Blank Check with Griffin & David - We Need To Talk About Kevin with Jia Tolentino

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

The time has come for us to talk about Kevin. The New Yorker's Jia Tolentino joins us to talk about Lynne Ramsay's depiction of every parent's worst nightmare - 2011's We Need To Talk About Kevin. We need to talk about how Griffin grew up with Ezra Miller, and even auditioned against him to play Kevin. We need to talk about Lionel Shriver's awful politics. We need to talk about Tilda Swinton comparing her performance here to Buster Keaton. And we need to again explain the whole Fantastic Beasts franchise to another guest who is blissfully unaware of Credence Barebone. Read Jia's Profile of Jennifer Lawrence and her other work at the New Yorker. Check out the r/HowIsLivingThere 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

It's like this. You wake and you watch podcasts, get in your car, and listen to the podcasts. You go to your little jobs, your little school, but you don't really hear about that on the 6 o'clock news. Why? Because nothing is really happening. You go home and you watch some more podcasts, and maybe it's a fun night and you go out and you watch a podcast. I mean, it's got so bad that half the people on podcasts inside the podcast, they're listening to podcasts. It's TV?

Oh, sorry, sorry, you're not done. I was going to say, and what are these people watching podcasts like me? It's TV. He's talking about TV. But also extends to radio. I was replacing a couple different words there. Yeah. Because we got to heal.

So that's Kevin. That's the titular character Kevin in a movie that is called, We Need to Talk About Kevin. He's doing the talk of it. Hey, well, shut up. Usually he's just, you know, jacking it and locking eyes with you or whatever. Here's a question. I can only defeat this movie with humor or, like, confront this movie.

You strongly dislike this movie. That's not true. No, no, no, no, no, no. But I'm not a huge... It's the only movie of hers that I'm pretty mixed on. It is my least favorite, and I still think it's very good.

But I feel like you've always been kind of on it, and then, like, two days ago, you barged into a recording and said, by the way, the belt has been handed over, the number one, least pleasant thing I've had to watch. Movie I was least... And guest, please. You can weigh in, but, like, the least pleasant...

Like, the movie I was least in the mood to watch for work, essentially. This is a job of mine. Well, can I tell you about when I just rewatched it? Yes, you can. And I think I know this, but please. I might have texted you this. So I was on the plane to Sundance, and I was like, okay, I'm going to read the book.

Because I've actually never read a Lionel Shriver book because of her personality. Normal. You're normal? Yeah, like most people, I've never read a Lionel Shriver book. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to read it. Because I was curious. I had been thinking about Lynn Ramsey because I had profiled Jennifer Lawrence or die my love. incredible profile.

So, why I'm here, why I'm here because I was like, because I was texted David and I was like, have y'all done Lin-Ramsie yet? And he was like, you're the only person who's ever asked that question versus us announcing we're doing Lynn Ramsey and me getting 800 texts.

Why are you guys doing Lin-Ramsey? No, I actually am curious, this is your least favorite, including Die My Love? Like, are we saying least favorite? Are you think like least? Yes, I think I prefer Die My Love to this. But Die My Love would probably be second-least, not to preview. Would you, you don't think

this movie is better than Die My Love? I don't. Is that, am I crazy? I need to rewatch that, my love. We can debate. It's obviously the freshest, and I've only seen it the one time, and I will be rewatching it shortly. Yeah. It's these two at the bottom position for me, but I basically think she's only made great films.

Like, that's my opinion. I agree. I'm like, this is maybe the least masterful of her masterful movies. Oh, I think it's so good, but I hate it because it's Kevin. Yes. Like, it's because we have to look at Kevin the whole time. I've been making the argument throughout this mini-series trying to, uh, consult. listeners who are perhaps scared

by the idea of engaging with these movies. Oh, they're so good. That they are not as punishing as they might sound if you were a synopsis. No, this movie, I had no interest in watching this movie. I had never seen it before researching this profile. But anyway, so I was on the plane to Sundance and I was like, okay, I'm going to prep for the podcast.

I'm going to read, we need to talk about Kevin. And I had been reading it at home and I was hoping to finish it before I left. I had like 100 pages that I was like, okay, take it on the plane. So I get in the plane. It's a middle seat because I had re-refering, arranged my flight for the snowstorm, settle into my middle seat, pull out my book, we need to talk about Kevin, read the last hundred pages, shut it. And I was like, well, now's the good of a time

as any to do my rewatch. So I opened my laptop and then watch, start to finish. We need to talk about Kevin. You were so deep in it. And I was like, so like, I was like, putting hands up. It's a little embarrassed. Anyone's clock and you do this. You were Kev Maxing. And like the girl next to me was talking to her, like the girl across the aisle. They were really good friends. And I was like, they probably are going to get up the plane. They're like, did you notice what that? Yes. So I was so, I was so self-conscious.

Is this what she does? Like every day? She rereads the book and then rewashes the movie? It's just your plane. Is she stimming? Like, is this like, does she need to do this? Yeah. You know, it's how I combat my plane anxiety.

Is I just, right, I just squeeze Kevin into the brain. It's a really, however bad things could be. Multimedia, Kevin. It could always be worse. It's one of the worst movies to watch with people like one inch for me. I was going to say, this is. The one thing in it scene, I mean, all at every scene. This is the one.

The many pooping in the diaper scenes. The blowjob poop scene. That one. I swear to God. This is the one that feels a little punishing, in my opinion. I love it. But it is the one movie that's kind of rubbing your nose in it a little bit. 100%.

Right. Much like Kevin does. Kevin does. The movie treats you the way Kevin treats his mother. But you. we're not crazy about this when it came out. Previously, a Park 10 Wook series, which has a lot of child murder.

Yeah. Was one where you were really kind of on edge. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That was, which is so funny because I think I said this at the time. Is there a lot of child murder? I listened to that series. A fair amount of his movies,

especially the vengeance movies. I mean, it's especially sympathy for Mr. Vengeance revolves around the death of a child. And then Lady Vengeance. No, Lady Vengeance. That one is the stuff film one. I can never watch that yet. Right.

Those are the two. That was the one that I feel like broke you and has held the belt since then. Or it's just, you know, it's not so much like I have no problem engaging with incredibly challenging work. It's a little bit more like when it's like, fuck, I need to squeeze this into my schedule because I got to record on this. When am I going to be in? So it's kind of like, unfortunately, mood or no. Scrap in. Time for me to think and talk about Kevin.

We regret to inform you it is time to talk about Kevin. And sometimes, of course, my wife is sitting in the bed next to me being like, what have you put on? television. Like, what on earth? This movie is also so like expressionistic that it is a thing where, like, if you're watching it over your husband's shoulder in bed or you're sitting next to

on a plane. It's like that first scene with the squirming tomato. Any image for three seconds, it's like, what the fuck are you watching? Which is, of course, she's such a great conjurer of images. That's actually when, as soon as the, as the squirming tomato, like, it's like, one of the most joyful scenes in the entire movie is like thousands

of body squirming in tomato flesh. You know, and it really sets the bar for like, this is what Joy is going to look like is squirming tomato flesh. But it was so beautiful that I was like, actually, I think I'm going to like this movie, despite having never wanted to watch it. The beginning is so fucking good. She's such a good filmmaker. It's Latomatina. That's what it is. That's the name of the festival? It's in Spain. It's the biggest food fight in the world. You know, you get in your swimwear or your undies and you throw tomatoes at each other and ride around. Is it a tomatoes only, though? I think it's, I mean, Latomatina. I think people sneak some other stuff in there. I brought a pepper.

Is that okay? No one's going to notice, right? I like... Murder at the La Tomatino is kind of a good. Yeah, I know, right. It's like, oh, fuck, this guy in the shit. This guy's been bleeding the whole time. You can make a great, like, Gialo film.

Yeah. I like that in the grocery store scene where you see her, like, framed by the wall of tomato sauce cans. It's Ma Ramsey's tomato sauce. Uh-huh. Yeah. Now, that's a reference to... Lynn Ramsey.

Lynn Ramsey. Director and writer of this picture. Did Ma Ram... I don't understand. I mean, like... She's made it her own tomato sauce. You know what I'm saying? Sort of fun.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's just fun. It's just fun. She's fun. Did you talk to her? We'll talk about it. I did talk to her. I talked to her and afterwards,

I mean, I... You know, I hope this doesn't come off anti-Skodish, you know. But I couldn't understand. understand a word she said. And so I was... You're on the phone, I assume. Yeah, but I needed an interpreter and I didn't have one. So I was just saying, oh, yeah. You're fighting for your life. That's fascinating. Oh, my God. Like, could you say more about that?

Like, I've always wondered. And I was, I was totally blind by the end. I had no idea. Did you have to, like, like, feed, like, the dictation into babblefish? It was so quick and the connection was so bad. Like, she was, like, we were on a bad connection, plus the accent, plus she's a quick, you know, discursive talker. And at the end, I was like, okay, you know, shamefully, the only use of AI in my life is like, I use AI transcription, but I was like, I actually think AI, I was like, would a human or would AI translate this? Who's more up to the task here? And I was like, actually, I always do human.

I often do human as a backup for anything important, obviously. And I was like, actually, I think AI is better equipped to do the pattern recognition. Was it? Unless like a human is, you know. Scottish, it has an ear for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like at the, like when I had to give it to the new, like when the New Yorker fact checker was like, okay, I need the transcript. I need the audio.

I was like, do we know anyone? Do we know anyone that? Is fat bastards still freelancing? Yeah. We, uh, doing this miniseries, uh, have discovered that we have more Scottish listeners than I would have thought. We've all been coming out of the woodwork. saying, let me check my notes here, really kind things about our accent attempts. But also that they're like, the guys keep talking about how hard it is to parse out the dialogue in these movies and needing to watch it with subtitles.

Like, are they overselling this? Like, what are they talking about? I just want to restate when Rat Catcher was released theatrically in the United States of America, subtitles burned in. The distributor made that decision. There was no option to watch it without subtitles. In America, for sure, yes. And, yeah, I mean, look, I went to school in Newcastle. I dated a Scottish person. I have an ear for a Scottish accent. It's tougher on the phone. And I'm rusty, obviously. But I'd love, now I want the challenge.

Now I want to talk to Lynn. She also, like, how did I do with her? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. She seems like a very interesting person to talk to. You need to talk to Lynn. No, I don't think so.

What's her podcast? She didn't have kids. She didn't become a mother until after Kevin. Wow. Wow. Sure. She has one kid, right? With her co-screenwriter, Rory. On this film.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wild. You write this movie and you're like, yeah. Let's move to Greece and have a baby. Well, okay. I mean, interesting.

Pinned in that, it does feed a little bit into my read of this movie. This movie feels like a film of anxiety from someone debating becoming a parent. Whoa. More than it is a film about the experience of being a parent, in my opinion. But all of her movies, right? Like, all of her movies are about innocence, kind of, right? Like, all of...

And they're pinned on children, right? Like, Ratcatcher, the Joaquin, We Were Never Really Here. This. Die of love. Yeah, Morvern is the least, and even that, she's a fairly... She's young and she is sort of an innocent creature in a way.

It's at least playing with the tension of it. Is she an innocent? Yeah. She does chop her boyfriend up. But he already was dead. Yeah. So, you know what? I always forget.

I forget she chopped the boyfriend out of it. He's got a little bit of it. He's got a boyfriend of it. He's got to go somewhere. I'm like, look at this beautiful road movie. What, chopping? Like, you know? Here's the thing I didn't bring up in the episode.

Do you think Robert Durst got his defense from Lorvern Cey? I love Scottish cinema. But do you remember in the drinks he's like, his landlord, his downstairs landlord at like the place he lives when he's on the run and is like pretending to be an old woman? They like find the garbage bags of the separate body parts chopped up. And they were like, so you killed him? And he's like, no, I just chopped them up. And you were like, so how was he dead? And it was like, he shot himself in front of me.

And then I took out a saw and I chopped them up and I put it in separate bags. And they were like, why would you do that? And his response was like, I'm standing here. I'm a fugitive. There's a dead body. What else am I going to do? He's like you ever seen Morvern Collar? Right.

It kind of felt like a hard to fit it into a rubbish bin. I have one important thing to say about Morven Collar. You know the week between Christmas and New Year's. I haven't listened to the entire thing. You mean the worst week in the world if you're a parent? I've got an annual group. Well, yes. We can't even go there.

We can't even go there. We can't even go there. But I have a group chat that is only active that week every year called Crimbo Limbo, which is, I think, a really good name for the year. And then this year, my friend Emmy brought up that Morven Colors is in that week. It's the official Crimbo Limbo movie. No, that's a great take. Yeah, like there's not that many movies.

Like, it's a really ripe space for weird things to happen. And more movies where things get chopped up might exist in Crimbo Limbo. Yeah, just throwing that out there. Truly, my Crimbo limbo this year was, yes, was. was quite disassociative, to use a word. I think anything can happen. Even Sons kids. I think it's just a terrible time.

Well, there's nothing. It's a dog shit week. What's the plan? Get this over with. Yeah. You might as well go to another country. You should travel. You should travel.

Right. The vibe is to travel and then disassociate like on a beach. But the point is you need somewhere different. You're going to be disassociated. You're not going to be like, you know what? It's time for me to roll up my sleeves and get everything done. Yeah.

What does things get out of your apartment during Crimbo limbo. I distinctly remember like being five or six and my parents having to explain to me that there was actually a week between Christmas and New Year's. And I was like, why would there be? That's a waste.

It's such a good question. I saw a question. Doesn't it just go from like 25 to one? Why not just wrap the year of December 26? Yeah. That's just fucking... And for me, New Year's Eve was January 4th. I don't know about you.

But like when New Year's Eve happened, I was like, who cares? There's still five more days of this fucking break. January 4th, I was like, my kids go out of school tomorrow. The new year begins. Like things are happening. I'm ready to talk about Kevin.

Come on. Let's get things going. What's our podcast called? We got to talk about Kevin. Our podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am. David. Oh, fuck.

I'm really off guys. I was late. I had a whole city bike thing happen. New York is down a, you know, Mediterranean tacharia thing. But kind of hits, right? Oh, it's so good. That's my new spot. We got a new work lunch spot.

David, yes, came in very frazzled, still. from swimming. Yeah, you know. Yes. An exercise. Having dug a city bike out of the snow. Then dug it back in. Yes, that's the real problem.

I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, or make a couple well-regarded European art house films. Sure, right.

And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Kind of. Kind of. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a very important turning point film in her career,

but more than that, this episode is an opportunity to talk about a really weird period in her career surrounding and leading up to this movie because it's nine years in between films. Nine years. Yeah, 2009 years. Two to 2011. It's the break between this and Morven color,

but obviously there's movies in between and stuff to talk about. There's stuff to talk about. Yes. We're talking about the films of Lynn Ramsey. It's a mini-series called We Need to Pod About Casfin. And today we are talking about we need to talk about Kevin. Now, here's a big question.

Is this the first movie we've covered where the title is bigger than the film? The title is bigger than the film. I feel like we've talked about certain movies where it's like, oh, people forget that, like, teenage dirtbag is from loser. That music video is bigger than the movie. Oh, like that we need to talk about X

has just become like a phrase people use all the time. Yes. I guess I know what you mean You know and sometimes you're like This meme is like Jeremiah Johnson is more known as the nodding gift

than as a movie as a whole at this point I think this is one of the few movies that exists in which the title is more famous than the movie Right Like it's like there aren't There's almost nothing like this Where everyone knows the phrase

Had no one used it before Did Lionel I mean? I mean obviously people have said to each other At times like we need But like did Lionel Shriver Genius that she is think of this?

The book became a bestseller and I think the title became memed fundamentally. Almost immediately. Pre-meam terminology. Because the novel was... Oh, three. I was in high school.

I remember because it was a big hit in Britain because it won the orange prize. Movies 11. And then it became kind of like the kind of book that when I was an elementary school student and I was at like Walmart and my mom needed to buy a fridge,

I would sit down in the like Oprah's Book Club, you know, bestseller aisle and I would read this sort of weirdly commercial literary fiction. That's what it was. It was like a popular Yeah, yeah, that always involved violence or sexual abuse. It had feet and too.

And that was an especially a thing when I was a teenager, those books that were like, you're like, what's it about? It's like, well, a person whose parents were horrible to him. You're like, that's the whole book and they're like, yeah, that's the whole fucking book. You just feel bad. A child called it. She's come undone. A child called it. That's the one I'm thinking of. Right. And you're like, is a biography? And the answer is

kind of sure, maybe. Yeah, they're like on the shelf next to like Jewel's poetry book A Night Without Armor, you know? And it's just like this was what we were doing then. Man, you know what Jewel was up to, though. Living in that boat. It is interesting that that is such a like fertile commercial area. That's SVU core kind of.

Right. Yes. But then like when you pitch a movie like this, people are like, why the fuck would I sit down for two hours and watch that? Like, people want to read 20 pages at a time over weeks or months and selectively like dip in and dip out. Was this movie successful?

I would say for a movie about a mass murder of children, It was pretty successful. And for a movie directed by Lynn Ramsey, it was pretty successful. Right. And is this your most commercially successful film? Dime I Love, I think, outgrossed this. But also... Dime I love might have outgrossed it through sheer force of what they just put it on so many screens.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And made people so angry. I mean, this made $10 million worldwide. But it made much more overseas than here. It did. It was an oscilloscope film who's a distributor I love, but is very small. A tiny distributor. And this was sort of the biggest film they had had up until that point.

It made 500 grand more than Die My Love did worldwide. Wow. Okay. That's how bad Die My Love. Yes. God bless movies attempt to show it to the masses there, but how bad that did. But I think a oscilloscope getting this movie over $1 million domestic was seen as like they broke through their own glass ceiling. Well, yeah.

And this was a movie that got a genuine Oscar buzz, got precursor, you know, she got Tilda got every precursor until the Oscar. She didn't get the Oscar nom. She got beaten out. I think that was the year where, I guess, honestly, I guess it's Rooney Mara kind of sneaks by her at the end for Dragon Tattoo. That was seen as kind of a dead campaign.

You were never really here made 10.8 million worldwide, which is 100,000 more. So that's kind of her ceiling is 10. Yeah. She makes it about, but then like... She makes 10, but like domestic is under two. Yeah, they're masterpieces.

Yeah, they're good. And they do get a lot of critical discussion. and... A-listers want to work with her. Right. Good actors want to work with her. And I imagine this one had a decent tale on, like, at home viewing because, like, people like this creepy shit.

There was a stickiness to it. Even though this movie... Maybe her funniest movie? See, interesting. Now, that's a really interesting... Morven Caller is pretty funny at times. I think this is her funniest movie, though. I mean, Die My Love is pretty funny.

I think Die My Love is funny. J-Loss got, like, bids. It's a great comic energy, right? Like, even in, and so, like, the shit, like, where she just starts taking her clothes off when, like, the suburban mom's trying to talk. Yeah. Right. Right. Like, that's funny.

Yes. I guess a lot of dime I love is her, like, throwing herself through plate glass windows. Yeah, that's not laughing. No, that part's really funny. Are you kidding me? That part's so funny. I mean, all the shit of just them, like, crawling towards each other with knives and you're like, isn't there a baby over there? And the baby's like, I'm over here.

This movie's funny for a different reason, though, right? It's like, like, Tilda, like, she's so dead. The way she plays it is so funny, in my opinion. Our guest today is Gia Tolentino. Hello. How you doing? So happy to have you, honored, privilege to have you here. Long time.

Long time, listener. You are. I mean, you are. We found a quote in something else leading up to this episode that Tolda Swinton said she felt like this was her opportunity to give her Buster Keaton performance. Oh, my God. That is very, that's. I think it was a quote that JJ sent me. Maybe he pulled it out for some interview in Texas.

Sure. But she was just like, I'm going to try playing as still as possible against the chaos of what's happening against me. And Buster Keaton is the image I have in my mind. And I'm going for funny. The British tagline, by the way, is Mummy's Little Monster. That is the British tagline. Is it spelled M-U-N-S-T-E-R? No.

