The Daily Zeitgeist - Movies That Built The Zeigeist With Griffin and Ben from Blank Check 08.26.25

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

In episode 1920, Jack and guest co-host Mort Burke are joined by the producer and host of Blank Check, Ben Hosley & Griffin Newman, to discuss… Movies As Cultural Unconscious Factories / Movies That Exist Vs. Don’t, War In Films: Vietnam vs. War On Terror, Where Did All The Sex In Movies Go? And more! LISTEN: Yasashi - Slowed by CXSPERSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I just showed my kids' jaws, which is a big, big moment for me. My kid, I saw it when I was four and, like, watched it 300 times before I was like five, and it was like my personality. Holder of kids. And I, uh, seven and nine. Oh, so you waited. I waited way too long. That's so funny.

And their cousins had just showed them the Meg and the Meg two. They were like, why is the sharks so small? They were like, I think they were sparing my feelings when they said this. They were like, it's not as good as the Meg too, but it is better than the Meg. And I think they were lying. I think they like both Megs better than Jaws, which fucking sucks. I'm trying to remember what the specific was, but my 10-year-old little cousin has had a thing like that where I was trying to explain to him why a movie was good. And he was citing like, but I've seen movies that are newer than what you're describing where the characters are big.

bigger. It wasn't Godzilla, but it was something like that where he was just like, that's not that tall. But I've seen this with the rock in it. Have you decided on an age you're going to show your kids gummo? That was in infancy. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. Everything's built on gummo. Yeah, their whole personalities are gumbo based. Hello, it's Danielle Fischel. Writer Strong. And Wilfredel from PodMeets World. We are back in Las Vegas and giving the people what they want, a full week of Y2K content.

Tell me why. Well, for the Backstreet Boys residency, it's fear, of course. We joke and say this is our second marriage, but it takes a lot of communication. Plus, it's carrot top, baby. And finally, Ashley Simpson Ross joins us to talk about her upcoming sold-out Vegas residency. Listen to PodMeets World on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's Black Business Month, and Money and Wealth Podcast with John Hope Bryant is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between. Black and brown communities have historically been last in life. Let me just say this.

AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to Money and Wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Noah and I'm 13, and I started this podcast because honestly adults don't ask the right questions. Now you know with Noah de Barroso is a show about influence.

Who's got it, how they use it, and what it means for the rest of you. It's not the news. It's what the news should be if someone Gen Z or Gen Alpha made it. politics is wild and I'm definitely not here to payment but I'm here to make sense of it listen to Now You Know with Noah de Barroso on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Hello, the internet and welcome to season 403, episode two of Durdayleyside Geist. It's a production of IHeartRadio. It's a podcast where you take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness and it is Tuesday, August 26, 2025. Happy birthday to my sister Shannon

August 26. Happy belated to super producer Justin Connor! Whose birthday is the 24th? 24th. Nailed it. And with such confidence, too. My name is Jack O'Brien, aka Thaya Labuff. That's courtesy of Lockerone on the Discord

in reference to the fact that I have big caked-up milky white thighs and Miles, my co-host, before our creative partnership was in a group with Shia LaBuff. Wow. Yeah. I didn't know that.

I'm kind of like the sequel to Shia LaBuff. Yeah, you are. With big caked up, thick, milky white fries. And I would argue more abusive. Yeah. We're not letting people in on that side. Mort. Thrill to be joined in our second seat by a very funny comedian, actor, writer, improviser,

filling in for Miles, who's out on assignment. His special spiritual filthy, very funny. today's very special guest co-host It's Mort Burr! Wurr! Wurrp! Lerp! Mort Berk!

I always want to say your name like Christopher Wacken in... What's the movie where he keeps exclaiming things? A lot of different movies. Catch me if you can. I feel like, Mort Burke! It's Mort Burke! I liked how you had to find the Christopher Wackett movie.

He always sounds exactly like Christopher Wacken, no matter what. It's not like a change. What's the one where he talks like Christopher Wachin? Yeah. There's one where his voice is weird. Which one is that? Mort, we're thrilled to be joined in our third and fourth seats by two of the creators behind my very favorite podcasts.

One of the best podcasts, podcasts is doing it anywhere on a fucking heater right now, you guys, with the fucking Cohen brothers. Please welcome from Blank Check. It's producer Ben Hosley and Griffin Newbe. What's that? Thank you for the very kind of words. Oh, you've been unbelievably supported of us over the years in many ways. And it's been hard. It's been cast out of society.

I came to you late, and it is, I absolutely love it. I love rediscovering, discovering, like, I hadn't really watched a lot of Miyazaki before I heard you guys a series on Miyazaki. It's been so cool to, like, have the knowledge that comes from your podcast and, like, introduce my kids to Miyazaki, like, when they're at the, you know, age. Ponyo is my seven-year-old's favorite movie. So that's been, it's just been a very cool thing. And I love movies. And it's, it's a total blast. You guys are, uh, you had Seth Rogan on the Big Lobosky episode. That episode just dropped yesterday. Yesterday. Yeah. Zach Crager on the Fargo episode, the week that weapons like was destroying the box office. And, It made all the money.

They got every, every dollar. There's no money left. Nope. Yeah, it's sad kind of. But we're all happy for it also. I'm happy for him. I couldn't have gone to a nicer guy. Yeah.

Yeah, he seems super nice. I had forgotten that he came from the way his kids, you know. People keep asking us because we have had quite a sounding run of guests in short order. And they're like, oh, you guys are really leveling up. What changed? And we're like, literally, it's just we're doing the Kohn brothers. Right. Yeah.

And that a lot of these people are folks that we've been, like, messaging with for a couple years. We found at some point listen to the podcast. And they're like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't do that many podcasts. Or I don't know if I should talk about someone else's work. Right. Or, you know, I'm waiting for a film that's really one of my favorites. And we like, we do a March Madness thing every year. Once a year, we let our listeners vote on which director we're going to cover next. And we do a whole career. We go through every film, one episode at a time. And they voted for Cohen brothers and their infinite wisdom this year. And like suddenly five of our dream guests were like, oh, sure. It just opened all the doors.

Yeah. I mean, at a time where it's like can be a little bit challenging to be real proud of America. It's like, you know, the Cohn brothers make us feel good about living in a big part. Yeah. They're also in a weird state right now where like Ethan just released a movie that he directed with his wife. Right. And Joel is about to start directing a new film. I think that he's, that Francis is starring in or at least producing.

Yeah. So they're in this. sabbatical of working separately of both becoming life guys, which has made their core filmography of the like 21 movies they made together. I think feel like a little bit more of a totemic fixed work. We're all hoping they will eventually make things together again. But I think it puts them in an interesting place to talk about all those films. Your reader or your listeners nailed it in terms of the timing of this is like so perfect. And to your point, getting back to Fargo and Big Lobowski these past two weeks,

has just been nice. Like, those are so foundation, like, more foundational than I realize. Like, obviously, their movies I've seen 100 times. But, like, just re-watching them. I'm like, oh, I think about this line

five times a day. Like, I think about, like, this is, like, my brain is made out of these two movies, like, in a way that I hadn't fully appreciated. It was crazy, like, I'm learning in real time trying to remind myself, you can't say, to say Seth and not Rogan, because if you talk about podcasting

with Rogan, people jump to a different assumption, even though St. Seth feels overly from all year. But he was talking about how many things in his career and all the movies he's gotten to make are pulled directly from Lubowski. Super open about that. Not even in homage ways, but like that's so effective. I want something like this and using that and talking to different departments or directors. Showing a scene to the person who's working on the scene with him being like this is what we're doing. And he had like 20 examples of that. And then it also felt like there were 20 examples he in real time realized. Yeah.

Oh, I didn't even figure out that. Right. Yeah. The Super Bad Trifecta is kind of similar to the Donnie Waltz. Right. McLevin trifecta. You know that like. Yeah, man.

I saw Big Lobowski nine times in the theater. That's wild. Yeah. Because it flopped. Yeah, I know. And me, we were at like my sister, I had seen Blood Simple. My sister, whatever, she was cool. She showed me these like cool indie films, you know.

