Blank Check — Patreon: Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free)

Published 2022-08-21; 2:06:02 by the feed.

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

The extraction calls the show “Blank Check with Griffin & David (Patreon)” and the episode “Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free)”.

Hosts: Griffin Newman, David Sims, Ben Hosley (producer, in the room). Guests: Sarah Marshall.

Subject films: Paths of Glory (1957).

On the transcript: No speaker labels and the Whisper-style transcript has many run-on lines; speaker attribution for the historical dossier material is guessed (David reads most of it). The episode is described as ad-free but a Mubi sponsor read appears at 1:36:45 to 1:38:26.

Films that came up

Claims (68)

theme (theme): Blackadder (TV) → Paths of Glory. Growing up on Blackadder, the speaker finds some childlike charm in trench life and felt guilty thinking it during Paths of Glory.
“I was kind of thinking that while watching this, which immediately was a thought I felt very guilty for.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:04:22 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Dr. Strangelove. Strangelove pushes the same absurdity far enough for jokes, so the two films are more closely linked than the speaker had thought.
“Like Doctor Strangelove pushes it into a level of absurdity where you can actually have jokes.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:12:05 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
people (people): Griffin Dunn → Practical Magic. Griffin Dunn directed Practical Magic, a darker film than people remember (there is a zombie).
“There's a zombie in that movie.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:16:27 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Practical Magic → Addicted to Love. Practical Magic and Addicted to Love share Griffin Dunn's strange, dark tonal mix.
“I realized I felt the same about addicted to love”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:16:48 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → Barry Lyndon. Sarah picked Paths of Glory over Barry Lyndon, which she loves but finds taxing to watch.
“I do love Barry Lyndon, but like, just the idea of watching it, you just like kind of, You know, it's like taxing in a different way.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:18:43 · Sarah Marshall (0.90 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Paths of Glory → Spartacus. The speaker expected Paths of Glory to be a Spartacus-scale Kirk Douglas epic, as the poster implied.
“similar to Spartacus in terms of like scale”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:21:58 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Paths of Glory → Dr. Strangelove. Strangelove is the nearest thing Kubrick made to Paths of Glory afterward, both being people talking through absurdity.
“the closest thing he's made to this since this is Strangelove, because Strangelove is also people talking through absurdity by and large”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:22:29 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Stanley Kubrick → Fear and Desire. Kubrick's four explicit war movies are Strangelove, Fear and Desire, Full Metal Jacket and Paths of Glory.
“This strange love, fear and desire, and full metal jacket.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:23:34 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Paths of Glory → The Wire. David Simon reportedly cites Paths of Glory as the number one influence on The Wire: institutions chewing up the people on the ground.
“David Simon cites this regularly as the number one influence on the wire?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:25:11 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): David Simon → Paths of Glory. The speaker calls Paths of Glory a Rosetta Stone for Simon's stories of institutions versus the people below.
“this is the sort of Rosetta Stone, if you will, for him.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:25:22 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Star Trek: The Next Generation / Deep Space Nine (TV). The Cardassian trial episode, where guilt is decided before the trial starts, is likened to the courtroom in Paths of Glory.
“In our in our legal system, the trial is just an arena for us to yell at you.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:27:28 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Die Hard. The FBI men in Die Hard accept losing 25 percent of the hostages, the same numbers-game thinking as the generals.
“the FBI are like, yeah, we're going to lose 25% of the hostages, but like, that's pretty good for us.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:30:13 · Sarah Marshall (0.60 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → Die Hard. Die Hard asks how much good one good guy can do and answers all of it; Paths of Glory answers none of it.
“the whole premise of Die Hard is like, how much good can like one good guy manage to get done?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:31:40 · Sarah Marshall (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Humphrey Cobb → Paths of Glory. Paths of Glory is based on Cobb's novel, which Kubrick read in high school and never forgot.
“Humphrey Cobb's novel pads of glory.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:33:38 · David Sims (0.70 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Bicycle Thieves. A joke that Paths of Glory is as big a bummer as Bicycle Thieves, which is why nobody wanted to fund it.
“up there with bicycle thieves.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:34:22 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
people (people): Jim Thompson → Paths of Glory. Thompson, who wrote The Killing, was brought back to adapt Paths of Glory.
