Blank Check with Griffin & David - Panic Room with Eva Anderson

Episode Date: October 8, 2023

We’re scootin’ through some wild Manhattan real estate this week and locking ourselves into David Fincher’s PANIC ROOM with the wonderful Eva Anderson! Can you believe that Jodie Foster wasn’t even supposed to be in this movie? And that David Fincher was the one who braided Jared Leto’s cornrows? Just kidding about that last one. Come for Griffin’s formative crush on young Kristen Stewart, stay for the inexplicable amount of talk about “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” - a show that has absolutely nothing to do with this movie. This episode is sponsored by: Mubi (mubi.com/blankcheck) Masterclass (masterclass.com/check) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Get out of my podcast! Say fuck. Fuck! Mom, say get the fuck out of my podcast. Get the fuck out of my podcast! Say fuck. Fuck! Mom, say get the fuck out of my podcast. Get the fuck out of my podcast. Doesn't she say you fuck or you fucks or something like that? On here it just says fuck. But I think she says, do you remember?

Let me look. I don't remember. I just watched it again. It's such a sweet moment, in my opinion, like genuinely sweet. And I just, I like it. I like that he builds in the little like bonding sort of teeny, teen grown up moment, you know, in this very, very tense moment. But I think she literally says like, you fuck. And you even see the robbers being like, huh?

Like with a specific thing to say. I imagine we're going to talk about it a lot, but it still just defies logic that this movie was not designed for and built around Jodie Foster from the beginning. That is, it is so true. Yes, it is. Yes, of course. You're like, yeah, of course. Like, this feels like the movie that is like Jodie Foster in her 40s comes to Sony and says, I want to do a thriller. Pitch me something. And they go, we'll get our top team on it.

100%, right. And I want to do a mother-daughter movie. Well, Kristen Stewart could play your daughter. Right, right. She totally could, yes. And instead, it's like, no, we brought her in a week, you know, into filming, two weeks into filming or whatever. Two weeks into filming, and then, yeah,

everything about it is bizarre. And I do think it sort of set a template for what felt like oh this is jodie foster's next phase that then went sort of died prematurely what about the flight plan well flight plan was the one we'll talk about all of this we got so much to talk about it's a normal episode we can just chill out we can be calm and relax No bits planned No bits planned We're just here We have a little like Screen

Yeah Bits planned Zero None Days since bits The Studio 60 board With its blank The counter

Yeah Nothing We're just looking at a cork board Guys Post Malone is the musical guest next week Guys Solidarity With the writers

Yes I know we have a writer We have a writer A great writer. And I think they should, you know, they should hold out for the best deal

they can possibly get. They must. I miss Studio 60 every week. I miss those guys. I miss it. What are all their names? I'm going to Google now.

What would they be saying about the Russian coup? Oh boy. They have the razor sharp wit to handle a sensitive situation like that. Tom Jeter.

Russian Cuckoo, I think would be the name of the sketch. Russian Cuckoo? Yeah. Wow. Rob Reiner hosting again? It'd be a game show somehow. One of my favorite things is that-

Who wants to rule Russia? In Studio 60, Rob Reiner is the guest host of whatever. So I'm like, Rob Reiner? Yes. Who are the guest hosts you know exist in the Studio 60 universe? Rob Reiner, Felicity Huffman. Sting plays the lute. He does play the lute.

But even that, right? They're like, hey, Sting, come and do some music. He's like, yeah, lute music. They're like, of course. This is Studio 60. It's classy as fuck. There's that weird exchange where Christine Lottie is the embedded journalist.

Yes, she's like Maureen Dowd or whatever. And she's talking to Sarah Paulson, I think. Sure. Or Amanda Peete. The crazy Christian. They're watching him just do an impromptu sitar set. Yeah, he's doing some lute. Right.

He's laying down a lute bed. Right. And Christine Lottie, I think, says, I love watching him work his instrument. And the other character goes, which one? Ooh. I'm like, what do you mean?

You haven't watched him work his dick? Maybe she has. What are you talking about? It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I have so many,

we could go in so many directions here. We're setting up threads. We're setting up threads. Perfectly planned. A subplot in the television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. The fictional series about the making of the

very real sketch show that exists in our universe no you know amanda peete's character jordan mcdeer is the new head of program of course and her big thing is that she wants to have a show about the un yes she's like i have a hit idea for a big drama it's about the un right and fucking she's pitching fake west wing basically right and fucking ta stephen weber yeah they're like head of the network yeah is like boring and she's like god no one understands me and i'm like that would be so boring a show about the un bad every week they're like wow we didn't get much done model un's a better show yeah because then it's like teens awkward hooking up yeah i do think that Sting instrument episode is also the one where the old man is wandering the halls and then they find out that he was a blacklisted writer.

And it's literally fucking Eli Wallach. It's the same plot as The Holiday. Yes. It's Eli Wallach in both stories. Yes. They aired around the same time. Yes. I guess in The Holiday, he's not blacklisted and in this one, he is.

Correct. In The Holiday, he's just oldlisted and in this one he is. Correct. In the holiday he's just old. He's just old. Right. There's no sad history beyond that he's old and cannot climb stairs. Father Time's getting ready to blacklist him. He's like, I remember these halls. I worked in this room.

It's so wild. They're like, shut up, old man. And they're like, oh, no, I figured out who you are this way, sir. Right. And they let him live out yes and i think it's also the abner costello episode i think it's all one episode the one where fucking nate corddry gives his parents an lp of who's on the first it is you should be put in jail i have since watched the entire show you're gonna listen and then you're gonna laugh

and then you're gonna listen again and laugh even more what if you're it's called your parents didn't understand you're you're you're like hey parents i want to be in comedy and they're like well we don't understand that and your reaction to that was here's an lp of the who's on first joke yeah the routine your parents didn't get your career and you gave them an lp of the first episode of wtf here's no but it's like you're like here's a joke from before you were born so that you can understand comedy it would probably not go over well they'd be like yeah we know who's on first how do you make money doing yeah we're aware who's on first it's his name come up with an equally important bit? Your parents don't understand podcasting, so you give them the first wax cylinder recording.

You're going to listen and you're going to hear voices. And the thing that prompts this is that he's giving his dad a tour of the studio. And in the middle of it, his dad stops, turns to him and screams, your brother is in the middle of Afghanistan right now. Yes. God, what a show. And that's why... His parents seem unimpressed,

and instead they are actively hostile because he's not putting his life on the line for his country. Even though their son is making millions of dollars on a network television show. He's Tom Jeter. He's the cutie pie of fucking Studio 60. He was the it guy.

He was going to move to features. Was he? It felt like it, yeah. He was the Jimmy guy he was gonna move to features it was he felt like it yeah he was the jimmy analog right what an absolute valent is he supposed to be valent i i i have the same memory as you which i a couple years ago watched the whole show after giving up when it originally aired and i feel like i gave up around episode four or five and it feels like everything we're describing was in the episode I gave up on where it was just like early in its run, there was one episode that is overloaded

with so much insane shit that it was like, I cannot do this anymore. I'd rather be doing homework. Yeah. Yeah. They go end up like going on a road trip later in the season. That's kind of where I fell off.

Well, there's the episode where they get arrested in a small town and John Goodman's the judge. Yeah. That's a three-part episode. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about. Right, so I think that's threaded in the same episode. It's all happening

at the same time. Yes, yes. No, it's all going on at the same time. Rob Reiner's hosting stings the musical guests. Christine Lottie is embedded. And the show got canceled.

No, the idea is this is like the biggest comedy show in America. But in real life it did get canceled. Yes, but they gave it a full season. They did give it a full season. It did 22 episodes, more than most streaming shows do in the entirety of their lifespan.

And it also aired the same season as the first season of 30 Rock. Right. So it was two shows about fake SNLs simultaneously on television. And Studio 60 premiered a month earlier earlier and everyone felt bad for Tina Fey. Like, you're going to be the also-ran. Right, you'll get swamped by this shit. But in Studio 60, Matthew Perry's like, be quiet!

I have to make comedy that will change America! And in Dirty Rock, it's like, yeah, the show is just, like, farting. No one thinks this is good. We need an opening to address the controversy of our former, basically, the Lorne Michaels of the universe who's played by Judd Hirsch having a meltdown on camera, right, during the live broadcast. Another network. They do network and then he does it again in newsroom immediately.

Yes. And they're like, we need the perfect cold open to address this. And then Matthew Perry goes like, we'll be the perfect model of a modern network TV show. Gilbert and Sullivan. Right. Who were the best satirists ever? Gilbert and Sullivan. They called them

the original frat humor. There you go. I just remember that. The Comedia dell'arte sketch. That's at the end of episode two. They always talk about the Comedia dell'arte sketch. Yes, that's the end of episode two.

And I remember I was a TV blogger. I was in college. Yeah. We were all hyped for Studio 60. It was Aaron sorkin's big fall to the west wing the pilot script had gone around the pilot script is identical pretty much to what aired yeah we'd all read that and we were like it's pretty good i don't know and i remember emily st james long time friend of the show dming me probably on fucking mN Messenger or whatever we used back then, being like, the second episode ends in this way with a Gilbert and Sullivan. Give me a little pause.

I'm a little worried Aaron Sorkin maybe doesn't get what SNL is. First episode, in the moment, basically everyone said slam dunk. You're like, no, this is fine. This is good. But you only had to see sketches from when the show was bad.

And then episode two where it's like, and now they brought in the best guys to ever do it. And you're like, the show seems worse now. The show seems kind of up its own ass. Do we ever see Crazy Christians? We only see like a minute of Crazy Christians. That's one of their most controversial sketches. It's called Crazy Christians.

They dare. Let me guess. It's about religious people. now they're they're crazy i know we can't actually say this on the podcast but the breakout sort of like the the kristin wigg the kate mckinnon of the show at that moment is also devoutly religious she loves god this show she was then your pipe and Listen, I'm actually getting fucking mad hearing about this. It got canceled. Oh, I know.

The acts of popularity swung and beheaded it. This is Patio 60 on the Sunset Cast, of course. This is the beginning. We know we had told you other things were going to be planned for the rest of the year. No, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. So fast. Sliding in right before the door closes on your fingers. Yeah, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. So fast.

Sliding in right before the door closes on your fingers. Yeah, sledgehammering right there at the end. Feathers flying everywhere. It's a podcast about filmographies,

directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby this is a mini series on the films of david fincher is called the curious pod of benjamin butt cat that's right and i'm gonna hit butt really hard what cast this is the first episode of recording but that is the name of the of the because our guest who we we threw a flyer out to, happened to suddenly be in town. And so we've jumped ahead a little bit in order to record with her. Which we're very excited about returning to the show with the great Eva Anderson.

Hey, guys. The best guest in podcasting, as we have said. That's right. You flatter me. And not true, but I'll take it. It is true. It is true. I'm very excited.

Obviously, I met you in person, Griffin, last year. We went to the Magic Castle. We went to the Magic Castle. Which is an incredible night. Thank you very much for the invite. But I've never met David or Ben in person. Yes. So I'm so psyched.

I have no idea. We were just reminiscing. I've really known you for like 10 years. We have been online friends for 10 years. Not IRL. I guess it was Bang Bang. It was You're the Worst. I feel like it was

You're the Worst though. I interviewed Stephen. Stephen Falk? Yes. Showrunner of You're the Worst. Way back when. I remember. I don't know.

You guys were like a little ragtag team over there. I don't know. We were. That was a fun. We also, we watched Studio 60 during our lunch break sometimes

in the writer's room. For inspiration? Just to, yeah, as bonding experience. Simon Stiles. Yeah. You know, Alex Dwyer. Great. So we, George Lucas Talk Show, Deep Pandemic, we used to do these marathon fundraisers where

we pick like a canceled show and try to watch all of it in real time do a very long live stream and get people who worked on it and patrick hotner's greatest passion project was to do studio 60 and he booked 60 guests i believe wow over the course of whatever like 22 hours whatever 20 hours because it was the whole fucking season but we had nate torrence on who was also one of the cast members in the fake studio 60 of course he played i'm gonna look that up for you right now a character he was kind of the i don't know horatio sands of the show uh yeah a little more dylan killington yeah was he the rob wriggle oh he's a sweetie pie he was a sweetie. He was like Farley minus the partying, minus the vices maybe.

What's Matthew Perry's character's name? Of course. As we all know, his name is Matt Albee. Matt Albee. Yeah. And there's always been a very funny Matt Albee Twitter. Yes. It is still maybe the best account on Twitter.

I agree. Because it is just always like, you know, fucking Studio 60 would like to welcome chris licht or whatever you know the minute something happens to someone he's yes i think i know who does that do you guys know who does that i do but i've forgotten who it is i think it's seth reese yes at least he used to be right yes at least yeah he did at one point yes uh but naterance, we had him on and we were talking about this thing of like the people who were on the fake cast of that show minus D.L. Hughley

and Sarah Paulson, arguably, were all people who you like could have believed were in an SNL bubble where you're like Hulberg could have

ended up on SNL if the chips fell a different way. Corddry, perhaps. Yeah. So Patrick was asking all of them this and Nate Torrance was like i

literally i tested for both whoa and it was that thing of like is the better career move to go on snl or go on studio 60 that's crazy is the better career move to do the real thing or the fake thing that is the follow-up from like the master writer of television isn't that a wild thing to think about being put in that position to be auditioning for the thing and the parody of the thing yeah simultaneously i don't remember if he got to make the choice or the choice was made for him but it was like he he was very close to both at the same time that That's crazy. Yeah. This is not about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Today we're talking about Panic Room, a movie that has nothing to do with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Is there any... Is there any connection? Any... There has to be something. I feel like Anne Magnusson might have made an appearance with Studio 60 or something like that. I'd like to imagine in the universe of Studio 60, Anne Magnusson was like the Catherine O'Hara,

where she was technically a cast member because of a writer's strike. She never did an episode, or she quit before the episode actually aired or something. What, David? Did Gavin Pallone? No. No.

Well, he produced Gilmore Girls. I don't know. He did TV. Dwight Yoakam's definitely been a musical guest on Studio 60. In the world. In the universe. Ezra Ohl. Dwight Yoakam, Ez been a musical guest on Studio 60. In the world. In the universe. As Raul. Dwight Yoakam as Raul.

The bus driver? He might have been a guest slash host. In the Studio 60 universe, maybe Dwight Yoakam is the one who has a Chris Gaines and does. He did Raul on set and then Dwight Yoakam. Guys, I think they did a crazy twist where they had Yoakam host and they had Billy Bob be the musical guest that week. But as his Sling blade character yes and he actually was playing sting's loot like it was still there yeah and then he ripped up a picture of uh lewis farrakhan live on tv i don't know how do i thread this and ben's gonna make fun of me yeah and then we should talk about panic room yeah i think we're

here when i was a kid sting obviously was still famous but he was fully in his like loot And Ben's going to make fun of me. Yeah. And then we should talk about Panic Room. Yeah. I think we're here to talk. When I was a kid, Sting obviously was still famous, but he was fully in his like lute playing phase, right? Not only that, but I think... He'd become like full cornball. I feel like whatever the interview was where he mentioned that he practices tantric sex became the whole thing. It was like he just has sex with his wife. Right. He plays his like lute and world music shit.

Like he wears like incredibly thin linen shirts. And I was like, as a kid, I was like, why do I have to even, his name was Sting. Yeah. Why do I have to pay attention to this guy? Everyone around me mocks him for being pretentious. And now you listen, now I listen to the police and I'm like, yeah, they were, they had something going on. Okay. I knew Ben would get mad.

No, no. I was worried that you were going to say, I listened to solo sting records and I actually love them. I don't know that I've ever really put on a solo sting. It was like Stuart Townsend is the police, really?

But like, Sting was in the police. He's in it, but like, he's not the mastermind. He wasn't the creative. So maybe that's why. He was the Diana Ross of the police.? Is that who he is? But like, Soon was in the police. He's in it, but like, he's not the mastermind of the police. So maybe that's why. He was the Diana Ross of the police. Right. So then he steps aside

and then he's, of course, his music's goofy. Because like, those police albums are by and large fucking great. They got some hits

and they're all really great musicians. Yeah. And they're all blonde. Yeah. They were hot. Look, they're hot as hell.

And he's from Newcastle where i went to college sting so he's kind of a local boy you know newcastle is still kind of like you know we got sting he's he's ours but uh i don't know i just took me a while to realize why anyone would care about he's handsome fun fact about sting he practices tantric, what? What does that mean? Nine hours. Binge session. No quibbies for this guy. No, no quick bites. Oh, man.

Oh, boy. What? I just look at Matt Albee's Twitter feed is still up. It's like Elizabeth Holmes reports to prison. He's like, when she gets out, her job on the writing staff will be waiting for her. Oh, man. Matt Albee. Matt Albee.

He still, you know, every week he just tweets, we're dark this week. You know, since the strike began. Solidarity. You've never been in a room with him, right? Have you, Matt Albee? Have you ever been on the same staff as him? No, I was on a staff with Seth Reese, though. That's why I was like, while he was doing Matt Albee.

We should mention, too, about the room we're in oh sure we kind of discovered recently we're you know obviously been recording out of our new studio yeah look we had a very hard time finding a space in new york city that met our needs and uh you know you want a place that has a certain amount of uh soundproofing new York real estate. Don't get me started. Don't get you started. But we found this room that fit our needs perfectly. A long search. We've been very happy with it.

Windowless. Yes. True. It is kind of a fortress. Right. And we were like, why would this room even exist in this building? Why would you build one like this? And we found out this was, in fact fact intended to be a panic room you guys

closed on this place really fast right because last week it was like a different address i was coming to and all of a sudden you're here well you and you don't have to pay the price on the tag it's not barney's it's not barney's mom you don't have to pay the price on the tag it's not barney's mom she says that with such confidence and i'm like what do you know about real estate scoot by and say that it's like a scoot she's scooting yeah she's actually heavy on the scooting in that it's really good yeah just business you know good business razoring out of control and also that was the time was when the kids all had scooters all of a razor it was like who gave them these things my favorite favorite thing about the Razor scooter was it was just like

this kind of ingenious product, right? Where, like, I just remember the first time you saw a kid scoot by on the street with one of you, you were just like,

what the fuck is that? How are they going that fast? Right. And then the moment you see them fold it and you're like, fuck, it's just like that?

Incredible. Everyone buys one, right? And then as often seems to be the case, the razor company is like, fuck, we made a product that people only need to buy one time. And we basically sold it to everyone. It's kind of indestructible. Right. Instant pot.