And then just a sad little high school nerd in my friend Paul went and we're like are we insaneers it's the greatest movie of all time like what we we thought we were yeah so i'm very proud of being ahead of the curve that's a real bragging right thing because people were not with it but yeah and seeing that it was it's so beautiful and hilarious right yeah yeah they weren't on do i i want to talk about that because it definitely is a movie that has like pervaded the culture in a way that's crazy even though it was like a box office flop so i want to talk about the concept that you guys talk about about like whether a movie exists or not.

But, so we're going to just talk movies with you guys, specifically, like, how they interact with the zeitgeist, because that's what our show is about. I could talk to you guys all day about blank check, but it probably wouldn't be fair to our listeners, and they can go listen to fucking blank check if they want to. But before we get into that stuff, we do like to get to know our guests a little bit better by asking you guys, if there's anything from your search history, that you could share that would be revealing about who you are or what you're up to, preferably, just like as embarrass me. I mean, you're already teeing up the notion of movies that don't exist, which is a term we

throw out a lot for a movie that just has no cultural stickiness whatsoever. Yeah, like, what's a recent example? Well, I'm about to, I'm about to get to this. Okay. It's in my recent search history. Oh, wow. But we were very particular about how we define this. We stumbled on to that we've tried to refine the definition as time goes on because it can't be just a movie that's obscure, right? That's a movie that people never knew about. A movie that does exist as telling someone, do you know there was like a $150 million snake eyes movie, a G.I. Joe spin-off. That was the third live action G.I. Joe starring Henry Golding from Crazy Rich Asians. And it came out and no one gave a shit, right? I remember the trailer and that's it.

But that's, yeah, a key to a movie that doesn't exist is either you drove past billboards for it for months. Sure. And with a gun to your head, you would swear that never happened. Right. Or, if I describe the elements to you, you go, if that had happened, I would have known about it. Right. The amount of money they spent in this movie could have put a serious dent in poverty.

Right. Another one I always throw out. That's one way to put it. Yeah. Not as big of a budget, but one I always throw out is no one believes that there was a Benedict Cumberbatch,

Julian Assange biopic, that came out 15 years ago and was released by Walt Disney Pictures. 15 years? I think it was like, it was early. It was like 2010 or 2011. Wow. It's called, I think, the fifth estate.

I think that's right. Directed by Bill Condon of Dreamgirls. Right. And of course. Well, you don't need to say this. We all know this. But here's an ultimate movie that doesn't exist. But here, the other night,

hanging out with friends out here, made a reference, of course, to the-12 years ago. 12 years ago. Jesus Christ. Wow. That's crazy. But you would say if that had happened, I would have known about it. Yeah.

He would have, like, got nominated or something like that. Absolutely. He kind of looks like Julian Assange. Yep, whatever great actors, you know, a huge story. It does not exist. My most recent Google search is five below Nutmobile because I made a reference to the infamous Nutmobile and everyone said, what are you talking about? And I went, of course, the star vehicle from Netflix's, the electric state. The electric state. Which of course is.

the biggest and most watched movie of all time. Sure. It's one of the most expensive films ever made with an all-star cast and the directors of Avengers. Chris Brack and Millie Bobby Brown, but also like Ki-Huan and Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackey, like everyone's in that movie. What is it about?

It's about, I have not seen it. It doesn't exist. This came out this very spring. Nobody has, in fact. It is like a post-apocalyptic the robots have gotten sentient and taken over, but the robots in this, universe are not like Terminator robots. They are like animatronic mascots.

So it's like theme park robots and promotional robots. So Woody Harrelson is the voice of Mr. Peanut. Literally Mr. Peanut and like an old vintage World's Fair kind of like actual Mr. Peanut. Yes. Who now has sentience. And all the robots are like that. And so Mr. Peanut, of course, drives the Nutmobile.

And if you go into any five below store, my favorite retail chain, they sell five. dollar remote control nutmobile cars that are just stacked up they cannot get rid of these fucking things and it's just you see a box that says the nutmobile and is shaped like a giant peanut and has a robot mr peanut and it's from the hit Netflix film electric state and you're like none of this exists yeah i could bring this object into the room and you guys would call bullshit yeah that's all false i've got a lot of money actually invested in those nut mobiles so this is this is bad news that they're not uh selling like hot cakes i've got like i feel like mr peanut would have driven a Model T or something.

Not Mobile. With like a fun, old-timey horns. Yeah. And like a puffing, like a like a smoke stack with the like. So like the Weiner Mobile basically is the like a winner mobile for Mr. Piano. It's a big shelled. Yeah. Yeah.

We were talking on this morning's trending, trending episode about K-pop demon hunters and how that's like about to become Netflix, Netflix's most watched movie. catching red notice which is, so this gets into one of my questions that I have later that I'll tee up now and then we can talk about later, but like, do movies exist in the same way

if they only come out on streaming? Because red notice for me does not exist. Maybe I'm old. Agree. Like it just like doesn't exist the same way that like a blockbuster movie would have that like actually came out in theaters. It absolutely does not exist. It is aided in not existing

by Dwayne Johnson two years later making red one for Amazon. which also feels like it doesn't exist. Right. And those two movies get mush together in people's brains. That's the Santa movie? Yes. But the like, which one's Chris Evans, which one's Ryan Reynolds,

which red movie for which streamer that I was told was the biggest thing of all time. Right. And then there are the red movies with the retired assassins. Right. There's red and red too. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of red stuff going on.

I read this interview recently where. Red. Red. He read an interview. I mean, how fuck were we supposed to keep any of this screen, you guys? And that's the biggest movie Apple's ever released? It's a guy reading an interview. Four trillion minutes, watch.

Ron Howard did this really good interview with New York Magazine on the eve of his new film coming out, which came out this weekend. It barely made any sort of splash called Eden, which is a movie starring Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney, Sweeney, and Anadormis. Nope. Nothing. I got nothing. Crazy.

Like, three of the most lusted after women are in this movie that is highly sexual. And I believe all three of them have nude scenes. And this movie came out in a thousand screens and made like $4. Right. And Ron Howard, like, has Ron Howard made a movie that doesn't exist up to this point? I would argue the other one is he did his cave diver rescue movie. We were like Vigo Mortensen and Colin Farrell. And there's a third big star in that.

Maybe Joel Edgerton. Right. And that got dumped on Amazon and have the same thing. And I had friends who saw it earlier screenings and were like, this is going to win best picture. Wow. And then like five weeks later, it was like, nobody knows anything. Put in theaters for four days with no promotion and then went out on Amazon and no one watched it. Right.

Yeah. And I think the way Ron Howard blew the, the Eden thing is he didn't do a Ron Howard nude scene. I feel like that would have sent anybody running. Or Clint. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's soft as bubble gum.

But it's like, here's like America's like, you know. know, kind of, it's opi, right? Right. And he made, like, a crazy island orgy movie. Wow. And friends of ours have been like, it's good. It's really interesting. Like, he's never made anything like this before.

And it's based on a true story about people who got, like, stranded on an island trying to build her own society. And it's just like nothing, right? Wow. And he talked about, Hillbilly Elogy went to Netflix, obviously saved America. Yeah. The cave movie, which I already forget the title of, is called something ours. It's a number.

I think it's the cave movie. that went to Amazon kind of didn't exist. He hasn't had a theatrical movie since Solo, a Star Wars story, which also... Also, like, doesn't exist for a Star Wars movie. It exists primarily in that it doesn't exist. Right. Like, we're constantly talking about, isn't it weird that that happened? Yeah.

And we forget about it, which means we remember forgetting about it. Right. Which I also think is a thing that can't be the case with a movie that doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. It still exists in that it... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Right.

But so Eden, they were like, you know, you had a couple big. movies go to streamers for a lot of money. And this, you're having like vertical, which it's like a very small distributor release it and like a not huge number of screens. What's the balance for you used to be such a big studio guy? And he said my experience from making a couple streaming movies in a world, in a row in this world, is that it's like publishing a book and not going to hardcover first. There was no object permanence to the movie. Right. When it just goes up on streaming. Yeah. And I think it will benefit us in the long term if we're releasing a handful with theaters, even if no one goes to see it, and then it goes up on a streaming service.

Now, Netflix and these places love to tout, like, this is our biggest runaway success. Sure. And their data, whatever, you know, there's no transparency in this. Who knows if we can believe them or not? But you look at something like K-pop Demon Hunters, and even before they decide to put it in theaters for exactly 48 hours. Yeah. It was clear it existed, right?

