Blank Check with Griffin & David: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang

Published 2019-08-18; 1:58:35 by the feed.

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

The extraction calls the show “Blank Check with Griffin & David” and the episode “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang”.

Hosts: Griffin Newman, David Sims. Guests: Lulu Wang.

Subject films: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984).

On the transcript: No speaker labels; Griffin and David are interchangeable in many lines and the attributions here rely on context cues (Griffin is the actor whose show was canceled; David is the critic who interviewed Mackenzie Davis). Ads for Video Game Town, Audible Dracula, MUBI, Kendall's HVAC and Harrisburg tourism are baked in and were skipped; the guest left after about 47 minutes, so everything from about 0:48 on is host-only conversation.

Added from the extractor's memory, not said

Zhang Yimou as the 'other Johnny Moe film' director, Fredo Ortiz full name, Zemeckis guess for 'Walk 2020', Pejite faction name, and 'Hideaki Anno animated God Warrior' attribution were my inferences; the speakers said only 'Hidakiano' / 'Johnny Moe' / 'Fredo' / 'Walk 2020'.

Films that came up

Claims (39)

career (career stepping stone): Christopher Nolan → Insomnia. Insomnia proved Nolan was a professional who could handle personalities, earning Warner's trust to make Batman.
“Not because insomnia is like Batman, but because I think within Warner Brothers, they were like, this seems like a pretty solid bet”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:09:49 · David Sims (0.55 sure it was them)
unmapped (real-world analog): Britney Spears → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Britney, AOC, Rihanna and Natalie Portman are offered as modern Nausicaä figures, saviors onto whom culture projects hopes.
“I mean, in many ways, she is like our heroine, Nausicaa.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:11:41 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (music): The Farewell → Harry Nilsson. The film's song 'Without You' was a cover recorded with Wang's friends because the Nilsson foreign-language version could not be cleared.
“I wanted the, an Italian version of uh, without you.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:13:58 · Lulu Wang (0.85 sure it was them)
theme (personal link): The Farewell → Red Sorghum. Wang and her father sang a song from Red Sorghum a cappella at the real family wedding that inspired The Farewell.
“the song that she's singing as she's walking away and it's like, there's subtitles.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:17:05 · Lulu Wang (0.60 sure it was them)
lineage (adaptation): Toxic Crusaders → The Toxic Avenger. A kid-friendly cartoon was spun off a transgressive Troma film, and a revival died because the contracts could not be found.
“Toxic Crusaders, which was the weird Saturday morning version of Toxic Avenger, uh, a movie that is super transgressive and the least child friendly thing in the world.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:18:36 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
unmapped (legal anecdote): Donkey Kong → King Kong. Nintendo escaped a Universal suit because nobody had registered King Kong, and Nintendo got the Donkey Kong trademark first.
“and they checked and they did not.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:19:45 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
people (dub-casting timing): Shia LaBeouf → Transformers. The Disney dub caught Shia just before Transformers, between goofball and leading man.
“This is sort of like the year before Transformers or whatever.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:22:16 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
career (career sequence): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → The Castle of Cagliostro. Cagliostro was poorly received by fans of the series, then Miyazaki struggled to get another film made, which led to the manga and then this film.
“which is not well received, despite being a fucking awesome movie, because the fans thought it was too much of a departure from the series.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:34:54 · David Sims (0.60 sure it was them)
theme (premise comparison): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Starship Troopers. Early in the film it reads as Miyazaki's people-versus-bugs movie, but its ending flips the Starship Troopers propaganda by having the heroine empathize with the bugs.
“Like this is his people versus Bugs movie.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:38:03 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (franchise backlash): The Castle of Cagliostro → Lupin III. Making an unpopular entry in a popular franchise is compared to The Last Jedi, which split Lupin III fans.
“where like some people were like, this is a masterpiece and other people were like, no, my lupin.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:40:00 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (creative parallel): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → The Farewell. Lulu Wang felt the same make-it-now pressure on her second film as Miyazaki did on his second film.
“I felt that way about the farewell, which is my 2nd film as well.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:40:20 · Lulu Wang (0.85 sure it was them)
