[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that they made it to show It's Blank Check I'm exhausted really, Nicky, this is foolish, Nick please, it's just foolish Foolish?
[00:00:28] Frankly I think it's ridiculous You didn't like my podcast? I loved your podcast, I thought she was a wonderful podcast Why is it ridiculous to visit the grave? Because it's one o'clock in the morning That makes it nicer I'm not making anything, Nick, a podcast is a podcast
[00:00:44] There's no religion in the world that says a person's soul is buried with them in their podcast It's not your podcast in there What a crazy scene without us replacing the words As we're doing it, I'm just like this is just a crazy conversation anyway Yes
[00:01:04] And it made more confusing by me choosing to indiscriminately replace three different words Right, you started just throwing podcasts in everywhere I liked it, I thought it was great Thank you That's all that matters, at the end of the day that's really the only thing that matters
[00:01:21] Hello everybody This is a podcast That you can visit at one o'clock in the morning If you... yeah, sure, absolutely Listen in a graveyard Yeah, please do Nicky of course says very hard to talk to a dead person, there's nothing in common
[00:01:36] It's very easy to listen to a podcast You might have many things in common I should have just let Ben say the graveyard thing, that was better Listen, it's a podcast Better Called Blank Check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin I'm David
[00:01:51] It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers Hold on, why is this... Give me one second here, why is it not showing up? Hello, hello, hello Okay, I think my mic wasn't working It's okay, we got the zoom
[00:02:10] The plug was undone Okay, so you'll use that as the backup? No, you know actually let's have you guys do that scene again Oh god no I'm a one take David, that's it You get one take out of me and then I go to the trailer
[00:02:24] You would have been horrible on an Elaine May set Yeah, Elaine May would have fucking shot me in the head She would have hired Ned Beatty to kill me Well now all of this is in the podcast Now I'm not taking a second take
[00:02:36] This is all funny, I fucked up, my wire was undone Hopefully you can't hear that much of a difference And it's good, the chaotic energy It's chaotic It's real, that's the whole point It's just people living I should just leave in the middle of this podcast
[00:02:50] And then come back 40 minutes later That's the kind of thing we should be doing We'll still be rolling baby, just engage That's all that matters Listen, this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David That's right
[00:03:03] What if we pretended this episode was called Blank Check with Mikey and Nikki? That would accomplish nothing, right? Yeah, I don't really know what that does for anyone But it doesn't really do anything I think But this is a podcast about filmographies
[00:03:17] Directors who have massive success early on in their careers And they're given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear Sometimes they bounce baby And this is an unfortunately short mini-series On the films of Elaine May
[00:03:32] We've gotten to her third film Her first real bounce The movie that almost makes her retire from filmmaking Until she's coaxed out of retirement and then makes the biggest flop of a decade Right The movie that people think of as being synonymous with ending a career
[00:03:53] I know it's not a blank check, but it's kind of a blank check in how she made it Yeah But is it about this movie or Ishtar? This movie Ishtar is its own thing This might be more of a stolen check Yeah
[00:04:06] But it's like when she's making it, she's getting to do whatever the fuck she wants Yeah And this is kind of blank check in the way where it's like She makes two comedies and everyone's like She's the comedy girl and she's like Fuck you guys
[00:04:19] Yeah, she's like this is going in your eye Yeah We should say it's a mini-series on the films of Elaine May It's called The Podbreak Cast Today we are finally discussing Mikey and Nikki with our friend from the iconography podcast, Olivia Craighead Hi guys
[00:04:39] I told you guys I wanted to do this movie And then today or yesterday I was like Oh my god this is such a big movie to talk about And I've spent the last 24 hours like Reading a lot about this movie Cramming
[00:04:55] Just because I was like I don't want to let the people down Because I just think that it's like I don't know It's like older, it feels like it's steeped in a lot of history So I came to play You're gonna be great
[00:05:13] But better than either of us Yeah absolutely we're both so burnout But let's also say I feel like the last time we recorded an episode with you for Flight was a month ago Yeah that's the other thing is that I'm like back really fast It feels like
[00:05:32] You're back fast This episode will come out four months later No I know but we're really doing a lot of hanging It feels weird, not a bad way but it just feels like Is time like distorting? It also like maybe wasn't, it was like two months ago
[00:05:51] Because I think we did the end of November Okay And now it's the end of January But time is faking that That makes me feel a little bit better It was November 24th so yes it was just a little over two months ago
[00:06:02] But it could have been two weeks ago and I'd be like sure Yes And in my mind it was a month ago But yes Griffin we are, the two of us are squeezing time Like that's what we're doing You know that's why it feels even more crazy
[00:06:15] Yes we've started calling each other a cap and crunch Because we're crunching as many episodes into a week as we can You're certainly right, I don't really want to talk about why But people will probably know by this point It will become apparent at some point Exactly Yes
[00:06:31] I mean this episode is dropping April 18th Yeah I'm soon to be 35 Hey Hey Hey Just wanted to get another look at you Bag of Bones Sam's, yeah I'm loopy It's very weird, I will be 32 by the time this episode comes out
[00:06:48] And 32 just feels like such a garbage age I don't know how 32 would differ It's not an exciting milestone So boring Are you guys liking your 30s though? I'm loving them, I mean honestly I always Throughout my 20s I just thought like
[00:07:04] I can't wait to just slow down and live through a global pandemic And so in that sense the 30s have really Been living up to my expectations Well on the, okay to counter I'm 25 And I'm getting my fucking prime years absolutely zapped away That is fair
[00:07:21] I should be out at clubs until 3 in the morning Dancing to house music that I hate You love to hit the clubs Yeah That's all we talk about I love to take drugs from strangers Like that's all this shit I should be doing right now
[00:07:36] And yet here I am Olivia you raise a great point Cause obviously that's exactly what I was doing when I was 25 as well And yes the best time to live through a pandemic Is when you're a wash up 32 year old I think that's probably, yeah
[00:07:50] I turned 20 years old and one day Every day of my life Went to a club and took drugs from a stranger And then you know I hit the age of 30 And I was like signing goodbye Not doing that anymore No you don't have to stop
[00:08:04] Ben's like another party I heard from I'm sorry I'm confused David you said something I don't know if it was your mic cutting out If you were having a similar kale problem Or what you said every day you hit a what? A club, a club
[00:08:17] Oh okay sorry, sorry, a club Okay I was just confused Gotta hit the clubs This is one of those movies That's just about being An adult man A sort of broken adult man And I don't feel like These guys But it is interesting to watch these movies
[00:08:37] As I tiptoe closer And it stops being like Watching these movies and I was like a 15 year old Cassavetes dork and being like Oh this is like watching a movie about a knight In armor This guy might as well be doing particle physics
[00:08:53] This is so far from my lived experience Right and then I watched this and I'm like I'm pretty sad My jackets are pretty wrinkly How old are these guys supposed to be? Because they have like 70s face In the way where it's like I have absolutely no idea
[00:09:09] Alright so this film came out in 1976 Is that right? And so Cassavetes When it comes out is 47 Okay And Fawke is 49 Okay they both look really good for their age then They look really good I was like they're 40 You could tell me late 30s and I'd be like
[00:09:29] Right they're old grisly late 30s But no they're late 40s Like I said 70s face I feel like everyone in the 70s looked a little older Because they were smoking all the time Right everyone was right Food And Cassavetes is essentially dead within 10 years Yeah he dies in 89
[00:09:47] Yeah there you go What did he die of? How did he die? It was a liver issue I believe it was drinking related Right, cirrhosis of the liver because he drank 1 billion gallons of alcohol Right okay yeah that'll do And Peter Fawke He died an old man
[00:10:05] He died a very old man Last decade or something Yeah there are all these stories about Cassavetes How he just started aging really quickly If you look at like his last couple of movies He started going really grey And he was still kind of thin
[00:10:19] But he had a ginormous belly Because of his liver issues So he was just like this rail thin man With a distended belly And his friends talk about how he just started Wearing looser shirts And it would be very confusing
[00:10:33] Like they'd just be like I can't make sense of Is he gaining weight Or not And he just sort of didn't tell anyone He was sick for a while Cassavetes one of my ultimate guys As I sit here at my desk Now The location of Blank Check Studios
[00:10:51] North One of three satellite studios Where the show is recorded Manhattan But I have this like John Cassavetes On my desk, he's on my window sill Wait wait wait I can't see it Yeah, oh cute It's just young sexy Cassavetes But he's one of my favorite guys
[00:11:11] Of all time And I do think I should just put this out as like a disclaimer This movie has such an Interesting reputation because I feel like for a lot of people Who like Cassavetes more In theory than they do In practice They're like this is
[00:11:31] My favorite Cassavetes movie Like this is what I wish his movies were like This is the best of him as an actor And it's sort of a more focus less Self-indulgent version Of what he was trying to do in his films And then I'm such a slut for
[00:11:45] Cassavetes that I wish this movie were Messier which I know is an insane Thing to say unless You've watched every cut of every Cassavetes movie like I have No, I think that's crazy. I think you're crazy You should go to the loony bin
[00:11:59] I think I might fall into the other group I mean I love like Woman under the influence. I think that's like An incredible movie but On Griffin's suggestion I watched husbands For the first time before I watched Mikey and Nikki and I was like
[00:12:13] This, I like this a lot I can never watch this again This is like stressing me out And this is like feels Like similar where it's like Why are men like this? It's like as it's like thesis Sort of but in a way that is like Less about
[00:12:31] Really being like Horrible people and being more like Confused and betraying each other and like I don't know. Yes I mean this movie is certainly also disorienting And is not really A comedy or A crowd pleaser but there's the famous story That the first cut of husbands
[00:12:49] Which this episode is not about But it's worth watching if you wish to watch it It's one of my favorite movies They screened for a test audience And they loved it and they laughed a bunch And Cassavetes walked out I rate
[00:13:01] And he's like they're not supposed to laugh We gotta cut all the jokes out Okay John I mean he's right I think that movie would be way worse if it was Like a laughy comedy Cause it makes all the like Horrible stuff hit harder
[00:13:17] When you're like these guys are kind of Fucked up But I also think like The Cassavetes movies are so much about I think John Cassavetes was so obsessed With the way people speak When they are inebriated Going through A psychological break or both
[00:13:35] Right? Like his movies are people giving these Long monologues where they're sort of Poetic in their own mind and it's almost Gobbledy cook What are they saying? Yeah This is a movie where the two guys talk Far more straight to each other
[00:13:49] It's still got the Cassavetes acting energy But a lot of it is them talking around Subjects, you know? Yeah I would say at first I would say the last half you lose that a little bit In a good way As a possible negative
[00:14:03] I'm just saying I was sort of watching this Trying to really parse the differences Because it is This movie is an odd duck because Elaine May this is her first film That is entirely original Her first two movies A new leaf and Heartbreak Kid
[00:14:19] Were adapted from short stories By her one not by her Adapted I mean neither story was written by her This was entirely created by her And was based on people she grew up around I was watching There's a special feature on the criterion disc With
[00:14:35] Let me look up what the guy's name is But he worked at Paramount was the one guy Who sort of took on the responsibility Of trying to distribute this movie And then became her producer For her plays for a while After that and his Name is Julian Schlossberg
[00:14:53] But he Said without going into too much detail That Elaine May's family was Connected Or at least sort of connected adjacent And so she grew up around people like this I think it was like There were some guys who were Around her family growing up
[00:15:13] Who were like Mike Enneke And also in the same way that they're Like lower tier And they were hanging around with mob bosses Or whatever That was the whole concede of this movie Can I make a movie about the guys That never end up in a mob movie
[00:15:29] These guys who are just kind of sad Sacky low level Sort of like slumping around There's schmucks who owe people money Is essentially what they are That's the extent to which they're really connected They know the bad people To go to And they maybe do some work
[00:15:47] Like in the family But also If one of these guys are In a mob movie They're in it for one scene as the guy That fucking De Niro intimidates And makes look like a shit worm or something This is only four years after The Godfather
[00:16:03] There's not a lot of good mob movies yet There's just that really We're just getting to The sort of modern gangster movie It's really just started to happen As this is coming up It's so like sort of Modern this movie This movie is so modern
[00:16:21] As much as it is also a crazily 70s movie Where there's a guy who sells cream And you know everyone's got a raincoat And everyone smokes 100 million cigarettes But like it also is just Feels like it was made yesterday I should mention it was shot in 1973
[00:16:37] So it was shot only a year after The Godfather It took three full years to come out Right there you go fuck She had been writing it forever So it's like not Godfather inspired No I'm not saying it's completely original Yeah yeah yeah but like
[00:16:53] It was completely original But I was trying to get a sense of the timing Of this I know she tried it out With a bunch of different pairings Of guys in the two lead roles And she had done script readings With Groton and Falk
[00:17:09] I've read a lot of interviews With Cassavetes from the early 70s Where he talks about how much he likes Elaine May movies and he wants To collaborate with her so I think they already Weren't communication at this point At some point the idea comes to
[00:17:23] Put these two guys together Which then suddenly makes it such A Cassavetes adjacent film You know Because even though this is very much Elaine May's script this movie is Not as improvised as sort of legend has It And it's very much got her own different Filmmaking style
[00:17:43] You have these two guys Who are now Taking a certain amount of authorship Of the internal rhythms of each scene And those rhythms are very defined by the work That they had done together for decades Now at this point The way Peter Falk tells it is like
[00:17:59] He was like having lunch With Cassavetes in like the paramount Commissary and was like I got this script from Elaine May And he was like I'll do it No no no you gotta read it Don't say you're gonna do it
[00:18:15] And then apparently Cassavetes is by the end of this Argument is standing on the table Being like is she writing it And Peter Falk was like yes Is she directing it? Are you gonna be in it? Yes and then he's like I'll do it
[00:18:29] That is how much he liked Elaine May And Peter Falk and was just like I'm in Out lunch is very Cassavetes That's what I was gonna say When you hear like show busy old Hollywood New Hollywood stories like that Often you're like but come on it's being exaggerated
