[00:00:00] Hey folks, before you listen to today's episode we want to take a brief moment to talk about the Ochre Project. The Ochre Project is a 100% grassroots org that helps feed the black trans and gender non-conforming community.
[00:00:13] This month they've also launched a mental health initiative in honor of Nina Popp and Tony McDade to help individuals pay for free therapy. You can visit theochreproject.com to learn more and donate if you're in a position to do so.
[00:00:27] You can find links in the episode description and on our social media accounts at Blank Check Pod. Thank you and enjoy the episode! Blank Check with Griffin and David What are you going to do?
[00:00:56] Well, I'm gonna get a bed every morning, breathe in and out all day long, and then after a while I won't have to remind myself to get a bed every morning.
[00:01:05] And breathe in and out and then after a while I won't have to think about how I had a great end podcast for a while. What's the line? What's the word being replaced? Perfect! Yeah. Now David, can you give me another line reading? Uh, okay.
[00:01:26] Can you ask me, tell me what was so special about your wife? Tell me what was so special about your wife. Well, how long is your podcast?
[00:01:34] Well it was a million tiny little things that, you know, when you added them all up they meant we were supposed to be together and I knew it. You know, I knew it the very first time I podcasted her.
[00:01:44] It was like podcasting home only to no podcast I'd ever known. I was just taking her podcast to podcast her out of a podcast and I knew it was, it was like podcast. I'm glad we've ruined this movie.
[00:01:57] A movie you have long contended is perfect and I finally found a way to ruin. You're right. Hello everybody! You're going, let me at it! My name is Griff the RUNER Newman. Uh, I'm David. I'm sleepless in Sims. I don't know. Sleepless in Brooklyn. Yeah, sleepless in Brooklyn.
[00:02:16] Hey, sleepin' Davey. Uh, alright. Um, I would say I'm a good sleeper. And I would say... Oh boy. Um, that I basically still sleep okay. I just wake up at like 9am now which is pretty late for me.
[00:02:32] So I've just sort of been shifted over a little bit. Sure. Yes, no, I cannot imagine waking up that late. This is a podcast. I don't talk to you about sleeping because it's just like... We don't talk about it. We have very different experiences.
[00:02:45] We have very different relationships with sleep. Your relationship to sleep is kind of like Meg Ryan and, uh, uh, Bill Pullman. My relationship to sleep is kind of like Tom Hanks and his dead wife. Uh, and this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David.
[00:03:03] It's about filmographies, directors who have massive sleepless success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make it over crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce.
[00:03:14] And this is a nice series on the films of Nora Efron. It's called You've Got Podcast. And today we're talking about her breakthrough. Yeah, as a director. Right. As a director. Obviously, she's already an established writer but she, this is her breakthrough as a filmmaker. Right.
[00:03:33] I mean, established as a, uh, a prose writer before becoming established as a screenwriter that before then becoming established as a director. And this is her commercial breakthrough as, uh, all of it. This is the Garen tour. Oh my God, David.
[00:03:48] I was just going to try to chime in and talk before I was introduced and say Garen tour and speak the language of the show. But you nailed it. You nailed it. Yeah.
[00:03:57] This is, she gets to make movies for the rest of her career because of this, right? You make, you make one of these. No matter how many bombs. Yes, absolutely. This is one of those films.
[00:04:03] I feel like we've covered a couple of them on the podcast where it's like, if you make this once they're going to keep on giving you money in the hopes that you replicate it. Exactly.
[00:04:11] And then, you know, of course it helps that a couple of times she did, but like, she's also made a lot of weird movies that didn't connect, but it didn't matter. She always had this to point to. Is this the biggest?
[00:04:21] I don't want to spoil like box office game or anything, but like this is, is this her biggest hit? No, right? No, I think it may be, but on it probably is. I think you've got mail made slightly more. They made similar amounts of money.
[00:04:33] They both basically made like close to 250 worldwide. Yeah, it's amazing. But she, I mean, she essentially had four movies make a hundred or very close to 100. Yeah. Sleepless Michael, Julie Julia and you've got mail. Those are her four box office hits. Right. And yeah, I mean, Mike, right.
[00:04:54] Michael did pretty well. Right. Michael almost joined the Century Club, right? Yes, yes it did. And then Bewitched did OK. Relative to its budget. Not so hot. Right, right. And then Lucky Numbers and Mix Nuts are like on absolute bombs. I mean, she was pretty much an alternator.
[00:05:14] It was like kind of every other one for her. It's why she's always made sense for our podcast because she's, she's got like wild bombs in her career. Yes, absolutely. There's not a lot of like romcom directors.
[00:05:28] I feel like who like have like huge swing miss type projects on their resume. Usually it's like, eh, that one was okay. But let's talk about someone who I think has had zero bombs on her blank check resume. That's right.
[00:05:44] Not only is she one of our best guests, but also every movie she's covered is a clear. Yeah, we always give you good movies. Yeah, I know. I guess I'm like demanding them or something. I don't thank you guys.
[00:05:58] Someone was trying to like break down the patterns of different regular guests and what kind of movies they get really? Well, Alex Rosperie always wants movies that people, if you pointed a gun at them would be like, I haven't heard of ads.
[00:06:13] He always wants the film that exists the least within a famous director's hand. They'd be like, no, Ang Lee, he made a movie about Woodstock. To beat you, Martin was the star. You'd be like, you're going to have to shoot me. I just have to recollect. Right. Right.
[00:06:27] And like, like I feel like Erlich always gets something that's like, oh, it's like barely an on base hit. Like Erlich always gets like. I'm trying to remember what the other patterns that were identified were. Porch movies. Porch movies. Ben always gets the porch movie.
[00:06:50] I feel like Emily Oshida has just been on too many times to have a pattern. She just, she gets carp launch. But yes, she did get like movies that are often like sort of like abrasive or strange in some way. Like I storm L strange days, right?
[00:07:06] Even speed racer. Yeah. I think you get Batman Return. I mean, it's weird. Yeah, even Batman Returns freak people out though. Oh yeah. JD's technical stuff usually at some sort of advancement. But let's just talk about, let's talk about.
[00:07:22] Oh, and Richard has movies from like 1995 to 1999 or like Richard. It's just this like tight 10 year. It's like 93 to 03 Tom Hanks may well be involved. Have you guys addressed it on the show how Richard's trolls have ruined the movie industry?
[00:07:41] Is this has this come up yet in the. It is insane the way that the trolls are the thing that finally broke cinema. It is crazy because I do feel like it's not like Universal didn't know what they're doing, but they're probably just going, I don't know.
[00:07:54] Let's just release it. I don't know. Fuck it. Jesus. And then like the trolls are like Richard. Let's say this Richard knew right? Richard knew what was going to happen. Chaos reigns. He knew on that fateful night when he like added whatever
[00:08:09] chemical X, you know, cause the first one of those things to come out of whatever world they're from. He knew I want to talk about I want to talk about a little episode, a graphy here. Okay. Wow. The sixth sense.
[00:08:25] The episode in which the box office game is created. It's true. Wow. Titanic broadcast news collateral and now entering officially the five timers club. Right. The official one cause Titanic is doesn't really count. Yeah. I wasn't actually on the second part of the Titanic episode
[00:08:46] because I had to leave with my child. Right. Now a grown boy. Yeah. We want to give him a head start on the five timers club. He's closer than anyone else of his age. He was also so great on the fifth anniversary episode.
[00:09:00] Oh, that was so my god. Oh, he made me cry. It felt like I, I really, I really made up for how he really did leave the Titanic episode. No, no. No, I mean, you know, they say leave him wanting more,
[00:09:13] but the amount of people who like reach out to me and I'm sure Ben and David and Andrew experiences as well and just said like, oh, I just started crying hysterically at Charlie's segment. Well, him just talking about popcorn and this is like
[00:09:26] right when people are like, when am I going to go to a movie theater in Canada? Oh, that's true. That's true. Yeah. That's the thing. He summed up the filmmaking experience. Exactly. And then Richard broke it. I mean, the film's like the cinema going experience. Sorry.
[00:09:42] But anyway, those are the names of the movies that our guest has been a guest for. And what's our guest name? I did not make and have no credit for having contributed to the world. I just want to be clear on that.
[00:09:52] Never made any movies despite going to phone school. Playing in the war room. Lil' Goldman, Katie Rich. Woo! I thought I was going to have to bring up being in the five timers club myself because I got very excited about it. Christian, not Griffin's on that.
[00:10:06] I'm on that tip. And let me say, here's another tip I'm on. I just finished watching Sleepless in Seattle. I'm recovering from crying. And this felt like a night to break out for the first time in quarantine.
[00:10:17] I've been trying to hold it off for as long as I could to break out my Skywalker Ranch rosé. Wow. This is George Lucas Vineyard rosé. What year? 2017. A great year for cinema, a great year for wine.
[00:10:35] And this is my oversized wine glass full of rosé that I'm going to drink during this. Oh wow. That's a Nancy Meyers pour, not an or a Fran pour. I'll say this. These were the only things left by the previous tenants when I moved into my apartment.
[00:10:49] Those glasses? They're big. These giant wine glasses and I've been waiting for the opportunity to use them. And it's tonight, ladies and gentlemen, bottoms up. Sleepless in Seattle. Nora Efron. Katie Rich is our guest. We introduced her, right? Five Timers Club baby. Don't forget it.
[00:11:05] And she's in the Five Timers Club and she's in North Carolina, but that won't stop us from having her on the show. Yeah. I really appreciate a global pandemic being the opportunity for me to come on the show at my convenience. And this will.
[00:11:19] Because this is probably the first time you've been on the show in a while that you haven't had to change into a party dress either. Like before or after the recording. Or like stress, like text under the table to people
[00:11:30] I was supposed to meet after being like, sorry guys, it's running late. Like, I don't know. It will be there eventually. I got nowhere to be. And let's say also you were on the schedule. I mean, you've been set for this episode for a
[00:11:40] long time back when we thought it was going to sync up with a New York trip and we were going to record this episode remotely in the top of the Empire State Building. All of us were going to show up with our own Zoom recorders. Really clean.
[00:11:51] And I'm going to say, I'm going to say that we were so well equipped from a hardware standpoint for these remote records as we had all bought all of this equipment to be able to record on top of the stage. Just five very normal people just standing
[00:12:06] around with mics at the top of the Empire State Building. Well, I mean, if you go by this movie, no one would call the equipment. I mean, it's just like, I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure if it's going to be a good idea to do that.
[00:12:19] But I think it's going to be a good idea to go by this movie. No one would call the cops about that. I mean, according to Sleep List in Seattle, security at Empire State Building is like, sure, go up, run around for all I care.
[00:12:31] Or that it's full of people and like a bunch of adults who would see a child by himself for hours. He's fine. Here's my thing about that. I think that might happen because if you're on the Empire State Building and you see a kid wandering around, you're like,
[00:12:46] wow, he's some tourist kid. Every one just have the same thought. We were going to record this at 10 p.m. atop the Empire State Building, I should mention. So our plan was to each one by one go up to the security guard and go, please, please, please.
[00:13:02] I know there's no chance that they're actually up there, but I was supposed to meet some people for a podcast. Just let me. And they would say a podcast. Oh, you should have said so. Blank check. One of my wife's favorites. My wife's favorite.
[00:13:19] But in Noura Efron movies, every fucking like New York City, you know, like doorman or like Z-Counter, Z-Bars counter guy, they're always just like the wisest. And they love their wives. And they love love. Yeah. Every like taxi driver. I don't know.
[00:13:38] Yeah, the taxi driver who takes this unaccompanied child to the Empire State Building, he's just like go for it, kid! Do what you gotta do! Did he bring any money? Hey, sure. No problem, kid. Did the kid bring any money? He had. They have a conversation about it.
[00:13:50] They have $80, which Gabby Hoffman says should cover the cabs. That's accurate. I don't know what it was in 93, but you know, 80 bucks to get from LaGuardia to the Empire State Building. $80. That sounds like Gabby Hoffman's entire residual check for this is my life. Not a big grosser.
[00:14:11] Not a big box office hit. So Katie, we have already watched This is My Life, which I'm assuming you haven't seen because no one has. No, I was going to ask you guys if you had done it because I was kind of looking to you.
[00:14:22] I did not think this was her first movie and I obviously knew about when Harry Met Sally, but I didn't know when her directorial debut was and I saw This Is My Life and I said, wow, that is a movie I did not know existed.
[00:14:31] I'm curious about what you learned. I guess you can listen to the episode now. It's pretty great. Okay, I believe it. It's not this. Julie Kavner's star? Julie Kavner. And then Gabby Hoffman and Samantha Mathis are her daughters and Carrie Fisher is her manager or whatever
[00:14:49] and Dan Akroyd is her agent. Dan Akroyd plays a character very, very closely based on Sam Cohen, founder of CAA and he spends most of the movie eating napkins. It's a good movie, but it is not a hit in any
[00:15:07] way, shape or form and it is not particularly well reviewed even. Not a hit. And yet they let her make another movie. Yes, but it is funny when you I'm when I've been sort of thinking about because I watched heartburn
[00:15:19] just sort of because it was on but also I was like, well, I should watch heartburn like, you know, in practice for this right? Even though we're not going to do it and both heartburn and This Is My Life got the same reviews which is like too nasty.
[00:15:33] Like, well, I don't care about these people. Like she was seen as being a little too caustic, you know, a little too New York, I guess. Which I also feel like sleep was in Seattle is bringing that down. But we were talking about how I guess right before
[00:15:45] we recorded, we were talking about how Nora almost like cleanly alternates every other movie between a hit and a flop. And the flops are almost always the ones that are a little more caustic and that's like, okay, I'm going to make like a straight down
[00:15:58] the middle like I can do these souffle films better than anybody. And then that one's a hit and then she's like, great, now I get to make a caustic one. And every time the caustic one is kind of rejected. Right. But she's got that streak in her.
[00:16:12] Yes, I mean, certainly her sort of humor writing early on in her career, leading to heartburn and those early screenplays and then like, I think Reiner, who is a very sentimental filmmaker, but for the first 10 years of his career, or so was a very effectively sentimental filmmaker
[00:16:30] figured out how to balance the Nora caustic wit with a little more classical kind of rom-com energy for Harry Met Sally. She does this is my life, which is its own thing. And then this feels like her being like,
[00:16:42] I should try to make something that's got a little bit of that when Harry Met Sally feel to it. Well, and she's inheriting a script from these other guys. And the thing that I wasn't able to figure out is like what it was when it came to her
[00:16:54] because there were these guys taking credit for being like we had it in Baltimore in Seattle and we had the kid calling the radio show. Like they were kind of trying to make it sound intact. Do we know what Nora brought to it?
