Blank Check with Griffin & David - Wild at Heart with Tatiana Maslany

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

If we told you this was the first time we’d covered a Nicolas Cage movie on the podcast - would you believe us? Well, baby - it’s true. And what a movie it is! The luminous Tatiana Maslany returns to talk about David Lynch’s smokin’ hot outlaw romance WILD AT HEART - a film that won the Palme d’Or and took Lynch away from the set of Twin Peaks. Get ready for lots of Cage career discussion (a favorite topic of Griffin Newman), a bunch of actor speak, and multiple “hey, did you know David Lynch was a fan of the Wizard of Oz?” asides. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This whole podcast, wild at heart and weird on top. Okay, good on top. Okay, good, great. That's when they say the name of the movie. Right, that's the title of the film, is Wild at Heart. Wild at Heart. And I turned a world into podcasts, which are basically, I mean, they're basically... We're shaking off the cobwebs, we're doing great.

Look, we're coming off a little break from recording. I'll talk about it on the Beetlejuice episode, so don't worry about it. Okay, we're coming off a little break from recording. I'll talk about it on the Beetlejuice episode, so don't worry about it. Okay, I'll talk about it on the Beetlejuice episode. Yeah, because that's like three weeks before this episode. Great. Hey, timeline's all gonna make perfect sense.

Normal app incoming. Talking about a normal movie. Sure. Here's a thought I had while watching this. Had you seen this film before? I had seen this film before. Of course, because you're a big fan of the actor. Of course.

We'll get into it. Yep. I'd seen it before, but only the one time. Okay. And that was 10 plus years ago. And this had never been my favorite film of his, although I harbor no dislike of it. This does feel like maybe the apex of Lynch just as image maker.

Whereas astonishing to watch this movie go through shot by shot, and you're just like, this guy is so dialed into what his thing is. Where every single image, the styling of every single character, every environment, every prop, every wardrobe item, you're just like, he's got complete control of the wheel. It is wild to watch it play in real time. Now a movie that we are constantly, I feel like in our circles, having fed back to us constantly via GIF and like still image.

Yeah. I feel like this movie is constantly being fed back to me out of order. There's a lot of, yeah, there's certain things in this movie that are, I mean, yeah, you're right. I agree with you. Sure. What's the big gift for this movie? I feel like it's from the very beginning, Nick Cage pointing... Yeah.

Right after he's killed the guy with his hand against the railing. Can I talk or am I being introduced? If you don't talk, I'll be there. Hi, guys. I had never seen any gif... I don't think I knew anything about this movie before I saw it the first time. Like, didn't even know it existed.

Did it just, did someone just kind of like lock you in a room and be like, just shut up, I'm gonna show you something. Yeah, my husband, you did a great impression of him. That's exactly what he did. That is what he said. But I was like blown away. I was like, this is exact,

in so many ways, it's totally the opposite of any movie I would ever wanna watch because it's so grotesque, but it's also like my dream. Well, we gotta- That's why you're here. We gotta dig into this. That's why you're beaming in from another country to talk about this movie with us.

We'll introduce you properly, but like a month or two ago, you asked what we were doing on the podcast currently, and I said David Lynch, and you went, oh, I love Wild at Heart. Like your eyes lit up like that. In my head, it went... Duh, duh, duh, duh.

That great little riff. That little sting. That hottest riff in cinema. This is a hot movie. Even just the poster you pulled up, it is just the two of them looking hot. Such a hot poster. Yeah. Just imagine like it's 1990, you go to the movie hall and you see that poster and you're

like, what's that? It's just about two hotties? This feels like the very last time that people might have accidentally seen a David Lynch movie thinking it was going gonna be a normal film. Yeah. When you look at this poster and it's just Laura Dern and Nick Cage looking hot and you're like, oh, there's like a car and guns. There's a car and yeah, he's got hairy arms.

He's got a great, he's got big hair. Is he wearing the jacket in it? Is he's got the jacket on? He's not wearing the jacket on the poster. No, like turn, can you show? Yeah. I wanna see this poster. Yeah, it's, I feel like it is the classic poster.

Oh, yeah, this almost looks like, and this is probably totally incorrect, the Con Air poster. A little bit. It's a little bit in a more classic action hero pose, because if you put the jacket on, people are like, oh, there's some weird heist and pastiche thing. He's doing an Elvis thing.

Right. Yeah, yeah. This movie is also, I would put forth maybe. Here's the Conair poster, and a great poster. You don't get full body, but it's a similar kind of pose. It's like guys stoic staring. Conair has fiery orange, but Wild at Heart has that bright pink, makes draws your eye.

It also has the orange sky, it's got both. It does, it does. This movie is the- Let's just talk about the poster. The Twilight of Nicolas Cage's original hairline, right? This is like the picture wrap on... God bless. Ah.

Because that first stage of his career where you're like, this guy's like 19 and he feels like he's been alive for eons, for centuries. You can successfully woo Cher, who's like 15 years older than him. He's the hairiest man in the world. Do you like Moonstruck? Oh, yeah, yeah. But also, only recently saw it. And I was like, wait, what was I doing for most of the time?

Okay, let's get into all this. Look, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. And David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their career, and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a mini series on the films of David Lynch, but also his TV shows. Sure.

It is called Twin Pods Firecast with me. That's right. And today we're talking about what is the moment where he's kind of on top of the universe. That's true because this comes out after the first season of Twin Peaks. He basically does this and the first season of Twin Peaks concurrently as like projects to it. And then Twin Peaks airs as like eight episodes mid-season runaway success. Start of 1990.

This plays at the Cannes Film Festival like a week after the finale of Twin Peaks Season 1 and wins the Palme d'Or. Wins the Palme d'Or? And then this comes out in the summer? It's like this guy is at the absolute center of culture. Right. He's like crossed over to the mainstream. And even when this wins the Palme d'Or, people like boo it and are like, do we, is it too much?

Do we need to start taking him down? And then like three months later, Twin Peaks Season 2 and everyone's like, get the fuck out of here! It's true. It is like his absolute height. What are the qualms with the movie though? What are, what's Cannes qualms with this movie? Well, my guess is, you know, although I looked at the lineup that year, it's not like a, you know, deadly lineup of so many classics.

Maybe they wanted like the Cyrano de Bergerac movie. Obviously, that was like a big deal. The Dipper do. Yeah. And that would have aged perfectly if that was on. Oh, yeah. We should revisit that one. You know, there's there's it's not that there's bad movies in here, but it's not where you see like major masterpieces. But my guess is this thing was seen as too slick and violent,

maybe too stylish. No substance. I don't know. I don't, you know. There's like camp, real camp in it. Like absolutely. Incredibly camp, very American. Totally. And just like performances that kind of go like, yeah, ha ha, you're watching a movie right now.

Do you know what I mean? Like they're like unabashedly like, this is acting. Yes. 100%. I, I, this is- And I'm gonna just call her Laura Dern's mom because I'm a dumb dumb, what's her name? Diane Ladd.

Thank you. Yes. Her performance, like covered in red, yeah, lipstick, like you're doing right there. And just like shaking, like tremoring in, staring in mirrors. It's so beautifully camped. Like it must've just been insulting to an audience

that's sitting there going like, -"We need to see, like..." -"I assume so." You know, like, real drama. My theory, too, is that perhaps when he was, like, the oddball American fringe figure, who could then go to Cannes and the French would be like, "'We understand you,' unlike these slovenly Americans, Lynch felt like theirs. But at a moment where he's suddenly reaching, like, we understand you, unlike these slovenly Americans, Lynch felt like theirs.

But at a moment where he's suddenly reaching mainstream crossover success on American network television, and then he makes this movie that's so steeped in sort of like B-movie, like American sort of like crime genre shit with big stars, they're just like, does he need to get taken down a peg? Is this like, have we let him go too far and is rewarding this gonna push him even further off the ledge? Berta Luchi was the jury president. Okay.

Who, I mean, it's interesting. Yeah, it's like, who probably wouldn't make a movie like this ever, which I always liked that theory. Yes. That the- Like film festivals when the chair is a, when the head of the jury is a director, that often the winner is the film.

They're like, I wish I could make something like that. I could never make that. They could least imagine themselves being able to pull. Spielberg giving it to Blue is the warmest color, where he's like, I could not make a three hour lesbian sex drama. Like, I just don't have that in me. Like, or Burton giving it to Uncle Boonmee.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, things like that. Our guest today returned to the show. Yeah, bring it. Who's our guest? The great Tatiana Mizlani. The late, the great. No, you're not late. No, no.

You were on time. I was late. I was like five minutes late. Rounding error, rounding error. In the world of blank check, you were early. That Toronto traffic is brutal, too I have been in it. It is so nasty. It's not great. You're you're you're zooming in we were Well, cuz a Bealejuice will have come out by then. Can I say this David?

We were supposed to record an episode and then your wife went into labor much earlier than expected. That's true. That's true How dare she I know terrible behavior by her. Yeah. And the whole time she was doing it, I was like, but Tatiana Maslany is booked for this week. She accepted the iCal invite! Yeah, she accepted the iCal invite from her personal Gmail. Yeah. Yes, that's true.

So we have switched to Zoom. Oh, we were always gonna be on Zoom. I guess, yeah. But yes, we've been trying to pin this episode down for a while. You were in the city a couple months ago. You, like, sparked it wild at heart. You were talking about how much you loved it.

Wanted to get into it. I do think this is a particularly interesting one to have you on for, not just because this seems to be your personal favorite of the Lynch movies, is that right? Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I really liked Eraserhead, though, I have to say. Good movie. Yeah.

He's a silly guy. Reeky as hell. This is such an interesting acting movie. And to your point, what you were saying, Dianne Lad in this is one of the only three acting noms a Lynch movie ever got. Oh, interesting. So you got John Hurt in Elephant Man.

Richard Farnsworth in Straight Story. Oh yeah. And this. And this, that's funny. The other two nominations were like these incredibly stripped down, emotionally powerful, reserved, sort of unconventional performances for the Lynch Ouv in his two most, quote unquote, traditional movies. And this is the one time they gave an acting nomination to an actor going full Lynch.

Yes. And I kept thinking while watching this, like she's giving a soap opera performance. And I don't say that in any pejorative sense. It is incredible, her like lack of abandon. Yes, I would say that it's like brave. It's like brave on so many levels and it also extends to all of the performances are like incredibly brave in their own ways.

And that's why I like love watching Nick Cage and we'll I'm sure get to this later, but his recent performances are like no exception. He's just got like zero fear. Like he's just like, he just goes for it. He's not worried about like looking stupid on screen or whatever. No, not at all. And like consequently, like he's not, he doesn't look stupid. You know what I mean? Like he doesn't have embarrassment. And so you're not embarrassed watching him. This is the movie right after Blue Velvet, right?

Obviously Twin Peaks happens in between, but like Blue Velvet is so much the codification of what the Lynch thing is. And then to a certain extent, the, like, the Dennis Hopper performance is like, oh, David Lynch has created a space where you can give a performance like this. It doesn't feel like this movie

is everyone trying to outdo this, but it feels like every actor signs up knowing this is now the parameters that I can play in. This is like a movie, this is a director outdo this, but it feels like every actor signs up knowing, this is now the parameters that I can play in. This is like a movie, this is a director where I get to flex things that no one else would allow me to do. And you have people with very different acting styles

and different backgrounds and all of that. But like Cage is the ultimate, yes, like doing the things most actors would be terrified to do and finding some sort of like grounding center in what feels, to a lot of people, cartoonish, absurd, he's talked so much about his frustration over like the last 15 years, and I think he's kind of reclaimed it now,

but how the internet kind of fucked him because the obsession with like Nick Cage freak out super cuts. Right. And the GIFs and the still images made him into like this flattened. Nick Cage is just a guy who does weird shit. And he's always been like, all that weird shit is like an extension of a grounding and understanding of text,

of working with filmmakers. I'm building to those moments. They don't happen in a vacuum. When you deprive them of the context, it makes me just seem like a lunatic, and it's also a disservice to those filmmakers. Yeah, that's the biggest thing, is taking them out of context, you could humiliate any actor by being like,

this is the moments when so-and-so was weeping or whatever. You can always shame anybody. But he doesn't seem to be coming from, like, a place of, like, I need to, like, I want to go viral. He's not that. He's, like, living the character's journey and just, like, taking the biggest swings. Right, and he just approaches things like, there is...

It was either GQ or Esquire that did a profile on him when Massive Weight of Unbearable Talent was coming out. And it was the big piece on Esquire that did a profile on him when massive weight of unbearable talent was coming out. And it was the big piece on like Cage's kind of, yeah, Nick Cage can explain it all. Gabriella, yeah. Yes, yeah. But that was the headline and the thesis was like,

people like to think that Nick Cage is this collection of just like random eccentricities. Both as an actor and his personal life, where you're like, he went bankrupt buying dinosaur skulls. And the whole thesis of this piece is like, you ask him any question, and he gives you a very straight, honest answer for how he got there. Like, everything makes sense to him.

