gonna say blade round 2049 i remember you seeing it and i was like how's leto in it and you were like he's actually not in it that much he's got like three scenes he's fine he's fine and i'm like why was he 60% of every trailer you're right that i think the letto bit them in the ass but they were marketing i know i know people want to see letto go toe to toe with four he basically stays in one room he's fine It's a better use of him than most post-Oscar movies have had. Right, right. Anyway, Cohen and McDormand had met Catherine Hunter all the way back in 1991.

They'd always wanted to do a movie with her. It feels like a classic Cohen backpocket. We saw this person kill it off Broadway or on the west end. They literally see her in like a Charleston production. Someday we will put you in something. She famously, I think, played Richard the 3rd. That's a very famous Globe performance that she gave that when you see pictures of it. You're like, that rocks.

That looks cool. I feel like she's best known for playing Arabella Figg in the Harry Potter movies, but otherwise is mostly a stage actor. There's a big, there's sort of, now she's kind of popping up. There's like a Harry Potter reunion happening in this movie. Who else we got? Well, Gleason, Maddie. Yes. Melling, yeah.

Her post-McBeth run is very cool. Like, she does poor things in Megalopolis and Andor and Hedda. She's so good in Andor. I fucking forgot about that. She definitely, like, is the person who got the biggest bump from this movie. Because how do you watch this movie and not go like, who is that? Right. Like, you know, whoa.

What would be a fun way to use her? How can we put her in a movie? She'll just give us more juice. Yeah, yeah. Apparently in their first meeting, they said, how do you envision this physically? Catherine got up on a coffee table, took black panty hose out of her backpack and pulled them over her head and started bending into the shape she does in the film. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, she's doing some Sims moves in this.

She really is. It was just fucking horrific double-jointed nonsense. She wanted to evoke crows. She was thinking about like crows on a battlefield afterwards, like scavenging. You know, rather than that she did not want to do like, I'm a witch with a pointy nose at a cauldron, right? You know, she didn't want to do the classic witch stuff. Seems like a great hang. So a lot of like bird stuff.

The witches? Yeah. I mean, they are kind of cool. They seem like they got stories. Yeah. They'll tell you in like riddles, but they do have been. That's the problem. You can't be like, so how's your day?

Sure. What's up, guys? Cheddar, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. It's cold out there. For real. There's truth in comedy. It is currently very cold outside. New York has taken a steep drop off into the chilly winter months in November.

It's a cold day in Brooklyn. You know, it may be cold tomorrow. Who knows? This is the kind of day. You wake up in the morning and you go, I'm underdressed. Do I have the staples I need in my closet to brace myself for the outdoors? And when you got cold mornings and holiday plans, this is when I just want my wardrobe to be simple, David. Stuff that looks sharp, feels good, and things I'll actually wear.

I don't like buying clothes that I won't wear. Give me things I'll actually wear. Yes, absolutely. And for me, that's quince. Quince is so good. I got to open up quince. Every time we do the Quince ad read, I'm like, I might need to get a couple things from Quince.

Look, the bonus for Quince is that Quince pieces make great gifts, too, so you can buy a little for yourself. You can buy a little for the people you love in your life. And this season's lineup is simple, but smart and sexy. I might have to get... Exactly. I might have to get one of these $50, Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like an everyday luxury. Ooh, a wool coat that's equal part stylish and durable, like Channing Tatum.

Here's what I like about there. Mongolian cashmere crue neck sweaters. You feel like you can throw that guy against a wall, you'd be all right? Remind me a lot of Channing Tatum, right? I love a nice soft sweater. But I hate some of the prices these other places charge. And also some of these sweaters are too thick. You and I both run hot, David, despite us having very different bodies.

We both run hot. I want the extra layer, but I don't want one that's going to get me caked and sweat. And what about the bottom half your body? You're not going to go commando. You're not going to Yogi Barrett. It's not my vibe. That's not my vibe either. Their denim nails the fit and everyday comfort

all at a fraction of what you'd expect to pay because by partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, much like Channing Tatum does, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver premium quality at half the cost of other high-end brands so you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag. What are you seeing on their site now, David,

as you're scanning for new queens? Well, those Mongolian cashmere sweaters sound good to me. I don't know. Let's see. I kind of need a jacket or something. I'm not checking out. like a puffer jacket maybe. What about a responsible down hooded parka? I like the word responsible's in there.

I need my clothing to really just sort of, you know, take care of itself. Be responsible. Like Channing Tatum. He keeps his budgets generally at a pretty good level. That's true. He's producing his films with Reed Carolyn and he's responsible. I like the look at the pro tech golf pants. I like a nice slack.

I like a nice low-key slack. Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with Quince. go to quince.com slash check for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Oh, Canada. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash check. Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash check.

Go Blue Jays. David, this episode is brought to you by Mooby. The Global Film Company. The Champion's Great Cinema. From iconic directors to emerging otters, there is always something new to discover. And with Mooby, each and every film is hand-selected so you can explore

the best of cinema, streaming anytime, anywhere. But also, David? No, that's it. That done... Good recommendation of Moody. No. What? Also projected upon the silver screen. Yes, movie releases films, too. And physical movie

theater. And they've got a humdinger called Die. My Love. It's the new picture from Lynn Ramsey. Someone I have long maintained is one of our finest living filmmakers. That is true. A genius, in my opinion. It is coming to U.S. theaters on November 7th.

It is a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness. Who's playing that woman, David? Jennifer Lawrence, have you heard of her? This film is excellent. You've seen it? I sure have. I am dying to see it.

Dying my love to see it. Yes, it starts with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, So, two of our very exciting stars. Mystique and Batman themselves. They are playing a couple who moves out to the woods, to Montana, to raise their kid after they have a kid, and be normal. Everything goes regular for them in their brains when they do this. This is her first film, since you were never really here,

one of my favorite movies of the last decade. Yes, it was a can. It's very, very intense, very, very, you know. incredible performance from Jennifer Lawrence, especially, in my opinion. Awesome soundtrack that I think Ben's going to dig. I think Lynn Ramsey makes movies differently than anyone else on the planet.

I feel like she is uniquely skilled at a kind of method she is created for depicting the inner life through sound and image. Her movies thrill me. And I will say if you're a listener of this podcast, it might be beneficial to go see Die My Life. Sooner rather than later, winky, winky. Die my love is now in theaters. Go see it.

You can visit mooby.com slash die my love for showtimes and tickets. And to stream great films at home, you can try Mooby free for 30 days at mooby.com slash blank check. That's Mubi.com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. Can we talk about? the sort of narrative of the split, right? Today, we only have this one Joel movie.

Ethan has been doing all of his shit. It starts to feel a little too cut and dry that people are like, got it, here's the takeaway. Joel is the visualist. He's the mordant one. He's just like blackhearted death obsessed. Ethan is all the like corny, silly boys.

Dumb people fucking up shit. Right. Right. But they, they're not doing anything to help. dispel that narrative. It's why I'm very interested to see the next film. But it is like, I think it is the common complaint of this movie where you're just like, it's really got like negative humor going on. And it is so oppressively dark that as much as I think this film is

like beautiful, an incredible object, like an incredible triumph of film production, even at under two hours, it starts to get a little relentless. Like I feel pretty beautiful. Beautil. I feel pretty beaten down an hour into this movie. The score is also just very, like, to use what Jason Segal says in forgetting Sarah Marshall, it's just like ominous tones. Yes. I love that scene in forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yeah. But that right, Carter Burwell, isn't like writing like an epic score.

No. No. They obviously never wanted to do a, let's rent a castle, let's get some horses, let's go out into the countryside, classic Macbeth kind of thing. They always wanted to do something abstract. And beyond that, that Joel was like, I think this show works better if you tie it to the theatrical. Right. I need to create something that is cinematic and visual, but is this fucking 10-minute special feature, the word abstraction or abstracted.

Oh, they say that one? It said 8,000 times. As they're talking to every sort of above-the-line person, they're like, these were our marching orders, that he wanted something that felt otherworldly. It's artificial by design. And it's very German expressionist. It's very Mernau. It might shock you to learn that this was actually all filmed on a sound stage. That's a quote from Joel Cohen.

Everything was built. Bruno DiBanel. The amazing DP, who shot a couple of Cohen movies and Harry Potter and the Half Blueprints. He prefers to shoot on stages, loves the complete control of being able to light his own universe. So he was just fucking thrilled at this. A surprising amount of this movie is CGI. Really? Yes.

And I feel like I was talking to someone who was saying they don't like Buster Scruggs because Buster Scruggs feels too digital. And that's a thing that the Cohen's avoided. But basically, like, from no country on, they are some of the best at doing invisible CG. Like digital sort of, like, messing around. Set expansion, removing things, adjusting things. I think they have all these, like, foam blocks, basically. Yeah. And then they would, like, rehearse the scenes with Denzel or Francis or whoever.

they would walk around and they would be like, great, let's move the blocks now to reflect whatever it is they want to do, whatever they're sort of figuring out in rehearsal. And then, yes, I imagine they just built everything else out in the computer. It's sort of like the volume. And the Mandalorian is also in this.

They had a lot of set pieces, but they were more modular. You can watch this feature at and they show you the like VFX breakdowns of the layers coming in. But they were also like, you know, we've been working with Joel and Ethan for like, I guess they just said Joel.

We've been working with Joel for like the last 10 years. We have a good collaboration with him. We understand the language. This is the most we worked with a DP. Because it wasn't just someone else is shooting it and then handing it to us and saying, take this out or make this taller, that a lot of it was Bruno coming in and being like the shadow is this. You know, the extension, the wall needs to go this high and the lights coming from here. And a lot of the shadows are like purposefully artificial it feels like.

Correct. So a lot of this is lit on the day, you know, they were like, we try to. to get stuff in camera as much as possible but it is painterly what I like about it what I think is so successful is all the most digital effects first of all all the sets look like

they're real you buy them it helps that they have a design language that is so simplistic that it's pretty inexpensive to just build like a giant column with no real definition cast in shadow holding nothing up right you could just build that it just makes life

easier to like build it after the fact But even things like the reflection inside the water, right? I like that they use CGI to make something that looks like like an O'Fool's effect or something. Right, right, right. Cuts down on the smoke budget, I imagine. If they're not using digital smoke, the smoke machines are running. The smoke is all digital. A lot of the things that look like in camera projections.

