Blank Check with Griffin & David - You Were Never Really Here with Sean Clements

Episode Date: February 15, 2026

In 2018, Lynne Ramsay released You Were Never Really Here, a film about a completely implausible scenario...a townhouse on the East side of Manhattan houses a sex trafficking operation that implicates high-level government officials in its web of depravity???? Could you even imagine?!! Hollywood Handbook's Sean Clements joins us to chat about this eerily relevant film, the literary career of Jonathan Ames, Joaquin Phoenix's screen persona, and Joseph Gordon Levitt's recently announced follow-up to Don Jon. Listen to Hayes Davenport's (not a guest on this episode) episode of High & Mighty where he talks about newspaper comics. 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

Joe, wake up. It's a beautiful podcast. So this is... That's the last line of the film. That is true, but this is a dialogue, light movie. It is. I was like, what's he gonna say? I guess that's true. Lynn Ramsey testing me on the opening quotes.

Was there a tagline? What if you say? Get ready to meet Joe. Like, what's the worst tagline you can... Joe does things a little differently. There's a quote. There's a poll quote on the poster that is taxi driver for a new century,

which is a way to attempt to sell this movie with the moodiest poster of all time. Just like Joaquin Phoenix looking tortured and a girl like drowning, superimposed inside his body. Right, that was the poster. And like Wonkar Wailights. I think it's a great poster. It's a pretty evocative poster.

It's a mood poster, like all of hers. But I mean, there's like, there are more quotes here. Duck! And it's him he's swinging a hammer. just be funny if they like marketed this like nobody too it's hammer time Joe was having a very bad day and it's about to get even worse

when Joe's on the clock it's always hammer time there are more quotes for this than there are than there were for moreover and Caller and you look at them and you're like well isolated these feel like quotes that could be out of taken two right right like McCleary said you were brutal

I can be I want you hurt them. There's a version of that that you see as like a tense fucking Europa Corp thriller. Yeah, that's like Russell Crow being like, putting down his sandwich and being like, all right, okay. Yeah. Sorry, I'm really bagging on Russell Crow. Do you know what Paradise

is? It's a lie, a fantasy. We create about people and places as we'd like them to be. That's like a, that could be a fucking Steven Seagall, like, stares off into the middle distance. It's making me realize, it's like when watchmen, the movie Watchman, Backsiders, you know, would just paraphrase

dialogue and quotes and stuff from the comic. And it's like, you can't speak that aloud seriously. Right. Like, it'll sound ridiculous. Now, in this, it's all mumbled or it's all like, you know. That's the magic of it to me. It's like everyone... They get away with it.

They completely get away with it. He always sounds embarrassed to be saying what he's saying. If he's saying anything. That's one of his best performances. He is harnessing that aspect of him as an actor that always feels a little embarrassed to be acting. And you're divisible on him in general. You have often referred to him as a ham sandwich.

I mean, maybe introduced me before you start putting words in my mouth. But yes, I occasionally have called Joaquin Phoenix a ham sandwich. But you agree with me. It is perhaps his best performance. And it's certainly in that conversation. Yeah, it's a good performance. And it's the mode I often like him in. Is it the last one before he went so hard into doing kind of the same thing all the time?

It's a little bit. Well, because he, this premieres. it can in 2017. Sure. It comes out in the States in 2018. Right. And 2019 is Joker. Yeah.

In 2018, so sort of in between him making this and Joker coming out, he's got some weird stuff. He has the Jesus movie nobody saw. Doesn't exist. He has, don't worry, he won't get far on foot, which is like buried, forgotten. The Gus Van Sant movie. I saw it too. It's pretty bad.

It was okay. It was, yeah. It had some charm, but. And he does Sisters Brothers Which I really like him in. Have you ever seen that? Yeah, yeah. I saw it.

But obviously was sort of D-O-A audience-wise. And then yeah, I mean... But that's like an interesting range year for him. When you think about this coming out in 2018, Sisters Brothers Don't worry, you were never really here. It's like, that's an interesting range

of three different projects with three different really interesting directors in different modes. And he's not overdoing any of them. No, I mean, this one is so, you know, obviously this one in particular that we're all saying we like is very, very understated. Yeah. And I know, you know, it's light on dialogue. You read the book too, right? Yeah.

You do, I watched the movie first. Yes. And then I read the book and you're getting so much of his internal monologue and what, you know, what is going on from. And it's amazing to me how much that is coming through without any of voice. Yes. The same trick she pulls with Morven call. which is another movie of hers that's based on a book that's all internal monologue.

You know, it was a thought I had... There's none of it in the movie. I thought I had while watching this and then reading the book, which I only read recently, finished it last night. And it's not long. It was released... A slim volume.

Not as like a Kindle single, but it was like an experimental e-book novella when that was a medium people were trying to test out. And then now, since the movie, it's been published as like a 97-page thing. But reading the book, book after seeing the movie, and I've been trying to do this with her other films as well, it feels like the book is like the backstory and actor creates for their character, right?

Where like really prepped kind of studious actors will be like, I'm going to write this whole fucking thing. I don't need to communicate it in the movie. It helps me ground it and place it and know what I'm playing internally and hopefully not feel the need to like actually communicate it in an overstated way. And she somehow knows how to like reverse engineer that extrapolate from these books that are so much about the internal life. Pull out the plot of your elements. The thing I saw in a review of Die My Love Too, which I haven't seen yet, but was like, somehow her camera movements make you feel the internal life of the character.

Yeah. And like the sort of the way she chooses to, like, show the violence or like even show moments of him at rest and how restless he is in those spots is like, you know, the, the, um, way that it's shot just like really makes you feel what he's feeling and he's great. Yes, I will add on to that. The additional trick in this movie

that feels unique in her filmography is so often our movies are like you are 100% in the head of the character. You are seeing the whole movie from their point of view. You're placed in their inner life and the film is like expressing that. This movie in its sort of handling

of PTSD and a sort of disassociation is going between being really close in on, him and feeling really distant removed. And the violence is a fascinating part of that where this feels like a really brutal, violent movie where you almost never actually see the thing happen. They don't show the actual one, which also is obviously a very, a huge stylistic choice that is different from the book, which the book graphically explains a lot of the brutality.

But like when he goes through the like, you know, brothel or whatever and you're just getting security camera footage and it's sometimes cutting to a different angle of like. the bottom of the stairs and then it cuts back and you just see like what he has done. It's incredible. But you don't see him do it. That sequence is fucking awesome. It's not even in a like you want to, you wish you were seeing it. It's like, oh, I like, I have such a sense of what's going on and also like how scary it would be.

Everything about it. Yeah. This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin. I'm David. And we were never really here. It's a podcast about filmography's directors who have massive success early on in the their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they

want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, this is a mini series on the films of Lynn Ramsey. It's called We Need to Pod About Castvin. And today we're talking about my favorite film of hers and one of my favorite movies the last 10 years. You were never really here. Yeah, a film that I've seen twice and really like and a film that I think for you is basically like sleepy time, happy once a week, just like, I need to unwind. It's time to meet the hobo assassin again. It's not quite that often.

I do have some strange comfort movies that are in a real steady rotation. This is one that's more selective when I want to feel a certain way. Yeah, yeah. But I also, I just, I find the filmmaking in this movie astonishing. There are choices she makes that still every time I watch it and I've seen it many times. I think I saw it three times in theaters. You know, for a long time, it's an Amazon movie. They bought it.

So it's just always streaming on the world's worst streaming service. And now I finally have a physical copy of it, thanks to Australian distributors outside of Amazon's reign. But there are scenes in it I'll watch. But even every time I watch it, I kind of, there are things that still surprise me in it in what it does and what it doesn't do. Yeah. Yeah. Who's our guest? Come on.

Yeah, okay. Our guest today shares with me. This is one of your favorite films in recent history as well, correct? I love it. I mean, you were the first people I texted when I watched it. I think it's a totally slept-on movie. It's an Amazon thing. But yeah, everyone who would listen that I was doing this podcast, just grabbing people on the street, I'm going to be on blank check.

Have you heard the news? In person for the first time. And they said, and they said, what movie are you doing? And I'd say, you were never really here. And they go, huh? What is that and who made that? Even people who I think would love the movie. Yeah.

I'm just like, you gotta watch it. But I also had kind of missed it. Yeah. The poster, which I agree is cool, didn't sell me on it. Like I was like, oh, okay, this looks like a moody thing. Maybe I'll try it sometime. But I don't know why I threw it on on some streamer, but maybe like a half hour in, I was like, I got a text Griffin and David. Like, yes.

this movie fucking rocks like I was just like holy shit it's awesome like Joaquin's unbelievable in it the directing's incredible

and it's like I mean it's tight as a fucking drum like it's like there's no fat on it I really appreciate it's so it flies

because you could sit in this misery and that's a different decision and I don't know if I would love that and instead it's like no no no no like just kind of like little pokes in your eye like like fat Yeah, exactly.

