Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Way Back with Alex Ross Perry

Episode Date: June 7, 2026

We're talking about a very long walk this week as Alex Ross Perry joins us to discuss Peter Weir's final film, 2010's gulag escape drama The Way Back. Remember those couple of years when Jim Sturgess was everywhere? Remember when Peter Weir could barely get distribution for his follow-up to Master & Commander? Dire times. As is the case with most ARP episodes, expect some wild takes about everything from the Coen brothers to World War II movies, plus a very detailed rundown of the National Geographic Films slate. Check out Videoheaven on the Criterion Channel Buy some Pavements Merch / Blu-Ray Listen to Critical Darlings discuss Train Dreams Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2023, four men walked into the blank check offices to record a podcast. They had survived a three-hour and 28-minute record on Fight Club. This episode is dedicated to them. So is this a tagline? No, this is the title card that opens the film. Okay, okay. You didn't want to do the tagline I found? I can do that as well.

I think it sucks. Yeah, go ahead. their podcast was just the beginning. Indeed. Their escape was just the beginning. But how about this tagline? Every loss is another fight. So every loss is another podcast.

Every podcast is another fight. Yeah, I mean, that's sort of true. That's one battle after another, if you know what I'm saying. That's the tagline for the film The Way Back. Oh, sure. With Ben Affleck. I was going to make... Okay, so what was your...

I was going to say it's really weird that Peter Weir came out of retirement to make this high school basketball movie. It wouldn't be that weird of him. Sounds like a good movie. My bit was going to be... It's weird that Peter Ware made this, like, 80s throwback water park movie. Okay, right. All right, so that's what I was about to do, the of my other tag. So I had a two-stage bit, which was going to be one.

Just let's get this out of the way. We all agree this is Ben Affleck's best performance, right? You could do that. Then I was going to pretend I had watched the wrong movie. Then I was going to say, no, of course I'm joking. It is surprising that Peter Weir came out of retirement to make an 80s water park movie, though. Well, or, I mean, you could say, we're talking about the way, way back at this point. Right.

That's a different film. Not a sequel to this movie. Right, but you could argue like, yeah, it's funny. I did not anticipate the sequel being about, you know, you get it. They came out pretty close together. Did they not? The way, way back is 2013, and it's got a great tagline. I really want you to hear it.

I can't wait to hear it. My ears are open. We've all been there. It's just like people just walking into the theater and just like collapsing into a coma reading that tagline. Yeah, brother. I remember. We've all been there.

I remember thinking. Way, way back. Which is sitting in the back of a car. Okay. Read the cast of the way way back. I'm about... Alex, sometimes you and I are just... I was like, I have to read this cast aloud.

Steve Carell. Tony Colette. Rooster himself? Is that the show? The new show? I don't want to get better. We just completed rewatching the Pacific, and every time we started an episode,

there was an ad for Rooster, and it became every time I would go, Oh, it's Rooster. I've been HBO MacG. I've been HBO Mackey. And it feels like they drop a rooster at every mid-sentence, every line of dialogue. The utter sickness of, like, Bill Lawrence, who obviously has contributed good things to our society. But now it's just like, do I want to do another show?

And he's like, sure, is the guy, I don't know, he's got to learn a lesson or something. Where's my money? You know, like, we'll cast a really famous guy in the role. David, you're forgetting something. Tell me. A, rooster is like the biggest hit show HBO Max has had in like five years. It is not. They have claimed as much.

They had the Night of the Seven Kingdom. They've said it is their biggest premiere. Sure, fine. In years. Biggest premiere starring Steve Carell set in a university or whatever. The title named after Fowl. Yeah. Right.

This is our biggest chicken-related, poultry-related drama. Way, way, way back. The other thing you have to remember is it was an incredible chess move against having to lead the Scrubs reboot. Oh, so right. He's not. Is he just collecting a check on the Scrubs reboot? I mean, he must say. He blessed it.

Yeah, he came in and threw a football. for a day. David, David, can't do it. Terrible news. He's stuck in an overall deal with Warner Brothers. Oh no.

He wishes he could run scrubs. It feels like a normal writer's room. A very flesh and blood writer's room. You know what I mean? Humans. Air brought in and out of the lungs

in that writer's room by all the participants. The people who are giving notes are people and not cybernetic partners of humans. Steve Carl, Tony Colleen.

A little Miss Sunshine so far. Allison Janie, wow. She's she not a movie. She's great in that movie. She would have made my five that year. Okay, that's insane. That's the one she should have won the Oscar. Anna Sophia Robb? Yeah, we love her.

Was she Carrie? She was young Carrie. She wrote the diaries. Sam Rockwell, he's being a jerk, right? Or is he nice? No, he's nice. Oh, it's Corel who's a jerk? Yeah, Correll first build is weird outside of his star power.

He's star. Sam Rockwell is like Bill Murray and Meatballs, where it's like this guy's too cool for school and then he takes the sad kid under his wing and he's like i'm actually sensitive to cool you know he's the mentor sounds like a loser my rudolph my rudolph is his wife or long-term partner great rob cordry the the tail end of cordy being like sneak me onto the poster yeah i can get on there i think cordy and amanda's hospital still are their parents fun friends amanda pete amanda pete rudely below rob cordy yeah and then and leiam james is that the kid yes i mean i'm dashing to the We've all been there.

This is a coming of age movie with only adults in it. And Leon James. And Anna Sophia Rob. But that's two children. No, but I know. The overwhelming amount of like, look, there's guys from gentle sun dancey comedies of other years. Wasn't this a giant Sundance movie?

It was. It was a big purchase. Like 20 million sale, two million girls kind of thing. Oh, yeah. It wasn't quite a full happy Texas, but it was maybe a 10 and a five. Let's find out. Let's find out. I'm guessing it was a 10 and a five.

Do you think anyone today other than people, watching the skies at that time remember Happy Texas? You know, Happy Texas is only remembered because of the Sunday... It's not even like, I feel like now people like Hamlet too. Sometimes people are like secretly a good movie. But I feel like Happy Texas only comes up in this direct... I don't think it's like on stream it. I was going to...

It feels a little lost. Happy Texas, I remember liking. It's like perfectly good movie. And I remember my brother and I being at like the video store, couch potato video across the street, my brother Jamesie and I being like, what's this? And my dad's like, happy Texas, that's like the most expensive Sundance buy of all time. It flamed out. And we were like, interesting.

Watched it like four years after its irrelevancy and liked it. Critical Darling's podcast under the Blinkcheck Productions banner that I've been executive producing did an episode on train dreams and the history of like Sundance movies at the Oscars, especially as it's now like the original form of. Sundance has now come to an end. And I was just eagerly typing in the notes, bring up Happy Texas. Happy Texas must be discussed. You must go through the process of explaining happy Texas to Ben Frisch. It is important that it exists as a cultural reference point forever.

We cannot let it slide into a blue. I need to correct the record on the way, way back. Okay. Fox Searchlight purchased it for $10 million at Sundance, which was a lot. Like, that was a big deal. But it made $21.5 million dollars north of the money. domestically? Domestic. And an additional five world, you know, it doubled the investment.

That's a lot more than the way back, man. They snuck it, I guess because they had an extra way. So that's, but I mean, like, do we agree that if we're rank, wanking, if we're ranking way backs? Yeah. Affleck, I would put one and way way is a solid third or are we putting Peter Weir in third? I would not. I like the way way. But fair enough. Now, if you were wanking, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, You're wanking. What's your order? These are three films that are not really going for eroticism. If you had to Weiwei or watch Richard E. Grant's Wawa, which would you prefer? Wayway or Wawa? Look, Wei Wei is Timu Adventureland, but I like Adventureland so much.

I'll settle for off-brand adventure land. I struggled with this movie a bit. I think it is very well made. I'm not like... I meant to... Did you just say fuck? Yeah, I meant to put the sound all the way up, the game, so that it just, the whole episode sounded blown out and just like really harsh and hard to listen to. Good, good.

So that it mirrors the movie. Yes. Oh, sure. Yeah, okay. Yes. And then should our faces, like, kind of crinkle and get all dried up and our lips get all, like, chapped and fucked up? If we want to get an Oscar nomination, sure. Best makeup.

This movie is only major. I'm going to have to confiscate all of the liquids. Yeah. No one's drinking. I watched on the Blu-ray. There was a featurette. There was like a 30-minute making of with all the actors. And Ed Harris has the most blown-out audio I have ever heard.

It sounds like he was recording in the middle of a tornado. It is insane because you're watching and you're like, oh, I guess they must have done this one over Zoom or something. And then you're like, no, it was 2010. It's crazy. What's the excuse? You're talking in the special feature. Making of.

I'm talking making up. Ben's talking about the movie. Yeah. The movie itself, yeah, also bad. Yeah. So maybe it was the same sound guy, same sound department. They were filming in pretty harsh conditions. It's a windy movie.

Yeah, sure. You don't have to fuck with windscreens in here. It would be funny if they all had windscreens. Yeah. This is a windscreen. No, no, I mean, in the movie. Oh, sure. Oh, sure.

Like Colin Farrell's like, I'll knife you when he's holding up a windscreen. It's not funny if they were all, like, holding up loaves between their fingers, even though the clip is the part that's supposed to go on your shirt. But they were doing, like, the TikToker thing. That's what the TikTokers do. That's what the TikTokers do. You know who doesn't know about TikTokers? The characters of the way.

back. Yeah. Here's, here's, an immediate, that was, that was deft. An immediate reveal of how little I had ever engaged with this movie until watching it last night, like seriously engaged. It starts. And like, from that first title card, I was like, oh, this movie isn't about Irish people? I just assumed you got Colin Farrell.

Because Colin and Surcher involved. And I'm like, Sturgis swings Irish a lot. I know he's actually British, but I feel like he plays Irish a lot. He's definitely played Irish, I think. Right. And I'm like, Ed Harris could play Irish. I was so confident this was a moment. this was a movie about like the fucking potato famine or something.

It is one of those movies with a poster you're like, I don't know, it looks like these guys are having a bad time doing something. You know, like, I don't know what. My full level of engagement with this movie is these characters are struggling. These actors on the poster are struggling in some way and I think they're walking a lot. That has the same game that sometimes we do a movie like, not this, but bigger ones. Like, you could say to like somebody, before they watch the year of living dangerously, what do you think this movie's about?

Yes. And it's one of those things where people are like, I don't know. I've heard of this title forever. Right. You know, maybe it's about like alcoholic relationship of people that really, you know, it's Days of Wine and Roses kind of thing. Or it could be like, yes, man. It's like he does one year living really dangerously.

He says the most, he says the most dangerous way of doing everything. Sometimes we throw that out as a challenge when we're watching something. Like famously at home, Anna had never seen Rain Man. And before we started it, this was years ago, I said, what do you think this movie's about? She said, it's about like a guy who's like a savon at gambling and he makes it rain in Las Vegas because all she'd ever seen was the shot in the casino. And I was like, that's what you think this entire movie is about. This is like a gambling 21 to bring. And that's why it's when Rain Man.

It is. Okay, so she thought it was like 21, like a guy who fixes gambling. I was looking at the timeline because. social network comes out the same year as this movie? 2010, sure, yes. Andrew Garfield just fucking blew Jim Sturgis to the black wall. I was, yeah, like, who market corrected Jim Sturgis? Like, I was looking at that too.

I was like... He was really, they were pushing him hard, and then I felt like he completely slipped into oblivion, and watching it, I was just like, oh, this brand of like intense sensitivity in the face of adversity became... you know, like one Andrew Garfield's superpowers. I neglected to look up Jim Sturgis so that we can have the fun of... We'll have a look at Jim. Because it is a... Like, my wife was like, who's that?

You know, because it's like, Colin Farrell. Whoa, Searser wrote into this and she's like, and who's that? And I'm like, Jim Sturgis, but I might as well just be going like... It's just like the name of a handsome sounding guy. But like four years was a thing. Are we going to say he was... Across the universe? No, we're going to do his career.

I'm arguing, like, was he ever a thing? Hollywood was trying to make him a thing There was a thought that he could be a thing I think Hollywood was acting like he already was a thing But that's what they do all the time And sometimes it works Yeah And sometimes it's the Colin Farrell thing

Where people are like We sort of agreed that he was a thing But you're trying a little too hard to make him a thing Put him away Yeah And then after a few years they're like Yeah, let's get it back Let's get good open up the box

Where Colin go I mean we'll do it But it's so funny to actually go through The Colin Farrell filmography Item by item because you think of it in your mind as like, oh, and then he totally bottomed out, and then he had a clean comeback, and then he bottomed out. It's always up and down.

He never stops working, but it's always like a good choice, a bad choice, two good choices, three bad choices. Yeah. Feels like someone paying the bills. I think if he had been, if Colin Farrell here in this movie, five years earlier or five years later, people would have really lined up for him. Yeah. Yeah?

Like earlier, it's like, man, this guy can do anything. And later it would be like, Colin Farrell is, like, always kind of good. And, like, it's cool that he's in this big, auteur movie in a small part. We love Colin Farrell. He's fantastic. But at this point, people were kind of like,

that's enough of this guy. Yeah, also, it's like five years earlier he would have been the Jim Sturgis part. He would have been legitimate. Colin being in this movie was so excited to David Sims. Yeah. So exciting. You didn't see it for 14 years.

But this is what I'm saying. It's like, Peter Weir is making his follow up to Master and Grandin. I'm like, sounds good. And they're like, it's like a true story drama about, And I'm like, okay, sounds fine. But Colin Farrell's in it. I was like, I love that. He's got the and.

He's got the right. He's got the sort of plum supporting role. Peter was letting you do a character actor. And then the film came out and everyone was like, uh, it's okay. Sort of handsome. And I was like, oh, and then it was gone, like from theaters. And I was like, okay.

Well, I guess I missed it. Yeah. I guess I'll wait for Peter Weir's next movie. Never. Still waiting. I have very clear memory of trying to see this at Union Square and just not getting around to it. Like you were like walking around the hallways and there's just like back in the back at that time like you would just you would just write down you just write down showtimes and be like yeah yeah this week I could go see it and I just I just remember Post-it note Union Square the way back you know like I can Memento style I could go see that like this week or next week because I really want to go see it yes didn't happen never happen I saw it years ago but you didn't see it years after that well I assume you saw as part of one of your sort of projects yeah

We can talk about that, but we should first say what the podcast is. Project are watching good movies. Of course. The Eternal Project, we're all part of. What's the podcast? This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

You almost just fell for it. You started looking at an email. You almost missed the queue. I almost did. You were like three seconds slow. Someone actually texted me, who do you think will win Blank Check March Madness? The Parvindate this episode record.

Right. And I was like, ooh. And I had a little, my brain did the little thought. I should vote while you guys are off on some tangent. Who texted? you and how are you going to answer? Ellen Cushing, host of Hits Different. You're a secret podcast.

It's not a secret. I want everyone to listen to it. But I said, I'm still thinking it's going to be Marty, Tony. And I think I'd bet Tony, but very soft. Like, I put a flutter down, like a $10 on Tony. Like, I'm not feeling too secure. Also, much like Wes Anderson movies often have one burst of a static violence. Yeah.

Right. Perhaps he just shanks Tony Scott It would be funny if we're like Oh Tony's a juggernaut And then right Like he gets blown in half By Wes Anderson in a very artful way But no I think that would be my guess

I mean what's your guess Is it for Carmen dating the episode now I feel like it's swinging Tony But maybe I'm very wrong about this I'm just making the Tony guess on the We've already said the sort of like Well there's just the mildest backlash To Marty the juggernaut

And so maybe Tony benefits Don't tell me who I'm going to vote for. I don't really know. Yeah. I can't keep getting the brains of these crazy people. They voted for Chris fucking Columbus over Oliver Stone. I was going to tee you up for that.

