Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Village with David Ehrlich

Episode Date: February 29, 2016

David Ehrlich (Rolling Stone) joins Griffin and David this week for an in-depth analysis of 2004’s isolationist thriller, The Village. Why was this film so universally panned by critics and audiences? What was Adrien Brody thinking to sign up for this role after winning an Academy Award? Was this the the twist that finally did Shyamalan in or was his reputation already tarnished? Together, the gang examines the color that will remained unnamed, going “simple jack”, a popular website in the early oughts called The Smoking Gun and why for the love of all that is holy does Night keep casting himself?!

Rule 1. Let the bad color not be seen. It attracts them. Rule two, never enter the woods. That is where they wait. Rule three, heed the warning. For they are podcasting. It's not even in the movie.

No, it's a poster. I know, I know. This movie doesn't have a lot of quotable lines, and I've established a pattern of picking. Yeah, no, I get you. So I didn't. That's what you went for. That's the poster. That was the teaser poster for the film.

Hi, everybody. I'm Griffin. I'm David Sims. Griffin Newman. David Sims. This is Griffin and- That's not what this podcast is called. Oh, boy.

Someone's not sleeping well. This is the worst opening yet. And Signs was terrible. Check. It's blank check with Griffin and David. And colon, I'm just going to say it. I'm not going to throw any sort of judgment on it. I'm not going to do a performance thing where I make it clear that I don't like the title.

I'm going to say the subtitle like I like it. Pod Night Shamacast. There you go. Good job. That's our miniseries that we're on right now. We're going through the films of M. Night Shyamalan chronologically. And this is part of, a miniseries is part of the maxi series that is the show, which is investigating a blank check project.

Sure. People are given a blank check to do whatever they want, however they want. We just got a picture taken of us. By our guest. given a blank check to do whatever they want however they want. We just got a picture taken of us. By our guest. I think we gotta introduce him. Yeah, instead of explaining the fucking premise

of our podcast for the upteenth time. He's, I mean, we've been trying to get him on the show The premise that we can't explain in one sentence no matter how

Marhart we try. Yeah, but we promised we would try to explain it. Do you remember that conversation where you're like, let's try to explain it every week.

It's like when filmmakers they make a big movie and then they get to make more movies, but then they're bad maybe. And every time I try to explain to someone, not on the podcast, but like in conversation, they're like, so wait, what does it have to do with the Disney movie blank check? I was like, no, it's blank check projects. And they're like, but you're doing a blank check episode, right? I guess we are going to do a blank check.

We're going to have to someday. It doesn't apply at all, but we have to do it at some point. Our guest today, someone we've wanted to have on since before we were blank check, when we were at

Griffin Day Present. Yeah. Fans of podcasts. But he didn't want to talk Star Wars. Doesn't like those movies. Never want to talk Star Wars. Also think he doesn't

like this movie. I don't want to preload. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. He requested that we do this movie. We threw him the M. Night Shyamalan filmography. And this is the one he wanted. He picked another one originally and then he went. No, no. We picked him for another one. Oh, that's right. He always wanted this one.

Yeah, this is the one. We're not going to say his name. We're not going to say his name. No, we're going to say his name. Let's list credits though. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. He's a staff writer at Rolling Stone. Yeah. Is that your title? Do you have a yeah, yeah. He's nodding. You might have read his work on Sl Stone. Yeah. Is that your title? Do you have a... Yeah, yeah. He's nodding. You might have read his work

on Slate. Sure. Or... We can end this part of the show right now. He's a co-host of Fighting in the War Room. Let's keep going. We've gotten three out of four now. He used to be a trivia competitor. Yes, he was. He was one of our fiercest rivals. Those are the two main

groups we're trying to establish within the universe, the blank check-a-verse. We've gotten three out of the four Fighting in the War Room hosts, and we tried to get every member of our trivia team on. Dave's in Colorado. We're not going to get him. We're going to get him on at some point. He's done... He's traveled further to do individual podcast episodes,

so I wouldn't put it past him. Is there any other dissing of Fighting in the War Room hosts you want to do right at the top here? The night is young. I don't know. I prefer to sprinkle it in throughout the episode. It's David Ehrlich. Say his name. Alright. There he is. Hi David. What's up? Thanks for coming.

I'm not wearing the bad color tonight on purpose. No, I suppose not. Our headphones have the bad color. They have the bad color. I gotta hide it. I gotta put it in my back pocket, this cord. We're talking about The Village. We're talking about The Village.

French title, Le Village. Is that right? Yeah, my dad used to always call it Le Village. My dad really liked making fun of... Your dad sounds real funny. My dad's a funny guy. My dad really liked making fun of how pretentious this movie was. So he kept on being like,

how was Le Village? This is his most pretentious film, if you want to use that silly word. I think this would be almost anyone's most pretentious film. Yeah, it's true. This qualifies for the long list of the most pretentious film. I think Godard saw this movie and was just like, oh no, too much.

Streamline it a little bit. Come on. Dial it back, M. Night. This film does have a girl. They mention a gun. They don't show a gun. What are Godard's three rules? You need a girl, a gun. That's all you need.

Right. Camera would help. Yeah. Who has a camera? Okay, so let's just dive right into it. So this is 2004 this film comes out. It's his sixth movie, but it's sort of his fourth movie. Yeah, it's the fourth reinvention of M. Night Shyamalan.

This is the linchpin movie in his career. Yes, we're at the hinge of this entire miniseries. It's the hinge of this movie. Yeah, it is. If you will. This is, 100%. Before then, he'd, you know, forgetting, praying with anger, and wide awake. I already have.

I don't know if I ever remembered them. Check out Wide Awake on Netflix. It's terrible. I hear a member of your trivia team, maybe a former member of your former trivia team, was in one of those two movies. What? As an extra.

Who? Marie. Really? Yeah. Wait, she wasn't on my team. She was on your team. She was on a rival team. She was on neither of our teams. I will update the IMDb trivia

page accordingly. You're saying Marie Barty? Was she in Wide Awake? That is what I'm saying, sir. In Wide Awake? I don't know. That was the first one? No, Praying with Anger is the first one. Then maybe that one. That one mostly takes place in India. Did she get her ass to India?

Marie, I mean, how old is Marie? She knew a good thing when she saw it. I think she's mine. She was like, fuck it, I'm flying to India. This NYU student, he's going places. I got a feeling about this guy. The brown face still offends, but it was a good opportunity at the time. Yeah, she was also way too young to play his mother.

That was the weird part. So she's ethnically wrong for the role. And age inappropriate. Shyamalan, he just, talent. Talent first, you know? He plucks talent. He was in a pretty non-literal, fuck, I don't know, whatever. So he made his crappy movies.

He makes The Sixth Sense, big hit. Yeah. Obviously, he makes Unbreakable. Everyone sort of shrugs their shoulders. Bit of a drop down. Maybe the guy was a one hit wonder. He makes Signs. Oh, lots of money. Huge populist hit. And now he drop down. Maybe the guy was a one hit wonder. He makes signs. Oh, lots of money.

Huge populist hit. And now he like doubles down on what he did with the Unbreakable. The Unbreakable. You know the Unbreakable? No, Sixth Sense made something everyone liked. Unbreakable, he went a little too artsy for mainstream America perhaps. Sure, right, right, right. And so signs, he was like right down the middle.

Right. I'm giving you a Hitchcock sci-fi pastiche, basically, with Mel Gibson. Aren't you happy? And he goes, great, I won them back. Right. Let me go as far up my own assholes as I possibly can. I mean, he would go further. He was really just beginning to spelunker.

He had no go at this. Right. He would pioneer. Like he became an interstellar traveler. He was wandering into the woods very tentatively in this film, searching around. He still made a film with a plot that progresses in a linear fashion. This is the point in his career where he announces his intention to become the Ernest Shackleton of butthole exploration. That's what he wants to be.

Well, apparently he had lots of ideas that he would write down and he would elaborate them on them all the time. Little pieces. Little pieces of ideas. Eventually he plucked the village. Oh, but I could see that wall. Oh, imagine all the ideas on that wall. Because this is two years after Signs?

Correct. So he's keeping up his, you know, he's making films. He's become an ever two years guy,s? Correct. So he's keeping up his like he's making films He's become an every two years guy. Yeah. The movie was highly anticipated. Yeah.

People were really really pumped for this. It was going to be called The Woods. Yes. It had Joaquin Phoenix who was hot. People were really

starting to love The Walk. Hot off of Ladder 49. Now do you know who he originally casts that movie was hot in multiple senses, do you know who he originally casts? That one was hot in multiple senses. Do you know who he originally casts in the lead female role of Ivy Walker? Kirsten Dunst, who's got the Spider-Man heat.

Would have crushed it. Would have crushed it. She would have been good. She's got that Spiderman heat. And that's like the Eternal Sunshine year? Yeah. She would have been great. Right. And this would have come out like-

Just maybe a little. Well, no, whatever. No, this would have come out like two months after Spider-Man 2 would come out. So it was like, she was like a big star. And I don't know why she dropped out. I can tell you why she dropped out. Dropped out to be in Elizabethtown. It's really between a rock and a hard place there.

What are you going to do? On paper, a totally solid choice. You know, Elizabethtown, right? I mean, Cameron Crowe, he's coming off of it. Not the paper on which either of those scripts were written, I assume. On toilet paper. Yeah. On toilet paper.

Then it would have been maybe not so appealing. You could read them. The weird thing about Elizabethtown is Kutcher was going to be in it, right? Yes. And then they fired him for Orlando Bloom. Yeah. And now maybe you want Kutcher. Like, ten years later, maybe you want Kutcher. Yeah. You don't Orlando Bloom. Yeah. And now maybe you want Kutcher. Like, ten years later, maybe you want

Kutcher. Yeah. You don't want either, but maybe between those two you want Kutcher. I mean, this is such a fascinating, like, chain of what-ifs. But let's just, not to go on too much of a side tangent, but imagine you're, you have hindsight 2020, right? You're Kirsten Dunst today, knowing what we know now.

Oh, yeah. Do you take Elizabethtown to the village? Yeah. Which one's better for your career? They're both sort of colossal, like,, yeah. Do you take Elizabethtown to the village? Yeah. Which one's better for your career? They're both sort of colossal, like train wreck. I would take the village. You take the village. I mean, this movie made Bryce Howard. Yeah. Like what, you know.

Yeah. But the manic pixie dream girl element of Elizabethtown, and that was the movie that, you know. That solidified the term. That solidified the term. Yeah. I think Pigeonhole,ed well she has always been sort of multi-talented enough to really not go down

with that particular ship but it's not something you want to be associated with it definitely hobbled her along with other she had to go to Lars you know she and Bryce Dallas Howard

work with Lars von Trier and then they and then they reunited to be in Spider-Man 3 together but she Bryce went right to Lars von Trier after this yeah

Bryce she's like working with M. Night Shyamalan not masochistic enough what can I do to be in Spider-Man 3 together, but Bryce went right to Lars von Trier after this. Yeah. She's like, working with M. Night Shyamalan, not masochistic enough. What can I do? And Lars von Trier's like, I have this script about black people. Those magic words. She's like, sign me up.

I'm moving to Denmark. Nicole Kidman didn't want to do it. Nicole Kidman won't answer my phone calls when I send her the script about black people. You know, I grew up with Bryce Dallas Howard. We've talked about this.

and I saw her in ninth grade in Guys and Dolls, I think it was. Sure. She was excellent. And my family and I, because they were friendly with her parents.

With the Howards. Went to go see Melancholia at the New York Film Festival. Not Melancholia, sorry. Manderley. Manderley, see Melancholia at the New York Film Festival. Not Melancholia, sorry. Manderley. Manderley, yeah. And that was the day

that we had. Yeah, yeah. She gets up to some stuff in Manderley. That was no ninth grade French country day school guys and dolls, let me tell you.

But you said Bryce is a very nice person. I haven't spoken to her in a very long time, but all of the Howards were exceptionally nice, yeah. And yeah, and she's sort of the breakout star of this movie. It is interesting. It rarely

happens, even less so now than it did then, which was 12 years ago. But it rarely happens that you have a big studio film where other than when it's a child, when the lead role is a 10-year-old, there's an adult lead character and they pin

it on like a total unknown and i think this was literally she had her first film ever she's hollywood she was crushing it on stage right and she was like a really notable like stage actress in new york but i remember being a big deal like kristen dunst drops out now we have bryce oshoward daughter of ron howard and apparently she's amazing I remember that being like one of the big things going into this movie I remember everyone being interested to see

I mean until he wrote the lead role for Mark Wahlberg in The Happening M. Night Shyamalan had a really good eye for casting he did

really good he did especially in the supporting cast of this movie especially with kids but yeah and the supporting cast of this movie

it's true it's stacked this is a stacked cast let's go Murders Rover. So you go Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, Adrian Brody, right off the Oscar. Right off his Oscar win. I think this is the first job he takes. We have things to say about Adrian Brody's performance, I hope.