I mean, if you just, like, counted up the scene, like, it's like so, so, so efficient, which I have so much respect for. It's, it's, I think, like, 81 minutes before the credits were. Yeah, yeah. Basically.

I think it's listed as, like, 90 minutes, but it's really pretty much, like an hour 20. Yeah, which is great. It also feels smart in the sort of, we discussed when we covered train spotting on this podcast, that Danny Boyle's big rule going into that movie

with all the key creatives is like, we got to sign a blood pack this movie has to be under 90 minutes. We are not going to be able to sustain this. If we hit 95, it's going to become oppressive. Yeah. And I think she very smartly makes the same choice here. When it played a can, it was an earlier cut that was longer that has never been released in any form since then.

We were never really released. You were never really released. Our guest today from Hollywood Handbook, Screenwriter of the Dink. That's right. Which will be coming out. I think it has a release day, right? This summer on Apple. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, okay. Summer 2020. Q2? Q2? Is a Q2 release? A Q3. Ah, what? I don't get my cues mixed up.

You want to get your P's and Q's right? That's the problem you throw me. Probably more of a Q3 if it's... I've been told a date. I don't know if I'm allowed to say it. Okay. But it's summertime. But it's coming out this year.

It's going to be 2026, uh, summer, big fun summer comedy. Uh, get ready to laugh again. What are we have fun? Funny laughs. Am I allowed to have fun at all? In this had been a lot? They told us that comedy was legal and I'm not seeing a lot of evidence of that.

Yeah, well, it's legal again. I'm actually going to be the first one to stand up and not get arrested for doing it. Sean Clements. The Clemdog. The Clemdog's here. Wow, wow, wow, woof. The Friends McMullen are reunited. We had a group text for a while called the Cinematrix Club where we post our daily

Cinematrix scores. The two of you weirdly have decided to spend more time raising your children and less time playing Cinematrix. It was pulling me away from my family in a very significant way. Especially because you guys are so good at it. And I was like, I can't be like totally humiliated every day. And I would like really like grind on this thing. And I was like, I'm not enjoying it.

I was starting to not enjoy it. That was sort of my problem. And that's no offense to the good people who make this in a Matrix. It was a daily ritual, which was nice because it also gave us like an excuse to once a day check in and throw in some spare movie thoughts and things like you texting. Hey, I'm watching you were never really here for the first time. Do you guys fuck with this movie? I don't think it would have happened if we weren't Cinematrix friends who were, you know, in touch basically every day for a while.

If we weren't clubbing, which we were. Yeah. And then the text thread has become more sporadic. I saw the trailer for the family McMullen. Finally, Ed Burns' 30 years later, Lego sequel. And I text it to you and say, this feels like it's demanding a teaser freezer. Yeah. And in honor of that, we have renamed the group text, the Friends McMullen.

A teaser freezer is something we do on Hollywood here. handbook sometimes where we will break down a movie trailer and and and and Pokemon at the foibles um but we David had I believe I'm gonna credit David with the observation of he said is Ed Burns the Irish American Tyler Perry yes an incredible which was like a kill shot amazing quote yeah and it really stuck with me and so I'm laughing at my own joke, but it is a good one. So funny. I forgot about that. Because we were going through all his movie titles, which are all

like the McGillicuddy brothers. It's staggering amounts of movies. The Fitzgerald family Christmas. I'll read because like the first, you know, brothers of Mullen, she's the one. People were watching these movies. Well, first of all, this great party trick of, how many movies do you think Ed Burns has directed?

Directed it. So good. Not anything else. My girlfriend and I were watching the chair company on Max and it auto played a family McMullen trailer because I guess it's about to go to Max. I'm sure. And she was like, what? And I was like, Sean Simmons and I have been buzzing.

The thing's going to Max at like the speed of light. About this for weeks. And then I paused it and I said, just quick test. How many films do you think Ed Burns has directed? And she went, I'm going to guess it's a lot. Like six? Oh, sweetie. He's got 15.

It's got 15 under his belt, which is probably about six regular movies. Right. Kind of like average amount, you know, squeeze them together. But I just love that you're like, well, three, I've heard of, so I'm guessing there's three I haven't heard of. And you're like, no, there's 12 to 13. You've never met nice guy Johnny. I met him. Or you've never attended the Fitzgerald family Christmas. Called that one out. Which weirdly has Connie Britton as well, but is not McMullen. Right. It's Fitzgerald. But then there's another one with another Irish family name. Yeah. The Millers in marriage.

And that's another one where the poster is like 14 actors. You kind of know. Yeah. that clearly Ed has their phone number and is like, do you have six days? I've rented a house in the Mary Neck or whatever. You know, like, we'll do it. Well, you have no nonsense. Gretchen Mall, Julianna, Margo, his mini, driver, Marina, Baccaron, Benjamin, Bratt, Patrick Wilson, Campbell, Scott, Brian Darcy James. These are busy people. It does feel like there's some Tyler Perry thing going on where you're like, I want someone to crack open the books of what the financing scheme is for these.

you know, how is getting access to these sets? Right. There's some complicated. Who's giving him keys? Yeah, I mean, it was like, the brothers McMullen was such a famous story of, like, he was, like, working production company. Yeah, or he was a PA and he was, like, stealing the cameras at night

and, like, using their, you know, using their copy machines or whatever. Whatever the thing was that, and it was, like, this real run and gun, like, but now, he's got a budget. They're union productions with name actors. This is true, but there's got to be something going on without those things. I mean, my ultimate assumption, obviously, is that they are made very quickly. Yeah. Because they're all just like talkie dramas, right?

Yes. And maybe I should just watch them all. I mean, maybe I should put my money where my mouth is and check in with Ed. We also called out that he's also done like two TV shows. Directed three complete seasons of television himself. three seasons of two different shows where he directed every episode the man

keeps getting away with it looks pretty good he looks pretty good he looks pretty good he looks pretty good we had really a lot of fun batting this around oh god what a nice text and then I got to talk about it on my podcast here we are talking about it again but we're the friends McMullen he hasn't acted we're the friends McMillan he has not acted

in a movie that he you know didn't direct since Alex Cross the Rob Cohen you know, sort of re-boats. Co-starring. Tyler Perry. The non-Irish Tyler Perry. Did he take some notes?

Did Tyler Perry go to me? I wonder. Come here. Where he is the third guy. This is crazy. He's going to be playing some kind of like detective sidekick. I don't know if Ed Burns can pull something like that off. It seems like a murder or something going on here. I'm bringing all this up because the first ever teaser freezer, of course,

and the first episode of Hollywood Handbook ever was Don John. Don John. A movie that you and Hayes, Davenport, came on to discuss on this podcast. Yes. I don't know if you saw the news. Oh, I did. New Joseph Gordon Levitt movie in production. It might be time to run it back.

Train. Might be time to run it back. I think we got to call the shot right now. We got to complete that series. Oh, I mean, we're continuing the JGL mini. What is this movie? Do we know what it's about? It's a, Kendrick, and it's a, is it about AI?

I feel like Hit record Joe I feel like Maybe I'm gonna get in trouble For saying this like I'm feeling kind of warm To JGL of late I feel like he's gonna get in trouble for saying this

You know people are you know Lord knows he's He's done something bad Been trouble with who Bain Not bad but something corny You think Bain's thinking about you That's oh my God Wow

That's actually pretty self-involved David Bain's got so much on his plate right now Isn't he He's like is out there saying like AI sucks I don't like it or whatever. His wife is like a scientist? Yeah, he seems like he's and it feels like she is like

hey Joe here are like 20 bad things that are about to happen in society and he's like cool I'll use my like star power to communicate my platform going Yeah and then I think his movie is about that I want to say so like that's kind of fun Yeah kind of like that Am I crazy Joseph Gordon Levin quote not a punk rock thing to use artist's work to train AI for free

I mean he doesn't need to say the punk rock part, but sure, right? It's Rachel McAdams and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I love Rachel McAdams. Julian Roberts for another generation. Is producing it underwraps for the AI movie. It's an AI movie. Interesting.

Wait a second. Share story credit with Natasha Leone. Okay. And she's... She's been pretty normal. Yeah. I just think not only is the JGL series an ongoing project that we are serious about, I almost think you and Hayes need to be locked in for every time he makes a movie.

If he's going to make a movie, man, we got to come and talk about it. We may have been too hard on Don John. I've been watching the movies that have come out since. Have you seen everything in the last 15 years or so? Don John might have been the last good movie. I think that we were so spoiled. We were. We felt that we had permission to go in on Don John.

