Saving Private Ryan with Richard Lawson

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check I don't know. Part of me thinks the kid's right.

[00:00:23] He asks what he's done to deserve this. He wants to stay here fine. Let's leave him go home, you know? Part of me thinks what if by some miracle we stay and actually make it out of here?

[00:00:33] Someday we might look back on this and decide that podcasting Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole god damn shitty mess. Like you said captain, maybe we do that, maybe we are in the right to go podcast.

[00:00:45] So podcast is home and saving in the news. Okay, my brain's broken. Hi everybody, my name is Griffin Newman. David Sims. This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. That's right. This is a series we like focusing on directors, filmographies, people who have seismic success

[00:01:03] early on in their career and then get a series of blank checks for the rest of their life to make whatever. The rest of their natural life. To some degree or another. Sure. Maybe the amount changes but they keep on dying out on that success, that early success.

[00:01:18] Sometimes the check's clear, sometimes they bounce baby. This is my series about the most successful filmmaker of all time with the biggest blank check of all time. That's our idea. It's called Pod Me If You Cast. What do you think of that Richard? I think it's good.

[00:01:31] I think you had so many options to go with that but I think that was the right one. Honestly we didn't have that many options. Yeah, we went through literally all of them. A lot of movies but not a lot of room to play around.

[00:01:40] I was pushing for the pod ventures of Cast-Cast. You should have pushed harder. I gotta say. That's the lesson for this new year, push. Well that's sometimes delivering a baby isn't comfortable but you gotta put something important into the world. That's something you know a lot about.

[00:01:59] It's something I know a lot about. Today we're talking about something else I know a lot about. War. The D-Day landings. Yeah. This is our episode on St. Preyre. This is the third film in our main series, The Tracks. Spielberg, the Dreamworks here.

[00:02:18] When he founded his own movie studio and could make whatever he wanted. And Lost World were kind of flubbing, wasn't really Dreamworks. Armistad was the first big attempt and it barely flopped. And then this was him doing I think what Dreamworks was founded on.

[00:02:32] The idea of him being able to deliver something like this. Sure. And Oscar favorite, the number one highest grossing film of 1998. It was. And a modern American classic by most metrics people I think view it that way. Yeah.

[00:02:47] I don't know we'll discuss anyway we have a guest introduce her. We have a guest here today he's a favorite of the show. He's a favorite of ours. You know I'm from Fanny Fair. You know I'm from Little Golden Man podcast. Yeah. You know him from.

[00:03:01] It's been good this year. Thank you. Our episodes on Lady in the Water. And Vanilla or Sky. Yeah, you've been going up in quality from like a stinker to flawed but interesting and now here you are at Savin' Preyre.

[00:03:16] Well I wanted to do the episode about the terminal but I wrote the movie. I felt like. I could have offered some good inside baseball but yeah.

[00:03:23] Richard Lawson ladies and gentlemen also David I resent I would rank those three movies as Lady in the Water one vanilla sky to Savin' Preyre. Whoa, great. Richard. Yeah. I want I want to get straight to this I want to dig him because you your favorite guest.

[00:03:40] Well thank you. One of our favorite people and you know we didn't have you on the last mini series and I threw to you I said we're doing Spielberg is there anyone that jumps out to you that you'd want to do.

[00:03:49] And you said well I think I have a lot to say about Savin' Preyre Ryan because that movie made me almost join the military. That's right. Yeah. No twist. Now this isn't a Shyamalan series but I'm gonna throw a twist at. Okay. Richard knows this you don't. Okay.

[00:04:04] I had never seen this movie before last night. What? Yeah. I just say to me. I guess you are younger but like yeah but never it was like your patriotic duty to see that movie.

[00:04:13] Okay, you know it's true it was now you must have been about nine when it came out. That's not when it came out. Yeah so you know. I just saw about Mary like three times in theaters. I mean it wasn't like you know what I'm saying.

[00:04:23] Yeah I do know what you're saying. I mean you're a gross little boy that's what you're saying. That was a little stinker. You still are.

[00:04:31] But well we'll unpack all of that later but I just want to set up the central question which is can you explain to me how watching this movie made you want to join the military because.

[00:04:45] I knew that about you too and I was also re-watching it and I was like wait a second. Because watching this movie I have never wanted to do anything less. Yeah. Like I'm more encouraged to become a camp counselor after watching Friday the 13th. Like this movie.

[00:04:58] Yeah it's weird. I mean it's the same kind of thing where after I saw The Slimes of the Lambs I wanted to become an FBI agent which is like that's. That makes more sense to me. I mean it doesn't make a little more sense. She wins.

[00:05:08] So I first saw. She wins. Does she? She wins the murder. I think she learns that the Lambs never stop traumatized for life. Right. She wins. So I first saw this movie in the theater. I would think it was like 15 because it came out in 98. 98. Summer of.

[00:05:27] So I loved it. Me too. Had never seen anything like it. We'll get into all that but then a couple years later I'm about to graduate from high school and I bought it on VHS.

[00:05:40] Yeah and I was a terrible student in high school and I kind of had this sort of in at my college. I ended up going to my dad's top there but I was sort of like not.

[00:05:47] I was feeling a need to do something that I really believed in and I was watching that movie a lot. Like I probably watched it three or four times in I don't know the span of a month or so. And just something about it.

[00:05:57] I think I was like honestly like it was like I was like cute boys and like I don't think the worst reasons for wanting to do it. There are some cute boys in this movie. Yeah. This is a cute boy movie. A meme market. Yeah.

[00:06:09] I mean I really like I got all the literature and I think I had set up like someone from the Navy to come to the house and I ended up cancelling it. Because my mother was like what are you talking about? Yeah.

[00:06:20] This is not a good idea for you. I had like sort of come out to my mom at that point. It was just like this is way before Don't Ask Don't Tell When Away. You know it was just like a whole fucking thing.

[00:06:27] It turns out it was good because I graduated in June of 2001. Yeah. Good call. Yeah. Definitely a good call. So I would have been in the military when something bad happened just a few months later. Boy. What was the...

[00:06:40] Oh Jay-Z's album came out and people didn't think it was that good. Collateral damage. The Schwarzenegger movie got buried at the box office. Big trouble got pushed for like six months. They had to edit the pilot of 24. Ellen had to be like serious.

[00:06:55] They had to digitally change the skyline at the end of Zoo Lander. Oh God. How many of these can we do? Basta. That's Italian four. Enough. What's interesting about that story Richard is that you said like you were like

[00:07:07] you said like you want to do something you cared about. Yeah. And then you watch the movie again and rewatch it. You had this very visceral response and you felt like that was the thing to do.

[00:07:14] But then what you ended up doing in life is becoming a film writer. Yeah. Which like is the thing you care about. And I wonder if there was some degree of just like you putting the feelings in the wrong box. Like you watched saving driver Ryan.

[00:07:25] You had this visceral response and you were like, this makes me feel something. I should do this. Yeah. It's like what you really wanted to do is write about this. That's exactly right.

[00:07:32] And I feel like it's one of those kind of like fork in the road things where like there was almost a terrible mistake of youth that I made. Sure. And it was Steven's. It was almost Steven Spielberg's fault. Yeah. And maybe G-Bahn or Robbis is a little bit.

[00:07:46] Did you want to be a combat medic? I don't know what the fuck I wanted to do. I mean, I was too scared to actually think about joining the army. Right. That's the worst part.

[00:07:55] So the Navy was sort of the one that I went to, you know, because of the song. Yeah. And McKill's Navy obviously was a huge influence on me. And Darren Periscope, I assume. Again, a movie I wrote so I don't really feel comfortable talking about it. But...

[00:08:09] Oh boy. Anyway, I'm glad I didn't. But I still do like the movie quite a bit. Although it does make me feel very different things. I rewatched most of it this week and in the wake of, I don't know when this is airing, but the election just happened.

[00:08:23] Yeah, the election real shit. Sorry to blow up your timing spot. No, no, we're going to be talking about it in every episode. Sure. But in the wake of that, I was like, oh, everything's fucking miserable.

[00:08:33] And it's still a wonderful movie, but it made me feel very different things. Yeah, same. I've only ever seen it in the prism of the worst thing. Yeah, which is I think... The election ever, you know.

[00:08:44] Yeah, I mean, not that there's necessarily a straight line between our anxiety right now and the events of this film, you know? But if we fucking know all bets are off now. This was one of the most difficult movie-watching experiences I've ever had. Yeah.

[00:09:02] I had like a physically uncomfortable time watching this movie. It's supposed to make you uncomfortable too. I'm aware. I'm aware that having been said, I was like literally sick to my stomach the entire... Like I had a really, really tough time getting through it.

[00:09:17] And I had never tried to watch it before, but I will say if I like was not watching it for the podcast, right? And I'd just been like, oh, you know what, big blind spot. You should obviously see Saving Private Ryan turned it onto Netflix. Uh-huh.

[00:09:31] I would have turned it off within 15 minutes and be like, I can't deal with this. Do you have that reaction to war films in general? I'm not good with more movies. Yeah, I love war movies. And I'll say that. I mean, it's a World War II movies. Yes.

[00:09:41] I don't like Vietnam movies. I am okay with it, but I'm less... Yes, I'm also less invested in Vietnam movies. I like movies about Star Wars. When will there be Star Wars? You mean Wars in the Stars? Yes, yes. The Wars in the Stars.

[00:09:54] You're near and far Wars. You mean like Death Becomes Her? Yes, that's one of them. Oh yeah, that's a great Star Wars movie. That Megamind, which was advertised as a Feral versus Pit. Any movie where the above the title are verses? Yeah, oh perfect.

[00:10:08] Monster in Law I think was a J Lo versus Fonda? Which the public demanded it, so it happened. The title bout for all title bouts. I really like Bride Wars. My hair's blue. It's blue! It's blue! Chris Pratt's in that. Is he really?

[00:10:24] Yep, he's one of the piansees. From Humble Beginning. What I was going to say was, I have... Guys it feels good to laugh. Oh it feels so good. Immediately all the pain is gone. I have a kind of block with war movies.

[00:10:41] I think similar to the way some people do with like Fantasy or Sci-Fi where they're like I can't engage with the shit, just doesn't mean anything. Where it's the opposite where like I can deal with war shit if it's like orcs

[00:10:51] or if it's in space because that's like all of this is ridiculous. But I like it's my own weird psychological thing. I cannot process like war as a concept and I'm not saying that as me being like a peace loving guy. No, it's just so it's so...

[00:11:05] That's why I love this movie. Beyond comprehension. Especially on the scale of something like World War II. Like in a Rack War movie like it's Humvees, it's improvised explosives. It's you know it feels you're like okay I could sort of... The scale is far smaller.

[00:11:18] Like the D-Day invasion for God's sakes. It's crazy. Well that's the thing. This is like an amazing depiction of the craziest war, right? So it's like the hardest to process. But even when it is a smaller war I just like...

[00:11:31] I'm like the least violent person in the world. Like my brother was three years younger than me. He used to punch me a lot. And my parents like made me sign up for boxing lessons because he'd start punching me and I would just lay still

[00:11:44] and they'd be like why aren't you fighting back? And I was like I don't like fighting. And I would just like get punched. I'm like the only kid in the world whose parents encouraged... Maybe you should have joined the military.

[00:11:55] Yeah you might have needed to get some toughened up. I just don't like physical stuff. I don't like doing anything physical. I mean I don't love it either. I'm trying to think of other big war movies.

