A Simple Plan with Kevin Smith

[00:00:02] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, don't know what to say or to expect. Check! There are days where I manage not to think of anything at all. Not the money, or the podcasts, or Jacob.

[00:00:31] Days when Sarah and I try to pretend we're just like everyone else, as if none of it ever happened. Those days are few and far between. That's the last line of the film. Yeah, my other one was, uh, I wish someone else had found that podcast.

[00:00:45] You're trying to do Paxton, you're doing alright. I think. You're doing alright. It's okay, it's hard to do. He's easy to imitate but he's specific. He's deceased. He is deceased. So maybe we should leave his name out your mouth. Wow! He's a dead man for heaven's sakes.

[00:00:59] So your goal is can we talk about A Simple Plan for two hours without ever mentioning Salina? Out of respect. Out of respect, we leave the dead dead. Sometimes dead is better. Sometimes dead is better. You heard that in a movie someplace. Yes.

[00:01:16] If we had been on a game show and you were like, here's a quote, name the movie. And the game show was very dire, like Squid Game where they're like, we're gonna shoot your wife if you get it wrong.

[00:01:27] I would have tearfully looked at my wife and been like, I'm sorry. You picked the most obscure quote from the movie. It's the final line of the film. And the fact that you threw in the word podcast threw me for a brief second.

[00:01:38] That's the thing we do here. We like to butcher quotes from movies. So you tossed podcast instead of murders, I think, right? I did. I thought it was funny to make it sound like the podcast was the worst thing that happened.

[00:01:47] What is this Mad Magazine shit that you have invited me to? Swap one word? It's a perfect way to describe it actually. Some Mad Magazine shit. What is the premise of this show? I have no grounding other than like months ago you told me what it was.

[00:02:03] And the last thing I recall was that you were like, we're doing Sam Raimi. We're going to be doing him for like three years or some shit. So I was like, well, I can talk about Simple Plan. I can talk about any of them.

[00:02:17] But Simple Plan I love. And you're like, OK, that will be in eight months. Yes. This is the problem with how we do this show. We'll book someone and we'll be like, so we'll email you a year from now.

[00:02:26] We'll circle back a year from now. Sometimes people forget and then they make the active choice a second time. Like I would like to do that movie. And we're like, I know we're circling back.

[00:02:36] We know you want to do the movie. You're doing that movie. We were counting on it. No, we I'll explain to you what the premise of this podcast is. It's Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. This is producer Ben. Hi.

[00:02:48] And it's a podcast about filmographies. Yes. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers. Yes. And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Copy. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.

[00:03:02] That is the shortest. That's we were one example to get our premise down to like 30 people. Challenges. Yeah. If this was not if we weren't doing it about Sam Raimi. Yes. And we were doing it about who had a blank. Gus Von Sant.

[00:03:20] Sure. Post Goodwill hunting could literally do whatever he wanted and chose to do psycho. Great example. Perfect example. Incredible. And it's a huge bounce in is definitely bounce in the world of blank check.

[00:03:31] Yeah. Is there a thumbs up, thumbs down like that? The check clear. What's your catchphrase? We don't we don't. Hopefully it's not just putting the word podcast. No. Fortunately, it kind of is. Sometimes they bounce baby.

[00:03:44] But I've been selling everybody's got Griffins a genius. I'm sure this podcast is brilliant as well. I think, look, we are very interested in the narratives of people's career and we certainly are open with our opinions of what the movies are.

[00:03:57] But we're not saying like this one's a clear this one's a bounce in like a thumbs up, thumbs down. Right. You don't you don't cast judgment at the end of the day. It's just like this motherfucker. We concur.

[00:04:06] Yeah, absolutely. This motherfucker like he could do whatever he wanted and this is what he did. And sometimes it's like this is what he did. And sometimes like this is what he did.

[00:04:15] And there are clear. Were she? Yes. Thank you. Absolutely. There are clears that we have you guys deep dived on a female. We've done we've done so Elaine May Myers and who is Nancy Myers, Nora Ephron.

[00:04:27] How did wait. Catherine Bigelow. I'm not going to show off. Step back in time. You did Nancy. Gina would on it based on a dare or somebody really actually selected because we do like a March madness on social media.

[00:04:40] And they were like, do Nancy Myers. She kind of became a scene. Right. As it. And I don't mean to dismiss. I'm a terrible director. So Nancy Myers has me beat by a country mile. But yeah, I would never have assumed when you told me about this podcast.

[00:04:54] Absolutely. You would have ever gotten a name like we've done Jane. James Cameron. Right. We've got a sense for knowledge. We've done like that makes it all the usual. Right. People have had a down curve. Yeah. All right. So of the female directors.

[00:05:07] Yeah. Who were they again? Nancy Myers. Bigelow. Catherine Bigelow. Makes sense. Nora Ephron. That makes sense. Jane Campion. I say already. It makes Elaine May. The Wachowskis. Makes sense. Gina Prince-Bythewood. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:22] That makes sense. Yeah. The only one. I mean, believe me, I'm not like cancel your show. But the only one that I bumped into was Nancy Myers because I in a million years. I can't imagine you did massive budgets. Yeah. They were short of plotless movies.

[00:05:36] Yes, there was a moment and she was sort of a brand on to her. Yeah, I think this is what you I think you see distress in me. But what I'm hearing is relief. Sure. That somebody's finally exposing this.

[00:05:49] This charlatan. No, no, but she does. She does spend a lot of money. Yes. Doing very simple things. Yes. Like one could say she does Kevin Smith movies. I was studio budget. I was going to say she's like an 80 million dollar.

[00:06:03] Nancy Myers is like, take your name out my mouth. They are similar. Sort of like hangout movies. They are. And they're odd. But the one is for like old rich people.

[00:06:12] Yes. They're high thread count. But then when you like read about when we did this podcast a few years ago. Yeah. You know, everyone her crews are like she's like Fincher. It's like it's like 10 hours of figuring out what picture frames should be on the mantle.

[00:06:26] You know, like, yes. How do you know that? All these people read about things like Red Crew people I work with. I would always whenever I was on a set, I'd ask crew people about like who they worked with and try to absorb the stories.

[00:06:37] And they were like, she is the single most demanding director I've ever worked with Fincher. I worked with Soderbergh. She's the one where you just go, Jesus Christ, can we move on? And she's like, it's wrong. The sweater's at the wrong angle.

[00:06:47] In a million years, I never would have picked that. And I'm not saying like I just assumed she phoned it in, but I thought she'd be a performance person and once she's got the beats and the jokes, but it's the look as well.

[00:06:57] All of it. And line reading like every it's like Kubricky in control. I think it's why people do have that sort of specific obsession with her movies beyond like I love a romcom. Right.

[00:07:08] Like I do think that she there's a weird bubble to her worlds that, you know, a Nora Ephron movie. You know how recently when Turning Red came out, there was that one review online where I don't know who did it,

[00:07:20] but somebody was like, this movie was made for her and like three people that live around her. No one else can relate to this. Right. Right. That that sounds like the Nancy Myers movies, but they have massive box office. Turning Real and everybody goes to see them.

[00:07:35] But the difference is that like. I could take a page out of the Myers book. You should. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you said you should a little too quickly there. I was thinking the same thing.

[00:07:46] I think there are a lot of similarities in the two of you as filmmakers. I do think weirdly. It's true. Oddly enough, I was sitting here a little bit, a little judgy. Like, you know, not on her just like, really? You guys were talking about that?

[00:07:56] A cashmere sweater is really soft and warm and nice. It feels good on your skin. That's true. No, the funny thing is we would have people like every year be like, when are you going to do this person? When are you going to do this person?

[00:08:07] We had this idea early on in the show. We're like, we'll do a March Madness competition. Put 32 directors on a bracket. We'll let people vote every day head to head. And then one time a year we go, you get to pick who we cover. Right?

[00:08:17] We put 32 people on there. We mostly put Nancy Myers in there for diversity sake. Not just as a female filmmaker, but like comedies, not just film nerd directors, not just genre guys. In an almost Nancy Myers film like twist. She wound up being the top choice.

[00:08:34] And like whooped like PTA. It wasn't like she had easy match ups. You guys have not done PTA yet? No, Nancy Myers by popular demand. Before Paul Thomas Anderson. Correct. The PTAs. How has film twitter let you guys go? We're doing Kubrick now.

[00:08:48] They don't like you guys either? No, they're probably turning on us. Yeah, they're turning red. They're turning on you now that I'm on the show. They're like, that's when they jumped the shark. No, they might come all the way back around now.

[00:08:56] Do you ever have a filmmaker come in? Yeah, we have. Who? We have. Who have we had? James LaTrosse Perry, David Lowery, Chris Weitz, Lulu Wang. Yeah, did the farewell. Basically anyone who's listened to this show and or his friend. Yes. Right. That helps. Right.

[00:09:15] But like here's you're saying sort of like how do we look at careers? Right. For example, if we were talking about the filmmaker Kevin Smith. Don't. If we were. Yes. A term we like to use is the guarantor, right?

[00:09:25] Which is the movie that gives you the blank check. It's the movie where somehow now the thing is unlocked. What would be mine? Clerks. Hands down. Right. You have a career that is very similar, I would say, in structure in a lot of ways to Sam Raimi,

[00:09:38] where it's like you have the bootstrappy like spit and gumption make a movie with my friends. But everyone remembers and no one will ever forget who gives a shit about this kind of thing. There are people who have forgotten that I made clerks.

[00:09:50] There are a lot of people that don't know that Sam Raimi made The Evil Dead because now they're like, well, that's fucking Spider-Man. Right. I think that's true. He transcended his origins, his humble origins.

[00:10:02] His humble origins tie in directly in mine because he was covered in so many books that I read. Mind you, when I started, there was no Internet. So you can just, you know, fuck a deep dive on an article about director you like.

[00:10:14] Our guest today is Kevin Smith. You'd have to look into a book of sorts.

[00:10:20] And his story of, you know, going around from dentist to dentist and raising money for The Evil Dead was both inspiring and daunting to me as a filmmaker because it made me go the credit card route like that.

[00:10:37] I went, I collected a bunch of credit cards that, you know, I really didn't have the finances to back, but I got them. I worked at the video store, RST Video, the one that's in clerks.

[00:10:50] Then I would apply, you know, and if you didn't apply, I went to community college. They would bomb you with like applications for credit cards. And so I'd fill it in and say I was a manager of RST Video and I made $50,000 a year. And this is 1991.

[00:11:05] So they would call RST Video to verify like, yeah, we're doing a credit check on Kevin Smith. I was like, oh, that's my manager. We're paying $50,000 a year. So they'd send me a credit card.

[00:11:14] And we just did that, me and Brian Johnson as a race friend of mine to see who can get more credit cards. So I had them sitting in an underwear drawer, my underwear drawer at my house because my parents were like never use plastic. It's the devil.

[00:11:25] Cash only. So they're absolutely right. So I saved them, never touched them until I was like, oh, I want to be a filmmaker. Then I decided to use them.

[00:11:33] The difference was I did not have the confidence to walk into a dentist office and say like, this is 164 pages full of dick jokes set in a convenience store. You have a few bucks for me. Right.

[00:11:47] So I, aside from like he was the guy who with a bunch of friends and a bunch of friends turned out to be like the Coen brothers, Holly Hunter and stuff like that, who like hardscrabble bootstrap made a flick, ran the camera around with like Barry Levenson and stuff like that.

[00:12:06] Barry, Barry Seinfeld. Sorry. There was no like, oh, I could be him. A, he was making a genre picture. B, he had the confidence in his material to solicit investors. That's kind of where I had to let Ramy go. Somebody like Spike, Jim Jarmusch, Hal Hartley.

[00:12:29] They were more identifiable because they, they did it with peanuts and kind of, and also did stories about people that were just talking to one another as opposed to haunting.

[00:12:42] But the Ramy thing is like, it's him and his buddies like getting in a van and going to a place. Right. You know, that, that feels like Ramy's. It's like the gumption.

[00:12:50] We invoked you in an earlier episode as sort of saying that like the 90s Miriam X wave of like you and Tarantino and Rodriguez and others.

[00:12:58] But I feel like the three of you became like big cornerstones of this thing that was like, look, there are guys who bypassed the traditional route. They got their movies made in weird ways. They didn't do this. They didn't do that. They were outside the system.

[00:13:10] They got this calling card movie. It connected. And now their careers are off and running. And it feels like Ramy was one of the early sort of examples that someone like you could point to and go, huh? That guy got there. He did it first. Absolutely.

[00:13:24] Like he, you know, uh, he blazed a trail. I didn't necessarily follow his, I didn't do like, you know, he's gifted. The man was born to be a filmmaker. I'm a fan who aggregated to direct his own stories. There's a big difference.

[00:13:42] He was definitely inspiring, but and definitely one of the ones that went first and laid the track. But like, oddly enough, when I, when I met him, it was like, oh crap, this is Sam Ramy.

[00:13:54] But it wasn't like when I met Richard Linklater where I was just like, yeah, if you don't take your journey, I never think to take mine. Slacker was your like complete. That was my. And that makes sense. The parallels. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, you've been Sam Ramy though.

[00:14:11] What's Sam Ramy like? Sam Ramy is, did you? I mean, you guys, well, read and studied. The vibe I get is polite Midwestern dude. Incredibly. Right. Incredibly humble. Remember, remember the Coen Brothers movie? Um, uh, the one that nobody liked. Hudsucker? Yes. My favorite. I love Hudsucker.

[00:14:30] He is the elevator. Hey buddy. Oh buddy. Like literally that is him. He like when I met him in real life, I was, I thought he was doing an impression cause I saw that movie before I met Sam Ramy. Yeah.

[00:14:42] And we were introduced by Jim Jacks who is the producer of one of the producers of a simple plan. Um, Jim Jacks, uh, was like, uh, don't, don't, don't like fret. He's going to say buddy a thousand times. It's not that he's forgotten your name.

[00:14:59] And he's not fucking with you. Yeah. He's just like, that's literally how he talks. And so he introduced us and I was like, he's not, he's just doing an impression of that guy in Hudsucker. And then Jim was like, he is the guy in Hudsucker.

[00:15:12] He didn't play it, but the Coen Brothers wrote it based on fucking his personality. He is darling. This is my favorite Sam Ramy story and it's almost, he's tangential to it, but it is a Jim Jacks story. So it does tie into the simple plan.

[00:15:28] Right, Jim Jacks produced this movie. He was a producer of the movie. Pretty small rants. He was also a producer of Mom Rants. He produced Days Confused. He produced, uh, Tremors. Raising Arizona is his first producing credit. Oh shit, he worked on the Mummy movies.

[00:15:43] He worked on like the whole Mummy, you know. Jim is like, I mean, you guys do filmmakers, directors, you don't do producers. We'll end up talking about producers a lot, but yeah.

[00:15:52] To me is one of the most fascinating cases of a producer in this business that I ever met because he was a fan that aggregated into producing. He was an engineering student. He was a military kid. His dad, he called his dad the Colonel.

[00:16:06] He was one of those families and stuff. Mom, Dad, him and his younger brother. And Jim was a massive movie fan. He would take his brother to go to the movie theater. They'd watch things. Then when the movie was done, his brother said,

[00:16:21] they would follow adults to the diner, sit behind them and listen to their opinions. And Jim would tell his brother like they're wrong. They don't understand. Jim was the internet before the internet happened. Yeah.

[00:16:33] So he loved movies his whole life, but his old man was like, you know, military, you know, you're going to be an engineer. So Jim did as told and he became an engineering student and he wound up in, um, I think it's Washington DC or the, that area.

[00:16:48] There's a theater there called the circle theater. Circle theater is a rep house. Uh, you know, they show indie films and stuff. Jim, uh, as a young man, uh, goes there, sees all the movies

[00:17:00] and starts going up to the box office to say, you know, you should really get this. I heard about this movie. I read about this movie and variety and stuff like that. And mind you, this is in the mid eighties. So they actually start taking his advice.

[00:17:12] They start programming movies that he tips them off to, and they're making money. So they say to this engineering student, like, what do you do? And he's like, I'm an engineer. And they're like, would you mind part-time booking our theater for us?

[00:17:27] And he was like, I would love to. So boom, one step closer to the dream of movies. Right, right. Uh, he's doing that for a red hot minute. They're doing well. And Ted and, and, uh, the other guy, Petra Petra, I don't, I don't know.

[00:17:40] Whatever their name is guys that ran circle films eventually, but right now it's just circle theater. Yeah. Uh, Jim and Ted, maybe their names are, they tell Jim Jacks like, you know, if we had our own movie, we could show it,

[00:17:56] but we could also distribute it to the other exhibitors that we know in our circle. And you seem to know a lot, a bunch about this. Why don't you go out and see if you can find us a movie.

[00:18:06] So Jim goes to AFM for the first time ever. And again, just to fuck an engine, an engineer who now part-time books, a theater. He goes to AFM. He finds a movie that American film market for those. I assumed the Tony audience for this. I mean,

[00:18:24] I didn't think we were Hollywood Babylon where I have to explain everything. I mean, this, I assume most people know you're absolutely right. The American motion picture kids media that movie. Um, he's absolutely right. The American film market.

[00:18:37] So Jim is at the American film market and that was a marketplace where people go to buy films. People go to sell stuff. It's not a film festival. It's a sales Jim calls up the circle theater guys. And he's like, I think I have the movie is wonderful.

[00:18:52] It's very film noir, very throwback. Uh, and that movie was blood simple. Wow. And that fucking nuts. Yeah. So he brings home blood simple blood simple becomes one of the best reviewed films of that decade. Earliest Sundance indie sensations ever. Who are these kids?

[00:19:11] They made it for nothing and they incredible throwback, but it's very modern at the same time. Francis McDormand gets notices for her performance. So, uh, the circle theater cats are now circle films and they have an option with these young filmmakers to do a feature. And so the,

[00:19:31] the circle theater guys who are now in circle film guys say to Jim Jacks, who is an engineer, we think you should be in charge of the movie. And just like that Jim Jacks becomes a producer and that's reason Arizona.

[00:19:42] And that is raising Arizona. Perhaps the greatest fucking comedy ever made. Well, at least in the top, somehow those motherfuckers found a way to make child kidnapping hysterical. But I feel like also raising Arizona is a movie people are sitting down and

[00:19:56] they're like, I don't, I've never seen the camera do this. I've never seen a movie. Same thing. And think about the quantum leap forward from blood simple to raising Arizona to completely different films that you, it's not like, Oh,

[00:20:09] well I can see where one came from the other. They were establishing early on that like we do what we do and it's, it's not gonna be the same. They're like Ang Lee. Ang Lee is a very heightened version of that where it's like,

[00:20:21] you cannot fucking tell me what an Ang Lee movie is other than like, you know, about 90 minutes to two hours. That's the only thing they haven't got. The thing with Ang Lee was that's what people were saying where they were like,

[00:20:31] I know you guys are doing them cause like his blank check is crashing tiger and he did Hulk. Right? Like that's sort of his like big, although there's a lot of other, but they're like, yeah, but what is an Ang Lee movie? And it's like, you know,

[00:20:41] he makes movies about families. He makes movies about like rigid tradition going up again. Like there are themes, but he definitely, every time is like I want to do something new. I want to do a sex thriller. I want to do a quiet family drama.