I think that's the majority of this episode is talking about that character and that performance. Simple Jack is pretty much what he's doing here. William Hurt. Yep. Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver. You have...

Brendan Gleeson. Brendan Gleeson. Brendan Gleeson. Can I swear on this podcast? Brendan fucking Gleeson. Brendan fucking Gleeson. One of the best living actors, I think.

He's great. He's just one of those guys who just is immaculate. And he is buying in as well to this movie. No, he always buys in. Yeah. He never rents.

Yeah. He buys. He buys, he always buys in. Yeah, yeah. He never rents. Yeah. He buys. He buys, then he raises the property. No, but like- Celia Weston. Celia Weston, Cherry Jones.

Cherry Jones back. You've got Judy Greer. Jesse Eisenberg. Jesse Eisenberg. Michael Pitt. Michael Pitt, who definitely doesn't remember being in this movie.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Michael, go sit in that wash tower. We'll get back to you. Fran Kranz. Fran Kranz. Who I saw on stage

in, I mean, obviously he's in Dollhouse. Is he in Dollhouse? Yeah, he was in Captain in the Woods. But I saw him on stage

in the original production of Bachelorette. Back when it was a play. He was great in that. Before it was a reality show? The Bachelorette. Before it was an indie movie starring who?

Kristen Dunst. All ties back around. So M. Night goes like, I'm gonna go artsy. I guess so. I think he feels like he has the audience back eating out of the palm of his hands, you know? See, I think he's not going artsy. He's going

artsy within a very particularly narrow genre. Because this is essentially you know, it was meant to be a refinement of everything that he'd been doing to that point. It is so in line with the film that he made with Success and with Science

and with Unbreakable. It's just he bought himself the leeway to have this pretense of it being this very arch 19th century story. It's very austere. Which no one would have funded once upon a time. Absolutely not.

It cost 60 mil. That was the budget on this sucker. I read 71. I mean, we can get to this later. I don't know if we want to get to it now because I feel like we should talk about them way before I get to this. But this was a big film where the smoking gun,

which I think is not that relevant a website anymore. Oh, I thought you were talking about a literal smoking gun because I have no recollection of that being a website. The Smoking Gun was like a website where they would publish like – It was like a pre-TMZ type website. They would get like documents from Hollywood and be like, oh, here's like Motley Crue's Rider. And you could like read the whole Rider. It was like a legal website where they would like – Lawyers would leak documents.

The script. Is that what you're going to say? No, what they did was they – this was the first time this had ever happened. They got their hands on the entire budget breakdown of the film. And they broke down every single expense on the film. So usually like those numbers are pretty hidden and there's a lot of studio spending on how much things cost. But I want to get to that because I think it's fascinating. But let's talk about the movie a little first before we get on to how much everyone was paid.

No, come on. So he goes like, yeah, so I'm making this quote unquote period film. Period suspense thriller. Right. But it's also a romance. He made that clear to his producers. I'm making a romance for the first time. Yeah.

So when the trailers come out, they're- I saw the making of and his producer is- You guys can't see the hand gestures that Dave is making every time he says the word romance, but it's like angel wings coming out of his shoulders. I think there's an important thing to note here, though. But he's got two producers on this movie, right? Sam Mercer, who produced all his previous films. Right, that's his guy.

His first movie was Sixth Sense, I think. Sixth Sense and Rushmore in the same year. And he had this thing where he was M. Night's guy and Wes Anderson's guy. So he came out of the gate strong. And was like, I got these two big, like, emerging American auteurs. Sort of generational directors. Right. And he was by their side

for these two guys for their first, like, six, seven movies. Scott Rudin also comes on board on this movie. And Scott Rudin has this reputation for, like, after someone's made the movie

that really pops, Rudin comes in and he's like, I now deign you worthy of Scott Rudin's... Sure, and maybe I can get you an Oscar.'s umbrella. Maybe I can get you an Oscar. I can protect you from the studio. I can get you whatever you want. You're in the Rudin family now. It's like joining the mafia.

And so Rudin comes in on this one and this feels like a movie where Rudin fought a lot for him to be like, no it's going to be all violin music. And he's like, I don't know. M. Night said all violin music. The premise of this film is that there is a town, a village. Covington.

Covington. A small village. I think we probably should call it a village. Let's call it a village. There's a hamlet. There's a hamlet. The hamlet would have been a great title. There's a social collective in the woods.

The unincorporated census designated place. Le Village at the center of the film. Very arch. Yeah, it's this sort of like it's kind of like an old timey New England town, but they talk in like a lingo that doesn't have any particular grounding

in reality. They speak like, I don't know, a bunch of people in 1975 got together and were like, what did people speak like 100 years ago? We don't really know, but we'll wing it. Yeah, it's like a Ren Fair. It's like an everlasting Renaissance Fair. Yeah. And in this small sheltered village, they talk about the town outside that they're scared of.

They're scared of the outside world. The towns. The towns. They're wicked. The towns are evil. Wicked. Wicked towns. And they have a couple rules.

One is the color red is bad news. We don't say red on this podcast. The bad color.. Wicked. Wicked towns. And they have a couple rules. One is the color red is bad news. We don't say red on this podcast. The bad color. The bad color. But much like in The Sixth Sense, where whenever you see the bad color, it is a little hot tip to the fact that a ghost is coming. In this film, he's saying, like, I don't even want to give you the hint of the color. This town feels the way that you feel about the color watching my movies.

Rule two, there are these creatures. Yeah, those we don't speak of. Yeah. They live outside the village. They live in the woods. But they have a sort of agreement. We don't go into their area, they don't go into ours. Right. So you can't leave them. Apparently these creatures are capable of complex

interactions and embargoes. Negotiation. A truce was at some point struck. Right. And I guess those are the two. That's it. Like that's the whole movie for 45 minutes. Just stay in the village.

We get that out. William Hurt says that right away. Like don't, you know, truce, bad color. And then it's just a bunch of village shit, you know, a bunch of activity. Oh, Judy Greer. Did we not even mention Judy Greer? No, I think we might have. She got cut off in the chatter, but Judy? A bunch of activity. Oh, Judy Greer. Did we not even mention Judy Greer? No, I think we might have.

She got cut off in the chatter, but Judy Greer, of course. So here are the social dynamics. Playing Bryce's sister for the first time. Oh, Jurassic World. J-World. Okay, so central social dynamics in this film. William Hurt is essentially the leader

of the town, right? Sure. His two daughters are Bryce Ellis Howard. Oh, do we need to draw family trees and shit? Do you guys have a website where we can post this? Is there a wiki? Is there a village wiki? I will say, because like- Covingtonwiki.com?

Fucking 40% of the women in this movie have red wigs. It took me a while on the second viewing. I hadn't seen it since it came out in theaters. But it took me a while on the second viewing to figure out who everyone was related to just because like... Right. It's Hurt's daughters are Greer and Howard.

But Sigourney Weaver has the exact same wig that Bryce... And they all wear the same dress. This definitely was a valuable use of your energy because it's ever really

at all relevant to anything that's happening in the movie. But to the extent where it looked like when Bryce Dallas Howard rapped on a scene they were like,

Bryce, we gotta get the wig over Sigourney. We're about to shoot her. It's literally the same wig. Even she was rocking a wig because that's her hair color. No, no. Bryce is not rocking a wig.

That's her hair. Everyone else has Bryce's color hair. I think they made everyone a redhead because they cast her. And it's also the bad color. It is the bad color.

They don't mention that. She sticks out. It's a little more orange than the bad color. It's a cherry red is what they really don't like. These two daughters both are in love with Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah, who's

Sigourney Weaver's only son. Right. And then there's also Celia Weston has Adrian Brody and I guess there are other siblings maybe as well in that family. I don't know. I don't know. So let's talk about Adrian Brody's character. I'm getting it all right, right? Yeah those are the central dynamics what's his character's name

Noah Noah Noah Percy Noah Percy um yeah so you've got right so you've got and their intro is pretty slowly like Bryce doesn't come in for like 20 minutes of this movie you got walking is this guy Lucius who's like uh it's stoic he's such a Shyamalan. They're all the fucking same. He's the brave one. Well he doesn't talk. Yeah. His thing is he doesn't talk. Just like Bruce Willis. Just like Mel Gibson. He goes before the board of elders at the beginning of the movie and he's like I think it would be valuable for us to. Yeah he reads like a

Luca Brasi like I would like if I could go out into the woods like you know. I want to see we might be able to help our community. And they're like no get the fuck out of here. Well, he's so affected by the fear they perpetuate that they're using to manipulate everyone in the village that you can see it sort of shaking.

And Brendan Gleeson just lost a child. That's like the first thing we see in the movie is the funeral. So it's like, you know, they have a concept of like, oh, if only we had some medicine in this, up in this village. Can't get away from grief. Follows you everywhere. There's no hamlet in the world where it won't follow. No trees will protect you.

Exactly. No ring of trees. And then early in this film, he wants to go out. He wants to get mass. And suddenly, the creatures start to show up again. They start to be present. They start to be like, they see the red. Well, they're dropping off skinned animals around town,

which is getting everyone all in a tizzy. And there's just sort of a general fear, and then there's this set piece, I guess, like 30 minutes in, where they ring the bell. Michael Pitt and Fran Kranz stay up in a watchtower in yellow robes with hoods, and they look for the creatures, and they ring the bell. Michael Pitt and Fran Kranz stay up in a watchtower in yellow robes with hoods, and they look for the creatures, and they ring the bell if something happens, and everyone's screaming.

Oh, it's a great jump scare. When he just walks by? Yeah, runs under the tower. It's a great jump scare. That's M. Night's essentially like his one move, is you're like waiting for something to pop out really quickly, and instead the thing just casually walks by the thing. M. Night has one other move in this film which I think is very effective,

which is how he uses depth of field. There are a number of shots where, I mean, you really also, he takes advantage of the fact that they had this entire location to work with. Right, they cleared out like 600 acres. And so you have a sense of activity and life and vibrancy happening in this village.

You see people walking in the background. And you can see like, oh, there's the schoolhouse. There's a good sense of geography as well. I mean, this is when he was a competent filmmaker. I mean, there's a certain inherent logic to the way that he constructs scenes. He had a bit of a blank check. He had a bit of a blank check. He had a bit of a blank check.

No, but as we've been going through all these movies in such quick succession, the big thing we've hit upon is this guy's real skill is location. He's able to really design a good space, shoot it well, establish a really clear visual geography. And he never has to leave Pennsylvania to do it. He stays within Philly, but he shoots it very differently, whether he's creating a set

or it's a building or it's the woods or whatever it is. That's the thing he does well. And this movie has some long ass takes. There's the thing he does well. He also has- This movie has some long ass takes. Long ass takes. He went for some, yeah. He does like, there's that one scene

where William Hurt's talking to the kids and he shoots the entire thing behind William Hurt's head, which just kind of feels like him trying to be oblique on purpose. Yeah, but the shot in which, I mean, how he sort of withholds

introducing Ivy and this shot in which he does introduce her, it's very effective in how it plays with her inability to see. I mean, it's all handled very well. The first 30 minutes are kind of intriguing. By the way, I really like this movie.

I think I'm probably the strongest. This is my Shyamalan movie. It's really the only one of his that I genuinely like. I think this is his most frustrating movie. I agree with that. It has the most squandered potential. I agree with that. I was watching the first 30 minutes and I was like,

is this secretly a masterpiece? Because you've always kind of argued that. It'd be in my top ten for 2004. You know what? I mean, when I saw this, I was like 15. You know, it was within the context of where he was in his career. Step back. Am I going to realize that this is a masterpiece? And there are some masterful things. Remember Ebert like shat

all over it? Well, can I read the first paragraph of his review here? He was such a crank at that. Can I read this just because this is an incredible piece of writing? Because this really was like... Griffin, hold your thumb down. Okay. Oh my God. Watching you try to unlock

your phone just now was an ordeal. He was like, I'm going to hold my thumb down, but not quickly enough. Lift it. Lift it. I don't want that phone

to think it's better than me. Read Ebert's. It's got to know who's boss. Go on. This is the first paragraph, okay? And I think this is important because this is how the public responded when the movie came out. This was basically the sentiment. Maybe they didn't all word it as well as Ebert, but this is kind of what everyone was saying walking out of the movie.

First sentence of the review. The village is a colossal miscalculation. A movie based on a premise that cannot support it. A premise so transparent that it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn. It's a flimsy excuse for a plot with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland. M. Night Shyamalan, the writer-director— Flatland is two dimensions. I'm sorry. I know. The reference isn't great.

Has been successful in evoking horror from minimalist stories as in signs, which if you think about it rationally is absurd. But you get too involved to think rationally. He's a director of considerable skill who evokes stories out of moods, but you get too involved to think rationally. He's a director of considerable skill who evokes stories out of moods, but this time, alas, he took the day off. Well, I mean, to speak to the crankiness of... Of late Ebert. Of late Ebert and certainly of this review,

he's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, there's... I don't disagree necessarily with any of the words that he uses in that lead, but I think that he's very dismissive of what the movie is trying to do, how it could have done it better. Right. And he's a little too pissed off about the twist and the ending and the premise.

