Three Thousand Years of Longing

There's no story about podcasting that is not a cautionary tale. That's a good quote for us. Right? David?

Yes. No bits. Genuine question. What is the regional accent she's doing in this one?

She's Scottish. Isn't she? Is she supposed to be Scottish? Or is she Irish?

I'm going to be honest with you. Yeah. It's been a while since you've seen this. Been a second since I saw this movie?

Yeah. And now I can't remember if she's Scottish or Irish. She's doing a very specific accent that I first thought was Scottish and then I was not so sure. Her name, Alothea, suggests Scottish to me.

I just want to make sure. And her last name is Bini, which is a very Scottish name. Yeah. Yeah.

She's Scottish. Yeah. I feel like Idris is often cited as one of the great accent actors of our time. Like he's kind of immaculate.

But I told a low key also up there. Yeah, that's true. But it's she's it's called for British scholar here, but she's not but she's Scottish. That's the thing.

I was like, is she doing a hyper-regional specific British accent? Or is she Scottish accent? No, Scottish accent. Folks, this is a podcast called Blanchek with your name, David.

I'm Griffithan. I'm David. It's a podcast about philanthropicist's british experience, massive success early on in their careers and our given a series of wishes. Yeah.

To make whatever crazy pattern products they want. At least one wish. And sometimes those wishes clear. And sometimes they bounce, baby.

He has gotten two wishes out of Fury Road, would you agree? Because Furiosa, obviously, is a sure bet. Yes. But nonetheless, like him getting that funded is not a guarantee, even with the success of Fury Road.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit similar to the Nolan post-Dark Knight. Yes.

It's like, you get to make Conception, and you get to make another Batman movie, but you really get to do whatever the fuck you want that one. But the difference is that with Nolan, it's like, you're like, clockwork. You pump out a movie every two to three years. Right.

With Miller, it's like, you take a long time to make a movie. Pretty much your whole career. He's not a, I mean, right at the start, he was pretty fast. Like, through to Thunderdome.

But then it started. So it's like, after Mack's Fury Road, knowing everything you know about that movie, Miller shit sounds like I want to make a prequel. No one in the room including George Miller is thinking, like, great, that'll be ready to go in a couple years. It's 20 years to get Fury Road off the ground?

Exactly. And then making Fury Road was very, very involved. Yes. He's not young.

No. No, the other thing was, at many points in time, he was like, I'm doing two Mad Max movies back to back. Like, he had Fury Road and Furyosa both planned out. Yes.

And it was like, he's going to do both of them, or he's going to make one of them animated or whatever. So then when it just became, he's only doing Fury Road, we're never going to see Furyosa. And then even when he was like, no, I might do Furyosa. You're like, yeah, you might do Furyosa.

How badly do you want to go back into the desert and shoot another Flame in Cars movie? Is Hemsworth playing in Morton Joe and Furyosa, or is he playing someone new? He's playing someone new. So who's playing in Morton Joe?

Is it Tom Burke? No, I think he's in it. No, he's in it. He is?

According to the synopsis. OK, interesting. No, because recently, photos came out of Chris M's birth character. And he had a big top hat on or something, and he looked like a Raleigh Fingers Mustang.

Really? Yeah. Let me try it by that. He looks like a fictional character who owns a candy store.

You know what I'm saying? You know when a candy store comes up? Yes. You know when a sweet shop comes up with a cartoon avatar of its owner?

Yeah. He looks like that. But his character name is absurd. Wait, what is his character name?

Look it up. Tom Burke is playing the character that Yaya Abdul-Manteen, the second was originally supposed to play it. Right. Not Morton Joe.

Yes. Yes. One would think. Right.

Whereas this kind of looks like it could be a Morton Joe type. It could. Maybe it also looks like, right. He's like really long because it's grandpa.

I forgot to get the beard as well. The mustache goes like this. And then some of the other folks get like, oh, you know. Dementus is the supposed name.

Dementus. Dementus. How do you get that name you think? Oh, maybe just by being a super chill normal guy.

