A Star Is Born

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Don't know what to say or to express All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check

[00:00:21] I started writing this song the other day. Maybe that could work as a chorus or something I'm off the deep end, watch as I dive in I'll never meet the ground Crash through the surface where they can't hurt us Far from the podcast now Good. Thank you. Good.

[00:00:47] She said, you know, she goes on a high register sometimes. It's hard. Hey. Hey. Just want to get another podcast. I just want to get another podcast. Oh, just want to... It's actually a little more... Hey. Hey.

[00:01:01] I just want to take a look at you. Like it's actually a little less slurred than I... Hey. Hey. All you gotta do is podcast. You gotta respond. Hey. What? I just want to get another podcast. David's doing the nose thing. Yeah, baby.

[00:01:18] Hello everybody. I've already done a full set of rendition of the song. We got nowhere to go, but I'll from the shallows. My name is Griffin Newman. I'm David Sims. This is a blank check with Griffin and David's podcast about filmographies. Yes.

[00:01:30] Directors who have massive success early on in their career give a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. Baby. Baby. Sometimes all you gotta do is trust him. Baby.

[00:01:46] I really just feel like he's talking to everyone when he says that. To the studio executives, you know, to the audience, to Lady Gaga. All you gotta do is trust me. All you gotta do is trust me. That's all you gotta do. That's all you gotta do.

[00:02:05] Is that what this is going to be for like the next two hours? All you gotta do is trust me, Ben. Hey. That's all you gotta do. David. Hey. What? I just want to get another photo. No, just want to get a look at you.

[00:02:20] He's almost Orson Wellesian at times. The French champagne and. What if this was a movie about her falling in love with Orson Welles at like Paul Masson time? You know what I mean? It's the same. It's a star's board, but it's back to acting right? Oh, like that.

[00:02:41] And like the best champagne is fermented in the bottle. I don't know if the mic is picking you up. Can we boost these levels like hardcore? Sure. I think you mean uh-huh. Uh-huh. So this is. Sorry. Okay, come on. Okay. Thank you all for listening.

[00:03:08] Please remember to rate. You're not right. We should keep it moving. Thanks, Sam, for good. This is a kind of a new thing for us, which is like we're far from the shallows now.

[00:03:20] But the other thing is that we try to do some new release movies when they come up and once feel important even outside of the sort of directors. Jack Reacher never go back. Right. When films feel important or a hotel transloving at three summer vacation.

[00:03:36] Detective Pikachu not to spoil a new episode. Right. Exactly. When it feels like oh the culture is hinging here. Right, we're in the beginning of a shift. At a fulcrum point.

[00:03:52] It is I do look at how much I have soiled this podcast with my influence and I look at like almost all of the things. Go on, go on. No, it's like okay, you know Ben's always like you know it's good for like ratings

[00:04:06] when we do new movies. It's like obviously other than our franchise and new directors let's look for the ones that jump out and almost all of them are children's films. Like it's good for our ratings when we do new movies like hotel trans I mean I

[00:04:17] even looked at the ratings but was that like a significant you know did the Transylvanians roll up. They did not official. I'll tell you something great episode though Fran Hoffner told me best episode of the year for really yes. I'll tell you something. I heard that Robert smile.

[00:04:34] I could listen to that episode. Are you serious? Yeah, really? I don't want to reveal my sources but I was talking somewhere who had gotten into the podcast and has worked. It was Drac. Who had worked with Smigel and was like you know I've been listening to his

[00:04:49] podcast they did a whole episode on the whole Transylvanian movies and he was like wait people like that. They did? I wrote those in a day. He obviously knows they're successful but people talk about those seriously.

[00:05:01] I would assume that he is he thinks that you know it's all kids like no one no grown up would care about that but he's not met Gryffindor. Right. Then he listened to the podcast and he's like oh one of these is a kid, right?

[00:05:12] Is it that like camera Jackson guy? So this is a rare modern release that isn't starring talking animals that we're going to cover on the podcast. Or about Wars in Stars. Right. Or DC Superheroes. God we are such children. Right? Yeah.

[00:05:33] But in the same way that doing the Hotel Transylvania series, wink wink, now made Gendi Tardikovsky a director we have to cover from here on out. That's fine. I'm fine with that. We're kind of putting a claim in this director now.

[00:05:44] I mean I think by doing this episode we're going to have to cover any other films he directs right and this guy is going to keep directing. Fine by him. I can't wait to see what he does next because it's either going to rule

[00:05:53] or suck like you know what I mean. He's doing the Bernstein movie. Didn't he get the Bernstein rights from Spielberg? He's doing the Bernstein. David. He's doing the Leonard Bernstein movie. I regret to inform you that the Mandela effect has taken over you. Yeah, I know.

[00:06:06] I was doing a joke. He's doing the Leonard Bernstein Bears. But that's a movie that like it has died so many times but yes you're right. I forgot he got the announcement. Right. He seems to be going after aggressively. He wants to get another look at it.

[00:06:21] But this is a rare example of... Because that's why Fukunaga jumped to Bond. Right. Yeah. Because he had the competing Jake Gyllenhaal which probably would have been a good bet. Gyllenhaal is a good group. It doesn't matter. Yeah it doesn't matter.

[00:06:34] I wouldn't have thought Bradley Cooper would be good as like a roots rock fucking musician. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. This is a rare example and I feel like this has come up in discussions on the reddit

[00:06:49] and such recently or like what are examples of first time filmmaker getting a blank check? And this is really one of those. Yeah. And it's a big example because it's happening at such a high level.

[00:07:02] Today in terms of the budget, the freedom they gave him be in terms of the hype for the movie and what feels like is going to be a fucking insane box office and awards run.

[00:07:13] And the other examples like this are usually similar leading men, movie stars who are also taken seriously as real deal actors who get to make crazy big debut films like Dances with Wolves. Sure. Right. And it's like let me use, I really want to make this thing.

[00:07:32] That's a dance that we know. I think studios were like, yeah. And so let me use all the capital I built up on the acting side, get some money, just make the thing I want to make.

[00:07:42] And that movie when it was coming out, people called it Kevin's Gate. They were like, this is his act of hubris that's going to sink him. And you know the thing is like he wasn't even that big.

[00:07:51] Like, I mean he was a big deal but it's pretty early in his career. That's when he becomes the number one guys after that movie. So you think of Costner fame, right? But almost all of his I feel like really iconic roles are Dances with Wolves on.

[00:08:06] I'm trying to, I'm going to take a double look. I feel like that's the crazy box office run yet. You know because he'd done okay. He'd done Silverado and the Untouchables and Bull Durham and Field Dreams. So I take it back. He'd had a very big run.

[00:08:18] Those are three big ones but then post that he's got Robin Hood, JFK, the bodyguard. Those are his biggest box office movies. Yeah. Yeah. Costner. I guess it's right in the middle. Yeah. Beatty is another example. Sure.

[00:08:31] But Reds is the one that feels most blank check for him and that was second after Heaven Can Wait, which is like a pretty standard type of debut film. Kind of. And I think the reason he directed that is some there's like right like someone else

[00:08:42] was going to do it. He co-directed it with Buck Henry. Yeah. There's some weird story with that movie where I think he was initially just going to star. Right. I think he wanted to do, as you say, sort of like take a run at directing to get ready

[00:08:56] for his right stuff. But this is closer to Dance of the Wolf things and I don't think there was as much negative press but I feel like there was a lot of like why is Bradley Cooper doing Star's Born Again? Why is Lady Gaga in it?

[00:09:07] Like it felt weird that he was making it. And I remember reading a lot of snarky like that movie Disaster until the trailer came out and then became AFI's number one highest rated movie in history. I mean that trailer became the number one AFI film ever, right?

[00:09:23] 100 years, 100 movies or whatever. Funny times for funny people. Yeah, funny times for funny people. And Sight and Sound was like we know we're supposed to wait like another like four years. The Library of Congress opened their doors. Right.

[00:09:37] I mean, Erlich tweeted like it's become clear to me that the Star's Born Trailer 1 is one of the most important films of the decade. But it kind of does feel that way in terms of like the weird cultural impact it's had

[00:09:49] and especially for a trailer that's not an event film. So yeah, it's like obviously Star's Born is a Star's Born. There's been as many of them, you know, and it was going to be made.

[00:10:00] But yeah, I feel like when it got, well look, I'm going to say this as delicately as possible. Please do. I think I've said it to you before. Yeah. When I heard that Bradley Cooper, actor, celebrity, was writing and directing and starring in a Star is Born. Yeah.

[00:10:15] That movie like Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand. Three times before. Yeah, you know, have occupied the roles before with Lady Gaga. Yeah. I don't think I expected the movie to look like this. Neither. I thought that was a bad idea. No, not so much.

[00:10:30] I just thought it would be a campier movie because it was being written and directed by Bradley Cooper and that's it. The boat has left and I'm not talking about it anymore. I did not expect a, like when the trailer opened, Lady Gaga, more what I expected.

[00:10:49] I expected like a stripped down kind of Lady Gaga. That had actually been on my radar. Did not expect Bradley Cooper to look like he had just gone through a shoe shine machine and be all red face and like... You expected maybe more American Hustle Bradley Cooper. Exactly.

[00:11:05] A lot more glossier, more sort of, how do you describe it? You know, over the top. There's a word I'm looking for here that I'm forgetting. Look, I think it's an interesting movie star because he doesn't have one distinctive persona, right? No, no, he likes to fuck around.

[00:11:24] But I think one of the things that has become a trademark of his, if not the trademark, is that sort of like live wire manic angry man. Energy. I mean, certainly in like recent things where he's popping up like Joy and you know. You know what?

[00:11:41] Joy, he's actually very understated. So he's so good at that movie. He's the best part of that movie. He is. Yeah. He's been the best part of a few movies. I think let's just step back and talk about his career

[00:11:52] because his career is fascinating because he has become one of the top leading men in Hollywood, but it took him much longer than most other top leading men. Yeah. How old do you think Brad Brad's is 43? I think you're right. Let's see. Yeah. Turn 44 in January nailed it.

[00:12:12] I just think in terms of his contemporaries, his contemporaries who are his contemporaries? We got like someone like the Caprio or Walberg in terms of Walberg. Yeah. I mean they were big in the 90s. That's what I'm saying. 2000 star. But this is my point in terms of age.

[00:12:28] He is the same age as people like that. I guess so. Sure. He was so young. Yeah. Right. They were like teen stars and Walberg of course. Right. Like Will Smith. He had to start beating up people with baseball bats. Yes. I'm just talking about age class.

[00:12:44] I get what you're saying. You go like Clooney, Pitt, Cruz obviously are all like sort of a decade old. Damon's more contemporary with Cooper in terms of age. Is he not? In terms of age, he's a little older than him.

[00:12:59] But I mean, but he got started in the 90s too. That's my point I'm making. The school ties kids are who I'm thinking of right now. My point is that he is the same age as the guys who got started in the 90s.

[00:13:08] But it took him longer to pop. Right. I'm lumping Damon in this. Yes. Right. Right. An aphlec. That's what I find pretty fascinating about because he is a guy who really just sort of like, it took a while. Can you tell me this for a film credit?

[00:13:22] What happened American Summer. Right. Which he missed his graduation from the actor studio at Pace University in order to be in that film. He famously is in the crowd asking a question of DeNiro. Who is it? Who is it? Tell me.

[00:13:37] Louis C.K. has one of the many things that Louis C.K. has said that have now been proven to be wrong and disgusting. Oh, OK. He did a bit on Opie and Anthony or something where he was talking about how embarrassing it is on inside the

[00:13:48] actor studio when a student asks a question of one of the big movie stars. Right. And he was like, if you're one of the kids in the audience and inside the actor studio and you ask the person a question, you will never ever make it as an actor.

[00:14:00] Right. If you're some kid asking fucking Robert DeNiro question, you're never going to make it as an actor. Right. And there are like four different YouTube clips that now circulate of Bradley Cooper with long hair looking really earnest. Right.

[00:14:11] There's one where he asks DeNiro a question who then becomes his co-star many times over. Penn is the one I'm seeing here. Penn is another one and there are three of them, I think. But he was just like a very kind of serious like acting student kid.

[00:14:24] Acting school kid. Not necessarily someone who was like moving on Hollywood. Which move? Yes. He likes the craft. He was not a guy who like, you know, moved to Hollywood after high school and was like, I'm going to be a movie star.

[00:14:35] He's a guy who's like, I'm going to fucking study for 10 years. Yeah. Let's see. He went, he's from Philly. I grew up on the main line, I think his dad was a stockbroker. Yeah. He had a thing in his ear as this character did

[00:14:47] that fucked up his ear for a while when he was a kid. Yada, yada, yada. I don't know worked on the newspaper, auditioned for the actor studio. James Lipton was like, do you know what James Lipton impression? Can we speak to Jackson main? That was not good.

[00:15:06] That was more Morgan Freeman. Hey, can we is Jackson main here with us Lipton's retiring right? I heard that he is like a new rotating host for the new season. Not into that who should replace him? That's the question. Orson Wilson.

[00:15:18] Like you need someone who is not an actor because then it just becomes bullshit. You know, you need someone who is like Lipton like this weird fanboy slash teacher type. But this is the thing is that like, and I think

[00:15:34] this is a dying breed, but both like Lipton and the other person like him is Robert Osborn was Robert Osborn who were like failed actors who then became acting connoisseurs. Like they were both guys who had like studio contracts and played the soda jerk a couple

[00:15:50] times and then ended up being like the great appreciators of acting. Sure. I think it's now just going to be like fucking contemporaries. You know what? I think it should be Brian Cox in characters Robert McKee. That would be great. Just like yelling at people.

[00:16:04] That's one of my fucking favorite two-scene performances ever. I love it so much. Yeah, two scenes. The moment that kills me in that performance my mom and I talk about that performance all the time. 25 hours the same year, right? Brian Cox was like slaying in these tiny

[00:16:17] roles then like he would just pop up in a movie in a nile. Oh, two and then he's William Stryker and oh three. And that's when I was like, oh, I'm Griffin Newman. I'm 14 years old and Brian Cox is my favorite actor. He just done LIE.

[00:16:30] Like he was just starting to like So good in that. He was popping in that weird middle age Brit, you know way where they suddenly they're like, oh well we can always use a middle-aged Brit sprinkle him in. This is going to be such a tangeny episode.

[00:16:42] But the other thing that happened with him at that point in his career was I feel like film snobs started being like, you know Brian Cox was actually the best Hannibal Lecter. Sure. He was not, but he's great in that scene.

[00:16:52] But I think his reputation was now like catching up to him where it was like all these filmmakers who had like fine actor. Right. No, you're right. He was also in the born identity that year and another small excellent performer. So good. And he's in the ring.

[00:17:06] What was the thing I saw him in recently where he just fucking destroyed it? Pixels. Oh, right. He is amazing in pixels. Everyone watch pixels. Brian Cox rules. He plays like the secretary of defense and he's just some scene where he like

[00:17:20] screams at Kevin James and you're like, what is this? Like in the situation room. Well, that's also the great thing about like Brian Cox was that like before this run where he had his big like sort of Hollywood supporting actor heavy comeback.

[00:17:33] He did super troopers and came back for super troopers too. Came back for super troopers too. And he plays super troopers so straight is clearly like in it. He's that sort of Franklin gelotype where like he never it's always gravitas.

