Blank Check with Griffin & David

It certainly feels great to cover a good movie again! Our mini-run of new releases ends with Gina Prince-Bythewood’s crowd-pleaser - the African female warrior epic “The Woman King”. We’ve got David’s exclusive report on the film’s world premiere at TIFF (humblebrag), a deep dive on the career of Viola Davis (did you know her early industry champions were Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney?), an...

The King of the Uncanny Valley - our boy Bob Zemeckis - is back with his spin on perhaps the most iconic un-real boy in cinema…it’s Pinocchio, baby! Our friends from Podcast: The Ride - two Disney daddies and one small wooden boy - join us to chat about Disney’s latest live-action remake, and we’re mostly just confused. How many days did Tom Hanks spend on set? Why are so many people in Hollywood...

George Miller returns with a sweeping romantic fantasy and if we had a djinn, we’d wish that more people went to see this movie in theaters!  Plus - Ben wishes for infinite sandwiches, and the two friends go long on Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Instagram, Threads, Facebook and X! Buy some real nerdy merch....

How did they ever make a podcast of LOLITA? Let’s just say that it wasn’t easy, but thankfully our guest Fran Hoepfner is in her “brave era” and was more than up for the task! If our SPARTACUS episode was full of Tony Curtis impressions, we’re classing up the joint this week with plenty of James Mason bits. In this episode, Ben learns about the Hays Code, Griffin learns how to pronounce “Nabokov,”...

I am Spartacus! I am Spartacus! Heck, we’re *all* Spartacus today as we talk about the “sword-and-sandals” epic that solidified Stanley Kubrick’s hit-making potential…and soured him on Hollywood forever. Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson returns to the pod and we’re covering all the major topics: How did a young Kubrick manage all the different stars on set - many of whom were accomplished directors in...

Perhaps the most humanistic of Kubrick’s films, PATHS OF GLORY is a blistering study of injustice, middle-management, and anti-war sentiment. We’re down in the trenches this week with Sarah Marshall (“You’re Wrong About” and “You Are Good”), and we’re asking the big questions. Like - what crazy scheme did Timothy Carey pull during production that caused him to be fired as soon as all his closeups...

If Stanley Kubrick’s previous two films were exercises in learning on the job, THE KILLING is where we start to see him put that knowledge into action. A thrilling noir, it allowed Kubrick to connect his passion for chess to a story about the best laid plans of a too ambitious crook. We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome dream guest Patton Oswalt as we swap insane Timothy Carey stories, debate w...

He dominated the field in this year’s 20th Century March Madness competition, and now we’re celebrating with a parade and a big brass band…it’s time for our series on the films of Stanley Kubrick - Pods Wide Cast! Join us as we fill in the background strokes of Kubrick’s early career - his childhood in the Bronx, his photography apprenticeship with Look Magazine - and as we discuss his first two f...

Oof - this is a tough one. Incredibly divisive, is “STAR 80” a darkly cynical triumph about the perils of Hollywood and the failings of men? Or is it a too-sympathetic “Portrait of An Incel as a who cares?!” per our guest Julie Klausner? Join us for a very spirited discussion about Fosse’s difficult last film, where we touch upon the dangers of the true crime genre, the tendency for male creatives...

It’s SHOWTIME, folks - and boy, are we jazzed about this episode! Broadway icon and actual Blank Check listener Lin-Manuel Miranda joins us to talk about what many consider to be Bob Fosse’s masterpiece, 1979’s “All That Jazz.” LMM surprises Griffin and David by bringing along an original copy of the film’s script, which offers some fascinating insights into Fosse’s blurring of the lines between m...

Sure, Bob Fosse’s “Lenny” has beautiful cinematography, but does it effectively communicate that Lenny Bruce was funny? Is the narrative of stand-ups as “tortured truth tellers” overdone?  We have THOUGHTS! Comedian and “stand-up historian” Colin Quinn joins us to talk about the legacy of Lenny Bruce, and what Fosse gets right (the milieu of the clubs, Valerie Perrine’s wonderful performance as Ho...

Wilkommen and Bienvenue to our “Cabaret” episode! Literal Disney Princess and musical theater superstar Rachel Zegler joins us to gush over Fosse’s 1972 film - a game-changer for the musical genre, and an Oscar-winning guarantor for Fosse’s cinematic “blank check” after the failure of “Sweet Charity.” Topics discussed include: the differences between the screen version and the stage show; Joel Gre...

The minute you walked in the joint…I could see you were a man of distinction, A REAL PODCASTER! “Pod That Jazzcast” - our series on the films of Bob Fosse - kicks off with a real humdinger of an episode, as the boys discuss 1969’s swinging technicolor musical “Sweet Charity.” For folks unfamiliar with Fosse, we give an overview of his life and career in dance and theater leading up to his film dir...