[00:20:58] Before I was a filmmaker, I was a film fan, but as a professional filmmaker, that is a filmmaker that I look up to where I'm like, Jesus, could you imagine being that diverse? And he's cool. Seems like a good guy.

[00:21:10] Yeah, I was in an award ceremony with him years ago and shit like that. I don't get awards anymore, but back then I rubbed elbows with those types of people and stuff. And he was a very, very chill dude. I loved the wedding banquet. Great movie.

[00:21:24] And think about like wedding banquet is not, I'm not saying it's like clerks, but it's very simple, quiet movie and shit like that. That motherfucker went on to make crouching tiger fucking ice storm. Fucking, no, did he do ice storm? Yes. That's the thing. Fucking Hulk.

[00:21:37] But off a wedding banquet, he's like, I'll do a Jane Austen movie. I'll do a seventies key party drama. I'll do a Confederacy Western epic. Right. That's a big blank check. That's pretty astounding. And then like, okay, that didn't work. Fine.

[00:21:51] I'll make like a Chinese martial arts movie made a hundred million dollars. And also like changed things. Absolutely. Like with that one martial arts movie, like a lot of people probably don't draw the lines anymore, but like crouching tiger invaded mainstream cinema and took a style

[00:22:10] and put it in Marvel movies 20 years later. Like it's now the standard. They would have baffled people 10 years earlier. Not only that, I truly believe that the popularity of foreign TV shows being watched, subtitled, agreed across America on Netflix and other streaming services,

[00:22:28] like doesn't happen within a 20 year slow burn of crouching tiger. There's the story that, uh, uh, what's his name? Uh, uh, Barker and Bernard, the Sony classics guys. Sony pictures class. Yeah. Uh, uh, I think it was Bernard.

[00:22:42] I heard say once that he was like the moment when he realized that crouching tiger was going to be like a crossover success that it wasn't just going to be like, wow, this thing made $15 million. Right. But like,

[00:22:53] this is going to play like a blockbuster is he walked through a mall and he heard two like teen boys walk out of the theater and they went, man, those subtitles were cool. And he was like, I don't know how we did this. We didn't quantify it.

[00:23:04] We didn't try to sell this, but somehow for the first time, this thing that had always been seen as an impediment to foreign films crossing over with American audiences, allergic to them, had some cool quality attached to this film. And I now I think doesn't do,

[00:23:17] do you watch shit with just subtitles on now? Even if it's an English, I read things more. I have now taken to consuming movies the same way I used to consume comic books, which is all the dialogue and a cursory glance at the images.

[00:23:32] Same thing with a movie. I'm watching a movie and I find myself reading more than anything else. And I'm like, yeah, I understand. Like I know that there's a visual there, but like I'm, I'm more trained to read a movie at this point. Well,

[00:23:45] and I like hearing how actors deliver dialogue obviously, but I also like being able to visually see the writing. Yeah. You know, it became, I have a baby. And so like it became a thing like let's have the TV a little quiet and the

[00:23:58] baby's sleeping and now it's just sort of like automatic for me to have the subtitles on. It's also a fun game to see like what they fuck up. I, we of course rewatched, I imagine all of us, a simple plan. Yeah. Um, I,

[00:24:12] I definitely didn't need a rewatch because this is a movie that my wife and I, this is a building fundamental building block of our relationship. When the first movies we ever saw together, I want to dig into this,

[00:24:20] but just to step back when I texted you like nine months ago and said, we're going to do Ramy. Yes. Our show books up stupid early. Would you, you know, see initially we were going to do it earlier and then Dr. Strange got pushed. That's true.

[00:24:32] And so we had to kind of move it down the calendar a little bit. Right. So we flipped an order, but I, none of them had been booked. Right. And I said, open game. If you were willing to come on our show,

[00:24:42] you could do any one of these. And we had sort of in our mind assumed like he's probably going to pick a Spider-Man, Spider-Man and he's written Spider-Man comics and evil dead would make sense and sort of the bootstrapping this, the development of early filmmaker.

[00:24:53] And you just wrote without any Heming and Han simple plan. One of my favorite movies of all time. Yeah. And also does not resemble the filmmakers repertoire. No, no. There's two shots in the movie that make you go like, Oh, that was very Ramey esque.

[00:25:08] Becky and Baker shotgun blast. Absolutely. Right then and there. And also the Fox diving into the hen house. Yes. Which is a very early on. He pushes very early. He pushes as the Fox jumps. Yes. And you're like, well, that looks like Ramey,

[00:25:24] but other than that and the shotgun blast, this could have been directed by anyone who wasn't Sam. It's like a dogma 95 experiment for him where he was like, can I force myself to not use my bag of tricks?

[00:25:35] One of the most disciplined films I've ever seen in my life, considering the filmmaker. Yes. Like one of the most manic. I mean, and we'll talk about the studio was very much like, is he gonna, is he going to take it easy? We've read this script.

[00:25:49] The camera can't be flying all over the house. Once again, this is where like the, the unsung hero of all this is Jack's Jim Jacks. Well, I would just want to point out, and we've set up a couple threads here we need to resolve,

[00:26:02] but like even in the list you were just running through, raising Arizona mall rats, Daisy confused, all examples of guys who had made their films outside of the mainstream system. And he's there producing the movie that's trying to work them into the system

[00:26:17] and not let their voice get lost. Always. Right. Like that. There's something very telling there. He was a Sundance kid. He loved to go to Sundance and pick up, you know, shop for talent and stuff like that.

[00:26:27] But he was a guy who believed in somebody brought them in and then had to sell that person and has to protect them. Like Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of his, he brought him into the mainstream. John Woo, right? Cause he produced hard target. Yes.

[00:26:42] And this John Woo was, was Jim Jackson. And like Jim always told the story of showing, you know, hard target to universal for the first time. And they were like, why are there so many bullets and why there's so many birds? And they're like, you know,

[00:26:57] Jim was like, that's what he does. That's his thing. And they're like, well, let's do it. So Jim led a very frustrated existence as a universal exec. And then he, uh, Sean Daniels used to run the studio. Uh,

[00:27:12] Sean left that position or was kicked out and got a producing deal for a company called AlphaVille. That's where he teamed up with Jim Jackson brought Jim with him. Cause he liked Jim's taste, Jim style. But you are absolutely right. Jim was the guy who was like,

[00:27:25] I saw them do this thing. I believe in this talent. I'm going to bring them in to the studio side and work with them. But I got to keep their voice intact. Like I'm not trying to get them a paycheck.

[00:27:35] I'm trying to figure out if I can let them make their kind of movie with studio money. His eyes lit up when I met him at the Sundance film festival in 1994, after clerks won the filmmaker's trophy.

[00:27:47] And he comes up to me as introduced to me by John Pearson, who is our producers rep John's wife, Janet runs South by Southwest. Legends of American independent film. So he introduces us and, you know, I'm like, I know days of fuse and I knew Jim's work tombstone.

[00:28:04] Like, you know, so he goes, I love clerks. He's gone. I was going to try buy it, but Harvey bought it out from under me. And I was like, Oh, right on. Yeah. As he did, he's gone. I would have let you, I would have remade it,

[00:28:20] but I would have let you keep 75% of it. That was his exact quote. So he would have been like, we're tossing this out. Yeah. Just like, I was like, and I said, well, I was like, glad I'm glad it went to Miramax.

[00:28:31] I didn't want to remake the movie. And I said, what, what part could it and I have kept? And he goes, nobody fucks a dead guy in a universal picture. Fair enough. So he goes, what do you want to do? What do you think about doing next?

[00:28:41] I said, a mall rats. And he goes, what's that? I was like, this is my, this is, I was in the business 30 seconds. Yeah. Right. And this is what I said to him. I goes, it's clerks in a mall. That's my elevator pitch. And he goes, Oh,

[00:28:57] he's gone. Well, what's going to happen is he's gone a Disney cause Miramax picked us up and Disney on Miramax at that point, he goes, Disney's going to bring you out and meet, have you meet all the studios, Hollywood touchstone, blah, blah, blah, pitch him whatever you want.

[00:29:13] Don't give them that mall rats. You come to the black tower and you pitch that with me at university. And I was a big universal fan. Like, you know, I can John Hughes, John Landis, like two of my favorite movies as a child, you know,

[00:29:25] a breakfast club blues brothers came right from their animal house came right from their jaw like, you know, universal more so than Warner brothers. Warner brothers became the comer later in my career with like making Batman and stuff like that.

[00:29:37] But prior to that universal had every movie that I ever loved. Spielberg was, you know what I'm saying? Amblin's right there. Also David and I have talked about this a lot, but nothing gets me more amped up before a movie than the universal logo.

[00:29:48] And even removing the history, it's just the fanfare on my eyes. Have you ever gone into the building? There, they have the little ball, the tennis ball, the super pinky that they painted the earth. And that's the fucking logo. And you're like this tiny balls.

[00:29:57] What got me excited. So fucking majestic. These movies are universal. Yeah. I mean, only thing better than that galactic. Nobody went for it. No one's got that yet. But he, um, he, he was talking about Jim Jacks was talking about a simple plan in 1995. Right. They,

[00:30:11] but the book is 1995. It's a book that's been around for a long time. It's a book that's been around for a long time. It's a book that's been around for a long time. It's a book that's been around for a long time. He, he had this thing.

[00:30:19] He was, he had, uh, you know, uh, I don't know if they still do, but in the business, they used to have these like long blank cards that would have your name on the top or whatever. And you write on them and put them,

[00:30:28] attach them to scripts and shit like that glorified fucking scrap paper. And when he had these and said, you know, Jim, James Jacks at the top. And he had them laid out on his desk in his house and he had a bunch of these little, little, little, little,

[00:30:37] little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little, little. And then he would have a set laid out on his desk in the office at Alphaville on the lot. And it would be this year, next year, year three,

[00:31:00] year four. And when you looked at the cards, you saw the entire movie industry laid out for the next few years. It wasn't just his stuff. It was everything. It was his stuff, but he was pushing shit that in 95 I was like that'll never happen. Right? Right. Right.

[00:31:11] But he was pushing shit that in 95 I was like, uh, that'll never happen. Right, right. Mummy movies. What do you got in your mind? Fucking nobody cares about the mummy slasher movies, Jim. Um, Jim was a huge... No, Kevin, Kevin, it's gonna be a period piece. Trust me.

[00:31:28] Right, it's in the 20s. Who did he get to play, George of the Jungle? You're pretty mad, Jim. He was the guy that would definitely like... He would talk about people that were legends to me and Moshe. Scott Moshe was my producer.

[00:31:42] And so, on Clark's Mallrats, all the early stuff. So, we spent a lot of time with Jim. I spent a lot of time writing Mallrats with Jim. I would like fax pages to him. He would comment and shit like that. And we had this pretty tight relationship. His...

[00:31:59] He would talk about the Coen brothers and Sam Raimi and Billy Bob Thornton incessantly. Incessantly, all the time. And so much so that me and Scott would make fun of him because he would be like, well, you know, Billy Bob and the Coens.

[00:32:13] And we would always be like, ladies and gentlemen of Madison Square Garden, welcome to the stage, Billy Bob and the Coens! He talked about Raimi all the time. He was just like, well, you know, Raimi. Because he brought Raimi into the studio with Darkman. Oh, no, Darkman, okay.

[00:32:32] Yeah, right, right. Because that's Universal. He was another transition filmmaker. So, he would talk about Raimi incessantly. And be like, oh, Raimi and I were like this. He would talk about Raimi and the Coens and Billy Bob and say that they had the type of relationship

[00:32:46] that me and Scott and Jim had. Which to me, you know, is easy to say when they're not around. So, most of the times I was just like, I felt like, you know, maybe he... Maybe he saw the relationship differently because these cats have all gone on

[00:33:03] and they've not reached back and stuff like that. He may have helped them start in the mainstream side of things. But now they're doing their thing. They're doing their thing and they ain't reached back. And, you know, I was young in my career

[00:33:13] and so I'd be judgy about that. Be like, why wouldn't they help the guy to fucking help them and shit? But according to Jim, they were going to. It was always laid out in the cards. Man, there's gonna be this one, there's gonna be this one,

[00:33:23] there's gonna be this one. And a simple plan was always next to Sam Raimi's name. And so he was like, did you ever read that book? I was like, no. He's like, it's a wonderful book about, like, you know, fucking finding money and everything goes wrong.

[00:33:35] And he said it too. He goes, least Sam Raimi thing you'll ever read in your life. He's going, but I think he's absolutely right for it. This is Sam's Academy Award movie. This is the movie that they were pushing so hard.

[00:33:46] Not like over-pushing where they were pressuring people and people were like, get out of my face. But they honestly believed that this is how Sam Raimi was going to win his Oscar. Because it's a strong fucking beloved book.

[00:33:57] Great fucking script written by the author of the book itself. It's Sam maturing as a filmmaker. You know, he may have always worn suits on sets, but this is the first time he made a suit movie of sorts.

[00:34:08] Even though it's set in like rural Minnesota or I think Michigan or Minnesota. It's Minnesota. Minnesota, because that's where he's from. And it didn't go as planned. Like, you know, people seemed to respect it. Got good reviews. But that, and there was a movie he made after this,

[00:34:25] what was it, The Gift? The Gift is after this. And that's also Jim Jackson. Also Jim Jackson. The two movies where Jim was pushing so hard to get Sam an award. For Love of the Game is in between those two. The Kevin Costner baseball drama.

[00:34:36] But this and The Gift, you're right. That's where, it feels like he's like, make a prestige, movie's gonna be a Toronto, we'll roll it out, winner. This is a good uncomfortable name to bring up, but this was Jim Jackson trying to be Harvey.

[00:34:47] He was like, I'm gonna get fucking, I'm gonna get Sam his Oscar. And then he'll work with me forever and so forth. Which is like, I mean, the way, it's funny because after that, he then mostly does the Mummy movies and stuff.

[00:35:00] He kind of just works out of it. Jim winds up doing Sam Raimi movies. With the Mummy, very much so. And Raimi swings wildly out of prestige and back to wild wackadoo. An incredible career. Oh absolutely, yeah. It's fascinating. At one point, Jim was like,

[00:35:18] he talked about Sam Raimi so much that I honestly thought, I don't think he knows him at all. Right, there was a certain point where it's not too much kind of thing. I've not seen this guy anywhere. I've never called. There's no picture of him on his desk.

[00:35:32] Is this your uncle who works for Nintendo? And so he did eventually introduce you to Sam around this time. He did, eventually. We made Mallrats. I think we were in post on Mallrats and we finally got to meet Sam Raimi. And it was like, oh shit.

[00:35:45] But it's funny because, all right, so Mallrats is 95, right? That's when Sam Raimi does Quick and the Dead. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Which is a great movie. Wonderful movie, Columbia TriStar movie. Which we just rewatched and talked about and had so much fun with. Hackman, Stone, DiCaprio, Crow.

[00:36:01] DiCaprio right before Titanic. Russell Crowe right before LA Confidential. Everyone's like popping in it. And how many of those cats returned to work with Raimi on a thing? None. No, none. Unbelievable. That is weird. Of the four. Because he, from all reports, Nice guy to work with.

[00:36:17] Is beloved. People aren't like, I hate working for this guy. He's no Nancy Meyers in terms of attention for detail that irritates the audience. I think everyone had a good time on that movie except for Hackman who seems like an intense dude. An ordinary guy in general.

[00:36:31] From time to time, yeah. But that's Crowe's first American movie, period. You would think that he'd want to work with Raimi again. It's pre-virtuosity. It's truly like this Australian guy is going to knock your socks off. And mind you, that's pre-Spider-Man. Yes.

[00:36:46] So if you're Russell Crowe and you're like, oh, I did Quick and the Dead with Sam, he's a good guy, and then he becomes fucking the Spider-Man director, aren't you calling him every day to be like, I'm a good guy? That's when Crowe is...

[00:36:59] That's why Russell Crowe, they're working on it. It's not bad. He's really the king of the world though with Spider-Man because he just won an Oscar. Is that his blank check for you guys or no? No, Quick and the Dead, no. No, no, Spider-Man. What would you say?

[00:37:15] For me it's weird because he's like up in... He has two careers. Evil Dead's his first blank check and then Spider-Man. He'll make a crime wave and that doesn't work, so he retreats, he does Evil Dead 2. Did you just reference Crime Wave? We sure did.

[00:37:28] We fucking did an episode on it. We did two and a half hour on Crime Wave. That takes me back to the RST video store, the video store from Clerks where I watched that. It wasn't available at other video stores,

[00:37:38] for some reason they had a copy of Crime Wave and I'm like, this is a Sam Raimi movie. How have I never heard of this? Right, that's what we talked... I mean, within the arc it's like, right, Evil Dead's what we call the guarantor, right?

[00:37:46] Like Clerks, this is the thing that gives you a name where the studio goes, what else do you have? Then Crime Wave is the first bounce. Evil Dead 2 is the first blank check that gets him the run of Darkman, Army of Darkness, Quick and the Dead.

[00:37:59] And then it's like... And then Quick and the Dead, this is the whole thing, like Quick and the Dead is like... Hurts him somehow? Kind of a bounce. I mean, it didn't do well. It cost a fair amount of money. High expectations, yeah.

[00:38:08] I think it was weirdly seen by the studios as like a Sharon Stone Band-Aid project that hadn't figured out, right? Like that's when everyone's turning on Sharon Stone for whatever reason, mid 90s. And also this was that period where like there were more than one Western happening.

[00:38:20] Yes, a lot. People were just like, the bloom was off the rose, like Post Unforgiven, too many Westerns. We were sort of charting, that's sort of the last of the 90s Western revival. That's like the final... What I remember of that movie

[00:38:31] is the last minute loading of the gun to kill the other guy. Yes, where he's like, give me a bullet, give me a bullet! It's so, you should rewatch it. But that movie's like very kinetic, ramey, expressive camera. And it's like plot light.

[00:38:42] It's like, here's the town, we shoot each other. There's not a lot of, you know, anyway. It's like Bloodsport with Quickdraw. Right. The opposite of Simple Plan, which is all plot, all character, all nuance. Backstory to sift through. All like terrible decision after terrible decision,

[00:39:02] which never seems terrible in the moment. But like, Quick of the Dead, he goes like, well, I guess I tried to play within the studio system, it didn't really work. He was really, for these quotes that I'm reading, like he was really depressed.