lineage (adaptation fidelity): The Farewell → Hayao Miyazaki. Like Miyazaki keeping the film identical to his manga, Wang wanted to carry the pure tone of her radio story into the feature without inflating the plot.
“how do I maintain the spirit that's in the manga, the purity of it and transfer it to film, which is something that I thought a lot about with the farewell”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:41:13 · Lulu Wang (0.80 sure it was them)
unmapped (restraint): The Farewell → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Both are praised for simplicity and for trusting a gesture over verbalized emotion.
“that beautiful simplicity and that like confidence in the restraint”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:42:59 · David Sims (0.55 sure it was them)
contrast (inversion): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Starship Troopers. Starship Troopers ends with bug-hatred propaganda, whereas Nausicaä realizes the bugs are just trying to survive and approaches them with empathy.
“reading the mind of the bug and cheering the fact that they're afraid because it's all about propaganda.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:43:58 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (ending): The Farewell → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Both reject Western catharsis; the hero is someone who comes to accept and understand a situation rather than fix it.
“stories of people learning to accept what has been the case.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:45:35 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
people (casting): Natalie Portman → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Portman was announced by Disney to voice Nausicaä and is cited as a woman culture has dumped its expectations on.
“Natalie Portman, who almost played Nausicaa, was announced by Disney to play Nausicaa”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:47:31 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (real-world analog): Lulu Wang → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Griffin says Wang's press moment resembles Nausicaä's role as the one everyone looks to.
“She is she is handling it, though, with the grace and valiant heroism of Nausaka.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:53:36 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
people (collaboration): Isao Takahata → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. This is the film that unites Miyazaki with Takahata, who is brought on as executive producer.
“this is the movie that unites him with this Hautakajata, who's the other great Chibile director.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:10:28 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (score): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Castle in the Sky. Joe Hisashi's first Miyazaki score is described as like his Castle in the Sky score: electronic and pulsating.
“That's sort of, and it's much like his castle in the Sky Score.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:10:59 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
lineage (career origin): Hideaki Anno → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The Neon Genesis Evangelion creator started on this film, animating the God Warrior waking.
“one of the big guys from Neon Jellous, Neon Genesis Evangelian. Right, starts on this, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:11:15 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (year-end rivalry): The Farewell → The Souvenir. Griffin flips between The Farewell and The Souvenir for movie of the year.
“I keep flipping between it and the souvenir.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:15:15 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
craft (mutilated edit): Warriors of the Wind → Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The 95 minute American cut dropped the environmental themes, renamed Nausicaä as Princess Zandra and turned the Ohmu into plain enemies.
“the film basically turns into an action adventure movie where like the environmentalist themes are kind of gone.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:24:25 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (cause of policy): Warriors of the Wind → Hayao Miyazaki. The butchered US version led Miyazaki to refuse any change to later American releases.
“this was so stupid that, uh, that's sort of, I think, the beginning of Miyazaki being like, I approve any, uh, American version.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:24:41 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
unmapped (conflict anecdote): Toshio Suzuki → Harvey Weinstein. Suzuki mailed Weinstein a katana with the message 'no cuts' to protect Princess Mononoke.
“a boy, you know, a sword to Harvey Weinstein with just the message, no cuts.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:25:06 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (creator vs studio): Princess Mononoke → Taxi Driver. The no-cuts sword story is paired with Scorsese's story of nearly holding Columbia hostage over a recut of Taxi Driver.
“Scorsese has that story about the night that he almost had a mental breakdown when Columbia wanted to recut taxi driver”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:25:13 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