[00:18:45] It wasn't this extreme Everyone I've ever met Who worked with Cassavetes And I have Gone out of my way to try to speak To a couple people who have worked with him In the past as such a big fan I'll say like no he was absolutely that
[00:19:01] Fucking dramatic Showboat if he wanted to prove a point He would actually stand up on a table And yell that in the commissary in front of everybody Like that fundamentally was who he was On a daily basis Such a pain in the ass
[00:19:15] Yeah must have been such a pain In the ass to hang out with my god Well that's because I think I don't remember who it was it was maybe Al Rubin Who is like his producer for most of his movies
[00:19:25] But I was saying like I just think he's such a genius And they were like I mean he was kind of just a pain In the ass It's funny to hear like you talk about him This way because he was just kind of Like a clown
[00:19:37] Do you think it's because he was short I was about to say we must call out That he's a short king So is Peter Falk they're both short Falk, Gazara, Cassavetes all Short but weirdly Gazara and Falk Read short Yes this is what I was gonna say
[00:19:55] Cassavetes has the face of a taller man He's got a tall face Yeah and he just sort of looks like I mean it's that he's so He's a very striking handsome guy But he looks like a boxer or something Like he just kind of looks tough
[00:20:09] He's got like these angles I guess Yeah there's a Johnny Staccato There's a term my brother James Newman Who was one shenanature boxer Loves That's used about boxer's faces Which is he looks like a bruised penny I love it This is a real bruised penny movie
[00:20:29] Yeah you know but these are bruised penny faces These guys Cassavetes just has a fucking unbelievable mouth Have you ever seen that Show Johnny Staccato where he played A jazz pianist who was a private detective It sounds like the greatest show of all time
[00:20:43] Yeah guess what it is it rules It sounds so good The Sopranos can eat Johnny Staccato's Ass Johnny Soprano never plays Does jazz sets It's so wild God I should watch that how do I watch that I have it on DVD I don't know if it's somewhere
[00:21:05] I'm just saying you know we used to say Everyone's watching the Sopranos In quarantine maybe we should be Watching Johnny Staccato But Colombo because The first two Colombo movies are 68 and 72 So he's done two Colombos By the time he starts shooting
[00:21:23] This movie by the time it comes out he is very much Colombo I think he is Working very hard to not let that Define his entire Career I didn't realize before Literally today that Colombo Wasn't like Like hour long Episode TV shows
[00:21:43] There would just be a Colombo once in a while Yeah it was like because I watched the one that Cassavetes is in Where he plays a Conductor who murders His Mistress who is Also the piano player in his Orchestra
[00:22:01] And it's like an hour and a half and I was like Oh this is like how British people do TV like this is crazy Some of them are like as long as 100 minutes some are 70 It would range like it's just a whole other World it is yeah
[00:22:15] You could just be like here's Your Colombo like it'll be whatever We give you take your Colombo and enjoy it And also he did it until Like 2003 Like there were new columbos coming out for like 40 years his last Colombo episode was in 2003 and is called
[00:22:31] Colombo likes the night life and it's pretty good And Matthew Reese is in it Jesus but Colombo was just like it was like Ironman For him he could just be like I'll do three Quick Colombos All right One more Colombo one more Colombo
[00:22:45] And like what's the premise of Colombo Like he's kind of a bum and you You know who did the murder from the first Seed like that's the only premise The premise of Colombo is He seems like he doesn't know what he's doing
[00:22:59] And at the very end he reveals that actually He's good at his job but also you always See the crime to start The show right like that that's one Kind of twist but that's it Watching it today really felt Like reading like Encyclopedia Brown where I was
[00:23:15] Like I was like figuring out how he was Going to put it together I was like Oh he left a flower on the floor Like that's how you're going to get him They call it a how catch him That's what they call that instead of a who
[00:23:27] Done it right like they're like what if you Do it the other way where it's like you're going to watch And put it together but I'm even just like I'm on the Colombo Wikipedia page right now And the key image is Excuse me
[00:23:39] The Colombo season one DVD set which Is even weird to call it like The Colombo season one What is Encycl is it just the first Colombo or is it like multiple Colombos? Let's just keep saying Colombos guys. I know There's 69 episodes they're saying The first season was
[00:23:57] Seven episodes that aired Between September and February of 72 in that season of television Right. Right. Exactly I just tried to close My Colombo tab and it said I don't know just one more thing I see this photo very funny 5 Point pretty funny you see this photo
[00:24:15] Where he's like covering like his One of the eyes and like cigarette Smoke running over his shoulder Because he's got a cigar under his armpit And like he sure does Fucking Colombo man Let's just turn this into a Colombo cast Yeah it's just
[00:24:31] It's just interesting when I feel Like A filmmaker takes on A Actor who is so much the author Of their own movies You get this sort of Interesting sort of mashup How many examples are there of this Because of course not a lot of actors direct
[00:24:51] And the ones that do There's only a few that are like O'Toors on the level that Cassavetes I'm like literally trying to think Do you think like directing Clint Eastwood Would be like kind of like I think that's an example Eastwood's a good one. Warren Beatty
[00:25:07] And of course that's what she That's the fucking problem she runs into with Ishtar Is if you're directing Warren Beatty At a certain point he wants to direct the movie And he only doesn't Because he's acting and he's like
[00:25:19] I'm too busy but then he just fucking does it anyway Famously I think you guys Should do a Warren Beatty Mini series so that I can come And tell you that the rules don't apply They don't I've been screaming about this Listen I'm with you guys Kill Fuck'em
[00:25:39] The other day I went To apple music and was so frustrated To see that still Years later you cannot Download the song rules don't apply It has never been legally released I was scouring the internet for it It's so good it's such a jam Great song
[00:25:57] It's about her rules don't apply And Emily in Paris isn't it With Han Solo and Han Solo, they met. It's a it's a movie about them trying to fuck and Howard Hughes played by Warren Beatty. Yes, being super into that idea. It's one of those incredibly normal cast.
[00:26:15] Han Solo, Emily and Paris, Dick Tracy, Alec Baldwin, Dabney Coleman, Matthew Broderick. Absolutely. Ed Harris, Martin Sheen. It's just one of those movies where you're like, I mean, we will do Warren Beatty one day, obviously. And in Olivia, it sounds like you want rules don't apply.
[00:26:34] But it's one of those movies where you're like, did nobody check on this one before they put it out? Like did no one just kind of he was like, he spent like a million years being like, this is my movie. And then finally they were like fine.
[00:26:48] I remember like it was a Fox movie, just being like when it was coming out, I'm like getting in touch with Fox and being like, guys, anything you want to do on this movie, I want to do it. I assume Warren's not involved, but like, you know,
[00:27:01] not available, but just show it to me as soon as you can. I can't wait to see this thing. I'm so excited. They were like, oh, we're so excited to show it to you. Never got in touch. They never showed it to anyone.
[00:27:11] They did like one screening a night before it came out. They were just like, goodbye. But he like did podcasts. Like he went on like happy, sad and confused. And I feel like a couple other shows. And then there was that lawsuit recently where
[00:27:24] he was suing not Fox, but maybe. Regency or one of the companies. Rat Pack. Right. One of those. For maybe it was suing Fox for mishandling the distribution of the film and they all these emails leaked out that Warren Beatty had written three weeks after
[00:27:40] the movie came out where he was like, I still think with good word of mouth, we could turn this movie's box office fortunes around. And so Warren Beatty is still in Bonnie and Clyde mode where you can have like a disastrous Radio City
[00:27:53] musical premiere and then five months later, it can be a hit in Boise. He's like, yeah, have we opened it in the Southwest yet? Like come on. Truly. Can I also say it was originally set up at Paramount.
[00:28:05] It was like a big Brad Gray thing and big announcement. We're so excited to be back in the Warren Beatty business. And at that point, the cast was Andrew Garfield, Baldwin Benning, Shia LaBeouf, Jack Nicholson, Evan Rachel Wood, Rooney Mara, Owen Wilson. Sounds good.
[00:28:21] And then almost all the people who are box office dropped out of the movie. Right. But Timberlake was considered Felicity Jones. Felicity Jones, right? Yeah. Carry them all again. Anyway, this is not a rules on apply episode. Not yet. Not yet.
[00:28:38] I'd say Costner is one of those guys in the category you're talking about from experience, I believe he directs at least 50 percent of every movie he's in. And even the stories I've heard about shit like Molly's game and Man of Steel where he has
[00:28:52] relatively small parts, he exerts a lot of control. Right. If he's on camera, at least he's he's bossing people. If he bossed me around, I'd probably let him do it. Honestly. But like we've talked a lot about, you know, someone
[00:29:06] like Sandler, who is not a director, but certainly the auteur of his movies and he chooses whether he's handing over himself to other directors and letting them use him as they want or whether, you know, he's doing his Sandler thing. Whereas Cassavetes at this point really was just
[00:29:24] doing the Cassavetes thing. There wasn't another mode. There was paycheck mode. There was I hate the thing I'm in when he's in the fury, right? I just have utter contempt for this project. I mean, you read like interviews with him and he
[00:29:37] just hated almost everything he worked on. He hates like Rosemary's baby, which is crazy to me. He's like, fuck that movie. It's not it's not good. He's good in it. Yeah, he's really good in it. But I think this is like one of the only movies
[00:29:51] where he's like, I really like this movie. I really like what I did in this movie. And like that makes sense because so many people are like, this feels very Cassavetes. So you really have the sense that he was like felt
[00:30:02] like he was doing the thing he likes to do. In the fury, he explodes. Yeah, cool. Yeah, it is cool. I think this might be his best performance ever as like a Cassavetes obsessive, just as an actor. I think this is probably his best work.
[00:30:18] And I think she gets interesting results out of him because she is one of the few directors he worked for that he did respect, but yet she reigns in some of his more indulgent tendencies. Right. And also just, yeah, there's less ego in a way.
[00:30:34] I mean, maybe ego is not the right word, but here's the question. Shit. Yeah. Does I guess do you nominate both Griffin? I'm looking at the spreadsheet right now. That's I would nominate Cassavetes. I don't know. I don't know. This is a tough year.
[00:30:49] I don't have a spreadsheet like you do. I wouldn't know whether there's room for two in the five or not. I don't have a list in front of me. Who else is in this year? It's a De Niro and taxi driver, obviously.
[00:31:01] Can I say I think he's good in that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. A well known performance. There's a good movie actually. Right. And then you've got, and like, I think you can't not have Sylvester Stallone and Rocky. I think that is a very important performance.
[00:31:19] And I think he's wonderful in that movie, but beyond that, just like everything that meant. And then you have the Oscar winner who's Peter Finch and network, which is another one of those like fuck, you know, I'm not even the biggest network fan.
[00:31:35] Like I like network, but not as much as some people like network, but you know. Network is my absolute favorite movie, I think of all time. There you go. Speaking of Ned Beatty. And so I have four and five or fucking Cassavetes, but
[00:31:48] that means I'm leaving out like the boys from all the presidents, men, another movie in which guys are being dudes. And Ned Beatty is. And he is. He's in all he's in every movie in 1976. He's in all the fucking. Geez. Yeah. I'm just thinking those are all 76 man.
[00:32:03] I was just, uh, I watched or I know we're talking about a lot of other movies, but we're also talking about where these guys were at at this point in time. But they were being dudes. They were being dudes. You've also just to be clear, you got Keith
[00:32:16] Carradine, I mean, uh, you know, John Carradine, uh, in David Carradine. Jesus, I always mix up my Karen, David Carradine and bound for glory. You've got Clint Eastwood and the outlaw, Josie Wales. Like you got, you got a lot of good movies out there.
[00:32:27] I mean, William Holden and network, obviously. Obviously he's great. Hoffman is great in Presencement too. So he's good in marathon, man. And go on anyway. Carry on. Uh, no, I just, uh, I watched, uh, a Superman, the movie, the other night.
[00:32:42] I watched the three hour cut that is the cut that they, uh, charged TV networks more for so they could play it like a two, two hour blocks over two nights. And it's just every single scene they shot put into the movie,
[00:32:56] which means there's a lot more Ned Beatty going like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. But I was just sort of like, huh, like where, let me get my Ned Beatty timeline right. Like where was he in his career when he's playing dipshit
[00:33:08] with a pork pie hat who like gets Lex Luthor's male? And it's like, right. This is after his dominant decade. His first movie is Deliverance. Yeah. Yeah. He's crazy. He's in a movie until 1970. He's like 40 at that point.
[00:33:24] He's just a guy who's a respected theater actor, but not even necessarily like a Broadway actor. He's not like a huge deal. And then it's just like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Like the seventies he just gets his one Oscar
[00:33:37] nomination, which is a crime that he only got one. He also, I would argue should have won that year. He's very good in that scene. Obviously it's a good scene. Who wins that year though? That's Robards, but it's Robards first of two consecutive wins.
[00:33:50] So in hindsight, you're like, give it to Beatty and 76. Give it to Robards. But he is so abominably good in all the presidents. Man, he's outrageously good in that movie. God, have they nominated both Burgess Meredith and Bert Young correctly? Yeah. God, what a good time.
[00:34:08] I know this is like, this is like not, not to be like, you know, like my freshman year at film school and I just read like easy writers or a J Bal's, but like this is just such an incredible time for 76 is like the year.
[00:34:22] I feel like that's always cited as like the best, best picture lineup ever. Right? This best picture lineup is like phenomenal. Yeah. It's a very good Rocky, all the presidents have been bound for glory network taxi driver. And then you also carry, you know, the movies that
[00:34:37] they don't get in the five, but you know, you have huge movies outside of the five. It's a great year. It's a great year. Face to face is that year. Seven beauties is that year. And this same year, Marathon Man, Mikey and Nikki
[00:34:52] essentially escapes into theaters through contractual obligations is dumped with a poster where the tag Christmas Christmas. I was just going to say they make it a Christmas movie, which is like a horrible. Insane. Do you know what the tagline was for this movie?
[00:35:08] Don't expect to like him, right? Yeah, I think yes. Which is like helpful, I guess. But like, so this guy, what's his name? Schlossberg. Yeah. Julian Schlossberg said that it was a deliberate strategy because she was so known as a comedian and
[00:35:25] heartbreak kid and new leaf had been hits that they were like, Oh, put on the poster that you're not going to enjoy this. And that will teach people that it's not a comedy, which I don't know if that's really effective messaging.
[00:35:37] I'm curious, Olivia, because you said you did a lot of research leading up into this. Is there anything you dug up in terms of sort of the development, the incubation of this movie before we start talking about like plot proper?
[00:35:55] Well, I think it's like kind of obvious on the screen that she started writing it like as a play, like it's originally a one act play, like very, it feels very two hander in a way that like comes alive on the screen.
