Richard Lawson

5 sketches, 17 claims, and 9 fun items attributed to them. What was said about them.

Personality, episode by episode

Showing 1–5 of 5 sketches.

Blank Check with Griffin & David: Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson (guest)

A Vanity Fair film critic who is a self-described Luddite and big M. Night guy who had hated The Village at the time and now likes it more on rewatch. Finds the film bafflingly hard to follow yet admires its naked ego; likes the scrunt design. A sucker for a director's trauma and for cinematographer lore.

Stances

  • Lady in the Water is mind-bogglingly bad but special
  • The scrunt design is good
  • He had hated The Village at the time

Humor: Mild, self-deprecating, and good at pitching bits he decides not to do.

In their words

  • “I also agree that it is so discombobulatingly bad.” (0:21:15)
  • “I love the scrunt.” (1:32:58)
  • “I'm a Luddite, and so I've never downloaded a movie from iTunes before.” (1:46:29)

Blank Check — Patreon: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) (guest)

Loves Forrest Gump and had snarked at Button as a young Gawker writer; had never seen the film before preparing. Came around on it on rewatch, valuing the sentimental tone and Daisy's regret.

Stances

  • Button deserves reevaluation
  • Pitt's casting works because of the special effects reveal
  • the logic of the aging is not the point

Humor: Wry personal tangents about Gawker days, his family, and Vanity Fair.

In their words

  • “I had never seen button.” (0:14:20)
  • “I loved, still love Forrest Gump.” (0:21:35)

Blank Check — Patreon: Spartacus with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) (guest)

A Vanity Fair critic watching Spartacus for the first time; never connected with Gladiator or sword-and-sandal epics, fell for Woody Strode, and finds the homoerotic bath scene fascinating. (Attribution inferred.)

Stances

  • Gladiator and the sword-and-sandal genre have never fully clicked for him
  • Woody Strode is the movie's best presence
  • The first-time view made him appreciate Gladiator more

Humor: Self-deprecating, conversational asides.

In their words

  • “I've always had a hard time gladiator and I had a bit of a hard time with this movie.” (1:03:52)
  • “I've never seen this before.” (1:03:32)

Blank Check — Patreon: Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson (guest)

He is a Vanity Fair critic and a good sport: he went to Cannes and the experience without snark. Fond of Trolls dolls lore and of musical Oscar trivia.

Stances

  • The experience was sincere and well staffed
  • The film is overstuffed

Humor: Running mock-grandiose bit that Trolls are his creation.

In their words

  • “Well, the prophecy had told me that I was never to look directly upon my trolls.” (0:05:47)
  • “It was probably the last experience I'll ever have in public.” (1:46:49)

Blank Check — Patreon: Vanilla Sky with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) (guest)

Has a personal tie to the film from freshman year at a Catholic school, defended it to friends, and has since conceded they were right. Loves Kurt Russell's gentle turn and the last fifteen minutes with Sigur Ros. Can't stand the first-act chemistry and the dialogue about cats.

Stances

  • C plus for the bulk, B for the last 15 minutes
  • Reads the film as a man trying to turn his life back into a Crowe movie
  • Apologizes to his college friends for defending the movie

Humor: Warm, wry, quick on callbacks to past episodes.

In their words

  • “It's a bad movie.” (1:54:53)
  • “And the rest of the movie is a guy trying to make his life like a Cameron Crowe movie again.” (1:38:49)
  • “And I think those last 15, 20 minutes are really effective.” (1:37:06)

Their shows' recurring bits

Running bits, not opinions; a critic read aloud is cited, not present.

Blank Check with Griffin & David

Their claims

Showing 1–17 of 17 claims.

