In the Cut with Jourdain Searles

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, don't know what to say, check

[00:04:38] them out. But them releasing a movie like this is unfathomable. But they did not finance this film at all. Sure, I'm just saying. That's the only thing. It got, just to see the logo in front of it is bizarre.

[00:04:48] It is bizarre because usually you would see that in front of like the Mothman prophecies or whatever. Right, right. Absolutely. Right. It's bizarre. I mean didn't this come out on like Halloween too? Yes. It came out October 31st, 2003. The day itself. Yeah. Absolutely should not have come out.

[00:05:03] Well. It should have come out in the summer. Absolutely. In terms of the atmosphere of the film, like that would make the most sense. Hot months. Yeah. It's a sweaty movie.

[00:05:12] I guess it's like if you're gonna sit someone down and say you got to see in the cut, I guess you would say like, it's like a romantic thriller, but it is like that, you know, there's a killer on the loose.

[00:05:24] So I guess you could sort of convince the studio like this is a fall thing. This is an adult thriller. But also look, it had done the rounds of festivals. It was hated.

[00:05:32] And Halloween is kind of a dump weekend because like, you know, people go to fucking parties all weekend. I mean, it's like Halloween day itself, wherever it lands is always like an incredibly bad movie going day. Right? Because everyone wants to fucking go out.

[00:05:52] Unless it's a horror movie for. Yeah, right. Right. But even then it's usually like the day before or after that movie might have a good weekend. But that day is just like a fucking nothing.

[00:06:01] To release like an adult drama on Halloween just feels like a complete shrug of like, I don't contractual obligation. We backed ourselves into this. This is talking about contractual obligations that we backed ourselves into. This is year seven of a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David.

[00:06:18] I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they're in the cut, baby. Sure.

[00:06:32] What do you what's your contractual obligation angle here? I just make a joke about us being trapped doing this show forever, which of course I kid because I love it and I love you. Oh, I love you too. I say I love you to people more.

[00:06:46] Yeah, you should. Ben, I love you. Producer Ben. I love you too, Griffin. This is a miniseries on the films of Jane Campion. Yeah. It's called the podcastiano. Absolutely. Today we're getting to. I was thinking with that. Just really quick.

[00:07:02] Have you ever thought we could go like a podcast podcastiano, you know, like Mambo Mambo Italiano? Have you ever thought about that, guys? I think I'm going to put that on like a TBD, right? Like what's table? David, I have to admit, I have thought about it.

[00:07:21] You've thought about that? I have because I kept on saying, like, I wish the name of this miniseries was a little more abstracted when people hear it. It makes too much sense too quickly. Hence why I've been throwing the Italian accent on it.

[00:07:33] And I'm like, no, let's get further away from any recognizable word. It's also funny now that the piano is behind us and we're covering in the cut. Right. So called the podcastiano. I know. I'll say this. In that one sense, I'm glad she hasn't made 20 movies.

[00:07:48] Like if we had to do 15 post piano episodes and I was still saying podcastiano, I'd feel a little bit silly. But I don't. I feel very normal and smart. Good. You are. I guess joining us, of course, film critic, host of the Bad Romance podcast and notable

[00:08:06] in the cut Stan. Recent. Sorry. Sorry. Say your name again. I'm sorry. I talked to Jordan Searles in the cut scholar. You recently introduced a screening of it right at a nightclub in Williamsburg. Like very recently. Yeah. And it was it was a really good time.

[00:08:22] Like almost every seat was filled. I feel like we only had like four extra tickets or something like that. It's crazy. You are cited on the Wikipedia page for this movie in the subsection about like the reclaiming of it. I'm so glad.

[00:08:35] I mean, I saw this movie for the first time in the fall of twenty eighteen and wrote about it for the first time at in January twenty nineteen. So it's just been wild. It hasn't been that long since I've seen it, but I just immediately latched onto it.

[00:08:52] And and I had been avoiding it for years because I had heard that radioactive. Yeah. Wow. And I was and I've always been a Jane Campion fan. I love Jane Campion since I was a kid. I was that kid inappropriately watching the piano. So it's yeah.

[00:09:08] So it was it was kind of and I was so mad at myself when I finally watched it for avoiding it for so long because it's so incredible. I mean, David, you and I saw it together. You'd already seen it. I saw this film when it came out.

[00:09:22] Right. I've always been an in the cut fan on Oscar Watch. I was well known for being the in the cut is good person. Wow. Well, 17 year old David thought it was so smart, but it was good. Yes. Then and now we did see it.

[00:09:36] It was your Ed Lee Hulk. It was your derided film of 2000. Right. I was probably not that high on Hulk. Right. Whereas I was the person who was like, I'm telling you, four acting noms for Hulk. What a good year. 2003 was really good. Here's another thing.

[00:09:48] I'm looking at my list. 2003 was a really good year for like commercial cinema. Well, sure. There are great like foreign art house independent films, but also 2003 has blockbusters that are like good. It has good comedies.

[00:10:03] It has like good populist movies on top of everything else, which makes it a little bit of a rarity in the modern era. But my first time seeing it was seeing it with you. Oh, so you'd never seen we went to the quad.

[00:10:14] Me, you, Alex Ross Perry and his wife, Anna. That must have been I don't know, was that a 2017? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I saw it at the quad. I don't know if it was because I know it was playing in 2018. I don't know if it was.

[00:10:28] I think I mean, it's at the time of that screening. I knew you liked it, but I was mostly going to see it. I mean, you know, we want to make plans for the four of us to hang out. Right. Right. And it was like, oh, let's go.

[00:10:41] I remember we were right. We were just kind of like looking at like what's a good rep screening coming up? Right. Right. And I was like, oh, I'm interested in this movie that's a famous disaster.

[00:10:48] But I think I was going to with morbid curiosity more than anything else, you know? And there was that bizarre feeling of just like, oh, no, this is like good. This is not I don't even feel like I'm forming a radical opinion here. No.

[00:11:04] And the tide maybe started to turn a little bit, but I think it's gotten much louder in the last five years. I was just surprised. And then yesterday I saw my dear friend, Andrew Taven.

[00:11:16] And we were talking about how he had been watching Campion movies for the podcast recently. And he was like, I was watching The Cut and I was like, oh, it's great. Right. Yeah. You know, I guess it is. It made me feel uncomfortable. Sure.

[00:11:29] And I've spent the last five years so in the mode of like, of course, in The Cut is great. And everyone was unfairly critical of it at the time that it took him saying that and

[00:11:37] then me rewatching it last night to remind myself, oh, it is a deeply uncomfortable movie. Like as much as I think most of the criticisms at the time were stupid. There is a movie that does not like, well, you understand it being off putting the people,

[00:11:52] even if I feel like they misidentified what was making them uncomfortable and blamed it on other things that were dumb. Well, yeah, I mean, it seems like it was a movie that people were scared of, which is

[00:12:04] fascinating to me because, you know, I've always been really into erotic thrillers because I had one of those moms that was just like, whatever I'm watching, you're also watching it. I'm not changing it to something for kids.

[00:12:16] So I've so I've been watching erotic thrillers like my whole life. And I think that I was just so shocked because it was just this is an erotic thriller. There have been so many of these. What's the problem?

[00:12:30] But it's I think it's the vantage point of it, the perspective, the perspective of it that really, really makes people uncomfortable. And this is it, I would say at the tail end, right, of the erotic thriller like it is, you know, Unfaithful is the year before.

[00:12:47] And I remember Unfaithful having kind of this, oh, like another line still kind of cooking with gas a little bit. Remember him? You know, like, you know, but like that movie is a lot more prestige. Well, I don't even I don't even like that movie.

[00:13:01] I don't understand why people were David loves it. That movie people were OK, fine. I love that movie. But but that movie is a very, I would say, down the line. Yeah. Classic erotic thriller. Very male gaze. Right. It's like, you know, awful way.

[00:13:17] But it's an Adrian Lyne movie. I love the snow globe. Snow globe's good. I love the wind blowing around when she's feeling all crazy. Yeah. Let's also acknowledge like Michael Douglas was the king of the erotic thriller for like a 10 year period.

[00:13:31] Adrian Lyne was the guy who helped define that. And that's the model of what America feels comfortable with in an erotic thriller. And Unfaithful is him kind of closing the loop a little bit. Like, and it's like that era is done.

[00:13:43] We have not figured out what the next era of erotic thriller is. I'm looking at like a, you know, Wikipedia, but still a list of erotic thrillers. And the only other one in 2003 of any note is the French movie Swimming Pool, which is a pretty good movie.

[00:13:54] Yeah, I like that movie a lot. And was like that was like a breakout. That was like an arthouse breakout. Yeah, because it was your uncle's favorite movie. Absolutely. But nonetheless, it's a good movie. It was the first French movie my father saw in like 15 years.

[00:14:07] It was like because my mom is French. My dad's very American and my father has no interest in French movies. And I just remember him being like, is Swimming Pool still playing? My mom was like, he just wants to see this fucking movie.

[00:14:18] Obviously, you heard there's two sets of boobs. The movie is bad, but a couple of years later, you have Basic Instinct 2, which is sort of this like, hey, can we like, you know, put this back in the microwave and everyone's like, we're over it.

[00:14:29] I'm going to get back to this in a second. Yeah. And what else? Okay, wait, Swimming Pool is bad? No, no, no. Basic Instinct 2. Oh, Basic Instinct 2. Swimming Pool's good. I've never watched. It's not good. No. I mean, it's not a. It's not a good idea. No.

[00:14:44] What they did there. No, it doesn't seem. At some point I want to be more thorough and loop back around to all the other weird Verhoeven sequels I haven't seen. Oh, like that he didn't make? Well, I held off on seeing the Robocop sequels for so long.

[00:14:55] You finally watched those. But like, I've never seen Basic Instinct 2. I've never seen Hollow Men. Hollow Man 2 with Christian Slater. Direct to video. There are three direct to video Starship Troopers. There's a lot of, there's a whole world of Starship Troopers. But like Neumeyer directed one.

[00:15:10] I know, I know. I know, I know. Yeah. And like if it directed one, there's the Bazaar Showgirl sequel. Oh man, yeah. Pennies from Heaven? Yeah. Directed or like conceived by one of the supporting actors. It's all about her character.

[00:15:23] Look, as Jordana was saying, I do think it's the perspective was surprising to people. But also the Meg Ryan of it. Like just cannot be understated. It was just. Yeah. It was whatever. it's such an iconic example of a star, quote unquote,

[00:15:39] defying their image and throwing people off versus it prompting acclaim, even though she rules in this movie. People's relationship to Meg Ryan is something that I've never really fully been able to grasp. Like, I mean, a lot of it has to do with me not being white.

[00:15:54] I've always loved her, but the idea of her stripping naked and getting eaten out doesn't negate anything. It doesn't change the way that I feel about any of her work where she isn't doing that in a way that it clearly did for white people.

[00:16:13] There's sort of a three-point thing to address in where Meg Ryan is culturally at this moment, right? We talk about, I mean, she's like, obviously you have, you know, she breaks out in Top Gun and everything, right? But then obviously when Harry met Sally is the breakthrough, right?

[00:16:32] And as often is the case with movie stars, not that she isn't also a very skilled actress, but when you transcend into movie star, the one where the audience falls in love with you becomes the thing in their mind. But she is the ultimate example. That's the problem.

[00:16:46] She's also just defining the best version of that. Very packaged as a specific type. Anytime she deviates from it, forget in the cut, just think of Courage Under Fire or Addicted to Love or whatever, any movie where she's kind of trying

[00:17:01] to break out of the role she's best known for, audiences are not interested. This movie obviously is way more drastic, a swerve, audiences are not interested. She's such a talented actress and yet never got enough shots at being a success. Sorry, go, Jordan.

[00:17:17] Most range she was given was like, you can do City of Angels or When a Man Loves a Woman. You can play the sad version of a Meg Ryan character. She's great in When a Man Loves a Woman. She's a good actor.

[00:17:25] I think that she's actually great in Addicted to Love. That's another one that I rule. One of David's favorite movies. Yes, that's one of those that I heard was bad. Addicted to Love is really good. I'm planning on doing a bad romance episode on it

[00:17:37] to explain, no, it's good actually. What is wrong with all of it? Jordain, David has pushed the idea of a Griffin Dunn miniseries many times and I've said to him, we could also just do an Addicted to Love episode. But I also like Practical Magic.

[00:17:48] Oh yeah, you wanna talk about Practical Magic? Those are the two. I mean, I'm not a big Fierce People fan. Sure. But Lisa Picard is famous. I never saw Lisa Picard. Sure. But Addicted to Love is great, but even Addicted to Love, sure she's got the blonde hair,

[00:18:04] but it's a little spiky. And it's a romantic comedy, but it's like a bitter one. Yeah. Like people were just so sort of reined in to what they wanted from her and I think part of it is like,

[00:18:13] A, that's what they fell in love with her for doing, right? But B, it's like that was sort of a peak time for those genres. Yeah, absolutely. There was like a real like- Hollywood makes a lot of those kinds of movies

[00:18:25] and she's sort of a top of the heap. And she was so clearly the best at it that I think there was also a degree that when she wasn't doing that, people were like, come on, you're depriving us. Why aren't we getting our Meg Ryan movie this year?

[00:18:37] Right, right. Fucking, you're being selfish here. Before In The Cut, obviously, she's in Proof of Life a couple of years earlier. So that's point two. Which is sort of, again, it's sort of- That's the one where she did it with Russell Crowe

[00:18:50] and also she like cheated with Russell Crowe. Well, she, right. Her marriage to Dennis Quaid, who of course seems like a totally normal, chilled dude with no problems at all. This is what is so- I was trying to repel this to my father. Huge tabloid thing,

[00:19:04] they're obsessed over it. It wasn't just that there was a cheating scandal though. It was like, the Russell Crowe thing where they're like, yeah, of course Russell Crowe's gonna steal your lady. You know, he was at the peak kind of like, this is the masculine ideal. He's rugged.

[00:19:18] Russell Crowe's so charged. And it was like, I mean, I guess the phone throwing incident happens after this. Sure, he's crazy. Right, but also that next year there was that thing that I totally forgot about and dug up.

[00:19:28] And I feel like I mentioned this on a recent episode that there was like, the FBI intercepted a threat that the Taliban wanted to kidnap Russell Crowe before the Oscars because they thought it was the message that would most destabilize America. Oh, they were just like,

[00:19:42] this is the hinge point. Despite him being an Aussie, they were like, this would really fucking shake them up if we kidnapped Russell Crowe. They were basically like, we need to get the number one movie star, male movie star. Right, I just think A, everyone was so excited.