Mommy's Little Monster. It is not about Mommy's Little Monster. If he was just dressing up like a Franken. and reciting sitcom one-liners, I would have no concerns about him. If he was a little monster. If he was just a little monster. You guys, can I tell you something?

When I watched this movie for the first time, again, which was pretty recently, I did not know. I've been trying to break myself of the habit of IMD being like every single thing in the middle of the movie, which is so hard to do. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do it with these Lynn Ramsey movies

when I'm rewatching them or watching them for the first time. And I did not know until the movie was over that this was Astromillo. Oh, that's so... So is that because Ezra Miller's just not really, like, a face you see a lot? Ezra Miller object performance. So I have a... You're not a DC universe viewer, I don't think.

And you probably never met the Fantastic Beasts. I love to not know. I love to not know. You know, like, I would say, like, in general, like, you know, epistemologically, like, I simply love to not know. And so it's like, I love when things are none of my business. And, like, and often franchises are simply not of my business. And Ezra Miller pivoted pretty much.

much straight to stuff that is not your business. And I remember like, and often like celebrity, like the celebrity news, knowing, I love, I'm a gossip, like every, you know, journalist, whatever, like I'm a huge gossip. I love to know stuff about people I know or that I kind of know.

But do, I never want to know anything about someone I do not know their personal life. I don't fucking care. Oh, so you're right. You're not someone who cares about celeb gossip. Like, oh, blah was spotted. Right. Only, only non-selects. Only who's funny. Well, but that's, you know, that's why it's so existentially, it's inherently meaningless. It's all inherently meaningless.

And when celebrities are thems and people, it's, this is because like, as when I first started hearing about Ezra Miller, I learned about them as the allegations of violence and abuse for coming out. And I was like, this is none of my business. And it's not a great way to first be introduced to a celebrity. I don't need to know what they're up to. This is just none of my business. And so I just deliberately was like, I will not learn about this story or this person. And then I was like, oh, oh, it was all real. It is such a big part of this movie's legacy where you're like, okay, so there's the memeability of the title. And then there's like eight years after the movie, it feels like now there's like a second screened experience.

There's like an augmented reality game happening in our universe where the actual. actor who played Kevin is doing Kevin-esque shit, which was so bizarre and I think like put more attention on the movie previously, but it also speaks to the weird arc of Ezra's career, which is like, you know, a sort of like building steam of stuff. But then this feels like the movie where in a very Zach Snydery move, he watches a very intense drama about like a psychopathic teenager and is like, that's my flash, the funny guy. Like in the whole defining of the Snyder aesthetic is like, these are serious. Yes, I need very, very serious way.

I mean, because the Ezra Miller, it's this. I know Ezra had done a couple things before this, but nothing. Does perks of being a wallflower come out after this? No, that's the year after, right? Which is, I guess, sort of the more gentle emo side of this young teen actor who's, like, so pretty and like, right, like has, like, after school is the debut film, the Antonio Campos movie, which is a similarly intense film. Oh, right. I've never seen that.

I will say for our listeners and also for Gia, because this does need to be acknowledged. Please. I went to summer camp with Azra. I kind of grew up with Asra. I was very close with Ezra for a number of years. We were on a sketch comedy and improv teams together. And you're a great and very widely seen film. Was in one of the sort of Ezra Miller's on the movie Star Trek films called Beware the Gonzo. That is a quite bad teen comedy in which I played a character named Horny Robb. And Ezra played Eddie Gonzo Gilman. The Gonzo. I mean, let's just. I mean like, but Zoe Kravitz was in it as well.

And Jesse McCartney? A lot of people were in it. Oh, is that the movie where they started dating? Yes. Gotcha. Yes. A lot of Colby Minfield. A lot of great actors, that's like an early role for them. Campbell Scott. One of his first roles. plays one of Ezra's parents. So it's like a thing when we started this podcast that I would

invoke, especially when Ezra would come up and we were like covering the DC films and such. I have not spoken to Ezra in like 10 years. And there is this weird kind of almost disassociative thing of like you can know someone, have them become famous and stay in touch with them. And it feels like you're adapting to their reality shifting, right? Like they change the way other people perceives them, it perceives them changes, but you're still kind of like in the narrative. You can meet very famous people who to you feel abstracted as icons and then get to know them as a person and be like, oh, now you're like humanized to me. But to have someone,

who you did know very closely for a while, then become very famous at the point that you sort of lose contact with them, which was not, you know, like any dramatic split-off, but at the point that the public kind of spiral is happening, I have not spoken to Ezra in years, and I'm reading the news as if it's just a person. It almost like doesn't bear...

Yeah, sure. A resemblance to the person I knew, sure. And it also was this weird byproduct of, like, this movie is such a flashy statement. Zach Snyder says you. Warner Brothers, as often happens when a studio casts a on the rise person in a big

franchise role, they're like, we're going to tie you down to two other things. So it's like Ezra's the Flash and Ezra's also this developing villain across the Fantastic Beast movies. Ezra has three Fantastic Beasts movies. And then they're a villain. Yes.

It's sort of like the tragic. I mean, those movies are not. It's a bit like Wizard Kevin. Honestly? Yes, it is. But it's like, what's up with this weird kid? And it's like, turns out there's like a magic cloud inside him of his emotions. But it also felt like they were trying to.

Those movies are bad though? Terrible. They are super high. Yeah. It felt like they were also going for a Kylo-Renz thing. It sounds kind of cool for me. If you get high and watch them, you will fall asleep right away and have sweet dreamless sleep. I mean, may are.

Some confidence. What you should do is get high and read the Wikipedia synopsies. Yeah. And then that is it. That's, that'll do. Watching them is a worst experience. Yeah, okay. But it's like a wizard Kevin who then also has like wizard Kylo Ren.

Like is he going to be redeemed character? Right, because he's like the character, Credence Bearbone. I believe. Correct. Credence Bearbone? And his mother is. Credence. Samantha Morton.

Morven Caller herself. Right? But she's his adoptive mother. Yeah, because she's sort of like a Bible beating type. Like the whole thing is that it's all like religious repression has made credence. Credence. Credence. Credence Barreedon.

Religious repression? Like Christian. religious? Yeah, because you know what JK Rowling is like? Like, she identifies these villains. There's religion in the Harry Potter universe?

Yes. Because it is our world. Yes. Oh, so it's taking place in the Muggle world. And the Fantastic Beast movies take place during, like, the Great Depression?

Are they the... Don't make me once again go deep on these... Yes, the first one, the whole joke that I, as a... Right, like, you know, when these were announced, where they were like,

Fantastic Beasts has been announced and it will build to the big battle between Grindlewald and Dumbledore. That was the later announcement. Well, but like, there's sort of like, that's vaguely the idea, maybe. You know, and you're like, oh, okay, and that's in like the 1445,

the idea is that's like World War II. And they're like, anyway, the first movie's 1926. And I'm like, how long is this planned for? It was also, when it was announced, people were like, oh, fun, a standalone story in the Harry Potter universe. We're pretending it wasn't.

And then right before it came out, J.K. Rowling was like, actually, it's a five movie saga that takes you right up to the starting. There have been five movies. No, they gave up. They made three and ran out of patience. At one point she was upping to six and they were like,

how about the last one was the one you just made? Credence Barebone, that's like a blues singer name. That's great. I don't know if you know this, but J.K. Rowling is famously horrendous in naming her character. Like Cho Chang, yeah. Cho Chang, being the most iconic version of that. But Credence Barebone is another one.

I feel like she spent two minutes on that. Heimel Menorrets. Isn't that the Jewish? Samantha Morton, wow. The Lynn Ramsey universe is... I mean, like, great cast in that movie. It's so fucking boring. But here are these, like, big Warner Brothers movies

that all have, like, productions that will last a year in foreign countries. And even though none of these movies are, like, Ezra vehicles, they've basically, like, tied Ezra down for the better part of a decade. Yeah, no other movie. Shutting, like, off the career.

Flash Credence. Except I'm sure you all saw. I guess Ezra was doing, like, at a Die My Love premiere and gave the thing about how they're working on a... They claim they're working on a movie. working on script together. Ezra has a small part in the

Mary Heron-Salvador Dolly movie, Little Aches, where I believe Ezra plays young Salvador Dolly, but most of the movie is Ben Kingsley. That's right. And there was a Stanford Prison Experiment movie with a bunch of young guys in it. That's from 2015. That's a long time ago. I'm just saying within... It's still like... I'm saying post-heaven.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And apart from that, just a train wreck. Right. Ezra's in train wreck. Yes. Don't remember the role there. the kind of like young, pretty assistant at the magazine who Amy Schumer tries to have an affair with and then finds out is like 15 years old. But yeah, it was like, the industry was like,

Warner Brothers is betting hundreds of millions of dollars on this being a star. And the public had so little relationship to them outside of like tumblers that were obsessed with Ezra's bone structure. Right, which is unbelievable. Right. Unbelievable. But it was a lot of that.

They're so pretty. It was a lot of. of this movie where it's like, well, there's like a pretty astonishing level of intensity here. And then perks of being a wallflower, which I think is Ezra's best performance and is the one where there's like a good balance of humor and pain and feeling and what have you. That's the one that I felt anyway. The thing about this movie is, and we were talking about this with Drew McQueenie, like there's actually a lot less Ezra than you remember. It's more just like a striking performance obviously when it's, but a lot of it's the little Kevin. The little Kevin's are...

Get rid of him, too. We've got to talk about these little Kevin. More than. We've got to talk about the little Kevin. My second piece of necessary airing of context for this movie is, like, I auditioned for this movie like four times. To play Kevin. Wow.

And speaking to how much less teen Kevin there is than you think, anytime I watch a movie that I auditioned for over a decade ago, there was the weird thing where every line of dialogue comes back to me. You know, back when I was fucking diligent would be off book. for auditions when I gave a shit. And it'll like come back where I'm like, oh, right, at one point, I knew all of this and I knew the cue lines and whatever. Do you remember any, like, what was the most intense of the sides?

Well, what I was going to say is I auditioned so many times that I kept hitting different scenes and I think I basically did the whole thing. Did every one of these scenes for Lynn Ramsey. Because in my memory, I think I did two auditions with casting and then two with her and Keneer. What's his name? Rory. Rory Stewart's Kennedy.

But not, yeah. Not. That's why I was doubting myself. And every one of the teen Kevin scenes, I had some memory of how I played it. Wow. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it also speaks to like. It's not that many. In reality, it's like five dialogues.

So they were like jerk off and lock eyes with us, you've been a big diaper. You didn't have to do, but I did like the TV monologue. I did the final speech at the end. Right. Where you're like, I don't know why I did it or whatever. Right. At the diner trying to connect over like, you know, who you're crushes or whatever. Like, I just remember doing all of them. But I read this script and was like

young and hadn't read that many scripts, had seen Rat Catcher, but also like hadn't seen more of a color at this point. This person hasn't made a movie in like close to 10 years. I read the script on like, the fuck is this? Because it's written in like visuals where some of it felt like bad poetry. And I was like, well, this feels like the worst student film scripts I read. where people are too in love with the idea of the images they have in their head. How will this work? But then when I got to the dialogue scenes, I thought they were so funny and engaging. And I was, like, interested.

And then meeting her, I found her so funny and so collaborative and so loose, where I was like, fuck, this person rules. And then saw the movie and was like, it is almost exactly what she wrote in a way where movies like this sometimes shoot with a very traditional script. And then they do a bunch of B-roll shooting. and then in the edit, they construct it however they want. The structure of this in my memory, and I couldn't find the PDF, was this on paper. I believe it. It opens with four pages of describing the tomato festival. Four pages.

Yeah, truly. And like, you know, explaining what the visual metaphors are, which on paper makes it feel clunky because you're like, don't explain the metaphor to me. But also, it's like, she's going, this is the movie I want to make. If you want to give me money to make it, I'm going to shoot it exactly like this, and this is why. Like, in retrospect, I now having read a bunch of other scripts, understand, it's a really fucking good blueprint of making sure your vision is inarguable on paper.

Well, I was, when I was rewatching it, I feel like this is, it's one of the tightest sort of the stream of consciousness. Like, everything is daisy-chained really, really closely seen to scene. Like, there's no, every associative link, every, all of the intrusive thought structure that feels so loose. Like, it's unbelievably tight. you can feel where in the script there would be like

this circle is like this circle that evokes this feeling that twist that feeling that's it would literally say like and then we like push in on a circle cut to an egg is the same shape as the object we've just seen on the screen. And I think it has to be that tight

otherwise like the movie would be annoying almost. Yes. Yeah. You've read the book. Yes. The book doesn't have that fine. The book is all letters, right? So the book.

It's sort of epistolary. I was curious, I had been curious about the book when I was, Because I think it's interesting that Lynn like all of her movies have been added to you except for rag catcher. She usually is working off a book.

Often it's something you haven't heard of. But then of course the, and like the Lovely Bones is the other book around this time and we'll talk about it where you're like, right, a book that was sort of like highbrow trash. Yeah, that's the other one. Right.

But like clearly she saw like, well, I know what I would make this look like on screen. She makes very specific personal adaptations of books that aren't like the obvious literal. right and this book I think seemed to me like it was you know it's yeah it's epistolary it's written to um it's written to franklin um the husband yes it's it's who doesn't die in the book no who does but you don't find that out till till two-thirds towards the end you find out that he's sooner than you find it's it's not the punch and that it is in the movie but he's you're writing to franklin

you think that he has custody of celia and they've just been separated and then and then you find out like yeah maybe two-thirds of the way through. And it's her, it is non-chronological and that she's thinking about, like, her life traveling around and them fucking so bohemianly, you know, all this stuff. But it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty concrete. And actually, can I read you guys the one line that I...

Yes, of course. So the jerking off scene famously, in the movie, he's just jerking off with the door open and locks eyes with his mother as one. never does. Yeah. I would, in fact, I'd rather...

It's honestly. Recommend not to. Simply never does. That's an 0.0% for me. Never does. You've never done it? No. That's really crossed my mind.

I'd like to also just say that's not a thing I've ever ever. Yeah. I'm gonna... Guys, I've never done it either. Yeah, no bits podcast. I've not done it. We've never done it.

I've never done it. I've never done it. I actually... You know what? It's weird. I don't have the desire to. I don't think I do either. It's never kind of like slid across my desk

and made me stroke my chin and consider. Don't say solid. I'm like, don't say stroke. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you were thinking about it. In the movie, that's what happens. So here's what, so it's a repeated action. It's a very,

very, very repeated action in the book. And here's the description. And here's the one line that I transcribe. Actually, I transcribe do lines. But here's the phrase.

It's it being Kevin's Dick is, quote, purple and gleaming. Jesus. Not. that. Purple and gleaming with what I first assume

is K.Y. Jelly, but which the silver wrapper and on the floor suggests is my land of lakes unsalted butter. There we have it, folks. Oh, my goodness. So I'd say, like, right off the bat, that's a great little snapshot of why Lynn is good at

adapting. Lynn's just like... Garbage. Nothing but net. I don't know. I mean, I don't... I will dig into the dossier to see, like, what Lynn thinks this book. I know Lionel Shriver is like kind of almost like I don't like talking about that book like like almost

dismissive of the book in a way because of its yes Lionel Shriver who also now has gone like full turf anti-woe anti-identity politics. Is she British or not? No, she's American. She's sort of pseudo-British. Yeah because all the good turf shit was happening over there it seems like she reclaimed. But she got there way before but then you're right that she really started mixing it up. Her name is something like

Kellyanne her name is so like I will say this here's my I didn't know this until I opened her Wikipedia which is just I thought that she was called Lionel Shriver because there's this thing in Britain sometimes where like evil old rich guys have a daughter and they're like a daughter. I'll just give her my name anyway just because like I wanted a son. Like Nigella Lawson, her insane name is because Nigel Lawson was like, oh, I had a daughter. Well, I guess I'll just call her Nigella, which is a made up name. But no, her name is Margaret Ann Shriver. She's from North Carolina. And she gave herself the name Lionel at 15 because she wanted a tomboyish name.

Yeah, and she writes, so there's an afterword to my edition. Although, Lionel is, like, to me, like, the name of like an old professor in like a fucking Narnia book. Like, not, like, I don't think of that as tomboyish. Can I also just before I forget that the quote you read was quite disturbing. It only serves to remind me of my least favorite thing that has ever been said to describe such an act, which is in the Glenn Close movie, The Wife. When Jonathan Price says, stroke my two messent cock. He says that out loud.

He says that out loud. And that movie almost won an Oscar. Thank God. It was in a pretty serious conversation. Many people spent months, like, at a chalkboard being like, can we give this an Oscar? Was that a directive? Or was he saying that someone had, like... I daren't rewatch that film.

I can't remember if he's asking her to do it or thanking her for having just done it. But it's one or the other. They're lying in bed together with the lights off. That's real nasty. Yeah. And he puts a lot of English on the delivery. Too mess in. It's like even saying it is.

It sucks. It's a terrible. I never want to hear that word ever. Yeah. David? Yes. This episode is brought to you by Mooby, the global film company that champions great cinema. It champions it. Unlike the others.

No, they. It's a quiet. Barbarian it. From iconic directors to emerging otters, there is always something new to discover. With Mooby, each and every film is hand-selected so you can explore the best of the best. Yeah. You can log on a movie and check out all the movies they got. You know, art house, you know, cool indie stuff, foreign stuff.

Okay, this is awesome. What? There's a movie star movie now streaming on movie in the U.S. covered on blank check soon. Well, I think that's the headline. Yeah, die my love. Yes. You're going to need to watch it if you want to keep up with the show.

True. True. I mean, I guess, you know, do what you want. You don't have to, but we recommend viewing the film. Please view the film. Die My Love, Lynn Ramsey's film. Great film. Came out last year.

It was a can. and came out last fall in 2025. It's a visceral an uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness starring Jennifer Lawrence, who was nominated for Golden Globe, Robert Pattinson.

It's kind of mostly those two. It's very heavy on the two of them. Yeah, some top shelf. Nolte? I was going to say, some seasoning of Nolte and Spasic, but this is... Dry age, let me tell you.

Oh. Yeah, you've got them in there. But yeah, it's a lot. It's a big showstopper movie for Jay Law. And R. Pats. Yeah. And even R. Pats knows he's playing Sack and Fiddle. Sure.

But then there's a-Law's busting out the cellar. A lemon pepper dry rub of Nick Nolty. I love lemon pepper guys. I love Nick Nolty. I love Nick Nolty too. Look, it's Lynn Ramsey making her eagerly awaited filmmaking return. Obviously, that's why we're covering her on the pod. We've been waiting for her to make another movie.

And it was on the shortlist for cinematography of the 90th Academy. I didn't even know that. That's awesome. It's a passionate, complicated, destructive love story between two major stars in Lawrence and Pattinson, who'd never been together on screen before. I know. I guess that's not that surprising, but they are quite a pair. The bat and the cat, K-A-T-N-I-S-S. Oh, Cat N-S.

Yeah. The Bat and the Steak, that is. Oh, sure. Yeah, it's an awesome movie. The Steak and the Freak. Is that something he's played a lot of freaks? Sure. Sure.

Spoiler alert for the episode, but I was a big fan of the film. I know you were. Have you seen it yet? I haven't seen it yet, man. I think you're going to like it a lot. It's also based on a book by Ariana Harwit. Mm-hmm.

Anyway, there's so much good stuff to watch on movie. There's also awesome. Look, if you're not a member, this is a perfect month to sign up in order to keep up with the show. To stream the best of cinema, you can try Mooby free for 30 days at Mooby.com slash Blank

check. That's M-U-B-I-com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. Lionel Shriver basically had made, like, had written a couple books that hadn't really hit. But sort of like, is this like an interesting book to write from an interesting... Oh, damn, she endorsed DeSantis.