Right, which if you see the movie on a Thursday night and have to file it three hours later, I can understand. But this was the movie. I mean, this was peak twist Shyamalan, I would argue. And I would also say... Right. I mean, this is the twist that did him in right and he stops doing twists after this

this is his full career has been a twist after this series of twists it became a meta twist his life took a twist but this was the last film that had like a big ending twist I would also argue this film essentially is three twists yeah I think I think it has two what's the third well we'll get to it

and it should have had zero yeah it should have had zero it should have had no Yeah, I think it has two. What's the third? Well, we'll get to it. And it should have had zero. Yeah, it should have had zero. It should have had no twist. Yeah. I think the movie in which the final twist of this film is known to the audience from the very beginning is a better film. Is a much better film. Is a much better film.

Me and Erlich were talking about that off mic, and I think I agree. It feels a little abusive now. I remember the first time when I saw it in the theater. Now, now, Griffin. Come on. No, it feels a little mean. It feels mean, David. Show us where this movie touched you.

In the butthole. In the butthole. And then it climbed up in there. It went and fell on King of my butthole. This is a very chaste movie, except for when Adrian Brody softly penetrates Joaquin Phoenix about halfway through. But oh so tenderly. Very tenderly.

Yeah. It's a good scene, actually. Yeah, and also the part where M. Night Shyamalan. Apart from everything Adrian Brody's doing. There's also the part where M. Night Shyamalan creeped into the theater and touched my butthole. That part's not so true. That was my fear. That's your fault for seeing the movie in Philadelphia. Yeah, I did.

I saw it in his living room. He waited me to watch a screen. How old would you have been in 2004, Griffin? 15. I was right about to go to college. I was real ripe. I was real ripe, David. I had a haircut that my friends described as making me look like a lesbian, and I wore undersized T-shirts.

Sounds like you had some nice friends. I had some very nice friends. I don't talk to any of them anymore. What were we talking about? Oh, so watching it the first time when it was in theaters, and they really sold this as like, there's going to be a big twist. There's going to be a big twist. I remember the two things being like, M. Night's Back, this is going to be his twistiest movie yet.

And Joaquin is stepping up to the spotlight. He's going to be the star. Meanwhile, Rod Serling is just making like a jerk-off motion in heaven. It's like, whatever. To Joaquin Phoenix. To Joaquin Phoenix. No, no, no, go ahead. To River Phoenix.

He's jerking off River Phoenix's ghost dick. Finish whatever your fucking point is. I'm doing good work. Which is you saw the movie, I guess. No, no, no. This is my point. This is my point. This is my point.

This is my point. Entertainment Weekly cover is just a close-up of Joaquin Phoenix's face. Okay. And it's like Joaquin Phoenix becomes a star and the secrets of the village. It was like that's the thing. Right. So the first 30 minutes I'm watching this movie and I'm going, where's the twist going to be? Where's the twist?

Not going to be in the first 30 minutes, is my guess. Sure, but I was already in the first 30 minutes. You're trying to find the... Are they dead? Is this heaven? What's going on? There actually is a big clue, once you know what to look for. I can't remember exactly what it is, but someone says something that is so eye-rolling.

You're just like, okay. I'd argue there are a couple, and I even think the first time I saw it, I heard one of those lines that triggered for me, and I was like, but that wouldn't be the twist, right? He's not going to do that, right? The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable telegraph their twist, too, but

are set in the real world. This is set in a weird pretend village place where there are monsters on the outskirts and everyone has a locked box of secrets in there now. Literally. That's what's interesting

about the twist of this movie if anything is which is that it's a man-made twist. It's engineered by fallible people and not by an omnipotent

force within the story. Which is what I like about the story. Right. And why whenever all the reviews that are complaining about how absurdly arched the dialogue

is are sort of missing the point. These are people who I mean, I suppose he was supposed to be an English professor and maybe would be... He's a history professor. That's why he knew. He had research. Yeah, but I mean, still, it was a guy who was doing the best he could.

This was not someone who was a time traveler. Exactly. And also I do feel like Shyamalan is a bad writer of dialogue. Yeah, but he plays to his strengths. Exactly. He found a good way to loophole through that because his dialogue is shitty. These are people who are trying too hard

to speak in a way that sounds a certain way. Right. He can't write good dialogue. Hadn't seen it since it came out. Right? So the first time I saw it, I was, I think, impatient. You were just annoyed about the twist. No, I'm saying when I was watching, before I got to the twist, I was like impatient. I was like, where's this fucking going? This tone is so odd.

Rewatching the first half of this movie, now knowing how it ends, you know, fully, I was like, I like this first half a lot more when I know the characters are Arch for a reason. Sure. You know? Yeah. And what's amazing is that when they get to the twist, it's almost as if the movie doesn't even give a shit. Yeah.

It's like, it's, in comparing it to how they reveal the twist in his previous movies, it is so nonchalant here. It's like, William Hurt is just sitting on the ground outside of a house and he's like, oh yeah, I guess. It's just a farce. It's farce. It's farce. And it's saying a word that most Americans don't know the definition of.

Right. And he's just like, you know, particularly nowadays. And he's just like, yeah, it's a farce. You know, no big deal. Let's go through these. Let me understand. Let me help you understand. There's no bromp.

Like, you know, there's no verbal kin dropping his mug. It's very. And it's a long, like, two shot. Like, as you said, it's no prompt. Like, you know, there's no verbal kin dropping his mug. It's very. And it's a long, like, two shot. Like, as you said, it's like a long take. I don't even think they do, like, coverage of it. Of her, like, reaching out and touching the costume. No, I think the conversation where he explains it to her is just one long two shot. M. Night don't do coverage.

Come on. M. Night don't do coverage. He fucking, especially this one. He likes reflections and backs of heads and stuff. Like, he doesn't care if you see both people's faces the whole time. Here's the Village cover, by the way. Yeah, so what's the line? Written by someone I guarantee had not seen the movie.

Oh, no question. I wonder who wrote it. Now I'm interested. But anyway, what were you saying? Okay, so Joaquin's presented as the star, right? I wonder what the greatest movie lines of all time are. That's the other big article on Entertainment Weekly. Let's just spend the rest of this podcast reading that issue of Entertainment Weekly on a toilet from 2004.

I mean, I'll say I had that issue with me at summer camp, and I probably read it seven times that summer. I had that with the Saving Private Ryan issue where they reviewed that. I fucking read that shit once a day being like, when can I go home and watch Saving Private Ryan for the love of God? Yeah, that was my poop mag for two months was that Village issue of EW. Dude, we had less. I was in Britain, so I was an Empire magazine guy. That's a B-fair magazine. Yeah, you were spoiled.

I don't want to hear about your ritzy British childhood, please. Sorry, Mr. I-Knew-Bryce-Hour. Mr. Lord Sims of the Manor. Lord Sims, your Empire magazine has arrived for an application. I was a subscriber. Go on, go on. Central, the love triangle that's at the very beginning

of the film is disregarded very quickly is Judy Greer wants to marry Joaquin Phoenix. Well, I just like, she just walks up to William Hurt and she's like, I'm in love,

Joaquin Phoenix. He's my boy. And then there's a scene of her like crying horribly. Right. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into her. Yeah.

But I like that we don't even see him like stare blankly at her. I mean, yes, we do for a second, but then it cuts away before he responds. Right. He's just not that into you. He's just not that into her. Yeah. But I like that we don't even see him like stare blankly at her. I mean, yes, we do for a second, but then it cuts away before he responds. Yeah. She kind of says like,

oh, and then yeah. Another way for Shyamalan not to have to write that dialogue. Or direct actors through emotion. Yeah. Other than the emotion of you are scared right now. You are a blind person and you are in woods. Yeah.

But anyway, yeah. And, and it's only then that Ivy comes onto the scene. Her introduction is consoling Judy Greer, her sister. And Ivy is blind. She's played by Bryce Oshower in what I think is a very good performance. Excellent.

Excellent. Now I realize sound, especially to those who don't know me, biased. But I think we can all agree that Bryce Dallas Howard gives what might be the best performance in an M. Night Shyamalan film. I was going to say, you know... Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I like, like, Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense a lot, things like that.

But no, I agree. And it's a star-making performance. Like, it's that rare... Charming as all get-out. Extremely charming. And in a movie where you... A little bit of, like like a magical disability thing going on but like

she makes it work she's had such an odd career since then of ups and downs that like when she keeps on booking these big things I always kind of go like oh it's weird that Brace House Howard still works this much not because she's not good but just because like

it doesn't feel like she's ever fully established what her place is and I don't know if she's ever fully established what her place is. And I don't know if she's popular with audiences, but she's also not, like, a critical favorite. Like, she's a good actress who seems to never get the right role in the right project. Dude, I mean, just a little breeze through her credits. Yeah. Does Manderley, and we'll get the Lady in the Water next week. Right.

And then, you know, like, Spider-Man 3, like, a supporting role with nothing to do. Terminator, Salvation, she's basically in the background of that movie. That's not a real movie. That's a fun fact, that movie doesn't exist. She's in one of the Twilight movies. I think the third one, Eclipse. I don't think I knew that. Replacing the redhead from the first

Twilight. Terminator, Salvation is the same thing. She replaces Claire Danes, who had red hair in the movie. She had red hair. She had blonde hair in the movie like she becomes no she had red hair she had blonde hair maybe she had no she had red hair I don't fucking care

my point is and then she's in The Help but she's a villain and she eats poop pie and it starts to become that's like her type is to play like really unlikable

shrill she's in 50-50 I don't remember her in that she plays the shrill ex-girlfriend she plays the unlikable ex-girlfriend yeah she's like

she's really good at playing really unlikable characters and then in Jurassic World she's supposed to play a really unlikable character. And then in Jurassic World, she's supposed to play an unlikable character. She's really underserved by that movie.

And I see her in these movies and I go like, she's really good, but she's not doing herself any favors by playing these over and over again. Like 50-50, I thought she was excellent in.

The help, I think she's really good in. But it's like, I literally, she eats a poop pie. That's all I remember about the help. I think she's very good

in that movie. We all ate a poop pie when the help came out. America ate a poop pie that day. I think she's very good in all ate a poop pie yes we did america ate a poop pie that day i think she's very good in that movie but it by doing her job successfully every time taylor will ever be the subject of blank checks no go ahead please he's doing a hitchcockian thriller next i'm aware with uh a recent uh blankie award nominee rebecca ferguson and emily blunt um girl on the train yeah um. But you watch this performance

and you go like, oh, that's why Bryce Dallas Howard, like this, there was so much promise of potential in this thing that people are going to

still keep trying to figure out the way to use her because there clearly is some way where she becomes a great movie star and a great actress. Could still happen. She's just really effortless

in this film and really engaging and she plays the blind thing really well for, I mean, her first on-screen performance ever. So many actors have overdone the blind thing to such a ridiculous degree. And she just plays someone who happens to be blind, isn't too ticky about it, you know? Sure. Her disability is magical, but that's in the scripting of it, I think, rather than the performance.

And, you know, as simple as it is and sort of facile that she can see all these things that the other characters can't, I think that does add a nicely charming element to her relationship with Joaquin Phoenix's character because he's trembling and refusing to acknowledge their feelings for one another. She has the immortal M. Night Shyamalan line, like, what will we dance to? Will you dance with me at our wedding? And he's like, what? Why must you say everything? And then as they kiss for the first time,

M. Night Shyamalan pans to a chair that's empty in the corner. He does the taxi driver move with Robert De Niro on the payphone where it's like, this is too painful to watch. That's what Scorsese says, that the idea behind that shot was like, it was too embarrassing to watch.

And it feels like M. Night Shyomlin's like, they're kissing. This is embarrassing. People don't want to watch this. Kissing's gross. I should do them a favor and pan over to a chair. I also like the idea that she navigates the village with total aplomb because it's such a small, contained... And then once she's in the woods, obviously, she's lost and she's grasping at the air.

I like that she's not like that until. There's like 30-40 minutes of just like setting up the village and the town and everything. Yeah, and it's not even like connected. There's just weird little vignette stuff. There's that one sequence of Jesse Eisenberg standing on the stump with his back turned

to the woods and they're like counting down to see how long he can stay up there. And they're wearing little bowler hats no I know that's what I like about it they're like a Stanley Milgram experiment you know you're just

like jacking up the electricity a little bit bit by bit with a little bit of relief and then that's all you really need

as far as momentum is concerned to stay in whatever's happening the other thing I like is that the village itself is not like a creepy

Amish place where like people are whipping themselves behind closed doors. It's pretty nice. It's pretty nice. Yeah. What the movie is trying to do

as far as its central themes would not make a lick of sense if everyone was miserable. If everyone was being repressed. Right, right. It's like a nice place. Yeah. So there's this porch conversation

that's beautifully shot. This one was shot by Roger Deakins. Shot by Deak. I was just talking to Erlich about that too. It's got that Deak look. So at this point, M. Night's done two top Fujimoto movies. Eduardo Serra.