what-if (dub/recut contrast): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Princess Mononoke. Unlike Nausicaä, Mononoke has no real villain, so it is hard to strip the Miyazaki out; Nausicaä can be recut into heroes versus villains.
“his other films, it's harder to strip the Miyazaki out of it.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:26:40 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (thematic): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Dune. Blasted world with creatures the people cannot understand, and Nausicaä as a feminine Fremen-like figure who learns to coexist with the land, versus industrial nations running roughshod.
“Nausicaa is sort of like the feminine, you know, like the feminine Dunehurst sort of like they can work the land.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:28:42 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
craft (tone): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Mad Max. The apocalypse-world energy of the film is likened to Mad Max and to Mortal Engines.
“Let's get some energy vibes.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:28:54 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
craft (tone): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Mortal Engines. Mortal Engines is offered as a recent film with a similar blasted world.
“Mortal Engine.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:28:57 · unknown (0.30 sure it was them)
craft (craft criticism): Rob Marshall → Mary Poppins Returns. Marshall is a great choreographer who sabotages his own dance numbers by cutting away.
“I don't understand how he, like, fucks his choreography so much.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:30:28 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
theme (plot motif): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → Dune. The promise that you can grow plants in a place everyone says you cannot is central to Dune and to Nausicaä's ending.
“And everyone's like, you can't grow anything on Dune.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:33:15 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
theme (image echo): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → WALL-E. Both end on the image of a single green sprout as proof that things can grow again.
“This ends with the very Wally image, which is like the last frame in the end credits is the one... little sprout, the one little leak.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:33:25 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
contrast (ethical contrast): Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind → The Lion King. Nausicaä values insects as alive, whereas the photoreal Lion King has Timon and Pumbaa eating bugs that visibly flee in fear.
“Whereas Nausaka is like the one person who's like, no, they're like alive.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:37:17 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
theme (creepy-press analogy): Frozen → The Incredibles. Asking Frozen's director about Elsa's appearance is compared to Anthony Lane's creepiness about Mrs. Incredible.
“Anthony Lane wouldn't stop talking about his boners for Mrs. Incredible.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:39:03 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
industry (box office peer): John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum → The Farewell. Both are named as the only films that did not underperform in 2019, with John Wick as the highest-grossing non-Disney release.
“one of the only films to not underperform at the box office, along with the farewell.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:48:54 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
contrast (tone contrast): John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum → Thor. Gun fetishism in Thor's ending bothers Griffin, but John Wick's cartoonish violence does not.
“Gun fetishy stuff, I just get really uncomfortable, right?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:50:07 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
career (career comeback): Keanu Reeves → John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Griffin argues the film is a masterpiece of survival that mirrors Keanu's own loss and repeated comebacks.
“it's maybe the best work of Keanu's entire career.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:50:14 · Griffin Newman (0.60 sure it was them)
lineage (remake): The Hustle → Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The Hustle is a gender-flipped remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels that barely admits it in its advertising.
“we've remade Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with women, but we're not really going to talk about that in their advertising.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:59:04 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
people (director): Lorene Scafaria → The Meddler. Scafaria, who directs Hustlers, made The Meddler, which was brutal and not winsome.
“Loreen Scafari, the director of uh, Richard Lawson's number one film, the meddler.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 2:00:13 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)

