Blank Check with Griffin & David - Blue Velvet with Jamie Loftus

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

Lend us your (severed) ears! This week, we’re jumping back into our Lynch series with a trip to Lumberton, USA, as our beloved Jamie Loftus joins us to chat about 1986’s BLUE VELVET. We’re going deep on the star persona of Kyle MacLachlan, David Sims’ obsession with Dean Stockwell, and David Lynch’s unironic obsession with Americana. How does a movie that deals with such deeply disturbing themes end up being so watchable? That’s that Lynchian magic, baby! Be sure to listen to Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) Buy Jamie’s Book: Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs Listen to The Bechdel Cast This episode is sponsored by: MUBI (mubi.com/blankcheck) Zocdoc (zocdoc.com/check)  Harry’s (harrys.com/check) Join our Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck  Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! 

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blackjack Don't be a good neighbor to her! I'll send you a podcast straight from my heart, fucker. You know what a podcast is? It's a fucking audio program from a fucking player, fucker. You receive a podcast from me, you're fucked forever. You understand fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker.

It's a very good hopper. Thank you. Yeah. I had it a little more than I thought I did. How do you describe a podcast? That comment. Yeah, right. You were me. I could feel you halfway into that being like, oh, I have to now elaborate on what a podcast does as Frank Booth.

You know what my brain did in real time? It was like, how do I explain it to my grandmother? Right. And it's like radio. She'll brag to people. She'll go, my grandson, he has a very successful podcast. And then she'll turn to me and go, what is a podcast? She knows that she wants to brag about it. And then she says like, what time does it air? Or like things like that.

Sure. Yes. Sundays at 3 a.m. Right. And I yell at her like Frank Booth. Sundays at midnight. Well, is it midnight EST? Yeah.

Wow. So those LA guys, they midnight EST? Yeah. Wow. So those LA guys, they get an 8 p.m. on a Saturday. It kept getting pushed forward a couple hours. Yeah, because people were complaining and I don't know, that's what we landed on. It was like you would, you'd post at a time and then someone would email you and go like,

you know, it'd be a lot better for my commute if you posted two hours earlier. And then you would like acquiesce to that guy. No, you would just get mad. I would. But then you would, you would, it'd be a lot better for my commute if you posted two hours earlier. And then you would, like, acquiesce to that guy. No, he would just get mad. I would. Yeah, it's true. I can't think he'll get mad. Then you... No, he gets mad. I believe it.

It's actually really funny. I'm not saying that I respect when you're angry. I understand it. And you're allowed to feel angry, but it is kind of funny because you do kind of stomp around. And sometimes you'll text us in advance and be like. I'm stomping mad today. Yeah, like remember when's that time when he texted us,

he's like, I'm going to be arriving grumpy or whatever. It's some kind of warning. Holy shit, Ben has a gun. Ben has like a very vivid, like emotional tapestry. Like you feel things very deeply. Yeah, yeah, I'm a cancer in that way. I wouldn't say you run mad, but I'd say when you get mad, it's, it's full bodied. I had a big breakthrough recently, Jamie, that Ben is all for Ninja Turtles. Wow.

A lot of us are all forward Ninja Turtles. You really like that. As much all four Ninja Turtles as anyone I've ever met. Yeah. I can't tell that's kind of a beautiful compliment, right? Yeah, but sometimes he's in Raphael hothead mode. Yeah. Sometimes he's just quietly doing his machines. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah, he's pointing over to a monitor producing the show, which is kind of like being the leader. Right, in some ways. Yeah, in a certain way. You know, there is the clarity of like, let's keep this running, and then there's the party dude. Which turtle are you? Tag yourself, Jamie. Turtle? I don't know. Are, in a certain way. You know, there is the clarity of like, let's keep this running and then there's the party, dude. Which turtle are you? Tag yourself, Jamie.

Turtle, I don't know. Are you not a turtle girl? I honestly didn't grow up with turtle culture, but I don't know. I feel like you're not allowed to prescribe a turtle to yourself any more than you can prescribe any of the, whenever there's four people and you have to be one of them.

Well, sure, let's put it this way. Inside each of us are four Blue Velvet characters, right? There's inside each of us a Dorothy, a Jeffrey, a Frank, and a Sandy. Okay, I was wondering, right, who the... You're not putting Ben in there. Ben, speaking of. Ben's not a character. Dean Stockwell's character is called Ben.

I mean, I guess nobody really addresses him. Is he the exact center point? Yeah, I guess, or he's just, you know, outside of the matrix. Sure. Yeah. I like to think of myself as, how does Frank prefer Jim? He's so chic. Yeah.

A suave. You're so fucking suave. And I do think of myself as being a bit suave at times. And I could, of course, at any time, just... You could just start lip-syncing. ...dab myself with powder. Sinking to a light bulb. Do a little eyeliner.

Yeah. Adorothy. Are you though? No, I don't know what you are. This is maybe the worst personality grid everyone's ever thought of. Thank you. I want to be the little dog at the beginning.

Yeah, I'm the bird going... I think we've identified what's funny about this grid is everyone's gonna choose something outside of the floor. I mean, I guess I must have that person inside of them. I think I'm a Sandy. I'm a gossip, but I try to look on the bright side of things. So I think I'm probably a Sandy. Are you the lady that dances on the roof? Possibly.

Are you the yellow man? Possibly. Just standing there at the end. Yeah. It's crazy when he's just standing there and he's dead. Yeah. What happened to his brain, you think? I think it got shot with a gun.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess. I don't know. Come on, Jamie, what are you? And then introduce our podcast. Come on, Jamie. Come on, Jamie. Are you a cartler blue velvet?

Well, you can pick. Or you can give me a Sex and the City character. I don't know. I'm going to, Michelangelo. I think that's right. And... Oh, God, I don't wanna be Jeffrey. It's okay to be Jeffrey.

But I just like, you know, Dorothy and Sandy, like, I'm not far enough in either direction. Jeffrey has a little bit of your, like, uh, podcast journalism tendencies. Yeah, he's wandering around, he's snooping, it's none of his business. Right, kind of like weirdo journalists, like gonzo journalists, yeah. But arguably a pervert. Arguably a pervert.

Although I think Jeffrey's the closest one. A thing I like about the Blue Velvet Matrix that we have created, we're all perverts. Like everyone on there has become some kind of pervert. Oh, sure. Everyone's pervert, everyone's mommy, everyone's dad. Right. I also think, yes, you know, it's like, you're like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go to Alaska. And I would be like, well, Jamie, that sounds like a really wild thing to do.

And like, Jeff is like, I'm going to sneak into the gangster stuff. Right. Twice. Right. I love how passively he presents it, and I love how quickly, you know, that she's just like, yeah, I guess we should do that. I think that's a good way to spend. I love it.

I love it. This is one of those timeline things where I always know what the reality is, but my brain flips it to, like, Lynch discovered him on this, and then obviously when he gets off her dune, he casts his guy in the lead role in Dune. It is so much funnier that it's like, he casts this guy as a leading man in Dune,

and then it's like, oh, you'd be better in one of my weirdo movies. And he was right. And he is right. You know, Dune, we will talk about it. We haven't talked about it yet. But like there's these audition tapes you can see of Kyle McLaughlin shirtless, just like doing tumbles in the yard and kind of grown. You know, like being Paul and being like,

yeah, I think I did like a good job in the audition. And you're like, I can just see what Lynch fell in love with, both as the special boy who will save Arrakis, but also just like, oh, I want to mess this boy up. But just normal enough to have, like, the studio sign off on him as, like, you're not casting a crazy person in the heroic lead of your movie. He's got the right jaw. You know? He's got the right face. I feel like Kyle McLaughlin's, like, one of the most successful examples

of a hot guy that's rarely doing hot guy things and people accept it. Because I feel like a lot of times people don't accept it. Like, Brendan Fraser, we almost killed him. We almost killed him. We almost killed him when he was a hot guy doing things that weren't hot enough. But Mr. Kyle, he gets away with it and he's great at it. His first movie is Dure.

That's his number one first movie, which is Wild. I didn't know that before, like, getting ready for this episode. His second movie is Blue Velvet. His third movie is The Hidden. Have you seen The Hidden? I haven't, no. Have you seen The Hidden? Both of you would love The Hidden.

Ben, you probably also love The Hidden. Which is about a cop who is chasing a bad guy who's doing some crazy stuff and gets paired up with another cop paid by Colin McLaughlin, who's doing some crazy stuff and gets paired up with another cop paid by Colin McLaughlin, who's kind of like weird and slimy. And it turns out Colin McLaughlin is an alien, as is the guy they're chasing.

But Colin McLaughlin's like a good alien. I know people love this movie. I did not know that was the premise of the movie. It rocks. Wait, when you say he's weird and slimy, you meant like physically? I meant more physically. Like, he's not like personality.

There's just something like odd and shiny about him. And you're like, what's the deal with this guy? And you're physically. Like, he's not like personality. There's just something like odd and shiny about him. And you're like, what's the deal with this guy? And you're like, oh, he's an alien. And he knows that this guy is also an alien. Which is kind of Colin McLaughlin's vibe. That's why it's so good. And then you like, so you see those three and you're like, man, Hollywood was doing right by Colin McLaughlin.

And then like, I feel like Hollywood didn't know what to do with it. Well, his other mode is like buffoonish asshole. Sure. showgirls Or you look at his 90s like Hollywood. What do we do with this guy and on to it? Fander caves yes, it's Flintstones and showgirls It's like here's the grown-up version and the kids movie version of what we slot him into I also forgot that he was in the Flintstones, but I do like that he, yeah, he sort of pivots to like belligerent guy with erectile dysfunction.

That's like his entire like 90s into the 2000s vibe. I was thinking like, it must've been so exciting. Like it must be such an exciting moment for a director when they find their self-insert guy who is slightly hotter than him, and 15 years younger, and you're like, this is my guy! This guy gets to be me for 15 years, but hotter.

That's so, that has to be such an amazing day. I think that's why I flip it in my mind, because it's like, it's harder to believe that he could successfully cast Paul Atreides to the studio's wishes with his self-insert guy when that character does not in and of itself feel Lynchian versus this being a movie where it's like,

and now I need to find me. It's wild that he found a guy who fit both. What's the podcast? The podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. The smile that washed across his face. Curtains like blue velvet, kind of. Well, our curtains are red.

Yeah, but you know, kind of like you could imagine putting some fonts over it. Sure you could. Play an old song. I think it would say red velvet instead, but yeah. It's a podcast about filmography. It's 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. sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby This is a mini series on the films of David Lynch. It is called twin pods fire cast with me This guy really did have it's it's a perfectly structured blank check career in terms of what we do That's true, right? Yeah, like first movie is like total outsider object. But gets him tons of attention. Builds a huge cult. Then it's like now we're going to try to fit you into like prestige studio, slightly more traditional filmmaking.

Success. Knocks that out of the fucking park. They're like great, you get to do a blockbuster now, destroys him. And then the fourth movie Rebirth is the the beginning of the rest of his career. Right? This is when it's settled in where he's like, Dune has taught me everything I never want to do ever again. I'm going to do things by my own terms.

I'm going to find the middle ground between the three modes I was in for the first three movies, and here's the model of what a David Lynch movie is. What I found comforting rewatching this in the context of what a David Lynch movie is. What I found comforting, like, rewatching this, like, in the context of this point in his career, was that even though, like, I mean, Dune was, like, a catastrophe, like, for him personally, uh, you, I feel like you can sort of see things he learned doing Dune in this movie.

So it's, I don't know, I feel like stuff like that is so often, like, and it was all for fucking nothing and it was humiliating and I felt horrible. But it's like, you can see that, you know, it was not for nothing, even though it did seem like a humiliating, terrible experience. He treats it as such, but it is, yes, it informs his career in ways he may or may not. Adapt to finding McLaughlin and shit like that. And his relationship with Deon De Laurentiis. This movie doesn't happen without him. He doesn't end up with Isabella Rossellini if this movie doesn't happen.

Everyone in this movie is fucking each other behind the scenes. It's great. But also the blank check thing of like, oh, dude, he has a tremendous amount of money, but he doesn't have a lot of freedom, right? He's getting boxed in and overwhelmed by everything. This is a movie where it's like, if you can get this done for $4 million, everyone will back the fuck off. We'll talk about it.

Yeah, that is the joy that is harder and harder to find these days, right? Even at that level. Yeah, yeah. And having made a film at such a big budget, he perhaps had a better understanding of how to make this smaller now. Now I would fuck Stockwell if I had to pick.

No one asked you. And I think I just need to say that. It's an interesting answer to a question. I'm so obsessed with this movie. That was not put to an unasked question. A really deeply unasked question. What I really want to tell you. It'd be interesting to edit in one of us asking the question.

Now, David, I need to know. Yeah. Who would you fuck in the cast? I kept going, would he fuck Dean Saquill or not? I know you love Dean Saquill and he's incredible in this movie. Cliff Vandercave, who comic-con plays in The Flintstones. I just want to say his name again. I think it's so funny. Say his name.

I just say... Cliff Vander... Say his name. It's a poster of him. I just love the Flintstones writing process of like, all right, so he's like a rich guy. So like Vanderbilt, so what do we do there? Vandercave, job done. Yeah, can we get to it?

What's his evil secretary's name? Remind me, Sharon Stone, right? Halle Berry plays the role of Sharon Stone, which was written for Sharon Stone. Yes, and she dropped out and they were like, we're still gonna call her Sharon Stone. We can't talk that. I mean, Stone's in the name, Jesus Christ. Could you imagine how weird that would have been

if Sharon Stone were in the movie, The Flintstones, playing a character with her own name? I think everything about that movie is weird. We never stopped talking about how weird that movie is. Maybe we should do it on camera. I have pitched it before. Is it just that and Viva Rock Vegas? Well, the question is... Is there like a live act...

Would you do both? There's a man called Flintstone, which is the fucking... The James Bond parody. ...the James Bond parody, which was a theatrical release. Or do you do a live action Hanna-Barbera thing? Okay. Where it's those two, the two Scooby-Doo's... Oh, God.

...and Yogi. That sounds tough. I was... I mean, I two, the two Scooby-Doo's and Yogi. I mean, I'm pro Scooby-Doo. I'm pro James Gunn Scooby-Doo. James Gunn Scooby-Doo rules. James Gunn Scooby-Doo really special. He wrote both? He wrote both? I have never seen them.

Second one I would say is not as good, Monsters Unleashed, of course, one of my favorite subtitles. Yeah, I approve of it as a subtitle. Inferior product, the first one, Rips. I watched it last year and I was blown away. It does have SMG and Linda, my two biggest crushes as a kid. Yeah. And they're perfectly cast. It's so good.

And James Gunn, when we were covering that last year, James Gunn was really, and to this day, was like so, like singing the praises of Shrek as Scooby-Doo was coming out. He's like, I wouldn't have been able to make this the way I made this. Like the tone. Without that, yes.

He's like, sure. I think the direct quote, if I'm remembering it correctly, was Shrek changed everything. I was like, holy shit, what a wild thing to say the year after 9-11. Like that is so wild. Well, Shrek was the number one biggest thing that happened in the year 2001 in terms of impacting culture.

And then you could say 9-11. It changed everything. It changed everything. Steven Spielberg wanted to cast Dabney Coleman as Cliff Vander Cave. Okay. An entirely different idea, but I guess just sort of like, yeah, just do nine to five, right? Like, hey Dabney, can you come in?

And Dabney Coleman turned it down. Yeah, wild. And so Kyle got to swoop in there. Good. And the world is richer for him. No disrespect to Dabney, but yeah, that's the obvious choice. Today we're talking about Kyle McLaughlin's second most iconic film. -♪ PAULA LAUGHS. -♪-Behind the Fun Scenes?

Yeah. Blue Velvet. Our guest today returning to the show. She's back. One of the best. Wait, how many times you've been on, Jamie? Is this four or five? I think this is four. I don't know.

No, it could be five. The pandemic scrambles everything. No, this is four. This is four. Dark shadows, drag me to hell, seven chances slash go west. And now, Blue Velvet. It's a good four. Who's our guest?

Jamie Loftus, the great Jamie Loftus. Sup, Jamie. Hi, guys. Of many things. So good to be back. Of the book Raw Dog. Mm-hmm. Of the Bechdel cast.

Mm-hmm. But I've been listening to your new show, which is so fucking good. Oh, thank you. 16th Minute of Fame. Yeah, I've been having so much fun making it. It's so good. Did I get the title right?

Yes. Yeah. Right, yes, yes. I've been looking to rip it off. I'm giving it, I'm gonna give it a shot. Please, God. You've been looking to rip it off? Come up with your own idea, David. People keep ripping her off.

Yeah, I got ripped off by a large news podcast last week. It was kind of fun. But so I'm I'm just that inspired me to rip. You should do it. And I think I'm going to do it. I think what we've learned is it's easy to do and I won't push back. No, you're right. There's not much you can do about it. So I think I'm just going to just go ahead, dive in and do it.

I'm going to announce it to you. I'm going to telegraph my attention. Talk to the same two guys. Go pitch it to cracked. We kick those guys so hard when they are down. It's like kicking a skeleton. It's just still funny to do. I know. Jamie Crack started a movie podcast when we were like a couple years in. We're talking like 2015.

Called Cracked Movie Club. Oh yeah. We were maybe like two years into our podcast when we were like a couple years in. We're talking like 2015. Called Cracked Movie Club. Oh, yeah. We were maybe like two years into our show and they were like, we go deep into the careers of directors, but they only would pick four movies. They'd embody a director's career in just four episodes. Cowards. Cowards. Lacked commitment.

Why? But they did the same four directors as us in a row in the same order we were doing them in? Look. Why do that to you? I don't know. And then we just decided that they were our enemies, and then the show ended after the fourth season.

It was gone within five months, and once or twice a year, I just come back around and kick it one more time. You know, the whole book, like, Cracked has been sold to, like, Hungarian AI farms at this point, or like, I don't know what, you know. I just keep kicking these skeleton bones. Hila, I appreciate that.