Joel Cohn smoking weed on stage. We've heard from people that Joel is very into death metal. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. that he's like into like pitch black super hardcore death metal and this definitely feels like the movie where Ethan removed from the equation he's just going full like nothing fucking matters Del Bonnell calls it a haiku right stripping everything down to essentials like his sort of visual approach big influences Edward Gordon Craig who directs a lot of Shakespeare at the turn of the 20th century

pioneered like big screens and geometric shapes things like that Obviously, German expressionism. Cohen talks about Metropolis a lot, the film with a big robot in it. Now, this film was going to have a robot, and they took it out. The joke. Cowards. Yes. And they have a bunch of other visual references that you can look up, but it's hard to describe visual references on an audio podcast.

Sunrise, the Murnaud film. Geometric sort of qualities to even, like, fields and stuff in that movie. Yaddy, yada, yada. They actually, oh my God, Richard Bell. This is, okay, Deschant. Who's Deschant? J.J., you're so funny. How many fucking names in this thing? How dare J.J. make you learn things? Stefan Deschant, the production designer, had a friend, I'm just laughing at this because I had made a Mandalorian joke, who worked as the Greens supervisor on Mandalorian and invented something called the Moss-O-Matic. which is a gun hooked up to a tank that makes like instant grass basically

like it shoots glue and moss and you can like give your text your set some texture so that's fun that's amazing here's another thing about this movie unlike most black and white films everything other than the actors

was black and white the sets were black and white the costumes were black and white what they were too lazy to make Francis McDormon black and white every day painter black and white it's how you save money on the budget you don't put color into anything but uh yes most most black and white films you can see behind the scenes photos a they were not actually shot in black and white as we've discussed i feel like a man who wasn't there in some other films they convert them later right uh this was like shot in black and white and everything on set was black and white yeah it's a very technical thing what they're doing and there is oodles of stuff in jj's research about just how methodical they were about approaching lighting and set design and all this stuff, right? Okay? Uh-huh. That's cool. Yeah. At a certain point, you worry that your movie's going to get lost a little

bit in the technical, right? Like that if you're doing something so abstract, you know, does it just become sort of this pretty thing for you to look at? Like, can you connect with Macbeth? Mm-hmm. Well, that's... It's a problem with Shakespeare. Yeah. Which I love Shakespeare to death, of course, but like, you know, I'm here to see Macbeth. I'm like, well, I know what's going to happen. And there's a little bit of like you don't want to feel like the thing's just hitting checkpoints. I find this thing very...

I mostly enjoy this movie. I find this thing compelling and engaging, but not very emotionally inviting. Well, that's what I was going to say. For someone who is unfamiliar with the text of Macbeth, I think a lot of Shakespeare productions will do a little bit of handholding to do a lot of signpires and signposts. For someone who isn't familiar with Shakespearean language to, like, really communicate what's going on. Like, you don't need to necessarily know the poetry,

but we'll tell you the story. This is not a movie that holds your hand, really? Yes. You just sort of have to be along for the ride. I like it a lot, but I don't think I would, like, recommend it to someone who, like, is like, I don't really like Shakespeare. Yeah, I was pretty much kind of like,

as soon as this started, like, what's up? And that was one of the poll quotes they used weirdly. I mean, obviously, right. Any geographical context has been stripped away. The idea that he's king of a kingdom, which is already a little remote Macbeth, because Macbeth is mostly just set in castles. Like, it's not like you see him, like,

meeting throngs of people or crowds or whatever. But the Kursal movie is, like, very of the land. That is a real, we're in the fucking marsh. But you're like, he's the king, and you're like, he's the king of what? He sits in a chair? He's the king of this white field. Right, Apple Store, like, cool. okay. Right. The whole movie just feels like a nightmare. It doesn't feel like it exists in a tangible reality. I want to correct myself on something. I had the sort of split wrong. This movie was basically three quarters completed before lockdown and then the rest was shot in it. But 36 days in total of filming, even with you imagine, the post-pendemic days being a lot longer and slower, which is the shortest shoot Joel has ever done.

I will say this set does look easy to sanitize. All these surfaces look really easy to chlorox. There's like pull a big lever and there's like sprinklers or whatever. Unless they're dueling, the actors tend to be pretty far from each other too. Yeah. So, Macbeth, it's about this guy, Macbeth. He's the thing of Glamis. Uh-huh.

Y'all into that. Yeah, I love it. Glamis is a tiny village in Scotland in Angus. Uh, sort of like, sort of sound. East Scotland It's got a castle Still there, you can go If you want

You want to see the castle Yeah, sure to me Oh, that's a nice looking castle That's cool Nice The queen's mom is from there Not that the queen's dead now But you know

Former Queen Elizabeth Yeah he's a thing glamorous He's had a big victory I'm gonna do the plot of Macbeth You know over the Thane of Cardor And he goes to see Some witches on a battlefield Or he accidentally

He's with Banquo Which has kind of come to see him. Yeah. And they do a whole thing where it's one actress and then there's a puddle. It looks like there's three of them. Cool. And they say, oh, Macbeth, Thane of Carl? And then they're like, he's like, I guess so.

Not really, but okay. And they're like, Macbeth, King of Scotland? Banquo, not king. And Bengals like, fuck. And they're like, but your sons will be kings. See you later. Right? Is that what happens?

Yeah. And I will say if that witch delivered a prophecy to me, you believe what she's going to say. Yeah, she's very compelling. It's a very arresting open. Yeah. And you, I mean, you start the movie with her, like, untangling her body and speaking to you, the audience member. Yeah. Which is the thing I wish this movie could sustain a little more is the, like, gothic horror of it.

Yes. Because that feels like the one emotional element that it's able to actually kind of pull you in with. King Duncan, played by Brendan Gleason, is the king. And he meets McBeth. He sees McVeth. He's like, great job, buddy. Dana Cordo, if I ever saw him, this by his fucking screams, Thena Caudor. Codor, all yours.

You're going to put in a good word for you. And McBeth's like, and he's like, and of course, my air is Dudley-Durseley. This guy right here. Good, good. He didn't see this coming. He slimmed down. Yeah. He's become a thespian.

Compelling face. Interesting face. Good eyes. It's incredible. actor. He rules. And it's like one of those things where I feel like a lot of people are like, he's Neville, right? And it's like, no, he's not even Neville. He's the fucking

mean bully kids that Harry has to live with. He's the shitty stepbrother. He's the one that you almost kind of feel bad for him. You imagine in filming like all the other kids get to go to Hogwarts. Right. You're right. They all get to hang out in the castle and wear uniforms and play Quidditch or whatever. He probably never got to hang out

with the other kids. Yes. We'll shoot you out in five days. And bully Harry Potter. Okay. We're dumb. We're dumb. The other thing is that, like, he slimmed down a couple of movies in. So then he's wearing a fat suit. I believe that's right. Yeah. The first thing I saw him in that wasn't Harry Potter was Lost City of Z, which he rocks.

And then he's in the scenes where they're all, like, fighting in the, you know, the Royal Society of Geographers or whatever that help, explorers, the Explorers Club, where they're all like, I'm the best explorer. All those scenes, which are so good. And he's so good at being, like, an evil jerk. He feels like he has to be an actor. Like, he couldn't just be, like, a waiter. He's too, like... There's too much going to be, like, walking around with that face. Yeah, you're just like, ah, I don't know.

I'll have soup, I guess. Have you seen Pillion? Is that what it's cool? No, but I want to. Do you know about this day now? A erotic... I mean, the description here is a directionless man has swept off his feet when an enigmatic and possibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.

Yes. So Harry Melling is the sub and the Dom is Alexander Scarskard. Yes. And it just premiered at New York Film Festival. And A-24 picked a lot. Yeah. But he's... A-24, we're like, by the pricking of my phone.

Yeah, sure, we want to make blockbusters now. But that sounds like one of ours. He's incredible in Scruggs. We will have talked about that. He's amazing in Scruggs. I love him in The Old Guard, a movie that is good. Yeah, he is. He's the sort of Mark Zuckerberg in that.

Yes. Yeah, but he's basically good in everything. I'm always excited to see him. Yeah. Totally. But yes, the exact guy you don't want to lose a job to. Yeah. Nepo baby.

Cast within a film. Yeah, I mean, to be fair in Scottish and most royal antiquity, Nepo babies did tend to get the crown. It was sort of procedure. Nipo's really used to be a problem. I will also say just like in... Prince William, low-key and Nepo baby. No one talking about.

I just found out who Prince Williams' dad is, and it is blowing my... I am shook. And I'm pointing at the text above my head. No, I will say, like, historically, the really laid in stone issue of, like, primogeniture, which is that your son is going to take over after you. Got to have a boy. Got to have a boy. It wasn't explicitly set at this period, the same way.

Because if your son... Got a name of good air. If your son is a dud, if he's a kid... You had a mulligan. It would be so funny. It's like, and because I have a dodd son instead, my heir is Macbeth. This guy rocks. Well, it's just also easier for you, if you're like a powerful lord and you know that the sun is a dud, when the king dies, it, like, isn't impossible for you to gather support.

What if you marry your dud's son to, like, some hot lady who maybe can spit out some fire grandsons for you or something? You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of avenues. They're angles. Yeah. Yes, but, okay, some of meth, of course, won't be a king of scorn. Scotland. Bummer. Unless he goes home and talks to his wife, uh, the conveniently named Lady Macbeth. You think those guys swiped left on Tinder? I could do so many stupid jokes. I do them. Her name's Lady Macbeth. This woman's made for me. Her parents named her lady.

