0:21

When you see the podcast in the picture

0:23

that was shown to you earlier today, you

0:26

will say this is the podcast. The

0:29

rest of the podcast can stay, that's up to you,

0:31

but the choice for that lead podcast is not up

0:33

to you. Now you will see me one

0:35

more time if you do good. You

0:38

will see me two more times if you do bad. Good

0:41

podcast. There's sometimes

0:43

a podcast. How many

0:45

hosts does a podcast have? There's

0:48

so many more you could do. Come

0:50

on. No I-Podcast? I thought you might do

0:53

that. Oh sure. A

0:55

man's podcast. A man's podcast goes some ways. Oh

0:57

you just like the cowboy. Yeah I do, but

1:00

you're not doing his voice. You're doing a more

1:02

generic cowboy voice. I'm doing a more generic cowboy

1:04

voice. There's sometimes a buggy. I wish

1:06

I could do Monty Montgomery exactly right. Monty

1:09

Montgomery's secret legend of Link Check. He's

1:11

come up before. What have you

1:13

got? Do you know who plays the cowboy? Yes,

1:17

the producer. Monty Montgomery. But

1:19

was the co-director of Katherine

1:22

Bigelow's first film The Loveless, which we covered

1:24

on the show and was also the producer

1:26

of Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady. True.

1:30

And then produced several of David Lynch's films

1:32

and appears in this as an actor. Like

1:34

has now crossed three miniseries in

1:36

a way, in a capacity that kind of

1:38

feels like the role the cowboy plays in

1:40

this movie relative to those people's careers where

1:42

it's like I just roll into town and

1:44

make a big impact, I disappear. There's sometimes

1:46

a buggy. I'm working with you very intensely

1:48

for a short period of time and then

1:50

I'm gone. What were you

1:52

gonna say? We've

1:55

covered him as a director, a producer and an

1:57

actor. That's true. We have. in

2:01

Room to Dream, he talks about how

2:05

he just wanted

2:07

Monty for the role and

2:09

said, I would like you to play this role.

2:12

And Monty said, absolutely not. But then people

2:14

kept calling him being like, so here are

2:16

your dates. Right,

2:19

which I do think is kind of the lynch. The funny

2:21

thing to think about, he's in the TV pilot. We're going

2:23

to talk about all of this. And

2:25

you can just imagine the Twin Peaks thing

2:28

of like, sorry, buddy. Now, now you're just

2:30

going to be in every five episodes. Like,

2:32

right. It's like you're in, you're the log

2:34

lady now. You're just going to be showing

2:36

up. Yeah. Like it's not just you did

2:38

me a favor for the pilot. That's very

2:40

log lady though. Because

2:43

the light flickers before he shows

2:46

up. I was just double checking.

2:48

This is his only actor. It's his first and

2:50

only actor. Like obviously not only was he not

2:52

a professional actor, but it's not even like he

2:54

has a cameo in the Loveless. It's not like

2:56

he's in his other presence. He

2:59

does. Lynch saw him. Yeah.

3:02

And had I been working with him for like

3:04

five or six years at this point. But do we

3:06

think he came up with the character looking

3:08

at him and thought. Possibly. Or he had

3:10

the character and then was and then felt

3:12

Monty's. There's sometimes a bug. When we talked about

3:15

him in our Loveless episode. And

3:17

this was before we had researchers as

3:19

we were fucking scrambling for context on

3:21

Mike. We were like, who's this guy?

3:23

And we googled him and saw a picture of

3:25

him. We're like, first of all, his name is

3:28

Monty Montgomery. Here's the picture. This is his IMDB

3:30

picture. It looks like a tin type of a

3:32

bank robber from the fucking 1870s. We

3:34

did like 40 minutes of bits of like, how

3:36

did this man enter through a time warp? So I

3:39

kind of see David Lynch looking at him. He

3:41

wore his own clothes. Yeah. And so

3:43

I believe he'd be like, you know what? If I just

3:45

put you in front of camera and you just say my

3:47

oblique dialogue that will have some power to it. Yeah.

3:51

Yeah. And in Room to Dream he says that, or

3:53

maybe Thoreau says that

3:57

he said, do you want to run lines to Monty?

3:59

And Monty was like. Like, I'm good. Hell

4:01

yeah. Then they

4:03

start the scene. He has no idea what he's saying. So

4:06

they just wrote the lines and

4:08

then taped them on Justin. We

4:11

should cut to Justin just covered inside. Sometimes

4:14

there's a buggy. Have you

4:16

guys seen those pictures? You're too busy being the

4:19

smart aleck to be thinking. The behind the scenes

4:21

pictures from the filming of The Godfather, where Brando

4:23

of course was in his PQ card era, and

4:26

every other cast member, there are photos from The Godfather where

4:28

you're like, this is one of the most iconic scenes in

4:31

the history of movies. And Michael Corleone just has cue cards

4:33

around his neck or something. There's a great one of Duval,

4:35

where he literally has 10 different pieces

4:38

of paper pinned to his wool suit. But

4:40

hey, it seems to be working. Yeah, I've seen this

4:42

one. It is. Yeah, it seems to

4:44

be. Robert Duval looks like he's doing the love actually

4:46

proposal, and he's just got like

4:48

giant. You are perfect. It

4:54

works, man. If it works, it works. That's the

4:56

benefit. What's it working? That's

4:59

so funny though, especially, I mean like Clooney,

5:01

the famous thing with Clooney that I talk

5:03

about sometimes, is that in ER he would

5:05

put his sides on his

5:08

little clipboard because he's a doctor.

5:11

And he looks down at them all the

5:13

time. And then it turns into a tick

5:15

that he uses in all his movies not

5:17

to look at things, because

5:20

he knows it makes him look cute and vulnerable to

5:22

go like. And there's the

5:24

famous story. And it's the number one

5:26

Clooney move is to look down. There's

5:29

the famous story when they're making The

5:31

Peacemaker, the inaugural film released by DreamWorks.

5:33

And his sort of first star blockbuster.

5:35

Yes, and Spielberg had obviously been like

5:38

part of the process of him getting on

5:40

ER and whatever. And he's now on the

5:42

set of like the first vehicle that a

5:44

studio is banking on. And

5:47

Spielberg comes out from behind the monitor.

5:49

That was pre-Batman? Yeah. It's

5:51

the same year? Or maybe the same year. It's

5:53

right around the same time. But

5:56

Spielberg comes out from behind the monitor. And he puts his

5:58

arm around him. And Clooney thinks he's a good guy. about

6:00

to get complimented. And

6:02

Spielberg's like, I swear to God, you'll be a movie

6:04

star if you can ever stop looking dead. You

6:08

gotta get over this thing. He was wrong! And I

6:10

think he knew the backstory of it, but he was

6:12

like, if you can just fucking nip this one tick

6:14

in the bud. Never. You'll be a movie star. No,

6:16

he's gonna look down for the rest of his damn

6:19

life. Yeah. Please introduce

6:21

our show. I have so much to say about

6:23

this film. Really? Had you seen this

6:25

before? Yes. I

6:27

have seen this one before. Mid, where do you

6:29

stand on it? This

6:32

is basically my favorite movie of all time. I would

6:34

say this was definitely my top 10. In David's Sight

6:36

and Sound top 10 list. That's true. It

6:38

was on his ballot. Have we covered? I

6:42

feel like we've gone through this. I think we've gone

6:44

through this. We covered, I did

6:46

have Alien on my Sight and Sound top

6:48

10. We did on Patreon. Which we did

6:50

do on Patreon. And that is

6:53

it. Of my Sight and Sound top

6:55

10. This is the first film we're covering.

6:57

Well, you're forgetting I Love You to Death. Yeah, that was

6:59

your 10. You

7:01

were forgetting because it wasn't part of a proper

7:03

like director miniseries. But you did a, you did

7:05

a Kasdan then. We didn't, no. No, Ben sometimes

7:08

just picks a movie that he thinks is elemental.

7:11

That are usually kind of curated around what was

7:13

on Comedy Central. And we were like 12

7:15

years old. Yeah, so it was the early

7:17

2000s. The summer and the afternoon. They're usually

7:19

curated by like what are the most totemic

7:21

films in American cinema? It's really his own

7:23

Sight and Sound balance. The films start with

7:26

a free stream of a spinning pizza. Which

7:28

that movie does. Blank check. Free

7:31

spray. With Griffin and David. I haven't seen

7:33

it in so long. Oh, it's normal. I'm

7:35

David. It's normal. It's normal. It's

7:37

a normal movie. Aggressive. Oh, so

7:39

normal. Top to bottom. Tip

7:41

to tail. Not to get. This flick

7:44

is normal. Not to get derailed, but Ben just give me

7:46

like one or two other ones that you've picked.

7:49

Oh, sure. Oh, that's okay. He wants a Ben's

7:51

choices? The man who knew too little.

7:54

Under siege to dark

7:56

territory. We find out halfway through that episode that

7:59

he had never seen. under siege one.

8:01

He has now seen it. I have. Pretty good.

8:03

But at that point in time, it's actually kind

8:05

of better than two. As one of his favorite

8:07

movies of all time. No! We said,

8:09

Ben, you could pick any movie. He said under

8:11

siege two and an hour into the conversation. We

8:13

were like, is this what the character's like in

8:15

the first one? He's like, I don't know. Wouldn't

8:18

have never seen it. Fletch. That

8:21

was the first one. Fletch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

8:24

That's a solid choice. Street Fighter. Yeah.

8:27

This... I'm on a roller

8:30

coaster. Assassin's Creed. There have been two video

8:32

game movies. You're a gamer, Leslie. Do you

8:34

like Assassin's Creed? No. No. Well,

8:37

here's what's fun. Neither does Ben. He

8:39

never played the games before watching the movie.

8:41

He looks like under siege. I just got

8:43

really into it and I was in a

8:46

bad relationship and I just kind of kept

8:48

rewatching in the middle of the night. And

8:50

then I got obsessed with it. He saw

8:52

it like 30 times. Yeah. Yeah. I

8:54

bought him the steel book. It was a nice present.

8:56

Wait, are we forgetting one? There's so many. What do

8:58

you mean? Joe Dirt. Joe Dirt. Clifford,

9:01

obviously. Of course. Clifford. We've done it

9:03

twice. We went back for seconds. Clifford

9:05

2, Hyper Clifford. Yeah. Anyway, we're

9:08

moving on. Look, that's what our show

9:10

is sometimes. But what it's usually about

9:12

is... It's usually a podcast about filmographies.

9:14

Directors who have massive success early on

9:16

in their careers and are given a

9:18

series of blank checks to make whatever

9:20

crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those

9:22

checks clear. And sometimes your failed pilot

9:24

is retrofitted into a feature film that

9:26

not only makes David Sims' ballot... Sure. ...but

9:29

ranks number eight? That's

9:32

a good question, actually. What do you mean, like,

9:34

on the total... I believe on the last... ...sight

9:36

and sound ballot, it is insane to go, like,

9:38

what is this movie? David Lynch made a 90-minute

9:41

pilot for ABC that they deemed un-airable. Sure. Oh,

9:43

great. So it's Lost to Time? No. He got

9:45

a French company to let him film an hour

9:47

of new footage and edit it. It was two

9:49

things together. Eighth in the Critics Poll. Oh, so

9:51

the movie's a disaster? No, it's considered to be

9:54

one of the 10 greatest films of all time.

9:56

That's true. Didn't the... something...

10:00

I don't know what it was, but something named it

10:02

the greatest film of the 21st century. I

10:05

think that is what it is. But shortly after

10:07

it came out, like it was just in

10:09

2001. It was

10:12

like, this is it. This is the bar. I

10:14

even, look, it is the highest ranked film of

10:16

the 21st century on the site and South Pole, right? It's the

10:18

only one on the top 10. It's actually not. Fuck! What's

10:21

higher? What's higher? It's In the Mood

10:23

for Love is ranked higher. Okay. Okay,

10:25

fair. Which is another wonderful film. Yeah,

10:27

fair. That is

10:30

the only other one that's ranked

10:32

higher though. Yes. Wow.

10:35

Well, I watched this movie last night with my friend.

10:37

I've seen this movie. Oh wait, have you finished the

10:39

spiel, please? This is a mazers

10:41

on the films of David Lynch. Thank you, sure. We're blank

10:43

check over here. I said all the

10:45

other stuff. It's called Twin Pods Firecast with

10:47

me. Sure. Whatever. Our

10:50

guests triumphantly returned to the show. She's back! Type

10:53

in fists. I'm ready to fucking go.

10:56

I'm ready. I'm very regretful that

10:58

our Zodiac, we only got, I

11:00

feel like we barely touched the

11:02

surface. Sure, but I'll say this. We

11:05

had like a little bit of a, like, there's

11:08

a problem moment with the response to that episode

11:10

where people were like, I'm so disappointed. It's only

11:13

two hours and 45 minutes. What

11:15

went wrong? And we're like, how have we

11:17

gotten ourselves into a gilded cage where

11:20

if an episode is only a little above

11:22

two and a half hours, people feel like

11:24

we're ripping them off. for

11:28

seven straight hours. It was the same, same. But also,

11:31

hey, motherfuckers, if an episode's longer than 90 minutes,

11:34

that's a kindness. That's it. And

11:37

usually they're way over that. I feel

11:39

like, but I specifically feel

11:41

like just

11:44

this is why I had to come back in a tone.

11:46

I had to tone because. And you've cleared out your week.

11:48

I cleared, I'm here, I'm here. We're

11:50

gonna be sleeping here tonight. Yeah, exactly. Leslie

11:53

did text me and, you know, like, hey, do

11:55

you wanna do, oh, Mulhundra, that

11:57

sounds great, yeah. When can you do it? You guys need like all day.

12:00

And I was like, I mean, it doesn't

12:02

hurt. Yeah. Leslie Hadwin,

12:05

the acolyte of

12:07

sleeping with other people in my favorite romantic comedy of

12:09

the 21st century. Thank you. Bachelorette.

12:14

Yeah. Many other things. Mulholland

12:16

Drive. A show

12:18

that no one was ever going to

12:20

watch because they said, no, thank you. This

12:23

does not go to series. I just can't get it. It

12:25

is the weirdest. I know you can't get

12:28

over it. That is the most Griffin thing to do.

