Check Book: Banana

On Minions and Monsters

Blank Check, Marie Bardi, and JJ

Jul 06, 2026

IN THIS WEEK’S EDITION:

BUT FIRST - A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

We’re launching a monthly film series at Nitehawk Cinemas in Brooklyn called BLANK CHECK SELECTS. Once a month, we’ll be programming a film to coincide with our current series, sometimes with intros from the team and Q&As with fame-os.

To kick off this series with an auspicious bang, we’re hosting a screening of JOHN CARTER on Monday, August 3rd at Nitehawk Prospect Park...

...WITH ANDREW STANTON IN ATTENDANCE FOR A Q&A!

Tickets are on sale now over at Nitehawk.

We’ll see you (and Andrew Stanton) at da movies!

THE BARDI PARTY REPORT

Bello.

I feel like I’ve been on the record before as being generally pro-Minions. It started as an ironic appreciation - finding humor in the pre-AI Facebook slop memes that the Minions would often feature in. I’d seen Despicable Me and I understood the Minions to be silly, scatologically-inclined side characters who spoke in gibberish and loved bananas. I did not understand how they became such a beloved icon of the “Live, Laugh, Love” set. By the time Minions came out and introduced the Minions’ backstory - that they have been around since time immemorial, assisting all kinds of historical bad guys until they VERY CONVENIENTLY happened to be stuck in a cave during the rise of European fascism…I was fully obsessed. My love of the Minions is directly related to how serious their surroundings are. Whether being crucified as part of a Christian meme or being part of the same sentence as Hitler, seeing these stupid little yellow creatures banana their way through incongruous parts of culture amuses me. Which brings us to Minions & Monsters.

When the first rumblings surfaced that Minions & Monsters was conceived as a “love letter to the early years of cinema” - the eye rolls were palpable. These yellow slop creatures starring in a family-friendly version of Babylon?? Okay, sure. But then - things started to feel…promising. Reece Feldman released a list of film references he caught in Minions & Monsters. News of a George Lucas voice cameo hit the timeline. I purchased opening night tickets for myself.

As a known Minions supporter AND a graduate of NYU Tisch’s Cinema Studies department, I know I am an easy mark for this shit. However, that does not discount the absolute JOY I felt on Wednesday evening. Minions inserted into the Lumière Brothers shorts. Minions reenacting Citizen Kane, but saying “poop” instead of “Rosebud.” The aforementioned George Lucas cameo - George Lucas enclosed in a glass box in a film museum begging to be let out! A stunning set piece with a runaway train, incorporating animated likenesses of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton. Minions suffering the same fate as many in Hollywood during the advent of sound, unable to shift their Minionese into Transatlantic English. Minions editing via steenbeck. Our hero Minions - James the aspiring filmmaker and Henry his star - doing whatever it takes to win an Oscar that is actually just a Golden Banana…and I haven’t even touched on the actual plot of the movie!

I’m not alone in adoring this movie. Minions & Monsters is the most critically acclaimed installment in the franchise. JJ Bersch called it “a triumph,” and David Sims agreed. Noted Minions-skeptic Griffin Newman said that he “enjoyed it!” David Ehrlich has seen it twice in one week. However, the domestic box office is lackluster. The deeply sincere Minionese love letter to cinema had the softest opening of the franchise since the original Despicable Me. Audience exit scores have also been below the franchise standard. What gives? Franchise fatigue? Distractions with the World Cup and July 4th festivities? Market cannibalization by Toy Story 5? Or, is it something much more depressing? Could it be that the thing that makes me love the Minions is actually NOT what most people want in a Minions movie? It’s hard to say.

But what I will say is, if you are reading this Substack, you will probably REALLY GET A KICK OUT OF THE NEW MINIONS MOVIE. Go see it! Also check out Thierry Fremaux’s Lumière Brothers documentary on Criterion Channel while you’re at it. Banana.

MONDAY FUNNIES BY JOE BOWEN

LET’S CRACK OPEN THE DOSSIER

Grass Ain’t Always Greener, etc.

In an earlier newsletter, I noted that Andrew Stanton had expressed jealousy of live-action directors from the very start of his career as a director of feature-length animation, telling Variety in 2004, “It seems a luxury to me that live-action directors can have all the information in front of them combined at the moment when you say ‘Action.’ I never have that, so you have to have some level of insanity or clairvoyance, or both.”1 After nearly two decades of working like that, Stanton told The New Yorker that he was “spontaneity-starved.”2 His 2012 film John Carter was his chance to get out there and really find it in the moment for the first time in his already storied career.

