[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Uh, pardon me sir. I'm afraid we're a little late with the podcast.
[00:00:22] Chef tells me we ran out about ten minutes ago. Wait a minute. What? Oh, are you joking? No podcast? No podcast. The main reason we came here was for the podcast. No, no, no, no. It's not all right. They should have said that to us at the door.
[00:00:38] They should have warned us that there was a danger of running out of podcasts. Well, I mean we drove all the way from New York. No, no, you know what? Listen, take, take, take the, take the, take the podcast.
[00:00:51] I don't want to share it. I promise my wife the podcast. I want you, I want you to bring the podcast for my wife. I promise, just bring me some coffee. No blueberry pie. No, I want blueberry pie for. That really bugs me.
[00:01:06] Are you out? I'm out. Yeah. You nailed it. That was great. I had to dig to find a transcript of the script that was very poorly formatted and then cut out all the intermediate dialogue from everyone else. That's my favorite moment in the movie.
[00:01:21] It's a good moment and especially like hearing, hearing you say it like the whole time I was watching the film, I thought Griffin, Griffin would kill this part. If they remake it again, again, I mean, I'd, yeah, honestly, you know my number one choice for the role.
[00:01:38] Should it be like a star is born? Like we just have a heartbreak kid every 30-ish years. Every generation deserves its heartbreak kid. Yeah. The problem is they nailed it so hard the last time. It really feels like this is, this is a genuine thought I had.
[00:01:53] Okay. I don't say this in any sort of self-pitying way. This is, I say this soberly coming off of 10 months of forced reflection upon every element of my life in quarantine, right? I increasingly have just been in a state of just like,
[00:02:09] what do I actually want to do with myself? Questioning whether I still want to be like on camera acting, but very happy with the voiceover work I'm doing. Was getting very tired of the racket of on camera stuff and the burn of it, whatever.
[00:02:23] And I'm so scared to get back on set right now that it just feels like by the time I'm vaccinated it'll have been so long. I wonder if I'll have the driver or whatever. And what are you still got it? If you want to save one.
[00:02:34] Being on set is safe. So safe, so safe, so safe. I mean, Batman got COVID, but other than that, it's safe. There's not constant breakouts because using tests isn't a good way to determine whether or not people can be in contact. But no, no, it's fine.
[00:02:48] We didn't almost kill young Sheldon. I was talking with my friend. Young Sheldon in trouble? I didn't know about that one. No, there was a shutdown. There was a flare up, but he's fine now. Okay, okay, all right. I'm going tangent on a tangent on a tangent,
[00:03:00] but I was speaking to one of my best friends the other day and she was like, it's kind of incredible how quickly everyone adopted the same bad attitude that exists with STDs onto COVID. We're just like, well, if I trust somebody I'm not gonna get it, right?
[00:03:16] I had a test like six months ago. I'm probably not, I'm good, I'm clean, right? If I trust someone or if they're rich enough. Right, if they're fancy, I'm not gonna get it. If it's in a nice hotel, I'm not gonna get it.
[00:03:27] This is what I was gonna say. When I think about all this stuff, the acting stuff, I think more than anything like, I don't have any desire to be like the guy anymore, right? Like any ambitions I had when I was younger
[00:03:37] to be like a star and a leading man in my own weird way. I'm just like, I don't need that work. I so much prefer coming and getting out. And then I watched this movie and I was like, if I was ever, ever gonna be a movie star
[00:03:48] this is exactly who I wanna be. You wanna be Groton. I wanna be Charles Groton, yeah. And it's because I think he just did this balancing act and will talk about his career, but he somehow became a very odd leading man
[00:04:02] without ever, ever devoting an ounce of energy towards audience sympathy. Never, and we'll talk right at the arc of his career where he's like, yeah, I'll be the lead and then I won't be, who cares? I don't wanna be the lead all the time, right?
[00:04:18] I'll be a weirdo. And then he comes back in family movies as the grumpy's like fine, whatever. But also he's like, I don't know, I'll write for a show as well. I can do that, like I'll do whatever I want.
[00:04:31] I'm trying to sort of have a Groton cadence right now even if I'm not doing an impression. Come on, all right, I don't care. I feel like it's not that like, I only wanna play assholes, but I just like, especially from my experience with the ticker,
[00:04:47] just like how much added stress there is if people are like, you gotta be likable. People need to be rooting for you, you know? And it's just like, you just wanna act. You just wanna act and hope that what you're doing is compelling enough that people watch.
[00:04:58] I don't really care about people liking me, you know? But I mean, I guess the problem is that it's how do you get a movie with the protagonist unlikable in this specific way? How do you get that made today? It doesn't happen.
[00:05:14] You don't get a movie of this size and type made today, but also even if you did, it would have to have a likable. Yeah, you just couldn't do it. Yeah, and you look at as a counterpoint, Ben Stiller's career, and you look at as a counterpoint
[00:05:26] the Heartbreak Kid remake and the interesting changes that are made there. But let's say what we're talking about or not talking about 2007's Heartbreak Kid. Yeah, not yet. Maybe one day. No, because look, we're not talking about the Fairly Brothers. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David.
[00:05:43] I'm Griffin. I'm David. And this is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby.
[00:05:58] And this is a mini series on the films of Elaine May, April, Showers bring May flowers this year. All true. Because April is May, we're knocking out the shortest filmography we've ever done and it is an injustice that the filmography is this short. It's disgusting.
[00:06:18] Yep, but this is her second film in certain ways I feel like it's her most beloved even though it's been so out of circulation for so long. It's her most definable hit, I would say, right? Right. And probably yes, the movie that the most people have heard of
[00:06:35] at the time. Like, you know, in the 70s, 80s, people knew this movie. Right now it's like you said it. So how did you... I mean, it's on YouTube. Did you see that? I did. So we'll talk about this in a second because yes, this is Heartbreak Kid.
[00:06:49] This is the podcast that is of course the name of this mini series. We're at the titular episode and we have a long, long overdue guest. She is not just a great friend of the show, but I feel like internally,
[00:07:03] and I believe I've said this to you as well, I consider this guest to be our first real fan of the show. Like the first real Blanky, right? Even before Blanky existed as a term. Yes. And I come to this recording as a fan ready to embarrass myself,
[00:07:24] make myself a specter of everything that can go wrong when someone comes onto a podcast, someone that the other fans can be furious at and also take apart, pick apart the genuine problems with my appearance. I'm really excited to do a bad job. Oh, God. Great. Great.
[00:07:44] No, I'm such a fan of the show. I think early on, I did get a shout out during one of the Star Wars apps and it was the highlight of my year that year. Obviously, that must have been a bad year
[00:07:57] because everything has been just on the ups since then, currently the best year of my life. That was the last bad year of your life, yeah, 2015. I got to say, I just listened to, I think the most recent app that came out
[00:08:11] at the time of this record is the... Marwen, right? Marwen. And I think you mentioned... A loopy app. At the end of that, the idea of the Star Wars apps being interminable or something like that. And I'm sorry, I don't think there's been
[00:08:27] a better 30 episode run of a podcast. It just... I'm sorry to ruin an episode about another film by gushing over the very podcast that I'm on, but the level of incisive film analysis and the stuff you can learn about not just Star Wars films, but filmmaking
[00:08:51] and media in general by listening to those podcasts, I'm just so happy to be on this show and especially to discuss this film, which is A Masterpiece. Yes. Well, let me say our guest today is Avery Addison, our dear friend, a brilliant writer, comedian in her own right.
[00:09:12] But I remember vividly because when we started the show, David had his circle of people who followed him from the AV club and who he knew personally. A few jumps. His friends, right? And I had the small circle of people mostly from the Gaththerd Show community
[00:09:26] and having done the Gaththerd Show podcast and then my friends. And when we started doing the Phantom podcast, it felt like, oh, we know every single person who's listening. We can chart directly every single person who's listening to the show. That's absolutely right. Right.
[00:09:41] And then I remember it was early on. I want to say it was in that Phantom run, the first 10 episodes, David went, Avery Addison wrote about us. And I said, what? In Today in Tabs, right? Right. Yeah, I did. You did your Today in Tabs recommendation.
[00:09:56] And he said, this is like a big deal. Right. Like Avery is cool. She's got good opinions and she actually somehow listens to our show and recommended it to other people who don't know us. I mean... Well, I'm tapping out on the episode now. That's me done.
[00:10:12] It was so cool. I've gushed and gotten some gush in return. It is a Chris Morris jam style, endless gush. Endless gush. My favorite ever line from jam is when... Do you remember the one... It's the doctor who does the sex line while he's being a doctor,
[00:10:31] but he does the sex line in the same calm manner as his doctor. And he just picks up the phone. He's like, sorry, one second. Yes, yes. I've come on my knee. Yes. And he hangs up the phone. I think about that all the time. I'm sorry.
[00:10:46] What are the two of you talking about? We're talking about a sketch show, a British... It's... I'm actually not sure how David knows about this. It was a... Yeah, I lived in Canada and America for a short time in my 20s, but basically my whole life I've lived
[00:11:05] in the country of my birth, Great Britain, Scotland at first, then England. You're coming to us from Britain right now. Yeah, I've lived in London, currently in Liverpool. I grew up in Dorset, lovely place to look at, not to experience. I mean, look, these are all locations
[00:11:21] that make sense for you to have that reference point. And even... Yeah, I can understand. ...at the time in Canada they obviously export a lot of British comedy to Canada. I wonder if Jam made it to Canada. Any Canadians let me know if Jam made it
[00:11:33] all the way to Canada because I doubt it. But yes, you're right, you're right. But as you have seemed to have forgotten, I grew up in Britain as well. Griffin. Oh, David. You know, but from the ages of nine to 22, I lived there for 13 years.
[00:11:48] So we were probably in England at the same time? Yeah. That's crazy. I would imagine so. That is just... That's even, you know... The kind of bizarre coincidence it makes you think is God real? Yeah, maybe when I was at the Virgin Megastore
[00:12:08] and freaking Tottenham Court Road or whatever. No, I was strictly HMV. No, it couldn't have happened. Strictly. You were strictly HMV. Strictly HMV. Wow. Yeah. Now can you make the argument for HMV over Virgin? My mother's weird class prejudices that somehow decided Virgin was good
[00:12:29] and HMV was bad turns out... Growing up and living on my own has been a process of learning that the weird preferences I have come from my mother's inscrutable obsession with not looking as poor as we were and somehow Virgin versus HMV played into that.
[00:12:47] Is HMV still going? Is it still a thing? I don't think so, no. No? I don't think Virgin is either. I believe HMV still exists in Canada. Am I wrong about that? Yes. And I think there might be one store in London over here.
[00:13:02] Yeah, it looks like they've been bought out by some, you know, yeah. No, you know what? It even closed in Canada, closed in 2017 in Canada. Wow. The HMV in Hampstead, like I just spent hours there. And then the thing where, you know, you would go in
[00:13:17] and you had like, you know, 10 pounds. Like that was all you had. 10 pounds? Wow. Look at Mr. Moneybacks. Oh boy, yeah. Money monster over here. I could buy one thing. You know, that thing where you just sort of like go around
[00:13:31] and you're like, I think it's going to be this. But then you're walking around for ages being like, anything that's going to knock this out of my hand. I grew up, I grew up incredibly poor. So I, yeah, I truly would not have 10 pounds on my hands.