She's bad. She's deep in the fucking weird shit. She had voted Democrat her entire life. She cited apoplectic loathing for Kamala hair. I mean, like... But like, how brain broken do you? need to be to not only like switch parties but also go like

I think DeSantis has the juice she kept arguing that DeSantis was so charismatic. You can just be like I kind of hate, you know, woke people and I've gone insane. You can just say that. You can't be like I'm really, really into Ron DeSantis. She was buying as much stock as she couldn't deceive this. Even like right wing

racist psychopaths are like, he's fine. Let's relax. He's not that good. There's an afterward to the Kevin novel and she talks about, so when did it come out you said? 05 in Britain Oh no sorry 03 in Britain

It won the orange prize Which was the It doesn't exist anymore Now it's called like The women's prize for fiction But it's the Literary Prize in Britain Given to a novel by a woman

And Which was a prestigious award Like And it was a bestseller So it was that kind of thing That we're talking about Of like It was the somewhat lurid bestseller

But it was like Somewhat well regarded It's well written But I But it's like The movie is much more pleasant to watch than the... I imagine. It's a better movie than the book is a book,

but Lionel Shriver is a smart, perceptive, nasty, like the intelligence behind the book, you know, maybe we'll pin it on the, on Eva Cachedorian, not the author, you know, but it is a nasty type of intelligence at work. And there's an afterward where she talks about being raised by, like, hardcore, like, Carter Democrats or something, and that all of her life she had had,

I think she describes it as a violent right-wing streak. And so she owns it. She's proud of it already in the mid-a-auts when she's writing this, which is kind of an amazing time to be proud of your violent right-wing streak. I mean, any time is, but especially then. And she hated the book because everyone wanted,

like it's the kind of book that makes you psychoanalyze the author, obviously. Of course, right. Is this about you? Or, yeah, right. What is your relationship with your family, your kids, whatever? But she also seemed to have this baseline in like reading interviews with her, this baseline, resentment that it was so much more successful than the book she had written before it and that the book she wrote after it never came close.

That she was like, I hate that everything is about this one book. She doesn't have kids. Interesting. And then by the time they made, they were making the movie, she's like, I don't want to fucking deal with that thing anymore. It was treated like it was her hotel California. And she's like, I hate that they only asked me to play this one song. The quote I found from where they thought was interesting was, I'm often asked, did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin?

Did I have some revelation or transforming event? The truth is that Kevin is of a piece with my other work. There's nothing special about Kevin. The other books are good too. It just tripped over an issue that was just ripe for exploration and by some miracle found its audience. So she hates that it was successful and is like, oh, what? Because I wrote a book about a thing that people are perversely curious about. You all bought this one?

Right. I wrote a thing about a sensational national news event that keeps recurring and no one will write novels about because it's so... Right. And even her, like, people asked what I was going through when I wrote the book. She wants to just be like, no, I'm just a skilled writer and I sit down and have the same process every time and nothing personal is going on. I am the same level of good writer every time. Also, you don't want to admit like, yeah, look, I wrote a fucking school. It's not shooting because it's bone error, but like a school murder book because I knew that's like hooky and would get people's attention. Like, the greater hook of this is, it is one of those things that people...

Like, what if your kid was crazy? Like, another hook that everyone, like, is, like, drawn to. What is it like to be a parent in the aftermath of that, right? What do you do? How do you live if your child is the one who... It's only half about that, right? And the book, too, like, it's only somewhat about her life posts, because it's mostly her sticking from her memories.

It feels like half and half, right? Right, right, right. But it's, it is, like, a memory play. It's from the perspective of, and I think it's what this movie is trying to get at is like, the basic structure of this movie is like a couple days of her life upon getting this new job.

Yeah, maybe a week. And everything that happens within the body of the movie feels like the constant shurning of in her head that happens on a daily basis of everything. Starting when she's in her 20s and they're deaged by she's got bangs

and John C. Riley's running a beanie. I mean, Tilda, John C. Riley, it's a little tougher. Tilda is fairly ageless, although young Tilda is so striking. Like, when you see 90s Tilda, like, there is nothing like her. But when we've come across young John C. Riley in movies, you're like, oh, so he was 45 then? And you're like, no, he was like 15 here. Yeah.

Interestingly, in the book, he's supposed to be a Republican. Like, he's like a hardcore Bruce Springsteen, like, farmer guy. Uh-huh. He, I don't think he's bad in the movie, per se, but he is weird casting. He's weird casting. He doesn't really, you just, I'm like, a million times out of a million, I don't think Dilda marries

John C. Riley, I'm sorry. Like, no matter what characters they're playing. It feels like they cast him less for the marriage and more for the function of the father. And I think also it's just like... It's like, this guy reads as chill and fun. Or just like a tragic earnestness. Yeah, just kind of like...

A guy where you're like, right, he may be easily duped. But like, it's probably also just... He's a fairly daring actor. He has good taste. And he was like, sure, I'll do that. And they were like, oh, well, he's an Oscar-nominated, sort of well-known guy. He's like in fucking Talladega Nights.

If you got him, you get two extra million dollars. This is still in the period where he sort of seems to be semi-bankable in an ensemble. Yeah, kind of. He's not nobody. Their relationship isn't supposed to make sense. Like in the... It's not... It's not supposed to make sense.

Having the kid is always kind of a marginal, like, 51% we're doing it. Yeah, right, right, right. We weren't sure that up until the kid was born. things I think this movie kind of gets right in my opinion, which is like, it feels like this guy really wants to be a dad because he likes the idea of being a dad. And she does not feel that innate drive and sort of goes like, I guess so. And she's like, maybe if I have a kid, it'll produce it. I'll feel it. Right. Right. And I know people who felt exactly that way where they're like, yeah, I was kind of on the fence. And they had the kid and I like the kid. Like, you know,

like I like my kid, even if I don't like all kids. I think the choice Ramsey makes here. that is why this movie works so well for me, is that it's like sort of a nature, nurture chicken and egg movie, right? Whereas, like, the obvious version of this story is, oh, my God, what do you do if your child turns out to be a psycho? And it's a ticking clock and it's a matter of time. And Lynn Ramsey's like, no, the question is, like, what do you do if you just don't love your child?

If you just can never connect with your child, and then if your child ends up becoming a murderer, are you going to spend the rest of your life going like, was it always that way? And is that what I was negatively reacted to? You're going to ask the or question. Or did I somehow do something? But you are asking the oracle question.

Yeah. Did I do that? I thought you said the Oracle question. No, it's the Oracle question. Which is which vase? Did I do that? I'm sorry, Gia, what were you going to say? Well, I think in the book, it's not like them looking exactly alike.

Uh-huh. Right. They also have very similar bone structure. That's like one of the reason this movie is so funny. Riley's jeans bounced right off of that fucking over. That is like a constant visual joke starting with the bathwater. You know, it's like it actually is so funny. Like when they're sitting across each other at the restaurant just looking exactly the same.

Like the hair decision, like it's really funny. I am imagining like the poor casting agent on this movie, like the big casting director. Hey, can you find me someone who looks like Tilda Swinton and John C. Riley had a kid? She's like, no, I fucking cannot. No. Tilda's Armenian. Like Tilda's Armenian. Can we get that working like at all?

Can you mix that in? You know, but I, when I watched them, like, I found it really, like, the most, the most sort of dramatically effective, chilling thing about the movie was that Kevin as a literal baby, and this was the other quote that I wrote down from the book, the cry is described like a rape whistle. And the cry, the cry in the movie, it's like, oh, my God. I mean, I would be, I would be at the precipice of self-harm within 36 hours. The moment when she goes to the construction site to stand by the jackhammer. And her shoulders go down.

Right. And it's perfect like Tilda Buster Keaton shit where like she's conveying the emotion through her body language. Her face from the moment he's like quiet to the moment he's crying to the moment she's able to drown it out basically stays the same. Her face is incredible in this movie. Like it is kind of her face is like a gumbeat, you know, like when she's like trying to get the job the way like her jaw hangs and her like it's unbelievable. But the thing that chilled me. was that Kevin is such a malignant baby, such a profoundly malignant evil baby.

Straight up evil, I'm going to say it. I've got small children. That would be an evil baby. That Kevin creates her. It's like it's nature versus nurture, but it's also in reverse, right? That like the child has produced the mom of a school shooter. Right.

Which is a great way of thinking about it. It's like a really tangled knot. Yeah. Like they're continually producing each other as these cold twins. Right. But it's basically why. Anyway, here's a bow and arrow.

Like, what? The baseball? Do the baseball outside? But it's why this movie implies that like every week of her life is like this, right? Like in the present tense, she's like the fuck do I do with myself. And then in every like kind of idle moment, she's replaying everything. She's constantly like a detective trying to like look back on the scenes and make connections. Okay.

Yeah. Because this is the thing about this movie. a book too, right? It's like the other thing you have to consider is like if someone experienced a tragedy like this, their child or committed a tragedy, you know, they would then look at everything in their life in a completely different way and it's completely

unreliable. Now, I watch this movie and I'm like, right, I'm like, a couple years in orphanage or whatever, drop this kid into a river. No good. Evil kid. but I'm, the whole point is that every memory she has now is the bad memory. And the struggle I have with this movie is that

Kevin is so nakedly discordant with like and you know reality like whatever with with politeness with like society that I struggle with that I want it to be a little more ambiguous as to like was it there all along? Because you watch a movie

and you're like yeah it was there all along. You fucking gerbil went in the dumpster he blinded his sister. These are no good things. Jerking it? I would say. Too mess and purple buttercock fucking what else you know there's a few other things right

the pooping the pooping I mean I know children struggle with body I'm not trying No but this kid The fucking up hurt room Yeah right right The maps

Yeah right Although Ben you have to admit That's kind of like a cool artistic strategy It does kind of like Inside a Super Soaker It kind of looks cool It kind of looks a little

It's kind of a good room It looks a little cool But the way that the middle Kevin is sitting When they're rolling the ball and the middle Kevin is sitting like like Kate McKinnon in the Barbie movie? Like it's just like what?

The legs. Like what would you do if you had, I like it that that Kevin is like that. I like the decision that he's unredeemably malignant from literally day one. There's not really ambiguous. You're their parent. You're not allowed to just be like, hey,

I think my kid's a school shooter in. Yeah, like what needs to happen to Kevin is like he needs to go into a black mirror egg whatever, you know what I mean? Like that episode where he just gets anged. Also, we need to talk about it. We do need to talk about him. Well, but maybe then we could use this killer to invade countries.

Sure. Yeah, like, he needs to be in like a VR cage. You know, like there's no other place. It's like anti-carceral for everyone except for Kevin, you know? And we can make it really good for him. We can do like a cage to kill someone every minute. And this like very liberal judge who has that appraisal. And I know Kevin's when I see him.

No one else needs to go to jail. But Kevin's. Yeah. I got a pitch for what we could do with the Kevin IP. What about... This is a tough movie if you're called Kevin. Shout out to all the Kevin's out there.

I am sorry. It's like being called Karen or whatever, right, you know. What about alien colon Kevin? And Whalen Utoni discovers Kevin and they're like, stop going to fucking space. We just got to clone Kevin. Well, no, but the thing is, Waylon Utani finds Kevin's like,

oh, angular features, you know, kind of charm. Like, how bad could Kevin be? Let's unfreeze him. Oh, you think they make Kevin the captain of a show? Oh, no, I'm saying they let Kevin out. And they're like, so what's up Kevin? And then, yeah, Kevin goes wild. Look, I mean, we are...

Luckily, this is not about a real thing that happened. Otherwise, we would be making light of a tragedy. Also, as we said, this movie is, like, funny. It is, like, pitch-flat. It's very, very, very, very darkly funny. Gallows humor. It has to be. It would be unbearable if it was straight.

This is the other thing. And it would be kind of unbearable in that also that way of, like, what's the point? You can't just make a movie about... Like, it's the rabbit hole of the book. Sorry, the play in the movie. Which I don't like very much. Another thing I was, that I was almost cast. You were in the mix for. I well know.

And like, yeah, basically boiled down to me and Miles Teller. Is Miles Teller? Wait, but is Miles Taylor? The play in the movie? Rabbit Hole is Miles Teller. Yeah, I've never seen the movie. That was his first breakout. Yeah. So it's a David Lindsay, a bear play. And someone asked him like, hey, why'd you write? And he's like, well, I thought that like, wouldn't it be interesting how sad it was if your kid died? And they're like, is that it? And he's like, yeah, that's it. Like, I just figured that make for, like, a really sad play. And I'm like, there's got to be something else. Like, because nobody really just wants to sit there with that.

you know, and it's the same with like, oh, it would suck if your kid was a school shooter. Everyone's like, yeah, I know that. Like so, but and this is why this is good. This is why the movie succeeds. I actually think to, like, most people, you know, like you, people, friends of mine who are lawyers, like people who are in prison settings, like are no people who have done, you know, violent things. It's like people are not like Kevin. No.

You know, like people, people are, Kevin is not a human character really. and that's why, like, it, allowing Kevin to be so extreme sidesteps, like, kind of usefully, what you would, Kevin's just not human. You don't, yeah, there's a different movie that's a process movie of, like, why did we not stop this? Yeah. Or whatever.

Like, that's, like, a very practical movie about a tragedy like that of, like, the signs were that, you know, like, and then there's, like movies like Us Man Sense Elephant where it's like, I don't know. Why'd they do it? Like, and if I think, back, sure, there was a little of this and a little of that, but I'd never put anything together because the whole point of elephant is like, you're

grasping different parts of the elephant. This part was always as far as to lose 50% just look, right, and like fitting into the stylization of Len Ramsey's universe. But when I remember audition for this and really trying to crack it, and I was like, well, the choices to go for a kind of like

vacant sociopathy like the shooters and elephant, right? Like how these people... It's tough to project much onto them. Right, and especially because the dialogue is so intense in the scenes where Kevin really confronts her and locks in that I was like, I think you need to kind of pull back or else it will feel over the top. What I didn't understand was that like that's what she wants. He needs to feel like almost a satanic force. He needs to feel like a stylized evil where it's kind of absurd for anyone to be behaving this way and like so gleefully.

But only only told his character is seeing. This is the other thing I was going to say to your point is that it is so much a memory play and her perspective and her replaying it. And when we see Kevin in the present moment in the facility, he is markedly different. And certainly the final scene is like, right, this is a person. This is a person who is like troubled and has like committed like, he looks different. He's horrendous indefensible acts. But the energy of the performance is totally different.

And you can go, well, did something break in Kevin once they finally committed the evil? And also it's like Kevin's about to go to a grown up jail. and is scared of that, right? Like, it's like, yeah, right. Or is this the only stuff we're seeing that is actually representative of an objective reality versus a subjective reality,

which is if her playing in her mind, she's just like... But you believe it, though, right? The baby crying felt like this all the time. But I think you're supposed to believe that it's... Totally. Like, I don't think you're supposed... I mean, I personally don't think

that you're supposed to think is she retroactively diluted because of this great act of violence. Like, you believe the kids sounded like that. You believe it, but it's also, I think, the movie is playing in the you could never really know for sure. And I think she's, she's so good about making these kind of like the way memory and present consciousness works kind of tapestries

where you're not doing dumb flashback devices. It's all interwoven. And outside of like their young, young meetings, Tilda basically looks the same in all segments. Her age is basically only conveyed by her body language. And the hair. And the hair. The hair. The hair. Hair is key. Harriskey. And so you're sometimes starting a scene not knowing which temporality you're in until you see if Kevin's there or not or where she's living or things like that. So she's building it in a way where those scenes can meld together. They don't feel like here's an over-the-top scene and here's a real scene. But it is all kind of a soup.

What were you? I was going to open the dossie. Oh, no, no. Yeah, okay. But just get some research on this movie. Okay. And Lynn Ramsey's career in between Morvern and this. Obviously, nine years of her trying to make a movie.

after Morvenus, which is essentially like, that should be the entree to a slightly bigger art film or smallish Hollywood film. At this time, at the very least, you're like, that gets you a like $8 to $10 million mirror max or like Fox Searchlight movie with some major actors who want to show off that they can really act.

First thing she does is write a script called Rocking Horse, a dark comedy, as you can imagine, a twisted thing. Never been made. She still has it somewhere. Next thing is Lovely Bones. Okay, film four, which is the sort of British Indy channel attached channel 4, at the time

was sort of like a hot company, has Lovely Bones, gives her a galley of just the first few chapters. They don't even give her the whole book, and she's like, I'm all in. This sounds great. I think it's super interesting.

In July 2002, so this is even before Morven Caller, like that she's like getting sort of moved on to this. the book comes out and is just a smash hit. I mean, that book was so huge. I've never read it. Right, she got it before it even came out. And like, then people start circling it in like an insane way.

And, you know, they initially, Channel 4, film 4 is like, no, we're committed to this. We have Lynn Ramsey set up and we're going to do it. And she's an exciting young director, you know? If you've seen Rat Catcher and Morven Caller, at that point in time, it makes a ton of sense to go. If we give her this book, this is the kind of thing that might. like level her up like crazy. She might be ready to deliver like a masterpiece. Ramsey's basically like, look, I was handed the first part of a manuscript.

I have a very loose adaptation I want to do. Now people seem to want, you know, the book that is now a huge hit on screen. Like they just want a translation. I don't really want to do that. She doesn't like the second half of the book, which is like where the girl comes back to her. She's also like, I think, I mean, I've seen the movie once and read the book O times. She is arguing that a lot of stuff. stuff that works in the book would not work on film.

And they're pushing back and saying, people love the book, you got to do the book. I would argue that history proves her correct. Well, right, because of course Peter Jackson, Spielberg is one guy who's trying to horn in. He never actually does. And then when Ramsey is sort of pushed off eventually because they don't like her drafts, Peter Jackson takes on the project, obviously. It's his post-King Kong movie. It is, in my opinion, it's certainly the worst film he's ever made.

by a long shot. It's an embarrassing work. It is so fucking bad. It was the worst idea he could have made at that point in time. And I feel like in our Send Help episode, we equated this of like, this is a guy who no longer knows

how to make a movie that isn't at the pitch and scale of King Kong and Lord of the Rings again. You see him going, oh, I want to do like another like a heavenly creatures again. Exactly.

And he just cannot get his head around how to make a movie about complicated issues. I also think there's something baked into this book, though. Do you remember that New Yorker piece that came out a couple of years ago about Alice Siebel? The author of The Lovelins, right? It's like there's something actually truly malignant about that book in general. Yes, the surety of that book of like she knows what happened to her and she can like from beyond the grave get this guy or whatever the fuck.

The lordness of that is coming from an entirely different angle than the luridness of Kevin, which at least is voiced from like a pitiless, you know, like that I'd take that any day over the like. Do you know about this, Ben? Just very quickly, there was... I don't know if we can do it quickly. But, I mean, you could try. No, I just... The quickest version of it is... Basically, four or five years ago,

Alice Siebold had to admit that she wrongfully accused a man of a heinous crime and sent him to jail for decades. Yeah. I mean, 100%. Because it was... And it was a big part of her... Because she'd written a memoir about the crime called Lucky... Yes.

Before Lovely Bone. It was an assault that she endured and she... And she, like, pointed at a guy in a lineup and, you know. With complete confidence. Right. And he was completely innocent of it. Right. Yeah.

So it just has cast a whole pallor on her whole work up until this point. And certainly the narrative of, like, a dead girl trying to solve her on murder. But she doesn't even make that movie. Instead, we need to talk about Kevin. I'll write about the book. I was just going to say, too, that, like, Jackson had kind of as much weight as anyone in Hollywood at that moment. You could argue he's even, like, the heat. is greater than Spielberg at that moment of what does he want to do next?

And he kept like optioning different properties that were similar to this of like, that's weirdly touchy, difficult literary material. There's this book as nature made him. That's this very complicated nonfiction book about this whole medical incident, gender identity and whatever, which I remember just being like, how the fuck is he going to tackle this? There were other things like this where it felt like he wanted to touch the third rail,

but also clearly couldn't get out of his super commercial instincts when it actually came to making the movie. Lynn Ramsey also talks about that she feels like when they started saying like, we're not happy with these drafts, we're not happy with these drafts. Right, that they were basically trying to push her off.