[00:17:03] I think they had the concept because this movie is so much higher concept than her other movies. Certainly than her movies previous, right? Like her movies previous are like, Hey look, you know life, it's tough. It's tough to love people. Man, I want to get my friends.
[00:17:17] And this movie is like, this movie has to thread that really careful needle of like we need this woman's behavior to not seem psychotic throughout even though it's obviously what she's doing is very strange. I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:17:33] It's not strange to just stand behind a building and watch a father and son frolic on the beach. She's keeping so hard. But right, like it's very high concept. Like so I'm sure that was the pitch. It's like, what if you heard someone on the radio
[00:17:46] and you fell in love with them because they were just a sweetie pie? Were those radio shows popular? Like was that a thing? Oh yeah. Delilah is still on there. It's the same term as Frasier. Yeah, Delilah's still huge. Oh is that Delilah in the movie?
[00:17:59] I don't know if it's literally, but there's still, yeah, there's an equivalent that is still big today. But like if you think about Frasier which began when did the spin-off Frasier begins? I think maybe this year. Yeah, I think what appears is in this in some tiny b-roll.
[00:18:14] And they're both mocking the sort of like doctor you know, like that kind of like branded serious personality who's like, I'm here for you, you know, with the sort of like NPR voice. Well and that's the beauty of when this movie starts with Meg Ryan listening to it.
[00:18:30] She's just like, this piece of shit. Like I'm not, who don't listen to her like hang up on her and Tom Hanks doing the same thing. Like you are watching them kind of like dismiss the entire concept of it which you as a person in 1993
[00:18:42] who might not have ever gone to therapy or know anyone who has a therapist might feel the same way. Right, right. And yeah, you know all that stuff is so feminized too, right? Like you know like which was dismissed at the time.
[00:18:54] It's like oh yeah you know like the in Britain they called it an agony ant. A what? An agony aunt, you know. Wait why would you pronounce it that way and why would you even know this? What a weird phrase.
[00:19:08] Well for one, some Americans pronounce it that way which has always thrown me and I've never I always forget what it is that makes like what's the regional thing. Okay so then fair enough David you have answered my question. You are one of those rare Americans who
[00:19:19] pronounce it that way and no further information has made it. No I'm not. Ange do you pronounce it that way? I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. No. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. You're not.
[00:19:37] You know, we know like I'm not. I'm just like a Massachusetts thing. I have like an Onni Jackie. Yeah I say Onni. There you go see see. Wait and you're from Boston. Yeah. Wow. Alright cue the drop in her fees. No Griffin as we all know.
[00:19:50] I grew up. Oh my god. No, no, no, no. momentarily sorry. The bit hasn't been retired. There's there's no I don't know what you're talking about with all of it for most of my life. I live in London. No, I'm sorry Katie I
[00:20:02] forgot. I forgot I'm stupid here. We did find out in the last episode that David did spend his entire adolescence in London is the only place he lived before the age of 25 and then he moved to New York around that time maybe a little bit
[00:20:18] earlier. What? That's what we know. No, I've got no I know it and I realize now I was I was doing I was being foolish and that of course we know that you never lived anywhere other than London. That's all we know what what
[00:20:32] you're forgetting is that I also grew up on the west side of Manhattan till I was nine. That's where I first in Efron territory uptown Davies Sims but this movie is not too New Yorkie until the end obviously this movie is
[00:20:47] but it also kind of like the fact that it's in Baltimore. I like she can't say that set in a city that's not in a bunch of movies like the fact that Baltimore and Seattle especially Seattle in this area. It's like yeah credit to these cities
[00:21:00] they deserve their spot but also like the whole newspaper office thing you're like okay hi this this feels New Yorkie it's not like another character in the movie. No but it does have beautiful like her apartment is in the inner
[00:21:12] harbor like she's got a nice location. Well I mean in his place is a fucking boat. It's on water. That's the best kind of house. I love it. I will say this movie made me really think about like almost as important to a rom-com success as
[00:21:32] movie stars is good locations and this is a good city. Right. This is a movie that's just like three distinct cities you know and clearly shot in those cities. Yes and they even sneak in a little Chicago at the beginning there just
[00:21:47] a little sneak right at the beginning. Oh my God that graveyard. The reveal of the whole Chicago skyline my goodness. I think rom-coms need specific locations they need a sense of the place they're set and they need good restaurants you know good bars good streets to have
[00:22:05] exterior scenes on nothing's worse than when you're like fuck we wrote the script for New York and we shot it in Vancouver and we're just pretending Vancouver is New York. You got to own wherever you're filming. Yeah or the
[00:22:18] sort of spate of suburbs movies which is more of a teen thing obviously because there's so many teen like school dramas where they're like like Love Simon where they're all on their SUVs and they're drinking iced coffee from Starbucks and I'm like this could be a fucking
[00:22:33] anywhere. Love Simon. I mean you could tell me the world. I'm so glad you brought me here to talk about Love Simon because they go to Waffle House and love Simon. It's filmed in Atlanta. It's set in Atlanta. The fact that they go to Waffle House for a
[00:22:42] kid who grew up in the South like I did like Waffle House is where you go when you're a teenager and you're not drinking. I love Waffle House but they never go to the city. They're in El Farada or whatever. They're suburb boys whereas the purest
[00:22:56] masterpiece of the 21st century set it up the greatest film of all time about sending it up. That's a movie where Zoe Deutsch put on a New York Yankees baseball cap my friend and eats a hot dog. That's how you know. Instant five stars.
[00:23:11] That's how you know. If someone who hates the New York Yankees it managed to make me find that scene extremely charming. When you watch that scene and she's wearing the Yankee cap you're like I love Yankees. No I mean I legally and I would not
[00:23:23] have to ever say that. Like I understand Ben Affleck when he refused to wear it on the set of Gone Girl but very cute movie. I always like that. The over dick around is like the greatest like bit ever introduced. But watching this
[00:23:40] okay in relation to set it up which by default is the best movie of the 21st century. But this is from the 20th so Sleeps in Seattle gets a sound spot. Yeah exactly exactly. Do you see how many scenes there are in this movie where it's
[00:23:52] just like two actors with almost no cuts in a two shot with a really clear sense of where they are. Be it on the streets or inside you know. Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner in that bar in the public market in Seattle where they
[00:24:07] put a favorite theme. Yeah. Muscles like he gets a bowl of muscles. Yes. The sort of like my god that looked delicious. When I was a kid I was like I gotta live in this Seattle life. This place looks fucking great. Look unbelievable.
[00:24:18] You're on a boat. Oh god because she's gonna move to Seattle right? Oh. Is she gonna move to Seattle? That's actually a good question. She's not getting a mention in Baltimore. Because he's a recent Seattle trans person. Yeah. He doesn't have a lot tying him there
[00:24:32] whereas she's a Baltimore gal I guess so maybe but she's kind of gonna get away from Bill Pullman like she doesn't want to like be around hurting him so maybe it makes sense for her like back then the newspaper industry was
[00:24:41] like robust and she could go just work for a different paper. But as David said it's true. He she doesn't have a lot he doesn't have a lot tying him there he's literally just tied to a dock. It would be very easy for him to just
[00:24:54] to take his entire life wherever. No they're in a lake. There's this lake in the middle of Seattle the first time I went to Seattle my sister-in-law was there you better believe I went and found that lake where all those house
[00:25:04] boats are because I was like all right sleep was in Seattle driving tour. They're all there it's beautiful. Oh god. So he's got to take the boat over land to get to Baltimore is my point. What if it's not a house
[00:25:16] boat it's a house duck boat and he can drive it on to land. And give tours. Give tours. Supplemental income. Because there's a lot of geography humor like there's the Duluth conversation there's the Tulsa where he like pulls the map down. He
[00:25:35] pulls it up in twice. He does it for Oklahoma and for Baltimore and my favorite is after he says Baltimore he goes ah and then walks away. Wait he goes like ah. Also having the map hanging in your house like as a
[00:25:52] parent I feel like okay that's a smart idea like you can teach him dinner just by having that map handy. Or you can talk about women that you can't fuck. To your eight year old. Also an important lesson. I was trying to find more info on the
[00:26:09] development of this film because it is kind of interesting how it came about it was written by two guys and then I think Linda Obst was the key figure I mean you were saying Katie like facetiously imagine that they let her make another movie after the
[00:26:24] first one flopped but the answer almost every time that a female filmmaker gets another shot is that there is a more powerful woman in the industry who really puts her neck out like betting on someone. Well I mean this North African had an Oscar nomination for when Harry
[00:26:39] met Sally I guess so she had some cred more than like another first time female director. Absolutely but I also could see in this horrible horrible world we live in and how much even more horrible it was for women in the industry a couple decades ago.
[00:26:53] Not that's much better now. That they could be like well the proof is go back to writing you can't make it as a director you know we'll keep on hiring you to write screenplays but Linda Obst was the one who got this
[00:27:07] is my life made and I believe is the one who had this screenplay and had the idea to put the elements together and go Nora come on rewrite this thing make it yours. Ben do you know the two men who wrote the original script for
[00:27:23] Sleepless in Seattle which I then believe this thing rings of her humor and sensibility so thoroughly. I think oh yeah she it's a page right it's a page one rewrite with the same story. Yeah it was written by two men Jeff Arch and David S. Ward.
[00:27:38] David S. Ward came up recently on this podcast do you know why Ben? No I do not. Because he wrote and directed a little film called King Ralph. Okay and major league and major sure. Yes I proposed him as I proposed him
[00:27:53] as one of Ben's favorite directors of all time without Ben knowing it and I forgot and I'm reminded and I love it. His directorial career is something called Canary Row with a Nick Nolte and Debra Wings. This is what's funny about King Ralph
[00:28:09] he's a normal blue collar Joe he's a king now. Guys we can't dissect the premise of King Ralph on this podcast again. But yeah major league King Ralph major league to down Paris. Down Periscope classic submarine comedy. And here I was thinking he was just
[00:28:34] some dude who like managed to get a writing credit on a Nora Ephron movie he's got the bona fides. I mean he did other things but I mean Iron Whale sealed with a case and not really. Yeah. Ward is the one who I mean
[00:28:50] was sort of established at this point and also had won an Oscar for writing the sting. He wrote his career as fucking wild but I wonder if that one point Ward was going to do what's wild is that the sting made like adjusted a billion dollars or whatever.
[00:29:08] I mean it was for a long time the highest grossing film. Me and my husband like up jaws like right after but it was probably like in the top 10 for a long time. Joe is in the godfather but like it
[00:29:21] was a yes and it's sort of like the sting I think is like a pretty cute movie that looks nice and it's like about handsome guys you know doing doing stings but like if you I don't like come on the sting it's okay.
[00:29:36] Am I oh yes yes it did. 70s were strange time but it won best picture because everyone was just like that's the movie of the year like who you always wish the Oscar would do that more so maybe I shouldn't make fun of it.