[00:13:45] I would just go in there, stare at the thing I wanted. And that thing of maybe if I stare long enough and sadly enough, someone behind the counter will see my desperation and take pity on me and somehow give it to me for free.
[00:13:59] And then when I finally got a job in my teen years, I spent probably my first paycheck on the series, one to three box out of Family Guy. And was that happy? Wow. You had to. I also owned that box. It was good, but the good seasons.
[00:14:13] The good seasons before, yes. And it was like, oh yeah, is this weird show? Is this, yeah, this silly American show. They got canceled kind of fast. Jet Sack, Yankee Suck, Krypton Sucks, one of the hardest times I've ever laughed in my life. Wow.
[00:14:27] This is even crazier than that time Avery bought seasons one through three at HMV. No, it's not crazier than that, Peter. It is that. Oh, sorry. Anyway, how do we get on this? How are we going to jam? I'm trying to remember. Gushing. Oh, the praise.
[00:14:43] Yes, the praise, the praise. No, but it was truly that's the moment that Dave and I like turned to each other and said like, oh, we might actually be making something that people and someone listens to. Right. Yes. I mean not to, and we should, you know,
[00:14:57] not to suggest that the show is some, you know, colossal globes conquering force now. But I do remember Griffin at the end of that first year when we did the live show at Union Hall, which is a capacity.
[00:15:12] What do you think Griffin like 50, 60 people or what are you right? Like however many people you can sit in there. Yeah, I think you can standing room 75 maybe. Yeah. Pre COVID. I was like, yes, yes. Right now it's 12. Post COVID 2. Yeah, now it's really 2. That space is 2. Yeah.
[00:15:27] I just remember saying to you like, Griffin, like come is anyone going to show up to this? Like we were terrified that just no one would show up. Yeah. And you were like, it's okay. We have enough friends and stuff that the people will be there. Right.
[00:15:41] But I was really thinking like, are we going to walk out to an empty crowd? No. And I had that exact same fear. And there was also the question of like how many of our friends are coming to this at a pity
[00:15:52] who don't even listen to the show and don't like to watch Star Wars and not be receptive to what we're doing. 100% I was like, oh no. Right. It'll be people who are like, Jesus, they're watching the fucking revenge of the... I don't want to do this.
[00:16:04] I have to watch this. Right. Like your mom came and your mom had not seen revenge of the Sith before and had never listened to the podcast. And you were like, I feel bad that she's going to sit here.
[00:16:13] My mother had never seen a Star Wars movie before. Okay. I was about to say that and I wasn't sure if that was correct. Which really is... My dad saw Star Wars like seven times in theaters. It's not like it wasn't in the family. I watched it obviously.
[00:16:29] My mom had just been like, yeah, not for me and had just successfully dodged for decades. It is astounding that it's still the only context in which she has seen any Star Wars film. No, because she saw The Force Awakens. That was the second movie.
[00:16:45] If you remember, everybody saw that movie. It was that kind of a thing. Yeah. And don't forget that movie made very close to a billion dollars domestically alone. And everyone went to see it. My parents and my sister saw it.
[00:16:58] And that was the last Star Wars movie they'll ever see. It's same with my mom. They hadn't seen a Star Wars movie in fucking 15 years. They won't see another one, but it was just like, I guess I don't know.
[00:17:06] I got to get my license renewed, go see the Star Wars reboot. She was like, I'd like to see it. And we watched it and we came out and I was like, what did you think? And she was like, Harrison Ford was just great.
[00:17:15] Like he was so good. I just loved seeing Harrison Ford turning it on, you know. And I was like, yeah, anything else. And she's like, that's it. Those are my thoughts. Like whatever. She assumed Kylo Ren was just Darth Vader.
[00:17:27] She didn't like want to think about it too hard. Wow. That's great for Kylo Ren. He's going to be thrilled. Incredible. Yeah. I know he was like, yes, got someone. Nailed it. Nailed it. Yeah. I've shared this anecdote too many times.
[00:17:39] My mom went to the bathroom during the scene where Kylo kills Han Solo and then came back. And her question after the end of the movie was, why is he just not in the last 30 minutes at all?
[00:17:49] It's weird that they just kind of drop Han Solo as a character. Oh boy. But yes, Avery, your support of the show has always been so deeply meaningful because you are such a smart person, funny person with good taste.
[00:18:07] Long overdue to have you on the show opened up now because of COVID, forcing us to do episodes with people in different places in the world. And by forcing us, I mean gifting us with the opportunity. I mean, yeah, when quarantine first, when first locked down,
[00:18:25] I did see people saying, oh, this is great. All my favorite podcasts can now maybe get some long distance guests. And someone I think even mentioned me and said, maybe Avery Eson can be on blind check. And I remember faving it and being like, now to wait.
[00:18:43] And it's, you know, I kept thinking as the lockdowns would ease, like, oh, I've missed the shot. But luckily for me, COVID has kept going. And in that sense, COVID is a victory for me. And in that sense, Avery, I ask, can you please stop COVID?
[00:19:00] Because I understand that you stretched this out for a while because you wanted to make sure you got in some of the podcasts. I was behind the UK variants. Yeah, these new strains just, they really wreak of Avery. I could see your fingerprints all over them.
[00:19:17] Avery, you said that this film is in your opinion a masterpiece. Yes. What is your relationship with this movie and with Elaine May overall? My relationship with Elaine May is that when I was in Canada at comedy school, I performed several of her sketches at various shows.
[00:19:37] Other than that, I had no relationship until recently when, yeah, just entering lockdown and being like, OK, it's time to catch up on some filmmakers. Let's go through some filmographies, maybe find someone who has massive success with a film and then gets a series of blind checks.
[00:19:56] I don't know where the idea came from for that, but it's something that really just hit me and resonated. And yeah, I watched this with my girlfriend and her sister and we were losing our minds. And I've watched it a couple more times since then,
[00:20:13] especially I've seen the run-ups of this podcast. I've watched all of the three other films. On Letterbox, right? You were logging them. Oh yeah, I was cramming essentially for this record. And yeah, it's criminal that according to IMDB, like obviously you'll get to this on the episode,
[00:20:35] but I guess Ishtar created the term movie jail, or at least that's what the trivia section there says. Yes, yes. It is one of the canonical modern bounces. Yeah. In no part to any structural gendered forces.
[00:20:52] Well look, well certainly gets all this stuff when we talk about Ishtar, but it is fascinating. I saw her, there was the thing where Ishtar had been out of circulation for so long, along with this movie. I mean this is another issue is that like...
[00:21:08] We've long mulled her because Ishtar is like a top 10 famous bounce of all time, right? And with that has critical reappraisal and has... Yeah, right. I love it. Yeah. But that, you know, her films have largely been harder to see for a long time. Yeah.
[00:21:26] You know, Ishtar and Mikey and Nikki are thankfully more readily available. Now New Leaf as well. But a lot of them were sort of off home video and streaming legal avenues for a long time. This one still is.
[00:21:39] And the perception was always that like, oh, Ishtar was like such an atomic bomb and the press whirlwind around it was so horrible that no one ever let her make a movie again. And I saw when there was...
[00:21:53] They had remastered Ishtar, they were going to release it on Blu-ray. They did like a 90 second street Y screening with her doing a Q&A afterwards, which was just like, oh my God, I went to go see it as like a curio because I just assumed like,
[00:22:07] oh this movie is bad, right? I just want to see this out of completism. And I'll say other things she said when we get to our Ishtar episode, but they asked her about it, like the feeling of being in movie jail, whoever was moderating.
[00:22:19] And she said like, it wasn't that. I mean, I could have made other movies. I just like was over it at that point. Right, because it was a horrible experience. She was so pissed off by the experience of Ishtar,
[00:22:31] compounded with the experience of Mikey and Nikki, which is also very difficult, that I think like, look, people should have been tripping over themselves to continue to give her opportunities. She should not have gotten the reputation that she did.
[00:22:44] But still, she very much speaks as if it was an empowered decision of like, I'm not going to play this fucking game anymore. I don't want to grovel at these people's shoes for the chance to direct like a talking horse movie.
[00:22:56] So I can get myself back in the good graces of the people who think Ishtar is bad, you know? We mentioned Mikey and Nikki being troubled, but again, this is just going off of like IMDb and old reviews.
[00:23:08] Maybe it's wrong, but it seems like even the production processes for a new leaf and can't break it. Like it seems like she's always wrestling for control. And I don't know if that's part of her temperament or the choices she makes.
[00:23:25] Obviously, Mikey and Nikki, she shot like a million and a half feet of film. And I think for a new leaf, she shot like 100 hours of it. Yeah, it was like and she presented a three hour cut and studio took it away from her.
[00:23:41] Yeah, no, it's true. And she never had a relaxed creative process where she was totally in control and was not being second-guess at some point. Yeah, this is probably the chillest and this she still has to deal with Neil Simon being like,
[00:23:57] don't touch my words and you know, like, you know, like even this was not a smooth sailing right. No, and it's such a bizarre kind of setup because it's like this is kind of her only for higher work.
[00:24:10] Right? I mean, like, Beatty is the one who comes to her with the idea for Ishtar, but she develops it, right? Yeah, and that's also Beatty being like, I am the magnanimous wonderful Warren Beatty and I want to get you back into movies.
[00:24:22] And then when she starts making the movie, he's like, I've got a lot of ideas. I am famous control freak Warren Beatty. It was me all along. Right. But that having been said, all four of these movies, it feels like art exactly what she wanted to make
[00:24:36] that she stands behind them with complete pride and complete ownership, but it was an absolutely torturous process to get there. They're all so good. I think a new leaf might be the one where she that's not true, but the others. Okay, fair enough.
[00:24:49] They're all so good and they're also thematically like linked and clearly hers. Like they all have this running theme of what will you put up with to be with another person? They're all about weird relationships, but the first two movies are about very toxic, ill-begotten, male-female relationships.
[00:25:11] And the latter two are about weird, codependent, intimate male relationships. Right, yeah, yeah. It's true. But they are just about, yes, these uneasy couplings of people, you know, who end up one way or another.
[00:25:24] Having to coexist with each other, whether or not it's actually the healthiest thing for them. She constantly was like, well, the movie should be three hours long and would then fight with studios or producers
[00:25:39] who would be like, well, it can't be three hours long. The lane, like it's a comedy. But you see the takes in Heartbreak Kid where it's a Neil Simon script. He writes this thing expecting it to be rat-a-tat-tat.
[00:25:56] And the joy of this movie is the slowness of it. Yeah, absolutely. And the way this back and forth dialogue just crawls along. And the way it... I don't think you would have such a humanizing portrayal of basically every character
[00:26:16] without the fact that she insists on slowing it down so much. And so you can see why, yeah, she finds the joy in these long moments. Of course, she's going to want to create long films. Yeah. It's crazy that Neil Simon wrote this.
[00:26:36] Not in terms of the setup, but just in terms of like it doesn't sound like a Neil Simon, as you're saying. That's the weird thing. It's like, A, this is the only movie she directs that isn't her own script, right?
