Honey Don't with Mattie Lubchansky

Introduction

0:00Blank Jack with Griffin and David. Blank Jack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Jack.

0:21She only has two desires, and one of them is podcast. And what's the actual answer? Justice, and her first desire. And so the idea is that the other desire is sex with women? I would say the human vagina.

0:36Episode's over. We're done. That's what this movie's about. Great to be on, guys. Thanks so much. About. I'll see you next time. I guess so. Your letterbox log. You know what? I'm already pumping the brakes at any statement that's like, that's what this movie is about. Your letterbox log for this movie was just the word boobies. And I would push back on that and say, this movie is more about vaginas than it is about boobies. I think it has some naked breasts, right? But I think that's a very surface reading. Including Chris Evans. That's a surface reading. I'm not denying it has naked breasts, but I think it's about vaginas.

1:08Wow. This is a, the most our listenership will like crash in the first five minutes. I'm pointing at the stands. I'm hitting a home run. This is our best episode ever. It's like pointing at the stands that you don't even hit a foul ball. You like hit the bat into your face somehow. Honey, don't. But blank check, do. That's what I'm saying. This is our best episode ever. This is our last, um. Episode ever? Episode ever. It is our last episode ever. This is it. No, no. This is our last episode in the Coen's series. It's sort of like an epilogue.

1:40We're basically treating the solo films as bonus episodes on main feed. Right. Because they, they, they're sort of a half step in, half step out situation. We felt like we had to cover them. We felt like covering them on Patreon kind of wasn't quite fair. It was going to be weird because we would have to like space them out, like in a way that was going to be odd or back end. The other part of it was when, when they win March Madness and we commit to covering them, Honey Don't has not come out. You have not even seen it yet. No, but we, it was one of those things where like, if we had thought about it for five seconds,

2:10we would have been like, oh right, it is coming out. It was, it's just, no one was like yelling it from the rooftops like, by the way, Honey Don't. But we were like, there's a new release movie that will come out between when we start doing these episodes and when the series ends. Do you know this was a midnight movie at Cannes? I do. And it got a standing ovation, they claim. Look, everything gets a standing ovation and you know. It's. Do they count people standing up to leave the theater? I was going to say, do.

2:36Do they have seats in the theater? They, they, they, the standing ovation, everyone's standing and holding a bar or whatever. Like, no, I mean, it's like, they, when, when someone says in these ridiculous. Trust ever, can't general audience screening? Can't just standing room only three. I, like when they're like, oh, I got a five minutes sit, you know, variety tweets at one in the morning. Like, oh, Honey Don't got five. I'm like, well, it takes five minutes for everyone to stand up and walk out of. Are we counting this as standing ovation that people must, must stand to exit?

3:07Also, the standing ovation bullshit used to mean something when it would happen rarely. And now basically if a movie gets a three minute standing ovation, you're like, oh shit. It's like a D cinema score. Right, exactly.

3:20Episode already out of juice? Listen, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David.

Blank Check Podcast

3:23I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as a run of movies from Blood Simple to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and are given a series of blank checks separately and with their wives to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, this has been a miniseries on the films of Joel and Ethan Coen together and separately with the aforementioned wives. Today we were talking Honey, Don't, which yes, is the last in this larger six month discussion.

3:59I guess we'll be discussing, what's it called? Jack, Jack of Hearts or whatever the next Joel? Jack of Spades, I believe. Yeah, I mean. Next year, in theory. Jack of Spades. But also, Joel takes his time with post-production. That might not, it might be a 27 release. I got no fucker. Who knows? We will have a new release of a solo Coen's movie next year. And of course, Ethan and Tricia continue to threaten to make Go Beavers. I, okay, so. Their riff on a college slasher film. So, when I saw this movie. You'll never get what the title.

4:30God. Is implied. I don't understand. Is alluding to. You'll never guess it.

Movie Plot

4:34When I saw Honey, Don't, the film. Yeah. It was at the Museum of the Moving Image and Beautiful Story of Queens, New York. Congratulations. And the images do move. The images do move. The film's got that call for it. Yeah, a lot of people don't know this, but actually movies, it's not actually moving. It's a series of images very close together. Moving images. And your brain interpolates the motion. Right. Persistence of vision. Right. Right. And then if people are talking, you call that a talking. That's right. Yeah. But I saw it there with a talkback with Joel, or sorry, Ethan and Tricia. Mm-hmm. And in it, they had said they had not even started writing it yet.

5:05And I feel like I almost stood up and started clapping. Like, never do that. And he mentioned, like, a little bit, like, oh, look, me and Joel have been talking a little more. And we're like, everyone in the theater was like, all right, let's just keep talking. We definitely have a title, though. And the title is subtle. I'm asking Joel for notes on Beaver Squad or whatever. What's it called? Go Beavers! Go Beavers! And Joel's weirdly not returning my emails. I don't know what's going on. Joel's on stage. Joel replied, I'm going through a tunnel, but, like, in an email?

5:38Uh, Fran keeps picking up the phone when I call. Pagging up. I was on the phone with my brother, Jamesy, and he was asking me if I had seen this. And I said, yeah. And I was, like, telling him my problems with it and my frustrations with it. And he was just like, it's just, like, so crazy. And these, like, don't make money, right? Like, this and the last one. And I was like, the last one did poorly, and this one did significantly worse. And he just went, how funny would it be if they made a third one? And he thought he was suggesting the most ludicrous comedic premise imaginable. Right, right, right, right. And get this.

6:10Here's my crazy idea. Yeah, they keep going. And I was like, James, they are actively threatening. And I believe he laughed for 45 seconds straight. Like, an out of breath. And James isn't, like, a belly laugher. He was like, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. They're actually going to keep doing this. That's like a 10-minute standing ovation at camp to get him a laugh that long. Now, but is it going to end up, like, fuck, what was the final Divergent movie supposed to be called? Oh, Divergent Allegiant Part 2, or Divergent? I don't know. Like, where it's kind of like, we're going to make it.

6:41And then they're like, it might be straight to TV.

Divergent Movie

6:44And then they're like, eh, it's not happening. You can read the script if you want. Here it is. Like, you know, have fun. Especially not having a script yet. And we should say. I mean, these scripts don't take long to write. I was going to actually ask you guys before. It's a weekend. Because I was going to say, I am a writer of fiction, but I don't write screenplays. This is what I was about to say. This is the transition. What I was going to ask both of you is, should it take longer than the runtime of a movie to write it? Because actually, no, I'm not in the industry. Maybe that's the challenge. This is like a sort of a, whatever, like a, you know, make a movie in a day challenge.

7:20It's a 24-hour film festival. Yeah. Would it take ChatGPT longer to come up with a Go Beaver script? Would it be like, I actually need a week to really kind of work out some of the... I've actually got Act 1 problems. I got to start over. Just to give you, it was going to be called Divergent Ascendant. Okay. Based on the latter half, of course, the book Allegiant. Okay. So they were making up a new subtitle. Not doing a part two. Yeah. And then it just, it didn't happen. It was going to be from the director of The Age of Adeline.

7:50Yeah. Lee Tolenkrager, who has basically spent 10 years stuck, I say stuck, in a gilded cage of Berlanti and Netflix TV show pilots. Oh. I have a very, very quick Age of Adeline anecdote. Mm-hmm. Please give us that anecdote and then we're going to introduce her. Okay. We have so much to say. I got to do 10 minutes on Lee Tolenkrager. That's right.

Age of Adeline

8:12Just very quickly.

Age of Adeline

8:1310 years ago, me and my beautiful wife, Jaya, were in Italy. Humble grab. Yeah, that's right. And we were getting dinner at this beautiful place and we started getting chatty with this couple that was next to us and it was this older Dutch couple and the husband and wife because that's how a couple can work sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. I mean, not if honey has her way, but.

8:34Honey O'Donohue. Honey O'Donohue. Honey O'Donohue. Honey O'Donohue. That was a good Charlie Day. I don't know if that was intentional. It was so good there. But the husband was a KLM pilot and he was like, I just like to stop at this restaurant whenever we start talking to him and they go, oh, our son is an actor. He lives in New York, too. And we're like, uh-huh, sure. Like, where does he live in the city? They're like, in Union Square. And we're like, what's your son? Yeah, wait a second. And they're like, oh, his name is Michael Huisman. Oh, Michael Huisman. And we're like, who is that? And they're like, he was on Game of Thrones. I was like, oh, right.

9:05He's the hot Dario Naharis. He's the second Dario. That's right. After Ed Screen got kicked off. And he's in Age of Adeline. And then the wife looks at us because it had just come out, I think. And she goes, and he's in Age of Adeline, like, expecting us to be like, wow. Holy shit. And we're just like, oh, yeah. And she's like, but Blake Lively? And we're like, uh-huh. David is miming someone freaking out. Yeah. I've never seen the Age of Adeline. A film that our friend Richard Lawson has always mildly defended. I've always heard it's pretty good. Right. Like, Harrison Ford actually giving, like, a committed emotional performance is, like, probably

9:37Michael Huisman grown up or something. I don't fucking know. Henry Burstyn. No, it's Harrison, I think. I will not accept any kind of, no, David. I think Michael Huisman is maybe Harrison Ford's son. And the whole bit is that she falls in love with him. And she previously had fallen in love with Harrison Ford. And he brings her home. And Harrison Ford's like, you're the same woman. What's going on here? Why didn't you age? I haven't been this freaked out since David Blaine was in my kitchen. Get off, my son. For those who are at home, I'm pointing.

10:11Those were both good jokes. They were great jokes. I think we both just, it's like we hit opposite field doubles in either direction. We're in sync today. This is what I'm saying. Best episode ever. Like, David and I are just fucking, like, we're in the flow. Well, it's been a minute. It's been a minute. Speaking of... Although we recorded without you, Ben. Ah, yes. One time. We went to the zoo. But speaking of going to Italy with your lovely wife, our producer, Ben Hosley, just got back from a honeymoon with his beautiful wife in Italy. Yep. And he was telling us how surprised he was by how much he enjoyed the experience of driving

10:45down the roads in Italy. Vroom, vroom! Oh, yeah. I really, I had fun with it. Yeah. I was taking those curves. Taking it fast. And I said... But feeling... You were saying ciao bella and putting your hand out the window doing the little fisting motion. And then I said it shouldn't have come as such a surprise to him with all the hours he's logged playing Mario Kart. He knew what a great experience it was going to be to be a real Italian driving down roads. And of course I had a show with me. He had a show with him. I will say, when we had the same trip that we were in Milan, we got off the plane, we went to where we were staying, and it was above the mechanic's garage.

11:18And the literal first thing I saw was an Italian guy in red overalls with a mustache. Wow. And me and Jai just looked at each other like, we're really in Italy, baby. And he was like loading banana peels into the front of his car. Yeah. Now, I don't want to spend too much time, but I will share that I did plan on bearing jeans. It didn't work out. Oh, you did text about this. Yeah. There was a delivery issue with the ceramic vessel. Like an urn?

11:48Yes. No way. Like you're doing grave goods in ancient Sumer? Well, what I use is I use Korean fermenting, like, vessels. Best episode ever. And so it didn't end up arriving at my hotel. I wasn't able to do it. I also, though, had separately delivered a collapsible shovel. I didn't take it out of the packaging. I brought it to the airport. Apparently, you're not supposed to travel with a collapsible shovel. That doesn't shock me. So how are you supposed to bury jeans in other countries? That's why the shoveler has to stay within the lower 48.

12:21Well, also, I mean, he respects the rules. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So I tried to explain at the Rome airport why I had the shovel. They didn't really get it. Ben's lovely wife, Nellie, sends us a text at 4.06 a.m., and it is a video taken from quite far away. You can't hear anything of Ben gesticulating with whatever the equivalent of a TSA agent is right at the airport. A carbonieri, perhaps? And the text is, POV, my husband's collapsible travel shovel gets flagged going through at

12:55the airport in Rome.

12:58That's beautiful. They didn't let me keep it, man. And Ben's response was, they threw it out, said I shouldn't have it. I guess this was sent to Marie and I. Rude. Um, rude. Listen. Ho bisogno disperal de jeans. Apparently, that's a, I need to bury some jeans. Our guest today is a writer who doesn't just have titles. She finishes books. She doesn't just say, we have an idea. I'm holding a finish. You hear this? That's a hard cover. That ain't her first book. In the Land of Simplicity, a novel. No, it's called Simplicity, right?

13:30It is. Well, that, that is, that's a dumb affectation of mine that I insisted doing to make it look more like a book from the 19th century. I like that though. Because I'm insane. We love that. Mm-hmm. If you look, the subtitle is like a paragraph long. So I should have listened to the meaning of the title and given into the simplicity of just the one word title. It is a gift to be simple. From the author of Boy's Weekend, another book that you finished. Great book. Mandy Lubchansky. The books are also good. Friend of the podcast, first time guest, but friend of the podcast, someone we've both known separately for a very long time. Yeah. I suppose that's true.

14:00I'm so glad to finally be here on Talk Tua, I believe. Hell yeah. Is she back? I saw she was like streaming Fortnite. She should be back. I saw she was back the other day. Let's bring her back. Did she endorse Soren? Is she going to have Soren? Let's get Sally Hawkins in to bring her back. Oh, okay. So I see the joke. I see. So I remember, I know that she was in the Hulu show Chad Powers starring Glenn Powell. Oh, is she? She's in an episode of that. Right. Where they're comparing notes on being washed up celebrities or some shit.

14:31Right. Possibly playing herself. So like a meta casting gag. So maybe she had to. She is playing herself. Yes. Had to, you know, to come back after her Mean Coin scandal. There was a thing where she appeared at VidCon and like 60% of the audience walked out and protested and complained to the organizers because they were offended by how lewd her material was. Oh, damn. And I was like. She was going blue. Not the part where she scanned everybody. You were not led into this fucking like convention hall.

15:03Yeah. At gunpoint. You said, I'm going to sit down and listen to the talk to a girl in conversation. It's a fair point. It's kind of a dead dove do not eat. I don't know what you were expecting. Like she is famous for an extremely illustrative and colorful, humorous explanation of blowjob giving. I want to ask each of those people. What is she famous for? Why are you upset right now? She's famous for being America's sweetheart. What are you talking about? Yes. Why isn't she in Honeydon't? Why isn't she in Honeydon't? Five minutes of pep. If she's in Go Beavers, are we excited?

15:36Sure. If they announce. I'm there. Yeah. I'll buy a beaver coin. You'll buy a beaver coin.

Margaret Quali

15:40I'm seated day one for Go Beavers. I am simply so seated. Couldn't be more seated. It is nothing like Cannes. I'm in a chair. Exactly. I won't be giving an ovation because I'm seated. This movie comes out first week of September. This film came out in the very hot late August corridor. Last weekend of August? Yeah. August 22nd.

16:03It screens at Cannes and May. It was at the Cannes Film Festival. You see it around then? I was shown it right then by the good people at Focus Features who were like, are you going to do like a simultaneous review? Are you going to? And I was like, oh, maybe I guess we'll see what I think of it. And then I saw it and I gave a polite boobs review on Letterboxd. We'll talk about it on my podcast in six months, glowingly. I mean, it was very much a sort of like, hey, I kind of like Drive Away Dolls, so fuck,

16:35yeah, I'll give it a, sure, I'll give it a whirl. I like Drive Away Dolls. That episode was recorded before I'd seen Honey Don't. I feel like I had a very genuine defense of that movie on that episode. Sure. After now seeing Honey Don't twice, I would even defend Drive Away Dolls more. Yeah. Sure. I would agree. I didn't like Drive Away Dolls at all when I saw it, but I was like, I'll keep, I think Mr. Cohen has had enough, he deserves a second chance from old Matty. Like, what do I know better than him? Sure, right, sure. So I'll go see the new one. Yeah. And now I'm like, was Drive Away Dolls good?

17:06I like Drive Away Dolls. Drive Away Dolls is a movie more than anything else. It functions as a film. Exactly. It's a film where like I really, like the beats basically make sense to me. I'm basically with it the whole time. I think there's, you know, there's something to the main couple, like, you know, where there's like a connection there that's interesting. I think there's some real emotion in it that I find affecting. Honey Don't is basically a movie that I was kind of out on from the start and then the

Honey Don't Themes

17:32ending was so bad, like, that it really sort of hurt the rest. So I'm like, I'm kind of with it until the last 20 minutes. I think that's, yeah, that's fair. And it's such a disastrous ending that it basically undoes everything I liked about the movie up until that point. I mean, we'll get into all of this. Here's the timeline I want to spell out. You see it, right? Yeah. When I saw the trailer, I was kind of encouraged because I was like, okay, it looks a little formally tighter. There's kind of a genre riff happening here. There's seemingly a central plot thread of a mystery.

18:03This maybe looks like slightly more of a movie than Drive Away Dolls. A fun lark that I enjoy. Then David sees it and he's like, it is less of a movie than Drive Away Dolls. I did, I did, I did, I did warn you. Okay. So we now have this on the schedule coming up six months from now. Right. And he's like, kind of a, not an exciting way to end a six month series. No, no. But you know, we've had some great apps. Perhaps the greatest living filmmakers. And this is a great app, but we've had some, we've discussed some masterpieces. Yes. We've had, we've had good times digging through big movies. So I'm just glad after a run of giving a lot of smaller artists and people a chance,

18:36getting someone really big on like me to talk about this. Well, here's Maddie, Maddie, this is the road I'm paving. Okay. Maddie, Maddie. David's like, who should we have on as a guest? And I'm like, here's what I think we should do. Let's wait until the movie comes out and see if anyone defends it. Or even just has a reaction, honestly, because it kind of felt like a movie that was gonna go nowhere. And it kind of was like, it just came out to shrugs and negativity and was mostly ignored. And we don't need to like this movie.