She's just Macbeth, but with a, with a bow. Yeah. But the gameplay is a little stronger. Her gameplay is a little stronger. It is a little stronger. Right. Right. She's like, hmm, we could kill Duncan. She gets word because he reported back, like, pretty weird. Like the witch said I was going to become king, but I'm not going to become king, right? That's so funny. I've been thinking a lot about murder recently and its values. I've been thinking all about this knife I have.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. What do you think? This knife is way too clean. My sleep is so untroubled. I'd love to walk the halls being crazy. I'm going to shake it up a little bit.

And what's done can be undone, right? Of course. Just in case. Of course. We all know about death. Now, yeah, so he does kill him in his sleep. A classic Cohen Brothers thing is accidentally bringing the knife back to his room. That's true.

He's already messing up. Yeah. Yeah. And also that it's kind of like an awkward clumsy death. Yeah. That it's not a classic Shakespearean, like just blade goes in, man falls to the ground, that you have this like uncomfortable sputtering and him lying there in an ugly position. It's very like the shooting in Fargo

And the blood splatter is like more human than you in the car I saw someone on the Reddit was saying that they've been struggling In watching these movies with how flippantly the Cohen's treat death And certainly their comedies, it can often be used as a punchline The way that the deaths stack up But I think they like really And watching this film you get the sense that it's more Joel than Ethan are kind of obsessed with the weight of death

and obsessed with how flippantly it can happen. Yeah, superhero and action movies to me make death weightless and frictionless. Right. And I think Cohen Brothers movies, by contrast, make death feel very emotionally affecting. Yes, yes, yes. And, like, uncomfortable.

Yeah. Yeah. The real Duncan was, of course, slain in battle at the Battle of Pit Gavony. I'm telling you guys something you're, already know. Yeah, I got tattooed on my chest. That'd be a weird thing to have it.

Visited. A real king dunk. I think it looks nice. Was not killed in his sleep. What Macbeth is doing here is, like, violating the ancient sort of blood, a bread and salt thing, right? Like, sort of like, if you have someone in your home, you're kind of promising you won't do this to them. Like, the number one rule of, like, being a human. Please don't murder me.

Right. In, like, medieval times especially. It's, like, it's violating in the way that, like, the psycho, like, killing someone in a shower. Right. Like, well, I'm supposed to be safe here. I'm like, if I'm a house guest in your home, presumably they're not going to kill you in your bed. Yes. So it's kind of like, he's kind of doomed from the minute he does this, I feel.

Yeah. You know, it's like he's getting it the wrong way. He's fulfilling the prophecy in the most literal way of like, yes, he can become the king. But like, what is being the king if like you're basically immediately like, okay, who's going to try and kill me now? No, Dana, as you called out, it's a classic hoency story. of a guy makes one bad decision and doesn't quite know how to deal with the fallout of it, right?

Ben, we keep asking you because this filmography really tease up. Now, you're Irish, not Scottish, really, right? There's some Scottish stuff. Ben Hosley, if I had been in this movie, just Irish, everything would have worked out great. You don't have a clan, you don't have a tartan you've ever looked up or whatever.

Everyone loves to look up their clan. Yeah, no, I guess the Walsh side, which is my mother's maiden name, we do have a crest. Yeah, it sounds pretty Scottish. What's on a crest? What does it look like? Uh, I forget now. It's just like a tube of toothpaste.

It's funny. That's pretty funny. I don't know. I'm really tired. Ben, he's so tired. It's a Comic-Con weekend. That's why Dana's here.

That's why Dana's here. It's a gauntlet. Pre-order the book, The Arcane Arts. This is your newly announced book. You just announced it at the con. At the con. Covered, cover reveal. You got so many projects.

I'm busy working. Dana's always, like, texting me, like, when are you going to write a book? And I'm like, I'm busy, Dana. And Dana's like, right, I don't really. I guess I don't really get that. Like, I'm always just doing another thing. You do so many things.

Oh, Ben is showing us the crest. That's a cool crest. It's pretty cool. Solid. Three arrows. It looks like three. Roads almost. Roads pulling forward.

Three, like, PC pointers. Yeah, it's got three mouse pointers to honor his skills as a Mac user. Yeah. Thanks. All right. But anyway, what's your question to Ben Hosley? Ben. Yes.

if you were Macbeth Yeah How would things turn out for you? What would you have done differently? Okay, I have a feeling I might fuck this one up Okay Yeah, unfortunately

You think there's no way out on this one? No way out of murdering a game of him Now, are you pro murder? Hmm Let me ponder that I'm gonna go ahead and say no Okay, good to have that on record And I want to have that on record

And I want to have that on commandment over here Yeah, right This biblical fuck But you don't covet thy neighbor's wife either loser I don't Oh okay

Well There was an incident In Scotland The Scottish history Where like Guestrite was somewhat broken I think

Right But it's later I think it's sort of Post I don't know Like it doesn't matter I wonder if Shakespeare's referencing something

Ben is your answer That you just simply Don't murder the guy And feel comfortable With your position And just stay where you are Yeah just take the Promotion

It seems nice It's not bad Nice work if you can get it Yeah absolutely Absolutely. It seems like if anything, he's moving up. Yeah. And he should just chill. Or like retire, bitch. Yeah, absolutely. You know what he could do if he actually did want to become king? The non-murder strategy is to undermine the sun, start like whispering to Brendan Gleason. Like, your son seems kind of bad at being a king. I didn't want to say anything. No, here, I got it. I meet the witches. They gave me this prophecy. I go, I don't know about all that murder stuff, but do you guys want to chill? That's what you do. By the cauldron puddle.

Yeah. You just become best friends with the witches. And we just like have like kind of like a witch club. Now do you bring your wife in on it or not? Yeah, sure. Okay. Absolutely. I think if you don't tell your wife that you got this prophecy, that's not a good marriage.

Yes. Also, if you're like, I met these cool friends. They're witches. She's going to ask a lot of questions like, so what are they like, are they like pretty? Like what do they have like an Instagram I could like check out? Do you find them attractive? And there's three of them. three of them they're sort of triplets yeah so like do they what does that imply is that like a thing you fantasized about i know you're telling me you're just friends with them but you never let me come along to the puddle room um robert the bruce killed john common in a church is what i was referencing guys can you can look that up that sounds like a no no uh it was seen as somewhat of a no no that would help him consolidate power yeah um so uh what i just see i've never seen this before but apparently

is your clan canceled? It's just three fish. All right. Not bad. They're probably going to get fish. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

You feeling bummed out about this? A little bit. Hey man, back in the day, life in Scotland, there's a lot of water around you. You got to eat. Got to get that fish. I was just hoping there would be like, I don't know, bones or something. Yeah. That would be cool.

Fish have bones. Yeah. There are bones underneath. Top cats always showing us the bones. And I do love seeing the fish that way. It's one of the best things. It's just the head and then the bone. Top cat does.

He really educates. kids us. He does us a service. Showing us. If you took an x-ray to that crest, it'd be lousy with bones, Ben. You're right. But it would be cool if you were like, let me look up my clan. They're like, the bone clan of the feared for a thousand years. There's bones that someone just screaming.

Right. Anyway, they kill Duncan. Sorry. And, um, MacDuff comes, Malcolm Fleeze. McDuff comes to visit the next day and he's like, would love to see the alive king. Yeah.

Right. I'm here to see. our greatest breath-drawing guy. King Duncan, where is he at? And so they kill some servants that McMalcolm flees to England over the border and Macbeth gets that crown. And so immediately his gaze falls to Banquo because it's like, okay, well, the next thing

is that you were in that fucking prophecy too. I got to deal with that. And Banquo also was with him for the witch prophecy. So he's like, well, he might, we kind of know that the king was murdered. and he kind of knows I'm a suspect. As much as Shakespeare made Banquo a not villainous character,

he is culpable or whatever. Like, Banquo is kind of just like a bystander. He kind of knows what's going on and doesn't like do anything about it. Yes. Now, the aforementioned crown, it rests easily upon his head, lightly? This shit is light.

I'm going to do cartwheels. Gravity, not an issue. And so what's the next thing you got to do? You got to go kill Banquo. right? So there's two assassins. Do you know about the third murderer? No. You know what I'm talking about? The third assassin. This is also one of the most exciting things about this movie specifically to me. Right. So I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a scene where Macbeth recruits two murderers, right?

Yeah. And then this movie happened in like the tent. Right. The Menendez brothers. But there are three murderers who carry out the crime. and in this movie it's Ross is the third murder and the other two murderers in that scene are like who are you and he's like Macbeth sent me I'm also here for this um sometimes I think in the stage productions the character is literally just an extra and they don't think about it but it's like an opportunity for you to like you know like interpret something like more complicated happening right I mean I don't know how else to describe it's like it's kind of interesting like oh why would Shakespeare have a third murder in the murder scene, but not the recruiting scene. I've seen some writing about productions that have actually Macbeth be the third murderer, that then he's late to his own banquet because he was making sure the job was done.

But this movie makes the choice of taking the sort of side character, Ross, and not only giving him this sort of media role as the third assassin, but kind of like making him like a mythic figure throughout this story. Right. Ross is like, sees all and kind of participates, but isn't really like seeking vengeance. Like Uwatu the Watcher. He's kind of like an Awatu the Watcher type. I just got to bring this whole movie into my language. No, I think that's totally right. It also, I mean, while we're talking about Ross, not to... The Polansky movie also makes Ross the third murderer.

It's a thing that, like, some people do. But sorry, carry on. Make the part bigger for a high schooler. Right, sure. But would I... This movie kind of implod... Not to get ahead with ourselves with spoilers, but like spoiling Macbeth. It kind of implies that Ross kills Lady Macbeth a little bit.

Did I misinterpret then? No, you didn't. So, like, Lady Macbeth, before she dies, just to jump ahead to this, is, well, she's feeling crummy, feeling a little blue. And we see her, like, looking down the stairs. But we also see Ross turning on those lamps and gazing right at her. And it is sort of, like, you can take away from it, like, does Ross, like, shove her down the stairs or something. It's not just that he's looking at her. He, like, he has, like, a little sinister sort of like.

