Shaft with Demi Adejuyigbe

[00:00:00] 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 Shaft, Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft

[00:00:57] I'm St. Jackson, I'm John Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Here is my uncle, he's John Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft Shaft He's not my uncle, he is my dad And now I have a son and his name's also John Shaft Shaft in the Shaft

[00:01:25] Wait, so the song was secretly about the 2019 Shaft the whole time? I went through a couple drafts of the song because I felt like I was worried about making it feel a little too focused on the Tim Story movie

[00:01:40] But I felt the need to up front acknowledge how bizarre the relationship between the three films just titled Shaft is Yes, it really is a lot What was the melody there? The theme to Night Court, so Demi got it

[00:01:56] The first episode we ever did that wasn't about Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Ennis back when we thought this was only going to be a podcast about Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Ennis was of course, of course about David Dobkin's motion picture The Judge

[00:02:12] So I thought it would be funny to call that episode Judging the Judge and rewrite lyrics to the theme to Night Court for that episode

[00:02:20] Then some point in that episode I promised that we would do an episode in Ang Lee's Hulk one day called Hulking the Hulk so when we did that years later I sang a Hulking the Hulk song How have you not done that for every episode since?

[00:02:34] I want to make it count and this felt like the right one You only busted out for the big ones, this felt like the right one because this is a song with a famous theme song? A movie with a famous theme song? It's a swerve one could say

[00:02:46] Yes Because Ben right before we recorded text should we try to come up with a shaft version of the theme song and I said no I got something planned Which is instead of doing that, instead of doing what people would like Sure

[00:03:02] Let me do the Night Court theme song again You gotta make them wait for it But also Hulk and the Hulk, Judging the Judge were both about the weird relationships between the father and the son

[00:03:09] That's true, that's true and of course this is about the weird relationship between uncle and nephew Sorry, sorry I mean father and son, they're actually father and son Okay so David you told me you have not watched Shaft 2019

[00:03:23] I have not but I do know that at Wreck cons the very important piece of information that Shaft 2 is Shaft's son Not Shaft's nephew Demi have you seen it?

[00:03:34] I have and I'm ashamed to say that that is the first Shaft I ever watched back when it came out I was in New Zealand when it dropped and it was on Netflix for free there so I was like yeah let me check this out

[00:03:45] And I immediately was like this sucks It's bad It's very bad, I feel bad because I have a hate love relationship with Tim Story just I think he gets a little

[00:03:57] He's very much like a studio gun but I think sometimes he turns out on not as bad as it's criticized thing I do think Shaft 2019 is bad Barbershop is good Barbershop right along is fun Yes, that's my thing with Tim Story

[00:04:15] I was thinking this while watching this is like Tim Story is this guy who both I feel like needs to be defended a little bit and also needs to be attacked a little bit Like you're like there's no middle ground for him

[00:04:26] And you know what? Fantastic Four, enjoyed it See I hate those movies I get it and I would never argue with someone who says they're bad but I do feel like that in that period of superhero film that one was very fun to me

[00:04:41] And also just where is Yon Griffith now? Yeah, that's just an odd thing that he got that role for those two movies Yeah He had a show where he like he's like a cop who dies at the end of every night

[00:05:00] I believe it's the opposite. I believe it's that he never dies. He's a cop who's been alive for like 400 years No, that is New Amsterdam and that starred Nikolai Costa Waldo I remember that show Is that what happens in New Amsterdam? That's not a doctor show

[00:05:15] Then they did a doctor show also called New Amsterdam Jesus But the Yon Griffith show was called Fuck, Forever And let's see he's a medical examiner who is studying the dead to solve the mystery of his own immortality So he also is Two immortal shows

[00:05:38] But he was an immortal ME, Griffin Yes, sure I've been watching Pen and Teller's Fool Us Which is only streaming on CW Seed We were talking about obscure streaming services right before this And CW Seed in addition to having CW shows

[00:05:59] Also has shows from other networks that they don't care about So like Forever which was an ABC show I think Produced by Warner Brothers is on CW Seed And if you watch Pen and Teller Fool Us you'll get 18 commercial breaks To promote Forever

[00:06:17] A show that was cancelled 7 years ago and only had one season Yeah, are you saying Seed? Yes it's called CW Seed That's an insanely bad name I don't understand the name there But I feel like every other net thing is just us plus or us max

[00:06:36] So I give them credit for just being like we don't want to do that Very, very bizarre But yes Tim Story is a guy who either like surprisingly over delivers Or ruins what should be a slam dunk And it feels like there's very little middle ground

[00:06:51] I have not seen, he did the Tom and Jerry movie How is that? Bizarre Haven't heard good things but I have heard it's surprisingly not enough Tom and Jerry They fucked up they forgot to put Tom and Jerry in it Which is look tiny mistake

[00:07:09] Alright so that's a wrap on Joast Oh wait We got Marats, we got Pena, we got Joast What are we missing? That was a mistake also when they first screened it They did test screen the title was Joast and Jerry Sony's got the rights to Tom

[00:07:26] We're doing the best we can It's a workaround Yes Tim Story is a very, very bizarre career Sometimes I feel like he deserves more credit Sometimes I think he deserves more shame But the Shaft movie is a bizarre misfire I'm front loading this talk here

[00:07:46] Because then we're going to talk about John Singleton's Shaft primarily Because this of course is blank check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin And it's a podcast about filmographies Directors who have massive success early on in their careers

[00:07:59] And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they bounce baby And this is not a miniseries on the films of Tim Story We're not ready to tell the story yet The never ending story

[00:08:15] No it's not impossible that we could do a Tim Story miniseries Right? I was doing this recently I was curious what the current rankings are of highest grossing black directors Coogler See Coogler you would think so just because obviously Black Panther is so huge Yeah I agree

[00:08:36] Creed's big Black Panther is humongous but he's only done three movies F. Gary Gray has him deep F. Gary Gray has the title now Because he did a Fast and Furious He did a Men in Black

[00:08:49] Right so like he did Fate of the Furious that's a billion in the bank worldwide Then he gets a Men in Black, he gets straight out of comp Like there's enough Italian job There are enough big movies in there

[00:08:58] And I think Coogler's number two and Tim Story's number three Wow Tim Story was one for a while Which is crazy because I think of those directors He's probably the first one where I think a lot of people will just be like

[00:09:13] I don't know who that is or who this worked on Or not the first one but just like I think you'd have a chance that F. Gary Gray would be like I know who that is Sure and I like I know what F. Gary Gray looks like

[00:09:23] I don't know that I know what Tim Story looks like Me neither I googled him and I'm like oh look it's like a guy with glasses he's bald You know sure Can I say he looks like John Singleton's dorky younger brother Sure he's bald

[00:09:36] He's bald and he's got glasses like Singleton But he just looks very kind of like meek and quiet But yes it's like right okay so he did Barbershop which launches a franchise He does two Think Like A Man movies He does two Ride Along movies

[00:09:52] He does two Fantastic Four movies He does Taxi He does Taxi He does Hurricane Season which does not exist Which was a post Katrina Forrest Whitaker inspirational basketball drama That the Weinstein Company pretty much never released And then Tom and Jerry Like that's a pretty fucking weird filmography

[00:10:11] Yeah I'm just looking at I mean Hurricane Season starred both Bow Wow and Lil Wayne Yeah it's like Lil Wayne's biggest acting role Geez he's second-built The crazy things that all like none of these movies feel like him taking

[00:10:27] Like just building up like he doesn't feel like he's done a blank check movie yet These all feel like fourth studio He's a studio guy like the biggest blank check he ever got was like

[00:10:39] That he I don't know did a movie with the Silver Surfer in it or something I just don't know where he was like I can't you know I've got to do this You know I've got to show people how to think like a man too

[00:10:51] And this is a perfect bridge and of course joining us today to help build this bridge Is our dear friend returned to the show Demi Adija Webe Hello writer for the Amber Ruffin show which people should watch on Peacock is a great show Among many other notable credits

[00:11:09] But that's the big difference right is that Tim Story is the ultimate company man And he'll be like yeah I want to do right along I love my body Kevin Hart I'd like to make a movie that makes him a movie star right

[00:11:22] He'll be like yeah it was a fantastic four fan growing up I like Tom and Jerry cartoons growing up But none of the shit feels super personal ever It doesn't feel like he necessarily has a personal statement within him

[00:11:34] And even the shaft remake just kind of feels like a shrug from where it's like Oh that feels like a fun property to reboot Yeah which I also I think I partially credit that to

[00:11:45] Kenya Varys who wrote it as well because I feel like a lot of things he does just feels like There's not really a take here as much as it's just like What's a new way to do this property existing property

[00:11:57] Okay I swear to God we're going to talk about the fucking John Singleton shaft Which I would argue is very much a passion project Definitely is a bizarre case where you have a filmmaker experience massive success early on in his career Then experience a series of underperformers

[00:12:12] The bloom had sort of fallen off the rose for him He did something that's on its face was like here's a guy trying to rebound Commercially with an obvious slam dunk studio movie

[00:12:23] But it was actually as much a passion project for him as any of his earlier films That is true but as you say right it's like this was kind of a I remember when this was announced and I was like a 13 year old movie nerd

[00:12:36] I was like oh Samuel Jackson is like the new shaft like brilliant like I'm so excited money in the bank like right right That's a great idea. You know like it was exciting people

[00:12:48] Honestly when they announced the fucking new thing with you know three generations of shaft or whatever I was like oh that could be good and then obviously it was not good and that that's that happens

[00:12:59] But I was excited for that he's such a slam dunk shaft that it's so clear that they were like We don't have there's no new person that could fill that role. We have to make him also the star of the 2019 one

[00:13:10] Even though they're like it's another generation. It's like he's not the focus the new kid is not the focus It's like let's bring back middle shaft. Yeah, isn't the new kid. They're all just like I get out of here you twerp

[00:13:19] Yeah, they're just like kids nowadays. Oh, it's such a I so bizarre I could talk forever about why I think it's like a first of all a perversion of a perversion of shaft

[00:13:29] It just feels like someone just like three levels like a story you heard from someone who heard a story about shaft And then they wrote a movie based on that it's just I have more thoughts. I want to share in that movie

[00:13:42] I think we should put a pin in it and come back to it post singleton talk because there is a lot of context for this middle shaft entry

[00:13:50] But I just want to say before we go on to this just because you mentioned it them me and I've been thinking about this a lot recently, okay Is

[00:13:59] Can you bear us one of these guys who is like a pseudonym for a writer's room of 15 people like I know there is literally a Kenya bear But is there also like a a a Voltron the Hans Zimmer scenario right?

[00:14:14] Is there a Hans Zimmer? Is there like a ghost kitchen of Kenya bear assist because you look at his career, right? He he is like a TV vet, right? He's writing on all these shows and You know like

[00:14:28] But but kind of like you know, okay writes for the game. Are we there yet? Girlfriends soul food the TV show he Created America's next top model which I always forget. Yeah, that's wild that it was his idea is wild

[00:14:42] But then 2016 okay from 2016 on and he's already created in a show running Blackish at this point and over this time he also Expands to mixed ish grown ish what have you right right? 2016 Barbershop the next cut 2017 girls trip 2019 shaft 2020 the witches 2021 coming to America announces the showrunner on

[00:15:10] The cheaper by the dozen Disney plus reboot with Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff I also want to point out that he is not the sole writer of any of those movies He's a shared credit sky for these things. They bring them in for reboots, right?

[00:15:26] Revivals things like that and very often it feels like the other person He shares the credit with is someone who is on the writing staff of one of his shows

[00:15:35] And it feels like he comes in gives the pitch and it's like the take is the new shaft is a pussy And his dad's got teach him how to man up and they're like great

[00:15:44] $500 million and then he passes it over to someone on his right. I feel like that's exactly what happens Right, he acts as the showrunner for these movies in that like they have other people doing like writing on it But then he comes in like all right

[00:15:56] I'll give you notes on this and what if we do this here and it's like you're just doing punch up on this movie Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I and we have to talk about shaft

[00:16:04] But I have not yet seen coming to America either of I I have seen it I've been meaning to watch it I know that he's only I know that the original writers already also worked on it right Bloustine and Sheffield or but compare

[00:16:17] But I remember reading an interview with Eddie Murphy Because I found out that the premises that he has like a daughter or a son. So he is a son, right? He has both he has every reboot right, but he has like a son in America

[00:16:29] David the premise the premise of the movie is he has only daughters Which means he will not be able to pass his kingdom on sure So he wants his daughter to marry some shitty guy and then they find he had a

[00:16:41] Bastard love child with Leslie Jones one night when she essentially date raped him This is the premise of the movie right this is the thing I have seen coming to America multiple many times. It's a movie I like and I was like

[00:16:53] Wait, why oh how does he have a son? I've seen that movie He's very kind of chased and quiet in America Like and then I read some interview with Eddie Murphy where he was like

[00:17:03] Yeah, like we weren't sure how to do a sequel and then someone wrote the script where it's like oh But he actually secretly had a one night stand and that really unlocked the story for us And I'm like it did that unlocked the story

[00:17:16] That means this is the best take we had The other thing I saw him say in the interview that unlocked the story for him was he was like well I was like so chased and like virginal in that original movie

[00:17:30] I didn't know how we could possibly justify that there was some conception that you didn't see and then he was like And then I saw the Irishman Uh-huh, and I was like the technology is there

[00:17:40] We can shoot a new scene and there is a new scene in coming numeral to America Oh, I swear to God It is maybe the best use of de-aging technology I've ever seen like the scene is bad but the technology they finally cracked it

[00:17:54] It's perfect. Oh, I wonder if that movie was Eddie Murphy going like I can play Characters again. I can play all sorts of not as much makeup. I can yeah, just be like D8

[00:18:04] Like he sees the Irishman and he's like oh I can do that instead of sitting a chair nor bit to let's go Hey, I would watch it I will say he he does the deep makeup again like he does go for it

[00:18:17] He plays the old Jew at the barber shop He plays the the sexual hot chocolate right right like Yeah, I don't know that movies anyway interesting is the better version of what the 2019 shaft is trying to do but has similar Weird Kenya Barris. Let me reboot your property

[00:18:35] with Millennials Fingerprints on it, but shaft is I just think this is an important stat that does not get discussed that much Shaft is obviously it's Ernest Tiddyman, right? writes a book Shaft mm-hmm about a sort of street level man of the people Private detective

[00:18:58] Yeah, the Ernest Tiddyman like I you know, he's like he wrote the French connection obviously He's like a pretty crime novelist. He was like a crime reporter. He knows how this shit works

[00:19:09] He gets hired to do French connection off of the shaft book and then he sort of becomes like a little empire In and of himself he starts producing the movies more

[00:19:18] He becomes sort of like a developer of these things and combining sort of true life with fictionalization, but a key detail Shaft in the book is white in the first shaft book shaft is white Really? He goes on. Yes

[00:19:34] He goes on to write many more shaft books in the wake of the films and then shaft becomes definitively as a character the New York City African-American private detective that is fascinating, but at the very least Shaft's ethnicity is not defined in the original book

[00:19:51] And I know for a fact that when they first optioned the book to make into a film It was not intended to be a black character. That's so crazy because it feels it's like

[00:20:02] So down to the DNA that like Shaft is black that it feels like this story It couldn't happen with a white character. So I'm just like, what did they change?