  1. people (performance benchmark): Colin Firth → The King's Speech. Colin Firth's stutter is held up as the only film stutter that felt accurate, unlike Giamatti's.
    “It was kind of the only stutter in film history that felt like, oh, that seems pretty accurate.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 0:24:22 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  2. unmapped (critic portrayal): Lady in the Water → Godzilla. Ranks directors who put film critics in their movies to shit on them, with Godzilla's Mayor Ebert gag, then Birdman, then Lady in the Water.
    “I go Godzilla, then Birdman, or the unexpected virtue.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 0:49:36 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  3. career (career): Christopher Doyle → Wong Kar-wai. Doyle is named as the regular cinematographer of a director the transcript renders as 'Long car wise' (Wong Kar-wai), and called one of the great DPs who rarely makes American movies.
    “Long car wise, regular cinematographer, one of the great DPs for sure.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 0:50:26 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  4. theme (scene echo): Lady in the Water → The Poseidon Adventure. Cleveland's underwater swim is likened to Shelley Winters's pool swim in The Poseidon Adventure.
    “And I wrote down Shelley Winters and Poseidon Adventure.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 1:14:45 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  5. craft (creature design): Lady in the Water → Signs. The scrunt is held up as a better-shot, better-designed, better-reflection creature that makes good on the sins of the Signs alien.
    “I think the scrunt, he shoots better, designs better, does the reflection thing better.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 1:33:16 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  6. people (typecast skill): Jeffrey Wright → Source Code. Wright is praised for selling pseudo-technical jargon, like the source code of Source Code.
    “they're good at kind of spouting like stuff about, like, the source code, like, and you're just like, okay, sure.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 1:34:43 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  7. career (career arc): Lady in the Water → The Village. The Village was the first real backlash, and Lady in the Water is cast as the film that dynamited his career.
    “the village marks something of a turning point because it's when the kind of the bloom fell off the rose”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 1:38:41 · Richard Lawson (0.60 sure it was them)
  8. unmapped (commissioned chronicler): M. Night Shyamalan → Michael Bamberger. Shyamalan hired a writer to follow him around and document the making, which became The Man Who Heard Voices.
    “I'm going to hire you to follow me around and write the entire process of how an M.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 1:40:32 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  9. career (career after): Lady in the Water → The Last Airbender. Notes that Shyamalan bounced back after the flop, with The Last Airbender coming.
    “I haven't seen the last Airbender.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 1:53:00 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  10. theme (same star, same theme): Meet Joe Black → The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Meet Joe Black is Brad Pitt's other epic about death; the speaker rewatched it right after Button.
    “Brad Pitt's other somewhat misbegotten epic about death, meet Joe Black.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 0:26:08 · Richard Lawson (0.60 sure it was them)
  11. people (performance comparison): Meet Joe Black → The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Pitt's present-tense performances in both are blank and curious.
    “like in the present tense of the movie, like kind of blank, curious, but a cold”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 1:57:31 · Richard Lawson (0.50 sure it was them)
  12. lineage (riff / imitation): Spartacus → Gladiator. Richard, seeing Spartacus for the first time, says it is the main thing Gladiator riffs on.
    “this is really the main thing the gladiators are riffing on.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Spartacus with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 1:03:34 · Richard Lawson (0.60 sure it was them)
  13. unmapped (reference): Spartacus → Clueless. Richard knew Spartacus mostly through the Clueless clip (and Community jokes) before watching it.
    “to have heard about this movie mostly through Clueless, but also just joked about in community for years”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Spartacus with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 1:43:58 · Richard Lawson (0.60 sure it was them)
  14. industry (industry): The Emoji Movie → Kung Fu Panda. The same jetty at Cannes hosted a Kung Fu Panda event and, another year, a T.J. Miller zip-line stunt for The Emoji Movie.
    “T.J. Miller, zip lined or palmed onto that for emoji movie.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson · 0:05:59 · Richard Lawson (0.50 sure it was them)
  15. programming (programming): Trolls: The Experience → Downton Abbey (TV series). The experience sat in the same Midtown space once occupied by a Downton Abbey experience, a pattern of high-ticket interactive pop-ups.
    “For about a year or two, I believe this same space was occupied by Downton Abbey, the experience.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson · 0:14:26 · Richard Lawson (0.50 sure it was them)
  16. programming (programming): Trolls: The Experience → Memento. Richard says doing the experience before watching the film was like Memento, a reverse order.
    “I'm glad we did the experience first, like memento.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson · 0:45:30 · Richard Lawson (0.70 sure it was them)
  17. contrast (contrast): Vanilla Sky → Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire's leads are well written with an unconventional romance, so there is real material in each scene.
    “those 2 characters are so well written and their relationship is so unconventional and how it plays out”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Vanilla Sky with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 0:17:18 · Richard Lawson (0.45 sure it was them)

Their fun items

Showing 1–9 of 9 fun items.

  1. fun, about Kanye West: Richard worked at the Spotted Pig and served Kanye West, who sent back a burger because he wanted it more well done and was upset blue cheese was the only cheese.
    “He never looked at me once, but he ordered a couple of drinks and he ordered a burger. He sent the burger back.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 0:12:48 · Richard Lawson (0.80 sure it was them)
  2. fun, about Richard Lawson: Richard downloaded the movie for four dollars and, never having done so before, thought the download was skipping scenes because he could not follow it.
    “But I thought that I had done something wrong and the movie was skipping scenes because I could not follow this.”
    Blank Check with Griffin & David · Lady in the Water with Richard Lawson · 1:46:43 · Richard Lawson (0.80 sure it was them)
  3. fun, about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: A friend's summary of the plot, mid-Katrina, sounds insane when typed out.
    “it's sort of related to his, you know, long lost love in a diary while Hurricane Katrina bears down on him.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 0:16:05 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  4. fun, about Trolls at Cannes: Cannes press event: Katzenberg introduced clips, Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake sang True Colors, then took a motorboat to a beach party with models in huge troll wigs.
    “there are these models that they bust in from Paris wearing these huge troll wigs.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson · 0:03:02 · Richard Lawson (0.60 sure it was them)
  5. fun, about Trolls: The Experience: The tour guide gave them the full kids' performance, forcing them to meet her halfway.
    “she extended the social contract to us and we had to like meet her halfway.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson · 0:25:46 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  6. fun, about Trolls: Trolls the dolls: the Russ and Norfin companies, Danish woodcutter origin, then mass-licensed dolls with no mythology.
    “there were the 2 companies.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson · 0:54:38 · Richard Lawson (0.50 sure it was them)
  7. fun, about Trolls World Tour: Premise riff from an ex-girlfriend: the movie is just that music exists.
    “the premise of this movie is just that music exists.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Trolls: The Experience with Richard Lawson · 1:37:29 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)
  8. fun, about Vanilla Sky: The reading that makes the movie work: after a Crowe-perfect first half, the rest is a man trying to make his life a Cameron Crowe movie again.
    “And then his life crumbles. And the rest of the movie is a guy trying to make his life like a Cameron Crowe movie again.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Vanilla Sky with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 1:38:49 · Richard Lawson (0.70 sure it was them)
  9. fun, about Roadies: A sad fan's assessment: Crowe fans either ignore bad entries or hope this is the one that gets him back.
    “There's the contingent of Crow fans who almost ignore when things are bad.”
    Blank Check — Patreon · Vanilla Sky with Richard Lawson (Ad-Free) · 1:52:29 · Richard Lawson (0.40 sure it was them)