[00:39:13] He was like, I felt like a dinosaur, I couldn't change with the material. He goes to TV. He kind of had like a big team, because he does Ethan, Hercules and all that. That's what happens in between Quick of the Dead

[00:39:24] and Simple Plan, is he builds an empire. Yeah, he got rich. He co-created Mantis, remember Mantis? Which he did with Sam Hamm. Yeah! Which, that didn't take off. But yeah, he did American Gothic, which was one of those sort of classic, it was like once with Gary Cole.

[00:39:39] Who winds up in a Simple Plan. Who's in this, off of that. Or was in a Simple Plan before. No, no, no, it's because of, and American Gothic, sort of pre-cable was one of those TV shows where everyone was like, you know, that show got canceled,

[00:39:51] but it was really good. Like one of those kind of TV shows. Like Grown Up, like Twin Peaks. That show was kind of right, a little evolved. Unsuccessful. Right, but then yeah, he makes a ton of money off of freaking Hercules. That is sort of weird to think.

[00:40:04] And that was at a time too, when the business was very bifurcated. There was movies, and there was TV. And if you were doing TV. We don't want to talk TV. But he didn't give a fuck, because he was like, I'm printing money in New Zealand.

[00:40:18] He's doing pulpy genre TV in New Zealand before Lord of the Rings. Like that is so second class citizen, even if he's making fucking fist loads of cash. The studio's going to be like, oh Sam Raimi gave up on being a serious filmmaker. To some degree.

[00:40:33] And also he involved family, like his brothers in it. In many ways, it was probably a bomb. Yeah, I think it was. It was nice. After a few studio projects in a row where it's like, well they did okay, but it didn't turn me into a fan.

[00:40:49] And because it's syndicated, no one's bugging him. He's not getting studio notes. Do you know what he was attached to? What movie he was attached to? At this time? Like Off Quick and the Dead, that he eventually drops out of. Jack Frost with George Clooney.

[00:41:03] The snowman comes alive. Talking snowman. Instead of Michael Keaton? Yes, that's why the snowman in Jack Frost looks like George Clooney. Look at the snowman again. He's got George Clooney's kind eyes. George Clooney dropped out late, post Batman and Robin

[00:41:15] where he was like, I gotta fucking get straight. Yeah, George Clooney was like, I can't be doing this. They were just like, we gotta get another Batman, quick. Yeah. But you look at the snowman and you're like, that is a snowman caricature of George Clooney.

[00:41:25] Is it a Warner Brothers movie? It looks more like Clooney. God, they have like a fucking list of eight people that it's like, if he's busy, get this one. They're a very incestuous little company. They really hire from within all the time. Oh, look at Nepeta,

[00:41:39] the brothers helping each other out from the very beginning. Good point. Clooney drops out, so Raimi's like, forget it. I won't do Jack Frost. I guess everyone just sort of- Could call. Which, let's just stop for a second and be like, could have been cool. Understand Raimi.

[00:41:53] A Raimi take on that? Yeah, it's such a good thing. I say good call. With like twinkly eyed Clooney, you know, in the 90s? Could have been something. It does feel like Clooney- Then again, it could have been the thing that led him back to New Zealand. Exactly!

[00:42:05] I have to create another syndicated show. Clooney's like, don't kill me off, honey. I'm sticking around. Yeah, there you go. It's a thing on the internet. Right. Because think about it. If you're going to caricature Michael Keaton into a snowman, the eyebrows are very different than that, right?

[00:42:18] That's the number one feature you focus on is the arched- It's true, he doesn't have his Batman eyebrows. And the pursed lips and all of that. That's crazy. So do you think Clooney watches the movie and goes like, hey man, it's me! That's fucking me!

[00:42:33] You guys owe me. How about a little wet my beak a little? Kick him some money? Like, hey man, it's me! It's like in Funny Farm when Chevy Chase is like, I'm the squirrel, the squirrel's me. In the book. Sorry, I pulled a very deep cut.

[00:42:45] No, I like that. Funny Farm reference. When are we doing that dude's career? Who directed Funny Farm? He's the same guy that did George Roy Hill. Oh wow. Wait, that's a George Roy- Wow, okay. Yeah, you're right. And he also did, of course- Butch Cassidy. The Sting.

[00:43:02] The Sting. One of the biggest hits in Hollywood history. Isn't that crazy? It's his last film. It's his last movie. I saw it in a theater, I paid money to see that. With two reasons. One, I was a Chevy Chase fan,

[00:43:12] but the other is I was a George Roy Hill fan. And the whole thing with George Roy Hill is, he died like 15 years later. That's the movie though where he was like, alright. Yeah, he was just like, you know what? I'm gonna live for 15 years

[00:43:24] because I've been doing this shit. He made one of my favorite movies of all time, aside from of course the previously mentioned ones, The World According to Garth. Oh yeah. Fucking adore that movie. That movie is fascinating. He made a lot of good movies.

[00:43:34] He's an interesting one because it's like, he did make cultural landmark movies. Impact, like dented the universe. And yet I feel like he's not talked about as some great auteur. It's more like, yeah, he was, you know, he knew what he was doing.

[00:43:46] But cool is another one like that where his name gets thrown around a lot, but considering how often his films are referenced, not just as movies, but as everyday culture, like the idea of an all the presidents men type situation. I'm with you.

[00:44:00] When we think of Woodward and Bernstein, we think of his version of Woodward and Bernstein more than the real guys. Sophie's Choice is one of the most used terms in American vernacular. What was that man's name? Alan Bakula. Alan Bakula. And he made like six of those movies.

[00:44:12] He made that fantastic fucking Harrison Ford presumed innocent movie. Yeah, that movie ruled. Where the third act turns on Bonnie Bedelia stealing his cum. Yeah. Which as a child terrified me. I was like, that's a thing? Now I have to worry about that?

[00:44:29] They can steal your cum in the night and blame a crime on you? Cum burglars? That's also a classic Raul Julia. I cannot believe that you have never made a movie called Cum Burglars. I will now. I hadn't had the title. Yeah, Cum Burglars.

[00:44:41] Raul Julia is amazing in that movie. Raul Julia is incredible in that movie. Brian Danahy. Yeah. God, that movie's so great. You're right, Bakula. Have you guys done Bakula? No, but he's a good one though. Two names right there, George Roy Hill and Bakula.

[00:44:54] And I know it's like we don't need to heap more praise on white men, but still these are two white men who made brilliant movies. And are never talked about in the pantheon. George Roy Hill also made- They were kind of sexy like a Quentin Tarantino

[00:45:05] or Robert Rodriguez, where you know their name, a celebrity or something like that. But they made some of the greatest American films we've ever seen. He also made Slapshot, George Roy Hill. Oh, right, right! Which is another kind of landmark movie. Goddammit, man.

[00:45:17] This is a dude who ran with fucking Paul Newman for a while. Yeah, and he also, yeah, he made a lot of good movies. Do you know the procession, Kevin, of people who almost directed Simple Plan before it finally comes around?

[00:45:29] Yeah, so do you know who initially gets the rights before anyone else? No. For a million bucks when the novel is not even purchased. All right, so this is 1993? Yeah, because the Jim Jacksons, my question's always been how does it end up at Raimi

[00:45:41] when it's such an uncommercial choice? It makes sense that Jacks had been pulling for him the whole time. Yes, and pursuing. And I think Jim got the project when he moved over to Paramount. They were based at Universal with Alphaville.

[00:45:57] And then they left and they went to Paramount. And I think when they went to Paramount, there was a... It was a distressed project. You may take... And he was able to cherry pick. This history is gonna blow your mind, the fucking arc of this.

[00:46:08] So Mike Nichols buys it. And this is sort of, where's Mike Nichols? By the, this would be post- Post-like postcards from Henry around that period. Yeah, right. So I could see this. Mike Nichols pays a million dollars for the rights and says, Scott Smith, you're writing the screenplay.

[00:46:23] So brings him in. Who'd never written a screenplay before. No, he wrote a story for The New Yorker that was well-received. A literary agent calls him up and said, what else do you have? And he says, I have this novel I wrote five years ago

[00:46:36] that no one ever bought. And that novel's Simple Plan. Like it's been sitting on a shelf. This is a bottom drawer thing. Yeah. And so they, it gets published, it gets bought. Film rights acquired immediately. They hire the guy. They go, Mike Nichols bought your fucking script

[00:46:48] and he wants you to adapt it. Like a total Cinderella story. This guy's beside himself. Straight to the moon, yeah. So then Nichols gives up on it for whatever reason. It's not taking too long. It goes, and Nichols is one of those guys

[00:46:59] who's attached to a lot of movies. Right, right. Goes to Ben Stiller, was gonna direct it with Nicolas Cage in the lead role. What year is this? This is 94, apparently. Okay, so that's post, this would be Stiller after Reality Bites. The pre-Mabel guy.

[00:47:12] He's done Reality Bites and they're like, what else could he do? Right. And then it goes to John Dahl, I guess post Last Action. That absolutely fucking makes sense. Makes total sense. And also he's done Red Rock West. Shocking that it didn't get made with that guy.

[00:47:26] That is kind of shocking. Right, Stiller brings on Cage, Cage presumably brings on Stahl. Smith has said that Stiller's the one who really helped him. Dahl, sorry. That's right, well why do you, oh, he brings on Dahl because he just did Red Rock West with him. Right.

[00:47:39] Oh my god, this is like fucking, we're like cops figuring out a forensic murder. He brought in Cage! Of course, Red Rock West, why didn't we think of this? Everyone get the string, we gotta put the Carrie Matheson board up.

[00:47:50] But like Smith credits Stiller as being the guy who helped him shape the script. He's like, that's of all the directors I worked with, that was the guy who taught me how to write a screenplay, helped me understand the difference in the mediums,

[00:48:00] really helped my hand through it for years. Interesting. So what, he's attached but then he's like, fuck it, I wanna do Cable Guy. I guess so. Again, apparently he didn't like, or he was nervous that Cage was gonna get four million dollars to be in it,

[00:48:13] maybe he was worried about the budget. So let's put a pin right there, Cage was going to play the Bill Paxton part? Yeah. Now the other thing I read. I think that might have been like, in this particular part,

[00:48:25] it would be like using Maserati to deliver some DoorDash. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That guy is incredibly good at Vegas and that role is very straight, very straight man, it's not the showy role. The showy role, and one of the reasons I wanted to do this,

[00:48:46] one of my all time favorite, and if not my all time favorite performance in motion pictures. And I don't mean like, oh I just love it because I'm rooting for this guy or I love the way he did it. No, no, no. I mean this motherfucker has transcended

[00:49:02] performance into that is not acting, that human being exists and they just roped him in for this movie. Everyone else in this movie is acting and that ain't a bad thing. That's what you want them to do. I'm hoping you're about to say Chelsea Ross.

[00:49:14] I want you to throw a huge curve ball. Can you believe it? Chelsea Ross. The way she took that shot. Everyone else is acquitting themselves insanely admirably. They're acting and that's what you want an actor to do is act. Billy Bob Thornton. Okay.

[00:49:30] I mean, here I'm gonna take a shot in the dark. Sold his soul to the devil for the gift of being able to pull that performance together. That human being exists. That's not Billy Bob Thornton. It is a son of a bitch. It's incredible on how this motherfucker

[00:49:46] did not win. How he's not just in everything. Let me throw this at you now. Actually, I'll pause it. I've said this to you, Griffin. My theory that from 96 to maybe like 03 you can say Thornton's the best actor alive. Give me the movies.

[00:50:04] I'm gonna give you the movies. Starting with Sling Blade. Absolutely. Which a lot of people don't appreciate anymore. Huge landmark thing. Also, the amount of people that are like, I'm gonna tell my wife about Borat. Back in the day, they'd be like, french fry potatoes. Everybody did that.

[00:50:20] Have you ever listened to the Armageddon DVD commentary where Affleck, yeah. And to be fair, Any time Thornton is on screen, he just goes right there. Every few months, Twitter rediscovers Ben Affleck's commentary on Armageddon. I would suggest you listen to any Ben Affleck commentary pre, pre,

[00:50:44] what was that fucking movie? Pearl Harbor. Sure. He was the most candid human being I've ever met in my life. I honestly feel like I learned my candid art, the art of being candid, the art of just saying a fucking thing from him. He was guileless.

[00:51:04] I mean, he'll still do it. He'll still do it. Sometimes. But he's got a governor and has for years, in a good way. Cause he would just say like, I would be like, this is shocking. You're allowed to fucking say that? Cause in Armageddon, he's like,

[00:51:16] that helicopter costs like 300 grand. I don't know why it's there. You know, he's like, he's calling out things from the movie. He talks about like Michael Bay was like, where he's like, Michael, like why would we send drillers to space? Shut the fuck up Ben. Dumbass.

[00:51:29] David paid top dollar for the out of print DVD specifically for the commentary a couple of years ago. I need to fucking watch this thing. He's so good. He's one. Honestly, I mean, it's sidebar, but Affleck, one of the five funniest human beings

[00:51:42] I've ever met in my life. Wow. Hands down. Very funny dude. Back to Thor, I do want to shout out Priestling, but One False Move is kind of a great under song. And also talking about what you were talking about, ties back to the director, it was,

[00:51:55] Carl Franklin. Carl Franklin. Yes. Very film noir. Yeah. Very Coen brothers. One False Move and Blood Symbol are perfect, double feature. But you're talking about sort of Coen's, Rainey, Billy Bob coming from a similar thing. It was that thing where Billy Bob always said,

[00:52:12] like he was a struggling actor. He was working some catering job. I forget who it was. Do you know the story? A struggling actor who was in Tombstone, produced by Jim Jacks. Right. And he played the guy, you know, who was, he was a heavier set dude then.

[00:52:26] That's where Jim Jacks comes to know Billy Bob Thornton, sits around talking to him between takes. And that's where he's like, he builds that connection, which eventually winds up with Billy Bob in A Simple Plan. I forget who it is. And I don't know if you remember,

[00:52:41] if you know this anecdote, David, but he was working a catering job as a struggling actor and he went up to someone. I think it was a director, but he went up to him and he was like, what advice can you give me? And the guy was like,

[00:52:52] you got to write your own material. Yeah, that is interesting. You're a guy where it's not going to happen. It's Billy Wilder. Billy Wilder. It's Billy Wilder. Billy Wilder? He was like a cater waiter. Yeah. And he's just like, can I talk to you? Like, you know,

[00:53:06] Billy Wilder is at some industry event. Right. And Billy Wilder is like, you should write if you want to. Billy Bob's like, I can't make it happen. And he's like. Billy Wilder has to be like 89 at this point. Yes. Yeah, right. Maybe not.

[00:53:16] I don't know, like late 80s, probably in his 70s. But I think Wilder correctly sees, you're not a conventional type. Right, sure. If Hollywood's going to make sense of you, you have to be the one who packages yourself. Okay. So post Sling Blade, you know, he's got, okay,

[00:53:29] he wins an Oscar, but like he's in The Apostle. He's in U-Turn. And he wins the Oscar. For writing. Screenplay. For screenplay, but not for performance. He's nominated for acting, he loses that, but he does win the Oscar. And it was like Hollywood story. I know that.

[00:53:42] He was there. He was the hero of that Oscar season because it's like this dude wrote, directed, starred. And this is pre-Angelina Jolie? Yes. Yes, because that's late 90s. That comes later. Right, but that's coming up, obviously. That's the blood in the vial around the neck.

[00:53:55] Because that's her Oscar year. Right. Or maybe not, I can't remember. So then he's got Simple Plan. He's got Armageddon, which I think he's incredible in. He's wonderful in Armageddon. He's got Primary Colors. It's the size of Texas, Mr. President. One of my favorite movies. Primary Colors.

[00:54:09] I love Primary Colors. Great movie. And he's playing, what's his fuck, essentially? James Carvel. Yes, and he's so fuck, where he's like, he's like, they started tearing pieces off of my mama, she didn't deserve that! When they're having like a mom-a-thon. He's so fucking good in that movie.

[00:54:30] All right, what else? He writes The Gift, which I forgot. He's the screenwriter of that movie. That Sam Raimi directs? Yes! Sam Raimi film, yeah. And what year is that? That's 2000. He also writes and directs All the Pretty Horses, which is the whole mish-a-gosh, right?

[00:54:42] Where the movie gets taken away from him. Did you, by the way, see the crazy detail that the first time Nichols leaves Simple Plan, it's because he wants to develop All the Pretty Horses instead? Oh, that's crazy. How weird. So all this stuff is just floating around. Yeah.

[00:54:54] Then in 2001, he's got Monsters Ball, Bandits, Man Who Wasn't There. The kind of crazy... Hold on, Monsters Ball, Right. Monsters Ball, Bandits, and that's the Willis movie. Yeah. Oh, and a Coen Brothers movie. Man Who Wasn't There. But that's where he's a lead in three really weird,

[00:55:07] different movies, and it's like, this guy is a lead, I guess, right? Like, this guy is a marquee guy. And it was the challenging Coen Brothers, too. One of the first challenging Coen Brothers. And he's really still one of their most challenging movies. That's a great moment.

[00:55:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very cold movie. And then in 2003, he's in Bad Santa, and it's like, it's a hit, it's a comedy that goes over. This is Wygoff, that's Terry Wygoff's movie, right? Yeah. And then he pops up in Love Actually,

[00:55:31] he's really funny in one scene in Intolerable Cruelty. You're kind of like... Intolerable Cruelty, side note, on Jim Jack's cards, Jim Jack's involved? Wow. Was Intolerable Cruelty, that was the Coen Brothers script. Yeah. That he was just like, I'm gonna work with the Coens again. Right.

[00:55:48] And it eventually, he let it go to, what was his name, Ron Howard? They produced it. Brian Grazer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, imagine. Coen Brothers wound up directing it. Right, they were originally hired, I think, just to write it. I don't think Jim's name is on Intolerable Cruelty.

[00:56:03] But he developed that originally. It was his forever. It was on the cards, he was like, I'm gonna do this with the Coens. And then Ron Howard was gonna make Intolerable Cruelty for years. Right. And then eventually, the Coen Brothers circled back to it. I love that movie.

[00:56:16] I do too. I think it was very underrated. Very underrated. And then in 2004, he's got Friday Night Lights, which he's really great in, and nobody thinks about the movie anymore. And that created a fucking movement. Yeah. And then, then it's like, what happened? So what happens?

[00:56:30] What's the one? I don't really know. It's like the Bad News Bears remake. Right, he tries to launch, which you're following, you're doing Richard Linklater After School of Rock, and you're doing the Buttermaker part, you're doing Bad Santa. You're everyone's favorite commodity. Everything on paper should have worked.

[00:56:46] Right. Except the Bad News Bears isn't an amazing movie, the first one. He does a lot of Bad Santa-y movies, like School for Scoundrel, Mr. Woodcock, a lot of these kind of like A. N. I. S. Stinker. Yeah, Phillips' School for Scoundrels. Yes, yes.

[00:56:57] He's like finally got this quantified, here's what your leading man movie persona is, you're the asshole. Right. And he sort of says in interviews, like I don't know, people like it, they're paying me money to do it. I feel like he got sick of it.