Fun items (25)

fun, about The Farewell: Wang negotiated final cut on her next, bigger film with Big Beach, and says a blank check is about freedom within the number, not the size of the number.
“the blank check is less about the number that you put on it and more about the freedom you have within whatever that number is”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:07:05 · Lulu Wang (0.85 sure it was them)
fun, about Britney Spears: Britney's 'Toxic' is declared the objective best Britney song, and David burned a CD with it on twenty times; they pitch a Nausicaä remix with spores.
“I burned a mixed CD that was toxic 20 times.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:12:48 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about The Farewell soundtrack: Wang wanted Nilsson's foreign-language 'Without You' but could not clear it because the translator owns the rights, so she recorded a tequila-fueled karaoke-style cover with friends.
“let's just invite a bunch of my friends and drink a lot of tequila and do it with like a karaoke style a little bit”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:15:08 · Lulu Wang (0.85 sure it was them)
fun, about Red Sorghum: At the real family wedding behind The Farewell, Wang and her dad sang a Red Sorghum song a cappella because the karaoke machine did not have it; it was her dad's favorite lullaby before she knew the film.
“my dad used to sing it to me as a as a little kid when I was young”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:17:22 · Lulu Wang (0.85 sure it was them)
fun, about Toxic Crusaders: An intern at Troma pitched a Toxic Crusaders cartoon revival to Adult Swim; after six months in filing cabinets he found cels and audio tracks but never the contracts.
“I could never find the contracts to be able to do it.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:19:21 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Donkey Kong: Nintendo almost got sued by Universal over Donkey Kong; someone checked and found nobody had registered King Kong, so Nintendo got the Donkey Kong trademark first.
“No one had registered King Kong.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:19:50 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä's origin: Miyazaki could not sell a new film after Cagliostro, so a manga publisher offered a life raft; after a couple of years of manga he finally pitched it as a movie, though he had never intended one.
“The publisher of the manga reaches out to him and says, I liked Castle of Cagliostro, would you want to try to do something in print?”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:35:13 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä cutout bugs: For most of the film the big bugs are cutout animation: four pieces of paper compressed like an accordion, essentially two-dimensional stop motion, which gives them an alien look.
“the big bugs are like 4 different pieces of paper that they compress and expand like an accordion.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:56:19 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä mustaches: Griffin guesses the bushy mustaches on the male characters exist to simplify mouth animation.
“I imagine that the design of the facial hair on most of the main characters is also to simplify mouth movement.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:56:42 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä production: Animators on Nausicaä were paid per frame, so the film is full of cheats like cutout animation for the big bugs and layered cels where only a hand moves, and Griffin loves seeing the seams.
“the animators were paid per frame.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 0:57:35 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä plot confusion: Both hosts confess the three-faction setup (Valley, Tolmekians, Pejite) is hard to follow; one watched it over four or five hours with breaks and regretted not using the dub.
“I feel like I spent 4 or 5 hours watching this movie because I kept on taking breaks to try to like reorient myself.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:00:15 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä's dub: The Disney dub is a time capsule: Alison Lohman, Patrick Stewart, Shia LaBeouf just before Transformers; Griffin cannot stop hearing Picard under Yupa.
“I'm thinking of Jean-Luc Picard.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:01:01 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Sundance 2019: Griffin leaned over to his seatmate after The Farewell premiere and called it incredible, which he says he never does at festivals, then started crying hours later thinking about the final shot.
“I thought about the final shot of the farewell.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:03:46 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Toy Story 4: The moment that nearly makes Griffin cry is the opening, with the toys huddled in a box under a car in the rain, selling how small and powerless they are.
“The moment that makes me come closest to crying in Toy Story 4 is the opening.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:09:26 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about King Kong (Broadway): Both hosts say the Broadway King Kong musical is bad except for the enormous puppet, which they enjoyed more than anything else they did not like.
“the puppet is so fucking strong that I did not care that I did not care about the rest of it.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:18:21 · David Sims (0.45 sure it was them)
fun, about Warriors of the Wind: The 95 minute US cut has no listed cast, a heavy metal style poster where Nausicaä is the smallest figure, and renames her Princess Zandra.
“is called Princess Zandra, which is hilarious.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:24:38 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Princess Mononoke / Toshio Suzuki: When Weinstein wanted cuts, Suzuki mailed him a katana with a note reading 'no cuts'; the hosts treat it as the most badass thing they have heard.
“He mailed him a massive, incredibly sharp and dangerous samurai sword with a note that just said, no cuts.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:25:26 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Mary Poppins Returns: Griffin says Rob Marshall is a great choreographer who undermines it by cutting away from the lamplighter dance number, while Meryl Streep says yes to anything he asks.
“And he's just like, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:30:42 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä's ending: Miyazaki told an interviewer he did not want Nausicaä to look like a religious figure but saw the last shot read as a religious painting; catharsis was something he never wanted to do again.
“I didn't intend her to make her Joan of Arc. And I want to get rid of any religious undertone.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:35:08 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about The Lion King: Griffin finds the photorealism makes Timon and Pumbaa eating bugs feel cruel since the bugs visibly act scared and have no faces.
“I was like, this movie doesn't understand that this is fucked up now.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:37:12 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about Hayao Miyazaki: A notorious 1984 interview: Miyazaki explains Nausicaä's large chest as there so she can embrace dying people and make them feel secure.
“I think her buzzing needs to be large, so she can embrace all those old men and the women who are in the castle when they're dying.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:38:03 · Griffin Newman (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Nausicaä's long action sequence: David timed it: roughly 35 straight minutes of action, ending in the Ohmu stampede with the missile-pierced baby, and wonders what a kid gets from it.
“there's just this sort of bananas, like 35 minutes of action.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:41:27 · David Sims (0.50 sure it was them)
fun, about Keanu Reeves: Asked by Colbert what happens when we die, Keanu answered that the ones who love us will miss us dearly, then went straight to a John Wick plug.
“I know that the ones who love us will miss us.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:53:38 · Griffin Newman (0.55 sure it was them)
fun, about The Hustle: The Hustle, the gender-flipped Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, was almost titled Nasty Women, which David thinks would have been the correct title.
“Yes, ladies do crimes now.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 1:59:47 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)
fun, about John Wick: Chapter 3: The hosts argue Chapter 3 is the best Wick because Keanu is so natural in a heightened world and the scenes are choreographed with minimal cuts; a Twitter pile-on about 'not concluding a trilogy' followed.
“never promised you a trilogy.”
Blank Check with Griffin & David · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang · 2:00:38 · David Sims (0.40 sure it was them)