[00:17:44] Like he does not go half on a roll. Like yeah, there's a fucking Netflix documentary about he man that I of course watch the second it was uploaded and Franklin Gala talks for like 30 minutes about how he developed Skeletor and he's like it's still to this day.

[00:17:57] One of my favorite performances. I miss him. He's got a couple of Skeletor's in his closet. It sounds like because the narrative. Okay. The narrative was minus a hundred comedy points. Correct. How many am I losing there? Skeletor is super finger. Sorry.

[00:18:18] What if that was Ben replacing the card system was just a little off your fain? He's dropped the commissioner persona has now become the butcher and the butcher executioner. The thing I was going to say. All right, we're fired up. We're in it. We're in the pocket.

[00:18:38] This is the first guest list full of which is we need to do more of these. I forget like that it's always when we can not behave ourselves. We got to let the dog off the leash. Let him do some laps around the dog.

[00:18:50] The dogs off the leash in that one. Park Park will go for you'll see. Okay, remind me what the sixth tangent I was on was some Cox performance he liked. I'm trying to think of Skeletor thing was that for so long the narrative was like,

[00:19:03] oh, he only did that movie because his son liked tea man and he watched this interview when he's like Skeletor was the vehicle for everything I'd always want to do as an actor. Right. Right. And Skeletor in the cartoon is like,

[00:19:14] the whole character is just that he's the bad guy. And you know that because he's like a skeleton. He's like whiny and ineffectual and Langella played him like Henry the fifth. And he's like in like the worst makeup and like 50 pounds of metal like chain mail costuming

[00:19:32] and he's like, I miss Skeletor I I grew the day that I didn't get to reprise the role. Skeletor. I've told I've told my Lingella story on this right while we're already just sidebarring into sidebars. Langella like you said Lingella like I say Lingella.

[00:19:49] Do you think it's Langella? I don't know. I would say Franklin Gala. I always heard it but the way I heard it was like that Anthony Mingela and Franklin John merged into one creature. No, I don't go on.

[00:20:00] It was like my first day on draft day was like his last day and there's like a big war room scene where like Costner does the crazy trade and at the beginning of the scene Langella storms in and is like Sonny, explain yourself.

[00:20:19] And then like you know two lines later I enter and I'm like he's really good. I enter and I'm like a call on line four and they're like, get the phone. So it's like we're both... Everyone's got to hit their marks right? It's a big complicated shot. Right.

[00:20:32] They're already like 15 primary like principal actors in this scene and we're the two guys who enter into it. Right? So there's like a PA standing outside the door with a walkie-talkie going like Frank, go. Or I'm sorry, I enter first and then he enters. Right.

[00:20:46] He goes like Griffin, go. And then he stands there for like another five seconds and they go Frank, go. And they send him in and they kept on fucking it up because it was complicated. There were a lot of actors in it.

[00:20:57] So there were three takes in a row where they went Griffin, go. And then I entered in and then like five seconds later they'd call cut. Okay. And I didn't have dialogue. I just... It was just wrong. Right.

[00:21:11] But it happened three times in a row where the camera wasn't right or someone forgot their line or whatever it was. They go Griffin, go. And then five seconds later they call cut and I'd walk back out. After the third time, and Gela's just sitting there.

[00:21:19] He hasn't introduced himself. He hasn't said hi. He's wearing sunglasses, right? Sure. His character choice for that movie is he wears sunglasses the entire time. Sure. And when he wrapped, he took the sunglasses off dramatically. He's so good in that movie

[00:21:32] because he feels like to me like awful sports owners who are sort of pleased with themselves. Does that make sense? Yeah. He's very good in it. But after the third take, he goes son. And I went, yeah. And he went do me a favor. And I said, okay.

[00:21:49] And he said, try not to fuck it up this time. I've heard that story. Was it really your fault? It wasn't, but who might argue with Skeletor? I know. Okay. So now we're going back up through the inception. So you really like Cox in adaptation.

[00:22:03] Was there something, oh, I couldn't find, I mean, was it like the autopsy of Jane Doe? Like what's really good in that? So Session E is really good. And I don't know, it might have been an old movie I was watching.

[00:22:11] I'm just always happy to see Brian Cox up through the inception level. So now we're on to who should host inside the actor studio. Oh yeah, right. My fear is that it's going to become I kind of class,

[00:22:21] which was a show I really liked where it was like a different notable figures interviewing each other where it was like Chappelle and Maya Angelou or like Mike Myers and Deepak Chopra or like Tarantino and Fiona Apple. It was a really good show.

[00:22:35] They did a Newman Redford episode, but I just think it's going to be like that. That sounds good. It should be Groton. Groton. Or it could be Clifford. I mean, I would like that in character. You'd be good. Instead of doing Jiminy Glick, you're just nodding.

[00:22:51] Yeah, Jimny Glick would not be a bad choice. That might undercut the extreme seriousness at all times of that fucking show. Sure. So back up through the levels, Bradley Cooper graduated from the actor studio at Pace University was always in the audience

[00:23:06] asking questions and seemed like one of those sort of like drama nerd kids. Not a bad way, but it's like this someone just loves acting and wants to act. Right? But then he kind of got slipped into this sort of comedic

[00:23:16] friend zone, which he said that like that was the first time he had read a script and was like, this is my exact sense of humor. I didn't know anyone else found the same things funny. Oh, wet hot. Right. Yeah.

[00:23:27] So then he becomes a guy who's like kind of one of those actors that clearly the New York alt comedians like. Well, he gets that at the same time he gets alias though. So he's got both of those. But in alias, right, Michael Vartan is the romantic lead

[00:23:38] and he's kind of funny friend. Not like, you know, he's handsome. The show knows he's also not a full comic relief because you got Grumberg. Right. Exactly. But you know that I feel like that's where Hollywood pegged him.

[00:23:53] This guy's kind of pretty and preppy, not like dark and handsome. And he asked himself to be written off that show. He was in it for a while, but eventually he did eventually asked to be let go because he felt like he wasn't going to do much.

[00:24:04] I'm trying to remember what's he I mean he yeah, he was all yeah. He leaves in two. No, really? I did watch alias. Can't believe it's just like gone from my brain. Bradley Cooper. I am DB. Here we go.

[00:24:18] He was on something called the street with the dollar sign. No idea what that is. Sounds good. Yeah. Right. He was on Jack and Bobby. Remember that show? Yeah. It's the first yeah. Yeah. He's kind of out after the first two. You're right. Right. Yeah.

[00:24:35] He comes back like for guest drop-ins, but yeah, but then he did do Jack and Bobby. Yes. So the other thing, right? He's like the Stella shorts of that era. Like he showed up in those things. He was clearly in that scene there are those actors

[00:24:46] who live in New York like Sam Rockwell and Josh Charles where it's clear like oh they like comedy and they'll appear in these other people's like Comedy Central shows for an episode or whatever it is. Right. And then he's like, I guess I feel like that's through

[00:24:58] that avenue. Well, I guess it's through both avenues kind of. Right. Cause then he sort of gets weirdly pigeonholed into the like oh he's like the Mark Feuerstein. Like is he the guy who's going to play like the asshole or the best friend? Right.

[00:25:10] Sort of turtleneck wearing preppy guy. Right. Because then it's a failure to launch. He's like McConaughey's best friend. Yes man. He's Jim Carrey's best friend. He was in kitchen confidential. Right. Which is one of the like. Best TV casts of all time. John Cho. Langella's on that, right?

[00:25:28] Yep. Nicholas Brendon, Xander from Buffy. Right. John Francis Daley from Fix and Geeks. Right. Jamey King. Bonnie Somerville. Bonnie Somerville who is credited in a Star's Born but I could not find her so I think she got cut out. Interesting. She probably was cut out. Yeah.

[00:25:45] He does like this. Star's Born has two alias cast members. Yes. Like I feel like he you know he stays friends with all his buddies right? I feel like a guy who was like crafting a movie star persona in the way that even some people.

[00:25:57] No he just sort of did a lot of everything, right? Right because like someone like Mark Wahlberg like even though it took a while for him to become like very bankable or very good. You could tell from the beginning like okay he's building a thing here.

[00:26:07] There's clearly a Mark Wahlberg persona, a brand that he's trying to perfect. Right. Right. You know he's on that sort of conveyor belt. Bradley Cooper could have just been like he's kind of a real actor. He did the Broadway play with Julia Roberts. Three Days of Rain.

[00:26:20] Three Days of Rain where he was sort of the third lead because Rudd is the... Another guy who was in that community of serious New York actors who get along with comedians. Right. And then he became more of a straight comedy star.

[00:26:32] But yeah, the thing about Cooper is he doesn't do an action movie until the A-Team. Like he, whereas Wahlberg was always like I'm Jacked, I'm going to be in action movies. Like I'll do other shit too but get me an action.

[00:26:43] No it's like this guy's a serious actor and he's mostly getting caught in like decent probably paycheck like best friend or romantic rival roles. And in Wedding Crashers he's so obnoxious. Obviously that's the character. Right. I feel like that actually hurt him for a little bit. Agreed.

[00:27:00] Even though the movie was huge. My buddy Alex Perl and I would always talk about. We really hate him in that fucking movie. We said the Bradley Cooper problem which is can you... My friend Alex would always say I feel

[00:27:08] like if you get that good at playing that kind of part it starts to rub off on you and you become an asshole. And for the couple of movies after that it felt like he had too much asshole with him. He's just not that into you.

[00:27:17] He's kind of an asshole. Right. And then in the hangover which is obviously his big breakout, he's an asshole but he's good in the hangover. So the couple things that happen are one he weirdly hosts SNL for he's just not that into you.

[00:27:30] And at the time it was like this is the least famous person to ever host SNL. It's hard to get in there when you're that little. But I guess the comedy stuff you know he's in. That's what it was. I remember being very surprised that he

[00:27:41] was hosting and his joke was like hey I'm in this big romantic comedy with 15 big guys and I'm the guy they got to host. That is weird. Right but when the hangover was announced and it was like oh Todd Phillips is making

[00:27:52] like an R rated movie again because Todd Phillips had kind of fallen off a little bit. Like old school and road trip were really well liked and then he has the Starsky and Hutch and School for Scoundrels. But he also had the hangover in the camp.

[00:28:06] It's coming that year. This is my point though. Right. Is that the hangover the big thing was it was a really hot script. Todd Phillips had been stuck with Weinstein for a while now was free. That contract was going over to Warner Brothers and they were like budget

[00:28:19] $60 million here are the stars they want. They wanted Jake Gyllenhaal. Right. They wanted Thomas Hayden church. They wanted like they want Thomas Hayden church played the Galifian Accus part Jake Gyllenhaal to play Bradley Cooper and I forget who the third one was.

[00:28:31] I get it because Hayden church was in sideways playing the sort of fuck up. Right. You know I get it. They had their weird list of people they probably a bad movie. Right. And Todd Phillips was like I went through all the sort of micromanage shit.

[00:28:43] I'm done with it. I dealt with stars who got too big and you had to manage the star personas. I want to make new movie stars. Oh the other this was the other big thing that happened with the hangover was he was supposed to

[00:28:52] make a movie called which school with Jack Black. Sure. That was like Jack Black goes to Hogwarts or whatever sounds great. And Jack Black had a lot of notes and the movie got shut down like very shortly like a month or two before it was going to film.

[00:29:04] And he was like I've gotten so tired of having to go through the system making star vehicles because they're so temperamental. Yeah. I want to find the guys who should be stars. Yeah. Make stars and deal with that. So he makes one of the smartest

[00:29:19] business decisions in the world a George Lucas deal where he goes I will wave my quote. What's the number where if I can deliver this movie you let me do whatever I want. Right. And they were like 30 and he was like if I make it for

[00:29:32] 30 I can cast whoever I want right. They were like yeah he was like Bradley Cooper solid he's been enough big movies plays the asshole but he's never been the leading man. I think you should be a movie star. Sure. I'm going to make you a movie

[00:29:43] star gives him the big hair which is kind of crucial to the Bradley Cooper. His line which he said is the first thing I want is for you to grow your hair. He said why and he said I think movie stars have long

[00:29:51] hair and I think long hair gives you some pain. Yeah. It's very true. Which is a really smart thing he said. You know well we can get we're going to because he had always been very close cropped before that. Yeah. He doesn't look as good

[00:30:05] as he looked a little generic. You know there was something like oh that's a good one. And then of course Ed Helms is on the office at this point and he's on the data show. Galifian X had started getting more supporting roles was like a comedians comedian. Sure.

[00:30:17] And the movie is fucking humongous. Yeah. Todd Phillips makes a hundred million dollars because he waved his upfront quote. Good for him. And just got points and suddenly those guys are worth so much money because they want to make two more hangovers and their deals were

[00:30:31] so small I think they each got 300,000 for the first movie. Sure but they got the they get stacked. Right. So you're the second movie and 15 for the third. Hey. Hey. Right. But you go like Just want to get a look at the hangover. Oh.

[00:30:46] So what's the Bradley Cooper thing now the Bradley Cooper thing now is now he's gotten really big playing an asshole in Ryebald comedies. Is he going to stay on that track? He was a serious actor. Is he going to become Matt Neyotl is going to

[00:30:58] be an action star. He does the A team which was the weird potpourri of actors who blew up in 2009. The move the problem with that movie I know. The team is like Liam Neeson just had taken Charlie Tocopli just in District 9. Bradley like who are the three

[00:31:10] guys who now are pretty affordable because they just became bankable. Yeah. Rampage Jackson had just done the Midnight Me Train. Yes. With Bradley Cooper. Yeah that movie sucks. The problem with that movie is that it sucks. That's the other thing is Bradley Cooper had a

[00:31:27] couple movies where he was the lead that were shelved and didn't come out until after he was big. Yeah. Midnight Me Train case 39 which is the Renee one. Like he had a bunch of shelved movies where then they had like a spring cleaning sale. Yeah.

[00:31:40] They're all bad films. He was also in All About Steve with Sandra Bullock. Her weird meltdown movie. Right. That weird year where Bradley Cooper and Sandra Bullock are huge but also they have the same embarrassing right that comes out after their massive summer successes.

[00:31:53] You got he was in he pops up in Valentine's Day another anthology kind of movie that he does limit less giving that pill. I think that's the movie that kind of really totally because that movie does well and it shouldn't have done well.

[00:32:07] And it was supposed to be a shy LeBuff vehicle. Then it was like Bradley is doing this and then it makes a lot of money. Literally popped up. I also think he's really good and limitless. He's good. I think he's good too. That movie is like a fun

[00:32:20] diploma movie. Yeah, I agree. I got no beef with limitless no beef with Neil Burger. And I remember Todd Phelps doing like victory. Yeah. I remember Todd Phelps doing victory lap interviews where he was like see I told everyone that Bradley Cooper was a fucking

[00:32:34] movie star and look at the opening weekend of limitless. I was so fucking right. Right. Like he was this movie star that no one was giving the chance. Totally. Then you know place beyond the pines. It's great in that. Yes. The movies are mess. Silver linings playbook obviously

[00:32:51] a colossal movie. Right. You know because he's in this OK, he's doing smaller things what's he going to be? What type of movie stars is it going to be? He makes that movie the words which was like his passion project that his friend directed

[00:33:03] no one goes to see it. And in Silver Lion it's like OK now he's gotten an Oscar nomination. The film is critically respected. It made a ton of fucking money and he and Lawrence may be there appearing now so they really go off and make Serena. Yeah.