[00:19:55] I'm doing another list of ABC. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're welcome. People were just so excited that it was like, fuck it, new male star, new fucking alpha male. And he's like a heavyweight actor and he can fucking do action and all this shit

[00:20:07] and these fucking women and whatever. And then he fucked Meg Ryan and they were like, fuck you Meg Ryan, you've gone too far. I know, it was crazy. There was no shade on him. Everyone seemed to take Dennis Quaid's side, which is a little bizarre

[00:20:19] considering as you said that he's clearly a very normal person. Dennis Quaid was in his parent trap era at the time, he was like, I've kicked booze, I'm hot. Go ahead, Jordane. Dennis Quaid is a creep and I knew this when I was a child.

[00:20:33] He has always come off like a creep to me. It's very- A lot of stories. It doesn't take a lot of time to dig down and find. No, no. You guys aren't into the Denissance? Weird. Well look, we have no choice. The Denissance is just a reality.

[00:20:46] We have to acknowledge it. Jordane, he has a podcast called The Denissance. That's a real thing. It's on now. Absolutely untrue. No, this is fake. You're making this up. If you think about it that way, he's actually a co-worker of ours because he works in the podcast space.

[00:20:58] I absolutely hate the, the thing about it is is that like, I hate both Dennis Quaid and Russell Crowe and so my opinion to this information was, girl, I want more for you. Yeah. But I also understand that like, she, the thing is also that Dennis Quaid

[00:21:16] cheated on her a lot too so it's just like, it's like wild, it's just like okay, so he can go and get it somewhere and she can't, like give her some space man. Absolutely. But I think as opposed to maybe like Kidman, Cruz, Willis, Moore,

[00:21:31] I think a lot of this was Ryan, there was a perception of like, they're the normal Hollywood couple. Right, they're the People Magazine friendly types. Right. And I think people knew Dennis Quaid had a wild man reputation but it never was like Sean Penn

[00:21:45] where it was like all over the fucking tabloids and I think the perception at the time was, oh, she kind of domesticated him. So by the time she cheats on him, People were just very into it, it's like you said. Right. Her and Dennis Quaid,

[00:21:58] Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. Right. It was a power couple era. Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. Right, another one. Famously stable relationship. But I think they were perceived as the most normal. Because Meg Ryan is the girl next door. Exactly. Anyway, after that.

[00:22:12] So it's like that portrays that and then the third thing which we just have to acknowledge is she turns 40, right? And I think she is aware of the fact where it's like, I can't be Meg Ryan within these narrow confines forever.

[00:22:22] I need to in some way sort of start to experiment with what else I can do. Well, post Proof of Life, she makes Kate and Leopold, a great film. So Proof of Life is like step one of like,

[00:22:33] can I try to work in sort of the courage under fire genre? Right? That movie's a flop and it's a fucking Not a bad movie. Nightmare for her press wise, right? Then as you said, Kate Leopold. Which is her highest grossing film in the last 22 years.

[00:22:51] It's her last Meg Ryan movie. Meg Ryan movie, yes. Yeah. And she's doing it with a younger man and it's sort of like her being like, I maybe got one of these left in me. Yeah, new star. I just, I'm a woman now.

[00:23:03] Like I can't keep on playing these sort of what you call the Fliberty Gibbett roles. And I mean, you can see it in Kate and Leopold where her whole thing is like, yes, I'm Meg Ryan, but also like, I'm tired, I'm tired of your shit.

[00:23:14] I'm tired of all of this. I may be a little over being Meg Ryan. It's her character in Kate Leopold. Because he's been ripped from the timeline, elevators no longer exist. My favorite part of Kate and Leopold, because he invented the elevator. Elevators start vanishing.

[00:23:31] That movie has such like weird fungible like rules about like time travel that I am obsessed with to this day. It's that weird mangled effect of just everything's a little better than it needs to be. I agree. He puts a little more thought into the logic

[00:23:46] of these things in a way that makes it compellingly bizarre. It's the sort of Hugh Jackman is early, and so he's not picking his projects yet, and he's been like shoehorned into this like- He doesn't know who he is as a movie star.

[00:23:56] Time travel, you know, English Lord thing. And he just is sort of, again, he's just kind of like 20% more than whatever. Like someone else could have been, I don't know. I defend that movie. And we do. No, it's good. But yes, so that's-

[00:24:08] You want to watch Kate and Leopold right now? Yeah, episode over. His butter scene, really good. Oh man. But that movie is a hit, right? And just to go back- It's a solid hit. Just to acknowledge an obvious thing, 99 is You've Got Mail.

[00:24:22] So she ends off the millennium with like fucking third time around with Hanks, Efron again, just doing the exact thing. And then it's like hinge point, 2000, Russell Crowe, proof of life, Kate and Leopold, okay, you're back where we want you. Now, In The Cut-

[00:24:39] And then In The Cut. Is obviously intended for Nicole Kidman. Yes. Campion had been working on this movie since the mid 90s when she read Susanna Moore's novel, which came out in 95. Yeah. Kidman acquires it, like Campion takes it to Kidman

[00:24:56] and is like, your company should option this book. It's interesting. And Kidman reads it and is like, I agree. So that was the plan. Right, and it's like right after Portrait of a Lady. This book's published in 96? 95. 95, okay.

[00:25:10] And they have this idea that they can finance the film themselves by doing all the foreign pre-sales. Okay. That they're like, we have Kidman, we have a book that people can read. Sure. And Campion says she feels bad because she told Harvey Weinstein. Harvey Weinstein?

[00:25:32] Who is obviously a major producer of the moment. Yes, yes. That it could be kind of a seven type. She compares it to seven. And she says, I probably shouldn't have done that because it's not a great comparison. Obviously there's superficial comparisons you can make

[00:25:48] or whatever, but Harvey, I think, heard that and was like, we could use a seven. Like, great. And then the budget inflates and the whole thing gets harder to do. Harvey's involved for a while and then drops out because he's insane and awful or whatever.

[00:26:07] He's doing his usual bullshit where he's, I don't know, making weird demands about the story. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So they drop out and Pathé ended up funding the entire film, $12 million. Okay, okay. And then Screen Gems gets distribution.

[00:26:20] But Kidman is such a huge part of the package. Absolutely. Like, obviously. And this is, look, we talked about Portrait of a Lady like up until this point, but you know, Kidman post-divorce has this like kind of wild run,

[00:26:32] but she also drops out of a lot of things. Like she's supposed to do Panic Room and drops out like a week or two before. That's a big one. Right. She's really making like strong choices in her movie, Stardom and you know, some of them good,

[00:26:45] some of them bad. She's post-divorce, she's post-Eyes Wide Shut, which is this huge grueling shoot. She had a bad knee injury, she said, which is the reason she didn't do Panic Room, she says, it's the reason she didn't do this movie. Yeah. And she also said like-

[00:26:58] Right, because Moulin Rouge was like a two year shoot because of her injury. That was a crazy thing. Right, right. And she said like, I love, I was so happy when Meg Ryan got the chance. I love when people get chances to do things

[00:27:07] you don't immediately think, oh, that's perfect for them. I love all of Jane's films. People like her change the world artistically. I mean, she speaks very like- Yes. Benevolently about like, that was great. Meg Ryan's great. No, I- Like no beef.

[00:27:22] I don't think in either of these cases, the film would have been maybe loved by- No, but the film would, people would have gotten it with Nicole Kidman, I guess. And by the way, I think they would have gotten it with Jennifer Jason Leigh.

[00:27:35] I think both of those are actresses. I've just to do the mental experiment because I was watching the movie and like flipping them in my head. Certainly, I mean, right. Jennifer Jason Leigh, this is just an art house movie. Right, right. But like Kidman, you could have,

[00:27:48] because I mean, she does fucking movies like Birthday Girl around the same period of time where people are like, I don't know, it's a crappy Nicole Kidman erotic thriller. There's no question. Right, like even if they disliked it, they wouldn't have been like, how dare you?

[00:28:01] How do you feel about Kidman in this movie, Jornay? Like, you know, the original plan. I mean, it probably works. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it probably works, but there is something. I think that Meg Ryan brings something so interesting to it.

[00:28:15] Like I believe Meg Ryan as an English teacher, I think more than Nicole Kidman as an English teacher. Nicole Kidman is like a harder edge performer. Like she would have maybe a little tougher sell because like there's elements of this character

[00:28:30] that's kind of, she's a little bit of a whatever. Her presence is more chill than I think that Nicole's would have been. Agree. Meg Ryan's a much more naturalistic act. Yeah, yeah. And like that's, in my opinion. And I love Nicole Kidman. I'll watch anything with Nicole Kidman.

[00:28:46] I ride for Destroyer. I think that it's actually really interesting in a situation where like. You might be on the Destroyer episode or whatever that happens. Not a lot of Destroyer riders out there. No, like well this thing is like, I feel like the Destroyer situation

[00:29:00] is similar to the Meg Ryan situation with this, which like it's Nicole doing something that nobody really expected her to do and nobody really wanted her to do and just really rejected her. I mean, the makeup didn't help, but just like rejected her on it.

[00:29:14] Whereas like, yeah, this is something that you would not expect Meg Ryan to do. And I think that there's an easy rejection that comes with that. But I think that Nicole could have done it. But I also think that Nicole did Eyes Wide Shut

[00:29:27] and that was quite enough. Right, that's right. She's sort of been in that zone recently. That's true. The movie is better for having Meg Ryan in it from today's vantage point, but it certainly worked against the movie at the time. And I think Nicole Kidman is in general

[00:29:42] a far more stylized performer. Yeah, exactly. Right? And I think this movie is so stylized that it helps to have someone in the center of it who's like very raw and understated and gentle. I think that's what discombobulates people a little bit, right?

[00:29:56] They're like, I don't get it. Is this movie X or is it Y? Because the movie still does have vaguely 7S aesthetics. Like it has like the color palette of a Francis Bacon painting and the weird shallow focus and the jagged editing and all these things.

[00:30:12] And then to have someone at the center of it who's not sort of steely and holding their own in this femme fatale way, I think made everyone go like, A, how dare you make us look at Meg Ryan in this light? And B, she feels miscast

[00:30:25] because she's not matching the energy of the look of the film. But she is though. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. The thing is that when you have a kind of like noir, not everybody is going to be on the wavelength of that. And that's what's interesting

[00:30:42] because if everybody's playing the game, then it almost kind of seems like a joke a little bit. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. I don't know. I was thinking about who else I could see in this role. And aside from Nicole Kidman,

[00:30:55] I would honestly say that Holly Hunter could have done it. I mean, yes. Holly Hunter could have done this. Holly Hunter. Holly Hunter has a similar, and the thing about Holly Hunter is that I don't think that she had the same confines

[00:31:08] in terms of what people expected from her. People, once again, might not have liked the movie. She'd already done Crash by this point. They wouldn't have rejected it as violently. But again, would it put it more in an art house bucket? Yes. This is true.

[00:31:22] Probably just would have been in a different cell. But this movie probably, I don't know, it's probably not gonna go over that well. Well, I mean, I wonder if it's just like it was a bunch of mainstream audiences watching it and expecting what they usually expect from her.

[00:31:38] And it's like, yeah, I guess you don't really think about Meg Ryan as an art house performer. Look, this is one of those movies that famously got an F Cinema score. And there's that argument that you could now curate an incredible film festival,

[00:31:54] a retrospective series of just movies that got Fs from CinemaScore. But the thing about the F rating is that is solely reflective of audiences feeling betrayed by how the movie was marketed to them, right? Yes, exactly. Because you're gauging people who went to see the movie

[00:32:09] opening weekend, had that desire to go see it, and then feel like they were bamboozled or tricked in some sort of way. That's usually what an F Cinema score suggests. Yes, of course. Like this is not the movie I was expecting.

[00:32:22] Right, I thought I was seeing a fucking cool Brad Pitt crime movie and I'm watching him do monologues about the economy collapsing. Great movie, but that's like an example. Come down to 2,000 screens of people. Solaris, I thought this was like a sci-fi movie. Right. Why is everyone crying?

[00:32:37] It does make you question though, like, what you're saying, Jordane, people just don't wanna see Meg Ryan doing this. But then you go, what did people think they were buying a ticket for? Like I understand them being upset, but I don't understand what they thought they were seeing.

[00:32:48] Well, who knows? Look, there's just some movies like that that are just not, they're ahead of their time or whatever. They're not for their moment. This movie rules. It had its defenders, speaking as a little, snotty teenage defender of this movie,

[00:33:01] it had its defenders at the time partly. The Jane Campion factor is always huge for that. Manola Dargis wrote a review where she was like, it's kind of the best messy movie of the year. Yes. Right. But yeah, so it was not universally despised,

[00:33:15] but obviously it was not an awards contender. And the Meg Ryan thing just sort of dominated the contemporary discussion. And then the year after this, there's a, what's it called? Against the Ropes, the Charles S. Dutton boxing trainer movie where people are like, what the fuck is this?

[00:33:29] And then she sort of like is gone for three years. Yeah, she comes back. Does in the Valley of Women. That movie doesn't go anywhere. Does the V Women remake, like hasn't done anything in seven years since directing a film. Has done like in the last 10 years,

[00:33:44] like three TV pilots that didn't go where a couple times networks have been like, it'd be cool to save Meg Ryan, right? Like we should reclaim her. But she just really winds down more and more after this movie. The Women was her big commercial play.

[00:33:59] Her only big commercial play that I can remember since then. Right. She was in a Curve episode once. Remember, she'll show up in something and you'll be like. She did four episodes of Web Therapy, the Lisa Kudrow thing.

[00:34:10] She was gonna be the Bob Saget of the Greta Gerwig How I Met Your Father that never went beyond the pilot. Oh man, that would have been so much better than what Kim Cattrall is doing. Right, it's Kim Cattrall. Not only, no I have not seen it.

[00:34:26] I've seen the first four episodes. It's not only that it's her voice, but you see her, right? Because they're trying not to get into the box themselves in by filming some kids and then realizing like, oh shit,

[00:34:35] these kids are gonna grow up in a warm, big, and new tent. So you're seeing her on a couch. No, yeah, you're seeing her on the couch. But I also think the thing is, is that unlike in the original, where it was very clear that the kids

[00:34:46] were gonna turn out to be white, the show keeps on having Hillary Duff like dating people who are not white. Oh, okay. So if we saw the kids, if we saw the kids, then when we would know, even though I'm afraid- What if you shroud them in darkness

[00:35:01] like they're on CNN or whatever? Like the blowjob scene and then like, huh. She's literally just looking at a computer screen that we can't see. That's wild. Fair enough. No, but I found that there were like two other like TV movie quote unquote credits

[00:35:17] on her IMDb that were pilots that didn't go. There was some like, she's a fucking magazine editor show they tried to do. Like they've tried to do it a couple times and she just is sort of seemingly semi-retired now. Can we talk about Ruffalo a little bit?