We didn't know how good it was going. I think you're right. This movie's approach to, like, depicting masturbation habits is very strange. And now we live in a world where masturbation is rarely depicted on screen, which is a much worse way of handling it. It's missing. It's missing from my diet. Also, aren't we in a world where Gen Z is, like, the only way I know how to masturbate is, like, in, like, a VR cave or whatever? Isn't that, like, what gooning is or whatever?

That's what's been going on. Yeah. Yeah. So now I'm like, Don, John, it's like, that was a blue-collar masturbator. You know, the guy just, he cracked open Adele laptop. Fucking salt to the earth. He was masturbating to human women

thumbed on shitty cameras. He would type like boobs into Google or whatever. Like whatever Don John did. Fuck, poobobs, fuck. And then like Scarjo's kind of mean to him and he's like, oh, I like it. Creams, his jeans, it's good shit. It's such prosaic horniness, like, compared to whatever the, you know, zoomers are doing.

It was a simpler time. It was a simpler time. And we're part of the problem. We made times complicated. Well, we, yes, we shamed him. We shamed him. And that has now driven all of youth into a VR cave. It's the only way they can get on.

They're all stuck in a post-Donjohn. VR cave. Yeah. Because we made it, we made it embarrassing to be Don John. And where are the, you know, it was playing off this Jersey Shore aesthetic that, like, also has, like, encapsulated this one moment in time for us that I feel like should be preserved. Right. That is just so quaint.

an old-fashioned, the gym tan laundry kind of thing. But also, does Jersey Shore get revived in the time in between when we did the episode and now? I can't even. Revived. I mean, that didn't last. I know, I mean, we got Snooki's best friend over here. Ben used to produce Snonkey's podcast. I don't know if you know this.

That's true. Oh, Jesus, Ben. I'm sorry, man. I appreciate that. I feel like such a fucking asshole. Dude. Congratulations, man. That, that rocks.

Thank you. I mean, snooky? Yeah. Nicole. Not a lot of one-name superstars coming out of reality TV these days. No, especially in the podcast world. Who are the one-named podcasters? Dax.

We had Seth Rogen on the show, and it was, I kept falling into this problem where I'd go like, yeah, and we have Rogan doing Big Lobowski on the pod, and people would go, Joe? And I was like, oh, you can't, within the context of pod. Can't say Rogan. You can't say Rogan. but that he's a one name but not the first name i think if you say joe probably but not definitely theo all these terrible you say joe i'm thinking about biden same and when's he gonna start his podcast i love hearing that guy talk i really would love it he's got a knack for it at length no but he should

do a fucking serial style podcast about corn pop yeah where he's like i'm gonna prove to you that this guy i'm gonna interview everyone and knew him i'm gonna go deep like full investment On the investigation on whatever pool he used to hang out in Wilmington or whatever it was. Or it could be called a bad dude. I took to the mean streets of Delaware. He's like walking around. We should plant a bunch of hidden mics in Joe Biden's home. Right. Not a crime.

And just record him puttering and murmuring and release those in one hour installments. I think his monologue out loud to himself on a daily basis would probably be the best podcast I listened to. What if he does the model where, like, Obama and Bruce, paired up? Who would Biden paired up with musician-wise? Well,

like who's the musician of Biden's age? The guy from Smash Mouse Ryan Adams. It's like Frankie Valley. Like, who is Joe Biden's favorite musician? I was trying to tee up,

yeah, some kind of really old the problem is if we ask Joe, who's the musician you want to do a podcast with, he'd be like, what's that? Paul about Jolson. What's he? done recently.

Mamie. His favorite... What's his favorite band? It seems to be just like some kind of like Irish folk band or something. I'm trying to figure out like... Good. Yeah. I mean, he's just him and Michael Flatley.

Yeah. Is Michael Flatley still kicking? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. He's still doing stuff. You know the whole thing with him is that he broke off from Riverdance, right? You know, when I lived in England, Riverdance was like 40% of the, like, economy in that

country. And like so every five minutes when you watch TV There would be ads for Riverdance or Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance By the way This is his rival company Same deal in the United States in the 90s I guess it was just a huge deal Where those two things were just playing

Alternating every commercial break It hit absolutely not No but I feel like I did It's kind of like Irish Rockettes It's like again I'm making a lot of Irish stereotype sort of jokes on this podcast Which is a little A little rich for me

I'm not Irish I'll give you a pass. Yeah. Okay. He's pushing over a pass. Is handing you a clover? It is one of those things for like 10 years. You could have play and a character breaks into some sort of like step dance.

That's punchline. That was a punchline. That's all you need to do. And it would hit every single time. Any character breaking into Riverdance for five seconds would hit. This is me to my. dad, rubber dance. And now, right.

Just say it. And now if I like, complete joke, if I told anyone about Riverdance, they would be like, no. What is that? That and the chanting monks CD that our parents got into at one point, felt like just this moment where it was like,

maybe another culture. But just for a minute and just one thing they do. Yeah. Well, is it Enigma who did the chanting monks song? Right. You know, the pure moods. Yeah, the pure moods, the mix that would come on, right? Yeah.

Just like, those guys, whoever was just like, what if we did a monk song, right? And then they hits and then another guy's probably like, could I do a monk sign? It's like, nope, like doors closed. Like, there was one monk opportunity. In 2018, Michael Flatley wrote, produced, directed, and starred in an espionage action thriller. Sounds good. Called Blackbird. quote Michael Flatley as you've never seen him before

with Eric Roberts it's a Casablanca riff They got Eric Roberts They got Eric Roberts And it didn't actually see release for four years That's what he's up to The movie's made in the editing bay It is and nobody knows that better than Flatley

He claims to be in pre-production for Blackbird too And let me get us I'll get us back on track with this If you look at this poster Kind of you were never really here vibe Bloody beaten. You know? It does look like Flatley is maybe, you know, someone who could wield a hammer.

Michael Flatley is you've never seen him before. Not dancing. Feet planted. You were never really here. So I did see this film in theaters. I thought this is that golden early age of Amazon pumping out otter content from guys who were sort of striking out at major studios. So like Spike Lee, Winston.

gentleman, this, uh, this, uh, Lynn Ramsey, what are on? Um, who else? Uh, what was in that kind of early way? Todd Salons. Todd Salon. Uh, Hal Hartley. That was crazy.

They did three with him, I feel like. I mean, because he just, he's Edbert. So he just needs eight bucks. But he, like, he had a fucking, a little mini second wind and like love and friendship. Ken Lonergan, obviously. Lonnergan. Yeah. That was one of their biggest hits.

Yeah. That was an acquisition. But that, but that, but nonetheless, it was like, Branding was consistent. Yeah, very savvy about this kind of like, let's buy up this kind of American art house stuff that used to be common. These are the Kings of Sundance of like 1980 to 2002 who have gotten pushed out of the studio system,

the death of the mini major specialty arm. We got to get these guys back. And this is one that they buy, because it was independently financed. It was run in variety that 824 was going to buy it. Which makes total sense. Total sense. And then during production,

Amazon sweeps in and outbids them and gets the rights. Swoops in. It's fine. It's whatever, but... Thank you. I need these corrections. Mike Lee's... Is it close to the vest or close to the chest? Mike Lee's Peterloo. Okay.

Is another one. Mike Lee's Peterloo. You know, like, where they're kind of like, do you want a little bit more money? Or we'll acquire, or we'll, like, you know, we'll sort of big foot someone at a film festival in this case. And we've talked about it, but it's the shit that, like, uh, Netflix did when they started out, uh, although not as success.

and Anna Perna was sort of based on of like, what's the thing that's gotten rejected everywhere else? Yeah. What's the thing that no one else will let you make and we can build our reputation as seeming so artist friendly by supporting you. And they did. They did.

And they didn't make any money. They made no dollars. They made oh dollars and no sense. Amazon was interesting because, like, they made Manchester work commercially. Yeah. That movie made like fucking $50, $60 million. It's one of the, $0. The last true arguments of like you really can put, you know, these things in theaters and get them oscarnoms and they will grow and they'll like, you know, have a good run.

They got big sick to like 50-60. Love and Friendship, they got to like 20 something. Like they had quite a few that were working and it was sort of like, this is the model. Why aren't the other streaming services doing this? Brittany ran that marathon. And she ran that shit right into the ground. Look, Jen Salkey took over the company, made some decisions that affected me personally. I will.

But then also went to Sundance Day. year and spent, I think, a combined $50 million on late night. Brittany runs a marathon and the report that Scott Z. Burns movie. It's a good movie. And they tried to give all three wide releases and was astounded when public audiences didn't flock to those films in mass. And the next year declared, my takeaway is that movie going is dead and people don't like movies.

