Actor-host with a deep interest in how TV pilots evolve and how Michael Mann's style bleeds into everything. Loves Thief best of Mann's work. Jokes about being unhireable and the Netflix job that vanished.
Stances
Thief is his top Mann film
Pilots that feel like complete little movies are best
Defends the guest Dana Stevens against Twitter critics
Humor: Self-deprecating, long bits about his own failed career and his mother's British ancestry.
In their words
“I think you were going to think my rankings are crazy.” (1:07:55)
Loves the original Planet of the Apes franchise and Tim Burton, and was a fan of the 2001 hype as a kid. Can't stand empty studio filmmaking with no point of view. A sucker for childhood fandom and memorabilia (action figures, Lisa Marie).
Stances
Burton's Apes is the first time a beloved director failed him
The makeup is the only thing worth praising
The film does not have a point of view
Humor: Self-deprecating nerd-confessional anecdotes and riffs on childhood devotion.
In their words
“I was like, peak Griff moving nerd fanaticism.” (0:16:56)
“I had all the action figures before the movie came out.” (0:18:01)
Appears to love specific film trivia and the New York of the film; teases about being downtown. Lines identified with him are low-confidence because the transcript has no speaker labels.
Stances
Recalls opening-weekend box office from memory
Lives and grew up near the film's downtown locations (inferred)
Humor: Dry bits and running gags; becomes 'Downtown Griffey Nooms' under the guest's teasing.
In their words
“I have a TV pair of glasses now.” (0:31:40)
“This is the game where I try to recall from memory the box office the weekend the movie open.” (1:57:23)
Blank Check with Griffin & David: Flesh+Blood (host)
Loves Verhoeven and says RoboCop, Toy Story 2 and Rushmore rank among his favorites. Worries about the Weinstein-era toxicity in this film. Fascinated by effects-driven classicism and by the Hauer/Verhoeven split.
Stances
Flesh+Blood is anthropological and fascinating but joyless
Verhoeven is a technical classicist smuggling extreme content into Hollywood form
Rooted for RoboCop being a favorite
Humor: Rambling bits, tangents and character voices.
In their words
“I have never been more excited to talk about a film on this podcast.” (1:38:03)
Seems to love practical Spielberg staging and sound design, character actors with great faces, and nostalgic picks like Harriet the Spy. Cannot stand lazy sequels with no story, CGI overuse and nostalgia-canonized movies. Is a sucker for merchandise history and a good Austin Powers rewatch.
Stances
Lost World has a plot but no story and is bottom five Spielberg
Spielberg fails when he directs with one arm behind his back
Jurassic World is far worse
Humor: Escalating riffs and running bits, including bad impressions, nicknames for the producer and self-deprecating Goldblum failure.
In their words
“I've never been able to get there.” (0:00:55)
“Spielberg, I think, always fails when he tries to direct with one arm behind his back.” (0:32:33)
Loves ambitious, misguided, disastrous failures and admits a near sexual fetish for them; gravitates toward films that are naked and transparent about their director's ego. Cannot stand being unable to follow exposition but still wants to rewatch. A sucker for Shyamalan trivia, mythology worldbuilding critique, and the film-about-filmmaking read.
Stances
Lady in the Water is bad but fascinating and he likes it a lot
Watchability is not linked to quality
The film is Shyamalan's defensive reaction to critics after The Village
Shyamalan films are crisis-of-faith movies about family
Humor: Runs elaborate recurring bits and segments (Burger Report, IMDb trivia corner, rewrite station, comedy points) and self-deprecating panic-attack anecdotes.
In their words
“I admit that I have a near sexual fetish for super ambitious misguided failures.” (1:36:00)
“I like this movie a lot.” (1:35:51)
“And so watchability is a thing that I don't link to quality.” (1:49:31)
An actor and comedian who loves Robert Downey Jr. (Ally McBeal, Bowfinger) and loves cataloguing credits, billing, and who produced what. Can't stand hacky, symbolic drama like The Judge or misjudged comedies like Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus. A sucker for Shanghai Noon, Due Date, and Dax Shepard's character.
Stances
The Judge is treacle with a Dobkin comedy brain stuck in a prestige drama
Downey needs a real director like PTA or Raimi to surprise audiences
Duvall phoning it in beats De Niro or Pacino phoning it in
Humor: Long riffing metaphors (the bar mitzvah, the bagel), bodily-fluid gags, and self-deprecating asides about the show's tiny audience.