[00:29:49] I just have the number here in 1973 into 74 it made unadjusted 160 million dollars which would be yeah 800 million domestic today. And it's like hey the sting and if people are playing pianos and they got hats yes you know they're doing a sting it beat it's bet the
[00:30:14] best fiction nominees were a touch of class cries and whispers the exorcist American graffiti and the sting. Wow I mean those are three like humongous blockbusters in there. And then cries and whispers which which like snuck into best picture and was shot by the by Sven
[00:30:32] Neikvist of course Ingmar Bergman cinematographer who shot sleepless in Seattle right which is a great looking movie and like I think you're talking about two shots griff and you're talking about simplicity and like you know not cunning too much I like this is a lovely and well composed
[00:30:49] film and I think yes so many rom coms now when we even are lucky enough to get one look so much like sitcoms yeah like set it up I didn't know how to diss it up after all that but yes no you're allowed to diss how it
[00:31:04] looks you know a lot of things meant to be washed on your phone yes right as most the next Netflix look these these companies that make films for their streaming services offer guidelines for how they should shoot them so that they will read equally well
[00:31:21] on any device versus a movie like this that you can tell is designed visually to be watched in a theater it still plays well at home but you don't do like 100 the bill Pullman uh Meg Ryan scene where they go to Tiffany's and
[00:31:38] check out the ring uh in a pretty wide two shot with that many extras in the background and almost no cuts yeah if you're designing a movie to be watched on the phone well also the fact that nor effort on god engmar Bergman cinematographer
[00:31:52] is how you can tell she had like some power behind her whether herself or a producer being like no no no I'm not taking whatever cheap that you want to give me like bring this over from fucking Sweden and he's gonna shoot my movie I mean
[00:32:02] yeah this is a big movie I guess Philadelphia is the same year like I get this is the year hanks I guess is jumping to the next level right yeah does this come out before Philadelphia before it comes before out before Philadelphia but they're
[00:32:15] you know and he's like he's like fresh off league of their own which is like a tiny a small thing but also like by far the vanities like he's in a weird we sorry you're probably gonna get into this later but like he's in a weird
[00:32:24] spot yes no he is he's definitely because like next year obviously is gump and then after gump you know that's that he's america's you know most beloved actor but this is the year I guess where he's fully recovered because league of their own
[00:32:37] is him like taking a supporting role that he's not ostensibly right for like you know it's sort of weird that he played the angry drunk in league of their own like that's not like you know at the time he had to kind of
[00:32:48] talk them into that and uh yeah talk about a perfect movie though oh and he's so good in it Griffin League of their own thoughts he's amazing I'm sorry I was looking this up just for a little clarification so arch writes this as
[00:33:03] a spec script he's an english teacher and he's always wanted to be a screenwriter good good friend and he goes this is my year I have to make it or break it he writes three spec scripts he sends them out the third one is sleepless in
[00:33:14] seattle that ends up on the producer gary fosters desk he works on it with arch but they feel like it's not working so they bring on david s word I have to imagine maybe to direct it at some point but at the very least
[00:33:27] to whip it into shape um he makes the big change that it is the son who calls into the radio show and makes the sun more integral to the romance in terms of setting it up but they're like still isn't totally yes it's still not totally
[00:33:42] working and then ward seemingly said this should be more like when harry met Sally and so they actually reach out to nor ephron that's fascinating the other thing is it was supposed to be uh denise quaid and meg right they optioned the script
[00:34:03] right they were a hot celeb couple right and from the art draft it was like this would be a good vehicle for us we would like to do a rom that's funny considering in which we barely interact yeah you don't interact
[00:34:15] it's sort of a weird choice for an actual couple totally less does not forget though we are in the denizens we are in the house and we should acknowledge them um whatever they they got the right to people like there is not i mean meg ryan is cinema's
[00:34:32] greatest flipper to jibba and like that's what this is because you again you just right everyone else you'd be like this woman's out of her mind and meg ryan just kind of has that kind of bubbly weird energy like in all these
[00:34:46] movies where you're like oh yeah you know she's just kind of odd like that's what she would do she's america sweetheart and it is like you think about how much of this movie rests on long unbroken singles of meg ryan listening to a
[00:35:00] radio and then when she talks though like she has that like wrote like that sort of singing way of talking where she's like oh you know i mean like where she does that all the time oh walter oh walter he did the most
[00:35:13] and like people are just sort of looking at her like who the fuck you're so weird oh man the cutaways to rozio donnell when she brings up walter like rozio donnell i i feel like gets underrated in this for what she adds
[00:35:25] as the best friend role and is like the cynic who eventually is going along with meg ryan's plot which i think is probably part of what also makes her seem less than the same where she's like no no no i think you gotta
[00:35:33] go you gotta go to seattle um she's probably too hard on bill pulman right he seems so nice pulman is very good i like about this man and we will get to pulman we will get to pulman we gotta do a whole pulman side part but this is
[00:35:46] the movie that single-handedly like makes like transforms rosie's career right from her just being like a stand up to being like a major hollywood well i'll leave it there on i'll leave it there oh fair enough it's the back to back it's the back
[00:36:01] to back of those two of her being like you know brassy and funny and blah blah blah on i'm trying to think if there was anything i'm looking i mean when did she get her talk show talk show is like 97 yeah i think 96
[00:36:15] yeah so you know a couple years from now a little later um so you know she has uh car 54 where are you uh this year um she has like another stakeout remember she's on the poster in another stakeout right she's like the new
[00:36:30] cast right this sort of like you know another stakeout richard rifer some like i know amelia weston as i'm like i've been there before and they're like hold on rosie o dawnl and i'm like she's gonna make it all kooky this is
[00:36:44] crazy i can't believe you cast her watching this and i'd not seen this movie before which is great what made me realize we've talked about this and you've yelled at me damn i that does ring a faint bell but that's crazy is
[00:36:57] it just is it a generation like because like for me like sleep since yaddle it came out years before i saw it i think but like as a kid it was like this is what a rom-com is like everyone has seen it is aware of
[00:37:06] sleepless in seattle totally it is completely inexplicable i haven't seen it i have no reason to go it is weird because so like i watched other rom-coms it wasn't like i avoided the genre i was a big hanks fan yeah i liked mag ryan
[00:37:20] and i certainly viewed it as such i knew it was that canonical and important it's very weird that i didn't see it when i was young in the vhs days and that i still haven't seen it until now i mean at a certain point
[00:37:33] like the last six months i've been like well don't watch it yet wait to well sure but that's not explaining the other 20 odd years of not seeing this right there were 30 years where i was really lagging on it i actually i hadn't seen
[00:37:47] i hadn't seen this uh you've got male or when harry met sally until in the past few years i mean it's just demented i know it's generational slightly that all those movies definitely do belong to you know the last generation a little
[00:38:03] bit um no the other two i saw often and early i feel like harry met sally and you've got male i want to go back to the thread that that katie was pulling on though this hanks moment because go like hanks is sitcom star he's like really
[00:38:19] kind of like harmless goofy fun guy and then he sort of surprisingly makes the jump to movies you know he doesn't seem like oh the guy from boson bodies is obviously going to become a leading man yeah i mean but then it's like sort
[00:38:31] of like splash in the money right i'm saying like bachelor party is like okay what you expect the boson buddies guy to go on to but then that's a surprise hit then like splash is like oh that's a breakthrough that's like a
[00:38:45] new level for him that was the same year movie crazy yeah crazy so that's like building and building and building till like big where he gives this magnificent performance gets not screw nomination everyone's like oh i think we like kind of underrated him
[00:39:00] he's a little more than just a comedy guy and then there's that massive massive misstep with bonfire but it goes after big it goes the burbs which i like but was not like not a hit at the time or whatever you know what i mean like burbs
[00:39:14] sort of little was a hit was a little too dark right was that one of those things it was like made before he knew big was going to be a big thing possibly i think so right and it was it was a hit because i looked it up
[00:39:23] and the burbs was the number one film at the box office the weekend i was born people were doing okay but like the burbs was just a little you know whatever it was not a sensation turner and hooch which obviously he's like kind of embarrassed by
[00:39:36] ben probably likes but was a hit yeah but like not a movie people take seriously not the kind of thing you pivot off an oscar nomination into i think it was a wires hanks doing a dog movie in 1990 embarrassingly 1990 he has joe vs the volcano and
[00:39:51] bonfire the vanity same year so people are kind of like he's fucking up like yeah when he's like we gave we loved you doing the thing yeah yeah and i think if anything people are going like maybe he needs to know his
[00:40:05] limitations which is a weird thing to think about tom hanks now but at that time they were like what's he do he's going supernatural he's doing dark comedies he shouldn't be doing any of this stuff like hanks is like a puppy
[00:40:17] dog he's a little boy then like like no you're laying 1993 with sleepless in seattle which this you know like it's just like yep he's a great rom-com lead who can like who you can fall in love with and he'll open your movie and then philadelphia he wins an
[00:40:31] oscar that's it he's just locked into place and from there on it's just every movie is a totally but this is what i want to talk about because katie brought this up the fact that league of their own is the year before
[00:40:44] this that was a film that i think he signed on to late the character was written to be older people were surprised he was doing it on its face i think it probably looked like here he goes making the fucking bonfire mistake again
[00:40:59] you know because bonfire everyone said like the guy's too likable this character is more complicated you shouldn't have right is this puppy dog a guy is miscast in bonfire for that reason he doesn't seem like someone with a dark edge right so on its face
[00:41:13] you're like like league of their own the guy is just he here you go this is the final nail in the coffin the guy's fucking himself over this part should be someone in their 50s it should be someone ornery it shouldn't be tom hanks
[00:41:26] and that is like i think such a big corrective to being like no i figured out how to modulate myself i can make myself work in different types of movies but there's a totally their own is so important for that too and that it's
[00:41:39] totally and like he is like a mean guy but you need to be rooting for him like you need that friendship between them and jenna davis to take flight and also you've got john love it's who's like the more ornery person you compare him to where he's
[00:41:50] like like trash talking all the women so you get to tom hanks he doesn't seem so bad and like the worst thing he does is pee for a really long time which i will never forget for the rest of my life i mean being well it's
[00:41:59] inexcusable he should have been arrested yes he and austin powers both should have been arrested for how long they paid god two long peeing jokes of the nineties that like really forged my sense of humor you should think about that
[00:42:13] but i do think yes it's like the fact that that movie is a little bit more austere than anything he had been up until that point even though it's a funny movie and it's a crowd pleaser it is a little bit less of a straightforward
[00:42:27] comedy and something like what should we call it a bonfire fails from veering too far into comedy like that's bonfires and it shows you can't you can't even begin with this is that the movie is absolutely out of its mind league of their own is
[00:42:44] both hanks saying wait a second i know how to use myself i can fit into different movies i can play different types of people and i can fit into different tones i think that's the big thing yeah and you see him like kind of
[00:42:56] going from that like being comfortable in his own skin and league of their own to sleep is in seattle where he walks into this rom-con setup and he just feels like as cozy and is like ready for this as you can imagine like you
[00:43:06] think he's made 10 rom-coms before this my god he's so good and you're like oh he pretty much had just in terms of straight rom-coms done joe versus the volcano which is the furthest thing from a straight rom-com yeah i mean splash is sort of a rom-com
[00:43:22] and splash and i mean it's kind of like a high concept big not really big is sort of a rom it's a comedy i mean big is so weird because he does have sex with the woman yeah i had a movie you want to
[00:43:37] look back on and then remember the romance i think yeah big is a movie where i feel like every week someone tweets like i just watched big i had seen big i forgot he actually fucks her like there's a version of that every week
[00:43:52] yes yeah um like a lot it's not like oh one time you would never do that like they don't have sex in 13 or another nine and a half weeks right like no there's no like that it's not something you would do
[00:44:03] it in age not just am now god but what a title what which one favorite movie title yeah big and splash ben it's like really more interest yeah what if you're just in a movie called bones i mean that's i would be yeah i would be
[00:44:25] 100 i mean it's also he remade the snoop dog horror film yeah it's also wild that he was in a movie called toy story which is griffin's favorite movie but also favorite movie title like you know that just sounds like a movie for griffin uh excuse me
[00:44:41] correction my favorite movie title is toy story too all right all right um but he's so good in this yes i just was going to say though there's eight years in between splash yeah and sleepless which means he has the time to sort of grow
[00:44:55] the fuck up and like big he's a boy and the other ones we're talking about are so heightened or weird tonally that this is like his first time since splash and his first time ever in like a completely grounded real world
[00:45:09] adult rom-com and as you said kitty he just enters into this being like i fucking god yeah hold my beer i know exactly who tom hanks is on screen and sharing much of scenes with a kid which like you imagine like finding your
[00:45:21] level like when you know that first big scene they have where they're on the phones together like that's a crazy challenge um yeah the kids so good he's really good so good he's one of those kids who just is like a
[00:45:34] count now right like yeah he works at a card game show excuse me he became the voice of tj and recess was the voice of tj in the iconic in the first season of recess and then was replaced yikes oh he retired
[00:45:51] i think he would yeah he retired from acting when he right exactly when it was no longer a cute kid okay do we think collin was like about this age at the time because their their chemistry is very cute wait wait we callin wait what about calling hanks
[00:46:08] because at this point i believe chat hanks is about my age yeah i think that's really little just born around this time collin hanks is like late 70s i think yeah collin hanks was born in the yeah he would have been a teenager at
[00:46:20] this point but um okay but also but tom's a young dad yes but also tom you know they were they were divorced and like you know i think i you know tom tom's first two kids i think were we're with the mom a lot and all that
[00:46:35] because like that's the whole thing with everyone with everyone's like what's up with chet hanks and it's like well basically only new post-gump like right like you know like at that point tom hanks is just a mega star like it's just a different world like
[00:46:50] collin hanks was born when tom hanks was a nobody is yes chat the one with all the tattoos oh yeah yes that's the one he rolls the golden globes yeah yeah chat chet hanks gave his uh corona virus announcement like my dad
[00:47:05] doing okay though that was like it was chet haze really stepped up i like quomo that's the thing where he was like hey what's what what what like my my parents got the rona i'm like chat you're really you're really handling with this right the right amount of
[00:47:18] sensitivity that was like trump wouldn't like say the word coronavirus and chet haze like we all need to stay home and like russia right chet was handling this better than almost every elected official in the united states of america at the same
[00:47:32] time though i can only imagine like tom and rita like quarantining in australia and like having to deal with that and then at the same time being like oh god chet released a video oh god what are their instagram alerts like for chat like do they get them
[00:47:47] all or do they try like to have someone else watch them so that they don't have to see everything their agents definitely step in whenever yeah i know i feel like they try not to be alerted it is funny that like tom hanks's key reputation as america's
[00:47:59] dad but also tom hanks's son is america's worst kind of embarrassing you do have collin who's just like hey i'm calling hanks yeah regular guy and um elizabeth who's the who's his only daughter i think she's like a writer she has a solid reputation there's a fourth
[00:48:18] one like sherman what's his name like chet like chet is chester and then the other one has like a very pre- truman i he's got a young daughter too he does no yeah no no no he has a granddaughter yeah she has a kid
[00:48:32] kids conan elizabeth i've googled this recently conan elizabethers is uh kids with his first wife and then chester and truman truman yes all right yeah so we had truman with rita yeah but yeah chester and chester's like a handkerchief company like very different people
[00:48:53] yeah why did i think he had a younger daughter i don't know well i'm very wrong he's just starting rumors about tom hanks yeah seriously yeah he also uh has a dungeon underneath his basement so the thing i was gonna say we've talked about this before