Have you seen Britney Runs Marathon? Yep. It's a true story. You know that? You believe that? I'm starting to come around. to that being possible. I can't just accept that

at face value. Like, people say that. You know, Fargo says that. That's true. And it's like, well, it's inspired by this kind of thing maybe that happened, but I've been tricked before. So I'm hanging, I'm hanging on. We'll never forget being at Sundance,

Brittany runs a marathon, the movie ends. They credit's rolling. They give you the black and white photo. Like, and here's the real Brittany running. And someone behind me being like, who gives a shit? Like, just truly the most. frustrated junior exec being like,

get the fuck out of here. Yes. So what? She didn't like even become a state senator or anything. She just literally ran a marathon. It's a funny story to do a side-by-side photo with like the real version. Usually that's like some historical. Yeah, it's like fucking Nelson Mandela or whatever.

They're like, here's the real Britney. I'm like, great. A lady. Guess what? I go to the marathon every year. I watch them go by. There's lots of people who do this. Do you think of Jen Salky goes to the marathon?

She's like, this is a development dream. 50 million stories. They're all here. We'll have discussed this recently on this feed, but Bradley Cooper's is this thing on is another movie that ends with a big based on a true story, as if the audience is going,

God, I mean, that was unrealistic. Such a thing could never happen. I need the assurance. An adult man trying stand-up. Possible. Getting divorced? You're telling me this. comedian was feeling a little bit of drift?

Sorry. It doesn't track. Sometimes comedy comes out of misery. It's a way to process our pain. But, like, pretty, like, comfortable white collar pain. David. What? This episode, don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend.

Oh, okay. This episode's brought to you by movie. Yon! Just kidding. Comfortable! Secure! We love them! They are a global film company of Champions Great Cinema, iconic directors, emerging artists.

Always something you to discover with movie. Each and every film hands selected. So you can explore the best of cinema. Nothing more to say, I guess. Ngrom! There's a new film coming to theaters. Yep, movie theaters. February 13th, the first Nigerian film

ever in official competition again. That's pretty wild. This is a film by Achanola Davis called My Father's Shadow. Is Bafda nominated, poetic, tender portrait of a father-son bond framed within the political landscape of 1919. 93 Lagos in Nigeria.

It is about a father and two young son as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, reckoning with their relationship, navigating the city that's in the middle of a democratic crisis, written by real-life brothers, Achanola Davis Jr. and Wally Davis. Love it, brothers.

Co-wrote this groundbreaking feature debut, and you've got Sofe de Risu. Oh, from Slow Horses. I love him. I hope I'm saying his name right. But he's a really good actor, and he's the star. It's worth seeing. It's in theaters. It's great to go to a theater.

It's in theaters. We love that Mooby puts moobies in theaters before ultimately ending up on their wonderful platform. Dang right. I'm just looking at some of the stuff they got right now. Die my love, of course. Yeah. An important watch, a necessary watch for any Blanky. Legraza, LaGrazia, the new Palosso-Orentino movie.

which I missed in theaters. Good moment to catch up with it. The great, shall we dance? Oh, the classic? The original. Oh, my goodness. That's fun. Like a restoration?

Yeah, and look, but they got a collection called Heartthrob Nicholas Cage. It's young, dreamy cage. Well, still dreaming to me. Hey, you're very open-hearted. Anyway, to stream the best of cinema, you can try Mooby-free for 30 days at Mooby.com slash blankcheck.

That's M-U-B-I-com slash blank check for a whole month, a great cinema for free, and then go see my father's shadow in theaters. Please, thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Thank you.

Very kind. I am going to open the dossier because I do feel like this movie does have kind of a complicated... It does. Or Lynn Ramsey has a complicated journey from her last movie. We need to talk about Kevin.

Yeah. To hear. I feel like we need to talk about Kevin is her biggest hit. Yeah, it was a little bit of a break. And especially for oscilloscope, which was a small destroyer. I feel like that was very much their highest grossing film at the time.

Are you guys going to address the Lynn Ramsey backlash happening in the blank check community? Are we even going to deal with that? You've been checking the Reddit? Yeah, Greg. I'm on there. What's the, what's the latest on the backlash? Just that it's basically the least blank check worthy director you've ever done. Like, what's her blank check?

Like, they're literally not a blank check. So it's just like, there isn't one. So, like, I guess it's your podcast and do it. whatever you want, but... Yes, yes, yes. We can address this look. And we also, just for the record, do their voice more like the bug man and men in black?

I mean, she's never... I mean, she's never... I'm sorry. I think that thread, which always, I think that thread, which always happens every single time we pick a female director. It does happen every time.

No offense to whoever started that thread. Because that thread is obviously totally correct, or that discourse is totally correct. Yes, Lynn Ramsey has never been handed anything remotely akin to a blank check to make a movie. Absolutely. But Lynn Ramsey has been able to make the movies she's made, which are strikingly independent and dark and different movies, on commercial movies, with major stars.

Increasingly bigger and bigger stars. Yes, right, right. To her latest effort, of course, being her most expensive, I guess, especially if you include the sort of acquisition of it. Yeah. And most star-laden, without ever, seemingly ever really compromising what she wants to do. Now, she's always like, oh, this happened and I wish this could have happened. And there's always unrealized projects or whatever.

But that speaks to, in fact, her not compromising, right? I mean, like, we will have covered this in other episodes and we'll keep covering this. But there are so many movies she walks off of, you know, or let's fall apart because she's just like, this is going in the wrong direction. I'd rather not make a movie than make a movie. Speaking about all that, let me tell you that after she made, we need to talk about Kevin, she wanted to make. Mobius Dick? Correct. I mean, it's got various titles over the years. Mobius being the most common one, but a sort of sci-fi, moby-dick epic. Then, this is Lynn Ramsey's dream project, her ultimate blank check.

It's like a spaceship movie, but they're chasing some kind of space whale. It's a giant space whale. I mean, now probably if she could get Pyacon attached, she could probably get financing, right? It helps that there's a bankable space whale in the kind of commercial ecosystem. That's lucky. If Pyocon will do it for scale, that's a go picture. She's never been out there being like, I need $90 million to make my space movie. She's always said I can make it a small budget. I assume it's sort of be like Claire Denise's high life of like, yeah, this is mostly psychological.

It's mostly set on a ship. But small budget. But you need some. It's still like. Effects. 15, probably. I'm guessing. Who knows?

She has generally worked with small budgets, and then the blank check is distributors keep overpaying for her movies. Sometimes that happens. And being surprised when they're a little hard to sell. I mean nobody wants to see this movie. Jennifer Lawrence is hitting her head into every wall and mirror and window she can see. Moobie's rubbing their hands and they're like, the memes we're going to make off of this. So while she's planning that, she gets attached to a film called Jane Got a Gun, which I assume, Sean, you have maybe heard of this project. This is the kind of infamous she walks off.

Was it like a day before production? Well, we can talk about it. You know, so she says like Mobius, that's like her, Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon, right? Like, where it's like, that's the thing I vote. I'm always going to want to do, but it might always be impossible. But Natalie Portman, who I think admires her is like, I am developing this like girl Western. I'm going to star. It's called Jane Got a Gunn.

It's based on a, is it based on a comic book or? No, no. It's a spec written by Brian Duffield. Right, right. Who now has made, like, no one will save you and stuff like that. Yes, and spontaneous. And Love and Monsters, I think he wrote as well. I mean, has a tremendous amount of credits as writer and director.

But it was a blacklist script in 2011 that Nally Portman gets, as a producer, kind of coming right off of her, like, Black Swan Heat. It is a thing that, like, Natalie Portman has been called out for a little bit, that she never worked with female directors. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Talk about, like, the need for women to stick together in Hollywood. And people would kind of side-eye her being like... Yeah.

Why don't you... Then you do it. Why don't you just fucking do it? And so, like, here she is. She's trying to develop this thing. She buys a script with her own money, attaches Lynn Ramsey and Michael Fastbender. It's going to be her Michael Fastbender. Jude Law is going to be the villain.

It's going to shoot in New Mexico and first day of shooting. Natalie Portman shows up. Michael Fastbender has exited because he has to play Magneto. again for like the third time or whatever right he's going to be replaced with joel edgerton jude law and lynn ramsie both quit lynn ramsie just does not arrive it becomes this kind of disaster variety story kind of thing of like you know producers being like there's 150 crew members who are getting left in the lurch here like it's a whole legal battle and stuff um the crazier thing also she's accused of not delivering a shooting script

She's apparently, they said that her behavior had gotten kind of bizarre, like, whatever. I think she was clashing with producers. What do you? What are you? No, Joel Edgerton was, like, attached and then replaced and then came back in a different role. There was, like, a lot of musical chairs with this movie. Ewan McGregor is the ultimate choice to whatever, fill the third role. They sue her for, like, three quarters of a million dollars, which is her fee.