You can't predict anything. And I think he's going to sneak by whoever he's up against today. Gus Van San, right? That was a war crime to watch. Speaking of sending to the gulag like 5,000 gulag seats needed for people that looked at the last 10 years of Columbus and we're like, that would be. I voted for Chris Columbus. Yeah, I really want them to cover pixels and Christmas Chronicles two, but not one. A Pixels episode would go fairly hard.

Christmas Chronicles would be a nightmare. There's a couple of... And the fucking Thursday murder club. Oh, yeah, Jesus. Yeah, the Netflix run is really bad. But, I mean, Chris Columbus is currently like a folding Gus Van Sant, like one of his flannel shirts, right? Here's the insane thing to me. He's edging by.

Obviously, my support of you guys doing Oliver Stone needs no. introduction at this point. Here's the insane thing about people voting for Chris Columbus. You'd have to keep covering his movies. It is true that we would be setting up. Don't they realize that this guy makes a Netflix piece of shit every two years?

I'm happy to report this. I'm not, I wish him no ill will. He seems very healthy. He does. Like, I'm not looking at Chris Columbus being like this guy's near retirement. He seems like he's in great shape. He's got four decades of bullshit less.

But he could honestly, like, you know, he could, there's no bottom to what he could end up making next. Now, I want to share with you, Alex. ledger, oh yeah. JJ, JJ in our group thread, our researcher, was saying he secretly wants

Columbus to win. In fact, he prefaced it with, I'm keeping quiet about this. So it's really, it's a kindness of us to sure it on life. So that he can have several months off because you guys would cover someone, no one writes about or gives a fuck about it. Right.

His dossiers would be like one page. Be like, yeah. Pixels was released on this date. Christmas Chronicles 2. Based on a dumb idea, Adam Sandler. He figured out the way to like Biala stop his job. Yeah, this movie had one. public screening. It was like the Family Heartland

Gala at the Nebraska Film Festival. Columbus did one interview for it. Here it is. It won the Family Heart Ganga. It won like the Dove Family Gentleness Award. Chris Columbus has made three of the most successful films ever made in the history of Hollywood.

We're saying Home Alone. Home Alone, Mrs. Dalfair and Harry fucking Potter. Sure. But two Harry Potter's, two Home Alone's Mrs. Dalfair. Exactly. The sequels, which are less exciting. But five of the highest grossing films in history. I love you, Beth Cooper made a Bill 5, right?

It did, but that's the rust bump. We can't give that thing. Yeah, we can have rust on that episode. We could. I have no idea how he feels about that movie. I think he probably wants to do Percy Jackson instead. This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success are really on in their careers

and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want, and sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they walk a really fucking long way. This movie should be called the long walk, right? I assume they couldn't be. because of the fucking Stephen King book? I assume so.

Obviously, it is based on a book called The Long Walk. So it's interesting that they did not. But yeah, maybe they were worried they would come off as an adaptation of a Stephen King story. Call it the longest walk or something. I'm like, the way back tells me nothing. And this movie starts and I'm like, oh, the premises they have to walk. They're also not going back anywhere. They're not.

None of them have been before. That is true. I don't, I think this is like a fairly good movie. I think it's fairly well done. It's well made. I think the answer to all of our questions is like, don't make this movie, make something else. Just make something else.

Who are you talking to in this scenario? Like, or I'm just like, you know, if this is going to be your last thing and you're going to put a lot of effort into it, I think you should do something else? But do you think he called this was his last thing. And here's a theory I want to put forward. Do we think, you know,

Ethan Hawke gave this interview recently because this is a mini series on the films of Peter Weir. It's called Podnick and Hanging Kastner. Our guest today, of course, is Alex Ross Perry. Returning after my banishment has been We're gonna pin in this Pin in this. I have some news In this what? This is his 10th episode.

Is that right? Of main feed. Wow. Of main feed Unless I'm wrong about something. I'm gonna read them out now. And I brought gifts for you guys. Can I try to guess them? Sure. Fuck. You want to go in order? I forgot to wear my hollow man hat today. I was going to do that to memorialize your run. Okay. So it starts with

Insomnia. It starts with insomnia, which I rewatched recently. Good movie. Yeah. Because my insomnia has been out of control and I was like, it's time to check him

with Detective Dorm. Let me sleep. Garbage bags. The garbage scene is in the Scars Guard version. Yeah. Like, when I rewatch the original, like, insomnia,

because it's on criteria. I bought it at some point. And just announced as a new deluxe second site, for kit package. That's okay. I'm fine with my criteria in Blu-ray.

But, like, where's there's a scene where Scars Guard's, like, picking up garbage. I'm like, wow, this is just, all in the original. Like, anyway.

I do think the Nolan's better. I agree. I haven't, yes, it is definitely better. Skers, Scores really good in it. Insomnia. Then it's, is it Hollow Man and then the Keep? Hollow Man and then. Taking Woodstock.

There you go. Taking Woodstock. Those are the ones I remember doing at Audio Boom. Those are the first four in studio. The fifth was a remote episode. And that was always when it was, can I pick the least relevant film? Which I have done, again, I argue. We've come back.

around to it because then when we get onto Zoom, it swings into... Well, lucky numbers was irrelevant. Oh, you're right. So that was fifth. That's the end of the irrelevancy. That's a Ben's landlord who bought the tape and kept it sealed. But is irrelevant to most people? We still have it here in the office.

Yeah. On DVD and VHS. Yeah. Well, I brought the DVD and then Ben brought the tape. And then it swings around to four of the most important movies in your history as a person. So then it's Halloween. Right? Halloween?

Correct. Into Fight Club. Nope. You're missing one. Bit of a contentious episode. Now, I have to think of what we did at Ben's house. Clockwork Orange. Correct.

And so the Halloween and Clockwork Orange, those were at Ben's place. Sure. And then the most recent two, he did. I think Clark Rocker Orange was here. Nope. No. It was at Ben's house. It was a drove you home after.

Okay. That must have been a fun ride home. I have referenced this on the podcast before. It was. You worked it out. We didn't have to work out of it. Everything was in me was fine. Everyone on this Reddit is always like, Jesus, you could cut the tension in the

right. In the drive, we analyzed the career of McCauley Calkins. Yeah, perfect. While David blasted the prodigy and said I listen to this song every day. So I wasn't like Alex, it was really fucked up in there. I'm really mad at you. Like, there was no atmosphere. David was like.

Except in the room when I was like, Jesus Christ. You see when MC Max in reality entered into this particular phase of his rhymes. But wait, there was one after Fight Club, right? Correct. His most recent. Elephant man. So that's nine. And this is 10.

and you are back to maybe the less relevant episode. Perhaps, perhaps. But I've also never done the last movie. You've never done the last film. Never been here for a ranking. Oh, that's right. Although we're going to have to fit our ranking and record it later. Yeah, because you haven't watched all the movies.

I haven't, I mean, I've seen all the movies. But I haven't rewatched Year of Living Dangerously yet. I've only seen that film once. I've never seen that, and I've only seen Master and Commander once, so I desperately need to rewatch before I rank. I have a feeling that Master and Commander might be. number one on my list, not to spoil. Interesting.

You guys haven't done those episodes yet. Those are the two we haven't done. Correct. Were either of you present at Lincoln Center for the Peter Weir retrospective around when this movie came out? No. He was there. He came.

He made it weird? A week of Q&A's. Yeah, that's what it was called. Yeah. But it was centered around this. I believe so. I could be wrong. In my mind, it was 2010.

So I think it was sort of in conjunction with this movie. If you was doing a retroactive. I mean, that makes sense. Yes, it was January 2011. Which is when this... I mean, it was when this is probably going wide. This film came out... Oh, no, I didn't mean...

Isn't it early 2011? Came out early 2011. Yeah. So it was... So it has a qualifying run in 2010. Gets nominated. No, it didn't have... No, wait.

I think it's a festival, 2010. It's a festival 2010. It's a festival 2010. It's a proper theatrical 2011. Right? Because it loses to the wolfman for makeup. Okay. Yes.

And that's the, no, that is the 20. So it must have had some, like, pathetic qualifying. It must have a pathetic piece of shit qualifying run. I mean, truly, it, yes, Griffin. December 29th, 2010, Los Angeles, California. Like, they don't even allow that at the Oscars anymore. They're kind of like, what? We coughed it onto theaters for, like, one day on, like, New Year's Eve.

I mean, this was an image and new market. Yeah. It was. Yeah. So, but it came out, uh, and it's not. Not even wide, but like sort of 600 screens January 2011. So neither one of you would, you were not present at this retrospect. It was great.

No, I didn't have any money. It was, well, I mean, you can go see a movie. No, right. You're forgetting, Alex, it did infinitely cost $1 million a ticket for the Peter Weir retrospect. It was great, but he was there for almost all the Q&As. Yeah. I saw him do a Q&A at a double feature of, you're of living dangerously, and the mosquito coast. That's cool.

And then I think he just gave like a talk. I think there was like a 90-minute, like, discussion. some other day. His muggyest movies. Um, yeah. Those are the two most kind of like, damp aired films that he made.

I had already liked those movies, but seeing them at Walter Reed on film with him. It was like, man, these are the best. Like, this guy's, you know, I saw Gallipoli there. I saw a bunch of movies because I was kind of filling in the gap. Sure. And it was, uh, really, a really successful series for me.

I mean, he's, this has been a successful series for us. He's made really interesting great movies, some of which I know well, some of which I'd like seen zero to one times. And they were all rewarding. And even this, which was the true, oh, I'll get to it. I know I should see. I know Peter Weir made it like, like basically for the last 15 years, I've been like, no, no, no, I'm planning on getting to that.

That's strange because to me, this is an incredibly easy to watch movie. I found this film so hard to watch. Like the, I'm getting to that is like, well, it's 170 minutes long. Everybody thinks it's bad. This is like... This is 133. Yeah, but that's short. Yeah, but it's rockam-sockham.

I would say that... You described this movie as Rockham Soxom. I did not find it as hard as I'm unsurprised to learn Griffin found it. I don't think this is a bad film. And it wasn't like I was like squirming in my seat in discomfort. But I did find it to be a bit of a slog, a handsome, well-intentioned slog. In a 4-DX re-release. No question.

If the steps were happening, the subtle steps. Or like a... It's like you coughing, the seat coughs for you. A treadmill screening. Yes. I love a slow treadmill squeam. It would spray dirty water in your feet. Perfect.

Yeah. Mosquitoes would come out. But imagine how satisfying it would be when they get to the water in the middle of the desert. And suddenly they're just spraying water directly into your mouth. Like a fucking water phone. I would say I thought this film was going to be a little more like brutal and tough to watch and slow. And I was, I was when I watched it. I was like, no, this moves because I'm like, right, because Peter Wears like a good director. And like, this isn't quite the slug I thought it was going to be.

I would not call it Rockham Sockham. You don't think the Gullog break is Rockam Sockham? I've reserved that term for robots only. Yeah. Real Steel is a Rockam Sockham movie. Yes. It is. I mean, if it wasn't, then they really blew the assignment.

I'm not saying it's good. Yeah, but it does have that Sean Levy feeling. You saying I would tell Peter Weir just make something else, right? I think so. I was watching this 30-minute making of thing. and everyone is talking about how difficult and experience this film was. Yeah.

But they're talking about it in the window between when they have wrapped and when the movie is released and they all clearly feel like this is going to be a historic effort. Everyone is going to talk about, you know, they're not like...

There's no reason not to think that. He had achieved that at this point for almost 30 years straight. But this was like a four-month shoot of them fighting the elements. Sounds good. You know, and they're all like, and by like day 20, the line between acting and reality is blurred and we're feeling the real things and we're all in it together. No one has any egos and we felt such a responsibility to tell this story to like go through such a Herculean effort to make this movie and then have it treated with such a shrug, you know, just like a complete kind of, it just, it doesn't exist.

Ethan Hawke in that interview that gets researched. Cinematrix all the time. It's a smart play. It's a good play. Ethan Hawke had that interview that gets recirculated all the time where he said, like, oh, my buddy Peter Weir is retired? After years of people being like, is Peter we're going to make anything again? And he said, Peter's retired, and the industry kind of broke him, and it stopped knowing

how to make the kind of movies that he wants to make and he's good at. And also, he got broken by, like, movie star egos. And the two things he cited were how difficult a time he had working with Crow on Master and Commander. And that the other thing, was it supposed to be after this that he was going to make Shantaram? That certainly was. We can talk about it. That was Johnny Depp's passion project.

And he said the process of dealing with Depp in development for like two years broken. Now, that's interesting. I haven't heard anything about Johnny Depp being tough to deal with. And Ethan Hawk pinned it just on. The industry changed. And he stopped being able to deal with A-List leading man who were no longer collaborators who were sort of dictators, right? Whereas before he had been this guy where A-List man would trust him to mold them.

I also, I watch this and I'm like, I get why he retired. To put this much into making this. Right. And just have it treated with a shrug. Right. It seems like he, from, you guys have more research, hopefully, than I do, which is zero. It seems like he tried other things after this. He wasn't like.

I think there was, right, there was some sort. But he's now just said, like, I don't have the energy. Right. And, like, it's interesting because Master and Commander is now, a movie that was liked at the time has now become this like canonical movie. I think he appreciates that, but then there's also the kind of melancholy of like, I didn't get to make another one.

Right. I wanted to. Like... Master and Commander had like eight Oscar nominations, right? Ten. It's crazy that... It just went up against Return of the King, and it still snuck a couple of wins.

Aside from it, just not winning, but it's just crazy that that catapulted him to nothing. That makes me feel like Shantatram might have... Shana Rang. Shantaram. Good thing that didn't get me. I mean, I think that became a TV. It became an Apple Plus original series. Of course, was Charlie Hunnam.

Yeah, we all know. It was almost Miranair, Peter Weir, and I think there was a third major director who almost made it with Johnny Depp, and then like 10 years later it became an Apple Plus series that no one watched. It was a good thing we didn't have to learn how to actually say that. I just think... Do you remember... Yes, what?

That there was a Hulu original series about Sean Penn going to Mars in which they never actually went to Mars because in classic streaming series, you know, fashion season one ends with them like going to go to Mars. We've discovered a new planet in our telescope. And then, like, they're like, no one watched this season two has been canceled. So you didn't actually even get to watch Sean Penn go to Mars. It was a Bo Willemann show, right?

Yes, that's right. Yes. I truly forgot that existed until you mentioned it right now. I think that's what he was promoting when he was on Maren saying he's retiring. Yes. Yeah, I've done everything. Smelting his Oscars or whatever. This part full time into books.

We all love his books. Yeah, of course, Bob Honey, who do stuff. You read, both of you read. Bob Honey who do stuff to your daughters every night. Yeah. Every day. Honey. Honey. Sean.

What are you talking about? It's real. Look up the cover of Bob Honey who do stuff. Look up. Bob Honey who do stuff. Google. Hang on. Hang on.

Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. How do you think you spell honey in the title of Sean Penn's novel? Like honey. No. No. Think a little bit more Winnie the Pooh.

H-U-N-N. You're on the right track. E-E? I don't know. It's something like that. Yeah. I'm seeing if it's honey spelled right. I will say, I will, I refuse to revise my memory of what the title is.

That's a true show that doesn't exist, David. And I want to correct myself. This is Shantaram with Charlie Hunnam or whatever. I think my joke about the first was too kind. Season one would end with someone making the telescope. This is for kids? No, no, it's how you introduce your kids to sophisticated political satire. This is a book for grown ass people.

I think he's written multiple Bob Honey. I think too. The Bob Honey Crimeon. It's like some kind of, it's not far. is Gumpie, but it's like some kind of character who like drifts through history, I think. Everything I'm pulling is from a 10-year-old episode of WDF. But like a Forrest Gump-esque character. I don't know.