[00:33:19] In between these also the hangovers keep coming out and they always do well. Which keeps him afloat because he's got a franchise. Right. But it's this weird kind of like up and down thing. He's not having like real lows but it's like what is

[00:33:29] the Bradley Cooper movie star thing? Like people are trying to figure it out. Right. Yeah. Doubles down with David Russell. Yeah. Pops up in American Hustle. That's another nomination. Is he good in that? I think he is. He's big. I think he's good. I know it's very big.

[00:33:46] Yeah. It's a movie I'm terrified to ever watch again. Yeah. Because Judy. Guardians of the Galaxy. What I still think is the best performance. I don't think it's his best. He's I think he's underrated in those movies. So fucking good. Really hate his performance and it's weird.

[00:34:00] I think those people are dumb. Rocker Raccoon is my favorite. Weird to call people dumb. Yeah. Dumb people. People with dumb brains. I think the thing people underrate about Rockett his voice is that he's doing a whole performance like his voices don't sound like that. You. Yes.

[00:34:17] Also he's always on set and they shrink him down to do the mocap. They have a shrink ray. Yeah. And it's a lot to put a body through. They glue the fur on one stranded at a time. It's so crazy. He has to prepare,

[00:34:28] 36 hours for each one day of shooting. So they have to space out his days. They have to shoot it on Neptune because where the days are longer, that's what they got to do. Right. Crazy. Itching for this card. Card. You got a guillotine in your hand.

[00:34:44] Remember you're the Executioner. Ben is holding a tiny guillotine. Yes. Serena. It's a piece of shit. My favorite thing about Serena that I think of seven as podcast before is that when passengers came out, Jennifer Lawrence was like I had to shoot my breath and like

[00:34:58] wander in on this was like you had sex a bunch in Serena. No, I didn't. And she was like, doesn't exist. Like she just never acknowledged that movie. Right. Then in 2014, American Sniper, his best performance in my opinion. You think that's his best definitely. I think he's excellent.

[00:35:13] I agree. But he gets his third consecutive Oscar nomination in three years. Yep. And I remember saying to you at the time Jesus Christ when Bradley Cooper wins an Oscar, he's going to win so fucking hard. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's now become this guy where he's bankable.

[00:35:28] He's a leading man and he's a real kind of respected serious actor. Right. And then he did a weird 2015, which was some sort of leftover stuff. Well, Aloha is leftover. Right. For sure. Burnt. Which was clearly him want to get back into that kitchen confidential mode.

[00:35:46] There are things about him where like he speaks fluent French. He loves cooking and sometimes I think he takes he would take a movie because he'd be like, I just want to play a chef again. He kind of pushed Burnt. Burnt was like a hot script

[00:36:00] that David Fincher almost made with Keanu Reeves. Then somehow it became a John Wells movie that barely got released. Is it? It's John Wells. Yeah. I watched it on a plane and it barely rose to the level of like satisfying on a plane. Sounds like John Wells.

[00:36:17] I really wanted it to be. I saw that movie as being like, oh, this will be a good plane. Yeah. And Burnt. And Aloha's a mess for him, but American Sniper the thing is that he That was his project. He got that book. He attached Steven Spielberg.

[00:36:32] Steven Spielberg was going to make it. Spielberg dropped out and he was like, I'm not going to go lower. I'm going to get a real fucking veteran historical Hollywood tour to make this movie gets Eastwood. And then it's the fucking biggest movie. It's a huge insane box performance.

[00:36:49] We don't talk about it. Culture war movie kind of like Passion of the Christ where like people start assigning it all this sort of big deal. Like, oh, this is like conservatives. The real America loves this movie or whatever. It's an all rated drama that

[00:37:00] opens to a hundred million dollars long too. Long movie does. I mean, it becomes, I think then the highest grossing film in the history of Warner Brothers. It's planted by something else. I mean, I would assume that one of those DC movies supplanted it. Right? Right.

[00:37:17] I think so. I think it was at the time of its release, the biggest from Warner Brothers had released it. It's now number five. I don't think it was because you got Deathly Hallows. Oh, right. But then it's been, I know and you got Dark Knight

[00:37:28] and Dark Knight Rises, but it was high up there. That's what it was. It was their biggest non Potter, non Batman. Right. Those are their two big franchises and then it was American Sniper. But the other thing in 2015 was he's in every episode of what?

[00:37:40] How American Summer first day again, which he's really awesome and good in. Yeah. I love that he's in that and they pointedly only had him for like a day and a half because he was also doing Elephant Man on Broadway. And then he only tanked the

[00:37:51] second iteration of that, but he wasn't in it in my opinion. Like having Adam Scott do it. Like I love Adam Scott, but you were just sort of like, yeah, you know, whatever. And the other thing is, I think they wrote that character assuming they could

[00:38:02] only get him for a day so he doesn't really have any consequence in the plot, which would have been fine if it was Bradley because I think he's really good in it and I think his chemistry with Michael and Black is very underrated. When people interview Bradley

[00:38:12] Cooper about love scenes and ask him who is best on screen for the first time, I think he's really good in it. And I think his chemistry with Michael and Black is asking who is best on screen kiss was he always says Michael and Black, which I love.

[00:38:23] I think that's really sweet of him. It's a hot scene. It's so good. I love how uncomfortable that scene used to make people in college when I showed them that movie. Yes. Like I used to show people that like all my buddy because I was like,

[00:38:35] meet your nerve. And I'd be like, let's watch this weird movie because in America, that movie, I mean in Britain that movie was anonymous. Like no one had ever heard I'm sorry, Ben, can you pull that cleaver out for a second? No Griffin. Um, yes.

[00:38:47] I mean that was the moment where I was like, oh, this movie is a masterpiece. Is they do the scene where you clearly think you're about to see 16 sets of boobs and then said they show you the most torrid, tender, romantic sex scene. I know.

[00:39:01] I love that scene. And the joke is that it's really, really fucking good sex scene that would always make people's brains explode. Yeah. But they're all good. Whatever. They're bad. I don't want to do the movie. People are definitely. Yeah. He's in war dogs. Right.

[00:39:17] Because he's now producing partners to Todd Phillips. They got a shingle at Warner Brothers. They're helping each other's movies. It's not kind of it is a dumb movie. OK. But Todd Phillips producer on Star is Born. Yeah. Which was a film that Clint Eastwood wants to make

[00:39:32] for a while. Yes. I think someone else wanted to make it before him. Let me try and Warner Brothers had gotten Eric Roth to write a new version. They said, well, it's been 40 years. It's time to do a fourth Star is Born. Um, so Star is born 37.

[00:39:48] I think 54. And then 77. 76. 76. Yeah. 37, 54, 76. So it was like... So there's like a 90s Star is Born that didn't happen. Yes. You know what I mean? Because it's every two decades. There's a new Star is Born. Which I'm not saying it's the same movie because it's

[00:40:05] obviously a very different story, but the bodyguard feels like what happened instead of a 90s Star is Born. Right. Um, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Totally. It's a perils of fame and it's a tragic love story and all of that sort of stuff.

[00:40:20] So this script floating around forever. Yeah. Beyonce was going to be in it directed by Clint Eastwood. Beyonce and DeCaprio was the original announcement. And it was like, why are they doing this? That sounds so weird. Why are they making this movie again? Does anyone need it?

[00:40:34] It was also in that moment when Beyonce was trying to be more of like a sort of regular movie star. Right. You know, when she was doing projects like Dream Girls and, uh... What was the one? Obsessed. The one where the obsession, obsessed. Whatever it's called. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:49] And Cadillac Records, like, you know, where she's doing these like roles. Yes. And now Beyonce is just like Beyonce. And Nala. That's true. She is in that. A movie I am on the record will say again, I think it's going to be the highest

[00:41:02] person in film of all time. You're wrong. Well, I'm not saying. I know. It's a good bet. Yeah. It's a good bet. It's fun to have a bet. It's fun to have a bet. God, he's so mad at me, Ben. Look at him. Seathing with rage? The fuck.

[00:41:16] Well, you got to stop mentioning that you grew up in England. Ben. No, I grew up in England. Yellow card, Ben. Beyonce. I can't give me a card. I stole your cards. You picked up the knives. I stole your cards. All right. Fine. Beyonce dropped out as

[00:41:31] Baranza Spalding, who is really like big for a second there. She won like best new artist of the Grammys. Like Eastwood was like, well, can I start her? You know, I think he's just like, who's the young musician I can care and I think they thought

[00:41:42] about and Cooper. That's when Cooper joins. But the other guys they go through when the Caprio drops out or like every other A-list guy, it's like Tom Cruise almost did it. Well, Smith almost did it. Oh, but like those names, it's like they were certainly offered the role.

[00:41:56] Right. They all had. Clearly this became a priority for them. Then Cooper signs on. Beyonce had dropped out because of her pregnancy. But now enough time had passed that they thought maybe she was going to come back and do it. There was a point where it

[00:42:09] looked like it was going to be Eastwood, Cooper and Beyonce. But the movie doesn't work fundamentally doesn't work if it's Beyonce because she's already too colossal. You think it doesn't work if it is Beyonce? I agree. That's what I'm saying. No, I disagree with you.

[00:42:23] A Star is Born always stars an immensely famous person playing an ingenue. It's weird. I agree with you. Right. I think the interesting thing this version has going for it when they announced Lady Gaga was like that feels like a step down. But the surprising

[00:42:39] brilliance of that casket choice is well, you've never seen Lady Gaga as a normal person. But that's what it's with these there. It's always this weird comeback narrative for the superstar. Yeah. Like it and that's Beyonce doesn't need to come back. Oh, no, Beyonce would have been terrible.

[00:42:55] I mean, or maybe she would have been no, no, no, no, no, I know. She is. I think she's really good in kind of like record. So good that we've talked about it. I think she well, maybe she would have been good. I think there's too much

[00:43:06] baggage with her in terms of her already being such a fucking superstar and the she's so remote and maybe she would have been awesome. God knows. I don't know. Who knows? Clint Eastwood directing it, I don't know about that. Right. But that's the real thing. Right.

[00:43:20] He makes Jersey Boys instead. He was itching to make a musical and Cooper just goes like, wait, I'm going to direct this and he for a while had been like, I want direct, I want direct. He kept on saying that, you know, I might take a year off

[00:43:29] from acting. I might do this after American Cyper. He clearly has the cash rate to do whatever the fuck he wants at Warner Brothers because Warner Brothers still has this reputation of like we got our people who we let make fucking movies. Clint Nolan. Right.

[00:43:42] I think Todd Phillips is in that category. Their relationship. There's another obvious one, isn't there? And there's some other like big deal Warner Brothers director. Right. They like to lock people in and be like, you belong here. Yeah. Warner Brothers. Yeah. I mean, I guess Zach Snyder

[00:44:02] for a while. Yeah. Yeah. I mean kind of right? Like they were kind of like whatever you want, Zach. Yeah. Haven't even gone to the movie yet. Sorry, I sent it for the subscription box service where they embarrassing, they blackmail me with like the worst memories,

[00:44:28] my worst artifacts from my life. Okay. I mean, I said I signed up for it. I didn't sign up for it. Someone is blackmailing me. That's what's going on here. So every month I get a new box of carefully curated curios from my past things.

[00:44:41] I'm trying to repress. So here's my my beauty shop essay. Here's a photo of when I had long hair in eighth grade. This is my hour crumbly and fish phase. It's just a box of things I don't want to remember. Don't buy close pre-ripped. Yeah, I know.

[00:44:57] I was so into the pre-ripped jeans. Okay. Well, I have great news for you. What? We can take all that stuff that you obviously want to remember and we can digitize it. We could put it on a thumb drive, a digital download, a DVD, whatever you want.

[00:45:10] No, it sounds like that's the opposite of what I have right now. That's what we're going to do. Because legacy box, what they do is they get all your home movies, your photos, anything you like keepsakes that you want to kind of like store forever.

[00:45:21] I don't want this stuff though. Someone stole this from me and is sending it to me blackmail. They're trying to kill my career. Like literally like because, you know, like a VHS tape, like that could degrade like things, you know, these precious home movies, things like that. Right.

[00:45:35] Like you're doing the weird... Some of the performances I've pointedly hidden and buried down. Like the stand up with the action figures you used to do when you were a kid. That was pretty good. Okay. Well, perfect. Even all the more reason

[00:45:45] of maybe we don't want to put that on the thumb drive. No, that's it. Summer camp thumb drive. Okay. I get it. Okay. So with legacy box, you just throw that all, they send you a big box. This is what big box you got right here. Yeah.

[00:45:57] You throw it all in. You send it to them and they, you know, they can take care of it for you essentially. They can put it on a thumb drive. Yeah. Or a digital download. Not like this home video recording

[00:46:06] of when I used to do the Bugs Bunny bathtub routine. That one might need its own thumb drive. Yeah. A red thumb drive. So David, what you're saying is this legacy box is almost like a criteria and collection box set of your life. Yeah. Sure.

[00:46:22] I mean, or photo album or any kind of like... Curated, restored. Old fashioned media. You know, because like I've got home vide... Like tapes. Yeah. Like of me doing beautiful, wonderful things like pointing at my nose when everyone asks where my nose is

[00:46:38] when I'm two years old, things like that. You know, really genius shit. It's not that impressive. Anyone can do that. Ben, where's your nose? It's right here. Oh, he did it. It did take him like 15 seconds. And I can't... I don't have a VCR. I can watch that.

[00:46:52] Yeah. Like, and so if I send it to legacy box, they can like help me re-experience my glory days or your glory days. I don't want to re-experience my glory days. 24. So if you send them your old movies, your pictures, they'll do the rest.

[00:47:07] They'll professionally digitize your moments onto a thumb drive, digital download, DVD. They have easy to follow instructions. They give you these safety bar codes. They won't lose your stuff. They keep track of it like at every moment it goes through their facility.

[00:47:21] You get all these personalized email updates. They've got 450,000 families. Trusted them with this extremely delicate work. It's all done right by hand, right here in America. And it sounds like they're upstanding people who won't try to blackmail you. Well, yeah. Someone is... You're saying trying to blackmail you,

[00:47:38] but it's not legacy box. It's not legacy box. And I wish I had signed up for legacy box instead. Well, so there's never been a better time to digitally preserve your memory. So you can just visit legacybox.com today to get started. And for a limited time,

[00:47:50] they're offering buying check listeners an exclusive discount. You go to legacybox.com. slash check. You get 40% off your first order. You go to check to make sure you're going to legacy box. And then that's the end of the story. Oh, wait a second. No, it's a little different.

[00:48:03] It's more that you go to legacybox.com slash check. You can get 40% off or save up to $200 on the largest legacy box kit. So if you go to legacybox.com slash check and save 40% today, you can get started preserving your past. As well as cleanly state,

[00:48:19] I will not give into blackmail. Try and intimidate me as much as you can. I also don't have any money to give. All right. legacybox.com slash check. Bradley Cooper makes this movie and it feels like Bradley Cooper has kind of like gone off the grid

[00:48:30] for a little bit because like, you know, make anything. No, he was working on this and he spent a long time like now in all the interviews he's talked about. I spent, I spent a year working on the voice before we even started filming.