And then they get the exact instant pot. They're dead, right? They're like fully dead. They sold all the instant pots and now they're like, shit. They also got venture capitalists. Right, right. But that's the problem. Like they make you expand a venture but also they were like our product is so good that no one ever needs to buy a second one so let's now branch into different products

and all the other products failed what else did they make they were like oh now we're making like a fucking tempura maker or whatever i don't know they just added all these different razor tempura maker yeah yes razor was just like how do we fucking iterate and they were like uh lights in the handlebars you're like like a light on the front they're like no the lights are on the side right right lights in the wheels like they just kept on adding more shit but they knew the part of it was like the design was so simple that you couldn't. Shocks. They added shocks. I do remember shocks. Ben, did you ever raise your scooter or something like it?

No, I wasn't a frigging dork. I guess you were also too old. That was really for like a 10-year-old when you came out. We were already teenagers. No, I remember seeing that. I remember seeing kids even try to do tricks on it. And me and my friends would just fucking dunk on them. That's what the shocks were for.

Like, you know, where they try to, like, do a little 360 and, like, jump and land on it or whatever. Not cool. Yeah. The least cool extreme sport of all time. It's like Razor Scooter, rollerblading, then BMX, skateboard, of course, obviously. Little Manhattan Griffinooms.

Just having a peaceful little scoot. You had a scooter? Are you kidding me? I live in fear of my daughter getting her first scooter. It's coming. We're getting close. She'll be scooting. Razor?

No. But, you know, one of those little kid scooters. Sure. Okay. Panic room. What are you guys talking about sorry we were talking about her scooting around while she says the barney's line kristen stewart is scoot by iconic in this film she's so good she's so good you have the 2020 hindsight bias of like i know she turns into a

movie star and a good actor yes but i remember liking her at the time absolutely and thinking like oh she's you know she's a cut above a kid actor. And this was in the era of really annoying kid actors, too. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But that's it's another way in which you're like there. This movie now 20 plus years on has this weird power of, watching young child star Kristen Stewart

and being like, she's one of the few who has gotten to have a Jodie Foster-type career. Right. Jodie Foster, always one of the few that people cite as, like, perfect transition. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah, and weirdly, her transition was Twilight, right?

Where she went from, like, teen to adult, like, over those movies. Yeah, and then she comes out the other side of it and is like, I'm using my clout to, like like get interesting movies made and work with interesting auteurs and yeah yeah yeah i mean i love her she's one of my apps absolute favorites now no i remember unsurprisingly this was like 12 year old griffin newman seeing this movie massive crush on her oh for sure yes yeah she's cool as hell yes uh and then in the time between that and when twilight comes out and people would be like yo like who's your big movie star crush i'd

be like kristen stewart and they'd be like who and i'd be like the girl from panic room uh-huh so is that why you were a big zathura fan correct because she's in zathura in the land of women yeah you were a huge in the land of women fan i wouldn't say huge but i owned it i saw that movie because adam brody was in it i was like enough of an oc super fan that i was like i see anything that he's in yeah into the wild that was a performance that kind of drew me insane uh she's she's good in that movie i mean insane in the fact that uh you had a crush on her yeah okay yeah um kristin stewart love her um she is in panic room this is the film panic room You had a crush on her. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Kristen Stewart. Love her. She is in Panic Room.

This is the film Panic Room. It is the fifth film in David Fincher's career. It's his follow-up to Fight Club. Yes. And I feel like it's a very conscious response to Fight Club. Yes. Which people forget was a flop. Was a moderate flop.

And he's just like, I'm scaling all my ambition back, but also some, you know, I am scaling it up in that I'm constraining myself. Yes. But I'm making a very simple thriller. It's true. Like, I was, I just watched Fight Club again for Doughboys. You did Fight Club on the Doughboys. That's right.

And it's interesting because of, like, one of the maybe problems, I don't know what you guys said about Fight Club, but maybe one argument one could have, it was just like, Fight Club's about too much stuff. Yeah. It's about everything. It's, right, it's like,

let's encompass the feelings of an entire generation and also American society. And masculinity. Where it's all pointing, right. It's Gen X's howl. Yeah. And then,

Panic Room is kind of not about anything. Panic Room is like, wouldn't it suck if this happened? Right. What if there was a Panic Room? I was thinking about that because you say that all the time. It's like, this movie if this happened right what if there was a panic room i was thinking about that because you say that all the time it's like this movie is truly

what if there was a panic room it is yeah it is very much what if there's a panic room which i think is literally what david kept he was just kind of like i've been hearing a lot about panic i read a trend piece about this right into the offices of sony and they handed him two million dollars four four four million dollars for this script but um which makes sense because it's like what if there's a panic room okay i know what a panic room is what if someone tried to rob you well i'd go in my panic room yeah but what if the thing they want it's in the panic room and they're like oh now we're cooking with gas he's like we are cooking with gas gas is in the script yes there's a gas sequence also my gas costs four million million if you want a liter.

I remember the trailer when he holds up the thing we want is in the room being absolutely just killer. Yes. This is as a big movie nerd kid that would just like obsessively read every fucking dork website I could and thought I was ahead of the curve and knew every movie that was in the pipeline. And by this age when this movie comes out, I guess I'm 13, would sit in the theater and the trailer would come up and in the first five seconds I'd turn to my friend and be like oh this is that movie. You know?

Like even if I was seeing a trailer for the first time I've read about this. It's this actor in this thing. I remember this movie somehow completely passing by me. Oh really? The trailer coming up going like what is this and then when that sign goes up i was just like fucking money in the bank yeah perfect premise perfect setup this is fincher and foster i'm in hardcore did you see it though because it must have been rated r isn't it pg-13 they say fuck a lot it's rated r no saw, I distinctly remember seeing this with my mom. Right.

Well, if your mommy took you. Because you would have been 13 years old. I was 13. Right, I was 16. Did you see it in the theater? Absolutely. I was a big 16-year-old film, Empire Magazine reading film nerd. I loved David Fincher.

Yeah. And I loved whatever. And I was a little petite Manhattanite razor scootering entertainment weekly reading film nerd whose mommy accompanied him. I did not see this with my mommy. I'm pretty sure I saw it with Ollie Stevens. Shout out to Ollie Stevens, my best friend. Not the only part, not being with your mom. And it was rated 15 in England.

So I just waltzed right in. Okay. I was 16 whole years old. Eva, did you see this in theaters? No, I was a senior in film school. Okay. And I was distracted. I think I was just busy just fucking around.

Were you a Fincher fan at that point? I did see Fight Club in school. And I mentioned this on Doughboys, but that night my friend Josh started a Fight Club. Right. Unrelated, though. He was like, not because of the movie. Started punching people just outside in the quad. So that, like, immediately made you like the movie less, I'm sure.

I liked it. I feel like I liked Fincher, though. Yeah, Fincher was hot stuff. Yeah, he was fun. I don't know why I didn't see Panic Room. I literally, I think I was just broke and not going to the multiplex. I mean, more... So it's an April release, comes out in March.

A final season. I'm graduating college. What was your film school? You're working on your thesis. I went to USC. Heard of it. I was classmates with John Chu. He was my year. Oh, wow. Yeahard of it. I was classmates with John Chu. He was my year.

Oh, wow. Yeah. John M. Chu. John M. Chu. I've always wanted to make a movie in which G.I. Joe got retribution. And you were like, you should do that. Yeah. Have you told anyone this?

What's your dream, John? Great. Good filmmaker. I like John. I like him too. He's a great guy. Yeah. But yeah.

So I didn't see it. So this was my first time seeing it. What was your, did you have to do a thesis film? I produced, USC splits you up. So four people direct and you have to compete for that role. And then everybody else works on their movies. Okay. John Chu works with a lot of the same people that worked on his thesis film.

That's nice. He never forgot where he came from. But did you work on his? No, I worked on, that worked on his thesis film that's nice he never forgot where he came from yeah but did you work on his no i worked on um i worked on a an okay movie um that was very fun and all my friends worked on and we had to build a moon set which that was super fun yeah and uh yeah we had to build a moon set uh moon Yeah. Panic Room objectively was seen by more people in theaters. Yeah. But certainly does feel like a film less people recall. Yes. And less people have seen than, say, Fight Club, which it, you know, did better than.

I do think it is the same type of movie we've covered before on the podcast where someone who sort of was like a blank check filmmaker and then did not immediately figure out how to follow up on the promise and the excitement around them is sort of like i just need to get safe again right like i need a movie that pushes me back to the safe zone because i think deliver entertainment yes successfully yeah and i think the other the other part of it was like much like a lot of these guys very quickly. It's like Fincher is very demanding. He takes a very long time. It costs a lot of money, you know, where it's like I need to produce a film that is like under control, that is under control, that is straight down the middle, that is easy to pitch, that is not going to push people away. Yes. Didn't he plan every single shot? He did. He later said that was a mistake yes shouldn't have done that but this movie i did i bought there is a notorious three

disc special edition of this film that's sort of peak dvd special features where there are two discs of nothing but special features and one disc is just pre-production and one disc is post-production one disc is pre and pro and one disc is post that's cool and it's got like hours of shit on both it's like basically the film school like comprehensive you see every step of it but that disc two is so much about that he basically created the pipeline for how all fucking blockbusters are made on this movie. Just previs everything. Just previs literally everything.

Oh. Especially he had the advantage of we know we're in this confined environment. We can map it out. Every inch of it. So the camera can do things through visual effects as well. It can pass through walls and stuff.

Pass through coffee machines? Yes. Yep. And it would be cool if the lens then had coffee on it after it did that, but they didn't decide to do that. Well, they go through the handle. Yeah. But it wouldn't be cool if they gone through the coffee. And then coffee's dripping down it.

And then there's a little wiper. The glass would shudder. That's a Mel Brooks bit. You're pitching. You're pitching. I think that would have been good. Panic attack room or whatever Mel Brooks' movie. Wait, fuck. Mel Brooks should have done that. Panic Attack Room or whatever Mel Brooks' movie. Wait, fuck.

Mel Brooks should have done that. Should have done Panic Attack Room? Yeah. And then had bits where the camera like goes into, swings around and then like hits someone and they're like, ow! Yeah. That'd be good. Yeah, it should have been him.

Yeah, him. He should have done it. In the Joni Foster role. No, he should have played Raul. He should have played both. Because he could do it. Mask. Right.

And then like Peter McNichol's his son is like the christian sewer type yeah i love it oh peter mcnichol of course okay wait what was i saying here uh the previous thing oh i think the main storyboard artist on this film was peter ramsay who then goes on to direct rise of the guardians in the first spider verse oh wow and so i was just watching 45 minutes of him talking over a sort of split screen. Do you remember when the big thing they thought was the future of DVDs was the angle button? And they were like, you can push the angle button and move between different... I remember that, and what a nightmare.

Yes. And now, like, my modern remote does not even have a way to access it. And the screen basically broke and was just like, we're showing you everything at the same time. You cannot toggle between these things. But it was like the 40 minutes of footage that was the dailies from the movie in one screen and the previs in the other. Oh, cool. With Peter Ramsey talking through it. Right.

And it's like, there were things we would find, I mean, we're going out of order here. I'll save this tidbit. There were things we'd find that we couldn't execute as planned. But basically, every day, everyone had already prepped everything based on the footage. Right. Where he was just like, do exactly this. And we would just try to do that. And that was his whole thought was, I can just make this whole movie in advance. And we would just try to do that. And that was his whole thought was,

I can just make this whole movie in advance. And then everyone just knows what to do. Yeah. And it basically worked, but it also kind of broke his brain. And, you know, he doesn't make a movie for five years after this. Yeah. And in this early phase of his career, that's the longest break he takes. Right.

Like, after Gone Girl, obviously, he would take six years to make Meg. That's like the... You know what I mean? Yeah. phase of his career that's the longest break he takes right like after gone girl obviously he would take six years to make make that's like the you know what i mean like yeah this is three years this is after fight club right it's like alien three and then three years later seven and then two years later the game and then two years later fight club three years later panic you know he made movies at a pretty impressive clip yeah then he takes a long break between this and starting now i think zodiac was also an involved film and there's also we had to make san francisco in a computer on our zodiac episode we'll talk about in between the two there are a lot of almost projects mission impossible three being the biggest one that he was supposed to do for a while right yeah and and would have made a ton of sense doing that yeah um but i think this movie was tough for him to make oh yeah yeah well and

also right uh the jodie foster all the circumstances the production of this movie was kind of insane yeah it's the fucking rabbit's foot thing yeah oh i i'll not make something like fight club i'll make a a tight hitchcockian thriller set in one location. And then like the monkey's paw is like Nicole Kidman will break her fucking knee. And like Jodie Foster will get pregnant. You know, like all this stuff's going to happen. It's actually the opposite of a rabbit's foot. Yeah, whatever. I forgot what the animal's hand was.

The rabbit's toe curls. Yeah. And then you win a million dollars. That's what a rabbit's foot does. Why is a rabbit's foot lucky i feel like if anyone would know the answer to this it would be you eva i don't know i thought you're gonna say it would be a rabbit it would be a rabbit would know it are expected did you hear the dogs outside in the hallway i actually did yeah that was real protect ourselves geez all right well thankfully we're safe

let me reopen up the dossier so you don't want to like push a button you don't want to like commit to this in a way where we like push a button and a door closes or something yeah okay do you want to do that i mean i think we should i'm pretty scared by that one isolated dog bark. Looking at that bit clock. Great. David, open the dossier. So, one thing that we're gonna do on almost every one of these David Fincher episodes... Okay.

...is we're going to talk about the many projects he attached himself to... Yes. ...after his last big movie. Uh-huh. So, after Fight Club, um, David Fincher was initially going to make a movie called The Night Watchman. Cool.

Cool. Yeah. We love it. It's nighttime. Mysterious. Yeah. Tick, tick. Watchman looks for things.

Yeah. What is a movie if not seeing things? It's things and writes itself. Sure. It was written by James Elroy. It was an original script written by James Elroy. That's kind of cool. It was a murder mystery set in a post-O.J. Simpson L.A. with elements of

Unforgiven and The Verdict with strong roles for a cop investigating the murder and the murderer. What does post-O.J. Simpson L.A. mean? I don't know. Does it mean he's dead? Finally, we've gotten rid of him. The movie begins with him being buried. His reign of terror is over. They're using O.J.

Simpson like a natural disaster. In the wake of 9-11. In the wake of O.J. Simpson. I assume it's just kind of, yeah, it's like, who knows? He's killed everyone in L.A. himself. This, I imagine, is one of those scripts that you can probably find. It's like those hot scripts that never got made. They're floating around.

So I think Keanu Reeves was initially supposed to be the star of this. They've floored each other a lot on several different things and have never actually pulled off, which would be interesting to see happen now. It means, sorry guys, what that means is

a character would like to be racist, but can't. Right, right. That's what post-O.J. Simpson LA means. Oh, you can't say anything anymore. You can't say anything anymore. I'm sure James Elroy had had that conversation in his circles. Elements of unforgiven in the verdict does suggest that, yes, this night watchman might have a few things to say. Sure.

A little un-PC, right? Perhaps that's why it doesn't get me. Yes. Anyway, that doesn't happen. Okay. And then Fincher starts circling the Black Dahlia. Right. Based on a James Elroy novel, Elroy novel.

Yes. Which, if you've never read, is quite a tome of a book. It's in a wonderful book the first of his la quartet i was a big elroy kid when i was a teen loved reading about it's a great book it's an amazing book but fincher as i think often happens with him is like well this is too much i want to do it all it has to be a television series has to be a mini series five episodes and back then you know now you say that to a studio and they're like yes make it 10 episodes please long long back then

studios balked at that kind of idea and brian de palma takes over was it him or there was some other interview i was watching or listening to with the director where they were talking about a dream project of theirs that they wanted to do as a miniseries maybe 10 years ago only. And whoever they pitched it to was like, my good sir, the miniseries is dead. It is never coming back. It is a completely defunct medium. You are either doing an open-ended TV show

or one movie. Right. That's so crazy. Yeah. And just everything by choice or not ends up being a limited series these days. Right. Whether by design or just. Yeah. Now that would be the move. Right. And God knows there probably will be, you know, a fucking Black Dahlia miniseries soon on, you know, MGM Plus. Yeah. On the same day, the Fight Club premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Fincher was also linked to the film The Mexican. Sure. Brad Pitt's upcoming project.

Brad was already attached? Correct. His favorite guy. Kevin Reynolds had been attached. Fincher then gets attached. Gore Verbinski ends up making that movie. Yeah. A movie of life.

Then the number one project Fincher is attached to, Griffin. We've talked about it before. Spider-Man. Yes. What if there was a man with the powers of a spider? Right. He's Sony's guy. And we talked about this a lot on that episode, I think.

Right? Yeah. You know, like, he's their first choice, basically. Yes. Yeah. Yes. They wanted him to do it, and it, I mean, it was a series of things. Well, we've talked, I mean i mean he's like i didn't want

to do an origin story i wanted to start with gwen stacy and the green goblin and kill gwen stacy immediately and same uh i wanted to do a 10 minute title sequence that looked like a music video slash opera uh i don't know i mean he had all kinds of ideas they eventually it doesn't work out yeah uh he also wanted to do something called Passengers, which I think eventually was made into a movie. But not, was not Passengers the movie. That's not the Chris Pratt movie. No. No, but it's one with like, it's sort of an invasion of the body snatchers where they

like, aliens invade your brain. Maybe that never did get made. Okay. I don't know. And then he was also linked to Catch Me If You Can Which Spielberg makes Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Which George Clooney eventually makes Fincher's gonna make it with Mike Myers

Yes, right, right I remember that being announced And a submarine drama written by David Ayer Called Squids Which is another of those never-got-made movies Yes David Ayer loved to write movies about soldiers Right And something called Pathfinder made movies yes uh david air loved to write movies about you know soldiers right um and something

called pathfinder a john patrick shanley script that's not the thing that ends up being made with michael fassbender is it no i don't think so that was a movie right there was like some i don't know it does sound like a movie no because yeah that's like a sort of uh vintage epic uh period right this is not vintage you guys know who's a really weird twitter follow who john patrick shanley oh yeah what's he up to on it posting weird selfies i have such doubts just kind of vaguely horny stuff he is one of those guys where i am never ready for what his voice sounds like oh oh really is he like did you see the the pandemic movie griffin saw that like after having surgery you saw wild mountain time yes i was recovering from uh uh having organs taken out and i watched

it like hopped up on goofballs did you think you dreamed the ending i i texted david in real time and i went i don't know what people are talking about this movie makes perfect sense he thinks he's a b yep uh-huh that's the twist of that movie is that he identifies as a b did you know that david yeah i did know that i was texting to david in real time and sending him videos. And I was like, this is good. You were like, good, normal. It's kind of where I expected it to go. Maybe it's the drugs.