[00:57:09] Well, he did at a certain point, he went more musical, right? He started getting into his band, and then he was on that Jomaine Comeshi show in Toronto. Yes, that's right. That asshole! Where he was like, hey, I want to ask you about your band,

[00:57:23] and he got real hostile. No, he wanted to ask him about acting. He was like I'm here to talk about his band. And he wanted to talk about acting, and he turned on him. Even fucking wilder than that. What was it?

[00:57:32] That interview is one of the best films of the 2000s. It is incredible, and it's also one of those things very similar to the interview. Are you talking about the insult he delivered to Canadian people on that? There's so many things.

[00:57:42] Where he called them mashed potatoes without the gravy. Yes! A real deep fried insult. He says that in the interview? He said Canadian people are like mashed potatoes without the gravy. It's incredible. Every piece of that is so beautifully written as it were. There's the interview years later

[00:57:59] where George Lucas goes on Charlie Rose after the Disney deal, and he describes Disney as white slavers who sold his baby. And my buddy Conor Allif, the host of the George Lucas talk show, always makes the joke that somehow, somehow within five years of that interview,

[00:58:16] George Lucas is the least problematic of the two people in that room. That Charlie Rose looks worse. And it's the same thing with Gene Gameshi. Where horrible allegations come out about him five years later. At the time everyone was like, Billy Bob Thornton, what an asshole.

[00:58:29] And now Billy Bob Thornton kind of comes off well in that interview. But it was in the introduction, he's outlining the band's called The Box Stops. They release six albums a year. It's one of those wildly prolific bands. And he goes,

[00:58:42] the four members of the band are this, this, this and that. You might recognize their drummer from his day career as a movie actor. Anyway, here are the box tops. And Billy Bob Thornton was incensed that in the introduction, they had numbed. There were no questions about acting.

[00:58:57] And he's sitting there silently. Every time you ask him a question, he's monosyllabic. Then at some point he starts asking about musical influences and he goes off into like, when I was a kid I read famous monsters of Filmland magazine, Forrest J. Ackerman.

[00:59:12] And I would get models and paint them. And then he'd be like, okay so on your second album, and he kept asking questions. There was a contest to design your own monster makeup. And he keeps doing this. And Giancobbe is like,

[00:59:25] I'm sorry, I don't think I see the connection here. And he was like, well if you want to interview me as if this is a fucking hobby, I'll tell you about my other hobbies. That's genius. Right. He does it six times before he connects the dots.

[00:59:39] And he was like, you were explicitly told not to mention. And he was like, I was told not to ask questions about it. I just thought the context was necessary. And then he starts attacking the entire nation of Canada. He says Canadians are mashed potatoes.

[00:59:50] How long does it last? Like 45 minutes? It's long. I don't know, yeah. It's incredible. I remember watching it when it happened because it was a buzzy. Everyone's like, did you fucking see Billy Bob? And it is so cringe and awkward as you're watching.

[01:00:06] Right, it's tough to watch something like that. And I'm no fan of the other guy. Yes. Right, no idea who this guy is really. But it's tough to root for Billy Bob because it's like, I mean, you are an actor, bro. Absolutely.

[01:00:19] He seems like maybe a bit of a tough customer. The whole fucking world knows you as an actor. And the guy didn't even, he was just like, you might recognize him as an actor anyway. All he said, was not going to ask a single question. It wasn't like,

[01:00:30] hey man, what is Cate Blanchett like? Right, right. Oh my God. But then the other thing is, you watch this video and you're like, this is an incredible Billy Bob Thornton performance. Like if this happened in a Coen Brothers movie, you'd be like,

[01:00:42] he's fucking terrible as you know. He's not being a regular asshole. He's right. He's really, he's like, all right, I'm going to be an asshole. Right. It do feel like the All the Pretty Horses thing, or maybe the Angelina thing kind of broke him. I think both.

[01:00:53] I don't know about All the Pretty Horses. Because at the end of the day, you're making a Miramax movie. Yeah. You can't be surprised. Right, it got fucked with. Yeah, if somebody comes in and takes it away and tries to edit it.

[01:01:07] Especially if you've got a major movie star in it and it's expensive. It's one of those classic things. But I'm not saying everyone should have happened. Oh, his cut was so good. It doesn't exist. Matt's still the same. Matt's still the same.

[01:01:18] Damon always says it's the best thing. His cut, the first cut of the movie was brilliant. He's going, everything that happened after that was really great. Maybe the Angelina thing. The crazy press of that. I think it was that. Because that relationship, like, you know,

[01:01:29] like think of any, like what's her, the girl who was in the Transformers movies. Megan Fox. And she's dating somebody. Machine Gun Kelly. And I was going to say, we all know that, I don't know their names, but we all know that they're together and stuff like that.

[01:01:44] And we keep reading stories about like, what are the weird things they do as a couple? Yeah, it's become the weird thing. Billy Bob and Angelina were that. They were that at that time. They were that. They're on the red carpet and the pap's like, do something weird!

[01:01:54] And she, I think they both wore vials of each other's blood. Which now in retrospect, like in the time you were like, oh my god, that's so out there. But now it's like, eh, who cares. It's like, what, you got a little Theranos thing around your neck?

[01:02:10] Right on, good for you. You know those don't work, but it is funny. I mean, the other thing that happens to Billy Bob is like, right, he starts focusing a lot on his music. He still does movies, but you look and pretty much everything from like 2012 on

[01:02:22] is not good. He doesn't do a lot of movies. Lately he's been doing that show on Amazon? That's the thing, he moves to TV faster than a lot of guys. Yeah, he did that Amazon show. So he does that first season of Fargo,

[01:02:31] and then he's quite good on it. Oh, that's right! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot the first season of Fargo. But when that was announced, it was like, why is Billy Bob Thornton doing a TV show? And why is he doing Fargo? Because that was the weird...

[01:02:43] He's like five years away from everyone doing any show like that, you know? Maybe he's been chasing the material, and the material moved to streaming instead. He saw it early. And four quiet seasons of Goliath. That show has been on the air since 2016.

[01:02:55] That's my wife to this day is just like, I will rewatch it with you. You know, we have a thing where it's like, when I start watching, I'm not gonna watch it now and stuff. She's like, I will totally rewatch it with you.

[01:03:04] He is so wonderful in this. So apparently he's doing strong work in Goliath, but as said, very quiet. Very quiet. Talks about it. No, it's weird. That's an Amazon show, right? Yeah. What is the biggest Amazon show? The Boys. The Boys. The Boys is pretty big.

[01:03:22] And that has punched through the industry. But you're right that there's only a couple that people talk about. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're kind of like Apple to that. You know, Transparent had a moment. Fuck, what was his name again? Ted Lasso. Lasso. I was gonna say Blasso.

[01:03:39] I was like, I'm gonna say Blasso. Blasso, Teddy Blasso, Freddy Blasso, Ted Lasso. But other than that, yes, so far the brand is not. I think you're hard to point to a thing. My entire experience working on The Tick was constantly feeling the pressure of them being like,

[01:03:52] we need one of these things to punch through. That was Amazon? That was Amazon. That was Amazon. And it was like, we have some things that critics like, and win awards, and no one watches them. That's right, they have Maisel. That was their big, until The Boys,

[01:04:05] that was the one that was the billboards. Yeah. But it was always like, we have respectability. We want the thing that the culture actually cares about. Right. All right, well, back to Simple Plan. Back to Simple Plan. So Scott Rudin somehow takes over this movie.

[01:04:17] Jeff Bezos had a simple plan. He had a very simple plan. We were on Billy Bob. We were, yeah. Did Rudin, I don't know. At some point Rudin brings on John Borman, and I'm trying to wonder. So wait, is Rudin a producer on this movie? He's not,

[01:04:30] but I guess he was briefly in charge of it. He was involved originally. And he was at Paramount at that time. Yeah, he was at Paramount. And there's no way on earth that a book movie doesn't have his fingerprints on it somewhere.

[01:04:41] So I suspect he was involved earlier during the Mike Nichols era probably. And then when Jim got involved, this is the thing. He probably wanted it free of Scott. There's the Barry Diller thing. The Barry Diller thing? I think it was set up at a,

[01:04:55] I'm forgetting what company it was, but it was set up at a production company through the original Mike Nichols setup. And then Diller bought that company and was like, I don't want to fucking make this. Savoy, I think it's called. Savoy. Savoy! Savoy. Savoy.

[01:05:09] Selling off all the product. And that's what Paramount buys it as a package. Did they have the buffalo as their logo? I'm gonna look it up for you. Savoy pictures, like one or three buffaloes or something? Yes, three buffaloes with kind of a blinds. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

[01:05:26] that's cool. So yeah, so Rudin picks it up. He hires John Borman, who's kind of in the downswing of his career. To direct? To direct. They cast Paxton and Thornton. Now I did read an interview with Paxton. Where Ramy comes on, Borman was gonna direct? Yes, briefly.

[01:05:40] John Borman of Mosquito Coast and- Deliverance, right? Yeah, yeah, Hope and Glory, Excalibur, yeah, yeah, Excalibur, exactly, yeah, not Mosquito Coast. Who did Mosquito Coast? Oh, that was- Peter Weir? Peter Weir, my bad, my bad. I did read some interview where- Exorcist 2, though, that's a poor- Exorcist 2, yeah.

[01:06:07] At some point someone was like, you know who would be perfect as the two brothers? Paxton and Billy Bob. They really wanted to do it. It went away. It went through a couple more directors, and then Borman is the one who finally hires them on.

[01:06:16] He doesn't cast Bridget Fonda, but Borman signs on the two of them. I could see Jax pulling for him too. They're both Tombstone alumnus, who he spent a great deal of time with, both Bill Paxton and Billy Bob. No, I was just gonna say very quickly-

[01:06:33] Is this where Bridget Fonda meets Danny Elfman? Yes. On this movie? Yes. And they get married? Yeah. And she kind of retires from acting. Still married to him. She's like, I love that score so much. That haunting piano. Yeah. I'd like to fuck the score.

[01:06:47] I'd settle for fucking the man who wrote it. I will be with the man who wrote the score, that brilliant man. No, the other thing I was gonna say- She's wonderful in the movie. Oh, she's incredible. And does so much of the heavy lifting and gets no credit.

[01:06:59] Absolutely. But she's Lady Macbeth, she's Iago, she's- She's really good. And she's fantastic. She is. I was gonna say, and I'm sorry because I know you're burning to say a thing. Go ahead, Griffin. Paxson and Billy Bob have the thing where they're also like filmmakers. That's true.

[01:07:14] They have that Bruce Campbell thing where it's like these guys love film. Because Paxson did Frailty. They're not just actors. Right. They worked crew, they've written shit. Good movie. You're right, I forgot. It's a good movie, but also he was like a Corman guy. He met Cameron,

[01:07:27] I think he was a set dresser for Corman movies. That's how I met him for Alan. We're gonna talk about that. The Bruce Campbell sort of like, I wanna be helping to make the pictures. I'm not just the handsome guy at the center. Wow, I didn't know that.

[01:07:35] The crucial thing, and it is funny to think about, is Thornton's attached to this project, but then post Slingblade, he is so hot that they're like, we have to make this movie right now. Because he's fucking book, book, booked. So if we're gonna delay this shit again,

[01:07:49] he's not gonna be in it. So it's Thornton's busy schedule, all of a sudden, this guy who is like a total journeyman. A couple years before, nobody even heard of except Billy Wilder at a catering event. So that's, Rami had been in the mix,

[01:08:02] I think when Savoy had the rights, right? But when they're in rush mode, Rudin basically says like, we need to go right now. You're actually not my top choice, but like whatever. And then somehow Rudin disappears, but Rami stays on and they go.

[01:08:19] And Borman was far enough along that he was doing location scouting. And the movie was such a moving train that when Rami comes on, he's like, I just trust the locations are right. Let's work on new things. He was inheriting a moving train. And that's gotta be Jim.

[01:08:36] Has to be. That's gotta be Jim going like, do me a solid and I'll win you an award. Right. I mean, and it should have. I guess it's a tough year. Yeah, what else was up that year? It's the same in Private Ryan, Shakespeare in Love year,

[01:08:51] like those two go into war. Billy Bob loses to James Coburn in Affliction, which is a good performance, but it is also. For best supporting? Yeah, it is also kind of a career award for Coburn. That was more like, hey, he's.

[01:09:05] The favorite that year had been Ed Harris. Ed Harris for the Truman Show, which is like, okay, he's making a face. Kevin's making a face. Kevin's making a face. Look, I love me some Ed Harris. Although recently I heard from somebody

[01:09:17] who worked on an Ed Harris movie that he was a yeller. I have heard that he is a terrifying person. I interviewed him once. A friend of mine was just like, I was like, oh, how's he? I've always loved Harris. He's like, he yells. That's what I've heard.

[01:09:30] He yells at famous people. And I was like, that's the kind of yelling that. People talk about. You gotta be really confident in what you're yelling about if you're gonna yell at a fucking famous person. Ed Harris had won the Golden. He was picking up the precursors,

[01:09:44] and I guess it was sort of a, it's Ed Harris, he's never won, Apollo 13, it's time. I mean, give it to him for fucking Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. I mean, Ed Harris is good in a lot of movies, re-watching this, I did have the thought,

[01:09:58] how the fuck did Billy Bob not win, especially considering. But he had just won an Oscar. I know, but not for acting. I know, I know, I know. It just feels like it's the kind of anointment they would've wanted to give him

[01:10:08] at a time where he had all the heat momentum, and it's just an unreal performance. It is unparalleled. I challenge you to find a performance that's so not a performance. This guy is fucking living, breathing flesh, the character of Jacob. And he's doing a mild physical transformation,

[01:10:26] like he's changing his look, he's got this stammer. It's not like he, he's making choices, and it's a character that on paper you could make a real meal out of. And he is underplaying everything so much where you just buy him as a real character.

[01:10:38] That might be the other reason he doesn't win. He almost doesn't have this sort of crazy claim. He doesn't lean into it. Yeah, that people would be like, well fuck, actually, he's gotta take it. Ben's burning up with a take here. The look in this movie.

[01:10:51] It is special. It is so, it is basically every work from home, graphic designer, living in Bushwick, wearing Carhartts with double knee pants. He's become the hippest guy in the world now. It's kind of hilarious how he's coded as being kind of bumbling and very out of touch,

[01:11:13] out of time, and currently that is the hottest thing right now. Now he's Ed Sheeran. Yes, yes, yes. This guy now dates Julia Fox. He walks in a party and you're like, I can't blame her, that guy looks cool.

[01:11:28] But to be fair, you're in the world of the movie. Yeah. Who would you rather hang out with? Bill Paxton or fucking, Jacob or Hank? Hands down Jacob. He's a nice guy, he's not judgy. He loves his dog. Paxton's wound so tight.

[01:11:42] I don't wanna hang out with that guy. It's kind of the thing that's most impressive about this movie to me is that it establishes him as like, well this is obviously your normal guy at the center of the film. These two guys are fuck ups.

[01:11:52] You got an idiot and a sort of rage cage and here's the guy who's got the level, the sort of pragmatic view of everything. He's the smart guy. He's the one who's like, all right gentlemen, let's all take a second. You know, that's just, yeah.

[01:12:03] Right, and Jacob's like a figure of sympathy, right? And then as the movie goes on, you're like, he's got a lot of fucking unresolved issues here. And Jacob is so pure in his understanding of everything and a lot smarter than he appears to be.

[01:12:19] He knows things that Paxton can't confront. He has a profound wisdom. Hank is just wearing blinders about, when he finds out that his father killed himself, he's like, what? The best scene in the movie. Maybe the best scene in the movie. Yeah.

[01:12:29] I don't know, well there's a lot of good scenes in this movie. They were supposed to shoot in Minnesota. Some El Nino shit meant that there was no snow on the ground so they were completely fucked. Also happened, when we were making Mallrats in 95,

[01:12:43] the Cullen brothers were making Fargo. Right, and they had no snow, right? And they had to chase snow all over Minnesota. They left Minnesota and went over to fucking Dakota or whatever when we were. That's like a notorious.

[01:12:52] We were getting snow reports from their set all the time because Jim Jacks was very tight with the Cullen brothers. At least he claimed, as he told you over and over. He did, yeah. You know, when they made Intolerable Cruelty,

[01:13:04] I was like, he did know those fucking guys. They're buddies! This is my favorite poignant Sam Raimi story. James Jacks, you know, he wanted to make a hit so fucking bad. You know, he thought Mallrats was gonna make a hundred million bucks. He was wrong.

[01:13:22] He thought Days of Fuse was gonna make a hundred million bucks, he was fucking wrong. They lasted. He was right about what they were. He just couldn't get the box office right. But he wanted like a fucking legit hit because he knew that would open doors

[01:13:37] and make life easier and stuff. And he eventually got those hits with The Mummy. He made the series Mummy Movies and Jim and finally got to the top of the mountain where he wanted to be and stuff. He, like for the years that we knew him,

[01:13:52] he was always trying to make shit like The Jackal, which eventually got made. Projects that would come to life like after The Mummy, he had an easier time doing things. He was doing a treadmill one day and his assistant went out to get him his breakfast

[01:14:09] and came home and the treadmill was running and Jim was not. He was on the floor, he'd had a mass heart attack, fucking died. So they have a funeral for this guy, of course. And I think Jim had like a Catholic background if I remember correctly.

[01:14:25] Because he liked Dogman an awful lot. Said he understood it. So there's gonna be a funeral service at that church in Beverly Hills. It's like a Catholic church that's on the strip. I'm driving to it. I try to get some people to go with me.

[01:14:49] Call up Jason Mews, I was like, Jim passed away, man, we gonna go to his funeral? He's like, oh no, I'm busy. Ask Scott, I was like, you wanna go? And he was like, nah, I'm doing some stuff and whatnot.

[01:15:00] So I was driving over and I was like, man, this motherfucker. Like just as I felt like those fuckers, he would talk about all those people and why didn't they ever reach back? Like why, how come he thought so fondly of them

[01:15:11] and not vice versa and shit like that? And I was driving over and I was working myself up into this like bitter frenzy where I'm like, it's fucking Tuesday at noon in Hollywood. Nobody's gonna be in this church. Like I'm gonna be the only one there

[01:15:25] and like maybe his brother in that fucking coffin. And all those people that he put on the fucking path can't be bothered to fucking be there for him and shit. So I get to the church, I park, I walk into the back of the church

[01:15:38] and I stand in the back of the church because there's not a fucking seat available. And the whole ride I was over driving over there going like, all these fucking people, man, like fucking, you know. He's always talking about fucking Sam Raimi.

[01:15:51] Who do I see mid fucking aisle, like halfway up right on the aisle, Sam Raimi dressed and sitting there. It was beautiful to see the man get his flowers. Granted he was passed, but it seemed to indicate that he was right.