I do the same thing. I'm like, anytime someone's like, you should be like, it's a flattering thing. You're like, well, it doesn't fucking feel that way. Right. It feels bad. But I say this not to blow smoke up your ass, but I think that your podcast has a great book.

It is a great premise. It is these people who had this sort of viral, outsized internet sort of fame and then disappear from the culture. And it's like what happens in the 16th minute after they recede from the public eye? And how does that sort of virality affect people in their lives long term and all of that? It's a great idea that many people could rip off. But I do think that the thing that makes your show so good is very much like about your perspective and your attitude and the way you engage with people.

Everything Jamie does is good. Yes, yes, absolutely. She has personality and voice and intelligence. That's so nice. Don't you have a new book out too, you freak? Now I'm like weirdly hostile? What's... Now you're kicking my skeleton.

Charlie Rose should have done that more. He's like, what, you did Breaking Bad? What's so good about that, freak? It's a pretty fucked up show, don't you think? He's like, I don't know, a bunch of Emmys. Charlie Rose is like, oh, that's great. He comes right out of it. It is wild how much new documentaries

still use Charlie Rose footage. It's really well lit, and people tend to be allowed to talk for a while because Charlie Rose was snoozing there in the other seat. I just feel like any time I watch any, like, making a monster documentary... Yeah, they all have the same composer and it's a computer. Right, and they use a bunch of Charlie Rose clips

and you're like, are you intentionally, like, double loading this? Your new book maybe is not out in time for this to come out. I'm trying to remember when your new book is out. Oh, it's not coming out anytime soon. Okay, okay, okay. But you do have another book sometime. I do. Yeah, and it's definitely influenced by this very movie.

Really? I would say, yes. Yes, there's some psychological body horror stuff. It's my favorite. And- Is this a fiction book? Yeah. It's my favorite. Is this a fiction book? Yeah. That's very exciting. Yeah. It's about a objective sexuals.

So like people who fall in love and have sexual relationships with objects. Yeah. So it's about an architect who starts cheating on her husband with a building that they're constructing together. Yeah. So it's basically, it's like 21st century lefty Ayn Rand. I'm trying to remember. It's so scary because I have never read Ayn Rand and you're not the first person to tell me that.

And I was like, now I have to. Someone in love with a building. That's such a bummer. Think about Ayn Rand. I know. Look, I'll say this about Ayn Rand. That book does have more horse vibes of like, does everyone want to fuck this building?

Yeah, 100%. I actually think it would be funny for me to just say, I'll say this about Ayn Rand and then never finish the sentence, and then people go insane and start thinking like... She writes some very impressive run-on sentences. There's stuff in those, I've never read Atlas, right? I read The Fountainhead. I read The Fountainhead. I have the same approach to a lot of books

that I have to a lot of movies where you're just like, it's too long, I'll never know, it's too long. I mean, her books are, Atlas Shrugged seems quite long to me. Yes, but everyone who loves it is so good and cool. So I keep meaning to check it out. Everyone who loves it is so good and cool. Yeah, great. No, I think that's right.

It's 1,200 pages long, it's very long. Oh my God, great. No, I think that's right. It's a 1200-page line, it's very long. Oh my God. Could you describe what Ayn Rand has as a fan base or something more sinister? Right, they actually aren't allowed to be called fans because they're behaving too creepily. They're like, no, you guys aren't fans. Although I guess all fan bases are creepy these days. Einstein's. That's what they should call themselves.

That's what they should call themselves. Like Paul Ryan should get up in front of Congress and be like, I'm an Einstein. basically. Einstein's. Einstein's. That's what they should call themselves. That's what they should call themselves. Like Paul Ryan should get up in front of Congress and be like, I'm an Einstein. David. Yes. This episode, can you guess? Movie. Brought to you by Movie.

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I did, that film was excellent. And this is from the same director. Carly Farge. Yes. You got Demi Moore, big comeback for her, very exciting. Giving her performances Elizabeth Sparkle, a past her prime Hollywood A-lister that turns to a mysterious experimental drug

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How did he find anything to play that kind of role? Look, we're excited to see this movie. It sounds really cool. Ben and I have our tickets. At the time of this recording. Yeah, you got your tickets. We got our tickets. It got huge reviews it can.

It was a, I mean, it's a big player this year. I'm very excited to see it. I've heard it is absolutely crazy and fun. And look, it'll change your life. Let's just say this, we love the way MUBI does it. They're buying challenging movies at festivals. Putting them in theaters and then letting them live on their streaming service forever.

They're doing it the right way and we want to support that. Good job, MUBI. So, visit trythesubstance.com for showtimes and tickets. And you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash blank check. That's MUBI.com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free. Goodbye. Bye-bye. But we are here to discuss David Lynch's film Blue Velvet. Does it?

This is a completely stupid question, but is this still the definitive Lynch film? It was obviously forever. Has Mulholland Drive sort of supplanted it with a younger generation? Or is this still kind of like, look, if you want to get David Lynch's whole vibe in one movie, you should probably watch Blue Velvet. Yeah. I know. I think so. Not not to say it's the best film, not best or whatever. But I think if you're trying to like, what's the definitive encapsulation? I think the the suburban white picket fence

aspects of this movie are a key part of the sort of lynch psyche that's not really in Mulholland Drive as much. Imagine seeing this movie, like without knowing what it was about. I remember. You know what I mean? Yes. I want stories of people who went on dates

to this movie going in colds. It's got the guy, it's got Isabella Russellini and the guy from Dune, I don't know. It's about Blue Velvet, well, let's go see it. Sounds romantic. Exactly. This might be a slightly false compiled memory, but like years before seeing this movie,

I remember seeing this segment of them talking about it on I Love the 80s when I was fucking 13 or 14. I said Charlie Rose. I love that movie. Um, I think it was Molly Sims, the model who was always on that show. Okay, on I Love the 80s. Yes.

She was the one who was on Las Vegas. Yes. The show Las Vegas. But it was someone like her who said something to the effect of like Blue Velvet was one of those movies where it came out and there was this collective feeling of like, we've all been waiting for someone to say this. Wait, Molly Sims said this?

This is why it's such a specific memory in my mind. And I was like, what does that mean? I also feel like that's like a version, everyone who says anything on those shows says a version of that regardless. Like they could be talking about Easy Squirt Ketchup and they're like, when that happened, things kind of just changed overnight.

And it was one of those, like not framed as a joke, but was just like, it felt like here's this thing that's been in the culture that has been unspoken. And Lynch is the first guy to like put it up there. Okay, well, I said this, this is not to do with Molly Sims, but I said this to Ben off mic, and I wanna say it to you now. No relation, okay. It's watching Batman and Robin with a friend must be nice

I'm right right then, you know up pops Of course, it's very funny to watch it right after Batman forever, which I always forget literally the last scene is Bruce and chase Meridian being like and now we've solved all the barriers between us We're gonna be together Batman and Robin begins El MacPherson's here, right? No, acknowledge or to chase Meridian someone shoulderson's here, right? No acknowledgement of Jason Mervitt. Someone should say like, yeah, she went off and fucked Superman. Let me do that with Vicky Vail in Returns.

Right, she's not there, El MacPherson is here, and I'm like, this is El MacPherson. My friend's like, who's that? And I'm like, you know, she was a supermodel. They called her the body. My friend was like, kind of a fucking nickname, is that for a super? They've all got bodies.

That's not even a nice nickname for a super. It's a weird name. Yeah, it's not even a nice, gross nickname.. It's a weird name. It's not even a nice gross nickname. And I couldn't explain, I was like, I just know they called her that. It was a caressler name, Elle the Body McPherson. What they called her, yes. I know, I'm not, I know.

It's so weird. The only thing worse is being called a body. Like that's, yeah. That would be funny. Elle a body McPherson. Yeah. Yeah, they just called her the bot. And she was like, why?

And I'm like, well, she's very statuesque. She's like, she's super model. Like, was this not news? Sure. They're all statuesque. Anyway, I just think maybe McPherson also thinks Blue Velvet is when someone was saying what we were all thinking. Kind of.

But I just think that there's ants crawling over the human ears. That's a crazy way to describe it. It is a crazy way to describe it. And to not have seen the movie and hear that, like I just like... That there's ants crawling over the human ears. That's a crazy way to describe this. It is a crazy way to describe it. And to not have seen the movie and hear that, like, I just, it's always still the line I think about in relation to this movie,

and when I finally saw it years later, it was in my head of like, what was it that she felt he was expressing? Look, we have enough fans, not bragging, I'm just saying, that maybe someone's gonna trawl for this clip and find whatever was Molly Sims is Unconstructed thought on yeah velvet But I I think you look at the response to this film at the time, right? And it's like a racer head cult phenomenon then elephant man is just like beloved a critically, you know

Oscar-fetted film then dune is seen as just kind of like roundly a flop in all corners. At the time of its release, this movie comes out and I think some percentage of people were young Molly Sims sitting in the theater going like, finally! I've been waiting for someone to do it. And then the other half of the culture is like, fuck you. Which I think is what makes it kind of his definitive movie in a certain way, where it really feels like this was the first one to really touch a nerve where people were fighting over like, I think he's what makes it kind of his definitive movie in a certain way, where it really feels like... It feels like this was the first one to really touch a nerve where people were fighting over, like...

How dare he do this? Excuse me, getting over a cold. Yes. Uh, Jamie, what's your relationship to Blue Velvet? I was a, uh... The material. No, just the movie. I was actually... I have a nasty story about Red Velvet. I'll save that. Blue Velvet, the film, I was a latecomer to it.

I'm a latecomer to David Lynch in general. I did not start, I mean, I had seen clips, I've certainly lied about having seen movies of his. I feel like he's a great person to lie about having seen. It's a rite of passage. Yeah, if you're cornered at a party, yeah, I've seen Blue Velvet, sure. I actually watched it in high school.

I didn't. I did not watch it. Even now having seen it, you lie retroactively about when you saw it. My worst nightmare is someone digging up movies I said I've seen in other contexts over a course of years and quizzing me. Like that is my version of hell.

It is, it is. Yeah. Right. But yeah, maybe that is what hell will be for me. No, I saw this a couple of years ago. I saw it during lockdown. I was like, if not now, when? And I really, I don't know. I went into it, like, I wish I was like, oh, you know, but

you're so familiar with what a David Lynch movie is. I'd seen enough of his work that it was weird that I hadn't seen Blue Velvet. And so much of what happens in this movie is like, my brain is like, no, no, no. And then at the end, I was like, I really liked that. And I watched it twice in a row and one night, which is maybe just speaking to my mental health at the time, but I watched it twice in a row and then I went on a long walk

and then I didn't watch it for a year. I think this was like my fourth time watching it. I just, and every time I watch it, it's, you know, I don't know. I personally like Blue Velvet better than Mulholland Drive. I can't even really articulate why, but I just, I, I, every time I watch this movie, I feel a different way, or I like connect to a different part of it. This, this watch, and it's just so reflective

of like where you are at personally, but this time I was like, is Jeffree just looking for something to do while he's worried about his dad? Like, what is he up to? You know, like there's so many different ways to watch it. And there was like, I was watching a ContraPoints video recently

just about how lovely it is to watch a movie that is like not desperate to explain itself to you. And she was referencing like the end of Psycho and how she viewed it as almost like an insecure thing at the end of the movie to be like, so in case you had any questions about what was going on in the whole movie, it was this. Here's literally his diagnosis.

Yes, yeah, yeah. And that like, this is a great example of a movie that you're like, who fucking knows? It's not even the point. I really appreciate this movie. I like it a lot. I was reading a lot of the recent press that Glenn Powell has been doing on his campaign run

for infinite president of Hollywood. uh, press that Glenn Powell has been doing on his campaign run for infinite president of Hollywood. His sort of lifelong run that he's now beginning. And he's now just like getting on TikTok and being like, telling stories that you tell at sleepovers. He's just like, crazy thing happened to my sister. He's like telling these random... He's doing story time videos?

Like he's a high schooler. And he claimed the poop on the couch on the dog. So then the dad comes out. And you're kind of like drinking it in because you're like, yeah, Glenn, that sounds great. I think I like, I don't like, Glenn Powell does nothing for me, but it's only because it's like,

I feel like I look at him and I'm like, I'm looking through him, you know? Like he's just like the kind of handsome that you're like, he's just like so sharp and you're just like, huh, all right. I do think I like him a tremendous amount. He is the kind of guy, it's almost a Kamaglaklan thing where you're like, are you too perfectly handsome

where you become uninteresting? That's why I like Hitman though. Yes. Because it's about how he's like... Exactly, that's why I think it's like a brilliant movie star vehicle for life. Have you seen Hitman? No, are you on board for Hitman?

Oh yeah. I'm excited. Hitman's good. And like if McLaughlin hadn't found Lynch so early in his career, who knows what it would have looked like. Where you're like a digesty through this guy, right? Even if there was an inherent weirdness of him, you need someone to contextualize or whatever.

But Glenn Powell in an interview was talking about how he's tried to strategize his career. And he said he feels like the mistake a lot of young actors make is they're just like, well, I'm going to go off and do the big fucking franchise movies. And then my serious movies are like me showing how hard I can act and trying to get an Oscar and whatever. And he was like, people don't really rewatch Oscar movies. The kinds of movies that often win people an Oscar are like brutal one-time watches. The worst biopic you've ever seen in your life. And that's when it works out well. Yeah. That's the best version of it. If you fail to make the good version of it,

then you've made a shitty version of the kind of movie that people only like to watch once. Yeah. And he's like, part of movie stardom is making movies that people want to watch over and over and over again. It's what makes people feel kind of like totemic in their mind. Haasner, who we've just talked about so much, is a perfect example of that. It's a thing that makes him kind of an infinite movie star, is he has 10 movies that will be rewatched forever. But Lynch has this weird version of that thing where like,

his films are wildly rewatchable for how uncomfortable they are because there will be scenes where you're just like, I can't fucking explain why this has some weird hold on me. This movie is profoundly upsetting. It has like, you know, truly intense content in it, not to sound like the movie phone man or whatever. And yet you're kind of like, I love everyone in this movie. They're so random and cool.

That's my point. They look awesome. they have cool fits. It differentiates him from so many other filmmakers like him. That most people would be like, that film's great. I'm obviously never gonna watch that ever again. Versus Blue Velvet, you're like, I can sit there and be uncomfortable while watching it, and immediately want to watch it again.

That's what I like. It's like, by all... And I think, like, this is one of the few movies that I can really say this about, by all accounts, I should hate this movie. And I love it. And it's, I don't know. There's a million David Lynch imitators that you're like, nope, this is the movie I hate.

This is the movie where you're just, there's no rhyme or reason as to why you're showing this. Yeah, you're swearing our face in this, and it's not for any reason as to why you're showing this. Yeah, you're swearing our face in this, and it's not right for any reason except to upset us or get a rise out of us. But there's just enough dream logic that you can follow it and, I don't know, trust him. And then just reading about the production of it,

it's like he's riding around the set on a pink bicycle. And he fell in love with... Like, everyone in this movie fell in love. You're like, well, you know, and he fell in love with, like, they fell, like, everyone in this movie fell in love. You're like, well, I can't argue with that, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's one of the things that's so interesting about this film is, like, the people who hate it at the time were like, this thing is, like, ugly and horrible, and I cannot see how this wasn't damaging for the people who made it. There was this hand-wringing in the press of like, how dare you do this to your actors?

Right. What I just saw has such a, like, ugly power to it, that there's no way you could have gotten that effect without actual human cost. Right. And then you talk to everyone who made the movie, and they're like, absolutely not. Incredibly, like, warm, safe, supportive environment.

We all knew what we were doing. Mm-hmm. And we like trusted the director because he was kind. I don't know, and all of the questions that I had about like, well, where did this come from? Where did this come from? I mean, he's so candid that you get the little threads of like the story when he's a little boy and there was a naked woman, you know, in his lawn.

You're like, oh, okay. This searing, upsetting image that he never forgot. He's a little boy and he and his brother see a naked woman walking down the street in their neighborhood. Clearly, you know, not just taking a stroll. Like a woman who's like... In some traumatic state.

Yeah. Right. And then she disappears. And it is a thing that haunted him his entire life. And for how much he constantly says like there is no irony in my depiction of the suburbs and the white picket fences and the sort of like Americana and all of that this is a genuine warmth for me my childhood was warm all of this was warm he cites that as being the one moment in his mind as a child where he's just like there is evil like so close to the surface it is just barely underneath the veneer of

Civility that we live in where there's like profound darkness that might be happening that is inexplicable He obviously does not then go hide in a closet and try to solve this mystery himself Yeah, but it I think that's a key detail that this movie doesn't come out of him being like, what's the most fucked up shit I can put on screen? Right. It's this guy 20 years later, never having gotten over, do I wanna know the answers to how this woman ended up in that situation at that moment?

When did you first see Blue Velvet, Griffin Newman? I think I only saw it about 10 years ago, maybe a little earlier than that. I saw it at the IFC Center at some point in the 2010s when it was playing revival there, the voice of Molly Sims ringing in my head. What is this film about to unlock for me? I'm about to see a really relatable experience

that we've all been waiting to hear. We've all been waiting for. But like you did say, like, look, let's have a little less conversation and a little more action. Cause that was the theme song to Las Vegas. That's like... I just want to pull as many things I can

about the forgotten James Caan NBC show, Lost in the... Josh Duhamel. Yeah, he was there. Who else was in the cast of Lost in the... Nikki Cox. Nikki Cox. Former wife of J. Moore.

Yes. James Le Chur. I always thought he had a good name. Yeah. Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck. Okay. I've met J-More. Yes. James Le Chur, I always thought he had a good name. Yeah. Are you Le Certain about it? Tom Selleck. Okay.

I've met J-More. Right, Selleck replaced Khan. I think that's right. Is that true? He at least, he was a late, no, he's like the villain in season five. He buys the Montesita. But they were both on it at the same time?

I think they were, Khan was always in it. Wow. There was some twist where someone got blown off. I think Lara Flynn Boyle, speaking of David Lynch. Oh, sure. Yes, she gets blown off the roof by wind. And like, that's her dead. She's dead, that's her dead.

