[00:00:00] Hello Blankies, this is Downtown Griffey Nooms with a little emergency pre-episode announcement. So March 23rd 2020 is going to mark the fifth anniversary of Blank Check with Griffin and David or technically the fifth anniversary of Griffin and David present the Phantom podcast but
[00:00:19] Tomato Tomato. The point is in order to commemorate this colossal event because it is very tough to make the five. We're going to be not only doing a special fifth anniversary Checktacular episode
[00:00:33] on our main feed but we're also going to be doing some live shows. Fuck it, we're doing it live folks! Okay March 23rd, Monday, Bell House Theater, Brooklyn, 7 p.m. Show sold out. It already
[00:00:49] sold out I apologize. We put it up for pre-sele on Patreon and crazy enough it's sold out very shortly. So we're adding a second show 10 p.m. that same night March 23rd tickets for that are
[00:01:02] going to go on sale Monday January 20th this Monday at noon 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So we're announcing this very clearly so the general public, the people who are not Patreon subscribers
[00:01:17] have a good shot at getting those tickets because we feel bad that you were left out in the cold on the first one. That having been said if you want to come to the early show
[00:01:25] you can't make the late show maybe hop on the Blank Check Reddit try to come with some sort of ticket swap with a checkmate who bought tickets for the earlier. I will also say two shows are
[00:01:35] going to be entirely different they're gonna have different subjects so if you're completist might want to come to both what might want to complete the set that's all I'm gonna say thank you for listening and now please listen to this very normal episode of Blank Check with Griffin
[00:01:52] and David. What do you love about the podcast Griffin? I many things what I love most about the podcast it's that every now and again not often but occasionally you get to be a part of
[00:02:29] justice being done. It's good. And then it's really quite a thrill when it happens. Okay let's do that quote it's good right? That's it because I'll tell you the rest of these quotes a little rocky
[00:02:40] right right right not easy to turn into jokes no the key words that you would replace with podcast are words that should not be removed. What about the joke that's told you know what do you
[00:02:51] call a thousand podcasters at the bottom of the ocean? Good start chain together at the bottom of the ocean it's a good start do you know the tagline for this movie? It's a good double tagline
[00:03:01] right no one it was split into two little right we got a split. No one would take on his case until one man was willing to take on the system that is so generic it's very 90s
[00:03:12] they're very 90s 100 people in a room and 99 people say they won't take the case that was the european tagline for the film. When Lady Gaga was working in marketing. One person was Bradley
[00:03:22] Cooper that's not said in the movie it's not like he's like I tried 99 people he tried seven he tried I think nine oh he says nine yeah well there's only one nine away I guess so
[00:03:36] the poster as well might as well be like the poster for the pelican brief totally like it'd be the poster for any grisham thriller yeah high contrast black and white and then there's a big
[00:03:45] gavel yeah just so you're like oh uh oh we're going to court. Tom Hanks looks zero percent sick he looks like Tom Hanks in a suit right because even at the beginning of this movie I forgot how
[00:03:56] much he is like he's already he's emaciated they're clearly putting a lot of makeup on him to show that he's covering up his lesions like from the first frame of this film no Tom Hanks does not
[00:04:06] look like America's funny man Tom Hanks when I was a kid my parents rented this movie on VHS and they were like it's a sequel to Toy Story. No I think I just saw the cover and I was like
[00:04:16] what's this movie and they were like um and I'm like oh it's about Philadelphia like I mean I just there's just nothing on that cover that you'd be like well I clearly understand a lot of
[00:04:24] you look at the poster and you're like Philadelphia right you're like this must be a true story about like something about like the city of Philadelphia right exactly this must be about like city planning or like yeah some like miscarriage of justice in Philadelphia which is
[00:04:38] something sort of yeah it's not very Philadelphia-centric I feel like stand-ups have been making this joke for like two decades now but it does feel a little bit like if they made a film about someone
[00:04:48] dying of cancer and called it New York City great like I understand the art that the brotherly love thing but it comes up once in the movie it's not like the movie is like very much about it
[00:04:58] being in Philadelphia right it's I guess just that idea of Philadelphia is the city with that like if it was about a character that throws batteries it would well that would be called right yeah and then that would be appropriate okay Ben has
[00:05:11] decided that this episode is going to be him ragging on Philadelphia as the classic New Jersey Philadelphia arrival rate coming I forgot I forgot of course he hates Philadelphia Philly stinks me okay
[00:05:23] then do you do you want a moment here to soapbox or do you want to just pepper it throughout the next four and a half hours I'm gonna pet okay well this is a podcast called Blank Check
[00:05:34] yes with Griffin and David I'm Griffin David thanks for introducing yourself it's podcast of David I know I said with one more pep I am David bang bang bang it's a podcast about filmography directors have massive success really on their career given a series of blank checks to
[00:05:57] make whatever crazy passion projects they want sometimes those checks clear sometimes they bounce baby and this is a me series on the film of Jonathan Demi and this is arguably his first big
[00:06:09] blank check yeah this is a huge cash in not only is it that it's a it deposits it's a hit that's the argument our friend Emily van der Werf guest last week made which is like
[00:06:22] when people were saying like I don't know if Jonathan Demi qualifies for this it's like that is one of the biggest blank check movies of all time and the fact that it cleared in the way that it did
[00:06:30] is is kind of insane 200 million dollars for one yeah I mean I just think that's something people one of the many things people probably don't remember about this movie yeah they probably
[00:06:40] think like oh whatever it did find them one an Oscar like that it was a big commercial 10 films of the year basically it was number one two weeks in a row yeah yeah and it also
[00:06:50] is the movie that elevates Tom Hanks from being like beloved leading man to like America's greatest movie star like this is the film that transforms him it made him the voice of like important stuff
[00:07:01] totally it did and it's interesting that it did when you think about it and at the same time we've all seen his Oscar speech for this film yes I'm sure we'll discuss it again the only
[00:07:12] you know he won best I was gonna say is this the only film in this mini series that inspired Kevin Klein comedy I mean it's just insane that is just an insane fact but I rewatched it last
[00:07:21] night after watching the movie just to remind myself because everyone remembers the end where he's like there are too many you know and yeah but the whole speech sounds like a fucking presidential
[00:07:31] campaign yeah yeah like and you're like is he I mean obviously he memorized this or something he's not just doing this off the dome but like he ends with saying god bless America yeah but he
[00:07:39] had one of those campaign years where he was winning a lot his golden globe speeches great and also is entirely different zero overlap yeah donates it donates it he dedicates it to a bunch
[00:07:49] of specific actors there's this crazy stat that I think Demi cast over 50 actors in the film who actually had AIDS and by the time the movie came out 40 of them had died wow and so Hank's
[00:08:06] golden globe speech was him like dedicating right the memory to a bunch of specific actors in this movie what's his name Ron Veitner Vettner who's the actor who plays the the one sort of member of the law firm yeah this is for him right yeah yeah he died
[00:08:27] he was a died of AIDS right I think shortly after this movie came out and it's one of the most horrifying stories I've ever read which is he had a massive AIDS related heart attack
[00:08:39] while on a plane with his partner and they were three hours away from landing and his partner was like I had never seen a dead body before and I suddenly had to spend three hours
[00:08:50] sitting next to my dead partner oh my god waiting all right isn't that the worst yeah thank you dr sleep oh boy yeah um but yes it's kind of crazy this movie was such a big hit right after
[00:09:04] this hanks has a run for over a decade where he does 11 straight hundred million dollar grossers I mean including like for scump being the number one film of its year toy story being the number
[00:09:15] one film of its year same prevarion being the number one film of its year like it was just like he was the guy he was constantly getting Oscar nominations or wins he wins back to back
[00:09:27] it's when he became America's dad because he had been like America's like fun cousin or older brother and then he was like no no no and I think those speeches for Philadelphia kind of helps
[00:09:35] solidify that that's the thing it was like he's ready for this moment he's ready to take on the responsibility of being like what I'm saying what it sounds like exactly it sounds like he's running
[00:09:42] your campaign and I think that there's something about his character in this being from Pennsylvania and his character from saving private Ryan being from Pennsylvania because it kind of locates him in like he's it's not it's not quite middle America but it's sort of homey
[00:09:58] and it's still sort of liberal yeah I mean I did say right right because there is something and it's my second Shyamalan movie this is right all movies set in Philadelphia are directly
[00:10:12] hit right yes yes he wrote streets of Philadelphia he wrote streets of Philadelphia it was about um the streets of Philadelphia that's what the song is about but it was very confusing when I was
[00:10:20] a kid because I would say I like that Bruce big scene time Philadelphia and people like no that's not actually the song Philadelphia is the Neil Young song right yeah um Ben yeah
[00:10:31] you're a New Jersey born in the Jersey devil now of course Bruce Springsteen also a New Jersey how do you feel about the fact that he won an Oscar and one of his better known songs is about
[00:10:43] Philadelphia his only Oscar I don't like it I remember at the time being aware that people were kind of like yeah this is sort of outside his comfort zone Philadelphia he crossed eight lines
[00:10:55] right is that why you fucking turncoat is that why you quit the east street band Ben yes boss I love you look just can't I can't go into tunnel with up with you and then you handed your
[00:11:06] due rag to Steve and say on now it's your third surprise at all if we opened up the booklet of an east street band CD and just saw that Ben was like a triangle player well you're the girl
[00:11:18] he invites invites up on stage in Courtney's Courtney also look we do know Bruce Springsteen loves redheads true the Ben is his type I am definitely his type yeah um you know also
[00:11:31] there's this famous song that Bruce I found out later covered called Jersey girl that was a Tom Waits song sure so again another kind of sad moment for me right that he didn't originate that
[00:11:44] yeah no it's just fine I mean at Lanex City that's about Jersey that's a Bruce song that's a good one I'm trying to think of like very Jersey specific Bruce songs obviously a lot of his
[00:11:54] uvra running down the turnpike he wrote the original score for Jersey girl yes he did yes he did and he also shot that film and edited it he was right yeah he started it starting it right
[00:12:06] played the Jersey girl well there's the he has a song called Taylor Ham egg and cheese off of exit right 29 on the parkway south he has this song called like I love to watch
[00:12:17] the sopranos and it's not clear whether or not I understand that the characters are unsympathetic that's a good song about being from New Jersey detection does not equal endorsement now you know who's very good in Jersey girl Sir William Smith Sir William Smith Will Smith
[00:12:34] he's a small role correct as himself and he's really fucking good when's he bad it's but it's like one of his better no no it might be true but when's he when's he bad winter still right like
[00:12:44] there are things where he's bad there are right winter still is arguably the only one because even things that are bad I think he's very committed in he's usually committed I'm trying to think like what's up bad will Smith like I don't think he's bad in Suicide Squad
[00:12:56] no he's good in Suicide Squad or whatever right but he's like doing his work he's fine in Wild Wild West even though that movie is bad yeah yes although that is a little bit him like
[00:13:05] coasting yeah bringing out the old bag of tricks and you're like come on man like that's pretty electric yeah Wild Wild West might be the closest to where I'm like you're not doing much for me
[00:13:16] here buddy I don't really like him in After Earth he's not yeah you're right you know what that's maybe the worst because he's doing I mean he's all wrong working against another Shyamalan
[00:13:26] film so yeah like yeah he's doing that weird accent and it's a weird all this charisma is being sucked out of him so intentionally passing it on to his son yeah trying he is the genie though
[00:13:38] he was the genie right and it is current still you're right he actually retains those powers and by the time this episode comes out he probably will have one best supporting actor right
[00:13:48] at the Oscars you never know on the record right I think Guy Ritchie's win really is going to be a win for that whole film oh totally yeah yeah I'll just be like here right he's the
[00:13:58] Alfonso Cronon I tried to watch dude too I tried to watch Aladdin on a plane not too long ago and I had to turn it off and like I have a really like plane movie like tolerance like I watched yesterday
[00:14:07] like I watched that whole thing but like you don't think that movie made sense yesterday you don't think that movie or no yesterday that movie's air air tight logic yeah
[00:14:18] just like try to pull a string you can't you know I'm gonna try and untickle but I can't do it this is yep no everything makes sense perfect you know like that movie takes place in
[00:14:28] alternate reality where the second someone gets dumped someone else steps forward it goes actually I've always had a crush on you you will not be single for longer than a minute yeah that's perfect
[00:14:37] but yeah I couldn't finish Aladdin uh so boring yeah that's that's my problem with all those Disney remakes that are very similar to the it's like I'm just like yeah I've seen this movie and
[00:14:48] somehow it's longer and slower this time like it's right what do you got for me I still haven't seen Lion King well that one's on watch at least Aladdin you're like hey look it's Will Smith
[00:14:56] right I want to break up something that's been bugging me for a couple months now here we go when we did our Lion King episode I argued not argued I stated the fact that the
[00:15:05] movie was half an hour longer and you said no it's not because of credits oh sure right but that argument makes no sense because both of them have credits sure but I think the Disney credits are very short aren't they I don't think so
[00:15:20] let's see 118 for the Lion King uh-huh John Fevereux the Lion King that is so many tech people it's a sensible for an animated film I think they both have very long credits all right maybe your argument was the animated film I watch that stupid February movie if it's
[00:15:37] a half hour longer I don't know what he added so much things that suck a bunch of pauses wasn't half an hour worth there were some pauses probably yeah contemplative there is that
[00:15:47] scene where a sours who just pauses for 20 minutes and you hear a gunshot in the distance it's very check up yeah a violent string snapping everyone looks up our guest today is Richard Lawson hello from Vandy fair and little gold man stop making podcasts or talk about Philadelphia
[00:16:05] yep a movie where uh in my mind so the first time I saw this movie was probably seven or eight years ago when it was on Netflix streaming and I remember not even considering the days
[00:16:18] when every movie was on yes right those the golden days right when Netflix was a public I mean it is streaming on Netflix now that's how I watched it but it is actually currently
[00:16:26] streaming but it is one of four movies on this air and it's and it's classified under vintage movies classic movies black and white movies because the poster yeah so you so you'd never
[00:16:38] seen it before and you saw it uh like eight years ago I never flipping through the channels when I was uh in college I think the the communal TV in the lounge or the dorms or whatever
[00:16:50] and seeing the aria scene and being like this is really weird why didn't anyone tell me that philadelphia is this weird because I bought into I feel like the cultural reputation this movie got immediately cheesy Oscar this is the ultimate austere issues driven and it's like
[00:17:07] sanded down and not risky and like you know whatever right that's the it's for a long time it was the stand-in yes like representative of that kind of movie which is insane that's this movie's
