The Last Wave with BenDavid Grabinski

Introduction

0:00We've lost our podcasts, then they come back and we don't even know what they mean. Now, it's hard to... I'm good at neither a South African nor an Australian accent.

0:32Okay. It is hard to impersonate South African in a movie where everyone's speaking Australian and not just fuck up both.

South African Accent

0:41Where are you getting South African? Richard Chamberlain's character. Is he South African? They say that in the movie. Wait, I missed that. He says he's South African. I caught that. Thank you. But I thought it was South American for some reason, which is confusing. I think he says he is of South African origin. I heard something like that. Like when he talks about his background, that there's some discussion of like family. I thought it was him though. It's him. Being born elsewhere. It's when he said diplomatic immunity.

1:12Did I nail it? Did I... By melding the two accents together, did I nail it? Hmm. Gonna go with no. Did I nail it? I'm seeing zero nail. Is that a little nail? Because I'm... You got a metal detector you're sweeping around like, hmm. It's quiet as a mouse. Right now it feels like a Home Depot, fully stocked. So Griffin... Walls of nails.

Movie Comparisons

1:32On one end of the spectrum is your Arnold. And then on the other end of the spectrum is your Sandler in Hotel Transylvania. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's sort of in between. Okay. You're saying... You're saying... You think Sandler Transylvania is the best one I have? It sounds like the guy. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's my best. Go ahead. You can do it again. Or don't.

1:55Excuse me. One moment. What are you doing? In. Oh, right. Griffin is getting something from his desk. He's got the die. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. This is the first time I wish it was a video podcast. I don't. No. But only in this exact moment. Just for that. Just for that. This is my totem. My totem is a loaded die. Only I know the exact weight and balance of this die.

Peter Weir Films

2:14You know, that film is 16 years old. Happy birthday! Which is crazy. Yes. Because, you know, it feels like just yesterday I heard him say that for the first time. It's not like he's had a bad career. No. But when you watch that movie, you were like, right, this is it. He's about to be, you know, a big A-lister. He's popping so hard in this. But the issue is, if you actually look at the landscape of theatrical movies, there's not a lot that have, like, rotating sets where you're, like, a couple layers into a dream, which is his skill set. Which is apparently what he's best at. Yeah. They go around. They're like, you know, I'm just looking for a movie about dreams on a rotating set.

2:47Are you? Now, you know, there is a state in Australia called South Australia. Are you sure he was not talking about being from South Australia? I'm going to Google. Well, I Googled. There's nothing came up. But, I mean, that's not that surprising because this is a less well-known movie. Well, can we just look at the future Reddit column about this episode? Yeah, let's see that. You got it wrong. Imagine the hell of being able to see the future Reddit posts, but not being able to stop them. That was the original. It's the worst. That's a reboot of early edition. CBS is early edition.

Early Edition Reference

3:17Every morning we get a notification of a Reddit post roasting us, but you can't see what the subject heading of the Reddit post is. And you're just like, how do I anticipate these criticisms? I'm really glad we never reached a point where someone could say Philip K. Dick is too online because that would be the short story or book he wrote. We're like, okay, man, I don't know if we needed that. That is a great point that a lot of... Thank God he died before Twitter was invented? No, that a lot of writers would have gotten dinged for being too online for writing the exact thing they wrote pre-internet.

3:49Like if you wrote fucking Minority Report in 2026, they'd be like, this is some fucking Twitter-brained bullshit. You're so afraid of getting canceled. You wrote Minority Report? What if the precogs went canceled when they came out of the little milk bath, right? That's actually a deleted thing. Well, when Matt... See, when Matt Damon was in that movie, that is what it was going to be about. But then when it switched to Colin Farrell, they got rid of all the canceled stuff. Colin's so good in that.

4:19Colin is good in that. I just love that that's another classic Colin Farrell, I have zero memories of being on that set. Drunk as hell, mate. Spielberg mad at me and Cruz, everyone mad at me. And also a thing we called out in that episode that I always think about, just how different Hollywood was, what, 24 years ago?

4:38Yeah. He was paid $2.5 million for that movie. That's called having a good agent. Truly. But it was just like, if we've decided you're the guy and you get one of the top five parts in a giant movie, we're giving you $2.5 million no matter what. And then like 10 years later, Andrew Garfield is signed to play Spider-Man and they're like, we're going to start you at $250K. You got a three movie contract and by the end of it, you end up at one if you make three of them. Well, there's all these movies in like the 80s and 90s and you'll see, oh, this person

5:09got $3.5 million and the budget was like $3.6 million. And you're like, how did they pay for the rest? And then they also shot it in Los Angeles for nine months. And the person getting paid $3.5 million was George Kennedy. That if George Kennedy was available for 10 days, they were like, it's worth him being 92% of our budget. Can you do George Kennedy saying murder in Minority Report? Murder! Drebin? I'm trying to Drebin. Another wet movie. And today we are here to take a bath.

