Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore with Katey Rich

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_01] A podcast for everyone who has ever dreamed of a second chance. The marketing on this movie was insane.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_03] I'm gonna put forward that it's insane that the poster for this movie is just Burstyn and Christofferson smiling.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_05] I think it worked. I think it worked because people were like, well, I'd like to see that. I'd like Chris Christofferson to take me in his loving arms.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_03] You, like Ellen Burstyn, like his beard. We all want that. Would you argue that's not really what the movie is? But what would you say the movie is? Just like her crying? Like, you know what that? Yeah, but that's not gonna go on a poster. I think it's funny. This is like, you know, it's Ellen Burstyn's Oscar winning performance.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_05] I would say it's an element. It's a strong element of the movie. No one's walking out of there being like, well, there was no Chris Christofferson hugging in that film. I feel cheated. Like, it's in there.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_03] But I think this movie is more than anything about a woman stuck in cycles. And this movie poster presents it as if like one door closed and another one opened. It is eventually opened. Eventually, the door creaks open and she's like, I think it's safe to walk through this door.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, exactly. I mean, throwing out the idea that a movie about a woman is being sold with a man on the poster. This is true. That's never been done before, obviously.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_03] No, and him being above the title is kind of nuts. It's Ellen Burstyn and... It's fucking a big deal. And Chris Christofferson in... He's a big fucker. I mean, and what? This is two years... No, where are stars born relative to this?

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_05] After this, right? After this. This is the early him acting. We can talk about it. Okay.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_06] But he's already very famous. But he's very famous.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_05] Very famous. Yeah. You know, he's someone you want, you know, to show off because it's like, hey, we got... Him and Bobby McGee. Yeah.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_04] Exactly. Yeah.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_05] We got this guy.

[00:02:04] God.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, he wrote that song.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_05] He did.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_04] Dang. Yeah. I'm not a Chris Christofferson guy, I have to admit.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_03] I'm going to tell him. You're a big Whistler guy though, right? That's the character he plays in Blade. Blade's assistant.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_04] Oh. Oh, right. Yeah. He's always like, oh shit. You gotta go get those vampires. Blade killed the vampires. Is Griffin asking me if I like whistling?

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_06] Well... Or like Whistler's mother, the painting.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_05] Oh, whoa. Whoa. Oh, this just got 100% jauntier in this room.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_03] I'll say I like whistling, which is the verb I use for watching Blade movies. Right. I'm gonna have a... Is he in Trinity? Is he in the third one? He is, but he dies for the second time, I wanna say. Rip. Because he dies in the first one. The second one, he's back alive and they don't explain it. The third one, they kill him for good. But then Whistler's daughter shows up. Right. Whistler's daughter is Jessica Biel.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_04] Right. Whenever I have a daughter, I hope she looks like Jessica Biel from Seventh Heaven.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_03] Right. And then Planet of the Apes. Hm? Excuse me? ASTELA. Planet of the Apes. Uh huh. Parenthetical 2001. Sure. ASTELA. ASTELA. ASTELA. ASTELA. ASTELA.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_04] Ah, she's my daughter.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_03] I'm a human. I hope these apes don't kill me. Damn apes!

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_05] You can make the checkout to its K-R-I-S.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_03] We can't do our favorite bit on that movie because it's too early, but the idea that you can see the actor doing direct deposit on their phone on camera. Uh, yep. Kris Kristofferson, the handsome boy is here. Oh man. What a good looking guy. The handsome boy is the nickname?

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_06] He's a man, David.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I think calling him a boy is immediately offensive.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_06] There is a boy in this movie who is distinctly a boy, so you gotta set Chris Christopherson,

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_03] the young, handsome new boy is here.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_06] The rancher.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_03] I think Chris Christopherson is as much of a man as anyone has ever been. Oh yeah. That is an adult. He's an adult man. Uh, and the boy in this movie has the foulest mouth he's ever heard. That's a brutal thing coming from Chris Christopherson. Yeah, you imagine.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_05] That's the foulest mouth I've ever heard. Right. You imagine Chris has probably met a couple of saucy fellas over the years.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_06] Spending all that time on the ranch, you know? You're not talking to enough people and not used to it.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_03] I just think it's funny that this movie was sold as a second chance rom-com and then spawned a non- nine season workplace sitcom. And you watch it and you're like, it's just like a pretty tender, small character study about a sad woman.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_06] But the minute that you start with the Mel's Diner sequence, you're like, oh, I would spend nine seasons here. It makes perfect sense. It emerges fully formed as the setting for a show that you would watch.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_05] If you showed someone the first five minutes of this movie, so the crazy prologue, right? And maybe just a couple minutes of her with a husband, she doesn't really like that much. And you were like, now hit pause. Now, what if I told you this turned into a hit sitcom? You'd be like, what part of it turned into a hit? But exactly. 100 plus episodes and a spin off. But if you show someone the last half of the movie, they would be like, oh, sure.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_03] I can see it. Ben looks befuddled. Producer Ben looks befuddled. There was a wildly successful sitcom that ran for nearly a decade called Alice's Restaurant that was based on this movie that was a workplace diner sitcom. It was just called Alice.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_06] It's just called Alice. It's all you need. Really? Yeah. What do I think it was called Alice's Restaurant?

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_04] Alice's Restaurant is the... A play, right? No, it's the Woody Guthrie's son. Oh, that's what I'm thinking of. Yes. Sorry.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_05] I knew I was getting confused or something else. It was just called Alice. It was the longest running sitcom starring a woman until Roseanne. It ran for nine seasons. Linda Lavin, the great Linda Lavin. And I would say it was, I mean, yeah, it was very successful. Like it spent a good half of its time on the air being like a top 10 show.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_03] And here's what's crazy. Diane Ladd in this movie plays Flo, right? A different actress plays Flo on the sitcom. Everyone is different except for one person. Vic Tabak.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. The cook is the same actor, right? But everyone else is different because it was, you know, you're a movie actor. You don't go down to TV. The show is so successful. They spin off Flo into her own show. And then to replace Flo in the dynamic, they hire Diane Ladd to play a new waitress. That's how big the show was. You know what? At first she's like, I'm not doing a sitcom of the movie I was in. And then five years later, she was like, I would gladly join the cast. I'd love to. And in fact, where can I sign on the document?

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_03] But it's just like, what if it's just this fun diner minus any abusive relationships?

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_06] Have you guys ever watched Alice? I thought about doing it for this and I didn't do it.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_03] I never have. I know kiss my grits, which is the catchphrase.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_06] Which Diane Ladd doesn't say in the movie, right? She's talking about grits.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_03] She's talking about grits.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_05] They get close.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_06] She's got plenty of like fun, colorful language.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_05] That was, you know, Polly Holiday on the show. So we can do with these grits. Should I hug them?

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_03] Should I gently caress them? David was just telling us to kiss morning grits. He was telling us to kiss morning grits.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_06] Evening grits also a solid. I mean, if you go to Waffle House, it's open 24 hours. You can have grits any time of day.

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_03] What's your Waffle House order? Because you live in a Waffle House area. Oh, Scattered Smothered and Covered.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_06] Scattered Smothered and Covered. Also the name of a Hootie and the Blowfish album. I'm well aware I owned it on CD. Why did I wear my Hootie and the Blowfish shirt that I recently found in my parents house? Why haven't you bought me one? I gladly buy you one.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_03] Google.com Hootie and the Blowfish shirt. Alex Ross Perry is rubbing his hands together right now at this reveal. I don't even know what he's going to do with this, but he's going to do something.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_06] He's going to bully me somehow.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_05] I lived in Britain where Hootie and the Blowfish, much like sort of Matchbox 20, Dave Matthews bands, some of these like American bands. All Nighted. No, it's just one of those things that completely failed to translate. Right. You know, they were brought over as like, this is one of the hottest bands in America right now. Their album just went like double diamond and in Britain was like, I think we're okay.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_06] It's just like how we don't get Robbie Williams. Sure. Like it just never landed here.

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_05] Some that just never made it over. But I was gifted, cracked rear view when I was 10 years old and I gave it a spin on the old Discman.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_06] I just- Southern frat rock not translating does make sense to me.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_05] The whole thing with Hootie and the Blowfish and I've done this rant before is like- You have? Oh yeah. Is that Darius Rucker's voice is incredible. Like that's- Yeah. It's the thing where you listen to it where you're like, he fucking rocks. And now he's become a massive solo country. Right. And then he had his country career and you're kind of like, God bless him. Because, you know, anytime you listen to Hootie and the Blowfish, you're like, all of this is pretty ordinary sounding except who the- Hootie. Hootie B. Hootin'. I feel so bad for him. He's so good. I know his name's not Hootie.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_03] But that's the thing. Oh. It's the Blondie problem. Yeah. He could never come out from under being Hootie.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_06] If you guys ever saw-

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_03] And of course, the Jerry Maguire gag. Yes. No, I am not Hootie. You know.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_06] As people who've listened to the show before know, I grew up in South Carolina. I don't live there now. But so if you drive into South Carolina from Charlotte, there's like a visitor's area there. And there is a video, like a South Carolina tourism video that Darius Rucker made. He's the star of it. It's like, hey, welcome to my state. I love it here. Yeah. If he wanted to run for governor of South Carolina- He would win. He would win 100%. Darius Rucker? Hootie? Yeah.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_01] He is doing so well.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_06] He is like a treasure. So he is doing just fine.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_05] You know, I agree. The man's a treasure. He is.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_03] Let's give him treasure status. I'm so glad I got us here. Let's make him treasurer. Put him in the trunk. Yeah. He's treasure. It is funny to imagine- Put him in the trunk.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_02] He's treasure.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_03] He's treasure. Sure. With the name Darius Rucker on the ballot. Just going, I love America. I can't do his voice. The second he won, everyone would be like, well, Governor Hootie. Hootie, Governor Hootie. Yeah. It didn't matter. He'd probably be fine with it. He'd just have to accept it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not liking any of their merch. Hootie and the Blowfish? You're thinking about buying something? You gotta find- I just thought I had a thought, but I'm not-

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_06] The shirt I have is from the 1995 tour that I went to. It was my first ever concert, and it's- They don't look like you on the back. If you go on eBay, it's on there. Go, Scott.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_05] They have the- There's the Friends episode that's about- One of the very few Friends episodes that tried to touch on, like, sort of matters of, like, class and money. Okay. Like, usually friends didn't really touch this stuff, and it's like, oh, they all live in giant apartments, and like, don't worry about it. This is the one that Mike Lead guest directed. Exactly. It's the only one that acknowledges that three of the friends are kind of like, make good money and three don't. And it's about that, and like, a Hootie and the Bluefish concert is-

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_03] Let's break this down.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_05] Do you remember who the three- Ross makes good money. Ross is- Ross? Monica makes good money. Chandler and Monica- Yeah. Are the, like, quote unquote, richer, and then like, Joey, Phoebe, and Rachel are the- But it might be Rachel is- I can't remember where it is, because eventually Rachel gets the fashion job.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_03] But she doesn't always- Rachel also comes from money?

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_05] Yes, but of course she gets- She has to cut off all her credit cards. Right. You know, because she didn't marry the dentist.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_06] But Monica and Ross come from money too. They all grew up in the same rich town, right?

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_05] Well, Monica and Ross are coded- They're coded as like suburban- Sure. Yeah. Like, you know, like they're fine or whatever. Um, but- But it's sort of just like, it's saying like, you know, like Ross, I think it might be rape. I can't. But it's like, yeah, Ross, these guys have white collar jobs. They make money, blah, blah, blah. And like Joey, he's a struggling actor. Phoebe, Lord knows how she's bringing the rent together. She does Smelly Cat. Like what is Phoebe's job, right? You know, and the crucial thing is that they, the rich ones get to go to a Hootie and the Blowfish concert. Wow.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_05] And it's like one of those things where it's like, no grander experience than seeing Hootie and his Blowfish. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_03] David, I think I found the right piece of Hootie merch for you. I just texted it to you. Send it along to me. I think you would rock the shit out of this. And Ben, as someone into fashion, I want your advice. Okay. I just think- Oh boy. Yeah, I can't see it. I'm gonna show it to you. All right. Yeah, it's not too handsome. It is a charcoal colored bucket hat. Mm-hmm. On one side, it says the group therapy tour. Okay. And on one of the other tours, I assume. There's this, there's this kind of tie dye logo.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_04] Oh, it's a little American flag. Hootie and the Blowfish. Mm-hmm. I cannot see Sims wearing this. Sims would rock the shit out of this.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_05] I'm not a huge bucket hat guy. Yeah. I'm not usually to be found- They're back.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_03] You didn't hear they're back?

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_05] They're always, you know, threatening, right?

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_03] Wait a second, David, you said you're not a huge bucket hat guy? Okay. But did you know that this one has an adjustable drawstring attached and the sizes run small? Thank God.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_05] Just in case I needed to especially hug the old noggin. Yes.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_06] I can't imagine a hat with a drawstring. I can't imagine. You could get it. I gotta get it.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_03] A going home candle. Is your- Oh, you're on like the Hootie website? Is your shirt like this?

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, I am. No. Okay. That's not great for an audio medium.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_05] I'm just trying to see what vintage era- Or is it like, does it look like this? Like, um, you know, the Crack Tree review? It's not even that one.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_06] Okay. All right.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_05] We're hunting. I know. This one is a hundred bucks on eBay. Yeah. Because it's a tour shirt from like 95. Oh, sure. Like, you know. Yeah. Yeah. How many people though? Yeah, right. Yeah.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_06] The one I found at my parents' house was from 99, a very under-appreciated tour. And I was like, should I just sell this thing and send my kids to college? It was not worth quite that much. I'm just hanging on to it.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_03] Remember all that concern that when the year 2000 hit, Hootie and the Blowfish were going to go to that back down to zero? That they were going to crash? We thought we were going to lose them.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. That's why I saw them on tour in 1999, obviously.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_05] Why 2H? Man, people tuned in. They hit play on their little podcatcher going, oh, Alice doesn't live here anymore with Katie Rich on Blank Check. We love it. Definitely a 10 minute Hootie run kicking this one off, right?

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_03] People are disappointed only because they were certain it was going to open with 10 minutes of Becker. Oh, no. Becker's done. What were you going to say?

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_06] I like to think I bring less chaos to this podcast than your average guest. I think so. You bring less chaos. But then I just started with the Hootie thing, so I'm sorry.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_05] You invite a lot of tangents because you and I and you and Griffin.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_06] We have plenty to talk about.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_05] And we have kind of shared brain waves about kind of like. Reference points. Right. The sort of entertainment weekly era of being a teen who loves movies and all. I don't know. I just feel like we got a lot of roads we can go down. 100%.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_06] Get ready. Let's go down some roads.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_05] And you know, Hootie sang about those roads in his song. I wish I could remember. I was like, if only I could make a lot of detailed Hootie and the Blowfish references, which I don't know that I can.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_06] I texted you the shirt that I had. All right. Here we go. Here we go. You can now see it. It is the exact shirt. I did buy this one off eBay. I now have two Hootie shirts. And this is the one that I got at the tour in 1995.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_05] God bless. Wait. So you bought a shirt on Hootie? You bought a shirt?

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_06] Last summer, around my birthday, I was like, you know what I'm giving myself is Hootie and the Blowfish shirt for my birthday.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_05] This is why we're pals.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, this shirt is pretty fresh. It's a good one. It's green and blue. And hang on, Griffin, I got texted to you too. Please, please. I got to see that.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_05] Please be hitting the old drop down menu on this and hitting buy it now.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_06] Yes. There we go. All right. I'm texting it to Ben also. So now everyone loves it when we text each other on the microphone.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_05] Time. There you go. There you go. How you punish me. I remember that one. David, you have the voice of an Hootie. I've got the voice of a Hootie. Oh my God. I'm a terrible singer. I'm a bad singer.

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_06] Not based on that.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_05] Well, I'll leave it there then. I'll end on a high. What was that? Running from an Angel? What was the only want to be with you? That was the one that people were basically like, this band needs to be legally like disbarred from music.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_06] The Miami Dolphins were in that music video.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_05] Because it was just like fucking, you know, MTV played it like four billion times a day. MTV was like, wait, there's a Rootsie rock band with a black guy. Like this checks all her boxes. Fucking blanket the airwaves. Like we got to get this guy everywhere. Maybe we cut that out.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_06] I should have worn it.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_05] I just bought it.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_06] All right. It's going to be, we link it in the show notes so everybody can go. We're going to write out all the eBay stores of these hoodie shirts. Great.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_03] It's very funny. The Alice Doesn't Live Here anymore or the Alice sitcom Wikipedia. has a section of differences between the film and television series. And it's like a various. Harvey Keitel not included. That's the thing. It's all stuff like Alice's maiden name was Graham. Television series. Alice's maiden name was Spivak. And you're like, film, sad. Sitcom doesn't touch dark stuff. Like that's what they're not saying.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_03] They're into like very granular details.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_06] Did you go through the guest stars of who was on this?

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_03] This is one of those sitcoms. It was a hot show.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_06] But Jay Leno was on it.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_03] Celebrities would appear. Here's something. Celebrities would appear as themselves. Joel Grey as themselves. George Burns goes like, how much for the tuna meal?

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_05] Joel Grey. It is set in Arizona. Like it's still like, it's not like they like, Alice moved to a diner in Hollywood or whatever. But people are just passing on through, I guess. It's a funny thing because like it was a hit show. But you can tell by its kind of lack of Emmy noms that it was never taken very seriously. Like Lavin got a grand total of one nom. And she's the legend. She's the legend. Recently passed. Yeah, recently passed. Of course she's Seth Cohen's grandma on the OC.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_05] And that was her only ever Emmy nom, which is rude. Rude to Lavin.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_06] She and Chris Christopherson both passed 2024. Pretty close to killing him.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_03] David. Sorry. I told you not to do that. Just for the record. They asked. It was kind of like a weird kind of like. I know, but I said, why you? That's what I said.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_05] You just don't need to meddle in their business. So Chris Christopherson died at the grand old age of 86. And I feel like Linda Lavo also lived a very long time. She Linda Lavin.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_03] She was 87. 87.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_03] At the time we're recording this, Ellen Burstyn, 93. Still working. God. I will say about Lavin, like I don't look at Ellen Burstyn and go like Linda Lavin to

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_05] TV version. Very different. It's a totally different type of character.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_03] There's also a crazy thing is that Ellen Burstyn later does a sitcom in the 80s. The Ellen Burstyn show.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_05] Was it good?

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_03] That was a fucking riot. I think it was just like a family sitcom. But that's another person where I don't go like, obviously, let's get her on a multicam.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_05] You know, I think it was one of those things where it's like, if you're someone like Ellen Burstyn, where it's like, you are a tremendous actress. You're an Oscar winner. And you've been in huge movies like The Exorcist. But you're never going to be treated like a movie star by Hollywood because it's a sexist industry. And you're a little older and you're more of like a great actor than you are.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_03] And I think she always preferred theater and loved teaching and maybe just wanted the consistent.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_05] And then like the call just comes along like, hey, do you want the consistent work and paycheck of one of these network shows? Right. She only did it. It only aired.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_03] 13 episodes. Megan Mullally was her daughter. Elaine Stritch was also on it. I think Elaine Stritch played her mom. No, played her mom. Played her mom. Seven year age difference.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_05] Yes.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_06] Her 80s are a lot of movies I've never heard of. Just going through her credits.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_05] It's interesting because like Ellen Burstyn is a hall of famer, right? She's a legend.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_03] There's no question. I think she's one of the best screen actors. I mean, she's mostly a legend because she told you to shut the fuck up that one time. That's not what she said. And you know, that's not what she said. She said try silent. Correct. And you got to give credit.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_06] It's actually way better than her telling him to shut the fuck up. That's why it needs to be correct. Nothing better.

[00:18:46] [SPEAKER_05] Nothing better. I think she's one of the greatest actors of all time. But she no doubt has, as Katie's saying, when you look at her filmography, like just a bunch of stuff where you're like, what on earth is that?

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_06] Like what happens to women who are the stars of their movies? What are you going to do with them?

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_03] But then also two additional Oscar nominations in the 80s. Like we're saying like, well, that's a weird decade for her. So what were her dying young? Did she get a resurrection in 1980? That's 80. Yeah. And then I guess same time next year is 78. Right. Did she get nominated for that? Yeah.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_05] Yes, she did. Like she got a bunch of Oscar noms and she won one.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_06] And she's in a twice in a lifetime. The movie that Amy Madigan got her nomination for, which I had never heard of until the first run.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_05] But I remember when she got her, you know, nomination for Requiem for a Dream. It was that classic Oscar thing of like them being like, and where have you been? And she's like, I've been here. I've been here. You're so good in the movie where you played a crazy drug addict.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_03] And she's like, okay, well, you know, I've been in other stuff too. I do think that led to a then kind of elder statesman. She's now a legendary, immediate, instant gravitas.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_05] Great actor. We stan. And, you know, today we discuss on a podcast that Griffin's about to introduce, the film that won her an Oscar.

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. Which unfortunately, in my opinion, steals the Oscar for what might be the greatest screen performance of all time. Oh, well, then we can. Oh, is it a Gina Rowland's role? Woman Under the Influence is this year. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's a fucking great performance. That Ellen Burstyn wins. And Martin Strasese goes up to Cassavetes and Rollins at the Oscars, like near crying. And he's like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make this fucking thing. Because this one also feels really Cassavetes inspired.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_06] Sure. Oh, yeah. It feels like the movie to me.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_03] I mean, it's Marty. We'll talk about it. It's in the research, I'm sure. Yeah.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_06] Well, and like, this is also among the great actress performances. Like, I think she's incredible in this movie. It's phenomenal.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_03] She's amazing in this movie. I would have given her the Oscar for one of the two previous nominations. For like The Exorcist. But this is a fascinating ripple effect. For Last Picture Show. I think she's amazing in Last Picture Show. I obviously love the Cloris Leachman win. But if I had a ballot for 72, I would pick Burstyn.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_05] Well, let me now look. While I pull up some Oscar pages so we can relitigate this for a second. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_03] I'm David. We're about to relitigate some Oscars, but not as much as we will in next week's episode. This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Sometimes they do a gig for hire to prove that they can do that they're versatile. A lack of limitations. And it ends up being a bit of a guarantor because it wins a beloved actor. It makes some money. It makes some money.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_03] It makes a TV show. And launches a second. Becomes a multimedia franchise. Disgursists make money from Alice? No. No. Good. Successful. You can tell who has good teams by who gets baked into deals like that. Because there are people who just cash checks forever. I mean, this is the MASH story that I love is that Robert Altman had no stake in MASH. He had no upside from the film's box office success because they didn't want to hire him.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_03] That he took the DGA minimum and waived any participation. It also meant he waived any participation in ancillary things that would go on later. His son, who was kind of a burnout, and he wanted his kids to work on the movie. He was like, can you write a song for the dentist? His son writes suicide is painless, gets paid every time any episode of MASH airs anywhere in the world.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_06] That is good.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_03] And he hated his son for that.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, okay. That's less good.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_03] I thought he'd be proud of him. I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. All men get together. What's our... This is a miniseries on the films of Martin Scorsese. It is called Podcast Fellas. That's right. Wow. No problems there. This is my first time hearing this. I looked to you. I wanted to see your response. You accepted it.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_06] It's such a short list of options you had, too. Like, there's not a lot of titles to work with.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_03] I'm not even cast here anymore. That's what we should have called it. The pod of... Knocking at my cast. The pod of... Castnessence? The... The... Yeah, that one's tough.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_06] I'm not saying it was my best one.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_03] The pod of... In a cast.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_06] The pod of cast street.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_03] There is a C in there. Yeah. Yeah. Pods of new cast. But no, it's called Podcast Fellas because that's what we are. We're a couple of podcast fellas. And today... And sometimes girls. We have a pod lady with us joining us. Wow. It's a lot of... As we love to say, kind of the first Blank Check guest ever. It's very important. Yes. Very important. Helps codify the box office game. That's right.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_03] And also, importantly, mother of still record holder, youngest guest ever on the show. True. Almost baby Charlie.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Are the listeners ready for the age of that baby from the Titanic episode? Because it's important to talking about this movie, too. Charlie's decade of dreams. Charlie's about to turn 10.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_03] He's about to turn 10.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_06] As when this episode is out, I assume he will have already turned 10 because it's very soon.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_03] When he was on pod, he was baby.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_06] He was three months old.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_03] Now he's a little man. He's so crazy that you brought a three-month-old baby to a plane check.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_06] It's completely crazy. It's really evidence that none of us knew anything about babies is the fact that I did that.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_05] Katie, to remind you, because we were trying to remember this on the subject, your last episode with us was intolerable. Yes.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_06] When I stepped back in the studio, I was like, oh, yes. Now I remember us talking about George Clooney.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_05] Because we were like, well, I remember Prince of Tides. And I was like, no, but you've done something since then. Yeah. I couldn't remember. Yes. Okay.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_04] Your 10th episode?

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_06] No. Really? No. Wait a second. We didn't... My decade of dreams. Charlie's decade of dreams. Is that because...

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_03] Are we counting Titanic as two or one? Oh. Counting them as one. Right. Okay. It is a real 10. Because I love halfway through because I had a baby.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_05] It's the Kill Bill question. Yeah.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_06] Wow.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. This is your true 10th episode. That's so exciting. Because Titanic doesn't really count. So congratulations. Wow. Now let's relitigate these Oscars. All right. So her first nomination, as you pointed out, was for the last picture show. She lost to her co-star, Cloris Leachman. Now, they're both great in the movie.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_03] They are. I just think Burstyn's my favorite performance in that film, period.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_06] But that was like... She was like brand new. I guess they were all brand new back then. Yeah.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_05] The other, I would say, big nominee there is Anne Margaret in Carnal Knowledge, which is a great performance. I'll just say it. Anne Margaret, kind of a looker. You've also got Barbara Harris in Who's Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me, an Ulu Grossbard film I've never seen. But obviously it has an iconic title.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_03] Incredible title.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. And then Margaret Layton in The Go-Between, which is a masterpiece. And she's very good. But like, you know. I would say with them, with there, it's kind of like, right, pick. And like with Cloris, it's just kind of like, that's her Oscar, man. Like she doesn't, you know, she doesn't have too many more swings at the movie award. Yeah. You know, whatever. Whatever. Okay. So then she loses for The Exorcist to Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class. Now, we respect Glenda Jackson. I've never seen that film.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_05] I love her, you know, for Women in Love is an amazing movie.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_06] She had won three years previously.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_05] She had. It's a surprising, I think four, but yeah, you know, like surprising second win for her. And I think the reason she won was it was a bit of a weird year. Like, it's Ellen Burstyn and The Exorcist, who's amazing in The Exorcist, is a mild stretch as a lead.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, I would agree.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_05] She sort of counts, but like, she's not really in the back half of the movie, obviously.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_06] And she's not the thing you come out of The Exorcist. She's not. As straight as she is.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_03] But she's good. It's a powerhouse performance. Yeah. And she broke her damn tailbone. It's a little like Michael B. Jordan Sinners minus the skill piece of the twins thing, right? I guess so. Like, there is such a centering force in this film, which was also the highest grossing film of its year. It was a hit and she's great in it. Yeah. I'm not. And then you got.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_05] Wait, wait, is the devil the lead? Well, I would say. It's Linda Blair.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_06] And they put Linda Blair in supporting in that classic.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_05] But I mean, like, she's the one, like, the movie's happening to her. Everyone else is a little bit in and out. I think Burstyn's the lead. I accept this. I think it's fine. I accept it. Okay. But I think it might have hurt her for a win.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, possibly.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_05] And then you got Marsha Mason, the great Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty, the James Caan movie, Mark Reddell movie. I've never seen it. We got Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. We stan. It's a little silly.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_03] It's silly, but I think that's an excellent movie star performance.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_05] Yes, I agree. And then you've got Joanne Woodward in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams. I've never seen that one. Not a movie I've seen. Yeah.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_06] No, this is a lot.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_05] That's one where you're like, maybe we could sneak it over to Alan.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_03] It is astounding to go through these and realize how rarely the best actress nominees were from Best Picture. Oh, yeah. It was a ghetto. The 1950s.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_05] It's a little better now with the 10 noms. Yes. You know, or whatever. But I bet you even now, if we didn't have the 10 noms, it would remain a bit of a ghetto.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, definitely. There are so many movies that do not exist outside of one lead actress nomination for a movie star.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_06] Is The Exorcist getting the horror snobbery with this too? Yeah. Because The Exorcist is obviously a big breakthrough.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_05] And it did win two Oscars. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it was, the noms were the reward a little bit of kind of like, well, it wins. You know, you, it won screenplay.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_06] Best Vomit and Best PP?

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_05] Now, there's actually not a ton of PP in The Exorcist. There's some. I didn't say most PP. I said Best PP. You're right. It's notable PP.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_03] I thought the category was just Best Goo. I mean, it's... Oh, yeah. Well, no, see, it was like the Best Score Musical Comedy Drama thing. Most years, it's Best Goo. This is one of those years where they split it into Best Vomit and Best PP.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_06] There's just too much to choose from.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_03] And then Exorcist winning both made them think, maybe let's make it one category again. It won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound.

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_05] It, you know, and you're like, how did it lose? It was a hit, Bob. It's like, it lost to The Sting, which was just also a phenomenon. Oh, so right. They were two of the 10 highest grossing movies ever. Yeah, they were just both movies that had like played for a billion years. I mean, it's an insane five. It's The Sting, The Exorcist, and American Graffiti. So three just like critically acclaimed powerhouse blockbuster out of nowhere movies and out of nowhere in different ways. Three of the most profitable movies of all time.

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_05] People are going to like this. It's like, people are going to love it. Exorcist, obviously. And then the other two nominees are A Touch of Class, which they really went for the kind of like British comedy back then. They love to sneak those in. And then Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers. They loved Bergman. They gave him proper respect. Well, he was at his, right. They love him in the final faves of his career. They would roll out the carpet for him. And I assume he would not attend. I don't actually know, but I have a feeling he didn't really show up to a lot of those ceremonies.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_05] Or he was a party animal. Yeah, maybe he was there being like, I love this show being hosted by Burt Reynolds, Diana Ross, John Huston, and David Niven. Is that the one where there's the streaker? And Niven goes like, he's got a tiny dick.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_06] That's the dream team. Those four people. We always want to see them together.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_05] The big four. It's just like, whenever I see Diana Ross, I'm like, where's John Huston? Her counterpart.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_03] You look naked without David Niven by your side. That is so funny that it's like...

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_06] Oh no, this is the year before Chinatown. So we're not in John Huston in that mode.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_05] Correct. Chinatown is the year after.

[00:29:55] [SPEAKER_03] So you're like, director first and foremost, menacing character actor secondly. Right? But before his most notable film role. But third MC. Yes. Third MC. Then like the biggest pop star. And a feet British man. And then who's the fourth again? Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds. You know, he's just like, hi. Just the dude from Hollywood. I'm a leading man. You've heard of me. Yeah. Chewing gum on stage, presumably.

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_05] When you... If you think about a world where Ellen Burstyn never wins an Oscar. Mm-hmm. Then you're like, okay, well then maybe did she win for Requiem? Does she win for Requiem as a makeup? But it's the swank year, right? No, it's the Julia Roberts year. Ooh. And that was just a tough train to stop. Nor should it.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_06] No, you don't take that away.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_03] I agree. Would you both agree with the idea that she probably came in second? Ellen Burstyn? I remember that being a bit of a thing because Ellen Burstyn hadn't accepted her own award of wouldn't it be nice for her to give a speech that year.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_02] She doesn't accept for the Oscar.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_03] Although I will say, whenever anyone trots out that argument, I'm like, we're splitting hairs.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_05] Absolutely. Come on now. She won, but she didn't say a thing. She didn't get to give a speech. I'm like, okay. I mean, Laura Linney was the critic fave that year, but I could see the argument for Ellen Burstyn was me.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_06] I still feel like back then, critic faves didn't get you as far at the Oscars. Totally.

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_03] That was a real nomination is the win.

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_06] Of course it was.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_03] Enjoy your Saturday at the Spirit Tent.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_05] But I can tell you that Best Actress Musical or Comedy that year was the not Oscar nominated Renee Zellweger for Nurse Betty. Oh, yeah. But there's the only overlap there was Juliette Binoche was nominated for Chocolat.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_06] Are we underestimating the Chocolat train? This movie is so funny. They had Chocolat fever back then.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_03] The chocolate makes them horny. I did watch Chocolat for the first time, like in the last five years. And it does kind of fucking roll. It's still terrible. One of those things where if you remove any, like, what did it get? What did it steal nominations from? And you just watch it as its own thing. It is delightful. I mean, it's I think I made this joke possibly. But Alfred Molina plays Snidely Whiplash even more than the time he literally played Snidely Whiplash.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_05] I made that joke, but it's very true. He shows up with a mustache and is like, where is all these Chocolats? Because he's Lithgow in Flashdance, right? I mean, Footloose. Like, Lithgow's like the town has to ban dancing.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_01] And Molina's just like, no, Chocolat! I ban it from these walls! So thin and so long.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_03] It's making women talk back to their husbands! And he plays such a sniveling little fuck with a cape. It's amazing.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_06] Oh my god, he has a cape.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. David. Yes? I got myself into a real pickle. Uh-oh. I thought it'd be funny to put on some Groucho Marx glasses. Uh-huh. Very, very funny. Very funny. Classic. Yeah, well, I've been stuck wearing them for five years because it's such a hassle to replace your glasses that once I made that commitment, now I'm walking around with the big schnoz, the eyebrows, the mustache, all times.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_05] I know what you're saying. Glasses cost hundreds of dollars. You know, you just kind of live with whatever you've got. Wait a second! What about Zeni Optical?

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_01] David, I forgot about Zeni Optical!

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[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_05] The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I dot com slash podcast promo code PODCAST15.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_04] Alice doesn't live here anymore.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_05] Yes.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_06] Is that the movie you're here to talk about?

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_05] Are you trying to tell me something about where Alice is? Alice doesn't live here anymore. It's a 1974 American romantic comedy drama film, according to Wikipedia. I guess that's what I'd call it. I would call it a drama. I'd call it a drama and a character study. Right. A light or, you know, quiet drama. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Robert Getchell. Who has quite a career. I want to do a little sidebar on him. Goes on to write Bound for Glory. And, you know.

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_03] Well, that makes sense. You're like, oh.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, right. So, very, very grounded. Although, he's one of four, I will say, credited screenwriters on Mommy Dearest. So, I guess that's not all on him. Then, he made the Patsy Cline biopic Sweet Dreams with Jessica Lange. He wrote that. He wrote a Bette Midler movie called Stella. I don't really know that.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_03] It's a Stella Dallas remake. Oh, fuck. It is. Wow. This is, like, genuinely a fascinating career. He got points on the Alice sitcom for creating the character. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. If you're the writer, you're going to get points. But then he...

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_06] Chris says he did okay, but come on.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_03] He writes Point of No Return, the La Femme Nikita remake. That's the Richard Fonda.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_05] Right, yeah, yeah. And then he does This Boy's Life.

[00:35:22] [SPEAKER_03] This Boy's Life and The Client.

[00:35:24] Yeah.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. He was a, you know. He was a work guy. Work horse.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_03] We call him a work guy.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_05] He was a work guy. Yes. The film, yeah, it was, you know, a 1974 Christmas release that got good reviews, made money, won an Oscar, was a solid notch in Scorsese's career. I feel is often, obviously, under-discussed.

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_03] It's very recently getting a Criterion disc. I believe Marie has gotten her hands on it today and is delivering it to the office tomorrow. One day late for me to have watched this flashy Criterion disc. Not Marie's fault. We're, in fact, getting it early. Yeah. But was hoping it would time out better. But yes, it has only been on DVD for the last 15, 20 years. I rented it on the old iTunes.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_05] It looked all right. The tunes for the eyes. It looked all right. Yes. And it's a film we should discuss. And with us is, have we introduced Katie Rich? Yeah. Ten time guests. The great Katie Rich. Katie Rich, who I think of you as a fairly, like, you discovered this movie back when you did the Scorsese screen dress. Is that right?

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_06] I didn't want to come on here and promote someone else's podcast. It was in my podcast. Do it. But no, I did screen dress. I said, with the Scorsese group ranking. So I was in charge of the middle 10.

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. It seemed like quite a stressful approach. Very chill podcast.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_06] Nothing stressful has ever happened on that show. Not a lot of work. This one was especially chaotic. Emily St. James, a friend of us and of the show, was on the 30 to 21 group. Right.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_05] Didn't she fuck everything up by drafting something last or whatever?

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_06] It was a group effort of fucking everything up. But just like chaos reigned on that. Like, they didn't want to deal with the Dylan doc. So they left us with like, no direction home Bob Dylan in the middle 10. We were like, I don't want to get, or like, they left us out of here. They left us with who's that knocking at my door, which I don't know if you guys have done that episode already. It's already aired by now. It's a perfectly fine movie. I like that. It belongs in the bottom 10. I would put it down there.

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_05] Well, but that's what I don't understand about this approach of like, they get to choose. It's making a group project.

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_06] Well, it's good. It leans into the chaos of it.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_05] But now I'm looking. I mean, this podcast, I will confess. And how this ranking worked out? Well, there's just, oh, there's like vetoes.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, the Patreon members got to veto things? I don't think that affected what we did. Someone was trying to do.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_05] You heard the Irishman 29th?

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_06] I did.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_03] What was Dead Last and what was number one?

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_05] Dead Last was Shine a Light, which like, sure. But it looks like someone tried to put...

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_06] He's, I think, the worst one.

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_05] Fine. I mean, but again, it sort of doesn't count. Like, I mean, what are our parameters here?

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_06] It's making it even 30, I think. They bring Shine a Light and a Rolling Thunder review, which I don't think was a theatrical thing. That was a Netflix thing, which is actually kind of fun.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_05] As a lover of rules, it's stressing me out.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_06] I was not...

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_05] He's smiling and throwing his thumbs up. But no, it looks like someone tried to put The Departed last.

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_06] Yes, that was their real chaos. It was trolling. I think we wound up putting The Departed in our middle 10, which I would put it in my top 10, honestly.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_03] You're wondering why someone tried to put The Departed last. You must have missed that Frank Costello was a guest on that episode. I smell a rat on this podcast.

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_06] I think they did Age of Ennisance as number one. I wasn't on that one either. We were in the We Had 20 to 11.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_05] They do have it number one and they have Goodfellas 2, Taxi Driver 3. I mean, like... Age of Ennisance is number one. It's a little too chaotic, guys. This is a little much.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_06] I tried to make it less chaotic. My big accomplishment...

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_05] But it looks like their veto system really messes with stuff because then stuff will get bumped up.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_06] There's a lot of rules. We wound up putting Wolf of Wall Street in our middle 10 because our pal Joe Reed is not a fan of it and I didn't have the ability to veto it. You had used your vetoes. I would put Wolf of Wall Street in my top 10. But the thing I'm really proud of from our group is that we left Alice for the top 10. Like we said... It made it to nine. Collectively said, we're not drafting Alice. You guys can have it in there because I think it's in my top 10. For sure.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_05] That's totally fine and it's a great movie. But Cape Fear is number 10. I just don't know about this. Cape Fear does not belong in the top 10. No. What's going on? And it feels like because you guys left dishes, it's weird that there's like movies that vault up the list because the prior guys just didn't want to talk about this.

[00:39:18] [SPEAKER_06] It's an exquisite corpse thing where you're like, oh, I guess who's that knocking at my door is number 19 somehow.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_05] You did the Pixar one? I feel like you had like an aneurysm doing that episode.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_03] I say this respectfully to the fine folks at the Screen Drafts podcast. They have asked me to come on and I've been like, I've heard your episodes are four hour long.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_05] I won't be doing that. No animal sorry for Sam.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_03] Right. I did it once with JD and we did Jim Henson movies and we had a wonderful time. With your friends. JD and I were in sync and we were like the fucking Bash brothers.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, you gotta do it with your friends.

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_03] Right. And it was it was contained. Right. And then they were like, do you want to do a Pixar mega draft? It's every Pixar movie, which at that point maybe was 21 or 22. And I believe it took six hours. Everyone else was on the West Coast. I finished the episode and the garbage trucks were coming to collect. The sun was rising. This was deep lockdown. And I say this. I say this kindly. I don't blame anyone involved in this episode. This is just what it was.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_03] It was the worst day I had in the pandemic. I remember. And that's the most damning thing I could say about any 24 hour period. Yeah. That's a that's tough. I couldn't handle it.

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_06] So it's exhausting every time I have done that. And then at the end of it, I say, wow, but I watched every Martin Scorsese movie. And it felt nice. I mean, you guys are doing the same thing. This is the thing. That part of it paid off so much for me because I still think about it.

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_03] Have a podcast that gives us an excuse to do the same thing on a more manageable schedule.

[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_06] Although you do make some long episodes. We do. But I don't know if anyone's heard about that.

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_03] But I get stressed out even when like the our friends at the big pick are doing drafts and they're like, I have to watch 80 things. Yeah. To prep for one episode. Yeah. You know, Hall of Fame.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_06] We did the big pick Oscar changing things like we were just doing and figuring out how to prep for that. And like you can't watch everything. But knowing what you need to pay attention to, it is when you have that wide afield, it gets really crazy.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_03] But that's the thing. You're just sort of like, well, what? I don't need to watch Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams or whatever. I'm sure that's some bullshit.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_06] And then Chris Ryan shows up being like, guess what? I have a hot Joanne Woodward takes. Yes.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_04] What's that noise? Oh, it's the Dostier cracking open. Creak. Oh, Ben, you are on it today. Good job, Ben.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_05] Ben's doing great. Ben's producing. He's guarding against my mental health. Sometime during the protracted and difficult production of William Friedkin's 1973 classic, The Exorcist. P.P. Fama. Which, as you may or may not know, as with many a Friedkin film, was a bit of a trying shoot. Some personalities at play here? Yes. There are some wild stories about that film. Yeah. Where such as like Friedkin would just fire a gun without telling anyone to make everyone freak out like on camera. And then say like, action.

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_05] And then like tie a harness around Ellen Burstyn, just fucking break her tailbone. And like the entire set was a refrigerator. Yes. And Max von Sydow had makeup on, but by the time the movie was over, he just looked like that. Yeah. So that film is really, really hard, but they make it. And the studio, which is a little studio called Warner Brothers.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_03] David's wearing his Warner Brothers shirt.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_05] Realizes it might have something special on its hands. And he's pretty impressed with one Ellen Burstyn. Yes. It's basically John Calley is the in charge of Warner Brothers. They're looking at dailies of the film and they basically just like call Ellen Burstyn or like, we want to do a movie. What do you want to do? Exactly. Like, we have a pile of scripts. Take a look. Like, we'd like to be in the Ellen Burstyn business. Ellen Burstyn, who I think is like a woman of taste. Yes. Or like, you know, a really, a great actor, but also clearly a very intelligent one and

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_05] a very thoughtful person who, you know, tries to give a shit.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_03] Right. I don't know. And she's one of the earliest members of the actor's studio studies under Lee Strasberg is like real protector of the flame of the sort of, I don't know, the beauty of acting.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_05] She studied under Lee Strasberg when he only had a half inch of chest hair and it wasn't even white yet.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_03] He would sit there all day.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_05] Before he had the full four inches. Try to push it out. Like in Godfather, he actually doesn't die when they shoot him because the chest hair just catches the bullet.

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_03] She's, she is a rare American to have the triple crown of acting as it's called, where she has an Emmy, a Tony and an Oscar.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_06] What's her Tony for?

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_03] Her Tony is for Same Time Next Year. And she has two Emmys, one for an episode, I believe, of Law & Order SVU. The other one, of course, for Political Animals.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, wow.

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_03] Which you were on. Which I was on. And she told you to try silence. No. Oh. You're forgetting. I was three times in a project with her. It was like, you're like, I've worked with you before and she's like never heard it.

[00:43:44] Correct.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_03] Try silence was on draft day, which was the third and final time I worked with Ellen Burstyn. She started building into a contract after that. Except I never worked with her. The conversation was in the makeup trailer. It was in the makeup. I know, I know, I know. I know you were.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_04] And just in case someone hasn't heard the story before. It's an old episode.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_03] I was talking to Tim Hitmaker Simons in the makeup trailer for draft day.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_05] Who's a bit of a chatterbox? Let's be honest.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_03] We like to talk. Yes. Silly boys. We were probably not even talking about Blu-rays. Who knows what we would have been talking about. Back then. Mr. Show sketches or some shit. And she showed up in the makeup trailer. And I thanked her because at the wrap party for not political animals, but possible side effects. A pilot directed by Tim Robbins that wasn't picked up where she basically played the matriarch of the Sackler family. Right. It was like succession with medicine. And she was Brian Cocker.

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_03] I went up to her at the wrap party and told her how much I was a fan of her work and how much she meant to me and that I was trying to start. And she recommended me an acting teacher who was very, very important.

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_05] You said I use this person. So I say that to her.

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_03] And she said, I don't remember being on that show. If you say so. And I was like, what a moving thing to hear. I mean, say this in a mean way. Right. But she is an intense woman. Okay. And then I went back to talking and she goes, well, I'm glad that helped you. And then I went back to talking to Tim. And after like 10 minutes, she went Griffin. And I went, yes. And she went, try silence. You didn't even say, why don't you try? No, it was. No, it wasn't an invitation. It was the most withering thing anyone has ever said.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_03] Tim has described it as witnessing a murder. Like five minutes later, she apologized.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_06] Well, and why not say to Tim? He was talking too.

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_05] Realized it was so devastating that she was like, look, I was you were being a little loud.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_03] But you might be surprised to hear. And Ellen Burstyn is someone who can command a lot of force without raising her voice. I imagine. She does it rarely. You know, the entire makeup trailer went silent. Oh, yeah. And Draft Day was a fairly low budget studio movie.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_05] They were shooting on set. They stopped talking. They didn't even know why. Dennis Leary shut up.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_03] It was like six to 10 chairs in the makeup trailer. Like everyone was in there. So there's a full line of people all with their own like hair and makeup people. And it's like 20 people are just stunned silent. And after five minutes, she goes like, I'm sorry. It's just that I use this time to try to run my lines. She said something like that.

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_05] You're on fucking Draft Day, Ellen. Come on. What are your lines? Don't draft that guy. Sunny, I'm your mother. I don't remember what she does in that movie.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_03] She plays Kevin Costner's mother, of course.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_05] Great.

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_03] It's just so funny to imagine. Your father would be proud of your drafting.

[00:46:19] Or not.

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_05] Yes.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_03] Her to imagine like her and Dennis Leary like sharing scenes, which I'm sure they do not. The three things I was in that she was in, she played the same role basically in all three. The elusive matriarch slightly domineering. She was very good at it. Josh Lucas's mom, Sigourney Weaver's mom, and then Kevin Costner's mom.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_06] It feels like a wide age range of people's moms.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. But you know, actors who can cover a lot of ground themselves age-wise. And at that point, Ellen Burson just read as old lady. Like it was just sort of like, this is your classic old lady on screen who isn't trying to look young. You know, she hasn't had like bizarre shit done.

[00:46:57] [SPEAKER_06] She's in her 90s now. Yes. And she's thriving.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_05] She famously, my favorite awards thing with her is that she was nominated for an episode of Big Love that I think she maybe doesn't have a line in. But she was just submitted kind of by mistake because they like submitted a whole host of actors from Big Love for guest actress or whatever. And I think voters were just kind of like, Ellen Burstyn and Big Love, I assumed she was good. Let's give her the nom. And they had to like apologize for giving her a nomination.

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_03] That also happened with that TV movie that Bob Balaban directed. That was, what was it? It's Susan Sarandon and Ray Fiennes, I want to say. It's like a butler who killed the woman he works for.

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_06] Wait, is this Mrs. Harris, which I'm just looking up? I think so.

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_03] It was Big Love.

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_05] Oh, you're saying, oh, no, no, Mrs. Harris was a big thing.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_06] This one is Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley, which is not off of what you were just thinking of.

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_03] That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. There's like that, that movie has like a faux mockumentary style where it will cut to talking heads occasionally. Okay. And Ellen Burstyn did a cameo as a favor where they cut to her and she goes like, I never liked her anyway.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_05] Oh, maybe that is what I'm thinking. Oh, yeah.

[00:48:00] [SPEAKER_03] She has one line and it was an automatic nomination. And she was just like, this is offensive. You should nominate me and nominate someone else. And I believe Entertainment Weekly did a rundown and they were like, look, she makes like 15 choices in her three seconds. They were like, this is a ridiculous nomination. And clearly people didn't watch it. But also this is sort of proof of how good she is.

[00:48:23] [SPEAKER_06] I mean, David and I were talking about the Emmys before coming here. The Emmys are completely ridiculous in what they nominate. They see the name like Don Cheadle got that nomination for the like for fucking secret.

[00:48:31] [SPEAKER_03] 40 seconds. He was going to a Marvel show. The Captain America Museum or whatever. And being like, pretty good exhibit.

[00:48:36] [SPEAKER_06] I think people see that name. They're scrolling through like, I don't know what this is. I don't know what this is. And they're like, great. Don Cheadle. I've heard of you.

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_03] If someone's a movie star and they're in a project that people know is legitimate but didn't watch. They're like, that was like a real thing. Right. That was an HBO movie. How shitty could it be?

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_06] And if she's in it, it makes it seem legit.

[00:48:59] [SPEAKER_03] Correct.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_06] She was nominated for House of Cards. I didn't know she was on House of Cards.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_03] Did she play Frank Underwood's mom?

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_06] Probably. Probably. Seems like a good guess. She plays Elizabeth Hale.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_03] I don't know. She played the leader of the cult.

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_05] Did she not? Yeah. She's like a matriarch or something. Sounds like something Ellen Brisson would do. I'm going to move on to the script she was sent. She was sent a big pile of scripts. And she's like, it was an education. Every woman in these scripts is either the victim, the understanding wife of some hero out saving the world, or a sex object of some sort. There's no script where the woman was the protagonist. Stories were about men. And women played a role in that man's story.

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_03] So let's also call out Ellen Brisson had three bad marriages that all ended before the time she makes this movie. She knows from dysfunctional marriage. She tried divorce. She tried divorce several times. Neil Burstyn, her third husband, is who she gets her name from. Yes. Was schizophrenic and I think fairly unbalanced. Her actual name is Edna Gillooly.

[00:50:04] [SPEAKER_05] Yes. Which you can see why she didn't use that as a stage name because it doesn't quite trip off the tongue. So it's early in the women's lib movement, as she says. It's the 70s. We're starting to look up and wake up and look around. And she wanted to make a different kind of film. And so she finally reads Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, a script by Bob Getschel. She sends it to John Kelly. He likes it. But it had been optioned by David Susskind. And so he had no deal at his studio, but he had it.

[00:50:33] [SPEAKER_05] On the last possible day, he picks up his option to block them. Root of him. Because he doesn't have a studio. And so her agent calls him or maybe Tony calls him. You know, someone. Her agent calls him and is like, Ellen wants to do this movie. And he's like, I'm doing it with Anne Bancroft. And he's like, we have a fucking green light from Warner Brothers. Like if we can do this. Like you. You have like an idea of doing something someday. Or, you know, we have a studio. Like who will make this movie? And Susskind said, hmm.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_05] I think we should make this movie with Ellen Burstyn and Warner Brothers. Yes. You know. Now, this is crazy. John Kelly then says to Ellen Burstyn, do you want to direct it? Crazy. That is wild.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_03] That is pretty wild. That is kind of, I don't know, without parallel in this time period. Pretty much. I mean like. I mean all the stories. Paul Newman's wife is directing.

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_05] Like, you know, there's. Her name is Joanne Woodward. Please. No, but it's like when you think about like female directors in the studio.

[00:51:29] [SPEAKER_03] I mean how hard Streisand had to fight.

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_06] Uh-huh.

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_06] I mean Lena Vertmuller is getting that first woman best director nomination around the same time. Yeah, I just wonder if that causes that somehow.

[00:51:41] [SPEAKER_05] Maybe. I mean, I think it might be just truly John Kelly being like, this is a cheap movie. I want to be in the Ellen Burstyn business. And, you know, you pick the script.

[00:51:50] [SPEAKER_06] It's talent management.

[00:51:51] [SPEAKER_03] We're also still in new Hollywood risk-taking era. And here's someone who kind of represents the new guard of acting styles. Here's someone who's kind of like a female De Niro in terms of like she's locked in some whole different process. Maybe she'd get interesting performances out of other people.

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_05] So instead she calls up a handsome Italian director by the name of Francis Coppola. And says, you know what he meant? And he says, why don't you watch a little movie called Mean Streets? It hasn't even come out yet, but I recommend it. And she watches Mean Streets. And Coppola had just seen it and been like, I like this De Niro guy. I think I'll put him in my movie The Godfather Part 1-1.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_03] Her quote was, she said, you go look at a movie like Mean Streets. Or no, that's what Francis said to her. She said it felt exactly what Alice needed because it was a wonderful script and well-written. But for my taste, it was a little slick.

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_05] Script's a little slick.

[00:52:44] [SPEAKER_03] You know, in a good way. She wanted some grit. In kind of a Doris Day Rock Hudson kind of way. And I wanted something a little bit more gritty. It's smart to just go like, okay, I like the script and the foundation of this. But if someone deals with it on a superficial level, I think it's not going to work. So how do I get someone who's sort of like hire a director against type for the film to bring it down?

[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_06] I have a hard time imagining that script. I feel like I wonder if like did he change the script itself? Or is it really just all in style that changes how this feels?

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_03] I don't know. Maybe three episodes of the sitcom that he retroactively submitted.

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_06] Or it's the Chris Christopherson rom-com that the poster makes you think it is.

[00:53:20] [SPEAKER_03] But it does make you consider how cool it would be if like either Safdie brother did this today. Oh, yeah.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. I wonder if there's an analog. Because there are some directors who've done stuff like this. But yeah, like I'd have to think. But I love this. She meets with this, as she puts it, small, nervous little guy. Yeah. That's a good way to describe him. And, you know, he's like, he's excitable. And they're talking about it. And she says, you know, it's hard to tell from that film, Mean Streets, what you know about women. Do you know anything about women? Which is a fair note. Have you met one? And he says, no, but I'd like to learn. Cute! Which is pretty cute. Pretty good answer.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_05] First of all, his intelligence beamed through his face. So we went to work together.

[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_06] Had he started any of his failed marriages by this point? Where are we in this? He's only three.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_03] He's one divorce down. Yeah.

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_05] I mean, look, it's the classic, like, 60s, you know, he's, yeah, he's not married to Julia Cameron yet. He's divorced from Lorraine Brennan. Like, the 60s early marriage where it's like, well, we had to live together and our parents would be mad. Right. You know.

[00:54:19] [SPEAKER_03] I wanted to have sex, which of course meant we had three children and bought a house.

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_06] So he has years of being a bad husband and still ahead of him at this point. Much more to learn about women.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_03] He has quite a revolutionized the field of bad husband.

[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, I assume you guys have talked about Mr. Scorsese, the documentary over the course of doing this. We've brought up stuff for him. But just the amount of his ex-wives and daughters in that movie who are like, yeah, he was terrible. We love him, though.

[00:54:41] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, we're just like, he did rock. I never saw him. He was really around.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_06] It's just really remarkable how affectionate they are for all the horrible things. Not like horrible, but he was just not useful back then. He was mostly absentee. Yeah.

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_05] Right. It's not like, yeah.

[00:54:56] [SPEAKER_06] I would not want to have been married to him at this point.

[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_03] But I think that I get a role. The vibe I got, right? Because in talking about a movie about bad marriages and such, we don't want to like imply a different kind of bad marriage. Sure. You watch that and it just feels like everyone who married him kind of felt bad for him. Not that they were marrying him out of pity, but they were just like, I was just really worried about him. Like everyone talks about him like a little endangered like fawn that they tried to nurse back to health. And they were like, ultimately, it ran back into the woods.

[00:55:26] [SPEAKER_06] He and Robbie Robertson just stayed up all night for three days. And I said, you go, buddy. Yeah. Go live your life.

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_05] Time. Okay. And she sort of was the one who kind of read the script from across his desk or whatever and said like, this is good. Like, you know, this has interesting characters because I assume he was basically just getting a lot of like gangster movies being sent to him. Right. So it's like, he's smart. He's like, I should make something completely different. Right. Like what better way than, you know, than, you know, to, to avoid being typecast. Alice was a way of trying to find another way. Can I make genre in Hollywood?

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_05] It was something like a vehicle, like a Betty Davis vehicle or Joan Crawford vehicle. I enjoyed those movies like Mr. Skeffington. So this would be a way of embracing the genre. It is so funny that even young 20 something Martin Scorsese making movies about guys. I want to make a woman's picture. Right. Who shoot each other is like, but I am a huge movie nerd who has seen every single, every woman's picture. Every director has made a woman's picture. Right. I have great respect for Mr. Skeffington.

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_06] Well, you do have to assume the script did not include the prologue in this that looks like The Wizard of Oz set on a farmly.

[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_03] It is so wild. It's gorgeous. I mean, you start out with like a fucking like Douglas Sturk opening credits sequence. Yeah.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_06] Like the silk rumpled in the background with the titles over it. I love it.

[00:56:43] [SPEAKER_05] You feel like you're watching the wrong movie. Mm-hmm. And obviously, as you just pointed out, very inspired by Mr. John Cassavetes. Mm-hmm. Which you see a little bit. And look. Do an actor driven movie. He has a great relationship with his mom. That's like, it's different from this movie. But he has like a chatty. Firecracker. Right. Yes. Informal kind of relationship with his mom. And so he's investing a little bit of that in there. You know, his dad is clearly sterner and more reserved. But his mom is a cut up. Like, she's funny.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_05] Getschel's screenplay, apparently, he wanted to change the third part dealing with the farmer. Okay. He means Chris Christopherson. Get rid of Chris. You can't. I don't know. It's like the beginning is not quite right. And the last sequence is not quite right. They rewrote it together. They weren't satisfied. Then they start doing some improv in New York with Alan. That's kind of cool. And then they would sort of throw it back to Getschel.

[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_03] I don't know. They're just describing rewriting the movie. Who cares? They did a good job. There is an alleged like three and a half hour cut of this movie that I'm sure is more of an assembly than a proper cut. But this is one of those movies where I would watch kind of any footage they have. I'd watch them all hanging. And I would watch an entire movie set at a diner. But I would say this is a well-paced movie.

[00:57:54] [SPEAKER_05] It does not need to be long. It is.

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_03] But I'd be curious. I mean, and that's the difference between him and Cassavetes, where there's like the famous story of him screening husbands and a killing and being like, the audience is enjoying it too much. We're adding an hour into it. But like Cassavetes was like, if the audience is enjoying it too purely, I've done something wrong. And it doesn't feel like this movie is taking easy outs. But you can tell that Scorsese's like, I'm not trying to punish people.

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_05] As mentioned earlier, David Susskind once viewed this as an Anne Bancroft vehicle. Supposedly at one point, Diana Ross was attached. Well, well, well. Which is crazy. I mean, obviously, and she was like, well, I'll only do it if David Nibbett is there. I bow. And obviously, Walter Houston plays my son.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_03] John Houston.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_02] Fuck.

[00:58:37] [SPEAKER_03] Fuck. I think Walter Houston might have died by then. Walter Houston could play the chef. He's like, there.

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_06] He's out.

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_05] Order up. A male. Shirley MacLaine in 2005 said she turned it down because she didn't know who Scorsese was. JJ adds in parentheses. That doesn't make perfect sense. This has to be a false memory.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_03] Like, there's no way that's true. But she said in other places that the script was offered to her. She regrets it. Right. I don't think she would have been offered the Scorsese version, but the script obviously had been around for a while.

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_06] Well, if it was kicking around a studio, like, presumably every actress in that age.

[00:59:07] [SPEAKER_03] She's one of the top people you would have offered anything to.

[00:59:09] [SPEAKER_05] Ellen Burstyn says the biggest regret she has is she didn't take a producer credit, which she should have because she was like, I was the shepherd of the film. I should have been an executive producer. I didn't ask. I demurred. Oh, I don't need credit. I'm the star. If I had been an executive producer, I would have gotten points on that fucking sitcom.

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_06] I would have made that Alice money.

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_05] Like, because I do feel like usually it'd be like, oh, well, it's a credit. Who cares? And Alice is the one scenario where like, you're telling me this small domestic drama turned into a regular paycheck. Yes.

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_03] I mean, she made she did make one of the coolest deals of all time eventually for For Exorcist? For The Last Exorcist. Yeah. Do you remember this? It's like they created an acting school or something. They created a scholarship that runs indefinitely.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_05] Right.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_03] They kept offering her money.

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_05] They were like, we'll give you a million dollars. You're going to be in the movie five days. I don't give a shit.

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_03] And they're like, 10 million dollars, 25% of the gross. And she was just like, here are the actual terms. Scholarship for acting school every year granted full ride in perpetuity and made them like make a commitment to doing that.

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Which rules. Of course, the only downside is she's in the movie for like two minutes being like, I too was once an exorcist. Ah! I think that's her eyes gouged out.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_06] And you're like, what? The kids who get that acting scholarship don't need to know that.

[01:00:25] [SPEAKER_05] Well, they make them watch the movie, unfortunately. It's so funny that they were like, we have to have you in the movie. Why? So we can gudge your eyes out two minutes in. That's definitely a reshoot thing though, right? It sounded like...

[01:00:34] [SPEAKER_03] No, that movie felt clean to me, Griff.

[01:00:36] [SPEAKER_05] That movie felt... Nobody touched it.

[01:00:39] [SPEAKER_03] The famously bleak thing about that movie is they make the big rights deal like in summer 2020. And they were like, we don't have a script yet, but can we really wait and take the chance of Ellen Burstyn dying? Here we are six years later. Exactly. So they wrote a couple scenes just to be able to shoot with her in 2020, then didn't finish the script until a year later. God. Then when they shot the rest of the movie, they were like, huh, the stuff we shot with Burstyn doesn't really fit.

[01:01:08] [SPEAKER_03] So then they reshot and they were like, what if you don't have eyes?

[01:01:11] [SPEAKER_05] What if I gouged out to just kind of have something shocking happen halfway in the movie? She did not attend the Oscars, as we mentioned. She was busy starring in Same Time Next Year on Broadway with Charles Gruden. Oh, which is what she went to 24. She went to 24 and then we'll get an Oscar nomination. She thought... Mark Gottlieb. Sounds like a guy. I'm not going to look up who that is. Thought she should fly back to Los Angeles to go to the Oscars. And she was just like, I didn't want to disappoint people.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_05] I didn't, you know, I don't want, no offense to understudies, but like people are paying to see me in Charles. It happened a lot in the 70s.

[01:01:46] [SPEAKER_06] People just didn't go to the Oscars in the 70s. They just didn't fucking go.

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_03] And they went like, I didn't realize it was a big deal.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_03] And now like when Sean Penn doesn't go, it feels like seismic.

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_06] Sean Penn is the first acting winner to not go since Paul Newman won in the 80s. So we're not actually as crazy.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_03] We're not counting Anthony Hopkins.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, yeah.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_03] Well, we're forgiving him because he was, it was COVID. He was asleep in Wales.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_06] Right, right. The last living Oscar winner, non-Anthony Hopkins. Isn't that nuts?

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. That is funny. Yeah. Remember the Oscars were like, and now best actor. Oh, Anthony Hopkins and the Father. Well, good night.

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_06] You have to do your Joaquin Fetus impression while doing that. Oh, I forgot it was Joaquin.

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Joker himself?

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_06] Just like the ultimate prank. The awkwardness of the moment of him being like, I don't really want to make it.

[01:02:32] [SPEAKER_05] Joaquin, the weirdest guy in the world, is like, this feels awkward. Even I'm getting a sense that this is awkward.

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_03] David? What? I've heard of August Rush. Okay. But have you heard of August is the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins? Now, August Rush was Freddie Highmore. It was Freddie Highmore. And you know what the best way to do that is? Shopping at Quince.

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[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_05] That's drinkag1.com slash check. Chris Christopherson. It's just his fifth film. What has he done? He's done Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Which he's phenomenal. Which is such a cool movie. Have you ever seen that one, Ben? I haven't. I think it has a bit of a vibe you might gel with.

[01:05:02] [SPEAKER_04] But the Dylan connection. Dylan's really good. Dylan rocks in it. It's been on my list forever.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_05] The music is so cool, obviously. We'll watch it together, Ben. I haven't seen it either.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_02] I love a Western.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_05] You know, he's also in Dennis Hopper's insanely normal The Last Movie. That's his first appearance.

[01:05:16] [SPEAKER_03] Right, which was... That title's a threat. Dennis Hopper was like, I'm trying to end movies forever. That movie rules.

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_05] That movie is very cool. That's another one you would like. I assume you... Have you been enjoying the recent Catherine Lanasa from the Pitt press cycle of I am haunted by Dennis Hopper's gun?

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_06] I interviewed her last year and she does just like... She will drop a Dennis Hopper. Just like... It doesn't have to get into it, but just like, you know, everyone just needs to know. That lady... She married him when she was like 19.

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_03] The craziest fucking thing is she was saying like, you know, he was the great love of my life and so he continues to haunt me. Obviously, we got divorced and then he married someone else after me, but when he was dying, they were in the process of getting divorced. So I was the last person he was married to where it ended on good terms. And I'm like... Hence this ghost comes to my house. You also got divorced? What are you talking about? Yeah, but we patched it up. And I'm on the pit. In the afterlife.

[01:06:07] [SPEAKER_06] And now she's married to... What's his name from Melrose Place? Who's she married to? Oh my God. Hang on.

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_03] Okay.

[01:06:14] [SPEAKER_05] I love her. You can Google this faster than I can. Grant's show? Oh, I love Grant's show. They're married. Remember when he was on the threesome show? He's a hunk. Swingers. Swingtown. It was called Swingtown. Oh, Swingtown. I remember. It was one of those CBS was like, can we do a show about swingers on CBS? And it's like, well, you got to have nudity and sex in your show. And they're like, no. Well, can you have drugs in your show?

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_03] Like, not really. It's like, well, then why are you making that? It's going to be so risque. Okay. In episode six, someone mentions that they saw a butt. That's what the 2000s were like. They were so jealous of HBO. Right.

[01:06:48] [SPEAKER_05] They're like, we want one of those. Yeah.

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_03] Dennis, there is the job where they were like, he's going to say shit one time every other episode.

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_05] We'll give TV Guide advance warning that this is one of the episodes he says shit on. Yeah. Quietly as he exits a room. Ah, shit.

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_02] Exactly.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_05] He was also in a film called, starred in a film called Cisco Pike, which I've never seen. Oh, sure. It's like Gene Hackman, Karen Black, Chris Christopherson, Harry Dean Stanton, and the Warhol superstar Viva. I mean, like, how bad could that be? That sounds fun.

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_03] Maybe a little formless. Who knows? I was going to say that movie was called Quiet, Calm Conversations on the Set. Everyone's easy to deal with the movie. Respectful disagreements. The motion picture.

[01:07:37] [SPEAKER_05] And then he's in something called Bloom in Love, a Paul Mazursky movie I've never seen, starring George Segal, where I assume he's got... Like, I feel like he was often kind of the energy beard-o guy. Yes. Right? You know, he's coming in off the bench. I was double-checking this.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_03] There's some sort of hot, cool energy. Viva is Gabby Hoffman's mother.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_05] Oh, there you go.

[01:07:57] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. That's right. I was trying to remember who it was, but yes. Sorry. Go on.

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_05] So, Scorsese is like meeting him and basically being like, I love Pat Garrett. And Christopherson's like, everyone fucking hated that movie. Yeah, big bombs. What's the matter with you? And, you know, they had a great relationship after some early, you know, nervousness or whatever. Christopherson, this is an interesting way Burstyn puts it. It's like, he just couldn't accept that he was an actor. After every take, he'd cringe and be like, oh man, that was dog shit.

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_05] Like, he just had no, like, you know, confidence in his own ability. And I bet you that Burstyn and Scorsese are both kind of like, I don't know, man. Pretty hot.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_06] I know you buy that on Burstyn. I'm so annoyed by that being like, dude, get on my level.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_05] No, she loves it. She says he was wonderful. Like, you know, we would be really connected. He was a new voice in America. Like, I mean, you know, how do you not have a crush on this guy? You know? Marty? No, Chris. Chris Christopherson.

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, yes.

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_05] Marty, I feel like you're a little more like, oh, Marty, you're so great.

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_03] No, Chris Christopherson is just one of the most, I feel like, inarguably hot people.

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_06] He's just the camera love that.

[01:09:08] [SPEAKER_03] He just has unbelievable rizz. Yeah.

[01:09:11] [SPEAKER_05] Alfred Lutter, who plays little Tommy. They saw 300 Kids. He's so good in this. And Sandy Weintraub, you know, says, hey, Marty, you got to see this guy. He sees this kid. They say, what do you want to be when you grow up? And he says, a stand-up comic. Marty Russell loves him. And exactly. And he's like, let's get him in the room with Ellen. And they're like, hey, just, you know, improv or whatever. And they start just kind of like bouncing off each other. And there you go. He's really great.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_06] Do we have any idea how much of their scenes together are improv? I think a lot.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_05] I think a lot of their kind of rat-a-tat is like, you know, back and forth.

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_03] So perfect. Yes. And you kind of can't script that stuff.

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_05] And just the way she's kind of like, what? You know, like half the time, like that way you are as a parent where you're like, I'm picking up. I think I'm picking up where you're putting down, but what are you talking about?

[01:09:57] [SPEAKER_06] This is like the huge thing for me in this. And both the times I've watched it, again, having an almost 10 year old is like when you like love this kid and you had to put up with him. But like if he tells you that story one more fucking time, you're going to jump out the window. That joke that he's trying to tell her, she's like crying, asking him to stop telling

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_03] that joke. He reminds me a lot of myself in that way when you tell me about these things. Yes.

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_06] Just like, I mean, they're like the dynamic of your kid who you love and is the thing you will do anything for. But you're like, you're so annoying. I cannot listen to you for another moment. I think she is meaner to her kid. David, you can tell me what you think. Then I would be to my shoulders. I would not kick them out of the car and make them walk the final mile to get home, I would think.

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, no.

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_06] There are, but there are some relatable moments.

[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_05] But there's some, I would say there's some seventies like, oh, you'd get a phone call about this these days.

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_03] I mean, it's a movie that builds to spanking. It is a movie about how do you.

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_06] We'll talk about the hitting kids part of it too. Or like Jodie Foster, juvenile delinquency. And Jodie Foster. Holy shit. She's amazing. It's unbelievable. Well, I assume we'll get to her in the dossier.

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_05] I am about to tell you that Jodie Foster shot all her stuff. Two days. Wow. Oh my God. Real pro. What a pro. It was like doing another commercial first. She came in, bang, bang, bang. Two days. She knew all her stuff. Two days. Two bottles of wine. That was all. And this is Scorsese. And there's this damn situation with the welfare workers where a woman came over to me and said, stop. And I was like, what do you mean stop? And they were like, stop. She has to go to school. And I was like, okay. She's Jodie Foster.

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_03] She's in the grand tradition. Judy Garland. Judy Garland worked 20 hours a day.

[01:11:29] [SPEAKER_05] You know, they've got a lot of like actor studios, people kind of peppered in the background to hear a lot of Ellen Burstyn faves, you know, are filling in the cast. What were you going to say, Katie?

[01:11:38] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, just where Jodie Foster was. And I got her Wikipedia page. She's like doing Disney stuff. But this is still before anything where she's a star.

[01:11:45] [SPEAKER_05] Obviously, this is how Marnie knows her for Taxi Driver, which is the next movie he makes. Which changes her whole career. But she's really only done a couple movies, right? She's and but but she's like a TV star, right?

[01:11:56] [SPEAKER_03] Like she's she did the Paper Moon TV show. We love it. Didn't know that existed. She played Addie Prey on that. Am I wrong in thinking that she even replaced Tatum O'Neill in some later version of Bad News Bears? Or am I conflating the two things? I know she was the voice of one of Charlie Chan's children on the Hanna-Barbera Charlie Chan cartoon, which I'm looking up here has aged perfectly. I was about to say sounds like something you'd want to be pushing out right now.

[01:12:21] [SPEAKER_06] It sounds like something that you would know and no one else would know. Yeah, correct.

[01:12:23] [SPEAKER_03] This is a perfect junk in my brain forever.

[01:12:26] [SPEAKER_05] You're conflating that Jodie Foster was supposed to be the star of Bad News Bears. Turned it down to do a little movie called Taxi Driver. There we go. Yes. But no, she'd done some Disney movies. She'd done a lot of like TV stuff.

[01:12:39] [SPEAKER_06] And Freaky Friday is much later.

[01:12:41] [SPEAKER_05] That's after Taxi Driver. That's all later. Like I think, right? Like it's like that's the same year as Taxi Driver.

[01:12:48] [SPEAKER_06] That's nuts. That's nuts.

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_05] What can I tell you? You can do it all. And Bugsy Malone is also the same year.

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_04] Wow. All three of those are 76?

[01:12:56] [SPEAKER_05] Wow. That's weird. But you know, she'd done the Tom Sawyer movie. She's basically like sort of the second lead of that. That's before whatever. You know, she's a punky little kid. Little tomboy. That's her thing.

[01:13:09] [SPEAKER_06] The perfection of her as a queer icon in this movie, like just from the jump of her being like, yeah, this is. It's funny. This woman had to come out of the Golden Globes 40 years later.

[01:13:17] [SPEAKER_03] It is so funny that it's like this overt in this movie. And then it's just like, quietly, let's just go back in the closet and not really talk about it for a while. They weren't ready. I want to call out Lea Goldani. Goldani. Yeah, sure. Who was the female lead in Shadows, the Cassavetes movie. Ooh, yeah.

[01:13:36] [SPEAKER_04] Leila.

[01:13:36] [SPEAKER_03] Leila. Leila Goldani. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But is a movie about white passing African Americans. Yes. I mean, if you've ever seen that iconic Shadows poster, that's her face. She is incredible in that film. Yes. She was a fully Caucasian woman. The success of that movie, critically. She's Italian, I believe. Yes. Damaged her career. Right. Because they assumed. It's this insane thing where she was a white person playing a white passing black person who then lost roles because people assumed she was black and couldn't play white.

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_03] So it just feels like this was kind of a men's she moved for Scorsese to throw her a role.

[01:14:11] [SPEAKER_05] And like we said, you know, he's he's a devotee of Cassavetes.

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_06] Well, she's in about two scenes like in the very beginning where they're doing like the dress fitting and then the yard sale.

[01:14:21] [SPEAKER_05] She's the one who's with her when she gets the phone call to her husband. Yeah.

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_06] Like that relationship between the two of them is so perfect and real. And you know so much about them. So as soon as she gets that phone call and then they say goodbye at the car and like the little boys are rolling their eyes at them and they're so emotional. It's just wonderful. She got a bath in on for this. Oh my God. Well, the bath is.

[01:14:39] [SPEAKER_03] I loved this movie. And it's for Alice. Alice Fever. They gave her best picture, right? I think they did.

[01:14:46] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. The BAFTAs love this movie. This movie traveled well. I guess.

[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_06] Did they nominate Diane Ladd also?

[01:14:51] [SPEAKER_03] Well, the Oscars did. Yeah. I just. I believe so. Let me double check that. But I think it won screenplay picture actress. And then it got. Yes, it got double noms. Diane Ladd won the BAFTA.

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_06] Oh my God.

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_05] And this is, you know, the BAFTAs treated this like a 75 because it didn't make it to Europe till 75. So this is the 1976 BAFTAs. So it's beating. It won. It beat Barry Lyndon, Dog Day, Afternoon, and Jaws, which I might have some notes on that as much as I like this movie. And she won Best Actress and Diane Land won Best Supporting Actress and won Best Screenplay. Yeah, they fucking went nuts for it. I can only imagine the British viewing audience being like, what's this movie about? Like an Arizona diner waitress is better than Barry Lyndon.

[01:15:34] [SPEAKER_05] Are we sure?

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_03] Jenna Brolin's won the Golden Globe against her. She's pretty good in that, uh, that their movie. I think it's maybe the best performance ever committed to film. Burstyn didn't win any of the critics awards. So I think it must have been seen as a slight surprise, especially considering the BAFTAs come so much later. Because I think basically New York film critics, NBR, uh, they all gave it to Jenna Rollins.

[01:16:02] [SPEAKER_06] Sure.

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah.

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_06] Tough call, man.

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_03] It's a tough call. Who am I giving it to?

[01:16:07] [SPEAKER_05] I guess we'll find out. Oh.

[01:16:09] [SPEAKER_06] Get that spreadsheet going. Anybody nominated Alfred Lutter?

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_05] I indeed gave it to one Jenna Rollins for A Woman Under the Influence. My other nominees? Sissy Spacek for Bandits. Wait, why do I have Faye Dunway for Chinatown here? I don't know. This is a crazy person. Uh, Ellen Burstyn, uh, Brigitte Mira for Ali Furies the Soul. Oh, sure. Uh, anyway. The movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is about a lady named Alice Hyatt who lives in New Mexico and has a kid whose name is...

[01:16:39] [SPEAKER_06] Tommy?

[01:16:40] [SPEAKER_03] Sounds right. Wanted to be a singer. Damn it. She is a singer. Is a singer.

[01:16:44] [SPEAKER_05] Uh, she's a former singer and now she's married to a guy called Donald who is a Coca-Cola delivery truck driver played by Billy Greenbush. This guy sucks.

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_06] Real piece of work.

[01:16:55] [SPEAKER_05] But who... He sucks in just kind of like a boring, shitty way. Yeah. It's not even like a true kind of like page turning melodrama kind of like, he's the nastiest husband and she casts it. It's just like, she's just stuck with this loser.

[01:17:08] [SPEAKER_06] Or not even like Harvey Keitel later where you're like, he's got charisma. You can see how he does it.

[01:17:12] [SPEAKER_03] Keitel is compellingly awful.

[01:17:14] [SPEAKER_06] Oh my God.

[01:17:15] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. And it's Keitel too. So you're kind of like, can't stop looking at this guy. We've been talking about this, Katie. It is just so funny that for Who's That Knock at My Door and Mean Streets, Keitel is Scorsese's analog. It is. And in a way where past those two movies, I would say Scorsese does not have self-insert characters. You feel him as the character watching the movie and making the movie, but there doesn't feel like there's someone who represents him. The second he stops having those characters, he's like, Harvey, here's the deal. I'll still put you in my movies.

[01:17:44] [SPEAKER_03] You only play the most contemptible people in the world. You play real shithead. Child pedophile Judas. Judas. Literal Judas.

[01:17:50] [SPEAKER_05] Hey, it's a complex portrayal of Judas, okay? Yes, the name is a bit of a scarlet letter or whatever.

[01:17:57] [SPEAKER_03] But it's funny that in this one you're like, oh, maybe he plays like a sweet guy if you dare a little bit. And I'm like, hmm.

[01:18:02] [SPEAKER_06] And you're like, he's good looking? Like, I know this guy. Let's see what he does. Bigamist!

[01:18:09] [SPEAKER_05] So yeah, I mean, Ben, what did you think of this movie? I haven't even gotten your take yet because I feel like it's kind of a bad movie. I have never seen it before. No, sure. No, I just mean like the vibe is sort of Ben appropriate.

[01:18:20] [SPEAKER_04] I loved it. Yeah.

[01:18:21] [SPEAKER_05] It's really good.

[01:18:22] [SPEAKER_04] It really reminded me of my mom and our dynamic.

[01:18:26] [SPEAKER_05] Your mom sounds really cool. And I can see Ben having a bit of a Tommy, you know, little Ben.

[01:18:32] [SPEAKER_04] A hundred percent. But she, my mom was so funny and silly, but slightly aloof. Like she was always a little unknowable. So I just, yeah, I really saw a lot of her in this character.

[01:18:45] [SPEAKER_03] Hey, Ben, the actor, Alfred Lutter, who plays Tommy, a New Jersey legend. He's from Ridgewood. He graduated from Ridgewood High School. Then he got a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Stanford.

[01:18:59] [SPEAKER_05] Well, that's not New Jersey, but sure. Well, so, but we can be proud of him. Yeah.

[01:19:03] [SPEAKER_03] I don't know. Master of Science degree. He founded Lutter Consulting, a company providing technology strategy. And he later started a website called lynda.com. What is lynda.com? That's a Wikipedia page. Lynda.com became LinkedIn Learning. Oh, wow.

[01:19:22] [SPEAKER_05] It's sort of like a online certification.

[01:19:24] [SPEAKER_03] It was an online learning site that LinkedIn bought. Wow.

[01:19:29] [SPEAKER_06] He was like an early tech guy.

[01:19:30] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. The original tech man.

[01:19:33] [SPEAKER_05] The original tech man, they call him. Yeah.

[01:19:35] [SPEAKER_06] Well, this movie reminding you of your mom, Ben, I think it's another thing that feels so important about it to me that it's about like the relationship between a parent and a child in a way that I just don't think that many movies do it, where it's like it's a relationship. There's a push and a pull. It's not about a mother's love. It's not about like a kid looking after their parents. It's like actually complicated. And I can't get over how like real that feels and how rare it is. Maybe you guys have better examples than I do.

[01:19:59] [SPEAKER_03] No, I'm thinking as a counterpoint to this Kramer versus Kramer, which is not a movie I love where people. But it's a very watchable. No, it's a very watchable movie. I don't think it's a bad film, but it's not a movie I deeply care for. And a lot of people credit Hoffman's Oscar win for how good he is with the kid. But that feels a little more like an actor showing off how good his chemistry can be with a kid. And that movie also sets him up to be like, you'll never believe how surprisingly good this guy is.

[01:20:26] [SPEAKER_03] Like it's like Big Daddy without the jokes of like he really gets it together.

[01:20:30] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[01:20:30] [SPEAKER_03] It doesn't feel like a very accurate portrayal.

[01:20:34] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[01:20:34] [SPEAKER_03] And it's so reductive in sort of the way it treats the Meryl Streep character.

[01:20:38] [SPEAKER_06] It's like so plot driven being like, can he step up to it? Totally.

[01:20:42] [SPEAKER_03] And it's like, oh, he makes good breakfast. What an incredible dad. Yeah.

[01:20:44] [SPEAKER_06] And like in the very beginning of this movie, the husband's being a jerk about something or another. And she goes over to the son and she's basically like, hey, look, help me out here. You got to get we got to get around this guy. Like they are co-conspirators getting through this. And that is so often what especially as your kids get older and you can be like, look, give me a break here. I'm trying my best. You're trying your best. Like it's almost like she's letting him kind of see like she's just a person who's trying to figure this out. And again, she's making some choices I wouldn't make. But I love that it makes it they're not equals, but it makes it a real back and forth, which parent child things don't do often.

[01:21:14] [SPEAKER_03] Well, let's also call out the inciting incident of this movie, which is it's hard to get kids to act on screen like this.

[01:21:19] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah.

[01:21:19] [SPEAKER_03] Impressive. You know.

[01:21:20] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah.

[01:21:21] [SPEAKER_03] Her piece of shit husband dies. They get in a bad fight. Yes. He hits her. It does not seem like this is the first or only time this is happening. No, he's a loser. And then a day later, he dies in a meaningless Coca-Cola truck accident. Which is like. It's meaningful. All that Coke's not going to get delivered. But I'm saying. There's people thirsty out there. You're right. You're right. They need a pep in their step. It was a costly death. Yeah.

[01:21:43] [SPEAKER_06] Didn't you just imagine like little Marty like staging that accident, like the tableau of like the people hanging out of the car. It's just like there's some blood on the street.

[01:21:51] [SPEAKER_03] It's perfect. Well, you also imagine him being friends with Spielberg and being jealous of like Duel and being like, I have one shot to show the aftermath of Duel. You know, they're not letting me stage action sequences yet. Nope. But she's grieving a bad relationship.

[01:22:06] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[01:22:07] [SPEAKER_03] She's experiencing real grief for this. And her son is as well. And she tries to take this as an opportunity to uproot her life. Something she's clearly dreamed of doing, but not felt the courage to do. It felt too radical to blow up her life in order to do that. But now her life has been blown up for her. And so, so much of the weird tension between her and her son is that her son is like grieving the loss of a father who he's starting to realize like maybe sucks.

[01:22:30] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Yeah. And the kid is just getting into the age where you start thinking of your parents as people too.

[01:22:35] [SPEAKER_03] Like he was already feeling that way. Yeah.

[01:22:37] [SPEAKER_06] Like he's at the perfect face to see her as a person and to look back at his dad is not just like a hero.

[01:22:43] [SPEAKER_03] Right. He was putting salt in the coffee, which does feel, let's call it out, very Ben. It feels like a little Ben move. Definitely. Yeah.

[01:22:51] [SPEAKER_06] Ben, I was wondering if like something where she's saying like, if you keep your mouth open one more time, I'm going to throw you out. He just like opens his mouth as wide as he can. Is that a little Ben move?

[01:22:59] [SPEAKER_04] Yes, definitely. Like I'll show you. The final workaround.

[01:23:03] [SPEAKER_06] You can't slam my mouth shut while you're driving.

[01:23:07] [SPEAKER_05] So what happened? So husband dies. I think it's really well played by her where she's sad because her husband died. Plays the emotion quite honestly. But just you just kind of buy that she pretty quickly is kind of like snapped out of a dream or whatever, like that. She's just going to let's just go like there's nothing fucking there's no reason for us to

[01:23:27] [SPEAKER_03] be here. Like, well, it's the past tense, present tense thing of like I think of myself as someone who wanted to be a singer and didn't have the courage to follow through. Right. And then she just decides, like, I am a singer. I sing. There's nothing keeping me here. Why not reconstruct my life around this dream?

[01:23:43] [SPEAKER_06] And fairly quickly, that scene of her singing at the piano at home where like it lingers on her singing for a while and you get the kid outside and he's kind of like reframing how he thinks of her. Like, it's an interesting venture into his perspective about her talent, which you don't get that much of. And I mean, it's just like really well done. That's one of the early moments where you're like, oh, here's here's Marty testing it out, figuring out what he can do with the camera.

[01:24:02] [SPEAKER_03] And the Layla Gul'danian character reads as her one person support system. Yeah. Where you're just like, this is kind of scary for her to go out. There are no, you know, she there's the notion of the family home of going back to where she came from. But it doesn't feel like there's a solid base of support from her family extended.

[01:24:21] [SPEAKER_06] Do we even know who's in Monterey? Like, she talks about it all the time. But like, who are they going to?

[01:24:25] [SPEAKER_05] Not really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you also have no sense of the kid's life, but he's a kid, I guess.

[01:24:32] [SPEAKER_06] He's going to make those kids go where you want them to.

[01:24:34] [SPEAKER_05] Well, essentially, he could be like, I have friends at school or whatever. It's like, you're bad, baby. We're fucking in the room.

[01:24:38] [SPEAKER_06] We got Jodie Foster and some wine waiting for you.

[01:24:42] [SPEAKER_05] So she gets him to Phoenix, right? Like, that's where she gets him to, where she starts singing. I mean, this says she finds work as a lounge singer, like in the narrative here. Kind of. I would barely call what she's singing in lounges. Yeah. Right. There's like a microphone over there if you really want to go over the track.

[01:24:59] [SPEAKER_06] The griminess of these bars that she's going to. Like, bars in the 70s just were not, they didn't seem like fun places to hang out.

[01:25:05] [SPEAKER_05] I had my antenna up the whole time. I'm like, geez, is someone going to be like a mega creep or whatever? And instead, they're all just kind of like, I don't know. Like, you know. There's the turnaround moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But no one's ever like, oh, yeah, you can have this gig if you come with me over here. There's no compliance. Right.

[01:25:21] [SPEAKER_04] But this was kind of a style of a bar of a very particular time. And basically, it's like kind of don't bug anyone.

[01:25:27] [SPEAKER_05] Like, sing something that'll be nice in the background. But like, yeah. This is like a little value add ambiance. Right. It's our piano bar.

[01:25:36] [SPEAKER_06] Like, I remember there being some around when I was a kid, like after this. But like, you would never, like women wouldn't go to these bars much. Like, you wouldn't bring your kids into any of these places.

[01:25:44] [SPEAKER_03] But let's also just call out the like the velvet opening titles. Then this like blood red soundstage completely. As you said, very like beginning of Wizard of Oz.

[01:25:54] [SPEAKER_05] It felt like the one big idea Marty has. Right. Like, you know, he's like, I want to do this. I know I don't have a lot of money, but like I want to do this one thing.

[01:26:01] [SPEAKER_03] Right. This little girl like practicing this hymn over and over again. It literally says like Monterey, California, Alice, a young girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's just sort of like her loneliness. You only see her parents in like silhouette basically.

[01:26:14] [SPEAKER_06] And they're like yelling at her.

[01:26:15] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. You get a sense of why this person didn't have the courage to follow their dreams. And has settled in their life.

[01:26:21] [SPEAKER_04] That's what this movie rocked.

[01:26:22] [SPEAKER_03] And she's singing a song about caring and no one cares about her.

[01:26:25] [SPEAKER_04] I mean, he was a good kisser, guys.

[01:26:28] [SPEAKER_05] Oh, the husband? Give it up for Donald. Donald. I think that's his name. Donald.

[01:26:32] [SPEAKER_06] I love when she tells the kid, like, ask me again in a few years and I'll explain it to you. He's like, what are you going to say to him when he's 14?

[01:26:38] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, that's not a good conversation. That's really just pushing things off. Well, I think she'll say to slightly open your mouth.

[01:26:44] [SPEAKER_04] Uh-huh. Instead of like, yes, you know, try to tighten your lips.

[01:26:48] [SPEAKER_03] You're about to eat someone's skull with that kind of pet mouth right now. This film was shot in Tucson, Arizona, where it's set.

[01:26:55] [SPEAKER_06] Why is it set in Arizona?

[01:26:57] [SPEAKER_05] Why not?

[01:26:58] [SPEAKER_06] Okay.

[01:26:58] [SPEAKER_05] I don't know what to tell you. That's a really good answer. Don't really know. I mean, Marty says it was a movie town. You could do anything you want there. It's a great town to shoot in.

[01:27:05] [SPEAKER_06] I was just thinking about Spielberg, like, having kind of that, like, southern U.S. part of things to himself and Marty being like, let me out of New York.

[01:27:17] [SPEAKER_05] It's a place back then.

[01:27:41] [SPEAKER_06] A single thing about Tucson, except for a place on this movie, basically.

[01:27:44] [SPEAKER_05] Well, I think I don't know much about Tucson either. It's not far from Phoenix. I think of it as the kind of crunchier, more liberal cousin to Phoenix. It's a big town. I don't know.

[01:27:52] [SPEAKER_03] The Jody line is my favorite single line of writing in this movie, which is weird. Very weird. He's even weird for Tucson. And Tucson is the weird capital of the world. Right.

[01:28:01] [SPEAKER_05] I mean, it's the college, you know, it's where the University of Arizona is. So it's got the, you know, you know, you know from college towns.

[01:28:08] [SPEAKER_06] You're a southern gal from college towns. I live in college towns. Duke University right around the corner.

[01:28:12] [SPEAKER_03] You live in like an old school house, right? You like accidentally became the... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. You're on a fraternity row.

[01:28:17] [SPEAKER_06] I don't just live with a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. I live with like 20, 20-year-olds.

[01:28:20] [SPEAKER_03] Or I guess more of a neighbor's house, maybe. Yeah.

[01:28:22] [SPEAKER_06] I guess you're warring with the frat boys in the store.

[01:28:25] [SPEAKER_05] So, yeah, they went a week over production. You know, they went a week over schedule. Went a little over budget. You know, it's Marty just getting ready for his real sojourns over budget.

[01:28:36] [SPEAKER_03] But a little over budget is 1.6 million.

[01:28:38] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, it was budgeted at 1.6 and ended up more like 1.8 or whatever. Sure. There was a gas crisis, which was an issue to do with that. Oh, interesting.

[01:28:46] [SPEAKER_03] I was going to say this was also, you know, Mean Streets was basically an independent film that became a negative pickup for Warner Brothers. This is him like making a film for Warner Brothers. I think that must have also been appealing to him. You know, it's a lot easier to sell them. So, David's showing us his shirt. I'm wearing the 70s logo. It's a lot easier to sell them on something like Taxi Driver that seems really risky at Columbia when it's like you made a studio film. You were responsible enough. The amount you went over budget was more than covered by the success. And you won someone an Oscar.

[01:29:16] [SPEAKER_06] Do we think he had final cut on this? Probably not, right? Definitely not. Yeah.

[01:29:20] [SPEAKER_05] Well, you never know in the 70s, I guess. I don't think they cared as much. I don't know. If you tested well, they wouldn't.

[01:29:25] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah.

[01:29:26] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. My guess is, well, anyway.

[01:29:27] [SPEAKER_03] And they're not like, look, on page 15, we need Alice already at the diner. Like, they're not coming in with those dumb notes. You're right. I will say, and yet this was turned into a sitcom.

[01:29:37] [SPEAKER_02] That's the funny story. That they got Alice to the diner.

[01:29:39] [SPEAKER_05] New Hollywood. And then they watch it and they're like, I can't get nice. Okay.

[01:29:42] [SPEAKER_03] Well, but actually, diner page one every Tuesday night.

[01:29:46] [SPEAKER_05] Why did they end up in Tucson? Well, there was literally a gas crisis and they could not make it to Tucson, basically. It has nothing to do with the picture. It has everything to do with production is what Martin's. Wow. Okay. There you go. Everything. Nothing was shot in LA except the opening sequence was on a lot, obviously. They need that red prologue. He basically says, I had a chance to use a Hollywood set. How else are you going to do a flashback? How do you want to do a flashback? That's the whole point. Goddamn script opened and said flashback 1948 Monterey, California.

[01:30:15] [SPEAKER_05] And he was just adamant. You know, they're like, what if you do like black and white? Like that, that would make more sense. And he's just like, the characters hung up on movies. I feel like she would remember in this kind of half fantasy way. It should look like a forties movie. It should look kind of indoors. He admits, I got a little crazy with the redness. It's very red. I had fun with the fog. It feels like Marty being like, I love old movies. Yeah. Let me make stuff.

[01:30:45] [SPEAKER_05] I have access just for a day or two to the tricks and tools. Who knows how long I get this.

[01:30:49] [SPEAKER_06] Has he ever been on a soundstage before doing that? Like probably not. Probably not.

[01:30:52] [SPEAKER_05] And he says, it's a square screen. It's 130, the Academy ratio. You know, the first scene is Tobacco Road. It's copied exactly, obviously, Wizard of Oz. Dueling the sun for the redness of the sky. Little East of Eden. Little Gone with the Wind. You know, he's got a lot of... It was like... William Cameron Menzies' Invaders from Mars. Of course. It's like... It was like one-fifth of the budget. It cost $85,000. Which was all... So yeah. And he's like, and my first feature, who's that knocking, cost $35,000 for the whole movie. Right.

[01:31:23] [SPEAKER_05] Like definitely... So yeah, it's like him for the first time getting to, you know, play in Hollywood.

[01:31:28] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah.

[01:31:30] [SPEAKER_05] And Warner Brothers watches the movie. And there, one thing is like, can we fucking cut that weird, crazy opening with all the red? And Marty's like, take my name off the picture. Like, I'm going crazy. You know, like immediately. I'm sure they were just like, oh Jesus, who cares? Like, whatever. Burstyn ran into Peter Bogdanovich and says, I'm doing Alice with this guy Martin Scorsese. And he said, tell him not to move his camera so much. And Ellen says, I did not relay that to Marty.

[01:31:55] [SPEAKER_03] He moves it quite a bit. It's funny how... He loves to move that camera. This feels like his most kinetic camera work until Goodfellas. Oh, yeah. This movie in sequences has the coke energy in the way the camera moves into the conversations.

[01:32:08] [SPEAKER_02] Yes.

[01:32:09] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:32:10] [SPEAKER_05] One idea, he wanted as many women in authority on the picture as possible. Sandy Weintraub is the producer. Toby Raffelson, art director. Marsha Lucas is the editor. He wanted it to be as honest as possible. He wasn't trying to make a feminist tract. But he wants this movie, you know, about women to be in front of women and being like...

[01:32:27] [SPEAKER_06] He wanted to find out what women are like. Know what you don't know. Yeah.

[01:32:30] [SPEAKER_05] He trusts Marsha's judgment implicitly. And he says like, hey, you know, I know a stained glass guy.

[01:32:36] [SPEAKER_06] I was delighted by the return of Marsha Lucas as a character for this podcast. I don't know how long it's been since you guys have gotten into Marsha lore.

[01:32:42] [SPEAKER_05] I mean, she only edits what? His first three or four... Like, is Taxi Driver the last time she works with him? Because Thelma reappears. And then she goes on to Star Wars. Oh, no.

[01:32:50] [SPEAKER_03] New York, New York is her last. Oh, okay. Which was a famously easy movie to edit. Settled.

[01:32:57] [SPEAKER_06] And to make.

[01:32:58] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. Yes. Everything about it.

[01:32:59] [SPEAKER_05] The first cut. Okay, this is your thing. The assembly was three hours and 16 minutes. Ton of character stuff gets thrown out. You know, like the husband. There's a lot more of him. You know, I mean, wisely, they reduce him to about 10 minutes.

[01:33:15] [SPEAKER_06] He's like, we have to get in the car. You don't need anything from him to find out what his deal is.

[01:33:19] [SPEAKER_03] That's the difference is, you know, Cassavetes was like, I want to make movies primarily out of the scenes that anyone else would cut out of a film. The scenes that are not the interesting part or the exciting part. But I want to show where the drama is in that. And it makes sense that Marty would want to shoot all of those things. And then ultimately whittle it down to that stuff helps inform the other stuff. Keep the most exciting moments and the major plot points. It helps that he dies within 15 minutes or less.

[01:33:47] [SPEAKER_05] I completely agree. Yes. Now, I want to talk about... I want to give you some news on the end, like some research on the ending. But let's talk about the movie first to get to the ending. Because it's an iconic ending, obviously. But shithead husband dies. She goes to Phoenix. She starts being a lounge singer. And she meets my handsome fellow, Harvey Keitel.

[01:34:04] [SPEAKER_06] Chill. She calls him a baby? A child?

[01:34:07] [SPEAKER_05] He does have kind of a baby face.

[01:34:08] [SPEAKER_03] And he has kind of the moppy haircut. Like it makes him look younger. She's so adamant that he looks like he's underage. And I'm like, Harvey Keitel was born looking like a Vietnam vet.

[01:34:18] [SPEAKER_05] He doesn't look like underage. No, he's got a baby face quality for Harvey Keitel. And it's that thing where you see actors when they're young now. So you're like, oh my God, they look so young. Yes.

[01:34:32] [SPEAKER_06] Like De Niro looks more like a baby at this point than Keitel does. No question. Keitel just always had old man features.

[01:34:38] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. Even when he was young and his skin was smooth.

[01:34:42] [SPEAKER_06] But she shouldn't have trusted him. Her first instinct was correct.

[01:34:45] [SPEAKER_05] Yes. Her first instinct is correct. He is. Well, he's a married guy who's having an affair. I mean, it's actually not that complicated. He's also violent. Yeah, no, he's a jerk as well. But like his big secret is just like, oh, I am cheating on my wife with you. It's sort of his dark secret.

[01:35:01] [SPEAKER_03] But David, it's justified because he says his wife is crazy. She says she's crazy. For example, she shows up asking why I'm sleeping with another woman. How dare she? She's angry. I fuck other people. This lunatic. This calls for a switchblade.

[01:35:16] [SPEAKER_06] Breaking some glass at the door and then he has the entire dresser. Yeah.

[01:35:21] [SPEAKER_03] It is funny that like Scorsese is now doing the break of you're no longer my leading man. And yet in this performance, he kind of gives everyone the like show reel to be like, hey, and here's how you use Harvey Keitel. He does.

[01:35:34] [SPEAKER_06] And they do. They do.

[01:35:36] [SPEAKER_05] I wonder if Keitel resents it in a way of kind of like the way Marty shifted me to the supporting character, the villainous character that just became my type. Like because even when it's the lead, he's a villainous lead.

[01:35:47] [SPEAKER_06] Well, is there a story if you've done Taxi Driver yet of like why it's not Keitel, why it's De Niro in the lead?

[01:35:53] [SPEAKER_03] Never even considered. And beyond that, that was a De Niro part. But beyond that, a sport was written to be black and very wisely. The studio was like, if the pimp is black, people will burn down the field. The end of this movie is a little charged. Right. A little bit. Yeah. No, it was always De Niro. He was obsessed with De Niro. I mean, I think it truly was like he fell in love with him on Mean Streets and was like, this guy is the key.

[01:36:16] [SPEAKER_06] As does everybody who watches Mean Streets. Yeah. De Niro is unbelievable in that movie.

[01:36:20] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:36:21] [SPEAKER_06] He'd pee good.

[01:36:22] [SPEAKER_03] He'd pee good. He'd pee good. Pee pee good, which is different than pee pee good. The award they gave to the exorcist. You're right. So good.

[01:36:31] [SPEAKER_06] I love that at the end of that Keitel scene in the motel where like they get out of there and the camera just stays for a little bit. She's so fucking good in that scene. And you see all of the wreckage. It made me think about, I haven't rewatched Raging Bull in a while, but like that big like domestic fight there. And like in that movie, you're with the guy and this is like the woman's point of view of this like dumb bullshit these men are bringing home with that.

[01:36:48] [SPEAKER_05] Obviously in Raging Bull, that stuff is very powerful and it's very, but like this stuff gets me even more where she's just trying to keep it together for the kids.

[01:36:55] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[01:36:55] [SPEAKER_03] After all that happens. This is Ellen Burson's superpower. Her fastball is like, is anyone better at quiet suffering than her? She has this fascinating balance of feeling really steely and strong and the kind of person who could say try silence and break you for decades. Right. And also at all times you're like, is she on the verge of breaking down in tears?

[01:37:14] [SPEAKER_05] I just wish you had recorded her saying try silence so that I could then play it on the podcast when I need you to try silence.

[01:37:19] [SPEAKER_06] You get the big red button in front of you. You just play try silence to wrap up the show.

[01:37:25] [SPEAKER_05] She's just, I feel like that's kind of where she wins the Oscar more than anything. Right. It's just how well she plays the sort of, and just like the betrayal of like, I fucking, you know, let someone in. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in this like fragile situation. He seemed nice, you know, and then here I am again, like in front of my kid, like getting humiliated like this and like being scary, you know.

[01:37:50] [SPEAKER_03] What felt irresponsible to her was that she was starting an affair with a man who was so much younger. Like she was like, this is silly and maybe not like wise of me. What she realizes is I fell for the same type of guy again, which I think really devastates her.

[01:38:03] [SPEAKER_06] Well, and it's so episodic because like you could make a version of this movie where she gets on the road and lands at the diner and the movie's about the diner. But you need this sense of like, oh no, like something in me is making these choices again. I got to get out of this. I'm stuck.

[01:38:15] [SPEAKER_05] You need her to sort of abandon her dream again. She's just starting to be like, well, maybe I could take it. It's like, no, I need to get the fuck out of here. I need to just take a job as a waitress. I need to just keep my head above water for the kid.

[01:38:28] [SPEAKER_03] It's also so big though that it's not, the movie's not Nashville. It's not, I always wanted to be a country music star and now I'm going to pursue my dream. It is, I miss singing. Right. I like that. I just want to sing for a living. Right. Like once upon a time, I liked that. I'm also happy if that paycheck is 50% serving beers and 50% singing one song a night. You know?

[01:38:49] [SPEAKER_04] And that was also the moment right before she met her husband. Yes. So it really is like, she's like, I want to start right from where I left off. The last sort of free version of myself. Yeah. Yeah. Can we also shut up before we move on to the diner? I love the bar owner. Mm-hmm. Yes. The one that hires her. Yes. Yes. The good one. He's just got some great funny moments. He has this one part I wrote down where she asks, what's a song he likes? And he just starts saying lyrics to her.

[01:39:18] [SPEAKER_04] And she's like, I don't know that song.

[01:39:20] [SPEAKER_03] And he's like, well, why jazz? I mean, ironically, this is a movie. I really like that scene. This is a movie made up of characters that feel like they could be sitcom archetypes. And yet all of them are played like real people. Right.

[01:39:31] [SPEAKER_05] It's like Cassavetes sitcom. Yes. Yeah. I mean, and then the sitcom, I never really watched Dallas. I've maybe seen it on TV once, but like, I assume it's more sitcom sitcom.

[01:39:40] [SPEAKER_03] The Criterion Disc has all nine seasons on it, right?

[01:39:43] [SPEAKER_05] I'm going to find out. You have to play it backwards. You should at least have the pilot. Yeah. Throw it on there. Yeah. So, yeah. When's the water fight scene? I love the water fight scene. That's a classic like mother-son thing where it's like, we're having fun. We've kind of, it's gone out of control. Yeah. Because boys are too excitable.

[01:40:04] [SPEAKER_06] I think it's after that.

[01:40:05] [SPEAKER_05] Is it? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:40:06] [SPEAKER_06] But yeah, it is a little bit like you can mess with your kid in a way. Like, she's not hurting him, but like, they're both taking it too far because you kind of like get on your kid's level and do things like that.

[01:40:16] [SPEAKER_05] You are a parent of a child, of two sons.

[01:40:18] [SPEAKER_06] It's true.

[01:40:19] [SPEAKER_05] Katie Rich. I am also a parent of two sons, but they are.

[01:40:22] [SPEAKER_06] In a different part of life.

[01:40:23] [SPEAKER_05] You are a parent of sons closer to this, this age range. And like you, I feel like can speak more to, right? Like what that is like and what, what maybe when, when can you say what I might be in for? But like, like to, to what is, this feels like an underrated mother-son movie, underrated only in that it's not discussed all the time. Like it was rated well at the time, but like, it does feel like it kind of name nails that specific dynamic. You don't see like, that's a less discussed dynamic in movies, right? Mother-son.

[01:40:52] [SPEAKER_06] Like, I remember again, talking about like, Charlie is a baby who was on this podcast. I remember having this baby and being like, why are there not movies about like the relationship between a parent and a baby? Because it's the most fascinating relationship I've ever had in my entire life. Sure. There's a reason for that. Like I now am aware that it's better if they can talk, but it is this like. Polly nailed it.

[01:41:09] [SPEAKER_03] There's no reason to make any other commentary on them. What a film.

[01:41:12] [SPEAKER_06] It is just a specific thing of like, I made this person. I am responsible for this person. And, but like, they turn you into a kid again in some weird way. They make you think about things. Like they say the weirdest stuff and you kind of just have to roll with it. They tell terrible jokes in that way. And like the two of them against the world. Like, and David, you may have this feeling if you're just like, even without your wife, you're just with your kids. You're like, all right, it's just us. We got to figure this out. Like you're worried about. We got to get through the subway or down the street.

[01:41:39] [SPEAKER_06] And this is such a heightened version of that where it's like, I got you under my arm and we're going to make our way through the world. And it's really moving the way that it gets into the weirdness of it, but also has that kind of bedrock. We're in this together part of it.

[01:41:53] [SPEAKER_03] But I want to say a couple of things. First of all, Lane Bradbury is the actress who plays Rita, who's Keitel's wife, who I think is incredibly good. Oh, she is so good. In one extended scene. Yeah. It's just a smart decision to not have it be the like, she comes storming in. Who's the harpy? Who's sleeping with my wife?

[01:42:09] [SPEAKER_06] She's so sad.

[01:42:10] [SPEAKER_03] She's so sad. And she's so empathetic. And she's like, I'm trying to warn you. I'm trying to save you. Yeah. Even more than I'm mad at him and I'm trying to catch him.

[01:42:17] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

[01:42:17] [SPEAKER_03] She also has a son who has some kind of health issue. And he's clearly just doesn't want to deal with the extra difficulty of that burden, of that responsibility.

[01:42:28] [SPEAKER_06] And Ellen bursts in that scene where she is immediately just like, oh, yeah, OK. Yes. We have to have this conversation. She's not trying to get out of it. She's not trying to make any excuses. She takes responsibility instantly.

[01:42:37] [SPEAKER_03] The water fight scene is basically right after her first day at the diner, I think. And you feel that it's her trying so hard to make her son's life fun again. Mm-hmm. Because there's been so much upheaval. And then it just comes to that point where she's just kind of like, OK, all right. I need to be a parent.

[01:42:52] [SPEAKER_06] It's like, you got to sit down at the diner and be bored. I don't care if you're bored. Yeah.

[01:42:55] [SPEAKER_03] This is that feeling of like, not just I want to console him emotionally, but just like, this has all been so dramatic that I can't even pretend it's normal. So what if instead I act like a little kid for like one night? I get to his level a little bit more. And at least it's just kind of fun. Just because people have probably been yelling at the podcast that I didn't make this connection. Basically, the only other movie that Alfred Lutter was in is Bad News Bears. Oh, sure. Where he plays the brainy nerd in that and the first sequel. Great movie. It's good at it. You know what's great? The Bad News Bears. Yeah, but do you know what else?

[01:43:26] [SPEAKER_03] Saying Bad News Bears as a term.

[01:43:28] [SPEAKER_06] Baseball. There we go.

[01:43:30] [SPEAKER_03] Less so.

[01:43:31] [SPEAKER_06] Baseball. The crack of the bat.

[01:43:33] [SPEAKER_03] Crack of the bat I do like.

[01:43:34] [SPEAKER_06] I don't remember if this comes before or after the water, but there's like the kid in the hotel room alone where he's like sitting two inches from the television and watching some old movie. I didn't recognize it. I don't know if you guys did. Good question. But that felt like Scorsese self-insert. Like this lonely boy watching old movies by himself.

[01:43:49] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, except this kid doesn't have asthma, so he can go out and flirt with Jodie Foster. He just chooses not to. Yes.

[01:43:54] [SPEAKER_04] I feel like he's watching though something where it has a singer that's kind of in the tradition of what his mom is pursuing.

[01:44:02] [SPEAKER_05] It's a Betty Grable movie called Coney Island. Oh, there you go. And right. And those old Betty Grable movies, that's the kind of music Scorsese was thinking of when she's like, I wish I was a singer.

[01:44:42] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Yeah. And the authenticity of the character just so perfectly.

[01:44:45] [SPEAKER_03] And it's sort of like a Star is Born performance. Yeah. Just like, I just love watching this person. A hundred percent.

[01:44:49] [SPEAKER_04] And I like that they don't get along. Yeah. She's pretty tough with her at first. Yeah. Yeah. Making comments about her body in front of everyone. But then they have that scene where she freaks out when the short order cook or whatever asks her, where's Vera? And her line is,

[01:45:07] [SPEAKER_03] she went to shit and the hogs ate her. Yeah. And the like explosion of the, what is it? The ketchup all over her apron. Right. The great Valerie Curtin as Vera,

[01:45:18] [SPEAKER_05] the sort of the quieter.

[01:45:19] [SPEAKER_06] She's so funny. I mean, the very end of the movie when they're in the bathroom talking and it just keeps cutting back to Vera, like trying to like handle all the places. She's like crying while people are throwing napkins at her. It's amazing.

[01:45:30] [SPEAKER_03] The cousin to Jane Curtin. Of course. Of course. But the scene where they're finally sort of endeared to each other and Diane Ladd starts giving her the tips. And here's how you get good tips. And then it turns into them like sunbathing. Oh, yeah. It goes from this moment of just like reflection and respect to just like actually let's try to get some color.

[01:45:53] [SPEAKER_06] Well, and it's like female friendship again. And it made me think about Scorsese, like Age of Innocence or Silence or these other movies where he's like, what is this world? How can I figure out how this works? And it is kind of him being like, what's it like to be a woman with a friend? And that curiosity drives it and makes it feel so true in the process.

[01:46:10] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Yeah. And he hired good people. He surrounded himself with good people. He did. You guys ever work in a diner? No. Did you ever work in a diner, David? No.

[01:46:19] [SPEAKER_05] Just like seems like such a cool, you know, like gig. Oh, it seems so hard. I mean, nothing feels more stressful. But like when I say cool, I don't mean like cool to do, but just like, it's like having like, uh, epaulettes, you know, stars. It's a magic. It's a purple heart. What's more badass than being like a line cook or a fucking diner waiter? Yeah.

[01:46:42] [SPEAKER_06] The scariest people you're ever going to meet in your life.

[01:46:44] [SPEAKER_05] I, I went to my friend Caitlin's wedding last weekend and humblebrag. Thank you. A co-host of, it's different. Secret podcast. My, my not secret podcast about baseball that you should definitely subscribe to. And, uh, we drove through Pennsylvania, the great state. And we stopped at a diner in Scranton that had real Alice doesn't live here anymore vibes where we walked in. Cause we're hungry. And it's like, we're in a rush. You know, we're trying to, it's a seven hour drive. And we walk in and we're like, Oh fuck. Should we turn around? Cause the vibes were bad. In what way?

[01:47:15] [SPEAKER_05] The one that was kind of just known around. I mean, there were customers, but there's no waiters around. And then we see one waitress and she has just like the worst, like scowl on her face. We're just like, Oh boy. And we're like, okay. And she's like, yeah. And we're like, okay. And we like sit down. And then like, we are served fantastic food. Like the food rocked, like an exceptional BLT and grilled cheese sandwich. Right.

[01:47:38] [SPEAKER_06] They don't need to woo you. They got great food. You can do whatever you want.

[01:47:40] [SPEAKER_05] And then I, we realized like, Oh, there's some drama happening where the waitress, I think just maybe got in a fight with another customer. And then maybe got chewed out by a boss. And now she's complaining to somebody else about, you know, how fuck this play. You know what I mean? And then when she like gave us her check, we were like, the food was really great. And she just was like, you know, that actually means a lot to hear it. And we're like, Oh my God, what is happening in this way? And that's what it's like. And Alice doesn't live here anymore.

[01:48:09] [SPEAKER_05] What's going on with all these people. There's just so intense. And like,

[01:48:14] [SPEAKER_06] there's such, this is your arms around. Right. Yeah. I know we started with it, but you go in that Waffle House because you see the whole kitchen is right there in front of you. And you're just, you sit there long enough. You can figure out everybody's deal and everyone's mad at each other.

[01:48:24] [SPEAKER_05] Isn't Waffle House even more intense because it's 24 hours. So you have to be like, you're like a fucking Navy seal in there.

[01:48:31] [SPEAKER_06] If you're working like a night shift. Absolutely.

[01:48:33] [SPEAKER_03] Everything. The Waffle House storm warning thing. Yeah.

[01:48:36] [SPEAKER_06] It's totally real. Right, David? Yeah. The Waffle House index, where if the Waffle House close, some Waffle House closes, it's orange. And just like the National Weather Service or FEMA or whatever branch of the government still cares about this stuff.

[01:48:47] [SPEAKER_05] How serious the threat. Right. Yeah. If Waffle House has to be like,

[01:48:50] [SPEAKER_06] you better get the fuck out of there.

[01:48:51] [SPEAKER_05] Maybe a limited menu today.

[01:48:53] [SPEAKER_06] They will, if Waffle House is closed, you better get FEMA in there immediately. That's the thing. Like,

[01:48:58] [SPEAKER_03] they don't even take their notes from the government. The government goes like, oh, fuck that Waffle House is closing.

[01:49:03] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Because those people are, they have seen absolutely everything.

[01:49:06] [SPEAKER_05] I don't want to go to Waffle House.

[01:49:07] [SPEAKER_06] Come on. It's so far from here. Remember pre-COVID, you guys were like, we're driving to Florida. Yeah, we had a plan. there was a plan. Then David had a bunch of kids.

[01:49:13] [SPEAKER_03] Summer 2020. He kept slipping and having another kid.

[01:49:19] [SPEAKER_06] It can still happen. Throw everybody in the car. Come on down.

[01:49:21] [SPEAKER_05] The closest Waffle House at least last I checked is in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I went there. I went there, right?

[01:49:26] [SPEAKER_06] When I lived here, I remember looking it up at some point because I'm so deeply devoted to Waffle House.

[01:49:30] [SPEAKER_05] It's like a two hour drive. It's pretty far.

[01:49:32] [SPEAKER_06] I think you might be mad if you drove two hours to Waffle House. It's one of those things where it's like, I need something that's open now. And when you're a teenager, it's somewhere you can go. And that is where the tree box is.

[01:49:41] [SPEAKER_03] It's still there. It's near Allentown. I never had a Waffle House meal not exceed my expectations. And I go in with sky high expectations every time. It just delivers.

[01:49:53] [SPEAKER_05] I like the waffles too, to be clear. Obviously the hash browns are what everyone talks about, but I think the waffles.

[01:49:57] [SPEAKER_06] They have the hash brown bowl now where you can get like a hash brown with cheese and an egg on top of it. This doesn't come in. It's really good.

[01:50:03] [SPEAKER_05] I don't know if I need any newfangled additions.

[01:50:06] [SPEAKER_06] It's been there probably for 15 years. Okay. It's a little newfangled. Oh, yeah.

[01:50:10] [SPEAKER_03] Whippersnappers.

[01:50:11] [SPEAKER_06] You can't change these things on me.

[01:50:14] [SPEAKER_03] Christopherson doesn't enter the movie until like an hour and 15 minutes. He does not. If you saw the poster and were like,

[01:50:20] [SPEAKER_05] can't wait to see Chris K. Yeah. You're kind of like,

[01:50:23] [SPEAKER_02] where's my guy?

[01:50:25] [SPEAKER_05] You know, especially since like, we've already had a, she wants to be a musician arc. Yes. And he didn't appear for that. And two bad relationships. Yes. And then he's just like, you know, what's his name? David. Hey, it's my name. Hey. He's a, he's one of the guys. He's a customer. He's divorced. He's a rancher. Got a farm. Plays a little guitar. Got a nice little beer.

[01:50:48] [SPEAKER_03] He's got some blowing locks. Might want to run your fingers for him. He does. But he shows up around the same time that she finally kind of gets it. That's her standing within Mel's.

[01:50:58] [SPEAKER_04] I mean,

[01:50:58] [SPEAKER_03] God damn.

[01:50:59] [SPEAKER_05] Like Harvey Keitel fucks her up so bad that she won't fuck Chris Christopherson right away. Like she should be fucking him right away. And Keitel should be on the set.

[01:51:07] [SPEAKER_06] But she's got to learn how to have some restraint.

[01:51:09] [SPEAKER_05] Life is tough. Yeah. Life is tough.

[01:51:11] [SPEAKER_06] However, he is, he does spank kids and she does get mad at him as saying, you're the kind of guy who hits kids. And then watching this now, you're like, yeah, don't, don't, don't get with that guy.

[01:51:20] [SPEAKER_05] That doesn't feel shocking to me in the same way.

[01:51:23] [SPEAKER_06] She gets so mad at him about it. Sure. Well, he shouldn't spank her kid. I mean, he's not the kid's dad.

[01:51:28] [SPEAKER_03] But I think he wants to be.

[01:51:30] [SPEAKER_06] And when he comes back to her, you can't, I was waiting for him to be like, oh, and yeah, I shouldn't have hit your kid. And he doesn't do that. He's kind of like, yeah,

[01:51:36] [SPEAKER_05] He doesn't quite do that. Yeah.

[01:51:38] [SPEAKER_06] It's not a sticking point for me. To be clear,

[01:51:40] [SPEAKER_05] I'm not pro spanking kids. I just feel like in the seventies, plenty more kids were getting spanked. Right. I mean, I agree.

[01:51:46] [SPEAKER_06] But then the extent of the way she was mad at him for it, like, does he apologize enough for that? For her to take him back in that great scene.

[01:51:52] [SPEAKER_05] So much together. And like the last thing that poor kids needs is someone laying hands on him. Exactly. Like he's witnessed violence. He's just been in that car. You know, she understands her kid emotionally.

[01:52:03] [SPEAKER_06] he was being a jerk in that scene with Christopher Sopperson. Yeah. You know,

[01:52:06] [SPEAKER_03] 12 year old. It's got the foulest mouth. We should also call out that he has been sneaking around with Jodie Foster drinking wine.

[01:52:14] [SPEAKER_04] Oh yeah. Drinking wine, shoplifting.

[01:52:16] [SPEAKER_03] Learning about grownup stuff. Mm hmm. Being bad kids.

[01:52:19] [SPEAKER_06] Jodie Foster has a foolproof plan for a shoplifting from that guitar store though. Like to make an injury.

[01:52:24] [SPEAKER_04] That's the classic move. Oh yeah. Create a distraction. Uh huh. And someone else grabs the thing, shoves it down their pants. Yeah. Been there. Done that.

[01:52:33] [SPEAKER_06] Are you more the kid? Or are you Jodie Foster? Like of these kids, who are you relating to more?

[01:52:39] [SPEAKER_04] Hmm. Interesting.

[01:52:40] [SPEAKER_06] What does she say to the cops when she leaves the police station? Like, does she say like suck it pigs or something?

[01:52:44] [SPEAKER_04] I think so.

[01:52:45] [SPEAKER_06] It's so good.

[01:52:46] [SPEAKER_04] It is so good. She's pretty cool. She's a badass. I was a little bit of the bad influence at times. Okay. But then also sometimes the one follower. Hook the bad. Uh huh. Yeah.

[01:52:56] [SPEAKER_06] It's an exchange.

[01:52:57] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. What happens?

[01:53:00] [SPEAKER_03] I mean, I mean, once the spanking happens, uh, we're pretty close to the resolve of the movie.

[01:53:09] [SPEAKER_06] You get the great scene with them in the bathroom where Diane lands, like, you're mad at them. It sounds like you love them and she's crying and they're laughing and it's perfect.

[01:53:16] [SPEAKER_03] She doesn't want to fall into the same thing again. Yeah. Why would she? And it's, she's jumping at the first trigger.

[01:53:22] [SPEAKER_06] Mm hmm.

[01:53:22] [SPEAKER_03] But ultimately the, the fact that this man is willing to apologize. And is Chris Christopherson. He is Chris Christopherson. Your face keeps turning bright red. What's going on on your screen? I don't know. You don't know.

[01:53:33] [SPEAKER_05] Turning bright red? Yes. There was something weird. I do have a, uh, reader's digest story about the, uh, Titan, Titan implosion, which happened three years ago. Rest in peace to all those beautiful people. Open. And there might, there, I think it was a weird auto.

[01:53:45] [SPEAKER_06] It's very, it's very relevant to this current conversation.

[01:53:49] [SPEAKER_03] I just, it looks like a waffle, a storm warning is happening on David's face.

[01:53:52] [SPEAKER_04] Jodie Foster says when she exits the police station, so long suckers. Yeah.

[01:53:58] [SPEAKER_05] Very, the classic. She's got kind of a road runner energy to her.

[01:54:01] [SPEAKER_06] Oh my God.

[01:54:03] [SPEAKER_05] I'll hurt her anywhere. Remember when that fucking thing, I feel,

[01:54:05] [SPEAKER_06] three years ago, it feels like it happened ten years ago. Yeah.

[01:54:09] [SPEAKER_05] It was three years ago. I know exactly where I was. I just will never forget where they're like, I think, a thing's lost down there. And I'm like, oh, oh, what is it? And they're like, I'll check it out. It's this, uh, kind of metal tuba guy threw together. It's got like a PlayStation controller. And I'm like, this was being sent down regularly. And it was like one guy in there alone.

[01:54:26] [SPEAKER_03] No, like 10 rich people.

[01:54:28] [SPEAKER_05] There would be those cartoons where it was like, you know, five little stick figures.

[01:54:32] [SPEAKER_06] And you're just like, what is this? You sound like James Cameron, who spent a lot of time on television there being like, I knew it wasn't going to work. Mistakes for me.

[01:54:39] [SPEAKER_05] I could have told you that thing was going to explode. The funniest thing in the world where he's like, I knew they blew up. Fuck them.

[01:54:43] [SPEAKER_06] Would you, uh, stay with a man who spanked your children without permission?

[01:54:47] [SPEAKER_05] It is something I feel very strongly about. I think it would really upset me, but I mean, I don't live in 1973.

[01:54:52] [SPEAKER_06] I know.

[01:54:53] [SPEAKER_05] I don't know if I feel differently then, but I know, I'm not pro spanking. No.

[01:54:56] [SPEAKER_06] It made me think about how, I don't know if you experienced this too, David. It's like other kids are much more annoying to me than my own. Like I have a much higher threshold for like what I can put up with from my kids. And like, you're around like your kids friends. You're just like, I can't do this right now. But yeah,

[01:55:09] [SPEAKER_05] no, I mean, right. Hard not to be like judgy.

[01:55:11] [SPEAKER_06] Or just like, uh, like my tolerance has reached a limit. Like I cannot listen to your jokes anymore. You don't belong to me. I don't have to do this. So I guess Chris Christopherson being like, I'll listen to this kid's bad jokes. Cause he gets, do you guys understand the joke that he's trying to tell about the nuts?

[01:55:26] [SPEAKER_05] Uh, I do not. I can't figure it out. It really pissed me off. Honestly, even in the movie, I was like, shut the fuck up. It makes no sense.

[01:55:33] [SPEAKER_06] Cause he tells it to Chris Christopherson too, who's doing the same thing and being like, I'm really doing my best here.

[01:55:38] [SPEAKER_05] I mean, I feel like the joke is that, that, you know, the nuts are balls. And like, there's kind of like a dirty joke.

[01:55:46] [SPEAKER_06] You sound like the kid explaining it. Right.

[01:55:48] [SPEAKER_05] It just never quite gets resolved. And they like, the adults keep kind of like interrupting him to give sort of what they think is the punchline. I think is they want him to shut up. And so that ruins it only more. He's, you know, he's a little annoying, but no spanking, you know, you don't want to associate discipline with violence.

[01:56:06] [SPEAKER_06] Would you go live on that ranch though? He's growing like alfalfa, I think, or. look. Okay.

[01:56:12] [SPEAKER_05] I don't want to live in Arizona.

[01:56:13] [SPEAKER_06] You're a city boy. You don't want to live on this ranch.

[01:56:15] [SPEAKER_05] Well, I'm just saying like, if I wanted to live in the countryside, my guess is I would want a more verdant and moist part of the world. I'm not really a dry heat guy. Not what I grew up with. Not really what I'm used to. I think I'd probably.

[01:56:27] [SPEAKER_06] You need a steamer, not a sauna.

[01:56:28] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Oh, you know I am.

[01:56:30] [SPEAKER_06] I love a steamer. I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You, Ben, would you go live on that ranch?

[01:56:34] [SPEAKER_04] I'd love to ride a dang horse.

[01:56:36] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, you love the horse. Okay.

[01:56:38] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. But you know,

[01:56:39] [SPEAKER_05] are you built for Phoenix? Like, what do you think? Are you Arizona? No. Getting out there. Cacti. I couldn't do it. Tumbleweeds.

[01:56:45] [SPEAKER_04] I've actually never been to the desert.

[01:56:48] [SPEAKER_05] Is that a goal we could make for you? Ooh, road trip. Next time you go to LA,

[01:56:53] [SPEAKER_06] it's not that far. Sure. You drive like two hours out and you're in the desert. And I, as like an East Coaster, I have the same thing where you get out there, you're like, God, those mountains are like a hundred miles away. How is this possible?

[01:57:02] [SPEAKER_05] Right. Now, Griffin, I'm going to, I'm not wondering what I want to speak for you, but I'm also going to assume like the Arizona desert, or maybe not your preferred.

[01:57:09] [SPEAKER_06] You're not moving to that ranch with Chris Chris.

[01:57:11] [SPEAKER_05] What about a visit?

[01:57:12] [SPEAKER_06] I did.

[01:57:12] [SPEAKER_03] I did a cup of coffee. You know, I've been to Arizona. I did a, a short film in Albuquerque a couple of years ago. Yeah, I remember. And my body almost retired. You got off the plane and your body was like,

[01:57:28] [SPEAKER_05] I'm going to sit this one out. You're going to figure it out all by yourself.

[01:57:31] [SPEAKER_06] Basically incompatible.

[01:57:32] [SPEAKER_03] We shot, we were supposed to shoot a thing. Uh, it was like a survivalist post-apocalyptic thing. And I'm supposed to be someone who's not well suited for that. And even then, uh, we, we shot a thing at the top of a mountain, very high altitude. And my eyes were just like, Oh, by the way, we're not going to open. I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't keep my eyes open. And we had to shoot around it. And they put me in a car and put the car seat all the way back. And then like poured a bunch of water on a towel.

[01:58:02] [SPEAKER_03] And I just lay there with a wet towel over my eyes for like two hours. We got to moisten this guy's way. Reset a little bit. Sounds pretty good. A little bit. Wow. There was also like a dust storm. So let's keep you in the Northeast. I like being here.

[01:58:16] [SPEAKER_06] I would think that Scorsese honestly would be in the same way. I think he found it. He does not feel like a creature of the West.

[01:58:22] [SPEAKER_05] But I think he found it very interesting. It's just an alien landscape. Like, and film wise, it was exciting for him to have this alien land. Yeah. Well,

[01:58:28] [SPEAKER_06] he goes back for Killers of the Flower Moon 40 years later. True.

[01:58:31] [SPEAKER_05] And I assume he directed from within a plastic bubble. I sort of assume that too.

[01:58:35] [SPEAKER_06] Probably for both of those movies.

[01:58:36] [SPEAKER_05] The ending is very, very like great, is great cinema. Because it's got this sort of touch of ambiguity to it. It's got this kind of earthy naturalism to it.

[01:58:45] [SPEAKER_06] the very end with them walking down the street.

[01:58:47] [SPEAKER_05] You know, and just him coming back to her not. Now it's written as more of a straightforward, happy ending. They get married. Burstyn is just like, I don't want it to have that kind of a cut and dry ending. Like, why does she have to end up with a man?

[01:59:01] [SPEAKER_02] Mm-hmm.

[01:59:03] [SPEAKER_05] So, you know, she insists on rewrites. And Warner Brothers is like, we're not fucking doing an unhappy ending. Like, they're like, we had just done Scarecrow. Oh, sure. Paul Mazursky, right? No, it's not Mazursky. I'm sorry. Like Grisberg? No, no, it's neither. It's the gambler guy, Carl Rice. Is that who it is? No.

[01:59:22] Come on.

[01:59:23] [SPEAKER_05] I'm so annoyed by this. Who directs? Jerry Shatsburg. There we go. Jesus Christ. It only took seven tries. Fucking obviously Jerry Shatsburg. Obviously. What an embarrassing thing for me to say. Ben's mocking us right now. Paddock and Needle Park, you know. And he's like, and Scarecrow is this happy ending and that made no fucking money. We're not doing an unhappy ending again. And Ellen Burstyn's like, I'm not saying unhappy ending. I'm just saying, does she need to end up with a man? Like, are you telling me she doesn't end up with a man is an unhappy ending? Everything can't be perfect at the end. And he's like, what I'm telling you is she doesn't end up with a man.

[01:59:52] [SPEAKER_05] We're not making the movie. Wow. It's the one time they kind of push back in terms of like, sorry. And so they kind of compromise on this. Like, she sort of says, maybe we'll get back. You know, like it's a little more ambiguous. Right? They'll try. It's a pretty good ending. I can't deny, you know.

[02:00:11] [SPEAKER_06] You get the kiss in the diner and everyone's clapping and like you get the energy of that scene.

[02:00:15] [SPEAKER_04] Even leading up to that when they're in the bathroom. Oh God. She really breaks down. But Diane laughs. That is like, I think one of the best scenes.

[02:00:22] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. And like, that's more of the emphasis than the one with Christopherson almost. So that's bursting kind of getting what she wants is that friendship is so important.

[02:00:29] [SPEAKER_05] The way she puts it is Chris improvises, okay, come on, I'll take you to Monterey. And like, it's not about staying on the ranch or, you know, like, it's more of a free exchange. The man is willing to support the woman in her aspirations. He's making a sacrifice. Exactly. Luckily, he's sort of releasing me from the bondage of the old way of thinking. Thank God for Chris. He was smart and aware, you know, so she's like, she's pretty happy with how it goes.

[02:00:58] [SPEAKER_05] Scorsese still acknowledges like, yeah, it's a little pat that like she gets the handsome man at the end. But I think we do a good job suggesting like, it's still probably going to be kind of stormy. Like, it's not like Christopherson's like, I'll chill out. It does feel like this scene. I know this vampire hunter.

[02:01:14] [SPEAKER_03] Let's go find a blade. It does feel like the other patrons applauding and getting roped up and him having to make the big apology in front of everybody feels like the scene that gives them the codex to be able to make a sitcom. Yeah. true. It's the one scene where it's like the diner is acting like one organism.

[02:01:33] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, Laura Dern in the background as they smell child eating ice cream according to Wikipedia. I think I spotted her. She's like right behind Ellen Burstyn, I think. Because of course,

[02:01:42] [SPEAKER_03] daughter of Diane Ladd. This is her first on-screen appearance.

[02:01:45] [SPEAKER_06] She's got huge glasses.

[02:01:47] [SPEAKER_03] Yes.

[02:01:48] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, yeah.

[02:01:49] [SPEAKER_05] Wow.

[02:01:49] [SPEAKER_06] She's so cute.

[02:01:51] [SPEAKER_05] Roger Ebert says, the movie's been both attacked. Wait, wait,

[02:01:54] [SPEAKER_06] we should talk about the actual ending of course

[02:01:57] [SPEAKER_03] is it's what saves the movie for me. Yes. Is that if it ended on everyone applauding her and Christopherson That's too pat. Yeah. But it goes back to the kid. It goes back to her relationship with her son.

[02:02:08] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. I'm laughing because I'm watching the bathroom scene and they're cutting back to the other Vera. Oh my God, it's so funny. And everyone's getting into a fight and there's so much chaos and so funny.

[02:02:17] [SPEAKER_05] Tommy saying, Mom, I can't breathe is also improvised and is very sweet. That's good. You know, like that's because she truly was. Yes. Gripping him too tight. Yeah.

[02:02:25] [SPEAKER_06] But and they're walking down that like kind of shitty street and there's the sign in front of them that says Monterey. Like that's the version of what they're heading toward. I guess I'd live there.

[02:02:33] [SPEAKER_05] You got all that fish. Got a big aquarium.

[02:02:37] [SPEAKER_06] In Monterey? Yeah. Oh, sure.

[02:02:38] [SPEAKER_04] Where is Monterey in California?

[02:02:40] [SPEAKER_06] It's like south of San Francisco. Like isn't that where Big Little Lies is set? I think so. Yes.

[02:02:44] [SPEAKER_05] And everything went well for those guys. Yeah.

[02:02:46] [SPEAKER_06] If you're not that rich, it might turn out fine for you.

[02:02:50] [SPEAKER_05] Remember how Adam Scott's in that? Yeah. Sure is. It's like, you know, all this, you know, insane drama is happening. He's like, this sucks.

[02:02:57] [SPEAKER_06] Is he Witherspoon's husband? Yeah. And he's like a tech guy. And she's like,

[02:03:00] [SPEAKER_03] I'm going crazy about the school board. And he's like, okay. It's like, this is a one and done, right? Limited series, no second season.

[02:03:07] [SPEAKER_06] Did he come back for the second season? He does.

[02:03:09] [SPEAKER_03] I watched it. It's all kind of vanished from my brain in that show. Oh, yeah. Who was Dern's husband?

[02:03:16] [SPEAKER_06] Oh.

[02:03:16] [SPEAKER_03] Because Skarsgård's obviously married to Nicole Kidman.

[02:03:19] [SPEAKER_06] That's so true. And Shailene doesn't have a husband.

[02:03:21] [SPEAKER_05] No, but she's a single mom. She's a single mom. She's a single mom. She's a single mom. She's a single mom. She's a single mom. She's a single mom.

[02:03:24] [SPEAKER_06] But Dern definitely has a husband. She tells someone, I will not not be rich.

[02:03:27] [SPEAKER_05] Because she's Renata.

[02:03:29] [SPEAKER_03] Jeffrey Nordling. Oh, of course. The great. Yes. The great Nordling. And then everyone's just kind of scared of Zoe Kravitz. Yeah, well, she's fucking scared.

[02:03:38] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, I forgot about her.

[02:03:39] [SPEAKER_03] But she's married to some guy too.

[02:03:41] [SPEAKER_05] James Tupper. She's married to someone's ex. Exactly.

[02:03:44] [SPEAKER_06] Is she married to Reese's ex?

[02:03:45] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, it's Reese's ex.

[02:03:48] [SPEAKER_06] Got it. Okay.

[02:03:49] [SPEAKER_05] And you know, there's a, if you really pay attention, there's a lie or two being told. A big one. Or are they little?

[02:03:56] [SPEAKER_03] They could be both, and they could be both at the same time. David? Yes. Red alert. Uh-oh. There's been an outbreak. Biohazard. Of a new Patreon series. It's contagious. Oh, that's so true. It's been cooked up in the lab for your pleasure.

[02:04:25] [SPEAKER_03] From the fine folks at the Umbrella Corporation, we are covering Resident Evil. The film franchise. Yes. We've got the first franchise. Six movies. Yes. That beautiful second franchise. How many? Six?

[02:04:39] [SPEAKER_05] Seven? It's got the one movie. Oh, it's got the one. We'll be covering all of them on Patreon, doing commentaries on, yes, the Resident Evil, Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife, Retribution, the final chapter. Welcome to Recruiting.

[02:04:52] [SPEAKER_03] This is an exciting time. Zach Kregor, friend of the podcast, has a new Resident Evil coming out. We thought this was a good opportunity to revisit the history of Resident Evil movies.

[02:05:01] [SPEAKER_05] Why not? Why not? Why can't we? Why can't we? We can. Check in for that August 1st, and it's going to be running all the way through November 1st.

[02:05:11] [SPEAKER_03] Followed by your March Madness winner, Dracula. Dr. Acula himself. That's so fun. So that's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[02:05:31] [SPEAKER_05] Roger Ebert. It's just interesting to hear this movie discussed at the time. This movie's been attacked and defended on feminist grounds. Yeah. It sounds like he's on film trip. I know. You know what I mean? He's like, I'll wade into the discourse. But Alice doesn't live here anymore.

[02:05:45] [SPEAKER_06] Where are they doing all this fighting? Just in the village voice? I think so. Yeah, in reviews.

[02:05:50] [SPEAKER_03] It's fascinating to consider the way there was discourse at a time where only 20 people had a platform of any size.

[02:05:58] [SPEAKER_06] So much more peaceful. I mean, still annoying, probably.

[02:06:00] [SPEAKER_03] I guess people would write letters into the newspaper and be like, I disagree with that review.

[02:06:05] [SPEAKER_06] Arguing outside Lincoln Center, probably.

[02:06:08] [SPEAKER_05] This is pretty good Ebert here, though. I think it belongs somewhere outside ideology, maybe in the area of contemporary myth and romance. You know, the movie seems less about Alice than it does about the speculations and daydreams of a lot of women her age who identify with liberation of other women but are unsure on the subject of themselves. I think it's a great way of putting it. Pauline Kael.

[02:06:28] [SPEAKER_06] Did she have an opinion on this?

[02:06:30] [SPEAKER_03] She usually was just kind of like, oh, I don't know. It's all right. Three stars. Ben, when David said Pauline Kael, can we edit in like a thunderclass? And someone playing the organ.

[02:06:41] [SPEAKER_05] One of the rare films that genuinely deserves to be called controversial. Again, this is Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. It's not fucking Cannibal Holocaust. I think people will really fight about it. It's the story of a woman who has a second chance thrust on her. She knows enough not to make the same mistake again, but she isn't sure of much else. Neither is the movie. Oh, Pauline in for the kill after setting up what seemed like a nice review.

[02:07:06] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, boy. It's fascinating that people responded to this like it was Lady Ghostbusters, where they're like, what are they trying to push on us?

[02:07:12] [SPEAKER_05] She's basically like, the movie is totally enjoyable and funny and absorbing. I just don't think it has like a take on its big issue.

[02:07:19] [SPEAKER_06] So why does she think it deserves to be controversial? I don't know.

[02:07:22] [SPEAKER_05] Molly Haskell, the great film critic, and obviously is a leading voice in feminist film criticism and all that, sort of has the same problem of like, they're making a women's picture.

[02:07:34] [SPEAKER_03] It's subconsciously.

[02:07:35] [SPEAKER_05] And I think, right, he's sort of playing ironic tribute and it didn't quite feel authentic enough for me. That makes sense for like a critic at the time watching this movie and being, especially given the opening of it, being like, this is a little too cute for me. I think Marty, you know, doesn't quite know, you know, what he's playing with here or whatever. Now you watch this movie and you're like, my God, if only Hollywood made movies like this anymore. And like, what a refreshing thing that Scorsese made something like this early in his career with a studio,

[02:08:03] [SPEAKER_05] with a fucking movie star that won Oscars. Like, that's fantastic. At the time, they're basically just kind of like, I don't know. Seems like a bunch of bullshit to me. Like, good for them. Commercial pablum. They could fight about it back then. They could fight about it back then. You know what? Now we're just kind of like, take me to the back rooms. Yeah.

[02:08:20] [SPEAKER_06] We get so many of the people, the worst takes on Scorsese being like, he makes these movies that are about men. He hasn't any understanding of it. And if you just sit someone down and be like, no, this guy made this with the exact amount of curiosity of everything else. Like, it's always been there.

[02:08:33] [SPEAKER_05] I think it's a very good film. It is not like my favorite Martin Scorsese movie. I'm not sure I would put it in his top 10. I'm not sure where I put it though. Where do I have it? I probably have it in like his top, you know, 20. He's made a lot of good fucking movies.

[02:08:43] [SPEAKER_06] I think when I did my like, letterbox ranking after watching all of them, I was like, 15 of them are five star masterpieces. It's like, it's really hard to rank them in that. It's kind of a day by day thing.

[02:08:53] [SPEAKER_04] Could I share a quote from a film review in the times? The New York, who is it by? Vincent Canby. Okay. All right. Alice doesn't live here anymore. Has the distinct advantage over most films by growing on you, by getting better and better as it goes along until at the end, you look back over it with some of the wonder and pleasure with which you might suddenly acknowledge an unexpected friendship. I thought that was such a solid. Yeah,

[02:09:16] [SPEAKER_03] that's really good.

[02:09:17] [SPEAKER_05] Summary.

[02:09:18] [SPEAKER_03] The Diane lad of movies.

[02:09:20] [SPEAKER_05] And Canby was not in the Haskell, Kale, like, you know, where he's like, like, he's a, he's a down the line movie critic of like, this is a good experience. Like, you're going to have a good time watching this book.

[02:09:30] [SPEAKER_06] Also him making this between Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, which are just like sad and violent and intense. It's like exactly the.

[02:09:37] [SPEAKER_03] Taxi Driver coming after this. You also just have to think about a lot of people have careers that start out with things like Taxi Driver and who's that knocking at my door or excuse me, Mean Streets and who's that knocking at my door. And then it's like, great, you made your little personal movie. You've shown us that you know how to make a movie on a technical level. Now you're in the studio system. You have to imagine that people could have assumed, is he just going to be a guy who hops from genre to genre and isn't making deeply personal films anymore?

[02:10:07] [SPEAKER_03] And instead, after this, every movie he makes feels almost every movie he makes feels very personal, even when it is a genre exercise.

[02:10:15] [SPEAKER_06] Are you calling Mean Streets the guarantor or is this the guarantor that gets Taxi Driver?

[02:10:19] [SPEAKER_03] It's kind of a double. It's like the two pieces.

[02:10:22] [SPEAKER_05] It helps. It helps to have made a movie that succeeded, have made money. Like, I don't think anyone's watching this being like, I think he's already working on Taxi Driver in some sense. And like, he's a big exciting director. The first one, for sure. Sure. Sure. I mean, yeah, I don't know. We were kind of arguing that's the real blank. Oh, sure. That's true. Taxi Driver is more of the guarantor. Like, Taxi Driver is not an expensive movie. Yeah. And that's a movie where he's fighting every minute to get anything through.

[02:10:46] [SPEAKER_02] It's just such a crazy movie.

[02:10:48] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, it is. But New York, New York is more him being like, I want a lot of money to make something that is awesome.

[02:10:52] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[02:10:53] [SPEAKER_05] And they're like, we think you can make that work. Of course, while he's making it, he's like, I think everyone's going to like it. Yeah. Which is the crazy part.

[02:11:00] [SPEAKER_06] Was he doing any drugs at the time that would have clouded his judgment? Anything about that?

[02:11:04] [SPEAKER_03] And his marriage was going very well.

[02:11:07] [SPEAKER_06] You can see on screen, it has a great view of relationships.

[02:11:10] [SPEAKER_03] Absolutely. A fascinating movie. We almost had you do that one.

[02:11:13] [SPEAKER_06] I know. And I got really excited about it. And it's, it's, it's a tough movie. I don't love it the way that I love Alice doesn't live here anymore. I'm so glad to get to talk about this, but New York, New York is like such a rich text.

[02:11:22] [SPEAKER_03] I feel like I'm similar to you in that. I really like wrestling with it. And the stuff in it that works, I think is like exceptional. Oh,

[02:11:29] [SPEAKER_05] it's, it's a fascinating. It's what you guys are saying. It's a, well, I think if you're out here being like, that is one of his best movies. I think even Marty would kind of be like, are you sure about that? Like that movie is, movie is flawed. But it's a fascinating.

[02:11:41] [SPEAKER_06] The soundstage opener of this leads you directly to New York. Oh, correct. He's like, give me more of those, you know, backdrops painted. I'm ready.

[02:11:48] [SPEAKER_05] And you know, there's a, there's a mean boyfriend or two in that film.

[02:11:51] [SPEAKER_03] There is in fact, one major mean boyfriend. Yeah. Thinking of kind of worst boyfriend in the history of movies.

[02:11:56] [SPEAKER_06] I can't wait for you guys to, because you got to your Scorsese rankings, but ranking like De Niro as the guy who will ruin your life. Like at the end of Scorsese. I mean, you can throw Kytel in there too, if you want to, between the two of them, they have a lot. Just so much.

[02:12:08] [SPEAKER_03] This is a good question. Who is the, like which De Niro is the, is the best dating option in the Scorsese canon? Scorsese canon? I'm like,

[02:12:18] [SPEAKER_05] is it Irishman guy? Well, I was going to say, if I'm going to fight anyone, I want to fight that guy. Cause he can't even punch near you. He's got a hell of a kid. Yeah. If you're air, if you're air, you're like, Oh no.

[02:12:32] [SPEAKER_06] He's kicking. I might go Johnny boy from mean street. Yeah.

[02:12:36] [SPEAKER_03] Johnny boy is kind of a rascal. Yeah.

[02:12:38] [SPEAKER_06] He's, he's trying hard.

[02:12:39] [SPEAKER_03] You can only date him if you're in your early 20s. Yeah.

[02:12:43] [SPEAKER_05] Can I date him in casino? Like, and kind of just sneak on by? I want to do coke like Sharon Stone does. You gotta get in and get out. That relationship is not good. Like,

[02:12:50] [SPEAKER_06] you can't stay with him for too long.

[02:12:54] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. But I feel like if I'm with him in casino, I'm just kind of like, I got a hotel room. Fine. I'll leave you alone. Like, whatever. I don't know.

[02:13:01] [SPEAKER_03] I'm not going to. This is your version of Ben's. This movie would end with me owning an island. I'll just leave you alone.

[02:13:05] You're running the casino.

[02:13:06] [SPEAKER_03] You're busy. You're stressed out. I don't think it ends well.

[02:13:09] [SPEAKER_05] I think bottom is Cape Fear. You gotta have Cape Fear at the bottom.

[02:13:12] [SPEAKER_06] I want to, for real, do you think Max Cady like picks up some women who he doesn't, aren't reconnected to someone he wants to fuck with and like has a good time and then moves on? You're forgetting the Iliad of Douglas. I know, but she's like, she's part of the whole scheme though. Like if she's like not connected to that. I think it's a bad sign. It's a real bad sign.

[02:13:30] [SPEAKER_03] It's possible, but I don't think you want to play those on.

[02:13:32] [SPEAKER_05] It is just funny that Travis Bickle might not be bottom because of Max Cady.

[02:13:36] [SPEAKER_03] He has to not be bottom. That's their thing. Well, let's also say like Travis Bickle's more attractive than Rupert Pumpkin. He's a looker. So you have to put him above Rupert. Rupert doesn't know how to fuck. Rupert does not know how to fuck.

[02:13:48] [SPEAKER_05] He's not going to shoot anyone. Probably. Probably. Well, when taxidire, he's definitely going to shoot someone.

[02:13:54] [SPEAKER_03] He commits crimes. He has a gun. That's not loaded.

[02:13:57] [SPEAKER_06] Are we throwing out killers of the flower moon? Like, that's not my top pick, but not the worst.

[02:14:02] [SPEAKER_03] This is what I'm saying. That guy ends up being like top three. And he commits genocide.

[02:14:07] [SPEAKER_05] He does. But he's got a, he's got a, he's got a great car. Great car. Great goggles. Driving gloves. What more do you need in a man? I think Irishman is near the top. And Anna Paquin literally doesn't even want to speak to him. I think by default, that's number one. What a body of work. And you know what? He's always probably like, you know, I killed Jimmy Hoffman. It's like, sure you killed him. I don't fucking care. So where's my clams?

[02:14:31] [SPEAKER_06] And Jimmy Hoffman, on the other hand, take him home.

[02:14:34] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Well, it wouldn't dare. I cannot wait to do Irishman bits. I swear to you.

[02:14:41] [SPEAKER_01] It wouldn't dare.

[02:14:42] [SPEAKER_05] That was my favorite thing. It's like on Twitter. Post, they would, him saying they wouldn't dare. Anytime it was like Taika Waititi promises, like a madcap satire for his name. I'm like, they wouldn't dare. Taika,

[02:14:56] [SPEAKER_04] they wouldn't dare. Wouldn't let him do that.

[02:14:57] [SPEAKER_03] Whereas my response when I see a headline like that, it is what it is.

[02:15:02] [SPEAKER_05] It's one of those, it is what it is. That movie rocks. That movie is the best. It's for cool kids. It's so good. I mean,

[02:15:08] [SPEAKER_06] this entire series is you guys being like, you know this movie? Yeah. Pretty good.

[02:15:12] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. Let's do the box office. This film came out on December 9th, 1974. A little Christmas treat for you. Ah, under the tree. Number one at the box office is a film that has been out for, I want to say conservatively five months. And it's doing quite well at the box office, which is maybe speaking to some cultural issues in our country at the time. It's about a, it's about a guy who something very bad happens to a member of his family. Death Wish.

[02:15:37] [SPEAKER_06] It's been out for five months.

[02:15:39] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. And it is a, a box office sensation.

[02:15:41] [SPEAKER_06] Wow.

[02:15:42] [SPEAKER_05] Uh, you know, and some people might be like, well, that was terrible and I need to process this emotion. And he's like, where's my piss?

[02:15:49] [SPEAKER_03] And he does it so well that other people come to him and they're like, can you solve my family shit? Sure. Why not?