This is Deakins. And the next one's Christopher Doyle, one of his rare American films. And then he gets Peter Szczesinski, the Cronenberg's guy, for, I think, The Happening. Yeah. Or no, After Earth, maybe? He's had a lot of really good DPs. He's like, who is not just going to give me side eye for every idea that i come up with right for that fucking movie and you can see why dps would want to work with him because it's probably a really fun experiment he gives them a

lot of latitude and he fights for them to get their setup as i was talking to sims before and i had a a long talk once with christopher doyle who is an unreliable narrator. Frequently clashes with Wong Kar Wai, right? He does, but he has the utmost respect for Wong Kar Wai. He thinks that he would shit on M. Night Shyamalan literally if given the chance.

He may have tried. It's interesting that all these guys only work with him once. He made it sound like Shyamalan was a real dictator in a way that he didn't find productive in the slightest. I mean, asking him to do really asinine things that didn't really give him any sort of flexibility. And that is Lady in the Water, which is the height of his ego. His control thing. Yeah. I mean, I think that if there was any reason why cinematographers would be attracted to work with him,

other than the fact that he seemed like a rising star and his films were successful at the time, is that his shots were very painterly and composed. I mean, like, he gave cinematographers room to work. His shot lengths were not restricted to fractions of seconds. I mean, like, he was given cinematographers a chance to show off their work, add to their reels. Apparently, he storyboarded the entire movie with Deakins before they even started shooting. They took it all very seriously. And he's like, hey, we're going to have an entire movie

that is lit by candlelight, and shit will be your Barry Lyndon, Deakins. Yes, it's deliberate, and he's not doing coverage, so it means this scene that's this big emotional scene, what's supposed to be a big emotional scene, this porch love confession, is we're just getting it from one angle. So we just make the shot look as good as we want.

There's this beautiful rolling fog behind them, you know, and off in the distance and everything. It's like a great shot. The more emotional scene that works even better is when the, what are they fucking called? They must not be named. Whatever they're called. The creatures. The creatures attack. And then there's that shot of her at the door holding her hand out.

That's like. I mean, that's, you know, attack. And then there's that shot of her at the door holding her hand out. That's like that. I mean, that's, you know, what Ebert was saying. I mean, that scene makes not a lick of sense if you sort of slow it down. Right, if you slow it down and think about it, sure. But it is also one of the, like, the alchemic, whatever's happening in that movie, in that sequence, rather, there's a certain magic to it that just works. And I think you recognize that. The music, and the music in this movie, you know,

Hilary Hahn playing the violin and whatnot, it's perfect. That scene comes together really well and I think hits that tone that he's trying to achieve and failing to achieve

for so much of the rest of the movie and his life. I think he mostly shoots in this movie, not so much in his life. Now that scene is before or after

the love confession? I believe it's before. I think it's sort of like what galvanized it. It's kind of what galvanized the love confession. I believe it's before. I think it's sort of like what galvanizes it. It's kind of what galvanizes the love confession. They ring the bell. They see the creatures.

They see the creatures, yeah. There are a bunch of skinned animals all around the place. Even the elders seem a little confused by that. There are a few scenes where you see them meeting in private away from the kids. Because one of them is doing it independently. Right, and they're like, what's going on? Yeah. Then the creature comes out.

Everyone's running. Bryce Laws Howard doesn't seem scared. Joaquin Phoenix is trying Dallas Howard doesn't seem scared. She's sort of like, Joaquin Phoenix is trying to prove that he's scared. When he gives the speech to the elders at the beginning, he's like, I'm pure of heart and I think they can sense it. I'm no threat to them. They'll let me get through the woods. There's this whole component that's not fully explored.

That like the creatures have an emotional capability. Yeah, and I think that, you know, this comes from the fact that the faulty mythology that they've established. Which makes sense. Yeah, exactly. The elders are just kind of, we only thought this through for so far. Which makes sense. Yeah, exactly. The elders just kind of... We only thought this through for so far.

And they just pile on new facts. We have no wiki to look at. That's like keeping everything straight. I mean, that's the thing with the magic rocks near the end of the movie, where they're like, I don't know, magic rocks. Like, just take these magic rocks. They're magic.

I'd say, to M. Night's credit, it makes as much sense. And everyone's like, why did nobody talk about it? It's sort of like how America is run. Yeah. I mean, this movie. And, hey, you know, kudos to M. Night. This is only continuing to pay off in that respect.

I'd say, yeah, the logic of the creatures makes as much sense as, like, Santa Claus seeing you when you're sleeping and knowing if you're good or bad. Like, it's the kind of thing where, like, when you grow up a little bit and you start to ask your parents, the thing falls apart. I don't know. I'm Jewish. I never fall for that shit. Come on. We're all Jews. This is an all. I'm Jewish. I never fall for that shit. Come on. We're all Jews. This is an all-Jew podcast. My family is big into Christmas.

Yeah, mine too. Yeah, mine not. My mother would fucking kill me if I ever Christmas tree in my house. Really? Which I probably will. Yeah. Oops. So, yeah, there's this scene where he goes out, she goes out to sort of try to follow him.

Judy Greer's in, like, a trap door and a floor. Yeah, she's, come on, come on, get in the trap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see Bryce Dollard's hand holding out and then you see like the claw of the creature,

the snout of the creature. No, no, no, you see the creature advancing. Right. And then Joaquin grabs her hand and brings her inside and it's romantic. But like you gotta think,

you gotta roll it back and be like, whatever elder is in that color that must be named has gotta be like, I gotta walk slow enough that I don't actually get there because that would be disastrous. That's the thing.

And it's never quite explained what atrocities did these creatures commit and obviously nothing. But what's the grounding for the fear? They are essentially proxies for M. Night Shyamalan trying to scare these villagers in the same way that he is trying to scare us. And they have to have that same sort of dynamic

with viewers and people in town like, uh, we always have to be a threat but can never actually cause any harm. Right, and you know, they originally the design of them, like, they were supposed to look really different and, like, they shot footage with them in these other costumes that are awful. You've seen the pictures

of the other costumes? I watched the making of guys, I watched the making of documentaries on YouTube. And they're like big rock monster things covered in fur. They suck. Interesting. The animal skull head is there, but apart from that, they're pretty much...

Unfortunately, among the group of professors that decided to abscond to this village was an Oscar-winning production designer. Seriously. So they were like, oh, great. We can have these kick-ass costumes. These gorgeous costumes. I do like the character designs.

Guys, I've got ideas. Animal bones. I love the way the creatures look, but I also like, did they have a long meeting with Colleen Atwood? Seriously. They had time, guys. What were they doing? They also have, I don't know where they're getting all this money from the whatever institute that they can buy a no-fly zone.

Dude, didn't you hear? His father could take $1 and turn it into $5 within a week. Oh, within a week? One to five? We'll get to that. I love it when he says that. You're just like, all right, well, you know, what? It took a while to turn that into a billion.

He could put a down payment on an apartment. Every week he'd get $5. That's pretty slow. He should figure out how to turn $100 into $500 or more. Yeah, I mean, like Gawker would have been on this shit so fast. Or there would have been like a Vice episode of like, there's a village in Pennsylvania. He's in Pennsylvania. He's not even in Alaska.

I went into this village and I had sex with everyone. Here's my story. But yeah, but no, then they changed it to the red robes is what I, you know, they changed the design and it's a cool design. We talked about a lot. You don't see him much. No. We talked about a lot.

We had your podcast co-host, Katie Rich. Fuck her. Hey, hey, come on. Oh, I'm sorry. I was encouraged to put that on my- Talk trash. Baby, she's a friend of the show. She's going to be a mother.

Yeah. How dare you? How dare you, sir? And that baby's a friend of the show. She's going to be a mother. Yeah. How dare you? How dare you, sir? And that baby's a friend of the show. All right, Griffin. I was going to say, no, never mind. Well, I do think, you know, the visibility, the fact that they are so often out of frame and when they are in frame are out of focus.

He uses it well. Yeah, I mean, he's always excelled at sort of milking the power of the unseen. I mean, this harkens back, you know, Steven Spielberg is a very recent example of the effect of doing this, but that's, I feel, where M. Night Shyamalan learned everything that he knows. Absolutely. The man's a Spielberg. And that's something that modern horror,

now when you make a horror movie that preys on what you don't see, it is sort of cast off as pretentious and artsy. I combine those into one word. Brett Easton Ellis doesn't pretend. No, Brett Easton Ellis is like fuck this also there's a woman

in it so I'm not interested yeah but it's written off as like the witch or it follows the Babadook you know

and it's like oh no the movies that actually have some sort of craft oh yeah you mean like the good horror movies

the last couple years yeah mainstream horror doesn't really have much craft to it anymore but no no well that's a whole other conversation.

But we talked about with friend of the show, Kitty Rich, how well he uses movie logic in The Sixth Sense where there are a lot of scenes that you can re-watch and be like,

okay, he's cheating, but he does it well enough and it's a minor enough infraction that I'll forgive it. I feel much better now. Yeah. That's Ehrlich's favorite line in The Sixth Sense.

You want to see where my dad keeps his guns? You got really close to being cast in both of those roles, right. Yeah. That's Ehrlich's favorite line in this. You want to see where my dad keeps his guns? You got really close to being cast in both of those roles, right? Yeah. I could have been Haley Joel Osment. My life could have been so different. Yeah. Oh, well.

We got to get him on the show. Haley Joel? He'd do it. He'd do it. Just be like, hey, it's Entourage 2. He's a comedy guy now. Yeah, he does comedy now. He does Kevin Smith movies now.

Yeah, and you were almost in Entourage, right? His part. Yeah, yeah. Wait, was it his part? I thought it was Kid Cudi's part. Both of movies now. Yeah, and you were almost in Entourage, right? His part. Yeah, yeah. Wait, was it his part? I thought it was Kid Cudi's part. Both of those parts. Ah, interesting. Yeah, one part came after I didn't get the first part. Yeah, there's a period in time where I looked like I might become Hollywood's premier intern

and then Hollywood decided they didn't want that. How many times are you and Kid Cudi going to be up for the same role? I think that's the one. I'd love it if it happened more often. Guy has a good career now. He's really good in James White. Yeah, really good in that. Yeah, I wish we were going up for the same part.

But, but, but, what was I saying here? Katie Rich movie logic. Yeah, he distorts it here, but he does create a really good visual language of how you see the creatures and when you use them. The other thing I like is we talked a lot about on our signs episode how the fact that those creatures are CGI I think really hurts

the movie. The moment you see the alien the whole thing fucking falls apart. You have to assume he thought the same. And it's super practical in this movie. They look like guys in suits. And even before you know that they are just guys in suits there's something charming to the fact that they are that sort of rustic

and artisanal looking. They're artisanal like handmade movie monsters, you know? Yeah, really. They're like real. This is 19th century. This is like Amish level craft work. These are like free range movie monsters, you know?

Like farm to table movie monsters. All right. All right. That's not funny. Okay. So. Farm to table Wi-Fi. So.

Worst joke in Zoolander 2. That joke's in Zoolander 2? There's a lot of competition. Have you joke in Zoolander 2 that joke's in Zoolander 2 there's a lot of competition have you not seen Zoolander 2 no because you guys told me not to see it it's not great

not a good film yeah I don't want to get hurt yeah yeah yeah anyway you guys saw it together we did and then you relayed

back to me all the things that both of you said oh yeah sure and then I just didn't want to see it I didn't want to be sad anyway Love Triangle Joaquin Phoenix confesses his love to Bryce Dallas Howard Oh, yeah, sure. And then I just didn't want to see it. I didn't want to be sad. Anyway, love triangle.

Joaquin Phoenix confesses his love to Bryce Dallas Howard. They decide they're going to get married. So let's bring Adrian Brody into this conversation. That's what I'm trying to... How do we even talk about this? Speaking of Ben Stiller and Simple Jack and going full retard. I mean, like, this is... It's a major component in the Simple Jack conversation.

This is maybe the fullest retard performance I've ever seen. This is retard full throttle. He had just won an Oscar. This is his direct follow-up to the penis. So this is really the time where you should have the least incentive to go full retard. Right, exactly. The last thing you need to do. There's nothing to prove.

And this role isn't like Rain Man where it's like, ooh, the guy's mentally handicapped, but he's also a math genius. This role is just... There's no upside. The role is just... There's no upside. The role is just this guy doesn't think right. And it's vague in the worst possible ways. Oh, he's special.

He's simple. He's special. He's childlike. He's like a Forrest Gump type, low IQ, non-specific. But friendly. He giggles and everyone kind of, you know, sort of pals around with him.

They give him like an emo haircut. They give him an emo haircut. It reminds me of a description of the, you know, I will quote the show's rhetoric and say retarded,

but in our 2016 parlance, the, I don't know what we'd say, the mentally handicapped. Mentally handicapped, whatever. Yeah, whatever. The developmentally disabled.