[00:20:10] That's what I why I bring this up because yeah, you you look at the original shaft and you're just sort of like Well, what movie is there if this guy is white? Like it just feels like doesn't like cops. It's a crime movie. It's like, yeah

[00:20:26] It's just like a yeah the mob he's got to deal with you know Like it's it's such a marginal programmer at that point like I think a tightie minute

[00:20:36] Sort of talks a lot about how he kind of had a very unpretentious approach to how to make engaging text and make these things like You know like jump off the page and whatever

[00:20:46] But you also you look at the meat and potatoes of the story of Shaft and there's not a lot there without that interesting element Right of just like this is kind of the first black cop

[00:20:55] you're seeing in a movie like this and you know his weird relationship between the authorities and The people on the street and what have you I think it's handled very deftly and like smartly in Shaft 1971

[00:21:11] But but the thing I have not been able to nail down is the timeline of whether they hire Gordon Parks first And then he has the decision to recast to cast Shaft with a black actor Or if it was the other way around

[00:21:26] Melvin van peoples had always taken credit for it because sweet sweet back comes out in 1970 and he said like that movie was so big That then at the last second they decided to make Shaft black, which is not the case. Well, it kicks off the black exploitation

[00:21:40] Sort of trend in conjunction with shaft, but I feel like because they sort of came out around the same time I have to imagine that it was like either I just I also can't imagine a studio hiring

[00:21:52] A black director to tell a black story at that time like caring So I I couldn't imagine they hired someone and then Gordon Parks was like, what if it's this and they were like, yeah, whatever That's my gathering of it because yes

[00:22:04] I think like sweet back and shaft were two separate things happening in two different silos That culturally came out within nine months of each other and sort of then within like three months of each other

[00:22:15] They both came out in 71. They're very close together. Yeah, they don't as you say right like sweet back is a That's an indie. That's the indiest of indies obviously. He's you know selling his bodily fluid It's not that's where Robert Rodriguez

[00:22:29] But you know, it's like that kind of a situation where shaft is a studio movie. It's it's MGM right? Yeah, and it's the movie that kind of saved MGM one of many films over many decades that saved MGM when they were on the brink of like bankruptcy

[00:22:43] Uh, it was like a real revitalization but like You know shaft is very much a programmer, right? It's like it fits into this model of this kind of like private dick movie But with this electric performance with uh,

[00:22:59] Gordon parks giving it this sort of like new york city electricity and obviously the the score. It's so good, right? And then like Sweet sweet back is like a primal scream like it's barely a narrative film It is so much more experimental than I think most people realize

[00:23:17] And it is just sort of like a chaotic story about like a force of nature And then I feel like those two things combine to get these sort of like outlaw vigilante black exploitation movies

[00:23:29] That like then becomes the model with like fred williamson movies and pamp grier films and all these things that pretty much start The year after this like the real capitalization Shaft is not that lurid like obviously the song isn't crying. I mean chef rules. It's the best

[00:23:44] I've seen it so many times. I just like it is a new york movie. It's a great new room. I like you know him walking around He's so hot. He's just like insanely hot

[00:23:55] The turtle I couldn't stop taking note of just how good his skin was also like for for a movie at that time to like Be just to be able to see someone's skin and feel like whoa, it's not like

[00:24:07] It's not like smoothed out by film. It just looks really good naturally like even well, that's anyway it's a good point to me where like, you know, this is a thing that uh People far more knowledgeable me have discussed at length and you should do

[00:24:22] supplemental research into what i'm about to say but like the very creation of film as a technology Inherently had a lot of racial bias in it And was was sort of chemically developed around white skin tones and notoriously

[00:24:36] Black skin tones were really really hard to capture for a very long period of time And that is a thing that is very striking in the original shaft movie is you have gordon parks Who was this like kind of polymath genius master of all trades?

[00:24:47] But notably was like a very very famous Photographer and you really feel like this is a movie where someone actually knows how to capture The african-american complexion on camera, especially when you're dealing with like new york city kind of verite style night shooting

[00:25:03] It's pretty striking. Well with that knowledge. Maybe it maybe it is possible They were like we want to do this with a black lead We need someone who can shoot black people well and they were like, well, let's get this photographer

[00:25:14] Who's famously doing it well, but again, don't know I think he I think Parks is the one who wanted to cast round tree I I I now wish I had sort of looked more into but we're look who we're going to talk about the singleton shaft up

[00:25:27] Right. Yeah, I was trying to get definitive answers in the timeline here and I couldn't it's weirdly hard to pin down The reason I unlocked all this and knew all of this and this is a humble brag, but Michael Murphy the great character actor Michael Murphy

[00:25:44] Who is a regular of the robert altman movies? Uh in bruestor mccloud, which comes out in 1970 plays a detective frank shaft His character is like a bullet parody

[00:25:58] But he's a guy who wears turtlenecks and the double shoulder holsters and is known for being super smooth and super slick And it's funny because it's like the year before shaft and other than being white He has a lot of the similar characteristics of shaft as a character

[00:26:13] uh Some years ago they were releasing a Altman biography and uh, I went with my father to the party where they were After the book had launched and it was like a lot of other altman family people there

[00:26:29] And I went up to Michael Murphy because i'm such a big fan of bruestor mccloud and was just like I just a big fan To end up talking to him for a while And I was like, you know

[00:26:37] No one ever calls out the fact that you were the original shaft Which I said kind of half jokingly and he said how did you know that? And I went what do you mean? I mean like in bruestor mccloud you play a character

[00:26:50] A detective named shaft the year before shaft and he went oh, I didn't even put that together I thought you were talking about the fact that I was supposed to play shaft What and he and he like secretly had was was

[00:27:02] Circling the role of shaft like they were aggressively pursuing him. They wanted him to play shaft wild And he I love Michael Murphy, but he is notably kind of his stock in trade is that he is super white

[00:27:15] I don't think the movie would have been as much of a hit. I feel like it would have fitted into obscurity It would have been any other cop movie, you know and gordon parks is like The what the learning tree is

[00:27:27] That's like 69 i think yeah, or yeah like late sixties Is this uh landmark movie? Yeah, well he the learning tree is like the first american movie made by a black man like basically right like yeah pretty much I mean it is It's interesting like shaft again

[00:27:46] I feel like a whole we it would be a whole episode to talk about the 71 shaft because like I think mgm hired like a black pr Firm they like realize what they had on that's the thing after sweepback comes out

[00:27:57] They reframed sort of the whole marketing of the movie right right, you know I mean i mean shaft also is the greatest second tag shafts his name shafts his game like where you're like it is What does that mean? Okay, this is game though. I know I know

[00:28:15] Like Everything the logo is the best The only thing that's weird to me about shaft is that they only made two sequels like and I don't really there's not really a big story for why that is

[00:28:28] Because both see shaft in africa was kind of a bomb, but like you could have done more shafts I think I don't I don't know what happened there. They did a tv show that didn't go anywhere I think that was part of the problem

[00:28:39] I bought that box set and thought optimistically I was gonna make it through the nine shaft tv films That that was optimistic way too optimistic, but they tried to like

[00:28:51] Did I watch any of them? No, I did not even put the disc into the you watch the movie. Did you watch the movies? Yes, I watched every shaft movie in preparation for this Right, right. Yeah, um, I just except for the tim story. Yeah, uh

[00:29:05] The they tried to make shaft until like colombo. It was like it'll be 90 minutes cbs movie of the week Shaft solves one mystery kind of things and there are a lot more wrote

[00:29:15] That would be brilliant if shaft's entire thing was his detective process instead of just being like a guy who doesn't like the police and has it's just sort of like

[00:29:26] I don't know overly sexual and also just like I don't know. He just sort of shows up place. He's chill Yeah, we're just following like the world's most basic investigation through these movies, right?

[00:29:37] Right, and he'll like go see some mobster and the mobster will be like hey, fuck you and shaft's like I don't think so Shaft isn't scared of this guy. He never fires first. He's always like defensive definitely. It's like, I don't know I think

[00:29:51] Which is something that and we'll get into shaft 2000 But I think they really change that about the character in a way that does not sit well with me They change a lot that i'm just like I think it's I think it's a Look, there is no

[00:30:03] Weirder way to watch the singleton shaft than having watched the first three shafts in like two days Which is because that you are like wow this is And it's just a whole other thing like this is just not shaft at all like

[00:30:16] Thematically spiritually and politically just unaligned with the original shaft in so many ways Right, I imagine gordon parks watching and just being like i'm so fucking upset

[00:30:27] I am because he's in it too. So he must have like he probably went to the premiere or whatever. Yeah, was he like Yeah, I loved when he said juliani's time like oh my god

[00:30:37] Well, I just imagine he's like I don't have any controller this it's gonna get made whether or not I am involved. So let me yeah Be in it that's I mean the other weird thing I I just always think it's such an interesting stat is gordon parks

[00:30:51] junior direct superfly the following year really yeah His son directed superfly which then becomes the template for I think what most people think of For black exploitation movies like shafts right like shaft and sweep back combined to equal

[00:31:09] Superfly which then becomes the movie that everyone else is copying. I feel like the cultural uh sort of like Standing of shaft for right now feels so much more like superfly. I feel like a lot of people are like

[00:31:22] Uh shaft this guy who smacks around his women. It's like no he doesn't and like dresses like you know crazy And has like wacky outfits is like no shaft just like wears turtle next and goes to the bar

[00:31:33] Yeah, he's so chill. Yeah, and when he has sex with someone it's chill because everything he does is chill He's a chill guy if he walks into like fifth avenue Cars slow down because he's walking. So relax. He doesn't yell at the cars

[00:31:47] They just slow down around him. That's the weirdest thing about the whole shaft legacy, which I've been trying to build up to Is it feels like Shaft 2019 but in particular shaft 2000, which is what we're ostensibly talking about today

[00:31:59] Are movies that are like sequels to the cultural reputation of shaft more than actual shaft Because what shaft is has become sort of so abstract Over decades where you're like this first movie is this movie

[00:32:15] Where the the combination of the right director casting like a great discovery movie star And then getting the coolest person to do the soundtrack Turns it into something different than what it is on paper, right?

[00:32:28] But it is somewhat alarming watching the original shaft and being like oh, this is in its very nature a pretty straightforward crime movie It is not as flashy as in your mind You think it is because of what shaft has come to represent

[00:32:45] I think it's because this movie is all it created a vibe It didn't sort of like coast on a vibe. It starts the black exploitation genre It has like a soundtrack a look and just a marketing sort of thing that you feel like is so iconic now

[00:32:58] But back then it's just like they just we just created it out of nothing And it's wild to think of a movie being so like based on nothing But even though it's like it's an adaptation of this book

[00:33:07] But it's also just like everything about it that stands out is so original That it just feels like you don't have an idea of you think of shaft and you're not thinking of it

[00:33:16] Shaft is like shaft is kind of like this plus this you're like shaft is shaft And so that just gets perverted in your mind is to like well now what I remember of shaft Because it's just it's like seeing an original painting for the first time

[00:33:26] And then trying to describe the painting without comparing it to anything else You just kind of go like uh, i'm gonna make up what I kind of think it I have to describe it as Right and David sorry. No, I just remember the trailer for shaft 2000 dropping

[00:33:39] And he says it's my duty to please that booty and things like that And I as a teenager I was like yes, this is shaft's energy. I haven't seen shaft But I assume he's just someone who talks in classic shaft

[00:33:52] Like i'm fucking 10 years old 11 years old and I was like that's the shaft I know and love my dad was like you haven't seen shaft You've seen like fucking like maniacs parody shaft And like I look I think there's things that whatever but like

[00:34:08] 70s shaft. Yes, Isaac Hayes does sing a whole song about how cool he is That one yosker That won an oscar and it's an iconic performance at the academy awards and it's deserved But like I feel like if

[00:34:20] John shaft saw isaac hayes do that number he'd be like, yeah, that's cool Like he would not have a big reaction to it. He might be a little embarrassed Yeah, he's like right on. Yeah, I think he'd be like I need all that flash

[00:34:33] Let's take it easy. Yeah, that's it's like Richard roundtree is just has such a Casual command of the screen that is the thing that makes him so cool And he also has the command anytime he walks into a room

[00:34:46] But he's not over zealous in any way now and and demi sort of as you were saying like Everything that made shaft so kind of culturally impactful feels like it happened organically, right?

[00:34:59] Like it was all these different things developing at different ways that all came together and like made this big splash But what we think of this shaft was sort of codified by everyone imitating shaft and even to a degree also more the shaft sequels than actual shaft

[00:35:17] And it's like I think there was The shaft sequels feel a little burdened by like are we making a second shaft movie or are we making what now shaft Feels like it needs to respond to right are we adapting a meme?

[00:35:30] Right, right, right. They especially right the roundtree sequels. They're more james bondy. They have more sex. They have more Montage they have more like costume changes and stuff like they're trying to be more What you're talking about

[00:35:44] The round look let's talk about john singleton's shaft. Okay, we gotta we let's you know this is this is the line I'm drawing so singleton I was reading a lot of articles from when this movie was getting announced when it was being developed when it was coming out

[00:35:55] There was like so much press hullabaloo around this movie. I think because Uh, uh singleton was seen as sort of like the golden child Who had sort of lost his way as this is chance to like reclaim the culture

[00:36:08] And this is really like samuel jackson's first time being The lead of a big studio movie after being like such a fucking dependable player for the 90s Right like just essentially owning the 90s. He like when he's a lead before then it's like the negotiator or sphere or

[00:36:28] The long kiss good night or what? You know, he's a dual lead with someone else like diehard with a vengeance. Yeah, you know full fiction Yeah, like rules of engagement. That's I'm like looking through his obviously he's

[00:36:41] Sort of the secret he's like presented kind of as the lead of deep blue sea, but obviously he's not Uh, because he gets eaten by a shark spoiler alert for deep blue sea. Um, yeah, that's it

[00:36:52] You know, he's the lead of jackie brown. That's an ensemble movie. Yeah. Yeah, he really hasn't had a samuel jackson is Title movie right? So I think there was that feeling of it being overdue and singleton talked about that

[00:37:05] He felt like this movie was like his destiny that he saw the first shaft when he was three years old His father who was a little bit of a fabulous, you know, it's obviously the character that uh,

[00:37:18] Inspire is the guy who inspired the um loram fishburn character in uh boys in the hood His father used to claim that shaft was based on him

[00:37:27] And he was like you were a detective and he was like no, but I lived in york city and I walked around cool I think someone must have seen me. That's rax hard to dispute. Yeah Yeah

[00:37:39] Ernest tidyman's like at his desk like hammering on a typewriter. He sees the walking around. He's like, uh, that guy's walking pretty cool I'm gonna make him white in this book though I'm gonna make the second book be called shaft among the jews

[00:37:54] Truly the title of the second shaft book. Why did they adapt that adapt that one? They're gonna they're gonna they're gonna get to that. I would love for kenya bears to be in charge of that one Yeah He's like eric But but yes, so, uh

[00:38:11] Singleton was always like I love shaft shaft was like james bond for me, right? That's the thing and that's the key to this movie I think is that you have someone who has a very young child in prince upon this character

[00:38:24] And is like this is our superhero and to some degree the film we end up seeing decades later Is him making his like little boy fan fiction of shaft, right?