12:30

I've never gotten over it. OK, well. It is so

12:32

bizarre that this is the process that leads to this

12:34

movie. And the movie turned out the way it did

12:36

and has the reputation it does. And I just want

12:38

to say it again. The only clear

12:40

takeaway from this is that Moana 2 is going to be

12:42

the greatest film of

12:45

the last 20 years. It's

12:47

the first time since then that someone's finally

12:49

gotten the idea of we should replicate. Is

12:51

there any other example? I can't

12:53

think of one. TV pilot rejected. I think Moana

12:55

2 is the first time since Mulholland Drive that

12:59

someone has finally had the bravery to say, fucking,

13:01

these aren't episodes. Add

13:04

some new shit, read it, put it in theaters.

13:06

Sudden sound, here we come. Oh, sorry.

13:10

Oh, my god. Well, it's

13:12

sort of interesting. Lone best director now. It's interesting

13:14

to think about it with Twin Peaks. And we're

13:16

going to talk all about this. But obviously with

13:18

Twin Peaks, he makes the same thing. He makes

13:20

a 90 minute pilot, shows

13:23

it to ABC, convinces them that they

13:25

are suspicious, but are like, OK, let's

13:27

do it. But he did then shoot

13:29

the quote unquote international version of Twin

13:32

Peaks that has tacked on scenes that

13:34

sort of explain what's going on and

13:36

that you see Bob in a basement

13:39

going like, ah, ah, ah, I like

13:41

being crazy. Yes, it doesn't

13:43

explain much. But it's sort

13:45

of what he does here, where he's like, well,

13:47

let me tack on an act where

13:50

I go nuts. I

13:53

may be simplifying. But I guess he thought,

13:56

I'll just do something like that again.

14:00

You say already that you like this as much as

14:02

any movie ever made that it's on that tier of

14:04

movies You can comfortably call your favorite movie even if

14:06

it's not, you know, well, you're number one Yeah, and

14:09

like as a lesbian in

14:11

Hollywood who suffers from suicide ideation. This

14:13

is a bio. This is a bio. Okay

14:15

Yeah, no this all happened to me. Yes.

14:17

Yeah No, I was gonna say

14:19

I we were talking about a couple days ago

14:21

getting ready for this episode And I was much

14:24

like I'm now doing on mic Just

14:26

spinning out over like I can't believe this

14:28

is how this movie came into reality and

14:30

you were like and the craziest thing is

14:33

You can so clearly tell while watching it.

14:35

What was part of the pilot and what

14:37

he shot later Well, I can't see that I

14:40

will reveal I'll

14:42

say I don't know if I could I would

14:44

nail it a hundred percent of the time But

14:46

I I was watching it and feeling like I

14:48

could parse it out And it's like there's even

14:50

just like the sense of like some shit being shot

14:53

a year later I will just I'm just gonna

14:55

cut you off. I have seen the pilot. I

14:57

found him watched it this week After

15:00

long avoiding it. Yeah out of fear not

15:02

of just of spoiling my love of Mohan

15:04

drive. Yeah. Yeah It's

15:07

on the internet. You can find it if you look

15:09

you can go look at it. I didn't do the

15:11

work. It's fine I didn't want to honestly think and

15:15

We will talk all about this. Okay, the pilot is

15:18

Essentially, mm-hmm the first is

15:21

the first 90 minutes of Mohan drive that was

15:23

without Yes, too much fucking around the only thing

15:25

that is added is the Winky's scene, which is

15:27

not in the pilot at all the you know

15:30

The petit fissiler. Yes, that is not in the

15:32

sex scenes in the nudity or not That's what

15:34

I'm saying. So when you find the body like

15:36

oh, I see when they go everything after that

15:38

is the end of the pilot Yeah, the only

15:40

thing that's really added is the Winky scene a

15:42

couple things moved around There are a couple extra

15:45

scenes of Robert Forster in the pilot love to

15:47

see him Sure, yeah, literally just him kind of

15:49

doing like well looks like checking in on going

15:51

on here We're like right. This is going to

15:53

be no Continuing story

15:55

that was my guess and if it will some

15:57

of the scenes are shuffled around a little bit

16:00

It changes a little bit after that point, but

16:02

also it's like that's built into

16:04

the text of the movie. That makes sense.

16:06

Right? That like the movie's vibe changes, the

16:08

characters change, the look changes. I don't know

16:10

if it's because I had no idea

16:12

of the backstory the first time I watched the

16:14

movie and the movie made such a deep impression

16:16

on me. I watched it, I saw it in

16:18

the theater. It was the first

16:20

David Lynch film I'd ever seen. Wow, okay.

16:23

And I was on

16:25

ecstasy. Not same. Now

16:29

our paths diverge. Lately for

16:31

me, same. Or I took ecstasy right after. There

16:33

was ecstasy. What do the kids call it now?

16:36

Molly. Molly. I was

16:38

doing Molly either during or after. No, but

16:40

Leslie, we're similar ages, it's ecstasy. It

16:43

pisses me off so much that people don't call it that anymore.

16:45

I'm like, God damn it, I grew up with everyone calling it

16:47

that. I know, just kind of like. And it's a great name,

16:49

why are we a brand? It's a great name. Why are we

16:52

a brand? It's a great name. It's euphoria, it's ecstasy, right? No,

16:54

but just be funny. It

16:56

makes such an impression. I

16:58

know it's a little different or whatever. It's different

17:01

because the era of ecstasy was more, it was

17:03

pills and a lot of times it

17:05

was cut with like weird stuff. I know, I

17:07

know. And it's actually better

17:09

that nowadays MDMA is pure and it's

17:11

referred to as Molly. I'm

17:14

aware of what happened. And I

17:16

grew up in the nineties where they were like,

17:18

don't take ecstasy, you'll die like this. One kid

17:20

did one time. Everyone else seems to do fine,

17:22

but there was that one kid. Ecstasy and Dungeons

17:25

and Dragons lead to death. And

17:27

you're like, there's one example and maybe the

17:29

story doesn't show up. Anyway, anyway. You

17:32

saw. No, I was just saying it made such a deep, deep impression

17:34

on me. And when I was rewatching

17:36

it for this, I felt like the best place

17:38

to come from would be to really do

17:41

the sense memory of this is

17:43

what I felt the first time I watched it and then

17:45

rewatching it for this. This is. But

17:49

I had no idea the background of it. I don't think I

17:51

found out. When you saw it the first time. Oh yeah, I

17:53

don't think I found out about that until 10 years

17:56

later. I was going to say, I think the

17:58

same with me. I

18:00

was like, that can't be true. Yeah, that

18:02

does not process. I would have known that.

18:06

And the movie would have felt that way. That's so funny that you guys... That's

18:08

what's weird. I don't remember when I learned, but

18:10

it certainly wasn't within the couple of years of

18:12

the movie coming out and being feted. It

18:15

was probably 10 years later. I was 15 years old. It's

18:19

David's story time now for doing a Mulholland drive episode.

18:21

Wait, I... Well, you were 15? All right, so you're

18:24

a little older than me. Oh, God. It's

18:26

fine. Leslie, I'm 38. What are you, like...

18:28

It doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly. We're similar.

18:31

I'm 21. Yeah. Did you see the

18:33

scene theaters? Ben is fire. No, I

18:35

watched this on DVD with my mom when

18:37

she rented it probably a

18:39

year later. Right, and that was super cool

18:42

when the sex scene happened and everything.

18:44

You were just kind of like white-knuckling it on

18:48

the armchair. That arm was a big workout on

18:50

that couch. I

18:52

was 15 years old. If I had seen a Lynch film

18:54

before this, I actually do not remember.

18:56

I saw a straight story, which I

18:58

have talked about in that episode. But

19:01

that was my parents being like, there's a

19:03

David Lynch movie released by Disney

19:05

playing at the Angelica that's appropriate to take

19:07

kids to. We'll take the boys. Right, and

19:09

you liked it. And I was like, well,

19:12

that gives me no sense of who David Lynch

19:14

is. Like,

19:16

it walked out. My parents were just like... It's a

19:18

Disney film. Touchdown or Disney proper? It was released

19:20

as Walt Disney Pictures presents. Dear lord. David

19:23

Lynch. It's on Disney Plus? Yes, and

19:25

they couldn't... With the acolyte. It's

19:28

so weird that he made that. And I was like, what

19:30

do you mean? That's the most normal movie I've ever seen.

19:33

It's normal to a fault. So

19:35

when I'm watching this a couple years later

19:38

on DVD, at that point, I probably knew

19:40

him by reputation, but also was like, oh, this

19:42

is the weird David Lynch shit everyone's talking about.

19:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, same. So I was 15 years

19:46

old. I'm a budding cinephile. I certainly know I

19:49

have to go see this new movie that won

19:51

a prize at Cannes. That is the new David

19:53

Lynch film. It's on the awards. His first in

19:55

four years. You

20:00

know about the TV pilot thing. There is an

20:02

article in Sight and Sound, which of course later

20:04

I would rank this for, you know, as a

20:06

working film critic. The dream of my life was

20:08

to get to make it Sight and Sound top

20:10

10, which I then got to do, and I

20:12

made a really boring one, good job me. But

20:15

I did put more on the drive on it. David's process

20:18

was borderline insane for developing that. I

20:20

was like, hmm, boring, boring, boring, boring. But, and

20:22

so I read Grand Fuller's piece, Grand Fuller is

20:25

in the New York film critic circle to this

20:27

day, of which I am currently the chairman. I'm

20:30

just, I just think, like I read David

20:32

Grand Fuller's piece on Sight and Sound, on

20:34

Mulholland Drive in Sight and Sound 100 times.

20:37

You're saying this, this movie represents a lot

20:40

of full circle stuff of your entire relationship

20:42

to film and film culture. Yeah,

20:44

I would say it is formative

20:46

in my identity. Like

20:48

it's seeped into my bloodstream, into

20:50

the molecules of my body in a

20:52

way that I. And

20:55

I am not a lesbian who works in

20:57

Hollywood and had suicidal ideation.

20:59

And nonetheless. Nonetheless.

21:02

Drag me, drag me. No, I'm just using

21:05

your words against you. No,

21:07

I went to see it at the Holloway Odeon

21:10

with my friend Oliver Stevens. Shout out Ollie. He's

21:13

now Ollie Kinderberg, actually. I should use

21:15

his current name. He

21:17

did kind of a Mulholland Drive character name switch. He

21:19

did, God bless. And I've

21:22

never been so scared by a movie in

21:24

my life, and never will I be. Oh,

21:26

same, yeah. Because it's so elemental. Like now

21:28

I, whatever, I go see Long Legs and

21:30

I'm just like, all right. You

21:32

were so scared. I was. I ran

21:34

you a fucking byline. Well, I didn't write that headline.

21:37

But I was scared. But you know, it's

21:39

nasty. It's funny for you to say that

21:41

when this week. It's like, yes, Long Legs

21:43

is scary. Literally the

21:45

headline they gave David's review is like,

21:47

it's true, Long Legs is as scary

21:49

as everyone's telling you it is, and

21:51

then David's here going like, yeah, Long

21:53

Legs, whatever. I'm just saying, I'll never

21:55

have that element of mental fear

21:58

that I was of like, I don't know what's going on. to

22:00

fucking happen. And where did this come from?

22:02

Yeah, like, uh, like not,

22:04

not, seems like the diner of course freaked me

22:06

out, but then also just seems where like they're

22:08

just in their house. Sure. And I'm just like,

22:10

I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah.

22:13

Is someone going to come in? Are they going,

22:15

like what's going to happen? I'll never

22:17

have that feeling quite the same way. Yes.

22:21

Uh, and it changed my life and I owned

22:23

the absolutely shitty, bolderized DVD that David Lynch put

22:25

out as Lurs. Did you have this DVD, Leslie?

22:27

What did you say? The new DVD. Yes,

22:30

I did. I did. I was

22:32

obsessed with his hatred for this DVD. Well, it's famously

22:34

bad and it doesn't even have chapters.

22:36

It's nothing. It's bad. Yeah.

22:40

It's got those weird 10 clues. It's got the 10 clues, which are very

22:42

annoying and people fixated a little too much on. I don't think that they've.

22:45

There are no special features. He censored the

22:47

nudity and there's no scene selection and he

22:49

put in the fucking piece of

22:52

paper. And this is when you know he's sick.

22:54

Is he okay? I think

22:56

he was kind of whatever. He was

22:58

dealing with the dawn of the digital era, you

23:00

know, in his own way. I feel like he's

23:03

now kind of like, I

23:05

want to say his criterion. Just don't have

23:07

scene selection still. I think they do not, which

23:10

is fine. I mean, I don't mind

23:12

that big. Like I don't want people

23:14

jumping around. Yeah. Just

23:16

think about it. Like, what? Like, even as

23:18

I was watching it for this,

23:20

I sort of started to go, okay, so if I

23:23

could just get my thoughts together. Yeah. And

23:26

then, you know, this section and then this section

23:28

and I got so lost in trying to

23:31

make the bullet point outline that I just brought

23:33

my laptop this time because I just

23:35

noticed you have your laptop in front of you.

23:37

Yeah. I mean, Zodiac, I

23:39

know so well that I felt confident

23:42

coming in without it. A far more linear

23:44

movie that you can obsess over Robert Gray Smith style

23:46

and be able to recount how many steps it took

23:48

to get from scene one to scene 15. Yeah,

23:50

exactly. And break it up like

23:52

in that LA confidential way of like, I know

23:55

this section then this section. Yes,

23:57

it is a very. Yeah. Yeah. No,

24:00

no way. No. So, but

24:02

I know I watched the DVD over and over

24:04

and over again. I can read everyone's lines. Every

24:06

time you're fuming. You're like,

24:08

the quality of this is poor. No,

24:11

I was obsessed with it. No, I had the 10 clues

24:13

pinned to my wall. Just I'm a little embarrassed to admit

24:15

that now. But well, I had a big I

24:18

would still I would steal. We're

24:20

not really steel, but like at the end of the

24:22

day, I would take Variety magazine's home and this is

24:24

back when they were like, you know, humongous. So

24:27

all of the basically wallpaper. They were basic. And

24:30

that's what I did as I took out. I know

24:32

I did. I took out Leslie. I took out the

24:34

ads. Yeah. Yeah. The

24:36

FIC ads or whatever. And just put them on

24:38

my wall. And just, you know, it

24:40

just became I think I had like,

24:43

not that many, maybe like three or four. Yeah.

24:46

I had a lot more. But you know what I

24:48

would do? I had this FIC ad for Quentin

24:50

Tarantino, best director for Kill Bill Volume One, which

24:53

you got no Oscar nomination for that

24:55

where that's him and his little. I thought she was

24:57

nominated. The movie got zero noms. Both.