[00:49:13] that it is one of those things it's not like the thing that makes a movie star but it's one of those things that can give someone an edge is when they're really good with kids yeah yeah because it is so hard as an actor to
[00:49:24] fake it with kids right you were bringing up on some previous episode how that was kind of the thing that made clunius star how good he was with kids on er was sort of what pushed him over the edge i don't think it's a coincidence
[00:49:35] that like that's what finally got dustin hoffman and oscar was being so good with a kid yeah you know i mean of course and like i mean of course in kramer versus kramer it's like the premise of that movie is like what if a dad had to
[00:49:48] spend all the time with the kid like you know it's still ludicrous in kramer versus kramer by this it's like yeah you know obviously they their relationship just feels like so specific and lovely like they're kind of frank with each other and the kid was
[00:50:03] like stern a shit up all the time like he's being a dick especially when the new girl comes around yeah and like tom hanks is like aware of it and like dealing with it but like not like you know let not flying off the handle like
[00:50:14] he has patience for him but he like you know it's like all right i see you making that face and like we're going to talk about that later uh and then moves on from it he's modeling good dad behavior that whole tooth brushing scene where he's bringing up
[00:50:26] all the things he's heard about sex i love that scene his friend is cable his friend is cable yeah it just it's just like it's usually so i mean katie you and i are agree on this kid actors get them out of here they're usually
[00:50:41] annoying i feel like my my feeling on kid actors gets misinterpreted because like i want the best for all kid actors of course we don't live i want their no i and like if they are not good in a movie i'm not going to be
[00:50:52] hard on them but i mostly want them all to just go back to school and go home and not be in movies like it just seems like a bad way to grow up yes yeah don't get definitely don't go to the oscars please do not take your kids
[00:51:01] be oscars i mean once in a generation press tour but sometimes they wear little suits and it's very cute but they want to go to bed they would so much rather be with their friends once in a generation don't do a press tour
[00:51:13] don't go to fucking parties no oh my god no like don't do q and a till midnight like get them off instagram like go you're gonna be a kid in a movie like be in the movie go live your life and
[00:51:25] ideally don't be a movie's all right i don't care if they're on Sasha stone's long list don't don't let them fucking work the circuit but um so this kid not only is he a kid actor but he is also playing unambiguously the wisest
[00:51:41] character in the movie and the person that the audience is going to agree with throughout like when the kids like my dad needs to date someone you're like he does need to date someone then when he starts dating someone we don't
[00:51:51] like him the kid doesn't like him we're like the kids right this woman's annoying we don't like her thanks fucked up like it's not like we're like the kitchen leave them alone we're all like no get her out of here don't you think this is one of those
[00:52:03] characters that then kind of ruins rom comes from next one because he can get away with the shittier version of it yes yes and they're like this kid is so wise that they're like dad i think it's time for a divorce and
[00:52:14] it's like played by a shittier kid it's written poorly they have no chemistry the film is bad and your just like get this fucking kid out of here throw him in jail like katie i i made you watch one fine day oh yeah
[00:52:28] well yeah i was casting around for something to watch on hbo and you suggested one fine day and i said yes i will watch that and i was very happy with recommendation movie i adore but in that the kids are actual just kids
[00:52:39] may whitman and elastilins and they're just chaotic little kids they're not annoying in like a cutesy way they're just doing shit this kid is the thing that it like you're saying griff should never work he's he's like right bane he knows how
[00:52:53] to talk to adults he could talk about sex he's on the computer with gabby hoffman like right like Henry and book of Henry yeah it should be so fucking irritating right right and this like this then has negative repercussions until i would argue clloe grace maritz
[00:53:11] in 500 days of summer is the time when all of hollywood has a meeting and they're like we all agree we're passing a bill this can never happen it's so funny because i obviously she comes out of that with a career and like is in all
[00:53:25] these movies but she is insufferable in that movie that's the character i know i don't even put that on her but that's like heart she's literally like okay let's sit and talk how long do you think this has been a problem in your relationship so fucking you're like
[00:53:38] get the fuck but i mean i will say 500 days of summer does feel like it's the apex of all of these rom comes where they're like let's do every trope and let's dial it up to a million like and we're just gonna it's
[00:53:50] just gonna flood your sinapses it's gonna be completely like a sugar rush did 500 days of summer permanently break rom comes period like now i'm thinking about almost every element of 500 days of summer had the same destructive effect that clloe grace maritz did on the music flashbacks
[00:54:12] i would say a crazy stupid love came a year or two later and really helped nail the coffin in because the precocious kids in that movie are a nightmare crazy stupid love is like an earthquake hitting after the city's been destroyed where people were like yeah
[00:54:25] obviously this is bad like it's just helping anything wait a second wait a second i'm sorry i just need to pause the podcast for a moment katie are you saying that you think it is a little bit out of line when
[00:54:39] an adult gives a child naked photos of herself at the end of a studio she's a teenager and she's she's incredibly inappropriate she's like what 18 or whatever direction she's going in are inappropriate she's either like 17 or 18 and she's hitting on steve corral
[00:54:59] and then at the end goes like you know what the nudes got to his kid just the kid makes a fucking speech is that what i see in that movie graduation i refuse to remember it like i will not you can't make well
[00:55:14] it gave us ryan gossing in him a stone which like panned out pretty well like their parts of the movie hold up they do dirty they hold up i mean he literally holds her up he does hold her up it's like he's fucking like his photoshopped
[00:55:26] yes but like yeah but okay those movies those parts do hold up better but also ryan gossings like playing a toothpick chewing sunglasses wearing oh it's like all like host grown-up the game like how to like pick up ladies in this like club
[00:55:43] that's just like a soundstage doesn't even try to pretend it's not a sound stage but i do remember being hyped for that movie like when the trip i was like i love it gossing in stone i love it i'm all in i love give me give me new
[00:55:53] young people to you know stand also it felt like emma stone was in that pocket that actresses used to be in where they're like they're just waiting for a great rom-com like not yeah not that's the end all be all of their career but it's one of the
[00:56:06] pillars never ending advice that people give to jennifer larnes it's like why hasn't she done a rom-com right because they don't exist and she doesn't want to make a netflix listen i think we all know the missing elements of crazy stupid love which is jazz
[00:56:19] mm yes well no but this is the other thing with crazy stupid love is like people were so eager to see emma stone finally get a rom-com and people were like finally ryan gossling isn't fighting against the fact that he's a movie star that was a big problem
[00:56:34] for him for a long time but then he was like yeah but i'm gonna do a bronx accent though you're like all right gosslin give me all of that you got like four or five times though like do you wonder if he thinks that's his real accent from
[00:56:48] hamilton ontario where he grew up this is what i like about him i have seen him in interviews say when i was young and i was a child actor i thought my voice sounded lame and all the guys i thought were cool in movies had new
[00:57:01] york voices so i trained myself to talk like that and now i i don't even like it doesn't even feel like it's me putting on a voice anymore like he owns up to it being bullseye that makes me feel sorry for child actors again like ryan gossling very
[00:57:15] talented maybe would have been better off he started when he was 18 he was in the mickey mouth club yeah with jesson timberlake and bradney spears right around the time of uh that's sleepless in seattle oh is that the movie we're talking about i think this is what you're
[00:57:29] proposing katey what you're proposing for child actors is children are allowed to be in movies and be great and then they can only do one job yeah you're allowed to do one job before you're 18 maybe you get to be a movie
[00:57:42] you get to be in one movie you get to do like eight tv gaspots oh yeah one series for under two seasons like it's like it's a different like it's like a punch card but you're only allowed to do a certain amount of work before
[00:57:56] you're 18 and then you got to go sit on the fucking bed go to school go to prom don't be famous don't go to the oscars and if you like don't want to go to college and start acting like i think you can go for it uh but
[00:58:07] otherwise it's just too risky there's too many bad versions of the story i want to be a child actor so badly and i am so happy it didn't happen well gabby hoffman actually i think she had like her childhood was very strained and she
[00:58:21] is now a like very you know great adult actor like she's turned out pretty well but i think she's talked about how like weird her childhood was well her mom was like a warhol superstar right her dad was a so pop actor was that her
[00:58:33] name viva whatever viva viva was her name but like her last name was hoffman um and yeah she's like a weird kid who lived in the chelsea hotel like i mean it makes sense that she is completely great on camera because
[00:58:48] you're like yeah this kid is a performer she's a born performer and she's been talking to adults her whole yeah and she's i mean she's great and this is our life in a very different role she's playing more of a sweet like
[00:59:00] kind of um you know shy kid and in this she's playing a bat i mean when i was a kid i alright so i saw this movie when i was like seven years old i thought she was the coolest oh my god of course
[00:59:11] she did yeah she had access to a computer where she just get plane tickets and she goes on acronyms but she also has a big gap where she kind of disappears i mean she was like huge child star huge in the 90s and
[00:59:26] then she does like you can count on me in 2000 does one movie in 2001 that i haven't heard of then doesn't do something until 2007 that i haven't heard of and then a Todd Solin's movie in 2009 it's like post 2010 she comes back transparent she barely acts in the 2000s
[00:59:43] yeah wait what's our what what brings her best transparent is the thing that like brings her back no girls as well but yeah yes like and i remember seeing her and being like who's this and then being like oh it's the kid from like
[00:59:59] sleepless it's yeah from now and then and feel to dream she's so great in a frickin obvious child it was there was that like 2014 she was suddenly like back right right and she does i mean like she does in the early 2000s private
[01:00:12] practice good wife homeland louis one episode sure poppin eight episodes of girls right so she just knows everybody in new york and she's like hey who do you think yeah i decided i want to act again um like she seems like someone who maybe
[01:00:26] took the healthy time off to be like let me like work on myself i'm sure she's talked about it she's had yeah she's she's been through it all um but she's great but and she's the even more precocious child super cautious shouldn't
[01:00:39] work i mean they don't her out bring in a height they don't her out like and and she kind of makes sense i feel like if you're a parent i feel like maybe kati you're about to reach this point where your kids start making friends and like
[01:00:51] one of your kids friends you're like oh that kid's funny like that that kid is the grown-up the grown-up kid the kid who talks to adults all day well i in like the scene we're like they're in the egg chair and like tom
[01:01:02] hanks closes the door and they like crack sick because he's like he doesn't think they're gonna like make out like they're not old enough for that but he's like there's something going on i'm keeping an eye on what's going on here
[01:01:11] did it occur to you guys how much like between this and home alone which is like all the rage at this point like this concept of children flying by themselves in new york city is like in real life completely terrifying and they're like yeah it's fine this
[01:01:22] malaney jokes about this is like it's the dawn of kid independence like before then kids can't do anything well and also blank check the movie is two ninety four yeah yeah right this is the era where everyone's latching onto this
[01:01:38] idea of like a kid with a computer can do anything if you give a kid with a computer we don't know how to work the damn thing rewire right it's like you have like war games in the 80s and then by the
[01:01:50] 90s they're like now everyone has a computer in their home and kids are eight and if you give them a keyboard and a credit card number why they could buy a mansion so this movie begins and i'm taking us into the plot because i we're gonna do it
[01:02:08] um the movie begins with the funeral of sam's sam's wife right we're in chicago it's such a good opening it's a great opening yeah and it establishes such a clear rhythm right off the bat well and like the the pan up to reveal the chicago
[01:02:26] skyline it's like magical in this way where they're on this like big beautiful hill in a cemetery and it's like whoa i don't know where that place is in real life i assume it's really a cemetery so it establishes this like beauty and like
[01:02:37] it's like a glossy movie but it's got this really like heartbreaking thing happening in the beginning of it and same with his office and i think the next scene yes we have those three scenes the beginning that feel like they're scenes from the end of another movie
[01:02:50] they are not traditional introductory scenes not just in terms of what's happening story wise but even just how like dramatically you are dropped into relationships and emotions and sort of vernacular between these people and it moves pretty fast i think that's ever
[01:03:08] on skill as a screenwriter she's like let's cut the boring shit out let's just like do the good scenes yeah right um and your that's what she's doing yeah there's the funeral there's the scene in the office where he kind of snaps at his boss and his
[01:03:23] boss is like what are you gonna do in Victor Garber early Garber Garber is just oh i watched this then same night as the Sondheim tribute so i was like watching this and like pausing to see what's going on the Sondheim tribute and Victor
[01:03:36] Garber shows up in the Sondheim thing in his mustache you guys have seen this like his his quarantine mustache is incredible and then like seeing him in this when he's like younger but still like a silver fox man he's just imagine if he was your
[01:03:47] best friend wouldn't you just thank god every single day you just wake up and thank the angels that they blessed Jennifer Garner his best friend yeah well yeah i'm saying the aisle at her wedding to ben afleck yeah well then i'm sure i hope she thanks the gods
[01:04:04] she shot but i'm saying you know um like just just very comforting to how lucky hanks is um here's a thought i had watching this movie because the other friend is Rita wilson of course tom hanks his real-life wife she's she's great
[01:04:21] there is there is a certain visual similarity between Rita wilson and meg ryan yeah there the scene when she's in the car the whole extended sequence of her in the car listening to the radio broadcast i kept on whether it was the angle
[01:04:37] or the lighting or whatever going there's a certain and the fact that Rita wilson's in the same movie that i had just seen her face but i was like there's a certain similarity between the two of them and i i wonder if some unconscious level
[01:04:49] that's why hanks and meg ryan work so well together even though they barely have any screen time together well they had been in joe versus the volcano yes um so there's that but Rita wilson's also supposed to look like the bad girlfriend like there's
[01:05:03] the whole plot point about her hair looking the same which is a yeah man that hair did you get my mom had that hair at this period i don't know if you guys had people in your life who had the triangle curls on top of
[01:05:12] their head definitely yes it was a look it worked then somehow my mom had like like dana barrett like like post possession ghost buster he was blonde but had the like just the mountain like gene simi like present day it was insane it looks so heavy that's
[01:05:33] a lot to maintain yes i can't even imagine yeah it's funny that the the sort of size and billowy you know like big glasses a lot of that stuff from our youth is back but the hair has not returned at all no but
[01:05:47] then grinds hair in this movie it is such a spectacular like creature unto itself i mean david your zoom background right now is her hair is like the width of her head like behind her it's in the poster it's huge like because often she like wears it up
[01:06:03] and she's got like pony tails like very pretty long pony tail yeah yeah that long braid um but anyway so after the he snaps at his boss and his boss like what are you gonna do and he's like i don't know i guess i have to move to
[01:06:16] seattle with my child yes uh jona calls the radio show and meg ryan is introducing bill pulman to her or he's telling her parents that she's engaged to bill pulman like we're right in it but but david they also introduce the model of the united
[01:06:34] states that little globe which they introduce over the open yeah they like it's like a map they pull down it kind of clicks down no i'm saying the model that nor effron uses for insert shots that is my virtual i know what you're talking about it clicks
[01:06:48] down it there's a sort of a it pulls down i love i love the visual of it pulling down i have seen this movie i want to make sure a hundred times i recorded an hour ago you should remember i recorded it off the bbc
[01:07:02] onto a videotape and i would watch it over and over and over again to the point that my mom was confused i would she because i remember my mom when i was like eight or nine being like yeah that's kind of like a chick
[01:07:14] movie like not not in a bad way but just sort of being like it's interesting that that's the one you've keyed into like a sort of like slightly more grown-up comedy you know i'm surprised because you there's no kissing in it
[01:07:27] david and as we know you love kissing uh you're right is that in fact not only is there no very little kissing but when tom hanks is kissing someone jona calls the radio to try and stop it he's like he tells about