They're telling us, like, everyone's watching Red Notice. You don't talk to a single person to see Red Notice. I don't know anyone. Never met anybody. You talk to people go, I put that on 15 minutes. I think fucking sucks. I turned it off. Right.

Right. Did like 8 trillion people turn it off after 15 minutes and they're counting that? Yeah. But K-topped demon hunters without going to theaters first, it's clear like this organically caught a wave. Yeah. It has like seeped into the zeit guys. Despite what Netflix did. No like press ahead of it.

Just like suddenly my kids are constantly listening to it and like two of the songs are on the Billboard top 10 right now. Right. That's crazy. Yeah. Only getting bigger. Yeah. And they conceded. and they were like six weeks after it went up,

we're going to put it in theaters for two days as a sing-along version. Right. And it was the number one movie in America. Right. But no one knows how to report on this because Netflix won't admit that it made that money. Right.

Yeah. So they're like maybe weapons of the number one movie in America because they're hiding how much money it made. They secretly released a movie. And everyone was like, well, they'll keep it in theaters and keep making money. Nope. Pulled 48 hours sing-along version now on Netflix.

They don't want to concede that putting things in theaters might be good. Right. Ben. What's up? Your answer has to be the same length. What is something from your search history?

That's revealing about who you are. Okay. I've got some options here. Let's see. Well, I think, yeah, strawberry glaze airwant. Strawberry glaze, Airwain. Which is, of course, the Haley Beaver. The Haley Beaver, yes.

Because I'm in town, right? You got to do it. That's right. Staying the Silver Lake. What am I going to do? I'm going to walk over to Airwine. You're going to get glazed. Yeah.

And I got glazed. Now, all right, here's, I'm glowing. Absolutely glowing. I look. You look beautiful. I look incredible. Yeah, right now. I know.

Yep. You're not sitting on, you're sitting one inch above the chair that you seem to be sitting and you're just hovering above it. Yeah. Like a hoverboard. Your eyes are the blue of a moonlit ocean. That's how to describe your radiance. I appreciate all the lights in the studio because it was blowing out.

Yeah, exactly. It's actually angelic where it's like you can kind of just hear faintly like, Yeah, there's a harmony to it. Yeah, you're like the goat from cocoon or whatever. From Howard, there you go. Yeah. But I feel like that just says about me like, I'm a guy who takes care of himself. That's right.

Yeah. $20. $20. And it's an investment in yourself. Exactly. It's the thing that, like, when we have families visit us, the children all are like, okay, like, first stop. Let's go get the, the Haley Bieber. That is the only, like, I.

always feel bad when people come to L.A. Like, I went and visited my sister in New York for the past week, and, like, there's just nonstop shit to do. And then you come to L.A. and you're like, you don't want to go to Hollywood. And, like, there's some cool parks, but there's also cool parks in New York. What else? What else? The beach is kind of far

away. But don't go at this time. Right. But the Haley Beaver. I had to do it. The best. Another thing I noticed, no shopping carts. No. Because I assume if you used the shopping cart and filled it, it would cost you $2,000.

Yeah, at least. Yeah, yeah. It's physically impossible to, like, pay for the something that would fill a shopping cartonaire wine. It's like they've never. I also just want to share, I'm pretty proud that I bought the most expensive water, which, of course, it was $12. Yes. Good. You're making all the right decision.

Yeah. Are you thinking about moving out here? Maybe? This feels like you're ready. Yeah, after a few glasses of orange wine, I mean, it just all of a sudden it starts a hit for me. Yeah. You're going to very soon. develop a really deep interest

in cosmetic surgery. You have a huge, fat, beautiful lips next time. I see you. Ben's got bookehold. Thick calves and like just a big fat ass. And a BBL. Yeah. Absolutely. That's right.

My thighs are natural, by the way. In case I know. Your milky-caped-up thighs are natural. All right. We're at the 20-minute mark. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back and do some overrated, underrated, and maybe get to some other stuff that I've dying to ask you guys. We'll be right back.

Hello, it's Danielle Fischel. Writer Strong. And Wilfredel from Podmeet's World. And we're bringing you Viva Las Content. That's right. We are back in Las Vegas, the city of Sin, and giving the people what they want. A full week of Y2K content. Wait, we're back in Vegas? Tell me why. Well, for the Backstreet Boys residency at Sphere, of course. We sat down with Kevin Richardson and A.J. McLean just minutes before they took the stage, and our very own Wilfredel basically became the newest member of the band. Boy band, please.

Plus, the man who has the longest running comedy show on the strip joins us and gets his props. It's carrot top, baby. And finally, we all L-O-V-E-Hur, Ashley Simpson-Ross, joins us to talk about her upcoming sold-out Vegas residency. It's a full week of nostalgic interviews you don't want to make. Listen to PodMeets World on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Noah. I'm 13. And as you might have seen from the news, I got a podcast. And I explain those fake headlines like your uncle would. Like your cousin would if he actually did the research. Honestly, adults don't ask the right questions. Now you know with Noah de Barroso is a show about influence.

Who's got it, how they use it, and what it means for the rest of you. It's not the news. It's what the news should be if someone Gen Z or Gen Alpha made it. When I'm watching everything. Sheesh. Majority of the youth, 18 through 24, say they trust Republicans more than Democrats to front the economy. You kidding. Politics is wild and I'm definitely not here to pay it, but I'm here to make sense of it. Just what's happening, why it matters and what it means for us.

Bring your brain. Listen to Now You Know with Noah de Barossa on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. We all know, right, genius is evenly distributed. Opportunity is not. It's Black Business Month and Black Tech Green Money is tapping in. I'm Will Lucas spotlighting Black founders, investors, and innovators, building the future, one idea at a time.

Let's talk legacy, tech, and generational wealth. I don't think any person of any gender, race, ethnicity should alter who they they are, especially on an intellectual level or a talent level, to make someone else feel comfortable just because they are the majority in this situation and they need employment. So for me, I'm always going to be honest in saying that we need to be unapologetically ourselves. If that makes me a vocal CEO and people consider that rocking the boat, so be it.

To hear this and more on the power of black innovation and ownership, listen to Black Tech Green Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everyone, it's Janae, aka Cheekies from Cheekies and Chill Podcasts. And I'm launching an all new mini podcast series called Sincerely Jeannay. Sure, I'm a singer, author, businesswoman, and podcaster. But at the end of the day, I am human. And that's why I'm sharing my ups and doubts with you guys.

Hi, guys. I was sitting here recording episodes of Dear Cheekies and Cheekies and Chill. And I just had to take a time out and purge my thoughts and feelings here on Sincerely Janay, because I've been so emotional lately, you guys. Whether I'm in my feels, I've just had a breakthrough with my therapist, or I've just had a really deep conversation with my siblings, or I'm in glam getting ready for an award show. I'm sharing my most intimate thoughts with you on the podcast.

You guys know I always keep it real with you guys, but this time I'm taking it to the next level. Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. and we're back and ben let's stay on you what's something you think is underrated what is underrated um what does it mean even you know yeah totally trying to think of maybe like a band certainly not that smoothie it feels like it feels like the baby or smoothie was yeah i mean not enough people are talking about it and i do feel like it's

So, like, kind of underground. Yeah. I'm trying to do my part to sort of help. Hollywood's best kept secret. Yeah. Spread the gospel of it. It's like the punk scene in the 70s. Yeah, yeah.

Like, people who know, no, but... Only 100 people have ever had the Haley Bieber smoothie, but every one of them went on to make a great smoothie. You had to be there. You had to be there. That's right. I mean, that's, I think, one of the most underrated things we have going. Is the Haley Biers smoothie.

Maxis, Kansas City. And she was just there with a ball. blender and we're like, what's she doing? We've never seen anything like this before. David Byrne was there watching. Right, right. I guess with this sort of line that we have going here, I'll say pizza is really underrated. I just feel like, you know, it's one of those things too.

Like, not enough people really are having it. Yeah, I just found out about it when I was back in New York this week. Yeah, it's one of our things. It's kind of the Haley Bieber smoothie of New York. I guess, all right, this is actually, this is actually hard to admit, but I will say the L.A. Bagels, I went to. I believe Bells and Highland Park, so good. In a way, whereas you're a bagel boy.