Sure, sure. But the strangers with candy episode where they're like, you know, the retarded don't rule the night. Nobody does. But they come at you all fists and elbows with the strength of an ape. You know, like that's his character. That's what they're going for here, right? It's basically like, oh, he's sweet, but yeah, keep your eye on him.

Don't break his heart. Yeah, you can't reason with him. Don't you break his heart. You can't reason with him, which makes him scary. They all want cake. The other problem with him is Don't break his heart. Yeah, you can't reason with him. Don't you break his heart. You can't reason with him, which makes him scary. They all want cake. The other problem with him is they always want cake.

He is a plot mechanic. And like his illness is used as, it's like, oh, well, this is happening because Adrian Brody does weird stuff. He exists to make

Bryce Dallas Howard's character look like an angel. Sure. And then he exists to give her an excuse to drive her out of the village to go on this. And Brody plays it all wrong.

It's a horrible performance. Even with the bad writing, he plays it all wrong. He does this kind of thing where he kind of like will say something and he'll kind of like laugh to himself

and sort of look off screen and shit. There's a scene where he's like running through a field giving like a prairie dog grin. Yeah. You tweeted that picture. I had to share this with the world a scene where he's like running through a field giving like a prairie dog grin. Yeah. You tweeted that picture. I had to share this with the world.

And then it's like, and then after he stabs Joaquin Phoenix, he's got the blood all over his hands and he's like, the bad color, the bad color.

It's a lot of like fingers wiggling. Like he does a lot of weird finger work. But then other than that. It's a little I am. He's like, had he seen I am Sam

at the time? Probably. Well, that's Sam here. Or the year after? I am Sam came out 2001. Oh no, it's a one. It's a little I am. He's like, had he seen I am Sam at the time? I wonder. Probably. It was in the chronology of that. Or a year after? I am Sam came out 2001. Oh, no, it's a one. It's a one. He definitely saw I am Sam.

Yeah, so he definitely saw it. But this doesn't feel very committed as a performance. It doesn't feel- Well, also because it's such a nonspecific thing. What is this guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I also never buy that he's actually mentally handicapped. It feels like it has all the specificity of an improv scene where your improv partner pimps you out to play a mentally handicapped person.

They're like, oh, well, Percy over here, he's mentally handicapped. And then you have to on the fly come up with like something to do. It's like someone in the film was like, M. Night, what particular handicap does he have? And he was like, you're fucking fired. Get off my set. It doesn't work for my script. He has what the scene needs him to have, God damn it.

Yeah, he has all of it. Just the most of it. He is so fucking mentally handicapped in this movie. Like a gross amount of mental handicap. And yeah, he's very childlike. Bryce Os Howard's very nurturing to him. And so when- It's somewhat of a career-ruining performance

for Adrian Brody. I don't think he ever fully recovers from this. Outside of the Wes Anderson films, I don't think he ever really recovers from this. Because this was the follow-up and everyone was looking to it. And I remember part of the campaign was like, Adrian Brody is playing a mystery role.

Like, I think before it came out, people didn't even know that his character was handicapped. I think they were just kind of like, Adrian Brody, a mystery role. And they showed a picture, I remember, I think in the entertainment weekly article that was him looking over his shoulder like slyly with the haircut and i was like oh he's the villain he looks like a really smart right like conniving kind of guy which might have been interesting might have been

really interesting yeah if he's like a sort of like rogue agent in that way yeah yeah or even if he was childlike if he was like sort of undeveloped but wasn't like. Childlike is never great. No. But he's like almost nonverbal in this movie. But the problem is that there's no. We were talking earlier about how, you know, it wouldn't really make sense for the pretense of the movie for them to be miserable in this town.

Right. This village. Yeah. Yeah. However, they've been there for a long enough time to have raised kids there. And there's no iniquity in this place whatsoever. I mean, like they they are all very cloistered. But there are humans there and humans will do things that are on course.

And when Adrian Brody stabs somebody in this movie, it's like the first bad thing that's ever happened in this town. They refer to it as like an accident. It's like someone's molesting someone like someone is. Why are you going to just have such a poor opinion of humanity, man? Trust me. There's a town. There's someone molesting someone. Like someone is. Why you got to just have such a poor opinion of humanity, man? Trust me. There's a town. There's someone molesting someone. What if you were the rogue agent?

You walk in and you're like, someone's up to no good. And then you start a witch hunt. Have you never seen like a BBC crime drama? Like every town, every idyllic British hamlet. There's someone molesting someone. There's something happening here, but there isn't. I mean, it's all swept under the rug. Well, that's the big thing that happens.

At 45 minutes into this movie, Adrian Brody, Joaquin Phoenix goes over to apologize, I guess, to Adrian Brody is the idea. No, no, Adrian Brody comes to Joaquin Phoenix. No, it's mirroring the scene where Judy Greer is very gracious in accepting that the guy she loves loves his sister.

And then we are getting the boy version of that immediately afterwards. And we expect it to sort of be kind of a comic scene where like, you know, he's just like having the same conversation we just saw, but gender swapped. And they start very quickly going into it's the two guys making direct eye contact with the lens. So it feels unnerving when the conversation starts. And he uses screen space well here because you don't know how close they are to each other because you're looking at them. Yeah, there's that shot of Phoenix looking right into the king.

Right, and he's not saying anything. You wonder what's going on, and then it cuts down to a lower angle knife in the chest. And Adrian Brody starts crying, then takes the knife out, and then stabs him like six more times. And then they find the body. He takes his time, though. He laughs again. He looks to the side. And then he's like, meh, meh. They find him on the porch. He's his time, though. He, like, laughs again. Yeah. He looks to the side. And then he's like, meh, meh.

They find him on the porch. He's got the bad color. He's crying. They go from house to house to try to find him. Bryce Howard immediately has a feeling. I know. The movie sort of shutters to a halt for 15 minutes. They've been engaged for 12 hours.

Yeah. Well, she can't see his color. David, she can't see his color. That's what she says. She can see his color. Now, Joaquin Phoenix, who was first billed in the movie, was the cover of the Entertainment Weekly. Yeah, then he is out. Out of the movie.

Bye, Joaquin. No, I want to throw this out. So this was Smoking Gun got this budget breakdown, right? All right. How much do you think? Joaquin collected for this one? Yes. Well, I can see that it's loading on your screen right now.

Yeah, I don't know why. I fucking had it. I know the number offhand. It's the other ones I want to pull up. Yeah, four. Oh, yes. He's got one Oscar nomination at this point. Yeah, I don't know why I fucking had it. I know the number offhand. It's the other ones I want to pull up. Yeah, four. Oh, let me guess. He's got one Oscar nomination at this point.

Yeah. He's got Gladiator. You know, he'd been in Signs, he'd been in Letter. I'm going to go with 5.95. Wow.

Okay, so for the previous film... Falses without going over? For the previous film for Signs, Mel Gibson got $25 million to be in signs,

which is, I think, the most any actor had gotten at that point in time. He got $1 million for signs. I guess that's right after Gladiator. For this film, he gets $7 million. He is top build. He's only in 40 minutes of the movie. But he is top build.

And that's how that shit gets broken down. Bryce Dallas Howard, it's her first film. What is she, like 200 grand? $150,000. I mean, yeah. Okay, so in this is what I find fascinating. In the budget breakdown, they had like allotted Phoenix and Bryce Dallas Howard had been cast. And they said, here are the other key roles.

It's Adrian Brody's character, you know, William Hurt's character, Scorny Weaver's character, and they listed Brennan Gleeson's character, who I guess maybe originally had a little more to do, it seemed like, with the budget they allotted to him, but they said essentially it's like $3 million

for the guy playing Percy, Noah Percy, what's his name? Yeah, for Adrian Brody's character. Right, and then it was like $1.5 for each of the elders.

They had $3 million allotted, Adrian Brody wins the Oscar, they pay him $1.7. Ooh. They paid him less than they had allotted. So you're Adrian Brody, you just won the Oscar They pay him $1.7 million. They paid him less than they had allotted. So you're Adrian Brody. You just won the Oscar. You agreed $1.7 million to play

Simple Jack, whose job is just to be despicable. I'd take $1.7 million. I mean, these are well-established actors, but Cherry Jones is never commanding a $7 million salary. No, because everyone else is a theater actor. They all got these crazy payouts. Sigourney Weaver got $2 million.

William Hurt got $1.5 million. I don't know what the rest of them got. I'm a little disrespectful to William Hurt. He was being disrespected by Hollywood at that time. He won an Oscar. I'm aware of that. I know. I know you know.

David, I know you know. I'm here with the two Davids. Next year, he... No, this year, William Hurt, in 2004, he gets an Oscar nomination for... No, it's the next year for a history of violence. Yeah, and that's his big comeback that he then fails to capitalize on in any way. Completely squandered. Whatever.

Still love you, William Hurt. His best performance. Lost in space. The Big Hurt. Sigourney Weaver, The Big Hurt. Yeah, okay. So, Brody stabs him. Joaquin Phoenix is like a hospitalized-

He's in a bed. The movie shudders to a halt here for 10, 15 minutes, where it's like, we know she's got to go into the fucking woods. Just put her in, you know, get her in that yellow Klan costume. So finally the big hurt's like, fine. Without talking to the rest of the people, he's like. Finally, Chicago White Sox first baseman Frank Thomas is like, let's get Bryce. Well, he lifts the veil.

Right. So he leads her into a shed and he goes, what you're about to see here, I need you not to speak. There's like 18 secret places in this fucking village. But also,

no one thinks to break a lock. He does like 15 minutes, Sean Ballant does like 15 minutes of the movie. Well, that's the beauty of like making your own village is that you can,

when you're on rules, you can be like, there's a shack there. You must never go up there. Literally zero. And people take that like the word of like making your own village is that you get when your own rules you can be like there's a shack there you must never go up there literally zero and and people take that like the word of god and they're like you know i can't go there yeah can't go there that's the place we don't go to like there's a 15-man stretch of this movie maybe 10 right where shamalan's cross-cutting between three different conversations long conversations that are happening at different points in time so the central one is williamurt is explaining to Bryce what is going on.

Then there's the one where he's talking to the other elders after the fact about the fact that he's already had the conversation with her. And then there's one where I think he's talking to one of the elders about the fact that he wants to have the conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And he's just like he's making it like he's kind of obtuse for no reason. Right.

But the Big Hurt essentially tells Bryce Dallas Howard, hey, this is the shed. This is the costume. It's a farce. Do your very best not to scream or whatever. Right. It's a farce. Here's the creature. We pretend to do this.

Why? Because we're scared of the outside world. We don't want people to know. Wait, but does he tell her? He doesn't tell her. No. He doesn't tell her that it's a farce. He just says like-

He says the word farce. To her? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because why is she so, if she knows that it's a farce. He just says like- He says the word farce. To her? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because why is she so, if she knows that it's just a guy and a suit, why is she so scared when she goes wandering? Because he says, we based it, and Shyamalan drops this fucking vocal cue in again in case

we forgot. I was on drugs when I watched this. This is what I would argue was twist two of the movie. Oh, where he says like, it's based, we do based on original tales of creatures in the The creatures don't exist? Well, legend, whatever, you know? And that's Shyamalan being like, well, you know, maybe there are monsters. Why would he do that?

He's like, listen, your fiance of 12 hours is fucking dying. Look, I'm going to tell you the secret that is all that binds this village together. Right, it's the only thing that makes all this shit work. But maybe there are really evil wizards? It makes no sense. Well, I think it's designed... No, it doesn't make sense. I mean, the other thing that doesn't make sense is like,

you've got a shack with some costumes in it. Put some penicillin in that shack. You know, just in case. Why does it fucking make a new label for it? Why doesn't the herd just be like, all right, so this is kinda serious I understand that we don't like

to make exceptions cause that's a bad precedent maybe in the middle of the night I'll walk through the fucking 50 feet of trees and I'll just go

and I'll go to a CVS and I'll be like hey you got some Advil alright cool well the whole idea what's revealed in this movie is like the village was formed cause these people

were like I hate death. No more death. Let's make a village where no one can die. They don't like sad things. They don't like sad things. They all had a sad thing happen to them, and they say it's like, oh, my sister was raped. Oh, my father was shot. Yeah, but it's murdered.

All of them. It's really like, I don't want to live in a world where 9-11 happens. The movie is very broadly a 9-11 slash Iraq war, whatever, allegory where it's like, yeah, let's just shelter ourselves away from the bad things. From the hurt and the pain. Not from the big hurt, but from hurting. But he doesn't do a serviceable job of connecting that to, like, intimate grief. No. Of being like, this is why I'm retreating from it. It's a broader sort of abstract fear of the world, which I think, you know, I can certainly relate to.

But I think that, you know, it's very abstract and it does not at all connect to the circumstances of you need to save your fiance. And it brushes out, you know, like that first shot of Brendan Gleeson, like cradling the coffin. What a fine actor. And, you know, there's moments like when they open theney Weaver opens her little black box and looks at the photographs. Excuse me, David. I believe you mean Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver opens her black box. There are moments that brush up against what you're talking about.