I don't know. There's just something about it where it's like, how does 3,000 years of longing exist? A $60 million movie that's. It is the big $60 million.

It's a pretty expensive movie. Yeah, it's pretty fancy. It's a real blank check. Look, those little cutaway story scenes.

So the premise of the podcast, right? But a premise we should say that really solidified our round Fury Road. We've said this before. But the night that we figured out what the podcast should be after almost a year of doing only Star Wars prequels was the night that we saw Fury Road for the first time.

And we were like, this is the fucking thing. And it was the fucking thing. It really was the fucking thing. And that's a perfect example of a guy who's in a real blank check position where it's like, you made this beloved blockbuster, like a nominated for and won a bunch of Oscars.

It's like one of the most critically adored movies of its decade. It's a movie that's going to play forever. Kind of everybody likes it. Everybody likes it.

But it's like that rare kind of thing that we talk about sometimes on the show, like a Matrix or Sixth Sense or whatever, where it's like you just ticked all the boxes. It worked on every level. And yet even still, it took seven years. Other factors involved, pandemic and such.

But Miller takes his fucking time. And he made about the weirdest movie he possibly could have made with his cache. Also knowing that I think to some degree, he was hammocked by the promise of doing another Mad Max, which he's doing in a weird way. I'm just interested by the arch of it.

It's like, in one way, it's a logic arc, right? It's what we're saying. It's like, hey, you make Fury Road, sure. You get to make one for you a little bit, right?

That's fun. And yet at the same time, it's like, it almost makes sense that he's in production on Furiosa almost to be like, yeah, you know, this won't be the last you hear of me or this isn't the direction I'm going in forever. Yes. But then again, I also just think he's George Miller.

And he's in his late 70s. He's not young. No, he's not. And he's like, yeah, you know, what's to make this?

Yeah. Look, we did our whole George Miller mini series about two years ago. More because it was bifurcated by the pandemic, right? Like that's the one that was the one.

Yeah, that was the one. Yeah, early 2020. I guess we did almost, no, no, we got, because we did like Bay, Pick and the City and maybe Happy Feet 2 on Zoom. I'm trying to remember.

Yeah, Fury Road, we had done already. And we had done Happy Feet. Yeah, we done some of them. And we had done an Efron episode.

Remember, we had mixed nuts in the can. We did right. And we still do. We always got some mixed nuts.

We're at a living around the can. But we, yeah, no, which is a beast to wick. Happy Feet 2, Bay, Pick and the City. Yeah, we did a few of them online anyway.

Anyway, so that was when we did it was early 2020. Right. And even at that time, there was the lingering, like he wants to make this movie. I mean, as often the case with him, he'll verbalize this project he wants to do.

And then you just hear of years of delays of him being like, well, we were going to shoot here, but the weather wasn't right or the timing wasn't this, or we need the time to do that or whatever. But pretty quickly, post Fury Road, it felt like, it was like, this is the next thing I want to do. These are the two actors I have attached. We're putting together financing.

Yeah. It took a while to actually come to fruition. It was interesting until we're announced from to again, where there was no, because this is one of those movies you could see where it's like, oh yeah, there were like five genies and five, you know, you know, professors, like, you know, yeah, 2018 announced, described as being epic in scope. And I guess it's 2018, it's three years from Fury Road.

Yeah, he gets to do what he wants. He gets to do what he wants. He gets to do what he wants. I mean, look, people more than allowed to dislike this movie, but it's a thing I said to you over text last night, I've ever seen this film where the one thing that bumps me out is I do feel like there has been some, bad faith people, gleeful reportage of this movie bombing in this like, oh, he made this self-indulgent art film for $60 million.

There's a bad crowd online. The folly of this thing. It's not an important crowd, and it's not even a particularly influential crowd, but there is a certain crowd that seems to take some weird light in weird projects not working. What were they thinking?