Yeah, sure. This was, don't correct me. This was him saying, like, I'm done with movies. Fuck them. I'm doing this full time. I did this Hulu show. That's my final thing as an actor. And then he won a third Oscar and didn't show up.

There are eight actors in history with three acting Oscars. He is the eight. Yes. He won it for an incredible performance in a movie that I think will be very well remembered that won best picture. Yeah. And when he won, everyone was like, and he didn't show up. It being his third award. It's just so weird.

And him not showing up. People will forget that he won. I think truly it will become a like, who won best supporting actor that year? And like, apart from Walter Brennan, who God bless him, we love him. Walter Brennan. He's the weirdest of the winners. Ingrid Bergman. Catherine Hepburn.

Yeah. Jack Nicholson. Correct. I mean, Sean Penn is five. Ben's friend. Ben's friend Daniel Day Lewis. Meryl Streep. And there's one more.

McDormant. She's got a bit of a hard face these days. Framing McDormand. A bit of a fix, you know, a tough stare. And she even has four Academy Awards. No, she's three, I guess four if you counterproducing. Yeah. She has three acting awards and a best picture.

You would think Penn and Weir would have overlapped. You would. They kind of hit the same. You're very right about it. stride around the same time. Yeah, I wonder if he ever even considered him for one of those big movies. Something I always loved about Peter Weir younger watching these movies is what you just said, like, man, he really just has these, like, awesome men at the center every time. And they're just doing some of their best work consistently. The crazy thing is that Brennan won three Oscars in a span of

five years for for, for playing, I mean, I haven't seen all the movies that he won Oscars for, but I assume basically doing the same shit every time because that's what Walter Bren, no, he's did. And he was only nominated one other time. So he has a 75% track record of winning if nominated. Meryl Streep, you're like three Oscars. Yeah, 21 numbs. She sucks. I don't mean to be. She's always striking out. I don't mean to be rude.

Is there not some weird explanation for the Walter Brennan thing that the rules of the Academy changed? You're thinking of possibly. Wasn't there a thing where he was nominated for both lead and supporting or something? Ben, just pin that I tried to steer the conversation back to Peter Weir and David, immediately brought it back to this trivia fact toy that we're all tired of hearing at the end of Oscar season. It is, it is sure that Oscar season's over and it is kind of like, who cares? That I very definitely tried to turn this Sean Penn page.

Well, Penn came up. What do you mean? We're on our great pen run. But then I brought it back. The honey thing. I brought it back. And David, who likes things to keep going in a tangential direction, was like, hang on. We'll talk about Peter Weir in a second.

Walter Brennan, who never worked with Peter Weir. That we know of. I'm going to solve this. I don't, I know, I feel like I know what you're talking about, Griff, but I'm not totally sure. Oh, yes. Oh, this is what it is? Yeah. In the early years, extras could vote.

There we go. Which makes no sense because, like, what does that mean? Extras could vote. But they realized basically that he was always whipping votes from the extras. Because he was like a nice guy that everyone liked. So they were all like, oh, to run. And they'd be like, he's a man of the people. Because there's the other thing where, like, what is it?

Like, Betty Davis got a write-in vote. And then there's the other thing where, like, someone was not made for both lead and supporting and one in support. I don't know. But that wasn't Walter Brandon. Right. That's not Walter Brennan. No, who was that?

I don't fucking know. Look, please find out. It's Alex's 10th appearance on blank checking. You're here, Alex. You're claiming you've been banned from the show. Well, I mean, like, you just didn't do an episode in 2025, but it's only March. But at some point in that year, both Emily Yoshida and I conferred that you guys had gotten too big for us. For sort of the, you know, twin flames of Blank Chequen's.

You had just outgrown some of your core voices. Okay. Okay, so. In favor of... Excuse me. I mean, what it really is you guys both left the city. I mean, not to... No, no, no.

Okay. There's a bigger thing here. Okay. Bigger thing is you were chasing clout and fame. The bigger thing here is the Coen Brothers series and the early Spielberg series were both long, right? Those two series basically comprised a full year. We knew we were doing Lynn Ramsey after Spielberg. Is that right on the timing?

No. No. Spielberg? No. Then it's Heckerling. and then it's Cohen's. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. That's what it is.

We knew we were doing Lynn Ramsey after Coens. So we didn't book Yoshida on a Coens because we knew she had to do more of her in Caler. Right. The thing with you is, we have a group text called News and Deals. It is the three of us,

Hitmaker Simons, David Lowry, and Sean Fantasy. Sean Hollywood Fantasy. Yeah, Sean Hollywood Fantasy. Tim Hitmaker Simons. Yeah. David, everything's bigger in Texas, Lowry.

David, really lovely man. Lowry. Gentle soul, Lowry. In a thread that's like heavy on shit talking, David's really there for like, I feel like a really more pure energy. I invited David to it because I was simultaneously

getting a endless flurry of texts from this group text and David the day the first won battle after another trailer came out. And I was like, David, would you like to... Let's just combine these threads. This was similarly, we had a group text with fantasy. We had a group text with Tim. Both of them were trending towards

physical media news and deal announcements. We combine them. And then I had, this is maybe the single act I'm proudest of in my entire life. Wow. That's just going to be good. What are you going to say to the group? What do you think about introducing ARP to this group text? It was important.

Because things are a little too. Right. We're all a little too aligned here. Everyone kind of agrees on everything. There's no friction. There's no spice. Like the biggest controversy is hitmaker not liking Zodiac. Who cares?

He all know he's wrong. He's getting riled up about it. Right. He's used you. And it's been the greatest choice. You roll a grenade. It's improved all of our lives. You bring us so much joy and happiness.

I just don't have much else to do. So I can devote a lot of time and thought. Your father. But very often we will give news and deals first crack. That's true. If we've settled on a miniseries or we're like, hey, March Madness feels like it's trending this way. That happened in this miniseries, and I said two movies and you're like, oh, that's gone already. Peter Weir?

Yeah. What did he say? The second you said we're doing Weir, I was like, I just revisited Truman Show. You're like, J.D.'s doing Truman Show. Yeah. When the Coens looked like they were going to win March Madness, we throw out to you guys, what were your Coens picks, B, everyone else has a choice. You say, oh, great, he has it up. So this is going to be a verbatim line. Because Yoshida brought this up to me and was like, yeah, Arp and I have been complaining

that we both feel like we've been shadow banned. I'm like, you're here doing an episode right now. As am I. And this is what Arp's not explaining to you. You said, I'd request Hail Caesar, a movie that so doesn't exist. It took me 20 minutes to remember. This is me talking. Yes. Then Sim says... Another great Cinem Matrix play.

Because no one remembers all these people that are in the movie for one scene. No, we thought you were just making a comment about the public rudely not remembering this film. I was. CBS films failed that one. That's a great art... That was inside Lewin Davis.

Okay, whatever. Hill Caesar was universal. David says, that's a great art pick, a great film. And then like a month later, I was listening to some other episode and someone, David's like, oh, I just got a text from a friend of mine. She's going to do Hill Caesar.

And I was saying, I guess that's... There goes that true. I say five-star masterpiece, you give it a thumbs down. You respond another chance post-Halloman to talk about what a dud Brolin is to me. That's right. I say, Alex, you're coming in ice cold with this shit. You are. You were.

I reversed course on Brolin for weapons. I really liked him in that. He's good in weapons. But then he was in something else after that that he was bad in again. What was he in the back half of last year? He was in the running man and wake up dead man. Yeah. I was wake up dead man that I was like, this is boring.

I mean, I feel like wake up dead man. He's, he has kind of a boring role. Go ahead. Later fantasy swinging in with his love of Buster Scruggs, you give that a thumbs down. Relevant for the film today, because this to me is almost as good of a last film as you guys have covered. And that is to me almost as bad of a last film as you guys have covered. This is exactly the kind of spice and flavor that Blank Check Needs. You said that you can see watching this movie that Peter Weir felt like he was ready to hang it up,

which is what I felt watching Buster Scruggs at Walter Reed, a truly dispiriting screening. Fantasy says, Alice Tully. The Netflix effect makes it non-existent, sadly. You go that plus it's a gentleman six. It is so fun to me how unsuccessful how you don't drive away dolls are financially. I've seen neither.

And then Sean posts a picture of Tom Waits, panning for gold, and writes Alex looking for hot text. Yeah, solid, solid little meme there. Yeah. A little group text meme. Then Simps sends to me his breakout text with you one-on-one. We love it.

Oh, from years earlier? I think it's from years earlier, right. The Cohen brothers are old guard with nothing new to offer. Buster Scruggs was embarrassing. Truly embarrassing. I dug it up. Hale Caesar should have been the last one. It's just Cohen's by the numbers.

That's right. Yeah. Kind of, when they have numbers, they're pretty good at IMO. Like four months ago, you text us, you went Fargo sucks. No, I didn't say it sucks. Embarrassing Francis Vindorman. Oh, it is. That is an embarrassment.

That is an embarrassing way. And then you spend six months being like, the blank check guys are big-timing me. they won't have that right on. You were saying every Gone Brothers thing is embarrassing. Not everyone. Just to me, like, Peter Weir is a guy.

I don't think I have a movie of his in my brain that's below a three-star film. So great that we got you on for this series. That is true. I wanted you to do Weir for a long time. It's terrific. But to me, I feel like that is a body of work.

I'm with you. That has some real lows for me. I would agree that Peter Weir's basement is three stars. Yeah. He simply can't make a bad movie, in my opinion. No, largely because he changes what he's doing so much. Sure.

And because oftentimes his instincts are just, this is what's so sad to me about the industry failing him. Yeah. As Mr. Hawk pointed out, and as obvious from this movie's release and everything, like, how can we fail a guy like this? Sure. Did we fail him? He had an enormously successful career. He did, but like the contraction that happened in the 2010s, you know, he's like the kind of guy you picture a scene like some, guy who's been at the company for 25 years

and has been a top salesman gets brought in. It's like, listen, we're just making some cuts and we got to let you go. And it's like, I've been here forever. I've done so much for you. And it's like, it's not personal. We just got to kind of say goodbye. Like, we're going to offer you an early retirement. But I still have work in me. It's like, no, I'm sorry. You just kind of

have to go away. And he's someone, it's like, if even he couldn't get the means after, and this is a good movie. Like, this isn't like, yikes. Tarantino's right, people really should hang it up. This has everything in it that he's good at. Yes. This is a respectable final film. Right now, I'm always saying Tarantino's right.

This is the moment for that. He's right about everything. He keeps getting more right. I don't see anybody selling any Tarantino was a dope shirt. Maybe Paul Dano should sell some of his friend. Do you think McDormons an embarrassing win because Emily Watson should have won? Sure. Emily Watson obviously very powerful.

Obviously, I hate this kind of hindsight. Like, well, you know she's going to get two more awards, but like, she's barely in the movie for 30 minutes. Well, that's just crazy. I mean, you're just immediately. You're just on the crazy trade. If she won for supporting, I'd be like, fine, whatever. The Emily Watson performance in Breaking the Waves is, I think,

one of the 10 best screen performances I have ever seen. It's an incredible performance, but this is just silly. It's like, it's the Oscars. The movie where Emily Watson is the, is, like, railed constantly because Stellant Scar's car got paralyzed. It's like the fucking insane Lars von Truer movie. It's like, the numb is the reward. Like, stop being crazy.

You were also coming in, you were coming in harsh on other areas of Fargo. You were coming to generally. My rewatch of it, I was really bored. And also like, 98 minute movie. Yeah, I know. I couldn't. I want you to understand that we don't shadow ban you from the show. Sometimes we strategically go, if you come on a Fargo episode and go obviously mid,

they will rip you apart like Gladys. No, no, I didn't want to come on a Fargo episode. Also, at that time, I hadn't seen it in 15 years. And I'll say this. I asked, after you guys roasted me on group chat, I asked, every single person I worked at Kim's video with, what do you think of the Cohen Brothers in Fargo? This is like seven people I asked. Every single one of them was like, nothing. I think nothing.

One person was like, I haven't seen it since it came out, no interest in revisiting. I stopped watching their movies. One person said, the best movies for me. Normies. One person said, Now, wait, hold. I'm just saying, I'm just saying Hold on. This is why people hated going to fucking video stores. All I'm saying is often, uh, were they

contrarian? No. Snarky, rude, open-minded, open-hearted, friendly cinema lovers. Okay. I'm just saying, it's very interesting to me. Make strong eye contact. Yeah. I'm simply saying it's very interesting to me that you can

turn from one side to the other and have two 180 degree different opinions on the exact same body of work. Sure. I was hearing opinions from my old coworkers that in other contexts would be sacrilegious.

Right. And then you guys were saying opinions that if I brought to them they'd be like, who are these fucking dorks? I agree with you that it is interesting that different people can share and can hold different opinions. I also think if our listenership was like,

oh, great, I can't wait for the Fargo episode. No, Fargo episode. No, no, he was never going to be. He's in a lot of time. It's these later movies, Lou and Davis aside, that I found dire. Yeah, I'm riding with all of them.

David? Yes. Got an intentional air about you today. Well, I'm more intentional about what I wear day to day. Oh, interesting. I like to lean into pieces that feel easy, comfortable,

and put together. Well, I'm sure you could get those from anywhere, right? No, Quince. Look, I really, I am wearing... Oh, he's showing tag. I'm literally wearing quix right now. Listeners, he's showing tag on Maine.

It's been my go-to because very clean fits. Very clean fits. very nice fabrics. They don't feel like cheap fabrics. I hate dirty fits. I hate cheap fabrics. I admit, we're in, you know, the weather's getting warmer. I really rely on my Quince polo shirts for the kind of like, exactly, like a formal enough piece of clothing that I can go to the office, but it's comfy. Yes, because we do have a dress code here, head blank tape production. Unlike Griffin and David, I love the beach. I recently got 100% European linen drawstring beach

pants. They're lightweight, breathable. They look good. You can wear it on the beach. You can wear it at the beach. Or you can wear it and slurp down some oysters. Everything at Quince, it's priced 50 to 80% less than what you find is similar brands

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for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash check. You know what the thing is about Hale Caesar that none of you brought up? What? While we talk about the long walk? Physiistically muddled sense of the 1930s? You did write that in text.

This drives me crazy that no one points this out. People who supposedly know what movies are. Every time they go to a different movie in that? It's set in the 50s. Then why is there a fucking Esther Williams synchronized swimming movie? They hadn't made those for 15 years.

Because it's funny. Who cares? I care. Well, clearly. I mean, that is obvious. Nothing in half of them. Million dollar mermaid was 1952, I will say.

That is like, that's like saying, never say never again was, you know, I believe that's exactly what it's like saying, but it is like saying it. It's not presented as like, wow, we're making one more of these. And it's just crazy to me that this movie that's supposedly steeped in Hollywood history

and the fucking, the Ray Feensting, that is a 30s movie. He's visiting like a Ruben Mamalian comedy of manners and then they go to like a little bitch but yeah sure not really I mean they still kind of exist

I'm having such a good time you're saying is like The magic is back these movies from the 30s coexists with these movies from the 50s and this pointless fantasia of nothing I know nothing can be realistic like your favorite film of all time Damien Chazel's Babylon another film that I think presented Hollywood exactly

as it was right like that's that's an opinion you share you're not saying anything so we'll carry on The testable work of art Alex's body is slowly From the toes to the top of his head Turning red It's working up his body

Like a thermostat Um Hail Caesar You should yell all of this at the cone They probably go like Okay yeah I get that gets so But Griffin

Only because Griffin said This is a movie You can feel the guy being like I'm kind of ready to hang it up And I don't feel that in this movie No no I don't feel him saying that I don't feel the movie saying that I understand why the response to the movie

would make him say that. That's the point I'm trying to say that. Do you think he cared that much about the sort of fallout of his work after that much kind of career ups and down? So much harder for him to get this movie made. PW. Well, let's have another docile. To discuss this. He had to make it in a much scrappier way.