Maybe it's not. I'm just having a perfect experience. Certainly it had its fans. It did? Yeah. Like it had it sort of like people like, no, no, no, no, no. It's going to go crazy. I believe I am a B.

My takeaway from it, and this is what I was texting David as I was watching it, is that, like, I could see that killing on stage. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Right. And you watch the way it works as a movie, and you can feel the actors basically holding for laughs. Uh-huh. But in an ecosystem where there is not that energy of the laughs coming, and they're just dead silences in between in what's shot like a drama it is incredibly off-putting yes but then you kaiser so say back through the movie and he's been acting like a bee the whole time yeah that's the weird part you're like oh he was a bee the

whole time wait how do you mean he was acting like a bee like he was going there was a weird honey thing yeah but isn't there also a thing where there's sort of like there's like a uh a red herring where people talk about her as if she's like a cat or something she's a swan she's a swan right but he is a bee right and she's like everyone thinks i'm like a swan he's like yeah no i'm straight up a bee um yes it's weird movie ben and that sounds like also christopher walken is irish in it yeah oh that's fun yeah and if you can't imagine an irish accent on top of christopher walken's voice that's what it sounds like it sounds like you not being able to imagine it in real time it's like two audio tracks playing yes in different years it's one speaker of each okay uh the final thing he was there's also a movie this is another one of those never made

things they fight alone uh which is like an american soldier in the philippines it's like a true story thing where he like builds a guerrilla movement during world war ii and fights and that was gonna be a brad pitt Fincher movie yeah look unsurprisingly a lot of these things and we'll talk about this in all these episodes are like the hottest scripts that go around Hollywood the biggest stars and directors attach themselves to and Fincher is just always a guy where there's so much excitement about him even when his career is on a everyone want to work down. He usually takes a moment and, you know, has a dance with any kind of really

buzzy script, but it almost always comes down to him being like, they're not going to let me make this the way I want to. He's very pragmatic about, like, I can just see this isn't going to work. After Alien 3, he always had the spider sense.

That's my question, like, why after Alien 3, he always had these spider sense. Yeah. Yeah. That's my question. Like, why after Alien 3 would he even consider doing a franchise? Yeah, I do think. Right. I mean, I guess he had enough juice that he thought like, and Sony loved him. Fine. I'll go in there and pitch like, all right.

Right. Minute one, Gwen Stacy strangled to death or whatever. They were like, no, thank you. Also, like, to their credit, and you look at them ultimately hiring Raimi and really letting him go off. I do think they were like, we need to do like Tim Burton, Batman. Franchises were less precious back then. This needs to have a very specific voice behind it. Because it was, I mean, Cameron, him, ultimately Raimi. Who was the other person I always forget?

McG. No, I don't know. There was one other person who was similarly kind no I don't know there was one other person who was similarly kind of a tourist big names yeah they wanted someone

to actually have a take like Singer what a genius but kind of right no but it was yeah no

when they hired Bryan Singer for X-Men it was like radical that guy would never do a comic book movie like Usual Suspects one of the coolest movies in the 90s like fuck off yeah um but then you know and then it was the beginning of the now insidious like no you don't understand like the

comic book is about real issues the trauma right yeah you know and back then i was like finally someone's saying this and now when someone starts saying this i'm like can you just shut the fuck up yeah david kept uh uw madison uh alumnus as our uw madison alumnus researcher jj loves to point out okay um toured a four-story brownstone in new york in 1999 and had a panic room in it oh he actually saw one it wasn't just a he read an article and then of course he's like oh i've heard of these things now was it's like hmm was it an idea for a movie a brownstone or was it called secret window damn just need to get that joke sorry uh he just said he says brownstone we stepped on each other's jokes it's okay i don't know i like that they're both good i like the townstone line in this one i do too yeah well i mean we'll talk about it sure the whole opening sequence is brilliant yeah um and uh in the first draft he never wanted to leave the house at all they do briefly sort of show you the outside of the home in this movie you start on the block yes yes um

right but you know you'd never really leave this block no right yeah uh yeah and uh and then you know his next idea is like who would buy such a place and he's like yeah she should be recently divorced she should be kind of on tilt like you know sort of making maybe somewhat unreasonable choices and sure flush with money that's not really hers or you know like that you know she doesn't really care about right like she has this money but she doesn't actually want to like right i and from that inception you're coming up with a character who on paper is kind of like a classic hitchcock ingenue right right uh yeah totally yeah yeah you could see it being a sort of janet lee woman on edge yes i'm doing uh janet lee in a movie i don't know okay she's

holding a bag just a weird impression you're you're not gonna get on studio 60 with that one i would cut it from the real yeah uh fincher apparently said i stayed in an apartment with a panic room once in london in the early 90s and i set the alarm off almost every week and so i hated it okay um but he loved the idea of right rather than fight club which had 100 locations a million different setups or whatever he's like one location what a great thing for me to do yeah um and uh he was going through divorce uh no he was past his divorce at this point but he'd gone through a very big divorce with a dania fiorentino and he said he wanted to make the movie about divorce like the idea of like here i am in this

empty fucking house sure with like plaster falling on my head right and like just like that idea of like here i am in this empty fucking house sure with like plaster falling on my head right and like just like that sort of like environment mood thing like post-divorce mindset and he of course hires the most obvious choice at that moment post-divorce nicole kid that's true i don't know why i said nicole yeah she fucked up her nicole she's taking that awesome picture outside of the divorce court where she's all feeling herself. Mm-hmm. And then she walked straight from that to a meeting with David Fincher. So, yeah, Nicole Kidman.

I mean, she's for real at this moment, right? Like, she wins an Oscar this year, in fact. Yes. For The Hours. Yes. But she's coming off of Moulin Rouge. The whole thing with her knee was that she had actually injured it making Moulin Rouge a not known. Right.

And sort of danced through it. Right. And it had never healed. And then she re-injures her knee making 19 days into this shoot. She was running up and down the stairs but you hear him talk about uh in in everything uh about the making of this film the development of this film that he like really built it around the idea of kidman as the classic sort of like somewhat cold inscrutable hitchcock woman yeah this very glamorous woman a woman who is in way over her head um in this kind of situation and originally was announced

as nicole kidman and hayden panter yes and then they switch over to kristen stewart while it is still nicole kidman yes but the whole conception was like her daughter is radically different that was the idea she has this tomboy daughter right right and Right. And she's this glamorous, you know, divorcee. Right. And then when they cast Jodi, it's like, okay, so you have this daughter who's kind of exactly your image. Perfect Jodi Foster type. It's you, but little. So they also had to throw out 19 days of shoot?

That's crazy. Or at least probably most of it, right? I mean, I guess the stuff without Nicole maybe they could keep, but I don't know. And then they wouldn't let him shut down. They start filming, they identify in doing some action sequence, she thinks she fucks up her leg. In fact, she re-injures.

She has a fracture. Right. And there's just no way around this. He wanted to shut the movie down to rejigger it. They basically, I mean, the numbers I saw, there was some sort of calculation of like if they had shut the movie down and just never started filming again they would have made three million dollars off the insurance profit what if they gave her a jimmy stewart wheelchair

leg that would be bold incredible it's like not only is this set in one house yes she can't even climb the names i guess you just keep going to that elevator yeah every time you know she would have to elevate herself up but also he's built this set he's done his classic fincher every single gag needs to be tested for like two weeks before we film it i mean so much of this crazy dvd set is him just giving notes back on like the fucking rubber dwight yocum fingers hitting the floor not looking right you know like shit like that where everything is like so precisely worked out he's done this fucking previous thing to the nines and now suddenly it's like your actress can't move

and he's like well untenable i'm not rethinking the entire movie around her not being able to move around right um he goes then says we need to shut down and look for a new actress. And as you said, it was $3 million in profit if they just cut their losses and shut the movie down. If they let him take a break, continue renting the studio space, keeping everyone on hold while he rejiggered it, it costs an additional $10 million extra to the budget. So they were like, you just have to keep shooting as much with the robbers as you can

while we figure out the actress problem. Ooh, okay, this... It's a nightmare. This builds into a theory I have about the movie. Okay, okay. But he's just barreling ahead.

Jodie Foster is supposed to make Flora Plum, which is one of her grand passion project movies that never got made. Her circus movie. She was pushing uphill for so fucking long.

She had Russell Crowe, and then Russell Crowe hurt himself making it, or whatever, preparing for it. And so it shuts down. She was supposed to be in the game. In the Sean Penn part. Would have been so cool. Yes. Not that Sean Penn isn't fun in the game. He's kind of fun in the game.

But, like, loved Fincher. Yeah. Had wanted to work with him. She had talked to him about Mank Which is like already a thing Yes Like they have Mank I assume for the Amanda Seyfried For Marion Crane

You know Sure yeah You know like you know back then Marion Davies Marion Davies not Marion Crane Marion Crane's from Psycho But like Right you know

So like they were Yes they were They had circled each other before Yeah And so They bring her in but it was a thing where it's like here's the pitch if you want to do this you start filming in two days um right and you know fincher says like you know obviously the the plus is you're getting jody foster you're

getting a double academy award winner still pretty hot at this point i feel like career-wise right also if you have to be like Jodi can you get tank top ready She's like already tank top ready I'm tank top ready Year round She's cut off a little bit of a gap She's done Anna and the King But before that Contact

It's Contact and the King and then it's three years Until this and Ultra Boys in the same year What's the Brave one That's 07. Okay. That's sort of her, this run post-Panic Room of. This is her flinty era. It's this, Flight Plan, Inside Man, and the Brave one,

where she plays like flinty people. And she's doing sort of like high thread count thrillers. Right. Yes, adult thrillers. And yeah, as Fincher puts it, you you're you're you know nicole kidman grace kelly yeah glamour physicality with jody foster he says it's all about what happens in her eyes yeah um you know she's nobody's fucking pet she's nobody's trophy wife like she's a different she doesn't make as much sense it's true as like the divorcee of an older guy who's rich right who's kind of like been a you

know cast aside yeah you immediately are like huge questions about this relationship from scene one you're like what with nicole kidman you get it's like oh it's some asshole who's like oh you're 35 for a new model kind of thing right you're like did she just what was this marriage like i mean my internal canon did she leave him it feels like marriage like? I mean, my internal canon. Did she leave him? It feels like she left him. In my head. Because he was cheating on her or whatever, right?

Right. In my head, it's like they met when they were young. But he's not, he's like 20 years older than her. When they were younger, let's say. Sure. Right? Right, right. Maybe not 20, but he's way older than her.

My feeling I get is the inherent downfall of their marriage that existed the whole time was that he was intimidated by her. Yeah, well. Right? I'd be intimidated by her. That's how I read the movie is that, like. The actor is 24 years older than Jodie Foster. Yeah. Which makes sense.

Her lack of submissiveness is what. Because even in the opening scenes with Kristen Stewart, what I think she plays very well is it's like, oh, the downfall of this divorce was probably you are emotionally inaccessible. Also, she cloned herself when she had a child. Yes. And was like, now there's two of you. Yes. I can't fight, you know, come on. Yes.

No, I like him. I like his casting. His casting is a really good surprise. When this older guy comes in, you're like, who's this? Right. And it's like, oh, right. You know, like, that's what this relationship was. Like, he was, you know, maybe a professor, right?

She's going back to school. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. But he's rich. So he's a professor on the side, if he's anything. No, he's a pharmaceutical guy. Right.

That's how they say he has his money. Right, right, right. They recognize his name. I think it's old family. She's married to Merck. He's a Sack guy. Right. That's how they say he has his money. Right, right, right. They recognize his name. I think it's old family. She's married to Merck. He's a Sackler. Yeah, he's an old Sackler. He's a fucking Sackler.

Yeah. She was supposed to be the president of the can jury this year. Right. Had to step down. Liv Ullman swoops in and gives the palm door,

I just have to look this up, to the son's room. Nanny Moretti film. Should have given it to fucking Mulholland Drive. This is that year? Yeah, 2001. Jody would have. Jody would have. Shrek.

This is the Shrek year? Yeah. Shrek. It's time. I'm just imagining Jody Foster getting up and saying, the wait is finally over. The palm door goes to Shrek. Somebody once told me. Orchestra plays it live. I'm dizzy.

I'm dizzy. Shrek gets on stage and farts. Donkey! Yeah. He just says that. They let a mascot character accept the palm door and give the speech.rew adamson is sitting in the fucking audience his arms crossed i want to accept the award they're like no shrek's forgetting it it's for shrek andrew adamson had this brief moment where he did trek yeah he did trek 2 and then the first narnia film and he went this man has the highest box office average of any director in film history

this guy could remake solo and it would make a billion dollars yes you can do anything and then what then he did the second narnia which everyone was like here we go narnia fucking evergreen franchise second movie falls off a cliff no one gives a shit yeah and then has he done anything since then yeah he did a movie called Mr. Pip Okay Oh, and he directed With Hugh Laurie A Cirque du Soleil IMAX film And he directed a Cirque du Soleil IMAX film

Yeah What the fuck is Mr. Pip? Which made $34 million at the box office It's not bad for a Cirque du Soleil movie Adamson's got the touch Mr. Pip appears to be I don't know, Hugh Laurie, he's grumpy What do you want from me?

I don't know Panic room room so she steps down she has nine days to prep yeah um the other thing she starts filming it right as hannibal comes out jodie foster had famously to turn down yes 15 million dollars to be in hannibal because she thought it was and i quote gross yeah i don't know she actually said that And Dino De Laurentiis A famously chill guy Who never said anything weird in the press Was basically like motherfucking her

In the press over this Like being like, you know She needs us more than we need her And like she has no sex appeal Like he's literally said that Julianne Moore? No, Jodie Foster Julianne Moore replaces her.

Is that who it is? Correct. Yes. Darling? Yes. And then she starts making the movie five weeks into the shoot. She sits down with David Fincher and she's like, I'm pregnant. Right.

So presumably she's been... Trying? Right. Yes. Right. What can be a very long and unpredictable process, and it finally takes in the middle of filming this intensely physical technically demanding film right uh so then they

like put on a sweater for a lot of the scenes none of this is in the movie yes like that you know that we see because an oversized sweater and just say we're gonna push through this and we will not tell anyone until it gets to the point where it is undeniable. Basically because of the same thing of like we can't shut down production. And then when he screens it to the studio, they're like, we don't like any of these sweater scenes. Yeah, we hate this sweater vibe. Right. And so then they like, you know, reshot a bunch of it.

Right. They basically like finished the movie in order to screen the movie for them to then get the money to go back and reshoot the stuff after she'd had the kid oh okay okay right that makes sense yeah but but also an insane thing where it's just like they start filming the movie with a different person then they're filming the movie with no star then they film with her then they're filming a bunch of stuff that gets thrown out in the name of her pregnancy and then they finally go back and finish the movie like four months before it comes out. Right.

The final leg of the shoot was like end of 01. It's look. Yeah, it shouldn't have been easy, but it happened and it's fine. So 9-11 also happens in the middle of it. Yeah. True. Yes. Yes.

And they've gotten out by the way. We're making panic room mid-oj climate mid-oj climate we still live in a mid-oj climate we live in a peak oj climate i feel he's one of my favorite content creators he is out there i mean god bless him um king poster uh not god bless him he's a terrible person wait why did i say that i'm totally uh i have to tell ben this next thing right in ballot oj simpson for president what what do you have to tell ben so the character of raul in this film is played by dwight yocum yeah uh a singer yeah but also he'd been in sling blade that was kind of what he got cast off i think we need to do a dwight

yocum character we'll talk about that in a second but the first choice was maynard james keenan the front man of tool i actually saw this uh i figured you might have uh he was busy working with a perfect circle at this point oh shit it's follow-up because that perfect circle sounded like a super group right it was like him and who's the other big guy like james eha from smashing pumpkins and stuff you know it was like okay cast offs from other whatever hard rock bands so raul had to be a rock star in this concept i guess he's just like i just want to sort of like weird singer freak with kind of glassy eyes. Is Lee was on a veil?

It is funny how often he puts one musician in his movies. Right. But like the meatloaf, Justin Timberlake, Dwight Yoakam. Oh, yeah. I mean, if you've got the access, you got the Rolodex. Why not? But like, is that guy in any movies? Maynard Keenan?

No, but he had done videos for him. No, I know. Right, that's the other thing. He's sort of spooky looking. I guess part of it is just like a decade of Fincher working with musical artists on music videos, and he must have had some takeaway of maybe sometimes they're easier to direct than actors because they don't come in with pesky ideas or something. And also sometimes you'd be like, this guy's a star. Right, right.

Right, this guy's just playing well on camera. He'd be like, Dave Grohl, I bet he's funny and he's down for anything. Yeah. Dave Grohl. DTA. Ben, you a Tool guy? Yeah. Yeah?

Yeah. Big time in high school. Really? Yeah. They pass me by. I don't know much about Tool. I know of them, obviously. Moody, intense, heavy.

They're called Tool. They're called Tool. Eva, are you a Tool gal? No. Obviously, I love Tool Time with Tim Taylor. Yeah, I was going to say, I'm a Tool man. Yeah. When it comes to Tim.

I know they're cool. Are they cool, Tool? I think so. Didn't they have a video where there's like A weird little head That goes fast? I mean that sounds Fucking great Yeah that sounds about right

I'm seeing here Kenan Made Not Kenan from Kenan Kell Kenan from Leitzinger Tool Sure

Right Made a cameo In an episode of Comedy Bang Bang Whoa As a fictional Punk musician Named

Barf Edwards. Oh, man. Was that after you'd left? Yeah, it must have been. Do you know what season that is? Does it say? It does not. Okay.

I don't think I was there for Barf Edwards. Barf Edwards is objectively funny. Another thing I read, it sort of reminds me of the Elaine may ecosystem of the film quote that we bring up a lot that was established in our swing shift episode but uh

after all this crazy stop and start production uh they finally get the movie done right uh end of 2001 they cut it together there's obviously post-production to do on this they test screen it uh the audience like hates the ending yes because they feel too sympathetic for forest whitaker and they feel bad for him right and he goes to sony and he's like we need to reshoot the ending and give him a less harsh ending or less sad ending let's say right and they were like we are not letting you rebuild this fucking set again. Get the hell out of here. It is not happening.

So they just find alternate takes where he looks less bummed out, right? What I, maybe my interpretation of this was wrong. That they used alternate takes for the rest of the film to make him less sympathetic up until that point. Oh, that's interesting. I think you are right. That Forrest Whitaker is such a naturally kind of wounded actor. Right. He's so good at that.

Right. We have chosen the most empathetic takes for him in every moment. What we need to do, if we can't change the ending, is change the DNA of the movie up until that point to make him a little more conflicted. Guys, in 2006, I got a job as a PA at a commercial. Okay. It was a commercial that aired before movies.