[00:35:31] One of the great. I mean, he's like- Let's get Ruff. What a man. So he's this like theater dude who talks about he like couldn't get hired for so fucking long, right? The sort of supporting roles in indie movies and then just has this like insane breakthrough

[00:35:45] in You Can Count On Me, right? This like great fucking movie that gets Linny who's been respected for a while, the Oscar nomination. And it's a two-hander and everyone's like, who the fuck is this guy? And immediately everyone perks up and they're like,

[00:35:57] well, this is a new leading man. Well, he got the Brando talk. It's that anytime someone shows up and gives this sort of mumbly natural performance and is handsome, there's the immediate kind of like, is this sort of a Brando type? They're like, this guy's earthy, he's sexy,

[00:36:13] but he's a serious actor. He's got this interesting masculinity. So they start trying to put him in things, right? And he talks about he's getting courted by all these big directors. He's taking just massive meetings. He starts to get put in a couple of big studio movies.

[00:36:27] And then he has this like fucking horrible health crisis. He has a brain tumor. He has a brain tumor. It was like, they thought it was an inner ear infection. It becomes a brain tumor and he's like out of commission for like two years. I guess it's right.

[00:36:41] He has the brain tumor in 2001. So it's right after You Can Count On Me. There's a bunch of stuff he drops out of. Like he's supposed to be Joaquin Phoenix in Signs. Yeah, right. That was the big one that I remember. There's another big movie I'm forgetting

[00:36:54] that he turns down where it like, he doesn't want people to know that he's sick because it's still a time in Hollywood where people hold that against you. I guess so. So he like sort of gets pegged with like, is this guy torpedoing his career?

[00:37:06] Why is he dropping out of all these big movies? But in reality, he fucking had a very scary experience. He had an operation. He was out of commission for about a year. Obviously he has some facial paralysis, which you can see to this day.

[00:37:21] Things that have only made him more compelling and charming as a performer. He was I think deaf in an ear for a while. The whole thing is, you know, that's an early, but he is, this is his comeback movie, basically. This is my exact point.

[00:37:35] So it's like, the perception at the time is like, this guy torpedoed his fucking career for this? Like he dropped out of all these other movies and this is what he's doing instead? Does he like not want to be a movie star? Sure.

[00:37:50] And post this, he has this interesting little run of supporting roles that he's really good in. Eternal Sunshine, Collateral. He's in Just Like Heaven, which he feels like kind of uncomfortable in, I feel. You know what I mean? And 13 Going on 30. He's cute in 13 Going on 30.

[00:38:10] He's talked about that he was just like, A, he wanted to prove box office viability by being in hit movies, right? And B, that everyone just said like, this is a no-go, you're never gonna be considered for romantic comedies. And he sort of out of spite was like.

[00:38:25] I'll give it a shot. He'll give it a shot. And then he got stuck in this fucking corridor. And it's like, he did View from the Top, 13 Going on 30, Just Like Heaven, Rumor Has It. This was a period of time

[00:38:35] where I had my brother called Ruffalo the Mailman. Cause it was like, this guy used to be great. And I was fucking just mailing it in, standing next to a woman going, I love you. I don't know honey. But see, I was always, again, snotty little guy,

[00:38:45] but I was always like, in the cut, Eternal Sunshine, Collateral. These are three really weird performances, very different. But he's taking supporting roles with interesting directors. Yes, yes. I'm saying after the collateral on Eternal Sunshine. This is a lead role, yes. Collateral is the one where

[00:39:03] I feel like people walked out of that movie not knowing he'd been in it. Cause he looks so different and he's not in it that much. And that was just like, ooh, collateral. You have Reservation Road and We Don't Live Here Anymore, which is a very middling,

[00:39:17] but him sort of doing the earnest adult drama thing. Reservation Road was one of those movies that was sort of like, well, that's not, you know, Joaquin, Ruffalo, Connelly, who had an Oscar, Terry George. And no one's ever seen that film. No one's ever seen that film.

[00:39:31] And then there's the bigness, which was another one where it's like, oh, that's the followup from the City of God, Constance Gardner guy, Julianne Moore. That'll be big. I would argue that- Everyone's blind. Despite it being a flop at the time, Zodiac was the moment where it's like,

[00:39:44] oh, he's kind of reclaiming the role that we all thought he was gonna take on. 100%. Right? Kids Are All Right is his first Oscar nomination. Right, which at that point- That's how long it took. It's sort of like, oh, that feels weirdly overdue

[00:39:56] for a guy who in 2000 felt like he's about to become Edward Norton or whatever. And then for Kids Are All Right, you're like, it's funny that this was his first nomination. He's hot in that movie too. He's very hot, but he's essentially hot and charming in that movie.

[00:40:09] He's like, I did four days of work on it. I was in this period where I thought maybe I didn't want to act anymore. He was trying to direct. And he was like, I did less than a week on this movie

[00:40:18] and I got this Oscar nomination and now I guess I'm back. And then he fucking gets Avengers off of that. Pretty much. And like, you know, Shutter Island, Grey's Anatomy, Mark- Yes, there's a good run here. You know, like, yeah, he rules. Do you like Ruff?

[00:40:33] Apart from in the cut, are you a general Ruffalo fan? I love Mark Ruffalo. I mean, part of it is that I find him to be very hot. And also I heard that his kids call him Papa, which I also find very hot. I call my father-

[00:40:47] I just, Papa, there's just something hot about that. No, but I love Mark Ruffalo. He's amazing and you can count on me, which I actually saw, I saw that after in the cut. I had never seen it. It's so fucking good. No, I think that he's great.

[00:41:01] I think that he has it. I am very- Continues to have it. He continues to have it. He's always had it. He will always have it. And I'm very, and I will be very happy when I can watch him do not a Marvel.

[00:41:17] I mean, like, he does do not a Marvel. I would say he does a better job. Right, is that he at least, he'll consistently do non-Marvel stuff. And anytime the Marvel stuff comes up, he's like, yeah, I don't know. But I can still watch like Dark Waters

[00:41:31] and I can be like, yeah, that's my man right there. I mean, David and I talked about this, but in our Space Jam episode, we took stock of the fact that essentially since being brought into Marvel, Don Cheadle has done 10 Marvel things and two Showtime series.

[00:41:47] Right, he's kind of just doing that. Right, like Don Cheadle's kind of an actor we lost to movies outside of Marvel and now maybe he's coming back a little bit. But Ruffalo has sort of, like he's kept things fairly balanced.

[00:41:59] Did you guys watch that twin thing he did? No. I feel like no one watched that. No one watched that. You gotta look at that before it. I know. It was a thing. And he's now had four Oscar nominations? Three.

[00:42:09] Three, it's Foxcatcher, Kids Are All Right, and Spotlight. They knew. They knew. They knew. It's funny how everyone was like, Spotlight's gonna get like fucking three best supporting actor nominations. And then it was sort of like cannibalizing each other and he was the one who got in

[00:42:25] because he has the Oscar scene. No disrespect to him, but he would be like my fourth pick out of that cast. But it speaks to at that point everyone was just sort of like, yeah, Mark Ruffalo. I remember at the Oscars that year when everyone's expecting Stallone

[00:42:39] and they announced Mark, I was like, they're fucking giving Ruffalo the career achievement. I for that second, when they said Mark, I was like, it's Ruffalo. No, well it wasn't. It was Ryan Reynolds. It was Mark Ruffalo. Mark Ruffalo is so hot.

[00:42:51] Another guy has had his penis sucked on camera. That's true. Mark Ruffalo is so hot that slipping that in on this episode, we were just talking about it. Because it's a movie about blowjobs. It is a movie that begins with a blowjob basically.

[00:43:04] It's pretty much the first thing in the movie is Franny, Franny Avery is meeting a student. She's a high school teacher, right? Or is she like a, is this, right? Okay, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I was trying to figure this out.

[00:43:19] I thought that it was community college. I think it might be community college. That's what I thought. Her students are fairly young, but they do look older than like teenager teenagers. Yeah, Cornelius looks like. He looks like 20. Yeah, he looks like 20.

[00:43:33] Okay, so she's a writing teacher kind of, right? Like she's an English teacher, but I feel like she's a writing, like she's a creative writing concentration. She's talking to Cornelius at a bar. I guess that's another indication that he's not 17 years old. Right. At a bar. Yes, yes.

[00:43:49] And she sees this sort of, she like walks back into the back of the bar and sees like a woman sucking a guy's dick. And you know, there's like blue fingernails and the guy has the tattoo. Like that, those are the only details, right? Yes. It's all mysterious.

[00:44:07] Right. But this is shot like anytime they show up and see the new dead body in Seven. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like the Seven analogy is interesting. Now, Griff. Yeah. You're downtown Griffey Nooms. It is what they call me.

[00:44:26] This is a movie that's very much centered in downtown Manhattan. Yes, it's very much an East, Lower East Side. Oh, so this bar, that's what I just felt like we have to say because this bar is like a recurring sort of like setting in the movie.

[00:44:43] It is so Lower East Side. Yes. Even just down to like, you go to the bathroom in the basement and it is, they're always truly terrifying and it looks like you're gonna get murdered there. I'll say this, the year I turned 21,

[00:44:57] I lived on Second Avenue and Sixth Street and I'm very glad that timed out the way it did because I feel like at the exact moment that I could legally go to any bar I wanted to, I got the final wave of all those bars

[00:45:10] before they closed down. Like I was just all those fucking incredibly grimy in the cut as someone had been murdered here tonight or people having sex in that booth bars. I got before all of them got turned into fucking city banks. Truly.

[00:45:23] But yes, it is interesting to watch this movie now because it captures such a specific moment of, the Lower East Side is still genuinely grimy. Yeah. Well yeah, I noticed in some, I really don't like reading negative reviews of movies that I like.

[00:45:41] Like I don't like, that's not something that I enjoy but I did suffer through a few of them for this one and the way that they talked about New York and it's just like, it's a fake kind of like 70s-esque New York and it's like,

[00:45:54] and I'm just like, I mean no, not really. I mean it's shot in a very stylized way but it looks more like New York than a lot of movies set in New York. I mean we've talked about this a lot on the show I feel.

[00:46:06] Like we invoke whenever we talk about sort of old New York movies or new New York movies or whatever it is. But there's this point in which I think between Seinfeld and fucking Sex and the City, the public's idea of New York radically changes. Sure, New York is-

[00:46:22] And it's also Giuliani's coming out and he's like Disney store, Times Square and everyone's just like, New York isn't scary anymore. At best the tough guys are a walk on part in one scene and they give you business and you tell them to fuck off

[00:46:34] and like all of New York is Magnolia Bakery now. Well I think that like large swaths of New York were, right, were sort of being cleaned, quote unquote cleaned up, right? You have a certain amount of shows that are very selectively covering certain neighborhoods and establishments

[00:46:50] and it starts to, as Wild the Mayor's getting out there and saying that he's cleaning it up. And I think it is wild that in 2003 people were like, what is this fake dangerous New York he created? And it's like pretty fair representation

[00:47:02] of what New York felt like at that point. The novel is set in the West Village because it was written in the 90s. Sure. And Campion changed it to the Lower East Side. Because West Village had already been totally Bradshawed at this point. Because right, she's like the,

[00:47:15] it's a little more, you know. Yeah. So like there's that danger she obviously wants to seek out. Ruffalo is playing, I mean, you know, like he's playing a very specific type of cop that I think, you know, he's doing the thing

[00:47:32] where he like did 100 hours shadowing these guys, these like scumbags, you know. As had Susanna Moore, like the author of the book, like she'd spent tons of time in like riding around and going to crime scenes. And like, they basically had this takeaway

[00:47:49] of like these men are kind of doing whatever they want to do. Like, you know, it's like this, it's kind of frightening, but also undeniably, they have a lot of attraction. Like they're very attractive to people because they have this kind of like,

[00:48:02] no one's fucking checking in on them. Right. Which is why they're like both hot and really scary. Which is the whole fucking dynamic of this movie. And it's like in the microcosm, this movie's whole exploration of sexuality and power dynamics in general is like this weird thin line

[00:48:20] between like hot and scary. He is just so bizarrely good at both playing cops, which he's done a lot in different modes, right? Detectives, but also- Yes. In collateral, right? He's this like sort of slick back. In fucking Shutter Island. He's a federal marshal.

[00:48:39] He's duly appointed federal marshal. But also he is incredibly good at playing New Yorkers, right? Like you look at shit like Margaret, where you're just like, he really gets like New York specificity. He isn't playing some one size fits all, quote unquote version.

[00:48:54] He's like from Wisconsin and like, I think he spent his teen years in like Virginia or whatever. He's certainly not a New Yorker at all. And he's like a very gentle, politically, pretty radical guy. And you're like- He's always like, I imagine like riding up to me

[00:49:07] on a skateboard and asking me if I like, you know, want to sign his fracking petition. He's very crunchy. I think his wife's name is like Sunshine. But like, he's so weirdly good at playing both cops. Sunrise. Had to correct you there. You were pretty close.

[00:49:20] Pretty fucking close, my man. He's so weirdly good at New Yorkers and cops. And is this the only time he's played a New York cop? I guess so. So he's like, he's fucking bringing it all together and he's arguably in peak hotness at this point.

[00:49:34] I think he's so hot. Again, Jornay, I don't know. I mean, we agree that he's hot, but I feel like at the time people were like, ah, what's this like porn stash he's got or whatever. What's this voice he's doing? Whatever, whatever. These people, listen, listen.

[00:49:47] I don't understand what is wrong. Like this is, like as a professionally horny ex-Baptist person, I truly do not understand. Everybody sounds so pure to Anigal. It's like, oh, he's got a mustache and he's talking about eating pussy.

[00:50:03] And it's just like, what the fuck are you talking about? Watching him eat Meg Ryan's pussy, it's hot. That is hot. It's hot. And then you get on top of her and like hold her shoulder and all that. That's all super hot.

[00:50:16] But then I would say almost as hot is then him post-sex recollecting on the older lady with a big bush who taught him how to eat pussy. And like in this weird mix of like macho and vulnerable, you know what I mean?

[00:50:31] Like when he's like, I kinda don't wanna talk about this, but you can tell like he kinda wants to talk about this. The hottest thing for me, the thing that I don't know if I've ever seen a movie depict is like,

[00:50:41] oh wow, that was some sex we just had there. Can we dissect the sex we just had? Who told you how to do that? Right, and he's like, let me tell you about that sex we just had. And then he starts having sex with her again.

[00:50:50] And I'm like right back into it. The shot of him laying there naked, obviously like so I have the DVD, which has the unrated cut, which like this movie is sort of weirdly hard to, there's no Blu-ray of it except for as we discussed

[00:51:03] do you know about this, Jordan? There is six degrees of Kevin Bacon. I have it, oh I have it. The weirdest set of all time. Does that have the unrated? I didn't check, I don't know. I really don't know cause I also have it on DVD.