Yeah, this is a terra, master, but it's where you think, and I'm just like, dislike this movie or not, it's fine. We should be allowing this to happen. It's used to happen. If you fucking make Fury Road, you get to do whatever the fuck you want.

That's a perfect example of a movie where everyone should step back and go, you know what, you're right, this worked on every metric. This is what our podcast is about. Fucking, we trust you. And it happened so infrequently these days.

And beyond that, so infrequently, does someone take that cache and actually spend it on something like this that would never get made, and certainly not at this scale otherwise. Beyond that. It's real that they let him make it, that it exists. I agree with all that, but beyond that, I don't, because people have been saying, oh, it was poorly marketed, and it's too bad, it got kind of dumped, and that's all fair.

Yes, it doesn't seem like it was really aggressively marketed, and it is getting kind of like put out in late August, in the kind of dull drones. Like it's notoriously, along with the first weekend of January, the worst movie going, but I don't think this was a movie that was ever gonna be a screaming success, it's pretty esoteric. I think two things can be true at the same time, which is they mangle the marketing release of this movie, and this movie is kind of unmarketable. Pretty tough to mark.

I don't know how you sell this movie, and the problem is it's a movie made for, primarily weirdos like us, because it's almost like, here's a great encapsulation, right? I went to see some movie with a Romley, my sister, a long time sister, and the trailer comes up, and the trailer for this movie, the first 30 seconds make it seem like Mrs. Harris goes to Paris. It's like, Twinkly- I've seen the trailer one time.

It's told to swint in, sitting alone journaling, and the cafes, or solitary type, you know, whatever. No hint of mysticism. It's just like, told the swint takes a nice vacation. She's a middle-aged academic, enjoying her solitude, right?

And then hotel room, Jean-Appears, trailer goes into bombastic, EDM music, hallucinoc, they sell the fantasy story elements, like it's like fucking hardcore, fucking intense shit, and immediately, when the total stuff is happening, Romley's like, this looks like my kind of movie. And the second, it fucking goes like, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, like eyeballs bleeding, you know, and like hare rums and shit. She was just like, oh, nevermind. And it's that thing where you're just like, the people who wanna see Wacadoo George Miller probably are put off by how much of this movie is an intimate conversation in a hotel room, and the people who wanna watch the intimate hotel movie are probably put off by the crazy myths.

So you need to be a very particular type of person who comfortably can hold both of these things in your head at the same time and have it fit your taste, which is why this movie's really tough to market. Which is ultra. But I mean, God bless the people, the good people at MGM and Film Nation, whoever else had to put money into this that they probably won't be seeing back. You know, that's movie making sometimes obviously, but like, it just feels like the kind of movie that will be out there and can be kind of stumbled across over the years in the future, and will find more fans and probably, you know, I think it already has, I would say the reaction to this film has been mostly mixed, not even like mixed negative, kind of a sort of like, most of, most reviews I have seen have been like, it wasn't really for me, but I, I can't stop thinking, or I keep thinking about it, or I'm impressed that it exists, but mostly kind of still a mixed bag experience for people.

The people talking about it bombing, it feels like I've not seen it, and the people have seen it are mostly kind of going like, huh, yeah, yeah, okay. Yes. I walked out of this movie like on a cloud, which is like a rare thing for me, not a rare thing. You pinned it as like favorite movie of the year, I just love it in a way that's impossible to describe.

No, I'm saying when you walked out, but it was one of those things where it wasn't like, this is a number one of the year by default. But I had the experience, and I love it, I mostly see films and press screenings these days. Humbra. And this film obviously had debuted at Cannes, and gotten mixed reviews.

I was very interested, it was a George Miller film, it's an original film, you know, I'm very intrigued by it, but I was not walking and being like, massive music coming, right? And I just, you know, it happens to me a few times a year, then I'm watching a movie, and I'm just like, oh, I love all of this. It's just on your wavelength. Yeah.

And then of course, this movie does have a sort of like, major tonal shift in the third act, and plot shift. And I've heard from some people where they're like, and that kind of didn't work for me. And I'm like, yeah, I guess I got it, but I was even more into that. Oh, that's the most for me.