[01:16:11] All the things he ever said, he was tight with these folks. And you know, they had life is such that you move on to other things. Like there are people you work very closely with on a movie set. It's like going to camp and you're like,

[01:16:24] we're never gonna be apart. We'll see you next summer. Fucking like we built strong bonds. And then 10 years, 15 years go by and you don't see a motherfucker and stuff. So what I misconstrued as people being like, well, they lost interest in Jim and moved fucking on.

[01:16:39] They were just doing their thing until they could circle back. And you know, granted, I ain't taking anything away from the people that worked with them, but like, you know, I'm sure it was easier for them all to say yes after the mummies movies,

[01:16:52] you know, when he was on a roll and stuff like that. But this dude was like such a fucking champion for everybody. And at the end of the day, they came out for him. We go to the, there's a repast or whatever the fuck,

[01:17:06] you know, where you get together and eat afterwards. That motherfucker was great. We go to Craig's because he used to go to Dan Tana's all the time. Apparently the shrimp parm is named after him. Named after Jim Jack, Craig's. He knew, I guess Craig was,

[01:17:19] I don't know much about the restaurant business in LA, but apparently the guy who started Craig's was a guy who worked at Dan Tana's forever. Jim ate there all the time. Guy left Craig and started Craig's or whatever the fuck. And so Jim went over there.

[01:17:32] And so he would apparently like have a fucking lunch or dinner, it was so fucked up. We go to the repast, everyone's sitting around, it's like a Viking funeral. We're all telling stories about Jim, you know, and Sean Dan was like, Kevin, talk about Jim.

[01:17:51] And I was like, well, anybody in this room knows that Jim had his own catchphrase. Same way that Sam Raimi was like, hey buddy, buddy, come on, buddy, oh buddy. And Jim Jacks would say, like you know, to punctuate any joke he had.

[01:18:05] So he'd be like, you know, Billy Bob, now he looks like Ed Sheeran, you know, like you know, like you know, like you know. And it was your cue to like laugh, clap please or whatever the fuck a politician said. So he would do it all the time.

[01:18:22] Like it was almost like a nervous punctuation. I wouldn't go so far as to say like a Tourette's condition. I've gotten noted for doing similar things on a podcast. People listen to you for hours and they're like, why is every sentence in with that same fucking thing?

[01:18:36] And it wasn't like Bart Simpson's like, you know, fucking eat my shorts. It wasn't a catchphrase. I don't know that he was conscious of it. It was like a tick. It was a tick. Me and Mosier one day saw him do it

[01:18:47] for a minute and 12 seconds straight without breathing. It was the fucking craziest thing. He said something that made him laugh so hard. He goes like you know, like you know, like you know, like you know, like you know, like you know.

[01:18:59] He wound down and then got to the floor. Decelerates. Like you know. Like you know. And then went for a second fucking round and it was unbelievable. So I tell that story and everyone's fucking laughing and shit like that. And I said, but be honest with you,

[01:19:13] as I was driving over to the funeral and I told him the story that I told you guys, I was a little bitter because I thought the place would be fucking empty and shit. I was like, this was a guy who we'd go out to dinner

[01:19:21] with him all the time. He would tell us stories about these great filmmakers like Sam Raimi and stuff like that. And when I was driving over, I was like, is Sam Raimi even gonna be there? And I was like, and Sam was in the room looking at me.

[01:19:33] And I was like, Sam, when I walked into the church and saw you there, that you know, I'm an old Catholic and I let it all slip away, but that really did make me feel like there could be a God.

[01:19:45] Like the fact that you showed up for the man like really meant the world to me. And I know it ain't about me, but I know if it meant the world to me, bro, Jim would have been fucking in tears.

[01:19:57] Like to know that you were a true friend, not just a work buddy, not just somebody who was transactional in this life and stuff. So, you know, I said my piece and made people happy. And I was like, I've done good here today

[01:20:10] and I'm gonna leave this fucking wake and stuff like that. And I'm almost at the door, I almost get out clean. And then a filmmaker stops me whose name I don't know, younger cat. And he goes, hey man, I'm this cat. I said, how are you?

[01:20:25] And he goes, I just wanted to tell you like you were talking about how you and Scott would go out with Jim and he would tell you stories about Sam Raimi and stuff like that. And the Coen brothers,

[01:20:37] as I told him the Billy Bob and the Coen's thing. And he goes, well, like he did that with us. He's like me and my friends, like we did the same thing with Jim. We just did it like at Craig's, we would come here every Thursday night

[01:20:52] and sit around and talk about movies and bullshit. And he would tell stories, war stories about making movies and stuff. I was like, that's awesome. That's what he used to do with us. And then the guy fucking devastates me because he goes, the only difference

[01:21:05] is all the stories were about you. Right, you became. I've fucking leveled me right then and there, man. Like I was like, and then I thought about the judgment that I would cast on the other filmmakers. Like, oh, they never reached back.

[01:21:18] You're worried that you come off that way? I didn't reach back. Like I remember being on the set of Dogma and there we are working with two of the biggest movie stars on the planet at the moment. Kind of your blink check.

[01:21:31] One of which he let be in Mallrats, even though he didn't want him. He was like, don't hire the Affleck guy. Curse, he's got a potty mouth. There are too many curses in this script already. I remember him on Days of Confuse.

[01:21:43] He raised the fuck count of that movie. And so. And he'll be a nightmare on your commentary. Yes, he'll take it over. He'll be so much funnier than you. So Jim, you know, when I was like, Jim, Ben is like the best guy for the role.

[01:21:57] Like he just seems like the guy. He was like, oh fuck, all right. But you know, it sit there and chit chat with Ben throughout production. Ben would tease him all the time and stuff. Cause they had like Days of Confuse stories to talk about.

[01:22:09] And like Ben would just flat out be like, Kevin, don't listen to this man. He told Rick Linklater the same things. Look what happened at Days of Confuse. Do your own thing. Like right in front of Jim, he'd be like, shut up. Shut up, Ben.

[01:22:21] He came to the dogma set. There we are shooting fucking Ben and Matt right before they go off to win the Oscar. We were shooting at the airport. This very year. They left from the airport where we were shooting them in the airport to go receive their Oscar.

[01:22:38] Jim rolls up unannounced. Hey, I just happened to be in town. And you know, he knows me. He knows Scott. He knows Ben very well. Jason Mewes. And you know, I didn't facilitate. I wasn't like, hey, this is Jim. Well, they knew each other, but I wasn't like,

[01:22:59] why don't you guys take some time to talk? Like Ben was like, you know, like he wants me to do a movie that I don't want to do. And I was like, oh, and you know, it was weird to suddenly.

[01:23:12] But you feel bad that you weren't kind of like, come on, Ben. He was there for us. Well, especially because I was so judgy about like, oh, he talks about all these filmmakers. Where are the Combras? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure. I literally became the film.

[01:23:24] I realized like in that moment when that motherfucker talked to me and said, all that we talked about was you. Like I realized like I became that fucking guy that I judged. Like I would pass Jim Jack's house. Like I moved to California in 2002.

[01:23:43] And we'd hung out with Jim. 95, we fucking lived in his house. We didn't go stay in a hotel when we made Mallrats. Like in pre-production, me and Scott stayed at Jack's house. And then during post-production, we stayed at Jim Jack's house and stuff.

[01:23:56] We were saving money rather than stay at the Universal Sheraton, but also like Jim had a home theater. He would take us to like Dave's laser and buy a fucking laser disc. Every laser disc came out. This is a guy who taught us shit,

[01:24:07] important shit that nobody like, you know, you rarely see meet an elder statesman in the business tells you how to conduct yourself, right? And this guy would talk about, we'd go to Dave's laser, he'd buy literally every laser disc, and then later on every DVD.

[01:24:22] And you'd be like, Jim, why are you buying Juana Man? You're never gonna watch this. And in fact, I know you have a copy at home. This is the second buy. And you know, you never blast him about that because you could pick through

[01:24:33] and he'd let you have the extras of his laser disc. I said, Jim, why are you buying this? You're never gonna watch it. And he goes, my whole life, I wanted to be in the movie business. And now the movie business pays my salary.

[01:24:46] Everything that I buy in this world, that money comes from the movie business. I think I have to put my money back into this business. I have to support the business that supports me. He's going, so I'm buying all these filmmakers films and part of it is selfish

[01:24:59] because I'm looking for the next thing. But I hope to God they're buying my movies as well. He's like, that's how this thing works. What's so funny about this? I mean, you know, we do every movie when we pick a director, right?

[01:25:12] And we end up spending so much time thinking about these people, not just watching their films in order and spending months chronologically doing all the research and reading these interviews and they're collaborators and all this sort of stuff.

[01:25:22] And I feel like very often we do have those questions where we're like, why didn't they ever work together ever again? You know, someone has a fruitful collaboration. Like we were just saying, like why isn't Russell Crowe in Spider-Man 3? Why didn't he play Venom?

[01:25:34] Why was there never another Bruce vehicle after Army of Darkness? He would give Bruce small roles, but why did he never use the clout to make another Bruce vehicle? You know, why didn't the Coen brothers and Raimi ever write together again?

[01:25:44] Especially when the Coen brothers are coming off of Fargo and Raimi's in sort of like a downslope and all these sorts of things. But careers do have these weird ebbs and flows. Honestly, like I mean, I'm sure there's some- And it's so hard to make a fucking movie.

[01:25:55] There are some instances where it's personal animus where most of them didn't get along and were like, I never want to work again. But often you hear those. It does, I feel like seep out The thing I just told you about the eight people

[01:26:06] who almost made this movie. It's like, this stuff is so alchemical where it's like so difficult for even a successful movie that people want to make to actually get made. It is, especially when the audience looks at it and they're like, come on, so much crap gets made.

[01:26:19] And it's like, you'd be shocked. Like for everyone to line up. The gauntlet that that crap had to fucking go through to actually get made. And the wildest thing to me is that like, we have been missing David and I,

[01:26:29] the piece of how does Raimi become the choice? I understand it was a last minute thing. It was a flyer or whatever, but Jim Jacks is clearly the missing piece here. Feels like it. I mean, I can't say for sure, but based on those cards,

[01:26:42] he's the one who's like, come on, Sam's a good choice. Cause Rudin told Sam, like you are not my first choice. Which makes sense because one, Scott Rudin seems like a real weird guy. The only time he's ever been that rude to anybody.

[01:26:55] I know, he seems so uncharacteristic. But two, this is not the moment where everyone is like, Sam Raimi is about to win an Oscar. This is a bit of a murky time for him. And you saying this is such a sort of left field turn.

[01:27:08] This is such a different thing in his body of work. I'd seen this movie once before. I loved it, but I'd only seen it one time. And then I started rewatching it last night and there was something that finally clicked for me. Cause I'd always been like,

[01:27:20] what a weird sort of like curve, this off ramp his career takes into these three sort of prestige studio dramas before he comes all the way back around. So it's this gift and what's the- For Love of the Game. Kevin Costner baseball movie.

[01:27:33] Which with a gun to my head, I probably would not have remembered was Sam Raimi. That's the weirdest part. I would've been like, that feels like a Nancy Meyers movie. I don't know. Like incredibly bizarre. And no shade on Nancy Meyers.

[01:27:46] I don't want to be dragged on Twitter going like, oh this is him coming for Nancy Meyers. She just makes a very specific kind of glossy studio movie which that feels more like. Absolutely. Honestly, I'm now gonna watch that movie. I've never watched it.

[01:27:58] I hate fucking baseball, but I do love baseball movies. Baseball movies are good. It's the only Raimi I've never seen and I am like, I'm interested to see. Is there something to this? It's coming up for you guys? Yeah, because it's next. It's the next one after this.

[01:28:11] This is what he did, he did that. He does this, For Love of the Game the next year and The Gift the year after that. It's three movies, 98, 99, 2000. It's like a perfect trilogy of his adult spikes. Of him like swinging for an Oscar. Oscar drama movies.

[01:28:24] And you know what? I'm gonna take a guess here. Based on my career, based on careers of other people I've spoken to, that is an external, I'm not gonna say pressure, but influence. He has talked about. I don't think Sam Raimi is like, I wanna win an Oscar.

[01:28:42] I think it's a bunch of people going, you're grown up now, you've done a lot. Enough with the shenanigans. Now it's your time. I think there's an additional thing, which is he came up with the Coen brothers. They were all making kind of goofball

[01:28:52] sort of genre lark movies. Running around with cameras, literally running around with cameras. And then they have Fargo, right? Fargo, which is their recovery film after Hudsucker is their first big flop, which is the one they write with Raimi. And the only other. They wrote Hudsucker with Raimi?

[01:29:08] Yes. Oh buddy! Yeah. He put himself in the fucking script. He put himself in the fucking movie. So I think those guys suddenly become legitimate. They're serious filmmakers now. And people still view Raimi as like this sort of genre obsessed kid, you know?

[01:29:23] And the Hudsucker of it all you can't discount too. Right. I've never seen anything been involved in a movie that did not succeed. Yeah. Or, or, or. Yeah, they cost a lot of money and you're disappointed. But what happens is it's just like,

[01:29:37] if you know your Bible stories, is just like when Jesus gets arrested. Yeah. All the apostles are like, huh? Who? Jesus what? I don't know that guy. Never met him. A cock's crowing somewhere. Right. Like nobody knows each other. Up until the moment the movie comes out,

[01:29:53] you're like we're bonded for life, motherfucker! We made this thing together! And when the returns come in, it's not, it's no judgment against anybody, but this is a very unique phenomenon that I've noticed time and time again in my career. Everyone scatters.

[01:30:06] You just want to go as far away from the bomb as possible. And you need to manage your career. That's what a lot of this feels like. Yeah, no, I think that's the buzz. Career management. And even the choices that Sam seems to make

[01:30:19] in this corridor, which I'm glad he directs this movie. Absolutely. Because I love this movie. But it seems more like career maintenance than a guy going like I need to tell this story. It does, and if you think, like Darkman. There's nothing wrong with that by the way.

[01:30:32] Darkman is a good movie that did pretty well. But nonetheless, I do feel like mostly he's still the evil dead guy. Yes. And it's just kind of like, are you gonna, you know, Quick and the Dead doesn't really work. It's like, are you just the evil dead guy?

[01:30:43] Right, like the more movies you make that don't really show. So he wants to show like. I think so. I don't need to move the camera to tell a story. I can tell a very subtle story. He's comparing himself to the Coens, right?

[01:30:53] And he's like, they had an evolutionary leap in how they're perceived. I have not had that leap. People still view me as run around gonzo kid guy, right? On top of that, none of those movies are becoming blockbusters. Darkman, respectable hit. Army of Darkness does okay.

[01:31:08] But it's not like I've escalated to being, you know, I haven't had a Gremlins. I haven't had a Jaws. Like, so he's. Hold on, I'm just gonna put a pause right there. I cannot believe your go-to for successful blockbuster movies is Gremlins. Which I love.

[01:31:24] Joe Dante's a similar like kinetic movie nerd. All right, fair enough. I see it now. And it has the movie that like crosses over. I see it. Right, and it's like you found a way to get into the mainstream culture. I don't think he's had that.

[01:31:35] And then he talks about that he felt like everyone thinks of me as the crazy camera guy. I wanna challenge myself to see, can I find a script that is just human character based? You know, it's there on the page.

[01:31:48] And I can lock the camera down and focus on performance. But like, why does Jim Jacks so early on go, this is a Ramy project. And I always thought it was incongruous in his career. But something about this rewatch clicked it for me.

[01:32:01] And especially the opening shot of the crow, right? He keeps these crows circling around the whole movie. And I think he does a very good job of not overdoing it. But it is sort of, I do think this movie is kind of biblical. It's this morality tale.

[01:32:13] Huge morality tale. And the crows are almost like. Very Midwestern as well. Absolutely. I mean, not just its setting, but like the morals involved. Which is exciting. If you set this movie in the East Coast or fucking in Los Angeles, everyone's a shithole from the start.

[01:32:29] But you get to watch Bridget Fonda go from the voice of reason. Good people disintegrate. To the voice of greed. And you compare it to Fargo, where Fargo is a movie that is almost supernatural and people who are just inherently good and inherently bad.

[01:32:44] And they spiral up further. So much so that by the end of the movie, our main character is fucking baffled. At how they've arrived. I don't even understand it. With this guy behind her. Right, she's so pure, she cannot even fathom it. Whereas William H. Macy is always

[01:32:57] operating on this level. And this is a movie of people who make small decisions that slowly disintegrate. They take the bite of the apple and they never recover. And watching it this time, it clicked for me where I'm like. Nice metaphor. Thank you.

[01:33:10] The crow is sort of like his visualization of the way the camera, the crazy Rami can an evil dead is the evil, right? When you have the crazy moving through the woods thing, they're like, there's just evil here. And once the evil enters the house,

[01:33:25] this guy's fucked and he's never gonna recover. He just goes further and further into chaos and his life spirals out of control. And this movie's a similar thing where the second they open that fucking bag and they have seen the money, the idea of the money exists,

[01:33:37] everyone's brain breaks. There's just an evil that is absorbed into the world. What were you gonna say, Ben? I love the term you used before we started recording, David, which is this is a don't do it movie. Don't do it movie. That idea, I didn't make the connection.

[01:33:54] This is the first time I've ever seen this movie, but you're right. This is almost like kind of a weird genre of just storytelling in general. Don't read the book. Don't play the tape. Which, right. Name another example. Evil dead, evil dead two.

[01:34:06] Like this, it weirdly fits into the evil dead thing of like don't let the thing out. Look, my wife is very much a rule follower. I was like, well, come on, what would you do? Because you're watching a school teacher. A literal school teacher.

[01:34:19] That was, by the way, part of the fun of this movie when it came out was, and still today, is like what would you do? Yeah, it's fun. And I was like, she was like, I would just call the cops or do nothing.

[01:34:31] I would just not do anything. Which I was like, that is correct. That is absolutely, I was like, you're not lying to me. That's definitely what you do. And I was like, I would take the money and it would go wrong for me.

[01:34:40] I don't think, I'm not like I would take the money because I know what to do. You know, yeah, you mix the, you know, you check your cereal. No, I would take the money and it would fucking, maybe I'm not suffocating people in snow drifts day two,

[01:34:51] but it would go wrong. It would 100% go wrong. It's a quick slide for Bill Paxson. It's a sharp turn. It begins with the, I guess the dude on the snowmobile, right? Yes. Yeah, that's the whole thing. But that's Jacob's fault. Jacob kind of panics and strikes the dude.

[01:35:08] It is his fault. And then Bill Paxson has to clean up. Paxson just does the calculation of like, there's only one thing I can do. And there's a, it's a wonderful performance beat. And Bill Paxson, a great actor. Would you take the money, Grant?

[01:35:20] I wouldn't, I just want to quickly talk about Paxson a second. That performance beat where he goes, where he has to decide to, he's like, call the cops. Your brother hit me. And he has to fucking decide. Not huge, there's no big camera move.

[01:35:34] Like we're coming around him to show a different perspective. They just hold on him and you watch it all go across the stage. His reactions, he's got like four or five silent reaction moments in this movie that are profound. It's an underrated performance. Absolutely.