[00:17:17] reputation because it this is the outline like this is what all of them should be I like for you like this Oscar films wouldn't have a bad reputation he's a better filmmaker than almost anyone which is part of what he's bringing to the table really watching
[00:17:30] this whole filmography you're kind of like this is an exceptional you can't argue that he had like the best body of work ever because no it's it's you know he's got stinkers and whatever
[00:17:41] but it is like he's kind of one of the best filmmakers who ever let me just make a conversation what I what I like about it is that when a movie that could just be pretty straightforward
[00:17:51] and still have an emotional impact and maybe a board's impact he's like no I'm gonna actually like make a movie that's like artful but I think part of the reason that its reputation has been
[00:18:02] sort of muddied is that at the time and since certainly like Larry Kramer wrote an op-ed about how much he hated the movie and how it wasn't the movie of and I and I see those criticisms I do
[00:18:12] I think in the lens of hindsight the movie looks better maybe than it did in the moment but I think that all that that coupled with just the regular Hollywood narrative about like
[00:18:20] a field at Oscar movie not feel good but you know I'm right issue movie Oscar movie that also then was sort of deemed like a bad game like the wrong game movie got that and then
[00:18:30] it kind of just got buried by this kind of legacy and then rewatching it for this podcast I was like holy shit like this is actually like a beautiful movie it's a beautiful movie it's
[00:18:38] a daring movie in a lot of ways yeah so much in what we're talking about where Larry Kramer is talking about so much but like just in like you wouldn't make a movie this way anymore no absolutely not which is probably part of our
[00:18:51] like reverence of it from afar and you're right that like in 1993 that's a pressure cooker time aids is very much like ongoing and not at remotely solved and the government is barely like acknowledging it still right like it's still this sort of like Angel's Let America's on
[00:19:06] Broadway in 93 yeah it's still just like people are like shaking the gates being like what are you going to do about this and so this movie maybe feels a little tepid yeah and it gets
[00:19:14] tagged with the kiss thing and I feel like it's never gotten over that there is a the brief kiss the sort of chase yeah hospital kiss but like you know that his relationship with Antonio
[00:19:23] Banderas is you know pretty on screen pretty chased yeah and there's this Janet Maslin review where she's like his his uh the Antonio Banderas boyfriend character is uh god I want to find
[00:19:38] her exact line because I find it really dismissive and shitty but she essentially says like it would be uh insulting to even call it a sketch of a character and to which I go like explain to me how
[00:19:51] the depiction of that character is any different than the depiction of Denzel's wife in the movie right he's a supporting character I mean I don't know right like I feel like those relationships
[00:20:01] are given equal amount of weight in this film the only difference may be being that like you know there's a kissin right but it's not like the Denzel wife relationship is really hot and
[00:20:12] heavy no yeah I mean they just had a baby and like because yeah the core relationship is obviously him and Denzel yeah and like as a the movie is like a road map road map toward empathy
[00:20:24] and and and that's kind of how it functioned in like popular culture back then and so I'm willing to forgive if some spouse characters are like not quite fully drawn you know because like
[00:20:35] that's not what the movie's about I'm like that's like you know a larger issue with spouse characters in films like this usually being right half written um but wait there was something so I think it got tagged with that I got tagged with what you're talking about it
[00:20:50] didn't get a best picture now which is kind of crazy and I think and to get best director right and so maybe that hurt it a little bit that like if you look it on paper you're like well that's
[00:20:59] the Tom Hanks Oscar movie but like that's what that was and I think also we just got overshadowed by Forrest Gump the next year where everyone was like the definitive Tom Hanks movie of the
[00:21:07] early 90s was Tom of Forrest Gump and that's movie did a lot for I feel like for gay relations in America Forrest Gump yeah oh yeah no like that was the landmark yeah no I mean I'm perfect
[00:21:19] like there's a lot of like gay characterization I'm a Sally Field Queen you know like when I watch Forrest Gump the whole time I just yell over and over again nothing weird about this movie
[00:21:29] no problems I just keep yelling it I learned a bunch about history from that movie yeah totally uh none of you folks listen to Edward Norton lock the gate right I didn't listen to that
[00:21:40] although I certainly have read like 45 Edward Norton interviews I should have asked to interview him everyone got to interview him he's movie blue I just didn't want to be like it's always weird
[00:21:49] where you're like do they know that I think their movie's a big old dude I was interviewing Tracy Letts for the podcast for our podcast little goldman at work that episode will have aired long
[00:21:59] after before this goes on here but anyway and he started the interview I asked him a first question he's like well wait let's back up here because I mean you didn't like the movie did you it was for
[00:22:07] Forrest for our you know I was like huh I guess I had tweeted something that you said the image he goes yeah yeah and I was like oh no it's just because it was late at night and whatever but I
[00:22:15] guess his publicist had read that to him and then booked this interview and I was like what's why are you doing that that's like at the conference call and getting someone to say something embarrassing about the other person Edward Norton on his WTF weirdly goes to bat
[00:22:30] for Forrest Gump like very empathetically Edward and he was like but he's like I understand the reputation that movie has I think that movie is very canny and has a lot more bite than people
[00:22:40] give it credit for being which I just thought was such a bizarre I would not expect Edward Norton to be like why not he's like the king of like let me let me stick up for the
[00:22:51] shit people don't like right now I don't know but that's like a weird movie for him to be it's funny I mean I've heard that take yeah where it's like oh come on Forrest Gump is a satire and
[00:23:00] I'm right sly it's being there as a satire yeah Forrest Gump is kind of like watered down being there with more sort of boomer you know sort of nostalgia like it's I don't think Forrest Gump
[00:23:11] is biting it off and that is a movie that deals with AIDS in a way that is really that's the joke right no I know I'm just gonna I'm gonna state it directly AIDS as punishment for for having sex right which this movie is trying to like counter
[00:23:28] that argument with every fiber of this movie has a very like sort of clearly kind of inserted scene and not saying inserted in a bad way but like clearly importantly yeah a highlighted scene
[00:23:39] where the woman who has the transfusion is like I don't see myself as any different than this exactly you know like yeah where like they're trying to like sort of maybe like remove some of
[00:23:47] those stereotypes yeah yeah and I think it you know it cops to the fact that Andrew you know he had sex with a guy in a movie theater like he was at a porn theater like like it doesn't
[00:23:57] desexualize him because that obviously is a part of the narrative in a way in a big way but yeah I mean it's not at shaming in any way the way that Forrest Gump certainly is Jenna Maslin's line was Andrew's domestic relationship with Miguel is presented so
[00:24:12] sketchily that it barely seems real right I don't I don't buy that either I don't I don't feel that watching the movie I don't either I think both of them are so good I think one
[00:24:22] of the things he's trying to do is not because he is skittish about sewing like you know sexual intimacy between gay people on screen but because so often gay people in movies were demonized
[00:24:34] or sexualized to show a sort of like emotional intimacy I think was more of a priority for him and I think that really comes across yeah like I think they speak to each other with the
[00:24:46] intimacy of two people who know each other that well for that long or that deeply in love with each other talked about like you know there were some scenes that they didn't include like
[00:24:54] there's a scene of them in bed together that's like a deleted scene you know it's like them just talking right where there was maybe a little more physical intimacy that maybe the studio
[00:25:02] who's the studio again it's a Columbia tri star right yeah balked at yeah you know but yes obviously as context we should note right like part of demi's reason for making this movie was
[00:25:15] the tremendous guilt he felt about the sounds of the lambs I did some more research it's a two-step thing in 1988 his friend gets diagnosed with AIDS he calls up around nysan or I always get his
[00:25:25] name right nice swaner who had done much of the work on swing shift on credit for what he tried to shoot that shooting script was mostly runs and he calls him up and goes like my friend just
[00:25:40] got diagnosed with AIDS this is the first time it's become like a personal thing for me I am so overwhelmed by this I feel like I need to make a movie about like this is the only way I know how
[00:25:48] to process this and I feel like we need to do this culturally like someone needs to make the movie showing people with AIDS as human beings yeah and not longtime companion and not the band played on where it's sort of very more procedural sort of and it's historical
[00:26:06] counting right and the story is just the illness you know I think they want to find a way to make a film that starred someone who was HIV positive that wasn't solely about them it's in the
[00:26:20] comfortable packaging of a courtroom drama which is a very familiar trope for people and so in the 90s was like the hottest well this is the crazy thing right so they commit in the 80s
[00:26:29] they're like we're gonna do this and then they talk it up and they're like this is what would really actually change the culture is like if we made a big studio film with movie stars
[00:26:38] and that was their like design but they're designing this before silence of the land where the idea of getting that made seem probably impossible but they work on the script for years
[00:26:48] and years and years at the starting point of we want to make up a story that can center around a HIV positive protagonist and can sort of show these people in a greater light
[00:27:03] and you know remove a lot of the stigma the original idea was they were going to do something closer to Dallas Buyer's Club weirdly they said their original idea was more of a thriller heist movie that was about getting medicine across the border they went through a thousand
[00:27:18] different genres they went through a thousand different characters different situations and and then they finally landed on the courtroom drama because they were like that is a thing that gives him agency and keeps him invested in the story even while he's dying
[00:27:31] because we don't want to do a deathbed movie we don't want to do a movie that's him just going through treatment you know and getting worse and worse and worse and worse we want there to be
[00:27:40] some sort of yeah i mean victory that can still be achieved yeah it is also based on a real person it was loosely based on a couple real people and one of the families got upset
[00:27:49] because they saw that they had sort of mined their dead son well they didn't get money for it so they suited and they got money for it right but i also think it is to this movie's advantage that
[00:27:59] it is not that concerned with being a based on a true story no it's not it's very consciously not advertising itself is that right i mean they did have they saw a case that gave them
[00:28:10] a precedent for this would be a good structure for this movie and it sets up the world of glass and unbreakable like i think really well totally you know just in subtle ways but but but crucial
[00:28:21] ones do you know what he calls that now i do but i've forgotten so you're gonna have to remind me it's like the east rail 1717 trilogy something i'm getting the number it's the name of the
[00:28:31] train crash you're correct right but that's his version of like three cornetto's is like all three movies are about this train crash the east rail one seven seven trilogy which is weird
[00:28:41] because you could just call it the unbreakable trilogy that's fine yeah you know what i mean like yeah look you can buy a box set now with a labeled east rail one seven seven yeah
[00:28:52] maybe you want to you could take the train don't take the train no it's gonna crash mr glass has been sabotaging it um but yeah anyway you're right mr glass obviously is in the film
[00:29:03] we see him and he's he orchestrates the entire no he just has a 20 minute monologue about compucks in the middle of the movie and it's very subtle and nuanced love that fucking movie
[00:29:12] sure um but uh yes obviously sansa lambs gives him the juice to make whatever the fuck he wants next and it is you know to his credit that also now burdened with this sort of sense of
[00:29:27] he's so bad yeah i was trying to he'd been picketed like for that movie you know by elgb but i think he genuinely was such an empathetic guy and tried so hard to do
[00:29:38] right and has talked a lot about how much he believed in the importance of what you put on screen how much that can change dialogue yeah you know and perceptions of things and how we have
[00:29:49] responsibility to not put the wrong sort of depictions on screen and things like that i think that really ate at him and so whereas this had already been a script that he was working
[00:29:58] on for a couple years this just became the thing that he put all of his juice behind everything griffin just said is not true what happened was bruce spring see wrote a song about the streets
[00:30:06] philadelphia yeah first spring walked up and down yeah his bus broke down on the way to new york city and he was like what happened yeah and then he called demian was like i was just on the streets
[00:30:17] of philadelphia yeah oh god no he said i was just on the streets the streets of philadelphia and jimmy went no no no no no no like that jimmy demmy i said demmy you said jimmy
[00:30:30] jimmy demmy i was trying to say demmy okay i love how this film opens with the streets of philadelphia a very long credit sequence which you don't get enough of those anymore in a way no it's a thing
[00:30:44] we've talked about in other demis too i love that he credits every single actor with a line well the actor it's it becomes a brag where like anadivier smith is like 26 right right where he's just like
[00:30:55] no you won't i got more i got so many character actors in this thing karen finley's in that movie she plays one of the doctors and out chandra wilson young and jimmy wilson yeah playing a character
[00:31:03] named chandra yeah and then what is what are the credits playing over joanna was just like man you never see credits like this anymore it's just like well it's philadelphia right it's the footage of
[00:31:11] the streets and the credits are like pre-common by her name like handwriting i love the handwriting font um reminded me most of all of beaverley hills cop one of my favorite opening credits
[00:31:22] sure where it's just the streets of detroit yeah and again just like give me a little well warm me up the one that it reminds me of is dog day after now that's another one right any of those
[00:31:31] where it's just like take the cast iron out put it on the oven yeah throw a turn on the flames just just warm it up yeah you're warming me up to be in in philadelphia you know philadelphia is a people
[00:31:41] not a place and that's what demi's trying to explain it doesn't matter if their ship crashes out of the sky it's why it's why at the end of the movie everyone gets on a spaceship
[00:31:51] the border in new jersey yeah right this isn't one of these movies with the sort of like pompous self seriousness of like look at us we're making the definitive it doesn't indicate while
[00:32:01] also still feeling like i mean maybe it's just hindsight but like of like 26 years but like it feels like it's aware of its solemn duty yes and yet doesn't get caught up in that doesn't
[00:32:12] feel too self important when you read like a nice one talking about demi talking out before he passed they it was such a dangerous line they were sort of towing because they were like we want to make
[00:32:24] a big hollywood aids movie but we want to make an aids movie that doesn't feel like it is the aids movie like it is the film right because you're always going to be in trouble with that statement so
[00:32:32] we're gonna make the a the hollywood aids and and they both said that they were terrified making this movie because they knew like everything was going to get so picked over as like this is the
[00:32:41] one that everyone's been waiting for yeah and and every element is going to be sort of taken apart for whether or not this is the correct representation and so i think they very smartly
[00:32:51] tried to really focus in on a story that they could use as like an entry point for the things they want to say and the dialogue they want to open up in the culture and not trying to make a movie
[00:33:02] about everything but then the film's reputation has so much become it's about everything and even like the seriousness of that poster is so different than the handwritten font and the sort of expressionistic qualities of the filmmaking itself and the humor to the movie