[01:07:41] spiders must bring an end to the kissing wait can we talk about her introducing bill pulman to her family though that whole scene in that like a beautiful colonial house like david pears is in it obviously which is amazing and it's just
[01:07:55] so funny it's so nor ever any of like all of these old relatives talking to each other in these side conversations and like bill pulman like he's introduced as a drip because he is allergic to everything and you see how she loves him for it even though
[01:08:07] like everyone knows his own abilities okay he's the guy yeah and he's so cute like of course she loves bill pulman yeah he is he is very handsome in this movie he has an in a patrician sort of cutie goodness suit yeah but it is a very skilled
[01:08:23] comedic performance to make it clear why he's kind of lame while not making it feel like why did she ever end up right this is this is like the he's got a strike of very particular about this is like the blueprint for the back
[01:08:37] stir right like this is the back stir this is the one obviously there other versions of this in so many rom comes but he no one ever did it better he has his three year you shouldn't marry bill pulman because which is sleepless in seattle while you were
[01:08:53] sleeping and then mr wrong which is the ultimate she marries bill pulman in that they in that one she's in love with peter gallagher and he's the one who swoops in what peter gallagher is on coma well but while you're sleeping she shouldn't marry bill
[01:09:06] pulman because she she supposedly loved peter gallagher that was her crush so she's sort of like he's sort of like huh well way maybe but yes use the actual romantically but yes mr wrong the poster is ellen turning to the viewer and going at the idea
[01:09:23] of having to marry bill pulman right i've never seen mr and in that period he plays a president in independence day right he gets all within the same year as mr wrong that's what i don't want to be his wife and die via alien
[01:09:36] right he does this run where there different versions of it but three movies in a row three years in a row where it's different takes on the perils of marrying bill pulman why you should show caution and then he ends
[01:09:50] that run and he's like hold on hold my beer i'm gonna be the president of the united states and stop the alien invasion with my bare fucking hands give me a fighter pilot helmet where's my jet he is funny that he's in independence day like objectively
[01:10:07] yeah well it's just kind of funny like jeff goldblum will smith jeff goldblum it's funny too but he you know he made a lot of action movies you know are you aware that herby fire scene is in independence day like that cast is
[01:10:19] bananas but we were talking about this on our stargate episode that that was part of amricks whole thing and Jurassic park also popularized this of like what if the concept is so big you don't need to cast any box office right yeah you cast people who
[01:10:33] are well established but aren't like really in this zone so it's like will smith's done one action movie he's mostly a succumb star and a rapper bill pulman is mostly a rom-com baxter right and then jeff goldblum is the most like blockbustery guy of the
[01:10:51] group because he had played a scientist as the third lead in one other block buster yeah um and then mr rong was about a man who was so wrong that he's the mister of being wrong i guess i'm never you has anyone
[01:11:05] seen mr rong i mean it's about elin not wanting to marry a man like before she ever came out it has such like weird symbolism to it it's like don't need to it's also like a year before she one movie yeah right it's like her
[01:11:18] one like is elin a movie star movie the the other movie she's in is like ed tv like i feel like she's in very few movies um but anyway no in yes since sleepless in seattle he's a nice man he is allergic to a lot of things
[01:11:33] he definitely everything's definitely very intimate ryan um but they have a sort of uh there there's like a routine to their relationship right like with the humidifier and the you know the pajamas and the right like she's so good at all that behavioral shorthand
[01:11:52] and that opening the introduction scene because it's coming after the cold open of like you getting this this quick shot of all of tom hanks's sadness and resetting his life and then right after the credits you get that extended two shot of meg ryan and bill pulman in
[01:12:09] their separate cars as she's briefing him on all the things not to bring up with her waspy relatives love this opening credits because it's like oh amazing but it's it's that fine line of like they have really good comedic chemistry as actors but they don't have good
[01:12:25] romantic chemistry so they're charming enough together that you're not like why did she ever date him because i hate movies in which someone is very close to marrying someone who's a psychotic such a monster or so yeah right no you get it
[01:12:41] right it's it's like another thing that they just strike the perfect balance and then yes as you said katie she introduces him to the waspious collection of character actors it's just like here's dana ivy here's frances conroy she's so funny everybody
[01:12:56] loves him and i did not know that was coming frances conroy and and the husband whoever's playing her husband with their like no you have to tell her seriously they're so funny yes i wrote down in my notes herald's allergic to every type of
[01:13:11] b i feel like that is effron like skewering like you know whatever i forget uh i guess she never there's a few other people who like over explain like the pride of the yankee thing where it's like oh yes it's referring to whoever luke airing camera who is
[01:13:28] you see we cut to the other side of the table where two of the older people like it's it's he's doing a movie reference like he echoes to another part of the table that then has to process it but then her in the attic with her mom
[01:13:43] sets up this whole thing that i didn't realize because i had not seen the movie and it only heard it talked about is like oh the perfect semi-modern rom-com yeah is that this movie has this weird like scream strain to it where it's also about characters and
[01:14:01] their relationships to romantic comedies yeah i and into a like a romantic drama right a fair right but a fair to remember functions like jayme kennedy in this movie explain jayme kennedy and scream yes like setting out the rules i was like jayme kennedy
[01:14:20] experiment what was that show yeah that movie keeps on xing them kate an affair to remember which is like not a big hit at all like sort of like a a classic sappy movie i would say rather than a classic move like probably
[01:14:39] hey gets remade literally the next year as love affair with warren baity and annette benning yes well because an affair to remember is in remake of the original love affair it's been it's like a fucking starry's board they keep going
[01:14:52] to that well um and um wait oh yeah but then i think thora at love and thunder is gonna be also a lucerie i like when when movies watch movies yeah that's what i'm saying and this movie is constantly in dialogue with that
[01:15:13] movie yeah and its characters are in dialogue with it and they're talking about like hanks is the person who's like life isn't a movie like this is how it works sometimes you end up dating someone who's kind of boring after you
[01:15:25] lose the love of your life because it's not going to happen twice and meg ryan and rozy o'donnell are constantly like checking this movie and going like i don't know is that insane to believe in this right it's like the movie
[01:15:36] kind of checks out that i should be crazy right now like the movie the movie's kind of telling me like the in this movie people keep saying it's a sign which is a silly thing to but arguing over whether or not that's a thing yeah and specific characters
[01:15:53] flip-flop on whether or not they believe it but it's a whole movie about essentially meg ryan being like am i crazy whereas tom hanks because she does when you've got mail she repeats the trick right it's like there's gonna be two characters in
[01:16:06] parallel who don't really meet each other of course they do meet each other and you've got mail but they don't know who they are blah blah blah right but like that the cheat code of you've got mail is you keep them not realizing the
[01:16:17] identities while also giving them a lot of scenes right exactly but in sleepless in seattle not only do they not me tom hanks doesn't even think about meg ryan at all for the entire running time of the film saved for two
[01:16:31] seconds when he sees her in an airport basically and that's you know in the street and in the street but he looks at where he's like this is the hottest woman i've ever seen in my life but like i guess i'll just
[01:16:41] really want to talk about she is really hot she's incredible we're going to talk about it but like meg ryan is spending the whole time being like am i crazy i think i'm in love with this guy should i get married to bill pulman
[01:16:52] should i go to new york should i watch him and his child on a boat should i do that where's tom hanks is like she's dating the dating world has changed slightly and like i don't know my kids being a pain like it's just
[01:17:04] not on his mind and they're talking to his dead wife yeah and he talks to carry lowell uh who i love and again as a movie to watch as a kid growing up especially is like a girl will having crush on
[01:17:14] boys like all of middle school is being like oh my god well he walked past me in the hallway and like he didn't really look at me i don't know when they're all like wait who was that like like this is exactly all of young relationships
[01:17:24] is like the girls are obsessing on the boy is like i gotta go i'm i got soccer practice and jonah jona only i was the opposite right jonah only wants like his big reason for being in on annie because he's like when he reads the letters he's
[01:17:40] like this girl annie she's great it's because she mentions the baltimore orials in her letter he's like wow she seems pretty cool but that's like another sort of magic trick of this movie is that he's on two tracks one track is anytime the son
[01:17:55] mentions the letter he's like get that fucking letter out of my face i don't even want to talk about it i'm not paying it any mind it is not even anywhere within my range of vision and then the other track is two
[01:18:07] times i saw this lady who literally made my breath stop that's a thing in my back of my mind but those two things are in no way connected followed through an airport i'm aware and then there are these sort of moments like what you're
[01:18:19] saying with the apple griffin where like he'll say something about his wife and then we see meg ryan kind of echoing the behavior and it's sort of like oh yeah they there's something here that they they're like entangled in a way they don't understand well even like
[01:18:32] the poster which is your zoom background right now is the two of them in two different locations both staring off into the distance and they're not in the same space but it sort of looks like they're looking at each other it's very somewhere out there
[01:18:44] yeah it's a really good cross-cutting movie i mean she's very smart without being like too clever about it about putting those scenes the scenes of them separate in interesting contrast with each other there's a part where the boy says that like gabby hoffman's character
[01:19:07] told him that they met and passed lives yes oh yeah i just really liked how it was like a dumb kid thing to say but i like love the sentiment of it yeah because this movie is like they don't know each other they don't know
[01:19:21] what they're meant to be together but like it kind of argues like you don't know who you're meant to be with until you meet them so like maybe they are doing all these behaviors that you're going to fall in love with someday but you don't know about them
[01:19:30] yet like if it sets them up as compatible without ever having to put them in the same place right you just need an eight-year-old boy to fly across the country and make it happen yes world's best wingman it's difficult balancing that with a nice lady
[01:19:47] it is a thing like the confidence of this movie to a understand if you're going to make this premise work you really have to put aside some space for the titular radio call right like it's it's long it's so the movie really like slows down
[01:20:04] part but also most of that scene plays out of her with her listening to it i mean there is so much more footage of her listening to it without any cuts in her car than of him on the phone because you have to buy that she would
[01:20:20] be that affected by it oh i was gonna say and a small detail i like is that she goes to say like the same responses that he ends up saying yeah so they time out and those are the first little kismet things
[01:20:33] that happen yeah also a brief shout out to um uh to her in it's similar to jeremy goyer where he's listening to the radio where she's like trying to figure what to listen to and she just goes along with this horrible verse of dingabals
[01:20:44] going harsh is harsh is harsh is harsh is harsh is harsh is harsh is harsh um but no we've all had that experience where you're like all right i guess i'm listening to this and then you are emotionally involved like which is what is happening to her like
[01:20:57] it's just so weird she's outside the diner and they're all like who right it's like some 90s version of going viral where everyone's like get a load of this this guy's such a sweetie i feel so bad like he's freaking paw paw with the burger
[01:21:10] like everyone's just like god get the guy a wife oh his kid but also the way they explain it i mean i think what she has to explain to her co-workers and she's like here's this guy his kid calls up that's already
[01:21:24] weird it's clear he doesn't even know he's on the air doesn't want to be on the air and then suddenly out of nowhere he just opens up with so much vulnerability explaining all the reasons why he loved his wife and there's this
[01:21:37] sort of men are from mars women are from venus stuff going on there right where it's kind of like hey god a man being emotional like there's nothing like it and then like when hanks is talking to reiner and reiner's like
[01:21:47] you split the check now and he's like well whoa split the check get out of here like i'm not gonna do that and you have to like get coffee where he brings up tearing me so he's like what's here we still a woman's gonna
[01:21:58] want me to do it to her i'm not gonna know what it is trust me you're gonna love it reiner's great in this give me three scenes of reiner and anything like because in like woeful wall street like you know it's always great when he just pops in
[01:22:13] another great line in that scene is just when they're uh complimenting tom hanks but of course he's like yeah it's a thing now the ladies they all like a cute butt and it's like the most scenic seattle shot of the public market behind them
[01:22:27] where it's like the all of seattle backdrop and rob reiner looking at tom hanks's butt yeah anise are we grading on a curve great joke but it's crazy to think about like obviously reiner started out as an actor but he was so dominant as a
[01:22:43] director at this point and the fact that he was still doing this many like three scenes in a movie it's kind of weird to think about right it could be a little pop I mean it's like what what what if didn't even know just like several times a
[01:22:57] year hello had like three scenes no no no griffin griffin let's follow that through logically what if denny villanove was on the defining sitcom of the 70s playing an idiot son for all we know he might have been any money translated translated that
[01:23:14] right it's like a montreal version of all in the family where it's like denny comes in like oh denny oh I'm saying like what if denny villanove had been the dave chappelle part in a star is born and didn't even know the
[01:23:29] dave chappelle part in you've got mail doesn't his photography give you such a sense of a sense of humor like he really just takes things so lightly and like wants to like see the funny side of life look he's got a feather light
[01:23:39] touch I think a rival had like two jokes right like that I feel like a rival is like a laugh riot by his standards compared to prisoners yeah it's as funny as movie around prisoners might be the least funny movie ever made like prisoners is in the
[01:23:56] running that's actually a really good argument we'll see how James stacks up right blade runner 2049 is fucking airplane compared to prisoners oh my god anyway Reiner yeah I love Reiner it is funny that Tom Hanks is one friend in Seattle is like I guess
[01:24:20] just another contractor guy like it's funny that they're friends yeah and then it's Rob Reiner like the most Seattle-y person you can get is Rob Reiner and they're different like age groups it's hard to make friends in the new city Seattle is famous for the Seattle
[01:24:35] freeze like like this is a thing where you people in Seattle and they don't make friends for years because everyone is like kind of distant like says they're friendly but they don't make friends sure um I do love that he goes from architect to contractor like there's
[01:24:48] this thing of like he needs to sort of shake up his life it happens all off-screen but it's like I need to move laterally to something that utilizes the skills I've learned but I also need to shift a little bit well I also it's just
[01:25:01] and again I guess it's partly me as a kid this is like where I learned the contractor joke right we're like with Dana Ivy where she's like I want to move I want to get different fridge right Dana Ivy is an add-in yeah she's no she's the client
[01:25:13] she's like I want the fridge and they're like oh well we're gonna have to move this wall and then they do the like that's three four twelve weeks right like and she's like it just has to be perfect it does need room for her platters
[01:25:25] yeah and you think of nor effort as a food filmmaker and like you guys will have time to get into that like there's not a ton of food in this movie but like the idea of one being like no no no I need room for my platters like
[01:25:34] it's perfect I get it um anyway so while Tom Hanks is just living his fucking life and trying to muddle on through and figure out dating and raise a son Meg Ryan is having a nervous breakdown and talking to everyone she knows like
[01:25:52] David I love that early combo with David Hyde Pierce where she's like I mean Seattle and he's like it rains all the time in Seattle she's like I would I want to do this like she's doing that but she's also like she's
[01:26:07] testing out David Hyde Pierce is like I need a best friend in my romantic comedy to encourage me to take the wild flights of fancy and David Hyde Pierce is like I don't know I married her because she said
[01:26:19] I either had to marry her or we'd break up and Rosie O'Donnell has had this horrible romantic history like every little snippet of a story you get is so catastrophic but she's like I don't know go to Seattle look everything about her is like yeah why not
[01:26:36] yeah she's she's sort of the I feel like everyone has that friend like where it's like they just got way laid by this bad relationship that they can't shake right like where it's like everything comes back to the bad the bad guy and it's such a convenient