[01:35:46] I would not take the money because my anxiety is so overwhelming. And I was talking about this as I was watching it. You don't like money. No, well, money freaks me out. Money kind of freaks you out. It freaks me out. But also like the Paxson,

[01:35:56] how quickly he has to go into like, here's the move. Here's the branching tree of the story. We say this and this and that. And then constantly having to adjust. I'm like too much to maintain. Don't want to do, no money is worth. Too many steps ahead.

[01:36:07] Right, having to keep all these lies in head. Not to put him on blast, but Ben did text us this morning. Can I just read this, Ben? Yeah, sure. If I found that money, I'd do everything right and the story would end with me owning an island.

[01:36:19] Ben has supreme confidence that he would nail this situation. I stand by that. Where are you getting an island for 4.4 million? Yeah, I don't know if you're getting an island. Could be a small island. You gotta split it up with real small. Maybe it's on a lake.

[01:36:30] It doesn't have to be on the ocean. Good point, good point. Oh, that's a fair point. Lake Island. Lake Island. They can get you on a lake island though. You're not in the international waters. We have you surrounded. Lake Island. Okay, that's a good point.

[01:36:43] All right, fair enough. What do you think, in a movie full of unintentionally sinister efforts, what do you think is the most sinister thing that happens in the movie? Do you have an answer? I do, I have one that I prefer. I mean.

[01:37:03] Because mind you, people are killed. Yeah, people are killed. Yeah. But I don't think it's a death. I think it's the guy, that old guy overpaying for his feedback. I think that's what. That is, that's the crux of the story. You're trying to tell this guy

[01:37:16] they're five weeks and a month? That's fucked up. It's five Mondays. I gotta answer the phone. I think it's Bridget Fonda telling him what life is going to be like when they get rid of the money. That scene. Where she, first it's him, it's Jacob,

[01:37:34] it's the baby, and then she's like, what about me? And then you get to the heart of the matter. The plastered on smile. We go out to dinner only for special holidays and I think about what I'm ordering. Yeah, she's like, and I can't order appetizers.

[01:37:45] It's kind of a. They predict the ending. They do predict the ending. They tell you the fucking ending of the movie and when she's putting those books back, oh, it's so fucking haunting. How does that relationship. But once she said that, how can you look at her again?

[01:37:56] Of course. But still saying that. How do you live in that relationship for the rest of your life knowing that like, you think I fucked up by burning this money. That's the thing. It's what they reveal about themselves and what they reveal about themselves to each other

[01:38:08] that there's no going back from and like, the book had a darker ending. Well, because Jacob dies a lot earlier in the book. Yes. I believe. They sort of flip. I'm glad they didn't do that because I think it's. Absolutely. It is the height of fucking tragedy.

[01:38:24] It feels like a Shakespearean tragedy. Absolutely. And that moment when he's like, just do it. I don't want to be here anymore. And he's making him, he's like, I'm gonna do it or you're gonna do it. And if I do it, you're fucked. Right.

[01:38:39] If the genre is the don't do it movie. Yeah. That is yet another like, don't do it moment and he fucking does it. I know. I think the book is also maybe more explicitly violent. Like I think this, the movie tones that down

[01:38:52] in terms of it's more like it's a suffocation, something like that. But that's wise again to me. Because if you're putting like gory violence on screen, the audience kind of can't get over it. Especially for Ramey. He's done so much gore.

[01:39:04] He has to know like, I don't want to fucking splatter the character. Well he does that, well I mean he does it long before Chris Nolan, but the Chris Nolan, you know, fucking Joker stabbing and cutting everybody thing where it's like. Just cut away.

[01:39:16] Or it's just a loud fucking noise. Exactly. Right. And you don't see a thing. You're like, fuck that was vicious. I'm freaked out. Right, exactly. Same thing here, you don't see Billy Bob take the bullet. No. The most visual fucking death is. Brent Briscoe. Becky and Baker.

[01:39:31] But that's even, it takes place in total shadow. Let's give a, what's his name? Brent Briscoe? Brent Briscoe. That's Luke. Amazing. Passed away a couple years ago. One of those guys. Incredible character actor. He did recently die and just in like 40 million movies.

[01:39:45] And you're always like, you know. And this was his crowning achievement though. This is the perfect Brent Briscoe role. Especially because you think he's gonna be in 10 minutes of the movie. And he's actually in two thirds. And you like him too.

[01:39:57] You're like, oh more of this guy, more of this guy. I mean again, in a movie that has Billy Bob Thornton giving perhaps one of the greatest performances ever in a motion picture. One of the most commanding character actor yet. Everyone else is, what is it?

[01:40:12] The high tide raises all boats or whatever the fuck. Everyone is fucking brilliant. We found that in Quick and the Dead 2 where that movie starts and in the opening credits you're getting like split card four names and you're like these four guys are in it too?

[01:40:26] He just keeps on stacking them in and there's something about how well cast this whole movie is. I'm gonna watch that again tonight. That and the baseball movie. But all the small parts. He understands like, this movie is so well cast

[01:40:37] and even when you get to Gary Cole that late in the movie and you're like, you need to cast this part perfectly. He's a cherry on the sundae. Because the audience needs to grab onto him really quickly

[01:40:45] and Gary Cole is a guy who is equally well cast playing. G-Man and Creep. He is perfect for both of them. He can be an idiot. No, 100%. I love Gary Cole. He can be a functionary. He can be Mike Brady.

[01:40:57] Right, so he walks in and you're just like, I don't know if this is Mike Brady, I don't know if this is some random good guy cop or if this is the most sociopathic man in the world. And you don't know if Bridget Fonda

[01:41:06] is like fucking out of her gourd at this point by going like, he's the guy from the fucking picture and you're like, and in the movie that we're presented with you could see a version where it's like he shoots him and then it ain't the fucking,

[01:41:18] he really is an FBI guy in a series of don't do its that could work. I just think that the movie's handling of the Bridget Fonda character and her performance is one of the things that really differentiates it from movies of this ilk. This could be monstrous.

[01:41:32] Well, no, because Jackie runs the year before. Her last movie is a movie I think called Delivering Milo. No, but the year after this is Lake Placid, which is a genuine hit. Oh, which is fantastic. She's great in that movie. She has Monkey Bone. She has Monkey Bone.

[01:41:45] She has that 2001 where it's Delivering Milo. The Jet Li movie. Kiss of the Dragon is the Jet Li movie and that is it. That's it. So after Kiss of the Dragon she's like, and she had a run for what, 15 years or something?

[01:41:57] Yeah, I would say her first sort of big role before Single Wife Female is what, like Doc Hollywood? Yeah. Oh, what a big role. But it's her 90s run. Single Wife Female, obviously. Single Wife Female, singles. Singles, right. So what is Doc Hollywood? What year is that? That's 91.

[01:42:11] And so when does the? She has like 10 years. She had a good 10 years where literally she was in everything. She was huge deal. She was the go-to like Sandy Bullock. It Could Happen to You, remember that? Lottery ticket movie? Yeah, yeah, Nick Cage. With Nick Cage?

[01:42:24] I think one of the only successful Nick Cage normal guy performances. Pretty normal guy, that's true. Right, because we were talking about him not fitting into this. It Can Happen to You, you're like, I almost buy you as just some guy.

[01:42:34] But I feel like in Jackie Brown you're just like, God, she's so funny. This is such a specific performance. We're gonna have Bridget Fonda in our lives for so long. And it was also late in her run too. That's what I'm saying.

[01:42:43] Like I remember when she popped up in Jackie Brown it's like, oh, she must really fucking love Quentin. Because why would somebody this fucking huge play this bit part and stuff? And then obviously this, and it's funny. Yeah, I think she truly just passed it in.

[01:42:57] I believe she also. She left it all on the fucking table. Because it's not like she, she's fundamentally wonderful in everything. Yes, always good. Like when you think about singles. Yeah, she's not a bad actor at all. No, right, yeah, you're never like. Wonderful, I mean.

[01:43:11] By the way, I mean she plays. She does the Badham remake of La Femme Nikita, Point of No Return. Yes, which she's good in. Which she's really good in as well. I just saw that for the first time. What was I gonna say?

[01:43:20] She plays Linda in the flashback of Army of Darkness. Where they're setting up a path. She's in one scene in Army of Darkness. And it's one of those things where you're like, why would she do this? And apparently it was. She was such a big Sam Raimi fan.

[01:43:30] She loved Evil Dead. And such an Evil Dead fan that she was like, is there anything, I heard you're making a third one. Is there anything I can do? That's dope. And she was like, I'll do the silent opening montage flashbacks or something.

[01:43:40] It makes me like her even more. Absolutely. And it's nice that she met Elfman through the, like I like everything about it. But the fact that her character, I feel like programmed to think in a movie like this, she's gonna be the voice of reason.

[01:43:54] She's gonna be the warrior. She's got bangs. She has a sweater. She works at a library. She's got a baby. She's got a baby. She has the baby and she's like, now here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna get that baby. While she's feeding the baby,

[01:44:04] she's like, you're gonna get him to record this shit. And you're like, whoa. You just buy it. Which by the way is an insane plan. There's a lot of ways that could go. It's not a simple plan. It's a very complicated plan.

[01:44:16] This is the, I don't know about this character and how she's coded at the beginning. And then almost immediately she gets it and she starts coming up with big designs on it. And you're trying to figure out what made her adjust so fast?

[01:44:30] How did she become pot committed? And it is that scene where she says the whole fucking thing, where she has the terror now. Now that she's had the glimpse. That's what her fucking secret fear is like. It would have been fine if this money never happened.

[01:44:43] But now this money happened and you want me to live this fucking tiny life? Like no way. Now I've allowed myself to think what my life could look like. And the thought of continuing on the way it is, is unbearable.

[01:44:55] That restaurant's line really hit me in a way where I was just like. The once a week, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, because I mean, it's one of those things where I started feeling like I eat out all the time. And it's like, oh my God, that's right.

[01:45:08] Like fucking for some people, it's just like we only go out on a birthday and holiday. And that hits Neil Paxton in a real place. John Mulaney has that, have you ever heard him tell that story where he was at a comedy club?

[01:45:19] And you know how comedy clubs like gouge you. Comedy clubs gouge you? And like he was backstage, but he saw a couple sitting down and they're like two drink minimum. And the guy was like, it's okay. We'll just, we won't order any food. And Mulaney was like,

[01:45:33] I can never not make an effort at one of these things. Like people are paying a lot of money. I might be like, this is my third gig of the week or whatever. But like, you know, there are people here who like,

[01:45:43] this is their day out, this week, this month or whatever. You can't fuck around. Can I ask you a quick question about this movie? It was released in 98. Yeah. It probably set roughly around the same time. You know, it's not period piece or anything like that. Yeah, yeah.

[01:45:59] Yeah. Does this movie change at all with the internet? I thought about this a lot. I think smartphone changes this movie fundamentally. I think this is- I think internet definitely because they start looking up where the money came from and not like this print out from another library.

[01:46:12] Right. And being able to ping people where they were, the additional paper trail of texts. And also, do planes disappear anymore in the day? Even then did planes disappear. I don't know. This movie- Especially it's like, it didn't disappear in like the Pacific Ocean.

[01:46:26] It disappeared like in Minnesota. This movie is made at like the absolute last moment. That it totally works on their notice. Without it being a period piece. That's the thing with a lot of those Cone movies that are those sort of what a tangled web we weave

[01:46:40] crime movies. Right, I mean, No Country for Old Men is nine years later and has to be set 20 years earlier. Like Man Who Wasn't There, that's a period piece, right? You know, whatever. No, that's absolutely a big factor of it. And the scene where they dump the guy,

[01:46:56] the farmer over the bridge, right? To stage this thing. There's something about- Again, where you're like, this isn't gonna fucking work. Especially, I'm like, you guys are way out in the open and this is in a plane state

[01:47:05] where it's like if your dog runs away six days later, you're like, I still see it. So if this guy is like throwing a dude off a fucking bridge, like some neighbor two towns over didn't happen to see that. It's the kindly sheriff thing where he's just like,

[01:47:18] ah, I know you. And she says it too. She's like, you have to remember how people see you. Right, he's like the college educated guy. And she has a devastating line. She's like, nobody would ever think you're capable of the things that you've done.

[01:47:31] Which is a judgment right then and there. He's like, I'm sticking with you, but FYI. Yeah, but she's like, I know that you fucking smothered an old man with a, two hands you fucking prick. And I've justified it by the way.

[01:47:41] I understand why you did the things you do. You're not a murderous person. You were put in a difficult position. But I think that's another factor is that like this movie is so much based around the perceptions that people have of each other, right?

[01:47:52] Bill Paxton weaponizing how he's perceived in the town. How Billy Bob Thornton is perceived in the town. Anytime Billy Bob Thornton slips up, he's able to go like, well, you know my brother. Yeah, he's like, well, he heard a plane. Who knows what he heard.

[01:48:03] And I think it's the sense of like, especially in a small Midwestern town or whatever, the decency of you look a man in the eyes, you tell him the truth. Do you buy it or not? When you put social media, the internet, text messages,

[01:48:16] all these things into play, there are too many different types of communication where people can start creating their own perception of you, start asking more questions. The fact that Billy Bob or Paxton can just roll up to someone three days later

[01:48:29] and be like, huh, you know I was thinking. And you can sell that. There's something to that. And that moment where they dump the farmer over the bridge, it's like, Raymie in a wide shot. Like it's like a bird's eye view, right? They're like tiny little ants

[01:48:42] and you just see like just white snow. It's in the middle of broad daylight and they just get out of their truck and they dump this guy over and they're like, I think that looks pretty good. And they drive away, you know? What's up? But they're not paranoid.

[01:48:53] They're not like, go, go, go, go. What are they gonna call, CSI? Like no one's gonna come here and be like, well, actually this guy was smothered. Cause it's like, well, no. But with a smartphone. We're here to investigate.

[01:49:03] With a smartphone, the wrong guy could walk by at any moment, take a picture, ping it, text someone immediately. All that shit. It falls apart. Okay, let me give you some more context about this movie. Right, so they had to move to fucking Ashland, Wisconsin.

[01:49:17] That's where they shot this movie. Because there was no snow. That's where they found their snow. They had just a lot of talk about like, Bill Paxton loved it. I guess Bill Paxton was just a real man of the people type. He strikes me that way.

[01:49:28] The barber in the movie. I saw him once. Very nice guy. Long before I met him, do you remember a motion picture called The Dark Backward? Yes, yes. And before I even saw Slacker, I went to the Angelica Film Center.

[01:49:45] Here in Manhattan, I was gonna say in Manhattan. We're here in Manhattan. We are here in Manhattan. And that was the first movie I saw there. I went cause there was an ad for it. Judd Nelson's in it as is. Paxton, Wayne Newton. Lara Flynn Boyle.

[01:49:59] Lara Flynn Boyle, she was huge. James Caan, who directed that again? Adam Rifkin. Yes, right, right. So they have an ad in the Village Voice where they're like, Judd Nelson, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Bill Paxton are gonna be at the midnight screening.

[01:50:15] And so that's what drives me to New York for the first time is the chance to be in a room with Judd Nelson. Breakfast Club. Bill Paxton, fucking aliens and shit. And of course, Weird Science as well. Yeah, Chet. Shit Toad Chet.

[01:50:31] And Lara Flynn Boyle, who I was a massive Twin Peaks fan at that point. And that's right when that's like hottest. It's huge at that point. I go up to see this movie and they're there, as promised, fucking famous people.

[01:50:42] And I never see famous people in my life. So there they are and shit like that. Before the movie begins, there's a trailer for a motion picture called Slacker. And I go, oh, we should come back and see that. So they're saying Paxton's the fish hook

[01:50:55] that gets you in there. That pulls me into the Angelica, which leads to me eventually seeing Slacker. Now I'm not gonna lay my career at the feet of Paxton. I doubt he would have wanted that. Yeah. Especially in my career. But he would have appreciated, I think,

[01:51:08] the fact that I went to that screening because I told him when I met him through Judd. I was like, there was a screening of The Dark Backward and he remembered that screening. He didn't remember seeing me. I was like, did you see the one random dude

[01:51:22] in the middle of the audience? He's one of those guys where I feel like he had one of the most sterling reputations. Anyone I would talk to working with him. Never heard anything bad about him. That guy, so kind. Even in death, it's not like,

[01:51:33] well, you know what came out afterwards. And incredibly collaborative. And he has such an interesting 90s because he's more of a character actor. He's being viewed the way that Cameron uses him. From the late 80s on. Yes. Essentially from Aliens, Weird Science on,

[01:51:50] he is the dev character guy. Somehow he becomes the leader. Well, it's Twister. And it's weird that he's the guy in Twister. So Twister is what turns him into a leader? Yeah, and then he becomes this sort of surprising normal guy leading man.

[01:52:03] They're in it for the money, not the science. That was his big line. We were just talking about the other guys in the black cars. They're in it for the money, not the science. You feel like Paxton is in that because just being in enough Cameron movies

[01:52:16] makes him a guy who feels comfortable in a blockbuster. But he's not an obvious choice to be the leading man of that movie. And then he carves out this interesting zone because he doesn't have the swagger of a movie star. Probably budget, right?

[01:52:29] At that point they're like, we got Helen Hunt. We got a succumb star. We need another guy. We need a guy who's this. Because they're like, you know who the star is? Fucking Twisters and cows. And early 90s. Mighty Joe Young, he's the lead of that.

[01:52:41] You know who the star of that is? He's in U571. You know who the star of that is? Oh my God, he's a utility man that you could stick into any movie about a thing. He went from being the guy who was the color

[01:52:53] in the corner of the movie. Be Hudson, he could be fucking big. Right? In Near Dark, exactly. To then becoming this odd kind of just like collaborative utility player, leading man, normal guy. That's the key, the two key words is like you could see him letting,

[01:53:10] or you could understand him letting go of the colorful roles because the thing that he never considered while coming up with Cameron was oh, I will be the leading man. The first name on the call. He has no leading man here again. Attractive dude.

[01:53:27] Has all the right fucking elements you'd want in a leading man. And there's something very personable, there's something very Midwestern. He doesn't feel like an everyman but he feels like a normal guy. Where is he from by the way? Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton, let me find out.

[01:53:38] I mean, I'm assuming he's from South America. You wanna say Texas, right? He's from Fort Worth, Texas. Okay, yeah. He feels like a Texan. I mean he had the draw but I didn't know if that was a performance. But you know, he's done a lot of,

[01:53:49] I mean, okay, so but like that, and there's another movie he's in of course around this time. A movie called Titanic. It's kind of a big movie. Big movie, big movie. People forget he's the bookend of that one. I forgot he's the framing device.