That they knew that Jackson was already sniffing and they were looking for a way to be able to legally end the contract they had with her. Totally. So she feels super fucking betrayed by this. She feels bummed out. She's like, ding my confidence, made me feel bad. And that she had put so much into this

and felt like this is the perfect vehicle. As the book gets bigger and bigger, even when they're arguing about the way to adapt it, she's like, I now have a crack at like a brand name piece of material. This movie's going to get seen by more people. The one other thing I just want to call out quickly, because I saw someone ask this on the Reddit, and it is a good question.

Like, when a filmmaker has nine years in between movies, how the fuck are they staying alive, right? Like, how are you actually making a living during that period of time. And this is a career where there are big gaps, there aren't a ton of films, and it's big gaps in between movies that aren't super commercially viable,

so it's not like Peter Jackson takes 15 years off. He has $100 million who gives a shit. Like, when she's working on Lovely Bones, she's getting paid to develop lovely bones. You know, if you're getting hired to write, to direct, to meet, yes, you do get paid for these sorts of things. She did a music video. You do music videos.

I'm a commercial. commercials. You do a lot of like uncredited, like punch up work on other things. But yes, basically, you know, you might have your own passion project that you're trying to get off the ground. But by and large, you try to sell it to a producer quickly so that someone is paying you to do that work so you can pay the bills until the movie actually gets made, hopefully. Just wanted to answer that. David, yes. I am so excited about this episode sponsor. Yes, me too. Might truly be the most excited I've ever had for anything to sponsor this podcast. Today's episode.

Sponsors that tell you how to like help your finances. Hey, easy. Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Easy. Today's episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Woo! Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie.

Marie's here too because everyone's so excited. Yeah. I love this movie. I mean, I love this band, this show, this movie. Yes. Important correction. This film is finally coming to theaters. February 13th is the start of the theatrical rollout.

From our friends at Neon. Neons bringing it out. We have been waiting impatiently for other people to see this film. We saw this at South by Southwest. One of the best screenings of my life. Truly. Truly, it was an unbelievable experience. Ben, you were there.

Had a blast. And I had never seen or engaged with this show previously. Me neither. And you don't really need it. No. You don't need the context to enjoy. joy. Absolutely.

It's a big sign. I think you need to know like what Toronto is. Because you knew nothing other than us hyping you up for you. Well, this was the problem. And we should say it's a city in Canada. Yes. I went in. You guys had just been like, it's the best thing ever.

And not just you, other people. I can't believe how good. And I was like, this is so overhyped. And here's a great thing about David. I'm walking in. Like, I felt mad about it. I was just like they've primed it too much for me. I like that you acknowledge this.

Because sometimes if we tell you something's good, I see you go like you put your fists up. I'm just like, relax because I can't go in with too much hype because that's not good for my critical experience of a movie. And then I thought it was better than the hype. This is the thing. This movie is truly a miracle. I think it is the funniest movie of the last 10 years easily. And listeners of the show know, I am often bemoaning the state of the theatrical comedy.

And this is a movie that provides the thing I've been longing for, which is you go see this with a crowd. It is just electric every five seconds rolling laugh. and the movie just builds and builds and builds. This is a movie for Matt Johnson. Yes. Director Blackberry, one of my favorite movies the last couple of years. Him and Jay McHarel started as a web series, became a TV series, and now is a movie, but you don't need to know any of that.

This works as a clean entry point. It's a movie about two friends who are obsessed with their band playing at one venue. They want to play at the Rivley. That's all you need to know about these guys. Before the lights went down at the South by Southwest screening, I believe you turned to me and said, what do I need to know? And I said, all you need to know is they want to play the Rivoli. They go play the Rivley.

I've, you know, I've been to Toronto many times. Have you been to the Rivley? Never. I've stayed on Queen West, though, and I've certainly walked by the Rivley many times. And I always been like, oh, yeah, the Rivley. It's not Carnegie Hall. No, it's the fucking bar. And you never see these guys.

What do you mean? It's the most important music than you in Canada. You never see these guys practice their music. But all you know is that every episode starts with, here's the plan. Here's how we play the Rivley, right? We got to play the Rivoli. And this movie starts from there and explodes in unbelievable ways. I think this movie is truly like a magic trick beyond just how funny it is.

And for how much it's caked in the deep lore of this Nirvana, the Bay in the Show universe that's existed for 15 years, you can just go in knowing nothing and be blown away. And for a movie that seems kind of slapdash and roughly made from the start, it starts to pull off genuine, like, cinematic magic tricks where you cannot believe how this thing was made. What was my letterbox review, Griff, did you see it? No, please tell me. L.O.L. How did they make this? Truly.

That was how I thought. How did this get made? No, but I was also just like, how did they make this? I don't get it. You don't understand how they're getting away with it legally. You don't understand how it was cleared for release. And there is a melding of scripted and non-scripted, them engaging with real people on the street where the line between what is planned and what is not boggles your brain. It was my favorite thing.

I saw all of 2025. And now it's coming out in 2026. Now, listen, I do have to do some talking points. Do some talking points. Nirvana The Band, The Show, the movie is in theaters, February 13th. Get tickets now. We must say this. Nirvana, the Band, the Show, the Movie.

They're very clear that we have to say the title of this thing. A few times. The Band, the Show, the Movie. Why, it's a really simple, easy title. Nirvana The Band, the Show, the Movie, it really is a kind of like going cold, expecting something fun. I don't think you need too much more than that. I know it sounds unwieldy or whatever, but just like, I think you're going to have a pretty good time.

If you trust our opinion at all, take this recommendation. Yes. Don't look it up. Go in. And I really, really doubt there is any chance you will be disappointed. In theaters, February 13th, get your tickets now. Get your tickets. No, no, the man.

The show of the movie. Hello, Creek. Hey, how's it going? And who are you? Mac Black. And what's that? That's my name. You asked who am I and that's my name.

What are you doing here? What do you want? I'm a construction worker, obviously, as you can tell from my general demeanor, temperament, and this hard hat here. I'm sure you've noticed the interruption, the sound. Yeah, I guess I... Jack hammers. We've been hearing some construction noise. In the building.

But I've been struggling. Yes. This construction project's not going well. I have no idea what's going on. I explain to you my name is Macon. black. I'm a construction worker. I've been working in the building. He's winding up. He's winding up. He's winding up. Literally.

I don't know what's going on in your life. I knocked on the door. I open. I'm interrupting. I don't know what's going on in your life. You're struggling. What's going on? This construction project's not going well. Okay. Okay. Been trying to build a better wardrobe. There it is. Yeah. And so what you're referring to, of course, is

the sort of the furniture, the physical thing. Incorrect. That's a weird assumption for you to make. I'm talking about pieces that work together and hold up over Well, Mac, we've got news for you. Come on in, take a seat. I have a pair of pants and I've been jackhammering them for months and nothing's coming together. We have ad copy people can't see with prompts that are a little esoteric.

And one of the people who works for our show responds to those prompts in interesting ways. But nobody knows what, like, it's like going to an improv show where you didn't hear what someone yelled out. David, excuse me. I'm sorry he's interrupt. Mack doesn't know any of that. He's living his own life. You're right. Mac is such a, he's such a thoughtful.

Realized care. Thank you. I'm a construction worker, surly demeanor, hard hat, and I've been taking the jackhammer. Is Matt short for Macintosh? Absolutely.

Macintosh, Blackintosh. That's pretty funny. No, listen, Quince has the everyday essentials. You got to go to Quince to get a good word for.

Well, that's the recommendation I've been waiting for. What took you so long? I said fast. Turn his mic off. Quince has the everyday essentials I love with quality of the last, organic cotton sweaters,

pose for every occasion. Okay. Lighter jackets. to keep you warm in the changing changing seasons list goes on i i love quince uh i've got i got a nice quarter zip that i've been uh sporting around well well well you're looking pretty smart if i dare say so myself you know they got they got obviously very very cheap and uh comfortable cashmere stuff marino stuff a lot of good i got myself a cashmere scarf for quince it's cold in new york city burr you need to bundle now i'm a little bit wary quince sounds good but is this one of those companies

that works with bottom factories and cuts in the middlemen? No, they're top only. Top factories cutting out the middlemen. Oh, that's the exact opposite. Yes. That's what I was worried about. You're not paying for brand markup. It's just quality clothing.

Everything's built to hold up to daily wear and look good season after season, okay? And let's not forget that, of course, every night I sleep under a quince comforter and quince sheets. So it's not just your wardrobe. Every day life. Ben, can you say how much I appreciate that I feel like you. You're making the effort to communicate with me. You're making eye contact. You're giving me recommendations.

What can I say? They're unlike Silver Spoon Sims over here. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash check for free shipping on your order in 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-C-E.com slash check. Free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash check. That's great news because I live in London, Ontario.

Mack, see you later, man. By the way, big fan of the pot. We need to talk about Kevin. comes out 2003 in the United States. Word of Mouth Hit, a genuine word of mouth hit, gets the Orange Prize in 2005. So it takes a while to even get that like, but it was like the way Lionel Shriver, unreliable narrative, though she may be, describes it as like upri-side mom, started like passing the book around. By that? Yeah, exactly. Because it's because of the topic matter. And Lynn Ramsey is a fan and basically like bids for it herself, I think, right? Like she was

just like interested. She got it through her agent. It was just like, I want to do this. And the BBC, who helped fund this movie, right? This is a national. Yeah, I believe. This is a UK Film Council movie. Like, you know, it's got British government money is like, oh, like, you know, school murders. Like, this is too dark. But she wants to do it. Lionel Shriver passes on like, Lynn's like, do you want to collaborate? And Leonard Schrever was like, fuck no. I don't want to talk about, we need to talk about that. Seriously. is her answer. Yeah.

She does like the movie. She says it's excellent. It's beautifully shot, well-cast, thematically loyal to the novel. She was like totally happy with the movie. But as you're selling us with you, like, it's not like the book is like just is easy to adapt because it's letters.

Like it's not, right? Like it's not like a translatable work without whatever Lynn is doing to make it this impressionistic feeling of the path, this, you know, and kids take. It's also what we talk about of like how she seems to

have a better method of visualizing internal monologues than like any other filmmaker in history, in my opinion. And here's a book that's basically just like what this person is telling themselves

without any like objective and she understands how to like transmute that into something that is the opposite in form but kind of contains the same core ideas and feelings. It's funny if the book had been titled anything different.

Such as. I don't know. Like it's... Bad kid. The bow and arrow killings. It wouldn't have... Yeah, actually the New Yorker fact checker, we spent like 15 minutes being like, can we call it a school shooting? I was like, guys.

I mean, he shoots the bow and arrow. That was my argument. I was like, we don't have any word space to do. Like, actually, it was a bow and arrow. I was like, it's a shooting. Yeah. I find the bow and arrow thing to be a hat on a hat. I don't like it.

I will be honest. In the book of it, that's... That's because, like, he's like, I don't want to play into your political games. Because the thing about the book is like all of this is taking place. The present day timeline is like three months while the chads are hanging in Florida. And so it's all taking place against this really specific. And so heaven. That's crazy.

I know. She's mixing all these ideas up together. It's a hanging chad drama. It's a hanging chad drama. I was looking at, I had, unbeknownst to myself, because I was trying to, right when we got into this room, I was looking, I was like, didn't, what was it? that Lionel Shriver, like, put on a sobriero to give a speech at a literary conference. And I was looking, I googled Lionel Shriver's sombrero and found a piece that I had written about her. Yep, 2016.

You were the first result. You had to remind yourself, like, Bill and Ted style. I assume as she was tiptoeing up to her later, turfy turns or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's mad about some, like, kid getting canceled at Bowden, you know, for having sombreros. I don't know. She just written a novel where a white man is married to a black woman who is intellectually disabled and at one point she ends up on a leash. So, you know, it's all pretty...

I'm sorry, at one point she ends up on a leash. It's not what I expected. But she calls herself a renown... In the second line of the speech, she calls herself a renowned iconic glass. Me whenever I talk about myself. It's one of these things where they always are just like, I'm going to write something really provocative.

And then people go like, hmm, is it okay for them to have written this thing? It's like, oh, so now I'm being attacked. Well, now you're forcing me to become radical. Truly. But it's always this like, okay, well, now I'm going to wear a sombrero. Does that make you a pout? And they're like, yes. I guess so.

Right, right. She put out, like, the thing that I found so funny about it then was that she put on the sombrero to make a statement that any, that wearing a sombrero should be less of a statement. I was like, what are we doing? What are we doing? It feels quaint for a sombrero to be like, you know. Shakespeare compared to what we're dealing with now. But it was her version of the Scarlett Johansson if I want to play someone who's pink or purple or a tree.

I mean, but right. Except it was more like, fuck you. Yeah. But you know what I was just thinking when you were talking about the book? I find I actually, I've come around to finding the sort of, I'm still on Kevin being like unfreezing in the alien ship. Like, I think it's actually a bit of mercy on her part and like an enormous source of comic relief that Kevin is so cartoonish. because basically what the whole story is about, it's like, what if you were a woman,

a kind of woman that I am and have been, which who is ambivalent about having children? Has an ambitious, interesting career, does things. Cherishes their independent, wants to be able to go, you know, wants to go fucking throw tomatoes. Go throw tomatoes. And you're like, what if the transcendence and love

that awaits me is not there? Like, what if you don't know who your kid's going to be? You don't know. And then people are like, you know what? You have your kid caring for your kid, makes you fall in love with them, or the moment of birth makes you fall. Like, everyone assures you, like, you're going to have an amazing kid. You two are going to produce an amazing kid no matter what.

Right. They're going to have you as parents. He's so much fun. You're so smart. Yeah, exactly. Like, please, they're going to have you guys. Like, they're going to be so. And, and you're like, well, yeah, you're right.

Like, I guess there's no way he's going to be, you know, a generational satanic, you know, channel of every, you know, like, it's, it's beyond every parent's worst nightmare to be. It's past the realm of anything that's possible. In that way, it's a bit of a relief and mercy. He becomes like supernatural, almost science fiction level of evil. Like an alien. Lynn refers to it as like Rosemary's baby, but no devil. Exactly.

What if you had a devil baby, but it's not because you fuck the devil? Like, you know, by, you know, like, you're not, there's no conspiracy. You just happened. You got the devil baby. Everyone else didn't. I think that's a great point, though, that the real life, of this type of kid who ends up committing these types of acts is usually like has anger issues,

but also is like incredibly sad, is struggling, is bullied, like has wild emotional swings. Has hugged you more than once. It's introverted or whatever it is, you know, and you're like a parent fighting through the outburst going like, how do we get him level? And the fact that this kid is just from the beginning basically like playing chicken with her on every single thing. And only respects her when she breaks his arm. There's no level of...

Right, there's no level of vulnerability other than when he is sick and or broken. Well, about the sick thing, here... So I was watching them, when I was rewatching me, was like, what would I do? What would we, what would I do if I did Kevin? I would phantom thread the shit out of that kid. It works.

I would munch house in him so fucking hard. And I would be so justified. But that's the terror. It's not like... But this is... Gia, you're kidding, because... I'm serious. No, I'm not kidding.

I know you're not kidding. I'm not kidding. But you're kidding. Because we're not allowed to do this in society to essentially say like, nope, this kid is a bad egg and there's nothing. Like, society now is just like, no, no, we have interventions. Like, we have things you do. There's people you see.

There's medicine you take. Like, you know, you can't just be like, I'm stamping a kid. Psycho kids. Speaking of what would actually happen is he would actually be medicated into a stupor. 100%. That was another thing. I do, right. I do bump on it a little bit.

where I'm like, once again, like, once the daughter is getting blinded, like, you imagine, like, someone's coming to the house. Like, you know, who knows? Oh, my God. When he's fucking eating the lichy? Just like a normal lunch with Kevin where you're eating lichies. And the parents are drinking wine at 10 a.m. And there's this weird, like, I like this sort of, like, their house is so ridiculous.

The house is so scary. Their life is so, like, you know, like her pretension of, like, like the map room and like her past and like it almost feels like this punishment like oh you thought you could have it all like you could still be the fancy person the cool person and raised kids well too bad like you get it Kevin and then you get the worst thing of then you have another kid who's cool like so you actually an angel on earth you know that

it's possible that there actually is a kid you could have that you like and there's tension between only makes Kevin worse at even having a second kid and then it's like immediately she feels connected to the second kid. Watching this now, I was like relating certain things to the Nick Reiner situation, which is certainly the most like public sort of discussed version. Yeah, sure. But I think that's a perfect case study in how these things often now do happen in our world, which is like you just read that it was 36 years of them being like,

fuck, how do we help him? You know? What is so tragic about that story is everyone says, Like, they just did everything. They wouldn't give up on him. And they were just like, when is it tough love? When do we need to support him? When do we need to bring him professionals?

When is it medication? When is it this? And, like, nothing worked. And, like, the situation goes as horribly as it possibly could have. And everyone goes, like, there was a feeling that someday something like this was going to happen. But no one kind of seemingly did anything wrong. Well, because no one wants to say, like, hey, I think you're, oh, right. Well, yeah.

You can't just write off a kid. Right. You can't just be like garbage can. Because kids aren't like this, though, right? Because it's like there's not, like, Kevin is not schizophrenic. Kevin is not dealing with addiction issues. Like, like, Kevin, there is no diagnosable, you know, the movie. And Kevin can perform, like, as he does for others.

Like, like, psychopathy, I don't know if it's like, there's, there's no treatment for it. That's the point of. Right. Like, in all the discussion of Nick Reiner, they were like, he was good for a couple years. And we were, like, happy. And then he fell off the wagon and we thought we could get him back on. Versus, like, Kevin comes out with a, like, little pitchfork and horns. And it's like, eh.

I actually think that the most compassionate and restorative justice thing to do would be to constantly phantom thread hip. Like, constantly expose him to norovirus every two weeks so that he's weak and loves you. I think you would build up a superhuman intolerance of a normal. You could just change. I would just be like giving him little norovirus pills, you know. I don't think we have those. I would invent them. I'd invent them.

Someone could do it for me. And then he, because I found that so beautiful. Like, like, I think it's so beautifully acted that scene where Kevin is sick. And and leans his head on her. And for the first time in her entire life, her child has expressed some sort of physical, even comfort with her. And you can tell how much it means her

and how sincerely like a kidding. Yeah, she's not like, okay, all of a sudden. If every day this was like this, she would have been the happiest woman in the world. I found it so moving. Even if like two days a month were like this, she'd understand what she were fighting for. I think part of why she doesn't know how to take more extreme actions

is that he comes out and she's just immediately like something's really wrong here. But to say that would make her sound crazy. And because Kevin is pretending as a child. Right. But even as a baby to be like, honey, I think our baby's evil. You can't say that, right? So as like the signs start to pile up that to her, like self-fulfilling prophecies, I told you so, it just feels like she's like, it's a self-confirming bias in his eyes.

and he's so oblivious to shit. And then there is stuff of like, sometimes he's really sweet with the sister. And you're like, so is he doing that just to spite me? And he's always with the dad, he's like, yeah, let's throw around that baseball, that. Do they have a connection? I don't understand, or does he just know

that's part of the deal? That it's part of it. Like, because he's what she would be thinking. Yes, that's what she's thinking. And I also think that, I remember her saying that they really kind of built the performance around the middle kid and had Ezra study the middle. kid. And that part of her conception of the character and how it was even written in the script is

like, he reaches this kind of like unresolved anger menace as like whatever it is, a seven or eight year old. And then when he gets to high school, he's just a taller version of that kid. Like part of what is so eerie about him is that he's wearing the undersized t-shirts, that he's got these like childlike behaviors, that it's now in this kind of like pouty sulky menace. But everything about him just feels like a stretched out little boy who's now just being taken somewhat more seriously because that kid it's

at that age it's still a little like what's going on here. Look, I had a colicky baby. I've had three kids so I was gonna... Collicky baby? Colicky. What does that mean? Collic is when your baby cries for no reason. And it's like, you know,

it's like torture. Like, I mean, right? I mean, you didn't, neither of your kids are colloquy. but like but your second kid had like had the expert i mean i talked a lot about parenting yeah yeah which is last one uh but i had a cocky baby and it is like it is sort of this feeling of like the devil is in this baby like that you cannot i've had i've had to walk away i've had right right where maybe you have to right and sometimes the advice is that it's like you know what the baby's fine yes it's crying but like it can't hurt itself if you put it in a bassinet and you just take five minutes or whatever you know like but what does that feel like to be in the other

room just away from me. The whole, like, a baby crying. Better than yelling, what the fuck is wrong with you? Sure, but when you're doing that, I'm sure you're also like, what, why am I feeling? Why am I getting angry at the baby? A baby crying, like, like, especially your baby, like, just like pushes a button in your brain, right? Like, it's just like, help the baby, you know, like.

