[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check You're reading from the poster?
[00:00:33] Not only is that the tagline, I'm going to present this to you, that is the entire poster. The poster has no graphics? No. It is just that and then the credit block at the bottom. Well, what's the last embrace poster?
[00:00:44] Oh well hold on, I have a queued up, give me one second please, I am a professional. Here we go. It begins with an ancient warning. This is good, this is good stuff, alright here we go. It ends at the edge of Niagara Falls!
[00:00:56] In between there are five murders! It'd be funny if they were like in between and... Excuse me, excuse me, I'm mid tagline here. Solve the mystery or die podcasting. And then look at this fucking image. Yeah amazing image! Amazing image! She's falling down the Niagara Falls!
[00:01:15] Roy Scheider, America's favorite movie star is valiantly grabbing a woman's wrist as she dangles off the side of Niagara Falls. An image that promises a movie full of thrills and spills and that takes one hour and 45 minutes to get to that one image.
[00:01:32] I like a movie that tells you where the last scene's gonna be. That is indeed where the last scene occurs, I don't want to get too worked up wondering where the movie is.
[00:01:42] This is almost the very last image of the movie and there may be two shots after this. I want to point something out, this is not an image in the movie.
[00:01:50] What you see in the trailer by the way, the last thing that happens in the movie is 100% in the trailer. It can be nothing else and that is what it is. In the movie you just sort of see her go under some water. Look at this landscape here.
[00:02:04] This is exciting, this is like a Drew Shruzan-esque painting. But yes, this is a composite image of the feeling of it. They didn't actually floor down the Niagara Falls. Okay but this action happens in the last three shots of the film. Essentially. It wraps up right there.
[00:02:20] Right, it's sort of like... The second she's submerged it goes to credits. Spoiler for the film with a poster that spoils the movie. But in the movie, in the poster you think oh he's trying to rescue her. Of course, this might be the cold open. Twist.
[00:02:37] It's not twist, that's the end of the movie. And it says it in the thing. The poster even clarifies in the text don't get it twisted this isn't the beginning. It's the end of the film. It does the text rights. They do clarify it.
[00:02:50] It ends at the edge of Niagara Falls. Right, that's the inevitable. It all ends in Niagara Falls. Can I point out how effective a sentence is? In between there are five murders. Five. I love that promise to the audience. Like where's it going to start? An ancient warning.
[00:03:03] Where's it going to end? Niagara Falls with the image below. In the middle? Kind of five murders. So after the fifth murder you're like alright I guess they're going to Niagara Falls. And in fact there's still about 30 minutes until they get to Niagara Falls.
[00:03:15] They don't get on the bus until like 15 minutes before they get there. Two weird movies we're discussing today. That's right. Two early films from Jonathan Demme were in this mid-period he's out of the Coromant slumps.
[00:03:32] But right after this he sort of starts making legitimate films and finds his footing. Right? Yeah I would say Last of Race is a legitimate film. But the next movie is the first one where it's like this is a Jonathan Demme movie.
[00:03:46] Yeah and at first that crosses over when gets attention from the Academy Awards, things like that. Both of these are studio films. Yes. They are sort of legitimate movies with him working with like Proving Cast although his Coromant movies have proven actors in them. They do.
[00:04:03] But after this I just wanted to double check this stat. After this only one of his next six films does not get an Oscar nomination or win for performance. Wow. Is that true? Right? Melvin and Howard best supporting actress win. Swingshift best supporting actress nomination.
[00:04:22] Married to the mob best supporting actor nomination. Sure. Something wild weirdly doesn't get it. Doesn't but it got like Golden Globe nomination. And then of course Sounds of the Lambs. Well yeah, yeah. I mean you're excluding swimming to Cambodia but that's sort of… His narrative fiction films.
[00:04:41] I understood and then Sounds of the Lambs Philadelphia beloved is actually the next movie to not get Oscar attention. Right. It might have gotten like a costuming nod. But that's a pretty crazy run where he always gets an actor nomination or a win. A great director of actors.
[00:04:55] Four wins in a ten year period. That's pretty crazy. Work with Demme get yourself a trophy. And then when Tom Hanks won his Oscar for Philadelphia the last actor to win for a Demme movie. Right and the first Oscar speech to be turned into a movie.
[00:05:11] Yes, in and out. He said my thanks to Jonathan Demme who seems to just have Oscars attached to him these days. Wow. Wow. I mean I guess that was post silence so yeah. Yeah. Four actors had won working with him. Guess what didn't win an Oscar?
[00:05:28] Last embrace or citizen dance. In the movie we're making our guest watch. Yes. Barely won my attention for the duration of the film. Wow. So here's the thing. When a movie wins your attention you give it a trophy right? You mail the trophy to the studio. That's right.
[00:05:43] You've seen the end of it. This guy, you know Jonathan Demme wins our March Madness bracket. Yeah. And this of course is a podcast about filmography directors are my success or on their career.
[00:05:53] Give us a point check so you can put whatever crazy product they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. And this is a mini series on the films of Jonathan Demme called Stop Making Podcast. That's right.
[00:06:01] That's what the fans decided this should be called. Or that's just what the fans asked us to do but we interpreted it as a mini series suggestion. We're going to interpret it as a mini series title and not a suggestion. Right.
[00:06:16] This guy wins and we immediately go okay how do we do this because he's got five films before his first film that anyone really cares about. Right. And so we did the three Cormans. Yeah.
[00:06:28] And then the two non Cormans studio films where he hasn't really found his footing yet. Sure. And we were like how do we make this a listenable episode and we had an ace up our sleeve which is our guest today who said I've been listening to the podcast.
[00:06:44] I've watched almost every movie you've discussed in preparation for each episode. I will come on and talk about anything and we said how's about we offer you the least appetizing episode possible. I'm so mean. I could have given you a good movie.
[00:06:58] Yeah I said in the text I said I love it because whenever you guys put two movies into one episode they're always really good important movies that people will have some context. Guys no you can't watch this next. No. You can get Citizens Band on YouTube.
[00:07:14] If you want to rent it on YouTube that's what I like I did that. You can rent it on YouTube. Otherwise you can't watch these. I might as well be describing a fucking dream for all the relevance that this will have to their lives.
[00:07:26] I do frequently dream about Roy Shider. I did too. His highly treated leather face. Oh God. God I'd love like a Roy Shider jacket made of his face. You know what I mean? Just stretch it out.
[00:07:40] I'd love like a Roy Shider like Necromonic, Namakon you know like a little eye is peeking out of Roy Shider's face bound in Roy Shider. What a wild movie star he is. We're going to spend most of this episode talking about how weird Roy Shider is as a
[00:07:56] movie star but our guest of course today, Justin McElroy. Yeah. My brother my brother and me and Saul Bones and the adventure zone. Hey how's it going? Number one New York Times best-selling author. Yeah. Twice over. It's the second time I've dropped a mouth organ.
[00:08:14] David dropped a mouth organ. Justin Ben has started bringing props to the studio. He wants to become some sort of morning distroki. Much like your father. Yeah. The great Clint McElroy but Ben now has a little bell and a mouth organ and a tape recorder.
[00:08:32] So the tape recorder is funny because then you could do the bit where you're like note to self I should keep this in the episode and then you know and it's like you do that and it's funny. Okay. Did you hear the click?
[00:08:50] What you suggested is a reality in which you make a tape that you have to scrub through to remind yourself what part of the audio that you are going to scrub through and keep in the episode. Yeah.
[00:09:03] He's also creating a reality in which the audience can detect the difference in versamillitude between Ben miming a tape recorder and saying note to self and holding a tape recorder up to the microphone. It was a button press. There's a very light click. Yeah. But it's unmistakable.
[00:09:20] It's about the theater of the mind. It's about the theater of the mind. There's a difference in Ben's performance. He's working with something tangible. When y'all I thought I'll do anything was the maddest I would get at you guys for making me watch a movie. Isn't that funny?
[00:09:39] Just a few short days ago I thought that was the maddest I would be at you. Okay so that's what you're up to now. You're in the Brooks. I'm actually halfway through as good as it gets the episode with Chris Gathard. Yes. That's where I am in.
[00:09:54] That's where I'm at. So you've watched I'll Do Anything but you have not watched the musical cut of I'll Do Anything. Yeah go ahead and slide that in my Gmail fellas if you don't mind. I will happily because that for me is bottom three worst things
[00:10:05] we've ever discussed on the show. You should not send him that thing. I will send him that. I'm dying to see it. I'm a thing of toxic material. I should like go to jail for transporting it through email. I should warn you.
[00:10:16] The musical cut of I'll Do Anything. I should warn you that like the musical cut of I'll Do Anything is like the internet cloud version of the ring tape. Yeah exactly. It's like the arc of the covenant.
[00:10:28] It's one of those things you watch I'll Do Anything and you're like yeah this is so hard. There's no way the musical version was worse at least it must have been interesting. You watched the musical version and you're like oh it's a lot worse. Like wow.
[00:10:39] They kind of rescued this one. It's like an hour longer. Yeah. And it's not just an hour of musical numbers it's an hour of like. Bullshit. Other bullshit. Bullshit. Yeah. What a weird film. Anyway today we're talking about two normal movies that
[00:10:52] everyone's loved and everyone will have watched in preparation for this episode. So honored just to put a thumb print on these cultural milestones. Gotta talk about the movies. So Demi has done three Cormins. That's correct. And they all did alright.
[00:11:07] And like Cormin always says if you do well enough under me you get to make real movies. Exactly. So here's him coming up with two films that feel like proven sort of models. One is Citizen's Band is kind of working off the American Graffiti archetype. 100%. The small town.
[00:11:26] Ensemble cast. Comedy melodrama ensemble cast it has Paula Matt and Kate Clark who are both in American Graffiti. Right. You know slice of life. There's almost a bit of all comedy. There's almost something sort of Nashville adjacent which I guess these are the same year.
[00:11:43] Is Nashville no is Nashville 76 75 75. Okay so this is two years later. Right but he's picking two actors. I believe is 74. Yes. He's picking two actors from American Graffiti several years after American Graffiti and going this is gonna be a sure fire hit. They're back in cars again.
[00:12:02] Yeah they're in cars you got it's written by Paul Brickman who later goes on to write and direct risky business and then disappear. Yeah he really did disappear. Yeah yeah he made men don't leave. Oh of course well men don't leave.
[00:12:21] But apart from that yeah so I think well also there's the movie convoy we have to talk about the movie convoy. Justin have you seen the film convoy? No. That comes out the next year. Have you heard the song convoy? Convoy. Convoy yeah.
[00:12:42] So at 75 that song comes out and it's like taps into this whole like CB radio craze which is when you watch this movie it's fucking Twitter and all that stuff. Well that's what I think is interesting about this movie
[00:12:58] is that the movie is kind of about the internet. And then convoy is a movie that comes out next year comes out in 78 it's a peckin' prom movie it starts Chris Christofferson. But it's based off the song like it's explicitly like you love the song
[00:13:08] get ready for an hour and 40 minutes of live action footage. But in convoy like things are happening it's more of an adventure movie you know the trucks are driving somewhere and CB it's a citizens band it's like everyone's stuck in their same town
[00:13:24] and it's kind of like bored right it's kind of just about people who are bored right. But it is a movie about but again I think that that that leans into that like it is about Twitter. It's a pressure film about Twitter
[00:13:38] created before this like what is it 30 years before the service itself would exist it's fascinating. Yeah well the other that's the thing that's fascinating is like his whole hooks to the movie which is like the thing that a poster tagline leads with is the idea that
[00:13:52] like oh everybody is somebody else right on citizens band radio which is like yes incredibly pressure for the internet right which is like he's tapping this idea of like oh is there something in the human spirit that would love to pretend to be someone else
[00:14:06] to create a false identity to be able to like speak with impunity and anonymity. It's like a little and connect with others. You know it's like sort of like in the 90s you were I guess like the sort of lonely hearts thing right like you know singles
[00:14:20] and like people sending sort of personal ads to each other like it's a very primitive version of that but then now it feels like a primitive version of a social network. Yeah and this movie has like a chat room right. This movie has like a little boy
[00:14:35] troll pretending to be an adult right it has like essentially pornography being distributed over the CB radio. Sure sure like kind of like smart right yeah the lead character is a social justice warrior. Like it was kind of blow in my mind how
[00:14:53] like he identified every type of person who like weaponizes the internet to their own enjoyment or advantage but I feel like this movie is as we're sort of getting into Demi and trying to develop like the Demi take and like you know
[00:15:09] the listeners have handed us this director who's sort of famously anonymous in in weird ways like in interviews he was always like well I work with all these great people you know like it was very happy to pass the praise around.