25:01

Insane. Across the two films, zero noms. And

25:03

she wasn't? No, it's wild. It

25:05

was at a Golden Globe? Is that what I'm saying? She got

25:07

a Golden Globe nom. And it's him doing this and Uma's like

25:09

looking at him in her yellow track soon. I think about it.

25:12

What I meant was I had just Mulholland dress.

25:14

Yes. Yeah. Only.

25:17

Okay. Got it. That was

25:19

the only one I hear about. Amelie. Amelie. I

25:22

had a couple Amelie. 2001, baby. It was

25:24

2001, baby. That accordion music. Yeah.

25:28

I was like, you're much younger than we are. I'm like, you

25:30

don't understand. We

25:32

didn't have the internet. Or it

25:34

was the dawn. It was an ancient internet. It didn't

25:36

have anything to do. It

25:39

was like that wheel with the stick.

25:43

That was what we were doing. This is what's interesting. My

25:45

version of that was we got

25:47

the fucking trades. My dad had

25:49

Variety and Hollywood Reporter subscriptions. I

25:52

would certainly pour over those FYC

25:54

ads. I would love being

25:56

like two page FYC spread for meet the

25:58

parents. I might I would be like. contractual

26:01

obligations. They don't think it's gonna get anything.

26:04

Terry Paul had for supporting actress, and he's like,

26:06

it's baked into her contract. Um,

26:08

but I would never think to throw

26:11

those out. New York Times would always

26:13

do summer movie preview, fall

26:16

movie preview. Oh, God, remember that? In

26:18

addition to the art section, for

26:20

those two seasons, they'd be like, here's

26:23

its own thing that's full

26:25

New York Times-sized posters

26:27

for all the things that are coming out this

26:30

summer with the date, basically in chronological

26:32

order. Yeah. And I would pull those

26:34

out for whatever movies I was most excited for and put them all

26:36

on my wall. Oh, yeah. And to

26:38

your point of the internet not existing, sometimes I'd

26:41

be going through that, and

26:43

movies, giant blockbuster movies that were coming

26:45

out two months later, that

26:47

would be the first time I heard about it. You're

26:50

like, this movie cost $100 million. I'm

26:53

paying attention to everything. I'm watching Entertainment Tonight,

26:55

I'm reading Entertainment Weekly, and the New York

26:57

Times in May is telling me what is

27:00

gonna be the biggest movie in August. Like,

27:02

what the fuck is The Sixth Sense? Oh,

27:06

so. That is a movie that does

27:08

not exist with the internet. No, and the internet-

27:10

The internet- Is nothing. That's a fair point. It

27:12

just doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Or not in the same way.

27:15

No, it just doesn't. Not as a way of like six

27:17

weeks later people being like, I guess

27:19

I should see that, huh? Like, everyone's talking about it.

27:21

Same thing with The Matrix, I think. Same thing with

27:23

The Matrix. That was a weirdly, obviously

27:26

it was a huge hit, but

27:28

both of those were weirdly word of mouth movies.

27:30

And same year. And

27:32

both of them. Same old 99, right, right, right. And both of

27:34

them have the same thing. Who's the fucking idiot

27:37

who was like, 1999, the

27:40

year that changed film- Let's not say

27:42

his name on mic, yes. No, no, we can't, no,

27:44

please go ahead. We know this person. David thought about

27:47

pitching that book. But

27:49

wasn't it in Entertainment Weekly like-

27:51

Yes. That's who did that. Yeah, I

27:53

think he works at EDI. I can't remember. Like, 10 years later they

27:55

were like, we're gonna make this a thing. But

27:58

I feel like everybody already knew that. Yes. That's

28:00

why it was a good pitch

28:02

for and it's right the thing with

28:04

that You're something that lots of people

28:06

know cross-section between things they already know

28:09

it popular phenomenon and that culturally important

28:11

like yes Star

28:13

Wars and Blair Witch you had the

28:15

Matrix and the sixth sense and my

28:17

club and right magnolia Three

28:20

hundred million dollars and getting nominated for six And

28:23

being critically beloved good good-ass

28:25

movie. I just rewatched it

28:27

I was like this but can movie

28:29

is so great movies Yeah, while being

28:31

very mainstream blockbusters have this thing where

28:33

they like come out They open a

28:36

little better than expected and then the

28:38

marketing campaign is people saying to you

28:40

I can't even tell you what this is you just have to

28:42

have to watch my word for it Yeah, just

28:45

go. Yeah, which is how lynch

28:47

movies usually tend to stick in the culture

28:49

or Twin Peaks people Just going like I

28:51

can't explain this thing. You just gotta go

28:54

That's how you you know as like

28:56

a budding cinephile usually most people

28:58

watch eraser head That's how

29:01

people got into Twin Peaks. Yes, Leslie. Do

29:03

you have a twin Lynch a

29:05

larger Lynch take or whatever like? Oh if

29:07

Mahan drivers your first Lynch like do you

29:09

like David Lynch? I love you seen all

29:11

of this Yeah, I have not seen all of

29:14

his films I have oddly read a

29:16

bunch about David Lynch like catching

29:18

the big fish room to dream right

29:20

Lynch on Lynch I find

29:22

his personality to be sparkling

29:26

incredibly uncharism Oh

29:29

my god, he's so hot Jesus Christ This

29:31

is another thing we talk about Foster

29:34

and Lynch all do the most yes,

29:36

you're right, but you're right Lynch was always

29:38

hot Oh different kinds of Lynch or whatever,

29:40

but he's hot in all types. He's aging

29:43

like Paul Newman It's that thing where you're

29:45

like every version of him. He

29:47

feels like this. This is this

29:50

is not quite right and I think he's Superior

29:53

artist, but he does feel

29:55

like the cinematic version of

29:57

Tom Robbins in in

29:59

terms in terms of everything that

30:01

happens feels like this stream

30:04

of consciousness of him.

30:09

There isn't sort of a set

30:11

up payoff to still

30:14

life with Woodpecker. And yet at

30:16

the same time, once you

30:18

finish it, you have the experience of,

30:21

oh, that was holistic. This is what's

30:23

kind of, yes. Even though it felt

30:25

like each step was so wild. Yes.

30:28

But you had characters you could hold on to, you

30:31

had themes you could hold on to, you were

30:33

compelled by particular things. Yes. But

30:35

then you're told other things that,

30:38

or you're shown other things, I should

30:41

say, for Lynch that you're

30:43

trying to place as, you're

30:47

just trying to place. I guess you're trying, I

30:49

love Lynch because you aren't always, and this is

30:52

what I mean by Tom Robbins, it's like you're always

30:54

trying to find your footing and yet you are taken

30:57

care of. You don't feel completely

30:59

abandoned. What is so bizarre about him? I

31:02

don't say this in the framework of me patting myself on the

31:04

back and being like, what are you talking about? All

31:06

these movies are easy to understand. I figured them all out. But

31:08

it is fascinating for how much hand-wringing

31:11

there is about interpreting meaning of shit

31:13

in Lynch movies, right? And this movie's

31:15

Wikipedia page is the longest Wikipedia page

31:17

I've ever seen for any movie. It

31:20

has 20 subsections of analysis and theories

31:22

and fucking whatever, right? And

31:25

I feel like was talked about

31:27

so much as this puzzle box movie, this

31:29

completely bleak, like people are obsessed with trying

31:31

to crack at things to the point of

31:33

putting the 10 clues in. And

31:36

maybe it's just that like watching them in the

31:38

context of this podcast, where we

31:40

are going chronologically and we're reading dociles.

31:43

This is true. I'm

31:45

like, all of these movies are clearly very

31:47

representative of things that he's going through

31:50

in his life. Like, that's true. They're

31:52

all so personal and they make sense

31:54

in the chronological order of like everything

31:57

we're reading. His wife fucked Billy Ray Cyrus.

31:59

Yeah, that's the perfect surprise. It's

32:01

about a girl who lost her keys. I'm sorry, I have

32:03

to make that joke with this one. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.

32:05

I've been saying that every movie is about a guy who lost

32:07

his keys, and this movie actually has a key in it.

32:10

Wait, you've been saying that? It's like a joke, like just

32:12

being like, movies easy to solve, that guy who lost his keys.

32:16

That's David's joke about... How

32:18

people are like, um, I can explain a race ride

32:20

to you, okay? The guy lost his keys, by the

32:23

end you got his keys back. But I think people

32:25

try to read them like he's trying to transmit some

32:27

weirdness. This is a clue. This is a clue. No,

32:30

he's trying to work through his own shit. He's

32:32

inviting you, this is what I mean, like he's inviting you into

32:34

his brain. Yes. He's not

32:36

going to apologize in any way for it. It's

32:38

going to be extremely confident. Yes.

32:42

And he is gifting

32:44

you the opportunity to

32:46

have an experience digesting

32:49

it. And the miracle of

32:51

him as an artist is that he

32:54

does that in a way that is

32:56

compelling to people who don't have the

32:58

puzzle pieces of what's going on inside

33:00

his head or in his life. That

33:02

it can represent different things to different

33:05

people in meaning and be gripping and

33:07

be funny and be scary when he

33:09

is also not really playing by any

33:11

conventional rules of narrative cinema. I

33:14

remember, the other thing too is

33:16

it's... The word

33:18

that keeps coming to mind is experiential

33:20

because when I think of

33:22

David Lynch, I don't have a

33:28

beginning, middle and end narrative that comes to mind.

33:31

What I think is I know

33:33

exactly where I was sitting when

33:36

I saw X scene. Sure. You

33:39

know, like Laura Dern's monologue

33:41

in Blue Velvet. I

33:43

know exactly where I was sitting. I know exactly

33:45

the feeling I was having. It's a physical

33:48

sensation that you're remembering as much as remembering

33:50

the film. Exactly. Yeah. And

33:53

you just... I remember watching that and going, how

33:55

long has this been going on for? Sure. Has

33:58

this been the whole movie? Yeah, right. Is the

34:00

whole movie this scene? Yeah. Because I'm trying

34:03

to, usually with other films, you're watching

34:06

the scene in

34:08

relation to the scene you just saw, right?

34:10

So there's this quote, I don't

34:12

know who said it, that in plays, the

34:15

viewer is thinking this is what's happening

34:17

now, and in movies they're

34:19

thinking what's gonna happen next. Interesting.

34:22

And I think David Lynch

34:24

is, you have to watch him with this is what's happening

34:26

now. Yeah. While

34:29

you're watching Laura Dern, you're not going, I

34:31

wonder how. Where's this leading? Where's this leading?

34:33

You just think, wow, what am I watching?

34:36

You're never gonna predict where it's going. I

34:39

think that his thesis statement might be, because

34:42

Blue Velvet comes out of the disaster that's

34:44

down. So it does, I like this movie

34:46

better, I consider this movie to be his

34:48

masterpiece, but I do understand that Blue Velvet

34:52

is what cements him as him.

34:54

Yes. Eraserhead, he bursts

34:56

on the scene. There's nothing controversial about saying.

34:58

Yeah, so with Blue Velvet, I think if

35:01

there were a thesis statement for him that

35:03

he hasn't already said, I think he articulates

35:05

his work extremely well. I

35:07

agree, yeah. But I think

35:09

that it's when Isabella Rossellini discovers

35:12

Kyle McLaughlin in her closet, and

35:15

then she's like, take your clothes

35:17

off or whatever. And she

35:19

says, what do you want? And he

35:21

says, I don't know. Yeah. This

35:25

guy is trying so hard to figure himself out,

35:27

and that's what all of these movies are. And

35:29

that's what all of the movies are about. And

35:31

they're reflective of whatever the specific issue is he's

35:33

dealing with at that point in time, to

35:35

some extent. Right. I

35:38

think with Mohan Drive, It's about a woman who loses

35:40

her keys. It's about a woman who loses her keys.

35:42

No, I think- That's genuinely true though.

35:45

It is. But I do

35:47

think there is, I don't think it is a...

35:51

I'm so afraid of making any blankety statements,

35:54

but anyway, I think there is a- You are representing

35:56

your personal relationship experiences. No, no, no, I'm not. I'm

35:58

saying, I think that there's- I mean, a

36:00

fairly, not straightforward, but

36:03

like there is a way to read the

36:05

plot of Mulholland Drive that's not that complicated.

36:07

I would agree. Uses dream logic, obviously, and

36:09

that's the idea of what's going on here.

36:11

There are other things that are

36:13

a little more like, it's up to

36:15

you. But I also think David Lynch

36:17

very happily wants anyone to bring anything

36:19

to these movies. And so,

36:21

to all of his movies, right? And so he's obviously

36:23

certainly never gonna sit down and be like, the thing

36:25

that's going on is this. You

36:28

never do that to an audience. Right, and

36:30

if I went up to David Lynch and I was

36:32

like, Mulholland Drive is about something that happened to me,

36:35

like, you know... He'd be thrilled. Exactly, he would be

36:37

like, that's great, I'm sure. Or he would

36:39

be like, you know, have you heard of Transcendental

36:41

Meditation? I'd be like, yes, I have. He would, absolutely.

36:43

Um, but, uh, but

36:46

I do feel like this film came out at

36:49

the dawn of the internet. Not dawn,

36:51

dawn, but, you know, of like... Oh, like, yeah. Where

36:53

people would then go... I would say mainstream of

36:55

the internet. Right. A type in Mulholland Drive, there

36:58

is a website called mulhollanddrive.net that

37:00

still runs, that has this kind of lovely,

37:03

early 2000s sort of aesthetic to it, that

37:05

has like, theories and stuff that people were piling

37:07

in. There's a very famous salon.com article that I

37:10

remember I would read over and over again that

37:12

was like, trying to explain what's, you know, like...

37:15

It was the beginning of, let's use the

37:18

internet to collectively try and understand

37:20

something that was confusing. A

37:22

movie that made seven million dollars, that

37:24

was not like some sensation... It wasn't like Twin

37:27

Peaks. ...but was an abstract piece of storytelling. Not

37:30

like, aggressively abstract, but

37:33

still abstract enough that broke into a mainstream

37:35

sense. And thus, lots of people

37:37

are like, what was that? But here's

37:39

what's fascinating about it to me, is like,

37:41

Twin Peaks had that same cultural, we

37:44

are in on trying to game this out, right?

37:47

Kind of thing. It did, but in a

37:49

pre-internet era. I know. In a pre-internet era,

37:51

where the way that happens on a peer-to-peer level is

37:54

so much more bizarre. And it's a few of this and

37:56

whatever. And that's a phenomenon that stretches out, but

37:59

also like rises. and falls really quickly.