[00:48:41] I was doing three hours a day lowering the octave of my voice. Going, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Just watching fucking the big Lebowski's Samly it's seen over and over again. Yeah, sometimes there's a man, you know, and then meanwhile Lady Gaga obviously,

[00:49:00] you know, a phenomenon out of the gate in terms of her discography, like her first three albums. Well, her first two albums really, right? But she had also, you know, her record sales went down. I mean, like I know everyone's record sales went down

[00:49:15] because like people don't buy records anymore. Did go down. Yeah. Touring sales went down. You know, Ben and I were talking about before you showed up like, you know, she was in this thing where everyone was like, how's she going to top herself next? Right.

[00:49:28] Like with all this crazy shit she does. Right. Which is an impossible game to play because you can't do that forever. Well, it was like sort of trying to do a Madonna thing, but the other thing is Lady Gaga was always sort of like a performance art piece.

[00:49:39] Yes. Like, you know, because it was so much about the sort of, I don't know, the artificiality of it where it was hard to engage with who the real person was underneath. And I've heard a bunch of stories about her. Start was sort of like this.

[00:49:53] And she was like a virgin tunnel kid who would come in and do shows when she was 16 at Cabaret's and things like that. And everyone's like, man, she's an amazing singer. She went to NYU and dropped out. But the legend and who knows if this is true

[00:50:08] is that she was like, I know the kind of singer I want to be, the kind of like old style, like ballad crooner I want to be. And I think that music isn't popular anymore. So I'm going to do what it takes to get in the door. Sure.

[00:50:19] And I would have latched on to EDM. I mean, the types of songs that would become popular, the persona that at least would make people interested, gave one up some ship of what she's going to wear to the red carpet.

[00:50:29] I mean, all this stuff she needed to do to make a career that was very strategic. But the goal was to sort of end up doing this stuff like her Tony Bennett album, you know? The Tony Bennett album is a weird one. Right.

[00:50:42] But then that's the other thing is once the later album started to come out, she's like, OK, now I'm sort of peeling back. That's just her being like, I'm a great singer. That was sort of, I was, yeah.

[00:50:50] But the point is I think that's what she always wanted to be. She's a great singer. Right. And she starts peeling back the persona and her popularity starts to fall a little bit, you know? Yeah. So it's like, was Lady Gaga time in a place?

[00:51:03] She still has her like super intense fan base that's like, you know, she can sell out a stadium, no problem or whatever. You know what I mean? Like she still got that. It's so hard to stay in this like who apart from Beyonce,

[00:51:16] there's so few pop star, I guess like Taylor Swift has been in this like guys for like a sustained decade at this point. But even she struggled with the last album. Like, yeah, it's so hard to reinvent every fucking time, you know? I agree.

[00:51:29] And if you do this, you have this problem. Yes. Constantly trying to reinvent and never work. Especially because my reinventions always seem exactly the same as what I was before. I've reinvented myself six times since this podcast started. That's true.

[00:51:43] I used to wear white shirts and now I wear gray shirts. He's wearing a handsome gray Heather shirt. Yeah. And you know, she did this Super Bowl in 2017, I want to say last year and you know was good.

[00:51:58] I feel like people were starting to act like they were kind of over it though. Yeah. No, I definitely, you know, there was the year she did my favorite thing on the Oscars and people were like, oh, you know where is she can really send?

[00:52:11] What her song stopped being like icy because she had a poker face and bad romance and all the songs that were really just like on a window. Yes, 100%. She had an amazing run for like two, three years where every single is a big deal. Right.

[00:52:25] She comes out with Born This Way. Yeah. That single was a big deal but that the rest of the album doesn't. Album kind of doesn't go anywhere. That's when people are really like your music is not as crazy as your performances.

[00:52:35] And I think people start to resent that. Then she does Art Pop, which is okay and has two bangers and doesn't sell that well. And then she does Cheek to Cheek, which is her just being like, listen to me saying and Tony Bennett's

[00:52:48] like, huh, what a, what a classy name. Yeah. I don't know. Tony Bennett. Sure. Is he like 4,000 years old? Yes, approximately. And then she does this album Jaleen, which I think is related to the music in this movie. This much more stripped down sort of country influence

[00:53:02] singer song writer stuff. Right. And I think yeah, like that's like that, that vibe is influencing a lot of the music she worked for this movie. She's been trying to act for a while. She made it very clear that she was like a theater

[00:53:15] kid, that she wanted to be acting. I feel like she was always getting floated around for stuff. She does the season of American Horror Story. She hosts SNL. Horrible season, not really her fault. It's just a bad. And she wins the Golden Globe, which felt

[00:53:28] very much like a golden star fucker paid off kind of thing. So it's like, okay, I guess we can't take her seriously as an actress and then Bradley Cooper hires her. Right at the same time. Which almost feels perverse. Okay.

[00:53:40] Like he's trying to prove a point, but I think that is what works really well about her casting. I mean, as you said, like, you know, the Judy Garland thing was like that movie was a comeback vehicle for her. Yeah, for sure. 100%.

[00:53:53] Streisand was kind of on top of the world already at that point. That yeah, that movie which she did not direct is more Streisand being like I can control this project and to end. Right. Like, you know, her being like I am a mogul.

[00:54:04] Like I'm not just, you know. Right. It becomes, you know, sort of overbearing overall of her film. Have you seen the other stars are born? I have only seen the original. The 30 said the Gayner, Frederick March. The first three are all on film stroke right now. That's right.

[00:54:23] On paid plug. But I've only seen the Gayner one. I know the Garland one is really the one to see. The Garland rules. Yeah, I mean, I love music. It's very long. It's like a very classic 50s big musical. She's fantastic at it. It's very of its time.

[00:54:36] And I love James Mason. James Mason's good. Although like, you know, James Mason's creepy. Like that's and so he's kind of well deployed, but also you do struggle a little bit sometimes. The relationship is very paternalistic. Yeah. But I mean, he's a good actor. He's such a yeah.

[00:54:52] Which when this trailer came out and I would hear people who didn't know that it was a remake, didn't know the original story to say like, oh, they're telling you the whole movie in the trailer. And I'm like, they're not because stars.

[00:55:02] Like, you know, the stars born ends. The first chunk of it. It always ends with someone hanging themselves with a belt. It always ends with death. In the first two, the guy walks into the sea. Spoiler alert. Yes. Spoiler alert. Oh, shit. Yeah. I mean, right.

[00:55:19] But it always ends with the guy being told like, you're no fucking good. The axiom they use is the for one star to rise another must fall in the movie ends with this sort of tragic. I mean, because there is the other sort of weird

[00:55:32] star is born remake, which one best picture five years ago and it's called the artist. The artist is a stars born with a happy ending. Right. It also sucks. It's fine. It's an ultimate gentleman sex. Yeah. Sure. You're just like, oh, that's nice that you made that. Right.

[00:55:51] But it's also like, it's a stars born, but even less interesting because right. It's really the very basic narrative. Like, you know, he's up, she's down. Then she's up. He's down. Like it's right. Like there's, there's like, you know, because it's a silent movie. Like it's so pastisci.

[00:56:04] Right. But it is very identical of stars born in the structure other than that he gets his sort of revival moment. Yeah. I mean, which is horseshit. Yeah. I mean, whatever. It's fine. The ending of that movie is cute, but it is sort of like,

[00:56:18] David, we should play you. We should play you. That movie. Yeah. Remember, we gave that all the Oscars and they went back and took Oscars away from other movies. Yeah. Cause I remember in the lead up to that people being like,

[00:56:37] look, I mean it's got a good chance for an Oscar run, but it's not going to win a single critics award because it's such a populist movie. And then it won like every critics award. Like every critics group gave a best picture. And they gave it.

[00:56:50] We played you. The nutty thing is that he won best director. Like, cause you know there's been so many director splits these years with the Oscars, you know, and that's one of the non splits. Yes. It's very odd. Cause it's kind of thing was like,

[00:57:06] if you think this is the best picture, you kind of have to give him the best director trophy because it's his movie. You know. Yes. So. And same thing with Dujardin Dan where they were like. Right. Yeah. He won an Oscar.

[00:57:19] He won best actor in a leading role. A French comedic actor. I like a lot. Did he win best actor? Yes, he did. John Dujardin. One best actor. Yes. Is it nuts? Yes. And he didn't do, he didn't get the one role he clearly should have gotten

[00:57:37] on the victory lap post Oscar. Was that? Lumiere and Beauty and the Beast. The fact that we didn't cast him as Lumiere. I will never stop complaining about it. It shows you how quickly he vanished from Americans. He looks like a fucking candle. He's a handsome candle man.

[00:57:53] It does. He looks like Lumiere. And you and McGregor's, who I an actor I like a lot, does a admittedly terrible French accent. When he was impressed with the movie, he was like, yeah, I really buffed the French accent. The thing is right.

[00:58:04] He was like, I don't know how to do a French accent. And they were just like, just do it anyway. And he was like, okay, here it is. Oh, and they were like, great. Like. And what you hear in the final film is his third try.

[00:58:14] They made him redub the entire movie twice. Hey, how about you just cast John Dujardin. Can we talk about a star's born? He would invite us to be his guest. Wee. Why does my John Dujardin sound like a roundy Newman? Boy, wee. So here's the thing I'm avoiding.

[00:58:42] What? I didn't love this movie. Right. And you're angry at me and you said it made you lose sleep last night. It did. We bought tickets together. I had a panic attack. I saw it separately. You guys saw it at the Alamo Draft House.

[00:58:52] I saw it at the Weird Cinema 123 on 59th and Lexington. I think I have been at theater, but not in a very long time. What's that theater like? They renovated it. So it's one of those recliner C theaters now. And I love it. Sounds good.

[00:59:06] But it's one of the weird movie theaters. Is it a city cinema? It's not. It's like some other fucking chain that I can't even remember the name of. Look it up. It's not even like a car mic or something like that. Okay. It's something weird.

[00:59:18] Maybe city cinemas rebranded or something. No, it's not. It's just pointedly. I believe it. It might have been a city cinemas though. I'm just having fun. You think I don't know from city cinemas? See the sea, the big sea and then the little sea.

[00:59:30] And walk in the walk talking to talk about city cinemas since birth baby. He is down to a graffiti news. He was born in a city cinema. I was born in a city cinema. They do half price tickets after nine o'clock. It's like post nine is nine dollars.

[00:59:47] Well, it's also right because every single person lives on the Upper East Side is asleep. So they're like, hey, fuck it. Or me, the one insomniac on the Upper East Side. Right? So I go see a 950 screen. I'm like, this could be depressing.

[00:59:58] It's not going to be atmosphere. Wrong. Near sold out. Because I think everywhere was like just selling. The crowd is like bustling. Awesome. People were so fucking into it. And I sat there and I'm just going to say this. I didn't love it. I don't dislike it.

[01:00:15] I wasn't frustrated with it. But I had that thing. Okay. We're like, have you ever been on a date with someone? You're like, I should like this person. I'm just kind of not feeling it. Yeah. This is someone I'm attracted to and we're getting along well.

[01:00:29] And for whatever reason, I'm not super compelled to see them again. Yeah. I get it. I just don't get it. Right. And I just sat there and I went like, I have minor gripes. I have things I would say are good about it.

[01:00:41] I'm sitting there and I just kind of. Like this is the least satisfying take though. Because you're kind of just like, ehh. That's why I've been dreading this episode since last night. For the last 12 hours. Because I walked out of it and I was like. Wow, that's crazy.

[01:00:56] That's nuts. I don't get that at all. That's crazy. I don't get it. Ben, you liked it. With some real high points? Yeah. I thought it was great. Yeah. I got a little drunk at the screening. He did. I was like playing along with Bradley's Coupe.

[01:01:11] You saw it at the draft house. Bradley's Cooper. Bradley's Cooper, yeah. And you took advantage of the bottomless whiskey promotion they don't have. I just kept writing more whiskey on the cards. Right. Crushing pills with your boot. Well, as you do. I liked it a lot. Yeah.

[01:01:28] I mean, you know, I like movies. Love them. And. Thank you. Yeah. Pew. And I just kind of got a sense from seeing this movie and then I've read some reviews that sort of confirmed this take.

[01:01:44] But it definitely was like, it's like the kind of, it reminded me of watching old movies with my parents. Okay. Like tonally it felt that way. Well, it's a, and I never do that. Romance, which Hollywood just doesn't make a lot of movies. No, right. Yeah.

[01:01:59] Like it's really, it's not even. Especially a romantic drama. Yeah. It's a romantic drama. If those exist, they're fucking Nicholas Sparks movies and you look at Wolf Eathers, one of the credited screenwriters on this, and that's mostly what he's written.

[01:02:07] And I think that was the script and then Roth and Roth like works on it and then Cooper works on it. Right? It was a Roth first. Maybe Roth first. Maybe Roth wrote the Eastwood script. It's Roth, Ampersand, Fedders and Cooper. I think Fedders and Cooper work together.

[01:02:23] All right. All right. Yeah. So Fedders is just bringing in that, you know, what are you, weepy like experience, I guess. Right. He wrote Remember Me and he wrote a couple Sparks movies. You have the song from Cooper. Yes. He wrote, uh, Record of May.

[01:02:38] Um, I did think it was interesting that this movie, even though I haven't seen the 76 version is really kind of focused on being a remake of the 76 version more than the earlier two.

[01:02:50] And you'll notice that in the end credits, they go based on a script by Joan Diddy and Frank Pearson. No, they credit both scripts. It's two separate cards. Three previous scripts. Yeah, but I'm saying they don't credit the middle film.

[01:03:02] No, I think that, yes, I think there's some, they have to credit the 76 version. Based on a story by, yes, which is the original thing that they're all based on. Right. And the 76 version, John Peters also gets his weird credit because that has the rights to this movie.

[01:03:15] It's the same with Superman. John Peters has the best contracts in the world where somehow he got the rights to these things. I believe that is why that is the case. John Peters who we all know as a hairdresser who then, uh,

[01:03:25] right, Barbara Streisand's hairdresser who became a producing partner slash lover slash studio executive. And then became the head of Sony picture. I mean, and then was notorious for in the nineties, like calling people into his like meat office and being like Superman should fight a giant iron

[01:03:40] spider, right? All the Kevin Spence Superman story. He still gets money and credits for every Superman movie they make. And he just seemingly wrote these ironclad contracts for anything he was involved in because he's credited. He doesn't have a PGA mark, so he won't get an Oscar nomination.

[01:03:54] Hard to make sure that he didn't get, but he's contract. It's the, cause he's also credited on a man with a man of steel. Yes. Like he's contractually obligated on justice leave. I think he isn't.

[01:04:04] I think there's some weird thing where it has to be a Superman movie, but I can double check. I believe he's credit on that and gives these interviews where he's like, Hollywood hates me, but I'm still in it baby.

[01:04:12] And it's like this interview was conducted in a parking lot or what? You know, like it's when he like wrote a book that was like his dirty tell-all and then they decided not to publish it because they were like, this is gross. This is disgusting.

[01:04:22] You're a monster deadline ran a bunch of excerpts and then the publisher got shamed out of publishing it. Now he's only credited on man of steel. Interesting. So, I think he's credited on Superman Returns. His last movie that I think he actually worked on was Superman Return.