She was like a big villain, right, exactly. And she's like, I'm gonna blow up the hotel or whatever that she was gonna do. And then she gets blown off the roof by a gust of wind. Wow. Is it like a fun choice? Like the sex and the city lady falling out the window? Or is it like a...

Yes, it was, it's sort of for laughs. It's Diana Mulder walking into an elevator shaft in LA law, which is a very famous TV death, which I feel like now this, our younger people don't know about LA law. They don't know that someone just walked into a goddamn empty elevator shaft, died, and then they like rolled credits

and were like, see you next week, and people had to go to the office and talk about it. I think something similar happened on Pretty Little Liars at some point in the later seasons. What if it turned out one whole season of Pretty Little Liars was just LA law storylines and no one ever did it? There's no...

They're like, these kids don't know LA law. I feel like this is the third time you've done a version of the these kids don't know about LA law monologue. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, You did my homework. You did the right thing. You watched every episode. And David E. Kelly's still with us, just churning out crap or whatever. I guess he did like big little eyes, or he's had a couple of heads. He's doing something. David Lynch makes the film Dune.

It drives him insane. He makes the film with the cooperation of the Dina De Laurentiis group. Yeah, who are normal and not weird and don't do anything weird ever. Yes. Right. But before that, I guess in between Elephant Man and Dune,

he takes a meeting of Warner Brothers. Do you want me to read from the dossier? Yeah, exactly. Yes, obviously Dune devastates him. You know, meditation, he says, has saved him a lot of times, and that's one of them. David Lynch will always, of course, remind you that, you know, in times of trouble, he turns to meditation.

But you know, Dune, it's not just that the movie's bad, but like he didn't have the freedom, he didn't have the final cut, it gets taken away from him. He lost himself in the thing. Yeah. But he does have this project called Blue Velvet that he's had since 1973, Griffin. Okay. Fragments of things, he says. I'm a bad radio, sometimes the parts don't hook together.

It took a long time for Blue Velvet to emerge. Because right after Elephant Man, his first instinct was to try to do Ronnie Rocket. Was that the first time? Right. He met with producer Richard Roth, and he gives him the script for Ronnie Rocket, which is this, you know, never-produced David Lynch concept, right? I mean, sort of a buried gem, right? Lynch fans obsess over.

It's this great, unmade, yeah, life's project. Is it like a, do we, how much do we know about Rounding Rocket? I feel like the script is pretty out there. Yeah, I'd never read it. It's basically about, I don't know, a detective who wants to go to a dimension and he can like stand on one leg to do that.

And there's like a dwarf and it's one of those things where you can feel like he tore stuff out of it and put it in other things. Yeah, that feels like a David Lynch mad lips. Yeah, a little bit. A haunted detective meets a dwarf to go to dimension. Hilarious to think, right, of course, elephant man. He's like, what about Ronnie Rock?

And the guy's like, yeah, maybe. Do you have any other ideas? Yeah. And he's like, come on, do you have any other ideas? And Lynch says, well, I always wanted to sneak into a girl's room at night. And he was like, ideas for movies, David. I'm serious.

This is a quote. Not for what to do on a Sunday night. And then he was like, and I've always thought, what if you did that? And then it turned out to be the clue to a murder mystery. And to Richard Roth's credit, he was like, and I've always thought, like, what if you did that, and then it turned out to be like the clue to a murder mystery? Uh-huh. And to Richard Roth's credit, he's like, well, that sounds like a movie.

Like, that is the premise of a movie. Sure. Right, you know, you're cooking with something there. Yeah. Like, just the image of someone like hiding in a closet, seeing a, you know, murder happen or something. And did he have the ear already at that point? Uh, and he went home and he pictured someone finding an ear in a field is how he puts it.

I've seen that ear. That ear is in a movie store in Portland, Oregon. Oh, the actual, the property. Oh, is it the fucking? It's, wait, I wrote it down. Cause I've been there before. I went there, yes. It's Movie Madness in Portland, yeah.

David, there's this place called Movie Madness in Portland that's like a Valhalla of like actual DVD rentals. And it's got like VHS's and I see it here, it's beautiful. Everything. It has the most insane movie memorabilia collection. Very eclectic. Where you walk in and you're like, oh cool, they have like a couple things they bought. Are these like replicas? And then you're like, all of this is real and it's like extensive.

It's basically like a mini museum of moving image. Love it. It's so awesome. Yeah. And you can just walk in, but yeah, they have the ear. All right, well, I'm gonna go get it. I thought you were saying, Jamie, I saw that ear in another movie.

Like you recognized it went like, they don't need an ear. It's like talking about like seeing like Jimmy the Crow. It's more than one movie. Yes. They blow the ants off it. They're like, fine. So what are his inspirations here?

He wants to spy on a woman, an ear in the grass. Bobby Vinton's song, cover of Blue Velvet. The kind of music you really liked, something mysterious. It made me think about things. I thought about lawns, the neighborhood, it's twilight. Maybe a streetlight is on. And in the car, there's a girl with red lips. I mean, this is just what, he just goes into some state

and pulls out David Lynch stuff. It's like David Lynch chopped ingredients. Yeah. Because this is what you have to do. This is why I think this is still the quintessential. That's what I mean, right? It has all the things. It has all the things.

I guess Mulholland Drive is just the other side of his coin, if this is the like, right, the small town America thing, and Mulholland Drive is just the other side of his coin. If this is the small-town America thing, and Mulholland Drive is like, LA is this poisonous thing. I would say that is now seen as his masterpiece, and this is still seen as his definitive... Yeah. Which I totally get. I just feel like,

by the time Mulholland Drive comes out, not that you can ever truly know exactly what to expect, but this is the one where you're like... He hadn't... It was unprecedented. I mean, imagine being Molly Sims sitting there in the theater going, this guy isn't gonna speak to the thing that I found. You make it sound like she's related to me, but I don't believe that she is.

What if we found that out by the end of this episode? Molly Sims, let's see, she was born to Jim and Dottie Sims. Okay. In Marie, Kentucky. And Jim Sims? No, the Sims are all in Europe. My dad, you know, the Sims are English and Scottish. Married to Scott Stuber.

Cool. Who was the head of Netflix. Yeah, until he was fired for winning too much. Let's have you spit in a cup, David. But not for any other reason. Just period. Just want to see how strong your spit is. Yeah. I think not good.

But we'll send it out and then we'll see what, you know, ancestry.com has to say. No, I don't want those guys having my DNA. Why? They probably have it anyways. Your cousin did it. I've licked enough lampposts in my life. David.

What? David. What? David. Yes? Aunts. Aunts? Aunts. Aunts, aunts, aunts, aunts, aunts. I hate getting cornered by him. We all do. I knew that was gonna be a relatable conversation starter. Why aren't you getting married?

What's going on with that promotion? Why haven't you moved out of mom and dad's basement? Griffin. Oh, those were directed at me? Apparently. Oh, now I feel attacked. Get out of the basement, Griffin! She doesn't listen.

She just judges, judges, judges. You're getting together with your family. You might have to be in a barrage with these kinds of questions. Stay in there and grin and bear it. I don't want you feeling that way when you talk to your doctor about like a weird rash or that you eat pizza when too many times a week or something else.

Unfortunately. We have Redford Filth by this head copy right now. Unfortunately, the twist to this riddle is that the doctor is my aunt. Oh, no. But other people might have another one. I can't treat this patient. He's my nephew! Yeah.

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That's about an Elephant Man. He's like, you know, it's this terrifying, ugly exterior, right? And there's a beautiful soul and a beautiful person within. Blue Velvet is the opposite, right? The beautiful sheen of the suburbs and then the horror stuff with that, you get me? No, I get what you're saying 100%. When Ebert, in particular, hated this movie,

we'll talk about that. His review is iconic, yeah. I remember reading it when I saw this film in high school after watching Mulholland Drive, I think I was like, okay, I need to, you know. and I remember going to his review because I was a little Ebert boy. I was like, what did Roger Ebert say? And like it's just like it's the most upset review. He's just like I understand why people think this is a masterpiece. I feel horrible. Like I'm you know, I'm too upset by this movie.

And he like wrote follow-up pieces. Right. Where he's like, I tried to get back into it. No, it still freaks me out. It ultimately comes back around to being like, I do think Lynch is like a master filmmaker. I think that movie is still evil. Like, he never changes his mind on Blue Velvet specifically. I appreciate, yeah, I went through his sort of... soul-searching journey to try to like Blue Velvet. And I like, I mean, even though I don't agree with him,

I can also see how, you know, it's easily a movie you could watch, especially right when it came out, if you didn't know what to make of it, and be like, yeah, this feels evil. I don't want any part of it. The thing I found very interesting is a lot of the people who took that stance, Ebert Chief among them, had this attitude of like,

it's a film about just like kind of gross depravity. It almost feels like this fetish object of watching all this like humiliation and abuse and misanthropic sadness and what have you. And then on top of it is this very like glib, kitschy layer of like 50s Americana pastiche that's his idea of satire right, but I think what was misunderstood at that time And it's one of those things that like it just there wasn't enough of an understanding of who Lynch was That people thought he was putting that on top of it to mock Like well, this is like people keeping up appearances in this phony bullshit way And he's doing all of this with this side eye versus him looking back

on that being like, these are genuinely the things that make me happy. This is what I associate with my childhood, which I think of as being very nice. None of this is done cynically or sarcastically. I understand where Eber's coming from is, if you don't know who David Lynch fully is at this time, which no one really quite did.

You know, he is the exception to the role there, where there's so many directors with his level of creative vision and power that would take the opportunity to humiliate their actors and to subjugate them. And I don't know, I mean, especially with regards to how Isabella Rossellini is brutalized in this movie. On my first viewing, I was like, what the fuck?

What do you make of this? And so I went straight to watching it again to be like, okay, was that what I thought I saw and what I actually saw? Parsed that out, and then it was just like, I just wanted to hear her talk about the experience of making the movie. And like, listening to her talk about making the movie and listening to David Lynch talk about the creative choices

he was making, made it like, makes it an easier movie. It's never an easy movie to watch, but it makes it an easier movie to interact with. But like, that wouldn't have been possible when it came out. No, and I think the elephant... You're seeing this thing pretty unvarnished. The elephant man thing you said, right? Which is the key to it for him of like,

that's a movie about a guy who on the surface, people think is very frightening looking and inside you're arguing for the humanity of this person. That if you think the Americana stuff on top of the movie is all done tongue in cheek, then you're like, what the fuck is this? There was no sincerity to this thing. Versus what he's saying is like,

I genuinely think these things are beautiful. Like David Lynch is like, nothing is more beautiful and poetic to me than like a malt shop. Or like two kids going steady or like, you know, a lawn. And it does sound like a lie, but then when you know it's him, you're like, he's telling the truth.

It is real, which is what's fascinating about him and why anyone trying to make a movie like this by design, it would be as ugly as what people are accusing him of doing versus this film being like a very honest reflection of his worldview. So he gets, Raph is like, look, take this to Warner Brothers. I'll get you in a meeting with Warner Brothers. This is pre-Dune, post-Elephant Man. Pitches it to Warner Brothers and the exec is like, what, is this like a true story?

And Lynch is like, no, I made it up. And the guy's like, all right, I'll do it. Like, cool. The guy's just like, whew. Exactly. Let's make it. Lynch says he wrote two screenplays that were horrible. That were just the ugly stuff.

Right, and that the guy at Warner, was screaming at him on the phone. And so the film kind of got put away, and then he went to work on Dune. And even though it is so weird, he had a horrible time working on that movie, Dino De Laurentiis is there, and I guess he's like, maybe you're the guy for Blue Velvet. You're Italian freak, Dino! Uh-huh, your worst. And he's like, the only issue is Warner Brothers, I think has the rights to it.

And Dino is like, don't worry about it. And he doesn't, you know, he called Warner Brothers and got it back very quickly. So it is funny that like Dino kind of makes it up to him in a way, this horrible experience he has. This film for four million dollars is far and away like the cheapest film he makes that year. He's generally working on a much larger scale. If not always at a dune scale, Dino's doing Conan movies and shit like that.

Right, he says, can I have the final cut? And Dino says, no problem, just cut your salary in half, cut the budget in half. Right, he's like, you have to make it for under 10. And Dino assigns him the producer, Fred Caruso, who he said was this like very disciplined, old school kind of Hollywood guy. And he looked at it and he's like,

you could make this for four. Yeah, Lynch said to Caruso, the budget's $10 million. And he read the script a few times, and he says, I don't know what this movie's about, I'm happy to work on it, I can get the movie down to four million easy, basically. Lynch loves this man. Bless his heart, he says.

Because he knows that Caruso turning back and saying, I can make it for less than half of what you're offering, it gives Lynch by proxy complete freedom. At this point, De Laurentiis is like, well, at four, that's a fucking rounding error. Why not? gives Lynch by proxy complete freedom. At this point, De Laurentiis is like, well, at four, that's a fucking rounding error. Why not? I won't say anything about this movie.

I won't even watch it. Right, who cares? Lynch says Fred Caruso talks in a way that gives you a feeling of assurance and safety. And he would often say to him, I don't know what you're doing, but he was a really good producer. So Lynch gives the script to Kyle McLaughlin on the set of Dune, maybe on Arrakis, maybe when they're on a really good producer. So Lynch gives the script to Kyle McLaughlin

on the set of Dune, maybe on Arrakis, maybe when they're on a worm or something. He's like, you want to read this, my boy? I see you as the pervert. Jeffrey highlighted the lines for you. What were you saying? I haven't seen any Dune that's ever come out. And is it, did they drink?

Okay, two questions. Do they drink their own piss? Yes. Okay. But like not out of a cup, their suit is doing it for them. On screen? Sorry. Not even in the David Lynch one? Well, okay, so like in Dune, you know,

on the world of Arrakis, the harsh sand world of Arrakis, you're wearing a still suit that's recycling your water. My brain just turned off, I'm sorry, okay. I mean, that's what a lot of people do in, like, page one of the book. Like, before, you know, where it's just like, the quiz that's hot rock and people are just like, it's gone. It's gotta go. I'm not reading this. Jamie, you're not into this hard lore. You just, like, opening shot the Mariner pisses into a contraption

on his own ship. We live in water world. Exactly. He drinks the piss. Just working that pump. I was like, there's no live Dune show at Universal Studios Hollywood. That actually might happen. That seems more likely. That would be so cruel and unusual

if they got rid of the Waterworld show to replace it with, ooh. I think the Waterworld show isn't going anywhere. It's more implied piss drinking. Yeah. They do drink worm piss in a way. Yeah, it makes them go crazy. And hear the voice. And see visions and stuff. Yeah. Uh, they do drink worm piss in a way. Yeah, it makes them go crazy. And like see visions and stuff. Yeah. So you do see that.

But it's, you know, it's not their own piss. It's not, you know, and it's not the good stuff. It's not the good stuff. The spicy stuff. I do, well, of course, they do ingest the spice. I do like Lynch's quote about Kyle, where he's like, "'Some actors, when you look in your eyes, their eyes, you can't see them thinking.

Kyle can think on screen. Jeffrey is connecting different worlds. He's looking into Sandy's world, he's looking into Dorothy's world, he can even look into Frank's world, and I need someone who can communicate that silently. It's interesting, I think. Not that Calvin Glocklin's bad in Dune,

but when they announced that Chalamet was doing the new one, and you, David, were like, that's so fucking spot on. And it was at a moment when you were getting a little bit frustrated with Chalamet, and you were like, I cannot deny that that is the perfect application of him. I called him a grading and mannered actor, and someone said he's only grading and mannered when he's giving you extra Parmesan on it.

Olive Garden. Maybe you and Chalamet were on the rocks? That is, wait, who said that? Sam Herbst, shout out to Sam Herbst. That is very funny. It was so funny. I said that his performance in Beautiful Boy was grating and Mannard and Sam was like,

he is only grating and Mannard if he is giving you extra cheese and Par, and Olive Garden. That is one of the funnier things I've heard in a long time. I was kind of like, also I think with Timmy Chalamet, I was kind of like, yeah, but like, right, how does this guy translate? And then he picked, you know, he's Paul Atreides,

and I was like, that is the kind of- Something about him being baby in that way. Sort of unnerving special boy. Right, the special boy thing. Common Glockland, I think, is almost a little bit too adult for Dune. Yeah, sure. He's a little less boyish.

He's still pretty boyish. We'll talk about it. But then in this movie, you're like, this is such a perfect young man, which is what this movie needs. He is so firmly in the center of like, this guy returns home. There are women who are still in high school

who remember him from being king shit in high school. He has not quite transitioned into adulthood. Right, but he does, right, he's not a kid. Like this is a grown-up sexual person. And this whole movie is the journey of him being like, I've kind of left behind the like comforting bubble of the white picket fence world. Do I wanna go back to being like the guy who can pick up the girls at the school?

Do I wanna venture into a darker world? It is, I know that his character and Lauren Dern's character are close in age, but there is something so Jerry Seinfeld coded about pulling up to a high school in a red convertible where you're just like, no, keep driving. And also his bad boy 2.0 phase. Let's acknowledge Ben, come Glocklin, in this film, rocking a little ear. You beat me to it. I was going to make fun of Ben. Yeah, yeah, this film, rocking a little earring. You beat me to it. I was gonna make fun of Ben. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben has a little earring. So I recently changed to a hoop, having had a stud for about a year. Wow! Okay, okay. I knew something seemed different. Yeah, the office, I know all the balances in here are off. It's crazy. We haven't recalibrated yet. Yeah, Ben's been feeling more powerful. Ben's been really powerful.

You get... No, sorry, go on, Ben. Well, I just, I was saying before we started recording too, that I really was influenced by all of his fits in this movie, and I'm gonna become a sports jacket guy and start wearing ties. Which also, he dresses a lot like Lynch in this movie. You're entering your new wave era is what you're telling me. I also fully believe that Lynch, you know, Lynch in his prime was doing the chicken dance on date one.