[01:26:54] excuse for her as she does her insane behavior she's like oh Rick he came back up again he was on the radio I don't know what to tell you right right yeah the her being caught in the cupboard with the phone that's
[01:27:06] very you know and the like little white radio that she's like watching to her chest yeah Griffin String in his rosé and they cross cut that with the sun that's the kissing screaming and her screaming right because that's that's his his return to
[01:27:22] the radio is is when when Jonah complains about the kissing like aside from it being a film shot by Sven Nykvist the movie is deceptively cinematic and how much it relies on editing in that way because it's about establishing a feeling of connection between two
[01:27:41] people who do not share a frame really until an hour in and then don't again until the end of the second hour and you think about what we were saying earlier about her peeling the apple which I think is happening around the same time in
[01:27:53] the movie like I think she peels the apple and then like another scene happens and then he brings it up like it gives you just enough time to not think about it and then he says if you're like it like dings this faint bell so that it feels
[01:28:04] like you're discovering it along with them rather than having the filmmaker being like hey look at these two no it's I think it just she has the confidence to trust that the audience will do the math themselves and that they will fall in love with
[01:28:20] these people so she doesn't hammer it too hard she doesn't underline things too heavily and she knows they're on the poster and they're gonna fall in love so she gets she gets the genre she's in yeah that's true but yeah it is still a crazy gambit
[01:28:36] and I feel like at the time people kind of you know it was a this movie was a huge hit it was well received it got us denominations but it wasn't like a consensus critical favorite because most reviews are like it's so contrived
[01:28:52] like you won't believe the premise on this thing whereas now I feel like people will be like yeah fucking who cares I don't know you know it's a classic yeah right and it's like there's a huge part of it is a scene of her basically
[01:29:03] google stalking him where she's using that like whatever lexas nexus she's using lexas nexus that's the thing now that wouldn't seem as creepy because she would literally just google and facebook him but back then it's it looks like she's doing a fucking cia investigation
[01:29:17] she does it actually she sends a pi after him which is crazy she faxes a private investigator well ben sometimes you gotta you gotta bust out the fax machine okay for love man yeah like this kind of feels like the movie that uh all
[01:29:33] about steve is I was thinking that but that's a scenario where sandra bullock it never sells that she's charming she's just psychotic well that's the premise is like what it's what in real life this would be upsetting right right but i'm assuming they end up together anyway
[01:29:52] I don't know I don't think they do I think she ends up with someone else no no I've seen that movie yeah she know no at the end of the day she realizes that he should end up with whoever and she's gonna look for
[01:30:02] someone she actually likes not steve she's she's no longer all about church I mean Thomas Hayden church is in the movie but I believe he is just a villain and ken jong is in the movie yeah unless you get with him sandra
[01:30:19] bullock doesn't get taken to church at the end of that film um he I guess he's just her friend he's just her friend who's like yeah go bother steve he's the rosy o'Donnell he's yeah yeah misguided rosy o'Donnell all about steve that was I feel like that
[01:30:38] movie only because she won the razzie and the oska the same year right wasn't that it yeah yeah right yes yeah all about steve is like a movie that only comes up when you're playing like trivia in a bar and they're like going through
[01:30:51] sandra bullock's career and everyone everyone is about the same year as the proposal to yes that's the thing it's sandwich in between she had been made earlier for a number of years but she makes two humongous hits in 2009 her career like rebounds so hard
[01:31:08] and then quietly sandwich in between the two of them is all about steve like it's like proposal in june blind side in november all about steve in office um here's a thing I want to say about sleepless in seattle what you were saying about it not being super
[01:31:22] respected at the time uh I've been watching a lot of the critic that has been my binge this week of watching all of the 90s prime time animated sitcom the critics uh there are several episodes where they have extended anti sleepless in seattle riffs and obviously the point
[01:31:41] of that show is that character is the super cynical he thinks all mainstream films are trash but they like go like there's i'm trying to remember what the bit is oh no do you know what it is the the ebert the syschol and ebert
[01:31:53] episode where syschol and ebert split up and j sherman thinks this is an opportunity to become partner to either syschol or ebert because now they're each going to have their own show and what he realizes is they should really be together so he functions like the sun
[01:32:10] and reunite syschol and ebert on top I mean that sounds pretty funny building that's a good idea but the it's a great episode but at the end of it they're like oh god this is so contrived straight out of sleepless in seattle
[01:32:22] which itself was stolen from a fair to remember which wasn't even that good of a movie to begin with and they say that in unison and that's what makes them realize that they belong together but it's like a joke that like we all
[01:32:35] agree that this movie's contrived it's pulling so much from this other film and it's so cliched and now I do think like this movie would would fucking I mean it did get a screenplay nomination it got a screenplay nomination and best original song for wink and
[01:32:51] smile which is a great song by mark shaman um and and this is a movie still of the day nor a front embodies this but like that kind of michael feinstein piano bar type score right this sort of like great american songbook shit i love
[01:33:07] it i mean all of it you can come with uh as time goes by to being like hey guys here's the song you know from casablanca we're gonna put ourselves right next to it like it is really calling your shot absolutely uh i'm looking at what else
[01:33:23] is on i mean you have jimmy duranti louis armstrong nack king hello it dr john gene autry joker tammy winette like you have the couple where it's like okay of course there's a salindy on track carly simon ricky lee jones harry connick jr but the other
[01:33:40] ones on the soundtrack are not songs you expect or at least not singers you expect in a 90s realm right oh yeah the score is very like old school like big bandy kind of and then it like eventually veers into jaunty like 90s caper stuff and it's
[01:33:55] a little weird the contrast between the two but also i'll love to mark shame and i'm not going to disrespect his name on this podcast uh yeah i think there's two versions of we small hours in the morning they do like the original and
[01:34:06] then it's like oh there's the 90s upgrade i just want to quote from rogery berts review where he said the film was as ephemeral as a talk show as contrived as the late show yet so warm and gentle i smiled the whole way through
[01:34:20] hmm but that's like more generous than most yeah some are saying like this is contrived i don't know i guess it worked i mean basically like i think critics were very resistant to love story type movies right where they're like this is
[01:34:36] this is vox populized shit this is you know whatever it's fine this is a good version of it but we're not going to take it too seriously we just don't take the genre very seriously next question right like you know i get
[01:34:48] that it's a well executed version of it but we don't take it seriously and now people are like it's a lost art we don't make these things anymore they were gems yeah that never really changes until rom-coms just go away entirely
[01:35:01] like i'm trying to even think of a cow critics treated the last big rom-com to open from a studio and it probably got ignored um it might not have been very good uh right i mean what was the last good studio theatrically
[01:35:14] released rom crazy stupid look like a hit yeah crazy stupid look obviously yeah i mean i'm looking here and it's like i i did the google search rom-coms 2010s and the top results it gives me are big sick crazy rich asians about time silver linings playbook crazy stupid
[01:35:33] love that's their top six is probably big six example in there big sick is a really rich asians really well yeah crazy rich asians is sort of like a quasi rom-com like you know that's actually kind of like a just sort of like a
[01:35:47] high comedy like but it's got romance it's got romance over linings playbook i don't feel like counts also that was 2012 that's kind of a drama it was such a big yeah it wasn't a hit yeah um but yeah i guess that's jennifer laurence's rom-com i guess i
[01:36:03] mean i last year i was a big fan of last christmas which kind of got completely ignored didn't not make money i mean it did okay it made everyone so mad because of it's twist yeah but the twist is good and that movie is good i think people
[01:36:18] will come around to that did you see last christmas griff did you go come on i i did not yeah canary goulding and amelia clark no because i was busy uh yeah i was busy last christmas i gave you my heart
[01:36:32] um i'm looking here how do you i mean train right out of a zoom meeting i'm sorry i just okay okay hey uh a train wreck counts as like a pretty traditional oh yeah that was a hit and was well reviewed but it's even crazy
[01:36:49] just to like look over as i'm looking at this list and so many of the results that come up are like indie comedies there are things like enough said and love them you know sleeping with other people which is my pick for the best one too 2010s um
[01:37:06] celeste and jesse forever what have you but it's crazy to think like oh right at the beginning of last decade you had friends with benefits and no strings attached right like it was still fertile enough that you had those two come out within six months of each other
[01:37:22] in 2011 and there were like four big stars who they were like i don't know romco what's the right parent yeah something is really like a dilemma the ron howard movie where it's like right yeah kevin james and monona writer married to each other in that
[01:37:35] movie kevin correct and then vince fawn and jennifer carnell and chanting tatum in his first really funny role that uh i always give myself credit for noticing and being like hmm he might go somewhere and then now who knows where he's gonna go next but
[01:37:49] and queen latifah plays vince fawn's boss everything about the dilemma is the dilemma is similar timing to like couples retreat there's that sort of last gasp these movies that did well like couples retreat was an unambiguous hit but like no one really remember
[01:38:06] poster and they're back to back like yeah with their arms crossed yeah exactly but see i would file for sure obviously but see proposal i think is a proper rom-com i think the other movies you just listed are comedies about yes you're right you're right you
[01:38:21] think like a man movies they're not about courtship oh which i think is like a key element of a i'm realizing why the rom-com died guys um because in 2009 robert lucchett told us the ugly truth about love kathryn hygel and jarard butler and that
[01:38:38] was really was unfortunately there at the end hygel and kutcher helped really bury this genre because they tried to take it over because everyone else was busy doing whatever you know your dramas and your superheroes and so hygel and kutcher were like we're here
[01:38:56] we're putting up stakes we're gonna give you one of these a year and pretty quickly people were like okay anyone else got anything and they were like also let's not discount gary marshall's role in this whole thing speaking of like 70s sitcom legends he
[01:39:09] he did a bad job that it's true it's true but in the ugly truth if you think about it the heart the lady holds the heart up here the man holds the heart griffin have you seen the poster where he holds it it's over his pp he's
[01:39:23] saying his heart is inside his pp and what do you think that is is that the lovely truth no ugly truth i don't find that truth very pretty at all i do think no katie i think it's a good point that the gary marshall sort of like
[01:39:39] which then even extends into shit like he's just not that into you where it's like it creates an artificial inflation where then two big movie stars falling in love together feel small it's like five minutes in a movie right right you're like gary marshall's knocking that down before
[01:39:58] the opening credits and then he's giving you another i also i have no beef with him but it is crazy those movies literally just him being like yeah you know by god's a bunch of bullshit wait i do it 20 times in one movie you'll love it
[01:40:09] like it's him like shitting on his own genre yes and then they get something like like a star is born is not a rom-com but like that movie comes out and like you know david and i saw that together trying to film fuss when we're like
[01:40:21] a movie what a movie and then everyone else is like okay um but like you watch these two gorgeous famous people fall in love you're like what is this witchcraft i'm watching on screen because everyone forgot you could do it there still kind of is nothing more
[01:40:36] effective no than watching two beautiful people fall in love nothing better and sleep there's nothing better is like i'm gonna give you a fucking sliver of that you're gonna get one minute of that and you're gonna get so hard when it happens
[01:40:52] it is it is the most exquisite edging it's noras on just swirling you're not gonna get anything to the extent that in the empire state building like there's you know like she's getting in the elevator he's getting out of the you know you're like wait
[01:41:07] are they gonna do it oh my god yeah it's designed for the audience at the theater to be going like come on you know like you know come on they gotta they gotta do it right so even when they make eye contact for like uninterrupted one minute you're
[01:41:22] like this is the hottest thing i've ever seen oh right because there's like there there are x factors here i'm violently single i'm quarantining completely alone i'm reassessing my entire life but suddenly tom hanks and meg ryan hold hands atop the empire state building and i am
[01:41:39] something like it happened instantly instantly and i was like i guess it's time for skywalker wine i guess it's that night it's like you're a everything's coming to a head she's a fucking plumber you're a radiator and she's just like oh i know what
[01:41:52] to do she twists one thing and you're just like water spewing everywhere clank so what happens in this movie one thing that you clearly want to talk about is as she grows obsessed she googles she lexus nexus is him she goes to seattle
[01:42:10] under the guise of writing a story about this and looks upon him may we pause for a moment that she's like i need to write a story in seattle and her friend knows it's everybody's like no we'll spend the budget to send you to seattle for no good
[01:42:22] reason what a glorious time for journalism it's such a great rom-com friend line where she's like if you're gonna write that story you'd probably have to travel there huh she's i mean if you really want to do this story properly the wing woman everyone deserves
[01:42:36] yeah i had to dive into the camera um but so clearly i think a hang up for ben he keeps going to it is the scene where she just looks at him and his kid across the street it's creepy she's the watcher she's
[01:42:52] skanner if i did that right now i would be arrested yes she's the ppr absolute no the bechtel cast talks a lot about the uh the bushemi test and like basically you just replace a character in a movie with deep bushemi
[01:43:07] and if it seems bad when he's doing it then it's probably still creepy this whole movie falls apart if i'll say this movie might actually survive the chappy test as proposed by bilga abiri repeat the the premise of the chappy test griffin for viewers
[01:43:27] who may know the premise of the chappy test is is a film great enough that it could survive having chappy now now it hasn't been outlined there's no forced rule about how you have to use chappy it's more just is a film strong
[01:43:42] enough that you could put chappy in there somewhere i think that part and i think yeah part of the premise is that chappy is so insane that even one minute of him would would explore the movie right right right so you're like could chappy be meg ryan's aunt
[01:43:58] when she introduces her family to build the baltimore sun like i can see that right right could he be one of the other contractors with tom hanks and rob ryaner i think chappy could survive now i think chappy standing across the street staring at tom
[01:44:13] hanks and his son would immediately become a horror movie but chappy chappy could be a day player in this film and it would still be like the car goes by and he's suddenly there i am chappy chappy loves mommy you're a dickhead on chappy chappy does she goes
[01:44:31] to seattle it's important to say nor writes herself out of that scene so awkwardly you're like wow they're making eye contact all she has to do is cross the street and it's like it's too soon for them to interact so um she's just gonna turn around and
[01:44:44] fly back well that right you just cut to rosio dollon saying and what happened next when i came back i mean it's that thing of her she's just pushing the boundary of what is not insane right like first listening and like listening
[01:44:59] on the phone or whatever that's kind of crazy she does that she goes and looks at him but she can't because it would just be too crazy to be like i heard you on the radio like you know like once you're opening line and
[01:45:11] that's her realizing it like it's her like walking up to the brink and then stepping herself back we mean like okay all right we're gonna do this in a more normal way i mean couldn't she just like wait till he gets home and then
[01:45:22] not going to store and be like i'm a reporter and then flirt and then go from there she's not using her like reporter cover effectively but no but that would taint that would taint the love you would immediately be like feel i don't want
[01:45:34] to talk to a reporter like and then yeah it was yeah it would have to do the rom-com thing where it's like i lied to you but that was before i knew i love you right i'm so happy they avoid that i was so
[01:45:44] certain that's where the movie was going it is though just like the more i'm thinking about it for how much this movie was written off as like oh it's effective but it's just like classic formula it's so manipulative this movie is such like an insane
[01:45:58] experiment to being like okay so we all know rom-coms are about two actors together right what if we make a movie where that almost never happens and not only that it's not even like they're like they have a correspondence right they're not on the phone yeah
[01:46:14] they're barely interactive they barely even know that the other one exists for a long chunk of it in a concrete way and he's going i mean i guess he's not there because of her but like he gets there and he knows that she's