In their words
“It feels like the way that 13 year old boys have to act during their bar mitzvah” (0:56:38)
“Overbagled.” (0:28:55)
“Now you're stuck with us talking about the judge.” (0:03:31)
A deep pop-culture archaeologist who loves He-Man (especially Orko), Henson fantasy, Toy Story, Barbie, and the Lego movies, and who voiced Orko himself. He is skeptical of masculine man-defends-his-castle fantasy and of defensive, self-embarrassed jokes. He is a sucker for the Hudsucker Proxy, odd animation like Raggedy Ann & Andy, and word-of-mouth box office oddities.
Stances
The film gets the metatextual framework right but only gets 60% there
Toy movies are mostly bad except those not driven by a product
He-Man himself is his least favorite part of He-Man
Orko was unforgivably withheld
Humor: Nerdy, rapid-fire trivia and self-aware jokes about his own obsessions and merchandise hoarding.
In their words
“I have way too much He-Man merchandise.” (0:37:20)
“He's what a child thinks they would be as a grown up if they got really buff and strong.” (0:31:53)
“It is a movie entirely about the hula hoop.” (1:34:41)
Griffin is a long-time Cameron enthusiast and sincere blockbuster fan, someone who watches trailers on loop and gets choked up by them. He loves a clean engineered story and defends Avatar's sincerity. He dislikes meta, smirky franchise filmmaking.
Stances
Avatar's clunky human dialogue is deliberate
Franchise filmmaking is in a crisis point
Cameron has earned the benefit of the doubt
Humor: Affable and self-deprecating, with long enthusiastic riffs.
In their words
“I'm beyond excited.” (1:41:16)
“I truly get like emotionally choked up watching these trailers” (1:41:52)
A RoboCop devotee with posters, a bust and a bootleg toy in the office, who loves the Verhoeven original and its satire. He can't stand humorless grounded remakes that cut the jokes and the visor. A sucker for baseball giveaways at Mets games and Easter eggs done right.
Stances
The remake is an F and worse than Ouija
Satire and humor are what make the original
A black suit with no detail is a failure
Robocop should be dumb and funny, not cool
Humor: Rants and elaborate analogies, like the pizza series, delivered with escalating mock fury.
In their words
“I'm just gonna come out and say this is an F.” (0:55:03)
“Robocop one is like the best pizza you've ever had.” (1:29:28)
Loves Edge of Tomorrow as a masterpiece and Cruise's turn toward weird, low-status roles; likes Oblivion and Looper-era Blunt; likes Liman's chaos when it works. Can't stand Liman's later films like Road House.
Stances
Edge is a five-star film that improves on repeat
This is Cruise's pivot to the McQuarrie era
Alien design here and in Arrival is rare in the 2010s
Humor: Rapid riffs and movie-industry gossip, often wrapping a joke around a bit of trivia.
In their words
“Edge of tomorrow is 5 stars.” (0:07:20)
“It is truly a movie that gets better every time you watch it.” (0:07:25)
Loves cult comedy and genre curiosities such as Perfect Dark, Nirvana the Band, and weird bracket ideas like Psycho with Bates Motel. Enthusiastic about Peter Weir, Welles, and Del Toro. Dislikes long filmographies as a rule and bad Robocop sequels.
Stances
Wants more Peter Weir and Orson Welles
Votes against the long boy in every matchup
Grudge: RoboCop 2 should never put the mask back on
Humor: Builds committed running bits (pitmaster, Chip Smith) and doubles down until the room breaks.
A Lynch fan who loves Eraserhead as a pure raw expression of an outsider and calls it a fully arrived masterpiece. Loves the bit-work of generating nicknames and sorting debut films into buckets. Can't stand eggs and gets queasy at the chicken-carving idea.
Stances
Eraserhead is a masterpiece debut
It is coherent and autobiographical, not impenetrable
Debut films fall into rough draft, masterpiece and a third bucket
Humor: Escalating riffs and mock-pompous bits about nicknames, with self-aware jabs at the show.
In their words
“And this is him just doing the pure raw expression version of basically the same idea.” (0:26:19)
“Holy shit, who the fuck is this guy fully arrived masterpiece.” (0:16:34)
Runs the show and the episode dossier, and loves production-disaster minutiae, alternate titles and what-if histories. A sucker for 90s studio chaos and podcast in-jokes (jelly trilogy, Forky). Frustrated by a movie that is dark and muddy and has no scary monsters.