[01:54:01] He took everyone in town to go see Titanic because it came out while they were shooting this movie which seems like a fun thing. What do you mean? Like they're in this small town. Like the barber in this movie. So while they're making a simple plan,

[01:54:12] he's like hey, let's go see Titanic. Hey, I'm in this movie. I'm in the boat movie. Let's go see the boat movie. Let's go see it. You're not working on your Paxson. I'm working on it. The barber in this film, that's like the local barber.

[01:54:22] Like they were just kind of bringing in the locals. Like apparently, you know, it's like, it's one of those things like they take over the town. So the town's like hey, sure, what do you need, right? 55 day shoot, snowy, cold, nasty.

[01:54:36] I mean, it seems like it was kind of a pain in the ass to make this movie. But they must be thinking. Like 50 below. 55 tracks for studio drama. Oscar darling, here's a role that on paper this guy's gonna fucking kill it. This feels like a slam dunk nomination.

[01:54:48] And then the middle of this movie coming out, Titanic blows up. And Titanic, the runoff is so strong. And Paxson is the fucking beginning and the end of the movie where that boosts his profile even more. People must have been like we're playing with house money.

[01:55:01] So wait, was Titanic pre or post Twister? Titanic is post. Because Twister's 96 and Titanic's 97 and then this movie comes out in 98. Jim Jacks mentioned here in our research because obviously Sam Raimi famous for his wild camera work, right?

[01:55:19] So he was very much like I had a lot of confidence in the script. I just wanted to put the camera in the right place. I wanted the actors to tell the story. Jim Jacks says Paramount very concerned about his camera work

[01:55:28] and told Jim you are monitoring whether or not he's reigning it in. The studio told like you're on Raimi duty. You're on, exactly. Keep it on sticks. Don't give that guy a fucking track. And let's just, look, we all love this movie obviously.

[01:55:44] We think it's an incredible achievement. But let's just pause for a moment and think about the note behind that note. Essentially a studio, in this instance Paramount, is like you know what Sam Raimi does? Don't let him do that. You better not let him.

[01:56:00] Why the fuck would you hire a guy and be like don't do the thing that you do? It is weird that they'd hire him. And like that probably is, like you're saying, it's the Jim Jacks thing where he's like I can vouch for this guy.

[01:56:12] And they're like you better watch his ass. I'll ride him, I'll ride him. I'm the fucking Sam whisperer. Jack says my biggest job was to sit on set and make sure he didn't do any quote unquote tongue in cheek stuff. Which by the way for hard target,

[01:56:27] Sam Raimi was the backup director because the studio was so terrified of John Woo and they were like how many fucking birds is he gonna put in this thing? Raimi sits behind him and if he's going too crazy day five we fire Woo and Raimi takes over.

[01:56:39] And now Raimi's in a position where they're like you better not do this fucking crazy. Raimi shit. It is funny that they were so against like any kind of maximalist. That was very much a thing of my era. When I first got into the business was

[01:56:54] we love what you do, now change it. Right, tone it down. And they don't seem to do that anymore. No. But then again it's also a different world. Like for example, I was a Sundance kid. John Watts, he was a Sundance kid.

[01:57:09] And then went from one Sundance movie to tiny Sundance movie. Straight into the fucking mainstream. Well that's the thing, there's no longer that like Chris Nolan does Insomnia post Memento. It's like okay, Insomnia a very similar movie to this. Right, you're gonna do your cold crime movie. Quiet.

[01:57:23] You can have some movie stars, you can have a big-ish budget. Let's see how you do. It's a middle step. And now it's just like, you shot Kevin Bacon three weeks in a cop car. You wanna make $250 million Spider-Man? I mean and we were talking about this.

[01:57:35] And what is, have you ever seen Cop Car? Yeah it's pretty good. It's a wonderful movie but what do you think Kevin Feige saw that said Spider-Man? I don't know except that it is like, it tonally probably appealed to him. And this is balancing goofiness and humor

[01:57:51] with a little bit of an edge. But apart from that, I am such a Kevin Bacon slut that I was just kinda like, Kevin Bacon's having a great time. So maybe there's the kind of thing of like, he got every ounce of juice out of this movie star.

[01:58:05] But I also feel like, I don't know how Feige does that though, how he's like, this one. I've heard that Watson's incredible in the room. For having an eye. Oh absolutely. Something to be said for seeing the person

[01:58:18] and being like, oh I think I can get some of them. I think he casts a wide net with these movies, right? Where like Chloe Zhao getting Eternals, people were like where the fuck does that come from? It was like he met with her on Black Widow.

[01:58:30] And he met with her on that because he saw The Rider. And no one else would have made that jump. And it was like we're not ready to hire you for this but Good Meeting will keep you in mind, you know?

[01:58:39] And I think John Watts was probably a wide net, let's meet with this guy, he made a good calling card movie, we'll keep him in mind. And then everything I've heard is that he just pitched the shit out of that movie.

[01:58:48] That he was the guy who had the best take and even if he didn't have the bona fides, they were like his enthusiasm, he seems to have a real handle. And I will tell you something, Feige's like I'm a good backstopper.

[01:58:57] I will stop this from getting out of hand. I'll be Jim Jacks. I'll sit on the set and make sure they make Spider-Man. No one can possibly fuck them up too much now. It's unique, I mean because we've been talking a lot in just going through these episodes

[01:59:10] where it's like when you zoom out, it is wild that Sam Raimi got hired to make Spider-Man. It is wild because he was coming off of three adult dramas and his genre movies were seen as like a little second class, they weren't big blockbusters.

[01:59:23] They just didn't hire nerds to make superhero movies. I mean right, you could say this. If you were too big of a fan, they would get worried. And they were like. They didn't wanna hire, like I remember when I went into the studio, I got that Superman.

[01:59:38] Right, you were on Superman. Right, in the Superman space. My first thing to them was like why don't you hire Mike Carlin who runs the DC Superman group, all the comics in Superman. He's fucking written every Superman story there is.

[01:59:52] And it was Basil Lowanek who went on to, I think he produced Argo and stuff like that, but he was a studio exec at that point. And he goes, yeah, but he's a comic book guy. Right, they're just like no, no, no.

[02:00:05] They did not want comic book guys writing movies, which I'm like, it makes no sense. Now they fucking cherry pick like fucking crazy. By the way, someone on our Reddit was going like why do they keep on talking about how weird it was that Raimi got hired?

[02:00:19] Look at Tim Burton. Batman was his third movie. He had made two comedies for Warner Brothers. And it's like first of all, those two comedies were very successful. They both overperformed. They were both for Warner Brothers. He was in the studio system. They liked him.

[02:00:34] He had a clear vision. And the other thing was they wanted so badly to make Batman into a comedy. There were so many years of development of like let's do Ivan Reitman, Bill Murray Batman. Batman was still based around the Adam West perception. Great issue of Starlog from 1983

[02:00:50] that has Return of the Jedi on the cover, maybe 84. I still have it. But inside there's an interview with Tom Mankiewicz, script doctor Tom Mankiewicz, who was most famous for at that point writing Superman, the movie. With Mario Puzo. With Mario Puzo, but largely himself.

[02:01:08] Who mostly got his shit thrown out. He gives this interview where he talks about doing a very dark Batman compared to the Adam West thing. And they drew, there's an illustration, Mad Magazine type illustration of Batman and Robin and Adam West and Burt Ward in a closet

[02:01:29] and a guy in an armored bat suit slamming the door. Sure, sure. Six years before fucking Batman. So he, I'll never forget this. Because it captured my imagination. He goes for the Penguin we're thinking about Peter O'Toole. Yeah. Where you're like what? That would have been fucking amazing.

[02:01:51] But he also said but like for Batman Bruce Wayne we're thinking Bill Murray but not comedic Bill Murray, Razor's Edge Bill Murray. So they were trying to set the tone. Yeah, yeah. Like it ain't gonna be silly like the other Batman. We're gonna go dark.

[02:02:05] But I mean the cultural perception of Batman was still very much Adam West. And I think Burton gets the job because he's a comedy director and surprises everyone by playing it more straight than people expect. But isn't it also that it's just like

[02:02:16] it's not hallowed ground in the same way back then. Not that they're not treating it with a lot of. No, it's definitely not hallowed ground. There were dollar signs on it. We gotta worry about these comic book people. There's a million directors who are like fuck no,

[02:02:27] I'm not doing a Batman movie. That's ridiculous. And think about it like he, I think he winds up with Batman because he makes two very successful movies. Warner Brothers you get picket a litter. What do you wanna do? These are the Glen Gary leads and shit.

[02:02:42] And in it he recognizes something where he's like oh I could play with Batman. He's not my favorite thing. I think I could do a cool dark version of this. But the jobs aren't as competitive in the way at that time. They're not the desired,

[02:02:56] the brass ring movie jobs. It's not the top of the mountain. I think a lot of people duck in it. I think you're right. I think a lot of people would be like Batman. And I think even with Spider-Man at that point that's still true.

[02:03:05] Spider-Man's the one that changes it all. When that thing becomes the hit upon hits that's when it's like oh shit. Obviously X-Men had been the year before but still it's Mason. I hadn't thought about the fact that Raimi is not the obvious choice at that point. Not really.

[02:03:18] No, he was like I was so convinced. Brilliant choice. So who makes the choice? Well we'll talk about it. I don't know. Who does make the choice? I think it's a combination of Arad and Pascal. Arad obviously is involved. Right, right. But I do think weirdly it's like

[02:03:36] I don't think he ever would have gotten hired for Spider-Man if he hadn't made a simple plan. Because they were like this guy made a grown up picture. He's gotta make us like. I think you're right. You know? He could do it all.

[02:03:49] Speaking of all this I do want to point out. They couldn't predict that he would have gone full fucking MGM musical with Spider-Man and he's gonna make this so stylized. I mean like one beat in three movies and the guy's gotta carry it like herpes

[02:04:00] for the rest of his life. You made Spider-Man dance! It's like come on. That beat is so good too. It's like fucking, that's pure Raimi fan base. It is pure Raimi but that's the thing. It's almost, it's coming out of the box

[02:04:10] and people are like whoa this is so much. They needed Jim Jacks to sit on set and tell him not to Raimi that too much. The other thing that's interesting obviously the whole weird connection of all this is like who was on Spider-Man before Raimi

[02:04:23] is Jim Cameron, right? For years. Yeah, good point. And Bill Paxton's in this movie obviously and he's got this great quote that our researcher dug up where when Paxton and Cameron I guess are making Terminator, Cameron's like let's go see Evil Dead 2. I don't know why.

[02:04:43] No it must have been late in that because Evil Dead 2's late 80s, right? 86? But basically Cameron calls up Bill Paxton and is like have you seen Evil Dead 2 yet? Bill's like what's Evil Dead? It must have been when they were doing Aliens. Bill's like what's Evil Dead 2?

[02:04:57] And Cameron says I'll pick you up in 15 minutes. They go to like a dollar theater, they see Evil Dead 2 at like five in the afternoon. Cameron has already seen it and he's like watch this movie. They watch the movie and at the end he's like

[02:05:10] this guy's a hell of a filmmaker. It's not every day you see a movie that starts a new genre. This is the horror cartoon. So Cameron's just blown away by Raimi. So there is that intermingling. Cameron clearly recognizes this guy is not a hack. Game recognizes game.

[02:05:25] This guy is like a special filmmaker. Paxton apparently was like a runner up for Darkman. Was he really? He'd been circling Raimi before that. There's something really oddly satisfying and even a little bit titillating at knowing that Jim Cameron was like

[02:05:43] I'm gonna take you to see Evil Dead. Isn't it cool? That he was passing it around like the way you pass around. You gotta watch Holy Grail, he's on tape. Pre, I mean it's VHS era I guess, but still right where it's like

[02:05:54] we're going to the fucking dollar theater right now. Like this thing is like a secret. This is a filmmaker taking an actor to see somebody else's film. Look at what this guy's doing to Cameron. And being a big fan of it.

[02:06:05] This is me like a decade plus later having older nerds tell me you gotta fucking watch Evil Dead 2. And the idea that the person who exposes you to Evil Dead 2 is James Camber rather than the guy at the video store. It's true. My other favorite.

[02:06:18] First time I watched that was the guy that made Titanium. My other favorite, basically because all the research is just filled with people being like Ramey's great. Paxton being like I always wanted to work with him because Cameron had turned me on to him. Gary Cole basically says,

[02:06:33] and this is recently, says that's the best movie I've ever been in. And I'm barely in it. And it's still my favorite movie in terms of movies I've been in. I would have to give a long hard think to his career. He's got a long filmography.

[02:06:46] He's got a ton of good movies. He's within fucking four films of being absolutely accurate. If he's not accurate. Isn't that crazy to think that he's like, yeah I've been in 50 movies. And he's like I'm barely in it and still it's the greatest fucking movie.

[02:07:00] And that's the best fucking thing I ever watched. It's an imminently watchable movie which is why I have been watching it for decades. I saw it at the Beverly Center when it first came out on a tiny ass screen that, this is gonna sound gross,

[02:07:14] but my TV screen at home now is bigger than the one we saw at Simple Plan in the tiniest theater. But once it came out on DVD, it never left rotation. It would be a go to sleep film. You said, I mean it's like important

[02:07:29] to your relationship with your wife? Absolutely. It was one of like the five movies upon which are, like and we barely knew each other when she got pregnant and married and stuff. So like you learn a lot about a motherfucker when you go to the movies with them.

[02:07:41] This is how I learned about like, well this is the person I'm spending the rest of my life with who's having our child. You know, the fact that she loved this movie and thought it was brilliant, I was like, well she's smart.

[02:07:52] We have a similar taste in film. But it was also a comfort movie. We've seen it so many times. She could just put it on. It does have a gentle energy as much as it makes you squirm and you're like, Bill don't do it.

[02:08:04] But if you've seen it 100 times, then it's like a warm blanket where you're like, oh here comes all the bad decisions. The ambiance of it is weirdly comforting and the Elfman score is so fucking good and I feel like unlike anything else in his career.

[02:08:17] Elfman doing what Sam Raimi, what we're accusing Sam Raimi of doing here which is not being Sam Raimi. He's not doing Danny Elfman. It's such a good score. And you know, everyone's trying to win an award is what it feels like.

[02:08:30] But not in a way that pisses you off. Not in a thirsty, desperate way. But all the elements were there where it's just like this is a grown ass movie and it could probably win awards. And everyone challenging themselves. One of the best scenes in the movie, right,

[02:08:44] is I'm sure you guys agree, is that monologue that Thornton does about his high school girlfriend. Right? In the car. Like an incredible, probably his Oscar clip I guess. I don't know what it was. I don't know. Him at the end of the movie where he goes like,

[02:08:59] tell the girl the bear's from me. We do that. It's fucking devastating. All that stuff with the bear actually really messed me up. Especially when she's like judgy about the bear. She's like this dirty old thing. And he's like no, this is the bear from my childhood.

[02:09:13] She's like oh, okay. Right. But that scene, that's Ramey just, again, he's not moving the camera around. He's not doing like, because on Quick of the Dead there's a lot of stories of him being like okay Gene Hackman, I have eight camera setups I want to do.

[02:09:26] You're gonna cock your gun. You're gonna tip your hat. And Hackman's like I hate this shit. Is that right? That's Quick of the Dead. It was a dead by a thousand hats for him. Right. Where as Simple Plan, Ramey's like I'm leaving the camera running.

[02:09:38] Thornton improvised that entire speech. That's a real story from his life. You're shitting. Yeah, that's from my childhood. That's not in the book. No, Thornton says we were losing the light and I just kinda told that story kinda at the end of the day.

[02:09:54] I didn't prep anyone for it and I didn't like talk about it with anyone afterward. Wow. And like Ramey was just like, that was like watching theater for me. Like that was just like oh shit. It's incredible. Isn't that cool? What a great catch. Yeah.

[02:10:09] Could you imagine you're already making a pretty cool movie and then all of a sudden somebody's like oh by the way, here. As you said, guys are doing a performance of a lifetime already. This is a good movie. This is like an A movie.

[02:10:18] Could be an A plus though. Could I give you a little? Yeah, right. I think I'm gonna give you something deeply personal which is going to make this so much more real. Like one of the darkest memories of my life. The heartbreaking thing in that scene is like,

[02:10:31] so much of the movie is Paxton reckoning with the fact that everyone thinks he's kind of arrogant, right? That he thinks he's the normal every man. He's the center of the story. Right. And that he. Which by the way, is set up before the movie even begins.

[02:10:47] Like where he's like last week you said that was an insinuation and you're like why are you talking about shit happening before the movie began? But they trust the audience will be able to follow. Right and it starts where you're just like this weird anti-intellectualism everyone has

[02:11:00] against this guy. And as the movie goes on his weird areas of elitism are revealed, right? Like you do understand how much he does kind of pity his brother in a gross way. Right. You know where he does think less of him. Yeah, he does.

[02:11:15] And he's always told himself like well I don't have to worry about him that much because he had that girlfriend one time. You know like this weird thing where it's like I know my brother dated a girl for a month 20 years ago

[02:11:25] so I'm never going to question the fact that I've never seen him interact with a woman ever again. And when he makes that comment about like oh if I was rich I could get a girl. And he's like you met that one girl

[02:11:34] in high school for a month and Thornton just unpacks it and goes like that whole thing was a fucking mirage and you see the reaction on Paxton's face where he just suddenly immediately realizes the depths of this man's loneliness which have never been revealed to him before

[02:11:50] and that he never took the time to investigate. To really check in on how is my brother doing emotionally on this level. It tracks with the dad stuff where he finds out the dad killed himself. This guy's been living his own life in his own story.

[02:12:04] He refuses to believe that anything in his life could have put pressure on his father to a degree that he would have to make a decision like that. He can't think about darkness. No. And like then when he's doing this shit it's just coming out of nowhere.

[02:12:16] Where you're like he can't, right. But the speed at which Thornton turns the thing around and like when Paxton starts pitying him again but really in an empathetic way for the first time arguably in the whole movie that he's like it actually wasn't that bad.

[02:12:30] When I saw her in the hallway after that she'd still say hi to me. He genuinely is like no that was a nice relationship. He's a guy that's used to living with so little. Which is kind of what makes that a modicum of respect.

[02:12:42] Even a tiny bit is mana in the desert and shit. Yeah. That's the best way out of this. There's a nobility to him. It's true even in that scene where he's just like this is the smartest plan. Like this will work. I'm not saying it's the right thing

[02:12:57] but where he's like I've thought this through. You have a kid, her life's more important. What am I gonna amount to in the world? Like I don't feel bad about this. And also he's just like I can't live with this shit. Right.

[02:13:09] He's like I can't think about this every day. I don't have the processes to. What do you want to say Ben? Well we're celebrating the dramatic parts like the sad parts of the performance. He is so funny. He's fucking hysterical.

[02:13:20] And the scene that I feel like we just I want to make sure we mention it is when he is doing the impression of Bill Paxton. He's like do the bird. You ever see someone drink like that? That is so Asian. It is insane.