[00:15:21] He did not create a sort of ator narrative for himself. I never had this sort of mythos of like oh he's a tortured genius who like must make his movies right. He's a really kind man who's great collaborator. Exactly so we're you know
[00:15:32] but like he's handed this script and this premise that I feel like it's sort of like they're like yeah do this movie about like goofballs and he's like but there are these are human beings right and I feel like that's why the movie probably
[00:15:45] kind of just went nowhere yeah sort of flopped on release and also why it's sort of like kind of interesting to watch it now. Do you know this Justin that like the movie came out they were like it's like American graffiti button
[00:15:58] no one went to see it. No. So then they pulled it from theaters and retitled it and then submitted it to the New York home festival. Re-edited. Like I cut it down. I think yeah. I read that they the audiences were expecting it to be have a musical
[00:16:12] component because they didn't know what CB stood for so they thought citizens band was that would have some sort of musical element. Hey where are the citizens band? I will admit. Great Art of Missouri. I did not know what CB stood for until I started
[00:16:26] the movie. Oh really? Oh there's not going to be a band in this huh. You never heard of like you know like Breaker you know like that kind of I know what a CB radio is. I didn't know what it stood for so when I heard the
[00:16:36] title citizens band I was like what's this gonna be some can't stop the music type movie right. Right. This is gonna be a bunch of scrappy people from a small town creating a citizens band. Right. Is this gonna be like the Muppet musicians of Brennan? Um yeah
[00:16:50] it's not that. It's not. Bill Conti did the music. Weird. Justin. Yeah. When we asked you what episode you want to be on and you said I don't care I'll watch anything. It has to be the citizens band Last Embraced Combo. You're like you're gonna
[00:17:06] combine those two right? Right. You better. Right. Cause there's a thematic tie between you. Yeah the thematic tie is they were made next to each other. Right well you said like either I want to be the guest on the combined citizens band
[00:17:18] Last Embraced episode or I need to ask to be a guest on two consecutive episodes. Right. Cause I have to share my thoughts on these flicks of the world. You have to weigh in on both. Right. These movies that I and many other people, real people have
[00:17:32] seen and remembered. Yeah. Watch all the time. Right. Well this WGN like their equivalent of a TBS playing or TNT playing Christmas story 24 Hours Straight is they play citizens band 24 Hours Straight every Labor Day. It reminds me the way that they have worked in um, CB
[00:17:54] into this film in every possible angle. It feels like an adaptation of a thing like it feels like you know how like the garbage pale kids movie they like how do we turn this into a movie? Yeah. This feels like the adaptation of a concept of CB
[00:18:12] radio like how do we turn this inanimate object this idea into a film that is just like an adaptation of an idea. Like that's what it feels like to me. It's like you made VHS someone actually did make that. It's like you made
[00:18:26] Fisher Price Cassette Recorder the movie. Right. Which is an act of pre-production at Paramount but no there is like right. This is a Paramount picture for me. I own one. Much like the Garbage Pail Kids movie one of my favorite films.
[00:18:38] You do love that movie. I love it. It's one of the few bad movies that I like. Like I'm very adamant about like if I like a movie I don't think it's bad. And I don't like watching bad movies on purpose.
[00:18:48] Right. You're not someone who's like oh it's a bad movie but I love it. I don't have guilty pleasures except for like there are like three movies that I think are terrible that I can't stop watching. Okay. Garbage Pail Kids movie obviously Old Dogs. Yeah. Sure.
[00:19:06] And I'm trying to think of what the third one is. It might be just those two. He said three. I know. I'm trying to think of what the third one is. Citizens Band? Yes. Citizens Band isn't even bad. This movie is not bad. It's a little...
[00:19:18] It's just kind of meandering. You're just kind of like okay. It's weird in the... I don't know how much like plot by plot you guys are going to do on this. Just one? What plot could we plot? It's a can of Can of Berry Tales.
[00:19:32] Except the C and the B are capitalized. Yeah. When it worked there's just these mo... Overall watching it I'm like I don't know why I'm watching this. I don't know why this is a movie. I don't know why any of us podcast.
[00:19:48] Yeah what did I do? I don't know if I live or not. I have to watch this entire thing. Every once in a while it like a scene really works and it's weird. It's like out of nowhere it just kind of like hits all its marks
[00:20:02] and it's very strange because I think so much of it feels so... I don't know if Listless is the word but when characters take action in a film it really comes out of nowhere. Like it looks like they're like the scene where again not to get too specific
[00:20:18] but the scene where Spider decides that he's going to clean up the airwaves basically is like oh this is the okay this is the movie you guys want to do this is the movie we're a third of the way into it
[00:20:30] but like this is the movie you wanted to make I get it now and that action comes from nowhere. It's like I have no idea why that moment of all others connects. And then like two thirds of the way into it they kind of drop that
[00:20:42] when it gets to that moment you're like I guess this is the hook of the movie but you imagine that maybe that's what they hired Demi to do it's a movie about one man taking the CB into his own hands and then it sort of isn't
[00:20:56] but this is what I was trying to tee up. When we were asking you what you want to be on you said I haven't really seen any Demi movies I'll do anything that you guys pick and I think you said
[00:21:08] the Lambs was the only one you had seen maybe long time ago. Yeah. And I guess I've seen Manchurian Candidate too. I didn't realize that was one of his pictures. Long time ago. Well and those are two outliers because like he's got like three thrillers
[00:21:24] in his entire filmography and their last embrace Manchurian Candidate and Silence of the Lambs and one of them is like a stone cold as a canonical American like one of these may be the most famous and important thriller of all time. Right. Right. Along with like Psycho. Right.
[00:21:42] And one of the most dominant Oscar movies of all time and one of the weirdest Oscar movies of all time to be that dominant and then the rest of his career is like predominantly better versions of Citizens Band and they are movies where like once he taps
[00:21:58] into it it is sort of like he has figured out how to sustain the vibe of those rare moments that work in the way you're talking about. That weird magical kind of thing. And part of that is that like sort of
[00:22:12] we're talking about that he doesn't sort of he did not in his life try to present himself as some sort of like master auteur that he was like I like to work with a writer and I like to have cast actors and hire
[00:22:24] people to do their best work and create a fun environment and set and like dig into stuff and try to find something honest and truthful. And all his other comedies after this he's got this like incredible run of really weird studio comedies. Yes. That becomes his thing. Right.
[00:22:40] That are able to sort of sustain this energy for an entire run time but also have sort of like a clear simple plot on its face. This is I mean the beginning of this movie is close to unintelligently. Yes. When like
[00:22:54] the truck has turned over. I watched it two times. I think they probably just I mean we're watching these fairly grainy transfers I feel like maybe it looks better but like they probably just didn't have the money like you just don't really know what the
[00:23:06] fuck is going on. It's also at night. It's at night a truck is I don't know and like sound is really rough really really hard to dramatize who's who's talking. It's really hard to dramatize people talking on the radio. You're also being introduced to all the characters
[00:23:22] at night in cars that are not illuminated. Yeah. And they all have freaking aliases and real names. I can't keep track of any of it but I will say it took me an hour to clearly identify which characters were the characters
[00:23:36] who were in the beginning of the movie. Yeah. You're like that one guy looks kind of like Paul Lamatt but with glasses. Yes. Yes. Wizard. And that is name. Yeah. Warlock. Warlock. And that guy. Fun fact about that guy. Do you want to know?
[00:23:50] Please I can't wait for this fact. Alright he's played by an actor called Will Seltzer who never amounted to anything. He was in the damn. I mean no offense to him. That's some gold shit David. He was in like more American graffiti. I didn't know you're Will Seltzer's
[00:24:04] disappointed uncle. I know. I feel now I feel mean. He's a disgrace to the Seltzer family name. The first family to ever carbonate water. If you're this fucking guy you would never... He's living off the Seltzer billions. They make a commission off of every can
[00:24:16] of Lacroix to this day. I'm about to blow your minds. Okay give me a mind blow. George Lucas said this guy was the runner up for Luke Skywalker. Wow. He was the second best screen test that George Lucas saw. Will Seltzer. Will Seltzer who like
[00:24:30] his IMDb page says here's a sentence from his IMDb page. He also appeared in an episode of Barney Miller in 1977 and again in 1982. Like that amounts to a sentence on his five sentence Wikipedia page. And that guy was almost Luke Skywalker. The same
[00:24:48] year that Star Wars came out and changed the world. I bet he's never had that thought. No he's probably chilling. He's never thought that if I had got Luke Skywalker my career would have been drastically different. No because Justin if he had gotten the part
[00:25:00] in Star Wars he wouldn't have been able to do that Barney Miller in 77 or the other one. Or 82. He might have been in pre-production and returned to the Jedi. Couldn't have done it. He wouldn't have had the joy of waiting five
[00:25:12] years for his agent to call and saying Miller's bringing you back. They've made you a recurring. Anyway, instead he got to play like the horny, you know virgin in citizens band who gets like taunted by um, Candy Clark's character. A character who feels like the
[00:25:30] shooter in Nashville. Like are they setting up this guy on Massacre? Right. But I think that that's probably the kind of craft thing that you pick up when you make a bunch of movies. Eventually you're talking about this same basic
[00:25:44] idea and him improving over time. The idea that you would need to take ten seconds to just frame a character and who a character is. If you're going to dump ten characters on us just a beat to establish who each one is as a person is great.
[00:25:58] Yeah, I mean that's the thing that is fun about uh, doing this podcast and starting with people's first movies is like you get to chronologically watch people like... figure shit out. Like acquire the basic building blocks of making a coherent movie. And usually the early ones have
[00:26:14] like sprinkles of their best qualities. But lack the basic craft to make a like pretty entertaining thing. It doesn't help that Paul Lamatt, at least especially earlier on has a real down tempo energy that doesn't feel like the propulsive sort of force behind a film.
[00:26:36] He seems to just sort of be be present for the filming. So we got to talk about Paul Lamatt as there are two what a weird movie star discussions we need to do in this episode. Paul Lamatt's the first one. I want to be clear American Graffiti is 73.
[00:26:52] Not 74, I said 74. What egg on your face? Embarrassing. Like a real well self-serve one. Paul Lamatt served in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Navy. Thank you for your service Paul. And then basically his first ever movie he did like one TV pilot
[00:27:14] and his first ever movie is American Graffiti which he's sort of the lead of. He's kind of the neutral lead of the film. Right, I mean the movie kind of has like three or four leads but he's sort of the hero, anti-hero.
[00:27:24] He kind of is like the Han Solo of the movie. Like if you're thinking about it in George Lucas' canon. You have to imagine that he auditioned for Star Wars. I mean everyone auditioned for Star Wars. Yeah, I did for sure. But he wins a Golden Globe
[00:27:38] for the best new star. Which is a category I wish still existed. Oh god. What a clusterfuck it would be. Can you tell me the last winner of best new star of the year actor? The Golden Globes 1983. 1983. Well the category gets disbanded because of Piazzadora, is that true?