38:02

And then as we've discussed, the

38:04

stuff between Twin Peaks and this

38:06

movie is largely reviled. He goes

38:08

through this period. That's true. Where

38:10

people are like, he's cooked, he's

38:12

gone too far up his own

38:14

ass. Yes. Over on Lynch. And

38:16

they're also mad at him because,

38:19

I mean, I'm gay. I mean,

38:21

I'm talking about people in the 90s and the broadest

38:23

brush, but I think people felt betrayed by Twin Peaks.

38:25

You gave us a beautiful thing and then you killed

38:27

it. You destroyed it. You went through with a show

38:29

that has such a

38:32

wide cultural acknowledgement

38:34

or whatever. And people are

38:36

like, but you fucked that up. Like, I didn't

38:38

like the Twin Peaks, like didn't end how I

38:40

wanted it to or didn't keep going how I

38:42

wanted it to or whatever. What about the,

38:44

I mean, listen, echoing a particular

38:47

fan base, I may

38:49

say, the first season, why

38:51

didn't you give us the answer? Second

38:53

season, you gave us the answer, we didn't like it.

38:56

Go fix the answer. You're talking about young Sheldon fans, right?

38:58

When you're talking about which fan base, I'm sorry, the Sheldon

39:00

verse. We

39:03

need closure. Here's the closure. How

39:05

did he get older? As time passes, people

39:07

grow up. I don't like that answer. Do

39:10

we even have a lore director? Sheldon wouldn't do

39:12

that, even if he were young. Is

39:17

that what Sheldon is? Fine, Sheldon discovers an autism cube when he's

39:19

10 and that's okay, what do you want from

39:21

me? Autism cube. I

39:23

just like the idea that someone's like, explain why he's like that.

39:27

I think Sheldon legend should count.

39:30

Work them back in, reclaim

39:32

Sheldon legends. I do think that is a

39:34

sign of a fan base that has gone

39:36

on too long and needs to be nuked

39:38

from orbit where they're like, I

39:40

know you removed all this from Canon, but I

39:42

liked that one and enough of us do that

39:45

we've got to bring it back. And they're like,

39:47

all right, bring it back. All right, we're going to

39:49

take that one thing. Honestly, in my opinion, Timothy

39:52

is on road Sheldon better than anyone else. I

39:55

don't even think Chuck Lori really got, he

39:57

created Sheldon by accident. He never even really tried.

40:00

Mohal and Drive. Mohal and Drive. Sorry. Mohal

40:02

and Drive starts with Tony Krantz. My point I was gonna

40:04

make. Just to finish this off. Just to finish this off,

40:06

for me to do one sentence of the thing and then

40:08

break in with some other ship. That's funny. That's funny. I'm

40:10

not helping. I'm not helping. Thank you. What?

40:14

No, it's just this film, when this comes out, and as you said,

40:16

in a much smaller way, seven million

40:18

domestic, one Oscar nomination, what have you, it's

40:20

not a cultural phenomenon on the level of Twin Peaks

40:22

crossing over the mainstream. No, but it didn't. The first

40:25

time in ten years that the public was like, let's

40:27

lean in, crack our knuckles and try to figure this

40:29

thing out. I think people were ready for Lynch

40:31

to be back. Yes, they are ready. The

40:33

internet helps fuel this. Very true. There's

40:36

now a dialectic going on between the

40:38

viewers of the movie and

40:41

this other section of pop culture and

40:43

the text itself. Tony Krantz is

40:46

a CIA agent. He is instrumental to

40:48

the creation of Twin Peaks, in

40:50

that he sort of brings Lynch to

40:52

ABC and somehow makes that work, which

40:54

obviously must have been a little complicated.

40:59

Supposedly Lynch recounts at one

41:01

point that

41:05

he has this idea for Audrey Horn's character

41:07

in Twin Peaks, I have a Sherlyn Fenn's

41:09

character, Audrey Horn, that

41:11

one day she'll have a storyline

41:15

where she goes to Los Angeles and starts a

41:17

movie career and will make a movie about it.

41:20

Interesting. Well, kind of like, because there's been a lot

41:22

of talk over the years. Not another show. Right.

41:24

He was like, we'll do like an

41:26

Audrey Horn movie that'll be about

41:28

her trying to make it in show business. This is

41:31

a world where he assumes Twin Peaks extends for years

41:33

and years and years and has multiple tendrils. Yes, exactly.

41:35

Mark Frost remembers something similar. Like, we were maybe going

41:37

to do a spin-off show. We were maybe going to

41:39

do a TV movie. We were maybe

41:41

going to do a pilot. Who knows? And it's one

41:43

of those classic, like, we wrote on a napkin. It's an idea. They

41:46

may not have been written on a napkin. They

41:48

discussed it. Sure. Cherilyn

41:51

Fenn, who is, I will

41:53

say, insane. So she can't

41:55

be completely trusted. Confirms

41:59

this like... Yes, this was something

42:01

they were cooking up. Like, I would

42:03

go to California. I'm sorry to

42:05

call her insane, but check out her Instagram. It's

42:09

insane. David Lynch says,

42:11

I don't know about that. All right, well, thank you, David

42:13

Lynch. The answer is it's probably somewhere in

42:15

the middle, right? You know, like,

42:17

I don't know. Someone discussed this. However, of

42:19

course, Twin Peaks falls apart. On

42:22

the air and hotel room kind of turned

42:24

David Lynch against TV for a while. Sure.

42:27

You said on the air? On the air. Yeah, and

42:29

hotel room. Have you ever seen on the air? I

42:31

haven't. It is so bizarre in

42:33

how much it isn't weird. Like,

42:36

that's the thing. You're watching it, and

42:38

you're just like, is this, like, sarcastic?

42:43

Are you? I don't think it's bad. I

42:45

think that, OK, I was going to go

42:47

on a tangent. But it feels like him being like, I

42:49

want to make an old-timey sitcom. And then he just does

42:51

that. There's

42:54

a, there's a, there's, Lynch

42:56

is very attracted to the, quote, wholesome.

42:58

Yes. He really likes that, you

43:00

know. So it makes sense.

43:02

It makes sense that he would do that.

43:04

Are those HBO's hotel room? HBO

43:07

is a hotel room. But who's on the air? On

43:09

the air was also ABC? My book? Was

43:12

on ABC in the summertime in 1990. Yeah,

43:14

it was Will Burnoff. Two, which is right,

43:17

when you know network is confident. Your

43:19

show will be debuting in July. So,

43:22

but however, Krantz and

43:25

who now works at Imagine Television,

43:27

the spinoff of Ron Howard and

43:29

Brian Grazer's show. Water the drop

43:32

in production. Ripple effects.

43:35

Imagine. It's

43:37

still like, no, man, you should make another

43:39

TV show. Like, you know, it's over the

43:41

years just kind of like, come

43:43

on, any ideas, throw in nuts at it. That

43:45

was your biggest success. Yeah. Why wouldn't you try

43:47

to do that again? Lynch, of course, says, yeah,

43:50

here's my perfect idea for a movie. No, I'm

43:52

joking. He says, I picture Mulholland Drive at night.

43:54

You know, classic David Lynch. Sure. I

43:56

have one thought. I have one

43:58

thought. Right. And that's like... It's

44:01

a road of mystery and danger. But is

44:03

it Blue Velvet like the ear? Yeah. Blue

44:06

Velvet is the ear and I've always wanted

44:08

to crawl into a woman's closet and wash

44:10

her dress. I'm not joking. Yeah, no, that's

44:12

how he said that. Something he's said to

44:14

somebody. He pitched it to execs when

44:17

they said, you got anything else. What happens next? I

44:19

crawl into a woman's closet. Did

44:22

they say that in the framework of, do you have

44:24

any movie ideas? Honestly, that's hot. They were like, do

44:26

you have any ideas? He's like, I have always personally.

44:30

But also Lost Highway is like, what if you

44:32

got a videotape of yourself? Exactly.

44:35

That was the whole fucking thing. And this

44:37

was the street sign, right? It's a mysterious

44:39

road. It's rural in many places. It's curvy,

44:41

it's two lanes, it feels whole. You feel

44:43

the history of Hollywood on that road. Now

44:45

I have only driven on Mulhond Drive once

44:47

or twice. It does, when I was

44:49

on it, I am like, it is fucked up that

44:51

this road exists. I don't know. I

44:54

mean, you probably, have you ever lived in LA at Leslie?

44:56

I lived in LA for a ball

45:00

parking three years. And I

45:02

gotta say, I'm excited to get

45:05

into it because he really pinpoints

45:07

particular LA, like corners of LA.

45:10

And they all amplify the characters

45:13

so much. Have you ever driven

45:15

on Mulhond Drive? Well, I don't

45:17

drive famous. I've definitely driven up there

45:19

and there is this like, especially

45:22

at night, there's this sort of like

45:24

dreamy feeling to it. And

45:27

it's dangerous. And you feel like, I'm

45:30

gonna kill someone or someone's gonna kill me.

45:32

It's the fury road. But then during the

45:34

daytime, it has this, like

45:38

if I'm remembering correctly, like one side of

45:41

it is this kind of like Burbanky, we're

45:43

in the desert. And then the other side of it is like

45:45

the richest of the rich. Right,

45:49

I mean, look, it's like fucking David Lynch designed

45:53

a road to metaphor and represent

45:55

his entire relationship to the entertainment

45:57

industry. That's actually true. of

46:00

LA and you're like, here is LA and then here is,

46:02

you know, whatever, you know, the North Hollywood and Van Nuys

46:04

and all this stuff. And it's like in the middle there

46:06

are these mountains. You're like, oh, OK, mountains. And then there's

46:08

just the map just has this one road that's like, yeah.

46:11

And you're like, what's that? Like, Mulholland Drive. And you're like,

46:13

OK, it looks like you're driving through

46:16

the Pyrenees. Like, it just, anyway. I want

46:18

to make it clear I'm not making an

46:20

empirical slam on the city that many people

46:22

live in and love. But much

46:24

to the point of what you're saying, I

46:27

watched this movie and I'm like, this is why I don't live in

46:29

LA. It's very. I

46:32

think it's very specific to like specifically a

46:34

certain type of person who wants to work in the

46:36

entertainment industry and doesn't like specifically

46:39

the culture of living in that geographic place while

46:41

trying to do this type of work. Yeah. And

46:44

the way the city is built around it. Well,

46:46

the roads are strong as quickly. Yeah. But I

46:48

watch this movie. I'm like, yeah, yeah, David, I

46:50

fucking get it. That's how I feel too. I

46:52

think that all of this feels weird. It's

46:55

one of those movies that I think people love

46:57

to say, you know, it's a

46:59

love letter to this. Maybe

47:02

they don't say love letter, but it's twisted love

47:05

letter. It's a twisted love letter to

47:07

the city. It's Los Angeles plays itself.

47:09

This picture. And I'm like, no, no,

47:11

no, it is Los Angeles. Right. This

47:13

is certainly what I think Los Angeles is.

47:15

He's actually not making any value statement on

47:17

it. He's not making any statement on it. Right. That's

47:20

it. You know what the love letter

47:22

to Los Angeles is? The fact that he still lives

47:24

there. I thought that.

47:26

When I was reading the book. The

47:28

movie saying this is a movie about him being

47:30

terrified by the city. And yet he stays. He

47:32

stays. He doesn't. He's like, I moved there

47:34

in the middle of the night. Yeah. I

47:36

woke up the next morning and it was

47:38

so bright. Right. He just like loved it.

47:40

He never left. Right. And Twin Peaks or

47:42

not Twin Peaks, but Twin Peaks to an extent,

47:44

I was going to say Blue Velvet. But like

47:47

the suburban section of his work is

47:49

like this is the environment in which

47:51

I feel the most comfortable. I genuinely

47:53

get pleasure in the sense of security

47:55

from this type of

47:58

attitude, culture, look, vibe. whatever and

48:00

I acknowledge there's stuff right under

48:02

the surface, right? Right. Versus this

48:05

movie is him being like, this

48:07

is fundamentally alien to me. Yeah.

48:11

I choose to stay here, but

48:13

all of this is weird. This business is weird, this city

48:15

is weird, people are weird. The people in it are weird.

48:18

Yeah. I'll say something else. I think

48:20

David Lynch is kind of weird. In August 1998,

48:24

Straight Stories in Pre-production, Lynch and

48:26

Krantz pitch Mulholland Drive to Jamie

48:29

Tarsus, the then somewhat legendary head

48:31

of ABC. Inspiration for Amanda Pete's

48:33

character on Studio 60. A great

48:36

character with the electron. Basically

48:39

pitches them. Passed away recently kind of tragically. Yes,

48:41

a little tear. I thought you meant Amanda Pete

48:43

tonight. No, we still have her. Amanda Pete's so

48:45

live, Amanda Pete's Studio 60 character canonically dead. She

48:47

died filming season seven of the UN or whatever

48:49

the show is that she's, I'm joking. She

48:52

committed Sepuku live during a broadcast of Studio

48:54

60. Right, during progress of Studio 60. Will

48:57

someone please end this? Bradley

48:59

Whitford chops her head off. She's pregnant

49:02

with Bradley Whitford's 10th accidental trial. David.

49:05

Yes. We are so

49:07

thrilled that this episode

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of. A grown up thriller. Yeah. As our

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friend, John Hodgman said, a great movie about

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doors. That

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was his line. I give him full credit and

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a movie with an incredibly normal ending. You

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but November has lots of big movies. Griff.

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I have seen why you're too. Lots of

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it. I hear he kind of just disappears

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into the tapestry. Um, Moana too.

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Right? Like this is like, you know, it's

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a Thanksgiving's approaching. There's all kinds of big

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stuff to see. Yeah. We're going

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to get wicked. We're going to get wicked. Yeah.

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Is that how it's said? I see it typed

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out. People talk about getting wicked. Oh, because it's

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like gladiator to it's just not very clean. Yeah.

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Like us. Yes. Can't wait to see

53:25

Red 1 and 4DX. They

53:27

pitch essentially two pages they say, which is

53:29

basically like a woman who's trying to be

53:32

a star in Hollywood finds herself becoming like

53:34

a detective, digging into an underworld. Jamie Tarsus,

53:37

somewhat surprised, to their surprise is like you have $4.5 million.