Well, it barely gets released. Guess who steps up to the plate. Image. Big yellow triangle. Second National Geographic film covered on Blankchuk. Oh, I miss K-19-Wittaker. Yeah, and I would say, I can't believe you missed that logo because it's long. It's a really, really long pre-roll logo.

But this movie really reminded me of K-19. I think it's better than K-19. Yeah. But similar kind of like, why did you think anyone was really going to be hot for this story? National Geographic. Like two movies where it's like, and then they suffered. And then they suffered some more. And let me tell you, it's true.

They had this directive at the time of like, let's dry. It's dry. Everyone's doing an accent. but they're different accents. It's a lot of emotionally closed off Russians. Yeah, let's tell the Russian side of things. National Geographic's 2000s M.O. And basically, what?

Will you cover a third National Geographic film? What else is a National Geographic? And I don't remember now. It's weird. I kind of thought maybe these were the only two, but there's actually others. I'm going to figure it out. I will figure that out and I will crack up in the dossier. Here's some other obvious ones, of course, March of the Penguins.

But we're not going to count. No, no. Let's not count the narrative historical. Yeah. Restrepo. Remember that one? That's a documentary too, though. Yeah.

There's really not much. This is kind of it. That's why I was fascinated to see that big yellow square. There's the Justin Chaddick film the first grader. I think that is a drama, which is about, like,

Kenyan education. Okay. There's that movie Amrika. Remember that? No. Which is about like a Palestinian family moves to Chicago. These were all like good,

you know, like, you know, like, you know, civic kind of movies. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, about like, sort of weighty issues. mostly it's documentaries so this is the final National Geographic

film to be covered on Blankshire that I think there's no question alright well then it's even more excited unless we march with the penguins yeah what would that be you do Penguins Patreon we've already done both happy feet it's true you farce of the penguins march of the penguins you march and then you farce

I mean perfect perfect series little this little bit so following the release Master and Commander, which Alex pointed out, got 10 Oscar nominations, won two, and was successful, although, as I'm sure

we discussed last week, was not hugely successful. Incredibly expensive. It was very expensive, and they wanted it to make more. It was basically a financial break-even, and you asking, like, why didn't he immediately gain, like, a new wave of momentum from Master and Commander? I think part of it was, well, is this a series that he's going to stay on? And then it was

kind of in a place, a midpoint for a while of, like, we can't decide whether or not to make more of these. Yeah, and Crow is like, I'm only getting more addicted to sandwiches, guys. So if you want me, you know, to fit into that vest. I'm either throwing phones or eating a hoagie. Because, like, Robin Hood is, which is this year, I think is 2010, right? Yeah.

That's the last where he's like, I went back to the gym and it's like, he at least, like, walked through the gym. He tightened it way up. As way up as he could. But body of lies is right before. And body a lies, he's, God bless. Well, it's just the character demanded. The character's on the phone all the time eating sandwiches.

And I love sandwiches. I sent you last night in our text with Sean Clements. Oh, that fucking crow movie, what's it called? Yeah, I'm going to send you a crow poster. I just want your reaction on Mike to this, Alex Wall. What's the film called again? Let me just get that. So, yeah, so Peter Weir, you know, in between 74 and 86, he makes eight films.

In between 87 and 20, 2003, he makes just five films. So he's taking longer and longer to make movies, takes him seven more years to make the way back. but in between here are some of the things he was attached to because there were other projects. First is... I was surprised he did not have the beloved separate Wikipedia page of list of unmade and unrealized projects. He's a guy that should.

He deserves that. He has a ton. You know what? He deserves that. And if someone could get on that. Please, someone make it. First one is the war magician. Right.

A Cruz Wagner at Paramount project based on a nonfiction book about a patriotic, British stage, magician who volunteered his illusionist abilities to help the Nazis. I mean, this sounds like Harvey Weinstein's like, let me out of prison. I can release that shit. Am I insane for thinking that Benedict Cumberbatch has tried to revive that recently? Or is there a different Benedict Cumberbatch wartime magician movie that is being made?

Well, obviously, he was a Dr. Strange who fought the Infinity War. Of course. This is what I love about Peter Weir is that here was this brand of like, well, this is a vast, historical, challenging thing that would have a lot of really great roles for our final as movie stars, he should do it. And he had all these projects for years. Well, and like Tom Cruise, a guy, it's actually surprising he never worked with because it felt

like Tom Cruise was a bit checklisty at that point. Yeah, I mean, I imagine there's a... A guy who you would imagine he's both meeting with and saying, what do you want to do, and also anytime he options a book he likes throwing it to wear. When Cruz was doing that, Weir was in the kind of other key of

dead poets and green card and fear... Fearless, yeah. But I mean... Basically running through the... If we were, he just made more movies. Yeah. But, you know, he just started taking a long time between projects. All right, look.

Cruz had one point been attached. At this point, he's just a producer on it. Cruz Wagner split from Paramount, obviously, in 2006. Amicably, I'm sure. Very short. There was no problems. Checks notes here. Cool and normal.

At that point, Cruz actually reattaches to possibly starring, but we're, let's it go. Mark Forster, your best friend. Yeah. gets attached, and indeed, Benedict Cumberbatch was eyed to star. There we go. Now it is dead. The Swiss maestro himself. Just quick pause because I sent Alex a poster image, and I want you to do.

It's called Bear Country. Your favorite blank check segment, describe a poster. Okay. So, all right, I get to do this. So Russell Crowe is doing a yoga pose. Well, what's the first thing right at the top of the poster? It says from the director of Unhinged. Oh, that's the car movie that he made that came out that was like in theaters. It was in like 30,000 theaters.

May 2020, let's put this thing wide. It got to break the record of being the first movie to new release to open in theaters. But okay, from the director of Unhinge, that's like a scrappy, fucking schlocky, like, B-movie action film. So what we have here is a guy. That's the tone you imagine is going to transfer

to the rest of this post. Neon pink font with a kind of rounded look that says bear country. He's doing a yoga pose in front of a pool with a palm tree with the ocean behind him. What I can only imagine is Australia. I would argue he's dressed like DJ Khalid. I haven't gotten to the clothes yet.

Okay. Because he has on... Noise cancelling headphones. Noise cancelling headphones, spiky crazy hair. He's got... It's all gone peat-tinted sunglasses. You might say. A kind of like

velour-looking track suit. Yeah. That is orange. But I would say Caled-esque for sure. But despite the yoga pose, which conveys tranquility by his feet is a gun. A handgun.

That looks like it is a cartoon that was drawn onto this poster. Yeah, it's not the most realistic. It's also just got, like a couple loose bullets hanging by the gun. Teresa Palmer is listed beneath that. She's Australian. Yeah.

Luke Evans is listed there. He might be Australian. He definitely is. Or English. Is he not? I thought he was Australian. And there's some other names. And it says with Nina Dorreve.

What am I talking about? And Aaron Paul. And Aaron Paul. Not necessarily who you want with the and to excite the movie. I had no offense to Aaron Paul, but right, you do not want him in your hand. And then there's some lady who's probably sexy, but we can't see her in a, in a, in a, in a lounge chair on the other side of the pool, but she's blonde, so you know she's Australian. It might even be Teresa Palmer.

It could be. Very possible. You could show me your face, and I wouldn't be able to tell you. I was holding a lot of Teresa Palmer stock throughout the... And that's Bearcrumbs. I guess that's Bear Country. We call those penny stocks. I did you were.

But I was holding. Well, while we're on that subject, while David reads these off, above what Griffin just texted me is a series of unresponded to text messages where I was asking questions about gifts for Ben. This is a good... While Griffin has put me back... And it's just worth mentioning that Griffin doesn't respond to one-on-one text. But if I ask...

The same question in a group text, he responds literally within seconds. It is an interesting phenomenon. So I was trying to spare everyone else... An inventory of some objects for Ben, which I will now... Okay. In the middle of the Attachey's conversation, I guess we can just bring out a... Yeah, this is a clean segue. So, Ben, this is for you.

Oh, shit. Okay. Do you see what it is? Can you make out the proper name of this... This is a vintage boxed, dare I say, really good condition, spawn action figure from T-Dog Mac. And what is the character name on here, Ben? Look on the side and on the top right there. This is a future spawn.

This is spawn from the future. So is it sort of like a spawn 2099 type situation? Yeah, but it's like a robospawn, mecca spawn. There's a little like a sticker on the upper right hand that describes what his deal is. Part machine, part human, all spawn. That's very Robocop-esque. Now, it's funny, you give me this, which thank you. This is awesome, Alex.

I really appreciate it. I just feel like Future Spawn is in line with your, like, pitches for Spawn. They now have a Future Spawn series. Clearly, they had it all along. And I just brought it here with me, Rat City. I just read the first six issues. It's great. Talk about...

Happy to give you this thing that I bought 30 years ago and immediately was like, this is going to be worth. Thousands one day. Yeah, this is going to pay off. Has anything ever sounded? more like a Ben Hossley pitch than, hey, I got a great idea for a comic book, it's Spawn in the Future.

Yeah, so he's like a demon from hell, right? But yes, now he's in like a robot machine. Right, and you're like, cool. I assume it's called Future Spawn. No, it's called Rat City. That's what you would call it. I feel like Ben's always bringing lovely gifts and I wanted to

return the favor. There you go. This is so appreciated. Damn, there's some really good other toys here too. Yeah, the line on the back promises a lot of good stuff. Have I finally broken Ben into becoming an action figure collector.

You never crack this guy. Do you see he's got a violator on the... Yeah, no, I saw that. That's the bendy one. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't bringing you something you already had. Yeah. Damn, this is great. April 2004, Variety announced that Peter Weir...

Put a picture of that in the carousel of content for this. Of course. Peter Weir was attached to direct an adaptation of William Gibson's novel pattern recognition. Oh, 2004, you said? Yes. This is right after mastering commander. Yes. That, I feel like that was a, you know, a...

2003 novel by Gibson. I feel like that was also a project that got passed around a lot. He rewrote it with D.B. Weiss. Okay. Nothing ever came of it. He said, I couldn't get the script right and pulled back out of it.

I don't know. Fair enough. The major one, of course, as we already mentioned, is that in October 2004, Warner Brothers purchases, the film rights to the novel Shantaram for $2 million at the urging of Johnny Depp. It's a 1,000-page book. He wanted to... to beat out Russell Crow, who was also really into, like, that book.

And now, I don't know what Depp saw in a role like this. An Australian heroin addict, convictory of robbery, escapes from a prison and flees to India and reinvents himself as a doctor in Bombay and gets involved in counterfeiting and smuggling and gun running, which leads him to Afghanistan, where he and a mob boss battled Russians. That is what the book is about. I will say, as a weird fan at the time, and a Depp fan at the time, really. Yeah, for sure.

A height of death. I was truly like, let's fucking go. I was going to say. This sounds so good. We're going to shoot all over the world. It's going to be hard as hell. It's going to be like a hundred million plus budget for like an adult tent pole. Right.

And this is, Johnny Depp is so at the peak of his powers right now that this isn't like, oh, fuck, Disney's agreeing to option shantaram in order to make Jack Sparrow happy. This is Warner Brothers, a company he doesn't really do movies with. Everyone is just, he starts committing some crimes. Sure. But everyone. Both real and on screen. Everyone's like truly anything Depp wants to do, we will make and make at his requested

budget level with whatever creative team he wants. Yeah, he wants to crack open the window. Yeah. Secret window. I mean, it would be funny if in 2004 Depp had pitched the crimes of Grindlewald and he'd be like, what? And he's like, don't worry about it. It's going to, we're going to make it's going to pay.

This is all. I mean, I'm not in psychlipic. I'm not encyclopedic in the Unmade Project. of Weir, but this to me, it was always kind of like the great unmade one. Because he was really at peak of his powers, even though he's probably in his 60s by now. Yeah, he'd be in his like early 60s, I guess. After Truman and

Master and Commander, it was like, man, this guy, he's still the best. Mosquito Coast at this point is 20 years ago, and he's still got this power over movie stars and environments. Eric Roth is brought in for a rewrite, so obviously this is being taken very seriously. That's a heavyweight screenwriter. In 2006,

Weir does enter the project, but then apparently he and Johnny Depp were unable to get on the same page. And he decided the pairing wasn't meant to be. The page was, how many bottles of wine should we drink an hour? We are says, I was involved for a period. I went to India. I talked to Johnny Depp about it.

It's his film. I just wasn't, you know, it wasn't the right combination. That's him being very diplomatic. Correct. But I think it's going back to what we're saying, that it used to be like these guys would go to him with their passion projects and say, I want you to get something out of me that I don't know how to get out of myself. and now it's like people like Depp and Crow trying to call the shots

and be like, no, you work for me. I think we're also at that point is a little paralyzed by having made a couple like really heavyweight movies and just being like, well, if I'm going to, I want it to be really special. I want it to really speak. You know, like he's not just like, well, let me make a movie because like it's good to make a movie. He was best director nominated for Master and Commander.

And for Truman Show. And for Truman Show. So he's two in a row. And for dead poets. And Witness. Does he have four? It's four total, I believe. Yes.

Those are the four, I think. He wasn't nominated for Green Carter Fearless. But two consecutive best picture, best director. Yes. Truman was snubbed for picture, but he was nominated. Yeah. Obviously, yeah, again, with Master and Commander, it's like, you know, he's a... He's undeniable.

He's a six-time nominee total because also a best picture nod for Commander and writing nod for Green Card. He's just one of the best. Like, at this time, he's just undeniable, like, a totem of studio filmmaking where at this time, the script is everything. I got to get a great script and a great star, and there's nothing more to it than that. And that was always his formula. I've invoked it if there is a formula. In other episodes,

but it's a quote that stuck with me in that same Ethan Hawke interview. He goes, he was that rare thing, which is an actual popular artist. He was, like, an artist of, like, intelligence and skill who made entertainment. The weird thing for Ethan Hawk to respect so much. Some other minor ones that sort of cross his desk,

the Fox 2000 Project Shadow Divers. Okay. About every part of that sentence. People discovering Hitler's lost sub. That's that fucking rules. Was anyone ever attached to that? I mean, that feels like another project that I would occasionally hear about. Because it would be these nonfiction bestsellers, right?

Yeah. Usually about World War II. And, you know, it's like, yeah, why did, you know, they get optioned and they sort of pass it around. But no, it's never been made. So, Peter Weir says, the thing that change is I no longer work with the studios,

right? When is he saying this? He's saying this in a 2012 interview, but he's saying, like, from witness through Master and Commander, that's my studio period. They no longer make those kinds of films. Someone from a studio said to me recently, we're not in that kind of business anymore. I've watched

the market change. This is all from around, right around when this movie comes out. When he has not yet claimed... He's not retired, but he's like, what's changing? He says, I watched the market change, moving towards what I would call children's programming. Okay, Peter. Okay.

I'm surprised that even amongst acquaintances of my friends of my children in their 30s, you revisit childhood by going to the cinema as an adult. I find that quite fascinating. I feel like when he says, I find that quite fascinating. He means, I don't like that, or I think that's stupid. Uh-huh. Anyway, so he doesn't really want to make what he thinks of as a kid's movie.