5:40Oh, Minority Report. I thought you were saying Naked Gun. It does have some splashing. I'm genuinely upset that none of you commented on my renaming of our group chat. I loved it. The Wet Bandits. I was in a rush, but I was very into it. Okay. Because I thought it was a pretty good joke. I thought it was a good joke. But I said it was like our Wet Bandits is the group chat talking about this movie. Ben texted and just mid-watch was, is it fair to say, producer Ben Hosley, a gentleman of many shades, of many sides.

6:12Sometimes you're a dry guy. That is true. I've had my moments, my dry eras. You have, but you've been known. Wait, this weekend you were a drop guy. Because we watched Drop Zone on VHS. Sure. Well, that's kind of more of an air guy. You had a bad boy weekend. And not a bad boy records weekend. I just feel like your weekend had, your weekend hang seemed to have a whiff of being bad boys. It was a throwback. It was a throwback. Ben David and I got Korean barbecue and then we head back to his. And then we drank tea and then we watched Drop Zone on VHS.

6:45No, we drank some dang beers and had maybe a couple of Jamos. What? You silly guys. They were silly guys. Maybe. Unconfirmed. Right, right, right. Reports are surfaced. But I was going to say that you have been known to value what you would dub a slick flick. Absolutely. A wet motion picture. A splishy, a splashy. A splishy, splashy. Sometimes you go Bobby Darin mode when you're sitting down at the cinema. There's only so many movies where it rains inside. You know, there's lots of movies where it's like, oh, you're on the ocean.

7:16Oh, you know, there's a big storm. But it rains inside in this movie many times. It also. Water's like the villain. Water's the villain. Kind of just, it's sort of just the theme. Well, it's beyond that. It's just kind of, this is about water. And colonialism, I'd say, are the two big bad. Yeah, there's a little of that too. But I mean, like, it's like, you're like the last wave and you're like, oh, okay. So is this like a metaphorical wave? And they're like, well, no, actually, if you think about it. This is what I love. I love, I had this thought like 10 minutes into the movie. I love a title that is both metaphorical and not at all.

7:46I love when there's a title where you're like, last wave. Is it maybe just about like cultural tides changing? And you're like, something's changing. Exactly. It is, but also. But also right at the end, we are going to show you a big fucking wave. The last shot's one of the biggest waves you've ever seen. But also, almost every movie that has the word last in the title is great. But then there's like two or three that are terrible. But that's the thing I've been thinking about. Okay, let's make this list. Oh, I started making a list on the train here and then stopped because I kept seeing Last Stand as I was like going through them. Just watch that. But there was like a list.

8:17There's like 20 really good movies that were last in the title. That's one of the best. So good. I mean, we should definitely relitigate Last Jedi, which I think is a masterpiece. So I can alienate everyone who doesn't like it. We all agree. This is safe space. By safe space, I mean a room full of people who are smart and correct. Yeah, I know. But I was like going over it and I was like, there are so many good movies that were last in the title. Yeah, The Last X is a pretty strong start. Let me see. As you're looking this up, I just want to say. But there is one movie I saw only one time and really did not like.

8:50Maybe it's really great, but The Last Kiss. I think The Last Duel is so underrated. The Last Kiss is one of the worst fucking movies I ever saw in a theater. Yes. It is so goddamn bad. And that's a Goldwyn picture? This would have been such a bonding thing between you and me because I had like weeks of being mad about Last Kiss. But it's like, it's crazy that I'm mad about it. I saw it in college. Like, you'd think I could have gotten over it. It's probably like a hundred minutes long. Like, you know, it didn't end the world when it came out. But I walked out being like, that was bullshit. It's a hundred minutes long.

9:20And of those hundred minutes, 80 minutes are Casey Affleck with a beer being like, you know, marriage is tough. He is in it. But I was. 104 minutes. So I was in college. Goldwyn. Come on. You got to whittle that down. I have to admit that I was like a severe Garden State guy or like I saw it. How old are you, Ben David?

Guest Introduction

9:38And we should introduce the podcast. We should introduce you. I'm 42. I also set up a thread that I still need to pay off. I will be 43 when this comes out. Okay. Well, I'm just going to. But I'm 42. I'm going to call you out. I'm going to be 37 when this comes out. Yeah. I am. I'm going to be 40. I think still short of it. No, no, still 39. Phew. Wow, wow. But as someone who's a little older than me, I think that's a little embarrassing. So. But it's fine. So it came out and I was like, I don't know, 20 and I saw it and it made me cry. And then. All the faucets turn off. And then. Because you can't cry, but they can. This cute girl came over and we got really stoned and listened to the soundtrack on repeat

10:11for hours talking about the movie on CD. I mean, it was a simpler time. And it felt really important at the time. I'm like, the symmetrical framing. It just captures what it's like to be 20. If there's one thing that movie has to offer you, it is quite a lot of framing. So I've not seen it since then. And so I will, because I'm, I'm sure, I'm sure that I will have some more complicated feelings. The Last of the Mohicans? Good. The Last Samurai? Not so good. Go ahead. We're setting up too many threads simultaneously. The Last of the Mohicans is a masterpiece. I also love Garden State from the state of New Jersey.