[00:12:05] Well I was going to say Griffin I really strongly recommend you do not see Hexaw Ridge. Yeah don't see. Hexaw Ridge makes this movie seem like frickin' Annie Hall. Yeah it's like that movie is everyone going in everyone was like it's really violent. And I was like...

[00:12:21] It's a war movie and then the minute I mean credit to that crazy old anti-Semite he really knocks it out of the park. He's a lunatic. You're watching that movie and you're like this guy is fucking insane. He's got his fucking mind.

[00:12:33] It's just a thing I want to see because of that but I'm gonna like flip out right? Well the problem is that in Savin' Pratt Ryan like the famous D-Day opening scene is right at the beginning. Horrifically gory and like verite.

[00:12:42] You know it just feels very real and but it's horrified by it. It's scared of it and we're supposed to be scared by it. Hexaw Ridge is like in love with it. And well also he's...

[00:12:51] Gibson is just so obsessed with these people who endure the most unimaginable violence. Like he loves like stoicism in the face of like carnage. Which is the opposite of what I like. Yeah and whereas this movie is not like that at all.

[00:13:06] This movie is basically just like nobody really knew what the fuck they were doing and like you know it just sort of happened. Whereas Hexaw Ridge is like can you believe this guy? Look at him. Look at that guy. Look at all them crushed heads. Oh that's like...

[00:13:18] His limbs flying everywhere. That's so bad. But at the same time I do admire Gibson in not a... As a person no. Jesus. Jesus. You know like in the film he's got good values. He's an incredible film. I can't deny like the film was...

[00:13:31] You know it got to me. He's got sort of mad genius. But he's you know he's a demented mad man. Right. Like Woody Allen. Like you know I can't defend his movies but I like his personal life. It's got a good personal life.

[00:13:44] I mean you will meet a tall dark stranger it's unforgivable. Everything else? Like the way he conducts himself on a day-to-day basis. Especially with those closest to him. I'll say I saw you will meet a tall dark stranger. Awful. And I thought okay Hopkins he's officially cooked right.

[00:13:58] Like Hopkins is just... He can't give a good performance anymore. He phones everything in. Hopkins having a good time right now. On the old Westworld. Yeah. And he's doing you know fun things again. I remember reading an interview with him when Thor was coming out.

[00:14:10] And they said like what was it like working on it? And he said like it was great I got the script and I have this thing. When I read through a script I circle scenes and I write No AR next to them.

[00:14:23] And they're like what does that mean? It goes no acting required. And that's the best thing in the world. If I just see I can just show up I just have to learn the lines. And I read the script and I go I got a weird helmet on.

[00:14:32] He just circled the whole script. He said he said it was great because I read it and every scene was NAR. And it was like that was his approach for 10 years. And then he got in his car from the world's fastest Indian.

[00:14:43] He did like a full 10 years of NAR. And then I feel like Westworld he's actually like doing it again. Yeah. Anyway Hopkins we talked about him last week. Well because Hopkins did actually build that Westworld thing right. I mean the poor dad. That's his project.

[00:14:57] And Hopkins is the father of Thor. Right. He isn't the old father of Norse mythology. He didn't have to act at all because he is Odin. What he goes into Odin sleep every night. He rolls over in bed and says good night to me.

[00:15:09] And he takes a good night's Odin sleep. No I do think I mean all the war movies I like and there are some or all movies that I would say are technically another movie set more like I love thin red line. I love the mask. Sure.

[00:15:26] I love a very long engagement. I love you know but it's like that's a romance. That's like a comedy. That's metaphysical. Right you know. And I love. There's not a lot of violence in thin red line if I remember correctly. No there is some.

[00:15:37] Yeah there is some but it's not as. It's not this. No it's not. It's more poetic. And like best years of our lives I think is a masterpiece. Sure. But that's like a movie about war I can deal with.

[00:15:47] Movies like exploring like the notion of where I can deal with. Movies in war I just like I just go like well orcs aren't real. What is that. I love them. I love them. I have a hard time.

[00:15:56] World War II movies I don't know what is hardwired in. It's my dad telling me stories about his grandfather. You know it's just like I guess it's just in my DNA or something.

[00:16:03] But I think I also just it's such an unknown and strange thing for me and I want to know what it was like. Like I'm really interested in like seeing it. Yeah and I think you know I saw Allied recently the Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard.

[00:16:16] We can talk about that. Where they're trying to prove that the moon landing didn't happen. Because Marion is her passion project. She's really. I once interviewed her and she almost said Bush did 9-11 and you could tell her

[00:16:28] publicist was like Marion and she's like anyway yes two days one night's very good. You know like she likes almost switch off track. Do you think she's happy about Trump secretly? Maybe. Maybe. I love her but she's a she's goo goo. Not ruin her feelings.

[00:16:41] Sorry sorry anyway in Allied you know there's the first half of the movie is his sexy kind of spies in Morocco. Which I liked a lot. You know it's in the second half isn't it. Yeah I agree.

[00:16:49] And I can get swept up in that English patient is a great example of a World War II movie that's not about war and I love it. Yeah it's sort of off the center of war. And it covers the war. Yeah. It's engaged with war. Right.

[00:17:00] The problem is when you get swept up in the glamour of there is a glamour around certain World War II stories except that fucking horrible things were happening. Except that we're basically just throwing men in front of guns.

[00:17:08] And I think that for me in a way saving Private Ryan you know for my 15 year old brain was the first movie I'd seen that was like oh right that was a fucking nightmare. Right. It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't romantic.

[00:17:22] It wasn't you know it was mostly just annihilation on a scale that's unimaginable. Agreed. And yeah I will say and I feel the same way about Schindler's List which we haven't discussed in this podcast. You know. I hadn't seen it at that point. Sure.

[00:17:37] There's something about Spielberg he does he's such a good direct like he does make this stuff like entertaining and gripping even as you're also grappling with how bad it is. Schindler's List especially is really tough because like I've talked about this with

[00:17:49] friends of the podcast David or like that movie is so fun and like the characters are so like vivid and like big and three dimensions you know and you're like really and yet also you know I mean it's not fun yeah and same reverence like that too

[00:18:03] like it is like it's a dynamic entertainer and entertaining like action film as well as like a living nightmare. So this is where I diverge and once again it's not me throwing out a judgment of bad time. It's my own personal experience.

[00:18:15] I also realized that independently I had diarrhea. The first half the movie I was saying the film wasn't when you say independently the film wasn't responsible. I mean I don't want to be with other people. Yes. Oh I see. This was so low diarrhea.

[00:18:30] Yeah usually I try to team up with someone double dragon style. Double dragon. Yeah streets are right Lord. No but I just like I was like well then yeah it became bad night but I just

[00:18:42] I just it's so squarely hits all of my sort of triggers of shit. I have a hard time comprehending and things that like for diarrhea or yes but like Holocaust stuff. I'm like this is horrible. It's insane that this happened.

[00:18:57] It's hard to process but I accept that it does and worse of every time I'm watching a movie that set in war I'm just like why would anyone do this. Why was it there's been more wars than Holocaust. I know I know.

[00:19:08] It's like three wars when there's there been zero Holocaust. No no no no no no no no no no no no not after the Mel Gibson jokes. Mary on just said we were all right. God we're in a dark place today guys. I'm fucked up by this movie.

[00:19:24] Can we just play the game over man game over. Yeah it's been playing in my head like aliens you love right. Aliens I love fighting aliens that's a Vietnam movie but of course disguised as an alien but I go to the funny baloney stuff.

[00:19:38] We don't got bug aliens you know what I'm saying. I don't know ask Mary. That's why we couldn't go to the Mary and calls Paul Verhoeven. What do you know about these bugs. Starship troopers I love shooting down a bug hole you get a lot of bugs.

[00:19:53] That's my favorite line from Starship troopers. All right so World War two is what this movie is about the D-Day landings operation over Lord yeah and it's it's allied landings in France it's one side of the larger story that Spielberg later tells

[00:20:10] the rest of in Band of Brothers which I've watched every year once a year and I cry really watch the whole thing. The whole thing every year and I cry when they're playing baseball without fail do you have the the DVD box is like a big tin.

[00:20:23] What do you take me for of course just check and just check my mom got it for me for Christmas think he's gonna own the fucking later Digi pack really and Richard Lawson that's the thing

[00:20:35] what was I gonna say that like that that Band of Brothers was huge in college when I was in college or as was saving private right and like and this movie is huge for me when I was a teenager in terms

[00:20:45] of like everybody went to see it because it was like so cool like it was gnarly it was violent like it in Britain like people just were it was it was a masculine way to to feel exactly yeah exactly

[00:20:56] that's the thing I remember like friends crazy this movie was the number one grosser of the year in said yeah it's a three hour super violent yeah I was nine minute count but I remember most

[00:21:05] of the boys in my grade going to see it and like loving yeah you know and people always talked about like oh the first 20 minutes are like intense but it was always kind of this like it was

[00:21:14] going on a roller coaster way talk about that was scary but you feel so fucking good after it's visceral and watching this like like where I diverge from what you were saying about this movie being entertaining and once again it's

[00:21:25] just hitting my my shit right but it's like the I found the first 26 minutes so scarring yep that I like couldn't recover from the rest of it and the whole time I was like wow this is a fucking incredibly well made like I mean like this movie

[00:21:39] is a heroically great it's a really one of the best most well directed films I've ever seen yeah I hate watching it I will never watch it ever again yeah like I don't think I could make it through watching it again so you and I

[00:21:50] probably how many times have you seen this movie Richard I've seen it so many oh I mean probably well over 20 yeah I like owned it on DVD I'd watch it I know and maybe every beat bits and pieces like maybe not all one sitting

[00:22:02] you know but like but I'm curious like you know I was watching it this week and I was like I can't believe it's almost 20 years old and I kind of expected the special effects to be like not really work sure to see this

[00:22:13] still but so but seeing it for the first time with fresh eyes Griffin like did it look like a 20 year old movie do you or did it seem absolutely not and I'll say this I mean the effects I think are seamless they are

[00:22:25] but the bigger thing for me that I found interesting was realizing I had seen clips in the movie I'd seen the trailers but I never engaging with it a whole claw I didn't realize how much of a Rosetta stone

[00:22:37] it was in terms of visual style oh yeah and editing patterns for so many different movies and so many different genres 20 years that followed and what I find fascinating is it still pulls off all those tricks better than any movie since then yeah

[00:22:49] yeah you go like Greengrass is probably the guy who's appropriated the second part Ryan style the best like the shaky camp thing yes it was like new I mean it wasn't new no but it was for a big mainstream film you know but but then even the

[00:23:01] sort of elements of the super desaturated the bleached by the brain the different kind of frame rates the weird like Borg's Kaminsky stripped the camera lenses of the protective thing to make it seem like more 1940s and you know all this

[00:23:15] kind of cool technique which I feel like I feel like Tony Scott pulled a lot of that and then you go like Greengrass pulled a lot of the actual like cinematography of the movement of the camera and then like all this stuff and it still

[00:23:26] feels like this is the most cohesive version of all of that where every single affectation they're putting on there is for a specific purpose and it works yeah it's like watching Pulp Fiction and you're like oh this is when

[00:23:39] all of that kind of like crime drug like indie stuff came from it and it's still better than everything that followed 100% I think yeah yeah but that once again feeds into the like when people like I always hate hate hate it's

[00:23:52] one of my least favorite like like film bro gripes enough with the shaky cam just like the fucking it does it's but I got nauseous and it's okay if it's the right tool for the story then that's the fucking thing I don't like it for its own