53:40

Jesus Christ. And can make a pilot. They

53:43

get another. And does she approve at 90

53:45

minutes? She approves essentially. Whatever it takes. They

53:47

get a little bit more money from Touchstone

53:49

TV. And so they basically approve a $7

53:51

million budget for a

53:53

TV pilot. Basically feature length, 90 minutes. They

53:56

do demand. 25 years ago at a time where

53:58

no TV cost that much. per episode. That

54:00

is crazy. They demand the close ending. Close ending,

54:02

yeah, for the international. Sort of the same deal

54:04

with Twin Peaks of like you need to produce

54:06

a cut that we could maybe like sell in

54:09

Europe as a movie. Sure. Okay.

54:11

All right, let's do it.

54:13

Krantz hooks up with David Lynch with Joyce

54:15

Eliasson, I want to say her name is.

54:18

Okay. Who is an experienced, she did

54:21

the Jackson's mini series, if anyone remembers

54:23

it, with Angel Abassett, which is really

54:25

good actually. Yeah. But kind of like

54:27

an experienced TV hand. Kind of the same thing as

54:29

Mark Frost. Here's someone who can manage

54:31

a lot of the sort of day to day

54:33

TV shit. It must have

54:35

been such a weird moment to

54:37

be like, look, we're 10 years

54:40

out basically from Twin Peaks, right?

54:42

So now there's enough distance that

54:45

everyone's calmed down a little from their anger

54:47

over how it collapsed and

54:50

everyone's starting to feel like it's an X.

54:53

Yes. If we

54:55

could do another try tomorrow, would it work? Would it work?

54:58

Yeah. So it's really like, look, we

55:00

don't know where Twin Peaks came from last time. You got

55:02

to do your David Lynch thing, but everyone's also like, let's

55:04

keep a little bit more attention on this. Yeah.

55:07

Let's put some like steady hands

55:09

around him with good taste. Nonetheless.

55:12

Yeah. David meets with her a few times and they don't get

55:14

along part ways. He writes the whole thing himself. He

55:17

delivers the screenplay to ABC. They

55:20

order the pilot. So it's not like he

55:22

fucking comes out of nowhere with the thing

55:24

he makes. They

55:28

have six pilots ordered. They only have room

55:31

for about three or four, but nonetheless, strong

55:33

contender. The 99 or 2000 season. I

55:38

think this would have gone to air in 99 probably. A

55:42

few other projects that Lynch passed on

55:44

or sort of considered at the time,

55:46

American Beauty, The Ring,

55:49

and Motherless Brooklyn, which

55:53

was sort of kicking around at that time. Wow.

55:56

That three make sense. I mean, like

55:58

those are three separate. parts of the

56:00

Lynch worldview. That's actually true. Yeah, the

56:03

suburban discontent. Right. You can see what

56:05

someone saw for him in any of

56:07

them. But obviously, none of these went

56:09

anywhere with him. Right. J-War. Yeah,

56:12

and the sideways detective story. Yeah. You're

56:14

like, most of his movies are those

56:16

three things happening simultaneously. I can't even

56:18

focus on one. It's fascinating to

56:21

see three movies on his desk that are all just

56:23

like, you just do this for two hours. David

56:26

Lynch's casting process famously is he basically

56:28

just looks at photos and just waits

56:30

until something strikes him. Sure. Well, he

56:32

really trusts Joanna, right? Joanna Ray, obviously.

56:34

He's just like, I'm assuming this person

56:36

can act if you're showing me a

56:38

picture. Sure. Naomi Watts

56:40

intrigues him, Australian actress who had done some

56:42

Australian stuff. But I feel like when she

56:45

is in this movie is mostly, I'm mostly

56:47

reading that she was Nicole Kidman's roommate when

56:49

she was a teenager. Yeah, someone when I

56:51

said I was doing this podcast,

56:54

I was doing the movie for this podcast, was

56:56

like, is that the movie with Nicole Kidman's best

56:58

friend? And I was like, burn,

57:01

bitch. Yeah. I think that's a lot

57:03

of it is like they both are like, we're going to go to

57:05

Hollywood and try to make it. And Nicole

57:07

Kidman hits 10 years earlier than Naomi Watts does.

57:09

And Naomi Watts is in. I wonder why. So

57:12

strange. It's so much these inexplicable things. You

57:14

know who I was thinking about a lot? It's

57:16

so strange, isn't it? It is. It's

57:19

not. I think someone is serving the C word

57:21

over here. I understand what

57:23

you're saying. Somebody gets married.

57:26

But yes, absolutely. Yeah. But also. I'm

57:28

not saying she's not talented. I'm just

57:30

saying. But her early career. It's interesting.

57:32

You're right. You're totally right. Yeah. I

57:36

do. I was thinking a lot while

57:38

watching this, both in the real Naomi

57:40

Watts narrative of her career, leading

57:42

into this movie, and of course, the character she's playing

57:44

where there are a lot of parallels. I

57:47

was thinking that too. For what this movie represented

57:49

for her as a chance to like basically get

57:51

off the bench. Yeah. This is your shot to

57:53

make them take notice. Right. We

57:56

probably talked about this in past episodes. But this

57:58

insane stat. for both

58:01

Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, if

58:04

not additionally also maybe some

58:06

of the earlier developmental Brett Ratner, McG

58:09

versions of trying to revive Superman, and

58:13

for Nolan's Batman Begins. Amy

58:16

Adams was the actress who screen-tested against

58:18

all of the candidates. Amy

58:20

Adams was playing the role that would go to

58:22

Katie Holmes. Amy Adams was playing

58:24

Lois Lane. When those tapes

58:26

leak out, you can see Killian Murphy in

58:29

the Batsuit as Batman. It's Amy Adams over

58:31

the shoulder, right? Whoa. And

58:34

they talk about that and how, like, when she

58:36

got cast as Lois Lane in the Spider-Verse, it was,

58:38

or the Snyder-Verse, rather, it was

58:40

this full circle moment, right? And

58:42

you're like, okay, so Amy Adams was in this position

58:45

where she had been living in Hollywood for, like, 10 years...

58:48

Yeah. ...and was respected enough... Yeah.

58:51

...that John Papsadara, the studio, whatever, was like, oh,

58:53

yeah, no, bring her in. She'll

58:55

give the actors good things to work off of. Yeah.

58:58

...and nowhere near the conversation of getting either of

59:00

those parts. Getting the parts, yeah. And in both

59:02

cases, you're like, would have been better than the

59:04

people they hired. One of them was... Yeah. And

59:07

if you're her, you're like, what is it happening to you? All right,

59:09

all right, all right, all right. But you know what? I

59:13

agree. I was just gonna say... ...I have the

59:15

goods. I'm here. I'm in the room. I'm having

59:17

the conversation. Yeah. People are acknowledging me. Yeah. And

59:20

yet it's not happening. Yeah. Which

59:22

is the kind of thing that drives

59:24

a lot of people crazy and leads

59:27

to, let's say, a Mulholland Drive-esque psychology.

59:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree

59:31

more. Now we want to... It's a classic David

59:33

Lynch thing. He just... She's beautiful.

59:36

I want to meet her. She's got quite

59:38

a face. She really does, yeah. She's beautiful.

59:40

And she was like... Yeah,

59:42

yeah. Famously, the first time you met her, she

59:45

was like, I look like shit and I feel

59:47

like he wasn't that into... Like, you know, I

59:49

wasn't giving my profile picture. Wasn't she like, she'd

59:51

just come off a plane or some shit? And

59:53

so she asked me with them again, but she

59:55

was basically like, this is like my story. Like,

59:58

remember, she's only seeing the pilot. She's not... Not

1:00:00

seeing Diane, she's seeing Betty. But that also, I

1:00:02

imagine, sees something in his brain where he's now

1:00:04

seen her at her most tired and worn down.

1:00:06

And then a second time. And then a sec

1:00:08

comes back. Right, where he's like, oh, this

1:00:11

woman has the range. The range to do both. Yeah.

1:00:13

Now. I didn't think of that, because I read that story

1:00:15

too, and I was like, ooh, I got a kind of icky feeling

1:00:17

from that, and then I was like, oh, you just pointed it out.

1:00:19

I was like, oh right, he did have to see essentially

1:00:22

both versions of that. And when I've heard her recount

1:00:24

that story, she doesn't make it sound like, well,

1:00:26

he was judging me for looking tired. I think

1:00:28

a lot of it's her internalization. She's in her

1:00:30

head about it. No, he does say, when

1:00:34

I meet her, she looked nothing like her picture. She

1:00:36

didn't look bad, but she didn't look like her picture.

1:00:38

And I wanted the girl in the picture. I thought,

1:00:40

this is crazy. I'm imagining a person who doesn't exist.

1:00:43

So I asked if she could come back made

1:00:45

up and she came back. I guess I'm wrong.

1:00:47

Yeah. He meets- He did need to see both.

1:00:50

Laura Elena Herring was Miss USA in 1985.

1:00:52

She's obviously, like she is such a- Was she

1:00:54

married to the Prince of Denmark for two years

1:00:57

and what? Hasn't been.

1:00:59

We've all fucking flirted with

1:01:01

a European Prince or two. She

1:01:03

was briefly a von Bismarck from

1:01:06

like 87 to 89. Wasn't

1:01:08

that later? But yes, certainly she was

1:01:11

in some Royal family. Let

1:01:14

me find it. Yes,

1:01:16

Carl von Bismarck.

1:01:18

So actually, you know what? He's

1:01:20

just the fucking Prince of Bismarck,

1:01:22

Griffin, and Germany abolished its Royal

1:01:24

family long ago. But

1:01:27

he's still probably a count or whatever.

1:01:29

He's got some castles. She was a countess

1:01:32

briefly 10 years later. He gets cast in

1:01:34

a David Lynch project. She met him at

1:01:36

the 92 Cannes Film Festival where he's presenting

1:01:38

Fire Walk with me. And 1999 years later,

1:01:40

Johanna Ray is like, David Lynch wants to

1:01:42

meet you again. This is also the kind

1:01:44

of person David Lynch loves to cast where

1:01:47

it's like they're carrying over some weird energy

1:01:49

of like you were Miss America and then

1:01:51

you were a countess. And then you were

1:01:53

a countess. That's what he loves. Like he

1:01:55

loves people who have some weird metatextual history.

1:01:57

She is such a lint.

1:02:00

girl, image-wise, and like when you think about

1:02:02

who he put in Twin Peaks, and if

1:02:04

you think about this as his next Twin

1:02:06

Peaks, like she makes so much of just

1:02:08

this throwback look. Totally. Like totally

1:02:10

looks like someone from 50s Hollywood. She's got Rita

1:02:12

Hayworth on. She really does. She really does. Yeah,

1:02:15

yeah. Because they're both Hispanic.

1:02:17

Yes. Yeah. So,

1:02:19

yeah. We will, we will

1:02:22

talk about it more, I assume, and

1:02:24

it's like, it's certainly this movie is

1:02:26

built in a way where of course

1:02:28

it's more of a showcase for Naomi

1:02:30

Watts, and it makes sense that she's

1:02:32

springboarded, but it remains wild, the absolute

1:02:34

disparity between the Watts

1:02:36

trajectory immediately after this movie. Yes,

1:02:38

yeah. Versus like

1:02:41

kind of nothing immediately. Yes.

1:02:43

You're like three years later, she's Travolta's wife and the

1:02:46

Punisher, and hasn't really had good roles in between. There

1:02:48

you go. I mean, I think Laura Herring is not

1:02:50

the actor that Naomi Watts is, I guess. I would

1:02:52

agree. If you made me, you know, be mean about

1:02:54

it. She is pretty excellent in this, and you at

1:02:56

least think she should have had a better version of

1:02:59

the career she had off of this. She's

1:03:02

just perfect for this movie. She is. And

1:03:05

perfect for David Lynch. Like, there's no question. Justin

1:03:07

Thoreau, kind

1:03:10

of nobody at this point, right? Like, what

1:03:13

did Justin Thoreau put in it? That's a good question.

1:03:15

No offense to him. I mean, he's had a great

1:03:17

career. You're throwing bombs left and right. I guess, oh

1:03:19

right, you know what? He's in Romeo and

1:03:21

Michelle's high school reunion, and he's so funny. Oh

1:03:24

right. He's an American

1:03:26

psycho. He's one of the zillion. Oh yes,

1:03:28

he is an American psycho. Yeah, he's in

1:03:30

the business cartoon. But that's basically concurrent with

1:03:33

this pilot. That's true. That's true. Yeah, yeah,

1:03:35

yeah. You know, so I

1:03:37

don't, there's nothing really odd. There's definitely no like,

1:03:39

I saw his picture and I fell in love.

1:03:41

I mean, I don't know. He's great casting. It's

1:03:43

a nice shot Andy Warhol. Yeah. Obviously,

1:03:46

a lot of the other parts here,

1:03:48

Robert Forster, Monty Montgomery, Ann Miller, like

1:03:50

that's more classic Lynch of like, you

1:03:53

know, I want these old Hollywood people

1:03:55

who it's a

1:03:57

Hollywood story. Or Monty Montgomery, my buddy.

1:03:59

who has a vibe. He's

1:04:02

old Hollywood though. Yeah. And

1:04:05

yes, we write the Money Montgomery

1:04:07

story, you know, Dan Haddiah, for

1:04:09

whatever reason, David

1:04:13

has always thought that Angelo Badalamenti

1:04:15

looks like Dan Haddiah's brother. Oh, that

1:04:17

kind of. He's like, I want

1:04:19

to do that now. I would like you two

1:04:21

to play brothers in Little Holland Drive. Oh, that's

1:04:23

him? I didn't know that. Yes, he's

1:04:25

the guy who hates the espresso. Yes,

1:04:29

he is. I did not know that. Yeah.

1:04:33

If you could see my face right now, listeners,

1:04:35

I'm good. It's fun to tell people

1:04:37

that. Yeah, I have no idea. Apparently Billy Ray

1:04:39

Cyrus came in to talk about another part. I'm

1:04:41

not sure the name of the Watts role. I

1:04:44

think he. Betty, Betty

1:04:46

slash Diane. I got a real strong take.

1:04:49

And Lynch said he was Gene

1:04:52

the pool guy, which I don't know how

1:04:54

Billy Ray should be thinking that. I don't

1:04:56

know. He is kind of incredible. He's

1:04:59

amazing. We don't spend a lot of time

1:05:01

on it, but Billy Ray Cyrus has blamed

1:05:03

him being on this movie for the dissolution

1:05:05

of his family. He excuse me, he and

1:05:07

his wife were getting divorced and Miley Cyrus

1:05:09

was going through her like trying to own

1:05:11

being an adult and having sexual agency era

1:05:13

out of like Disney stardom. And

1:05:16

Billy Ray Cyrus went to the press and he was

1:05:18

like, my whole family is straight from the path of

1:05:20

good. We were corrupted by Hollywood.