“They bring in Jim Thompson, who writes, you know, who wrote uh, wait, what did he write?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:34:31 · David Sims (0.70 sure it was them)
people (people): Jim Thompson → The Killing. Thompson wrote The Killing.
“he wrote the killing, right?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:34:37 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Kirk Douglas → Gregory Peck. Peck was an alternative to Douglas but reads as selfless, where Douglas carries an edge of histrionics.
“Whereas Gregory Peck always felt kind of selfless, you know?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:36:28 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Gregory Peck → Kirk Douglas. On a lifeboat Peck is the safe-daddy type; Douglas would level with you and drink seagull blood.
“if you're on a lifeboat with Kirk Douglas, like, you're going to be drinking seagull blood and singing sea shanties and like he's going to level with you.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:36:50 · Sarah Marshall (0.85 sure it was them)
career (career): Kirk Douglas → The Bad and the Beautiful. Douglas in this era is a harder-edged man out of time, as in The Bad and the Beautiful or Ace in the Hole.
“Like when you see him in things like this or the bad and the beautiful or ace in the hole or whatever, you're like, this is, there's no one like this in the 50s, right?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:37:41 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Harrison Ford → The Mosquito Coast. On Inside the Actors Studio Ford calls The Mosquito Coast his favorite of his films.
“they talk about the mosquito coast, which I think he says is his favorite movie he made.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:38:32 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Kirk Douglas → Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford tried to continue Douglas's tradition of using star power to get tricky movies made.
“Harrison Ford was kind of trying to keep the Douglas tradition going”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:39:53 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Paths of Glory → The Killing. The overcomplicated hard-boiled dialogue of the rewrite is the kind that rules in The Killing.
“that's like the kind of dialogue that like rules in the killing.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:41:29 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): Kirk Douglas → Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick assumed what a Kirk Douglas movie should be; Douglas wanted to use his stardom to make other kinds of movies.
“And Kirk Douglas was like, I don't want to make Kirk Douglas movies.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:42:27 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Titanic → Paths of Glory. The Titanic legend of Cameron refusing studio cuts is told as a parallel to Douglas and Kubrick fighting over the ending.
“This reminds me of a story I love from the production of Titanic”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:42:36 · Sarah Marshall (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (industry): Stanley Kubrick → James Cameron. Kubrick, like Cameron, would rather lose a film than lose control of how he makes it.
“It's it's sort of the Cameron thing of like, what's a worse fate for him than not being able to make a movie is not being able to make a movie the way he wants to.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:44:01 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → All Quiet on the Western Front. The only plausible rival as the great World War I film; All Quiet is a pre-code, unsanitized, unjingoistic picture.
“It's not jingoistic or sanded down.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:46:26 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → 1917. The single whistle-blowing sequence in Paths of Glory is more harrowing than all of 1917's unrelenting one-shot.
“the one whistleblowing sequence with Douglas for me is so much more harrowing and tense than anything in 1917”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:47:14 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Born on the Fourth of July. The appeal that sells young men on war is the first 20 minutes of Born on the 4th of July, before reality.
“the initial appeal of it, you know, the like 1st 20 minutes of born on the 4th of July”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:52:22 · Griffin Newman (0.45 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Full Metal Jacket. Full Metal Jacket shows how systems hype young men up for war before reality hits; Paths of Glory shows the illusion falling apart.
“the thing that I think full Metal Jacket does particularly well, is you sort of understand the way these systems are built to hype these young men up”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:55:14 · Griffin Newman (0.85 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → Highlander. A pan-European accent like Christopher Lambert's in Highlander is worse than generic American speech.
“A pan-European accent sounding like Christopher Lambert and Highlander.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:57:55 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Paths of Glory → Inglourious Basterds. There are two ways to handle accents: the Basterds way of casting real nationalities, or letting actors use their own accents as here.
“There's the inglorious bastard's way where you're just like, everyone's actually going to speak the language they would speak”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:58:11 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → Valkyrie. Valkyrie mixes an American lead with British cast, which is the accent problem Paths of Glory sidesteps.