[00:26:48] She obviously collaborates with other people on her project. She incubates and develops them. But this is a movie where Neil Simon writes the script and says, I want Elaine May to direct this. I want her to be hired to direct this film.
[00:26:58] And then she gets very involved with it, right? But also this is the only thing that Neil Simon ever wrote. It's the only screenplay he ever wrote that was an adaptation of his own play or his own original script. Is that right? Yeah.
[00:27:15] I mean, he has so many scripts that, yeah. Right. Jesus. But it was always a play for... But he never adapted someone else's work. Right. Yeah. No, right. You're right. He's adapting someone else's work. Right.
[00:27:29] So you have two major kind of American comedic forces of the 20th century both doing things that they never did before and never did again. Right? And you have Bruce J. Freeman. And you look at the poster for this movie. Great.
[00:27:41] The poster is like a cartoon drawing of a heart that looks like it was drawn by a three-year-old. Like a sort of like lumpy, misshapen heart. A kid if you will. Yes. And it just says the heartbreak kid in big red letters.
[00:27:55] But in between each of those words it says Elaine May directed it, Neil Simon wrote it, Bruce J. Freeman conceived it. That is a wild way to sell a movie that are just like, here are three high class humorists. Right.
[00:28:09] And in it we're not telling you what the premise of the movie is. Here is a doodle and we're telling you that these three very witty or bane people had their fingers on this.
[00:28:19] But then you get into the movie and it says like right at the start, Anne Elaine May film. Yeah. Yeah. It's not afraid to ditch those two and make it very clear like, yeah, this is just her.
[00:28:31] And it also says Neil Simon's the heartbreak kid because Neil Simon didn't want to give Bruce J. Freeman the story by credit in the opening. So he gets it in the end credits, but they don't credit either writer at the beginning. I think they just do that possessive.
[00:28:47] Right. The Neil Simon's branding was so prevalent. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, I mean you're talking about the weird slowness of this movie. There's a great piece that I'll probably keep referencing too much that I read.
[00:29:01] It's a bright walled dark room piece from like a year ago that Ethan Warren wrote called still heartbroken after all these years and he compares this movie, the 2007 remake, but more importantly says like let's look at like the Arthur
[00:29:15] Neil Simon movies that come out the couple of years before this, right? Like look at the difference in adaptation and performance and editing and rhythms between you know like out of towners or. Plaza sweet. Odd couple. Right. Yeah. All that stuff.
[00:29:34] I mean, funnily, I mean like Elaine May is in California sweet a few years later, like which is a pretty bad movie although she kind of rules in it.
[00:29:43] She and math hour kind of that they're fun, but like which is another just where it's like yeah, you know, we're doing Neil Simon. This will be done in an hour. Like let's just let's you know it's like a play like just do your dialogue hit your marks.
[00:29:58] Neil Simon already did all the work for you right? Like that's you know. Yeah. I mean I'll just I'll just read this this quick graph but but Avery what you're saying about Neil Simon immediately you're associated with this rat a tat thing right.
[00:30:11] And even like Mike Nichols who comes from the exact same place as Elaine May you know their sensibilities are formed by each other is a very distinctive filmmaker when he makes a Neil Simon movie it is very much Mike Nichols doing a Neil Simon movie as opposed to Mike Nichols turning a Neil Simon play into a Mike Nichols movie.
[00:30:29] It's always going to be Neil Simons first and foremost right. So so this quote here the screenplay issues much of this much of this melancholy in favor of a distinctly Simon s cavalcade of gaffes quips and barbs.
[00:30:43] It's not hard to imagine putting the script up on a Broadway stage with lines like I don't hand out my daughter to newlyweds bellowed at the cheap seats to thunderous laughter.
[00:30:53] No it's not hard at all to imagine perfectly fine perfectly serviceable heartbreak kid perhaps one directed by Arthur Hiller with all the rapid fire line readings and indifferent camera work of the out of towners.
[00:31:02] And the whole point he's kind of making is like she forces you to actually live in the circumstances of this movie is a movie where she is forcing you to not just get out with the cheap laughs of like oh what a funny setup that you really just have to live with this guy.
[00:31:19] And there's such a big shift between this one in the remake in terms of you know and Neil Simon always said like he complained that she cast Jeannie Berlin.
[00:31:29] There's this awful story where he did not know Jeannie Berlin was Elaine May's daughter and went and complained to Elaine May that quote the actress she hired wasn't sexy enough. Neil. Right. Which is also sort of the point of the character in a way. Yes.
[00:31:48] I mean I think she looks like an absolute dime when she arrives. In that bikini. But yeah the whole point is that like you put her next to civil shepherd and she's she's going to look like yesterday's leftover dinner. You know next to a prime rib right.
[00:32:04] And yeah that that is a funny a weird thing for him to complain about but you know men will complain about weird things. Yes welcome to blank check with Griffin and David. He really pushed for Diane Keaton to play that character which would have been so fundamentally ruinous.
[00:32:22] Disaster because you'd be like I mean maybe Diane Keaton would deliver this incredible performance and you're like yeah no but like it would make no sense to carry on. But that's but that's the point.
[00:32:34] I mean the problem is the problem is she would turn it into a performance right.
[00:32:39] So today it would be like well let's get someone who's more conventionally sexy at the beginning of the movie so the guys in the audience understand why he married her in the first place right. Right.
[00:32:48] So it's like well how could he resist and then let's have Diane Keaton give this very very masterfully crafted comedic performance of a nightmare person so that everyone in the audience understands why he doesn't want to be with her anymore.
[00:33:01] And there's something just to the casting aside from the fact that Jean Berlin is so good. There's something just to the fact that in the role of the undesirable woman the director hires her daughter right. You're immediately putting so much more empathy into that character. Yeah.
[00:33:19] Then then the structure of the story demands it and Grotin the story about Simon complaining that Jean Berlin wasn't sexy enough comes from Grotin's memoir.
[00:33:29] He also said that for years Neil Simon tried to do a good heartbreak kid musical and he hired backer act to do the songs.
[00:33:38] He went through like so many different teams try to do it and he could never crack it because he said he couldn't figure out the interiority of that character.
[00:33:45] And it's so telling in terms of like what Elaine may contribute to your not just in what she puts into that character Lila right. Yeah. But but also just the general I'm not going to let this movie get away with being surfacing.
[00:34:01] I'm not going to let it get away with being like well of course I would do the same guy thing in this guy's shoes you know. Right. It's really trying to drill down into the most uncomfortable aspects of what this situation represents you know culturally and everything yeah.
[00:34:16] For people who don't who like maybe only know of the remake and hit you know know that there was an older one and know the premise and all that it might be shocking to know to hear that the Eddie Albert and Jean and Oscar nominations for this. Yes.
[00:34:33] Right. And and it really is like yeah that level of empathy that she puts into these characters like even the line you said I don't have my daughter out to newlyweds it's a funny line.
[00:34:44] And also like when he says it like yeah it's it's you can see the rage mixed with confusion and it's not just a tossed off line. No. He really means it. He delivers it like it's a dirty hairy line. Like that's incredible about it.
[00:35:02] And you're like that line would work on Broadway. I could see a funny actor. I could see Richard kind delivering that and killing you know getting an applause break the befuddled dad who's just like what's this whirlwind romance that's blowing through my boring life.
[00:35:17] And said Eddie Albert is just like who's this fucking punk who won't leave me alone and is essentially harassing my daughter like that's how he plays it. Just absolute rage and Jeannie Berlin plays that character as a real human being.
[00:35:32] And you know aside from the fact this is not the type of movie that you think of getting to acting nominations you know especially in a modern context. It's also like the two performances that got nominated are the dilemmas in the movie.
[00:35:44] Like they're the characters that are like the conflicts to the main character but it speaks to how fully rounded those characters are and how insightful those performances are.
[00:35:55] Not just that but this is a you know cracker jack Oscar year where like Eddie Albert is nominated alongside three actors from the Godfather and Joel Gray and Cabaret.
[00:36:07] Like you know like I mean Pacino is its category for the Pacino was supporting actor but like that's like one of the most insane best supporting actor lineups ever. And then you know supporting actress you've only got the I guess they didn't even nominate Talia Shire that's rude.
[00:36:27] She got nominated for two part two she's so good in one though and she's yeah. I love that Griffin calls it calls it to as opposed to part two I just finished watching all the sopranos and that's a that's a surprise they call it.
[00:36:40] Not part two what do you prefer one or two. No yeah they call it too. But just a huge year a huge yeah.
[00:36:50] Oscar movie year right it's not like these guys snuck in or whatever like this is these were exceptional performances that are kind of like burned into your brain even after the character is when Jeannie Berlin's case like gone.
[00:37:06] You I mean you talk about them being the like the complications or the thing that's you know trying to stop the.
[00:37:13] The main guy from having his fun right but I you could almost look at the film and I imagine we'll talk about this more and obviously you two will talk about it more less than me but it's it's a film so much about Jewish identity especially compared with white American identity or more traditional.
[00:37:35] White American identity and the idea that. Groton is his character is trying to constantly with his like fast paced lies and like he's trying to do.
[00:37:50] That type of movie he's trying to turn it into just a screwball thing so he can get away with his caper and the humanity of Albert and Berlin.
[00:38:00] Is resisting that and turning it into that slower movie like if everyone was on Groton's level it would be like in level in terms of speed of delivery and with the. That heaviness that the character is treating the circumstance it would be just back and forth.
[00:38:20] But that's that's so much of it is just that this movie is resisting Groton right. Yeah like in every sense it is resisting becoming the movie that Groton's character is trying to turn it into.
[00:38:33] Even even the way he says when he says I'm a newlywet as if and just that intonation of it's one of those situations where you know how it happens you're a newlywet and he falls over.
[00:38:46] I made the big mistake about five days ago and it's just like the way he's tossing it off like I know we've all had has this ever happened to you.
[00:38:57] What are you going to do you got married you fell over someone else immediately I'm sorry like you truly just just wants to blow right past it and both the movie and the director will not let that lie like no you can't just forget your wife.
[00:39:13] And that's maybe the most masterful scene in the movie just in terms of like it feels like something out of funny games like you just trapped this guy in this like four shot around the table watching himself dig himself deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.
[00:39:29] And you see on his face that you think he's pulling it off and you see on the other three faces that whenever he stops talking he's going to get ripped but that makes it so funny.
[00:39:39] Sibyl Shepard in the background just not knowing what to do embarrassed also slightly hoping he pulls it off.
[00:39:47] Yes mom being so sweet and just trying to do that sort of appeasement make everything make everything nice like right sort of brush over everything is I mean we don't have to talk about.
[00:40:00] The remake much obviously but it is telling that in the fairly brothers remake the Lila character is just a pure evil monster right.
[00:40:11] She's violent she's like a drug addict she's mean she and it's just like he's got to get rid of this person like this this is just awful like she's a she's a liability and it's also just that like she goes from being like overly idealized dream woman
[00:40:27] romantic comedy to being like oh she's like a convict and she's a liar she's violent and all this sort of there's a maliciousness to her like she's doing it on purpose.