[00:33:19] were just like i just for years was like as like an insane movie dork who in high school was like trying to get through oscar movies all the time i was like i don't ever have to watch philadelphia
[00:33:29] right i mean that's just like i know what that is i've seen people parody this type of thing i know i see the poster i don't want to watch this and then it was like watching that like
[00:33:39] three minutes on tv flipping through channels i was like oh no this is a jonathan demmy movie this isn't just him like doing that weird watered down thing that happens to people after they win
[00:33:49] an oscar yeah yeah no i mean it it's genuinely an artful movie and like i think it also it it has a humor to it that i think yeah it's really great you know i just um at toronto this year
[00:34:03] i saw just mercy which is this day destiny and cretin movie about a very serious issue about you know wrongful imprisonment and and it's well acted it's an interesting story but it's just so like
[00:34:16] straightforward and everything and just like literal and there's no humor it's just so and it's like you can do you can still make the important message and have it be because that's what short term 12 does
[00:34:26] i feel like we've been talking about this a lot in the podcast but it is that weird thing where it's like he made his film that deals with serious things that doesn't feel burdened by the
[00:34:34] weight of we're talking about serious films that has personality has eccentricities is funny and then he's followed up with two films where he feels totally flattened out by i need to make a
[00:34:44] serious commercial film it's i think the thing he ran into with that movie that is the thing this movie avoids is that when you're making a movie about a real person who has done great undeniable
[00:34:55] acts yes you do not want to fuck with them right and so the movie is very plainly presenting them and there's nothing wrong with that like you know in and of itself but you wish it had
[00:35:04] more personality but it lacks personality it feels a little bit like and then this happened and you're like oh good that's like it was good yeah let's move to the next thing that happened
[00:35:14] here like oh this is good too and you're like mm-hmm it was good i agree and the we saw that movie at the you probably were at the premiere right yes you know the guy walks out i'm i'm now blanking
[00:35:25] on michael b jord and he did walk down and he looked great i'll give you that brian something uh yeah brian i just want to brian stevensson and uh you know he walks out he gets a huge
[00:35:36] round of applause and you're like this is a serious person this is a man who's worked on death row to like you know bring humanity and save people and like i would too would feel very indebted to this
[00:35:47] you know representing his personal story right the man whose case inspired this film they should have paid him up front yeah they should have paid him up but i i do think it is the smartest
[00:35:56] strategic move he made in developing this film to not go we're going to adapt this court case but rather go this gives me an idea for how to structure this film because the freedom this
[00:36:05] movie has by being able to weave characters out of whole cloth yeah like i mean the the densel character is the entire key to this movie being as interesting as it is and he's secretly the lead
[00:36:17] he's secretly the lead should have been oscar on him he's a fantastic performer he's arguably i think nowadays i think nowadays they would have run densel and hanks and support it's not
[00:36:26] impossible except for that of course hanks was a big movie starry's right first build and all that i think they're both leads the movie is more i for in my memory densel really dominated the movie
[00:36:35] yeah and on rewatch i was like now hanks does uh you know have the first chunk of the movie all to himself and then has these big scenes sort of interspersed through so it's not it's not
[00:36:44] really what aside from the fact that obviously all the courtroom scenes are more densel showcase of course and at that point hanks is playing a man who can struggles to speak
[00:36:53] him and he's very firm right first third you get more of densels homeland yes which is such a demi thing to like really to not make it a binary thing about like oh this friendship changed
[00:37:08] their lives you know i feel like he is very smart about not making it feel like oh uh knowing someone with aids has cured him of his bigotry right right because that was joyne i was like wait
[00:37:22] is the end of this movie going to be that he turns out he's not homophobic anymore and i'm like no no it's not it's not like that because it's a it's a movie about the beginning of that person exactly
[00:37:31] and and and i think that demi and the production team saw the movie as being the beginning of something like that you know so it it has this meta sort of context but can we
[00:37:41] locate densel and tom hanks yes because please so he had hanks had just done legal there on the year before right i'm gonna we can do this yeah but while i'm just getting
[00:37:50] the filmography straight as well i just you know what's what's your story with this movie when did you see it richard so i saw this movie probably shortly after it came out on video like when
[00:37:59] i was probably 10 or 11 years old so my uncle my mom's brother died of aids in 1985 along with his partner all their friends on fire island in new york and and so aids had always sort
[00:38:08] of loomed very large in in my like family history my family lore and so it felt like this movie that i had to see and i think you know i was young but i probably understood
[00:38:19] something subconsciously about myself that i felt drawn to it um and i i i have very little memory of seeing it the first time same um i remember thinking it was sad you know um and but now
[00:38:31] seeing it now i mean i can't help but you know i think about this going to see angel america i'm gonna go see the inheritance soon i just think about like what if like bobby finger and dan didario and all like like all died you know like how
[00:38:44] fucking surreal that would be and like i it just it shakes me and even like my mom was not gay but lived in new york like it was just that it was right you have your friends all these friends
[00:38:54] who just suddenly all get sick and die in their 30s yeah i think people say of like we'll never know the loss to culture that aids took right the toll it took in terms of all the art we
[00:39:03] never got to see and all the artists who never got to develop in the second acts of their careers that never went on i mean my my parents were in new york in and around you know various art
[00:39:13] scenes in the 80s and uh one year my my mom as like a birthday present for my dad uh years before i was born when they were dating made this really fucking weird short film where my mom is playing
[00:39:28] my father and it's like a 10 minute comedy short that's like a day in the life of peter newman my mom's doing this very bizarre impression of my father in male drag sure and uh sounds good
[00:39:39] when it's it's okay it won best picture that year but um one year my mom as a present like digitized it and brought in dvd and like you know we watched it when i was in like high school or whatever
[00:39:50] right right and i'm watching it and it's like oh we're making fun of all the daily parts of his routine and this everyone else in the short are my parents best friends from that time
[00:40:00] and i was watching it yeah and i was like who are all of these people i know none of these people and 75 percent of them were oh he died of aids she died of aids like they all had aids
[00:40:11] and the other 25 percent where my father's game i was about to say i thought it was more right it was like half that and then half yeah but it was this guy was yet spooking and this guy was
[00:40:20] your but it was that crazy thing where i think back to it and i'm like when by the time i was born my parents seemingly had very few old friends right there was a core group but you could count
[00:40:31] them probably on one hand and then i saw most of my parents friend-based develop throughout my lifetime in a city that they had already been living in each for over a decade and i never really thought
[00:40:42] about like why don't they have more friends who are they hanging out with before this it can't just be like susan and greg like there has to have been more than this and the answer is
[00:40:51] that just like everyone fucking disappeared everyone just died horrifically but the thing i want to bring up is that after an 80s career that was heavy on comedy yeah let's think i was beginning to transition
[00:41:03] into more serious roles right right and i just think that's important to bring up and this was like the the one that really was like okay so big's a turning point because he gets an oscar nomination
[00:41:12] it's a comedy then then gets taken seriously after his fun earlier career from like that bosom buddies and then splash man with the rich money pit joe versus volcano drag that's the volcanoes a little later it got turned hooch but that's that's your 80s up to the 90s
[00:41:27] right turn who just like kind of his last dumb comedy right yes because it's after big but before philadelphia depends on how you classify joe versus the volcano i would say but yes or the tourist
[00:41:38] or lady well sure yeah the terminal the terminal thank you joe versus the volcano is it's too esoteric to be considered exactly i mean it's a john patrick shanley movie right that's like
[00:41:50] postman right turner who just like here's the pitch it's hanks with a dog yeah and the movie was greenlit you know before they wrote the script and then jim blusher did k9 directed by catherine
[00:42:00] bigcliffe um 1990 so it's just it's important to remember that after big he had a slightly rocky few well because then bonfire is right afterwards well that's what i'm getting to he has the burbs which is good herbs is very good which will hopefully cover sunday on this hot
[00:42:17] tear hit not a big hit more of a cold hit was disappointed when it came out exactly turner and hooch you know no one really wants to be in turner big hit embarrassed that movie we were like
[00:42:25] not allowed to watch in my household growing up because all our friends of course had seen it and my mom just thought it would crash yeah it does look gross joe versus the volcano which
[00:42:34] is a pretty famous flop at the time right bonfire the vanities which is a notorious flop yeah like really even now remember but really at the time people were like oh my god like this is a
[00:42:45] disaster and like one of the first movies in like sort of a vaguely modern media era where people were all in on reading about a fucking disaster was the book became a bestseller the devil's candy
[00:42:57] a movie i've seen that i mean the book about i don't actually hate the film but i mean hanks is almost is one of the worst things about it that's the other thing it's not just
[00:43:05] that the movie is a disaster but it's also like this is the largest of the film's many problems is hanks in this role him and griffith are just terrible they're just they cast that entire film
[00:43:16] wrong i mean they just cast big stars but yeah it's kind of stunning yeah then he does then he just because that movie almost works better if you flip hanks and willis well i think willis
[00:43:25] is good in that movie um but whatever well you know one day maybe we'll do to palma possible holy man a lot of movie i claim snake eyes yeah let's do it that's a wild move that's a
[00:43:36] wild move that guy's kind of fox yes it does um so then he kind of takes it easy and in 92 years later his next movie is a league of the run which he is amazing but he was not supposed to do that right
[00:43:47] wasn't it supposed to be someone else i remember him being a late replacement very much a supporting role and at the time it was like oh this is a change of pace for hanks he's playing an
[00:43:56] asshole he's playing a jerk he's playing a drunk because even when he was in comedies he was always playing kind of like the goofy boyish you know 100 i'm trying to see who he replaced that was a real
[00:44:07] he replaced someone i want i want to say it was a much older actor who was more obvious fit for that character type uh yeah i mean the thing about it is he's not that's the thing he was
[00:44:17] like i'm too young for this and penny marshall is like you're you're supposed to be young because you're supposed to be a baseball player right who just got washed up right like
[00:44:24] you're not supposed to be an old guy it's hard living right and so he gained all this weight and it doesn't say yeah it was someone i love him it's not like harrison four but it was like
[00:44:33] someone like that and then in 1993 the year philadelphia comes out he also is in sleepless in seattle which is a fantastic move so he and denzel both had enormous 1993s yes they did
[00:44:43] yeah uh because there's the pelican brief for denzel in 1993 we'll get to denzel in a second yeah i love sleepless in seattle i have seen it one million times it's great sometimes people
[00:44:53] come to me and they try to say things like well i don't like that film or i have some objections to the plot of that film or i have a thing to say about it and i'm like i don't care i don't want to
[00:45:01] hear about i have never seen it well that's weird and stupid and argument is doing norah effron you know who has won probably the best scene in the movie rhea wilson rhea wilson has an incredible
[00:45:11] scene in that movie but rossie donnell has a couple incredible there's a lot of great david hide pierce has one great scene in that movie you know what my favorite character is though
[00:45:18] the city of new york it's almost your eye like a big picture it's a character in the i love sleepless in seattle and that really i think is the movie that's like tom hanks is
[00:45:33] as you're saying he's sort of the people magazine cover guy you want to marry in a sweater like this is it this is america's man the sweaters a big part of it and it also is that thing
[00:45:43] just like who could not like tom hanks yeah right like even if he's in your favorite there's nothing it's weird he's specific and weird enough as an actor without having any type of personality quirk that could be off putting to a group of people he's Pennsylvania he's Pennsylvania
[00:46:02] it's like exactly he's been around forever we all agree yeah that's that right and so i think that's partly why he can take a role like this without too much concern about his story
[00:46:13] image you know certainly it was at the time a quote-unquote risky thing to do no one at this time wants to be playing gay character period let alone someone who is dying of AIDS he was
[00:46:23] like interested with the role as like a steward of it like it was like we think that he will be responsible about this and like he's not like an act you know i feel like some of the big
[00:46:31] stars of the era like your bruce willis right there are more action stars maybe their agents would be like no you can't but what are you talking about right like comedy is
[00:46:38] his romance he's not going to try to be an action guy he's not even a try to do like a nick cage pivot post oscar no no um that that takes another 15 years for him to throw back
[00:46:48] the hair and become robber london then's all washington yeah right he's a hot young actor wednesday Oscar at 89 he's already will be like before then you know he's like he was in cry
[00:46:59] freedom he got an Oscar nomination he was on st. elsewhere for many years yeah then right glory he gets his Oscar supporting us so it's like here's the guy right yeah and then who did
[00:47:09] he beat that year for the Oscar i'm just curious 89 danielo let's get into it dan acroyd i think you're right right because i'm just thinking a nice do the right thing and drive miss daisy
[00:47:20] so you have acroyd a yellow washington are you looking at the list right now are the other two in best picture nominees one is like a legend maybe his last nomination
[00:47:31] is it alex Guinness okay marlon brando for a dry white season yeah i knew it was one of those two and then the other one is a incredible performance from a guy who'll win an oscar in a couple years
[00:47:45] then's nodding empathetically uh in a comedy uh drama comedy drama new york you know who i'm talking about i know who i know you're talking about i mean you know the director i'm talking
[00:47:58] about is oh this is uh is a passion no no who is it i'm not talking to chris yeah you're the new york guy well you know we don't talk about too much anymore yeah i know but now i'm trying to think
[00:48:10] what performance it is such a good performance maybe this arguably this guy's best movie really i would say oh it's land on crimson is to manors yeah yeah an incredible performance yeah i mean everyone in that movie is good yeah that's incredible performance and this was the
[00:48:24] run of land out just kept on like he reestablished himself as an older actor and he kept on getting those nominations what's up with the acroid like i've never seen driving misty z he plays her son
[00:48:36] i would i mean right yes he does yeah he's not bad in the film i think it was more of a sort of like i've never seen that either yeah i think it was sort of like uh well you're in this big
[00:48:45] movie that we love right you've been around so it's sure you go here's your nomination was so big culturally like it's kind of crazy to think about like because those snl guys hit so
[00:48:57] fucking huge and at that specific moment 89 bill murray was essentially just coming out of his sabbatical chevy chase had already started building a bad reputation and belushi had died and those were