“it's the huge problem with Valkyrie.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:58:39 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → Alexander. Oliver Stone's Alexander is the weirdest accent solution: Macedonians in Irish accents.
“The weirdest approach, of course, is what Oliver Stone did with Alexander, where he was like, the Macedonians will speak in Irish accents.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:59:12 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
what-if (what-if): Mark Wahlberg → Paths of Glory. A Paths of Glory remake would have every other actor doing a reverse Wahlberg accent.
“You remake paths of glory with Mark Wahlberg and everyone else has to do a reverse Wahlberg reverse engineered Wahlberg accent.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:00:16 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
people (people): George Macready → Vincent Price. Macready and Vincent Price were best friends who ran an art gallery in Beverly Hills.
“he and Vincent Price were best friends, and the 2 of them in Beverly Hills owned an art gallery”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:02:38 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): George Macready → Johnny Allegro. The speaker found a headshot of Macready from Johnny Allegro on Wikipedia.
“He's in, it's a headshot from this movie called Johnny Allegro, which is a great movie.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:04:05 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): Adolphe Menjou → A Star Is Born. Menjou's career credits include A Star Is Born and an Oscar nomination for The Front Page.
“He's nominated for an Oscar for the front page.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:05:15 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
people (people): Adolphe Menjou → Peter Sellers. Menjou looks like a serious Peter Sellers, or how Sellers tries to make himself look.
“He looks like what how Peter Sellers tries to make himself look.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:05:30 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
programming (programming): Predator → Prey. She is watching Predator as homework before the prequel Prey.
“I'm doing my homework before watching Prey, the predator prequel”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:16:31 · Sarah Marshall (0.90 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Predator. Predator is the closest she gets to a war movie: a finite group dealing with a scary thing.
“it's like a finite number of people at a remote location dealing with a scary thing.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:17:05 · Sarah Marshall (0.90 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Predator → Commando. Predator and Commando are combat movies not war movies, like the Top Gun films that abstract the war away.
“Predator I think of is more of a combat movie than a war movie, you know, and like commando is the same”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:18:09 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Predator → Top Gun (both films). Top Gun's success comes from abstracting the war into pure combat.
“it's the reason why the 2 Top Gun movies are so wildly successful because they sort of abstract the war so much”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:18:09 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Deep Blue Sea → Paths of Glory. Renny Harlin movies include a character saying I don't want to die, as Carey does in the Paths of Glory death scene.
“Deep Blue Sea and Cliffhanger, where someone who's about to die horribly says, I don't want to die.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:20:56 · Sarah Marshall (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Saving Private Ryan. Saving Private Ryan is a parallel to Paths of Glory: both turn on an absurd mission and the question of what heroism means.
“Saving Private Ryan, I think, is an incredible parallel to paths of glory because it's also about a very absurd mission”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:22:08 · Sarah Marshall (0.60 sure it was them)
contrast (contrast): Paths of Glory → Saving Private Ryan. They are inverse movies: Ryan follows through for a symbolic victory and micro empathy, Paths of Glory is about covering for the boss.
“they're kind of inverse movies because saving Private Ryan is like, we need to follow through on this mission.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:23:17 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
people (people): Timothy Carey → Stanley Kubrick. Paths of Glory was Kubrick and Carey's second film together and their last.
“this is Kubrick and Tim Carey's 2nd movie together and very much, uh, their last.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:25:20 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career): Joe Turkel → The Shining. Turkel, from many Kubrick movies, becomes the bartender in The Shining.
“becomes the bartender in the Shining, but also he's Tyrell and Blade Runner.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:27:59 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
career (career): Joe Turkel → Blade Runner. Turkel plays Tyrell in Blade Runner.
“becomes the bartender in the Shining, but also he's Tyrell and Blade Runner.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:27:59 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
career (career): Ralph Meeker → Kiss Me Deadly. Meeker is the lead from Kiss Me Deadly and was later in The Dirty Dozen.
“he's from Kiss Me Deadly. and he's, he was in the, he's in the Dirty Dozen later.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:29:52 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