In Drew Taylor’s great 2022 retrospective piece about John Carter for The Wrap, Stanton sketched out the differences between directing live-action and directing animation. “Instead of having to compose for an orchestra that some day played the score I was writing,” Stanton explained to Taylor, “I was suddenly thrown into a jazz concert and having to improv right there with my sax.” Making John Carter forced a realization on the director: “[A]ll the people that love reading the instructions went into animation, and all the people that hate reading instructions, stayed in live-action or went to live-action.”3 Stanton had had enough of the themed LEGO sets; it was time to play with a big, open-ended Classic box.

It turned out that was hard, too! Especially at the scale of a production of John Carter. “Juggling weather and stunts and light and green screens,” an exhausted Stanton shared in The New Yorker, “it’s like trying to do synchronized swimming with aircraft carriers.”4 No matter the medium, one thing remained true: Stanton was the king of metaphors and similes.

Money Talks

“This always happens at least once on every set,” Stanton shared with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. “We’ll be about to roll, and a grip will whisper to me, ‘John Carter.’” It was always a comforting revelation: “[I]t’s been nice to live long enough and go far enough to know that it’s found its audience.” But Stanton felt there was no longer a reason for their admiration to be kept a secret: “I always say to them, ‘You don’t have to whisper anymore.’”5 The world was finally safe for the John Carter lovers.

But there were some—mainly the actors involved in the film’s production—who were never afraid to boldly voice their appreciation of the film. The most full-throated defense came from Dominic West, who told The AV Club in 2012 that he felt Carter “was a brilliant film,” as “you’d expect from Andrew Stanton, who’s a fucking genius.” It was a shame, in West’s estimation, what happened to the film: “I think it’s to do with Hollywood politics that it was just put in the bin. And I think it’s really unfair.”6

A few months earlier in the same publication, Bryan Cranston offered a similar assessment—while also diagnosing a sickness that’s only gotten worse in the time since Carter’s release. “I kept hearing, ‘It’s not tracking. John Carter is not tracking well.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean it’s not tracking?’ ‘Oh, it’s only going to make $18 million this weekend. That’s not good. It’s going to collapse, it’s going to be a flop.’ And this is before anyone had even seen it, before any reviews had come out.” Cranston acknowledged that viewers had the right to disagree on the merits of the film itself: “I think it’s totally legitimate for someone to take it to task and say, ‘Artistically, I think this was good and this was not so good.’ That’s fine. … An opinion, even if you hated it, I can’t argue that point, because, okay, if that’s how you felt.” But the issue for Cranston was that the financial buzz—or lack thereof—had become the primary talking point: “I just have this problem with someone looking at it from a strictly financial standpoint and determining worth by that component. … [Y]ou say, ‘Well, it only made $37 million, it can’t be any good,’ well, I have a problem with that. ‘Did you see it?’ ‘Well, no…’ Sorry to get up on my high horse there. [Laughs.] But there are people who just hold on the money and treat it as a review of the film. And it’s not.”7

And while this is still a frustrating recurring line of thinking, many of us now know the ultimate form of good film criticism: a one-sentence Letterboxd blurb that gets screenshotted and posted in multiple Reddit threads.

One More Important Bit of Context

GRIFFIN NEWMAN’S FRENCH CUISINE SPOTLIGHT

Hello from Europe!

I’ve been in Spain for a *mystery* acting role (different from last winter’s *mystery* European acting role) that I think will be a particularly fun/funny eventual reveal for Blankies. Last week I was given a few days off from filming and impromptu decided to escape to Paris for some culinary tourism. By which of course I mean going to Disneyland Paris for two days and eating a bunch of dumb themed food. The food at Disneyland Paris is fascinating because there’s a mild effort made toward the higher standards and more refined palette of most euro travelers, but also tons of gimmicky bullshit.

My first day was spent at Disneyland Parc proper, and started late after taking a morning train to arrive in the early afternoon. I was fucking starving so my first bite was sadly a fully unthemed Croque Monsieur right near the entrance gate that I didn’t even bother photographing out of shame. It tasted fine, but lacked NARRATIVE STORYTELLING and INDELIBLE CHARACTERS. Here’s the stock photo:

After going on several rides I desperately needed a sweet break, which is why I stopped by the Cool Station for a Pause Goûter.

The idea of dipping those finely etched, yet lightly powdered lines of “Dark Vader” himself into a cup of highly necessarily hot caffeine was too appetizing to resist. Unfortunately, that is not what I got.

What I got was a vaguely burnt Stormtrooper waffle seemingly in the midst of a coke bender, and cup three times larger than the espresso within. Once again, all of this tasted fine but failed to meet my entertainment expectations.

After going on both Star Wars rides (Star Tours and Hyperspace Mountain, which incongruously is housed within a monument to Georges Méliès’ Le Voyage Dans Le Lune) I was ready to sit down at Cafe Hyperion for a proper dinner and call it a night. Thankfully, a hero’s feast presented itself to me:

BURGER GROGU. Two types of meat AND a macaron? In this economy?!?