[01:04:36] I think he had some involvement with that. I think he didn't have any. Maybe not. So Ali is the one before that. I think that was, I think he also owned the rights to that. I think Wild Wild West is maybe the last one he really had.

[01:04:46] That was the last one he was really in. And that's the giant mechanical spider. Right. That's where he finally gets his spider and it flops and everyone's like, go away. Cause that's the thing is like Hollywood spat that guy out long before it started spitting its monsters out.

[01:04:58] It also just felt like he was the ultimate symbol of like everything that was like wrong. Like the, like the sort of outsized excess of Hollywood where it's like, oh, like in a literate hairdresser. The weird sort of nepotistic. Right.

[01:05:12] That he kind of fucked his way the top. He always claims that shampoo was based on him cause he was like this legendary fucking Lothario kind of do anyway. We'll say that for our John Peters miniseries. But you know the way the gainer one obviously she's an actress.

[01:05:28] It's an acting story. Right. And then the big climactic scenes at the Oscars. Yes. The garland one is a musical. She's a singer. They still do the Oscars cause she's still Hollywood. It's still Hollywood. Move back in the day when sing as mustas of movies, right?

[01:05:44] That's the third one. And but I think the reason you graduate out of movies and move it to music is because like there's less of a creative partnership that comes in act. You know what I mean? Like it's more interesting when they're songwriting partners. Yeah.

[01:05:58] I also think it's something about how the studio system changed the way that stars were developed in Hollywood change. But like the relationship between the man and woman in the first two is so you know he's just like. It's vampiric. He gets her a job.

[01:06:10] Like it's it's but it's also vampire. I mean there's there's a bit of a mild Spangali element. And I feel like it's it's mostly it's this vampiric ego thing where it's like he wants the ego feeling like he created her and then he can't deal with the

[01:06:26] hit to his ego of her becoming more successful than him. Right. And it really becomes the undoing of the man, the toxic masculinity and pride and all that sort of stuff. And also though, look in those movies it's like he's a

[01:06:37] drunk and he's like I love booze you know like you know it's like he is a classic drunk Hollywood like sort of monster drunk. Like Jekyll Heidi kind of exact. Yeah right. This movie makes him much more of a tragic figure which is I think it's something that.

[01:06:51] And so is the Christopherson one which everyone says Christopherson's the one good part of that move. That movie sucks have you knew you haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. It's you so want to love it because it's so like

[01:07:01] 70s and campy and like they have sex in a tub with like a thousand candles and or it's Barbara right and Christopherson's good he has no character you know his character is the similarly one-dimensional he's just like a drunk yeah but

[01:07:16] he's sort of like earthy and real and you're kind of just like I want to know about this guy really interesting screen presence and I feel like Cooper sees that movie and it's like right the guy kind of needs to be as interesting like

[01:07:26] or else it doesn't really work. Well yeah what no I mean if you love this movie that's what you agree with. You can just say you don't agree. I don't necessarily agree with what. Because I think it's a little less I don't know

[01:07:46] I mean it's like I hesitate to even make this argument because it's like I've only seen one of two of the four versions now right. Sure. And so it's not like I care that much about a star is born it's my fucking fantastic for and I have

[01:07:59] these ideas of what it needs to be and what it can't be. Sure. Right. But I find it a little less interesting if the movie is it's a doomed romance rather than this is sort of the cancer of show business if that makes sense.

[01:08:15] And I think with him the character the Jackson main character having this loaded a deck of like he's really kind of a victim of all these circumstances not that removes him of any agency of his bad decisions. Sure. But he's sort of a tragic doomed figure.

[01:08:29] He always is right it's so baked into it he has to be doomed right. But I think the doomed elements previously are more about like show biz types. Yeah but it's also like the disease of drink is always like coded in right. Right.

[01:08:46] But I think that's more tied to the sort of egomaniac of performers and movie stars and rock stars where as this the drinking is tied to sort of his family tragedy and his wounds and all of that. I don't think it's just that though which

[01:08:58] is why I love one thing I love about this movie if I can counter. Sure. Yeah. Which is like he has that artist illusion and he keeps coming back to in the movie of like you know it doesn't work if you're not real.

[01:09:11] And so like if I am a fucking useless bitch I'm just like a fucking trashed up like soggy drunk like that's only more real. I'm living my truth. Yes. And like he loves it like even though he knows he's a mess like he's an asshole

[01:09:27] like you know like it's like when he sees her being quote unquote fake he doesn't even care that the song is bad he just he hates the apparatus he hates like you know and it's like I feel like that's the disease of rock

[01:09:40] stars like it's not just substance I can't sell out. I can't be you know not real like he's sort of like like Ryan Adams like I know he's sort of he's got this more 70s but it's like those guys now are they're like you're like can you just

[01:09:54] fucking settle down you're in your forties now like I get that you lived a wildlife in your twenties and your touring but like but this is my question about that character is I can't really pin down what the pastiche is.

[01:10:10] I think one thing I like about is it's not he's not doing one guy because that would be too obvious I guess right like if he was just doing like isn't really contemporary example of who he's playing and I'm interested. That's why I said Ryan Adams because

[01:10:24] even though Ryan Adams has never been that big he's that guy where you're like can this it's been 20 years I get that you want to crank out like a new country rootsy album every year but like stop drinking. I was thinking of the guy in my

[01:10:37] morning jacket kind of yes yeah I mean you know that's that's where he is but I don't know my feel is that this land of roots rock you said earlier I think it's a good way of labeling it to me this kind of feels a

[01:10:50] little bit like just pandering to middle America and that's where that's where rock music lives now it's the only place it is. Is it though? I don't know if that's true because I listen to a lot of cool indie rock. Indie rock sure but yeah so I'm

[01:11:06] kind of saying you have a lot more country tinge rock now than you have kind of respectable country artists if that makes sense. Is that not a rock and roll stars anymore like who's a rock and roll star who we got apart from like Jack White's the

[01:11:19] last one. Axl Rose slash. Sure of course go on. Duff and Kagan. Is that another person in Guns and Roots? Yeah of course. I literally couldn't name but the others. Dizzy Izzy. Oh yeah actually me. Fuck ahead. You know it's like rock music

[01:11:33] weirdly just sort of like as a chart topping phenomenon kind of like it kind of just stopped well because like even I'm I haven't had a chance to read it yet me in the bathroom. Right. That final boom. That was like really I think the

[01:11:49] revival of those guys. Ryan Adams is like literally the villain of that book where he keeps like they'll be like they were doing okay and then Ryan Adams like popped out of a door and was like you want to try so much heroin. It's great.

[01:12:02] You know what's good about him you know what's good about heroin is it's very addictive and there's a bunch of it right here in my Jean jacket. I think that's the thing that didn't happen though with the meet me in the bathroom guys is like the strokes

[01:12:18] never became an arena act. No I mean you know I wonder if they ever sold out arenas and stuff yeah I mean like obviously got your your U2s and your 90s rock bands but yeah right but I think those bands disconnected like I don't know who

[01:12:32] is in the stadium. I don't either I have no idea what goes on music anymore those bands that become that big aren't as hard edged and the idea of like man they're fucking rock stars living a rough life like it's the opposite where it's like roadies though.

[01:12:46] I mean that was kind of about a similar kind of music yes yeah like that band the opening song of this movie I couldn't stop thinking about fever dog yes I the opening song in this movie which I can look at it's a good song but it's very

[01:13:00] hard to get there. I'm like oh my god definitely well even think about how like so many panic attacks yesterday like rock I'm worried about rock stations like rock radio stations I mean the way they curate their playlist is they're still just

[01:13:20] playing the same song from the 60's 70's and 80's right and so I kind of even feel like the choice with making this reflect on I guess kind of the country new country sound kind of like you're saying the reverb being kind of rootsy rock I mean I

[01:13:38] keep saying rootsy but that's what it is. It makes sense but it's just also it's so not easy right for many days. It's just so not a thing though that I think is like part of really mainstream culture and it just

[01:13:50] to me it makes sense but it's like a little weird. I agree I think one of the things I'm trying to remember I listened to some podcast and came on and was sort of a classic rock expert and was talking about the phenomenon

[01:14:00] of it. That sounds so good. But he was talking about the big thing that shifted is the rockers who got big in the 70's and especially in the 80's never stopped touring which was a new phenomenon. And that's where the money is right yeah.

[01:14:16] Because those guys are the guys who were those guys 20, 30 years ago are the ones still living like this. Keith Urban I'm looking at like who's playing in New York. Keith Urban's had publicly rehab stints and things like that. I mean he's a little

[01:14:30] more like that. I think the problem is it's like because album sales don't really matter anymore because the radio is not the dominant cultural. It's like that's where you make your money. You got a tour. You got a tour constantly because it's like that's

[01:14:42] how you can pull the cash. It becomes like the Starbucks rock thing where the people who become the biggest touring acts are the people like Maroon 5 or like Coldplay where you kind of have to play to everybody and part of those guys' reputations

[01:14:54] is that they're like nice people. Like who knows? Like you know maybe like fucking like Adam Levine is like huffing ether rags before he goes on stage but one of the things is that someone to isolate that sentence to Adam Levine yeah please but like you know

[01:15:08] he's on the voice and he like promotes clear a cell and he's not trashing hotel rooms and if he is they're very carefully trying to make sure that no one knows that. Oh I thought you said he very carefully breaks the mirror.

[01:15:20] He does do that as well. But then he makes it into like really interesting sort of like mirror art but my point is in order to become that big you kind of have to pointedly not have that sort of baggage

[01:15:32] and the mystique of oh my god he's like killing himself and he cares about the art so much the sort of Cobain thing which when this film was being developed sure that's part of the Eastwood version Eric Rothverson they said they were trying to base it more

[01:15:44] directly off of the Cobain type of which I believe from my art Pearl Jam or whatever you know those sorts of yeah right but you go people died or they're Pearl Jam and now they've kind of become Dad Rock and they're still a thing

[01:15:56] and they write songs for Sean Penn movies but I think that it is wise for the movie to have that kind of rockism versus optimism debated at center because that is maybe maybe that battle has is over right but even a few years ago kind of what

[01:16:12] you know like that's a good push and pull in music culture that you can like sort of like you know have it the heart of your movie it's a good idea yes in conclusion a plus five stars okay this has been blank check I just think they

[01:16:26] there used to be the mythology the lore of like did you hear how fucking insane rock star was where's part of how crazy right and I feel like the equivalent to that now is Kanye West but every time Kanye West does something people go like this probably

[01:16:36] just publicity stunt right this is like a performance well and I mean yeah there's a question it became also just like is he okay I feel like a lot of the like kind of like psychedelic almost like rap acts like the kind of like

[01:16:52] the guys who were like real into like the lean kind of trap music that's more of the thing that to me feels like little way closer to what Bradley Cooper is playing where it's like ah this guy's got so much ability and he can't keep himself straight right

[01:17:08] right but you know he's playing low weight so we've we've we've we've hit on it that's what it is so Bradley Cooper is a little way and Lady Gaga is sort of a reverse engineered Lady Gaga kind of I mean she's got the Long Island girl kind of

[01:17:24] like big Italian family vibe all that stuff and such a good this okay genuinely the reason I was shocked you didn't like this movie is because Andrew Dice Clay murders it and as I was watching I was like this is Griffin when he came on screen I was

[01:17:38] like five stars here I go here we are so the first I love the whole supporting cast except with one exception who I think the agents really uninteresting in this movie yeah he is a manager character I just think I don't even blame the actor as much I

[01:17:52] just think there's no nuance to how they but that again every movie it's exactly the same character who does exactly the same thing he only exists for three things this is and maybe this you know maybe I'm reflecting too much of my own

[01:18:04] shit on this okay boy because this is never you've never done that never done that I never view we're going to do that right right but it but I also think it's something and once again not as someone who is like a

[01:18:16] fucking student of all the different versions of stars but understanding the myth of why this story has persisted in Hollywood as this like price Hollywood right right this cornerstone you know is that the idea of like Hollywood as this kind of or show business rather as this sentient

[01:18:36] sort of malicious cloud right it's it's enthralling it propels you to fame and fortune and then it kind of like calcifies around you and suddenly you're trapped right yeah it's high risk Kyra the agent is always that the agent is like right is like

[01:18:52] commercialism sort of seeping in and being well you got this that the other you this guy's a problem now you know that like my problem is I feel like the movie doesn't have that cloud other than the agent whereas at least in the Janet Gaynor version what I

[01:19:06] understand the other two is it's all sort of of a piece where it's like this guy is almost like a manifestation of what's happening around them whereas until the agent enters I'm like yeah this seems fine I mean Bradley Cooper's got a drinking problem but I don't

[01:19:18] that doesn't feel connected to the industry it's connected to his notion of what kind of artist he needs to be which I and once again it gets in my perverse things I like movies that are very cynical about how much the industry

[01:19:32] ruins people about how much the bubble around people fucks them but that's okay wait what I'm confused you're saying this movie isn't that I think it kind of isn't that I think this movie is kind of the Titanic it's the June love story but the doom is

[01:19:48] this guy is a ticking time bomb not this industry will end up corrupting one if not both of them but like because everyone other than the agent character in the movie I'm not saying everyone comes off as a good guy but you have a lot

[01:20:00] of people around who are really trying to help him kind of but like noodles look noodles is great but like the noodle segment which is wonderful yeah is like noodles being like see like you can live a regular life like it's possible I'm doing it we're doing great

[01:20:16] like my wife is playing my wife Robert De Niro's daughter is playing our daughter is that Robert De Niro's daughter she's credited with the last name De Niro I don't know what else to tell you I mean that's my takeaway yeah probably and

[01:20:30] Cooper is like you know Jackson good yeah look and we should go through the movie a little bit but yeah he's looking at this and he just wants to take another look at it well no he's immediately like David perfect he just

[01:20:42] wants to take another look at it yeah he wants to we all do he in that scene he sees that right David David yeah with pleasure with the pleasure with pleasure why hasn't he played Pepe Lupu that's what I'm saying

[01:21:00] one of our brothers remember when they announced that they were going to do a Max Landis Pepe Lupu I'm over yes I do I can only imagine the visceral horror of that boardroom pitch like seriously yeah picture it yeah is that I heard that's Cronenberg's next movie

[01:21:14] is the Max Landis Pepe Lupu script he's doing a movie about the pitch talk about Hollywood what price Hollywood Jackson looks at that and is like perfect let's get married right now this is what I should do and like that's how you fix your problems you lunatic

[01:21:34] but once again don't you think that's about the ways in which Jackson is broken rather than the way that sort of fame distorts these people success the industry the enablers you're more sitting there famous I don't care about things stories there's so many

[01:21:48] of those enablers all that shit which once again this is my criticism I just want to say this quickly this isn't me saying I think the movie is bad because it doesn't do that I'm just saying I was sitting there watching going like

[01:22:00] I kind of prefer that kind of story more than this story they chose to tell and it's just a matter of the story they chose to tell that's why I'm sitting there and going okay but now I got my counter for you sure or whatever like I think

[01:22:10] that story is I think that Cooper wisely makes it about two people rather than an industry because the industry things been done like or and like no one's done a movie like this in a long time fourth time right and he's made