Like that's autobiographical easily. But I also like to think about all the things that, all the weird things that Jeffrey does early on where I'm like, maybe if he just didn't do the chicken dance, none of this would have happened. Sure. Like what are little things, I feel like he conjured this situation for himself. But it is like, I don't know. I, I, Jeffrey is, and the, I felt a little vindicated. I'd never looked into like the cut scenes or anything that was like removed from this movie.

But like Kyle McLaughlin is really, I don't know, I think the most iconic Kyle McLaughlin role for me, formatively outside of the Flintstones. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2? Is, that is a close third. Okay, blue velvet is my, no. Number two, okay, well come on. It's not in the state, Trey McDougall. Will you rather measure my John Thomas?

I'll just always remember him saying that. He calls it John, wow. My John Thomas. He's, all righty. It's just like, and the things that he's good at feel so consistent regardless of like the genre he's in where he's great at like being oblivious, but he's also great at, like he's uniquely good at being

like guilty and shameful in like a very like baby way, like a baby who's been hit. Yes, he's so good at being shameful. That is very true. Obviously, he's played so many kinds of deviance over the years, which is great. I support deviancy, obviously. I mean, you sent him a bunch of Facebook messages and he had to write and apologize publicly

that he's not his characters. Did you see that the Rictus Erectus has to fucking be like... For the record, I don't actually live in the wasteland and capture children. After some startling messages I've received from strangers. Because we live in hell. If he had just doubled down on us living in hell and been like, I was allowed notes to have apologies

for the actions he did in Furious. Basically what he posted. I know, I know, poor guy. Yes, so like, right, In Sex in the City, Charlotte marries what seems like the perfect preppy guy. Wait, do you not know Dre McDougall? I've seen two episodes of Sex in the City. Wait, I've never seen something that you haven't seen before.

This is really exciting. Wow. This is really cool. Yeah. Have you ever watched a baseball game? No, of course not. You guys have a lot of overlap, to be... A baseball game? No, of course not. Right, you guys have a lot of overlap, to be clear. And, right, she marries, like, she's always wanted this,

you know, kind of picture perfect husband. She thinks she's bounded in this, like, preppy guy who wears, you know, a boating hat and is rich. His mom's name is Bunny. She's always watching in on him having sex. An impotent, mom-obsessed freak who, like, you know, cannot get it up in bed because he's got so much going on, you know...

But has no idea he has so much stuff going on. And like, that's... And he's so good at... You're right. Like, both head empty and head busy. Like, with freak shit. Uh, I like, like, it's... That, I mean, in a different... But like, it's like Dale Cooper shit too,

where it's like his head looks empty, but there's just like, it's unclear whether he knows how much is going on in his head. I don't know, I've never seen that specific kind of like eye glaze that Kyle McLaughlin can conjure. Well, he looks so much like a mannequin without being vacant. Yeah. This is why The Hidden used him that way.

It's why like Fallout this year uses him. He's always instant path to that. Where you're like, I can't tell if this guy is devious or is right, just like a mannequin come to life. And like doesn't realize. His Portlandia character is also doing that. Yes, I was gonna say. Very funny Portlandia.

Yeah. I think the funniest thing in Portlandia was Steve Buscemi being celery. Anyway, Kyle McLaughlin is given the script, likes the script a lot, is really, he's like, I think I understand this. He takes it to his parents, which is adorable. Something you do, I guess,

when you've only been in one movie. His parents are very upset by the script. His mother apparently couldn't even talk after reading it. And he was basically like, I think that David's gonna handle this well. Like, please don't worry. Oh, when we covered Seven on this show, and reading about everyone's response to the script at the same time,

it's one of those things that just like... Which makes sense. It feels quaint now. I just think we are at a point now where it's hard to imagine any script being sent around Hollywood, where people are like, how dare they? In that same sort of way.

People will be like, this is offensive. But you read how people received this on paper, similar to the seven script, and they were like, this seems illegal. It's kind of fun to think about. Where are you gonna screen this movie? In prison? I wonder how much of that can be attributed to like, just pre-internet, where it's like, now you can just,

you can be like, there's a built-in audience for any fetish you could conjure. Like, there are millions of people interested, and I have the data. Where before, I mean, that's like, I guess part of what the movie's talking about is, you just don't know what people are into. Now it's like, it's far too easy to figure out what people are into. It's like what Molly Sims said,

that there's something in the culture that hasn't been spoken to. No, I think you're right. I think there's this knowledge now that at any point you could Google anything and probably see it. And most of us are choosing at most times to not Google most things. But there's not that feeling of like, how dare you put that out into the world? Because you're like, I think it's all out there. I'm just trying to avoid it now. So this is Lynch's first collaboration with Joanna Rae, who is his casting director going forward, famously the ex-wife of Aldo Rae,

and someone where it's like basically just at this point, I mean, she works on like Lynch, Tarantino, she casts show girls, like her entire casting like credit on IMDB, they're just all amazing. Obviously has an eye for like like, freaks, deviants. Again, I'm saying this with love. Wow.

Frank Booth is the tough role to cast here. Willem Dafoe was supposedly in discussions at some point. Makes sense eventually, obviously he's in Wild at Heart. Lynch absolutely offered the role to Harry Dean Stanton, who was disturbed by it. I don't wanna go there. Go down that violent trip, he said. Hopper was basically like, I really get this guy.

Hopper is campaigning for the role. Yes. Now Hopper is not in like a sterling career place, right? Like it's like, he's not really a draw. No, but as Lynch says, he's like hearing rumors that Hopper might've cleaned up. That this is coming off of like over a decade where Hopper became vaguely unhireable

just cause like this guy is so whacked out of his mind on any number of substances at any time that you're just not gonna be able to control him. And there's this question of like, has Hopper cleaned up? I'm so curious. Is there like footage of David Lynch and as Hopper like working together? What were they like having a conversation again? It almost feels like a Clausen-Werner thing.

Like you're just like, what is this dynamic? How could it possibly have worked? That's the fascinating thing is like you watch like the documentary about the last movie and you're like, this is a guy who is like unraveling, right? By this point, I feel like there's like never a bad story about Dennis Hopper onset behavior from 1985 on. No, he went on the wagon. I mean, yes, it's like and I think he had a really chaotic reputation.

And that's why Lynch even has to be convinced, even though apparently, Dennis is saying to him, like, you have to let me play Frank. I am Frank. Right. I mean, like, behavior aside, just someone who's yelling at your head, who can't not yell. That's the thing, though. Like, even when he's giving unhinged performances, I feel like from 85 on, the narrative is, this guy went through it all, and now he's able to, like, uncork it when he needs to

in front of camera. But, like, the thing that obviously appeals to Lynch and then he talks about it is, like, he is such a 50s guy hopper. Because he does have this, like, motorcycle bandit thing, basically. The rebel without a car. Exactly. And, like, that's what Lynch fucking loves! Like that, and so he says, like,

there's a scene where Dennis is watching Dorothy sing and he's crying, and it was totally perfect. There's a side of these romantic 50s rebel things where guys could cry and it was totally okay and cool, and then they would beat the shit out of somebody in the next minute. Macho guys don't cry now and it's false. And the 50s guys had this poetry swimming through them,

which is an amazing way to think about this. Yeah, and a guy like this who's had done like heightened studio melodrama, had done like countercultural experimental, had done, had touched so many different eras of Hollywood. Would do speed and water world back to back. Would do speed, curious. Yeah, and drink water back to back. And you're forgetting King Koopa, of course, which... I'm so sorry.

I think we did. Yeah, an incredible run. What a career in the 90s. Dorothy Valens. Lynch really wanted Helen Mirren, who is a mega babe at the time, who's working with Peter Greenway and stuff. I was going to say, makes sense for this type of movie. And he says that she gave him lots of feedback on the script and really helps him. Lynch says, I didn't know Isabel Russell any at all. I didn't even really know she acted.

I thought of her more as a model. And then he... The son was entirely Helen Maron's idea. That when he was talking to her about the project, she was like, her behavior doesn't really make sense unless she's doing it for her child. There has to be a sense of something greater she's protecting, that she's making these calculations in the name of. Uh, and apparently when he met Isabella Rossellini,

uh, David Lynch said to her, you know, you look like Ingrid Bergman. And someone was like, that's, that's her mother. Like, what are you talking about? I don't know if it's apocryphal. I feel like at times I've heard that story relayed as someone tells him It is her mother you idiot and literally falls out of his chair I could imagine you could see Lynch going like holy smokes Yeah, so he reaches out to Martin Scorsese who is the ex-husband of Isabella Rossellini. They were already split up at that point?

Yes. Okay. No, I'm sorry. Other way around. Isabella Rossellini reaches out to Martin, her ex-husband, and says, what's the deal with David Lynch? And he's like, go see Eraserhead. And she was very impressed by it.

And there it goes. And Lynch puts her with Kyle Mcoughlin and has them talk and do stuff like that and then gets the part. Obviously Lynch is also like madly in love with her it's very obvious from these quotes in retrospect that he was just so struck by her. The reason I didn't think they were already divorced at that point there was some Scorsese interview where he talked about Rosalina asking him about Lynch that he was interested in her and they had that conversation she walked away or hung up the phone or whatever,

and Scorsese was like, she's gonna fucking fall in love with Lynch. Like this immediate, like, I know exactly what's about to happen. But I guess he had already kind of fucked it up at that point. I mean, this is like, Scorsese... How long were they married for? Uh, he... Scorsese or... Scorsese and Rosalene were married only for three years years and that's it like the absolute worst of his addiction issues

She's married to him at the worst point before he kind of nine to eighty two right? It's it's the New York, New York Digging himself out to come back the other side with raging bull era Rosalini dates Lynch from Blue Velvet on to like around 1991. And yeah, and then Laura Dern, obviously this is the beginning of long history collaborations for Lynch and Dern. She was 17 years old. Obviously she is Hollywood royalty, right? Another thing...

...daughter of Bruce Dern and Van Dyke. He loves anyone who has history with the entertainment industry in that way. But also people like Dean Stockwell, who are former child stars, people who are legacy stars, people who have existed in different eras or mediums or what have you. And he just wants, obviously, this pure creature, who's not really been in Hollywood yet. Yeah.

To embody that role. Dern was incredibly good at doing without making it seem uninteresting. Right, she'd already been in like mask and smooth talk at this point. It's like, this is not her first movie, but I don't know, whatever. All right, Blue Velvet, what do you guys think?

All right, it's about, guy finds an ear, turns out there's some fucked up stuff going on. I think it's, I mean, for me, this movie's about a guy losing his keys. This is David's take that we're gonna solve every Lynch movie with the same reading every time. Right, that I'm like, no, no, guys, I've solved it. It's actually a guy lost his keys.

That's what's going on with him. I forgot about that bit. Thank you for reminding me. You're welcome. That's what I'm here for. Blue Velvet. You opened with the- Incredible beginning. Right, very classy. That always like Thank you for reminding me. You're welcome. That's what I'm here for. Blue Velvet. Incredible beginning. Right. Very classy.

That always sneaks up on me. The credits literally projected on Blue Velvet curtains. Hacky choice. You just said it. It's a joke. It's a hilarious joke. Well, I'm not laughing. That's fucking sick what you just said. It's kind of lynchy.

That was a joke. You play the song I'm fucking sick what you just said. And... It's kind of lynchy, and it makes me feel like making jokes like that. That was a joke. Um, you play the song over the perfect, idyllic sort of footage of the kind of thing that Lynch does revere. The watering of the lawn and what have you. God, yeah. At the end with like the image of the whatever, I don't know what flowers are flowers, roses probably and sky, it just, I don't know. I think I liked that this movie came out in the 80s

and that for some reason, and I'm sure that there's plenty of them, that like this is a decade where this kind of movie could come out. It was like in the middle of the Reagan years, you could make a movie like this and Tim Burton could make his version of a movie like this and everyone could make their version of a movie like this, and Tim Burton could make his version of a movie like this, and everyone could make their version of a movie like this

that is playing on the suburbs. It just feels like they're getting away with something incredible. Back to the future, that's the whole thing of like, that movie only makes sense at the exact point in time they made it. We devote an entire episode onto it. But the relationship between the 80s and the 50s

was something like very specific it felt like. Because this movie feels like it takes place in both decades at the same time. Yes, I was going to say it isn't until whatever it is, maybe five or six minutes in when I'm watching it and I clock Colin Gough playing Atari. I'm trying to think of the 80s. There was a moment and every time I've watched it, I have the same thing where I get to whatever point, however many minutes in, and I clock the earring for the first time.

It's not like the movie makes a point of revealing it. And I go like, oh, right, this is present day. This movie is supposed to be in 1986. Right, but only when they need it to be. Only when they need it to be. Because like Laura Dern's fit, while great, were not taking place in 1986. Right, but only when they need it to be. Only when they need it to be. Because like Laura Dern's fit, while great, were not taking place in 1986. Like they're like weird poodle, like Grease costumes.

Right, she does not, nothing is bedazzled or there's no neon or whatever. But I love that. I really love when like, it's just like doesn't care about the like, about you knowing it just, like, doesn't care about the, like, about you knowing with specificity what year it is. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Which is maybe just, like, a reaction to watching any, like, movie

that takes place at a specific time that plays, like, the election results of that year and the background of the first scene. So you're like, oh, okay, I guess it's the year 2000. Just not seeing enough stories set against the backdrop of the first scene, so you're like, oh, okay, I guess it's the year 2000. I'm just not seeing enough stories set against the backdrop of the 2016 election. Anytime I read that from like a festival review. Oh, God. And for some reason, the filmmakers decided

to specifically set this film against the backdrop. Oh, fuck off. I wonder if they were trying to get at something there. It's just like so annoying, but I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm rereading a series of unfortunate events right now. I saw that you're doing that. Which is of course set against the backdrop of the 2000 election.

It is very- Talking about a series of unfortunate events. There's so much more hanging Chad stuff in the Lemony Snicket books than you remember. It's so great. It's the VFD, a bunch of hanging Chad's, where are the butterfly ballots? A bunch of, yeah, it's all Chad's.

The sugar bowl, hanging Chad's. a bunch of hanging chads, where are the butterfly ballots? A bunch of, yeah, it's all chads. The sugar bowl, hanging chads. It's all, but just like another, like, creative work. They use the spyglass to find the chads. But like, they don't give a shit. Like, it's only the present day when the author needs it to be the present day for the plot to work. And it feels like, he's like, I would rather it be 1897,

but we do need them to have a telegram or a phone or something in this book. So it's whenever, whatever year you need it to be. Should I read those? Have you never read them? I was like a little too old for them, I think. I was like 14. Unsurprisingly.

And my brother loved them. And I think I sort of was just like, well, they're Joey's thing. Like, he reads those. I saw the movie. Yeah, you and I disagree strongly on the movie. Not the same experience, not the same... Wait, did you like it?

I don't think so. No, I think you strongly... Because I feel like you strongly dislike that movie. That's too strong. No, I just remember being underwhelmed by it, but while appreciating that it at least had, like, design in it. Yeah, I think that movie is like an astounding work of craft. That is narratively an absolute mess. I feel like you're both right. Yeah, wait, I think that movie is like an astounding work of craft. That is narratively an absolute mess. I feel like you're both right. Yeah, wait, I feel like, okay,

I think my problem is Jim Carrey. I think he's also kind of a problem. The whole thing with him is, you're just getting Jim Carrey, like, working hard. It's not an act, it's, I don't know. I've just said this to whoever will listen recently, and I'm so glad I've found the opportunity to say it again, because they made the same mistake

in the second adaptation with Neil Patrick Harris. He's not supposed to be funny, he's supposed to be scary. It should have been Christopher Lloyd both times. But like it makes so much sense obviously that some exec was like, right, this is a perfect opportunity for some comedic actor to be a goofball. Yes, oh, and he gets to play like six different characters.

Yeah, wonderful. Right. Does costume changes. Yeah. I don't believe that Jim Carrey would kill a child. I do believe that Jeremy Irons would kill a child. Well, Jeremy Irons would kill a child to like, you know, get coffee faster or whatever. Like, he would do it for any of these. Right. I mean, Carrey, I don't know.

You know, I just rewatched Batman Forever. This is the same series that I'm doing with this friend you never saw. It's the same thing in that. It's like you're getting Jim Carrey. Like, he's doing his thing. Obviously, the man is given proper performances in his career. But not when it's, hey, can you be Jim Carrey for a bit? It's another way in which I feel very conflicted about that movie, is I do think it is one of his best later comedic performances. Hey, can you be Jim Carrey for a bit? It's another way in which I feel very conflicted about that movie,

is I do think it is one of his best later comedic performances. But I think it's an absolutely horrible fit for the movie. It's the wrong movie for it. Where I'm like, I wish he was able to bring this to anything else in that 10-year period. But, and that's also the same year that Eternal Sunshine came out. I'm pretty sure it's both over the best performance period. Yeah. It's nuts that those came out the same year that Eternal Sunshine came out. I'm pretty sure it's both of those. Best performance, period. Yeah.

It's nuts that those came out the same year. And outside of Jim Carrey, I think the movie's super well cast. I love Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine. I thought all of the... Everyone else is fucking good. It looks cool. Timothy Spall's Mr. Poe. Come on. Cedric B. Entertainer.

Great. I don't even remember that. My thing with Carrey and Batman forever, which I feel like I may not have said when we did the commentaries. Almost suggest that we should talk about the movie Twin Peaks. I know, I know. Just one minute. Just one minute, okay? Okay.

He's in Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet. Yeah, we could talk about Twin Peaks a few more. Oh, I thought we were just taking one more step to get back to... No, no, no. He's introduced to us as like squarely odd scientist Edward Diggman, who's like disheveled and weird. Okay. Then he becomes the R's introduced to us as like, squarely odd scientist Edward Nygma. Who's like, disheveled and weird. Okay, then he becomes the Riddler and he's like,

it's like his id is unleashed and he's crazy and fun and charismatic, right? But then he switches to a third persona that's just normal Jim Carrey in a tux. When he's like, now I'm Edward Nygma with money and I'm like, and I'm like, where was this guy earlier? You're supposed to be this unhinged scientist. I never connected that. And then he's just suddenly in a tux. He looks hot. And he's like, young Jim Carrey.