It's settled out of court. like three years later, Lynn Ramsey finally says, when she talks about it many years later, it's like, at the 11th hour, it's just like the guys financing this movie just do not want the movie I'm going to make. Right.

And so she quit. I mean, I think that basically completely cements her relationship as someone who's very difficult to work with and just doesn't play like Hollywood games well, right? Yeah. Yes. Yes.

And I think the other part of it is, uh, it was like, catnip for deadline. In my memory, it was like there would be three stories a day. Because it's like this movie is up and running and the director is gone and the lead actor is gone. Every day there were like three new stories about, I mean, I'm even just reading here where it's like, um, uh, on April 5th, it was announced that Bradley Cooper would replace law on the role of John Bishop. On May 1st, it was announced that Cooper was withdrawing from the film. Yeah, Cooper was briefly.

You know, every day it was like a new actor's in talks, a new actor's dropped out. They're meeting with six new directors. I know, I know we don't get like two inside baseball on the, on the business here, but, um,

to make a feature film, and I, you know, I've only really, uh, been directly involved with one, but to make a feature film without, yeah,

to, maybe Q3. Okay, but to make a feature film without the director and star is like, extremely challenging. That is generally, it's a very bad set environment.

Yeah. Yeah. It's dysfunctional. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't, yeah, I mean, that's got a negative connotation. Yeah. But I think that's fair.

Let me rephrase. Non-functional. I would say it's going to be pretty tough to make a movie function with neither director nor store. No, no, movies have done missing one or the other. Sure. The weird thing. The weird thing is, the movie was eventually made Gavin O'Connor. Yes.

Directs the final version. Uh-huh. It came out, it made like $2. Yes. Like, it was dumped so intensely by the Weinstein Company. in 2015. I've never seen it. Everyone was like kind of shopping around it. At one point it had

like Weinstein Relativity, CBS and focus features all like hovering and then taking pieces and then dropping out and someone would replace it. It was this movie with all this energy that they wouldn't let shut down and they kind of like kept the corpse alive and got it finished and no one gave

a shit. It's really surprising that all those people leaving doesn't just make it not get done. Right. But an object in motion. But it cost. $25 million. It costs a lot. I mean, right, could have cost

$100, I guess, but it costs a lot of money. I'm sure a lot of that was kind of the overruns of keeping people on hold and whatever. But if she had done this, this would have been her biggest budget thing. Now, to this,

the complaint of the Reddit, right? Or the questioning, it's like you could say, well, how has, how can you define her as a blank check director when she's never had a budget over yada, yada, yada.

Right? Yeah, which, by the way, I'm just telling you what Reddit's time. I know, I know. And at the end of the day, this is a podcast. despite my opening spiel about what we want to cover.

That is, I would say, the number one thing this podcast is about, and she's one of my favorite filmmakers, and specifically from the moment that I see you were never really here, I'm like, fuck, the next time she releases a movie, I want to do her on main feed.

But I think she is interesting in how she has kind of refused the blank check that would come with a lot of strings attached. And even some people more strategically might be like, look, if I make Jane got a gun and it's got four big stars and it's a Western and it's got more sellable elements and I lose half the battles to the financiers, but it gets released and becomes automatically my highest grossing film, doesn't that help me get Mobius Dick done? Isn't that worth it as like means to an end? And she seems for better or worse, incapable of doing that.

Certainly. So she does what we'd all do, which is moves to Santorini, which is, of course, a Greek island and the Egen Sea, falls, in love with a Belarusian chef because she has divorced her husband, Roy Stewart Keneer, has a kid with him. And then Jacques Odiard's company, Why Not, sends her over a copy of You Were Never Really Here in 2013. Now, I've never read the book. It's written by the board to death guy. Jonathan Ames.

So I usually think of him, of course, writing about, like, I don't know, I'm in Brooklyn. I need a coffee. Yeah, just to give a little bit of background. He was sort of like a pervy straight David Sedaris. That is actually a really good description of John the name. Dead on. Like he would write about, and it was like, yeah, it was, you know, famous essay about, like, his late puberty, where he talked about, like, not having pubic hair for a long time.

And then, like, you know, whatever, having his first sexual experience with a prostitute. But it was all, like... Naval-gazy sort of Rhybripe, Comical oversharing. Yes. Like confessional work. And then

I haven't read many of his novels prior to this, but there's this, which I think is his first time dipping his toe into, because even Bored to Death is sort of like, what if a neurotic writer

was like solving crime? And it's half in half of him. It's super pesty. I mean, I enjoyed Bored to Death back in the day. It was fun time. He was like a brilliant self-promoter and that he made himself a figure, which helped him kind of cut through a bleak moment in the literary world. It's the Fran Lippewitz thing. It's like, if you are just funny and you live in New York and you can just like do panels and do chatty shit.

And he'd do readings where he would like hire an opera singer to read his book out and he was like boxing on the side. You'd quirky, self-deprecate. You kind of feel good about yourself. You're like, this guy's got real problems. Exactly. It's like, I can. But meanwhile, he's like a famous thing. you know, successful person, but it's not threatening to anyone.

This book does feel like a radical departure from everything he had done up until this point in time. It's so grim and brutal. There's nothing self-referential to his life at all. It's just the imaginings of like this, like, you know, this, this man who has this job rescuing, like, women who are, like, in, like, child sex trafficking situations. But then he breaks off into doing this series of, like, noir detective books, these doll books that are like, incredible that feel very much sprung from this like like yes right the happy doll sir he's got three of them yeah a man named doll uh karma doll and the wheel of doll right the three books and they're they're fucking awesome i have not read

those you those are good i love them but it's like it's just very surprising that this guy who i was aware of and had this very specific voice just has this whole new chapter well yeah has reinvented he said when he wrote this we never really hear he's like this is sort of a an homage to first the Richard Stark, the Donald Westlake. The Donald Westlake Parker series, but also like Lee Child, Jack Richard books and all that. So he knows he's sort of doing not a pastiche, but an homage to like a genre. Yeah. The book is fairly earnest.

It is not tongue in cheek in any way. But there is something pastichy about it in that it is very much, the book reads as more of a noir riff than the movie does. And I think what the book is interested in is like, what is the kind of like really disturbing subtext under these stories that we skirt around, right? Not just like the intensity of the crimes, but also like what is the inner life of a guy who does this kind of shit? Yeah. And like what toll does this take on you and what drives someone to that point versus being this kind of like cool above it all vacant? Well, yeah, Jack, reach your character who's like so untouchable.

And it's like he's, you know, they're complete loner drifters and you just go like, because they're too cool and there's no strings of tag. They can leave whatever. And he's like, no, but internally this guy is like constant suicidal ideation. Right. Just like the only thing keeping him going is that he has this like one purpose he's identified that he can do that he thinks helps people. And that just like keeps pulling him back from the brink. Yeah. I mean, you were never really here the title comes from the repetition of the suicidal ideation.

And the book, that's the thing he says. himself when he imagines killing himself to kind of alleviate the pressure of the idea of like that's why he doesn't need to do it because he would never really hear anyway right which is what this guy's struggling with he is also physically described in the book as being so much more of a traditional jack reach type yeah like here's this kind of like handsome he's older than he looks he's six foot two he's 190 pounds of pure muscle you know and he looks like an avenging hero and then the contrast is in this guy just wants to fucking die. There's a paragraph I just want to read quickly.

To your point, which is the big thing the movie doesn't over-explain. He'd come to believe that he was the recurring element, the deciding element, and all the tragedies experienced by the people he encountered. So if he could minimize his impact and his responsibility, then there was the chance, the slight chance that there would be no more suffering for others. It was a negative, grandiose delusion. Narcissism inverted into self-hatred, a kind of autoimmune disorder of his psyche, that there was an undeniable element of truth to Joe's

paranoiac state where he went, pain and punishment followed. And it's like, that's the animating idea of like, a guy doing this would not really be able to live with himself, even of what he's doing from the outside seems heroic. And what would drive someone to do the right thing in such extreme circumstances has to be a little bit warped. Because no sane person with any self-protective instincts can kind of live in this and survive it. Yeah, he goes into the worst places where the worst people are doing bad things and then he does bad things there and then one good thing comes out of it, maybe. Right.