Our Sam Raimi series concludes with his most recent film - not to mention the first MCU film we’ve covered on the main feed - it’s time for Doctor Strange 2! Patrick Willems joins us to address the important questions: What was Raimi *doing* for the nine years between this and Oz? Does Kevin Feige and his Marvel Machine overpower Raimi’s creative voice? Should “Wandavision” have been released afte...

Ah, yes - we’ve arrived at the reason why we held off on covering Sam Raimi for so long…because we didn’t want to end our series on such a dismal note! “Oz the Great and Powerful” - Raimi’s last feature until the recent “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” - features James Franco in a performance that guest Dana Schwartz (“Noble Blood”) characterizes as “having the energy of a hot boy in...

After the massive box office success of his Spider-Man movies, Sam Raimi went “back to basics” - returning to the gnarly demonic possession genre that he put his stamp on back in the “Evil Dead” days. This time, instead of the chin-god Bruce Campbell, we’ve got a particularly cherubic Alison Lohman in the starring role! The Bechdel Cast’s Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus join the #TwoFriends to ch...

If “Spider-Man 2” had the reputation of being the greatest superhero movie of all time, “Spider-Man 3” had the inverse - a bloated mess with too many villains, and a very goofy Peter Parker going to the darkside, if by “darkside” you mean a trip to Men’s Warehouse and Hot Topic. But is that reputation justified? We’re gonna air on the side of…not REALLY. Notable Spidey 3 defender Jamelle Bouie (Th...

For a while, “Spider-Man 2” was considered the high water mark for superhero movies - but does it hold up 14 years deep into the MCU? We’ve got two words for you - ALFRED MOLINA. Self-professed “Blank Check rabble rouser” Chris Gethard returns to the pod (and apologizes to the Blankie Community) as we trace the history and legacy of this iconic Spidey sequel. We love this movie so much, David does...

Upside down kissing, Bonesaw McGraw, and a soundtrack featuring not just one, but TWO of Avril Lavigne’s ex-husbands…it’s SPIDER-MAN! Screen Crush’s Matt Singer (who literally wrote a book about Spider-Man) joins us as we take a look back to a much different Hollywood landscape; a time when Marvel was a struggling comics company, when both Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire were considered odd choices fo...

Katie Holmes in a lazy southern accent asks, “What’s the matter? See somethin’ bad?” and we are immediately transported back to the year 2000 when the trailers for this movie were EVERYWHERE.  Writer and podcasting icon Starlee Kine joins us to talk about Sam Raimi’s “The Gift” - a film with an incredibly stacked cast of actors who were eager to sink their teeth into a Southern Gothic Billy Bob Th...

Is this not America? Is baseball not America’s favorite pastime? Is “For Love of the Game” a Sam Raimi movie? Technically speaking, sure! It’s about a guy who’s trying not to lose both his hand and his lady - some very Raimi-esque themes. Gawker’s Olivia Craighead returns to the pod to talk about Kevin “Straight Outta Compton” Costner, and we go long on crackerjacks, Vin Scully’s screenplay notes,...

$4.4 million, a murder of crows, and a cursed crashed plane…the ingredients for a real nail-biter of a fable! Filmmaker Kevin Smith (yep, THAT Kevin Smith) joins us to talk about one of his favorite films - 1998’s “A Simple Plan” - and to pay tribute to the late producer Jim Jacks, who shepherded several filmmakers (such as Raimi, the Coens, Richard Linklater, and Smith himself) as they made their...

Considered a bit of a “blank check” for actress Sharon Stone (she used her clout to bring Sam Raimi, Russell Crowe, and a babyfaced Leonardo DiCaprio to the project), “The Quick and The Dead” may have been too quirky for mainstream audiences and too earnest for the post-Tarantino generation of cinephiles back in 1995. But boy, does it slap in 2022! Roman Mars - The golden-voiced host of “99% Invis...

KLAATU BARADA NIKTO - did we get that right? Writer Eva Anderson (WeCrashed, You’re the Worst) joins us as we attempt to answer several questions related to the final entry in the Evil Dead trilogy - 1993’s Army of Darkness. Why was this film not called MEDIEVAL DEAD? Did Embeth Davidtz and Liam Neeson talk about Sam Raimi on the set of Schindler’s List? How does Ben feel about the concept of a to...

Who’s Darkman? A man of a thousand faces! A walking fleshwound who probably smells awful! A dude who probably would be into night eggs! Filmmaker Chris Weitz joins us to geek out over Sam Raimi’s homage to the Universal Monsters - a film that establishes the comic book style that Raimi would later perfect with his “Spider-Man” trilogy. We discuss the early 90s run of pulpy comic book films (“Dick...