And you're just like, who this guy was missing. Just stop. You found it. This is the mid stage is where you need to live. And it's only for like one sequence when they're having a party for him. His entrance was good, yours was bad. And you're just like, fuck this, it's just Jim Carrey being a babe. I, you know, Drew Barrymore's just flirting with him.

Yeah, I understand. Cause she's probably like, this whole schtick where I'm half the guy's girlfriend and Debbie Mazar is the other half. I can't do this forever. Like, this is bizarre. Are you single? Depending on how the coin falls.

Drew Barrymore had to be so adjacent to a lot of guys doing their shtick. Yeah. Just had to endure the shtick. Oh, my God. Including ET, that fucking hat. That fucking hat. Bugging it up, getting drunk on camera. In front of kids?

Sick. Waddling around without his pants on. I'm so glad he died. No, no, he came back to life. He came back to life. Oh, I haven't seen the end of me. Oh, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. When ET dies, you turn it off.

And you're just like, great, justice done. Yeah, I am rooting for the government and ET. Oh yeah. Yeah, you're rooting for the government in E.T. Yeah, you're rooting for Key Guy. Yeah, get his ass. That guy didn't lose his case. Anyways, I like when a movie takes place, basically in the two years that the director's interested in

except for when he needs something. Yes. It's great. You have this opening of Americana and then you witness a man having a heart attack while watering his lawn. As he falls to the ground, you go deeper and deeper into the dirt and you have this sort of like mechanical industrial...

It's held on a little fucked up. It's a little twisted. Just under the surface, bugs are like doing shit. It's so easy to mock. It's so freaking gross. But it is. But it works, it's awesome. Yes.

It's just also like the stock lynch noise. Like, oh, it's just great, right? It's like the ambient soundtrack of Eraserhead. Right. It's just underneath the surface. Jeffrey Beaumont summoned us, a college kid Jeffrey, to attend to his father. We basically have no sense of what his life has been like

since leaving this town. Outside of knowing he went off to college. I know in a deleted scene, there's a scene of him just confirming the Jeffrey creepy guy allegations, if there were any doubt, of like him doing the same thing at college. Oh, like getting closets? Yeah, like, I think it's like another Jeffrey voyeuristic moment

where he's like watching a woman get either harassed or assaulted in some way at school and then just being like, well, anyways, this is, I haven't actually seen the scene, but I know that there was just so much of this movie that was cut. Yeah, there's an hour of deleted stuff, which is fascinating because the movie's already two hours long. I feel like this is often the case with Lynch. Yeah, he had a much, much longer version of this movie than he, I think.

You know. I prefer knowing less about Jeffrey. I like that you're sort of left being like, okay, who is this guy? I don't need the confirmation that he is a fucking creep because you can kind of feel it. Yeah. He comes back, his father is incapacitated, but it is one of those things where it's like, his father's health issues have nothing to do with the plot of the film. I had misremembered,

like, oh, he has a heart attack and then he finds through the ear on the ground. No, it's completely unrelated events. It just brings Jeffrey back home. And as you said, it's almost like Jeffrey needs some other project. He's ostensibly back there to take care of his father, except it's a thing he seems wildly disinterested in doing. He's just kind of like, okay, he's there. All right, now I'm here.

I guess I should be a good son and stay nearby. He also has the mind of the hardware store too. I think that was somewhat of a motivator too. But even then, I think we don't see him do much in the film. No, I have said, and there's, but there's two guys named Ed that work there, isn't that like double Ed? What I liked about, I don't know,

I just feel like if we're thinking of him as like 19 or 20 or however old he's supposed to be, who's just very suddenly been asked to drop whatever his hopes and dreams may have been. To leave probably can't come back. It doesn't seem like if his dad, if the hardware shop isn't like fully functioning, it doesn't seem like he can go back to school. And like, I don't know, I think about people I know who are in a position like that where they had to leave school for whatever reason, and had to go home and like sort of renege on like, okay,

what I thought was gonna happen is not gonna happen. And then I think very often you'll just get really into some other thing to distract from the fact that your life has been very suddenly derailed and you have no control. And I like, on this viewing, not the first couple of times I watched it, but I was like, oh, I like locked in to my pervert King Jeffrey

and was like, this is a guy who like is just searching for a sense of control because the things that are out of his control are very depressing and mundane. Like, he can't go to college anymore. He has to work at a hardware store. He doesn't seem like he wants to move home, but he can't deal with it. So he's like, I'm going to be Harriet the Spy. And that's how I'm going to cope with my life very suddenly fucking sucking. But also, I think there's this piece of, and it's what I like about getting so little kind

of like background on him, is he's never talking about how badly he wants to go back to college. He's never talking about his father's illness derailing a specific track he thought his life was on. He's this guy who is like very deeply in some transitional state, this sort of young manhood, and is fighting against maybe all sides of having to settle in any one place,

is the coolest thing I can do to fucking take my car around to the high school and try Jerry Seinfeld the shit out of this town? Like, you know, box full of Pop Tarts. Can I go unfrosted on their asses? It's the coolest thing I could do, have a 17-year-old girlfriend, or... Does that make me king shit of like,

I'm the coolest version of what I wanted to be when I was 14 and lived here? Yeah, I mean, it feels like his instincts, I don't know, I'm sure I'm like, I mean, it's easy to project onto Jeffrey, because apparently I'm a Jeffrey, and that bums me out. But like... You just wish, you long for near when men were men, you know? You kind of like, you know? You know, and...

Well, now you're Jerry Seinfeld. Just do Jerry Seinfeld. But that like, there's like a very childish thing behind, like, you know, I mean, it's terrifying to find an ear, but then to be like, it's my job to figure out what is going on with this ear. He almost frames it a little bit at the beginning, and obviously he uses this as a way to like,

get closer to Sandy of like, maybe this is my calling. Maybe I'm the kind of guy who could be a detective, you know, meeting her father and getting this sense of how it invigorated him. But the other part of it for me is just like, it's almost like an Alice in Wonderland, like rabbit hole thing, where it's like, here's the whole to adulthood here's all this shit that's been out of reach for me when I was a child there's all this shit going on behind closed doors underneath the surface some of its dark some of its exciting some of it sexy some of it's terrifying yeah and like do I want to

just know what it is and he keeps on he's trying very briefly to be like what is the way to know without getting into it? To hide in a closet. To just do the recon work. I just find the ear, but I want to know what they find. And then very quickly, he gets too directly involved. I would be so bad at hiding in a closet. I'm so, like, large and fidgety. Yeah.

It'd be so shitty. I'm so small and fidgety. I'd be great at hiding in a closet. Jamie, admit it. If you found an ear on your lawn, you would be like, I gotta figure out the ear. Of course I would. And you would go right into a closet.

You're such a Jeffrey. And what he's doing is, I feel like he has the same instinct that anonymous Redditors trying to solve a cold case in their neighborhood is trying to do. It's like you instinct that anonymous Redditors trying to solve a cold case in their neighborhood is trying to do. It's like you have no actual skill here except you found the ear and now you've decided, right, you want to deal with it.

So I must be the guy. There's a lot of horrible podcasters that do the same thing. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like us. This pretty young girl who's like, I have like 10% more information. Yes. Right. That's who I am. Where I'm like, well, I have like 10% more information. Yes. Right. That's who I am.

Where I'm like, well, I know a little bit of gossip and I want to hear about this. I am not touching any ears and I'm not going in any closet. I'm staying outside. I do know how to drive a car so I can beep the horn. Yeah. I'm great at beeping. Yes. And there is this game of her like being very upfront

that she has a boyfriend but continuing to spend time with him. The idea that this is an activity gives her this safety blanket of being like, I'm not cheating on him. No, and she's near someone who's doing something interesting. But without, yeah, like you're just saying, but with the safety of like, I don't have to do it, but I'm a part of it and I get to be near it. And I don't know, it seems like her boyfriend,

I love the scene when Mike is about to beat the shit out of Jeffrey and then, like, Isabella Rossellini is there, and then he's like, oh, I'm sorry. And then just retreats. One of his friends is like, I thought you were going to kick his ass, man. Mike's a loser. Fuck Mike.

Yeah, I hope Mike was hit by a car that night. But there's also, there's the scene where, because he, I guess he goes, first pretends to be the exterminator, right? And then they go to see the concert after that? Yeah, he does some, you know, he does some air exterminating. He sees this guy in a yellow coat. He's like, that's weird.

And so then he decides, right, let's... And he steals a key. Yes, right. And so... But he goes to Sandy and he goes like, I want to see her sing. And you can see that she's kind of just like, this is kind of fun, it's like a date night with him. Like, she's starting to get more into the idea of like,

is this a backdoor relationship starter? Or even if not, it's like she can sleep with this guy and then he'll just be gone. Like, it's like he's the cool older Kai moving through town and then he's gonna go back to college. Like, it's low stakes. You watch the energy of the way she has dressed herself up, the way she's holding herself at the nightclub, the way she is like putting date expectations on this, and then watching the way that he is watching her perform. And then when they're in the car afterwards,

she's just like, this is veered off into a different direction. I saw something change in you that you are getting involved in this to a degree that I no longer like, that I am means to an end for you to solve this thing. Right, and I also get kind of jealous when my friends do stuff without me.

And so that's how I'm also like Sandy. Dorothy, a friend of Sandy. At that age, she got so much further than I ever would. And also, it's so hard to tell, I mean, like with Jeffrey, when he's like, oh, you've never had beer before. I'm like, is that him like posturing? Is that him being a dumbass? Like, or is that him assuming that she's more worldly

than she actually is? Like, you can't really tell, but you know, I don't know. I dated a college guy for a little while when I was in high school, and then I got in a car with him once and he was smoking weed and I started crying. And that was, and it was over. He apologized to my mom at Dunkin' Donuts the next day.

Wow. Had you told Jamie, like, we need to meet on neutral territory for me. Wow. They had to go somewhere safe. And I was at the Dunkin' Donuts across the street watching with my friends, watch him apologize to my mom for, like, corrupting me.

Wow. Was that the first time you had ever been around someone smoking weed? Yeah, I had a meltdown. I didn't know what to do. It was the least cool thing. It was the least cool reaction. He's thinking like, all right, let me, right, knock it up. Knock my game up here. I'll be really cool smoking a J. Drove us down High Street while smoking weed, and he's like, do you want some? And I just burst into tears.

I mean, you were like a cheerleader, right? You were like a... No, no, no. I was recently out of my back brace. I was coming into my own. Okay. I was emerging. Yeah, I was on the dance team.

And I think that, yeah, maybe, maybe that's why I was like, I don't know if Jeffrey assumed she's more worldly than I think that guy definitely thought I had smoked weed before. Um, and then, but you know, what happens when you make assumptions, you apologize to my mom and Dunkin Donuts. You shouldn't do that. Bagel twist. Talking about him being a bagel twist right now. I feel like our whole life has been bagel twisted up by my actions.

That's what he said. Oh, sure. Speaking of him being a sort of representation of Lynch on screen, Yeah. his dialogue about Heineken is his like Lynch-iest moment in this film. Like Lynch as a man, where you're like this kind of just like, this is the one good beer. I love this beer so much.

And that just, I don't know, that he wrote for Dennis Hopper like Pabst Blue Ribbon. You're like, no, that's real man beer. Yeah. But it's just so funny. Fuck that shit. I don't think I had Pabst Blue Ribbon for years after, cause it doesn't exist in Britain.

It might now. Oh wow. Cause it's like cool, you know, beer. But, because it doesn't exist in Britain. It might now, because it's like cool beer. But back then it wasn't, right? Sure. And so I thought that was the coolest shit in the world when he said Pabst Blue Ribbon. He's supposed to be 19 vaguely? Jeffrey?

Yeah. Sure, 1920s. He's in college. In the 80s, people who are supposed to be teenagers look 40. It's really confusing. How old was he when they saw this? Anytime you see a picture of a boy. 26 I think?

Yeah, he's a little older. Yeah. Like you see like a picture of a baseball player from back when they were like, ah, here he is, rookie of the year, 23. He looks like an accountant in his 50s. Like you're just like, who is this guy? Popeye's canonically 34 years old.

Oh watch, don't get me started on that. Yeah, I know, I know. That one's really fucking been getting to me like pretty recently. To be clear, oh that's, you're like, why am I not like Popeye? I'm older than Popeye. I haven't achieved as much as iterant sailor Popeye. Popeye kind of had a child by the time he was my age.

Kind of. I mean, there was a loose baby he sometimes tended to. And what is your job? Sailor man. Like, he's not doing great. He had a real job. He kind of cared for a baby. A loose baby. How would you describe Sweepee?

There's kind of just like a baby in play. Because he's not fucking olive oil's kid either. No. He's got a girlfriend and there is a baby in the mix. The baby belongs to neither of them. I thought you were saying Sweepee has a girlfriend. I was like, Sweepee has a girlfriend too? I wouldn't be surprised. That guy. The things I you were saying Sweepee has a girlfriend. And I was like, Sweepee has a girlfriend too? I wouldn't be surprised. That guy, the thing is I've heard about Sweepee.

No, what I was going to say is it is just very funny to think of a 19 year old being like, God, I love Heineken. It's so, so good. It's sort of a cool European beer, right? Back when, or I don't know. But not even do it with the energy of like, hey, can I turn you onto something really cool? Heineken's like the great beer. He's just sort of monologuing to himself

looking at this thing, not like I love beer, not like fucking Bud Light. He's just like Heineken is just like the most incredible beverage. He's a weird guy and you do wonder, right, like if he like has a penis. Like it's one of those things where you're like, yeah, maybe he's just like a jerky college kid

who's a little pretentious, or maybe he's like a smooth-skinned lizard. Yes, like, I don't totally know. Which is the Kyle McLaughlin magic. Absolutely, like, it snaps changes in him. When they're outside her place that night, they come up with the plan where it's like, I'm going in the closet, you're staying outside,

then drive the car home, just honk four times before she comes in. in the closet, you're staying outside, then drive the car home, just honk four times before she comes in. LESLIE KENDRICK Insane that he pees in her toilet. I know that that needs to happen, but it never does. That for me is the most shocking part of the movie, is that he has the audacity to pee in an apartment he's broken into. GIGI It's key evidence of him being a dang-ass freak. And also kind of an idiot.

Sloppy as hell. Yes, exactly. Not the... Nancy Drew would not recommend, right? The Hardy boys don't go around peeing in random toilets. Does he kick the seat up or does he leave it down? I don't know. Let me review the tape. Uh, he obviously then hides in the closet

and watches an insanely upsetting thing unfold. I mean, this is like a 15 minute and almost feels like Sequel. I mean, it feels interminable while watching it, which is by design. It's like, you know, oh, you got what you asked for, buddy. You know, like, you know, you thought you were going to see something titillating or like lurid and exciting like a crime movie from the 50s or whatever. And instead you see just like the most, you know, jarring, upsetting behavior

from an otherwise great guy, Frank Booth, you know. Like, you know, in public. Let's not say great guy, a great podcaster. The whole thing with Frank Booth is that guy's never chill. I will say this out loud. He doesn't have an off switch? Yeah, you don't see Frank Booth at any point. It's like sometimes Tony Soprano's

just sitting there being normal. Sure. Like, Frank Booth's never just like, hey guys, what do you want to do today? Should we like go to the movies? Sometimes Frank throttles down into hysterical crying. That's his chillest mode. He's got range.

He's got range. I'm just like, how does this man run a criminal outfit? All he does is scream at everybody and huff gas. Like, he's scary and beat people up. Yeah, he's scary, but he's also, like, weirdly, I don't know, I'm not harmless, but he's so vulnerable at so many points where you're like, why doesn't someone just push this guy over? Like, he's so fallible, but like, is not, I don't know.

It's weird. I wrote down during the whole, Like, he's so fallible, but like, is not, I don't know. It's weird. I wrote down during the whole, I mean, the horrific sequence, it's just like Laura Mulvey aneurysm like scene, because it's horrible. But it feels like there is intent behind the horribleness. I don't know, but it's horrible. I hate watching it. It's tough to watch.

It's arresting, obviously. You do, you know, I think the lynch is putting you in the closet, and you're like, I want to stop looking at this, but also, like, I'm, you know, I'm compelled to look at this. Well, and she finds him before. And his vulnerability is really frightening. Yes, she finds him before. So, like, she finds him, because he's an idiot.

He's spying on her in her underwear, having emotionally intense phone conversations. The exact level of thing he thinks he wants to witness. And then she finds him and makes him take his clothes off, which I feel like is probably also something he, like, has some dark desire, right? Like, that she's unlocking here. And then it's like, fuck, Frank is here.

He's now starting to seduce him, Frank is here, you're back in the closet, and now this horrible assault happens, knowing that he is watching it and she knows he's seeing it. And the whole thing does feel, I don't know, like this is the point in the movie where, for me, you're just like, oh, this whole thing is just like a bad dream that is not going to end.

He can't get out of it, he can't forget it too, obviously. He can't just be like, well, that was weird. No, and what he's basically pierced together at this point is that this woman's husband, who is probably the owner of the ear he found, and her son are being held captive in order to control her into some form of sexual slavery. And then it's like you see him switch again to,

I don't know, I mean, Jeffrey's so frustrating, and that's why I hate being a Jeffrey. But like that he has like his baby boy brain switches to like, I'm Harriet the Spy to like, oh, I'm a romantic hero and I'm going to save you and I definitely have the skills and ability to do so, and it's gonna be me. I'm not gonna seek out, like, the appropriate amount of outside help, really, outside of, uh, the detecti...

Like, outside of another cop. Like, it's just, I don't know, he's a mess. But it's the other part of this movie that I think made a lot of people uncomfortable in trying to understand the psychology of the Dorothy character, is it almost feels like she is trying to train him into doing that. Into thinking that way.

Like, she is trying to develop some sort of protector for herself. Because at the end of the day, I do feel like she wants her husband back. Yeah, I mean, I don't think she's like in love with Jeffrey. I think it's I'm bummed out for honestly, I'm bummed out for Sandy at the end. I feel like she's gotten a real raw deal ending up with Jeffrey, especially. And then and then you hear what's in the cutscenes and you're like, Sandy's fucked. This I feel for Sandy. Her husband's a flop.