Big time. I got to admit, they're hitting. They're doing, they're definitely making me think like, yeah, where do they compare with New York? Does Larry King's New York water bagel still exist out here? I'm not familiar. Okay. It wasn't Larry King branded when I. He was a primary investor.

I guess his name was not on it. Okay. But he was a big driving force behind it. Yeah, because he complained that living in L.A. for decades, he had never gotten a bagel as good as back in New York. And he came to the same conclusion, we all have, that it's about the water. Right. The New York water. Yeah.

And so he started a company where he claimed that he was working with an inventor who had built a machine that could convert L.A. water into New York water. Wow. And that was their big selling point is like, the water is right. I was going to build a pipeline like Daniel Plainview. Just like straight from New York. Shipping water. I like that Larry King has a friend who's even crazier than Larry King. He was like, I got this invention.

It's a water mover. There is one of those water bagel places in Westchester. I used to live over there. And I would go there with some consistency. I'm going to say it's like, I'm going to say seven out of ten bagel. Okay. Maybe. Not bad.

Not bad. That's not bad. Yeah. By the way, the secret of the machine was you just held some rats over it. It's just like a banana. Peel to New York Water now. Put eutogen in there

and loose canister. Some like sex worker tears. There you. That's New York Water. How about you, what's something you think's underrated? I was genuinely going to say pizza.

Ben stole mine. I was walking towards the same bit. I'm going to say it's not to be just one track about this. Movies. And I think movies are coming back. Okay. But I do think, you know, you hear a lot of the like,

oh, that thing's so long. I got to park I got to sit in a room with strangers got to watch 30 minutes of trailers and I'm like yeah but you know what happens then I get to see a fucking movie A whole ass movie Just one complete thing

That so many people worked on for so long Yep even when they suck It's crazy they did it So much money Yeah I fully agree And like working in Hollywood People don't understand what is happening Like I'll be on TV shows occasionally

And it'll be They'll build an entire your house and then tear it down and then build it again the next week right the amount of craftsmanship that goes into this shit to make it look like nobody worked hard on it is unbelievable yeah and all we got to do is just sit in that room you just got to go to that room you know yeah opening your mouth yeah snacks yeah yeah and we should mention a big screen a big screen a big screen so big silver yeah god damn yeah you're sold your was it your nephew who liked the big the big things and movies yeah so he'd love because the screens are so big i think he'd really like

Did you like that? Yeah. His thing is always who is the biggest? Right. Who is the biggest? It's a good question. I mean, Ant Man got chunky.

Yeah, he did. That's true. Turning him onto Godzilla was a real game changer. But now he's very caught up in the like, which Godzilla's the biggest because Godzilla's been reinvented so many times. There are internal cannons and sub-series within just the Japanese Godzilla's. And he's like,

give me the absolute tallest. I love that you pick movies. It sounds like being like, you know, it's good, music. It's, you know what I mean? But it's, but you, we've been sleeping on it for too long. And I think, like, the zoomers are starting to get it again. You know, they're coming around and they're like, that's fucking, you guys heard about these?

You're acting above this? Right. This is the tits. This is the top of the pile. This slaps, as they often say. Yes. It's a bop. Oh, God, they say that so much.

I have no idea what it means. No. No, he's is a bop. This show is so fucking hip right now. Do you ever just stop and think about the fact that movies are like they had the talkies and then movies was just pictures that move and like how dumb that is? They're just like, these ones move, so we're going to call them move ease. And then when they can, when the pictures that move can talk, we'll call them talkies.

And then we got over that, but stuck with movies. What's something, Griffin, you think, is overrated. TV shows. Fuck yeah. This is, I'm big on this corner. I don't want to go out and watch a movie. I want to, like, invest in something bigger. You want to fucking sit in your couch for 20 hours?

Yes. Watch them just string us along. Yeah. Especially this prestige TV era. I watch these shows. People tell me to watch these shows. I'm like, this shit's a 10-hour movie. And they say that like it's a plus.

Right. That they're getting a better return on their investment. Yep. Like, I can watch multiple different movies in that time. You got 90 minutes a story. That's right. And you're just slowing it way the fuck down. Dude, six episodes are thin times.

Yeah. Yeah, you can always feel it. Like, they're just like, oh, we're going to add, like, a new conflict that comes out of nowhere that's not going to have anything to do with how it ends up. Here's another thing. We've got like three years in between seasons now. The show comes back that I love, I don't remember what the fuck was going on. Yeah, for sure. I can't do this, right?

That's the gap that used to exist between movie sequels. Yeah. That's no seasons of television. Yep. Plus everybody's older. I hate age. I hate age. I don't want to be reminded of my own mortality.

Don't show me. You are an actor who has. been in both movies. I hate anything. I hate anything. I hate anything. Ben, how will you do anything you think is over it? I think this is something you'll agree with me on, Griffin.

It's the summer. It's been quite hot here in L.A. Also in New York. Very hot in New York. Yes. It was actually very temperate when I was back there. Well, I switched with you guys, and I think I got the better end of it this past week. Sorry.

But I feel like in general this summer, I feel like what's been really overrated is leaving the house. Overrated. Overrated. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like I got my cow. It's cold in here. I don't want to go out.

I don't want to get on the subway. You kidding me? Unless you're going to the movies. A movie. That's right. Because the other thing that's great about movies, cold as hell in there. I was going to say, another underrated is air conditioning, pulling off of what Ben's saying.

Movies one of the best places to chill out, to literally chill out, right? If you're like, fuck, I just finish this. My home is here. It's going to be so annoying to get from here to there. Midpoint movie theater. Literally did a midpoint movie. point movie theory to see weapons this weekend sit down for two hours so great drink a soda

yeah man have a little popcorn yeah Jesus Christ it's great the when you see how many like when you look at historical box office and like I think the movie still that sold the most tickets ever has gone with the wind right I believe so

and like back then though you think about what modern movies are competing with it was like that was the only place with air conditioning in the south like can you fucking imagine like how hot that must have been how great it must have been to go see a movie. You either go see a movie or sit on a tree stump. Those are like the two activities. Yeah. And they're overrated underrated. Yeah. Their overrated. It was like sitting on a tree stump. Underrated movies. They had just found out. They had just named them because like looking at pictures versus looking at movies. The pictures that move. All right. So this is continuing on with the subject of, you know, movies that exist versus don't exist. I've been writing and thinking about culture for a long time, and a thing I noticed early on

is that the myths that we, like, encounter, like, the things people believe about stuff that they didn't experience, so, like, history or, like, a foreign country, or, you know, physics, like, just anything. They don't come from, like, school. They come from movies. Like, movies are the thing that, like, writes people's unconscious. So it's, like, yeah, idea of a movie existing versus not existing is so important because the movies that do exist write history essentially like that anytime we were debunking a myth it would be based on something like you couldn't go and be like well people believe this because this is what the book said or this is what the history class said it was like this is what the movie about the thing from history

class said so I and on the other side of that coin I guess is like just hearing the big Labowski and Fargo, like, from episodes and, like, thinking about how much those movies exist. I'm, like, when you talk about movies that don't exist, like, what are the movies that you guys feel like exist the most? Like, you know what I mean? Like, loom the largest. Like, one that I have is just, like, Forrest Gump, like, covers so much fucking ground, so many, like, this big, important moments and, like, so little thought is, like, put into, like, the political content of that. maybe a lot is put in, but it's like so damaging. That movie is

fascinating. It's so interesting. Like how popular and how much ground it tried to cover. Yes. And how much it like did change the entire culture. Right. You know, it's just like people, I think people who are a little younger cannot understand that

that movie played like Avengers Endgame. Right. It was the biggest blockbuster globally. Tom Hanks had won the Oscar the year before and they were like, well, can't not give it to him again. Right. That's the thing they're loath to do.

He won best act two years in a row where they were like, but come on, he's Forrest Gump. Like, look at this guy. He solved all of our problems. Listen to that voice. And we covered it on the podcast a couple years ago. And I swung very negative on it after like loving it as a child, which is also an insane thing to think about that that that movie was something that like everyone took their kids to see.

Yes. And kids were like, I love this. Right. Yeah, yeah. And that like old people were like, finally won the way they used. used to make them. Right, right. You know, and the boomers were like, finally our generation on screen.

