The Truman Show with J.D. Amato

["Black Jack"] Griffin. Griffin. You can speak, I can hear you. Who are you? I am the creator of a podcast that gives hope, and joy, and inspiration to millions. Millions, sounds a little high. Then who am I? You're the star, or the sidekick to some people. Is nothing real? Was this all bits? You were real. That's what made you so good to listen to. Listen to me. Griffin. There's no more truth out there than there is in this world that Ben created for you. The same lies, the same deceit. But in our world, you have nothing to fear. We know you better than you know yourself. You never had a microphone in my head. You're afraid. That's why you can't leave. It's okay, Griffin. I understand. We've been listening to your whole life. We were listening when you were born. We were listening when you took your first step. We were listening when you showed up late the first day to work, and the second day, and the third day, and the most... It was a soft noon. It was kind of, we all know, more like 12, 15. No. The episode of the podcast where you lost your first tooth. You can't leave, Griffin. You belong here. With me, and David, and Ben, and sometimes, Marie. Yeah. Mostly new releases. Come on, talk to me. Well, say something, god damn it. You're on a podcast. You're live to the whole world. In case I don't see ya. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. The podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want, and sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce. Baby! This is a mini-series on the films of Peter Weir. It is called Podnick at Hanging Cast. There you go. Normal. Normal. And today we are talking about The Truman Show. And I swear, I know people aren't gonna believe because there's editing involved, but I swear to you, that was the fifth take. That was... That took so long. No joke, the time to which we agreed to start recording this episode and the time it is now, there's an hour difference between those two. Many things happened. What things happened? I was early. JD was late. Oh my... We had much to discuss off-mic. Griffin calling out a guess for being late. The height of hypocrisy. I go like the framework of this episode starting an hour late because of the intro. The intro took a while. The intro took a sec. The intro took a sec. I can't believe what's happening here. I'm just saying. I went to JD and I'm gonna let you handle it. I'm just saying. The first time... The first time's when you have been 45 minutes late to this recording. Impossible. When I have been here. Impossible. In Sweet, David and Ben, I'm sure they have numerous stories of that. The one time that I'm 15 minutes late. I get called out. Immediately. It's a dangerous road to go down. If you'd be 50 minutes late, it was turned into a griff slam. This is insane. David texted, we'll probably get here before Griffin. And I said, I am here. Yeah. You were here. You were watching the show. Good job, Ben, getting back. Griffin to watch the special features with you. What are you? Oh, he was here watching the movie. What are you talking about? Griffin, I know. I'm baiting you. You have to relax. I swear to God. You, Griffin, are chronically late to blank check and thus we make fun of you. This is the first time you're... If you have to bear. Wow. If you are chronically late to this show, we've been doing it for 11 years. And I'm gonna jump in. I'm gonna be a tree. Okay. That's it. You simply have to accept that you will take some hits on that one. But JD, what were you saying? I was just gonna say, you're accounting for blank check. I'll represent the rest of Griffin's life. You worked to get another Spears outside of blank check. This is not a blank check phenomenon. So, meeting called out. It would be really insulting if it was blank check. Only everyone else is like, I don't understand. I feel like I'm being true and showed. I feel like you motherfuckers are true men showing me. Can I admit something because I didn't do it? What? But I had made plans to true men show each of you over the past month that fell through. Oh, you were gonna like film us from afar and... I was gonna have people walk up to you and talk to you while microphone. It would break two-party consent laws recording in New York State. It sounds a little creepy. Yeah. Well, the big one that I was gonna do fell through that involved. It was gonna happen while Griff was abroad. Intro. Okay. We could probably piece together. Oh, sure. Okay, that's an obvious. I can figure that out. But what about me? I'm more interested in how you were... Well, I had ideas for each of you and then when that fell through and then life got crazy, I didn't do it. You were gonna mic all three of David's children. Exactly. And then I decided not to do it. Can you not hit each other? A good push and yell and okay. Well, and then I decided not to do it because I felt like also morally ethically it was not as fun to me in a way that I'm like, that would have, that was me doing it with friends. But what they did to Truman. What they did to Truman. Let's be very clear because sometimes people consider discussion endorsement. We are not platforming Kristoff on this episode. We in no way condone his actions. We don't think the Truman show was moral. Just because we were devoting an episode to it does not mean we cosine the actions of Kristoff. No. Yeah. No, I don't cosine. Yes. This is not a movie that cosines him either. Right. I'm doing a bit. I forgot my bits work. Good bit. Good bit. I like a version of this is actually so fun. I think there's people for whom the Truman show could be an entry point episode. And yeah, who knows. So I do think there's a fun dynamic that today we have chill happy David and worked up. Guess what I did right before I came here. Took a swim. I guessed it. Simply never filed an article. Took a swim. Here I am blank check talking about one of my favorite movies ever made Truman style. I'd be doubled over on on the fucking diving board. Yeah. I would never touch that water. Simply never Truman probably doesn't even swim laps right like he doesn't go to the pool. I heard he doesn't drink milk either. No, I mean in the fiction of the universe, they would keep him far away from being comfortable in the water. Yeah. Right. That would be bad. That would be right for him to learn how to swim. You just said this is one of your front movies of all time. Absolutely. Huge David movie. I think it's a movie that is possibly without flaw. You texted me last night without a flaw. I think that might be correct. Well, here's the thing. I'll say this under the guy. Which is a different sort of review than like it's my favorite or it's the best or whatever. But it is a movie where you're like, yeah, everything went perfectly here. Like, you know, or when everything I'm being presented with. Oh, he's got a flaw. One thing did jump out at me. What's that? I haven't watched this since I saw it in theaters and I was a younger man and it was a different time. But this was basically your first watch in 19 years. Yes. Yeah. The stuff where he is freaking out and he puts a knife to his wife up to her throat. The way that it's not a knife. It's the slicer, Dicer. It's a sharp thing that could hurt her. Yeah. And she says, do something. The domestic violence of it all was really shocking and that it didn't play for me at the time as being so scary and like how there is almost violence committed. Yes. This is a man who's not okay. Yeah. Right. He has been tortured. His wife is an actor and he's gone mad. And it's just the thing where then it doesn't feel like, whoa, he almost just really hurt her. I don't really take about women. I disagree with that. I think it's a movie. That's the thing that jumps out at me this time. She has to scream do something. Right. Like the point is like that's the moment where she breaks. And she starts brandishing. Because there's a moment where all of them break. The moment where Noah Emmerich breaks is when he goes like, he's gone. Right. Which is when they're like, cut transmission. Like the wall is broken, right? You know, and that's when she says do something. She also was the one. She starts brandishing it. Not that it's like self-defense move on his part. She does brandishing it. And he grabs. Yeah. But it's leading to the breaking reality of like, he's already sort of like, what's the deal with this knife? You know, he's like hauled out the like her selling products like earlier in that conversation. What are you talking to? I agree with Ben though. I think it's terrifying. Yeah, it's scary. It shows that this is not a well man. And it's, it's not a heroic character in that sense. It's someone who's going through great turmoil. Yes. Just piggyback onto that comment as well as when I say this is a movie without flaw. I mean, in terms of the story elements as I see them today in 2026, obviously I can imagine that years from now, there might be stuff that even right now you could look at and say there's flaws that I just sort of mean it's a really, I meant that in a way that it's a very tight movie that everything seems to be accounted for. JD, let me not that it's a movie without the ability to call it. I get what you're trying to say. Let me let me help you here. JD does endorse the behavior of Truman in the kitchen scene when he holds the knife to his wife's. I'm sorry. Slicer Dicer. Yes, that's what I was. Thank you, Griffin. I appreciate it. You said imagine this might be an entry point for new listeners. I think playing check is now like the Truman dome where there's only a door and an exit. I think we've trapped a lot of people in our ecosystem. How do people enter? Blank check. No. True. What's it called? The town. I think that elevators. Do you see it? You see behind backstage. Oh, sure. Right. But like. But also maybe. Entrances are there. Maybe partially through that door. There are probably many. No, it's not through that door because that door is. No, that would be insane. If every day to go to work, you had to take a sailboat from there. No, that's my cause. It's like if it's a town of what do we think like a couple thousand people or something. Yeah. Obviously they live there. Like the people who are there mostly. The main cast, the regular. But they got a regular contract. No, I think no, no, no way more than that. Cause they say they sell property. You can live. Oh, sure. And like, I think the idea is like you're allowed to live here as long as you agree to not like run up to Truman and yell at him. They clearly will cast people for new roles. Right. But any of these sort out. I'm just like, how do they get stuff in? How do they get food in? Well, here's the interesting thing. You know, how do they get all the ecosystem in? You guys were just talking about watching the special features and like the making of thing. It's one of the privileges of being early to this podcast and throw on a couple of special features. Oh my God. There's people who are listening to this episode the first time who they think Griffin's whole thing is that he's on time. Second decade of dreams. Punctual griff. But Peter Weir talks about a lot of the world that they built and how they envisioned this coming to be. And something I thought was fascinating that they hint at in the movie. And once I heard Peter Weir explain, I was like, oh right, this is what they're hinting at. Originally the Truman show as they saw it started with just an infant. It was a way to sell baby products. Yeah. And so it was just. I mean, I didn't watch the show when it was just a baby. But then I'm like, at every pass of the Truman show, I'm like, now I'd watch it. Like every single time, you know, when I was a kid, I used to be like, no, we'll watch it. Now I'm like, everyone would watch. The brilliant thing about this movie is that the internal logic is really tight on. You say it starts here. Like how could they have constructed all of this? And the answer is what Christoff had to pitch to someone originally was really small contained in cheap. We pick whatever they say, four or five pregnant mothers. We follow them. We follow a baby. If a baby's awareness is so low, we don't have to construct fiction around them in the same kind of way. And then at every age, he gets older, the bigger the show becomes, the more money they can raise, the more they can build around him. Well, and then what Peter Weir said was that in their internal logic was that they added a garage that you could see the dad coming home so they could sell garage products to men. And then they started like, oh, well, we'll just keep increasing. We'll make a town. And they sort of hint to that. You know, they have the flashback when he's a kid, you hear like construction going on over the, 100% over the hill, which where they're like, true, we get off this rocks. The most scary image in all in that montage is though, is when he's in the crib and he sees the cameras in the moment. It's so good. I think about it freaks me out so much. Yeah. Because it is the like the innocence of a baby like where they're like, yeah, they wouldn't know what that is. You know what I think? Of course I do watch my child through a camera. I do. Yeah. But I don't broadcast it. And your children listen to playing tracks. So they're, No, they do not. They're certainly not allowed to do that. Through AirPods or Raycons, maybe if they prefer. David's children won't know podcasts exist until they're 18. I love the idea of David. I've thought about it. Out of professional shame, needing to create his version of a, we don't have TV in our home. Yeah. Yeah. You can watch as much our rated movies as you like. Radio goes out over broadcast signals. Yeah. And you have to listen to it at the time. Ben, don't you put this out over any broadcasts? Okay. All right. No AM. I promise. I think the single best choice we are makes in a lot of ways with this movie is that Christoph isn't the obvious root one. Crass TV entrepreneur, sleazeball that he is buying his own bullshit. Of course. This was like a conceptual artist. The way he dresses exactly that he's like some fucking Soho art guy. And you're genuinely like this guy was probably doing performance art and large installations and whatever for like 20 years. I mean, he's based off the fucking Gates guy, which when the Gates happened in New York, I was like, oh, retroactively, that's what Ed Harris was playing. But then he comes up with this idea that's like, this is such a big project, but also I could make money doing it. And he and his final speech to Truman is like really buying his own shit. That this is the most profound work of the human. Truman this for his whole life. Yes. He's excited to do it. And he thinks obviously the Truman will be happy to hear it. And he thinks he has done something kind for Truman and made humanity better at the same time while also making the most profound work of art in history. Maybe he did. Maybe it's good. Maybe I'm reversing my opinion. Truman show good. Yeah. Truman show good. Truman show good. And I think especially casting of Ed Harris, you could cast someone to say those exact lines and do that exact thing that plays it more like a, hey, I'm a TV director guy. Yeah. And it would come off. Big cigar. Which was a big 80s trope, right? Of the like, listen, I'm just like a TV guy and it's all about ratings, ratings, ratings. Even Running Man. The running man. The running man. Is doing it again in 2025 in a way where you're sort of like, this isn't really the archetype anymore. No. And I think the more evil than the ratings go up guy is the, no, no, no, what I'm creating is actually important art. Because that guy's just like it's business, baby. Like people want it. I'm serving them the slob. This guy is, is so pretentious. And there are also other people and we'll get to like the hopper thing, but there are other people who could have played the character in this form once we're identified the shape of him. And it would have read more like parody versus Harris is so incapable of being sort of tongue in cheek and sincere that he's lending everything he's saying. But the most gravitas it could possibly be given. Yes. I mean, it's, it's God, this is such a wonderful movie. I love this movie. I also think it's a movie that I don't even know how to categorize this. And maybe you guys can help me conceptualize this. There are movies that just when they come out, they become their own conceptual entities that feel like they've been around forever. It's like the matrix, you know what I mean? Where it's like, but when the matrix comes out, you're sort of like, oh yeah. I think that idea that there's this world beneath the world that is operating above and beyond, you know, that it becomes so like, yeah, of course, that's a trope in whatever. Right. You live in a simulation. Yeah. You texted me last night, the Truman Show Matrix one to punch was the season ending philosophical cliffhanger that brought us the mess that was the 2000s and set the stage for the 2020s. I agree with that. Now here's a bigger question that sparked in me. Has there been an idea that big in movies that has borrowed that deeply into our collective consciousness since those two? Like, has there in the 21st century? So I'm just, Well, Ernest goes to jail was before that was before I'm just going to hit pause a little bit because I'm like the matrix idea, I think is the idea you're talking about the idea that we live in a simulation. I just mean, I know I want to finish this thought like and I feel like the matrix, like you say, but they become like a cultural. Truman Show idea. Yes, there's the, oh, what if your life was a TV, but I think it speaks to the much deeper feeling that everyone has had at some point, which is am I the protagonist of reality? Like everyone's had that sort of fantasy nightmare. It's such a, it's such a part of being a person. 100%. Especially being a growing person. It's in the dossier that Andrew McNichol was like, that's where it came from. Sorry. No, Mick. I was going to make a joke and then I realized if you just spotlight that part of the name that I got wrong, it sounds like a slur. For the Irish. Ben Hosley, right here. Easy. I'm not saying it. I think everyone needs to settle down. I think you really suffered. You really, you really saw it by pointing it at someone directly. Is there an idea since the his entered the cultural consciousness? So I would have to think, I don't know. I was reading through the dossier and how Andrew Nicolle came up with this idea and talking about it being extension of when you're a child and you reckon with that, like, am I the center of the universe? You know, your awareness, your understanding expands, but there always, it lingers as like a paranoia and that he was just like, I wrote this down on a piece of paper and knew I had a fucking bulletproof idea. You know, I send like one page out to all the studios and people were like, you have struck gold. And I don't know, even just in like, you and I, David, reading fucking Deadline and everything. And when there's like the new hot project in town, like the bidding war over this, I can't remember the last time a movie had like a sentence like this that immediately everyone went, holy shit. I would have to think there's got to be something. Well, yeah. I also think too, what I meant even more so than just the premise of the Matrix and the Truman Show being similar in the sense that there's these sort of alternate universes of just them as artistic objects feeling so primary to culture, like in a way that I think you could throw Titanic in there or something. What if Batman begun? Yes, exactly. We'd only seen him middle before. Exactly. Well, because here's the thing with the Truman Show, it's not like this idea hadn't been done before in some ways, right? No. There had been a lineage of TV shows and movies that were sort of like a one-off. A scary channeling show is a guy knows that his life is a TV show. What's the BBC series? Seven Up. Seven Up. Sure. That had been around. Of course. Yes. They're still around. Which I do every seven years. And I also rewatched it after because I watched the Truman Show of whatever a couple months ago when we agreed to do this. I watched the Truman Show then because I was excited. And then I was like, I want to watch the Seven Up series again because I was also going down the sort of philosophical rabbit hole of like how... What does it mean to point a camera at someone and document their life? Yes. And how does it change their life and all that? In what ways have we attempted to do things like this and succeeded in finding what were the real ramifications? I feel like the Seven Up series is the closest thing to the closest thing to this that we have as a culture. Do you find having... When you watch... So you watch Seven Up, which is just... I just found the most like profoundly moving document. It's so interesting. It's such a portrait of Britain, you know, at the time and the class system and all that. And then you watch 14 and 21 and you're like, I can't watch this. It's so uncomfortable. These poor kids. I would argue. And then you get past that and then you're like, now it's pretty juicy again. Like now it's really interesting to see how the shit shook out. I have always argued. It's those middle ones that are tough. The Play-Dohs boyhood has this exact problem where there are a couple years in the middle where you're like, it is too painful to watch. Get a camera off him. Anyone at that age. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah. And boyhood like just ends when you're like, maybe this guy's chilling out a bit. There's a French movie called Etra Aavoire, a documentary to be in her house. Oh yeah. That's a very good film. It is, but there is, which is about a one room schoolhouse in like rural France, taught by this very like engaging, interesting teacher. We forgot about that movie. It's a great movie, but it is one of those movies where you're like, I think it was fundamentally unethical to make this. Yeah. I think this is like, this shouldn't have been allowed. I was just listening to our friends, the big picture. It will be months old at the time this episode comes out, but they were, did an episode where they were talking through the 2026 best documentary nominees and how they were like, every one of these movies feels potentially unethical to me. Sure. Yeah. And they were all being too woke. Well, but they were sort of just like in this weird world we live in where now everyone is like public. Everyone is like to some degree front facing cameras are everywhere. Somehow also it feels like the lines are more blurred than ever in what is supposed to be a sort of controlled ethical delineated documentary form. And that's really for these like high brow Oscar docs that are like issues movies. They're like, all five of these are like very not self righteous, but like this matters and we need to bring light to the subject. And they're like, every one of these I watched tensing up about like, is this actually moral to do to these people? And that just feels like an extension of life at large now. Yeah. And I think, I mean, listen, that pointing a camera at something is a subjective action, no matter what you do. Objectivity is radioactive, no matter what, because it's it's something that people are projecting on to when they pointed a camera at Ed. You know, for his TV, his mom, you know, reveals the affair. I don't think what else happens in that TV. I don't remember all the DPs. Sleeps, sleeps with his girlfriends, his brother's girlfriend, Jenna Elfman. Yes. Dennis Hopper plays Ed's dad and heartland does his stepfather. Correct. Hopper comes out of the woodwork. Like, you know, it's just interesting that this is a movie where Truman's dad comes out of the woodwork and Hopper was originally cast to play at Harris. We can talk about that. But of course, the big difference is the Truman's dad is not his dad. I know, but I'm just saying, interesting parallel. That's the only difference between Ed TV and the Truman show. Well, I mean, I think Ed TV must be discussed, obviously, when you're talking about the Truman show, but it's the other. Ed TV is the opposite. There's another pleasant film. All three of them were lumped together. Interesting. Very different, but there's like a tapestry there. Well, because Pleasantville has the right. They sort of the American small town like fantasy things. Pleasantville is full magical. Yeah. Like, you know, at one end, what if you lived in a 50s TV show? Ed TV is just what if a guy allowed people to film him all the time? And then Truman show is what if they constructed a fake reality that kind of was inspired by 50s sitcoms. And that was televised on, no, it's to this man. It was just fascinating that all three of these movies came out and it was seen as this real like what feels incredibly like naive in 1998. We need to reckon with how much cameras are part of our lives, not knowing how fucking insane things we're going to get over the next three decades. Well, but that felt urgent enough in 1998 that it's like our relationship to media, to watching other people's lives, to our lives, to the 15 minutes of fame thing, to all of this is hitting a crisis point. And it was abstracted into like three different takes. Yeah, 100%. And I also think it's there's something interesting that after that period of time, what transpired, especially in television was an exploration of all these concepts that actually took it, you know, in, in. In great ways, great directions. Perfect. In really problematic directions, obviously, like. You don't endorse the actions of television? I mean, I'm one to speak, you know what I mean? Look, I'm not going to talk at a term, but I've been, JD's been known to make a TV show or two in his day. But you know what I mean? Like, I think what's interesting is that a lot of projects start with this idea of observing reality. Yeah. And the thing that people find is that reality itself can be both the most fascinating thing, but also is not controllable in the ways that you want. I think that's one of the fascinating things about the seven up series, right? Is that the seven up series is not the Truman show, right? It's not necessarily, it's not aspirational. It's not treating on them much either, obviously. But I mean, in terms of the thematic, what you feel, right? Because you feel this great melancholy. There's this, there's this beauty that, you know, can bring you to tears because you're seeing the, the, that life has these twists and turns. And a lot of the beauty of it comes from the simplicity of it and the moments of calm, right? It's not, it's not the big, you know, story moments that are the thing that, that make that interesting. But also, like, I'm someone who doesn't cry a ton at movies despite loving movies and being a very emotional person. But if I were to try to actually take a tally of all the movies that like made me shed a tear or got me within that zone, I would guess a disproportionate amount of them are documentaries because there is an added juice to me of being like, I can't believe they got this. In documentaries, I feel like it, it hits me when I watch a documentary that doesn't feel manicured and manipulated and something happens that feels so raw and can often be a tiny moment. But I'm just like the fact that this was actually caught. Is it the Harvard ethnography lab? Which I'm assessed of. So one of, one of a film that I put in my top 10 films of all time. Big same. And it's a result of Griffin was that Griffin and I went and saw a screen of monocomina when it came out. You've talked about this on the show before. Nepalese cable car movie. And honestly, it's a movie where I have not laughed as hard with an audience. We all shed tears at this like it for, for something that is, you know, 10 shots doing its best to observe and curate reality in some way. I brought it up before, but just to, to fill in listeners because also anytime I say the name people are like, what the fuck is the title? It's called Mana Ka Mana. Essentially is how you would say. M-A-N-A-K-A-M-A-N-A. Correct. Which is it's a cable car in Nepal. They placed a camera in a cable car in Nepal that goes up and down this mountain. And they literally just, it was months of, you know, doing trial runs and casting other people and whatever. But what you watch are just 10 unbroken takes. Five trips up, five trips down. Yeah. Of the loops of this thing. And it's one role of film, no editing, single shot. And yet the curation of those 10 trips told the story about the human experience that is still subjective because it's curating those 10 shots. They're trying to make it as. Exactly. And the film Leviathan, which is also by the Sensory Ethnography Lab. Is it a film I really like? Stanford? Is it Stanford Ethnography Lab? No, it's Harvard. It's called the Sensory Ethnography Lab. Sensory Ethnography Lab. And it's a program you're