19:08No. Despite what some people accuse us of, we never pretend to like movies for the narrative of a miniseries. I only do that for money. When the money clears. Right, exactly. That's what the money's for. Right, that's a briefcase. Right. Dollar bills. Yes. That's what I'm looking for. Right. We don't do it to make the episodes better. Right. But the movie comes out. There are not really vocal defenders that rise, but I see you posting takes that are at least, like, considerate of, like, I struggled with this.

19:38Yeah. I tried to like it. And right before we started recording, you were like, we all dislike this, right? I'm not gonna be the one who, like, yucks everyone's yum. Yeah. We're like, no, I just think you seemed very quickly like someone who would at least be interesting to have a conversation about this movie with, rather than just three people being like, whatever, you know? Because I do think there is stuff to wrestle with in this. I found this movie so deeply frustrating. Immensely. And I find it frustrating in a way that is very different from Drive Away Dolls, which

20:10I accept being its own thing, even if it is kind of a silly trifle of a thing. I think that is what it's intending to do. And I find that movie charming and entertaining to watch and funny. It does not, like, go off the charts in any of those areas, but I think it succeeds at its very modest intent. This is a movie that feels like a bad Coen Brothers movie. It is so much closer to what they do together in a way that is just lacking juice.

20:41And for the first, like, 75% of it, I'm watching it and going like, okay, this is like, this is an all right approximation of a Coen Brothers movie. It's frustrating because I know they can do this better together, but whatever. And then the last 20 minutes are just like, they feel like a shrug and a panic. And it kind of reveals that the movie had no idea what it was actually doing up until that point. Yeah. And for me, I think it's so illuminating that, like, they really just think they're

21:11making the long goodbye a lot to the point where there's like lots and lots and lots of things pointing directly to it. There's like a cat on an orange counter and there's like a lady playing a piano in a bar, or whatever, to the point where I went and watched the long goodbye again. Cause I'm like, oh, I have to, I mean, now I feel even worse about the movie because I watched the long goodbye recently, but like that movie also similarly has a kind of ending that's like the first time you watch it, you're like, oh, it's a little bit out of nowhere. And then you think about it and you're like, no, this is actually really, that was layered in. It was layered in and interesting. And like you, and it means something for this character that this happened this way.

21:42Like he's sick of getting dumped on or whatever. Whereas like this movie is just sort of like, and now it's over. Here is what is most frustrating about it to me is that I think Joel and Ethan together are the kings of an ending that should be unsatisfying. Yes. Right. Of like constructing a story that feels like it's leading into one direction and then ending on a very messy, ambiguous note, letting plot threads completely dissolve, you know, or

22:13just like wander off screen, taking these hard left turns, these things that could be seen as frustrating and sort of flippant towards the audience. But I think are actually, uh, kind of like, um, that, that, that feel almost, uh, intellectually profound to me. Yeah. Uh, and this movie, my first time watching it, I'm like, why is this doing the same moves except it's just making me mad and I cannot find any rhyme or reason or meaning in what

22:49they're subverting? Yeah. Like you, I've been listening to the series as you guys have been doing it and you kept talking about like earlier in their career, the way people, critics, some critics would talk about their work where it's like just cruel or whatever. This movie feels like that, the movie those people think they're watching. Yeah. Where it's just kind of like tonally, uh, mean in a way that I don't quite understand. It left kind of a bad taste in my mouth. It is a surprisingly mean spirited movie given that it is initially kind of not like initially you're like, yeah, this is a romp. I get it.

23:19It's like a very broad satire. And then at the end you're like, huh? There's like two pieces in it. There's a weird edge to it. Yeah. Like there's a scene where, uh, was it Chris Evans? Like he's there. He finds out that that one guy died and they go out and the guy's like dead on the ground and like, and they do again, like a, a horrible mutated version of my favorite Coen's thing, which is two people having a regular conversation while something insane is happening behind them or near them. Yes. Yes. And they're doing that, but it's not funny. It is like legitimately sad watching this guy weep over his dead son.

23:50Yeah. And then there's the bit where the guy is like, oh, like, let me suck your dick. And he gets run over by the car. And I'm just like, okay, so you're just like showing a gay guy get murdered by a car. Like I don't. You're, you're right that there's. It's totally strange. That they, when they work together, that in many Coen movies that sort of these horrifying or shocking things happen and you're like very in it. It's very in the flow of the story. They manage the tone right. And that stuff does kind of feel like, you know, some guy who's not a Coen brother being like, I know what Coen brother movies are like.

24:22And yet he is a Coen brother. He's one of the two. His whole time he's been one of the two Coens. I said to you recently, David, that this movie kind of broke me. Yeah. You said that and I was like, this one? Right. And you were like, it can just be bad. You don't need to be fighting over this. And I was like. You don't need to be like in turmoil. I'm not at war with whether or not I like this movie. Right. I'm at war with like, why doesn't this work? And it's easy to just say it doesn't, but it is bizarre because it's doing things that are so similar to the things I value in Coen's films with, as we said, someone who is a Coen

24:58brother. He is. One of the two. On second viewing, I have some thoughts. Facts checked. True. It's hard to make the two. But I think Coen brothers. I think Coen movies are filled with these kinds of moments where you're just like, that's a story decision no other filmmaker would make. Right. Right. Or that's. And on top of that, tonally, that scene is played in the opposite way of how I would imagine anyone else would approach it in a comedy. This scene is suddenly very violent and dark in a drama. This scene is suddenly very funny and over the top. Right. These things that feel like they should bump on you.

25:28And with the Coen's, I don't know what degree of it is just the trust they have like earned from us at this point. When a moment like that happens in one of their movies, I lean in and I go, huh, why are they doing this? I like give them the benefit of the doubt. And I feel like every other time it has paid off for me, whether at the conclusion of the movie where I suddenly go, I get it. This is what it was all about. And this was the larger point they were making. This is why they were playing with narrative expectations and uncomfortable feelings. Or if it doesn't work for me the first time, I go back and watching a second time and I go,

26:01now I get it. And like, this is one of the only ones, if not the only one where I'm like, I truly kind of don't get what's going on here. I think this movie has ideas in it. There are things it is contending with that I find kind of interesting and sticky and certainly on the first viewing and even giving it a second watch this morning and being like, I'm really trying to meet it on its terms. I was getting re-engaged in some of the things in the first half and then just like completely

26:31pushed off the bike again, the second half. Maddie, what is your history with the Collins? That's a good question. I, um, I think in college in the early 2000s, uh, the movie theater near my college was playing the big Lebowski on a big screen. Another film. Another film that this film is maybe trying to be a little bit. Very indebted to the long goodbye as well. Yeah. I mean, this is like, that movie is like, what if Philip Marlowe is like a even stupider? Yeah. And this movie is like, what if, I mean, this one, it was just like, what if Philip Marlowe was like a young lesbian? And then they kind of, they stopped and they kind of walked away and hope that they came

27:05back in the room later in the script we'd done. Um, and then I just fell in love with it and I had that stupid DVD. That's like the bowling ball that untwists. Big time. And then I just got really into their movies from that point. I went back and I just filled in all my gaps and I, and I try, I've seen everything, I think first run since then. Um, but I will say like, especially, I want to say Inside Llewyn Davis and Hail Caesar and what was the one just before Llewyn Davis? Uh, true. Oh, not true, but more, um.

27:37Burn After Reading. No. Serious Man. Serious Man. There we go. Those three. Burn After Reading, uh, I was the only person I knew that liked it when I saw it in the theaters. It was very gratifying to listen to the episode and hear that I am correct. Yep, absolutely. Um, but, um, those three in particular, I watched them and I was kind of like, I don't get it. But like, and then I would just be thinking about them for months and I'm like, I gotta watch them again. And now those three are like my favorite three, I think. I mean, this is what I'm saying. Like, I, that was my experience with Hail Caesar the first time. I have seen that movie now, I think 10 times. Like, I love it so much.

28:08Like, same. And I, I, it completely makes sense to me now. And it was, that was a movie where the first time some of the wrong footing, I was like, I don't get what they're doing here. But when you go back to it, it rewards you. Yeah. It starts to make sense when you understand what the movie isn't doing and you stop holding those expectations against it that we're sort of, are drilled into us by more conventional movies. Yeah. And, you know, and like, for me, it's sort of like, they are, um, you know, they're like, it's not to sound so fucking basic, but like, they're like the first like directors that

28:39weren't, uh, Tim Burton or Steven Spielberg that I was like, these are directors that I've heard of, um, when I was younger. Yeah. They're one of the first directors that you have heard of if you're our age. Yeah. It was like them and like PTA were like, okay, here's directors that now when they have new movies, I will go see their movie. I, I mean, I, I talk about it a lot, uh, but like Tim Burton does sort of make sense as the ultimate starter kit auteur for people of our generation. Yeah. Cause it was, it's so easy to understand what his hallmarks are. Right. Yeah. And then Spielberg is the guy you hear everyone in culture cite as shorthand.

29:11Yes. For successful. He's on the Animaniacs. Right. And he's the only director on the Animaniacs. You know, the name, you know, the visual, you know, the hits and whatever. And there's like Spielberg magic, but also as we've grown up, the definition of a Spielberg movie has changed a bunch. But the Coens are like those directors that you can sort of feel like you're doing the work yourself to understand what their thing is. Yes. Rather than it being like served up to you completely already by pop culture. Right. And their, and their movies are just so, to me, like just so magical the way that they

29:44have so many moving parts that are like, unlike anybody else. Yeah. And I will say the thing about maybe like the, I was trying to get to the bottom of like, why did this movie leave such a weird taste on my mouth tonally? And I think it's because the other of their movies, it's two things. I think it's the attention to detail is missing. Yeah. And the dialogue isn't there. Whereas like other Coen movies, the dialogue is so special and sticky and compelling. Yes. That when it's not there, when Chris Evans is saying best sex ever or whatever, it's

30:18like the dialogue wasn't there. The jokes weren't there. I wrote down one of the jokes. It was like driving me crazy. It's like when, in that scene where the, the, the, the kid dies, um, the Australian guy says, my body's a temple. You should see it with a shake weight. And I was like, that's a joke in a Coen brothers movie. Yeah. Well, are you not Coen? Sorry. A Coen brother movie. A Coen cook movie. But it is, you know what I mean? I know what you mean. That it is. It's somewhat disturbing to consider like them knowing about shake weights.

30:49I don't want them to know about that. It just feels like a lazy, it's a lazier joke and it's way out of time. It is. But once again, like driveway dolls, link it joke feels like it's playing is, is a sillier movie that feels like it's playing an entirely different game. And I'm not pinging it for not nailing, like raising Arizona ask ratatat dialogue. Whereas this is getting so close that you become more aware of the gap between what it's trying to do and the literally 20 perfect versions of it you've seen one of these people do before.

31:25Yeah. The other thing they also do in a lot of their other movies is like paying homage to stuff in a way that is not tired, that is interesting, that is something to say. And this one is just doing big time member that stuff. Well, even like the home invasion scene of the young boy and his mother being attacked, right? Yeah. I think is pretty well directed. And I'm sitting there. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And watching it. Visually, it's good. Right. And I was just like, okay, this actually like builds tension. It's using like negative space and silence in this very like classically Cohen's way.

31:57It remains specific to its character. It has like shocking moments of humor and of violence. And I felt a little electrified being like, okay, so like Ethan, Ethan's like showing up as a director, right? Like he's like doing something here cinematically. And the scene ends and I'm like, I have seen 15 better versions of this scene done by that same guy. Like, you know, and also like the way that the grandma gets killed is like another sort of like, to me, a taste level thing.

32:28It just feels sort of like unnecessarily mean. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. There was this quote I brought up a lot throughout the series where Ethan has said, you know, when people ask me what a director does, I don't have an answer. And over the years, I finally settled on one, which is tone management. And you do look at most of their films and you're like, that is kind of their ultimate magic is the tone management of how can they hold these two things at the same time and how can they put these scenes next to each other with such a wide kind of variance of

32:58human emotion and tone, right? Yeah. And this is a movie where like it just does not coalesce. And there are things in it. If I'm like just watching it on a scene by scene basis where I'm like, I'm kind of into this scene on its relative terms. Yeah. And then I get to the next scene and I'm like, I'm feeling whiplash, but I'm going to trust them that this is all going to come together. And then it has what our friend Sean Fantasy on their recent House of Dynamite episode referred to as a kicking the full paint can into the open street ending.

33:30Like the person wanted to do that out of anger is what you're saying. That it just feels like, I don't know, fuck you, whatever. You know, like, like in House of Dynamite has that too, this ending where like the movie isn't totally working, but I'm like following and some of the scenes are working. And then you're like, let's see if you can pull it together. And then the ending is like, I don't know, fuck off. The ending's like, okay, we're done. And you're like, oh no, but what about the ending? And they're like, oh no, these are the credits. I said, I said, we're done. These people made the movie. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, okay, did they? Like the tone is basically just like, almost like a bomb falling.

34:04Kind of just like, just, just feats. I heard on a podcast that we built House of Dynamite. I heard that too.

34:17David. Yes. I got myself into a real pickle. Uh-oh. I thought it'd be funny to put on some Groucho Marx glasses. Uh-huh. Very, very funny. Very funny. Classic. Yeah, well, I've been stuck wearing them for five years because it's such a hassle to replace your glasses that once I made that commitment, now I'm walking around with the big schnoz, the eyebrows, the mustache, all times. I know what you're saying. Glasses cost hundreds of dollars. You know, you just kind of live with whatever you've got. Wait a second. What about Zeni Optical? David, I forgot about Zeni Optical. Zeni Optical is an online eyewear shop with stylish prescription glasses, sunglasses, and customizable lens options at prices that make it easy.

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36:16Honeydome, what does everybody think of Margaret Qualley? Because I do think outside of this stuff we're discussing, tone management, Ethan, like, you know, like Cohen's facsimile feeling or whatever. And we should acknowledge that much like Driveaway Dolls, this is a movie that by all accounts was completely co-directed. Co-directed by Trisha Cooke. In addition to being written and produced, but because of DGA guidelines, much like the early part of their career. Trisha Cooke is very much the co-author of these two films. Yes, in every sense. We are very clear about that in the interviews, et cetera.

36:46Margaret Qualley, who plays the character of Honey O'Donohue in this film. Honey O'Donohue. A private dick in Bakersfield, California. Great Bakersfield accent, by the way.

37:01She's the queen of accents. What do we think of Margaret Qualley, who is having, I would say, a fairly sustained run at this point of being in movies? Yeah.

37:13So that, I think, that noise that Maddie just made is right where I am with Margaret Qualley. I feel like sometimes I liked her in The Substance. Sure. Otherwise, I didn't like her in Driveaway Dolls. A very strong performance. A strong. Like a real, like, you know. That's a Marmite performance that I defend, but I cannot argue with anyone who's like, that drove me crazy. And I think the other thing is, like, okay, so, like, the noir thing. Uh-huh. Right? I've been watching a lot of noirs lately in preparation for this because I was like, I gotta get back in the zone.

37:45Right. And I was like, okay. Because, like, a thing that happens all the time in noirs is shit just starts happening and then it stops happening and the movie's over. And maybe sometimes you're Philip Marlowe or whoever. You're Eddie Valiant. You're fucking the dude, whatever. Yeah. Just sort of, like, it's just kind of like, okay, I'm gonna go home now and the movie's over. But, like. And they're kind of like, oh, another day in this crazy town. Exactly. But those movies work because the people at the center you care about or at least they're compelling or whatever. Sure. And in this movie, for one reason or another, I feel like quality is sort of like a charisma void.

38:20Well, let me. Character feels a little cosplay to me. Like, not Margaret doing cosplay. Like, Honey doing cosplay. Like, right where I'm like, this girl's kind of putting on, like, a show. She's a Rolodex? Yeah. Yeah. Like, where I'm like, this is, what is this? I want to circle back to her in a second because I think you're raising an interesting point, Peter. And then not Arizona. Not raising that. No. That's different. You have not, to date, raised one of Nathan Arizona's children. Correct? Well, those aren't mine. Good. I'm not giving them back. That was, that was a test and you just passed. You should not be raising Nathan Arizona's children.

38:51They are not yours. Unless he asks. Unless he asks. If he asks you to, then you can say yes. But you shouldn't take the initiative. Yeah.

38:59The Coens are obviously very indebted to that kind of noir filmmaking. And also, obviously, like, the history of American noir in novels. Hard-boiled crime novels. Right. Yeah. And even in their non-noir films, I do think that is a thing they've really adopted across almost all of their work, which is very often the lack of resolution. A conventional resolution is the point for them, right? Yeah. Things like, uh, uh, Burn After Reading or No Country or even Serious Man that feel like

39:34they're building and building and building and then completely veer off from the obvious blow up, the confrontation, the moment of closure, work for me because they're not just misdirects. It's like, that is the thematic point to them. Much in the way that noirs are about these people who are broken down and cynical, realizing how powerless they are to actually change anything, right? Yeah. The universe is cruel and, more importantly, confusing. Exactly. And you can never really get your arms around it. Which is really, I think, like, the core issue of the Coen brothers' work.

40:08That is the thing that all of their movies are really contending with, of, like, is this meaningless or not? And if it's meaningless, then what's the point? What do we owe each other? What do we owe ourselves? How do you find some sort of peace within that chaos and the lack of meaning? And so I think all their other endings work because the lack of resolution is the statement they are making, that life doesn't give you that kind of resolution. Right. And this movie, in being a hard-boiled detective noir riff, should be even more well set up

40:42to get away with that kind of ending. And yet it doesn't. And I do think, I don't think it's her performance that's the problem as much. I like her in this. I was pretty resistant to her when she started out. Interesting. Sure. I just felt like, I don't know, I don't get what all the buzz is about her without having, like, a major issue. I wouldn't say I was allergic, but I was like, I don't know. Yeah. Look, she's an incredibly attractive daughter of a movie star. Sure. Who is one of those people who was kind of, like, in magazines before she had credits,

41:14where it felt like there was a slight degree of she's being shoved down her throats as the next big thing. Yeah. And I always think I get a little defensive about, like, well, let me decide with these people. Sure. Yeah. Sure. Sure. With the hot young things. And over time, I'm like, I like the choices she makes. I like the people she works with. I think she has a lot of, like, I admire her bravery in terms of not feeling the need to define a thing she does and stick to it. Even if you look at these two Coen's movies and The Substance and all the other stuff she does, there's like a tremendous range of what she does.