[00:51:15] Yeah, right, right. So yeah, no, I don't know. I'd have to check, but that one is so wild cause it's got hollow man. Flatliners. Flatliners. It's abandoned, the big picture. Is it, wait a second, is it like trapped? Trapped, I'm sorry. I was gonna abandon and trapped.

[00:51:33] Yes, I can't believe that. I used to mix up trapped and panic room all the time. It's like one of them has Kevin Bacon and one of them has Jared Leto. It is a weirdly blank checky box set. It's wild. For how disparate the films are.

[00:51:46] It is a fairly good encompassing. Oh, and it's got where the truth lies, the Adam McGuigan. Exactly, the threesome movie, they did like what if Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra fucked you movie. That's what that movie is. Yes. It's just bananas? Like exclude the big picture

[00:52:02] and swap in one more kind of horny Bacon movie. Sure. Like, you know, cause it's not giving you like the other sides of Bacon, the other sides of Bacon. But it is a good encompassing of like, I guess they throw in like wild things. Erotic Bacon. Yeah.

[00:52:17] You know, like that would be like, it's a fairly good sweep of those. It's just wild that it's a Campion, a Verhoeven, a Schumacher, a fucking Nagoyan, a guest. Right. And I don't know who made trapped. I don't know. I'm gonna look it up. Jimmy Carter? Luis Mandoki.

[00:52:35] Oh, right. Yes. The guy who did like Angel Eyes and always did when man loves a woman. Okay. Anyway. I will say, I think this is where you were going with this, David. Yeah. I was watching it on Netflix at a convenience. Yeah, it's on Netflix.

[00:52:49] The Netflix compression is so bad that I was like, I'm gonna switch over and put my disc in because I don't wanna lose any dick in this. Well, also it was so crunched and the movie's so shadowy. It is, but the American cut has a little,

[00:53:00] like it chops little bits here and there. So you don't, right. You know, cause they've gotten NC-17. I believe the Blu-ray is the unrated version. I might be wrong. You know, Campion's line about the NC-17 rating was,

[00:53:12] how do you know your film is gonna get past the rating? You don't know until you try. So she, you know, she submitted what she submitted and they cut out, they cut out like the visible penis in the blowjob scene

[00:53:22] and they cut out a little bit of Ruffalo dick. Yeah. But the shot of him lying there all casual, naked. And her, she's standing there and she's taking her dress off and he's like, take those off. And she shakes her head. You don't see that in Hollywood movies.

[00:53:36] Like it is, there's like a, you know, it is not just like, let's get to business. You know what I mean? Like that there's actual foreplay depicted in the movie in a non sort of goofy or scary way. Like it's not there to build the tension

[00:53:53] or there to, you know, like. It's extremely real. It's there to emphasize his prowess, their intimacy. Can I read this Meg Ryan quote? Please. So this is her at the Toronto Film Festival before the movie is declared. The movie doesn't go over well.

[00:54:07] Right, a class five health threat to the public. She, they're asking her about doing the sex scenes, which of course like before the movie came out was already the talking point, you know? Right. When I think people were like. How do people do that?

[00:54:22] What are you supposed to say? It's all kind of questions. This is one of the ultimate examples of the Meg Ryan publicity, I mean, the Michael Parkinson interview being the most famous where people just keep asking her like, how could you do something like this?

[00:54:33] Well, and I think with movies like this, there was always this thing of like, will the American public pay because they've always secretly wanted to see her naked. And she was in this weird zone where it's like,

[00:54:43] no Meg Ryan has to remain like a QP doll for me. Like she has to be, I just think the public did not want to have to engage with her as a woman with wants and needs in any way. And she's so hot in this.

[00:54:56] Like I was told, like the way that people talk about her body in reviews. It's insane. It's insane. Like what are you talking about? And even her face, everyone's just like, she's too old, she shouldn't be doing this. This is embarrassing.

[00:55:06] She, it's so, it just speaks to how puritanical America is because like, like Isabel Huppert could do this in her fucking sleep, man. And we would all. Once again, right. Then they're like, oh, well I know what that is. We got people.

[00:55:22] It's like fucking Holly Hunter did the piano early on. Kidman did dead calm early on. It's like, if you are able to make that part of your reputation from the beginning, people will continue to accept you doing that and they won't accept it this late.

[00:55:39] But I also think it's this thing that I think, I think this is true of the piano as well. I mean, several movies in particular, but like she's talking about how fascinating she is by watching people who are naked because it's like, there's an awkwardness to it.

[00:55:51] Of your physicality when you're that exposed. But I also think as opposed to so many nude scenes in movies that are like so composed and sort of like choreographed and all this sort of shit, she will hold on shots.

[00:56:05] So in this way, like Ruffalo, what you were saying about him just laying out fucking casually, but like Ryan too, you watch like the physics of their bodies changing as they move, which is a thing that you realize you don't see in movies

[00:56:19] that is like, yeah, everyone looks different sitting than they do standing up than they do lying down. You know? Anyway, she's asked on the red carpet or whatever while fucking promoting this movie at Toronto about doing the nude scenes.

[00:56:31] As you said, one of these questions where it's like, what the fuck are you supposed to answer? So were you comfortable doing the nude scene? And she's saying like, you know, she would have preferred not to do it, but like, you know, she felt like she trusted Campy

[00:56:41] and all this and she said, I think the scenes are really good though. I think they're very honest. Jane didn't want them to be coy. So I don't think they are at all. And I love how much dialogue is in those scenes. That's what makes them really intimate.

[00:56:54] Yeah. Yeah. Agree with that. Absolutely. Totally agree with that. And we're all like agreeing the hottest fucking moment in the movie is the two of them talking in between the first two times they fuck. But it's all pretty hot. Oh yeah. I think. Yes, yes.

[00:57:06] I also love that Kevin Bacon is in this movie. Uncredited. Uncredited in a fairly small role. And I think Kevin Bacon is so handsome and I love him as an actor playing the worst, least attractive guy in the world. He's playing a text from your ex post.

[00:57:20] The way he's styled, the way he's inexplicably shirtless a lot, the dog, everything about how he seemingly appears in the middle of a conversation he's been having with someone like- His energy is always wrong. He is always misreading the time. He's too light when he should be serious.

[00:57:36] He's too serious when he should be light. He's the worst New York City boyfriend. Like he encapsulates that in some way. Like I feel like I know so many people have dated guys. He feels like a fucking Instagram screenshot of just like, this is this insane thing

[00:57:48] this guy sent to me after one fucking Tinder date. Right? Like all of his dynamics of like threatening to put the dog down unless she takes it. And it's like, what are you talking? We don't have a relationship. He like, oh my God.

[00:58:01] Him just like walking up to random and is like, will you have sex with me? I'm going fucking insane. Yes. And also the idea that he was a soap opera actor who played a doctor that now is in medical school,

[00:58:15] but it's not presented as like a noble thing of like, he realized he wanted a more substantive job. It's almost like he got off on people viewing him as a doctor. He's like, oh, I should do this for fucking real. You know? Absolutely.

[00:58:25] And this guy, like, and after like fucking Meg Ryan, it's like, okay, well maybe I should just fuck your sister, Jennifer Jason Lee. Like this is fine. It's so insane. Right? And you're like, is this some weird negging move from him

[00:58:36] or does he actually have this little tact that he doesn't think that's a fucking bananas thing to say after you've broken into this woman's apartment? I think he has no tact. I do think, but like, he's also obviously he's there as a red herring kind of obviously.

[00:58:49] That's like, although he's so ridiculous that it's hard to think like, oh yeah, this is the guy. Right? Like it'd be too obvious. But I just applaud Bacon for being like, yeah, I'll do that. What three scenes of me just being unpleasant, like in a funny way.

[00:59:04] Like it's funny. He loves it. He loves being unpleasant in movies and good for him. He's very good at it. There's the profile guide. I don't remember where it was from, but I read it, but it was in the early nineties. I think when Tremors was coming out

[00:59:20] about how he just made the choice where he's like, I'm ninth on the list. Right, right. I'm a movie star. I'm never gonna hop Brad Pitt or whatever. Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise. Right. And he's like, I would rather be like

[00:59:33] the best character actor and just hand myself over to great directors and be like, I have no ego about how small the part is. I want like, I want the fucking part in A Few Good Men rather than being turned down for the Tom Cruise role. You know?

[00:59:46] Right. Give me like fifth build. Let me be uncredited. I don't care what it is. Yeah. And being freed by no longer needing to like play the game of the rat race, but also like I get to play weird unsavory characters now

[00:59:58] and not be told that it's digging my quote because you still need to be the guy above the title who can sell a movie with some sort of accessible movie star persona. This is, I think the cornerstone of why he's like your favorite actor is just that pivot

[01:00:13] that is just so unconventional for someone in his position to do. I think when I was a kid, I was obsessed with Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. That's the other reason the Six Degrees things exist because he's willing to be an ensemble guy.

[01:00:24] But it meant that someone taught that game to me when I was little. Like, oh, there's this actor, Kevin Bacon. You may have seen him in a movie. Like, and he's in all these movies. Right. And so I started to do it like where I would learn

[01:00:34] what movies he was in. So I'd play the game. But then I started watching the movies and I was like, he pops in every movie he's in even if he's the seventh lead or he's the star. Yeah, anyway, I love Kevin Bacon.

[01:00:43] He's very good at identifying what the, like the most fun role for him to play would be in any film. Yes. Anyway. Anyway. So she sees this beach in a bar. While she's there with her student. While she's there with her student, it's sort of thrilling and frightening.

[01:01:04] Right. And then not long after there's a murder and a limb gets dumped in her garden and a cop shows up. Kevin Bacon's also just sort of hanging out in her garden. Kevin Bacon's hanging out, it's hot outside. She's seeing subway poetry and writing it down.

[01:01:20] Yeah, that's one of those things. I'm trying to think of like some of the elements that are floating in the air. Like this is one reason this movie discombobulated people, I think. Yes. Like as much as it is a murder mystery and a sex thriller,

[01:01:29] it doesn't proceed like with total narrative ordinariness. No. And our friend, Raisin Torrey, friend of the podcast, worked on this movie as like a intern PA in the art department. Yeah. And said like she had like a fucking 300 page lookbook for this movie, right?

[01:01:51] That he was just kind of obsessed with and had never seen someone who had sort of that depth of sort of like sort of visual vision for a movie and that the thing was where so many lookbooks are like, here are other shots from movies

[01:02:06] that this is gonna be like because there's so much trying to frame to other people. Like here are things you know can be done in this medium or to sell to people. Like it'll be like this other movie you know.

[01:02:15] Her lookbook was like all different types of art, like so many different weird influences. Right. That she's throwing so much shit in the pot here stylistically. I think that's confusing to people. But yes, I mean it's just like reading the Wikipedia synopsis, the plot synopsis of this movie,

[01:02:33] where the fuck was this? It's one of those things where once again, I step back and I'm like, I understand why some people think this movie is weird. Paragraph two is like it's like, she stands there watching and though it's dark

[01:02:44] can see a three of spades tattoo on the man's wrist and the woman's blue fingernails. That's opening paragraph, setting up the movie, erotic thriller normal. Paragraph two, periodically as she rides the subway, Franny reads poems that appear on posters in the subway cars which seem to have bearing

[01:02:57] on her own life. New paragraph, several days later, Detective Giovanni Malloy. You're like, right, that's a whole fucking element in this thing. It's a good element, yeah. Yeah, I love the subway poetry. I also just love, I love it when the subway looks like the fucking subway.

[01:03:13] It's the real subway. Like, yeah. Stolen shots as opposed to sort of a fake commission car. Right. And it's like that weird sense of New York is she's like searching for inspiration in various areas of her life. New York is this kind of bubbling cauldron

[01:03:31] and like subway poetry is funny because it can be very profound. Yes. It's also super mundane. Right. Like it's just, you know, on a subway car. I feel like it's disappeared a little bit. I know, I miss it. It's still around, you know, it still happens.

[01:03:42] Right, it was like by the MTA. Now everything on the subway is just wear your mask. Right. But it was poetry in motion and you just have poems that would get swapped out every six months on subway cars. I love it. Yeah. Again, just whatever.

[01:03:58] Like sandwiched in between doctors is more ads. Could we talk a little bit about Jennifer Jason Leigh? Yes. One of my favorite people. She's another one who was just like, no, I don't need to be a leading lady. Absolutely, I will do this, this is interesting.

[01:04:14] I will do single white female and I will kill, she's so good at that. She's incredible in that movie, obviously. Yeah. That is a high point commercially for her, I feel like, right? Yeah, yeah, that was definitely the high point.

[01:04:28] That was the closest maybe she ever came to like having a movie star thing, right? Yeah. That could have been like quantified and replicated. I guess, I mean there's the early, there's the fast times, you know, the early. Which I feel like we both would have

[01:04:43] She would have been great in that movie. Fucking given her an Oscar nomination that year. But at this point, yeah, like what's Jennifer Jason Leigh up to? She did like the anniversary party. Right, Road to Perdition. Didn't that? Yeah, she's doing a lot of stuff.

[01:04:55] Is the year before this? Right, she had that hot 90s, like where she's in like Georgia and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious. Kansas City. She's in like these talky, interesting indie movies. That's the period where critics are like, is she the best actress in America? Like. Definitely.

[01:05:09] And I think a lot of it was just also her choices. Yeah. And her representing different types of women who weren't in movies. She sort of came synonymous with that idea, yeah. In this, she is, she's Meg Ryan's chaotic sister,

[01:05:22] I guess is the best way to put it, right? I don't know. Man, I love her. And I love how casually they talk about her antics. She's got good antics. She's just fucking this married doctor. Mm-hmm. Stealing his suits from the dry cleaners.

[01:05:40] Then like she just casually is just like, oh yeah, I gotta go to court. There's a restraining order. She's a more gentle sweetie. Yeah. Yes. And like, but there's an appeal to Franny, right? Like again, this is sort of like a side of her

[01:05:57] that she's not unlocking, Meg Ryan's character. But also once again, it's like, Jennifer Jason Leigh is comfortable in this milieu. If you're an audience member watching this movie, you're like, yeah, Jennifer Jason Leigh fits into this universe. Yes. Right? She makes sense. I accept her in these images.

[01:06:14] I think it's part of what they're calling out that it's like, Meg Ryan is aware of this world existing and she has been adjacent to it. Sort of on the outside. But at arm's length. You said Patrice O'Neil? Yeah. Oh yeah. Love him.

[01:06:29] Great use of Patrice O'Neil here. Locked in, I would say. Yes. He's so good that you forget that it's him. You do. You kind of every time you're like, I forgot he's in this. Like that's a real club, that club that she lives above.

[01:06:45] That was on Church Street and like white, you know, right by the tombs, right by the prison. Yeah. David looked at me by the way, just for the illicit home. Continue. Have you been to the tombs? No. I've been to the tombs. I know you have, yes.