referring to. It's led by Lucy and Kesting Taylor, who's very interested in all this kind of hidden camera. Kind of, can we just document life? But I went to see Monarch Monarch because I was like, I'm hearing good things about this. And I buy my ticket, I go see it at IFC by myself and I'm three minutes in. Like, have I made a mistake? Was this me being high minded and I'm about to be fucking bored? No, you're. Did I forget I don't like this stuff? You gotta, it's the meditative thing of like, you just gotta, you gotta, you know, give yourself over to a chill out for a minute. You guys are floating in a tank? Yeah. So I did isolation tank for the first time recently. Yeah. Did you go to, did you go to Vessel? Yeah. Yeah, that place is great. It was great. I think that, how, how did you like it? I, I only did 30 minutes. Sure. Did you go full black? That's what I was going to say. I had to kind of slowly ease into it. So I started initially with light while also having some ambient sound, but then removed the light, had a little bit more time with the sound. And then, you know, my goal was to do 30 minutes of just complete darkness, no input. It was crazy, but I got into it. I got really lost in it. That's what Griffin's talking about. Sorry, finish your thought, Griffin. I see this, I totally get on its wavelength. I walk out, I have like one of the most profound like feelings leaving the theater I've ever had from a movie. What's best about me? I text you almost immediately and I'm like, JD, I just saw this thing. I need to see it again and I really think you need to see it. Can we figure out a day? We go see it again. I see it like twice in one week. And I'm there with JD and I'm sort of like, was what happened here collectively with this audience, a one-off experience? I need to test if the exact same arc of this will happen. Watch the first one, there's like no talking. And you're like, is this literally just going to be fly on the wall of people not communicating in a cable car? And then I think it's the second ride. There's an old man and a little boy. What's on the poster? Yes. And like minutes into it, the entire audience all starts laughing at the same time. And nothing funny has happened. But it's like your brain is adjusting to what's going on and suddenly you're asking all these questions about the two of them. And it's like, what is their relationship? Are they like grandfather and son? Are they strangers? Like how do they know each other? Have they gotten here? Are they silent because they have no familiarity with each other? Because they profound familiarity with each other. The little boy I think is wearing a Tom and Jerry hat. Yes. And you're like, wait a second, does he know what Tom and Jerry are? Tom and Jerry exist in Nepal? Why am I asking that question? What don't I know about like Nepalese like relationships to American media? And suddenly you're projecting all this stuff onto it, asking yourself all these questions. And there is just kind of the funny awkwardness of the two of them sitting there in silence. And they're like, oh right. Every movie I watch is communicating like 80,000 things to me at once, whether intentional or unintentional. The choices of the music and the image and the performance and the costuming and the set dressing and the writing and the dialogue is working like overtime to convey ideas, story feelings to me. And I'm watching like two people sitting in silence and suddenly asking incredibly wide ranging questions. And the experience is kind of like, you know, ghost hunters listening to static, right? Where if you just listen to static for a long time, you start to pick up on. But because our life is so full of noise, you don't pick up on these little changes. So those changes seem unusual when you focus on them. Totally. And then like five rides in, it's like two American tourist girls. And they're talking, but you've readjusted to how you listen to people speak because you've been deprived of that. And then there's a ride that's just a bunch of goats. And suddenly it's the most captivating thing you've ever seen because you've met the movie on its level. And now you're like, wow, the way goats interact is not that different from the way humans interact. And like, we are just animals. And what's the difference? Like you go into all of these places. You imagine Christoph being like, we're just going to film a baby and people are like, film a baby. Well, I got to tune in to see what this is like. And then they just can't stop watching. But here's what I think is interesting that Truman Show taps in on, right? Is Christoph is not just observing reality. No, he's not. He is doing the thing that we have, we have done through the history of media, which is we take the beauty of life that we see, which is a bunch of goats riding a cable car. And instead we go, well, surely I know how to make that better. I know how to control that, which is doing the village, which is the history of what happened to documentary in reality TV. I mean, we're in a place right now where documentary film is in a really, really dark place because it's been, it's been taken over by this sense of control and ownership. We also, and this is something I've been talking to my therapist about, we, we make our own stories up to process our own lives. Like the, the, the way that I'm remembering things, but even experiencing things. I've like built up these stories. Well, also the psychological phenomenon that if you tell a story to someone about something that happened to you, your memory of the actual event is immediately replaced with the story you just told. It basically overrides it. So the more you tell a story of your life, the more you're actually remembering your own telling of the story, which is how these things iterate. We're like, we were texting the other day, David, in the blank check thread about Robert Alton and losing best director for Gosford Park, because Marie was asking how in the world did Apollo 13 not win best picture. And David and I swing in with our like, we're ready to answer this. We're thinking about this all the time, right? And we're like, well, Apollo 13, it was like this and then that. And then of course, like Braveheart's the sort of surprise and it spoke to how powerful Mel Gibson was at that moment. And Marie was like, so is that why beautiful mind won so big. And we were like, there was definitely that element of him being overdue, but also the crow thing and this and that. And then I said, remember how Robert Altman was seen as the front runner for best director that year for Gosford Park because it was kind of a lifetime anointment. And then he made a speech at the Golden Globes that was anti Bush and anti war and immediately his campaign was tanked. And David was like, yes. I was like, yeah, that sounds right. And I put it back a thing from it looked up the. No, I didn't quote back a thing, but I looked up the speech and I was like, no, this speech is totally normal. You said chickens come home to roost. No, no, I'm quoting him. I was just saying like, he did. Didn't he do like a chickens coming home to roost thing? And that but that he did, but not at the Golden Globes. Very. But like, I said that and you accepted it and we're like, yeah, 100%. Yes, we are. Yes, we are our own myth makers. David's a bit of a Christoph. Wait, so what what have you what have you been exploring in therapy about that? I feel like you can finish your. Well, it's just like how I thought of myself as a kid and felt like an outsider. A perfect example is I have this memory of being invited to a birthday party by a cool girl. Okay. Okay, flex on us, King. And I felt humiliated and I still showed up, but I felt like she was taking pity on me. And now I'm revisiting and I'm like, what if maybe this girl was interested in me? What if she actually was like kind of thought I was funny and I was so in my head and telling my own story about who I am like, I'm an outsider. I'm an uncool kid. Right. That was your little myth. Like, right. Can I ask, was she wearing a how's it going to end button? Fuck she was. And do you still have her card again? Of course. You keep it in your basement next to a collage. You've tried to construct of her face from women's magazines taped behind a portrait of your wife. Yeah, I mean, it's normal. And of course I'm going to pick up a wet garment. When did you see the Truman Show when you saw it in theaters? I did. Griffin, I assume as well. I saw it in theaters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My family, we talked about this before. He did Jim Carrey so much. Yes, they rejected him. He fell into the classic sort of this guy's an overactor. He's so obnoxious. He's so annoying. It was like when that run of Jim Carrey movies is happening where he's the dominant comedy star, they were like, we don't see Jim Carrey movies. Sit there and watch your Steve Martin movies for the 40th time. We went to see this opening weekend. My parents took my brother and I. My brother would have been six. This, like, it felt like a profound cultural moment where even for like Jim Carrey haters, it was like, that's such a good idea for a movie. Peter Weir is a good director. And we all want to see if Jim Carrey can actually tone it down, which was so much of the marketing hook of this movie. Like, don't you want to see if he can pull it off? Sure, he's leveling up to a more serious project. Can he do it? And at that moment, Hanks is kind of like the reigning king of Hollywood. Jim Carrey's sort of overtaken him as the box office king. But everyone's like, that's the model. Can he like speed run the Hanks thing? You saw this in theaters, I assume? No, I feel like I saw this. I mean, you probably how old were you? Like, because you're born in 88. And like, I feel like I was 12 when this came out, you're 10. You know what I mean? At that point, that's a big difference. Well, so it's a funny thing because also, Ben, I relate to what you're talking about. You know, my family moved around a lot when I was younger and then we landed. On the run for the law? Yeah, there was a lot of law stuff we were trying to get away from. And when it finally caught up to us, we're in the suburb of Chicago. And the thing that was consistent in that was that we would have these like family movie nights. And this was an era of the like video store era, right? Of course, we're all going to go to the store and we're going to pick one movie we can all agree on. Yes. And with these. Or often it would be my mom or dad coming home from work with, you know, the bag of the, you know, the blue plastic case VHS's and you being like, oh man, what did they get? And it'd be like, well, two of these are for mom and dad, but one of these is for the kids. You might like this. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I feel like The Truman Show was a movie that we watched on, it probably would have been VHS at the time. And I think because of my age, The Truman Show might have been one of the first movies that I remember watching that I was like, this is a grown-up movie. Yeah. Sure, right. It's on that edge. That was another feeling of like this was released in the summer. It was like a big box office play, but I had the distinct feeling of my parents taking me to see this opening weekend and feeling like this is the kind of movie they nominate for Oscars. Did they like it? They did, but they were like, I still don't know about Jim Carrey. They kind of were like, maybe Peter Weir tricked him and some of it he's still over the top. Well, sure. What's so interesting is. I see this with my dad. I feel like I may have just seen this by myself. How? So I know Griffin. You're, you know, you. He's over there. Our guest today, by the way, is JD Amada. He is the writer of the endless game. We got to plug his book. The Endless Game. Jesus Christ. We're holding copies of his new, do we call it a middle grade graphic novel? It's a middle grade graphic novel. It's out now. Sort of a Scott Pilgrim size. Now this is an advanced review or copy. That's what you're holding, but. I'm being told that final interiors will be full color. Yes. It's so it's whatever it's 250 page turns black and white. Very pleasant. Well, that's, that's, this is the advanced copy only. That's the advanced reader. It's uncorrected proof. The actual, the book will be. It's like it's a 250 page middle grade graphic novel, full color illustrated by the great Sophie, Sophie Morse, who is an amazing illustrator. It's like beautiful. What's, what's, what's the show? Did she work on a TV show that the art style is from? No, this is, this is her, this is her debut. Okay. Okay. It's a double debut for both her and I. Simon Schuster in stores now available wherever you buy books. Is it available digitally? It's available. Actually, I don't know if it's available digitally. I don't believe it is. Nectile. Physical. Physical media. Hard copy. And it's a paperback. Yeah. But get a hard copy. But this is, this is, this is the debut. So I please, please buy a copy. Please go read JD's book. And I think it's. And buy it too. We've been getting very positive reviews and very, very positive feedback. And I think if you have, if you're an adult that likes graphic novels, it works. But also if you have someone that is seven to 12, or, you know, if you're a voracious reader that's younger, that's fine too. I think it's a, it's a very good intro. That mid, the middle grade graphic novel space is kind of something that didn't exist when I was a kid, which is that, that sort of the step between, you know, comic books and like prose storytelling. So it's a place to sort of explore a story, but not have it just be a wall of prose. 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 a glasses where like I am or like our own producer Ben is true. It's a big decision. Sure. Because this is how you introduce yourself to the world. The same gauge 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 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. 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. 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 150,000 five-star reviews. And if you've never run glasses online before, they have a virtual try-on so you can see how it's going to look on your face before you commit. If your glasses are overdue for refresh now, it's the time. So go to zeni.com. And use code podcast 15 for 15% off your first order. The style sell out. So don't sit on it. That's Z E N N I dot com slash podcast promo code podcast 15. So the first thing that I have is that I know Griffin grew up with movies and cinema fluency. Talking about her constantly. I would ask questions and they would explain it to me and I was constantly searching for more answers. The idea of a director is not something I even understood, I think, until George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. Sure. When's early. What was your guy's childhood? Because again, in my family, it was you'd watch a movie and you'd talk about was that a good movie? Was that a good movie or not? And that was kind of it. It's a good question. Like when did I first become aware of directors or what? I'm not sure. My dad was very into movies, but both my parents were. But my dad was very into movies and I feel like I was so obsessed with the Oscars. So I start watching the Oscars where I'm like six or seven. So it's already very present to me. The idea of the director and like the people behind the movies because of that, I guess, would be the first thing. But like, I saw the Truman Show because of Jim Carrey. I definitely had not seen a Peter Weir movie. Well, I don't think Peter Weir and you guys are in the Peter Weir series is I feel like he is a director that through my. Maybe I'd seen dead poets. Yeah, maybe through my adult eyes. I can look back and go, oh my, you know, see his career, but he was not someone who was a name director. The movies were not sold on him. Not really. I mean, this one sure wasn't, but that's obviously Jim Carrey movie. You guys, Ben, I assume, also were like, you weren't, you know, it was a big Jim Carrey movie. That's why you saw it. Definitely. Yeah. I remember having a profound, almost light coming out of the sky, reality being changed for me moment. This very year, 1998, when I, my two favorite movies of 98 unquestionably would have been small soldiers and there's something about Mary. Probably followed closely by a bug's life and then this, but I realized despite now being like so obsessed with like Joe Dante and the Farrelly Brothers as directors and my idea of like there's a sensibility now that I can track across multiple movies with these guys who I like. Paying attention to the credits and a rewatch and being like, wait, what the fuck, they didn't write these movies. Oh, sure. And asking my parents like, what does a director actually do then if they're not writing it? Because in my conception up until this point, probably through seeing this movie, I'm like, well, it's like Kristoff. He's like whispering in a guisey or like, say this. Kind of a classic question. What does the director like you're improvising a movie in real time and just going like, my ideas are perfect. Go do this, pull this, like. Yeah. And I think I, you know, for me, I feel like I had that same experience where when I was a kid, what interested me in movies was that, you know, you got to be Luke Skywalker, that that world existed, right? And when you, I understood movies were made, but I think that, you know, when you're a kid, you have this sort of fuzzy line between reality and fiction where you're like, right, I get that Star Wars isn't real. But it was, they made it. So like, it's real somewhere and they're like, yeah, yeah, people made that. And so, like, so those people get to live in that world. And I feel like there's this, you know, that childlike version of your, you know, very young where you don't totally understand it. I think that's what led me down the interest of making movies. I need to learn more. And then I think once you actually start learning the process, it's a very tedious, detail oriented, very slow, methodical process. And so I feel like for a lot of people to feel that end up in the industry, or people for whom those two circles overlap, for whom a tedious, methodical process is fulfilling in the same way that living in a fantasy world is fulfilling. Right. It can't be to actually follow through on doing it. It can't just be an obsession with the final product. You also kind of have to be obsessed with the process. But the process has to be a match. But I think the thing that a lot of people are always in seek of, in seek of, in search of. Seeking. In seek of. In seek of. The thing that people are in seek of. In seek of. Is an experience that feels like you get to live in that universe. And what's interesting with the Truman Show is if hearing a lot of the actors talk about their experiences is that they basically just lived in that town and they would be shooting stuff so much and pulling things that like they got to live that experience a little bit that was Truman Show ask of you never leave set. You're always in this universe, which is, I think, part of, for some people, that is a thing that you sort of hope for, which I think why you get the Christophs of the world that want to try to control these universes because there is something interesting. I mean, I know for myself as someone who grew up very anxious and very, you know, having moved a lot, I just always felt like I didn't know the rules of wherever I was. And so I sort of felt like an outsider in that way. And so the idea of a limited universe where you can understand the rules feels very, very exciting. Yeah, nice feeling. Very comfortable. It's intoxicating even. And I think that's part of what Truman. And you get to boss Paul GMI around. Yes, which that's what I've been trying to figure out. You all have to get to that position. And I got there once. You did. You said get in that dumpster. And he was like a little nicer, please. And you're like, oh, I'm really sorry. No further context, please. Boss, that was a beg. That was beg and it wasn't. I didn't even have the status to make that ask. You bring up Star Wars though, right? That's almost like the definitive cultural touch point of now. There have been like five plus generations who talk about seeing that movie, it exploding kind of their consciousness in a way and having this like, how could I be inside of this? Right? Whether or not they end up working in film in any way, it does feel like Star Wars remains this kind of like switch flip of like, wait a second, I'm trying to understand what the reality is that I'm seeing here. Well, that was the my best and Star Wars for me. Because I was like, okay, this is, you know, being very young, being like, what is real and what is not real if I'm seeing all of these puppets? Right. And Star Wars is the classic you read or listen to interviews with anyone, particularly the actors who worked on the original film and are filming in like, Tunisia in 1976. And like the space between a kid watching that just being like, I just want to be Luke Skywalker and I want to exist in this world. And then Mark Hamill being interviewed about 50 years later and being like, everything felt ridiculous when we were doing it. Yeah. You know, like the sets ended two inches over here, Darth Vader's voice is like a British bodybuilder, everything's falling apart, we're hitting each other with sticks. Like the reality of making something like that doesn't reflect the final feeling that you convey onto people who want to live in that world. And the world is not livable in that sense. And part of what Truman shows providing is like, what if that world was created for you? Isn't that actually a benevolent act? Like that's what Christophe's saying is like, what if I could just fine tune a reality for a person and create almost a psychological experiment to give someone the influences to be a good person? He's right. Like he's not, I'm not saying he's morally right, but he's like, I have created a safe world for you in which you are like, you know, your every need is taken care of. And of course I had to lie to you because if you knew about it, it would destroy your sense of reality. And so you're going to leave and you're going to go into a world that's much more hostile and all that. Like he's not wrong about that, but it's like, hey baby, this is why we live life, right? Yeah, but it's also, I think that's the thing with all this, right? We can't keep our grubby fingers off reality. And so as much as we try to observe it, document it, no matter what, we start putting our spin on it. Just our fingerprints alone are enough to... Please suck. I should give it back to the bugs, Ben. So I want to answer your question. I am, I think, different than you guys, right? Where for me, I am not engaging with a movie and then afterwards being like, how did they make it? I'm just like, this is beautiful fantasy. I wish I could live in that fantasy. I want to pretend. I want to imagine I'm in that world. You're in the dark alley with Spong. I'm definitely not being like, well, how did they make it? Yeah, I'm like, how do I throw on the Spong? I was also a little less, how did they make it than you guys had? What I was trying to describe is that I wasn't how did they make it at all. Yeah, you were like, I want to be. That wasn't, my dad was a college football player and there was no... What did he play? What's that? A position. He was a quarterback in high school and then he was a receiver. He hated football. Sounds like a fucking chat, though. Yeah, I mean, if I showed you a photo, what's that? Big tall guy. Big tall guy. Yeah. Big tall strong. My dad was the seer. Here's an S.I. I would say my dad was the scary dad among, you know, and like, I feel like a group of friends, you're like, that's the parent that you're like. I don't want to piss that dad off. He might be like too grumpy or stern or whatever. Yes, I know what you're talking about. But my dad was also very goofy, but I only, I say that not to disparage him saying he was a college football, but to say that there was, there was zero, I would say there was zero level of like, let's talk about the art and craft of this. And it was like, man, it would be cool to have the Spong cape. And it wasn't until well, teenage and adulthood that I got into my parents. Look, we're providing that. And I was, uh, it was talking to Fennessey and he was like, it's interesting the way you talk about your dad on the podcast and make it sound like he was disappointed that you weren't a sports kid. But then yet he had like an understanding and the language to talk to you in the thing that you were obsessed with. And I like don't want to make it sound like I was like, the like God fucking damn it. The next one's a jock dynamic in my childhood. But there was that thing of like, it's not, it was never his greatest passion. And my mother had like sort of felt defeated by trying to pursue a career in the arts at the time that like I was born. But there was almost a sense of like less than I'm so happy to share our passion with you. It was more like, thank God we happen to know the only fucking thing you want to talk about. Right. We can at least answer your question. My siblings are like more savvy about the industry than most kids would be because they grew up in a household where that was a language, but it truly felt like my parents were like, God, if he were just like fucking into animals and that was the only thing he wanted to talk about, we'd be fucked. Yeah, I feel like for me, I grew up with parents who my dad was a reluctant college athlete who I think wished he could engage more in the weird arts and music and that I think, you know, I think that's the stuff that he was actually more interested in. You know, the movies that were on the pedestal in our household were, as I've joked, the earnest movies, all the Muppet movies. My mom was a huge Star Trek fan. She was the type of kid who like she would sit outside in her yard and like wait for the enterprise to pick her up. Like, it was like that was our universe. And then, you know, we would once a week or every couple of weeks, you know, we'd get pizza and rent a movie. And that was like, you know, sacrosanct. But JD, the only reason your father wasn't a movie guy when you were growing up is because real steel hadn't been made yet. Yes. The Griffin's referencing the fact that my dad's a big my steeler. I would say that's an understatement. Yes. My dad. Yes. I just talked to this on podcast, the ride, but my dad did for my birthday, get me all the action figures of all the real steel robots. It's a real griff move to be like, I got you a present. Is that thing that I like? I'm going to open the dossier guys about the Truman show because we should look at it because JJ did do all this work, I assume. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he fucking thrown this one in. Can I front load one thing? I just, I want to say to Ben because I've been wanting to say this and it's like part of what's fascinating about how kind of like airtight this movie is and it's world building. This movie is this very bizarre set of circumstances where in, and then we'll jump back to the beginning of the dossier. 1994, Jim Carrey has his crazy year that we've talked about many times where Ace Ventura, the Mask and Dumb and Dumber all come out in the same calendar year and he immediately becomes the biggest star in Hollywood. He is so in demand that he lines up so many projects right away. So he basically, by the end of 95, beginning of 96, has agreed to Batman Forever, Ace Ventura II, they're trying to get him to do Mask and Dumb and Dumber sequels, Liar, Liar, and this. And so Peter Weir basically knows he has Jim Carrey, who is an automatic green light. The studio is 100% behind it, but he's not going to be able to film for like two and a half years. And so rarely has someone been given this much runway to just fucking fine tune a thing before filming with full studio backing. You got Carrey as long as you're willing to wait. Before any of that makes Fearless, this is prior film. I've not seen Fearless. I think it would resonate with you. Major influence on David's recent sunglass purchasing. That's true. They're in my other jacket though. Peter Weir picks up a bad case of the Attachies. It's tough or perhaps a case of the Circles or the Menchines. All right, JJ. What is that? What is that? So the Attachies is basically like you make a movie, people like or maybe, you know, like suddenly you're attached to a bunch of stuff that never had. Gamital Toro has terminal Attachies. Well, he's shaking it a little bit. But post like Pan's Labyrinth, it was so bad where he was like attached to like 18 super ambitious projects. Every other week. How could you do this? Yeah. So most serious of these is called the Playmaker based on a novel by Thomas Kinnolly. I can't remember. Kinnolly, I think. Kinnolly, yeah, which is about the first play ever performed in Australia in 1789 after the year after the colony was founded. So sort of like an Australian historical drama because post when he comes to Hollywood, he never returns to Australia really to make movies about it again. And he made movies about like Australian like life and identity. Well, which I think is interesting because we're talking about so much of our discussion here is about been through an American context. And I feel like that's also something you can't discount about people. No, you can't. It feels like what he never quite got to make the one more sort of like, I really want to make another movie about Australia project. This sounds like that might have been it. We talked about this in our episode with Jennifer Kent on Gallipoli, but he is an interesting case of a filmmaker who feels like he has a really bifurcated career. But it's not that the second act of his career is like a disappointment. And we were like, it's sort of like Fritz Lang who has like all these insane bold German films and then goes over to Hollywood and makes great noir movies. But it does feel like kind of two distinct things. There's themes that are you can tell he's gravitating towards the same themes of sort of. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, a lot of Australian films I'd never seen before. There's so much dealing with the weirdness of the reality of Australia as this kind of like overtaken prison colony, you know, like building a culture on top of the Aboriginal and sort of denying it and all of that. And his movies always have this kind of like realities butting up against each other. Some other stuff. He was briefly the top choice to replace Ron Howard, making the chamber John Grisham movie. Eventually that got made by Jim Foley, that movie. He was attached to The Alienist, which was the Caleb Carr book that was like in development health for 20 years before it turned into a like TNT miniseries. One of the ultimate attache bait projects. Exactly. He was, I don't know. There's a lot of these are kind of variety articles that's like Peter Weir made direct. The movie Goer, the Walker Percy novel. Movie Goer. It's just fascinating because so many major filmmakers have been attached to that. Had Julia Roberts and Tim Robbins attached. Altman was at one point going to do that. Bruce Barris. I don't know. Malik almost made that the movie. He came out of retirement as well, which is fascinating. Yeah. But I think he's just in that classic place where he's like a really established name who makes good movies. So he's looking at so many scripts and he's bored by most of them. And Fearless was seen as kind of a flop, but not in a way that puts him in movie jail and still gets an Oscar nomination. Yeah. But he doesn't have a weird movie. Right. He's not holding like a blank check power necessarily at that. Maybe not. The way he puts it, though, is when people ask what are you looking for? He'd say, I'm looking for trouble. Once I'm scared. That's that's that's kind of a cool way. Once a challenge. And he said, like all these screenplays I read, they're remakes. If even if they're not actual remakes, they feel like remakes. There's a lack of what I call unconscious writing. There's very, you know, scripts are very conscious. They're designed to please financiers. Luckily, Hollywood has been cured of all of that. And none of that pervades in the industry anymore. No, it's good. We fixed it. Scott Rudin, famously normal guy. Sorry, David was holding for a pause. Sends him the Truman Show. Andrew Nicol, of course, who is from New Zealand. People forget. So another person from that side of the globe, you know, is a guy who left New Zealand in his twenties, he became a commercial director, starts writing screenplays. He's mostly writing screenplays to try to pin to his aspirations to direct, which he mostly is a director. Totally. It's just interesting that I feel like he becomes known as the incredible one sentence pitch guy, where you're like, that feels like an obvious this guy just has an endless well of ideas. Right. But he really was just like, can I come up with hooks that are so good, they have to let me direct. You were going to say the best. Well, the best thing he ever did was the Truman Show, which he didn't direct, which might weigh on you if you're Andrew Nicol. I don't know, because he made good movies and plenty of bad ones. Well, we're all entirely in control of our careers at all times. So he pitched this idea to his manager in the early 90s, the Malcolm Show. It was called back then, but it is, it is the Truman Show. You just have to imagine that everyone literally like fucking starts jumping up and down without one sentence. He wrote this before he wrote Gattica, which is of course his directorial debut, which comes out before the Truman Show, because he wrote this first. The Truman Show period is so long off the heat of having Carrie attached. She's able to set up Gattica and get it made as a director before this even. I can tell you, please. Scott Rudin buys the screenplay for a million dollars in 1993. Paramount comes aboard. He does a screen test. Nicol directs a screen text with tests starring Gary Oldman. He's trying to convince him he can do that. They look at the screen test and they say, Andrew, you will not be getting 80 million dollars. I'm sorry to tell you this now, but like, no, we will not let you direct this. This is too big for a first time director. As he puts it, I made the mistake of writing my most expensive film first, which is a good way to put it. And another example of how Hollywood has fixed itself. Now they don't make the mistake of even letting a first time director do a screen test for an 80 million dollar movie. They just give 200 million dollars to first time directors right off the bat. But who? The Maleficent guy, you know, Joseph Kaczynski. Disney was really very guilty of doing it for a while. Yeah. So we're so some of the people who are considered Brian De Palma makes sense. Makes sense. Boy tourism, cameras, Brian Singer. Uh oh. Cameras surveillance. David Kronenberg again makes sense, although you cannot imagine him being handed a big budget. The cameras are in your nipples. A Kronenberg Truman Show would be fascinating. Yeah, it would. It would be interesting. Yeah. And the Brian Singer Truman Show would have gotten 10,000 people arrested. We're the resescript thinks it's interesting and is like, I think it's too challenging. I think suspension of belief is just too challenging. Like I don't think I can convince people that this would exist, which is the that that is the trick with Truman Show that it kind of does like get you on board with like, yeah, yeah, this is real. And if you're off by a hair, it actually sustains itself. The whole thing is going to collapse. If people are too busy getting hung up on questions that the movie can't answer, the answers aren't satisfying, but he can't get it out of his mind. Can't stop thinking about it. So he says they went through 14 drafts. Original draft is much darker. In the original script, there was an innocent passenger attacked on a subway as a way to test his courage. He has a relationship with a sex worker who he dresses up as Sylvia. Like, you know, like they make the magazine thing more literal. The original movie script that he has a drinking problem, like, you know, his grimmer and we're was just like, no one would watch this show. Like it's too grim. The whole point is the show needs to be attractive to people. Well, also beyond that, like when he pitches it to his manager, the quick log line is like Malcolm is the star of a 24 hour continuous soap opera in the future, but he doesn't know it. He has been filmed by hidden cameras every second of his life. The Malcolm show has been running since his birth. The show has 16 producers, all his family and friends are actors, all the strangers that he sees in the streets or extras. And he immediately goes, obviously, this should be a paranoid thriller. Like that's that's in New York City, right? It starts writing it as and like pretty quickly, even before directors are coming on, Rudin is like, is that really the tone? And there was like versions of it where it's like, it's a twist that's revealed to the audience halfway through, you know, I think he just kept thinking of it in the most serious execution of that idea. It's funny, though, hearing this because reality, television, the ecosystem of it. Isn't it just all basically alcoholics misbehaving? I mean, what? Those guys are up to no good. They're in trouble and like physically attacking each other. Exactly. Yeah. Well, what I think is just so delightful that it's like, well, reality, television, people would love to see people being nice to each other. Right. And a quaint little town. It's like, can be completely the opposite. Giant pin in this. Yeah. Yes. Giant pin in this. Giant pin in this. But it's also funny that like they're like, they had this whole plot line where Truman is like having a sort of non physical affair with a sex worker who he makes wear the cardigan of the Natasha MacGillian character and like act like her so he can pretend he's still with her. And he thinks it's his dirty secret, but he doesn't know the world is like seeing him have this sort of emotional affair. And they were just sort of like, this feels like too much for the audience to be like watching and would they root against Truman? And then I'm like, wasn't Scandival the single most important thing, I guess, that happened in America in the last 10 years? I have so many thoughts on this. Certainly was treated that way. Anyway, go on. So another giant pin. Sure. Just we're starts thinking harder about like Christophe, you know, not like we've talked about this a little bit already. And the vanity of this guy, how he feels like he's creating the ideal human being, the true man and making a ton of money at the same time. True man, you say. Exactly. And so, you know, he doesn't want it to be like a polemical movie. He wants it to be an entertaining movie, which is great. But I think that's the right approach. Like I think if it was to Hector, which I think is the problem with every single Andrew Nicolle movie. When Nicolle is just in charge of it, that's the problem. What time was mine though? Sim, Sim one or Simone, you know, like, you know, like all these movies where I'm like, great pitch. And then he's like, do you get my pitch? And I'm like, I got your pitch. Lord of War, he's made a bullet. Like, you know, just Andrew quiet. This is why I'm like pinpointing spotlighting the thriller thing. Right. Yeah. Is that like all of his movies he directs. I like got to go a lot. Got to because it's best movie. Right. Obviously. Yeah. But otherwise you're like, what an incredible concept. And you kind of have the exact wrong approach to what the most interesting version of that story is. The concept is like so powerful. And then like dramatically, he's like attacking it from the wrong angle. And it's not like he's always taking the same wrong approach. It just always feels like his direction was off. And I think this is one of the best examples of good Hollywood development. Like this is the rare case of every starting idea was powerful, but off. And every choice they make off of that, massaging it for three years is like what fixes it. Well, there's a funny meta thing, too, because like the discussion you're having right now about that is like in its own way, a play acting of the discussion TV executives might have over the development of a show like the Truman Show. And what's I think interesting is that no matter how much you try to put a veneer of like, no, no, no, no, it can't be that it has to be. We have to we have to make it happy and good and whatever. As we discussed the beginning of this, like that darkness will find, you know, life life's going to find a way through the cracks of whatever you try to patch over. OK, Ian Malcolm. OK, you've called me in Malcolm so many times. You have a bit five o'clock shadow. You look he's kind of an Ian Malcolm thing going on right now. Well, listen, I lanky handsome. I just don't understand why you keep calling me Dennis Nedry. Yes, I'm wearing a raincoat and I'm covered in dinosaur ink all over my face. Yes, you're wet for no reason. Scott, stay away from me. Before Scott Rudin even starts talking to Peter Weir, he's circling Jim Carrey. But then he does say to we're like, look, you might not know who Jim Carrey is. And we're is like, no, no, no, I like Jim Carrey. It would be funny for me to be like, I've never heard of this. Well, I think Scott Rudin because remember, it's the earlier nineties. I think Scott Rudin is thinking like you're too crass to have seen like Ace Ventura, right? I mean, like, sorry, you're not like that movie is too crass for you. But it's also it's like within that year when right. He's hot. Like is that guy paying attention to like what are seen as juvenile comedies? As Peter, Peter, Peter Weir, Peter Weir. OK, I'd seen a poster in the video store of Ace Ventura and I like the look of the guy in it. I sense an energy I was to see in the film. He says four minutes into Ace Ventura. It was apparent this man was remarkable. And I thought how fascinating he's interested in the Truman show. Like I guess he's basically like he's got live energy. I want to tap. I imagine that Peter Weir is staring at a poster of Jim Carrey talking through his butt. The poster of Ace Ventura is him holding up the cards. The big card. The first four minutes of Ace Ventura, which are one of the best parts of the movie, is him with the box. Yeah, if you remember, the fake. There's some rough stuff in that. In the opening, in the opening, there's some rough stuff. Wait, really? Yeah, I rewatched it. I mean, I can't remember. I remember rewatching it in the first four minutes going. Interesting. The box I remember just that's just like pure Carrie comedy. Yes, so good. It's it's him going full blast. He's getting the blowjob from the client like, come on, what are you talking about? There's just a handful. I feel stuff. Yeah. And listen, who knows? Why I like Ace Ventura now is because it's such a dark, nasty movie. It's so weird. Like it is. And like it doesn't. Yes, it's problematic. It's a movie without flaw as we'd established. But you're like, I can't believe this was a four quadrant hit because it's like a nasty movie. Yes. And I'm I'm I'm sure I would little nine year old. I fucking loved it. And like all the nasty shit just flew right over my head like truly. They made a Sunday cartoon out of it. They did. It was a Saturday morning. They wouldn't put it on the Lord's Day. Yeah, that doesn't belong there. You're right. Ace needs his own day. And this is the other stupid stat I love to bring up when we talk about how big Carries 95 was. He has three ginormous hits in one calendar year, all three of which were so big that a year later, they all have Saturday morning cartoons. There was Masked Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura cartoons airing simultaneously on three different networks. I truly challenge our listeners to clip out the amount of times Griff has said that on this. I hope it's a five time. It's a lot. What's what's the last movie? What's the last adult movie? The last one. Oh, that's it. Yeah. OK, great. The last movie, the last adult movie to become Saturday morning cartoon. You know, not not because obviously I'm not going to count like boss baby or like whatever. All boss. Saturday morning cartoon basically doesn't kind of doesn't exist anymore. I would say the answer is Netflix did do like 60 episodes of a terrible CGI fast and furious cartoon. Another thing Griffin's brought up, I would like people to clip out several times. I'm very disappointed with that show. I wish they had brought me in. I had a lot of big ideas. So Peter Wears interested in Jim Carrey, you know, says he's like a wicked naughty boy in a man's body. He has a real electricity that could crack glass. Does that mean that's all interesting? You're like surprising. And then what suddenly becomes clear and perfectly fits vocabulary? I've just been gifted. Is Ace Ventura a bit of a lyrical? Oh, Jim Carrey, a bit of an American lyrical. Larrick can to be clear, Jake Key, in case you don't. A JT. JT, JD. Jake Key. I think he said J. King, which J. King help take. Well, there's only one thing. It's sort of a slailing in a word for like a rascal, like kind of like a near do well. Jennifer Kent told us and now I'm going to use it the way Nick Weigert uses in the patch. That's great. I love it. So first meeting, Jim's kind of nervous. And so he says, let's go to the bathroom and fuck around. And he does the soap. No, like Carrey's like, you know, how normal meeting goes. Let's go to the bathroom and fuck around. Carrey pitches some hand stuff. We're pitches, Carrey, like I think your character will be doing weird things in the mirror. And Carrey's like, OK, and they go to the bathroom mirror and he does the soap thing. I walk in, I'm watching deleted scenes. Ben goes, man, this is why you hire Jim Carrey here. And it's just raw footage of him doing extra mirror stuff. And I'm like, Ben, literally I'll tell you on Mike, but it was the first thing Carrey came up with and like shows him in real time. Yeah, there's the thing in here that we're said that makes so much fucking sense to me beyond just like the energy and his talent and his box office viability. But that he's like, there is a kind of like uncanniness to Jim Carrey. He feels kind of like a fake person where even if you tell him to tone down the theatrics, it feels like someone doing an impression of a normal guy. Which I think is why this is such an excellent first foray into non primarily comedic acting work for Jim Carrey is because Truman Burbank is a weird guy. He's not a normal guy. No, how could he be really? Exactly. And so any inconsistencies in the performance that feel sort of like a little a little extra fit right in with this character, which is why it's like a perfect casting is because he can be Jim Carrey and bring that Jim Carrey energy. And you're like, yeah, that's how that's how a kid who grew up in a weird foe 1950s on TV all the time, universe would act and behave. And so it fits right into the pocket of excellent performance because even if he veers into Jim Carrey stuff, you're like, yeah, Truman Burbank's a weird guy. Jim Carrey is also just like a peak kind of raised by TV guy. Right. Like, not not he talks a lot about his parents. It's not like they were absentee. But it's like that generation of people who were just like, we learned the world through media. We had more media than anyone had ever had before. And here's a guy who becomes a comedian, getting up on stage and doing impressions of like 70 different actors and making his name off of that. He's clearly in this loop of like referencing and warping the media he grew up in. And yeah, it's like what we're smart about is, you know, I'm fascinated by like any time a comedian tries a big dramatic performance for the first time, especially if it's not like we're going to put like John Candy in one scene of JFK. It's like a still a vehicle and the people who survived that translation, people who don't is that often I think without a steady hand behind them, comedians will just be like, got it. I just need to turn down the energy and then people are just boring. Right. They're like, right. Well, I need to play it serious. And then they just like crank their motor down to one. And then they're just kind of giving a sleepy performance because they're so secret. It's the ultimate example where I'm just like all I don't. I think he's a very good actor. But it feels like he's self conscious about not letting the comedy creep into his performances anymore. Whereas like Little Miss Sunshine is like to me, an excellent dramatic performance where he's recognizing that that guy has humor in him as a person without being a sketch character. And Truman is like such a smart use of him where it's like you're not taking Kerry's energy away. You're sort of redirecting it. Well, I also think we're going to start seeing that lesson less because we're in a period of time where as we were discussing. Comedy is illegal. Comedy is illegal. Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah. No, but it's what we're discussing before this, which is the state of the television film industry is such that, you know, being in a movie or on a TV show is not a life changing step up in your career. And for a lot of comedians, especially, it's actually more of a fun thing they do on the side that is separate from the thing that actually makes them their money and is their main career. Because, you know, there was a period of time in the 90s where it was like, you know, the dream was you're this comedian who has this comedy career. And then you get absorbed into the mainstream world of film and television. And now you're on Easy Street and now you're like a big celebrity. And, you know, that's turned on his head. I think I think of anything that exploration to film and TV is more of like a side hobby or an exploration more than it's a chance to level up because for a lot of comedians, they're they make a better living doing the thing that they do. But right, which can mean any number of things. But like the A-list thing too of it and they're like two, three people left who have this, I would say, where it's like every year I am making one big chess move on the board. I am thinking thoroughly about the weight of what I pick. And that represents like this is the Jim Carrey movie of this year. And people are waiting and is it going to be building on what we already like from the guy? Or is it going to be a subversion? And like part of the whole like weird cable guy backlash was people being like, I don't like this darkness put on top of manic Carrey. And it's like, God, I got it. Got it. We're switching. Liar liar. Scary part is gone. He's just doing funny stuff. And so it is part of like this movie being announced of like, Harry wants to like do something different. Everyone is leaning in to see what that is. It means something rather than like Jason Bateman has done like four different TV shows where he plays a psychopath. And it's never treated as like, holy shit, Jason Bateman went dark. Well, yeah, because he's really plausible. A psychopath. Well, yes. But I don't think there's a single person who could do that today. And it would be mind blowing. And part of that is we don't have this A-list comedy movie stars. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's interesting because you're right. Back then it wasn't even, oh, you're a stand up, you're a this and you're going into movie and TV. He was a comedic movie star. He was a comedic movie star, but- He was just changing genre. But he's a very fresh one. Like as much, you know, so he's still pretty fresh. It's, this is this first batch. Like 95 is this weird like parallel thinking the industry is like coalescing around him as- No, 94. Sorry. Thank you. 95 is Batman Forever. We have good scripts. This guy's talented. He doesn't cost much. And suddenly all of those movies like hit, right? And then, right, this lineup of like things that are him trying to test like, okay, every move I make now is going to have the eyes of the world on it. Little bit. Well, 95 is Batman Forever. When nature calls. When nature calls, he's like, I don't want that to happen to me again. No more sequels. Bows out a mask and dumb and dumber too. Right. Gave a guy, people don't like it that much. Bit of a cult hit. He does liar, liar. He becomes the first $20 million star in Hollywood. He becomes the symbol of the top of the pyramid. The guy who, yeah, is covering half the budget. Just for the salary. Liar liar. We have to admit it. You can't lie. I feel like he barely- Don't lie to us, David. You can't lie. He barely ever lies in that movie. David? You can't lie. David? He barely ever lies. Trust me. Trust him. Trust me. We're doing the- Your honor, I object. Why? For what reason? Because it's devastating to my case. That's my favorite joke in liar, liar. Like, and he's so good at all that shit. Like the, he's compelled to say the truth shit. I feel like we've talked about this and forgive me if we've done it before on the podcast, but like, especially in the like- He says overruled and he goes, good call. Yeah, especially in the early 2000s, there was lines from trailers that are stuck in my mind. And that's one of them, is I feel like there was a trailer where that line pops up. There's also like, the one that I always love referencing is the like, you put the wrong and fastest on the wrong's salable, which is a movie that like pause listeners. I mean, I think blank check listeners will know, but like, the average person's like, I know that line, but what movie is that from? And you're like- Bruno Beretto's A View From the Top, obviously. Yeah, A View From the Top. Duh. Yeah. The Golden Age of Trailers. But that's another example of like, that's not a holy shit. They struck like Gold Truman Show, like, deep premise. But the second America was told, here's the movie. Jim Carrey can't lie. He can't lie. He was a lawyer and he can't lie. People were- What lawyers do. Oh my gosh. They were sending money to the theater in advance. It was, that's all I need to hear. Yeah. I can fill in the blanks. He's just going to do shit for 90 minutes. He can't lie. But then what happens if he gets a speeding tip? Oh my god. Surely in that situation he could lie. I like that they were like, everyone loves Jim Carrey for his physical comedy. But this movie is premised on a verbal trait. And they were like, don't worry. Am I crazy that there's like three movies of that with him that are like, it's like that, Me, Myself and Irene. Correct. And then there's another one- Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Which are like, all very like- I can't say no. He's got to say yes. Yes, man. Sucks because yes, man- Yes, man does suck. Yes, man is like, there's a goover. I think it's Terence Stamp. Yeah, who he's just like listening to. Right, it's a book that's like philosophy of yes. And he's like, I'm going to do that. Yes. But what's good about Me, Myself and Irene, which is a flawed movie- I don't like that movie. Right. But like the physical comedy is strong because it's like, it is beyond his control. What's happening to him? Carrey can play that very funny. Like that's what he's always been good at. His performance is very good. His body is overtaken. Right. Because you know- That Me, Myself and Irene is like- It's a nuanced portrayal of split personality. Yes. Right. Yeah. It was a nice one and a mean one. Dissociate of identity disorder. It's Charlie and Hank. Hank. Hank is not a nice guy. Okay, wait. And the premise of yes man is that this is like more of like a self-help thing that he's doing? He goes to a self-help seminar. This guy wrote a book on the power of yes. And he's like, I'm going to do that. And then the rest of the movie, everyone's like, just stop. And he's like, no. Well, I guess he says- He refuses to answer the question. And the movie stops right there. Okay. Here's a picture. There's a point in yes man. Where he's gotten himself into like immense legal trouble. And his best friend is Bradley Cooper, who's a lawyer. And he has to show up and say, I'm sorry. He made this stupid deal with himself that he's going to say yes to everything. And remind me liar, liar. What's the magical? It's like a birthday. His son- It's a birthday wish. Nick's a wish when he blows out the candles on his birthday cake. Because he's always lying to himself. For the party that his father didn't attend. His father said, of course I'll be there. And then he- Oh, he says for a wish for one day. You know, my dad could not lie. Okay. I got a pitch. Go ahead. He goes to the self-help seminar. This is going to be my year of yes. As he is starting that journey, suddenly it's birthday time. Candles go out. He gets liar, liar in the middle of the year of yes. Yeah. You're like, what's this man can only say yes to things and he cannot lie. So he's saying no to everything. So it's chaos is going to unfold. He doesn't want to say yes. You're like, it couldn't get any crazier than this. Then what does he see on the ground? What? A green mask. Oh my God. What happens when the mask can't lie and can't say no? This is really good. What would it be called? It would be called. No honestly, smoke it. No honestly, smoke it. That's what he stats his catchphrase. All right. Okay. Okay. Everyone shot. Steve Corrie. No, wait. Why did this make you mad? Because we're so off the rails. Why did this make you mad? We're good. We're good. We're good. I want to say this. Okay. I think this is important. Carrie's biggest inspiration for his performance in the Truman Show is his father, who he says was very much like that. They're kind of like, hi, how are you? Starts laughing before you even tell him how things are doing. That kind of like a mega friendly ray of sunshine affable kind of guy. He said his whole family are like, are you doing that? Yeah. He almost drowned in the water tank. That's a big part of the lore of this movie. Well, he did and that was when they were placed in with the first Jim Carrey Klum, who runs from 99 to 2005. We're not quite sure when, right? No, because Poppers was a new guy. But he popped those things. And he was settling in. That one was not well calibrated. Poppers is like the bond who did one and then was the last. Poppers is the last. They were like, if I can chuck this one out, it didn't work. Originally cast as Christoph as Griffin noted is Dennis Hopper, very different energy to imagine Hopper in that role. Come on, you fucking assholes. I was just screaming at everyone. Truman, talk. You can hear me. I can hear you. Weir says, I cast him before I really had an idea of who Christoph was going to be when, by the time he came to filming, differences arose is how he put it. He says that Dennis was- Hopper? Dennis Hopper? He says that Dennis was understanding and gracious. Hopper did film. I think so. A couple days. I mean, they started filming. Yeah. Release the Hopper cut. He toyed, Weir toyed with playing the role himself, which is really interesting because he's like, as director, it did kind of occur to me that like, there's like that kind of God complex. That would have been fascinating. It's also the- What director hasn't wanted to say cue the sun is what is his joke. I mean, there is, yes. The surprising thing about Weir that we found is that he like basically started in sketch comedy. Yeah, he did. It's because in Australia, that seemed to be the only way to do anything in the 70s. What were you going to say to you? Well, it's funny because I'm not that. I wasn't that tapped into Peter Weir in his whole life and universe. And the more I heard about it, I was like, Kind of parallel to you. Yeah. I was like, is this kind of, is Peter Weir kind of the career that I wish that I could have? It doesn't sound like he was one of the most incredible directors. It doesn't sound like he ever had like designs on performing professionally, but it does sound like he was performing as much in comedy as you were at like around the UCB and everything. And then it's so you're like, you have to imagine there's some innate ability he would have to just kind of like hold the camera. He's also so fascinating in interviews. Like he does have such an interesting energy. Good energy. But it's the Tootsie thing. The Tootsie dynamic where Hoffman like begged a fucking Sinipalik to play his agent. Because he was like, I want to have these scenes be with someone who actually holds power over me. David? Yes. Ah. Ah. Oh, God. This is life throwing another thing at me. Oh no. Did you catch it? No, I got hit with it. I got pelted 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. Okay. 