Stances
Eaters of the Dead was the better title
The version worth making is a smaller, pulpier one
Defends Mank and is a Fincher-series completist who ranks Zodiac first; loves the autobiographical reading of The Killer (Fincher mocking his own control). A sucker for Tilda Swinton performances and for details like the Smiths playlist. Uncertain about the Soderbergh-style streaming deal.
Stances
The Killer is about filmmaking and Fincher's own process
Fincher's Netflix deal is a bad fit for streaming
Mank is a celebration of a cantankerous artist and a self-portrait
Humor: Absurdist riffs, Letterboxd one-liners, and long tangents about fast food.
In their words
“My letterbox type clip on the movie is a psychological horror film about David Fincher imagining a reality where he's only allowed one take.” (0:22:44)
“It's fucking Sidney Lumette's making movies.” (1:24:53)
Likes the Hearst scenes and the performances, but is less sold on the movie than David and Sean. Comes at it as a wounded theatrical-experience loser, upset he never saw it in a theater.
Stances
Wishes he'd seen it in a theater
Likes the movie less than David
Wants more Fincher Tuppence Middleton
Humor: Self-deprecating, tangent-prone, and loves puns like 'Mancrodosing'.
In their words
“I cannot stop thinking about how angry I am that I never got to see this in a theater.” (0:20:21)
“I'm circling the island.” (2:27:36)
“Mancrodosing. Five minutes of manca day.” (0:22:58)
Carries the Fincher-completist trivia (the unmade projects, the casting what-ifs) and is deep in the Affleck and Reese Witherspoon career talk. Likes a franchise that earns its box office, and says he is all in on the Equalizer films. Can't stand a lazy cable-movie career move, and has lost patience with TV coverage on the show.
Stances
Fincher's unmade projects (Star Wars, 20,000 Leagues) are as interesting as the films
Wants Equalizer 3 to reach $103 million
Mindhunter was an episode he and David did not want to cover, because TV multiplies the work
Humor: Runs dead-pan bits at length (the Quibby and Reese 'Fierce Queens' routine) and keeps count of the numbers.
In their words
“Star Wars, episode seven.” (0:25:36)
“The Equalizer one made $101 million domestically.” (2:53:28)
“Dave and I really didn't want to do this episode.” (3:03:23)
Loves Fincher, comfort rewatches, commentary tracks and the research dossier; admires Rooney Mara and the film's gentleness at the margins. Can't stand the Swedish films' flatness or the Spider's Web reboot. A sucker for a good casting story and a recurring bit.
Stances
Dismisses the Swedish films as mid
calls this a movie that improves on rewatch
defends Fincher's reshoots as worth it.
Humor: Runs bits to exhaustion (string cheese, Clint Eastwood railroading, strangling-each-other energy) and teases Ben.
In their words
“I saw it Christmas time, 2011.” (0:25:28)
“I've been trying to watch most of these movies with commentaries.” (1:10:15)
“I just remember when the trailer for this came out” (0:34:01)
Loves Sorkin's dialogue and Fincher's rigor, and is the host with an actor's view of auditions and sets. Dismissive of Facebook as an experience now. A sucker for behind-the-scenes lore and the Blu-ray extras.
Stances
The script's pace is the movie
Fincher's many takes freed the actors
Humor: Rambling, self-aware riffs and character-voice bits.
In their words
“I pointedly remember that the they sent the script out, but for the auditions, it was just other Sorkin scenes.” (0:52:46)
“So this script hits and like every single person on set is like, I'm just trying to get any fucking part in the sofa work.” (0:51:41)
Became a Fincher believer at Zodiac and was all in for Button on the strength of that and the teaser. Reads Button as a deliberate anti-Gump about death rather than a failed weepy. Likes the film's passivity and its refusal to give catharsis.
Stances
Button is pointedly an anti-Gump
the film is more Fincher than its reputation allows
the hospital framing is the real film
Humor: Rapid-fire impressions and callback bits, including the running seven-but-looks-older line.
In their words
“But I think it's almost like pointedly an anti-gump.” (0:22:50)
“Whatever this guy's next movie is, this is now I'm most anticipated movie.” (0:17:37)
Their shows' recurring bits
Running bits, not opinions; a critic read aloud is cited, not present.
The Big Picture
Drafts: Hosts and guests draft films in rounds; every pick is a recommendation with an argument.
Hall of Fame: A star's or director's best, ranked and argued.
Countdowns: Ranked lists, top five or top ten.
Blank Check with Griffin & David
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.