He's fascinating to us as a figure because our brains don't work that way. But he's not someone who's just, like, firing off chaotic, like, choices for the sake of showiness. Now this was the crazy thing that I was saying I was going to tell you on Mike Tad that might blow your mind. Nick Cage, one of my absolute favorite actors, a guy I'm obsessed with. I saw this movie for the first time in the middle of a project for a magazine that then

went under as my friend and I were writing it to try to watch every Nicolas Cage movie in a two-week period where I went semi-crazy watching like 40 Nicolas Cage movies in two weeks. So I saw that for the first time in that context, this movie in that context. This is the first time we have covered Nicolas Cage on the main feed of this podcast going on ten years. Yeah, we've never talked about a Nicolas Cage movie You know, I was trying to think because obviously we're director focused So it's like we've never done the Coen brothers. That would be a Nicolas Cage Opportunity haven't done her Zog. Yeah, we haven't done Michael Bay

Right we on our patreon we did two episodes on the national treasure movies. That's true. Which were the first times we've ever discussed him, and I love those movies, and he's very fun them, but they don't feel totally emblematic of who he is as an actor, versus this being, like, such a core... Everything you're saying, this guy's willing to try anything without any fear of embarrassment.

This is the perfect movie to finally, like like dig into what is the cage thing. Well, he's also just like in so many weird ways like he's like a movie star, but also like a character actor, like a working actor. Do you know what I mean? He still does. He makes choices. You can see like he's making choices that are like for money, I'm sure.

And like for, but he's always like finding something in them that is off. And I think that's why he's so fascinating. Cause he could by all accounts have just been like, he could have been the guy on that poster just looking like stoic. He could do that if he wanted to, but he'd be so bored. And he did it, but not in a boring way, maybe, but he, you know...

Maybe there's a moment where you can feel Nicolas Cage in the early 2000s being like, you know, what am I doing in this one? You know, like a little bit. I mean, there's a start of Bangkok Dangerous next where he's floating a little bit. And then there's this era of his admitted, like... Well, when he's just making movies for money.

I went to Financial Ruin, I have to do seven projects a year. I try to give them my all, but I'm stretched a little thin. And like... But I would say that... Oh, go ahead. No, no, no. No, please. No, please. No, you please, Tapp. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have twins, sir. Please.

Well... We want to hear from daddies with twins. It's just when Wild at Heart comes out, yes, you know, you would have seen this guy pop if you're like, say, it's 1990, you're going to see a movie. You would have maybe seen him pop in things like Rumblefish or whatever, but really, it's just been a few years of Nicolas Cage as a major actor. Peggy Sue got married, right?

Probably sort of the start, like, ish. Yeah, this is what's crazy. I mean, I think we should run through. We'll talk about it a little bit, but then you have, like, the Raising Arizona Moon Struck Year, 1987. Yeah. And then since mean, you should run well We'll talk about it a little bit, but then you have like the raising Arizona moon struck a year 1987 Yeah, and then since then it's just vampires kiss which is like Just a shot of Nicolas Cabe Street to the neck. I think we do this from the top. Let's just run through Now we're beating around. All right, but like obviously he you know Member of the extended Coppola family his brother his dad is Francis's like kind of black sheep brother.

Um, uh, it did not grow up very close to the family, but was just like from a young age, very obsessed with the idea of being a movie actor. Um, and his first real movie is Fast Times at Ridgeman High. Right. But that's Valley Girl is his first like big part. Yes. I'm putting Fast Times at Ridgeman High. Right, but Valley Girl is his first big part, right? Yes, I'm putting Fast Times at Ridgeman High on the board only to say by the time you get to Wild at Heart, he's been in movies for eight years.

But Valley Girl is 83, he's the main love interest. Rumble Fish, he's got key supporting role. Francis is starting to throw him parts. He changes his name because he doesn't wanna be seen as a nepotism hire. And he starts sort of this thing of like, if Francis is throwing me jobs, then I'm going to do them the weirdest way possible because I don't want to seem like I'm just handsome nephew getting roles.

And then like, right, Racing with the Moon, Cotton Club, Birdie, it's all kind of like flashy supporting color guys. Birdie, that's one of his big like, oh, he pulled out his tooth and he went harder than most young actors would go. But at this point, he's one of his big, like, oh, he pulled out his tooth and he went harder than most young actors would go. But at this point, he's like 17, 18. Like, he's really young. Peggy Sue is the one where he's just like, I'm gonna play the male lead as Pokey from Gumby.

Have you seen Peggy Sue got married to Tatiana? It's not perfect. I don't think I have, but Brendan will probably say that I have. But I don't recall it. It's one of Coppola's only hits in the 80s. Yes. His four-hire run where this one works. And it's about a person of 40-something or whatever goes to their high school reunion,

and then she gets zapped back into her teenage body. Yeah. and then she gets zapped back into her teenage body. Yeah, she's stuck in a loveless, past its due date marriage with her high school sweetheart. And then she like falls, she faints at her high school reunion and wakes up, she's back in her senior year and she gets a chance to redo everything. Right, and so Nicholas Cage is the husband, but he's cast so he can play young, you know,

high school boyfriend. At the beginning he's in it in old age makeup, but you don't school boyfriend. At the beginning, he's in an old-age makeup, but you don't really hear him, and then he... He's playing a huge dumbass. I mean, right? Right, he's playing, like, the high school, like, hunk sweetheart. And he does the entire movie talking like this.

And it was one of these things where, like, Francis Ford Coppola fought really hard for him, and he was like, I'll do it if I can play it this way. And Coppola was like, what the fuck are you doing? I just put my neck out for you. You're gonna get me fired. But his rationale, which I think is so smart,

and I think the performance totally works, and it's the beginning of him getting at this sort of like expressionistic style of acting, this non-literal representational style of acting,. It's like the whole point of the movie is that she, like, goes back to her high school years with the eyes and the brain of an adult woman. And the kind of guy she would have found cute when she was 17 is gonna seem so goofy now.

Oh, my God, is that ever brilliant. Yes, and it totally works. He's incredible in it. And it feels... It like cooks in all of the embarrassment that we have looking back at like... Yes. ...our childhood. But is a choice that no one else would make.

Uh-huh. And then that leads to Raising Arizona and Moonstruck, where you're like, this guy has weirdly now become like a low-level leading man. But as you said, like not a movie star yet. But like Moonstruck, I mean, obviously Raising Arizona, he's so good in that. He's so perfect for like the Coen brothers,

sort of smart idiot thing. Moonstruck, he makes no sense in that movie. No, no, that's a tough one. He's playing 15 years older than he is 10. I guess so, or it's just sort of not being addressed. Yeah. He comes on screen in this kind of movie that so far has been this like quaint, sweet, like, you know,

oh, she's Mopey and her family. And then he shows up and starts screaming, which is the tone of the movie, in my opinion. It is operatic. Like, he's bringing you there. It's another example of him getting someone needs to be playing the opera of this. But it is so shocking when you first see him in that movie. And he is hot, but he's also funny-looking.

And his hair is kind of funny-looking. And his, you know, yeah, like, his whole affect is kind of, like, off-kilter. Isn't his accent goofballs, too? He's got a big accent. Yeah, it's an accent movie. You know, everyone's doing... It's loud, it's in bounds.

Yeah. It's not a wig movie, it's an accent movie. Yes. And everyone's doing... It's loud. It's in bounds. Yeah. It's not a wig movie, it's an accent movie. Yes. And then in 88, Vampire's Kiss, which is a movie... Have you seen Vampire's Kiss? I haven't, but I want to. It's a very silly movie. I mean, Griff, you may have a different take on this movie, but it's about a guy who starts to think he's turning into a vampire.

It's sort of an 80s satire of, like, you know, hot shot guy going nuts. I'd say it's a totally okay movie that is mostly just, its reputation is, oh, this is when Cage just went totally loo, like... He's just screaming the whole movie. There's this notorious scene where he does the alphabet. Yes. He was like, A, B, C, D, E, F, and he won't stop. And you're just like, I can't believe he does this.

He eats bugs live on camera. And like, yeah, it was just the start of like, what if you just don't rein this guy in at all? But at this point, it's like, okay, so this guy like has enough of the right look, you know, he's got enough of a name, he's been in enough big movies. His biggest movies have been ones

where he's the weird love interest, not the movies where he is the guy. But that gives him enough juice to be able to get small enough movies bankrolled off of his name. And he's sort of like, you imagine if we were like film nerds at this time, you'd be like, he's the cool guy. He's the cool actor. Isn't it cool? He gets to star in his own movies when you get to, uh, you know, and then after that time to kill is like his incredibly weird Italian war drama

Never seen about leprosy that I think was mostly because he wanted to do an Italian movie Never on Tuesdays a cameo and then wild at heart is 1990 which feels like him sort of owning his lane It is wild to your point tag to watch him in this and be like great This is this guy at his peak and be like five great, this is this guy at his peak. And be like, five years from now, he will have won an Oscar and be starring in two back-to-back Jerry Bruckheimer action movies in the same summer. That he just became a very, like not a conventional leading man,

but a mainstream leading man. That within five years, he was still doing his weird shit within those trappings, but he became a guy who could star in legitimate prestige movies and huge, like, fucking shopping mall blockbusters for teenagers. What's your relationship with him, Tati? Like, you know, where did you first see Cage?

Where did I first see Cage? Great, I have no idea. I have no clue, but I don't think I was, like, versed. I wasn't Cage-versed for a long time. You were Caged. And I was no idea. I have no clue, but I don't think I was like versed. I wasn't cage versed for a long time. You were caged. And you didn't get on caged for a while. In ignorance, yeah. But I feel like it's as I've gotten into movies now

in my like 30s that I've appreciated him. Because I think I always was like, oh, that guy. I think I didn't know. I didn't know better. And also, he does something, I think because he was like, oh, that guy. I think I didn't know. I didn't know better. And also, he does something, I think because he's so unabashedly bold, he does a thing that highlights to me that actors are very careful most of the time. And he just, there's an idea sometimes in acting of like,

don't be caught acting. So when you watch an actor who's acting so hard, you're like, oh, like you want to like distance yourself from it. But it's so much fun. And when you actually get to do that kind of work, it's like the freest thing when you have that kind of freedom and that kind of like, respect from your crew, your collaborators that they're just like, yeah, go for it. We'll like shave it or do whatever, but we'll like let you go for it on the day. Which coming off of Blue Velvet, it's like everyone signs up knowing like, this is safe.

He's gonna protect us. Yeah, and I was watching this like little bit of like behind the scenes with like Laura Dern too, who, okay, I have two things to say. One is about Nick Cage like also can shut it off when he needs to. Like when Willem Dafoe comes in the first time we see Bobby LaRue, who is just like the grusiest, grusiest man. But Nick Cage like turns it off. Like he just like gives it over to Willem Dafoe. He doesn't pull any focus. He's like, this is this guy's moment. And Willem Dafoe's not doing anything like pyrotechnics.

But he, like, the energy goes towards him. Do you know what I mean? I absolutely know. Like, Nicolas Cage isn't, like, showboating or, like, trying to do anything over the top of it. Right, let me win this scene or whatever. No. Which is also why he's, like, brave to me.

It goes to this point of like, my defense of Nicolas Cage has always been, A, he's never been bad in a good movie. The performance of his that quote unquote don't work, and I would defend most of them, tend to be in movies that have no handle on themselves. But when a movie works and he's working

with a good filmmaker that he trusts, even if he's doing something that feels quote unquote crazy and like outside of the safe zone and unconventional, it always feels like it is in direct intelligent conversation with the larger story and the larger movie, which a lot of insecure actors who just wanted to be exciting, colorful, dramatic, crazy, would be threatened by Willem Dafoe showing up

with the teeth and the energy and the voice and being like, I gotta outdo him now. This guy's gonna steal every scene. Right. And you're right that he knows, like, no, what I have to do here is dial it all the way back What is the cage performance that doesn't work for you? Like is there one? It's a good question Is there somewhere it's like like you're saying like oh, yeah. Well, the movie's not very good So, you know, but is there a a big cage performance that you're kind of like that one never stuck

I don't know if there's, well, okay. Like a clunker? Yeah. I think the ones that work for me the least aren't the ones where he's taking big swings. They're the ones where he feels a little lost or checked out, right? Where like, if I'm watching Next, I'm like, I wish he was trying more. Right, he's not doing too much in that one.