[00:36:10] Like you could see this all taking place in like three places if she had to. And I also like, I don't know. I think, I think she is so interesting in her career because like she is the only, she's like the third
[00:36:25] woman they let into the DGA, which is crazy. Like it's insane. And I think like it's, I think it's incredibly cool that she got to make this movie at all. And I know that it became hell on earth for her to
[00:36:40] like make it the way she wanted to. But like the fact that someone gave her originally a million dollars and then eventually five million dollars to make this movie is just like. It's like the numbers are almost exactly the
[00:36:54] same as a new leaf, which was like supposed to be one and ended up being 4.8 or whatever. I mean, it was the same thing with her every time. It's also just fascinating of like, she's such a big star. She's so acclaimed.
[00:37:07] People want her to make a new leaf, right? She doesn't want a director star in it. She sort of talked into it and she has this awful experience making it and like tries to sue to take her name off the movie and stop it from being released.
[00:37:20] And then she's just like, cool. So also I'm not going to be in my movies anymore. Like she immediately removes from the equation arguably one of her greatest selling points as a director, you know, which is like, well, I'm a big star. I can put myself in it.
[00:37:33] Right. And I think also like this is, I'm sure you guys have talked about this, but like, and it's kind of almost like, I don't know, like well trodden to discuss. But like if she were a man, she would have made more than four movies.
[00:37:47] Like you can be like this difficult and like be a guy, especially in the 70s. Like, like I think that like that was the time where directors were like, fuck it. Terrible people. I'm going to be the worst. Maybe beat you up.
[00:38:03] Yeah, I'm going to be the worst man alive, make several masterpieces and you guys are all going to like wash my feet. Like that's what's going to happen. It's a thing I've been working hard to make sure I balance and how we tell these stories in this
[00:38:15] mini series because it is like she was incredibly antagonistic. She was certainly someone who turned everything into an all out war in the process of making her movies. That having been said, the men who did the same thing in the 70s were completely canonized
[00:38:31] and bowed to and their feet were washed as you said. 100%. I mean, even like, I think I like, I like watched some video in the cinematographer was like, I quit. I fully quit in the middle of the shoot. And then I had to come back because they like
[00:38:44] couldn't light a scene properly. And so I had to like come back. But people were like quitting and being like confused by her. Like no one got it, which is like when a woman does it, it's like, who's this? Like, who's this bitch demanding all these things.
[00:38:58] But like, I'll also say I work with a lot of female directors, especially in TV as I've mostly done. You know, there are a lot of great like female directors who made one feature and can't get another feature made. And now are just great episodic directors
[00:39:13] who I've gotten to work with. And and I've worked on a lot of like independent films where it's like a first time female filmmaker. And they're just is absolutely a fundamental difference in how so much of the crew treats them. Right. When when a female director comes out
[00:39:27] with like, I want to do this, I want the shot this way. And people just assume that she doesn't know what she's talking about. You know, I just there's this attitude of like that doesn't really make sense. And I've also just seen like first ADs
[00:39:40] negate what the director said and instruct the camera crew to set up something different because they're like, well, she just like doesn't know. And I think it's interesting that it's like it happens on like this movie, but it also happens on like women's
[00:39:54] pictures. Like it happens to Nancy Myers all the time where it's like she knows what she wants to do. And people are like, why is she why is she so picky? Like why is she so whatever? I mean, once again, like not that we need
[00:40:05] to reopen this wound, but David and I were texting each other when the whole Nancy Myers vulture like Halle Shire thing. Let's not move boy. You want to go ahead, go ahead. This is all I'm choosing my words very carefully here, but we were texting
[00:40:18] while it was going on saying like, hey, isn't it fun to not engage in this discourse whatsoever? You and I both know what we think about this and the entire discourse around it is becoming insufferable. But the one thing we both said to each
[00:40:29] other, which I feel comfortable saying on Mike now is just like this should all be framed as a positive. There there should not be this discussion of is it a backhanded compliment to say that she's picky about details? That's like one of the things that
[00:40:46] she should wear as a badge of honor that she has that level control over everything in front of her camera. When fucking David Fincher does that people lose their minds. Yeah. As a as a woman, I'll go on the record and say it's not sexist to have
[00:41:01] like an uvra of which you can make a taxonomy. That's a cool thing to have. It's it's an achievement. You have a right. You know, yes, you're well known to look at something and immediately see a beautiful kitchen and a stunning white turtleneck
[00:41:16] and be like that's a Nancy Meyers movie is like great. That's a thing. I was just reading every piece of the of the Myers thing and going why are are people arguing about this? It also looks like where people arguing about it was how
[00:41:33] how am I or sure being a little that's the thing with the Internet. Everyone is suddenly yelling and you're like, I'm not even everyone seems to be just sort of yelling up. But like, I don't know who and whether it doesn't matter. Yeah. God knows.
[00:41:48] But it does feel like, you know, in how much Elaine may actively resisted the sort of easier paths she could have had as a filmmaker, right? Making movies for herself as a star. You know, even after all the difficulty on a new leaf, you
[00:42:05] imagine that would have been a much easier path for her if she just said, I make a lane made comedies. I'm also the star of them. They're a man to comedies. They're weird. They're a cervic. They're dark. What have you? She takes herself out of the
[00:42:15] equation on the next one. And then her two final movies are very much boys movies. You know, they're movies about guys being dues, as you said. And these sad, broken men. Like I think also, and this is kind of like my big thing about
[00:42:31] this movie is like, I think one of the reasons that this feels like less messy than a Cassavetes movie because because he's also very good at being like what are men's relationships to each other? Like when they've known each other for a long time. But there's something about
[00:42:48] like when a woman makes a movie about men that is like slightly more concise almost. It's like Catherine Bigelow does this in. I was going to say Hurt Locker in Hurt Locker. Yeah. Where it's just like this this thing of being of like spending your whole life
[00:43:07] watching men interact or like having to watch men having to like take in what men are like for like just because that's the culture you consume, because those are the people you have to listen to like all of that is like she's so smart about how these two
[00:43:25] guys like relate to each other in a way that feels very feminine. Well, that's also like as I was sort of saying at the beginning Cassavetes movies are usually about women having mental breakdowns and or men getting incredibly drunk, right? And being self destructive, engaging in self-destructive behaviors.
[00:43:44] And I think his his male driven movies and his male relationships in his movies are about male intimacy. But it says something about him that he kind of only knows how to get there if the guys are so drunk that their filter is removed.
[00:44:00] And what's interesting about this movie is this is two guys who kind of can't say the right thing to each other. They are still closed off, but as an audience observing them, we it speaks volumes, right? Yeah. But you see and you see that there's like 30 years
[00:44:15] there like you really like in the first scene where like Nikki or like Mikey comes and Nikki like starts sobbing into him. Like that is a very intimate scene and they aren't even like wasted. Right. And that's just like a very tender moment to Elaine
[00:44:31] May's credit. I don't think Cassavetes was very capable or skilled at doing that. I don't think he was capable of showing two men not saying much, but saying everything and depicting intimacy. He need to have guys falling apart, you know, like literally collapsing on each
[00:44:46] other in the street screaming at four o'clock in the morning. Yes, I should watch some more. It's been a while since I did rewatch husbands recently. It was on criteria and I rewatched Gloria for some reason, which is just a great time. Like, you know, Gloria is kind
[00:45:04] of like the one where you're like, oh, he like made a half commercial movie and fuck, he's incredible at it. Like, you know, like, but it's also that thing that thing I love of just like a filmmaker who is so fundamentally themselves that they kind of
[00:45:17] can't make a normal movie. And it's halfway in between their thing. And I love it. Oh, I love it. I love it. Right. I like I haven't seen like killing of a Chinese book here opening night like or or women under an influence since
[00:45:29] I was in college like a long time. Oh my god, you should rewatch women under the influence. It's like so incredible. General Rollins is just like she's incredible. Also crazy that they were married for so you just seems it seems like Kassimettis would not be
[00:45:43] the kind of person who can like stay married for decades. And yeah, there he was crazy that she's she's still alive. She's fucking kicking around. Yeah, 90 years old. She rolls. She's probably my favorite actor actress of all time. I mean, she's like top five period for me.
[00:45:59] Are you notebook hive Griffin? I am. I was, you know, I was honestly very resistant to it for a while because I was such a fucking snotty little Kassimettis snob kid that I was like, why is Cassavetti's son making these rom comes and why is
[00:46:13] that only the best rom drums and why is that the best part that she can get. And then I came around to us fucking good. That movie's good. I haven't seen it in a while. And she's really great. Yes, she's really great. She's really good.
[00:46:25] It is kind of unique the dynamic of putting these two guys who have done so much stuff together and especially Kassimettis with his company of Falk and Gazer and Rowland's and everyone had sort of created this entirely different tempo for screen acting, you know, and not many
[00:46:44] other people were running with that. So to sort of like adopt that into the cloth of your film to take a movie that is very tightly written that could have been a stage play that almost was a stage play and let two guys sort of
[00:46:57] like control the temperature in between, you know, action and cut is is just an interesting there aren't very many movies like this. No, no. Yeah. And the only thing right we should, you know, as we've sort of discussed Griffin, like it's absolutely true that the industry had no
[00:47:15] interest in helping Elaine may make good movies. But it is also it's also true as you're saying like she herself was was not sure she wanted to do it a lot of the time. Like she she would struggle with like, do I
[00:47:29] want and of course part of it is like, do I want to run the gauntlet again of, you know, all the bullshit that will await me, right? But like she you said when you saw her talking about Ishtar, like she was kind of like, look,
[00:47:42] I could have done what you're saying, like I could have done the Woody Allen thing where I do a like comedy every other year basically. Right. And I didn't want to do that. And she also said I could have made a lot of movies after
[00:47:54] Ishtar. Like it certainly knocked me back on my heels, but I've gotten offers and I could have sold something. And I just didn't have I didn't care enough to go through this bullshit again. I mean, that was very much her attitude of just like it's it
[00:48:04] was just so miserable. I didn't care enough. Well, did you guys hear that thing maybe a couple years ago where Dakota Johnson was allegedly doing an Elaine May movie? But yes, which would be so good. I feel like Dakota Johnson is like a perfect person
[00:48:21] for Elaine May who is like we live in hope. We live. I wanted so bad because I think she's like funny in that way that's like underrated where it's like Elaine May could really like do it up for her. Dakota Johnson is the best.
[00:48:39] I said this in our straight episode, but. Ellen, that's not true is kind of like a perfect Elaine May scene. Oh my God. Ellen, that's not what happened. Also, her recently revealing that she was lying about loving Lyme's in her architectural digest. Like that is so funny.
[00:48:55] She's got that. Not an energy. That was what I said. That was like a joker moment. That was like, wait, Dakota, wait. You're not aware of what it's what you're doing here now. But back to Mikey and Nikki, the only other thing I'll say about Elaine May,
[00:49:12] Elaine May's chaotic filmmaking nature is that she did shoot a million and a half feet of film. Yes. Which is, I mean, that's normal. Normal two hour movies are eleven thousand feet. So yes, that's so much. Yes. This was one million four hundred thousand, which is, I
[00:49:32] think three times more than Gone With The Wind and Gone With The Wind is a day long. Right. I mean, the final cut of that movie is one day, I think. It's a long movie. It's four hours. It is four hours. It's four hours long.
[00:49:47] Mikey and Nikki is one forty and she shot three times more than Gone With The Wind. Yeah. And now I know that, like, Judd Apatow shoots like a million feet of film. It's like there are people who take her approach now where it's
[00:50:01] just like just keep it rolling. We're going to do everything we can think of, like, but it is just still it must have been astonishing for them for her to be like, yeah, you know, my little two hander gangster movie where, like the fourth lead probably
[00:50:16] has one scene. Yeah, I shot a million and a half feet of film going to need a year to cut it. Like I'll talk to you guys later. Like, I mean, I can only imagine how mind blowing that all how that all went
[00:50:28] over. But so much of it was, I think her knowing how Cassavetes and Fawke like to work at this point. They're whole thing in a way that that predated Apatow by decades. She wanted to have multiple cameras cross shooting at the same time so that
[00:50:42] if there was a beautiful discovered moment, she had multiple angles of it. She had editing options. She didn't have to recreate it. She also would just not call cut. She would just let the camera keep rolling even when the scenes were done to see if anything happened.
[00:50:57] And there's the famous story that we have to tell the we have to relate the famous. I love this story. It's one of one of the scenes where they're out in the street and both guys walk off camera and the camera keeps running for three minutes
[00:51:12] and the first ad yells out cut and she comes out screaming and says, what are you doing? I'm the director. You don't get to call cut. Is it the guys walked out and she went, but what if they come back? I learned some crazy
[00:51:26] like preamble to that story, which is that they were like supposed to shoot that scene on a Friday. They spent the whole day rigging lights on lighting poles so that they could shoot at night on this long strip of street. And then she arrives on set
[00:51:41] at night and she's like, no, I want them to walk the other way. The lights are set up this way. And so they're like just have them walk that way. She's like, no. And so they have to do it, shoot it the next day,
[00:51:53] re set up all the lights and on the night before she had been like there's like a cobblestone part of the street and she's like, well, that has to get paved. She wouldn't let them have like a cobblestone street. And then that same night
[00:52:07] after they had like gone through hell, getting it all set up, she was like, what if what if they come back? Just like a crazy 24 hours. It's just another thing about her is that she was incredibly particular. And a lot of times that she was particular about was
[00:52:23] creating the circumstances for something she didn't know she wanted. Yeah. I think also she like just liked watching Peter Falk and John Cassavetti's work together. She would just like sit there. And even if the camera like ran out of film, she would say, don't don't don't yell cut.
[00:52:41] Just let them keep going. I want to see where this goes. I want to see you guys end the scene and like they would have to be like, Elaine, what are we doing here? Like the cameras definitely had a film at this point. Like which I
[00:52:52] can't blame her. I mean, Apatow says a lot that like he loves Cassavetti's movies and would watch them go. Can you make a movie like this that just has more jokes in it? Like, can you make a movie like this? His whole idea for the King of
[00:53:08] Staten Island. And as you can tell, it totally worked. But even back to 40 year old Virgin. I mean, he even says like that was I mean, at that point, he was more concerned with trying to fit into the expectations of a commercial comedy.
[00:53:18] But he's always said like these movies are just kind of actors behaving. You get people who like each other off camera as well or natural. You set up a bunch of cameras. You give them a lot of time and you don't make it very plot or conflict heavy.