[00:38:36] Here's the other thing though that I feel like has to be this is it is not much mentioned but Singleton's other passion project he gets attached to shaft in 96 Is a luke cage movie and this is kind of a luke cage movie. Yes. That's the other thing

[00:38:50] Like kind of like super guy in harlem Busting things up like right it's and I feel like he's just sort of got that too He just wants to make kind of like this like

[00:39:00] Larger than life movie. He wants to make his black superhero movie and like he for a period of time was trying to do Black panther. He wants to do it with wesley snipes. I need to find the interview. Wesley snipes talks about it

[00:39:12] It sounds terrible like wesley snipes was like I love john singleton But that was a really really fucking bad pitch I have i'll give you let me tell you what wesley snipes said the pitch was yeah, he was like i pitch

[00:39:24] Classic black panther a secret world in africa technically advanced society yada yada yada And john is like no no I wanted to have the spirit of the black panther and he's going to get his son to join the black panthers And they have like political strife

[00:39:41] And I want to like make it be all about the civil rights movement And was the snipes was like have you read the comic? I don't think any of that's in there

[00:39:48] Like I think you're just talking about a different movie like that's that's the most he described it as basically Thank god. I love john, but i'm so glad we didn't go down that road

[00:39:57] The line here that's incredible is he and his son have a problem and they have some strife because he's trying to be politically Correct and his son wants to be a knucklehead Oh, hey when that happens That pitch is basically uh shaft 2019

[00:40:12] It is yes. Yeah, that's what's fascinating about it Uh, but but uh, yes lucage was a much better fit for him He wanted to do it for a long time even through like the mid 2000s post x-men and spider man

[00:40:27] He for a long time was saying that he was going to do it with tyrese because tyrese became his guy Um, but it never materialized this feels like absolutely correct the culmination of those two

[00:40:38] Desires right to make the movie that he imagined in his head as a little boy reading Uh, lucage comics watching shaft movies. Uh, he wants to do it with don cheetle

[00:40:51] That's his big thing when he signs on to do the project. He's talking to trades. I love don cheetle I think he's the next big movie star and his rep at this time is Traffic or is pretty traffic same year. Okay traffic's the same year

[00:41:03] I mean, so who is don cheetle to the world at this point that he's like, I love this guy He's like a great character Right, right. Yeah out of sight, you know, like he's he's he's coming a lot. He's in rosewood obviously

[00:41:15] Right, that's the thing. He's like he's in boogie nights Like good directors have recognized that he's an amazing character actor devil in the blue dress was the thing where people thought he was going to get an oscar nomination

[00:41:26] He didn't but he was certainly not being positioned as a leading man Which is wild because I feel like this movie doesn't exist without samuel jackson doing pulp fiction

[00:41:36] I feel like the cultural understanding of shaft is so much of what he's doing in that movie with all the like Do you speak at motherfucker and then like I imagine people seeing that being like, oh my god shaft

[00:41:46] It's a two prong thing. It's literally it's that it's that sam jackson was like the right star To conceptually reboot this with where the studio was going to sign off on it and to Jackie brown weirdly

[00:41:59] I was just reading all these interviews where they talked about the fact that he had wanted to do it That no one had any interest he was ever actively developing it but he always was like I would love to do a modern shaft uh and then

[00:42:11] Scott ruden at paramount at that point time I don't know why paramount has the rights to shaft because the shaft rights are confusing. I've got it for you right here Ooh, somebody did a google. All right, so this movie was in mgms

[00:42:23] It was mgms and then they sell it to paramount Singleton said he made them sell it to paramount because mgm wouldn't give him a big budget They thought it would just be a quote-unquote black movie like he he he basically curses out mgm

[00:42:38] And so mgm kicks the rights to paramounts to paramount when that's when scott ruden comes aboard uh in 1997 and let's say scott ruden A notorious monster at that point in time is just kind of the biggest producer

[00:42:53] At the overall deal at paramount. So like any top priority movie at paramount He's gonna put his clause into which means this was really seen as potential for a huge franchise for them Yeah, and I think like You know

[00:43:08] The initially they he held auditions at the apollo theater for like he wanted an unknown at some point Like there was some big event he did where he was like i'm gonna cast the new shaft

[00:43:17] But then sam jackson comes aboard and like that feels like the studio being like well, wait a second. No Like let's like make this a big movie the the other thing i read There's a shane selerno

[00:43:31] Who co-wrote the original script for this the guy who did armageddon and is now writing like avatar five the seed bearer or whichever one Um, but he wrote a long excuse me eulogy for singleton when he passed away a couple years ago

[00:43:46] He said that at one point singleton was really into the idea of it being will smith and lauren hill Right. He definitely wanted lauren hill to play shafts like sister I think he wanted lauren hill to play the venessa williams character

[00:43:58] But this is the other thing his original pitch was he very much wanted to be the two generations of shaft He wanted the whole movie to be the two of them together. So I think he wanted a younger shaft

[00:44:09] originally he wanted someone in the will smith don cheetle age range and Rudin and paramount were like we don't want the fucking old guy shaft make that a cameo

[00:44:19] You can sprinkle him in there a little bit. Let's make this a vehicle for someone to be a fucking movie star And sam jackson obviously has just had this dominant nineties

[00:44:28] Um, but the other thing is that like even though jackie brown underperformed it sort of launched a uh A black exploitation sort of like uh reclamation project especially with like pan brogrier being put back in movies again yeah, um

[00:44:45] And just the vibe even though that movie is not ostensibly a black exploitation pastiche fully That then they were like, oh you could do like shaft but make it like jackie brown Well, if you're gonna do that just get get the tarantino guy get sam jackson

[00:44:59] Absolutely. I think the other yes. Yes. I mean they also had Like a cleopatra jones remake setup. They had a superfly remake setup They never happen. I know they eventually did superfly like a couple years ago

[00:45:11] But like I think hollywood at the time was like, yeah, let's let's do remakes of all this stuff And also that you know the 90s were Obviously things run on this 20 year cycle the 90s were when there was this big 70s nostalgia wave and you get things

[00:45:27] Like the brady bunch movie you start getting like 70s tv show adaptations and all that sort of shit Which is so strange because it's them trying to capitalize on The success of these things that were all based so much on vibe and then being like well

[00:45:39] Let's get rid of the vibe right just it just I don't know They sort of like make a new metal shaft and i'm just like I don't know What people are supposed to think of this? I mean there's there's a really irascible

[00:45:51] Singleton piece I need to figure out which one it is. I have it somewhere my tabs here But where he's talking about like all the rumors that it spread around the movie at this point

[00:45:59] And the fact that they only let him like the fact this movie is only getting greenlit because of the Tarantino like buzz and he was like they kept on telling me to do the Tarantino thing And I'm like that motherfucker writes movies from outside the fishbowl

[00:46:12] I'm in the fishbowl and yet and yet I feel like this movie if you did not tell me john singleton wrote this I Wrote I guess and directed

[00:46:22] There's no way I would have guessed it for because I guess my cultural understanding of john singleton is someone who is so much more uh Just has things to say about the way the the interplay between black people and the police and this movie

[00:46:36] Feels like it fumbles it in a way that i'm just like no This was a movie made by a white guy which is awful to say because he's not a white guy

[00:46:43] But i'm just like I think the difference between what is luke cage would have been and what this is Is the police aspect of it and I think that's where it becomes a thing where i'm just like what is shaft doing

[00:46:55] Making him a cop is a strange decision and obviously he Retires from the police like halfway through the movie twice and by the yeah so many times And he he does throw his badge at a judge

[00:47:07] But like he he retires from the police in the same way that the jerk says he only needs one more object before he can leave But like By the end of the movie, he's kind of shaft like the shaft we know and love right?

[00:47:22] He's gonna be a private dick. It's a weird origin story for a 55 year old man And it's like it's he retires but still keeps a fondness for the police and like their tactics and has like a

[00:47:34] Right they nodded each other with like the good cop with venessa and has this one right He has this one line where he says like one more for the road in reference to him using like extra judicial Yes, to get uh information

[00:47:47] I'm like so you're admitting that cops do this but you're doing it in a way where it's like and that's fine I I think I like this movie a lot more than you guys do although. I obviously

[00:47:59] Acknowledge that it's deeply flawed mixed on this movie. It's very watchable I think it's really really fucking watchable and there are things I find very interesting in it But that is the fundamental issue of the movie is shafts relationship to these institutions

[00:48:14] Which it feels like goes against everything that shaft was originally about was like he's kind of this guy who's stuck in between these two worlds Yes, and there's oh I okay. Let me just plainly say I I think it's extremely watchable

[00:48:28] But I also I think the like themes and whatnot in this movie do make it like my first response upon finishing it was I think this movie is evil But like mostly because like

[00:48:38] In the original shaft there is an entire scene about how shaft would rather work with drug dealers than with the police Because they are both treated in the same way and he's like no I am not

[00:48:47] He's like I like he has like a sort of uh report with a guy on the police force, but he's like I do not help you I do not work with you you guys can go and fuck yourselves

[00:48:55] Uh, and in this one, uh, he is not only cop that retires multiple times But when he does retire he beats up a black drug dealer on the street for like no reason kind of And then there's a cop driving by that as this is happening

[00:49:09] And he's sort of like nods to them is like hey, this is the job and the cop nods back and you're just sort of like What? Okay, so this is gonna be subversive they're gonna comment on this it's like no he's using police tactics and it's like

[00:49:20] Pro brutality in a way that I'm just like this isn't shaft That scene is so bizarre because singleton makes such a moment out of it He goes to these extreme close-ups of their eyes as they're giving the nod to each other right and it's like

[00:49:32] He clearly does want to call out the weird interplay of this moment But he doesn't really want to dig into it that shaft is essentially Weaponizing the systemic racism of the institution to get away with beating the shit out of a suspect Yes

[00:49:50] By getting the white cops to approve because they're like well, we feel the same way And he pretty much only brutalizes black men in this yes. Yes. So it's just like what and christian bale In christian bale Yes, although

[00:50:03] That feels like it's like i don't know he slaps christian bale and then christian bale's fine for most of the movie And then it's like drug dealers and just like fucking black henchmen and all these things where it's like

[00:50:13] The amount of black death in this movie that is caused directly by shaft is Psychotic it is wild how violent he is as a character Look all the shafts have gunplay like they all it's like i was watching this movie

[00:50:28] I was like god, they're really like shooting the shit out of each other in this room There's lots of like, you know Squibby bloody death in this movie and I was like I had just watched the other shafts

[00:50:37] They do always shoot each other. It's not like it's not there, but for some reason they just feel a lot less Intense or whatever a lot less visceral I think it's because in the originals It's mostly defensive and when it like goes wrong

[00:50:51] They have a moment where he sort of is like, oh my god all of the damage that's been done in this community And like the score gets solid and whatnot and this one it's none of that it's sort of like, uh, I did what I had to

[00:51:02] Uh, and then they move on there's like we don't have time for And also that it's all done with this fucking kind of like wink in a smile like 90s action hero quippy one-liner Kind of like irony and distance, you know That's definitely part of it

[00:51:15] The just the general 90s action hero thing of like shoot first ask question like that is you know, obviously just like a Prevailing mood, but it's also this like juliani era kind of like well. We have to clean up the street somehow attitude

[00:51:29] That is like boiling away. Yeah It's a weird it's a weird thing this movie like you said griffin there's this singleton script Which I think he wrote with uh, selerno He brings on selerno who at that point is like a big spec script guy

[00:51:44] But also had spent time like in the nypd blue room was known as being like a good crime writer So he plucks him he's 24 and says like I want a white co-writer

[00:51:53] I want to be able to get some different perspectives on this they give the script to ruden ruden says this is a Fucking mess. I'm bringing in richard price to rewrite this right because like this their script

[00:52:03] I think is more as you say the generational shaft like whatever crime movie the family shafts Yeah, and and richard price who is you know, obviously they celebrated Uh crime novelist and he wrote clockers which had just been turned into a hit movie or whatever

[00:52:18] But he's a white guy, uh, you know gets brought in and The singleton hates richard price. Uh, they did not get along and sam jackson hates him too There's this weird thing where it was like jackson and singleton weren't getting along

[00:52:33] Neither guy was getting along with ruden and neither guy liked the prince script Yes Like they were unified and having the same enemies, but also we're fighting with each other jackson singleton yes, uh, basically

[00:52:46] You know singleton's like he price knows all the cop stuff and he would write that in fine But he doesn't get shaft. He doesn't get like the attitude. He doesn't get the flavor like

[00:52:57] He wasn't interested in like spicing the movie up or whatever. And so I think sam Jackson and singleton just come up with a lot of like riffs Which you can feel in the movie like there are just times where jackson's like i'm gonna do a line

[00:53:11] The famous instance though, but this is what i was reading is that like jackson hated all of that shit That he didn't like shaft being so quippy So like price had taken all of that out of the script, right?