Like, everyone came together on this movie. Right. I saw it as a kid and I was like, Lieutenant Dan rocks. I'm into this guy. But, like, it is one of those movies where there are, like, 80 different things in that film that you can reference as shorthand that everyone gets. Right. You know, like, that's part of existing for me.

Not just, like, being able to make a joke about it. But the idea that you can be like, it's kind of like in Forrest Gump, how, you know, and like him running both like the leg brace is coming off as a child and at the end and lieutenant dan and bubba the box of chocolate like the bench the feather like all this stuff you can just like immediately evoke and the book that film is based on is this like very bizarre dark satirical novel my friend reminded me today the opening line of the book is my mama always said life is no box of chocolates and they were like you know what be the opposite That's psycho. The exact opposite. Right. And what if it's like fun and surprising? Forrest Gump goes to the moon and his best friends in orangutangang, and they start like a street band.

Like it's, wait, that's the real plot in the book. And then after the success of the movie, they made a sequel book that is Forrest Gump basically telling you that he's the guy the movie was based on and how his life has been affected by the success of the film now that he has the money from Tom Hanks playing him in a hit. The books are insane. And then they turned it into this thing that became this like, can we make this an inspirational tale that's a kaleidoscopic view of the 1900s and what the soul of America is and whatever? And it just hit, you know? Yeah.

And I think they're movies like that. We talk about this a little in our Lubowski episode, but that it has become a film like The Wizard of Oz where like every single element of it is iconic now. Big LaBausie. Right. Like the look of every character, every line of dialogue, You can reference, like, shot composition. You can reference props, you know?

Like, Wizard of Oz is like that. Big Lobowski's like that. Forrest Gump is like that. I feel like Lobowski, too, is the thing that everyone had on DVD. Yes. It was so omnipresent. And, like, every kid in their college dorm had a copy of Big Lobowski. I watched it, like I said, like, you know, dozens of times.

And I was high every time I saw it when I first saw it. And that was also true of, like, uh the lord of the rings movies i watched the lord of the rings fairly recently i'm like i didn't remember any of that shit but i remembered every line from big labowski and i was like these all live like right in there somehow like there's something about the magic of that movie that's fucking crazy lord of the rings absolutely in the same category and i think it's interesting that like the diminishing returns of the hobbit didn't retroactively affect lord of the rings at all right but i would argue that they were contemporaneous and the harry potter films i think largely

outgrossed the Lord of the Rings films. Right. But the fact that there are seven of them, it dissipates and like you can reference the Harry Potter movies. Right. Right. In a way that is like distinct from the books,

but also not everyone maybe has seen all of them. Right, right. The sanctity of Lord of the Rings being like there were three and once a year at Christmas, we'd check in. It was like jury duty. We all have to see it. We're all excited. Jerry duty with elves, which is kind of just like jury duty.

And you have the tradition of like, Like, most people now, many people now are like, yeah, of course, every Christmas I watch all three of them. Right. And the extended cuts, you know? I think especially the 90s Disney Renaissance, I think like Little Mermaid Beauty and the Beast Aladdin are very much in that canon. Yes. And Lion King. Aladdin, you guys are talking about on the Big Lobosky episode that that gave us proud boys.

A deleted scene from that gave us the proud boys. Like, it's like so embedded in our consciousness. Disney, I think, is the most in there. Like, in the just, like, shared consciousness. It's just, like, you can't fucking get that out of there. People, you talk about Disney, write about Disney. Everybody, like, has an opinion. Everybody's seen it.

It just, like, lives in people's brains. And Proud Boys is, like, a great example of that. If you're, like, Aladdin's so powerful, the things that aren't in the movie have the power to destroy our culture. It's so fucked up. Yeah, the other one that I was thinking about that's, like, totally different, but sort of the same is that the Truman show, like

the idea of the Truman show, either it was like so of the moment or it like just went into people's brains in such a way. That like that became a common psychosis for people to have for like a decade. They just like saw

a spike and like an increase of people thinking they were on the Truman show. It's a diagnosable condition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. No, that that one is huge, but it is interesting where I'm like how much of that is almost by osmosis. Right. You know, like I think you can say to anyone Truman Show and have them understand

what that means, and yet I think some of the finer details in the movie you could throw at someone and they go, what are you talking about? Sure. Either they saw it at the time and they forgot or I don't know if it's like carried on generationally. Right. But there are things like that of like, another one I'm fascinated by is like a reviled movie that was a total flop, pay it forward. You can reference a pay it forward and people know what you're talking about.

Oh, yeah. Even though most people haven't seen the movie. Right. Sometimes there's a core idea that isn't dramatized well. Right. That still ends up butterfly effect, bucket list, you know,

like some of these things. Butterfly effect is a real one. Yeah, I hear about that all the time from people. I've never seen butterfly effect, but like that is the version of that concept that I'm like, just go with Ian Malcolm from fucking Jurassic Park.

Yeah. That's a movie that's in there. Sometimes a trailer can hit a zeitgeist in a way the movie doesn't bring in. And maybe it's an idea that existed before, but the trailer synthesized it in a way or gave it a clean name that made it easy to understand. I think that's such part of it. Like the way that we, you know, in German, they have the long words that mean 11 things all at once. We don't have that. So we need this touchstone to be like, oh, that's a pay it forward.

It makes me think of, and I haven't seen this either, but is it eat, live, pray, love. Eat, pray, love. Yeah. Eat, pray, love. eat live pray love eat live love die repeat but that feels like a thing too

where it's become like part of like someone how they approach travel yes eat pray love I'm living that eat pray love life never seen it but I know exactly what that is yeah Groundhog Day another one where you're like that movie is beloved and fairly universal and yet you can't deny the concept

of a Groundhog Day is bigger than the movie yes you know even for a film that is big when I saw like Truman Show means something even larger. When I saw Palm Springs, I was like, oh, this should just, Groundhog Day should be its own genre of movies.

Like, we just, like, one of these should come out every couple months. Right, tomorrow you're like, oh, right, we haven't done like aliens. Totally. War Groundhog Day yet. It's such a good idea. It's hard to make it bad.

You'd be like, well, if we did it with ninjas, you'd like, not, it'd still be great. You can do Groundhog Day with anything. It'd be amazing. Or maybe it's part of a series of just, like, kind of, like, weird holidays where we, like, then we do an Arbor Day. Mm-hmm.

You've been pitching this for a while. I have. Yeah, you're really pushing it. Yeah. Please get in touch. Days of the week. It's also interesting. You read about both Truman Show and Groundhog Day and both were spec scripts that were

originally written as like paranoid conspiracy thrillers with those premises. We're like halfway through, if not later, the audience and the character figure out what's going on. And in both cases, people are like, huh, we're definitely going to buy that idea from you. Yeah. And then rework it into something else entirely. like there are these cases of a bad script with an idea that is so powerful that they're like purchased rebuild from ground up yeah right what's actually the version of this that works and then both are utilizing these huge comedy stars to play these roles that are like comedic partially yes right true on show is the other one ground hug day and what was the yeah those paranoid that's so interesting it feels like Arnold Schwarzenegger as just a personality and then all of his movies like obviously this there's some that maybe aren't as much like part of what we're talking about. But it feels like he is so just ingrained and his movies are there's so many I can think

of that everyone knows. You say this and get a friend of ours who works on the podcast, his young son was talking about Super Bowl ads that he thought were funny. And he went, there was this one with this big guy who had a funny voice. Yeah. And like he said State Farm in a funny way. And our friend was like, that's Arnold Schwarzenegger, you fool. And he just thought it was like a Comedia del Arcti archetype or something, you know?

So, like, in a way, Arnold has become a little abstracted. And you could point back and be like, do you know what the Terminator is? That's this guy. And he would probably know Terminator from parodies rather than seeing them. But I think Terminator's another idea that's like very sticky. Terminator 2 is like, I feel like I'd put it in that. family of like forest gont like just there are moments in that that just live in every like i feel like everybody's version of a thermonuclear nuclear detonation is the playground from

like that's what's in everybody's brand titanic also like there are eight trillion lines and images and moments in that that are universal right and evergreen yeah i remember reading a trend where people were like yo titanic is based on a true story Like a few years after it came out. Anyways. But that's like what you're saying about the sort of like print the legend legacy of these things. Yeah. I mean, my favorite movie about what you're talking about is Inglorious Bastards.