[00:53:31] You just kind of create a central set of circumstances and let scenes flow. And every movie he's made since then has gone further and further. It feels like in the direction of can I go full Cassavetti's? But but in a way, what he's
[00:53:45] doing is closer to this movie than it is to Cassavetti's, right? Yeah. I mean, this feels like the midpoint between the two. Yeah. I think like funny people in This Is 40 definitely have those vibes of just being like we're just putting some people in some places
[00:54:01] and seeing, seeing how it happens. This Is 40, especially where there's no plot. And then at the end, it's kind of like, oh, there's dads in the hospital, like where it just feels like they suddenly were like, oh, fuck, something should like happen. We we got to do Appetow
[00:54:17] Griffin. I haven't seen that movie since theaters and I always think about it. I haven't either, but I think about it with a lot of confusion. Yeah. But you know, maybe it's incredible or maybe I mean, we both stand funny people and funny people for
[00:54:31] me as the one where he got the balance totally right in terms of what he's trying to do. And King of Stan Island, I watch and I'm like, this either needs to be a lot more dramatic or have 40 percent more jokes. Olivia, what do you think of
[00:54:42] those movies? I mean, I like Jed Apatow. I was also like a teenager when Jed Apatow was really like cranking him out. Like I was in middle school, I think when knocked up came out and was like sweeping the nation. So I think I was like really
[00:54:59] primed to like love Jed Apatow movies and have kind of just like seen all of them. I haven't seen King of Stan Island, though, because I'm kind of a verse to watching a lot of Pete Davidson at once. I mean, it really feels like this, right?
[00:55:15] It's I just kept thinking because it's a lot of people just hanging out and talking shit and it doesn't have anything to do with anything. And then occasionally his Hollywood instincts kick in and he's like, OK, but anyway, here's what's up with the story.
[00:55:28] And it feels a little jarring anytime he does that. Yeah, but it also doesn't have the Apatow line of Rama thing. Like the King of Stan Island feels like the first one where he's not pointedly trying to make sure there are jokes and scenes.
[00:55:43] The thing that also I think differentiates this from the Cassavetes movies, which is closer to the model that Apatow tried to follow is that like the plot does. The movie does kind of have a plot. It has a motor behind it. It's not just a set of circumstances.
[00:55:58] It's like, here's this guy. He's worried he's going to die tonight. Right. He calls up his friend to help him out. And meanwhile, he's being hunted. You know, there's a clock on this movie. But that's it. Yes, that's the entire plot. And I think like that is kind
[00:56:13] of the theatrical thing where it's less like he like has a goal, which I feel like is a very cinematic thing and like a very theatrical thing is to like have a question is like, is he going to die? And it's like that is going to be
[00:56:27] answered by the time the curtain falls. I don't know if you guys have ever read or seen Night Mother, do you know that play? Yeah, yeah. Where it's just like at the beginning of Act One, the daughter comes out and she's like, I'm going to kill myself.
[00:56:39] And the whole play is her mother being like, don't kill yourself. And then at the end of the play spoiler, she does. And it's just like the whole time you're like, is she going to do it? And the whole time you're watching this movie, you're like, is
[00:56:50] Ned Beatty going to get him? Is Peter Falk going to like step in and like cut it off? Because you kind of know where it's going, but you want it to like maybe end differently. But the movie is also over the course of this like 100 minutes trying to
[00:57:07] parse what their relationship is, getting these little drips and drabs that come out in conversations where you start to be able to build a map in your mind of who these guys are exactly and who they are to each other because it just starts so abruptly.
[00:57:20] Yeah. And I also think this movie makes a really smart choice of having them at like a very interesting point in their friendship where they have like kind of fallen off, but he is still they are still like each other's oldest friends. But Mikey is like, you
[00:57:33] don't answer my phone calls anymore. You're only calling me because you're in trouble. Like it's that kind of like low point in their friendship that this movie catches the map. I wouldn't be friends with Nikki. Just to be just to put that seems like a bad friend. Yeah.
[00:57:52] He's a real shit. I also I kind of love any movie where you don't know if a character is telling the truth at any point or not. Oh, you know, I just think like a lesser movie would have you like kind of know what's going on
[00:58:08] the whole time. And the fact that like in that first like time when Mikey is like on the phone or like like Ned Beatty is like go to the bar, do whatever. Then you cut to them in the diner and Peter Falke is on the phone
[00:58:25] and you can't tell if he was with Ned Beatty or not because he's like there's no flights from TWA. So you're like, oh, he was just talking maybe to the airport, but like maybe to Ned Beatty and like by the time you figure it out,
[00:58:39] like I don't know. It's really. I mean, it's just such a smart screenplay. It's just so good. David, you said like this is one of the most weirdly disorienting movies ever made. And all of that factors into it or you just kind of in every
[00:58:53] scene can't figure out what you're supposed to know or not, which I also think is kind of replicating the energy of these two guys sitting across from each other, not knowing whether or not they can trust each other. Also, but it's also like they'll
[00:59:07] go to a new location, a restaurant, a bus, a bar, right? And you're like, OK, they're going to sit here and they're like by the end of the scene, they've like physically threatened someone. They're going to kill you, you know, they're grabbing people
[00:59:19] and like pushing them across the table. And sometimes Peter Fox doing it, the supposed, you know, you're sort of like, oh, well, this guy is the moderate one, you know, like every scene. And then occasionally he's the one who's just like when he
[00:59:33] like jumps over the counter for the cream, just like kind of out of nowhere. Like he conveys after a long exchange what he wants and gets the guy on board with giving him 15 cups of cream and charging him for 15 coffees. The guys about to do it and
[00:59:48] Fox like, all right, I got to go nuclear. But it's also like this is the moment. If you look, there's the two women in the background of the shot who are like at the counter and they are have that thing where they're kind of like uncomfortably laughing.
[01:00:07] Right. Right. It's kind of like have you guys ever been to a waffle house? I certainly have. It's it's kind of like when something is happening in a waffle house here like this actually isn't my business. Right. But they're not like threatened and they're not shocked.
[01:00:21] No, I'm just going like, oh, this is weird. And I'm late at night. You're at a diner. You're like, any freak could walk in right now. And part of me felt like I wonder if these two background actors, this is the only take where he did this, that
[01:00:37] they're reacting that way because it almost looks like they're looking at the movie. Right? They're giving it looks like that. But it works. What's the story? I was at a coffee shop. It was crazy and Colombo came in and got the guy to agree
[01:00:52] to sell him 15 cups of cream and then beat the shit out of it. Right. He had agreed to the terms that he would pay for 15 cups of coffee in exchange for just the cream. And then he strangled the guy and said he would kill him in
[01:01:05] six seconds unless he got the cream. Was his plan to carry like 15 cups of cream? Or do you guys think that there was some like divvying situation? You can't actually depict Peter I think maybe Peter Falk like figured that out and was like,
[01:01:20] I actually have to get violent because there's no way I can carry that much cream in a dignified manner. It's just such a bizarre scene. I mean, what the opening of the movie is like Cassavetes looking at the newspaper, right? And calling Mikey.
[01:01:35] And he sees that his like, like bookie partner has been right killed. But it's just such an effective opening because it's like, here's the sad sack guy. He looks like shit. He wakes up, right? He rolls out of bed. It's a middle of the night, you know?
[01:01:51] He looks at the newspaper and then you just see it on his face. Like, oh, this guy thinks he's a dead man. And he's so sweaty. He has an ulcer too. That's like a really like that's like one of those things where it's just like kind of not
[01:02:06] relevant to the situation, but it's like fun to remember from time to time. Oh, right. He also has an ulcer. He looks like he hasn't slept in years. He looks like he hasn't slept since like the mid 60s. Yes. But then he calls up
[01:02:21] Mikey and like one of the first things he tells him is that he's at a pay phone, right? Like one of the first things he does is lie to his friend on the phone. True. And then of course, when Mikey shows up, he starts throwing
[01:02:35] shit out his window to signal that that's where he is. I love that. What does Mikey say? I got your brick. I'm trying to remember what how he puts it like, instead of I got your message. Yeah. But then right when when Mikey goes upstairs, Falka, like
[01:02:51] Kessavities doesn't want to let him in as convinced he's got cops with him, like won't open the door more than a sliver. Like there's just such an insane amount of paranoia from the beginning and also just dishonesty between the two of them. But like but then Peter
[01:03:08] Falk like gives him the the medicine because he's like, I've known you for 30 years. You call me in the middle of the night. I'm going to bring what is essentially Thumbs, I guess, right for his ulcer. But I think that is the moment where you're like, that's like
[01:03:22] one of those lines where you're like, oh yeah, these guys have like been around the block. These guys have like a deep relationship where he knows that like this guy's ulcer is probably acting up right now. Or like this guy's got a tummy ache. He also feeds
[01:03:36] him the pills as if he's a toddler. Yes. Because he thinks it's poison. Right. Open up, open up. You know, he I mean, he's going like here comes the choo-choo train with painkillers. He is. Yes. I mean, because Nick Nikki is essentially like
[01:03:51] any if I walk on the street, everyone wants to kill me. Right. If you're knocking on the door, it's because you have a gun and you're going to murder me. If you're giving me food, it's because he poisoned it. Like that's just his approach
[01:04:01] to every single thing that's happening to him. And the again, the great thing about this movie is that he's kind of right he ends up being right the whole time. He's marked for death. It's true. Like he shouldn't have maybe let Mikey into the room.
[01:04:15] But I mean, like it doesn't explain how he like goes after M.M. at Walsh. He's like, you're in on this. There's that great line when he's like trying to kill M.M. at Walsh and Mikey is just like, Mickey, this guy's enormous.
[01:04:30] Like where it's like, come on, man. Like not everyone is involved in the international conspiracy to make you exit the front of the bus because that's the only place they can shoot you. Like, you know, but that's whatever. That's how it's built up for him at this point.
[01:04:44] That, you know, there's the Roger Ebert, like the M.M. at Walsh rule that like no movie with M.M. at Walsh and it can be entirely bad by virtue of having M.M. at Walsh and it for even one scene. The movie has at least one
[01:04:58] redeeming quality. And I always like when I would read that would go like, man, I love M.M. at Walsh, but that's a weird guy to make that rule for. But then any time he shows up in a movie, I'm like, no, it does feel right.
[01:05:12] The best. He's the best. There is just an immediate jolt anytime he shows up for one scene. 100 percent with the last example being Knives Out. He's still going. And when he was in Knives Out for one scene, I was like, oh, look at that moment. Walsh.
[01:05:26] This is a good scene. What he's doing here. And now is that true for the Scorpion King for the Quest for Power? Look, I was looking through his career to see if there's something that disproves the rule and that's the only one that has
[01:05:38] potential, I think, to ruin it. I haven't seen it. I don't I haven't either. This is like a Schrodinger's M.M. at Walsh at the moment. We just don't know. It could be. Could go either way. Might be great. OK, wait. So what happens next?
[01:05:55] They go to the restaurant next? Yeah, they go to the restaurant. They drink milk and beer and soda. They have a lot of beverages. It's a big beverage night for them. There's something about the way that guys in the 70s talk about beer.
[01:06:11] It makes it seem like beer was maybe better or like I yeah, I think beer was inarguably worse. Like I think beer has improved. I beer is definitely improved. But like maybe it's because it was worse and it was just more like water that you
[01:06:27] could just really just like. I don't know. But there's a there's something wholly about the way guys in 70s movies and TV show casually talk about like, oh, I'm looking for as a cold glass of beer. Right. It sounds so refreshing. It's not like, oh, let's go get
[01:06:43] drinks, you know? No, they just they want beer. Right. I want to be here. I don't know. There was less to do back then. A beer is probably one of the top five most exciting things you could do that day without question. I think also in those days
[01:06:58] you weren't expected to function like. You could just be drunk. That is true. Yes. People just go to lunch and get blasted. Yeah. And everyone was kind of fat. Everyone was kind of everyone was just kind of chubbier, you know, like everyone's kind of eight
[01:07:16] badly and like, you know, well, I think more more specifically, no one was fit. No one was in shape. No one on earth was in shape. Right. Like when you see Sean Connery as James Bond or whatever, you're like this guy looks like me practically.
[01:07:30] I mean, obviously he's a good listening guy, but like he's just got a regular ass body. It is wild when you read like newspaper stories about him getting cast as Bond and they're like rather than casting an actor, they cast some bodybuilder Sean Connery.
[01:07:45] Because he like has shoulders like he was the most ripped guy on the planet. That same thing kind of extends to like the women of the 70s where it's like they all look like normal people. Like every woman in this every woman in this movie, like in the
[01:08:05] face and the body and the dress, like it's like the Carol Grace role would be like Margot Robbie today. And I'd be like, what? Like that's not really computing for me. But when it's just like a normal woman, I'm like, oh, yes, of course. She's so fucking goodness.
[01:08:21] I didn't realize that she was incredible married to Walter Matthow. Yeah. She's basically only in one other movie, like ever. Right? Yeah. Like yeah. Yeah. And she was married to Walter Matthow for like 40 years. She has four credits total. This is her last.
[01:08:37] She was in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She was in Gangster Story, which is the only movie math however directed and she's in one other movie uncredited. Was she did she do theater because it just seems like crazy that you could just like pop
[01:08:50] out and do this incredible performance. Just kind of they had they had one kid and the only line on Wikipedia. But I do like this line and I wish this line was on my Wikipedia. She had a wide social circle and was known for her wit and good
[01:09:04] company. That's that's literally that's all you want to be remembered for. You want to be remembered. She sounds like a cool motherfucker. Yeah. She wrote a novella and a memoir. She did do a lot of Broadway. She did a lot of. OK, that makes sense. Yeah.
[01:09:20] That makes sense. But she's great in this movie. Jesus. Ben, I just want to Ben, I feel like you haven't weighed in about Mikey and Nikki. I just feel like this is such a Ben movie. I want to know if it took you by surprise.
[01:09:31] You were saying pre Mike that it kind of stressed you out. It did. I mean, not in a bad way. Yeah. These are characters that comfort me kind of in a fucked up way. I like that take anger expressed where it's not like it's just like
[01:09:53] it reminds me of the people I saw growing up and people who were around me who would just like yell and scream like it was sport. Right. Like they're like they're running around the block, essentially. That's their version of it is just yelling and screaming. Yeah. Yeah. It's
[01:10:10] you know, it's also like the best time in New York to like I love seeing New York in these and these days, the old cars. But it's also it reminds me of all my really bad friends that I had over the years that I don't talk to anymore.
