We Need To Talk About Kevin with Jia Tolentino

It's like this. You wake and you watch podcasts, get in your car and listen to the podcasts. You go to your little jobs or little school, but you don't really hear about that on the six o'clock news. Why? Because nothing is really happening. You go home and you watch some more podcasts, and maybe it's a fun night and you go out and you watch a podcast. I mean, it's got so bad that half the people on podcasts, inside the podcast, they are listening to podcasts. It's TV. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I was going to say, and what are these people watching podcasts like me? It's TV. He's talking about TV. It's also a sense of radio. I was replacing a couple of different words there. Yeah. Because you're going to hear, so that's Kevin. That's the titular character, Kevin, in a movie that is called, We Need to Talk About Kevin. He's doing the talking. Well, shut up. Usually he's just jacking it and locking eyes with you or whatever. Here's a question. I'm sorry. I can only defeat this movie with humor or confront this movie. You strongly dislike this movie. That's not true. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I'm not a huge... It's the only movie of hers that I'm pretty mixed on. It is my least favorite. And I still think it's very good. But I feel like you've always been kind of on it. And then like two days ago, you barged into a recording and said, by the way, the belt has been handed over. The number one least pleasant thing I've had to watch. Movie I was least... And guest, please. You can weigh it. But like the least pleasant... Like the movie I was least in the mood to watch for work, essentially. This is a job of mine. Well, can I tell you about when I just rewatched it? Yes, you can. And I think I know this, but please. I might have texted you this. So I was on the plane to Sundance and I was like, okay, I'm going to read the book because I've actually never read a Lionel Shriver book because of her personality. Right. Normal. You mean normal? Yeah. Like most people, I've never read a Lionel Shriver book. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to read it because I was curious. I had been thinking about Lynn Ramsey because I profiled Jennifer Lawrence. I'm dying my love. This is why you're here. This is why I'm here. Because I was like... Kick the ball rolling. I texted David and I was like, have y'all done Lynn Ramsey yet? He was like, you're the only person who's ever asked that question versus us announcing we're doing Lynn Ramsey and me getting 800 texts. Why are you guys doing Lynn Ramsey? No, I actually am curious. This is your least favorite, including Dye My Love? Are we saying least favorite or do you think... Yes, I think I prefer Dye My Love to this. Dye My Love would probably be second least, not to preview. Would you call it... You don't think this movie is better than Dye My Love? I don't. Really? I need to rewatch it. It's obviously the freshest and I've only seen it the one time and I will be rewatching it shortly. Yeah. It's these two at the bottom position for me, but I basically think she's only made great films. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I'm like, this is maybe the least masterful of her masterful movie. Oh, I think it's so good, but I hate it because it's Kevin. Yes. It's because we have to look at Kevin the whole time. I've been making the argument throughout this mini series, trying to console listeners who are perhaps scared by the idea of engaging with these movies. Oh, they're so good. That they are not as punishing as they might sound if you read a synopsis. No, this movie, I had no interest in watching this movie. I had never seen it before researching this profile. But anyway, so I was on the plane to Sundance and I was like, okay, I'm going to prep for the podcast. I'm going to read, we need to talk about Kevin. And I had been reading it at home and I was hoping to finish it before I left. I had like 100 pages ago. I was like, okay, take it on the plane. So I get in the plane. Just a middle seat because I had rearranged my flight for the snowstorm. Settle into my middle seat. Pull out my book. We need to talk about Kevin. Read the last 100 pages. Shut it. And I was like, well, now's the good of the time as any to do my rewatch. So I opened my laptop and then watch. Start to finish. We need to talk about Kevin. You're so deep in it. I was like, so like, I was like. It's a little embarrassing. Anyone's clocking. You do this. You were Kev maxing. And like the girl next to me was talking to her, like the girl across the aisle. They're really good friends. And I was like, they probably like are going to get on the plane. They're like, did you notice what that? Yes. Yes. So I was so, I was so self-conscious. Is this what she does like every day? She rereads the book and then rewatches the movie. It's just your plane. Is she stimming? Like, is this like, does she need to do this? Yeah. The only, you know, it's how I combat my plane anxiety. Is I just right. I just squeeze Kevin into the brain. It's a really, however bad things could be. Multimedia Kevin. It could always be worse. It's one of the worst movies to watch with people like one inch for me. I was going to say, this is the one. The one that gets seen, I mean, every scene. This is the one. The many pooping in the diaper scenes. The blowjob poop scene. That one. I swear to God. This is the one that feels a little punishing in my opinion. I love it. But it is the one movie that's kind of rubbing your nose in it a little bit. 100%. Right. Much like Kevin does. Kevin does. It's you the way Kevin treats his mother. But you were not crazy about this when it came out previously. The Park 10 book series, which has a lot of child murder, was one where you were really kind of on edge. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. That was, which is so funny because I read, I think I said this at the time. A lot of child murder. I listened to it. There are a lot of movies, especially the vengeance movies. It's especially sympathy for Mr. Vengeance revolves around the death of a child. And then Lady Vengeance. No, Lady Vengeance is the film. That one is on Watch. I can never watch that. Right. Those are the two. That was the one that I feel like broke you and has held the belt since then. Or it's just, it's, you know, it's not so much like I have no problem engaging with incredibly challenging work. It's a little bit more like when it's like, fuck, I need to squeeze this into my schedule because I got a record on this. When am I going to be in need to watch this? Unfortunately, mood or no. Scrap in. Time for me to think and talk about Kevin. We regret to inform you it is time to talk about Kevin. And sometimes, of course, my wife is sitting in the bed next to me being like, what have you put on our television? Like what on earth? This movie is also so like expressionistic that it is a thing where like, if you're watching it over your husband's shoulder in bed or you're sitting next to him on a plane. It's like the first scene with the squirming tomato. Any image for three seconds. It's like, what the fuck are you watching? Which is, of course, she's such a great conjurer. That's actually when as soon as the as soon as the squirming tomato, like it's like one of the most joyful scenes in the entire movie is like thousands of bodies squirming and tomato flesh, you know, and it really sets the bar for like, this is what joy is going to look like is squirming tomato flesh. But it was so beautiful that I was like, actually, I think I'm going to like this movie despite having never wanted to watch it. The beginning is so fucking good. She's such a good filmmaker. It's La Tomatina. That's what it is. It's the name of the festival. It's in Spain. It's the biggest food fight in the world. Yeah. You know, you're getting your swimwear or your undies and you throw tomatoes at each other and ride around. Is it tomato only though? I think it's, I mean, La Tomatina. You think people sneak some other stuff in there? I brought a pepper. Yeah. Okay. You know what's going to notice, right? I like murder at the La Tomatina was kind of a good. Yeah. I know, right? Like, it's like, oh, fuck this guy in the shit. This guy's been bleeding. I think it's a great like Jialo film. Yeah. I like that in the grocery store scene where you see her like framed by the wall of tomato sauce cans. It's Ma Ramsey's tomato sauce. Uh-huh. Yeah. Now that's a reference to Lynn Ramsey. Lynn Ramsey. The director and writer of this picture. Did Ma Ramsey, I don't understand. I mean, like, she's made it around tomato sauce. You know what I'm saying? Sort of Tarantino. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's just fun. Okay. There you go. She's, you know, she's fun. Did you talk to her? I did talk to her. Um, I talked to her and afterwards, I mean, I, you know, I hope this doesn't come off anti-Scottish, you know, but I couldn't understand a word she said. And so I was here on the phone, I assume. Yeah. But I needed an interpreter and I didn't have one. So I was just saying, oh, yeah, that's, that's, that's fascinating. Oh my God. Like, could you say more about that? Like I've always wondered and I was, I was totally blind by the end. I had no idea. Did you have to like, like feed like the dictation into babblefish? It was so quick and the connection was so bad. Like she was, like we were on a bad connection plus the accent, plus she's a quick, you know, discursive talker. And, and at the end I was like, okay, you know, shamefully the only use of AI in my life is like I use AI transcription, but I was like, I actually think AI, I was like, would a human or would AI translate this? Who's more up to the task here? And I was like, actually, I always do human, I often do human as a backup for anything important, obviously. And, and I was like, actually, I think AI is better equipped to do the pattern recognition. Like unless like a human is, you know, Scottish has a near for it. Yeah. And like at the, like when I had to give it to the, like when the New Yorker fact checker was like, okay, I need the trans, I need the audio. I was like, do we know anyone? Do we know anyone that? It's, it's fat, is fat bastard still freelancing? We, doing this mini series have discovered that we have more Scottish listeners than I would have thought. We've all been coming out of the woodwork and saying, let me check my notes here, really kind things about our accent attempts, but also that they're like, the guys keep talking about how hard it is to parse out the dialogue in these movies and needing to watch it with subtitles. Like, are they overselling this? Like what are they talking about? I just want to restate when Ratcatcher was released theatrically in the United States of America, subtitles burned in. The distributor made that decision. There was no option to watch it without subtitles. In America for sure. Yes. And yeah, I mean, look, I went to school in Newcastle. I dated a Scottish person. I have an ear for a Scottish accent. It's tougher on, on the phone. And, and I'm rusty, obviously, but I'd love, now I want the challenge. I want to talk to Lynn. She also had to do with her. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. She seems like a very interesting person to talk to. You need to talk to Lynn. Yeah, I don't think so. What's her friend? She didn't, she didn't become a mother till after Kevin. Wild. Wow. Sure. She has one kid, right? With her, with her, her co-screenwriter, Rory. On this film. Yeah. Yeah. Wild. You write this movie and you're like, yeah, let's move to Greece and have a baby. Well, okay. I mean, interesting. Pinning that, it does feel a little bit into my read of this movie. This movie feels like a film of anxiety from someone debating becoming a parent. More than it is a film about the experience of being a parent, in my opinion. But all of her movies, right? Like all of her movies are about innocence kind of, right? Like all of, and they're pinned on children, right? Like Ratcatcher, the Joaquin, we were never really here. This. Dime we love. Yeah. Karen is the least and even that she's a fairly. She's young and she is sort of innocent creature in a way. It's at least playing with the tension of is she an innocent. She does chop her boyfriend up, but he already was dead. Yeah. So, you know what? I always forget. I forget she chopped the boyfriend up. He's got to go so well. I'm like, look at this beautiful road movie. What chopping? Like, you know. Here's the thing I didn't bring up in the episode. Do you think Robert Durf's got his defense from the northern coast? I love Scottish cinema. Do you remember in the drinks, he's like his landlord, his downstairs landlord at like the place he lives when he's on the run and is like pretending to be an old woman. They like find the garbage bags of the separate body parts chopped up and they were like, so you killed him and he's like, no, I just chopped him up. And you're like, so how was he dead? And it was like, he shot himself in front of me and then I took out a saw and I chopped him up and I put it in separate bags and they were like, why would you do that? And his response was like, I'm standing here. I'm a fugitive. There's a dead body. What else am I going to do? I'm going to see it in Morvan Collar. Right. It kind of felt like a hard to fit it into a rubbish bin. I have one important thing to say about Morvan Collar. You know, the week between Christmas and New Year's, I haven't listened to the entire season. You mean the worst week in the world, if you're a parent? Yeah, I've got an annual group. Well, yes. We can't even go there. We can't even go there. But I have a group chat that is only active that week every year called Crimbo Limbo, which is I think a really good name for the year. And then this year, my friend, Emmy brought up that Morvan Collar is in that week. The official Crimbo Limbo movie. No, that's a great take. Yeah, like there's not that many movies. Like it's really ripe space for weird things to happen and more movies where things get chopped up might exist in Crimbo Limbo. Yeah, just just throwing that out there. It truly, my Crimbo Limbo this year was, yes, was, was quite disassociative to use a word. I think anything can happen. Even, even Sans kids, I think it's just a terrible time. Well, there's nothing. There's a dog shit. What's the plan? What is this over with? Yeah, you might as well go to another country. You should do everything behind, you know, the vibe is to travel and then disassociate like on a date. Right. That's right. The point is you need somewhere different. You're going to be disassociated. You're not going to be like, you know what, it's time for me to roll up my sleeves and get everything done. Yeah. What does this get out of your apartment during Crimbo Limbo? Yes. I distinctly remember like being five or six and, and my parents having to explain to me that there was actually a week between Christmas and New Year's. And I was like, why would there be? That's a good question. I saw the question. Doesn't it just go from like 25 to one? Why not just wrap the year? Just number 26. Yeah. Let's just fucking. And for me, New Year's Eve was January 4th. I don't know about you, but like when New Year's Eve happened, I was like, who cares? There's still five more days of this fucking break. January 4th. I was like, my kids go to school tomorrow. We're done. The new year begins. Like we're half things are happening. I'm ready to talk about Kevin. Come on. Let's get things going. What's our podcast called? Our podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am David. Oh, fuck. I'm really off guys. I was late. I had a whole city bike thing happen. New York is down. Yeah. You know, Mediterranean, Takaria thing, but kind of hits, right? Oh, it's so good. That's my new spot. I'm going there every time. New work lunch spot. Yeah. David, yes, came in very frazzled, still wet from swimming. Yeah, you know, yes. No, I exercise. Having dug a city bike out of the snow. And then dug it back in. I'm Griffin. It's a podcast about filmography's directors who have massive success early on in their careers or make a couple of well-regarded European art house films. Sure, right. And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Kind of. Kind of. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a very important turning point film in her career. But more than that, this episode is an opportunity to talk about a really weird period in her career surrounding and leading up to this movie. Because it's nine years in between films. Nine years. Yeah, 2002 to 2011. Yes. It's the break between this and Morven Collar, but obviously there's right movies in between. There's stuff to talk about. There's stuff to talk about. Yes. We're talking about the films of Lynn Ramsey. It's a mini series called We Need to Pod about Caspin. And today we are talking about We Need to Talk About Kevin. Now, here's a big question. Is this the first movie we've covered where the title is bigger than the film? The title is bigger than the film. I feel like we've talked about certain movies where it's like, oh, people forget that teenage dirtbag is from Loser. That music video is bigger than the movie. Oh, that We Need to Talk About X has just become a phrase people use all the time. Yes. I guess I know what you mean. You know, and sometimes you're like, this meme is like, Jeremiah Johnson is more known as the nodding gift than as a movie as a whole at this point. I think this is one of the few movies that exists in which the title is more famous than the movie. Right. Like it's like there's almost nothing like this where everyone knows the phrase. No one used it before? What do you mean? Did Lionel... I mean, obviously people have said to each other at times like, but like did Lionel drive her genius that she is? Think of this? I became a bestseller and I think the title became memed fundamentally, kind of pre-meme terminology because the novel was... Oh, three. I was in high school. I remember because it was a big hit in Britain because it won the Orange Prize. Movies 11. And then it became kind of like the kind of book that when I was an elementary school student and I was at like Walmart and my mom needed to buy a fridge, I would sit down in the like Oprah's Book Club, you know, bestseller aisle and I would read this sort of weirdly commercial literary fiction... That's what it was. It was like a popular... Yeah, yeah. That always involved violence or sexual abuse. Right. And that was an especially a thing when I was a teenager, those books that were like, you're like, what's it about? It's like, well, a person whose parents were horrible to him. You're like, that's the whole book. And they're like, yeah, that's the whole fucking book. You just feel bad. A child called it. She's come undone. A child called it. That's the one I'm thinking of. Right. And you're like, it's a biography and the answer is kind of sure. Maybe. Yeah. They're like on the shelf next to like Jules's poetry book, A Night Without Armor, you know, it's just like this was what we were doing then. And you know what Jules was up to though, living in that boat. It is interesting that that is such a like fertile commercial area for publishing. That's SVU core kind of. Right. Yes. But then like when you pitch a movie like this, people are like, why the fuck would I sit down for two hours and watch that? Like people want to read 20 pages at a time over weeks or months and selectively like dip in and dip out. Was this movie successful? I would say for a movie about a mass murder of children, it was pretty successful. And for a movie directed by Lynn Ramsey, it was pretty successful. Is this your most commercially successful film? Dime I Love I think outgrossed this. Dime I Love might have outgrossed it through sheer force of like they just put it on so many screens and made people so angry. I mean, this made $10 million worldwide. But it made much more overseas than here. It did. It was an oscilloscope film who's a distributor I love, but is very small. A tiny distributor. And this was sort of the biggest film they had had up until that point. It made 500 grand more than Dime I Love did worldwide. Wow. That's how bad Dime I Love. Yes. God bless movies. Attempt to show it to the masses there, but how bad that did. But I think oscilloscope getting this movie over $1 million domestic was seen as like they broke through their own glass ceiling. Well, yeah. And this was a movie that got a genuine Oscar buzz, got pre-curt. You know, she got, Tilda got every... Every precursor until the Oscar. She didn't get the Oscar nom. She got beaten out. I think that was the year where I guess honestly, I guess it's Rooney Mara kind of sneaks by her at the end from Dragon Tattoo. That was seen as kind of a dead campaign. You were never really here made 10.8 million worldwide, which is 100,000 more. So that's kind of her ceiling is 10. Yeah. She makes it. She makes 10, but like domestic is under two. But they're masterpieces. Yeah, they're masterpieces. But they're good. You do get a lot of critical discussion and... A-listers want to work with her. Right. Good actors want to work with her. And I imagine this one had a decent tail on like at home viewing because like people like this creepy shit. There was a stickiness to it. I could have made it. Even though this movie is... Maybe the funniest movie? See, interesting. I... Now that's a really interesting... I hear... Morvern Caller is pretty funny at times. Yes. Morvern Caller is funny. I think this is the funniest movie, though. And Dime I Love... I think Dime I Love is funny. J-Lo's got like bits in it. J-Lo has such great comic energy, right? Like even in... And so like the shit like where she just starts taking her clothes off when like the suburban mom's trying to talk to the right mom or whatever the fuck. Like that's funny. Yes. I guess a lot of Dime I Love is her like throwing herself through plate glass. But I... Yeah, that's what I'm laughing at. No, that part's really funny. Are you kidding me? That part's so funny. I mean all the shit at the... Just them like crawling towards each other with knives and you're like, isn't there a baby over there? And the baby's like, I'm over here. This movie's funny for a different reason though, right? It's like the... Like Tilda's like she's so dead. The way she plays it is so funny. In my opinion. I should say our guest today is Gia Tolentino. Hello. How are you doing? So happy to have you. Honored, privileged to have you here. Long time. Long time, Mr. You are. I can't have you work. We found a quote in something else leading up to this episode that Tilda Swinton said she felt like this was her opportunity to give her Buster Keaton performance. Oh my God. That is very... That's... I think it was... JJ sent me. Maybe he tech... I mean it might be in the dustbin. Sure. But she was just like, I'm gonna try playing as still as possible against the chaos of what's happening against me. And Buster Keaton is the image I have in my mind. And I'm going for funny. The British tagline, by the way, is Mummy's Little Monster. That is the British tagline. Is it spelled M-U-N-S-T? M-U-M-N-S-T-E-R. No. Mummy's Little Monster. It is not about Mummy's Little Monster. If he was just dressing up like a Frankenstein and reciting sitcom one-liners, I would have no concerns about him. If he was a Little Monster. If he was just a Little Monster. You guys, can I tell you something? When I watched this movie for the first time, again, which was pretty recently, I did not know. I've been trying to break myself of the habit of IMD being like every single thing in the middle of the movie, which is so hard to do. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do it with these Lynn Ramsey movies when I'm rewatching them or watching them for the first time. And I did not know till the movie was over that this was Ezra Miller. Oh, that's so... So is that because Ezra Miller is just not really like a face you see a lot? Ezra Miller object. So I have a... You're not a DC Universe viewer. I know. And you probably never met the Fantastic Beasts. I love to... You're not a Scamander head. I love to not know. I would say like a general epistemologically, I simply love to not know. And so it's like, I love when things are none of my business. And often franchises are simply none of my business. And Ezra Miller pivoted pretty much straight to stuff that is not your business. And I remember like... And often like celebrity news, knowing... I love... I'm a gossip. Like every journalist, whatever, I'm a huge gossip. I love to know stuff about people I know or that I kind of know. But I never want to know anything about someone I do not know their personal life. I don't fucking care. Oh, so you're right. You're not somebody who cares about celeb gossip like, oh, Bob was spotted. Yeah, who we believe only. Right. Only non-celeb. Only who. Well, but that's why it's so existential. It's inherently meaningless. It's all inherently meaningless. And when celebrities are thems and people... This is because like, when I first started hearing about Ezra Miller, I learned about them as the allegations of violence and abuse were coming out. And I was like, this is none of my business. That's your entire framework. And it's not a great way to first be. Yeah. And I was like, then I don't need to know what they're up to. This is just none of my business. And so I just deliberately was like, I will not learn about this story or this person. And then I was like, oh, it was all real. It is such a big part of this movie is weird legacy where you're like, okay, so there's the meme ability of the title. And then there's like eight years after the movie, it feels like now there's like a second screened experience. There's like an augmented reality game happening in our universe where the actor who played Kevin is doing Kevin-esque shit, which was so bizarre. And I think like put more attention on the movie previously, but it also speaks to the weird arc of Ezra's career, which is like, you know, a sort of like building steam of stuff. But then this feels like the movie where in a very Zack Snydery move, he watches a very intense drama about like a psychopathic teenager and is like, that's my flash. The funny guy, like in the whole defining of the Snyder aesthetic is like, these are serious. Yes. I need, I need very, very serious way. I mean, because the Ezra Miller, it's this, I know Ezra had done a couple things before this, but nothing. Does Perks of Being a Wallflower come out after this? No, that's the year after, right? Exactly. Which is I guess sort of the more gentle emo side of this young teen actor who's like so pretty and like, right, like has like, after school features. Is the debut film, the Antonio Campos movie, which is a similarly intense film. Oh, right. I've never seen that. I will say for our listeners and also for Gia, because this does need to be acknowledged. I went to summer camp with Ezra. I kind of grew up with Ezra. I was very close with Ezra for a number of years. We were on a sketch comedy and improv teams together. And you're in a great and very widely seen film. Was in one of the sort of Ezra Millers on the movie Star Trek films called But Where the Gonzo? That is a quite bad teen comedy in which I played a character named Horny Rob and Ezra played Eddie Gonzo Gilman. The Gonzo. I mean, let's just, yeah. I mean, like, what? But Zoe Kravitz was in it as well. And Jesse McCartney. A lot of people were. Oh, is that the movie where they started dating? Yes. Gotcha. Yes. A lot of Colby Minfield, a lot of great actors. That's like an early role for them. Camel Scott. One of his first roles. He plays one of Ezra's parents. So it's like a thing when we started this podcast that I would evoke especially when Ezra would come up and we were like covering the DC films and such. I have not spoken to Ezra in like 10 years. And there is this weird kind of almost disassociative thing of like, you can know someone, have them become famous and stay in touch with them. And it feels like you're adapting to their reality shifting, right? Like they change the way other people perceive them. It perceives them changes, but you're still kind of like in the narrative. You can meet very famous people who to you feel abstracted as icons and then get to know them as a person and be like, oh, now you're like humanized to me. But to have someone who you did know very closely for a while, then become very famous at the point that you sort of lose contact with them, which was not, you know, like any dramatic split off. But at the point that the public kind of spiral is happening, I have not spoken to Ezra in years and I'm reading the news as if it's just a person. It almost like doesn't bear a resemblance to the person I knew. And it also was this weird byproduct of like this movie is such a flashy statement. Zack Snyder says you Warner Brothers as often happens when like a studio casts a on the rise person in a big franchise role. They're like, we're going to tie you down to two other things. So it's like Ezra's The Flash and Ezra's also this developing villain across the Fantastic Beast movies. As we did three Fantastic Beasts movies. And then they're a villain. Yes. It's sort of like the tragic, I mean, those movies are not. It's a bit like Wizard of Heaven, honestly. Wizard of Heaven. It's like what's up with this weird kid? And it's like, turns out there's like a magic cloud inside him of his emotions. But it also felt like they were trying to. Those movies are bad though. Should I? They are. They are super high. I rent them. Yeah. It felt like they were also going for a kind of rent thing. It felt kind of cool for me. If you get high and watch them, you will fall asleep right away and have sweet, dreamless sleep. I say with some confidence what you should do is get high and read the Wikipedia synopsis. Yeah. And then that is it. That's that'll do. Watching them is a worse experience. Yeah. OK. But it's like a wizard Kevin who then also has like Wizard Kylo Ren. Like is he going to be redeemed character? Right. Because he's like the character Credence Bearbone. I believe. Correct. Bearbone. And his mother is Credence. Samantha Morton. Morphing Teller herself. Right. But she's his adoptive mother. Yeah. Because she's sort of like a Bible-beatering type. Like the whole thing is that it's all like religious repression has made Credence. Credence. Credence Bearbone. Religious repression like Christian religious. Because you know what she can really is like. Like she identifies these villains. You know, in the Harry Potter universe. Yes. She's very. She's a world. Yes. Oh, so it's taking place in the Muggle world. And the fantastic beast movies take place during like the Great Depression. Are they the three? Don't make me once again. Go deep on these. Yes. The first one. The whole joke that I as a right like, you know, when these were announced where they were like, fantastic beast has been announced and it will build to the big battle between Grindelwald and Dumbledore. That was the later announcement. Well, but like they're sort of like that's vaguely the idea maybe, you know, and you're like, oh, okay. And that's in like the four 1945. The idea is that's like World War two. And they're like, anyway, the first movie is 1926. So I'm like, how long is this planned? It was also when it was announced, people were like, oh, fun, a standalone story in the Harry Potter universe. We're pretending it was. Right before it came out, J.K. Rowling was like, actually, it's a five movie saga that takes you right up to the starting five movie. No, they made three and ran out of patience. She was up into six and they were like, how about the last one was the one you just made? Creedence Bearbone. That's like a blue singer named. That's great. That's good. I don't know if you know this, but J.K. Rowling is famously horrendous. Oh, yeah, like Cho Chang. Cho Chang being the most iconic version of that. But Creedence Bearbone is another one. I feel like she spent two minutes. Heimel Menorowitz. Isn't that the Jewish? Samantha Morton. Wow, the Lit Ramsey universe. I mean, like great cast in that movie. It's so fucking boring. But here are these like big Warner Brothers movies that all have like productions that will last a year in foreign countries. And even though none of these movies are like Ezra vehicles, they've basically like tied Ezra down for the better part of a decade. Yeah, no other movie. And it's just shuttling like off the roof. Except Flash Creedence, Flash Creedence. Except I'm sure you all saw. I guess Ezra was doing like at a Die My Love premiere and gave the thing about how they're working on a. They claim they're working on a movie with Lit Ramsey. They're saying they're working on a script together. Ezra has a small part in the Mary Haran Salvador Dali movie, Little Lashes, where I believe Ezra plays young Salvador Dali. But most of the movie is Ben Kingsley. That's right. And there was a Stanford Prison Experiment movie with a bunch of young guys in it. That's from 2015. That's a long time ago. I'm just saying. I'm saying what? Yeah, and apart from that, just a train wreck. Right. Ezra's in train wreck. Yes. Don't remember. Ezra plays the kind of like young, pretty assistant at the magazine who Amy Schumer tries to have an affair with and then finds out it's like 15 years old. But yeah, it was like the industry was like Warner Brothers is betting hundreds of millions of dollars on this being a star. And the public had so little relationship to them outside of like like tumblers that were obsessed with Ezra's bone structure. Right. Which is unbelievable. Right. Unbelievable. But it was a lot of striking. And it was a lot of... They're so pretty. It was a lot of like this movie where it's like, well, there's like a pretty astonishing level of intensity here. And then Perks of Being a Wallflower, which I think is Ezra's best performance and is the one where there's like a good balance of humor and pain and feeling and what have you. That's the one that I felt. Anyway. The thing about this movie is, and we were talking about this with Drew McQueenie, like there's actually a lot less Ezra than you remember. It's more just like a striking performance, obviously, when it's a lot of it's the little Kevin. The little Kevin's are... I mean, this is... We gotta talk about these little Kevin's more than... We gotta talk about the little Kevin's. My second piece of necessary airing of context for this movie is like I auditioned for this movie like four times to play Kevin. Wow. And speaking to how much less teen Kevin there is than you think, anytime I watch a movie that I auditioned for over a decade ago, there is the weird thing where every line of dialogue comes back to me. You know, back when I was fucking diligent would be off book for auditions when I gave a shit. And it'll like come back where I'm like, oh right, at one point I knew all of this and I knew the queue lines and whatever. Do you remember any... What was the most intense of the sides? Well, what I was going to say is I auditioned so many times that I kept hitting different scenes and I think I basically... Did the whole thing. Did every one of these scenes for Lynn Ramsey. Because in my memory, I think I did two auditions with casting and then two with her and Keneer. What's his name? Rory. Rory Stewart Keneer. Yeah, not. That's why I was doubting myself. And every one of the teen Kevin scenes, I had some memory of how I played it. Wow. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it also speaks to like... It's not that many. In reality, it's like five dialogues. So they were like jerk off and lock eyes for less than a big diaper. You didn't have to do, but I did like the TV monologue. I did the final speech at the end. The right where you're like, I don't know why I did it or whatever. Right. At the diner trying to connect over who your crush is or whatever. I just remember doing all of them. But I read this script and was young and hadn't read that many scripts, had seen Rat Catcher, but also hadn't seen Mourvern Caller at this point. This person hasn't made a movie in close to 10 years. I read this script and I'm like, the fuck is this? Because it's written in like visuals where some of it felt like bad poetry. And I was like, well, this feels like the worst student film scripts I read where people are too in love with the idea of the images they have in their head. How will this work? But then when I got to the dialogue scenes, I thought they were so funny and engaging. And I was like interested. And then meeting her, I found her so funny and so collaborative and so loose where I was like, fuck. And then I saw this person rules and then saw the movie and was like, it is almost exactly what she wrote in a way where movies like this sometimes shoot with a very traditional script and then they do a bunch of B-roll shooting. And then in the edit, they constructed however they want. The structure of this in my memory and I couldn't find the PDF was this on paper. I believe it. It opens. That's how she works. With four pages of describing the tomato festival. Four pages. Yeah, truly. And then she's like explaining what the visual metaphors are, which on paper makes it feel clunky because you're like, don't explain the metaphor to me. But also it's like, she's going, this is the movie I want to make. If you want to give me money to make it, I'm going to shoot it exactly like this. And this is why. Like in retrospect, I now having read a bunch of other scripts understand it's a really fucking good blueprint of making sure your vision is inarguable on paper. Well, when I was rewatching it, I feel like this is. It's one of the tightest sort of the stream of consciousness. Like it everything is daisy chained really, really closely seen to see it. Like there's no every associative link, every the all of the intrusive thought structure that feels so loose. Like it's unbelievably tight. You can feel where in the script there would be like this circle is like this circle that it looks this feeling that twist that feeling. It would literally say like, and then we like push it on a circle cut to an egg is the same shape as the object we've just seen. You can see it. And I think it has to be that tight. Otherwise, like the movie would be annoying almost like it. Yes. Yeah. You've read the book. Yes. The book doesn't have that. The book is all letters, right? So right. It's sort of epistellary. I was curious. I had been curious about the book when I was because I think it's interesting that Lynn adapt like all of her movies. Except for a lot of people is working off a book often. It's something you haven't heard of. But then of course the in like the lovely bones is the other book around this time. And we'll talk about it where you're like, right. A book that was sort of like highbrow. Lovely bones. Like yeah. That's the other one. Right. But like clearly she saw like, well, I know what I would make this look like on screen. She makes very specific personal adaptations of books that aren't like the obvious literal right. Right. And this book I think seemed to me like it was, you know, it's yeah, it's epistolary. It's written to, it's written to Franklin. The husband. Yes. It's it's the doesn't die in the book. You know who does, but you don't find that out till till two thirds towards the end. You find out that he's dead sooner than you find it's not the punch and that it is in the movie, but he's you're writing to Franklin. You think that he has custody of Celia and they've just been separated. And then and then you find out like, yeah, maybe two, two thirds of the way through. And it's her, it is non chronological and that she's thinking about like her life traveling around and them fucking so bohemianly, you know, all this stuff. But it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty concrete. And actually, can I read you guys the one line that I am. So the jerking off scene famously in the movie, he's just jerking off with the door open and locks eyes with his mother as one never does. Yeah. I would, I would in fact, honestly, recommend not to. Simply never. 0.0 percent for me. Never. You've never done it? No. It really crossed my mind. So I'd like to also just say that's not a thing. I've never. Yeah. I'm going to guys I've never done it either. Yeah. No bits podcast. I've not done it. Never done it. We've never done it. I've not. I've never done it. Actually, you know what? It's weird. I don't have the desire to. I don't think I do either. It's never kind of like slit across my desk and made me stroke my chin and consider. Don't say slit. I'm like, don't. Yeah. I shouldn't have said stroke. Yeah. Yeah. You were thinking about it. In the movie, that's what happened. So here's what. So it's a repeated action. It's a very, very, very repeated action in the book. And here's the description. Here's the one line that I transcribed. Actually, I transcribed two lines, but here's the phrase. It's it being Kevin's dick is quote purple and gleaming. Jesus. Not that purple and gleaming with what I first assume is KY jelly, but which the silver wrapper and on the floor suggests is my land of lakes unsalted butter. There we have it. Oh my goodness. So I'd say like right off the bat, that's a great little like snapshot of why Lynn is good at adapting. Lynn's just like. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing but I don't know. I mean, I don't. I will dig into the dossier to see like what Lynn thinks of this book. I know Lionel Shriver is like kind of almost like I don't like talking about that book. Like, like, like almost dismissive of the book in a way because of its success. Lionel Shriver, who also now has gone like full turf, anti-wob, anti-identity politics. Is British or not? No, she's American. She's sort of pseudo British. Yeah, because all the good turf shit was happening over there. It seems like she got there way before, but then you're right. That's really something. Her name is something like Kellyanne. Her name is so like I will say this. Here's my I didn't know this until I opened her Wikipedia, which is just I thought that she was called Lionel Shriver because there's this thing in Britain sometimes where like evil old rich guys have a daughter and are like, a daughter. I'll just give her my name anyway, just because like I wanted a son like Nigella Lawson. Her insane name is because Nigel Lawson was like, I had a daughter. Well, I guess I'll just call her Nigella, which is a made up name. And but no, her name is Margaret Ann Shriver. She's from North Carolina and she gave herself the name Lionel at 15 because she wanted a tomboyish. Yeah. And she writes. So there's an afterword to Lionel is like to me, like the name of like an old professor in like a fucking Narnia book. Like not like I don't think of that as tomboyish. Can I also just before I forget that the quote you read was quite disturbing. It only serves to remind me of my least favorite thing that has ever been said to describe such an act, which is in the Glenclois movie, The Wife, when Jonathan Price says, stroke my two messen cock. He says that out loud. He says that out loud. And that movie almost won an Oscar. Thank God. It was in a pretty serious conversation. Many people spent months like at a chalkboard being like, can we give this an Oscar? Was he was he was at a directive or was he saying that someone had like. I dare not rewatch that film. I can't remember if he's asking her to do it or thanking her for having just done it. But it's one or the other. They're lying in bed together with the lights off. It's real nasty. Yeah. And he puts a lot of English on the delivery. To mess and it's like even saying it is sound of like a vomit. You sort of it's a terrible word. I never want to hear that word ever. Yeah. David, 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, a failing on my part. Tell me. We went to the Wisconsin Film Festival. Sure. Visited our dear researcher, JJ Birch. I'm scared already. Participated in a screening. We dined out. We had fried cheese curds. We drank Wisconsin beer. What was the mistake? Tell me. I forgot to pack my. Oh, Jesus. A.G. One. You didn't bring your A.G. One to Wisconsin. This is a fuck. Oh, I read this is a personal endorsement from Iq experience. They got the travel packs because the thing I love about A.G. One, they give you different form factors. 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Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Uh, Lionel Shriver basically had made like had written a couple of books that hadn't really hit. Uh, was sort of like, is this like an interesting book to write from an interesting endorse DeSantis? She's deep in the fucking weird shit voted Democrat her entire life. She cited apoplectic loathing for Kamala hair. I mean, like, But like how, bro, how, how brainbroken do you need to be to not only like switch parties, but also go like, I think DeSantis has the juice. She kept arguing that DeSantis was so charismatic. You just be like, I kind of hate, you know, woke people and I've gone insane. You can just say that you can't be like, I'm really, really into Ron DeSantis. She was buying as much stock as she could in DeSantis. Even like right wing racist psychopaths are like, he's fine. Let's relax. He's not that good. There's an afterward to this, to the heaven novel and she talks about, so when did it come out? You said, Oh, five in Britain. Uh, no, sorry. Oh, three in Britain. It won the orange prize, which was the, it doesn't exist anymore. Now it's called like the women's price for fiction, but was the, it's the, the literary prize in Britain given to a novel by a woman. Um, and, uh, which was a prestigious award, like, and it was, and it was a best seller. So it was that kind of thing that we're talking about of like, it was the somewhat lurid best seller, but it was like somewhat well regarded. It's well written, but I, but it's like the, the movie is much more pleasant to watch than the, I imagine it's, it's a better movie than the book is a book, but Lionel Shriver is a, is a smart, perceptive, nasty, intelligent, like the intelligence behind the book, you know, maybe we'll pin it on the, on Eva Cachadorian, not the author, you know, but it is, it is a nasty type of intelligence at work. And, and there's an afterward where she talks about being raised by like hardcore, like Carter Democrats or something, and that all of her life she had had, I think she describes it as a violent right wing streak. And she, and so she like owns it. She's a, she's proud of it already in the mid, in the mid aughts when she's writing this, which is kind of an amazing time to be proud of your violent right wing streak. I mean, anytime is, but especially then, and she, um, she hated the book because everyone wanted, like it's the kind of book that makes you psychoanalyze the author, obviously. Of course. Right. Is this about you? Or yeah, right. What, what is your relationship with your family, your kids, whatever. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Does she have kids? She also seemed to have this baseline in like reading interviews with her, uh, this baseline resentment that it was so much more successful than the book she had written before it, and that the book she wrote after it never came close. That she was like, I hate that everything is about this one book. She doesn't have kids. Interesting. And then by the time they made, they were making the movie, she's like, I don't want to fucking deal with that thing anymore. It was like, it was treated like it was her hotel, California. And she's like, I hate that they only asked me to play this one song. The quote I found from her, they thought was interesting was, I'm often asked, did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin? Did I have some revelation or transforming event? The truth is that Kevin is of a piece with my other work. There's nothing special about Kevin. The other books are good too. It just tripped over an issue that was just right for exploration and by some miracle found its audience. So she like hates that it was successful and is like, oh, what? Because I wrote a book about a thing that people are perversely curious about. You all bought this one. Right. I wrote a thing about a sensational national news event that keeps recurring and no one will write novels about because it's so. Right. And even her, like people asked what I was going through when I wrote the book. She wants to just be like, no, I'm just a skilled writer and I sit down and have the same process every time and nothing personal is going on. I am the same level of good writer every time. Also, you don't want to admit like, yeah, look, I wrote a fucking school. It's not shooting because it's bone air, but like a school murder book, because I knew that's like hooky and would get people's attention. Like what the greater, the greater hook of this is, it is one of those things that when if your kid was crazy, like another hook that everyone like is drawn to. What is it like to be a parent in the aftermath of that? Right. What do you do? How do you live if your child is the one who it's only half about that? Right. And the book too, like it's only somewhat about her life post because it's mostly her sifting back memories. It feels like half and half. Right. Like it's. But it's it is like a memory play. It's from the perspective of, and I think it's what this movie is trying to get at is like the basic structure of this movie is like a couple days of her life upon getting this new job. Yeah, maybe a week that happens within the body of the movie feels like the constant shurning of in her head that happens on a daily basis. Of everything starting when she's in her twenties and they're de-aged by she's got bangs and John C. Riley's right in Beanie. I mean, Tilda John C. Riley, it's a little tougher. Tilda is fairly ageless, although young Tilda is so striking. Like when you see 90s Tilda, like there is nothing like her. When we've come across young John C. Riley in movies, you're like, oh, so he was 45 then. And you're like, no, it was like 15 here. Yeah. Interestingly, in the book, he's supposed to be a Republican. Like he's like a hardcore Bruce Springsteen, like farmer guy. Uh-huh. He, I don't think he's bad in the movie per se, but he is weird cast. He's weird casting. He doesn't really, you just, I'm like a million times out of a million. I don't think Tilda Marys John C. Riley, I'm sorry. Like no matter what characters they're playing, it feels like the cast, I'm less for the marriage and more for the function of the father. And I think also it's just like this guy reads as chill and fun or just like a tragic. Right. Yeah. Just kind of like a guy where you're like, right. He may be, he would be easily duped, but like it's probably also just, he's a fairly daring actor. He has good taste and he was like, sure, I'll do that. And they were like, Oh, well, he's an Oscar nominated sort of well-known guy. He's like in fucking Talladega nights. If you got him, right, you get two extra million dollars. Like, where he sort of seems to be semi-bankable in an unsolved kind of. Their relationship isn't supposed to make sense. Like in the, it's not, it's not supposed to make sense. Having the kid is always kind of a marginal, like 51% we're doing it. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. We, we were sure. I mean, it's one of the things I think this movie kind of gets right in my opinion, which is like, it feels like this guy really wants to be a dad because he likes the idea of being a dad. And she does not feel that innate drive and sort of goes like, I guess so. And she's like, maybe if I have a kid, it'll produce it. I'll feel it. Right. Yeah. Right. And I, and I know people who felt exactly that way where they're like, yeah, I was kind of on the fence and then I had the kid, I like the kid. Like, you know, like I, I like my kid, even if I don't like all kids. I think the choice Ramsey makes here that is why this movie works so well for me is that it's like sort of a nature, nurture chicken and egg movie. Right. Whereas like the obvious version of this story is, oh my God, what do you do if your child turns out to be a psycho and it's a ticking clock and it's a matter of time. And Lynn Ramsey is like, no, the question is like, what do you do if you just don't love your child, if you just can never connect with your child. And then if your child ends up becoming a murderer, are you going to spend the rest of your life going like, was it always that way? And is that what I was negatively reacted to? You're going to ask me the airscope, the airscope question. Or did I somehow do something? But you are asking the airscope question. Yeah. Did I do that? I thought. I thought you said the oracle question. No, it's the oracle question. Which is which phase? Did I do that? I'm sorry, Gia. What were you going to say? Well, I think in the book, it's not like them looking exactly alike. They also have very similar bone structure. That's like one of the reasons this movie is so funny. Riley's jeans bounced right off of that book. That's like a constant visual joke, starting with the bathwater. You know, it's like it actually is so funny. Like when they're sitting across from each other, the restaurant just looking exactly the same, like the hair decision, like it's really funny. I am imagining like the poor casting agent on this movie, like the casting director, hey, can you find me someone who looks like Tilda Swinton and John C. Riley? And again, she's like, no, I fucking cannot. No. Tilda's Armenian. Like Tilda's Armenian. Can we get that word? Like at all? Can you mix that in? But I when I watched them, like I found it really like the most the most sort of dramatically effective, chilling thing about the movie was that Kevin as a literal baby. And this was the other quote that I wrote down from the book. The cry is described like a rape whistle. And the cry, the cry in the movie, it's like, oh, my God. I mean, I would I would be I would be at the precipice of self-harm within 36 hours. The moment when she goes to the construction site and by the jackhammer, her shoulders go down. Right. And it's perfect like Tilda Buster Keaton shit, where like she's conveying the emotion through her body language, her face from the moment he's like quiet, the moment he's crying to the moment she's able to drown it out, basically stays the same. Her face is incredible in this movie. Like it is kind of her face is like a gumbee, you know, like when she's like trying to get the job, the way like her jaw hangs and her like it's it's unbelievable. But but the thing that chilled me was that Kevin is such a malignant baby, such a profoundly malignant evil baby. Straight up evil. I'm going to say it. I've got I've got small children. You like that would be an evil baby that that Kevin creates her. It's like it's nature versus nurture, but it's also in reverse, right? That like the child has produced the mom of a school shooter. Right. Right. Which is a great way to think. It's like a really tangled knot. Yeah. Like they're continually producing each other as this these cold twins. Right. But it's basically. They can't run. At least like anyway, he's a bow and arrow. And what the baseball do the baseball outside? This movie implies that like every week of her life is like this, right? Like in the present tense, she's like, the fuck do I do with myself? And then in every like kind of idle moment, she's replaying everything. She's constantly like a detective trying to like look back on the scenes and make connections. Or yeah, because this is the thing about this movie. And I think the book too, right? Is like the other thing you have to consider is like. If someone experienced a tragedy like this, their child or committed a tragedy, you know, they would then look at everything in their life in a completely different way. And it's completely unreliable. Now I watched this movie and I'm like, right, I'm like a couple of years in orphanage or whatever, drop this kid into a river. No good evil kid. But I'm the whole point is that every memory she has now is the bad memory. And the struggle I have with this movie is that Kevin is so nakedly discordant with like, and you know, reality, like whatever, with, with politeness, with like society that I struggle with that. I want it to be a little more ambiguous. It's like, was it there all along? Because you watch a movie and you're like, yeah, it was there all along. You fucking gerbil went in the dumpster. He blinded his sister. Like this is these are no good things. I was jerking it. I would say. Too messy purple, buttercock. Fucking what else? You know, there's a few other things, right? The pooping. The pooping. I mean, I know children struggle with body. I'm not trying. No, but this kid. He's in a room. Yeah. Right. Right. The maps. Yeah. Right. Although, Ben, you have to admit that's kind of like a cool artistic strategy. It does kind of look like a super soaker. It kind of looks cool. It kind of looks a little. It's kind of a good room. It looks a little cool. But the way that the middle Kevin is sitting when they're rolling the ball and the middle Kevin is sitting like Kate McKinnon in the Barbie movie. Like it's just like, it's just like what the legs. So what would you do if you had I like it that that Kevin is like that? I like the decision that he's unredeemably malignant for literally day one. He said there's not really. You're their parent. You're not allowed to just be like, I think my kids a school shooter in. Yeah. Like what needs to happen to Kevin is like he needs to go into a black mirror egg or whatever. You know what I mean? Like like that episode where he just gets egg. Also, we need to talk about him. We do talk about him. Well, but maybe then we could use this killer to invade country. Sure. Yeah. He needs to be like. He needs to be like a VR cage. You know, like there's no other place it's like anti carceral for everyone except for Kevin, you know, and we can make it really good for him. We can kill someone every minute. And this like very liberal judge who has that. I pretty say, and I know Kevin's when I see him. No one else needs to go to jail, but Kevin. Yeah, I got a pitch for what we could do with the Kevin IP. What about this is a tough movie if you're called Kevin. Shout out to all the Kevin's out there. I am sorry. It's like being called Karen or whatever. Right. You know, what about alien colon Kevin and Waylon? That's good. Discover Kevin and they're like, stop going to fucking space. Well, we just got to clone Kevin. Well, no, but the thing is Waylon, you tiny funds Kevin's like, oh, angular features, you know, kind of charmed like how bad Kevin be. Let's unfreeze him. Oh, you think they make Kevin the captain of a ship? I don't know. I'm saying they let Kevin out. And they're like, so what's up, Kevin? And then yeah, Kevin goes wild. Look, I mean, we are luckily this is not about a real thing that happened. Otherwise, we would be making light of a tragedy. It's about a tragedy. This movie is like funny. It is. It is like pitch black. Very, very, very darkly fun. Gallows humor. It has to be. It would be unbearable if it was straight. This is the other thing. And it would be kind unbearable in that also that way of like, what's the point? You can't just make a movie about like it's the rabbit hole of the book. The story, the play in the movie, which I don't like. Another thing I was that you were in the mix for. I well know. It like, yeah, basically pulled down to me and Miles Teller is. But is Miles Teller in the movie rabbit hole is Miles Teller? Yeah, I never seen the movie. That was his first breakout. Yeah. So it's a David Alenzi and Bear play and someone asked him, like, hey, what'd you write? And he's like, well, I thought that like, what wouldn't it be interesting? How sad it was if your kid died? And they're like, is that it? And he's like, yeah, that's it. Like, I just figured that make for like a really sad play. And I'm like, there's got to be something else. Like, because nobody really just wants to sit there with that, you know, and it's the same with like, oh, it's suck if your kid was a school shooter. Everyone's like, yeah, I know that. Like so. But and this is why this is good. I actually think too, like most people, you know, like you people, friends of mine who are lawyers, like people who are in prison settings, like are no people who have done a stent, you know, violent things. It's like, people are not like Kevin. No, you know, like people, people aren't Kevin is not a human character really. And that's why like it allowing Kevin to be so extreme, sidesteps, like kind of usefully the, the what you would Kevin's just not human. You don't. Yeah. There's a different movie that's a process movie of like, why did we not stop this? Yeah. Or whatever. Like that's like a very practical movie about a tragedy like that of like the signs were that, you know, like, and then there's like movies like us fans, Stance Elephant, where it's like, I don't know why they do it. Like, and if I think back, sure, there was a little of this and a little of that, but I'd never put anything together because the whole point of elephant is like, you're grasping different parts of the elephant. It was always as to lose like 50% just look, right? And like fitting into the stylization of Len Ramsey's universe. But when I remember auditioning for this and really trying to crack it and I was like, well, the choices to go for a kind of like vacant sociopathy, like the shooters and elephant, right? Like how it's tough to project much onto the right. And especially because the dialogue is so intense in the scenes where Kevin really confronts her and locks in that I was like, I think you need to kind of pull back or else it will feel over the top. What I didn't understand was that like, that's what she wants. He needs to feel like almost a satanic force. He needs to feel like a stylized evil where it's kind of absurd for anyone to be behaving this way and like so gleefully. But only only tell this character is seeing it. This is the other thing I was going to say to your point is that it is so much a memory play and her perspective and her replaying it. And when we see Kevin in the present moment in the facility, he is markedly different. And certainly the final scene is like, right, this is a person. This is a person who is like, troubled and has like committed like, looks different, horrendous, indefensible acts, but the energy of the performance is totally different. And you can go, well, did something break in heaven once they finally committed the evil. And also it's like Kevin's about to go to a grown up jail and is scared of that. Like it's like, yeah. Or is this the only stuff we're seeing that is actually representative of an objective reality versus a subjective reality? Which is if her playing in her mind, she's just like. But you believe it though, right? The baby crying felt like this all the time. But I think you're. You believe that. Totally. Like I don't think you're supposed. I mean, I personally don't think that you're supposed to think. Is she retroactively deluded because of this great violence? Like you believe the kids sounded like you believe it. But it's also, I think the movie is playing in the you could never really know for sure. And I think she's she's so good about making these kind of like the way memory and present consciousness works kind of tapestries where you're not doing dumb flashback devices. It's all interwoven and outside of like their young, young meetings till the basically looks the same in all segments. The her age is basically only conveyed by her body language. There and the hair, the hair, hair is key, hair is key. And so you're sometimes starting a scene, not knowing which temporality you're in until you see if Kevin's there or not or where she's living or things like that. So she's building it in a way where those scenes can meld together. They don't feel like here's an over the top scene and here's a real scene. But it is all kind of a soup. What were you? I was going to open the dossier. Oh, no, but I'm not sure. Yeah, OK, but just just get some research on this movie. OK, so and Lynn Ramsey's career in between Morvern and this, obviously, design your nine years of her trying to make a movie after Morvern is, which is essentially like that should be the entree to a slightly bigger art film or smallish Hollywood at this time at the very least, you're like that gets you a like eight to ten million dollar Miramax or like Fox Searchlight movie with some major actors who want to show off that they can really act. Right. First thing she does is write a script called Rocking Horse, a dark comedy. As you can imagine, a twisted thing never been made. She still has it somewhere. Next thing is Lovely Bones, OK, film for who is the which is the sort of British Indie channel attached for Channel 4. It's at the time was sort of like a hot company has Lovely Bones, gives her a galley of just the first few chapters. They don't even give her the whole book and she's like, I'm all in. This sounds great. I think it's super interesting in July 2002. So this is even before Morvern Caller, like that she's like getting sort of moved on to this, the book comes out and is just a smash hit. I mean, that book was so huge. I've never read it. Right. She got it before. Yeah. Before it even came out. And like then people start circling it in like an insane way. And, you know, they initially Channel 4, Film 4 is like, no, we have Lynn Ramsey set up and we're going to do it. And she's an exciting young director. You've seen Rat Ketchum and Morvern Caller at that point in time. It makes a ton of sense to go. If we give her this book, this is the kind of thing that might like level her up like crazy. She might be ready to deliver like a masterpiece. Ramsey is basically like, look, I was handed the like the first part of a manuscript. I have a very loose adaptation I want to do. And now people seem to want, you know, the book that is now a huge hit on on screen. Like they just want a translation. I don't really want to do that. She doesn't like the second half of the book, which is like where the girl comes back to her. She's also like, I think I mean, I've seen the movie once and read the book. Oh, times. She is arguing that a lot of stuff that works in the book would not work on film. And they're pushing back and saying people love the book. You got to do the book. I would argue that history proves her correct. Well, right. Because of course, Peter Jackson Spielberg is one guy who's trying to horn in. He never actually does. And then when Ramsey is sort of pushed off eventually, because they don't like her drafts, Peter Jackson takes on the project, obviously. It's his post King Kong movie. It is in my opinion, it's certainly the worst film he's ever made. Like by a long shot. It's an embarrassing work. It is so it was the worst idea he could have made at that point in time. And I feel like in our Send Help episode, we equated this of like, this is a guy who no longer knows how to make a movie that isn't at the pitch and scale of King Kong and Lord of the Rings again. You see him going, oh, I want to do like another like, like a heavenly creatures. Exactly. And he just cannot get his head around how to make a movie about complicated issues. I also think there's something baked into this book, though. Do you remember that New Yorker piece that came out a couple of years ago about Alice Siebold, the author of the Level 1s? Right. It's like there's something actually truly malignant about that book in general. Yes. The surety of that book of like, she knows it happened to her and she can like from beyond the grave. Yeah. The Lord of that is coming from an entirely different angle than the Lord of Kevin, which at least is voiced from like a pitiless, you know, like like that. I take that any day over the like. Do you know about this, Ben? Just very quickly, there was. I don't know if we can do it quickly, but I mean, you could try. No, I just the quickest version of it is it basically four or five years ago, Alice Siebold had to admit that she wrongfully accused a man of a heinous crime and sent him to jail for decades. Yeah. I mean, a hundred percent because it was and it was a big part of her because she'd written a memoir about the crime called Lucky. Yes. Before Lovely Bone. It was it was an assault that she endured and she and she like pointed at a guy in a lineup and you know, with complete confidence. Right. And he was completely innocent of it. Right. It was crazy. Yeah. So it just has cast a whole pallor on her whole work up until this point. And certainly the narrative of like a dead girl trying to solve her own murder and but she doesn't even make that movie. Instead, we need to talk about Kevin. I'll write about the book. I was just going to say, too, that like Jackson had kind of as much weight as anyone in Hollywood at that moment. You could argue he's even like the heat is is greater than Spielberg at that moment of what does he want to do next? And he kept like optioning different properties that were similar to this of like that's weirdly touchy, difficult literary material. There's this book as nature made him. That's this very complicated nonfiction book about this whole medical incident gender identity and whatever, which I remember just being like, how the fuck is he going to tackle this? There were other things like this where it felt like he wanted to touch the third rail, but also it clearly couldn't get out of his super commercial instincts when it actually came to making the movie. Lynn Ramsey also talks about that she feels like when they started saying like, we're not happy with these drafts, we're not happy with these drafts. Right. They were basically trying to push her off that they knew that Jackson was already sniffing and they were looking for a way to be able to legally end the contract they had with her. Total. But so she feels super fucking betrayed. She feels bummed out. She's like, it being my confidence made me feel bad. I and that she had put so much into this and felt like this is the perfect vehicle. As the book gets bigger and bigger, even when they're arguing about the way to adapt it, she's like, I now have a crack at like a brand name piece of material. This movie is going to get seen by more people. The one other thing I just want to call out quickly, because I saw someone asked this on the reddit and it is a good question. Like when a filmmaker has nine years in between movies, how the fuck are they staying alive? Right. Like, how are you actually making a living during that period of time? And this is a career where there are big gaps. There aren't a ton of films and it's big gaps in between movies that aren't super commercially viable. So it's not like Peter Jackson takes 15 years off. He has a hundred million dollars who gives a shit. Like when she's working on Lovely Bones, she's getting paid to develop Lovely Bones. You know, if you're getting paid for the stuff to write to direct to meet. Yes, you do get paid for these sorts of things. She did a music video. You do music videos. You do commercials. You do a lot of like uncredited like punch up work on other things. But yes, basically, you know, you might have your own passion project that you're trying to get off the ground. But by and large, you try to sell it to a producer quickly so that someone is paying you to do that work so you can pay the bills until the movie actually gets made, hopefully. Just wanted to answer that. David, yes, they say that the eyes are the window to the soul. They do say that. What does that make our glasses? The windows, the window frames. I don't know. The curtains. Yeah, the curtains. The point is, if you are glasses where like I am or like our own producer ban is true. It's a big decision. Sure, because this is how you introduce yourself to the world. This is an engage with other people. You make eye contact through the frames. Sometimes it's just time for a refresh. Totally agree. All right. Well, so what about Zeni optical? Oh, the glasses. The eyewear, they got fun shapes, sizes and colors. They got a lot of colors. Right. Statement pieces, bold statement pieces. They call them and they're inexpensive. I would say they're an online eyewear shop with prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, all starting at under 30. That's crazy. That is very low. I feel like glasses often cost more than $30. Way more. But you go to Zeni.