1:05:22

None of this would have happened if David Lynch

1:05:24

hadn't cast. What he says, I will say, I

1:05:26

do want to give Billy Ray credit that he

1:05:29

does say that David Lynch, I love him and

1:05:31

he changed my life. He doesn't blame. He's like

1:05:33

because it started the path. I was in it.

1:05:35

I was right. My kid was now in Hollywood

1:05:38

while I was doing that. And

1:05:40

I remember feeling quote, this is Billy

1:05:42

Ray Cyrus, not me. This

1:05:44

might not be what God had in mind. And

1:05:47

then what he chooses to do is continue

1:05:49

to write it out, make a ton of

1:05:52

money playing her dad on her show. Like

1:05:54

it's not like he's not saying like Lynch

1:05:56

cursed us. Yeah, but he's like that was

1:05:58

the siren song that called me over to.

1:06:00

Hollywood right right and then now my daughter

1:06:02

can you believe it I did not put that together as

1:06:05

a body and my wife Doesn't want to be

1:06:07

married to me who is his wife Now

1:06:10

she's married to Dominic Purcell. Oh Trish

1:06:14

Cyrus Maybe he's

1:06:17

amazing in Mulholland Drive Billy Ray Cyrus.

1:06:19

He is fantastic. Yeah is he

1:06:22

I mean he cocks the show There's

1:06:24

nothing if I get exact last it

1:06:26

better be Billy Ray

1:06:28

Cyrus and he better like as I walk in

1:06:30

just be like just just

1:06:33

leave Your

1:06:35

attitude is if You

1:06:38

have to be cucked this is who you want

1:06:40

it to be great I'm like this would piss

1:06:43

me off so much if it was this exact

1:06:45

situation you'd like be his energy you would go

1:06:47

paint mode Yeah Pouring

1:06:50

paint Fucking

1:06:53

I don't know what this says about me, but now that we're

1:06:55

I never thought this watching the movie But now that we're talking

1:06:57

about it What does

1:06:59

it mean about me that I would just walk away? Like

1:07:03

what you would be like, you know what buddy ten four

1:07:05

I'm out Lid

1:07:10

would remain on your side. I'm turning on

1:07:12

the window white. Yeah. Yeah, I would just

1:07:14

get back into the Porsche Yeah, I go

1:07:16

golfing. Yeah, and I deal with it later,

1:07:19

right? Yeah,

1:07:21

I do think to some extent if

1:07:23

I mean on the love of my

1:07:25

life in bed with Billy Ray Cyrus

1:07:32

She seems let me know I think you're

1:07:34

right and let me So funny

1:07:36

to where she's like now you've done it Why

1:07:42

I would because of that because she said

1:07:44

that I can Fuck the pool guy in

1:07:46

peace without you being here and it being a

1:07:48

problem Correct my spare

1:07:51

fair fair if I were dating

1:07:53

someone and I walked in She

1:07:56

was in bed with Billy Ray Cyrus. That was

1:07:58

her energy and that was his energy, I'd go

1:08:00

like, well, this was never going to work out. Yeah, I

1:08:02

got to go. How can I feel offended? It's insane that

1:08:04

you were ever dating me. If this is what you... Yeah,

1:08:06

you're going to hear from the lawyer. You're into this? I

1:08:08

would be more like... I would probably,

1:08:11

iPhone time, just take a picture and leave.

1:08:13

Yeah. I just would like to

1:08:15

speak for the audience. Listening right

1:08:17

now, uh, uh, the ones who are,

1:08:19

uh, thinking I would lose my fucking

1:08:22

mind and scream and rage. Just

1:08:24

want to put that out there. Ben would fucking...

1:08:26

Ben? We'll do 40 pink cats. Yes. What if

1:08:29

Billy Ray Cyrus fucked your wife? Fiance.

1:08:31

Fiance. Oh, is they not married? Maybe it's because...

1:08:33

Oh, I'm saying in Ben's case. Oh, oh, oh,

1:08:35

I'd say we're specifically going to be. I guess

1:08:37

maybe... I would light a cigarette, take a couple

1:08:40

of puffs, throw it on the ground and burn

1:08:42

the house down. Wow. Jesus Christ. Maybe it's because

1:08:44

I'm gay. I just... Maybe it's just because I'm

1:08:46

gay. I think I would also just be like...

1:08:48

I mean, I love... I'm not this. If you

1:08:50

wanted this, like, all right, take a tumble with

1:08:53

old B-B-R-C. My attitude is

1:08:55

just my basic operating principles of

1:08:57

human being. If

1:08:59

you break my heart, Mike, you break

1:09:01

your heart. Oh, keep going. Keep going.

1:09:04

I just don't think they'll understand. What's

1:09:07

the next line? I don't know. I just have to

1:09:09

make that throw. I think it... And if you break

1:09:11

my heart again, it just brings it back. Yeah, a

1:09:13

lot of repetitive. They shoot the

1:09:15

pilot from All Hall and Drive. Yeah.

1:09:17

Everyone has a really nice time making

1:09:19

it. And Disney, it does not seem

1:09:21

dissatisfied with the dailies. Jack

1:09:24

Fist said he got a little trouble from

1:09:26

Disney getting their money to build sets and

1:09:28

stuff, but that just sounds like Morgan Medougher.

1:09:30

Yeah. Well, it's because fucking

1:09:32

Screwdrink Doc was wearing payroll at the time. He's

1:09:35

not letting go of those fucking coins. In

1:09:37

April... So the backstroke, in

1:09:39

April 1999, Lynch delivers an initial cut.

1:09:41

He gave me a knowing look. Go

1:09:43

on. An initial cut that runs over

1:09:45

two hours. Two hours, five minutes. Jesus.

1:09:47

Oh, so they have to get it

1:09:50

down to 80. ABC is like, David,

1:09:52

88 minutes. Absolutely. That is your EDict

1:09:54

here. And then how

1:09:56

much is ads? That's

1:10:00

what I'm saying. I think they're like if you give

1:10:02

us 88 minutes it can be two hours. Yes, yeah,

1:10:04

yeah, got it. At a time where the longest any

1:10:07

episodic show is 44 minutes. Like

1:10:10

that's what's crazy to think about is he delivered

1:10:12

something that was over two hours and they were

1:10:14

like we were being generous by asking for 88

1:10:17

minutes double what everyone else is doing.

1:10:19

Yeah. So pretty

1:10:21

quickly for Mary Sweeney the Lynch's editor

1:10:23

and you know long time sort of

1:10:26

collaborator partner says in life

1:10:28

and in work. Yes, I think they

1:10:30

were the minute they saw it they were immediately

1:10:32

kind of like we're not gonna do this. It's

1:10:34

right you didn't you know capture the magic. It's

1:10:37

not gonna be Despite 88 minutes

1:10:39

whatever he did get it down to like the

1:10:41

pilot you could that you can watch in very

1:10:43

shitty VHS form It's sort of floating around is

1:10:45

90 minutes. So he clearly You

1:10:47

know he gave them what they wanted, but he didn't really give

1:10:49

them what they wanted According

1:10:52

to the network It's

1:10:55

not that good it's slow The

1:10:58

actresses the actresses are old That

1:11:01

was I think something I mean which is funny

1:11:03

because right with Twin Peaks I he's smartly is

1:11:06

sort of like it'll be like a high school

1:11:08

show so there's all these young people in it

1:11:10

Yeah, along with my lovely collection of freaks to

1:11:12

them. It's like why are you? Actresses

1:11:15

who are already in their 30s These

1:11:18

people aren't famous in their older than I

1:11:22

have been in that position before in

1:11:24

casting where if you're looking for somebody of

1:11:26

a certain age, yes You

1:11:29

do kind of get into this weird space

1:11:31

where You you have

1:11:33

to get Let's say

1:11:35

let's just say a male in his

1:11:38

50s. Let's just say that sure and

1:11:40

you You need

1:11:42

to either get an A list

1:11:45

actor, you know Somebody that

1:11:47

has if you're 50 you've either been

1:11:49

working for decades, right? Or no one

1:11:51

has found out about you, right? If

1:11:54

you're not presently a list they want someone who

1:11:56

at one point was a list exactly and you

1:11:58

could bring them back Exactly.

1:12:00

Because you don't... Discovering

1:12:04

somebody at the age that Naomi Watts is.

1:12:06

That's the thing. Is odd, I think. And

1:12:08

it's one of the things this fucking movie

1:12:10

is about to a certain extent, this

1:12:13

feeling of desperation, right? Yep. And

1:12:15

going back to sort of the Amy Adams thing, and

1:12:17

Amy Adams and Naomi Watts, both people who seemingly didn't

1:12:20

go crazy. Yeah. And when they got

1:12:22

their deserved shot, we're like, great, I'll get to work.

1:12:24

I'm professional. And I'm not saying it doesn't happen because

1:12:26

it happens to Naomi Watts with this move. It does.

1:12:29

Of course it happens. But it is

1:12:31

when you're in that position, you're in

1:12:33

David Lynch's position, it's odd. The industry

1:12:35

does genuinely go, wait a second. If

1:12:38

you are over 25 and it hasn't

1:12:40

happened yet, and other people haven't taken

1:12:42

the chance on you, what

1:12:44

do they know that we don't? That we don't, exactly.

1:12:46

There is a fear-based... There

1:12:48

must be a reason we have not yet

1:12:50

uncovered. I realize... Why hasn't this apartment rented?

1:12:55

The price is low, it's been on the market for

1:12:57

two years. It must have bed bugs.

1:12:59

And this... Right? That's

1:13:01

sort of their thinking. If you're 30 and

1:13:04

you haven't gotten famous yet, then there's

1:13:06

a problem. And it does relate back to the

1:13:09

movie because what you're saying,

1:13:12

which is absolutely correct, is it is

1:13:15

a fear-based way of thinking,

1:13:17

and Hollywood, the main fuel

1:13:20

of Hollywood is fear. And those, right, the

1:13:22

people who are making this decision deciding your

1:13:24

fate, it's fear. It's fear. It's absolutely fear.

1:13:27

They're operating on a fear-based system, and

1:13:29

then they are thus creating on the

1:13:31

people whose lives they control an even

1:13:33

greater sense of fear. And

1:13:35

so you end up in this state where you feel like you're in

1:13:38

a fucking David Lynch movie. And you're

1:13:40

like, what is this reality I am in? Does

1:13:42

it ever change? Do I ever become the other

1:13:44

person I want to be? The

1:13:47

movie. What is the exchange of that? What do I

1:13:49

have to do in order to get that? And that's

1:13:51

literally what you just... What do I need to protect

1:13:53

and make sure I don't give up? You just gave

1:13:56

a fucking movie. That's the logline of the movie. Yes. That's

1:13:59

the logline of the movie. Yes. I'm only half

1:14:01

joking when I say it's a biopic. Like it's

1:14:03

like it's my, because I, and

1:14:05

I even think at the young age that I saw it,

1:14:07

which was 20, you know, I, I still

1:14:10

sort of, as somebody that was

1:14:12

in theater school and when it had

1:14:14

aspirations. Yeah. It just, it did cement

1:14:16

in my mind, you know, this is

1:14:18

what you're entering into. It

1:14:21

isn't Sunset Boulevard, which is like a

1:14:23

big, you know, he's got

1:14:25

the car, he's got Paramount,

1:14:29

he's got the street sign. He wanted

1:14:31

to put some of the score in

1:14:33

the movie. So

1:14:38

it's not gonna be that. It's also interesting

1:14:40

to think about this movie being whatever

1:14:43

it is, 15 years after Blue

1:14:45

Velvet and the amount

1:14:47

of hand wringing in

1:14:49

the press and such of people being like,

1:14:52

is this movie exploitative? Is it evil? How

1:14:54

dare he do this to Isabella Rossellini?

1:14:56

Is it abusive? And it's like that

1:14:58

woman becomes his life

1:15:02

partner. Wife? For a number of years, wife?

1:15:04

Partner. Partner and partner, you know, and has

1:15:06

always been like, no, I felt completely treated

1:15:09

properly. Yeah. And for him to 15 years

1:15:11

later, make this thing that is in many

1:15:13

ways about his own experience coexisting in LA,

1:15:15

but it's also sort of him doing this

1:15:18

act of like, what does it

1:15:20

feel like to be on that side of it?

1:15:22

Yeah. And is there a position where you can

1:15:24

feel like, no, I have complete autonomy. I want

1:15:26

the guy to do the version

1:15:28

of the scene where we get real close

1:15:31

and I'm choosing to do this and I'm getting juice

1:15:33

from it and my performance is great. And then maybe

1:15:35

15 years later, do you back up and go like,

1:15:37

what the fuck is I doing? Exactly. I think that's-

1:15:40

That's what I'm saying. Well, anyway, we can talk, I

1:15:42

want to talk about that scene later. We're going to

1:15:44

go through more home drive, like a fine tooth comb,

1:15:46

but I do want to tell you that ABC passed

1:15:48

on the pilot. I'm sorry to break

1:15:50

this news to you. Wait, Shocker. Shocker. May of 1999,

1:15:52

they said no. I'm just hearing this for the first

1:15:55

time right now. Lynch now says it's a blessing. Staying

1:15:57

at the toenail, putting a finger behind my ear. Lynch

1:15:59

says, look, I do think- the first thing I sent

1:16:01

them was too slow, the two hour cut. But then

1:16:03

I do think the finesse cut was kind of not

1:16:06

good. Like, yeah, compromised rhythms of it were off. And

1:16:08

I look back on it now and I'm like, it

1:16:10

was fate. It's better the way it turned out was

1:16:12

the way it was supposed to turn out the show

1:16:14

that everyone assumed they would ABC would

1:16:17

put it on Thursday night at nine. The

1:16:20

show instead that they order is a show

1:16:22

called wasteland. Kevin

1:16:24

Williamson show follow-up to Dawson's Creek starring

1:16:26

Sasha Alexander Rebecca Gayhard gets canceled after

1:16:28

three episodes. And doesn't it get canceled like

1:16:30

the day or

1:16:33

the week that

1:16:35

straight story goes into theaters? That sounds right. 1999, fall

1:16:37

of 1999 or something. It's

1:16:40

so free to think about David Lynch at this

1:16:42

point, just like deeply entrenched in two different sides

1:16:44

of the Walt Disney Company. Like

1:16:46

a movie he made independently with foreign

1:16:48

financing is now bought by them and

1:16:51

released by them at the same time he's working at

1:16:53

ABC and trying to get through their development process. I

1:16:56

also just can't imagine Lynch in the

1:16:58

development process. No. It is

1:17:01

hard to imagine any of this. And I do think

1:17:03

from what I've read about it, it's like he has

1:17:05

a person who's usually good at

1:17:07

like, kind of right being a middle person

1:17:09

between him and a studio. Not that he's

1:17:11

like- What he's saying to say is, right?