[00:27:58] I mean somewhere around there. Do you know about Piazzadora? Let's not get into Piazzadora right now. Justin can we do a Piazzadora corner? Sure. Go for it. Piazzadora was a terrible actress who's like millionaire husband financed a movie to make her a star. Called Butterfly.
[00:28:16] That no one liked and no one saw. It was like a soft core sort of like smutty movie. Right, he's like I think my wife is beautiful everyone thinks she is beautiful. It was like one of those things? Yes, and she won new
[00:28:28] Star of the Year at the Golden Globe. In 1983? In 82. Okay. But like it's close to the end of the, they do one more year and then that's it. But they disbanded because it was like a big controversy where they were like this award means nothing now.
[00:28:42] He bought the award. Because he bought the award for a movie that no one had even heard of. But the next year someone won their final acting award in 1983, Best New Star of the Year. Now was this a good pick? Did this person go on?
[00:28:54] Yeah. Yeah, good pick. Also just kind of an obvious one. No although he did win in 1970s. Right for Stay Hungry, right? Okay. So this one. Yeah, big movie that year. Big movie. One best picture. It won Best Picture. He was the star. In 1983
[00:29:10] well now I'm trying to think of Rain Man is what? 88. Okay. It's the movie that BET, Big Biopin. Oh it's Ben Kingsley? Correct. Ben Kingsley, New Star! There's a hot new star around town. Did he also win Best Actor? Probably. Let's find out.
[00:29:28] I think that was the other reason is that like the new star would often go to someone who also won the competitive actor-actress category. If you want to debate the merits of Googling Ben Kingsley versus talking about Citizen's Band at least people can Google Ben Kingsley
[00:29:46] at home. That is the one advantage that they have is that they too can Google Ben Kingsley and play along with the front. And they will find voluminous results. He did? Right, exactly. They will be able to pay themselves for days. He did indeed win Best Actor and
[00:30:02] confusingly Gandhi also won Best Foreign Film United Kingdom slash India. Wow. Which meant E.T. got to win Best Picture like they got to sort of spread the wealth. Weird. Where's the Oscars ended up picking Gandhi over E.T. which is one of their like you know, classic
[00:30:20] 80s like whoa we like this old fashion movie not this new kid. Well the point is Lamatt is sort of seen as much like the entire cast of American Graffiti oh this is going to be the next wave right? Right. And the number of stars
[00:30:34] who come out of American Graffiti and spin in different directions where you get like Harrison Ford becomes the biggest guy in the world Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith continue to have acting careers but very quickly transition to being incredibly successful directors. Then
[00:30:48] you have Richard Dreyfus goes on to have this like triumphant run. Of course. For like seven years that ends in him winning an Oscar. Wolfman Jack? Wolfman Jack becomes the greatest DJ of all time. But then you even have like Suzanne Summers. Yeah Candy Clark
[00:31:02] gets her Oscar nomination for this Mackenzie Phillips like people going on to sitcoms and things like that and Lamatt is kind of the one guy in the top ten of American Graffiti who like doesn't have the big career
[00:31:14] but he does have somewhat of a career at this point he's gonna be in Melvin and Howard which is that's the big thing that Demi sort of like claims him and gives him his best post-American Graffiti part. But if you look at him now
[00:31:24] he is now a guy who does weird YouTube videos Yeah, he hasn't done a movie essentially for 15 years. I stumbled onto the YouTube videos just googling for him he has got a beard of such a volume that I just assumed every video was a manifesto. Oh my god!
[00:31:42] Of some sort. It's a powerful statement of a beard. Oh my god it's so large! It is a Randy Quaid adjacent Is he talking about like Randy Quaid thing? Like is it conspiratorial? No, he's just plugging his books. Yeah that's what's weird
[00:31:56] He writes a lot of books. Right he's just seems very normal. He's doing the sort of like sort of grandpa YouTube angle where the camera's kind of like pointing he has a poster of memoirs of a gay shed in his room? Yeah.
[00:32:08] Alright he's sort of a... He's got one of Titanic too. He's missing a bunch of teeth. He's missing a bunch of teeth. This is brutal. He's got like a beard that's longer than my entire body. And he's like bald but with like
[00:32:22] crazy hair on the sides. Yeah he's got a little on top but he has so much on the chin. Alright he looks like a hobo wizard let's say it. Yeah he looks like you know Moon Vest from 30 Rocks Yes. Like that's who he looks like.
[00:32:34] Right or Radio Man from Real Life. The same person. I was making a joke. God Justin he doesn't get it. That's what I'm picking up on. I gotta just get in the brother game. Is that the answer? Do brothers get jokes? Just
[00:32:48] record with your family. Brothers get jokes. The point is it's weird that yes when you look at the thumbnails and the amount of videos he has you assume that they're all manifestos or they're all like QAnon shit. Right you would
[00:33:00] assume this is a guy who's about to tell you why he's like drinking you know poison to go on a comet or whatever. Or like telling like dark stories about other people in Hollywood. Right where he's like look at this guy.
[00:33:12] Instead they're all kind of nice. This is good content for his cramp up. He should have a podcast. Okay. Well these people can watch these videos. Take it to the Lamar. He has a James Deems standee like a cardboard standee. Hey he loves
[00:33:26] the movies. What's the other poster? It just seems like it's like a glamour shot of like Marilyn Monroe. Why is it not okay for poor No you can have him. I'm just intrigued. No no David listen Will's dead. You can't kick Will
[00:33:40] Seltzer on your board but let's be one to pull him out. Why is it not okay for this man to have this man who was in a film industry to have posters of movies that he enjoyed. To be clear he has two posters up. Titanic
[00:33:54] great movie memoirs of a geisha bit of a curveball but okay then he has the James Dean cardboard standee that's just kind of leaning against the wall and a framed picture of Marilyn Monroe. He loves the movies. Looks like he's got like an HP laptop that's just open
[00:34:10] like he's talking to a separate laptop. David what is the Mount Rushmore Elvis Presley pillow? What is the Mount Rushmore of film? Titanic geisha James Dean James Dean movies. Right if you were to carve HP laptops a rock side the Mount Rushmore
[00:34:28] of films it would be the ship the Titanic Marilyn Monroe's dress blowing up just the sort of right geisha with like an umbrella carved out of the rock right I mean the third face is five geishas full body and then maybe like a sad LA apartment
[00:34:48] with like blinds you know those sort of like you know I don't want to mock him I'm literally just fascinated well I can't hear what he's saying so that's an issue but it was like a relief I mean Justin you felt the same way where
[00:35:00] you were like he's gonna say some really upsetting shit. Right. Yeah 100% I didn't even have to click I didn't even have to click I knew for sure he has one he has a guys he has a film according to IMDb his last film
[00:35:16] was in 2009 and it was a movie called Chrome Angels which is weird for in the context of citizens sort of a sister perhaps there's a character named Chrome Angel in this film yeah it's very strange and he has one film called Eli Elder in pre-production
[00:35:32] can we please move the pre along on this flick because I've seen the beard and that's going to be a powerful performance let's get this going you are asking that we add Eli Elder to the blank check pictures he's playing Eli in this
[00:35:46] that we acquire the rights to the film I think we can do that the poster is what I can only describe as like a sort of bitmap of Paul Lamats face and then someone has like put a word our sheriff star in the R of the Elder
[00:36:02] yeah I mean he looks great that is vapor wave David it is it's vapor wave to find it was really hard to the first movie to go straight to free sell you're watching check and IMDb when we're watching this movie and it is infuriating because
[00:36:18] people are only identified in the credits by their CB handle some of which are not used in the film at all as far as I could tell and also a couple of which are spoilers yes that's true that are like just by the role that they're playing
[00:36:38] I mean I love a put end credits where you know you see the actual actor and then like a title flashes on screen yeah but yeah no I mean for what's his name this could use out at the top the kid the hustler
[00:36:50] the kid the hustler yeah it's out to be a kid yes right but there is that thing a lot of the movie you're hearing voices and you're meeting characters and there are like four or five turns that are based on you not
[00:37:02] realizing that character you've been introduced to IRL is also this voice you've been hearing disembodied so to do and IMDb will connect all those dots for you prematurely to do the plot as basically as possible I would say that there are two main plots in Citizens Band
[00:37:16] there is one plot in which two brothers played by Paul LeMatt and Bruce Miguel the great Bruce Miguel the legend Bruce Miguel who invented acting in 1999 Bruce Miguel playing the role of blood Ben's favorite character yeah definitely they are in a sort of a love triangle
[00:37:32] with Candy Clark's character Electra so that's plot A right and there's like the two of them are teachers what does Paul LeMatt do Paul LeMatt lives with his ornery old dad right he used to be a rancher in Canada moved to America for opportunities
[00:37:46] for his son and has never been able to ranch again he has not been able to herd nary a cow he has heard it I would say this is slightly this is the maybe slightly less interesting subplot of the two plots
[00:37:58] that would be my argument and then this feels like the more conventional here's the movie it's down home people then of course spider also is wrapped up in like fighting neo-nazis and there's all this stuff that kind of crops up at the end
[00:38:10] spider is like the the avenger of the CB radio that he believes it has to be like a public service for people to be able to help each other and there's all this trash again it's about twitter this smut yeah okay now and his dad really
[00:38:24] interesting I thought this was actually very played by the wonderfully named Robert blossom who is Robert plural yes Robert's who's a guy I mean he's the old man from home alone is he not yes he is he's old man Marley from home alone
[00:38:40] I knew him from like you know I don't know he's in like Christine and he like pops up I think in like close to the counters and stuff he plays an old guy great old quiet dignity was for right you remember that guy
[00:38:52] shoveling a walkway course he plays a character who is much nicer on the CB than he is in real life kind of which I think it's like actually really kind of small little twist a lot right I mean this guy like wants to pretend in real
[00:39:08] life that he's an asshole right and that he's far less mentally there than he actually is there's the weird extended run where he wants to convince his son that he has cooked and is now eating his dog yeah that's a that's a fun thread but it's like
[00:39:26] he when the son asked him blank if he has cooked the dog that he is currently eating if it is dog meat he acts like he's senile and doesn't understand the question has lost his mind but it is again like if you're going to keep this
[00:39:42] internet metaphor going it's like when you're older relative your dad your grandpa whatever like discovers like message boards and in like their 70s you know what I mean like I guess Facebook like whatever Facebook became yeah but he's not using it for ill will know he's
[00:39:58] using it to like share it's like nice core pictures of his son's like I love them very much alright so then the other plot the other sort of main plot yeah is Charles Napier who is going to be the most recurring figure in this miniseries
[00:40:14] in most demi movies yeah he's a great character actor there's another recurring figure I want to bring up in the moment that's fine and it turns out that he has two he's the one who's truck crashes at the start of the movie right and this reveals
[00:40:26] that he has two wives essentially two ladies on the go and they discover him and so that's the other plot right which is the better plot and feels like the more demi plot yeah and it's just sort of funny and it arrives at a fun conclusion
[00:40:40] and everyone in it is really good both women were nominated one one and one was nominated like the national society film critics really morning actress I think that was the only thing that really connected they're both excellent and wedge worth and Marsha Rod
[00:40:54] yeah Marsha Rod was the one I was really impressed with who plays the sort of more soulful right Marsha Rod is very funny very good but yeah I mean this opening scene of the movie is supposed to be like oh here's like
[00:41:06] the central event that unites all these characters except it is shot and cut in a way that makes it almost impossible to identify the character hard to figure out what's going on right so you have like warlock is like flirting with Electra who's like sort of like
[00:41:22] you know like married and bored sex call line she's sort of using the cb radio to kind of like get her jollies off because she's bored right she's not married she's married not married she's she's not married she's the one in the relationship
[00:41:36] in the relationship no no that's candy Clark isn't that Electra yeah Electra right he's not in the oh she sorry in the relationship with the two brother I'm sorry I got confused between the two brothers and the two wives right they're not married but like
[00:41:48] love triangles yeah she's in a crappy relationship with one brother after ending relationship for several years with another brother and she is a school teacher she is pretending to be a sort of phone sex hotline woman operating only over the cb which warlock is a lonely man