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 two children. I have logistical responsibilities often of like, I need to build a piece of furniture. I need to whatever, you know, learn 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? Where you 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, or making like 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. Well, 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, been where I was like, I will mess this up. Like, I just won't do this. Right. 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. Okay, 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, skill set 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 taskrabbit.com or on the task rabbit at using promo code check. Taskers 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 task rabbit app or at taskrabbit.com. We are wanted on Alda after Hopper gets fired, which more matches obviously what they're going work for Kristoff. Sherry Lansing, who ran Universal at the time, I assume, wanted a bigger star. Ed Harris is- This is Paramount. Oh, is it Paramount? Yeah, it is Paramount. Of course it's Paramount. So Sherry, yeah, sorry, Paramount. Ed Harris, it is truly like he's like, I got a phone call on a Friday, I started working on Monday. You know, like- And he's incredible in this? It's obviously, it's an incredible performance. One of his best performances? It is. He probably should have won the Oscar. I was thinking the same thing. Is this the Coburn year? It's the Kevin, it's basically the first thing. Yeah, it's the Coburn year, which is, you know, honestly, Affliction is a bit of a forgotten movie. Coburn is good in it. Obviously, Coburn was a well-known, you know, like it's a bit of a career award, but he's really good in that movie. And he doesn't make many films after that. James Coburn? Yes. No, he was, he was an elderly, you know, he was on the way out there. I'm just saying it was like, there wasn't gonna- He died like three years later. Be another chance to give it to him. The other thing- I know, but I look, this is so rude of me to say, because James Coburn is a good actor. James Coburn is not the level of actor where I'm like, he had to have an Oscar before he died. I agree with you. I also think Ed Harris was in this zone at this point in time where people were like- He'll win. He's gonna win like any day now. And then it's like he hasn't been nominated in over 20 years, close to 25. But in the 90s- In the 90s, he got the Ornams total because it's, so it's Apollo 13 before this, which he also should have won for- Truman, Ours Pollock. Then Truman, then Pollock, then The Ours. The Ours, I don't like that performance very much. The others, he's an arguable winner every time. When I interviewed him, he looked like Christoph and was so scary. It's notoriously one of the scariest men. What's the most scared you've been in an interview? That one. Without a doubt, I was so scared to interview because I've always heard how scary he is. Uniformly, everyone says he is like the most intense. It's also just like he's got Ed Harris energy all the time. Super, super, super, super serious. If you're like a PA and they go like, hey, can you tell Edward like five minutes away from camera up, they're like shivering just because you have to walk up to that guy. What's your interview foreplay? Like what when someone's- Just kind of like caress the thigh and then I just kind of am like, is this okay? And then I sort of start to- No, you said foreplay. I don't know. I just chit-chat and like Ed Harris was not interested in chit-chatting with me, but he wasn't rude. He was fine. Luckily, Aaron Sorkin was also there. Who likes to talk? Gap, gap, gap, gap, gap. But like all of the answers were interesting and he was super chill. He just looked like Christoph. Do you write down your questions before you do an interview? No. I write down questions that I can refer to if I get stuck. Because I was going to say sometimes if you get scared, you just like want a piece of paper and you're like, okay, here's the question. Yes, but I find that, um, so I'm like that makes people like uncomfortable. Jump out the window. I feel like that would make Ed Harris bite your head off. Possibly. What were you interviewing him for? Was Sorkin to come on Buckingbird? Oh, a false. I was interviewing them to work at my Dunkin Donuts. It was, which, which, which, which, which is the thing that people don't know about David. He does have a Dunkin Donuts. He does. I do have a Dunkin Donuts. He won. He won. It was for, Harris was taking over from Jeff Daniels and to kill a Mockingbird. And they pitched me on like, can you interview Sorkin and Harris about like the process of him playing, uh, Atticus? And I was like, I was like, yeah, bring out the Mockingbird. I was like, honestly, I just want to interview them. So sure it did rock because we were at the theater, which is one of the greatest, uh, you know, one of the biggest theaters on Broadway and it was empty and Sorkin comes out first. And, and then he's like, check this out. And we walk over. I've said this before on the part because I think to the little step because people come in through the audience in that play and in many places, the tiny little step that gets you from the audience to the stage that's like half your foot max. And he was just like, how do they not fucking follow this thing? And then like we get up on the stage and he's walking around and he was just so energetic and like excited about theater, which was cool. And he had just finished shooting Chicago seven. Oh, sure. And so he was talking to Ed Harris about that a lot because it was like, he was coming back because he's not on, you know, the play was running. Harris was the one who was like getting into, and he played Atticus Finch, like a terrifying motherfucker. It was a weird performance. It wasn't bad, but it was definitely not like Gregory Peck energy. Anyway, I would give Harris best supporting actor for a Paw 13, which is one of my favorite screen performances of all time. I mean, the problem is, but he's incredible. It's what you're saying of he would have been a good win in any of those four years. Probably. And he was in borderline auto nomination territory where it's like, we're going to have so many chances to give it to him. And they're kept being some kind of emotional choice above him. And now I, not that he's taken for granted, but I think people like almost auto correct and assume he won an Oscar 20 years ago. The weird Covern stat is that he had like debilitating arthritis and basically disappeared for all of the eighties and then found some miracle cure and comes back in the nineties. And there was a big emotional kind of like Covern's back. Now he's like a steady elder state's been supporting hand. Now he's given this like dramatic showcase role. But he, I mean, Covern one, zero precursors. Ed Harris was not even nominated for the SAG. Like it was a weird supporting actor field. I should dig in. I should dig in, but he did lose and he shouldn't have lost. I think it should have been him or Billy Bob, but Billy Bob, but just won an Oscar. But Billy Bob is obviously amazing and a simple plan, which is that year as well. I don't know. You know what? I'm sorry. Golden Globes gave it to Ed Harris. SAG gave it to Robert DeVol for a civil action. Great performance. And then the Academy gives it to James Cobra. Laura Linney. He'd seen, we had seen her in Primal Fear, which she's very good in. And she did an incredible audition. Obviously, Laura, having Laura Linney in this role is just like having like fucking Tim Duncan on the like 99s first or whatever. We're just like, well, we just got her early. Like being like, like seeing this movie as a nine year old, the amount of actors I'm exposed to for the first time where I'm just like, well, these are people who aren't in movies for children. I'm seeing Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti and Holland Taylor and Noah Emmerich. Like all these fucking like heavyweights and like character actor greats who I love. Uh, who I just still kind of associate with like Laura Linney. Yeah, of course, the wife from the Truman show. Well, I was watching that behind the scenes feature at thing. And one of the things I think is fascinating that comes through in the performance, but until you hear her talk about it, I did not zero in on is that Peter Weir wrote for Kristoff, an entire sort of like backstory and history of Kristoff. And then he had the actors for themselves come up with their own backstories. And her backstory was that her, the actress that she was portraying that, you know, was cast to be on the Truman show was like a, like a, I can tell you, I have it here, but you're on it. Go for it. Fail child actress, someone who always wanted to play Annie and never got to play Annie, had become like an Oprah S kind of shrewd business woman who is like really behind the product placement stuff. Yes. So she's who she said, like in her mind, in between when she was on the show, she would be at like a conference room working with people to like deal, figure out product placement and all this stuff. She was like a business person. So she basically like secures her position as you are the permanent Truman wife through selling her value to the show in all these other ways and being like so locked in on the whole business model in a way. Or like the flip where she uses that role to then become a huge like person, you know, a product spokesperson. I mean, she just plays it like a living animatronic. It's so good. Yes. And just so unreal. I also love that the movie opens with like the opening credits to the Truman show, the show rather than the movie. And we're watching these address direct address statements and you're like seeing how kind of pretentious she is about the art of what she's accomplishing. And you're like, there's this innate sadness to you being like, it's the greatest role of all time and being like, you don't have a life. What are you talking about? You're like in a loveless marriage. And she kind of doesn't respect or even really like Truman. No, she knows. She's disgusted by it. She knows. He knows she hates him. Right. Which is to that scene that we're talking about that's so disconcerting. It's just the first time you see her mask drop where she's like, she's not concerned about him. She's concerned about herself first and foremost and this whole thing. And that's why she's willing to- If you loved him, you would tell him he was on a TV show. Yes, exactly. Like right away. Not to justify the action, but part of what drives him is that he's increasingly like, there is no universe in what is happening. Isn't also- you're not also a party to what's happening. You have to be a part of it, which makes it even scarier. I mean, the thing that we never actually see him confront totally is that Noah Emmerich is part of it, which is the most devastating because he has this feature where he's like, I've been your best friend since we're seven years old. And that was- And it is the most chilling thing. And that was his character story. Right. He was like a child actor. Right. Who then got cast in this role and because they kept extending it, he kept becoming more and more ingrained. Right, he becomes his best friend. Like- And it's actually more villainous in a way that he is unwilling to drop that. And in fact, weaponizes it against Truman at some point. Like at least with Lulelinny, she immediately, the moment things get weird, she's like, I'm out, I'm done. This is unprofessional. I can't work like this. I would say things got weird before, such as when she married him and lives with him every day. Yes, but I'm hated. Yes. Sleece with him. Sleece with him. And it's just, it's so wild. It's so crazy. And clearly it's like, if I'm going to get pregnant, you better fucking look. Well, and that's what she says and the thing is she's like, she's like in my mind, every time I sleep with him, I get a pay bump. Right. The way you're describing her character, I just wanted to say is sort of like an influencer. Yeah. Like if there were influencers. Like in the 90s shopping channel kind of way. Sure. Yes. Sure. But I also think that no Emmer character, what's fascinating is that like he's a little tragic and that it does feel like these lines are genuinely blurred for him. Whereas she's like, this is a role I'm playing and I'll cross my fingers when we kiss at the altar. I think Noah Emmerich would be like Truman of course is my best friend. Because he is. And because it seems like in the world of this film, he was with Truman since they were like. Correct. Toppers. Whereas she was cast into the role when they were like. When they were playing. And you see the scene where she's trying so hard to be like, how do I pop here? You know, in the high school, the marching band. Right. Maybe a slight high school. But like the idea is Natasha McElhown is an extra who falls in love with him. But of course anyone who actually liked him again would be like, well, I have to take care of you. And the first thing we're going to do is get you off of the Truman show. Yes. Which is what they have to find someone who's, you know, at cross purposes with him. Which is why this movie is so good is because we're able to have this discussion within the bounds of its reality. And for a lot of movies, the moment you start discussing it like this, it falls apart because you're like, well, you gotta take some leaps of logic. Yeah. Yeah. It's so fun because you can talk about it with such depth. I think you have to make leaps of logic on, of course, this would not be, you could not. Wouldn't be financially viable. But like, I think that's a leap of logic you can make. And it's partly satirical anyway, the whole idea of like, you can see it from space or whatever. You know, like, and what I love the most about the Truman show is that the audience watches and loves it, but is rooting for him to escape it at the end because that is what like watching sports is or watching almost any reality TV is where you're like, this is great and it entertains me. And then when like the scales start to fall off and people are like, I don't like this. People are like, I love that you're saying that. Like Alyssa Lou just now winning the Olympic medal, which I have watched her skate many times and cried. I don't know what's going on with me where she's like, I love that I did that and it was great, but this world sucks. And I quit it because it was so horrible. Like, and I wasn't allowed to like drink water because of water weight. And people are like, we love that you're doing that. We also love watching you skate. I don't know how to reconcile those two things. I love Truman. I love watching the only Truman. I want him to overthrow though as well. Like this last Olympic run basically had the Truman walking through the door moment. What if I do it my way? I'll try to do it my way. I would like to believe that's exactly what she did. It seems like it is. But I think that's the aspirational beauty of the Truman show, right? Is that it represents this thing that even within the fictional construct of what the show represents within the fictional world that it exists is this idea that we all live in this life that are part of what we seek in media sometimes, the idea that maybe we're going to be able to overcome whatever the boxes that we are put into. And so like we just keep trying to find these boxes and see people overcome them in some way. And so even if you find escapism in the comfort of Truman, the fact that he's trying to escape becomes something that you're like, well, that's also engaging to me because I also want or hope or believe that my life is larger than whatever this my version of a town square is. It is part of the like develop backstory thing. But I also, people have said it was part of the script at one point. Like it was developed into the film proper. But the Noah Emmerich character, his sort of established backstories that this guy has had a years long drinking problem. The actor largely because of the guilt of how he is being used to contain Truman. And that like part of his job being like, I have to fill vending machines around the world was that he'd have to like be justified to disappear for rehab trips and things like that. But also that there's this married thing that he's used as a mechanism to sell beer for the show. Of course. So that there's kind of like the running segment of what when Truman needs like a trusty ear, of course, Lewis is going to show up with a six pack, which then becomes like part of their behavioral mechanism where he's over drinking to deal with the guilt over the advice he gives Truman that is actually Christoph in an earpiece. So then he needs to get like rehab off of the show and then continue selling beer to an audience. And this is what I think is great about Peter Weir, right? Is there some people that would put all of that into the movie? And Weir allows a lot of this stuff. And this is to be spoken or thought about. I mean, like there's the line that I love like parsing this movie because I've seen it so, so, so many times where he talks about like, remember when I got pneumonia and Truman's like, yeah, you were out of school for a month and they're laughing about it. And you don't notice it. But like, then you're like, do you mean he was out of school for a month? And you're like, oh, that was for some, you know, extra reality reason, right? And it's just like that. But then when I was, so when I first saw this movie, when the rain falls on Truman in a column before it kicks off, right? One of his many moments of like reality is not right. Obviously the first one is the light falling from the ceiling. Yeah, which happens less than three minutes into the right away. It is a star. Yeah, big pen. So many pens. I immediately start being like, well, why can't they just raise Truman to think that rain falls in a column? And why can't they train him to think that like, yeah, there's lights in the sky that might fall down or whatever? Like, why can't they just, and then like, as I grow older, I'm like, right, because then we wouldn't like the show. The show needs to reflect reality. Because it's not for Truman. None of this was for Truman. This was all for everyone else. Yeah, because like if he was just taught in school, like, well, rain falls in a column and you can't get on boats, like, and you can't leave your town, people would just like, you know, whatever, like it just would break the way that people experience him. Well, it's also like our relationship to this movie, which is like the buy-in, the suspension of disbelief, right? Like, what are the questions you need to answer, the things you need to explain to get people to accept the rules of your universe? And this is such an excellent example of it gives you a satisfying answer for just what you need to be able to engage with the story. And it's really smart about when it does not like info dumps, but like how it distributes the information so you don't have to deal with 30 minutes of explanation. You don't have to deal with the last 30 minutes is just uncovering everything. But also the answers it gives are so satisfying and are so often like show don't tell that you start to be able to just infer you can fill in the blanks and more than anything, you can tell that there are internal answers that they don't feel the need to communicate to you. Well, like one thing that I was watching at the second time last night is I was like, oh, how much of the cameras are justified, right? How much is how much is an omniscient camera that is the the movies movie? 100. How much is it just justified within the Truman show? Yeah. It's mostly all in the world of the Truman show. I think other than when it goes to like, you know, Kristoff and people watching on TV and whatever in past times, I'd heard we're say that was a big thing that he like tried to design the coverage of where the cameras would be. And previous times I've watched this movie on like, well, there are the obvious shots were clearly that's a weird angle. That's a hidden camera. You see the obstruction of a leaf in front of it or whatever. Now watching at this time, I'm like, I think basically every single setup within the bubble of the Truman show 100% is a very specifically justified camera angle, even down to when it feels like the movie is doing more traditional coverage. That is coverage and what would be the main locations of his life in the setups where they would have to invest the time and energy and technology to get a really high quality unobstructed to shop. Well, they show the trick off and one of the first interactions when the neighbor comes up and talks to him is that they have a tracking shot. That's sort of this handheld tracking shot that walks up to Truman. He's getting into his car and in my brain, I'm like, well, of course they wouldn't have tracking shots. And then they obviously cut to the reverse and you see him holding up a trash can with a clearly a big lens that's very obvious on it to sort of teach the audience, Hey, these are always going to be justified. And then throughout this, like I remember there was the scene where he's running through the hospital and I was kind of like, all right, well, here's one place where they're kind of stretching the credulity of that because he's running and there's a camera following him. And then they cut to a nurse running behind him and you're like, right, there's their- And there's cameras in all their clothes, essentially. Yes. And you can tell they just took the time for every shot to go. Even if they go, we want this coverage to go, okay, but how would we justify that with this? And then they put it in there in some way, which is such great fun. When he's in his home, it can be as polished as like friends because they've refined that. And when he gets into wilder environments, they're improvising, they're like manipulating things, but you start to see the recurring design element of what are clearly the hidden cameras, which are like these black domes, which are in the lining of the buildings, the houses on the street, the signposts, they're like all over everything. I was like, someone's ring, there's one moment where I was like, yeah. How are they getting the sound? Everyone's mic'd as well. It's all ADR. That's so true. The Truman Show airs at a five minute delay. And I was just like, oh, hi, I'm Truman. They probably just have booms hidden all over. You can just do directional mics far away pointing everywhere. Yeah. So you just get total coverage. Yeah. Seaside Florida is this creepy crazy town where they filmed it, obviously, which is a town that was basically built in the 1980s to look like a quote, neo-traditional community. It produced Matt Gaetz who lived in the house that Truman lives in, which I love. It makes you happy. Well, you endorse it. Well, I think it's actually a very interesting cultural, I don't even know how to describe it. Go off. The fact that that is the childhood home of a famous infamous Republican politician. Sure, a famous issue. Yeah. A lot of different words you could say here. Yes. Exactly. So I think it's actually very interesting because the whole point of the Truman Show is that it's this enclosed universe that is controlled to make the people in it believe, or one person in it, believe that the world exists in a very specific way. And obviously, we know that there's a certain positive aspiration of the idea of someone like Truman going out in the real world and now he's going to get to see what real life is like, but that's actually going to be a very pretty traumatic process. I think he's going to be okay, which I've thought about this a lot over the years because Natasha Echollin is going to get him. And because I used to think, oh, he's so fucked, what? He's going to walk out. Immediately, some agent will approach him. And then I remember, no, I forget that we're being shown Natasha's going to get him. And she knows him and she knows what's going to happen. She knows the real world and she knows his world. And she's going to be the bridge that will, I think, make him out. Yes, but it's going to be like a hero. But all that aside, it'll be sure. Yeah. I'm just saying like it's a very fundamental thing to me in the movie that their journeys are in her cut. All that aside, I think there are strings that you could tie between someone growing up in an environment like Seaside, Florida, that is Truman Show ask that then holds beliefs that are very extreme and maybe don't interact with the full diversity of life as it unfolds in the rest of the country. Disconnected from most people's realities. They wanted a Norman Rockwell heightened reality. I mean, that's what they were looking for. Yes. And I guess my point is like, of course, that's where someone like that came from. Of course, that's one of the issues that we have, right? Is that you can grow up in these bubbles where you see the world in a very specific point of view. And then when you get into the real world and that's different, right? And then this thing that has been constructed to make you believe that this is the utopian idyllic life. Yeah, there's going to be people who react to that different ways. And some of them it is through, you know, I think Matt Gaetz is he's doing good. Seems really balanced to me. All right. Well, that's David Sims of the Atlantic. I'm going to say that I don't endorse him. The funniest thing about Matt Gaetz to me is that Trump like, you know, has violated every Norman existence and appointed psychopaths. And like, he was like, what about Matt Gaetz? Everyone was like, buddy. And he was like, all right, all right, not Matt Gaetz. That's too far. Like the old one. I don't know. There's something there's something interesting