[01:06:58] I know, it's been discussed, I feel like. Fake ID, baby. But you know that weird sort of no zone. It's still a weird area of New York. Yes. Between Canal Street and Chamber Street. Yes. Where there's the prison and the courts.

[01:07:12] So there's a lot of like bail bondsmen. And there's like the on ramps to the two bridges. Yeah, it's just a bit of an odd area anyway. It's so weird. It's like a center street. There's like a lot of jewelry places. Like the fringe of Chinatown.

[01:07:25] The fringe of Chinatown, there's some good Vietnamese places on White Street, still are. But anyway, so like that's where that is. That's where she lives. Anyway, so she's got the chaotic sister and this cop comes and questions her and he's got a creepy partner played by Nick DiMicci.

[01:07:41] I don't know that guy. He is mostly known as a screenwriter now. He like co-wrote all of Jim Mickles' movies and he's the star of the Stakeland movies. Yeah, not a series I know. He's like genre stuff. Right, he made that movie. He wrote that movie Bushwick.

[01:07:59] That's like, is it a one take movie? Right, it's like the Dave Bautista. No, you're confusing. It's a survive the night movie, but it's not a one take movie. Oh, okay. I think it was one take anyway. But yeah, but it's right. It's like, it's called Bushwick,

[01:08:11] but it's like a genre movie with like zombies or something, right? Invasion of aliens. It's an apocalyptic threat and he's got to get her across. It's funny that it's called Bushwick. It's almost like a children are men sort of thing.

[01:08:26] But yeah, Jim Mickles is like a good direct Cold in July, We Are What We Are. This dude wrote all of those movies. Well, he's here. And but anyway, like, is it that like he asks her out and she kind of rebuffs him

[01:08:41] and then when she gets attacked on the street and hit by the car, that's when she has him over, right? Yes. It's another interesting thing this movie does that her like bruises develop over time. Sure, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

[01:08:55] Like she comes out of the car accident with the scrape on the cheek and then the next day she wakes up and she has the black eye. One thing about the attack sequence, there is a horrible fake scream. Like canned scream. Is it a Wilhelm?

[01:09:09] It might as well be. You're like referencing some like really old scream. There's a famous scream that like everyone fucking uses and it went from just being like, oh, it's an easy royalty free stock scream and now it's like an in joke with directors sometimes

[01:09:21] or editors or whatever, sound mixers. Well, it's like a, ah! We'll put it in. Star Wars using it like whenever a fucking storm trooper falls or whatever. Sure, no, you're hearing it right now. Yeah, yeah. But I assume she's being attacked by, look, spoiler alert,

[01:09:37] his partner is the killer in this movie. Yes. David, come on. Is he attacking her there? Like is it happening right then? Okay, so the way in which the killer is deployed in this movie is so wild to me

[01:09:49] because like now that I've seen it so many times, I realize, yeah, that's absolutely him getting his dick sucked in the beginning. And it is absolutely him. There's the scene in the coffee shop where Jennifer, Jason Lee and Meg Ryan are like talking

[01:10:04] and there's a table behind them and he's just sitting there for like- That's interesting. Oh yeah, you miss him in the, he sits there and he listens for as long as he needs to, gets the information that he needs.

[01:10:16] Like I think he needs to know where she's staying or something and then like we cut away and we cut back and the table that he was sitting at is empty. But yes, no, he's in there. And the tattoo is some kind of cop brotherhood thing.

[01:10:29] It's not to do with him being a serial killer. That's just fucking cops and firefighters are always getting these like specific tattoos of like we're the- Kinship, fucking whatever. That's why he's the red, Mark Ruffalo's the red hair.

[01:10:41] But yeah, but I do think that that is him that attacks her because he's trying to figure out how to like, he's just, yeah. So you find it that he's just been following her throughout this movie. Right, it's been happening. Like he's such an openly misogynistic,

[01:10:57] loud, unpleasant shitbag. Is he like trying to kill his wife or something? He tried to kill his wife because she threw out a statue that he won for some kind of like Latino kind of statue, I'm not really sure. Whatever, yeah, like some award. But it's funny-

[01:11:18] Like so he doesn't get a gun and I'm like, oh great. But he's still a cop, but he just doesn't get a gun. This is the funny thing though. Like this movie is playing on our relationship to watching thrillers like that.

[01:11:27] Like this in the sense that like, you're like, hmm, who could it be? Ruffalo, this tender man with a sort of dark aggression to him, right? And then like, or like Kevin Bacon, this fucking like oddball creep who sometimes explodes with temper and has boundary issues.

[01:11:43] I mean, for Campion to have Bacon in her movie and not show his dick, the restraint. It's wild. I'm almost offended. To not put a strip on the pan and let it sizzle? But this guy, Nick DiMicchio, you look at him

[01:11:56] and you're like, well, it's not this guy, it's too obvious. Right, he's just- This guy sucks, he's a fucking wife beater, he's an asshole, he's a misogynist, they took his gun away. He's the one who- He wouldn't be the killer because he's already too awful.

[01:12:07] But he's also the contrast where it's like, oh yeah, like Ruffalo's character might be rough around the edges, but he's sensitive and that's interesting. You're just like, if a guy is this coded up front of being like a problem, then you're like, well, he's not the killer

[01:12:20] because then there's no mystery here. Well, yeah, exactly. And then they, right, but she gets accosted, she gets hit by a cab and fleeing, goes back to her apartment- The cab says, I didn't hit you. Oh man, I love that. So realistic.

[01:12:35] He's just like, I didn't hit you. I didn't do anything wrong, but I'll give you a ride home. You hit me. Right, yeah, really, we're equal forces here. She goes home and she does order the best medicine you can get after a bad night out. Addicting from Ruffalo?

[01:12:54] Yeah, just like a fucking night with Ruffalo. And they have this very steamy, like, we just talked about it, it's great. It's so good, it's so hot. The foreplay is hot, the sex itself is also hot. Like, I appreciate that.

[01:13:11] It's a distinct hotness to both and then to the post-sex. Well, they had that conversation afterwards where it's like, I've never been with a man, every man I'm with tells me what he wants and how to do it. And I don't think I've ever been with someone

[01:13:24] who's asked the same of me or whatever it is. I'm fucking paraphrasing poorly. And she's finally got a story for her sister too because her sister's always the one with the story. Who knows if the lunatics submitting IMDb trivia can be trusted, but here are two stats

[01:13:43] that are here listed under spoilers that I find interesting. Franny Meg Ryan spends 40% of the film in her underwear and nude. I don't know if that's true. Detective Malloy Mark Ruffalo spends 20% of the film. Where are these numbers coming from? I don't know!

[01:13:57] That's not true, but she's certainly naked in the movie playing, which is great. Yes. He was doing clothes math. Exactly. That's the creep. People on IMDb, that's a wild place. I'm glad that the message boards don't exist anymore. As Campion says-

[01:14:15] I'm sorry, I'm just checking who submitted this fact. It's Detective Richie Rodriguez? All right, all right. As Campion says. It's the character. It is the character. Oh, okay. I'm joking, he's not going to be using it. He is the sick fuck. As Campion says. Stop, stop, hush.

[01:14:34] Dr. Chase Meridian because she chases Batman. He's not blindly fumbling in there. He's working his way to pleasuring her. He's paying attention to being, and to be paid attention to is a really beautiful feeling. And yeah, you know, obviously, to have movies with that kind of intimate set,

[01:14:54] because like with Basic Instinct, I love Basic Instinct, but the undertone of every sex scene of Basic Instinct is she about to murder him, right? Like, or whatever. Like, is this about to go over some crazy edge? I mean, it's like the sex in Basic Instinct

[01:15:06] is like a parody of sex. 100%. It's like the fucking sex scene from Hotshot Park. It's like, I mean, it obviously was directed by the great Paul Verhoeven, but sometimes it feels like it was directed by like a glittering diamond or whatever.

[01:15:18] Something where you're just like the fakest thing. You know? In the cut, the sex is very intimate and real. And then it's like, okay, back to my murder case where someone is like cutting heads off of women and putting them in plastic bags.

[01:15:34] Like this, like really, and like putting a ring on them. You know, there's this whole serial killer pattern. What's the term she asks him? Not dismembered, but he uses a term. He uses, oh fuck. Disarticulated? Yes, that is it. There's something about that.

[01:15:50] And like, you know, later there's that thing where he sort of, he's like, he's cutting through the esophagus, the epiglottis, like he's cutting on her. This guy likes blood. And I think that stuff is really good in this movie

[01:16:01] because he's not saying it in that kind of whatever, you know, cop with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, like steam rising, super dramatic. He's saying it in a more mundane way. Matter of fact. Yeah. That's what's scary is for a guy like this,

[01:16:15] how you can become desensitized to this and this is a job. He's able to look at it and clinically go, I understand what's going on here. And that makes her go, is he a sociopath? That's what Susanna Moore said about her experiences shadowing the detectives.

[01:16:30] Like it's different from a beat cop where you're like, we know the detectives. It's like, she's like, it's no way to lit. You're only visiting these fucking insane crime scenes that are so ghastly. Right. Yeah. And like, so obviously you have to turn parts

[01:16:43] of your brain off, right? Like, you know, like just to deal with it. I mean, everyone makes fun of the sort of like iced tea meme of like, you're telling me where he's still, he's been on the case for 25 years. But I truly think that's-

[01:16:56] Some guy likes to diddle himself thinking about cupcakes. You know, that whole thing. I truly believe that is because it is harder to relate to a character who's like, oh yeah, one of these. Yeah, right. Versus like that guy who's still just like,

[01:17:10] this fucking makes me angry and I'm perplexed. Yeah. It's like, I mean, this is a dude with kids. This is a dude with an ex-wife. He's got other dudes- Sleeps on the couch. Sleeps on the couch. He's not gonna, he can't just go into work every day

[01:17:23] and put his whole heart into it. Like, it's just, he's got other shit to do. No, but also you do anything long enough and it's like, it just, it becomes the reality of your life. Yeah. You know? A part later in the movie when Meg Ryan is like,

[01:17:36] you were thinking about like this ghastly murder while we were just sleeping together. He's like, it's on my mind all the time. Like, it's just a reality for him. Like, even she is like, that is sick, man. Right. I'm like, no.

[01:17:50] It's like, at any point in time you can ask me, I'm thinking about opening quotes, you know? It's my job. I'm on the, I'm on all the time. Right, 24 seven. It's not like I just like struggle to pull up an opening quote five minutes after we agreed

[01:18:03] to start recording the episode. I'm thinking about it all the time. I'm sort of looking through the dossier to see if, I mean, there's just so much. Meg Ryan just clearly loved making this movie, loved working with Jane Campion, loved doing something different. I think so.

[01:18:15] She's very positive. Here we go. I'm like, I'm on my bridge to the next stage of my career. And everyone's like, bridge has been shut down. Chris Christie's come in. He's fucking exploded this. It's so wild because like, you know,

[01:18:27] I feel like when we have like filmmakers like Jane Campion, these female filmmakers who are like, you know, really trying to go for something different, really trying to give actresses something else to do. And they get so excited to work with them.

[01:18:42] And then everybody acts so fucking weird. Like, why are you doing? Because this is a job. I would get bored doing the same thing over and over again. And like, as a person who's finally met Jane Campion, the moment that I met her, I was just like,

[01:18:56] I want you in my life. Yes, it is just kind of astonishing that the piano worked so well and the Holly Hunter casting in piano, which seems in many ways as bug nuts, looking at where her career was at that point,

[01:19:13] as this just totally fucking worked for everyone. It's like this bizarre thing where someone makes like an entire career of movies that are all very much of a piece, even if they're tonally stylistically different. And one time everyone's like, yes, we all can get behind this.

[01:19:27] And the other time people are like, what the fuck are you doing? You know? Absolutely. I want to say something else about the sex scenes here that is so good. Apparently during the filming, Campion would just be shouting things at Ruffalo, like you're not at school anymore.

[01:19:44] You know what you're doing. And she was really trying to get him in the headspace of like, no, total confidence, please. I love it. And Ruffalo's response is, it was very stressful. I was really scared. And Meg was currently dating Russell Crowe.

[01:20:00] And I was like, am I going to be like, what does she think of me? So it's interesting to think that he was so self-conscious in these scenes where he's oozing confidence. It's unbelievable. Right. But yeah. Anyway, sorry. But yeah, the thing that you're talking about

[01:20:18] is the Ryan casting in my opinion is a total success. Correct. But in terms of how the movie went over at the time, it was not. And it's funny because the piano could have gone that way and it didn't. I think it is one of her greatest skills

[01:20:32] is being really smart about using the baggage of her stars in interesting ways, right? Like playing with the expectations of what you know these people doing. Like that's, I mean, that's like the most effective element in Power of the Dog. A movie we'll obviously cover soon,

[01:20:52] but where you're just like, is he miscast? Right. Like you're watching it the whole time being like, he's almost pulling this off, but why would you hire him to do this? I think it's brilliant. And then the movie like totally warps your brain around that

[01:21:04] and it's like, oh, that's the whole fucking point. Right. And I think Piano does similar thing. Holy Smoke does similar. I mean, yeah, anyway. These are incredible quotes from Ruffalo. Ruffalo might be the great one. Might be the best one. I mean, I adore him.

[01:21:18] He's talking about the method, method acting, right? He's like people use it as a shield. It shields them from being vulnerable. I hear all these young actors who are like, I'm Method, I'm gonna go live in the house. I'm gonna, you know, it kills spontaneity.

[01:21:28] They'll give a good performance, but they're not playing with the other actors. It's all about them. Spontaneity and vulnerability are gold on screen and stage. They're fucking magic. When Brando reaches down and picks up the glove and puts it on his hand,

[01:21:40] which is an improvised moment on the waterfront. That's magic. I appreciate Brando in a way he's ideal, but the opposite, this is what I love. The opposite end of the spectrum is Marcelo Mastroianni who had a lightness of being, a joy in his acting, wasn't precious about it.

[01:21:54] He did good movies and bad movies. He's bad in some, he's great in others. He has a sense of humor. He loved life. People had a good time around him. I like his career better. My style would be one foot in the grave

[01:22:05] and the other on a banana peel. Yeah, he fucking rules. That's the line where I was like, come on. He's the goat. No, that's one foot on the banana peel. There is a bizarre lightness of touch to Ruffalo in whatever he's doing,

[01:22:18] whether the role is heavy or not. It's so easy for this to be the hackiest shit, this role. Absolutely. I'm the fucking tough cop. You know, you don't mess with me, suck my dick. Like, you know. Yeah, but also I'm the king of cock. That was my audition.

[01:22:28] Campion left me out of the room. You did not get a call back. 17 year old dude. Hey, I'm a tough cop. Can you grow a mustache? No, no I can't. Why are you so tall? Oh, what was the thing I was gonna say about the Ruffman?