And also I've seen people being like, the ending of such an abrupt rug-pillate, it feels like a rant out of money. And I'm like, that feels like- That's not how movies work. No, fuck sake, sorry. No, you're also just like- No, no, no.

His problem was not being given enough money for this movie. Right. I love that idea, though, where he's like, I was gonna do another magnificent tale of the past, but I'm out of money, so I guess I'll just melt him in a closet. Yes.

I'll just turn him to action the basement. Right. I'm just so phone. Yeah.

But I'm just- Spoiler alert for this movie. Anything is the whole point. I mean, not to like reduce it too much, but this is a, we tell ourselves stories in order to live movie, right? That's the big thing Miller is saying with this film.

A lot of great filmmakers when they get to this stage of their career start to make the movie, if not the autobiographical movie, almost sort of the self-reflexive movie of like, why do I do this? Where are we talking about this with Zemeckis? Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely- Late career Zemeckis, I forget what guests, but someone was pointing out that their life experience starts to become through the lens of being a director.

I think it was Emily on the Marwen episode. Yeah. That sounds right. And that's what this movie feels like.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, this is not an autobiographical movie, but this absolutely feels like the movie of a 70 year old master being like, why do I make movies? Yeah. Why do I do this?

Why do I tell stories? What is the entire nature of doing this thing, of putting on shows and spectacles to people? Right, right. Classic late stage director rumination, right?

Like what is the meaning of a story? And why do we do this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for a guy who has always done things in such a unique way, in such a bizarre way, and when you hit the end credits of this movie, you're reminded like, right, this guy pretty much has built his entire career existing outside of the studio system, you know, with very selective collaboration with studios, which is least like the one movie that's really him like, do any American studio system thing, but outside of that it's like, I mean, even that is an absolutely bananas movie.

Right, but it's a Kenny Miller Mitchell. Yeah, no, that is the closest to him. He's a regular collaborator. Hopping on a studio project with a script he didn't write.

You know, he's got this sort of under-disgust career as a mini mogul, even terms of like how many other Australian directors he kickstarted, like Philip Noise and stuff, you know? But it's like, he's just figured out his own way, does things on his own terms. And then now he's sitting back and going like, why do I do this? 3000 years of long.

Yeah, that is the name of the movie we're talking about. Returning to George Miller. 108 minutes of pure entertainment. Yes, this is Gene Shallitt.

It's a George Miller film written by George Miller and Augusta Gore. Who is his daughter? I don't think I knew that. That's cool.

This is a short story he had read a while ago. By AS Byatt. His daughter, I believe, primarily studies like mythology and folklore and stuff. That's interesting.

And he had been looking for a co-writer and then he was like, I should just do this with my daughter, which is this other sweet element to this movie. It's like, you know, his wife is his editor. He makes movies with his best friends and his family. And there is almost this kind of generational passing down thing on this movie.

This is his daughter's first credit and anything. Yeah, it is. And it was one of those things where like, it started filming like days before lockdown, like early March 2020. And so it got massively delayed.

And I think they restarted filming in the fall. They end up not filming in Istanbul because of the pandemic. That sounds right. They like recreated.

It was mostly in Australia. There was some deadline review I read from when this movie was playing at Khan. And the person interviewing him was like, I have stayed at that hotel. I know the hotel you're basing this movie on.

Sure. It is the most immaculate reconstruction of the room. Right, because it looks like the, you know, a real spot for sure. Yeah.

They recreated that. Agatha Christie room. Yes. The Agatha Christie room.

Fucking Agatha Christie needs a fancy hotel to write the mousetrap or whatever. Yeah. It is a tale of a lonely British scholar. Who?

Well, is she Scottish? Yeah, well Scotland is in Britain. For now. For now, they may be leaving.

They would like to, or they, they, they, there are certain people in Scotland would like to be independent. Who unleashes a gin inside an antique bottle. Yes. She buys at a local trinket store.