41:44She doesn't feel protective of any kind of, like, brand as an actress, which I always admire. Yeah. You know, I liked her in was Kinds of Kindness. I liked her in Kinds of Kindness. Never saw Kinds of Kindness. She's in it very briefly, and I like her in it. She has a quadruple role in that. She did. I thought she was great in poor things, even though that isn't a very large role. I know that's another one that people... I'm making the same noise as David on her. Yeah. I was... Bumped on. My whole thing with her was, I first saw her in The Leftovers, didn't know who she was, and was like, the girl playing the daughter...

42:14Like, has such a look, and then Googled and was like, oh, it's Andy McDowell's daughter. Well, that'll give you a look. It'll give you a look. She's a look-a. Yeah. But she's very good in The Leftovers, and so I was like, you know, check, noted. Like, you know, and then when she was in the sort of the Nepo maelstrom that is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I was like, oh, that's, I guess, something Quentin's going for, right? Like, it's like, there's so many daughters of, and sons of famous people in that movie. Right. It feels pointed.

42:45But he also, like, identifies, like, ten of the next movies. He does. I mean, it is crazy that they're all hanging out at the fucking spawn ranch, right? Sidney Sweeney and all those people. Yeah. Whoever else is in that. I can't remember. Who else is in it? Dakota Fanning. She's great. Yeah. Love her. That Leonardo DiCaprio guy is making some waves. He's in the movie. He's in the movie as well. But she's very good in it. She's good. Yes. And then I have just been, like, she is one of the most, like, coin flip actors for me

43:15since then. Sure. Where I have, like, performances. Others have bumped on Blue Moon this year, which is a movie I adore. She has this, like, 15-minute monologue in it that I think she does a good job, and it's sort of supposed to make me feel on edge. Mm-hmm. But it really exemplified the Margaret Cawley experience for me where I was just like, do I like this? Like, she's pretty, and she's holding the camera. Like, but am I, is this a good performance, or am I just kind of, like, is it just kind of sticking out? Sure. In a way that's me, whatever.

43:47I don't know. It's hard to say. I think her driveway doll's performance as Sandy Cheeks, the astronaut squirrel from the land, is very broad and in quotes, and is sort of consciously cosplaying, right? Absolutely. She's not looking for any sort of, like, realism in that. In this, just because it was another film from the same team with the same lead actress, I was expecting her to do the same thing. And I think she is, uh, I was, God, I don't want to say I was surprised by how grounded

44:19she was, but maybe just in comparison to the previous work, that I was kind of buying her in this milieu of playing it relatively straight. I agree with you that there's an element to it feels like the character is doing an act and is kind of self-stylized as, you know, a hero of her own story, which is why you want the movie to, like, unwind her a little bit. I think that is the ultimate failing, is not in her performance, in that they actually don't give her fucking anything to play other than, like, an improv scene genre exercise of private

44:54detective. Yeah. I, yeah, when I saw it on the, on the big screen, I, I think I got a little fooled by the magic of the movies because I was like, this is, I actually think she's pretty good in it and I was shocked. Yeah. Because in general, I, I tend to dislike her in most things and maybe I'm just holding a grudge because she plays Anne Reyn King and can't dance and Fosse Vernon drove me insane. Look fair. Fair. Listen, listen, it's a capital offense where I'm from. Um, but, uh, no, I, and, and I watched it on the big screen. I was like, oh, she's actually pretty good. I'm like shocked. And then I watched it again the other day and I was like, I actually don't know who she is.

45:24Am I seen through this? Am I, am I, was I just like, wow, she's the size of a house. But, but sure. But also how much of that is like you go into it knowing that there's no there there for the character, right? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I was like, I was just so hoping that something would coalesce more interesting about the movie that wasn't happening that I just found myself so frustrated that maybe I took it out that way. I don't know. I was looking at your August 18th log of this movie, seeing it at Momi, the moment when I pinged David and said, Maddie seems to half like this.

45:55We should have her on the show. So I don't know if we're going to find anyone more positive than this. We even talked about having you on the show. And you said, really love the first half of this. Everyone was good. Looks very good, but feels a lot less than the sum of its parts. Honey, just okay. Honey, fine. Yeah. And then I messaged you and you said you were disappointed it wasn't worse because you had better letterbox jokes lined up that you then didn't get to use. That's correct. Remember any of those? Uh, I think it was like honey won't, honey shouldn't, things of its nature.

46:27Honey shant. Honey shant. My favorite was honey don't dot dot dot see it. Yeah, you would, yeah. Honey third act problems. Honey third act problems. Yeah. I think, I think that's a, that's a solid one. Yeah. Yeah. It would be funny if honey's like, I've solved the mystery. There's third act problems. But I think watching it the first time you're like, sorry, I was doing a magnifying glass. This is going somewhere and clearly at some point this character will deepen.

46:58Sure. Beyond just kind of an affectation. Yeah. Here's what I think this movie is actually sort of trying to be about. Okay. Vaginas. No, what I actually sort of think it's trying to be about. Boobs. The longer boob. Now you sound like David. It'd be funny if we were like, the big debate, vagina versus boobs. No, no. Okay. Okay. What's it about? What's it about? I think it's actually trying to be about examining the ways in which men hold power over women. If you look at the prism of everything happening around her in this movie, right?

47:31Mm-hmm. It is sort of like, here is someone who is a private investigator. She works for no one. Sure. She's a private dick. But she doesn't have one. But she doesn't have one. I don't understand this. But she's dealing with- A lady doing detective? Sorry, go ahead. A lady doing detective. A lady doing detective. She's dealing with the law, you know? She's dealing with her clients. She's dealing with the criminal element. She is dealing with organized religion, you know, or perhaps cults that are sort of framing

48:03themselves as organized religion to become consolidations of money and power and sex and cults of personality and the relationship with the father, which is the point where I'm watching it the first time and I'm like, okay, is this going somewhere? Is there thematically something here in this sort of, like, someone who has worked so hard to define herself not in relationship to any man? Not only because that is not how she sexually identifies, but also because she doesn't want to be part of these systems, right?

48:33And, like, the early stuff with her sister, who is a Kristen Connelly, who's an actress I like a lot. Love that actor. And I like that scene, the two of them on the porch together, where it feels like there's actually some real emotion here. Like, where is this going? Her sister who is— The answer is kind of nowhere. Nowhere. She's in the house. Her sister has many children. Yeah. There's, like, kind of no solid male figure in sight. She's pregnant yet again and makes a crack about her. Her siblings can't even—her children can't even remember how many siblings they have right now. They're not excited for the new baby.

49:04And her oldest child is played by Talia Ryder, who's in her rebellious teen phase, is dating a bad guy. Right. Right. An obvious sort of future abusive husband if things go that way or whatever. It's like a cycle is continuing. You'll later find out that Honey's father, who's trying to make amends, was also abusive, that they've both distanced themselves from him, and that the daughter's lashing out, that she feels like her mother's critiquing her too much from warning her about how badly things are going to turn out when she's looking for support.

49:36She's getting anger, you know? And how do women end up giving power over to men? Which is—the biggest fucking mess of this movie is—just getting into spoilers—Aubrey Plaza revealing herself to be like an 80s movie slasher villain who has gone insane victim-blaming women who are victims of abuse because she thinks it's about women being weak enough that they let themselves be abused. Yeah. So I'm going to solve that by kidnapping random teenagers and torturing them to death?

50:07That my father abused me. Yeah. And I now resent other people who don't know how to correct that situation because she murdered her father to get out of it or he died independently. I can't remember. In the very spot you're standing, honey. What's the problem there? I would say it's not played very well. So that was what I was about to say. I would say that is a twist that would be tough to— —to get across maybe anyway because it feels a little out of nowhere and a little convenient, yada, yada, yada. I also think Plaza cannot do it.

50:39She can't. Like—and that's another actor that I make a noise about when I'm like, do I like this actor? She is way more that for me. And I—you had told me, like, watching this, like, I'm questioning if she can act at all. So I went in watching it, and until the final scene, I was like, I actually like her more in this than most things. Because she's— I liked her a lot in the rest of the movie because she's really good at— Because she's good at that. She's good at playing horny. Good at playing horny. Good at playing flirty. Good at playing kind of temptress. Yeah, mean temptress thingy. She works so well until the last scene the whole time.

51:09Like, wow, Aubrey, like, put her in the center of the movie. It's almost like they didn't tell her the twist until, like, the minute they were rolling in there. Oh, and by the way, you've been the murderer the whole time. By the way, I'm, like, I'm sympathetic to her where I watched that final sequence, and I'm like, this feels like an actor being, like, well, I'm gonna try my best. This is a tough fucking assignment they gave me, and I'm gonna figure out a way and see if I have any in to playing it in a way that is believable. My thing with Plaza had always been—I had struggled with some of the—like, I didn't like her very much in Legion, but I didn't like that show much or whatever.

51:44Like, I didn't like Ingrid Goes West as much as some people did. And—but then I did like, like, Emily the Criminal, which was a bit of an under-seen little gem, and, like, there were certain things—I enjoy her in Megalopolis. I was gonna say, she gets what movie she's in more than any other actor in the cast. She knows exactly what movie she's in. Sometimes it hits, and then sometimes I'm like, well, this didn't work, and this was kind of a—was hitting and doesn't work all in one movie. It's all of it. Ben, do you have a take here? I feel like—or no, no, okay.

52:14I just kind of have a crush on her. Oh, interesting. Wait, wait, wait. Aubrey Plaza? Here. I'm sort of always in the bag for her. Wait, wait, wait. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. You like someone who has a kind of could-be-mean-to-me vibe? I don't understand this. This is not—this is not your track record for remotely. There's just something about her cold cruelty, yeah, that just, for whatever reason, sparks something in me. Does not reflect your wife. No. No, very much so. Kind of one of the million reasons we love your wife. Sort of a dating history, yes, that conjures up for me.

52:46That is bright red. A lot of WoW's Platinum in the past. Yes. More Emily's The Criminals, I would say, than WoW's Platinum. Okay, okay. Listen, WoW Platinum has got some pretty nefarious motives if I recall correctly. WoW Platinum is up to no good. Yeah. Do you know what's crazy? What's up? So, her character's name is WoW Platinum, right? That's correct. That's so true. And WoW is one of the words that is said most often on the Doughboys podcast. And the highest honor they can bestow upon anything is the Platinum Play Club. That's so true. And so, I was watching this movie and wondering, does Francis Ford Coppola listen to the Doughboys podcast?

53:20Which does make sense, because they're a Coppola goofball. Thank you for saying that. And, of course, that's something that Nick Weiger said about 400 times last year on Doughboys. I think I'm the first one to say that on any podcast. Have any of you seen Megadoc? No, not yet. I have a link. Me too, because I am very invested in Mechalopolis. It rules. A movie I liked. It rules. It's great as a document. It's great as- Maddie, we're both interested in municipal politics and wacko movies being my mad men. Yeah. Look, I- It's got both things going on, baby. Hey, that's a really good point.

53:51Yep. I'm in the same boat as the two of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that movie is fascinating as, like, a supplemental document to understanding Mechalopolis, but it's also, like, actually a good movie in its own right. Well, I understood it perfectly. No problems. Aubrey Plaza comes out of that movie. Coherent film. A to B to C. Looking the best. She does. She's one of the top, like- Out of Megadoc, I'm saying, makes her look even better. Oh, interesting. She looks the best. I thought you meant maybe in the wig she looks the best. She does. She is looking pretty good. But you watch that, and, like, both the behind-the-scenes footage of her interacting on set and in rehearsals

54:23and whatever, they show all the, like, fucking weird Francis Ford Coppola acting exercise improv stuff. Like, all this footage you haven't seen of her performing in character, that's all great, and you're watching raw takes. But also, all of her interviews, she comes off funny and smart and, like, the most transparent about everything that was happening in the ecosystem of that movie. So I watch that, and I'm like, she does kind of get it, undeniably. And also, she is someone who, versus a lot of her, like, contemporaries, has really been committed to movies.

54:59Yeah. I completely agree with that. She tries stuff. She does interesting projects. Yeah, you're absolutely- And honestly, same with Margot Qualley. Yeah. I mean, it's like, what, I'm giving people respect for working, but I like that they're working, like, doing interesting stuff. I think Aubrey Plaza, if I can even go a step further, in a way that I just, like, she gets brownie points from me forever for this, like, does a lot of low-budget stuff. Sure, yeah. With, like, first- or second-time filmmakers, where it feels like she's actually producing it, getting it off the ground, calling her friends in,

55:32interested in taking, like, a fifth supporting part in something, you know, just to work with interesting people, and has done a season of White Lotus and did Legion or whatever, but doesn't just feel like she's doing the fucking streaming prestige cash-in. She's done a couple, but she's like- Oh, was it? Not- All the time? It sure was. I guess all along, in my opinion, the best MCU thing since fucking Avengers Endgame or whatever. She is largely not doing big payday streaming bullshit that doesn't exist, which almost all of the people from her generation got caught up doing.

56:04Wow. Now, speaking of, Chris Evans is in this movie. It represents Chris Evans' try-year, 2025, where he decided to try giving a shit again. He got off his ass a little bit. I will say, he's been somewhat forthcoming, like, I'm aware that I made a bunch of dog shit after Knives Out, right? Like, he sort of said it out loud, right? Thank God. Like, because his post, we've talked about it, but the sort of, like, gray man, ghosted, pain hustlers, red one. Jesus Christ. It's really bad.

56:36Sorry, is there a movie called Pain Hustlers? Are you saying two different movies? Pain Hustlers is a Netflix film. I mean, that, honestly, that's the most- That's the best. Right, arty thing he did. It's like a biopic about opioid hustlers. Yes. It was Emily Blunt and Chris Evans. It was, you know, it came and went. From 2019, when he has Knives Out and Endgame, and you're like, here we go, this guy's unlocked. He's freed from Marvel. Right. And he just killed it in a movie playing a real person. Yeah, he's off the leash. Here we go. And then for the next six years, or the, yes, yes,

57:09for the next five years. Sure. Because 2025 is when he gives a shit again. Yeah. For the next five years, he only does streaming bullshit, and the only two movies he is in that go to theaters are Lightyear, in which he played the real Buzz Lightyear. Well, in the universe of the toy. Not the toy. The man that the toy is based on. That's right. It's based on a film that is, of course, disgusting and frazzled Snoop Dogg with its portrayal of lesbianism. It's a movie. For coming back to Honeydow. I'm just unfair. How is he supposed to explain this? He should never watch Honeydow.

57:39He seemed to more be saying that he possibly is too stoned to literally explain homosexual relationships. Yeah. Yeah. And that Lightyear was simply bothering him because it was prompting that. He wasn't even like, get this woke off my screen. He was like, I am too lazy to explain anything. If you have ever taken a small child to see a movie, something I know you now do, David. I sure have. Yeah. And my child has unfortunately seen Lightyear like seven or eight times. Really? I told you. I've said this on this podcast before. She calls it Grumpy Buzz.

58:10She doesn't even like it that much, but occasionally she's like, I want to watch Grumpy Buzz. I don't know if you told me this before. I forgot this. I've seen that movie a lot. I mean, she definitely likes socks more than most of the movie because that's at least a cat that's cute. Calling it Grumpy Buzz kind of underlines the core problem of that movie's existence. She really zeroed in, right? She's right. What the movie is giving you. It's like, it's Buzz, but she's kind of grumpy, right? Have you seen Lightyear? You didn't check that one out? Hey, I just have a real quick question for you.

58:41Why would I have seen Lightyear? Great question. I watched a lot of- Why do you experience the eventuality of Lightyear? I've said this before in the pod, but I was dating a woman and- Oh, right. Okay. At the time that Lightyear came out and I went to go see it by myself and she found the stub in my pocket and I think it's not unrelated that I was dumped within days. It was like finding like two condoms in your pocket one year. She's like, what is this? What the fuck is this? I was just checking out Grumpy Buzz. She was like, Lightyear stub? Did you take your little cousin?

59:11I was like, no, I had time after record. I went to go see it by myself. I mean, I'll watch basically anything. I'll also watch anything animated, basically. Just saying. My aspect right. Yeah, I was going to say- Lightyear kind of looks all right. It looks good. It's a pretty expensive animated film. Yeah. Pixar kind of lost me is the thing. I think they've kind of lost me. Pixar's not as good as it used to be. The thing about Lightyear, there are many weird things about it, obviously, but is that it is, the plot is basically like diet interstellar. It's got like this complicated, like time dilation plot.

59:43Yes, go ahead. Exactly what I was going to say. You take a small child to see any movie, they will ask you a question every 15 seconds about what's going on on screen. At a certain age, yes. So first of all, Snoop Dogg's point is invalidated because it's like, what? I don't want to have to explain this. You also have to explain like relativity. You're going to have to- This is a movie that has such complicated concepts in it. It does. Does anybody fold a piece of paper and put a pencil through it? It doesn't do that. It's been a free science fiction movie since the dawn of time has done that. This is what's so weird is that Interstellar, a movie for grownups, does that and everyone's like, oh, fucking Christopher Nolan.