But obviously it's too... It's not super concerned with it. At that point, Shumlin's too worried about explaining the mechanics of his world to the audience. And also trying to make it like one-fifth of a love story. And then there's even that thing. It's a romance. Are you kidding me? Yeah, but they never do...

There's the part where Bryce Dallas Howard's talking about how she senses everything and that she senses that William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver, that there's a thing there. And then there's one moment where Sigourney won't

fucking hold her hand. Right, at a party. And then it's never picked up on. Ever again, it's just a weird dangling thread for no purpose. Dangling hand. Dangling hand. Right, at a party. And then it's never picked up on, like, ever again. It's just a weird dangling thread for no purpose. Dangling hand. Dangling hand.

So he explains it to her, and he goes, you have to walk in the village. You know, here's a pocket watch. It's worth money. Go down the road. Do this. Do that.

And then, here's the list. I wrote it down. Give it to someone. They'll give you the medicine you need. Yeah, his plan is flawed. Literally. Super flawed. No one would ever know if he just left one night and got some fucking penicillin.

No, but his plan is, no, no, but how about the blind girl? She'll just walk until she hits the road, a dirt road, which she'll easily discern. The idea is, oh, she won't see, so she won't know. Of course. But it's also like, yeah, but one, just an elderly. Did you get that? I didn't totally pick that up. See, this is the thing.

The only logic I could figure out for why he wouldn't want to go himself is they don't want to make contact with the outside world because then people will know and the whole thing will be blown. But it'll be blown as easily by a blind girl. Oh, yeah. No, the blind girl who doesn't know that there's this outside world. Who can't even pretend to act like it's 2004. It would be really easy for someone to be like, who are you? You know what I'm going to do?

Call the police. It's interesting that they must have been in the village for however many years. 20 at least. They're young children there, which means that they are at the grandchildren stage. They're getting to the grandchildren. They are likely.

I don't know if someone is cheating and looking at their pre-iPhone, like sneaking it out and being like, They're taking out their Sony Ericsson. Exactly. One guy just really wants to keep up with the Blackhawks. Yeah, he's got his Palm Pilot. I don't blame him.

But you have to, like, the 9-11 sort of validates their decision to do this. Yeah, what if someone, like like bought a paper and it just happened to be on there and they were like, oh shit! No, because there is that scene where M. Night Shyamalan's

character is reading a newspaper and it's like, I pause, there are like five stories and they're all like murder, death, like they're all

terrible stories. And then he flips to the next page and it's seven more murder things. It's so heavy handed. What's he reading? But Bryce goes into the woods.

There's like 30 minutes of the film where it's sort of just like a sparse thriller that's just blind girl in the woods. Yeah. What happens to a blind girl in the woods? It is 80% of the trailer. The trailer was all this action. The trailer was mostly a blind girl in the woods. Yeah.

In the woods. And you don't know. She doesn't know what's going on. And her only adversary is Adrian Brody in a red costume chasing after her. You don't know it's Adrian Brody. No, yeah, I know. So when it's introduced, you think, okay, twist two. What the fuck is he doing out there?

I mean, he's hiding, you know. No, it's a stretch. There's a term I use when we discuss. The stretch is he pried open the floorboards. He got the costume. He somehow like wriggled out of a window. In that bulky that's you know there are bones on that costume. How did he get out there? Well he's got the strength of an ape.

And they always want cake. There's a term I used when we discussed David Hopkins the judge. I don't know if you've seen the judge. I have not seen the judge. You are a lucky man. Because you too will someday die. I know that there is a lot of Bon Iver in that movie.

Yeah. Because the soundtrack was sung to me for 10 consecutive days at the Toronto Film Festival. There's also a lot of bully shit in that movie. That's the best joke I'll ever make. Congratulations. That's it. We're in the UCB studio. Is there like an alarm that goes off?

Oh, yeah. 10 comedy points. I got 10 comedy points. By the way, David, I give that 10 comedy points. By the way, David, I give you 7 comedy points for Palm Pilot. Oh, thank you. I know reference-based humor isn't usually what we're going for. How many do you need for Judd Apatow to acknowledge your existence? Well, Judd Apatow just optioned that joke.

He optioned that joke. Is it like a carnival where if you get like 1,500 points, you get like the Judd Apatow. Yeah, you take your tickets to the booth and he's like, you get a Netflix series. It sounds like 10 points, that's a big score. But much like at the carnival, if you want anything that's better than an eraser, you need like 15,000 points. You got to be putting in the time every day for years. That's the thing. And you reset every day.

Much like at the carnival, you're going to lose your points once you go home. So, yeah. Adrian Brody, they sort of present. Oh, no. This is what I was going to say. David Hopkins, the judge, right? There is a character in that film who is Robert Downey Jr.'s young brother, who when we discussed

the film, I referred to as a cinematic device that I refer to as convenient retardation. Where a character is just mentally handicapped enough to help the movie in the ways it needs to. So they're super functional. Blurred something out at the wrong moment.

Love singing Beatles cover songs, but can't raise a child. Exactly. Right. No, that's just hypothetical. That's a perfect example. In the judge it's shoots every moment

of the fucking family's history on a Super 8 camera and then inadvertently projects old memories onto the wall at times that are dramatic. Do you know this, Erlich? I may have been told.

All I really remember about what I've been told about the movie is like the climactic confrontation between Judge and Judge's son takes place in the middle of a tornado. His name's Judge Jr. That is correct. Judge Jr.

That was the same year as Man of Steel, too, right? That was Warner Brothers' big year of tornado father-son. Can we get off the judge? Or what is your point? No, Adrian Burney has the same thing in this, where it's like, he can barely walk. And then in other scenes off camera, he does think like in order for us to accept what's happened. He dons elaborate costumes. And like pull up the floorboards, which is like I'm not arguing he doesn't have the strength to do it.

But why would he think to do that? No, go on. I was going to say something. Were you going to play devil's advocate? No. I was going to say that like it could be the only way out of this mess for M. Night would have to go so dumb that he came out the other side. Make Adrian Brody a Verbal Kin situation. Oh, he's faking it.

But the problem is that the villains, that's already what the monsters are doing in this background. They're already serving that purpose. He could be sort of like a visible agent of chaos and like, you know, a disrupting factor in the village that whenever he in his mental state saw someone testing the boundaries of what they were doing, he could go over and sort of course correct and use like, oh, I'm retarded. Right. So they've like raised him as an agent since birth, basically. I would prefer that only because it would explain why his performance is so bad. Yeah, but you would need another scene of William Hurt, like, you know, lecturing. It's very The Truman Show. It's like what you were referencing earlier.

It's very Truman Show. It's very Truman Show. Yeah, I mean, I was talking about how in The Truman Show, it should just be explained that Truman was taught in school that it reigns in a column, and then he doesn't worry about that. Right, right, right. You know, but obviously, you can't break the reality too many times, and people will stop enjoying it.

You want the audience to have a fun time. No, but the audience, what I was saying to you, the audience within the Truman Show world, the people watching that television show, they want it in reality. They want to recognize it. Yeah. You can't just have a running commentary being like,

remember an episode nine years ago? Yeah. Remember New Trade? It rained in a column that one time. So that's why it's happening now. Don't worry about it. How weird would it be to be like- Truman Show, better movie than The Village.

No question. How weird would it be to be like 10 years old and you're like watching the Truman Show and you start watching like when you were born. So you've been like big on like years like 28 to 32 and your parents have to constantly explain to you like, oh yeah, so when Truman was four. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, of course. It's such a burden to jump into

that show late. But we'd watch that show. It wouldn't really be any different than meeting a new person in your life and being like, oh, well, I haven't been there for the years 1 through 30. I don't do that for that exact reason. I find it very stressful. There are risks involved to that. If a person's backstory isn't easily bingeable in a weekend, I don't make friends with them. I've known both of you since preschool.

So, blank check,ank Check Babies. That's a spinoff I'm pitching to Judd Apatow once I get enough tickets. Comedy points. Twist one. It's a farce. Sure. Twist two. Maybe the creatures are real.

Twist three. She trips the thing. It falls into a pit. It's Adrian Brody. Yeah, he's dead. Right? Now he's dead. Okay.

Bye, Adrian Brody. End of twist. Bad death scene. Yeah. He does the, yeah, but anywaydy end of twist bad death scene yeah he does that yeah but anyway end of twist i guess she just makes it out of the woods and goes to ye old medicine shop you already know at this point it's pretty obvious yeah and we've had over the course of movie these scenes where they mention their relatives who have died and cherry jones says

like you know it reminds me of my daughter my sister would have been her age why didn't she come to the village when she was. She was shot in her sleep. And you're like, that's his father was shot in his sleep. Right. And Cherry Jones, as she was raped and murdered. Yeah, but she doesn't say that to Bryce.

In an alleyway. That's the giveaway. Yes, that's the giveaway. Because there are no alleys in this whole village. Right. There's really no need for that. No, that was, I watched, I was like, red flag.

Sorry. The color, the bad color flag. Yeah, please. Thank you for respecting me. Some of our listeners out there might be from the village. The village? Yeah, from the Walker lineage. Okay, let's wrap this

plot up here. Makes it out of the woods. She climbs a wall. Good job, Lee. I don't know how she does that. No, as she's about to climb over the wall, William Hurt just dramatically walks to a box, right? Yeah. It is not provoked by anything, and he's with... Who's the woman?

He's with Sequina Weaver. I think it's a different woman. Whatever. One of the other elders. He's with one of the other elders, and he dramatically walks to a box in silence, and the two of them unlock it, open it up, and there are newspaper clippings. Yeah, you know. Much like the newspaper clippings yeah you know much like the newspaper

clippings from unbreakable and much like the way he plays out the twist in six cents unbreakable and also the non-twist in signs we're like at the moment where the thing has to click he replays like seven lines of dialogue over it so that no one can not understand what's going on right they called me mr glass they called me mr tips but that's four movies in a row where he does that exact move, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. And they get the newspaper clipping. I don't know if you remember, he was kind of known

for his signature twist. That was something. He was on brand. But he always delivers the twist the exact same way. It's like, you're going to hear the repetition of dialogue?

I mean, come on. Let's get to his cameo. They were people in the 70s and they decided. Oh, yeah. Well, right. We get that. All their families died. They met get to his cameo. They were people in the 70s and they decided. Oh, yeah. Well, right. We get that. All their families died.

They met in a grief counseling group. They did. What's funny is that like now, back then, everyone was, and I thought sort of unfairly, was just sort of like, oh, it was a vanity move to put himself in his own movies. Right. Now, in 2016, people, you know, maybe more rightly would be like, oh, it's the only way to get an Indian guy in a movie. Yeah.

Like a major role. It's like, you know, oh, diversity. be like oh it's the only way to get an indian guy in a movie like a major role it's like you know oh diversity oh hey m night and we did talk about across these what the we're on film six now is that right uh you have he is the lead in praying with anger his first film which takes place in india but then you're saying it's a bunch of simone jackson i mean are there any other real people of color in the first six movies? Not in Signs, apart from M. Night. Not in Sixth Sense? No. Other than M. Night? Yeah. Very lily-white cast. Well, yeah.

It's too bad the village couldn't be a racial utopia as well, because it was the 70s guys. I mean, they were unbound to any sort of history to that place. But M. Night is not. No David, he was a history professor. No, but you gotta remember, M. Night is unfortunately not.

And then we'd be like, wait, wait, there are black people living here? When is this? Then we'd be asking questions. That's a very fair point. Yeah, that would be a bad color flag, I think, to the audience. But, yeah, it's like...

I know that you were making the bad color flag joke again, but it sounds worse, right, when we were like, well, they can't have black people. Yeah, that would be a bad color. That's a bad color. Call it a flag. Yeah, okay.

I shouldn't use it. Now I'm thinking it would have been interesting had the ranger, like the nice ranger she meets been black. Sure, yeah. It was like that or anything. Or anything. He's just another confused white guy. And Bryce Salshower went, I sense a color coming from you.

Black? Is that? God. Minus 10 comedy points. Oh, God, Jud I sense a color coming from you. Black? Is that? Minus 10 comedy points. Oh, God, Judd. I'm coming for you. It's going to take a little longer than I thought. She runs into a cop, or a security guard. He's not a cop. She runs into Paul Blart.

He says the thing. William Hurt earlier said the thing about you know your grandfather, he could take one dollar, make it into five. No, because I think this is important. In the newspaper clipping, there's the thing of like, you know, your grandfather, he could take one dollar, make it into five. Because I think this is important. There's in the newspaper clipping. There's the thing of like billionaire John Walker shot by former co-worker. And he says that in the thing. It was like money dispute.

Right. Money dispute. Right. I wonder if they're supposed to be the fucking Foxcatcher family. Oh, the DuPonts. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Oh, God.