people (people): Christiane Harlan → Paths of Glory. Kubrick's future wife sings the folk song at the inn that ends the film.
“the scene at the inn with Kubrick's future wife singing this folk song.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:30:43 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
theme (theme): Paths of Glory → Stand by Me. Admitting you live in a world of men, as Paths of Glory and Stand by Me do, beats token female characters.
“I love it when movies, like, don't pretend to be interested in women when they clearly aren't, you know?”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:31:20 · Sarah Marshall (0.85 sure it was them)
industry (industry): The Offer (TV) → The Godfather. The Offer sidelines Talia Shire and Diane Keaton, whose work on The Godfather was tangible.
“the show is like completely uninterested in like Talia Shire or Diane Keaton”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:34:23 · Griffin Newman (0.40 sure it was them)
career (career): Yann Demange → Blade (unmade Yann Demange Marvel film). Demange was possibly going to make a Marvel movie, famously not directing Blade.
“I was going to say, famously not directing Blade.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:37:48 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Stanley Kubrick → Killer's Kiss. Early films like Killer's Kiss and Fear and Desire are seen as the developmental stage.
“the sort of fear and desire, killer's kiss, the killing run feels like, well, that's the developmental.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:41:40 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Stanley Kubrick → The Killing. The Killing is where Kubrick first has a real grasp of the language; Paths of Glory sits after it.
“The killing is when he finally has sort of like a real grasp on the language.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:41:56 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
verdict (verdict): Stanley Kubrick → Roger Ebert. Ebert argued Paths of Glory might be Kubrick's best film.
“I think Ebert even argued it was perhaps his best film.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:42:20 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
what-if (what-if): Paths of Glory → National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. A Christmas Vacation-style rescue ending is imagined where Brian Doyle-Murray sorts everything out.
“we need to do the National Lampoon Christmas vacation ending where Brian Doyle Murray shows up”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:44:35 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
lineage (lineage): Paths of Glory → Spartacus. Kubrick makes Spartacus next partly because Paths of Glory made him no money.
“Which is one reason he's going to Spartacus because he really needs to make some money.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:45:25 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
programming (programming): Paths of Glory → The Bridge on the River Kwai. Box office game: Kwai, the 1957 Best Picture winner, was number one the week Paths of Glory went wide.
“number one at the box office, the week, the paths of glory goes wide, is the best picture winner of 1957”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:46:21 · David Sims (0.75 sure it was them)
programming (programming): The Brothers Karamazov → Yul Brynner. Box office number two; the speaker thinks it was made because Brynner is a Russian star.
“one reason that this movie is getting made is that the star is a Russian.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:47:45 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
people (people): Richard Brooks → The Brothers Karamazov. Brooks directed The Brothers Karamazov and also In Cold Blood and Elmer Gantry.
“It's from directed by Richard Brooks.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:48:16 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
people (people): Billy Wilder → Witness for the Prosecution. Box office number three is Wilder's courtroom drama with Charles Laughton as the prosecutor.
“it's a Billy Wilder film.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:49:34 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (craft): Around the World in 80 Days → Saul Bass. A speaker who watched only the five-minute opening sequence compares it to an early Saul Bass title sequence.
“It's like an early Saul Bass sequence.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:51:00 · Sarah Marshall (0.40 sure it was them)
programming (programming): Around the World in 80 Days → Jackie Chan. Number four was a rereleased Best Picture winner; Griffin has seen only the Jackie Chan version.
“I saw the uh, the Jackie, the Jackie Chan version.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:51:05 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
people (people): Delmer Daves → Cowboy. Cowboy, directed by Delmer Daves, stars Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon.
“Delmer Dave's movie.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:52:43 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
people (people): Dalton Trumbo → Cowboy. Cowboy was famously written in a bathtub by Dalton Trumbo.
“was famously written in a bathtub.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:52:55 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
programming (programming): The Hudsucker Proxy → Hail, Caesar!. If the show ever does the Coen brothers, Hudsucker and Hail, Caesar! are the episodes the hosts most want.
“If we ever do the Cohens, it's mostly for like the Hudsucker and Hail Caesar episodes, in my opinion.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:54:41 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)