He wants to make a large canvas movie, which is basically what he's been doing. So he's looking around. But that is fascinating. as this contraction happens, that he's not, like, I guess my move is looking at dead poets, looking at

a, even something like fear, his move isn't like, you know, I've done that really well also. Yeah. I have made fairly small character dramas. Right, like a kind of more widely pitched. That seems like Elaine I'm in now, and it's not like, well, I've grown out of that. Sure. Even Truman Show

is kind of that, even though it's fairly large moving. The book he reads, that he in classic Peterwear fashion, which I feel like it's always, the case with the movies he makes. It's like he can't stop thinking about it. He can't let it go. Is this book The Long Walk, which allegedly details a true story, although it seems like it's a very kind of like, we're not really sure, totally sure how true it is. Was it real? Did it happen to the guy who wrote it? Did he steal someone else's story? Was it like a folk tale? Right. And then Weir himself has admitted that basically he wrote a fictional movie based on the account that is questionable.

What if you escape from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia and marched by full? And through Siberia, China, the gobi desert, Tibet, and the Himalay is all the way to India. And what if you had to walk so fucking far? He's like, he read Ann Applebaum, my co-worker, Ann Applebaum, works at the Atlantic, her book, Gulag. He gets very interested in the Gulag and like, you know, all this. And then the feet of endurance and the tenacity of human beings and survival stories. I guess he's never really quite made that kind of a movie. But that was kind of a movie in the 90s early, right?

like alive. Peter Weir says I've gotten really interested in gulags and American studio heads are salivating. Like he could not be swinging further away from the interests of the studios at this moment. Yeah, they want, you know, Guantanamo. That's like a cool prison for us now. We don't want to see Russians in prison in 2006. In any Guantanamo related filming, this was an era where they were all hitting big at the box office. People wanted to see movies about. Peter, are you interested in imprisoning men from the Middle East? Or do you? just Russians. Because we'll keep greenlighting those despite audiences telling us, please stop. Now, I can't, I will mispronounce the name of the author of this book, Slavimir Rochit, I'm not sure. I think that's correct. But BBC Radio 4 in 2006 had attempted to verify his account. They walked away being like, this is likely not true. That's offensive also that they walked away, because that's kind of like hitting him where it hurts. He was a prisoner in the gulag. We can't find evidence

that he escaped, possibly someone else escaped, and he's telling their story, something like that. So Weir gets jumpy and is kind of like, okay, well, fucking, like, I don't want to do it then if it's, like, you know, controversial. But then he finds that three men had to done a walk like this. Yes. And they do more research.

And so he decides to kind of re-fictionalize it. That's why he retitles the movie, not because of Stephen King. Okay. Because he's like, I don't want to be presented, really, as like a straight adaptation of this book that's a little, you know, muddy. he goes and talks to these people. The one guy...

He meets this guy, Glinski, Wilto Blinsky, who lives in Cornwall. Who he said basically was like his first major hire and was the primary consultant on the movie. This making of thing on the Blu-ray has a lot of him talking to all the actors about how to do everything and what it physically felt like.

Come on, guys. One foot in front of the other. You know the deal. But basically, yeah, this guy who's like a survivalist who decided to like, it'd be an interesting challenge to see if we can do the thing from this book, did it with a group of guys.

And then he basically writes a fictional movie based on this guy's accounts of what the emotional experience was like. Right. Name me to other people who had maybe trekked through the Himalayas. But, you know, he's coming to it as truthful as he can. He also hired an appleback. I had no, I should have emailed in. I mean, she's a bigger shot. Not the me, but she does work at the Atlantic, and I've been on many a Zoom with her.

Is she in the Slack? Can you like... She's in Slack? Yeah, I could probably Slack. Could you ask right now, like, hey, anything you want to tell us about Goulogs? Quick takes on Gullog. She's on the Gullog beat for the Atlantic, you're saying? Well, she writes about, like, political oppression in Eastern Europe, by and large, yes. She writes a lot about Russia right now.

She does man the Gulag desk. I really, honestly, cannot be flipping about this. I'm not being flipping about this. I think our joke is more that. What she's doing sounds very serious. And I like the idea of someone talking about political oppression in Eastern Europe and you being like, so here's who has three Oscars and why? Anne says...

David, I wrote the book on the gulag. Anne says that Peter... Please stop sending me memes in the slack. Used them as a sounding board. You know, and then she and other professors directing to survivors and all that. Look, the way back... What you're also hearing in my, like, accounting of all... this is this took years. Like this is, his process just seems so slow because he's so

meticulous about research. But that also used to be allowed. That also used to be forgivable for these filmmakers that prioritized like authenticity, research, verisimilitude, and their storytelling. It used to be like, you're vaguely being paid to develop this while you do research for two years. And I'm sure Master and Commander had a similar kind of heavy lift of like approaching the time period. We also talked about it. Yeah, I think. Absolutely. On the Truman Show episode, but like, because Carrie's dance card is so full, he gets two and a half years to prep that movie while he waits for him to run through his other contractual obligations. And like when movies have major budgets like this and people go, why did it cost this much?

Sometimes, like, those are major factors. And those are things that studios refuse to spend money on now, I would say basically, is like, we'll let you work for like a year and a half with like a small staff to just figure out. how you're going to approach this. Yeah. And he really did the most with that kind of thing. And that's the kind of thing where if you had a list actors attached, they would grant you that. Because they were like, well, if it's Mel Gibson, if it's Harrison Ford, if it's Russell Crow, we think we will make back that investment. Yeah.

Right. The money we spend on your research will be repaid opening weekend. But I lament that is obviously dead and gone that he represents is like whether they knew it or not, almost every time, these were forever movies. Like obviously, Year of Living Dangerously is not like, you know, a basic cable classic, but buying, you know, these movies last forever. Master Commander is a great example of that, where I'm just like certain that movie has gone into profit many times over now. At the time of release, it was seen as a, you know, break even like. And even like dead poets just becoming like what it is.

But that was a major hit at the time and then has just become like an enduring. Right. He really just had this instinct of making something that wouldn't age at all. But that was not the way they were thinking at that time. And you also imagine if Peter Weir's like, cool, I'm going to, like, not rush and take my time to develop this movie. Every six months that he spends working on this film, the chances of this getting made in any traditional way are, like, cut in half. Also, like, this only gets more old out of fashion. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's just like...

With each passing year, it's like you're losing the last development exec at each studio who would maybe greenlight something with this and have the power to do so. No studio is making this. Instead, it's funded by exclusive media group, Spitfire Pictures, Image Nation Entertainment, which is the film division of Abu Dhabi, and National Geographic. Image Nation is still very active. Yeah, it is. But none of these are obviously like...

They pay for a lot of shutter movies. You'll see that logo a lot. No, I know the logo very well. It's a very... I know the logo. And I think it's a very... You have a tattooed on your dress. Yeah, that would be weird.

So... But that's when that's when you... shit gets very depressing for me of this generation or this level of filmmaker where you see the independent cobbled together financing from all the people who are probably in jail now for one reason or another for the red granites of the world financial crimes in their own country and just the idea that he's going hat in hand to the middle east trying to get five million dollars for a chunk of his uh his epic this is just really bad when this starts happening i mean but you asking As we sit here in the shambles of Roque, the collapsing nature of being able to support things that are just obviously of interest to audiences.

I haven't done a deep dive on Roe K. Well, we keep sending you the links. I know. I know. I looked at one of the articles, but it does seem like they were like, we think there's a market for the stuff that's not really getting picked up at film festivals right now. And then they're like, it turns out there's not a huge market. There might be a reason. A lot of the stuff's not getting picked up.

Yeah, Roekeye distributor that has like. They did Dead Man's Wire, right? Basically, like, formed a year ago where, like, we got a lot of financing and there's more product than there are distributors these days. There's stuff getting left at the table at festivals and also there's not enough stuff being put in the theaters. We'll buy these movies and we'll back them fully and we'll overpay because we know we basically need to pay a tax on being so new that filmmakers are wary to trust that will support their film properly. What they forgot is when you do that, you do that, you have to fail for like two years. Right.

And instead they failed on one movie and are now insolvent. Well, obviously. Like five other movies they've bought that are now like, are we ever coming out? I sent to the best, the best triptych of images to illuminate this narrative. But Newmark.

The Duff. Yeah. Yeah. 30 minutes later out of business. Yes. But this new market is to me like seeing that logo and looking it up, this is their penultimate movie. Yeah.

They're out of business. Yes. Probably when this movie's coming out. Right. Essentially. And this is just super depressing. Yes. And this is, I mean...

Their final, do you know, did you look up New Market? The New Market chronology? Because their first film, much like National Geographic, is another film you've covered. Memento? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what I... So they have this, like, 10-year miracle run that ends basically with this, followed by the Joseph

Gordon-Levitt heavy metal movie Hesher. Oh, right. And then they're done. Because am I mistaken that they were a production company and they couldn't find a buyer for Memento? and Bob Bernie was like, fuck it. I'm going to figure out how to release this ourselves. What we now call a black bear.

Yes, it's a bit of a black bear. Can't find a buyer for the rifles of Amzai a king? Fuck it. We'll release it ourselves. We'll show you guys how much money there is and beekeeping thrillers. They were primarily financier production company. But then they have this run of fucking Memento, Donnie Darko. Real Woman have curves.

But Real Woman have curbs. I mean, Whale Rider was a good sleeper hit. And then Passion of Christ is the most successful independent film in history. They probably didn't have a very favorable split on that with Mel. No, Mel took home

the lion's share, but it is crazy that they released Passion of the Christ. They successfully got that movie to like record-breaking numbers, records that still hold, and seven years later they were done. Yeah, no, they were a major player

in this mid-aughts boom time of kind of like big, small movies. Yeah, but they could like last four years of struggle, whereas like Roe K can't survive one movie. And if the way back screened at Tiff last year, Roque would have been the only place that offer. Or it's like the Eden, Ron Howard's movie that's like kind of a similar Peter.

That's kind of, I like that movie. I don't know if you guys saw it. I did not care for that movie at all. I think we can all agree it's very strong. But that is to me like... That was released by Vertical. Yes. But that is the state of the Peter Weir type of movie now.

Is that it's like, why did this person make this? What were they thinking? Who on Earth would release? this and then it comes out and everyone's like, what is this? Well, and no, to your earlier point where you're like, why wouldn't at this inflection point in the industry, we're pivot back to something like Dead Poet Society that is easier to make... He could have made three more of those. Right, because it's like that movie had a budget that maybe a studio wouldn't give him, you know,

in 2005. He doesn't want to do that anymore. He says, I want to work on a big campus. I was about to say. I'm not interested. Yeah. So, like, right, you could more easily make a cheaper version of Dead Poet Society than you can make a cheap version of the way back. But I do think there's a little bit. almost like a lifestyle creep, a scale creep. You're saying Peter we were bawling. Like, he needs the money.

It's beyond that. I think these guys get addicted to the challenge of how difficult it is to mount these big productions, especially. But that's the thing. If you're successful at doing it, you know how to do it and, like, maintain the story thread within it and, like, hold on to dramatic, you know, an artistic integrity. Then I think it's hard for you to scale down. Like, Ridley Scott is a weird exception who will just throw in a, like, fucking good year. I thought about Ridley Scott with this movie a lot because they're very similar in a lot of ways

in the scope of what they do and in their kind of hit ratio of forever movies. But for some reason, Ridley Scott just figured out how to never slow down. Well, he works fast and the movies he makes can be a little sloppy as a result, although often they really are good. He also, you know, works with big stars, which I feel like Peter Weir is clearly getting sick of. Eden, I think, is a really good comp for the way back because that movie, is also really dreary and about survival and like, you know, it's these people who went to live on an island. And it's like, it's based on a true story. And they're like, what do you think happened when in 1931, like a bunch of Randos decided to live on like a random island in the Galapagos Islands?

I'm like, did it go badly? And they're like, oh, yeah, it did. We were hoping to surprise you with that. Like, you know what I mean? Where they're like 50 minutes in. They're like, it's starting to get worse. And I was like, yeah, I called that from the beginning. Jude Law and Sidney, we're not going to recreate society.

Sure, but that movie was also like, Two or five of the hottest people, and they're going to be They don't look hot enough. They don't do sex stuff. Vanessa Kirby needed to restart society. Sydney Sweeney showed up. She shows up cause in trouble. No, that's the thing.

It's like, oh, it's Anadarmasse and Sydney Sweeney, and you're like, oh, do they look good? It's like, no, they're, like, starving and, like, their pieces are dirty. God, David's really throwing some shade on these. The movie. The movie sucks. I thought it was solid to a fault. This is the same with Nuremberg, where everyone's like, oh, Nuremberg was good, including our friend Alex. second best movie of the year and i'm like no you guys are forgetting how good these movies used to be that

movie stunk like it's no good and it's all gray and like it's anyway forgetting how good they used to be the way back there's always a temptation to cast a nationality we are says but that gets impractical sure he didn't want all american he didn't want all english guys doing an accent so he wants a mix of guys he sure gets a mix of when ed harris started talking were you guys like that's cool he's just not doing a voice I did briefly go like, oh, so, right, are we just doing, but then, like, Colin is like, oh, he's American. Colin speaking Russian. Like, he's not doing, and I'm like, okay, so we're not doing that. I was going to respect it, though, because I'm going into the movie originally thinking, I'm going to hear Ed Harris full Irish brogue for two hours and 10 minutes.

And then the movie starts and I'm like, Ed Harris could be playing any nationality. I didn't know it got this cold in Ireland. True. I'm looking at this, Paul. I'm like the potato. That's why the potatoes died. They froze. Looks like the Arctic Circle here.

This is crazy. So Ed Harris is, obviously, has already worked with Peter Weir. They respect each other. Yeah. And so that's an easy decision there. It's kind of keeping people. Not forever. Yeah.

A couple Ford's. Sure. A couple Mels. Interesting that Ed. We'll have a couple Eds. But Ed's like his like in the pocket supporting MVP both times. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

It might not surprise you guys to hear that in this making of a special feature, Ed Harris seemed really activated by how difficult this shoot was. And I'm not being... No, he was really into... I think he's also just into Peter Weir, because Peter Weir's similarly intense with, like, let's fucking figure out, like, what bread they ate or whatever. You know what I mean?

Like, let's do deep research, get into the character. Ed Harris, he's obviously in the news lately with arm candy for Amy Madigan. Yeah. He's just the fucking best. He's so cool. Just like one of these... Like, has been... He's never, ever been bad.

Truly. And has never... really been given credit for how consistently awesome he has been. Okay, that's a great question. Forever. What's his worst performance? What is Ed Harrison where you're like, because he does a ton of movies where you're like, okay, he's phoning this in. But that is to me, I stopped

watching Westworld, but that's the point. No, but I loved in Westworld. Yeah, but then he started giving interviews where he's like, well, I'm phoning it in now, I'm phoning it in now I'm this new character. It is right. It is true that they kind of are like twist, by the way, now you're a robot, and he said he was sick of it. He was still good. He was like, I sign up to play the man in black. Now I'm the man in white. I'm phoning it in now.

But, like, I'm looking through here. Ian McKellen said that once upon a time. I don't think I have seen an embarrassing Ed Harris performance. You couldn't embarrass himself if he tried. Like, I haven't seen radio, but I imagine he acquits himself better than anyone else in the cast of that film. That's pretty close, though, because I haven't seen that either. It's embarrassing that he's in it. Sure.

I would say that's also the era, the sort of post, he gets a bunch of nom's era. Yeah. That early 2000s where you kind of feel like. him trying to sniff for an Oscar a little too hard. Sure. Well, Pollack, he got so close. Well, but then, see, have beautiful mind, which he's good in. He's really good in.

And I mean, at the gates where he's like... Which rocks. I was thinking of enemy at the gates during this movie. We're talking about great Russian war narratives. The hours, which, like, is an undeserved Oscar nom. He's not, like, bad in it, but that's my least favorite part of the hours. And that's on a movie I like. That's when he felt like he's an autonom territory and it's inevitable.