[02:13:33] Him ducking the bird makes me laugh every fucking time. Where he does his face. And the way he changes too and you see how he hangs with this friend and how their relationship, how they hang out, how they joke around. And at first you're sitting there going

[02:13:45] like he's selling out his fucking brother. He's fucking it up. Yeah and then all of a sudden he's like oh shit. He's turning around. That's the scene where you start to realize what his intelligence is. Right, he's not the Rick Simpleton. Because you're like this is him doing

[02:13:55] the same shit he did where he walked up to the sheriff and said like you talking about the plane? Where he's like overplaying his hand, getting sloppy, unable to stick to his allegiances. And then there's that moment where Paxton's like

[02:14:07] we should leave, we should leave, shut this down. He doesn't want Billy Bob Thornton to blow it and Billy Bob Thornton doubles down and he's like no, don't be a fucking coward about this. You stay here. And you think that it's just he's gonna vent

[02:14:19] all of his pent up anger at his brother. Which I think he is doing. He does genuinely. He's having his cake and eating it too. In a roundabout way. But he's also like. He's fucking really putting the screws to Hank but then he releases it.

[02:14:30] You're nailing this harder than you think I am. Your plan was not gonna work. You are not gonna be able to sell this. I can get through to him and it's gonna eat me up inside that I fucking, I mean he has the line in that scene

[02:14:42] where he's like you're more of a brother to me than he ever is. I got nothing to hide. Which is right. I mean it feels true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah that is great. The only thing we haven't mentioned at all

[02:14:52] is just the brutality of the post Jacob's death stuff where it's like now you have to burn the money. Now you have to live. That's the sweetest plum bro. Exactly. Now you gotta be alive. That's when you're watching the movie and you're like oh this is delicious.

[02:15:07] Cause you know you're watching the movie and you're like this ends with a mobster cutting Bill Paxton's head off right? Like eventually he gets enough for his head. I don't know. I'm trying to think like what I would have imagined cause I'd have to go back to like 98

[02:15:19] but what I would have imagined the ending would be. Cause you just keep thinking like. It never was that though. The professionals might show up right? Like this was a whole thing. This was some drug run. This was some bounty. It's become a more conventional thriller earlier.

[02:15:31] When Gary Cole shows up you're like okay are we finally cooking with gas? And then it's like no no Paxton gets to live. He gets to live in this prison like he's made for himself forever. How do you feel about the voiceover beginning and end?

[02:15:44] I don't mind it. I don't mind it at all. I like Paxton narration. One thing I did not remember when I watched the movie this time. You were sort of like oh there's a. I bumped into it not in a bad way

[02:15:54] where I was like fuck this movie but I was like I don't remember there being narration. Are you anti voice? I'm trying to think if you use voiceover. I don't know that I've ever used it. Little bit at the beginning of Jersey Girl

[02:16:04] but that was like a fix in post. But generally no I don't think I've ever used it. Because obviously it has a bit of a you know. Some people are like oh you can. But he does it very sparingly. It's in the beginning and then at the end.

[02:16:15] I think it's good it's novelistic. Almost like Presumed Innocent opens the same way. There's a bit of narration in the beginning. No Country also the beginning with Tommy Lee Jones over just sort of the planes where it's just kind of like

[02:16:26] this is more of a tone setting thing than anything else. It's what kind of tale we're telling. And this movie is not ending with a punch. It's not ending with a sort of like you're rattled. Roll credits get the fuck out of here.

[02:16:38] Which I like it when a movie does that obviously. But this movie's like and that's the rest of it. And six more decades of Bill Paxton feeling this way. That's what's gonna happen. Can I read what the book ending is? It's fun it's like the movie you imagine

[02:16:51] after the movie ends is equally as enjoyable because you're like oh they're both in hell. Yeah exactly. It's a Twilight Zone ending. Periodically they must talk about it. Because I love Fargo right? Which is obviously sort of a cousin to this movie right?

[02:17:05] But Fargo ends you're like it's a bloodbath. Everyone's dead or in jail. People are being punished accordingly. Marge goes home her husband got the fucking duck stamp and you're just like oh thank god. One good thing. You're just like a little tear rolled down. It's gonna be alright.

[02:17:20] She's gonna have her baby. And granted it's only the tree scent stamp but still. People need the tree scent stamp when they raise the postage. All this over a little bit of money. And this it's just you're just like holy shit

[02:17:34] this is some like evil Aesop fable thing where it's like he's just tortured. But that's the thing it's like the worst case scenario in a way you're expecting that either there will be all this blood, there will be all this suffering

[02:17:47] but he will get away with the money at the end and the question is was it worth it right? Or you're expecting a horrible tragic ending where everyone fucking dies right? Or jail. He telegraphs the ending three times in the movie.

[02:17:59] He's like I'll burn it I swear to god I'll burn it. And it is kind of the most tragic ending which is he has to sit there and watch the money burn. He has to stand there and watch it burn and recognize this was truly for nothing.

[02:18:11] My brother is dead. All these people are dead including my brother. I will never get over this. I've seen my wife change. We have a child. We're just gonna be these ghosts who raise a child. Right. This is how the book ends okay?

[02:18:22] So like same basic run of events. Jacob dies earlier. Jacob dies earlier. I think the book, the husband wife relationship is more prominent than the brother relationship and I think probably largely because of Billy Bob they shift the focus right? Wisely. Very much so. Jacob dies earlier.

[02:18:39] Things proceed fairly similarly. When the FBI tells him that well those. Yeah we had 20 agents writing bills down. Right. He realizes that he already spent one of the bills at a convenience store. I'm just gonna read this from the Wikipedia okay? Oh shit.

[02:18:59] Sarah tells Hank sorry that she has already spent one of the bills at a convenience store. He goes there to steal it back. In a fight with the cashier, Hank kills the man with a machete. When an elderly woman demands to be let into the store

[02:19:10] he kills her as well. Hank flees with the bill and is never suspected. Hank goes home and burns the money over Sarah's protest. In the epilogue Sarah has a baby boy whom they name Jacob. A few weeks after the birth their daughter nearly drowns

[02:19:24] in a wading pool and suffers permanent brain damage. Hank and Sarah accept this as a punishment for their crimes. Hank narrates that he pictures his brother Jacob from time to time but only because his memory makes him feel more human. So the ending is much more bleaker.

[02:19:38] Much bleaker and nastier. And this just leaves you with the note of as you said what do they fucking do with themselves? That little girl, their daughter. Yes. It's too much, you can't do it. She's not real so we could. She is not real.

[02:19:50] We either saw a relief but she. She drowns in his brain damage. In a kiddie pool and has brain damage? Has brain damage, yeah. And they're like the Lord did this to us? Yeah this is the punishment for what we did.

[02:19:59] That's one thing that seems to be missing in this movie. It's very midwestern but there's not a lot of reference to God and faith and religion. Yeah there's no higher morality. But it does feel biblical. It's a real morality. It's more subterranean. That is a dark fucking ending.

[02:20:13] And two machetes. Two more bodies. Yes. Two more bodies and another crime scene he mysteriously. The sheriff's just like I don't know, people just are dying this year. What can I say? It takes a gifted author to make. To pair that up.

[02:20:26] You could put it through a comedic fucking filter and this is Penn and Teller get killed. Absolutely. Or something like that. It's just a series. Which I think is also George Warhel. We have to play the box office on Griffin. Yes. Because we're wrapping up here.

[02:20:39] But this is a very interesting box office game. Kevin this is the same thing I do. My father and I bonded as a child because my brother liked sports and I did not. He would read the sports scores with my brother in the paper every day

[02:20:50] and then once a week I had my. Movie stats. Yeah. Nice. Monday morning open up the business section of the New York Times look at the top 10. Because of this, because it's the backbone of my emotional relationship with my father

[02:21:02] I have a weird memory for box office charts. He knows a lot of box office. So we're gonna try and guess the top five. There was a guy who's now recently a listener of our show who programmed a wordle style game where everyday

[02:21:12] you have to guess the top five. Of a random movie. Inspired by our podcast. It's a really good game. It's called box office. Guh.me. Okay but top five for this movie. This movie never got like a hyper wide release.

[02:21:22] No it came out, so this movie came out December 11th, 98. Okay. A real you know limited release. Yeah. And pushing for Oscar. Pushing for Oscar. Real awards season release. This was an awards season. It made 16 million dollars which was about its budget. So you know. Opening weekend 16?

[02:21:37] No no no. Total. Total. So not great. Right and it gets screenplay and Thornton. It got two nominations which it lost. So whatever. We were hoping for like well the Oscar steam. We'll get us to 35, 40. Yeah exactly. It'll play for months.

[02:21:52] And it's weird because it got good reviews. It got Oscar nominations but it never just quite whatever. It's the year of so you got Sam Pepper Ryan Thin Red Line. Right. Life is Beautiful is kind of a phenomenon right. There's a lot of other.

[02:22:04] Is this the year that he climbs across the chairs and shit? Yep. Benini? Yeah. Sam Raimi would not have done that. Not at all. All right number one at the box office though. Excuse me buddy I'm stepping on your chair.

[02:22:15] Oh buddy why'd you have to step on me buddy? I got my detux on buddy. December 11th, 98 Griffin number one is a sci-fi sequel. It's new this week. Is it Star Trek Insurrection? Yes. Okay. Star Trek Insurrection which is the third

[02:22:28] Rick Hard movie with F.Bury Abraham as the villain. Wrinkle Man. Right. This is the plastic surgery aliens right. Yes. Not the most successful. The second Jonathan Frakes film after the viral success of First Contact which he also directed. Okay so I just remember my friend Cure Kramlich

[02:22:44] wanted to see this and I had never seen an episode of a Star Trek show nor a Star Trek movie and I said I'm not gonna jump in on Insurrection and I definitely voted for something else in the top five to see instead I'm trying to remember.

[02:22:55] There must have been some. You're like Mary Lou Henner bro. You've got a photographic fucking memory. Only with this but I'm just trying to think there was some dumb fucking baby. I don't remember what time we are ever such. Well you're probably gonna get,

[02:23:07] okay so number two is an animated film. Fully animated. Absolutely. The Rugrats movie? No that is number five. Prince of Egypt? No. Ants? You're close. I'm close. Bug's Life? Oh it's a Bug's Life. A Bug's Life. I can't believe that was my fourth guess.

[02:23:22] I know I was like jeez you're the Pixar boy. So wait that was number two? Bug's Life is number two. Okay. And Rugrats movie as he already guessed is number five so you got two animated movies in there. Bug's Life is in like weekend two or three.

[02:23:34] It's in weekend four. Thanksgiving okay. It's made 83 million dollars. Now I don't even wanna do number three yet cause it's such a big boy. Okay we'll come back around. Number four is a thriller with a movie star who's recently been in the news.

[02:23:49] It is Enemy of the State. Oh shit. Pretty fun movie. Jason Lee's in that too. He sure is. There's a lot of fun in that movie. There's a lot of guys in that movie. Jack Black. Seth Green. A lot of people just mixing it up. Jamie Kennedy.

[02:24:03] Enemy of the State that's a Tony Scott movie of course. Now number three, it's new this week. We've mentioned it on this episode. On this episode. Family Dramedy. It's a family dramedy. It's got a supernatural twist. In 98 with a supernatural twist. It's not a good movie.

[02:24:20] It's not a good movie. No. We mentioned it. We have mentioned, it was widely discussed right at the top of this episode. It was widely discussed right at the top of the context about A Simple Plan. Oh is it Jack Frost? It's Jack Frost.

[02:24:34] I did not know this. It was out at the same time. Jack Frost comes out against A Simple Plan. They're both new this week. And you're sitting there going like, I got money for one snowy movie. What am I gonna see? Does this snowman find money?

[02:24:48] I'm gonna see the George Clooney fucking Frosty picture. Did Jack Frost outgrow A Simple Plan? I bet it was close. It did. It made $34 million. That doubled. That's rude. So some other movies were in the top 10. Think about it. Jack Frost is everything you think of

[02:25:05] when you think of a movie. Something unrealistic. You're gonna take on an adventure. A Simple Plan could have literally happened to somebody. And by the way, I guarantee you, that is the movie I convinced Keir Cramer to see instead of Star Trek Insurrection. No question.

[02:25:18] I mean I'm sure you saw the Rugrats movie, you saw Bug's Life. I had seen both of those movies three times by this point. I'm saying this weekend I would have gone to see Jack Frost. Some other movies in the top 10. The Waterboy. Okay. Oh shit.

[02:25:29] Meet Joe Black. Oh shit. Babe Pig in the City. Notorious Bomb, which we've covered on this podcast. Yes, an episode that everyone likes. Uberly successful babe. George Miller being like, fuck you, I'm making this. That's a perfect example of a blank check.

[02:25:41] George Miller going, I'm taking it back. Gus Van Sant's Psycho, which we just discussed. That's what we referenced earlier. In its second week has dropped 62%. Audiences are like, no thank you. The idea behind the making of that movie, as he said many times, is like, nobody watches Psycho.

[02:25:57] So what if I did it in color? Somebody's gonna do it, so thanks for being here. I defend that movie. I think that movie is fascinating. We talk about that movie on, I've been on a number of podcasts historically. I've been doing it since 2007. Hollywood Babble Run.

[02:26:11] This isn't your first time? This is not my first. I don't know if you could tell by my raconteur nature. We talk about, there's a moment in Psycho, a very famous moment, where she gets killed in the shower. Yeah, heard of it, yeah. And when Anne Heche.

[02:26:29] Sometimes called the shower scene. The shower scene. When Anne Heche is the one getting killed in the shower, she's stabbed, she falls forward. The overhead shot has her brown eye on full display. One of the only times you've ever seen a major motion picture actor asshole. Butthole, yeah.

[02:26:47] Not their cheeks. I know what you're talking about. Fucking sphincter. That was the thing that like, I don't care what Gus Van Sant did with Psycho, I was like, did anybody else see that? That's a choice. That is, I mean, how do you,

[02:26:58] that would never happen again in this day and age. Somebody would digitally erase that butthole. Sure, it would be airbrushed or whatever. They digitally erase. But they let it sit there and ride, and if you're like an asshole fetishist, if you go to Pornhub and you're like,

[02:27:09] only assholes, you can literally enjoy Gus Van Sant's Psycho for that three seconds. That's my new only fans competitor I'm launching, which is only assholes. We're gonna promise you one hole and only one hole. That's it. And you don't even know who it belongs to.

[02:27:22] Do you know that Disney Plus in their Splash, if you watch Disney Plus, the version of Splash, they have digitally erased Daryl Hannah's butt crack? They didn't erase it, they extended her hair over it. Did you know that? Yes, but it's weird.

[02:27:37] So what, in the scene when she's on the, When she gets out of the water. A Statue of Liberty and walks around. Any time you see her tush in that movie, she no longer has a butt crack. It is covered in, you know, obscenely long.

[02:27:48] So you're saying they would never let, That movie already had a PG rating. Absolutely. You're saying they would never let someone show butthole again. They won't even let people show crack anymore in movies that were made 35 years ago.

[02:27:58] Is that, was that, yeah, that was always a Disney movie. It was Touchstone. It was always Touchstone, yeah. Her ass was in the movie. Changing standards. It's one of those classic 80s things where you're like, oh there's a butt in a PG movie, you know,

[02:28:08] it was like exciting. Yeah, but I mean, it's not even, was it? It's a fairly chaste. Yeah, I don't even remember like the cheeks spreading or anything like that. No, that's what I'm saying, no butthole. And they still felt the need to protect us

[02:28:19] from Daryl Hannah's 40 year old ass? Yeah. Ass from 40 years ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Splash and beat. It's wild. Kevin, thank you so much for doing this. This is fun. You guys should be happy that I don't live out here. I'd be here every week and you're like,

[02:28:33] we don't want you to be here, but I'd be like, oh I wanna talk about things. We'll lasso you in again. Yeah, you'll be back. Deeply satisfying, gents. What a cool concept for a show. What a great conversation. You know, I remember on my way over,

[02:28:45] I was just like, we're gonna talk about film? And I was so fucking delighted to talk about film. That's fantastic. And I mean look, we have two great researchers who work for our show and dig up a lot of incredible stuff,

[02:28:57] but the Jim Jacks context I think was incredibly important and we would not have gotten it otherwise. I came loaded for bear, I had a thing. So I was happy. Aside from wanting to talk about this movie because I feel this is his masterwork.

[02:29:08] And Sam Raimi is a brilliant director. He's done many brilliant movies, but this movie, even though it doesn't look a fucking thing like a Sam Raimi movie, is an absolute fucking masterwork. I wonder how he feels about it. I do too. I wonder if he's complicated.

[02:29:25] When he did Drag Me to Hell, it's like, oh he's doing kind of an Evil Dead kind of thing. He's never done something like this again. There's a couple things. Could be his Jersey Girl where he's like, you know I tried a thing and I got fucking spanked

[02:29:36] and I will never go back there again. He's signed up for a couple things in the last 10 or 15 years that didn't come to fruition that were closer to this. Yeah, that's true. But they never. He was gonna remake a Prophet, the French movie that won the Prism Prize.

[02:29:49] And I think there was one or two other dramas that he attached himself to at some point. He'd find a hot Blacklist script. I don't know man, I've seen the trailers. Multiverse of Madness looks like it's a rerun of A Simple Plan to be honest. You're actually right.

[02:30:02] It's very similar. They go to every universe and they see if there's one where they get away with taking the money. No, fuck, Jesus. You killed me in this one, what's going on? Thornton's got the farm, it's doing great. Gary Cole is president? The farm's doing great.

[02:30:17] Farm's blowing up. They're gonna kick us out of the studio. We gotta be done. Everyone should watch Masters of the Universe Revelation. That's great, we haven't talked about that. A phenomenal show that you were a showrunner on. I'm very proud to be part of it.

[02:30:28] Your performance is wonderful and your episode as we say in the run. Episode four is the big one. Yeah, big orcer up. But thank you for that. And I look forward to hopefully finding other ways we can work together. Absolutely, fucking A. Yeah. Thank you all for listening.

[02:30:47] Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to JJ Birch and Nick Lariano for our research. AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing. Lane Montgomery, the great American novel for our theme song. Pat Rounds and Joe Bone for our artwork. Marie Barty for our social media

[02:31:02] and helping put the show together. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to all the nerdy things, merch, Reddit, what have you. Tune in next week for Love of the Game. Yeah, I can't remember. We always forget. It's for the love or for love. It doesn't matter.

[02:31:20] There's one the and it feels like there should be two but one of them is missing. For Love of the Game. And you can go to patreon.com slash blankcheck with Blank Check special features where we're doing not all Batman. Yeah, that's right.

[02:31:31] The Batman movies we haven't covered. So every Batman movie not directed by Tim Burton or Chris Nolan. Or Chris Nolan. Thank you all for listening. And I just wanna, not to put on a blast but one more time, Ben's text last night excitedly

[02:31:46] while watching this movie was all caps exclamation point cold crime. Cold crime. I love it when it's icy baby.