Okay. It was like a turn off your phone commercial. I love those. Big fan. Okay. Turn off your phone commercial. Okay. So it's like, hi, I'm Tom Cruise and you better hit that red button.

Back then you had to hold down the red button. My PA job. I'm an M&M. Please turn off your phone. Sorry. My PA job was driving around the writer, director, and star of the commercial, Forrest Whitaker. A no-ture. Triple threat.

And it was very funny because the commercial was supposed to be, we're filming it in MacArthur Park. There had just been these like big immigration kind of protests. And this was built around those. And the idea was that there was, like, a protest going on, and then Forrest Bader gave this speech in the middle that was being translated into Spanish that was about freedom, but also, like, turn off your phones or whatever, listen carefully. Sounds like a tight needle to thread, but okay.

The night before we filmed the commercial, the, like, phone company that was sponsoring it came to them they were like we cannot have any political messages in this commercial and it's can't Whitaker a a very politically outspoken man very politically driven has never pulled but I might have told him that like Sprint's not gonna go for this buddy right yeah whoever it was we ended up filming what ended up airing was, just people holding up signs that just said, believe in something or just, like, maximize you or whatever. Up with people! Things matter!

Totally, things matter. Nobody's nervous. But I was his driver and his, like, kind of chaperone for two weeks. And he was so nice. I really liked him shout out he told me some stuff about um battlefield earth which was okay oh fuck sure right yes what year was this that you were 2006 so this is like four or five five or six years i know it was 2006 because the week two of the job he he got nominated for The Last King of Scotland. I was about to say. He's about to thunder to an Oscar. But because we were in MacArthur Park, unhoused people would come up to him constantly and talk to him. And he would talk to anybody.

But what was the funniest thing was that they all recognized him from the movie Species. Sure. Specifically. Oh, yeah. But also a lot of them would just be like, hey, congratulations. I love The Last King of Scotland. Like, they'd seen it in the theater, and they were, like, complimentary.

And also, it's like, no one looks like him. Like, he must be one of the most instantly recognizable celebrities. His gait is recognizable. And, like, he has changed shape several times in his career. Sure. His gait has gone up and down at different times. He always is undeniably Forrest Whitaker. Yeah, and really like i

really got in this movie just like the most empathetic performer like it's really hard not to like him even when he's being a giant dick like his character is being making bad decisions you're just like oh don't hurt him there is a term right and this is the cut of the movie where they tried to make him less empathetic he's you know he's like so one of the emotional chords of the entire movie you can see that being a problem of like if you just pick his best take for every scene the entire audience is going to be rooting for him to win yeah you know um there's a term marin always uses on wtf and i think he got it from some actor he was interviewing years and years ago talking about working with gene hackman and they said, what's Gene Hackman like?

And I can't remember who the fuck it was. I mean, Stephen Tobolowsky or someone like that said, like, that guy knows how to fill up. Like, fill up himself or fill up the screen? Fill up himself with emotion. Oh, yeah. Fill up, yeah. You know?

Like, just basically, like, before the cameras roll, you see it, the guy just fills up, and suddenly it's all there. It's not him playing something. It's all just in there. And you hear this weird noise, too. It's, like, kind of gurgling. Yeah, right. There's this moment that I watched a couple times

when he's chasing down Jared Leto and saying, like, I'm going to open the room myself, and when they come for me, I'm going to know who called. And it's just, like, he's, like, terrifying. He's completely reasonable. Like it's like, oh. You can tell why he's panicked himself, right? Like what's at stake for him.

He's like mad, but you're like, he's justified. Outside of Idi Amin, though, it's one of those weird Oscar wins where you're like, this is kind of not what he usually does, right? And it's the classic Oscar win of like, he, like, at that point, he's a fairly beloved sort of character actor guy. He's directed movies. Everyone likes Forrest Whitaker. Do you know at one point he was offered

this script to direct earlier before Fincher came on? That makes sense, though. Wow. And, like, so, like, everyone likes him. Yes. But then it's like, what do you win the Oscar for? Like, you know, doing this sort of, like,

big, broad performance that's an impression. It's a quietly supporting performance but it's so colorful. He is good in that movie. Oh, he's fantastic. But I feel like usually his thing is just like, he's an actor where every time I see him on screen... Oh no. Ben, can we turn on the monitors? Yeah, hold on.

The dog thieves are outside our door again. Genuine noise outside this place. Yeah, some screaming. This is not a bit. This is... Four dogs in ski masks. This is not a bit. This is four dogs in ski masks. This is the same year as Phone Booth, Panic Room. Right. Which is another movie he's really good in as like the guy. Okay, say fuck you.

Fuck you! All right, great. Love him in Phone Booth. I was just saying that... Let me help you, Colin Farrell. Whitaker's like the ultimate... Nah, man, you can't help me. I'm on the phone. I can't do Colin Farrell in Phone Booth. I was just saying that... Let me help you, Colin Farrell. Whitaker's, like, the ultimate... Nah, man, you can't help me. I'm on the phone.

I can't do Colin Farrell in Phone Booth. I'm from Brooklyn! He's, like, the ultimate that-guy-knows-how-to-fill-up actor for me, where just anytime he's on screen, you're, like, outside of shit like Last King of Scotland, or sometimes the movie will give him

the one big scene, you know, and something else. The Black Penta. I don't think of him as being, like, a very demonstrative actor. He tends to whisper. Right, he tends to be kind of a whispery, shuffley guy. This guy's, like, vibrating with emotion, right?

Like, this guy is just constantly sort of, like, on edge of something. Looks like he's about to cry. Yes. Oh, he's got, you know, he can use his eye in a certain way. Yes, incredibly well. He always seems incredibly smart.

He's always at, like, the absolute height of his intelligence. Right. And he's choosing his words very carefully, you know? But it's like he's not doing a lot externally. It feels like it's all just kind of inside of him. Yeah. I mean, Ghost Dog, I guess, is my favorite for us, what a cur.

He's so cool. I love that movie. The other thing I love about him, he, like, comes out of the gate. He books a couple big movies, right? He's got, like, The Brief Moment and Fast Times at Richmond High. He's got a. I love that movie. The other thing I love about him, he, like, comes out of the gate. He books a couple big movies, right? He's got, like, The Brief Moment and Fast Times at Richmond High. He's got The Great Scene and Color of Money. Great and Color of Money, Great and Platoon. Post those movies, he's like, I don't think I know my craft enough.

I'm going to go back, do, like, a conservatory. He, like, went back to graduate acting school, I believe, after he was already booking. And I think he says it was kind of color money where he was just like, Paul Newman can do stuff that I can't. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah, he did do,

he did take a course at Drama Studio London. Yeah. But you know, he's in Bird in 88, which is like, he should have been nominated for an Oscar for that. He's amazing in that. I love Farris Rooker.

He's amazing in this. The part was written as like a glib, businessy guy. Yeah. And Fincher was like, no, it should be like a blue-collar guy who installs like the panic room. Not like the sort of like nerdy designer of the panic room, if that makes sense. No. Yeah. Yes.

It makes much more sense. And yes, Fincher said, Whitaker said, yeah, I didn't find it interesting as a filmmaker when I was approached, but Fincher gets how to make something like this. Jared Leto. Jared Leto is in this film. You've worked with Jared Leto. I did not work with him directly.

I wrote on his show. You wrote on a show he was on. And I got a gift from him in character, a wrap gift. My favorite act. He sent me a gift as Adam Newman. Good gift. My favorite act. He sent me a gift as Adam Newman. Good gift. Thank God he did not send you a gift as the Joker.

As Joker. I got a gift from a nice character. Right. Yeah, that's good when it's like, you got a gift from a Jared Leto character. Which one? I will say this. Unfortunately, it's the creepy billionaire from Blade Runner. God damn it.

What did he send me? He sent me like a fetus. hearing he sent like a fetus he sent gifts as adam newman makes me slightly less critical of the joker gifts where i'm like if he does this on every movie right it's at least a continuum um now jj says i do not say this lightly these are two of the greatest quotes i've ever found for this show all right fincher yeah this is about him talking about like okay i've cast dwight yocum that's on one sort of end of the spectrum. I've cast Forrest Whitaker. He's on the other.

I turn to a CIA agent. Who can I get to be in the middle? It's got to be someone little and glib. Who has the aspiration to be Latrell Sprewell? Jared Leto, original gangster. Jared came in. He had the gold teeth. He was doing this whole rap thing.

I said, I'm not sure about all this he went away came back with cornrows in his hair and i thought oh my god this speaks to so much to him being like a wannabe hard guy a fucking like you know wannabe og and then he says uh he was asked like do you think jared's tired of like getting beaten up in your movies because in the fight club as well he's a shippy now his face gets up in your movies? Because in the Fight Club as well, he gets a shit beat down. His face gets burned in both movies. I want to destroy something beautiful. He says he's perfect for it, isn't he?

If there's any guy whose face you want to see get burned off, it's him. He totally gets what to use him for. It's wild that not only did Fincher have such a good understanding of Jared Leto and how to use him effectively on screen, but also such a good understanding of the audience's relationship to Jared Leto. Not just what is he good at as an actor, but also like what will people enjoy seeing him do slash happen to him? Yeah, I just had the question and knowing that they were maybe just doing these scenes waiting for new actors to get filmed. It seem like jared leto's doing more than anyone in the entire movie by absolutely everyone else is giving pretty subtle character-y performances and jared leto is just like spitting

fireballs i wrote down a lot of his lines oh please they're pretty funny um i also felt like at one point i was like oh is he is he going full buscemi and fargo i think that's his aspiration yeah is that what he thinks he's doing near the end because there's there's a thing i like when like there's certain actors who are very good at weaponizing their own beauty yes um especially like later in life i I'm thinking like Hugh Grant is somebody who's gotten really good at knowing what was attractive about him and now making it disgusting.

Oh, I'm kind of an old... Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So and so. Or like Jude Law's kind of doing it in a cool way now. Pitt got there eventually. Pitt is very good at actually being hot in a movie and playing it like against the character.

As a character. Like a money ball or whatever. Being like, this thing you love about me is actually disgusting. Right. But Jared Leto at this moment in his career is in that moment where he's just like, I wish I was less pretty. Exactly.

Right. He's like, I want to be Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys. I want to be like, I'm not Jordan Catalano. Right. And it seems like he's really swinging for the fences. There's a part where, okay, there's a part where Forrest's a part where um uh forrest butler says he's laughing he says i spent the last 12 years of my life building these rooms

specifically to keep out people like us and uh leto goes oh it's all so ironic and amusing i knew that we would go say congratulations you bought a black ski mask. You made a million dollars. Your parents will be really proud. He's, whether or not it's intended, just so perfect. As a guy, of course, who needs to get shot in the face in this movie. He goes, oh, so now you're a tax attorney. I'm out of here.

But also, right, as a guy who's like, yeah, I know how to do a robbery. You know, like where you're like, you don't know anything you were an idiot but like dwight yokum the swagger of him in this movie is so important dwight yokum is genuinely scary in this film right so scary forrest wedeker is such a well of emotion you need the guy who's just a piece of shit and is an entertaining piece of shit like this movie it's the classic hitchcocky thing or any of these crime movies which just become unbearably grim. The characters need to be completely different, have different motivations,

different levels of, yeah, of, like, morality. And, like, Kidman is... I imagine would have played this more icy to Jodie Foster, steely. But, like, in either conception of the film, you need one guy to be this. Yeah. And it does feel like, I agree with you,

that he's, you know uh i'm gonna anonymize this story there was an actor uh i hung out with a couple times who was a sort of uh 2010s uh uh attempt at a leading man okay okay all right a sort of pretty boy guy who was slotting into the lead role of the romantic lead in a couple films and had a hot streak and it had sort of ended. And it was maybe my first time meeting this guy. He was dating a friend of mine and he like drunkenly ranted to me. He just went like, your career is going to be so much fucking better than mine. And I was like, what are you talking about?

And he was just like, I thought I was like fucking hot shit. I was like, what are you talking about? And he was just like, I thought I was like fucking hot shit. And all my like weirdo, funny looking actor friends are on that running laps around me. And it's just sort of like John Magaro and Rami Malek and all these guys who are uncastable for so long. Now everyone thinks that they're brilliant. You know, this guy sounds like just fun. Piece of shit.

I'm sure you're like, I'm glad my friends dating this guy. Absolutely. Piece of shit guy. I'm sure you're like, I'm glad my friend's dating this guy. Absolute piece of shit guy. So glad she got out of that. But I do, I can imagine Jared Leto watching Fargo and having the same feeling, you know? Totally. Where he's just like, I wish I could just fucking do that. Yeah. I'm cursed with my looks.

Yes. My beautiful eyes. I mean, because at this point, like his whole career, obviously, yes, he breaks out playing Jordan Cannellano on My So-Called Life. And he was, you know, all the girls loved him. And then he's in stuff like How to Make an American Quilt, like, where it's like, do that, right? He does Prefontaine or Without Legends. Prefontaine.

Yeah. Prefontaine. And, you know, Urban Legend. He's, like, one of the guys who's like, oh, guys, there's an urban legend. Right. He's like one of the guys who's like oh guys There's an urban legend But then it's like black and white fight club Girl interrupted American psycho

Requiem for a dream highway panic room So he's done Requiem for a dream At this point that's interesting So he's really He's just like make me weird and gross I need to be strung out and weird I need to have these parts that are very like Big and demanding

I need so much to do Right a lot of business It goes all the way to chapter 27 weird i need to have these parts that are very like big and demanding i need so much to do um right right a lot of business obviously it goes all the way to chapter 27 where it's like jared no one's gonna see this movie and he's just like i will i will gain as much weight as i can multiple times but he literally would buy pints of ben and jerry's yes put them in the microwave melt them and chug them that's is it him playing... The killer John Lennon. Mark David Chapman. Yes.

And he developed gout doing this, and the movie basically was released in tooth years. Because it was a bad movie. No one wanted to see it. It was 18 months of wind-up of like, holy shit, he's going to go fucking full Raging Bull. Lengths he's going to for this performance, and you're like,

why would you do this for this script in this part that no one wants to see? Right. And then that's when he takes like a long break where he doesn't really do a movie until being a musician and stuff right which thank god what a cultural gain when did the band start like 30 seconds to mars releases their first album in 2002 uh so the same year as this um but i feel like they really do sort of take off more in the late 2000s chapter 27 comes out 2007 and that's when he's just like i'm retired from acting i'm full time musician when's dallas byers club that's 2013 yeah okay so that's his comeback basically

a five-year gap my first date with forking really wait have i never told you that before on this podcast dallas byers i know what an insane choice. I know. We were just like, let's see a movie. You got married and had a child? That movie literally begins with Matthew McConaughey having rough sex and then next scene, you have AIDS. I can't believe you guys, and I hate to be crass here,

ever had sex if that was the way you met. But no, no. I think it was Oscar season. It was like the winter of 2013. We were like, let's see a movie. Well, and if you're going on a date and she suggests a movie, you're like, well, here's what I need to see

to get through the Oscar season. You have a checklist. But I think it was also, it was like between like 12 Years a Slave and Dallas. But like there were not a lot of like romantic movies out there. No, no. Yeah, absolute dog shit movie in my opinion.

Eva. Yes. We crashed. there no um yeah absolute dog shit movie in my opinion uh eva yes uh we crashed the show you wrote for yes that jared leto was on yes was was a pretty deep covid production right where you were not unsettled that was a covid yeah it was shot it was covid zoom room and then shot in new york and so only the we had one writer who lived in new york okay and she visited set once and she was the one eleanor who told me that the present was from adam was from mature because it was like i i didn't even meet the showrunners until um the premiere i didn't see anyone in person until the premiere right especially because of covid yeah especially yeah did you did you hear anything was anythinged to you? Because like Adam Neumann is a goofier character than he usually plays.

Yeah. Of what his behavior was like on set. Because the thing that surprised me watching this fucking voluminous special features set where there's just like a very long video of the making of Panic Room. That's not even structured like a documentary. It's basically almost like a travelogue. You're sort of seeing, like, just extended clips of footage of them working out shit. He's just doing bits the whole fucking time.

He's not doing any Method-y shit. Oh, weird. It's just him, like, fucking with Fincher. And, like, going up to the camera and talking to the camera as if it's MTV Cribs when everyone else is just sort of treating it as like fly on the wall. I wonder when he got into Method because the one thing I do know about Set is that he stayed in character the entire shoot.

Yeah. As Adam Neumann, which was a multi-month Adam Neumann experience. He actually, yeah, he actually went out of business himself. He bankrupted himself. Right, right. Yes, he actually went out of business himself. He bankrupted himself. Right, right. He crashed.

He, like, he would keep his Israeli accent year round. Wow. Okay, so. Yeah, I was just so surprised watching this where it truly just had the energy of, like, just a dude with too much energy. Like, on set, just trying to get attention, but not with the self-serious actor-y thing. Well, when did he switch over?

Was it Dallas Buyers Club? Was it earlier? Did he have a guru that was like, you must do this? Right. I think it's, I think, I don't know.

But I think it's like when Dallas Buyers Club came out and he was like, yeah, I'm a method guy. Like, this is what I do. I've always been doing it. And I guess he'd done things like Chapter 26. He'd always been doing it. But then he does it with Morbius.

He does it with everything now. But then it became part of the press cycle in a way. I think we're now also journalists are like, so what'd you do this time, Jared? Tell us. Do you think he was like not Blade Runner? He was like eyes closed, like knocking into things? I think he did literally wear contact lenses that made him blind and stuff like that for Blade Runner.

Yes. Yes, he did. People had to, like, lean into the bathroom and shit. And, like, it is crazy. It's always bathroom. It always just has to get to the bathroom. It's always bathroom shit. Bathroom too slow.

Yes. Israeli bathroom. You have these guys like Fincher and Villeneuvev like these these great directors who work with him yes and i feel like vilnev was like yeah you know he's he's such a committed guy you got you know they always talk about him in this way where it sounds like they're talking about like a special student at school with like you know he really is trying it's really like you got to respect the effort off this guy right the dynamic on this on this, on the video I was watching was also like, it was like Leto is his annoying younger brother. Right.

And he's just going like, I double doggy dare you to do this. And Leto would be like, absolutely. Fucking set me on fire. Like they're showing the video of him like testing being set on fire over and over again. He's like, this is fun. Let's fucking do it again. Right. Yeah.

Right. We should talk about the plot of Panic Room. We really have to. Okay. Let's fucking do it again. Right. Yeah. Right. We should talk about the plot of Panic Room. We really have to. Okay. Meg Altman and Sarah, her daughter. Yes.

She's 11 years old. Uh-huh. Meg is not. Meg is older than that. They move into an insane building on the Upper West Side. A townstone.

