Blank Check

In the ever-seething avalanche of film and comedy podcasts, it has become difficult to distinguish one series from another. So, when a close friend recommended I listen to  Blank Check , hosted by actor/comedian Griffin Newman and  Atlantic  film writer David Sims, I was reluctant. How many more lighthearted podcasts devoted to scrutinizing every minor detail of cinema could I fit on my iPhone? Six months later,  Blank Check  is the only podcast to which I return, episode after episode. Unlike other movie podcasts, Griffin and David’s approach to evaluating cinema is rooted in filmographies; with few exceptions, they track a single director’s entire oeuvre, film by film, charting the progression of some of our greatest directors by the movie, the scene, and sometimes, even shot-by-shot. Their overarching focus is unpacking the elusive “blank check” movies: the ones like Ang Lee’s  Hulk , in which a director has gained success and trust from a studio and is offered a blank check to make whatever he wants. As they say in every episode, sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes “they bounce, baby.”