10:44When's the last time you watched it? It's been a while. Yeah. But yeah, similarly, it was like, we're like in the pocket age wise. Right, right, right. You ever yell at a dump? A hole. They yell into a big hole. They yell on top of a dumpster into a hole. Have you ever gone to New Jersey with Griffin and then got stranded there and we had to take a cab back? That's a whole other conversation. I'm pretty sure that all of you were part of that misadventure. That was a real classic. David's getting texts from multiple people about what's going down. Read Ben's text. Yeah, of course. The Last Castle kind of meh.

11:1611.43 a.m. Y'all, this movie wet as hell. I just needed to get that out. I've been trying to say that for 10 minutes. I'm so sorry. Y'all, this movie wet as hell. Transformers The Last Knight. Are we counting that one? Not one of the better ones. It's interesting how much... Solidly in the middle, but that's by Transformers range. I swing between that and Age of Extinction of like which one is more engagingly deranged. Well, the last night... I think that one's more engagingly deranged. Mark Wahlberg being revealed as the last night of the round table. And also Anthony Hopkins dying and a robot saying,

11:48Of all the men I've ever served, you were the coolest. First of all, spoiler. Secondly, that's not just a robot. That is Cogman. Anthony Hopkins' human-sized robot butler that does not transform. Played by Jim Carter. And is a self-identified sociopath. Yes. Who also sings opera. Which he says before he takes living fish and beats them on the ground, on the fucking like grid of a submarine, into submission so he can eat them. Okay. Last night... I sort of forgot about that part.

12:19...has a sequence that no human being alive, including Michael Bay or anyone who worked on it, can tell me where it takes place. There's a scene where they like take a ship up into the sky, but then crash land in the sky in what looks like Iceland. Oh, I can tell you where that takes place. In my wildest dreams. Well, it's wonderful. In my best imagination. They like crash land in the sky on Earth and then get up to race away from it to come back down to Earth. And I can't figure it out. Ben's showing Griffin something important.

12:50Fuck! It's South America. I was trying to queue it up... Queue what up? ...on the Criterion app and Ben got it before I did. He was born there. I see. Bridger Chamberlain is born in South America. Do we delete 49 minutes of us discussing it? No, it's all in. Or just leave it in? I feel so much better because I'm like, I've seen this movie a lot and I don't remember... You are the most like views of this movie on my Letterboxd friends. Very few people have seen this movie in total. You've seen it like four times. And I told you we're finally doing Weir.

13:22Knew you had a new movie coming out. It was a time to get you back on. And I feel like this was immediately... You said I would do anything. I basically would be happy to do any Weir episode. But your passion for this one punched through really quickly. Especially since it's less requested. There's two Weirs in pop culture that really, really matter to me. Obviously, Peter Weir. Second, Lindsay Weir. Lindsay Weir. We've made a couple Lindsay Weir jokes. I probably love all the Weirs equally. Actually, maybe the dad the most.

13:53Sam? You're not a Sam guy? I mean, for life. But the dad, I mean, comedy legacy. Yes. What's... It was the worst $15 I ever spent. Whatever he says about losing his virginity. It's just so fucking funny. My favorite is the episode where he's trying to get them invested in the idea of family game night. Because the Weirs need to spend more time together. And he keeps on trying to convince them that the card game pit's really exciting. And at the end, Becky Ann Baker convinces him to loosen his grip and let them live their own lives. And then she's like, okay, well, let's finish the game.

14:24And he goes, I don't want to play this. It's a terrible game. Joe Flaherty is... I mean, he died pretty recently. Money in the goddamn bank. Just him being angry about anything. So in October, I was doing this thing where I would, like, watch these YouTube blocks of, like, horror programming. And they would... There's a bunch of these where they find, like, all these anthology shows. Sort of like Tales from the Crypt that you've never heard of. And they have an episode. And they'd be, like, written by Andrew Kevin Walker and crazy. And I'd sent you one where it was this horror show hosted by Joe Flaherty.

14:58And then it was an episode all about Catherine O'Hara being a nun who, if she fell in love with someone, they would, like, blow up. And I'm forgetting the details of it. He had a character called Count Floyd on SCTV. Yes, he's iconic. That's why he dresses up as a vampire. Right. That was his local... Exactly. And then on the Ed Grimley cartoon show, which listeners might be astonished to hear... I'm sorry, Griff, there are no more listeners on this episode. They all just left. They rode the wave out of here ten minutes. I'm hearing a flat line in the distance.