I've never seen Next. He feels a little trapped. There is stuff like, which one is it? Deadfall is a movie that his brother directed, Christopher Coppola. And he, I mean, this was my project. I was trying to watch all of it. Oh, this is like early 90s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Early 90s, it's right before, no, it's right after this, a couple years after this. Because that's the thing, right after this, he goes into a run of studio comedies. He does Honeymoon in Vegas, Guarding Tests, Amos and Andrew. Yep, these are, yeah.

Like he- Can I ask a question? Please. When was Face Off? Face Off is 96, so it's sort of like, what Griffin is talking about is, wait, what's your take on Face Off? Well, no, because that I'm realizing,

my intro to Nick Cage was the pay-per-view advertisements for Face Off, where he dances at one point. And I was like, that's the hottest man I've ever seen. I never watched the movie, but I watched pay-per-view just to watch that trailer. You should check out Face Off. Definitely should. That would blow you. I have to.

Like, it's true. What Griffin, I feel like, is saying is like, in the early 90s, he becomes kind of a studio comedy guy, and then in 95, he wins the Oscar for leaving Las Vegas. Yes. And in 96, he has The Rock, Con Air, and Face Off all in one year. Wikipedia's formatting this weird. The Rock is 96, Con Air and Face Off are both 97. Yeah, you're right.

But he has two successive years with three Jerry Bruckheimer movies. He becomes suddenly a giant action star. Right after becoming a legitimate serious actor. And not only is he a giant action star, but he is giving very big Nicholas Cage-y performances. He is not like tamping himself down really. It's what you're saying that he's doing weird character actor versions of leading man parts. Like he's in City of Angels, is he any good in in that that's one where I think he's a little sleepy

He's pretty terrible in Captain Kareli. Yes, it's sleepy. I was gonna say like Deadfall is one where he's giving a performance That's insane, but he's in a movie He knows doesn't work and he's like so just have fun like that's him just being like it doesn't fucking matter Give me a fake nose. I'm gonna do a silly voice I would say that's him doing a bunch of shit that isn't really grounded in anything Versus like Corelli like that chain is like him getting a little lost and sort of stayed leading man stuff Because the whole weird thing with leaving Las Vegas is like, oh, here's him giving a very stripped down Vegas is like, oh, here's him giving a very stripped down, realistic, naturalistic performance in a like character based drama that is sort of sophisticated.

But because he's a drunk, there is a built in escape hatch for him to have crazy Nick Cage freak out scenes. And he's grounding in something very specific and it's some of the best like alcoholic acting I've ever seen and drunk acting I've ever seen. But when he's trying to do the same sort of, like, I guess I should be a proper serious leading man in his other kind of City of Angels, Captain Corelli shit, you're like, he feels a little constrained.

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Bye-bye. He's good in this, though. It's a top cage performance for me. Excellent. It's also a top Dern moment. My God. Massive Dern moment. We, um, the first time I met you, I think, was when we went to see RRR together. That's right. Right? I think that was the first time I met you, I think, was when we went to see RRR together.

When... Right? I think that was the first time we met. Yeah, I think so. And I've quoted you saying this anonymously on the show, just about the power of that movie. But we walked out and you just turned me and Brandon and you went like, those guys can do everything. Yeah.

You were like, that is a movie where these two actors have gotten to do every single type of acting. They act. They're dramatic, they're funny, they sing, they dance. They're doing action. They do, like, slapstick. Behavioral comedy. Right. Yeah.

And I saw your eyes light up at just like, that's like full test shit. Like, they're given a space where they can do every type of acting possible. And to the point of I think a lot of what we're saying, like this movie is similar, where like sometimes he's asked them to play a scene totally real, which must be really scary when you know some of the other scenes in this movie. And you're like, is that gonna bump?

Yeah. I mean, the journey that they go on, the first half of the film being this kind of like arch, like sexy romance, like rock music video, into like when the death, when they witness that car crash. Right. And suddenly the vibes are ruined. She's pregnant. Yeah. Yeah, but it's like shot so different. Like that is actually, I was looking at the time code

and that's like almost like the exact midpoint of the film. And after that, there's the like pace of their, their relationship goes like, like goes into this like totally different energy where all of the romance is out. There's like puke in the bedroom and there's like, they're shot separately in the bedroom. In the beginning, they're all like shot always within,

it seemed that I didn't like go back really and look at it, but it felt like they were always within the same frame. Right? Like they're, even if they're in separate spaces, like when she's talking about what happened to her when she was younger, they're still shot in the same, they're in the same shot. They're like, they're still connected, but then that like separation and then performance wise it just totally goes in a, it becomes like, it's like their hearts have been broken.

Like totally. He's very different. Like all the fun stuff people think about with Nicolas Cage is mostly in the first half of the movie, right? All the first half. The snakeskin jacket, the singing, the, you know, like... I was gonna say, beyond them just like being unified in the frame together, the first hour of the movie is just like, they're so iconographic.

Yes. Like they're both wearing sunglasses and the rock music's playing. All they do is like fucking drive, like it's great. And the movie starts with tragic backstory. It's not like they're having fun and then things get bad. But they're like, the tragic backstory is more sort of like 50s greaser movie, he's a tortured rebel,

but it's cool and sexy kind of stuff before the reality of it. And her mama won't let her have, you know, fun. Right, like, the movie starts with manslaughter. Very quickly, they start to unfold that he witnessed her father's death. All this stuff is in there, but is done in this David Lynch, sort of like pop art rock, rockabilly style, that still feels kind of seductive. And then you're right, watching this random woman die at the side of the road

is just like, oh, they're actually now starting to process shit. Well, and the woman also is talking about her mother. She's saying she's going to be so mad at me because I lost my purse or something. She's like worried that her mom will find out that she lost her purse. And there's something about that like reminder for Laura Dern's character of like, because her mother's always this like force that's following. But there's something about that like simplicity of like the thing even in your like, you're about to die.

And like the thing you're worried about is like your mom being disappointed in you. Correct, right. Is like, it feels like it like she can't not see something in herself there. You know what I mean? It's and it's like way more poignant than I think. I don't know.

It's kind of a beautiful, horrible moment. There's almost this sort of like live fast die young kind of thing that they're both and the pregnancy probably is the turning point of like, oh, we have to think about the future for the first time. How is this sustainable? We can't just keep driving and fucking in new motels, right? And looking cool. There's now, like, right, sort of stakes attached to our behavior.

There's this amazing gesture that Laura Dern does, and I would want to talk to you guys about it, because it's like she puts her hand in her hair in all of these moments, where sometimes you see it when she's, like, upset with her mom, and she's, like, kind of, like, crying, like, screaming mom and she's kind of like cry, like screaming, and she's got her hand in her hair. But then it's also these moments of ecstasy where she puts her hand.

It's such a cartoon gesture of like sexy girl, but it has this desire and horror in it. I don't know there's something, I don't know enough about like the physicality that he would have worked with her on, but it's, that's some of my favorite stuff. You know more than us about like those little physical choices that actors make that I feel like viewers sometimes

might not even pick up on, right? Like I just watch the remains of the day because I'm watching a lot of costume dramas right now, which is what you do when you have newborns because you just need something gentle and like kind of... And like there's this moment... Anthony Hopkins where he puts his hand up and he covers his face. Yes, and it's just like, Jesus Christ!

And like the... He... It's, you know, one of the many moments where the emotional devastation has built to almost a crushing, you know, eruption. And in this like society of manners, he's like trying his hardest not to show his vulnerability. Right. He's not going to break down and he's not going to. But like you see him bring his hand up just to almost like contain clearly what he's trying to do.

Or like just cover it a little bit. Like he just doesn't want to totally be seen. And you look at it and you're like, this is the most incredible organic representation. But him thinking about how to do that is so interesting. Right, like, you know, or maybe it was James Ivery being like, can you do like kind of like a little bit of a hand thing? But I doubt it. My guess is the actor. But right, you ask like, was that,

did he do that for only one take? Right, sure, sure, sure. Was that something he like thought up on the day and did? Was it something that he wrote in the margins of his script immediately? Right, how do you do it? Explain it to us. By all accounts, Tant, like, I think Lynch is very like, I hire you, you figure it out. Sure.

And he'll adjust things on the day, but I don't think he's someone who's like working with actors to establish a physical vocabulary to build a character with them in that sense. I did see like one moment in a behind the scenes where he goes up to her and he's like, okay, I want you to like kind of bring your arms up like this and he like does like a gesture. And I don't know if it's,

I don't know if it has like a meaning behind it or if she just like imbues it with meaning because she like repeats them. But there's also her hand when she's orgasming that we zoom on the hand that opens up. And then it also opens up in the Bobby LaRouz, or what's his name? Bobby Prue. Bobby Prue, yes.

So there is something about those gestures. And I think with Remains of the Day, I would imagine, if I'm jumping into his head, that he probably was, like, as little... What's that? Yeah. If there's, like, as little motion as possible,

and then, like, the one movement that means something, like, that he would have cut off all of the motion in order to make any choice of gesture really important. How do you go about it? When you're reading a script, are you starting to map these things out on the day or are you just thinking about it in emotional and intellectual terms and then figuring out those moves once you're actually in it filming? It really depends.

Sometimes I'll work with, I have a coach who works in that kind of stuff often. She does dream work, but she's working a lot in a gesture that means something. And it doesn't mean that you put it necessarily into the work, but you embody it in a way that it might come up when you're working. You kind of create a vocabulary of movement for a character you're working, you kind of like create a vocabulary of movement for a character, or like create restrictions for a character or whatever it is that will like give you kind of like the space within which to play. And I would think like even Nick Cage who had seems seemingly like no limits, probably is like working within a structure of like, you know, this is the spectrum for this character

or like discovering the spectrum on the day or whatever. I don't know if I'm making that clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it makes some sense. I think it's different depending on, yeah. I mean, I think Lynch is like one of the only dream work directors or at the very least, he's one of the only ones who is a dream work director who makes films

that are watchable. I think a lot of other people who would try to do this do not know how to translate it into something. And like DreamWork for listeners who don't know is sort of this like whole school of acting thought of trying to link things to like subconscious feelings. So that there is like, you're pulling from something that feels powerful

and primal within yourself, even if the viewer would never totally get what it is that you're pulling from there, you know? But it's like, rather than just trying to invest your emotions into it, it's like, what are these like images and feelings that are clearly like deep enough inside me that I'm dreaming about them,

and how do I connect them to things in the script. And Lynch, I think, similarly works with, like, these are, like, memories or ideas or images or lines or feelings that have stuck with me, and I put them in the script, and I can't really unpack them, but I think there's some meaning there. And then he sort of throws to actors, like, can you embody this? I think it's so much of why, like, Dern is maybe

the single best fit for his work of anyone is like she is someone who seems so facile and like quick to be able to take on anything and find some connection to it without prep work because I don't think he's doing that prep work with them in advance. I think he is like either recognizing, oh, that gesture you did is interesting. That thing you did with your hand, I'm going to get a close-up of that. And maybe we can repeat that in four other scenes. Or he's saying, I don't know why, but can you do this thing with your arms?

I just feel like I need that right now. You do see him working on the performances that much on the day, but I don't think he's working with them before filming that much. It always sounds like when he hires people, he's like, I just want you. I want your energy. You know, I might have very strong choices about the costume, but then you show up and we'll figure it out. And part of it is the flexibility to be like, if I ask you to do it in a totally different way, can you go there? Don't be rigid and boxed into the quote-unquote

correct way of doing the scene. Yeah. Yeah, she doesn't seem like she would ever be stuck in some idea of what the character would be. I have to do it that way. Right. Let me open the dossier, Griff. We have to open the dossier. Okay. All right, so here's some facts about Wild at Heart. Blue Velvet, David Lynch makes that film.

And then he has a bunch of projects he doesn't make. There is a Marilyn Monroe project written by Mark Frost. We've sort of discussed. It's called Venus Descending or maybe Goddess. He never made that. There are his two famous unrealized projects, Ronnie Rockett and One Saliva Bubble. We've talked about them in other episodes.

But at this point in time, there was a version of one saliva bubble that was almost Steve Martin and Martin Short. That's correct. Yeah, which is why. A comedy. We don't know much. I think you can read a script.

Yes. Yeah. But these two projects, Tapp, were like the movies every time he made a film. He's like, up next, Ronnie Rock it or one saliva bubble. And he never got either one made. They were both, I think, tied up in Dino De Laurentiis stuff, and then his company fell apart, and anyway. There was also an adaptation of a noir crime novel

that we don't know the name of, that he set up at Propaganda Films, which is, you know, the company that produced Twin Peaks. And there he meets Monty Montgomery, who will come up again, but we've talked about him before on our episode, The Loveless, Catherine Bigelow's movie, which he co-directed. He will play the cowboy in Mulholland Drive.