[00:42:02] is like you know hitting her up constantly on that old hand radio but meanwhile a Napier gets turned over and Paula Matt as like the SJW of the cb is going to try to rescue him along with his friend the world's largest man right a guy
[00:42:20] where I cannot comprehend how big he is even just down he's like a lump of grant his head and his hands look massive yeah yes yeah the other one you wanted to talk about the other one I want to talk about is Gary Goatsman okay
[00:42:38] who has small roles in both of these films he is the tour guide in Niagara Falls in Last Embrace and I forget who he is in Citizens Band but he is in both of these films and he ends up having a small part in like every one
[00:42:52] of Demi's films through Philadelphia right I was like I knew I read about this guy's name at which point he teams up with freshly Oscar anointed Tom Hanks and becomes Tom Hanks's producing partner for the rest of his career he is like Tom Hanks's
[00:43:10] right hand man but before that he's a character actor who Demi uses a lot and that ends with Philadelphia in which he's playing the same character that he played in Silence of the Lambs and now he is produced like every Tom Hanks movie
[00:43:24] but also Mamma Mia and my Big Feck Greek wedding and he's got any money I think he's got a little bit of change he's got the $2 deal on every picture he also apparently was a music producer who worked with Smokey Robinson and the
[00:43:40] Staple Singers and shit so he's yeah okay well retired bit but there are a lot of interesting people like that Scott Rudin is the casting director on Last Embrace who is now the most dominant producer in Hollywood and on Broadway a lot of people
[00:43:56] start out sort of in the Demi and the other interesting thing when we forgot to mention in the Corman episodes is that these movies are shot by Tak Fu Jumoto they are not both Last Embrace, yeah Jordan Cronin with who's another famous cinematographer shot Citizens Man
[00:44:14] Tak Fu Jumoto who becomes Demi's main guy shot Last Embrace I believe it's their first collaboration but also was the cinematographer on K.G.T. if not the other two I mean he was working with them at the very beginning which is one of these
[00:44:28] interesting things to see where you're like this is a movie that's kind of a mess but has interesting aspects and like is sort of low rent looking but has like interesting shots and then ten years later these two guys are going to do Sounds of the Lambs together
[00:44:42] Yep and Tak Fu Jumoto shot Paul Pitcher? Yes This cat was the D.P. on Blade Runner Yeah Jordan Cronin with Yes both Jeff Cronin with who works with Pitcher now and like another famous I wanna, we're almost done with
[00:45:00] Citizens Man unless you guys have things to say but I wanna read It's although one scene I wanted to highlight there's one scene towards the end there's a sort of like weird half-hearted struggle about Spider leaving he refers to as the farm but his
[00:45:18] dad lives, he says he lives in a junkyard so like I don't know leaving his dad basically and his dad's like actively resents that he's not living on a farm cause he feels like that's what he gave up by moving to America and his son just keeps on
[00:45:32] like an asshole calling it the farm Right and there's a scene where his he has decided to throw a birthday party for his dad who hates his guts trying to throw a birthday party for his dad but there's a scene where
[00:45:46] they've lit the candles and they're sitting together and Spider tells his dad that he's that he's heading out and it's like this like surprisingly touching scene of people just sort of expressing like real heartfelt you know what it felt to me like um
[00:46:08] it had something where a lot of dramatic scenes where news is broken uh is not in it, is that sense of like couching the information because the person really doesn't want to be saying it which you almost never see in movies is like
[00:46:20] usually if someone's going to say something they're pretty well made up and this guy's like kind of sneaks the information that he's leaving in and then starts talking about how if anyone talks bad about his dad he'll leave him and he really loves him so much
[00:46:32] and his dad just sits in total silence won't even blow out his birthday candles and it's like this weirdly like for me at least I found it like weirdly touching an affecting scene in this film that had not really had that sort of like weight or stillness
[00:46:50] at any point before that well their relationship is really odd because they both kind of like tiptoe around each other and then any time they're in a conversation with anyone else they talk about the other very differently like they're like this burden on their lives
[00:47:02] and there's also the scene where he's going to get the medal for being the best citizen on the citizens band radio and he like tells his dad and then when he goes to pick him up before the ceremony his dad has gotten so drunk that he's like
[00:47:16] passed out on the table and thought man was dead 100% right and he starts crying and screaming and you're like oh this is him realizing his dad is dead but in fact he's crying and screaming because he's like again I fucking thought for once
[00:47:32] my dad was going to be able to see me do something good there's some nice little human moments and his relationship with his brother blood you know like he blood is very aware of the fact that he was not his parents favorite children
[00:47:50] he is now a gym coach where he gets to yell at other children a scene that gave me PTSD I truly when the scene started he was like inspecting all the kids like jockstraps and like yelling at them making him do laps
[00:48:04] I had a full body panic return to the feeling of being in gym class when I was 13 years old did you mention Ed Begley Jr. in this place? he is but I mean like I saw him in the credits before I started watching
[00:48:14] and I'm like where is he he's barely in it you hear his voice he would hate being in this movie now he only wants electric cars I don't know I just love to do a show with my breath I loved how Ed Begley became so famous
[00:48:30] for driving an electric car that he played multiple characters on other shows not himself where he drove an electric car because they were like it's Ed Begley Jr that's what he does I also imagine that's like a sticking point for him in contracts
[00:48:46] I'm not driving your gas guzzlers around the set and they're like this movie takes place in the 1600s and he's like I must drive an electric car let me read you guys before we get off of this I have a couple other things
[00:49:00] but let me read you some this is an interview with Demi from 1991 in the Los Angeles Times he got picked out of the Corman basket by Paramount he makes this movie after he makes this movie Michael Eisner who later would run Disney at this point is that Paramount
[00:49:18] becomes in charge of Paramount he sends to the throne right around now he sees this movie and his first question is why did we make this movie and Jonathan Demi is like then the movie comes out it is a gargantuan flop it cost something about 5 million to make
[00:49:34] it didn't even make like a million dollars at the box office after they fucking recut and then a producer calls him another Paramount producer says hey can we meet and Demi is like oh ok maybe like I'm not fucked maybe this guy wants
[00:49:50] maybe he liked the movie anyway because Demi is like it's not a bad movie his opinion even at this point is like you know I made a movie that I thought was ok the guy sits down with him this producer is like
[00:50:02] so I have a picture coming out in a month and I'm really worried it's gonna flop how does it feel having made a flop what's that like and Demi is like wait you only called me in for a meeting to discuss the psychological toll of having
[00:50:14] a bomb in a box office bomb hey Demi you're a fucking loser right exactly I feel like I'm about to get dunked on hard can you prepare me for the atomic wedgies I'm gonna get from the press 100% his take away from this movie
[00:50:28] here's his quote I had to take a step back and look at the movie and go good lord it's 90 minutes of people talking to each other over the radio Eric Romero would not have touched this and he was like I have to make movies for a wider audience
[00:50:42] like I can't just make a movie and think like well it's a good picture and that's that like I should be conscious of like this is a business movies are supposed to be entertaining and broadly appealing right and that's something I need to like not forget
[00:50:56] as I get into the studio that's the corpsman thing where even if those movies are messy there is on its face a very clean one sentence hook of what you can pretend the movie is about I and when he goes into his comedy phase after this you
[00:51:09] can go like married to the mob it's in the title right you know something wild a crazy lady like something wilds like the original manic pixie dream girl movie right like all these movies that have like a very clean premise and then
[00:51:21] he can put all sorts of weird sort of character and craft into it and I think after he makes this movie he's like shit I might not get to make another movie like this is such a bomb that I'm I'm a nobody like this could be
[00:51:34] it right and he says it was hard to find out I think it's why he made last embrace because he was just like any script anyone wants me to make I'm there and you're like this is a thriller maybe this is
[00:51:44] an easier genre to sell and I have a real movie star I just want to talk a little bit more about the the Napier crumb angel love Napier what are their both named angels as well in the call signs at the Dallas angel right right
[00:51:58] but this beautiful thing where you're like introduced to Napier in the accident it just has this insane chin it's just the most incredible like jaw we lost him a couple years ago but he was one of my favorite character actors always stuck out in any movie I
[00:52:14] knew him from here's how much he like stuck in my car I knew he was familiar to me literally the only thing I knew him from and was was trying to recall was a fnv game called spy craft the great never he was like
[00:52:28] the director of the FBI and he was like your mean boss basically casting perfect he made such an impression from that I remembered him some you know 20 odd years later the thing that he stuck in my car for a minute young age was he
[00:52:40] plays the American general in Austin Powers who has to go in on freeze him and set him up on his mission but he's got the scene where they they call him and say like we found Dr. Evil it's it's Clint Howard calls
[00:52:55] him and says like we found Dr. Evil on the radar and it's like 17 split screens it's like a bunch of little boxes and he gives his directions where he's like feed my fish don't forget to tell my wife I'm missing pack my suitcase and you see all the
[00:53:10] split screens of all the different actions and then he says I'm going to London England and that line reading is London England is a thing I quote all the time and I'm not even doing consciously but I just think it's funny how you say London comma
[00:53:26] England like if we're I grew up by the way I'm sorry what just getting that in there well open benches what Ben's here again yeah I know I've been here the whole time I just was looking at I've missed this I'm a long-time listener I've
[00:53:41] never been like bingeing episodes way you've been listening to them all the time we're talking England London England this is God just I'm so sorry this has to happen in front of you know a brother would never pull the Sun now it's fat amazing this is
[00:53:55] like when you go over to someone's house for dinner and the family starts fighting their parents start yelling at the British one yeah that's that one thing I want to point out about like the Queen you have you ever met her like do you
[00:54:08] okay but do you walk by me once what a VE day okay 1990 on vacation wow but do you are you like do you pray to the Queen or whatever do you have like dear second now you're just asking comically uninformed questions about
[00:54:26] Britain so you do tea time every hour on the out is that you guys barely even know what Britain is I know London England boy I know from England um you know the one I get when people bring up London is the Dennis Farina
[00:54:42] and snatch the bit where he's like I'm coming to London you hear that dog I'm coming to London I literally can't say if someone mentions London I cannot do I'm coming to London you're that dog I just want to shout out my personal favorite Charles Napier Austin Powers
[00:54:57] line reading which is in I think this by who shagged me he's in the scenes with Tim Robbins as the president right and there's the thing where Tim Robbins is like what if we nuke the moon and he says like are you
[00:55:09] suggesting we blow up the moon sir that's the line he's like would you miss it would you miss it it's a great life are you just me blow up the moon sir was Tim Robbins winning the Oscar for Mystic River a makeup for him not even
[00:55:22] being nominated in by who shagged me or so it's one of his better performances it's really not saying that a backhanded way he's really fucking good and spy who shagged Robbins had that run in the late 90s like his this cameo in high
[00:55:35] fidelity like he was a great like firecracker cameo guy and now I guess he just doesn't really do a lot of movies what the fuck is Tim Robbins even doing well of course he's going to be our guest on the Melvin and
[00:55:48] Howard episode next week you can ask him directly huge please don't bring up the Inglings stuff with him it will throw him off you know the other one that he has incredible cameo and it's after that initial run but he's really fucking good in that the
[00:56:02] tenacious team movie oh I've never seen has the best scene in the movie well there you go he is a cameo of course in a man so thorough is not a cameo it's listed as a cameo in Wikipedia he is the adult lead well he
[00:56:14] is the parent but he must be in like one or two scenes right he's bookending the picture right but he's the emotional core of the film he's hard of the film in a man remember that is very funny the pbs guy what's it what's your favorite Robbins poppin
[00:56:28] Justin you got a favorite Robbins pop Rob pop you got a Rob pop men in real rock our men in real life once and he's yeah it was I this is a 30 second Tim Robbins story I know we have to talk about last embrace