Fun items (27)

fun, about Paths of Glory: The poster and tagline sell a Kirk Douglas action epic in the trenches; the film is fascinatingly not that.
“It makes it feel like this whole movie is going to be him in the fucking trenches wrestling people to the ground.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:00:55 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Stanley Kubrick: Kubrick's name is said Kubrick in America; reportedly he let people in England go on saying it the English way.
“And then when he went to England, people assumed it was cubric and he didn't correct them.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:13:08 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
fun, about Sarah Marshall: Her one viewing at the Portland Art Museum stuck for a decade.
“It's like entered into my soul like an expanding bullet.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:19:24 · Sarah Marshall (0.90 sure it was them)
fun, about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Cardassian-law episode gets confused with the Kardashians over Zoom.
“Both times you said it, I thought you said Kardashians.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:26:40 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Falstaff: Falstaff's war plan: stay in the tents filled with food and drink.
“I know that tents go with war that are filled with food and drink”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:29:04 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Die Hard: Die Hard's FBI agents: one says it reminds him of Nam, the other says he was too young.
“this reminds me of Nam. And the other guy's like, I wasn't in Nam, man.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:30:59 · Sarah Marshall (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: Harris-Kubrick got an MGM deal to write, produce and direct in 40 weeks for $75,000.
“they get a deal at MGM to write, produce, and direct a film in 40 weeks for a fee of $75,000”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:32:31 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: Kirk Douglas's name alone got a $1 million budget, and he took $300,000 of it.
“$1000000 budget based on Kirk Douglas's name, $300,000 goes to Kirk Douglas.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:35:13 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
fun, about Gregory Peck: On a lifeboat with Peck you sing songs; with Kirk Douglas you drink seagull blood.
“if you're on a lifeboat with Kirk Douglas, like, you're going to be drinking seagull blood and singing sea shanties and like he's going to level with you.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:36:50 · Sarah Marshall (0.85 sure it was them)
fun, about Kirk Douglas: In Munich the rewritten script had a happy ending; Douglas threatened to walk. Kubrick calmly said he wanted a commercial hit.
“he said, I did it to make a commercial.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:42:03 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
fun, about James Cameron: Told as a parallel: during Titanic, Cameron reportedly refused studio cuts.
“the only way to change my movie is to fire me and the only way to fire me is to kill me.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 0:42:51 · Sarah Marshall (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about George Macready: The big dueling-style scar is real, from a college car accident, though the film enhanced it.
“it is basically a real scar, that size that I think they made look a little more intense, that he got like driving in college”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:02:05 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about George Macready: Macready and Vincent Price co-owned a Beverly Hills art gallery that drew celebrities like Garbo.
“Greta Garbo would come out of her cave that she was living in seclusion to look at the fucking paintings that McCready and Price had on display”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:03:04 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Adolphe Menjou: Salvador Dali admired Menjou's mustache.
“Apparently Salvador Dali was a big fan of his. And declared that he had one of the best mustaches.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:05:34 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Adolphe Menjou: Menjou fought Kubrick over 42 takes; Kubrick quietly kept going until it was right.
“It isn't right, and we're going to keep doing it until it is right, and we'll get it right because you guys are good.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:06:17 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: Watch the opening: offices are wide, deep focus and silent; the trenches are claustrophobic noise.
“Kubrick's doing what later kind of becomes his definitive style of this sort of icy remove, super wide shot, deep focus, focusing on the silence”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:08:43 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: The jail cell is shot like a general's office because it is safer than the front.
“even something like the jail cell where they're being kept before the execution, he shoots more like one of the general's offices”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:09:41 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Saving Private Ryan: Griffin avoided it his whole life, took six hours to finish for the podcast, loved it, owns it on steelbook, will never rewatch.
“It took me 6 hours to finish watching it.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:19:37 · Griffin Newman (0.80 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: The most legally accurate moment in any movie: the lawyer cannot say anything relevant and is waved off.
“That's like the most legally accurate moment in any movie.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:25:07 · Sarah Marshall (0.60 sure it was them)
fun, about Timothy Carey: Kubrick shot Carey's close-ups first and let him go the moment they were done.
“they essentially fired him the moment his final close-up was done”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:25:39 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Timothy Carey: During production Carey staged his own kidnapping in Munich for publicity.
“But during the making of this film, he fakes his own kidnapping.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:26:13 · David Sims (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about Timothy Carey: In the death scene Carey bit the priest actor's arm; Emile Meyer hated it.
“Timothy Carey would do things like bite his arm and like, you know, harass him, essentially”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:27:28 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: See the line about keeping a condemned man conscious for the firing squad.
“If he's still alive in the morning, pinch his cheeks a couple of times, the general wants him to be conscious.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:28:29 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Timothy Carey: Carey ate a whole duck on every take, about 86 times, resetting with a fresh duck each time.
“The way he's eating it, they have to reset with a clean duck every time.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:29:23 · unknown (0.35 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: Kubrick was embarrassed to end the film on his future wife's song and promised it was not just a crush.
“I'm not putting her at the end just because I like her.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:30:57 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about Paths of Glory: Not shown to the French censors and pulled from Berlin because of protest.
“It was apparently not even shown to the French censorship board because they knew there was no chance that France would allow it.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:43:31 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Blank Check: Sign-off line of the Kubrick war episode.
“and as always, war is fucking stupid.”
Blank Check — Patreon · Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free) · 1:59:54 · unknown (0.40 sure it was them)