[00:49:09] the four guys that were like one of these guys is going to be a major major movie star it's kind of one of those classic like right like oh you're the comedian in a serious movie like
[00:49:19] and he does like a respectable job like that he's fine like head albert brooks got nominated for drive yeah it would have been even more of a like wow what a stretch what a range i've seen the film
[00:49:30] in my memory he mostly is just sort of like my god you're so annoying yeah right she's like well i don't know right and then morgan freben uh drives around the south it's like and then jesse
[00:49:41] get to and default the pizza in half and knew it knew who's going to get to green book first snl character cast member to get an oscar nomination that sounds right right i think there's six in
[00:49:52] total i did this trivial ones but it's murphy murray ellen klegg well i just love saying well victoria melanie hudsel victoria jackson is getting the thalberg price she's the president yeah right right right uh no but the greenberg thing is kind of work worth comparing greenberg
[00:50:11] or green book green book i just stopped being able to speak what if in greenberg credit card i get pulled into big pizza this is pizza's too big i'm gonna write a letter i'm gonna go off
[00:50:20] this teaches ben stiller how to eat fried chicken oh boy i have to fall over flow that's my favorite line in greenberg i think greenberg is really good greenberg rules greenberg's great really
[00:50:29] i just love kentipool over flow and it's like he's like what yes that's such a good sweater movie good sweaters best seller sweater collection in that film is so on point but then anyway i wanted to
[00:50:41] give you oh denzel's early night get to the green book postboard okay yeah you know we do we need to talk green book i think we do but let's no no close it close the pizza okay i'm putting it back
[00:50:53] although i do have a sketch that's um fuck i don't even remember that tony lippies philadelphia i suppose that is probably cancelable yeah um let's run with that guy oh no actually i forgot that uh tony lippies a whoop king whooping about gayness oh yeah that's
[00:51:11] fine i see that hey what are you gonna do go to the wife fucker guy i do it too we all do it i drink out of a gay guys glass okay yeah because that's the scene the deleted scene is he's
[00:51:23] she's like why don't you throw these cups in the garbage and he's like well because a black guy touched him she was like but they were gay and he's like oh and he takes them out he pours water and he's like
[00:51:32] i love it you think i'm gonna serve a black glass to a gay guy i respect my gay brothers too much they're carefully labeled king yeah all right so in the 90s um post oscar yeah it's sort of i think
[00:51:46] it's partly like well here's denzel here's it's still incredibly rare for a black actor to have an oscar he might have been like the third or fourth uh black actor to get an oscar
[00:51:54] it's very rare yeah yeah and so lucas it lucas it's a plotier honey you know like there's only a few you know um anyway mobe de blues which is fantastic incredible never seen it yeah early spikely
[00:52:08] movie you got mississippi masala um which is uh a nice yeah but like these are not big movies is that anabelle she or a no no it's uh that's um john's favorite yeah that she's in uh mississippi
[00:52:21] masala it's a what's herm serita oh shout out serita chowdera right right right right right you got rick ashay with uh john lithko a nice tea that's a good little bit of his thrillers i mean
[00:52:31] that is kind of the thing that for me uh makes denzel distinct is no matter how fucking wrote and boilerplate the thriller is he always feels like he's giving the exact same
[00:52:44] level of performance you know like yeah when you see him in like the fucking equalizer you're like this guy's not phoning it in no like this movie is not worthy of this performance and there's only
[00:52:55] so much shit he can stuff into like a bag yeah but it never feels like there's a disconnect between the type of work and craft he's putting into a shitty thriller versus a real meaty drama
[00:53:07] yeah no he has the same applies the same intensity like what's that great little movie out of time yeah great he's always giving you full intensity he's even good in fallen which is a bad movie
[00:53:17] fallen's pretty bad for ricochet yes i guess ricochet is the start of denzel right where he's like let me just do an airplane thriller right right um it also is it is interesting that he
[00:53:27] wins for supporting but he is sort of such like an emotional crux of glory and before that in his career he had been like a tv lead but more supporting in films tv supporting he's supporting
[00:53:38] he was a supporting guy but he was so fucking handsome and so charismatic that they were like i guess this guy has to be a leading man now right i think it's the oscar that makes him a
[00:53:47] leading man before then he's after the oscar then they're like we're not going to keep on bringing him in as like let's say it's like let's find him some roles and then those early roles are more
[00:53:55] indie movies ricochet is like a thriller and then he does malcolm x in 1992 which is a huge performance big deal um and is much hyped but he loses the oscar and of course part of
[00:54:05] the reason he loses the oscar is because he had just won an oscar and it was sent of a woman it was pacino that year yeah um hua hua exactly it's insane that there was a movie called scent
[00:54:16] of a woman what's about uh the scent of a woman makes you go it's crazy that was released in smell of vision that's almost the most bizarre but you can only smell pacino that was the problem
[00:54:29] he was like i'll donate my scent to the film it was it was just uh stale cigars do you think that when pacino was watching batman forever he was like that's the kid from the picture i know
[00:54:42] him he's wearing a mask but i can tell i can see past that little domino and then in 1993 yeah and malcolm x i think is just even though it was maybe not the biggest hit of the year and not the
[00:54:54] biggest oscar but it was a big hit culturally significant film it was a huge much discussed well and people were like this performance should win i feel like the like obviously pacino's overdue denzel just won but this is a towering historic performance and in 1993 he has the palak
[00:55:11] and reef which we discussed which is a big box office hit his first movie make 100 mil uh that sounds right him as the lead um it had you have a supporting role in much ado about nothing which
[00:55:19] he is very handsome oh my god that's a lovely movie he is such a fucking snack at this point in time yeah yeah it's sort of insane i mean that was what i'd say uh body like arnold faced
[00:55:32] like denzel yeah mm-hmm you know they were the two ideals 100 and then he has this film and i do feel like this film is remembered as the tom hanks show and tom hanks won the oscar
[00:55:44] and all that he is fucking unbelievable incredible in the movie and very important to its success i would say yeah oh yeah and like it's uh yeah i think the movie functions better because you
[00:55:56] have a character like his and a performance like his totally and i think he's the lead of the film sure i think it is a film that you could argue as two leads but i would place him in lead
[00:56:04] as a category thing they're both on the ballot for me that year yeah they're both made the five i just hard to do denzel would be my pick over hanks though i had neither wins for me who wins
[00:56:15] for you this nissen nissen and i forgot this was that's not a beautiful performance yeah well that's the thing is like so i do this thing at work where i recap oscar ceremonies like 25
[00:56:27] years ago which is like backbreaking horrible work but like we love it pays off in the end but anyway watching the broadcast um for the 1994 ceremony so for this year's crop of movies
[00:56:38] it was just crazy like what a year that was for like important movies with important things to say it's a big year like it was just the piano yeah which is a great movie but this is what she
[00:56:48] was right with the second woman nominated for an oscar right yeah yeah right um best actor to clarify yes uh to and she won best screenplay as well the five nominees for actor were hanks
[00:57:01] daniel day lewis for in the name of the father wow anthony hopkins for the remain to the day laurenz fishman for what's love got to do with it which is an incredible performance and nissen for schindler's list yeah and all of those performances save maybe daniel day lewis
[00:57:13] our performances that removed of the other winners would have won you know well just you just sort of say like well then yeah he was larry was nominated for what's got love got to do
[00:57:21] with it and you'd be like oh how didn't he went right right right right right right right right and then you look at who else is there yeah um so those were that's where they are in their careers
[00:57:28] i feel like they are both big stars yes but and they could both carry the weight of the responsibility of this movie people trusted them yeah they're smart actors they're populist actors so they kind of
[00:57:39] all that going for them if they had cast day lewis or something it probably would have been more alienating you know you have to cast tom hason it helps it helps that these are two
[00:57:48] guys who were not doing films like this that this felt like an unfamiliar you know for it to play like to a certain degree there's a weird like slickness that is also kind of cheap to denzel
[00:58:03] in this that is so different from what he had played up until this point sure and hanks is adding like a basement onto what people thought he could do a basement and attic onto the
[00:58:12] structure that people believed he was capable of at this point in time but talk about how risky it was for them to do like not to overstate this but denzel goes on a radio show when he is filming
[00:58:23] philadelphia or about to start filming to promote something else and they ask him what do you work and he said i'm about to make a film an aides drama and they got like they get hostile phone calls
[00:58:34] for the next hour of people how can he do that that's disgusting no it's crazy why is he ruining his career and joanna was like oh that's not like it is weird yes it's crazy to play the
[00:58:45] lawyer in a film about aides people were like this is despicable i'll never go see one of his films again i mean it it helps that denzel's character is the sort of um the kind of casual bigotry
[00:59:00] i mean this is where i want to open the book briefly okay go on i feel like very often films about prejudice and bigotry paint with such a broad brush where the the intolerant people
[00:59:13] are so cut and dry fucking horrific and evil sure that this is the thing i want to talk about with green book it lets people off the hook because almost anyone can watch it and go well i'm not like
[00:59:23] that right i just have my rational small phobias right i'm not that awful i wouldn't throw out the glass or whatever and then they also come around to a greater sense of cleaner redemption
[00:59:34] where they are completely solved and absolved right you know and cry and say i love you i can't believe how wrong i was um and this is a film in which the guy kind of takes the case for a
[00:59:47] very complex series of reasons one is that his love of the law is such that he recognizes there is a pretty good case here right another is that even though he has discriminated against
[00:59:58] this guy when he sees this guy being discriminated against from a slight remove right he's sort of as a black man for the first time he feels the anger watching it happen outside of him
[01:00:09] it's uh demi magic but he also watching just him watch someone right watch him and i love that but he also then doesn't immediately go i understand it i love you no you understand at that point that
[01:00:20] he realizes that he should do it even though he feels uncomfortable with it and the small victory of the film is like not to jump ahead but just him just putting the mask on tom hanks the mere
[01:00:33] fact that like at the end of the film he's touching him i mean it's another fucking credible demi scene i guess we should sort of go through yeah so you open with the streets of
[01:00:39] philadelphia um you know i forgot that you open with a good chunk on hanks in the in the firm without where everyone loves him he's like the golden boy everyone likes him he's doing well the
[01:00:53] immediate open which is so great is denzel and on him arguing right some sort of petty you know streets zoning and they're talking over each other right yeah i read some criticism
[01:01:04] maybe it was larry kramer piece or something else where the people like why would he go to this ambulance chasing lawyer he's like at a high powered firm he would surely know someone it's like
[01:01:12] well but i think that's why they have an opening scene is probably like we don't see what denzel did exactly in court but clearly he did something to impress yeah right hanks is so like oh this guy's
[01:01:21] right it's going for because denzel gives this like pretty eloquent defense in what's clearly kind of like a you know cheap shit case yeah and so i think hanks was like you know like
[01:01:30] whatever clocks that but then also it's clear that hanks will hanks is suing a law firm so white shoe law firms are not going to right go with that right i would set a terrible precedent
[01:01:40] for them anyone within the old boys club is going to be off limits there's going to be that weird tribal and he says i went to many like there's an obvious right and like that scene where he
[01:01:49] approaches denzel denzel has just talked to the other guy who like is some moron who walked into an open manhole yes you know and it's like no you got to see me money and denzel's like
[01:01:58] yep you do yeah yeah well sue the city uh it's a beautiful writing where he's like so you're saying that you chose even though you had any number of trajectories to walk through
[01:02:07] to walk into that space without looking even though it was clearly marked and you fell down you want to sue the city for injuries he's like yeah do i have a case he's like oh you definitely
[01:02:16] have a case yeah yeah but it helps like right that's such a an important distinction that it's not just oh he's the guy who tom hanks has seen on the ads on tv it's that he's also seen the guy in action
[01:02:29] first hand and you sense that he has a respect lawyer to lawyer of like i don't do it like this i'm from a very different world than him in terms of the cases we're taking and the sides we're taking
[01:02:40] but i can see that guy has the goods where if he's been rejected by nine guys and needs to start thinking off the beaten path he would go what about because there's that scene later when the
[01:02:49] fancy lawyers see denzel and they're like it's the tv guy like they also vaguely know him they're like right the tv guy well okay but yes we see hanks at work i just like that it is
[01:03:00] not linear that it's not like the movie opens with like a doctor being like and the thing that you have is called aids and here's what the symptoms are and here's what's going to happen to you
[01:03:08] he basically has it already starts and he's covering up it he's covering it up he's going to the doctor yeah and that could be the scene where the doctor is telling him everything but no
[01:03:18] it's just sort of like in peppered in there and then there's that incredible scene recalls his mom played by joanne woodward yeah and she's like how are you and he's like my blood
[01:03:26] works fine i'm doing fine and she you cut back to her and she kind of just like cringes and almost cries on the phone she starts like silently crying and pulls herself back together i mean that's
[01:03:35] that's the kind of shit yeah jonathan demme yeah bring in to the table at benihana okay that's him flipping the thing and he's making the onion volcano yeah sorry spelling is falling into it
[01:03:45] yes like and there's a couple other things in this movie that i just noticed as i was watching where i was like this is just not something that would automatically be in a movie like this or it's
[01:03:54] something that a studio or whoever might just be like oh like we can lose this well also like you know they could have mined obvious easy drama out of his family hates him he's isolated all
[01:04:04] that and instead he's like no it's a loving family who's supportive and maybe a little bit like square and conservative about like yeah like for the most part but like they're decent people
[01:04:12] and you know nice one or did this uh really good uh interview with buzzfeed like a year ago uh for the Adam very yeah yeah i read that yeah which is really good and he said in it like it was a thing
[01:04:24] we debated about for a long time and we decided we don't need to do every element of potential conflict yeah we want to streamline what this movie actually is and also we thought it was more
[01:04:36] interesting because you always saw that you always saw the family refusing to accept the anger the crying all of that that you could start a movie at a point by showing that the family
[01:04:48] is pretty square yeah and pretty you know seemingly kind of conservative in their temperament at the very least with the assumption that that happened at some point in the past and this
[01:04:59] is years later and they've worked to a place of understanding yeah and it is so much more sort of like fulfilling you know emotionally to watch the movie and to feel that sense of history of like
[01:05:12] it probably wasn't always this clean you know and the way the dad like in this very kind of like clenched way sort of says like you have dealt with this entire situation with a level of grace
[01:05:24] that i cannot even comprehend so i feel like i'm in no position to tell you what to do now is just like devastating yeah because it's like a man trying really hard to show that even