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription, they ship it to your door, no appointment, no store, no off sale at the counter. Easy. At that price, something kind of shifts. You're not like, do I need new glasses? You're like, why don't I try something fun? Right? Sometimes you got an old pair, they got a scratch on them. It's annoying, but you're like, am I going to go through the hassle? Or the screws start to get loose and you find yourself taken out that microscopic little screwdriver over and over again to tighten them up. At this price, why not just get another pair? Ben, I ordered a pair of the Magoo. I think this is funny. Okay. We all know from Mr. Magoo. The cartoon character who can't see and Zeni is saying, let's solve that problem. Let's give you glasses called Magoo. They're blue and green, two of my favorite colors. A nice boxy frame. You're not agonizing over one pair that has to do everything for the next two years. Get the ones for work. Yeah. Get the fun ones. Get some options. Get the pair that only matches one outfit at under $30. You don't have to justify it. Exactly. They've got a hundred and fifty thousand five star reviews. Yeah. And if you've never won glasses online before, they have a virtual try on so you can see how to look on your face before you commit. If your glasses are overdue for refresh now is the time. Go to Zeni.com slash podcast and use code podcast 15 for 15 percent off your first order. The styles sell out. So don't sit on it. That's Z E N N I dot com slash podcast promo code podcast 15. David. Yes. Oh, God. This is life throwing another thing at me. Oh, no. Did you catch it? No, I got hit with it. I got pretty hard. It's going to leave a bruise. How's that to do this? It's tough. It's tough and life keeps throwing more things at me. OK. Well, is there maybe something that we could take off your plate? Have someone else help you out with perhaps a trusted tasker from TaskRabbit? David, I would love nothing more. My ideal life is to do as little as possible, as much as can be off my plate, the happier I am. I have children. I have logistical responsibilities often of like, I need to build a piece of furniture. I need to whatever you know, you know, about this for the first time, but sure, I'll buy into the premise, the bit of this ad. And I've used TaskRabbit multiple times for it is literally always like that is the best money I ever spent in my life. You know what I mean? You know, you're basically like, it would have been six hours of me building this bookcase. And instead, like I did whatever the other task I had to do, you know, like sleeping, could be sleeping, eating a meal, shopping for food or whatever. But like, while that got done and it's like, it's always just so rewarding. I had a tasker come and build a grill for me when I bought my grill. My ears are burning or should I say smoking. And that was one of those things where I was not only was I like, this will be this will take a long time. I was like, looking at all this, you know, masonry, all these like, where I was like, I will mess this up. Like, I just won't do this. Hey, David, no need to speak in generalities to me. What kind of bad boy would we talk about here? What model you buy? It's a Weber grill. I'm not going to tell you the model. OK, we can talk about it off my look. Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs have handled 1.5 million moves and counting. That's quite impressive. Obviously, you know, you guys probably know already, but you can search on Task Drive for a tasker based on cost, skillset availability, past client reviews. You know exactly who's showing up. You can have confidence that they know what they're doing. So when life happens, your to-do list grows, get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at taskgrabbit.com or on the taskgrabbit at using promo code check. Tasker's book up fast, especially for same day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That's $15 off your first task using promo code check with the TaskRabbit app or at taskrabbit.com. We need to talk about Kevin. The book comes out 2003 in the United States. Word of mouth hit, a genuine word of mouth hit. Gets the orange prize in 2005. So it takes a while to even get that like, but it was like the way line will strive her unreliable narrative, though she may be described as like upper east side mom started like passing the book around. And I'd like that. Yeah, exactly. Because it's because of the topic matter. And Lynn Ramsey is a fan and basically like bids for it herself, I think. Right. Like she was just like interested. She got it through her agent and was just like, I want to do this. And the BBC, who helped fund this movie, right? This is a national UK film council movie. Like, you know, it's got British government money is like, oh, like, you know, school murders, like this is too dark, but she wants to do it. Lionel Shriver passes on like their lens. Like, do you want to collaborate and line and forever is like, fuck no, I don't want to talk about. You know, thank you. We need to talk about that. Seriously, answer. Yeah. She does like the movie. She says it's excellent. It's beautifully shot, well cast, thematically loyal to the novel. Like she was like totally happy with the movie. But as you know, telling us with like, it's not like the book is like just is easy to adapt because it's letters. Like it's not right. Like it's not like a translatable work without whatever Lynn is doing to make it this impressionistic feeling of the path this, you know, mom and kid takes. It's also what we talk about of like how she seems to have a better method of visualizing internal monologues than like any other filmmaker in history, in my opinion. And here's a book that's basically just like what this person is telling themselves without any like objective. And she understands how to like transmute that into something that is the opposite informed, but kind of contains the same core ideas and feelings. It's funny. If the book had been titled anything different. Such as. I don't know. Like it's the bow and arrow killing. It wouldn't have. Yeah. Actually the New Yorker fact checker, we spent like 15 minutes being like, can we call it a school shooting? I was like, guys, guys shoots the bow and arrow. That was my argument. I was like, we don't have any word space to do. Right. Actually, it was a bow and arrow. I was like, it's so shooting. Yeah. I find the bow and arrow thing to be a hat on a hat. I don't like it. I will be honest. In the book, it's because like he's like, I don't want to play into your political games because the thing about the book is like all of this is taking place. The present day timeline is like three months while the chads are hanging in Florida. And so it's all taking place against this really specific. And so that's crazy. I know. She's mixing all these ideas up together. Yeah, really. I mean, Chad drama. It's a hanging Chad drama. I was looking at I had I unbeknownst to myself because I was trying to write when we got into this room. I was looking. I was like, didn't what was the thing that Lionel Shriver like put on a Sibrero to give a speech at a literary conference. And I was looking at Googled Lionel Shriver Sibrero and found a piece that I had written about her. Yeah. 2016. You were the first result. You had to remind yourself like Bill and Ted style. I assume as she was tiptoeing up to her later, Turfy turns or whatever. She's mad about some like kid getting canceled at Bowdoin, you know, for having some Brarrows. I don't know. She just written a novel where a white man is married to a black woman who is intellectually disabled and at one point she ends up on a leash. So, you know, it's all pretty. She got really sorry at one point she ends up on a leash. It's not what I expected. Yes, but she calls herself a renowned like this is in the second line of the speech, she calls herself a renowned iconic class. Me whenever I talk about myself. If one of these things where they always are just like, I'm going to write something really provocative and then people go like, hmm, is it okay for them to have written this thing? It's like, oh, so now I'm being attacked. Well, now you're forcing me to become radical. Truly. But it's always this like, okay, well now I'm going to wear a sombrero. Does that make you a person? Like, yes. I guess so. Right. Right. She put out like the thing that I found so funny about it then was that she put on the sombrero to make a statement that any that may that wearing a sombrero should be less of a statement. I was like, what are we, what are we doing? What are we doing? It feels quaint for a sombrero to be like Shakespeare. It's like what we're dealing with now. Like it's like, it's her version of the Scarlett Johansson. If I want to play someone who's pink or purple or a tree, I mean, but right. It was more like, fuck you. Like, yeah. And you know what I was just thinking when you were talking about the book, I find I actually I've come around to finding this sort of I'm still on Kevin being like unfreezing in the alien ship. Like, I think it's actually a bit of mercy on her part and like an enormous source of comic relief that Kevin is so cartoonish because because like basically what the whole story is about, it's like, what if you were a woman, a kind of woman that I am and have been, which who is ambivalent about having children. Sure. Has an ambitious, interesting career, does. Characters are independent and wants to be able to go, you know, go fucking throw tomatoes. Go throw tomatoes. And you're like, what if the transcendence and love that awaits me is not there? Like, what if you don't know who your kid's going to be? Well, you don't know. And then people are like, you know what? You you have your kid caring for your kid makes you fall in love with them. Or the moment of birth makes you fall. Like, like everyone assures you like you're going to have an amazing kid. You two are going to produce an amazing kid, no matter what. They're going to have you as parents. So much fun. You're so smart. Yeah, exactly. Like, please, Chicago. They're going to have you guys like they're going to be so and and and you're like, well, yeah, you're right. Like, I guess there's no way he's going to be, you know, a generational satanic, you know, channel of every, you know, like it's it's it's beyond every parent's worst nightmare to be it. It's it's past the realm of anything that's possible in that way. It's a bit of a relief. He becomes like supernatural almost science fiction level. Yeah, like an alien. It refers to it as like Rosemary's baby, but no devil. Exactly. What if you had a devil baby, but it's not because you fucked the devil, like, you know, by, you know, like you not there's no conspiracy. You just happened to you got the devil baby. Everyone else didn't. I think that's a great point, though, that the real life version of this type of kid who ends up committing these types of acts is usually like has anger issues, but also is like incredibly sad is struggling is bullied, like has wild emotional swings. Has hugged you more than once is introverted or whatever it is, you know, and you're like a parent fighting through the outbursts, going like, how do we get him level? And the fact that this kid is just from the beginning, basically like playing chicken with her on every single thing and only respects her when she breaks his arm. There's no when she offers him right. There's no level of vulnerability other than when he is sick and or broke. Well, about the sick thing here. So I was watching them when I was rewatching them was like, what would what would I do? What would we what would I do if I had a Kevin? I would phantom thread the shit out of that kid. It works. I would munch house in him so fucking hard. And I would be so justified. But that's the terror. It's not like I'm. But this is. Yeah, you're kidding, because I'm serious. No, I'm not kidding. I know you're not kidding. But you're kidding because we're not allowed to do this in society to essentially say, like, no, this kid is a bad egg and there's nothing like society now is just like, no, no, we we have interventions. Like we have things you do. There's people you see. There's medicine you take. Like, you know, you can't just be like, well, I know. I'm being a psycho kid. Speaking of what would actually happen is he would actually be medicated into a stupor 100 percent. That was another thing I do. Right. I do bump on it a little bit where I'm like, once again, like once once the daughter is getting blinded, like you imagine like someone's coming to the house like, you know, who knows. But when he's when he's fucking eating the lychee, just like a normal lunch with Kevin where you're eating lychee and the parents are drinking wine at 10 a.m. And there's this weird like I like this sort of like their house is so ridiculous. The house is so scary. Their life is so like, you know, like her pretension of like the mapp room and like her past and like it almost feels like this punishment. Like, oh, you thought you could have it all. Like you could still be the fancy person, the cool person and raise kids. Well, too bad. Like you get a Kevin. And then you get the worst thing of then you have another kid who's cool. Like so you actually know that it's possible that there actually is a kid you could have that you like. And there's tension between only makes Kevin worse at even having a second kid. And then it's like immediately she feels connected to the second kid. Watching this now, I was like relating certain things to the Nick Reiner situation, which is certainly the most like public sort of a discussed version. Yeah, sure. But I think that's a perfect case study in how these things often now do happen in our world, which is like. You just read that it was 36 years of them being like, how do we help him? You know, what is so tragic about that story is everyone says like they just did everything they wouldn't give up on him. And they were just like, when is it tough love? When do we need to support him? When do we need to bring in professionals? When is it medication? When is it this and like nothing worked? And like the situation goes as horribly as it possibly could have. And everyone goes like, there was a feeling that someday something like this was going to happen. But no one kind of seemingly did anything. Well, because no one wants to say like, hey, I think you're right. Well, yeah, well, yeah, I can't just write off a kid. Right. You can't just be like. They're really right off the ground. Because kids aren't like this, though, right? Because like there's not there, like Kevin is not schizophrenic. Kevin is not dealing with addiction issues. Like like, Kevin, there is no diagnosable, you know, the men Kevin can perform like as he does for others. Like like I don't know if it's like there's there's no treatment for it. There's no treatment. Right. Like, you know, all the discussion of Nick Reiner, they were like, he was good for a couple years and we were like happy. And then he fell off the wagon and we thought we could get him back on versus like Kevin comes out with a like little pitchfork and horns. And it's like, I actually think that the most compassionate and restorative justice thing to do would be to constantly phantom thread hit. Like constantly expose him to norovirus every two weeks so that he's weak and loves you. I think he would build up a superhuman and I would just be like giving him a little bit of you know, I don't think we have. I would invent them. I'd invent them. Someone could do it for me. And then he because I found that so beautiful, like, like, I think it's so beautifully acted that scene where where Kevin is sick and and and and Leans his head on her and for the first time in her entire life, her child has expressed some sort of physical even comfort with her. And you can tell how much it means to her and how sincerely. Right. She's not. Yeah, she's not like, OK, all of a sudden every day this was like this. She would have been the happiest woman in the world. I found it so moving. Even if like two days a month were like that, she'd understand what she were fighting for. I think part of why she doesn't know how to take like more extreme actions is that he comes out and she's just immediately like something's really wrong here, but to say that would make her sound crazy. And he's because Kevin is pretending as a child. Right. But even as a baby to be like, honey, I think our baby is evil. Yeah. Can't say that, right? So as like the signs start to pile up that to her like self-fulfilling prophecies, I told you so. It just feels like she's like it's a self-confirming bias in his eyes. And he's so oblivious to shit. And then there is stuff of like sometimes he's really sweet with the sister. And you're like, so is he doing that just to spite me? And he's always with the dad. He's like, yeah, let's throw around that baseball. Right. Do they have a connection I don't understand? Or does he just know that it's part of it? Like because he's what she would be thinking. Yes. That's what she's thinking. And I also think that I remember her saying that they really kind of built the performance around the middle kid and had as her study the middle kid. And that part of her conception of the character and how it was even written in the script is like he reaches this kind of like unresolved anger menace as like whatever it is, a seven or eight year old. And then when he gets to high school, he's just a taller version of that kid. Like part of what is so eerie about him is that he's wearing the undersized t-shirts that he's got these like childlike behaviors that it's now in this kind of like pouty, sulky menace. But everything about him just feels like a stretched out little boy who's now just being taken somewhat more seriously. Because that kid, at that age, it's still a little like what's going on here. I look, I had a colicky baby. I've had three kids, so I was going to. Colicky baby. Colicky. What does that mean? Colic is when your baby cries for no reason. And it's like, you know, it's like torture. Like, I mean, I mean, you did neither your kids are cocky, but like, but your second kid had like had the X for, I mean, I talked a lot about parenting. Yeah, which is what's. But I had a cocky baby and it is like it is sort of this feeling of like the devil is in this baby, like that you cannot. I've had to walk away. I've had to. Where maybe you have to. And sometimes the advice is that it's like, you know what? The baby's fine. Yes, it's crying, but like it can't hurt itself if you put it in a bassinet and you just take five minutes or whatever. You know, like, but what does that feel like to be in the other room? Just the whole baby crying. Better than yelling, what the fuck is wrong with you? But when you're doing that, I'm sure you're also like, what? Why am I feeling like I'm angry at the baby crying? Like, like, especially your baby, like just like pushes a button in your brain. Right. Like it's just like, help the baby. You know, like. And yeah, I mean, like the answer is he was underbaked. He's the littlest twin. You know, he was a preemie and like he just was a rock steady. He's, um, he's kind of, he's rock steady. Okay. We use code names for David's children. We named him after, you know, and like, you know, he was just underbaked, like whatever, something it's always like there's something going on with him. Colic is this made up word the doctors came up with to just be like, sorry, like, okay, better. I thought you were just saying like how like like your daughter. I know you do. That's so cute. They're probably going to inherit it. I have an insane cow. Like I am waiting. What rock