I think this movie has a lot in common with The Loveless and interesting. Sure, biker, post-modern biker. Deconstructing the archetypes of like 50s storytelling. Monty Montgomery hands him this novel, Barry Gifford's Wild at Heart, the story of Sailor and Lula saying, I want to option this movie.

Monty Montgomery wants to direct this movie. Interesting. I like this book. Would you like to produce it? David Lynch reads the book and he's like, I wanna make this and you can produce it. Sort of takes it over from him. And he had warned him, he said, this is great, Monte,

but what if I read it and I fall in love with it and I want to do it myself? And Monte said, if that happens, you can do it yourself. And so he reads the book and he says, it was exactly the right thing at the right time. The book and the violence in America at that moment, late eighties, you know, merged and many different things happened in my mind.

And I called Monte and I said, I really want to do it. He really loved the relationship between Sailor and Lula. He loves how they're so good to each other and love each other and treat each other with respect. But he still felt like a modern romance, like Sailor is cool and masculine, but he's still tender. He doesn't talk down to Lula. He wanted them to have this equal relationship,

very free when it came to sex. Then his other encapsulation of his, just like it's a picture about finding love in hell. Yeah. So he was drawn, I think, to whatever, the love at the core of a very chaotic violent story. The great She Shay Fillmore, who runs the Trivia Night at Nighthawk,

among many other things, saw her last week, Marie, and I went to the Trivia Night, and Shay was going on about how much she loves David Lynch, and was like, you know, when I was like a teenager, I'd watch his movies and focus on how weird he is, and now I watch them and I can't get over how unbearably sad they are. And I think that's such a key thing of like,

a lot of people could look at Sailor and Lula on paper and be like, oh, these are great like pop art archetypes. And Lynch immediately locks into it and is like, this is meaningful. They matter, their emotions matter. I like wanna cry thinking about their relationship. Lynch wrote the script very quickly. Gifford, he's messed with the story a lot.

Most importantly, he changes the ending, but also he brings out some new side characters and stuff like that. Gifford reads the script and loves it. He says, this is great. Take the ball and run with it. I got nothing wrong with this. Lynch says they made the brighter things brighter and the darker things darker. And Gifford for whatever reason is just not dissatisfied.

And then the Samuel Goldwyn company, which I think of as kind of a Tony company, like a very, very fancy sort of pictures comes aboard. And they read the script. Oh, I see the ending isn't happy yet. And they just, they're like, we just don they read the script. Oh, I see. And the ending isn't happy yet. And they just, they're like, we just don't like the ending. And Lynch is like, I don't like the ending either.

And they're like, well, why don't you change it? Lynch is like, I'm going to go change it, dog gone it. The ending of the book is they break up. It doesn't work out. Yeah. And the ending of the movie, obviously, basically is like leading that way. And then he just is like, no, like, you know, the good witch tells him to be, you know,

to not give up on love. Which also, none of the Wizard of Oz stuff is in the book. That's all. That's all coming from David Lynch. That's all Lynch. Which feels very tied to like this sort of... American fairy tale thing, right? But also this book and in particular, this movie that paints with like a very broad brush and bright colors,

and yet has like for a hundred years, like drilled into everyone's brain, has become this language that we all can share of just like, we all understand the shorthand of The Wizard of Oz. It occupies weirdly a place in everyone's mind. Drawing that comparison there. I mean, I kept thinking while watching this, because Red Rock West is only three years after this.

Sure, John Dole movie. Which is a very good movie. And is like Cage and Dennis Hopper and Laura Flynn Boyle, like two other David Lynch actors. And is it on paper kind of similar like Western neo-noir, 90s Nicholas Cage, bad man movie, and like a romance in this backdrop. And that film's excellent,

but it's done as like the sort of like stripped down, brutal, hard hitting version of it. And you could have, I imagine, even if Barry Gifford's book is more colorful, adapted this in a similar way to that. You could make like a pretty nasty movie. Not that this movie isn't violent and scary and explicit and very dark and all that, but like it's not really nasty. It's too sort of magic in a way. Although what you were saying Tatiana is true. It's like it does curdle. Like the first half is, yeah.

No, I'm just thinking of that one moment, which is like, where you're saying it could have gone, gone so dark. They're driving in the car and the news is bad. She like can't listen to the news anymore. And she's like, turn on some music and she gets out of the car. And then they just like, he like goes through a few channels and everything is like, like it's like rape, murder, death, blah, and then it gets to music and then they just start dancing.

And there's something about that that feels like, like you're saying it could be so bleak, but there's something like hopeful and survivalist about the whole thing, like about the way that they- There is, yeah. Continue to grab towards like living. Mm-hmm. Well, like these two people have already

at such a young age experienced so much sexual violence and so much like other types of violence, you know? Like one of them has experienced so much sexual violence. The other one has perpetuated so much violence against other people, both in self-defense and for the sake of making a living. And they're both just like, we're not, this isn't getting to us. This is not defining who we are. We're going to like throw our arms up and go woo and like do Elvis poses. If it's like too bleak,

we're going to change the like station and go to a cool rock song and then we can like dance, you know? And that thing where he like almost gets into a fight with the guy at the rock club, diffuses it at the last second, and then grabs the microphone and is like, I need to sing an Elvis song. Feels like him trying to recalibrate things back to like, no, this is fun. This is fun.

He also sings differently than he does in Long Legs, which is fantastic. That his singing as a crooning, like his crooning is different in both. His rock crooning, he's got like levels. He's got crooning range. He's got range. I really love Nicolas Cage. Just saying it.

Yeah, he's the best. He's the best. It's just, I'm repeating myself, but it's so funny to watch this movie and place yourself in the mind of 1990 and be like, in five years, this guy is going to be synonymous with mainstream Hollywood.

But in a weird way. Anyway, look, Dern, Dern is immediately the only person to play Lula. She's worked with Lynch before, obviously. Sailor, Lynch thought of Cage as a very brave actor. Says he has nerve and courage, so agrees with Tatiana. Finally. Oh, shit, seriously.

We've been fighting for years. Been at loggerheads. Cage, great quotes from Nicolas Cage, who gives great quote always and forever. But kind of surprisingly, they never work together again outside of the industrial symphony. I guess they both got busy. Yeah, exactly.

Says, I always had a hankering to play this sort of character who would do just about anything for the woman he loves. I'm always attracted to these passionate, unbridled, romantic characters. But then the other quote I like is, I've often played roles that are large and sort of manic and I wondered how I could be that ludicrous but in a very contained way. Sailor's a lot more sedate than I've been in a while in a film. He's a strong character who doesn't need to rant

and rave to get attention. The challenge is to be mega cool in a way that will be totally absurd. Because he is big, but he's not doing too much of the cage, like truly like yelling at the camera kind of. No. Like I can't believe someone just did that.

Especially coming right off of Vampire's Kiss, which is like just that. Just yelling. I also, I... Because it's also like important for him to seduce her. Yes. Like it's about her. Do you know what I mean?

He's not like doing it for the audience. He's like making himself hot for that character. Like he, Sailor's doing it for Lula. There has to be like an actual center to him that she can invest in as, like, a future for her life. Yeah. I also, like, was thinking during this that when he makes his weird pivot into, like, Action Star,

he is kind of doing, like, Sailor at 50%. Like, when he gets into, gone in 50 seconds, like tone down sailor becomes his kind of action star persona, right? Like the closest thing to just like what is neutral Nicholas Cage is like just a little bit of the Elvis thing. He wears the jackets well. Right. He's a little bit cool and absurd at the same time.

Like, this does become kind of his home base in a way. You're right. This is like Formula Zero Nicolas Cage for sure. Right. Willem Dafoe had auditioned for Blue Velvet. They had clicked then. Brings him in for this. David Lynch says,

Willem gave a flawlessly perfect performance from start to finish. Bobby Prue was a one-of-kind character and Willem nailed it like nobody's business. Later, he says that he'd let the literal quote from David Lynch. Later, he does say he thinks the teeth helped him. Yeah. Defoe says that too, that he read the screenplay and it says he has these funky teeth. He sits down with David and David Lynch says,

are you going to go to the dentist to get the teeth? And Defoe's like, what do you mean? But he goes to the dentist and gets like an entire fake set of teeth that fit over his teeth. They were like oversized and made his mouth be open all the time in this kind of like stupid slack-jawed way. And he says that completely unlocked how to behave as Bobby Furu. Defoe is so fascinating because he's talked so much. I mean, he was like this booster group, experimental theater guy who's like,

I'm like objective-based, I'm like process-based. Like just tell me what I need to do and I execute that the best that I can. I'm not going to get like hung up on trying to justify a character's motivation. Right. And he's one of these guys, kind of like Cage, who can successfully work from the outside in, of like, let me obsess over the tangible details and then the rest will start to make sense to me. A lot of other actors, if you gave them those teeth, they would just play the teeth, and it would overwhelm everything.

The teeth would walk into the room before them. Totally, and he was kind of like, I can't crack the character until I get the teeth, but I'm gonna like learn my lessons from the teeth, which like, right, if the teeth are like this, then I can't close my mouth. And if I smile, it shifts my face in this way. Right, he looks so crazy.

Right, but then he starts to go, well, a guy who has this mouth, Sure, sure. then how does he talk and how does that affect people? And like, he starts to do the reverse math, which I feel like he always does of like, you tell me what you want, and then I'll figure out how to make it make sense.

But he's such a good fit for Lynch in that way. Right. Diane Ladd hated Blue Velvet, which of course her daughter Laura Dern is in. She told Lynch this, she told Laura this and Lynch this. She said, her quote was, how could he let one of the most beautiful women in the world, Isabella Rossellini,

who he was in love with, stand nude in front of the whole world and light her horribly. Mm-hmm. So she was, as a woman, she took an exception to that. in love with, stand nude in front of the whole world and light her horribly. So she was, as a woman, she took an exception to that, but then she gets a phone call from David Lynch and he says, Diane, I've written a script and it's gonna star your daughter, Nicholas Cage, but there's a starring role of the mother.

And then he basically was just like, it would honor me for you to take this role. And she's like, sure. After Lad and Dern get Oscar nominations together for Rambling Rose. Isn't it right before? Am I wrong? Let me find out. You might be right.

Yes, they, of course, obviously Dian Lad is Lauren Dern's mother. Yeah, no, that's the next year. Oh, that's crazier, though. That they make the movie Rambling Rose together where they do the same thing again, kind of, both get Oscar nominations. But there's a trick, yeah, that Lynch is playing, but I think this is a trick Lynch loves to play. He loves Hollywood generations.

He loves to cast actors who have famous parents or have some throwback connection, right? But also, what you're saying makes sense with her performance having the energy of like, I don't want my daughter to be in a David Lynch movie Like the way she looks at sailor with like absolute fear and disgust 100% That's so good. That's a great read. She gets that shock Oscar nomination. I would say to some extent

Yeah, which is loses to whoopie from ghost which is incredible in that. She's so good. Dianna Lynn's amazing in this movie. It is like... And they're scenes together. It's like you say though, Tatiana, like... It should not work. She's just like screaming. And like her character should just feel zero note, where it's just like, yeah, she's just this obstacle, right?

She just doesn't want this to happen. So all she does is try to stop it. And instead you kind of feel for her in a weird sort of way. She's like tormented by it to the point that she's like vomiting into the toilet. Like it's so, she's so, yeah, torn apart by this. It's kind of powerful.

Like, I don't know. Like as much as she's also like, this is a Looney Tunes movie sometimes and she's a Looney Tunes character. Yeah. Yeah. And she's obviously literally the Wicked Witch, and they throw water on her picture and it melts. Watching all the Lynch stuff in this sort of like,

concentrated focus, as we do. Yes. It really does like clarify for me how much the great Lynch project seems to be him honestly trying to make sense of how people can do evil things. Like, so many of his stories come back to these, like, horrible acts of violence that are committed against people, and being like, how can a human being do that?

And so often it is this sort of, like, unprocessed emotions within people that are driving them crazy, that are making them sick, that are making them vomit, that are turning them into, like, old universal horror monsters, you know? Like, in this way where the performance has to be that tenor. As you said, like, she's so tortured that she's, like, smearing lipstick on her face and puking. Like, everything is...

Like, by herself. By herself in her house. But I... She barely ever leaves her house. But I... She barely ever leaves her house. Yeah. This thing that I keep going back to that I never really focused on, that I'm curious to hear your read on, Pat, is like, there's this element to Lynch I find fascinating

that shouldn't work, where he will put such wildly different acting styles in the same movie in the same scene. Like, not just he will ask his leads, like Dern and Cage, to switch between these different modes. But I was watching one of the early scenes with Diane Ladd and Harry Dean Stanton. And you are like... These are absolute opposite ends.