That'd be cool. Because it's a Pennsylvania. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what. Yeah. I bet it was. And so they have this reserve. I'm adding it to the IMDb trivia

page tonight. Literally no one can stop me. The first thing you see is when she jumps over, the first thing we see when she jumps over the fence is the signage on the Walker Wildlife Reserve. And he walks out and it's like, okay, so that's why no one ever bothered them because this is

big land. It's his family. He knew no one would ever come in. But then everyone's like, so that's why no one ever bothered them because it's his big land it's his family he knew no one would ever come in but then everyone's like but what about the planes I need someone to explain the plane situation to me the question everyone

was asking so it's a kind eyed young ranger security guy played by Abe from Mad Men Elizabeth Moss is a ex-fiance and they have this

conversation that goes on for way too long where he's like, wait, you lived in the woods? In the woods? She's like, yeah. And he's like, but you live there? She's like, yeah. And he's like, but where did you grow up? The woods? Like he repeats the same question six times and she keeps on going like, sir, I'm just from the woods.

I don't know what you're saying. Sir, I mustn't. I mustn't. He'd be so I sense kindness in your voice. I want to get to the goddamn cameo can I just point out one thing no the moment with

the clippings in the box I don't care about the clippings in the box no because I find this really funny the logic we're supposed to buy into is William Hurt's just

sitting in like his living room waiting for Bryce Dallas Howard to come back and then without saying anything he goes like let me take a look at the box of secrets

let me look at that box let me remind myself why I'm here let me just stand stultantly with a woman over my shoulder. It's on his mind. He just sent a fucking girl. But they do it so dramatically. A crisis point in the village.

There's that great line reading from Brendan Gleeson where he says, look, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Maybe this is it. We tried, right? We can't stop everything bad from happening. He says it better than I just did. He's such a guy. And look, guys. Guys, look. Come on. Come on. We're going to just did. He's such a good guy. And look, guys.

Guys, look. Come on. Come on. We're going to build a wall. We're going to run. It's going to be huge. We're going to get the fucking Walker Foundation to pay for it. He could play Trump, Gleason.

He's got the build. Oh, yeah. He's got the build for Trump. God, he'd be such a good Trump. Mm-hmm. He is charmed by Bryce Dallas Howard. Enough to go to the ranger station and sneak some medicine from the cabinet while M. Night Shyamalan is like, You see, the thing is, the Walker family, they paid for no planes.

But they have all of the penicillin. Just in a thing. 80 jars of penicillin. There's a language that says penicillin. It's a village that says, like, penicillin do not take. Clearly at some point, one of the elders was like, just in case of emergency, have a fucking Comstock load of penicillin right here. We're never gonna come out and get it.

Here's something, though. Here's something. You need electricity. They don't have any electricity. Maybe that's the problem. Because you'd need, like, a generator rumbling away. What are you gonna say? Like, that's the machine. That's the noise maker. Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe you have a fridge in the woods, though.

I mean, come on. There are workarounds. Do fucking something. I don't know. Or you have an icebox. Yeah, assholes. Right? Just ice. I don't know. Just one igloo cooler stashed away properly, you know? You know, but all these questions, I think, when we were talking about the unsustainability

of this village, I are sort of getting, they're playing into M. Night's hands a little bit because this is a movie that's sort of about the fundamental unsustainability of a utopia. I mean, every work that's ever been written about a utopia, Thomas Moore on forward is sort of exploring the same idea. And it's meant to poke holes. It's meant to think, you know, when these kids grow up and Jesse Eisenberg becomes a little bit less of a pussy, like, how is he going to get out of this village? He's going to be like, oh, maybe we'll just, like,

try confronting one of these things. We've got a bunch of us together. Yeah, let's just club it. And, like, we'll beat the shit out of it, you know? Something's going to go wrong. Something's going to go wrong. And I agree, of course. Just poking at the logic of the movie

should not be enough to defeat the movie. The movie does... No, it's meant to encourage us to do that. That's part of the idea of the text of the film is to quote the immortal Nancy Meyers, something's got to give. Eventually, something's got to give. It's complicated.

Enough. The intern. The intern. The parent trap. I just want to... If you guys ever do a podcast on The Intern, I want in. I have suggested Nancy Meyers

as a possible blank check candidate. I think Nancy Meyers would be interesting. Yeah. My sister would ask to be guest on every episode. That's her favorite living film ever. I would think that you would want as many women involved in that as possible. Yeah. You want to be The Intern.

I enjoyed your writing about The Intern. Fuck The Intern. In the, I kind of like The Intern. I didn't see it. I didn't see it. Yeah, I know. It's bad. I was angry they didn't cast me.

Yeah, sure. They cast up all the interns in that movie. I know. And they cast some, I know. I was angry they didn't cast me. Yeah, sure. They cast a whole many interns in that movie. I know, and they cast some douchebags. Can I tell a quick... There's some fucking douchebags in The Intern. Let's be honest. I'm not gonna name who they are, but can I just tell a quick side story? Go for it. I auditioned for The Intern like four times.

Yeah. They kept on, every time I went in, they were like, here are three different roles we want you to read. Because there were like 20 young men in that film. And Nat Wolfe's character. Zach Perlman's character. The guy who replaced me on the thing I was fired from. It was like every young guy in that movie I auditioned for at least once.

And so I'd go and they'd be like, read these three. And I'd come in the next week and they'd go like, read these three. And then the fourth audition, I think, or the third was with Nancy Meyers. And I was like waiting outside and the sign in sheet was like I got there the sign in sheet was six current cast members of SNL

Colin Jost I think Pete Davidson wasn't on at that point they make people sign in this is what was crazy right so I was like she's making all these people audition and like they fucking they're on every week she knows whether she wants them or not you know whatever This is what was crazy, right? So I was like, she's making all these people audition, and they fucking, she, I guess.

They're busy. They're on every week. She knows whether she wants them or not, you know, whatever. But it was a huge cattle call, and it was all these big-ass people. And so I am waiting there, okay, whatever, getting a little intimidated by my competition, but it's also like, well, I know all of us are auditioning for eight different characters, so whatever. And the casting guy comes in, and he's like, hey, Griffin, you ready? I was like, yeah. Hey of us are auditioning for eight different characters so whatever and the casting guy

comes in and he's like hey Griffin you ready and I was like yeah hey how are you doing doing well how are you good good good and then he's standing

on the side of the door right about to open it up and goes great great really excited just so you know Nancy doesn't like shaking hands and he opens the door

and I make eye contact with her and I totally lose my mind that's terrible I blew the audition because I immediately was like, what do I do?

What do I do? Slap her in the face. And it's one of those things, yeah, I honestly like, I don't know I would have tried to. I was like,

rubbing my hands on my thighs like really aggressively. It looked like a nervous tick because I was like, don't move your hands at all. You didn't interpret that as like she loves big hugs.

You would have just like really gone into the kill. She wants a European like kiss on each cheek. You didn't interpret that as like she loves big hugs? Nancy come here! She wants a European kiss on each cheek. The handshake is not far enough for her. She wants a deep human feel. I think even the way he worded it was, she's not a handshaker. That's a great story. Let's get back to the movie.

It's this long thing. You can't tell me, I'm sorry Griffin, you can't tell me that anyone listening to this podcast, like hour three of talking about the goddamn village, wasn't interested in hearing about Griffin meeting Nancy Meyers. That's a good story. Gotta give him a little flavor. I'm here to keep things on track.

I know. Just like Katie Rich. I'm not going to read it, but we got an email about that today. Really? Yeah, you know what? You got an email about it? I want to address this quickly. I'm not going to get into it in a big way. Please don't.

But we got an email from a guy who previously emailed in some miniseries suggestions of filmmakers to cover. And he said like, hey, thanks for mentioning my email. You know, I hope you keep these things in mind. Also, if I could give one note, David, stop being so hard on Griffin. I just want to publicly say, we're best friends.

There's no problem here. We know the roles we fit into. I like provoking David. He's trying to get my goose. I try to get his goat. And when David says, like, shut up, I hate you, he doesn't actually hate me. I just don't want any of our listeners to actually feel uncomfortable or bad for anybody. Sometimes we got to get fucking moving.

That's literally, yeah. Gotta go. 100%. You got to go. That's the dynamic. Of course. Yeah. Guys, we're busy New Yorkers.

It's not a plan. We're like Nancy Meyers characters. We're Nancy Meyers characters. We've got kitchen to refurbish. that we can only talk about the village for three hours on a Thursday night. Yeah, and we can't shake hands. Okay, so M. Night,

reading the newspaper, death, death, death, murder, rape. Right. And then he's just like, yeah, a lot of crazy things. Hey, Jim, whatever you do, do me a favor.

Don't be difficult. I hate difficult things. Like that one time the Walker family said that no planes could fly over. It took months of organizing that. You had to call the FAA. You had to call Congress. And of course, he gives himself the signs alien

treatment by only showing his face in the reflection. And it's just like, dude, this whole thing would be so much less distracting if you were like, yes am the director you know who i am it's a real miscalculation because the audiences at that point are going fuck this movie already and then he shows up right post twist and also m night at this point is so well known that like this one makes 50 million dollars opening weekend like six the next. I want to briefly talk about it. It's box office awards.

But that was like $50 million off of his name. Like this is him making a film without Mel Gibson, without Bruce Willis. The advertising was very like vague,

you know? Of course, the poster is like the list. Joaquin was top bill, but he wasn't above the title. Bryce Osweiler is unknown. And Mike Chamon's

above the title. That's it. And so everyone knows who he is, but I also remember seeing this opening weekend and when you saw the corner of his face from behind, the audience went, oh. Everyone in the theater knew it was him. He was physically recognizable at this point.

It was something my teenage friends who didn't like movies would talk about. Maybe again, because there would never be another Indy guy in this film. But everyone immediately knew from a sliver of his face and the voice that it was like, fuck, here he is doing a victory lap and I want to punch him in the nuts.

Dev Patel? Oh no, Slumdog's not out for four years. Yeah, it wasn't six-year-old Dev Patel. But that's it. Yeah, that's the movie. I want to talk about the box office briefly, but is there anything else? He gets the penicillin, gives him back. She gets back. She gets back to town very quickly, seemingly.

Yeah, she just gets on a Segway back to town. Yeah, because William Hurt goes, it's going to be half a day's journey, and she seemingly gets back in like five minutes. You know, whatever. Well, she can run at superhuman speed. Yeah, it's kind of amazing that Joaquin doesn't bleed out or like get sepsis. It's crazy. Whatever.

Yeah, it's like a rusty knife. We don't know if he lives, right? I suppose we don't. I suppose that's fair. Yeah, we don't know. There's a shot. There is a hopeful sort of note. It's a dire end.

I mean, they're all going to stay there for at least a little while longer until something else terrible happens. And there's that shot of Celia Weston breaking down because they realize it's Noah is dead. Yeah. And so, yeah, that shot of Joaquin Phoenix's hospital bed, I guess. The elder standing around the body waiting for her to come back saying she's returned, she has the medicine. And she killed a monster.

It's Noah. Right. And they go, but she's given us a gift, an opportunity to keep this town going. Now, Smoking Gun got the script out early and it leaked and people leaked the twist. And how much is the Smoking Gun paying you for these links? This defunct website. I just bought the Smoking Gun for $5. Smoking gun is the

website that had the Bill O'Reilly loofah. Oh I will always be in debt to them. Yeah. That's what they're most famous for. But apparently like

stuff leaked out and then they were like no no no that's not accurate because we reshot. Right. And apparently it was the ending that's in the movie but they added

the scene at the end for reshoots like six months later with the elders standing around and they go like we'll keep it up and the movie ends on kind of an up note that takes attention away from the twist a little bit.

Because it's like now we just go back to normal. Like David said, it's kind of a, yeah, it's a quasi up note. They're going to stay there. Like, can this charade continue? But unfortunately, all the focus on the twist and how it's sort of, you know, the movie sort of hinges on it. Right. Completely takes away from any of the ideas that the movie could potentially have been about. Because it's all sort of about that tension being released

and then all of these things that you were left half thinking about in the final shot are things that could have been explored from the get-go and explored in a much greater capacity and depth and much further up M. Night Shyamalan's asshole than...

And we're just gonna keep on going we're just tunneling new ground up that asshole the moment I kind of like is there's the last shot of the wilderness guard

in his car with the ladder propped up on the side of it after he's clearly like let her back up over the wall just going like

what the fuck was that like you think about that guy going home that night and like sitting across the table from his wife or mom or whatever. Did I do the right thing?

His mom is like, you will not believe what happened at work today. She was wearing like this period gown. It was like a blind Ren Faire girl came out from a wilderness reserve. She had a pocket watch? I have it. She paid me in a gold watch and then

I just let her, I propped up a ladder and let her back over. Did I handle that situation correctly? I was told not to be difficult. I gave her a bunch of penicillin and then let her on her way to go back into the forest, where my job is just make sure no one goes into that forest. The most boring job. Yeah. I mean, what, does he just drive in circles all day?

He literally, he does one thing ever in his career. He goes to work every day for years. M. Night's really patriotic. He's like, it's an easy gig. Come on. Well, that's job two. Job one is go around in circles. Job two is don't be difficult.