15:29A thing that young Griffin Newman hyper-fixated on. It's a double wheel. The graph is just a double wheel. Griffin, is it possible that I had a lunchbox of the Grimley cartoon? Quite possible. Did that exist? Yes. Or is that just some weird memory I have? No, no, probably. There was merch. There's talking Ed Grimley dolls that are in the animation style. But Count Floyd would appear in live-action segments. They would cut to Count Floyd on Ed Grimley's TV. So, Count Floyd was very important in my childhood. I mean, that's just the kind of statement that only Griffin Newman would make these days.

16:03But I completely believe it. Well, because free speech is illegal. You're not allowed to talk about TV anymore because of the tariffs. I didn't know that there was a live-action Grimley. I had known the cartoon. That was my introduction as well. Yeah. And I got very confused between animated Ed Grimley and live-action Pee-wee Herman because they both had cow licks. Okay. Well, what about the Ace Ventures cartoon? Thank you. Thank you so much. With Griffin and David, that's a whole other conversation about how in 1994, Jim Carrey had $300 million domestic grocers. And by 1996, all three were converted into Saturday morning cartoons on rival networks.

16:38You've actually just set up a perfect transition to a thing, I have to admit. Yeah, I still haven't introduced the pot, by the way. So, last time I was on the show, we all agreed that I would not come back until you were doing a Tom Shadyac series, and I was going to do Dragonfly. I had originally promised that if the podcast made it to 10 years, we would cover Tom Shadyac. And this, of course, is the 11th year of the podcast, and I want to promise that we will do it on year 20. Well, I wasn't sure what we were doing today, and I texted you for clarity, and you didn't respond. So, I watched both of these to prepare.

17:09You also watched Dragonfly. I watched Dragonfly yesterday, and I prepared a bunch of talking points in case we want to get into both of them. Isn't Dragonfly one of those movies that's very hard to, like, it doesn't exist? Universal. There was a, I rented it on iTunes yesterday and watched it and took notes. Universal has been doing a thing I really appreciate on their, like, home entertainment channel. Once a month, they do a grid post that is new to digital. And it is, here are 20 movies that have been out of circulation that we're proud to tell you are now rentable on digital platforms. Oh, good. And mostly it's like 30s, 40s programming stuff.

17:42But they finally got Dragonfly back. Dragonfly in the grid. You just, you know how much timing helped you with this bit. Because three weeks ago, this bit would have been impossible. I have something to say about Dragonfly. Or is it frequency? Fuck, I can't remember. It's probably frequency. What I have to say about Dragonfly. So, it's about Dr. Joe Darrow. He's just coming in. Played by Kevin Costner. And his wife dies because she's on a bus filled with school kids that drives off a cliff into a lake and they all drown. Okay. And he can communicate with them? Where was Superman? Well, this is the problem.

18:12He told Superman this. Okay. I take, I'm just going to make my point and then we're going to introduce our guest. I just rewatched the Michael Haneke film, The Piano Teacher. Okay. Because I'm watching all of my discs that I bought and I bought that umbrella set. You bought the umbrella, not the Curzon. Correct. Interesting. That's what happened. Okay. And I bought it a while. It's very, very good. Very well done. I've been struggling to figure out which is the one to buy. They both seem good to me. I don't know. Hate to get it wrong. There's a scene in The Piano Teacher where Isabelle Uppel is sitting like at a cafe or

18:46whatever. And there is a poster for the movie Frequency behind her. And I was like, that's so weird. In this like dour fucking movie about this woman who's like on a sadomasochistic relationship. It's like, oh yeah, Frequency. Remember Frequency? But Frequency is not Dragonfly. But they are both about like communicating across sort of a mystical barrier, you know. Right. Similar ideas. Frequency is like CB radio field of dreams. It's Jim Caviezel. Talk to your dead dad. Right. It's Caviezel and Craig. It's podcast time travel.

19:17Right. Yes. And Dragonfly is near death experiences. The doctor. Yeah. So he doesn't believe in the afterlife. And they bring this person who OD'd in a way to try to kill themselves into the emergency room after his wife dies. And he says, I'm only interested in saving people who want to live. So this person gets sent to another doctor. He talks to her and she gets really upset saying, why'd you bring me back? And he said, because there's no heaven and there's no afterlife. This is it. So you shouldn't kill yourself. And then he ends up believing in the afterlife.

19:48That's the big spoiler. Fuck you, Costner. And also, I'm very sorry for interrupting you, David. From now on, I'm like Michael Douglas at the end of Traffic. I'm here to listen. Is that what he says in Traffic? I consider and concede for the first time that maybe drugs are bad. What is he listening to? It's because his daughter's like, hey. Well, it's because Harrison Ford was interested and they added a bunch of scenes to that character. And then Harrison Ford decided not to do that. But he's like a really aggressive. He decided it was not the kind of movie that his viewers wanted to see. Is he a DEA agent?