Harry Dean Stanton is an actor who has never once seemed like he was acting on screen. Like, the trick of Harry Dean Stanton is an actor who has never once seemed like he was acting on screen. Like the trick of Harry Dean Stanton is just like, does this guy know he's in a movie? He just seems like a guy who rolled out of bed and is breathing, you know? And he's there like playing the emotion so real and he's almost doing this Remains of the Day, like the scene where he breaks down crying in the car and he's embarrassed that she's seeing the emotion in him. And meanwhile, she's next to him screaming at the top of her lungs, you know, and playing like a cartoon version of Angry.

And you're like, how can these two things exist in the same frame and the movie not collapse? I was thinking that too. I was in the scene where she's crawling on the carpet. And he's sitting in the chair and there's this weird jazz music underneath the whole thing. The first half has so much of this weird tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst, tst keeps it in this absurd place, but doesn't take enough of the sound away that you're nervous. It's joyful, it's fun. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. But he's so heartbreaking. My God, he's so, and I think imbues her too with like, if he loves her like this. There must be someone there, right. Totally. And the two of them are so solidly in what their objectives are,

what their, you know, how heightened their performance is that it like, yeah, like he never like seems embarrassed for her or anything, like it's just so, yeah. And I do think the X factor is that like, he probably wisely, on top of Diane Ladd being like a great actor who had an incredible career up until this point, being like, it being her real daughter is gonna give it some extra juice. I could ask her to go as big as possible, as operatic as possible,

and she's still gonna be playing it in some sort of reality. Because she genuinely cares that much about the person she's talking about. And has that honest sense of protectiveness. I mean, just to like zoom out how insane the opening of this movie is, right? Like the opening credits play out over fire and jazz music. Then you go to like the grandest sort of location you've ever seen. This like beautiful ballroom. Nicholas Cage comes downstairs in like a fucking jacket and slick back hair doing his Elvis thing. A guy corners him and is like, I hear you fucked her mom in the

bathroom. Nicholas Cage kind of pretends that he did. Sure. It's a little mysterious. You're not quite sure if it's true or not. But you're struck straight into like, here's this guy introduced with his hot girlfriend, then another guy, a stranger comes up to him, compliments him on just having fucked that woman's mom in the bathroom, and then they get into a knife fight.

Nicolas Cage kills him, and then it cuts to like two years later. He's gone to jail for this crime. And like very quickly thereafter, the movie starts doing flashbacks to the encounter that he had with Diana Ladd in the bathroom. Where she basically kind of like confronted him. Like it wasn't, yes, what at all, what we thought it was.

Right, and it's not like a Rashomon where you're seeing it from different perspectives, but you keep seeing different portions of the interaction, which only gets more and more confusing. Where like the first time you see it, she comes in super drunk and is desperately trying to get him to fuck her and being really explicit. And you're like, okay, so did she frame him out of like embarrassment that he rejected her? But then when they're in the stall together,

she's like directly threatening him because of perhaps his awareness or adjacency to crime. Because he's been a lowlife. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He has enough attachment to lowlife behavior for her to threaten. And she's fucked with lowlife behavior as well. What she's framing as like, I don't want my daughter getting sucked into this

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and he gets his snakeskin jacket back, which is an expression of his personal, what's the line? Brendan says it all the time. Expression of his personal, what is it? I remember the first time- It says individuality, right? I first saw this movie in college. It's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom. Yes. Which was like, didn't he get that, didn't he choose to bring that jacket in? Wasn't that his choice? I was going to, that line feels like something Cage basically said.

A Cage mission statement of like, you think I picked this jacket just because it looks cool, but actually it represents individuality. But then it's like, he's like, thanks, baby, he's never telling me this jacket here represents a similar man.

She's like, yeah, like 50,000 times. That's all you said. They go. But she says it with so much love. She loves him and he loves her. And they go have sex. And then they go see a speed metal band. And then they get in a big fight because a guy

bumped up against her in a speed metal concert. It's not like he's in a costar in a fancy dinner. He does the same thing in Lost Highway where you're like it when he cuts in Present day music it feels jarring. Why are they like this? They're not stuck in the 50s, but then he brings it back to the 50s by singing love me right to her presley style They go to a hotel they have sex again and they're like, you know what? We gotta just go to california forget my parole because we we're in Kate Fear, right? We're in like...

The Carolinas. But let's just drive across the country. But they're also doing this super heightened pillow talk. The way they talk about each other's bodies, the way they describe the sex that they've just had. Like, they're in like a dime store novel. And they're loving it. Like, this sort of disconnection.

Which is vastly different from the second half, where they're like not having sex, one of them's in bed, they're both closed all the time. And he's so low energy in the second, he's like, I just gotta go to sleep. When he says that in the second half, there's that moment where he's like, yeah, I just gotta go to sleep right now, because he doesn't want to talk to her about Bobby Peru.

You're kind of devastated. You're like, what? Come on, Sailor always has time to talk to her about Bobby Peru. You're kind of devastated. You're like, what? Come on, sailor always has time to talk to Lula. No, it's the darkness is there from the beginning. Yeah. But like they're sort of playing the role of being like young and in love and unencumbered. And they're trying to push that for as long as they can and ignore the other shit. I think when I saw this in college, though, I was like, yeah, this is what like, right, white hot romance is.

It's just like, you know, having constant sex in motels while talking about how like amazing it all is and then having to get on the road. And the movie is, you're so with it, but as I think I often forget about this movie, it runs out of steam intentionally to remind you that yes, you cannot simply outrun all your problems, especially if it's like lipstick covered Diane Ladd it runs out of steam intentionally to remind you that yes, you cannot simply outrun all your problems,

especially if it's like lipstick covered Diane Ladd trying to kill you. Like she can't just be run away from. That's a hard one to run away from. And as the movie goes on, they witness this car accident, as you said, basically right in the middle of the movie, Sherrilyn Fenn, right, playing the young victim. She's so good.

He cast her in Twin Peaks first and then this off of that. Is that right? I think so. I think, yeah. Cause he does the pilot of Twin Peaks before this and then the show after this, if that makes sense. And she is a man, and right, and it is this kind of like, oh, the illusion's been shattered a little bit.

The vibes are now bad. And now we're in Big Tuna, Texas. Yeah. A wonderfully named town. This is mostly a Texas movie. It begins and ends in California, but most of it's Texas and I guess a little New Orleans. Yeah, it's mostly shot in those three places.

Yeah. When you look for Big Tuna, it says Jim Halpert. He's Jim Big Tuna in the office. Yeah, it's mostly shot in those three places. Yeah. When you look for Big Tuna, it says Jim Halpert. He's Jim Big Tuna in the office. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Oh my God. I think of Bill Parcells, right? The famous Big Tuna.

No, I think of Jim Halpert. And like, for some reason, Big Tuna is like where Sailor is from, right? This is, right? This is the plot of the, I'm trying to tell you guys the plot of Wild at Heart. I need to help with the plot, please. Big Tuna, you know, he's got his old flame, Perdita Durango,

who is Isabella Rossellini, looking great, uh, with the blonde hair. An incredible look. I mean, just every time I watch it, I'm like, that can't be her. Yeah. There's something, it's bizarre how much the hair changes her entire vibe. And then it feels like her eyebrows are even darker and bushier than they usually are in contrast. Also, her last scene in the movie,

it's like she's visibly wearing a wig. Did you guys notice that? Maybe they shot it later or something? Well, like, the... Her first chunk of scenes, it looks like her hair has just died, right? And her final scene in the car, it's like the wig is not fitting properly. You see her... Or it's like her hair has just died, right? And her final scene in the car, it's like the wig is not fitting properly. You see her...

Or it's like too far back. Her real hair sticking out from underneath. It's not just like the wig looks fake. It's not attached properly. And I can't... Do you think that's intention? I don't know, because I could also see it being like, she comes out of the trailer, the wig isn't pinned down,

she's like, I gotta fix this, and Lynch is like, no, that's perfect. Yeah, totally. Yeah, they do look kind of different. That last scene where they're driving in the car and it's Bobby Peru and her, right? In like the same seats that the two, that our heroes were in. And then this character...

Is the Rosie Perez movie. Exists in other Barry Gifford novels? Correct. There's lots of Barry Gifford novels about Sailor and Lula and this world. She's like the Rey Nicolette weaving through all of these. So there is a different movie called Perdida Durango, also called Dance with the Devil, which stars Rosie Perez.

And Hector Bardem with one of the worst haircuts in history. Oh, he does look bad. Yeah. Which is, yes, also set in history. He looks bad? How does he look bad? I'll show you.

Yeah, I'll send you a picture. Yeah, please. He looks very silly in this movie. And, but anyway, yeah. And so she's kind of there and she's sympathetically lending an ear, but she also knows that Diane Ladd's trying to kill them. And then Bobby Peru shows up

and is just like the worst vibes of all time person. But they can't leave because Lula's pregnant and sick... in bed, I guess? That's sort of what... I do spend some of the middle of this movie being like, just leave! Like, don't hang out with Bobby Peru. He's obviously no good. But it's almost this sense of like, entropy kicking in.

Yeah. Where they cannot figure out... Right, it's like they sense of like entropy kicking in. Yeah. Right. Where they cannot figure out. Right. It's like they've gotten to the point that they never thought they'd have to actually meet. There are people who aren't thinking about their future and are trying to run away from their past. Did you send a picture? I sent a picture to Tatiana. Yeah, it's brutal. It's pretty bad.

It's really bad. I mean, the guy's not afraid of bad haircuts. No. I was gonna say, with a cannon of wild hair choices. It's not good. Yeah. I feel like I've heard that movie's not afraid of bad haircuts. No, I was gonna say, within a cannon of wild hair choices. But it's not good. Yeah. I feel like I've heard that movie's good though. Okay, I'll check it out.

Yeah. I don't, yeah, I believe you. I mean, I love Rosie Perez. Yeah. I'm being honest. Okay. Feels like you think I'm being insincere right now, but I'm into it.

I'm just trying to break through this wall you're constructing, David. I'll do it, I'll do anything you want me to do. No, I think it's just like like these are two people who never thought about actually having to make these types of tough decisions. Yeah. We haven't mentioned that like the flashback, the horrible flashback Lula has to her rape

when she's a teenager from this sort of family friend that then when Bobby Peru kind of accosts her in the hotel, he's in a motel, no hotel. He's also kind of summoning up like her worst sort of nightmares, right? Right, and she's talked about this from like early on in the film. She's like told the story to Sailor.

This is sort of the like fake uncle who filled the void when her father died. And the narrative she'd always been told is that her father self-immolated, that he like set himself on fire. Oh, right, yeah. And what we come to understand as the movie went on is why am I forgetting the name?

And not Cactus. What's the... Cactus is the other guy. There's so many, like, bad criminal men in this movie. Um... Is the guy named Cactus? Marcella Santos. Yeah, J.E. Freeman's character. Yes.

Mr. Reindeer? Yes. Thank you. The English guy. I don't know how I got to Cactus. Yeah, I don't know. But that he was, uh, perhaps set on fire. Right. Right, I don't know. But that he was perhaps set on fire. Right, right. This was not intentional.

He was murdered. He was murdered. Yes. There is a cut scene from the film of the murder of Harry Dean Stanton that's very long and torturous that Lynch apparently showed at two test screenings and basically like almost all of the audience

walked out during it. And he did after one, he was like, well, let me try it one more time. And after a second time, he was like, I guess I need to cut this back a lot. Karygene Saiten is also like the most sympathetic character in the movie. He is, you kind of feel for her. I feel like it would be too painful

to watch him get punished. Yes. He, Sailor agrees to rob a feed store with Bobby Peru. It's such a bad idea. I don't know why I'm criticizing the realism of this movie. Bobby Peru is this classic, like, Lynch archetype of one person who seemingly is the manifestation of everything that's bad in the world.

He's not a good guy. Right. And there's the notion of, like, you need money because you have, you know, Lula's in a family way. Yes. Just do one crime with me. Right.

I have a gun for you. I have a mask for you. No one's going to get hurt. They robbed the place. Bobby Pru immediately opens fire on everybody basically. And then it's like your next buddy. Yes. And it turns out Nicholas Cage has been loaded with blanks.

But also has already sexually assaulted Lula at this point. Like comes in with the pitch after he has. I mean, and that scene is such a good, I think, illustration of what, like... When, increasingly in the last, you know, 15 years, when women have felt more comfortable, like, sharing their stories of these kinds of horrible incidents, and stupid people will respond by being like, why didn't you just punch them in the face and run out of there?

Yeah. You know, like, how did you stay in the room? And I think Dern plays this so well of the actual just being frozen. Frozen and there's like that horrible thing that I think she's contending with, which is like the hand thing happens again in that scene. And to me, that feels like part of her is like also waking up again in a way. Like she's, she's been refreshing it. Sure.