Their claims
Showing 201–300 of 1,162 claims.
unmapped (technique evolution):
Wendell and Wild → Coraline.
Selick turned against slick 3D-assisted look after Coraline and kept seams visible and embraced artifice in Wendell & Wild.
“He said Coraline was maybe a little too smooth, and he wanted to go a bit backwards and show off the artifice with this movie.”
lineage (artwork source):
Henry Selick → Tim Burton.
Nightmare Before Christmas brought Burton's artwork to life; Peach got Lane Smith; Coraline Tadahiro Uesugi; Wendell & Wild Pablo Lobato.
“Zalek is kind of bringing the artwork of Tim Burton to life.”
lineage (visual inspiration):
Pablo Lobato → Wendell and Wild.
Selick picked a flat, cutout caricature style that should not be adaptable to 3D and asked the team to build it.
“Wendolyn Wilde, Argentinian artist, Pablo Lobato, is the big inspiration for the look of a lot of these guys.”
contrast (contrast of villainy):
Wendell and Wild → Beetlejuice.
Unlike Beetlejuice, who is purely malevolent, Wendell and Wild are babes in the wood whose ulterior motive is an amusement park.
“Unlike Beetlejuice who like operates from a place of like pure malevolence, right?”
contrast (contrast of setup):
Wendell and Wild → The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Nightmare doesn't open with civic politics, so its underworld needs no explaining; Wendell & Wild front-loads dense plot.
“Yeah, it also helps that like nightmare before Christmas doesn't start with 10 minutes of like the political infrastructure of a small town.”
craft (exposition style):
Wendell and Wild → Avatar.
Big sci-fi blockbusters like Inception and Avatar earn their virtuoso final acts with an hour of clumsy exposition; Wendell & Wild operates the same way.
“And they're things like Inception or Avatar, where you're like, you know what?”
craft (exposition style):
Wendell and Wild → Inception.
The whole movie spends its running time on clumsy rules-exposition so the final act can pay off, like Inception.
“the whole movie is Inception style explaining to you, well, this is a kick, and this is a totem”
unmapped (profit accounting):
Black Adam → The Polar Express.
Black Adam's profit claims prompt a Zemeckis recollection that in the DVD era studio movies could not lose money.
“it is basically impossible for a studio movie to lose money.”
verdict (ranking):
Coraline → The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Griffin ranks Nightmare over Coraline; both masterpieces, though Coraline is the greater auteur achievement; David flips them.
“I think I got to give the hair to nightmare over Core a lot.”
career (comeback attempt):
Eric Roberts → Christopher Nolan.
Nolan's Dark Knight casting was meant as an Eric Roberts reclamation project that did not go anywhere.
“you had like Christopher Nolan giving him a good little supporting part in Dark Knight and being like, Eric Roberts reclamation project.”
career (career sequence):
Star 80 → All That Jazz.
Star 80 came about because Fosse had no planned follow-up after surviving the film in which he dies.
“I think he was almost embarrassed to still be alive after all that jazz.”
unmapped (mentor):
Bob Fosse → Paddy Chayefsky.
Chayefsky was Fosse's mentor/drinking buddy who told him the script needed no notes, and the film is dedicated to him.
contrast (tonal contrast):
Star 80 → Body Double.
Body Double is pulp that deals with similar Hollywood grime and is fun, whereas Fosse could not treat it as pulp.
“But like, I mean, fossi, for better or worse, I don't think could view things as pulp.”
unmapped (same phenomenon):
Star 80 → Manhattan.
Both star Hemingway and are about older men fixated on young women, one romanticized and one murderous.
“2 movies that are essentially about the same basic phenomenon, but in very, very different ways”
theme (theme):
Star 80 → Kate Plays Christine.
Kate Plays Christine is cited as a film about the compulsion to tell tragic victims' stories and play them.
“it is a movie about an actor trying to play a tragic, you know, a person who killed herself on news.”
career (career parallel):
Bob Fosse → Francis Ford Coppola.
Both followed a run of 70s masterpieces (Cabaret/Godfather, Lenny/Godfather II, All That Jazz/Apocalypse Now) with a decline.
“Cabaret, Godfather, Godfather to Lenny, all that jazz apocalypse now.”
unmapped (posthumous reach):
Howard Ashman → Bob Fosse.
Ashman had films with his fingerprints released after his death, showing a creator's ripple effect despite lost time.
“there are like 3 films with his fingerprints on them on top of Little Shop, right?”
people (casting across ages):
An Angel at My Table → The Last Emperor.