Reader, I regret to inform you that this was fucking delicious. Disneyland Paris loves to stamp character faces onto their above average food and to me, that’s fine dining. The burger was great, the pastrami surprisingly high quality, and the fries perfectly crispy.

But the star of the day was obviously the C3P0 macaroon. (Thank god they gave me an option outside of Grogu’s dumb blue cookies.)

Day two was spent at the newly renamed/rethemed/reopened Disney Adventure World. I started my morning right with a cup of coffee and a donut themed after a potty training toy:

I could not tell you what exactly that donut was filled with, but it tasted yummy and made me reflect on Conan’s path to a possible Best Voiceover Performance sweep at the 2027 Blankies Awards.

I commend the chef for pretty closely replicating the marketing image on this one. Also, considering how horny folks have been getting for Smarty Pants I hate to consider what they’d do if these holed out facsimiles were more readily available worldwide.

Doing both mediocre MCU rides left me craving something more substantial for lunch, which led me straight to the FAN-tastic Food Truck. I should note that said truck is mere stops away from the Super Diner, which serves Avengers shawarma and would have been the healthiest and most responsible choice at that moment. I didn’t do that.

Because I needed to RULK the fuck out.

The second I saw “Broken Doritos®” typed out like that it was all over.

Marie already posted this one on our IG, where many questions and concerns rolled in. I will just say that the Broken Doritos® made for a slightly challenging bite (it felt a bit like being punched inside the mouth, which is maybe thematically appropriate?) but otherwise the dog itself was solid and I’m proud to report that the bright red bun did NOTHING strange to my poop’s coloring. THANKFULLY.

The Groot cookies weirded me out, so for desert I decided to opt for something more heroic.

No, I wasn’t going to chase a Rulk Dog with a CheeseZurger. But I was going to eat the shit out of that L’Eclair du Ranger.

I SHOULD CLARIFY, THIS IS NOT THE TOY BASED ON THE MAN. THIS IS THE PASTERY BASED ON THE TOY BASED ON THE REAL PERSON.

NOTE: In France Buzz Lightyear is literally named “Buzz L’Eclair” so this is some real slam dunk theming. It also looked beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the filling was hazelnut creme and hazelnut is for losers and babies.

To end my travels I attempted to finesse my way into a sad boi table for one at Chez Remy, easily the best place to eat in all of Disneyland Paris. (It’s themed like the tiny rat restaurant at the end of the movie! You sit on giant champagne corks and shit!) I failed on this mission, and thus just got a paper cup of red wine from a nearby stand and looked AT Chez Remy.

The wine was good. It got me a little drunk. I then raced to the airport where my flight was delayed several hours AFTER boarding. Hooray!

Au revoir!

BONUS: “Pig in the Big City” open faced sandwich from BEERVERLY HILLS

WHAT IS THE TEAM INTO THIS WEEK?

David Sims, Host: “My Hammer rec this week is Cash on Demand!!! An intimate little Brit noir thriller starring Peter Cushing as a fussy bank clerk who gets taught some valuable lessons when someone tries to rob the joint. It’s kinda Christmas Carol with bags of money. Cushing SO good.”

Joe Bowen, Checky the Comic: “I watch Mallrats with commentary about once a year, and it's now available on 4k from Arrow. Thankfully they keep putting the old cast commentary on new editions. It’s nonstop gleeful riffing from Affleck, who clearly has a lot of affection for everyone else, and great behind the scenes stories from Smith at a key point in this career.”

Marie Bardi, Social Media: “I finally caught up with The Invite this weekend and loved it. A real movie for adults! I need Penelope Cruz in a cunty blonde wig to psychoanalyze me.”

JJ Bersch, Researcher: “‘I want a new 3D Mario.’ ‘Give me more Zelda.’ ‘Where’s my Smash Bros?’ SILENCE. Nintendo’s just blessed us with a new Rhythm Heaven and you should be as OVERJOYED AS I AM.”

AJ McKeon, Editor: “I’ll recommend Mile High Comics in Denver. They have all the 2013 Lone Ranger LEGO you could ever want!!”

Alan Smithee, Pseudonymous Editor: “Listening to the Robocop 3 episode and considering the weird, adventurous career (and life) Peter Weller has had since leaving the Robocop franchise made me think about the “The Viewing,” Panos Cosmatos’s entry in Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix. It is a weird tone poem of a horror movie full of good, off-beat performances, but none so good or off-beat as Weller’s performance as a reclusive billionaire who invites a bunch of people to his house for a… viewing… of something. If you like “Mandy” or (especially) “Beyond the Black Rainbow” or (especially especially) Peter Weller being an absolute freak, this is the film for you.”

THIS WEEK ON THE PODCAST

We are going to Barsoom with 2012's John Carter - a film that bounced almost as much as the titular hero bounced around on Mars! Matt Singer joins us to talk about this legendary flop - the cursed marketing campaign and the year of Taylor Kitsch.