He truly sees her for who she is. But, you know, famously, Lady Macbeth commits suicide. It's not on stage, but that's like the classic interpretation of the play. Can I ask, because I just openly struggle to crack Shakespeare and understand how to analyze it. Okay. Can the two of you explain what you feel like McDormann is getting wrong in this performance? Because I agree that doesn't quite work, and I cannot identify why. um it's a fair question i like lady macbeth is such a weird character she's like the greatest

like character right like everyone wants to play lady macbeth because it's this opportunity for these incredible monologues you can play this descent into madness bottled into whatever the power behind the power the whisper in the year right right it's so cool but also she's a completely one-dimensional character in some ways in that she's just like plot motivation right like she's just she's the the evil woman who spurs everything into action. I mean, please jump in. Don't let me. I like a lady Macbeth.

You have to, I like a lady Macbeth that's like, okay, I'm either existing in the, you know, 11th century or like Shakespeare or the, you know. Because if it's the 11th century, you're like, this ambition makes sense. She would have no avenue for ambition. She has to follow up through someone else. And, you know, if this is happening in the early 1600s, you're like, how does a woman have power? And what I don't maybe attach to so much in this performance for me is I don't think Francis McDormand has an interesting answer, where it feels like a very modern marriage, because they're both like in their 60s and they have like a very respectful marriage, she's just like, I don't know, you should do this. Where I think a lady Macbeth that's informed by either like the 11th or the 17th century, it's like she's using her sexuality in interesting ways. She has to be more subversive.

I think maybe because of all the Coen Brothers movies or roles that Francis McDormand has played in her career, I read her very much as just like a straight shooter good partner. And yes, she is like telling Macbeth what to do, but she's not like being really wily about it. I find her very subdued. I don't find their chemistry. It's not like it's like non-existent because they do have the kind of mutual respect thing going on. But it's maybe overly comfortable. Yes. A movie or a story

Where she's like You should fucking murder the king Low key stab that guy That's crazy You know like and everything just proceeds A little too sleepily for me Well especially if Denzel's gonna be Trying to root his performance

In a modern naturalism And he's heavy on the This guy's tired This guy's old This guy is sort of like got a ticking clock So he decides I'll make that decision Like as my sort of last gas That also perhaps

works better if it's like he's literally like the sleepwalker from cabinet of Dr. Caligari carrying out her mission and she is putting a lot more electricity and there's something interesting about the I've only seen the filmed version but like the Patrick Stewart production where it's a much younger woman for an older man which also has like this interesting friction and Patrick Stewart wouldn't know anything about that no no of course not not in playing his wife is a murder she's a slaguing but there's like that friction to it of like this tired guy trying to like you know metaphorically get it up for his younger wife. Right, trying his first ever New York

slice, in quotes. Right, exactly. But there's something to like... Let's move to Park Slope! Or kill the king! What's the quadruple take video? She's having a mid-life crisis. Her muffins are the best. I don't know. I'm trying to remember. It's some fucking double entendre.

Salt and upper! The greatest. Sorry, Dan. There's something. Should we just keep doing it? Patrick Stewart. There's something to like the... Musical guess is one. I didn't have my Romano ready to The way that Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are talking, it almost is like, I want to go see my sister for Thanksgiving this year.

It's a little low stakes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I just, and I don't, like, she's fine with the language or whatever. Like, I don't, it's not like I'm like, she's just performing, but it's, I'm just, there's times in this movie. Like, whenever Denzel's raising his voice and popping off a little bit. Yeah. I'm sitting up. Like, I'm just like, it's okay guys to have some. You know, to have some sort of, it's not over the top, but just some, like, you know, some more kind of energy for these. But subdued works better for him, save four fits of Maineer. I think he's got a good take. He has a good subdued. And I think that for me, the subdued would have worked better if it was a little more like blood and sex lady Macbeth. Denzel is also such an established movie star. And we know how he can uncork.

So when he is playing in a lower register, the performance still has. the tension of, is Denzel going to explode? And it makes those moments. You're saying, when he fucking equalized it, Dana, have you equalized yet? I have equal. My husband made sure I equalized. That was one of the movies where he's like, you haven't seen the equalizer? He made sure I was equalized.

Have you watched all three? No, I've watched two. Okay. Ben, have you now seen all three? Yeah. Do you know that Ben knocked the equalizers out on our flights to and from L.A. recently, David. He has finally equalized.

Thank God. And I got to tell you, it was fun. We've got to do them on Patreon. We really should. They will be so much fun to do. We can do them on Patreon. Are you going to talk to the queen? Go on.

What do you mean? Queen Latifah? I don't think we can fire up Queen Latifah's The Equalizer television show. No, I don't think there's time for that. It's just so funny that that has just existed concurrent to this thing and they don't have anything to do with the show. No. But the movies are so good. And yes, it is that thing of like this is, I mean, Equalizer does feel like the Stark.

of him trying to explore who is old man Denzel, right? Because Denzel aged so well for so long and he finally, he didn't like hit a wall but we crossed a threshold where it's like he is an old man now. He is an old man now and the last 10 years he's had to like lean into it

more and more and try to own it. It is interesting that I feel like he goes out of his way to look even older in this film. Like certainly the gray and the hair and the beard. Yeah. For a guy who tends to die, right he's like he rarely dies on screen although he does die in this he does die in this we think in

he he doesn't d y e but he does d i e yes um no he does some tie dying as well in this movie sure it just feels like he was always a very virile star and he has finally tried to like settle into like what is my elder statesman mode yeah you know when am i supporting our buddy connor ratloff had a very good take, which is the highest to lowest. Have you seen that? Not yet. Feels like the first Denzel performance of him going into his late Pacino era. So true.

Complementary or derogatory? Complementary in my opinion. But yes, it's got that kind of like, what? Getting bad. But it's the first performance where he's just like, I'm just going to follow every single instinct I have. What if I have a dialogue scene with a framed picture? What if I start like yelling at a can of soup?

You know, like? And all of it. It's engaging, and I think it makes sense for the story, but you haven't seen him do something that undisciplined before, which is interesting. Like, even Denzel's, like, weird oddball rhythms and, like, his, like, explosive, like, moments always feel like, that is earned, that is justified. Trained. People wouldn't have the courage to do that, but what he's doing makes perfect sense.

Yeah. And highest to lowest is, like, him doing a fucking jazz set. For better or for worse, in this movie, there's no crate. He doesn't do anything nuts. Not really. I think it's a very contained Macbeth performance. I don't know if it's a deliberate quote, but these sort of hallucinations, the like fit of violence, the moment with the bird in particular. I really like the way Joel shoots those.

And it feels very similar to Cassavetti's opening night where Jenna Rowland's character is haunted by this young fan that got hit by a car. And she imagines these fights with her that are her coming backstage and they're done in like extreme Paul Greengrassy, super up close, shaky kind of like hand-to-hand combat, that it's like this is going on in her head. And the second you cut out to a wide, everything's fine. He thinks he's sword fighting. It's a bird that broke through a window, you know? And those moments are really exciting to watch because you're like in the middle of the fight. You're watching Denzel like joust at you. you from like two inches away.

Because, right, so much of the middle part of Macbeth is just him being paranoid. Yeah. And it can be hard to dramatize that. Who's coming up for me? I think he visualizes that very well, Joel. Is this a dagger he sees before him? Is it? Isn't it?

In the Polanski movie, it's just like a little hologram of a dagger. He definitely sees it before him. He does see it before him. Yeah, so paranoid starts to get weird. He kills Banquo, doesn't kill Flaeons. Fucked up. Messed up. He's not an equal opportunity murderer

You can kind of have the take that this He tries to kill Flans They try to get him Ross is the one who fucks up And that by casting Ross in that role You can then kind of signify it as like This is where Ross's loyalty starts to wane They're on a break now

Exactly That's a Ross joke That's like a friend's Ross joke I think that was a really good joke Did you see the David Fimmer Got a Paul Hollywood handshake On an episode of Bakeoff? No, that's cool

He made like a lot pie with tofu in it Yeah But I'm sure it's kind of like Celebrity Jeopardy where the line for a hand shake is much, yeah. Would you do bake off? In a heartbeat. Do you bake?

I do, I bake a lot. Dana's a good baker. I bake a lot. What's your specialty? But could you make like a, you know, bake a cake that's also a readable book or whatever they do these days? Well, she's also good at writing books.

Well, maybe she could do it. I don't, I think I would, I'm good at studying and I'm good at, like, I like a, I know. Because you have to practice all the fucking, but how's your, like, rough puff pastry? I, I've made it. It's not great. if I knew I was going to be on Bakeup, I would really throw myself into it. What about, I'm trying to think

all the other shit they do on that. I don't know. Sugar. You know what? Actually, what I would have trouble with is sometimes they're like, make a blah, blah, blah. And it's some like British pastry that I've never heard of.

It is always good with like, make the Queen's muffin. And you're like, what's that? And they're like, it's actually not a muffin. It's a steak. Well done. I met Kim Joy at Comic Con. Oh, that's cool.

She's fun. She was at Comic Con. I love her. That makes sense that she was at ComicCon. She has that moment where she really starts freaking out and crying. Do you remember this? And Noel Fielding comes over to her, which like this happens on the time. Do you watch Big Off?

I don't. Okay. I watch Mighty Boosh, though. It's similar to that. It is so weird to watch it with, say, my wife, who did not watch the Mighty Boosh. Yes. And try to explain, like, who Noll Fielding is and why he's here, right? Like, how could he bend it up here?

Yes. Because it always feels like Noel Fielding just, like, walked through a tunnel and was like, oh, like it is in this tent. But also, part of his magic was that he always had the comedy energy. of an old lady. Well, that's true. That there was this glam rocker thing, right? And this like party boy lethario thing.

But you're like, there is this like very delicate, like kind of. And a kindness. He reads as kind. An innocent. Yeah. Yes. And there's this moment where this lady Kim Joy, who is sort of like, how to describe her, Tweed in a sort of nerdy, anime, anime, vibey bakes.

She starts like freaking out about something and it's just like, I can't do it. Like, she just has the thing that I, what happened to me probably five minutes in where I'm just like, I can't fucking do this. Like, you know, it's just like staring at sugar and spices in an oven and a, ah. And Noel just comes and chills her out so beautifully. And it's like one of those like your heart stops moments and bake off. Anyway, he's, yeah. I'm glad she's doing well.