1:17:15

But the other also like, hey David, the studio

1:17:17

said this like, but maybe knows how to finesse

1:17:19

that with him. And also at this point, he

1:17:21

is like a proven brand. Like all these people

1:17:23

bringing him for the meeting are like, oh, he's

1:17:26

doing the David Lynch thing. David Lynch. But to

1:17:28

some extent they must be excited that they're like,

1:17:30

where does he fucking get these ideas? Who

1:17:32

else talks this way? Rumors circulate. Are you okay?

1:17:35

Rumors circulate that HBO might pick it up. Flying

1:17:37

the goofy was one of the execs in the

1:17:39

room. Okay. Yeah. It was

1:17:41

ABC. Doesn't happen, sits on a shelf.

1:17:43

Pierre Edelman at a studio canal,

1:17:46

who has worked with Lynch in the past,

1:17:48

finds out about it. The French HBO, basically.

1:17:50

Yeah. Sure. I mean- Canal

1:17:53

Puss is right. TV. But they have

1:17:55

a film. They produce the run films.

1:17:57

Studio canals. But just to create a

1:17:59

sloppy animal. for people who don't know.

1:18:01

He's basically like, there's a

1:18:03

David Lynch project. That's just.

1:18:06

Complete or almost complete. It's a jump

1:18:08

ball. That's there. That's sitting there. Right.

1:18:11

He finally hears about it and Lynch is like, look,

1:18:13

I don't, you know, I don't want to hear about

1:18:15

that. I don't want to think about that anymore. Like

1:18:17

it didn't work out. Edelman

1:18:19

raises $4 million to buy back the

1:18:22

right one. Sorry, not to interrupt you, but

1:18:24

he also hates that the pilot

1:18:26

is out there. He does. He's very upset that I

1:18:28

can watch it. Yes, he's very upset, which I

1:18:30

had respected his wishes until I was like, I'm

1:18:32

doing a podcast. I'm finally going to see what

1:18:34

it looks like. And I know Mulholland drift so

1:18:36

well now, but I won't be okay. Pierre buys

1:18:38

it for $4 million, $4 million. The

1:18:41

money against this movie at this point, what is it?

1:18:44

12 million? That sounds right. Okay.

1:18:47

I guess it's like, right. Sort of seven

1:18:49

mill of Disney's money, another four or so

1:18:51

of Pierre's money. Yeah. And

1:18:53

then essentially convert it from

1:18:55

TV pilot form to cinema

1:18:57

form. So they have to deal

1:19:00

with that. What amount of time had elapsed from

1:19:02

when they filmed the

1:19:04

pilot? I will tell you, he

1:19:06

gets $2 million more dollars basically

1:19:08

told, go shoot

1:19:10

a third act. So 14 million? Yeah,

1:19:13

we're piling on here. Lynch

1:19:16

is anxious. Like

1:19:19

he's like, I don't know if I like, you know, if I have

1:19:21

a third act. Maybe he should have

1:19:23

tried transcendental meditation. I hear it works very

1:19:25

well. He's

1:19:28

worried that like the sets have been struck. Like

1:19:31

how am I even going to do it? And

1:19:34

so there's a lot of anxiety about that, but

1:19:36

you know, they figure it out. Supposedly

1:19:39

Tony cramps the

1:19:42

agent guy who we've been talking about,

1:19:44

who had sided with Disney basically and

1:19:46

sort of, you know, helped fuck the project. Threatened to

1:19:48

sue him at one point? Yeah,

1:19:51

they had a big falling out.

1:19:53

Seems very fraught. But

1:19:55

then finally David Lynch sat down in a chair and the final act

1:19:57

of the movie came to him. LOL. as

1:20:00

JJ put in the research here. Beautifully so. I sat down

1:20:02

in her chair at 6.30 and at 7, all

1:20:05

of the ideas were there. They came

1:20:07

out of darkness and made themselves known.

1:20:09

Cool, sounds good. At 8 o'clock you

1:20:11

can tell. But that's classic him. It's

1:20:14

just classic him. He's just like, remember

1:20:16

there's one interview

1:20:18

with him where he says, if you

1:20:21

forget an idea, if

1:20:25

I forget an idea, you fall in love with

1:20:27

ideas, and if I forget an idea, I want

1:20:29

to kill myself. Yeah. He literally

1:20:31

says I'm going to commit suicide. Every idea

1:20:33

is valuable. Yeah. And

1:20:37

so he starts writing and yes, they

1:20:41

essentially, almost all of

1:20:43

the reshooting they do is the third

1:20:45

act of the film. They do a little bit

1:20:47

I think of finessing for the stuff they already

1:20:49

have. But basically they're just reusing that. Like wankies.

1:20:52

But then they do also of course

1:20:54

have to call Naomi Watts and be like, good news,

1:20:57

Mulhond Rav is back. Interesting

1:20:59

news, the third act is you as a

1:21:01

new character. There's lots of sex scenes. There's

1:21:03

going to be nudity. This is going to

1:21:05

now be a feature film in Europe. And

1:21:07

so your contract completely changes. I'm

1:21:11

assuming there's some sort of renegotiation of

1:21:13

the salary because it's so different. Yeah,

1:21:16

there has to be. Right? Yes.

1:21:19

Yes, 100%. Yeah. I

1:21:22

mean, I do think it's one of the

1:21:24

fascinating just sort of like in the soup

1:21:26

things about this movie is when

1:21:28

her character shifts, it's not just that she

1:21:30

is a skilled actress who is playing a

1:21:33

second character, but it's like you

1:21:35

feel like she is a fundamentally different actor.

1:21:37

I can't. Like her approach is different to

1:21:39

the parts. She doesn't. In terms of process,

1:21:42

not in terms of interpretation of character where

1:21:44

I'm like, this is the difference of when

1:21:46

she's shooting the pilot, it's that nervous pilot

1:21:48

energy of like, this might be the next

1:21:51

15 years of my life. Am I

1:21:53

on this forever? This is my big shot. And

1:21:55

then by the time they go and film the

1:21:57

third act, she's gone through the process of like

1:21:59

grieving for the... the thing that went away. That's

1:22:01

right, that's right. I guess it doesn't fucking happen.

1:22:04

And coming back to do it, you feel her

1:22:06

having kind of don't give a shit energy. They

1:22:09

also magically fuck up her teeth. It's incredible, I don't

1:22:11

know what they did. What was that? I don't know.

1:22:13

It's so weird. It's so weird. But

1:22:15

you know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying.

1:22:17

There's a sense of abandon with how she plays the

1:22:19

last act that is someone who doesn't have anything to prove.

1:22:21

So they shot it, just to answer your question, Griff, in

1:22:24

October 2000. So we're talking

1:22:26

basically like close to 18 months after they

1:22:28

shot, you know, the original. Imagine the fucking

1:22:30

cycles. It is a

1:22:32

mind fuck, yeah. Of the true like creative

1:22:35

career grieving in those 18 months. Yeah.

1:22:38

The film premieres at the 2001 Cannes Film

1:22:40

Festival. Liv Ullman's jury, insane journey jury, gives

1:22:42

it to the Sons Room, the Palme d'Or,

1:22:45

which is like an okay movie. It's

1:22:47

Blit's best director with Man Who Wasn't There. Lynch

1:22:49

shares the best director prize with Joel Cohen. Wait,

1:22:51

what one, Palme d'Or? The Sons Room, it's an

1:22:54

Italian drama about a family that- Of course you

1:22:56

remember. The film that beat Sons Room. It

1:23:00

comes out, it was released by Universal slash

1:23:02

Focus in America, came out October 2001, expanded

1:23:05

to about 250 screens, made about

1:23:07

seven million domestic, $20 million worldwide. And

1:23:10

let's take it this way, Leslie. And was

1:23:12

well received. It might seem like weird. Like,

1:23:15

oh, the Sons Room beat Mulholland Drive and

1:23:17

Man Who Wasn't There, that feels like rude.

1:23:20

And then you step back and you're like, well, if you look at

1:23:22

the Cannes competition slight in 2001, Mulholland

1:23:24

Drive did win one award over

1:23:26

Shrek. Shrek

1:23:29

was there. I just want everyone to

1:23:31

think about they were in competition the

1:23:33

same year. Who was at? It

1:23:36

was at Cannes? Yep, yep. The 2001 Cannes

1:23:38

Film Festival, a great

1:23:41

slate, including Correita's Distance,

1:23:44

Man Who Wasn't There, Millenium Mambo, a

1:23:46

wonderful movie. And people are like, shh.

1:23:49

That might win. Mulholland Rouge. Mulholland Drive,

1:23:51

the piano teacher, the Hanaki movie. Oh my God, I

1:23:53

love that movie. The Sons Room, what time is it

1:23:55

there? One of my favorite movies and of course Shrek.

1:23:57

Yeah, no, this slate, it makes perfect sense. The Sons

1:23:59

Room. Oh, I love the piano teacher. She's a god.

1:24:02

I think The Sons Room, which I have seen, was

1:24:04

just, it's a weepy. It's a

1:24:06

well-made trauma that's well-acted. Yeah, like

1:24:08

Shrek. Yeah, like Shrek. Mulholland

1:24:11

Drive came out, and people thought it was OK. And

1:24:14

so Ben, do you want to hit the stop on the

1:24:16

recording? We're done. Thank you so much. Let's talk about the

1:24:18

ways. Mulholland Drive. Film

1:24:20

begins with a

1:24:22

jitterbuggy scene. Jitterbugging scene.

1:24:25

My god. When we did

1:24:27

our Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon episode with

1:24:29

David Ehrlich, he said, has

1:24:31

any movie ever announced it's a masterpiece

1:24:33

faster than Crouching Tiger does? Which

1:24:35

he said half as a joke, but he

1:24:37

was just like the title, the beginning of the

1:24:40

score, the first image you see of the

1:24:42

city. I'm not saying the opening

1:24:44

of this movie is bad, but if

1:24:46

you were to pause it on the first 15 seconds,

1:24:49

I don't think most people would

1:24:51

expect flat-out masterpiece widely accepted as

1:24:54

one of the greatest films of the time. That's

1:24:56

so funny of you to say. Deen like a

1:24:58

masterpiece in an obvious way. Well, OK. I

1:25:00

suppose I love the. I think it's a great opening.

1:25:04

I pointed out to my friend recently, like that's

1:25:06

the jitterbug competition. And she was

1:25:08

like, oh, I never thought about it that way. I

1:25:10

just kind of let that wash over me. And I

1:25:13

was like, oh, OK. Well, that's the dude that she

1:25:15

says she won a jitterbugging competition. Oh, shit. See,

1:25:18

I was surprised to realize a lot of people don't

1:25:20

put this together because they're like, oh, I'm in a

1:25:22

David Lynch movie. Yeah, I didn't put this together. I

1:25:24

thought he was just referencing swing. That's

1:25:27

what I thought too. I thought it was swing dancing. Doing

1:25:30

like a sock-off. It's like people changing

1:25:32

positions and whatever. I did think

1:25:34

that was the thing. Clearly, I didn't

1:25:36

read the 10 clues clearly enough because

1:25:38

number one, pay particular attention in the

1:25:40

beginning of the film, at least two

1:25:43

clues are revealed before the credits. The

1:25:45

most important thing before the credits and

1:25:47

the thing that makes me laugh every

1:25:49

time I think about Mulholland Drive and

1:25:51

how people are like, what

1:25:53

is going on? When

1:25:56

I say people, I realize I'm talking about abstract

1:25:58

things. Lots of people understand. Mulholland

1:26:00

Drive very well. You

1:26:02

have the jitterbug. Thank you, David. I'm not saying

1:26:04

you, I'm saying like, I just hate you. Oh,

1:26:06

so you think I don't understand? You don't understand

1:26:08

shit. No, no, no. I didn't know it was

1:26:11

the jitterbug. Then there is a point of view

1:26:13

shot of someone's head hitting a pillow. Hitting a

1:26:15

pillow. Sure, that is, like, it's like, it feels

1:26:17

like a studio note. I know it wasn't, like,

1:26:19

the studio being like, I don't

1:26:21

know that people are gonna get that it's a

1:26:23

dream. Can we have like a shot of someone

1:26:25

going to sleepy time bed bys on their big

1:26:27

red pillow? Like, I just worry. Like,

1:26:30

it's just funny that the

1:26:32

movie starts with someone going to sleep. And people

1:26:34

are like, I don't fucking get it. What

1:26:37

could this be? I know lots of

1:26:39

people get it. It's a dream

1:26:42

story. Yes. Yeah, so

1:26:44

it begins with someone going to sleep

1:26:46

and then we see the opening credits,

1:26:48

which were the opening credits of the pilot, which

1:26:50

are the car snaking through Mulholland Drive as

1:26:52

that beautiful music plays, the

1:26:54

title shot of the, you know, the

1:26:57

sign with the lights flickering on

1:26:59

it, such a cool shot, credits rolling.

1:27:02

And Laura Herring, this glam bomb

1:27:04

of a lady in a

1:27:06

slinky dress is

1:27:09

gonna get murdered in the car, we assume,

1:27:11

or right outside of it. Driven to, it

1:27:13

feels like nowhere good. Right, and then they

1:27:15

really get out of the car, like

1:27:18

they have a gun, and then some

1:27:20

joyriding teens disrupt this assassination and cause

1:27:22

a big car crash, and then she stumbles

1:27:25

down the hills into LA.

1:27:28

The city of angels. And as she stumbles, her memories

1:27:30

fall out. Yes. It's

1:27:33

also very comical that she travels

1:27:35

from Mulholland Drive on

1:27:40

foot to West

1:27:43

Hollywood. Very much my experience of Los

1:27:46

Angeles. And it's still nighttime. That was

1:27:48

my, it's just, she would, that would take her

1:27:50

a day and a half. Yeah, a day and

1:27:52

a half to get there. It's also, she's in

1:27:54

high heels, how's she scaling this? It's just, I

1:27:57

know I shouldn't take it. Right,

1:27:59

I got something. So

1:30:00

we see Laura herring, her

1:30:02

character is not your name, but we'll take the

1:30:04

name Rita. She has

1:30:06

amnesia. She sees a gilda poster. Hiding,

1:30:09

right, but she hides out in this woman's house. You

1:30:11

see this woman with red hair, who we actually see

1:30:13

again at the end of the movie. But

1:30:16

supposedly Diane's aunt. She's a woman leaving the

1:30:18

house and is like, great, open house. Come

1:30:22

on, how do I do? The next scene

1:30:24

in the film is the Winky's Diner scene.