[00:53:24] And gave it like sturdy bones, but then the character was gone and then singleton would overcompensate and then Jackson would go that's corny. I'm gonna look stupid saying that so like the key example of that is

[00:53:37] The bar scene after the surprise party when he's talking to the bartender I believe how price had written it son. Yes from you know the wire or any other she's great She hits on him and in the script the price draft

[00:53:50] Shaft goes i'm tired. I have work in the morning and walks out of the bar And singleton throws a fit and he's like shaft would fuck her shaft will fuck everybody You can't have him not fuck her shaft is never too tired to fuck

[00:54:02] And then it is not true which is not true shaft's big score there There's a great scene where uh, someone's just like I get off at four and he's like just trying to get information And she's like upset that he's like I thought your attention was on me

[00:54:14] He's like i'm doing an investigation not right now But this like doesn't that feel like singleton seeing this movie when he is single digits And shaft sleeps with two different women in the first movie and it's like oh my god two sex scenes shaft fucks everybody

[00:54:30] To be fair. He is described as a sex machine. He is described as a sex machine. That's fair So, you know a machine. He's literally a machine There is there's like a a weird over sexualization to the character of shaft

[00:54:42] It is like clear but I just think yeah, he adapted it in a way that uh Makes it feel wrong. But the thing I read is that so like Jackson on the day is like i'm not coming out of this trailer. I'm not shooting this scene

[00:54:57] The the way price is written. It is dumb It's like lame and then singleton comes to his trailer try to appease him and he's like don't worry I fixed it. I rewrote the scene here. It is for you

[00:55:08] It's my duty to please that booty and and jackson's like that's also wrong And he didn't want to leave his trailer and he didn't want to Say that line either like jackson was trying to find some middle ground between the two and by all the counts

[00:55:22] It was like they had to drag him out to say that line. He was so embarrassed He hated that it was the trailer line. He still wins is I read some interview with him after singleton's death

[00:55:33] Where the the interviewer like said like that's a cool line. He's like really I'm on his side I think it it is such a tonal like it's a scene that feels like you should cut it out

[00:55:45] Like they were just like wool shaft is horny. We need him to be horny Him flirting with the bartender is just fine him saying that it's like I want her to like turn to the camera and be like

[00:55:54] Wait, is there are you being filmed right now? Like right? Why did you just say that? It's like did you write that? Did you were you writing that in that other room before you came here? Right. He pretty much like wiggle says eyebrows at the camera

[00:56:07] I mean, here's the thing I've got we like there's all these quotes like it really it boils down to John singleton scott rude and samuel jackson jackson richard price all had tension with each other in various directions You have a lot of people with you know

[00:56:25] Like sort of input on this movie who have a lot of influence who are all disagreeing with each other Post production was a nightmare Apparently like his routine is like breeding down people's necks um

[00:56:37] Richard I've here's the Richard round trees quote. I will say we were just defending The shaft is not that horny and Richard round tree told the national post uh, he doesn't have any sex He was mad that there wasn't more sex. Oh my god

[00:56:53] It is wild that the open and credit sequence is just this james bond style, but it's not samuel jackson What okay, who is what the fuck is that? It it was it's so weird

[00:57:05] They added it like months later and he was off shooting one of 18 movies sam jackson probably shot that year So it's just a woman and some body double who you can tell is not samuel jackson

[00:57:16] Yes, so you're watching it. You're like is this supposed to be shaft or am I just watching two strangers have sex Let's get into the movie because the credits like the opening credits to the original shaft are a top 10 of all time Opening sequence in a film

[00:57:31] I like the uh, I actually like both of the round tree sequels Neither of them have the isekai song as the opening and the big score one is very good though the song on the big

[00:57:41] Score the big score music is so cool. Yes, and the song is fun But but let's also acknowledge once again like talking about how It's kind of skewed everyone's memory of the original shaft is or just from osmosis

[00:57:54] What they think it is the awesome opening credit sequence of the original shaft is that super fucking cool logo And then just shots of him walking down a real new york city street. There's there's no

[00:58:06] Crazy stylized, you know like that's the thing and like I don't know who made the decision on these opening credits But they're like okay, the theme song is back and you're like, oh, yeah cool And they're like money for the bank

[00:58:17] Right, so how about like a sex montage over police siren lights? I'm like, well why would that? I don't know it does he is he in the car? Why just right off the bat being like that's not yeah

[00:58:30] Just it feels like that was added because of the whole like this there's not enough sex in this thing In this movie, but it is it immediately sets a tone of like, okay

[00:58:40] This is gonna be a sexy movie and then yeah the first scene you're like, what the fuck Why would you do these back to back and then right the and then the first scene is this sequence that is kind of a fun

[00:58:52] You know opening to a mystery, you know to a cop movie, right? Like it's like Okay, there's been this assault. The mech high fifers is lying. They're dead christian bail Like what happened here? Tony collett is the waitress like by the way

[00:59:06] My first thought was did he literally call mackai fight for and ask him to show up and just lie on the street? Like before they cut to the flashback. I was like that's a big favor to cash in

[00:59:16] I was like, oh, he must have not been anyone at this point, but no But he is he would been in clockers. He'd been in like soul food. He'd been in uh, what's it called?

[00:59:25] He's a nice still know what she did last summer. Yes, right? He's in the second one um You know like but I am immediately like why is shaft here like shafts not a murder, you know A homicide detective

[00:59:39] First sign that they might have miscalculated this movie a little bit There's a lot of signs in that scene where i'm like, oh, I think things are off here

[00:59:46] Like there's a moment where he looks at tony collett and i'm just like, oh no is shaft gonna fuck tony collett Is that why she's here? But I will say this like this is what I do like about this movie

[00:59:56] I do like the central mystery of this film and especially Like in relation to watching the other shaft movies and a lot of movies of this ilk You know even in all three eras we're talking about here, right like the the 2010s the 2000s the 70s

[01:00:12] Where it's like the kind of over complicated web of figuring out How to follow the chain and who's actually at the top and what's the thing they're actually trying to do I like that it's a very kind of like

[01:00:24] Human crime at the center of it and the thing he's trying to solve is like systemic rot You know, I do like that I like that there's not a mystery for him to untangle as much as there is sort of like

[01:00:39] Him trying to figure out how to write this situation. I know who did it, right? Yeah, go ahead I was gonna say I wish that there was more of a mystery because I think the way that they handle the rot

[01:00:49] Isn't very good and it feels like it's sort of I don't know. They have they have several moments where they sort of like show Okay, these cops are racist and then they have the moment where like the the case sort of it gets fucked

[01:01:03] And christian bail is let go and he's sort of like he throws his badge into the wall But from then the way that they proceed makes it seem like his problem is not with

[01:01:11] Policing or as much it is just like with the courts and by the end of it you feel like even though he's still not a cop He's like very much in support of what the cops do and it's just sort of it's very few bad apples

[01:01:22] And it doesn't sort of get to the heart of the idea Of police handling of racism or why like I think just him leaving The police system is more about him just leaving the justice system

[01:01:35] And I there was a way that he could still be a cop and not have to go to court He would which is his way just being like I would love to just kill the bad guys. I'm like, that's not shaft

[01:01:44] That's not what you're doing. No this this weird sort of like vigilante aspect to him when when he has The badge it all just starts feeling really uncomfortable in terms of abuse of power

[01:01:57] You know and like David you were pointing out just how much gunshit there is in the original shaft movies too It's like it's not like these are recent issues, right? It's not like these are things that just have sprung up overnight

[01:02:09] but uh, you know, especially at the time we're recording these These things are being discussed a lot on a daily basis as more and more of the country gets vaccinated Suddenly there are once again mass shootings every single day

[01:02:20] And we just uh, you know the the Derek Chauvin trial like just you know, he he was found guilty just last week I do also just find the more i'm thinking about these things the older I get

[01:02:32] I have very much hit a point where I just at getting more and more uncomfortable with this kind of like Just kind of extreme gun violence and extreme

[01:02:42] Let the cops do whatever the fuck they want sort of movie making even especially when framed is like, oh, but he's cool Yes framing This guy is a cool cop who's real

[01:02:53] The reason he stops becoming a cop is not because he disagrees with the police system as much as it is just like He's upset that the courts presided on this case wrong because then I'm like well, then

[01:03:04] That's not you being that's still sort of an abuse of power if you mean like I like the justice system Only in so far as I can use it

[01:03:11] So like when I can go out to the streets and beat up a guy and say shit like lawyers are for punitas Or like abusing his power to punish criminals as he sees fit

[01:03:19] I'm like then you aren't like you're you like that's the thing that i'm like, okay Problem. Yes, or are you're parallel to the issues? I also feel like You're right that it's

[01:03:31] Weird that the ire of this movie is like well this kid's so rich and his dad's so well connected That they're gonna be able to hire good lawyers and get him off and also the like well

[01:03:41] They're bad apples everywhere, but almost every cop he deals with is a bad apple He is also a bad apple Yes, he's also a bad apple and he doesn't really recognize the rot of the system itself He's like well so many individual bad actors here

[01:03:57] The main thing that christia bail has against it to get off is that shaft punches him in the face At the crime scene which is not police procedure Not that I am a defender of all forms, but like he literally brutalizes him at the crime scene

[01:04:12] This is this is a little bit on you john shaft I really didn't like that moment because I was just like that is so like That's so obviously the thing that they should dig into and like also just immediately makes you go like well I guess he

[01:04:25] Bail does sort of have a defense in that and like just I think even just using it as like the way that uh The case goes when like a black cop punches a white guy

[01:04:35] Yes, a cop at all punching a black person and just like how just there's so many different things in this movie Where it's like if they had dug into that that would be interesting

[01:04:43] There's one line where a cop says something to shaft like how about you pick a color black or blue and I was like, okay Let's follow that let's follow that and it was just like someone wrote a fun line and then we're like all right now move

[01:04:53] Right. He he has a quippy comeback. He says how about I make you both like it just becomes another way for him to threaten Someone and show how powerful he is I I do think like I God I would love to read what the original

[01:05:07] Solano singleton draft is because I wonder if there was an angrier more Coherent more political movie here that rudin was just like make this a summer blockbuster just making about a badass right

[01:05:19] I mean but the other problem and I think this was a is that the there was some decision I've read some interview with jeffrey right who's in this film playing a character called peoples her nandas

[01:05:29] And we will we will talk about it where they've kind of beefed up Jeffrey right and beefed down christian bail because they were like bail is not compelling in this because he's guilty from frame one and He's just a jerk. So let's

[01:05:44] Have the plot be like that. He meets this, you know local drug dealer and That hires him to kill a witness and like and then we're immediately like that Like then bail is just a non presence in the story and it becomes shaft

[01:05:59] You know being about shaft invading washington heights to kill a dominican drug lord like that What the movie is 90 about? Yeah, again thematically literally the opposite of a crucial scene in the original. Yes, like I do not work with cops

[01:06:15] I will work with drug dealers instead. So just I was like what what is this plot? What is this plot and like jeffrey writes being told like just like as big as possible But like fill the room so we know you're bad

[01:06:27] I also write I mean as you said I think they cut down bail and they shot more stuff with right Apparently right just like popped in the test screenings and they were like This is the character that everyone thinks is fun

[01:06:38] As much of a focus on this guy's possible. Which I get Yeah, because he's like entertaining I mean this is a classic jeffrey right performance and that you're like too much But then you're also kind of like

[01:06:49] I mean it's kind of it's it's pretty washable like I love jeffrey right. He's a great actor He is often way too much paprika on the sandwich and it's no problem I think I said some previous episode that he is the one actor where it's like

[01:07:04] I enjoy eating his sandwich over paprika. Like it's part of the spice for him He's able to give naturalistic performances, but he tends to go too hard and that's a little bit of the fun with him

[01:07:15] You know, I mean him in source code the one that paul tomkins makes about you know where he's like got You know the crutches and the big hair and the pipe the source code, you know, right just not enough business bring in more business

[01:07:29] I love I love it What do you and then even in westworld where he's playing a robot who is quiet? You're kind of like anytime. He's on screen. You're like this is this is way over the top jeffrey

[01:07:42] And he's not even saying anything. He's just furrowing his brow and mumbling. Here's another thing with jeffrey, right? Right. He makes mumbling feel like overacting. He also stopped yelling jeffrey

[01:07:52] He's also a guy and I want to make it clear. I love him. He's one of my favorite character actors But he's a guy where it feels like anytime he affects any sort of voice for a character

[01:08:01] Which is almost always he he kind of wants to show the work Like it never is like oh look how well he disappeared into this character Like even westworld where he's like my guy's kind of gravelly

[01:08:13] He's sort of it has the same amount of effort as christian bail doing a batman voice. Yeah It's also crazy that this is christian bail like right before American psycho or rather go right around the same year aren't they

[01:08:26] I think americans psycho comes out this spring and like these are arguably the two performances that get him batman Like that's the most insane thing is he has american psycho in shaft this year

[01:08:38] And then he becomes the internet's fan casting choice for batman because they're like look he plays such a good bruce wane It's like what are you revealing about yourself that? guy Who's this guy's crazy like psychos insincere like generational wealth brat psychos

[01:08:55] To be your batman. You just see that he can be rich and crazy. Yeah, they're like oh his hair's like back as well Yeah, yeah I also like looked around because i'm like so jeffrey writes just like doing his thing

[01:09:06] He's playing a dominican guy. He's doing an accent. I googled like to find like so. What's up with that like a zamo Yeah, well obviously the role was written for john leguizamo and he was cast and he left i think for mulan ruche

[01:09:19] Mulan ruche ran over schedule. Yeah, and obviously john leguizamo would be a delight in this role john leguizamo has never not You know enjoyed hamming it up like i'm sure he would be

[01:09:31] Just what the film is looking for but i like found some interview jeffrey right when he's like Yeah, I like just knew a guy who sounded like that And i was like okay, okay jeffrey That's all i could find

[01:09:45] I recently rewatched game night and jeffrey ray has a small role in that and even in that he's playing like very funny in game night He's so funny

[01:09:52] But he's playing an actor who he's playing an actor and so he over acts the scene and then even when it drops down He's sort of overacting in it like a different level and you sort of get the tears of how

[01:10:02] His overacting works in his brain, which is like all right overact bad now overact the jeffrey right way and it's so like Interesting to to see that and then also another Modern jeffrey right where he's doing the weird forced gravel voice and i'm like look it's fun

[01:10:17] But I wonder if you could just like maybe give your throat a break for one movie and just talk like yourself Because everybody's like listen. I want to tell you something Like every performance he's like doing this

[01:10:28] I almost wonder if he was cast specifically to do that to a level and because it feels like him making fun of himself when He's just like listen up man. Yeah. Oh, okay, and then he asked people like what their allergies are

[01:10:40] I love what did you have a nice time rewatching game night dammit? I just anytime i watch game night. I have a great time I think it's fantastic. I think it holds up. It's the best

[01:10:49] Uh, he's yes, so good in that. I was just thinking even rick and morty like they brought him in He's the episode where they're fighting over the toilet right where he keeps on using rick's toilet

[01:10:59] And rick's trying to get revenge on him and the bit they're doing is sort of like when they cast for nerhurzog where it's like Cast someone with too much innate gravitas to talk about something really silly and even then he's like overplaying

[01:11:13] But but none of this is a criticism. I think he's always no I think he has such a strange career in which like if you say jeffrey right immediately I think you think of certain roles that would be considered like

[01:11:25] Dramatic and strong and like important roles, but also he has a lot of silly things that he does in his career Yeah, we're like he seems like he could be a goofball I also think this point in his career like 2000 is when everyone was like

[01:11:39] Jeffrey right might be one of the best actors of his generation like I do feel like there was this basket right obviously And like he's he's gonna do top dog underdog on broadway the following year

[01:11:50] Like he's just sort of getting talked about is like this might be like a real real major Guy and then he didn't have that exact career that I think people were anticipating for him. Yeah I wonder I mean with things like that

[01:12:04] I always wonder how much of it is them wanting to specifically be a certain kind of actor because I feel like there are a lot of Actors when people like they're gonna blow up and then it just feels like they really just want to

[01:12:14] Do certain types of acting or like do character things or do things where it doesn't feel like They have to like carry a movie based on being someone who's so adjacent to themselves

[01:12:23] Because I can see him being like I'll do Basquiat where I can sort of change it up a bit But I don't want to do a movie. I wouldn't want to do he's like I wouldn't want to do westworld