[01:22:24] a movie rather than a movie which the other three are about fame corrupts right and the dude is always kind of a nothing character and the woman is always like a lovely star making or what I'm like you know sort of bright shining performance sure

[01:22:40] this is a movie about like he's looking at is like this isn't extremely he's taking another look at it he's looking at and he's like this is a codependent relationship like that is as thrilling as it is a fucking disaster like as any like relationship

[01:22:58] like that could be you know and I'm going to show you how thrilling it is creatively for them and I'm going to show you how much of a fucking disaster it is so I and I think this is going to be the complaint

[01:23:08] you hear from people throughout the year and even the people who like this movie admit this is the only three moments that I found thrilling are all in the first hour with sure some people been saying that and some people have also been saying

[01:23:22] that oh there's a ding dong well let me get the door and you say whatever you were going to say okay but David as I'm getting the door I want you to say whatever you were going to say our ex is a whole food

[01:23:32] protein bar made of real whole ingredients and we want to be transparent and upfront with customers which is why they're labeled with those core ingredients like egg whites dates nuts to be on front of the package and the flavor components are on the back like unsweetened chocolate coconut

[01:23:46] apples hello oh boy what's what's going to happen hello oh Jesus oh my god I don't know what he's going to do it's all in shadow so I haven't seen this person's face I'm sorry here I'll just the lights just want to get another bite out

[01:24:15] oh my god I'm Jackson may not love our X bar so you like that they're the go to snag but welcome back from the dead by the way you like that they're the go to snack that checks off a number of nutritional boxes and taste

[01:24:27] delicious yeah they're great for a number of occasions breakfast on the go snack at the office pushy three at 3 p.m. slump throw in your bag for playing red toss your backpack for a bike rider pre-post work and snack

[01:24:39] yeah those are a bunch of things they're good for I mean you like how the real food ingredients actually taste good and how they're gluten free soy free and dairy free I like that I go protein stands out as a source of protein

[01:24:51] that is easy for your body to absorb so what are some of your your favorite flavors Jackson mango pineapple interesting wouldn't have thought that would be your favorite chocolate he's on the okay well there's some seasonal flavors butter and berries I got a pumpkin spice

[01:25:05] for the Halloween trick-or-treat oh yeah good point haha and now the other thing is oh yeah good point haha and now they've debuted an rx nut butter which has a few simple similar ingredients like egg whites fruits nuts and like it's a little

[01:25:19] single-serve packet and I'm sorry don't are you good don't stomp the pill on the table it's not a pill it's our x not butter I'm stomping it so that can spread and pair great with fruit rice cakes pretzels are straight out of the pout yeah you don't need

[01:25:33] to stomp on it it's squeezable and spreadable got it all over anyway they got like honey cinnamon peanut butter they got vanilla almond butter regular old peanut butter so I mean I've been I've been using these it's like a great way to pick me up in

[01:25:47] the middle of the day right Jackson I constantly need to pick me up you do need to pick me up well for your 25% off of your first order you visit rx bark dot com slash down and you enter promo code check at checkout that's

[01:25:59] rx bar dot com slash check for 25% off your first order wait so I check to make sure I'll leave it I thought you were on the floor back and tracks in Maine so talking about the first hour let's do the movie

[01:26:11] come on we're gonna we're gonna run down this movie you gotta say the promo code again check promo go check a checkout so you checked my 45 like five times fucking maniac keep that in double it wait David I love our experiment just one good mother look at your

[01:26:27] fucking phone goes on your dad's calling I wonder if your dad will like this movie I wonder if my dad is blackmailing me so the first 45 minutes especially this movie I mean to me I'm just I think it's I think it's very exciting like

[01:26:43] poppy filmmaking like I really really love the first hour of this movie and I thought it was soft and I thought it was really cool and I thought it was really cool and I thought it was really cool and I thought it was

[01:26:57] the first hour of this movie and I thought it was solid and I'm gonna drive you insane you're not driving me insane I'll tell you the couple moments where I got the rush okay the one moment where I went ooh I think I'm clicking into this movie

[01:27:09] is not to jump ahead a little bit but when she punches the guy at the bar sure I got really excited that he's not the one who starts the fight and she does and it just felt like oh this is an interesting dynamic yeah it is

[01:27:21] and then you go to them at the supermarket and them in the parking lot and I'm like okay this movie is cooking it's an amazing scene right and then when we get to the scene that obviously is going to drive this movie to like a 60 million

[01:27:33] dollar opening weekend maybe it's certainly gonna feast for months I think it's going to be within 10 million dollars of venom this will then that's my big venom's tracking like 50 now but I maybe the stars one's tracking around 40 though which is really good I think it's gonna do over 50

[01:27:49] that's okay the box office numbers do not bear that I said that to you a couple weeks ago you told me I was crazy I'm gonna stand by it I think stars well over 30 preview numbers don't suggest that it will is all I'm saying well it's more

[01:28:01] in like a Martian zone it's gonna like I got it's gonna make over 200 million dollars and I think it's going to open over 50 this week alright but wait okay this the stage the shallows moment I felt shivers throughout my entire body and I sat in a theater

[01:28:15] that look completely wrapped in attention and it is one of those it's it's like and I'm telling you I'm not going where it's like this movie so perfectly builds up to the song where you have someone who has a commanding screen presence and the song

[01:28:27] is so engaging and there's so much emotion and how they're doing it and not just that but like you know again to run down how it's like you know him on stage her at the shitty job right and then they you know

[01:28:39] he's drunk he goes to the bar I really like her first performance and the way the whole like the humor of that scene what I like person is like how exciting it is for him to be a person like so much of what's exciting for him in that

[01:28:51] bar scene is that like immediately he can just like park himself at the bar and everyone's just like nice to him you know what I mean he's so obviously because he poisoned by like he hates when the fame shit happens he always

[01:29:03] just shuts down and goes like your whatever you know yeah like when the guy's trying to get the picture with him but that he's so anomalous at this bar they all know what are you doing here right bar and they're like yeah and like he's

[01:29:15] just having fun and he's like part of a like these are artists they and you're enjoying what they do all of them and he's so taken with it like the idea that he sings for them

[01:29:25] like at least when I'm watching the movie I'm like this is not something he would do no like where he takes the cute bejeweled guitar little arts and crafts you know and sings the song for them like you feel like

[01:29:37] which one thing I love about this movie is how good he is I think it's a great performance I think he's very good in it he's like he's immediately communicating you're like oh this guy's kind of like out of a haze for the first time in a while

[01:29:48] and that same alien says it later again after the big shouts performance where he's like he hasn't done that like perform that well for a while yeah and in that first scene he's like so you know he's doing that kind of

[01:29:57] like thing you see rucks or do something where they just like put their head next to the amplifier and are just like let me just like blast my brain cells away right and this is the other thing they set

[01:30:06] up is that he's got he's got tonight is right and he's sort of like you know I mean there's another reason Ben loved him probably because I'm also going deaf yeah yeah I love being reminded of that

[01:30:16] hey Ben yeah I'm just saying you came out of there were tears in your eyes but that's but that's my pitch for like what what's so fun about all the stuff pre him even meeting Lady Gaga really and then you know then he's then he's with her

[01:30:30] and you know they've got the bar scene that you talk about the thing where he touches her nose I think is so clever because it's like it's so hard to do intimacy on screen without doing the same old shit sure like the

[01:30:44] audience I was with gasped at him touching her nose because it's just so weird that he's doing it's kind of funny yeah it feels very like he's sort of like invading her space a tiny bit but she's

[01:30:55] sort of like okay with it but it's like her soft spot and Lady Gaga has talked about how much she feels self conscious about her nose like I mean there are clearly a lot of things that he rewrote to fit

[01:31:04] their borrowing stuff from her personal life literally doing a samelli impression knows the ear thing I mean he was Taylor making these roles to the cast absolutely had it's using their backstory their baggage it feels very personal Robert De Niro's daughter

[01:31:18] I should actually look up yeah go on go on there go on I mean this is this is what I'm like frustrated by is that like I can't offer counterpoint saying this I just sat there and I hear everything

[01:31:29] you're saying and none of it was a hundred percent connecting for me other than these moments I'll tell you another moment that totally fucking worked for me yeah the first night in the hotel when they start making out what Drina De Niro is playing

[01:31:41] Chappelle's wife maybe so and now I think that's one of De Niro's adult daughters Chappelle's daughter is playing the daughter that's what it is okay I figured this is a son daughter playing as the credits are scrolling I just saw a Chappelle listed

[01:31:56] Sonata Chappelle and Drina De Niro and I was like oh maybe like Chappelle's wife just played his way like interesting I wasn't thinking anyway I think it's I gotta reverse anyway go on yeah you let you get what I'm saying you just didn't you didn't

[01:32:07] lock in right and there were moments where I'd lock in and then I'd fall out of it you know and another one that really worked for me you talk about Jackson main falls out of a couple of things yeah yeah wagons for example one thing he doesn't

[01:32:19] fall out of is love with our X bars big fan of the product or he's going to your Pacino yeah just build a wall between them or something let me sleep I'm not wearing boots yeah what else what else we got right and yeah I was gonna say

[01:32:43] the moment of intimacy that really got me and that was it that I was looking for that moment I'm gonna analogize it to dating again but you know when you're like on a first date you're just like oh fuck I'm really like connect we're like hitting

[01:32:55] some like it's not just that we like the same thing or something it's like right there's some sort of chemistry in the way we're talking like we get each other's or rhythm or whatever just like I'm fucking harmonizing with this thing and I love

[01:33:08] that's how you refer to women right this thing yes no because I was gonna say I love my favorite feeling is when I'm watching a movie and I feel like oh I'm falling in love with this move right I'm enjoying it but I'm just like I do

[01:33:19] whatever you want my favorite Martian is Christopher Lloyd okay you made back the comedy points he lost earlier in the show I was trying to find a place you know it was my birthday party that year I think we've talked about it on

[01:33:32] this but I'm not sure who cares Jesus alright you're dating that thing we're falling in love with these moments because there's nothing I love more than what I'm watching a movie and that first moment hits and I'm locked in with it

[01:33:46] and then I'm along for the ride and this movie I'd have those moments and then I'd lock out you know nothing would turn me off but I just wouldn't stay in it another one where I super locked in the moment of intimacy that

[01:33:55] really got me where I almost gasp is the first night in the hotel they start making out furiously she goes to the bathroom right that's really nice towel in the pits and the crotch okay and then she comes out yep and Sam

[01:34:08] Elliott's dragging him into the bed passed out right now just dragging him kind of like folding him into the bed like almost like with practice deficiencies and we're gonna talk about same Elliott's performance for two and a half hours you so good but then she falls

[01:34:21] asleep in the bed next to and the thing that I kind of gasp at is when they wake up in the middle of the night and very silently start undressing each other and I was like this feels like a type of intimacy I

[01:34:31] don't see on I agree I think that's what he has clicked on in his direction of the movie right is he's so focused on the intimacy rather than the fame being the boh-witching part right which I think is so

[01:34:42] clever and like for that sort of middle of her but we both toss at the same moment realize we're both awake for a moment oh yeah oh it's hot talking or anything just very like slowly method but it's also a little frightening because you're like oh my god

[01:34:56] this guy gets so drunk that he looks dead right and then he just wakes up and he's like look at some eggs but um you know but for her so much of the intimacy is that she feels uncomfortable with the physical apparent

[01:35:09] well no no no like so like in the parking lot scene right she doesn't sing for him until after he talks about like where he's from a little bit pecan ranch and stuff that's when she opens up a little bit like

[01:35:20] they're both like you know her thing that she's afraid of is that she can't be like seen as an artist like right she's a good singer but like no one takes her seriously on saying like why doesn't it happen why isn't it

[01:35:30] happened right he's talking about sort of that's something that like Frank and she's like I love performing I love the music I've been through this I've had the people reject me because they don't like my nose I don't even want to pursue that

[01:35:41] kind of thing yeah so she's one of those weird people where it's like I'm not stopping my my regular performances of the thing I love sure but I've sort of written off the notion of having to give into the industry because I don't even

[01:35:53] want to be part of that it's nasty right but so what's enthralling about him to her is like that he sees her as like an artist like he's excited by what she says I think you're a songwriter that rather than I think you're a star

[01:36:06] right is like a really really good piece of writing um because that's the number one thing she wants to hear is you know you have something to say not your talent because he has the whole thing about everyone's got talent right

[01:36:16] and that's when this bar has and convert which I think is another great speech I think that's a good one and conversely what right what he's so drawn to in her is like oh here's like a literal just like a fountain of creativity like and I'm

[01:36:29] sure so dried up yeah because he never writes any songs in the movie no all his well except for the one of them except for the one of them which rules but all his songs are like his old songs you know and he's a star

[01:36:39] right and he did good music but you don't like he's like his if you wrote songs now just be like I sit in a hotel room and crush pills with my boot you know like he's so lost seems like we're available now like he'd

[01:36:50] hire people to write a Jackson main type song yeah and he has this romantic notion of like oh well my daddy and like I bought the ranch and then like he actually goes to visit the ranch is a fucking wind farm and he

[01:37:00] punches Sam Alley and Sam Alley it's like yeah I told you about this like I sold it years ago he think you know you're so fucking drunk you didn't even hear me right and also you're angry now but you didn't even bother to look at it for the

[01:37:11] last exactly whatever it is yeah like where his his notion of his quote-unquote like rock star truth yeah is so far from the reality until she shows up she's sort of like gets him his creative fires lit which is why I love that the Lovian

[01:37:25] Rossini is all yes so I know we're jumping all around being kindled also I mean this is a movie we're not doing it they've seen it this weekend so it's not like we need to do like a retrospective from a distance no for

[01:37:36] sure right over I right the last part of before the show so I do also love where they're doing that song where they're clicking the drumsticks together like this sort of countdown song yeah as she's like getting in Grumburg's car going to the plane they're

[01:37:50] on the plane the plane like that that like that he's cross guy which is so exciting it's like action movie shit to me I love it like it's so like momentum building and like the movie grabbing you and running you down the hall being like she's we're gonna

[01:38:04] run her right on stage and you're gonna move it's one day of action I know the first like hour of the movie I felt like she's got like a little bit of the matrix reloaded face but not all of it you know what I mean this sort of

[01:38:17] like I get it but it didn't work for me as Griffin space right now yeah I it's a movie it's a big movie I understand that you're buying the movie logic and I don't demand literalism it does feel like there were times where I was like pretty

[01:38:35] big jump well certain advancements of the story and he he cuts ahead a lot a lot yeah I think that's just because he wants to keep moving like like it would be ludicrous if it took place in two months like

[01:38:48] there's a lot of time jumps in it I don't even mean that I mean just sort of having characters come to things fast like what I mean like what was your nitpick I don't want to be the Grinch kind of you're the great

[01:39:04] shade to tell you fucking Benedict Cumberbatch over here Benedict Cumber Grinch more like a sidebar for a second how do you hire Benedict Cumberbatch to voice the Grinch and direct him to sound like me I know it's so weird that's like oh Bennett Carras playing the Grinch

[01:39:18] will be girl I'm the grin you know like doing his deep voice I see the trailer and he's like I hate the who's and like why is he sound like me doing a podcast why is he some whiny asshole have you ever seen him