20:20He's the drug czar. Right. The idea in Traffic is that he has been appointed drug czar and we're on drugs. And then it turns out his daughter is a heroin addict. So is he like listening to the plight of addiction? No, he's at her drug thing. He comes to her like. Like her AA or whatever it is. Okay. Right. He's understanding the human struggle within a thing that he is viewed as a war. I recently read Ed Zwick's memoir. Congrats. Memoir. Yeah. And obviously, one of the more interesting things about Ed Zwick is the two Oscar nominations he got were for producing movies that other people directed.

20:54So it's Shakespeare in Love and Traffic. Traffic. Right. Yeah. I mean, he may have gotten other. I think those are his only two. No, I think so. And so he has an Oscar. He sure does. And he talks about that for Shakespeare in Love. But so he asked to devote chapters to those movies that he did not make. And he's, you know, it's interesting. Anyway, he talks about traffic. And yeah, apparently Ford at a certain point just sent a message being like, my fans don't want me in a movie like this right now. That's just. Get off that heroin. That's Harrison Ford telling someone to kick their habit.

21:25Let's introduce our guest. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies. directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, sometimes they hate you like a giant fucking wave. Sploosh! Sploosh indeed. This is a miniseries on the films of Peter Weir. I regret to inform you, the miniseries is titled Podnik at Hanging Cast because I was overruled on.

21:56Every week you complain. Podster and Castmander, the pod side of the cast. Has one guest agreed with you so far? No, this guest doesn't. Yeah. Every guest is like. Not yet. Not yet. Today joining us, returning to the show, a dear friend to talk about The Last Wave. He is the writer and director of the new, just about to be released, recently released. That's actually the funniest thing about this is by the time this comes out. It's March 22nd. It will have already been at South By and it'll have reviews and it'll be about to come out.

22:31And I don't know how that's going to go. I bet it goes so good. It's going to be perfect. But the last movie I made was supposed to premiere at Tribeca 2020. Yes. And some interesting things happened. Yeah. So I am like psychologically incapable of counting on anything happening between now and when this drops. But let's just assume it all worked out and it was great. Ben David, you have nothing to worry about because everything at this present moment, the first week of February, 2026 has been normal, coming off a normal January. And I can't see any scenario in which things would get crazier.

23:04The news is great. Nothing bad is happening right now at all. I love just watching the news and relaxing and unwinding at the end of a long day. But if you're looking to get amped up and have a good time, you can watch Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice on Hulu. And Disney Plus. And Disney Plus. The main thing that matters is someday we're going to find out what Sims thinks of all the Gilmore Girls references in it. I mean... You've yet to seen the picture. I have not yet seen it. I want it. Hosley and I have seen it twice. It has a tremendous amount of Gilmore Girls content. Well, I am... That's a spoiler.

23:35...thematically interwoven. As I think Ben David knows, I'm a very, very, very deeply devoted fan of the television show Gilmore Girls. I've written about it quite floridly. Once on a date, a girl that I was on a date with realized that I was the David Simmons of the A.V. Club. Not a celebrity, to be clear. She was like, oh, right. And then she was like, wait, did you write that Gilmore Girls thing? And I was like, huh? And then she called it up and started like reading it to me being like, I can't believe a boy wrote this. Not in a bad way.

24:06She was sort of... She was positive, but she was also like, this is crazy. That's like the When Harry Met Sally scene. Back then... When Carrie Fisher quotes Bruno Kirby to him? Yes. And he's like, I wrote that. New York Magazine. Yeah. I mean, this is pretty sexy. She's like, I never quote articles. It's a good scene. Yeah. Didn't work out. But great, great, great moment for me. My condolences. Back then, Gilmore Girls, you know, people lived in the shadows. Our guest today... Considering it great art. Now we all agree. Is Ben David Grabinski, a.k.a. A joke we somehow didn't call out in your previous episode.

24:38Ben David Griffinski. Your name already contains two out of the three of us, and it requires very few letters to make it all three. If I remember correctly, it was a different time because I lived in Los Angeles then and I live in New York now. So it feels like lifetimes ago. I think it was hours into it when someone said, wait, your name's Ben David, and we keep saying Ben and David. This might be confusing. Yes. Yes. When I cite you on the podcast, it sometimes gets a little confusing. Are you named for multiple people? Is that the... Great question. ...adnyology? Hard-hitting question.