OK, right off the bat, I'm definitely buying every fucking bottle. I can't find a trinket store for now. And just rubbing them in every single one. Tossing them over your shoulder.

Open it. Dammit. Smash them on the ground. I want a Gee-Dee.

Big time. Do you want him to be like room size like he is? And then he comes out basically very large. Yeah.

I want a big boy. Yeah. Or a girl. I want a big Gee-Dee.

Yeah. Not enough girl Gee-Dee's. No. It's like a point.

I dream of. Well, that's true. She's kind of the queen of girl Gee-Dee's. Yes.

But often classically represented as male. Yes, not many. Outcomes a gin, played by Idris Elba. Which mentioned all these issues, a scholar, but she's like folklore.

She studies. She studies narrative knowledge. Her whole thing is trying to find the common threads that are shared across the stories of all cultures to figure out the things that unify us. Host the TED talk that might be the most boring thing I've ever seen.

It's not scintillating stuff. I don't know. I mean, it's all right. But she sort of breaks stories down a very mathematical.

I believe that's the narrative purpose of that. Which is why we're at it. This lady who's kind of boiling things down a little too much. Yeah.

I love when you make stories into math. I do think it's interesting that study of where it's like Cinderella is like a folktale or they might even put it. But then you look at other cultures and you're like, oh, they have a lot of this myth recurs. There's various types of myths that clearly are rooted in something deeper because they spread across the world.

It's the thing I like. Look, here's the TED talk that looks boring as hell. But the thing I like that they put a point on is that she's specifically trying to find the commonalities across cultures. It's like, what are the story elements that transcend time and place that seem to speak to some fundamental human yearning rather than any cultural specificity?

You know? Yeah. Outcomes the gin? Well, she sees some other creatures too.

She is occasionally having hallucinations of other things. It's true. She's like, right, there's the little man who tries to take her luggage cart at the airport. They joke that it's a gin.

And then she sees someone at the TED talk or whatever sitting in the crowd, right? She likes faints. And she faints. Right, they all have this.

And she's got a slightly, she seems touchy or what's the word? Like she seems like someone who might suddenly faint. Like she just feels a little frail or yeah, I don't know. She's got the thing where she's hyper-defensive about how happy she is.

Right, right, right. She's doing great. She's doing great. And she's staying in a fancy hotel.

Yeah. And she is clearly very successful in this incredibly niche field. Right, flown around the world. Great glasses.

Great glasses. I like might get those for a while. Like her hair cut a lot in this. Yeah, her whole look is really good.

Tell the rules. Tell the rules. Have we talked about till the end? We're going to talk about till the end.

We can talk about till the end. In front of the show, Fran Hopper pointed out. It's odd that she puts her hair up in a towel. She's very short hair.

Yeah, she doesn't need to do that. And I feel like it's more just like, well, she should look really toweled up. I wish I'd just put his hair up in a towel. He should do that.

Lack of. Out comes the gin. And he wants to give her three wishes. It's a deal.

But instead, as they're trying to figure out what she might want, because she's given him the whole. Or can I even need? I'm happy. Wishing.

That leads to trouble. Did you guys feel like you were missing the genie referencing cultural references over the last 20, 30 years? I always feel like there's a character who's been contained within a bottle for centuries, if not longer. Yeah.

It makes the most sense for them to not only have a complete understanding of all the pop culture. They miss the pop culture that will happen centuries in the future. What I think that should happen is when you come out of the bottle, you should go, you stretch. Correct.

And the neck like the old blade. Yes. Well, he does do this. He's watching TV.

He does some TV stuff. Yeah. He's like, what the fuck is that? I know I like that.

Yo. He witch hacks my dudes. He goes to the computer. He does some vapor ash shit.

And he knows all the world's knowledge. That's witch hacking. I love to be. It's gin hacking.

It's gin hacking. But you know, it's gin is such a fun word. Gin is a fun word. And so well, the basic structure of most of the movie is him being like, all right, well, if you don't want any wishes, let's talk about my life.