[01:10:30] So it's like it kind of hit me in a personal way, too. Or it was like, oh, that's that really reminds me of Joey Beatles. Like how I haven't talked to that guy in a while. Wonder what's going on with him? Is he on parole?
[01:10:43] Like he had a jail. So how's Joey Beatles dealing with the pandemic? Right. I don't know. I haven't kept up with any of these people. I mean, it's definitely it's it's a movie about the type of guy that is incredibly at peace with being trash, you know?
[01:11:02] Like these guys are very chill and comfortable being very uncomfortable and wound up. Well, I don't think they have a choice. Yeah. But they got me. They create chaos. But sometimes I mean, if that's just the environment that you were reared in what
[01:11:21] you're used to and how you express yourself, you know, it's just like that's how things come out. It's just it's also so self-destructive and I don't think, you know, if they're in control of it, unfortunately. Right. Often not in control. I mean, Cassavetes
[01:11:37] is not a character who's remotely in control of anything in this movie. Whereas Fox. But you know what? I would have been in the mob. You know, if I had a choice, would you guys have been in the mob? No. You know, it seems dangerous. You know why?
[01:11:51] Where a suit hang out all night, smoke cigarettes, you know, something fell off a truck. Like that stuff seems fun. I don't think they would have let me into the mob. I think I would have had to had to be like someone's girlfriend and I would have.
[01:12:06] I think it would have been very like K from the Godfather, which is very like what's going on here? Like you're doing what? Yeah. I think I wouldn't want to be in the mob and they would never let me in. I was about to say the same
[01:12:21] thing as Olivia. Yeah. David. I'm like I'm what's his pants in the sopranos? I'm the restaurant owner. I like to be friends with everybody, you know what I mean? Like I don't want anyone to be mad at me. Fuck, what's his name? Now, how am I forgetting his
[01:12:38] name? Is it already already? Arti Bucco. Yes, exactly. But like what you're saying, David is ultimately you want to have a wide social circle and be known for your good company. Right. But then if Tony is like, hey, go on this cruise. Like I got you some tickets.
[01:12:54] I would start to freak out. I'd be like, oh, I don't know if I can do that. Tony, you know, like I would I would have to acknowledge the elephant in the room all of a sudden. Yeah, I think yeah. I think I would like be
[01:13:05] that level of friends where you like chat like I'd be that with Meadow Soprano and know that her dad is Tony and be like, oh my god, Meadow, what's going on? And like how are you and like hope that you give me like some gossip?
[01:13:18] Yeah, obviously, David, this is something you and I share, which is that we both just want to hear gossip all the time. One of the cruelest droughts of COVID is the gossip. It is so nothing that I haven't gotten to like hear about the relationship
[01:13:34] troubles of a tertiary friend in a year. Exactly. My favorite thing is that I'm at a bar. I overhear someone else talking right like at the party. And I'm just like catch me up on this. What is this? How much would you pay to be like
[01:13:49] at a bar listening to the couple next to you having a fight right now? Oh my god. But you know, it's another one I miss, which is connected to this is you go out with like a couple of friends, right? Not a large group or
[01:14:02] in a larger group, you splinter off into a smaller group. And like you're between two people who know each other very intimately. And so because you're in the physical space, but they want to talk about something personal that happened, they just let you hear everything.
[01:14:17] You know, when someone's like, I'm sorry, I'm sure this is boring. You're like, no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. And then they start describing the most intimate details of their life. And it's just like they would never tell me this independently. But just because we're in the
[01:14:30] same corner, you're like smushed into the corner of the booth and you're like, I can't I'm not getting out. And they're like fine, then I guess you just hear everything that I don't have any secrets. I miss it too. But yeah, Mikey and Nikki level.
[01:14:44] No, I think if Nikki called me, I would be like, I'm sorry, Nikki. I just I just got in bed. I don't think I can come hang out tonight. I'm definitely not going to run to his apartment and get bricks thrown at me. And you know, and then
[01:15:01] so this is also a movie that's like, oh, like because if I if I were Mikey and it were twenty twenty one and I had a cell phone and I saw Nikki call me at midnight and be like, I'm asleep. I can't. I can't do this.
[01:15:14] But on like the landline, you can't you can't screen the call on the landline. That's true. See, I feel like you but you're even though they're your bad friends, you got to help. Well, that's the thing with the bad friend, though, is yes,
[01:15:30] that's true and you want it. And then but don't you feel like Ben sometimes with the bad friend there is some moment where you're like, you know what? I feel like this always turns out the same way. And I should probably you know, I love you, but I
[01:15:41] don't think I can help, right? Like you sometimes you got to draw some kind of boundary. But yes, I know what you mean. There's there's sometimes there's the bad friend. I mean, I should have drawn boundaries. I wouldn't have gotten arrested or gotten to a car accident
[01:15:55] in my life, you know, like yeah. But I feel like that's just sometimes those are the relationships you have. And I don't know. It's also because you grew up and you're a kid, you know, like since you know each other since you were kids. You've known someone forever.
[01:16:09] I think that's like a huge part of it, which because they keep like hammering at home in the movie, they're like, you knew my brother who died. Like you knew my parents like blah, blah, blah. And like if my my like oldest friend is still a
[01:16:22] good friend of mine and if she called me at midnight, I'd be like, what's going on? Like, are you good? Yeah, I think that's a huge turning point in the movie because I certainly like I watch it under the assumption like, oh, these are two guys who know
[01:16:39] each other from like the trade. They know each other from the same bad business, right? And then when you realize like, no, they've known each other since they were children. Like they've grieved people together. It predates all of that. That's when you sort of understand the nature
[01:16:55] of their relationship. But then also why it's like it's it's you know, it's twice as cutting that you know, Mikey is willing to sell him out. But it also makes twice as much sense because it's like this guy has been something of a burden on him for decades,
[01:17:15] you know? I mean, he's just been putting up with this forever. And of course, we should mention that on the side, Ned Beatty has been contracted to kill Nikki and is treating it like an annoying like plumbing job. It's so funny that like
[01:17:33] he's like, God, I got to do this thing like he's like, if I bring in a driver, I'm not going to make as much money off of it. Like it's fully just like, I think that's such a funny quirk in the writing that's like,
[01:17:45] no, no, no, he's not like some stealth killer. He's just like a dude who has a job. He has the energy of an Uber driver, right? Absolutely. And he basically breaks even on the job. Like he's not right. He's not like, you're going to
[01:17:58] give me twenty five thousand dollars and you know, non sequential bills. He's just like, ah, fuck, I guess it's just about worth it for me to commit the act of murder. He also like at one point says like when they're in the office of let me say, Sanford
[01:18:13] Meisner, which is hell, yeah. He's like, he's like, oh, I know, I need I need a hit or some he says something like that, which is like, is he bad at his job too? Is he kind of like a funky hitman who's like this is
[01:18:26] the guy they put on Nikki because they like don't care. They're like just at some point make sure he's dead. Right. Because Nikki is eminently killable. Like he is definitely not the cat and mouse. You don't need you don't need Jason Bourne to get Nikki.
[01:18:41] You'll hold just like like any of us could do it if we were like, OK, with taking a life, like it would be easy. It's that great scene at the end of the movie when Fox in the car with him and he's like doing what you said David
[01:18:54] like talking about like, I mean, I have to pay my way out here at the hotel where I'm going to. I mean, I was barely going to make money. Now I'm going to lose money on this. Yes. And then Fox says like this
[01:19:03] shouldn't have been a hard job. He goes like, I know, and that's why this is going to really ruin my reputation. You know, Nikki almost outfoxed me. Nikki. Right. Right. And he only outfoxed. I would like to watch. He's so chaotic that you can't predict his movements anymore.
[01:19:19] He's like a poker player who doesn't know the rules, right? Like he's like, yeah, let's just go to a graveyard now. Sorry. I love it. What were you saying? I know I was just going to say I would watch the movie. That is like Ned Beatty's
[01:19:30] just like normal job career today. As a hit man who's just like, I got to sit in this car. He also like he has that that Uber driver energy where it's just like you're making me really depressed now. You won't stop talking about how
[01:19:45] much it is fucking up your day that you have picked me up. You know, it's like that you're the inconvenience here. It's like he had other things to do. Right. Like you made him make a second stop. There was a thing on the blur
[01:19:58] where they said that he requested that his pants be too short on his costume to show that he was not glamorous. I mean, it is this thing. I know you were saying like, I mean, 72 is like Godfather in the sort of modern way of mob
[01:20:13] movies being redefined and everything. But I still think there are so few movies about the crime world where people are this unglamorous. This is what I'm trying to say when Goodfellas comes out 20 years after the Godfather, it's like, OK, finally a movie about how the mob really is.
[01:20:31] It's a bunch of assholes who commit murder for no good reason. This is not this burnished American legend. It's really just kind of like crooks and jerks and ego and, you know, like it's all bullshit. Like that's what's so good about the Goodfellas.
[01:20:45] And it's and yet at the same time you watch Goodfellas and you're like, I mean, it looks like a pretty good time being a monster. Right. Like that's the Scorsese magic. That's this movie is like 15 years earlier. And like you're saying it's like dealing with the, you
[01:20:58] know, the scum on top of the scum that is like the American crime world. And it feels like completely revolutionary. But that's your job. Like you clock in and you get to be a fucking asshole around now. Ben, I just want to make.
[01:21:16] I just want to say something. I don't think you clock in to the mafia. That's the only thing I want to correct you on. I think I want David. No, you got to clock in or else the union gets on your ass. David, I mean, how else are
[01:21:27] they going to track billable hours? You can't be no call, no show to the mob. The mob actually has really good overtime pay. It just seems exciting. Yeah, it does seem exciting. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I mean, I remember reading some interview with
[01:21:43] Bill Hader where he was talking about like developing Barry and how HBO just so badly wanted him to do a show that they were like whatever you want to do, anything you want to do, you create direct at star in it, whatever it is,
[01:21:55] we just want to be in business with you. And they like sent Alec Berg to him to help him develop it. And he was like, do you have any ideas? And Hader was like, I want to do a show about a hitman. And Berg was like, that's stupid.
[01:22:05] Hitman stuff sucks. It's always so boring. When it was announced, I was like, oh, fuck off. He's doing a hitman. Right. Fuck that. I'm not interested at all. Sun glasses and like skinny ties and shit. And Hader's whole approach was just like, but like in real
[01:22:17] life, hitman can't actually be glamorous, right? Like it's probably just like they're just completely broken, you know, unsexy people who are just doing kind of grunt work. And it feels like there's very few things that treat crime that way, this being another one of them,
[01:22:36] you know, where it's just like, these guys is just like, it's fucking worn them down, you know? Randomly, Gross Point Blank is kind of like that. Where John Cusack is just kind of like, yeah, he's just a guy and his job happens to be that he's an assassin.
[01:22:52] And it's like, he has to go back home. I think I think Gross Point Blank has like the internal life of it down. But Cusack is still just a little bit too innately cool. Too hot. I don't I don't say that as a strike against the movie.
[01:23:07] I think the movie rules, but it's like Cusack makes it feel like a movie because he's too fucking cool. He's just like a movie star. He's like, he's it's impossible to like not be like, that's a hot person. Right. Peter Falk is like a hairy laundry bag with
[01:23:21] a glass eye, you know? He sure is. And I love him. I do. I want to shout out Samford Meisner, who Olivia briefly shouted out who plays the mob boss, who is pretty fantastic in that one scene, who is in, I believe like three movies.
[01:23:40] So obviously one of the most famous acting teachers alive, right? What did he do? The other movies? No, what is what is your saying? Famous teacher, acting teacher. He did. There's literally it's called the Meisner technique and it's like one of the formative schools of acting.
[01:23:58] Griffin, have you ever done Meisner exercises? Yeah, are you a Meisner? I'm not a Meisner person. I've done the exercises. I assume you have as well, Olivia. Yeah, I had to do them in high school because my teacher was a student of Udahagen
[01:24:11] so they got like passed down. But it doesn't. I don't think it works on teenagers. I don't think they have like the capacity to like understand the repetition or like what it's supposed to know. I did him when I was young and I found him kind of tedious.
[01:24:25] Right? It's just kind of like repeating yourself. You just have to keep doing the scene over and over again. Is that what it is? No, it's not even that. So it's like Ben, just like say anything to me right now. I think it would be cool to work
[01:24:38] for the mob. I think it would be cool to work for the mob. I think it would be cool to work for the mob. I think it would be cool to work for the mob. You do that for two hours. You do it for so long until
[01:24:51] it just like doesn't even sound like words or your brain. And you're like and that's that's when the acting really begins. That's when the truth comes out when the word stop meaning anything. I have a Samford Meisner story. Can I tell it briefly?
[01:25:04] It has nothing to do with anything really, but I do have one. So when my grandmother what turned 80 years old in the year 2002, my grandmother is a was a an English professor who lived in Utica, New York. She decides she wanted to go to
[01:25:18] the Caribbean for her 80th birthday. And we were simply just going to have to go to the Caribbean with her on like Christmas 2002. So we were OK. She rented a big house that the whole family was going to stay in. We arrived there and there's this fucking crazy
[01:25:34] old man who runs the house who lives there. He looks like Dr. Livingston from the jungle. He's got like a big long white beard and a cane and he's got like a white hat. You know what I mean? He's like just sort of like a weird
[01:25:46] guy who lives in the Caribbean. And his name is James Carville, but he's not that James Carville. And he's like, where are you from? And she's like, I'm from the Utica, New York. He's like, oh, me too, which is absurd on the face of it
[01:26:01] already. No one is from Utica, New York. But that's so then people are doing that and we're like, so who are what's your deal? Why do you this random white guy live in Beckway in the Grenadines like in this house and he's like, well, I
[01:26:14] was a long time companion of Sanford Meisner who used to live here with me until he died. I just, you know, maintain the home because he died like 10 years ago and I just live here. He's still alive. I just Googled him the house was
[01:26:29] full of pictures of Sandy Meisner and I stayed in his house for a week one time. That's it. Wow. That's a good story. Tell the story again, David. OK. Yeah, I'm going to repeat it back to you actually. I just Googled him. He's 90 years old.