A townstone, sure. As it even became. A four-story townhouse. Yeah. That has a panic room in it. The first scene of this movie, who plays the real estate agent? It's Anne Magnuson. Anne Magnuson. Yes, right, sure. As Ian Buchanan says. Big four-story townhouse. Yeah. That has a panic room in it. The first scene of this movie, who plays the real estate agent? It's Anne Magnuson.

Anne Magnuson. Yes, right, right. Great. Who's the man? It's Ian Buchanan, who was a soap opera star. That's who I was trying to, that's who I was trying to.

And then he was on It's Gary Shandling show. Okay. He is fucking great. He's done a number of other shit. I love him. I think he is incredible. That first scene sets a tone

that is not the movie of extreme camp. Yes. It is kind of campy, but although it's very, I feel like, accurate to the experience of high-end Manhattan real estate then especially, but even now. But I also just love it as he's like, let me show you around the set of this movie. Yes. You know, so you understand how it works. understand how it works. Anne Magnusson was sort of like the original Mary Lynn Roscoe, where she was like a weirdo East Village performance artist who then started working as sort of like a comedic character

actress. She's like a Joe's Pub person kind of, right? Yes. And then Ian Buchanan was like comically handsome, suave soap opera star. Hello. Yes. Who was a bit of a phenomenon. And then I think within soap opera fandom.

Right. And then Gary Shandling sort of like reclaimed him and is like, do you want to like poke fun of your own image? Just like heighten it 10%. And then after that, he did on the air the weird David Lynch sitcom. Oh, sure. But he does a lot of stuff like this now where he sort of does the camp version of the way he looks and sounds. Yeah, right. I mean, he's and sounds. Uh, yeah, right. I mean, he's perfect for this. Yes.

This scene. But I just love... Also, it's kind of like you're getting cranked up on a roller coaster. You're going up the, you know... David, that is the exact analogy for this movie. I was going to say... Well, I fucking got there first.

A movie like this, even more so... It's gonna be all thrills. Than, like like a straight horror movie right a real capital t thriller right as a kid and i i 13 i'm still a kid when i see this movie in theaters stressed me out freaked me out more than anything where the premise of the movie is like a thing is gonna go wrong and you're just stuck in it until it's resolved right like something like u571 i walked out of because it stressed me out too much it's a little stressful and it's going to happen the first night it's gonna happen the second the sun goes down it's like it's like

it's like the mist absolutely and so like this first like 15 minutes of the movie i'm enjoying it i like that there are jokes and everything but i'm also just like gripping the armrest because it's like it's too late to get off the roller coaster now. It's cranking up and then it's going to start and it won't stop until it's over. It's funny that the only things they tell you about the panic room are things that don't help. Yes. They're like,

this has got a separate phone line. Right. Unless you don't hook that up. There's the laser for the door like an elevator. Which doesn't work. No. No, it doesn't. I have to go back and watch to be like they make a big point of this laser being important but i guess his hand isn't near the laser it's poorly designed there should be more than two lasers because yes that means yeah the door can't smush your entire body yeah but yeah if you have a handout and it's not above or the

floor you're gonna get smushed but it's also it's such a hitchcocky thing of like what he really wants to do here is like put some comedy in it put two characters in who are very different tone two performances that are very different pitch the rest of the movie but really just like lure you in entertain you enough while like unconsciously loading the entire architecture and layout of this place into your head right right like this whole sequence is like you need to understand spatially everything going on in this house now um not just the room you need to get how it's going to work but it's also right it's just a nice little sort of mood everyone be calm don't worry like things and then it's like fincher's deep in his like antiseptic

sort of like finding color palettes that actually make you uncomfortable right right he's still shooting on a film at this point but he uses like a ton of fluorescent lighting yeah i my first impression of this was like oh every movie will end up looking like this movie that he makes like he'll make eight more movies that look like this or whatever like not movie will end up looking like this movie that he makes like he'll make eight more movies that look like this or whatever like not eight but like it looks like gone girl yeah um yes and i just you know he's like we they can't move in they'll move in but like they can't actually change how this place looks like it needs to be this this is what desolate yes empty there you know they had their those the kid and the mom are still unsettled.

And so when they get broken into, it's not even their home yet, really. Yeah. Is the panic room full of the old man's survival kits? Yes. They've done nothing with the panic room. Yeah. I mean, obviously, there's more in there. Here's my big question.

Sure. Would you buy, let's say money is no object sure would you would the panic room be a selling point or a flat no here's this building oh it's cool it's nice it's got all the bedrooms you want it does have this panic room are you like great that's i want to buy it because it has a panic room panic room versus washer dryer i pick the place with the washer dryer it has everything else i do think the panic room's a fun bonus i think it would spook me out too much i think if it's not an upcharge it's a fun bonus you don't have to make it a panic room it could be a wine cellar

but it's got like the security system well you have some really nice wine yeah you can make it a podcast studio it just don't have a crazy fucking door i think i would be spooked i don't like it and then i would worry spooked i don't like it and then i would worry about my kid like playing in the panic room well sure that's the other as well you have a little kid right i have a teenager and the teenager would want to hang out the teenager probably be like i'm gonna be in the panic room i'll see you in four days it's fucking kristen stewart's joke she goes my room definitely my room yeah yeah yeah um first night in the in the house they go to sleep they

go to betty buys can we just say i quickly sorry just daris kanji was hired as the dp on this movie who fincher had worked with and then like in the early days before even kidman's injury he is no longer on the movie and they're sort of conflicting stories about whether he quit or was fired. He was fired. Or he quit. They fought constantly. High tension. But I think a lot of it was that Fincher was like coming in with this previs thing.

And he's like, do exactly this. Do exactly this. Like, I don't want any sort of new ideas on set. A terrible situation for a DP. Absolutely. For an artistic DP. And Conrad W. Hall. Yep. The son situation for a DP. Absolutely. For an artistic DP. And Conrad W. Hall, the son of

legendary Conrad H. Hall, cinematographer who had just passed away, and does not have a ton of credits as DP, and this was his first, I believe.

This was his first. He was a big camera team guy. Sean Olympus has Vaughn, so I don't know what you're talking about. Fincher just says, you know what? Here,

you rise to the top. He'd been a camera operator on Seven and Fight Club a large career but had not been the main DP and was just like here you go

here's the model do what you told which the movie looks great but it does speak to the fact that Fincher just planned it out and said I want you to just follow this path

yeah yeah no for sure and Kanji never works with Fincher again obviously the funniest thing is they had done all this previs they'd worked all this out they had like Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. And Kanji never works with Fincher again, obviously. The funniest thing is they had done all this previs, they'd worked all this out. They had, like, fucking computer-controlled cameras and all this sort of shit.

But, of course, there was this massive shift where there was a full height difference between Nicole Kidman and Jodie Foster and everything they planned didn't work. Oh, Jodie Foster's little. Yes. Nicole Kidman is like close to six feet tall david size uh jody foster is five three listed that's wild yes um so they were like we would conrad hall would just put it up exactly as they pre-visited and it would be jody foster the very top of her head at the bottom of her little eyes like that's right and it had all been precision time

so, like, directly that they couldn't just, like, we'll just lower the camera and all of this. They ended up building a box that was the exact height difference between the two of them that I think they called

the Nicole box. There you go. That just made Jodie Foster Nicole-sized. That's crazy. Isn't that wild? That's crazy. So, you have this wonderful break-in thing

Where the burglars walk in very casually And they're just sort of stalking around And you've got that shot I feel like it was in the trailer, right? Probably Jodi sleeping Oh yeah, it turns vertical Where the camera turns vertical

Obviously it's the poster But I feel like it's such an incredible, great Because it's not even when she realizes something is going on. Yes. It's sort of when we realize... It's dread, right? The dread, exactly. Like, just like the guy behind her and then walking away.

But yes, you have the shot, like, him really pioneering, like, CGI-assisted cinematography. Right. Of like, the camera's going to do things it can't do. It's going to go between the slats of the chair and the handle of the coffee maker and into the keyhole to see the key going through the cylinders and undoing the lock um and uh and how how and why do these guys have a key junior of course exactly um love that we don't really learn. It's like, you know,

she figures out what's going on, she gets her kid to go in the panic room. Yeah, immediately. Okay, movie's set with them in the panic room. Right. They think they're safe. In fact, it is the problem, the stuff that the robbers want is in there.

What they want is in there. Yeah. I feel like we learn about Forrest Whitaker's character first, because he's like the, you know, I know how panic rooms work. I design panic rooms. Okay, he's the inside man.

Then we learn about jared later like way later sure like we don't really get who he is for an hour no other than that he's the motor mouth right shouldn't be here he knows he knows a lot about the family and escrow it was his idea right but also raul of course we never learned anything about except that he's a scary motherfucker from flatbush he's a bus driver yells what you're a bus driver raul you live in flatbush yes so don't start spouting some elmore leonard bullshit because i saw that movie too that is um he could have said james elroy but that was his friend so he said elmore leonard there you go oh that's cool yeah uh yeah also just quick i'm not i don't i'm not like a plot hole person but it is interesting

to think about how it's it's not her stuff in the panic room like could she just be like what do you want guys yeah they're like the stuff we want in the room we'll let you go well she should just let them in the panic room if they're in masks i don't think that's a plot hole i think she doesn't know what they like what's going on. It's funny to think about at that point. There's absolutely no reason for her to be like,

all this stuff in the panic room is mine. But the ultimate irony is they are like, we're on camera. So we're fucked. And of course, they are actually not on camera.

Yes. And like, that's a whole moment near the end of the movie when Forrest Whitaker goes to get the tapes and there are no tapes. And it's like, you actually could have walked out of here without any of this happening. Oh, like, that's a whole moment near the end of the movie when Forrest Whitaker goes to get the tapes and there are no tapes. And it's like, you actually could have walked out of here without any of this happening.

Oh, yeah. Right? Like, you know, you could have walked in and been like, fuck, there's a family in here now. We messed up. Like, forget it. Forget it. Forget it. I also think, like, her not just letting them in and letting it escalate speaks to the Fincher thing of, like, this movie is really about divorce.

It is about being in a state where you're just like, I feel so unmoored and destabilized. letting it escalate speaks to the fincher thing of like this movie is really about divorce it is about being in a state where you're just like i feel so unmoored and destabilized i can't protect my kid from anything right yeah it's i don't under i don't know how to identify what the threat is and what the right way around i don't think it's a plot hole that she's not making the absolute best possible but she's a human being if they could talk to each other like actually talk to each other yes but yeah this might go differently he's like there's a safe in the panic room we just want to get in there right you can leave where it was a walk out right now and right and if anything it's what's what's interesting about this movie is like and it's the difference between having foster and kidman is like foster never projects anything

less than 100% competency. Yeah. And certainty. Right. And so even if the reasoning is this character is sort of like a little bit emotionally flipped at this moment, you do a close-up of Jodie Foster and her eyes just staring at something,

and you're like, she's going to figure this out. Right. She has 10 million. She feels very resourceful. She's a computer. Yes, she looks like a computer. Would you design your panic room to maybe allow a phone signal in

if you have your cell phone? I do feel like that's a design flaw. Yeah, but... I guess the idea is she's supposed to have set up the phone line and she just hasn't done it yet. There's that.

Yeah. It's a steel box. It's a steel box. But also, why does it have a hole that goes to the courtyard? Yeah, why does it have an air hole? Yeah. Because if this is for a nuclear that goes to the courtyard yeah why does it have an air hole yeah because if this is for a nuclear disaster hold the courtyard right this this feels like

the air hole it's like i guess right you just sort of have i mean i don't know it's mousetrap they're just trying to have to have a moment where right it feels like this is a home invasion only panic room yeah right yes but there's that moment where he's like home invasions on the rise i'm like i don't know man that's pretty specific like there's a lot of shit i'm worried about but they're like but with this guy's family no wonder so so he's building a panic room from junior he's building a junior panic room right no i mean it makes sense it's a leto proof like this was a paranoid guy so and he had enough money that he could just throw money at a panic room. Mm-hmm. Me, yeah, maybe.

A TV room. Billiard room? A rumpus room. Play billiards. Yeah. Right? A man cave. Yeah, and at least if you're going to make a panic room, put, you know, I don't know,

some shit on the wall. Some shit. Like, it's a little. Blacklight posters. Yeah, it's a little bleak in there. Yeah. Hang in there, kiddie poster. That would be good.

And they need that advice Ben I feel like you would have a really good panic room Oh yeah I would really have fun with it It's almost surprising that Ben hasn't lived in a panic room before That there was no period of your life where you were just subletting So there's no window It's not technically a bedroom It's actually technically a panic room

A lot of the rooms I've lived in I've had Have panic I've experienced panic I mean I turn every room I'm in into a panic room a lot of the rooms i've lived in i've had have panic i've experienced panic i mean we turn every room i'm in into a panic room our first podcast studio was a panic room i guess this is oh yeah that's canonically this is a panic room of course the doctor depends on how much that we're gonna leave in yeah we'll see what happens yeah um so i guess the first chunk of action now is you know everyone knows where everyone is and it sort of concludes

with the gas attack, right? Like, it's sort of them trying to figure out how to get in. Right. And, yes, it's like, you know, the other thing with this movie is like,

it's like Fincher doing Home Alone, right? Right. You're just like, what are they going to try to do and how are they going to retaliate? It is the most Home Alone-y moment. Yes.

With Leto with his face up like Sylvester the Cat or something. He's Daffy Duck with his face pressed to the wall. But it's like 20 minutes of just kind of stretching the rubber band for like, when is the first hijink going to happen? His beak ends up on the back of his head. Yeah. Obviously, his head turns into a pile of ash slowly dissipates i mean that should have happened actually his arm or at least it's like he's like wait and then i wanted all of his cornrows to be flipped out that would be great

that would be funny kind of point it in a different direction like back at the head is one of my favorite things in the fucking world where you just. You just go like, wait, is the logic that his head is just a perfect sphere and then his beak contains all of his mouth? It doesn't matter where the beak is. Yeah. There's no hole. Right. There's no throat. Right.

So, okay. Yeah. All right. So they do the gas thing. So I'm watching this with Forky. She's never seen this movie. And you were saying it's one of those things where she was like,

what are you watching? I don't want, that sounds scary. I don't want to watch that. A kid's in peril. And I'm like, you know, everyone's going to be okay. And she puts her phone down 10 minutes and it's like, what's going to happen next?

It does grab you, this movie, pretty quickly. But the gas moment definitely is a moment where when Jody sort of goes quickly to like put that blanket on i i'm gonna try something with the lighter you're like wait wait wait i would never do that fincher just makes all of this shit gnarlier than most directors would without being like a goofy gore festly. Right. Fire is my phobia. It's my irrational phobia. Fire sucks.

I was going to say, pretty rational phobia. But I mean, just, I have an irrational fear of it. You think, like, there's fire around every corner. Yeah, fire burns us. You sound like the water people in the town of Element City.

Stars of Pixar's hit new film Elemental. And of course, in Element City, that's racist. Racist! You're a racist, Eva. To think that. Because fire is a race. They're upsetting citizens. All they want to do is run bodegas, Eva. Guys!

Don't hate them. It's a perfect movie. I will say, just the fire going up to the ceiling, collecting, and stuck through the vents was extremely awesome. It's so well done. The fact that it's blue, as it should be, like it's propane fire yeah and then like the weird surreality of like leto is like on blue fire and like rolling around it's

so cool yeah i would not do that though that's the point at which i'm like open room uh come on in guys yeah whatever you want you know watching all the flame tests with leto there's the guy who's like taking them through them and it's like they have him wearing like 87 layers and then put the gel on top and he has a ski mask. But it's not like a ski mask like this. It's like a fireproof ski mask. And then they slowly start removing the layers to get him comfortable with it being more direct, but obviously still insulated. And Leto's doing like a ton of business. and leto's doing like a ton of business and they basically have to explain to him like if you actually catch on fire you don't really process it for a moment right like unless your

entire body is engulfed in flames immediately you're not going to feel it in the same way you're not going to see it in the same way until it starts to burn through and then you fucking lose your mind right yeah in chris In Criss Angel's show, A Mystica, which closed last year, there's a man who just, one of the tricks is just a man is lit on fire in a heavy suit with a mask,

and he just walks in slow circles on stage. Now, see, I would say that's not a trick. I mean, they say it is. It's a gimmick. I just Googled Criss Angel and Mystica. This is one of the least appealing posters for a show I have ever seen.

Yeah. Every single part of it looks bad. Is the man on fire on the poster? Oh, he sure is. That's one of the better looking parts of it, though. That actually looks all right. Is that the perfect role for Jared Leto? Chris Angel biopic?

Oh, my God, yes. But, like, what is this other stuff? I mean, Jesus Christ. If Jared Leto plays Chris Angle, I will personally hand him the second Oscar. Don't you even. Don't you even dare. There's a contortionist and there's this guy named Mike Hammer

who does kind of like bawdy, if deeply offensive comedy through most of the show. Oh, good. Who plays him. Joe Rogan? Just asking questions. I'd like to point out Chris Angel's

Instagram related accounts number one hit, Jared Leto. Wow. Instagram's just kind of like, I don't know, the algorithm keeps spitting Jared Leto out. What is my camera's vibe? Who would you cast as him? What is Mike Hammer's vibe?

Who would you cast as him? Ooh. He's a really unappealing white guy. Okay. He does a lot of anti-Asian jokes. He does some prop comedy. Does he ever cast? Half of LA's comedians. Does he sell boner pills?

He's oily and blonde. I'm trying to think. I don't know. Maybe Jared Leto plays him little plays him maybe he plays both yeah it's like hammer and yeah he plays he plays everyone yeah that sounds like a good movie wow that's such a good idea i'm just looking at chris angel it wasn't uh you know jim carrey played a chris angel type in the um the burt wonderstone right like that's the joke Yeah but he didn't He didn't go full He was a little less What would I say

He just played the braggadocio Another thing I want to say Yeah This is a thought Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 Which we saw last night

Yes At this point will come out Months ago Fucking owns bones Kind of a David Copperfield vibe sometimes to the costuming. Big, kind of flowy, white, buttoned down. Yeah. You know, Pom Klementieff, however you say her name,

Klementieff's character has this sort of like, you know, very magic show-like vibe to her. The vest budget on this movie must have been insane. And there is a lot of sleight of hand. Yes, and there's not. But in the first movie, it is established Ethan Hunt knows sleight of hand. Right. And so he brings that back.