And, yeah, I mean, like, the answer is he was underbaked. He's the littlest twin, you know, he gives up pre-me and, like, he just, the shit wasn't working. He's, he's, um, sorry, he's rock steady. Okay. We use code names for David's children. We named him after. Yeah.

You know, and like, you know, he was just underbaked. Like, whatever. Something needs. It's always, like, there's something going on with them. Collick is this made up word the doctors came up with to just be like, sorry, like, don't get better. I thought you were just saying, like, cowlick, like your daughter was born my hair stuff. I know you do.

That's so cute. They're probably going to inherit it. I have an insane cowlick. I am waiting. Rock City has a widow's peak, which my dad had one of those. Bibov could rock a cowlick. He's got curly kind of, kind of wavy curly hair.

But also what babies are, like, it's also, it's shocking to be alive, it's terrible to be alive. And you're not supposed to be alive yet. He came out too early. Even if you came out at a regular time, we come out too early.

And none of us chose to be alive. I'm quite thankful to be alive every day, but I, but I, you know, it's hard to fault people for... Definitely was not at it. I got no Google survey.

And Kevin, like, it's like the only source of, the only source of pleasure he's ever seems to access in life is making someone else hurt. Yes. And in a way, like, you know, what do you do with like, like I, you know, I feel no sympathy for Kevin, but he makes, like, even as a somewhat demonic character,

there's some sort of emotional logic where like he didn't ask for that, that the monologue where he's just like, you guys are all here, just watching screens all day, wrapped in front of acts of fictional and real violence. Like, what's the fucking point? All of you were just being fake to each other and not saying, like, he loathes his mother for never being honest about the fact that she

fucking hates him. Right, right. When you get the flashback of the arm breaking, he was like, that was finally. Finally an honest moment from you. That you wanted to throw me against a wall. I respected you for the first time and I felt comfortable. Like, we're not playing. You know what I would say to him then? What? Jesus, enough with you. You're fucking, geez,

you're a lot. I need to stop talking, Kevin. You're really exhausting. You're really exhausting. Take your norovirus bill. Take your No. I think norovirus is like, then they're barfing all the time. You got to deal with the bar. I would take an immunity pill.

Of course. It's all being a genius. Smart. That's where this really feels like a pre-parental anxiety tale, though, especially for her perspective. Totally. What if this happens? Like, do I want to have kids unless I'm 100% sure that I'm ready to be a parent? What if I get the one in a million?

You don't know what you're going to get. Yeah. Right. And there's the version of this is, you know, you have a child who has like different needs and there's nothing malicious within them, but you're just like, the job is immediately exponentially more difficult than you thought it was going to be, you know? You just don't know what you're going to get in any way, and you need to be so sure, and people shouldn't have kids who aren't sure that they want to have kids. And that the fact that she's just like, as you said, it's like,

am I 49% or 51%? Like, where am I on this? The kid comes out immediately. It's just like, and I think she has the kid. Like, she, you can kind of, it's kind of presented in the movie, she's just, it's really like, it was a spur of the moment decision. Like, she's blackout drunk and she's just like, it's fine. It's fine. What's whatever? It's the kind of shit that

like Lynn Ramsey can get away with because she mostly deals in these scene fragments. And if this was a line of dialogue at the end of like five pages of conventionally written scene, I'd be like, boo, fuck you. But when you cut to her in the delivery room and the doctors are saying, stop resisting. And she's like,

she doesn't want the baby to out. You know, there's something right there from that moment, which then in her mind, the second the baby's a problem is like, did I kind of like will this into happening? Is there some sort of like energy I've passed on to this child of your unwanted? Should I have been giving him a blowjob when he might wake up and have to poop? Also like the way, sorry, like the way. David's head is in his answer. Lock you door or something. I don't know, man. Yeah, no. I mean, just, but also like that scene is also so funny because of just the way her head is moving. Like, it's

so funny. It's incredibly well staged. It is such a, it is such a perfunctory blow job. Like, she's, she's like, she's got her, she's looking at her watch, you know, she's Well, I mean, it's, again, this is the till to John C. Rye. I'm just, I mean, now I feel like I'm being mean to John C. Ryan.

No, but it's a weird relationship. David. Yes. Happy New Year. Yay. That was the little party horn. Yeah. It's February, but it's still the new year. I mean, I liked it. I'm not going to call it out.

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Summon Entertainment has just made a ton of money off at Twilight. They're like, we will make this movie for you. We've read your script. She had like a spec script. We'll give you $12 million. You can cast whoever you want. Then after according to Variety and Lynn Ramsey, they back out after a year

essentially being like, this is too weird. It's so funny when studios do this like where they're like, it's about like a kid who kills other kids and it's just like, yeah, bro, you read the script. You know, like, but they'd suddenly. back on. They get called beat. It's also the wild

quick arc of like, here's this new like upstart like distributor. What are they going to make? They're going to make the stuff the studios don't want to make. Let's get like action scripts that the other studios have passed on. What's the little energy? Twilight was supposed to be an MTV movie. They were like, fuck it. They get it for

like no money. It makes half a billion dollars. They have a franchise. And suddenly they're like, great. Now we have the money to make a bunch of shit. But also in real time going like, is it worth the fucking risk of making a And then they call her and they're like, we kind of are thinking we're going to make more Twilight movies.

And that's kind of what we're going to do. And within six years, they're bought by Lionsgate and they don't exist anymore. sucked into Lionscape. Yeah. Right. So she doesn't give up. She retools it.

She cuts the script essentially the budget of the script in half by like fucking with the script. So she had it, you know, at about a 12 million number. I think the movie was made for seven. And she just kind of pieces the money together. UK Film Council, Artificial Eye,

all these like, you know, Euro sort of, indie companies, BBC films, obviously. I think Paramount had UK on this. Sure. It has like 20 different companies. Soderberg is like an executive producer on it. A Silioscope releases it in America.

A distributor I love who doesn't get shot out nearly enough. Shout them out. Co-founded or founded by MCA. Yeah. From Beastie Boys. That's right. Yeah. But they put out great stuff.

She knows Tilda Swinton. Tilda Swinton essentially is just like a fucking magpie for freak directors. It makes sense. Like, Tilda's basically like, I've been hearing about you. Has been blown up her inbox for 10 years. Be like, give me something. And the Buster Keaton thing, you know, like she's

very into that. Buster Keaton's her favorite. She says, I'm not good at being articulate. I'm much more wired for looking dumb. And she just liked, like, I can just stand around looking dumb in this movie. Yeah. I mean, I think it's more like a numbness that she's playing very well. I think is very like, oh,

who knows what I do? Like, me and I'm like, you're one of the most interesting actors who's ever lived. The way, when she's walking down the courthouse steps, her heels, you know, like, it's, she's so funny with her body in this, she really is. Dude, I just watched The Chronicles of Narnia

The Lion and the Wish in the Wartrobe, because I've decided this year to, to read all the Narnia's. Oh, they're good. I know. They're totally interesting. I was like, you know what? Greta's doing the movie this year. I'm going to read them all. I haven't really interacted with this since I was a kid. And then out of interest, I'm like, I'll watch the fucking movie, which is not that good.

But anytime she's on screen, may I say it? She's acting. Serving cunt. I mean, when she's like riding around in a chariot pulled by like a polar bear with like crazy makeup, you're like, she was born for this. Like, no acting required.

It's also, it's the funniest thing when you consider like that, unsurprisingly, that movies announced Disney's gonna make a big fucking narnia line the witch and the word. Right. It's post Lord of the Rings. They're like, what can we, you know, what fantasy thing can we make? Immediately the story is Nicole Kidman in talks for White Witch, right? Yeah.

Easiest, yeah. Who's the iciest blonde out there. Right. You're like, there you go. Slam dunk. She drops out. They're like Tilda Swinton. Film freaks are like, cool.

Tilda Switten gets that bag. Isn't that like a major like, did the scale of this movie just go way down? Yeah, well, because it was like they got the, I mean, Tilda had been in a couple things when they got her. But like, it's the fucking lady from like Derek Jarman movies. Totally. Not like, you're like, you know, an Oscar winner yet. Voldemort in a movie where like the stars are children and you don't have a big name actor above the title, it comes out within a week of King Kong.

Everyone thinks King Kong is going to dominate. Narnia fucking suplexes it. And suddenly Tulsa Witten is bankable. Yeah, and she wins an Oscar two years later. Like, it happens really fast. Can we do like a little zoom out here? What did she win the Oscar for? For Michael Clayton, which is a great performance, you know?

And like went in seeming like it's an honor just to be nominated. Everyone thought it was down to Amy Ryan or Cape Blanchet in I'm not here. Right. And then Bob Dylan. Yeah.

And then like Tilda wins in a total surprise. Right. Year after that, she has Prince Caspian, the second Narnia. She's on that to

came in her. She's barely in that one. Benjamin Button. Yeah, Benjamin Button, she's good in that. Movies she obviously signed up for

before winning the Oscar. Right. Then it's limits of control. She's doing another Jarmush. I am love. She basically is the first person to be a guarantor for Guadeno.

Yeah. That's a really great performance. She's got an Oscar. She can be the lead. She, launches him as a director. Then third Narnia has shown up for another camera. Probably pocketing $2 million.

She's a dream in that one. We need to talk about Kevin. I mean, like literally someone has a dreamer. Sure. 2011. Moonrise Kingdom, First West. Yeah. Only lovers left alive.

Another Jarmush, maybe her best performance in the convo. Have you seen that movie, Gia? I've never seen it. It's about two fucking bored vampires hanging out in Detroit just being like, man, we've been to so many concerts. We're 500 years old. Is there anything left for us to do?

It turns vampires into heroin addicts. Right. A vampire would just feel like Keith Richards times a thousand. Right. It's just till this point in Tom Hiddleston just like laying on top of each other. Like naked and thin and just like, she put on some sunglasses and go see some jazz. Snowpiercer?

Yeah. She's great in that. Zero theorem is a wash. Right. And then Grand Budapest Hotel, train wreck, bigger splash, Hail Caesar. Like, that's, not only is it her clearly just being like good filmmakers. I don't care the size of the role. I'll show up, I'll do it.

Almost all of those movies work. Yeah, I mean, but also she's always striking. I mean, I love her. I like, I love her so much. I mean, I love that she eventually turns this into, let me start working with Joanna Hogg, my original collaborator again, and like they have such a rich thing now.

And like, you know, she was in the, you know, what else has she been in lately? No, I mean, Memorial and stuff. Yeah, right. She's so loyal to filmmakers. The George Millie. movie that I love. But you're like, she's done like five West Anderson's now. So good and problemista.

Like that was like a really, like, like, she didn't have to do that. That's the kind of swing. And like, that's, I'm sure the thing where Julio Torres was like, Tilda, I'm obsessed with. You were my god. And she was like, okay. Right. You know. Like, she will equally like help launch a filmmaker who doesn't have that level of

exposure and also be like, yeah, Jarmish, I'll show up for half an hour and do whatever you want of me. And almost all of the movies work. I'm going to read a story that Tilda said on the press tour a lot. Until recently, I had a reputation of my family for having saved my younger

brother's life as a child. Actually, I was going to kill him because he was a boy naturally. I already had two brothers and that was just too much to bear. She was four and a half, entered his room, morbidly determined, and then she noticed that he had a ribbon from a baby bonnet sticking from the corner of his mouth

and I started to pull it out and then was witnessed in this great act of love of nurture. So she's claiming like, oh yeah, I wanted to fucking kill my baby brother when I was four years old. And instead, I was seen as saving his life. Okay, so she's pulling from that. She's just saying that on the press store. Yeah, sure. I don't know.

Tough press store. Yeah, crazy. Tough, tough press store, one imagines. It is probably, yeah, where people sit down like, hi, I'm from, yeah, I'm from Hollywood tonight. And I love the movie. Really interesting. You know, like, what are you? Can I call out who is

ostensibly the fourth lead of this movie if we, you know, or fifth lead, at least? Can we talk about Chavone Halen. Hogan, sorry. Shafon Hogan Fallon. Is the boss. Yes.

Oh. One of our favorites. A dead pan. You know, she's very good at the kind of like, all right. You know, like doing that kind of thing in a movie for two minutes. Like an incredible character actress who fits equally well in a Lynn Ramsey movie and a Fairley Brothers movie. Like, who else is like that where you look at her career and it's half like very serious

dramas where they're like, you won't be too over the top, but this movie may be. needs a little levity. Yeah, it's like Bridget Everett in the... Totally. Do you... Or she can just go as big as anyone if she wants? Do you truly buy that she is just kind of like, yeah, you can have the job, I don't give a shit. I kept waiting for a turn.

The office doesn't make it any sense. I know, for her being like, by the way, I hired you because, like, I'm fascinated by who you are. Like, but it doesn't really come up. The office in general is almost like, like, that is... This was one of my... This was my main issue with Die My Love is that it's like,

you know, it's out of time and place despite being so rooted in the place. Like, it's like the characters, you know, they don't have friends. They don't have cell phones. They don't have, you know, like they... Where are we? Who are these people?

Right. What is she dispected by? Yeah. And, and the... I mean, I think it works because, like, aesthetically, the office party when they're stringing up the tinsel and the sad little.

But it's like, you know, you go to the office. It's also like the first time you flash back to her present life where she's like in that strip mall, It says like, it's like Asian restaurant, and then it's like 1,800 travel or whatever. And then you go in, and the first poster you see is like Tampa awaits you. Hey, man.

It's incredible. It's an incredible detail. But it's like, what year is it inside the office? We don't know. I think that's part of it. I mean, maybe I'm being generous, right? But like, she starts out as a fairly successful travel writer. And you're kind of like, that industry is going to radically transform.

Travel writers will still exist. but the idea of a person who can spend like two years writing a book very thoughtfully that sells enough to support a family is like over. And when she's basically cast out of that because no one's going to buy her book because she's the mother of Kevin, she then has to get a job at a travel agency, which is even closer to death. This is a business that no longer needs to exist.

That's basically just for a clientele that like the last generation that refuses to use the internet who are all going to die in five years. And so are they so desperate that they're like anyone who fucking wants to work here or whatever. Should we bring travel agents back? I think they're kind of being brought back. They're coming back a little bit because people are like, I don't want to fucking deal.

Right. Our friend Stuart Wellington Yeah, swears by it. Like, yeah, secretly we all have friends that probably. My mom always used to us. Now you save a lot of money. Right. Well, that's their, ostensibly one of their jobs.

And you just no stress. Everything's sorted out for you. You get a better deal. My mom used one when we were a kid. Like travel agents would help plan our vacation. And she was always like, they knew these fucking awesome places to go. Like, I don't mind, I guess that's what they're there for. They make the reservations, all this shit, yeah.

John C. Riley, just to acknowledge essentially, what we already guessed, she cast him because she thought he could bring some warmth to the role, you know, sort of like a warm, cuddly American guy. Like, he was just in her head. He's like a teddy bear. Yeah. And he'd, like, made a list of, like, cool directors he wanted to work with and she was on it. So, like, he went approach, he was like, thumbs up. Like, I guess I want to work with Lynn Ramsey.

you look at his career at this moment, it's like, Walk Hard didn't work. So the notion of him being a guy who can carry a movie single-handedly kind of dies on the vine right there, but he's still clearly like

a value ad if you're trying to raise your money piecemeal from so many different places, he would still look like a guy where you're like, Johnson Riley's worth like a million dollars. If he's willing to do the movie for scale, yeah.

They shot it in Connecticut, Stanford, Connecticut. They shot it in Cinema Scope, which sounds crazy. but she's essentially like, you can do two shots instead of one single. Like, she just wanted that kind of like epic everyday sort of thing. Just unusual, I would say. They had $7 million, so, you know, everything was really fucking hard.

I shot in like 30 days. Yep. La Tomatina, though, they did go. That's cool. Because they were like, we can't really fake that. Like, we have to just go. Here's Ramsey with a great story about the masturbation scene. I knew that scene really worked when we were checking the focus in post-production in Connecticut,

and we had to watch it over and over. The projectionist was pissing himself. He kept going, motherfucker every time he reran the scene. It was magic. You know you've nailed it when you got a reaction like that. And then Johnny Greenwood does the score,

very cool score, as Johnny Greenwood's wants. It's all wire-strung harp. I love the idea of calling him being like, hey, it's about a kid who murders people with the bone air. And he's thinking,

I'm thinking harp. And he's like, all right, Johnny, whatever you want to do. What else would it be? Yeah. Can I go back to your Is the bow and arrow gilding the lily?

Yeah. No, I don't think it's cool. I'm just sort of, I actually am like, I found it almost implausible, little corny. And like a little implausible that, that he could kill that many people.

I was like, it's a bow and arrow run up to him. You know? I like that it's so fucking weird. It's weird. That it makes it a more distinct, like what the fuck was going on here? Down to even like the bicycle locks and whatever.

It also helps that she's the type of filmmaker where you watch this movie the first time. you're like, we're cutting ahead to these little flashes and I'm dreading the scene where suddenly it's going to like play out in real time, right? Yes, you're expecting the kind of sully thing. Yeah, yeah, totally. And now we're in, we're going to see 20 continuous minutes of the massacre. And she keeps it abstract.

It is one of the things I like the most about her is that in her movies, you will have these sort of like flashes. When Atilda runs into the classmate who is now a paraplegic in the wheelchair and he's so friendly to her and clearly is like, we both have suffered from this. I'm relating to you as another victim of this tragedy or at least, you know, someone who has to live in the wake of it. That's how I took it.

And she keeps flashing back to him being wheeled out on the stretcher and you're trained from watching so many worse movies. We're going to see the rest of that scene. We're going to see more of this. And she just has this confidence. You were never really here does this super well as well where you're like, oh, these flashbacks

that are teasing the trauma of his past and you're dreading the scene that's going to literalize it and spell it out. And it never does because you're like, I get it. I see this one image. I know exactly what it's conveying. You don't need to show me the rest. I can fill it in.

You know what? The bow and arrow is actually, like in the book, it's bow and arrow because in his 24 hours of psychological pliability from his flu, he reads, she reads Robin Hood. Oh, okay. And that's how he gets. And he becomes enamored with a bow and arrow from Robin Hood.

And so, but I do think that's a little bit corny Like it's giving MFA Like it's a big... Landall Schreiber's a bad writer. But also if you had to see him do it on screen, it would totally break. Totally. You'd be like, this is fucking like seven pounds

jellyfish in the bathtub shit. Totally. The fact that you don't see it... Don't. That's what they say in that movie. And coax him, you have to keep it hot. Cold as hell. I'm sorry, we're just getting caught up in our bullshit.

The fact that you don't see it helps it. Yeah. And that it feels like, a thing that you read about in the newspaper and you're like, he did what? He like, he ordered 50 bicycle locks and then took a bow and arrow into a gymnasium? Well, I think it's also right. We're supposed to, we're supposed to kind of perceive that he sees himself as an artist, you know, like he's not, that it requires, it requires, like, finesse and aim and like.