Yeah. Which I think is a really smart movie about the kind of print the legend lasting legacy of our pop culture, defining our history. And a lot of the, you know, now Tarantino's done the ending is me changing what actually happened. Revisionist History thing. a couple times. But that's the one where I think it's actually kind of meaningful. Because the whole film is about these people as this war, like the end is in sight. They can see it's winding down. And everyone's becoming obsessed with how am I going to be written about? Right. You know? And like the Christop Walt's character is constantly saying, like, you, I'm sure you've heard about

me. You know me by reputation. Sure. And the Daniel Bruel character is like this soldier who's been turned into like a propaganda film hero where they changed his historic moment and made him even more of an action star to make the Germans feel pride. And the movie theater owner wants to kill all the Jews by trapping them in a theater and making them look at her face on a big screen and say, you need to know all the Nazis. I'm sorry,

yes, exact opposite of the Jewish movie theater owner wants to kill all the Nazis and say, like, look at my face, remember me, I'm on a big screen, I have this immortality. Right. You know, and like, they kill Hitler at the end and they end the war because if a movie tells you that's what happens, that's what happens.

There's so many things that we accept that are false because we're used to the movie version of that. Totally. And also so much of art's job is to help this process things. So like you were talking about it does change. And I think for a lot of people in a satisfying way, and to me a way that is a little bit reductive, the unimaginable horror of like the Holocaust.

You know what I mean? Where it's like I think like the way that Apocalypse now deals with Vietnam is this profound, wondrous nightmare thing that to me feels. more sort of authentic a little bit to the confusion of war. Does that make sense?

I want to talk about, yeah, let's take a quick break. I want to talk about war movies in the context of what we're talking about here. But let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Hello, it's Daniel Fischel.

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Sure, I'm a singer, author, businesswoman, and podcaster. But at the end of the day, I am human. And that's why I'm sharing my ups and doubts with you guys. Hi guys. I was sitting here recording episodes of Dear Cheekies and Cheekies and Chill and I just had to take a time out and purge my thoughts and feelings here on Sincerely Jeannay because I've been so emotional lately, you guys. Whether I'm in my feels, I've just had a breakthrough with my therapist,

or I've just had a really deep conversation with my siblings, or I'm in glam getting ready for an award show. I'm sharing my most intimate thoughts with you on the podcast. You guys know, I always keep it real with you guys, but this time I'm taking it to the next level. Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And I feel like World War II probably the most like depicted movie or war in the history of film, maybe the most depicted event in the history of film. Maybe the most depicted event in

the history of possibly. Yeah. Vietnam is probably doesn't have as many movies, but I feel like it's so iconic. Like it's so, like, it exists because of these like classic movies that depicted Vietnam. We were talking about how the song, Fortunate Sun, like, if you hear that, you picture yourself descending in a helicopter above like rice paddies, like, I think from Forrest Gump, maybe, but the current wars that are, like, being fought by America, like, don't exist in the same way, I feel like. And I'm just curious to, like, hear you guys' thoughts on, like, why that might be the case

or might not. Like, why, you know, I think Vietnam ended. I sound like Walter from Big Lebowski. It, like, had a fairly definitive end, and then people started making movies about it, like, after the fact a little bit, like, you know, while Vietnam was happening, they made mash, but it was like about the Korean War because they didn't want to like actually touch that. And so maybe it's just that like we're still doing this like in the Middle East. And so people can't deal. I think, I think, yeah. I think the forever war part of it is really big because there's no ability to get closure or distance. And I, you know, there was the spat of like very ambitious, prestige, war movies that I feel like really started up around the second Bush term that the audience

just went like no fucking way to all of this right like movies like rendition and like stop loss and things that were very earnest and like we're really we need to dig into this and people were just like don't don't want to talk about any of this no thing we got no distance we're stuck in it I don't want to be reminded of it yeah you know I think there was a very similar thing of people trying to make things about the lockdown during the lockdown. Exactly. You know, where studios were like, oh, it's great. We'll do a sitcom over Zoom. And it's about friends hanging out over Zoom. And it's like, I don't want to fucking watch this. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to watch it five years later anymore. I don't want

to relive that, you know? It took ice cubes the war of the world for us to finally come to terms with it and want to watch it. Right. Finally. Finally, we understand. I think there's something to, there was such confusion around Vietnam. And I really think that is a war that the movies processed for the public in a way even more than anything else. There was so much kind of like corruption and confusion and smoke screening even with

journalism and the government and everything at the time that I think there was just something with that timing out with the new Hollywood movement and studios getting less controlling and artists coming in who are willing to like touch the nerve where we all had to kind of I say this we all none of us were fucking alive

but you know the culture used movies to work through this shit. And I think partially because of Vietnam, not that all the reporting and the government communication was better in the Forever Wars has been at any point. But there's been more of a collective conversation and obviously the growth of the internet, the ability to not just need to rely on what like one person is telling us. Right.

Then makes it so that like I don't need a movie to fucking tell me about this. Right. Especially if we don't yet have an end point that we can look back on and step away and go, what was this all about? And I feel very similarly about like last year, last two years in particular, there's a wave of movies that feel very lockdown inspired to me that I think are very pointedly not about the pandemic at all explicitly. But like I weirdly think Oppenheimer very much comes out of that, not just in the fear of like a thing that can change the world forever, but even in like the building of Los Alamos and everyone needing to like create this bubble. And Barbie that same year is like about this kind of bubbled living, you know, and like relationship to culture. I think there were these movies, Asteroid City is another one where like a lot of our biggest commercial artists were making these movies that exist in these small like hypercharged bubbles of a brief moment.

Los Alamos in that is the NBA bubble like that in the metaphor. And like I love Eddington and it's a masterpiece, but the public very much went no thank you. Right. Because it was explicitly about the. Yeah, yeah. Well, and Superman also has a fairly clear metaphor for Palestine and Israel, which is, like, kind of incredible that they got away with that, especially in, you know, something like this. And James Gunn interviews has been like, look, I wrote this movie three years ago. Like, you're all astounded by how directly it maps onto Palestine and Israel, but we've been in some version of this for decades.

Yeah, the Palestine and Israel thing has been going on for decades. But be, there are like seven other analogs. You can look at Russia and Ukraine. Right. And, you know, and I think it's like we're more willing to process these types of things as an element of Superman rather than making the whole movie out of that. Totally. Because it's too terrifying to look at it directly. And also, we're getting it directly beamed into our phones as well, which changes everything like our response to it.

And I mean, I think Hurt Locker is the only war film to win best picture in the last 20 years. I'd say like explicitly war film. And that's a movie that is a character study. Right. It was the only one that was well received in that run of films. Right. Because it's not apolitical, but it's about what it is like to be a soldier in a war rather than the war. Yeah.

The other two that I think exist are American sniper in Zero Dark 30. Yeah. And those are the two where they can make America the hero. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they can find a way one because they're just basing it on a memoir of a guy who's like, you know, making shit off kind of. And then Zero Dark 30 is like, well, we're fucking killing Ben Laden. And obviously it's like, you know, more morally complex than that. But I think that might, but those two being the only two that like broke through,

an American sniper broke through in like a major one, like was huge. But Zero Dark Theory was also like a very big hit and was seen as the best picture frontrunner until many senders spoke out against it and kind of like made it too much of a hot potato. Yeah, yeah. But I think those two breaking through makes it that like that's where I get the idea that it's like, because we don't want to be complicit. We don't like the fact that it's still happening. We feel guilty that it's still happening.

And so we just like need to just leave it over there unless you can tell us a story where we're like, oh, hell yeah. We're like, we're doing a thing that matters. I think also like killing Bin Laden closed a loop. Oh, yeah. You could break off a story. Yeah, exactly.

A movie I find very fascinating, but one of the things I like about is the ending of the movie is this kind of like Dustin Hawkins sitting in the bus. at the end of the graduate being like fuck what do I do now yeah it has this very like striking ending of jessica chastain having completed the thing right clearly with this expression on her face of like what now i don't feel good we haven't solved this right yeah like we're stuck in the aftermath of this we got the guy but it doesn't like vindicate anything that's why i love thin red line the entire movie is mostly like beauty and confusion you're never there it's like it's truly an anti-war film

Because at no point or you're like, hey, that's pretty badass, actually. You know, like, yeah. I also, it was like right after Hurt Locker. She's like, I want to do the Bin Laden movie. Yeah. And she sets it up before they got him. Oh, really? She had written it and cast it.