[01:39:31] do the bodysuit thing no it's okay oh yeah for the dragon or smalg yeah of course you're like I want the Grinch to sound like smalg you're like he sounds like Josh Gad why hire Cumberbatch hire Gad hire again yeah yeah okay so

[01:39:49] I'm gonna say this you're gonna hate it and all of America's gonna hate it and they're gonna scream why do you hate joy why do you hate Christmas what's the thing you know why are you let you let's decorate the tree throw this at you what's your objection

[01:40:05] you like she sings like half the song in a parking lot in the next day he's like fully orchestrated with his band remembers all her lyrics yeah he told her told her what he says like I range them might be

[01:40:17] kind of be bad but like a candle in an arrangement you're gonna sing it okay like he gives her like the little spiel but he fully remembers the first half the song before she comes out on stage yep I mean I bought that

[01:40:27] totally I don't care because I think the moment is totally effective but there are other shortcuts I see the movie making like that at other no I would say cuz he it's like that tradition of songwriters really respecting each other and so I feel

[01:40:40] like he had that moment in the parking lot it feels like a throwaway thing but he really retained those lyrics and that melody and that chord structure sure and he was able to then carry that to his band and also beyond that the parking lot scene

[01:40:52] which is like sort of the best scene in the movie probably if you had to like pick a scene I agree he's like such a thunderbolt for him like and like so like the whole idea is that he is like after sort of years in a

[01:41:03] stupor alive again so like of course he's gonna be locked into this song he is so locked into her yeah and then you know after the hit I mean there's a great scene in which Andrew Dice Clay watches YouTube and that's how many people are watching the audience

[01:41:18] fucking ate that shit up Barry Shabaka Henley we got such a fun if I if I can throw an actual strike against this movie okay they Michael Harney they barely use the Barry I know Barry Shabaka Henley shows up in a movie I get so excited to

[01:41:33] scoops of Barry I do love him and instead they just give us a little dollop he's just like a little sour cream on the side of the dish yeah he's one of the guys I agree um I did like the fact that Andrew Dice Clay

[01:41:45] looked like a person in this I've been a fan of all of his recent like you know I mean he's very good in blue Jasmine everything but he still kind of looks like old Andrew Dice Clay yeah and I like that he like

[01:41:55] wasn't wearing the glasses no have the sideburns he let his hair go fully gray like I like that he looks like a Joe a Joe from Jersey or whatever you know yeah um yeah he's really good in it I mean let's talk about the same

[01:42:08] Elliott thing a bunch of them this complicated that he was sort of the second yeah you know fuck after child of a midlife crisis from mania when he had right right who tried to restart his life I think with the same sort of pursuit of integrity

[01:42:26] right he moved to Arizona to work on a farm can farm which I love yeah and especially because Bradley Cooper in that voice saying pecan is amazing for some pecan yeah yeah I wonder if our X bar is going to use Jackson

[01:42:42] man who is of course their official spokesperson or do a special limited pecan bar I'm sure they will a bar is born an RX bar is born Griffin's like looking at us as if we're like gonna green light it we don't

[01:42:58] actually work for I know I don't even know what I'm doing right now you're doing great shut up what you are you this is outrageous a billion comedy you can't give me negative a billion comedy points we're saying you're doing great fine plus two billion I'll

[01:43:15] take um no I the same Elliott thing is that the mother died during child birth she was like 17 the father died when he was young Sam LA kind of raised him they have this weird sort of half parent half sibling relationship he's

[01:43:29] also a musician yes the idea I think is initially like Sam Elliott was the musician yeah cuz like Cooper tells that story about his brother scene and play in the piano when he's a kid and realizing like oh this kid's got

[01:43:41] talent and him being so proud of the fact that his brother was like you know yes invested in this right but yeah dad made him his drinking buddy when he was 12 there's also that illusion to like they were kind of a duo maybe mm-hmm but like it didn't

[01:43:58] fly yeah like cuz they let's later when they're driving you know he brings that up like if we had a good name maybe it would have been a better duo mm-hmm but yeah it's like eventually I guess the implication is Jackson maybe the

[01:44:10] raw talent whatever maybe the more presentable talent whatever it is the big thing but he figures it out and he becomes the star and so his brother becomes like you know his his road manager right console yeah I jump into the end of the movie a moment another

[01:44:28] moment where I just locked in hardcore for a second is Sam Elliott looking back to pull out of the right way that's a great moment for both I think Cooper kills that scene too like where he's like can't say I do everything

[01:44:41] he wants to say but he tries to like sort of just get something out I do too but that and there's like such a wall between them you know and then yeah and then you cut to I'll say that's a real actors director move and it kind of

[01:44:53] stunned me is Cooper kills that but that's like a classic great actor doing a great moment of emotional conflict right but then you stay with Sam Elliott in the car and I go okay so is he gonna sit here in the park car and

[01:45:07] we're gonna get the amazing shot of Sam Elliott breaking down against the steering wheel but we're staying sort of in his head which is like rather than being a real friend of Sam Elliott and being like I'm gonna make you look the most impressive right and directs him

[01:45:21] to just continue on with the task at hand of pulling this car out of the driveway but show us that like half of your soul is breaking right now right it just just with a sort of a look you know a little watery eyes

[01:45:33] I saw Darren Aronofsky do a talk once he talked about working with like non-professional actors or actors who hadn't done movies before and we get to see what he's doing and he said you always give them a task to do if they're worrying too much about the lines

[01:45:47] or the emotion you give him something to eat the Brad Pitt move you give him some they have to do with their hands so they're more distracted by another task and then the emotions tend to come out a little more honestly in a little

[01:45:59] less force sure and this is such a simple graceful thing of just like a the device of like why he has to keep on looking over his shoulders right camera reversing but be that he's just trying to get it right that's also the last time

[01:46:11] they see each other yes that's that is Cooper Jackson saying goodbye to him you know maybe intentionally or not yeah which is yeah in the middle there right okay so all the first we did the first half is rules and then yeah right now

[01:46:25] like as you know fame's got to take hold the sort of division's got to start sprouting up and right and the movie's gonna be less energetic and more like about things falling apart and so yes it is it's a tougher watch I mean I don't think

[01:46:39] so though because I love the second half now go on no I just I just I don't know it's like it's not no one's mad at you you know it's like you you said I go

[01:46:51] you're gonna love this girl you should go out with her and then I come back and I'm like we got along it's like what was something wrong I was like no we like a lot of the same day we had a nice night

[01:46:59] sure I don't know I just like fine it's not fine it's terrible I'm retiring from what everything no you're not retiring from public life like Alec Baldwin well then I look forward to seeing you in a day if that's the case every

[01:47:15] time he retires from public life he gets two new tv shows do you remember when it was literally cover of New York magazine why I'm retiring from public life by Alec Baldwin and then he became a cast member and hosted the match game and he's gonna

[01:47:29] host the gongs or whatever 17,000 movies he's in this one thing I want to say oh he's so good in it great great performance is I love and that you know they shot all the music is live they're singing it's not lip sync they didn't

[01:47:45] want to do lady Gaga convinced Bradley Cooper not to do lip syncing because she thinks she thought it would look cheesy all the concert stuff was filmed at actual concerts you know the opening stuff from Coachella yeah and like they

[01:47:57] would just run them on stage and shoot for like 10 minutes yeah like in between and it's a real band which is Willie Nelson some promise the real yeah is Willie Nelson's having that Sam Elliott when he leaves them goes to work for Willie yeah working for

[01:48:11] Willie I want to watch the fucking spin-off movie about him working with Willie Nelson by the way that sounds great oh I thought it was Will Smith the millennium is here here are two assorted thoughts the two things I found most impressive in Bradley Cooper's performance one

[01:48:27] really sells being a musician on stage which is a thing where a lot of actors fuck up I'm not even just talking about David's miming the guitar move I'm not just talking about literally the sort of the physicality of the guitar playing or his singing both of

[01:48:43] which are very good but the fact the energy I mean the thing you were saying about slumping the head over the amp you see every concert performance you go oh this is that type of show yeah and it's very recognizable unforced unshowy just

[01:48:55] really lived in like this is a guy who's done 8,000 concerts who's drunk stuff the other moment that really some of you talk about him being in the drunken haze and realizing only after he goes to Ron Rifkin rehab triple R as we call it R squared

[01:49:11] that oh he's literally been drunk this entire movie up until now pretty much it's been different stages of drunk yeah he there are times when he's not drunk but it's few and far between and when you see him post rehab you're like

[01:49:23] oh this is the first time I'm seeing sober Bradley Cooper the whole movie this is more like the Bradley Cooper I know it is that very effective tool in movie making which is you withhold something from the audience so they don't realize they've been lacking it until

[01:49:39] you bring it back to them I just want to say something and yeah I just no go ahead you realize no just like in that final scene not founcing but the final stretch where he comes back at a rehab when you're just like

[01:49:49] when he's just kind of sitting around over his skin doesn't always look as leather you know his eyes aren't always glassy like you get so used to that as being the baseline with Bradley Cooper and your notion of sober becomes more sober than usual rather than a totally

[01:50:03] direct sober Bradley Cooper performance I don't need to go to rehab right now there's no and I don't want it you know I don't want to belittle personally as David sound yes but if I could go to a thing where I just kind of

[01:50:15] hang out with Ron Rifkin for like six weeks and swim in a pool wouldn't say no seems fun to me here's another thought I had during this like I just have chats with Ron Rifkin and then I swim what I seems

[01:50:27] great and once again I'm dealing with my own shit right but I in that scene with him and Ron Rifkin talking on the bench went like fuck I want to be old so I can play Ron Rifkin part I had that distinct

[01:50:39] thought where I was like I'm so done with my career can I just be old and play Ron Rifkin parts can I show up for two scenes and just be like a pretty good listener and I was like am I gonna need to go to rehab so here's

[01:50:51] here are takeaways from that you were like I wish I was Ron Rifkin you were like I need to go to rehab and I was like I'd love to just hang out with Ron Rifkin and swim right I'm going Hollywood is evil I just

[01:51:03] want to be Ron Rifkin then goes I should call Ron Rifkin and check my into Ron Rifkin's house of rehab and your notion was five out of five master piece would fuck again Rifkin I was so happy when he showed up I know

[01:51:19] we talk about where you just turn to me with glee in her eyes because she loves alias when you just get a good my favorite term for this but just a good steady hand character actor where you're like I'm going to

[01:51:29] be treated right for these couple of scenes Ron Rifkin's not going to do me dirty I told you're totally right he's a pro it's true he's a hand of the tiller here yeah a riffy he's looking skinny though I hope he's okay he's kind of skinny in

[01:51:41] this movie he's always been a skinnier guy yeah you know what I love him in his fucking yeah so good he's also just a great face and a great voice and his name is Ron Rifkin gets a lot of points for being named Ron Rifkin yeah

[01:51:55] it's a perfect character movie just kind of riffs for 10 minutes I think does he share a title card with Baba Shabbaka Henley baby I'm not sure that was the point where the right sorry go on I'm not even gonna make my joke now

[01:52:11] I was gonna say that was the point where they kicked me out of the theater for master baiting when there was the split card with Barry Shabbaka oh boy cut it out and then double it um the lady got so Ali gets famous

[01:52:27] yeah a star is born one could a star is born starts making pop music yeah I've seen some criticism about like how the movie is like sort of you know derisive or dismissive about pop music I don't think it is for one

[01:52:41] I don't think it is all the Lady Gaga song pop songs are good in my opinion and the soundtrack's out now and you can I've been rocking out to it a fucking rules the only song that is quote unquote bad

[01:52:51] is the one written by Diane Warren about jeans what's the one she does on SNL the why do you look so good in those jeans like you know the one that he makes fun the one that he's not into that's kind of bad it's insane that Diane Warren

[01:53:03] wrote it I know Diane you want to write one song for a movie it's the bad one I wonder if the conversation was literally like Diane you're a pro you've written so many moot songs for movies can you write a song that's sort of supposed to come off

[01:53:15] as a little cheese yeah I wonder you know yeah because it's still kind of you know it's a little bit of a it's moot you know you can you can yeah it doesn't fuck but like it's laps yeah it wears a pair of jeans

[01:53:27] but then they have that scene in the bathtub where he's drunk and he starts calling bullshit on the song he calls her ugly I mean all that stuff and I was like right okay here's that stars born turns he's nasty where he becomes like

[01:53:39] evil he's nasty about her art he never let me see so in the bath we call her evil ugly a bunch he says you're ugly but he says it after she has started making fun of his dad and I think you know like this sort of he has

[01:53:53] that kind of plausible drunk deniability was like I'm talking about how you're behaving yes but it also feels like he's being nasty yeah like he's hitting her where he know it hurts right that's the word that's gonna right that's the word it's gonna set her

[01:54:05] off make her sad yeah and but what it feels like more than he doesn't like the fucking manager he doesn't like you know the sort of pop apparatus right apparatus apparatus yeah but yeah he just thinks apparatus apparatus I say apparatus you know

[01:54:19] he just thinks like she's not like telling her truth anymore and it's like fucking settle down the old coot you know that's how I feel in that scene where I'm like not every song is gonna lay it all on the line like I like to do you know

[01:54:33] and that's what Sam Elliott is calling out of him earlier but he's he's too like you know wrapped up in himself to really hear him also he can't hear right he's got that this was multiple times where he's like what like he just

[01:54:47] can't hear people when he goes up to him at SNL and Sam Elliott asked him the question he answers something different yeah do you know what I'm talking about I forget what the exact lines are but Sam Elliott asked him something really Sam Elliott is

[01:54:59] basically like yeah I can't remember what it is though he's Bradley Cooper gives him a stock answer to what he assumed he asked because he can't hear him and Sam has a look in his eyes where he's like oh he can't even fucking hear right yeah um

[01:55:11] I love all that but yeah I mean I think like this movie is kind of always on Ali's side and then it's like you know this is what being famous is like now and yeah there are some trade-offs you have to make yeah but

[01:55:23] there are things like he's like you're gonna have blonde hair and she's like I'm not gonna have blonde hair she ends up having like this sort of reddish hair more like a sort of neon version of her own hair right yeah you know and he's like

[01:55:33] she doesn't want to use the dancers she doesn't want to use the dancers finally when you see her with the dancers she's sort of like they're like a team like they're with her but once again the only sense of that you get is from this one

[01:55:43] sort of very um flatly written manager character what do you mean I mean he's the lone representation of the pressures of well you know because he's the mouthpiece for all of it you don't hear it from anyone else it's a long movie

[01:55:57] it is and the other ones are so much longer they're three hours the the gainer one is right the garland and rags ones are three hours full hour long you just can't do that yeah so yeah I mean there's a little bit of

[01:56:09] abbreviation I just don't mind that I also think like the movie does you know it could get so sludgy so I I mean I'm gonna you're gonna be angry than comparing it to another movie yeah but I was watching this film going oh man this really

[01:56:23] makes me want to watch beyond the lights uh-huh which you know I love I love it too is a movie where we saw together and I sat in turn to you and said I want to fuck this movie and I had that moment of just

[01:56:33] like I'm in love with this thing yeah but I think that movie really gets at the um I feel the emotional claustrophobia right in that film of being caught in the whirlwind of career but that movie has a shitty romance I prefer