Yeah, he's a flop. And but with Dorothy, yeah, I guess it's... It seems like... She needs someone who's fucking fighting for her. She needs an ally. She has nobody. Right. She has some control, quote-unquote, over Frank in that, like, he needs her. Right? Like, so that's how she's surviving. But obviously he needs her in this depraved way

that's very upsetting. And right, Frank is... I mean, sorry, Jeffrey is at least an uncomplicated hero for her. Well, and this like twisted sense of do-gooderism he has in his mind of what he's, what's driving him is something I think she recognizes she could use to her advantage of, well then train him towards my needs

and how to best kind of tackle these guys. But Lynch is also just like telling on himself. It's just like, you know, cause he's, you know, Jeffrey then has this like dual relationship, neither of which relate. Like he's dating Sandy, but he's got nothing for her, obviously, and she's just this like chaste object. Right, that's like the noir side where, yeah.

Right, and then Dorothy, he has this relationship with, that's completely just, you know... upsetting. Again, I can use the word over and over again. Sure. But even the concept of, like, here's an idea for a movie I've always wanted to hide in a closet. Like, he's pitching something that is a penthouse letter, right? Like, you won't believe what happened to me. He's also just pitching, like is like a penthouse letter, right? Like you won't believe what happened to me.

He's also just like pitching like, at a piss grind. He's just like, I've always kind of wanted to fuck my mom. You're like, well, no kidding. But here's the thing. He's pitching something that feels like some sort of dark fantasy, right? Some dark unspoken fantasy. And then you're like, if that were to play out in reality, one of two things would happen, basically, right?

One is someone finds you and they hit you over the head with a fucking rolled up newspaper a thousand times and they call the cops on you. And they're like, what the fuck are you doing? And they kick you out of their apartment. The second option is something sexual happens in the way you're fantasizing about, but that happening is probably an extension

of their being incredibly complicated, fucked up, psychosexual dynamics already at play, and you've now entered into a much darker world. Which isn't to say a criminal conspiracy, but you're like entering into very complicated dynamics that have been built over years and different relationships. And that's basically what he finds himself in. It's like, oh, if you want the woman to like discover you in the closet and demand that you take all your clothes off and like control you, which is clearly this thing he wants, that doesn't just happen to fulfill your fantasy.

That is the business end of like 20 years of behavior. Right. There, I don't know. Like, it like takes me back to the back to Ebert's original criticism of it, where it's... Like, Dorothy's character, I can make it make sense in my head. I don't think it intuitively makes sense. I think that's what people like Ebert were bumping up against.

It's like, what is this character? This isn't a real person. And does she exist just to serve the movie? Right. This is this object of torture in the movie. It seems terrible. Which I think is there's a strong case for that. And there's also, I don't know, like when I'm watching, I mean, it's, I don't know, I'm glad that David Lynch has inspired women to make their own movies inspired by him because, you know, I think all of the, yeah, everyone in this movie, but it is particularly the,

you know, the women are operating on David Lynch dream logic. And... And I think it's true all the way through his work. Yeah, and it's like, me particularly agree just on this one, but that Dorothy is, I agree with her, but like she's looking, she desperately needs an ally and it seems like she is in the dreamy,

she has the world's worst life and she is both emotionally desperate for connection and also logistically desperate for an ally and both of those things are happening at the same time and she immediately knows that Jeffrey's a mark and that he is like a pervert who needs to be scolded. And then, you know, like exactly. It's like he's a tool.

He's in the truest sense. Which I do think is there's an interesting, I mean, it is deeply uncomfortable. And it asks Questions of the audience that the movie's not gonna answer but that are uncomfortable right of like is she telling him to hit her? Because to some degree she is trying to Use her wiles let's say to train him to be menacing enough that he actually could possibly stand up against these guys, right? It's not like this is her way to like fucking Mr. Miyagi him and train him to be a great fighter,

but she's trying to like weaponize some darkness in him to bring that a little more to the surface to make him less of like a weird blank boy. Or there is just a nature of, and I think it's as there is just a nature of, and I think it's as Lynch's career plays out, as he explores these things in many of his films, it starts to be a thing that people bump on less because they're like, he's not using these elements wantonly, these are things that he's clearly interested in and like actually psychologically engaging with. But these, lines in sort of situations of, like, abuse and assault, where wires get, like, inexplicably crossed between things that are done to you

and things that you now need to reclaim and own. Yeah. Which especially, like, in... Like, cross over in dreams constantly. Yes. Why am I having a dream about that? I hate that. Yeah. And like, why am I having a dream about watching something horrible and enjoying it? Like, just like all of these horrible things that you're seeing, it feels like,

oh, I've probably had not this dream, but a dream where I feel guilty for enjoying something horrible. And so it's like, it makes sense. I don't know, it's interesting. No one does it like him, and it's horrible to watch, and I would understand if no one ever wanted to look at it and thought it was fucking disgusting.

And also, I just don't go to David Lynch movies for like an understanding of women's sexuality. I feel like a huge through line in his work for me is that he obviously does not fucking get He's exploring that feeling He's almost 80 like he's never gonna understand You know a horniness that is not his own I just always read it as like a somewhat general befuddlement with women period Like the way you look at his relationships and how they have played out across his life,

where almost every one of his marriages, long-term relationships, whatever, ends with the woman just being like, I throw up my hands. That there's not some horrible blow up or... Right. But they're like, yeah, I mean, there's no way in with that guy in a way.

And that his response is like, I don't know why these women keep marrying me. Can I have more tuna and feta cheese? There's nothing where you ate that every day for years. Snapping crisp bacon and black coffee. I don't know what just happened. I almost went into Linda Richmond, sorry. Tuna and feta, excellent separately.

Unbearable to consider together. And also just like stinky and punishing for anyone around. When he was on Charlie Rose, our favorite interviewer, your favorite interviewer. My favorite person, let's clarify. They're actually wearing a t-shirt with him right now. I saw a couple tattoos. Yes, and you're surrounded by black curtains.

Your Charlie Rose sleeve. Yeah. He told Charlie Rose, like, here's your Rose sleeve. I call it my Rose curtain. He's interrupting someone on your arm. He's asking their name for the fourth time on camera. And the show is called what? He told him, I eat tuna, tomatoes, feta cheese

and olive oil every day for lunch. Like that was his lunch. That's what fucking Roger Ebert should have been upset about. Roger Ebert should have written four pieces about that lunch. He should have been struggling with it for 20 years. I just tried the tuna and feta again. I still don't get it.

I understand to some people. I feel the same way about tuna and feta as I did in 1986. I'm sorry. I wish I understood. I think the meal is terrible. I feel terrible for Isabella Rossellini. I guess I haven't seen Mulholland Drive in a couple of years, so I can't speak to it in like a fresh sense. But I feel like what I...

For all of the horrific violence against Dorothy specifically, it's not as if he... And this feels like a weak argument, but like it's not as if he is adverse to showing that same, to show sexual violence against Kyle McLaughlin too, which I know is shown worse in cut scenes where it's explicitly implied that he was assaulted. But in Blue Velvet, I don't think he's at all pretending that he understands the women that he's writing.

I think the cheapest writing for any of the women in this movie is when Sandy instantly forgives Jeffrey. That's where I'm just like, come on, she's 17, she's 17, but you have to have your mom take Jeffrey to Dunkin' Donuts. Like you cannot just take this lying down. Like, you don't need to be mature enough to have the conversation, but you got to call in a ringer.

That was the worst writing for women in Blue Pot. It's not like he has, like, um, but those undeniable cool bad boy vibes. You're like, this guy has become so weird and broken that I think if you're her, it's like beyond forgiveness, you're just like, I'm weirded out by him. I don't want to be around him anymore. I think I'm going to go to college.

Right. Yeah. Well, she should go to college, not his college. Right. But like she's rescued him. Obviously, this is the end of the movie, everyone is kind of rescued. And there's this kind of, you know, dreamlike, like, oh, everything's better now. Yeah.

And it's not hard for someone to maybe put on their monocle and look at the movie and be like, is everything better now? Like, just because we got rid of like a couple bad apples in Wilmington, North Carolina, wherever the fuck we are, like, no. Lumberton. Yeah, I also think.

Real place. Yes, it's a real place. Lord D was such like a preternaturally gifted actor at the beginning of her career that she was able to help a lot of filmmakers get away with incredibly underwritten characters because she could take. Who are you thinking of? I think the woman in mask is the exact same thing where you're just like just kind of perfectly angelic dream girl who represents some sense of innocence and kindness and whatever. That movie's kind of dumb.

Mask sucks. We agree on this. Mask sucks so hard. Few movies bum me out more in every sense. Well, it bums you out because you like the director, and this is actually one of his better regarded movies, but it's like, it's Peter Berkmanovich, but like, it's not, it's just a sappy, shitty movie. It is, that's just like, it's shitty. Does she make the face in Mask? Is this the first, my question was, is this the first time in her career she makes the face? That's a really good question.

Does she like, I was sort of, I thought the movie, I kind of was like, I forget, does she, and then she saves it. And then she makes it for like 30 consecutive. And not to be like, because I'm pro Sandy, I want her to, you know, not get stuck with, it just feels like watching someone from high school end up with some guy and you're just like, ah, but you're so great.

Well, I think this is sort of what I'm saying, that I feel like she, Lord Dern was good at taking a character that was sort of underwritten and idealized to serve the other characters in the story or whatever the fuck, and playing it in a way where you're like, I know this type of girl. Like she could single-handedly make it

into the real version of that person in a way that elevated a lot of people's material. SHANNON MCGEE-REED Because unfortunately, Sandy is being kind of unreasonable. Like, I understand why she feels so betrayed. Dorothy is also being unbelievably weird and like David Lynch wish fulfillment dialogue

where she's like, what is it? Like, your, not your pee-pee is inside me, your poison is inside me, your whatever's inside me. And, you know, it's just, is standing in her living room naked. But it's like, Sandy, you are cheating on your boyfriend also. Like, let's say there's faults on both sides.

Not, you know, you're not breaking into apartments and... He put his disease in me. His disease. Weirdly hotline, regardless. Kind of not be like a classic, like, you have that quote on your Facebook page when you're in college. When I was in college.

Wow, okay. I didn't have it on. I'm just saying. I knew a couple cool people who... It's also wild that this, I mean, I feel like this is said far too often, but there are only seven years between this and Jurassic Park. Yeah. And she basically continues to play some version of, like, a girl or a young woman or someone on the cusp of womanhood right up until Jurassic Park.

Well, no. And then everyone's like, okay, fine. She's a grad student. We did it. Right. I mean, I guess that's a grad student. We did it. Right. I mean, I guess that's sort of what she's doing in Wild at Heart, but it's also, you know, that's a grown-up version of it, I guess. I don't know. Can I ask a question to the group?

Okay, so a thought I'm having about behavior of Dorothy and of Frank and these other characters, something I don't feel like we've touched upon is the drug element. Right, Frank is a drug dealer, essentially. He is a drug dealer. That is largely what he's doing. And you know, this is never answered,

maybe it's in the deleted scenes, I don't know, but I always wondered, how did Dorothy get involved with Frank? And I don't wanna like blame her, but I always kind of have this sense. She works in a nightclub. Maybe her and her husband at some point started buying drugs from him. I mean, I was, you know what I mean?

Like there's, there's, there's never gonna, there's never going to be an answer to this, but I do, I sort of think that there's Frank has a hold over everyone because of his access to drugs. The same thing with Ben. Like who is this guy? Ben Cosley. Who is this guy? I'm doing better. Wow, you turned it on him immediately.

He just asked a question, David. We're like, what is this? What's this, like, layer? And who is this person? Like, and it's like, it does feel like it's another of Frank's, like, thralls, right? I think the answer is it is some connection through the nightclub, whether or not think the answer is it is some connection

through the nightclub, whether or not one or both of them at some point got involved in the drugs themselves. Frank is absolutely the kind of guy who would have some very deep relationship with whoever was owning or running that club. No question he was around. Frank also just like kind of has a deep relationship with everybody in that he's so intense

that like if he's talking to you, you're like freaking out and he's like, ah, and you're just, you're in it. He's not avoidable. I was almost thinking of this is like maybe a poor cop, but I was thinking about like Jennifer Tilly's relationship to Joey Pant in Bound. Where you're just like, she's kind of like,

she's collateral is being underestimated. Why are you with this person? Yeah, she's being of like, she's collateral is being underestimated. Why are you with this person? Yeah, she's being treated like collateral, but she's a person and she's going to navigate her way out of it. On top of the Molly Sims quote that will forever ring in my ears,

the other thing I kept thinking about while watching this movie is I feel like he says versions of this all the time, but Mark Maron always says when people ask him, like, why do you think so many comedians become drug addicts or have like addiction problems or whatever? That his response is like, that's everyone. Like you, you frame this as like, well, there are a lot of notable examples of comedians, but he's like, do you realize how many like construction workers have drug problems?

There's a lot of known examples of people. Sure. Having addiction problems. And in the same way it examples of people, sure, having addiction problems. And in the same way, it's like Hollywood, there's so much perversion, and it's like, they made years of work to catch a predator, and they'd go to any random town, and people would not stop driving up to that house.

And this is the kind of thing this movie is about, which is you could basically go into any town and unmask some low-level crime ring, there is almost always going to be in a town like this, maybe not as colorful, some Frank-type figure, and some horrible things going on around that guy. Even in just a town that doesn't feel like, well, this is obviously a bad town or a bad part of town or whatever, you're like, you're never too far from someone who is selling drugs because you're never too far from people who desperately want to be on drugs all

the time. And that person is always going to have this weird web. I want to use this as an opportunity to step over to Ben, not Hosley, the character in this film, which I do feel like in a lot of ways is like the pinnacle of the movie where I I think people go like, either this guy has just transcended to a plane that no one has ever hit before, or the people who are out on this movie are like, now he's just fucking jerking off. Now he's just doing weird shit. But the notion of like, Hopper coming in, kind of like trying to Bigfoot, comma glocklin, and just be like, Oh, you want to live in this like crazy world? Let's do crazy shit

I got Jack Nance and fucking Chuckie with me My posse is me a racer head and Chuckie. Let's let's fucking have a night on the trip Let's get in the car and go as fast as the car goes. Yeah, and it's like you're my crazy guys You know who's the craziest guy I know Ben you're gonna love him He's fucking splendid and you're talking talking up this exquisite guy, Ben, and you're just like, who the fuck could Ben be? And then to be introduced to this very poised, delicate, classy, sort of lizard-like Dean Stockwell,

caked in makeup. It's awesome. Singing into a light bulb. Lip-syncing. Holding a cigarette holder, you know. Yeah, wearing like a big smoking jacket. And it's this absolute zag from the movie where you're like, somehow this guy has now become

the scariest character in the entire film. I don't think he's the most dangerous character in the film. No, but he is scary because this is where this kid is being imprisoned basically. And he's terrifying because he's so nonchalant and he's like a weird animatronic. And you're like, who is this guy? Why is Frank friends with him?

When he punches Kyle, you're like, oh, wow, this guy is actually also really scary. Like, I feel like that's a moment where it really turns and you're like, okay, wait, why are all these people living here? They're, they're keeping the kid hostage here. Like what is the situation? I, I'm, I guess, almost glad David Lynch did not like attempt to help us understand what the women on the fringes of this room were thinking or like how they get brought into this.

Uh, but there's other people there and they're clearly fearing retaliation. They're not going to come to this kid's rescue. I want their Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. I'm just like, how the fuck? What's their deal? Yeah. How are they stuck here? You want a Benz place sitcom. Well, this sounds so boring.

It's like, what do we do tonight? Do we go to the bar? I hate the bar. Do you want to go hang out at Benz place to come. Is this town so boring that it's like, what do we do tonight? Do we go to the bar? I hate the bar. Do we, you know, do you want to go hang out at Benz? It's just always such a weird vibe. Someone's always trapped in there. It's the fucking drugs, though, man. If you get involved in these scenes,

and you get really attached to it, you really do end up just trapped. And once again, it's the, every town basically has some version of this. Guys, we have to stop acting like this is a realistic. It is, it's real. I've seen it myself. Guys, I have any of us ever done drugs. I have done drugs. I have definitely never hung out with Ben.

I've hung out with this Ben. I just caught you this or that. I've hung out with this, Ben. I just caught you dead to right. I will say, you know, I've definitely- Usually it's just like a boring guy talking to you, not someone who's like, hey, can I do my royal orpheus and ass? I've definitely had moments in my 20s where I've hung out with a scene of people

where we were all extremely high on goofballs. What? Ben, you did goofballs? I did. What is in them? What, I still don't know anything about this. They're a little, they're shaped like Goofy's head, obviously. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Uh-huh. All right, girlfriend, be quiet for a second while I speak. I, David Sims, am now speaking to tell you about, I don't know, I feel ripped off all the time when I'm online shopping I get sort of wooed in by something or other some new gadget that looks very fancy and ends up a very low quality and getting ripped off sucks um I feel like

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with really scary people being being extremely intoxicated. And the way that everyone's acting, I mean, it's so dreamlike and it's so scary. And it's not like a specific drug. It's not like you can define it as like they're all on uppers or they're all on acid, but it's just this vague, scary, menacing kind of, huh, huh, huh, like I'm so fucked up, I can go really far right now. I am not a drug person, but I have had nights in my 20s where I was like,

I don't know how I ended up in this room, and I don't know if I die here, or if this is just goofy. What you're saying of just being like, everything that's happening here is not presented as being dangerous, but the vibes are horrible, and I don't know any of these people and I don't know why I'm here.