Yeah. But like, not that it's like, you know, right or good, but that there's something about this, this encounter and this, um, danger, like, you know, we've seen her be aroused in a dangerous situation in the past. And so there's something about this that, like, shamefully also triggers that in her. And I think that it's so complicated, and I don't know exactly what is going on in that scene,

but it's also shot in, like, a weird porn way in the beginning. It's, like, such a wide shot. It looks like it's on a stage. Suddenly. Yes, that motel room is the most like stagey of all the environments in the movie. Yes. Yeah, and especially in that scene,

it like backs up like almost to the edges of the walls. And it's like brightly lit, and they're just like sort of these two small objects moving within a very wide frame. And it's very strange suddenly in the, like sort of visual vocab of the movie. Like it feels very like jarring. And it feels like that thing of like the unwritten rules of behavior are like slowly being

eroded in this way where like he comes in and is like, you wanna fuck me. And she says no 20 times. She says it every way. She says- And he's obviously completely repulsive and they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. It's like an insane, you know-

She's saying it verbally, she's saying it with her body, she's saying it with her energy, and he keeps moving closer and closer to her and she's freaking out more and more. And then there's the moment when he actually makes contact and it's like she freezes. That's when she stops pushing back as aggressively. And you're watching it going like, is she enjoying this?

Has something shifted? Why is she becoming like complacent with this? Is she too terrified to move? I do think it's what you're saying of like, she's told the stories about her uncle to Sailor early on, but in a way where she's like kind of packaged it neatly. Yeah, totally. Like, this is a terrible thing that happened to me and I like hate it and I've come to

terms with it and it doesn't define me. But then when the actions are being repeated, it becomes like insurmountable in the same way that now like she's thinking about the abortion she had in relation to her current pregnancy. Well, it's like this pattern that she's found her life in, right? Like even running away hasn't stopped this thing from like continuing to haunt her. And as you said, like Sailor is the exact right amount of danger for her. She clearly is caught up in a pattern where her love language is tied to this sense of like, edginess and living carefree and breaking rules and whatever.

But it's what Lynch recognized in the book of like, he is emotionally intelligent. He does listen to her, you know? It's just the right balance of the two. And Bobby Peru is only the bad shit. Right, and the power imbalance, they're not looking at each other equally like Sailor and Lula do. It's like from a totally warped perspective.

Yeah. It's so gruesome. She doesn't tell Sailor about that. He doesn't know how Bobby Peru knows that she's pregnant. And he feels so discombobulated by this pressure of like, do I actually need to figure out how to be a solid person now? Like if we have a child, we can't just keep driving forever

and getting into fights at heavy metal concerts. And I guess that's why he's robbing a feed store because they will need money. Right. It's no longer that they just need like, gas in the tank and jizz in his balls. I's no longer that they just need like, a, you know, gas in the tank and, you know, jizz in his balls. Like, I don't know what they need,

like what they eat even. Like, I don't understand how they exist, except it just seems like they fuel each other. And now it's, you know, now it's not gonna work anymore. And his plan is so short sighted. I would maybe not rob a feed store in the middle of fucking nowhere. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. But no, the plan is very short-sighted

because you're not like, look, we robbed this one guy, each of us makes it out with $5 million, you never have to worry about... I think it's $5,000. This is what I'm saying. Bobby Prudence comes to him with something where it's like, if you do this one crime with me, your son is set. His college tuition is covered.

Let's just do it, who cares? Right, it's like $5,000, it's like that's not not gonna get you through labor. Yeah, maybe. And then he blows his head off in the greatest way. It is so crazy. I can only, look, I saw this movie in college on my little television in my room. I remember I rented it, you know, and I was so pumped for it.

And it was great. But imagine like seeing this movie live, 1990, being like, I don't know where this is going, but the Bobby Peru showdown is so tense. like seeing this movie live, 1990, being like, I don't know where this is going, but the Bobby Peru showdown is so tense. And then five minutes later, he shot his own head off of his body with a shotgun by mistake. Like, like it was a balloon.

Yeah. There's this. It just like landed on it wrong. This shot was altered for America. In Britain, it's bloodier in Europe and elsewhere. And this movie was gonna get an NC-17 and they slightly unbloodied it. You can see the differences.

I think the DVDs here have finally caught up to the unrated version, but I'm not sure. I think so. I think so. But anyway, it was a notorious bit of violence. Wild to me though, that there's so much violence in this movie that isn't just shot, somebody shooting their head off, but violence towards Lula, and that that would be the issue.

I know, well, that's the, of course. There's too much red paint all over. That's the absurdity of the MPAA, where, right, you can have the vilest content, but if it's not gory enough, they're like, yeah, whatever, sure, you can do that. Yeah, you can have the most upsetting content. We should also acknowledge we had to find an illegal upload

of this movie for you to watch it, because you're on the road filming, you are away from your physical copy, and this is one of those movies that is currently in an absolute rights like, rights void. Where it is not streamable anywhere, it's not rentable anywhere, it's out of print on Blu-ray. Most of the Lynch movies... That's why you gotta get DVDs.

Yeah. That's why you gotta buy DVDs. I mean, I have the shout Blu-ray, but yeah, I assume it's because this was like a polygram Samuel Goat. Like these companies are odd. It feels like Lynch has like, you know, so thoroughly hitched his wagon to Criterion and is like, you folks are the preservers of my catalog. You keep my movies in circulation. Rialto and Janice like plays them at revival theaters and they're streaming on Criterion Collection and this is one of the last ones that is not part of the Criterion deal.

I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually Yes, hard hard to watch now I just want to call out as we like talk about you know, Bobby Peru being this like wild shift in the movie The prelude to Bobby Peru is like they stop in this town and then you're introduced to four of the weirdest guys Sitting around a table like you get four weird guys and then they're like, you think these guys are weird? Meet Bobby Peru. Like Bobby Peru is like the aristocrats

in the Marvel version of the joke. The classy, yeah. John Laurie's in it? Is that John Laurie? Yes, yes. John Laurie, you got Jack Nance, right? We've got Frank Collison, who's one of those ultimate that guy actors.

Uh-huh. Is Pru Taylor Vince one of those guys? Yes, yes. Great guys. Yes. And this is it for them, right? It's just that... It's basically just that scene? It's just to be like, oh, here are four weird dudes with weird David Lynch energy. And then Bobby Pru comes and just one-ups them all.

There's also the Freddie Jones monologue at the bar, which is another just one of those. Just a scene of a guy being weird. Freddie Jones obviously using... Wait, is that the guy with the munchkin voice? Yes, correct. Yeah, he's got kind of a munchkin voice. It's like the big, tufty hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what that was a reference to, right?

Like that was supposed to be. Yes, he's like a lollipop guild guy. I mean, there's this movie, which I have not seen, called Lynch Ozz. Have you seen it, Griff? Yeah, I'm not a terrific fan of it. Sure, which is a documentary about his obsession with Wizard of Oz, right? I don't know much else about it. It's like a two-hour video essay runs a little thin if you ask me I've noticed that David Lynch likes the Wizard of Oz, right? But even like speaking of Jack Nance, is this his... No, he's in Lost

Highway. Lost Highway is the last... Jack Nance, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's his last performance for Lynch before he dies. But they like roll Jack Nance out. You'd think he's going to be the ultimate heightening of the weird dudes. His character's name is Double-O Spool. Pretty good name. And his opening line is, My dog barks some. Yes, that's right. That's what he's saying. He delivers it beautifully. Mentally, you picture my dog,

but I have not told you the type oh dog I have. Perhaps you might even picture Toto from The Wizard of Oz. But I can tell you, my dog is always with me. Arf. He says Arf. He says Arf.

Just perfect. How many times has Arf ever been said in cinema? By a human? Yeah. How would not that mean? Or a human as human, not a human as dog. Not the shaggy dog or... Right, right, right.

Puchinsky. The night bitch. The night bitch, of course. We all must pay our respects to the night bitch. She is coming. All hail the night bitch. Yeah, night bitch coming. Oh, Lord, she coming. Not night bitch. She is coming. I'll hail the night bitch night bitch coming Oh Lord, she got not your heads

So the last chunk of Wild at heart and again we as we've mentioned like in this middle part Nicolas Cage sailors energy has dwindled Mm-hmm, and it feels like it only comes to life when Bobby Pruitt like points a gun at him Then finally he's got a little fight in him left. But then he goes to prison. Now for seven years? Six years. Lula has their child and then they reunite and he meets his son and he's like, well, I guess you're my son. And it seems kind of like a big bummer. But almost immediately is like, you don't know me. It'd be easier if I just left.

Right. He basically is immediately pulling the, I gotta get out of here, I'm no good for you. And it feels like the movie is over. And then he sees Cheryl Lee as the Glinda the Good Witch in her bubble from The Wizard of Oz, the movie, we referenced it? Yeah, we did. Which I've noticed David Lynch likes a little bit.

And she says, don't turn away from Love, Sailor. And he, oh, he's already, he's had the fight with the men. French likes a little bit. He's kind of into it. And she says, don't turn away from love, sailor. And he's already, he's had the fight with the men and he used a homophobic slur against them and then he apologizes. Let's be clear, he apologizes. And runs after Lula and sings Lovely, Love Me Tender to her as a way of reuniting with her. Sending the audiences out.

With a great nose. I think feeling happy, maybe distressed nonetheless by this sort of like odd violent movie they saw. Yeah. But, you know, hopeful? Yeah, but I also think some people are then like, is he fucking with us? Why does this movie swerve into this

happy magical ending at the end? Right, and I do think it's very... intense, right, in a way, like the... the swerve. So intense that you can almost feel like the guy adapted a book with a bad, a sad ending, and then at the last five minutes wrote a few more pages that are like, and then there's a happy ending.

If it wasn't David Lynch, it might not work at all. It works fine for me watching the movie. I don't care. The swings in energy are part of the movie's general swings in energy, right? I think so. Yeah. Well, there's an undercurrent of is this just them grasping at

something that makes them feel young again? And then like, what happens, I'm always interested in like, what happens after he finishes this song? What happens, like when he's just like, the song's done and then they like have to walk over to the car and like get in the car and then they have to figure out what they're gonna have for dinner and like, is life gonna be romantic or is it just gonna go back to life? That's, I mean, his final realization, and you don't know how he's actually gonna be able to ride it out, but that he's like, I gotta just try to do day-by-day life.

Mm-hmm. Like, she's now had six years of, like, being a parent, and presumably having some more structured life that I have been deprived of. Which we don't see one second of. And he wants to run away from it. No, but she's got a blowout now. Her hair is slick. So we know that she's gotten her shit together.

She's gotten her shit together. I love the ending of Knocked Up, a movie I think about the ending specifically a lot. I do too, and I think a lot of people misread it at the time. Where they have been fighting for half of the movie at that point, then they just have the baby, they make up, I'm putting air quotes around it a little bit, and they drive home with the baby,

and the ending is happy, they're gonna have the baby together. They don't do the graduate thing of like, what now? No. But it also ends on kind of an innocuous joke. The movie ends on him making some joke about traffic. Yes. And like, you're kind of like, are they... Is this gonna work out, number one? And two, even if it does work out,

i.e. they raise this baby together and are married, is that gonna be wonderful for them? I don't know. Like, maybe. The movie's kind of about like, eh, you just kind of have to fit your life around what's happened to you. Now, I don't know why I'm maybe. The movie's kind of about like, eh, you just kind of have to fit your life around what's happened to you. Now, I don't know why I'm comparing it to Wild at Heart, but in Wild at Heart, it's like if you sit down for one second and you're like, yeah, wait, what are they gonna do next?

You don't know. I don't know how their life is gonna work or whatever. It's also the fascinating thing about the time jump, which, as you said, Tad, she's transitioned to a more mature hairdo, right? She's been raising this kid alone. Like, something shifted within her that he clearly immediately, like, pushes back against and is like, it'd be easier if you never knew me. You know?

It's like, you two are fine on your own. He doesn't quite know what his life is going to look like now. Like, she's a different person. And you kind of get the sense that he spent, like, six years in jail just still being Sailor Ripley and ready to come out and put the jacket back on and do his fucking thing. And it's like, they're not just gonna be, like, cranking the music and, like, riding with the top down for the rest of time.

And that's the scariest thing to him is he doesn't know what that looks like. You don't know if it's going to work out. But he's at least decided he wants to try. Yeah. But she goes off and at one point she gets out of the car and she has a moment where she's just crying. And it's like, is that like the disappointment of seeing him again? And it's like, you build up this person in your head and then you're just standing in front of them.

Or is he gonna leave or is it like, what is it? I don't remember exactly what she says at the end there, but... Yeah, there are almost like two things of... there, but... I think, yeah, there are almost like two things of... Is this person failing to live up to the vision or the picture you've been holding on to in your head for years while he was gone? Or is it like you're reintroduced to this guy and you realize how much you've changed? Right, yeah.