And we love these kind of fictions of like the one guy who's willing to stand up to the bad in the world. Yeah. And ask these questions when these things happen in real life of like, how did no one stop it? And you're like, because it's super fucking difficult to stop it. Not just in terms of like breaking down these system and challenging these. people, but also you literally just have to go into the depths of hell to even confront these things. And most of the time, people don't come back out of that. And he's a guy who is living with

so much from his background in the military and whatever else he's done. Pain and flashback in PTSD already that it's sort of like might as well get more, like there's no escaping it for him. So it just seems like, okay, well, I'm the person who can go and do this because like it doesn't matter what I see. I've seen it all. The book is really tough, but it makes sense as something that someone could read and go like, there's a halfway commercial movie in this? You know, there is a kind of like inverted art house taken in this. And it kind of makes him such a specific striking character.

But it is like, the book is more noir in terms of being in his head. It's not written first person, but it's describing what he's thinking and what he's doing. And it's very like methodical and process based on how he goes about these, missions. But also it's like explaining him putting the pieces together and solving the mystery, which is a thing the movie does not do. It doesn't have him

like on the case. Not at all. You see him kind of fit the pieces together. And they simplify the case. Yeah. Right. But this has. It makes sense in terms of there's there's more a kind of like pulpy, wicked web of intrigue and corruption. The way that Phoenix is playing

this character also obviously it's not, this is not Batman the world's greatest detective this is not a deductive guy in that way no no no you see him like put it together almost as just because he understands suffering no he's less yeah he's less savvy in the movie because like in the book he's like being careful about you know certain in the movie it's like he calls the guy who's his contact right away you know like to be like hey yeah so lynn's like i kind of want to do this and people keep being like what this isn't the kind of thing you would do and she's like and that only made me want to do it more.

Like, I, you know, that energized me. But so it is, sorry, it's Odiard who reaches out to her? O'Diard's production company sent her the book. Okay. Yeah. And they didn't even have the rights, but she's like, I'm fucking sitting in Greece with no internet and, like, there's nothing to do. And I just start writing the script.

And then I just, like, get connected with Jonathan because we know, you know, mutual people. And we start chatting about it. And I start basically saying, this is what I want to keep, you know, this is where the bones of the character that I like, and he's all for it. And, you know, she's got a baby. So I think, like, it's, like, almost a sort of, like, I remember not to the name drop, but, like, M. Night Shyamlan saying the same thing of, like, when you have a baby, if you're trying to write something, it actually focuses you because

you have, like, two hours to write because the responsibility is there versus the kind of like, yeah, I've got all day. Let me sit at the desk and see what fires up. Well, same with podcasting. Now you have the focus of, knowing you only have four hours to discuss a movie. It does. I think it does.

David's smiling and he's giving me thumbs up and he's blowing kisses. He's really happy. He's really happy. David's definitely not having crazy acid flashbacks about the Reddit. Well, that's all being said. Yes. He likes this. He likes this a lot.

I agree that you do end up using your time more efficiently. Right. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have just, I only have this window. And I had a boss once who said, like, your creativity will expand to fit

the container you give you give it like it's like the natural brass theory or whatever like it's that's interesting and surprising because i have zero kids and i use my time horrible i actually couldn't manage it worse i almost have nothing but time and yet so what's the opposite of a container like what are you in you're in like mine ocean yeah exactly um i almost have negative children you certainly can't say to a one year old like daddy's got to write a screenplay Yeah, that diaper is just going to have to go unchanged. Yeah. So, Kevin, obviously, which is her last adaptation, that's a big book, it's a pistol area, it's all these letters and stuff.

Like, you know, that's a complicated thing. This, she's like, the book you could read in 90 minutes, like, the movie should be just as pulpy and, like, fast in a way. Sure. It's her version of that, I would say. But she just, she makes the sparsest version of what is already a sparse text. Right. She's like, look, I'm trying to make it pulpy. it does turn into what I always do, which is a character study.

Right. I feel like this guy's head is full of broken glass. He's suicidal. He's sicking around just because of his mom, sort of. He's like a ghost in his own life, basically. You know, she thinks about movies like Le Samurai or whatever about similarly kind of like people who just don't have like a personal life, right? Like these sort of like, but the Le Samurai is obviously about the coolest. most handsome motherfucker you've ever seen who's so well dressed.

And the American, too, which is almost the same movie. A movie you love. Incredible, yeah. But I feel like this is closer to, we've covered a few movies like this and I always, it is something that sticks with me. It is a type of narrative that I find very effective, which is a guy who passes his breaking point. You know, in a movie where even if the character is able to resolve the ostensible

narrative. They're never coming back from this. Well, and yeah, and they do, I mean, it's explained in the book, too, but he's a guy who's, he's a bad dude. Yep. And he, but he kind of like does the job and then he goes home and he has

this little life with his mom. Right. Yes. And that is not related to what he does. And it's not pleasant. It's not like, awesome. It's not like amazing, but it's like he has a purpose at home as well when he's not working. Yes. To take care of his mother, who they both, like, suffered abuse, you know, at the hands of his dad. And so he's got this, like, I am, I am like a value in the world, even when I'm not doing this thing.

And then that gets taken away. And you're just like, okay, so what? Like, who am I? Now what is he? And he's just then going to be, like, a fucking berserker. Right. Yeah, because just to spell it out, and you start basically with the kind of his internal chaos, this guy who's head is full of glass is constantly, like ideating on drowning and things like that, but also these constant flashbacks, which start

with him being a child, his father physically abusing him, but also the feeling of being in the closet curing his mother being attacked and not being able to protect her, which makes a ton of sense as like a motivating force that defines the next step of his life, which is he goes into trying to ostensibly help protect through the professional like arms of the American government, right? and he ends up becoming a specialist. All this stuff is not like spelled out. It is like pieced together really well

in these like horrible traumatic flashbacks of just like glimpses of images and association. The things he can't get out of his brain. They keep playing him just that one line. I'm going, what the fuck are we doing? Yeah. Like what are we? And it's like I've assumed a really great summation

of like if you work in a unit that recovers people from you or if you're in the military. in some special unit that it's like, wait a minute, what are we doing here? Like, it's just like things are getting so fucked up. This guy's like two main recurring images are being in a closet trying to suffocate himself with a dry cleaning bag. Basically just to stop the pain and to stop himself from screaming, which he now does like as a ritual almost every morning. And then the other recurring image is like the feeling of kicking down a door. Being minutes too late to recover like a pile of bodies.

Seeing like glassy-eyed sort of like numbed young women, right? And you get the sense that it's been like the times that he became a sort of task force specialist and trying to retrieve victims of sex trafficking, knocking down the door when it's too late, but also the feeling that when he was in the military, he probably was the one knocking down the door on innocent women, you know, invading homes and whatever towards some greater end, which then makes him go, what are we doing here? I need to be fighting for the right people. But then he's stuck in the darkness of that.

Well, yeah, and who are the bad guys and who are the good guys? He's as the military flashbacks where they're, you know, like whatever. It just feels like, yeah, he's very much lost in terms of like, how do I do good in a world that's so dark. And it's broken me and the book is sort of getting at this feeling of the only way I can actually do good is if I cut out all the middlemen. If there aren't rules around me. Yeah. She's very anti-flashback, but then she sort of has that approach. If it's like post-traumatic stress, it's like trauma that he's reliving.

It's a little different from like a full flashback. Which I think this movie depicts like incredibly well. Yeah. So I'll, I have a, I'll share a quick story, which is I was, I was in a car in, I think it was like 2003. This is a long time ago, right? This is 2003. I was driving. in my mom's Nissan Quest minivan to my, the connect to massage therapy school, as one does.

Wow. You're going to become a masseuse? I was a licensed massage therapist for a few years while I was like first trying to be an actor. That rocks. What would it take to get that license back up and running? How easy is it to get reactivated? You know, I haven't done my continuing education units. I haven't done my CEUs.

So I'd probably have to do a little bit. I love a massage. Yeah, it was a school. I mean, just whatever, to take another detour. It's like, I think my mom had heard an interview with John Corbett saying that he was a hairstylist when he was a struggling actor because once you got a client base, you like didn't have to work 40 hours. You can kind of schedule them around your life. You could audition and stuff. You're like, what's more interesting than being a caterer or a bartender or whatever?

Yeah, it was like maybe there's a job like that and there was like a very good school. This Connecticut Center for Massage Therapy was like a good accredited school for it that was really close to me. So I went checked out. I was like, okay. So I learned a lot about, you know, whatever, the body. I learned Reiki. I've done it all. And I worked in spas and I worked on the Cirqueus Olai acrobats at one point.

Like as I was like traveling, just doing like backstage work for different shows. Yeah. So it was interesting. But anyway, I was driving to school. I, it had snowed recently. I'm in this old minivan that like the dials on it don't really work. And suddenly the speed drops. Like I go from going 65 to going like 35.