And Hayley Atwell's character in this is a pickpocket. And there's just a runner throughout the entire film of them, like, picking or dropping things off and doing it, like, transferring it in their hands on camera. And then it's in your hand whatever that is are we pitching a tom cruise copperfield movie that opens the same weekend as a chris angel leto movie we're pitching a magic verse a magic verse yes i mean chris is probably the same age as tom as copperfield they're both probably in their early 60s right chris a cruise no no cruise. Yeah, I think Leto and Angel are the same age, too. Copperfield has six years on

Cruz. Okay. Cruz is Copperfield. Leto is Chris. Who plays Houdini? Oh, we're just doing it all? Magical Origins. I don't know. Alright, back to panic crew. Okay. Russell Crowe. Perfect. Nailed it. And he's the Nick Fury of the universe.

He's like, I have sort of an idea on Houdini. He's Houdini, but he just ate a lot of food. Yeah. He's hungry. He likes roast beef and has an accent. And yeah, was Houdini Greek? No, Russell. I think he was.

Looking here. Have you seen, I watched Pope's Exorcist. Oh, yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good. Pope's Exorcist. The Pope's Exorcist. Oh, yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good. Pope's Exorcist. The Pope's Exorcist.

Russell Crowe is like, he plays the guy who's like, I'm the exorcist. Not a lot of people like me. The Pope likes me, though. Right. He does not exorcise the Pope. He is the guy the Pope calls when he needs an exorcism done to someone else, but the Pope does not appear in the movie. No, the Pope.

Oh, Frank O'Neill plays the Pope. Oh, big, big scene. No, the idea is that there are like cardinals who are like, you must stop. You do so many exorcisms. Like this is not the Catholic church doesn't want to do this anymore.

And you as the viewer are supposed to be like, he gets results, you stupid cardinals. That's why he's the Pope's exorcist. It's like Sully. Yeah. And then the Pope calls him in and he's like, I need you to, this is very bad. Oh, you got to do this exorcism for me.

Who is the subject? Oh, you know, some girl who's possessed. The idea of the movie, which is actually clever, is that the Spanish Inquisition happened because the devil took over the Catholic Church for a bit there and started doing really bad stuff yeah and so it's related to that yeah and that's also what happened the other times the catholic church did bad devil let me get rid of him though yeah now he's gone now uh yeah it's complete bonkers nonsense i want to see that sounds good yeah yeah and it's russell crowe again with his taken like yeah the exorcist though he He likes submarine sandwiches, right? Do you remember that scene in Spotlight

where Mark Ruffalo interviews the devil? No. And he's like, so you were behind this? Why are you doing this? You're behind, why'd you do it? Why'd you do it? You knew! And you let it happen!

You had a pointy tail and a pitchfork! Don't do it anymore! His hooves were on fire. And then leaves Shriver saying, this is good reporting. This is a great interview. Very good work. A little pointy Van Dyke beard.

This will go on A3. Eight inches for this one. Okay, so they try and set her on fire. She sets them on fire back. Oof. Yeah, smart. Which is, look, fight fire with fire.

We all know this. No, they try to gas her out. They try to gas her out, I guess. They're not trying to light her on fire. They're not trying to gas light her either. No, no. She's straight gassing her. And she's straight lighting.

Yeah. And it is one of the, like, God bless Forrest Whitaker, who's like, I don't want to kill anyone. He is the one who starts pumping in gas, and then he's like, but not too much gas. Yeah. of the, like, God bless Forrest Whitaker, who's like, I don't want to kill anyone. He is the one who starts pumping in gas. And then he's like, but not too much gas. And I'm like, there's a pretty fine point on this.

They're in an enclosed space. Any gas is not good. It's going to be one of the off takes where it was his idea. Right. I think this was an early source of tension with Fincher and Darius Kanji before they finally split ways. But Fincher was like, from the moment that Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart go to sleep,

I want 20 minutes of the movie to basically be pitch black. Where they're just lit by the moon through windows. And everyone was like, that is too annoying. Like, people are gonna fucking protest. But he still did, like,

basically say, like, I think if you stay dark for most of it the audience's eyes will adjust rather than making it darker at one point and then taking sheets at other scenes and whatever yeah well i don't know uh eventually um she does she she rips out the phone lines the and the main phone line at first we first she goes and gets her cell phone which doesn't work right she grabs the cell phone it's main phone line at first we first she goes and gets her cell phone which doesn't work right she grabs a cell phone it's only it's at that silent sequence the only point of which is to remind her that there's a phone right yeah right it's when they're arguing

downstairs she sort of like has enough time to zip out but does she ever she doesn't use the phone for anything no but then she realizes she can plug the main phone like the panic room phone into the main line it's like phone phone calls her husband phone what else is a phone that's a phone right um calls her husband and is like you gotta come get me i'm in the panic room and then they cut the line before that she has to yell at his new wife and go put him on bitch and who plays his new wife nicole kidman she did yeah i think it's very funny as as a stepmom of a teenager humble brag humble brag um i think it's very funny to think like if i had to call my husband's ex-wife like for something

that i would just be like hey we've been kidnapped can you help like that she would just be like, hey, we've been kidnapped. Can you help? Like that she has to be like, I need to talk to my husband. Put him on. Like that she can't, she has such a bad relationship with this woman that she can't be like, we have been kidnapped. Yes.

Yeah. Also, I would call 911. Right. Right. That would be my telephone call. Yes. That's the call she makes. She does.

They put her on hold. They put her on hold? Correct. Which is insane that she's like, oh my God, I have to, this is an emergency. Calls 911. They're like, get on hold. And then she calls. How did I miss that?

She calls the husband. Then she calls the husband. When they called him, he was like, what time is it? It's kind of a major. Put him on. I would say plot hole. It just doesn't really make sense. I mean, I could see 911 being like five seconds, please.

Yeah. I do think they are supposed to get to you pretty quickly. Yeah, time is of the essence here when you're calling 911. And the cell phone is trapped underneath the flipped over mattress. Yes, yeah. There's a whole business where she thinks it's,

we know where it is because we've seen it fall when she was running to the panic room. But right, she thinks it's in one place. Then she has to search under the mattress. She knocks down the light. They come to, you know, all these sequences are perfectly calculated. It's this thing,

Fincher said the main appeal of this movie for him was making a film where the audience could be in perfect lockstep, right? Where he can direct your eye to what you need to know, place things in your memory at certain points, where anytime a scene is set up and a conflict is set up, you understand this is here relative to this. This going to be the problem this person does know this

or doesn't know this right just making it all as easy to map out as possible right yeah um this is the moment after the phone call where the group starts to split up whitaker is like i don't want to do this anymore no sorry sorry it's Jared Leto Who's like I'm out Forget it I'll just And that's when he says Because this is the end of Leto He's burned up

I got a hamburger face now He's got a hamburger face And he's like Forget it I'll just collect My meager share of the inheritance And then he says like 900 grand

Yeah And that's when Dwight Yoakam and Forrest Whitaker Are like wait How much is actually in there Because that's a lot Oh yes he goes I can't go to prison man

I'm not built for that shit which junior hey let me tell you yeah that um that's probably true right but but if that's his consolation prize right then suddenly the stakes have gotten raised for them and then it's just an incredible moment where he they're all fighting and he's like i'm out of here and then raul shoots him in the eye and he is dead. He does a full 360 degree spin and sprays brains all over. It's so good. It's so satisfying because one, it's great escalation of tension. Oh God, Raul is as scary as we thought he could be.

Two, Jared Leto is dying in such an entertaining way. What a delight for me to personally experience this with all my friends at the Odeon, the hallway Odeon. Talking about how much extra Jared Leto is doing in this performance, it's the kind of performance you can only get away with if you're going to die earlier in the movie than people think, right? You can do this much where people are like, are you really going to fucking sustain this for 90 minutes? And it's like, no, it's more like 30.

Yeah. And it's like 34 or 35. And I'll die exactly when everyone's just so fed up with me. Is ready. It'll be extremely, the audience will clap. Yes. Every death in this movie, him and Joachim. Yeah.

You're just like, yes! Thank God! But yeah, just don't bring Raul. Raul's bad news. We don't know anything about Raul because he's a bus driver. Yeah, Flatbush. In Flatbush. He's not that hard.

He got a ski mask. Yes, he got a ski mask andbush. He's not that hard. He got a ski mask. Yes, he got a ski mask and now he's got a million dollars. His parents would be very proud. He has a weapon. A firearm. His father sat him down on his knee one day

and said, all I wish for you when I migrated here to this country was that one day you'd have a million dollars and a ski mask of your own. Yes.

So, you know, Raul, at this point, oh, no oh no right and then right as they're shooting charlotte is when the husband shows up yeah and he's like what's going on hello uh knock knock and they that's when they beat the shit out of him and then they do the whole switch right he's got nicole's gonna kill me the broken collarbone right and the makeup guys on the dvd said that like that was a big fincher thing that he had at some point in his life i don't know what the circumstances of this playing right tackle for the denver broncos was talking to someone whose collarbone had just been

broken was with them in the immediate aftermath of that and that when they were talking on the syllables he could see their collarbone moving up and down. Yucky. And it is a thing that stuck with him and haunted him for so long that he was like, I'm putting that in a movie somewhere. And it's here. Yeah, I mean,

he is really yucky. Yeah. He doesn't just have like a black eye or whatever. No. He looks like half dead. Well, he got beat up by Raul. Raul doesn't half beat someone up,

I guess. Raul's a bad guy. I forget which makeup team it was, which studio it was, but they basically were talking about how they had really wanted to do Fight Club. I mean, Fincher is like so much the guy at this moment that this movie has a lot less in terms of prosthetics,

but they so badly want to be in his good graces that they were just like, we're going to do everything so extreme so that we become his default guys. I don't know if it worked or not. I mean, I don't either. You find out. I mean, Benjamin Button had some makeup.

A lot of CGI, though. Did he? Yeah. I thought that was all natural. I think there's some. There's some. There's some. Yeah.

The Cate Blanchett, actually, that's some of the best old age makeup, I think, in any movie ever. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. So, while this is all happening, you also have, and I do think it's very clever, old age makeup I think in any movie we'll talk about it we'll talk about it so at this while this is all happening you also have

and I do think it's very clever that the movie never has the really boring scene of like don't forget to take your insulin like it's just

there's just sort of mentions of like she has her watch and you see the fridge you see the fridge with stuff in it and you see

the sort of there's the moment where she's like do you feel okay like do you feel dizzy you know like she's asking her questions that feel more specific than like i don't know are you rattled by this but like they never actually have the like the thing in all these movies that you're like okay well then she's gonna fucking have a problem later right where they're like and don't you know do your homework and don't forget to take your

insulin and i'm like okay i'm watching a thriller. An hour into this, she's going to go into diabetic shock. It is like the more the way you would, it's more just about, it could be about a character that happens to be diabetic. Right. But of course, it's a thriller, so it has to, she has to. She has to go. But that scene is very powerful. The horse Whitaker scene.

Well, the scene, but even the seizure scene. Yes. Where like the shot of her uh her toes clenching yeah the way that they clearly gone through before ben you don't like it yeah i don't like it makes me squirm i know and like jody stewart plays this incredibly christian plays it really well but jody's saying like be strong be you know like it's like really tough to watch yes in a very mundane way and then yeah you know the fob where whitaker does the right thing or whatever is also great um but you know i don't know what do you guys think if you're trying

to look something it was adi who did alien 3 he didn't hire them back for fight club and i think this is the last thing they did with him i'm so sorry that's all i had to say okay i was really impressed with all the diabetes stuff me too too. Yeah. They did a million takes with Kristen Stewart. Like, that is the Fincher thing. Like, he did,

he did. She had to take, had that seizure for days. I don't know about the seizure, but like, he did say like, look, we're gonna,

he has this whole spiel about like, we're gonna get her up to Jodie Foster's level by doing lots of takes. Right. Right, like, she's an inexperienced actor,

but like, you know, we can just get the performance totally right. That decade where everyone fucking wrote her off, level by doing lots of takes right like she's an unexperienced actor but like you know that was we can just get the performance totally right that decade where everyone fucking wrote her off she's just awkward she has all these tics and everything it's just like she clearly is like a very technically advanced actor she's doing things with intentionality you do not give this performance in this movie with this director by accident. And that was the start of her career.

Absolutely was, right? What's the movie? Catch That Kid? When's that? That's after this. Right? This was her second film. I don't know what was first. She'd been in The Safety of Objects before that.

Back then, you could release a movie called The Safety of Objects. Yeah, Catch That Kid is a year. She's also in Cold Creek Manor The year after this The Mike Figgis Thriller Quaid and Stone Quaid and Stone

Quaid and Stone Quaid and Stone Sounds like some town in Maine I'm moving to Right And she's also in Undertow Shout out Jamie Bell Oh yeah

A very brief performance in it But she's good in it I love that movie Good movie And then yeah Zathura Yeah She never stopped working out jamie bell oh yeah a very brief performance in it but she's getting it i love that movie uh good movie and then yeah zethra yeah just she never stopped working she worked consistently all the way to twilight and then twilight is the breakout yeah she's such a good actor do you like one of my favorites personal shopper man yeah one of the fucking best it really is i love her i think it's the nighthawk theater now has been using one of the text

exchange with a quote-unquote ghost scenes in personal shopper as their turn off your cell phones pre-movie announcement right right so i just keep on seeing that scene over and over again that's wordless that's just her texting getting freaked out and turning her phone off and putting it away and i'm just like man she can fucking like there are few people who have that sort of technical precision right they they would not be able to handle you know whatever she can just exist on screen this was the whole fucking if i can just say it for five seconds you said it a bunch on our twilight i know i did but that was paywalled that's true when people were like she's just uncomfortable she's just uncomfortable and awkward i'm like that's not what it looks like when someone's uncomfortable on camera that's

how someone plays being awkward right which she had a better physical vocabulary for doing than almost anyone in the history she was so good at it that people thought she was actually uncomfortable correct but she was just giving a take to bella she was like what something give her anything right a character that's designed only to be a cipher. Yeah. Bella is not the deepest character on the page. I will agree with you on that. And her decisions are confounding.

What do you mean? Normal. She just wants to be a vampire. And she and Pattinson both turn out to be very interesting people. Yes. They sure... Look, we... Phenomenal actors who have basically tried their hardest to keep this medium afloat we're so pro both yeah of them yes um and jackson rathbone obviously the third down right the secret sauce three saviors of cinema he's the the cayenne pepper on top is he the werewolf

no he's taylor he is taylor lautner was taylor lautner is the werewolf jack No. He's Taylor. Taylor Lautner was that. Taylor Lautner's the werewolf. Jackson Rathbone is the sort of twinkie vampire in the family. Oh, yeah. There's the kind of hot vampire, and then there's Kellan Lutz, who's like the sort of big lunk. Yeah. Nice. And then there's Ashley Green, who's emo girl. Who can read emotions.

Read emotions or something. Yeah. See the future. I can't remember. Perfect woman. And is there anyone else? I guess that's the whole game oh no there's nikki reed who's mean yes her power is her power is yeah the whole time

she's like i don't like you yeah you're like all right well sorry at this point everyone's moving in and out of the panic room at various times right uh when does what yokum get his hand squished it's around when they're giving her the the drugs right yeah yeah it's does she throw she throws the drugs in right the door smashes the hand and then it's just like we gotta communicate somehow she's gotta let him know how to give the drugs and you have this it around like forrest whitaker's already kind of revealed like he has a family yes right like he has fatherly vibes. Yeah, it's custody.

He needs the money for custody. This is what the junior yelled at him. This is not a man driven by greed. Right. No. He needs the money. Yes. The fact that Dwight Yoakam is wearing rubber gloves when he gets his hand caught.

So rather than just having the nastier immediate impact moment of smushed finger severed. Right. You instead see the gloves slowly pull up with blood and kind of like inflate. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, I'm watching it now. Can we do the little Dwight Yoakam sidebar?

Absolutely. Dwighty Dwight. What do you want to say about him? A fascinating actor. He's a good actor, I think.'s he is he's a good actor i think i think he's a very good actor i actually don't know his music that well i don't either i mean he's big country big kind of alternative country guy right i feel like you know but like kind of in like the willie nelson mold or whatever so good has this he's incredible so scary and it has this

incredibly eclectic cast that is clearly just people billy bob thornton likes right and you're and who he thinks will have authentic lives exactly right and it's just like who the fuck is this guy you're telling me this is not his main thing that this is like him giving this performance kind of on a lark as a favor to a friend and then i feel like he semi-selectively does stuff there was he was in the newton boys as one of the newton boys uh he's obviously in logan lucky well sure that well you're jumping ahead okay then take me what else did he do uh he made he's in that movie the minus man which i've never seen the owen wilson serial killer uh yeah scary movie

that has one of the best trailers of all time. Does it? Do you not know this trailer? Don't think so. The Minus Man has a trailer that is a couple walking out of seeing The Minus Man, going, so what did you think of the ending? And it's just them having a, like, before sunrise,

walk through New York City, talking about the movie. About, like, how crazy it is. Oh, that's kind of clever. And it's, like, time lapse, like, as they walk through New York City talking about the movie. About, like, how crazy it is. Oh, that's kind of clever. And it's, like, time lapse, like, as they walk through the park and drops her off at her doorstep. And she's like,

don't you have to be at work? And he's like, it'll be fine. And then it cuts to a drowned person in a swimming pool with no lifeguard there. Right. And that is the trailer. It has no scenes from the movie.

Whoa. And it just says, like, the minus man, you won't stop talking about it. It's one of the greatest film trailers in history. That's movie. Whoa. And it just says, like, the minus man, you won't stop talking about it. It's one of the greatest film trailers in history. That's cool. Yeah.

Anyway, no one talks about that movie. No one does. No. But I now kind of want to watch it. After Panic Room, he did help investigate

a little Hollywood homicide. Okay. Apparently he's in Wedding Crashers. Well, this is the thing. I don't remember that. Vince Vaughn, I believe the opening scene in Wedding Crashers. Well, this is the thing. I don't remember that. Vince Vaughn, I believe the opening scene of Wedding Crashers is them negotiating his divorce.

Because they're divorce lawyers. Oh, yeah. They're like mediators. Right. That's what they are. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he like, Vince Vaughn's run of basically trying to make his own Happy Madison, Dwight

Yoakam becomes like his guy who always has pop up in the movies. Right. So he's also in Four Christmases. I think he plays a priest. Uh, yes. He's also in, um, yeah, that's the, that's the only, really the only other big movie in here. I mean, he's in Crank.

He's in like Three Burials of Melchizedek, which is a good movie. He's very good in that. He might be just a cool hang, too. He's in both cranks. Crank and Crank High Vantage. I think he's a cool hang, and it is a lot of auteur directors who bring him in. Now, he is really fun Logan Luckey,

because he's the guy who's negotiating with the prisoners over like the Game of Thrones book, right? But then he has not acted, and then he showed up in Cry Macho. Right. And it was one of those classic, like, Clint, could you have given this guy one extra take to just kind of warm up the engine?