[01:26:43] He's still fucking kicking. James Carville lives in Beckway. His his big thing, too. I mean, I feel like the Cassivaries in particular was really trying to evolve a lot of the Meisner stuff, but it was like he'd give you a line of dialogue was another exercise
[01:27:00] and he'd give one line to each actor on stage and you didn't say it until something compelled you to say the line. Like he was all about like trying to shake acting out of feeling like people saying cues, you know, wouldn't it be like
[01:27:14] someone would touch you and that's when you say the line, right? Well, it would be like that's that might happen. If that happens, that inspires you to say the line and you do it, you know, but it was also like I'll sit here for 45 minutes in silence rather
[01:27:26] than let you say the line because you think it's. This all sounds so exhausting. It's a thing. It's like it's like that very Cassivaries thing of being like it has to be truthful. It can't be like showy or you can't be like capital A acting.
[01:27:41] It has to come from like trying to get you out of your head, right? Like trying to make you exactly. It's that thing like that Fincher thing of being like if you do 50 takes, you're going to break and eventually you'll just become like a person.
[01:27:53] That was the whole thing was just like trying to like get people to unlearn the artifice of all acting styles up until that point, you know? But a lot of it, you know, I don't know. I feel especially in today's day and age where we're decades past naturalism
[01:28:12] being the most, you know, invoked thing and acting. And I feel a lot of times people it's more about this saying you've done it. Right? It's like I got my degree, but right, you don't actually, you know, use it every day or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:28:28] I mean, I fuck I don't know any of it. It all sounds so complicated to me. I'm like Lawrence Olivia. I'm like, have you tried acting? That's what I would be like. I'm just like, say the words really loud. That'll probably do something.
[01:28:39] Well, that's like when I went to I went to NYU and there's like I knew so many actors and there's like a billion. Like if you go to NYU to be an actor, they put you you're all in a different studio. And so they're all learning a
[01:28:51] different way to act. And I was just like, how are there so many different ways to do this? Like I also I just always have felt it's not super practical to go pot committed for one school of acting. I don't think it often serves you very well
[01:29:15] to be like this is always how I act. This is always my process because the circumstances of the project you're working on might not be conducive to that process. Right. I've always sort of tried to just like pick and choose shit for whatever it works.
[01:29:34] But then sometimes when I look at work that I think is sloppy of mine, I'm like, oh, that's because I don't have like a fundamental like classical thing to fall back on. But I also think some people like will like look at like a Daniel
[01:29:48] Day Lewis or like a Christian Bale. These guys do go like method every time. And so like that's what works. And it's like that you can't make that like broad statement of like this one thing will work for everyone or like committing to one style
[01:30:05] will like work for everyone. That also gets you fucking like Suicide Squad Joker. And also it's just Jared Lutter was like the offender of most most material cannot sustain that level of commitment to a performance, right? Like most characters are not deeply written enough
[01:30:24] for you to be able to pack that much fucking method shit into the performance. And also it's just like that. You know, most things these days, they don't give you any fucking time to rehearse. You know, you have to shoot like 20 pages in a day.
[01:30:39] It's just they're changing everything on the fly. They're rewriting stuff constantly, especially in TV. It's just very hard to have that sort of preciousness about your work. They're not shooting a million feet of film as they did in the movie, Mikey and Nikki. Right. Million and a half.
[01:30:55] Right. Everything feels a little more on rails than it was in the 70s. Yeah. They got to they got to save their money or whatever. I don't know what they got to do. But guys, there's seen that Mikey Nikki is a very difficult movie to pin down.
[01:31:09] I'm trying to think like what we need to talk about. Because it's not like there are like you they go to the graveyard, they go to the bar, they go they fight in the street. They go visit Carol Grace. Nikki goes to see his wife,
[01:31:23] which is a really good scene. I was going to say we should though those are the two things we should really talk about. I mean, the two scenes of the women. Yeah. I mean, and the grave scene. And when when Mikey goes to
[01:31:35] his wife at the end, I think that scene, like I think all the women are really like. Yes. Really great in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. Joyce Van Patten plays Cassavetes wife. Yes. And then Rose, Arik is Annie. Also, William Hickey is like
[01:31:55] the the mob right hand man who just has one of the best voices ever. Yeah. The voice of Dr. Finkelstein. Voice of Dr. Finkelstein. Yeah. Uncle Lewis and Christmas Vacation. Just rules. Do you know that she wanted the president of Paramount to play? I think the Meisner role.
[01:32:16] Yeah, possibly the Meisner role, but a gangster. Pretty funny. Right. And then the chairman of Gulf and Western wouldn't let it happen. You can't do that. How dare you? That's an immoral role for our president to be playing like as if anyone would fucking know who that.
[01:32:32] Audience is going to be like, Jesus, the president of Paramount. Right. It was just Lane May saying fuck you. No one else was going to get it. Yeah, exactly. He's a gangster. The Nelly scenes are just so brutal. I mean, because it's like Cassavetes keeps on pitch.
[01:32:48] I just keep on calling them by their actor names. It's also because it's fine. It's easy to get. Mikey and Nikki confused his names, but he keeps on throwing out all these different ideas of what he wants to do. I mean, this movie, it's
[01:33:01] I was realizing it's like kind of similar to 25th Hour in a way where it's like to some degree this guy knowing I'm probably not going to make it to tomorrow. What are the things I want to do on my last night? Right. He's he's kind of acting
[01:33:14] like you need to help me get out free. But really, I think he knows there's no real shot of that happening. Another thing just I love the way people in the 70s talk about going to the movies. I think it just it's much like the beer thing.
[01:33:28] But I think it speaks to how different movie going culture was in the 70s where they just never talk about a particular movie. It's just the idea of like, I love the movies. Let's go see a movie. What time is it? 1145 on a Tuesday.
[01:33:41] Did you see the poster on the box office? An adult was 150. You could just go. Right. It's just like, oh, let's just go. Why not? We get a beer and then go see a movie and they both cost a dollar. He's even like there's 15 minutes of coming attractions.
[01:33:56] A cartoon. A newsreel. Yeah, you get it all. Yeah. It sounds unbelievable. But he's like they got a 24 hour candy stand. I love how much this guy loves candy. Yeah, I would love to just like a 24 hour movie theater sounds incredible. It's just like it's 3 AM.
[01:34:14] Might as well go see a picture. Right now. A movie theater sounds. Don't get me started. I agree. Like don't get me. The idea is sort of like, look, all right, like once it hits midnight, we only run two screens in this year, multiplex, but
[01:34:26] like they're going if you want to just pop in. Yeah. What's also the way that like even like people like Scorsese will talk about movie going when they were growing up where it's just like you just show up. You just show up at whatever time
[01:34:38] you feel like it and you come in and maybe you're like 30 minutes before the end of one movie, but then you'll get to see like a cartoon and like a one realer and then they'll play another movie. And then maybe you wait
[01:34:49] long enough that you see the first movie you came into late start up again. So then you catch up with it. Right. It was just kind of like what's playing. I used to work at a movie theater and every so often you'd get a
[01:34:59] person who'd come in and say, what's what's playing soonest? What's playing next and just buy a ticket for literally whatever a hero. And I was always like, who are you? Like what's what is your deal? I like this energy. I agree with David heroic
[01:35:16] the music that that song, you know, the real human being that starts playing. I know it's about Sally, but when you saw that man, it was about him. Yes. He's a real hero. Joey Joe Biden comes out, gives him a Kennedy Center honor.
[01:35:31] He pins something to his chest because like you're what makes America work, my friend. You're great at seeing movies. Come on, man. Come on, dude. Come on guy. You know who's low key kind of funny Biden. Joe Biden. I mean, just now I had more fun
[01:35:50] saying two sentences and a bad Joe Biden impression than I've had four years of doing fucking bad Trump. We were also stressed out where like Joe Biden has to save the democracy. And I feel like we're just about to get to the point where it's like, you remember
[01:36:01] who's kind of like a funny old guy is Joe Biden. I saw I saw like a tweet today that was like Joe Biden's team is looking into something. And I had a moment where I was like, oh yeah, he's the president. He's the president.
[01:36:14] He's president of the United States when he says goes. He's got the energy of a guy who's trying to break up a fight at a Margaritaville. You know, come on, come on. Come on guys. I think I can't remember if it was Alex Perrier or Chabelle
[01:36:27] or someone tweeted like, remember when corn pop was real? Like he told that story and everyone was like, well, he's just having an episode. And then they like called people in Delaware in the 60s and like, yeah, we knew corn pop. He was this guy.
[01:36:41] He walked around with a razor blade yet to look out for him. He was a bad customer. Do you think Joe Biden's in this movie? Do you think Joe Biden has every kind of cascaded movie? That's the sequel is Joey and corn pop. That's Elaine May's follow up.
[01:36:59] I think almost definitely. Yeah. I just I think I don't know the last time Joe Biden saw a movie this challenging, but I think in the 70s he saw all of this shit. Also, he was kind of hot when he was a young man.
[01:37:12] He was. That is true. It's sort of normie hot. He was very hot. Yeah. Yeah. Did Joe Biden see Mikey and Nikki? It's a huge question. I don't think so. Because his movie was kind of a flop. He was already a US senator when this film came out.
[01:37:30] I just want to point out. Yeah, this movie was a flop. It was underseen. It was not seen. I think is the best way to put it. They put it out in December. It's what people say. The movie wasn't released. It was it escaped.
[01:37:43] I mean, it was like a contractual obligation that they had to put it in a theater. But it been years at this point. There was a whole calamity where a lot of the footage didn't sync up with the sound. Yes. She wouldn't stop filming.
[01:37:55] They tried to take the cut away from her. She hid reels and someone else's garage. Peter Falk was also like stealing reels with her because at this point he had like put money into the movie. Yeah. It was like it has to be heard. I think right.
[01:38:10] I think the version we all know is the version that she screened later in the 80s. It's the third during some tribute. There are three versions. There's the one that came out that she didn't really like. She did a cut in 1986 that then got screened and released on
[01:38:24] home video and everything became the known version. And then the criteria inversion now is even a little bit different. I could not get a comprehensive explanation of what the differences are. But this is like the 2019 final cut as it were. This is also really interesting
[01:38:37] to me because it's interesting to think of the web that like she and Kenneth Lonergan have like spun together because it's like because it's like he had all that shit with Margaret. Jeannie Berlin is in Margaret. They both have like troubled release schedules.
[01:38:54] And then she's in the Waverly Gallery two years ago, like Wins at Tony. Lonergan's my favorite and watching all these movies and reading about Elaine May. I just keep thinking like oh, her career was essentially just four Margaret's in a row. Yeah. Exactly.
[01:39:10] Every time she made it a movie it got caught up in a lawsuit. You guys should do a Margaret bonus that should be Elaine's bonus. I want to do Lonergan. Does he have a movie? Am I crazy that he's working on a movie right now?
[01:39:22] Did I make that up? I'm waiting for something. I hope so. Because, you know, he did that miniseries. He did Howard's End. I feel like that consumed him for a bit. Obviously he does theater. I guess no. I guess I'm just sort of waiting
[01:39:34] on four movies is enough. That's the thing. I think four is just like the minimum for us. Richard Kelly and Kenneth Lonergan make a fourth movie challenge. Right. Make an absolutely make a fourth movie challenge. Wait, Griff, I want to bring you back
[01:39:46] to the women. I want to be Carol the Grey scene especially. Yes. Yes. So she has two scenes. Yeah. He's talking her up. Right. He's sort of running through all the different things he's thinking about doing with Peter Faulk. He wants to go visit his mother's
[01:39:58] grave. They have to see on the bus where he gets in the fight. I mean, all that shit is so good. But yes, then they show up to her house and it's this scene that has a huge griffin energy of Cassavetes introduces Peter Faulk to the woman he's
[01:40:16] been sleeping with and then proceeds to just sleep with her in front of Peter Faulk and say over and over again, pretend that no one else is here, which was a lot of high school for me. You should clarify which guy you are. Peter.
[01:40:33] You're the foxtrot in that. I'm the foxtrot. Yeah. Yeah. One guy's fucking and one guy's fawking and I was definitely fawking. I think like her like her role in this movie is like so like wrapped up in like kind of what like being a woman is
[01:40:53] where it's like he like Cassavetes is like, oh, you can fuck her too. And then like, but then he gets mad at her for like sleeping with other people. So it's like, what are you going to get mad at her about for like not sleeping with
[01:41:06] people or for sleeping with people? Right. Like and and Faulk is so cruel to her. Faulk? Yeah. They get violent with her. But also this I mean like Cassavetes is like pushing him to be cruel. Like telling him that she likes it. Yes, that's a great point, Olivia.
[01:41:22] It does get into this sort of like sort of emotionally incurious, underdeveloped, abusive man who blames the woman for why do you make me so upset? Yeah. You know, it's like, it's not her, buddy. Like. And also what's happening to Faulk is the longer he's next to Cassavetes,
[01:41:46] the worse he's getting to. Like he is kind of infected by him the more time they're spending together and he knows it, I think. Which is probably why he's, you know, created some distance from this guy. I mean, they both have young children, but Cassavetes
[01:42:01] doesn't even see his kid who's much younger. And Faulk actually like knows who his son is, you know? But yes, it's it's this horrible scene where like as as Cassavetes and now you're sleeping together, you just stay on a close up of Peter Faulk just squirming there uncomfortably.
[01:42:22] It's the close up, but it's also the wide shot where it's like they are on the left and you can see him in the kitchen just like kind of sitting there. Yes. Like uncomfortably. But once like the actual like, you know, it's super physical shit is happening,
[01:42:37] then it's just on his face. You're just hearing them and you're hearing them deny that he's in the room. And then once they're done, they go back to that shot you're talking about where Cassavetes meets him in the kitchen and is trying to tell him that like, no,
[01:42:52] you should have sex with her too. She sleeps with everybody. Just go over there, do this, do that. And you're watching her in the foreground. Listen to them speak as if she can't hear them. And it's so brutal. You just like this pit in your stomach is growing
[01:43:08] just in dread about what's going to happen when Faulk walks up to her. And then it's like as bad as you imagine. Yeah. There's nothing gets like you're not nothing is like subverted or anything. It's like, you see it the way it's going to go.
[01:43:22] And it just feels awful the whole time. Right. And then when they they leave there, you know, I mean, he slaps her, she screams they leave and then Faulk starts acting like, was this some prank on me? Were you setting me up to look like a fool?