And maybe he's stuck in the same place. Right, he's still the snakeskin jacket guy. Ben, you haven't weighed in. I feel like while it hurts a Ben movie. Oh, for sure. About a dang freak or two. Yeah, there was some freakery. Style choices.

Oh my God. Yeah. This is such a movie just for like, I feel like it's style has been like, uh, referenced in a many of, uh, referenced in many of fashion brands. Yeah, sure. Like, I feel like people always are looking to this film. This is what I'll say. Hachimachi.

Oh, thank you. Couldn't have said it any better myself. Booga booga. My eyes are bursting out, steam coming out of my ears. Our finest film critic. That's really all I have to say. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, Griff. Uh, do you feel better or worse about this movie removed from the Nicholas Cage? Before we do like the box office camp. Watching in the Nicholas Cage context was interesting because it was also like, I've been doing a similar thing now where I've been trying to go through Michael Keaton's filmography in chronological order under less duress. Yeah, take your time on that one. And he made fewer films.

I'm not rewatching as many of the ones I've seen before, but it does become this distortive effect. And this was all like leading up to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice where I'm like so caught up in the language of how this one guy operates and thinking about his place in time and like what all these movies were as decisions, you know, like watching them in order,

it's like, what was he trying to do? What was he responding to or like trying to overcorrect from the last movie or what was he working towards trying to change the way people saw him. And so the first time I watched this, it was in that kind of context for Cage, where I, you know, wrote this whole fucking piece for an iPad-only magazine that was never published

about, like, feeling like I was time traveling through 30 years of Nicolas Cage's life and all his, like, hopes and dreams and ambitions. And this just felt like it was one of those movies in the middle it's certainly one of the better ones where I was primarily looking at through like Cage is just trying shit he's like throwing everything at the wall this is one of the early times where he's like been minted enough that people trust him and they want his thing and his thing is proven, and he's with the right director who's encouraging him.

I'm, you know, watching it this time, I'm much more in the linch of it. I think the thing that's most interesting about this film to me is, you know, he talks so much about after Dune not wanting to adapt anything ever again, that he, like, hated the feeling of being beholden to a book and not being able to answer everything himself

because it didn't come from him. And you need to like fight the studio on things versus like, this is my vision, you just have to accept it. Versus them having their own ideas of how it would look or whatever. And then this is only six years later. And he's adapting a book that inspired him. I mean, it's really the last time he does that.

Obviously, like, the straight story is based on a, you know, true story, but he didn't write that movie anyway. And it comes to him as a finished script that he just decides to direct. Right. So this is the last time he's doing that, but clearly he had such a connection to Barry Gifford's writing, and then they worked on a movie together later.

Yeah. That's what's most interesting to me about this is just this feeling of like, what did he latch onto so strongly in this that he felt it overrode his own strategy? I think it makes total sense when he says it's just like it spoke to the violence of like late 80s America to him. Yes. And I get that. Like it's a way for him to reckon with things in his own special way, Bobby Peru.

Also, him making this simultaneous Bobby Peru, him making this simultaneous with the great Twin Peaks experiment, which is all, if it had run for as long as they hoped it would run, would have been about these never-ending cycles of violence. Sure. Do you like Twin Peaks? Have you ever done that? Done it, watched it.

Yeah. Have you ever lived it? I've lived it. I'm from Saskatchewan, baby. Yeah. That's as Twin Peaks as you get. Yeah. Yeah.

No, you're right. You're Twin Peaks would never have even doubt. It would always be about new. It's happening again. Yes, exactly. Right. And like his dream was that they would never solve the Laura Palmer mystery But when they were forced to solve it, he was like great then they'll just be a new crime

it's about how these things keep happening and Then when he's forced not forced to but when he like makes a movie to try to put an ending on the series That everyone felt unsatisfied by he makes the movie that is like you could argue Fire Walk with Me has a version of a happy ending, but... It has an ending. But that movie is also just about living in the cycles of darkness, and it's a movie that's stuck in a loop where you know the outcome, right? You're working towards a bad ending.

You're filling in a gap of suffering towards an inevitable outcome that we know is horrible. It's very interesting for him to make this movie at this point where he reads the book and is like, and I want like a magical fairy to come down to literally have it be Laura Palmer and like give them a magical release. I'm like, hey, guys, stand up and like step up and just kind of do the right thing

and try to engage with normal life. Do you think that was him saying that? Like that that's his, that that was his vision, like his worldview? Well, you know- That there is escape? You know what? This is what's also interesting about him is he's talked so much about like

his failed relationships in his life and his like kids with different women and how he like does struggle to connect with other people How like he is so first and foremost married to his art? But and not just his art but this idea of like I wake up I smoke five cigarettes I have 12 cups of coffee and I paint you know and then like and then I meditate for these hours like he lives this very rigid life and he talks talks about, I keep warning people not to marry me.

Because I don't know how to change my lifestyle. And his lifestyle- This feels totally wild at heart. It feels like all the characters kind of pulled apart, that he could be any of those threads. And his lifestyle isn't like, quote-unquote, dangerous or rebellious in this kind of way. And if anything, it's like very controlled, you know?

Mm-hmm. He talks so much, and I've been saying this a lot this series, but about like, he's like, I wear the same thing, I eat the same thing, I do the same thing at the same times because I'm trying to build my life around routines so that when I stop, my brain has more space for creativity because I'm eliminating the decision-making process

from most aspects of my life. But it also feels... It's like this... It, like, allows a container so that then the brain can go wild. Like, it can go off in directions that aren't that linear or rigid. Like, there's so little rigidity to what he makes. Right. He's like, my life is based on, like, can go off in directions that aren't that linear rigid. Like there's so little rigidity to what he makes.

Right, he's like, my life is based on like 10 presets that I don't question. If anything, once every two years, I change what the three meals I eat a day are, but they're still gonna be the same three things. I could do a whole brand overhaul, but then I'm committing to that for like two more years. And with his children, I think he's always sort of like, I don't really know how to like

build them into my lifestyle. You know, not that he's like emotionally distant or dismissive, but that and same with his like romantic partners. It does feel like that's sort of what's speaking to him. It is interesting he gives this movie the happy ending of the guy choosing to like double down and try it, when that has often not worked for him. Is there anything else you want to say about the film Tatiana before we played the box office game? No, I mean, I think the two times I've seen it now or whatever it's been, the first time I feel like was such a wash of just like joy at like the playfulness of it.

And I like didn't even like glom on to half the stuff that was happening. I was just like, this is just a, this is a ride. And it felt like, it felt like the music and all of his choices were really making you feel that sense of, like you're saying, the innocence of falling in love, the first and the heartbreak of it turning. And then the second time I watched it, I was so zeroed in on these amazing visual patterns. And maybe that's also what you're talking about, about the like, that there is patterns even visually

in what he brings back and that the cycle, even though it feels like chaos, there are these little touchstones of repeated images that work on you and that aren't necessarily linear, but drop in at different moments, these like emotional, because I don't feel like it's like a cold film at all. It feels really full of beating heart. Yeah, absolutely.

Yes. Yeah. But I don't have anything smart to say about it except that I like it a lot. I think it's really good. I think it's a good movie, you guys. Oh, yeah. Hot take. Griffin, this film came out August 17, 1990.

It was a mild hit. This is sort of the summer of Lynch, like you said. He's kind of hot stuff because of Quinn Peaks. He gets the Palme d'Or. He gets a lot of sort of newspaper coverage, I feel like, in a big kind of way. Cage and Dern are on the come up. Yeah, exactly. These are sort of newspaper coverage. I feel like in a you know big kind of way Cajun Durner on the come-up Yeah, exactly. These are these are sort of right up-and-coming stars and it makes 15 million dollars

Which is like not bad for a summer art movie essentially But it's opening number 10. Okay at the box office and sort of semi-limited August 1990. Yeah, dude This is a weird fun odd list. Okay, so was Ghost already out? No, Ghost Griffin, you have already guessed, is number two at the box office. Having been out for six weeks, it's made $100 million, and obviously, it is one of the hits of the summer.

And she makes the pottery. Wasn't it the highest grossing film of 1990? Am I wrong about that? I mean, if not the highest grossing, one of the highest grossing. Yes, it's the number one, Home Alone, and Pretty Women are the other pretty women. So those come out later.

Yeah, Home Alone is a Christmas movie. Is Die Hard 2 still in the top 10? No, Die Hard 2 is number 11 at the box office. Have you seen Ghost, Tatiana? Do you like Ghost? Oh, my God. Story about Ghost. Saw it first time about a year ago.

Wow. Didn't think I was gonna survive it. I wept uncontrollably. Oh my God, Story About Ghosts, saw it first time about a year ago. Wow. Didn't think I was gonna survive it. I wept uncontrollably, like, to a point where I was like, in a little bit of a depression for two days afterwards. I was like, that worked really well. It's incredibly cheesy. David recently on like, referred to it as a movie

that has rocks in its brains, which caused some... You guys, I talked to my therapist the day after I was like, I don't. referred to it as a movie that has rocks in its brains, which caused some... You guys! I talked to my therapist the day after I was like, I was like, I don't think I'm gonna be okay for a little bit. I support you completely. It was so sad! It is one of those movies, it's kind of insane that you're like, wait, it's just called Ghost? What's it about?

Oh, he's a ghost. And you're like, what is the plot of the movie? And they're like, oh, he was in love with her and they made the pottery and now he's a ghost. And you're like, what is the plot of the movie? And they're like, oh, he was in love with her and they made the pottery and now he's a ghost. And you're like, how is this a $600 million Oscar-winning sensation? And you're like- You don't need that, but you're like, what genre is it?

All of them? Yeah, it's like, oh, it's like a romantic comedy horror. Supernatural mystery. Right. And you're like, is it good? And people are like, I mean, not really, but it does completely work. Like, if I'm gonna watch a Swayze movie,

I'm gonna watch Dirty Dancing. Which I think is perfect in every single way. Ghost is a little more, you know, goopy, and so kind of like it's trying to make you cry and all that. And it is just one of those movies that, yes, when you look back on it, you know, goopy. And so it kind of like, it's trying to make you cry and all that. And it is just one of those movies that yes, when you look back on it, you're like, what? But when you're watching it, you're like, ah, ah, ah, ah.

It's sort of magical. Ghost is total eclipse of the heart for me. Ah, true, great comparison. It's the way that I feel when I was 10 and I heard that song for the first time. That song the first time I heard it, I was like, I didn't know music was allowed to sound like this. Correct. Even though it's so silly.

But it works. Then it keeps going. You keep going like, okay, I think I got the song. I think I know what the song is. Number one at the box office though, as a comparison, it's a horror film. Okay. It's a straight horror.

It's a straight sequel. Absolutely. Is it one of the icons of horror. Okay. It's a sequel. Straight horror. It's a straight sequel. Absolutely. Is it one of the icons of horror? Yes. It is. Although this is an odd series and its sequels are often only very loosely connected to each other.

And this is one of the most disconnected. It has, I would say, for film nerds, I would say it has the most famous jump scare of all time. It has the most famous jump scare of all time. It has the most famous jump scare of all time? Whenever you find those lists on websites of like, you know, the most famous jump scares, it's always basically number one. Is it The Exorcist 3? The Exorcist 3. William Peter Blatty's film.

Based on his novel. Don't tell me what this moment is because I know I'm supposed to watch it and I was told I shouldn't know what this jump scare is. I won't tell you and you should watch it. I bet you've never seen it. I feel like you're not a big Exorcist guy, Griffin. I love the original. Yeah. But you've never really delved into the Exorcist world.

No, and I feel like two and three were both hated when they came out and now have defenders. Well, two was hated. Uh, three was a sort of solid hit, but people were kind of like, huh, like this is an Exorcist movie because it's really just William Peter Blatty, the writer of the novel,

adapting another book he wrote called Legion, which is not connected to the Exorcist. And directed himself because they were like, how do we get back to what people liked about this? And kind of just vaguely bringing it into Exorcist land. But it's really basically a movie about like using the occult supernatural powers to catch the Zodiac Killer.

So shout out Shea Fillmore once again, because this happened at Trivia and I'm giving away what the answer is, but you're going to love this question. But it did boggle our mind until I think Marie finally cracked it. But it was like, what franchise has filmed entries in these years and only these years? Ah, yeah, right. And when you see the exorcist spilled out like that, it makes, you're like, how could that be possible? 73, 77, 90, 2004, 2005, 2023. It is weird, given how universal the Exorcist movies are

and like always enduring, right? People are always watching the Exorcist. But you're like, it's successful enough that they're not giving up on it, but the gaps are so big. And then you're like, it's successful enough that they're not giving up on it, but the gaps are so big. And then you're like, how could there be back to back 04 and 05, but not 06? And you're like, oh, cause they made the same movie twice

with two different directors and then released both of them. They did, they did do that. George C. Scott, of course, is the star of The Exorcist three gang. It came in very quiet and small performance. And Linda Blair's not in that one. No, but Jason Miller is, spoiler alert.