Yeah, and handle M. Night. Don't be difficult. Okay, so that's the end of the movie. Box office opening weekend, 56 million? No, just 50 million. Let's play the game again. Can you do the top five? July 30th, 2004.

You're not going to get any. Okay, I'm not going to try to get order. Is Anchorman in the top five? No, it's number nine. Interesting. Spider-Man 2 still in the top five? Yes, number five. Okay, 2004. Alex Proyas movies in there. I, Robot had come out the week earlier. I, Rub It. I, Rub It.

Ehrlich, you had a guess? Oh, no. No, I was just going to say the words I, Robot had come out the week earlier. I, Rub It. I, Rub It. Ehrlich, you had a guess? Oh, no. I was just going to say the words I, Robot. Just to say them. Also, Gods of Egypt in theaters this Friday. Yeah, I'm going to go see it in a second. Are you really? Yeah. Okay, so I, Rub It. A quasi-good remake

from a great director. Manchurian Candidate. Manchurian Candidate. I. Manchurian Candidate, I Rub It, The Village, Spider-Man 2. Yeah, and it's just another

big action movie. It's a good one. 2004? It wasn't born supremacy? Yeah, born supremacy. That's it. I got all five of them. You've got Catwoman's in there.

Where is it? Number eight? Number six. Wow. It collected 29 million in its two weeks. Cinderella Story is in there. Hilary Duff?

By Bryce's dad. No. Oh, yeah. No. Right. I meant Cinderella Man. Not Cinderella Man. Sorry.

Yeah. Fahrenheit 9-11's in there. Docbuster. Thunderbirds debuts at number 11. Jonathan Frakes' Thunderbirds. Oh, no. Do you guys remember who starred in Thunderbirds? No.

Brady Corbett. Wow. Is the young lead of Thunderbirds. How his fates who starred in Thunderbirds? No. Brady Corbett. Wow. Is the young lead of Thunderbirds. How his fates have changed. And Garden State opens in nine theaters to $200,000, number 30. Hey, David, watch this movie. It'll change your life. Oh, boy.

And then, yeah, the next week it dropped 68%. I gave to that $200,000. I think I gave to both of these totals. Yeah, me too. I saw Garden State at the AMC 25 on opening weekend. Boom. Yeah. I saw it at the Odeon West End.

In 2004, I was in college. Jesus Christ. I was about to enter college. Yeah. I was entering my sophomore year of high school. But so in the discussion of Shyamalan, and we're wrapping up, but like, you know, this is it for him. This is, this is, everything goes down the line.

Critics are angry. Yeah. Angrier than they need be. Audiences are irate. And let's say- Audiences are angry. Basic rule of thumb is like, your movie usually does, I mean, it's gotten a little lower now. Now it's maybe like 2.5, but your movie usually does like three times your opening weekend.

Right. Right? Right. Right. And if you're really successful, you do more than that. Like Sixth Sense did like 20 times its opening weekend. You know? And Signs also did like more than four times its opening weekend. Right. Right. Right. And if you're really successful, you do more than that. Like Sixth Sense did like 20 times its opening weekend. Sure. And Signs also did like more than four times its opening weekend. This

like doubles its opening weekend. It ends with 114. Yeah. Which is not bad. But it doubles it's more than doubles its domestic take internationally. Does really well overseas. Everyone's happy. It made everyone a lot of money. Everyone who didn't have to watch the movie

yeah it was involved in making M. Night got over 10 million dollars for doing it I don't know what the math behind this is

but he was paid like 7.5 for the rights to the story like was paid 7.5 for the pitch was only paid 300,000 dollars for the script

and worked as a director for scale also for only 300,000 dollars but got 3 million as a producer you really studied that spreadsheet. He didn't have points for the back end?

I don't know if he did. Because if I were M. Night, that would be where... He has a production company at this point. I'm sure he, if he did, I'm sure he cleared upwards of 20. Oh, yeah. This is his fourth movie with Disney in a row. Yes. It just felt like a weird, like, is that a tax thing?

Where it's like, I'm going to get a lot of money for the pitch and for the producing, but then the two things I really do, writer, director, I'm working scale. Who knows? I don't know. Interesting. We'll dig into that in future episodes. No, we won't. This is the last point.

And this is the last time he tries to make a twist movie. Everyone's angry. They go, fuck you and your twist. Right, and he never makes a twist movie. I mean, last year. Well, The Visit is a twist movie. The Visit is definitely a twist movie. Does it have a twist? Well, The Visit is a twist movie. The Visit is definitely a twist movie. Does it have a twist?

Oh, yeah, but we're not going to talk about it. Okay, I haven't seen it yet. I'm really excited. That's the one I'm saving. The Happening is not a twist movie per se,

but I guess there's an unusual explanation for what's going on. Guys, end this, please. Shut up, Ben. Ladies and gentlemen, that's Ben Hasek,

the producer, Ben, aka the Ben Ducer, aka the- Did you like the movie, Ben? That was alarming to me. I've never had anyone speak into headphones before. I was like, God. Ben, did you watch the movie?

Yes, I watched the movie. You didn't like it? I hated it. Oh, wow. Right? It's fucking stupid. It's a bunch of people LARPing. This is our first late night recording.

Yeah, I think that's why i've been sort of guiding us to like let's go home time guys it's 4 a.m right now and you got to make a 5 a.m screening of gods of egypt i hear it's at least like stupid like i'm excited you know like funny i think that there's no doubt that it's stupid no but i mean i was worried it'd be like pretentious and boring and like you know self- I hear it's not. I did hear it has some twists in it. They're apparently making critics sign non-disclosure agreements. Well, they wouldn't let me bring a plus one to the screening, so I'm just fucking seeing it Thursday night after talking to you guys.

Spoiler alert, I heard there's a spaceship in it. Okay, I'm excited. Yeah, I'll go see it for that reason alone. You want to come now? No, I'm not going to see that movie. I'm semi-attempted, but I also... You're literally just going to go to a public screening. I this sometimes if i if i can't be bothered to go to the critic screening i'll just see it thursday night i'm not surprised that you were deigning

to see a movie no it's because i have to review it yeah i mean otherwise i go see it some other time but and also my brother works late so we he'll he'll come join me and we we catch a 10 p.m screening it's fun joey sims yeah once i told you about In the Heart of the Sea, right? Yeah. When we went to see it at the Regal RPX in Court Street where you could choose your seats. He had already

bought his ticket. I bought a ticket. The map comes up. One seat is filled in. I take the one next to him. We get to the theater and it's an empty theater and we're like,

okay, okay. We walk to our assigned seats. No one else enters the theater. Halfway through the movie, a homeless man has been sleeping in the back, gets up and runs out. It was the most exciting part of the movie. That's why that homeless man ran out. David?

Yeah. I give you 50 comedy points for going to your assigned seat. That's a good bet. See, you had a Nancy Meyers story. I had my In the Heart of the Sea story. Ehrlich, do you want a grab bag story? You got one grab bag story? Jesus.

No. I don't think so. I do want to hear about whatever you got fired from and all the people you hate from the intern. But we can do that all fair. Oh, we'll talk about that another time. We'll talk about that. Let's say this.

I want all the listeners to know, especially the ones that were potentially interested in hearing those things, that we did talk about them afterwards and they didn't get to hear it. It's the best thing about podcasts when people are like, we'll discuss that off, Mike.

And you're like, bonus content. What's your favorite Shyamalan movie, Erlich? Favorite? Yeah. I know you. You think favorite

and best are the same thing. I do. I didn't mean like favorite, stressing away from best, but just that I was so hard pressed to like one of them enough to single it out. But, you know, probably Unbreakable and the first half of The Village.

The movie The Village could have been and Unbreakable, but I don't really need any of these movies in my life. I think the direction in Unbreakable is very smart. I agree. It's my favorite one. Is this your favorite, David? Definitely. Wow. And I haven't even seen all the ones we're going to do. My favorite M. Night Shyamalan project is the episode of Entourage where his script gets stolen and

Ari's freaking out. That's a good episode. M. Night's really good. Oh god, Entourage is so good at jerking off its guest stars where it's just like, M. Night Shyamalan everybody please let's take a second. The biggest director was so good at jerking off its guest stars. Where it's just like, M. Night Shyamalan, everybody, please. Let's take a second. She's the biggest director in Hollywood. God.

Remember when they acted like- Emily Ratajkowski. I love Anna Faris, but Entourage had a whole season about Anna Faris' career decision. Those are the only five or six episodes I've watched in their entirety. Because at that point in time, I was an Anna Faris completist. You were a big Anna Faris fan. I wanted to have seen every work she had done. I've seen most of them.

I don't watch Mom. Mom's actually, okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to this podcast. David Ehrlich, thank you for coming and being our guest.

This is a surreal pleasure. Aww. As always, please rate, review, subscribe our podcast, but also our cousin, sister,

brother podcast on the UCB Comedy Network. Yeah. Which now has some new thing on iTunes. I don't know. Yeah, no, it's exciting. Yeah, Ben. What's up?

Ben, we forgot to mention The Buried Secret. We're going to talk about The Buried Secret. Don't worry. We'll talk about The Buried Secret. M. Night Shyamalan, at the time of this film, commissioned a documentary filmmaker, an Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker, to make a film called The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan. And air it on the Syfy channel or something? Yes, and it was supposed to be an unauthorized,

probing look into M. Night Shyamalan, asking the question, is he himself supernatural? Right, but it was all just scripted nonsense. Have you heard of this thing, Ehrlich? I remember it at the time. Here comes the twist. They leaked things to page six to be like, M. Night was suing, he doesn't want to air. The twist to page six to be like, M. Night Shyamalan was suing. Tell them the twist.

The twist is, The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan is the first ever screen credit of one Griffin Newman. Wow. I have never seen it. Did you play M. Night Shyamalan? I played a kid who loves M. Night

Shyamalan. Wait, so this is ostensibly a documentary. It's a mockumentary, but it's presenting itself as a documentary. I'd sound like 80 pages of non-disclosure stuff, because they were like, we're going to leak this out, and we're going to pretend, he's going to pretend to sue us that he doesn't want it released. It's all part of the village

marketing campaign. It's like tongue-in-cheek. But they took it seriously, because he took everything about himself very seriously. Was this the same project that was like, we are going to explode, like the secret childhood of M. Night Shyamalan? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of this.

Yes. We're going to do a bonus episode about this. We're going to do a bonus episode about it. I have never seen it. I believe my role was largely... They told me at the time it was cut out, and then I saw someone else on IMDb credited as what I was ostensibly playing in the movie. Okay, so maybe you're not in the movie.

Well, no, I'm credited as teenage fan number four. Okay. I believe I don't speak and appear somewhere in the background riding a bicycle, but I got to miss a day of school to do it. Cool. I got paid a couple hundred dollars, and I got stories to tell. Launched me on this horrible, horrible career. Yeah, I think that I... No, I got it later after that.

Okay. Yeah. But we'll talk about that. We'll do a bonus episode about that. But. And there's also a book that he had commissioned about the making of Lady in the Water. Well, we'll talk about that next week. Yeah, but those are going to be bonus content.

We got some bonus episodes planned. All right. Maybe one big bonus episode. Yeah, just one. Erlich, thank you for being here. Anything you want to plug in particular? Where? Where to begin?

I don't know. Follow me on Twitter. He's funny on Twitter. Really funny on Twitter. And a bit of a rebel rouser. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes in a while.

Gets in trouble on Fox News. Stirs up that shit. And also, I believe Carol comes out on Blu-ray. In March sometime, yeah. Yeah. David's favorite movie.

Please watch Carol if you haven't already. We talked about it a lot last week. Carol's great. I want to remind people, as always, that you can sign my petition to join the cast of Fast 8

at bit.ly backslash FastGriffFurious. Rolls off the tongue. I'm very serious about this. I know. And I am not giving up anytime soon. Any news? Things are moving. Okay. I got some other stuff going on. It's like me mid-morning. Is Nancy Meyers directing that one?

Yes, she is. That she might be in trouble. That would be great. I'm currently trying to get other jobs to leverage to then get them to cast me in Fast and Furious. I don't know. Whatever. I'm going to get cast in Fast and Furious. I'm committed to it more than nothing else. Griffin, I'm very excited for you. Great.

Thank you for listening. Please subscribe, rate, and as always, just... Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I should... You know, after all the shit that I've given Katie Rich on the show... This is a twist. What a twist.

I should plug my podcast, which is just about movies. It's called Fighting in the War Room. It's a great podcast. It's on iTunes. Yeah, friends of the show. Friends of the show. I've been listening for years. My guess, I would never listen to the show, but I'm guessing that there are people who

have been on it in previous weeks who have plugged the same podcast. So collect them all. Yeah, collect them all. Fighting in the War Room. That's what we're trying to do. Fighting in the War Room. It's great. David, thank you for that late-breaking twist.

Yep. And as always, just don't be difficult. Don't be difficult. This has been a UCB comedy production check out our other shows on the UCB comedy podcast network