I'm glad he's doing well. He's cool. I think he's doing great. So the listener, David is making a gesture as if there is money in between his fingers and he's rubbing that dollar bill. and it's not a one I'll tell you that it's not a $1 bill him and Allison Hammond are good at their job

but their job is mostly just going over to people being like you're cooking this looks good this looks good and the guy's like I'm really stressed out he's like all right I'll see you later it's kind of the drain it's kind of great you work what like fucking four weeks a year you get to eat the cakes and then right if you want to eat some cake you can have it yeah it's up for

grabs yeah like Paul Hollywood he has one bite good moves on I think those camera men are eating well I think that's what happens they give it to the crew yeah there's so much left over it has to be but it's like they're giving the crew like i said like a kid it's like the entire bible replicated in cake form tom de long's head that was really do you know about that no they made a cake of tom delung from blink 182 so it was like make was it music is special it was just i think

make a make your idol of any your idol okay your idol and the person shows tom delong where there's spiders on the cake I'm showing Ben and Griffin that's crazy unbelievable I mean SNL now has that like

recurring sketch they do is very funny the one that Eddie Murphy did once yeah yeah yeah it looks like one of those yes Jesus Christ

if that is if you I'm just laughing about it if you love Tom DeLong so much that he's your first choice answer for Idol that is a disrespectful

because there was the the disaster was the Freddie Mercury. Look, that at least is stylized. He looks like a bath toy. That at least. It's stylized for sure. It's kind of like a funkop.

There's an artistic interpretation. The Lung seems to be going for realism and missing the mark. Wow. They've gotten, Bakeoff used to be very, like, very classic where, like, the challenges were like,

make a Victoria sponge cake. And I think they know now, like, I don't know, 20 seasons in the Instagram era, they've upped their game. watch the show so now they've all become genius yeah right it used to be amateur old lady bakers who are like i put some turmeric in this cake and they'd be like whoa whoa whoa whoa wow i made one tart yeah no it would be only amateur bakers these like grandmothers who are like this is my bakewell

tart recipe and they'd be like this is great good job and now it has to be you have to fucking sculpt blink 182 yes right tom to hung's face now 20 minutes there was some food network show when when my sister Romley was growing up and was watching Food Network. You almost knocked over. You almost knocked Jackie over. It's fine. Checky.

He's very robust. But he's safe. When my sister Romley was just watching Food Network 24-7, the one show I liked watching with her, and I forget what it was called, but it was like, the great cake challenge or some shit.

Right. And it was just that kind of like insane sculptural, like multi-tier mechanized, 80% fond of cake. Right. That was the thing that was fascinating. They'd be themed and they'd be. themed and they be like, it's NFL day here. Everyone gets assigned a team. Right. And you have to make a cake of that team. And then you're just doing like fucking engineering with a cake, which was fascinating, but you're also like this looks like it would taste like paper. A lot of those like real sculptural cakes, they use like rice crispy treat to shape it out and then cover it in fondant. Like it's not even cake at that point. Right. They're like ostensibly edible, but they are not a cake. And that's the thing. Right. They're like ostensibly edible. But they are not a cake.

and they're not elements that would taste good together. David. David? Yes. This episode, you didn't respond the first time, so I had to intensify. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends at AG1.

Your best friend. My best friends. I'm looking at this copy here and they're giving you some notes, right? Make it personal. Talk to a friend. This isn't a read. It's a recommendation.

I don't need any of these things because I'm talking to two of my best friends in the world about one of the best products I know. And this is a personal endorsement. Okay? This holiday season? Severe changes in weather. These things can mess up your system.

They can mess up your routines. Not to mention holiday travel. Good, good, good, good, good, good, good. It's not perfect out there that holiday travel. So, yeah, you definitely want as much routine as possible in your body. I got a couple of times. trips coming up. Uh-oh.

I got an increased amount of family time. You're going to the windy city. I know that. I'm just saying I need the AG1 more than ever. And the thing I like about AG1 is they give you options. I got my big packets of powder. Yep. Right?

But then they give me the little travel packets that I can take on the road. And darkness and shorter days can throw off your rhythm. Superfoods and B vitamins support steady energy without the crash. I'm not someone who's organized enough to take 40 different supplements. have a balanced diet, sleep well, care about myself. AG1 makes it easy. I just wake up every morning, take the little scoop of the powder, I put it in the water, I shake it in the bottle, I down it, I feel good.

End of the year can bring stress and disrupted habits and probiotics, prebiotics and enzymes help support regularity and gut resilience. Head to drinkag1.com slash check to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2. Yeah, this is what I meant. A whole mountain in there. I got a whole system, you know, there's a, there's a pill, there's the droplets in the water, and they got these new flavors.

They got citrus. Tropical. Get out of here. I'm staying. Let me finish this ad read, sorry. Get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 when you first subscribe. That's drink AG1.

1.com slash check. AG1, get your gut right. The tragedy of Macbeth. Yeah. Is that he never lived long enough to see cake competition shows. If he and Lady Macbeth could just like chill out in bed, watch the Great British Macbath. They would have retired if the Food Network existed.

Paul Hollywood, Thane of Cordo. Paul Hollywood King of Scotland and then Paul Hollywood gets a little glint in his blue eyes. Uh-huh. Bakes a knife kick So he does start seeing ghosts And ranting and raving And Lady Macbeth starts walking around

You know talking about her hands Being covered in blood and such Is this my fault? Well the witches also warn him again To beware They give him a sort of double-headed thing They say beware McDuff And also don't worry

No man born of woman can kill you And also you're going to be fine Until Burnham Wood moves to your castle A literal fucking forest marches Okay So he's like great I'm immortal as long as I beware this guy. And if you want to make someone

not a threat, you murder their entire family. Yeah. Easy. I remember, so I saw this at the New York Film Festival and I stayed for the Q&A with Denzel because I was actually interested. I usually dash out. Denzel, Fran, and Joel?

And a few other people. Corey was there. Moses Ingram was there who plays Lady Macduff and is a great actor. And Denzel more than once shouted her out and clearly was like very happy she had been involved in the production was like you know he does seem to be someone she's a great scene she's a great scene

like someone who champions like younger black actors right you know absolutely you know like that's something he's good at he's really good at throughout his career he puts them in prominent roles he lets them pop of course the black young black actor he's champion the hardest is Austin Butler

he's what he like he's like Austin Butler's number one mentor because they did Iceman Cometh together right And when Austin Butler was not famous, do we get? When he was just, like, a Carrie Diaries, like, Disney Channel star. Dating Vanessa Hudgens.

And it was, like, his first real stab at serious acting. And Denzel Braggs about it was like, you get caught stealing. Denzel brags about that he always, you know, he's going to work harder than anyone else. He's got the hardest work ethic. He was talking about with this that he, like, get on set every day at 5 o'clock in the morning and just run the soliloquies. He's like, I need to know these, like, the back of my hand. They need to feel organic. and he was like, I felt competitive with Bruno Del Bonnell

because he's like me. And I kept trying to beat him to set and he'd get there an hour before me. Bruno's shown up with like eight more lights. Right. And they're like running to the door together. But I'm always like... Bicep curls at the light.

Half an hour earlier. And there's this story that Austin Butler kept doing the same thing. And Denzel was like, you're never going to beat me. Try to show up early. I'm going to show up earlier. And then one day, Butler beat him to the theater in the morning. And he was like, okay, kid, tell me what your deal is. Like, I'm now ready to take you under my wing.

And Denzel is then the one who, like, really brought Austin Butler around town and was like, this guy's a serious actor. He must be considered. Do you know how early he wakes up? His alarms, you would be, 410, 411, 412, 4. They keep going off. I've checked. I think it was part of it, though, that, like, when he was up for Elvis, Denzel called Baz and was like, you don't understand how hard this kid's going to work.

Denzel called... I'm just trying to imagine, like, that relationship, right? I guess everyone wants to be friends with Denzel. I don't mean this to deflate it. You are right, that Denzel has been really good at, like, supporting young black actors, like, finding them, identifying them, giving the roles. It's just funny that Austin Butler is, like, his number one guy. Who is famously, I repeat.

What? He is... Wait a second, Tanya, you're telling me he's... I've only had recordings. What? Snowman, Frostier, Snowman. this not man and this show man

we gotta do Bob let's fucking do it is he working on something yes he's got a project coming a Joan of Arc they just announced he's doing a Joan of Arc move that cool young that is always a bad idea it's gonna be normal

he discovered some like unknown 15 year old yeah I saw Baz Lerman I was at the Harry Styles concert a few years ago yeah and I was like in the section and he was there and he was having a great time I've told this story before, but I saw him at Forbidden Planet. There was like a torrential downpour outside, and it felt like he just looked for the closest store to, like, get out of the rain.

And he was examining the shelves of Forbidden Planet, famous New York comic book store, as if he were on an alien planet, like, tilting his head at everything. And then the only purchased he made was a Wonder Woman umbrella. Oh, yeah. Oh, he needed to get out of the rain. And I was at first just like, that's a distinct looking man with specific energy. And then I was like, that's Boslam. We could do Romeo and Juliet If we did Bosler

Excuse me I love that movie Romeo plus Juliet Sorry That's just me being an asshole You're in the right You shouldn't apologize So how do you say Moulon Rouge

Moulon Rouge? You got to say it that way Every time Yeah Mulan Rouge Do you like Bosler? I love Bosler I know you do

Yeah of course I did That's his witchiest movie What would he have Hugh on for if we did. There's a fairy in Moulon Rouge. Sure. The green fairy. Yeah.

She actually represents absinth. Yes. I kind of think actually the most noble bloody would be the Joan of Arc. I mean, we'll see. Yeah. And she was burned at the stake. Yeah. Pretty witchy.

Yeah. She was sort of, right, witch adjacent in some people's eyes. Talking to God. Pretty witching. Right. Yeah, what are some other big witch movies we could do with you, though? This is a really good question. Outside of Bazellerman.