about the fact that that's the home that's like I think it's interesting. I think we should move on. Yeah, I agree. Can I say can I just say I lost the thread of like, I know this jump to the end of the movie, but like, is he going to be okay? I was thinking about jury duty while watching this, which we were talking about right before recording, right? And how they have a second season coming out. And it's one of those like, how could they possibly pull that off a second time? But everyone who worked in the show talked about that they like shot it two times before it worked. Like I think one time incomplete, one time maybe borderline complete, where they like picked the wrong person. I think one time the person figured out and the other time they were just like, this is not compelling television. And then they found someone who was not only compelling, but like, kept kind of making the moral humane choice in these insane circumstances. And then they were like, Oh, the show's actually more interesting if the guy is like passing these morality tests, rather than falling into the chaos of the situation. And they're like rewriting it in time in a Truman show way to try to like guide him towards like presenting him as like a moral beacon of like, you won this show by being unwavering in your humanity. And then he has talked about when the show ended, he like could not readjust reality for like a year. And it's not like that was all consuming in the same kind of way. And he knew he was on camera. He thought it was just a documentary series. And by the time the show premiered, he had worked through this and time had passed. But was like, I for like the next couple of months kept thinking it was still going on. Right. That was like, that was like three weeks of this guy's life. Totally. That even when that final episode is like, congratulations, you're a good human. This was a TV show. It's a comedy. Go on. He's like back to spend time with his parents. And he's like, but are my parents in on this? Were they in on this? How far did this reach? Would that be an interesting like finale for the show? Or is that the midpoint? And I'm still in it. That you know, to the Truman point, it's like, you're right that he kind of is set up in the best way he could to transition out of this. But God is there going to be fucking damage on him? Of course, I'm not saying I'm saying the point I was making was not actually, I don't think you can actually you want it. I just I just thought that guy I want. I want to say that Peter Weir took the like commercials wanted movie to look like commercials because he's like, everything needs to be really brightly lit. Right. Because again, the way the world function, how do you light exteriors like their interiors? He had one crazy idea that he wanted a video camera installed in every theater the film was going to be seen. And when the movie ended, he was going to switch the feed to the people being filmed. Kind of a cool idea. There was a live interactive. Love that idea. Adaptive. But I think they were just like, this is impossible to pull off ridiculous, but it would be so cool. I like that like 30 years later, Coppola could barely pull off a guy stands in front of a screen. It asks like, what do you believe art is or whatever that question is? Well, that it happened to me twice. Once I was watching as a screening of Gremlins 2 and it was like that they actually in the film, they set the movie. Yeah, they set the movie on fire and then that is so crazy. The same thing happened to me when I saw Gremlins 2. So when they happened a second time, I was watching the Muppet movie. Yeah. And is anyone done that recently? You know, what's even crazier is Gremlins 2. I see it. The Gremlins got into the projection booth. They ripped through the film. You wouldn't believe what happened in mind. Who fixed it? I don't want to one up you here. I don't want to big dog you, but my screening was the Hulkster. No way. In a second, guys, I have a question for you to get you off of this. If we do Dante, will you want to do Gremlins 2? Oh, I mean, or I started a different Dante because Dante does feel JD Dante. I would want to do the explorers. Hell yeah. There you go. That was that was that look at that upper boost. That was a movie that I watched constantly growing up. And that was like, never seen. You've never seen it? No, I, I haven't seen it. I don't mean that. And I'm just saying that's, I mean, it's, I haven't seen a lot of those 80s kid movies because like I was too young for them. And then I didn't have the like sort of whatever cable TV American life that I guess like kept the Goonies and it's many. Yeah, that was that was video store for me is that we would rent the explorers, never an story, labyrinth, right? Goonies like on loop. And like I've seen those four movies at a grand total of three times, you know what I mean? Like you haven't seen explorers ever. No, that's what I'm saying. Explorers is the left handed one. The thing with explorers that's interesting very quickly, David, is it basically is like a fucking snowman, Harry Holey thing, where they just didn't let him finish the movie. And so explorers had to be kind of like stitched together. He never got to shoot everything that was written. Wait, what's the snowman thing? The movie, the snowman just like ran out. We gave you all the clues. Oh, that one. I thought you were talking about the animated short film. Oh, no, that's like the more common. Yeah. Because that one feels finished. That one's pretty finished. It's pretty short too, you know, snowman. I will say no joke creatively in my life. I one of my the references I've referenced the most is the the 32nd live action opening to the snowman because it's attached into a feeling that is so specific that I have it has been a part of several things. I'm like, we want that feeling. You know who's big for me was Kordaroid, the the the TV version of Kordaroid. Oh, with the live action one? Yeah, it was really good. I don't know that one. The tear one? Yeah, because it's also an animated Kordaroid. No, fuck that. I don't see that. I don't think I know what Kordaroid is. Kordaroid is that children's book about a little bear in a toy store who comes to life. Tim's story was announced to do a big budget. No, he should. Oh, that sounds fun. That sounds like it'd be really calm and relaxing. I know we got to get back to Truman's. Can I just say craziest thing? So I see Gremlins 2 in a theater. Okay, so the Truman's and I'm like, well, that was fun. It was a fun experience. I'm lucky that I got to see this crazy screen, but I'd love to see what happened in the missing scenes when they bit through the film. So I rented it on VHS. And yeah, and you got to see it unbroken all the way through. Shady, the craziest thing happened on the VHS. What's that? And this just my tape, my player Gremlins 2. The Gremlins like broken to the TV. And did it stay broken? It was like staticky. And then they were like in other movies. They like changed the channels to like Western films and stuff. And then the movie just like went back. Can't do that bit on Gremlins 2 now. That's all I'll say. We'll do it again. Trust me. Five times. This is a show that's never done a bit twice. David is tightly hugging his baby Joey. Who is that? He's from Superman. David loves baby Joey. I love him. I think in tug as you're holding him in a way that shows that. The Truman Show, I'm gonna unpin one of your big pins. Yes. Begins almost immediately with the light falling from the sky. Which I've been on this show before ranting about story structure. And what I love about the Truman Show is that I think there's a version of this movie where you do this, like, all right, let's spend 10 minutes with seeing Truman's life. It's the big question. It's like, how quickly do you start to break it and how quickly do you, you know, unattach from his reality, all that stuff. And what I love about the arc of this movie is that that happens within whatever one minute of the movie beginning is that immediately it starts falling apart and you're not, we don't have to live in the Truman world for 10 minutes before he starts to notice. It's like, it's risky because like, yeah, you do have that fear of like, well, audiences accept this reality as we begin to break it, right? Like, but I think you do. I think they do such a good job explaining how everything works. Yes. And then the movie quickly runs for an hour. Yeah. And then we take a 10 minute break to have an interview with Christoff. It's a good solid time, right? Before we finally are like, okay, all right. It's the movie has the answers and questions. They saved the day and then suddenly it's like, we're actually going to unpack this now, but they've given you so much information already up until that point that it's just hard data points you need. And it works because it's still dramatized because you're learning about the guy who made the thing. All of his answers. You do not, you don't see Christoff until an hour into the opening shot. And then not until an hour. And then not until an hour. He's in less than 10 minutes of the movie. I think it's one reason you didn't want to ask him because there would be a version of this movie where you keep cutting back to him and you're seeing it. Well, the other thing that interests, yeah, of course, that it's about him, but then the movie's more about him, obviously, which is what's brilliant because that's what the movie isn't about him. Right. Christoff thinks it's about him, but it's not. But that's the moment when it finally slows down. David is very annoyed. I'm just trying to make a point. I don't want to forget the point. Please make it. Please make it. When they have sex, you cut to Flat Top from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the other guy. Yeah. Where he explains like, but you never see anything. They point the camera. The wind blows. The curtain. It's a very funny moment. That's one of the very few moments that they cut to the audience before the reality breaks. And then we're cutting to them all the time. And it's the first time. They don't explain it. It's the first time and they kind of don't do it again for like a long while. Just forgetting they show the bar with Oland Jones because when they get into it, Sasha McEllihon. Yeah, they show. Yeah, but that's later. That's later. Yes. This is the first one. Yeah. But it's very brief. They add more people post reveal, of course, Napoleon and such. They do, but they do it slowly, but they do do it before the Kristoff moment, which is the full kind of like, okay, pause. And what I think is really bold about that cut away, right? Is it's not like, I don't believe, maybe I'm going to say this and I'm wrong, but as I remember it, it's just a hard cut right to those people going, nah, you never really see anything. It is. It's like, you don't cut to the TV. No, you never see the TV. You just know that the audience is going to pick up. They're going to be jarred for a second to be like, what am I watching? These are people watching the show. And it's just interesting. And maybe it was a studio note of, like, can we please, like just a tiny, tiny, tiny bits of context, please. Like it's too overwhelming. Maybe not. Maybe they just editing wise were like, no, no, no, it belongs there. Like we need it a little bit. It feels to me like you need to ease the audience into that as a language that's going to exist. Because also at that point, the audience is starting to wonder, how do people watch this? Like, what is their relationship to this? That becomes as pressing a question as the reality of how the show is made is like, so are they watching it like it's sports? Are they watching it like it's a soap opera? You know, to me, you would just have it on, right? Like that, like, obviously maybe sometimes you do lock in with the Truman show. And I have questions of like, do they do like a highlight reel at any point during prior times? So I think it is dreaming. I think it's what we sort of now have, but then they do the flashbacks. So what I'm going to channel with flashbacks. Yeah. So this, I'm going to unpin one of the other big things is that I obviously one of my obviously, obviously Griffin probably, I'm obsessed with the early 2000s era of reality TV and what turned into it. And especially the big, the big swings that turned into disasters in a lot of ways. And what's so interesting is that the state of reality TV now versus what it was in 2003, I think because there's this sort of like boiling a frog element to it, like you think that it's like always been like this. But if you go back and you watch season one of the real world or survivor, you're like, Oh my gosh, it feels like a documentary. And back then it was people was like, Oh, this is a spectacle. Well, that's even like 20 years past in American family, which was presented as a similarly high minded PBS thing. And people got into like debates of whether it was exploitative or ethical. And then by the time the real world premieres, it's like, well, that was an interesting artistic experiment, much like seven up. And the real world is crass and exploitative. And so there was all these different folds of reality television, which I, I'm fascinated with because I think they're these weird cultural mirrors in a lot of strange ways. But some of them that are interesting is obviously like big brother did played around with the streaming aspect of stuff. I'm not a big brother guy. A friend of the show Zach Cherry is a huge big brother guys has tried to get me into it. It's the only reality we show ever watched first season of UK big brother. Well, I tried to start watching season one and then Zach got mad at me. He's like, don't watch season one. And so it was a whole thing. But one of my favorite things that then in turn I got Zach into was utopia. So the Truman show as it exists, right? Is this this premise that, okay, there's a show that's on 24 hours a day. I think they would do it like they did utopia or some other shows. I think big brother does a time where you could tune in and watch some of the webcams. The way big brother worked was that every day there was a digest, but there was, yes, you could tune to E4 and watch the live stream, which was incredibly boring. And in the States it was similarly a website where with some censoring, there was more raw feed, but you were getting the edited. It was always so boring because like it's just people. So that's the thing is that I think is interesting is that in the fictional reality of the Truman show, right, this is something people are engaged with. In reality, what transpired is that anyone that tried to do anything like this, it ended up not working in a lot of ways. And that's why I think the closest thing is 7 Up because they really, you know, that was a... 7 Up is different. It's a different thing. And 7 Up is owning that it's a documentary. And the thing that's interesting about reality TV is just like our discussion about the Truman show of being like, oh, it has to be this certain way. People put their fingerprints on it too much, right? Well, they all know they're doing it. They all know they're doing it, but then also the construct of it is always there's interference. So Utopia, because Ben, I saw you looking quizzically at Utopia. Utopia was at the time, it was the highest budget, one of the highest budget reality programs ever made that Fox was putting out. I was obsessed with it as well. I was, me and Emily were two of the five viewers. It's based on a Dutch show, I think. Yes, which is so often true. Big Brother was also based like the Dutch would start with this crazy concept. Yes, that happens a lot. And so one of the premise of Utopia was we're going to take a plot of land and we're going to put people there and we're going to give them basically like none of the major things that they have that come from the public constructs, water, gas, electricity, food, and they're going to have to form their own Utopia society and solve these problems and they can build their own internal government and their own way to make decisions and all this stuff, right? The idea is cool. You see the vision of it. But then this was a Fox product at a time when that sort of that Fox reality programming had to be, it had to be about conflict and sex and drama and all of this stuff. And so number one, they ended up casting people who were diametrically opposed, right? It would be like, we're going to form a Utopia society and here's a conservative preacher and a woman who is a polyamorous stripper and here's a racist guy and here, you know, I mean, but it's like that was 100%. Of course. And so of course the show is just replete with people at each other's throats arguing and no one can really figure things out. But the premise of it is they spent all this money making this space and it was just outside of Los Angeles and they had cameras everywhere. And like Truman show, the idea was that you could log in online, watch Utopia 24 hours a day and sort of see what they're up to. And then twice a week, they do these digest episodes where they told you what, what big things happened. What did they accomplish in Utopia? They find the compelling dramatic strains within all the footage. So right off the bat, people aren't that interested because it just feels like regular sort of reality shot. That's my editorializing of it is that it's just the same people arguing and, you know, not much happening. Yeah, I think it came to me. Yeah, totally. And then there's people that are online watching it 24 hours a day and then there's a lot of people that are just like waiting for the women to like take baths and like watch them naked. It's like that, it's that level of polarization of like, there's the level of interest in this is not I was bath hunter one, two, three on those boards. But that's like, that if you try to, when will they take baths? Here's the thing, David, bath hunter is so funny. It's just like such a hilariously kind of old fashioned, like like fucking horizon in America. So I was like, I like to watch a woman take a bath. It's like Mr. Scan, but it's just about dirty bathwater. It's a fucking tub report. The other day I met someone and I was, I was describing this show to them and I was describing David and like they described blank check to them. Well, yeah. And they, they were piecing it together. I was like, David Sims at Lannondon. They're like, then they're like, oh, bath hunter. And I was like, oh, I didn't, yeah, yeah, you know, best is bath. Right. Right. My earlier internet career picturing. I'm a buff. Hunter. David dressed up like dog, the bounty hunter with a bunch of bath paraphernalia. Fucking with night vision goggles. So anyways, the show, the show is, is not succeeding. Make bath hunters. Yeah. It lasted for like 13 episodes. It lasted for like 13 episodes. What's funny is that if you try to find the episodes online, what comes up is people being like, Hey, does anyone have the footage of them taking baths? And it's like David replying being like, yeah, mate, I got you. Like I have a drop box. Really fast. Like even if it's not in like a designated place. You want to see the racist guy? Like a lot of him, he was really taking a lot of baths. It's a lot of David dropping the address to the Blank Check Studio being like, meet me here, bring a hard drive. Bring bath. Yeah. Bring bath, bring hard, bring water, bring soap, bring hard drive. It's like many terabytes. You can't upload it. It has to be transferred. No, exactly. And it's right now in the studio, it's hot because these are on 24 hours a day. We got cops running. It's like an AI processing farm. I'm going to have to ask you to finish this tangent. Just so we can discuss other things in the Truman Show. So Utopia ends up starting to fall apart. One of the, one of the things that I think is fascinating about Utopia is that the people on the show were told this is going to be a Truman Show-esque thing that's going to sweep the nation. Yeah, right. So throughout the show, they keep going, guys, the world is watching us. It's crazy how famous we are right now. Well, they keep going, we have to figure this out. The world is watching. Right. And what they didn't realize that this was- 1.2 in the demo. And so then they start trying to do these weird things to sort of bring up ratings. So they start having these ads that are like very like, is someone going to die? Like one of the last episodes was Halloween themed and the host is dressed like Dracula. And I remember the promo for it was like, will someone die tonight on Utopia? And the answer was like, no, they won't. Of course not. But it was just like the PT Barnum, like, will you see this? And the show ended after like 10 episodes. It was 12 episodes. Yeah. But it's fascinating because to me, it's exactly why the Truman Show couldn't exist in real life. Right. Because number one, no one would have the patience to actually let real life unfold. And two, if they did have the patience to let real life unfold and not put their finger on the scale, I don't know that people would watch it. So I think the Truman Show would succeed. You do. Yes. Because I think the difference obviously he doesn't know. He doesn't know it's a TV show. Yes. I guess that is that is a different. Beyond that, because so when the when this movie came out, everyone was like, well, this would never know and watch it too boring. Right. Everyone would watch it. And I'm like, no, everyone watch it because it would be a window into a life we want. Yeah. Like into a fantasy. Yeah. A lot of YouTube social media stuff. 100. The Truman Show. Fuck it. What's that Japanese show where everyone's nice to each other in a house? Terra's House. Boys and Girls in the City. Yes. Terra's House. Yeah. Terra's House, Colin, Boys and Girls in the City was the first one. Okay, fair enough. Like, you know, but like those shows where people are like, I crave calm. I crave quiet. And like it just feels like all the people watching, right? Like the audiences, there's like the nice old ladies. There's the security guards. It's a little slow TV phenomenon, which is much bigger in other countries than it is here. But then Netflix started licensing it. And it's really fucking big. I just can't get on board with slow programming. Okay. What about... Oh yeah, 12 hour a day, everyone listened. They put out a new episode recently, didn't they? I thought 100 doesn't have to do those 12 hours. Yeah. Also, obviously the holiday season, you want to slow things down in terms of what you listen to. You'd be like, yeah, well, that's a good point. Yeah. You wouldn't you maybe just get home and be like, what's Truman doing? Guess. You know, flick it on. Yes. You, yeah. I listen, I could see you being someone who would be like, oh, the eight year old Truman's doing homework. David? I'm gonna turn that on the background while I make dinner. They would be obsessed with Truman and would be like, you guys need to watch this. She took a bath. Yeah. No, I'm joking. Let's drop that bit. Why are you telling us to drop the bit? Can you drop the bit? No, no. Uh, like... Let's focus on the podcast and maybe spend a little less time on your bathtub whip. Yeah, David, I'm gonna shorten the stuff so you can back to the Truman show. Do you figure that there is, because they say like we've never stopped transmission, right? So do you figure there's like, there's a channel that's just the live show, but then there's maybe another channel that has like flashbacks, old stuff, like, you know, like compilations of what happened today. This is like the Manning cast and like the like actual football game. I imagine it's like a syndication deal where one of the networks is airing the package, the best of their rerun rotations. And then this channel is the raw feed. I also think that they will cut in flashbacks at relevant moments when what he's going through is boring. Yes. I also think when he's sleeping and stuff, they're playing best of and they're playing. Right. Yes. And then behind the scenes interviews like we're seeing him sleep. Yes. And in the movie, we see it's like a picture in picture where they're like, showing in the corner the raw feed of him sleeping while doing the Christoff interview. I was recently, I forgot that I did this, but I was recently, it was brought up that I did a project back in the day where I would broadcast myself sleeping. And the idea is called please influence my dreams where I would sleep. And then there was a system where you could come on and you could, if you would take turns being able to speak through speakers that spoke to me when I slept. And people watched it. I wonder if we asked you to be the guest on this episode. Because this is because because because there's a part of my life that I'm like Christoff's a bad guy as I'm like slowly marching my way towards trying to become Christoff. Christoff and Truman at the same time. Can I can I pull down a pen? I think what's interesting about this movie is there is something. He's on the air on the air unaware. Well, of course, that was very interesting. That's why they put it on the poster and it opened to a robust $35 million for it. I think there's something that feels naive about this movie's understanding of how we'd want to watch other people's lives, which isn't to say that people wouldn't watch. I agree with you. But the way the television industry has curdled and adjusted to what people are telling them they want and vice versa has led things into like an insane direction. And I think there is this turning point of survivors 2000. And I think the first American big brother season is 2001. Something like that. First UK big brother was I was like 13 or 14. And that concept felt insane of like we're putting people on an island. There is like not a fake reality, but there's a forced reality on them. We're taking people out of their element and you're going to watch human behavior and how they survive. And Richard Hatch, who ends up winning that first survivor comes in and is like, this is a game. Yeah, that's a win a million dollars. Right. But you watch that first season and most of the people are just like, this is interesting. I hang out on an island and I guess at the end of every week, there's a popularity contest and someone gets a million dollars at the end. That's the bait to get someone to sign up for this. Why else would you do it? And he immediately is like, this is a game. You play it. People were aghast that Richard was lying. Right. And I know it was in Britain, British big brother was nasty. Nick was the thing. And then big brother has to do the same and people become like I don't think they have to do the same. People just play it like a game because it is a game because there's a prize. But that's why I brought up utopias because I generally think if they had just not cast for conflict and they put together a group of people to try to actually do this, I think it might have actually been engaging television. Possibly. But in a television context where they were like, no, no, no, we need conflict drama. We need ratings. The juice of survivor and big brother and the copycat shows ultimately becomes the contestants inside of it manipulating reality. The audience seeing the way that they are working things to their own advantage. Right. And then that, in my opinion, morphs into like the modern era of like the Bravo reality show and the similar shows to that, which are presenting to you something almost as if it is the Truman show where these people are acting like they are not constantly being followed by cameras. Other than when they're doing the direct address moments, they're acting oblivious to it. They're letting people into their homes. Their homes are outfitted with cameras that like both hidden and like right around them. And there are like manipulated plot lines. You have producers going scripted, right? Right. 