[01:46:28] written a letter kind of like a crazy person and then puts together that she's like right this gorgeous woman who we followed through an airport but like that's not a lot to go on no and a thing that happens off screen in this movie presumably is
[01:46:40] him reading many many other letters yes right you see how big the staff yeah and they're mostly crazy he's right he's so dismissive of this one yeah and he also yells about fatal attraction did you see fatal attraction i love that
[01:46:54] i'm so scared the hell out of me it scared the shit out of me every man in america or the way he delivers line like that she looks like my fifth grade teacher she is my fifth grade teacher and like i don't know if it really
[01:47:06] is his fifth grade teacher but it's so funny the way he does it he is so funny oh my god he's so god he's funny i love tom hanks can we talk about how weird tom hanks's face is like such a
[01:47:18] he's very long in this movie long and thin it's sort of like his philadelphia build i guess like he's still pretty skinny he's got he's got the howie mandel 80s peter newman hair but also he's quaff though for for how long he is he's a he's
[01:47:33] a skinny man he's a tall man he's got a long face every individual feature on his face is round like that's a weird thing about tom hanks is that his face is not round but he's got this rounded nose he's got very round he's got soft
[01:47:48] his cheeks are kind of round right his eyes are very circular like every individual piece of him is round but it doesn't really feel like a face that should come together and he is like not traditionally handsome but he also doesn't look like a classic comedy star
[01:48:04] he's got such a unique look there's a lingering shot on like a cameo on a valentine's box of chocolate like and like the window outside meghrine's apartment where it's like two faces in silhouette and you're like not supposed to get that it's tom hanks and mega
[01:48:16] ryan you're like no i know that nose like i know exactly whose profile that's supposed to be on the imdb trivia page it was literally like the silhouettes are supposed to be tom hanks and i was like of course it is
[01:48:29] yeah like no one else has ever looked like tom hanks other than jim hanks tom hanks's brother who does the bonus voiceover work for toys and calling hanks who is his looper yes sure but calling hanks looks a little more i don't want to say normal no he's
[01:48:47] a little more straightforwardly handsome i think yes yes he's a little more every man yeah in his hanks facial hanks is not a guy that you would look at and be like this is that you know gonna be hollywood's hottest guy right but then right you
[01:49:02] know in classic hollywood there are the sort of like glenn ford gary cooper guys where you're like of course they're good looking guys yeah jimmy stewart like you know but like this is not like a a hottie exactly like this is like a
[01:49:15] sort of interesting striking you know like he's a good-looking man he's a he's a handsome man um gary marshal of all people because i he never directed hanks did he uh let's see penny did uh did gary right uh maybe i remember seeing some
[01:49:33] interview where gary marshal was talking about tom hanks and he said tom hanks was like an actor who with no vanity will say like hey here are the five angles to never shoot me like i'm giving you like uh some help here like this is
[01:49:48] a helpful tip you're not going to be early will break i morning you know right i'm now trying to write but he was like there was it wasn't like a strice and like never shoot me like it was a like just so you know if you
[01:50:00] shoot me from here i will look so goofy like the guy is aware that his face balances on like such a razor's edge as a leading man i don't i can't find anything that he would have ever directed him in i don't i feel like i'm spacing
[01:50:14] on something like maybe a tv show but i don't think so oh it must it must have been a tv thing i guarantee you was a tv thing i think he he did a happy days maybe he did a happy he made appearances on gary marshal sitcom
[01:50:28] right he must a hundred percent that's what it was yeah he was on a happy days he was only one so he knew his angles even back then yeah i mean that look in a way that's maybe what made him a movie star
[01:50:39] he he just had that weird sense about himself i mean i feel like one of the defining things of a really successful movie star is someone who just has such a good sense of how they play i mean he like they are so aware of their
[01:50:53] own instruments you know yes i agree with that and hey tom hanks got a great instrument got a great instrument um wait i don't want to move too far in the plot and i don't know if we're here yet david but
[01:51:04] can we talk about the scene with victor garber and rita wilson at the dinner table where they talk about an affair to remember in the dirty dozen they talk about a dirty dozen i love that i just i just need to i need to pause
[01:51:16] for one second because of course gary marshal did in fact direct the tom hanks jackie gleason two-hander nothing in common there you go i'm so i remember see i knew there was now we can move on i knew there was something um but yes the scene that scene
[01:51:34] when i was a kid i thought it was the funniest thing in the world um you don't think it's the funniest thing in the world i hold it holds up great i mean just garber and hanks just doing the dirty dozen naming every character actor in the dirty
[01:51:48] dozen by the way which i love like that's a little imdb game they're playing griffin weigh in yeah no that's also that's the scene that's the most like manna from mars woman or yes because it's this like two pillars between wilson and garber and garber is even
[01:52:06] more cynical and skeptical than hanks is yes and the kid is there too being like right girl movie where they kiss yeah um but i do like such a funny immediate reversal like it's just like going directly to them and the look on reader wilson's face like says
[01:52:22] everything being like oh you all think you're immune to movies that like like hit you in your heart like right there you go but i love that a fair to remember is so this like weird universal language because they that's he right he's
[01:52:34] brought up the letter the empire state building thing and she's just immediately like a fair to remember i know i of course i know what that is like yeah like it's it's like nonsense to them well we talked about this earlier but like think about how many different
[01:52:50] rom-coms or films with romantic subplots from the last 20 years all use dirty dancing a shorthand you know like it feels like they're constantly riffing on or referencing the same four or five movies and this film benefits from picking a very specific film that
[01:53:10] is not like the most popular love story of all time it's not casablanca it's not something that's been like me to death by other movies so so it also means it actually like it has some meaning when another character knows the same film they're
[01:53:28] talking about when another character gets the reference point and of course that's the magic that allows her to go up to the empire state building because the guy's wife knows that movie so he's like okay all right go ahead do you have any bombs you know what
[01:53:44] i won't even check just go do a lap like katie you were saying before we recorded how happy you are not to be in new york city right now understand feels very smug repeated back to me but sure no no no but i i i want to
[01:54:03] represent this as generously as possible you you are a woman with a family and children and multiple lives to be concerned about with regards to a global pandemic and new york is like uh the worst place to be read this disease right now um seeing
[01:54:22] that that fucking security guard at the empire state building how much did that make you long yeah for me well and also like behind the scenes trivia like last time i saw you guys in person when i recorded in person we walked right past the empire state building
[01:54:35] to get wherever it was we were going after the recording the rest of it was right there yeah like me the um like yeah it's just like the way that it's populated with the taxi driver and the security guard the empire state building like i feel like
[01:54:45] even someone when they're at the rainbow room right with bill pulman when they have the view of the yes they're at the rainbow room they're a 30 rock yeah there's like so many i car locations stores so much new york knowledge and
[01:54:55] a lot of new york movies do that but this isn't a new york movie until the very end and you get to it and you're like it's it's got this big heart on its sleeve like the big heart on the empire state building for this
[01:55:05] city like you feel norah effron coming out in it so much um it's her home yeah i mean it's it's such a lovely new york movie but to get like that much sort of like impactful new york in only 20 minutes at
[01:55:21] the end of the film yeah yeah and it rolls beyond that it is crazy i i there's the shot where you see her running up to the building and i was like oh right we used to record two blocks away from the empire state
[01:55:34] building did you also notice the guy on rollerblades in the lobby of the empire state building i think it's when she comes in and when he gets someone somebody goes past the guy on rollerblades in the lobby of the empire state building which is
[01:55:44] wonderful but it is this like we take it for granted because we like uh uh live here i mean not david because he grew up in london uh but you know i i spent my entire childhood here and uh and now we we would record our
[01:55:58] podcast every week several times a week like two blocks away that when a movie represents it like this you're like jesus christ the empire state building what a place you went to the top of the empire state building not since i was like exactly six yeah
[01:56:15] so you were on vacation for school in london i went when i had a cousin a 10-year-old cousin visit um like four or five years ago and i still lived in new york and i went with her to the top of the empire
[01:56:27] state building like kind of spur of the moment like we went at night it was really cold it was amazing you you've got to go like sometimes too because it's really it holds all of the appeal um that you think it does from watching this movie watching this
[01:56:40] made me feel like it's one of the first things i want to do when it feels safe it's so it's so funny because i would always walk by it when we were leaving the studio and see like the lines of people going in and be like jesus christ
[01:56:53] oh we'd be dismissive we'd be like could you imagine going to the top of the empire like on my commute every day to those offices i would like walk in the street and scoff at the tourists just blocking a sidewalk batteries at
[01:57:09] them truly yeah put them in a sock and swing it and smack them in the head welcome to new york the aline offices are in like madison square park ish and um like you can see the empire state building like from there you know
[01:57:24] 30 you know 34th street you can't really see it you know and you would yell out your window you would lift your window up and go get out of here like four to five times a year there's a photo in my photo roll of the empire state
[01:57:36] building that's me just like walking on the stream being like huh i like taking a i would occasionally i would occasionally behold the fact that it was just there and be like well right it's the big building that's the most famous building ever yeah i used to
[01:57:50] temp uh right across the street from 30 rock and it was but it was over christmas so like my walk to like the train was just like me dodging of course yes really was and i went and i hated it but then like there were days i
[01:58:06] would walk by and i'm just like it's a tree whatever and then like sometimes i would stop and i was like this is a really pretty tree i'd also like to recommend a tree it's nice i would also like to recommend though if you
[01:58:18] don't go if you choose to go to the empire state building nice but also if you go to the top of the rock tour it's slightly cheaper and i always recommend top of the rock to tourists because i feel like it's a right
[01:58:31] it's just slightly easier less crowded yeah and look look you might you might get to meet jimmy in the hallways you might get to meet jimmy in the hallway and he'll be like oh my god this is amazing i can't believe it's in the hallway
[01:58:42] great oh my god so we're going to see you or you can see the spot where bill pulman got his heart broken like that's obviously a spot on the tour yeah definitely it's just the kind of backstory thing that i feel like is
[01:58:53] part of what michael showelter is mocking with that movie where it's like the guy knows he's not worthy you got you know like the break up is so smooth and takes like you got more deep holes i had my shot
[01:59:06] i took you know hey what are you gonna do like i'll guess i'll just going out there and marry a different wasp like you know like right i don't know like oh yeah well he also says he doesn't want to be settled for you know like that's a
[01:59:20] that's a nice feeling right it makes him transcend past just being a punch line or a plot obstruction because it's like this guy has the emotional intelligence to understand yeah he doesn't want to be with her because she feels a sense of
[01:59:38] guilt to not leave him like that is not a happy life he really like shows a great deal of understanding there um it's a good it's a good fucking scene and i also like that she's like i you i never deserved a guy like you and he's
[01:59:55] like oh come on i wouldn't say that and she's like no seriously he's like okay i'll take it like he needs the little compliment in the moment yeah right yeah it's just it's just funny because like she shouldn't get away with
[02:00:07] it but you're so on board with her romance i guess and you're so on board with like look if she's doing this she doesn't want to marry bill pulman right like that's what she's that's what she's avoiding isn't it though isn't it emblematic of the writing like where
[02:00:22] i feel like uh i don't know i feel like if it was a boy writing it he would be like meh and be really upset and yell or do some kind of extreme yeah like for example yeah refreshing the most toxic flip side of
[02:00:35] this is like bradley cooper in wedding crashers right or any right where right but where he's like a sociopath and when she considers leaving him for another guy he like starts punching people you know right yeah like does something that makes it feel more
[02:00:52] morally justified for her to leave him rather than being like no it just it's not gonna work but the problem the miscalculation there is then you go like wait but what does it say about rachel nick adams that she was with this
[02:01:03] guy for so long that's any time a movie does that i'm just like there's a big out of the room in a daze like and she just not been paying attention to like her general surroundings right like best case scenario she's got the worst
[02:01:18] judgment in the world worst case scenario she's complicit she knew they switched the sample whereas like the only time it's okay is like titanic where it's just like no you have to do this because you must slide titanic that's a great setup it's like yeah right they're outside
[02:01:41] things controlling but any modern romance in which there is another man and the guy is an asshole it like they never think about how much it reflects poorly upon the female character you know yeah and and i like that in this it's just like as i as i
[02:01:59] said before they have good comedic chemistry as actors they just don't have good romantic chemistry and that is very very well executed so you understand why they're together but you also go i kind of would rather see her with hanks even though they haven't spoken
[02:02:14] to each other in this movie like i gotta believe that maybe has a little more electricity to it but that's kind of a crazy bitch that's what i'm saying like this movie is i know i am it and it makes you get why the critics
[02:02:30] were so hard on it because it does the concept is crazy it shouldn't and you're like yeah it shouldn't work and you come out of it being like was i tricked by this like why did i go for this and it takes time to like accept this
[02:02:43] like no i said that's that's good filmmaking well yeah it's that thing like pisses me off when people go like i mean yeah like i love that movie and it made me cry and i laughed it's not like a good movie and i want
[02:02:55] to say like then what is your star movie i'm like no i'm not saying about this in particular i'm saying when people say that about films that they love i know what you're saying and bearish by and i'm like if you enjoyed
[02:03:06] the movie on the level that the movie was intending for you to enjoy it to that extent then the movie works like you don't have to say it's your favorite movie of all time but don't act like well i like enjoyed it for
[02:03:17] some other reason i don't think it's good it just completely hit me emotionally in every way it intended to and this is one of those movies where you just kind of got to give you kind of give it got to give it up you know
[02:03:30] something's gotta give someone's got to give and for me it's it's a bottle of Skywalker rose here's some things jason schwarzman auditioned for the role of jona whoa he could have done it he could have done it tom hanks was doing voice work for
[02:03:50] woody in his off days off of this movie wow so this is where woody this is woody yes hanks in seattle right wow right because his woody audition was Griffin is glowing i'm just i'm so in love his woody audition was turner and
[02:04:09] hooch essentially that was the audio they used to test him out as the voice i mean it is that crazy thing i we've said it in the commentary episodes which will come out by this point but they hire him to play woody and then by
[02:04:21] the time the movie comes out he has won two Oscars that he did not have when they started recording yeah it is wild disappointed in denver you know there's that montage of the other callers like the other famous callers no what's that what are you talking about
[02:04:41] it's like when she's listening to the radio the dog lady is like yes yes yes our favorite hit yes sleep is in seattle disappointed in denver disappointed denver is something like the minute i'm about to reach orgasm he wants to he wants a sandwich why
[02:04:55] don't you make a sandwich before you have sex yeah that's norah effron she's disappointed in denver she's the voice yes can we shout out how good caroline erin is in this she rules i love caroline erin is just like a fucking classic pro character actor always good
[02:05:14] it shows up a number of times in the effron filmography i mean was in this is my life she's in this is our this is my life which she's i would say pretty great in would you agree yeah i would agree you would agree she's like also a
[02:05:28] caller in mixed nuts right which of course has lots of voice performances but she's she's without ruining it she is the best joke in the movie yeah i think so yes i mean i guess it's debate what a weird movie that is okay get ready never seen mix
[02:05:50] nuts i'm really excited for this i've never seen mixed nuts i remember being out i remember it being like a grown-up movie out at the time but i i really don't know that much about it other than that it's like a famous effron miss