The closest that I've ever gotten to that feeling, because I was like trying to search for it, like not with the threat of violence, but with the like, oh, I can't leave, is like in like, I don't know, sometime in the back half of the 2010s, agreeing to do a random guy's podcast, taking three buses to like deep North Hollywood. Jamie. sometime in the back half of the 2010s, agreeing to do a random guy's podcast,

taking three buses to like deep North Hollywood for no money, and then realizing that I was going to the guy's house, recording in his bedroom, and the topic of the podcast was the worst thing that's ever happened to you. And then you're just like, oh my God. And it was clear that it was like, I was not leaving this apartment until I told this guy the worst thing that it had, like, oh my God, like, and it was clear that it was like, I was not leaving this apartment until I told this guy

the worst thing that I did, like, or it was just like, I don't know, like, remember when there were podcasts that were just like traumatic memories? We're oversharing in like a most insane way. Everything's copy. Kind of making it weird, if you will. Yeah, just making it a little bit weird, except. Sort of like what the fuck vibes.

But like, what if that person was nobody? Right, and you didn't just go to their house. They like what if that person was nobody? And you didn't know. They just messaged you and was like, I'm looking at this. Jamie why did you do this? I was like. I'm mad at like eight years ago Jamie. David, cool it. She was just a kid.

No, I was like 24. I don't know. I was like, wow, this is a great opportunity in Los Angeles, California. The city of dreams. This guy has an address in Los Angeles, California. It's a dream. This guy has an address in Los Angeles, California. That is the city of dreams. He's in the know how arts district.

I better get down there. But just, yeah, like a feeling of a full hostage situation with nobody you know, or like, I think it's even scarier to be in a room with one person you kind of know. And you know them well enough, but like, you don't know. To have ended up here, right. Yeah, but not well enough to not be sure that they would not let someone tell you.

To take them aside and be like, what, can I get out of here? I feel like that's always what it was for me of like, I thought I knew this person pretty well. And now in this context, I'm questioning whether I know this person. To me, the scariest thing was always being in a car with someone like that, which happened to me a couple times where suddenly you realize,

like, this person is driving. I actually don't know them very well. They're driving in a crazy way and I can't get out of this. Like, at least in a house, you usually... I mean, I guess there's this sort of pre-Uber era where you're kind of like, what if I, like, you have to go and I don't know where the fuck I am? But yeah. The thing with Ben, to bring it back to Blue Velvet, is he's also, he is like, he's effeminate and like kind of, he's got this kind of like queer vibe to him, right? That is, I do feel part of the Frank thing that is specific.

Like Frank is not this ultra masculine terror. He's this odd, sensitive, poetic terror, like Lynch is saying. And Ben clearly like awakens the same feelings in him, right? Like that's what he's seeking is some weird like transcendent emotion. What's also so much- And it's very interesting to see Lynch kind of like,

you know, poke at that, not too intent. I think so much about our friend Chris Getherd and his Scared Straight story that has been part of his specials and albums and books at different points in time, where he went and participated in the Scared Straight program in high school. And all the tough guys were like,

just fucking wait until you meet Crazy Chris. And Crazy Chris came out and he was like 60 pounds and like seemed fairly a feat. And there was the feeling of like, if these guys are scared of this guy, this guy has just become the scariest guy in the world because everything I assume culturally is that those guys would beat the shit out of this guy. And instead they're all cowering in relation to him. Where you're like, right, there's some power dynamic within Ben. Where he's the exact kind of guy you think that, like,

fucking Brad Durup would be punching. And he's not. That scene, like, on paper, you're just... What the fuck is happening? This is ridiculous. Yeah, but we all have been in a room that feels like this room. It's awesome. It is awesome. It's kind of the coolest shit you can do.

The big news that I have to tell you guys is that Bulldog and Gil will be returning to Frasier for season two on Paramount+. Really? They got him. Wait, did you just get that news? Yes, I just got the news. I just got that. Sorry, I'm...

Colleagues at the university? Wait, Jamie, what happened? I just got... I've been sitting on this for ten minutes. Please. I know I've been checking my phone. If it's that Bulldog and Gill have joined Frasier, I did just talk to her on that. David did in fact break that story.

That is really... I am so thrilled they got a season two, I will say. It's so funny to me that they didn't get them for season two. Were those guys busy? They were. There's no way they were busy. I got... I've gotten three texts. All the same New York Post article, Joey Chestnut is out of 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest in beef over vegan franks.

I also got this news, and I was worried about bringing it up in front of you because I felt like it's like this is too much for Jamie to handle right now. But he signed a deal with Impossible Meats? I think it's a brilliant move. I think it's a brilliant move. I love Joey. I've been saying this. I don't want him to unfollow me on Instagram. I love the man. I think he's an incredible... You just want the occasional slide with Joey. He's a legend. It's gonna happen for me someday.

Yeah. But no, I think it's a brilliant move. I think that everyone needs to just get out of the contest. Like, get out of the contest. Right, like the contest has become kind of like, they're too big for it in a way. Like, it's like this petty dictator thing, right? Yeah, he can make more money outside of the contest. Because before, I think his only sponsorships right now

are Pistachio Nuts and Dude Wipes. And you're like, he can, Dude Wipes is an amazing fit. Because he's a messy boy. Dude Wipes is also such a fucking successful company. It drives me insane wild it drives me insane that it worked I don't know how it works. They were are on shark tank. I saw the pitch Oh, right, right and everyone else is like so it's just baby wipes and they put dude on the packaging No, I mean they reek have you ever have you ever taken away a dude wipe? But it was one of those examples where everyone else is like, this is silly, and Cuban is

sitting there silently, and he's like, I totally get it. You guys are brilliant. I'm offering $80 million for 1%. And everyone's like, what the fuck are you talking about? And then he wrote it all the way to the bank. It worked. And Joey Chesna is one of our nation's messiest boys. They want it.

I don't really see how pistachios come into it, but I mean, go off Joey, obviously. And Joey Chestnut is one of our nation's messiest boys. They want to make sense. So he needs them. I don't really see how pistachios come into it, but I mean, go off Joey, obviously. Is the beef, as it were, that Chestnut wanted to be able to use Impossible Franks in the competition and they said no, so he bowed out? That is... I believe that's it.

Yes, yeah, because it's a Nathan context. He's like, I am now bound to eating these kinds of Franks, and Nathan's is like, we have to eat Nathan's, and he's like, then I can't do it. But right, Jamie, I think, is suggesting maybe... He was looking for a way out. I think that that is it. Yeah, I think it's a smart way for Joey to bow out, especially when, you know, it's...

It, in my insider opinion, it's unlikely he will top his record of 76 anyways, so he should just take the money around. And he's bigger than them at this point anyway. He is hot dog eating. And he can, I think it's like- And Kobayashi retired. Kobayashi retired.

He, I still, he needs justice. We love Kobayashi, but I hope he's enjoying his retirement. And I like that Joey is in his like vegan era. I feel like that just challenges, who did we think Joey was? There's gonna be backlash for Joey. That's one who actually has power to change the conversation. I know, he's a powerful man.

Let's like examine masculinity in new ways. I'm sorry that I just compared Joey Chestnut to Ben and Frank in Blue Velvet. No, no, you're right. I just wanna throw out that Bulldog and Gil, of course, aren't the only major additions. No, I mean, Perry Gilfin already announced that she's... Back as Ross, but then here's the thing I didn't know. Greer Grammer is being added to the cast this season as Ross's daughter.

Hold on. So Kelsey Grammer's daughter, who I'll say it, looks a lot like Kelsey Grammer, is playing not his daughter on the show, just gonna be in scenes with him with his face I think she's a very pretty woman But I think it is similar to old dogs where Travolta keeps pointing to this daughter who looks exactly like him and saying hey Robin Williams What's the deal with your fucking daughter? Wait, I need to look up

Greer Greer Grammer. She looks like Kelsey Grammer I need to look up... Greer... Greer Grammar? She looks like Kelsey Grammar. Good name. It's a good name. Greer. I just always think it's weird when a celebrity casts their child to play not their child. She's not the one who's in Rick and Morty. She's the one who looks so much like him.

Yeah, I was gonna say, it's Spencer Grammar who has more of a Kelsey Grammar look. I still think it's weird. I just am like, they got Gil and Boltok, okay? They got him. It's thrilling. Sorry. I haven't watched a single second of the Paramount Plus reboot of Frasier.

I'm sorry, should I? I've seen it at least five out of ten. And you gave it about five out of ten? And I gave it, yeah, generously, yeah. They're back in Boston? But Cheers has closed. They're back in Boston. They go out of their way to go like,

Cheers now, that fucking place closed forever. That had to have been a financial dispute because the bar they're at fucking sucks. Yeah. It's, yeah. So like, he just said at a bar? I'm like, exactly. What the hell?

I mean, obviously Paramount, but yeah, no. Paramount Plus is like, set in Boston to bark. The cheers part? What are you fucking kidding? You know how much that would cost us? Then we have to start giving residuals to everybody. And all the supporting characters from the original show come back?

No, except for season two. Okay, okay, okay. I think, and you know. No, you're right. It's the kind of movie where people get mad of us if we continue on this path. I just think the Bulldog News is big. I just think anytime we do an episode on a movie

and end up talking for 20 minutes about an unrelated sitcom, people are thrilled. Yes, people are. There's a history of this. We love that. Of this specific thing. Yes. Being very well received.

Okay, so in the movie, we left off where we meet Ben, he sings the song, and then they go to a lumberyard. David Lynch movies are so fun to just lay out narratively. where we meet Ben, he sings the song, and then they go to a lumber yard. David Lynch movies are so fun to just lay out narratively. Frank covers himself with lipstick, kisses Kyle a bunch, and then beats the shit out of him. Sure. Obviously Frank's relationship to everyone is like domination and submission, right?

He just keeps flicking between like daddy and baby. And so like he wants to come in and beat the shit out of you, then he wants to like chew on blue velvet and cry while you sing to him or whatever. The dream. Yeah. So he's this, right, he's this like endless nightmare. But yes, what do you guys make of all this?

Should I put that down as what I'm looking for in my dating profile? The way you just worded it? Sure, go ahead. All of this is great. But it's just this feeling of like, yeah, this guy going deeper and deeper and deeper into a thing that he's never going to be able to come out of, not even because he can't escape these people, but it's just like, you now know shit you can't unknow.

Yeah. He's a Freudian fucking nightmare. He can't unknow. Yeah. He's a Freudian fucking nightmare. He can't stop screaming. He needs to do hallucinogenics in order to get access to want to be baby who wants mommy because he's too ashamed to be a baby who wants mommy without his little mask. Are you like, yeah, this is like everyone's uncle.

But the other part of him wants to be daddy to a teenager. Yeah. He's a complicated man. He's got range. Yeah, and in the, it's like, specifically in the space of Dorothy's apartment, it's just like the Freud zone. Like you're just exploring all of your most disgusting,

like, Oedipal feelings in this one kind of crusty room. This room that feels like it has carpeted walls. It reminds me of that apartment in North Hollywood, or I had to say the worst thing that ever happened to me. And even I just love there's something about, like, how well lit and sort of, like, tiled the kitchen is as this offshoot, and then the rest of the room just feels like a dressing room.

Like, her apartment feels like a backstage area. Yeah. I mean, it's just, yeah, it's like, having like a knife held to his dick is clearly something that excites him. We're going backwards, though. We don't need to go backwards. No, you're just not going backwards.

But like, it's just like the Freudian, right, the Freudian zone thing. But then immediately it's like, no, now you're a baby and you have to go hide, and run around naked, which feels like, again, like nightmare shit, dream shit. Like, oh god, suddenly I'm naked. Like, suddenly I'm unprotected. Anyway. But it's like, I don't know, Frank is funny

because he's like, there's, it's nuts, but it's also like coherent enough that you're like, okay, David Lynch actually sort of does have a coherent idea of who this guy is. And then if you try to apply that same logic to Dorothy, the takeaway is like, I don't know. He has no idea. He's just a mess.

Yeah, but like Frank feels weirdly, like I mean, obviously deviant, but like it was more, I don't know, like Rewatch, I was like, it's more coherent. Like you're just like, yeah, it's more coherent than don't know, like rewatch. I was like, it's more coherent. Like you're just like, yeah, it's more coherent than I remembered it. I would agree with that. I have that feeling rewatching each of these for the podcast. I was saying right before we started recording that like each of these movies

has played more coherent. I don't want to say traditional. This movie is more straightforward than maybe you remember it being. Yes. It, at least in terms of the story it tells and the way that it moves. Obviously there's stuff like the In Dreams sequence where, like you say, people are probably standing up in the theater and being like, this is silly. But there's even, yeah, this discovery, you know, the twist that comes is like the guy

in the yellow jacket works for Frank, he's a cop, he steals drugs and gives them to Frank to sell and like, you know, keeps rival drug dealers at bay or whatever. Like he has a guy inside. Yeah, he murders someone and steals drugs. He's a really bad guy. He's a bad guy. You don't think it's good? I think it's quite bad. And uh...

I don't think it's good. Right. And then... Damn. Says the guy who did goofballs. You know what means a guy who did goof balls. Pfft. You know it means a lot coming from Hosley. That's when you know you're with some...

When you're with the goof troupe. You're like looking around and you're like, who am I in a car with right now? Yeah. And then there's this thing that we referenced earlier, where it sort of all comes to a head, like Frank, like, you know, chases them down, but then it's like Sandy's ex-boyfriend is there, and then, like, Dorothy just, like, appears naked and beaten to hell.

And Mike, like, runs away. And, like, it kind of feels like everything, like the evil world is, like, coming into the normal world, right? Like, you know, it's not like divided anymore. Made sense to me. I mean, we've talked about before, but this feels like one of those historic examples of someone getting an Oscar nomination for another movie

and it feels a little unspoken that it's like, we all know this is like kind of a blue velvet nomination. It was both. It was both. It was accomplished for the year. Have you seen Hoosiers? I have, yeah, yeah. He's an amazing Hoosier.

No, no, I don't say this was any, yeah. And it. Have you seen Hoosiers? I have, yeah, yeah. He's amazing. He's incredibly good Hoosiers. No, no, I don't say this was any... And the thing about Hoosiers, I think, that spoke to people is rather than playing like an ether-huffing psychopath, he's playing a guy who's getting over alcohol. The range of the two happening with him one year felt like what a perfect sort of here-is-modern Dennis Hopper narrative here. It's about a guy drying out, you know and then personal narrative of that was cool to people. Hoosiers, have you seen Hoosiers?

I think you've seen Hoosiers. Fucking rocks. I mean, I'm a big Alansbaugh guy. Rudy is my jam. Rudy to me, I like Hoosiers for being less cheesy than Rudy. I mean, but I get it. Check your height again, how tall are you? That's some real fucking six, three- six three. I like the basketball movie.

Yeah. But Hoosier's just the start of that movie where it's just like it's five in the morning and it's just Gene Hackman in a farmhouse and there's like dew on the grass and he's just like every all you guys just start passing the ball to each other and you're just like,

God, this is someone's idea of America. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's just like so fucking exciting. Even if it doesn't exist. Hopper amazing in that. But yeah, he got the dual nod. one's idea of America. Like, we don't even like, it's just like so fucking exciting. Even if it doesn't exist. Hopper amazing in that. But yeah, he got the dual nod. Yeah. Yeah.

This movie was nominated just for best director, right? Yeah, it was another loan. It happened to Lynch twice, I think. Yeah, cause it happens with a Mulholland Drive too. But anyway, what else happens at the end of the movie? Obviously Sandy like dumps Jeffrey, realizing that he's basically been cheating on her with Dorothy.

My secret lover. Yeah, I think you're also, you're like Sandy, you've been, what of Mike? Not that I'm rooting for Mike, but she's been cheating on Mike the whole damn movie. I feel bad for Mike. I don't feel bad for Mike, you guys stinks. I feel bad for Mike.

But I do appreciate that Mike is revealed to be a cowardly 17 year old boy. That scans. It's not like he should have been heroic in the end. He's a flop, but so's Jeffrey. I think that Sandy is in the process of, she's like a teenage girl. She's not realized that there's more than one kind

of guy who sucks. And she's realizing maybe she's realizing the first, maybe this is like her first boyfriend, she's like, oh, this guy is kind of boring, he's kind of possessive, he sucks, I gotta move on. So what about a guy in a jacket? And you're like, no, the guy in the jacket also sucks, but I understand your instinct,

but give it a couple years, he sucks as well. You know, so it's just, I get it. She's figuring it out. She needs to understand the range, the tapestry. At least she's not dating a guy in a yellow jacket. Or the well-dressed man, which is of course, Frank wearing insane eyebrows and a mustache and a wig. Looking insane.

That is, I feel like that is often cited to me when I was learning about this movie, is like the big scary shot, is when you see Dennis Hoffer in the wig, through down the stairwell, and people related that to me as like, it's really unnerving, like in that classic Lynch way. I see it as more goofy, but I get it.

Yeah, the Ben lip syncing one is the, you know, he'll often have this sort of like totemic power shot. I mean, even like the look of Robert Blake in Lost Highway or whatever. Bobby Peru's a slightly more comical version of it. But I feel like his movies almost always have this one villain who is simultaneously like goofy and upsetting looking. I also like that it just, I know that like drugs are,

I don't know, I guess like on different... Jimmy, do you like drugs or not? Let's just lay it out on the table. Drugs are really interesting. I could name at least five of them. Hell yeah. There, I feel like in different viewings of this, there's number one, goof balls, number two, weed,

the kind of that makes you cry. Yeah. Number three, weed gummies kind that makes you cry. Yeah. Number three, weed gummies. Does that count as a different drug? Number four, Advil. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Ibuprofen, the hard stuff. Yeah, right. I get the liquid tabs.

That stuff goes really fast. Hit me with some PM and a little bit of my friend's Adderall. Lactaid. Yes. But like, the drugs are like not that, like they are important sort of, but they're also just like a thing to make the guys bad, which also feels like dream logic.

You don't know what the drug is, you don't know where it's coming from, you don't know who is really in charge of the drugs. You just know that they need to be there in order for them to have this much power and control over people. Well, and even like Frank's tank is like, at some times it feels like this is the one thing

that's like taking the pain away from him. Other times it feels like, is this shit making him go turbo? Is this him like baning up? You know? Like you're like, is he addicted to this? Is this like the thing that takes the edge off or is this the thing that makes him like level up? Yeah.