steady has a widow's peak, which my dad had one of those. Don't be Bob could, could rock a cow. Like he's got curly kind of a curly hair. But also what babies are like, it's also, it's shocking to be alive. It's terrible to be alive. You're right. And you're not supposed to be alive yet. You came out too early. Even if you came out at a regular time, we come out too early. And none of us chose to be alive. I'm quite thankful to be alive every day. But I, but I, you know, it's hard to fault. It definitely was. I got, I got no Google survey. Yeah. And Kevin, like it's like the only source of the only source of pleasure he's ever seems to access in life is making someone else hurt. Yes. And in a way, like, you know, what do you do with like, like, I, you know, I feel no sympathy for Kevin, but he makes like even as a somewhat demonic character, he, there's some sort of emotional logic where like he didn't ask for that. The monologue where he's just like, you guys are all here just watching screens all day wrapped in front of acts of fictional and real violence. Like, what's the fucking point? All of you are just being fake to each other and not saying like he, he loathes his mother for never being honest about the fact that she fucking hates him. Right. Right. When you get the flashback of the arm breaking, he was like, that was the finally, finally an honest moment from you that you wanted to throw me against a wall. I respected you for the first time and I felt comfortable. Like we're not playing. You know what I would say to him then. What? Jesus, enough with you. You're fucking, Jesus, you're a lot. We need to stop talking. Really? It's awesome. Up the wall. But no, go any other kid. Take your norovirus pill. Take your pill. That's I'm for your pill. Norovirus is like them. They're barfing all the time. You got to deal with the bar. I would take an immunity pill. Of course. You genius. Smart. That's where this really feels like a pre parental anxiety tale, though, especially for a perspective, which is like, do I want to have kids unless I'm a hundred percent sure that I'm ready to be a parent? What if I get the one in a million? You don't know what you're going to get. Yeah. And there's the version of this is, you know, you, you have a child who has like different needs and there's nothing malicious within them, but you're just like, the job is immediately exponentially more difficult than you thought it was going to be. You know, you just don't know what you're going to get in any way. And you need to be so sure and people shouldn't have kids who aren't sure that they want to have kids. And that's the fact that she's just like, as you said, it's like, am I forty nine percent or fifty one percent? Like, where am I on this? The kid comes out and immediately is just like, and I think she has the kid. Like she you can kind of it's kind of presented in the movie. She's just it's really like it was a spur of the moment decision. Like she's blackout drunk and she's just like, it's fine. It's fine. Once whatever. What's one that you know, it's the kind of shit that like Lin Ramsey can get away with because she mostly deals in these scene fragments. And if this was a line of dialogue at the end of like five pages of conventionally written scene, I'd be like, boo, fuck you. But when you cut to her in the delivery room and the doctors are saying, stop resisting. And she's like, oh, she doesn't want the baby to come out. You know, there's something right there from that moment, which then in her mind, the second the baby is a problem is like, did I kind of like will this into happening? Is there some sort of like energy I've passed on to this child of you're unwanted? Should I have been giving him a blow job when he might wake up and have to. Also, like the way sorry, like the way David's head is in his hands. Lock your door or something. I don't know, man. Yeah, no, I mean, just but also like that scene is also so funny because of just the way her head is moving. Like it's so funny. It's incredibly well stated. It is such a it is such a perfunctory blow job. Like it's she's she's like she's got her. She's looking at the at her watch, you know, she's. Well, I mean, it's again, this is the tilt of John C. Right. I mean, now I feel like I'm being mean to John C. Right. No, but it's a weird relationship. To get back to the research, just a little bit. Some entertainment has just made a ton of money off of Twilight. They're like, we will make this movie for you. We've read your script. She had like a spec script. We'll give you 12 million dollars. You can cast whoever you want. Then after, according to Variety and Lynn Ramsey, they back out after a year essentially being like, this is too weird. It's so funny when studios do this, like with like, it's about like a kid who kills other kids and it's just like, yeah, bro, you read the script, you know, like, but they'd fun suddenly back on. They get called the wild, like quick arc of like, here's this new, like upstart like distributor. What are they going to make? They're going to make the stuff the studios don't want to make. Let's get like action. Yeah, right. The other studios have passed on. What's the little energy? Twilight was supposed to be an MTV movie. They were like, fuck it. They get it for like no money. It makes half a billion dollars. They have a franchise and suddenly they're like, great. Now we have the money to make a bunch of shit. But also in real time going like, is it worth the fucking risk? Right. And then they call her and they're like, we kind of are thinking we're going to make more Twilight movies. So that's kind of what we're going to do. And within six years, they're bought by lines and they don't exist anymore. Sucked into the lines. Yeah, right. So she doesn't give up. She retools it. She cuts the script essentially the budget of the script in half by like fucking with the script. So she had it, you know, at about a 12 million number. I think the movie was made for seven. And she just kind of pieces the money together. UK Film Council, Artificial Eye, all these like, you know, Euro sort of indie companies, BBC films, obviously. I think Paramount had UK on this. Sure. It has like 20 different companies. Soderbergh is like an executive producer on it. A silly, a scope releases it in America. A distributor I love who they brought out nearly enough. Shout them out. Co founded or founded by MCA. Yeah. From BC Boys. That's right. Yeah. But they put out great stuff. She knows Tilda Swinton. Tilda Swinton essentially is just like a fucking magpie for freak directors. It makes sense. Like Tilda's basically like, I've been hearing about it. Has been blowing up her inbox for 10 years. Like give me something. And the Buster Keaton thing, you know, like she's very into that. Buster Keaton is her favorite. She says, I'm not going to be articulate. I'm much more wired for looking dumb. And she just liked like I can just stand around looking dumb in this movie. Yeah. I mean, I think it's more like an oneness that Tilda. I think is very like, oh, who knows what I do? Like me. And I'm like, you're one of the most interesting actors who's ever lived the way when she's walking down the courthouse steps, her heels, you know, like it's she's so funny with her body. And she really is. Dude, I just watched the Chronicles of Narnia the Lion, the Wish and the Wardrobe because I've decided this year to read all the Narnias. Although they're good. I know they're totally like they're totally interesting. I was like, you know what, Greta's doing the movie this year. I'm going to read them all. I haven't really interacted with this since I was a kid. And then out of interest, I'm like, I'll watch the fucking movie, which is not that good. But anytime she's on screen, may I say it? She's acting. Serving cunt. I mean, I mean, when she's like riding around in a chariot pulled by like a polar bear with like crazy makeup, you're like, she was born for this. Like she's no acting required. Like it's the funniest thing when you consider like that. Unsurprisingly, that movies announced Disney is going to make a big fucking Narnia line, the Wish and the Wardrobe. Right. It's post Lord of the Rings. They're like, what can we, you know, what fantasy thing can we make? Immediately the story is Nicole Kidman in talks for White Witch. Right. Easiest. Yeah. Who's the iciest blonde out there? Right. There you go. Slam Dunk. She drops out. They're like Tilda Swinton. Film freaks are like, cool. Tilda Swinton, get that bag. Isn't that like a major like, did the scale of this movie just go way down? Well, because it was like they got the, I mean, Tilda had been in a couple of things when they got her, but like it's the fucking lady from like Derek Jarman movies, like not like, you know, an Oscar winner. Like Voldemort in a movie where like the stars are children and you don't have a big name actor above the title. It comes out within a week of King Kong. Everyone thinks King Kong is going to dominate Narnia fucking suplexes it. And suddenly Tilda Swinton is bankable. Yeah. And she's wins an Oscar two years later. Like she's it happens really fast. Can we do like a little zoom out here? Sure. What did she win the Oscar for? Michael Clayton, which is a great performance, you know. And like when in seeming like it's an honor just to be nominated. Everyone thought it was down to Amy Ryan or Cape Lanshet and I'm not here. Right. And then. Bob Dylan. Yeah. And then like Tilda wins in a toll surprise. Right. Year after that, she has Prince Caspian, the second Narnia. She's on that to carry me. And after reading Benjamin Button. Yeah. She's good in that movie. She obviously signed up for before winning the Oscar. Right. Then it's limits of control. She's doing another Jarmusch. I am love. She basically is the first person to be a guarantor for Guadagnino. Yeah. But now. That's a really great. She's got an Oscar. She can be the lead. She like launches him as a director. Then third Narnia shown up for another camera, probably pocketing two million dollars. She's a dream in that one. We need to talk about Kevin. I mean, like literally someone has a dream. Sure. 2011 Moonrise Kingdom, first West. Yeah. Only lovers left alive. Another Jarmusch, maybe her best performance. She's so good in the convo. Have you seen that movie? I've never seen it. It's about two fucking board vampires hanging out in Detroit. Just being like, man, we've been to so many concerts for 500 years old. Is there anything left for us to do? Like that's what it's about. It turns vampires into heroin addicts. Right. Like a vampire would just feel like Keith Richards times a foul. Right. It's just till this one. Tom Hiddleston just like laying on top of each other. Like yeah. I've never seen it. And thin and just like, huh, she put on some sunglasses and go see some jazz. Snowpiercer. Yeah. She's great in that. Zero theorem as a wash. Right. And then Grand Budapest Hotel, train wreck, bigger splash, Hail Caesar. Like that's not only is it her clearly just being like good filmmakers, I don't care the size of the role. I'll show up. I'll do it. Almost all of those movies work. Yeah. I mean, but I know and also she's always striking. And I mean, I love her. I like I love her so much. I mean, I love that she eventually turns this into let me start working with Joanna Hogg, my original collaborator again, and like they have such a rich thing now. And like, you know, she was in the, you know, what else is she been in late? No, but I need more and stuff. Yeah, right. Right. She's so loyal to filmmakers. George Miller movie that she's done like five Wes Anderson. So good and problemy stuff like that was like a really like like she didn't have to do that. That's the kind of swing. And like that's I'm sure the thing where Julia Torres was like till the I'm obsessed with you are my God. And she was like, OK, right, you know, like she will equally like help launch a filmmaker who doesn't have that level of exposure and also be like, yeah, Jarmusch, I'll show up for half an hour and do whatever you want of me. I'm just going to all of the movies work. I'm going to read a story that Tilda said on the press tour a lot. Until recently, I had a reputation in my family for having saved my younger brother's life as a child. Actually, I was going to kill him because he was a boy, naturally. I already had two brothers and that was just too much to bear. She was four and a half entered his room morbidly determined. And then she noticed that he had a ribbon from a baby bonnet sticking from the corner of his mouth. And I started to pull it out and then was witnessed in this great act of love of nurture. So she's claiming like, oh, yeah, I wanted to fucking kill my baby brother when I was four years old and instead I was seen as saving his life. OK, so she's saying that on the press. Store. Sure. I don't know. It's a tough press for. Yeah, crazy tough, tough press for one imagines. It is probably where people sit down like, hi, I'm from. Yeah, I'm from Hollywood tonight and I love the movie. Really interesting. You know, like what are you? Can I call out who is ostensibly the fourth lead of this movie? If we, you know, our fifth lead, at least, can we talk about Chavone Hallen, Hogan, sorry. Chavone Hogan Fallon is the the boss. Yes. Oh, one of our favorites. A deadpan. You know, she's very good at the kind of like. All right. You know, like doing that kind of thing in a movie for two minutes. Like an incredible character actress who fits equally well in a Lynn Ramsey movie and a Farrelly Brothers movie. Like, who else is like that? Where you look at her career and it's half like very serious dramas where they're like, you won't be too over the top, but this movie maybe needs a little levity. Yeah, it's like Bridget Everett in the totally. Do you? Knives out or whatever. Or she can just go as big as anyone if she wants. Do you truly buy that she is just kind of like, yeah, you can have a job. I don't give a shit. Well, the whole office. I kept waiting for a turn. The office doesn't make it any sense. I know for her being like, by the way, I hired you because like, I'm fascinated by who you are. Like, yeah, it doesn't really come up. The office in general is almost like, like that is that this was one of my this was my main issue with Die My Love is that it's like, you know, it's it's out of time and place despite being so rooted in the place. Like it's like the characters, you know, they don't have friends. They don't have cell phones. They don't have, you know, like they. Where are we? Who are we? What time is it? You know, what is she? Kind of intentional. Yeah. Yes. And and the I mean, I think it works because like aesthetically, the the office party when they're stringing up the tinsel and the sad little, but it's like, you know, you go to the office. It's also like the first time you flashback to her present life where she's like in that strip mall, it says like it's like Asian restaurant. And then it's like one 800 travel or whatever. And then you go in and the first poster you see is like Tampa awaits you. Hey, man. It's incredible. It's an incredible detail. But it's like, what year is it inside the office? We don't know. I think that's part of it. I mean, maybe I'm being generous, right? But like she starts out as a fairly successful travel writer. And you're kind of like that industry is going to radically transform. Travel writers will still exist. But the idea of a person who can spend like two years writing a book very thoughtfully that sells enough to support a family is like over. And when she's basically cast out of that because no one's going to buy her book because she's the mother of Kevin, she then has to get a job at a travel agency, which is even closer to death. This is a business that no longer needs to exist. That's basically just for a clientele that like the last generation that refuses to use the internet, who are all going to die in five years. And so are they so desperate that they're like anyone who fucking wants to work here, whatever travel agents back? I think they're kind of being brought back a little bit because people like I don't want to fucking deal right. Yeah. Our friends, Stuart Wellington, yeah, swears by. Like, yes, secretly we've all have friends that probably my mom always used to a lot of money. Right. Well, that's their sensibly one of their jobs. And you just no stress. Everything's sorted out for you. You get a better deal. My mom used to on when we were a kid, like travel agents would help plan our vacations. And she was always like, they knew this these fucking awesome places to go. Like, I guess that's what they're they make the reservations. All right. Yeah. John C. Riley just to acknowledge essentially what we already guessed. She cast him because she thought he could bring some warmth to the role. You know, sort of like a warm, cuddly American guy. Like, like he was just in her head. He's like a teddy bear. Yeah. And he'd like made a list of like cool directors he wanted to work with. And she was on it. So like he went approach. She was like, thumbs up. Like, I guess I want to work with Lynn Ramsey. And if you look at his career at this moment, it's like, Walkard didn't work. So the notion of him being a guy who can carry a movie single-handedly kind of dies on the vine right there. But he's still clearly like a value add. If you're trying to raise your money piecemeal from so many different places, he would still look like a guy where you're like, just as he's worth like a million dollars. If he's willing to do the movie for scale. Yeah. They shot it in Connecticut, Stanford, Connecticut. They shot it in Cinemascope, which sounds crazy, but she's essentially like, you can do two shots instead of one single. Like she just wanted that kind of like epic every day sort of thing. Just unusual, I would say. They had seven million dollars. So, you know, everything was really fucking hard. They shot in like 30 days. Yep. La Tomatina, though, they did go. That's cool. Because they were like, we can't really fake that. Like we have to just go. Here's Ramsey with a great story about the masturbation scene. I knew that scene really worked when we were checking the focus in post-production in Connecticut and we had to watch it over and over. The projectionist was pissing himself. He kept going, motherfucker, every time you re-ran the scene, it was magic. You know, you've nailed it when you got a reaction like that. And then Johnny Greenwood does the score, very cool score, as is Johnny Greenwood's wants. It's all wire strung harp. I love like the idea of calling him, being like, hey, it's about a kid who murders people with a bow and arrow. And he's thinking, I'm thinking harp. Yeah, I agree. All right, Johnny, whatever you want to do. What else would it be? Yeah. Can I go back to your, is the bow and arrow gilding the lily? Yeah. No, I don't think it's cool. I'm just sort of, I actually am like, I found it almost impossible. Little corny. And like a little implausible that he could kill that many people. I was like, it's a bow and arrow run up to him. It's also, I like that it's so fucking weird. It's weird that it makes it a more distinct, like what the fuck was going on here down to even like the bicycle locks and whatever. It also helps that she's the type of filmmaker where you watch this movie the first time and you're like, we're cutting ahead to these little flashes. And I'm dreading the scene where suddenly it's going to like play out in real time. Right. Like you're expecting a kind of silly thing. Yeah, totally. An hour in, we're going to see 20 continuous minutes of the massacre and she keeps it abstract. It is one of the things I like the most about her is that in her movies, you will have these sort of like flashes when Tilda runs into the classmate who is now a paraplegic in the wheelchair and he's so friendly to her. And clearly is like, we both have suffered from this. I'm relating to you as another like victim of this tragedy or. Yeah, yeah, totally. No, I live in the wake of that's how I took it. And she keeps flashing back to him being wheeled out on the stretcher. And you're trained from watching so many worse movies. We're going to see the rest of that scene. We're going to see more of. And she just has this confidence. You were never really here does this super well as well where you're like, oh, these flashbacks that are teasing the trauma of his past. And you're dreading the scene that's going to literalize it and spell it out. And it never does because you're like, I get it. I see this one image. I know exactly what it's conveying. You don't need to show me the rest. I can fill it in. You know what the bow and arrow is actually like in the book, it's bow and arrow because in his 24 hours of psychological pliability from his flu, right? He reads, she reads Robin. Oh, OK. And that's how he gets. And he becomes enamored with a bow with a bow and arrow from Robin Hood. And so but I do think that's a little bit corny, like it's giving MFA. Like it's a little driver's a bad writer. But if you had to see him do it on screen, it would totally break. You'd be like, this is fucking like seven pounds jellyfish in the bathtub. Shit, totally. The fact that you don't see it. Touch the jellyfish. Don't don't. That's what they say in memory and coax him. You have to keep it hot. Cold as hell. I'm sorry, we're just getting caught up in our bullshit. The fact that you don't see it helps it. Yeah. And that it feels like a thing that you read about in the newspaper and you're like, he did what? He like he ordered 50 bicycle locks and then took a bow and arrow into a gymnasium. Well, I think it's also right. We're supposed to we're supposed to kind of perceive that he sees himself as an artist, you know, like he's not. Yes, he's. That it requires it requires like finesse and making a statement. And in the book, he makes actually a list of 10 kids, gives them fake certificates saying they're getting an award, lines them up in the middle of the gym, shoots them and and like some of them he kills immediately. But because it's only 10 of them, like some of them bleed out in front of him for an hour. And it's like, I'm not. Love that none of the shits in the movie. None of that needs. I also love that we just like never see him interact with contemporaries, really, where you're just like, we don't know if he's bullied, if he is bullying, if he just keeps to himself, if he puts on like a sociable face at school, that he doesn't when he's at home. Right. You got to fill in all those gaps. You never know. I mean, Ebert's review is actually really clever, he's like in an ordinary movie, there would be meetings with counselors. There would be stuff in the classrooms and all that. In this movie, they don't talk about Kevin like nobody's talking about Kevin, except for her saying we need to. But she doesn't. But but even she is mostly being ignored by John C. Riley and we assume other people, but we don't really see that. And I guess we see the nurse say something like he's such a brave boy. Yeah. When he breaks his arm. Until she just do