Your beloved practical magic I love that movie I love that movie Gotta be a sequel Yeah Gonna be a sequel It's wrapped Suzanne beer

Pop culture is so normal right now It's in the can It's done You've already done Witches of Eastwick We have We did do that one Yes

It's a big witch movies Hocus Pocus Of course The Witch Uh huh The craft Right we've already had you do In Oz

We did have We did Of course, Roberts, the Mex is The Witches. A very well-remembered film. One of the most remembered movies. John M. Chu is inevitable. Player Witch Project? Sure.

Yeah. Never seen that movie, actually. Are there any other witch comedies? Well, I married a witch. Sure, that's a great movie. I'm sure there's many. The Love Witch. The Love Witch.

But witches are cool now, bad. Whiches are cool now, bad. I mean, hey, it would be funny if I, like, like went back to calling, like, women witches. Like, I'm some fucking medieval guy. He's like, you witch! Like, like, I'm hoping a mob will assemble. Come into the studio exhaust and you're like, sorry, my witchy daughter kept me up all night.

That would be cool if my daughter, like, went into, like, witch mode. Right. She's not really, I mean, she doesn't mind witches. What's you going to be for Halloween? This year she wants to be an elephant. It wants to be an elephant. Ellie or just generic elephant? You know what I saw a lot of at Comic-Con that I think is going to be the Halloween

custom is all the K-pop demon hunters? Yes, I have heard this is brewing. A lot of parents are making panicked Amazon orders. It does feel like under 20 K-pop Demon Hunters, over 21 battle after another. Yeah. It's the new dude costume for men. It's really hard to, like, put together that Leo in one battle. Oh, oh, I have to find a flannel shirt and some sunglasses.

A robe. You get to be so comfy. It's just going to be so funny when these film bros show up at parties and there are 10 other Leo's already there. They're the 10th Bob to arrive. You got to be penned. You've got to just tuck a black shirt in too tight to like some camo pants, right? And just walk like Vince McMahon. Like, that's what you got to do.

Are you, do you have a corresponding costume to an elephant? No. What are you dressing the babies up in? Human clothes. Burt and Ernie. That's cute. Good. Good.

Good. Because they love a Bert and Ernie book that they have, like a board book about them. And they've got kind of Bert and Ernie energy a little bit. Freight twin costume. Yeah. And we already have like a rubber ducky and a toy pigeon. We can, uh. Are you going to dress your son up?

Is he a little too young? You got to dress the baby. I'm sorry for you going to ask. I have a little pumpkin costume. Stay tuned on the ground. That is, pumpkin costume is just classic for a non-walking baby. He's a very, I don't know if you've seen my baby. I've seen him.

He's a big one. He's like a pumpkin boy. He's given cheek. He's given cheek. He's given cheek. He's given cheek. I got to say this, baby in a pumpkin costume, always funny. That's what we're going to.

It's never not hitting. We live on the east side of L.A. And I was like, I don't want to do like some like hipster showing off that we know some cool thing that we'll dress a bra. I'm like, I won't put this baby in a little pumpkin. Is anyone going to be unhappy to see this cherub-faced baby in a pumpkin suit? I hope not. No. Everyone's going to love it. Yeah.

So McBath does kill the entire McDuff family, except for McDuff himself, who runs away. And he goes to England. He raises an army with Malcolm. They cut down tree branches. they march on Dunstanane where Macbeth is holed up and they, you know, fulfill the prophecies. And they do eventually kill Macbeth. But I do think this movie implies, like you say,

that Lady Macbeth maybe doesn't kill herself. Maybe he's killed by Ross, who maybe has switched sides. I think the amount of attention they put on Ross, right, is suggesting that that he's like some sort of like, you know, fairweather friend. He's like the moral center of the movie in that scene where he's like, I'm going to write the wrongs. I'm going to balance the scales.

Maybe I'm just a big fat dummy. Well, I am a big fat dummy, but I was... I'm actually quite trim. I'm rapidly expanding. Okay. I'm not getting skinnier. Well, none of us are. You know how old people are always like,

back then when I was thin and beautiful? Right. And you're like, why is everyone focus on the fact that, like, you were thin back then? And you're like, oh, because like, everyone just bloats. Yeah. Even if you don't get big. Yeah.

You look at yourself when you had like zero body fat. And you're like, holy fucking. sure um i i was like my interpretation was does she kill herself because she's like seen by him that the look is less the intent to murder her and that he's like i fucking got your number i mean that's the more like classical right interoper i think that that's like the more shakespeare she can no longer be perceived yes jefferson may as the doctor can only do so much Jefferson Mays bringing the heat. It is fun to do like a Cohen Brothers Shakespeare movie and be like,

can we get Tony Winters to play literally like one-line characters, basically? Multiple years has done a, in Los Angeles, has done a one-man show of Christmas Carol. That is one of the most extraordinary shows of ever seen. I saw it one year. I saw it was coming back. I'm like, I'm seeing it again. Jefferson May is playing every character.

He's so good. Jim Carrey did it first and best, of course. course. So let's, you know. He only played half the characters. Carrey always played the others. Hey, this is coming now November 23rd. So I'll make sure to include a link to the show in the show notes. Oh, is he doing it again?

Let's see. Well, I'm assuming, but I'll double check. He's also, of course, in the Daddy's Boy part of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, right? Yes. Which is one of my favorite guys ever, which is that it just cuts off and then you cut to fucking, what is it, the TCM guy. Yeah, Robert Osberg. But right, going like, and that's when the movie ends

because the crew stopped filming it because it was so awful. And then he's like, anyway, next, Daddy's Boy, again, what's going on? It's such a good double joke. That show had jokes. Yeah. That was a funny show. He's also great and inherent vice. Yes, yes, he is.

That's right. I saw him on the stage in the play about the Oslo Accords, which was unbelievably called Oslo. That sounds like a laugh riot. No, it wasn't. and it's so much yelling. Everyone was just like, we have to join us! And at a certain point,

I started laughing because they wouldn't stop yelling in this acclaimed play. Yeah. Anyway. In Christmas Charles, does he play like the biggest goose and everything? Like, does it extend to the non-speaking roles? He's like,

it's snowing. He points at the gravestone, then he becomes the gravestone. That sounds like he'd be like out of breath. He's like running around. He's like, that's what I want. Right.

You want him panting. If he's not collapsing on stage by the end, he's not. He's tiny Tim and the crutch. And I'm holding this. Like, it just goes crutch mode. Great. Yeah, so McDuff kills and chops off. He says, you can't kill me because no man, you know, born of woman.

And McDuff goes, C-section bitch. He does say C-section bitch, which was an Jolkone addition to the plot. You can't kill me kind of the worst final words you can have. It's the Twitter movie What are you going to do stab me? Quote from stabbing victim I just simply would never say it out loud Because it's not worth the risk

I definitely wouldn't say it to anyone I was dueling With a sword I just I'm not going to say it to anybody I guess so I don't want them to surprise me Some tragic irony Right no matter what You don't even walk down like the New York City street

And be like a piano is never going to fall on me Exactly right right I'm not scared of air conditioners Leaving their windows um so okay yeah he is doing it okay i was looking it up where's he doing it at the berkeley rep if anyone has the opportunity to see it highly highly recommend it plays december 16th through the 21st it's a seasonal treat it's the you know it also wait no maybe this was a past year it looks like he did do it at the old globe at some point anyway it's a great production um you should run it back forever

He should do it in the summer. Fuck it. Yeah. He gives a shit. Or he should do like Scrooge goes Hawaiian. He should like write a new. A sequel. What happened to Scrooge after he got his head screwed on straight?

Oh yeah. That's just Scrooge being chill. Yeah. He's like, you want a turkey? Turkey. Mr. Scrooge's holiday. Hey, Scrooge, I need some money. Within reason, I can give you some.

I'm a money lender. Summer Scrooge. In reason. I'm a money. I can give you all that. money, but I'm not going to be an asshole about it like I used to be. I'm fair, but professional. Right. Exactly. In fucking Tiny Tim's

dad, Bob Cratchett, that's his name? Yeah. He goes, like, can I take some vacation? He's like, yeah, within reason, two to three weeks, I don't know, and then more with experience. Well, that shit. It's just being fairly reasonable. Fairly reasonable. Fairly reasonable. This movie does do some sort of interesting stuff with the

crown, you know? It's a very metaphorical, flying through the air. Crown. He kind of dies because he was reaching for it. A little on the knows, but I liked it. It's a good death, though. I do like the, you know. The full beheading.

Yeah. But also the dual is... You get to see the head, which is fun? The duel is really good. Like, the choreography is, like, scary and intense. Yes, it is. No, all the action at the end is well done, I would say. Denzel, obviously, very capable of such things.

Yes, it is a movie where I just watch it and I'm like, this feels so close to greatness. Hmm. There's something, there's an exercise quality to it that I cannot shake. I liked it more in the theater because it is quite overwhelming visually. At home, I was tired. I am a parent of three. Yes.

And I was squeezing this in between, you know, whatever my parental duties are. But I was having a little bit of the heavy lids. I was doing the reverse Ben Hossley watching this after House of Dynamite. And I did feel like, man, this was a lot like easier to get into in a giant room. You can imagine a high school teacher showing this to their students. Yeah, yes, yes. And I was certainly a kid where any time they rolled out the old AV cart and said like the next three classes are going to be a movie, I'm like pumping my fist. But sometimes those movies better than regular class, but you're like, this one's a little bit of a snooze.

Watching this on like a small school TV split up across days would be kind of deadly. You're not like, fuck, this one's awesome. Right. Yeah. Right. No, I think you're right. It feels like an exercise. It's what makes the upcoming film very fascinating to see because I feel like there isn't really a sense of who Joel is as a solo filmmaker.

Yeah. He didn't write this script. He didn't. The script's famously already written for him. He's seen that it's based on a play. Oh, this one is right. But the new film one assumes he wrote that. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying.