And it's at times all three. Mm-hmm. It's the scariest way to do drugs. It is, yeah, with a little dentist mask. It's, I mean, it's the scariest, but it's the coolest. Fast. Most, yeah. Impractical.

Mm-hmm. Carrying your drugs around like that. But that's why you got a group of boys with you. Yeah, you get Chucky in there.. Impractical. Carrying your drugs around like that. That's why you got a group of boys with you. Yeah, you get Chucky in there. Tank boys. You have like a caddy for your freaky drugs. That's my drug caddy.

That's actually good. I like that. Yeah, the final thing, the sort of nightmarish thing in the apartment where there are all these standing dead men. I don't know, that's to me the most freaky kind of image of the final bit of it, everyone's just nodding at me. Honestly, I like, at that point- Yeah, I know, what do you say about this, whatever? At that point, I'm just like, I don't know,

you're just like, well, that's, he would. That's, when I see that shot, I'm like, he would. He would have this shot and it would be confusing. And I don't know, maybe I'm like being to something but I wasn't like super shocked by it because it just seemed like, well, yeah, that would be in a David Lynch movie. That makes sense.

We're getting towards the end. He's got to get this kind of stuff in. It's burning daylight. I have a big news update. Oh, okay. Is Bulldog out? Griffin's new. They lost Bulldog. They thought I had him. Glenn Powell has acknowledged that, in fact,

the story about the cannibal massage lotion may have been an urban legend. He has revealed it in the sense of, I can't believe I fell for it all this time. Oh, me too. Can you imagine? The handsome star of Anyone But You, Glenn Powell. Props to my little sister's friend. Has he yet acknowledged that he is the one who demanded that someone show urethra in Anyone But You because of market research he conducted? Jamie, have you seen Anyone But You?

I haven't yet, but I'm going on a plane next week. Okay, well that's the place to watch it. You're gonna see that P-hole on a four-inch screen. You may be surprised to see that there is a direct close-up shot of a man's urethra in that film. That Glenn Powell insisted on? No, I'm joking about that. I just like to imagine him being like,

I got two ideas, Sidney Sweeney and P-hole. For us, we find it very important to talk about on this podcast because much has been discussed of the phenomena of that movie. Okay. And people do not acknowledge that there's a point of film in which a deep supporting character holds his penis straight up to the lens head on

and shows you his pee hole. His penis. His penis. His penis. There's also koala business. And I'll leave it at that. Okay. It is set in Australia.

I mean, there has to be a little koala business. I don't know anything about this damn movie. Yeah, I genuinely was. I'm like, I'm flying JetBlue. I'm gonna go nuts. I'm gonna watch anyone. JetBlue just loads it. You have to press a button.

It's like a Jonathan Demme, like Silence of the Lambs type shot where you're like, it's looking at me. I also, I mean, that's like, I was really late to see Anatomy of a Fall, and I was shocked that I didn't yet know about like the Calypso big pimp. Yeah, like that's some real Jamie Korsh. Yeah, I was like, I would have seen this movie opening weekend had I known.

But almost kind of like, it's nice that the culture rallied around and was like, we just have to make sure no one's pulls this for Jamie. Let her get to this movie on her own time. She's going to be so surprised. She hates reading at the movies, but she's going to be really feeling like she got like a return on investment over time. She loves vibing out. I would love for my husband to die during a Calypso remix. It's just so funny that she was like, I wanted Jolene by Dolly Parton for that movie.

That was her choice. And then my obvious second choice. Right. Then just someone's like, I wanted Jolene by Dolly Parton for that movie. That was her choice. And then my obvious second choice. That just someone's like, eh, what a second choice. I don't know, steel drum cover of Pimp. P-I-M-P. I said Big Pimp and it's Big Pimp. Yes, Pimp. P-I-M-P.

I said Calypso, it's fine. Is there anything else we want to talk about with Blue Velvet, a film we have talked about a lot, but perhaps now Ben has me spooked. You know, fans will be like, you didn't talk about this particular freaky thing. The Robin, love that. Sure.

The whole vibe summed up here, this beautiful image that's also like kind of frightening and animatronic and off in this way. Like, and like maybe someone would watch it and be like, well, that was weird. That thing's obviously not a bird. And it's like, yeah, bro, that's what he's doing. That's his whole thing.

It's like the whole fucking idea. The first time I saw it, I did shout, grow up, Sandy, because grow up, but then, but you know, he's cooking, he's going somewhere with it. He's going somewhere. And I understand why it is beautiful. I just, I got 17 year old girls,

they're the best and they're so frustrating because you're like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? What are you doing? Yeah. Go to school, like relax. I think this movie is really, I don't know, I didn't fully understand exactly where this fell in David Lynch's filmography,

and it feels like it's just, it's an uplifting story of like, you should have let me do whatever the fuck I wanted the whole time, I will make something near perfect if you just leave me alone. And then this, there's such a straight line from this to Twin Peaks Season One, which is his biggest commercial success. Right, let me finish out the dossier, in fact, with that.

He says Dino was making 13 films at the time this was being made. They were lowest on the totem pole. So he really just did not check on them. Apparently on the first day, the dailies looked weird because the lens had broken. Dino called and was like, why is it so dark? And they were like, the lens was broken.

He was like, okay. it so dark? And they were like, the lens is broken. He was like, okay. And I left the phone and they basically just didn't get checked in again. Dino's like, I have a note, I couldn't see the movie. Too dark. Frederik Helms shot the film, obviously. I think it was a crazy movie to shoot because it is largely at night.

And it was just like a pain in the ass to light, especially on no... And they filmed it all in Wilmington, South Carolina? North Carolina, which is the where DEG had a studio. I think people know this, but just for people who don't, maybe Lynch wanted Ben to be lip syncing to crying, which is a different and wonderful royal song, which of course he uses in Mulholland Drive.

And then they switched to In Dreams, which makes sense because it's good. Oh, sure. That's an interesting take on it, David. Yeah. And he was going to use a table lamp as a microphone. And instead Dean Stockwell picked up this work light that was hanging on the wall and flipped it around like a microphone. And they were like, oh, that rocks. And you provided your own lighting.

You saved us some time and set up. Rossellini, learned to sing Blue Velvet. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in here. Score, Battle of Menti, amazing score. They recorded it in Prague. It's kind of a Lynchian score, if of Menti, amazing score. They recorded it in Prague. It's kind of a Lynchian score, if you ask me. Oh, I think, is it, what are the top three there? It's Lynchian that people use wrong all the time, Kafkaesque.

Yeah, gaslighting. Right, where you get a direct line from Isabella Rossellini to gaslight. David, what do you mean? Everyone uses that word correctly. What are you talking about? You sound crazy right now. David, you sound insane.

You're the person who's been using it wrong. Yeah, David, everyone but you has been using it correctly this entire time. Here's a tweet of you using it wrong. I didn't write that tweet. Yeah, you did. It's your account. Yeah, you did. Or anyone who like, any bad comedian who just like runs out of ideas

and takes their clothes off on stage. They're like kind of doing a Kaufman-esque kind of thing. You know, you're just like, out of ideas and takes their clothes off on stage. They're like kind of doing a Kaufman-esque kind of thing. You know, you're just like, uh, sure. Blue Velvet, controversial from his first preview screening. It was just shown to some randos in the valley. The reaction was negative. People thought it was disgusting and sick. Interesting.

But De Laurentiis believed in the film, put it at the World Film Festival in Montreal, and then at TIFF, whatever TIFF was called, like the Festival of Festivals back then or whatever. And then it was released commercially mid-September, which is kind of an odd foot to put, but I don't know where you put this movie exactly.

And it made about a million dollars. So it sort of like doubled its budget kind of, and got an Oscar nomination for best director only. But one of those movies that had sort of an outsized cultural impact to how widely it was actually seen at first. Exactly, it just had a long run. Apparently Lynch met Elizabeth Taylor at the Oscars and she said, I love Blue Velvet

and made out with him according to David Lynch. I love Lou Velvet. And made out with him, according to David Lynch. I'm not joking. Kissed him at least. Well, that's a big difference, David. Well, but she says for several minutes. With tongue? Did he specify with tongue? God, the world's most beautiful women do love just like a weird guy. Mack on Lynch.

Yeah, it's true. He says he's kissed her several times. Okay, fair enough. Time has says he's kissed her several times. Okay, fair enough. Okay. Time has obviously been very kind to the film. It's very well regarded today. And now everyone thinks it's cool

and nobody thinks it's weird, right? Joking, I don't know. I think people still think it's weird. I don't know. There's like so many cases. There's five trillion essays about it. I read one. That's a good start.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it seems like people have found different ends to appreciate those. They seem to want to keep community. It's definitely one of those movies that also makes, has only made more sense retroactively as he has built the rest of his canon of work around it. Totally, yeah. Yeah. Box office game?

Box office game for Blue Velvet. We're gonna do, it's mid-September, 1986, Griffin, what's number one at the box office? It's pretty much the biggest hit of the year. It's pretty much the biggest hit of the year? I'll look up what it is. Even I know what it is. You know what it is?

Is it Top Gun? I think it is. I think it's Top Gun, yeah. It is, I think. Yeah, that was the number one of the year. Only two million more than Croc Dundee though. Okay, they were very close. Paramount. Paramount, you're a Paramount.

Two huge mountains at the top of the year. Number two at the Fox office is one of those movies that it's kind of like the Goonies for me where I've never really gotten it. And it was kind of like a cult classic on release that a lot of young people liked of Gen Xers more like, and then when it was presented to me as a teenager as like, this is a cult classic.

I've never. St. Elmo's Fire? No, that movie just stinks. It's just a bad movie. What was Adventures in Babysitting? That's a, I've never seen Adventures in Babysitting. I'm willing to believe that movie is a fun time. That movie's a lot of fun.

It's fun. Where's the movie on the spectrum we're creating right now? Is it more teen, is it more kid? It's about, it's a coming of age film. I guess they're supposed to be kind of, they're like about 12 years old in it. 86, 12. It's a director who is on an insane run

before not being on an insane run. Jamie? No. Is it Stand By Me? Stand By Me. Oh, I've never seen that. Rob Reiner's Stand By We, Will Wheaton, Phoenix. I think a very good film, but not one that was ever transformative for me

in that way. I saw it, right, I think probably with a fair amount of hype at that, and I was kind of like, oh, this is okay. I mixed it up with The Outsiders, which I also haven't seen. Outsiders is very good. Have you ever seen Rumblefish?

No. Rumblefish, you would love Jamie. Outsiders is very good. Have you seen Rumblefish? No. Rumblefish, you would love Jamie. I was a big... Yeah. You... Come on. Rumblefish is like German expressionist Greaser Boy movie. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

Rumblefish looks very cool, it's true. Just like fucking huge black and white shadows of knife fights and alleyways. This poor couple was just addicted to not making more normal movies, even when he's like, I'll do this. When he was actually addicted to losing money. Yes, right. Number three, The Box Office is a sequel to a big hit. Is it a franchise you often trip up on

in The Box Office game? It's Police Academy. Nope. Fuck. But it's another one like that. You just always kind of forget about these. Dirty Harry. No!

I feel like Dirty Harry is the one I always forget about. It's more kid-focused. It's more kid-focused in 1986. It's part two. The Karate Kid? Karate Kid part two. There we go. Don't you always kind of, you're always like, it's like the last franchise you think of in the 80s, I feel like.

I think we've had a couple Karate Kids where you were like... It psyched me out. Sorry. No, it's fine. Jamie did a good job. Number four at the box office is one of the great films of 1986. It's a horror film. It's a horror film of 1986.

It's a little Lynchian, if you ask me. Really? No, but it's like what I... I mean, sort of. It's a director whose name is also put with an Ian to just describe, you know, his kind of shit. His kind of shit. Is it Cronenberg? Is it The Fly?

Yeah. One of my favorites. Yeah. Great movie for freaks. Number five is a movie I've never seen. And a movie that has a very similar birthing process to Lynch's Elephant Man. It's Stuart Kornfeld bringing this guy in to Mel Brooks and being like,

we can match him with this material and maybe find a vehicle that's slightly more commercial but fits into all of their sensibilities and obsessions. Number five, I feel like we've talked about this before, a bit of a flop. It's a young comic star and an old comic star. The old comic star, it's his final film role. Oh, it's Nothing in Common?

Yes. With Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason. Everybody's favorite pair. Do you know this movie? We've told this story before, but we were on our trivia team, our old trivia team of videology, Bar and Williamsburg,

and this movie came up, and I was like, oh my god I can see the poster look at it's fucking Jackie Gleason with a cigar And what's the title he's young Knew this was the movie and I couldn't remember the title. Yeah, I was Generic it's not nothing but trouble It's not like it's nothing but nothing but and I was looking and I couldn't pull the fucking title, and then I looked over at our friend Common who used to play in our team, whose name was K-A-M-E-N, and I was like,

it's nothing in Common. Wow. And his name was what made me get the title. And of course we all remember that victory that week when we won Trivia, and it has gone down in history. The rest of the top ten we've got... Uh... Uh...

Aliens. Good movie. Pretty fucking good movie. Uh... Ruthless People, part of the, you know, Debido apex run. And the Zazz. Yep. Yeah.

Sucker Abraham Zuckers. Little movie about someone going back to school. Which one? Rodney. Oh, back to school, the movie. He's going back to school. Yeah. A film I don't know, The Men's Club.

Oh boy. No idea what that is. Couldn't have that today. It looks like it's, okay, interesting. It's a Peter Medak movie. Okay. Starring Harvey Keitel and Richard Jordan, but then Roy Scheider's in this?

But then this is the poster? The poster is just Jennifer Jason Lee. Jennifer Jason Lee looking honestly like a stone cold babe, but I don't really- Credited in the role of teensy. Okay, I don't know much about this movie. Do you know anything here? I never heard of this.

I'm vaguely astonished by this thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's based on a novel. A band of friends go on a drunken all-night spree spending a night in a high-class brothel. It is famed for Keitel's assertive denial of masturbation.

Well, now I have to watch it to find out what the hell that means. Number 10 in the box office is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. A movie I don't like. You're one of those.

Apart from Jennifer, Jennifer Grey. Show me her. Show me her movie. She's incredible in it. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. How do you feel about Ferris? I don't care about him.

I don't care about him. Watch the camera. I think everyone in school is crazy about him. The American was in love. The dweebs, the burnouts, the weirdos. I don't care about him either. I don't care about him. He's just a little twerp.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, I get it. It's kind of the point. It's kind of the point. Why am I hanging out with this dude? I need to pee, so we should end the podcast. And we've also, we've done a good chunk of time.

Yeah, we did great. We did good We did good. I think we did good. Yeah The bad sign and the fucking podcast. Let's fucking do it We got to call our conditions only have two settings on or off Fucking subway car in August cold. Like... Anyway, yes. Griffin?

Jamie. Jamie? David. Griffin. Jamie! This is a wall-set Griffin. David. Thank you for being here, Jamie.

I love being here, guys. Jamie, it was really awesome that you were in person with us Obviously, it was great. It's always the best hot dog season. It's hot dog season You were it is nice to be with friends when I got the news. I that's Chesna sold out to the woke mob and I have to leave and write a column about it Right away. It felt meaningful to get to witness you processing that in real time.

Yeah, yeah, it's really challenging. People should listen to 16th Minute of Fame. Hey, please do. I love it so much, it's so good. Thank you. And all of your other work, of course. Yes, but this is the new show. This is the new guy, yeah.

You are such an incredible interview, and it is, I was getting at this earlier, but the thing that makes it unique beyond just the premise, the thing that people can't rip off is the way that you interact with your subjects from a place of real interest and compassion and humanity and you're asking questions that no hack could just do cynically. Thanks. I think it's the ethos of the show is actually who are these people

once we leave them behind. And the best version of the show can only be done by someone who is actually interested in people in the way you are. Thank you so much. It's really great. I recommend it highly. I just think you're funny. I was trying to think of like the dumb version of the compliment after Griff being so eloquent.

It's just a really great show. Oh, that's so kind. And eat some hot dogs. Eat some hot dogs. It's the season. And eat some vegan hot dogs. Eat some vegan hot dogs. The god of hot dogs has spoken. Yeah.

Meet is over. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Bardi for helping to produce the show. Thank you to AJ McKeon for our editing. AJ McKeon is also our production coordinator. Thank you to JJ Birch for our research. Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel

for our theme song. Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, You can go to blank check pod comm for links to some real nerdy shit Including our patreon blank check special features where we are doing tabletop games Yeah, sure that infamous Hollywood franchise that we've cobbled together We're doing movies on tabletop games, of course, because this episode is coming out And so the next movie of course is Ouija, Origin of Evil.

The good one. Think of how many movies I said I haven't seen during this and I have seen that. You have seen them. You've seen both? One The Great American Fox. I have seen them both. Yeah.

First one is Absolute Garbage, but second one rocks. Yeah. Tune in next week for... Is it though? Wait a second actually, cause I'm wondering... What I'm looking at right here. Okay, great. Because, you know, there's new movies as well.

I forget. Look, there's a fucked up guy who's tiptoeing around the perimeter of our schedule. He's not going to quite be ready for next week's episode drop, but the following week, a little folly-a-duh. You think it's due a Joker episode, Jamie? No! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! That is so cruel and unusual.

And off in the distance, you might hear a chuckle. And you go, what joke did he just hear? Mm-hmm. Wasn't a joke. Joke's on him. He heard the joke of crime and laughed. He heard that crime was happening. And that's his laugh in the distance. Except this laugh is turning into a song?

Maybe we don't do it. Do it! Or maybe he just does it by himself. We lock him in a room. We're fucking doing it. I mean, I have to be there. Yeah, all right. But you could be like the therapist.

You could be like, so you're telling me you watch Joker Folly? I do, and Griffin's like, and if I did? Like, you're not asking the right questions. Everyone in America saw this movie. Why aren't we talking about it? Bye bye. Bye bye.

Yeah, I'm saying bye bye. Do as always or whatever. Yeah, tune in next week for Wild at Heart. And as always, fucking Ricky T's coming in two weeks. weeks.