[00:24:06] sake but like yeah it's cinematic language and if it's like aligned with the themes of the movie in the story and it's being used intelligently that's good yeah I did genuinely feel sick watching this like and a lot of it had to do

[00:24:18] with the events being portrayed on screen but I also think I mean he uses it very specifically to try to make you feel that physically disoriented yeah and like you're in the middle of a fucking hurricane and all those splatters on the camera yeah

[00:24:31] all that stuff is so well done but it was I had a very very physical I mean I the movie is like three hours long yep two hours and 50 minutes and you said you were like surprised because you feel like it just zips by for me and

[00:24:43] I think you said you feel like it's sort of its length mm-hmm mm-hmm and I had to pause the movie so many times I think it took me five hours to watch yeah I had to like keep on taking breaks

[00:24:53] just sort of like calm myself well in what circumstance that you were just watching at home like I was just watching at home I like watching on Netflix on my TV so it was like in high death it's on Netflix I know it's on Netflix right now there

[00:25:04] yeah yeah and my wife I was thankfully working well and I got it like good quality and I just like yeah I just like had to keep on pausing and being like okay okay okay you know yeah um which once again is like to

[00:25:16] the credit of the movie yeah I mean yeah it's where I'm the app will get to the planet but yeah I mean for me it's like I was watching with Joanna she'd never seen it and I would literally be able to be like oh close your eyes for

[00:25:27] a second someone's about to get like his arms blown off like I knew every thing that was going to happen yeah oh chill out for a sec Giovanni rubiesi is about to bite it yeah can I talk about the single most upsetting like a

[00:25:38] nerving element of the film for me and once again I don't know if this can make me look like a coward or whatever he's setting up some bit no because there there's I mean there's a lot morally you know systematically in

[00:25:50] terms of my own personal views in terms of actually just the film being effective and right in its aims the one thing I just couldn't fucking shake Edward Burns is second-build in this way it's crazy how the fuck did that happen where were we as a

[00:26:04] culture we were like brothers McMullan at that point and out of control yeah it's crazy because the movie he was the one well the thing oh no 12 county points oh god I want to go behind lines to rescue that you know I'm gonna go out

[00:26:20] I need to hit the sidewalks of New York and get out of here that was the stinkiest thinker of them all Heather Graham I'm sorry finding kitty I don't even know what that is that's Edward Burns and David Krumholz as a private investigator looking for his cheating girlfriend

[00:26:34] looking for kitty okay it was Edward Burns in that Thorn Byrd's movie no that's Bill Pack Edward Burns is in some horrible like I don't know he I think it had fields McCoy's right yeah he yeah he had literally only been in the brothers McMullan and she's the

[00:26:50] one that's and this was his third role and he directed both of us no this is his first movie that he had not directed and written and he was second-build because he really was like he'd won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize yeah brother

[00:27:01] like he was he had seen as like a lot of heat and he's you know he's good looking yeah he's good looking guy here this is a movie of a cast of lots of young good-looking ish some of them are more interesting look

[00:27:13] I feel like Slaverk was good at like picking sort of realistic yeah but like right a lot of young talent yeah is on stone and he was seen as young talent well yeah it just it is passing to me that like yes after this

[00:27:26] it's all down pretty much it is passing me this really is an ensemble move right you have Hanks as like the ring master but then that it's really kind of an equal playing field ensemble in a lot of ways and the two guys who

[00:27:37] got like prominent billing and like their faces on the poster and were really promoted above the ranks were Seismore and Burns or the two guys who have the least interest in careers of everyone in supporting cast that's sure you know and like Damon then like a

[00:27:51] post-goodwill hunting they kind of put him more into the marketing but he filmed it before all that happened and Spielberg was reportedly cut really upset that Matt Damon got famous because he didn't want it to be like that and I don't know I mean he wanted

[00:28:05] to be like the audience was thrown off because he seemed innocuous yeah exactly and that's still a lot yeah but I think there's I mean you guys are doing this whole series on Spielberg and something one of the most interesting things to me about him is his casting

[00:28:19] because you know he'll cast like one big big star and then you know maybe like Colin Farrell in Minority Report or whatever but up and comers but like you know he'll put Francis O'Connell in AI or Catherine Morris in Minority Report or

[00:28:33] Adam's and catch me if you can yeah these kind of like he'll find these actors as I guess the actors because he doesn't tell a lot of women lead stories but but like Mark Rylas he just has this really he seems very resistant to stacking

[00:28:47] his movies with big names because with Save and Private Ryan he could have gotten fucking anybody he wanted well you compare it to Thin Red Line which I love but it's like John Q-Sex only shows up for two scenes yeah that's the yeah but I think

[00:29:01] in Malik's case that's how he gets his movies funded right yes everyone will do it yeah right you know I've told you the Thin Red Line story with George Clooney where he's in that one scene where he's giving a speech he enters the movie at two

[00:29:11] hours and 30 minutes and he there was like a whole Clooney subplot that Malik cut out and Malik called him and said I'm cutting sorry I'm cutting almost everything but we do keep that speech and Clooney was like are you kidding me cut the speech Jesus Christ

[00:29:21] I can't be in what I'm gonna look ridiculous so he was like no no we have to have the speech which I mean I don't know that you do I mean I love that movie I mean I think it adds

[00:29:29] a weird power to that movie this is an episode to talk about that movie and I understand why it works it does and I'm not bemoaning Malik for doing that but a lot of people complained about it

[00:29:37] when they saw it like that was a hit on the movie it's like hey this is distracting like you can't keep throwing movie stars at me I think metatextrally it works in the film's favor because it kind of makes it clear that like oh every

[00:29:47] supporting character like everyone in the war is as valuable as anyone else in the war you know like John Q-Sack isn't the lead character but the second John Q-Sack comes on screen you know it matters because he's John Q-Sack and you've seen him in other movies

[00:29:59] and Malik did originally cast a no-name as his lead but then famously you know the Adrian Brody story where he went to the premiere with his family he was the lead character in the book

[00:30:07] and didn't know that he'd been cut out like that they cut all the scenes yeah he's got one line he has one line where he goes they're coming and it happens two hours and he didn't know which is like horrifying but maybe that's what turned him bad

[00:30:17] Adrian Brody well Sean Paul what was that was that the Adrian Brody yeah Paul F. Tompkins and Scott Ackerman talking about that on comedy bang bang is very funny yes it is I love that it's a great bit Adrian Brody's bit was great I agree yeah

[00:30:37] should have brought him back just as for Brody 50 comedy points yeah no the casting in this is incredible and I do find it interesting that he picked so many people I mean you look at the variety of the people in this cast

[00:30:49] and the careers they went on to have in totally different spheres like it's not just like oh he picked the next five big stars no and Philly shows up Brian Cranston's in there and Paul Giamatti's in there well and the little known actor who did that

[00:31:03] yeah like you know I and that was like I think just like a they're friends you know but he just Spielberg has an eye for it but you but in the you know initial thing without you know kind of knowing what's

[00:31:15] to come it seems like he's just finding these kind of like random actors who work in the texture of the movie and doesn't really much care with you know if he has his hanks and that's all he needs

[00:31:25] you know gonna be the best for the role which I think is really cool and kind of what and he does a good job not putting it in your face like I think if you you I mean look you know it's Paul Giamatti but like

[00:31:35] you never see like a a wonder of Paul Giamatti's fate you know he's in this like messy rainy scene he's got a helmet on half the time but but you're also saying you know it's Paul Giamatti in 1998 Paul Giamatti was most prominent

[00:31:47] prominently pig vomit like I know he didn't have that much no I know that's I'm just saying he's not drawing even Ted Dancin you know it's Ted Dancin but like he's not like drawing attention to these actors right they're in a larger tapestry yes that he's

[00:32:01] woven yeah well and with Yanush's beautiful Polish hand I kept on he's got great hands I kept on thinking about there's this William Friedquinn Jesus Christ this William Friedquinn quote about a sorcerer where the studio really wanted him to hire Steve McQueen and he was like I want

[00:32:21] Shiders Shiders my guy Shiders my muse and in the movie bombs really hard and he wanted he was like I don't want a big start I want to overpower it I want to shoot in the real jungle and I want to have real faces

[00:32:31] and all this sort of stuff and he said when the movie bombed he realized that like one second of one close up of Steve McQueen was worth so much more than shooting in that real location and having all those effects and whatever right and he wasn't talking in

[00:32:45] terms of box office gross he was talking about sort of like an ability to engage with audience and this movie does that so well where it's like even just in the first 26 minutes where like most of the dialogue is inaudible it's happening over

[00:32:57] like such a cacophony of like sound chaos but just when we cut to a close up of Tom Hanks even though it's him shaking and blood splattering everywhere there's like a sense of like okay I know we're in good hands like I don't

[00:33:09] feel comforted that Tom Hanks is in this movie but I feel secure that we're gonna make it yeah and even though Tom Hanks had been in you know brief Vietnam war scenes in Forest Gump this was Tom Hanks like oh my we'd never

[00:33:21] seen him in so much peril and you know bloody and you know shooting people I mean this was like a whole new thing for him I mean not to spoil but is this the first Hanks death I think this is the first Hanks death in a movie

[00:33:33] no Philadelphia oh right yeah where does he but is he dead at the end of that I think but but but but I think it's is it the first time we see Hanks kill somebody good call has to be yeah probably right

[00:33:45] except in big when he kills the fortune teller because she deserved it yeah I don't know what that punchline when he murders on stage he does that's um but but the biggest slaying that audio yeah the bigger thing for me watching this is this is like the first

[00:34:01] time I think he had been this minimalist yeah he's so small in this movie and haunted and yeah yeah it's the first time he really seems like a full grown-up I think and that's a mode he's playing a lot right now

[00:34:15] talking to you right this is the beginning of young gay man dying of AIDS in Philadelphia he's a kind of like naïve going through the world in first come and this is like oh he's like grown-up he was always kind of plucky I'm a teen maybe policy

[00:34:27] team sure yeah this is actually similar to his Apollo 13 role where he's kind of like this cool steady hand you know at the center of everything so haunted he is he is so does not have a steady hand your good call he's so small

[00:34:39] in this I mean watching his big monologues because Apollo 13 the whole point is like oh the stoicism is that he's like this American hero he's like cool on it and calm and collected even under pressure but in this the big monologues he has are all

[00:34:51] like you look like he barely moves his face you know he doesn't feel the need to like overplay the hands and we you and I Richard were talking a lot about reason I've also talked about with you independently that like I'm fucking loving this current Hanks

[00:35:05] yeah he's last like five or six years a Hanks I think he's found this pocket of playing do tour just really good at their jobs yeah and showy about it yeah real like American grown-ups yeah you know which we need right without any sort of like mannerisms

[00:35:19] which Hanks is great when he wants to be you know heightened I mean he's obviously like a great comedic actor when he wants to be even when he has to play more character reports in a dramatic context he's created that too he's really

[00:35:31] really stripped down bare bones like just existing on screen now and this feels like the first time he did that and then he didn't do it a lot again for the next 10 or 15 years after that and then you come back to it

[00:35:43] well he does cast away that's his big follow-up to this movie right cast away such like a high wire I love cast away but totally different kind of I'm trying to think of like other immediate things that Hanks does after this movie

[00:35:55] yeah because then you go I mean Green Mile toy story to the polar miles next year yeah he had a weird he's a weird run yeah road to perdition and catch me if you can such a character thing with the weird