[00:56:43] it was it was after Hamilton I saw Tim Tim bow there he said Timbo and give him a big hug we both just seen Hamilton for the first time it was my second Tim first and I was talking about how the teens were obsessed with Hamilton in
[00:57:01] much the same way that my generation was obsessed with that I said but they're getting the better end of the deal because they walk away from this with a functional knowledge of the American Revolution and Tim Robbins had Justin your generation got something just as important from rent
[00:57:17] so what's that Tim he said empathy and it was the most fucking Tim I was waiting for like a joke and I couldn't believe I couldn't fathom that it was Tim Robbins not doing a Tim Robbins something I tell my 30 second Tim Robbins story everybody's got my
[00:57:35] first real acting job I got not counting the buried secret of M. Night Shyamalan because I was cut out of it was a pilot that Tim Robbins directed oh right for showtime yeah that our friend Matt Patches was a PA on it's the gravity guy right that guy
[00:57:53] the different show oh different show different show this was a Tim Robbins pilot called possible side effects that was about it was like a succession but with the pharma industry great where it was a family like an old money power family real barn burn it
[00:58:07] was Ellen Burstin love her tricellate tricellates Josh Lucas Tim Blake Nelson this is the one that she insisted she wasn't correct she told me she was not in this she said you have me mistaken with someone else could have been Ellen Barker is that 100% certain it was Ellen
[00:58:24] Barker no absolutely not she wasn't off the leash I just want to remember three projects I was in with her she does not remember the first two despite I think winning an Emmy for the second anyway she's lousy with Emmys she she this pilot never
[00:58:37] went and never aired but I was not cut out of it and I played the young stoner boy in it sure I was invited over to his place for rehearsals and I got outside is this like in Manhattan in Manhattan I will not divulge the exact location although
[00:58:53] I don't think he owns this place anymore sure sure but I got to the buzzer board right it's one two three Tim Robbins Avenue just FYI I got to the buzzer board right outside this building and one of the names on
[00:59:06] the board was T Dobbins okay and I went well very famous people don't want their name being publicly visible on a buzzer board so I assume that this is the world's worst cover name right he has literally just changed one letter
[00:59:24] that'll fool him so I sent a text to be like I just want to double check right the car it's apartment eight T Dobbins right and the response was no it's apartment nine Jack Malarkey or whatever he just happens to live next to
[00:59:42] a T Dobbin whose first name is Tim he lives directly never done a Robbins corner before this is gold lives directly above a man who is one letter off from his name and he's got some completely false name on the buzzer board
[01:00:00] and so you got into this apartment and who's there Ellen Burstin Josh Lucas Eva Murray maybe Ellen Burstin Tim Blake Nelson yeah Kimberly Quinn Ritt Remy Oberjahn while yes I feel there's another really big ones the Rita Chowdhury I was about to say that
[01:00:19] was the name I feel like there's another Jason Butler Hartner sure it was a really stacked cast everyone was like this thing is solid cat so good you'll pin Betty Gilpin young Betty guilty all my friends were like you are a TV star now because you play the
[01:00:33] stoner best friend of the young son I was a stoner who played the Theramen oh sure okay and that well that's me because Robbins was like do you play any instruments and I was like no and he was like really nothing and I
[01:00:48] was like nothing and he was like fuck we're gonna have to accomplish something for you to fake and I was like haha like the Theramen and he went that's funny but I mean we'll have to come with a serious answer and then I
[01:00:57] showed up on set and there was a Theramen sure and they asked me to play it right don't you just go like that's what I thought David is waggling my hands around waving his hands like a moron and I thought I thought I can
[01:01:09] just wave my hands like a moron and unlike the guitar no know my finger place real instrument yeah so it's one of the worst scenes that any actor has ever done which is me pretending to be stoned laughing at my Theramen playing and I am
[01:01:23] unconvincing at both things acting stoned and playing the Theramen sure I could do both those things great yeah I know you could you should have played the part yeah because because Justin spotlighting these scenes of like surprising emotional poignancy in this movie right like Mark Ruffalo
[01:01:41] Justin's like Mark Ruffalo spotlighting it spotline they knew they knew these scenes were poignant Justin knew I knew you know this kind of where it devolves into am I at the peak of the James L. Brook years is kind of the peak the madness right and that's
[01:02:00] usually it's awful yeah it's terrible we recorded our last Demi episode I think it was terrible right you tried to save it in the computer spat it back out it did win a couple of these days star of tomorrow no just you
[01:02:15] start listening to the show in like the last six months and have been binging through it but you're like a year behind and you don't understand that we have cratered oh perfect okay yeah you're hitching your ride to a medium I don't
[01:02:27] like this bit I think of anything I'm sorry I'm kidding like a fine wine okay or rare cheese yes stinky okay what I was gonna say David's waving his hand okay that was a good joke and now he's pointing oh my god day okay everybody marker counters as
[01:02:47] the first visual gag in August history that I can't believe it that thing like a meteor that was actually that was the first time that someone has done a physical joke that is based off of someone describing the thing they're doing to alley-oop themselves to negate
[01:03:05] the description that's why they pay me the big bucks you're right you know what Justin you're coming on this podcast at just the right moment we're back we're back oh boy Paula mad style yeah right what I was gonna say is you
[01:03:22] you meet Napier he's in the turned over truck and then he's an injured man right yeah and here's this guy who's like the most sort of like square jaw right land America sort of dude playing this sort of like like wistful like I
[01:03:37] got a second chance at life I just realized how close to death I came I'm reevaluating everything and you see him explaining all this with a prostitute he frequents on the side of the road whose name is hot coffee that's her handle
[01:03:51] because her trademark is she gives you a cup of coffee afterwards hey and this lovely scene where they're undressing getting ready to make love hey and while they're doing it she's asking him what kind of cup of coffee he's gonna want afterwards right and then it just
[01:04:05] fades into the coffee cup which is sort of a sweet thing and he starts to sort of explain everything to her and she's talking about how her business is failing and she doesn't know what to do and the markets don and you know all of
[01:04:16] this sort of stuff what's the other she gives off another explanation oh it's a construction the roads leading to her house they built too much else on the other side of the highway and so no one's gonna come her way anymore and
[01:04:28] he decides to buy her a camper right so that she can be a mobile prostitute right which is kind of this like touching act of just like kindness where he's like sex worker sex worker where where he's just like you know you'll pay me off whatever
[01:04:45] it's cheaper than whatever you know I owe you when you're on the road this long you forget about the embrace of a woman and you're like what a kind of sad character here's a man who has no love in his life sure and has this like
[01:04:56] emotional affair with this sex worker who we also then has sex with but he's really invested in her and then you meet these two women who are waiting at a truck stop for their husband to show up right who is constantly on the road and the one
[01:05:10] woman talks about how she knows that her husband's cheating on her and the one woman sort of flighty and more superficial and the other woman has this like emotional base and then you know it seems like they're oil and vinegar but they start to bond over
[01:05:23] like well we both have the same kind of experience right and then there's this like pocket drop scene where they're sitting on the bus and she talks about finding out that her husband was having an affair and the night that her husband performed
[01:05:37] kind of lingus on her and it's described as that thing that we all like but never want to say that we like and he usually only does it on our birthdays but that night wasn't my birthday which I think is a pretty
[01:05:51] it's a nice right around it's a nice right around and she performs it with this sort of like not self-pitying but this sort of like far off look in her eye where she's explaining like this one night where he was so fully the
[01:06:04] one in every sense that he was so emotionally attentive and physically attentive and there for me and then the next morning he just sort of rode off into the sunset again and I like I don't know why I didn't leave him I
[01:06:16] was so angry at myself for falling for his kindness and not having the backbone to leave him and then when they decided to exchange photos they realized it's the same man but you've defined the dynamic between the two of them which is one
[01:06:30] of them is really affected by this and considering you know the the state of her relationship and the other one has never suspected that her husband has done anything on toward meanwhile they're both married to him both have children and then they sort of flip positions where the
[01:06:46] flighty one is now like totally emotionally distraught in every sense we just became friends do you hate me now am I the enemy I can't possibly be that other woman could I because we were married it's not an affair and then the other one starts to try
[01:07:00] revenge they release all the cows he writes them a note that's like I understand why you were mad at me the cow prank was unfortunate let's sit through and talk to this and hot coffee functions as their like marriage counselor mediator in the RV
[01:07:16] that he bought for her and they all go like I don't know should we just try let's just do all three try to be a big family unit in a like a really nice kind of you know when I was like maybe this is a
[01:07:28] movie this movie's got and it's one of these demi thing I just didn't really care about the little Matt stuff so anytime we were going back to that I was kind of like zoning out again either I care about his dad far more than
[01:07:38] him sure McGill's performance is more interesting McGills invented acting right McGill the father of actor the inventor of acting I think either one of these could have worked as its own yes fit I agree like in a world where the CB elements were kind of scaled
[01:07:54] down a little bit and it was more about the characters like there's something there it's just two different yes but because this movie is so scattershot and sort of like unfocused and it's two movies wedged together I did not expect that this movie had a check-offs gun
[01:08:10] that it was going to pay off in the final moment where all threads perfectly tied together right which is of course Paul Lamats depressed father is the only one who can rescue the cows that Napier's wives plural right unleashed and it ends with just everyone laughing
[01:08:28] like it's the end of rat race and everyone's triumphant dancing to all star right yeah but you know it's interesting about that last scene everyone physically in the same yes the only time the only time so that's citizens band thank you for bringing up rat race
[01:08:44] anytime does it have no there's no box there's no box of these we might do the years at the end of the episode yeah have we done 77 before I don't think I have I have no idea what's the top movie of 77 so the second film is called
[01:08:58] the year punk broke oh that's probably the answer it's punk the movie yeah all right last embrace some right written by David Schaber based on novel the 13th man by Marie T. Blue now Justin you had a line via text about this movie being based off a novel
[01:09:20] that sounds like me yeah what I say I'm sorry it was you are relaying your wife's line it was my wife said I love old books but when your nail biting thriller includes multiple library visits something has gone wrong there are no fewer
[01:09:36] there's at least two and depending on how you count three scenes where advancing the plot is handled by going to the library and not like in a fun you know what's the Tom Hanks Da Vinci code sure right now like a Da Vinci code kind
[01:09:52] of dramatic John Wick library shoot out no it's not Indiana Jones like I love history thing it's like he's like I gotta get to the library and then it crossfades to him talking to another old Jew oh god there's so much great old Jew content in this movie
[01:10:08] now this is the thing I did not expect this to be such a Judaic thriller but it's all here's my complaint should you describe it broadly since no one can yeah I will describe broadly before it's not Judaic enough it should be more Judaic
[01:10:22] is the idea because this movie I found very confusing sure is the idea this well apparently I've been I bought a book about Demi like the only book I could find about him and apparently like this is one of those classic like the script wasn't
[01:10:34] really done you know like it was a disastrous production Shider wasn't into it so I think like it's a bit of a half-assed movie in that regard right and it's him it's fascinating no where are you sorry it's fast it's interesting
[01:10:50] about lasting brace is and this is I think this is like specific to the thriller or you know thriller slash mystery genre is that two-thirds of the way into the movie I didn't know if it was working or not because it all kind of depended
[01:11:06] on where everything was going because the cards are held back it's like maybe this is gonna land I don't know like it may very well land land it where it's going for and you know what realize is all the films over it's like oh it lands at the