[01:05:35] though he doesn't really understand his son he loves him so deeply and like has so much respect for him because he doesn't understand that guy's really good face just a good yeah good dad you
[01:05:46] know like uh looks like you know it's the demi thing that would come up sometimes where it like comes up with rachel getting married whether like who has a wedding like this who's like this
[01:05:54] accepting of other cultures and all this stuff and it's this thing that i think uh it was pauline tail said in the melvin howard review or maybe it's jan imazum she said uh
[01:06:06] it's an act of a sympathetic imagination which i think is such a good term for him where it's like a you can sell that you can sell that the family accepts him yeah and b
[01:06:18] it is the more interesting thing to do for the sake of the movie to try to present a world in which there are a lot of hardships this movie is about people overcoming great difficulty
[01:06:27] but it's not about the most oppressed and sick and desperate person in the world everything have to be and the most right because i mean let's reopen the book okay tony libsall this movie
[01:06:36] of course he's a wild king yeah um but no uh you know where it's like don charlie is a fucking genius who's the greatest person who ever left his thing and every person he comes up
[01:06:45] against treats him like the biggest piece of shit in the world yeah um i yeah i think all of that is so fucking smart the stuff with the family is so good and the fact yeah it's the time
[01:06:57] jumps in the movie are a thing i completely forgot because it keeps on taking these big jumps of like you see hanks being brought in with all the sort of old guys including what a what a good use of
[01:07:08] roger corman as an actor like weird old square roger corman uh yeah 100 um but all these guys them noticing the lesion yeah which i think is then the first time you go into the demi
[01:07:21] sort of pov camera so much good close-up action is so much there's so much it's fascinating i mean it's his guy i mean it's his moves it is he loves the close-up how versatile that move is though
[01:07:33] especially well this is coming off of the sounds of the lens which uses close-ups in a very involving right scary and tense way but in this one he'll he'll oscillate where like you use
[01:07:43] it sometimes in the courtroom so it feels like you know denzel when he makes his opening remarks to the jury and he's delivering it straight to you you're feeling the intensity of
[01:07:52] what if you were the person who was eventually going to be tasked with coming up with the ruling on this case and he's selling it to you yeah so you feel that kind of pressure sometimes it's used in intimidation sometimes it's used between bandera's and hanks for intimacy
[01:08:06] and it's all such subtle shifting of where the camera is in relation to the guys what kind of angle they're at also which whether they're both looking directly in the lens if one of
[01:08:16] the two characters in the conversation is looking slightly to the left very often denzel is the person who is looking at the camera denzel does a little off incredible face stuff yeah i mean and this movie
[01:08:27] is really part of its its meaning is just like these are people these are people look at them they are people and i think that's merit at the end where the closing shot is the video the home
[01:08:37] film of him is a little kid and i think it's reminding of like of a common humanity and everything like that so like it's both interesting to look at the close-ups but
[01:08:44] they also serve a sort of like thematic purpose and you have to stare these people in the eyes like it is hard to demonize people if you really take the time to look in the eyes and hear what
[01:08:54] they have to say which is what this has been the story i feel like of so much of the advancement of gay rights in this country yeah it's sort of like the more that people realize that these
[01:09:03] are not aliens that are being banished to dark corners of society i mean i was thinking about this watch in the movie uh that you know obviously with regard to like racial equality
[01:09:12] and all that like we hollywood has been part of that narrative but by no means the the driving factor of it whereas with with with lgbt stuff like if only uh both lgbt stuff i really do feel like
[01:09:29] hollywood was leading that cup was leading that charge in like a huge way and you watch a movie like and yes maybe there are problems with philadelphia or whatever like and i i don't i
[01:09:37] don't mean to dismiss um people's you know issues with the movie but like it was fucking doing something and and in a time when very few people were and also it is just one story like it had a
[01:09:48] very specific sort of cultural goal which is to like make a movie that forces people to reckon with aids victims as human beings right but it is not trying to be a definitive text about the crisis
[01:10:00] just i just want to clarify for the audience none of what they're saying is true this is a film about bruce springsteen's visions of the streets of philadelphia and these are all things that
[01:10:09] just he saw on the streets of philadelphia and it you know sort of forms a somewhat coherent narrative but i mean as you could tell every chance every shot in the film is told from his
[01:10:19] point of view right from a street of philadelphia you can tell it's very visually clear yeah they were having a court trial every courtroom yeah actually if you this little head bop
[01:10:28] easter egg yeah right yeah but the jump of like him in the court uh not in the courtroom in the sort of um the back office is smoking cigars being told that he's being made an associate or whatever
[01:10:39] well they kind of give him the like the weird sort of like mind test where they're like so what do you prefer the obvious answer or the answer we don't like that one he's like i
[01:10:49] thought i went out like and they're like well done yes brand him and as we said there is something unnatural that hanks from this moment he's skinnier than you've ever seen in a movie up
[01:10:59] until this point he's caked in makeup in a way the other guys aren't even the way his hair is made up is kind of weird and you realize oh it's because he's covering up this is not a movie that's gonna
[01:11:08] have a moment with the a surprise diagnosis 15 minutes in the moment which is the first time you go to the demi pov and then the movie like jumps to a week later uh if not more it jump it
[01:11:18] takes the jump to him in the hospital uh getting his blood work right and they you know they're looking for the paper oh you're right i'm sorry yes yes and so you have all that unfold yeah then you
[01:11:30] basically jump to him coming to denzel's office right there's there's a gap there which is you see them bradley wittford starting to tear his hair out um you don't see him get fired is the thing no
[01:11:43] no huge i mean you see it uh after the fact in flash right right but like right he goes to the dental office he's like i've been like and he looks suddenly like he's lost his hair he looks very
[01:11:53] pale you know he looks different right and denzel says man what happened to your face and he says i have aids and it's this incredible moment of they're shaking hands when he says it and denzel
[01:12:03] sort of like holds the hand for a second goes like you know the entire temperature of the scene changes denzel clearly as a man who prides himself on being a professional is not going
[01:12:13] to chase this guy out of his office no he just becomes prickly is immediately terrified also i mean like time actually asks you about his daughter and denzel's like kind of itchy about that well but
[01:12:23] then he picks up a cigar that's yeah you move to like denzel's pov which is all sort of like shaky wandering cam around the desk looking at everything that hanks is touching or breathing on he's
[01:12:32] touching bruce springsteen right he was standing in the car um what's going on in this office right but it becomes a sort of pressure at a baby girl this pressure cooker scene of just like
[01:12:46] denzel wrongly we know immediately feels like he is at risk yes like this might be the meeting that killed him sure just even by humoring this man for the daughter thing he's like clearly had not seen
[01:12:58] the captain planet episode about aids which i know you know seared in my brain needs to be watching the planet even though bruce springsteen has it on the tv that he's holding under his arm
[01:13:06] playing on a constant he went to phil'd up you to go to a screening of the captain planet episode hard fire when then occasionally neil young will cross paths with bruce singing his own
[01:13:18] song but only occasionally i also like captain planet my neil young's too much like my willy nelson i got a different but no one sounds like neil young though no is that willy nelson joke
[01:13:30] which one um what's the worst thing that willy nelson can say to you during sex i'm not willy nelson this is totally lateral but you know it's one of my favorite jokes of all time
[01:13:45] i don't know uh my dad told me this that's like the joke about like the shitty club promoter in vegas he's like we got huge stars huge stars tonight incredible lineup synatris play synatris
[01:13:58] playing and the guy goes frank sanctuary goes on that frank's dance synatra but it's a it's synatra playing of course and davis jr we got davis jr and they go san tish they go no it's
[01:14:09] ted davis jr but it's you know and i got gulay gulay is playing they go robert gulay and he goes yes vero said that i just love that joke that's a good joke yes yes you know it's a crazy thing about uh captain
[01:14:29] planet because it was like ted turner and so much money behind it and it was such a like this is like a fucking cause like season one all the villains of the week are played by giant movie
[01:14:39] stars yeah and then as the show continues they all just are like oh i'm not going to do multiple episodes like ryan and jeff goldblum it's all like crazy big people i mean what be gold work
[01:14:48] stayed on as gaya for the whole run didn't she yeah i think she did right yeah yeah i don't know don't look at me but but most of them like would establish a character no whoopie goldberg did gaya
[01:14:57] for two years and then handed it off to margo kidder who i mean is basically like the b-list whoopie goldberg of course yeah heart though heart well yeah come on that's the fifth element
[01:15:09] no it's not it is oh well i mean love but millage ovevich technically yeah he was coded as kind of gay to that character mati mati yeah yeah my heart belonged to wheeler though uh wheeler was
[01:15:22] fire i believe yes yeah uh so denzel turns him down goes to his doctor his doctor's like a nice old guy who's like are you obliquely asking me for a blood test like is that what this is there's also
[01:15:35] so much complication you're not such a moron that you think you got aids from a handshake so do you have aids this is your way of telling me like you're like i don't judge your like lifestyle
[01:15:45] right he's like i've known you since you were a child but also in that hanks denzel interview scene you know denzel's trying to find it out and hanks is explaining because he knows his f**king
[01:15:56] law s**t so well how he knows it's a case how here are the elements here are the precedent this and that and denzel's like well i wouldn't take it he's like no because you think i
[01:16:04] wouldn't win and he's like no it's not that and it was like it's because right he's just like i have a problem with it yeah right you would do it right yeah yes i do and but good luck and he does that
[01:16:15] sort of half hard like hey man i'm sorry it's a tough break like he sort of tries to like throw him some sympathy on the way out well it's almost the fact that hanks doesn't respond
[01:16:24] to him with anger makes him feel bad he is so confident in saying i have a problem with the way you live your life until hanks just sort of goes like okay and then it's like f**k yeah this guy's
[01:16:35] non-asshole yeah um and then i guess after it's the library is pretty much the next big scene right bob the goon tries to tell hanks to use a private room right and and once again all these amazing
[01:16:49] demi close-ups of all the other people sitting in the library watching it it's just and there's a guy i mean i'm maybe i'm reading too much into it but there's a skinny young guy sitting
[01:16:56] right nearby who kind of gets up because he's disgusted or whatever like yeah but he kind of reads a little gay too so it's i think it's a little bit about like internal weird like yeah yeah
[01:17:05] yeah like i don't want to be too close to this right it's also this thing of like aides is f**king scary like when you watch aides documentaries it really is just terrifying how much it
[01:17:16] ravages the body so aside from obviously also just like that it's rep was like we have no way of treating it right we have experimental drugs that are just sort of beginning to maybe mitigate it
[01:17:28] but like they do horrible damage yeah those early cocktails were really it's basically gonna just be like a miserable life but also removed from the the sort of homophobia of of the the sort of
[01:17:41] fear of aids it also just was a terrifying disease that turned people into zombies right like it is upsetting to look at when you watch like aids pull documentaries and stuff yeah
[01:17:51] people who are at the last moments of their life they really look ghoulish you know and so it's such a visual disease on top of everything else and the earmarks of it were so clear and so specific
[01:18:02] to it that you understand that sense of just like it in the same way that it's unnerving to visit a hospital you know and to see people who are that close to death there's that element too which
[01:18:14] also then just like right there's the internalized like fear of it even within the gay community but then also for people who are prejudiced it just gives them ammunition right to be like well
[01:18:25] look at how i what am i supposed to hang out with this guy yeah exactly yeah the magic i should note the magic johnson thing it happened two years earlier and that that is also a sort of
[01:18:34] crazy landmark moment for the whole thing yeah where it's like a straight guy has aids and he's an athlete yeah and he's coming out and he's saying like i want to be clear that like i got
[01:18:45] through is through having way too much heterosexual sex right like that it is not just some gay play right i basically slept with any woman that was near me because i was the most famous
[01:18:56] basketball player you know like that that was then it also been a weird sort of shockwavy moment in in recent history yeah that that was that early that's crazy yeah i mean the magic
[01:19:06] johnson thing to this day is completely crazy yeah like just to think about it to this day like that that happened yeah so early in right in the sort of life cycle of aids in american kind of
[01:19:18] consciousness and that he's still with us and that his health never visibly diminished not really and and like that he returned to basketball which no one remembers and that you know players were too prejudiced to basically play with him like in 94 when he went back to the locker
[01:19:35] you know all that's and they were afraid like what if he breathed and he like gets on you know there was all that sort of like um just crazy so so denzel makes the move you know i mean i i also love it's
[01:19:45] such a nice little touch but he sees him sitting there and coughing you immediately see him kind of recoil like disgusting how dare he does this and then when bob the goon walks over
[01:19:57] denzel shifts over his stack of books so that he can keep watching out of morbid curiosity notice right even before that there's a white guy staring at him yes right yes the skinny and i feel
[01:20:10] like that's like really important oh yeah 100 yes yeah the guy oh you mean the guy yeah the guy who walks by just looking at him and then walks past dens demmy was just so fucking good i'm conveying
[01:20:23] complex interpersonal dynamics in looks in moments in nonverbal physical language now denzel works with demmy again just to point that out right like he works in them in mentoring candidate tanks never
[01:20:35] work with him again no but then gary goatsman who was one of demmy's guys who was in all of his movies and was a producer uh hanks plucks him after this and becomes his playtime partner yeah 100%
[01:20:46] anyway just interesting um but um okay so then then we kind of get into the latter half of the film which is like more just like courtroom drama it's another beautiful shift which is just denzel
[01:20:57] comes over and goes like no he's with me and then they're just on the case you don't have all the shoe leather of them preparing for the case you don't have too much ramp up to the courtroom you have
[01:21:09] him going to his family and telling them like you know i'm gonna do this and it's gonna be tough right um and you have been deris being introduced sort of as this like loving partner yeah um
[01:21:19] and one of the sexiest just the most human beings it's funny in the larry kramer thing he's like and this actor i don't know with dark hair like it is like because no one knew who
[01:21:28] intonity ben deris was then but how he barely spoke english at that point he barely spoke english at the time although he had done i believe one america done um what's it called a mambo kings right which
[01:21:38] he said was an entirely phonetic performance yeah not to speak english at all at this point i think he's just beginning learning english but i mean like larry kramer fucking watch your all motor