25:08Um, I think, like, in the same way that you guys had that, uh, we had a discussion about John Travolta on the podcast that ended up happening in a whole other podcast where it was almost like verbatim. And I was like, I feel like I've heard this conversation somewhere. I realized, like, we had had it. I bet you this was asked last time. It may have been. I'm sorry. But if it wasn't, uh, I was named Ben David. I was born on Lincoln's birthday in Lincoln, Nebraska, and my parents were going to name me Abe. And when they were sleep-deprived, someone thought, that's kind of weird, so we're going to name him Ben David.

25:42And there was never any reasoning given beyond that. No justification. My 42 years on the plan. So they're like, let's pivot off of Abe. Let's find something normal. And they kind of crashed two normal names together. There's been no explanation ever. That was just an impulsive thing someone thought of. So your birthday is in a week or so, if you were born on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, which is, of course, February 12th. Excuse me. Ben David and I, our birthdays are exactly one week apart, and we're very close. All right, so I got it. Much like when Marie sits at that desk, it is the desk that is closest to me and reserved for the person whose birthday is closest to mine.

26:15All right, so last year, Griff and I had a joint birthday party. We did. And then the bartender made a very special elaborate drink for the birthday boy. The great Tom Wolfson, who's a loyal longtime Blankie. The guy was amazing. Sunken Harbor Club in New York City, one of our favorite bars, if not our number one favorite bar. One of the great tiki bars in New York City. It's incredible. It's a wonderful place. And it's a tiki bar minus all problematic elements. Yes. It is a thing I want to actually communicate to people. It's really more of a, like, nautical bar.

26:46It is. Right. Like, it's like an undersea bar. It is tiki-style drinks in basically what feels like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It's like old British crusty men. It's closer to a Master and Commander bar. Now, listeners might be surprised to learn that part of the deal with some of the drinks is there's a little performance. There's some performance. There's sugar. There's lights. There's music. The place feels like a high-end kind of Disney attraction. Feels like a theme park. You feel like you're underwater and that you hear the waves rustling.

27:17Shocking that Griffin Newman would gravitate to a place like this. I know that this is his favorite. We share many common interests. I should mention Ben David's other major credits, of course. Scott Pilgrim takes off the film happily. And most importantly, founding member of the historic group text, the 4DX Club, which despite Sims' jokes, is not a sausage party. And in fact, we are the comfortable male-identifying minority in the group text. This is the 4DX Club is a matriarchy. Wait, is 40% of the 4DX Group men?

27:47I think that's true. Correct. All right. Anyway, we got to get to the punchline of this drink. I don't think I've ever accused 4DX of being too male. I called out the 4DX Club and you went, oh, bet there was a lot of women in that group text. Sounds like a great gag by me. Wrong!

28:01This group text has binders full of women. Three. Three binders.

28:09Sunken Harbor Club. Tom Wolfson sets us up. A gentleman and a scholar. I will let you now deliver the punchline. So, at some point, they're like, well, here's the birthday boy. He calls me over. And there's birthday boys, plural. But they behave as if there's only one and you can explain what happened. He hands me an envelope with like a red light keychain to locate a hidden message that I then say out loud to the bartender. And then I believe they start playing the Lalo Schifrin music, do an entire act out of being suspicious and trying to like sneak around the bar.

28:44And then like construct something and light it on fire and hand it to me with like a lot of pomp and circumstance. And I go like, did you just fucking see that? How fucking cool is that? We get like a Mission Impossible drink for our birthday. You should go up and order it. And I hand you the envelope and I'm like, here's the password. And then what happens? And the guy's like, oh, we only plan one because it's his birthday. We have exactly one amount. And I have an IMF tattoo. I ran a Mission Impossible 2 website in high school and I didn't get the Mission Impossible drink.

29:15So I think the great thing about New York is it's just humbling. You know, ever since I moved here, every single situation just, you know, they're like, you don't get a Mission Impossible drink. And I'm like, well, that's good. It's also funny that the left side of your tattoo is part one and the right side of your tattoo is something different. This is the final tattoo. It just is like, no, no, but it was always supposed to be this design. I think we should. Wait, I have one more thing about Tiki Bars. So, you know, is it Trader Sam's at Disneyland? Yes, correct. I was watching for the first time recently the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion. Oh, yeah, not a good film.

29:45They shoot a scene in Trading Sam's. Yes. It had just opened. It's kind of overlit. It is. That whole movie, I would say, is overlit for a haunted house comedy. Well, Rob Minkoff, you know, he was a cartoon director. So, yeah, had a big light on the cartoons as you drew them, maybe, and he never learned his lesson. Sims, that's an incredible insight. You're right. I say that in, like, an academic setting and someone's like, fire this man. You can't draw in the dark so animators don't know how to shoot live action other than to just...