He's making a statement. And in the book, he makes actually a list of 10 kids, gives them fake certificate saying they're getting an award, lines them up in the middle of the gym, shoots them. and like some of them he kills immediately but because it's only 10 of them like some of them bleed out in front of him for an hour and it's like I'm not trying to watch that none of the shit's in the movie

none of that needs to be in the movie. I also love that we just like never see him interact with contemporaries really where you're just like we don't know if he's bullied if he is bullying if he just keeps to himself if he puts on like a sociable face at school that he doesn't when he's at home. Right you got to fill in all those gaps.

You never know. I mean, Ebert's review is actually really clever where he's like, in an ordinary movie, there would be meetings with counselors, there would be stuff in the classrooms and all that. In this movie, they don't talk about Kevin. Like, nobody's talking about Kevin, except for her saying we need to. But she doesn't. But even she is mostly being ignored by John C. Riley. And we assume other people, but we don't really see that.

I mean, I guess we see the nurse say something like, he's such a brave boy. Yeah. When he breaks his arm. She should just do a, she should do a jack off motion when he says, sucks. But you're right. Yeah, no one is really talking about Kevin. Which is a shame because we were all put on notice. I know. Yeah, it's a, you know, the first time I saw it, I didn't read the book. I avoided the book when it came out. Like, it was a time when I was certainly like reading

winners of, yeah, winners of literary pride. I was like, you know, old and pretentious enough to do that. And I like, the subject matter was like, oh, I don't want it. And I like that he killed the rest of the family. Like, I'm sure that's the big audience gasp, right? I don't really remember anymore. Yeah, that is wild. It's no good. Yeah, it's no good.

It's just no good. I don't like it. I don't like it. It's really, it's also such a beautiful shot. Like, it's so beautiful. It looks like a fucking painting of a saint that got killed. Yeah, yeah. It's giving sense of passion.

Yes, exactly. It's giving St. St. Sebastian, that guy. And why did they do that to him? What do you do? He like Jesus? He was leading a hot crustacean band, wasn't he? Here's the thing you need to understand.

We now record this podcast often so many months ahead of schedule and out of order. This episode we're recording the same week. This one's coming out next week. Fast turnaround. I make an almost identical joke in some other episode

that will probably come out in September. You know, I've been going to a lot of museums. I've been seeing a lot of St. Sebastian. Who gets arrowed in a different, what is it? No, just, yeah, why was arrows coming? It was just a hot crustacean ban, Joe. Oh, just a hot crustacean band. Something else made me think of a hot crustacean band.

We'll find out. We'll find out. Who knows? You know, the pooping. I'm trying to think of anything, any Kevin's stuff we haven't. Well, I have a question for you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Lynn Ramsey for me is like, I had friends.

I like die my love. I like everything Lynn's ever done. But you kind of know more than most directors who I think direct masterpieces, I would never like urge someone to see it who I don't know would. You know what I mean? You kind of know. You know what?

I really dug die of my love. I'm going to tell all my friends to go see that. You would never tell all your friends to see. It is what I've been struggling to communicate this whole mini series is I think these movies are less punishing than they sound. Yeah. And I would encourage you to give them a shot. But also I will never judge anyone for being like, oh, come back.

my tempo. Yeah. Exactly. And you kind of know, like, you kind of know when my friends were like,

I don't know if I'm gonna like that and I was sort of like, I don't think you're gonna like it. You know, and that's cool. Like, I'm not gonna try to convince you it's good or even pleasurable.

I find it hard to articulate what I find so pleasurable about the movies besides the fact that they, you know, like they conjure this kind of interior psychological texture in a way that not,

you know, so few. Like, what do you think? I have had a, hard time explaining to friends why this movie is good and why it's actually enjoyable, why I actually enjoy it. Like, what can you guys articulate? Chris might have to speak to that, re this movie.

Her movies and joke, they are beautifully made in an unsubtle way. And I'm not saying that, like, she's an over-the-top filmmaker. I'm just saying, like, her control of the frame is pretty unusual. And so, like, it is just an aesthetic pleasure watching her movies, right? Like, it is just straightforwardly awesome to see the kind of visuals she wants you to see. Would you agree with that? Yes. You know what I mean? That's a big part of it.

Before we're getting to, yes, okay, J-Law will be crawling towards you with a knife and you might be disturbed or whatever. You know, whatever. If you were never really here pretty at all? Really pretty. Is it? I mean, I love that movie. I've only seen it when it came out.

It's like arguably the prettiest much. It's like visually dark. It's less dark than you remember. I think you're thinking of... I remember loving it and I, but I've never seen it again. It is my favorite. Griffith will throw that movie on. So you really should speak to it.

Yeah, but that is a... You throw it on? He throws that movie on. Okay, okay. But that is, we'll talk about our length next week. That is a movie that for me is like unbelievably poetic even in how it's sort of depicting or more often just sort of like talking around or exploring the psychological angles of unfathomable things. I think it's a vibe. Right, and that's what she does.

She's incredibly good at a vibe. I also think... Yeah, but it's... Yeah. This is my larger theory that every episode I feel like I'm taking a different strike at trying to get across. I keep saying this thing that people think is insane, which is that I find her movies very life-affirming. And what I find very life-affirming about them is that she understands how to depict the inner life or the internal, subjective, emotional and psychological experience of living through things we just don't want to fucking think about. And I think part of what she's able to get at versus these books we're talking about adapted in worse hands just becomes a kind of like arm's length emotionally punishing.

Look at how much this character is suffering thing. And I think what she's so good at is like showing you would still just be a person. You'd just be a person living through this. And whether it's structured as a memory or whether it's structured like Morvin Caller where it's like a day by day thing. Like part of what's funny about Morvin Caler is the balance. between the banality of some of the things she's going through and the intensity of the motions that she's not really processing. And the same with this, you know?

And I think especially in this one where it's so much dealing with a fictionalized version of the kind of true crime thing we're obsessed with, Kevin gives his whole fucking monologue about the world rotates around watching people like me on TV. In the 15 years since this movie's come out, that has become a million times more true. like multiple industries are all basically balanced on people's bloodlust for this type of story.

But it's usually in this very sensationalist way that is just presenting to you and pushing on you the most extreme facts in the most salacious way with the most kind of ominous, what's the word I'm looking for? a very kind of like this is the emotionally intense score and the slow zoom on the image and it's just can you imagine what a fucking nightmare in a way that I think basically flattens there being any real human experience inside of those events

it turns it just into can you imagine how terrible that would be it turns it into like a scary story to tell you in the dark except for grownups because it really happened and now it's true crime shit And, like, part of what this movie gets at is just, like, well, if you're the person who raises a kid who goes on to commit this kind of, like, insane school shooting incident, it's like 16 years of your life. And when you're on the other side of living through that, you still have to fucking go to the grocery store and buy shit.

And then eat 12 eggs. Right. And then you got to eat 12 eggs. And, like, her avoidance. I mean, that moment's really funny of, like, how many eggs could I eat? She's like, I'll take up. It's not 12. I'll take them.

I'll take my asses. All 12 are broken. She's picking them out of her too. That moment at the holiday party for the travel agency where the one guy who's sort of been nice to her at the office. Horrible. And it's like, flirting with her and trying to get her to dance. I think he's like, you dumb bitch. I mean, hysterical that that guy's like, I think we're trying it on with Tilda.

Even depressed Tilda, I'm like, look, man, this is this Tilda Swinton, you're reckoning with here. Yeah, is there comfort in these bones for you? You know, like she looks like she just walked through like, you know, from another dimension. Like, come on, but it feels like when you see these, like, screenshots of guys on dating apps who are, like, politely rejected.

Yeah, right. And they're like, fuck you. You're not even hot. I've never even date a person. Like, yeah. Where he just feels like, fuck, well, like, I'm a six and she's a 10. But she was responsible.

But, like, school shooting gets her to, like, four, right? I mean, Jesus, right. I'd be doing her a favor. Yeah. And he just so quickly, like, flips out on her. That scene is, like, so ugly, but also funny in the absurdity of it.

She's, right, Lynn is exceptionally good at looking at the darkest things we can imagine. Yeah, it's like having a bit of fun with it. Misery is kind of the subject of all, like kind of accidental misery is kind of the subject of her. Live in the things that we don't even want to think about. Or if we think about it, we want to think about it only in the major incident in the didactic ways. That's like inherently sort of dehumanizing because it is categorizable or whatever. And like she's not going to show. you that shit or focus on that shit.

It's like implied and it's like that scene tells you more than the idea of her like going home at night and crying. Not to you know paint with the broad, broadish Scottish people but it's a cold, dark, oft-conquered country that

like loves gallows humor, loves to like think about the sort of like nasty parts of the world in a funny way. They're the best. I learned a new word from Scotland. I am a fan of the Reddit that is like What is, it's like, what is it like to live there? And it's like a lot of, it's really good.

It's often about remote places, really deeply my shit. And there was something about some, some corner of Scotland. And I learned for, I learned the word dreek. I love it. I don't. No, no. It's like, apparently, I mean, you said you had a lot of Scottish listeners. I'm sorry.

It's sort of, it's like. Dark and wet. It's, no, I think it's like gray and wet. It's like the kind of, dreak. Yeah, where it's like it won't, it's where it's cold and it's drizzly and it's freezing and and just miserable. relentlessly overcast cold and drizzly. That's such a good word, Drieke.

That just sounds like the entirety of Britain. God bless it. I love that weather. Right, which is so good that there's a word. Dreek. R slash how is living there? What is it like to live there, I think? Or how is living there?

Maybe that is it. Yeah. I tried searching for what is it like to live there. You're right. That's more efficient. It's my favorite. And Reddit auto completed with what is it like to have a girlfriend?

And what is it like? I'm sure many redditors are asking. Scotland's my favorite place on Earth. I've already been... I want to go. I've already been called out on the Reddit for not knowing how to pronounce the names of various neighborhoods in Glasgow.

I'm sorry, guys. My accent, you know, is not... I'm not about to pretend that I can, like, you know, deliver a Scottish dialectic perfectly. But the greatest vacation I ever took, my mom talks about it all the time. It's like, we moved to England, right?

And then she's like, we're going to go to the highlands. Like, we're going to go to, you know, on vacation of Scotland. I'm probably... I'm 10 years old or whatever. And I'm like, okay. And then we get to the train station. She's like, FYI, we sleep on this train.

This is a sleeper train because it's so far north. And I think my reaction, as she describes it, the age of 10 was basically like, I was told I was taking the Polar Express to see Santa. I was so happy. That's your dream. I love trains so much. It's so safe to sleep on a train. Especially when you're 10 and like you can just jump into a little bunk bed, you know,

without it being like, what the fuck is this? Like, this isn't a real bet. My room is on wheel? Yeah. I love that his glowing recommendation of Scotland. Is that you can get there? Was that a long train? The highlands being one of the most beautiful way.

Then we took a sleeper train to Inverness, a wonderful city, stayed there, and then we went all over Scotland. We went to the Isle of Sky. We went to Loch Ness and we went to the, you know, all kinds of cool places. And like, as a kid, I just, I mean, I love that weather. Love that landscape. I like the food. I like the food a lot.

Why have we not gotten like a David Lowry Lockness movie? Let's, I'll text him right now. Actually, yeah, let's text him right now. I just watched, when I was at Sundance and kind of depressed, Richard Lawson told me to watch, or I was talking about actually good kids movies. I mean, we'll talk. We have a long conversation to have about this on the side. And we're going to keep talking about it because our kids are already getting older. The Caron Little Princess.

That was Coloma's first movie cry. It was her first movie cry and I found it so. And she was almost as like, she was like, why do I feel so happy? But like when she was like, why do I feel so happy on a cry? I was like, girl. That was a huge, huge theater movie for me. When the dad is being pulled away in the rain and he finally remembers. And then she's been yelling daddy and he remembers why.

And they run together in the rain. I actually cried when the attic becomes transformed. Oh, sure. Yes. I wept at that scene. It's still my favorite of his movie. It's really. It was such a Thunderball movie for me as a kid.

I had the same experience. It felt like. Yeah, it's unbelievable. The balloon. This is more sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than all the kids' movies. It still is. And when the balloon floats towards her in the study, you know, and then it suddenly, you know.

I should show it. Boss baby. I'm sorry. Fucking. Boss baby. Boss baby. I don't see a dog. Can I do a clean pickup so Ben can place it in the previous moments?

Boss baby. Great. There you go. I watched the Dave O'Lauri Pete's Dragon last night for the first time. We all laid on the floor and watched it. Okay. And now I need a lock nest one for adults. Laueri.

Huge question. Two part. One. Have you ever considered making a lock nest movie? I want that so much. Because there is, of course, the Loch Ness movie with Ted Danson and Kristen Scott Thomas. I saw it in theaters. Yeah.

It's very, very bad. Don't know what that is. I don't think it was even released in America. I think America was like, pass on that one. I want a three-hour David Lowry. Is the Water Horse movie a Loch Ness movie, or is that a different creature? No, that's a, you know, a kelpie or whatever. It's a different kind of figure of Celtic folklore.

It's called, like, legend story of the water horse. I don't know. Or story legend of the story? I... Lockness is very cool. That was cool. I wanted to go in. My parents were like,

it's like, it's like, minus a million degrees. You can't go in that water. I was like, let's go. Let's swim, baby. Anyway,

Scotland's great. Oh, right, right. But of course, this movie's American. We were talking about like why we like these movies despite the fact that they're like impossible

to convince anyone to watch. I would love her to make another Scottish movie, actually, because she hasn't since Ratcatcher. I mean, Morven Caller, I guess, is Scottish, but like,

it's mostly not set there. Like, I'd love to go back there, I have no idea what her, you know... God, what if it's the Scottish vampire? What were you going to say about it? I don't know. I was actually wondering because I...

Like, the only... I mean, I'm inarticulate about... I was just like, they're so good. And either you think the movies are masterpieces or you're like, I hate... Not for me. Yes, I think it's a wavelength thing. The simple thing of like, no one else, it's... You're delivered

something in a package that you'll never get anywhere else in any way that's remotely. close to the way she's doing it. She is one of one. For that alone, she's so unbelievably one of one. I would argue she basically has her own language.

You can see certain influences, but there's not even like Lynn Ramsey runoff filmmakers. I mean, we're arguing, like Barry Jenkins has talked about how important rat catcher was for him. And you see some of her language

in Moonlight in particular, but I think all of his work, but it's very much turned into something different and that's just one of the pieces. She exists. Nothing ever feels anything like. No, and she arrived fully formed, and she's been able to take multiple different pieces of material, work in different genres all filtered through her identity. I also think, I mean, I'm every episode fighting to figure out how to verbalize this thing that has been like 10 years of my friends being like, why do you fucking rewatch that movie all the time?

Movies that feel like fundamental one time only watches. and I, you know, in like people trying to write cultural studies on the rise of true crime shit and like the endless power of SVU and everything, it's like it releases some tension to watch the stories about the worst things possible that you live in fear of, right? I think a lot of people have that relationship to true crime books, podcast, TV shows, movies, what have you. Exactly. And those are the fact-based versions of it where it's like, and now we're presenting to you

the solved case, it's over. And for me, I have no interest in living in that shit. I do find some kind of relief in watching someone explore the emotional dynamics of those things. Because if anything, that's what scares me more. And I feel like when there are horrible tragedies, rather they're large scale or small scale that I read about in the news, my question is always, what the fuck does that person do the next day? Like, how do you fucking wake up the next morning and decide what you want to eat for breakfast? I know what you're talking about. That sort of, that thought you wanted to dismiss of like, okay, can I put myself in that person's shoes?

And then usually you're like, I can't. I don't want to. I can't, like, live there. And she can place you in that in a way that doesn't feel like an endurance test. I also think it might be, it might have, the reason I like her so much is might have something to do with the fact that, like, you describe these movies from the outside. You're like, a hit man in the worst day of it. You know, you're like, what? And then, you know, like a school shooter mom?

Like, what? And then you watch it. And it's a, you know, it's like kind of a, there's some kind of incandescent quality to it. And also a real like severity in the narrative editing. Like there's some, something about it. There's a rigor. Yeah, like that's so, so rigorous in some ways. And then it is so loose in others that this thing that like I, but I think the thing I enjoy

about it is almost, it is almost impossible just to describe the contrast between what these movies sound like. Yes. and what they feel like to watch if you're a person of a specific temperament. Look, I mean, I recommend to die my love to any friend of mine who likes movies, right? And I don't mean like other film critics.

I mean, like, anyone I know who's like, you know what, I'll see anything weird, I can handle it. And they all largely came out being like, I had a good time with that, or like, that was interesting. Like, no one came out being like, why the fuck did you tell me to watch that movie? But right, this is this and others of hers are not movies I recommended just anyone. Like, oh, it's good.

You should see it because it's good. No, I mean, not everyone's going to vibe with this. You know, it's a shame that, like, retroactively, Alice Sebald feels like completely toxic because the Peter Jackson movie is such a fucking wipeout that in another universe, she could have just made a second lovely Bowles movie for $5 million. Sucks ass. Fuck that thing. I mean, maybe she makes something.

Mark Wahlberg. Oh, no. What was happening there? It's like deeply dark-sided and every, like, I've never. Like, I've never seen it. It's so weird. It's even stranger when you just remember that it was like, he cast Gosling. Gosling was like 25.

The character was supposed to be in his late 30s, married to Rachel Weiss. And who's the girl? Sirsher Ronan. Right. And it was like, what's up with Sirsher Ronan and these sort of? Why isn't Sirsheron in a fucking Lynn Ramsey movie? I don't know. If Lynn Ramsey made more movies, I feel like she would have worked with her by now because, yes.

And still might happen. Yeah. Like all of, like the exact guilt, innocence sort of, uh. Exactly. I mean, that's what search has been good at. Since she was a child is like taking on those kinds of rolls. Yes. It's like Gosling Post half Nelson.

He's so self-conscious about being too young for the character that he just chugs ice cream until he gains 50 pounds. For lovely bones? Yes. And grows a big burly beard and he shows up to rehearsal. And Peter Jackson's like, this is not how I envision the character. Why do you look like this? Fires him.

They offer the role to Mark Wahlberg on a Friday. He shows up on a. a Monday. He basically cast him off of how good he was in The Departed, which does not feel like a one-to-one. And then Mark Wahlberg shows up, puts on like a fucking 70s wig. And it's like, you kill my daughter? Hey, my daughter. Where are my lovely bones? Why's my daughter? Why's my daughter? And the movie's a disaster. It's a terrible movie. His name is Jack Salmon. Oh, right, because she's Susie Salmon. She's Susie Salmon, of course. Jack Salmon? Hey, Jack Sammy. You want some salmon?

She's dead. I'll sell you some salmon. They smoked it like that. I'm married to Rachel She's a total fox. 2011, Rachel Weiss. Nice work if you can get it. This film came out, 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Most of her films. Which was...

Go there. Yeah. Yeah, with his first time it was in competition, though, in the main, and I loved to, you know, who was the jury president that year? Hmm. No.

Palme door goes to Tree of Life. Terrence Malik. Jerry president was De Niro. Wow. Who is obviously not a stupid person. Yeah. For one, he doesn't like our president

very much. He's not afraid to say it. Excuse me. If he felt any negative emotions towards the president, I'm sure he would let me know any time he was at an award show in front of a microphone.

But for two, anytime Robert De Niro is interviewed about anything, he's like, yeah, pretty good. And so I'm just imagining him like hosting, like, he's like,

okay, you are the president of the jury. And he's like, I thought this one was pretty good. What does everyone else think? Like, it's just not saying anything. Just 20 consecutive pretty goods. Like, do you think he was like discoursing

with whoever was on the jury? Like, you know, Olivier Assayess, and, Umma Thurman, Johnny Toh, Jude Law, who's a fun group? Major update. David Lowry texted back.