[01:12:31] Full time or like a feature right well and basquiat was like his breakthrough And then he kind of doesn't really play a leading man Like ever again in that sort of like no, I mean he played Martin Luther king in that tv movie boycott

[01:12:45] Which was kind of a you know big deal tv movie or what you know, but like but that was that And then like obviously he wins the emmy for his angels in america Which is him just doing the role he did on broadway, but he's amazing in that

[01:12:58] I always contend if that had been theatrically released he would have won the Oscar for that Yeah, it's such a good role I mean and then but then like in the manchurian candidate when he shows up with the big beard mumbling You're like, oh

[01:13:10] Oh, this is like what he's gonna do in casino royale and Then on and like when he plays colon pal, he doesn't have a beard, but he's just like I don't know if we should you know like you know that that's just that's what he's good

[01:13:22] The lead the movie he's a lead in is catalac records and he's phenomenal in that way Records yeah, that movie's such a good great. I think Beyonce is very good in that movie. Beyonce is amazing

[01:13:35] That's her one like transcendent acting performance where you're like Beyonce should have been a movie star Yeah, and it's weird because she's playing uh, what edda james, right? Yeah, and it's like she's playing a singer

[01:13:46] I'm like, okay. I'm gonna just see Beyonce, but there's a point where I just went. Oh, oh right. That's Beyonce and she's just great Yeah, uh that movie is really good. Amen Walker is fucking great in that movie most deaths great in that movie

[01:13:57] Everyone's fucking good in that movie. Amen Walker is incredible in that movie So he shows up and he does the first song is howlin wolf and he's like freaking everyone out It's the best. It's so cool. Yeah, just electric shit

[01:14:09] And that's like one of the best movies about like this sort of weird tension of white label Makers and black artists like anyway, whatever we're not talking about catalac records. We're talking about shaft There's another crazy thing that I guess we should say

[01:14:24] I I'm sure this played some small role is that Isaac Hayes had become a huge deal again because he was chef like that is kind of He really because Isaac Hayes really had like 10 plus years doing nothing

[01:14:38] Like kind of just showing out. Post escape from new york. He's kind of yeah And now he's like everyone loves Isaac Hayes again Like that must have been another reason to studio is like, yeah, we'll give you 50 million bucks to make a hard r

[01:14:51] Shaft remit or shaft sequel whatever shaft reboot with sam jackson That's like about him as a guy like it'll have Isaac Hayes up at the top like i'm sorry I I I just forgot about that and I no no look it's fine. You're just talking about shaft

[01:15:07] I can dig it. All right Uh, no, but but I do think that's true and I do think just like I remember there being a lot of shaft parodies especially things using the song ironically around This time in the years leading up to it

[01:15:23] Like it felt like it had become a cultural meme to a degree that like two like 10 11 year old white boys Like us david could see the trailer and be like, oh, yeah, I know what this is

[01:15:33] I think my introduction to shaft was it being a runner on the fresh prince and me being like Oh, I get the idea of yes, right But but all that stuff is this weird abstraction of what shaft actually is and this movie is reacting to that and also

[01:15:47] Fulfilling john singleton's boyhood interpretation of the shaft is um, but yes, I do think this I I understand what you're saying demmy that you wish there was more of a central mystery for him to solve

[01:16:00] I guess what I want this movie to be in its best form is him figuring out how to navigate this fucked system without just Barging into people's apartments and shooting them

[01:16:13] Like I do like that the movie kind of just lays all its cards out in this opening scene Right, you have this thing where you're like starting like deep in media res. Here's a guy lying on the ground

[01:16:23] He walks in here's a bartender with blood. Here's this clear asshole who's guilty, right? And then you get these flashbacks like I do think the pacing of this is interesting The structure of this opening is interesting with him casing it and then how quickly he cannot control himself

[01:16:38] Punches bail like gets himself on thin ice There's something interesting of the setup to me of just like the whole thing's laid out cleanly And now he needs to figure out how to make sure justice is served But the problem is that it doesn't feel like this becomes

[01:16:56] Look, he's a guy who's willing to break the rules for a greater good It feels like it becomes shaft does whatever the fuck he wants and then he turns to the camera and winks and goes I'm cool, right?

[01:17:06] Yeah, it feels very much like he's not trying to peacefully solve this or like it's not like I don't want to see any more blood It's him being like don't worry. I got this and like cocking a gun and being like, what are you going to do?

[01:17:17] It's like I'm going to kill people. It's like so not Uh a detective film. He's just he's a a ranger basically, right? He's like he's like Charles bronson and death wish. Yeah, uh

[01:17:28] But also like all of the revenge is it's on a guy who's sort of adjacent to christian bail Like it's not it's so like they bring in the secondary thing because it's so They have the the like the case the the main case

[01:17:41] but then they bring in people on both sides to be like corrupt cops and like corrupt criminals and whatnot just to sort of like Pat out the movie with people that shack I keep my almost call them shack that shaft can just fight and it's like

[01:17:56] So it isn't about the case at all. It's just about like all right now that shaft has like a reason let's give him people to like let's give let's put bodies in this movie that can act as like

[01:18:06] Villains and it's just like you just put basically put a superhero skin on top of this noir thing that you had Right and once again rather than a movie that feels like it's designed to be like shaft fighting against institutional power it becomes Shaft Fighting against

[01:18:24] inner city thugs, you know in a way that is not upsetting to white audiences That feels like it's very cognizant of trying to appease The weird sort of bloodlust that an audience would feel watching this movie if you're trying to make it something that could cross over

[01:18:39] In a fucked fucked way um It's I don't know. It's even like the venessa williams character is bizarre to me because This is her period where she's actually like a movie star, right?

[01:18:52] Like venessa williams someone who had just been very famous for a long time is miss america Then is like stripped of her title because of scandal Of her nude photos being sold to penthouse and published Then she has this like second wave as like a pretty successful musician

[01:19:12] And then like 1997 she does soul food She does a racer. Don't forget her racer Right, so she does like a racer 96 soul food 97 like suddenly it's like oh wait is venessa williams a movie star Yeah, she's in hoodlum, uh, which the bill duke movie she's in

[01:19:31] Well, she placed the queen of trash in the adventures of elmont grouch land Great performance actually actually great performance. Good respect on that. I like that movie Um, but then post shaft. She's uh, I mean what what's she doing? She's she's chilling

[01:19:45] I don't know. She does a lot of tv movies Like when she's when she's an ugly betty it's sort of a comeback for her. She kind of just right

[01:19:52] She has ugly betty and she does uh desperate housewives and it becomes like oh now venessa williams is playing this camp sort of ice queen Character is her stock in trade This is the end of her like sort of real movie star run

[01:20:06] And it feels like when she's introduced your movie you're like Oh, she just does have a real kind of steady presence and integrity to her And it's interesting to present her as a counterpoint to him where it's like This is a kind of like more by the book

[01:20:21] Cop who also isn't square as you said demmy she's sort of presented as being the only good cop in the entire Movie, but then it doesn't ever feel like they ever have anything to do with her. She's just kind of there

[01:20:33] Oh, yeah, this is a sad character in a way because right if she's around She's sort of the second lead or whatever but like she's second build I couldn't tell you she's got a lot of screen time. She does. Yeah. She's just kind of there

[01:20:47] I have a sneaking suspicion that they wanted some romantic thing between her and shaft That's what it feels like and then it sort of changed and I don't because it just feel like she's there for no reason But then also has certain scenes where uh

[01:21:01] Yeah, she's supposed to be the anchor like the good cop and I I'm just like I don't have any faith that they didn't put her in place as like the good black cop that can also be like

[01:21:10] And shaft will fall in love with her. It's weird that there's no Interiority it's weird that there are no like heart-to-heart scenes like I I weirdly want this movie to have the dumb studio notes

[01:21:23] Like there has to be a scene where her and shaft bond and she talks about why she joined the force in the first place You know and what her trauma is that made her decide that she needed to try to maintain justice

[01:21:34] There's the middle of this movie is uh, uh very messy and strange like post him resigning from the force And then when when we're just in this sort of muddled kind of like it's also this movie is short

[01:21:45] Like this movie is 90 minutes nine maybe a hundred minutes. Like it's pretty fast The weirdest stat in the world is that the tim story movie is the longest of the five shaft movies If it is the only one that tickles two hours

[01:21:59] Sounds bad. I gotta say it's like 155 or something when you got three shafts in a movie That's true. Yeah, and I also wait and wait but also Regina Hall, right? Like is is she No hall plays the mom

[01:22:12] Okay, she plays the mom, but she does not get into the action It's a bummer because the poster very much makes you think that she's gonna be the fourth shaft and she is Not she shows up and says like I hate you you're a bad dad

[01:22:23] Yeah, uh, no, but like so in the middle of this movie. It's like, okay Here's like Ruben Santiago husband Hudson and Dan Hedaya as like crooked cops Here's like Lee turgison

[01:22:34] Who's in Oz at the time is like not a crooked cop but a racist but a good cop or something like whatever that character But also not that good. He couldn't blow that lock Yeah, he would have he's awake for the guy to open the door

[01:22:49] And then they're like and then of course Buster Rhymes as like shafts like Comical like sort of sort of sidekick tech guy is valid What is like And like I and which is this is the time like I look I just watched Halloween resurrection

[01:23:06] Which Buster Rhymes is the lead of I did not realize he was the lead I don't know if you guys have uh, and he he karate kicks um Michael Michael myers and says like, you know Paboo yeah, motherfucker or whatever

[01:23:21] Buster Rhymes is kind of everywhere. Let's also acknowledge that 1998 He was the voice of the reptar mobile and rugrats. That is true. Right. He was he was working. I think on a cartoon show Uh, at the time he was true Buster Rhymes. I think was really like yeah

[01:23:35] He was working on a cartoon series with missy elliott at the time which I guess never came to fruition It's like he's he's just like I'm gonna be everywhere Like it's gonna be Buster Rhymes all the time and uh and singleton had already used him in higher learning

[01:23:50] And this felt like him being like I think maybe Buster Rhymes could be a movie star I'm gonna give him a real part and they like set him up in this movie as if he's the fan favorite character

[01:23:59] Down to the fact that he gets the last lines. Yeah, the end of the movie is just him adr and a bunch of riffs And you're just like, I don't know. He's okay Well, just like these scenes in the middle where like shaft is dragging tony collette and

[01:24:15] One of her like big beefy italian brothers or whatever To Buster Rhymes's house and then there's like a scene where it's like, oh you live like this and Buster Rhymes is like

[01:24:23] Don't worry about it. Like, you know, and he's like cleaning up his house. He must have tested well Look, it must have to right people must have been like, hey like this is funny because like this is a weird complicated movie that's mostly glancing

[01:24:38] Off of things like shaft says Giuliani time which is what like, you know cops had supposedly said before torturing someone in a famous like 90s Crime case like but then like it's just like you say it's just a drop-in. It's just like a weird joke

[01:24:53] But once again, I would just want to repeat he says it at the Lennox lounge before walking into his surprise birthday party to Gordon parks, right? Is it Gordon parks the one he says it's Giuliani time? No, he said he's my miss remembering that

[01:25:05] He says it after shooting the two crooked cops and then like putting like just like uh fucking Cocking his gun again and going off to he says it when he's gonna do some violence

[01:25:14] Right, doesn't he say something weird to Gordon parks though? I think he does he calls him mr. P Or mr. I know he calls him mr. P. Yeah, I can't remember Uh, he does say something to him, but I

[01:25:26] That the Lennox lounge scene which we already talked about is another weird scene where it's a weirdly drawn out like Where it's like a surprise birthday and he's I don't like there's scenes in here

[01:25:36] I'm like strip this out and put more meat into the central thing. Yeah, I like to be active the fake out is like Oh, that's a fun way to do but I was also just like why?

[01:25:44] What's the point of just a way to get the uncle cameo in there or dad cameo? I guess uh Yeah, it's uncle dad. I mean I was right Just because we brought it up. I was stunned by that Giuliani time moment

[01:25:59] Just I was like well that sounds awful and then I looked it up being like I'm sure people have written about this And then I was like, oh, I didn't know that this is what they said while torturing a man. So it feels like almost like actively

[01:26:11] Endorsing police brutality in a way Like it's sort of it's a reference that I feel like they wanted people to cheer at I mean this is a thing I find kind of inherently thorny about this movie, right?

[01:26:23] And especially when you consider that like so much of the tension stemmed from like Richard Price and Rudin who it felt like we're trying to maintain The ability for this film to be as uh Mainstream as possible, right? Because it's like you are making a 50 million dollar

[01:26:41] A sensible franchise movie that's going to be released in the middle of the summer, right? Like this is a july release. This was set up to june june june 16 june. I remembered it being july

[01:26:52] I guess I was applying sort of uh sully goggles onto thinking they should have done in july. Thank you, but um But it feels like you know one of the many many things that have come out in all of the uh,

[01:27:06] Justice League uh, brujap, right? Is uh that in executive Boardroom Warner Brothers meetings after Snyder screened his original Snyder cut and saw how much cyborg was positioned as the lead of the film

[01:27:23] And how much cyborg was like tortured and not a vuncular in the movie that apparently the head of Warner Brothers said This is disastrous We can't have an angry black man at the center of our big blockbuster Which I 100 believe they said in those words, right?