[00:40:38] But even the pitch of the performance is just she's the extra you know from hell right there's no attempt to to make her have any recognizable human behaviors once they get to the resort right I mean it's just like I mean this scene where they sleep together for the first time is one of the big
[00:40:56] like fairly brother gross out comedic set pieces of the movie and it's framed around she's so crazy in bed it hurts him right which is just such a bizarre framing of a thing.
[00:41:09] I mean look we will do the fairly brothers one day yes we must we must open the book.
[00:41:15] But it is and we should stop talking about the remake because it's it's just sort of interesting the remake is just this interesting text in that it is like oh this is such a fundamental misunderstanding
[00:41:26] that it's just sort of crazy that they put it out there and obviously they put it out there and everyone was like no and it made no money and that was that.
[00:41:34] That's not actually true it actually made some money but it was it underperformed it was not yes yes but like yeah like just for them to think like let's pay homage to this sort of iconic comedy and these two iconic comedy figures in Neil Simon and Elaine May with just like what if the heartbreak kid except it was like
[00:41:56] Jeannie Berlin character was a gross out comedy like it's just it's just anyway we don't have to talk about it well and they think they're doing this no I want to say two things about it very quickly.
[00:42:06] They think they're doing this progressive thing circa 2007 where it's like but look his wife is more of the shishka yes that's that's the thing they think is clever that it's like he and Michelle Moynihan is like sort of this tomboy earthy brunette lady sure neither the
[00:42:22] Jewish but right that's the one thing they think they're doing so they're like I don't know but the one he's with at the beginning looks more like a a maximum magazine bombshell so it's not that thing.
[00:42:33] The other thing is I think it runs into the exact same problem that Neil Simon ran into trying to do this material again which is in both cases the fairly brothers and Neil Simon are like it doesn't need to be as caustic as what Elaine May did I want this guy to be likeable
[00:42:49] and what Elaine may recognize to some degree is this guy is not likeable the entire comedic premise of this movie is bad it looks bad for him so either you can make a movie about the fact that he's bad or you can fail making a movie about a guy you want the audience to like.
[00:43:06] He's never going to be low status you know.
[00:43:09] He does one almost noble thing in the movie which is when he you know drops the bomb and breaks up with a he agrees to give her this great enormous settlement and then almost immediately when he meets with the lawyer and the lawyer says I could have got you a better deal he says no no no don't I mean if you want to talk to me.
[00:43:30] See what you can do like there's this one moment where you think well at least.
[00:43:36] At least he did that and no he's he's willing to my mistake and I need to pay for it and you're yeah wow that's surprisingly mature from this guy and then he's like do I need to pay for it right.
[00:43:47] Do I need to pay for it that much.
[00:43:50] Oh my god yes I mean I love it to be clear that scene just try I mean that every time she pulls off that little like knife twist which she does many times in this movie it just it makes me like cackle like I know that's what she wants me to do but it is.
[00:44:05] Also like that's sort of the perverse joy of the of an Elaine may comedy.
[00:44:09] But it's such a key Elaine may thing is I just think she has an equal amount of adoration and absolute disdain for every human being right I feel like Elaine may fundamentally her whole kind of comedic view of the world is she is just a violently unsanimental person right.
[00:44:28] She's able to sort of recognize the best and worst qualities of people and be charmed by who people are in their totality without ever feeling like she's endorsing them or condemning them right.
[00:44:39] And I think this movie was very revolutionary I think her whole career is but this movie in particular I think is somewhat of a turning point in the sensibility of American comedies in that kind of way of letting behavior get messier and also how you shoot and edit performances
[00:44:54] and you know not needing to be right at that type type type type type type clean audience allegiance sort of you know clearly defined lines kind of way.
[00:45:07] But it is that thing of just like it wouldn't work if she fully hated the guy but it also wouldn't work if she thought he was charming you know right and.
[00:45:19] I mean I'm sure you'll get to this maybe more in the Mikey and Nikki episode but I part that was inspired by she supposedly grew up around mob connected people and saw some pretty like horrible people in formative years of her life.
[00:45:38] So like yeah she she she must have had to you know if if they were close relatives or you know part of the family in some way you have to learn to see.
[00:45:49] The appeal of charming some horrible people yeah I also think she just is one of those people who is just finds human behavior very fascinating like it is very fascinating that this person can also do this they can have these two contradictory traits you know.
[00:46:04] She I mean she's right to like the she's not judgmental in the way a Hollywood comedy is would normally be in that a Hollywood comedy usually needs to make a judgment about a character fairly quickly so that the audience is like OK.
[00:46:20] I get it this is the skull this is the weirdo this is the oddball you know like I get where you're putting this person in the comic like environment like and then I blast will follow and she's just like.
[00:46:32] Letting the behavior speak for itself and it's it's there's nothing like this movie and her other there's really this.
[00:46:43] It's inimitable like I'm trying to think like because like what is like this now Griffin it's like the safty brothers or whatever it's this thing where it's again it's like the sort of painful like you kind of feel for the person but you're also kind of churning and you feel kind of insane you just sort of feel like.
[00:47:01] You know like am I watching something that isn't real this after he's have cited her as an influence right right.
[00:47:09] It makes a long dialogue and you know right yeah yeah but I also just think like yes yes in comedy no one really has the guts to go this hard right I mean to keep you in these pressure cooker situations like this to really funnel into the best and worst qualities of every character.
[00:47:28] I think she's she is kind of a one off people took a lot of elements of what she did but no one really has the courage to go full tilt and presented as a straight comedy you know yes.
[00:47:41] Not not a thriller with comedic elements or something like that it's it's as you said it's like there are movies like you know.
[00:47:49] On cut gems or good fellas are you know any of these filmmakers like Scorsese the safties who use a lot of comedy in their films but are not thought of as comedic directors.
[00:48:00] I think these are all people who cite her movies a lot but still they're like I'm putting those sensibilities into a crime movie or an action movie or horror film or whatever it is to present it as like here's a romantic comedy and then have unbroken four minute takes where you just watch a man destroy his standing in the eyes of everyone.
[00:48:18] Else on camera you know as you're saying for you know as you're sort of the article you're signing a saying like 99 people would just be like.
[00:48:27] He has to do it they would be selling you on like he's so in love you're gonna be so in love it's a whirlwind it's crazy of course you know but like he just has to do this and you understand.
[00:48:38] And this when I'm watching this I'm like he doesn't have to do that. No no. Like can I have like my hands over my mouth and that's 10 times funnier. Yes.
[00:48:49] Yeah no I mean with talking about how much this film I think has to do with the Jewish identity in the 70s.
[00:48:55] I mean I was I watched last night the American Masters that Elaine made directed on Mike Nichols which I think was a year or two after he passed and people are asking if we're going to do that as a bonus episode it's not bonus episode material.
[00:49:12] It would be weird. It's weird. It's all about Mike Nichols like it would just sort of be odd to try and like Delvin anyway go on go on. It's also like 80% all clips from one interview that Mike Nichols did like one long form interview.
[00:49:28] It's really letting him in his own words tell a story.
[00:49:31] I think maybe the most the most interesting thing about about that documentary is is the idea and the fact that yeah she finally got out of you know movie jail to whatever extent that she was in it by choice or you know because of the industry.
[00:49:46] And the reason was to do you know a loving obituary of the male partner. Right like that's that's basically all you need to talk about with that I think.
[00:49:57] Well and what I was going to say is really interesting about to me as well is the section where he's talking about his relationship with her and their breakup and how they didn't really speak for 10 years and all that sort of stuff it's very fascinating to think of the choices she's making in terms of which clip
[00:50:16] to include and to not sort of let herself off the hook on that here's an interview that he conducted with someone else years earlier now she's in an edit booth deciding which words to pass along as sort of like his obituary.
[00:50:28] But he talks about the fact that you know they go from being compass players to you know becoming national TV stars doing all these commercials going on Broadway and they do this Broadway run. That's just a blockbuster.
[00:50:43] I mean they Michael says like it is the only time my life I have ever been part of anything that everybody liked.
[00:50:51] It was bizarre and it was eerie we never got a bad review we never got a bad comment it was everyone agree that what we were doing was funny and we didn't understand why people were so impressed with it that they very much had this attitude of these are the dumb skits that we were doing in a bar for five people for years.
[00:51:08] I don't understand why people like them now we find them somewhat charming but why is everyone reacting this strongly and Nichols attitude to that was this is amazing. I have it made I have to work two hours a night.
[00:51:20] I do these things with my best friend that I've done for years. I'm famous girls like me I'm rich and Elaine may was like I hate this I want out.
[00:51:31] I am like she was right right like because it she was instead of instead of them being the comedy double act that toured for years and then you know that was their thing and eventually they got a little run you know like new comedy emerge that they could not keep up with or what you know they went out of fashion.
[00:51:50] They went out on top.
[00:51:52] Yeah, Hings as you say basically no bad reviews they basically invented an art form and then he was like oh god I feel like a piece of me is lost I guess I'll be an acclaimed filmmaker who works for generations and she's like you know obviously does not have his like soaring like chain but also like they just go off and do incredible things.
[00:52:15] And then they get back together they do a couple great movies.
[00:52:19] Yeah, it's just funny to me because I mean she's so much more prescied than he is right and she's sort of so sentimental even something like this is char q&a which is one of her rare times doing a public appearance and talk about her work.
[00:52:32] She gave so many monosyllabic answers answers right like she's not nostalgic she doesn't want to look back at her accomplishments and this sort of stuff and and Nichols is you know more conventional for someone with his level.
[00:52:45] Of success of being open to talk about all of his accomplishments and failures and what have you.
[00:52:49] But he really talks about is as you were joking David like him saying what am I going to do I'll become an acclaimed director, but he really was like I was out for six years like I was a mess it was like the worst breakup of my life right it fucked him up.
[00:53:01] She couldn't explain to me why she was ending this thing I resented it I didn't know what to do in my career.
[00:53:06] I only stumbled upon the directing thing a couple years later and it was a godsend and she didn't really have a reason she was breaking it up other than.
[00:53:14] I'm tired of doing something I know we can do yeah that's the thing it's like we've done this what more is there we've done this right yeah it makes sense right she married a guy he felt very betrayed they ended their relationship and she just kind of went on the down low for a while.
[00:53:29] And he you know starts building up his reputation as this big director but very much it feels like new leaf was kind of people saying like Elaine may shouldn't you make a movie by now.
[00:53:39] You know I mean she had a lot of free reign even if they ended up pushing back more in the cup it was very much a thing where people are like you should be a filmmaker right you're like this defining comedic voice.
[00:53:49] It's not just that it's like she's like I guess okay all right I'll make a movie who should be in it though and they're like you should be in it you.
[00:53:57] Like well you're the star right she was like I don't want to be in it like we won't make it unless you're in your.
[00:54:03] That's the whole fucking idea right so then you get to this movie and it's like Neil Simon who's one of like the most successful humorous in America is like Elaine may should direct my script right.
[00:54:15] She should be the one to do this and she comes on and says like well but I know you're so particular and you put in your contracts that you can't change a word my whole background is improv I have a different sensibility I want to do it my way.
[00:54:27] Can I shoot every scene two ways can I shoot every scene word perfect as you wrote and then once we have a good take of that will do a run of it where I get to have the cast improv as they like basically basically inventing the Judd Apatow method of filmmaking.