Who's talking

Griffin Newman (host): Admires well-made war films but finds them panic-inducing; prefers Full Metal Jacket to David. Likes the Coens (Hudsucker Proxy) and the box-office game ritual inherited from his father. Responds to Kirk Douglas as a star who used clout for challenging pictures.
David Sims (host): Film-critic host who loves a legal drama and Practical Magic, knows the production dossier and the box-office lists. More drawn to war films than Griffin; fond of character actors and trivia about old Hollywood.
Sarah Marshall (guest): Loves legal dramas, horror, Predator and action movies; calls Paths of Glory her personal Kubrick and a formative film seen once at the Portland Art Museum. Dislikes performative female characters in movies uninterested in women; prefers sincere shortcomings.
Ben Hosley (host): Barely speaks; offers that a ditch is fun for an hour but a year of it is too much.

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong

'Blackjack'/'Black Jack' = Blank Check
'Pods Wide Cast' = the Kubrick miniseries name (guess: a pun on Eyes Wide Shut)
'Cubric' = Kubrick
'pads of glory'/'passive glory'/'paza glory' = Paths of Glory
'General Miro'/'Moreau'/'Merro'/'Maroga' = General Mireau
'Brulard' = General Broulard
'Manju'/'Menju' = Adolphe Menjou
'McCready' = George Macready
'Emil Mayer' = Emile Meyer
'Ruth Sabatka' = Ruth Sobotka
'Christiane, Suzanne Harlan' = Christiane/Susanne Harlan
'Griffin Dudd' = Griffin Dunn
'Pidin' = unknown anthology title (Griffin Dunn segment)
'Charles Lawton' = Charles Laughton
'Elsa Manchester' = Elsa Lanchester
'Gilbrenner'/'Yo Brenner'/'Wilbrenner' = Yul Brynner
'Maria Shell' = Maria Schell
'Rennie Harlan' = Renny Harlin
'Yan Dimange'/'Jan Demange' = Yann Demange
'movie' (Mubi ad) = Mubi
'Trumbeau'/'Trumbon' = Dalton Trumbo
'Delmer Dave's' = Delmer Daves
'the Shake' = The Sheik
'Kai' = Kwai
'Oh, Sheru' at 0:00:43 may be 'Oh, sure'
'Gether' = Chris Gethard
'Heidi Vanderly' = unknown name
'inglorious bastard's' = Inglourious Basterds
'Falkyrie' = Valkyrie
'Mamma Mia' / 'Wabrizio' = Fabrizio (Titanic)

Blank Check — Patreon: Paths of Glory with Sarah Marshall (Ad-Free)

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

Films that came up

subject (1)

passing (58)

anecdote (8)

compared (21)

dismissed (1)

Claims (68)

Fun items (27)

Who's talking

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong