Jordan Hoffman (Engage: The Official Star Trek podcast) joins Griffin and David to discuss 1989’s crime thriller, Blue Steel. Would Jamie Lee Curtis and Bigelow’s careers been different if this film had been more successful? Does it pass the Bechdel test? Is Kevin Dunn one of our most frustrated actors? Together they examine Ron Silver’s performance, tongue shtooping and share Richard Jenkins stories. This episode is sponsored by Mack Weldon.
[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Say You're Too Expressed All you need to know the show is Blank Check Death is the best kick of all. That's why they save it for podcast! Okay. It's my Ron Silver. It was a... I'd say more of a Ron Bronze.
[00:00:31] I don't think I really hit that one out of the park. Ron Brass? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello everybody, my name's Griffin Newman. I'm David Sims. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. That's the name of the podcast. We're hashtag two friends. It's a competitive advantage.
[00:00:44] I wish other shows had that going for them because God, is it working out for us? This is a podcast about film algorithms, right? Do you agree? Yeah, I do. I'm just looking for your approval, David. I approve. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers
[00:01:01] and were issued a series of Blank Checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes, hold on one second. Pow! They bounce, baby! Yeah, bring back Marin for this one. I'll bring it back. Yeah.
[00:01:19] This is a main series on the films of Catherine Bigelow. It's called Pod 19, The Widowcaster. Obviously. We have gotten to our third film in our filmography. Only our third film? Only our third film. And this is the one where I'd say it all starts totally clicking.
[00:01:35] This is where she's ensconced in the, you know, Vestron. That great Hollywood studio. Deep in a home video company, short-lived theatrical production company. Vestron. And it's a movie that fucking rules, spoiler alert. It fucking rules. Great movie. Called Blue Steel. I'm very excited.
[00:01:58] We have a guest who we've been trying to get, we've been trying to have on for a little while. I like how you're holding up the mug. It really makes it feel like we're in like daytime radio. I feel very professional now. We got sponsors. They're watching.
[00:02:10] They're watching. They're watching. And they're listening. But that's the thing, people know they're listening because of podcasts. But our sponsors are watching, which is why I need to have good arm, good angles on this coffee mug. We have a wonderful guest who we've been trying to get on.
[00:02:26] He was supposed to be on the interstellar episode. Schedulings. Yeah, Griffin got sent to Australia. Time dilation. Yeah, seriously. He got in the way of the interstellar one. Yeah. You know, we knew the math. We knew the theory.
[00:02:38] And you were sending us some hot takes through the bookshelf. I was trying the episode. I was trying to. The walls shook every time. Have you checked your analog watches? Because it's clicking the way I want you to give my... There's a hot take in here. Yeah.
[00:02:53] Hot tick. Hey, hey now. No, I didn't mean tick. I said tick like a watch. But tick also. But let's also, we're also sponsored this episode by the tick. Yeah. Our guest today, he is a podcast host himself. True. Of Engage, the official Star Trek podcast. That's right.
[00:03:11] That's right. It's a big time for Star Trek fans. Let me tell you. None of this unofficial bullshit. No. We're at peak Star Trek right now and you're the man officially guiding everyone. That's true. That's true. I am the host of Engage, the official Star Trek podcast.
[00:03:24] And he's a film critic himself. Jordan Hoffman, thank you so much for being on the show. Hey, listen. It's lovely to have you. It's love. I've got my arms extended right now. I'm embracing everyone listening. Now, this is one of the lesser known more forgotten Catherine Bigelow movies.
[00:03:40] Oh yeah. And it is. And when Mr. Sims said to me, oh, we're doing Bigelow next. Right. Because we tried to have you on for Nolan. Yeah. Are there any of these that jump out? And I suggested near dark to you just because it's a genre picture.
[00:03:53] I thought you might have a take, but you were like, eh. Yeah. I haven't seen near dark or maybe you had like 20 years ago, whatever. Yeah. But I know Catherine Bigelow has made films that people really love. Sure. Like your hurt lockers. Her lockers quite good.
[00:04:09] Zero Dark 30 is really good. What's the one with Patrick Swayze? That one's point break. Point break is what I was saying. Yeah. But for me, it's all about Ron Silver doing his crunches. As his crunches. Oh, he's talking to. Jordan has raised his arms twice now.
[00:04:28] Ron Silver is talking to the voices in his head. Yeah. That want him to kill. He don't like those voices. I'll say this too. I watched this movie. I had not seen it before last night and I was just like, oh, this could be like a solid
[00:04:42] like Bigelow B picture. Right. I figured I was going to watch an OK cop movie. Right. And I watched this and I was like, this is kind of the urtex. Like this movie contains everything I like about Catherine Bigelow as a filmmaker.
[00:04:53] It's the one that unifies all the different threads, all the different stylistic moves. You know? It is. Yeah. It's a great it is elevated cop movie to use the phrase that everyone hates right now. Yes. Elevated horror. This is elevated like it is it's a cop movie.
[00:05:10] Like this plot is really simple. But I also like that it's kind of a horror movie. It is a horror movie for sure. Like it's a slasher film, weirdly. Jamie Lee Curtis is not in by accident. Right. I mean it's a first run. Right.
[00:05:22] Ron Silver becomes Michael Myers by the end of the story. I read back to Roger Ebert's review and he said this is actually the best Halloween sequel that's ever been made. Like this is the grown up version of Halloween. Well, right.
[00:05:30] And also I think just thinking of Bigelow's later career. I think I was expecting more of like a shoe leather NYPD movie about like, you know, life on the force and she's a new cop. And instead like almost immediately it dispenses with any like realism. Yeah.
[00:05:45] The only realism in the movie is on the floor of the stock exchange. Those shots are done handheld. Sure. And those shots are great. I mean it's no trading places. But it's done really well.
[00:05:56] You could see Ron Silver flipping out, selling soy futures or whatever the hell he's doing. And those shots really have some grit. Everything else has got the sheen can put Mr. Ridley Scott to shame. It's true. And this is when Ridley Scott's really struggling.
[00:06:10] He should have made this up against his New York picture at the time. Someone to watch over me. I take this any day of the week. I agree. You even like compare like 90s Bigelow to like 80s Tony Scott, right? Yeah.
[00:06:21] Who was like pioneering a lot of these like, you know, this sort of visual language. The hunger and this are very. Right. Sympotoco. But I feel like there's a weight to the images in this movie that feels like a real evolutionary
[00:06:35] step beyond the like stylization of the 80s with like the at most and the shallow focus and the crazy lighting. Yes. And the color filters and all that sort of has all that but it has one thing
[00:06:46] that those other movies don't have, which is a very new and unique and instantly sympathetic character. Yes. In Jamie Lee Curtis, who you're 12 seconds in this movie like I support her because she's alone. She's the only woman. Sure. Graduating from the police academy.
[00:07:01] Parents aren't there because we'll find out why later. Right. And I want her to succeed and the man literally and figuratively will not let her. Right. It's a glass ceiling movie for sure. It's a movie that like the thing that's so great about the movie.
[00:07:16] We've been talking a lot about tension with Bigelow because she really is a tension filmmaker. Right. All of her movies are based around playing off of some kind of tension both within the scenes and the larger narrative.
[00:07:28] And this is a movie where like so much of the tension comes from the fact that every single scene would play differently if she were a man. Like you feel this frustration. Her body and like the threat, like there's sort of threat in the air.
[00:07:43] Like her body is invaded so many times in this movie mostly you know people pushing her or people sort of getting in her space. But also how people interact with her on a scene by scene basis.
[00:07:53] You just feel this frustration of like the audience is so unbler with this character and the movie is not taking her seriously. You know or the other people in the movie. Right. Right. Oh yeah. Like Nancy Brown. And then he stoops her. Right. With his tongue. Yeah. Spoilers.
[00:08:11] Spoilers. There's some serious tongue-stoping in this movie. Wait, wait, let's back it up a minute. Sure. Yes. Because you're right there are a lot, there have been some recent films that are like kind of like cop movies or action movies where like the only one
[00:08:24] that's coming to mind right now is Salt with Angela and the whole stick was like it was written for a guy but then a woman stepped in and didn't change the movie at all. That's not the case with this at all.
[00:08:34] I think it was about a police woman. Right. From you know, it wouldn't work as a rookie cop who makes a mistake in a supermarket. You could make that movie. You could but it's not that. I think the arc that this character goes through and the incidents that
[00:08:49] happen to her and around her are very specific to her gender. And I think Catherine Bigelow above all else like because she gets pegged a lot is like oh this woman who makes these films about masculinity. Yeah. Which I think is like she's good at that.
[00:09:02] She found a niche doing that. She's made into that niche well. But I think the bigger thing is she just has a very, very keen take on the differences behaviorally between the genders. Yeah. And the iconography leans the hell into it. The opening credit scene.
[00:09:19] It's all, I don't want to say what it is. They look like guns going in holsters but you can tell me what they are. Right. Do we have anybody with an English lit degree, David, who could tell me what that symbolizes? You're talking about PPs and Vigilis.
[00:09:32] There's a lot of that. That's what Jordan you're talking about putting PPs and Vigilis. There's a lot of penis stuff going on in this movie. Yes. There's a lot of Ron Silver not knowing what to do with his penis being obsessed with the fact that his girlfriend, Jamie
[00:09:46] Lee Curtis seems to know what to do with a penis substitute more than he does. Right. He is transfixed by the idea of a gun. His character is all impotent rage. And the fact that this movie is like here's another thing. Okay.
[00:09:58] So it's like this isn't just a movie starring a police woman. It's a movie about a police woman. Right? Sure. This also isn't a movie that happens to have a lot of gun violence. It's a movie about guns. Yeah. Yes. Very much so.
[00:10:11] It's a movie about loading a revolver. Right. Things like that. The power of having a gun. The weird sexual thrill that comes with it. Some condemn this film for being a little too fetishistic. Sure. Yes. It definitely has that almost at times, which I think is
[00:10:25] a problem that she has run into many times in her career where she loves those details and is like gets so fixated on them. Sure. And people see it as like somewhat pornographic. Right. Which I think is great. Very early in the film, just after the graduation, just
[00:10:40] after the opening title sequence, she's getting dressed in a locker room with lights coming in and what else. Right. She's putting on the shirt, putting over the bra. It's shot like aliens. Yeah. It's shot like boom, boom, you know, shoes, harness. Right. Yes. That.
[00:10:56] I mean, I think it's a whole different world. Right. To speak than this. It's like, you know, what are we glamorizing here? What I kind of love. I mean, a way she plays with iconography, everything has such a weight, excuse me, and importance in this movie.
[00:11:12] Like every single shot in this movie feels iconic. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's so gorgeous. Yes. Because it's so deliberate and there's such a texture to every single image I find. Like it's not just style for style sake. I mean, she's playing in this weird sphere where it's
[00:11:26] simultaneously incredibly heightened but also super grounded. A lot of that is Jamie Lee Curtis who I think is doing some unbelievable like underplaying in every scene. If you were Jamie Lee Curtis, would this be the movie you're most proud of? I think so. I mean.
[00:11:42] I think this is the best I've ever seen her be. I mean, she should be very proud certainly of being in a fish kawanda, which is a masterpiece. Right. But she's in the ensemble. Right. Halloween is fine. Halloween's great. It's a wonderful movie that she is.
[00:11:54] No, Halloween's great. No, it's fine but it's not about her. I mean. She is better than you know, a lot of actresses are in that role. But yes, it would be a little. I think even she'd probably think it'd be a little
[00:12:06] silly for people to think of that as her quote unquote best performance. Right. Right. You know, we talked about when we did our True Lies episode for Cameron how weird her sort of career was where it was like the Halloween
[00:12:16] arc and then she has trading places right after that. And then for a while she was like a big star, she had almost destroys the films that really fit and then. She's got her true lies. I mean, that's later.
[00:12:27] I'm sorry, but then that was kind of like a second wave sort of thing. Then she goes into like Comedy Mom sort of territory. She is fantastic and freaking Friday. Actually, that is that is a genuinely sensitive, three-dimensional comic performance.
[00:12:41] And she got very close to getting an Oscar nomination for that. She did, she's very good at that movie. I mean because she's talented. But we're saying like look. She's had a great career. done a lot of really good work and whatever.
[00:12:51] But it does feel like this movie should have been the start of a phase in her career that didn't totally kickstart. Remember what she's doing right when this movie comes out? Or did you go, you might remember. About 19 is after Fish Called Wanda.
[00:13:03] This is after Fish Called Wanda. This is after Trading Places, right? Yeah, because Trading Places is... Trading Places is early. Yeah, because Trading Places is 83. It's 88. But in 89, she starts on a sitcom called Anything But Love that nobody ever remembers but ran for four seasons.
[00:13:23] Wait, is that the one with Richard Lewis? You know, I was really into Richard Lewis at the time. Richard Lewis is great. And I was an Anything But Love apologist. Sure. That show is pretty nothing. It's a sitcom.
[00:13:39] It's not good. But I would watch it a lot waiting for the real Richard Lewis to show up and there would be like one joke for episode.
[00:13:45] There would be like one funny thing and I would watch it every week and then I stopped because then that one funny thing a week became one funny thing every two weeks. Right, right. It ran for 56 episodes.
[00:13:59] Zero clue that she was on a sitcom for four years after becoming a movie star. Exactly. And it's like when you're looking at her resume, you know, obviously she's in Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, Scared From New York.
[00:14:13] Well, she's not in the Scared From New York. That's her voice. But you know, Halloween too where so she's the scream queen, right? And then she's in Trading Places and people are like, oh my God. And she's in Perfect, which is really... Oh, they're a couple 80s.
[00:14:25] Not a good movie. Not a good movie but sort of a sex symbol movie in Fish Called Wanda. A lot of these are bad though, like A Man In Love and... What's A Man In Love? I have no idea. Sounds like Mark and Iver.
[00:14:36] Oh, she's barely... She's like the third lead in that. Let's see. Amazing Grace and Chuck. Is that Mike Newell movie? Like I've never heard of some of these movies.
[00:14:45] But doesn't it feel like you watch this and you go like, this should have become the Jamie Lee Curtis archetypes. Right. And instead after this she's like the mom and my girl. You know what I mean? Like she gets shunted over.
[00:14:55] And then true lies, she gets to ultimately play this at the end of the movie but a lot of it's a deconstruction of that. Right, but she's definitely playing on the more like... By the end of the movie she gets to own the full Jamie Lee Curtis thing.
[00:15:05] This movie was not a big hit. No, it was a flop. It was because it was Vestron. Right. It became respected, it showed on cable and then when point break comes out people retroactively liked it. That's when I saw it. I saw it on TV after point break.
[00:15:23] Yeah, no, because this movie was barely released. Right. Like because it was acquired by like MGM after Vestron went bankrupt and they dumped it out in March. Frankly, this movie is like on paper should not be as good as it is. No.
[00:15:38] It's good for two reasons Jamie Lee Curtis and Bigelow. She directed the shit out of it. The script smart but pretty functional. The script is functional till they get stupid at the end. They get really stupid. It gets dumb.
[00:15:49] How does he find her in the subway at the end? Right. Like New York's a big town. I don't know if I've ever been to New York but like she goes... She leaves the hospital.
[00:15:58] I will find Mr. Ron Silver somewhere in this little burg of New York City and she goes on the subway and he's there. I like that it gets a little supernatural at the end of the movie because I think it gets a little non-literal.
[00:16:11] I think he starts to become more representational. I think it's non-literal from the beginning. Yeah, he's not a diagnosable... It's not like he has some sort of where they're like oh this is a classic case
[00:16:21] that guy picks up and gone and pours all of his 80s American psycho rage into it. And the comment page refers to him as like a futures trader who also turns out to be a latent psychopath. A commodities trader who is a latent psychopath.
[00:16:36] Right, and it's like that's kind of reductive. There's more going on. It's also what he was just a successful commodities trader at the age 33. He's like you know what? Shooting people in the street. That's what I'm gonna do now.
[00:16:47] It's a little ridiculous and then what also is extremely annoying is he's being seized by demons and like he's like ah must kill. Yeah, he's talking to himself. And he goes and kills. But then 20 minutes later, he's like the most crafty,
[00:17:00] mustache twirling fellow when his lawyer shows up and he's like oh how could I have been there? I have the perfect come-by. The great Richard Jenkins. But see I think oh god this movie went in the opening credits if we could just start at the beginning.
[00:17:12] The opening credits of this movie I think I just six different times because I was watching this and I was like okay do you know the credits I know is in this movie. Yeah but you didn't know everybody else. Ron Silver I know is in this movie.
[00:17:21] Oh you're saying the credits it's like Clancy Brown, Elizabeth Paine, Richard Jenkins, Philip Bosco, Kevin Dunn, Tom Sizemore he's not in the credits. I'm losing my mind. Griffin can I tell you remember when I came in this morning? Louis Fletcher's in this fucking movie. I know.
[00:17:36] Academy Award winner. Star Trek connection. Right of course she's got what the hell is her name? Kai Wewin Adam of course. But then even just getting like Mike Starr coming in as the superintendent for two lines. Sure. Give me some good character actor piccolo.
[00:17:49] Griffin, let me tell you a tale. Sure please. About Richard Jenkins. The great Richard Jenkins. A few short weeks ago I was in the city of Toronto with your friend and partner David Sims. I have goosebumps right now already.
[00:18:04] I just know I'm going to get a good Jenkins tale. It's not that good. Let me realize it. It's about Jenkins and it's good. I like how you're telling the story though. We're seated at the Elgin Theatre. Yeah very nice theater. Which is beautiful.
[00:18:15] What are you going to see? And where they shot scenes from the movie in. Yeah we were there to see the North American premiere of The Shape of Water which had played days earlier at the Venice Film Festival and had come away with The Golden Lion.
[00:18:30] And my boy Jenks crushes in that movie. How do you say Golden Lion in Italian? The Abruzio Glaccio. Correct. Correct. Five Italian points. Leonid Oro. Leonid Oro. And so we're seated in the Elgin Theatre which is an old theatre.
[00:18:47] You know it's one of these old theatres that used to have more of these. They are very few now. It's a double decker theatre. You know a double decker bus? Yeah. It's a double decker theatre. It's a full Broadway house. Yeah. You take four escalators up.
[00:18:58] There's a second Broadway house on top called the Winter Garden. I know which is also kind of a cool theatre. Yeah because that's got like. It's got weird trees inside it. Plastic grapes. Plastic grapes are everywhere. I saw Ancestral Beach in that theatre. It was poorly matched.
[00:19:10] It's weird. Hummelbrack. But we're down at the bottom and it's opening night. There are some people there are in gowns, tuxes. People are amped. Jordan's in cargo shorts. I'm wearing a schlub and he's wearing a deflepper shirt. We're sitting next to him. To my right is Mr. Davidson's.
[00:19:25] Your partner in podcasting. To my left is another colleague of ours. And the show is about to start. Unnamed. Yes. So the show is about to start. Okay. And before that, then first of all the mayor of Toronto comes out.
[00:19:38] Mayor of Toronto comes out to introduce himself and I'm like fuck can we just start the movie already? And it's not the crack smoking mayor. No he's dead. He's gone. It's the other one. So there's a new mayor in town.
[00:19:47] It's not his brother because his brother is now running. His brother is like a councilman. No, it's some nice thin white guy in a suit. He was like this movie shape of water. It was shot in Toronto. It is Toronto. The essence of Toronto is in the film.
[00:20:02] The crowds see them with anticipation. But you know, Simms and I we're working man. We don't have time for that. They can't get the movie. I'm like seeing another movie after this movie. Yeah, look I don't want to see this little circle jerk of Toronto.
[00:20:13] I want to see the movie. Let's get started. Got my notebook out. So then they bring out the cast and crew. Producers comes out. Light applause. The cast comes out. Michael Stoolbarg. Hey. Yeah, nice. Who's the woman? Michael Shannon. I'm like the same man.
[00:20:30] I'm like the same man. Doug Jones. Octavia Spencer. Doug Jones. We're all like yeah, nice, nice, nice. Okay. And by the way, I didn't really know who was in this movie yet. Sure. Because I don't pay attention to these things.
[00:20:40] And then Simms and I are just like, yeah, yeah. Come on start the movie. Octavia, yeah, nice. And Guillermo is up there. He's having fun. He brings out, we'd also like to bring out a wonderful man, Mr. Richard Jenkins.
[00:20:52] So out walks Richard Jensen and to my right is David Simms. And if this was a movie, like the screen would have vignetted on him. Yeah, there would be like a tracking zoom shot of me. If it was Snapchat, hearts would have flown out of his head.
[00:21:09] And he did two things simultaneously. I have to do the line reading. I have to give you a line reading. At first he cooed like he was seeing an infant and then he downshifted into thunderous
[00:21:20] approbation in which he went, he saw Richard Jenkins and David Simms went, oh, look at him. And then without missing a beat, he went, oh, look at him. And then he just bolted up right and said, he is a God.
[00:21:36] And it was, I've never seen a human being react that way to a guy who's fucking walking on a stage and be like, hey, he saw an infant and then seeing enlightened divinity before his eyes. Can I tell you my favorite Ricky Jenks story? Go, go.
[00:21:53] Oh, Richard J. So when I mean he's got three scenes in this movie. I mean, you know, this is not off topic. No, this is blue. He's actually in blue. It's crazy when he walks in.
[00:22:04] I was like, oh, maybe we'll see young Richard Jenkins, a bald guy walks in his suit and you're like, I guess he was born 45 years old. This thing I remember seeing Ricky Janks in is a hand for sisters and even that.
[00:22:16] Right, which is just a couple of years or right around the same time as the doctor who diagnosis. I mean he's 70. He's 70 years old. He wears it well. He wears it well. Yeah. God, maybe, maybe for my money, best eyes in cinema. Wow.
[00:22:32] Do you know what I'm saying? He's got incredible. He's got Richard Jenkins. Is that what you're saying? The Hand of Sisters is his second film credit. His verse is Silverado. Wow. Tiny role in Silverado. Chaps, no doubt.
[00:22:46] So my favorite Richard Jenkins story, it's an anecdote, but when Entertainment Weekly does their issue after the Oscar nominations come out and they do their little profile of each of the acting nominees and they always ask him how they found out, how they got the news. Sure.
[00:22:59] So he was nominated for the Visitor, is that what it's called? Right, for the Visitor. Yeah, White Guy plays the bongos. A movie I don't like. It's okay. But I have always argued that he should have been nominated that same year for Step Brothers. He's fantastic.
[00:23:10] He's been nominated for Step Brothers, which is maybe his finest performance ever in an amazing body of work. But they said like, so how do you get the news? And he said my son-in-law's father called me at noon and was like, hey, congrats. Oh wow. Yeah.
[00:23:31] And I was like on what? And he was like, you got nominated for the Oscar. So the two things to infer from that are Richard Jenkins has a really good relationship. With his son-in-law's father. Which is so on brand. Right, essentially his sort of brother-in-law in law.
[00:23:46] Well, that's a Jewish term for that relationship. That's called the Mishpocha. Right. It's the son-in-law's father is the Mishpocha. Right. So I love that Richard Jenkins loves his Mishpocha. Yeah. But I also love that like no one remembered the culture. Right, right.
[00:24:02] His agent wasn't like, Richard, 25 years in this industry you finally got a fucking Oscar nomination. So he's a leading actor. Yeah. In a competitive year like you're competing with Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. He's not getting there. Right. Maybe they called them the wrong line.
[00:24:17] And he's got a special line just to be like Saturday. Genuinely not one of those guys who's up at six in the morning watching the live feed and being like, did I make it?
[00:24:24] Like maybe it wasn't all the way down to noon but it was maybe like 8 a.m. when the nominations are at like 7 a.m. And he just said like his Mishpocha, am I pronouncing that correctly? Very well. Okay.
[00:24:36] Called him and just casually was like, oh Rick by the way congrats. Yeah. Like he wasn't even calling to deliver the news. Yeah he wasn't saying like Richard I've got great news for you. Right. I guess they call every morning to talk about the newspaper or whatever.
[00:24:46] Did you see them bets last night? My favorite Jenkins is flirting with disaster. That's an unbeatable funny performance. He is such a funny actor. You know what I also think? But you know he's a bad guy in this. Yes he is. Yeah no he's-
[00:25:00] He tries to melt steel beams in this. I mean the blue steel. I don't know where that came from. I'm sorry. He's a melt steel beam. He tries to, he's actually the baddest guy other than Ron. That was gonna be worse than the silver.
[00:25:16] He is exploiting right well silver's cycle. Silver's cycle is not his fault. Right where he is exploiting every institutional sort of like things. He's a scummy lawyer. He's a scummy lawyer. He's a common type in an 80s crime movie.
[00:25:28] But like beyond the pale and so slick and so, but also while being so like frumpy and jankinzy and whatever. I would argue his entrance is the moment when the movie shifts into a different gear and becomes very representational.
[00:25:43] Because then I feel like she starts fighting not Ron Silver but like unchecked male ego. Sure. Like the movie just like ratchets and that's like he becomes supernatural. He becomes Michael Myers. He can show up anywhere. He is unstoppable. No one can catch him.
[00:25:57] It's also the part in the movie when I was watching my wife. She's like, this is dumb. It's when it breaks reality. It breaks reality. But it's fine. I like it. I argued with her. But like this is the kind of reality breaking.
[00:26:08] Humble brag right before recording this episode. David, Ben and I. Oh. David producer Ben and I. David producer Ben and I. David the Ben dooser and I. David the poet laureate and I. David birthday Benny and I. David dirt bike Benny and I. David the haze and I.
[00:26:27] David Mr. positive and I. David the meat lover and I. David the fart detective and I. David the fuck master and I. That's my favorite one. David and I but not professor crispy. Right? No. We're guest speakers at my father's class at NYU.
[00:26:43] My father's a professor at NYU. And you need to guest speakers. And so we talked about podcast. Oh my God. To his class. They're graduate students at NYU. Yes. Tish graduate students. They're about to have their own sort of, you know. Diplomas on their wall.
[00:27:00] So we had to tell them that Ben has graduated certain. Tals of the course of different mini-series. It's just Kylo Ben producer Ben Kenobi. Right. Say anything. Ben night Shyamalan. Ben say it. Ailey Ben's with a dollar sign war haze and producer.
[00:27:11] Ben we had to let them know that. Yeah. Yeah. Your job is a guest speaker to give them a sense of what they have to look forward to. We're doing great. We're doing great. We talked about mother alive. We did. Yeah. No mother's a good movie.
[00:27:26] I like that. So I don't like mother. Oh. And my biggest struggle with mother is I think you don't have a grounding character. Like in this one. No anchor in mother. Right. And no anchor in life. I agree with you. I do agree with that. I do agree.
[00:27:40] I must say. I do agree with that. Uh huh. But I feel like Curtis in this movie as you said, you immediately understand the struggle of her daily life. She is so relatable. You're rooting for her so fucking hard. Whereas I think by design. Yes.
[00:27:56] Lawrence is just kind of a cipher and a victim and represents a larger point in that movie rather than being a real person. And you were not immediately oriented to her wavelength. You're kind of like the beginning of mother like where the F.
[00:28:08] It's very hard to read her. Now she is innately a great, great, innately a very empathetic performer. So that like helps you connect with the movie. And the movie also puts her through fucking awful bullshit.
[00:28:18] So it's like, if you have any sense of human decency, you're made uncomfortable by what you're watching. You've ever tried to brace a sink. Which is tough. Let me tell you how. Bracing that sink. But for me, that grounding makes the other elements in the film, which are
[00:28:33] more representational, more terrifying. And that works for me here. Yes. You know? That I feel like Jenkins, once he enters, it's like fuck this guy's invincible now because he's got this lawyer. Right. He's got the law.
[00:28:47] And he's going down to what the movie ends with, which is a shootout, which is like a Sergio Leone shootout on Wall Street with a pretzel cart. Right. He's hiding behind a Subretz kosher hot dog cart. Right. And she's hijacking a car or something like that. Right.
[00:29:02] But it's like this movie becomes not her fighting one guy because this one guy would be easier to stop. It becomes her fighting like unchecked male ego run rampant. But also if I can pull it back a little. Please do.
[00:29:13] I mean, so you know, obviously she great, you know, the opening credits are over getting the end my PD pledge or what, you know, she's fucking weaving images like, like, like none other like agreed. I agree.
[00:29:23] But if I just, just to hold on to your point that you guys are making, um, you know, one of the basically the first thing she does is a cop. She's in a convenience store. She stumbles across a robbery.
[00:29:32] Tom Seismore who was just he was his first role. Yeah. He was, he wasn't part of the movie. He was just robbing a convenience store. She shot him. Do you know my favorite version of that joke? It was like, let's just get the cameras in there. Yeah.
[00:29:45] My favorite version of that joke and I love that joke. I've cited before great joke, right? The, uh, the Pete's dragon tweeted after Joe Reagan, Joe Reed tweeted the great Joe Reed, great Joe tweeted.
[00:29:56] Uh, I love Pete's dragon, but it was a little cruel of the filmmakers not to tell Robert Redford that he was in a movie. He's always a dragon in these woods. But no, the other ones that I love the other one that I love, I don't,
[00:30:08] I think this was a friend who made this to me casually, but maybe it was in a review, uh, Envy the Barry Levinson movie. Oh sure. Ben Stiller, Jack Black. Right. A weird film. Very weird.
[00:30:18] There's a moment two thirds of the way through the film when they're driving a car in the middle of a dialogue scene and they hit Christopher Walken who's crossing the street. And then the last third of the movie becomes about Christopher Walken
[00:30:28] and someone claimed that it was just like, they hit him and were like, fuck this movie's not working. Let's go with whatever Walken's doing. Like the movie literally crashes into walking and he just hijacks it. Um, that is a. Yes.
[00:30:42] Tom Seismore at this time was a wool cap convenience store bandit. They had the cameras rolling and then. It was Sloan's. It was a, you know, they don't have Sloan's in New York anymore. It was somewhere. This is a chain? Okay.
[00:30:54] Sloan's is a mini chain in Manhattan that was halfway between a convenience store and a supermarket. Sure. When I was in college we used to buy 12 packs of Stroh's beer there. So to talk New York. Yeah. To talk New York and New York specific.
[00:31:09] You say it's halfway between a Dwayne Reed and a Gristiti. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, but talking here. Only real New Yorkers. Yeah. But you know, Dig that scene though. Well, that scene we can talk about this scene, but just I can't barely remember what my point was,
[00:31:22] but she shoots him for robbing a convenience store and having a gun and pointing at it. And yes, the gun disappears. Well, Ron Silver takes it. Ron Silver takes it. Yes, but still rather any cop like, you know,
[00:31:33] like she can't even perform the basic sort of function of a cop, the male function of a cop. Which is a plant evidence. Sure. That's true as well. Right. Like immediately she's called into question because they don't buy it. Like how the gun disappeared?
[00:31:48] Yeah, sure it disappeared, lady. I think you were probably like, oh, you know, having a fit of the vapors and you saw an imaginary gun. He said, she said, and you see them questioning everything she's doing. She said he was pointing at a fucking cash guy.
[00:32:00] Like the cash register man. And you're just, you're watching the movie. You go like they would never treat Jean Hackman like this. They would never treat Nicky work like this. Like that's, But you want to talk about that scene? Well, she's not part of the club.
[00:32:10] Clancy Brown goes in there to tell a lewd joke. Doesn't even see her sitting there. Yes, which Clancy Brown fantastic in this movie. But that scene, that the way that scene plays out is like kind of like, here's a scene that's a thesis for the entire movie. Yeah.
[00:32:23] Is like this guy comes in doesn't even notice that she physically exists in the space. Sure. So, he goes into the movie for 90 seconds to make a gross blowjob joke. Then takes note of her and is like, shut the fuck up. It's immediately shuts her down.
[00:32:36] It's a great way to get you in the audience to feel enraged. Right. And you sympathize with her so much. And what I wanted to say though about the scene in the supermarket though is just the way that it's shot because Michael Mann could do no better.
[00:32:53] It's just got the look of it is so great. It's very bright. Very, very bright. Harsh fluorescent. Harsh fluorescent has all the brands. You got like the old logos of brands, which I love in movies. And the blood when she shoots him is like bright red.
[00:33:09] She's really like arterial. This movie has incredible squibs. Yeah. A lot of slow motion shooting. Yeah. And you know, even though she is protecting herself, she does kind of unload three. Well, that's the thing and she's got a hand cannon.
[00:33:23] Like, you know, like she shoots the shit out of him. Yeah. And then the nick him. She blows him away. You guys want to know a story about NYPD revolvers? Please. For my days as a union reporter. Yes.
[00:33:33] So the NYPD used to carry a six shooter revolver for like many, many years well past the time that like semi automatic pistols were available because it's impossible to get anything changed union wise and equipment wise. And then the transit cops got 15 bullet like clocks.
[00:33:50] Like, you know what the cops all came. And when that happened, the NYPD were like all the cops started to shoot the guns in the train cops. Well, they got to be faster than speeding bullet. Yeah, right. So now they have these guns where you just, you know,
[00:34:02] you can just empty a magazine in a few seconds. But yeah, she's got a old fashioned giant like 44 revolver. But I do feel like there's a thing. This is what I miss about Bigelow working in sort of a heightened genre space.
[00:34:16] And I understand that became like a little bit of an albatross around her neck in terms of not being taken fully seriously as a filmmaker. She had the opportunity to free herself of those shackles. She did.
[00:34:28] But I think she is one of those people where like this movie is so good at playing into all the stuff we like about the genre movies, being fetishistic, being super stylized, but then immediately like deconstructing and commenting on
[00:34:39] it where like you have this scene where she shoots in too many times, the blood explodes way too much. It's in slow motion. It looks fucking gorgeous. And then immediately she's called into an office and they're like, you didn't need to shoot the guy four times.
[00:34:52] But like of course in a movie you do because it has to be like exciting. How many times has Dirty Harry done the same thing? Right, but that's the thing. If she's Jean Hackman, like you said, I don't think they're like, geez, you're really unloaded on that guy.
[00:35:03] You know, come on. One shot wasn't enough. It's a hell of a thing. And I think that this movie and you know, we're three dudes talking about the feminist implications of this film, but be that as a May, I think that this movie is
[00:35:15] at least more upfront about its quote unquote feminist aspects than Zero Dark Thirty is. Which never, which goes out of its way to not talk about that and just be the movie and steamroll through its plot. You can read into certain things, but who found. Right? Yeah.
[00:35:33] I mean, you can read into it all you want, but it's not on the surface the way it is here. And I don't think to the movies detriment at all. No, I think that if this movie, like if Catherine Bigelow changed careers after this movie, it wouldn't
[00:35:44] be as well remembered as it is now because Bigelow went on to do great things when the Oscar. But I do think that this is the type of movie that once in a while would show at, you know, the Quad or the Alamedra House or something.
[00:35:56] Right, right, some of them. And then it would be like, oh man, I love that one. Have you never seen the Jamie Lee Curtis one? This feels like the movie to be rediscovered. And when we were at the NYU class and we were
[00:36:04] talking about doing Bigelow and we said like we're doing blue steel right now, has anyone seen blue steel? No one. I was like, it's this great Catherine Bigelow movie, Jamie Lee Curtis. Everyone was like, huh, I didn't know that existed.
[00:36:13] But it does feel like this turning point where you think about the production, if this movie had connected, and not even if it had been a huge hit, but if it had done maybe 25% better than it did, that this would have sort of cast a die
[00:36:23] for the next eight years of Bigelow and Jamie Lee Curtis. Yeah. This would have been a new phase in Jamie Lee Curtis's career. And I also think it's not coincidental that after this, Catherine Bigelow doesn't really do another female lead movie until Zero Dark
[00:36:37] 30, which is far less overt. I mean, Shape of Water kind of, but Shape of Water is such a weird fucking all over the place, Weight of Water, sorry. Right, right. But I think there was a perception of like this movie is ghettoized as like, well, people
[00:36:53] don't like action movies about women, which every 10 years someone would try to make one and it would be discounted and then they go, well, you can't make, you know, it's Electra, you can't do this. Right, right. And that is unfortunate because I suspect
[00:37:05] that the lack of success this movie had had more to do with this distribution model, the fact that Best Run was bought by something else. I don't know if you can do that, but I also think that Jamie Lee Curtis, yeah, she was a weird star.
[00:37:16] They did struggle to have her open movies. There is a cool aspect of this film that I really like and I want to talk to you and to the audience. Sure. About gender fluidity in this film. Okay, shaped. Colin, because it's a theme, right? Yes.
[00:37:33] I mean, we talked a little bit about the guns and the penis envy and his his schlong and and all the Michigas there. And Jamie Lee Curtis does have masculine face. Yes. You know, that's part of her allure. Right. Ron Silver wearing a lot of makeup in this
[00:37:50] film. Yes, yes. He's sort of almost bronze. The close up, the big scene where he's like getting all hot and bothered, put your gun on me, baby. You know, that which is not really the actual line, but. No, but I mean, not far off.
[00:38:03] There's close, there's shot, reverse shot and she's looking very masculine and he's got big, luscious red lips and some eye shadow. Yeah. And he wants her to point the gun at him and pretend to shoot him because he's like, he can't understand how to use this thing, right?
[00:38:20] Like sort of that. I mean, right? That's sort of the idea. Do you think people got freaked out by that? Is that maybe why it didn't get the reaction back in the 1990s a long time ago? No, for sure. This movie is weird.
[00:38:31] Again, people might have been going and being like, Lady Cop, I get it. She's a lady. She's a cop. Lady Cop, I get it. And Ron Silver is in there and he's like No, no. You know, like. And so it's a movie about like he's
[00:38:42] like a super villain where his like origin story is he saw a sexy woman fire a gun once and it broke his mind. Yes. You know, like truly he sees this woman walk in. It broke his mind. This movie star enter a convenience store. He couldn't handle it.
[00:38:55] Shoot a gun three times and he never is able to like recover from that. Yeah, it's like a kid who reads this for his Wonder Woman comic and can't handle it. Right. I mean here's a con, like a thing that I find interesting about
[00:39:06] this movie is you look at like 70s, 80s, 90s cop movies, right? That's sort of like this three decade period where cop movies are like a really big subgenre before it starts to like wane. Right. I would say and the sort of CD cop movie, let's say. Right.
[00:39:24] Sort of the antihero cop. The antihero cop movie. And I feel like you have two types of cop movies. You have like the cop who's going through some sort of personal life crisis that somehow mirrors the case which becomes the like obsession.
[00:39:36] Céline Lumet's Prince in the City. Exactly. Or even like something like, you know, French Connection where there's not like an overt life crisis but he's like a fucking mess of a guy who's just obsessed and committed to this one fucking thing. Right.
[00:39:49] And he's like a dirty sloppy cop. Yeah. Literally dirty like. But that's what old cop movies are often where it's like this guy lives in a goddamn shithole. He has a pork pie hat. Right. And he's like, you do the crime, you know, like it's
[00:40:01] before the sort of hero cop. Right. So then that's the other one is the like super stylized hero cop. This guy can do no wrong even if he's a little unconventional. The crime is disease, meet the cure, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:40:10] And do you think this is sort of like an in-between? I think, yeah, I think it's doing like a third thing that doesn't exist. It's existing in this weird gray area. And I think the opening scene in this movie, you see the credits, they're very fucking stylized.
[00:40:22] You have all the like, you know, money shots. It's like, OK, this is just going to be a cop thriller, right? This is just going to be Jamie Lee Curtis placed into some sort of, you know, Pacino Cop movie or whatever it is. Right.
[00:40:35] You know, like a middling kind of like sea of love or whatever, right? And then you go to the opening sequence which plays out exactly how you would expect this movie to play out. Jamie Lee Curtis is going down the hallway. She's got the gun.
[00:40:47] She kicks through the door. There's the sort of junkie couple. Right. She takes the guy down. She tries talking to the woman. The woman takes out her gun and then it's the Kobe Ashimaru scene. It's the Kobe Ashimaru. Right. It's the beginning of Monster's Inc. You know?
[00:41:01] Oh, this was all a test. It's also she makes two movies in a row that basically start with a training sequence because Point Break starts with Keanu shooting the targets and then go on. But this is we're dealing with the type of scene you
[00:41:14] expect to see at the beginning of this cop movie. And then it goes like, no, this is fake. This itself is a fiction. Well, especially right, that sort of ridiculous like, like, huh, no, it's me or her. Like, you know, you can't shoot me.
[00:41:26] I have a human shield. That's sort of very movie. And the way the reality breaks is like Kurtz going like, oh, fuck. Yeah. It's such a great pullback. I would say it's almost as good as Star Trek 2, the way they pull it back.
[00:41:38] But it's a great like, oh, whoopsie. It's so human. Because it almost feels like you're watching outtakes or she's like, fuck, I miss my line. I'm sorry. She immediately realizes what she's done wrong. She didn't take the woman seriously as a threat. Yes. In the situation. You're right.
[00:41:53] You're right. You're totally right. Of course, she was concentrating on the guy. Right. And then it turns out the woman has gone too. How did I miss the most? That's the movie in in micro and I see and I'm allegedly a film critic and I
[00:42:05] did not catch that. Well, we're a bunch of dumb idiots. I don't know what we're doing. That's a thing I love about this movie is this movie has a lot of scenes like that, like the Clancy Brown blowjob story scene where like the whole scene
[00:42:14] represents the movie in micro. You know, like all the things it's dealing with. We should point out the Boogaloo co-wrote the script. Eric Redd who she also writes point break with. Right. Eric the Redd. Eric the Redd. Terry Jones's Eric the Redd. Yeah, he came back from, you
[00:42:28] know, conquest in Greenland or whatever in the eighth century. What else has Eric Redd done? Is he only Bigelow's? We'll talk about him briefly. No, sorry, it's near dark, not point break. Sorry. He wrote near dark with her. Then he writes this with her. Then he writes, yeah,
[00:42:45] like nothing. I mean very little like and he writes scripts, but they're like movies I've never heard of. Does she get another writing credit on one of her films after this? Let me find out. Well, yeah, because she, yeah. No, because she doesn't. Mark Boll.
[00:42:58] Well, no, I know Boll, but I was going to say, well, she has a writing credit on Strangest. She doesn't actually, although she did write that movie. Right. The Weight of Water, no. K-19, no. I do love it. And yeah, of course, Boll has written the last three.
[00:43:14] I love that this is a New York movie and there are some New York iconic scenes, but there's a lot of shallow focus of like this takes place in a very artsy 80s new wave. And you know, she did her original background which she was in the New
[00:43:31] York art scene. She worked at the Whitney. Yeah. And, you know, and then kind of got out of it, but still, you know, this might have been her salute to her youth in a way. Do you know she used to flip apartments in Soho with Philip Glass?
[00:43:44] There was an article. There was a New Yorker article, right? Isn't that crazy? Yeah, no, there was a lot. And she did a lot of those art. She was an actress. If what one does in video art installation is called acting, she was a
[00:43:58] performer and she modeled a little bit. I mean, she was existing in all these different spheres of the art world. But I watched this movie and this movie feels like a sort of howl of all that she had been through and had to bite her
[00:44:10] tongue through of just not being taken seriously in a space. It's having to work twice as hard. And you also go like Catherine Bigelow is a very, very good looking woman. Oh, great. And this movie, everyone keeps on saying to Jamie Lee Curtis, like you're so pretty.
[00:44:25] Why do you want to be a cop? Sure. That is a classic refrain. And they think it's a compliment. You know, they keep on saying to her like, you know, I don't know how to say this, but like. I love that scene though, because where does she live?
[00:44:35] Like City Island, like where is this that she's supposed to serve her parents are from? Well, the parents, I don't know. I was thinking more about the scene where she goes to her friends. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, it's felt like Queens of Staten Island or something.
[00:44:47] But anyway, yeah. And then the guy is like, oh, why do you want to be a cop? I like shooting people. Yeah. That's such a great. What is it exactly that she says she says I like slamming people's heads against the wall. She says to him, right?
[00:44:58] Because it's when she's in the he asked her why she wants to become a cop. She said I want to shoot people. That was in the that's in the car with her partner. Right. And then she's kind of like, yeah, from age four, I wanted
[00:45:08] to shoot people and there's like silence for a second. Then they laugh, which is a good. Right. Yeah, it's great because you know, you know that she's joking, right? I'm going to get the hell up or I'm going to start meeting this. Yeah, exactly.
[00:45:19] Eventually I'm going to give you the real answer. And she's also sort of putting your cards in the table where she's like, yeah, you don't get to just kid around. Yeah, like if you get to kid around, you don't ask everybody else. I mean, and then there's a
[00:45:29] thing with the father. She's, you know, so Philip Bosco. Invent her a boss. OK, I don't want to drop because I think, you know, she has that training scene where she fails, but she still passes, right? Yes. She joins the force and
[00:45:42] then we get a lot of like super awesome, you know, big people like here's her in full uniform. Here's her. And she's taking pictures of Elizabeth Pena, right? And this cup uniform looks so fucking good. Sure. Like I was sitting there watching it just feeling like
[00:45:56] a fucking slob, you know, because it's like here's like a movie star, right? In like a perfectly tailored cop uniform that looks so iconic. And I just was like, I wish I could find clothes that suited me as well. Do you know what I'm saying? I do.
[00:46:13] I'm saying organic point I'm making in relation to the movie. Say my blue steel. You know which precinct she belongs to? Which one? It's on her collar, the 22nd precinct, which is the fake precinct. The 2-2. Because that was renamed the Central Park precinct a
[00:46:28] little long ago, so it no longer exists. I know. Yeah. I just wanted to bring us back in with that. So she quickly gets put into the job, right? You see you see her at her graduation. How soon, because you saw her the first time last night, how
[00:46:44] soon did you know that Elizabeth Pena was going to get killed? I was really hoping she wouldn't. But like the minute, like the first scene it's like... A character like that, you're like what's the purpose of this character? Right, right. But she's like, oh, I'm so
[00:46:57] happy you're like assisted to me. Yeah, they're not even related. They're just friends. Good friends. She comes to the graduation. I've been to those graduations. Lots of family and friends come to them at one police pausa. But it's a... This is her family. Sure.
[00:47:13] That this is her family is a little surprising. The two of them are so great together. Elizabeth Pena. Another deceased person, right? Lake Green, Elizabeth Pena. We have a couple of deaths. Yeah, because Ron Silver died. Elizabeth Pena died. When did Ron Silver die?
[00:47:25] He died like two years ago. Ron Silver died a little while ago. No, longer than that I think 2009. Wow. Because you know the funny thing about Ron Silver was how he turned into this Arch-Conservative. He was like the James Woods of his... But he wasn't.
[00:47:38] He was like a classic Hollywood liberal and then in the Bush era he turns into this Arch-Conservative. Oh. Who was like very pro-war, you know, and very like pro-Juliani. He sort of became Ron Silver's character in Blue Steel. Well, yeah, but like, but you
[00:47:49] know, in the West Wing in the first... Like maybe the second season he plays like a Democratic campaign consultant. And they brought him back for the seventh season to play a Republican campaign consultant, which I enjoyed. I liked it. And he's... And his character within
[00:48:01] the West Wing is like, Yeah, no, I kind of have kind of changed my mind a lot of stuff. But he wasn't like... Like James Wood is right now is like a maniac. Right? I mean, he's like... I don't even want to talk about that guy.
[00:48:12] He sues people. He freaks me out. I love him though. Such a good actor. He's great. But yes, he's very, very, very... He's woods. Let's just say is woods the most outspoken Hollywood conservative? Yeah. There's like Scott Baio or whatever, you know, like there are these people who
[00:48:28] are a little more fringy. But Wood is like a fire brand, you know? Oh, I'm a void. John Voight, right? But Voight I think is more like a McCain level conservative. Yes, he's always been a conservative. I think... Is Woods the only... Was Woods and Scott Baio,
[00:48:41] if a bitch is embarrassing? No, there's others though because there's like... There's all those guys that are like a loud Fox News and be like, I think Donald Trump's great or whatever. Who else? Well, Kid Rock. I don't know. Yeah, nobody... Like I think Woods is the
[00:48:53] only one who... Antonio Sabato Jr., right? That's right. Yeah, he was another one. Stephen Baldwin, Gary Busey. Right. Preview for our point break. But yeah, it's mostly these sort of fringy celebrities like that. Yeah. Who haven't really been a big deal in 10 years. To endorse...
[00:49:10] Which is sort of true, James Woods too sadly. Yes. Although I still always enjoy singing months ago. Was Woods radicalized by playing Rudy Giuliani in that TV movie? He loved Rudy Giuliani though that's why he played him. He demanded that role. So Woods has always been an asshole.
[00:49:23] Like there have been... Woods has always been a really strong personality. Right. And he's played ultra liberals before. What was his one true believer? What was... Yeah, and he played Roy Cohn in Citizen Cohn. Right. Which you know, was a positive movie. Yeah. Right, but there's Mississippi
[00:49:38] Burning where he plays like... No, no, it's Ghosts of Mississippi. Always get those two confused. Right. Yes. Yeah, there he is. There's Gary Busey. No, Mississippi Burning, he plays the guy... It's essentially... I mean, he's played... He's the villain of the movie but he's also like...
[00:49:52] He's this racist who's later being like dragged in front of court many years later for the bombing. Ghosts of Mississippi. Yeah. Yeah. He messed me up. I'm sorry. And then right now he's turned... I don't know. He always was... Byron G. That's what he plays. Was difficult. Yeah.
[00:50:09] And I think he is antagonistic in a way that maybe some of those other people aren't. Like Stephen Baldwin's very loud about his support of Trump but he's also not like starting fights with people. He's just kind of like speaking, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I guess when you're
[00:50:24] woods, I mean he's... You know, he's not young and he's probably got a good amount of money and feels invincible and what does he care? There was... Yeah, for sure. He does like to see people though, so... Woods' role I remember was White House Down where he...
[00:50:40] He's great in that. But he also plays like modern day James Woods. He plays the like, the presence he's being corrupted, we have to take it back. Right, but he also, yeah, he is willingly playing the villain. Right, that's what's weird is like you realize maybe James Woods
[00:50:53] was playing his own philosophies. Maybe. Very often in films but always framed as the villain. That's the last movie he made. Well every actor says that they never think of themselves as a villain. Right, he truly... I mean that's probably why he became such a good movie
[00:51:07] villain because he was always like, I mean, but this guy's the hero of the movie. God, I forgot they remade straw dogs. That Rod Lurie remade straw dogs. Yeah, I never saw it. Me either. With James Marsden, our generation's Dustin Hoffman. I mean, no disrespect to James Marsden.
[00:51:20] I love James Marsden. Alexander Skarkard is the villain. Alexander Skarkard is the villain. That's the wrong person to play that role. Who is the... Kate Bosworth. Kate Bosworth. It's anyway James Woods isn't that movie. I think of Beckinsale with someone who's in Superman Returns. I can't picture her.
[00:51:33] She's lowest. Luke Rush. I picture Kate Beckinsale. She has two differently colored eyes. She's a little bit of an anonymous actress, I guess. She never really hit. She was in Beyond the Sea. She was the previous Alicia Vikander to me. Yeah, you're really disrespecting Alicia Vikander.
[00:51:49] Yeah, I can't... It's like an Academy Award winner of Alicia Vikander. I can't picture her. I don't know what she looks like. She's vapor. She's aeronaut. She's very slender and sort of, you know, she's got more of it. But this... And I'd like to bring this up
[00:52:00] to an interesting conversation. Everybody has their own whatever this is. There are certain actors that you just can't remember. Yeah, that you have face-blind about. Yeah, I'm face-blind about Alicia Vikander. I've seen her in 10 movies. I don't know what she looks like. I love that apparently Laura Croft
[00:52:11] can only be played by people who just want an Oscar. Laura Croft. Yes, yes, you're right. You're right. It's true. Right, because that was like, Jolie's almost immediate follow-up to winning the Oscar. And... Right, there aren't a lot of brand name female franchise here. Right.
[00:52:27] You know, and like I think with the candor they were probably like, well, let's see what we can put you in. Like, let's see what we can build around you. And it's like, what's going? We know this works. Like I guess, how about a Laura Croft reboot? Right.
[00:52:38] You know, and they're doing the reboot that's like the video game reboot. The video game reboot. Where it's like more of just like she's a gritty action adventurer who has a pickaxe and can climb a cliff. I saw that trailer.
[00:52:48] First half of the trailer I was so on board because it was so puzzle focused. Like the first half of that trailer has her work in like 12 different puzzles. Yeah, she likes puzzles. And then once she starts jumping off cliffs, I didn't give a shit anymore.
[00:52:58] All right, guys, let's talk about blue steel because we're a... Are there puzzles in blue steel? You know what there is not in blue steel. You don't never know what's going to happen next. The only thing you don't know about is Richard Janks and getting him.
[00:53:08] Well, you think she's got him. Right. She's got him. And then old Ricky Janks comes in. That's what I love. Okay. A more conventional movie would have gone, hey, the conflict of the movie is she's dating the guy she's trying to climb down.
[00:53:19] Yeah, that would be the whole movie. Instead, halfway through the movie. Right. So she's a cop. She shoots Tom Seismore. Ron Silver takes the gun. And then she starts shooting people. Right. But let's say like... And he's also carving her name into the bones. In the rain.
[00:53:32] The other couple of things that are set up is, okay, Elizabeth Pena is her best friend. You fear that Elizabeth Pena is going to be a victim in this movie, but you also go like, God, it's so rare to just see two women
[00:53:41] be friends in a movie and have like... Does this movie pass the best else? A hundred percent. Yeah. Because they just have fucking casual conversations, right? Yes, yeah. Men are not really discussed at all. There's one. I mean, there is the one...
[00:53:53] She's trying to introduce him to guys, but yeah. But that's cool. Okay, so you get that she's seemingly career focused. She's wanted to be a cop forever. Everyone's ragging on her for not having a boyfriend. She doesn't really give a shit. You see your home life.
[00:54:08] Her dad resents the fact that she's a cop. I can't believe my fucking daughter is a cop. Yeah. Oh, that dad sucks. And his parents... Right, her parents are caught in this abusive relationship. Louis Fletcher's mother, right? Yes, yes. Right, Louis Fletcher is clearly very supportive,
[00:54:20] but very kind of broken and under the thumb of this gross fucking abusive dad. Right. And she sits uneasily with her father and vice versa. Yeah. And she's just now, I finally get to be a cop. I've earned it.
[00:54:33] I get to kill it and she goes in the office and no one takes her seriously. And she shoots a guy committing a robbery and everyone's like, Okay, so I just want to set that up as the background to that. I get it, I get it.
[00:54:41] Right, then you have to... How do you want Silver to get out of that supermarket? I know he just vanishes. I don't know. He's a supernatural guy. Again, there is somewhat something somewhat supernatural. But I also love, like stylistically, as we said, there's a lot of shallow focus.
[00:54:53] There's a lot of fog. There's a lot of bright colors. Beautiful movie. She's across the street getting coffee or whatever. When she sees the robbery happen and she goes into the convenience store, immediately very deep focus. Yeah. She's very connected to her surroundings. She's rounding this corner.
[00:55:08] You see him in the background of the shop while she's in the foreground. He's also the slowest holdup man ever. Well, because he's like... Yeah, he's like, Come on, I'm not over at takeout here. Like he's got like three lines. He's doing a monologue in his acting class.
[00:55:21] Like he's really trying to milk it to get his like $100 worth. For sure. Right. He wants a lot of stuff for them to be able to note. But then she has this heroic hero moment. It feels like this is the moment that would make another cop. Yeah.
[00:55:32] But A, the gun gets away. I love these fucking shots of Ron Silver just sort of like idolizing the gun. And then when it lands there like fetishizing it. So beautiful. Ron Silver just some amazing eyeball acting in this movie. I love Ron Silver.
[00:55:43] Just to be clear, he's the best. He's great. I would love to know... I would love to see this in the theater because it looked good on my TV. Yeah. You look pretty great on my TV. What did you watch it on?
[00:55:54] I watched it on Amazon Prime Video Game. You know what I did on Amazon? I decided to try... A, be a miser and try something new. I watched this on 2BTV. Which I heard it's streaming on. What is this 2BTV? Well, it has ads, right? Yeah.
[00:56:08] 2BTV is no good. I mean here's the thing. I saw probably the same transfer that you saw. Yeah. But every five minutes there was ads. Oh, that's sad. But I can't handle it. It had no... It's a real thing. Yeah, yeah. It's not like some fake company. Right.
[00:56:24] Well, I use a Roku. So I went to Roku and I feel bad. I have a friend that works at 2BTV. I hope she's not listening. But I went to my Roku when I typed in Blue Steel and I said I could pay 3.99 for Amazon. Sure.
[00:56:33] Or I could try my little 2BTV action and we tried it and it did feel... I was watching with my wife who had seen it before also but it was... You know there's a lot of bathroom breaks.
[00:56:44] It was like watching a movie on television in the old days. Yeah. I went to the bathroom. Did you get also like local commercials in your screening? Wait, did you get yours? I got a main furniture company. Like where it was like insane. You watched it on 2BTV?
[00:57:00] Like come on down to Banger. I didn't. We're on RU8. It was like a local commercial. No, I did not. I got... There were like the same 10 recycle. Like every... Sure. So I got to see a lot of them and I turned the volume down.
[00:57:14] But it was not local stuff. It was like... No, Chevrolet or whatever. It was normal ads but that's funny. So until the day that I'm really broke which could be next week I don't see myself using 2BTV that much if I have a $4 option on Amazon.
[00:57:33] You got to go to Amazon. I like it. It looked good on Amazon. Yeah, but particularly the shot of silver and the eyeball is when I notice I'm like this movie is gorgeous because like the floor is like beige and the lighting is so weird
[00:57:47] and his face just looks so great and I would love to see this in the theater. This is really beautiful, really unsettling images. So you expect like the kind of hero's welcome and she comes back and they're immediately like he said, she said, well where's the gun?
[00:57:59] Isn't that... Like everyone's just giving her the fucking business and the runner run. They're brown with a comb. Right, right. That ridiculous hair. The great Kevin Donne just... Yeah, he's the pencil pusher who's like hey listen, you know, you didn't file regulations. One of our most frustrated actors.
[00:58:16] I love Kevin Donne. I love Kevin Donne. I think he's the best. It's so weird how Woody Allen has put him in like six movies to play the same role which is the guy who lets you into the country home that you're going to be staying at
[00:58:28] and he's like anyway I'm going on vacation I'll see you later. You know, he's wearing like a silk shirt. Well, you know, the thing I like most about The First Transformers I think one of the reasons why I defend The First Transformers so thoroughly is...
[00:58:41] Yeah, the image of Judy White. Right, but it's so small soldierzy where he plays the exact same role in Small Soldiers where it's like his son who's kind of a fuck up and then he's got these weird robots that keep on following him around
[00:58:52] and he's just trying to like, son, what are you doing? And why is he peeing on the lawn? Right. Why is he peeing on the lawn? Is it Optus Prime or Bumblebee? I think it's Bumblebee. I haven't seen them in a long time.
[00:59:02] I haven't seen them in a long time. Amir Mokri who shot this movie Okay. Shot Transformers 3 and 4. Okay. And I think Transformers 3 is a great looking movie. It's a great looking movie. He has become a big blockbuster DP 3D sort of, yeah.
[00:59:17] Because he did Fast and Furious, he did Man of Steel, he did Pixels, what else have we got? Pixel. Bad Boys 2, he's like... But he started out as Wayne Wings. Pixels has P and also Cubertees and Pixel. Great. Pixel is a great movie about a failing president
[00:59:32] who really struggles to confront alien invasion. My favorite thing about Pixels, I turned it on and I was, me and my brother were watching it being like, this movie's gonna suck, right? And immediately it's like Kevin James is at the podium and he's sweating.
[00:59:45] And it was like a month into the Trump administration and we were like, this feels... This feels very relatable for some reason. I just want to reboot of Pixels from Cuberts point of view. Sure. Make the movie all about Cuberts. No, I... Cuberts and Wreck-It Ralph too.
[01:00:00] They did a lot of Cuberts jokes out there these days. Cuberts been booking recently. Yeah, Cuberts doing great. He's changed his scenes. They got him in the Midnight Raid. Cuberts jokes. Can you confirm something for me? Yeah. I heard that in the movie,
[01:00:12] Cubert at one point transforms into Ashley Benson from Spring Breakers and then Josh Gad has sex with Cuberts. That's correct. And then they have children. And they're Cuberts babies. That's like the post script. They're half Josh Gad, half Cuberts. They're like Arburt.
[01:00:26] They're not in all the way to Cuberts. Because they have sexual intercourse when she looks like Ashley Benson. Yeah. He's not fucking the Cuberts tube, right? I mean, it's not explicit. Who knows? He might be fucking the Cuberts tube. I don't know. That tube knows? Yeah.
[01:00:40] That'll knock you right off the pyramid there. Oh boy. Okay, so Blue Steel. They immediately like dock her. Oh right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about that. You're emotional, well, man. You can't control yourself. Then Ron Silver's fascinated with her. So he approaches her.
[01:00:54] He does this whole flim flam with like getting my cab. He's pretending. He waits by the station house to put her in a cab. But I also, I love at this point we've gotten the first of the sequences of Ron Silver on the trading floor where he's caught
[01:01:10] in these sort of big wide shots. Cell. Right, telephoto, like zooming out. I'll buy that soy. And this guy's just so fucking impotent. Like he looks so stressed out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's desperate to get people's attention.
[01:01:22] But now he goes home and he just strokes this gun. And he feels like a person for the first time. You know? He starts laying it on with Jamie LaCourte taking her on dates, fancy dinners, like saying how great she is. And he's charming.
[01:01:35] Well, yeah, he's good at that dinner. And he's funny in the cab. He says he has a funny joke. But the implication is that he's not 100% committed to kill until it's thrust upon him. I mean, he does carve her name in the bullet case.
[01:01:48] He carves her name in the bullet case. And he goes for a walk in the rain and he trips. And a very nice guy kind of looked like M.M. at Walsh. It wasn't M.M. at Walsh. Sure, a nice middle-aged man. A nice L.M. at Walsh.
[01:01:58] It shows up. It's the second time I do the same joke. You've heard M.M. at Walsh. I can't wait for the third time. So L.M. at Walsh is like, hey, buddy, all right. Oh my god. And the gun has spilled out of his hands or whatever.
[01:02:09] His jacket. It's on the floor there. And they make eye contact. And he's like, buddy, what are you doing? And then he picks up the gun. And he picks up the gun. And he's dragged out. Super slowly. And that's he. And the guy's like, hey, wait a second.
[01:02:19] Hey, continue to stop raising that gun. But it's almost like the gun in this movie is like the one ring. Like once he has it in his possession, he's just kind of like looking at it and looking at you. Looking at it.
[01:02:31] And he becomes so obsessed with the power of it. Absolutely. And that's what that opening credit scene is about. It's fetishizing the gun. He's got a big metal dick now. And he can kill people with his cumble. That's oh my god. So he shoots that guy. All right.
[01:02:43] Great. All right. He shoots that guy. But no, but I just, I mean, I'm trying to, is there much of the dating before he then asks? Because our original point like 20 minutes ago was halfway through the movie. 50 minutes in.
[01:02:56] He's like, why don't you take the gun and role play shooting? He wants to get pegged. And then she figures out this is the guy who's been carving the news into my books. So the first date he walks her back to her place and she goes,
[01:03:07] like, do you want to come inside? And he's like, no, I'll save that for later. And you're like, ooh, what's his place here? Like he's showing restraint. Then she goes back to work. I believe there's another killing. And they're like, you seriously,
[01:03:17] you got no fucking read on this. Right. The cops don't understand why the bullet casings have her name on it. I think one of them actually makes a joke. Like her name is Megan Turner and the only other Megan Turner in New York. An 88 year old lady, whatever.
[01:03:32] And there's a great line is like unless he's into oxygen, at least he's got an oxygen tank fetish. He's into you. Right. And they have one line of thinking, which is like no angry ex-boyfriends. Like they just keep on assuming there's some guy you dumped. It's her fault.
[01:03:44] Right. It has to be her fault. Yeah. Blaming, literally blaming the victim. And I think we've already had the scene at this point where she goes to Elizabeth Peña's cookout, her backyard cookout. And we have dunks on that guy.
[01:03:56] This fuck boy who just goes, you're so pretty, why do you have to be a cop? Right. And she just like, yeah, well, attention enough, she does, I mean, she dunks on him, but then sort of pats him on the head and goes like, you're okay, nice work.
[01:04:06] Like you say, this easily could have been a movie about she is a cop and she's in a relationship with a guy who's a serial killer and she doesn't know it. And right at the end, it all comes to a head and she realizes.
[01:04:18] In fact, that's what you think it's going to be. You think this is going to drag out into the very last scene when she goes, oh my God, you're the killer. Yes, it was you. And instead, you also wait for her. She's like, no, it's you.
[01:04:28] Goes to the cops and the cops are like, what? He was creepy. Like this isn't enough. But the cops do have her back. Clancy Brown has her back. Clancy Brown has her back. Not everyone has her back, but Clancy Brown's like, all right, all right.
[01:04:41] I can buy this. And then the chief is sort of has her back. Kind of. But no, they're not, certainly they can't arrest him. But the chief's kind of distracted because his son keeps on playing with robots. No, but I think there's the element of the second date
[01:04:58] she goes on is when they're like really hitting it off. Right? Yeah. And she's finally allowing herself. They're making out. Right. And this is like the kind of guy she wants to be with. Like the whole movie she's been like pushing away these
[01:05:10] fuckboys and it's like, okay, this is like a grown up. He's a professional. He's a professional. He's not like an outer bro guy. She's in Manhattan now. She's got the big city bright lights and she meets a guy with prospects who lives in a very nice apartment.
[01:05:22] And the second dates the helicopter, I think, right? Yeah. And she does. It's the Superman Lois Clancy. It's the Superman thing and there are those amazing like the helicopter photography going around like the Satchel of Liberty. And it goes on for a while. It sounds like Tron.
[01:05:35] She's got this really cool, like it's very similar to the Tangerine Dream score in your dark. But she does this thing. I love it when filmmakers do. It's Brad Fidel's James Cameron collaborator. Okay. Music. You know, the doodun-dun-dun-dun. Yeah. That's what he did on the show.
[01:05:49] She does this thing that I love, which I think like helps aid the dream state of this movie when it starts to get to this like fever dream kind of state. This is when I think it starts slipping into this where she
[01:05:58] uses like one kind of repetitive like looping track that carries over through a couple of scenes unchanged. Music wise. Yes. So you have a few scenes that are playing out in full that then have this quality of feeling like a montage because the
[01:06:14] basic musical cue is playing throughout their dinner date to then when they're in the helicopter, the photography them in the helicopter, him walking her back to her house, them starting to make out and you're like, okay, here this is like finally
[01:06:27] she gets to have some fun in her life. Yeah. And then he starts getting weird about the gun. Yeah. He starts getting really weird about the gun very quickly. Yeah. And at first she's kind of like, okay, I'll engage with this. But then. Yeah.
[01:06:40] At first the gun scene like at first she's like, no, I'm not going to pull my but then he's like, come on baby. And she's like, well fine. This is your thing. Yeah. There's a moment of like you want me to do that?
[01:06:51] I'm not going to kink her. Yeah. She's kind of like, all right. I mean, it's probably like guys have asked me to do weird things. Right. All right. I'll think about it. But that then then it goes to her like, oh, I see.
[01:07:02] And then he starts talking about God and revelation. Yeah. You've seen the brightness. He's having time. Have we already seen him have the workout break down at this point? But he has like three. Right. He's also three scenes clutching his sheets going. Yeah. The demons in my head.
[01:07:17] It looks like he's in withdrawal. Like hysterical. Those scenes where you're just like, we would buy that he was going crazy. We don't need it to be. I like it too because it's just that's. It's operatic. Let's talk about like who else like casting Ron Silver is a
[01:07:32] choice. The man is. Yes. The man has a distinctive look. He does. Jew. He's a big Jew. I can say he's a honking Jew. There's a couple of Jewish men here, but he's also. I mean, this is a man who has recorded for not one, not two,
[01:07:47] not three, four Philip Roth audiobooks. Sure. That makes American pass so much. I'm married to communist. Poor noise comes. Those are all very good. He's also a very specific brand of like two slick Jew. Yeah. Kind of yuppie Jew that is very indicative of this time period. Yeah.
[01:08:06] And also like there's no. Explicit Jewish content in this film anywhere. Right. But like anybody who knows New York knows who this guy is. Most reasonable people. But you know, you cast Ron. I mean those shots of him looking at himself in the mirror with his. Yeah.
[01:08:21] Shnaz in the center of the frame. I mean it's not. You know, it's the real deal for sure. But this is the I mean, I think of him as the villain in time. Time cop. Right. I mean, this is the sort of beginning of he also, he's
[01:08:32] a great slime ball. He's right. He's Alan Dershowitz for God's sake. He didn't. But you get to like this is like he's in the slime ball. I like that movie. You don't like that. It's all right. It's all right. That's pretty good.
[01:08:45] He's in this Ron Silver wears a really nice suit with no tie and like quietly menaces the lead character phase of his career, which by the time you get to 1999, he vision and Jack, which was like the great. Unproduced. He is so wonderful. Pilot.
[01:08:58] Dan Harman and Rob Schraub wrote in Ben Stiller directed with Jack Black and Owen Wilson. He plays the villain and the villain is Ron Silver. It's Ron Silver playing actor Ron Silver. Right, right. Who is the crime boss that is terrorizing this talking motorcycle and an astronaut.
[01:09:13] So by like the end of this decade, it became like it got to the point of self parody. Right. And was this the first one basically? I think this was kind of like the beginning of that real tilt into like Ron Silver.
[01:09:25] You want me to take a look at. Wasn't he in a junk load van dam? Time cop. That's what I'm saying. He's the villain in time cop. But was that after this? Yeah. Yeah. Cause he's in well, let me think. I mean, he's in Silkwood.
[01:09:38] He's an enemies of love story. He's in a real movie. That's not. Yeah. Well, those are real movies. You know, but yeah, no, I think he's still pretty. And then yeah, he's Dershowitz and reversal of fortune, which is the next year or it's actually
[01:09:50] the same year because this movie actually came out in 1990. A costume Bula once called me on the phone. The real class one Bula was very funny. Really? Yes. My mother was doing a story on him later in life. I can't remember why.
[01:10:02] And I picked up the phone at home and I was like, hello. And he was like, this is Clash von Bula. Is your mother home? Wow. I talked to class one Bula for a second. So he was Dracula. He was doing a Dracula. Really sounded like Dracula.
[01:10:14] He's in Mr. Saturday Night. Remember that movie? Yeah. That is a flawed motion picture. It's a very flawed movie. That's really interesting flawed movie. I forgot. He's in Ali. He plays Angelo Dundee who is like his like trainer. Muhammad Ali's trainer.
[01:10:30] But I feel like he becomes like a TV guy. Like he never quite, he's always just like he's around. He's Ron Silver. He also was like watching this movie in particular. He was in Farron Hype 9-11. Okay. The documentary about how much Michael Moore is bad.
[01:10:44] Watching this movie. Jordan just made a great face. Farron Hype 9-11. Well, Farron Hype. It's a fake word. Yeah. Yeah. Watching this movie I was like, Ron Silver was a great actor. You know, dubious politics aside.
[01:10:58] Perhaps he would have gone on to give us several more great performances, you know. If he had continued living. But you watch this movie and you're like, man, Ron Silver was like really created to be in the pocket for like an eight-year span of time.
[01:11:10] There were eight years where culturally Ron Silver represented something that was- The water level and he met perfectly. Right. And then they moved on. He's great on the West Wing. I want to, you guys clearly are not West Wing. That's what I'm saying.
[01:11:22] I'm saying he's a great actor and he did great work up until the end and he would have continued to do great work. Yeah.
[01:11:26] You know, but there was like a point in this where you're just like, geez, it's like they created Ron Silver in a lab so he could have played this role.
[01:11:33] I agree with you, but I actually- I know what Jordan's saying that he's, you know, he's not an American psycho looking guy, right? He's not like this sort of Teutonic or like Waspy, like Wall Street bro with the slick back hair.
[01:11:45] Which I think is the only reason that he's able to successfully seduce Jamie Lee Curtis. Sure. You presume she wouldn't go for a guy like that. There's something kind of earthy about him. He's a little, yes. Yup if I- I mean, you know.
[01:11:56] Right, he's a street level guy. Yeah. And he- I wish I could remember the line when they're in the cab, he does- he makes a pretty damn good joke. Yeah. I forget what it is, but-
[01:12:07] And he has that moment where Bigelow goes to like extreme close ups when they're at the restaurant and he says this whole thing about like, I can't believe I did this. I never do stuff like this, you know? Yeah.
[01:12:17] It's just amazing I'm sitting here with you right now. And he also shows regret for being a commodity straighter, which seems legit. That scene, he's like- Well, I mean we know he's unsatisfied. Right. He wouldn't go around killing people otherwise.
[01:12:27] He wouldn't go around shooting people in the rain. But he's like disarmingly introspective and vulnerable in that scene, which I think is the key is that he's not just like laying on the charm,
[01:12:36] but it feels like he's being very honest with her, which really kind of engages her. And his apartment is not like modern. No. It looks like an old pallet. He doesn't- It looks like a museum almost.
[01:12:47] He like doesn't have a lot of slick modern late 80s early 90s Gugas. Yeah, Gugas is such a good word. He's got like kind of like- First of all, the lobby looks like a museum and then like once you get into his place it's got like thick,
[01:13:02] mahogany chairs and secret library rooms and stuff like that. I mean it's kind of an odd thing for a bachelor commodity straighter in 1990. But then once you get to this 50 minute mark when the gun thing goes a little too far and he starts talking about the brightness,
[01:13:19] she realizes what is going on and she calls the cops for backup. They come in, they're like lovers quarrel. We don't want to get involved with lady stuff, you know? Not our business. And Jenkins comes in and immediately is like, he got nothing.
[01:13:36] You know, he's a frazzled lawyer but he clearly knows the moves. And you realize, oh, she's fucked now. This movie didn't make Ransilver being the bad guy a twist at the end of the film.
[01:13:48] It didn't make it a parallel narrative cat and mouse thing where you wait for her to figure it out. The movie now is she should have all the pieces. The movie should be done but she can't get anyone to take it seriously. Yes, that's right.
[01:14:00] She's like trying to deliver her print and they're like, hmm. Yeah, they're like- Build a case. You don't have enough and it's a type of thing where it's an allegorical for just, you know, women in the workplace come up with a brilliant idea. Right.
[01:14:13] Only when a man repeats it that they like it. Which Clancy Brown becomes her mouthpiece. Like he starts after initially being the most dismissive of her recognizing that she's got something. But also that she is so intrinsically tied to this case.
[01:14:24] Aside from the fact that she's now, you know, pointing the finger at her latest tris, also her name continues to be carved into these bullets. This killer's at large. Yeah. He knows that somehow it's connected to her. So they give her this temporary detective status,
[01:14:37] which at first he's like, are you fucking kidding me? Like anything but that. Yeah. You know, you have to reinstate her because she's been benched at this point. And now they're kind of uneasy partners, but he starts to realize that she's got the guts.
[01:14:49] She's got the real bones of a great cop. Clancy Brown is terrific in this whole thing. He's a really good performer. And the hair is amazing. Well, that's another actor where when you see him young, you're like, oh yeah, I guess right. All of us were once young.
[01:15:02] Oh, we got to put Clancy Brown in the oven for like 10 more minutes and then he'll be cooked. That guy's a real like 90s cartoon villain of a face. You know what I mean? Like that guy looks like he should be fighting the teenage mutant. Like the Highlander.
[01:15:15] Yeah, he was a highlander or whatever. This is one of his most realistic performances ever. Maybe the most. But do you find it disappointing that they sleep together? I kind of do. Yeah, I do too. And I'm not sure why they have to. I suspect.
[01:15:30] It also comes like real quick in the middle of a goddamned rampage. I suspect that Edward R. Pressman was a producer of this film. As was Oliver Stone. I didn't, I forgot. I suspect that that was a note that they had to do.
[01:15:47] Yeah, I would not be surprised. The sex scene itself feels a little like perfunctory 1990. Yeah, and it's really a lot. I mean, it's kind of funny to see Clancy Brown's tongue and there's a lot of his tongue.
[01:16:00] And that's a glorious thing that we should all have screened up on our phone. I mean, don't get me wrong, but. And that's also I think where like Bigelow's influence comes in where it's like, okay, you want me to do a sex scene.
[01:16:11] It's all going to be a testament to the male tongue. Like that's all I'm going to show you, you know. And what may have not actually been Jamie Lee Curtis' stomach. It could have been a short stomach. So anyway, it is upset.
[01:16:24] I mean, it serves a plot function. He's waiting and she's finally relaxed and having sex with somebody. And then he's in the bathroom and then he's naked jumping around. Right. Yeah, it's crazy. But there's that moment when she kind of goes into his arms and they hug.
[01:16:38] And I was like, I really like the fact that they didn't kiss right now. And then they start kissing and I was like, fuck. It's a disappointment. It's the number one problem with this. I also feel like we don't get enough films about men and women working together
[01:16:50] who respect each other and have no sexual tension whatsoever. Right. It just if you see, I never mind if people end up together as long as there's chemistry and romance and like, you know, like there's some sort of spark between them.
[01:17:03] But like, I mean, they have the, you know, we're not so different. And you know, they have the mutual respect, but it just doesn't do enough to suddenly be like, oh, they're going to be... She's also being threatened and harassed and attacked from all sides.
[01:17:19] Her best friend gets gunned down in front of her. I mean, that's, I guess you could say the only thing is that she needs to be treated right now. It seems, you know what? It would have worked if somebody close to him died too. Sure.
[01:17:32] You know, but it seems... She just almost gets him killed. Yeah. It seems like it just, it's just wrong. The timeline also is just kind of crazy for how condensed things become because it's like, right, she goes to see Elizabeth Penya.
[01:17:45] She's freaking out about how she can't get this guy, but they're still just sort of like, you know, the way a friend you need at a time like this, a shoulder to lean on, right? And they're walking out casually and what, oh my God,
[01:17:58] Ron Silver's in the stairwell. He comes from behind. Right. I mean, truly this is where he starts to become like... They really do almost get this guy like three times and he keeps coming back. And he starts looking progressively worse and worse.
[01:18:09] He goes from being very slick looking to suddenly looking like a lunatic. Right. But she's giving him a high-high. He achieved all of Ron Silver. Yes. He shoots Elizabeth Penya and now she's kind of flipping out because she's like, my best friend just got shot
[01:18:23] and Richard Jenkins is like, but did he see him? And she's like, I know it's fucking him. He was right behind me. I know his voice and he's like, well your back was turned, huh? Yeah, which... This whole system... That scene is so frustrating because you're like,
[01:18:34] literally, she was in the room. He shot her. Everyone was in the room together. There's no ambiguity here. But that's the tension this movie is... I think that's the bigger story is like, they'll never take you seriously. Right. And he will constantly, guys like this
[01:18:47] will constantly get away with it. I know. He's like a Wall Street type. It's just like, he can do whatever the fuck he wants and no one's ever stopped him. Right. And it's not to get too political and up in arms, but it should make us all angry
[01:18:58] because this is... We are all gentlemen in this room, but we all have women friends that have come to us with stories, I'm sure, where not in the case that Ron Silver's trying to kill my friend, but... Right. I had that once in high school.
[01:19:09] I know we've all had women friends that have said, my boss won't listen to me. Right. And it's because it's on this... It's in this film. Like, I think this movie is trying to make above all else men feel angry.
[01:19:21] Like, I feel like a primary function of this movie is to be like, can I dramatize? We are men. What? We are men. We are men. And I felt angry watching this movie in a good way. Right. But it probably makes everyone feel angry, right?
[01:19:32] But yeah, I get what you're saying. But it's almost like... It's playing in a male genre, like, you know... It's a higher stakes, dramatized, action-oriented version of the basic battle against the patriarchy. Right. Which is a little funny footnote is,
[01:19:47] you know, I said I was watching it with my wife and she thought the last third movie was dumb. Because it is dumb. Yes, I get it. And I'm like, but it was great though. And she was like, yeah, it's kind of dumb.
[01:19:55] And then I started yelling at her, like this feminist movie more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was like, it was good, but the end was dumb. Like, no! Right, you Hoffman Splainter. I don't know... I Hoffman Splainter? I don't know if I was explaining or just...
[01:20:08] I don't know what the hell is. It was late and we had... I mean, I like how dumb it gets at the end, but it does get dumb. Like, she just starts swinging for the rafters. Yeah, no, I mean, to, you know... Final confrontation where, again, swibs.
[01:20:21] And he's like the Terminator at this point. She keeps on shooting him. He keeps on getting away. So ridiculous. He keeps on reappearing anytime she walks into a room. And shot right on Wall Street, which is great. It's his turf. He's hiding... I was mentioned before,
[01:20:33] he's hiding behind a pretzel hotdog stand. We've all done it. But you know, he goes downtown from the hospital because she's hiding in the hospital because something else happened. I don't know. The switcheroo in the park. He outwits the... That's a Neil Simon play, right? Yeah, switcheroo.
[01:20:47] There's also the other two good scenes with the parents. The one where she goes home and she recognizes that the father is being her again. She arrests the dad and sits him in a car. Yeah, that's an interesting scene though because it sort of centers the dad.
[01:21:00] But you also get the sense that that's why she's actually wanting to be a cop her entire life, is she's wanted to find a way to stop these inherent wrongs that keep on going on on check. No, no, the straight line is easy to draw there, yes.
[01:21:10] But then that scene kind of... She doesn't end up arresting him. She's just like, come on, please stop fucking beating my mom. It's like, fine, you're getting away with the slap on the wrist. And then the next time she goes to see the parents, Ron Silver's there.
[01:21:22] Right, right. And she's like, can I talk to you guys alone? And they're like, come on, we have a guest here. It's a nice Jewish boy. That scene is quite strange. They're like great to meet you. They're happy that she's got a man. He's Fletcher, man.
[01:21:34] Right, but he's become the terminator at this point. No, I know, I know. It's ridiculous at the end. But the thing that really drives it over the top is she's in the hospital and Nancy Brown got shot and she got shook up. And she leaves the hospital
[01:21:48] and she bashes another cop over the head to steal his suit, wearing his suit, which I guess you could interpret as. She's finally achieving masculine... I don't know, I don't read it that way. It would have been easier this order from Mack Weldon. So she's wearing his clothing.
[01:22:04] Lacing up for converse. And goes in... Yeah, she is wearing converse. Goes in the subway. And magically he's there. Right behind her. He gets away and then now it's daytime, even though it was night. Goes up right at Wall Street and Broadway with the church, what's it called?
[01:22:22] Church right behind her. Trinity Church. Yeah, Trinity Church, downtown. And then he's just there. And then it's Sergio Leone's shoot out at the end. Yeah. And it is... She gets a bullet in the shoulder and he gets like, I don't know, like three in the chest at least.
[01:22:37] A lot of slow motion, cars. And then the ending of this movie is identical to the ending of Zero Dark Thirty, where it's one woman who has been methodically obsessively just trying to stop this one man who she cannot get her hands on.
[01:22:49] And then the final shot is her sitting in the car silently and you just see the shock of like, what is my fucking life now? It holds on her and then the credits start rolling over but it's just her sitting there silently not crying, not celebrating
[01:23:02] but just sort of like, what the fuck is my life? Well, she does get eight... I mean, how do you interpret the symbolism of a man takes her out of the car and kind of holds her kind of like, Piatta if you will.
[01:23:13] And I was thinking, I wanted her to like, shove him away and walk out on her own. She doesn't. It also feels like they finally... it's like they're like finally carrying their weight and like supporting her. That's what I would say. I like that answer.
[01:23:27] She's finally had to like... Again, she's a semi-autician. We've talked about it, you know? Back in the day, you know? Right. So the man is literally like holding her up and... Oh, so it's like... She's a champion. Presenting her to the gods, yeah. Okay, that's another...
[01:23:40] That was my interpretation. I like your ending is the ending I want. I as a negative cynical bastard interpreted it as like, ah, she's still subservient but your reading is much better. Yeah, I mean, I think this movie will continue. Like if they made Blue Steel 2,
[01:23:55] she'd probably still be doubted by everyone around her. You know, she'd work up to a higher ranking. They might say, you're the one who stopped Ron Silver but we still don't trust her. Why did it take you so long? Right. You know? Try to get Ron Gold.
[01:24:07] Right, right. No, but why didn't you rest him sooner? Well, I tried, I tried, I fucking tried. They should make a sequel now. They should. She should come back on the force now, Jamie Lee Curtis. I'd watch it. They're bringing back Halloween. Blue Platter. Bring back...
[01:24:22] Boy, oh boy. It is weird now that like this movie's title is totally ruined by Zulehender. I know. That's another weird thing, Blue Steel. Because Blue Steel is a cool title. No, it's a decent title. New York cop and she's got a steel gun.
[01:24:34] Everything about this movie is cool. This movie is very cool. And I think, you know, Bigelow, those who are interested in Bigelow, this is, I think it's in her top tier for sure. No question from your top tier. I think it's better than,
[01:24:46] I think it's better than Point Break. Me personally. I'm guessing on my final ranking shakes out. I think it's Zero Dark 30 and, you know, the Foot Locker, whatever the locker. The Foot Locker. The Foot Locker and this are her best. I like K-19. Don't get me wrong.
[01:25:03] You like K-19? You like K-19? What's there to like? I don't know. We struggled with that one. The movie's miserable. Spoilers. We struggled with that one. Spoilers. The movies are right. Unless I'm confusing it with another summary. You might be confusing it.
[01:25:15] You might be confusing it with another summary. Who's in K-19? Harrison Ford, Lee Mason, Janks. Peter Starrster. Is there like a scene where they send somebody in the back to his certain doom to fix something? That's what the movie's about. It's a radiation poisoning. It's not that bad.
[01:25:27] It's boring. It's not like a comically bad movie. It's just a handsomely boring movie. It's quite a dour long movie where not a lot happens. All I remember is they send like, you know, come on Brooklyn go in the back and save the ship.
[01:25:40] And he's like, I can't do it boss. And then he does it anyhow. Already this sounds better and more lively than K-19. I want to play the box office game. Yeah. March 16th, 1990. This movie debuted at the Sundance Film Festival strangely enough. That is amazing.
[01:25:54] Now I think this is, you know, we're talking 1990 Sundance. It's a little bit of a different scene back then. Sure. It was a Vestron film that got lost in Vestron's bankruptcy. Vestron being the video company that suddenly started making movies like chopping mall and dirty dancing and whatever.
[01:26:09] People weren't happy with it. It came out later through MGM. It got picked up by MGM. It gets put out. It opens number five at the box office with $2.8 million. It makes 8. Yeah. Point two. And it costs like 16. Yeah. I mean, it costs about twice as much.