You know what I mean? Like, he's not bad. We're done. It feels like Dwight Yoakam asked a PA for a cup of coffee. Clint said, let's roll. He said, can we wait for the coffee? He goes, no.

I need my turkey sub. It's lunchtime, 9.30 in the morning. Whatever. It's like, Clint's done by lunch. And by the way, he eats lunch at 10 a.m. And his lunch is breakfast. I've been up since four. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did seven push-ups. All of my movies are shot at dusk.

We're done here. Have you seen Cry Macho, Eva? No. It feels like a movie you would be a little obsessed with okay it's so good i highly recommend cry macho it's a funny name yes it's about him trying to escort a boy in his rooster back to his father right uh but david described it as a movie where the greatest tension in every scene is will Clint be able to make it through without taking a nap? You really are just, him walking across a room is just a little stressful.

There's a scene in which he has, no, the mule is the one where he has multiple threesomes. The mule has the threesomes. There is a scene in Cry Macho where you think a woman is trying to seduce him. Right. And he's sitting on a couch and you are genuinely. You're like, let me give this guy coronary. You are worried he is going to fall between the cracks of the cushion. All right, I'll watch this.

Like a fucking TV remote. Because the thing about Cry Macho is it's a fucking 50-year-old script. Yes. It's not written for a 90-year-old man. No, he wanted to do it when he was like 50 playing 40. Yeah. That's so funny. to do it when he was like 50 playing 40. Yeah, so funny. And instead he made it when he was 90. When he was a kid.

Anyway, good movie. Totally solid movie. He's got that one monologue where he breaks down when the kid is sleeping that's unbelievable. I think it's like, it's not one of his better movies, but like it's like a pretty decent movie. Yeah. Considering it was directed by someone who falls asleep at 10 a.m. Also a lot of like double entendre jokes about the rooster. Yes.

Why are all these kids obsessed with their cocks? And you're like, do you need a lozenge? He does need a lozenge. Have you seen The Mule? Have you seen any of the Luke Clint's? I haven't watched recent Clint. I would check out The Mule. The Mule is really good.

David loves The Mule. And he's kind of more demented. And Sully's obviously the best American film Of the 2010s Right But he's not in that one No He should be in it though You feel him though

Oh yeah you feel him I'd say he sort of Plays the role of God In that film Saving 166 souls 100% Okay Panic room

Alright so Okay they smush Go come Go on Who is amazing In this movie by the way Dwight Yocum Phenomenal

He's great And it is the kind of like Sort of whatever Like surprise casting. And end of that guy. And you're like, I can think of a thousand guys I would cast before this guy, and you were right to cast this guy. That guy, without being overexposed at this moment, that when he shows up in the ski mask, if you weren't paying attention to the opening credits, which we should just briefly shout out,

opening credits that everyone has ripped off since this movie. The most famous opening, the most famous thing about this movie is the opening credit they're so good they're very cool the best thing about them is that you can see the other ones that's my favorite fucking part like that you're looking at but you can already see the next credit is floating near another building right there's like an inner fincher logic where when it says like whatever it is a blank production a polone production you can see the corner of jodie Foster's name five blocks away. In the distance? Yeah, where you're like, these are all just there.

The credits have always been here. Yes. They just hang. Then people should be able to drive around New York and be like, there's Jodie Foster's name. You should do, there should be a Panic Room credits bus tour. Over Madison and like 33rd. Yeah, it's become a very hip neighborhood.

Right. The Yoakum district. I feel like in both this and Sling Blade, the thing that works is that Yoakum is playing a realistic sadist. Yeah. Right. Like one you would actually encounter in life. Right. Not a fun movie sadist.

Yes. He's enjoying things, but only in context. And it seems like he's a real type of guy. There is something unnervingly kind of blank about Dwight Yoakam. And I think it is that weird, like, inscrutable cowboy Western thing where it's just sort of like, this guy doesn't say much and he looks off at the planes and whatever, you know? And then when you project onto that,

everyone pointing at him and being like, this guy's fucking crazy, he becomes terrified. But in this movie, he's kind of a mundane psycho. That's the thing. He's not even in it to torture people. I don't know. He's just not nice. He kills Jared Leto because it's time.

Yeah, it's kind of time for him to die and he's annoying. And they just want the money and they're going to get it now. Right. But yeah, he doesn't savage Jared. He shoots him a couple times. And then like, you know, he's really now so in between him getting his finger smushed and the sort of final showdown is the arrival of paul schultz and isn't that mel rodriguez who's the other cop oh i think you're right yeah that's a great scene

uh that scene is so good uh where paul schultz is like you know basically like i don't buy that this this woman's insane story like something's definitely going on paul schultz is like, you know, basically like, I don't buy that this woman's insane story. Like something's definitely going on here. Paul Schultz's performance is great. Yes. Yeah, Mel Rodriguez is the other cop. I love Mel Rodriguez. Me too.

A true when's he bad. Is there any performance he hasn't? No, he's a really reliable actor. Actually elevated from what was given to him. I also, I forgot to shout out. There's the scene where they, you know, blink the lights morse code out the window to the neighbor the neighbor does what i would do forky and i agreed we were both through this close blinds like if i'm in new york city and someone's flashing someone i'm like what is this

fucking light party over here i will you know i'm going to sleep i don't know if i've ever told this before on the podcast there's like like 10 years ago, different apartment, different neighborhood, where I heard what sounded like a very intense domestic incident between a couple in the building next to mine. Right. And she was literally yelling, you're going to kill me. And I called 911 and they were so annoyed that i didn't have more information for them like they were hostile and when they came and i met them outside they were like so what are we supposed to go off of here your cops are annoying yeah so you know sorry to say this yeah but it was like i'm trying to be a good samaritan and they're like so what we're supposed

to just go in the building and knock on every door and i'm like i don't know i heard a woman yelling she was going to die. I don't think anyone died. Andrew Kevin Walker, the writer of Seven, plays the sleepy neighbor. That's fun. That's nice. He closes the blinds. Sure.

Anyway. Wait, he just wrote something new. He did. What did he just write? No, I don't know. No, no, no, no. Yeah, something that just came out. A great tweet.

Something coming out. He wrote a great tweet. Something I was excited about that I found out. He wrote The Killer. He wrote the new Baby Avenger movie. Oh, the new feature came out. A great tweet. Something coming out. He wrote a great tweet. Something I was excited about. He wrote The Killer. He wrote the new Baby Avenger movie. The new feature coming out. Yeah, I'm just reading

that book right now and I was excited and then I was like, hmm. He wrote that movie Windfall? What's that? He didn't. No, he did.

The one, it came out last year. It was the new Charlie McDowell movie with Jason Segel and Lily Collins. Oh, yeah. That like no one saw

because it was like one of those Netflix that just like, yeah. At Jason Segel's house. Was it, yeah. Okay. That, like, no one saw because it was, like, one of those Netflix or just, like... Filmed on at Jason Segel's house. Was it really? Yeah. The Killer is a really good, scary graphic novel. Oh, yeah.

It's going to be... It's a really cool thing to adapt. I'm excited for the... Oh, he wrote the Bad Robot... The Bad Robot. Love, Death, and Robots episode that Weiger loved so much, too. Okay. That Fincher directed.

All right. Yes, he did. He was just telling us to watch that last night. Yeah. Sorry, sorry. Never apologize. All right. He was just telling us to watch that last night. Yeah. Sorry, sorry. Never apologize. Never apologize. I won't apologize.

Never. Even if, yeah, you know, you're in a panic room. No. What do you make of the scene with Schultz, though? Like, do you think she signals anything to him

and that's why he's there at the end or is he just kind of like, this is too fishy? She doesn't do the blinky thing. No. I think it's too fishy. It's too fishy. Yeah. I think it's something didn't line up. fishy. She doesn't do the blinky thing. No. I think it's too fishy. It's too fishy. Yeah.

I think it's something didn't line up. Yeah. She very clearly, she does her best to send them away. She does her best to send them away. You're watching her, capital A, acting as her character. What if her character, who's not a good actor, had to act? There's no Jodie Foster. And she has to do this whole thing.

I'm like, well, what I was trying to say on that phone call was, you know, I want to have sex with her. Yeah, what are the three things? The three things? She says. There are three. She gets cut off right at the number three. If you come over here, I'll do three things. Right.

Kiss. Kiss. Hug. Love. And rub. Kiss. Kiss forehead. Kiss forehead. Kiss forehead Kiss forehead

Kiss forehead Hug Shoulders Eskimo kiss And shake hands It's all just different types of kisses Fist bump Three things I want to do

Play Mario Kart Play Mario Tennis Play Mario Party She's got an N64 She can do them all That's what it would be she'd have a game system in the panic room uh oh yeah yes yes you know what i'm really gonna dig into like zelda right now right what if then you could turn all the screens that are usually watching bad guys into just party watching playing games. Or watch DreamWorks,

the bad guys. Well, that's not out yet. In 2002. You could turn all your TVs into TVs like Elvis. Yeah, sure. It'd be a minor plot hole if she had a copy of a movie

from 20 years later. People might have... Might be a logic bump. Yeah, exactly. Or what if they were like, we're finally making a full version Of the movie that Jodie Foster watched In Panic Room

That's what the bad guys was It would be funny if it was like It's this old man's Panic Room Also his VHS collection It's like Exodus Bring a Dune It's kind of a boring movie Debbie does Dallas

They find his dirty It's underneath of like kind of boring movie Fuck 1776 Debbie does Dallas Right Oh dear Yeah they find his dirty Yeah right right It's underneath the main videos Right There's a secret There's a panic room for the porn Yeah

Bunch of National Geographic And when you reach in for it It cuts off your fingers Alright So at this point I guess what's happening She's downstairs Uh huh

The robbers The burglars are in the panic room with recovering Kristen Stewart. Forrest is drilling into the safe. Yes. He finds the bonds. This isn't the pillow drill moment, is it? The what moment? It's the moment where they use the pillow to insulate the drill.

I guess that's when they're trying to get into the room. That's earlier. Because later, when he drills, he just drills. He just full-on does a safe crack yeah there's that great very finchery shot of the like zoomed in lock where you watch him like tick every uh chamber to the right you know right like that's very finchery yeah i just love the image of of holding the pillow up between the wall and the drill and the feathers just flying everywhere um well right well no

because that's earlier because that's how he shows you the airflow coming in with the feathers going out of there's that stuff i love where you have like inanimate objects behave almost like objects in a tom and jerry cartoon it's the same thing with the propane tank the way it's sort of spinning around that's scary yeah um at this point once they get the bonds, they can just go, right? Like, everyone could, could we all shake hands and just split? Right, because he, yeah, now I'm trying to remember the timing of the tapes. But at that point, he knows there's no tapes. But I guess Raul is just like, they can't live.

They've seen my face. Yeah. Like, that's what he's very focused on. The problem is Raul. The problem is Raul. Because if everyone was just being like Forrest Whitaker, who has his name tag on his jumpsuit his real name well yeah he's an honorable man yeah this was the big uh question you want to call it why didn't he wear his jumpsuit with the name tag if he was freaking into a house yeah well he thought no

one was gonna be there and he wanted to wear his special jumpsuit. Nevertheless. He was going to just drop off a business card on the way out. It's like, buy a new pair of coveralls. Yeah. Don't wear the ones with your last name on them.

Get some crime coveralls. Yeah. You're about to become a millionaire. Why wear a mask if you're also going to wear your name tag? I don't know.

He also has his full birth certificate tattooed on his back. He does. He does. Right, right, right. And he does leave a copy, you know.

He takes a photo. He tells his social security number on the way out. Well, just in case they need it. No, look, the big moment that you're just looking forward to, I feel like, is you're like, how is Raul going to get it? Right. And the sort of complex physical arrangement that leads to raul is holding kristin stewart hostage uh patrick mccall you know the dad is like sitting in his like chair gun pose

where he's sort of like trying to he's so fucked up he's trying to just kind of like come on i can get you and farce whittaker is basically trying to be like just let her go let's get out of here and then you see jody Foster come out of the elevator With the hammer And Kristen Stewart spots her right And she's like go down And she just fucking Hammer to her face

It's a sledgehammer And it's the most satisfying hammer to the face Gallagher Combine Peter Gabriel and Gallagher But he's still alive Two sledgehammers and I ended up with the but he's still alive two sledgehammers and I ended up with the guy

who's got two fucking sledgehammers over his eyeballs sure does but he goes over the railing and down a flight of stairs like it's a nasty fall so satisfying what if I told you

there's a movie where you just will stand up and cheer when Dwight Yoakam gets a sledgehammer to them face I mean Eva

you brought up Buscemi and Fargo, right? But I'm realizing how much wisely it does feel like they're sort of using the model of Buscemi and Stomer in Fargo. Oh, yeah. Where you're like, here's the funny guy, right? He's scary, but he's funny. And here's the kind of like inscrutable guy next to him.

That guy, the funny guy is going to get plucked off and you're going to realize that the other guy is genuinely like horrifying. Yeah. And you need the cathartic, you know, takedown. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. He is still alive, as you pointed out. He does have to have one more final, you know, God, we thought we got him, but he's back. Yeah. Because that's when Whitaker's run away and Whitaker has the moment of conscience to return. Kristen Stewart also stabs him with all the insulin.

She does. She just porcupines him with insulin. Which is a great move. She's holding three syringes in her hand. She should have Wolverined it. She should have put them in between. Do this.

That's how they tell women to walk down the street in New York yes with all their insulin between their fingers so if someone walks in you just go

she should have put this is what I think she should have done I think this would have fit in the reality of the movie right after she watches the bad guys

three syringes she should watch the bad guys and go it's not bad C plus I think she's got a movie in 20 years in the future

and it was just like alright it's okay this is where we're headed yeah this is sort of like at the top it's kind of pretty good third of things getting released by major studios get an oscar nomination it's probably the first one dropped three syringes first one drop three syringes in between the knuckles right yeah and then she should go to jodie foster and sort of like nod her head and Jodie Foster should go fastball special. And then she should pick up Kristen Stewart with one hand. Throw her.

Throw her at Dwight Yoakam. That's the move. And she's like a human cannonball, but her arms are outstretched. She's flying. Yeah. And she lands. And there are like speed lines behind her. Right.

And she just goes straight into him and bing. She's like, she's perfectly like planked out. She stays planked. Yeah. She's vibrating. And his eyes cross yes right and also she hits him in the nuts yeah we ever cut dimension of course in my version and the butt and the butt somehow it's one hand under yeah right she's sort of arcing around underneath the gooch yeah um i don't know that's what i would have done if i had directed this but i guess it's okay that fincher did fincher made his own choices and't know That's what I would have done If I had directed this But I guess it's okay

That Fincher did I mean Fincher made his own choices And I know he's embarrassed By them now And he wishes he had done that He would And yes Yeah

Joachim Is finally Dispatched by Forrest Whitaker In a moment of morality Right And Whitaker has his Eventual

Well I'm jumping ahead a moment The killer The the killing moment. Yes. Standing in the breeze with the, that's basically next. They're going to shoot him if he doesn't drop what he's holding, which is all the money. All the money and it's just floating around him. Yeah. So good.

I love that. I always want that. It was meaningless. All of this was meaningless. You were never going to get this. It's just pieces of paper. He could have gone away too. He could have, but you know what?

He was never going to. He shouldn't have done it. No, he shouldn't have. He could have gone away, but he went back for, but you know what? He was never going to. He shouldn't have done it. No, he shouldn't have. He could have gotten away, but he went back for Yoakum, is what you're saying, Ben. Well, yeah, he went back to save the family. To save the family. He had a conscience. Yeah, he's a good guy.

Every time Ben watches a movie like this, he is convinced that he would get away with it and that it would work. And that if the movie were about him, it would end with him owning an island. Well, things would have got a lot different. Yeah. I mean, I would have announced, I've got the stuff I need, guys. Let's talk about it. Right.

Right. Everyone come out. Let's figure it out. Family meeting. You want a movie where everyone just lays their cards on the table and then they figure out how to get out of the movie

with, like, no problems. Yeah. Right. I'll leave a couple for you. You let me take the rest. Someone will one day make a crime movie like that where it just ends with everyone being like, we can talk this out yeah how much money

do you want ben hosley joint it'll be written directed by ben hosley um i do like in writer's room sometimes i do an exercise where i make people be like what would happen if at this point everyone was just like what here's everything i know right and the other person was like here's every single thing i know and everyone just like sat down and said it. Like, what would happen? Because it can be frustrating on TV where you're like, stop actually yelling at each other.

Actually just have a conversation. You'll sort this out quickly. You know, you should know half of one thing. Lost, of course, the most famous example. Oh, always. Where anytime Jack had like Ben,

and he'd be like, what's going on? And Ben would be like, the question is like, the question is, how is it going on? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. When did you get here? I'm going to ask you again until you tell me what's going on.

How do your boats work? What is the smoke monster? Why is this place magic? We're just going to, I'm not going to let you go. Yeah. But Ben was just always so good at being like no no no no no no that's not the question jack yeah i think it's one of the questions yes ben was also like he was like a fucking panic room camera like he was going through air ducts and sliding in between the

god bless him yeah he was a great weasel um we love ben linus i love the final decompressing ending of this movie them on the park bench in Central Park. New real estate listings. Looking at the real estate listings. They're like, smaller, no panic rooms. And it feels very much like a Hitchcock-y, just like, just get out quickly. Yes.

You don't need a whole wrap-up. I wish they pulled out, though, and then on the back of the paper they're reading, it just said, Forrest Whitaker dies in prison. Something like that. Yeah. Forrest Whitaker's character dies in prison.

Family cheers as it learns of idiot grandson's death. Yeah. Like in a picture of Jared Leto. Yeah. I was like,

are they going to go to the court and be like, hey, he did save us? Give him a break? He's probably going to go to jail. If this character were real.

He's committed various crimes. There would be an eight-hour Netflix documentary about him. But then maybe they both go and they're like,

he gave me a shot. Maybe she's like, hey, look, he helped us out at the end. He saved us. Maybe you give him a break. Yeah, he saved my daughter's life. You were saying you had a take or a read on this movie

and sort of what Fincher's... Oh. No, my entire take was just about Jared Leto being extra. Okay. Oh, look, my entire take was just about Jared Leto being extra. Okay. Oh, look, an evergreen take. I was just like, this is the first he felt empowered to be a little freak, but he also has vanity. So he always has to be beautiful even now.

Except for, I guess, this one Mark David Chapman time, and that did not go well. No, it didn't go well. It's the one time he didn't allow himself to be at least somewhat hot. Yeah, exactly. But he's still kind of hot. I don't know. I think he's an actor whose beauty will always be a great stone on his back. Look, I don't want to speak mean about him.