[01:22:43] I don't know. Yes, it's fascinating. There's the moment. This is what I was gonna say. There's the moment in, you can count on me, and I haven't seen the movie in embarrassingly long time. I haven't seen it in a long time either. I'm meaning to re-watch that one.

[01:22:55] Lonergan's one of those guys where like, if he ever does another fucking movie, we might just be like, fuck it. Four episode Lonergan series done. We gotta do it. Absolutely. Because he's probably my favorite living dramatic writer, but there's the moment you can count on me,

[01:23:10] and Jordane, if you've seen this more recently, correct me if I'm getting this wrong. We're like in the middle of a fucking monologue scene with Laura Linney, like a bug comes into frame, or like a butterfly or something,

[01:23:22] and he holds his hand out and catches it on his hand and keeps on talking. And it's like the exact thing you're talking about or that he's talking about in that quote, which is like, here's my big dramatic moment and now there's a bug in frame?

[01:23:34] Rather than try to ignore this or go like the take is fucking blown, he just worked it into what he was doing. You know? Pretty cool. I do not remember that. I'm gonna look out for it now. I've heard a lot of fucking actor friends of mine

[01:23:47] cite that as just like, that's the moment I realized this was the fucking guy and I would like to have one moment like that in my entire career. Where you're just, it's such a state, like zen state of flow, like comfort with the material,

[01:23:58] but also open to any spontaneity that happens, you know? So, he rules. He's got a nice penis. He's got a great dick. Yeah, fantastic dick. Another person gets murked. Their head's in a washing machine. Right, this is number two. Very gross. Love that scene though.

[01:24:19] Scene is so good. Love how it looks. This film shot by Dion Beeb, by the way, one of the heroes of the 2000s. Shot collateral, he shot Miami Vice. Right, he defines the Michael Mann digital look. Right, I feel like he did Gemini Man recently,

[01:24:32] but he hasn't done a lot of work recently, but he's Rob Marshall's guy, so he's shooting Little Mermaid. Great. What if Little Mermaid looks like collateral? Or like in the cut. Yeah. I would love that. And then there's that scene where he takes her,

[01:24:51] and he's like shooting at the garbage bags in the water, and then she's a good shot. What a great date. I'm doing it right. I'm like, what, I go shoot some garbage? Yeah, go drive down an abandoned road, shoot some garbage in a lake.

[01:25:03] Ben took out his notepad and wrote down proposal ideas. I'm watching this movie. And then they just kiss on the hood of the car. Is Ring in garbage bag or on gun? I mean, obviously that scene again is sort of supposed to I guess be red herringy,

[01:25:23] and then it's like, oh, is he taking her to an abandoned spot, is this dangerous? Well, you're sort of like, is this guy hiding something? You're like, no, this guy's pretty transparent. This is just what this guy wants to be doing right now. Right, right.

[01:25:35] He's in a pretty comfortable state with himself. I mean, even just the scene with the wife thing, she keeps on being like, look, we both know it. You're fucking married and cheating on your wife with me. He's like, no, I sleep on her couch

[01:25:47] because I couldn't afford to move out. My mom fucking drives me crazy, and I like seeing the kids. And she just keeps on assuming that he's fucking misrepresenting something to her. Right, there must be something else going on. You've got Cornelius, her student,

[01:25:59] like, does he get arrested or he just gets hauled in? He gets brought in for questioning. Because he wrote something in blood? There's the point where she- And he keeps saying John Wayne Gacy was innocent. Or what I'm like, is the whole-

[01:26:15] The John Wayne Gacy thing is so funny because it's very clear that it's supposed to be something where, you know, I mean, I wrote about this in my review, just this idea of men making excuses for each other, being fascinated by each other's, like,

[01:26:30] oh, but he must have done, he must have thought. And the idea that if a man is very violent, it's because he lost control and not because he intended to. And there's all of that subtext. But it also just seems like,

[01:26:43] and I don't know if Cornelius was black in the book because I have not read the book, but it almost just seems like, yeah, you know, brothers, they have conspiracy theories. It felt very, like, I don't know. It was a really interesting way to have,

[01:27:03] I mean, him being into conspiracy theories makes sense, especially because it's clear that he's not actually a violent person. He's just weird. Right, he's odd. Right, that's the thing. But they, right, he's being read as, well, you must be a suspect because he's weird.

[01:27:17] Well, this is part of the movie, it's just like all men are kind of weird and threatening in some way or another. Yeah, yeah. Right. Bacon's character being the most, like, nakedly threatening, but also the least actually threatening problem. Right, right. And Cornelius still gets like,

[01:27:32] because when he shows up at her place, like near the end and he has like, it's clear that he'd been punched and he'd been punched by- The cops have beat him up, right? Yeah. Because there's the earlier moment, right, where they show her sort of the contact sheet

[01:27:45] of all the possible suspects. And you see for the first time that like 85% of the suspects are young black men. And you're just sort of like, okay, so these guys are getting targeted when he shows up with the black eye,

[01:27:56] you could just immediately put one and one together. Oh yeah, I mean, he says specifically, it is Ruffalo's partner who does that. Oh, but I'm saying even before he says it, you're just like, I know exactly what the fuck happened here. Right.

[01:28:09] He fits the profile that they're fucking looking for. And the Adam he's trying to split is, John Wayne Gacy is innocent because it was his desire that made him kill those people. So the desire is guilty. And you're just like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[01:28:27] He's not responsible for his feelings because his feelings took over. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And I think that that's so much of like the underlying critique of this film is that men are like acting on their impulses. And you can't hold them responsible

[01:28:38] for that, men just have urges. Right, yeah. That's like the argument that men keep on making in this movie to her. And then he does this fucking extra fucking graphic design on his essay where he like puts MS Paint blood spatter

[01:28:52] on it, so they see that and it's like red flag out the butt. But then as you were saying Jordaine, when he shows up at her place and she just sort of like puts the brakes on it, right? Like reciprocating his advances at first,

[01:29:05] they're kissing, she's taking her shirt off and then she's like, I'm drunk, I'm traumatized, I can't handle this. He immediately goes into fuck you, I don't wanna sleep with you. How dare you turn me down? I'd never fuck you.

[01:29:17] So many of the conversations in this movie truly just, I know I'm repeating myself here, feel like Tinder correspondences that people post. I know what you're saying, right. Obviously also what happens is her sister gets her head cut off as well.

[01:29:33] That's happening in the third act of the film. She gets disarticulated. She gets all chopped up and- Meg Ryan, I mean, walks in, what's the thing she sees first? Well, she sees like there's blood all over like the boiler, remember, in the bathroom or whatever.

[01:29:50] It's that shot of her opening the doors and there's like steam coming out of the bathroom. I'm forgetting, but there's something- There's a little piece of hair on the bed. Oh, that's what it is. Oh yeah, right, right, right.

[01:29:58] So she sees the little piece of hair on the bed, but otherwise the apartment looks kind of fine, but then she's already sort of like ready for- She knows. Well, her work's finished. And you sort of realize it too because it's not being shot that way,

[01:30:10] but you're like, uh oh, wait, we're about to enter a crime scene. Right, and in the bathroom, it's just a fucking nightmare. And her head is in a garbage bag. She's all dead. And she, Meg Ryan just cradles the head and cries obsessively.

[01:30:22] And Ruffalo has to come in and be like, you have to give the fucking disembodied head back? I mean, I guess it's not long after that, you know, then that's- Wait, he explains how, right. She demands tell me how this happened and he gets into too much detail.

[01:30:37] He does. I mean, he's desensitized or whatever. Or is he a sociopath? She wonders, so she locks him to, you know, to her pipe in her apartment. Right, well, because first- First is the, there's the murder. There's Cornelius confronting her. But the scene where she fucks him,

[01:30:59] where he's like, I want to watch you fuck me. Right, that's- Is that when she handcuffs him? Yeah, that's right. And then she just leaps in. And then afterwards, she handcuffs him. She asks him about the tattoo. And she's completely discombobulated

[01:31:11] when she gets basically picked up by Rodriguez and he takes her to Little Red Lighthouse. I mean, this is a point where I think people who are already out in this movie go like, this is absurd. What the fuck is happening?

[01:31:21] Why is she literally going to the lighthouse? Why is she following this guy? It's so good though. Yes. I mean, the Little Red Lighthouse is one of the great, you know, New York City locations. It's never been used well in a movie. I love that Jane Campion's like,

[01:31:34] let's just finish that. They have everything there. Sure. And it's his- It's a great motif. Weird villain headquarters. Yeah, that's where he wants to, what does he want to do? Does he want to give her food or something?

[01:31:50] He says, I'm probably going to have to keep you here for a couple weeks because people saw me leaving with you. But then, you know, and he's doing the will you marry me thing with the ring. Oh yeah, he's got like wine and he's like playing music.

[01:32:00] Right, right. Squish and roll? And then he just like has the knife with the engagement ring on it. Just like put on the fucking ring. There's also, we should mention, I mean, the running thing of the sort of ice skating flashback. I love that shit.

[01:32:17] Oh man, yes, it's so good. Love the whole like silent film aesthetic of it. Right, this entirely artificial idea of this like very sanitized chivalry and sort of courtship. And all the details of it are so absurd that they met and 15 minutes later were engaged.

[01:32:36] It's something out of a fucking 40s movie. But actually really he's been married five times. They're half sisters, you know? Like you find out like so much more about who this guy really was. It's like a fucking fantasy that they grew up on

[01:32:49] that I think Meg Ryan has spent her life hoping she could replicate in her life, that she could experience a Meg Ryan movie plot, right? Like she wishes she had had a Meg Ryan rom-com romance, but just Campion's choice to frame that in this very stylized artificial way

[01:33:06] just like makes it clear just how much of an impossible ideal this is. But the more important thing is her going back to Ruffalo in that final shot of them when he's still handcuffed. Oh man. It's such a great way to, it's such a good micro.

[01:33:19] Yeah, and he's also like, he's been trying to like get his hand free. So he's like, and it was like connected to like a water pipe so there's also like water everywhere. It's so good. I mean, this is a movie where you expect

[01:33:30] when she goes to the lighthouse that you're gonna think she's about to be killed and then a shot comes from somewhere and you see Mark Ruffalo there and he's like yanked the fucking heater out and he's made it there somehow in like record time and saved her ass.

[01:33:45] And instead he's just still there locked up and she figures out her own shit. I love it. I love it. And it absolutely probably sends you out with just like question mark, question mark, question mark. F, stamp, stamp, stamp. I just, I totally get it.

[01:34:01] And I remember seeing it at the time and it was one of those things of like, kind of like I talked about AI, right? That, you know, like movies like that at the era where I walked out and I was like, well, I know that wasn't, you know,

[01:34:14] that that was messy or like that didn't follow like the normal parameters of what I'm learning is a good movie. So like I would be like, but it's underrated and it's interesting and it took a four out of five. You know what I mean?

[01:34:27] Like back when I was a teenager and I quite, I lacked the courage of convictions. Yeah, courage of my convictions. Yeah. You know, cause that's the year obviously of like Lord of the Rings sweeping. Yeah, sure. But it's also like Lost in Translation

[01:34:42] is sort of the indie sensation of the year. Kill Bill. Finding Nemo, Matrix sequels. The Matrix sequels. Another thing where I had to discover the courage of my convictions. Right. Mystic River. School of Rock and Elf are sort of like

[01:34:55] that's now officially the next wave of comedy anointed. Pirates of the Caribbean obviously is the big summer movie. Right. Master and Commander is the big like, you know, prestige movie. Right. Big boat movie of the year. Elephant wins the Palme d'Or. Sure, sure.

[01:35:11] You know, it's a very interesting, exciting year in cinema in my opinion, but this is absolutely on nobody's list. Nope. It's not getting any critical awards. No. It's at TIFF. It's not at an awards event. It's not at Cannes or Venice.

[01:35:25] Oh, and I guess TIFF was not as awardsy as it was. It's more of just like a fall launch pad. Because the following year is Sideways. Sure. Still never seen that. Sideways is fucking good. I will say, when that movie came out, I was not crazy about it

[01:35:38] and I was such a big Alexander Payne fan and such a big Giamatti fan and I was disappointed by it. And unsurprisingly, that is maybe a movie that plays better when you're not 15 years old. Yeah, I would imagine.

[01:35:49] Like I was in middle school when that movie came out, so. I just remember being like, no, no, no, I get it. I get it. I just don't think it's very good. And then I watch it now and I'm like,

[01:35:56] oh, now I've made some mistakes in my life and I'm in my 30s. I think this is a good film. It's very good. I have not seen Sideways since 2004. I had not seen it since 2004 until about a year ago and I think it's very good.

[01:36:10] Sideways, that was such a thing. That is funny. But I'm saying that was such a Toronto launch and fucking awesome. Yeah, no, for sure. And it won every critics award. And then it started maybe like, oh, whatever wins at Toronto

[01:36:19] is gonna be a major player for the rest of the year. Well, this didn't win at Toronto. Nah. Let me see what won at Toronto that year. Yeah, 2003, it won at Toronto. Do you wanna guess? Is it one of the movies we list already?

[01:36:31] Hold on, where's the awards? Jesus. Scrolls. That's the other thing, because Toronto is the audience award. It's like, oh, this isn't a jury, it's people. Zatoichi won the People's Choice Award that year. The Takeshi Kitano, blind swordsman. No, because after this point, outside of that weird movie, Bella,

[01:36:51] which inexplicably won the audience award. Everything that wins becomes like a fucking Oscar. Bella? It was this weird fucking half Spanish drama that won the audience award out of nowhere. And then everyone's like, is this thing gonna be some crossover success? And it came out and everyone shrugged.

[01:37:08] In the cut though, is actually the best. Yeah. And rules. Just sidebar, the only reason I remember Bella is because Bella's entire marketing campaign was here are 15 other movies that won the audience award at Toronto. Sure. It literally was just like,

[01:37:25] we have no other hook for this other than to say, sideways one and fucking Princess Bride one. Well, I don't know that movie. It doesn't exist. I haven't seen it. Right, it doesn't exist. Yeah. But yes, it is. I mean, well, there's the occasional,

[01:37:39] like Eastern Promises won one year. That's the Canada thing. Occasionally Canada will win out at the time. Right. The Belfast Green Book. You know, you're forgetting where do we go now? A weird winner. What the fuck is that? Exactly, but occasionally it's something unusual. Okay.

[01:37:53] What won last year though? I mean, last year. Last year. 2021, I mean, you know. Right, well, what- Belfast. Oh, well that's, I just said Belfast. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I was like- Really? That- David? It's usually the straight down the middle thing.

[01:38:08] I forgot what year it was. I thought you were saying 2020. I know, I realized I was being, the year before was Nomadland. Right. The year before was Jojo Rabbit. The year before that was Green Book. Yes. Anyway. Anyway, box office. No, no attention though, just none.