[01:26:27] So it was a, it was not a hit. Yeah. So, but number one of the box office is a submarine movie. And it's third week. It's a huge box office. It's going to be The Hunt. The Hunt and with Mr. Sean Connery and Mr. Allen Povey.
[01:26:45] Yeah, that is a pretty good movie. The movie still holds up to this. Is that... McTurenan? Yes. I have never seen that film. Oh, that's good. I'm holding on for when we do our McTurenan series. The first. Which we got to do at some point.
[01:26:56] Oh, I'm all in on McTurenan. Oh, wacko. That's also quite a rise and fall. March 1990? Is he saying when this was? March 16th, 1990. So I was only four years old. I was older, but I did not see it in the movie. You were five. What...
[01:27:11] So you're going to tell me now what was number two with the box office? Number two at the box office is a comedy sort of very strange, fantastic sort of comedy. It's a notorious critical bomb in a beloved actor's career.
[01:27:26] The actor is more well known as a comedian? No, he's just like one of the most famous actors alive. Oh my God. In 1990... 1990. That would be Jack? Jack comes later. No, it's not. It's not. It's Rod Williams.
[01:27:40] One of the most beloved actors alive and when was his peak of his career? Are we at the peak right now? No, the peak of his career will begin soon. He's the king of the 90s. Oh, it's got to be Jim Carrey. Is it a TC movie?
[01:27:52] Not Jim Carrey, huh? Is it TC? No, not Tom Cruise. It's not Bryce Willis. No. It's not Arnie Schwartz. No, no, 90s, 90s. I mean he's big in the 80s too, don't get me wrong. It's already an on-demand. 90s blows up. It's not Robin Williams? No.
[01:28:06] It's like the most famous actor alive. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Who is the most famous actor alive? Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks. Oh, so it's got to be... You said it's not good though. It was a...
[01:28:19] Some people liked this movie but it was at the time sort of a critical flop. It's not pig. Oh Joe vs. the Volcano? John Patrick Shanley's Joe vs. the Volcano. I can't believe we didn't think of Hanks. Yeah, no, I mean how does one describe Tom Hanks?
[01:28:31] Beloved every man for 20 years in Hollywood. And he was Mr. 90s. He was, King of the 90s practically. He's King of everything. Yeah, Joe vs. the Volcano which grossed a totally competent $40 million. Yeah, that's not bad. For his march release. Considering that movie's reputation. Yeah, a weird movie.
[01:28:49] People were... As I say, I'm older so I remember people not seeing that in the theater. We're angry and he was kind of the new guy at that point. That was like a view as a misstep. Well, Meg Ryan also has a big deal with Tom.
[01:29:01] Right, right, right. Now number three, I may be telling tales out of school here, but I'm pretty sure this is a movie your father worked on. Really? It is a gritty adaptation of a book that had been adapted before. Lord of the Flies? Lord of the Flies. Yeah.
[01:29:16] The 1990 Lord of the Flies. It's much more violent, right? I've never seen it. Yeah, Balthazar Getty. My father worked for Louis Allen who was mostly like a Broadway producer and he had the rights to Lord of the Flies
[01:29:28] and I think my father sort of got like grandfathered into a cred on that movie. Interesting. I just know he has a credit on it, right? I'm not crazy. He does have a credit on that movie, yeah. Okay.
[01:29:39] Which for a while I think my dad kind of dined out on that because it was a title that everyone knew because everyone knows the book. Like no one had seen that movie. Yeah, it wasn't a hit movie by any means. No.
[01:29:47] Number four is sort of a hit comedy, like a wacky comedy starring a duo that is the beginning. Turn and Hitch? No. K-19? No. K-9? No, not Dog. It's their two people. That like is the beginning, I think there's at least one or two sequels to this movie.
[01:30:10] These guys never really, they're famous for being in this movie. And are they in the sequels together? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like their bread and butter. I think they might be musicians. Can play? Oh, house party. House party. Yeah, I saw that in the theaters.
[01:30:26] You know why we saw that? Because I wanted, this is going to sound like I am the biggest snob and I swear it's true. I think, I mean we could check the dates. I wanted to see Glory. Glory is in the box office right now.
[01:30:41] I wanted to see Glory and it was sold out. So I allowed myself to see this populist motion. I was just snobbing. Original Dublin joint? It's big hit. I was like 14, so we're talking March of 1990? Yeah. March of 1990. How old was I?
[01:30:54] I was in middle school early, I was a freshman in high school, but eighth grade, whatever the hell it was. And I was the biggest movie snob you've ever did. Yeah, there are two more house parties. This is the second episode in a row where everyone's house party.
[01:31:07] But I remember not liking house party, but I remember liking the part where I believe it's, he's dead now, the actor. Freddie Mac? Yeah, no. Or no, what's his name? Yeah, it's the baby's kid's guy. Not Robin Givens, it's Robin. No, Robin's something I rather hear. Robin Harris?
[01:31:27] Yes, Robin Harris. Who was also in Do The Right Thing. No, Robin Harris is in the first movie. That's what we're talking about. Oh, okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. The joke I was making, Jordan said, I didn't like that.
[01:31:37] What I did like was, and the joke I was making was that he liked house party too. Yeah, no, no, no. So Robin Harris, who I knew because I was an intellectual and I'd liked Do The Right Thing because I was a brilliant young kid.
[01:31:48] He was a great stand-up. He has a line which I'm not going to do in the way he does it because he does it in African-American, vernacular English, and I'm not going to do it that way. Sure. But he shouts, he doesn't like the house party.
[01:32:01] He's the villain. He wants to stop the house party. So he shouts out, this ain't Soul Train, but he says it in a very African-American vernacular way. Okay. And it killed me. It was the funniest thing I ever heard. He was a great community. I don't know.
[01:32:16] That's the only thing I remember from House Party is him shouting this ain't Soul Train. I don't know why I thought it was funny. But House Party 2 you have to remember. House Party was written for not kid and play. Kid and work? Sheech and Chong? Adult and work.
[01:32:26] Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff. Oh, weird. Weird. Weird. Oh, there's also an eraser head joke in that. But I'd seen that in the commercial. Okay, so he's got the hair. Yeah. And he's like, hey eraser head. Like that's funny. Other movies in the top 10.
[01:32:39] You've got Driving Miss Daisy, which is about to win its best picture Oscar for the 1989 cinema year. Is that good? No, it's horrible. I actually recently watched it. I've never seen it because I've been just trying to fill in the gaps of my best picture winners.
[01:32:53] I remember not liking it. It's quite bad. And saying that it was a joke and my mother saying that it was good. And I'm like, I think we now have a generation gap.
[01:33:02] It's the kind of movie that at the time played pretty dated and kind of old fashioned. And now when you watch it, you're like a nightmare. But now especially, but even back then it was politically... Yeah. No, it's a pretty...
[01:33:16] Well, it was like, that was the big statement was like, oh so like do the right thing doesn't even get nominated in the year. That's right. When Driving Miss Daisy wins, that tells you everything. Right.
[01:33:25] And the Catholic enemy even had a song that made fun of the Driving Miss Daisy. And yet Billy Crystal's Oscar Monologue that year begins with Driving Miss Daisy, the movie which I guess directed itself because the director was not nominated and the audience was like...
[01:33:41] That was famously one of the only best picture winners to win without direct nomination until... Here's a little trivia about Driving Miss Daisy. The little theme music? Yeah. Can you hum it? Yeah, it's Hans Zimmer. I'm sorry. Can you imagine Hans Zimmer wrote that?
[01:33:56] That's the best part of the movie. That was the one thing the movie's last gone for. He did it all on a synthesizer was his first ever score. Synthesize clarinet. It's so weird. It's a bad movie. And look, he did the score for Rain Man.
[01:34:06] That was his first score which also has a weird tinkly kind of synthesized score. He was like a light dramedy guy. Yeah, he was. A Lumbada is number eight at the box office this week about the Forbidden Dance. I never saw that.
[01:34:18] But really, you're not going to get to that one? No, it was a big hit in that time. Middle school film, Stump Jordan. No, it was a big hit. It was a big hit. Born on the 4th of July, my left foot, Glory. I haven't seen it.
[01:34:28] So we're in the Oscar Corps. But you know what? I have not seen Born on the 4th of July since it was in theaters. Sure. I've never seen Born on the 4th of July. There's a weird gap in my head. It's sad. Sure.
[01:34:39] You know what struck me out? Because I was 14, 15. And like I said, joking up is Mr. Stubb. I was like, I had discovered the foreign sector. I was then at 14 with David Erlich as now. All right, if you can imagine. I kind of went through a similar phase.
[01:34:53] Sure, we love you David. He's listening to this episode. Yeah, all right, good. David knows of my affection for him. You were just yelling at David Erlich yesterday. He was much tweeted about. Knows of my love for him. But there's a scene in which he, you know, he's,
[01:35:09] what am I getting myself? There's a part where like he whips out his genitals to show that he is unable to achieve an erection. Sure. And he's yelling at his mom and he's waving his dick around.
[01:35:23] And I, for some reason that really like freaked me the hell out. You know? That sounds freaky. Yeah. They don't really show it, but they show enough. And I'm like, oh, like I, because I guess it was like, you know, oh, the guy's in a wheelchair is terrible.
[01:35:35] Like I never really thought about can a guy in a wheelchair feel his genitals. And at the age of 15 or whatever, this was a big deal. There was a shocking moment in your life. And then there was like a lot of like 60s music. Yes.
[01:35:48] I just think we should leave it there. The Handmaid's Tale, that's the only other one in the... Not a bad film. Oh, and you know what? Original adaptation. I mean to watch, I intend to watch the new one, Reed Morano is quite good.
[01:36:00] I liked her independent film, Meadowland. Yeah. Meadowland was good. Yeah. No, she's a good director. But I did see the Volker-Schleurendorf, if I may use that expression, film later. Are you testing if I'm a replicator? Later, later in life. It's culturally insensitive. And it was good.
[01:36:17] I mean, I'm sure nowhere near as good as the Volker. No, it's sort of an odd little thing. But yeah. All right, Jordan, you got to get out of here. I do, but I feel that I was the guy who had to bring up
[01:36:27] the penis aspect in the gun and I'm just talking about Tom Cruise's penis. That was good. I want to let listeners know that I don't normal. It's when I'm around... You're not as phallic as... No, it's when I see you, Dave.
[01:36:37] I mean look, we're crazy about Mack Weldon. If you think about underwear all the time, you know? Of course it's going to come up. I mean, this episode was of course brought to you by Mack Weldon. Comfort.
[01:36:48] And we're glad to have it be brought to you by them. And such a funny coincidence that they sponsored this episode and we also ended up talking about them for 10 minutes. Isn't it kind of nice how that happens? We're juggos.
[01:36:57] I mean, it's a good thing because we would have talked about them for no reason otherwise. Absolutely. Jordan, people can follow you on Twitter. They can listen to Engage. Oh yes, if you like Star Trek or even if you don't,
[01:37:08] you can listen to my podcast, which you can find anywhere. Engage. And I'm on Twitter, Jay Hoffman. You can read my movie reviews on The Guardian Vanity Fair. They're all over the place. Damn right. I've got a piece in an upcoming magazine,
[01:37:23] which is only subscribers that have the AmEx Black Card can read. Wow. Well there you go. Hey, it's a great new media world we all live in. I'll write for whomever wants. But if you buy in large, you can find me at home.
[01:37:36] Just come by and serve your company. Yeah, okay. Come by. We'll hang out. We'll be hanging out there with the door up and Ron Silver will have already arrived. I'll be in my Mack Weldon. Hey, Mack Weldon baby. Thank you all for listening.
[01:37:51] Please remember to rate, review, subscribe, go to reddit.blankies.com for some real nerdy shit. Thanks to Ant for Guto for our social media. Thank you to Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Lee Montgomery for our theme song.
[01:38:05] Big thanks to Mack Weldon for sponsoring this episode, supporting this podcast. Clothes on Janitals. Yep. And as always, I should state right here that I have since recording the last episode been corrected. I forgot about this.
[01:38:23] The woman who married into my family and then became the first American to get the bubonic plague in 100 years is... Was not a Dick Seachick. Different person. Right, right, right. Different person. Okay. What? You have to listen to the last episode, Jordan. The last episode.
[01:38:39] And then you'll know. There are two different people who are connected to my family through marriage. One of them was the Dick Seachick who left the Dick Seachicks and the other one got bubonic plague.
[01:38:49] So, and as always, as I say at the end of every single episode, there is no former member of the Dick Seachicks who also is a survivor of the bubonic plague.