[01:56:51] the romance in that oh I don't agree the problem with that movie is the fame stuff is terrific but the romance is so perfunctory disagree with him okay I cry when he says I love him okay well I don't the romance

[01:57:03] in that I feel like is what's given short drift which is what the romance is always given short shrift in these movies and I think I like that he's balanced at the other way I prefer that movie in on both fronts

[01:57:13] well I don't but I do like beyond the lights a lot I think it's great it fucks it does David don't give me that look yeah alright it fucks I don't know I like Ben is making fuck fingers with his hands is

[01:57:27] so try to explain it to the listener with two fingers on one hand he's making a small circle almost like an okay then the other fingers representing well it's a bit foul like if I do say so myself and he is fucking the circle with the pointer finger

[01:57:41] um yeah I've been Nate Parker he's I look I'm no fan of Nate Park sounds like you love Nate Parker and cry about it all the time I just like his personal life but that was a joke that was a terrible joke Nate Parker has always struck me

[01:58:00] he's like he's just a little flat like I don't love him in anything I agree with you other than that one movie yeah the romance in that whatever the parents stuff in that I like mini driver a lot sometimes it's a little like

[01:58:14] don't yell the whole movie of me but I do like that movie a lot they're both big Hollywood movies they're not trafficking in subtlety I think they are trafficking in a sense of a specificity within a grand Hollywood sort of drama

[01:58:26] Dan Warren also wrote a song for that movie at least one I just felt like and this just gets into personal preference that movie was more on the wavelengths of the things I kind of want to see out of this sort of story

[01:58:36] but you already got that movie I know and I was sitting there and going oh I want to watch that again I blech you no, blech I think you mean blah blah blah I don't know David what am I supposed to say so grumpy

[01:58:54] can I tell you what I'm worried about I feel like I'm going to have five months ahead of me of the fucking culture war of stars born versus whatever the other big Oscar front runner is my question is I don't know what the other is going to be

[01:59:06] but yeah, possibly yes I don't know and I feel like there's always the thing that I always hate I fall into where you start fighting about my movie rather than your movie about this time of year I vow to myself just like the movies you like

[01:59:18] it's not a competition except for the part where it literally is a competition they give out gold men little gold men hashtag well gold men plug to little gold men right? and there's a difference between like the inner rottu movies which I like

[01:59:32] hate versus something like that's why I'm like I just don't love it but I also just was watching this knowing I wasn't loving it, knowing that I liked it enough and I'm like fuck I know four months from now I'm going to be at a bar arguing

[01:59:44] the relative merits of this versus whatever the thing is that I want to win every time Griffin, what if you give yourself another chance and let's just say that maybe you might watch it again and like it well that's possible too it's possible, it's possible

[02:00:00] I admittedly was not in a great head space when I saw it last night no, didn't sound like it but I was really like amped for the movie and I wanted the hyzen lows of the thing and I felt the hyzen I didn't feel the lows

[02:00:14] in the sense that maybe I didn't buy into the grand tragedy of the thing as much as I bought into the little moments of intimacy and things like that well, so he kills himself he does in a matter in which a lot of rock stars have killed themselves

[02:00:30] unfortunately probably his best director flourishes the sire, the lights the police lights are so fucking good it's a really good shot that whole sequence I think is great, that's his dog that's Bradley Cooper's dog Charlie obviously the real star is born right there dog's great

[02:00:46] all that stuff like my acting teacher I really liked who I've talked about before in the podcast was Bradley Cooper's main teacher when he wins the Oscar this year which I believe you are correct, he will win I think so

[02:01:02] he will probably spend 75% of his speech crying about her because he cites her as the most important figure in his entire life and a lot of other acting teachers a thing that she would sort of talk about is really trying to find those personal connections into the thing

[02:01:16] you know, find the areas not reaching further to a character that's further away from yourself but things that then just become truly honest so things like that relationship, the dog makes a lot of sense that the dog is so good on camera with him because

[02:01:30] that's a dog he actually has a relationship with and using Lady Gaga's nose and his ears and all these things that are tied into like these real sore spots for the actors not just the characters I liked all of that stuff I am excited to see what

[02:01:44] Bradley Cooper continues to do as a director it's gonna be weird because this first movie is so fucking big that I don't know what the rest of his career looks like now he'll probably just keep making big movies I'm trying to see some other

[02:01:56] like if there's any other sort of tidbits buried in here, I think her last performance is really good I really like that song I like that she doesn't say Mrs. Jackson Maine which is how every other one of the movies ends with the

[02:02:12] not Jackson but they always say I'm Mrs. Norman Maine, she's always called Esther in the other movies too which is funny I guess they just decided Esther on a big billboard wouldn't pop but I disagree but yeah she doesn't say that she says

[02:02:26] I'm Ally Maine and we should mention Esther Zuckerman was the second choice for this behind Lady Gaga our friend Esther Zuckerman she loves this movie Star of Easy Rider our upcoming biopic as part of the Easy Rider yeah yeah, I don't know premiered at the Venice Home Festival

[02:02:48] great, blowing reviews everyone loves it you're not, other people don't like it too here's the thing I always I also don't want to be someone who's fighting for why let me explain why it isn't good I hate that thing well that's always my thing

[02:03:02] I don't want to wrestle I hate wrestling that's always my thing with this everyone who likes the movie that's great and if you want to say your piece about what you don't like about the movie a couple times fine but doing the endless well isn't that bad

[02:03:20] unless it's Bermann's and Evil there wasn't a birth that's true and you know what it's bullshit so what do you think you're gonna like though Oscar movie you feel like you're gonna lock into I also just don't know what the competitor to this movie is gonna be

[02:03:36] well I don't know if it's like a major Oscar movie because it is more of like an artsy sort of like thing I don't know if it's like I was gonna make Ralph Breaks the internet I mean you stole the fucking, I mean I don't

[02:03:48] and your joke makes less sense because I've already seen it Farron, sorry we are doing a Ralph Breaks the internet episode yes, I don't know maybe Roma, I guess people love Roma I like Farron a lot a lot First Man is coming up the favorite

[02:04:04] I mean if Beale Street could talk, his wonderful widow is wonderful that's probably what I'm most excited about I mean like the fucking Moonlight's my favorite movie the decade so I you know to hear that he has a new movie and that people liked it

[02:04:16] I imagine I'll go crazy for it maybe you might not I'm very excited for the PG-13 release of Deadpool obviously I mean everyone's excited for that I mean I'm looking through stuff great Vanessa P they played the trailer for the Mule before the movie

[02:04:32] I am so in for the Mule we already talked about this I think in another episode but I'm angry that he doesn't have drugs in his butt apparently they're just in the back of his truck a lot of Peacans though in that trailer, a lot of Peacans talk

[02:04:44] really Cooper do you think he bought futures and Peacans Peacan Futures I unfortunately like I'm so excited for the Mule I am too, God even though I think it'll probably suck trailers are so good American Sniper Trailer rules right that's the best trailer of the decade

[02:05:04] it certainly helped its massive performance I think Sully trailer is great but obviously Sully is even better because it's American masterpiece we spell freedom S-U-L-L-Y I mean that is the interesting thing Ben was talking about the choice to make Bradley Cooper kind of this country

[02:05:22] that is the interesting thing with him is that like Peacan Ranch Peacan Ranch it is interesting maybe that's the RX bar flavor is it's Peacans with ranch sauce, ranch dressing and egg whites it is interesting that Bradley Cooper has become this partial avatar for like Red State America

[02:05:42] because American Sniper was very much a like finally a movie for us I don't know if this movie is going to be an avatar for Red State America from the initial reactions but- audience I saw it with was crazy about it but I will say it was also

[02:05:54] like 92% women and I think this movie is going to be one of those massive like oh right we should make a movie that women want to see it turns out they show up in droves Lady Gaga is amazing in this movie FYI we haven't really talked

[02:06:08] about her enough she rules, she's natural she's human she feels like a person I didn't think she added in her other sort of acting role she's done it's all image and glam and sort of like extreme you know archness and none of that's present here

[02:06:26] got her face in those early scenes the way she's just looking at him like is this guy totally full of shit or is this for real like it's basically like what she's sort of like is slowly getting ground down in those early scenes

[02:06:40] we're like is he just like a famous guy who's trying to like have a cool night or like you know is all this shit you say I don't know whatever you seem less enthused yeah I was less enthused with her

[02:06:52] performance but I don't know if I have like pointed gripes or anything she's great she probably won an Oscar it's weird she got a fucking huge applause break at the end credit is my theater yeah you think she's gonna win I think it's possible I think

[02:07:06] I think the reason she doesn't win would just be the Oscars being like the nomination is your reward like you know this movie who's winning elsewhere and like this is like your first big role that's kind of why I think she's not gonna

[02:07:18] but she doesn't have an obvious competitor which is why I think she will there's just not there's no one who's got this sort of big juicy role plus no Oscar like to sort of make a run except for Glenn close who's in this like you know yeah

[02:07:36] respectively received respectively received summer indie movie that did okay like for Glenn close if she's winning it's literally just like well she's never won oh you're forgetting the other really big hyped up female performance the year what Cura Knightley and I know cracker

[02:07:54] in the four he was struggling there yeah I mean I don't want to tonight the floor have you seen the trailer where I don't want to talk about a movie I wrote and directed I just think it's weird I think it's weird to talk about it when I

[02:08:06] poured my soul into that move and let's admit that David you are paid sponsor for this episode not cracker in the four realms unite the four and theater look I'll admit my pitch to Disney was three realms they added a fourth realm I've never been

[02:08:18] fucking hollow they won't let you make a small intimate story I mean that's that's the success of stars born is a small intimate human story you're just a boy you want to tell a nice tight control story three-room story it's a three-roomer and they're like this movie

[02:08:34] look they were like look three realms this movie makes 80 million four realms the multiplier they had this crap I think they might have been you know selling me a bridge like you you deliver them an air tight diamond cut three realm structure screenplay

[02:08:52] it has a clear one act one realm one realm one realm one run it's true some people are going to say the fourth realm feels tacked on it's gonna feel lumpy but I'm not going to tell you which realm wasn't my realm okay

[02:09:04] so you're gonna have to figure that out from yourself I think it's obvious can we do a floor yeah we're gonna release that to a black hole it won't be on the internet but we'll just shout it into a singularity you can record that one on your own

[02:09:22] yeah Ben's like yeah I'll produce that never yeah so we're gonna release our not cracker in the four realms episode on Farrell audience I think that I think big doors have closed them out whatever they I don't know about that oh god

[02:09:40] I mean what we were recording five hours I have to go to Comic Con yeah you do yeah you're gonna do great I think so I don't know I've been a very nervous I know you've been a bit of a nervous wreck

[02:09:50] this week I have I'm about to move I'm gonna wreck you're gonna move I like much like Ralph I'm gonna wreck it then we had a great time at Star is born we love Griffin I love you guys Griffin's the best he's gonna be fine

[02:10:02] I'm gonna be fine coming up after this is Nancy Myers it's mostly in the can for us we've done most of them all but the last two yep and and I think it's gone great I think it's been a lot of fun

[02:10:14] we have a lot of really exciting fun guest first time guest couple good first-time guests and some nice returners yeah the holiday episode the dog is off the leash the dog the dogs off the dog park God knows where he went he's all over

[02:10:28] the place that now on the cat ranch lock the gates baby he might sneak out yeah we did record it at the car I said a lot of new exciting guest mark marin is the guest on every Nancy Myers episode we figured he had the right

[02:10:42] voice for them yeah we're your kitchen he loves the intern I don't know if you know that he brings up the intern a lot is that just like because he saw it like Mark man doesn't see a lot of movie yeah but he brings up

[02:10:54] a lot every time he has like any film person it goes have you seen the int the near was like fucking great in that right in the pocket I mean he will talk about it that's one of the only ones we haven't talked about

[02:11:06] well griffin's a grumpy guts but this is a great I just feel worn out and all this sort of stuff yeah you know I'm far from the shallows you now now I am at least we're gonna do whatever Bradley Cooper movie comes next

[02:11:20] yeah birds Dean or whatever it's called Leonard part seven I hope it's something so stupid with a movie I hope I hope to sing and in dancing like I no no no I hope that Bradley Cooper like doesn't make burns he makes

[02:11:34] a U-turn and he's like you know what I'm gonna remake Suspiria again do GI Joe 3 World War Z to venture won't take it I just snatched it up baby or maybe he hears he hears my pitch and we finally get the buzz

[02:11:52] well first of all I mean right they have their first look deal Warner Brothers so Phillips and Cooper the two guys to get but I'll say the public is looking for a good follow performance this night eggs is right in his wheel oh yeah yeah absolutely absolutely yeah

[02:12:06] I'm still in the process of working on the first look at that one though that's a white picture yeah yeah he's part of the packet could you just imagine coop though crushing eggs with his boot I could except it's a masterpiece yeah I guess oh my god

[02:12:22] take some pride in this beautiful thing we know get out of here okay can we end yeah what else we gotta say anything else no the mule I hope it's muley I hope it's muley I'm really for the uh I don't know let's see um

[02:12:38] Nancy's yeah coming up we talk about some of this while you're in the bathroom okay great yeah then let's go let's just go okay hey look here here are a couple things I want to say and I want to say them clearly okay on the record

[02:12:52] I don't care who I offend I just want to take this moment to stump speech it's the end of my soapbox and stuff thank you all for listening please remember to rate or you subscribe despite what anyone else might tell you thanks to Manfrigura for our social media

[02:13:08] despite the dirty rumors out there thanks to Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork Liam on coming for our theme song go do blankies I'd rather come for some real nerdy shit but it's he-bubble for some real nerdy merch and as always just a little good enough

[02:13:35] David as everyone knows this podcast started out as a sort of hard hitting journalism asking the big questions and we veered away the show has now become a bit of palooza that's true despite a lot of movie talks

[02:13:49] it's trying to be a no-bits podcast it's become a lot of bits about movies we can deal with that in 2019 I feel like we can tackle it we'll get back on message but at the same time if you got that sort of like real true crime drama

[02:14:01] itch a real probing podcast I got one to recommend for you David listen okay if you like cereal if you like S-Town dirty John A of these you might like a podcast called Dead Man Talking oh that's created by audio boom yeah right here baby

[02:14:19] Dead Man Talking is about the death row confessions of the railroad killer okay Angel Rezendes who crisscrossed the US by freight train in the 80s and 90s choosing his victims at random before he was executed by the state of Texas in 2006 that's spooky that's extremely spooky

[02:14:35] I'm bummed out right now okay but here's the twist shamalan style before his death Rezendes spoke to journalists and host Alex Hannaford and claimed on tape to have killed as many as 40 people more than he was arrested for no good very bad don't do it but do listen

[02:14:55] as each episode takes a confession and leads Alex on an investigation to find out the truth okay because here's a double shamalan you gotta ask yourself was the railroad killer lying in order to slow down his journey to the execution chamber was he even more censored

[02:15:07] than anyone could have imagined a little bit of an unreliable narrator features interviews with his only surviving victim that must be a weird club to be part of the psychiatrist who knew him best attorneys who worked on the case two inmates currently serving life sentences for crimes

[02:15:21] Rezendes claims he committed we've been trying to book them as guests on the show I'll tell you they're hard guys so you visit Apple podcast Google podcast Spotify your favorite podcast directory search for dead man talking