I'll tell you, I'll take it through my other sort of people I've given wishes to. It's kind of this odd reverse, like, a thousand one nights. Yeah. It's very obviously sort of drafting off of that.

Yes. Because I guess he's sort of trying to convince her to wish for stuff. She needs to make a wish. She says as I misappropriated the beginning of the episode or bullet shirt, there's no wishing story that's not a cautionary tale.

It's a trap. There's a there's nothing I want. And she tries the thing of like, what do I want? I want to eat something and then she feeds herself.

And she's like, they're done. And he's like, I only can grant wishes that reflect your innermost desires, which I want to make. He can't be. He's not the kind of genie where I'm like, God, I wish I just felt a little like less sleepy, say, be like, bam, wish number one.

Fuck you bitch, only two to go. I wish I had a Snickers right now. You have a Snickers. Right.

But she can't be like, time I choose. Right. Right. He's like, no, no, no, no.

This is an emotional relationship that we are now engaged in. And I'm here to help you understand what it is. You truly want. And I am not a genie who's going to snap my fingers.

Like, as we've seen one of the stories, one of the people is like, I want to like, I want all the world's knowledge. But she immediately deflects onto him. Like, I don't know. What's your deal?

Right. She makes the comment of that. And she's kind of doing it like he's a monster going to kill it. She's like, well, let's have a conversation over it.

It feels like she's just drawing it out. He's not trying to hurt her. He's trying to help her. But she's very resistant to help.

I am fascinated to. And of course, she's fascinated by this. Because that's especially her, she's a fucking specialist in this stuff. I haven't seen Leo Grande.

Sure. But I'd like to you, Leo Grande is the only one. People comparing these two films. And this early stuff does have that energy of someone who is in a hotel with a sex worker being like, we don't have to do anything, we could just talk.

Yeah. Like, you know, where she's just immediately like, let's not do the wishing thing. Right. Tell me about you.

What's your deal? Right. He makes the comment about like, I'm a fool. I've been tricked into the bottle like three times.

And she's like, interesting. Let's unpack that. I'm your therapist. To be fair, I would also want to hear about that.

Like if a gin came out, I wouldn't be like, all right, buddy, here we go. $10 billion. You're checking account. World piece, I guess.

You know, I would like, I'd want to hear about how the wishing process has gone in the past. Absolutely. But it's an immediate thing I love about this movie is, it's not framed as, tell me the stories of some of the other wishes you've granted, right? Or like, tell me sort of allegorical cautionary tales.

It's like, what about you? No one ever asks you about you. No one ever asks you about how you got fucked over. And then within those stories, you're finding out about other people and the wishes they make and the mistakes they make and all of that.

But it's almost like, no one's ever asked this guy how he's doing. Right. No one's ever been like, what's your deal? You just grant other people's wishes?

You have to like, fulfill their innermost desires? Are you okay? How is that? Also, what is it like to be locked in a bottle for thousands of years?

Yeah. You're gonna do such a quick in the neck. Yeah. That's what it is.

I'm trying to think if there's any other setup. You guys seem to have both liked the movie. Yeah. Yeah.

I think this would seem very positive on it, Ben. You guys saw it all separately? Yeah. You all saw it alone.

I'm guessing it pretty sparsely attended screenings. Yeah, there's like two other people there. I think it was okay. I don't know if I would like go out of my way to watch it again.

Fair. But I love a genie story. And I love movies like this, the classic like bedtime story that's then cut away to the story. I love that.

Yes. I think this is not a case like West Side Story where I'm like wishing I loved a movie more that you're like waxing ripsatick about. But I do like this movie more than me. Yeah, no, no, but that's because you're like over the moon for it.

I guess so or whatever. It's just sort of like, but this isn't like West Side Story at all because with West Side Story, I'm just like, well, this thing is just like an absolute masterpiece. Sure. Like it's a little more like 3,000 years long.

It is very, the craft is, I would say, pretty great. Yeah. Like, you know, George Miller is good at that stuff. Yes.