[01:38:22] It sinks like a stone, gets bad reviews. I don't know when it had its reappraisal to be honest. I guess it was just sort of a slow thing. I think when we saw it in 2017, it had not been fully re-claimed. Well, I was.

[01:38:40] I remember when I published my piece at the beginning of 2019, the only other published work that I knew liked the movie was Christina Newland's book, She Lost It at the Movies. There's a pro in the cut essay in that.

[01:39:01] And this is like, it's funny because if you get it, it's like it was in the cut essay and so many people would assume that it was me. And it's like, no, it turns out there was someone who- There are thousands of us.

[01:39:10] Yeah, yeah, there was someone else. And when I saw, oh, it's another woman who rides for this movie, I was like, okay, maybe I can start talking about this movie. And I remember at first when I started tweeting about it and talking about how much I loved it,

[01:39:24] I got a lot of anger and a lot of pushback from people. And it was just like a weird thing where people would just get mad because I liked the movie. And I mean, that's still, that doesn't really happen that much anymore.

[01:39:36] So it really does feel like it was in the last three or four years. Yeah, I think people finally chilled out. I mean, the Wikipedia page, there's the section on reception and it's first contemporary and it's mostly people giving it bad reviews or people going like,

[01:39:53] there's some interesting things going on here, but it's obviously a mess. Sort of like what you're saying, David, the way you talked about at the time. And then it says, In the Cut was among the films discussed favorably by Slavoj Zizek in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema.

[01:40:07] He did do that. So it feels like that's an early example of someone really staying for it hard. And then the next paragraph is retrospective and Jordane, you're the one person who sort of quoted an excerpt in that from your piece. But now it's like,

[01:40:20] Vangoria has reclaimed it. Nick James put it on his sight and sound list. Fucking David Thompson. I mean, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Demby, I'm seeing some of the reviews JJ's putting in here, JJ and Nick, sorry, I put it in here. Demby panned it, said it was phony.

[01:40:37] Didn't like the ending. The ending I should note, in the book she died. Right. In the book, the guy kills her with a scalpel. Right. Whereas in the movie, Campion was like, I just can't have that. And talked to the author about like,

[01:40:49] that can't be how this character's journey concludes. But he just, you know, like just very dismissive review there. Stephanie Zaharik, a colleague who I admire obviously, but wrote a really good negative review that is sort of worth checking out. Not like a super negative review,

[01:41:08] but kind of like a, I struggled with this movie review. I wanna, this incredible, let me find it. Can I share an unsubstantiated, IMDb trivia fact while you search for this? Yeah. Because I just find this very funny. Mickey Rourke was initially considered for a supporting role.

[01:41:26] However, his involvement was allegedly vetoed by Nicole Kidman on the strength of Rourke's wild reputation. Rourke has stated in interviews that he was disappointed by this as he believes it would have fast-tracked his comeback. Yeah, I don't think that's true, Mickey.

[01:41:41] No, no, Mickey Rourke, the most self-destructive man. That sounds made up to me. Looking at the response in the cut and going like, fuck, I wish I had been in that thing. Him being anything of that era probably would have helped, I guess. He was-

[01:41:52] But they'd put him in shit and people would be like, like he was in fucking Domino once upon a time in Mexico and whatever. Here's the depiction, sorry, the description of critics that Campion has recently that I love. The first ring of reviewers in America are always men.

[01:42:08] It's this mountain of corduroy you have to get through. That is the line I love. They're not secure, so to see women talking about them rudely, it might as well be them. David's trademark blazer found dead in a ditch.

[01:42:19] She calls it the corduroy wall and they set the tone and so she thinks that if you're showing them a movie that has extreme content or something, sometimes it can just not go over the corduroy wall. Anyway, so good. Manohla Dargis, as you said,

[01:42:38] has a much more interesting review. Rosenbaum also had a- She kind of half defended, Noel Murray I think kind of half defended it. Great movie, opened. All right, so let's do the limited release though. A week before Halloween. How wide does it go on Halloween?

[01:42:54] On Halloween it goes up to 825 screens. It goes to number 11. Behind a film called Good Boy that I've never heard of. That's a movie about a talking alien dog. Yep. The week before, it's fairly- Matthew Broderick's the dog. There are no new- I'm a dog!

[01:43:13] There are no new releases. Call me Good Boy. On Halloween, as you noted, the only new release is The Human Stain on limited screens. So it's the same basically. So number one at the box office when In The Cut is tanking is a parody film. A parody film.

[01:43:32] Opening huge to $48 million. Yes, it is Scary Movie 3. It's three. Was huge. The first of the Zucker scary movies, right? With Charlie Sheen. Two kind of dipped a little bit. It felt like maybe- They did it a little too quickly, too. It came back really fast.

[01:43:48] Gas out of the tank and then the Wayans brothers move on and then there was this sort of like, let's just fucking get a Zucker in here and throw everything into the mix and it's not really about scary movies anymore and now it's fucking Matrix parody and shit.

[01:43:59] Matrix 8 Mile. Right, just do everything. Right, yeah. Right, scary becomes a meaningless term. But yes, a humongous hit. Huge hit, Scary Movie 3, never seen. Number two is a remake of a horror film. Number two is a remake of a horror film, 2003.

[01:44:13] It would have been Texas Chance the Massacre. That's right. Film that has an unbelievable trailer. Does it? It has a trailer that chilled me to my core and I was like, is this gonna be a fucking masterpiece? And the movie is not as interesting as this trailer.

[01:44:25] It was, from my memory, at least the first modern- Jessica Biel. Trailer to use the trick of it feels like the projector is breaking down. Sure, right. Which is very unsettling to see in a theater. What's that company? The Michael Bay company called Silver? Platinum Dunes.

[01:44:42] Not Silver Dunes, David, Platinum Dunes. Like the beginning of the Platinum Dunes run. That movie was very big and that kick-started the remake horror fever for all these movies that were seen as untouchable and had been diminished by multiple sequels. It was like, reboot them all.

[01:44:59] I've never seen it. Have you seen the Texas Chance the Massacre? Yeah, it's pretty boring. I mean, it looks really good. It has a couple good performances in it. Like Arlie Ermey's really fucking good in it. It's just, it cannot capture the weird

[01:45:13] sort of like gonzo artistry of the original. Number three at the box office is one of the most notorious failed attempts at an Oscar nomination of all time. Oh. I honestly credit to this movie, which I considered a complete flop, to opening to $13 million.

[01:45:29] More than I would have thought. Yeah. Uh, yeah. You're saying for a Best Picture nomination? No, acting. Or is there like an acting? Okay. It's notorious. Notorious. Yes. Oscar winning actor playing someone with, let's be honest, an intellectual disability. Oh, of course. Oh, wait.

[01:45:47] This motion picture is called, do you want to say it, Drew? Oh my God, are you talking about I Am Sam? No, it's worse. Not talking about I Am Sam, but it's in the I Am Sam zone. This movie is called Radio. Oh my God, I remember Radio.

[01:45:59] Radio and the shopping cart. I remember my mom renting this and me watching it in her bedroom and being like, what, what is happening? I've never seen Radio. I know he has a radio and that's why they call him Radio, but what does he do?

[01:46:12] Like, he plays football or something? No, he like helps out with the team. Yeah, he helps out with the team. He's like, oh yeah, he's kind of like our mascot. Right, it's like a dramatic version of the water boy, except he doesn't play. Right. Yeah.

[01:46:26] I mean, it's based on a real story and they were like, Radio's the most inspiring man. It was based on some Sports Illustrated story of like, oh, you know, this high school football team has this guy who's like sweet and helps out.

[01:46:36] And they were like, Oscar, we're gonna get one. But you want, I mean, you wanna talk about like. Let's exploit the story about this black man who definitely did not get paid. Oh, totally. Interesting counterpoint, or not counterpoint, but like counterweight to all this stuff

[01:46:53] we're talking about with fucking Meg Ryan's career and where she was at crossing 40 and no one knowing what to do with her and rejecting her attempts to stretch out of this. I believe Radio was Deborah Winger's first movie in like six years. And in that downtime, Rosanna Arquette

[01:47:10] had made the documentary, Searching for Deborah Winger. Okay. Which got some traction. That was like her talking about like, why do all actresses disappear after 40? Right, right, right. Right, and like Deborah Winger was like the woman of her generation, got fucking four Oscar nominations

[01:47:22] and now just hasn't appeared on screen. And it was like, what happened to her? And it was her interviewing actresses on the cusp of 40 who had just turned 40, that thread of just feeling the parts disappear. And then they get to Deborah Winger and she's just kind of like,

[01:47:35] I don't know what's giving me anything fucking good. I just like, nothing dramatic happened to me. It's just, there's no reason to work. And then she comes back and she's like thankless supportive wife role to Ed Harris coach in radio. And it was so depressing.

[01:47:48] It's well, I mean, I'm glad that she's back now with- Yeah, she does shit. Yeah, she was in Kajillionaire and I thought that she was really great in that. She's in The Lovers. Yep, good movie. She's great in that. With Tracy Lutz.

[01:48:00] Yeah, with Tracy Lutz, she's really great in that. 100 episodes of The Ranch, quietly Netflix's most watched series ever maybe. Oh my God, The Ranch. The Ranch. She's on The Ranch. But like, wasn't the whole thing with Deborah Winger though that she was like difficult?

[01:48:14] That was also part of it. Yeah. Which was by all accounts, when you look at it now and you read the exact pieces in which people tried to explain her difficult behavior, you're like, sounds like she had integrity. Sounds like she wanted things to be good. Anyway.

[01:48:30] David's doing a shaky hand. Number four at the box office is a dying genre. The Grisham Thriller. Might be the last one, I think. It's Runaway Jury. It's Runaway Jury. I think this is the final Grisham movie that's not like Christmas with the Cranks or whatever,

[01:48:49] like huge, technically is a Grisham film. It's Hackman's second to last film and the whole thing is like Hackman and fucking Hoffman together. Right, although are they? I've seen this film because I watched every John Grisham movie in quarantine

[01:49:05] or maybe before, I can't remember when I did that. So the funny story of this movie is they put them together and everyone's like, fuck these two guys and the degeneration. Big 70s actors. And they were fucking living together, all this shit.

[01:49:14] They'd never been in a movie together. Roommates. And then they do the movie and then they're like, oh fuck, we forgot to write any scene for them to be in. Because they're both like in different war rooms like going like, we gotta get the best runaway juries

[01:49:25] or whatever. I saw this one on a plane 19 years ago, but there was one scene I believe where they stand next to each other at urinals and talk and they had to like do that in reshoots because they realized they had fucked up so badly

[01:49:36] and never had them interact. That movie, like the Grisham run is, the firm, the Pelican brief, the client, a time to kill. Like this is where these things are huge or the box office. The chamber, the rainmaker, the gingerbread mannequin, the bloom is off the rose.

[01:49:47] And then this is just kind of, it's like, okay. Hollywood's just like, great, nobody wants these anymore. But it was like a middling double. I'm sure it made a bunch of money on DVD. Made $49 million. Yeah, yeah, it did okay. Is that the one with John Cusack?

[01:49:59] And Rachel Weisz. It was like a stack cast. It has a good cast. Yeah, it's Cusack, Weisz, Hackman, Hoffman, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven. Oh man, Jeremy Piven. Leland Orser, do you think he plays a creepy guy? This is maybe the third episode in a row

[01:50:16] where you've made that joke. I don't even remember why he's going in another episode. I don't know why he's always popping up. Anyway, but you know what? But I watched that movie like pretty recently and I don't remember anything. Sure. Except that I think Hackman's good.

[01:50:27] Because the thing with Hackman is in those movies, he's good. Even when it's a total behind enemy lines, like total nothing, he's still good. We were texting about Hackman with our friends the Doughboys recently and our ongoing thread of just like,

[01:50:41] remember that guy when he was the best actor in the fucking world? He was good in everything. And I shared with you guys this clip that I highly recommend of Kevin Costner being interviewed by Rich Eisen talking about doing, what's that movie called? Not No Sudden Move.

[01:50:56] No Way Out. Night Moves? No Way Out. No Way Out. The Costner Hackman movie. Yeah, No Way Out. Yes, yes. It's an incredible story about just Costner talking about Hackman being the best actor he had ever worked with and the sort of advice that he gave him.

[01:51:10] And Hackman was just the go. But also, fucking rad to just be like, I don't need this shit anymore. I'm just gonna retire and write fucking historical thrillers. He's still alive? Yeah, kicking ass. Jordayne, Resurrection just got bought by IFC, Shutter. I love that. Me too.

[01:51:28] Good place for it to go. We were just talking about this is our favorite Sundance. One of our favorites. I'm to see it. Nothing I love more than Overcranked Rebecca Hall Horror, my favorite subgenre. Oh my God, I can't wait. Were you a Nighthouse fan?

[01:51:42] I'm not a Nighthouse fan. I feel like I'm the only person who loves the Nighthouse. No, people really do like the Nighthouse. I loved her performance in it. I think the ending is what gets me. I was warned about the ending, it worked for me.

[01:51:56] But her performance is just like. Oh yeah, you're gonna like Resurrection. I can't wait. Yeah, it's really good. Number five at the box office is, this is the funny thing. It's also based on a paperback bestseller. But this is a movie that got nominated for Best Picture.

[01:52:14] This is like a big deal movie. Got nominated for Best Picture, 2003. It's sort of a comeback for its director, critically. Well, it's Mystic River. But it's funny that Eastwood charts the new path of how to do the airport novel. I mean, Dennis Lehane is above an airport thriller

[01:52:30] or whatever, but he's a bestselling paperback type genre writer. Anyway, Mystic River. Mystic River? Not a movie I think either of us love. I don't love it, but do you know who's good in it? Kevin Bacon. I mean, this was an early thing

[01:52:44] that you and I bonded over. Best performance in the movie. You also agree that he's far and away the best performance in the movie and the two guys who won Oscars for that movie are bad in it, right? Yeah, oh 100%. Bacon's incredible in that movie.

[01:52:54] He's incredible in that movie and that movie is not good. Sean Penn, can't remember the last time Sean Penn was good. It is just kind of funny how much that movie did for Eastwood, Robbins, and Penn. And Bacon's just like, guess I'll go fuck myself, whatever.

[01:53:10] And when you look at it now, you're just like, embarrassing work from all three. Yeah, no, Robbins getting attention for that, very funny. And it makes Dennis Lehane like this hot, you gotta adapt author. And you're like, that's the worst adaptation of his work?

[01:53:23] It's a good book too, it's a very good book. Yeah, Robbins to me is the one who's really bad in that Oscar win is inexplicable beyond, I guess, just a sort of a career thing. The Penn performance. I don't hate it, but it's just like.