1:00:14Thanks for the explanation. Treating us like babies. And then Lightyear is like, fine, we got it. You want to be treated like grownups. And doesn't take the time to explain it to children. Let me just say, I'm going to tangent off this tangent because we don't need to discuss Lightyear that much anyway. Juicy fingers. How are you supposed to explain juicy fingers to your children? Sorry? What's that? The worst concept in Lightyear is that in their alternate reality or their future, their far off future, they eat inverted sandwiches where the meat is on the outside, the bread's in the middle. And Buzz said, why would you do that?

1:00:45And they go, so you get juicy fingers. That's the best part. When the meat juices get on your fingers and you have to lick them off. That sounds like the kind of sex joke that would be in Honey, Don't. Explain that shit to your grandchildren, Snoop. I haven't explained anything that's happening in Lightyear to my child, who seems to have forgotten that movie exists recently, which is good. Juicy fingers. I had a pivot off of Lightyear. I'm wearing juicy fingers. Tangent off a tangent. Really threw me. Juicy fingers. I kind of going to forget what it was. Relativity. Not explaining. Pencil through the paper. David Gyasi, or Gyasi, I'm not sure how you say his name. Romilly.

1:01:16Astronaut Romilly. Who plays Romilly in Interstellar. My sister. Is now in Netflix's The Diplomat, a show that I watch and enjoy. Is that the Cary Russell show? That's the Cary Russell show where there's a twist every fucking five minutes and it rocks and it's very silly and frothy. Cool. It makes me look up from doing the dishes. Exactly. And David Gyasi is in it playing a hot British foreign secretary and it's just always a pleasure to see that guy. He's great. Oh, fucking good looking. He's also a good actor. Great in Cloud Atlas. Yes, he is. Oh, that guy. Yeah, he rules. He's just got like a really, really great like draw, great way of talking, a great furrowed

1:01:49brat. Like he's great. He's great. The only other movie that Chris Evans was in that went to theaters was, of course, Free Guy, where he makes a three second cameo seemingly filmed on an iPhone playing himself. He did do that. He is. Red One, I believe, did go to theaters. Yeah. I mean. You are. You are tragically correct. I mean, like. And I actually. I did see Gray Man in theaters, but that was a four wall. Did he? But Red One got like a real release, I guess. It did, but it still is streaming bullshit. Yes. Did he reprise his role as Lucas Lee on the Scott Pilgrim show?

1:02:20He did. He did. Which, I think that performance in that movie is so fucking good. He's so good. He's awesome in that movie. Yeah, yeah. Chris Evans is a good and charming actor. Yes. He's been working on our screens for more than 20 years at this point. I have always been a big defender. Yeah. And I think you look at stuff like Lucas Lee, like not another teen movie, where you're like, this guy does get it. Yeah. Like he is able to poke fun at himself in a way that shows that he doesn't know. He can't contend that he doesn't know what good material is. No, he's got taste.

1:02:50Because he's kind of in on the joke and he's worked with good filmmakers before. I don't like materialists, but I don't think he's bad in it. I think he's quite good. He's sort of doing his best. I like him a lot in it. The material I don't really like. That's a movie I obviously defend. You defend. Defend. But I also think that movie has a core issue with his performance that I think this movie carries as well. I have not seen the third film in his Trigear trilogy is the Kent Jones film, Late Fame.

1:03:21Yeah, well, I think that hasn't actually, you know, that got like a festival. Yes, it's played at festivals. You have not seen it yet. No, I didn't see it. I'd like to see it. I don't know what he has lined up outside of seemingly returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No, what? They got their hooks back in him? He's very much like as his like biceps and pecs are bulging out of his like t-shirt on the red carpet. He's like, I don't think I'm going to be in that one. And he's like, God, I fucking Captain American shield. I mean, maybe if they call me briefly, I might show up.

1:03:51He's wearing the mask. They've tattooed on his face. He shaved his head. He's in the Romain Gavris film Sacrifice, which was at TIFF, which with Anya Taylor-Joy. I don't know much about it. So he has two festival movies that haven't premiered yet, right? Yeah. Chris Evans, do we like him in this movie? The thing about him in this movie in which he plays a sort of, as you say, religious cult leader, the televangelist-y sort of like thing. But the movie introduces you to him misbehaving before you even see him at the pulpit.

1:04:22It is front loaded with. He's naked a lot in the movie. You just gave me a look that I cannot describe. He's got like a fucking strip mall church that is really a front for a drug operation where they're funneling money from the friends. It's the four-way church or something? It's the four-way. Oh, God. Go ahead. Finish your thought, and then I have a thought. He also loves to fuck, and he fucks everybody, and it's basically a sex cult. He makes all the female prisoners wear chain bikinis under their robes. And he directs them during sex.

1:04:53Doesn't this all feel very 80s, 90s kind of humor about televangelists and TV priests? Very tired. And that thing of what you don't know is religious people can be hypocrites. And I'm like, yeah, we know that. That is done and dusted. That is old news. JJ did not do a dossier for this episode. He is fired. Exactly. But we told him not to do it, but it was reverse psychology. We wanted him to do it. Yeah, and he failed the test. Exactly. I was hoping to see the giant book get opened up, but I guess I'm sorry. Yeah, no, I'm sorry.

1:05:23It's on the shelf this week. But I... There were changes made to this versus the Drive Away Dolls script remaining untouched and kept as a period piece, right? This was a script that they wrote, that she wrote in, at an earlier point? I believe all of these, including fucking, you know, Beaver Parade or whatever. Go Beavers doesn't have a script. I have to remind you. Go Beavers is not... They told me personally it's not written. It's an idea. And there may be a, like, a treatment or sketch out there somewhere, right? Like, it wasn't just that someone was like, go Beavers, and they were like, put a pin

1:05:54in that. They said that they had the ideas down, but they hadn't cracked it yet. And I was like, what are you possibly going to crack? That's my only question is, was this written in full in, like, 2002 and then dusted off and, like, COVID reference, you know, updated? I have a... The COVID reference, they talked about it specifically at the top box because it bothered me. Yeah. Because that... Again, attention to detail shit that was driving me insane. Where it's like, again, in, like, in Driveway Dolls, my lovely wife, who was a food writer, pointed this out to me. They order a rose egg in the 90s.

1:06:25They would have ordered a blush wine. That's a good call. And that's the sort of mistake that the brothers together did not make. Right. And then, it's like, I don't give that much of a shit, but it does, like, whatever. And then... Your wife is obviously one of the best food writers in America. She's America's best food writer, in my opinion. So, God bless her for noticing these things. Yes. And then, in this movie, the COVID thing is like, Billy Eichner, if he's that guy that they say he is, which is, like, a weird joke that I don't care about, and it's not very good. But he is introduced as a client who is methodically wiping off the chair in her office before he

1:06:56sits in it, and he turns to her and goes, like, can't be too careful, COVID. It's still everywhere. Right. And he's like, if he was actually that kind of, like, very conscious person about COVID, he would be wearing a mask. That is... You're right that it is bizarre and lazy. Exactly. And the joke is in there, they said, because they wanted people to know that it was not a period piece off the bat. Okay. And it is there to serve a function, not to actually be funny. There are other ways you can... I... Nope. There's no other way, actually. You watch people use an iPhone all the time.

1:07:28Ah!

1:07:30That are... Does someone look at a calendar?

1:07:34I'm always looking at calendars. There's paper calendars. I'm always... When I greet my friends, I'm always saying the dates to them. I'm always like, and as we all know, it's 2025. How's your November 4th going? You are right, David, that watching this film, you're like, this does feel like a script that has been sitting on a dusty shelf for 25 years, and that you're like, yeah, we've kind of moved past this surface-level takedown of, do you know that some Christians are actually bad? Again, I'm not saying that Christians are good, or that Christians are above reproach in cinematic satire. I'm more just kind of like, did you know priests can be horny and nefarious, doesn't feel shocking.

1:08:12And this film really seems to think that I am going to be like, I cannot believe that Chris Evans is fucking ladies in this movie! 75% of his screen time is probably in that bed fucking somebody, right? Or nude arguing with somebody. He is often in the buff, or in tighty-whities of some sort. Here's my core complaint, and I buy it more for this character than Materialist, where he is playing a struggling theater actor with integrity who doesn't want to sell out. Right. I think Chris Evans has gotten too obsessed with the self-manicuring.

1:08:47I'm sure he's spending a million dollars on physical upkeep a day, right? He looks incredible. That feels like it's not profitable. But he is almost getting... That's a lot of money. 52 million dollars. He's almost getting to a point where I'm just like... 365 million dollars a year. Jesus Christ. It looks what? Sorry, what was that? It looks like his beard is being lined up in between words. I think his beard is a little too perfectly cropped. And I feel this way about everything. The last two years of it, every time he shows up, I'm just like, you look too good now. It's not a genetic thing.

1:09:17The hair is too well-maintained. Your muscles are too perfect. Your chest is too shaved. The beard lines are too clean. You know, whatever fucking dermatologist regiment you have on or whatever work, I'm just like, you are starting to not feel like a real person. It perhaps works for Captain America. But yet, I would argue, part of what was so successful about him as Captain America is he somehow made that guy feel a little earthbound. And now he... He plays him so corny in a way that's like, whatever, dumb shit when he's like, oh, here's

1:09:50the list of movies I gotta watch. It feels like, oh, here's a human being. He's starting to look like an anime hunk. And I'm truly just like, spend 15 minutes less in the makeup chair. Like, if you're making an indie, just let it grow out a little bit. Yeah. Cool it a little bit. I get that this guy is vain and self-obsessed and would be this. Well, it makes more sense. In Materialist, it bugged me more. In Materialist, it bugged me. In this, I'm just like... But in Materialist, it didn't matter because it just went handheld when you were in his apartment and now I know he's poor.

1:10:22Sorry. That's my critique. One of my many critiques. It's a good movie. Materialist. But I'm just like, this... Chris Evans, the actor, has access to treatments that this character does not have. And a strip mall. Yeah. And Bakersfield. I'll believe that he spends two hours in the mirror every day. But I think what you're doing is nitpicking, honey, don't. And you did it too. And I've done it already as well. We've all done it. And it's like, we Driveway Dolls tries this and this movie tries this too. This kind of like, fucking, this is a chill movie.

1:10:53This is a ramshackle little delight. Like, you know, we just threw this together. Stop being, taking this so seriously. And in Driveway Dolls, I kind of roll with it. In this one, I don't so much. Partly because, as Maddie pointed out, there's a lot of like grisly kind of lurid stuff that, you know, I'm bouncing up against much like harder. And so, I don't know. Well, because you want there to be a point to it. Every other time the Koreans have done this, you're like, it is serving ultimately thematic concerns.

1:11:27Yeah, it felt a little bit like watching those like, in the early 2000s, there were a lot of those like pitch black comedies. The post-Tarantino kind of crime murder comedy. We've all spent a night at McCool's. That's correct. And the whole time, those movies are always going like, staring at you down the barrel of the camera, being like, and we're having fun, right? You're having fun? It's wacky and fun. What are you, offended? I mean, honestly, are you bad at what happened to Smoochie? And I'm like, I'm, poor Smoochie. Death has happened to him. Well, like, death is being threatened.

1:11:58This movie's giving death to Smoochie a little bit to me, where it's like, it's just a little. A movie that Griffin defends. A movie that I liked a lot when I saw it when I was, what year did that come out? 2002, and Maddie, I was right there with you. I was 17, so I loved it. I think we're very similar ages. And I was also, I was like, this is twisted. This is dark. It's twisted. I get that that's, that's transgressive. And I'm supposed to be like, good. I will say this. Good transgressive. I rewatched it recently. I also hate society. I rewatched it recently. I still like it. There is no question that the best time to watch Death to Smoochie is when you are a teenager.

1:12:31It will never hit as hard as the ages from 13 to 18. Yeah. But like, there's like, am I wrong here? It's got like, I was trying to like, think of more examples of fun-itis. But like, this is a thing that sometimes movies do. And like, I think driveway dolls also did it to some extent, which is just like, it's fun. But we put it up against this with Lady Killers, which is like another murder comic. Which I've not seen because I'm afraid of it. But is a movie that very much like maintains the like, this is fun energy. Yeah. And like, honey, don't, it like has these moments of like her talking to her sister, you know?

1:13:06Yeah. Like the runner having his mother attacked. Like these things where you're like, it's slowing down. It's like investing in character. It's not trying to maintain this like, come on, don't take any of it seriously thing. Which makes you want to believe it is building up to some ultimate point. David? What? I've heard of August Rush. Okay. But have you heard of August is the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins?

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1:15:28The basic setup of this movie is, honey. I mean, the premise is that honey gets a fucking case. People are dying. Girls are getting killed. What's going on? A woman who had hired her shows up dead in a car crash. It's a classic fucking Raymond Chandler-y kind of setup. Yes. Like she, you know, like it's the case she does. She should stop sniffing around, but it's too intriguing. Right, right. Charlie Day is a local cop who has a big crush on her. Very nuanced performance for Mr. Day. The thing is about, I've been over 20 years of watching Mr. Day on my screen, both large

1:16:00and small. Same. I've inculcated to his fucking shit. Everybody enjoys it. Every time he's on screen, I'm having a ball. He makes, a problem I have with this movie is that most of the jokes are not very funny. He has the one thing that made me laugh so hard in the last scene of the film, where he says sex hookers. It made me laugh, and I was like, you know what? Against my better judgment, I laughed at that joke, and you know what? I'm laughing. So thank you. Charlie Day, a.k.a. Luigi. A.k.a. Luigi. Is a funny guy, and I'm pretty much always rooting for him, despite the fact that he is insanely rich, and I do not need to root for him.

1:16:32He's fine. He does not need my elbow once in a row. If you are quiet for even a moment, he'll die.

1:16:39If you listen to me all right now, believe in Charlie Day. Please clap. I'm not trying to talk shit. But I do think he seems like the most sort of level and chill of the sunny guys. Yeah. Oh, by a country mile. The other two seem like they've got stuff. You know, they're hardworking guys. They make their show. Like, they do a lot of stuff that I like. Well, Glenn Howard is from Waterloo, where the vampires hang out. And he fucking crushed that shit. I loved it. And Rob Mack, I believe. Stop! Don't say any more!

1:17:10Heartbreaks on that name. Do you know about this, Ben? No. I also don't know about this. Rob McElhaney. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh, jeez. I'm sorry. Not to dead name him, but he was born Rob McElhaney, and for the 25 years of his career, that is the name he has gone by, right? He's credited that way on many episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, his hit show. A show he not only stars in, but he created. And owns, yes. Right. He becomes best friends with Ryan Reynolds. They own it. The funniest man in the world. You might have heard this, but they own a soccer team. Well, he's married to that girl from Age of Adaline, right?

1:17:43Yes. Sorry. Yeah, I heard about the soccer team. And it does feel like he's become somewhat infected by the mogul brain of Ryan Reynolds. A little bit. And wanting to be like Ryan Reynolds. Be kind of like a sort of personality brand in a way that Ryan Reynolds also is. He's doing like a more successful run of what Ashton Kutcher was attempting 15 years ago. Yes. Yes, yes. Remember that? When he was the most followed person on Twitter? Yes, I do. Uh-huh. And he was like starting tech companies or whatever, you know. It's also funny that he was like the person who basically minted Twitter.

1:18:14And then he had one bad tweet that was like, oh, no, they fired Joe Pau. What happened? Do you mean X the everything app? Yeah. Do you remember this? I do remember this. I do not remember that he was going to the mat for Paterno. Because he didn't know yet about the Sandusky. He saw the headline Joe Paterno out and he didn't read the rest of the story. And people attacked him in the comments. And he went, got it. I will never tweet again. He actually did it. Credit to him. Right? Where the first time Twitter bit him, he was like, never mind.

1:18:45Log out. Okay. But anyway. That's really good advice. Over the summer, Rob McElhaney, I think it's like People Magazine or someone breaks that he has legally filed a name change petition to be Rob Mac, period, legally. Rob Mac. And people are like, what the fuck is going on? And then he posts like a 15 minute video. A real, this is the real Ryan Reynolds-y energy. This video where he's, I don't know if it's actually 15 minutes. Maybe it's five. But it's one of those like, hey, it felt like an hour.

1:19:15My name, you know, is, you know, I have Irish ancestors and like it's been spelt all kinds of ways and it's confusing and no one knows how to pronounce. Like, right? That's kind of his argument. His argument is, I now do a lot of global business and people in other cultures have a difficult time pronouncing my name and I have lost hours of my life where I could be making money correcting people on my name. That's actually the jokey kind of explanation he gives is like, if you add up every time I've been in a meeting with someone and I've had to say it's pronounced McElhaney.

1:19:48Right. Over, over years. Sure. That is 500 hours that I could have been meeting with VCs. Yeah. As someone with an actually hard to pronounce last name. Lubchansky. It's Lubchansky. Lubchansky, sorry. You know what? Point proven. I don't care. I'm not changing my name to Maddie Lubb. Exactly. Well, well. I was going to say, my culture is not your costume, Rob Mack. But his argument of time is money. That's crazy. And I'm missing out on deals. And then Caitlin Olsen, his wife, who he has multiple children with, is like, our children

1:20:19have your name and you didn't talk to us about this. Sounds like a normal relationship with us. Your name is Rob Mack and their name McElhenney. It's so crazy. It sounds like the video of that one entrepreneur guy that's like, my days are cutting to six hour chunks. Yes. This is what it's like. I love that guy. I love that guy. You've seen that video? Yeah, it's incredible. Where he takes baths and bottled water or whatever. By three weeks from now, I've killed you. I've eaten you. Right. It's incredible. The video has the energy of, like, I inject my son's blood into my penis to stay young. Yeah, exactly. Like, these insane fucking, like, biohacking, like, grind set tech bro shit.