Campion loved The Last Emperor, which shares the kid-to-adult actor handoff; she planned the switches to land in happy moments.
“Campion loved the last emperor, which has to pull the same trick, you know, going from kid to adolescent to grown up.”
lineage (source material):
Janet Frame → Owls Do Cry.
Frame's debut novel; the sibling's burning-trash death is from the novel, while the autobiography has a drowning.
what-if (what it could have been):
An Angel at My Table → Girl, Interrupted.
With a TV-miniseries approach it could have been a sensationalist mental-illness movie like Girl, Interrupted.
craft (aesthetic carryover):
An Angel at My Table → Sweetie.
Sweetie's saturated children's-film look survives in Angel only in the Janet character's costume and hair.
“it's like an adult film that has the aesthetics of a children's film.”
what-if (what it could have been):
An Angel at My Table → Angela's Ashes.
A more maudlin filmmaker would have turned Frame's working-class background into Angela's Ashes.
“could have been turned into like Angela's ashes or something”
unmapped (production lore):
Peter Jackson → The Lord of the Rings.
Jackson pitched multiple films on the strength of unfilmed New Zealand locations and a ready industry.
“I got like 80 locations in my back pocket that no one has ever filmed before”
career (career completeness):
An Angel at My Table → Top of the Lake.
Top of the Lake seasons are on Patreon as an important missing piece of Campion's filmography.
“too important a piece in the Campion philography.”
industry (marketing comparison):
Starman → E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
The poster's blues and lights invite the E.T. comparison and the film strains to say it is about grown-up love.
“But, um, you know, also the the blues, the lights, the ET comparison is right there.”
career (career pattern):
Adrian Lyne → Flashdance.
After Flashdance became a colossal hit Lyne left Starman; every post-hit film flopped, then he had a hit again.
“every movie he makes after his hits is a huge flop.”
people (director):
Ridley Scott → The Last Duel.
Scott directed The Last Duel and another huge film in the same fall, both shot in the pandemic starring Adam Driver.
“Both starring Adam Driver, America's favorite giant weirdo.”
theme (persona):
Michael Douglas → Romancing the Stone.
In 1984 Douglas excelled at cads and slimeballs, so he would not have worked as the gentle alien.
unmapped (imitation):
Cinderella → Moulin Rouge!.
The Amazon Cinderella tries the Moulin Rouge jukebox-musical thing and fails; Moulin Rouge is a lot harder to pull off.
“It's trying to do the Moulin Rouge thing of like, oh, it's like a jukebox musical where we just like picked songs we like”
contrast (contrast):
Starman → John Carpenter.
Starman is one of the Carpenter movies he did not score; its synthy score is more emotional than his usual.
“this is one of the Carpenter movies that he did not score.”
lineage (effects lineage):
Starman → An American Werewolf in London.
The transformation sequence is indebted to American Werewolf's practical, show-it-all body effects.
“Yes, which is very like American werewolf in London, where the body is stretching out.”
people (people):
Stan Winston → Rick Baker.
Winston, Baker and Dick Smith, the three effects names in the Starman credits, are called the three wise men of 80s visual effects.
“it's like the 3 like wise men of visual effects of the 80s.”
craft (genre / structure):
Starman → It Happened One Night.
Carpenter wanted a road movie of two people in a car getting to know each other, in the mold of It Happened One Night.
lineage (homage):
Starman → It Happened One Night.
The hay-bale love scene in an empty train car is called a likely conscious homage to It Happened One Night.
what-if (what-if):
Dean Cundy → Starman.
Griffin says Starman would be better had Cundy shot it, because its sentimentality, lights and blues are ready for him.
“I do think this movie would be better if it was shot by Dean Cundy, just because all movies would be better.”
career (career context):
Dean Cundy → Romancing the Stone.
Cundy shot Romancing the Stone the same year Carpenter used a different cinematographer on Starman.
“this is the same year that Kundi does romancing the stone.”
unmapped (returns to Carpenter):
Dean Cundy → Big Trouble in Little China.
Despite the Starman parting of ways, Cundy comes back for Big Trouble in Little China.
“He's going to come back to do big trouble in Little China.”
unmapped (falling-out):
Dean Cundy → John Carpenter.
Carpenter said they had a parting of ways over attitude problems, while praising Cundy's work from Halloween through The Thing.
“But before we could ever work together again, we would have to clear up some attitude problems.”
unmapped (irony):
Jeff Bridges → K-PAX.