[00:54:44] Yes right and she essentially said I'll do two complete cuts of the movie will screen both of them and we'll see which one's better.
[00:54:52] And what happened was he agreed to that she started doing it that way and then when he stopped showing up to set she just stopped shooting the. The boring one the California sweet version essentially right yeah yes.
[00:55:05] What a legend but then but he did he was he was picky and fussy about lines being changed right like I feel like I was reading about that that he was doing as usual person of personicity like you know I'm Neil Simon.
[00:55:17] He talked about this movie less than any other adaptation in his entire career because it's not his right. It's an Elaine may film right yeah.
[00:55:28] Yeah it's funny because it's a good script you know if it if it's a script which I think a lot of it is and it has very funny.
[00:55:37] Neil Simon is like one of the most he has aged worse than almost any generational figure right like yeah because we're talking about a generational figure it's not just that he was successful yes right now but like a name brand onto himself right.
[00:55:55] It was I mean it was almost a Neil Simon above a title was like Marvel Studios I mean it was just like right this is home base I know the types of actors who are in this the types of directors and this is comfort food.
[00:56:08] It's going to be Sean Georgia if it's not big way parking lot the action is going to be wrote okay but everything else no I mean they always have second unit do those scenes yeah.
[00:56:21] But if you know he was like a franchise right he really was movie theaters which it usually was every year go to Broadway he's got something on Broadway maybe he has a TV show going maybe you know like he's got a new book out like and it's always this anytime I watch a Neil Simon thing or more you know you're kind of like.
[00:56:39] You know like it's that kind of a reaction usually sure yeah you know like. Like there is a cost it's how much do you dial into the cost thickness like the out of towners which I guess is one of the most iconic.
[00:56:53] Neil Simon movies have you seen the out of towners Griffin I'm assuming yes it to me like it's only really funny if you're like.
[00:57:02] Oh this movie hates these people I'm watching a movie punish people and like I'm not sure that's what that movie thinks like it and that's sort of the weird balance with them like I'm like does he just hate these people or is this just like a gentle comedy of manners well look this is the other thing right.
[00:57:21] Neil Simon falls into that tradition of the the Jew who wants to be accepted by the boys right there is a packaging of the Jewish mentality and the Jewish humor into a mode that is understandable to outside audiences is like oh that the Jew thing.
[00:57:38] You know but in a very very cute way I mean if you look at the 60s and 70s are when like the Jewish sensibilities in comedy really start to come to the forefront and you don't just have Jewish comedians who change their names and then work the Borsch bell and now just do sort of like.
[00:57:53] Wrote sort of routines you really have movies that are about the Jewish identity right in our place in American culture at large and all that sort of stuff.
[00:58:03] But you know the Woody Allen of it all is both like more caustic and more please love me this is about me this isn't about Jews this is about me sure.
[00:58:13] Right right and then you'll the Neil Simon thing is just like look we're pretty wacky like it's like this. You know whether whether it's the whole things about a family whether it's about just the one character who's the odd duck has like what can you say.
[00:58:32] We're smart Alex to the extent maybe that if if this what if it wasn't a Jewish creative team every step of the way behind this film. The Charles Groudon character would possibly be a horrible anti-Semitic caricature. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
[00:58:50] A wife who's trying to pick off this blonde college student.
[00:58:56] I mean that's the thing you could present it is this like what can he do the winds of love blow him in this direction or you could write you could be like this is a movie about a creepy predator who won't leave a woman alone.
[00:59:07] Well that's a lane maze big takeaway is no this is a movie about a guy making a series of choices. I'm not going to act like it's like what can he do he stuck it's like this man who made a series of choices.
[00:59:20] Yes I mean should we go through the plot Griffin like I mean or just scenes that we like or like you know how I should go through it but but you're right every this film is unique to have like all the key collaborators are Jewish right.
[00:59:34] I mean to say like Groudon is actually Jewish. It's not a waspy actor playing Jew in a way that would have been horribly offensive right. It's it's like a Jewish director adapting a Jewish script that's adapted from a Jewish short story.
[00:59:49] Even the music is like Burt backer act like a Jew doing pop right doing easy listening there's something to the authenticity of this of not packaging the sort of the waspy perception of Jewish actors.
[01:00:04] It's like a Jewishness for comedy and really kind of funneling into the you know the fundamental thing which is just a people raised in a culture of grief and misery and worry right.
[01:00:17] I mean at the time like you read the the reviews of like people were like is this movie anti-semitic because of the Jeannie Berlin character but it's that classic thing of like where they're like I don't get it this is too searing like surely this is just a caricature and I should be like.
[01:00:34] I should be offended because they're like you know what she's the Kvache Jew and he ends up with the the chicks that you know like like isn't there something terrible going on here shouldn't I be outraged about this and like it's that that sort of surface reading of it that is I would say off the mark.
[01:00:53] But there's that key line for me it's in one of the scenes where he just said like my entire life I thought someday I was gonna end up in a place like this with a girl like you you know.
[01:01:02] And what he's saying is I thought someday I'd be able to jump out of my like class fear I'd be able to be accepted by the boys. I can be one of the rich beautiful shiny people.
[01:01:14] I was I was reading a review on that box of a new leaf where I think it was maybe Brad Pitt's review saying that this the new leaf is as close as American can get to doing a British style class comedy and that's a good take.
[01:01:30] And it's there's a similar thing with with this movie like yeah it's about it's about and again I say this as a non Jewish person but I you know.
[01:01:42] Obviously I absorbed a lot of American culture and that is there's a lot of Jewishness in there and also lived one of my partners that I was with for a long time is Jewish night live with her family for a number of years.
[01:01:55] And I have blonde hair at the time so I was I was her shixxer honoured to be but transgender shixxer so you know yeah I played with the form.
[01:02:07] But yeah it's that there's the whole movie is yeah this Jewish guy who even even like his last name versus Lila's last name like he's Cantro and she's I think like collard me something like that like.
[01:02:24] Even his name is slightly closer to Lila collard me is is she the brilliant when it's like her name is like oh boy I didn't want to work on that one.
[01:02:37] The whole the whole movie he's striving towards this non Jewish version of of whiteness in America and especially I mean especially the scenes in Minnesota where you see him like paired up against these like Viking people.
[01:02:53] But like if you watch the two weddings that first traditional Jewish wedding is so joyous like both the event himself itself and even him he's happy in in the moments when he's traveling with Lila in the car and at the hotel stuff when he's not getting annoyed by her.
[01:03:14] And taking himself out of the moment he's he's he's happy with her and which is not to say that I think Jews should stay in their place and not strike you know I don't think the movie saying that I think that it's saying in this specific instance.
[01:03:30] His particular striving out of that class and out of that cultural background is so is is bad for him as well as bad for the people around him.
[01:03:40] And I do think that's part of the Neil Simon more bottle pitch of it is like what would the moral of the story be. You know he ends up at a dinner party where he's surrounded by wasps who are like chatting about the weather and he's in hell like I think that is Neil Simons big joke right or it's like yeah you know you want
[01:04:00] to be like a nice middle eastern blonde lady yeah well OK now you married her now what you're going to sell like you know insurance.
[01:04:07] There wasps and they're particularly evil like one of themselves insurance but then one of them appears to be a tear gas manufacturer which is one of my favorite.
[01:04:15] Charles Gardner well you know there's a lot of yeah there's a lot of money into your guess another guy makes food to feed veal calves like it's just this sort of like banal evil that he's entered himself into.
[01:04:32] But as you said it's like you see his moments of frustration but also his moments of pure happiness until. Just look at the best fucking face.
[01:04:42] And so the moment that civil shepherd steps in front of him and then he's ruined and it is just from that moment on becomes fixated on the idea of could I pull it off right essentially the whole thing comes fixated on could I pass could I assimilate into that culture could I have that type of wife that type of family go to those types of parties could I fit in and wear it comfortably.
[01:05:05] And also my wife is twenty one this girl is twenty she's got to be so much newer and fresher I know the reveal of Jeannie Berlin only being twenty two is so huge because you're just like she's not even twenty two yet she's going.
[01:05:20] She's about to turn in twelve weeks like this fuckers trying to shave three years off. But but that's he only gets married as far as I'm interpreting these early scenes because he wants to have sex because it's nineteen seventy two yeah right.
[01:05:36] And she's like we should wait right you know like so that's why he gets married. It's also an absolute master stroke on May's part that just there's almost no dialogue they're married in like three minutes of the movie.
[01:05:47] It's like a look across a bar it cuts them spending a little time together under music then they're in bed and she goes not until I'm married and they're at the wedding.
[01:05:56] In a way it's so much better than doing the fucking fairly brothers thing where you saw someone who's really nice and then who suddenly like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde becomes a monster.
[01:06:06] You're just only seeing his sort of horniness driving his perception of her jumping so fast in time until they're at the wedding that he's not even really noticing who this person is.
[01:06:18] It's not that she revealed herself to be someone different it's like he wasn't even paying attention things happen so fast and the audience doesn't get the chance to really see who either of them are.
[01:06:28] There is when they're doing that that quick courtship there's like a vignette of them at dinner and she's like laughing too hard and there's a second in which it annoys him and then he almost like shakes it off and then joins in laughing with her.
[01:06:45] And it's like you could I guess you could read it either as him shaking off like don't be don't be annoyed that this just be like a normal person and find joy or it's him kidding himself and being like no you like this person you're having fun because he wants to have sex with her.
[01:07:01] Yeah yeah and it's also the just like I guess if that's the one thing. Yeah.
[01:07:06] And he's but he's resigned to his lot as you're saying Griffin where it's just like yeah fine right you know this is what you do you go down and you go on honeymoon in Miami OK. You sell baseball bats. Yeah.
[01:07:17] And then when Sibyl Shepherd razzes him essentially does like a little flirt as you're in my spot.
[01:07:23] He's just immediately like his whole like there's just a you know a crack in the foundation of these you know and he's just like well wait a second like I can get out of here like is that. Wait a second.
[01:07:36] Am I am I allowed to be an Anil Simon play like can I be the lead of Barefoot in the park.
[01:07:41] I mean she she appears in front of the sun like it's like a halo around her he can't see her because of obviously she's just silhouetted and she looks like an angel. Yeah.
[01:07:54] This is her second movie I mean she's only been in the last picture show which is right you know she was this like beautiful ingenue like that she's still right in that zone.
[01:08:05] But Bogdanovich discovers her on a magazine cover in a supermarket she's never acted before he puts her in the movie and eventually of course leaves his wife and key collaborator for her.
[01:08:15] So there's also this like I guess has has that become public at the time that this movie comes out.
[01:08:20] I mean there's just an interesting mirroring of Sybil Shepard also being a real life shisca who pulled a Jewish director who always tried to model himself as more of a wasp away from his wife. Wow.
[01:08:33] I'm trying to see when it was official that I don't know though I'd have to I mean and obviously there's there's much that's been written on Peter McDonough.
[01:08:42] Bogdanovich and yes what you know you know you must remember this just had the whole mini series about it and all that but my point is yes go ahead.
[01:08:55] It is fascinating that Sybil Shepard holds a similar role in culture in the 70s as she does in this movie.