1:30:26

It comes quite early. I really did not

1:30:28

remember that it was that early.

1:30:32

I didn't either, in which Patrick Fishler, and

1:30:34

who's the other guy? That's

1:30:38

a good question. Because he's also got kind

1:30:40

of a recognizable face. Are

1:30:43

sitting at Winky's Diner, which... Is

1:30:45

it Denny's? Right, I assume it's...

1:30:47

At Gower Gulch, which is just... Is

1:30:50

it still there? The Denny's? Probably

1:30:53

not. When I lived there, it was.

1:30:55

It's on Gower and Sunsets? Gower and Sunset. Gower

1:30:57

and Sunset. And it's this weird little... I

1:31:00

mean, I know it has some history of the copper penny or

1:31:02

whatever, but in the mid-2000s when

1:31:05

I was there, the Denny's was still there. And

1:31:10

it's like a little strip molly. The actor's name

1:31:13

is Michael Cook. Okay. Found

1:31:15

out. Where's he from? Just a

1:31:17

bunch of shit. Not much, yeah. He doesn't have a

1:31:19

Wikipedia page. No offense to him. Yeah. Embarrassing

1:31:22

for him. Now embarrassing. No, never. Played

1:31:25

Casino Letcher in Showgirls. Well, hey,

1:31:27

so he's one of our favorites.

1:31:30

Sorry, about the Denny's, yes. No, no, no. It

1:31:33

just... When I was talking about these

1:31:35

kind of spaces in Los

1:31:37

Angeles, this scene very much

1:31:39

sums up that shitty

1:31:43

middle of nowhere, but in the

1:31:45

midst of everything. Yeah. And

1:31:47

by the way, these are the types of spaces where I

1:31:50

feel most comfortable in LA. But I

1:31:52

think... Like these weird... What

1:31:54

is this diner that feels like it's in

1:31:56

the middle of the suburbs but is actually...

1:31:58

But it's actually on Sunset. feels kind of

1:32:01

frozen in time. Like when I would take

1:32:03

these fucking two hour walks to appointments and

1:32:05

I could find a diner like that in

1:32:07

between, I'd go inside and I'd be like,

1:32:09

I feel safe now. Yeah, well that's true.

1:32:11

Psychologically. Not like from Assassin's.

1:32:13

I think what Leslie said is interesting.

1:32:17

Because I know, what do you guys think of the

1:32:19

Winky scene? It's an incredible scene. I've never been so

1:32:21

scared in a movie theater in my life. Well, it

1:32:24

sets you off balance immediately. And it's fascinating that that

1:32:26

wasn't part of the pilot. I would have guessed it

1:32:28

was. Because

1:32:31

something I noticed this time around, it sets you off.

1:32:34

I mean, I remember seeing this in the theater and just

1:32:36

being like, this is the most terrifying

1:32:38

scene I can think of.

1:32:41

But I hadn't lived in LA yet.

1:32:43

So I didn't really recognize this as like the

1:32:46

shithole safe

1:32:49

haven that it is. But

1:32:51

the real thing is the

1:32:53

coverage with the jib doing

1:32:56

figure eights, basically. The camera

1:32:58

never settles ever

1:33:00

in the overs. Which

1:33:02

just keeps you on edge. Why

1:33:04

is the camera not locking down? It

1:33:06

just won't stop. So you never get

1:33:09

your bearings in terms of, is

1:33:12

someone gonna stand up? And

1:33:14

the rhythms of the camera do not feel like they

1:33:16

are in sync with the rhythms or the performance of

1:33:18

the actors. What's motivating this? The

1:33:20

thing with Fishler too, who'd only been in

1:33:22

like a couple movies at this point, is

1:33:25

one of my favorites. He's got

1:33:27

such an incredible face. And

1:33:30

he's nerve-ily describing to this, the other guy,

1:33:32

no offense to Michael Cook, the casino lecher

1:33:34

that he is. He looks like a regular

1:33:36

fucking Hollywood guy in

1:33:38

his 40s, right? Fishler's got these eyebrows. You

1:33:41

need energy voice. Right, he's got this kind,

1:33:43

and he's describing to the guy, like I

1:33:45

had this terrifying dream and you were in

1:33:47

it. I was here, you were standing over

1:33:49

there, and there was something behind the diner

1:33:51

that was so scary. I woke up and

1:33:53

I can't even think about it. It's so

1:33:55

scary. I want to see that face in

1:33:57

real life. I'm trying to confront essentially what

1:33:59

happened. Two things I want to call out

1:34:01

about this. Yes one Lynch is a guy

1:34:03

who mostly makes films that if not directly

1:34:05

inspired by his dreams Operate on dream logic.

1:34:08

It is often used in shorthand that the most

1:34:10

annoying boring thing He's telling someone about your dream.

1:34:13

Sure, right? Yeah, and here this guy is like

1:34:15

20 years into his career Basically

1:34:17

opening the movie with a scene he inserts

1:34:19

later after just like a prologue that you

1:34:21

can't make sense of Here's the

1:34:23

first scene that's on its face kind

1:34:25

of straightforward, right? And it's a

1:34:28

guy explaining his dream True, that's

1:34:30

true, which is interesting to me. It's it's

1:34:32

the first time dreams have been like textual

1:34:34

in his movies outside of doing point Yeah,

1:34:37

yeah, I know I mean like attaching that

1:34:39

on to what's already pre-existing text I would

1:34:41

actually disagree You know cuz dreams are very

1:34:43

very important to Twin Peaks Okay,

1:34:46

twin peaks is Cooper saying I had a

1:34:48

dream FYI and we have to now do

1:34:50

this thing because I had this dream And

1:34:52

of course my love Harry Truman being like

1:34:54

you can't dream and wants the dream I

1:34:56

just had this yeah, I just remembered

1:34:59

in Lynch on Lynch. He tells this story

1:35:01

about that. He would go to this Denny's

1:35:03

Mm-hmm. I think it was this actual Denny's

1:35:05

that he shot in and and and he

1:35:07

felt again He's attracted to this like wholesome

1:35:10

So you going there as a safe haven actually

1:35:12

now makes a little bit it like clicks for me

1:35:14

I think I connect to the same things Lynch

1:35:16

does that feel comforting Like there is this

1:35:18

part of me even as a weird city

1:35:20

boy Yeah, that's like that kind of suburbia

1:35:23

frozen in time 50s aesthetic feels really comfortable

1:35:25

How much should I say about what I

1:35:27

think this scene is about say everything? All

1:35:29

right, can I make one second point very

1:35:31

quickly before you say this? I think this

1:35:33

is really fascinating I don't know if any

1:35:35

of you know this In

1:35:37

the Lynch casting of like how he

1:35:40

loves to use nepo babies or like

1:35:42

former old Hollywood stars People who have

1:35:44

like some Hollywood wait. Yeah,

1:35:47

right. Yeah Patrick Fishler's father

1:35:50

Ran it just announced it was closing

1:35:52

very recently a legendary sort of like

1:35:55

dive diner in Santa Monica Called

1:35:57

Patrick's Roadhouse. He named it after his son

1:36:00

And his son was the mascot and says he basically

1:36:02

fell in love with acting by being like the barker

1:36:04

outside the restaurant. Hanging out with these actors who would

1:36:06

come hang out. And it's this place if you're driving

1:36:08

down to Santa Monica, you will always see it on

1:36:10

the road and it's got like- It's got this green

1:36:12

sign. It's very cool. And it's got all sorts of

1:36:14

shit on the roof. It's like

1:36:16

what if the aesthetic of like a TGI Friday was

1:36:18

on the roof instead of on the walls inside? It

1:36:20

has like a T-Rex and a Statue of Liberty and

1:36:22

shit on the roof. It looks pretty good. It's the

1:36:25

kind of place that I guarantee you Lynch loves, right?

1:36:27

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:36:29

So here's this scene in a

1:36:31

diner that is being carried by

1:36:33

an actor whose father ran this

1:36:35

kind of diner that is notorious

1:36:37

within the industry and people who

1:36:39

live there. And that is his

1:36:42

legacy. Whether

1:36:44

that's intentional or not, it's all interesting

1:36:46

like meatball. No, I think it is. Because

1:36:48

he loves to cast people who are

1:36:50

carrying something with him. No, that's interesting.

1:36:52

Whether it's stated or not. Yeah. So,

1:36:54

all right. Well, give me your read. Well, just

1:36:57

to be clear, what happened, Leslie, whatever you wanted,

1:36:59

but obviously what happened is they have this conversation.

1:37:01

The moment that to me actually sort of sticks

1:37:04

with me the most is he's like, so now go

1:37:06

pay and go

1:37:08

be where you were in my dream. Sure.

1:37:11

And then he looks at him when he's

1:37:13

standing there and looks terrified. And

1:37:15

then of course they go outside and Lynch does

1:37:17

this amazing thing where he switches to the POV

1:37:19

of him like walking down the stairs and you're

1:37:21

like... Yeah, the steady cam. And then... It's

1:37:24

so... And then weirdly, he clocks the

1:37:27

payphone. Right. He's like

1:37:29

tagging stuff. There's garbage over there. Why

1:37:31

am I going back here? It's the

1:37:33

middle of the day. It's like first

1:37:35

person shooter of mundanity. I was thinking

1:37:37

too that it was just this weird

1:37:39

kismet thing that this is... In

1:37:42

Zodiac, the Lake Berry-Esassine

1:37:44

is the scariest daylight scene I've ever seen.

1:37:46

Daytime scares are hard to do, but if

1:37:48

you pull them off, very scary. And this

1:37:50

would be like a very

1:37:53

close second of just like, there's no

1:37:55

shadow, there's no cover. And yet this

1:37:57

is absolutely terrifying. about

1:40:00

the diner, the actual location, that

1:40:03

it's like this. Because I do feel like this is

1:40:05

some sort of like, it's a, the

1:40:08

movie is largely a dream, right? For 90 minutes

1:40:10

of the movie, we are in Betty's dream. I

1:40:12

wanna go on the record and say, I don't

1:40:15

think it's a dream. Okay, well, that's- I think

1:40:17

it's about a dream. I

1:40:19

like this. That's what I was saying. We can talk about it. But

1:40:21

let's keep going, let's keep going. I just wanna make that clear before

1:40:24

we- If you subscribe to sort of the general theory of like, this

1:40:26

is mostly a dream and then the back half of the move, the

1:40:28

back act is a movie. She wakes up

1:40:30

and she's different. But why do we think that's reality?

1:40:32

Why do we think that's, because it's actually- No, no,

1:40:34

no, wait a second. I don't wanna go to the

1:40:36

theater. Okay, we'll get there. We'll get there. Let's finish

1:40:39

your point first and then we'll- I'm not saying that

1:40:41

this is like, this is the definitive take on Mulholland

1:40:43

Drive, all the evidence is there. This is a lot

1:40:45

of- The 10 clues. But

1:40:49

we are with Betty for most of the time.

1:40:51

We're with Naomi Watts. Like this

1:40:53

scene, this is a person she doesn't know,

1:40:55

right? But we are with, much

1:40:58

later in the film, this is

1:41:00

where she, Diane, the

1:41:02

real Betty or whatever, the

1:41:05

other Betty, asks

1:41:08

Mark Pellegrino to kill Camilla, to

1:41:12

do a bad thing. And

1:41:15

when she's doing that, she looks over and

1:41:18

sees Patrick Fischler standing there.

1:41:21

And it's this moment of fucking,

1:41:23

his eyes are boring into her because he's Patrick

1:41:25

Fischler. God bless him, his eyes bore into you.

1:41:28

He's got those pussy willows over those eyes too.

1:41:30

He's got those big old brows. He

1:41:33

looks like that meme of, have you seen

1:41:35

this face, right? Of the creepy in your

1:41:37

dreams. And it's like, she

1:41:39

was being seen- It's like a creepy pasta. Exactly,

1:41:42

at the lowest moment of her life or

1:41:44

the darkest moment of her life. And

1:41:48

it's like, the diner is this

1:41:50

liminal space, right? It's like in

1:41:52

between dream and reality, which

1:41:55

you're saying the real diner kind of is. Like,

1:41:57

what is this doing here? It's like the search

1:41:59

protect- and Wreck-It Ralph, it's where all the... Right?

1:42:04

That's another Ben's choice. Yeah, that was a big one.

1:42:06

Both of them. Both of them, we dimmed together. Um,

1:42:10

like, and what

1:42:12

this guy is doing in this scene, be he a

1:42:14

real guy or not, is he's kind of like, I

1:42:16

had a dream about this place, I want to go

1:42:18

into it. Right? I'm

1:42:20

trying to kind of recreate the dream. I'm going

1:42:22

into the liminal space of trying to think about

1:42:25

this. Sure. Trying to recreate it. Yeah. And like...

1:42:27

Which is basically what Lynch tries to do as

1:42:29

an artist. Yeah, exactly. Like, and

1:42:31

it's like he's sort of crossing or

1:42:33

he's like trying to... He's literally like

1:42:35

stage directing. Right. And like,

1:42:38

shit is wonky. Like you're saying the camera

1:42:40

work is wonky. Like the perspective's just, who

1:42:42

are these people? What is that thing behind

1:42:44

there? Like, I don't know, like that's the

1:42:46

classic Lynch thing of Bob

1:42:49

or all these creatures he creates where it's

1:42:51

like some kind of representation of

1:42:53

an evil or a force or... True.

1:42:55

Like you can do whatever you want with it.

1:42:57

Well, what's your take on it? That's

1:42:59

my take. Is that really clear? That

1:43:02

what I just said? That

1:43:05

like, just that like you're in... That is like

1:43:08

a... Because of

1:43:10

the thing that Diane did. The point is itself is

1:43:12

the transitional point between states of consciousness. But I'm not

1:43:14

saying it in a way of like, if you go

1:43:16

there, you get to go into the dream world. I'm

1:43:18

just saying like it's just... Well, that's what Rick and

1:43:20

Ralph is saying. Well, I would say that my experience

1:43:22

of watching... There's like a blurriness to that place. Right.

1:43:24

Yeah. And that's, you know, what he...

1:43:26

Why he's drawn there and why it freaks him out

1:43:28

and why the thing from his dream is there. Or