1:20:52He doesn't have to do the legal change. He can just tell people to call him Rob Mack. Nobody has to do anything. Honestly, the answer to most things of late is you didn't, you don't have to do this. Just call me Rob. This is, um, this is, this is the, the, you know, the worldwide phenomenon of everyone is 12 now, I believe. This is what they call it on of why can't I just be 12? Why can't I just be 12? But anyway, and again, I want to be clear. Rob Mack has made things that I, that amused me. Yes. I enjoyed Mythic Quest.

1:21:23I haven't watched the latest season. I feel like everyone fell off with Mythic Quest, but there was a time when I enjoyed Mythic Quest. Yeah. I'm sure Wrexham FC is doing fine. I haven't checked the standards. You're right, though. That Charlie Day seems to be very at peace with himself from the outside. He's just, he made his passion project and everyone was like, eh. And he was like, anyway. Yeah, I'll show up and be five, I'll be Charlie Day for five minutes in your film. This feels like the kind of thing of like, again, if you'd gotten the call from E. Tan Cohen and he was like, hey, do you want to do some bullshit in my bad movie, Honey, Don't? You would have been like, absolutely.

1:21:54That's what he said. I got to work with a co-brother. I mean, his performance, Chris Evans' performance, and Aubrey Plaza's performance in particular have the energy of, I've always wanted to be in a Coen's movie. I've always wanted to be in a Coen Brothers movie and I read this script two seconds ago. Right. I would say it's those two things. And I'm worried that this is the closest I'll ever get. I could turn this down. I got to take my chance. Well, what if they never get back together again? And like, you're playing a sleazy priest in a Coen's Brothers movie, a Coen movie, rather, is like so, again, that part, I think, would be better if it had any jokes that were funny

1:22:29or any dialogue that was even medium interesting or good. It is such a first draft character. It never goes beyond what he is revealed to be immediately. Yeah. And then it's just a repetition of the beat, which I think he plays fairly well. And I think the more they repeat it, kind of the funnier it is in a way, especially as the movie gets darker, you're like, oh, here's Charlie doing that again. Okay. When Chris Evans shows up in church and there's like the big photos of him behind him, I'm like, it got a small chuckle from me the first time I saw it.

1:22:59Same. Yeah. I do feel like if he had figured out a way to add a dollop of real menace to this performance, it would have been a little interesting. But also, this movie kind of shrugs and goes, this guy doesn't fucking matter. He was shot off screen after being forced to perform the heinous crime of Cunnilingus upon a woman. Awful. I do kind of like that scene. I'm sorry, I was going by the DJ Khaled playbook there. Um, I do kind of like that scene of his final, uh, uh, sex scene is with the French drug

1:23:34Nepo queen. Uh, correct. Um. Whose name is, uh, is French for honey, isn't it? What is her name? Is her name, uh, Miel? Miel. Okay. Which is French for honey. That is French. Yes, you're correct. You're right. It's the last beat of the movie where they say that. She asked for sex American style and he says missionary, which makes me wonder then how do French, French, heterosexual people have sex. The joke is that missionary is the most boring position and Americans are boring. French people, of course.

1:24:05Yeah. They just kind of like blow cigarette and smoke at each other. Un petit mort de chien. What's that? What's that now? He was trying to do. Did you say a little death of dog? He just said dog orgasm. Okay. No, what I, yeah, that is what I said. I tried to say sex doggy style, but you're right that what I said was closer to, that's not closer to, it's a euphemism for orgasm. Kind of, kind of fucked out. My, my favorite French euphemism is, and I'm not sure if this is still true. People can let me know. I haven't lived in France in a long time, is that, uh, you call a cum stain a carte de

1:24:36France because the map of France kind of looks like a, you could say that about kind of any map. Uh, France is very hexagonal. It's very cum staining. I was going to say like, you can't say that about like Chile. Yeah. It'd be like, is something wrong with you? You don't cum a boot. Is something wrong with you? I think one could cum a boot. All right. Well, all right. Why don't we do a side podcast and it's like Coming Shapes?

1:25:00What's going on? This is an hour 20 in? This is a side podcast? No, I'm not sure if that's sustainable. Can I, we go country to country? Also, I would say, Coming Shapes is about the least podcast friendly thing possible. Sure. Like in audio form, we're like, kind of looks like a boot. Yeah. Guys, I wish you could see this one. Uh, can I pivot to something way, way less controversial? I just wanted to say. Damn it. I was going to do a good joke. Okay. What's your joke? You ever seen I Love Your Daddy? The Louis CK movie. Charlie Day is in that. Charlie Day is in that. Oh. Playing kind of the same role.

1:25:32Sure. Charlie Day? Exactly. Like, where it's just kind of like every. Why won't you fuck me? Every, every so often he just shows up to be kind of lewd and like that. Yes. And it's sort of the same, like, hey, this movie kind of needs like a slap on the cheeks, like for 20 minutes. Every time the camera fucking like tracks into the room and he's doing this with his hands and he yells her name. It's fun. Every time I'm like, I'm having a good time. He does, he does, I will say the least annoying version of his bit that he keeps not, not even not getting the hint, but just refusing to accept that she is not sexually attracted

1:26:07to men every time he quote unquote politely asks her out on a date, right? And he does play it so guilelessly that the bit isn't creepy or annoying. It is kind of harmless and funny. Yeah, it's kind of like, oh, you. Yeah, like as, as like, and sort of like thematically it almost works as you were talking about before if like the thing is like the way in which men control women's lives, the first interaction you see her have is him hitting on her. Right. Right. And it's also the last interaction she has with someone who is not the girl on the motorcycle. That even in a non-threatening way, his relationship to her is completely transactional.

1:26:40Yeah. Of all of his kind of cooperation with her is based on when will she agree to go get dinner with me. Yeah. And when she explains to him why she won't, he goes like, you always say that. Which is kind of funny, but yes, it's, it's all about, yes, a woman trying to find an identity that is removed from all these systems. Honey, kinda. Kinda. Honey, kinda. Chris Evans' final sex scene, he is having sex based on her direction. She is the one giving the commands, telling him what to do. And then he afterwards says, that was the best sex ever.

1:27:10I like a woman who can take charge. Sure, sure. There's some subversion. He's subby. And then she shoots him in the head. Bam. While Honey is parked outside or pulling up to his congregation. I should mention, the other, the other plot element here is Talia Ryder as her niece. Right. So you got this kind of like domestic plot line and this murder mystery plot line in parallel. So yes, Talia Ryder is the niece. She goes missing. What's the character's name? Corinne. Right. She's running away from her abusive boyfriend. She doesn't want her mom to find out and say, I told you so.

1:27:41Honey is kind of like helping shield her. She goes to a bus stop. She's creeped out by an old man who she doesn't know is her grandfather. Played by that actor's name, Cale Brown. I think he's quite good in his one real scene. But she's now a second missing person. Are these things connected? And Honey believes that she must have been abducted by Chris Evans and his sex cult. But in fact, Chris Evans is shot dead by the French sort of emissary for this drug operation.

1:28:19It's clearly them being like, oh, femme fatale, get it? Yeah. I mean, having her be French does not make sense. It's like the French are running this drug church out of Bakersfield. What if they wanted to be on the East Coast? That seems like a long way to go. I'm just, I'm just, I'm sorry to poke holes. They worked backwards from the Vespa, clearly. They worked backwards from like, here's a lady wearing all one pattern on a Vespa. Wouldn't that be funny? Wouldn't that be stylish? This thing looks incredible. She holds the screen. I'm not. It's a very hot lady.

1:28:50I'm not not enjoying myself anytime she's in the movie. But it's adding to the where is all of this going, right? Honey pulls up. She hears a gunshot. Chris Evans has been shot. They don't show her discovering the body or anything like that. She also sees a motorcycle pull away from the gunshot. And she's not like, maybe I should see where she's going. She's like, huh. And that's the second point in the movie where she's sort of like driven past this woman. Yes. Right. But hasn't really engaged with her. It's clearly blind to her as a suspect because she wants to have sex with her. Right. And then I'm trying to remember how she figures out that in fact Aubrey Plaza is the one.

1:29:22She just goes over to her house because she's like, I know a cop that can actually help me. It is truly right. She just checks in and Aubrey Plaza is like, FYI, it was me all along. And Aubrey Plaza is like, you hate me because I'm poor, right? I bet you hate my house. Yeah. And she's like, I'm from Bakersfield too. Right. And then Aubrey Plaza goes like full kind of like serial killer mode. Like Pamela Voorhees. So Kweli sees Honey, Honey Kweli, and he sees two cups of tea and is like, who are you making tea for? And Honey, sorry, Kweli and Plaza, Honey and MG have been fucking the whole movie.

1:29:56But it's this kind of like forbidden off on like sort of quasi relationship. I think those scenes are all very good and are kind of the closest this movie has to having any real emotion. There's the scene where they're like basically having sex in the bar in front of all the male cops. This is like good and like interesting. It's like, yeah, these men would not notice. And it's like, it is interesting in a little bit and it is hot, I think. I agree. But then it gets to another problem I have with both this movie and the last one is, does Ethan think gay people are funny?

1:30:33I don't know. There's some things in here where it's like, there was a bit while they were talking, when I heard them talking after the movie that I saw, where they were like, there's that scene right after they have sex where Honey is like cleaning all the dildos and shit. And they were talking about like the only argument they had while filming. It was like something, whatever, they were editing it. And Ethan wanted to hold longer on the sex toy cleaning because he thought it was really funny. And then Trisha says, but he doesn't understand, as lesbians, sex toys are sacred to us. And I was like, okay, one of you thinks this is too funny and one of you thinks this is too serious.

1:31:06You're both horseshoeing over here. Like, let's relax. They're just dildos. I think that was perhaps a sort of double-pronged thing happening here, much like a double-sided dildo. Great segue. Thank you. In their split up, it does seem clear that Ethan's the horny one of the Coen brothers, right? Yeah. My stupid letterboxd review of Driveway Dolls was like, okay, the big experiment's over and now we know which Coen is which. Like, let's get a pizza in here and get them back together. It is frustrating how much this movie plays into the narrative of now we can divide the interests and the skill sets.

1:31:45Yeah. Which the whole thing was that they were supposed to be like this, like, complete singular unit that worked so well without speaking, right? Which I think they are. Yeah. And I think to some degree versus, like, we will see what this second Joel movie is like, right? Yeah. But Joel feels, seems to be taking their sabbatical from working together as, well, let me explore parts of myself as a director that I never explored. Yeah. And treat them with the same level of seriousness as our work together.

1:32:16And Ethan seems to be specifically on a mission of, I want to not take this stuff as seriously anymore. Yeah. And, you know, and like, you know, Joel had the co-writer too, which, William Shakespeare. He did. He's from England, I think. Bill did a pass on that script. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The new film. De Blasio? Yeah, Big Bill. Big Bill de Blasio himself. The new script there's, like, not much known about. I think everyone sort of assumes it's a solo writing credit, but no one really knows. What if he started writing it with Fran just to, like, even it out? I mean, that would be funny. I don't know.

1:32:46I don't know. I don't know. We talk about this in our Driveaway Dolls episode, which will have come out, but you have not heard, that Trisha Cook was very outspoken when she was promoting Driveaway Dolls, that where that script came from and the sort of reignited passion to finally put this thing into production is that, especially at the time she started writing this, in the 90s, if there was, like, gay cinema in America, and especially lesbian cinema, it was almost always very serious. Yeah. Very dramatic.

1:33:17And she's right. I don't disagree. Hard to live life. Yeah. Coming out stories. Exactly. Getting murdered stories. Even if it wasn't traumatic, it was about adversity. Yeah. You know, it was about processing shame and fighting for happiness and whatever. And she wanted to, the whole thought experiment of these lesbian B-movie trilogy of riffs is, can I, like, remove any sense of self-importance from lesbian storytelling? Can I make lesbian movies that are allowed to just be, like, dumb and messy?

1:33:48Right? But this movie is, like, touching third rails or at least, like, trying to touch serious subjects. It's identifying where serious subjects are, pointing at them and saying, but I don't want to talk about that. Yeah. In a way. And I think it extends to the representation of sex, which she's just, like, I want to show these things on screen in a way that is not the male gaze. Yeah. And that normalizes it, right? And that also allows it to be funny, but in a way that isn't a punchline.

1:34:20But I do think the balance is kind of off here. Yeah. Just something feels a little too much, like, you think the fact, just, the movie seems to think that it is, like, a little bit funny when two women are having sex. To me. A little bit. I don't know. Yeah. Yes. And I think, like, I think Drive-Away Dolls. Which is, to be clear, it is deadly serious. Of course. Sex is very serious. It's very, very serious. I'm very sort of stone-faced. It's sort of like, I'm like the emoji that's just, like, line, line, line. I'm wearing, uh, I'm wearing the gloves that go up to your elbows and a full ball gown.

1:34:52Right. Yeah. Very serious. The whole time. Yes. The whole time. I think Drive-Away Dolls, uh, like, it abstracts, uh, its sex scenes to the point of almost feeling like Three Stooges routines. Yeah. Where it is successful in being, like, we are working past this being erotic, that this is just eye candy for, like, young dudes. Yeah. By making it so silly that it's hard to kind of objectify it in that sense.

1:35:24And I think this movie, by having scenes where there actually is some sense of palpable connection. Between her and Aubrey Plaza that is played somewhat real. And there's sort of, this sort of ticking clock within the movie of, these are two women who are afraid of commitment. They, like, you know, they, like, fuck and move on. And they're acknowledging that they're worried about having to hit the end point of disconnecting from each other because they don't want to, uh, accidentally land in something that feels more serious and committed.

1:35:59That these are people who try to live without attachments. Yeah, and it feels like it's there already. Like, I thought they were pretty good together in a way that, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the introduction of Honey is her in bed with a woman getting the call and saying, like... Like, lock the door on your way. Right, right. That she just is really, like, I'm moving on. And by comparing notes and revealing that they have the same kind of relationship, two relationships, they are unlocking a new level of vulnerability in each other that sort of scares the two of them. Yeah. And is interesting. And then the movie responds by saying, actually, she's insane.

1:36:31Right, uh-huh. We're going to throw hot tea in her face and turn her into, like, a scarred Bond villain. Yeah, she becomes kind of a Bond villain. Who you have to murder. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I feel like... Yes? They just don't seem to have that good of a grasp on her own material. I don't know. There is a version of this ending that does not redeem this movie for me, but where Margaret Cawley shows up, puts it together, sees her, Aubrey Plaza just breaks down emotionally. Mm-hmm. Rather than going full fucking supervillain mode.

1:37:03Right, full, like, actual psycho. And being like, you've discovered my scheme. I must fight you to the death. Yeah, it's a little Scooby-Doo, except with... It feels very Scooby-Doo. Lesbian murderer. Yes. ...that she's sort of like, I don't know, it got out of hand. Yeah. Right? That you almost, like, try to deal with the delayed, like, time-release trauma of this woman and what she's gone through. And, like, her needing to confess this to someone who she's actually let in emotionally. Yeah. And that still needs more, like, something earlier in the movie.

1:37:34Agreed. The clue you in if this lady is perhaps kidnapping people and putting her on her basement. And it would be hard to pull off in terms of the aforementioned tone management that this movie does not totally have under control. But it feels like the kind of ending that would at least make this film feel like it had something to say. Yeah. It would have functioned a little better. Something on its mind versus it feels like such an easy out to be like, well, that didn't, like, mean anything. Chris Evans didn't kidnap her. She did kidnap Honey's original client.

1:38:06She solved that, but he's already dead, so there's nothing she can do about it. She retrieved her niece, who's now back home. You have the kind of one moment of her waking up in the hospital to her sister and the niece being like, thank you so much. Bow tied on that. Honey drives off. Yep. Sees the French lady on a Vespa. Basically, they're fucking each other with their eyes. Yeah. Movie over. So now she's going to get in bed with a different criminal? Yeah.

1:38:37What was the point of any of this? That's a really good question. Women be out here doing it for themselves? Women, okay. That is true. It is true. It's a crazy world out there, and Honey will always be getting a coffee with her trusty assistant, what's her pants, and solving the next case, and fingering a lady, and I don't know. I'm doing this. I like the assistant. No, keep going. Keep going. I like the fact she's out there right now. That dust will be blowing down Bakersfield Avenue. She'll be flicking through that Rolodex.

1:39:07Right. It's not the only thing she's flicking through. I like the assistant character, and I do like that dynamic to your cosplaying point of like, she's almost like, Honey, you're doing the bit. Why do you still have a Rolodex? Why are you asking me for coffee as if we're in some fucking 50s TV show? She looks like a lesbian from the year 2025. She's got a Wild Fang shirt on. Her name is Gabby Beans. Good name? Yeah, great name. That makes sense, because she's really obsessed with the coffee.

1:39:37Hey, no. That's a good point. What were you about to say, David? For my incredible joke. She's in the upcoming Steven Spielberg film, which we love to see. Okay. And she was in Romeo and Juliet with our friend Rachel. Oh, the Broadway production? On Broadway. Oh, okay. Yeah. Even just like the opening credits for this, which I think is kind of a cool visual idea of the cast appearing as signage on closed-down businesses. Did they rip that off from Fat City? They said they might have. Yeah. I think so. And I'm just like, it's kind of just executed sloppily.

1:40:08Can I say something about that? Not to keep being like, and I was at the talkback, but the only three things I remember have all come up. The last one is that they said they had to go film that twice because they fucked up the first time they filmed it. And it's the things you always hear about the Coen brothers, when there's two of them instead of just one, is that they don't, they are like, they have like the tightest sets you've ever heard of, right? And nothing, there's no mistakes, there's no wasted shots, there's no wasted time. And they had to go film, they wasted a day filming the wrong stuff the wrong way to make

1:40:39the credits. Here's the shame. It also feels like they fucked it up the second time. It feels like they should have done it a third time because I like the idea and it doesn't feel like they figured out the right way to make it, to execute it. It just ended badly or something. And someone was on our Reddit was sharing a story of working on a production with someone who worked on Llewyn Davis and asking them about working with the Coens. And he was like, I got so many stories about how they're the fucking best, right? Like as guys, as filmmakers, as bosses, as all of this. But the anecdote that really stuck with me was he said, he remembered looking at the

1:41:13shooting schedule and in their notes, it would say like, you know, shot whatever, set up whatever, three takes. And they'd be like, they're allotting three takes and they would get it in three takes. That they're so good at this that they basically can guess in terms of like how they get these movies made under schedule and under budget, which is always one of the most impressive things about them, that they can correctly kind of eyeball that might take six takes to get right. That one we can probably get in two. And he was like, they were basically always right about that.