And it's inevitable. He's going to get one so. You know what I've never seen is the human stain. which is a book I love. Right. I've never seen that either. But, and he has, he has the most interesting part in it, if it's the part from the book that I remember. But, uh, I don't know.

You know, that was forgotten. But I also think he's starting to get into this era where, like, um, beautiful mind, for whatever reason I was, like, driven to rewatch the trailer recently because I was like, is my memory correct about this. That the marketing of the movie was just selling the fucking CIA shit so hard. Well, he's the other name on the poster. Exactly. I mean, because he said Harris. He was a big deal. Russell Crowe, Ed Harris.

And the trailer. No, it's Russell Crow, a beautiful mind. Ed Harris. It's a tiny little, Ed Harris. But like Jennifer Connelly's barely in the trailer. Right.

They obviously don't show the Paul Bettney stuff. Like that movie was sold. But they can. He's not real. Right. You can't put him in the trailer. That movie sold itself as a badass story about a cool CIA analyst. And so the trailer and all the marketing was so Ed Harris heavy.

And then you watch the movie and you're like, oh, Ed Harris is the red herring. And I feel like history of violence is the same thing. Well, he's obviously remarkable. He's incredible in that movie. But you're like, this should have been an Oscar nominee. You're like, well, but then William Hur comes in at the end. Yeah. Right.

The same kind of thing happens with Jennifer Connolly and like, well, sure. He's used in a way that's making it easy to take him for granted because you don't walk out of the movie thinking about his character. We haven't even started talking about. Have you guys rewatch Pollock recently? No. It is so good. Yeah, Pollock Rob. It is such a good movie.

He's so good in it. Well, he directed Appaloosa. Do you ever see that? He wrote Appalooza. Did he direct it too? I think he directed it. Let me look it up. Did he direct the Beethoven movie?

Beethoven Second. Yeah, we both said the same thing. I'm trying to tee you up here. Yeah, so you had written, directed. Written and directed. I saw Appalusa. Appalusa. Did you see Apple?

I've never seen Appaloosa. I saw Apalusa. Do love a modern Western. Right. It's very solid. It feels like he kind of wanted to make like him. I always confuse it with Hidalgo because they both have Vigo and they both have names where you're like, huh? Yeah.

Agnesca Holland Is a place And Hidalgo's a horse Correct Yeah But those are the only two movies he directed It's interesting He hasn't done more of that

He's just awesome I interviewed him and he was so scary As I brought up any times On this podcast Jim Sturgis makes a comment In this special feature Saying like I always pitied the PA Who had to go up to head Harris

And tell him we Cameras were ready Pity the fool He pities the fool Did you see him in To Kill a Mockingbird? Yes I interviewed him for To Kill a Mockingbird That was why I interviewed

He was good. You can't act like talking about Ed Harris isn't talking about this. Yeah, can I bring up the Ed Harris stuff relevant to this movie? I want to say, finish your anecdote. No, no, what? No, I'm sorry.

You interviewed Ed Harris. No, it's fine. What were you going to say? He wants to talk Sturgis. What were you going to say? David loves Sturge's and he's got a lot of Sturgis things. No, that he was like, he likes the good burn so much

that they talked about, they built a set for the woods where they could control the elements just in case, like, You know, the scheduling didn't line up. They tried to shoot most of this movie chronologically. So they had a large indoor wood set that they could redress and have a snow machine

or have sand or whatever the fuck. And Ed Harris would, like, get to set every day and be like, Peter, come on, let's just go out there. Let's just go out there and do it. If it's snowing, we'll wake all these guys up at 2 o'clock in the morning. Everyone would do it. That he, like, really wanted to be in pain. Yeah, he's the best.

He was good in Love Lies Bleeding also. He's great in Love Lies Bleeding. He's good. He's a guy. who's now DeVal. The only problem with Love Lives Bleeding is he's like, I'm your dad, and I'm like, you're like 78 years old.

He's so cool. But it doesn't really matter. It's like Deval when we were saying after he died, it's just like, this guy just was awesome forever. Devall was awesome forever. And also was a guy where everyone was like, yeah, but he's like kind of scary and a pain in the ass.

And you're like, yeah, well, I don't give a shit. Like it's so rocks. But only because he has such an intense amount of integrity for the craft of acting. Yes. The other Ed Harris anecdote was that they, he was like, you know, they were saying that when they'd be setting up

Ed Harris would like wander off like a hundred miles away from where everyone else was. It's a far walk. And just stand by himself. And he was like, it's great being in nature. You're in these places where no one is. And you can just...

You can really hear things. We are comparison to Clint Eastwood. Says like, I think he has rid of a Clint thing. He was like, this is the privilege of being away from all the noise and the cacophony. And you can actually listen to nature. Except you make a movie and there's always 140 fucking

people yapping about. And then Jim Sturgis is like, so one day Ed Harris, like, the PA comes over and Ed Harris just starts screaming, can everyone be quiet for five minutes? We need to connect to the land before we film. And then everyone's saying like, and he was right. And it was incredible how different the next take was. Like, this is all the stuff in the interviews. Sure. That felt there was suicide squad tattoo.

Yeah, like then in the way back, which of course I assume at this point has been nominated for 10 more Oscars. Beyond that, it's like, do you know that, like, Vincent Donofrio gained 60 pounds for full metal jacket? Like, everyone assumes they're telling the stories that will go down in history about the commitment to the craft and the struggle in this movie. David? Yes. Chim! Listen, chime is changing the way people bank. Not like this old school banks that charge you when you're overdraft.

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It's someone walking towards me. Who is it? The sound of a new franchise on blank check special features are Patreon feed. And I'm a little biased. The franchise is one belonging to my good friend Robocop. He's your friend. I sometimes call him Robert Cop. We've decided to collaborate with him by watching the movies that he's... No, Paola.

We're doing this of our own volition. Yeah, of course. But we do, of course, acknowledge that he is a good friend. We're covering his film, his two direct sequels, Robocop and Robocop 2 and Robocop 3, the original trilogy. The greatest movie ever made in two movies that make me want to eat glass. And we will also be covering the remake. which makes me want to eat glass, laced and poison.

Yeah. But look forward to that. Also, we're covering the Billy Elish movie probably as long as that came out. I hope it came out. But that's our series. Yes, and Supergirl. And we'll be covering Supergirl. And Supergirl right at the end there.

Yes. And we do talk about Robocop's Dick. I don't have much to say. I really kind of sit back in these episodes. He's silent. He takes a bow of monk silence. I just have some work to do, some emails to catch up on. And they're not really my movies.

So there's not much I can really contribute to the conversation. So we're kicking off that series here today, June 1st, and that's a preview for what's to come throughout June and July. Absolutely. So check it out over at patreon.com slash link checks. Jim Sturgis, Ascendant, as we said, possibly. Weir says he saw across the universe. Okay, if you say so.

You're questioning whether he saw it? It doesn't really feel like something he'd run to. Probably likes the Beatles. Yeah, maybe, right. He thought he had a quality. And then he said, in meeting him, he has a very interesting manner. He's got a kindness to him. I was keen to not have a typical hero.

I'm willing to believe that Peter Weir feels this way. My whole thing with Jim Sturgis is, I'm like, he never has read as much of anything to me. Even watching the movie. He's just like, he's fine. He's like an adequate looking guy who's fine. He blends in with like these other five guys in the movie, even though you know he's the lead.

There's no doubt that at this time, Weir is told, like, this is a guy that you really want to put in the center of the moment. And probably like, you know, he'll do it. Like, right? He'll fucking do four months in Bulgaria for you. He wants to do it. He wants to be like, I'm, I'm getting like the real serious actor heavy lift shit. You also, you talk about this phenomenon all the time art, but like the guy who is bankable, who you can get a green light for any project with this guy for like exactly two weeks. Yeah. You know, where Hollywood's just like, we think if we invest in this guy now, two years from now, he will be worth.

five times as much as we paid. So he is like a go-picture Greenlight Activator. I mean, and it's a guy who either has like hits that you can't credit to him or hasn't had a hit yet, but the charisma is so strong in movies that

didn't make money. But this is what I don't understand. 21 wasn't, man. No, he's, so that's the thing. Okay, but we must remember. What we are kind of wants here, clearly, is like Mel Gibson and Gallipoli. Yeah, sure. I want to be finding someone with a bit of a

who's young but has a little bit of earth to him or so. But, like, across the universe was a colossal bar. Yes. It was incredibly expensive. Oh, seven. Then in 2008, he's in the other Berlin girl, which is a movie that I think, like, made its budget back and did fine, but was really poorly received. I do. I don't even remember him in that.

He's the fucking... He's not on the poster. Isn't the poster of Banna? Well, because Banna's doing this while girls are thinking. He's... He's the other Boulin's brother. I was going to say he's the other Boulin guy. He is the other Berlin guy.

But across the universe... Sort of the Roshingranz and Gildenstern are dead of the other Poland franchise. He was a Julie Tamar Discovery. This is Amy Pascal or Sony. Across the universe is delayed for a long time. And Amy Pascal loved discovering stars and, like, keeping them in the stable and betting on them. So they threw him onto 21, which is also Sony. And he's the face of that movie?

Like, he's on front center on the post from all that. And that movie is a hit. Yeah, it's a solid hit. They let Spacey be frank in that movie. There's only one reason you make the money. Let him be frank. And so that movie has made money. Like, it made like 80-mill domestic.

Like, it was like a saw... And after that, I mean, I assume we're getting close to when this movie starts to be made. But there's crossing over, a.k.a. woke crash. Right. Which went nowhere. That was also delayed for years. Right. Because Sean Penn was in it and he demanded they cut him out of it.

There was a whole plot line with Sean Penn where he didn't like the politics of the final movie. and he said he somehow had the power to get his whole story chunk removed. Bob, Honey, do stuff. He was in the film Heartless directed by the great Philip Ridley, which I've never seen,

which is sort of like the last time Ridley made a movie. This year, obviously, as the insane one-two punch of way back in Legend of the Guardians, the Alas of Gahoole. He's the main voice in Gahul. Right.

I mean, so, I mean, at this point, his agent is basically just imagining, like, how big a vault will I need for the gold coins I'm going to be making off this guy? And then one day, with Anne Hathaway and Cloud Atlas

are like the last two movies of what feel like the things that he got on after 21. Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite movies and it's one of those things where you're like, oh right, and Jim Sturgis. Yeah. You know, like all the other guys, you're like, cool, and then he's there too. Because then it's five years of movies you haven't heard. And then

like Dean Devlin tries to make him the hero at the center of Geo Storm and then it goes back into movies you've never heard of. I think he's done some TV. Has he? No way to know. There kind of is no way to know, but he was the star of Feed the Beast. Of course.

On AMC. And then he was the star of Home Before Dark on Apple TV with Brooklyn Prince. Of course. And then he was the star of, uh, Jesus, mixed tape, which premiered on binge. Yeah. Why are you saying things we all know? What the fuck is going on? You're wasting air time.

Okay, so he cast him sturgis. Like that sounds great for him. It just feels very, yeah, like Griffin says, it's like, if you need a guy of this age, he's, I'm sure 10 people passed on this. Right, but like 10 years earlier, it's, or not even like five years earlier, it's, it's Ewan McGregor or it's Colin Farrell or it's, you know. Dylan Hall. Yeah. With Farrell, as we often will hear about Farrell, I feel like, they meet and Peter Wir was like, he's really fucking fun to talk to and hang out with.

He had the, like, I was not going in thinking this was his part. He walked out with the part. He's relishing. How close is this to Eastern Promises? In terms of RR. He says, 07, maybe? No. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, 07. Really? Yeah. I thought it was like 9 or 10. Seven. Okay, so tolerance for, like, tattooed Russian convicts is high. Through the roof. The cue score is immense.

The public is demanding it. They're angry every time they show up in a theater and that kind of guy doesn't show up on screen. Where's a guy with like a weird knife that he talks to? This performance, I found very subtle and moving. Oh, yeah? Ben. I do. I fucking love.

What I love about the way back is that you're like, okay, then they're all going to die. And we're like, no, actually only a couple. And some of them will just kind of stop walking for other reason. Just like, you know what? I'm tapping out. Yeah, Perel's just like, ah, Moncolia. I fucking love Stalin, though. I was, like, actually bummed he didn't get a big dramatic death scene. Or just a big dramatic anything.

Yeah. And this is a tattooed crazy convict whose best friend is a knife. He calls both. Yeah. What did you think of this part of the movie and the general dryness of this movie? Well, it was a subtle performance. Best friend is a knife. His best friend is a knife.

You know, it's like one of the few objects he has left. So, of course, I understand why it's so important to him. Reminding him of, you know, before he became a gulog prisoner. If Farrell wasn't going big in this movie, it would be tough. Because, like, you know, everyone else is pretty low key in this movie. Farrell getting the end in this movie, it starts immediately, Ferrell has the juice. And I'm like, I'm going to hate it when he's out at the end of the first act.

Right, right, right. Because he's so front-loaded that the only reason he would get the end is if he has an early exit. And said it's no mark. Strong. Exits in the first act. And Farrell exits in the second act. Yes. Okay.

But Russian prison tattoos are fucking awesome. And it was definitely something that went across my desk at one point of my life. There was like that book that was everywhere. It was like Urban Outfitters on the counter book of Russian tattoos. That's why you have those diamonds on your kneecaps. Right. Well, of course. Sir Sharonin, I mean, there's no, you don't need to explain casting her.

Yeah. But as Peter Weir says, she's got an old. soul she's you know so talented blah-b-b-law i mean like obviously you fucking cast her here was my experience watching this movie last night you see her her uh just her frame off in the distance right the guys see someone walking towards them and i was like oh my god yes here we go sir sure no wait this is one of those movies where she's still a child right just immediately was like oh right she's a little kid in this yeah i mean she's probably i think there's a pegy seagull geoffrey epstein email to that same that same effect almost definitely she would have been about 15 or 16 which really uh

Yeah. Okay. When's Atonement? Isn't Atonement? Atonement's 07. Your favorite year you can't remember. Right. And then Lovely Bones is 08 and City of Ember is 09?

Well, everyone knows that. Everyone knows that. I haven't checked in with the city of ember recently. It's going great. So this film was shot in Bulgaria and Morocco. Some shooting in India, I think, right for the end. So the Bulgarian forest became the Siberian forest. Crazy.

Morocco is the Gobi Desert. Crazy. Okay, cool. They weren't actually going to be able to film in the real. go be desert or Russia because problems that would come up with doing that. Bulgaria obviously has like old Soviet era

studios. They're being used now. I mean, this is how you make the fucking any movie these days. Sure. Yeah. And he had to shoot on location. It was an advantage visually. It's advantage psychologically. I wanted to create true motion

for the audience to connect with these people. I mean, you know, it's what you're talking about, Griffin. It's like they're all talking about this movie with so much integrity and so seriously and it was so fucking hard to make it and they're all giving these interviews i assume because these all interviews are all from january 2011 being like but it was all worth it to make the way back i just want the listener to know that arp has entered the bathroom we just need to quickly i think give some space to make sure no toilets are broken no oops are loudly uttered i just want to i i just we're

little bit on edge until we hear the flush, right? Just knowing the history of ARP in this bathroom. I was going to... I'm trying to find if there's any other, you know... There's nothing else that's, like, really that interesting about how they made this movie to me, honestly. It is... They shot on location. It was really hard.

Yeah. We were kept saying... He had this running bit and the making-of thing about how he had to approach casting the locations, like he was casting actors because they couldn't film in most of the real places that they walked through. So then it's like which country is going to double for which other country.