30:16Hey, it's me, David Sims. I'm here to teach Film 101. Why is the Haunted Mansion overlit? Uh, I don't know. Cartoonists need big lights to see all the cartoons they draw. Minkoff on set with a big bullhorn. I need 80 more desk lamps. Can't see everything. It's the pointing desk lamps that Eddie Murphy's had. That movie ends with a Nellie song that samples the theme from People's Court. Yes. Hmm. Sounds pretty good. Yeah. Who else is in the Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy? Well, there's one slam-dunk piece of casting, which is Terrence Stamp as a creepy butler. Like, as a ghost butler. Okay.

30:47And then Wallace Shawn is, like, a creepy horseman. Wallace Shawn. Carriageman. Wait. Wallace Shawn is indeed, it seems, maybe third build, which... Yeah. I love the guy. Yeah. Maybe you're in trouble if he's that high up on the call sheet. But he's, Evers and Evers Realty, he's trying to sell the Haunted Mansion. He and his family have to stay there for a night. So most of it is his wife and his two children. Marsha Thompson, is that maybe the name of the actress? Oh, so you want a great transition. Please. Marsha Thompson. There we go.

31:17From Lost, which clearly was inspired by Fearless, by Peter Weir. Yeah, which was directed by Peter Weir. We're making it weird today. Today we're talking about The Last Wave, Peter Weir's third film. What is interesting about Peter Weir's career versus many other directors we've covered is, like, these three films kind of come out as, like, one movement of expression. Right? Like, he's sort of just, like... Yeah, they sort of all... Right. It's not like it happened simultaneously, but he set several balls rolling, and so it's

31:48not like he did the last... We'll talk about it, but he did The Last Wave based off of his success of Picnic and Hanging Rock. It was already well in motion by the time Picnic was in post-production or whatever. Right. The success of Picnic got him a little extra money for this, but yeah, these three films just sort of, like, started rolling at the same time and then come out in very short succession. Certainly true, and... I guess it's sort of the breadth of... I mean, Gallipoli is probably the big thing for him, but, like... And you're living dangerously, but, like, the breadth of, like, genres, moods, tones that

32:23he's showing here. If I'm in Hollywood, I'm kind of like, no, this guy feels like he could do a lot of stuff. Like, throw him on anything. A lot of our favorite types of directors to cover talk about, like, early in your career, you start to strategize, how do I not get pigeonholed into being one thing? How do I prove that I can make all different types of movies? A lot of careers go astray when someone is like, I want to prove that I can make this kind of thing. And then their second film abandons everything their first film does well and their career stumbles. But Peter Weir kind of has the perfect version of it where the first three movies, he's like, here's a fucking tapestry.

32:55Let me work. When did you see The Last Wave for the first time? Ben David Gravanski. Because for me, it's a couple nights ago. Yeah. You hadn't seen it before? No. I mean, I respect that. You said that very dismissively. No, no, no. I simply had not. I don't have to tell you. Um, so like Weir is one of my guys and based on actually what you just talked about, it was like a real accidental thing, right? Like three movies as a kid that meant everything to me, but I didn't know like what directors were besides like, I don't know who Tim Burton was and like Spielberg.

33:28But I'd seen Dead Poets Society, which I fucking loved. In school, they show me Gallipoli, which traumatized me. And I just watched it two days ago and it made me cry so hard I almost vomited. Things didn't go great in Gallipoli. But Gallipoli has, I think, it is maybe the saddest movie ever. I was like, I got so upset. I was like an adult and I cried so hard I almost puked. Ben David knows me well enough that he texted the other night. I advise you to not watch Gallipoli right before recording because I think the ending

34:01will leave you in a bad mood. And I was like, oh, good. Night before. It ends with someone just staring into the camera being like, fuck Griffin Newman, by the way. That guy sucks. What the fuck is that? He's bad at podcasting. Anyway, roll the credits. Who the fuck wrote this? The end of the movie. Kyle Chandler's character from early edition? He got posts from our Reddit?

34:21The end of the movie is Mel Gibson looking at the camera and saying, Griffin Newman's Arnold impression is terrible. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm not going to fight you on that. I wasn't arguing. It was like a weird use of your platform. But the other movie was Witness, which I saw on TV with commercials on like KUTP 45. And as a kid, like, you know, Raiders and Han Solo, like that was your shit. And I watched Witness and I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. Correct. Correct reaction. But also just that I'd never seen anything like it because it's like, you think you're

34:52watching like a cop movie, but you're also watching this unbelievable sad love story and like this introduction of the world of the Amish. And I'm like, this is like the greatest movie ever. So like these three movies that I really like, and I have no idea like they're the same guy until I'm, you know, like in my late teens or whatever. And then the, I say Truman, I was obsessed with Truman Show. Like I had the score on CD and I would like listen to it all the time. But what happened, the reason I got into this movie is very dumb and weird, but like Garden

35:24State, but in a different way. My freshman year of college, I saw Donnie Darko and I was so into it. And the thing I couldn't put a finger on was like the vibe of like the world is ending and this is melancholy and, but it's also not devastating. It's sort of like this slow crawl where like a lead character is sort of feeling like the world around him is like reaching the end. But also the world around him is like revealing itself.

