app_store_button

google_play_button

DK - Details page - Device banner - 894x1036

Nyd den ubegrænsede adgang til tusindvis af spændende e- og lydbøger - helt gratis

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Blank Check Productions

Not just another bad movie podcast, Blank Check reviews directors' complete filmographies episode to episode. Specifically, the auteurs whose early successes afforded them the rare ‘blank check’ from Hollywood to produce passion projects. Each new miniseries, hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims delve into the works of film’s most outsized personalities in painstakingly hilarious detail. Produced by Ben Hosley.

Blank Check with Griffin & David

On St. Valentine's Day in 1900, a group of podcasters set out to record an episode about Peter Weir's Picnic At Hanging Rock. Some were never to return...because they got addicted to the calming sounds of pan flute! Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun joins us to chat about this 1975 classic of Australian cinema, and we're getting into the eerie qualities that make this film such an enduring mystery. From Rachel Roberts' wig drama to frame rate manipulation...from the Aboriginal concept of "dream time" to the casting of actual private school girls...there's much to unpack. But don't worry, we also spend a lot of time discussing The Grabber from The Black Phone 2. 

Check out Jane's Dream Film Syllabus 

Watch the Virgin Suicides Zoom Reunion

Read Australian Gothic: Peter Weir’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ at 50 by Tim Pelan

Check out Jane's Sully Tumblr

Pre-Order Jane's Book Public Access Afterworld

Pan flute accompaniment composed and performed by Alex Mitchell

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Picnic at Hanging Rock with Jane Schoenbrun

What time is it? It’s time to study the revolutionary texts with David “Rocketman” Sims! On our last episode before The Oscars, we’re talking about One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic about parental legacy, revolutionary identity, and a dad trying to charge his Goddamn phone. But first we reflect on the influx of last-minute Oscar narratives, before getting into One Battle After Another’s plot and politics, sidebar on Leonardo DiCaprio’s legacy at the Oscars, and finally give our official Critical Darlings Oscar Predictions for Sunday’s ceremony. Read more about Richard’s predictions at Premiere Party, See you on the other side!

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critical Darlings: One Battle After Another And Oscar Predictions with David Sims

Bonjour! Erm...we mean...G'day mates! Our Peter Weir series PODNIC AT HANGING CAST kicks off with Weir's 1974 feature debut The Cars That Ate Paris, a film about the guy who plays Napoleon in the Bill & Ted movies getting stranded in a quirky and murderous Australian town. We're getting into the origins of the Australian New Wave, the various "calling card" projects that Weir made in the beginning of his career, and this film's spiky car which Ben has a lot of affection for, obviously.

Check out the Steve Martin Cold Open - Saturday Night Live

Listen to Griff on Comedy Bang!Bang!

Check out Dirty Laundry on Dropout

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Cars That Ate Paris

This week we’re joined by Sam Sanders of The Sam Sanders Show to discuss Sinners, the most nominated film in Academy Awards history. With sixteen nominations across directing, writing, music, and acting categories, Sinners is a somewhat surprising record breaker, as genre films, especially films with horror elements, are rarely awarded by The Academy. 

On this episode we discuss the film, why it was able to break through, if Sinners counts as a genre film; and if so, what genre it represents. We also get into what effect the Warner Bros. Paramount merger might have on the Oscars, the film’s blunt sexuality, Michael B. Jordan’s double act, and what to make of the film's coda. Finally, Sam makes an impassioned case for Sung Song Blue and Kate Hudson’s nominated performance. 

Check out Sam’s interviews with Kate Hudson, as well as some of the cast and crew of Sinners on The Sam Sanders Show.

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critical Darlings: Sinners And The Academy’s Growing Genre Acceptance with Sam Sanders

Live from our windowless studio in Downtown Brooklyn, it's the 11th Annual Blankies! Joe Reid joins us once again to give out golden Wattos to our favorite films, performances, and craftspeople of the year. Some of our picks are certainly part of the greater award season conversation. Others are Materialists. Join us as we honor the best Putters and Murmurs, the Wettest flicks of the year, and as Griffin debuts his latest Billy Crystal opening showtune.

Listen to This Had Oscar Buzz

Watch Igby Goes Down 

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Eleventh Annual Blank Check Awards with Joe Reid

This week we’re in hygge mode, uncovering traumas in our generational home with the host of This Had Oscar Buzz, Joe Reid! One of the breakout Oscar films of the year is Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, a warm, realist Norwegian film about a difficult but brilliant director (Stellan Skarsgard), his two daughters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), and an American actress cast in the auteur’s new film (Elle Fanning). All four performances earned Oscar nominations, along with nominations for Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Screenplay.