100%. And it's the fascinating inverse of this where we now have these shows where like, you know, they go, they walk among us. It happens in our reality. It is constructed in every step of the way and is presented to us as you're just seeing a raw feed of people behaving. But also it has the same kind of weird gamesmanship inside of it without the prizes of I need to pop. If I get a two episode contract on this, this will lead to a spin off. Does that lead to me being able to start my own fucking like lifestyle brand? Right. And I had this moment the other day in the supermarket where I was like buying soda, my beloved like fucking digestive sodas. I'm constantly trying every probiotic soda brand to see if anything fixes my body. And there's like a mother, a father and a young child. And the mother is talking about like, oh, Alipop, I love these sodas, but they're so expensive. We could never buy a six pack here. And then he goes like, well, you don't buy him a target. Yeah, they're much cheaper at and name some website where you can get them sent direct. And then he calls cut and he's like, yeah, I think that's good. And she was like doing a Truman show, Ad-Read in real life. And I'm like, this is some family influencer account in which they're shopping at big box stores and then acting out scripted scenarios of their deciding prices based on who's paying the most to sponsor buying from them instead. And I'm like, we now it's flipped into people are acting fake in our real world broadcasting that stuff back out to us. And we are obsessively watching all of it. Yeah, it's the Truman show without Truman. Yes. It's fascinating to me. I hear you. And what we don't want is the like idyllic, can we just watch a person like grow and learn thing? Yeah. And that's, I think that's what I, why I bring up this, the seven up series is because I think it's so beautiful in that it's the, it is the irregularity of real life, right? And what's so fascinating is when you watch, especially the most recent one, it's, it's really powerful to watch because you realize both how predictable, how unpredictable, how fickle, how solid, all of it together is what life is. And the fact that it goes in these directions that only real life could is what's so fascinating. And the moment you try to control it, it becomes this weird sort of, you know, your, your, it's a reflection of reflection of reflection. Uncanny Valley. Yeah. You're living, it's not even Uncanny Valley. It's just like on the other side of the graph. It's just not real. This also, this movie comes out the same year as 42 up. You know, it's like Andrew Nicholl sells his script. I think the same year that 36 up comes out. 35. Thank you. I'm not good at math, which is basically like the age Kerry is when he's doing this movie. Like the one model of, I'm not saying he was even directly inspired, but the one model of following someone for this long is basically concurrent with the age of this character. Ben, what did you want to say? You put a pen in Scandival. That was all the stuff I wanted to say. That was all the stuff I wanted to say. That pen is gone. That was all I wanted to say. Can we talk about the Truman Show? I know. I think we're clear about the pen. I didn't watch it. So when you say talk about Truman Show, plot stuff? The movie. You want to dive in. Because we're out about two hour order. Yes. Can I talk about the trailers I saw before? No, you cannot. Silence. I think there was a Rugrats movie teaser. Be quiet. That was Paramount's big holiday release. I did not think this would be a long episode for the record. So I think we kind of touched on it. Just because I think it's an incredible film. Yeah, we're going to be done in like two minutes. We're so close to ending the clip. We've literally got to the light fell. So let's pick up there. That's exactly what I'm saying. As much as yes, it can be interesting to talk about reality in life and all this stuff. Like we should talk more about the movie, which is Clockwork Construction, as JD pointed out, and just has like a million bits that we should consider. So he drives to work. We see, we get a taste of what his life is like. Ben angrily going through the plot points of the true. May I run through some time code things as a way of getting us from plot points? Because it's also just fascinating at what moments the movie reveals certain things. Okay. Sure. You open with the opening credit interview stuff, right? Yes. Light falls at. Score is amazing, by the way. Yes. The score is weird. Because it's largely other music. It's largely Philip Glass music from other, from Mishima and from Pawakatsi. But then also some original Philip Glass tracks. No. Original Burkhard Dalwitz is the guy who's doing the... Truman Sleeps? That stuff is not, I think. Well, now I want to look it up. Because I met this girl online who told me that she wrote Truman Sleeps. Yeah. And I've... I've... Did you get that? I didn't. I, you have to explain it to me. That's the exciting incident in the past. Yes, I think Glass did a couple of things. The movie. I have not seen that. Okay, so Griff has now checked the bingo card of the two things he texted me. Correct. That he wanted to talk about today. Okay. He's like texting with this woman and he's like, she's a musician. Listen to this thing she wrote and it's fucking Truman Sleeps. Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So after, after he goes to work, I swear to God. That was written by Philip Glass, correct? Truman Sleeps is written, but so yes, Mishima's done some new stuff. David, what if I got you a Crossing Guard stop sign? With that, that would rock. That would fucking rock. Truman Sleeps written by Philip Glass and that girl from Facebook. The light falls out at three minutes, right? Under 10 minutes, he can't get on the boat. Like you're introducing that. Correct. So early. So he goes to work, he's doing the, you know, making, tearing out the pages of the, Oh yes. Magazine, which you're kind of like. I thought you're doing a lawnmower motion there. But all of Peter Krause, it comes over the great Peter Krause. His catchphrase routines of the banter with the magazine guy about for the wife and the greeting to the neighbors. But yes, the, you know, Krause that comes out to give him the challenge. Clearly, it's basically like, here's today's drum. He's going to have to go to the island, you know, to do a sales pitch or whatever, and he can't do it. It is fascinating to consider. It's beautifully played by Kerry, the way he like, holds onto the little, you know, post on the dock. But also, fascinating to consider that like the way they enforce his fears is to constantly test them rather than test them away. But I also think it's that they need something interesting to happen today. Like he can't just go to work every day. The thing I like the most in that scene is, is that the guys on the boat are like, Hey, do you need help? Which is like a normal thing to do. And you're like, they're actors and they're, they're like, what are they thinking about? Am I wrong though, that also before this Truman's start talking about how he wants to see the world? And so a part of me. It happens right after. It's after. It's basically nothing has happened. After that. Because I felt like he made some reference to it. And that's why they're sort of inserting like, remind him that he hates traveling. After that, he has, it just feels like, right, this is the thing they do on some schedule every four months or whatever to like reestablish it, whether for the audience or for him. Because after that is Laura Linney arrives with the Dicer Slicer, you know, and then it's him and Noah Emmerich. What is his character name? Where was he? Lewis. But that's when he's like the golf ball talking about wanting to travel. That's when he does the Fiji, does the around the golf. And then the movie gives you the first flashback of his dad drowning. Right. Which at that point in the movie, you maybe think that's just movie language rather than understanding that would be part of the broadcast. But then as you said, like the security guards are the first audience members you see at like 15 minutes in. They then basically immediately go into, well, he sees his dad. The next thing is he sees his dad. What do you want to say, JD? I also think and sees his dad and then talks to his mom right after that. No, no, no, but the, no, the Sees his dad sequence is so awesome because it's like you watch reality work. Yes. The thing that I want to talk about briefly though is that in the flashback of the dad, the thing that is set up that is like so horrific is it's not just that his dad died. He begged his dad to take him out and they set it up so that it's Truman's fault. It's like so horrifying. It really upset me watching it this time. But it's also like in a new like freaky way. It is fascinating character motivation ship where they're like, well, you sit down, you write a screenplay. There's nothing immoral about it because you're not fucking dealing with a real life. But at a certain point they understand this falls apart if he ever has the desire to reach further beyond the reality we can construct. So we have to narrativize what are the like incidents of motivation that would cripple him this thoroughly. Which I think is such it's such a crazy ethical thing to put on screen is because to the actors and that they're like, well, this isn't real. I'm performing a role. But to this kid, it is real. He watched his dad die. But this is like, yes. You know what I mean? Like to Truman, this is all real, which is what's so fascinating because I think that's also a thing that TV uses a lot where it's like, this is a prank thing where it's like, it's a prank. It's a prank. It's like, well, no, you actually did that shitty thing to that person. But also this is how we talk about like movies every fucking several times a week in this room where you're like, do you buy that he's like too scared to travel? And you go like, yeah, because, you know, if it was just that his dad drowned, that'd be one thing. But the fact that he wanted the dad to take him on the trip, that makes it personal. And you're like, right, that's a good rating. Is Holland Taylor's character kind of the most horrifying to consider? I think so. That's the mom. The mom. The mom, sorry. Like because she's essentially raised this child since birth, but she's not his mom. And she seems to have no lingering guilt about it. No. And she like, she plays all the lies very well. Well, and she seems very proud of the fact that she's Truman Burbank's mom. Yeah. Like, like that, that's her role. Like when he's missing, she has that line where she's like, she's like, let me say his name. He'll like, it's a way that's like, like, you know, chilling. But it also feels like you don't want to see her do talking head interviews because that becomes too depressing. Like it's kind of a good judgment on weird. The other thing I think about of like, how often does he see his mom? Let's say once a week, couple of times a week, right? So what does she do otherwise? Yeah. Does she leave? And that's the question for all of this is like, what is the, what is the schedule of their lives? Right. That's why it's like fascinating when that elevator door opens and you see people in like this little mini green room. Well, that I love, but I love the bus driver. Yeah. Where I'm like, so do they just sit there all the time in case Truman wants to take a bus or did they get kind of assembled there? Or does he drive the bus? My breathing. Does he kind of just drive it off and drive it back? Well, there's the part where he is starting to realize. And he says, I'm the bus driver because I love that part. Well, no, I was though more referencing the part where Kerry starts to realize that people are just on a loop. Yeah. People are on loops and they do their loops. So the bus driver might have his route and they just does it every day. They have their first position, which clearly is like, oh, this is where we start our day. Start 6am, right. And you probably have an eight hour shift where you do X, Y and Z. Wait. And if you think about it, our lives, it's almost kind of like we're showing up to first position. Ben, Mark. So like, especially when you run a podcast. Sure. Very true. Flaves to the wage. When I walked in late, you guys were all frozen in place. And then when I opened the door, you're able to start moving. 15 minutes in is the mom, right? Then Lorelyn comes down with a slice and dicer. Yeah. Takes out the cardigan. And that's when we cut to the bar for the first time. And you do the big flashback, like long flashback. We also went over, I know David wanted to talk about seeing the dad for the first time because that is... Oh, I just love the way that like, without us listening to Christoph and watching him direct traffic, we're watching traffic get directed against him. Yes, it's brilliant. The runners coming out and blocking him, like the way people just suck him into a bus, just like, just paranoia, baby. Well, you're experiencing the world from Truman's point of view because if you kept cutting to Christoph and him going, send out the runner, send out the this, you wouldn't be experiencing it. You wouldn't be having the same journey Truman's having, which is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is starting to fall apart. Also, what I love about the dad is he's kind of just like standing there in a very strange way, dressed in very... Well, because I think he got in pretending to be like a hobo or something. Right. But he's just standing there. And his plan is seemingly not interact with him or he's gauging whether or not it's the right move. Right. Right. And then when Truman looks at him, he's like, this is my shot. Right. Because he knows if he just ran up to him, then obviously, you know, he'll get taken out. That's part of what's... I think the movie very wisely understands almost 20 minutes in, if we start thinking about the immorality of what's happening here, it could get too depressing. And so you need an interception from the outside world to be like, there are people who are morally conflicted about what's going on here. And so the idea that this moment with the dad, you're like, has he been in the system for months or years just observing him from a distance? And this is the first time he's actually gotten close enough to him. I don't think so. I think it's pretty recent. It's day five and he... To me, it seems like... This has been his plan the whole time. The town is small. He's not getting that day, yeah. Yeah. Like, it's not that big. And we'll get to it. But one of my favorite details of it that I think answers a lot of those questions in the simplest way possible is they show the two clips of the person parachuting in and the person jumping out of the Christmas present. And those are two things that like the inclusion of those two things implies a whole universe that's happening in the real world of people who are like, this is horrific that you're doing this and you have to stop it. Well, the person who parachutes seems to want to save him a little bit more because the person who pops out of the present says, I'm on TV. I did it. I did it. I made it. I'm on the Truman Show. It's the baseball streaker. Exactly. Like the guy who's like, I can't believe it. But even Natasha Mechelhone. Mechelhone. The pin feels like it's part of a movement that isn't looking to completely destroy the show, but is sort of like is obsessed. How is it going to end? The ethics of it. Right. And that she she's not waiting for him to interact with her. And in fact, she's sort of freaked out by like, I've clearly wanted this, but I wasn't planning to like breach the seal here. The question of how's it going to end? The implication to me could mean like they're not, you know, they're obsessed with the show. It could also mean that the big question of the Truman Show, which is like, are we going to watch him die one day? And how? Is that the end of the show? What is it? You know, now we're not asking the biggest question. Poop. Sorry to, no, that one doesn't bother me. What do you mean? Oh, sure. Jacking it. How much is he jacking it? Well, the wind blows the curtain. And what do they do? Right. You buy women's magazines and he makes collage art and he never touches his privates. He might not. I mean, he's a pretty, pretty uptight guy. I don't know. He has rote sex with Laura Lenny. He's crossing both all fingers on all hands, crossing her toes. Yeah, it's rough out there. A funny detail. Just like the idea where like, oh, we made a show about a guy. Like, oh yeah, what's the like? He jerks off a lot. Like, especially what was like 13 to 19 like? He jerks off a lot. 13 to 19. Wait, that must have really cut to a lot of flashbacks. Yeah, 13 to 19. We had to hire extra editors. This is what I'm saying. Some packages of baseball games and stuff. Yeah, right. But there's also the Truman. Truman's remembering his third birthday party again. Interesting. You can ask like dog tooth style questions about the world where you're like, right, rain can't exist in a narrow silo because that disconnects us from our reality. But if these are the things you don't want to show on television, then maybe in sex ed class, they're like, and of course, sexual intercourse is when you touch someone else's hand and then every night he and Laura Linney just like shake hands and he never considers his penises for anything other than pink. I think these are the big questions this movie asks. I'm sure there's like fan fiction about it, but it would be interesting like to see the movie from the perspective of like a hired actor who's just like a kid in his class. He's fascinating to consider all that shit. Exactly. Like what was his classroom like? How did those kids not talk to him? Seems insane. And those kids just had to like show up and live that life in the same way that like, you know, when you look at child actors, they're like, well, my whole life was on set. I didn't get to have a child. I don't know. And all these kids not only didn't get to have a childhood, they had to have Truman Burbank's childhood. Well, and even the No Amrit character, it's like like Topanga on Boy Meets World was like a one episode character named Weird Girl. And then they were like, Weird Girl is good. And then they like bring her back for more and then it develops into a romance and the entire show is about them as a couple. And she spent eight years growing up on like American screens. They deleted the scene, but there's a scene from the Truman show where he, one of his neighbors comes over and like knocks over a bunch of stuff and is like, did I do that? And then like everyone went nuts and like people were like, I spent them off. People were trying to tear down the dome if they wanted more of him. He like goes inside and then you hear like a lot of machines whirring and then a similar looking guy comes up and he's really cool. Yeah. So after this sort of first half hour, which is like Truman, Truman, Truman. Like the, the scenes of it. It's a great bit. It's a great bit. I just support the bit. Thank you. But it's funny. I mean, what those guys did on Family Matters. That was so great. The greatest bit of writing. But it's that kind of thing where you must be like, was Noah Emmerich hired to be his best friend? No, I think Noah Emmerich popped. Exactly. Like that's what it is. He had chemistry with them and they were like, great, okay, you'll be the friend. Yeah. So after that first half hour is when Truman, so we were just like, we're in which we vaguely feel narrative. You know, that's right. The scenes of reality. 30 minutes is the moment where he starts pushing against it, where he's stopping the traffic. He goes through the revolving door, comes out the other side, Philip Glass's anthem starts playing the dun, dun, dun, dun. And he stops the buses and all that. And we introduced the bar on either side of the sort of flashback thing of them being like, oh, there's a new hire who doesn't, isn't up with the Truman lore. And all the other staff members at the Truman bar are like, this is the fuck. Yeah. I can't believe you don't know the plotline about the woman. Oh, and the great old one. But there's a great. He starts having that realization because the system starts breaking. The light falls, the radio tuner changes. That happens later, the radio thing, but yes, yeah, absolutely. There's one or two other things that happened that are. Dad is two and radio tuner is three. Dad is two. It's what I love. I think this movie is perfectly dialed in on our, I hate movies in which people figure things out too quickly, but I hate even more movies in which people continue to not get smart about the reality about them. And I think like a lot of modern horror, elevated horror in particular has this problem where characters just keep going like, that was weird. And then go back to reality. And this is a movie where it's like, if the light flies out of the sky, he doesn't immediately go, oh my God, my life's been a TV show. But when three things happen within two days, it's just enough to start him testing, like what are the limits of this? But what I also think is fascinating about this and why I think it resonates so much, right, is that how many systems this is related to, right, where people try to create a sense of control to create some sort of thing that is this is the way the world works. And then people's journey is that they start to see the cracks of that. And it's that system, it's impossible to create a system that permanently imbubbles someone, whether it's religion or society or schooling or family. It's like, that's such a universal feeling that you start seeing the cracks and the seams. The more you can close, the more people will push back. What do you make of, I love the photo album scene obviously, because the fake Mount Rushmore is so funny. But then just the whole car ride. It also presupposes that they're sort of like, oh shoot, we need some of this stuff. And like, we don't really have the budget to really go for this. So like, we can probably just get this out of the way now, right? It's earlier days of the show and also, can the family go on this many trips so he doesn't grow up and go like, you know, I've never actually been, they can just kind of rely on his childhood memories. Where I start, I'm like, but how would he know that families go on trips? But again, I feel like they're just like, everyone should talk to him like he's normal. Laura Linney, they look at the wedding photos and Laura Linney points to these three girls and she goes like, Judy, Jody, Joanne. It's a weird gag because it's never like, but are those like runner up Laura Linney types? Like, who are they? Or they're just like the lame supporting cast she used to have or maybe not use much anymore. But when you get to the flashback and Linney is like faking the injury to fall into his arms, you go like, is this an actress who's really enterprising? Or did she go through all the levels of casting and Kristoff is like, perfect, you're the one. And now you have to win over. And they're faking in real time that he's naturally looking somewhere. Because like when Laura has left him, and they introduced the new love interest, clearly like she's been preselected because you have to pick someone who will play the game. Yes. Like you can't just say, you know what? He has chemistry with Natasha McElhoun. Now we'll figure it out. So he keeps pressing yes, reality. He goes to the hospital to look at the operation, which is so funny. The guy being like, I'll just. It kind of reminds me. Incision here now. And he does. He does something. He does something. She freaks out. And they put the gas mask on her and he goes, we'll have someone else clean this up. Someone else will clean this up. And Laura Linney is like, this is really good. You've handled that really well. Where it's just like, yeah, an actor has to stay in the reality. If pushed to the limits, you have to make an incision on this one. The travel agency where every poster is like, you could die. It's like, you know, lightning striking a plane. Yes. What I also think is fascinating is that. Fiji's booked out for a month. It's the busy season. I actually sympathize with the fake travel agency where she's like, we live in some time. You want to go to f**king Fiji? How many flights to Fiji are there? Well, that's the thing is I'm also like, I'm like, we live in New York City. And it's like to get to Fiji would be like three planes. Come on, come on. Oh yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. Let's see. But I think something that resonates to me about Truman's experience and being slightly tangential to the immersive theater world in New York and things like that. Right. Like everybody's first instinct when they when they realize there's a system or something to explore is you you start trying to find the places where you it could break to see where where it could go. Right. Like when you go to sleep no more, it's like, yeah, there's the instinct where you want to follow the main characters with the Boston Instinct. We are like, I want to go find the room that no one else is in. I want to see where the where the boundaries of this thing are. And so I love the fact that when he starts realizing what's going on, his instinct is like, let me sprint towards the things that I've never seen or let me see where the boundaries of this are. I think it's such a good detail that he's like, I'm running into the office building. That's not the one I work at the place I never have a reason to go into. He pushes the limits. He sees the elevator. People get in the doors close like they were prepared enough for that. What they weren't prepared enough for was the feeling that that wasn't enough because everyone loosens up after that moment when the security guards are getting through. To be like, well, we don't have to fake it again. Yes. And I also love the idea that it sort of begs the question. And again, this is all subtext, which is so fun about it, is that he goes to the hospital and you can kind of tell everyone's like, oh, normally we just like kind of hang out here and wait until it's time for us to interact with Truman again. I think that's what they do, right? That's back to the Holland Taylor question. It's like, okay. What does she do? Does she only like, But she's a higher level. Yeah. But I'm feeling. Truman could have to call his mom at any point. Totally. If you work at the hospital, I feel like the hospital might be empty unless he starts going near it. And then they're like, Which it seems is the energy at the hospital. So everyone's like, what's going on here? I love to think about. I think it's more like the people at the hospital are like Broadway standbys. And they're like prepped for this day, but it's rarely tested. Yes. Because it's like, they're ready enough to have someone on an operating table, all the equipment, the set going that deep, like all of that. The thing is that it's just like, they're kind of out of practice. And he usually settles for seeing far less. What one of my core childhood memories is a, there's a period of time where I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and a lot of sleep issue stuff. And I worked with the therapist who like tried to like get me into like lucid dreaming stuff. And whether I was actually lucid dreaming or if I was like dreaming that I was lucid dreaming, who knows what the difference is. And later you let people influence your dream. Yes, exactly. But one of the things that I remember it's a dream that like stays with me and might have brought this up people have like, oh, I have had a similar dream where it's like, I was in a dream. And then I was like, I want to go explore the city. And then like my dream was like, no, no, no, you're supposed to be in this storyline. But I was like, no, I want to go like climb a building and jump off of it and see if I can fly. And like the dream kind of being like, oh, you're not supposed to. And so I feel like that Truman experience is this like relatable feeling that's so core of like, all right, there's this path you're supposed to go on and what happens if you just run in a different direction. I looked it up. All right, the flight's in an hour. So I don't think I could make it. But I could go to Fiji. When would you get there? So I would leave now 430pm from John F. Kennedy International Airport. 