I don't know what's going on. I hit the brakes to kind of like pull over. The brakes don't work. So I'm just rolling down the highway. And then the car starts to fill through the vents with like the darkest, thickest, most foul smelling smoke I've ever smelled in my life. And I roll down the windows and people are pulled up alongside of me and they're waving at me.

And this one's going, your car is on fire. Your car is on fire. And I turn and go, I know. I can't stop. Now, luckily it had sort of recently snowed. So without really being able to see, I kind of am able to drive

off to the side up along a snowbank and skid along the snow. It wasn't just the guardrail. There was like a pile of snow. I skid along that until it slowed down enough that I got out, jumped out, ran out of the car. Also not thinking for some reason leaned in,

leaned back in and turn the keys and turn the car off. and took the keys out, which, like, just felt very stupid later. You remember this now. I remember it now, but I just, like, I, and that, but I, like, had gotten out and went back into it. And then I kind of jogged up the shoulder and the fire was going and the windshield exploded. I don't know the physics of it, you know, if it was cold or whatever, but the tires exploded. Right, right.

But anyway, and then I went back to, like, get my shit out of the car. and I see the driver's seat that I was sitting in and that I'd also leaned back into for no reason and it's covered in scorched like triangles which I assume are just shards of molten glass that like shot into the seat that I was in. Yeah. And you know and blank check tie and there's a waking life DVD on the ground that was

you don't want to lose that. That was that was like all like melted and burned and so I'm just like oh I almost died in like the most most gruesome, like horrific way. Like a final destination death. Totally. Yes. And for months afterwards, I think this movie just depicts really well.

Like, I'd be in moments of total, like, peace and rest, like, about to drift off to sleep, it would just be the smell and the heat and I'm back in the car. And, like, really classic, like, flashback PTSD. And then the other thing that would happen that they also do well is when I was just hanging out whatever with, with, with, for. friends, it suddenly would be like, I can't be standing where I'm standing right now. And things that we all know is like a panic attack now. But I at that time was just like, there's something wrong that I'm going to solve through some external, I'm going to move over here. I'm going to do this. And nothing's

going to solve it. Because this guy, even when he's staking out and like waiting watching the brothel door, there's a restlessness inside of him. Yes. At rest, poking at his skin. When he fucking punches the like guy who was late to give him his keys back at the parking attendant. Yeah. And you're just like, there's just something exploding out of him that he can't control and he doesn't understand. He almost sounds like he's about to cry when he punches the guy. Which is, that's a sort of Phoenix special.

I feel like he's really good at that. Yeah, don't make me wait. Right. But it's like he's like a little kid in that moment. He's like, you know, and he can fight back now. And it's just, but I, whatever, I went through that like very classic kind of PTSD. thing and I do think like this movie really puts you inside

the head of like that kind of experience in a way that's like very visceral. I think a big part of it is. Do we know why the car exploded? So yeah, there was there was apparently an oil leak inside the car that had created a pool of oil on top of the catalytic converter which you don't want.

And the catalytic converter also was like running very very hot and I guess enough oil built up on there and the converter was hot of that it sparked a little fire inside the thing. And it's a grease fire. It's like an oil fire inside. And it just burned out like all the guts of like the hood of the car.

So that's why then the brakes didn't work, et cetera, et cetera. But it was just, you know, kind of a fluke thing. And one more detail that I'll never forget is then I'm sitting in a cop car, like waiting to like, you know, for like my parents to come and get me or something. And I kind of try to make a light joke. and I point at the car that's like, you know, exploded. And I go, tough morning. And the cop points at the line of traffic. And he goes, well, thanks to you, it's a tough morning for a lot of people.

Jesus. It is weird that people just say shit like this to you all the time. I feel like this is a running theme in your life. Maybe it's just you have a sort of face that invites people to be sarcastic at you. I don't know, man. We, uh, Ben and I were in, uh, Austin, Texas for South by Southwest. And Ben is like, I'm going to go out. There's like a 7-Eleven, three blocks away.

Mm-hmm. And get some like beer and some water and whatever, right? And I'm sitting on the couch with Ben's wife. And Ben comes back like 10 minutes later on the phone talking like really effusively to someone, right? About like, and I just don't understand what motivates people. And I was just like, oh, someone very close. close to Ben in his life has called and is in a bad situation where something really bad

happened to them interpersonally and Ben is being a good friend and talking them through it. And instead, what I find out that is the inverse, that Ben called a friend to check in while he was on this 7-11 run, and then a guy made like a mean joke to you, a bouncer outside a bar? Yeah, he talked shit. And he was like also such a fucking lame motherfucker. He's wearing like, well, those are the ones that'll do that. He's wearing, like, I'm trying to think of the, the dumb band. t-shirt that he was wearing.

It wasn't creed, but it was... No, it's like some SoCal shit-ass punk band, like fucking Pennywise or something. It was Pennywise, it was Pennywise. It was Pennywise. And he was just like, he, I don't even remember exactly the comment, just like something, because I guess I was, you know, dressed weird, even though again, I'm wearing the most normal clothes. He said like a nice hat, bro, or something like that.

Something like that. And I was just like, what, man? He was just like, you're just a cool looking dude. Something like that. And just wanted to obviously start some shit and had some friend standing nearby. You wanted to ruin your night and you gave him just what he wanted. Exactly. And then... Unfortunately, that is, I get a lot of people to just fuck with me. So I think you and I share that. I do have that.

I do for some reason. Look at Mr. Guy with his shoes on. Like, you're just walking around, but people want to say this to you. I also feel like your thing is that you make the self-deprecating joke and then someone very po-faced responds to you being like, it's actually worse than you think. You are so thoroughly the problem. But I've invited it always. I need you to feel guilty.

I've opened the door. Exactly. Anybody want to shit on me? People are like, absolutely. We've been dying. I agree with you. Plus 100 minus humor. Like it would have been me walking by that guy going like, well, some hat I got on.

He'd be like, it's not just the hat man. It's your whole fucking thing. But actually, what is your robin? I hate your gait. It's not even just your what you're wearing. It's your personality. Your core seems rotten. face. Yeah. There's something really toxic just emanating from you.

Yeah, I definitely invite a lot of people to interact with me in a very aggressive way. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. I don't know. The two of you have that in common. I see it happen with Ben. And I'm always like, Ben, why are you like so hair triggered with this? And that night, you were just like, this has been happening my entire life. Right. Just guys just say shit to me. This does not happen to me at all. I truly think it's because I'm tall. Not that you guys are short. like I'm like tall and broad or whatever Yeah People are just like

I don't know what that guy I'll do Like that guy might do something weird When people do this to me and it does piss me off It's condescending Right like a buster Right it's that Sport how's it going My fucking like dentist receptionist

Asking if they should send the bill to my mom And then I'm like So I just want to tell you that this film was picked up by Amazon For $3.5 million dollars I'm like now mad again I'm sorry. They out bid A-24 who had bid $2 million. This is a point in time where A-24...

But 824 is very fledgling, obviously. Is on the rise. I mean, this... 2016, so it's the year they're going to have moonlight at the Oscars and all that. They're a thing, but they're smaller. Because, like, a year later, I feel like, regardless of what the financial offer is,

they sell this movie to A-24 because everyone knows 824 is the place that's going to be able to sell this the best. Oh, yeah. And they're the Joaquin movie factory. I think 824 would have been a better place for this movie. But obviously, again, you just sort of take the highest bidder. This is the year that Amazon has five movies that can, the handmaiden.

So speaking of some other, like, so Partridge Amok's Handmaiden, Patterson, Jim Jarmouche another in that kind of like established otor that they're giving a check to. Give me Danger. I don't really remember what that was. I don't either. The neon demon. Yeah. With the winding reference movie. Yeah.

and cafe Yeah Okay, Oh, Gimme Danger was the Jim Jarmouche documentary about the Stooges which is like very fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Lynn Ramsey,

just FYI, she wrote this with Phoenix in mind, she'd never met him, but she was just like, no-brainer is just exactly who I imagined for this. Phoenix is probably unsurprisingly very into it. I mean, I feel like he's usually drawn to these kinds of directors and this just does feel like the kind of role that would vibe with him. They have been talking about reteaming for a while. There were sort of false reports that they had already shot something,

but it seems like it's kind of perpetually her next movie. Die My Love got knocked up because of Lawrence being attached. Right, but they've been hilarious. Lawrence got knocked up and that's sort of the story, huh? Twice. That's a good point. You can read all about it. You can read all about it.