[01:27:38] Didn't they have like a dinner where they were like if he doesn't say boo, yeah I mean like what are we even gonna do like that's millions in merchandise like they had like some awful presentation where they're like He simply must say boo, yeah

[01:27:51] And their thing I think they said to him was can you play it less like frankenstein and more like quasi moto? And he's like what's the difference that they're like well frankenstein's bummed out but quasi motto has got a good heart

[01:28:00] Oh, I guess so quasi moto is pretty bummed out, isn't he? Yeah, I don't know but just Literally we're like giving him notes like walk more like quasi moto than frankenstein who's scary all this shit, right? Super fucked up

[01:28:15] But I do I do wonder if there was a calculation here on this movie where it's like you kind of need From the from the white executive standpoint and rude and everybody if they're like if shaft acts like an abusive white cop

[01:28:31] Does that make him more palatable to white audiences rather than being threatening because it is odd How often he veers into The worst behavior Like that mirrors specific incidents and stuff But there are like stories about how mad the cops were that he said juliani time

[01:28:49] It's such a 2000 is a crazy different time In terms like Like and they were just like how could you even bring that up? How could you even mention that like, you know, we you know, don't even bring that up

[01:29:00] It feels like a line that they write thinking okay Well, people will recognize it as a reference and that's enough for it to be a joke We don't have to talk about the meaning behind it

[01:29:08] But for shaft to be a cop who says julie it's juliani time feels like an Inherent endorsement of that even though it's just like he comes off bizarrely

[01:29:18] Yeah, and I think in their best like my best interpretation of it is it's him killing two cops who have been like Brutalizing people and him saying it's juliani time almost as like a oh It's juliani time on you guys

[01:29:31] But he also he says it afterwards as he's loading a gun as if he's like all right now time to do some police brutality And I'm just like what a what a huge misfire

[01:29:40] Exactly. I think as you say like but that also the the characters of these corrupt cops are bizarre Where they're kind of chummy And they're kind of like hey, what are you gonna do and then they're like Dan Hadaya is a

[01:29:53] Crazy casting choice for this by the way I mean, this is another reason where I why I'm just kind of like against better judgment a little bit in the tank for this movie

[01:30:03] Is it just like a it's nice to just watch like a big summer blockbuster movie that was squarely aimed at adults Right. This sort of like high brow popcorn sort of shit like trashy pulp, but also not meant for children

[01:30:18] Totally, uh the the other part of that is this movie is just fucking stacked. It is so crazy cast I mean like elizabeth banks. Did you spot her like as one of the friends in in the dinner scene? I think it's her first film performance Yes

[01:30:33] Andre Royo the guy from who plays bubbles in the wire Was a doorman at the cheetah club and singleton like came to the club and royo like Parted the red sea for him, you know, it was like yeah

[01:30:46] Hey, like let me get you around and and then said like hey, I want to be in shaft and Singleton was like you got it and they that's like the start of his career. It's wild

[01:30:56] Yeah, but then you have like you have filibusco and like daniel dan bargain and Right these guys Ruben santiago hudson who then writes ma reyny's black bottom right like it's it's just a wild

[01:31:08] Grouping of people but it's also just such a pleasure to watch a movie like that where you're just like Oh every scene someone's a ringer or someone who goes on to become a ringer And it's just someone getting to have fun like

[01:31:20] Not being burdened with having to carry expositional weight as much as being like flavor, you know But it is a film that feels like it's very much Odds with itself which makes sense when you hear how much everyone was fighting about what the movie should have been

[01:31:38] I think it's just a mess. I just don't know what i'm supposed to take away from the ending where shaft does all this Kills all these people kills lots and lots of people to get tony collett to safely, you know safely to justice

[01:31:50] And meanwhile we've got you know christian bail gets like an ice pick through his hand just so like he can Get hurt because like the whole point of the movie is that shaft is working really hard to put christian bail in jail

[01:32:02] Right, but nothing about the movie's tone suggests that they want it It wants christian bail to like get his head chopped off like, you know This movie is lurid and this movie is like kind of angry and this movie is like take justice into your own hands shaft

[01:32:16] And so at the end we got this kind of like ironic twist of the the mom shoots him lind lind thigpen Okay, great actor. Yeah best known as the chief from where the world is carmen sandiego Uh, especially at this period of time is this sort of like

[01:32:33] Supposed to be a kind of emotional lynchpin of the movie where she is mackai fifa's mother And that's it shaft is kind of like holding her at all of these hearings

[01:32:43] Promising her that justice will be served in some way and then you get this ironic twist ending where she just Despite the fact that he's leading her up the stairs and going like it's finally gonna work this time. I promise you

[01:32:55] I have the witness. It's all good, right, right She just shoots christian bail like six times in cold blood And is just like well that worked out and it's like at that point you realize like oh

[01:33:05] She hasn't really spoken this entire movie. No, it feels like it feels like such a twist because you also kind of go like Oh, I remember her now because they just sort of did away with her. They didn't really Actually give her enough real estate

[01:33:18] No, and I think it's a very good and like a complicated ending But it feels like the ending that goes At the end of a better movie. Oh a movie that also doesn't sort of that's exactly right

[01:33:28] It's like this is the ending to a movie that is not about shaft Like mowing down motherfucker so he can get the witness Like like and also it just like the entire idea of him being like I don't believe in the court

[01:33:42] So i'm throwing my badge against the wall and spending the rest of the movie being like I have to protect this witness So she can testify in court so we can do this properly and it's like then you do believe in the court system

[01:33:51] What is your game here? Right if you it's like he wants to operate outside the law, but he also operates Uh, he still insists that proper punishment is dola by the justice system in this one case in every other case

[01:34:01] He's like I will just shoot the guy and it's so strange It's funny that the badge throw is probably this movie's biggest special effect shot And I really remember that being the money shot in the trailer huge in the trailer It's the only instance of style. Yes

[01:34:14] Yeah, because the movie's kind of glossy and like has like I think singleton consciously was like It shouldn't look like the original which like okay, but the original looks really good And this kind of just you know slick and whatever It looks okay

[01:34:28] I kind of wish that if they were going to adapt the cultural perception of shaft They sort of should have adapted it visually as well Just like in not even like it being like a 70s or funk thing

[01:34:38] But in just sort of like having a very special way to shoot it Like using just like analog zooms or something or just fucking like the the badge throw is such a stylistic choice That I'm like well, that's the shaft movie

[01:34:48] I want to see something that has like a flare to it where you're like that shaft baby Like if you're gonna do that with the character just do it with the whole thing

[01:34:55] It is weird. I mean like they do shoot this movie in new york, right? Like it has It's kind of low cash stuff. Yep Right of real locations of real new york city and whatever whereas the fucking

[01:35:07] Tim story shaft is shot in atlanta and feels like it was you know shot in a ziploc bag, but um Yeah, it's it's funny also in particular to me because

[01:35:20] Uh singleton is two years away from doing too fast too furious, which is the most fucking stylized movie in the world Right, which is a movie that turns people off at the time because they were like do less dude Like calm the fuck down and I mean

[01:35:36] I'm excited to rewatch that movie for this because I think weirdly Culture has perhaps caught up to too fast too furious and whereas that was the black sheep of the franchise

[01:35:46] Now the franchise has sort of come back around to where too fast was where it sticks out less But that was very much in being like i'm gonna take this like kind of gritty like boilerplate crime Uh drama and turn it into like speed racer

[01:36:03] I wonder what I wonder if before he died he got to talk about the legacy of the fast and furious franchise and how it's sort of Like I wonder if people sort of re

[01:36:13] Uh, what's the word just sort of we had a culture cultural reevaluation of that movie and he gets to go like yeah All right, so Fuck you guys or what?

[01:36:21] I think it must have happened and like I mean he still had to deal with most people saying like well That's definitely the worst but also it's like

[01:36:29] Ludacris and tiris become like two of the biggest characters in this whole fucking franchise so much of what he establish is Intrinsically in the dna of where it goes Hello jaw rules out the flashiness of it and and like the yes, but but like that movie

[01:36:43] It's weird because it was a huge hit And yet no one really cared for it people kind of hated it Right, it was immediately seen as like well you ruined a fun thing because there's no fucking vindiesel here Right to the degree that they're like, okay

[01:36:59] Let's make a third one that only costs like 30 million dollars and has no returning actors that it felt like Singleton you've killed the mainline franchise and now fast and furious is just a brand name for cheap actors and cars

[01:37:11] And yet when they bring back the whole gang in you know fast five like it's like yeah Too fast who furious is is a linchpin for us like that's that's crucial to what we're gonna set up here and it's like

[01:37:23] It's a you're as you say though. It's like a weird 10 years later like yeah, actually thanks for that Like you know you actually put a lot of stuff in the water that we actually needed like but I also I mean

[01:37:34] I remember reading interviews with it. We'll talk about this movie so much in two weeks But I remember reading interviews with him where he was so defensive about that movie

[01:37:41] Where he was like, I don't know people thought that I had lost the plot because I didn't make what they imagined when they heard John Singleton does too fast too furious Which is probably a harder edged fast and furious movie

[01:37:52] And he was like no I was just like really into anime at the time And I wanted to make a movie that looked and felt like anime crazy Um, but that's why this movie being relatively Uh, I don't know restrained stylistically is odd

[01:38:08] Uh, because he also I mean even when I go back and reading interviews from the beginning of his career After boys in the hood. He always talked about like I'm very Afraid of being pigeonholed as the sort of like small budget

[01:38:24] Social issues drama guy the kind of kitchen sink guy like I want to make big Genre movies. I want to make blockbusters I want to make everything that he very much felt like you wanted to prove to people that he could do these types of movies Uh

[01:38:41] Where this movie is like an audition for him to continue doing that his career Also a like reclamation project for his career up until that point in time But then kind of dooms the rest of his career It's

[01:38:55] A hit too. It's like an unambiguous hit, but no one wants to touch shaft I don't know. It's weird by the time it comes out Jackson's doing interviews and he's saying i'm definitely going to play shaft again, but with a different director Oh

[01:39:10] Like he's like no question. This is my franchise. I'm gonna keep doing it Jackson's so interesting to me because he's like such a straight talker And I feel like when you read interviews with him He's very much like I'm the least pretentious guy in the world

[01:39:24] It is ridiculous that people pay me millions of dollars to act I'm never gonna turn down a job. My career didn't take off until I was like 40 I'm a pro. I know how to make anything work. I like popcorn, you know, like he always talks about like

[01:39:40] I don't love making dour serious movies because that's not what I like to watch I'm I'm ready to do heady heavy theater But in a movie I want to make something that people enjoy and want to go see on a Friday night

[01:39:53] And he's like pretty good at most of the time Delivering above his weight class and not feeling like he's phoning it in I think weirdly shaft 2019 is one of his most phoned in performances Like that's the one that feels really cynical to me. It's very cynical

[01:40:10] But I do recall watching it and feeling like I think I'm having fun watching him do this but I think it's because it's so it's like It's an adaptation of what we know of shaft and it's an adaptation of

[01:40:23] What we know of Samuel L Jackson, but sort of subverted in a way like it starts with Here's what you know about Samuel L Jackson

[01:40:29] So you know that the arch yes to go through is like well, maybe that's not who he should be and it is sort of like Fun to watch in a way because it's just it's him having fun with his own image But under this sort of guys of

[01:40:42] We have to tell a story about shaft and I'm like, it's not this isn't a shaft movie This is a this is a what you know of Samuel L Jackson

[01:40:48] Movie becoming well, that's the actual Samuel L Jackson other fucking weird thing about that movie is it's like okay Now we're gonna do the generational family legacy shaft movie except we're gonna ret con round tree into being his dad instead of his uncle

[01:41:02] There are six years difference between Jackson six years Six years age difference between Jackson and round tree. So like actually crazy. Yes Jackson is 72 and round tree is 78 That's psycho, but you know what I could see shaft having a kid at six six years old

[01:41:24] I don't know. I can see him I can see him being 24 and just adopting an 18 year old being like i'm gonna get this kid out of the system I'm gonna say your name is john shaft too. It is. Yeah I had a name

[01:41:37] I've had a name for several. Okay. No, no, you didn't have a name and you didn't have a game and now both are shaft But yes, the age difference is slight I feel like you know

[01:41:47] Sam Jackson is someone who's kind of always played younger especially because it took him a while for his career to take off Culturally people think of him look 72. Yeah, he always seems like he's 45 years old. Yes

[01:42:01] He does not look like he's 72 at all the Tim story movie is weirdly I would argue the oldest he has ever looked and seemed on film And I think a lot of it has to do with that movie just being bad

[01:42:11] But that's a movie where you're just like him and round tree are the same age Like they're giving round tree gray hair And they're dying Jackson's goatee But they're the same age here and they like round trees only in the last 15 minutes of the tim story movie

[01:42:28] He unsurprisingly is the best part of it. This sounds like the worst. It's so bad It's so bad It plays like they want you to be like, whoa twist cameo

[01:42:36] But then they it's like in every trailer and it's on the poster and you're like just to have him there for more of the I don't know for the marketing. It felt like the hook for the movie was he's gonna be in the whole thing

[01:42:46] He's not going to be just the uncle at the bar Like he was in the singleton movie and then he's kept till the very end like he's fucking bruce willis and gi joe retaliation but The whole movie is about how shaft was this fucking deadbeat dad

[01:43:02] And then it's like well now you're introduced to the other deadbeat dad Who is the original shaft and they make this joke where he's like, don't be so hard on yourself

[01:43:10] You were a good dad once you stopped pretending to be my uncle and it's like once he stopped pretending to be your uncle So when when you were 60 He's still your uncle in this movie and you're close to retirement age

[01:43:24] But is he how old is shaft supposed to be in this movie? We don't know I don't know and also the timeline of the fucking the other shaft the tim story shaft is that he has

[01:43:39] A jesse t usher whatever his name is like 10 years before this movie. I think That kid is bored sometime in the 90s It had yeah the way that attracts shaft has a kid in this movie and also just we don't hear about his love life

[01:43:53] Or the fact that he is a father Right, right. Well it is because it's his duty to please the booty, you know So like that's getting in the way david david he repeats the line. He repeats the line. They make it as true Right, that's like

[01:44:06] The expendables where like brucellus is like uh, you get p k a motherfucker or whatever and you're just like god How much money did you demand? Yeah Stallone yells out adrian in the middle of a scene That would be straight up good if he did that

[01:44:23] The very first uh, I'm remembering the very first scene of samuel jackson's in shaft 2019 I'm realizing is him opening the door to his private Investigations office and there's glitter on his face and then you see that there's a woman who has glitter on her chest

[01:44:37] That he's been motor boating I guess so they just like rathgate want you to know like shaft You know shaft has sex. Don't worry about that and it's like, okay Uh, but what does that have it's just it's they it's still so much an adaptation of

[01:44:50] What we know of shaft that it gets in the way of proper Yeah, it's also just so bizarre that that movie is ostensibly a fairly hard r But it also has the aesthetics and energy of a 90s tim allen family comedy

[01:45:03] Yes, like it it feels like jungle to jungle. It feels pg 13 right Uh, and it's so much about like fatherhood and shit But that's this weird thing is like well when they announced that and you went like oh modern shaft

[01:45:17] That that sounds cool make a modern shaft then when sam jackson was announced You're like so it's a sequel to the singleton shaft Which weirdly was unsequelized which kind of felt like they could have just made three more of these and maybe they would have figured out

[01:45:31] The formula at some point in time. I also think I vaguely I vaguely remember that they remixed to the theme song They don't just play the theme song is normal, which correct. That's the that's the easiest part

[01:45:43] Yeah, don't do it. Just just hit play just go to itunes theme from shaft hit play There's also a big gun shootout set to be my baby Um, okay, but but that that weird fucking thing. It all sounds like a bummer everything It's such a bummer

[01:45:59] But but that it is a sequel to this movie that is totally so disconnected from that movie That recon's the relationship between the two previous shafts in that And that it's like a sequel to movie that no one remembers which is more trying to comment on the cultural

[01:46:15] perception of what shaft is But as you said also more that anything is just making a comedy using sam l jackson's persona As if it's like analyze this and it's like well, you've seen this guy play these types of roles before

[01:46:29] It's right along with shaft. Yes, right. It's right. It's it's anodyne versus this movie You're like oh my god like this movie has so many hard swerves and it's like so weirdly charged And doesn't land a lot of it. But whereas this movie you're describing just sounds lame

[01:46:46] Did you guys know that sam l jackson was in seven movies in 2019? Okay, can we try to guess the seven movies? Please go ahead in 2019 2019 so he's in shaft. That's the gimme Yes Yeah Avengers end game

[01:47:02] He is an avengers end game. He walks along a porch. It's captain marvel that same year Yes, okay, so that's three Okay, um, oh, oh rises skywalker He is thank you. I thought you might not get that does it does a voice

[01:47:18] He tells ray that she's the one or whatever they all tell her at the end there Okay, david is there another franchise film in the mix or have we knocked out the franchises where he had

[01:47:29] Oblietorium another franchise film that you are spider-man far from home. There you go He did three of them that he did three of them that year and they're all kind of super different performances

[01:47:40] I will say one of them. He's playing a parody of himself. He's playing an alien personating him right? Yes Uh, you have two more to go awesome

[01:47:52] Okay, one is a big movie that we covered on this podcast and one is a movie that no one ever heard of It's a big movie we covered on this podcast glass where he's glass Wow Of course and then the last movie is it's a war movie

[01:48:09] Oh, is it the what's the last full measure? That's right. That's right. Oh Where you're like, oh, I was sammel jackson was in a war movie

[01:48:18] Yeah, oh, this is the thing. I'm busy man. This is the thing I was going to say before I got distracted by five other things I was going to say So so he has this very unpretentious attitude of like people offer me a part. I'll do it, right?