1:41:46That's wild. And that's the shit about them that feels magical. Savant magic. Right. Right. Or just experience. But yeah. And then they split up and you're like, this is completely dissipated. What's going on here? Now, what's frustrating about the Go Beavers thing, if we can circle back here. Sure. Go Beavers. Is that when they do interviews now. I don't get it. I just, what's frustrating is that kind of humor is sort of impenetrable to me. It's so complicated. That was a spoiler. I predict that movie will be about vaginas. Or boobs. If you're David. That would be a swerve. Possible.

1:42:16For the Beaver movie, it was about boobs. That's a twist at the end. The camera pans up. Eyes up here, buddy. A little lower. Boobs down here.

1:42:26My boobs are up here, buddy.

1:42:29When they do interviews. Yeah. Which they haven't done a ton of since they've been split up. But they have both. I mean, like, Ethan and Trisha did nominal press for this movie. They did more press for Drive Away Dolls because I think they wanted to really underline, like, Trisha was the co-author of this. For Honey, Don't, I think no one was really barking up the tree anyways. I couldn't find a lot of reviews. To that point, I bought the fucking Blu-ray because I'm committed to the great project of Blank Check. This, I struggled to even define how much this feels like a bootleg.

1:43:03Like, the cover feels like it was printed out on, like, an HP Envy 900. It's like the discard itself was, like, written on with a Sharpie. It has zero special features. The menu says Play Setup. It doesn't have a scene selection option. No scene selection. I'm not kidding. Like, it feels like it's a 1997 DVD. Love it. Does it have a menu that does anything? It has a menu that's just Play and Setup, and it's just this still image. And when you go to Setup, the only option is English subtitles.

1:43:33Is music playing? No. The song Honey, Don't is not playing? No, nothing's playing. Right. There's an original song in this movie that's co-written by Ethan, produced by Jack Antonoff, and sung by Margaret Cawley and Talia Ryder. There are actually two songs that follow. It's not a cover of the famous song Honey, Don't? That also plays, but there are two original songs in this movie that Ethan co-wrote. Are they in the movie? Yep. When? There's one in a montage where she's driving around, like, interviewing suspects. Okay. And watching it this time. Oh, I thought that was just some bad song I'd never heard.

1:44:05Well, you're wrong about that. I guess it was a bad song I'd never heard. Watching it, I was like, this sounds like Margaret Cawley, and then I looked it up, and I want to say... It's called Odd Wad Wankers. Yes. Sorry. The other one's called In the Sun She Lies. There's also another one. Her fake name is Lace Manhattan. The other one's called My Little Black Star, maybe? Lace Manhattan and Dixie Normus are the pen names. For fuck's sake, we gotta call it. This all feels... I'm playing the box office. No, I got so much more to say. This just feels like when you talk to, like, a seven-year-old, and they're like,

1:44:37my humor's a little body. Yeah. Like, it's all... I don't know. It just feels like someone who thinks they are funnier than they are. I agree. The thing I was gonna say... He's famously funny. He's one of the Coen brothers. There's only two of them. I know. I got tickets to see this play he's got running off-Broadway right now that's, like, three one acts. Oh. Everyone who's seen it has said it is actually very good and funny. Sure, funny. Aubrey Plaza's in it. Our friend Dylan's in it. Dylan Galula, friend of the podcast. Yeah. Yes. It's got a good cast, and everyone says it's good.

1:45:09And I've asked this to people who felt similar to me about Honey Don't, and they were like, yeah, no, it's actually good. I'm not, like, grading it on a curve. So it's a little odd, because he has done these side-writing projects, and they have worked on their own terms before. Yeah. The thing I was gonna say... You lost his grading people on curves. Honey or Nani. Hey. In the interviews they have done, they're like, you know, we both felt burnout, we took some time, Ethan didn't really want to make stuff anymore, Joel said, maybe I do something

1:45:39on my own, but that we've just been out of sync. Yeah. That they've been writing something together, but then it was like, Honey Don't got greenlit, so then Joel started writing something else, and then by the time Honey Don't came out and Joel was about to go into production on his movie, so now Ethan has to wait for Joel to be finished with his movie before they could make the next thing together, where it's like, if they did Greenlight Go Beavers tomorrow, it might delay the reunion for another two years. Right, which is the last thing we need. They've been, like, alternating productions in a way that has fucked us.

1:46:12I'm getting older all the time. We all are. Which is breaking, I didn't realize that was going to keep happening to me, and it does keep happening. I really thought I was going to beat the trend. I'm hitting a big roundish number this Saturday. This Saturday. Okay. What are you doing? Leaving the country. Get the fuck out of here. I'm not kidding. I'm gone. No spoilers, but is it an age that Judd Apatow is particularly obsessed with? This is. Yeah, for his film, this is 29, yeah.

1:46:41That's the roundest number. The nine is pretty round. It's a round thing. I'm realizing he has two titles with that age in it. Does he? Oh, he does? He does. The 40-Year-Old Virgin. The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Yeah. Wow. You know what? How did that never occur to me before? Obviously, I know the 40-Year-Old Virgin was kind of Carell's idea, but it is funny that he's hung up on 40. Well, you haven't heard about it. He's like, you better have even either fucked or become a millionaire by the age of 40. Two of his six movies are 40 pictures. Huh. Anyways, you know what? As it rapidly approaches for me, I kind of understand the man.

1:47:14Sure. Yeah. Your next book is going to be, are you ready to add to the 40 camera? Actually, you know what actually is fucked up about the book I'm working on now? It's a lesbian road trip. Well. I'm not kidding. Well. So, I'm challenging Ethan Coen to single combat with this book. I think this is a bar you can clear.

1:47:34Yeah. What I'm hoping to do is I put in actual jokes. Mm-hmm. So, I'm hoping that I'm going to do something about it. It's an interesting approach. Yeah. Uh, sorry. Well, you were saying something leading up to, as you approach. Oh, I'm just saying, I'm getting older all the time. They take two more years. Oh, oh, yes. Yes, yes. I'm going to even be around. And, and look, there's one interview I read with Ethan Trishon. Mm-hmm. Where, Ethan Trishon, not Ethan Trishon. What the fuck is going on with me? I thought that's kind of a cute couple name for them. Ethan. E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E. Um, where, you know, they're asked like, hey, so are you going to do that third movie?

1:48:06And they're like, oh, maybe like we, you know, we talk about that. We wrote a script with our kid. So maybe we'll do that.

1:48:16Or maybe, and, and, and they also say, and Ethan works with Joel and they're doing something. And you're like, oh, that sounds good. Yeah. And like, again, I do not want to begrudge. The audience is going like, wah, wah. People enjoying working with their kids. And it's not like that has never produced something interesting. They have can, but it does sometimes feel a little like, guys, name a couple. I would probably have to do some strict Googling and research to unearth the ones that are good. The George Miller movie where I always get the number wrong. 3,000 Years of Solitude.

1:48:46Oh, that's right. But his, you know, his kid, quote unquote, is old. Sure. Like, no offense to that. You got to have an old ass kid if you're going to work with him. You know, it can happen. Of course, it's great. Oh, you collaborate with your kid. I want the Coens and their families to do whatever makes them happy. Holding baby Joey. Yes. They have earned it. Is that what that is? But I also agree with you that they are soon to both be in their 70s. Yeah. And the film culture has been lacking from their collaborations. Yeah. And when it was just the narrative of Ethan is tired, he wants a break, I'm like, by all

1:49:21means, take your break. Take your break. But now that we're on the second Lark movie, and in that time he has also produced an evening of theater, I'm like, it's not like you don't want to work. No. And I think he has said, like, yeah, I'm over that. Yeah. Like, that exhaustion, I dealt with it, and it was invigorating to make these movies with my wife, and isn't that fun? And I'm like, that is fun. Would love you to make something I like. Mm-hmm. Perhaps a trite complaint of mine, and, like, I do kind of have the thing of, like, you owe me nothing.

1:49:52Yeah. You've made a bunch of shit that I love. You want to make things that don't work for me. That's fine. If you can get the money, go for it. It's not like this. Boobs. Boobs. Love to see it. Vaginas. It's not like this movie was shot back to back, but they were shot pretty close together, obviously with the same lead actor, and Working Title financed them both, and it does feel like Working Title has benefited from supporting the Coens for decades. They clearly are like, this is a rounding error for us.

1:50:22Exactly. We owe it to you. It's kind of like, it all evens out, and maybe there's another interesting thing coming, or whatever. But, like, I think Honeydome was in the can before Drive Away Dolls even came out, if I'm not mistaken. Now that two of these have been released to pretty violent indifference from the public. I don't know a single person that's not an absolute freakazoid. That has seen it. Right. Whereas Drive Away Dolls, some people were like, oh, sure. This one, nobody was like, I saw Honeydome and was disappointed by it. The only person I know that, like, saw it, like, that was, like, unexpected of me for

1:50:56them to see it was my friend, the drummer in my band, Ivy, that I took to go see it. I have had multiple close friends and family members truly say, you didn't see Honeydome, did you? When it came out, like, in the month after it came out, and I was like, yeah, we're doing them on the podcast right now. And they were like, yeah, but I thought you were going to skip that one. Not just that we'd skip the episode, but they'd be like, that you would not feel a compulsive need to see it. You would skip it because, like, you have to not see it. These are people who know me. For your health. And know that I couldn't skip it and are like, but you must have skipped that one.

1:51:29It's that one tweet about David Attenborough narrating Planet Earth is going, skip, skip. Don't like this one. Skip. Skip this animal. It did feel like this was out of theaters within, like, less than two weeks. I think it did two or three weeks in theaters. Uh, yeah. Yeah. I saw it, like, a week into its release, and I remember checking Showtimes a week later and being like, it's down to, like, one time a day at one theater. Yeah. It was, it was gone fast in New York City. Yeah. A thing I want to think about is, so when I, when I did see it, they were introducing,

1:52:01right after Honeydome, they introduced The Long Goodbye on the same screen 10 minutes later. Which is a film, even as I said, with a specific inspiration. You know, just kind of like, imagine watching this and then sitting in your, staying in your seat, and then The Long Goodbye. Not going to make Honeydome look great in retrospect. I mean, I had a similar experience of. It'll pick you up. I, you know, I just watched this for the second time, but two days ago, I went and saw Wake Up Dead Man. Oh, yeah. The new Knives Out movie, which had a little preview screening at the Paris. Uh-huh. I guess we'll be out now by the time this episode comes out.

1:52:33At least in theaters or whatever. I can never keep track of what Netflix rollouts are. But I, like, I saw that on Monday, or Sunday night. I greatly enjoyed it. Good movie. And then I was like, that's going to make this Honeydome rewatch significantly worse. That's true in terms of, yeah, right. They're not the exact same movie. No, but there's, you know, there's murders that are being solved. And even its, like, relationship to, like, Christian faith in America. Yes. It's dealing with some similar stuff. Well, Wake Up Dead Man has the Rian Johnson thing of, it is trying to run at topical shit

1:53:07that sometimes you're a little, like, Ryan, this feels on the nose. Or, Ryan, you're almost too animated by, like, right now. Yes. But at the other time, you're like, eh, kind of respect you taking the swing versus Honeydome being, like, isn't, you know, Pat Robertson a hypocrite? And you're like, mm-hmm. He's dead. I will also say this to his credit. All three of these movies, the first time I'm seeing them, about halfway through, I'm like, I get it. This is good. This is fun. Right. But that's all you got? And then they get you with the... And then they get me... And it's not even, like, a twist thing where I'm like, oh, you're doing far more than

1:53:39I thought you were underneath the surface. And I feel like the first half of the movie, I was just like, okay, I get it. It's a Trump thing. That's really all you have to, like, talk about. And then he's like, no, I'm talking about, like, 20 things. Okay. And it's the kind of flowering you want a movie, like, Honeydome to Have. What was the talk with J.J. Abrams like? That was the... I thought that was a very interesting ploy. I did, too. There were two screenings that day. Oh, so you didn't see that. The one I saw was moderated by Josh Horowitz. Oh, sure. Well, he knows. He was excellent. He's the king of that. He's good at that. They did a surprise of Daniel Craig coming out.

1:54:10The audience exploded. Ah! I just thought it was... When I saw it was Abrams and Rian Johnson, I did the double take. Like, my first... I was like, oh, sure, yeah. J.J. Abrams. Haven't thought about it. And then I'm like, wait. Oh, wait. Didn't he fucking make episode nine, which is basically, like, taking a piss on episode eight? Like, is this, like, a grand healing moment? Is this a... We've always been friends. I would have loved to have seen it. It did feel like just them sitting on the stage together was meant to be some rebuttal to the, like, rock versus undertaker narrative that the internet has built for the last 10 years.

1:54:43But it's like the rock versus the undertaker if the rock was, like, lying perfectly still on the ground. Yeah, it's a bit of a hydrogen bomb versus coughing baby situation right now. I mean, I'm all for J.J. Abrams making... That's an incredible term. Making... Have you noticed this? It's like a Twitter... It's an incredible name. I don't think it's... I think I'm all for J.J. Abrams making, first off, anything. Agreed. He hasn't fucking made anything since episode nine. Yeah. Second off, would love it to be good. Maybe. Yeah. That'd be cool. It's, by all accounts, a Back to the Future riff.

1:55:14It is time travel influenced in some way. Yeah. Okay. Hey, the book I'm working on is also a time travel book. Hey! There's nothing wrong with time travel. Time travel rocks.

1:55:29David! Yes? Everyone hates bank fees, right? That is where Chime comes in. It's changing the way people bank. They offer the most rewarding fee-free banking. You're just going to get 5% cash back on a Chime card in a category of your choice. Gas, groceries, whatever year you're spending a lot on. You're going to build credit through regular everyday spending with no credit check. You should join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to Chime.com slash blank check.

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1:56:29Yes. Red alert. Uh-oh. There's been an outbreak. Biohazard. Of a new Patreon series. It's contagious. Oh, that's so true. It's been cooked up in the lab for your pleasure. From the fine folks at the Umbrella Corporation, we are covering Resident Evil. The film franchise. Yes. We've got the first franchise. Six movies. Yes. That beautiful second franchise. How many? Six? Seven?

1:56:59It's got the one movie. Oh, it's got the one. We'll be covering all of them on Patreon, doing commentaries on, yes, the Resident Evil, Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife, Retribution, the final chapter. Welcome to Raccoon City. This is an exciting time. Zach Craig, our friend of the podcast, has a new Resident Evil coming out, and we thought this was a good opportunity to revisit the history of Resident Evil movies. Why not? Why not? Why can't we? Why can't we? We can. Check in for that August 1st, and it's going to be running all the way through November

1:57:311st, followed by your March Madness winner, Dracula. Dr. Acula himself. That's so fun. So that's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much.

1:57:48Look, before we plug Maddie's excellent books, which just reminded me to do. Simplicity. We should play the box office game. Much like Rob Mack, just stop. Don't say. Simplicity rocks. In the land of. August 22nd, 2025.

1:58:05Honeydone opens number eight, $3 million. I saw this movie in a double feature. It topped out at five. Right. Driveaway. So it could not complete its black hat. I want to say Driveaway opened to five and ended at 10. Sure. Let's see. So this was already like completely 50% of something that already didn't work. What this bad boy calls. That's a great question. No, Driveaway Dolls also only made five. Really? Yeah. Okay.

1:58:35I don't know. They're saying they're like 15 or 20? Yeah. I think that's probably about right. Yeah. They don't seem like they would take that long to make. No. Yeah. I just remembered another gripe I had. Please go ahead. Throw it out. Very quickly. During the talkback, Ethan kept saying Driveaway Dykes, which I know was the working title of the film. Yes. And that's the sort of secret title of the movie. But I was like, hey man, are you allowed to say that? Well, again, this is why they did the full court press of like, Trisha is a co-equal. But I think that's also why the movie was not technically titled that. He said it so many times. Right. And every time I'm like, okay, like eight years ago, I'd be like, all right, whatever,

1:59:10man. Right now. Right now. Right now. Right here. Right now. Right here. Like the song says. Yeah. Bring back Fat Boy Slim. What's that bad doing? It's a good question. He did the show with David Byrne. That was good. Here Lyle's Love. Is that what it was called? Sure. That was a good show. Yeah. I saw this movie in a double feature. No, it wasn't. Never mind. Really? There you go. Sorry. I like that show. I was thinking about American. Oh, well, now you told me. Here Lyle's Love was very mixed reception. I had political issues with it. I won't get into it on your movie podcast. I don't.

1:59:40I hear that. And I respect that. Thank you. I saw this in a double feature with Highest to Lowest, which was just interesting in terms of it being like two late movies from American masters that are kind of being dumped and disregarded. Yeah. That are funded by, well, no, actually, Honeydone isn't a streamer, right? No. It's a focus. But yeah. But yeah. But Honeydone, I was like, whew. And then I went across the street with my girlfriend. We got tacos. We walked back into the theater. We saw Highest to Lowest, and we were like pumping our fists.