[01:09:03] I mean she's our culture like acknowledged that she's hot enough and gorgeous enough and that smile is dazzling enough that you'll try to assassinate a political figure for her. Leave your wife for her and if you're Bruce Willis you'll wear it to pay for her.
[01:09:23] You know you'll do crazy things if you're a man and Sybil Shepard smiles at you. Should I go on a civil run? Maybe. You know you'll watch Moonlighting and rewatch Sybil. I've just started watching her sitcom. I mean I loved it when I was a kid.
[01:09:40] It's free on Voodoo.
[01:09:42] It's weird that it's not on CBS All Access and I wonder if that's she said last like recently that the show was cancelled because Les Moonves made moves towards her and she shut him down and so they cancelled the show even though it was successful.
[01:09:58] And I wonder if even like with him gone there's some lingering like stuff at play. I don't know. I will say this though Avery.
[01:10:08] Look I'm always willing to chalk anything up to Les Moonves being a piece of shit but I will additionally say as someone who's been in a big sitcom hole for like the last two years the CBS sitcoms are weirdly the ones that are the hardest to track down by and large.
[01:10:20] I think there's just some weird complicated rights things with a lot of those shows because a lot of them are just like they should be on somewhere at least of which should be CBS All Access. Well you can watch it on Voodoo free with ads.
[01:10:34] I think CBS did not make it maybe. That's a Chuck Lorry show and he does have his own sort of mini empire onto himself. Look how is it Avery how does it hold up because when I was a kid I watched Sybil and loved it.
[01:10:48] I was like I love these you know 40 something ladies who like drink cocktails and I had the biggest crush on Alicia with just like I'm yeah.
[01:11:01] Yeah of course just the mean sarcastic like what was she a piano genius who never wants to have sex or what like the coolest character in the universe.
[01:11:13] I mean yeah there's some stuff that's tricky like in the first episode Alicia Witt says if her mother doesn't stop interfering in her sex life she'll become a lesbian. Like it's a threat. Chuck Lorry baby.
[01:11:27] Yeah it's stuff that's not great but yeah it's fantastic you've got Karine Christine Baranski doing amazing work. I'm surprised to use the term lesbian because obviously in the Chuck Lorry universe he also the lesbian is synonymous with a half man.
[01:11:43] Remember in the end of two and a half when the kid left the little boy left and they went how do we fill this gap there's a half man in the title.
[01:11:52] And so they added Amber Tamblyn as a lesbian I swear to God I swear to you that's what they did. I believe you that season 11 here. Yeah. Everyone two and a half men just kept going they just threw in Kutcher.
[01:12:04] The premise of the show was uptight dude and his son have their life crashed by reckless playboy brother.
[01:12:15] And by the 11th season it was uptight guy whose son has abandoned him to become a missionary and whose brother has been killed by a falling piano lives with an over sex tech billionaire who bought his house.
[01:12:29] But let the guy move back in because he feels bad for him and then his brother's long lost estranged lesbian daughter who he never met before. Yes yes yes and then in the last season they adopted a boy did you know that? No.
[01:12:47] They adopted six year old I think because maybe CBS is just. So now it's three full men? Right like we need some juice this show needs a kid again they can just have a kid again right and they're like yeah sure fine. I don't know.
[01:13:01] I didn't realize that Audra Lindy was Sybil's mom on the Sybil sitcom. Who is her mother in this as well which is cool. Look I'm going to rewatch Sybil okay. Yeah it's four seasons it ends on a cliffhanger so be wary of that.
[01:13:21] She going to get with Ira? I remember Ira. No it's can I spoil it? Ira is her ex right? That's what Ira is yes right. No the cliffhanger is she and Christine Boransky get arrested for murdering Christine Boransky ex husband. What? They got to bring it.
[01:13:40] Christine Boransky star has never been more powerful. Why doesn't she just be like we're doing it guys we're bringing Sybil back. It'll be on CBS all access why not.
[01:13:49] That was also the other rumor about Sybil always was that it was like such a big like you know concerted effort to relaunch Sybil Shepard's career and then Boransky just was the breakout is the one who wins the Emmys became the breakout star and that there was a lot of in fighting on the show.
[01:14:08] Sybil has always been tagged as difficult and of course we always should take that at face value and ask no more questions because Sam but she's a fainthearted.
[01:14:19] Fascinating like beyond just like the stuff she's at she's just a fascinating figure as you're saying Griffin like you know what she's represented to different eras and like and this is her earliest which is just like bombshell.
[01:14:33] Your brain will explode like you were saying every you'll you'll fucking assassinate the president you'll you'll shave your head into a mohawk. And like last picture shows about like these boys punching each other in the face for two hours because they all want to fuck her.
[01:14:45] Well I mean she's very and the director was like hmm this is a good idea. I mean honestly watching this movie I wanted to leave my girlfriend for Sybil Shepard you know if I could hop in a time machine and give it a shot I would.
[01:15:00] It's also just such a like I think it's interesting that she chose this and I don't say that in any sort of loaded way but like last picture so was such a sensation.
[01:15:11] She was such a breakout that I was having a hard time finding specific examples but she apparently turned down a lot in order to do this that this was very deliberately no this is what my follow up is going to be.
[01:15:24] And it's a movie that's all framed around her but it's also sort of framed around the mythical idea of what she represents you know. She does get to do a lot for such a seemingly shallow character like. In the first half not so much but then.
[01:15:41] Not so much yeah but once you get to Minnesota I was I was reminded of you know the Garfunkel and Oats IFC show they had an episode where they were they twig that guys don't really listen to you and I wonder how far into a relationship with a or a date with a dude you could get and not say anything and see like if they would notice and what they would project on you.
[01:16:06] And that there's a similar sort of vibe in the in the Miami scenes with with Kelly. She's not giving him anything except for a couple little flirts right at the start.
[01:16:20] She's pretty much made the same joke twice you're on the stool you're in my spot right right because yeah she's she's 20 she's not actually like funny or interesting she's not lived enough life to have anything to offer.
[01:16:32] She has to get to you know she's got to go to school. She's got English lit as well.
[01:16:40] She's got English lit I mean and Groton is thirty six when he comes out he's thirty eight yeah you're right Jesus yes I did my math run he's thirty eight right Groton is is famously old.
[01:16:53] I know that's the thing with it you always underestimate how old he is always older than you think he is yes. Yes he's now like eighty five like he was born in the 30s. He's eighty five.
[01:17:05] He plays the doctor in Rosemary's baby and I'm seeing that going like that mathematically doesn't make sense right this man was in Beethoven and I swear he was a grown up then too like that's the whole thing.
[01:17:17] Right but you're also used to dads and movies like Beethoven being thirty eight. That's what I'm saying like it's crazy that yes he's the OB in Rosemary's baby.
[01:17:25] So you can say I mean he's playing he's probably supposed to read a little longer younger than he actually is in this movie but still he's supposed to be firmly a man in his 30s. He has a career not a job right. Pats and balls.
[01:17:39] He's got some bats and balls. It's it's the same thing that is char does in its own weird way where it's just like she's really good in just establishing a lot very quickly through a lot of shorthand you know so you don't have to spend the thirty minutes.
[01:17:55] Waiting to get to the actual movie. You know you can just dive into the characters through a lot of just kind of keenly deserve behavior. But yes I mean the point with Shibble Shepherd is it comes under 15 minutes into the movie right twenty two twenty two. Okay.
[01:18:14] I wrote it down I took notes. I was so excited to be on this podcast. So you essentially have like 10 minutes of like you know set up 10 minutes of her starting to annoy him. Right and then and then the shishka comes in. Shishka you're incredible.
[01:18:28] I know I have no I've just been I've been really enjoying you've said it in different ways and it's really fun. You're a strain. I appreciate your restraint. I didn't want to jump in and correct because I didn't feel it was my place.
[01:18:41] I mostly just kind of let it ride but I mean it's fun. What I Jeannie Berlin she's just emotionally immature right like that's really the big diagnosis there. It's not like she's not a monster.
[01:18:55] She doesn't want to you know pee on him as Malin Ackerman does in the heartbreak kid like she doesn't want to break his dick off or enduring sex or what.
[01:19:05] She's just like you know she needs to be constant affirmation she's just kind of annoying like that's her worst flaw.
[01:19:14] But also like it's she's immature but also she can sense that he's not into it and she's trying she's trying her best with the tools she has available to make the relationship fun again.
[01:19:27] Right she's drawing the circles on his chest he says I really don't like that and she goes OK I'll do squares instead. It's a good line.
[01:19:34] Right as opposed to it being revealed that like the wife is actually a secret like recovering meth addict who like performed highway robbery or whatever.
[01:19:44] It's just so much more interesting this way I mean her calling it pee pee I need to go pee pee like it's all these little things I think to some degree it almost works metaphorically for you know as an adult when you have to reckon with after you've slept with someone
[01:19:58] and now there's a certain level of mystique that is gone right.
[01:20:02] There's always that thing where like this person exists as this like oh my god oh my god and they get to the other end of it you're like the most vulnerable thing in the world has just happened the most revealing thing in the world has just happened
[01:20:13] and suddenly you're an actual human being you know I mean that that mystique thing like she does the scene where they're getting ready to go out to the pool and she's teasing her hair trying to get it to look right.
[01:20:24] He's just looking at her like what are you doing this is insane and it's like yeah when you're married to a person you see all the things that they have to do to maintain the image that you were attracted to right and it can it can ruin it.
[01:20:41] Sure. Yeah you're and being an adult is learning to like appreciate that person as a full real person.
[01:20:49] Yeah but he's a guy who is just constantly obsessed with the idea of what if I could have this kind of life this kind of person this kind of this and so yeah when when she meets him it's it's done for right.
[01:21:02] She comes back says who are you talking to he says nobody right.
[01:21:06] These scenes are so tough they are that's what I was thinking of like the safeties or like the slightly you know every time he's essentially finding ways to keep her quarantined while he explains why he has to go out or why the dinner reservation is at nine.
[01:21:21] The best thing I could do for you is leave you alone. Just crawling in my skin. That's what I was gonna say it's like another wild thing about this movie is like I feel like anytime we talk about like studio comedies.
[01:21:35] I talk about my frustration with movies where just like characters don't solve things quick enough where dilemmas go on for too long relies or maintain for too long and it's because they don't want to resolve the conflict of the movie.
[01:21:48] But instead you get into this thing where just like this strains credibility how can they still be caught up on this and it's like OK so the the the suntan thing happens right.
[01:21:57] He's telling her to put on the sunscreen to sustain for a day yes right right so I was going like is this movie really gonna have it be like eight days of her being so sunburned and instead it's just like no he realizes the sunburn pass is fading so he starts making just such.
[01:22:15] On. There was no need for his lies to be this big right yeah and his instinct at every turn in this movie when confronted with a problem is to lie.
[01:22:27] He he he triples down always with a very big life he never is like tries to sort of dodge right he just like runs straight at it which is why the Eddie Albert seems so incredible because any Albert's like I hate you and won't stand to talk to you.
[01:22:43] I see what you are right but they're just these colossal unsustainable lies you know I just love that the movie doesn't give him the out of like he comes up with a little fib and then he gets caught it's like no he somehow keeps getting away with it.
[01:22:59] But how well because I mean this is the moment where he's saying you know I was in this horrible car wreck and Jean just looks at him and says were you really in a car wreck Lenny yeah.