it. She should do a jackoff motion when he says this. Sucks. But you're right. Yeah. No one is really talking about Kevin, which is a shame because we were all put on notice. I know. Yeah. It's a. You know, the first time I saw it, I didn't read the book. I avoided the book when it came out. Like it was a time when I was certainly like reading winners. Yeah. Winners of literary. I was like, you know, old and pretentious enough to do that. And I'd like the subject, my nurse is like, Oh, I don't want it. You know, and I'd like that that that he killed the rest of the family. Like I'm sure that's the big audience gasp. Right. I don't really remember anymore. Yeah. That is wild. It's no good. Yeah. It's no. It's no good. It's just no good. I don't like it. I don't like it. It's really it's it's also such a beautiful shot. Like it is. You it's it's it looks like a fucking painting of a saint that got killed. Yeah, yeah. It's like, yes, exactly. It's give it's giving sense, sense, saint, spassion, that guy. What did and why did they do that to him? What do you do? Like Jesus, I assume he was leading a hot crustacean band. Wasn't he? Here's the thing you need to understand. We now record this podcast often so many months ahead of schedule and out of order. This episode, we're recording the same. This one's coming out next week. Fast turnaround. I make an almost identical joke in some other episode that will probably come out in September. You know, I've been going to a lot of museums. I've been seeing a lot of Saint Sebastian art. Who gets arrowed in a different? What is it? No, just. Yeah. Why was there? It's just a hot crustacean banjo. Oh, just a hot crustacean banjo. Something else. Maybe think of a hot crustacean band. We'll find out. We'll find out. Who knows? You know, the pooping. I'm trying to think of anything. Any Kevin stuff we haven't. Well, I have a question for you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Lynn Ramsey for me is like I had friends. I liked I my love. I like everything Lynn's ever done, but you kind of know more than most directors who I think direct masterpieces. I I would never like urge someone to see it who I don't know would. You know what I mean? A hundred percent. That's not a thing we're saying. You know, you know what? I really dug die. My love, I'm going to tell all my friends to go. Never tell all your friends to see. Struggling to communicate this whole mini series is I think these movies are less punishing than they sound. Yeah. And I would encourage you to give them a shot. But also I will never judge anyone for being like, I'll come back my tempo. Yeah, exactly. And you kind of know like you kind of know when my friends were like, I don't know if I'm going to like that. And I was sort of like, I don't think you're going to like it. You know, and that's cool. Like I'm not going to try to convince you it's good or even pleasurable. I find it hard to articulate what I find so pleasurable about the movies, besides the fact that they, you know, like they conjure this kind of interior psychological texture in a way that not, you know, so few. Like what do you think? I have had a hard time explaining to friends why this movie is good and why it's actually enjoyable, why I actually enjoy it. Like what what can you guys articulate? We have to speak to that. Re this movie, her movies in general, they are beautifully made in an unsubtle way. And I'm not saying that like she's an over the top filmmaker. I'm just saying like her control of the frame is pretty unusual. And so like it is just an aesthetic pleasure watching her movies, right? Like it is just it is straightforwardly awesome to see the kind of visuals she wants you to see. Would you agree with that? Yes. You know what I mean? Like that's a big part before we're getting to yes, OK, J-Lo will be crawling towards you with a knife and you might be disturbed or whatever. I mean, you know, whatever. You were never really here pretty at all. Really pretty. Is it? I mean, I love that movie. I've only seen it when it's like arguably the prettiest. It's so dark. But it is visually it is. It's less dark than you remember. I think you're thinking of loving it. And I but I've never seen it. It is my favorite. Grifle Grifle throw that movie on. Yeah, I really should speak to it. Yeah, but that is a. Throw it on. He throws that movie on. But that is we'll talk about our length next week. That is a movie that for me is like unbelievably poetic, even in how it's sort of depicting or more often just sort of like talking around or exploring the psychological angles of unfathomable things. I think it's a vibe. And that's what she does. She's incredibly good at a vibe. I also think. But it's yeah. This is my larger theory that I every episode I feel like I'm taking a different strike at trying to get across. I keep saying this thing that people think is insane, which is that I find her movies very life affirming. And what I find very life affirming about them is that she understands how to depict the inner life or the internal subjective emotional and psychological experience of living through things we just don't want to fucking think about. And I think part of what she's able to get at versus these books we're talking about adapted in worse hands just becomes a kind of like arms length emotionally punishing. Look at how much this character is suffering thing. And I think what she's so good at is like showing you would still just be a person. You just be a person living through this and whether it's structured as a memory or whether it's structured like more than caliber. It's like a day by day thing. Like part of what's funny about more than color is the balance between the banality of some of the things she's going through and the intensity of the motions that she's not really processing. And the same with this, you know, and I think especially in this one where it's so much dealing with a fictionalized version of the kind of true crime thing we're obsessed with, heaven gives his whole fucking monologue about the world rotates around watching people like me on TV. In the 15 years since this movie has come out, that has become a million times more true. Like multiple industries are all basically balanced on people's bloodlust for this type of story, but it's usually in this very sensationalist way that is just presenting to you and pushing on you the most extreme facts in the most salacious way with the most kind of ominous. What's the word I'm looking for? A very kind of like this is the emotionally intense score and the slow zoom on the image and it's just, can you imagine what a fucking nightmare in a way that I think basically flattens there being any real human experience inside of those events? It turns it just into, can you imagine how terrible that would be? It turns it into like a scary story to tell you in the dark, except for grownups because it really happened and now it's true crime shit. And like part of what this movie gets at is just like, well, if you're the person who raises a kid who goes on to commit this kind of like insane school shooting incident, it's like 16 years of your life. And when you're on the other side of living through that, you still have to fucking go to the grocery store and buy shit. And then eat 12 eggs. And then you gotta eat 12 eggs. And like her avoidance. I mean, that moment's really funny of like, how many eggs could I eat? She's like, I'll take up all 12 or broken. She's picking them out of her tube. That moment at the holiday party, the travel agency, where the one guy who's sort of been nice to her at the office and is like flirting with her and trying to get her to dance. And he's like, you dumb bitch. I mean, hysterical that that guy's like, I think we're gonna try it on with Tilda. Even depressed Tilda. I'm like, look, man, this guy, this is Tilda Swinton, you're reckoning with here. Is there comfort in these bones for you? You know, like she looks like she just walked through like, you know, from another dimension, like, come on. But it feels like when you see these like screenshots of guys on dating apps who are like politely rejected and they're like, fuck you. You're not even hot. I would never even date a person like that. Where he just feels like, fuck, well, like I'm a six and she's a 10, but she was responsible. Like school shooting gets her to like four. Right. I mean, Jesus. Right. I'd be doing her a favor. Yeah. And he just so quickly like flips out on her. That scene is like so ugly, but also funny in the absurdity of it. She, she's right. Lynn is exceptionally good at looking at the darkest things we can imagine. And having a bit of fun with it. Kind of the subject of all like, like kind of accidental misery. Having to actually live in the things that we don't even want to think about. Or if we think about it, we want to think about it only in the major incident in the didactic ways that's like inherently sort of dehumanizing because it is that's categorizable or whatever. And she's not going to show you that shit or focus on that shit. It's like implied. And it's like that scene tells you more than the idea of her like going home at night and crying, not to, you know, paint with a broad brush for Scottish people. But it's a it's a cold, dark, oft-conquered country that like loves gallows, humor loves to like think about the sort of like nasty parts of the world in a funny way. I learned a new word from Scotland. I am a fan of the Reddit that is like, what is it like to live there? And it's like a lot of it's really good. It's often about remote places, really deeply my shit. And there was something about some some corner of Scotland. And I learned for I learned the word, Drake. I love it. I don't know. No, no, it's it's like apparently, I mean, you said you a lot of Scottish listeners. I'm sorry. It's dark and wet. It's no, I think it's like gray and wet. It's kind of like it won't it's where it's cold and it's drizzly and it's freezing and just miserable, relentlessly overcast, cold and drizzly. Which that just sounds like the entire to Britain. God bless it. I love that. Which is so good that there's a word. Drake or slash how is living there? How what is it like to live there? I think or how is living there? Maybe that is it. Yeah, I tried searching for what is it like to live there? You're right. That's more efficient. How it's my favorite Reddit auto completed with what is it like to have a girlfriend? What and what is it like? I'm sure many Redditors are asking. I Scotland's my favorite place on earth. I've already been I want to go. I've already been called out on the reddit for not knowing how to pronounce like the names of various like neighborhoods in Glasgow. I'm sorry guys. My accent, you know, is not, I'm not about to pretend that I can like, you know, deliver a Scottish dialect perfectly. But the greatest vacation I ever took, my mom talks about it all the time. It's like we moved to England, right? And then she's like, we're going to the Highlands. Like we're going to, you know, on vacation of Scotland. I'm probably I'm 10 years old or whatever. I'm like, okay. Then we get to the train station. She's like, FYI, we sleep on this train. This is a sleeper train because it's so far north. And I think my reaction, as she describes it, the age of 10 was basically like, I was told I was taking the polar express to see Santa. I was so happy. That's your dream. I love trains so much. It's so safe to sleep on a train. Especially when you're 10 and like, you can just jump into a little bunk bed, you know, without it being like, what the fuck is this? Like, this isn't a real bed. My room is on a wheel. I love that his glowing recommendation of Scotland. Is that you can get there? Is that he took a sleeper train? Well, that means the Highlands being one of the most beautiful ways. No, but this is the thing. Then we took a sleeper train to Inverness, a wonderful city, stayed there, and then we went all over Scotland. We went to the Isle of Skye. We went to Loch Ness. And we went to, you know, all kinds of cool places. And then like as a kid, I just, I mean, I love that weather. Love that landscape. I like the food. I like the food a lot. Why have we not gotten like a David Lowry Loch Ness move? Let's, I'll text him right now. Actually, yeah, let's text him right now. I just watched when I was at Sundance and kind of depressed. Richard Lawson told me to watch, or I was talking about actually good kids movies. I mean, we'll talk, I'm sure we have a long conversation to have about this on the side. And we're going to keep talking about it because our kids are all over the world. The Choron Little Princess, that was Haloma's first movie cry. It was her first movie cry and I found it so, and she was almost like, she was like, why do I feel so happy? But like when she was like, why do I feel so happy when I'm crying? I was like, girl. That was a huge, huge theater movie cry. When the dad is being pulled away in the rain and he finally remembers. And then she's been yelling daddy and she, and he remembers why. And they run together in the rain. I actually cried when the attic becomes transformed. And I wept at that scene. It's still my favorite of his movie. It's really, it was such a thunderball movie for me as a kid. I had the same experience. It felt like- Yeah, it's unbelievable. The balloon. This is more sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than all the kids movies I'm seeing. And when the balloon floats towards her in the study, you know, and then it suddenly, you know. I should show it to you. Boss baby. I'm sorry, fucking. Boss baby. Boss baby. Boss baby. I don't see my dog. Can I do a clean pickup so Ben can place it in the previous moments? Boss baby. Great, there you go. I watched the Dave Ellari Pete's Dragon last night for the first time. We all laid on the floor and watched it. And now I need a Loch Ness one for adults. Huge question, two part one. Have you ever considered making a Loch Ness movie? I want that so bad. Because there is of course the Loch Ness movie with Ted Danson and Christmas Scott Thomas. I saw it in theaters. Yeah. It's very, very bad. Don't know what that is. I don't think it was even released in America. I think America was like, pass on that one. I want a three hour Dave Ellari Loch Ness. Is the water horse movie a Loch Ness movie or is that a different feature? No, that's a, you know, a Kelpie or whatever. It's a different kind of figure of Celtic folklore. What's that done? It's called like legend story of the water horse. I don't know. Or story legend of the story. Ah, Loch Ness is very cool. That was cool. I need to go in. My parents were like, it's like fucking minus a million degrees. You can't go in that water. I was like, let's go. Let's swim, baby. Anyway, Scotland's great. Oh, right. Right. But of course this movie's American. We were talking about like why we like these movies. Yeah. Why we like. Impossible to convince anyone. I would love her to make another Scottish movie actually because she hasn't since Rat Catcher. I mean, Morvern Caller, I guess is Scottish. But like, it's mostly not set there. Like, I'd love her to go back there. I have no idea what her, you know. God, what if it's the Scottish vampire? What were you going to say about it? I don't know. I was actually wondering because I like the only, I mean, I'm inarticulate about like I was just like, they're so good and either you think the movies are masterpieces or you're like, not for me. Yes. I think it's a wavelength thing. The simple thing of like, no one else. It's you're delivered something in a package that you'll never get anywhere else in any way that's remotely close to the way she's doing it. She is one of one. Not alone. She's so unbelievably one of one. I would argue she basically has her own language. You can see certain influences, but there's not even like Lynn Ramsey runoff filmmakers. I mean, we're arguing like Barry Jenkins has talked about how important Rat Catcher was for him. And you see some of her language in Moonlight in particular, but I think all of his work, but it's very much turned into something different and that's just one of the pieces. She exists. Nothing ever feels anything like it. No. And she arrived fully formed and she's been able to take multiple different pieces of material, work in different genres, all filtered through her identity. I also think, I mean, I'm every episode fighting to figure out how to verbalize this thing that has been like 10 years of my friends being like, why do you fucking rewatch that movie all the time? Movies that feel like fundamental one time only watches. And I, you know, in like people trying to write cultural studies on the rise of true crime shit and like the endless power of SVU and everything, it's like it releases some tension to watch the stories about the worst things possible that you live in fear of, right? I think a lot of people have that relationship to crime books, podcasts, TV shows, movies, what have you. Exactly. And those are the fact based versions of it where it's like, and now we're presenting to you the solved case. It's over. And for me, I have no interest in living in that shit. I do find some kind of relief in watching someone explore the emotional dynamics of those things, because if anything, that's what scares me more. And I feel like when there are horrible tragedies, rather their large scale or small scale that I read about in the news, my question is always, what the fuck does that person do the next day? Like, how do you fucking wake up the next morning and decide what you want to eat for breakfast? I know what you're talking about. That sort of that thought you want to dismiss of like, okay, can I put myself in that person's shoes? And then usually you're like, I can't. I don't want to. I can't live there. And she can place you in that in a way that doesn't feel like an endurance test. I also think it might be, it might have, the reason I like her so much is might have something to do with the fact that you describe these movies from the outside. You're like, I hit man in the worst day of it. You're like, what? Like, and then, like a school shooter mom, like what? And then you watch it. And it's a, you know, it's like kind of a, there's some kind of incandescent quality to it and also a real like severity in the narrative editing. Like there's some something about it that's a rigor. Yeah. Like that's so, so rigorous in some ways. And then it is so loose and others that this thing that like, I, but I think the thing I enjoy about it is almost, it is it's almost impossible just to describe the contrast between what these movies sound like and what they feel like to watch. They are truly experience. Of a specific. Yeah. Yep. Look, I mean, I recommended Die My Love to any friend of mine I had who likes movies, right? Like, and I don't mean like other film critics. I mean, like anyone I know who's like, you know what? I'll see anything weird. I can handle it. And they all largely came out being like, I had a good time with that. Or like, that was interesting. Like no one came out being like, why the fuck did you tell me to watch that movie? But right, this is this and others of hers are not movies I recommended just anyone like, oh, it's good. You should see it because it's good. No, I mean, not everyone's going to vibe with this. You know, it's it's a shame that like retroactively Alice Sebold feels like completely toxic because the Peter Jackson movie is such a fucking wipe out that in another universe, she could have just made a second lovely bones. Make another thing for five million dollars. Fuck that thing. I mean, maybe in that movie, Mark Wahlberg. Oh, no, it was happening there. That's deeply dark sided and never really. I've never seen it. It's so weird. It's even stranger when you just remember that it's like he cast Gosling. Gosling was like 25. The character was supposed to be in his late 30s, married to Rachel Vice. And who's the girl? Sierra Sharon. Right. And it was like, what's up with the sort of why isn't Sir Sharon in a fucking Lin Ramsey movie? I almost your shirt would be if Lin Ramsey made more movies. I feel like she would have worked with her by now because yes. And still might happen. Yeah. Like all of like the exact guilt innocence sort of exactly. I mean, that's what's been good. Yeah. Since she was a child is like taking on her role. Yes. It's like Gosling post half Nelson. He's so self conscious about being too young for the character that he just chugs ice cream until he gains 50 pounds for a lovely. Yes. And grows a big burly beard and he shows up to rehearsal and Peter Jackson's like, this is not how I envision the guy. Why do you look like this fires him? They offer the role to Mark Wahlberg on a Friday. He shows up on a Monday. He basically cast him off of how good he was in the departed, which does not feel like a one to one. And then Mark Wahlberg shows up, puts on like a fucking 70s wig and is like, you kill my daughter. Hey, where my daughter? Where are my lovely bones? So why is my daughter dead? And the movie's a disaster. It's a terrible movie. His name is Jack Salmon. Right. Because she's Susie Salmon. She's Susie Salmon, of course. Jack Salmon. Damn, Jack Salmon. You want some salmon? My daughter's. Salmon, she's dead. I'll sell you some salmon. They smoked it like that. I'm married to Rachel Weiss. She's a total fox. 2011 Rachel Weiss. Nice work if you can get it. So I came out 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Most of her films, which was go there. Yeah. Yeah. With his first time. It was a competition, though. OK. In the main. And I loved, you know, you know, who's the jury president that year? No. Palme d'Or goes to Tree of Life. OK. Terrence Malk. Yeah. Jury president was De Niro. Wow. Who is obviously not a stupid person. For one, he doesn't like our president very much. And he's not afraid to say it. Excuse me. If he felt any negative emotions towards the president, I'm sure he would let me know any time he was at an award show in front of a mic. But for two, any time Robert De Niro is interviewed about anything, he's like, yeah, pretty good. And so I'm just imagining and like hosting, like, he's like, OK, you are the president of the jury. And he's like, I thought this was pretty good. What does everyone else think? Like, just not saying anything. Just 20 consecutive pretty good. Like, do you think he was like discorsing with whoever was on the jury? Like, you know, Olivier Assas and Uma Thurman, Johnny Toe, Jude Law, who the fun group? Major update. David Lowry texted back. I said, have you ever considered making Loch Ness Monster movie? If not, why not? Two part question. His response was had to give this movie time to recede in the public consciousness. And then he texted the poster for the water horse legend of the deep. The movie I was just joking about. Well, his Pete's dragon, my five year old, has never like I was like, this is actually such a good lesson in dramatic tension because she can watch anything like I was I watched in city as upstate with Andrew and a friend. And that was after an