Number two is Ghost. Number three, it was number one the week before. It is a sort of sexy horror movie with a bunch of young stars. In 1990. In 1990. It's not Flatliners. It is Flatliners.

It is! Flatliners. With He For Sutherland, Canada Zone. He For Sutherland, Julia Roberts. You can claim him, T Zone. Mm-hmm. He for Sutherland, Julia Roberts. You can claim him, Tapp. I got him. Julia Roberts, Billy Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and Mr. Bacon.

I know it mostly is back when I used to really care about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, it was a great one for that. Oh, sure. Connects you to a lot of people. Yeah. It's a, that is a movie with rocks in its brain. Yes.

That is a stupid movie. It's pretty fun. is a movie with rocks in its brain. Yes. That is a stupid movie. It's pretty fun. Pretty fun Joel Schumacher movie where he's pumping the dry ice and everyone's hot and feathered hair and all that. And then they did their like remake legacy cool. And everyone was like, you're pushing it guys. Get out of here.

You can't make us reinvestigate this premise. I've said this before, but I was a TIF one year that that movie was the September release, right? The early, the Labor Day horror movie. And so I had to watch the trailer for a million times at the Scotiabank Theater just playing over and over again while I waited in line. Anyway, shout out Toronto,

where Tatiana currently is. Number four at the box office, new this week, Griffin. A very strange movie, one I've never seen, crime comedy. I've probably seen it. Yes. Crime comedy. Hmm. I've probably seen it. Yes. Crime comedy with two big comedy stars that is also inspired. It has the same inspiration as a big drama

from the year before. No, the same year. The same year. The same year. There's a big drama movie coming out later this year that is also about this thing, this guy. Oh, it's My Blue Heaven. My Blue Heaven. Are you aware of this, Tatiana?

No, what are you talking about? It's a Nora Ephron comedy. She didn't direct it, but she wrote it. Yeah. Nicholas Puzo. Starring... Nicholas Pledgy. Nicholas Pledgy, who wrote Goodfellas, the book, a nonfiction account, right? Nora Ephron is married to him.

The book was called Wise Guy, but yes. Yes. Nora Ephron is married to him, and she writes a movie about a gangster going into witness protection. Basically, what is the ending point of Goodfellas, where now this guy is living in the suburbs, and she is so, like, lit up by that idea that she writes a broad comedy starring Steve Martin.

What? And Rick Moranis as his hapless next-door neighbor. No, Rick Moranis is the... Wait, did you say Rick Moranis? Rick Moranis is the Fed who's in charge of him. Steve Martin and Joan Cusack are the couple. Right, are playing Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco, ostensibly. But it comes out months before Goodfellas.

Like this husband and wife do their own versions of the same story, except hers is kind of a fictionalized sequel. It doesn't really make much of an impact. I feel like it's not a well-known movie for those actors, really. It's Steve Martin with like a flat top and like a big suit. Have you seen it?

Yeah. Is it any good? It's kind of funny seen it? Yeah. Is it any good? It's kind of funny. Cool. Yeah. Number five at the box office is a film that I really enjoy, a very fun legal movie that, and this has never happened before,

since got turned into a bloated mini series on an expensive streaming network recently. Starting incredibly sane actors. Starting an incredibly normal actor who's famous and has an Oscar nomination in the web? Presumed Innocent. Presumed Innocent. Yes.

Oh, mon dieu. ["Presumed Innocent"] ["Presumed Innocent"] ["Presumed Innocent"] Presumed Innocent, the Harrison Ford, Alan Pakula movie that is a blast. Great movie. But, you know, I'd always watch it and go,

this is too tight. Could this be 10 episodes? It's too focused. With maybe a cliffhanger for season two? Water this down for... Yeah, exactly. Just like add stuff that's nothing. This steak doesn't have enough gristle and fat on it.

Honestly, I haven't seen Presumed Innocent. Plenty of people have told me it's a pretty fun watch. The TV show, to be clear. Yeah. I have not seen it. You know what is also fun? The movie! Watching it five times.

Just watch that movie five times. That's a way to spend 10 hours. Have either of you seen Presumed Innocent? The movie? Yeah, it's fun. No? Number six at the box office is the, I would say somewhat forgotten Roger Spottiswoode movie, Air America, starring Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr.

I'm sure that was a very normal chill set. I think that is one of the, well, that's the start of their relationship. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, they're genuinely, yes. Yes, yes. It's the start of their friendship. Yes.

Number seven is the Disney movie Taking Care of Business starring Jim Belushi. Oh, of course. Have you seen that movie? I have not. That's the one where he's, the poster is him like riding a car like a surfboard. Correct. He's on top of the car. He's the one where he's the poster is him like riding a car like a surfboard.

Correct. He's on top of the car. He's a car thief who wants to go to the World Series. Have you seen Taking Care of Business, Ben? Why haven't you seen this movie? I have not. I don't know. He's taking care of business. But that is a good question. What is it about? He's just a car thief and he wants to go to the World Series. Right, it was written by J.J. Abrams, an incredibly young. He's won tickets to the World Series, but he has two days left to serve in prison and his warden won't let him leave. So he stages a riot and escapes from prison

to go to the game. And then he steals Charles Groton's filofax of business stuff. And then they get involved in a bunch of antics. It sounds very complicated. Wait, where's the nearest porch? I gotta go watch this. Yep, Ted has pulled up the poster.

There it is, yes. I love it. And he's oversized. It makes him look like he's a giant riding a tiny car like it's a roller skate. Just because a Canadian, again, a Canadian is on our podcast this week, Bachman Turner Overdrive,

who wrote the song Taking Care of Business, they're Canadian. For Winnipeg. Sure. There you go. I love how pissed off Charles Groton is. He's not happy that that guy's surfing on his car. I wanna also say, Jim Belushi looks like he's four times the size of Groton.

I was just saying this. The scale is so odd. I'm sorry, I was really, I was trying to pull my Winnipeg back. His poster has Beethoven vibes where it's like this giant monster dog and Drodens shaking his fist at him. I will, maybe four times a year, just when I have some downtime,

click on Jim Belushi's Wikipedia, go to Filmography, and just kind of Marvel at like. There were years of him. 10 years. As a star. There were basically 10 consecutive Jim Belushi vehicles. The principal, real men, Red Heat, that's a real man. There were basically ten consecutive Jim Belushi vehicles. The principal, real men, Red Heat, that's a real movie. Canine.

Canine, Homer and Eddie? Like, these movies where you're like, what were these movies? These are movies where either he is the lead, Mr. Destiny. Yes, above the line, yes. He's either above the, he's the one guy above the title or it's a two-hander. And you look at them and you're like, was one of these a huge hit and these were the rough? No, all of them did okay.

There's not one of them that was like... But he didn't have one that was like, one out of the box, had to be their success. He was just Belushi. He was John Belushi's brother. People were so sad at the loss of John Belushi that they were like, we cannot stop making Jim movies. Have you seen Twin Peaks The Return yet? No, I know he's good, and I'm proud.

He is unbelievable in Twin Peaks The Return. You're about to see it. This is the thing. Anytime he shows up as a character actor now, I think he kind of kills it. Are you gonna like watch it in Europe? Are you gonna be watching Twin Peaks The Return? What's your plan?

Maybe. You gotta do it. I know. That's my plan. Hey. All right, number eight at the box office, big kid comedy, Problem Child. Oh, Ben. That's your plan. Maybe. You gotta do it. I know. That's my plan. Hey. All right. Number eight at the box office,

a big kid comedy, Problem Child. Oh man. That's a bad movie. Yeah, for sure. Number nine. That was a movie that I watched and took notes. Right, you were like, I'm inspired. That's interesting, I like that, okay.

Number nine, another pretty dumb movie, Young Guns 2. Not sure we needed a second one of those, and then number 10 is Wild at Heart. But yeah, it's a fun, dumb 90s. Yeah. Early 90s time. Diane Ladd, the only Oscar nomination? For Wild at Heart, yes.

Right. Somewhat unsurprising, I suppose, in a way, but yeah, that's, it won the Palme d'Or, maybe got like a Baftanum, got a Golden Globe just for Lad. Willem Dafoe got an Indy Spirit nomination and Lynch is at his height. And as you'll say, as you said, like within a year or two,

he's kind of a cook goose. And Fire Walk with me is coming out and people are like, you know, airs out of this balloon. There's that Tarantino quote where he talks about going to see Fire Walk with Me. And he was like, I just realized I'm done with the guy. He's cooked. He's gone so far up his own ass. He's never coming back. And the quote ends with it's like the line from Jackie Brown,

where he's like, what happened to you, man? You used to be beautiful. He's like, I used to love this guy. But that's like him quoted from when like pulp fiction Jackie Brown was coming out when it was like, he's done. There's a five year gap in between movies. People don't like lost highway at the time. Like this is the final moment of him being on top of the world until

Mulholland is seen as a comeback. Not to get ahead of our narrative. Now, are we doing Joker next week? Is that still the plan? Are we pushing it a week? What's our plan? Tatiana, I don't know if you've heard of the Joker. A man, we call him the Clown Prince of Crime. Who finds the things that make us cry funny.

Yes, he's just... He laughs at the things that scare us all. Interesting emotional response. And I think we have a civic duty. Now, when you say civic... A moral obligation. When you say duty. Yeah, when you say doodoo.

D-U-D-O-D-D-I-E. To cover his new film, Follyada. There is a bit of a campaign pushing back against me. What was your suggestion, Sims? There's this, there's the movie Goodrich, There was a bit of a campaign pushing back against me. What was your suggestion, Sims? There's this, there's the movie Goodrich, starring Michael Keaton and directed by Nancy Meyers' daughter, Hallie. And we did cover her other movie.

We did. So we nominally could cover that instead. Yes. Or we could do both. Yes. But if we do both, we have to push Joker a week, I think, to make it a combo episode. Well, here's what I'm gonna say

Then insert the audio clip of what we decided to do right here. I think taking care of business is a great idea Well, see us next week for whatever it is that it'll be something it's something it's always something Tatiana you're the best. Thank you for making time to do this. Thanks for having me. Oh, what a joy. While knee deep in travel and work. Is there anything you want to plug? Yeah, what's going on?

I guess I will plug the movie The Monkey, how it did with Oz Perkins. Who? How it did Long Legs. Yeah. Who? Anthony Perkinson, director in his own right. Yeah. Fantastic. Oz Perkins. Who? Did Long Legs. Yeah. Who?

Anthony Perkinson, director in his own right. Yeah. Fantastic. Great. I think it's going to be a fun movie. I don't know though. I'm very excited for it. Yeah, David and I will come all in on that guy.

We're really into it. Yeah. Yeah. He's a super weirdo and he casts weirdos and he hires weirdos and everybody on his set is very kind and and cares a lot. Is it coming out this fall? I think it's coming out in Feb. This is a long game plug.

I saw the trailer though already. Yep, they've got the trailer. There's some kind of monkey. Yeah. Yeah, it's a teaser. There's sort of a monkey. It's a teaser. And the things that make us cry, make him... Eee-oo-oo. He's a bit of a joker. This monkey. It's a teaser. Yeah. And the things that make us cry make him eat eat oo oo.

He's a bit of a joker. Yeah. Does monkeys got joker vibes? He's a little joker. He sleeps by walking. What a coo. You got the shy guy to show up. Can I say it?

That guy kind of the joker of actors. Yeah, seriously. He does things so twisted like abandoning the movie five days before it's going to start filming. The kind of thing that makes financiers cry. Yeah, exactly. But makes him laugh. Maybe.

Total Joker vibes. Very excited for The Monkey and everything else you are doing and working on. And excited to see you again in person sometime, Tatiana. That would be nice. Yes, that would be nice. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for whatever we're doing next week.

Thank you to Marie Bardi for helping to produce the show, social media. Thank you to AJ McKeon for our editing. He's also our production coordinator. Lane Montgomery and The Great American Novel for our theme song, JJ Biron for our editing. He's also our production coordinator. Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel for our theme song, JJ Birch for our research, Jabon Patril for our artwork. You can go to blankcheckpod.com

for some links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, where we do franchise commentaries. The only time we've covered Nicolas Cage in the past, and right now we are in the end of Tapertop Games. We just did an episode on Ouija, Origin of Evil, and coming up, we have our Twin Peaks Season 2 episode. Oh, well, look at that.

We gotta record that. That will be recorded. Hopefully. Ooh. We'll get it done and as always while it hurt is a movie for dang asterisks full of things Nightbets coming. Nightbets coming. Nightbets coming.