[01:23:10] Yeah and the scene that murders me right it is to borrow from the title it's heartbreaking because to even if you if you love someone to even get to a place where you have to ask that of them either you think they're lying to you or you suspect they're lying to you and you think you're about to do a horrible insult to them.
[01:23:33] To ask him that she's dealing with so much and you can see it all in her face and the line reading and the time that's taken on that and then yeah immediately he quadruples down and says call the patrolman the court that pulled me out of the car.
[01:23:49] He picks up the phone the way he uses his military service as a card anytime he can.
[01:23:57] But it's also like he does it's one of those moments where he takes a classic Charles Groton pause and you look at him when she says did you really get in a car crash.
[01:24:08] He looks at her for a little while before he starts going are you questioning me and you see it in his eyes that he's like I could be honest at this moment or I could triple down again. Yeah you see him doing the math.
[01:24:22] God he's so fucking king. I love him so much. He never I guess. All right. Okay. Can we talk about him for a second. Let's do a little Groton career corner because he's barely been in anything before this.
[01:24:39] He's in he has a small role in catch 22 which is a Mike Nichols movie maybe that is how Lane may notice this.
[01:24:46] You know as you say he has a small role in Rosemary's baby after this he writes a movie called 11 Harrow House that he's never seen which I think is like a sort of like funny thriller it's like they're all in a house full of traps and it's got Candice Bergen and James Mason honestly it sounds pretty fucking good.
[01:25:05] And then he's in the King Kong remake. He's like the second lead of that he's he's kind of the Jack Black right. Yes he's the mogul. Yeah.
[01:25:19] Right and then I mean I guess you know he's in that Marlowe Thomas movie thieves he's in something called just me and you with Louise Laster but I feel like then he's just like once he's in heaven can wait which Elaine may writes obviously for Warren Beatty which he's hysterical and like that's just a top drawer comedy supporting
[01:25:39] performance that's when he's just like oh yeah this is what I should do I'll just do this like real life. God he's so funny in real life. Ishtar he's he's got that small role.
[01:25:50] Oh history is incredible and yeah he's so good in Ishtar but but I think to some degree that was not by choice. I mean I remember a couple of stories about Charles Gruden that are seared my head.
[01:26:03] There are a few sort of basically bombs in a row here. Right.
[01:26:06] I know he was like an acting school classmate of Gene Wilder and there's the story that Gene Wilder always tells where they would sit around and talk about their dreams for their careers wanting to be leading men and Charles Gruden just said to him in his very
[01:26:20] Gruden way like you imagine it was with the tone of one of his Letterman performances where he's like Gene come on you're not going to be a movie star. Right.
[01:26:29] And he was like what and he was like look I mean come on you're a great actor but look at you. I mean you can't hide the Jew on your face. Look at that hair your name is Gene Wilder. It's not going to happen Gene.
[01:26:38] I mean I could pass you know I'm a Jew but I could pass right which is so much of his persona to begin with but he very much was like I think I'm passing enough to be able to work as a mainstream comedy leading man.
[01:26:55] You know he's essentially handsome enough all that sort of stuff and then I think he was very kind of quickly tagged with that guy doesn't have the box office juice. He's a little too caustic. He's not charming.
[01:27:06] He's never going to cross over but what happens is a lot of people like Warren Beatty are like that guy is the funniest guy in the world.
[01:27:13] But and and he's funny as a stiff like this I can make a cast this guy as an uptight square and it's going to murder. Like it's going to be so good.
[01:27:22] So the people who have good tastes like Albert Brooks and Warren Beatty, you know, they all go like, right please please, Groton come in here, play the heavy, play the asshole, play the deadpan best
[01:27:34] friend, come in and be the fourth or fifth lead, just give us your funny. And he sort of coasts on that for a while of just like his standing is so good with so many of the most
[01:27:44] important people in Hollywood that he's never lacking for work but it feels like he has a little bit of resentment of the fact that he never became the guy, right? And he's like, Oh, he's playing the part in the Steve Martin movie. He's playing the part in the
[01:27:56] Gene Wilder movie, right? I mean, it's always sort of like incredible shrinking woman to all these people like women and women were like, right, keeping him in rotation. And then Midnight Run happens. And Midnight Run is like, you hear all
[01:28:09] these stories about just they wanted anyone but him. It was a deniro was the one who suggested it to breast and was like, that's the funniest guy in the world. This would be funniest with Groton and breast agreed. And they just
[01:28:22] fought for it so hard. They wanted Robin Williams. They wanted Shair. I mean, if you read the 20 people they wanted for that part instead, and they just kept doubling down, doubling down, doubling down until finally they were just like,
[01:28:34] fuck it, cast Charles Groton, see if we give a shit. These things go down. They go down. That's my favorite line reading. The best. Yes. He's the best. I want to watch that movie right now. I've just been thinking about it. A year. Yeah.
[01:28:48] But then it's right like that, that happens in 1988, right? Then in the years in between that he does cranium command, which is a Disney World ride. He does taking care of business, which is a fucking Belushi, a James Belushi vehicle. Second build to Jim Belushi. No offense.
[01:29:05] And then and then he does Beethoven. And now it's like for the first time he's like the single name above the title. It's a big hit. He has cash and he's like, I guess this is who I am. I'm a fucking dog movie guy.
[01:29:16] And he cashes out on that for a couple of years for not that long. Then he's like, fuck it, I'm out. And then fucking is just like, right, I'm going to get really into like law and hosting a late night news show.
[01:29:30] Do you remember that he had like a CNN show? No, it was on the CNBC. And he was like, he was like tagging in on 60 minutes to which was like the like side series to 60 minutes where they put this stuff that couldn't make the main show or whatever.
[01:29:48] He was like, movies are bullshit. I'm going to be all about prison reform. And then like he just kind of like came back recently and it's like, oh, he's still great. He's still so funny. Even though I mean, like some of the stuff like in the comedian
[01:30:04] he plays like Chevy Chase. Have you seen the great film, The Comedian? No. Like he's like the preening asshole comedian who's a big star and like wants everyone to kiss the ring. That movie stinks. He's really good in it. He's always good. He's so good while we're young.
[01:30:22] While we're young, he's incredible in that. Where he's like essentially playing wise men, right? And he's sort of playing like one of the Maisel brothers. Like an old documentary, you know, yeah. Hancho legend. Yes. But he just didn't act for 12 years and was like, I don't care.
[01:30:38] I mean, he just has this attitude, but he also talks about it in a way where it feels like he does wish he had gotten to do 10 movies like this, you know? He's just always good. He's always fun.
[01:30:51] And if you go through his career, you're like, oh, I forgot. He's there's always something where you're like, fuck, I forgot. He's in this. He's incredible. He's so good. He's incredible. I mean, Dave, he's uncredited. We think thank you, Charles. I don't think he's uncredited.
[01:31:06] He has that amazing line where he's looking at the books and he says like, if I did my taxes this way, you'd put me in jail. He's very funny, very deadpan. That scene is kind of the best scene in Dave in its whole sort of like fantasy.
[01:31:21] It's very... I love Charles Groton. I love him in this movie. This movie does not work without him. Can I say his performance in this movie? There are moments where I saw a lot of Jim Carrey in him, if that makes sense. I mean the other way around.
[01:31:37] Like the way he juts his lower jaw out at times and they're just stipulating with his arms. And like, yeah, that's scrambling to maintain a lie or something. And I think there's a certain smart me arrogance, you know? It's not like the...
[01:31:55] So often these types of characters are played by guys who are just so unabashedly charming and cute in their personality that you go like, ah, but I can't hate him. And I feel like Carrey also, like people when Carrey started making movies,
[01:32:09] people were like, you can't do this. You can't make a character like Ace Ventura for the entire movie who never resembles a normal human being. There's no such thing as a pet detective. Right. But also just like he was so committed to like,
[01:32:23] I'm just playing an asshole or an idiot. You know, there was no concern for being likable. He has no vulnerability in terms of that. He's right. He's happy to lay it out. And that's why scenes like him, you know, rushing to pick up the phone to say, like,
[01:32:38] call the patrolman like work because he's... He can be a monster in that moment. And that's why scenes like the one that is my background, where he goes to the magic show to try and impress the family, which is just this like mind bogglingly awkward scene,
[01:32:56] are just hysterically funny. Like even as they're so crazily awkward. It's funny too, like Eddie Albert entirely deserved Academy Award nomination essentially has two big dialogue scenes. Right. A lot of the movie he's just kind of sitting there in silence stewing and glaring at the sky.
[01:33:12] He's looking grumpy. Yeah. Right. Yes. It's absolutely so fucking good, though, in those two scenes where he finally uncorks the bottle and is like, let me give you a whiff of this. Just you really think that there's like water in here and there's sulfuric acid.
[01:33:31] You're not picking up what I'm putting down, buddy. But he's also, I mean, you know, the mother is kind of just like clueless, charmed by everything, right? She falls for the sort of performative bullshit that Groton's putting on.
[01:33:45] I think Sybil Shepard just kind of enjoys him like a toy. I mean, it's such a good reveal when he shows up at her college and she's just like, I care more about class than you. What are you doing here? You were like an activity on a vacation.
[01:33:56] Yeah, you're like a bit I did. Yeah. Right. But Albert is just staring him down every single moment and just, you know, he's getting dragged along to all these things. You're wondering why he's tolerating this guy being let into every activity the family goes on.
[01:34:14] I mean, he loves his daughter so much and like, I mean, I think too much in the final argument between him and Groton. Yeah, he becomes the sort of protective dad in a kind of annoying creepy way, right? Yeah, he says, like Groton says, I just want Kelly.
[01:34:34] And the dad says, so do I. And you know, the fact that it cuts to the wedding right after and you wonder what happened in between that, I like in that moment, I sort of think like, is he realizing like, oh, I'm too attached to her.
[01:34:49] You know, I'm not going to like anyone she gets with. It might as well be this guy. I mean, like she wants to marry him. It's like how much can you like you can't lock her in chains? Like guesses. But yeah, I don't know.
[01:35:03] I think the thing with the Eddie Albert character, too, is she's as much of a status symbol for him as she is for Groton, right? She fits into the dynamic of look at me. I have the perfect house. I have the perfect daughter, you know?
[01:35:14] At the wedding, there's this old guy that comes up to Groton and says you're the luckiest man alive. There's even when she's on college campus, like random men walking past her like, hey Kelly, like it makes sense because Civil Shepherd is so luminous
[01:35:29] in this movie, but like, yeah, she must. There must just be dozens of men, hundreds of men in her life who all want her. And yeah, that reflects on the dad. Right. Right, he wants people to be turning their heads when his daughter walks by.
[01:35:45] He just doesn't want to welcome those people into his family. Yeah. He doesn't want those people to have more domain than he does. You know, he's just one of those stars that is incredible. Like, like, do you know Eddie Albert? It's like, because when he's in this,
[01:36:00] he's weirdly at a career high because he's just he's coming off of Green Acres, which was like, you know, a hugely popular sitcom. And I get because when I think of Eddie Albert, apart from this, I think of Roman Holiday, right?