Sentimental Value also highlights a recurring phenomenon in Hollywood, wherein the Academy will pass over a director’s breakout film but shower the follow-up with nominations. In Trier’s case, his previous film The Worst Person in the World received nominations for Best International Film and Original Screenplay but, in our opinion, deserved many more. We try to break down how and why this happens, whether films about filmmaking have an innate appeal to Oscar voters, how Fanning’s star power helps bridge the international gap for voters, and the film itself, including its deft intermingling of artistic expression and sublimated generational trauma. 

With Joe's guidance, we also check in on some of the Oscar-buzziest films of the year that didn't pan out, check in on the state of the acting category race and some potential upsets, and celebrate The Secret Agent's breakout star Tânia Maria and her new role as Burger King spokeswoman.

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critical Darlings: Sentimental Value and Belated Oscar Breakthroughs with Joe Reid

Our Lynne Ramsay series comes to a close with last year's Die My Love, which brings us to the realization - damn, have we really never talked about Jennifer Lawrence before? Join us and Vulture's Alison Willmore as we do a full career deep-dive on J.Law, and grapple with this film and Mubi's decision to purchase it out of Cannes for a buttload of money. 

Read the NY Mag profile of Darren Aronofsky from 2017 

Read Alison's work at Vulture

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Die My Love with Alison Willmore

Viva Brazil! Today we discuss Best Picture nominee The Secret Agent, the simmering, colorful Brazilian thriller about a man on the run, starring the dreamy Wagner Moura and directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. The story, about retaining personal and political memory under authoritarianism, has proven resonant with an international audience and awards bodies, garnering three additional Oscar nominations for Best International Feature, Best Casting, and Best Actor for Moura. On this episode, we discuss The Secret Agent itself, how it fits into and subverts the tropes of international films at the Oscars, the Eurovision-like process for international nominations, check in on the Berlin Film Festival, and do a very special Il Postino corner.

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critical Darlings: The Secret Agent And The Increasingly International Academy

In 2018, Lynne Ramsay released You Were Never Really Here, a film about a completely implausible scenario...a townhouse on the East side of Manhattan houses a sex trafficking operation that implicates high-level government officials in its web of depravity???? Could you even imagine?!! Hollywood Handbook's Sean Clements joins us to chat about this eerily relevant film, the literary career of Jonathan Ames, Joaquin Phoenix's screen persona, and Joseph Gordon Levitt's recently announced follow-up to Don Jon. 

Listen to Hayes Davenport's (not a guest on this episode) episode of High & Mighty where he talks about newspaper comics. 

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You Were Never Really Here with Sean Clements

This week we’re brooding, Victorian style, with Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri! Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a Best Picture nominee and is well represented in the craft categories, but it has only one acting nomination, for Jacob Elordi’s hulking monster. It’s of a piece with past craft-heavy Oscar contenders like Dune or The Lord of the Rings, but does Frankenstein actually stand a chance? We discuss the film itself, its lavish sets and costumes, del Toro’s choice to center the monster as the hero, and how that decision reshapes the monster’s opposite, Victor, played by Oscar Isaac.

We also touch on the new Wuthering Heights, also starring Jacob Elordi, the history of Wuthering Heights adaptations, the shameless state of celebrity Super Bowl ads, and finally atone for our past sins, as Bilge defends previous subjects Train Dreams and Hamnet against our critiques. As it turns out, we were the monster all along.

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Buy some real nerdy merch

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critical Darlings: Frankenstein And The Craft Category Juggernauts with Bilge Ebiri

Join Pulp Men (and Woman) of the Year Griffin, David, Ben, and Marie as they discuss Park Chan Wook’s latest offering, the silly and sublime No Other Choice. We’re talking about paper, AI-proof jobs, the handsomeness of Lee Byung-hun, the possibility that Director Park is the Michael Jordan of dissolves, and the fact that this is likely Griffin’s favorite film of 2025. Plus, David breaks down over the finale of Stranger Things, and we all apologize for a bunch of stuff.

Read the Chevy Chase New York Times profile. 

Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.

Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook! 

Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord

For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Other Choice

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

Other podcasts you might like ...