[00:36:07] he's so good in that he's great but but yeah big supporting very much right road to perdition which I also think he's excellent in but road to perdition is maybe the next time we see this version of him yes yeah now I'll say it is

[00:36:21] interesting that you know obviously huge part of this movie is the Tom Hanks is this like a noble like incredible like he's like this dark hero to his company right sure they all are like guessing it such a fucking term at least Seismore

[00:36:35] has been with him since the battle and they mentioned very briefly in Tunisia right so they've been all kind of all over the place and you know and Seismore is playing Tom Seismore yeah yeah totally very well dark Norweath but uh Hanks

[00:36:49] is so lovable maybe it's just Hank he's just a grounding presence yeah that sometimes you're like I don't know I sometimes I have trouble with the movie when the movies trying to sell me on like how intimidated they are by him even though I think it works

[00:37:03] you know what I mean just like he's such a sweetheart yeah like the idea that they can't imagine that he's a school teacher and it's like of course he is he coaches baseball of course he is and of course like that's the point

[00:37:13] of the big speech he gives which is like hey in the real world of course I'm a regular but also he's intimidating in exactly the way a school teacher is intimidating totally yeah you want to impress him he's like an English composition teacher he loves words this much

[00:37:27] but but it's like you're he's kind of unknowable he's keeping a wall between himself and the students you know and and he creates a dynamic where you want to win over his affection and his respect and I think that crucial for the movie because you need to understand

[00:37:41] why when he says like all right you three you have to go there now right and where they're shooting the guns at the blank space that you need to occupy you know and there are people like okay all right we're doing it yeah he's also

[00:37:51] I mean it's actually a it's a really clever script um you know do you hear someone scraping at a bowl oh actually I do who is that oh hey it's me please sir can I have some more I was just eating cereal not gruel

[00:38:05] no I turned it I was I moved away from the mic and it's I'm sorry my apologies wait Ben I'm so proud of you but eating on like oh yeah good job my producer Ben my Ben do sir my producer Ben my poet laureate my type right here

[00:38:23] my peeper my fuckmaster my not professor crispy my dirt bike Benny good good yeah well um you graduate to certain titles over the course of different minis here yes you're gonna do what you say Ben can I come on man Ben say Ben nice Shyamalan

[00:38:44] say Benny thing yeah I have to say you saying my fuckmaster in a little sing song voice my fuckmaster it's a really weird thing to hear midday on a Friday I'm proud thanks you didn't give him his Cameron title I gave up

[00:39:02] T-Ben thousand did we settle on one Bailey Ben's Bailey Bailey Ben's I don't know Ben do you like this movie yes absolutely fantastic what do you like about it Ben I like war movies okay and I like Tom Hanks yeah I did oh and I like head shots

[00:39:20] there's quite a few of those new boy love it no I mean just it's a fucking it's a look into what my grandfather and his brother's experience fighting in the war and that's just like usually how I sort of experience that movie is thinking about it

[00:39:40] from their perspectives they're getting to see it from their perspectives of that pretty awful stuff we call war that's a beautiful thing to say Ben and I just want to say that if you like head shots you should go upstairs Ripley Greer Studios boom

[00:39:54] that's a joke for four people joke for the people who work in this office all right so what do you guys like the day landing sequence it's good right yeah it's crazy crazy it's um it it set precedent for something that I don't think it will

[00:40:08] we were talking about earlier has never been met I mean like right yeah definitely like hacksaw tries it but it's no yet that idea trying to communicate chaos without just completely befuddling the audience and how much of it is actually one one take

[00:40:20] it's a good question I would have to there are cuts out there are plenty of cuts but it's long takes yeah lots of long take yeah yeah I'd say the only thing that kind of captures that that sense of like perfectly

[00:40:32] execute chaos like that is the door chase sequence for monsters you are a child you need to put away childish things I like how in the monsters it goes through all the magic doors God hey you guys like America yeah yeah well well I used to use to

[00:40:57] I mean like these these men were fighting for our country and like believed in it I think they were also fighting to liberate people from bad force you know I think it was kind of that's why I think that's why World War 2 is so captures the fancy

[00:41:13] of so many people because it's a war right righteous kind of one that's right it was like such a quote unquote like good or right important war that right then people are like oh we should do like more wars and then all the other ones they did

[00:41:25] were like 6 out of 10 yeah I think that same thing happened the big mama's house franchise what were you saying about like think of this movie in comparison with American sniper it's like yeah modern warfare is disgusting yeah sure yeah and I think some films captured how weird

[00:41:41] and dispassionate and gross modern warfare is and others don't right in the valley of a lot of the best movie about the Iraq war I've never seen that move it's not even it's not even set in the right

[00:41:51] university gets at some of it too in an allegorical way sure yeah it's a good that was a good response I loved your essay and film comment about that it was really powerful yeah I love I personally love Black Hawk Down actually which

[00:42:09] is a movie that not everybody loves about a sort of forgotten conflict yes and also to me about like the weird dispassionate talk about cute boys to holy moly they're all in that one we really got them all there yes sir took his butterfly net and he just

[00:42:23] went wild in that today's special is veal he was like what's Richard's Netscape search history like prime cuts of veal in that movie we've gotten we've gotten fuck master sing song voice my fuck master and veal yikes yikes and this is like island woman island woman

[00:42:43] oh I'll remember that Bella Bambina great world war two movie Captain Curly's made a lid it's my favorite the horrifying theater of war in Greek island I like that war movie because that's about music right exactly yeah it's about Penelope Cruz's re-exam okay so the yeah

[00:43:03] first 26 minutes of this movie here's a hot take I think if that had been the whole movie he still would have won best director I think if the movie was literally 26 minutes long in the way that the walk

[00:43:13] should have the bankers would be should have just been the walk because it was really great and everything else about it was I would have paid the same amount of money I would have paid $20 to just see those 15 minutes it's really true about the walk yeah anyway whatever

[00:43:25] but you're right I'm not here to read the walk but I think that the amazing strength of saving for the walk is that oh I can't wait for your spin off podcast talk and walk yikes and you would do it all in cheesy french accent hello very Italian

[00:43:45] would you believe it me hosting a podcast this is all down Captain Correlli we record the whole thing inside the torch of the Statue of Liberty oh god that's right remember when he has his ID card yeah remember when he was the fucking boy

[00:43:57] but those 15 minutes are unbelievable just two Zemeckis movies on this podcast now should we go in and we talked about death macabre this is like Zemeckis we mentioned castaway when the BBC did their poll I put out on my top 10 of the 2000s that's a great movie

[00:44:15] we've talked about four Bobby Zeme movies we talked about four should we get a fifth in is this secretly becoming podcast Zemeck cast let's move along any other D-day thoughts I was gonna say that as Griffin pointed out based on these 26 minutes

[00:44:29] he probably would have still won best rector but what this movie does amazingly is that what comes after it it doesn't feel like it slumps or anything it keeps going it's such a well structured movie it is it's really it's a

[00:44:41] kind of a detective movie it's a road trip movie I mean it's a lot of different kind of things that all you know wrapped it's a buddy comedy it's a buddy comedy wrapped in this horrifying package yeah and it's a film so to me like the

[00:44:53] idea I think a lot of people not a lot but I remember there was some complaint that like Spielberg found this sort of cheesy narrative for his World War 2 movie right like this idea of them trying to rescue this boy you know and there's that very stirring

[00:45:07] Harvey Presnell is George Marshall I love him I love it too where he reads the Abraham Lincoln letter he puts the letter down it's clear he just got it memorized yeah yeah we are gonna get those details yeah exactly and the president pause

[00:45:19] when he goes the mother of five sons killed it's just like this great like I don't know it's just so well done we are gonna get him the hell oh I have to say I could do it all day so yeah so it goes from D-day to cut

[00:45:31] cutting to the the office we can't talk about the first 26 minutes so let's just go to that first 26 minutes horrifying yeah but they're incredible they're incredible but they're basically free in a section of beach so so tanks can come it's Omaha Beach yeah um do you folks know

[00:45:45] that Charles Durning was like in one of those boats that Charles Durning was like a friend right guy landing on the beaches of Normandy there's an amazing YouTube video one of my favorite actors of all time RIP but there's an amazing video I recommend to all Blankies out

[00:45:59] there of him at like the hundredth anniversary of D-day at at the White House and Tom Hanks introduces him and Charles Durning just tells the story and it's the most haunting thing he was he doesn't Josh Rubin do a good Charles

[00:46:13] Durning we should get him back to this he did a great Charles Durning but yeah so it goes to the war office and basically they find out and so there was this thing this real life thing with the Sullivan brothers where

[00:46:25] they were all on the same boat because they wanted to stay together the boat sank and they lost all their sons basically like the Arthur Miller plan but anyway so they find out that three of the Ryan brothers have been killed two in Europe one in New Guinea

[00:46:39] so you're saying this was sort of loosely inspired by that thing yeah and I think they referenced the solovents even in the movie at one point so is it in this sequence where we watch the car drive up the road in Iowa and the mother

[00:46:53] and she walks out onto the porch and does that when she sees the hood cap and get out of the car and she does that like wobble and then like has to it's like it's seared in my brain why I talked about in the Lost World episode

[00:47:07] like and these are things we're going to keep singing every fucking episode of this even when the movies are bad but like Spielberg so good at blocking right yeah and getting this sort of especially in this way we have these really long takes

[00:47:21] and you're going around these crazy large amount of spaces with a ton of characters and it always feels very organically laid out it never feels like Vin Diesel's on his mark even though you know everyone has to be so precise the landing in the right place

[00:47:35] and he always just has everything frame perfectly the other thing is and this movie is a really good argument for this he's so good at knowing when can they shit through a gesture mm-hmm you know just these little things like Presnell looking up from the sheet

[00:47:49] yeah or the wobble of the mother he understands like these very small moments or a little hanky little shaky hand yeah and it even feels to me like you know and I'm projecting here but like you know and this is like a thing they say about like filmmaking

[00:48:03] is like know when you don't need the line there like the line the script is to explain it so that the actor understands or the director understands but you can cut the line and find a way to convey it visually

[00:48:13] and there are a lot of moments in this movie where it's like a shittier director would have had a character say that and he knows how to do it in like a glance agreed? I want to finish my point or do you want to... no, finish your point

[00:48:25] just about this story which we were talking about the Private Ryan story which is cheesy and like that Lincoln letter is cheesy and Harvey Presnell is kind of cheesy when he's like I love it, I'm just... it's righteous cheese exactly

[00:48:37] but I do and like though so the whole premise of the movie is these eight guys are you know banded into a little company to try and find Ryan like a band of brothers yeah one could say we marry few

[00:48:47] and one would say just a few years later exactly so the whole time they're going they're debating like what the fuck is the point of this there's eight of us like putting our lives in the line for one guy and it is like to me a perfect

[00:48:59] metaphor for the foolishness of like war you know like and at the same time like the nobility they're in right? like it's like that contradiction exactly like and the idea that they are debating at the whole time I love that scene where Hanks, where Miller

[00:49:17] is there like well if you were griping what would you say and he says I think this is a great use of military resources that's what I was referencing when you know how clever the script is yes yes and something they like about Miller

[00:49:27] the grunt you know in his command is that he's witty and like he has a kind of cool authority in that way exactly like he's not gonna break authority and they respect that but he also is gonna like wink at them and sort of be self aware

[00:49:39] and not just like bark orders at them like a robot one to set up at the pool about if they can get him to reveal personal details it's like such a good device that also says so much about every character so let's go through the company