[01:43:40] Right. To get rejected from her. I think it's this really interesting thing where it's like the woman is there not even like as a person, but as a thing for them to like, like it's a it's like a lens through which their relationship is working.
[01:43:58] It's like she's not a person. She's like an object and like Nikki is cool for sleeping with her. And then Mikey can't sleep with her. So it's like affects their relationship. And it has nothing to do with how she feels about like any of it.
[01:44:11] She's like not even a person in the situation. Right. And then when when he goes back to her and she tries to be emotionally open with him, his explanation is so twisted about like, well, I heard you had slept with them and that made me angry.
[01:44:24] So then I wanted you to sleep with other people. Yeah. After he kicks the door in, right? Like this like so violent from the from the start from the jump of that scene. But you have that scene too where he starts like, you know, like chatting up the
[01:44:40] woman and then her boyfriend comes in tries to start a fight with him. Like he is just a guy who feels like he creates chaos to keep himself entertained, you know? And to some degree, it's like he just wants everyone to be spinning. He wants everyone to be
[01:44:55] spinning around him and he wants himself to be the one sort of like centered force that everyone is is revolving around. Absolutely. Yeah. And then yeah, he goes to see his own wife played by is that that's Joyce Van Patten. Yeah. The sister of Tim Van Patten,
[01:45:16] we know him well, director of many of soprano formally married to Dennis Dugan appears in the grownups movies as Rob Schneider's wife. Well, OK, he goes to he goes to his wife and he's like, listen, they're going to kill me. He's like, this is this is what's happening.
[01:45:32] And then he like goes to see his kid and he just wants the kid to like put her hand around his finger and she a baby who was sleeping obviously like does not want to do that. And that is kind of sad that he
[01:45:46] like wants this one moment with his child before he gets shot. And he can't do it. And then they have that whole exchange where they like have their kiss and it's like it's like, I don't like this, but I like get it. I get why
[01:46:03] you would do this. And then she like asks. I think she like asks him to leave almost. She's like, you got to go now. Or he's yeah. Yeah, every scene in this movie is so brutal. I'm having a hard time as you see the end.
[01:46:17] Like David, you're saying it's hard to describe the plot of the movie, but it's also like I just it's hard to like relive it. It's hard to like explain the things that happen in the scene. It hurts. It really bums me out this
[01:46:29] movie. I will say every time I've seen it. I think I've seen it three times. I really am in kind of a crummy, crummy mood for the next hour and a half. You know what I just sort of feel because they're just him dying and him screaming and
[01:46:43] yelling and banging on the door is just so he like it's humiliating. It's like, you know, that that we're cutting back to fucking his wife and they're like, you know, they're sort of living through it. And she's saying, oh no, like it's just so
[01:46:59] God, it really like gives me the heebie jeebies, which is in my opinion very successful of it. Naturalism is off pudding. Yeah. I mean, it's look, it's a movie I respect greatly and it is easily my least favorite of her four movies, probably because it's
[01:47:16] the only one that isn't funny that the other ones at least have comedy to cut the discomfort, you know, and this one just is like a torrid watch. I get it being your favorite. I mean, this is once again, I mean, a minority on this one.
[01:47:28] I think it might be my favorite. This is also like there are a couple funny moments, but like it's like a moment. Like I think one of the things this movie does really well is like sometimes they'll be fighting with each other and then one of
[01:47:42] them will like say something that's like, come on, like, and it's like a funny moment. And that again is just like, that is what it's like when you're like fighting with a friend you've known for a while and you're like, but we can still make a joke, right?
[01:47:55] Like, I mean, yeah, I mean, this guy's enormous is my personal favorite laugh line, but there's a lot of little bits like that. I think I think Nick, you're making me forget the cottage is really funny for that. That's it's so funny, but it's
[01:48:09] also like you are kind of just like, oh my God, Nicky, shut up. Yeah. But it's also because they're they're in like a Catholic graveyard and he's saying the cottage. It's like Peterfuck is such a sweetie in that scene. It's crazy. But Cassavetes is so pathetic in this.
[01:48:27] Like it's not that he usually plays high status characters. Although, I mean, I think as a four hire actor, he was so intense. He often did, right? But in his own movies, he plays broken men, but he's not as sad as he is at this, you know?
[01:48:43] Yeah, he's cooler usually, honestly. Yes. He's usually a lot cooler than he is here. And this guy is just so transparently miserable. Yeah. And destructive, you know, to everyone who comes into his orbit. Absolutely. Cassavetes. Are we going to do him one day
[01:49:02] Griff? He was in the bracket, I assume he got bodied. That would be kind of a bummer of a miniseries, you guys. This is this is why I'm guessing that no one voted for him. I mean, it's a very it's it's a mini series we could
[01:49:17] wrap our arms around. It's not he doesn't make that many movies like 12 total or something. You know, like it's certainly doable. Yeah. He's facing off against Robert Altman. Oh, he's going to lose. I don't know if he's going to survive. We'll have happened at this point.
[01:49:35] I know, I know, but we're predicting the future. But I think you're right, Griffin. I don't think he gets out of that first round matchup. And also, I think in real life, Altman would have crushed him. Altman was like a brick shithouse and Cassavetes,
[01:49:47] you know, as much as we're saying he looks tall like he wasn't a big guy. No, I think he's like five, six or something. Like he and I could have probably looked eye to eye. Do you know that my dad went drinking with both of them once? Huh?
[01:50:00] Well, your dad went drinking with Altman a lot. My dad was all the drinking body for like five years. Yeah. The worst five years of Altman's career. My dad was the guy who had to like carry him out of bars. But so Cassavetes just showed
[01:50:12] up at some point or like they just had a wild night together. I mean, for reasons I don't want to delve into and I haven't followed up with him. He's never really disclosed a lot of details of what happened at night. I think that's probably for my
[01:50:28] own safety. Did they buy 15 cups of cream? Mikey and Nikki, is there anything else you want to say before we play the box office game? Are we playing the box office game? I mean, have we done seventy six before the movie very abruptly ends with him?
[01:50:44] Yeah. That last scene is kind of getting moided. He tracks Mikey back to his home after Mikey and Nikki have split up and Mikey has spent a good chunk of time with M.M. at Walsh meeting Sanford Meisner sort of defending himself for how much
[01:51:03] M.M. at Walsh has fucked it up and not him. And it goes back to his wife. Nikki tracks him down, bangs on the door. They just grab each other and sort of like stay in there in silence trying to wait him out and then just fucking
[01:51:21] out of nowhere. I mean, it's also just the fact that she doesn't cut to some reverse angle of a car pulling up, right? You're just looking at Cassavetes on one side of a door knocking and then all of a sudden a bunch of squibs go off.
[01:51:32] Yeah. And it's that very like I keep beating this drum, but it is that very theatrical thing of like of like it's heightening, it's heightening, it's heightening. And then he gets shot and it just like cut to black. Like that's it. It's over like done. Roll the credits.
[01:51:45] Roll the credits. He's done. What's his final line? Doesn't he just say like you should go in the bedroom? Yeah, he's like you should go to sleep or something. Right. Right. And she is giving a really good performance there where she like keeps trying to explain to him
[01:51:57] why she can't let him in and she's like running out of things to be like, I'm sick. Yeah. Like he's not home. Like and then they have to barricade the door like they have to bear because he's kicking it down. But he also is his heart
[01:52:11] is also kind of not in it in a weird way as much as he is so exposed in that like he just keeps asking her to open the door. Like, you know, he should just barrel through the door or whatever. Or like run or something.
[01:52:25] It's like he is run like very committed to like staying in front of the door. It's like he wants to die with his friend, you know, and kind of hold it over him like in this kind of sad way. I think it also is like if
[01:52:37] his friend isn't willing to let him in, then he's done fighting. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like if his friend won't let him in anymore, then he's already lost the battle. How is he going to survive? Right. Exactly. Because I think they at one point
[01:52:50] they're like they're like this is his only friend. This is like his last friend. And so it's like if he loses, he's already lost his family. If he loses Mikey, it's like what's the point? Yeah. Oh boy. I mean, I think we've done this year Griffin.
[01:53:04] I can't remember. Maybe K.H.T. Well, exactly right. All those Demi movies. I mean, what was the number in a movie in 1976? I'll teach you 74. The number one movie of 1976. It's the year before Star Wars. True. Jaws is 75. Correct. Is it not Rocky?
[01:53:27] It's Rocky. It's not Jaws. Jaws is 76. 75. Five, like you said. Yeah, you know, it's Rocky. Rocky is the number one movie. OK. It is. It's number one. It was a big hit. Yeah. People liked it. Does a Rocky win a screenplay Oscar? No only nominated.
[01:53:44] OK. I always like switch it up in my head as to like what happens because Rocky wins Best Picture. It wins Picture Director Score. Right. Editing. Editing. Not score. It doesn't win score. Not even nominated for score. So maybe there was something up.
[01:54:00] I don't really. That doesn't make any sense that it wasn't nominated because the score is incredible. Best Score goes to the Omen, which to be fair is an iconic score. But yeah, I don't know why. Maybe maybe they made some ruling on that and it doesn't win
[01:54:14] song either. It loses to well, the number two movie of 1976. Hmm. A big movie with a big musical star. Is it like the way we were? Close. Is it a bar? Star. Streisand. It's a bar. Is it Yental? No, it's a bad movie.
[01:54:34] It's a bad movie and it's not. Is it a musical or is it a song with a movie with a big song? It's a it's a musical. You know, not like, you know, is it the Barbara star is born? It's a star is born.
[01:54:49] That was the number two movie of its year. Crazy Barbara because that movie is not very good. No, it stinks. It was like slammed at the time. People didn't even like it. Yeah, it was one of those things where like even though it was a big
[01:55:02] hit, you know, like by any means, it was expected to be an even bigger right. Movies could just be hits in the seventies. Sure. Good Olivia. Number three is another famous remake bomb that still made a ton of money. It's a famous remake
[01:55:21] bomb that still made a lot of money. It's a 76 remake. What decade is the original from thirties? It's a thirties movie remade in the seventies. And it's been remade again, my friend. And let me tell you, you know, this this fellow that this movie is about, he's
[01:55:39] going to be in screens this year. He's going to be screens this year. Is it a real person or it's a character who's been rebooted several times? It's a character that's been rebooted several times and he's not human. What? He's not humid. Bumblebee. Yeah, Bumblebee from the from
[01:55:57] the thirties. I think George Cucar's Bumblebee is the best one personally. I agree that the one where he's a movie star. Yeah. Yeah. No, come on, Griff. In fact, this is probably the movie that Mikey and Nikki was going up against because it came out Christmas of 1976.
[01:56:15] Come on. Not human in like an animal way or in like a robot way? You're sure he's he says he's sure an animal. He's sure an animal. Oh, he's sure an animal. Oh, oh, it's my good friend. Yeah. What's his name? My good friend, King Kong.
[01:56:33] Oh, my God. Kingie and Kongie. One of I'll say this, one of my favorite actors. You like that guy? I think he's such a compelling screen presence. What does Kyle Chandler say in that trailer? He says something crazy. He's like King Kong's out there and he's hurting people.
[01:56:50] It's yes. And no, wait, I think who says I think it's Rebecca Hall says King Kong bows to no one. Right? Or is it yes, Kong bows to no one. Kyle Chandler says Godzilla is hurting people and we don't know why. It's funny.
[01:57:04] King Kong bow to know why before King Kallin bows to no one was one of the prompts that Sandy Meisner would often use in his classes. King Kong bows to no one. I love that Rebecca Hall this year is releasing her like directorial debut from
[01:57:23] like a really touching Nella Larson novella and also is in King Kong. My favorite thing about Godzilla versus Kong is it's got like all these movies, it's got a bunch of actors in it. And it's like Rebecca Hall. And I'm like, is she in the
[01:57:37] other ones? And if you told me yes, I'd be like, I guess she was. I just don't remember. Like Kyle Chandler is definitely in one of them, right? Like the franchise is so bizarre in terms of which human characters they carry over and which ones they don't.
[01:57:48] It also is someone on the blank check read it was saying this one, the trailer dropped. But just like for the three of them that have come out at this point, I guess by the time this episode comes out, people will have seen Godzilla versus
[01:58:00] Kong and we'll know who wins. The three that we have seen at this point all under deliver on the human element, like all three of those movies fails in a major way on the human front. And each one has just a wildly over qualified overstuffed cast.
[01:58:19] Like each of those movies has 15 names above the title where you're like, wow, all of these people. And one of them kind of makes an impression in each movie. Should we all guess who wins? Should we all guess if it's going to be Godzilla or Kong?
[01:58:32] If it's not Godzilla, I don't know what's going on here. Kong cheated because like I think they set it up in the trailer. I mean, he's the underdog, right? Yeah. Because like Godzilla is a walking nuclear weapon. King Kong is a tall ape. And King Kong has compassion
[01:58:48] for humans. It's a love hate relationship, but he has moments of vulnerability. I think I want to put on the record. I think they team up to go against Mechagodzilla and I think Godzilla sacrifices himself. So I think King Kong is the final victor of the film,
[01:59:03] but who he is beating is Mechagodzilla rather than Godzilla, if that makes sense because the tagline says one will fall, which is a little different from one will definitively win. Right? You know what I mean? Like it's just because one of them is going to die.
[01:59:17] I think they both go against a common enemy and one of them will die and one of them will defeat the enemy and King Kong will be victorious. After all, it is in his name. He is the king. Kong bows to no one.
[01:59:27] I do just want to say that the Edwards Godzilla, which I really love, I think makes the you know, the humans being little ants of strength. That's why I like that movie, whereas like the fucking King of the Monsters, we're spending so much time with humans
[01:59:45] on their like flying boat and they're like, you know, following Godzilla on a map. And I'm like, I hate these people. I don't want to I don't want to talk to these. These guys are idiots. I don't know. There's some there's something in between the two
[01:59:56] that is my perfect American Godzilla movie and no one's hit it. Yeah. I love the Edwards Godzilla. I think that thing is fricking incredible. Love it except for the human stuff, which I find so annoying and a lot that just comes down to my ear and Taylor Johnson
[02:00:09] problems. And I think I like him now because of tenant. Yeah, just because of what's he what is up to these days? He executed a temporal pincer movement on your opinion. Temporal pincer movement. Temporal pincer movement might he's good in that movie. Objectively good.