35:54It's explaining what he maybe had always kind of felt and couldn't put his finger on. And I, I did this thing back then that was like very formative for me, which is if I really liked a movie, I try to figure out what inspired the director, which is how I ended up becoming such a huge Demi fan was because like PT wouldn't stop talking about him. And there was an interview with Richard Kelly where he mentioned the last wave. And I'm like, what the fuck is the last wave? So I got it from Netflix, DVD mailed to me and I watched it and it like fucked me up. And I hadn't seen Twin Peaks yet.

36:25Uh, I actually started watching, I think I watched Twin Peaks for the first time, like actually right after that. And I hadn't seen a ton of Lynch. Um, and there's a, there was a mood to it that felt very singular. And now I've realized that like, there's a few like masters of it, but that thing of just the mounting dread, the reality and the things you're imagining or your dreams kind of bleeding into each other. And it just really clicked for me. And I think I realized later, um, my love of both of those movies at the time.

36:57And now it's actually partially weird is connected to like growing up super Christian. Like I was, I went to like a Christian school from like age five to like 12 and went to way too much church and like Baptist church. And they made you feel 24 seven, like the world was going to end at any moment. And if you're not saved, you're fucked. So it's like, you need to like become a Christian before the rapture and the end times are real and all this stuff. And I think I grew up really genuinely thinking that the world was going to end because of that omnipresent feeling.

37:28It is wild that that's a thing. Yeah. It's like where I would have like nightmares thinking that I was going to wake up and all my friends would be gone. And I was like alone. Instead, you should just tell your kids like, I don't know, be nice to each other. Like, you know, like almost all forms of Christianity have some underpinning of like, and if the apocalypse happens tomorrow, it'd actually be good news. I would disagree with that. I would say most forms of Christianity do not. I would say it's the more, well, the more kind of like we really read the book and everything and it is true types that are like, no, no, no, no, no. Like the world's got to end for shit to be really good.

38:00Well, the blander Christianity is more in the realm of like, be nice to each other. Yeah. And that's the stuff I like. Right. You know, not to defend Christianity, which is bad. No, no. You love it. Yeah, sure. I love it. Well, I would say I think that there's something very escapist for me about movies about the end of the world that are not like, you know, Judeo-Christian where it's about like this separate thing where you can enjoy it and then it's not like a callback to some kind of weird childhood trauma about that stuff.

38:31I also think this movie is kind of about the like peeling back of a Judeo-Christian societal structure that was imposed upon a stolen land. You know, like part of it is this white guy, South American, in origin. I guess so. Who's kind of like. He was at least born there. Maybe he's the son of a diplomat or something. Right. Let's not contest it now that we know he certainly was born there. I've never been wrong on this podcast once. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

39:04Certainly not. And I want to make this clear. Anytime I've been wrong, I am reading verbatim from the dossiers of J.J. Burke. Right. It's all his fault. Who will never be fired, but will always take the fall. No, but that that it's sort of him like recognizing that that there has been a suppression of the rules of the land and the world and life that this Judeo-Christian movement placed. Themselves on top of and have been like smothering. Right. It's like him peeling back the layers to like what the fuck is actually going on here.

39:37It's definitely a right. It's a little bit about whatever's up with his bland ass as well as the wider, you know, implications of colonialism and and the arrival of white people in this country that is not their own totally chill arrival. Right. With no issues. And then possibly, yes, like, I mean, I think Peter Weir just loves the idea of like, what if this like really prosaic, really fucking by the numbers guy had to believe in magic, you know, like, like, you know, had to confront the supernatural.

40:08As he put it, the whole hook for him on this movie was like, what if a pragmatist experiences a premonition? Like, that was the totally animating idea. And he's supposed to kind of think like start thinking like, is that was that real? Right. That wasn't just a weird dream. But I think there's something to what you're saying of like, you know, white people showing up, not just wanting to like reap the riches of the land and massacre the people and claim everything for their own, but also be like, and by the way, we come from our country where we cracked society.

40:38We understand how everything works. Here's the system. Everyone conformed to us now. And the indigenous people of whatever country they have taken over hostily are sort of forced to figure out how they exist in relation to that being the dominant societal structure. It's very similar to the movie Dragonfly. It's very similar to the movie Dragonfly, which is now available digitally from our friends at Universal Home Entertainment. Thank you. Thank you, UHE. Big planet. We love that big planet, don't we?

41:08You know, that's the logo. The globe. We love that globe. Big Earth.

41:22David. What's the matter? I'm going to share for you a horrifying tale. A tale of woe and suffering. Whoa, this is scary. It's a tale of human error, of failing on my part. Tell me.