2:00:12And we were like, this isn't perfect, but God, when it hits, it hits. More like Lowest to Highest in that regard. Well, it does kind of build in that order. But it was sort of like, I wish Honeydone could have delivered some of this juice. Yeah. What's number one at the box office? It is, speaking of things that were on streaming, the streaming sensation of the year being pushed onto wider screens 10 weeks into its theatrical release. So this is interesting, because technically Netflix didn't report the weekend numbers for K-pop Demon Hunters. But it is listed here on the numbers as the number one movie of this week, making $19 million.

2:00:45It's one of those, depending on what site you checked, because it was estimates that were like sort of repeated off the record. It was certainly the most viewed movie of the week in theaters. No question. No one could really deny this, and it had an insane per-screen average, because it wasn't on that many screens. But I believe some outlets reported that Weapons was, by technicality, the number one movie of the week. Fair enough. So number two at the box office is Weapons. Yes. One of my favorite movies. I know Maddie didn't like it, but that's okay. Oh, whoa. Oh, okay. I know Maddie didn't like things about it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know Maddie didn't like things about it, because I saw Maddie Letterboxd about it.

2:01:17I thought- Or something. I really, really liked most of it. You didn't love the Amy Maddie. I thought she was great. Her performance was great. I liked the movie immensely. I was really locked into it for most of it. I thought the ending was so fucking good. I was losing my mind screaming. Talk about sticking to land. Talk about paying off like a slobber. It was more like I didn't like Barbarian that much. Right. And the thing- And you felt he was dipping in the same- I felt he was going back to- Repeated some of the things. Have you heard that I said this on a website I shouldn't have logged into, and I got yelled

2:01:47at for days and days and days and days and days and days, but did you know it's very scary when a woman is old? And I think this movie was doing it less than Barbarian. I think I was more mad at the moment about it. Sure. I think I would revise my stupid Letterboxd review to be a little higher. Sure. Fair enough. And maybe I'll do that. Fair enough. So no one yells at me. Because now you've loosed them upon me, David. Dude, I fucking logged a five out of ten for Frankenstein, a movie that I know Griffin liked, but like hardly was getting like universal praise. And these days you do this on Letterboxd, people are, there's whatever, there's a gaggle of folks who come yell at you.

2:02:23And I'm not mad, and don't put it in the newspaper that I got mad, but I was kind of like, Jesus. I'll say this. David's holding up a little sign that says, I'm mad? It's like a little Wile E. Coyote. It's pointing at him? It's pointing at himself, which is hard because he's holding it perpendicular to his body. I liked Frankenstein, but also like very much for me, a gentleman six with major issues. Sure. That also I went to see after hearing like all of my most trusted friends nuke it from Orbit for two months. And I was like, more of this work than I was expecting. This is the Guillermo del Toro special.

2:02:55Because everyone I know hates it, and then I go watch it, and I'm like, I had a nice time. You were saying I wish he would make, in a text thread we're on, you were saying I wish he would make something like Crimson Peak again. Fun. And my thought watching Frankenstein was this is what I wanted Crimson Peak to be. Crimson Peak I totally bounced off of. Wow. I do feel like you and I. I could not go there with you. You and I land differently on GDT. We're both like hot and cold on him, but we tend to alternate on which ones. I will also say the Oscar Isaac performance in Frankenstein goes in the bucket I've created with his Moon Knight and Apocalypse performances where I'm like, three question marks.

2:03:28Like, what? What? It is weird. Pedal to the metal kind of performance. Not very successful casting. No. Alordi is fantastic. He's great. And that's what works in the movie, not just his performance. I'm the first to notice. Is he tall? Tall fella. Well, it looks too tall to play Elvis, I think. It's all a fella. You have not seen the film yet, Matty? Uh, Frankenstein? Yeah. No. There's this bizarre thing and I was very surprised. What if you're sympathetic to the monster? General Taurus seems to relate more to the monster character. That's what the book is. Well, I would say the whole movie is a little bit, that's what the book is. Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, and, and, and to most depictions, most, uh, adaptations of the book don't really

2:04:04get at that. I disagree with that. Yeah. I, well, but a lot of sympathetic in all the movies, a lot of, but like the classic, like universal monsters depiction is like, he was just a beast. Whereas like in the book, he's like wearing a tuxedo and writing leather letters, long hand with a feather, like how to live your life. Honey, don't need it more long, long hand feather letters. Stitched fingers. Say that, that's a theater warm up. Long hand feather letter. Yeah. Number three of the box office, Griffin, is a film that did pretty good. Okay. A legacy sequel. Mm-hmm.

2:04:35Um, that I feel like came out, got mad reviews and kind of like, you know, cleared almost a hundred mil at the box office, kind of almost quietly, despite one of its cast members being fucking the loudest person in the world these days. Enough of her. Maybe I'm being rude. It was me? She's a legend. Maddie, shut up. You talk as much. It's not a person in the world. Legacy sequel. I'm going to throw that at me. It's not Sidney Sweeney. No, I like Sidney Sweeney. It's not I Know What You Did Last Summer. That I did not like.

2:05:07I did not care for that film. When did it come out? What week is this? This is its third week of release. It came out sort of August 8th. Beginning of August. My wedding anniversary. It doesn't quite hit a hundred, but it gets close. Ninety-four. Loudest person in the world. She's just, there's been a lot of her lately. She's. And she's off the leash, as am I sometimes, so I respect it. But I do feel like she's felt very empowered to be, you know, a big poisonality. It is Jamie Lee Curtis Freakier Friday. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Where she's like, should I fire off a Charlie Kirk tweet? I'm going to do it.

2:05:37I. Like some PR person is like, Jamie. Oh, forget it. I defend her Oscar winning performance. I think she is quite good in everything, everywhere, all at once. I do think nothing good has come from giving her that Oscar. It has certainly empowered her to go to the lodge. Very, very broad performances, I would say, of late. Yes. I will never forget queuing up that bear episode that's just her and Abby Elliott's face in close-ups. Want me and my wife watching it for 10 minutes and then me going, I think the whole episode

2:06:09is going to be this. And my wife going, I mean, no way, come on. And I, and I sort of do the, I like track, you know, I, I hit the Apple remote to still like see this, the little screen. Yeah. As you try and I'm like, it's just their faces, just their faces. The whole thing's just their faces. I will say, I will say, I will say, I will say, I ain't go poop. Come on, please. Sorry, sorry. The bear post season one, a lot of episodes you're kind of like, is this going to be the whole episode? Oh, this is going to be this. Oh, the whole thing's going to be. And I liked season two. I definitely liked season two. I liked season two. And season three, there were things I liked.

2:06:40There were episodes that worked for me. I've not yet watched four.

2:06:45Much like the Lady Killers, I am afraid of it. Same. Or I watched some and then haven't finished it yet. Freak Your Friday. Did you see Freak Your Friday? I still have not seen it. Neither have I. I will watch it when it's on Disney Plus. Then you saw it. Say what? I'm joking. You probably didn't see Freak Your Friday either.

2:07:04I feel like everyone I know who's seen it is like. Everyone who's seen it was like, oh, it's fine. It's kind of what you think it is. Yeah, right. Exactly. It looks like a shampoo commercial, but it's effective. Who directed it? What's your name? Garnier. The brand. The woman who did Late Night and Blinded by the Light. Nisha Ganatra. Yes. Right? Yeah. Late Night, the great. Who could forget. She didn't do. No. Come on. That's Gurinder Chada. That's a real great film. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But she did do Late Night and then she did a movie, I think, called The High Note with

2:07:36Dakota Johnson. Yes. And Tracee Ellis for Austin Ice Cube. COVID forgotten film. Yes. Number four. Did you see Freak Your Friday? No. You didn't. I didn't get freaky with it. Yeah. Happy Lindsay Lohan seems to level out or whatever. She seems fine. She is in a commercial that drives me insane where she's like talking about her children's toys or something that I get 85,000 times while I'm trying to watch my shows while I draw. And for that, she's dead to me.

2:08:04Accepted. Yeah. Number four at the box office is a big superhero film of the year that did probably about the lowest acceptable amount that the studio wanted it to make. The Fantastic Four call in first steps. Right. It squeaked over 500 worldwide. It just narrowly avoided being an embarrassment. But it was not, I think, the runaway bounce back game on it. No, especially when you consider Deadpool and Wolverine aside, that being their highest grossing

2:08:36film or their second highest grossing film in years is faint praise. Imagine. Because it outgrows Thunderbolts. It outgrows Captain America, Brave New World, all respect to our president. Wow. I didn't realize he was here. He's right there. Get off. He's been listening to me the whole time. I'm listening. On our highest shelf. You've got to warn me. The film's before that. I will appoint the leader to every position in the cabinet. The film's before that. Adamantium.

2:09:07Remember when that movie is about Japan and America negotiating an adamantium mining treaty? Is that one of... That's the plot of that Stevenson I'm using. Yeah, it's the plot of a mouchette. One of the fallen celestials has become an island with adamantium in its skull. Is there a problem with that? And the countries are fighting over it. It also outgrows the Marvels. It did not outgrows Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Okay. It did barely outgrows Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania, but that's not what you want it

2:09:37to be doing. No. I was going to say, just imagine being Peyton Reed, and you are about to make your 60s Fantastic Four movie, and you make Down with Love one of the best movies in the last 30 years, in my opinion. Wonderful movie. Incredible movie. Shout out to my wife for making me watch it, because it was her favorite movie in high school. Anyways, great movie. But imagine being him, and you want to make your Fantastic Four 60s movie, and nobody likes Down with Love, so they don't let you, and then 20 years later, they make it, and it looks like that. Look, I partially defend First Steps, but it must have been really frustrating to him

2:10:07to make Quantumania, and then watch someone else make the kind of Fantastic Four movie that he had always wanted to make. That he would have nailed! And not totally hit it. I think he would have done a better job with it. Yeah.

2:10:19Number five at the box office is another animated film. A sequel. But not a squeakle. No, not that I'm aware of. It's The Bad Guys 2? That's correct. A movie that kind of disappointed. It ended up at 80? It ended up at the grand total of $82 million. Yeah. Sure. Like, the first one outgrossed it, and that was 2022, I want to say, and also was, like, when Peacock was putting movies on their streaming service three days after they were in theaters.

2:10:52Take that for what you will. Went to see it with the Ehrlichs? Oh, yeah. I used to saw it. It's his favorite movie? Sure. Didn't really move the needle for me. I think it may have been displaced by whatever he's seen lately. The last time I went over there, he was watching it for the 80,000th time that day. Number six at the box office this week was Nobody 2. It is a lot of, like, okay, stuff in the box office this August. I do like, it gives me a little bit of hope for, like, the health of cinema going. Yeah. That Nobody 2 is kind of what we need more of. Sure. Which is, like, you make a $15 million movie that makes, like, 50 worldwide.

2:11:26Sure. And Universal goes, like, why not make a sequel? Fuck it. Who cares? It's fine. You can make a movie that gets on, like, second base, and people are like, okay, sure. Number seven, James Gunn's Superman, which in its seventh week is outgrossing Honey Don't. Number nine, Be Great, Naked Gun. Yeah. You see Naked Gun? Yeah. When it was funny, it was so funny. The last act kind of lost me. I think there's great bits in the last act. I think there's good. But it was, like, when the jokes were good, I was, like, having the time of my fucking life.

2:11:56I will say I saw it a second time in theaters, and I found it did not quite have the replay value. Sure. That, for me, I re-watched the fucking three original movies once a year. Yeah. I grew up watching. We had 33 and a third taped off of television. Yeah. Um, and I watched it until it broke, I think. They still, like, yeah. The jokes hit still. Yes. On the 50th watch for me. And I, I liked the Naked Gun, uh, 2025, a tremendous amount. But I, I did feel a little bit more of its creakiness the second watch. Still, best studio comedy we've had in quite some time.

2:12:28I mean, the whole time I was watching it, and I was just like, oh, there's, like, a comedy with jokes in it. I was so. Can you believe it? So happy while watching it. And even, like, you know, just to be clear, watching it the second time, I was very happy watching it. I just wasn't in the ecstatic euphoria I was in the first time. Yeah. I also missed it in theaters. So I watched it at home, which I think may be too much. It was a very good movie to see with theaters. Yeah. In theaters with an audience. I can imagine. Yeah. Number two of the box office, Griffin's favorite film in the year, Jurassic World Rebirth.

2:12:57There you go. Is that your review of the film? It sucks so much. It sucks so much. Oh, shocking. Not a fan. Not a fan of that one, were you? Quite poor. It stars People's Sexiest Man Alive. I like him. Yeah, I like him too. He gives the best performance in that movie? The hero! Uh, sure. I mean, I suppose. I mean, what's the competition? That dinosaur that's a mix of two different dinosaurs? I think Mahershala gives the best performance. That guy kind of can't be bad. And that movie is, like, trying so hard, it's, like, weighing him down with bad.

2:13:30And he's still, like, basically fine. I agree that he can't embarrass himself. Yeah. Like, he's just got, like, too much, like, legitimate presence. Yeah. Yeah. Y'all I was watching the other day was Alita Battle Angel. It's a fucking movie! It's a fucking movie! Good movie! A good movie. Yes. Two. He fucking rocks it. Yeah. He looks cool as hell. Remember how that movie is, like, she's like, I'm a big-eyed crazy robot, and I don't know what's going on with me. And then she's like, I do remember what's going on with me. I was in a moon war. And then she's like, I need to do rollerball fucking cyber sports.

2:14:04My dad is a rocket handler? Yes! And then the end of the movie is, like, Edward Dorton lives in space. And I'm like, yes, he does! Yeah. I can't believe that everybody's second one of those. Christoph Waltz is a giant hammer. Yes, he does! I was genuinely so convinced in my, like, conspiracy theory addled brain that when Disney bought Fox, James Cameron was going to make it a contractual point that they had to greenlight a second Alita for him to keep making avatars. Sure, right, right. No, because he had the avatar bargaining chip. James Cameron could sell one of his submarines and they could make a new avatar whenever he wants.

2:14:35I was like, if he wants Alita to happen at Disney, now that they're so invested in the avatar business, it'll happen. And it seems like he's just been like, eh, public doesn't want it. I, well, I think there's a world where there could have been some momentum and then COVID kind of killed it. The momentum is absolutely gone. Yeah. Yeah. The momentum was lost in a moon war. Yeah. Moon war. It's just so good when she's like, fuck, I remembered. Moon war! And I'm like, what? Remember how she has, like, bespoke porcelain arms? Yes, yeah. I do. I have this deal book that's her hand, her porcelain hand. That one goes for pretty pennies.

2:15:07I know, baby. Okay, baby. It's all mine. Howdy, baby. Sorry. We should mention also. What a weird way to end our Coen Brothers movie series. Our friends at Super Yachty sent over very nicely some co-branded Focus Features promo honey don't air fresheners. I'm giving it one more sniff to try and get to the bottom of it. Our windowless studio smells great, right? I had to get it off my desk. It was starting to work. I didn't get a good sniff on the microphone. They're strong. They're meant for cars and not podcast studios. Well, I would say cars are smaller than podcast studios, but yes.

2:15:39Well, not all podcast studios, though. Not that first one we had. That's true. That was kind of car-sized. That was like a van-sized studio. That was a mid-sized sedan. It's like a smart car or some shit. Why does honey, who is so self-serious, have a honey-don't license plate? That's a great question. Well, it's her little twist of whimsy. Much like ordering the coffee. I don't fucking know.

2:16:01I don't know. Sorry for mentioning the movie. Ben's honey-don't thoughts? Yeah, Ben, any other thoughts apart from Crush on Aubrey?

2:16:11Love it. That should be the review. That should be what I said to the rep as I exited the theater. As I get further away, the air is still leaving my body. It's the eraser head noise. Yeah. Oh, my God. The classic, what do you say to the rep thing of like, where you're like, I was interesting. I gotta go. The projector was on. They did a good job turning that on. That seat was working. It did not break.

2:16:43I'll say this. Both arms were there. I cast the time while I did laundry. Oh. Wow. Wash it on my phone. That's the way it was intended. If you. If the Oscars give this 14 nominations, that'd be funny. Best phone movie. You think it'll get an original song? Three. It'll get three. Three original song knobs. There's none, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, K-pop Demon Hunters will clean up. Oh, yeah. Imagine them getting an original song nomination for this and not for Mr. Kim. That'd be great. That'd be great.

2:17:14That'd be deserved. It'd be good. Maddie. Maddie. Yeah. When does Simplicity come out? Please put everything that you do. Please do. Not just your wonderful. Too many things. But yeah, please buy my book. I have two books or three books out on the market, but the most recent one is called Simplicity. You can buy it at any, your local bookstore, any of the stores online, whatever. I would say it's a somewhat tough story to sum up in a good way. It is elevator pitchless. It has been out for. You need that elevator to be going to like the 200th floor. Like it's fully, I, this book, I finished, I finished writing and drawing this book a

2:17:50year and a half ago and I'm still like, people are like, what's the book about? And I'm like, you gotta sit down. It's really, I think it's, I'm really proud of it. But it's like, but it's about like revolution and love and sex and technology and a lot of, oh, I do know that they, uh, the first printer it was supposed to be printed at in China rejected it because there were too many nude butts in it. It's your in the night kitchen. It's my, correct. And, um, yeah. And also I have two podcasts myself.

2:18:20One is about mayors. It's called no gods, no mayors, no gods, no mayors.com where every week we talk about a mayor because they're all maniacs. We're recording this on election day itself. Not stressed at all. I'm actually feeling really normal. I lack the ability to have faith in things, but hopefully. Yeah. I'd love to see it. I'll feel good tomorrow morning. I would love to see it. I would love to see one specific thing happen to one specific older man. Yes. Um, we'd all like to see. Curtis, you will become mayor. I was going to say in solidarity, don their red berets tomorrow morning.