hour of texting with Andrew about what horror movie to watch by the way leading us towards in cities. And we were like, we were like, is that the one with the red guy? And we're like, yeah, the red guy. Yeah, the red guy. The red guy. She was like, what's that guy? And she talks about it all week. Like, she still really wants to know what the red guy is like. She's not. She's a fearless. She likes sensation. She likes conflict. She likes violence. Like she's a little Farik. My daughter is not like that at all. She wants intense like her mother. She seeks intensity and and Pete's dragon as soon as Pete and the dragon are separated. She became physically apopleptic because she was like, I she was like, I think I need to stop watching this because I think something might happen. That might make me really sad for a really long. Right. She's not upset about like a villain being scary. She's upset about something like emotionally. And he was so emotionally powerful to her like immediately. That's a good movie. It's a really good movie. Yeah, it's also like Redford going like, there's a dragon. And you're like, this is crazy. I think it was Joe Reed's tweet that I quote all the time of Robert Redford's really great and Pete's dragon, but it was a little bit mean of them to not let him know he was in a movie. And just imagine old man Robert River. They're dragons in this forest. And he's just driving. He's like, they're like, please stop. He's like, nope. They're just catching him on traffic cameras. So yeah, film premiered in competition, got no awards. It's kind of a hot can year, but gets good reviews. And like we said, gets a bunch of gnomes. Right. You know, like it's not like I don't think this was ever really like a, you know, major critics. But I feel like it was like a minor critics favorite. Like it got like very good notices and yeah, and attention. There's also now people got it. People got it. Exactly. People were not like, what a, and it felt like it was weirdly almost uncontroversial, like for like such a quote unquote hot button movie. No one was like, this is sick shit. How could you make this? Yeah. People were pretty compelled by it. Amazing feet. And again, fucking studio execs see it and are like, I yeah, the flash. Creed and spare bone. You know, fucking let's put this lady in Dr. Strange. Yeah. The flash sinister. No, the flash is like joyful. Goofy. He's like the young goofball. Comic really. That's what's so weird about it, but Snyder is so intense minded that clearly even the comic relief character in his movie needed to have like a net demon eyes. Yeah. Is Ezra Miller this good in every movie? I've never been that it's interesting. Like so. Because they're really good in this movie. It's a very like it's a skillful performance or it's skillful use of whatever. I think it's laid on a little thick in the restaurant scene, but otherwise I think it's pretty much perfect. Yeah, I think this was kind of. Beyond being friends with them at this time, it was like amongst like the young early 20s, late teens, actors in New York City. It just sort of felt like, of course, Ezra is going to get this. This is like the obvious. This is designed. This is the perfect role. Right. The look was so much of it and whatever. But it felt like Ezra had had a background that was mostly comedy. And then because of the look was getting in past in these intense like, oh, toward driven movies where it's like, I can get a lot of mileage out of a close up of Ezra looking at something. And then it felt like this bifurcation of the funny side and the just intense side. And I would say like the fantastic beast. That's all just intense. Right. What if we amp the intense up to 8000 and you're like shivering and it becomes really overdone? What are these movies? Insane. They're so insane. They're so good, dude. Describing something incomprehensible to me. Those movies are incomprehensible. You crank up the intensity. Well, because the whole thing about those movies is that the main character, sensibly Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, is an introvert who doesn't want to like be doing anything. Is this the one that Johnny Depp's in? Yes. OK. Yeah. Yes, indeed. In the first movie, the villain is played by Colin Farrell in a pretty fun performance. He's quite a lid. Oh, awesome. Great. Colin Farrell is going to be the villain across these movies. At the end of the first movie, there's a twist where they're like, this isn't Colin Farrell. He's wearing a magic disguise. They wave a wand in front of his face and he turns into Johnny Depp with like one albino eye. Correct. And like a van dyke. Correct. And like, like, pointy fucking white, braying razor hair. And you're like, this is the villain for the next fucking six movies? Get ready for this guy. The audience like fucking size is real time. I mean, honestly, a gigantic win for Colin Farrell that he got to peace out. Yes. I feel like I could develop a real sort of narcotic sort of hypnosis relationship with these movies. And the second one is called Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald. Yes. Who in the books is the not is he's Wizard Hitler. Yeah, he sounds like Harry. And now they're like, we're going to show him. He's in the second movie. He's the title character. Everyone's like boo. They green light third movie recast him with Mads Mickelson. And oh, yeah, Mads Mickelson, the Johnny Depp look. Yeah, which sucks. No, they don't. No, they don't give him a look. They don't. No, they completely drop the look. I thought they gave him a look. Nope. He looks like Mads Mickelson. No blonde hair. No weird eye. He just looks like Mads Mickelson. It is. They do not address it at all. The look truly feels like. And obviously Mads Mickelson is like 15 years younger too. Like they do no work on it. They're just like, it's fucking Mads Mickelson now. Who cares? The look feels like like a theater camp game where they're like, you have 30 seconds in the prop closet and come out and your character is whatever you look like. It's it's it's a only interesting to someone like me who cares about how these franchises just spot her out and die. It's not interesting. I would recommend it to nobody. Yeah. Okay. But get stoned and read the Wikipedia. Yeah, no, I'm going to. Yeah. I mean, if you want me to come over and I can just sort of commentate. The other thing I was going to say about this movie and like it being kind of weirdly uncontroversial is we've like finally in the last 10 years, the pendulum has swung. But for decades, there was basically a thing where like best actress rarely lined up with best picture at all. That the movies that were like driven by women first and foremost as a lead character were seen as like performance showcases. Right. Not best. We're not really considered in other categories. And so it makes sense for like a smaller distributor to buy a movie like this and just be like, we are just laser focused on best actress campaign. Of course. I mean, you have a beloved person like Tilda and she's giving a like great performance like you've never seen her before. The public knows what they're buying and it doesn't need to be a major crossover hit. But it is interesting that there was no Ezra campaign really. Let's do the box office game. This film came out December 9th, 2011. Limited release. Yes, definitely saw it opening weekend. I got to be honest with you. This is such a weird top five. Just in that like now I think of December, you know, like that there would be like kind of serious stuff in the box office. And this is just like a bunch of trash. 2011. 2011. Is. Go ahead. Is this the weekend? The tourists comes out. No, this is not the tourists. So number one is a holiday movie. Sort of geared towards a holiday that's coming up the end of December. Christmas, I would have to guess. Is the holiday. You have guessed wrong, my friend. I believe this is a movie. I just recently saw in theaters again. It is one of the most demented movies. If you saw this film in theaters, then I am calling 911. I saw in theaters on the day that this film commemorates. Regal was weirdly they put it back in theaters just for that one day. If I'm correct, I have to be correct about this. Gary Marshall's New Year's Eve. You are correct. I am bumping up to the top of the want list. Gary Marshall holiday trilogy on Patreon. Yeah, those movies are insane. Have you ever seen Valentine's Day or Mother's Day? You could never get me. Mother's Day should get stoned and watched. Mother's Day would you would vibe with the few? The wigs on the posters alone are too scary. The wigs? They can hurt me. The wig that Julia Roberts wears in Mother's Day is she should sue whoever made that. Do you know what it is? I don't. Why would I know what it is? Because you're going to fucking laugh so hard when I tell you this. A lot of major actresses right into their contracts that they get to keep their wigs. Right. Because wigs are so fucking expensive to be made well. And especially if they're fitted to their head, they're like, I could reuse it on a lower budget production or whatever. It is the wig from the cutaway to in Notting Hill, her being in a shitty sci-fi movie. Oh, right. That's what it is. Just to give you a reminder. It's the fake wig from the fake Notting Hill movie that she repurposed. Well, why'd she go and do that? That's funny. Yes, sir. Have they they've stopped making like I'm Gary Marshall died. Yeah, that was kind of a brutal hit for the franchise. Yeah, but like weren't there other? Yes, you're right. The people just tried to like even definitely the two think like a man movies. What to expect when you're expecting right? They're kind of like, let's get a bunch of name actors. They don't have to work very much because it's a vignette movie. And we'll just write. We'll just kind of like make an easy. I've never liked one of them. They're all fast. They're all but even like love actually or whatever, you know, like love actually sucks. Yeah. It's a toilet movie. It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting that entire trend was like, can we like it's a mad, world towering inferno romcoms, but no one's ever liked any of them except for love actually too. Right. It's like they made so many of no one has ever but people will watch. Almost all the more successful. I guess you're this is number one in the box office. Yeah, people will watch the Gary Marshall. This one had a major drop off from Valentine's Day, which was a big hit. Valentine's Day had Taylor Swift in it. It was about Valentine's Day. I know, but nobody gives a shit. Everyone wants to go like on Valentine's Day. You want to go on a date and see the movie called Valentine's Day on New Year's Eve. Not that many people are like, oh, there's an ensemble comedy. Do you know what like kind of the like central plot thread, the thing that ties the whole movie together is? Is it New Year's Day? New Year's is happening. Hillary Swank, a two time Academy Award winner. Hillary Swank plays the woman who's in charge of dropping the ball. Oh, that's actually good to me. That's that is that is where I would start. And we're like, all right, I've been running New Year's Eve. And at like 8 30 p.m. One of the bulbs dies. That's good. I would love a real time sort of like tick tock. Like we got 95 minutes and Snooki's in the ball. It's that. But then it cuts away to Catherine Heigl is like a pastry chef catering a record label party. John Bon Jovi is her ex-boyfriend who's a rock star who isn't John Bon Jovi. No, I want speed, but with the New Year's Eve ball. It's this movie is arranged. And I will not ruin for you the twist of who ends up showing up to repair the New Year's Eve ball, but it's it's the greatest cameo you could possibly drop. Is it Hector? Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, I just nailed that. I didn't even have to look. My name is Kaminsky. I dropped the ball. So New Year's Eve is opening to 13 million dollars. So pretty, pretty poor. Number two at the box office also knew this week is a. Down kinds open to 50. You know, I know. Drop off is insane. But also the non opening and on New Year's Eve, like they fucked up in every way. Number two is a comedy. It's been being released after I think being sitting on the shelf for a couple of years. OK, interesting. You have a lore with this movie, but I can't remember what it is. Like your sister audition for it or something. Antonio, is it the sitter? The sitter. Yeah, David Gordon greens the sitter starring Jonah Hill. But like I was filmed a couple of years prior or whatever. Right. It was sort of a super bad project. It comes out like four or five years later. It's not that extreme, but it comes out after like moneyball. I was gonna say after Jump Street, but it's still pre Jump Street. Wait. Right, right, right. It doesn't actually come out after, but he's already debuted. Oh, sure. Your look. It's it's not a good movie. No. Have you seen the sitter with Jonah Hill? Certainly have not. Yeah. It was one of those things where it was like the hottest fucking script in Hollywood and you read it and you were like, this is so fucking funny. And then the second you have actual kids on screen doing it, you're like, now I just kind of feel bad for the kids. Like reading it, you're like, oh, he's cursing at these kids and the kids are doing fucked up shit. It's all rated adventures and babysitting. Right. And then you watch it and you're like, this is a bummer. It's disgusting. Number three, the box office has been number one for a couple of weeks. It's made $250 million. It's a sequel. It's a big, the big franchise of the moment. Is it Potter? No, it is a we've we've we've discussed this film on our Patreon. It is a fucked up movie. It's it's it's pretty good, in my opinion, but it is fucked up. It's not a Twilight. It sure is. It is. Yeah. Is it is it breaking down part two? No, no, breaking down part one. A very fucked up, which is a. Have you seen the Twilight? Never. It's a pregnancy. It is funny, Gia, how you are sometimes just like, that's just not any of my business. Like Twilight, you're just like, I don't need to be part of that. There are so I never I also don't watch things that I think will be bad. Not I don't watch anything that I think will be bad. Right. You don't really like I will text your husband. I am going to watch all of the, you know, name a heart terrible. What's the I'm going to do this right along with you. And I'm just like just bought it. I'm like, he's not like are any of them supposed to be bad? He's like we the idea is he's like out here on paternity leave watching bad moms on Netflix like he's like watched all of them. And I'm like, and I just I either we have got too much information in our damn mind. You know, I'm not. I'm going to stare at you are you are allowed to stare at a wall. You are allowed to let things pass you by. I will say I only saw this movie after my, you know, after having children breaking down part one, I had never seen. She gives birth to the crazy ass. It's the one where she's pregnant. Yeah. It's the one. I know about Rene's. We all know about Rene's and where they have this kind of tricky thing to thread of like, oh, the baby has to look mature and lock eyes with a person. And they totally land that definitely isn't really weird at all. But the whole movie is basically just her being sick and wanting to die because she's got a vampire in her womb. And it's a pretty good movie about pregnancy. But what is pregnant is how I feel about it. You I support you doing whatever you want in your life, but I will say I think time has been kind to the Twilight. No, I find them interesting. I watched that. And with distance now, like a decade on from their like peak, you know, kind of cultural like relevancy. It is wild to watch them and just go like, this was the most popular thing in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And all of them are demented. I'm always waiting for like a just see this is like, I kind of am trying to munch out in myself like, clearly I have sort of a new parents desire to be, you know, under medical care, but for nothing serious, you know, so that I can finally just commit me. Just like I'm in a bed. I want to be committed. Like I want someone to be we need to talk about Gia and get, you know, get me like a nice 72 hour. But what I want for that, what I my dream scenario for the Twilight movies. Well, actually, my friends and I, some two of my girlfriends sometimes will, I have one of their college bongs on my mantis. What? Any particular? OK, just a giant ball. Just the kind of bong that used to hit every day in college. And you're like, I can't believe I used to. Right. How did I have the lung capacity to breathe that much air, let alone smoke? It is crazy as a podhead fucking ice every day. Hitting a pod first thing in the morning. So crazy. So much going to class. It's so crazy. But so we do it like once a month. We and we're we're on the avid. We watched Avatar. We're going to do the way I've been here. We're going to lay on the floor and watch Avatar the way of water. And it's either going to be that's where we're watching Twilight or I'm going to be on a work trip to the other side of the globe. I'm have a clean 17 hours. Yeah. A couple of wines and watch all of them in a row. If Delta has them all and you could just knock them out. Yeah. Yeah. That's my dream scenario. I'm going to watch them all at once. Let this in fundell flow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No more for the box office Griffin is film. I'm sure you were deeply invested in to reboot of a popular property. Is this a joke deeply invested? No, no. I'm sure you were deeply invested. It was some stupid shit I care about. Yes. Is it baby shit? No, it's good. It's good stuff. I know I mean about it. But I have strong opinions about it. Certainly. Of course. Is it the Muppets? It's the it's the Jason Seigels Megan D Muppets. Yeah. The Muppets with Jason Seigel and Amy Adams. Yeah. A solid hit. Yeah. A movie that I had a very, very. You were I had a lot of emotions tied up. Whereas I saw it and was like, that's pretty good. I kind of wanted to be better. Like that was like my immediate reaction. Yeah. I think the the following one is significantly better. Right. And it has a little bit released erased the Muppets in my mind. At the time, I would say my relationship to it was like, if suddenly it looked like the Mets had a good lineup. Right. And you were like, can I fucking can I start feeling like this might actually right, like 10 years won't be punishing. I assume you don't care about the Muppets. Yeah. I never saw it. Whenever you guys play this guy, I've never seen any movies. Number five of the box office is an animated film. Never seen it. It's a CG film from a company that prior to this was not from a company that's not famous. It's an art and an art and is it Arthur Christmas? It is Arthur Christmas. Anytime I talk about Christmas movies, I like some people pop up in the red. It and they're like, where's the respect for Arthur Christmas? I have never liked it. What is what are you talking? It is an animated film. James McAvoy. Yes. Plays Arthur Christmas. Yes. Who is I have no fucking idea. I've never seen it. Jim Broadbent, maybe it's animated. It's animated. They're all playing people. Yes. Yes. It looks like Bob is playing Santa. No, it's Arthur. Arthur is one of the. No relationship to Horny old Arthur. No, right. Arthur is like Twinkie Santa Son and then Hugh Laurie plays like militaristic Santa Son and there's maybe another one. This is what I don't like. It's in this subgenre, I would call the Christmas industrial complex, which is like, hey, you know Christmas, that magical shit kids believe in that doesn't make any sense. What if we start explaining it with like business like precision? Yeah. What if it turns out Christmas is a job that people have? Right. Santa's got a fucking app and they work in a. I hate this shit. It is the least noxious version of this, which like I put Fred Claus and like Red one into just like cursed bullshit territory. But I still just kind of rejected. Arthur Christmas. It's like one girl's letter to Santa gets lost and Arthur's the son with her. Like you'll never do Christmas because his brothers like figured out how to turn Christmas into like, I don't know, fucking Black Rock or whatever. Which is a joke is that he's like the failed son named Arthur Christmas. Yes. And he's like Twinkie and he wears an oversized sweater and then he like decides to save Christmas for this one girl. I better not have to watch this movie eventually. It's like it's all like what if Elon Musk went in and like doged the North Pole? Like all these movies have that attitude of like, certainly there's a more like economic way to streamline this process. I'm like, I don't know. How about he's got fucking like reindeer and he flies around and wiggles his nose and goes down to who gives a shit. Let Santa deliver presents. Do you hear what Christmas is? Cookies. I'm a huge grinch. I'm a huge grinch about all holidays. I've never, we don't do presents in my house. We don't do a tree. I've got two children. Don't do a tree or Christmas presents. It's amazing that you resisted this. My kids are spoiled upper middle class fucking children in Brooklyn. They don't need any more. Your kids who are wonderful and beautiful, they want for nothing. They're very, they're very, yes. They've got all kinds of wonderful things. Our friend like suggested to Andrew, my partner, that he get me a Kindle for Christmas because I'm reading entire books on my phone to break myself of reading article on phone. Is it? I'm doing the exact same thing. Interesting. The Kindle is amazing. I had one in Peace Corps and I fucking hated it. Now I love my Kindle. So just any time you have the impulse to read an article, you go back to whatever book or app or whatever. I'm just like, no, I'll just load the Kindle app. Except for Reddit. What is it like to live here? Whatever. How is it here? Whatever you actually and I know Amazon's bad. And Andrew was like, we don't get presents in my house. I can't get her. And like that's how deep it is. How do I get her a Kindle? I don't think I've ever. I hate I don't like holidays. I don't like enforced anything. Fair. Yeah. You know, like, right enforced joy. I'm like enforced. Today is the day we will freely chosen. Look, I never had a Christmas treat till I, you know, married a Christmas lover. So it's new. It's new to me. I am like this is off this traditionally women's labor and that's not something I'm going to take part in. I mean, I'm I'm like a Christmas loving Jew. I basically no longer I'm a Christmas. I'm a Christmas loving Jew. Only a credence bare bones. It is a credence. Credence bare bones. Revival. He's a Christmas loving Jew. I think Ben is the only person I received a Christmas present from this year. That's not true. My girlfriend got me a lovely present. I mean, of course, you are right. Shattered. Your family's being a little full dramatic. My family's being families kind of like in April, a 24 release. It's the drama. It is, in fact. But that's been like several years in the making now. So like, I no longer celebrate Christmas in any meaningful way. And yet I am such a sucker for like a feeling of the pop culture. What did you get him? I got him a Terminator shirt. It was so nice. The thing about Griff is I don't I don't buy Griff Christmas presents. I don't really buy anyone Christmas presents. So it's no personal. You Christmas presents. You do. You love to give a present, which is great. But you are you've strike me as a pretty easy person to buy a gift for. Because it's a lot of like, you know, goofy pop culture. Should I see where I'm like the only question would be is just griffin. Fun person to buy like eBay sort of like. Yeah, like I think it would. Would it surprise you that that is often the risk that most times I'm handed a gift. You might already have the preface is I hope you don't. Yeah, it's like, I look, this is a 1970s kinder toy, but you might have it. Like, you know, there's no kind of thing it isn't possible. I might have if connected in any way to my interest. It was a great shirt. I got told fly shirt the other day while wearing it. There you go. Who doesn't love the Terminator? It's a really good shirt. Sure. I'm going to post the pic. I also just want to say, Sims, I know better than to get you a gift. There's a box of presents because there's already sort of box. My house is not a present seeking additions right now in terms of goods. I just want to call out that one of the things in that box is a Lego X mansion. Yeah, I bought that you bought for yourself 18 months ago. And then to help cushion the blow of you bringing this giant Lego set home, you also bought a Lego set for your daughter and wife and all three are still in this box. The daughter's not ready for Legos yet, but we're getting close. But now I have these babies and I can't let them near the. I got your daughter the Duplo set though. Yeah, well, that's a huge. But these aren't Duplo's. She does Duplo's all the time. This is Legos. She my daughter can probably handle Legos now. I don't know. I think she can handle Legos. But the problem is the boys, you know, those are the real problem is that she's going to ask you for help. And you're like, that's not what this is about. This is not. I am resigned to it'll be a year to two of me building Legos for her. I get. So basically from the moment she was born, have said like, I love, I love. Second she's into Lego, I'm going to become Lego. I love. I interest in her. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. No, but I love Legos and I can't wait to do Legos. What my daughter will do self directed the most is draw. That's the thing where you can really just like leave her drawing. And so clearly that's where she's going to go. Like that's where her brain is. Legos is a little more fiddly. She might marry me. Not care. I don't know. You can be creative with Legos. You totally can. That's what I would do. I would make little soap operas happen. That was my thing, baby. I didn't care. I would make little soap operas. Like I would build a spaceship, but then I would be like, what's going on with everyone who lives on the spaceship? Like I wouldn't build a very elaborate space. Legos are going closer to each other. It was a lot of that except one's like a wizard and one's a robot because it's like whatever I've got rattling around. And the robots, the wizard superior. So it's not really clear. Yeah, this is, this is a weird dynamic. You know, we need to talk about robot number six of the box office is Hugo. Good movie. Yeah. Number seven is the descendants. Kind of a bad movie. A movie I've never cared for. Number eight is Happy Feet 2. A movie I love. That's a good movie. It's a good movie. Do you see that one? The first one on the list that I'm like better than Happy Feet. And arguably the first one that's been good. The first one. I think it is. I mean, the Muppets is okay, but it's not Hugo I like. Disrespectful of Hugo. I prefer Happy Feet 2. Happy Feet 2 is a special movie. As long as Hugo again. Hugo is the Scorsese movie with Paris and the Boy. Scorsese, magic, film, history, cinema. 3D. It's not really a GM movie. Number nine is Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler. A movie. And Adam Sandler. We both come way around and people think it's a bit, but actually. Big fan of that movie. Yeah, the culture has finally caught up. The gag where Pacino is dressed like a Hasidic guy to not get known to the Lakers game. Really good. Sitting next to Grindelwald. Number two himself. And number 10 is Immortals. The Tarsem Singh, right? The movie that basically functions as Henry Cavill's audition tape for Superman. Right. That's like, I took a Greek gods movie with a bunch of half naked men covered in brawn. It was Tarsem Singh trying to make a 300 style movie because 300 had taken so long to figure out how to make a sequel. Yeah. And then of course the Empire Rose. 300 colon rise of an empire. Oh, that's right. Never saw that one either. Yeah. So that's the box office. Weird junkie box office is all I'm saying. Yeah, it's odd. Yeah. Like, you know, I think a lot. It's a year when a lot of shit didn't fly. Like J Edgar was a bomb, you know, a lot of the awards-y stuff. It's a point you often make, which is the Marvel dominance was able to happen because things were so shitty for the couple of years leading up to the Marvel dominance. And this is the year that Thor and Captain America come out and both do. Okay. And the next year, the Avengers comes out and it felt like the culture was like, great, this can just be the only three movies I see a year. Fine. This feels safe. It's a comedy. It's a drama. It's an action movie. It's just all of it. It's all fine. Whatever. I'll sign up in advance. And I know you love Marvel movies, Gia, and you have a lot to say about them. And I'll just give you some space to do that right now. Yeah. You're mostly a Kingo person, right? Yeah. Kingo? Kingo. That's a person. Kingo? Kingo's the character. He's got fingers that go like this. Kumail Nanjani played in one Marvel movie. You remember all the eternal ones. That's the one you got, Jack. You got Jack. Yeah, let's just list them together. Kingo. Kingo. Druid. Ajax. Fastos. There you go. And Fastos isn't the one that's fast. No. Right. Fastos is the one who creates 9-11 bombs. Right, that's what he does. He creates 9-11. Well, he's like super smart and there's a scene where he's like, Hiroshima happened. Yes. And people made fun of that scene. I think Ikari is the fasto. I'm sorry. Ikari. There's like three more. There's a lot of eternal mash. Gilgamesh. Yeah. Sprite. There you go. Sprite? Sprite. She's really fun. She's a centuries old. See, it's like this is none of my business guys. That one is none of my business. None of my business. She's a centuries old robot that's still stuck in the body of a prepubescent girl so adult men won't hate her and she has a real complex about that. Who plays her? Some kid. You guys must have such an escalated like one of the reasons that I'm like, Ezra Miller is legal trouble slash violence. None of my business. You know, whatever. It's because like surely you guys have this thought so much more than most people do because you have such encyclopedic jobs in this podcast where it's like you're going to be we're going to be on our goddamn deathbeds. You know what I mean? And we're just going to be like we're going to be Zendaya's Mucci on our deathbed. I truly am going to be Zendaya's Mucci. You know what I mean? I'm going to be remembering like some guy on r slash meth talking about like, you know what I mean? Like some like it's. It's so I think about this all the time. And it's like in my waning days, will I just be like, look at my TikTok face from 2019. These were funny. No, you won't even like they will be playing in your head. Right. I'll just be like we need to talk about Kevin. That will be you except instead of la la, you know, la tomato Rhea or whatever, it's going to be like your TikTok reels from 2019 and Arthur Christmas. It's all in there. And you know what I mean? It's my my brain is an overstuffed club that is over capacity, that is the lights are flashing at full, you know, it's strobing every second of every day. And if I allow myself to know that it was Ringo that he got jacked for Ringo, like it's just going to burn down. I do. It was not just. No, I appreciate your point, but let's not be rude to King. Oh, he goes P.P. with his fingers. No, I feel the same way. I also am like very deliberate about which things I decide I'm going to completely opt out. What is it for you that you opt out of? I feel like most of pop music I'm now out of. And I just like can't keep up with it. And it feels like that's always the center of the like drama of reading the fucking social. None of this. None of this. I'm just like I'm not engaging with the two heated rivalry. Reality TV. Reality TV. It's like I'm out. Never seen a single one. I am the exact same way where it's reality TV and anime are the things where I'm like, those are bottomless. You got to watch Arco though. I saw Arco. I liked Arco. Yeah, Arco was good. Did your child see it? No, I was because I saw it like an award screening or whatever. And I've been wondering if boss baby did it again. I'm sorry. I keep saying it. Excuse me. Ballast baby. If boss baby would like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's cool. It's I thought it was really good. I think I think she would dig it. Yeah. Cloud people. Rainbow's. The text I sent to David Lowry was in a group chat that Simms and I are on with Sean Fennessey, Tim Simons and Alex Ross Perry and the testiest things ever get in that group chat is if someone goes, hey, wild fact. In 2015, this person was supposed to make this movie or gave this interview quote and one of us will inevitably respond with that's not about that. No, we'll respond with I'm so fucking insulted that you think I wouldn't remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Of course I remember that. I think about that every hour of my life. Yeah. I can imagine. And it's always 10 percent joke, 90 percent real. Don't underestimate me. I my brain is full of garbage. Gee, God, it's so real what you're saying about the dumb shit. I'm going to continue to remember years from now and yet not remember my life. Yeah. Someone was talking to me about traders and mentioned the traders or just the general abstract concept of. Oh, no, the traders. Sorry. I've never watched any reality TV as well. People love to talk to you about the traders. Don't they? They do. They love to talk to you about my co-rafford. About the villa on whatever one there's a little on. Kings and they have swords or whatever the fuck is going on. Tell me when they're all king goes. So then you have the one that's like Casa Benita and like Casa, never mind. I know. Casa Benita reality show I could watch. Well, same. But do you know what I'm talking about? The Casa Island where they never mind. I don't even know. Anyway, traders. So someone mentioned Britney Spears is ex is on the show and I'm like, Federline and they're like, no, her other ex, the guy she married at Vegas. Jason Alexander. But that's not Jason Alexander. Good poll. Perfect example of why do I still know the thing I pulled Kevin Federline immediately and I'm like, I don't remember being 27. Yeah, I know. I know. You're gone. Gone. K Fed was like, I don't know what happened in the Odyssey. You know what I mean? Totally. Like I don't know. It takes a boat. Like my own brother's birth year often escapes me. Yes. You know, my therapist was trying to ask me about like traumatic incidents last week and I was like, I'm having trouble remembering stuff. And then I was like, I know that seems like a psychological overcompensation. I'm blocking out the memories. I can't touch. It really is just I have like too many Marvel characters in my head. It just filled with. And yet we all court this professionally. I'm like, oh, let me see how much I can learn about, you know, yeah. It's great. It's great. It's we fixed. I feel great. I'm got I'm so good. I'm doing so great. We're doing great. And this year I decided to add Narnia to the old cauldron. So now I'm reading a horse and his boy. I'm doing like six things at the same time. That one's weird. That one is weird. It's weird. It's kind of bracing because you are because like the first four Narnias, it's basically like CS Lewis is like, meet these fucking British kids. I'm like, what are they like? And he's like, they need to go to Narnia. They get to me lying Jesus. Horse and his boy. And there's another one. They're like vaguely orientalist. Horse and his boy ain't vaguely. That one is extremely orientalist. I just reread Gone With The Wind because that was like my favorite book in fifth grade. And wild. Let me tell you, it took nothing else I can think about but Gone With The Wind. And I was like, oh, I guess growing up in Texas, being eight years old when I read this, the extent, the racism is the jet fuel that powers. Right. It's not just a background dressing for this one. Like the racism is the. It's the it's the very air we breathe. It's the juice. It's kind of amazing. Anyway, great book. Is it known what the other two Narnia books Gerwig would be adapting on? Is she planning on doing three? I think they contractually have her to three. I don't know if there's wiggle room for her to be like, I don't know. I've decided to hand off. I hope it's like first, fourth and ninth. Those are whatever. Well, those are. Are there nine? It's like there's seven. She's doing one, four and seven are the big ones. What she's doing for the cousins. Netflix with the fucking cousins. Again, it's just like he's like, you meet this cousin. I'm like, OK, what's up with her? Well, she goes to school where she doesn't learn about Jesus. I'm like, let me guess, Aslan's got a roar at her until she fucking gets some manners. It's like, yep. Folding table. Aslan's coming to roar. Ask me about Jesus. And then they're just like, yeah. Oh, what's going on with this picture? Oh, we're in fucking Narnia again. OK, what's going on this time? They're still good. I mean, the way the thing I like about them is they sound like he's making them up as he goes along, which is kind of a cool bedside story frame. You know, she's doing the magicians nephew, which is the six. I love that one. I love that one. Right. Is the chronologically the first. And I do think it's cool and weird. Love that book. Right. Her deal is like the magicians, the love grossman book, which is also really good. Her deal is specifically to contractually. She is supposed to both write and direct two movies. So she'll probably do this. And then I guess the next one would be line, which in the wardrobe. She should do one of the silver chair. So what is so weird, dude? That one's actually to like BDSM. He like it is. It she should do the one about the ship. That's that one's really nice. That one's really fun. That one's very odyssey, very. Not that I would know. But that's my big question is that she circle back to the ones that already were done. Yeah, maybe she's like, let me know when you get to the seventh one. I'm sure you guys will see you later. No, I don't know. That's like, speaking of David, what's one that's like Green Night where it's like the lady in the that is that is the silver chair. That's the one where they go into like the subterranean land. And there's a guy who's like, don't mind me. I have to be like tied to the silver chair every night. And I go insane. And they're like, oh, OK. And then he's like, let me out of the chair. Oh my God, you have to give me out of the chair. And then the demon, like the snake is a sexy woman. Right. The sexy woman is the snake. Being a sexy woman. Correct. And I assume if they had made that movie when they, because they were going to make it, Tilda would have played that role. They would have just had her do it. OK. Because they never say that it's the same witch, but it's sort of the same vibe. And another witch. Ella McKay is the white witch now. Correct. She'll be good. I mean, she'll be fine. I don't know. Imagine trying to fix her heel. Imagine a Lynn Ramsey like Don Trout. That'd be great. She'd be so good at like with a budget. Yeah. No one would ever give her a budget because like she's a lot. And she makes movies in an unconventional way that scares money people. But like she'd be cool making like a movie with monsters in it and stuff. You'd rock. You could see her doing a good little princess style. Yeah. Like a gothic kind of kid's story. In her life. Like a secret garden. Of a lonely child kind of. Like a Lynn Ramsey, Secret Garden. Yeah. Kind of sick. I was reading an interview with her at some point, maybe looking at Kevin's stuff. And and she was talking about the funding thing. She was like, yeah, hopefully I just signed with an agency. Hopefully someone can get me a perfume commercial. And I was like, damn. Hey, man, I get it. I get it too. I mean, you've got to make that bread. But yeah, I always like throwing perfume commercial offers in the end, you know what I mean? Like it's like at the very least she should have a hundred Dior. You know what I mean? That whole world is so weird to me. And you when you find out which respected filmmakers direct which commercials, it will boggle your brain. Yeah, like someone told me that like Sophia Coppola, that was busy during the Dior commercials. So she couldn't know that it's like James Gray directed all the Maybelline commercials for like five years. You're like, there's not a match of style. Like occasionally you'll see a like Wes Anderson commercial where you're like, clearly they like broke out the checkbook to get Wes Anderson to do his Wes Anderson thing. And other times you're like, Sophia Coppola directed the like, like you are right. Right. But those you can kind of feel it's like those you can see. Lynn Ramsey is doing like the Delta, like, you know, everyone in the seats on the beach. But I guess it's more like you find out that Nancy Myers directed like a Jeep grand Cherokee commercial. That's just like the car. Right. Todd field. There's something very good. Right. That's how they make their money. And they just do the assignment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gia, thank you for being here. We got to get you out of here. This is crazy. I was having a great time. Well, that that was a fuck up. I mean, I would never do something like that. Gia, anything you want to plug? No. Hell yeah. Not at all. No. Wow. Yeah. You don't have like a podcast. You do plenty of work. It's always doing the coolest shit. I'm going to plug the Jennifer Lawrence profile. Oh yeah. I guess I did kind of write about Lana bit. Yeah. Which is I think good reading for any listener getting ready to watch. I'm really. No, nothing. I think it was crowded. Crowded race. Crowded race. I think she's really good in it. I think she's so good in it. I'm really into what she's clearly gearing up for right now. You know what I mean? Like this being the start of whatever phase in her career. She's interested in doing and she's with you and like in press stuff. It's just like she's so fucking funny like and not in a knowing way anymore. She's like self aware. She's too like I had so much material from that piece that like there's like an entire different piece I could have written that was the, you know, the kind of piece that I have written before for Vogue where it's like, you know, I mean, she has so much her personality is so high octane and so that like you could have filled it with just like, oh, can you believe it? She's so beautiful and she says this, you know, like. But that entire profile was just like just gold everywhere. Yeah. I mean, I was like, OK, let me try to write a profile of Jennifer Lawrence. It isn't about her amazing personality because it's like we all know she's unbelievably charming and she and it was almost like with me, she was trying to be less because she knows like anytime we would see each other off record. It was like her, she was free to be as charming as she actually is. I try not to play into the Jennifer Lawrence thing. And what a horrible thing to have to do. Like got tired because of overexposure. And I'm actually like that. But she is like, what a painful thing to actually be like after that profile. She just started like doing it everywhere and everyone was like, oh, right, this rules. And there's a frustrating disconnect of then it not leading to anyone going to see the movie. But all of those interviews she did over the last five months, you're just like, right, she is like the most powerful movie star in just like pure raw charisma and like no one's more interesting than her. Yeah. Like her watching her face. Like she never articulates what she's thinking or feeling once in that movie. And did you guys like Pattinson in the movie or no? I felt like he was in service of the movie. I didn't love his performance because it did not feel like the guy he's supposed to be. I think if that character were a little more cracked, I'd be like this movie 10 out of 10. Perfect. Yeah. I feel like there were script issues with just the situation of them. It feels a little unsettled. Yeah. He's just way too handsome and interesting to be doing that. Yeah. I get that again. I think Pattinson is probably like, no, no, no, I want to work with Lynn Ramsey. I am happy to be second banana here. I'm happy to fuck around. But I'm just kind of like, I'm interested in you. Yeah. And in the movie, like we're not really allowed to be that interested. He could more easily play the J-Law character in a wig than play just like a guy who's like, maybe I get into like, drink and beer on my porch. I guess. With Unspecified Part-Time, like, truck stop job. There's almost something. She's like, I think you're having an affair with him. I'm like, he's fucking, of course. He's Robert Pattinson in like rural Montana. Yeah. You see seven different condom brands in the thing. Yeah. Like he's being a... He's just in his wire cutter phase. He's trying to figure out which one's the better. To try on with not you. No. Just put him on in the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the butter. Throw him out with the butter. With the butter. This is to mess and cock. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for... You were never really here. My favorite. Yeah. With Sean Clemens. Our buddy Sean Clemens, the Clem dog. Yeah. Thanks for having me on, guys. Oh, such a pleasure. Shia, come on back. So long overdue. I mean, you don't have to. Maybe you had a horrible experience. I don't know any of the movies in the box-ups. Oh, please. We'll find something for you one day. We'll find something. And as always, I just want to call out that on the IMDB page, for we need to talk about Kevin in the FAQ section, the top question is, is Kevin a psychopath? And the answer is yes. Whoa. There you go. Link check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeehan. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeehan and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.