[00:49:51] I want to go through the company so we've talked about Hanks, we've talked about Eddie Burns as a B.A.R. gunner the least interesting guy in the group right yeah he's alright I think it's about the least interesting character and performance I don't think either is bad

[00:50:03] but I think I think he's the most classic sort of World War II GI kind of guy right like he's always the New York guy yeah exactly he's from Brooklyn he's got the B.A.R. so he's got the big gun and then so you got Tom Seismore

[00:50:23] is Sergeant Horvath who's like the second in command yeah he's like the fall in guy and he's got the good like bomber jacket on like he's got like a different outfit and he's constantly covered in some sort of like ash or dirt like right he's just never clean

[00:50:37] oh he's like a pile of deli meat yeah I think he's great and he's great he's in bringing up the dead the next year and she's fantastic oh yeah he's been in strange day like this was his moment where well yeah

[00:50:51] and we should crash is right after this yeah he's a total wackadoo but he's a pretty good actor back in the day yeah what else is he he's in Pearl Harbor right yeah that's like his last black Hawk down which he's very good in so both of those

[00:51:05] 2001 he was indeed a and Pearl Harbor and and the battle of Mogadishu is terrible and Heidi Fleiss so you've got a berry pepper yeah what are you having a berry pepper as Daniel Jackson so good in 25th hour and years later just and the during the D-day invasion

[00:51:23] the shot when he's you know sniping and it zooms in on his eye I was like what are what is this this is so stylish I just like I mean there's so many interesting things happening proof that's Wilburic such a good filmmaker

[00:51:37] who knows to put a little pepper on the dish he's got such a face Spielberg cast some real faces like Mary Pepper's got such a weird face that's why he's got faces out the ass he was also well of course right that's what happened to berry pepper is

[00:51:53] he was in battlefield earth and that like ruined his career that's right but is he a Scientologist or is he just I actually don't think so too much pepper I don't think he's Canadian but he's really good in 25th hour movie the three burials of Melchiodis's Thrata

[00:52:09] with January Jones yeah forgotten by time but he's not like I can they love that movie yeah he's really good in Lone Ranger and yeah yeah I was like him I'm still excited whenever shows always really fucking good true grits yeah he's good in true

[00:52:25] yes he's actually been in some he's around some some big stuff yeah but he likes to disappear into the tapestry a little he's community he's Tom Tom Hardy asking utility yeah um you got Adam Goldberg as fish yeah the Jewish member of the party yeah

[00:52:41] uh who's pretty yeah good at I mean as Adam Goldberg often is he's a brimming over with rage at all times yeah certainly by 1944 everyone knew that something really awful was happening yeah yeah although I think when they arrived at the death camps like a lot of I

[00:52:57] think no one knew the extent of it but yeah exactly I want one of the most shattering episodes of being a brother yeah and also but you know yeah Hitler you know his was much discussed you know in the 20s and 30s it was just people were

[00:53:09] sort of like oh well you know what's he gonna do someone asked me once they were like what's the name of that Jewish actor and I was like okay first of all this is fucking offensive the fact that you just say that well who are you trying

[00:53:19] to talk about they were like oh the guy in days of confusion I was like oh no no Adam Goldberg okay right that is the right I think he's the one guy you could call that he's in a movie called the Hebrew Hammer in which he plays

[00:53:29] that that is true yeah that was supposed to be his break that angry Jewish guy yeah he was a Chandler's weird roommate and friends around this time he's really good in this the kid he's confused he's the guy who punches the guy

[00:53:41] who looks like Chris Cornell and I thought for years was Chris Cornell but it's not it's so much it's oh in days to confuse maybe it is maybe maybe I think yeah yeah yeah um this is probably his best dramatic performance right probably although

[00:53:55] you know he's done a lot of good work over the years but yeah he's he's a sort of an unheralded guy not to spoil anything but I think he certainly has the most gruesome death in the movie no questions that

[00:54:05] of the main of the main people and the most sort of emotionally disturbing yeah definitely yeah then you got Vin Diesel as Adrian Caparza my boy his favorite small role Spielberg at scene and little short he made multi-facial and tossed him in there I mean

[00:54:19] talk about casting a face she reminds me of my sister so he's so don't you agree he's really terrific there's a really marvelous 10 minutes physical acting that he does when he's picking up the apples well that's really good

[00:54:31] the apple thing is really good but then when he gets shot and he falls down on the piano and then like it's like you know tries to stand and it's just like this really marvelous like it's almost balletic in a way

[00:54:41] you're totally right I don't think of him in that in those terms but yeah anyway yeah that's why I'm actually surprised that you'd never seen the movie before because I figured just as like a Vin complete that was always the largest incentive I had the block was always

[00:54:53] it's a warm movie I'm not gonna have a good time watching this but the Vin thing was always pushing me and I thought he was in it less than he was I mean he's the first guy in the group to die

[00:55:01] but he has some moments you know and he's pretty prominently sort of placed for that first chunk he is yeah I mean I pay attention to detail you know the little line he has about you know I always watch the details you talk about Spielberg casting

[00:55:13] faces all these guys got really distinct faces and really distinct voices yeah in a movie like this especially we have such a kinetic disorienting style and it is a war film they're all wearing the same clothes in the same helmet it really

[00:55:25] does help to be like you're not gonna mistake anyone else for Vin Diesel no it's true you're not gonna mistake anyone for Jeremy Davies or well yeah exactly these are all very very different actors yeah that's true I really true do you mind your ABC as the medic

[00:55:39] as medic that's a win-win who has that wonderful monologue I guess it is in the church where he's talking about his mother then you know and he's the one who copies out Vin Diesel's letter to get the blood off of it Rabisi an actor I like

[00:55:51] also a really emotionally devastating death yes oh god he's an actor I like a lot and I don't say this in negative way but he can definitely like make a meal out of mannerism when he wants to you know he can be really

[00:56:03] I think he often gets cast by people who are like who should play this squirrelly little weirdo in our movie for 10 minutes let's get Giovanni Rabisi in here and just dial it up when it's the right movie

[00:56:13] and that's the fun thing to do is to dial it up and that's saying in a negative way but he is also very very restrained in this film I mean you look at that monologue where it's especially

[00:56:23] like I was watching and I was like oh man this is one of those monologues that like if you're in a shitty acting class every young actor would want to do to show how sensible you know and like restrained they are with their emotions

[00:56:35] but he really he holds it back yeah no and he's not playing weirdo at all he's playing I think he seems to be one of the most normally one of the smarter smarter yeah and he was your prime cut in this movie

[00:56:47] if you had to do a power ranking of cuties and saving for a run he was definitely I mean he would yeah he was sort of I was into him for a while um and I you know like we're in no at burns at burns

[00:56:59] at the time he's so cute don't judge me it was like who is that we didn't know it was 98 we didn't know look at that hair he looks great then he has the thing at the end about the lady with the boobs

[00:57:09] and everything and I was like sexy you know I don't know carry on please nope no I'm not gonna stop sexy thanks Jeremy Davies one of my favorite yeah favorite character actor yeah yeah cartographer and interpreter he was on loss also a great physical

[00:57:25] acting when he's trying typewriter when he's trying to get his gear yeah incredible and that is almost chaplain escort he'd like then the shell falls down he's trying to fix the shelf and that's a wonder yeah that whole scene there are Germans you know and Tom

[00:57:39] Hanks is just standing there letting him do it thanks is great yeah that's my favorite performance in the movie I mean I'm deep in the pocket for Davies well so he had been in um he'd been spanking the monkey which is big breakout role the first

[00:57:51] day of the Russell movie which he's phenomenal right and he's like now a little bit yeah he's one of those actors that I adore yeah he's definitely a type you know he's got his thing yeah he can modulate his thing you know for various things but

[00:58:05] uh he can modulate his things various things I'm a hate film bisexual is he oh boy I think modulation I love him sorry so much in Solaris a few years later he would I would nominate him for an Oscar for that performance

[00:58:21] I would borderline nominate him for this oh absolutely yeah no it's a terrific way I mean the only thing working against him is that the film is such an ensemble yeah but everything he does in this film is incredible he's also the biggest emotional

[00:58:33] arc and he's the griffiest character if I'm gonna be able to connect to any character in this movie that I don't understand it's him I think he's great in dogville did he win a griffy that year yeah he won the griffy that year and of course

[00:58:45] he's Daniel Faraday and lost my favorite character and lost one of the best characters lost and and what has he done since well he wasn't justified which he's fantastic in and other than that he's done like fucking tv get spots

[00:58:55] he hasn't done enough he hasn't done a talky since it's kind of a funny story so yeah it's true he's such a specific actor and I do feel like you need to find the right spot for him yeah but

[00:59:05] it is sad that we don't get enough JD maybe he doesn't want to he strikes me as one of those guys who maybe just wants to do what he wants to do I think he also might be a little difficult I could see him being very

[00:59:13] very exacting on set he's such a mannered actor yeah and that can be tough if you want to like direct him yeah I don't know um another small performance I wanted to point out before I forgot there's so many good ones

[00:59:25] there's so many good I mean you know just Dennis Farina is great the guy who sends him on that send him on the show but Leland Orser yeah he's great he's the kind of really like shell-shocked pilot who talks about the plate you know

[00:59:37] like that's just such a good scene he's a great uh yeah messed up guy Leland Orser he's so you need someone to be real messed up isn't he the revealed to be the villain in the bone collector that's correct no this movie was a real bone collector

[00:59:53] let me tell ya that's why I wanted to join the army collect some bone bones yeah Farina is great Harvey Presnell who we mentioned who had been in Fargo a couple years earlier he's such a great Cranston with one arm Cranston with one arm one arm Cranston uh

[01:00:07] Giamatti Ted Danson as we you know Jane Kazmarek had bitten it off that's that's what was happening absolutely and he took him three years to regrow it yeah Nathan Phillion kills his fucking soul great scene because Nathan Phillion I was talking about this with

[01:00:19] Joanna who uh such a good buffoon yeah and it's a great buffoon moment even though you feel for the guy yeah and he just nails it where it's like this could be private right he's almost exactly the same as Matt Damon except

[01:00:31] you know a bit of a doofus yeah a bit more of a doofus but for Castle but for well Firefly and you know that's I thought Castle was fun here yeah yeah yeah it is it's objectively fun uh yeah um

[01:00:47] those of us like I feel cast and this is the guys that guy his name is Jorg Stadler who plays Steambot Willie plays the German oh yeah soldier Betty Boop what a dish what a dish that's a good one scene performance a really strong one scene he's

[01:01:01] in several scenes it felt like such a long I don't know well right but you know he pops back up it's one sequence I mean it's sort of yeah that whole sequence is incredible yeah so yeah what yeah what happens so then they just go on this journey

[01:01:13] on the mission you know gathers his guys sort of pilgrims progress they just kind of they meet different and yeah they're journeying through it's a really ingenious way to show you know so you have the scene with the the French

[01:01:23] people in their bombed out house and trying to give their kids away you see um a shell shocked pilot and a bunch of airborne guys who are like really like in the shit you know we're dropped it all wrong yeah and there's that guy who had

[01:01:35] the grenade go off and he's yelling that guy's really funny whoever that yeah yeah yeah um so you see these kind of different pockets of the conflict and you see the men's cynicism like boiling throughout like the great scene where they're going through the dog tags like with

[01:01:49] utter dispassion and then Rebezi is like stop he stops them and he even stops thanks yeah because Miller is making is to kind of you know he's kind of smiling and nodding yeah so they just kind of go and then they finally find well people die