Rooney Morrow was going to play the Jessica Chastain part. They had like half of the supporting cast set. They were prepping it. And then the SEAL Team 6 rate happened. And she was like, I got to rebuild the movie. Wow. And the first version of the movie, I think, would have not worked at all beyond the fact of like imagining coming out in the world where

there was an ending that the movie wasn't acknowledging right i don't think anyone in that moment would have wanted to see that right whereas the actual movie came out like two years after with enough distance yeah and i think it was speaking to a desire of like if we're stuck in forever wars is there at least a way to break this into volumes yeah we can start to process one thing as complete of course a new hope right yeah we'll store it a huge aspect of of storytelling is conclusion. You know, we need things resolved. And American sniper has like

a very dark resolution. Yes. You know, by framing it around one guy and being like, and he died. Right. He died tragically and therefore you don't have to like feel weird and like think about too much what he was doing over there because what he was doing at the end was undoubtedly good. So

we're all good here. Right. Good? Yeah. Yeah, we don't have to ask a question. How do we actually feel about sniping? Do we really love sniping? know two movies that come together or i'm thinking of as we're talking through this is like where it's like it doesn't really come to a conclusion is a cicario yeah you know that that it's like this secret war just the shady side of how we're conducting ourselves as a country and these other countries and it's kind of at the end like a shrug of just like hey yeah this is

fucked up. Yeah. Which is like the opposite of propaganda, basically. Right. But it connects to one of my favorite Vietnam era movies, which are the Rambo films, which start with a morally complex one about like the, you know, moral weight of like what we made soldiers

do over there. This is the business end, the psychological trauma of what we put people through. And then the second one, he just goes back and wins Vietnam. And then, like, yeah. And then Sicario has, to a lesser degree, but it has a sequel that's just like, fuck, this is fun.

This is like an amazing action movie version of the first one without all the nasty guilt and like ambiguity. And then like Predator, I think is a fascinating almost like response film to Rambo of. Sure. Oh, so you guys just want to see the biggest guy go in and solve the jungle. Yeah. Right. Right.

Like, he's going to get eaten by a monster. Right. We're like walking into things we don't understand. Yeah. The ultimate ramifications. If we're talking about war films with cultural staying power, by the way, we should acknowledge the infinity war. And the many heroes we lost in the blip. That's right. We got them back, thankfully.

Yeah, well, I'm still grieving. I mean, you know, sure we got them back. Never forget. Never forget. Should we actually just moan a silence for the, yeah. I think 20 minutes. Full 20 on the podcast. But that's a war we got closure to.

That's right. That's right. You know? Yeah. The good guy did the snap. Right. Everything's good now. I really, my hope is that one day

we'll be able to make movies so well, we won't have to do war anymore. It'd be great. That'd be pretty cool. I've always said the only solution to a bad guy with a snap is a good guy. Speaking of The Avengers, real quick, we'll do a speed round of a couple ideas I wanted to hit.

Do you guys buy into the idea that, like, sex has gone away from movies and that, like, there's a great essay, everybody's beautiful, nobody's horny, or something along those lines, that talks about how, like, our blockbuster movies are full of like attractive people who like don't even have like sexual energy really they're not like you don't think of them as sexual beings and that you like we had a whole genre of movies that was just like Michael Douglas Fox and like is horny that's a whole type of movie and those movies are like explicit in every sense they are like sexually visually explicit but they are also like textually explicit yes I think the thing that we've lost more is like movies that have sexual energy, right?

Right. Like, one I think of all the time is Pelican Brief, where they cast Denzel Washington. That character in the book was white. Yes. Everyone freaked out. Even in fucking 90s America, they were like, people might revolt if Denzel Washington Julia Roberts kiss. And so that is a movie that is loaded with sexual chemistry that never actually, like, comes to a pass.

Right. They were too worried about showing them visually do anything. And yet the movie feels horny as hell. Right. And I think almost all Hollywood movies used to have that. Right. Like, there is this innate voyeurism to films where it's like, we want to watch hot people be together. Yeah. And either they're doing stuff or we're like charging the space in between them.

Like, oh, I hope they do stuff. What if they do stuff? And it's also like, you know, a lot of this is, I'm guilty of this as well. A lot of this is blamed on like, is there a younger generation that is like more skittish and like sort of anxious, you know, neurotic about ideas of sex and power dynamics and all of this. And is that why movies don't want to touch them? But you're also like shipping culture has only increased for the last 25 years, you know? Right.

And like to an extent where people are just like, I like to imagine that these two side characters that don't even talk are dating and draw them in this kind of way. I think a lot of it is like this, that the 2000s, especially the 2010s were really defined by this obsession with the global box office and like Hollywood films as being this. exported product where for a couple of years the international grosses of movies were overtaking

the domestic grosses and you read about in different countries and different territories they just have like entirely different cultural standards in some cases like very extreme censorship wards

but also the Hollywood got really in their head about learning like you know in China you can't release a movie with ghosts right you know that's why Star Wars tanks

over there there are all these metrics they have to process that I think just kind of blended a lot of things out. They just don't want to offend anyone. Absolutely. Uh-huh.

I also want to say that we should also consider the fact that sex is icky. It's gross and it's bad. There is like an undercurrent of honestly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like a lot of young people are like, don't show me that. That's gross. Like stop putting that in my movies. But then like I wonder how much of it.

So like I'm of two minds about this. One, I think there's like something weird and interesting happening with, you know how Starship Troopers is like has sex, but it like doesn't really have like sexual energy. It's just like, it's like nudity that's just like completely cut off. And it's a movie about fascism. Like I think that that's an important part of fascism is like beautiful people without like sexual energy. And like, it's a beat that Verhoeven repeats twice. He does in Robocop and Starship Troopers. Yeah. Yeah. This is a culture where men and women can shower together. Right. And there's no sense of sexual

danger. Like in both of those films, you have like locker rooms, like cops and like soldiers who are just fully naked in a mass space. And they can like slapin asses like they're on a fucking football team. In Starship Troopers, there's like kind of like, well, they won't they jousting like banter.

And even still, there's no threat of actual physical things happening. Right. We've almost become a post-sexual society. Yeah. Despite the incredible proliferation of pornography, which is all exactly hyperavailable. So part of me thinks like, it's interesting that like this you know, everybody is like in great shape, hot, and like not horny for one another is happening

as we're like descending into fascism in our country. Like maybe those two are related. The other part of me is just like, oh, it's because like porn's everywhere. And everyone's like, no, I see that over there. Get this the fuck out of my movies. And I think the shipping thing is also about romance. It is. Right. So I think that's an interesting place for movies to convert. But once again, it's like that's about tension. Like it doesn't need to escalate to nude scenes. to physicality, you know? But a lot of that energy has dissipated where I feel like

sometimes the shipping is like my head cannon is and you're like imagining a dynamic that is not actually depicted in the film because in a way they're almost longing for any sense of that tension existing. Yeah.

Even if it doesn't have to be the center. I also think perhaps a culprit that is not discussed as much is the rise of like pay cable television which got very sexual. right? I don't say this in like a pejorative way

of they got so sexual but like you know suddenly HBO and then showtime and then like synmax and all these things were making prestige shows not like Skinna Max softcore films or prestige shows that started leaning really hard into nudity and sex

scenes where it was almost like a prerequisite and then you're starting to see shows where you're like did they green like California occasion solely because it's a perfect format to have 12 boobs an episode, you know, or masters of sex or whatever. Like, it felt like things were skewing that way. Right.