[01:11:22] bottom of Niagara Falls onto Jagged Rocks that's the other thing is that the poster makes it feel like oh is this movie gonna be like fucking runaway train yeah right is this gonna be some propulsive like landscape thriller we got Roy Shider looks like a Hitchcock movie
[01:11:38] Jonathan Demi's behind the camera like this looks like fun right and it begins with like his wife getting murdered in a restaurant with him which he's having as a nightmare which is one of the cool sort of director flourishes in this movie is the nightmare is it real
[01:11:54] it's real right but also he does it with crossfades from every piece of coverage right so from the opening senior like something weird is going on here it doesn't feel surreal in a way that tells you it's a dream sequence but it's clear that
[01:12:08] something unnatural is going on and it's him reliving the night that his wife died right and like that's a good I assume when this starts I'm like oh okay maybe this is like a revenge thriller about uh him chasing the killers
[01:12:22] of his wife or maybe this is like right about him figuring out he's a weird government agent he took his wife with him on a while he was being targeted right and he got killed as collateral damage yes and as this film starts
[01:12:36] he has spent the last five months in a mental hospital trying to recover from the trauma of his wife's death right none of that has anything to do with the rest of the movie well at the beginning I was like is this one of those movies
[01:12:48] where a guy is convinced that he's being followed and the whole movie is about very early sequence right he's on the subway platform yeah and he thinks he's being like someone's trying to push him and it's all in his head which I love yes is
[01:13:00] one of my favorite subgenres of movies which is person thinks they're in a movie right you know like this is Roy Scheider as a guy who thinks he's in the middle of like a John LeCarré novel and really he's just suffering from trauma man right that a
[01:13:16] brief bit where he thought someone pushed him off is amazing because it's uh it's Mandy Patinkin is the one that he thinks pushes him off and it's one of those like fun like oh weird is this here it's like seeing my root often it's like just pops up
[01:13:30] like oh weird that's Mandy Patinkin and then the fucking dad from Alph comes and saves the day Max Wright comes out of nowhere to save Mandy Patinkin's life both men are then excused from the film I could follow them they sound like great leads for a Judeo thriller
[01:13:44] well both men had hard out Mandy Patinkin needed to be wrapped by noon so that he could sing the entire Sondheim book and the entire Sondheim book and Max Wright needed to go back to working with a fucking puppet what's it what you're saying though about
[01:14:00] the what's frustrating about this movie is that there's that like this idea of like you know maybe it's on his head that he's being followed and he has the reason that he has a secret agent stuff like maybe it's like some enemy or his employers
[01:14:14] or something trying to take him out and then there's this stuff with it like the the the sort of uh paranoia and anxiety he's still dealing with as a result of what happened to his wife and then it turns out what is actually happening to him
[01:14:26] has nothing to do with those that's what's frustrating it's like fake tension that they've ginned up from nowhere which feels like probably Demi was like this is a more interesting movie this is a more interesting exercise as a director to like go in the head of someone
[01:14:40] dealing with that kind of paranoia and skepticism around every about everything around him but that is not what the the story inherently is because the story is a weird secret cabal of a Jewish pimps who use their Z Mcdowell which is a real thing to kill
[01:15:00] is the implication that Roy Scheider is the child of Nazis no no no no okay so you really so Griffin was watching this movie as he came into the I had technical difficulties I watched the last 30 minutes here in the studio Roy Scheider it turns out is descended
[01:15:14] right members of Z Mcdowell which was a sort of like prostitution ring in like turn of the century America okay the consisting of Jews usually Polish Jews I think who would like traffic people like they would sort of steal people from other countries bring
[01:15:36] to America and put them into like sex slavery right which is a real thing right and it's still happening to Janet Margillan even as late as he was a victim of this right right and she's holding him responsible because his it turns out no she wasn't her grandma
[01:15:50] oh okay okay grandma was but she's holding him responsible because his grandpa was one of the bad guys right and she's the one who's been killing people as part of this sort of avenging right journey I got that it was part of the grandpa thing right right simultaneously
[01:16:08] there's also like a secret if secret agents are also kind of trying to kill him putting like cyanide pills in his prescription models agency right but like that seems unrelated the chat this so the cyanide was Janet Margillan right yeah that's right you're right you're right you're right
[01:16:24] Charles Napier does show up as the brother of his wife that his wife's brother his deceased wife's brother who says he's just checking up on them for the agency that apparently and he holds Shider responsible for like getting his sister Shiders wife killed right bringing her
[01:16:42] along but are they both at the same job I don't know the thing is the reason I thought the cyanide was the CIA is because you don't learn what I just described that you know yeah Janet Margillan is the actual villain until 20 minutes
[01:16:56] before the movies less less yeah and so and there's so much that such a big idea and it takes no she just has to just say it exactly this idea that like I'm visit like I am avenging like into the whole like
[01:17:12] sins of the father thing and also like the idea of prostitution what these people went through none of it is like dealt with in any way no she essentially has one big monologue that is all retro exposition to make sense of what you've watched up until
[01:17:28] that point right then they have the titular last embrace and then she knees Roy Shider in the balls and he has a full on he goes like oh okay can we talk about this it is one of the wildest things I've ever seen in a movie okay she
[01:17:46] impacts the whole finale they're both there at night I recalls okay she impacts the entire and we're seeing the poster we know this is gonna end with them going to dangle us yes all the cards are on the table and then she he goes full home alone
[01:18:06] for what felt like seven minutes like lying on the ground hoping Darwin jumps out of Agra Falls to save him and fucking there is then the most born chase I've ever seen in my entire life that involves I shit you not them joining a Niagara Falls tour group
[01:18:24] in the middle of the chase it's like the steamroller bit from Austin Powers of footchangers it's also incredible that they each end up in a different tour group so you're cross cutting between two banal tour groups like the way they're like ratcheting tension is going from
[01:18:40] one tour guide to another tour guide you know that you know people kind of trying to look over each other a group where would she go where'd she go Ben please pull the audio clip of Roy Schreider getting hit in the nuts because a I mean the visual
[01:18:54] of it is incredible he does do a full find it for you like America's funniest home video like dad getting hit with the nerf bat sort of lean in like he does everything but go cross-eyed right but then he is an actor of like such weight
[01:19:10] and such an intense actor that's the thing he's not even trying that hard in this movie he still just freakin scary he's scared a classic 70s leading man in that you're like is he about to like beat this person up like he just feels like someone
[01:19:24] will slap you in the face and be like get out of here he is doing at Roy Schreider is doing a a hot doing the job keeping this film like even the least because because like there are moments where it's like nothing is happening but he
[01:19:42] is putting in a lot of effort to keep things fee like he acts so tense that it seems like he's in a better movie like he's really he's really interested in the New York Times I was going to quote leading actor
[01:19:54] can create so much tension out of such modest material I was trying to figure out like how to sum up what Roy Schreider's thing was and that really is that there is something so tense about him if it's why he's so good in Jaws he's sort
[01:20:06] of secretly my favorite yeah Jaws even though I love all three of those performances well and like Jaws is the closest that anyone ever came to making him like an acceptable movie star because post Jaws everyone was like this guy
[01:20:18] is a leading man he was in Jaws the biggest movie ever and audience is never warm to him in the same kind of way as he's frightening that's the thing and like Jaws Spielberg was like I'm gonna make this frightening guy work as hard as he can
[01:20:32] to try to seem nice and charming he's the normal one in Jaws like with the nerd and the psycho and that's kind of the cheese guy the nice thing is you have the scenes where he's like bonding with his children and then
[01:20:42] he stands up and walks to a corner and you're like this guy's haunted like there's some weird thing here I mean to give you a little run of his you know he's a terrific actor he was an amateur boxer he was he served in the Air Force so
[01:20:54] he's like a fucking tough guy he is and then he becomes like a Shakespearean actor he wins the award just like Blank Check the podcast his big breakout role is 71 he's in Clute and he's in the French connection he gets an Oscar nomination
[01:21:08] for the French connection he's really good in that movie but that's one of those performances where it's like I mean obviously Gene Hackman is going big in that movie and he's pretty quiet he's a partner he doesn't have a big emotional arc he doesn't have a big breakdown
[01:21:20] scene he gets an Oscar nomination because at this point in time that kind of performance was stunning for someone to be like that real and that gritty and that intense and then he's around and 75 he does Jaws huge the biggest literally the biggest
[01:21:34] in 76 he does Marathon Man which he is like a supporting character but that's a big movie in 77 he does Sorcerer the greatest Blank Check of all time he also yes right which he's the lead of that and Friedkin always says it was the biggest
[01:21:52] mistake he ever made in his career in that Friedkin so mean he was like have you ever seen Sorcerer Justin Sorcerer fucking rules it's one of the tensest movies ever made essentially just an exercise in sustained tension which is like five really fucking like creepy and shady guys
[01:22:12] all get sent to the jungle through separate means on a mystery mission which is transport a bunch of wet dynamite through the jungle and the movie is they got a truck they're in like the swamp of are they in Costa Rica I think it was South America
[01:22:30] let me look it up but they just they got a truck full of wet dynamite and they're trying to figure out how to move that truck over an incredible amount of land with a little movement as possible yes it's incredible and the whole movie is just close
[01:22:44] up Mexico Mexico sorry of Roy Scheider being really worried that dynamites about to go off and kill them all kill the entire cast at any single moment and the studio really wanted Freak and coming off of Exorcist and French Connection this like incredible run to cast fucking
[01:23:04] Steve McQueen and he was like Roy Scheider is a real actor I don't want to work with a movie star Roy Scheiders got the good I'm hiring him right and he's like I think it's my best movie Roy Scheider gave an incredible performance
[01:23:16] and it didn't fucking matter right and I didn't have a movie star and for that premise and like that bleak of film you needed a movie star and he's like one close up of Steve McQueen would have given me the like sort of
[01:23:28] spoonful of sugar to sell an audience on the entire thing and Roy Scheider is just kind of too prickly yeah and then Roy Scheider does all that jazz which is like well that's the same year as this right that's his best performance agreed gets an
[01:23:40] Oscar nominations incredible performance and he's kind of playing against type yeah he's playing Bob Fosse right but he's also playing an asshole the entire performance is this guy sucks he's an asshole he's abusive to everyone in his life but he's an incredible artist and everyone hates
[01:23:54] that he gets away with it and the movie is about him fucking dying and a chorus celebrating it in his like fantasy his you know half dead brain he's fantastic in that movie and for some reason that was the
[01:24:06] end of him that's what I was gonna say in the 80s like he's in movies like he's in 2010 which is a weird ass you know sequel to 2001 but at that point he's kind of done it's like that's his last like big
[01:24:16] sort of major role and that movie is like successful people don't like it and then I don't know what just because you guys talk about movies doesn't mean you can sit here and dismiss well right three years to watch that and
[01:24:30] the thing is like throughout the 80s his career is like not great right and it's like like 52 pickup is probably like his best and of the decade and it's like a programmer with like Ann Margaret but that's like a good whatever right
[01:24:46] but then after like the 80s being shitty where it's like oh he's like the grown up and listen to me which is otherwise sort of like a sub brat pack like dramedy with Kirk Cameron then he just is like cool I'm on like an afternoon syndicated
[01:25:02] underwater adventure series right and that's like his career now but he famously while on sequest DSB went to the press and was like this show is a piece of shit I hate it right and it was like very successful he's just a grump but he's dead
[01:25:16] now was a grump but it was yeah a very successful show that could have given him a new audience and instead he like hated it it did give us one of the greatest gifts in culture which is a Roy Schreider action figure a thing he probably burned