[01:48:29] And he's also known for just being the most prepared actor Like that's the thing everyone says about him is he just shows up the first take is perfect And he is like you got three takes and he doesn't suffer fools gladly

[01:48:41] And he gets really frustrated when people aren't professional And there was some new york times piece on him That's really fascinating where it's a lot of it's talking to his longtime agent or manager and just saying that they have to call him once a week and like

[01:48:54] Calm him down and go like sam. You can't expect everyone to be as professional as you are You will never be happy with that expectation

[01:49:02] But he's a guy just like hits his marks gets his lines knows his relationship with the camera nails it like from the get go And then wants to go play golf, right? Like it's just like this is my job. I clock in my clock out

[01:49:12] Let me go play golf But uh he there are interviews where he clearly gets kind of defensive about The ways in which he feels like he has not gotten enough respect in the industry and when he does he goes like, I don't know

[01:49:28] You tell me like he sort of refuses to acknowledge the thing And so there's a famous what I remember when Uh After jango came out and that movie was clearly kind of designed to be like maybe a supporting actor play for him

[01:49:43] And then he got no precursor nombs and christoph waltz wins the fucking oscar And I remember him doing some oscar season thing and they're like, well, this is sort of like an oscar play for you And he's like, I don't know

[01:49:54] No one's nominating me. So I guess it isn't Like sort of like bitter about it. And then I found I Summed you to rabbit hole watched the interview he did on howards stern right after this movie came out

[01:50:08] And the movie was a hit right it opened at number one it opened big it kind of dropped off quickly But like opening weekend. It seemed like an unqualified hit Uh and now it was a hit right jackson has his franchise. Here's a big summer movie

[01:50:23] He's the only guy above the title. He's playing this iconic character. He'll get to keep on playing these and You know stern is asking these questions where he's like, well, this is like huge for your career, right?

[01:50:34] And he's like, I don't know you tell me and he's like, I mean, this is like you're the only guy on the poster You get like the girl You're like getting the action

[01:50:45] You're gonna make a ton of these sequels like that has to change your perception in hollywood Where you've mostly been the like supporting guy or the second lead or the funny dude or whatever And he's like, I don't know we'll see

[01:50:57] And he had this very kind of like I'll believe it when I see it kind of attitude But it is interesting to think about that like he was kind of proven right that this like didn't really

[01:51:08] Bear out into other films like this, you know, he's got a couple others But he pretty much goes back to shit Like as you said like rules of the game and basic where it's like he's one of three people He's one of two people

[01:51:20] I think a lot of that is him being a long time actor in hollywood But also recognize them even like as a lead He's still like a black man and he'll have to like audition for the rest of his life and have to do all these singers like

[01:51:34] I'm not he doesn't want to go on the radio and be like hell. Yeah I'm a star now because as soon as he says that people will be like this guy seems like he's full of himself

[01:51:40] We can't you don't want to do that. I think that's also just how he's maintained such a professionalities Like he's like I have to be the kind of guy who shows up and people like he's going to deliver And that's the only way I can continue to work

[01:51:51] You know, I think that mentality also gives him the thing of like I can't turn down a job because I at any point my career could be over right The only movies I can think of that he is the lead snake's on a plane

[01:52:04] Are snakes on a plane and coach carter like there's really like almost nothing else like where it's like samuel jackson That's it. Damn. Yeah, and snakes on a plane obviously became this kind of like parody

[01:52:15] Of samuel jackson being in movies or that's what people wanted it to be and then it's actually just kind of lame But like that was the fun of that Whatever that marketing experience demmy you're you're 100 right? That is the subtext of all those interviews

[01:52:30] There are also times where he does go off and that way you're saying he can't do Where I know like he's done interviews where he's like I should have won the fucking oscar I feel like he's very playful when he does it though. Yeah, he's playful

[01:52:41] He jokes about it, but he's like yeah like fucking pull fictions on t-shirts who talks about martin landow and edwood Uh, you know a statement of a guy who clearly has never listened to blank check

[01:52:51] Where I talk about my landow and edwood constantly but but he's like he has that attitude and he also loves to flaunt the fact that I think he is now

[01:53:00] Especially with all the marvel movies the highest grossing actor of all time like by absolutely by leaps and bounds But so much because the marvel I mean that's I think he's someone who only wants to comment on public perception or what is

[01:53:13] Is like publicly accepted as like no one would fight him on this like he'll say like Yeah, pope fiction was one of the biggest fucking movies of that of that year But he's not going to say it the year it comes out

[01:53:23] He'll be like right and it's like and it's because of me and travolta was the one who got to be the star For years and years after that, you know I mean I feel like he does often sort of say like I maybe should be paid more

[01:53:36] I maybe should have gotten nominated for more oscars like he kind of has that vibe to him but it's true it's like I I don't know. It's such a weird fascinating career. I feel like in lieu of an oscar

[01:53:47] He's accepted what may be a greater like award, but just sort of being like one of the only actors who's uh sort of his personality is as Uh castable as him as an actor like you can put him in a slot and he'll be like

[01:54:05] Dependable and he will nail the thing But you can also write a thing where you're just like this is a it's only can be samuel jackson Or it's like like his role in the other guys are just such a parody of

[01:54:15] Samuel l jackson where it's like you can there's like so many people you can put in that role But it's like it's got to be samuel l jackson or like a samuel jackson type where it's like He he is a bankable star, but also

[01:54:28] Can play himself and it's just like you will cast him being like we just need Himself or you can get him and have like a fucking glass type role like or old boy or jango and chain It's like he can do so many things

[01:54:39] But he doesn't need to get Like awards recognition for it because culturally I think he's already gotten that he'll definitely get like an honorary award At some point he will and he might eventually write like do some prestigey movie where the Oscars are like

[01:54:54] Oh, oh, we'll shake off the dust and be like we've decided it's time for you to win an Oscar But that's that annoying oscar thing where they've decided Exactly, you know like And that that just kind of comes off

[01:55:05] Terribly half the time it does feel to me like both jango and Especially hateful eight were designed to try to get him an oscar like tarantino was like enough's enough now jango That's a really fucking tricky character. It was unlikely that was gonna work even though I

[01:55:21] Like think he he should have gotten on a possibly one for that just because the character is so off-putting But that's example them of what you're talking about where he was just like

[01:55:29] I'm gonna drop the samuel jackson's shit and give you like full investment into a character in the reality of this movie And then hateful eight feels like it's a movie design just to showcase everything he can do But the movie doesn't connect

[01:55:42] His movies have made 27 and a half billion dollars worldwide. That's crazy. It's pretty good. He's the number wild Number two is robert danney jr. Yeah number three is tom hanks and number four

[01:55:56] Of course, we know her. We love her scarlett joe hanson. I don't know so marvel movies have thrown everything off Yeah, I how how many people of the top 10 are not in the mcu Great question. I'm looking now. I'm looking now and it's two

[01:56:12] It's tom hanks and harrison ford. That sucks. That's I'm honestly Shocked harrison ford hasn't been in the mcu honestly. I know that's actually a good I actually had to think for a second around me. Wait, does he play like a space cop or something?

[01:56:27] Like I did I forget like in my head. He's he's uh, timie lee jones' role in first avenger But right he might as well be not that timie lee jones didn't knock the house But uh, yeah, tom cruiser is now 11 That's right. Oh

[01:56:40] And i'm sure that kills him It's the number of marvel movies and the fact that everyone's in so many of them that that fucks the stat up But then you have to think that samuel jackson was already number one

[01:56:50] Before the marvel universe started because he also has fucking Jurassic park and three star wars movies Like yeah, it's just it fucking and like the Incredibles and like, you know like all kinds of shit

[01:57:03] But I mean it is fascinating. Yes. I mean I think we sort of have been talking about like this Movie feels like it's among other things trying to be the culmination of here is what the samuel jackson movie star persona is codified into its own franchise and then

[01:57:23] 19 years later they make a movie that's essentially just parodying that And both of them become weird non-starters for his career Which is well because I do think they could have made a movie like an original character that was just it's samuel

[01:57:36] Jackson and that might have done just as well I think samuel jackson is maybe as if not more recognizable than shaft Uh, I yeah at this point though It's like the right moment culturally to combine the two things even though

[01:57:51] It probably would have behooped and better to just be like let's create our own shaft type character Oh, I mean I mean by the point of like 2019 when that oh by 2019 it makes no fucking sense

[01:58:01] Especially when you're just like wait a second. It's a it's a movie about Legendary character john shaft the second Being a dead beat dad. I forgot what that guy's quirks are The last decade of this industry has been such a panic of them trying to be like

[01:58:17] We just need some sort of recognizable name to get 10% of the audience and then from there on we'll trust that you can get more It doesn't matter how connected the property is or how big the audience might be

[01:58:27] Can I say one one final thing about this movie before we get to the box off this game? That's like a thing I both like about this movie and find frustrating But I always get roped into it

[01:58:36] Few things get me more excited when watching a film when I feel like oh man this story is like branching out It's getting expansive, right? Because like I feel like the most satisfying thing to me is when a movie is able to set like 15 plates

[01:58:51] Spinning at the same time narratively and somehow make them all convene in a satisfying way And that that weird second act we sort of talked around that's sort of formless of this movie I I do get a charge from it because it's when the story starts to unfold

[01:59:08] Even though it ultimately has no idea what to do with any of the things it's setting up But when it's like, okay, you've set up peoples as this alternate track Then the two of them get put in the the cell together

[01:59:19] Then there's the weird thing of like bail trying to hawk the jewelry to hire him to kill tony collette The search for tony collette bail being beholden to him and needing to sell his heroin

[01:59:30] Because also they paid off hidea like there's this moment where the movie feels like it's becoming the wire and trying to show the entire spiderweb And it's like yeah, as you said the lintig pen ending is interesting in and of itself

[01:59:45] It's the ending to a movie that this film is fundamentally not and it also makes this film feel Kind of unsatisfying because it's just like well the movie was just about a lot of shit ramping up and never really happening

[01:59:58] While this one guy just flew to switzerland and tried to skate by Yeah, I feel like if it even I mean it wouldn't be a fix But if it ended in some way where it's like either tony collette does not testify or like

[02:00:11] Something goes something happens that makes it clear that christian bail is going to get away with it And then the like big like lin figpin stuff happens You kind of get the sense of like oh well that all tracks

[02:00:20] But for that ending to come after you're like well shaft got got his man. It's just like oh What's the what's this then it's also weird that tony collette's like the mcguffin of the movie and here she is

[02:00:33] Like a year after the sixth sense. She's such a fucking good actor. She's just been nominated for an academy award You feel like she's going to be the secret weapon of this movie when she comes in and she's got like one scene where she's good

[02:00:44] Why is your character still in town? They just find her playing basketball some kids in the park. They're like she's gone Makes no sense They paid her a hundred thousand dollars to get out of town and she's like cool. So i'll just like Not go home that often

[02:01:01] wild I just love when when when the two giant italian guys show up to like protect her like It's anyway We have to talk about the box office griffin, please june 16th 2000 shaft open to 21 million dollars. Yeah, which is pretty big for again a hard R

[02:01:24] Movie made 70 domestic 107 worldwide like it was you know, it was a hit off of what budget It was 50 and yeah like a 48 million dollar budget, which is High like this movie doesn't look that expensive. I don't know why it cost that much money

[02:01:40] Uh, but but but it made like 100 million worldwide. Yeah, everyone's happy It did what 70 here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like this this should have been a franchise starter Uh, and I you know, I the reviews were mixed, but it felt like it was like

[02:01:58] Enjoyed enough passively by people that they could have put one of these out two years later and everyone would have gone to see it Right, they would have just gone like yeah, cool. I'll see sam jackson in a trench coat again

[02:02:07] Who gives a shit? I really don't know why a sequel didn't happen until 2019 I don't I don't know what the story is there. It is also just funny to think about how radically the summer box office has transformed

[02:02:17] Where you're like june 16th our rated shaft opens to a robust 21 million dollars is sequel on the way Right now it would be like, you know Head of paramount commits public suicide as apology for terrible opening of movies

[02:02:33] Right. Well now you have like solo opens to disappointing 106 opening Justice league makes shameful 700 million worldwide. Yeah Okay number two at the box office is another crime thriller Okay With an a star of the moment, uh, where I think I imagine we're all fans

[02:03:01] Uh, you know, he's uh, he's there's nobody like him and then a young a Newer star who just won an oscar or he's gonna win an oscar this year Um The it's not the bone detective is it no

[02:03:17] One that's called the bone collector you nailed it. Angelina Jolie is in this movie It would be funny if the bone collector was literally called the bone detective Like it's such as what bones is That's just i'd be into that It's a good movie

[02:03:32] Shaft 2000 and the bone collector were both movies that uh were in my parents dvd collection Where I'd see them all the time and just be like, I don't really understand what that is and now I'm like

[02:03:41] Why do my parents love these movies or how did they feel about these that they're so action to my mind They just love crime thrillers of the late 90s and early 2000s You grew up in a household with those two dvds and never watched them

[02:03:55] It doesn't sound like your parents were like putting them on again Like they bought them and kept them on the shelf All the time there were movies that I would see around and just be like I don't know what that is because my parents weren't watching these movies

[02:04:06] I think my parents are the kind of people who either buy movies thinking like oh, I might watch that Which I do a lot or they buy a movie being like I liked that movie I would like to watch it again one day

[02:04:16] But they don't because they don't never watch movies demmy am i miss remembering or you the person who every time you went to visit Your parents put one more copy of click on dvd

[02:04:26] It it was it was really that I uh at one moment put 57 copies in their dvd collection For a video and then a slow death by thousand no it was it was here's immediately this

[02:04:41] And then I uh, it was like while I think I was in college and I went back to college And I came back like seven months later and they were still there and they hadn't mentioned it I was like what you guys don't see this

[02:04:54] They were working through it. They were probably on like number 22 or whatever right? Yeah, we're waiting for one of them to be different Yeah Uh, David the answer to this movie has gone in 60 seconds. Is it not it's gone? It's gone in 60 seconds

[02:05:07] I will I do want to shout out producer ben for chiming in two hours in to say that the bone collector is a good movie extremely on brand Yeah, uh, thank you ben of course, but sadly we are talking about gone in 60 seconds

[02:05:20] The car boosting movie with nicholas cage And angelina is this movie is that post fast and furious or around the same time Is the year before got it. Okay. It's a year before an interesting thing to think about yes the year before

[02:05:36] And john singleton's career changed really in this weekend. Yeah. Yeah, and also gone in 60 seconds feels like The type of car aficionado movie that dies the second fast and furious takes over You know where it's just like car cultures

[02:05:51] But people like cars you can make a movie with a bunch of nice cars in them versus like it's a superhero franchise based around Drivers it's like do you want to see nice cars or do you want to see people just fucking drive gone in 60 seconds?