But no, I just really connected it. Yeah. Is it maybe that you started to tell stories? You're starting to become your own storyteller with your daughter.

You have to start telling stories. Tell her stories. And make up stories. If you pick up the spices out of the spice rack and throw them on the floor, they might break.

And I don't want you to do that. It's a great story that I tell her all. Because the spice monster. Well, and that's the thing.

She doesn't, yeah, I couldn't yet be like the spice monster. We'll get you because, you know, she doesn't, you know, imagination has yet to really enter. So you're not doing that. The story now is if you do that, you make me upset.

I'm just like, she is obsessed with walking into the kitchen and just picking up spices and just like from around. That's kind of a good bit. Lil' Rat Tui. Blenke's.

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Check out. That's an additional 20% off Better Plants and Better Growing at Past I would put it on the same shelf thematically as I guess Eastwick and Baypig in the City in that all three are like kind of like about different characters and they're painted very boldly, but they are about like, well, Baypig in the City is about animals, but still about people having feelings in them like, Mad Max is Mad Max. That's its own category of... But there's actually stuff in here.

There's a little bit of drap, so I'm just saying, here this movie to Lorenzo's oil. Lorenzo's oil is so operatic. It's not like a fucking loony tune. It doesn't stop moving.

And when you get to the conversations in the hotel room, which are like 30% to 40% of this movie, you're like, this is kind of the most restrained George Miller has ever been cinematically. Yes, you know? It's a pretty subdued scene. It is and obviously it's intimate and it's low energy in a way and it is a conversation that's being had.

Obviously we're having these very sumptuous, sometimes very exciting flashback. Miller's usually a maximalist, but this is obviously fairly maximalist. It's wild about this film. It's why you might get thrown off by one element or the other.

But I'm talking about this movie with Hoffman and we're just like, how the fuck did he trick people in giving him the money to make this? It's obviously just pure road for him. It's very road for him. But then when I said to him, it's like, I will give him the credit though, if you're going to make this movie and sell this movie and get this movie mostly put together by foreign financing, which is, this film is made independently film nation, you know, is sold to and distributed by MGM.

It was all put together from foreign financing, international pre sales and stuff. These are the two actors you can sell this movie on. Interesting. Not only were these the only two people who were ever attached to it, but you're kind of like, this movie feels impossible to pitch for how uncommercial it is, period.

It feels impossible to pitch with any other two people. They're both incredibly famous movie stars who also have like weird levels of like serious actor credibility, but odd cult personality around them, who like really want to act in a protective of like, I gotta make blockbusters. True, true. They'll do it.

We'll take big swings. And it's hard to think of two other actors who could have sold the different temperatures of this movie. What if you flip them? Also could work.

That's the thing, I mean, you could just walk them in, this would work with the same two people. Yeah, kind of work. They're the only two people who I think could do this. And I think.

They should do a true West style. They should make the movie again with their roles, look, see how it is. Both of these performances are phenomenal. I agree.

I want to talk about them. I think it's also, I mean, Tilda has an incredibly varied body of work and she's been in lots and lots of incredible movies, but Indras Elba, God bless him. He was a wonderful actor. And he's done some smaller things, yeah, sprinkled in, but he does a lot of big movies that I often feel he's a little undervalued in, or like the movies undervalued him.

He's got this very movie star career where it is like, this guy is undeniably an international movie star, but he so often takes things where you're like, do you not understand that you can do better than this? But that's what we think watching him. You know, on the inside, he might be like, this is a big movie, this is a big role, I'm the villain, I'm the whatever. And like, I'm sure it's good money and I'll do it.

Like, I'll do a good job. And we have this sort of feeling like. But you're Idris Elba, you kind of should just be like, only headlining vehicles if it's a big movie. Like you should be at the top of this stuff, not the villain in Hobbes and Shaw, which you're like totally fine in.

I think he's pretty good because he's always pretty good in this stuff. And like, same with like Star Trek where you're like, why are you hiring Idris Elba to be under this makeup? You're Idris Elba. And then he'll make a movie like Beast, which I've not yet seen.