[02:15:57] [SPEAKER_05] Death Wish, Charles Bronson and Michael Winner film. Yes. Death Wish. Anyone ever seen? I've seen it. I've never seen the Death Wishes. Seems like a bummer. The first one is like a pretty effective movie. Like you definitely get it. And it's even movies that are about how New York is like a fucking crime soaked hell hole in the seventies. You watch them now and you're like, New York city, baby. It's great to see her on screen.

[02:16:20] [SPEAKER_03] The second one is the one that's like unbelievably nasty.

[02:16:23] [SPEAKER_05] I believe the second one is where they're just kind of like, okay, so what worked about this is just like violence and racism. Right? Yeah. I have not obviously seen like Death Wish for the crackdown, which is funny to think that by four, he's like, I think it's time to start cracking down. I've been taking it too easy. Time to expand outside of my problems. What's the Simpsons joke? And now I'm going to Emmett's fix it to fix Emmett. He's on like the Phil Silver show. That's good. All right. Uh,

[02:16:53] [SPEAKER_05] number two is a disaster movie.

[02:16:55] [SPEAKER_06] The side and adventure.

[02:16:56] [SPEAKER_05] Nope. is towering Inferno. Keep going. Earthquake.

[02:17:00] [SPEAKER_06] Earthquake.

[02:17:00] [SPEAKER_05] There we go. Is that, and that's your 40 X, right?

[02:17:04] [SPEAKER_03] Uh, what did they call it? It wasn't called Shaco Rama, but it was called something.

[02:17:07] [SPEAKER_05] It was called sense around. Sense around.

[02:17:09] [SPEAKER_03] Then you're,

[02:17:10] [SPEAKER_06] there's an earthquake. Oh, did you do the earthquake ride at old school universal studios? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love their,

[02:17:16] [SPEAKER_03] I can't remember if it's that they put motors under the seats or they put speakers under the seat, but they did put things under the seat.

[02:17:25] [SPEAKER_05] It was speakers. I think they would like blast, like basically subwoofers to make your seat vibrate a little bit. Like the Dolby theaters now. Right. It was like a D box,

[02:17:34] [SPEAKER_03] sort of like a proto D box. Closer to Dolby where you're like, the sound is so loud, the chair shakes rather than the movie is synced up to shake in a specific way. Yeah. And it's not like built on some gimbal that's shaking the floor or anything like that. It's gimbal-less.

[02:17:48] [SPEAKER_05] It's gimbal-less. This is some gimbal-less bullshit.

[02:17:50] [SPEAKER_03] It's a Macy's. No gimbals. No gimbals.

[02:17:52] [SPEAKER_05] Number three at the box office is a sequel to a sort of Death Wish-esque kind of like shock hit. Uh, it's not Billy Jack, is it? It fucking is Billy Jack. Which one is it? It's the second. Goes to Washington? No. He's yet to go to Washington. Uh. Billy Jack did eventually go to Washington.

[02:18:09] [SPEAKER_06] I just didn't know that was a thing. I bet he told them to clean up their act. Drain that swamp.

[02:18:13] [SPEAKER_05] The return of Billy Jack? It's called The Trial of Billy Jack. Oh, The Trial. Of course. They put him on trial. Oh, no. I'm so sorry. The second film is called Billy Jack, but I'm forgetting that the first film is called The Born Losers, and that actually introduces Billy Jack. But he's not the main character, right? And I think Billy Jack, the 1971 film, was the surprise, like, you know, essentially an indie film.

[02:18:35] [SPEAKER_03] And I think there is in a Washington, I was thinking of The Trial of Billy Jack. That's what I was remembering.

[02:18:40] [SPEAKER_05] No, there definitely is. There is? Is that the first? Oh, no. Billy Jack goes to Washington. That's the third one. Okay. So, yeah. Yeah. He cleaned it up. And then the return of Billy Jack, which was not released. Yes, I know this. In which he takes on child pornographers, and I guess they were kind of just like, let's call it quinn.

[02:18:57] [SPEAKER_03] Wasn't there also some death involved in that production?

[02:19:00] [SPEAKER_05] Maybe. Let's see. I want to say it was like also not completed for some reason. It was not completed. Yes. 17 minutes were filmed. Oh, good. Wow. He suffered a head injury while making it, and they ran out of money. Yeah. So, no one died, but you know. So, that's number three at the box office. We've threatened to do the Billy Jacks on Patreon. Let's do it. Let's jack it up.

[02:19:23] [SPEAKER_06] Do those and the death wishes all together.

[02:19:25] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. That sounds like a bummer. Anti-woke winter. Number four is a sports film. Mm-hmm. Kind of one of the original sort of sports comedies, you know, as Bad News Bears is coming around the corner. It's not, well, it's not Slapshot. No. Worse than Slapshot. It's not Longest Yard. In fact, it is Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard.

[02:19:48] [SPEAKER_03] It's a ruddy picture. Robert Aldrich is The Longest Yard. I've never seen it. No, but he wasn't the real artist behind it. The greatest film producer who ever lived. The bravest man. Albert S. Ruddy, as portrayed by Miles Teller.

[02:20:01] [SPEAKER_01] Hey, I got an idea for an offer.

[02:20:04] [SPEAKER_05] In the Paramount Plus picture.

[02:20:06] [SPEAKER_06] Making the offer ever since in 2026. This is more for you.

[02:20:09] [SPEAKER_03] Griffin will be making offer references on his death. It's the best TV show that's ever happened. It's also incredible, and it's never been more relevant because Michael is the most offer-coded movie that has ever existed. With Miles Teller in it. Down to Miles Teller basically reprising his performance. Miles Teller as Al Ruddy, as John Branca. I just saw a movie that Miles Teller is good in,

[02:20:29] [SPEAKER_05] and it's one of those things where you're like, right, like, this, he just needs, well, you know, good director. He needs a character to work with here. Like, he's not the fool that I take him for these days all the time.

[02:20:42] [SPEAKER_03] Well, because like, a businessman will develop a movie about how good of a businessman he was, and then hire Miles Teller and be like, Griffin. It's crazier than that.

[02:20:50] [SPEAKER_05] A businessman will make a movie about the godfather, and be like, and the person who should get the most credit is me. Not Francis Ford Coppola, you know, Al Pacino.

[02:21:02] [SPEAKER_03] It's a much smaller part, but Michael has major tones of that, of like, his story's gonna continue, and Branca's gonna save him. Right. The Offer, of course, has the greatest screenwriting credit of all time, which is based on the experiences of Al Ruddy making The Godfather. It's not even based on a fucking book. It's based on a couple conversations.

[02:21:21] [SPEAKER_06] He sat down and dictated it, and that's all you need.

[02:21:23] [SPEAKER_03] I don't even know if he dictated it.

[02:21:26] [SPEAKER_05] Number five at the box office is a film that I wish featured characters like Guile, Chun-Li. Okay, is this Lady Street Fighter, or is this the original Street Fighter? It is a film, simply a Japanese martial arts film called, starring the great Sonny Chima. Yes. Called The Street Fighter. I believe I recently bought the Shout Factory box set of this. Sounds like something. You'll get to that one in 2029, or whatever. Yeah, sure. Let's hope so. It's just so funny with, like, the Radiance, you know, drop comes, and it's like,

[02:21:55] [SPEAKER_05] this is a Kusa film, and I'm like, I'll just get it. You don't even need to tell me. And I'm like, how many fucking Yakuza films do I have waiting to be watched at this point? It's an addiction, Katie. You're not in a Blu-ray addiction. No. Do you have a disc player?

[02:22:08] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah. Sure. I've got discs that I've collected over various times, like, getting them through press stuff mostly. But no, you guys in your physical media thing, I don't. Don't include me. No, okay. I wasn't looking at you. I'm just looking. Ben's normal.

[02:22:22] [SPEAKER_05] He doesn't have any physical media problems.

[02:22:24] [SPEAKER_04] No, he hates it. Well, I do. Yeah, there we go. But it's vinyl. Yeah, you're the vinyl.

[02:22:28] [SPEAKER_05] You already did this with the vinyl, I feel like. The cracks.

[02:22:32] [SPEAKER_04] The hands in the pots. Okay, unfortunately, I am starting to get into art books, which are, you know. Well, they're really small, right? And inexpensive. Yeah, and lightweight.

[02:22:41] [SPEAKER_03] You just kind of throw one in your tote bag, you run around town. Easy to store. You should get into, like, art novellas, where it's just, like, two paintings. Number six at the box office is a film I know you're very fond of, Griffin. The Little Prince. It is a movie I love. Have you ever seen the Stanley Doan and Little Prince? No, I have not. With, of course, Bob Fosse. It's one of the wildest movies ever made, and Bob Fosse plays the snake in it, and he creates Michael Jackson's persona.

[02:23:08] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, I mean, he did that in so many of the other dance movies.

[02:23:11] [SPEAKER_03] But this, he's dressed, like, head to toe black with, like, a jazzy glove. He's got the hat. And the white socks.

[02:23:17] [SPEAKER_06] I think I've seen clips of this. He, like, moonwalks. Yeah.

[02:23:20] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, it's a famous, like, his dancing in it is remembered. I think I have seen that. Gene Balder plays the fox. He would make my best supporting actor, Ballot, this year. He's un-fucking-believable in that movie.

[02:23:29] [SPEAKER_06] I love how long Stanley Donan's career was. That guy was making movies for decades.

[02:23:34] [SPEAKER_03] Sure. Yeah.

[02:23:35] [SPEAKER_06] Do Donan one of these days. Come on, guys. That's a lot of movies.

[02:23:38] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, there's, maybe there's a way to sort of hack it. I don't know. Number seven is one of my favorite films of all time, The Taken of Pelham 123. Yeah. Taken of New York. Number eight is Airport 1975, which is, what is that, the second one? Wait, so it came out in 74,

[02:23:57] [SPEAKER_06] but it's called Airport 1975. They're getting ready for the excitement of tomorrow.

[02:24:02] [SPEAKER_03] Like new car models. Blues Brothers 2000 came out in 1998. Obviously the comp. Yeah, obviously.

[02:24:09] [SPEAKER_05] Which is Charlton Heston, Karen Black, George Kennedy, whatever. I don't know. A million people are in that. Number nine, a reissue. Cabaret. We love it.

[02:24:18] [SPEAKER_06] So they re- 72 films. That's what, like two years after? But you know, there's no fucking

[02:24:22] [SPEAKER_03] TV's back then.

[02:24:23] [SPEAKER_06] If a movie was a hit

[02:24:24] [SPEAKER_03] at that scale, they would re-release it every year.

[02:24:27] [SPEAKER_06] You know what I would love to see in theaters right this second? Cabaret. Sounds great.

[02:24:31] [SPEAKER_05] Number five, number 10 is a movie called Law and Disorder. I have to look it up. I don't know this. There's so many like vigilantes. Carol O'Connor, Ernest Borgnine. Oh, and you're telling me

[02:24:41] [SPEAKER_03] there's law and disorder in this one? And you're telling me their shirts are tucked in properly, right? Nothing rumpled, sleeves all the way down. Nary a belly in sight.

[02:24:51] [SPEAKER_05] I'm feeling a little anxious about this one. Let me run the plot here by you. In the crime-infested New York City of the 70s, two residents and friends played by Carol O'Connor and Ernest Borgnine, so, you know, grumpy barrel-shaped white guys, decide to join the auxiliary wing of the New York City Police Department to help take back their neighborhood from criminals? Do you think they do that in a responsible way?

[02:25:16] [SPEAKER_03] Vincent Canby called it a gentle, oh, okay, okay. Sometimes disruptively funny movie. Wow.

[02:25:24] [SPEAKER_06] This is all important practice for Taxi Driver. You guys need to watch all of these before doing that episode.

[02:25:29] [SPEAKER_05] Maybe this is more just a straightforward comedy. Maybe. Albert Finney is an uncredited producer. What the fuck is this movie? Sure, I'll produce it for you. I didn't know

[02:25:39] [SPEAKER_06] uncredited producers was a thing.

[02:25:41] [SPEAKER_03] Because when Finney produced,

[02:25:42] [SPEAKER_05] he would talk like his character Nero Brockovich.

[02:25:44] [SPEAKER_03] It's one of Aaron! It's one of Angelo Badalamenti's first credits, but he did it under the name Andy Baddale. There you go.

[02:25:52] [SPEAKER_05] He was trying to pass. Or maybe Andy Badale. And then they tried to give him some espresso and he went,

[02:25:58] [SPEAKER_01] shit.

[02:25:59] [SPEAKER_05] And they were like, oh, fuck, this guy's Italian. He's Italian. It's just crazy that one of the Simpsons writers went in the fucking submersible before it blew up. Yes.

[02:26:10] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, it is. That's all.

[02:26:12] [SPEAKER_06] Would you ever go into submersible?

[02:26:15] [SPEAKER_05] No.

[02:26:17] [SPEAKER_06] Nor I. I'm not going to answer for you on that one

[02:26:19] [SPEAKER_05] and it is no. All right. Ben is sending us ad copy and I got to go pick up my daughter so I think we should bring... Ben and I have to go see Toy Story 5 again.

[02:26:29] [SPEAKER_04] Oh.

[02:26:30] [SPEAKER_03] Ben's smiling.

[02:26:31] [SPEAKER_04] I signed up for it.

[02:26:32] [SPEAKER_03] Okay. I liked it a lot. No, I liked it too. What Ben said to me was I really want to see that again before we were here. No. Which is rare for me. I will be seeing it again with my daughter on Sunday.

[02:26:41] [SPEAKER_06] I will be seeing it with my children probably on Sunday as well. Yeah. But they are... I don't think I've told you this, Griffin, that they didn't think they were into it because they don't have a lot of Toy Story knowledge. It's not like one of our movies and then we saw the trailer before Hoppers or something like that and they're both like, oh yeah,

[02:26:55] [SPEAKER_05] absolutely. That trailer nailed it for them. I truly wonder what my daughter's going to make of it. But she's more a fan of the other films. Anecdotally, I mean... She loves the other films and she loves Jessie. I think that'll be great for her.

[02:27:06] [SPEAKER_06] It's a Jessie movie, right?

[02:27:07] [SPEAKER_05] It is. But I just... I truly wonder if the message will resonate with her at all because it's a little over her head at this age, I would say.

[02:27:14] [SPEAKER_03] Anecdotally, I've witnessed a couple examples of kids who do not previously like Toy Story being interested in this one and or loving this one. It certainly looks like it's going to make a lot of money. The pump feels very primed.

[02:27:25] [SPEAKER_06] I was so surprised that it... Because Charlie, again, he's 10. We saw Disclosure Day. He's ready for The Odyssey. But Toy Story, it works. It works.

[02:27:32] [SPEAKER_03] My 10-year-old little cousin who always loves to say that he hates the Toy Story movies, a thing that's really challenging me, testing me, the foulest mouth I've ever seen.

[02:27:42] [SPEAKER_06] He's rebelling against you. I'm so sorry.

[02:27:44] [SPEAKER_03] He did say to me, when does Toy Story 5 come out? I can't wait to see that. We got to take George and Charlie to the movies together someday. That's the dream. That's interesting. They might get along. Okay. All right.

[02:27:55] [SPEAKER_06] We're going to make it happen.

[02:27:56] [SPEAKER_03] Someday we're going to make it happen.

[02:27:57] [SPEAKER_06] Katie,

[02:27:57] [SPEAKER_03] thank you so much for being here. Thank you, guys. What a pleasure. Welcome on.

[02:28:01] [SPEAKER_06] I will find my way back in whenever you'll have me. Auntie of Blankies? Was that the nickname we gave you last time? I think so, yeah, because Emily is the mother and I think I get to be the auntie, so I will gladly take that role.

[02:28:11] [SPEAKER_03] Prestige Junkie?

[02:28:12] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, Prestige Junkie at the Ankler. Me and Chris Rosen talking about award stuff and I have guests on including you guys whenever the time comes.

[02:28:20] [SPEAKER_03] I did an Avatar episode that people were really normal about.

[02:28:23] [SPEAKER_06] That was one of those social clips that like, I was like, why am I still getting notifications about this?

[02:28:28] [SPEAKER_03] I was getting it five months later.

[02:28:29] [SPEAKER_06] It was so crazy.

[02:28:31] [SPEAKER_03] It was insane.

[02:28:32] [SPEAKER_06] Please get your next hottest take ready and come on back on.

[02:28:36] [SPEAKER_03] I will. Well, Big Jim's got to announce another Avatar movie, but I'll think of something else.

[02:28:40] [SPEAKER_06] Oh, and I have to say Fighting in the War Room because David O'Reilly never mentions it. No. Someone's got to do it. We tried to make him do it. Ben Hossley had guests not that long ago. We never have guests. That was so fun. It's like you and John Ratzenberger are like the only two guests who've ever come on. John Ratzenberger? That was like 15 years ago.

[02:28:55] [SPEAKER_05] Really? I have guested on Fighting in the War Room many times. I don't know about many.

[02:28:59] [SPEAKER_06] Like it's usually too lazy for it. But yeah, Ben came on and talked about Slow Christmas. It was a great time. Yeah, you came on one time and talked about the tick, I think.

[02:29:06] [SPEAKER_05] I'm also on the iconic episode that I think Griffin is too where David is getting married and we're all together.

[02:29:12] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, yes. Oh, oh, on the porch. That was a porch record. A porch record. You're right. I have a picture of you guys recording that.

[02:29:20] [SPEAKER_06] I'm going to find it.

[02:29:20] [SPEAKER_03] That's a good picture.

[02:29:21] [SPEAKER_06] Yeah, we did a lot of like wedding episodes because we were all getting married for a long time. Because they just had

[02:29:24] [SPEAKER_03] their 10th anniversary, right?

[02:29:27] [SPEAKER_06] No, it'll be next year because Charlie was a baby. I had just left New York and I drove back up for that wedding. So it's in You're right, you're right. It was 17. No, 17. It was 17.

[02:29:36] [SPEAKER_05] Their anniversary is my wife's birthday and she was turning 29.

[02:29:41] [SPEAKER_06] I'm finding this picture of you two sitting on the porch and yakking. Yeah. That was what that was what we did back then.

[02:29:48] [SPEAKER_03] That's what we did back then and it's very different from what we're doing right now. Yakking in a room indoors with a porch.

[02:29:54] [SPEAKER_06] Oh my God, you guys are so cute sitting this picture. I don't want to see that.

[02:29:58] [SPEAKER_03] I'm going to have a fucking existential crisis looking at this picture.

[02:30:00] [SPEAKER_06] Try having a 10 year old where you're like you were just a baby, weren't you? Now all the listeners can share in it. Anyone who's listened to the Titanic episode recently.

[02:30:07] [SPEAKER_03] a decade of dreams, a decade of dreams of Charlie.

[02:30:12] [SPEAKER_06] You want me to be back? Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm on back again. You can't get rid of me.

[02:30:16] [SPEAKER_04] Charlie will be back.

[02:30:18] [SPEAKER_06] Oh my God, I would love, especially because you're not doing video. He does not want to be like on video anything but coming and talking to a microphone I think he could do it.

[02:30:24] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah.

[02:30:25] [SPEAKER_06] He's got to come back to his birthplace. Family trip. Yeah,

[02:30:27] [SPEAKER_03] he's got to do it.

[02:30:28] [SPEAKER_06] We're coming.

[02:30:29] [SPEAKER_03] New York City's own. He's native. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Taxi Driver with Tracy Letts. We apologize in advance. The episode's a little short. We were facing a couple hard outs.

[02:30:43] [SPEAKER_04] It's the longest episode we've ever done.

[02:30:45] [SPEAKER_03] Fortunately, by four hours. Yes.

[02:30:46] [SPEAKER_05] Luckily, I murder everyone in the room when it's done. Yeah, it's admissible in court this episode. Just kidding. In my memory, as long as it was, a very good episode. Yes, I think so. Yeah, we were pretty locked in with old Tracy. That's part of why it's stressful. It's like we're really trying to be present and effective with Mr. Tracy Letts.

[02:31:05] [SPEAKER_04] He also is like, I'm going for it. Yeah, he's like,

[02:31:08] [SPEAKER_05] how long? How long is the record? And I was like, don't nobody tell him.

[02:31:11] [SPEAKER_06] Well, I feel like when you have your friends come in and try to break the record, you can be like, no, shut up. You're not doing it. But when it's Tracy Letts, even though he is your friend, he's Tracy Letts, you kind of have to let the man cook.

[02:31:19] [SPEAKER_03] He threw the Pulitzer down on the table and he started cooking.

[02:31:24] [SPEAKER_04] Over on the Patreon, recently we just put out Resident Evil Apocalypse.

[02:31:30] [SPEAKER_03] It's the end of the Resident Evil franchise. I don't know, wait, no, there are four more. God, this photo, Jesus Christ.

[02:31:36] [SPEAKER_06] Look at these babies talking on the port.

[02:31:38] [SPEAKER_03] I look better now.

[02:31:39] [SPEAKER_04] You can sign up for that as well as other bonus content over at patreon.com slash blank check.

[02:31:45] [SPEAKER_03] Do I look better now? I'm going to say yes. I think you actually might. I think I might.

[02:31:50] [SPEAKER_06] I'm looking at a picture of me taking that weekend. People figure out how to dress better. I looked pretty good.

[02:31:53] [SPEAKER_03] I need to tell myself this. Yeah. And as always, kiss my grits. What was I going to say about Marshall Lucas stained glass? I don't know. Something funny. Yeah. It would have been really good. Imagine the funniest thing.

[02:32:10] [SPEAKER_04] Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ Mays. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick.

[02:32:40] [SPEAKER_04] Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

[02:33:07] [SPEAKER_01] I'm not giving up. I am selling the building.

[02:33:12] [SPEAKER_00] The final season of FX is the Bear.

[02:33:15] [SPEAKER_06] The restaurant is flooded.

[02:33:18] [SPEAKER_01] Everything's either going to be okay or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned, but we have each other.

[02:33:29] [SPEAKER_00] FX is the Bear, the final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+. The Bear.