Who's talking

Griffin Newman (host): Loves practical movie-making and visible seams, and gets emotionally floored by sincere pictures like The Farewell and Spirited Away. Cannot stand dense plotting without a map, gun fetishism, and 'Western catharsis'. A sucker for John Wick, Keanu Reeves, heroic dogs, and a perfect sandwich.
David Sims (host): A critic who reaches for franchise-career context and Hollywood politics; likes tidy thematic readings (Dune, WALL-E, Starship Troopers comparisons) and a trusted small-scale film. Hates press-trained performative behavior and bad films like The Hustle. A sucker for sandwiches, Spirited Away, and a good fan-theory.
Lulu Wang (guest): Reads Nausicaä through her own craft: she values simplicity, restraint and purity of form over plot machinery, and distrusts forced catharsis. She is watching Miyazaki in both dubbed and subtitled versions as a bilingual filmmaker and likes the 'all my films are hopeful' framing. A sucker for karaoke and Red Sorghum.

The show's recurring bits

The box office game: Guessing the film's opening weekend and what it was up against.
The sung theme: "Blank Check with Griffin and David", sung; the transcriber garbles it.

Names the transcriber got wrong

Lulu Wong → Lulu Wang
Nasca / Nasika / Nausaka / gnausica → Nausicaä
Hayomiyazaki / Yuzaki / Bizaki → Miyazaki
Howell's Moving Podcast → Howl's Moving Castle (series title, 'Howl's Moving Podcast')
Gibli / Jiblu / Chibile → Ghibli
Hautakajata / Takajadas → Isao Takahata
Joe Hisashi → Joe Hisaishi
Hidakiano / Hideaki Anno → Hideaki Anno
Johnny Moe → Zhang Yimou
Koshio Suzuki → Toshio Suzuki
Dunehurst → Fremen
Wally → WALL-E
Blade Check → Blank Check
Mortal Engs / NG → Mortal Engines
movie / mubi → MUBI (ad)
Teenage Sext and Death at Catmeasma → Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Loreen Scafari → Lorene Scafaria
Constantine and I Robot → kept as is
Jillian Anderson → Gillian Anderson
Tomalkians → Tolmekians
Ome / om → Ohmu
Walk 2020 → uncertain (a 2020 Zemeckis project the hosts will cover, 'The Walk' guess)
Esther / seat man → a Sundance seatmate named Esther
Fredo → likely arranger Fredo Ortiz (name as said: Fredo)
Max → likely the 2015 dog film Max
Ben John Wick → the producer Ben Hosley speaking
Barry Bone → garbled; unclear

Blank Check with Griffin & David: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind with Lulu Wang

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

Added from the extractor's memory, not said

Films that came up

subject (2)

compared (13)

anecdote (12)

passing (28)

recommended (5)

dismissed (2)

Claims (39)

Fun items (25)

Who's talking

The show's recurring bits

Names the transcriber got wrong