But, yes, she has said that she had such a good experience working with him when he is notoriously a very difficult man who tries to quit productions and is very at odds with directors. But as someone who quit a production, maybe the two of them just are like, hey! Exactly. I think he is a guy who thrives on tension

and is fighting himself and is fighting the production and is questioning himself and is always trying to kind of like wiggle out. It feels, I think it's what he's relating to in this movie, not in the intensity of the work, but this guy who is like, I kind of hate what I do. I mean, she sent him, this is so funny,

an audio file, not visual file, like not a video of fireworks. And she was like, this is what's in his head all the time. And Joaquin Phoenix was like, yeah, I get that. Like, rather than Rocky Phoenix being like, like, what? Like, Joaquin Phoenix is like that really clicked for me. They feel really sympathico. She just talked so glowingly of how little tension there was and how collaborative everything was. And then he, like, promoted this movie hard.

It was a thing she called out where she was like, I know. he hates this shit and he's loath to do it and usually he's doing interviews with a gun to his head and he was like going to like angelica screenings opening weekend and doing Q&As and shit because he was like I'm proud of this and I want people to see it yeah he's incredible in it to talk about you mentioned that in the book his physicality is described a little more uh like traditional like action heroie this is the thing that you and I talk about a lot the the way he uses his body in this movie. The like, first of all, he's got like a, he's got like a punch.

Yeah. And like a very broad scarred back. And I genuinely think if he had been like shredded, he wouldn't be nearly as scary or powerful looking as he is in this movie. The one thing I love in the book is when he's describing his exercise routine. And he says that one thing he works on a lot is his grip strength. Handball. Because his favorite thing, once.

he's in a fight is to break someone's fingers. Because he's like, even the toughest guy in the world when they look down and see their finger facing the wrong direction, it really gives them pause. Yeah. And he's like, fighting is like a dance and you need to hold hands with your partner. It always ends up happening. You always end up holding hands with your partner. But he's like the only exercise he does is like squeezing like handballs.

But I believe that from like the Joaquin version. It looks like that kind of powerful. This is what's interesting. It has that detail. And then it says like, but in spite of that being the only. exercise he does. He's 190 pounds. He's got zero body fat, you know, whatever. And like, you and I always go, like, this is one of the smartest physical transformations an actor has ever done because it is counterintuitive. And so often it feels gimmicky. It feels like actors needing

a place to put their energy, but then also kind of wanting the lot of it's from like, look at how much I took on. Yeah. And what I put myself through. I need credit for like the preparation. It has to be visible to you how much I did. to get ready. And there's a vanity to it, even when the vanity is, look at how much less attractive I made myself or whatever it is. And this is just like really fucking logical story stuff in a movie where this guy's not going to talk much and where you need to just build up a sense of like who he is from

every movement in a history, you're like, yeah, this is actually the scariest version of this guy. His strength isn't rippling muscles. No, he just, yeah, he's just this solid mass of person. The way Ramsey puts it is like he shows up, because they talk about it for the prep or whatever. And Joaquin is like, I do want him to feel big, but not like in this Hollywood body way and it's like midlife way. And Ramsey's like, he looks like a maintenance worker. I was like so happy.

I loved it. He wanted to keep the belly and like wanted her to show it. You know what I mean? Like he was like, can you show the belly as much as he can? Yeah. Lynn calls it like body armor. She says he's kind of like hunchback in Notre Dame. He's kind of like Harvey Keitel in the piano, this kind of like girthy guy, like who's just kind of like solid, as you guys are saying.

And he like looks like a guy sleeping in a train station. You know, he looks like he's like wearing. He is a, he's not quite a full, I'm crossing the street in New York guy because there's a lot of guys in New York and you can kind of. But like he's a, I might keep like one eye on him if he was like or not look at him. Or not look at him. glance and go, okay, let me just not draw the attention of this person at all. We'll just, I don't need to cross the street, but we're just going to hopefully not exist to one another. And one of those guys where you're like, is the threat to me or to him, you know, is like, is this guy hair trigger in a way where he could, like, within five seconds turn and attack me?

Or am I about to watch someone have a mental breakdown? Yeah. There's something about how he walks that communicates danger. And I don't. It's so subtle. I don't know how, but it is just a thing where we pick up on. This ain't right. This guy ain't walking happy.

He's, no, he's, because he's walking with, he has a single purpose. Yeah. Yes. And he, and it's just communicated through every,

like, inch of the way he moves. And also, after he becomes injured in the movie, yeah. And his face is fucked up. Yeah. And the way that he talks,

and also the way he holds the pain in his gate and in the way he moves through the other interactions of like, I am moving. I am wounded. Yeah. But I am still. driven is like so fucking again like uh it's it's perfect like i feel it i feel it's feeling he's he's an actor who can do a lot i feel like that's where you sometimes bounce off him

david when you feel like he's overly mannered and manic and just kind of being weird for the sake of weird if he hasn't identified a realistic center is that what is your hesitation let me let me let me let me talk if i'm gonna yeah you know uh because i'm trying to think like when was I getting really sick of him when I was sort of throwing out my my hand it was sort of immigrant I feel like you were I feel like you were sort of postmaster the master performance as well I mean I really love that movie obviously it's and I think his performance is good but it is I think about that one it's a lot in juxtaposition to this one where it's like there he he looks pretty frail he's sort of like crazy and also like violent but he also feels like

he could be a victim at any moment too. Like, he's sort of in this, in this weird, in between space. And then this, he's a completely different physical human. He sure is. I mean, I don't like her. I don't think he's bad in that movie. I also have not seen that movie since 2013. So I don't have, like, a fresh take on it.

But this is all the post I'm still here. Well, yeah. Pre I'm still here, I think my take on Joaquin was like, He's like, you know, he's like a sort of interesting star who puts the little English on it. Like, you know, like, and I like the science performance. Yeah. I like the village performance. Okay.

I mean, that's, those, that, the movie where the boys are kind of pretty heavily cooked. What's the one? Yeah. I really love We on the Night. That's the one where he also feels like that. He's like a sort of tough, big enforcer guy in that. Yeah. It feels like so substantial.

And he kind of blows Walberg off the screen in that movie. Like, Walver's not, like, bad, but Walbrook's pretty, like, kind of doing a standard thing in it, and Joaquin's pretty interesting. James Gray, obviously, one of the other guys he is just, like, completely in sync with. They get each other. Yeah, he's always. When's the last time they work together? I guess it's been a while. Yeah.

I mean, look, I mean, now he's become. Since the immigrant. Yeah. He really does. I know he's always been a handful, but he really does seem like he's become quite a handful. Mm-hmm. I really like him in Bo and Napoleon. I liked him a lot in Eddington.

I can't really stand the Joker performances They like totally pissed me off It's the bad version of what we're talking about It's like just trying to get him to do the tricks I didn't really like come on come on But that wasn't I mean he's fine That felt like kind of dime store Phoenix to me And I was just like this is fine

But like I'm not moved I think it's all it's all just Joker lashback That you're feeling Well I don't like that the Joker is so He's so beloved by some of the worst people and that what he is doing in that, as you said, is just like just a bag of tricks without substance underneath.

And it is some of his master physicality and some of his, you know, like, you were never really here damage. And it's just this like, you know, collection of parts that don't really work together. Right, but it's a lot of acting. And I also think, like, it is very... Todd Phillips is kind of exploiting him in that movie.

Like it feels like he is pushing him to do things in scenes that do not dramatically make sense to show off the range of what he can do in a way that's just like, well, that's like an engaging three minutes of footage that makes this character make less sense than he did a scene ago. Would you feel differently if I told you

that he didn't think the Joker was very good? I have heard similar things. I have heard quite, quite a few stories about him seeing the first cut of the movie or rather, you know, the near final cut of the film

before it had been seen by people at large and being like, well, we fuck this one up. I guess that's like dead in the water. And then it proceeds to win the Gold Lion and he wins best actor at the Academy Awards.

Well, and it... It was right the first time. There was a bunch of media controversy around it. Yes. And I think... He was like, oh, that narrative is what's going to drive people to see it more than what it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's fascinating. But I don't know. Sure. I'm speculating. We're just speculating. I do, like I'm inclined to say this is a single best performance and it is just. Interesting.

She's, I think, really smart about knowing that he could do all of these things, but that the power comes from holding all of that back. Yeah. Yes. Well, David, you can't say yes. It's not an automatic door. I have to... Who's at the door?

Hey, how's it going, guys? And who are you? Who am I? I don't know. I'm a cool dude. My name is rich, young nephew penny bags. Okay, so instead of being old uncle penny bags, you're sort of like a new, younger, kind of hip-up poochified. Right.

I would say poochie's kind of nephew pennybagsified. But yes, rich uncle penny-fied. bags for the Monopoly game is my uncle. And, you know, I can't take anything away from his success in his career, but I like to do things a little bit differently. I like your chain wallet. I like your board shorts. Thank you.

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