This one doesn't show who he is as a solo writer. It would be funny if the new one was like Lowell Gans and Babelou Mandel or whatever. He was like, no, it's just a good script. I dug it up. But it is like you go on to the IMDB. It's the four actors you named, directed by Joel Cohen,

like no other credits. There's not even a screenplay credit. No one knows if it's based on anything. Bruno's shooting it again. I don't know. It's like a total mystery right now. Totally. But most of his usual collaborators.

Yeah. The film was warmly received but you know not obviously best of the year type material I feel it is also funny that in the year 2021 it felt like oh fuck Apple's getting serious they've signed

this 824 deal and one of the films is going to be Denzel and McDormant doing fucking Macbeth right like this is a heavy hitter Oscar player and the movie kind of gets like a polite nod while Apple wins best picture for Coda

this is the Cota here This is the Coda year. Look, it's just a... The Coda thing, obviously it's partly... That's a movie goes down smooth and, like, it's generally crowd-pleasing.

But when you look at that Oscar year, it's just a lot of, like, studios shooting their shot in a way where you're like, oh, good try. But, like, Netflix being like, can we sneak power of the dog by you a little bit? And eventually voters are like,

I think too weird. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And, like, could licorice pizza be the PTA movie? It's like, that's his least accessible movie. And then, you know, Dune doesn't have an ending. Drive My Car was nominated for Best Picture,

but is a three-hour movie about rehearsing Uncle Banya? Yes. By and large. Right. And then, like, Spielberg was like, I made West Side Story. Do you like it? Everyone was like, yeah, we love it. Like, zero Oscars.

Right. Well, excuse me, yes. But, like, it's funny that Spielberg was like, I have something for you. I made a masterpiece. measure chest filled with jewels and everyone's like yeah and then they walk over to the like glass of orange juice that is kota also the fact that he's fine the fact that he had shot it in 2019 and you're like this is a pre-pandemic movie it's Spielberg with like full control making remaking a best picture win it doesn't have any uh yeah yeah the COVID stuff right because it was just delayed you're like this thing has just been locked away for two years because he wanted to wait until audiences could come back Right. And everyone was just like, yeah, good job.

Good. We liked it. Yeah. Coda. Anyway, just a funny situation. And she sings at the end? We get to hear a song? She does.

She sings. Because West Side Story, they don't. No, they don't. There was enough singing for them. Maybe they all watched it on mute by mistake. That's why they thought it was good. They were like, this movie's weird. No one talks.

We're going to do the box office game for January 28th, 2022, which is when this film was released in IMAX. 824 took advantage. of a weird theatrical landscape. We'll see quite a weird one. We'll see here. As things were rebounding and they kept getting, do you remember also that they did like one week of nomad land in IMAX? In IMAX?

Yes, in early 21. I mean, look, man. A lot of these art house movies were getting like 10-day IMAX runs because they were like, we don't got fucking anything else. I would be interested in how this aspect ratio worked in IMAX. Yes, because this is a very boxy academy ratio movie. it's actually pretty well suited for iMacs yeah what do you laugh at david ben sent a link uh this is very interesting so you sent a link about uh house hawsley i suppose or you know whatever the preview text i got is check out the early notables of the hosley so if i can handle this griffin because i want to your genuine reaction to this so apparently this surname hosley first found in oxfordshire in 1190 okay uh you know been registered in the roles various roles ever since right um Early notables of the Hosley family include William Ostler.

Just like a variation spelling. Died 18, 1614. An actor in English Renaissance theater, a member of the Kingsmen, the company of William Shakespeare. Okay. So there you go. Doesn't say who he played, though. But he was one of the Kingsmen. Okay.

That's cool. So it's in my blood. I'm also kind of like, me. Yeah. The actual weekend this movie goes into limited release, as we says, The Matrix Reserctions weekend. I mean, again, when we're saying went into theaters, I assume it was just a couple screens that Christmas release. I was surprised it was playing at this beacon place in mid-January. It made less than half a million in theaters.

I mean, it has a non-reported gross because they forewalled it, so I don't know. Number one, on January 28th, though, Griffin, it's been out for seven weeks. It's made $735 million. Spider-Man, no way home. That's the one with all the Spider-Men. Yeah, it is weird that, like, 2021, the theaters reopened. Things are rough. Things are weird.

And people were like, maybe they'll just never go back to the theater again. And at the height of a surge, like, Omicron starts surging like a week before. And they were like, is this going to fuck up Spider-Man? Nope. It comes from the highest-grossing films of all time. And basically, there's another six months before something else hits that. All of the Spider-Men are in it. All of them are in it.

And that had not been done. Andrew Gawfield Tom Holland William the fuck Yeah Spider-Man no way home Dane Dahan They got Dane Dahan in it

No no Dane He is not The Great Dane did not arrive In fact right Are there the lizards in it And Electro And Electro's got the new new Oh yes yes yes

Electro's like Forget everything I used to be I don't have the whole blue blobby thing What did we just reset to Jamie Fox playing? an electro. A bad movie, in my opinion, but undeniably enjoyable at times. That is how I feel about it.

It is one of these sweatiest screenplays of all time. It is constructed out of nonsense. It does have juice in it. It has real chemistry between the two of them. This was your whole take at the time, which I really agree with, which is like the movie is actually an argument for movie stars. Right. That the last act of that movie works because you're like, here are three different guys

in three different eras who had such unique takes on the character. that watching the three of them talk to each other is more exciting than like any fucking CGI fight. I completely agree. Those are the best. I mean, especially, I feel like it was the Andrew Garfield moment. And obviously he was in Tick, boom. He gets the Oscar nomination.

Like, Garfield was having a nice little time. And you got all the fucking character actors in it. It's like, yes. Number two at the box office is a horror film. It's been out for three weeks. It's a solid hit. It is the fifth

in a franchise. It's a January 2020, fifth in a franchise. It's a solid. Five. It's a five. But the five is not in the title. The five is not in the title.

When does the franchise start? Oh, 1996. It's a 96. Oh, so it's scream. It's scream. It drives me crazy. Well,

the five is in the title, but it's a V. Only in the poster. Which I hate. I hate. It is one of my least favorite modern trends is horror reboot that has the exact same name as the original and has to be referred to with the year-in-wraff as I always tell you

you've never seen the film scream but that is literally addressed in the movie which makes sense because it's great I'm hoping the new scary movie does the joke of calling itself scary movie brackets 2026 they should do that right that is funny brackets 2026 bracket's 2026 yeah number three at the box office is an animated film I have not yet watched these with my daughter because I know she will love him

and I don't want to deal with it. Okay, it's a franchise. It's the second. It's the second. Of two. It's the second of two. It's not, no. Crudes was a 2020.

It's the second of two, but you think they're going to make more? I mean, these movies do well. I don't, no, I don't think so. They're probably done. This one did less well. The first one did very well. And is it a whole, oh, it's Sing Two.

Sing, too. It actually made, a good amount of money. The first one was humongous. The first one was a huge hit. The second one in COVID time, you know, sort of society opening backup times made 162 domestic,

which is good. But the first one made like 300 domestic. And it's also like how many fucking like, I don't know. It's just animal singing pop songs? I believe that is. It's animal American Idol, but it's also like,

let's put on a show. We need to make a town competition to sell tickets to not lose the theater. I saw the second one and not the first one. I'm perplexed by those movies. it's Garth Jennings who's good It was once I don't know

They're not like poorly made But I just do not get them Number 4 at the box office Is Um You're never gonna get this Or maybe you will It's a Christian movie

I like a challenge Okay it's a Christian movie Yeah Is Greg Kinnear in it? He's not Although it feels like he should be Good follow up question It looks like it's based

on a historical romance novel from the 90s set during the 1850s gold rush Jesus, okay It's got one of those posters where a man and a woman are doing like a forehead kiss And there's a big bright sun behind them I know is there any name actors in this Yes, but like not huge names

Can you give them to me though Abigail Cohen Tom Lewis Logan Marshall Green Nina Dobrev Pamke Janssen and Eric Dane who of course

has recently sort of you know semi-retired or whatever because he's suffering from ALS sort of his last films maybe I'm going to guess that this movie is called God is gold

The film was directed by DJ Caruso Oh Jesus Which is crazy Yes he's basically He's like pivoted to that space Yeah faith based And it's called Redeeming Love

Yeah would never get that How could you? Yeah Number five of the box office, of course, is a prequel to a couple action movies. It's a pretty cursed movie. It's a pretty cursed movie. It's a prequel to a couple action movies. It's a prequel to two action films.

It's not like transporter, but is it something in that kind of bent? Is it that... It's got a British bent to it for sure. Is it that level of franchise, though? Oh, it's The Kingsman. There you go. A film that ends. know this day, you know?

Yeah. With introducing Hitler like he's Thanos. This is true. And I love that Matthew Barnes, like, of course we're going to make the sequel. Yeah, we're working on. Everyone's demanding. In fact, it might be a Hulu series. It might be an Argyll as well somehow.

You've also got. Argyll is sort of in the Kingsman New Yorkers. Sort of, as we have discussed. Yes. But only vaguely. People made a really funny Reddit thread complaining about. I can't believe they spoiled Argyle. Spoiling Argyll.

Everyone was in on the bit of. I was truly about to watch. it tomorrow. But the funniest thing is we did not talk about the central twist of our guys. We just talked about

the two inexplicable mid-credits scene. And the main twist is that it's based on a book written by Taylor Swift. Exactly. That's the main twist.

Just to further illustrate what a weird time this was for the American box office. Matrix Reseractions is like out of theaters, right? Number 16. Yeah.

Number six is the 355? Oh, remember that one? Yes. Where a bunch of women were spies. That was the ultimate

this can't miss. They cast five of the biggest actresses from different countries. Everyone will go see this. Number seven is American Underdog the Kurt Warner story in which Zachary Levi plays the quarterback

and religious figure Kurt Warner. Normal guy. Yep, normal guy. Number eight, Ghostbusters afterlife. Griffin. It's still in there. Yeah, after 11 weeks. This is what I'm saying.