[01:25:30] but but this movie is coming at like the tail and the dolphin's name was Darwin by the way that's why I said Darwin earlier because I said you got to kick him in the balls and for Darwin to come jump it
[01:25:44] oh I get it now and Justin that's really funny and I wish I were your brother because if I were your brother I would have gotten that brother's get each other's drugs what about two friends it didn't it's irrelevant though it didn't work
[01:25:56] I came on hoping to get some number of comedy points awarded to me and I feel like I put myself into the natives with my terrible I'm gonna give you 10 for the Darwin joke I didn't get it at the time
[01:26:06] he doesn't want to give you points after I ask for them I'm gonna give you 5 comedy points but I'll retract the comedy points in the edit go back and listen maybe your head was in the right space to get points but my head's on a swivel looking for
[01:26:18] an opportunity to hand out some points you know what else is weird about nice embrace Christopher Walken's in it for like this is the year after he wins an Oscar he won an Oscar for a 1978 movie he's good actor he's in this for two scenes he's like
[01:26:36] doesn't do anything two scenes that both take place with him sitting behind a desk on the phone so they probably were shot back to back he probably was on set for four hours he gets the and in the billing
[01:26:46] but it's not a substantial enough role for it to be like oh we got like an Academy Award winner to be the heavy for a few scenes right and it's also not like small enough that it's a cameo like it's a weird third build he gets the and
[01:27:00] he gets the and you're right you're right it's also such a weird fit for a mystery thriller this because he he's so weird ticky that you assume that there's something like oh I wonder what this guy's up for this guy seems like he's definitely
[01:27:16] at the point in the movie you're supposed to be questioning whether this is all in Roy Scheider's head and then you have the character that is sort of contextualized as being his boring boss is the weirdest actor alive it's like Christopher Walken in like normal
[01:27:32] garb like oh here's a mustache and boring glasses in a suit on Christopher Walken he's a normal guy now right and he's going like look you know the transfer with your wife dying with the tell you and then he's gone yeah you see one scene where he's
[01:27:48] conspiring yeah that's it basically it turns out he doesn't matter it all turns out doesn't matter the Charles Napier character the brother-in-law yeah there's like a shootout with him but I could barely understand why they're fucking shooting each other uh he see it seemed like it was because
[01:28:06] he had reacted so he's like investigating the murder Dave goes to check up on him and he pulls a gun on Dave when Dave just has like chips or something he does not have a gun he pulls a gun on Dave Dave dips and I think
[01:28:20] what I what was implied was that because of that he went back and told the bosses like hey he's off he's off the rails we got to get rid of this guy right bring him down which is a wild person by the way
[01:28:32] to send to check up on the mental health exactly Shider by the way very bad government organization that's an unbiased observer that you've seen and also like one of the most triggering people for Roy Shider after see it because he's like okay I
[01:28:46] know I was just in like a sanitarium for months and months and months but I'm ready to get back to totally normal life and instead his work is like we still think you're crazy we're gonna send people to check your craziness
[01:28:56] your brother-in-law shows up and is like you're responsible for my sister your wife's death and there's a lady living in his apartment Jana Margolin who thinks that he's an intruder and he has to prove he's not by kicking the floorboards in a way
[01:29:08] that gets the fridge to work properly but then he very quickly explains oh when I'm away on assignment they sometimes sublet my apartment to other people and she was like well they said you were gonna be gone indefinitely and he's like that's not true let's just be roommates
[01:29:24] yeah it's like the goodbye girl do you know how hard up for cash your secret organization has to be that you every time your secret agent leaves the country you somebody there are I forgot how ludicrous that plot explanation of why she's in his apartment is
[01:29:40] get all the secrets you have to squeeze every extra dot are your agents also working as like rideshare drivers what the fuck is this rinky-dink operation yeah it is that literally the premise of the goodbye girl which is probably like the same year yes which is like
[01:29:59] we're both we're like double booked to live in the same apartment I guess we got to live together right except in this one they fall in love while he investigates the Jewish Avenger murders of various other people because she hands him a note that is
[01:30:15] written in Hebrew which he brings to a rabbi played by the mayor of ghostbusters yes David Margulies who then like breaks it down for him but says like these two letters don't mean anything right that's an M and a Z they must be someone's initials right so then
[01:30:31] this gets to the library thriller aspect of this movie then he goes to see John Glover he has to keep on seeing Jewish intellectuals to have them make sense of these notes and they talk about like the Avenger of Blood go El right who is a you know
[01:30:45] biblical it's like I don't know angry Avenger type but then when when he kills Charles Napier then Sam Levine not the same not little Wolverine yeah comes out and goes like I gavalt you murdered the guy and he was like who are you what are you
[01:31:05] doing here and he's like I'm from the good Jews trying to make sure that you don't get in trouble with the bad Jews but I don't know what's going on at all and then they become like it becomes a buddy picture yeah he's like his side the way
[01:31:19] the way he finds out about this by the way is that it so he gets this note that has the Hebrew on it he goes to a rabbi who translates it for him and then as he's leaving that rabbi calls well I have to
[01:31:37] assume just other Jews like the good Jews basically and it's like hey listen we've got we've got a situation on our hands like the implications that they like all the good Jews know each other and are like in a secret secret
[01:31:51] it's like a society of cross keys from the Grand Budapest hotel like there's like a network of the most moral Jews of which there are many but then okay look this whole movie is going on with all this shit Ben by the way is asleep Ben is asleep
[01:32:07] I'm yeah yeah I don't have anything to add this no I is hard to talk about I mean you guys are doing a good job so keep at it eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually eventually we cut to this scene of Janet Margolin suddenly dressed up
[01:32:23] in like a sort of lacy sexy get up yeah sex murdering someone in a bathtub a hotel with a view of Niagara Falls right and to the point that I was like did I miss 20 minutes of movie what is this it's
[01:32:37] we hard cut to it and she is such a sort of non-destructive is this Janet Margolin or is this the same person we're going to an entirely new person and this is supposed to be the devastating reveal of the movie it's like it turns out
[01:32:51] it's been her all along she was a fine actress and a handsome woman yeah I'm gonna be for Janet Margolin something very generic looking about her and this movie twice asked you to identify that it's the same character you've met when she's dressed totally
[01:33:05] different and it totally different scene in a totally different location to recognize her when Shider recognizes her in a photo right in which they zoom into the photo you go oh I that's her! wasn't she like 8th building any hall I don't know I yeah it's
[01:33:27] I really I was watching the scene of my wife and I are both looking at each other like is that is it the same if it's not the same lady I don't know what there's a file corruption along the way because there is no reason and then
[01:33:39] okay the weirdest thing about the sex murder among the weirder things about the sex murder is that the sex murder is she gets on top of him in the bathtub and then drowns him in the bathtub and there isn't like a secret like she doesn't pull any weird
[01:33:55] poison she just like sits on top of him until he drowns and it's like playful until it isn't like it seems like he's into drown play yeah until she just holds him back a little too long we've all fooled around with a little drown play obviously but then
[01:34:11] and then there is no by the way it is not explained their hat this is part of the part that's very confusing to me and you know I dismissed I know her grandmother was definitely part of the the the syphilis turn to death in a very very
[01:34:27] upsetting explanation yes yes I don't know if this woman was or not because what is confusing me is that she does have my computer guy and then murders him it makes and then photo it looks like her and the other two women are sex
[01:34:43] workers it feels like this but it's a really old photo it's like black and white to garety it's like what I don't understand did Roy Shiner know that that she was involved because she looks so much like a grandmother is that
[01:34:59] supposed to but that was supposed to be her grandmother and the photo I am deeply confused by this movie but yes I know yes that was her grandmother her sex scene with Roy Shiner comes after we've seen her sex murder another man correct almost immediately almost immediately
[01:35:15] after and then she goes back home and she's like you know what I'm ready to make love to you right she then she's ready to murder him and he's figured out who she is and she's like but I really like you so I don't actually want
[01:35:27] to murder you yeah and then of course there's only one way to resolve this throw her down agri-falls roll credits goodbye like that like that's the thing with the movie we're like I have a lot to unpack and the movies like get out of here the next showings
[01:35:37] in 15 minutes we got to clean up the popcorn like it's just it's so confusingly paced yeah it obviously it's a Hitchcock movie this is very much like it's a Hitchcock thriller right yeah it has the form of one and I will say you've talked about
[01:35:53] how like 90s like grissom legal thrillers like my crack handsome are like your catnip yes I feel the same way about like kind of like middling 70s like Hitchcock approximations yes 100% like this and like Silver Streak these weird movies that are like we're like trying
[01:36:09] to do Hitchcock but like it's kind of more like family plot because now the 70s have become so shaggy that you can't do the tight as a drum thriller anymore it has to have a bunch of weird like side tangents and like character riffs
[01:36:21] I mean this is that I find them pleasant to watch even when they're this sloppy yeah I tell you what's interesting about this one that I thought sort of broke the mold a little bit is that and and I don't know if this is like
[01:36:35] I don't know anything about Demi's work so maybe y'all can probably clue me in a bit better but um I don't feel like the aesthetics of this movie are doing anything to ratchet up the tension and in fact a lot of times I found
[01:36:51] the aesthetics this film like very pleasing there's like weird just like pleasing views there's this one scene where he's meeting someone in front of like a waterfall tunnel would be the best way I could describe it after he gets the blank assignment thing and there's like this bizarre
[01:37:07] you know very early in the film um there's a bit where like uh he passes a guy who's like playing a song on a ukulele it's all like very but it's very pleasant it's like very pleasant to look at it's very pleasant to listen to and it doesn't
[01:37:21] do anything to sort of set you the viewer on edge I think that is a Demi thing uh I mean I feel like he does try to make a cinematic world that is pleasant yeah and there's a lot of sort of like he does things that are
[01:37:35] unrealistic because he wants to make a movie that's the world he wishes he could live in right especially in this comedy run like he he goes between weird levels of realism and sort of like expressionism that are just like it would be nice if in the
[01:37:49] real life world like people treat each other like this or like dress like this or whatever but but also that's like kind of the defining thing about silence of the lambs is that like people think of it as one of the scariest movies ever made
[01:38:01] and he almost like aggressively issues any traditional sort of cinematic language for a thriller or a horror movie right that uh you know everyone always talks about like the other hopkins Hannibal movies get it wrong because all of them try to look scary
[01:38:17] and the thing that is scary about silence of the lambs is that everything is presented kind of in a banal way what a perfect way and he's using all the cinematic language that he had developed for comedies with the characters talking straight to the camera
[01:38:29] and all these weird things that shouldn't have worked and he makes this one perfect thriller like you know eight years nine years ten years after he makes this middling thriller twelve years right yeah right so it's like he makes this middling thriller then a decade
[01:38:43] later he makes one of the greatest thrillers of all time like the perfect archetype then he doesn't do that again he becomes kind of a drama guy and then he like makes one final like thriller at near the end of his career
[01:38:57] where he does a big remake of one of the most famous thrillers ever with like big movie stars yes and that's not really the like his zone that's not really his genre but within that it's like one weird commercial exercise one weird like him trying to
[01:39:11] get his feet as a filmmaker and then one perfect movie that everyone views as like the pinnacle of the art form in that genre right what a weird career weird career we're gonna dig into it further I'm not me I'll catch up I'll catch you guys
[01:39:29] you'll see us around Christmas I mean look this next run is gonna be great these these are gonna be a blast but the eighties are sort of their own subgenre right you're gonna have a lot of fun Ben you're gonna love them that's enough about