[01:02:03] kind of it was a Vin Diesel shop by a sniper and that's where you have Barry Pepper is really cool with those little pepper on it and actually I was I was noticing if he's the pepper is is um Ed Burns is the salt right

[01:02:15] yeah so salty Ed Burns and Vince that snake um can I tell a Vin story quickly always um so you know Vin felt like he was fighting an uphill battle because he was so unconventional in type and sort of his always mysterious

[01:02:33] ethnic background that he still has never um you know made clear um and uh he couldn't get cast in anything really um so he made his own stuff and he made the short film will be facial that was about his struggles of not being easily

[01:02:49] type castable Spielberg saw that loved it I think he loves actors who are also filmmakers which also probably peeled indeed Ed Burns how does Spielberg see something like that it just gets past I think Spielberg is constantly being barraged with like yeah you should check

[01:03:03] this out right like yeah I would also imagine guy like Spielberg has like filter people be like hey what's the stuff I should actually see because didn't Alden Aaron right break because Steven Spielberg saw him at a bar mitzvah yeah correct he was in a

[01:03:17] sketch video at a bar mitzvah I did not know that that is crazy that's but if I were Steven Spielberg that's what I do I'll constantly just be so enamored of my power yeah to like literally transform someone's life if I

[01:03:27] like saw like any kind of potential in him I think I mean of course he's been wrong I guess or he's like but he's pretty good I think part of its right place right time and part of it's like he just has a really good

[01:03:39] eye right I gotta pee guys so he made this short Spielberg saw it right and then cast him in this right and you know Vin is a guy who who is not very modest you know he's a very confident man in terms

[01:03:51] of abilities now he's in a fucking Steven Spielberg movie and he's starting to get momentum because he's got the heat he was sort of anointed whatever so he gets cast in reindeer games as the Ben Affleck part or no to be one of Gary Senees's flunkies

[01:04:07] he's like part of the one of the heavies right in the group but like ensemble kind of physical presence role and on set John Frankenheimer asked him to take his shirt off and he said I only take my shirt off for Vin Diesel movies

[01:04:21] and he there was no such thing as Vin Diesel yeah yeah and he went what and he goes I save that for Vin Diesel movies and they were like what the fuck and he stood his ground they fired him from the movie wow and then he got

[01:04:35] pitch black and he takes his fucking shirt off because it's a Vin Diesel movie yeah like the next year pitch black Iron Giant is that same year he took his shirt off and then when he was recording if you watch the B-roll

[01:04:47] he's shirtless the whole time they were recording Iron Giant and then the year after that's passed in furious like just as quickly as he got fired from and he really dodged a bullet there but it's like he plays the titular role in an American animated classic

[01:05:01] wait who do you know who got the part that he was fired from some random yeah it's some guy who just was beefy and took his shirt off there you go Randy today isn't that amazing though I only take my shirt off

[01:05:15] and he's so sure that that would be a thing 100% Vin Diesel he's totally right and now he's triple X coming back back at ya with who's the crazy person who's in that movie Tony Collette thank you yeah yeah Ruby Rose yeah but Tony Collette is like

[01:05:31] what I am so in the back it's like Juliet Benoche being in Godzilla in Ghost of the Machine Ghost of the Machine and this one is Laura Linney in Tange Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 out of the shadows Joan Allen in Death Rage

[01:05:45] well she directed it I mean it's just kind of like a Hitchcockian cameo and you wrote it well I mean Laura would dispute that but we haven't even discussed your directorial debut trolls my trolls yeah your trolls did you love my trolls of course I loved your trolls

[01:05:59] have you seen my trolls Griffin this has been Richard's best please love my trolls please I work so hard on my trolls I've seen people here no one will remember that that fucking movie existed you out there in podcast land have you seen my trolls

[01:06:17] my trolls is now on DVD probably is you getting that E.P.K ready for your trolls I am 1 million comedy points what's your favorite thing about your trolls my trolls oh there's just so much I just love that they all sound like Anacondrick definitely

[01:06:39] the best sound of nature that's scrappy little nobody Anacay so there's this scene where they Giovanni dies while they're trying to take out a machine gun and then the problem with that is that they could have gone around but then Hanks is like well

[01:06:59] we're just gonna leave this for someone else so we gotta do it and that sort of duty thing and that really frustrates them that's when Burns freaks out and then Hanks is like how much is a pool up to Pennsylvania of course he could only be from Pennsylvania

[01:07:17] because it's mid-Atlantic it doesn't have absolutely much of an identity unless it's not from coal country it's just sort of like but we never get to the bottom of where Ed Burns' character is from no it's a mystery total mystery Southern California yeah totally son of intellectuals

[01:07:37] does he start crying after he gives that speech like the Hanks breakdown scene where he privately goes off and starts crying I can't remember if it's right before or right after I think it's right before and then he kind of snaps out of it but that's his

[01:07:53] so his leadership and then he just goes over the hill and breaks down I think they get the gun and then they're going to kill the German and Jeremy Davis is up him he prevails on them to be moral and to

[01:08:07] not shoot a prisoner of war so they send him marching off supposedly towards the allies but of course he gets picked up by the Germans again right and I think yeah that's when all that's happening that's when Ed Burns freaks out and Tom sighs more points

[01:08:21] at gunning him and you know once again to his credit Tom Hanks has like three separate Oscar monologues in this movie three scenes that feel like they're tailor made and he doesn't play any of them like he was nominated for it right

[01:08:33] he was yeah he lost to Nicholson right for as good as it gets no that was the year before he lost to Benini he lost to Benini so you know the nominees that year Benini literally climbed over his chair

[01:08:47] for the listener at home Ben is currently standing on top of the table Hanks was never going to win he had two Oscars and it's an ensemble movie and it's a more subdued role with McKellen and Gods and Monsters which is a great performance

[01:09:01] Nick Nolte in Affliction which is a really good underrated performance and Edward Norton in American History X which is not a movie I'm fond of but he's quite good in it you guys who would you pick McKellen probably I think I would Joseph Fiennes

[01:09:17] who would you pick Richie I would pick I would think I would go with McKellen as well I'm trying to think of like I would pick Bill Condon in movies like that yeah hey Billy and now he's doing Beauty and the Goddamn Beast that looks like

[01:09:33] next week when that's happening is that true is it that soon no it's in March I think some great male performances lead male performances that year at Jim Carrey in The Truman Show and he famously wasn't nominated

[01:09:47] he won the Golden Globe and said you know what this means I'm a shoe in for the Blockbuster Award Dave Foley in A Bug's Life George Clooney in Out of Sight Jeff Bridges in Big Lebowski Jason Schwarzman in Rushmore Taylor Leoni in Deep Impact

[01:10:02] I mean depth in fear and living if that's your speed you got John Travolta in Primary Colors a lot of great movies in 1998 Vanessa Redgrave in Deep Impact keep going John Favreau Laura Einz I don't actually know how you say that Lili Sobieski right yeah yeah absolutely

[01:10:26] what a movie oh no that's 99 right election is 99 I was going to say Broderick but that's the following year election is 99 yes so then they finally arrive right at a in Doveville which is made up town in France bombed to shit

[01:10:46] it's supposed to be like Doveville or someone like that and they meet Ryan this kind of rag tank and they're guarding a bridge because during that stage of the conflict bridges were really important because if you didn't have bridges you couldn't get tanks across

[01:10:58] it was all about the tanks yeah so they decide to have this kind of last Alamo stand right because Ryan's like I'm not getting I'm not being like airlifted out of here are you crazy like I'm no more

[01:11:10] he has a great scene where he goes and hides and breaks down too Damon terrific oh what am I talking about he's the cutest boy in the movie of course he cute he has the big monologue about when they all humiliated sexually some woman in a barn

[01:11:26] and oh god that's right don't do it you're a young man well delivered monologue a good scene a very Damon kind of like boyish but decent I don't know and that's a scene I feel like a lot of actors don't pull off on screen laughing is

[01:11:42] underrated as a hard thing to do and it's not a particularly funny story no I like he sells it and he's like that funny to him I like that Hanks that Miller is kind of like sort of giving him the like

[01:11:54] you know like this sort of half smile just to be like alright I'm listening to you I mean this isn't my favorite story but and then when he says what about those gardening gloves and Hanks just goes now yeah that's for me this is the very curt no

[01:12:04] and then the pause before that's just that's a really well written and and then that that then it I think it goes from there to them with to the other guys listening to Edith P off on the the troll or whatever that is the gramophone burn song the

[01:12:18] and yeah and then the tension just is coiling and coiling and coiling because you know it's coming you know it's coming and I just think that it's so well built and you have this feeling of dread because they're having this moment of kind of contemplative

[01:12:30] peace and quiet you know and then you but you know that this thing is coming and yes it's a really well done bit of tension and as a storytelling move it's like the home movies them trying to find the guy they find the guy he

[01:12:42] goes I'm not leaving and now the movie goes hey guess what surprise here's another hour yeah the mission is now to keep the guy alive because he's not coming with us yeah so we have to have a bond and basically right side

[01:12:54] uh yeah he says that he's like yeah he's like you're not leaving me where am I going to be and he goes within 20 20 feet of me at right so you know the D-Day sequence obviously is like utterly realistic and devoted to realism this is more action movie

[01:13:06] of an action movie war set piece it like throws a little realism out the window a little bit they have these little sticky bombs of the socks although I think those are real yeah I just think like you know some of those things were like

[01:13:16] D-Day veterans saw this movie and a lot of them said like you know it was tremendously accurately portrayed the landings whereas this stuff is more like military tactics quote unquote maybe being ignored but uh it's a terrific but it's a siege

[01:13:28] thing and they have to kind of bottleneck them and it's a whole yeah um but it's so well done and terrifying Goldberg gets a knife very very slowly driven into his heart while saying no no no no no which I'd say is the worst speed

[01:13:40] a knife could be pushed into your heart is slow and this is where Uppam has Jeremy Davis has his big uh sort of I don't know I mean it's where Simba Willey the German well which is a bit of a contrivance I think

[01:13:52] you know given the chaos of this whole I would say it's the one cheesy twist of the movie I'd pick one other moment I think there's one moment where Spielberg really Spielberg said okay I think it's the conversation with old Damon and his wife

[01:14:06] I think guilds the lily a little too hard do you like the book end at all or do you think I like the book end I think that should be like two lines of dialogue but he's like am I a good

[01:14:14] man and she's yeah and I think she says way too much I think it's really overwritten it is because at that point we've already we know you've got us we're on your side you know yeah it just it feels a little indulgent yeah that's

[01:14:26] the one moment where I felt like Spielberg was really playing the strings you know and I think that that is something that has animated his career for a long long time is that he can't he has a hard time resisting that and he has all these incredible

[01:14:38] serious impulses that grew as a filmmaker as he went on but there's still that kind of schmaltzy thing that which you know I love some good schmaltz once appropriate I think where it often fails him specifically at endings I think endings are exactly

[01:14:52] the problem I mean you look at something like AI yeah which I think is an is a really profound my favorite really beautiful movie you're not my favorite of all but it should but it should end with him at the bottom

[01:15:04] of the ocean I disagree and I will defend it very stringently next week I think you know AI is one of the greatest pieces of science fiction ever written I mean I I see both sides yeah but I mean I do agree that it's like filmmaking or

[01:15:18] traditional storytelling that ending is tough to take Lincoln could have ended before it ends oh that's the worst Lincoln's about Lincoln that's the worst that just keeps going you're like alright you know Bridget Spies has it you know there's a lot of things where you