[01:21:47] bar movies go to the art house buddy you don't see a lot of desire or whatever and time you up time me down and shit like you know come on right he's in women on a verge of a breakdown and he's also
[01:21:55] hollywood is priming him to be a guy like he like does like three or four movies right like in quicks well in 94 you have interview the vampire which is another supporting role and then in 95 is when
[01:22:07] it's he's everywhere that's that's desperate of my amy rhapsody assassins too much like where it's just suddenly assassins was that same year yeah that's crazy and that's the one that is the gift
[01:22:17] the yes the internet but then fatale also has a gift of him looking at a laptop and going it's his move it's a sick itch twice yeah it's just john hancock but by the time this episode
[01:22:31] drops he could be an oscar nominee i really hope to god he is uh and i worry won't be because it's a really stacked here and it's a very quiet performance how tough best actor is this year
[01:22:41] because it's been such a bleak category in recent he's my winner and i think it's just like an astonishing before yeah even by his i was trying to figure out who i'm going to vote for for new york
[01:22:49] film critic circle uh this guy i know and i just feel like there's no way we're walking out of that room in it without adam driver but you don't know who knows we will that's true that's absolutely
[01:23:00] true yeah no adam driver does seem like yeah i mean sandler i guess also well he i could vote for him i haven't seen that yet yeah he's all so incredible i feel like i need to take his
[01:23:09] a nx before it or something like just it sounds stressful it's undeniably stressful do you want to hear the least surprising thing in the world my father is so fucking amped for a culture
[01:23:22] i think it's about him yes it was it was pulled from his brain inception style just for kicks because we're recording this so far in advance and all the stuff will be settled
[01:23:33] by the time it comes out do either of you have like big things you want to push uphill that you're already thinking at this point like this is the one i really want to champion i want to make jaylo
[01:23:43] jaylo is the one that i think we can make happen yeah and we'll see yeah uh my actress this year is jesse buckley who won't i can't oh that's interesting but he is a great performer but
[01:23:53] he's a great performer that's more of one of those things where i'm like i know that will not right like be a winner at a critics award like it's not a widely enough seen film do you know
[01:24:02] who my best supporting actress winner is as of this moment sofya canado okay oh in in well rose oh interesting i think she's a seemingly good thing it's a great movie yeah i love that
[01:24:12] movie rolls yeah it's good yeah i think she's crazy good i watched that on a plane and then i immediately watched yesterday right after and i was like well that was the wrong order because
[01:24:21] like really is the wrong order oh boy you're totally right yeah um uh and the other important of a lady on fire is my other like you know yeah movie to champion this year that i also
[01:24:31] think will end up being i mean my my look on the record i think parasite will be the dominating force at our critics awards and the most critic awards and i think that's fine i love
[01:24:41] that movie but yes you go to the courtroom almost immediately i like that this film is so interested in the courtroom you know and and sort of the theater of the courtroom i i think this
[01:24:53] film gets that really well it is not a just mercy that is about like honesty and truth winning that's so much of denzel's value in this movie is that he's such a good manipulator
[01:25:02] yeah of language and perception right and the fact that you're watching him do that even when you know that he doesn't necessarily agree with everything he's saying that part of it is
[01:25:11] just the rush of being that fucking good as a lawyer right i love the device of uh explaining it to me like i'm a six-year-old yes and he's hitting that and i'm so effective that even they
[01:25:20] call it back they call it out but at the same time it's clearly like it sticks in your head yeah and his other incredible boss move is just the well let's talk about it yeah you know
[01:25:30] like this sort of runs at it he's like let's expose the nerve right right right that they're multiple times where he asked someone on the stand if they're gay you know i mean brings
[01:25:39] in their personal life in that kind of way roe bards is good in this movie by the way we brought him up yeah i mean he rules he's like the way that he keeps laughing sort of not it's not exactly
[01:25:51] derisively but they're in the trial like you know and there's a there's kind of this weird like sometimes he laughs at something that denzel said like it's everyone's just treating it kind of like well whatever you know we're here like and i think that helps i don't know
[01:26:04] weirdly drive home the intensity of what tom hanks is experiencing because everyone around him is just sort of taking it as like a sort of it's like an interesting case like you know right and there's
[01:26:13] this arrogance of like come on everyone's gonna agree with us right like who wouldn't fire a guy with aids right exactly like they are so confident in their position yeah where they're like even
[01:26:22] if he has some legal basis for what he's talking about no one is going to instinctually think we were wrong right and so he just sits back with that sort of air and laughing at the
[01:26:33] theater of all of it like let's get it over with that scene we forgot to mention where denzel serves them with the core papers were there and that's like oh it's the tv guy right
[01:26:41] yeah and he gets daché's card but also when he goes to the hospital when his wife's in labor and a guy in the hallway says you're the tv guy he takes out his pen and gives it to him
[01:26:51] like that he loves the sort of like celebrity of the type of well i think i think to denzel's character too uh what's his name uh joe miller he's like you saw the ad right there is
[01:27:01] a little bit of that or he's like that's right i'm the tv guy fucking work yeah um but yeah and in the courtroom sees like having mary steenberg in who is a demi right you know like i know there
[01:27:10] yeah um it reminded me of i forget her name uh the woman that they had do the cabana um questioning oh yes yeah right where and all you just saw like the old white man sitting
[01:27:23] behind her kind of be like well with buffer zone you know that feels very much like the steen they spoke about there's that just again another great moment that movies often wouldn't include the
[01:27:32] thing where she just sits down after the worst thing the mirror trick i hate this case where she's right i hate this and i read like and not in a way where you're like oh how sympathetic but you're
[01:27:40] just you can just like this is not what that's the thing and a lot of the negative reviews from the gay community in the 90s said that they felt like that moment wasn't easy out to show oh look
[01:27:49] she's not a bad person i think that's not what he's doing at all opposite i think he's showing the hypocrisy of it would be a way easier out if she was just a prejudice bigot and it is more
[01:27:59] right because then you're like great she's going i got a bad person right it is more villainous that she is willing to sell her integrity it's one of the interesting dynamics of this film is that denzel is fighting on the right side of history that he doesn't really
[01:28:10] believe in but he is a bigot and he's cruel at times he says awful shit to his wife about it right and to the guy in the store and again there's the scene with the guy in the
[01:28:19] so good too that's very charged and he's dealing with you know the perception of this in the black community that was very different from when he's at the bar and they do the news coverage and they
[01:28:30] go like so what you're getting a little light in your loafers all that right and he transitions from like you think the movie is taking an easy out of oh he has already been transformed by
[01:28:40] tom hanks because he starts going like yeah i'm a homosexual i go to the club it's like he's like doing the joke and going like in fact you're my type of guy right and you're like that's the bit
[01:28:49] he's gonna do he's gonna turn the prejudice on them and then he stops doing the bit and goes like i hate them i find them disgusting right it's my job yeah and it doesn't feel like he's saying
[01:28:58] that to try to get them off of his back it's truly like he feels the weight of like i kind of hate that i'm being associated with this case and people criticize that vacillation they're
[01:29:07] like well he's one it's almost like they shot two different movies sure because he's like supporting this cause in in in the courtroom and then you know outside he's like assaulting basically a man who
[01:29:17] hits on him at a drug store and you're like but right because those two things can occupy the same head like people don't change that quickly yeah people are weird and nuanced and fucked up and
[01:29:27] contradictory and also mary stein burgeon is the shadow of him i mean there's something to the fact that denzel is so powerful right but is also in this performance very slick and kind
[01:29:37] of prickly you know yeah that that he is sort of aggressive in the way and mocking in the way that he questions people in the courtroom you know sure or does this sort of like treat me like
[01:29:47] i'm a six year old thing and mary stein burgeon is the exact opposite where it feels like there's no theatrics she is so folksy as an actress she is so genuine fact and she is very earnestly
[01:29:57] and very sort of quietly saying all this really gross prejudice stuff but making it sound like it's just a natural obvious thing and that one moment of her saying i hate this case is going
[01:30:08] like they're both mostly praying to the altar of their job and the salary right you know that the the ego of being a good lawyer and who you work for and how much you can get in the settlement
[01:30:20] all of that is in both cases overriding their actual moral compass yeah and and and denzel washington is a black lawyer who has to ambulance chase to make a living right in a very very
[01:30:32] segregated and racially charged city yes going up against this incredibly powerful rich white law firm and like and like i can buy that it's his motivation just more than i could you know like a sudden sort
[01:30:44] of epiphany about about like gay rights or whatever i think he feels more pity for him and does not feel any empathy for him until the opera scene i mean that's the big thing it's not like he
[01:30:53] immediately starts liking andrew i think he just goes like fuck i've been prejudiced against as well let's get to that damn opera scene because i just want to talk about how that is the oscar
[01:31:07] clipps yeah and it was his oscar clip yeah as a part of the scene obviously and it's so funny to think of it as an it is so bizarre because it is such a daring and interesting it looks like it's a
[01:31:18] serious yeah yeah i mean he goes into theatrical lighting for the first time that we were suddenly tom hanks is in a spotlight exactly you're at these crazy overhead angles yeah i mean the
[01:31:27] way he uses angles in this the angle is like over the forehead it's like yeah just here i've done i don't know that i've ever seen a sustained shot like that you know and something it was it
[01:31:37] was enough to stop 19 year old griffin newman flipping through the channels in a common room and go what is this film making right like it was so visually arresting that i was like what the
[01:31:46] fuck is this movie and why didn't anyone tell me that philadelphia is this and at that point had we ever seen tom hanks in such an artful kind of shot you know like that was brand new absolutely
[01:31:58] not yeah i'm going turner and hooch has a couple really nice angles right yes well yes hooch was the cinematographer it's all one it's all one shot all from his collar yeah yeah it's one
[01:32:10] spruce springsteen's dog yeah of course it's weird that russian art gets all that credit for what turner and hooch actually pioneered right who's the lady in turner and hooch uh i just was gonna say
[01:32:21] hooch but i decided i've done that joke like mary stewart masterson or like mary k place or someone like that it's jessica sandy charoline page it's kathryn hebron yeah let's see it's uh
[01:32:33] mere winning him oh i knew it wasn't him uh who is what did i just see mere wing i'm waiting a minute just just huh you see her in play no i saw her in a movie oh dark waters
[01:32:46] which uh the tot hains film which again this is january i fucking loved everyone who had seen it was like yeah it's okay it's like a legal drama and i'm like legal drama have you wait has
[01:32:59] someone done wrong but that that is a much more straightforward sort of legal movement right yes it is but uh i think it fucking rules and i can yell about it later he's a good filmmaker yes yeah um
[01:33:10] anyway um just bill pulman has like three scenes as a showboating west virgin lawyer god i was just literally hooting and hollering and firing my six shooters in the air i don't know how to describe
[01:33:22] david you can't say that series of words that quickly without preparing bill pulman has three well he has a thing going on you're just whoa whoa whoa oh my god this thing's dealing for the bottom
[01:33:35] of the deck i'm getting full body chills that pizza just folded me whoa tell me what if i started using that as a term like you know she really faulted my pizza oh boy anyway the opera it's just funny
[01:33:50] because like now we think of the opera oscar scene yeah is this like the moment that you derived it's kind of like in green book when mohershala gives that speech that i mean mohershala does a good
[01:33:59] job yeah but where you're like oh here we this is the oscar scene they are so often the scene where the actor has free reign to sort of like almost step out of the film right circle everything the film is
[01:34:10] saying underline it place it in italics and then scream it with as much emotion as possible and this is the opposite of this is that the power of this scene is like finally
[01:34:21] like denzel sees this man as a person yeah and sees him as like a person with feelings and opinions and thoughts and like feeling and passion and all that right and obviously hanks does crush it
[01:34:33] yeah oh yes but those shots of denzel's face like lord and first it's very dark and then there's that sort of red light coming up on him uh really blow my mind and then you're actually
[01:34:45] watching someone's heart change you go for it right yeah you go from that to this scene where denzel just needs to go home and hold his child yeah like rena and joanna was watching with me and
[01:34:54] she was like oh don't pick up the baby you're gonna wake up the baby and i'm like joanna he needs to hold his baby and then he like gets right now into bed with his wife and looks like he just
[01:35:02] came back from war and he's staring off in the middle distance with his eyes full of tears and this is where i'm again i'm like a studio might just or a director might be like oh how
[01:35:11] we have to cut this this is just like you know but this is this is the exact film demi wants this is the most important thing as you said the entire goal of this film
[01:35:20] is to make people realize that people with aids are human beings and that is where this film succeeds so wildly yeah and i read arguments as well that they're like i went down reading too
[01:35:32] many 90s reviews of this film but um only 90s reviewers understand and not just people in the gay community but i feel like a lot of critics who felt like oh this is the the
[01:35:44] prism i have to view this movie through i'm going to assume what other people would find offensive about it and they said like when he has this opera speech it comes out of nowhere
[01:35:53] because you know so little about what he who he is his personal life his interests up until that point in time and i'm like first of all it's not like this is really that kind of movie it's
[01:36:04] not like this one has a bunch of scenes where like denzel talks about how much he loves watching hockey you know or gardening or anything it's not a movie about people's like hobbies it is
[01:36:13] so sort of propulsive it jumps over such periods of time but you also need to sort of withhold that information from the audience you cannot have tom hanks talk about anything outside of business his
[01:36:25] health his immediate life to denzel and told this moment because it also needs to come after the halloween scene where for the first time he's socializing with him and he sees him you
[01:36:35] know and you know look a cover of heaven from the talking hands absolutely and tom is at his straightest dressed in navy white sweat and tonia yes i love that denzel has such a really toning
[01:36:46] it down corny dad joke costume yes he's a lawsuit right it's funny yeah yeah and he orders wine which i think is interesting um i also love the i just want to say sorry the movie is about
[01:36:56] someone's hobby bruce springsteen hobby is walking the streets of the street showing people vcr recordings of captain i love that he stays after the party to talk about the case or
[01:37:07] whatever and it just made me think about this is kind of a weird connection but like the scene in seven where they go where morgan freeman goes to dinner and they have the dinner and they laugh
[01:37:17] about the train rumbling the house and then it later they're like like when the paltryers asleep or whatever and they're like in the living room like working on the case yeah i like that
[01:37:25] sort of like okay like social time done notes get back to work there's something kind of cozy about it i love them i guess and then to have this this scene in this movie when i think of seven