You don't want to speak ill of the letter. I don't want to speak ill of him. But he wants to be a movie star and he never will be. No. He wants to be a great actor and he never will be. I'm sorry, Jared Leto. He can be utilized. He can be an interesting addition to a film.

Unbelievably well. Yes. And I like him in House of Gucci. Like, some people are like, fuck off. I think that's a terrible performance. Right. I don't mind that. And one of the only other times he hasn't been hot.

Yeah, that's true. He's gone out of his way to be hot. I like that P-engine. That just felt like Tom Cruise in, like, Tropic Thunder. Absolutely. Isn't it so funny how I'm in a fat suit? Yes. Me, the most beautiful, thin man.

It's like, eh, whatever. If Tom Cruise gave the exact same performance in Tropic Thunder without the makeup, I would think it was good. Yeah. The makeup makes it worse for me. Wait, wait. Here's the challenge. What is your favorite Jared Leto film performance? I say film because if it's TV, it kind of gets too easy.

It's this, I think. Is it this? For me? Requiem. He's pretty good in Requiem for a change. He's not, to me, the standout of that movie, but he sort of does what is needed. But I'm like, this is how. He did play El Joker once.

I don't know if you knew this. I played him twice, my friend. Well, sure. Justice is Gray. I had a real moment when I was watching Blade Runner, the new one, and that scene when he finally shows up, and Blade Runner's already been going on a long time, and you're like, only one person in this scene has an Oscar.

Right, right. And Harrison Ford is here, Ryan Gosd is here ryan gosling is here everyone's here and leto is the one with an oscar and i was like that's weird that should not be happening i think he's fine in that movie but obviously he's sort of being used i mean he did play a guy with some very interesting ideas once the joker well no a doctor but yeah it was a little outside the medical community uh he makes night calls, this guy. He is actually very funny in We Crashed. That is like a good comic performance.

I feel like people were largely positive on him in that show. He's just super funny. I think he is infinitely better at comedy than he is at drama. Right. Which is a weird misunderstanding. And something like Blade Runner, I'm like, don't let him take this seriously. This is what I don't want him doing. None of us are saying the Oscar-winning performance he gave in Dallas Buyers Club.

I'm just going to point out. Remind me to tell you something after. Absolutely. Can't wait to hear that. Can't wait to hear that. We should wrap up the episode. I don't think he's bad at Dallas Buyers Club. I just care nothing about that movie.

It felt like a very sort of showy. It's not a pretty good Griffin Dunn performance. And otherwise, I think it's kind of like meh. I think Jennifer Garner's kind of great in it. But I know that's a more controversial opinion. I forgot she was in it. Leto has the one scene with the father that I think is incredibly good. And the rest of the movie, I'm just like, this is just a lot of...

You're showing your homework. Staring at Forky. That's the only time I ever saw it. I'm on a smoking date with a hot... Apparently, I didn't go see fucking Dallas Buyers Club in theaters enough, because here I am fucking 10 years later unmarried. That's the key? I guess.

Wait, is that how you met your husband as well? No. I did go on a date once, though, where a guy invited me to a double feature of m and night of the hunter oh wow and we got to the movie and i was like oh it's funny that you picked this because of the subject matter and he was like what and come with child burner double bills yeah yeah he didn't know and then we just and then we quietly walked to our cars at the end if he had owned it he didn't know he had no idea oh sure yeah yeah poor guy let's play box office game unless there's anything else you want to say about david fincher oh my take on

panic room it's fine yeah it's perfectly fine i think it rules i think it's great i think it's a great director showcase movie right i think this is this moment in his I think it's great. I think it's a great director showcase movie, right? I think this is this moment in his career where it's like, Fight Club is a huge text. As you said, it's about everything, right? Seven is this kind of like perfect screenplay. And then it's like Game and this are like, this could be a just sort of standard B programmer. And I'm elevating it by, like, really good movie stars and impeccable craft.

And I think later when he gets to what I'd call his airport paperback thriller phase, right? Sure, Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl, yeah. I think he understands how to, like, deepen the text and make more there versus it just being craft. I think this is a deep movie. I do. Then give me some more to read. Just, the. I think this is a deep movie. I do.

Then give me some more to read. Just the thing we, no, I'm tired. This is our job. Who is it? How long have we been going? It's three o'clock. The divorce thing? Yes.

I just think it's a very good, like, you know, like to, to, yes, it's a well-oiled thriller. It's a parenthood. It gives you exactly, but yes, like a movie about feeling completely adrift and parenting. And like the transformational experience of the crime, like, you know, and how she comes out the other side without it being like the Brave One, for example. Like some kind of like dime store thrillery, like high thread count thriller where it feels like a little too self-important about like, oh, you know. Right. Flight plan is all fluff nonsense and brave one is too rooted in reality and this is sort of the the midpoint between the two like i just truly feel like their relationship which i barely know anything about has has advanced so powerfully by the you know when you get that final scene

yeah everyone's a good actor i agree i just love jodie foster and she's like a person as as we're saying it's probably like this movie should have been designed for her because it's like this is the exact kind of thing that she can sell in a way that so few people can. There is nothing about this movie that suggests what a nightmare it was to make it. It feels like a well-oiled machine. And how disjointed and backwards its whole process was. It's like my word for this movie is just like tight. Mm-hmm. You know?

It's short too. Yeah yeah it's pretty short yeah and look also just like a real they don't make them like this anymore kind of movie where you're like this was 48 million dollars came out in march it made a hair under 100 yep it was a fucking worldwide like tnt like mvp movie yep like a classic tv remote drop sort of what you're describing forky walking in the room. I'll never not want to watch Panic Room, kind of feel. But like,

but done with like the highest level of craft and thought. Sony wanted to make it a PG-13 movie and Fincher had final cut and refused. Wow. But it makes sense, because Sony probably was like, this is a few cuts away from being a PG-13. Yeah.

Like you did bring the blood down a little bit, you cut a couple fuck you cut a couple fucks and we play up the daughter in the advertising it becomes a movie that kids can go see right right and he was like no yeah um just the brightness fincher was really mad at how sony marketed the movie uh he was basically like uh don't market it on my name you know which is what they were kind of like from the director of Fight Club and Seven. You know what I mean? He was like, this movie is made for people who went to go to see like Kiss the Girls and the Bone Collector. Like, I am trying to make a popcorn movie. Yeah. Like, you know, don't advertise this like a prestige movie, especially in March.

Yeah. And now the movie did well. So I don't think anyone really comes out of that looking stupid but i sort of get what he means of like i'm like he has this whole thing where he keeps being like i make there's movies and films and this is a movie you know and that was his thing about darius kanji where he's like darius kanji makes films you know and i was making a movie right but uh and like you know i'm like i think he when i interviewed him he said shit like that you know and you're kind of like i know what you mean but also like at the end of the day it's all

movies it's all films right like walking out this movie to my mom and going like so like forrest whitaker gets nominated for best supporting actor right and her having explained to me it's march it's march like this movie's getting ignored it's a year from now and i was like doesn't happen sometimes maybe if it made double what it made like it was a phenomenon if it's silence of the land sounds like yeah right Silence of the Lambs. Right. But she was just like, no, it doesn't matter if people are... And I was like, well, but cinematography... Now this movie would get Oscar nominations. Now it would.

Because there's four movies for adults every year. Exactly. Right. And the fact that it was profitable and well-made enough. Oh, my God. We worship the earth you walk on. Right. March 29th, 2002, Griffin.

March. $30 million opening weekend Ben just is sending us pictures of Jared Leto's cornrows I'm not joking He's wearing wraparound sunglasses as well It's really weird Jared Leto at the premiere of Shrek 2001 Makes sense, I mean, he's shooting Panic Room

You can just hear it behind him And I know when he became the Joker He wanted his hair to be Shrek green. Yeah, he wanted the ears. Panic Room number one. Number two, Griffin. Yeah. Dropping from number one.

Okay. Oh, no, I'm sorry. It was at number two last week. Oh. It's an animated film. It's holding well. It's made $116 million. Ice Age.

It was a big-tittied hit, and you didn't have fucking... It was a woolly mammoth-sized hit. There were not many blockbusters coming out in March in 2002. Number three. Yeah. A heartwarming, true story, Disney family film. New this week.

The Rookie? The Rookie! Yeah. Dennis Quaid can throw that ball! This is just... This is your prime. You're seeing everything in the theater this time. This movie, I think The Rookie's a great movie.

Yeah, and I'll say this too it was like uh i've maybe said this before my birthday's in february and i would often just do let's all go see a movie birthdays because that's the only thing i fucking like doing and like february just absolute graveyard for most of my childhood oscar holdovers yeah 2002 was the year that i went fuck it i'm waiting until spider-man comes out in march and i had my birthday party so many months later where people were confused but it was like i was tracking every other movie coming out between february and may being like is anything more exciting than spider-man yeah may not march you said march you mean between february and may you said march well i'm sorry well i'm just a than Spider-Man. Yeah, May, not March. You said March. You meant May. Between February and May.

You said March. Yeah, you said March. Well, I'm sorry. Well, I'm just a listener. Call me the March hair. I don't know what to tell you. I got March on the mind. The Rookie is great.

Have you seen The Rookie? Is it with Tony Danza? No, it's not Angels in the Outfield. No, it's Angels in the Outfield. Or the garbage-picking, field goal-kicking Philadelphia phenomenon. Dennis Quaid plays a real guy who's like when he was like in his late 30s. He had washed out of baseball many years ago.

Never really made it. But he was discovered. And he was like a guy who could throw a 98-mile-an-hour fastball. And they were like, that is enough for you to actually play in the major leagues. Brian Cox is his dad who never said, I love you. Sounds fun. Fuck off. Go play baseball for the Rays.

What do I care? I remember this commercial. You make me sound like Rupert Murdoch. Well, he was playing Rupert Murdoch. love you right yeah that's fun fuck off go play baseball for the race what do i get commercial um and it's like rupert murdoch well he was playing um and it's got this great scene where he's testing his fastball by one of the speed radars on the highway sure and like it's so good and it's it's a really nice that was a real uh little shit movie for me where my whole family wanted to go see it. And I was so angry about I don't want to see a sports movie that I sat there with my arms crossed. I mean, I don't like it.

But it's good, though. I'm sure it is. Now you would appreciate that. No, I definitely will. Absolutely. Heartwarming. All right. Now dropping from number four.

Sorry. Dropping from number one to number four. Comic book film. Sequel. Great film. It's a film that David loves. it's a great film it's a comic do it on this podcast one day 2002 it's blade two blade dos blade does ben's favorite blade fang fang as the poster stylized it the numerals were fangs that's a good marketing idea. Fing-fing. Number five, family film.

You could have seen this one. I probably did, right? Opening to a soft $10 million from Jonathan Frakes, the great director of many Star Trek movies. Clock Stoppers, which I did not see in theaters, but I had the watch. In which they can freeze time with their watch. Frakes got to direct a movie? Well, he directed two Star Trek movies in a row.

Okay. First Contact and Insurrection. Oh, okay. And off of that, he got to make Clockstoppers and Thunderbirds. Right. And Thunderbirds was such a disaster that he has been in movie jail for 20 years. And just makes Star Trek. Yeah.

He makes a lot of TV. Yeah. Yeah. Still beloved. I think he's the most beloved working Star Trek director. Everybody speaks so highly of him in that world. But he gets it. Sure.

They would put gets it in quotes. Well, I think he does. He gets it. Number six, E.T. the Extraterrestrial. Heard of it? Back in theaters. I saw this. With Spielberg regrets.

The walkie-talkie cut. And also the bubbles cut. Yes. Bubbles the monkey? No, he's like, they give E.T. a bath. Yeah. Oh, right. That's like the added scene. And he's like, they give E.T. a bath. Yeah. Oh, right. That's like the added scene.

And he blows bubbles. And he's fully CGI. It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah, Eva, you look sort of despairing. I was just thinking about how I saw this at a discount theater by USC. And I was, my friend and I were the only ones in the theater at 9 a.m. And some really old ladies came in and watched for a while.

And it was that scene. Yeah. And then they turned ladies came in and watched for a while and it was that scene. And then they turned to us and yelled, is this monster's ball? And you were like, yes! To be fair, if you knew the title

and nothing else, you wouldn't be wrong saying, this monster's having a ball. Splish splash. It was great. Beautiful Mind is still hanging out.

Huge. We Were Soldiers is still hanging out Eddie Murphy Flop Showtime Is still hanging out With Robert De Niro A movie that AV Club referred to I think about this line all the time A matchup made in R-rated comedy heaven Unfortunately this movie is PG-13

Oh no Good call. Right, that's the problem. Right, you've nailed it. It should be De Niro and Eddie Murphy cursing at each other for two hours. Right, it should be 48 Hours meets Midnight Run. Yes. And instead it's like, hey, you jerk.

It should be very violent. They should not stop calling each other slurs. But also, opening this week, a huge bomb that we may well cover on this podcast one day, Death to Smoochie. Yeah. Danny DeVito's Death to Smoochie. Yeah, I think. Danny DeVito's Death to Smoochie, right? Danny DeVito, short series for a little man, as Sarah Rubin pitched it.

I think we could get him in, too. You think we could get him in studio? He does press. Sure. Let's have him guest on something else. Does he like Zodiac? You have to make sure he has Limoncello. Oh, get him real fucked up.

That and a Jersey Mike sub. Okay. We'll ask him what he thinks of Scalia. There are a few peoplello. Oh, get him real fucked up. That and a Jersey Mike sub. Okay. We'll ask him what he thinks of Scalia. What? There are a few people I would like to get drunk with more than Dane DeVito. It's not like that would be fun. The number one guy I'd like, if you could have dinner with any person living or dead, but if it's specifically like, who do you want to get drunk with?

Well, you love taxi too. You'd want some stories. Louis De Palma. Are you a taxi fan? I am, no. Do you like the mode of transportation? I am. No. Do you like the mode of transportation? I do. I took one last night. Hey. Hailed?

Airport. Okay. Okay. Still counts. Yeah. What were you going to say? Sorry. I was just, I like, I love Danny DeVito. He's incredible. I highly recommend giving taxi a spin around the block. My mom met him at that time and said he was a beautiful man

and like very, very beautiful in person. He had beautiful eyes. Look, it is that thing of like any working character actor who is quote unquote funny looking. Attractive. If you see them in person, you're like, well, right, they belong on screen for a reason. They're wildly attractive.

Even if they are unconventionally attractive, there is an undeniable magnetic quality. Yeah. He's kind of hot in Taxi. Louis de Palma. Who's the hottest? Hirsch? Danza, I guess, is super cute. We're talking only the guy

because obviously my answer is Carole Kane. Mm-hmm. You know, she's on Star Trek now. Really? Playing what? She's the new character on Strange New Worlds. She's playing Locke's wife? She's like the new engineer. Yes.

She's doing a voice. She's doing like a weird accent. I do love the theme from Taxi. It's the best. I walked down the aisle to it. Do you really? Yeah. And you're not a Taxi fan?

Well, it's just a good, it's a Bob James song, Angela. Yes. It's just a great song. Do you know the story behind that? No. Wait, we gotta stop the fuck. He wrote a theme song that was more upbeat. And then in episode two, there was a sad scene and they asked him to write an instrumental

track for that. And that became it. And he was like, that's the fucking theme song. This Fincher series is gonna be so long. Yeah, it is, baby. Much like Fincher movies, all the special features. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sorry, guys. Ben is so heavy-lidded. Not your fault. Ben took a big swing on a bit. And it didn't work. I like the bit. But now it's in bit heaven, Ben. Like, we'll talk about it all the time.

We will talk about it all the time. It's one of our most famous flop bits. I think you can cut it down, but I think you have to leave the remnants in. Because it's now, like, it matches the aborted footage from Panic Room. It matches the stop-and-start production of of the nicole kidman yes it's the sweater scene right yeah and the sweater scenes yeah we'll keep it all in it's gonna be great people are gonna love it they're

gonna love it uh let's do the credits even anything you want to plug um um i'm on strike right now uh the entertainment community fund is uh giving money to people who got put out of work by the Writers Guild strike. The crew members, not Writers Guild. So please donate there if you want to help out the strike. Incredible plug. Yep. David, anything you want to plug? I have to go pick up my mom.

Going to see Sweeney Todd tonight. Going tomorrow. Standing in solidarity with the Writers Guild, it sounds like. I've already my mom. Going to see Sweeney Todd tonight. Going tomorrow. Standing in solidarity with the Writer's Guild, it sounds like. I've already seen it. Not to brag. I can't wait. I'm taking my wife. Who do you see with the first time?

Joey. Your brother. See, Joey gets the free tickets. Yeah. So sometimes he'll be like, you want a ticket to Sweeney Todd? And I'm like, that's going to be the best seat in the house because he gets the press tickets. But does he say it like that? Huh?

Does he say it like that? Do you want to go see Sweeney Todd? No. Or he says it 10 to 10 on Sweeney Todd? Sweeney! Sweeney. Right. Sweeney. He just calls me up,

and I'm like, hey Joey, what's up? Sweeney. Yeah. Come on, you bleeders. Eva, thank you for being here. Thank you guys so much for having me. It was so exciting and convenient

that we like threw you a text, and we're like, any chance you have any plans to be in New York City? And it was like, yes. And here you are!'ve met yay no i'm so delighted okay good you're the best you're the best hey watch you're the worst on hulu no it's true thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to marie bardi for our social media and helping to produce the show thank you to jj biri for our social media and helping to produce the show thank you to jj birch for our research what school did he graduate from he never brings this up you madison

aj mckeon alex barron for our editing lee montgomery the great american novel for our theme song joe bowen and pat reynolds for our artwork you can go to blank check pod.com for some real nerdy shit including links to to our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, where we do commentaries on film series like the Bond movies. We're doing the Brosnan Bonds right now. And we'll have done a Fincher music video episode recently. David is actively texting.

He's closed the laptop, which is rare, but something very interesting is happening on his phone. The weekend just got added to the academy i don't know how you feel about that anyone else uh david zazlav i mean they're really bringing all the they added zaz he's the fucking head of order i fucking hate that what do you want from not that i want anything but that i want him kicked out to get fired and then he'll just be a maybe i'll kick him out what if they kick you out? You got fired? Boink.

They added The Weeknd? Yeah, why not? What are these fucking picks? They're out of ideas, guys. They added Che Diaz? It's just the HBO Max lineup? Che Diaz. And just like that.

Look, this episode's dropping. We're about to do a Fincher music videos episode. Okay, so then it's happening coming soon. Tune in next week for Zodiac. And as always, Eva's phone case is David Zaslav. It genuinely is.