Bridges plays the man trying to get into the head of a man claiming to be an alien in K-PAX, after playing an alien here.
career (career phases):
Jeff Bridges → The Big Lebowski.
Lebowski came out ignored, then became his defining mode, and Hollywood asked him to do it again.
“everyone's like, oh, Lebowski's the best shit ever.”
theme (premise):
Starman → John from Cincinnati.
A mysterious odd visitor who solves everyone's problems and parrots dialogue; John from Cincinnati owes a lot to Starman.
“He comes and visits, and he's mysterious, and he's weird, and he solves everybody's problem.”
fun, about
The Lego Batman Movie:
Robin has not figured out Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person: Bruce Wayne lives in Batman's attic, and Batman says Bruce told him it's okay to hang out.
“he has to be like, uh, Bruce told me it's okay for you to hang out with me.”
fun, about
The Lego Batman Movie:
Animators keep the Lego limits: arms rotate and swing but never bend, though shoulders may dislocate to cross the chest.
“but they'll let the entire arm sort of like remove from the body and turn inwards.”
fun, about
Lego (company):
Lego ruled the 90s by building its own mythologies each year, with Johnny Thunder as its Indiana Jones hero, before the 1999 Star Wars deal.
“There's Johnny Thunder, who is their attempt to create like an Indiana Jones style hero”
fun, about
The Lego Batman Movie:
A listener built Lego versions of the hosts; the builder, Dave Colletta, became a top contestant on Lego Masters, which Arnett hosts.
“And the guy who built the figures of us became like one of the best contestants on this fucking show.”
fun, about
The Lego Batman Movie:
Phantom Zone includes Sauron as a talking tower, Voldemort turning people to fish, the Wicked Witch, a Gremlin crew, and a Creature from the Black Lagoon.
fun, about
The Lego Batman Movie:
Griffin argues the movie is a flawed pick for David because the IP cameos are shallow; the villains get little screen time.
fun, about
Doctor Who:
Griffin explains a Dalek: it's a garbage can with a plunger because, per him, an arm went missing and a bathroom plunger replaced it.
“they were missing an arm and they took a plunger out of the bathroom.”
fun, about
Old Dogs:
After Justin Long's scout troop shoots a statue's head off, they burn it down and get kicked out.
“After shooting the head off the statue, they stayed there long enough for the sun to go down to light the whole thing on fire, and then they were kicked out.”
fun, about
Griffin Newman:
Griffin's Supergirl bit: Burt Ward and other legends in the opening credits made viewers think Crisis would tie in The Tick.
“For 5 seconds, I think people thought Crisis on Infinite Earth was gonna tie in the tick universe.”
fun, about
Adam West and Frank Gorshin:
The legend that West and Gorshin went to a Hollywood orgy in character and were expelled for doing too many bits.
fun, about
Alien: Covenant:
The Franco footage cooks him alive and Griffin says the 10-second prologue would have made the film's emotional start stronger.
“you kind of really benefit from seeing him for 10 seconds alive, you know?”
fun, about
Danny McBride:
McBride went to film school wanting to write and direct, was cast in friends' films, never auditioned, and said Covenant was what he always wanted to do.
fun, about
The Tick:
Griffin recounts his hardest technical acting scene: Dr. Karamazov shrunk, shot against tennis balls on sticks then redone from his own recorded dialogue.
“the single most challenging thing I've ever had to do as an actor on a technical level is”
fun, about
Alien: Covenant:
Merchandise for the movie showed an earlier, practical-looking xenomorph design before the creature was redone in CGI late in production.
“All of the merchandise for this movie had an incorrect xenomorph design.”
fun, about
Alien Quadrilogy:
The 2003 DVD box set that David calls a word hardly used outside that box; Resurrection got a special edition about seven minutes longer.
“Quadrilogy, a word that has rarely been used outside of that one box.”
fun, about
You've Got Mail:
The fall leaves in the movie are CGI because they shot in the summer, per the commentary track by Ephron and Schuler Donner.
“They're like, all of the fall stuff is CGI, baby.”
fun, about
Dave Chappelle:
Chappelle delivers the odd line 'she has the same coloring as' that was written for an older Eastern European actor in the original.
“if you look up the actor who played the best friend role and shop around the corner, it's like an older Eastern European man with a mustache.”
fun, about
Tom Hanks:
The script supervisor fixed Hanks's block on the Lalo scene: he stays because he is trying to build the courage to say it is him.
“Your motivation, this scene, is you think if you stay longer, you'll finally build the courage to say it.”