And I think a lot of that was a pushing of these are things you thought you could never see on television. Sure. TV's getting serious. It's growing up. Right. We're showing you the most forbidden things that you're not used to seeing at home. And did that kind of swap the power dynamic where then sex scenes and movies started

to feel like a TV thing? Yeah, because even like Game of Thrones, I don't know. remember seeing it was like there were there was nudity but it felt like the weirdest like soft core porn nudity with like this is in dragon time but also these let's clear these women have fake breasts like it was just very weird like all the sparticus shows are very horny like all those things i i do think something shifted there yeah yeah and you did refer to game of thrones as dragon time i remember yeah well i believe that's canon uh let's put it on it's dragon time yeah it's 2000 and dragon was the year all right i feel like we could keep this conversation going

for three hours, but we have to stop. It was amazing having you guys. Thank you so much for doing it. Ben, where can people find you, follow you? Anything you want to plug? Yeah, you can follow me on IG. It's just my name. If you're interested in fashion,

I have a brand called Congratulations. It's congratulate y-o-o-u-lations.com. Yeah. Got some fun stuff there. Give you a little taste. I have a shirt with a dog. right on the front it's long sleeve one sleeve says you are the other one says a dog so got that dog in you yeah yeah exactly if you've got that dog in you you get this shirt and if you don't

have that dog in you yet yeah you can get that dog on you exactly and aspirational yeah like truman show will bleed in work from the outside yeah yeah and i also put out every year uh uh an annual uh holiday album called slow christmas nice i guess it's a little early in the year But you know what, why not get in the Christmas mood? Slow it down. Yeah. And slow it down, of course. But previous volumes are up on band camp.

Yeah, wherever you get music, band camp, Spotify. What kind of songs are we talking about here? Like Christmas classics or? Yeah, yeah. Christmas classics, originals, all kinds of stuff. But slower? Very slow. Nice.

Yeah. It's just normal Christmas song slowed down. Really? Chapsed screwed? I, no, because like. Have yourself. I started there with it, chopped and screwed, but now that I've been bringing bands into the mix, they got to do it

live. Yeah. Yeah, they can't do it in post. It's got to be authentic. Nice. He's giving al dente hands. Is there a work in media that you've been enjoying? Yeah, you know what? I'll give a shout out to Wild Pink, the band. They put out an album somewhat recently. It's just excellent. I wasn't familiar with their music before. I'm a huge fan. Nice. Nice. Highly recommend. And then the label they're on FireTalk has other great artists. So check it out. That's what the Gen Z refers to this podcast as, Fire Talk.

They're like, oh, no, sorry. I'm very old. Griffin, where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying? I'm Griff Lightning on the social platforms, although I try to use them with great discretion, put boundaries around posting and looking. But like Grease Lightning with the first half of my name in it, Blink checks the podcast we do. doing the co-ins for the rest of the year.

We also have a Patreon where we do film franchises instead of going director-based. Right now, we're doing a sort of self-cureated franchise of 90s indie comic heroes adaptations. Nice. So Crow, mask, Spawn, Dread. Spawn.

Spawn. Fee-fitting. Spawn. This last time you thought of Spawn. The thing about Spawn, and I don't know, it's just this hits for me is the chains. He loves the chain work. You're a chain guy.

Are we talking? Oh, swinging. Oh, baby. Use it as a weapon. He's wearing them. They're coming out of him. He's flossinging with it. It's just, it's everything.

What's the wetness on the... Oh, that's interesting. Spawn is kind of slimy in that movie. It does feel like they're slicking him down with something, the rubber suit. And of course, clown, he is just so sticky, so slimy. Yeah. Yeah. It's even ickier than sex.

Yeah, girl, you gross me out. that is one of the action boys another film podcast has a theory on the difference between vietnam and other movies is that vietnam is wet and green and people like green and like the other movies are like too dry yeah sandy yeah two sides of ben's personality yeah he's a dry guy and he's like lower with that two those two sides of myself because on the one hand there are two climates it's bone dry you know what I mean sure and then yet you have like wet, dripping, so dramatic, you know,

the wetness is a, it's very dramatic, cinematic, yeah. I want to pitch my meme real quick, my apocalypse now meme real quick, the idea that I have is that, you know, when Martin Sheen comes out of the swamp really slowly and he's got that thing,

if he sees something he doesn't like and you just reverse it where he slowly goes back down. That is a good meme. I think that's going to be powerful. I just want to call out media I like. The great Jamie Loftus just announced that she's ending her podcast 16th Minute of Fame.

largely because it was a Herculean task that she's done for several years a very labor intensive show but it's one of the best podcasts I have ever heard and she studies people who entered the zeitgeist in our kind of modern internet way and then sort of follows up with what it's like to be someone who went viral

who transcended the culture in a moment circling back to them and yeah she like anthropologically breaks down what the thing was and why it cut on and what it says about us and then goes back and talks to them as people and really sees the positive and negative effects of becoming the main character

and that kind of way. I think it's an incredible show. So fascinating. Jamie's the best. She's frequent. She was like on at least once a week when this podcast started and is the best. And that shows on Cool Zone Media. So go check it out. Great recommendation. Great podcast. We're big fans. Mort, yeah.

Where can people find you? Is there a work of media you've been enjoying? Yeah, at Mort Burke on the socials. I liked as the skateboarding liaison for this podcast. Yeah, that's right. We didn't even get into any skater culture. I always shoehorned in no matter where I am. And I love that about you. Yeah, yeah.

The new sci-fi fantasy video came out. Yeah, pretty sick, Jerry. It's got a really cool, interesting, vaguely Blade Runner, cyberpunk-ish, old internet, like art design. It's cool. Nice. Yeah. What's your grind.

That's like, what a stepdad question. What's your flip? Where can people find you? Did you tell? At Mort Burke. And check out spiritually filthy my stand-of special on YouTube and also my wife, Ashley Birch, is, and my podcast, rebrand.

Rebrand. Very good podcast. You can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien Blue Sky at Jack O'Bee, the number one. You can find us on Twitter on Blue Sky at Daily Zekeist. We're at The Daily Zekeist on Instagram. You can go to the description of this episode wherever you're listening to it,

and there you will find the footnotes, which is where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode. We probably won't do that today because we were kind of all over the map. But instead, my work of media is going to be go check out blank check. Hey. Yeah, you can find a lot of very interesting, thoughtful, well-sourced research. Can I change mine to blank check as well? It seems much nicer than what I said. Go ahead.

I was just saying very concise. episodes tight check tight yeah and so yeah just forewarned yeah they're three hours long we ramble

we also in the footnotes like to link off to a song that we think you might enjoy Miles is out on assignment and so when that's the case we always like to bring in a super producer Justin Connor to tell you about a song that we

think you might enjoy a super producer Justin walking over to the mic yeah here in the flesh yeah um have you belated again yeah thank you appreciate it i just want to make you embarrassed am i doing a good job you're doing a great job i really appreciate that um i'm gonna keep the slow music theme going as per ben's uh suggestion and uh there's this song called yasashi that you might have heard on ticot at some point i'm gonna recommend the slowed down version because it makes a sexy song even sexier uh there's some floaty sense some some really nice flutes

that are going on in there and then there's a saxophone bonus that is just going crazy the entire time of this track. So this song is called Yasashi, slowed by Casper. You use an X instead of an A in the word Casper, and you can find that song in the footnotes. The Daily Zikeyes is a production of IHard Radio for more

podcasts. From My Heart Radio, visit the IHart Radio app, Apple podcast to wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's going to do it for us today. We're back this afternoon to tell you what's trending, and we will talk to y'all then. Bye! Bye! The Daily Zykeyes is executive produced by Catherine Long. Co-produced by Bay Wang.

Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb. Edited and engineered by Justin Connor. Hello, it's Danielle Fischel. Writer Strong and Wilfredel from PodMeets World. We are back in Las Vegas and giving the people what they want, a full week of Y2K content. Tell me, Y.

Well, for the Backstreet Boys residency at Sphere, of course. We joke and say this is our second marriage, but it takes a lot of communication. Plus, it's carrot top, baby. And finally, Ashley Simpson Ross joins us to talk about her upcoming sold-out Vegas residency. Listen to PodMeets World on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Black Business Month, and Money and Wealth podcast with John Hope Bryant is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between.

Black and brown communities have historically been last in life. Let me just say this. AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to money and wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Noah, and I'm 13, and I started this podcast because, honestly, adults don't ask the right questions. Now you know with Noah de Barrasso is a show about influence. Who's got it, how they use it, and what it means for the rest of you. It's not the news. It's what the news should be if someone Gen Z or Gen Alpha made it. Politics is wild, and I'm definitely not here to payment, but I'm here to make sense of it. Listen to Now You Know with Noah DeBarrasso on the IHeart Radio app,

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