[02:00:28] He's the best he's ever been in that movie. I'm glad we're all kind of tenant stands here. Then how do you feel about tenant? I liked it a lot. Confused me. I still don't get it, but you don't have to. I think once you relinquish the idea
[02:00:42] of getting it, it becomes much more fun. Agreed. It's about vibes. That movie is entirely about like isn't it fun to tell a story? You great. Yep. Aren't movies cool? Yeah, I look forward to like being back to normal life and smoking weed with somebody and
[02:01:00] being really high and being like trying to figure it out, man. Trying to piece it together. I think if I got super stoned and watched Tenet with like a group of people, we'd all really understand it. You know what's a thing to really look forward to?
[02:01:16] Like like repertory screenings of the movies we had to watch at home. Like I just am excited to see like Tenet at Nighthawk at Midnight Two Years. I can't wait to see the Kauffman movie or like, yeah, there's so many examples of that. Like movies.
[02:01:34] Our Blankie Awards episode will have come out by this point, but I just watched the Kauffman movie and the entire time thought to myself, this would probably be my favorite movie of the year. If I had seen it in a theater and at home, I just
[02:01:46] can't handle it. She watched it again. You know, like I still I still like it a lot. I don't say it as a negative, but it's just like that. That's that's a lot of movie. It's tough to take. And at home when your phone
[02:01:59] is there and you can escape from the discomfort of it, it is hard. Having the phone really just like it's hard to not just like second screen or just be like, I should clean that up. I should pick that thing up off the floor.
[02:02:13] Like there's no third place. It's just like, I'm going to put my photo away and like sit in the dark room. I hate it. What's the number four movie of nine? This is why I feel like we've done this before. It's a comedy with a famous
[02:02:26] duo. I don't think we've done this before. OK, fine. But this because you talk about this movie a lot. So maybe we've just talked about it before. We talk about it. Is it Silver Streak? Yes. Yeah, I just talk about it a lot.
[02:02:37] You just talk. Wait, you know, who's also in that movie, Ned Beatty. Ned Beatty sure is. Huge 76 for him. And King Kong is also like Rodin's big fucking heartbreak kid follow up in so many ways. He's in Silver Streak, the one where you're like there's not
[02:02:53] actually a ton of prior in that. And it's like, yeah, he has like three scenes. Right. But they just sort of are discovering the chemistry there. And then then it's the Wilder Prior movies are really about the two of them. Absolutely. Right. It's I just think that
[02:03:07] movie's reputation is very bizarre because it is just kind of like a gentle Hitchcock riff starring Gene Wilder and Jill Claiborg where they hired Richard Pryor to be like the colorful funny character for two scenes and then they had some good chemistry. I think they shoehorned back
[02:03:27] in for like a third scene, but he is barely a part of that movie. I think he doesn't enter until like an hour and 15 minutes in. Right. Number five Griffin, it's guys being dudes, but in a much more dramatic and serious true story kind of way.
[02:03:46] I love this movie. Guys being dudes and a much more dramatic and serious. It's another best picture nominee. Is that all the president's man? It's all the president's man. Yeah, that's that is guys being dudes. Man, the number five movie of its year. Outgrossing.
[02:04:03] Here's, you know, what's next? The Omen. Wow. The bad news bears. The enforcer, which I think is the second notes, the third dirty hairy, a movie called In Search of Noah's Ark, which is one of those like pseudo documentary movies. It's a guy who's like, I found
[02:04:21] Noah's Ark. Right. Right. It was the Where in the World is the Samaban Laden of its day where everyone went to see it and they were like, there's fucking nothing here. And then Midway, which is like one of those movies that like has an insane cast
[02:04:35] to big war movie. It's like Charlton Hesse and Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook to Shirah Mufune. And you're like, is that movie any good? They're like, no, God, it's awful. A garbage. But it was expensive and it was a big deal. Yeah. I was in focus.
[02:04:51] Next year is Star Wars. Like, you know, like you said, like it's it's all over. I mean, Jaws has already happened or whatever. But this is the last time. Jaws at this point is like maybe an aberration. They're like, maybe that's a once in a generation phenomenon.
[02:05:04] There isn't going to be a gong with the wind every year. And then Star Wars comes out and they're like, there should be a Star Wars every year. I think that also is like that makes sense. It makes sense to me that all
[02:05:13] the present's men made that much money just because like Watergate had kind of just happened. And so like when you don't have like like an MCU, you're like, I kind of want to see how this thing that I read about happened starring Robert Redford. Yes, like.
[02:05:31] But also like like not that it's comparable because there's an ocean between them and quality, but it's just like the fucking Comey Showtime miniseries. Everyone was like, oh, no, thank you. I have no interest in watching this. And I feel like any depiction
[02:05:48] of the Trump years would have a similar response of just like I don't care how well executed it is. I don't want to see any version of this story told. Do you think in a few years, depending on how things go that could possibly shift, it was
[02:06:01] wild to release it while he was still the president? I don't know if like we will ever want that. But I could see maybe like our kids would be like, what was that? I actually cannot go see that movie with you. I'll be like, go go fucking
[02:06:17] watch the Comey rule on show time. I can't talk about it. Right. That's the other thing. I just think the media being what it is, we're so fucking burnt out on it. Like by the time though, all the presidents, men comes out. People know the story,
[02:06:31] but like they couldn't kind of imagine the day to day of it necessarily, you know, whereas we've just been inundated with so much reporting and so much conflicting. And it's also like all the president's men is like. So much about them piecing together the story.
[02:06:47] And it's like, which fucking story would you pick? Like what? Right. Well, you'd have to do the whole four years and I can't actually physically. I cannot do that. And if you pick any one story, you'd be like, but why they focus on that?
[02:06:59] That's a distraction from the real thing. David, here's just a fun exercise I was doing in my head while you were listening those top 10 movies just to go like, OK, so who are the 10 stars of the biggest films of this year? Right? You're like, OK,
[02:07:13] so it's Sylvester Stallone. Stallone, he's new. Yeah. He's different. Right. A brand new movie star is the number one, the star of the number one film of the year. Right. It's a phenomenon. You can't wait to meet him. That's the kind of thing, right? Like, yeah. OK.
[02:07:29] Number two, then number two, Barbara Streisand, big star, established star Oscar winner and Chris Christopherson, who is a huge musician and, you know, a star in his own right. Number three. OK. Number three. Can you tell me who's in King Kong? The Grotin Bridges Leng.
[02:07:49] I guess Bridges is the biggest name, but arguably Kong is is the guy selling the movie. Right? None of them are on the poster. Only King Kong is on the poster. But their names are on there. It's just a big illustration of Kong.
[02:08:01] I mean, their names are not on the poster at all. I think you and I, my friend have been looking at different posters. I don't know what to tell you. It's a classic two guys looking at two different posters situation. But, you know, yeah, I mean,
[02:08:14] you know, the most exciting original motion picture event of all time. Wild thing to say about a King Kong remake. I was going to say it because I was going down this rabbit hole looking at the King Kong posters. That is the most arrogant tag
[02:08:25] line I have ever heard. It really is not even of the year. The most exciting original motion picture of all time. All time. All time. Wild King Kong. He just climbs a different building. That's the only take they have. Also, it is funny that Jaws had
[02:08:39] like just come out. Yeah. They were like, this is more exciting actually. It's true. Jaws had already eaten his lunch and even though he comes out a year later. So let's say Kong's the star of that picture. Number five. Well, number four is Wilder
[02:08:52] Claiborke Pryor as we said. Right. But let's say Wilder. I mean, if we want to like focus on one, right? Wilder for sure. Five is Redford Hoffman. Yeah. I mean, in the iconic Redford slash Hoffman Billing too, which I love. Not first names. Yes.
[02:09:07] But you also like going down that list. It's like Gregory Peck, who's kind of like an old school movie star at this point. Math out. Math out. Definitely an old school movie star at this point. Eastwood. Noah kind of an old school star.
[02:09:22] That was the bill on that one. It was Noah slash arc. Yeah. For sure. I mean, you know, and then, of course, best picture goes to Rocky. Yeah. And is it like I don't know. I mean, the Palm Door goes to Taxi Driver. Like, yeah, it's a pretty
[02:09:42] good year. It's a great year. It's a great year. And it's a great year for me. And Ned Beatty ran the table on it. He fucking did. This is like the year this is the last year that John Wayne is in a movie.
[02:09:55] This is the year the shoot just comes out. This is the first year, the Steady Cam, right? The Steady Cam debut. And then this is the year that Rocky Har becomes a midnight movie. And this is the year that George Lucas starts to make Star Wars.
[02:10:06] Like it does feel like a bit of a and Elaine May is essentially about to be run out of Hollywood. I was going to say and they may be the first year that George Lucas starts to make Star Wars. Like it does feel like a bit
[02:10:15] of a and Elaine May is a hit. And they made Mikey and Nikki. Yeah, this is the year that Elaine May says, fuck you, I'm done. And it takes, you know, one of the biggest movie stars in the world 10 years later, begging her to make a movie
[02:10:28] for him with a guaranteed green light to pull her out of, you know, retirement from filmmaking. Right. But she was out at this point. She's out. She was very happy to go back to theater. Went back to theater and being a cool person. Yeah, just being a
[02:10:41] generally rad lady. Have you guys ever watched the like Nichols and May sketches? Yeah, been been listening, watching a lot of them. Yeah. And prepped for this. They were the fucking coolest. They're just so fucking funny. I know. But I also I just can't get
[02:10:57] over how cool they were. Yeah. In a way that comedians rarely are, you know, and hot. Right. They were cool and hot without being like, I'm a comedian and now I'm doing a GQ photo shoot. Yeah. They're also like it's really interesting to like think about both their
[02:11:12] careers as directors and then like watch those sketches because they are really like doing the thing that both of them like from their actors which is just kind of like living. They're not like hyping it up for yucks. They're like there's like every heightening really
[02:11:28] makes sense is like kind of like grounded in like a real thing. Yeah, they're just incredible. Yeah. They're the coolest. Olivia, you're the coolest. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Guys. Being dudes. Had so much fun. That's good. I'm glad you had so much fun.
[02:11:47] I'm glad you guys did a lane may you got to do Nichols at some point. You gotta do Nichols. Is he on March Madness? Is he gonna win March Madness? Not this year. We put him in last year. He would be fun. We'll do him at some point.
[02:12:01] He's not that many movies. No, but we would have to do an Angels in America bonus. I would insist. Yeah. God, who's going to win though? That's the real question. Who's gonna win? I think John Carpenter is gonna win. I think there's gonna be Carpenter
[02:12:18] favoritism and Ben energy. People are gonna want to support Ben because Olivia, we've broken the brackets up. We each have a quadrant. Oh, fun. So Ben picked eight. I picked eight. David picked eight. And then we have one quadrant that we asked eight of our
[02:12:32] recurring guests to each pick one. Oh, that is so fun. Ben's quadrants up against my quadrant. Is that right? Or is Ben up against? I actually don't know. OK. I don't know. That's probably on exciting stuff to talk about because people at this point know who it is.
[02:12:49] Yeah. That's a great bet. I'm into that. Carpenter fucking rules. Don't you think so, Griff? I don't know. For some reason I'm feeling Carpenter. I think there's a good chance. Yeah, I don't know. And they like to pick a long one. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
[02:13:04] We'll see. Olivia. Griffin. Iconography. Oh. Best of the best. I think it's funny because we haven't done iconography in a minute because I have an eye of both very busy people. And so now I'm kind of just like a private citizen who has nothing
[02:13:19] to promote but just like, like is coming on the pod. Olivia. I'm just hanging out. You're the greatest private citizen I know. Yeah. What? How was how was Carol Grace described? You know, you have a wide social circle and I'll go ahead.
[02:13:32] No, I would just add on to that that Olivia is known for her wit and good company. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That is like my dream. My entire life has been to be like a woman about town. That's all I've ever wanted. I mean, Olivia, you were tweeting
[02:13:46] about Fran Leibowitz, which is exactly the thing where it's like I do a couple of books 40 years ago and then people just bait a listen to me talk. That is my dream. If someone listening would like to give me a book deal, I could crank
[02:13:58] out a book for you and then just kind of coast on it, go to some cool dinner parties. That's what I want for the next 60 years of my life. The fucking anti-Fran Leibowitz pushback is the most terrible and lame shit I've ever seen in my life.
[02:14:12] You're just fucking jealous that she cracked the code. She got to live her whole life just being a cranky person who complains about everything being bad. You're just angry that isn't your life. She's the only one who figured it out. And her fundamental take on life is
[02:14:27] anyone who has sex is cool and anyone who doesn't isn't. And the more the arc of the universe is bending towards the virgins and I hate it. That's like her whole philosophy of the universe. She's like the thing that has truly
[02:14:41] brought me the most joy in the last year has been watching pretend it's a city and watching Martin Scorsese think that everything that Fran Leibowitz says is the funniest thing a single person has ever said. He laughs so hard at every one of
[02:14:57] her jokes in a way that I'm like that is that's who you need in your life. It makes me want Scorsese to be like someone's needs to hire Scorsese for residency. He just laughs. He just laughs at all your jokes. And he does the full body laugh
[02:15:14] like he winces and his shoulder shakes. Such a good laugh. Oh that's the other thing I wanted to say is that when this is all over I would love if any New York based theater would let me show a double screening of Mike and
[02:15:30] Nikki in After Hours which are two movies I think would go great back to back. Love like a late night in the city movie. I'm going to start a movie theater with my reddit money. I didn't make any money on reddit but you know I'm going to pretend
[02:15:49] that I did and we'll do that. I feel like After Hours is a movie where if I tried to watch that now I would become an uncontrollable sobbing mess. Yeah this is all the shit we do. I want to say thank you to Marie Barty
[02:16:07] for our social media. Thank you to our editing team Alex Barron and AJ McKinnon. Thanks to Lay Monk Emery in the Great American novel for our theme song Pat Reynolds and Joe Bowen for our artwork. Go to blankys.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit.
[02:16:25] Go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy shirts. Tune in next week for Ishtar and hopefully Elaine May's fourth and final movie. For now... Hopefully Dakota Johnson will come through for us. I've been waiting years to talk about Ishtar on this podcast David. This is the one.
[02:16:47] So excited. And you can subscribe to our Patreon where we're talking about those Trek movies. We're voyaging home or going beyond or entering the final frontier or one of those things. Be must up. Be must up on Patreon. And as always at the end of the day
[02:17:07] this podcast is known for having a wide social circle and also known for its wit and good company.