[01:15:30] guys has three endings yeah like why'd you tack on these extra five minutes we get it with him asleep in the bed he's just a little he's getting a little too grandfatherly and he's like well just in case you didn't understand he wants

[01:15:40] to soothe you that's the thing is he ever went to leave feeling you know my already reported as well has yeah there's a bunch of endings there he always multiple endings great movie yeah he has multiple endings always multiple resolutions yeah and then it always

[01:15:54] just feels like at the end of the ride he's unwilling to take his foot off the gas like it's his encore you know yeah it's a band you know he's got a you want a little you want one more maybe you should put it after the

[01:16:06] credits Marvel style you know that's right yeah he's only made one perfect movie and it's called the terminal and you wrote it well that's why it's perfect because I was like no that's the thing it was on the no beginning no ending no middle

[01:16:22] nope I mean structurally it's the perfect move wild you were just sitting there at your screen and you were like I just need one line I need her to say something get away from me I'm sick that's something she screams early in them

[01:16:36] we'll get to the terminal well we'll get the peak valleys and we won't be able to leave will be stuck there forever you guys know I was born in Krakowia right that tanks is number one worse performance with a bullet what the hell is that

[01:16:48] horrible I mean you'll talk about it but what is that movie it's one of those things Steven Spielberg wanted to build might with and it's but it's one of those things it's kind of like you know we were talking about lion which at this point

[01:17:00] is now for a while but you know where someone tells you the story you're like wow what a holy shit story how could that not be a good movie like that'll be great and we'll have all the little airport guys like we'll have a little

[01:17:12] ensemble be funny I heard him explain it once but we'll save that for the terminal episode I heard him explain in retrospect why he did it like we've said before he's he's like a lot of people like you know not everyone likes the Phantom Menace

[01:17:26] he's like no everyone likes it people who don't like it are stupid this he also knows when when he hits it out of the ballpark like he's not arrogant but I think if you ask me that's in part right I'm pretty fucking good movie right

[01:17:40] that one that one it's pretty good whatever what is some I'm trying to think of someone that's the guy who blows up the sticky bomb blow up that's pretty crazy yeah oh yeah Barry Pepper's death is really arresting the tank

[01:17:52] oh yeah yeah I mean there are just so many bits in this this kind of siege sequence that are just so well done and it's like paying attention to all these details and motion and you know and you I think a really important

[01:18:04] thing that is not true of a lot of big kind of action scenes like this is that you really have a good sort of sense of the space yeah like the spatial awareness of where everyone is and what's going on I think is it as clear

[01:18:16] as it can be great totally absolutely and it's a complicated siege that's happening here and you get you get it the stakes of it are laid out geographically very well it's an excellent movie I'll never watch it again as long as I'm

[01:18:28] probably gonna watch it again probably like the year or two from now okay I just come back to it every so often I own it great yeah in the end I mean you know I remember when I first saw it being

[01:18:38] just like way I can't believe that after all that they kill Captain Miller sure you know he has that great earn this you know fucking hanks a lot of actors would would would botch that line or sorry to sell it too hard

[01:18:50] earn that's what makes a movie stars you notice how to do the throw away stuff like that yeah he's so corny and but it's so perfectly it's it's it's the yeah it's the kind of like apex of this kind of great generation yes you know although

[01:19:04] but it doesn't shy away from the brutality yeah which I think is what makes it art yes I agree I mean I do think that's why this movie gets dismissed because it's seen as this like almost jingoistic greatest generation like oh boy you know that's

[01:19:20] when men were men and you know courage was real or I don't know but it's it's a go ahead I mean maybe it's just because I hadn't seen it until now and I've been able to like I remember when the movie came out I remember the immediate reaction

[01:19:32] I remember the backlash the backlash to the backlash how it's aged all of this but I watching it last night found it a lot more restrained than I thought it would be I think people make too much of a meal out of the Spielberg tendencies in the movie

[01:19:46] you know I agree this is a very tough movie to watch it is not gauzy at all and it's it's got like a real kind of humanist message to it but but it's buried in a lot of shit like it doesn't it's not

[01:19:58] that does not uh you know transcend everything else the film is saying it doesn't overwhelm it can we talk about something I think we just need to address it that I think all three of us are gonna agree is a non-issue

[01:20:10] sure but it's a thing that people talk about in relation to this movie and I had heard about it before seeing it the trick with the sort of misdirect of making you think it's probably Hanks at the beginning of the film oh because it goes into

[01:20:22] his eyes yeah I know people who like are furious about that and say that's very dishonest filmmaking but but it's like no it's not it's not it's just a misdirect and he doesn't tell you it's fucking Hanks he just like makes you

[01:20:36] you you assume that you put that together in your head they don't cut from the old guys eyes to Hanks his eyes interesting I never assumed that I don't know really yeah I think it was at the beginning they zoom in on his eye

[01:20:46] and then the next shot is the helmet lifting yeah right yes yeah yeah yeah who do you know who's so worked up about this people say that I can't remember because I didn't seen it and I was like you know it was an ending

[01:20:58] up to a movie I hadn't watched the beginning of you know I've been to that graveyard in Normandy I always wanted to go yeah when I moved to Britain like the first vacation we went on was to Britain was we first vacation we went on was to Normandy

[01:21:10] and we went to all the beaches which are crazy to visit I'm sure and people like go swimming there no it's all memorial they must because like we were we were there I think in like February or something so it was like very bleak and gray

[01:21:24] and yeah and if like it always is you know there are sunny days in my head that's what it's like yeah but that graveyard is staggering it is staggering to see it like the amount of graves like I mean it's like Arlington river but Arlington is a military

[01:21:38] graveyard so it's many you know but like this thing where you're just seeing like a battle basically represented in dead it's crazy thousands right yeah crazy that final morph effect is incredible too when it morphs from Damon's face older actor oh yeah amazing how well done

[01:21:52] it the older actor is called and then Harrison and then black or white and then black or white starts playing yeah I was just gonna say it's like a counterpoint that's like the only good morph in history well it's got some decent morphs

[01:22:04] not at the same level of like the matrix movies have a really fun morph yeah yeah an X-man has a good morph X-man the team has a good morph alright so we should mention that this film lost a best picture

[01:22:18] to Shakespeare in love and was seen as a surprising upset I won the Oscar pool at the party that year we talked about this around grown ups because I picked Shakespeare in love because I had seen it you well you made the right choice

[01:22:30] and at the time I felt very conflicted because I loved both movies I adore both movies I don't know don't make me pick I love them both I also love the thin red line Shakespeare in love is great incredible I think it's one of the funniest comedies that

[01:22:46] who's he, Gwyneth Paltrow won and then I wanted to save and write a one best picture so I was a little disappointed but I remember at the time going to school the next day and people being like

[01:22:56] and I was like no I mean Shakespeare in love is great just because it's you know I've always stuck up for Shakespeare in love because I feel like it gets unfairly I mean it's a god damn Tom Stoppard script it's really good it's the best

[01:23:06] and yes I mean also I guess it's just acquired that reputation as like the ultimate like Harvey Weinstein like gorilla campaign well the lore is that that was what really that was the most you know but how did he sink

[01:23:18] Saving Private Ryan because it's it is true that Saving Private Ryan almost seemed was it just like that the Oscar Vosia just you know given Schindler's list best picture of years ago so they were like it's okay we can miss this one right I think especially

[01:23:30] because it's like I mean this is what this is five years after Schindler's list but there's only three two movies in between it's Spielberg movies yeah yeah you know so it's like that's pretty close to like true then something the biggest movie of the year and like

[01:23:44] probably one of the most biggest received and like just a huge you know it's like it should be Oscar catnip and one could imagine so this was these were the days I believe just just kind of pre-screeners you know so you voters would actually have to go

[01:23:58] yeah to a theater in LA or New York and see the thing and you know a lot of people are old you know do you want to go see a three hour war film or do you want to go see a two hour

[01:24:08] thing that's like nice and a romance like you know maybe that had some effect but I'll actually say Harvey was one of the guys who really made screeners a thing and I think this might have been one of the years

[01:24:18] actually so he would be he would be said counter work DVDs existed at that time and then they would send VHS screeners imagine yeah seriously it was VHS screeners and the big thing was I think Ryan that worked in his favor

[01:24:30] yeah Shakespeare in love is like a perfect VHS right yeah and there's a lot of that that still happens now where you know and I know that a lot of the studios are trying to get people to actually go see them

[01:24:40] in the theater so they kind of at you do added value with Q&A's and all this shit it's still people would still rather get the DVDs and watch at home you know grown-ups don't go see movies that's the great tragedy of the

[01:24:50] black landscape and it really affects things I mean you know I think that you know I'm glad it didn't but like had the revenant that everyone has seen it in a theater because it's so cinematic whatever like they that

[01:25:02] probably would have beat spotlight which plays beautifully on the screener um but I will never forget Harrison Ford who presented best picture that you're going Shakespeare in love because they so obviously thought you know be a Harrison gets to give Stevie another Oscar John Madden

[01:25:20] or no the producers Harvey Harvey Weinstein among them and that was like Zwick right and there were like six producers for Shakespeare in love and that was when the Oscars changed the producer rules so like you can only have so many nominated which is still true

[01:25:34] box office game yeah so this I know because I 98 was maybe like the peak of my box office tracking obsession you know because I've been in a couple years and this is why I really started to get serious so I know that the three highest

[01:25:48] grossing films of 1998 all came out in the same month interesting so I assume that I can guess three out of the five sight unseen without any I don't know in the places but I would assume all three of the top grossing films in 1998 are in the five

[01:26:02] same private Ryan obviously is number one the week it comes out um yes same private Ryan opens number one this is July 24th 1998 with 30 million dollars as it's opening weekend it eventually grosses 216 insane so that's a huge multiplier and makes 480 million dollars do you

[01:26:22] think that these days it dropped like 20% every week for like three months would this movie come out in the summer no absolutely no it would be a fall right there's no way this or spring look American Samper County January and you know that it would be like

[01:26:36] Christmas Day release and then a wide release in January yes 100% so Ridge was September right that's no we came out it was October came out in November Jesus what's the yeah I mean it's you know but yeah I just that's it's just so surprising

[01:26:52] that that third weekend in July that's a big weekend and that was a big summer blockbuster and you think of a movie that's this difficult in so many ways rated and really already you know like it's surprising but it was I remember like all the boys

[01:27:04] in my grade went to go see it because it was like their parents like this is important you know yeah for sure and they were excited to go see it okay so the other two highest grossing films in 98 well okay fine

[01:27:14] you want to show off I want to show off Armageddon has to still be in the top five it is number five with 11 million it's made 149 and something about Mary has to be number four 12 million 40 million dollars so it's gonna have a long life

[01:27:26] it's it's a it famously doesn't hit number one until week eight that one just sticks around that that's not a thing that happens anymore it was an amazing box office around yeah but number two is one of my favorite movies of 1988 that I watched over and over

[01:27:40] and over and over again as a child I own it on VHS I still love it it's great it's a fun rip snorting action adventure starring some great actors it's sexy it's I don't know it's the best Zorro yeah oh that's a great movie

[01:27:56] The Mask of Zorro that's a great that was that movie is fucking great I remember when that was movies being reviewed was about to come out and all the reviews were like it's surprisingly good good good I got so excited