But this movie truly, like, had four months of filming across multiple continents. Right, right. And then the film exits production and doesn't have a distributor. Yeah. Like, they can't find a register.

Now, it is like, it's post-recession, I guess. Yeah. Like, that's what we're is. saying okay we're hearing a flush we're hearing a flush all good so far okay the seat is down okay but after like it basically takes until they play at the tell you ride film festival and new market signs on so that's in september 2010 right so like it really was like touch and go if this was even going to get released in 2010 i guess yeah and i'm sure you remember it was just on all these lists of like and maybe this is a chance for like an headhairs career there wasn't

Like a focus to a campaign. Colin Comeback, Harris, Career Cap, or Peter Weir usually gets nods. There's a Peter Weir movie that many people haven't seen, but like it might be able to score in a few categories. And then looking through it, it's like it basically got zero precursor nombs anywhere, not even critics groups, and then just kind of got the surprise makeup nomination. You pointed out like both publicly and privately that even by this time, the strategy of like the Oscar hopeful movie comes out December 25th was just kind of cooked.

It's a nightmare. Even then you couldn't. You couldn't do it. Put it in there that late, especially with, like, a distributor that's probably, like, at that point, just one person sitting on the floor in an empty office answering the phone. Correct. Right, right. It's like, if you're going to do that, you need to push, like, an incredibly major campaign to get it, like, in front of everyone. And this movie, it's like, no, but they walk.

Right. Their skin got so dry, and people are like, uh-huh. Well, Ben, I mean, you like the dryness, right? One of the drier movies. It's very dry. Because you were probably, because you're watching Mosquito Coast, you're like, this is the damp and muggy. I don't like this. Yeah, no, it looked really unpleasant, way too buggy.

Except for the mosquito part of this movie, which is fucked up. It's so fucked up. I have to say that it looked unpleasant being in the desert. So you figured walking across the movie desert by yourself with no possessions would be easy. But actually, it seems like pretty shitty. Yes. Now, Ben, you were saying that you ran out of your lozenges that you're fixated on now. Have you considered sucking on pebbles?

Hot pebbles? Not just any pebble. It'll keep your mouth salivating. Just get a little moisture out of it. You don't have to keep buying them. You can just find them and carry them around in your pocket. Yeah, you save money. Less sugar intake, too, by far.

I kept thinking. You know, Pebbles have almost no sugar. It's actually crazy we don't eat them all the time. I'm surprised people if Ben came in one day saying, like, you know what I've started doing is sucking on rocks? I think I'd be a little alarmed. I didn't say you wouldn't be alarm. It says you wouldn't be surprised.

And then we find out he's selling bags of rocks. I've become a rock influencer. It's my new diet trick. Yeah, rocks suck on rocks. I kept thinking... I mean, everyone in this movie's shedding the pounds. That's true. Yeah.

They're looking true. It'd be funny if, like, Gustav Starzard kept getting fatter. I'm like, how are you doing this? Like, there's one guy on the... He's got a stash of fluffer-down sandwiches or not. Yeah. I actually found a cotton candy machine.

I haven't told you guys. That's always a good bit. David, did you overall like this movie? I think this movie's pretty good. Yes, I said, like, I was basically, like, dreading, watching it a little bit, and certainly, there are parts of it that are... that are sad and I was sad when people died and so on and so forth.

But like the sort of procedural... I just felt like it wasn't too heavy on the like Revenant style. This was so punishing. You must be punished as they were punished. I had this thought many times while watching the film. Like I definitely prefer this to the Revenant because it's not doing that. It's not like shoving your face into the dog shit. Yeah.

And many a true story type movie can do that. Don't you understand like how bad this was? And I'm like, yes, I'm a fucking intelligent person. But I never thought this movie was that. Just because it was at a time where that wasn't really in vogue of like the point of this movie is a miserable experience. But my other fear, of course, was there's going to be kind of treakly of this sort of like, oh, the human spirit and endures. Which it doesn't have that at all. It's not that at all.

The end is truly like, all right. See you guys. Instead it has like lovely little moments that I like of dialogue and like, you know, character. There's so much stuff in the middle of the movie where like, Just his eye is so great. Like his some of the, like, this is a guy, Peter Weir, you know he's making people wait around to get a 10 second shot at sunset. Totally. You know he's making everyone stand in one place for 45 minutes until the sun is perfect for a shot that serves no narrative purpose.

And the shot is worth it. It doesn't feel like it's indulgence, right? It doesn't feel like it's sort of himself stylizing. And Ed Harris is there like shadow boxing being like this is what we're here for. Yeah. Just wait in the hot setting sun. I feel like everyone's on board in that way, right? Like, barrels like, yes, this is what I want to be doing.

They like the focus. They like the discipline of that. Do you like, like survival? That's what I was going to ask these to. Prison break movies. Because you're talking about the Revenant, which doesn't occur to me at all. I'm watching this thinking like Papillon, runaway train. Sure.

I'm thinking of like people who break out of jail and the movie is like, if you don't keep moving, you will get caught and you will die. Because you guys famously are outdoorsy people. Love hiking. I was wondering how you related to that aspect of the film as well. I mean, I simply would not do this. That's not what I asked. How would you survive?

If I'm in the movie way back at minute five, I eat a bowl of bullets. I just swallow them. I did get... I'm in the gulag. I kept saying to Forky, like, I think by this point I'm dead. By this point, I'm definitely dead. Like, dead here, dead here. Yeah.

I think Griffin would do well in the gulag. I don't think you'd want to leave. That's actually not a bad thing. Like, hey, I drew like a naked lady on a piece of paper. You know, three cigarettes, please. Three Hots and a cot? I don't think they got a lot of hot or caught. It was pretty rough there.

One cold and a floor? Yeah, it's kind of more than five. One and a half colds in a floor. I do like a mattress. So that's maybe where I'd be struggling. But I do think I'd make friends. I'm imagining you showing up to the gulag. And they're like, what's your name?

And you're like, just if I do like a mattress. I feel like Griffin's roll in my file. This roll in the way back is kind of Rob Schneider and Judge Dred where you're just walking across the waistland. And everyone's like, this guy is still talking. That's the meanest thing you've ever said to me. If you were in the way back. Not in real life. But if it was life or death, I think that would be the vibe you bring.

I think I'd be at the midpoint between that and Mark Strong. Okay. Right. Where it's like, this guy doesn't really want to escape. Right. I like that conception of escape himself. You're that guy. Right.

It's like he talks. That's the Mark Strong. Right. He talks about escaping as a way to kind of get through the days. Or you'd be like, Mr. Burns, when it's the fighting hellfish flashback. And he wakes up on the cot and they're like, hey, You're not dead. Yes.

I would just to your, like, Papillon's a movie I find a smidge. It's a bit of a slog. It's got cool stuff. Runaway train I like, because one, it's on a train. Well, that's true. And two, that movie is bananas. Cold. Like, it is cold.

But, I mean, like, that's something where John Voight was like bigger. And the director was like, uh-huh. And John Voix was like, what if I went even bigger? The director's like, uh-huh. And that just kept going and going. Yeah. And Eric Roberts. He's insane in that movie.

Have you seen runway train? Yeah. Yeah. These movies are more like to me. because this is a World War II movie, but not really. Very, not barely at all. But it fits into our at-home syllabus of World War II. But even re-watching it, it's interesting because the Russian experience of World War II

is entirely inscrutable to Americans. You're never taught it. It's not part of the history. I mean, it is, but it's not part of the history you learn. And the average person couldn't describe even vaguely what Russia was doing during World War II because they're both like... average American, the average, well, yes,

not the average human on Earth, but, like, it is very hard to understand. Yeah. And this movie is that. Yes, sort of. I mean, well, I mean, literally, partially.

But, you know, it's a World War II movie in spirit, but it has no combat. It's not about the Eastern Frontsies. And these are all enemies of the Soviet Union. Yeah. Which is why they're in the Gulag.

But you know who else was enemies of the Soviet Union? Adolf Hitler. Yeah. See, that's why people get confused about this. They sure do. It's like, wait, if the, if, if,

if they were fighting against the Nazis, why are they imprisoning people who seem okay? And it becomes very confusing. And as Anna wanted me to point out, Russia was just basically in the middle of purging their entire population anyway. Right. And they were using this as a fine opportunity

to continue their essentially reign of terror. And I like the setup, I mean, it's just, I guess, historically accurate, but that the gulags at this point in time are like half criminals, half political criminals. Yeah. So you got guys. like Colin Farrell, alongside guys like Ed Harris,

who's just like an engineer who moved to Russia for work and is now, right. That's subversive, and so he's, you know, and like, Janush, Jim Sturgis is Polish, and of course, the Soviets conquered Poland when they were allied with Hitler. His wife sells him out at the beginning of the movie. I mean, Sels him out is strong. She's coerced into, right, yeah.

Right, and then she thinks he will break. Right. Yes, in interrogation. I mean, I agree with you guys that this movie is good, right? Like, I... It's, like, pretty good. I mean, I did not think it was a masterpiece. I was, like, I was sort of a little, you know,

well-med, but I had fairly low expectations, so I was like, right, no, this is a well-made movie, and he's a good director, and what was I thinking? I just don't think he could fumble. I don't know, right. Even with half the resources he wants, his eye, his instincts, like, I hate this phrase. I hate when people are like, this director always knows exactly where to put the camera.

It's like, so does everybody in front of the actors. Like, this is an insane sentence. But his instincts of like visual storytelling are so muscular, even in a drama, even in dead poet society. He can't ever frame things in a way that you're not like, this is cool looking, this place feels real, these actors are in the moment, and he's in complete control. And this movie is totally solid. Like, I'm not saying it's even, you know, it could only not be in the top five of his because his highs are untouchable. But, I mean, the response to it or the new market dumping of it, it's. non-existence is totally undeserved.

Well, it's a really strong representation of this exact moment in film history where things are just kind of like falling apart and no one knows, you know, like, is there a way to make these movies anymore? Well, that's why I found it fascinating and called it months ago. Yes. It's because it is that to me. And he's really just, you know, I mean, he was just, he would have been the top of anyone. I'm sure there was a time where he was ahead of Ridley Scott on people's lists.

Yeah. I also, I think like everything. But he never made, like, what's an ex? You know, he didn't have a... Ridley had a really terrible 90s. I mean, like, in between Thelman Louise and Gladiator, Ridley makes movies... What would you rather watch White Squall or Master and Commander?

It's tough. Master and Commander. Okay. It's a toss-up. You're saying that's a toss-up? Oh, yeah. Both of these guys took to the sea. Sure.

Right. But I think the better... Largely similar results. I think the better comparison is if Gladiator had performed... Or rather, if Master and Commander had performed the way the Gladiator did, both financially and at the Oscars, what do the next 15 to 20 years of Peter Ware look? And I also feel like...

Versus that was like the second win that like gets to the next 25 years of Ridley Scott being unstoppable. Peter Weir could have made Gladiator. Really Scott could not have made Master and Commander. I think Ridley Scott could have made Master and Commander just wouldn't have been as good. And I love... Of course, he could have made it and he might have...

But it would have not been... Gladiator in Peter Weir's hands is, I think, an equally great movie. Yeah. This is my struggle with this film. And I think I put it at the bottom of my weird rankings. The bottom. A lot of...

Look, I think the guy's never made a bad film. So I'm just rating... He's definitely putting it at the bottom of the series. Three and above. You don't like war. I don't like war. You're a real 4-F? Absolutely.

I'm flat-footed as shit. I got bone spurs in my arms. I got both spurs in my brain. Your face. Yeah. Yeah, carry on. Carry on. I think what I was struggling...

with, and it's frustrating because I'm like, it is because Peter Rear has so much integrity, has such, like, control of the dial and is, like, not compromising this story to meet the sort of, like, commercial demands of the moment that I felt like I was struggling to find a handle on it. I think this film is, like, impeccably made. I think basically everyone in the cast is, like, good to great.

Like, Sturgis is probably the worst. and he's solid. He just doesn't really register. And everyone above him is like shades of excellent. All the sort of stuff that could be seen as like, bravado, we're going to go out here and struggle. I'm going to fight to get like a 10 second shot just to prove that I'm like this serious of an artist.

Like all of that is on screen. None of that is like performative chest thumpy shit. But I kept being like, do I need this movie to have 10% of some Hollywood bullshit in some area, do I wish this had like 10% more adventure? Because basically from the moment they escape, it's just we have a really long way to walk. The conflict is, are we going to die before we finish this walk? But unlike the sort of prison escape movies you're talking about, there's not the kind of like, we're being chased shit. I don't want Tommy Lee Jones on their back.

But from the moment they escape, and the escape is not that much of a movie. No. Right? Then you're just sort of in like, escape is exciting. Is this a funereal march, right? How many guys are going to die? How long is this going to go on for? The other thing is you keep thinking, like, well, for example, will Colin Farrell turn on people?

He's obviously the wild card, right? He can't be trusted. Will Sir Sharon, and she's introduced where it's like, what's this girl's deal? She's lying about her background. And the answer is, like, she lies because, like, she wants to have a more sympathetic-sounding background than my parents were political distance. Yeah. Like. No more lies, as honor quoted.

Right. But, like, it keeps not doing the more dramatic swery thing of, like, they fight. with each other. Which I'm respecting. They betray each other, which I respect too. I'm respecting that it's not doing the endurance of the human spirit.

They don't fucking come across like a bear that like tries to eat them. It might have been fun though. There's no uh... The wolves are settled really quickly. Yeah. Anytime it gives you something.

Everyone is very respectful to her. Yes. Right. There's not like a creepy sexual element with her character. And her dynamic with that Harris is probably my favorite part of the movie. But as you said,

these are all like really small, graceful character brushstrokes. Even the snake. Beautiful moments. You're right. Like the snake, it's a snake attack. He's actually following the snake to water. Ana said, why does that look good to me when they're eating the snake?

Because when hungry people are eating in a movie, it looks, they make it look good. But it basically keeps... Also, those wolves looked great. I mean, that scene happened is like, even in 2010, you're like, shit, he got real wolves. And it's like, Peter Weir's not fucking around with CG wolves. Like, it basically refuses... He's telling like the actors, like, keep your hands... Yes.

Keep your hands where the wolves can see them. Totally. They're not trained. It refuses to, like, turn any of these things. into like Roland Emmerk set pieces, right? It refuses to like create like artificial, interpersonal drama between the people. There are moments and their attentions and whatever.

And I just kind of kept being like, I'm having a hard time staying with this because it just feels like, yeah, this sucks. I agree this sucks. And it continues to suck. And I don't mean this backhandedly, but I kept thinking while watching this movie and then watching this fucking special feature

of all of them talking about how difficult it was. And I'm like, That's not in vain. All of that is on screen. But I, like, flashback to being in an acting class in my 20s with the great Elizabeth Camp, RIP, who was the best acting teacher I ever worked with. And there was a guy who wanted to do a long day's journey into night. And in this class, rather than just, like, do the text of the scene. She'd be, like, work on the character and then present to us, like, a moment. If it's a private moment or an improvised thing. But I don't want you thinking about how to say the dialogue, right? I want you to try to explore your take on the character. Right. And so the guy just leans into playing the sickness. And he's just sort of like curled up in a ball, sort of like an alcohol withdrawal, like shaking and crying. And we just watch this for like seven minutes. And I'm sitting there being like, God, this guy's a good fucking actor. This is crazy. I don't have this kind of like physical control and like emotional like, you know, recall and whatever. And then she goes like, are you are you done? Do you feel like you've done every? everything you wanted to show us. And he's like, yeah, I guess so. And she goes, good. Okay, so now we know you can do that.

Right. I probably told this story before. What did you bring into this session? That's a good question. You rolled into a ball, seven, eight minutes? I feel like I was doing Tom and Glass Menagerie. Hmm. But then I also remember I...