[01:37:33] i think cozy yeah oh oh fully yeah just a cheery little warm blanket and no one in it is problematic which is great perfect yeah oh it's a pull of a bunch of wokeings this is my new thing i guess
[01:37:45] yeah um yes i do love that kind of energy and scenes i also just think it's a thing i love about demmy um where and i we talked it's a lot certainly happens a lot in melvin and howard
[01:37:57] we're like what he chooses to cut over and what moments he chooses to spotlight instead it is so great that there is no scene where and i feel like most movies are didactically
[01:38:06] have the scene where andrew invites him to the halloween party where he's like oh maybe i was yeah right uh yeah yeah he goes home to his wife can you believe it she gives him a hard time
[01:38:17] she's the heart of green book has to go she's the heart of green book right she explains to him right that he has to go then you see there it's so much more powerful to be like you don't
[01:38:25] know what changed in him but something broke him down just enough to go to the halloween party and feel really uncomfortable right like he showed up and he's so uptight being there
[01:38:35] and that's all you need to know that he made that much progress that he was willing to show up maybe just because he knew that was the thing he had to do before he could then after the party
[01:38:45] sit down and talk about the word what is when is the scene when he sort of slightly when they're talking the case when he sort of bluntly says to hanks like i still don't i'm not into it
[01:38:53] right he and hanks is like well thanks for sharing that with me i feel like it's in the courtroom right it's like at the desk yeah and that's pretty late in the movie yeah it's just they never quite
[01:39:03] like let it go no yeah i like that they don't become like best friends right uh they don't have him come over to his house for dinner at christmas and meet the whole family and all the italian guys
[01:39:13] are like hey you don't surely right hey cool guy right that like fucking virtuoso thing in green book or somehow him becoming less racist immediately cures all of his friends of racism by proximity yeah well you know to fold your pizzas to fold the world's really the message
[01:39:34] were you gonna say something else about the um no i don't think so i think it's just i think it's lovely and unexpected and weird at the same time i kind of was left feeling like how much of this
[01:39:44] is actually happening um but yeah it's just like again i can't imagine that being in this kind of movie now no people would say you can't you can't do that in this type of film that's too
[01:39:54] big of a swing it's too weird it's too big of a tonal shift a stylistic shift i mean all of that but then enough people in went to go see that in theater in 1993 that it made 200 million dollars
[01:40:04] worldwide is like crazy it's insane it is crazy yeah um i also like that the film does not have the legal drama part of it yeah does not have some scene where suddenly someone just gets on the
[01:40:15] stand and is like yeah we actually did fire him because he was gay that's that like right you have the scene with the lesions yeah but that's sort of an interesting legal scene where mary steam
[01:40:25] virgin has made this fatal error of bringing the mirror in to do her trick and it's like once you bring that mirror in then denzel's gonna get to use the mirror too yeah and like that shot is so
[01:40:36] beautiful too where it goes to like hanks's perspective well that's the thing we're tank where like the angle just feels like it's tilting more and more but yes oh no where he tilts the
[01:40:44] mirror to get him in the frame yes yes him on the stand when he finally starts making a stand and right and he's like just ratchets of using this sort of right yeah right um so i like that that's
[01:40:56] kind of charles napier is the judge i was gonna say okay that's also a really fascinating performance and that's just fun to watch to do this in buying check to watch these movies basically in order
[01:41:05] to see all demmy's guys and you're like every movie the guy with the lazy eye is the doctor the slightly prejudice doctor and you're like two movies ago napier was michelle pfeiffer's gay hairdresser
[01:41:17] right in man and now he's like the bigoted sort of like judge not bigoted he's kind of like he's sort of playing it down the middle but you know kind of letting them do their antics but that's
[01:41:26] what i like is i feel like he is leaning on the side of prejudice but telling himself that he is completely right open minded even handed and there's that series of moments like this case
[01:41:38] is concluded like he doesn't daniel von bargan who plays the lead drawer right uh and doesn't speak until he gets into uh you know closed quarters um there's the series of uh shots where they're
[01:41:51] exchanging looks with each other where napier will say something kind of like snarky as a judge and then he'll look over daniel von bargan daniel von bargan will smile at him being like yeah this is like fucking crazy right like they're both not really taking this guy's
[01:42:06] seriously because napier will say the like look this courtroom is free of any prejudice any judgment we don't see race we don't see orientation but he says that right after he said i don't understand
[01:42:17] why you want to talk about this person's personal life right yeah you know like you know when when denzel asks someone else if they are gay napier immediately goes well that's not something we bring into it but of course they would never question someone's heterosexuality in that way
[01:42:31] if someone's wife was invoked on the stand he wouldn't go please this courtroom is like when they say you're an active homosexual like join who's like imagine say someone's an
[01:42:39] active person well it's a kind of thing we're like right but that's a thing like napier keeps on doing shit like that and then he'll kind of make a little joke out of it yeah and it doesn't feel like
[01:42:49] he's going like man gay people are gross it's more him going like man this fucking world yeah i'll tell you he's an active homosexual bruce springsteen walking those streets okay hey wow david's whipping a fucking a fastball against the
[01:43:05] wall the rafting i'm like knocking over a coconut i'm gonna do it yeah i can't hard of all like throwing batteries yeah throwing a bad welcome weird that ben lep to that waving batteries putting a little extra fold on that pizza yeah
[01:43:19] boy i just think that yet the film is so good in presenting all the different sort of levels of prejudice against him well right i mean the thing about it is that like
[01:43:29] i didn't a friend said this to me a couple years ago after i had a particularly odd not bad exactly but odd experience with some family members over Thanksgiving where he was like well yeah when
[01:43:39] you're gay like everything is r rated automatically like like you can't talk about anything like i was talking basically to my cousin's kid who's like a teenager who i remember but and and and then
[01:43:50] just the mom just sort of like froze up and got weird and i was like what is going because i said oh yeah i used to like doing that when i was your age or whatever and then i was like
[01:43:56] thinking about more it's like oh it's because like you know there's all that attendant stuff and i think that like that that thing in the courtroom like really well illustrates that these aren't like actively
[01:44:05] bigoted people it's just like it's it's an extra layer of two person that keeps on getting brought up of like well so like you you got aides by accident there are the aids victims who are
[01:44:18] sort of like innocent what a horrible tragedy that they caught this disease that whether they're collateral damage i'm a religious fundamentalist everyone's sort of buying into this idea that it's like a gay curse right you know and what are the odds of someone outside of the community getting
[01:44:34] that right unwillingly they didn't do anything to ask this and one of the big things by themselves tries to tag hanks with was like have you been to like a gay porn right if you
[01:44:42] have sex with you know if you picked up guys on the street like trying to be basically like well your lifestyle and she does that super shitty thing where she tries to frame it
[01:44:51] as like because of course the course keeps the case keeps on coming back to this idea that he was you know insufficient as a lawyer yes that that was the firing counts right he was incompetent
[01:45:05] that she brings up all of that as well do you consider yourself to have good judgment right you know and and would you say potentially infecting your partner is good judgment so she's
[01:45:17] like trying to hide behind the guys of like i'm not shaming you for being part of the gay lifestyle i'm saying you made a really big risk in your life yeah which shows that that was the kind of
[01:45:29] judgment or lack thereof that could be applied to your dealings as a lawyer that scene also where i forget who it is but the um the is this the roger querman thing now i'm trying to remember
[01:45:43] the caviar scene caviar scene remind me where it was a client who hanks had previously represented and won the case and they bring him to trial to speak to hanks being incompetent as a lawyer
[01:45:58] right oh yeah and the guy is like uh he's competent right you know he's changed his wording from like he's like if i got a baloney sandwich you would call that competent right
[01:46:08] but if you had caviar for lunch you would not call that competent because six months ago you said that andrew was the caviar of lawyers right um all that stuff is just like such a good fucking
[01:46:17] lawyer speak shit oh the the woman uh of course who got uh it's through the blood transfusion and when they're trying to railroad her and back her in the corner and make her passively say
[01:46:28] things that kind of condemn hanks more and there's that moment where the two of them look at each other and you're like fuck this is like the brutality of the legal system people manipulating it she's now said something that's going to hurt hanks even though you can tell
[01:46:40] that isn't her intention and then she just speaks up right in that moment of sympathetic imagination where she's like i want to just say one final thing yeah there is no difference
[01:46:48] between me and anyone else who has it um that's i mean that's once again it's like that's the shit that demi wants to say like he wants to grab the american public by the shoulders
[01:46:57] and and go like i understand you don't all live in the east village you're not losing friends on a regular basis right but he and he's but he smuggles it in in entertaining court drama
[01:47:07] in artful filmmaking and big you know like it's just such a clever delivery system for something that people needed to hear yeah you know right because it so it doesn't feel like
[01:47:16] vegetables the way that just mercy kind of feels like okay like it's very vegetable yeah it's yeah yeah and then even like all the other sort of like aids crisis movies of this time are not
[01:47:26] things that people revisit because even if they felt kind of pivotal in terms of what they were saying i don't think anyone is like man i the craft in long time companion is so strong
[01:47:38] i'm so engaged in those narratives it's also telling that long time companion the performance that gets an oscar nomination is the grieving unaflicted partner right right it's like that's the tragedy is the person who has to watch someone die i've never seen that film um i know it
[01:47:55] that's a very early yeah that was like the first one yeah um and that's not even hot it's like same old company right like indy um anyway the jury basically sits down and we're it's pretty
[01:48:09] obvious that their whole thing is like look you can't convince me the guy was incompetent you'd put him on the fucking i love that i just love that it comes down like they put him on his best
[01:48:18] case why why would you do this can i ask a question though about that wouldn't it be a mistrial to have bruce springsteen like swaying the jury in the jury room i don't know i mean
[01:48:26] the rule the laws of philadelphia are very complex that's true and he was taking it back they're just remove them they're written on a whole because in the other right well
[01:48:36] yes and his other hand is the co-stance tuition of philadelphia which of course is a hokey it is as we all know they keep it under the liberty belt god the emotional final scenes of the film
[01:48:50] are hanks collapsing in court yeah in hospital and the scene we talked about where denzel is sort of whatever you know changed enough to reach over and adjust his mask which right and
[01:49:02] you have his entire family come and ostensibly say their goodbyes it's that weird thing when you have someone who is on death's door where you know that anytime you leave the room it might be the
[01:49:13] last time they're like well they're like i'll see you tomorrow and they're all doing that and then the last brother breaks down like everyone's doing the like and remember you stole me 10 bucks like
[01:49:21] right and then yeah yeah very sad i cried a lot me too um and i had to go get something in the kitchen of my roommate and his boyfriend right there and i was just like red faced and messy and
[01:49:32] they were like hi well well humble bread that's it's yeah it's always me after i saw the time traveler's wife on cable one time and you just remember how fun it was to make that movie
[01:49:44] my son um my dad and uh then there's yeah you know the memorial and you see denzel go in there and then there's what feels like an hour of home videos yeah what's also you got this long
[01:49:58] one or throughout the entire room which i love i love and you tweed this last night but like it doesn't have a death scene per se but it is a movie that feels like it very briefly only at
[01:50:09] the tail end captures the actual spirit of grieving and remembering someone after they passed i mean the movie that i referenced uh it like to compare it to was bpm beats per minute
[01:50:20] which a french movie that came out a couple years ago that has this exquisitely sad but beautiful death scene that is really just about the mother of the man who dies of aids in paris in 1991 i
[01:50:30] think it is uh and his friends just kind of they're there they're sad but they're also like trying to celebrate yeah it's like it's gorgeous and it really it feels so real and this
[01:50:40] in the in philadelphia they knew he was gonna die so it's not like the shock it's just like there's a little relief because he's like free from pain and you know and and so i just think that
[01:50:49] that that end scene and that meal young young song capture it perfectly what's up yeah this is the fillies he's playing it in the corner um i just think that seems great yeah it's i love
[01:51:03] la but i love fillet he's actually just talking about meat yes no one called him on it fillet let's play the box office well i want to say a couple fun things here as you said it is that
[01:51:19] humanizing thing of just like you're not even showing kinks anymore you're not even showing america's favorite movie star you're not even showing this performance you're showing video footage of a random kid and actor you know how you play a kid or whatever i assume so right that's
[01:51:32] that's not real home video no i don't think it can be right um but it does underline this thing that like we lose track of of just like everyone was like a child once and you would never discriminate
[01:51:44] against that child right in the way you do at the adult and nothing has fundamentally changed with that person just because you dislike their identity it's not an action that they made
[01:51:56] which is that's just when i started crying yeah i was like on the brink rewatching most of the movie and then that just i just sort of dropped a couple tears i was just you dropped a couple
[01:52:05] and i think the neon young song is great i think it's really pretty oh no that's crazy streets filled out for these fucking honks that's great that's nuts i do like the new i think filled out for
[01:52:14] the slaps though i think it's a bob it's good it's good i mean i put it on at the club when the beat drops it's just out there it's an original it's an interesting year for original song
[01:52:25] because you got um a wink and a smile which is a nice loop listen to yabba song okay oh yeah shaman you got again the janet jackson song from poetic justice oh yeah and then i mean you have
[01:52:38] the movie then the song that probably should have won which is the day i fall in love from beto v second yeah i'm proud of that song beto v second that's right got an oscar nomination for
[01:52:49] richard lawson he got an oscar nomination for of course the you know academy award for well me and beto v coro yeah i remember beto v second does charles groden remember beto second uh i mean
[01:53:02] he was in it is that the one where he pulls the house down on the lake house probably probably um god i just remember when i was a kid like renting some video right from the video store and there
[01:53:14] was a trailer for there always was hope and one in front of it yeah it's always first beto once first yeah i'm just being like i have to see this now like you know i'm trying like six years
[01:53:25] old right so it's remember it's the trailer groden's like going up the stairs and it's like drool and he's like oh and then there's just the dog and i was just like this looks like a masterpiece yeah i
[01:53:34] don't see it you just ran into your wife in that movie well it bonnie hunt it's bonnie hunt yeah yeah right it's hunt groden yeah i think groden pretty much retires and pacino's the dog pichino is the dog yeah uncredited but yeah so should we do