Most people seem to say kind of punches above its weight class. I think there's always been this thing with him where it's just like, here's this like incredibly charismatic, skilled, absurdly handsome man, right? That people are just fascinated by. And he like, blows up on the wire, but then the wire has such a long tail of people coming around to that show and watching it 10, 15 years later, that he just kind of keeps on getting these bumps in fame from the original thing that broke him, if that makes sense?

Yes. You know, like he's getting cast in like American gangster as immediate result of the wire. And then 10 years later, he's getting new parts because people are finally coming around to the wire. And like Luther's happening at the same time, so you're sort of like, he's got this incredible TV career.

He works in like every genre. I mean, he does his fucking DJing. He does his DJing. Not only did he do DJing, didn't he even do a TV show about DJing, or should he do the long run?

Really? No one really did. Idris is this weird, that's so weird. What is he DJing?

What kind of music? Well, I believe, let me look up for, yeah, DJ Big Driss. Big Driss? Yeah, it's a car and B stuff, you know?

Oh shit. I think he's been doing that to be clear. He's been doing that the whole time. I was like a side gig for him when he was making money and trying to be an actor and all that.

Like, the thing about him is... He just does everything. He's an incredibly striking actor. He's very, very handsome.

He has a really distinctive voice. He can do every accent, obviously. When he's in the wire, you'd never think, like, oh, this guy's from Hackney London. You think, like, what is there?

He's truly one of the best accents. Really? He's six, too. He's a big guy.

He's genuinely imposing. He's a bouncer at Caroline's. Do you know that Ben? No, the Comedy Club.

And he's given a lot of performances that I think are really good. And he's been in a lot of big movies. So why do I think Idris Elba's career almost hasn't been big enough? Like, it's sort of...

It's just that weird kind of thing. When you were talking about Jamie Foxx the other day. Yes. And it's like, Jamie Foxx, it's almost like, it's like Shack or something.

I pardon the basketball reference. I love it. Shaquille, I'm the one basketball player I know. You've heard of.

He won four titles. He won an MVP. He was a very... He's one of the most successful players of all time.

And yet, everyone who covers that... He's one of the most famous players of all time. One of the most famous players of all time. But everyone who covers basketball and people like Phil Jackson and Coach, and were like, he should've won like 10 titles.

But unlike a Michael Jordan type, he just wanted to have more fun. And he wanted to do more extracurricular stuff. So like, and the Jamie and Jamie Foxx, I was like, this man has an Oscar. He's like a hit musician.

He's like a hit comedian. Like, he's done it all. He's not unsuccessful. And yet it feels like he could do more.

And like, it just... And also when one of them will come up with like a jingo or a 3000 years of longing where it's like, oh, this is a movie that's actually giving them something that can showcase all of their skills as an actor and their depth, you're like, right, of course, they've been here the whole time. Putting TV aside, putting like a Lutheran in the wire aside, obviously. What are some of the best...

This is a donation is the one that was supposed to be his big Oscar movie. Excellent. And then he gets every other nomination and most of the wins. It's that weird year where like he wins the globe and the SAG and doesn't get nominated for the Oscar.

He didn't win the globe. He did win the SAG. Who won the globe? And in the SAG, I feel like Sylvester Stallone won the globe.

Okay, so it's the Mark Rylin. Yeah. That performance is excellent. Yeah, I think, you know, he didn't get nominated for two reasons.

One, it was the early Netflix thing of life. That was like the first real serious Netflix Oscar. And then two, that movie's incredibly grim and maybe whatever. People have been concerned off by it.

But like it's an undeniably trans-fixing performance. Yeah. I guess before that, well, no, before that he'd done, obviously, you know, he's in stuff like, he pops up in like rock and roll though or... American gangster, he's very good.

Obsessed. He's kind of obsessed. He is first billed and that movie was... Movie was a hit, but he has the most boring role because he's like, oh, I don't know what to do with him.