[01:39:41] I don't want to speak of it again no it's fine okay well it's not fine it's it's pretty it's a little rough it's a rough one and the bad good news is you can't watch it that's true it's on a video it is weirdly available on Blu-ray but
[01:39:55] not available to stream anywhere we had to find it through somewhat less legal means not a thing I promote can we do the box office for 77-78 alright 77-70 not I'm sorry 77 let's do the box office I have no what would be the time
[01:40:13] number one film of this year was quite successful it's quite successful hmm and what genre was it we discussed it science fiction science fiction fantasy film from 1977 not part of a franchise right sort of launched a franchise it launched a franchise so what like a like
[01:40:29] two or three or I couldn't even tell you nine there is a seltzer guy yeah this seltzer guy came close to this one very close to it so both seltzer tested for that yeah I was like the way from the lead of this one so you know running
[01:40:45] good movie he was almost I was almost a racer head 2010's a couple years later they didn't fit on my head the eraser wouldn't cast too wet he had the seltzer drove in first will seltzer looks like if they did a razor had the TV series
[01:41:01] for like six episodes you get will seltzer right yeah it's like and now he lives in Hawaii and solves crimes exactly like the sequel to the jerk you know the TV sequel to the jerk the jerk to you yeah do you know there's a jerk comma
[01:41:17] to oh yes that's about another jerk yeah I never seen it is enough of the film yeah no it's I mean it's like it's bad but it's not bad the film is called star wars yeah it is it is a star wars movie
[01:41:33] yeah it was a big hit number two at the box office though smoking the bandit correct $126 million I knew that because I just find that really funny right those were the twin prongs of pop culture at the time and like the only two movies to crack
[01:41:49] 100 million that year right well you know number three number three is listed at over a hundred but I think that may re-releases it was another definitive science fiction I feel like that pairing covers all that yes it does
[01:42:03] your dad is either a smoky fan or a star wars fan right it's one or the other this is the year that culture breaks in half you know and up until this point every father would say smoky and the bandit is who you should aspire to be
[01:42:15] and now half the dads become Clint McElroy and raise their children in the house of Star Wars yeah number three crazy that they came out the same year as Star Wars it's another science but it's not alien alien that's 79 I know it's gonna come
[01:42:33] it's crazy that it also came out in 77 it does it spawn sequels no no it's a one off sci-fi film yep they came out the same year and I believe was also nominated for Best Picture it's it's one of my favorite Simpsons jokes it's interesting
[01:42:49] it's one of your favorite Simpsons jokes from a tree house on a horror episode weirdly was not nominated for picture was nominated for director interesting yeah and is there a full tree house a horror parody of it or is it
[01:43:03] standalone joke Simpsons is made fun of this movie a million times one of the most famous it's just like a yeah I mean they've probably done it many times but it there's this one moment that I always think about it's one of the most famous movies ever made
[01:43:15] yeah do you got an idea what this is Justin I do I do but I'm a guest I don't want to shoot I want you to guess I want you to guess I'm feeling correct close to the third yes of course yes Homer makes
[01:43:27] a house out of mashed potatoes he says this is important I mean you know you know the the famous story I think it might have crossed a hundred million when it came out but the famous story is that Spielberg thought that close encounters was
[01:43:43] a disaster right and Lucas thought that Star Wars was a disaster after both them had put together their cuts and they briefly considered trading points on each other's movies I look unfortunately neither of them ever end up making much money no in this business
[01:44:01] Steven who was the last number four is another cultural touchstone I mean a very definitive movie even though I feel like it doesn't get enough credit people don't remember who directed it it's really just famous for like it's lead actor and it's
[01:44:21] look and it's soundtrack and stuff but like it's a great movie Saturday Night Fever Saturday Night Fever saga just depressed people in Bay Ridge Dancin yeah yeah a very a very sad movie that gets reduced to like a sizzle reel right and like a BG soundtrack
[01:44:39] like an R rated tough like fucking movie who directed it John Battum yeah who's like a good director who doesn't quite get that like new Hollywood crown in the same way as some of his peers but was like a massive hit and was like a major Oscar film
[01:44:55] 100% yeah although I think it only got a couple Oscar it only got one Oscar it only got best actor wow number five the big comedy of the year I already referenced it on this episode the big comedy of the year that you already referenced on this episode correct
[01:45:13] not an unwatchable movie definitely dated but I have seen it one big Oscar it won a big Oscar a performance Oscar yep a supporting I've produced is it Goodbye Girl okay Richard Dreyfus Neil Simon movie directed by Herbert Ross fun movie they have to live together
[01:45:37] close encounters and Goodbye Girl came out in the same Dreyfus was killing me it is insane how dominant Dreyfus was some other big movies then in 77 you got which too far the big war epic that was actually I think a disappointment because it didn't
[01:45:49] do well enough yeah Richard Attenborough movie got the deep which is like a Jaws rip off Peter Yates movie no yes no yes no I'm just trying to get over the fact that there is literally a four year span in which Richard Dreyfus does American graffiti
[01:46:05] Jaws close encounters of the third time it's 1973 to 1977 well sure yeah close encounter yeah you're right you're right right and then wins an Oscar for Goodbye Girl and is the youngest actor to ever win that Oscar well he's beaten by Adrian Brody at the time and then
[01:46:25] he looks like he's 55 right and then his career never ever gets close to that I had a driver say teacher that showed us Mr. Holland's opus because everyone told him that he looked like Mr. Holland from the final scene of the film and it was
[01:46:41] the first time as growing up as a young person I had a clear concept of someone who had given up and this man had given up this man was done professionally this man had had checked out do any of you remember
[01:46:55] they used to do on the Disney Channel when the Disney Channel was a lot of like important family social value stuff right they used to have a yearly award show for teachers that sounds like it was like the national teachers and the award and the celebrities would go
[01:47:11] like they'd like walk out and they'd project a photo of their class photo and they'd be like I remember when I first fell in love with science I'm Matthew Broderick here to present the award for best science teacher of the year and Disney had made Mr.
[01:47:25] Holland's Opus and was doing this award show and they play the entire trailer for Mr. Holland's Opus not just during the broadcast but in the auditorium where this is happening and then they go ladies and gentlemen the star of Mr. Holland's Opus Richard Dreyfus
[01:47:43] and he comes out and he goes Jesus Christ look at me started making that film I look 25 now I look like the monopoly man right I have never forgotten that joke it's a good joke but it's also so weird that it is like Richard
[01:47:57] Dreyfus was the youngest actor the wind best actor he looks old looked like a middle-aged man exactly like the only time he looked young was when he was 18 and then he looks old and then he looks really old and then like the first half of Mr.
[01:48:11] Holland's Opus they're putting makeup on him to pretend that he's young and then the end he looks like how he actually looks and then he makes that movie The Crew which was like four old mob guys and it was Burt Reynolds and Seymour Cassell and Dennis Farina
[01:48:25] and Richard Dreyfus and he was 10 years younger than the rest of them but I mean like doesn't this guy look like a 48 year old academic he's like 29 in this poster that's insane Albert Finney is like that Finney is an old face Scrooge musical
[01:48:43] just called Scrooge that we watch every year and he looks 70 years old and he was 13 years old yeah 34 years old it's wild yeah it's not some people other movies in the top 10 spy who love me the James Bond movie Annie Hall which is obviously the best picture winner
[01:49:03] oh god the George Burns the original comedy yes alright 1979 however number one film of the year the number one film of 1979 I feel like we've done this before have we done this? I don't know we might have let's do it again anyway let's do it again The Omen
[01:49:27] we have done this number three big sequel number three is a big sequel huge sequel a huge sequel is a Rocky II number four big fucking masterpiece war movie number four apocalypse now number five the most stoned movie ever made number five is the most stoned movie
[01:49:51] ever made yeah it's my opinion up in smoke no no you're thinking inside the box think outside the box it's a movie for weed heads yeah but from the director of the sound of music and no drugs are done oh Star Trek the motion picture
[01:50:05] David's whole fucking take is that Star Trek the motion picture is the equivalent of a planetarium laser light show exactly it fucking rules then alien 10 the jerk moon raker again so another Bond movie the Muppet movie that's the top 10 I mean that's maybe the best box office
[01:50:23] top 10 I've ever heard pretty good top 10 actually it's a good call the standard of quality in that top 10 is incredibly high yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you're right because like the jerk like you know everything yeah Muppet movie masterpiece jerk masterpiece alien masterpiece apocalypse now
[01:50:41] wait hold on what who am I who am I doing right now no one's gonna hear it though I'm gonna have to I want to pull this episode I'm gonna have to keep this episode in my wallet and pull it out and show it to
[01:50:51] people to prove I was on this show hey thank you I like right under the wire yeah I earned that's the important thing I just want to say how much I appreciate your show I was never a big movie person and then after
[01:51:09] we had Griffin on the show I decided to give this show a shot and it's really giving me a context to which I can like dig into movies like there the vast vast vast majority of movies you all talk about I have not seen
[01:51:23] so it has been a real education for me and I just I think it's such a wonderful thing y'all are doing and I'm so happy to be involved in some small way that should have been your title for that miniseries okay
[01:51:43] so Ben stopped recording are we recording again now yeah fuck I must have hit like a button or something okay so for the listener Ben went to the bathroom and stopped recording and we spent four minutes saying very nice things to each other
[01:51:55] I didn't mean to do it fuck me I hit fucking C-Sport oh yeah oh wow my nice things are still on my track so you can just play mine and then leave theirs like with silence afterwards as if I said I put my heart
[01:52:13] on my sleeve and then they just gave me nothing in return that would be that's the ideal I mean I think we got to do that and I think much like last embrace we should let that play out without context and only have the listener
[01:52:25] make sense of it once we get to this point where we explain what just happened Ben has kicked the recording track in the nuts Ben looks real upset Ben is truly hitting himself in the head with the mic oh I know it's just like dumb
[01:52:37] but for the listener that's fun okay yeah okay and you got to believe we said some very nice things about Jocelyn we gave him comedy points you'll never know how many we gave him but you'll hear the joke that got the comedy points
[01:52:55] fuck me wow what a twist ending yeah well I guess you know it was good that I did that and then yeah well Justin thank you for being on the show thanks Justin it's been my
[01:53:13] brother my brother and me the mother ship one of the greatest podcasts of all time advice for the modern era adventure zone which is now a series of successful books in addition to being one of the most successful podcasts where you guys have long running D&D
[01:53:29] campaigns and then you do Saw bones with your wife my wife's a physician it's a medical history show about weird ways we used to fix people all excellent shows you you're the best in the biz oh well that's what says in my business card
[01:53:47] and I guess this episode coming out after the New York shows but you guys are doing shows around people should look up dates and see when you're performing right yeah right that's exactly right you're doing shows around
[01:54:03] we're actually pretty well sold out for the rest of the year okay never mind when did this come out this is gonna come out in early November sorry folks you miss us for this year or I'll catch you next year
[01:54:17] and David Ben and I will be in the audience at a Brooklyn show that our audience will not have heard us talk about yet yeah that'll be us we'll come out several weeks after it but yeah thank you for being here Justin my pleasure and thank you all
[01:54:37] for listening please remember to rate, review, subscribe thanks to Andrew Gouda for our social media Lane Moncari for our theme song Pat Rounds and Joe Bowen for our artwork go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit go to Patreon for blank check bonus features
[01:54:55] where I think we're coming up on Infinity War now we're almost done with the Marvel commentaries we only have four more left Endgame in a couple days okay great so that's what's going on there we're in the endgame now now I still, you know what I have
[01:55:24] because I'm recording the call I have the rough cut of the rough audio Skype audio of your all's part for that episode so you can reenact it let's do that yeah that sounds like a lot of work but yeah let's do it