[02:06:03] Of course also a disney movie. Yeah gone six seconds. It doesn't move it. Yeah Brackheimer number three Uh, it's a comedy uh another comedy in which uh a major black actor Well, no another movie in which a major black actor plays a policeman

[02:06:20] Um, but it's a comedy this big mama's house comedy big mama's house big mama's house I saw it three times in theater. Hmm. I saw it one time at theater I don't think i've ever seen it

[02:06:31] My dad loved it so much. He called up my grandfather and was like you got to take the boys to see this movie You're gonna love it And so I saw the grandfather loved it He loved it. He loved it

[02:06:42] It was the one scene where my dad was like you're not gonna believe this scene He talked it up as if it was like the most iconic scene In comedy history and it's the scene where martin lorenz gets trapped in the shower

[02:06:53] While he's trying to case big mama's house and she starts pooping and he's in the shower And she's pooping and they're poop sound effects and he's reacting like it smells bad. Oh, I also forgot that's a scene in the 2000 shaft in which uh, uh

[02:07:08] Jeffrey Wright stares down christian bale while taking a shit And and they dropped the sound effect of one third plopping into the toilet at the end when he makes a dramatic point well Man knows how to like, you know, you didn't talk about a shiv

[02:07:25] Oh, yeah, he's big. He's got this ice pick. Yeah, and he stabs himself The moment where he stabs himself they have this funk music that drops and it's so uh, not the tone Like I think it wants you to be like, whoa, this guy's really weird

[02:07:40] But in my head it's like any other score and they'd be like this guy's a psycho and you should this like the escalation Of what he means as a villain, but it's not scary. It's just sort of like whoa weird because of the funk music

[02:07:52] That scene yes is it feels like something Jeffrey Wright tried out and they were like holy shit And as you say they completely undercut it in the moment and it's kind of like The yeah drowned out in the mix as well. It's a weird scene. Yeah

[02:08:05] It's as close as they get to making him a developed character Yes, because his brother is dead and he's suddenly charged up But then yeah, you're also like at the end of the day your your job is that you're

[02:08:18] A assassin for christian bale. Why didn't christian bale just hire someone else? Why did he hire this random guy? It doesn't matter You've never seen big mama's house demi you were saying I have not but I think that's another movie in my parents dvd collection

[02:08:31] I feel like my parents just got a box of dvds in the year 2000 and then never again I i've done this riff before but it's just one of the most fascinating Like sequel approaches To a movie where the first one is Neha long is like a witness

[02:08:49] They put her into She's on the run from her ex-husband whose tarant's howard She goes to hide out at her big mama's house. So martin lorenz specifically needs to impersonate Her big mama in order to keep her safe

[02:09:03] And then the sequel is like there's an incident at a college We need someone to go undercover and he's like cool. I'll take out the big mama costume

[02:09:11] Big mama means nothing really there's two more movies where he assumes the role of big mama and no one knows big mama as a person And in the third one, isn't it? He has a son the son also has to dress like I guess your little mama that

[02:09:24] The fuck what is this? I believe The poster of the third one is literally martin lorenz is holding up the wardrobe his son is gonna have to wear This son is like

[02:09:35] I don't want to do this. Yeah, this seems overly complicated. Can I just put a mustache on? We don't have any ideas for how to do a sequel after it's been five years past

[02:09:44] They got a kid now. Yes. They always it's like they have a secret kid and it's actually a hot 25 year old Yeah, which is which is what the third shaft is Yep

[02:09:55] Okay, number five at the box office. So number four. Where are we number four is a sequel It's one of the most successful films of the year Mission impossible to um, it's mission impossible to I think it is the highest gross Or grinch

[02:10:09] Yes, I always I always forget if like I think maybe it's highest worldwide and grinch's highest domestic or whatever Yes, um, John Woo motorcycle mission impossible correct with a the great character of sand gun, of course

[02:10:23] Sand gun a gun a gun that tom cruise kicks out of the sand to shoot someone Greatest scene in the movie. That's the only mission impossible movie where I truly don't remember anything

[02:10:33] Well, I okay. I remember the uh rock climbing in the beginning and I remember the motorcycle crashing in the air No, that's the thing it is almost impossible to remember two hours there. That's tough. That's tough wild

[02:10:45] Doing that commentary really solidified that where whenever people defend that movie I'm like I agree with everything you're saying now rewatch the two hours in between everything You just described to me because it's there

[02:10:57] There's that scene where like brendan gliesen is like sweating on a hospital bed for like a while and like It's just one of those classic movies where like when you're watching it

[02:11:05] You're like I can't remember why they're doing this like the movie leaves you as you're watching it. Anyway Number five at the box office is it is a shame. It's the one bad one

[02:11:14] Uh, number five is an animated film griffin. We will cover it on this podcast one day. It's not dinosaur Okay, but if we're gonna cover seven if we're gonna cover it one day Uh animated 2000 It's not correct. Hmm It's a science fiction

[02:11:33] Animated film. Oh, it's titan a e Titan a e don bluth's final movie Titan a weirdly has become one of our like longest held promise episodes

[02:11:44] Like I feel like I know it just comes up so much where it's like some like that's become the hulk for us now Why? It just feels like such a weird artifact

[02:11:53] And don bluth has such an odd career trying to like destroy disney and almost making it work and then really not making it work And that's sort of like such a peak example movie. Yeah, that's the one that kills him. Yeah

[02:12:07] I even doesn't kill him, but it's you know, that's it kills the career. Yeah Yeah, uh titan a wow Yeah, number six. I just want to shout out is the um romantic comedy boys and girls Uh starring of course

[02:12:22] freddy prince jr. Claire forlani and jason biggs. Yeah. Um wait a second I'm trying to remember what the tagline is for boys and girls. Okay. I I want to tell you the entire poster Let's do it. Uh, okay. I'm looking at the poster

[02:12:36] Uh, yes, this this is what I remember because I remember the trailer doing the same thing With the warning said in voiceover you have um, uh the two girls Claire forlani and Amanda deptmer and you have the boys freddy and jason freddy versus jason

[02:12:54] But with those two guys just a pitch i'm throwing out there. Yeah The top the top tagline says opposites attack So I guess it's like boys and girls are opposites and they're gonna like but yeah below boys and girls Is the second tagline warning

[02:13:11] Sex changes everything. Yeah, that's it. That's just that no other explanation of why they might be warning you about this I I remember like don la fontaine or whoever saying that in the trailer

[02:13:23] And the stamp like went over the screen and it felt almost like that was the full title of the movie Like it was called boys and girls warning sex changes everything um my My brother jamesy passed a future guest of the show

[02:13:38] Went to see that movie in theaters and was like it sucked But there's one line that is so Funny and james is gonna come back on the show to talk about space jam a new legacy an episode that will be happening very soon

[02:13:51] And so I just want to put a pin in that because I want to see if he remembers what that line was Because for months he would be like that one line jason big says is so Funny in that movie. All right

[02:14:03] Do you guys have movies like that where you're just like this is from decades ago But I distinctly remember my response to this one line. Yes I especially trailers like maybe movies that I never even saw

[02:14:15] Oh, yeah, but I and then I finally will watch then I'm like, oh I forgot that that trailer line was burned into my brain forever and ever and ever honestly It's my duty to please that booty Vividly remember several lines from the bringing down the house trailer

[02:14:29] Including the iconic you got me straight tripping boo. Well, that's right, right Yes, but I remember seeing chicken run in 2000 and they uh have Someone says where there's a will there's a way and someone else says and I will be going this way

[02:14:41] And I was just like, yeah, wow, that's the only joke that's ever been made that one is a good joke Demi I was not anticipating because I the one I feel like from the trailer

[02:14:50] I remember being played to death and I love chicken run is I don't want to be a pie I don't like gravy Yes, it's a good line. Well, that's a good one But something about that one line. I was just like, oh, yeah, yeah trick

[02:15:03] I knew that I know the setup, but this is a different punch line. So I was just like what the hell dirty rooster Um incredible I I rewatched a shanghai noon for the first time in a while recently for Patrick Willems

[02:15:16] Infinity pod and a big line in my family which then watching it again in context was like That's weird that we just said this all the time because everyone in my family found this movie so funny But I'll just say the line completely out of context now

[02:15:31] You said wet shirt. Don't break not piss shirt Ben bars What That's my point you said that all the time all the time We were like remember that funniest line ever in any movie ever

[02:15:46] Wait, wait, wait a second. Well, you you said wet shirt. Don't break not piss shirt Ben bars I Funny is we all thought that was the funniest Why is that funny? I don't even know why that's funny. I I can't I I can't get into it

[02:16:03] I can't get into it. We don't have the time. I will say this. I'll say this is a final thing I was watching shaft 2019 which has as we've said Great many issues right many of them conceptually from page one

[02:16:16] Uh, but uh, you know it wants to do this thing of like oh shaft is like a guy of his time He's not pc anymore. Here's his son. Who's this modern man?

[02:16:25] One of the many issues with the movie is I can't decide if shaft is uncool for being antiquated and sexist Or shaft son is uncool for being a modern man And much of the movie is him calling him like a pussy soy boy. Yeah um

[02:16:40] So much of the marketing for the movie Uh was definitely in the former because a lot of the marketing was just sort of like Why don't you take your avocado toast and show it up your dick hole and then in the movie?

[02:16:50] It's just sort of like what's this so much. What's the point right? It's it really feels like they wanted to market it to boomers and to like People just like I don't know right wing people whose entire perception of millennials is uh

[02:17:07] They're too pc. I'm just like I So depressing that like a shaft About shaft cucking millennials This is the other thing The other thing is like I I agree with you Demi that that movie works best when it's sort of about

[02:17:23] The weirdness of samuel jackson and the sadness of this guy still existing in 2019 acting like nothing's changed Like that I think it should have been an austin powers type take where it's like shaft is

[02:17:36] Unfrozen out of the 70s and everyone's like what the fuck is wrong with you You can't just shout to get laid I so I was doing the thought experiment while watching it because jesse t usher

[02:17:47] Who's one of these guys who sort of been positioned as like oh, is he a new leading man? He'll play will smith son in independence day You know resurgence like he can be your legacy actor is not inherently a comedic actor

[02:17:59] Right and that role is designed is like the funny young modern shaft Right like he's not supposed to be a cool movie star guy He's supposed to be the one who can banter well with samuel jackson

[02:18:10] And I was doing the thought experiment of like look obviously I'd want this thing to get a fucking page one rewrite But like who is the actor you could cast as john shaft III that would make this movie funnier to me

[02:18:22] And I was like racking my brain and genuinely genuinely the answer I came to is I want to see demi play young shaft Oh god I don't know That's a zero box office movie. I mean, but you know what else was a zero box office movie

[02:18:37] Jesse t usher and shaft That's fair But I I was thinking if it was you with samuel jackson, I would have found that funny I don't know if the movie would have I would have had a blast. You would have had a good time

[02:18:48] Yeah, everyone'd be like demi's having so much fun. Everyone's review would be demi's having so much fun Which is their way of being like this movie sucks It seems like you had a lot of fun. That's what people would say to you

[02:19:00] You can just tell they're having they're enjoying it. They had a nice time the dinners every night after they wrapped must have been delightful Yeah, I'll show up to set and wear red coat and just be like, oh man

[02:19:10] I got my my gotta go to the apple store and have samuel jackson be like you kids Oh podcast so much app confusion in that movie. Oh good. That's good. Yeah It's it really hidden hidden all the hallmarks of what studios want to say about

[02:19:27] People now, which is just they love apps and Avocado toast or some shit I I several times had to pause the movie to double check that it did in fact come out in 2019 because it feels like it's 10 years old

[02:19:39] It it felt like two of 2004 movie. Yes. Yes. Yes Uh demi, thank you so much for being on the show. Well, thank you for having me to talk about shaft Always a pleasure. So we're just talking about shaft Um, I can dig it anything you want to plug

[02:19:55] Uh, watch the ember orphan show great show. It's really good. It Very good. Uh, yeah, that's it. Got nothing else. I'm just sitting here. Uh, oh, yeah, sure peacock

[02:20:07] You know, but it doesn't you don't need the premium. It's uh, it's on the free tier on the the ad tier Yes, and I know they've been doing some some bursts of also, uh broadcasting the show on mbc So sometimes it's airing

[02:20:20] I have no idea if it's still the case. I think we were syndicated on mbc for 10 weeks I don't know when that was it might be over But you know turn on mbc and maybe you'll see a thing I wrote and maybe you'll just see new amsterdam instead

[02:20:33] Hey, hey watch out. Hey, that's every time I turn on my tv. And from gilmore girls is a doctor Yeah, right? That's what new amsterdam is. I think that isn't that the resident That's the resident Get into this It's it I simped it up Um

[02:20:57] Demi thank you again for being here and folks great Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe ben don't correct me I don't want to say the thing. I want to say subscribe. It's not right. What's the real thing?

[02:21:12] They've changed it now. It says follow Oh, so you can follow a show. You don't subscribe to a show anymore on apple podcasts They changed the bum but i'm gonna be like shaft. I'm gonna be anachronistic Okay Yeah, it should be follow

[02:21:27] Go to page. It shouldn't be follow. It should not Uh, go to blank check go to patreon.com slash blank check For blank check special features where we're talking twilight We're covering the twilight movies

[02:21:40] Uh movies that have a very very chill relationship to sex much like the shaft franchise Um shaft is the anti twilight. Yeah, and in I've always said this in so many ways um

[02:21:54] Go to uh blank is not red dot com for some real nerdy shit and go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy merch Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media Alex baron a j mckeen for editing help and david

[02:22:10] We got a new member of the team. Yep research We got we got uh research on this episode done by jj bursh and nick loriano So thanks to them and thank you to lane montgomery and the great american novel for our theme song

[02:22:25] tune in next week for baby boy end as always I am Legally obligated No, I should just let you that's how it should end. No, we do the legal obligation I said to What was that?

[02:22:45] I'm just legally obligated to let you know that's my duty to please that voting There we go. Oh my god. Wait that