[01:53:34] Well, when you think about Eastwood too, where it's like, you just imagine Penn just detonating bombs on set and Eastwood being like, great, let's move on. You know, like, no attempt to modulate. You know, he's just like, more, more! It's just so big.

[01:53:48] That's how I imagine that went. But then like, just that movie comes out in New York Times is like, this is perhaps the greatest performance in the history of cinema. Like it was just received not just as like, it's time for him to win the Oscar,

[01:53:58] but like we have to reckon with he has redefined the art. There was also a thing of, right, of like, well, he should've won for Dead Man Walking and like Penn is undersung. I mean, look. Yeah, despite being a person who like was constantly burning bridges

[01:54:13] and making enemies and all of that. That was his whole Oscar speech was like, I know, I haven't been easy to root for. It's like, literally never. I was actually just recently found out that he and Vincent D'Onofrio's daughter are breaking up and I was so glad.

[01:54:28] I thought that that was so weird. Cool. For him to be very- So surprised to hear that marriage didn't work. Just like, I guess I married my dad's friend. Whenever anyone asks D'Onofrio about that, like on fucking Twitter, the terminally online Vincent D'Onofrio, he's just like-

[01:54:44] He is very online. He wants the pigs to look at the sky. I will not comment on this. Because you know he hated it. He just hates it. He hated it. Sean Penn married Vincent D'Onofrio's like 26 year old daughter. Now he doesn't have to do those family dinners.

[01:54:56] Totally forgot about that. That is wild. It's the only thing Vincent D'Onofrio will not comment on on Twitter. It's so good. It's so funny. Some other films in the top 10? He'll tweet about West Elm Caleb. Like he'll tweet. Oh, he'll tweet. Of course. He'll tweet about anything.

[01:55:10] He'll hit those trending topics. He'll barge right in. Yeah. School of Rock. A masterpiece. Kill Bill Volume One. Intolerable Cruelty. A movie I love. And one of the best movies about star 69-ing Italy under the Tuscan sun. Can you star 69 in Italy?

[01:55:24] That's what Sandra Oh says in the trailer. Yeah, no I remember. Never thought. Never forgot. That's a charming movie. Under the Tuscan sun. Beautiful. Wait, was this also the Down With Love year? It is the Down With Love year. That's that summer. Down with love! Incredible movie.

[01:55:37] 03 is like a good, the whole year is good. It's a good year for movies. It really is. It's a good year. A good year for movies. No it really is. And also just a year where you're like people have diverse tastes.

[01:55:49] And audiences are going to see different genres at different budget levels. Yeah, it's such a smorgasbord and we don't really have that anymore. And I also just recently watched Matrix Reloaded for the first time. Oh, Jordane, you cannot drop this at the end. My number two movie of 2003?

[01:56:03] It goes off, man. I couldn't believe it. I had spent all these years being like oh, the Matrix Reloaded is bad. And I was just like, by bad do you mean incredible? Great opinion by Jordane Searles. On the podcast. Add it to the Wikipedia section.

[01:56:19] Amazingly not my number one movie of 2003 though. Your number one movie of 2003 would have been? Master and Commander. Oh, well of course. And then Kill Bill is a great movie of that year. Is In the Cut your number three? In the Cut is my number five.

[01:56:32] Because I have reloaded in Revolutions at two and three. Wait, so what's your two? It's my number four. I'm sorry, okay, okay, okay. And Kill Bill is my number five. Okay, wait, wait, wait. I need you to go down this list. One to five right now.

[01:56:45] Master and Commander, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, In the Cut, Kill Bill, Volume One. But you should think of those two Matrixes. I'm kind of cheating by having them next to each other. And then Unknown Pleasures, still one of my favorite Josh Unke movies.

[01:57:01] Sorry if I mangled his name. I love Hulk, Griff, you love, I do love The Fog of War. Errol Morris's The Fog of War, big movie for me when I was 17. I do love Jerry. Gus Van Sant's Jerry. I was. I love Down with Love. We've covered.

[01:57:16] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You loved Jerry? Jerry Rules. Oh my God. They're wandering around in that desert. I'm learning so much about you right now. I love Open Range, the Kevin Costner film. Oh, Open Range goes off. It goes all the way off.

[01:57:30] I do love all the real girls. It was. Good, good. It was a champion, again, of my teenagehood. Right. I mean, I didn't. I love Guy Madden's Dracula Pages from a Virgin's Diary. As you should, as you absolutely should. I do love City of God.

[01:57:46] Haven't seen that in a long time. Since it came out. I mean, as a co-host on this podcast, I was obsessed with Big Fish at the time and saw it like eight times in theaters because it was the only movie that made me cry.

[01:57:57] That was definitely my number one at the time. I have not gone back and done a list through a modern prism. Both things I didn't see at the time, like In the Cut and All the Real Girls are certainly way up there for me.

[01:58:07] That was not all the real girls. Is my number one Hulk by default? I'm just like, I wonder if there's a movie I have invested more energy in, you know? I don't know. I'd have to think it over. Absolutely, sorry, some of my other,

[01:58:21] wait, I was just, I got distracted. I love In Tall But Cruelty, huge defender of that movie. I love Shattered Glass. I think that movie is good. I like School of Rock, it's fun. I like The Station Agent. I like Something's Gotta Give.

[01:58:37] I still need to see The Station Agent. Love Something's Gotta Give. Spy Kids 3D Game Over. Sure. And then there's a lot of, like there's like Demon Lover, which is a movie that, that's sort of like an In the Cut kind of thing

[01:58:51] where I've never been able to get to loving that movie, but I certainly admire that movie's energy. Very Ben Hosley movie. I'm sure he's never seen it, but he would dig. I'm just looking at like fucking August of 2003 and on one weekend you had Freaky Friday, right?

[01:59:06] Like a surprisingly good Disney family comedy coming out at the same time as Secret Lives of Dentists and Magdalene Sisters and Gigli. And Gigli. Just like the variety there, you know? There's, look, there was more variety back then. I love SWAT, as you know.

[01:59:24] Well of course, a movie you've threatened to cover on the podcast a couple times. Clark Johnson film. I'll stick up for Dreamcatcher any day of the week. Oh my God! Hollywood should put out more Dreamcatchers and less Spider-Man. You are truly a loose cannon.

[01:59:37] I am a loose cannon. Fighting Temptations, obviously. You know, I have seen that, but not. It's kind of fun. Since like 2003. I love Fighting Temptations. Kind of a fun movie. Beyonce, so Beyonce and Cuba Gooding Jr. actually work really well together.

[01:59:50] Beyonce's memory hold movie career is a thing I will never stop being obsessed with. Early Beyonce when she was just like, should I just, you know, kind of be in movies? Doing like Carmen a hip hopper, come on. Gold member. She was great.

[02:00:03] She's incredible in Cadillac Records, obviously. Like I loved that early run of hers before she became whatever. A goddess atop a pyramid we must never perceive. Is it Obsessed? Right, which was like a weirdly big hit. No one remembers.

[02:00:18] Yeah, Obsessed is a bad movie, but it was a big hit. It was a big ass hit. It was a big ass hit. Ali Larder, watch out for her. She's great in Cadillac Records, which obviously we always stay in any chance we can.

[02:00:29] And she was in what I think was the highest grossing movie of all time, The Lion King remake. I believe that was the number one highest grossing movie of all time. Because of her. Yes. Yeah, it's definitely because of her. I guess she'll be in the Lion King.

[02:00:40] She did double duty on that, like releasing that album, girl. I guess she'll be in Barry Jenkins' The Lion King 2 Simba's Pride or whatever. Well, the idea is- It would be funny if he was like, so here's my take. It's just Simba's Pride, I'm just doing that.

[02:00:54] I really want that to be it. I hope he does Lion King 1 1⁄2. Yeah, do 1 1⁄2, baby. What's it, Kranz's killed, Stern is dead. No, isn't the thought that it's Godfather Part II that it's like a split narrative of young Simba? And young Mufasa or whatever.

[02:01:11] King Simba and young Mufasa and Scar. I mean, hey, look. I don't know, look. Wouldn't it be great if it was actually animated? Wouldn't it? I would appreciate it. What if the trailer for that was hand drawn? I would actually watch it.

[02:01:25] Because I still have not seen the Lion, I'm not having to watch that. It's not very good. Just think about it, it's bad. It's a bad movie. You may have seen it and forgotten you saw it. It's pretty plausible. I watched Black is King and I was like,

[02:01:37] oh, this guy's songs. Yeah. Yeah. Black is King. Yeah, Black is King. The Lion is not, unfortunately. Did Black is King come out in quarantine? There are now things- It did come out in quarantine. Where I'm like, I watched that,

[02:01:51] but in that sort of swirling mess of early quarantine. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, July 2020, yeah. Okay, we're done. The End of Cut, one of the great films. End of Cut, one of the great films. I hope people enjoyed it and if they didn't, too bad. Yeah.

[02:02:08] Jordane, do you have any final thoughts you wanna share? The thing that In the Cut does that, even now, in current times, we still really don't see kind of like a reclaiming of eroticism in American cinema, still. Still, eroticism is basically gone

[02:02:27] and watching In the Cut just makes me think about all of the female directors that could've, because she really is one of the few that got a chance to make a movie like that. We didn't really talk about it,

[02:02:39] but not a lot of women got to make erotic thrillers during that time. Yes, right. This is a pin I put in two hours ago that I'm now remembering I never got to resolve, but there is that weird thing, I mean, just talk about the deeply ingrained

[02:02:52] puritanical nature of American audiences and all of that shit, and now there's obviously the every one month discourse of are sex scenes bad, why are Marvel movies sexless, and both arguments bumping up against each other. But so many of the most hated, like this was a disaster,

[02:03:09] this movie is embarrassing, it needs to be mocked, Hollywood movies of 1990 to 2005 were highly sexual. Things like Basic Instinct 2, which obviously we haven't seen and I don't think is defendable, but the backlash to that was so much stronger than a backlash to an action movie sequel,

[02:03:30] where it's like, how dare you do this? Showgirls obviously. There is this thing where if you make a bad, sexy movie, it's a crime against nature. How dare you put this in front of me? Well, yeah, and I mean also- And look, it's happened with male stars

[02:03:47] like Color of Night and shit like that, but I think you are right. This movie is unique in that it's one of those directed by a woman with the perspective of a woman, which is maybe why it got an even worse response.

[02:03:58] Yeah, and it's not just that it got a response because people are afraid of sex, it's that people decided that it was badly made. Like the cognitive dissonance of deciding that a film that is this well-made is badly made.

[02:04:09] Like there was something about the rewiring of the brains. You don't have to like this movie, but to say that it's badly made is just factually untrue. So it's just, yeah, I just, I am one of those people where it's just like,

[02:04:26] can we please bring sex back to movies? Can we please bring back chemistry casting? My Lord. Yep, yep. It's just, when I watch it, the thing that was so, that really like jolted me, it was really like a shot to the arm

[02:04:43] and I was really energized by this movie was because it just reminded me of when people were able to like have their bodies in an American film and it be casual, just like her, like Meg Ryan lying in bed with Jennifer Jason Leigh. Like them just like.

[02:05:03] In the bath, things like that. Them just like spending time together and like the way that they're close to each other, it's like they're so, like the sisterhood in that is like it's so intimate and it's so real.

[02:05:16] Like of course you're not gonna put on all your clothes to hang out with your sister. Like, you know? And they're like, and she, and you know, Jennifer Jason Leigh's like, thanks for sharing your bed, just like this ability to be close

[02:05:30] and to be in your body and to display your body and especially at like in getting like older, which they both were getting older at the time and they just like, it was just so beautiful to see them and it's beautiful to see how they're shot

[02:05:46] and I think that a lot of the backlash had to do with the fact that like so many of these erotic thrillers that we grew up with didn't really like sex and In the Cut is a movie that likes sex, that likes women's bodies,

[02:05:59] that isn't afraid of women's bodies. That's not punishing people for having sex. And for how hot this movie is, the sexuality in the movie is not exclusively designed to titillate and I do think sometimes with maybe the wall of corduroy, there is this violent response of like,

[02:06:17] I didn't find this fucking hot. I didn't have a boner. What the fuck is this movie doing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a bunch of people who like really and that's why like sometimes when people are talking about like the male gaze,

[02:06:29] people are so obsessed with the male gaze, subverting the male gaze, what the male gaze is. But the thing about it is, is that like as a bisexual woman who watches movies, like it's hot, like if it's hot, it's hot. If it's not hot, it's not hot.

[02:06:42] It's not like in a situation like this where you are able to see, there are ways to display a woman's nude body in a way that you don't have to say male gaze. Sure. I agree with that. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Movies are innately voyeuristic. Absolutely.

[02:06:58] And sexiness is inherently part of the chemical makeup of movies as an art form. We shouldn't be running away from it. Yeah, and I think that it's notable that the loudest voices reclaiming it right now are women because we find it hot.

[02:07:15] It was almost like nobody really asked us before. Sure. And there, I mean, of course there are women who did not like this movie, but they're also from like a different generation than a lot of us who are writing for it right now.

[02:07:27] And I think that that also matters. I mean, full circle, but fucking whatever it was four years ago, Nicole Kidman signed this big deal with Amazon about like, I wanna bring erotic thrillers back. Where are these $30 million star driven movies you can watch with a bottle of wine?

[02:07:40] And it was a big fucking deal that she was gonna bring this thing back and not. One film has come out of that deal. Jordane, thank you so much for being on the show. People should listen to Bad Romance. Yeah, please do, please do.

[02:07:52] Great podcast, Joseph Bromwin, Ariel, Isaac. And I wanna thank everyone for listening to the show. Wow. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, AJ McKee and Alex Baron for our editing,

[02:08:13] Lin Montgomery in the Great American Novel for our theme song, JJ Birch, Nicole Ariano for our research. You can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features. Where at this point, we're still on Ghostbusters? I have no sense of time.

[02:08:32] We're doing Ghostbusters, then we're doing The Matrix. Yeah, I don't know where we're at. I don't remember where, who knows where we're at? I think we're in The Matrix. We're either in the afterlife. The Matrix is about to start. We're about to enter The Matrix.

[02:08:41] Yeah, we're gonna do The Matrix. Okay? We're in The Matrix. You sick fucks, we're gonna do The Matrix again. The last Ghostbusters coming up. And it's great and it's very normal. The Ghostbusters episode, we're in a really good mood for those last two episodes.

[02:08:54] They're two movies that are really fun to talk about. Go to the blank check website. I'm not gonna list all the other links. We fucking done it. I'm just so tired of doing all this shit. We thank nobody. I will never thank anyone ever again.

[02:09:13] Tune in next week for Bright Star. Your favorite movie of 2009. Definitely. You love. I do. And as always, no sense of cock whatsoever. No sense of cock whatsoever. No sense of cock whatsoever.