I said, have you ever considered making a Loch Ness Monster movie? If not, why not? Two-part question. His response was, had to give this movie time to recede in the public consciousness. And then he texted the poster for the water horse legend of the deep, the movie I was just joking about. Well, his Pete's Dragon, my five-year-old has never, like, I was like, this is actually such a good lesson in.

dramatic tension because she can watch anything. Like I watched Insidious Upstate with Andrew and a friend. And that was after an hour of texting with Andrew about what horror movie to watch, by the way. And thank you for leading us towards Insidious. And we were like, is that the one with the red guy? And we were like, yeah, it's the red guy. And if she saw the red guy, she was like, what's that guy? And she talked about it all week.

Like, she still really wants to know what the red guy is. Like, she's not, she's a fearless. She likes sensation. She likes conflict. She likes violence. Like, she's a little freak. My daughter is not like that at all. She wants intensity.

Like her mother, she seeks intensity. And Pete's dragon, as soon as Pete and the dragon are separated, she became physically apopleptic because she was like, I think I need to stop watching this because I think something might happen. That might make me really sad for a really long time. Right. She's not upset about, like, a villain being scary. She's upset about something like emotionally, like, wrenching happening.

Right. It's also really powerful to her, like, immediately. That's a good movie where you feel for it. Even though it's also like Redford going like, there's a dragon. And you're like, this is crazy. I think it was Joe Reid's tweet that I quote all the time of,

Robert Redford's really great in Pete's dragon, but it was a little bit mean of them to not let him know he was in a movie. And just imagine old man, Robert Riffrey. They're dragons in this forest. And he's just driving. They're like, please stop. And he's like, nope.

Just catching him on traffic cameras. So yeah, film premiered in competition. Got no award. it's kind of a hot can year but gets good reviews and like we said Tilda gets like a bunch of gongs right you know like

it's not like I don't think this was ever really like a you know major critics but I feel like it was like a minor critics favorite like it got like very good notices and and attention there's also now people got it people got it exactly people were not like what a and it felt like it was weirdly almost uncontroversial.

Like for like such a quote unquote Hot Button movie, no one was like, this is sick shit. How could you make this? People were pretty compelled by it. Amazing feat. And again, fucking studio execs see it and they're like, yeah, the Flash Creed and Sparebone.

You know, fucking, let's put this lady in Dr. Strange. Is the Flash sinister? No, the Flash is like joyful and goofy. He's like the young goofball comic release. That's what's so weird about it, but Snyder is so intense-minded that clearly

even the comic relief character in his movie needed to have, like, demon eyes. Is Ezra Miller this good in every movie? I've never been a... It's interesting. Like, so... Because they're really good in this movie.

It's a very, like, it's a skillful performance or skillful use of him or whatever. I think it's laid on a little thick in the restaurant scene, but otherwise, I think it's pretty much perfect. Yeah. I think this was kind of, beyond being friends with them at this time, it was like amongst like the young, early 20s, late teens actors in New York City,

it just sort of felt like, of course Ezra's going to get this. This is like the obvious, this is designed, this is the perfect role. Right, the look was so much of it and whatever. But it felt like Ezra had had a background that was mostly comedy. And then because of the look was getting cast in these intense, like, tour-driven movies where it's like, I can get a lot of mileage out of a close-up of Ezra looking at something.

And then it felt like this bifurcation of the funny side and the just-intense side. And I would say like the Fantastic Beast movies. That's all just intense. Just crying. What if we amped the intense up to 8,000 and you're like shivering and it becomes really overdone?

What are these movies? Insane. They're so good. You're describing something incomprehensible to me. Those movies are incomprehensible. You crank up the intensity? Because the whole thing about those movies is that the main.

character sensibly Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, is an introvert who doesn't want to, like, be doing anything. Is this the one that Johnny Deppson? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yes, indeed. In the first movie, the villain is played by Colin Farrell in a pretty fun performance.

He's quite good. Oh, awesome. Great. Colin Farrell is going to be the villain across these movies. At the end of the first movie, there's a twist where they're like, this isn't Colin Farrell. He's wearing a magic disguise. They wave a wand in front of his face, and he turns into Johnny Depp with, like,

one albino eye and like a van dyke and like pointy fucking white Brian grazer hair and you're like this is the villain for the next fucking six movies. Get ready for this guy. The audience like like fucking size. I mean honestly a gigantic win for Colin Farrell that he got to piece out. I feel like I could develop a real sort of narcotic sort of hypnosis relationship with these movies.

Then the second one is called Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindlewold who in the books is the not, is like the, he's Wizard Hitler. Uh-huh. Who predates Harry. And now they're like, we're going to show him. He's in the second movie. He's the title character.

Everyone's like, boo! They Greenlight third movie recast him with Mads-Mickleson and just give Mads-Mickleson the Johnny Depp look. Yeah. Which sucks. No, they don't give him the look.

They don't? No, they completely dropped the look. I thought they gave him the look. Nope, he looks like Manz-Micklson. No blonde hair, no weird eye. He just looks like Mansi-Micklson. It is. They do not address it.

look truly feels like... And obviously, Matt Mickleson's like 15 years younger, too. Like, they do no work on it. They're just like, it's fucking Mads Mikkelson now. Who cares? The look feels like a theater camp game where they're like, you have 30 seconds in the prop closet and come out in your character as whatever you look like. It's, it's a only interesting to someone like me who cares about how these franchises just

sputter out and die. It's not interesting. I would recommend it to nobody. Yeah, okay. But get stoned and read the Wikipedia is fine. I mean, if you want me to come over, and I can just sort of commentate. The other thing I was going to say about this movie,

and it being kind of weirdly uncontroversial, is we've like finally in the last 10 years, the pendulum has swung. But for decades, there was basically a thing where, like, best actress rarely lined up with Best Picture at all. That the movies that were, like, driven by women first and foremost,

as a lead character, were seen as, like, performance showcases. Right. Not best for, we're not really considered in other categories. And so it makes sense

for, like, a smaller distributor to buy a movie like this and just be like, we are just laser-focused on best actress campaign. Of course. If you have a beloved person

like Tilda, and she's giving a, like, great performance like you've never seen her before, the public knows what they're buying, and it doesn't need to be a major crossover hit. But it is interesting

that there was, no Ezra campaign, really. Let's do the box office game. This film came out December 9th, 2011. Limited release, obviously. Definitely saw it opening weekend. I gotta be honest with you. This is such a weird top five.

Just in that, like, now I think of December, you know, like, that there would be like kind of serious stuff in the box office. And this is just like a bunch of trash. 2011? 2011. Go ahead. Is this the weekend the tourist comes out?

No. This is not the tourist. So number one is a holiday movie, sort of geared towards a holiday that's coming up the end of December. Christmas, I would have to guess, is the holiday. You have guessed wrong, my friend. I believe this is a movie I just recently saw in theaters again. It is one of the most demented movies. If you saw this film in theaters, then I am calling 911.

I saw it in theaters on the day that this film commemorates. Regal was weirdly, they put it back in theaters just for that one day. If I'm correct, I have to be correct about this. Gary Marshall's New Year's Eve. You are correct. I am bumping up to the top of the want list, Gary Marshall Holiday Trilogy on Patreon. Yeah, those movies are insane.

Have you ever seen Valentine's Day or Mother's Day? You could never get me to watch any of the movie. Mother's Day should get stoned and watch on free Gary Marshall. The wigs on the posters alone are too scary. The wigs? They can hurt me. The wig that Julia Roberts wears in Mother's Day is she should sue whoever made it. Do you know what it is?

I don't. Why would I know what it is? Because you're going to fucking laugh so hard when I tell you this. A lot of major actresses write into their contracts that they get to keep their wigs. Right. Because wigs are so fucking expensive

to be made well, and especially if they're fitted to their head, they're like, I could reuse it on a lower budget production or whatever. It is the wig from the cutaway to in Notting Hill her being in a shitty sci-fi movie. Oh, right.

That's what it is. It's the space wig from the fake Notting Hill movie that she repurposed. Well, why'd she go and do that? That's funny. Yes, sure. Have they, they stopped making, like, I'm...

Well, Gary Marshall died. Yeah, that was kind of a brutal hit for the franchise. Yeah, but, but like, weren't there other... Yes, you're right. The people just tried to, like, even... There's definitely... The two think like a man movies, what to expect when you're expecting, and he's just not that into you.

Let's get a bunch of name actors. They don't have to work very much because it's a vignette movie, and we'll just, right, we'll just kind of like make an easy 60-mail. I've never liked one of them. They're all fascinating. But even like Love Actually or whatever, you know, like, Love Actually sucks. It's a Titanic movie. It's the Kevin of movies.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It is interesting that entire trend was like, can we like, it's a mad, mad world towering inferno rom-coms. But no one's ever liked any of them except for Love Actually, too, right? It's like they made so many of no one has ever, but people will watch them. Almost all the more successful. I guess this is number one in the box office.

Yeah, people will watch them. The Gary Marshall, this one had a major drop off from Valentine's Day, which was a big hit. Valentine's Day, it had Taylor Swift in it. It was about Valentine's Day. I know, but nobody gives us shit. Everyone wants to go, like, on Valentine's Day, you want to go on a date and see the movie called Valentine's Day.

On New Year's Eve, not that many people are like, oh, there's an ensemble comedy. Do you know what, like, kind of the, like, central plot thread, the thing that ties the whole movie together is? Is it New Year's Eve? That New Year's happening. Hillary Swank, a two-time Academy Award winner, Hillary Swank, plays the woman who's in charge of dropping the ball. Oh, that's actually good to me.

I mean, that's, that is where I would start. If I were like, all right, how do I write a New Year's Eve? And at like 8.30 p.m., one of the bulbs dies. That's good. I would love a real-time sort of like TikTok, like we got 95 minutes and Snookies in the ball. It's that, but then it like cuts away to Catherine Hegel as like a pastry chef, catering, a record label party. John Bon Jovi's her ex-boyfriend who's a rock star who isn't John Bond Jovi. No, I want speed, but with the New Year's Eve ball.

This movie is ranged. And I will not ruin for you the twist of who ends up showing up to repair the New Year's Eve ball. But it's the greatest cameo you could possibly drop. Is it a Hector-O-Land? Yeah, absolutely. You nailed it. I just nailed that. I didn't even have to look.

My name is Kaminsky. I dropped the ball. So New Year's Eve is opening to $13 million. So pretty, pretty poor. Number two of the box office also new this week is a... Valentine's open to 50. You know, I know. The drop-off is insane.

But also they're not opening it on New Year's Eve. Like, they fucked up in every way. Number two is a comedy. It's being released after, I think, sitting on the shelf for a couple years. Okay. Interesting. You have a lore with this movie, but I can't remember what it is.

Like, your sister auditioned for it or something. Is it The Sitter? The Sitter. David Gordon Green's The Sitter, starring Jonah Hill. But, like, I was filmed a couple years prior or whatever, right? It was sort of a post-super-bad project. That comes out, like, four or five years later. It's not that extreme, but it comes out after...

After like Moneyball. I was going to say after Jump Street, but it's still pre-Jump Street wait. Right, right, right. It doesn't actually come out after, but he's already debuted his new look. It's not a good movie. No. Have you seen The Sitter with Jonah Hill? Certainly have not.

Yeah. It was one of those things where it was like the hottest fucking script in Hollywood, and you read it, you were like, this is so fucking funny. And then the second you have actual kids on screen doing it, you're like, now I just kind of feel bad for the kids. Like reading it, you're like, oh, he's cursing at these kids and the kids are doing fucked up shit. It's R-rated adventures and babysitting. Right.

And then you watch it and you're like, this is a bummer. Disgusting. Number three of the box office has been number one for a couple weeks. It's made $259 million. It's a sequel. It's a big, the big franchise of the moment. Is it Potter? No.

It is a, we've discussed this film on our Patreon. It is a fucked up movie. It's pretty good in my opinion, but it is fucked up. It's not a Twilight. It sure is. It is? Yeah. Is it Breaking Dawn Part 2?

No, no. Breaking Dawn Part 1. Very fucked up. Which is a... Have you seen the Twilight? Never. It's a pregnancy. It is funny, Gia, how you are sometimes just like, that's just not any of my business.

Like, Twilight, you're just like, I don't need to be part of that. There are so, I never, I also don't watch things that I think will be bad. I don't watch anything that I think will be bad. bad. Right. You don't, like, I will text your husband. I am going to watch all of the, you know, the paranormal activities. And he's like, I'm going to do this right along with you. And he's like, just bought him. Like, you know, like, he's locked in. He's put the paranormal diaper on and he's ready to fucking go. And I'm like, he's not like, are any of them supposed to be bad? He's like, the idea is to see all of them. So he's like out here on paternity leave watching bad moms on

Netflix. You know, like, he's like watched all of them. And I'm like, and I just, I, I, I, I, I either, we have too much information in our damn mind, you know? I'm not objecting. I'm like, I'm going to stare at a wall. You are, you are allowed to stare at a wall. You are allowed to let things pass you by. I will say, I only saw this movie after my, you know, after having children, breaking dark part warden. I had never seen. She gives birth to the crazy ass. It's the one where she's pregnant. Yeah. It's the one at Ends. Renzsme. I know about Renesme. We all know about Renesme. And where they have this kind of tricky thing to thread of like, oh, the baby is to look mature and lock eyes with a person. And they totally land.

That definitely isn't really weird at all. But the whole movie is basically just her being sick and wanting to die because she's got a vampire in her womb. And it's a pretty good movie about pregnancy. About what it's like to be pregnant is how I feel about it. You, I support you doing whatever you want in your life, Gia, but I will say, I think time has been kind to the Twilight Zone. No, I've heard this. You find them interesting. I'll watch them at some point.

And with distance now, like a decade on from their peak, you know, kind of cultural, like, like relevancy, it is wild to watch them and just go like, this was the most popular thing in the world. Yeah, yeah. And all of them are demented. I'm always waiting for like a justy. This is like I kind of I'm trying to munch house in myself. Like clearly I have sort of a new parent's desire to be, you know, under medical care, but for nothing serious, you know, so that I can finally. Right. Just commit me. Just like, I'm in a bed. I want to be committed. Like I want someone to be. We need to talk about Gia and just get, you know, get me like a nice 72 hour. But what I want for the. But what I want for my dream scenario for the Twilight movies.

Well, actually, my friends and I, two of my girlfriends sometimes will, I have one of their college bongs on my mantel. What, any, any particular, okay, just a giant bong. Just the kind of bong that used to hit every day in college and you're like, I can't believe I used to live like that. How did I have the lung capacity to breathe that much air, let alone smoke?

It is crazy as a former pot head. Fucking it up with just fucking ice every day. Hitting a bong, first thing in the morning. It's so crazy. much smoke. Going to class? It's so crazy. But so we do it like once a month. And we're on the avid, we watched Avatar. We're going to do the way of water. You know, I've been here. We're going to lay on the floor and watch Avatar the way of water. And it's either going to be that's where we're watching Twilight or I'm going to be on a work trip to the other side of the globe.

I'm having a clean 17 hours. Yeah. A couple of wines and watch all of them in a row. If Delta has them all and you could just knock them out. Yeah. Yeah. But that's my dream scenario. I'm going to watch them all at once. Let the Zinfundel flow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Number for the box office, Griffin, is a film. I'm sure you were deeply invested in. It's a reboot of a popular property. Is this a joke deeply invested?

No, no, I'm sure you were deeply invested. It was some stupid shit I care about. Yes. Is it baby shit? No, it's good. It's good stuff. I mean about it. But I have strong opinions about it? Certainly, yeah, of course.

Is it the Muppets? It's the Muppets. Jason Seagulls. Megan, the Muppets. Yeah, the Muppets with Jason Segal and Amy Adams. Yeah. A solid hit. Yeah, a movie that I had a very, very...

I had a lot of emotions tied up. Whereas I saw it and was like, that was pretty good. I kind of wanted it to just be better. Like, that was like my immediate reaction. Yeah, I think the following one is significantly better. Right. And it has a little bit erased the Muppets in my mind. At the time, I would say my relationship to it was like,

if suddenly it looked like the Mets had a good, lineup. Right. And you were like, can I start feeling like this might actually right?

Like the next 10 years won't be punishing. I assume you don't care about the Muppets to you. Never saw it. Whenever you guys play this guy, I've never seen any of the movies.

Number five of the box office is an animated film. Never seen it. It's a CG film from a company that prior to this was not, from a company that's not famous. It's an Ardman film.

Is it Arthur Christmas? It is Arthur Christmas. Anytime I talk about Christmas movies I like, some people pop up in the Reddit and they're like, where's the respect for Arthur Christmas? I have never liked it. What is, what are you talking about? It's an animated film.

James McAvoy. Yes. He plays Arthur Christmas. Yes. Who is, I have no fucking idea. I've never seen it. Jim Broadbent, maybe. It's animated?

It's animated. They're all playing people? Yes. It looks like Drew Broadbent is playing Santa. No relationship to Arthur. Arthur is one of the sons. No relationship to horny old Arthur. Okay.

Right. Arthur is like Twinkie. Santa Son, and then Hugh Lorry plays like militaristic Santa Son, and there's maybe another one. This is what I don't like. It's in this subgenre I would call the Christmas Industrial Complex, which is like, hey, you know Christmas

that magical shit kids believe in that doesn't make any sense? What if we start explaining it with like business like precision? Yeah. It's like it turns how Christmas is a job that people have. Right. Santa's got a fucking app and they work in a... I hate this shit.

It is the least noxious version of this, which, like, I put Fred Clause and, like, Red One into just, like, cursed bullshit territory. But I still just kind of rejected. Arthur Christmas. It's, like, one girl's letter to Santa gets lost, and Arthur's the son with her, like, you'll never do Christmas because his brother's, like, figured out how to turn Christmas into, like, I don't know, fucking Black Rock or whatever.

Wait, so the joke is that he's, like, the fail son named Arthur Christmas? Yes, and he's, like, Twinkie, and he wears an oversized sweater, and then he, like, decides to save Christmas for this one girl. I better not have to watch this movie eventually. It's like, it's all like, what if Elon Musk went in and, like, doged the North Pole? Like, all these movies have that attitude of, like, certainly there's a more, like, economic way to streamline this process. I'm like, I don't know, how about he's got fucking, like, reindeer? And he flies around, wiggles his nose and goes down.

Who gives a shit? Let Santa deliver presents. Do you hear what Christmas? Let him eat cookies. I'm a huge grinch. I'm a huge, a grinch about all holidays. I've never, we don't do presents in my house. We don't do a tree.

I've got two children. Don't do a tree. or Christmas presents. It's amazing that you resisted this. My kids are spoiled upper middle class fucking children in Brooklyn. They don't need any more. Your kids who are wonderful and beautiful,

they want for nothing. They're very, yes. They've got all kinds of wonderful things. Our friend, like, suggested to Andrew, my partner that he got me a Kindle for Christmas because I'm reading entire books on my phone to break myself of reading article on phone. I'm doing the exact same thing.

Interesting. The Kindle's amazing. I had one in Peace Corps and I fucking hated it. Now I love my Kindle. So just any time you have the impulse to read an article, you go back to whatever book you're in the middle. app or whatever. I'm just like, no, I'll just load the Kindle app. Except for Reddit, what is it like to live here? Whatever. How is it here? Whatever you actually. And Andrew was like, I know Amazon's

bad. And Andrew was like, we don't get presents in my house. I can't get her. And like, that's how deep it is. How do I get her? Kindle. I don't think I've ever, I'm, I hate Christmas. I don't like, I don't like I don't like enforce anything. Fair? Yeah, you know, like, right. Enforce joy. I don't like enforce anything. Today is the day we will. I have to be freely chosen. I, look, I never had a Christmas treat till I, you know, married a Christmas lover. So it's new, it's new to me. I am a Christmas lover. This is traditionally women's labor, and that's not something I'm going to take part in. I mean, I'm like a Christmas loving Jew.