330pm. You're forgetting daylight savings time. No, what? What do you mean I'm forgetting that? It's already happened. I'm saying it is 330pm. Oh, you're saying the flight's at 430. I'm so sorry. It would get me there 545am two days later. There's one stop, just one stop at Dallas Fort Worth. Is it at Sea Haven? It's at Sea Haven. American Airlines and then I switched to Fiji Airways. And how long is the second leg? It says the entire thing would take me 21 hours and 15 minutes, which is not short. It's not short. And then the way back also just one stop, but that one seems to have a longer stop over. So it's a 30 hour. Sorry, I just have to correct you, David. Way back is Peter Weir's final film. And we will discuss later. And we will discuss later in just one, two weeks. And you know who takes that trip all the time? Jeff Probst. Probably, right? Because he has to go to Fiji all the time. And it's $1,100, which is not that much money considering you're going to fucking Fiji. Okay, I'm just going to say it right now. It's economy. Should we all Truman show ourselves? Should we just get up and go to Fiji right now? Oh, so to you Truman show yourself is not like be the star of a show. I love the Truman show. It's try desperately at all costs to go to Fiji. It's now like a medical term for like a psychological condition. And we're going to take it back and being like, I'm going to do a Truman show, just get on a flight to Fiji. If I'm a travel agent and a guy walks in in shorts with one small suitcase and is like, Fiji today, please. I might be like, are you okay? No, that's all. Okay, let's Truman in pretty hard. Let's do a Truman show day where we bum rush a surgery. Yeah. And then try to go to Fiji as fast as possible. No, try to go to Fiji challenge. Pivot to Chicago. And then pivot to, I feel like you just kind of pivots to like New Orleans, right? That's his next. I also, I love that Fiji is like a panic. It lay in the city then. From the dad, right? The Truman show challenge is you have to bum rush a surgery and then get away from a landmass. Playing boat car. It's like you try playing, then try bus, then try car. Press elevator buttons and a bunch of random office building lobbies. Yes. Make sure no one's drinking coffee. You have to go, you have to go past security guards in office building, bum rush a surgery. One magazine. Right. So after the bus. I just want to see the Fiji thing. Oh, sure. I think that moment is so effective where like Natasha Mechelhorn is like in true conspiracy thriller. This is about to end any moment kind of panic that he's oblivious to. The dad comes is playing it really well. Yeah. He's like, sorry mentally ill. Like, you know, this thing happened. You're not the first guy she's taken to the beach. And the dad does not feel like an actor. The dad feels like he's someone who's part of like the security detail of the show. He's good. He wanted actually, he wanted to have me back here. Right. I'm seeing here. And he's like prepped with the things to say. And then Truman goes like, well, like can I call tomorrow to see how she's doing? And he goes like, no, we can't. We're moving to Fiji tomorrow. Like the Fiji is such a panic. It's why he calls Fiji like director. But that's why I think it's a bad lie that now has he's hyper fixated on for 20 years. Which I love because yeah, again, I think it's not 20. Truman's not that old. No, no, like 10. Like Truman's maybe 29 or 30. Like he's pretty young. I think no, they keep saying 30. That's the 30th year. Okay. He's here. Yeah. But what I love is that you get the sense that this guy is not an actor. He's not. He's someone who is probably part of the security team or something. And so the fact that in that moment, he's like, she's like, find me. And he's like, trying to figure out how to solve this, but he's not a creative guy. He's like, he's like, we're just going to Fiji. The fact that that becomes now imprinted lore in the history of the show is so amazing. But it's like fucking like kryptonite being invented because the guy doing the Superman radio show need an excuse to take vacations. And they were like, sometimes Superman gets really tired for two weeks. It's day 10,909. Yes. And that's 29 years and eight-ish months. Because they keep talking in the interviews about our 30th year of doing this show. I guess he's mid-30s when they film it. Me, because like the show started. She's like, we're going to have a baby soon. Like 30 is kind of. Show start before he was born. Yeah. Yeah. The first start with one camera. That's true. And this movie was filmed before our current Jim Carrey was born. Right. Jim Carrey five. Oh, got it. Yes. Right. Carrey 5.0. So wait. Okay. Got it. Weapon B. Can I say, I just don't understand why that is breaking people's brains, where I'm like every famous person looks weird now. Every famous. Well, no, it's not just that. Remember when Tom Cruise looked kind of weird? Yeah. Have you seen pictures of him recently? He looks better. Right. He was at the hockey game and it was like the work hasn't settled yet. They get Botox or they get an old, you know, something and like it looks weird for a bit. He didn't even seem like himself though. It's a different guy. And I'm like, he's carried the weirdest person in the world. To give a speech in French, not his native language. He is the weirdest, most inconsistent man in the world who's been very open with his like mental health struggles. Like the idea that people are like, there is no other explanation. Well, it's also, I don't think it's any of our business, how people choose to look. I don't either. Any, any of the reason, any, any people feel like they need to change their look is because of people commenting and talking about it constantly over and over again, where I'm like, I'm like, it's that self-fulfilling thing where you're like, yeah. 100%. That's the hell. You're curious why celebrities are changing how they look because of this conversation. Okay. Jim Carrey, I'm sorry, Truman takes, after all this, takes Laura Linney in the car to show her the the loops, like the cars coming out and the disappearing. He's gone from like hospital. Her name is Meryl. Yeah. Should the actresses, Hannah, the characters, Meryl. He's gone from hospital to the bus. Like he's tried to escape immediately and then he's right. And then they drive over the bridge. He still thinks he can maybe trust her. They drive over the bridge together. They're kind of in it together, which I do like. And she has a moment where she's like, oh, Truman. There's that part when they hit the bridge where she's like, yeah, you could never do this. And it's like, and he's like, oh, sweetheart. Right. You can't get out. Where she is a good actor, where she knows what to say to psychologically manipulate him in behavior, not in like telling him what to do. But she kind of likes that they make it over together. Like he's like, we did it. Yeah. And then there's the fire. You know, they have to like drive through the fire. Right. And I love that he keeps pointing out like, look at that timing. It's so perfect. You know, the traffic jam. And then, and no, no, no, that's not the cop. No, the traffic jam already happened. Right. The fire. And then the cop who's like, hilarious, been evacuated, chemical spill. He's like, all right. The guy's like, no problem, Truman, which I just love that you're like, it would happen. It would happen because also these guys are not called upon. The last line of difference. These guys who are their job is to show up and eat donuts all day. And they're like, oh no, we have to do the thing today. And so then the guy is in the has met suit. Like he's never been this. He's never been this. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Paranoid. And then we have the moment Ben called out where he fully blips out, grabs her. And it's a terrifying moment. You're it's it's it's the moment in which you're like, this is a not well person who's been broken by all of this. I guess maybe I just wanted them to cut to the viewers at home. Witnessing that there's just something about he doesn't mean that it doesn't feel like it's passing us enough judgment on that. Hold Ben. I want to say he does not hold the thing to her. He grabs. She's pointing it at him and he grabs her by the arm, you know, and pulls her up to him. But there's the point where and then disarms her where he takes it out. Yeah. He's not threatening her with the blade. She's coming at him. He's grabbing because she's threatening him. Because I remember when his friend comes in, he has it pointed at her. Yes. No, she she points it at him. Right. Wait, wait. This has later. He has his arm around her. She says do something. Right here. Right. Well, no, he's again, he's no, he's not pointing it at her. I know, but he's holding her. Yes. I know. I mean, we're arguing Samantha. Ben, I'm sorry. He's holding her. She says do something when she says that he lets go and he's like, what the fuck is going on? And then she's like, I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything like, you know, and like is trying to go back to normal mode. And then what I love is how can they expect me to carry on into these conditions? The most like actorly way to put like, I can't do my job anymore. Right. It's unprofessional. It's unprofessional. When Noah Emmer comes in, Ben, she's like trying to leave. He's holding her against the wall and he's got the dicer in his hand. So it's kind of in the touchy area of like, he's holding the weapon because he'd had to take it away from her and he's physically losing it. And she feels threatened by the fact that there's a sharp thing near her. He also, he knows that like she's, like he's lost his trust in her. Right. He's never like going crazy. It's important that we're pointing it out. Yeah. Still, you know, upsetting. Yes. It's upset. I think supposed to resonate of domestic violence and you know what I mean? It's like, it's. We go right to another upsetting thing, which is Noah Emmerich's like, let's go have a beer. Well, and I also just want to say that like when Noah Emmerich comes in, when he hears the knock at the door and he's like, it's going to be more men in suits or whatever, that's the one time he sticks the dicer out. He does. Yeah. Not at her at the door, but he's like someone worse is about to come in. But then it's so depressing that it's like they go sit, they have the beers, and Noah Emmerich's doing the usual like, you know, we all feel this way. And we, you know, like, and but you're cutting now. Chris Christoff and Rodney and Christoff beating him the wines and you're just like, right. And what he's saying is. There's no sincerity to it. Is if everyone's in on a Truman, I would have to be in. And then of course they're like, and now here's your debt. Like, and that's how that this is where we're going to cut. This is one hour into the movie. It's also like a Mulholland drive moment where Christoff's giving him this like somewhat boilerplate dialogue. And he's. He's drinking a little bit. And Emmerich's also like grounding it in something. And he changes words and stuff. Like, and it's like clearly he has the latitude to do that. And when you hear him say, if everyone's in on it, that would mean I'm in on Truman. It's heartbreaking because he's found a way to make that line feel honest. But it also probably is reflective of the fact that this guy feels so fucking guilty that he's having to say this to this guy and he is on. They have the reunion with the dead. And it's like you're playing the evil, like the number one card. Your father, you who died is alive. Also must be feeling shame because everyone's watching him at home. Yes. Do this. Yes. And this is where where you like the reality breaks for you. Like Congress, I know Congress isn't always number one. But we're coming. But like, wouldn't someone have objected to this like sick freak? Very close. Like at some point shortly. So when Andrew Nicoll pitched this film, it was pitched as in the near future. Yeah. A man lives unwillingly, unknowingly in a 24 hour soap opera. This movie doesn't really make it clear what year it is. No, it doesn't. I'm not saying it's secretly 30, 57. No, because like everyone seems pretty modern, like regular contemporary. But it's another line of dialogue that we're almost at that I think about so much where Harry Shearer is doing this kind of victory lap interview with Kristoff to like address how close the show came to going off the rails and how they like snatched it from the jaws of defeat. And he goes Truman was the first child legally adopted by a corporation. Isn't that true? And he goes, that's right. And they don't tell you that it's happened many other times since then. But it's presented as like, and people might not remember that was the first time that ever happened. You're right that you could take it that way. Right. It's sort of like was this the beginning of the ripple effects of it? Yeah, maybe. Especially not seeing broadly the outside world. I'm not like this is happening 80,000 cases all over the place. But when you're like, why is Congress intervening or not? You're like to some degree, he's crossed all those barriers and continued to get approval, collusion, you know? I also think with the reunion of the dad and all that stuff, I think part of the point of the violence seen between him and the wife where it's like it is violent and scary is that there's no, you can't go back from that. You can't go. She's gone. You can't go back into normalcy. Even the relationship. The relationship will never be the same if you've had that interaction. And so it's like. Also, if you basically accuse your wife of being a pod person. Well, that's what I'm saying. Whatever. Like an actor. All of this stuff has, they have now crossed the line where there's no world in which they can go back to happy 50s universe unless they make quote unquote major rewrites. Which is true. So, the knowledge is where like Harry Shearer is like a master stroke. How did you come up with that to bring the dad back? And he's like, look, everything started going kind of sideways because of the dad. So the only way to resolve this was to like bring it full circle. The best line in the movie though is when it's like, and how are you going to explain? It's like amnesia and they're like, brilliant. And so the dad wanted to get back on the show. He was doing that independently and obviously Kristoff is like, all right. It's like Kristoff would have said a week ago that would destroy reality under no circumstances. And now he's pushed into a situation where he's like, we have to bring the dad in. So at this point, there's 30 minutes left in the movie. Yeah. Right. And like, you know, you have the whole, the whole Kristoff sequence is about 10 minutes, the sort of Harry Shearer interview stuff. And you have just a few minutes of like, okay, he's sleeping. Things are back to normal. He does the, you know, the soap in the mirror, right? Like, you know, like, oh, it's like Truman's back. Strokes his big face on that thing. That's after the Harry Shearer interview. That's after that. That's basically when it's like Truman has woken up. Then we get the impression that maybe a little bit of time has passed because like Laura Linney moves out. Right. So like maybe weeks have passed and he's being normal. I think we are set. The movie is supposed to depict the last week of broadcasting on this show. But like he digs a ton, you know, like, you know, she moves out, whatever, you know, something's going. You know, The Harry Shearer interview serves to give us our first sort of temporal time. Right. We can kind of like take a bit of a break. It answers a handful of the questions that that's what that's how does this work. The Christmas present guy and all that stuff. Also a great side point of thing that when I was looking up actors last night, they, uh, with, I hope you say what I want to say. I think it is with the Matt Gatz gates of it all. The guy who paraglides into the, uh, No. Into the home is named. The actor's name is Marco Rubio. Are you serious? Yeah. But with an E. So Rubio or whatever you. Wow. Fuck. But it was just funny. I was like, I was like, what if it was actually anyways? It should be Marco Rubio. But I think it's, I think that's brilliant because also at that point, you go from this character having this extremely low, low, this moment where this whole thing is falling apart. And then instead of feeling the panic and stress and the moral and ethical quandaries that this all, it's, it's blowing up. Instead, it is a victory lap. It is a, wow, Christophe, you are a huge. You did a great job. You've solved your problem. But then the next thing is Truman escaping and just being gone. The one thing I wanted to call it quickly. Sorry. Is there an actress named Una Damon who is, um, like the woman in the main console board with Christophe and Giamatti. And I was like, why does this woman look so familiar? And she basically has a career in the nineties and early 2000s of constantly being the woman who stares at a screen and explains to the audience what's going on in like Gattica and Deep Rising and Deep Impact. But the big thing, why she's stuck in my brain is she is the person who explains the spider and Spider-Man. And that is the tour guide who goes like, uh, 27 radioactive spiders. That's funny. Well, the reason I was on an IMDb is because they have the call-in section there. And one of the callers is like, I forget the question, but it's like, Hey, uh, how do you do with dada? And it's like the voice is so unactually. And I was like, that's someone. And then I looked it up and he's the editor on the movie. So clearly it was a scratch track that they're like, well, just keep that in. Yeah. Yeah. But yes, basically from the moment Christophe has taken his victory lap, Truman unbeknownst to them has perfectly planned his escape. He knows. They think that they not believing the, the dad thing. They think they've reset the board. I love the moment with Giamatti and the other guy where they're watching him talk to the mirror and they're like, Oh, fuck, he knows the cameras here. No, he's back to normal. He's playing the role. He's doing a bit. The thing he says, like he's talking to the neighbors. That one's for after the thing, he goes like that one's for free or whatever. Like it's like he. Yeah. He's, you know, but it's, he's towing the line just enough that they don't need to flag it to crystal. But we, right, but we barely see anything because then it's just, he's sleeping. He's gone. No. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then what I love is the no Truman section, Q the sun, the moon turning into a spotlight that the actor's just patrolling. Like just like the reality of the world completely falling apart. Like arm in arm. All just like marching. Like the twins are like so mean. Yes. Yeah. I love those. Well, because there's also, there's a version of this, right? Where great escape version of it where we see Truman escaping and we see him hatching his plan. We see him pull it off. Totally. And you don't. No. He dug a tunnel. He figured out the tape recorder thing. Like, yeah. Right. And the big narrative shift that's happened is the first hour we were seeing the experience from the POV of Truman. The moment we do the Christoph interview till the end, we are now seeing the experience from Christoph. We're inside the moon looking down at Truman. Yes. And I think it's, I mean, both in terms of how they shot it and how like the, the moon turning into a spotlight, obviously is great. That the moment of turn on the sun is like such a beautiful iconic moment of that. You know, it's just like so, and that, that shot, how they get, you know, like, just like, oh, that's a practical effect. They are, they are moving a light on a crane past it. You know what I mean? It's like, it's so cool to see. Yeah. And the fact that all the actors are arm and arm and it's like, it feels like Disneyland where the ride is shut down. You know what I mean? Earlier in the movie too, they show a model that's so important to give you a sense of the geography. Yes. Because when he then tries to escape, you understand that, right? Like, there's no where to go. There's no where to go. And they say in the Harry Shearer thing that it's the only manmade structure or one of only three manmade structures, but it's, it's the Great Wall of China and the Truman Dome basically are the only two. Yeah. It's fascinating. And then the fact that they're walking around and then that's where you start seeing the mask strap of a lot of these actors. And you start seeing, I love the fact that Emmerich basically, you can tell he's kind of like stage manager that they've sort of entrusted him. I'm sure he gets a producer credit on the show in some way because like they're talking to him as though he is like the problem solver, boots in the ground guy. And then I also love that you get that moment where they're all trying to find Truman and then you have both the mom and dad having this moment. He'll listen to me. Having this moment of vanity where the mom is like, well, surely if I say his name. Griffin mentioned this, I feel like. Yeah. And then I love that the dad chimes in too. And you can, you know, he's newly back in the cast, but now he's so proud of himself. And he's like, Truman boy. And you're like, Oh my God, these people are disgusting. Well, and they try the three things. They look for him, then they find he's on the boat. Okay. They do the weather. They try that to scare him. And the crew though is disgusted. Of course. Christoph is pushing it way too far, but even Gia Mati's character at one point earlier, he's looking at the classified section. He's done with this job. He hates it. It's awful. Because he's like, he's quietly training the guy where he's, when he's sitting into the pizza, he's like, cut to this. And then Christoph shows up and he, Gia Mati has this little bit of lines where he's like, I was just trying to get him ready. And it's clearly like, Oh, he's on the way out. He's sick of this. And Christoph comes in and is like, I want to review the footage for the big insurance conference tomorrow, the camera angles or whatever. And he's like, Oh yeah. Yeah. But then what I also like about that storm section, number one, we are in a world where practical water effects are less and happening less and less. Right. Sure. They shot this in a tank. Like I said, they almost drowned Jim Carrey because they misinterpreted his I'm in distress signal, which was a closed fist. They thought he was just acting. But carry on. Yes. But it's beautiful to see because there is an animal part of our brains that's seeing water like that. Like there's something beautiful and captivating about it and wind and all that stuff together. I just love Christoph's godhood melting away. Like where he's like, Oh, well, I'll scare him with the water like harder, harder. And then he's like, realize is like, Oh, this is now just down to do I kill him or not? Because Truman would rather die. Exactly. They don't know the answer. Right. Yeah. And I love. And then he tries his last thing, which is saying like, what if I just told you that you are safer here? Like, yeah, you have to believe the outside world. I care about you. The also thing that I think is important is that he tells Giamatti to turn it up and Giamatti doesn't do it. Yeah, he doesn't. Christoph doesn't. Yeah. Which is, I think it's a small thing, but I'm like, it's important that Christoph is the one. And it's like everyone else is at this point like, Hey, just. I think Giamatti literally says there's nothing left to do but kill him. Right. Like or something like that. Like if I turn it up anymore. Yeah. And you're right. Perfect image of the sky turning into a painting. Like the edge of the wall where it just looks a little shitty. Well, the end of the ship puncturing through. I just want to say to that end. The ship, the boat. This is a film that I think has like six or seven like iconic images that are just that they're ingrained into film history of just like perfect, beautiful storytelling images. So I made a list of us watching it. It raining just on him is the first one that I think is like. Totally. And then the multiple shots, whether it's them on the pier on the beach with the friend and it's like the beautiful sunsets and they're talking. I think those are so just sort of like connected to this movie. The moment when he stops the traffic is like, you know, that's like an icon doing this with the bus. It's incredible. Christoph watching Truman sleep. I think is such a beautiful when he goes up and he's hands. It's like that it's so of that era that I love it. And then of course this, the storm went to the end of the world. Oh my God. And it was a wall and you walk up the stairs. Yes. And what I love is I think when so much of cinema storytelling, right, is that you're you're trying to create these stories and this context so that you can have an image that in of itself is abstract, but that because you watch this entire movie, it has all of this meaning and that it becomes a haiku that represents that entire story. Just the image of the bow of a ship cracking through the edge of reality. That's the entire story of the Truman show. That one shot tells the entire story of the Truman show. Okay. Now I don't want to cheat. Oh, sorry. No, I just I'm sorry. I need to call out. There's one important iconic image that David would probably add to that list. Terry Camilleri in the bathtub watching the film. Oh, yeah. That's some big bathtub action. That's a good one, sir. Now, I don't want to change the movie. I think it's great, but I do kind of feel like it would have been cool if instead of poking through, he just sailed into whiteness, kind of like Looney Tunes style. Like going on the, you know, the way he got out was that he drew If he painted a tunnel, the tunnel. And the train came through. Yeah. Yeah. Or if the sailboat took off into the air and started flying into the sky and then everyone waves as Truman flies away in the sky boat. Now, what have you sent us, you monster? Okay. So what I sent you is... From the Paramount lot. My parking spot for the past when I was running... Okay. Mr. Parking Spot got his own parking spot. Well, when you're the sure runner of a late night show that only exists for a year and a half. That CBS is eager to get. That, yeah. So my parking spot was in the tank, which is... Now, it's interesting because there's conflicting reports as to whether they shot it in the Paramount tank or the Universal Backlot. All the official reports say it was Paramount, but people claim it was Universal. And then in an interview I was reading with the DP, he referred to the Universal Lot. But Paramount has it on their tour and all the things online, people will correct and say that's Paramount. So I'm going to say that it was Paramount. But so every day I would drive into work and I would park beneath the wall where Truman escaped. And it was... There's my first time working at a lot like this. And it was... One of the fun perks of that job was getting to have that lot experience and feeling like you're in the movie biz, you're in the TV biz. So anyways, those are photos of my parking spot. Yeah, it was so cool. I talked to you on the phone sometimes when you were walking the Paramount lot. And I always thought the Paramount lot's so cool. Like it's like one of the true classic old school movie lots. Yeah. And what's funny is, I think originally they're talking about where they're going to shoot the film and they looked at all the lots of all the different studios to see if we could shoot it in some of those studio lots. And they're originally going to and then they found Seaside or whatever. But yeah, I would... When I was stressed out and wanted to talk to my friends, I think I've talked to all of you. And I know David, I remember walking through the back lot and describing the fake New York City because our offices were right across. I said, I know well because it's been used in so many things. Yeah, it was very surreal. A funny story that I can tell now because I'll never be back there again was that our staff was an amazing staff for people who love to have a good time. And multiple times we had staff members get sent to Paramount jail for... We would all go hang out in the fake New York City and you weren't allowed to do that. And so we had multiple members of our staff that got taken to Paramount jail for various reasons. And we had to go like... Free them. Yeah, you had to be like, no, they're... No, we need them. We had to joust with the... No, they're necessary staff. You can't ban them from Paramount forever. Trying to think of who from Paramount would defend Paramount jail. You know, who's on the mountain Griffin? Who's on the mountain? John Luke, but to Hart... Picard's there. Eric Hartman, SpongeBob. And one of the Transformers. Yeah, yeah. I'd say probably Bumblebee. They had a big Bumblebee there. Someone from Yellowstone. There'd be a Dutton. And then of course, the team man himself. TC. Cruise control. Yeah. Would it be all of his characters together? Would you pick one as a representative? I think it's him as a human man. Yeah. I think that's his actual job. All right. So, yeah, we should... We got a point where Ben is wrapping us up. Ben, why? You know you're an uncharted territory when Ben is wrapping things up. Just saying that, like for Hart Gray. When Mr. Slow Christmas himself is like... Be quiet, JD. You know what? No, the film ends with good afternoon and good night. I mean, is there anything you guys want to say about the Truman's closing triumph before we talk about the reactions to this film? No, it's just great that you... I... To mirror what you said earlier, that you are cross-cutting between him and... And then the viewers. And then working Natasha McAlone and really closely. I think you're correct. We've been cutting to her intermittently, but it starts to become almost like an unknown conversation between the two of them and her, like, rooting for him. You see the bar that we keep cutting to. It's like packed now. Tubman and the security guards. You're like cutting back before you're established people. Tubman. We love Tubman. Yeah. That they love that even unknowingly, Truman understands how to end the show. Yes. That he understands the most dramatically poignant, kind of concise narrative