2:18:52A new era for this city dons. I'm going to be, well, you're going to know because you're at the wake up and you've been conscripted into building a feral cat colony in a park to encourage cat colonies to take care of the rat problem. But if we could talk about it, it's me and, uh, November and Riley from Trash Future. And we talk about, uh, mayors. And then I also do another show with my friend, Clayton Ashley called Temporal Culture War, where we, uh, talk about the early 2000s while we watch, uh, Star Trek Enterprise. Wait, how do I not know about this show? I don't know. That's like right up my alley.

2:19:23That's rude of you. It's called Temporal. We've been doing it for about a year. It is so funny to me, just to tangent it, that I'm sure you will agree, that they were like, we fucking need to go back to basics. The show will be a prequel. It will strip things away. It won't have complicated Star Trek because it's a prequel. It'll be about the Enterprise, the first one. Scott Bakula, we need to be really conservative here. Like, get the most ordinary, like, you know, straight arrow guy to play the captain. And then like two episodes in, they're like, there's a temporal war happening with the 30th

2:19:53century. There's bug people. Like, it's so complicated. They abandon the time war. They do. After a season and a half. Because clearly UPN was like, enough. No, it's because 9-11 happens. Oh, that's right. So the whole point of the show is we're watching it. And then every week we also talk about like, the movies that came out that week, music, TV, and also like the news that week in 2001 to 2005. Yeah. And we're into like the second season right now. But they drop all of it and it becomes 24 set in space. Right. But it's like Republican Star Trek. Yes. It's like, there's a fictional man called Lawrence Kansas, I say, is watching the show in his

2:20:27truck on a little TV. What's T-Pol up to these days? It is pronounced T-Pol. Fuck. T-Pol. Jalene Blaylock. I will say, I kept saying T-Pol on the show and one listener wrote in so angry at me and Clayton. And now we have to say it a thousand times an episode to get it correct. I wish I could relate. I simply never have been criticized online for mispronouncing words. I think Jalene Blaylock is truly one of those, like, you know, like, makes most of the money just like doing the very consistent Star Trek circuit. Like, person. Yeah. Gets nothing to do on that show. Yeah. And does so much with it.

2:20:58She's actually kind of astonishing. I think she's good. I like T-Pol. I like that character. I'm always, I'm always pro Vulcans. I love a Vulcan. Who's your favorite Vulcan? Tuvok. I was going to say Tuvok, baby. I fucking love that motherfucker. The episode where he mind melds, the Voyager episode where he mind melds with Brad Dourif and he goes crazy. He's one of my favorite. It's Brad Dourif. Remember the one where? Brad Dourif plays a serial killer who's like on the Voyager. Yeah. And then they're like, we don't know what. Wait, Brad Dourif? No, you must be thinking of someone different. They would never cast him to play a serial killer who goes crazy.

2:21:29Oh God. He's really good. Remember the one where he, he, he, he, he melds with Neelix? Of course. Tuvix? Of course. Do you know about Tuvix? It's Mitch Gorfine himself. Do you know about Tuvix? We talked about this. No, no, no, no, we talked about Neelix, who's a character on Voyager. Okay, I haven't finished that episode yet. You talk about, you got to make sure you talk about Voyager on that episode. But there's an episode of Voyager where Tuvok, who is the Vulcan on Voyager, and Neelix, who is the bizarre alien chef that they picked up while they're in the Delta Quadrant. With his four-year-old girlfriend. With a girlfriend who, yes, canonically is like three or four years old because she has

2:21:59a 10-year lifespan. He imprinted upon her? Let's not even get into it. Merge in a teleporter accident into one being called Tuvix. The fly. It's like a mix of them, right? The fly style. Which is kind of fun. And the episode is kind of about how everyone's like, honestly, I kind of prefer Tuvix to either Tuvix or Tuvok or Neelix. Like, kind of the best of both worlds with this guy. But then at the end of the episode, the doctor's like, so I figured out a way how to, like, separate them. And Janeway's like, great news. And Tuvix is like, oh, hi, that would kill me. Like, I'm a new being.

2:22:30Like, you can't kill me. Like, that's murder. And Janeway's like, got it, got it, got it. Think we got to do it. And they do it. And then the episode just kind of ends with them being like, oh, that was kind of fucked up. And like, it's kind of never addressed again. Voyager rocks. Voyager is so good. I love Voyager. My project while I drew simplicity was I watched all of Star Trek. Yes. Hell yeah. All of it. From the beginning all the way through. Did you watch the animated show? I did not watch the 60s animated show. I have never watched that and I've always thought I should do that someday. Yeah. Would people prefer this podcast if it were hosted by Gravid?

2:23:04Kind of like Gravid. I mean, it's like, again, the iconic Bluey episode, Mini Bluey, in which Bingo, Bluey paints Bingo Blue and is like, here's how to be Bluey and like, you know, essentially be obnoxious. And the parents are like, God, this is so annoying. And then they're like, okay, well, there will be two Bingos. So Bingo paints Bluey brown. And then they're like, Bingo. So they're both being good. And the dad's just like, honestly, this rocks. And Bluey is like, that hurts my feelings. And they're like, oh, sorry. And the episode just ends. It's so good. That's good. It's really good.

2:23:34Sorry. Had to discuss that. Thank you for being with this matter. Oh, do you watch Bluey as a parent of young children? I watch three episodes of Bluey every single day. I have seen every Bluey so many times. It is absolutely fucking crazy at this point. I can do like the dialogue. How many episodes are there in total? There's about 150. Every parent I know is putting up me in 1998, watching The Simpsons numbers and watching Bluey. You're like, exactly correct. Exactly the same vibe. And honestly, Bluey is so good that I am never like, oh, there's like three Bluey episodes where when my daughter picks it, I'm like, this one, everything else good.

2:24:05What's up, Ben? Well, the one where they explain how Bingo got his tattoos. It's a long stroke. It's a pretty good joke. It was okay. I was trying to think of a shorthand for a famously bad episode. Like a famous episode. A famous skip. Yeah. So links to all of Matty's plugs. Wonderful work. Good. Good work. Are available in the episode description. Thank you for producing this podcast, Ben. I also have a plug. Oh, I know what this plug is for. I've been seeing some IGs. It's the holiday season. Yes, it is, of course, the holiday season.

2:24:37This episode comes out on December 7th. So it's actually been about a week since Slow Christmas number five released on all streaming platforms. Perhaps you've noticed shit slowing down around you. Oh. Oh. Oh. Hell yeah. Slow Xmas V. Yep. This year, it's being served cold burr. What is that? Unlike the others? Bundle up and sip away them holiday season blues with wintry ethereal tunes. Yummy!

2:25:07We'll love it. I like the implication that the other ones were too hot to touch. So a link to that album will be in the episode description as well. And then lastly, here at the end of the episode, before you take us out, Griffin, we're just going to tack on at the end. We, a few months back when we were in LA, we've mentioned it, I think, in past episodes, we did, we curated a screening. American Cinematheque, Friend of the Fest, we presented a Hudsucker Proxy.

2:25:39And we just did a little intro. They were nice enough to record that intro. Oh, cool. And so we'll just add that here at the end of the episode. Enjoy that. This has been the end of our Coen's series. I think we did our rankings on the Buster Scruggs app, out of respect. More of the pomp and circumstance ending business. Did you rank your Ethan's? And yeah, here's my ranking of the Ethan, Trisha Cook films. Driveway Dolls, Honey Don'ts. Weird. I actually have, in first, Driveway Dolls, and in second, Honey Don't. Haven't watched the Jerry Lee Lewis thing yet. My guess is it's probably in between the two or something.

2:26:10No, I put it third. Okay. Now, let's rank our solo Joels quickly. At number one, I have The Tragedy of Macbeth. Oh, interesting. Me too. Okay. Okay. Next week, we are going to do an episode on the new James L. Brooks movie, Ellen McKay. Truly, of all the filmmakers we've covered who are still alive, the one I was least expecting would release another movie ever. Yeah, sure. Well, here it comes. It's kind of an exciting treat. And then, the following week after that. So, this, like, indie project that's being put out by, I don't know, some suit I've ever heard of.

2:26:41Avatar, colon, Fire and Ash. Now, Maddie, I know you don't like those movies. Okay. Which is fine. I will keep seeing them in theaters as long as I live. I think so. Because I enjoy a spectacle. I like... You've never vibed with them as much as some. Yeah. You don't like them yet. I have problems with Mr. Cameron's approach. He's going to keep making them, and one of these days, he's going to get you. Okay. I will say, watching the preview for the new one has me the most, like, perhaps I will like this one, because you know what I think is pretty cool? Fire and Ash. Fire.

2:27:11Fire and Ash. As a former pyromania. Navi. Oh, it was recovered, a lapsed pyromania. I will then, I will actually, Griff, we should say, and then, in January. I agree. We will be doing an episode on.

2:27:25Is this thing on? Wait a second. Is this thing... What's going on? Is this thing on? Bradley Cooper's sad dad stand-up comedy divorce film. Yes. Completing our kind of in-progress Bradley Cooper. Not completing. I assume we'll make more movies. But continuing, for sure. Yes, continuing. Sorry. And then we're going to do an episode on Park Chen-Wook's No Other Choice. There's lots of blank check directors at this point putting out movies all around Christmas time. It tends to happen this time of year. The timing is pretty good, though, because these things will hopefully have been expanded enough that people will be able to see them, blah, blah, blah.

2:27:56So, December 28th is our one dark week every year, but we have a block of four episodes across five weeks that are all new releases. And then, of course, as everyone knows, as everyone has guessed online... Emotions are now battlefields. Yes. Harrison Ford is John Book. Dig up your dead poets, because the next miniseries on main feed is Lynn Ramsey, you motherfuckers. You don't know shit. We're doing Lynn Ramsey next. Not Peter Weir, you motherfuckers. Peter Weir is after Lynn Ramsey.

2:28:26Peter Weir is after Lynn Ramsey. We planned this long ago when we found that Lynn was finally doing another movie. One of, in my opinion, the best filmmakers alive. Griff has always said, whenever she does a movie, next, we're doing her. We're doing the five films, the five feature films from that wacky Scott, Lynn Ramsey. That wacky Scott. And then, indeed, we will be doing Peter Weir. It just made us feel so big and special and smart when people reading the tea leaves are like, so Weir is definitely next, right? And we're like, these fuckers don't even know. We're slipping in a quick five.

2:28:57They might know it. And then they'll know. Fucking Morvern Cowl or whatever. Right. Hey, fuck it. Since we're talking about 2026, over on the Patreon feed, we're going to be kicking off the year with a new commentary series. We are. Oh, that's true. The films of Wizard of Oz. Of Oz. Oh. The Oz. They don't all have the wizard in them. Although, I guess they all kind of do. I think they might all in some form or other. We're curating. Does Return to Oz have one? I'm trying to have him. I think the wizard does not appear in Return to Oz. That might be the only one. But we are in a Patreon commentary series going to do Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz.

2:29:32Yes. The Wiz. Yes. Return to Oz. Yes. Wicked and Wicked for Good. We are not revisiting Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful. You can check that out. Are you guys going to have the sphere? I ain't going to no sphere. Matty, I think we should. As much as I ethically support what's going on in that sphere. I think we should. I just want to see Phil Dolan in it, my friend, in yours. I hear he's so good in it. I hear his performance is so good in it. That harmonica. Zaslav's in there. He should have known. There's a part where he sings, I should have known about the wizard. All right.

2:30:02We need to record ads. I need to go to the bathroom and then go home to my loving family. James Dolan being friends with Harvey Weinstein and then releasing a pop song about his guilt. Do you know about this? I do, but we have to be done. I should have known. I should have known. I think we could go another 20 minutes. Matty, thank you for being here. Absolutely. Oh my God. Thank you so much for having me on. This is such a blast. You're the best. Matty, I love the show so much. It's very important for me that I got to come on.

That's very nice of you and it was good to have you on. I promise you will return to the show not to do Honey Don't. There will be better films in your future or at least more interesting. David, you can't promise that we won't ask Matty to do Honey Don't again.

2:30:35It's possible we'll do another Honey Don't. You never know. You can't promise that. A Honey Double Dip. It could always happen. Maybe we revisited Clifford. Right. And this film's definitely as good as that one. Absolutely. Why don't we just have to go back and do Honey Don't? Yeah. Matty, you contributed an art piece to our Decade of Dreams art show earlier. I did. A really good bits, retired bits hanging up the rafters piece. I just wanted to make sure we vocally thanked you on microphone for that. Oh, thank you. That was such an incredible blast to draw. It was so much fun. I really enjoyed drawing some buried jeans.

2:31:06Yeah. Yeah.

2:31:08Everyone should read your books and listen to your podcast. Thank you. And thank you all for listening, and I hope you all have fun checking out these new releases with us, and then Lynne Ramsey in January. And then, of course, we're never covering Peter Weir. Thank you all for listening, and as always, Honey Don't is about vaginas. Without further ado, please welcome, from Blank Check, Griffin, Ben, and Marie.

2:31:45Whoa, whoa. Oh, wait. Should we be color coordinating Hulu Loops with mic cords? Yeah. Okay. I don't think there's a purple one. Ben's got the, I got yellow. We maybe can blind a couple colors. Hello, everybody. Now that we got that important business out of the way, thank you so much for coming here. Thanks, guys.

2:32:09Maybe going to try to attempt to do the first three-person hula hoop live intro simultaneous performance. I don't think that we had planned for wired mics. That was not, it was not a consideration. We'd ask for a headset, so we'd ask for a headset mic. Okay, maybe let's try and get a little bit of distance. Okay, maybe this is the solution. This is great. We're just working it out on the fly. Marie's husband said, however good you think you are at this, it's a lot harder than it seems. And I said, I think I'm terrible at this.

2:32:40So it's going to be a real, okay. I read that you're supposed to put like one foot in front of the other. And then like keep your top part of your body straight and then just kind of like this. It's a this thing? I thought it was a hip thing. It's a, yeah. It's in the hips. All right, on three, one, two, three.

2:33:06That was really good, guys. That was really good. It's kind of an eight-foot effort situation. About as well as I thought it would. Spent $45 on this. We bought them at the groves. It was important. It was kind of a markup situation. There was an activation happening pre-perfume samples. Who here has seen this movie before?

2:33:27And let's do the inverse. Who has never seen this film before? You'll get the hula hoop thing later. Yeah. It'll make sense. It's only a spoiler if you acknowledge that I just told you it was a spoiler. All right, it seemed random. So, this is one of my favorite movies of all time.

2:33:47One of my ten favorites, which, with our very, very normal listenership online. And when I say this, by the way, all of you are cool and normal. I'm talking only about the Redditors, who aren't in the room. But I've seen a lot of preemptive, is Griffin really going to fucking rank Hudsucker above Fargo and no country? Well, you said on the episode, you were like, it's my favorite, but I wouldn't say it's their best. They made Fargo. I know they made Fargo. I'm not an idiot. These guys have made, like, 15 masterpieces.

2:34:19But this is a movie that is just so completely on my wavelength. It's just, like, the pop song I can't help but dance to. I saw it for the first time in 35mm at MoMA in New York City. And I went into seeing it being like, this is the one they're going to think sucks, right? And from the first shot, even those of you who have seen this before, if you haven't seen a big screen, if you haven't seen it on celluloid, I do think it is, like, genuinely one of the great film craft movies.

2:34:51It is, like, the one time they got to work on a really big budget with entirely analog models and sets and costumes and practical optically printed effects and all these things that just kind of make me cry thinking about them existing. We used to make things in this country. And if I could just, grant me a moment here. This film was, of course, shot in North Carolina. It does feel like a New York movie, which is funny because we're in L.A.

2:35:23Yes. And Lebowski is our current episode. And that's an L.A. movie. Yes. But I believe The Crow, which we just covered on our Patreon, also was shot in North Carolina. The same set? The Super Mario Brothers movie. I think at least one of the Ninja Turtles. There was this weird rush in the 80s and 90s to build your fake... Did they just have, like, a shitty New York in North Carolina? A lot of them are reusing these same things. And in particular, this movie, the Coen Brothers tricked Joel Silver into getting more brothers to give them a bunch of money to build these buildings that were reused, like, a trillion times.

2:36:00So if you're like, man, I can't believe they let the Coen Brothers build these crazy sets. Joel Schumacher stole them. Batman scaled these buildings many times. You know, even since our episode came out, I've had a lot of people be like, I really just, I frankly don't get this movie. And I think it's a really interesting one because it seems to split people on... For Coen Brothers fans who have some hang-ups with them, they feel like this movie is emblematic of, oh, are they just pastiche?

2:36:33Is it just style? Is it just effect? And is this movie really cynical? Is this movie making fun of all of its characters? Is it all a lark? And I have the read that I think this is quietly their most sincere film. I think they mean everything in it. I think it's a fascinating midpoint between them and Sam Raimi, who they came up with. It is what they tried to do with Crime Wave. Obviously, one of the best movies ever made. Love that movie. But making a tribute to the kind of films they grew up loving, but infusing it with a modern sensibility and combining different eras and different styles.

2:37:07And I think it is, at the end of the day, a very open-hearted movie about what if the dumbest guy had the best idea. And it's a really, really fun conceit for a film to have the entire audience know that he's right from the beginning. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll learn soon enough. But thank you to the folks at American Cinematheque.

2:37:30Awesome to be here. But Griffin, I mean, speaking of sincerity and a really good idea. I actually brought a prototype out here with me today. Right. So I'm just going to be one sec. Yeah, Ben's trying to launch a new product here tonight.

2:37:46Okay.

2:37:50So what we have here is a chain for bad kids.

2:37:56And you can do a lot of stuff with it. I mean, you look cool. You can kind of swing it around. I mean, there's endless possibilities. It seems like easy to scale, you know? Yeah. Oh, for sure. Quick show of hands now that the chain's been brought out. Who has never listened to the podcast blank check?

2:38:17Again, once you see the movie, you'll get it. Yeah. Maybe not the chain part, but everything else. Thank you for being here. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.