It's not good. Because Resurrection is like week four. Resurrections was on fucking HBO Max. Day and date. I know. I'm surprised Ghostbusters is hanging in there, but you're right. The answer is that, like, one new movie got released

every three weeks. Number 9, Nickerichita, number 10, West Side Story, so two somewhat underwhelming, but good Best Picture nominees here. What's Afterlife up to at this point? Afterlife has made 128 on its way to a robust domestic total of 129. It's all of them end up at the same fucking number. It is incredible how outside of it. of the original Ghostbusters,

not adjusted for inflation. I have to be so bad. Ghostbusters 2, answer the call as staged at the globe. Afterlife and Frozen Empire all basically end up an identical number.

1.30? Yeah. And there's always this asterisk of like, Ghostbusters 2 was a genuine, like, disappointment, right? Like huge drop off from the original at the time.

And then answer the call, they were like, well, the backlash. Ghostbusters is still valuable as a franchise, but the backlash killed it. And then afterlife comes out, like, in, like, shitty 2021, and they're like, it was a hit. And in normal times, it would have done better.

And then they released Frozen Empire in a totally normal time, and it ends up at the exact same number. I just don't think, like, Jen, and correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't seem like Gen Z is, like, attached to Ghostbusters as a piece of IP. My little cousin really likes Ghostbusters, but I'm like, is that, like, speak more to him just being an obsessive kid who's really thorough with stuff. Sims always puts it David Sims who's the guy who hosts this podcast and is in the bathroom

right now he always puts it like it is ultimately like a good concept with a great logo yeah and a good song

right that like the song and the logo always are basically going to get you to 130 domestic and they keep trying to crack

like what is the way to make it super relevant to kids today and they like they can't do Stranger Things kids isn't that

they tried that I mean You name a character podcast. You name a character podcast. I will say I like, I think one of Ghostbusters Enduring Cultural Legacies is now that this will be post when this podcast comes out. But currently when we're recording it, it's almost Halloween season. Spooky season. And I feel like on every like pre-made playlist for like Halloween songs, the Ghostbusters song is, and it's like it's actually not a Halloween move.

But it rules. The song is rules. It's like maybe the best song of all time. This is the thing. Like Ghostbusters will never be valueless because the song. will never stop playing. Yeah. And the logo will never stop existing.

It's cool. And then like one step down from that, like slimer and stay puff, like basically should be on the back of money are like as important to American culture as most of our president. And then beyond that, you're like, what is this? Did you ever watch like the Casper movies? Dana, I talk about them all the time. I love. You're venturing into.

Dana, David, Dana just asked Griffin, did you ever watch the Casper movies? so buckle up there's an hour left in this episode was one of those put in theaters this week or something I saw it on a box office list they couldn't understand re-reasing for Halloween for Halloween it's the 30th anniversary the original the boy yes the only theater Christina Richie one the Brad Soberland Devin Salberland the sexual awakening movie yeah that movie fucked I love that movie so much and then I

I remember I saw it in theaters and I remember not even liking it at the time I'd be interested to revisit I'm sorry you weren't a young preteen girl No, I was 10, I think it was possibly too old for like true kid antics shit or whatever. It's not true kid antics shit. I mean, it's dark. The wolf's dark. I do remember it being a little dark because, right, there's death. It's right.

It's like about death. And Bill Pullman dies and then they resurrect him? Casper's dad spent his entire life trying to build a machine to bring ghosts back to life. And they revive the machine but only have enough ghost juice to bring one ghost back to life. And Casper's cousins murder. Bill Pullman, and he makes the sacrifice of letting Bill Pullman have the ghost juice rather

than himself. He was going to use it for himself because he's in love with Cat, played by Christina Ritchie, but she would never date a ghost. And because of his selfless act, her dead mother, who's now an angel, grants Casper, one witch, which is Cinderella rules. He's allowed to be a human boy. For a day or like an hour, so he shows up like the party

looking like Devin Sawah, and she loves him, and he says, can I keep you? He whispers it into her ear, and they're dancing and float voting above the crowd, and Oscars should have been thrown at the screen. Take a hike, English patient, or whatever. Did you ever see Casper Meets Wendy? Yes. I had that of VHS.

I think a listener is perhaps because Shelley DeVall is in that. And a blank checklister went to the Shelley DeVall estate sale. And I believe purchased for us Shelley DeVall's copy of Casper Meets Wendy with a certificate of authenticity. That's showing up at the P.O. box soon, Ben. That's a really nice listener. Casper A Spirited Beginning is one of the joke titles I will throw out if I can't guess something in box office game. So it gets said all the lot. Which is a film that was not released in theaters.

No, it's a straight-to-d-d-D-D-D-D-Royne with Pauly Shore and James Roll Jones is the voice of ghosts. Gutenberg's there? Goodenberg's there. One of them plays is the Stinky Ghost? They're different ghosts. They're new ghosts because it's a prequel. I think the... But ghosts can live for...

The uncles are still... in it. The ghostly tree. Dana? The ghostly is still in it. James Earl Jones is like some evil genie ghost. He's called Kaibosh. Really? I'm not joking. And Pauli Tram, looking up here, plays his weasily sidekick. Wait, what?

His character is called Snivel. Okay. That's a fun name for a weasley sidekick. It looks like Casper Van Deen is also in it, and I imagine he was cast as a joke. Probably. Because he plays a character called Bystander. So do you think they were like, there's an actual actor called

Casper? Do you want to be in the new Casper movie? It must be like the Bort joke where someone says Casper and he turns around and says like, what? Me? Yeah. What's Casper Vandian doing now? Isn't his, he was married to like royalty and his daughter is like a big influencer who also is in line for a throne meeting. Grace Van Diem. Yes. But I want to say he married like a princess. They're divorced. He married. He married the daughter of the princess of Yugoslavia, which is a country that doesn't exist anymore. So I don't know how much, right. Yugoslavia has abolished its monarchy, but I guess some sort of courtly homes maybe in their

life or whatever. Good stuff. Good stuff. Dana, you have their divorce. A thousand things to plug. Dana. Don't you know. Listen to my podcast, Noble Blood, which is about history. New podcast, hoax, which is

about historical hoaxes. With my friend Lizzie Logan. If you like sort of like gothic YAA novels about grave robbers, in surgery read anatomy a love story available now in paperback available now in paperback and if you want to pre-order a book about you know sexy magic and a professor and grad student going on you know a sexy little adventure david's eyes bugging out he's read some yeah uh pre-order the arcane arts oh yeah which i wrote with a friend under a pseudonym so if you see that it's not

by danish words i'm i'm there but the arcane arts right where you have a combined pseudonym yeah it's like s a hardbody or whatever if you know what is it what is it what is the story it's d coverley what is the story behind deciding like we're going to write this together under a pseudonym but not hide that we're the ones who wrote it because i just saw the announcement of like comic con book it's the two of us here's the name we wrote it under yeah it's because uh we like wrote it we like came up with the story together i would write the female character he would write the male character We'd go back and forth chapters. And then we were, like, talking to our editor.

And basically because I had written, like, Y, A novels, this is, like, a little sexier. They were, like, is it a branding thing? Is it a branding thing? And also, this is, like, fairly common. Like, people are less public about it, but there are a lot of, like, co-written books that just use, like, one pseudonym. I'm only, the only part that surprised me was announcing that from the forefront. I think the reason is because, like, I'm not, I like, I like this book. I think we did a good job.

I'm, like, proud of it. Yeah. And I think the publisher. and editor know that I have like a promotional apparatus that they wanted to use. So they were like, we'll go with the pseudonym, but can you, like, push it on Instagram? Right. We'll be public about the student. Yeah.

And I was like, yeah, I like this book. I wrote it because I think it's good. It's a public. Could have, though, showed up in a trench coat. I could have. Or, like, with a mask and been like, I am S. S.D. Carly. I am S.D. Coverly.

It's very clever. If you think about it, my initials are Dana Schwartz, which is a DS. Yes, so we sort of, you flip them. It's a thinker. Very clever. Thank you all for listening. Thus concludes our one episode series on the films of Joel Cohen's solo director. We should take a bow.

It is fun that we'll have like a new Joe Cohen solo project hopefully to cover in 2026. Yeah. And then whatever they might do in the future, either of them. I just want to get back together. I do too. I'm all for this experimentation. but I'm I certainly in re-watching all of their films and then watching the solo once it's like when they're together it is the best shit on earth yeah yeah um tune to next week four uh next week we're doing driveway dolls with mxm tune that's right great episode um and then of course we get to end this series on a bang with honey don't

A movie that I will admit Kind of broke me Oh Yeah I need to watch it again It's the response It's okay to just not like it The way the movie is titled

Is if your spouse is telling you They're gonna watch this movie Yeah Ten comedy points My movie be clear David I'm not at war with not liking the movie I've accepted that Right it's not a good movie

I mean or you can It's a others agree it is not good Yes You're not screaming into the wind here No, but I do think it's interesting to talk about it And we'll talk about it in Sure Two weeks

God, I'm gonna have to rewatch it I'm sorry I ordered the Blu-ray Oh, that's a A bridge I shall not be crossing Gotta go on the shelf Do you have the shelf space You live in New York City

I don't have the shelf space I've stacks of things on the floor So much shit in storage My life's a nightmare Anyway, tune in next week for Driveaway Dolls And as always David

I regret to tell you, but because we must consider the witchy tradition in Dana's guest appearances and she already invoked it. Oh. Casper meets Wendy locked on the feed. Dost thou

have a quote. Save this for the mic, man. There are actually a lot of really famous quotes from the play Macbeth. It's not very quotable. movie there's not it's weird like Ben did you have moments where you were like

oh shit like because I feel like that happens so often when you watch Shakespeare if you're not a Shakespeare person where you're like oh that's like that phrase that exists in society save this I mean this is all being recorded I had to read and I've seen Mcbeth before fair enough so it was not quite so it wasn't as surprising I like when they say

sleep no more I'm like ah yeah and then they say you know it's closing soon Okay, I'm just going to see. I'm doing a bank show. It's about a bank. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas,

and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. artwork by Joe Bowen, Olly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick.

Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries

and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank CheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created produced by Blank Check Productions.