I basically no longer... I'm a Christmas loving Jew. Only a Credence Bearbone song. It is a Credence Bearbone's Revon revival. He's a Christmas loving Jew. I think Ben is the only person I received a Christmas present from this year. That's not true. My girlfriend got me a lovely present.

Oh, that's nice. But my family is shattered. Your family's being a little dramatic. My family's being a little dramatic. Family is kind of like in April 824 release. It's the drama. It is, in fact. But that's been like several years in the making now.

So, like, I no longer celebrate Christmas in any meaningful way. And yet I am such a sucker for like... A feeling of warm. The pop culture Christmas. What did you get him? I got him a Terminator shirt. It was so nice. The thing about Griff is I don't buy Griff Christmas presents.

I don't really buy anyone Christmas presents. So it's no personal. I just get you Christmas presents. You do. You love to give a present, which is great. But you are, you strike me as a pretty easy person to buy a gift for. Because it's a lot of like, you know, goofy pop culture shit I see where I'm like, the only question would be is, does Griffith already?

I was going to say. Fun person to buy like eBay and sort of like all-year-cared. Yeah, like odd trinkets. Would it surprise you that that is often the risk that most times I'm handed a gift? You might already have the preface. I hope you don't already have this. Look, this is a 1970s kinder toy, but you might have it. Like, you know.

There's no kind of thing. It isn't. I might have if connected in any way to my interest. It was a great shirt. I got told Fly shirt the other day while wearing it. There you go. I mean, who doesn't love The Terminator? It's a really good shirt.

Sure. We got to post a pick. I also just want to say, Sims, I know better than to get you a gift. There's a box of presents. Because there's already a sort of box. My house is not a presence seeking additions right now in terms of goods. I just want to call out that one of the things. things in that box is a Lego

X mansion. Yeah, I bought that. That you bought for yourself 18 months ago. And then to help cushion the blow of you bringing this giant Lego set home, you also bought a Lego set for your daughter and wife and all three are still in this box. The daughter's not ready for Legos yet, but we're getting close. But now I have these babies and they can't

let them near the Legos. I got your daughter the duplos set, though. Yeah, well, that's a huge. But these aren't Duplos. She does the duplos all the time. This is Legos. She might handle LEGOs. I don't know. I think she can handle it. But the problem is the boys, you know, those look Well, the real problem is that she's going to ask you for help, and you're like, that's not what this is about.

This is not what this is about. I am resigned to, it'll be a year to two of me building Legos for her. I get, also, basically from the moment she was born, have said, like, the second she's into Lego, I'm going to become Lego. Andrew loves Legos. It's an architect. Yeah, yeah, it's built-in.

But I love Legos, and I can't wait to do Legos. What my daughter will do self-directed the most is draw. That's the thing where you can really just, like, leave her drawing. and so clearly that's where she's going to go. Like, that's where her brain is. Legos is a little more fiddly. She may or may not care. I don't know.

You can be creative with Lego? You totally can. That's what I would do. I would make little soap operas happen. That was my thing, baby. I didn't care. Like, I would build a spaceship, but then I would be like,

what's going on with everyone who lives on the spaceship. Like, I wouldn't build a very elaborate space. Two Legos are going closer to each other. It was a lot of that, except one's like a wizard and one's a robot because it's like whatever I've got rattling around. And the robot's the wizard's superior, so it's not really clear.

This is a weird. dynamic, you know, we need to talk about robot. Number six of the box office is Hugo. Mm-hmm. A good movie. Yeah. Number seven is the descendants. Kind of a bad movie.

A movie I've never cared for. Number eight is Happy Feet 2. A pretty good movie. That's a good movie. Pretty good movie. Do you see that one? The first one on the list that I've seen. And arguably the first one that's been good.

The fair is good. I think it is. I mean, the Muppets is okay. Not to be disrespectful of Hugo. I prefer Happy Feet 2. Happy Feet 2 is. It's a special movie. He goes the Scorsese movie with Paris and the boy.

Scorsese magic of film history. 3D. It's not really a GM movie. Number nine is Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler and Adam Sandler. We both come way around on and people think it's a bit. But actually. Big fan of that movie. Yeah, the culture has finally caught up.

The gag where Pacino is dressed like a Hasidic guy to not get noticed of the Lakers game. Really good. Sitting next to Grindelvald number two himself. And number 10 is Immortals, the Tarsem Singh, right? The movie that basically functions as Henry Cavill's audition tape for Superman? Right. It's like I took a Greek God's movie with a bunch

Yeah. Half-Naked men covered in bronze. Right. It was Tarsem Singh trying to make a 300-style movie because 300 it took it so long to figure out how to make a sequel. Yeah. And then of course the Empire Rose. Huh? 300 colon rise of an empire. Oh, that's right. Never saw that one either. So that's the box office. Weird

junkie box office is all I'm saying. Yeah, it's odd. Yeah. Like, You know, I think a lot, it's a year when a lot of shit didn't fly. Like, Jay Edgar was a bomb. You know, a lot of the awards-y stuff. It's a point you often make, which is the Marvel dominance was able to happen because things were so shitty for the couple of years leading up to the Marvel dominance. And this is the year that Thor and Captain America come out and both do okay.

And the next year, the Avengers comes out. And it felt like the culture was like, great, we're just doing this now. This can just be the only three movies I see a year. Fine. this feels safe. It's a comedy, it's a drama, it's an action movie. It's just all of it. Fine, fine, whatever. I'll sign up in advance.

And I know you love Marvel movies, Gia, and you have a lot to say about them, and I'll just give you some space to do that right now. Yeah. You're mostly a Kingo person, right? Yeah. Kingo? Kingo. That's a person. Poo-p-p-poo!

Kingo? Kingo's the character. He's got fingers that go like this. Kamele Nanjani played in one Marvel movie. You remember all the eternal. You got Jack. You got Jack. Let's just list them together.

Kingo. Druid. Ajax Fastos There you go And fastos Isn't the one that's fast No

Right Fastos is the one who creates 9-11 Right that's what he does He creates 9-11 Well he's like super smart And there's a scene where he's like Hiroshima happened

Yes And people made fun of that scene I think Akari is the fast one I'm sorry Ikari A theme. There's like three more. Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh. Sprite. There you go. Sprite. Sprite. She's really fun. She's a centuries old. This is none of my business, guys.

That one is none of anyone's business. None of my business. She's a centuries old robot that's still stuck in the body of a prepubescent girl so adult man won't hate her and she has a real complex about that. Who plays her? Some kid. you guys must have such an escalated like one of the reasons that I'm like Azra Miller's legal trouble slash violence not none of my business you know whatever

is because like surely you guys have this thought so much more than most people do because you have such encyclopedic jobs in this podcast where it's like you're going to be we're going to be on our goddamn deathbeds you know what I mean and we're just going to it's like we're going to be Zendaya's Michi on our deathbed I truly am going to be Zendaya's you know what I mean I'm going to re-remembering like some guy on R slash meth talking about like, you know what I mean? Like some, like it's. It's so, I think about this all the time.

And it's like, in my waning days, well, I'd just be like, look at my TikTok faves from 2019. These were funny. No, you won't even, like they will be playing in your head. Right, right. I'll just be like. Like we need to talk about Kevin. That will be you except instead of la, you know, La tomato Ria or whatever, it's going to be like your TikTok reels from 20 fucking 19. And Arthur Christmas.

It's all in there. And you know what I mean? It's permanently in there. My brain is an overstuffed club that is overcapacity. That is the lights are flashing at full, you know, it's strobing every second of every day. And if I allow myself to know that it was Ringo, that he got jacked for Ringo, like, it's just going to burn it down. It's Kingo. No, I appreciate your point, but let's not be rude to Kingo.

He goes pee-Pu with his fingers. No, I feel the same way. I also am like very deliberate about which things I decide. I'm going to completely opt out of. What is it for you that you opt out of? I feel like most of pop music I'm now out of. And I just like can't keep up with it. And it feels like that's always the center of the like drama reading the fucking social media.

None of this. None of this. I'm just like I'm not engaging with the two heated rivalry guys. Reality TV. Right? It's like I'm out. Never seen a single one. I'm the exact same way where it's reality TV and anime are the things where I'm like,

never going to learn. Oh, you got to watch Arco though. I saw Arco. Oh, it's so good. Yeah, yeah, Arco was good. Did your child see it? No, I, because I saw it like at an award screening or whatever, and I've been wondering if boss baby.

I did it again. I'm sorry. I keep seeing my daughters. Excuse me. Boss baby. If boss baby would like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's cool. I thought it was cool.

I think she would dig it. Yeah. Cloud people. Rambos. The text I sent to David Lowry was in a group chat that Sims and I are on with Sean Fantasy, Tim Simons, and Alex Ross Perry. And the testiest things ever get in that group chat is if someone goes, hey, wild fact.

In 2015, this person was supposed to make this movie or gave this interview quote. And one of us will inevitably respond with... That's not about that. No, we'll respond with, I'm so fucking insulted that you think I wouldn't remember that. Yeah, yeah. Of course I remember that. I think about that every hour of my life. I can imagine.

And it's always 10% joke, 90% real. Don't underestimate me. My brain is full of garbage. Yeah. God, it's so real what you're saying about the dumb shit I'm going to continue to remember years from now and yet not remember my life. Yeah. Someone was talking to me about traitors and mentioned...

The traitors. Or just the general abstract concept of traders. Oh, no, the traitors. Sorry. I've never watched any reality TV as well. People love to talk to you about the traders, don't there? They do. They'd love to talk to you about... Michael Rappah, about the villa on whatever one there's a villa on.

They're all kings and they have swords or whatever the fuck is going on. Call me when they're all king goes. Or the one that... It's like Casa Benita. Like Casa, never mind. I know. Casa Bina reality show I would watch. Well, same.

But do you know what I'm talking about? The Casa Island where they inch... Never mind. I don't even know. Anyway, traders. So someone mentioned Britney Spears' ex is on the show. And I'm like, oh, Kevin Federline? And they're like, no, her other ex.

The guy she married at Vegas? Jason Alexander. Yeah. But that's not Jason Alexander. Could pull. Perfect example of why do I still know. This is the thing. I pulled Kevin Federline immediately.

And I'm like, I don't remember being 20, Yeah, I know, I know. What the fuck? Gone. Gone. Like, I know what happened in The Odyssey. Yeah. You know what I mean? Totally.

It takes abode. Like, my own brother's birth year often escapes me. Yes. You know? My therapist was trying to ask me about, like, traumatic incidents last week. And I was like, I'm having trouble remembering stuff. And then I was like, I know that seems like a psychological overcompensation. I'm blocking out the memories I can't touch.

It really is just I have, like, too many Marvel characters. in my head. It's just filled with nonsense. And yet we all court this professionally. I'm like, oh, let me see how much I can learn about, you know, yeah. It's great. It's great. We fixed it. I feel great. I'm got, I'm so good. I'm doing so great. We're doing it so great. And this year, I decided to add Narnia to the old cauldron. So now I'm reading a horse and his boy. Right, I'm doing like six things at the same time. That one's weird. That one is weird. That one is weird. It's kind of bracing because you are, because like the first four Narnia is, it's basically like, C.S. Lewis is like, meet these fucking British kids. I'm like, what are they

And he's like, they need to go to Narnia. They need to me, lying, Jesus. Horse and his boy, and there's another one. They're like vaguely orientalist. Horse and his boy ain't vaguely orientalist. That one is extremely orientalist. I just reread Gone with the Wind because that was like my favorite book in fifth grade.

Wild. Let me tell you, it took nothing else I can think about but Gone with the Wind. And I was like, oh, I guess growing up in Texas and being eight years old when I read this, the extent of the racism is the jet fuel that powers this. Right.

It's not just background dressing for this one. Like, the racism is the... It's the very air we breathe. It's the juice.

It's kind of amazing. Anyway, great book. Is it known what the other two Narnia books Gerwig would be adapting on? Is she planning on doing three?

I think they contractually have her to three. I don't know if there's wiggle room for her to be like... I don't know. I've decided to hand off. I hope it's like first, fourth and ninth.

Those are whatever it's like... Are there nine? It's like... There's seven. She's doing... One, four and seven are the big ones. What she's doing for... With the cousins.

Netflix. With the fucking cousins. Again, it's just like he's like, he meet this cousin. I'm like, okay, what's up with her? She goes to a school where she doesn't learn about Jesus. I'm like, let me guess.

Aslan's got to roar at her until she fucking gets some manners. It's like, yep. Folding table. Aslan's coming to roar. Ask me about Jesus. And then they're just like, yeah, oh, what's going on with this picture?

Oh, we're in fucking Narnia again. Okay, what's going on this time? They're still good. I mean, the way, the thing I like about them is They sound like he's making them up as he goes along, which is kind of a cool bedside story framing. She's doing The Magician's Nephew, which is the sixth book. Oh, I love that one. I love that one.

Right. Is the chronologically the first. And I do think it's cool and weird. Love that book. Right. Her deal is like the Magicians, the Lev Grossman book, which is also really good. Her deal is specifically two.

Contractually, she is supposed to both write and direct two movies. So she'll probably do this, and then I guess the next one would be Lion Witch in the wardrobe. She should do one of the weird. She should do like silver chair or something. Silver chair is so weird, dude. That one's actually too like BDSM. It is. She should do the one about the ship.

That's, that one's really nice. I love that one. That one's really fun. That one's very Odyssey, very homero. Not that I would know. But that's my big question is,

does she circle back to the ones that already were done? Yeah, maybe she's like, let me know when you get to the seventh one. I'm sure you guys will. Ma! See you later. What's the one that's like,

speaking of David, what's one that's like green night where it's like the lady in the... That is, That is the silver chair. That's the one where they go into like the subterranean land and there's a guy who's like, don't mind me,

I have to be tied to the silver chair every night and I go insane. Yeah, it's so phoenix. And they're like, oh, okay. And then he's like, let me out of the chair. Oh my God, you have to get me out of the chair. And then the demon,

like the snake is a sexy woman, right? The sexy woman is a snake. Correct. And I assume if they had made that movie when they, because they were going to make it, uh, Tilda would have played that role.

They would have just had her do it. Okay. Because they never say that it's the same witch, but it's sort of the same vibe. Like another witch. Ella McKay is the white witch now? Correct. She'll be good.

I mean, she'll be fine. I don't know. Imagine her trying to fix her heel. Imagine a Lynn Ramsey like Don Trotter. That'd be great. She'd be so good at, like, with a budget. You know, no one would ever give her a budget because, like, she's a lot. And she makes movies in an unconventional way that scares money people.

But, like, she'd be cool making, like, a movie with monsters in it and stuff. You would rock. You could see her doing a good little princess style. Yeah. Like a gothic kind of kid. story. Like a secret garden. Like a Lonely Child kind of move.

Like a Lynn Ramsey Secret Garden would be kind of sick. I was reading an interview with her at some point, maybe looking at Kevin's stuff. And she was talking about the funding thing. She was like, yeah, hopefully I just signed with an agency. Hopefully someone can get me a perfume commercial. And I was like, damn. Hey, man. I get it.

I get it too. She's got to make that bread. It's the thing I always love to say. But I was like, they should be throwing perfume commercial offers at Lynn Ramsey. You know what I mean? Like, it's like at the very least, she should have 100 Dior. You know what I mean? The whole world is so weird to me.

And when you find out which respected filmmakers direct which commercials, it will boggle your brain. Where, like, someone told me that like... Right, actually was Sophia Coppola that was busy doing the Dior commercials, so she couldn't... You know that it's like, James Gray directed all the Mabeline commercials for, like, five years. Oh. You're like, there's not a match of style. Like, occasionally you'll see a, like, Wes Anderson commercial where you're like, clearly they, like, broke out the checkbook to get Wes Anderson to do his West Anderson thing. And other times you're like, Sophia Coppola directed the, like...

Like, Right. Right. But those you can kind of feel. It's like Lynn Ramsey's doing like the Delta, like, you know, everyone in the seats on the beach. It's more, I guess it's more like you find out that Nancy Myers directed like a Jeep Grand Cherokee

commercial that's just like the car running through the dirt. There's something where you go like, right. That's how they make their money. And they just do the assignment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got to get you out of here.

This is crazy. I was half an hour lane. We haven't a great time. That was a fuck up by me. I would never do something like that. Gia, anything you want to plug? No. Hell yeah.

Not at all? No. Wow. Yeah. You don't have like a podcast? I'm joking. You do plenty of work as it is. You're always doing the coolest shit.

I'm going to plug the Jennifer Lawrence profile. Oh yeah. I guess I did kind of write about Lynn a bit. Yeah. Which is, I think, good reading for any listener getting ready to watch. I'm really. No, awesome. Nothing.

No, no, no, I think it was too weird a movie. Crowded race. I do think she's really good in it. I think she's so good in it. I'm really into what she's clearly gearing up for right now. You know what I mean? Like this being the start of whatever phase in her career she's interested in doing. And she's with you and like in press stuff, it's just like she's so fucking funny.

Like, and then not in an annoying way anymore. She's really self-aware. It's too, like I had so much material from that piece that like there's like an entire different piece I could have written. That was the, you know, the kind of piece that I have written before for Vogue where it's like, you know, I mean, she has so. much. Her personality is so high octane and so that like, you could have filled it with just like, can you believe it? She's so beautiful and she says this, you know, like. But that entire profile was just like, just gold everywhere. Yeah, I mean, I was like, okay, let me try to write a profile of Jennifer Lawrence. It isn't about her amazing personality because it's like we all know she's

unbelievably charming and she, and it was almost like with me, she was trying to be less because she knows, like anytime we would see each other off record, it was like her, she was free to be as charming as she actually is. I'm trying not to play into the Jennifer Lawrence thing. And what a horrible thing to have to do. The public got tired because of overexposure. But just because I'm actually like that. Right. She is like what a painful thing to actually be like that. And then it felt like after that

profile, she just started like doing it everywhere and everyone was like, oh, right, this rules. And there's a frustrating disconnect of then it not leading to anyone going to see the movie. But all of those interviews she did over the last five months, you're just like, right, she is like the most powerful movie star in just

like pure raw charisma and like no one's more interesting than her. Yeah, like watching her face. Like, she never articulates what she's thinking or feeling once in that movie. And did you guys like Pattinson in the movie or no? I felt like he was in service of the movie. I didn't love his performance because it did not feel like the guy he's supposed to be. I think if that character were a little more cracked, I'd be like this movie 10 out of 10 perfect.

Yeah, I feel like there were script issues with just the situation of them. It just feels a little unsettled. Yeah. He's just way too handsome and interesting to be doing that. I get that again, I think Patton's probably like, no, no, no, I want to work with Lynn Ramsey. I am happy to be second banana here.

I'm happy to fuck around. But I'm just kind of like, I'm interested in you. Yeah. And in the movie, like, we're not really allowed to be that interesting. He could more easily play the J-Law character in a wig than play just like a guy who's like, maybe I get into like... Drinking beer on my porch and I guess...

With unspecified part-time like truck stop, job. There's almost something. She's like, I think you're having an affair with him. I'm like, he's fucking,

of course, he's Robert Pattinson in like rural Montana. Yeah, you can see seven different condom brands in the thing.

Like he's being a tish. He's just in his wire cutter phase. He's trying to figure out which one's the best. To try on with not you. No, just put him on in the bathroom.

Yeah. Yeah. With the butter. Throw them out with the butter. With the butter. It's a mess and cock. Thank you all for listening. Please remember

to rate review and subscribe. Uh, tune in next week for you were never really here. My favorite. Yeah, with Sean Clemens. Our buddy, Sean Clemens, the Clem dog.

Yeah. Thanks for having me on, guys. Oh, such a pleasure. Come on back. So long overdue. I mean, you don't have to. Maybe you had a horrible experience. I don't know any of the movies in the box of us.

Oh, please. We'll find something for you one day. And as always, I just want to call out that on the IMDB page, for we need to talk about Kevin in the FAQ section, the top question is, is Kevin a psychopath? and the answer is yes. There you go. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims.

Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. artwork by Joe Bowen,

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