[01:28:06] I took my family to see it we all loved it we were like what fun that was you know Anthony Hopkins Antonio Ben Derris and Catherine Zated Jones NAR do you know what part of your hand gave it away from me? Rip Snorting it's a rip snorting adventure

[01:28:20] when you hear rip snorting one word comes to mind Zorro when I hear rip snorting I say Mr. Taylor or I would have been better for his rip torn but whatever we can edit that in post do it in post rip Taylor I mean that's a long

[01:28:37] dead that's fine 50 comedy points number three was an action film a sequel in a series it's like not even the second sequel it's a sequel in a long running action series the weapon for correct that does not continue this is the end of yeah

[01:28:53] totally 98 was my was my ballet wick baby let's let's see if we can just gonna knock it down as quickly bottom five what's number six a hilarious family comedy that I've seen a billion times as well are you being sarcastic about the hilarious part yes although certainly

[01:29:09] when I was 12 I thought it was a little jungle no is it Disney picture actually have no idea it's live action it is although there is some animated fun happening to spice up the comedy I did that sort of that sort of a confusing clue

[01:29:29] as a mister act I mean if I say right it's got talking animals in it but I do little Eddie Murphy is doctor do which also was humongous was like the fifth highest grossing film the year huge made the top 10 for 90 is in 405 million

[01:29:45] water boys number four doctor do little is number five the water bugs life is for water boys five doctor do little six rush hour deep impact Godzilla patch Adams of your big movie that's an insane top 10 we never ever will see a top 10 ever again

[01:29:59] that's why God damn man wow that movie would make like 15 million dollars almost straight to the adams out gross lethal weapon for it did and is objectively terrible and was considered so at the time I remember like people weren't like actively angry at that I remember there was

[01:30:21] an SNL sketch like the week after patch Adams came out that was the cold open was two guys at a bar talking about the state of America will was one of them and it was in the middle of all like Clinton white water stuff

[01:30:33] and he was just complaining about everything I mean patch Adams is the number one movie in America God damn that thing looks awful like it was immediately a punchline of like how is this happen especially because it was it was Williams's follow up to

[01:30:45] winning an Oscar and now he's like serious but all you know you know don't you know we don't want you to do this I guess he had done what dreams may come to or that was that's 98 I think yeah so yeah 97 I can't know it's 98

[01:30:59] 6 is doctor do a little 7 7 is a teen movie that I saw in theaters with some teens in it it's a dark teen is it a horror picture I'd call it more of a thriller it's not cruel intention no which I also disturbing behavior

[01:31:15] good one Richard you nailed it alright I didn't mean to I was not going to get that good call David David Nutter who had been directed a lot of X files episodes and now directs like he came through I was gonna say remains a good TV

[01:31:27] director not so much that was think his first film and I don't know if he's done one sense disturbing behavior so Katie Holmes Nick Stahl James Morrison right the great James Morrison number eight number eight is a spoof movie that is bad by I believe

[01:31:41] Abraham's of the Abraham Zucker Abraham Jane Austen's mafia oh that I remember in the trailer had a stay a little my little friend joke yes it and then it was like a little person yes it was yeah I mean he comes

[01:31:55] out from underneath a wedding dress 18 years ago I was like it was a dick joke right no no no no I think he literally comes out from the underside of a wedding dress yes yeah yeah that opened to six million dollars next is a movie that you fucking

[01:32:09] well small soul that Joe Johnson no Joe Dante my guy excuse me me and Griffin are like that annoying couple who play charades at this point where I'm like the next movie is a French crawler and he's like small soldiers made up language is Tommy Lee Jones

[01:32:31] a voice in small soldier yeah he's the major chepaz and who are the kid who plays a kid Gregory Smith I thought that that's right old Kiki that's a and Phil Hartman's in that movie it was his last movie am I right Bill Nunn Bill Nunn and

[01:32:45] Maneson and then also all the Gorgonites other than Franklin Jellop plays a archer the Gorgonites are the spinal tap guys and other than Tommy Lee Jones all the commando elite are the dirty dozen that's it's it's really quite a bizarre little movie Gregory Smith

[01:33:01] by the way who follows me on twitter what's he up to these days Greggie I loved ever would well he did well he did rookie blue for years in the Canadian show that aired in the summer missing peregrine see peregrines in that one and his brother

[01:33:15] Douglas Smith I believe his name is was on big love he was the oldest son oh yeah and their father agent Smith of course is David's best impression that's exactly right yeah David what sorry I wasn't paying attention also just nine number ten is a movie that

[01:33:34] Disney will soon remake just like everything else some of the sound moulon got me right between the ribs is moulon right yes moulon are they actually are doing that they announced that right but then there's another sony's also doing yeah but that's so any project seems like something

[01:33:56] that's never gonna happen right that seems I feel like that's just them pissing in Disney's cornflakes a little bit that's that's that's a Andy Serkis jungle book movie that's not supposed to come out for another two years right oh boy god one can only imagine what that's

[01:34:07] gonna look like he got some other movies Madeline ever is madeline fucking ever is the IMAX experience the Truman show still hanging around as is the X files and fight the high-tech Titanic still in there actually grew by 10% this high-tech is still god damn in there five hundred

[01:34:25] ninety three million dollars it's made and it's thirty second week in the box so wait number thirteen in the Titanic episode you said that the first movie to to depose it from number one was lost in space lost in space which

[01:34:37] was in my what about man in the iron mask did that premiere number two yes okay but I'm not crazy thing with Leo is the star and they thought he was going to throw in himself and instead it was like many iron mask open to 24 or

[01:34:47] something and was like a million below Titanic yeah it was March 15th indeed it opened only three hundred thousand dollars below seventeen point two where these like iconic times are they just seem iconic to me because I live through them you know I mean I'm

[01:35:00] crazy that all these movies were in the theater at one time you know yeah well cuz they're there are movies right yeah I know April 3rd is when lost in space finally claims the throne I mean that's why we started this

[01:35:11] because I like need to talk to other people who view these times as I got right yeah yeah that's the thing that's why we play the box office game cuz you go like can you believe it doctor do little and small soldiers my taking

[01:35:23] up screens at the same time in the house in Rhode Island where I spent summers as a kid might we just have to call the movie theater to get show times and it was just like a repeating oh yeah me too I should do that too

[01:35:33] and so we write you know the times down in a notebook and we still have a lot of the notebooks and I'll flip through and it's like my handwriting from like 13 and it's like all those movies were in the theater just like Waterworld and whatever else it's just

[01:35:43] so crazy but no there's a fucking living yeah then well now the world's over so maybe you know wait is this gonna air post inauguration oh yeah this coming out so early February so no one's ever gonna hear it yeah that's correct that's not impossible

[01:35:58] but you know what we had a good time recorded hey yep we had a fun time Richard always the best thanks for having me again guys it's fun what pleasure what a treat Richard terrific think of an angly movie like should I join the military

[01:36:11] absolutely not you know the angly movie I think would be interesting talk about because it's just such a weird movie is would start oh yeah I've never seen it yeah with its weird gay themes and we didn't talk a lot about doing anyway we'll see we'll see

[01:36:27] alright alright alright have you guys you've both seen Billy Lynn or I haven't taken the walk yet no I took that long after she real bad she real bad another Vin Diesel war movie yeah and he's not gonna I think he's oh don't say that that

[01:36:42] hurts me I had heard Oscar buzz but anyway no one's getting Oscars for that no no I think our head on pretty good Richard's getting Oscar for best guest on this episode yay thank you guys it's funny that the Oscars every

[01:36:56] year try to give out an award for best guest on blank check saving for a Ryan episode and every year there's no contenders until now fucking Christoph Walls keeps winning the same role that love to have him on this podcast he be great

[01:37:10] guest interview was so scary yet next week a I with Christoph Walls yep exactly it's about the robot that is the next one right yeah that's right crazy Spielberg takes some takes another break and punches up a Stanley Kubrick script like we all

[01:37:26] do on when we take a vacation man I just love thinking about those two facts in each other you know they used to fax each other all the time that was like their thing you know Kubrick's like in Scotson is British

[01:37:37] mansion and like you know he would just like write Spielberg of facts you know weird Kubrick thoughts I'm gonna go to Tennessee for the holidays and take a pass at Napoleon that's what I'm gonna do boy I gotta do punch up on that Solaris remastering

[01:37:56] thank you for listening please remember to rate review subscribe tell friends yeah right this is all this stuff to say Benny Ben yeah I always love trying to get Ben's attention at the end when he's obviously stop listening in our any final thoughts wow like it's like the

[01:38:20] calm after a baby episode out there no final thoughts what's where no he's got none I don't know man yeah okay oh yeah you know what alright fine I got something I got something here whoa so I still believe in this our country

[01:38:36] even though it's the world is gonna probably end soon but also you know we can't give up that's it thank you many put some positivity out there we need it we need every bit of positivity we can get and I'm sorry for whatever the

[01:38:50] fuck is happening in America right now as this podcast drops I'm sure it's a pretty weird yeah and I'm sure we're not enjoying it either probably not but thank you for listening thank you for saying that Ben let's all try to remain positive let's all try to find

[01:39:05] our own private Ryan whoever he or it may be hope it's an it hope it's in that it was there a porn parody of this yeah but saving Ryan's private nice saving them from what we can say ruin from being untouched from from atrophy

[01:39:21] from atrophy yeah under you and as always Tom size more than in it too man easy paycheck I thought it was Tom more size oh sorry yeah there's always I don't take my shirt off your being remember when they were trying to

[01:39:41] make Brian Greenburger thing yes they do thank God they did not they tried they tried he tried to make it in America he popped up in something recently didn't yeah he's been on well I don't know if you was he was he's done did like an

[01:39:56] arc on Mindy project but oh it was seeing the ads on Hulu the relentless and right that is that's but God that's five years since he was in how to make America so that's a yeah he's almost 40 wonder what do you think and he was also

[01:40:12] famously on that show on script what was it called on scripted the HBF thing now with George Clooney's act the other one and he was a Milla and he was on October road remember that sure that was Laura pre-pond I think that's right yeah that's the oh that's

[01:40:28] the worst show it's the worst the big-time Hollywood comes home to like shittown know where's bill and it's based on like the screenwriter of Conair right I think it is I think it's Rosenberg whatever I think it's based on his life after writing con air Scott Rosenberg

[01:40:46] Ben Foster's marrying Laura pre-pond which is weird yeah because kind of in IRL Conair was largely improvised it was yeah it was done Borat yeah Larry Charles Conair fun fact about Nick Cage never on a Harold team Ben's new bit

[01:41:09] I like it it works every time it's good oh boy yeah what else have I seen what else have you seen Richard I feel like I watched a couple documentaries oh yeah my rights to Pirate Sea really really good I need to see that

[01:41:25] yeah just anytime I want to I just remember that I'd rather do anything else yeah it's pretty rough yeah exactly I watched it the day before the length of great and then I am not your Negro which is really good the James Baldwin right I

[01:41:37] really want to see that a couple others I need to watch but I've got Patriots Day on Monday oh boy yeah and then silence the next week oh silence wait fuck yeah that I want to see I assume that's a pretty circle can I go really yeah

[01:41:56] you shouldn't oh that would be amazing when is it oh they're right you're actually sorry when is it when is it it's during the next Wednesday 30th remember in the morning great I'll be there see you there Ben seriously buddy just just tell me when

[01:42:12] and I will be there that is my no I know that's your damn maybe it'll be shitty I mean it's happened I dress up yeah you have to dress like a monk from the 16th century though oh yeah right so start my robes out start someone now