[02:06:02] yeah it's an effron miss that next week uh yeah it's the next one right that's the next one yeah so so we uh charles rogers is our guest on that uh co-creator showrunner of uh search party and that was his favorite movie as a
[02:06:16] child it's like david's it was in xiav but even weirder yes yes it was inexplicably the movie he watched like 20 times um it's so bizarre yep that's the next that we recorded that i don't know months ago but in person one yeah yeah it's our one tiny apartment
[02:06:37] excuse me small fine yeah it's true yeah uh it was the one effron we recorded early because charles was flying back to la and we were like this is so early it's like gonna feel crazy to do it and now we're so thankful we have one episode in
[02:06:55] which we're all in the same room we got this one precious episode you're gonna have to do like a preface being like well this was recorded in the before times as you'll know we did not know 10 terrible things that were going to happen after that right
[02:07:08] we keep talking in the episode about how strong our genes are and how we'll never die getting to do advertise our live show and for people to go see that we keep sneezing on each other but certain we're exchanging so many bodily
[02:07:26] fluids in that episode it's crazy and just for sport like it's not a sexual thing it's not like a like a trolling each other thing it's just like we can we feel that freedom it's four guys and it's one cup and that's and the cup overflow it
[02:07:42] with that let us do the box office game on that note and the box office this movie came out June 25th 1993 and Griffin it didn't open to number one it's a standard summer blockbuster because this is the same summer as Jurassic Park is that correct so
[02:08:00] Jurassic Park in its third week has made a hundred and seventy one million dollars just an absolutely staggering hit so that is still number one but sleep in Seattle is number two was it open to 17 million dollars and a lot uh-huh and it makes 126 domestic 227 world wide
[02:08:22] wow big hit has a huge multiplier as you can tell it had like a seven multiplier it's funny that it's a winter movie like it starts at Christmas and goes through Valentine's Day and they're like no no no no no end of June
[02:08:35] ended you know I was so I was so certain this movie came out in either January or November yeah like I was like so ready for this to be like is it like a pre-Valentine's Day or a pre-Christmas release because that's what you got mail is you've got
[02:08:48] mail as a December release right yes yes man I'm so excited to rewash you've got mail it's one of the things keeping me going I'm excited too but this I much prefer for this movie you've got mail number three at the box office
[02:09:03] Griffin this is the movie that I see is both a Griffin movie and a Ben movie oh interesting it's a kid okay that you think is equally Griffin and Ben it's not problem child no but that movie rules it's yeah well that's the thing that's more
[02:09:21] than a Griffin movie in that it's a kid movie with a kid star it's like a classic 90s kid movie with a star as a kid and then Ben it's about a kid who's a little stinker hell yeah I think I have it's please
[02:09:36] is this is it a McCauley Culkin film no Katie what's your guess is it the Dennis the menace with Walter Matthew yes I saw that in the theater I bet you did I saw that in the theater I love that movie can we talk about how weird it
[02:09:53] is that Walter Matthew suddenly has this like robust box office run yeah it's like he's known only as a mean grandpa I know but it's like suddenly like fucking lemon and math hour back they're going to do four more comedies together in the 90s
[02:10:10] and finally it means that math hour is bankable that he can finally play the role he was born to play Mr. Wilson like Hollywood living legend academy award winner Walter Matthew finally gets to go like god damn it that niche get off my lawn
[02:10:28] and is Joan Plano right his wife in that let's find out your correct Christopher Lloyd is the like villain yes yes way too intense villain like he is actually like a very upsetting hobo in that movie yes he plays a drifting burglar named switchblade Sam
[02:10:50] did Ben write this movie I forgot about that that fucking is amazing he has an amazing specific this is the Rosetta Stone for your personality Ben he's didn't I think so but also but also like you go like oh Christopher Lloyd's gonna play the
[02:11:04] villain and dance the mess you go like great perfect casting it'll be like Doc Brown he'll be a villain but he won't really be threatening and then Christopher Lloyd shows up and he's like this is my cape fear I am going for it
[02:11:17] I am pure menace there's not a drop of comedy microphone like google what he looks like in this movie it is so fucking I saw this in theaters and I have like no oh my god Jesus right I'm not exaggerating here I'm gonna make what he looks like
[02:11:37] my background please get ready Benny you looking at my background oh no oh god oh my god and then there's the daylight he basically looks like a sort of like across between Robert Mitchum and night of the hunter and Hugo weaving in cloud
[02:12:07] atlas is the like nightmare demon but he also looks like the hair you pull out of the drain he looks like your plumber comes in is like oh my god he also he likes a little bit like Iggy Pop like dieting came back to
[02:12:27] everything about his like eyes are completely bloodshot red everything about him is incredible he should have won the Oscar for that movie was so fucking good man the wildest thing reboot Dennis the menace it's a great premise well the wildest versus old guy
[02:12:39] yeah and do you know that in the uk there is okay let me talk about it let me talk about it I was trying to step over I was trying to set that up okay David please yes well I grew up in Britain as you know it's been
[02:12:56] established that you know of course and you live there your entire life so in America Dennis the menace who I'm actually not as familiar with but he's a little blonde child and he has a slingshot and he causes trouble right like I that's the premise yeah where's
[02:13:11] overall is there a British version so my god there's a higher different there's a what is this name bloke no he's Dennis the menace there's a British version who the wildest thing was was created in the same year could a completely different character both only
[02:13:29] created simply because Dennis rhymes with menace yeah and I guess in the fifties it just became a thing of like these kids are out on the street they are two entirely different characters created in different countries in the same year that have survived for decades
[02:13:46] yes that are totally totally different other than having the exact same name and no company has ever bought this IP to merge them no you can't merge them they're very different because Dennis the menace in Britain he's the star of the bino which is like a popular
[02:14:01] children's magazine um he has black hair jet black hair and he wears like a red and black striped shirt he has a dog called nashur who likes to bite then pretty cool and his favorite dog his favorite activity which i believe has been softened recently because it is
[02:14:20] so horrifying is beating up the like weak boys in his schools who are called softies and like to have like tea parties and shit and are just like exaggeratedly coded as gay this dumps them his ultimate villain is called walter the softy
[02:14:38] it's it is it is such an insane relic of like british post war humor um but yeah it's great david your skype your zoom background is too much it's so scary but the other thing is because of all that do you know what denis the menace
[02:14:54] was called in britain the move this movie denis because they were like if we call a movie denis the menace and it's about some blonde american child britain will riot like they'll be like that's not denis the menace they should have called it switch played sam the move
[02:15:14] well then they'd have to like rate it 18 and like only show it like if you have a special permission for the government they only show it along the train tracks you can only see it there it only screens under a bridge david what's the number four movie at
[02:15:32] the box office it is the notorious action hit that was a flop because of jurassic park it was like the other big summer movie oh man in 1993 got big star but it got totally crowded out by jurassic park we will do it on this podcast one day it
[02:15:50] is a crazy blank check movie it's from a big director last picture show i'm sorry last action hero it would be funny if it was the last picture show but it is not section here that's i mean that's my favorite action
[02:16:02] movie is the last picture it would be funny as sony was like all right 1993 we think we know how to take on jurassic park we're gonna re-release the last picture show wide less color we're desaturating even more simple shepherd being humiliated
[02:16:20] on the on the fucking diving board that's going to take longer we added stuff they always make that scene longer every time they release it number five at the box office wow good movie oh you know you want to talk more about
[02:16:34] last action here i mean you know we'll talk about someday we'll do an episode someday um is a music biopic it was nominated for a couple of Oscars it's a good movie sort of like a classic 90s music biopic very dark very intense pretty great
[02:16:50] what's love got to do with that hell yeah wow no i'm asking you what does love have to do with the number five movie well i mean that is the question big summer movie huh what's love got to do with it
[02:17:03] yeah it's funny to think of that as a summer movie and as a disney picture a big summer disney release that got oscar nominations nine months later it's wild stuff larry's only not disney plus it's on disney plus but like splash
[02:17:20] every time he is about to hit her they see gi more hair that splash thing was crazy that's splash can we talk about the splash and she just extended her hair over her boobs and butt to like stop it not being and you think
[02:17:35] you're prepared for what it's really like all right he's got hair whatever and it's so much weirder than he's gonna be the quarter crowd a crew guys who i love on youtube who break down visual effect stuff they like explained they are really just copy pasting like they
[02:17:50] cut out a section of her hair not it's like a skin graft right but it's like a video clip of her hair and they like cut out a triangle and then they just place it over so it's also in a loop like the hair keeps
[02:18:04] on moving the same way it's so it's so believable anyway they should do that i think they should do that though i think every movie that disney previously released that is not so adult that it should end up on hulu but a little too explicit for disney
[02:18:21] plus they should just put daryl hanna's hair over the explicit parts um we have gone on long enough though griffin you're right and it's time to wrap it up but it's been a great episode fun it's been a great evening remote
[02:18:38] boozy blank check yeah what more could you want what work would you want hey one thing i wanted to say just very quickly about the movie there's a scene where tom hanks is in a restaurant he gets a phone call at the restaurant
[02:18:53] i've always wanted this to happen to me the 90s baby it's never happened i and i don't know when it will happen again it's his son calling him for something stupid i can't remember what it was he's like are you bleeding is she bleeding leave me alone
[02:19:10] it is so funny that his son wants him to get with someone and then cock box him at every turn the second he meets victoria he calls her a ho he does go around that is weird he calls her a hoe many times uh ben
[02:19:24] here's my advice to you when this becomes an option again in our society uh the next time you go out for a dinner a fancy dinner hand your cell phone over to the matriot d so if anyone calls you during dinner
[02:19:40] they have to walk over yeah they have to walk over there's a call for you sir apparently uh act now because this is your last chance to save your credit card and drink you know like that phone call i get once
[02:19:52] sir you want a cruise uh this person needs to talk to you right away there's some prerecorded message in chinese you want us to respond to this sir as a problem it's an azerbaijan phone code i don't know if you know anyone from there
[02:20:09] people don't call the restaurant to reach you because you have a phone so you got to give your phone to the restaurant and go i'm not picking this up that's really yes we have nothing else to do don't worry about it restaurant industries in great shape
[02:20:21] now that the country's back open we're killing it all right well someday thank you for that insight ben i think it's a perfect note 10 and katie thank you oh my god katie i miss you joining the five-timers club i'm so genuinely happy about it and like
[02:20:41] i feel like i shouldn't take as much pride in it as i do but like i've been chasing richard lossam for a long time i mean i know he's at like seven or eight times so it's it's going to be an eternal chase but this feels good
[02:20:53] but look here's like a big stat you are kind of the first proper guest of blank check yes we did a year of all the star wars stuff but when we had rebranded as blank check yes she does on the two episodes what's ostensibly the
[02:21:06] last episode pre blank check and the first episode post blank check that are both on force awakens no she's only on like she's only on the second force awakens episode oh okay fair enough fair enough i'm sorry i forgot but you were on like the first
[02:21:20] episode as a guest in the the format that now exists to this day i can't believe and it also was when we created the box office game yes it is that's right i i remember it fondly i remember texting david when i was like
[02:21:32] visiting relatives for thanksgiving me like i've started listening to your dumb podcast about the fan a minute so i can't stop so i guess i'm a fan now and uh you know great friendship you're born from there it was like an early sign
[02:21:43] it was an early sign that we were crossing over beyond like chris gethard fans and like real hardcore yeah because you guys have been doing the show for like you know what i mean like before i started listening and i was like all right i'll do it
[02:21:55] our initial audience so long now that ben still bitter about everything no it's fine no but i feel like you were like hey i'd love to come on the show whenever you're not talking about star wars right so then you were like the
[02:22:13] first guest not to talk about star wars in the history of our podcast i should go back and listen to that i can't like listening to myself on a podcast is hard and i like i have to listen to interviews i do and stuff like that
[02:22:23] sometimes but that i feel like has been long enough that it would be interesting to listen back to it's it's it would just be a time warp at this point someone posted on twitter the other day a clip from the wide awake praying with
[02:22:36] anger episode and it feels like listening to early simpsons where you're like oh they hadn't figured out the voices yet like i'm not even talking comedic voices i'm like literally we feel like early dan castanel and had a versions of ourselves i'm like the
[02:22:51] pitch is wrong on griffin there that doesn't sound correct the drawing style david was still too squiggly they hadn't figured out the right amount of fear to have on him yet but frosted milkshakes i can't do it which does it for whatever reason i had an ipad yeah
[02:23:09] yeah they were like that's a fun waiter they know this fun waiter hey hey david don't have a cow man and david's like you listen to me griffin i will not tolerate your buffoonery and then ben's like come on boys let's record the podcast he was like that
[02:23:33] to be clear yeah that was actually all right we got an intern on it at a computer sucking on a pacifier exactly katie we love you thank you for coming back thank you guys i love you too i'm so like it's i come on the show
[02:23:48] and i feel like i'm stepping into the podcast that i'm listening to all the time which i'm sure everyone else does too but also everyone else is doing zoom hangouts with their friends now and this gets to be a hangout with your friends that also
[02:23:58] turns into a podcast that people listen to it's the best of both worlds um but katie i look forward to doing an in-person episode oh yeah at the top of the empire state building in 2027 oh my god the idea of going into a
[02:24:13] tiny recording studio or like really like the old one you guys had where it was truly tiny windowless and everyone was crazy yeah cause i just that that level of intimacy with people again i think uh we'll get there someday but in
[02:24:26] the meantime thank you for making it possible for me to come on from my house this is very exciting for me i feel like you guys are doing a good job keeping the vibe on zoom it's not easy thank we're trying we're trying i think we
[02:24:37] are too i think we're doing a good job and the bigger thing is i mean when when it becomes possible physically the the long and the works return of of charlie on the podcast we're still going to negotiate yeah thank you to charlie for having good
[02:24:52] taste and for continuing to wear all the forky merchandise that i bought him a year ago that forky shirt is uh strongly in the rotation as is plush forky we've got a fork forky i feel like i've hinted at this before in the show but just
[02:25:08] want to state this clearly i just a year ago when david was still anti forky before the movie came out texted you katie and i was like if i sent you a hundred dollars worth of forky merchandise for charlie would you accept that and you were like absolutely
[02:25:23] and i did i sent him so much forky stuff so that you could bother david with photos of him loving for i am never bothered by photos or videos of katie's kids i love him so much i held charlie in my arms when he was
[02:25:38] like two months old or whatever i was younger when we were at trivia yeah i like the griffin is this like distant benevolent uncle who like you know they have not like charlie's not seen you since he's been conscious but like he knows you're the forky giver
[02:25:52] but he's aware that they came for me i was supposed to go over and give erlich son a forky doll i bought the forky doll and then uh you know this is no time to be transmitting forky merchandise asa still has a couple years before he's gonna
[02:26:06] give a shit about forky anyway so you got time folks thank you all for listening please remember to rate review subscribe uh thanks to and for co-producing this show uh rachel jacob for editing assistance uh go to blankies dot red dot com for some real
[02:26:22] nerdy shit and go to patreon dot com back slash blank check for blank check special features where you got franchise commentaries baby uh tune in next week for mixed nuts with charles rogers recorded in the before times yep you get one blast from the past episode before we're
[02:26:43] rocketed back to virtual nice yep all true uh and as always david you're wrong you're never too love young to love forky okay all right you didn't respond to that earlier and i imagined you had something in your pocket saving it
[02:27:00] and never too young to love for everyone at everyone ready oh yeah okay yeah david what are you doing no no you gotta get in the car let me just save a fucking line okay and the line is i'm not gonna give you a
[02:27:22] line reading but really try to find the character you are dr marcia fieldstone oh i'm dr marcia fieldstone i see