You weren't allowed to, like, bring in, you know, like a monologue from the usual suspects or something. I think you could have. Okay. In fact, I probably did at some point bring in some movie character. But I also ended up getting thrown into other people's scenes a lot where it's like... Isn't that part of it? Well, this woman's working on proof, can you be the Jake Gyllenhaal part? And I'd be like, great, I'm really good at improvising math.

So what did you think? Who did you think was, okay, so now that we know you can do that in this movie, we're or... I think the whole movie has a little bit of that vibe where it was like, it's not that this showy. It's not that this is hollow. This is like incredibly skillful and is like rooted in something really honest and like powerful. But then she said like we know you can

do that but like now let's work on how can you actually tell a story. And it's not that I feel like this movie isn't telling a story but I kept feeling like unlike the Revenant which I feel like as I said is pushing your face in the dog shit and saying like can you believe how hard this is and trying

to make you suffer along with the characters. I think this movie is maintaining a distance and is showing you the suffering that is mirroring what everyone was going through while working on the film. And I'm sitting there a little bit and going like, I agree. This is like very impressive that they did this. This is objectively insane to consider any human beings going through this. I don't quite understand what I'm supposed to take away from this.

I'm not looking for like a G.I. Joe PSA at the end. Do you like Castaway? I love Castaway. Okay. Which is very schmaltzy, but. It's very schmaltzy. And I'm not begging this movie to be a schmaltzy. But I do feel like Castaway has the kind of like Hollywood building blocks.

He needed a Wilson. Yeah. Well, they had a knife. The knife is kind of the Wilson of the movie. Wurkson. Yeah. And truly like maybe. Did they send out promotional knives for this movie?

I win. Should you get a promo knife? Yeah. New Market was famous for their swag. Memento had some promo stuff. But I was like, if this has an electric young leading man, does it carry me through the whole thing? Yeah. I mean, I know.

I know Sturgis is really taking some hits from us today, but I do feel like he's... No, he's not. He's not. He's fine, but he's... I think if you stacked up every Weir movie and you rank the lead performances, he's the bottom. No question. Only because that is literally Mount Rushmore. Right.

He's a rare guy that really did not pop in the hands of Weir. I mean, even he launched the career of Napoleon in fucking Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, you know? You know what might maybe helped? What? And this is a part of the book that was not included. in the film. There are Yeti-like creatures in the Himalayas

that they mention spotting, a pair of Yeti. It would be funny if like one hour and 55 minutes into the movie, they're like, oh, and by the way, we fucking saw the abominable snowman.

Anyway, moving on, back to Indy. You know, like, what if the, and the snowman takes them inside his lair and they're tied up and they have to escape? That's what happens in Tintin and in Tibet, not to spoil it.

Wow. But Griffin, in like, in the hopeless survival, narratives, like the moment where they come to the gates of where they've been going. Sure. And there's, like, Stalin on the gates. And they're like, oh, this is coming in us, too. We have to just turn around.

Yeah. Does that not satisfy the urge of, like, a tragic, ironic story beat? That beat is very interesting, but it's played very quietly. I really like that beat because I like them being like, fuck. Like, it's everywhere. And we are enemies of this particular ideology, so we can't go, like, we can't settle here or whatever. This is where I am just personally struggling with the film and not making. making a larger indictment, right?

And then I love Colin Farrow being like, I like Stalin too much to go here. Anyway, I love it as well. But I'm like, this is a fascinating scene in of itself. I'm really engaged in this scene. The scenes aren't like building upon each other for me. And it's just the nature of what the narrative is where the fact that it's like, oh, they get here and there's this like dramatic irony of, oh, now we have to like find another way. But also five minutes earlier, the movie lost Colin Farrell, the most.

interesting character because he was like, I don't want to get to that ideological threshold. And now I'm like, okay, so now the movies, like, hit a cul-de-sac. And also, we lost Colin Farrell, whose character bowed out of the movie because he thought this checkpoint was going to go differently. But now Sarser Ronan kind of is stepping up to be, like, the third lead when he's gone. Which I think she's great. The two kind of Griffin beats are, when he suggests a tattoo, should be on his butt. Yeah, that's your, that'd be your move there.

Stalin on his asshole. You'd be, you know, threatened with a knife. And the guy who just can't see and freezes to death. Well, that's who I would play. Yeah. Like, what happened to Griffin is? I don't know. He has bad eyesight.

Oh, there he is. He's frozen. Well, it would be, what happened to Griffin? He slept in. He missed the escape. He couldn't hit his, like, alarm, which is just, like, a bunch of sticks. Oh, he hit it. But he hit the fucking snooze stick 80 times.

It is nice to see Gustav star, Scars, Garde. An actor I always enjoy, who obviously is largely, you know, mostly does Swedish movies. But yeah, he's really good for this. He's really good in Blackbag. Yeah. He was good in Oppenheimer. He's good.

And yeah, and he was good in Westworld, actually, to speak of Ed Harris's favorite role. So, Griffin, you feel like the movie goes off a cliff when Farrell stays in Russia? I would say it goes off a cliff. It just slowed down a little bit. It loses a lot of juice. Sertia dying is a really, like, well-done scene. It's beautifully done, actually. It is.

It's beautifully acted and done. Yeah. But I am like... Yeah. Yeah, I'm a little deadened to the movie. I think Farrell's the spark plug. I think Farrell is the equivalent of adding you into the news and deals group chat. Like, you need him there to create the, like, innate tension of, like, where's this guy going to go?

Yeah, yeah. And I'm expecting. Yes, that is that I'll take that. Right. And I'm expecting that, like, as much as I'm going to be sorry to see him leave the movie early, it will come to, like, ahead in a very dramatic fashion. There's nothing like that. No. Because the elements are like that.

The sandstorm is that. The mosquitoes are that. Yeah. When she takes off her... Although I like the mosquitoes. The way they deal with it is they ask one guy. Like, how do we deal with this? And he's like, easy.

Put this shit around your neck. There's some guy wandering around Mongolia. Yeah. When Sertia Ronan takes off her shoes and her feet are all fat, Ana just goes, I remember this part so well. Her favorite part? I was like, why? It is kind of striking because they're like, oh, yeah.

And she's like, I mean, you know, I've been walking a lot. And everyone's like, mm-hmm. You're used to the blistering. You're supposed to look like this. Like, you're going to be fine. You're used to the blistering sores of feet and stuff like this. You're not used to this weird kind of puffiness. And then someone else has it later.

Yeah. Very, very well-earned makeup, nom. Like, the makeup is incredible and it is so subtly done that you have to keep reminding yourself that it is makeup. From the mosquito bites to the dehydration. You just feel like you're watching a documentary. It lost, of course, to the wolfman because that has a wolf man. Well, the wolf man swept that year.

I feel like it was kind of the return of the king. director. Rick Baker Best supporting Wolfman. The goat. I have always disliked the look

of that character in that movie. We've talked about this, right? You're not a big fan of the Baker job and that's sort of like one of his big

like later in life jobs. It's just like swan song. Right. To a certain extent, I think it's his last Oscar win and he basically talked about

the process of making that movie drove him so insane that he was, he had his own kind of Peter Weir like I guess I'm not aligned with this industry anymore moment.

Yeah, right. Like he still did Men in Black Black 3. Sure. He fulfilled a couple legacy jobs, but he basically starts pulling back after Wolfman. Yeah. And he views it as like, that was the last time I got away with doing what I wanted to do. And I've just never...

Maleficent is the other one he did. But he didn't win for that, or he did? No, he didn't even get nominated. Insane. He just worked on the movie. Yeah. I don't get that design. So once the movie progresses, because it's such a simple, literal movie.

Yes. There's like, you know, there's very little, like, oh, what about this part? It's basically like, what about the mosquitoes? What about when they find the water well? And they all start drinking water. So removing the schmaltz from the equation. What about when the Mongols give them a sack of water? And they say they're too poor for horses.

And they're just like, okay, well, we have no questions about why you people are wandering around out here. I like all of these moments. Castaway, I am a sap, a contrarian, a goofball. Do you like Jerry? Yes. Oh, the Vince Sandman? Yeah. That's the best.

That movie fucking rocks. I put this movie closer to Jerry than the Revenant. But Jerry is like abstracting everything To the million degrees Which is so cool I mean Jerry rocks So the cat Bring back Jerry Jerry too

Jerry's Castaway comparison Is Van San still on the Still on the board? Well he's going up against your favorite filmmaker of all time Chris Columbus right now Castaway has

The structure of problem solving Which is what I think I like In this type of movie When I connect to this type of film Yeah yeah Which is the fun of send help even like any I'm like. Totally. Well also, I mean, this is insane. Chris Columbus is winning. Who the fuck wants this over a psycho remake episode? I would love very much love to discuss the

psycho remake, a movie I love. But the other like to us, like in the movies we like watching at home, there's like the two kinds of this kind of movie you're describing is something like the Martian, which has kind of identical problem solving structure. And then there's the kind of like seafaring adventure shipwreck in the heart of the sea where it's just like another thing of like can these people survive? But in the heart of the sea is one that nobody liked because that one's a much grimmer. Yeah. I think a lot of people like that movie.

I think a lot of people find that to be like a really worthy. A lot of seafaring adventure. Yeah. Definitely. I think a very popular. A whale is writing that right now. I think a lot of people like that movie had wanted to come back. Even like All Is Lost, which is not my favorite movie and is similarly like very sparse.

That's not your favorite movie. It's not, in fact, my number one favorite movie of all times. Sight and Sound Poll. Number one. I know people think... Number two of the Muppet movie. Where you're like, I know these are unranked, but just to be clear, all is lost is number one.

All four slots on my letterbox four. Yeah. It's not... Some is lost. No, it's all is like. You have to respect the all. I always thought that was your favorite movie. This is why I'm trying to correct the scurrilous rumor.

Even all is lost, which is not your favorite movie. Please finish your thought. And it's so stripped down and obviously, like, mostly... No talking. Right. Wardless and whatever. Has that kind of like... okay, here's this one problem. He's got to solve this where I feel it stacking up.

And I think this movie, I rewatched Day After Tomorrow recently. So did I. A movie that fucking rules that David's wrong about. Not a movie I like. But that is a movie where I'm always fascinated by its Hollywood junkiness, where it's like, we can keep escalating the type of natural disasters that happen. And then you feel two-thirds into the movie, them go, fuck. There is no way to resolve this film.

They can't undo the weather. No. And there's nothing for them to conquer. there is no way for them to score a win. Randy Quaid can't fly a plane into those alien spaceship. I guess they have to fight wolves. I guess like Dennis Quaid has to come to him.

I always forget how late in the movie Dennis Quaid even starts his journey. It's over an hour before he's like, fuck it, I'm walking. I'm going to do my own long walk. And then that's pretty expedited. And I feel this movie being like, Peter We're pitching this to studio.

Studios being like, cool. So can every 15 minutes something insane happen? The guys have to try to kill each other. There have to be, like, big kind of, like, conflicts that they can, like, score wins over. And he's, like, no, that's not the kind of movie I'm making. And he has, like... You're saying he's Kistanzing. Yes.

And then he's over-corrected... No, no, nothing happens. So far into the... Well, if I'm not making it with the studio, then I'm making it exactly the way I want. And I'm not going for any Hollywood bullshit artifice. And I'm like, I could use, like, 5 to 10% more kind of, like, not wins. Well, I mean, What you're describing is the way mosquito coast is structured.

Yes. Which is like a series of builds and activities and ice transports and little things that arise and the sort of endless obstacles that he's facing. It's so focused and it's bleakness. It's not like selling out the message of the movie and the integrity of like, you know, the character study and all of that. But it does have that kind of build that. I think I was just kind of struggling to hold on to here. Every scene would happen. I'd be like, this is a good scene.

And the next scene would start, and I'd be like, okay, this scene has to win me over again from zero. Where do you guys? Once we hit the monks is when I'm like, I'm parking my ass here. This is great. I want to hang out with you guys. Like, this is great. I don't want to go to keep walking. They leave at Harris there and I'm like, why are you not staying there with that?

Because Sturge is like, I got to get home, run. Ono is very prepatious. I got to get home to my fucking wife. Honest comment at the end of our- Our rewatch was, like, I did not know that the point of this movie was like this eternal love that he has to return to. I feel like they debut that notion pretty late. Even though it is the first scene in the movie.

It's the first scene in the movie and then you have a couple times where it's sort of the vision of the door, which I like that. Yeah. Yeah, that stuff. I mean, we're just good at that stuff. He's good at that stuff. There's so much of that in Truman Show too. Again, because this movie doesn't have like over-labored kind of monologues of like guys

being like, yeah, that's my wife I love her so much. You know, like... The photos in the helmet. Right. It does take a while for him to be like, oh, no. By the way, like, we got across the Himalayas right fucking now. even though, like, clearly the wisest man you've ever seen was like, not a good idea. It's the winter.

Like, wait until spring. Yetis. Yetis. There be yetis. This was another thing I thought while watching it. That was the missed opportunity. That's a misopportunity. For me.

The other thing I thought was, would this movie benefit from starting one week earlier rather than starting in the interrogation room? Giving you, like, Sturgis in Poland, being rounded up? Well, let's also say maybe it's a guy with a little more juice than Sturgis. right? Who is that? I mean, I don't want to go down this rapid hole at this point. It's a really good question. In 2010. At this moment it's tough. We can keep pointing to people. But this is also

when like male actors started basically being hunted for sport. Who is new then? Is that more interesting? Or do we shoot higher? Do we get like Matt Damon? You know, do we get like a very established actor? It's tough because it's like if it's 2000, the options are

overflowing. Yeah, but then you could end up with like Hotobie McGuire where you're like, I don't know what that looks like, you know. I don't know why I'm going to him, but he did occur to me. He's Sturges-esque in his gentleness. I just think I realized too late in this movie, much like it sounds on it did, oh, right, the thing that's driving him is wanting to see his wife again. Sure.

Which this movie in its stoicness is not overplayed. What if it's fucking James Franco? Like, who made a survival thriller this year? Now we're talking. Yeah. Although, like, that's the better survival thriller for him to be in. It is. I'm not, you know.

But you mean like a guy who's just kind of innately charismatic. Can be. Although sometimes, Franco, you're kind of like, did you forget to plug in today, buddy? But I think him at that time would put himself in the hands of a master like weird. He would rise to the assignment. One would assume. At this time. I do think he wants a certain emotionality in this role, though, right?

Like, he wants a certain sweetness. But he also, but the script doesn't support that because there isn't any of those moments of like, what are you going to do with, what's the first thing you're going to do when you get back? Right. Kiss my wife. What about you? hug my mouth. That's why I'm like,

does it need to start a week earlier so that there's some status quo of their relationship rather than it's starting with him in the interrogation and her like setting him up and him falling on the sword? It doesn't make sense too because

and I guess the characters at that time don't know this, right? That the war will eventually end but even beyond the war like the occupation will fall and so he won't be able to go to as we see right at the end. So it's like the,

chance of him being able to go back and see his wife, it doesn't seem like it could happen like within his lifetime. The postscripts that like follow the fall of communism are very, it's like, wow, this is really consolidating decades of history into a series of title cards. With footsteps over them because it's like, oh, right, he hasn't gotten to the end of his problems. The walk continues. I think a lot of prison movies too, like you got to see some amount of their life on the outside before they go in to understand what they've lost. I don't. I don't think with, without exception, but I felt like I didn't have enough of a grounding in this guy to have him be the one driving the movie. I guess because we watch like 30 World War II films

a year kind of in a row. Yeah. I'm like, I know what he was doing last week. I know what happened to Poland. Sure. I do know what happened to Poland. I have. I have. Yeah.