[01:53:52] the wide weekend oh it platformed it plants let's do the narrow weekend let's do the actual release date december basically christmas time 1993 okay uh so it opens limited but i don't want you but it's important but i'm not good
[01:54:06] yeah he actually has a great christmas song yeah santa claus is coming to town he's like that's the one i'm just singing i know but i love it he's like hey cliz you've been a good boy this
[01:54:18] year say he's gonna bring you saxophone yeah yeah it's fun just important remember it was a big hit uh made 77 domestic 200 worldwide adjusted for inflation it's like 170 or something yeah i think you're right uh 172 yeah crazy i mean absolutely insane yeah so domestic number one at the box
[01:54:36] office it's a film we've mentioned on this very episode a big legal thriller in its second week it's not the pelican breed it is the pelican brief wow denzel and julia den f***ings up i'm just
[01:54:47] saying to have both of these at the same time that's crazy number two is uh the most portable comedy of all time beto in second no good good guess though that's number four from 1992 it's
[01:54:59] the most portable comedy of all time but i can't tell if you're being sincere or not we've discussed on this podcast is the most portable comedy about oh it's missus dow fire oh dried by fruiting ben
[01:55:09] reese a long time ago i was like well that's the most portable comedy of all time and i was like what's like i feel like i was in the room for that you might have been it came up in a box
[01:55:16] office game as a hint and then said it's very quotable right and i was like what's a quote and then said hello right yeah oh boy dried by fruiting them that's right um i don't know
[01:55:35] uh i am i am do looks like a lady doesn't she go i am i am job fair i am job is funny yeah um yeah mrs dow fire care to tell me the domestic final total of mrs dow fire 264 219 adjusted for inflation
[01:55:53] let's it was one of the 10 highest grossing films of all time how are you surviving the box office mojo i'm on the numbers baby yeah fully switched i love it numbers is good mojo i gotta say like several
[01:56:04] times a day i type in box office mojo to look up something and then i i just like i've forgotten i feel such a great sense of law it's gone i just got so familiar and comfortable with that
[01:56:15] interface i've been on it for so long i will learn to love the numbers credit to the numbers they've been very responsive as clearly they're being flooded they're stepping up and they're like hey
[01:56:24] we just added this we just we keep posting updates where we're like oh you guys asked for sorting we're gonna put in sorting like so good job to the numbers number three at the box
[01:56:31] office is a sequel to a big hit comedy but it's not Beethoven's second but did you get the adjusted number and outfire uh 485 domestic unbelievable unreal yeah hello she has cake on her face she does okay number four or number three number four was Beethoven's second but number
[01:56:50] three is number four was Beethoven's second oh yeah oh yeah well okay but number three which what's the final total on Beethoven's second let's find out i'm gonna guess 41 52 pretty good
[01:57:03] pretty robust um but uh yeah so but number three is another sequel to a hit comedy is a wainsworld two no that is number five wow it's crazy to think about that yeah when did this
[01:57:16] first wain world wainsworld a year or 92 right they were like 11 months apart yeah it was very much a look let's just squeeze this for all yeah 100 yeah um no it's just crazy thing like
[01:57:28] christmas time in the 90s where they're like this is a post-home alone world yeah where they're like yeah comedies just flood this own race right family comedy peak like comedy franchise 100 percent you got the palak can be brief up at top yeah but apart from that doubtfire
[01:57:44] Beethoven's second wainsworld two and number three that you guys refuse to guess a sequel to a hit comedy film i didn't realize we had skipped over i had no how long ago
[01:57:54] how how many years that have been since the original is this number two this is number two two and final yes although i mean you could make a third i see it coming back you could make a third
[01:58:08] the first one just to triple check this so this is coming out obviously 93 the first one came out in 92 so just a year earlier wow yeah the first one i mean it is a big drop off the first one made
[01:58:18] 231 domestic and this one made 57 jeez this was a little bit like it's not Adam's family values no it's not sister actu it is back that was so soon after that i think they might might have
[01:58:33] they could have waited a year these are big but that's wainsworld was the same thing it was so fast too fast this is the era of like paramount because wainsworld touchstone and fox just
[01:58:43] whipping them out you know wainsworld also 47 pizzas yeah and like the first one made 183 to 47 so it's just kind of like yeah relax relax relax yeah number six is geronimo an american legend
[01:58:57] walter hills yeah with student oscar number seven is the piano which it is excuse me it's called the piano the piano which look i just still think it's crazy that movie made any money or made one
[01:59:10] oscars yeah that movie's insane i love it's one of my favorite movies of the 90s i love it but it is that made 40 million dollars is one of my favorite jokes i forget where it happens it might be in
[01:59:19] a no hello but the snub nose pistol yeah harvey kytel's john malaney referring to harvey kytel's penis as a snub nose little pistol um you got shindler's list that guy and he really had
[01:59:34] incredible run in the 90s harvey kytel's penis yeah right it's weird he hasn't worked in a while it's just wild that it's just like all right what's this move i guess i'll go see it i'll
[01:59:44] probably give it it'll get like a wainsworld two type gross okay what's it about well this mute woman is married to an aristocrat in new zealand and she really loves her piano but they can't bring
[01:59:54] it up the cliff so she starts to sell sexual favors to bring it up key by key and one of those all right you know what what is this on the same story is over and over harvey kytel's dick is
[02:00:06] in it a lot again it's a weird little girl she's so good incredible in that movie oscar winner yep shindler's list just opened wow second week and then you got adam's family values a great great work
[02:00:22] yeah perfect comedy sequel i mean that was like only what that was two years after the year yeah because number one is 91 those movies were also unlike like say a wainsworld two incredibly expensive yeah right those movies have the production production the effects still look so good
[02:00:39] to like i think looks great in that movie who is the crazy like evil dead style like cameras following thing number thing thing oh yeah the handboy of course they finally just put values out on
[02:00:54] blu-ray it had not been out it was only the first one so good so he's way better than where's my four k where's my steel book i don't know and uh and then the three musketeers oh i saw that in
[02:01:06] theaters with chris o'donnell she knows all that one too and gerard deppardu key for southernland i believe charlie jr. deppardu is in man of the iron mass right i'm uh yeah this is the one with all
[02:01:16] like it's like young guns right yeah so it's sheen sutherland o'donnell and who's the fourth uh isn't it like oliver platt or something yeah it is it is over platt it's over platt it's sheen sutherland o'donnell oliver platt tim curry's the villain right and then rebecca
[02:01:38] demorne is the uh right interest is right wow that is a real-time capsule right there yep it really is remember that no all for one this song yeah was a brian adams and sting a
[02:01:50] pre-spring steam right sorry uh no it's i'm trying to find the poster yeah there that was disney yep disney and they are there they are bunch of hotties sheen gets first billing
[02:02:08] well yeah is that a poster where they're actually going left to right matching the heads with the names no not at all i couldn't see from this distance i was asking here we go here's a zoomed in
[02:02:18] when i think of 18th century france i tend to think of charlie sheen charlie sheen and kiefer right in the middle kiefer in the middle looking good looking pretty snacky yeah chris o'donnell just
[02:02:29] looks just like the blandest like pad of butter oh i mean he was pretty oh i know he was a pretty big like him and babin forever was a sexual awakening for a lot of gay men and and for
[02:02:42] and for dol schumacher it is kind of crazy how blandly handsome he is though and i say this is no like backhand to compliment he just never really stepped into the you know what you'd expect
[02:02:52] that person to eventually be like oh let me do some harder stuff maybe some grittier stuff he's on ncis los angeles now yeah he's quietly just very rich because he's on that he's on like the highest rated
[02:03:02] show on television the kim and illa cool j just went there to hide i don't know i might be number one it had a season or two where it was number one linda hunt has been on that show since the
[02:03:10] beginning yes i think she might have gotten written out i don't really it's it's on it i believe it's on its tenth season which is the wildest and say but i mean navy crimes in la are a
[02:03:21] serious thing oh yeah there's a lot of them going on navy crimes that's what the ncis investigates navy crimes are you serious naval criminal investigative service oh my god i did not know that second
[02:03:33] spin-off of a spin-off it's a spin-off which is about army lawyers i know that and then they were like this ncis stuff's kind of interesting spun that off it grew into being the number one
[02:03:43] show on television and then they've done two satellite shows including ncis uh new orleans which has the weirdest cast of any procedure looks black cch pounder scott back it was not still
[02:03:55] honest it is i say i say i say it certainly is i think it's all of that it's just like well down here in new york it's a little different like it's all fan it's all fan boat chases it's like
[02:04:06] exactly it's like it's been a navy crime on say i say i'd never see we solve on nautical crimes a little slower down here every to every episode they think it's voodoo for like 30 minutes
[02:04:18] let's can we rule it out i don't remember like the poster for the first season like announcing the show was like the four of them up on a balcony on bourbon street sure like just watching the night
[02:04:28] life now ncis is the only one that truly crushes in the rain it's when you're looking at really los angeles was never number one no let's see what ncis what a brutal cell phone for me
[02:04:42] it's it looks like it's top position your punishment is to watch 10 episodes of ncis its top position was four yeah which is not bad yeah and in from 2012 to 2014 it was the fourth
[02:04:54] most popular show wow on tv behind ncis the big bang theory and sunday night football god cbs has four well cbs is now in the tank cbs is finally finally seeing the reels come on but that's yeah
[02:05:08] sorry well that's for another episode i'll say i'll say you want to summon crazy uh cal catlett who is the actor who played uh young arthur on the tick little lil me uh when i was asked he's
[02:05:21] like this weird like tested out of school at like 12 speaks 15 languages has a black belt and karate uh like polymath autodidact kit um and i asked him what made him want to become an actor
[02:05:36] and he said i was watching an episode of ncis and i liked the people who sit behind the computer sure and i thought that would be fun to do for a living it's like the only person i've ever
[02:05:47] heard of who want to get into acting i realized that that's my ceiling and that's what i'm going it wasn't even that no he said it with this like like that looked at me like it was like
[02:05:56] eye-opening like watching brain doing like on the waterfront or something it was like they get to like deliver exposition they just swivel around in a chair that's really funny and he was
[02:06:08] like yeah i someday i hope i get that part he was like the lead in a genet movie and he was in the poltergeist remake like him being the tick was like his least sure important credit that
[02:06:19] point he was like i just a box he was not mic max the other guy till ago he was in he was the what's the prodigious ts pivot he's the titular character in that movie the one that was
[02:06:31] not released because of harvey watson who america's he just loves going to live comedy for s new orland yeah he's america's greatest comedy show audience member i don't know if i know whatever
[02:06:45] we're done thanks for coming rich thanks for having me um dickie lawson yeah sad movie good movie everyone should give it a second look because it's not what people say it is no that's my opinion
[02:06:56] yeah what percent what are we gonna experience the trolls well i mean hopefully by the time this episode comes out i just i don't know if you've been checking yeah now they're selling through
[02:07:08] early january they've extended so the experience goes on the experience was supposed to last for three months and we're currently in year two uh no donald trump was elected in uh november 2016 that's when trolls the experience boy oh brev David is whipping the ground with his micro
[02:07:26] they have become such a physical comedian on this podcast this audio podcast yeah um he's putting on the don rickles bald cap yes uh well dreamworks troll the experience trolls it's just it took
[02:07:39] over some fucking storefront in minhatten by force it's been so long since i've experienced my trolls it's time and maybe now we could like pair it up with i mean when does world tour come out well
[02:07:51] but the other question is is how we get around the fact that we're going to be four grown men yeah how we get around children we have a very long tech thread and we've already talked about
[02:08:00] all of this the world tour is in april so uh we'll see if we get to five thousand patrons please get us a five thousand patrons so that we can have the trolls experience in midtown
[02:08:11] but we've talked about this i think what we would do is it is open during the week we would pick a weekday right we'll sneak in the back door afternoon right when there won't be a a
[02:08:22] massive amount of children there and we will call in advance and more weeks in advance and be like we are four adults men we're gonna walk in what if we do the trolls experience and we come out
[02:08:32] and we're mad we got what if we come out we're already trolling right which is like what i liked about it is that i went mad i'm mad you see like we go like vittorio
[02:08:45] you're saying we go mad as a hat literally right i'm up for it thank you all for listening richard do you have anything specific you need to plug um i have a cover story about ru paul
[02:08:58] that just came out like a month ago i think um yeah so go read that uh vanity fair dot com or buy it fantastic and uh people should read your books if they have not running well yeah
[02:09:07] we can all we can do is wait is the one book that i have and it's out in paperback it's a lovely new cover but you're working on it well maybe i don't know i don't know i don't know thank you
[02:09:18] all for listening please remember to write your views subscribe thanks to ang for a good oh for social media joe bowen and pat rounds for artwork lane month going for our theme song
[02:09:28] go to t public for some real nerdy shirts uh next week we have a beloved after like a five-year gap in his career it's amazing he only makes documentaries and tv stuff between 93 and 90
[02:09:42] and then returns was just an easy project just you know just adapting the adaptation best novel of rent right uh at at the behest of oprah right who like calls him it demands that he returned
[02:09:54] to fiction film you can't you can't not answer that call no it's a crazy blank check and it's kind of his blank check but really over his blank check yeah uh it's a movie she wills into existence
[02:10:05] um so tune in next week for that uh with guests that we have not settled on yet because we're doing these out of order in way in advance and as always directly from the trolls the experience
[02:10:18] faq page will there be trolls at the experience yes there will be animated 3d and in person trolls at the experience we're all gonna die we're gonna die oh my god you might have to go back and like
[02:10:36] add this in okay saturday night live i remember seeing this when it aired and just being before i saw philadelphia they did a fake commercial for philadelphia action figures in courtroom place
[02:10:45] this is so my kind of bit and it is a great big commercial wow we gotta find that it is it's really it's really good and i i saw it when i was you know when did philadelphia come out 93 yeah
[02:10:57] so i was like 12 and i was like that's that was my impression of philadelphia long before i saw any time any comedy show did that bit or like waiting for guffman doing the like my dinner
[02:11:07] with andre play set it's obviously just like venn diagram of my interest but through i'd say about 2006 anytime anyone did the bit which is here is merchandise made for a very very uncommercial child friendly film i always killed it has like a courtroom play set with an ejection
[02:11:26] seat that was like the thing i remember the most and of course uh we talk about i did a merchandise spotlight in the sansa lambs episode and uh it made me realize oh the merchandise spotlights
[02:11:37] never work because they're uh me describing an entirely visual thing that yes exactly never work and now once again we're doing this we're all just watching a video and silent yes on silent yeah great stuff great click great segment for their great podcast that everybody likes perfect podcast