closure. What if it turned out they switched to another channel that's like a shittier Truman show where they're like, yeah, it's like six warehouses in fucking Louisiana. This is like the Jim Shone. It's like he kind of knows it's a TV show. We've done our best. The Jim Shone, Jim's kind of aware of it. Everyone's kind of like, like, there's like knockoff Truman shows. Anyway, he just plays paintball. Shooting people. Well, according to Jim, now this just sounds like. I mean, we're getting towards what YouTube is. Pretty much. You're right. Yes. No, I just think it's great that he walks through the door that we don't see anything of what is beyond that frame for him. And then it's just like, it's an obvious joke, but it is the only way to end the movie is just people going, what else is on? Yeah, of course, but it's a great, it's perfectly. It's perfect. It's perfect. Because it's just flat top. It's just yeah, flat top. Dick Tracy. I don't understand how this film did not get a nomination at the Academy Awards for Best Picture. It gets three nominations. Well, that's a big year for movies. It's a big year for movies, but I'll tell you who got best picture. Yeah, who will be like, what were the nominations? So Truman's gets three nominations, as Griff said. Director's screenplay. Correct. And supporting actor. What are the best picture norms? I'll tell you in one second, but I just want to say that this home got no craft nominations is pretty insane. That's wild. It's like a pretty high level craft accomplishment. It's just things like editing. It's like, you know, like, I think weirdly there was obviously the like, I think there's a spillover distaste for TV at the time. Maybe I think obviously the Kerry was snubbed was like a huge story. He won the Golden Globe, wasn't even nominated. I don't know who snuck in, but I guess it was Nick Nolte. It's a fairly strong everywhere. Don't mind me. It felt like a classic, not yet. Real bath under behavior. But I mean, like, but Jim Carrey refused to let you have everything. It was a, you can't just, right, be a movie star and an Oscar. Like, but it's like fucking crazy because of what a cultural like, smash the movie was the five actor nominees are Roberta Benini for life is beautiful. Okay. Which who wins, which it's like in retrospect, that's obviously all just really silly. But he was going to win. When he won, he was about to do the exact same bit. I was about to do the exact same bit. I accept tastefully. I walk up to the stage normal. I was going to say, yeah, but of course, when he won, he just walked up like a normal person. I simply have one to two things to say. I was going to say when he won, he planted his feet on the ground and kept them there. That's exactly. Took one step at a time. Tom Hanks and same private Ryan. Yeah, absolutely. Ian McKellen and God's monsters, which was obviously probably who should have won of the great performance and as shoe and then, you know, sort of like time for Ian McKellen to get recognized. Edward Norton in American history acts, which is a very big visual performance from a big young actor and then null team affliction who I feel like is the one making a little bit. Best picture. Shakespeare and love wins. Obviously it's controversial in its own right. Great movie though. And a big hit. Beats saving private Ryan, saving private Ryan. The thin red line, which it's kind of rocks that it got a bunch of Oscar missions because it's masterpiece. Yup. Life is real. Oh, okay. Like that's one of those things where I'm like, I don't like that movie. I can at least understand the spell that was cast. It was a phenomenon. You know, by Harvey and the, it's a Holocaust film and yet there's nothing like it. And the fifth one is Elizabeth, which is a movie I think is pretty good. Like I say, pretty good British costume drama with a good performance, but you're like, what crack was being smoked that they were like, I think Elizabeth needs to make the five. Also like Truman Show is in like psych text books for the rest of the time. Yeah. And like made 200 million dollars. It's just like, what the fuck are we doing? This is maybe the first Oscars that I watched and like tracked as a kid. Right. Sure. It makes sense. Because the Truman Show is a movie because it might be the Truman Show might be the first movie that I was like, oh, I know that movie. I think that sometimes weirdly the academy has a hive mind and we'll talk about them like they're one person when obviously it's a bunch of disparate voters, but you think more of like the hive mind of the highest level people in Hollywood deciding how they communicate to the public, what represents them and, and Carrie just being a like, this guy kind of came out of nowhere. He wasn't selected. He runs the industry and now he wants to be serious too. Right. He was in stupid movies basically up until this year. I'm sorry. He pays our bills. Access denied. But we refuse to treat him seriously. And the gnomes that the Oscars give it feel backhanded towards Harry. Yes. Where they're like Peter Weir and the script were great. Obviously Ed carried all his stuff. Peter Weir did a good job toning Jim Carrey down. The screenplay was a good concept and Ed Harris grounded the film. Jim Carrey is just kind of like they treated him almost like he was like an animal performer. Where it's like they somehow tricked him into being a little bit normal. But you look at the other bodies and it like it wins actor supporting actor and score at the Golden Globes. They nominated it for picture director screenplay. The BAFTAs nominates it for film director supporting actor screenplay, cinematography, production design, special effects. It wins director screenplay and production design. Like everyone was kind of more generous to it than the Oscars who felt like. The Oscars kind of don't tell us we have to treat this seriously. Yeah. All right. And also that it was partially like it's a big summer hit and all the critics are sort of going like is Jim Carrey going to win an Oscar and they're like don't fucking tell us. Don't make up our mind for us. The film opened June 5th, 1998. Number one of the box office, $31 million. Big hit makes 264 million worldwide. How much did it make? Domestic. 130 something. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of money. A lot of money in 1998. Big hit. Number two, the box office is also new this week. It's a thriller for grownups. Our friend Sean Clements was just texting us about it. Our friend Sean Clements fucking not up to date on the tax. So crazy to me. We think Truman Show'd be direct to Apple TV in 2026. Don't even fucking talk about it. I'll do it myself right here. They're gonna fucking like announce it tomorrow. Yeah. Truman Show 14 part Peacock come right in the first season with Christoph being born. Peacock is now straight to come. It's just when you come, you see it in the come. I've been broadcasting for three hours. They've done such a poor job. I just like the silence we all gave David to just like work that out. You know, it's just like, what if we could put TV on to vomit? Lin Buu, anytime anyone vomits, they watch an ad. Guys, we spent six or seven years trying to get people to sign up and pay money for Peacock, and they're not biting. So here we go. Give it to them for free in their comp. We're buying ball real estate. What is this? It's like the U2 album. Don't worry about it. It's free. You come, you get a little talk. I'm just so depressed by the state of modern media. But how do we make money? Well, every time they vomit, we show them an ad. That's what I'm saying. That was my joke. It's free in the come, but when you vomit, you see that. I will say this about number two, the box office. It's a thriller. I would say someone of a forgotten movie. It's a remake of a classic. You know, it has movie stars in it or whatever. It's not the jackal. No. It's just one of those movies where like, I don't think anyone really remembers this one. It may have $70 million domestically, 128 worldwide. Like for a pretty forgotten movie. Now how to big star and the big star, the big male star is someone who knows his way around to sort of grow up. Thriller. It's not a Ford. It's not a big star. I mean, Mr. McFeely. Wow. That was pretty good. It was really good. It's better than my cum thing. No, the cum thing is good. The big female star is going to win an Oscar this year. She's going to win an Oscar. She's on the up and up and this is her big star year. It's a hell and hunt. Nope. No, no. It's the year before it's Gwyneth. You're after Gwyneth Paltrow. It's a perfect murder. A perfect murder. You're right. I did catch those texts. Which is an Andrew Davis remake of Hitchcock's Dalum for Murder. I always forget it's a remake. With Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and a young Gish Viggo Mortensen. I say young Gish because he actually had been around for a while. But you know, but it's just one of those things where no one remembers that. I'm like, I kind of made money. Wow. Number three of the box office is a film that I'm sure we all as children were very excited about. And maybe we enjoyed it. Maybe we were disappointed. I was pretty into it. Summer 98. Yeah. Big, big, big, big blockbuster. It's a big hit. It does. It works. It was a hit. I think it's pretty quickly recognized as not big enough of a hit, but it made $136 million domestic, close to 400 worldwide. It's not Batman or Robert. No. That's the year before.哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎 hit where I'll just appreciate everything in its brokenness for just representing this time. I, I, and some of it is so insane. That's a movie that I remember. I, I can see me watching it on my TV with my mom and my sister. Totally. And Jim, me and me questioning how Godzilla's size keeps changing so much throughout the film. Wow. It's one of many problems. He's like, sometimes he's skyscraper size. Sometimes he's much smaller. It's very strange. Yes. It's also like a man. Also, he's a she. Oh, right. Right. That's the great Matthew Broder performance where he's like testing all the blood samples they got. And they're like, so what do you know about him? And they're like, well, he's 8000 feet tall. He weighs 400 pounds and he's pregnant. Ben, do you like Godzilla? Big. Thank you. Ben's lost. That's fourth at the box office is a movie about girls. OK, I'm listening to sort of a, you know, chick flick classic chick flick. It's a classic dramatic drama. It's it's not how Stella got her groove back. No, that's a good movie. I would say this movie I've never seen. It's got an interesting director in a way, an actor. It's not Hope Floats. It is Hope Floats. It is Hope Floats. Sandra Bullock. Do you know who directed Hope Floats? Harry Connick Jr. Ben, JD, do either of you want to wager guess as to who directed Hope Floats? No, I don't. I tell you, it's the guy who directed Waiting to Exhale. It's the same director you're saying. Yes. Does that solve anything for either of you? It doesn't hit me. He was fired off of directing the Fat Albert movie. Bill Cosby. No, by Bill Cosby. Or sort of he did rebound by directing First Daughter, the Katie Holmes, I'm not getting this daughter comedy. Of course, crazy. Forrest Whitaker. Forrest Whitaker is the director. Just I had no idea. All of those movies. I had no idea. Forrest Whitaker had a, you know, a side career directing like, you know, pretty good kind of female centric, like romantic dramas. Like it's not like he's like steady studio hands. He gets fired off of Fat Albert. He's bringing this up. And it's like, oh, is his directing career kind of over? And then just like fucking wins an Oscar for Best Actor for playing idiom and getting a fart pushed out of his body. And also he was in Rogue One. Great career and viable and viable. Hope Floats is number four. So that one, it's like Sandra Bullock is a housewife. And then her mean husband reveals that he's cheating on her on like Ricky Lake, like a Ricky Lake show. And so she goes to her small town where she grew up. And she's got this old friend like Harry Connick Jr. And like, are they going to fall in love? And she's got like a big box of hope in the basement. And she's like, fuck this, I got to get rid of this. So she goes to the river and she's like, I'm just going to throw this over. I will say to the bottom. I love Sandra Bullock. It feels like one of those movies where I'm like, nothing could have made twice as much money if you didn't call it Hope Floats. Yeah. Could you come up like, there's got to be a better title out there. This is also that era like you're saying where there's all these movies that you're like, have you ever heard of this movie? It's like, no, it's like, well, it made a hundred and seventy million dollars. A little bit. What was the final total? Sixty. It made 60 domestic. It made one 81 worldwide. It has a terrible title and the poster was just here is Sandra Bullock. And people are like, that's worth testing out. She's got no hug from Connick. Is that all they needed to say? Little Connick embrace. Is the twenty twenty six equivalent of like these like YouTube channels that you're like, you've never heard of it, but it has four billion followers. Like, sure. I don't know. Bubbie Man has four million followers and he like, well, no, Bubbie Man's are in those followers. Yeah, exactly. He's put in the work. Number five of the box office is in another big blockbuster that also like slightly disappointed. Slightly disappointed. Directed by a woman. A lot of those. Is it deep impact? Deep impact. I would say that didn't disappoint. It's just that Armageddon ate its lunch. Armageddon ate its lunch. I think it did OK. It made one forty domestic. Mike, you know, I think that was seen as like maybe it's the Armageddon thing of like, OK, you know, like there was not fair to compare them. There was a feeling that could compare them because they are kind of the same thing. I think there was a feeling that one of them would flop. They couldn't both succeed. Yeah, you're right. Then it did totally good. Deep impacted well. And then Armageddon came in and big dog. I kind of like deep impact. I told Mimi when I interviewed her that it was kind of like important to me as sort of a different kind of movie because it's very emotional. I don't remember the difference between deep impact and Armageddon. The big difference is that obviously Armageddon feels like it was written by monkeys doing coke. But beyond that Armageddon is. Armageddon is per swillest. Panathlac. Yes. Yes. Armageddon is the story of deep impact that I forget. So you know what? We don't have to get into the story of deep impact. We're I keep trying to say it and everyone is just I could just do it. Armageddon is there's an asteroid coming. We need to deal with it. And obviously the best way to do that is to hire drillers who yell at each other. That's impact. No, that's Armageddon. That's what I thought. Yes. Deep impact has this much more like weird unfolding where it's like it's about a journalist who's on the story of our presidential cover up that she thinks is an affair. And it turns out it's like, no, we've realized an asteroid is going to blow up the earth. And we are basically trying to figure out how to evacuate a million people underground. Got it. OK. And then they do sort of stop it. But in deep impact, the asteroid hits. Got it. In Armageddon spoiler alert, it does not. Also in the top 10, you got the horse whisperer. You've got Bullworth. Warren Beatty's Bullworth. A movie I love and I hope we get to talk about. We're going to cover it someday. It's a movie that I have a lot of fondness for. I watched it like, you know, within the last five years and was like, OK, some notes. I am sure some notes. I'm sure it's pissing on a bunch of third rails. Yeah. But, you know, glad it exists. Yeah. What was the song from? A Superstar. And I was super star. Pretty good. I've never even seen the movie. The only reason why I know of it. Whole soundtrack is great. Yeah. Number eight is Titanic. Titanic. Heard of it. Still in June. Still came out in December. So this is seven months in. Number nine is, oh, hell yeah, a movie that should be remade instantly. The crime comedy film, I got the hook up starring Master P. I have not seen, I don't think ever in full, but I've seen some of it on TV. I think we need to bring back. I got the hook up. Number 10, the animated film Quest for Camelot. Which one is that? Which studio is that? That's Warner Brothers. That's bad Warner Brothers run. That bomb so hard that Iron Giant is basically told like, you're the last one. We're closing up shop. It's like they found it. He's like, but this one's good. And they're like, closing them. Quest for Camelot is like them very much trying to do the Disney model and have like big ballads and emotional romance story in front of a backdrop but then funny animal characters. Then it's like Iron Giant is him trying to do this thing off to the side. And then I think Osmosis Jones is truly the last one. But is only half animated because it did too well. Osmosis Jones told too many truths about the cops that live in our body. Yeah, I watched that. It's like 2026. Like that is like what a lot of our society believes is happening. RFK. It's true. We have to stop Osmosis. Chris Rock lives in my body. He's a policeman. Our RFK is going to enforce one viewing of Osmosis Jones to every American citizen. Griffin, did you just say you watched it recently? I did. And how was it? It is very odd. I remember that the animated stuff is pretty cool. I would agree. And that the live action stuff is pretty dreadful. The live action stuff is like repellent. Yeah. There is Bill Murray. It's mostly Bill Murray burping. Being like, well, it feels like Chris Rock's in here. It's like half the movie. It feels like a buddy comedy is happening in my dead chest. Half the movie is like an animated movie. The other half is like footage of a sick man. Basically. He's the grossest man who ever is. He works like a zoo or something. Correct. Chris Elliott. Right. And his daughter cares about his health and he won't listen to her. And he's eating a hardboiled egg and he's by the monkey cage trying to feed them. And then the egg slips out of his hand. It falls into the cage. He reaches in the cage to pick it up. He takes it out. It's covered in like monkey hair and like dirt and bacteria. And he's like, it's still good. And he eats it. And that's the inciting incident of Osmosis Jones is that's what makes him sick. And it is it is grosser than anything that John Waters has ever put on film. It is the most repellent thing I have ever seen. And the movie is just, yeah, it's very bizarre. But I was I was like going to do Scott hasn't seen an awkward man sent me the list of movies to choose from. And I was like, Osmosis Jones is on here. I did weirdly watch it in the last 48 hours. But I can't tell if I would not be able to contain my thoughts to four hours or if I will run out after five minutes. Yeah, right. We're like, yeah, it's like what you think it is. Yeah. Yeah. Osmosis Jones. Yeah, my favorite movie of all time. I'm glad we finally fucking mentioned it. Finally. This this was the Osmosis Jones series. Yeah, this is the Osmosis Jones series. We will do Osmosis Jones that we ever did the Ferali brothers. Yeah, because they did direct the live action portions. And part of their contract was that the animation director wouldn't get credited as director, which I think is good. They are the only directors on the movie, even though they came on and shot one week, eight months after the animation was locked. It's insane that like the whole structure of that movie was we only have to animate half a movie. And then when we have the animation, we'll shop it around and try to get a fancy live action director to agree to do the other part. Osmosis Jones. Osmosis Jones. J.D. Your book is called The Endless Game and it is available. Is there anything else you would like to plug on this podcast? No, that's it. I mean, one half hours into its running time. No, I would really like people to buy the Endless Game for a child in their lives. It's a really fun book. It's based loosely on my, you know, I moved around as a kid and it's about a kid who moves around a lot and ends up in a town where every kid in the town is part of a game of capture the flag that's been going on for 80 years and passed down from generation to generation. And so this entire universe unfolding where kids sort of have to find their role within this game, I think it's a fun story and I think kids will like it. I'd love, I'd love for y'all to read it. There's a link in the description. Thank you. And watch the undercovers on Amazon Prime Sports. Oh yeah. Do watch that. It's own little Truman show in a way. Yeah. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Master and Commander. Oh, that's right. It is out of the wild. I watched it for the first time. It's Mando. Next week. Oh boy. This is a wild one to punch for weeks then. Yeah, Gethard coming on. Oh my gosh, that's going to be. To talk Star Wars. Boy. Just looked at the running time. I guess a higher one. That's a lot of podcast. You should just get beds for our stations. I think we can just have a break. Because like we can just be like, all right, and we'll check in with you guys tomorrow wherever you guys are at in the part of that part of the conversation. That works. It's a 12 hour day crossover. Yeah, that's wild. That's that's a crazy one, two punch of episodes here. I legit thought this was going to be a short episode because I'm like, it's a there's so much to talk about, but it's not like a rambly movie. But I think we just love talking about it. I think it was really good episode. I think we nailed it. I definitely thought this was going to be a long episode. It's a big one. Also, I was texting David, I watched Master and Commander for the first time. That is a great movie. I thought it was a different kind of movie. And I watched it and it's so good. I know you're going to talk all about it. I have not seen it since theaters. And at the time I went, not my kind of movie. And so I'm very eager. I've been saving the rewatch, knowing that we are was inevitable and that it's such a beloved David favorite. I watched that now and I'm like, we are as a master. Tune in next week for the Mandalorian and Grogu, a movie we're so excited for. What if it's pretty enjoyable? I would love nothing. Because like John Fevro tends to be okay at making a pretty enjoyable movie. I saw the trailer with my daughter in front of Hoppers. Yeah. And I was not like, wow, this looks awesome. But I was like, I mean, I guess they'll like fly a spaceship and baby Yoda cracker. Like, I guess it'll be okay. But every time I see that trailer, I am astounded by how nothing I feel. I'm not like dreading it. I'm not like this looks like shit. I'm just like, OK, and I saw Hoppers with David, Erlich and his son. And Erlich just immediately went like, oh, and his son starts pumping his fists. And I'm like, oh, he literally points at the screen goes Star Wars. That's my favorite movie. And he's never seen Star Wars in a theater before. What if Mandalorian Grogu is that there's a transporter ride? You can take the job as passable. Eight and a half minutes. And so it's just 10 trips, five trips up, five trips back. That should be your Star Wars movie, pitch. I actually. Speaking of new movies over on Patreon, a few days, we're going to be releasing an episode. It's the final in our Mortal Kombat commentary series. We're going to be putting out an episode about the new Mortal Kombat. And I will say every Mortal Kombat movie is good. Have you watched an I like recently? Yes, I have. And is it not good? Yes, but is it also good? Yes. OK, Annihilation is not so good. I was it's a rough one. I will say with with respect to all of the great. I've talked about this before. The first Mortal Kombat ending is one of my favorite endings to a film of all time. I think if every film ended like that, it would be perfect. So you must love the opening of Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Yes, I do. It must work. Right. When you were a kid, that is all you want is for a cliffhanger to pick up right in the fucking movie. That is a good point. Anyway, go over to patreon.com slash Blank Check. Do it. Do it. And as always, good afternoon, good evening and good night. Blank 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. All right, I started rolling. OK. Are you going to send us to be Griff? Yeah. OK. And I trust your. Improv skills to make the necessary word substitutions. Yes, I'm not going to say the word, though. No. I'm going to. You know what I mean? I'm not going to say. Yes. But I'm not going to say the P word. Right. But like replace like with. Yes, with audio. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And great. This is UCP training right here. OK. Where is this? I never act like it's a secret. And there's nothing secret about it. OK. I'm air dropping. Except. This is the actual script. Yeah. OK. What what page is that on? Let's let's start on. One oh five. OK. Ready? No, I have to find page one. You sent me a hundred page document. Let's see. Original script. OK. Do you want me to start in one oh five? No, I'm starting. Wait, who's who? Your Truman. Why? You should be Truman. You think I should be Truman? OK, because the whole thing. OK, the whole thing is that you launch into the instead of good afternoon, good morning and good night, you go into your thing. OK. Right. OK, sure. You need a minute to adjust. No. Yeah, just give me one second. I think there's also I think there's a line for David in here, too. Or Ben. Which is. Is there a G.M.O.D. in here? Is that what I'm thinking? In the in the actual edit. It cuts to someone. Watching TV, watching it and they're like, just do it. Just do it. I don't think that's too confusing. I think. Yeah, let's just do this. OK, great. OK, ready? Truman. Truman. Hold on, I'm going to reset. Should be my name. Oh, yeah. I just hit me. Yep. Yep. Yep. OK, ready? Sorry, that's not me. Yeah, I fucked up. No, no, it's good. Griffin. Griffin. You can speak. I can hear you. Who are you? I'm the creator. Creator of what? A show that gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions. Take that again with podcasts. But it's a show. Make a podcast. OK, take it from the top. OK. But I was not going to say the P word. I think you have to for doing this. OK, fine. Fine. OK. Sorry, guys. This is the artistic process at work. The actor becomes the director. OK. Griffin. Griffin. You can speak. I can hear you. Who are you? I'm the creator. Creator of what? A podcast. That gives hope and joy and inspiration to millions. Millions sounds a little high, a podcast. And who am I? You're the star or one of them. Nothing was real. It was all bits. No, you were real. That's what made you so good to listen to. The eyes are everywhere. Ears are not on video. Listen to me, Griffin. You can leave if you want. I won't try to stop you. But you won't survive out there. You don't know what to do. Where to go. I have a dossier. Truman, I've watched you here a whole life. Very good. Take that again. Also, that's not in the actual movie. I'm handing some lines instead of mine. What do you mean? Oh, oh. This whole section is on the movie. Yes, it is. They cut it. OK, we'll just do it. Using this script may have been a mistake. Yeah, that's what I think. What would you have suggested? The IMDB thing? What would I have suggested just doing the normal thing we do? Is IMDB going to have all of this? Yeah, I have no idea, but I would assume yes. OK, come on, guys. It feels very, very quoted. Reset. Reset from the top. Should I go to IMDB and try to find it? Let me find a few right now. You could have just asked. Yeah, because you famously look it up and off for everything. I don't look up and off for every week, but I'm sure I have a computer right here. You just ask. Griffin sent the shooting script that has like... It still has like hopper in it. I feel like usually they don't have... They don't. Yes, I don't think they have all of it. Back and forth. Yeah. I mean, they... Yeah, I mean, how many... Well, at least Ben has the cold clothes now. Yes, I do for sure. Yeah, you guys just got to do what you got to do. I hear you're working off the shooting script, I guess. I know. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I got it. Is that... Okay. I was like, there's just lines in here that didn't make the final edit of the movie. I mean, they wisely cut it down. Exactly. You're dramatically weighty. Exactly. Now, do we want to start from the top or just pick up there? No, we're starting from the top. Let's start from page one. No, no, I got it. Let's do the whole thing. Actually, you're right. I got it. I got it. The Truman Show. I got it. Okay, just remember Griffin instead of Truman. Podcast instead of show? Yeah. Okay. Okay, ready?