[01:36:14] Which like and like in like Oklahoma, like he used to be, I think of him as fun and like kind of goofy and this sort of high energy actor. And then I get, but and so I was trying to figure out
[01:36:25] like how does he get cast here as this like stone man, like this just absolute bastard. But I forgot that in Green Acres, he's kind of this. I've never I've never really seen Green Acres. I just know it's about like big city people who live on a farm,
[01:36:38] right? It it bizarrely was Romali's favorite show growing up. So I've seen a lot of talking. Was all in on Green Acres. Did I make that? No, there is a pig, but the pig doesn't talk. You're conflating it with Mr. Ed. That's OK.
[01:36:50] Right. But like in Green Acres is he kind of he's kind of the stiff in that, right? Because he's like he doesn't like it. Right. Yeah. He's the stiff because she is like silly, but she's more charmed by everything going on around her.
[01:37:01] Even if she's like, I could never. He's more like grump. Yeah, it's it's fucking six seasons of them just not wanting to run a farm. That's the premise. I know. Can you just can you just imagine Romali just sitting glued to the television, putting on like
[01:37:16] disc after disc of Green Acres because it wasn't even on rotation anywhere. We had to buy her all the DVD sets. No one's going to like watch that in the 90s. Right. This this is in the mid 2000s. The 1998. This is in the early to mid 2000.
[01:37:32] She's watching Green Acres all day. And my mom, I just remember once us walking into the living room, she's sitting there an inch away from the television, watching her 10th episode in a row. And my mom just goes, why was it this show? It has a pig.
[01:37:45] It has a pig. She liked that even Gavorba's fancy, I think. My fake. My favorite thing about Eddie Albert is that Albert is his middle name. His last name was Heimberger. And he changed his name from Heimberger because everyone called him Eddie Hamburg.
[01:37:59] He also used to be a trapeze performer, a nightclub singer. He like cohosted a radio show. He served in the war as like a military intelligence officer who like photograph you boats. You know, it's like one of these things where like you would
[01:38:15] read an obituary of a guy who was born in like, you know, 1902. And it's just like it would just be like the most staggering series because he lived through modern history and like this guy fucking rules. I love him. He died at the age of 99, too. Wow.
[01:38:32] He was the voice of the vulture on the Spider-Man cartoon show. He's the warden in the longest yard. Like he's just in everything. He's in the witch mountain movies. Like you just talk about a guy who like he's at Concord, the Concord Airport 78.
[01:38:47] Like these are just his post heartbreak kid credits, which is essentially the beginning of the last chapter of his career, which lasts for another 25 years. I mean, respect, full respect to Eddie Albert. Should have won. No, I guess not. But whatever. Great Oscar nomination here late in life.
[01:39:07] As much as he's the stickler in this, he does get this great physical performance moment when Groden has been invited to the boat the next day by Kelly and Albert sees him approaching and tries to
[01:39:22] runs to get the rope and push the boat off before Groden can get onto it. I think that's a very it's a very fun, silly moment. Yes, the speed with which Groden runs to the boat
[01:39:34] while also pulling his shirt off so he can land on the boat and be in I belong here mode, you know? But but here's another thing that I just forgot that this movie does so well, where which is tell Cyple so early on.
[01:39:50] It's like their third scene together. It's not a secret. Yes. No, they're in the water, right? And then she walks away and he says, I have to tell you I'm married. And I went, is this going to be some dumb thing
[01:40:00] where because of the way she doesn't hear him? And instead she comes back and she's like, oh, interesting. She says, what else is new? Right, because she's trying to play this weird blithe kind of like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm having fun on vacation. Yeah.
[01:40:14] Right. So it becomes, oh, he has to convince the parents and he has to figure out what to do about his wife. But I just love that like that's halfway through the movie. And it's like so now he has to be a print with her
[01:40:25] because he really wants to end this and he has to win over the parents. It's not going to be 90 minutes of him coming up with new excuses to keep her in the room and lying to Cyple Shepard, you know?
[01:40:35] Like I just think there's a thing with older film comedies where they don't feel like, well, whatever the premise is can be the only premise for all of the running time. You do whatever the conflict is until you've run out of juice or at strain credibility.
[01:40:48] And then you move on to the next thing that would happen. And then that becomes the next conflict, right? You know? And the scene just the fucking pecan pie scene. Him trying to break the news to her, all his wind up,
[01:41:01] all his like buffering before he gets to it, which she thinks is him. He thinks he's dying. Right. Right. And there's that beautiful shot where like she's consoling him. His head's down. He feels relieved. He's finally gotten through to her.
[01:41:13] She says, I can't believe you never told me you were sick and dying. And then he just slowly looks up and barely avoids making eye contact with the camera directly. And he just cannot even hold his contempt for her and just says, like,
[01:41:28] I'm leaving you. It's over. Yeah. The marriage is over. There's a moment where you're like, oh, is the movie going to be him faking his death? And then he's like, I know I'm too right, essentially arrogant to let that happen. It just it just avoids all the things
[01:41:45] you you worry it's going to get stuck doing. And then that scene where Elaine May is like, by the way, we're not leaving this like, yeah. You know, he's not saying I'm leaving you and then we're going to cut away to him packing his bags.
[01:41:59] No, five more minutes, guys. Put him on the clock. Jeannie Berlin doesn't like this news. That's why now remind me, does does the the Eddie Albert scene happen before or after that, where he was clean to them before?
[01:42:12] Right. Because he says I'm going to tell them at drinks and then I'm going to take her out to dinner. There there's that great moment too, where he like comes back from having spent the whole day with the tan changes into the shirt and tie immediately
[01:42:25] is leaving again. And has he's like, I'm taking your dinner nine o'clock. Right, right. Which is like, how did you get that tan? And he's like, I've been sent on the lousy courthouse steps. How fast do you think the law moves in Florida
[01:42:38] after he's previously told her that courts in Florida open at 7 a.m. And he's got to go that morning after a car crash. And just the insincerity of every time acting like I'm doing you a favor. You don't want to be.
[01:42:52] You have no idea what these courthouses are like. You don't want to hang out with this army guy, the language that's going to be. I wouldn't go to this neighborhood if I could avoid it. You know, just everything is always like, I love you so much.
[01:43:04] I can't make it do this. But then yeah, the fucking the Eddie Albert thing of just what's his immediate line? He says in response, I'm looking here. Well, whatever it is, it's the end of that scene where he says his fucking stay away from her.
[01:43:22] I don't hand out my daughter to newlyweds. He goes on his whole speech. So and then like Lenny says, like so you don't approve. And he says, not if they tied me to a horse and pulled me 40
[01:43:33] miles by my tongue and Charles Grotin's response is, I respect your frankness. It's so goddamn good. So funny. Here's a weird runner that I know is just off that scene. One of his responses to the new Lueb thing is he's a nut.
[01:43:54] And he, you know, just said perfectly, but also earlier on, Sybil eats nuts at him with the bar and says thanks to the nut. And then earlier on in the movie, Lila, when she's eating the egg salad, she goes, I'm an egg salad nut.
[01:44:10] And it's just, I don't know, nuts keep popping up in this movie. If someone wants to do a TV tropes, like deep dive, cinema sins on his trailers. What does the nut mean in terms of of Heartbreak Kid?
[01:44:23] I'm here for it because I wrote it down and I circled it on the page. There are a bunch of nuts. I don't know. This movie is shockful and nuts. You remind me of every of the other just kind of like amazing
[01:44:35] directorial trick of this movie is just how good Elaine May as it is at the comedic reveal through edit where how long she stays on Charles Groton's face before cutting and showing us the cottage cheese around her mouth. Not cottage cheese. What is it? What?
[01:44:52] Egg salad. Egg salad. And the same thing with the suntan, you know, like in all those scenes, you understand that she's done something, that she looks horrible and she holds off on cutting to Jeannie Berlin for as long as she possibly can.
[01:45:08] So it just builds in your mind until you get to the reveal. But yeah, I just love that, like, you know, he has these two horrible, disastrous conversations, right? With the father and then with his wife and then just cuts to him in New York,
[01:45:23] signing the papers, trying to own up to his mistakes. Right? This is my mistake. I may I have to own it. And then he just like a lunatic just flies to the Midwest. Doesn't even get any cold weather clothes, which New York gets cold.
[01:45:40] He should have access to something. But he's constantly walking around Minnesota with his just is like what? Sport coat, like pulled up around his neck and his flat cap just freezing. But the joy that like, oh, this movie isn't going to give us 30 more minutes
[01:45:56] of comedy of misunderstanding and him trying to keep the lie spinning. The movie is now this guy has done another incredibly reckless thing has gone all in. He's pot committed to this relationship. And now the rest of the movie is 30 minutes of him trying to convince everyone
[01:46:11] to let him into the door through the door, you know? And it's funny. Very, very funny. I mean, are almost funnier or at least it's it's a thing where like she it's a perfect pivot. Like, I don't know, like I enjoy this section, but I also just enjoy
[01:46:28] is this weird fresh fish out of water nightmare thing that's happening. Yeah. And he's so like guileless about it. He's just like, I'm ready. I'll wait. I'm fine. I'm going to do this. I said I'd do it. So I did it right. Right. Stalking her on campus.
[01:46:45] That moment where he's hiding behind a tree and then pops out. And yeah, it also just underlines how much you're just like, you're like an entirely different generation. You know, like now you're seeing her amongst her own people.
[01:46:58] You know, like the boy she should be dating and you're a creepy old guy hiding behind structures. He's almost twice her age. Yeah. Like the of course, the dad's going to be Albert's going to be upset enough even without the newlywed stuff. And and he's who is he?
[01:47:16] He has no money because he gave it all to the woman he just divorced. He sells athletic goods. Everything everything about him gets across that, you know, he talks about himself as a determined young man.
[01:47:30] And he is in the sense that he's determined to do to get out of things. Like, yeah, he did three years in the army. Didn't go overseas because of a minor back injury. Like he's worked. He works incredibly hard at getting out of his commitments.
[01:47:49] Yes, he's bullheaded just right entirely uselessly. But just the beauty of like he finally kind of wears Sybil Shepard down. They have that scene that is one of the a Griff pick for top 10 sexiest scenes in the history of cinema.
[01:48:03] Yes, Lane made distilling exactly what I find sexy. Also, like the last picture show has an iconic undressing scene right there on the on the. Driving board. She goes to the new part. Right. Yes. And then one year later, I mean like
[01:48:21] what does Sybil Shepard do after this? Because I do. I can't. I have to imagine she was like, I have to stop being a fucking ingenue. But I guess no, because the next movie is Daisy Miller, which is like the ultimate on genu right?
[01:48:32] Then she becomes, yeah, exactly. Bogdanovich is mule, mule. Jesus Christ. I wish you became I wish Peter Bogdanovich would make the mule to. Wow. Oh, wait, wait, but it's like, but it's Bogdanovich and he's a dandy. He's got like no, no. Bogdanovich directing Sybil is the mule.
[01:48:53] I mean Bogdanovich also plays the drug king. That would be fun too. I just like the idea that Bogdanovich is a drug mule and he he you know, his cover story is that he's always driving to the next DVD special feature that he has to tape.
[01:49:08] Right. And that's why he has the cravat and he's like officer, I'm so sorry. I just I have to go. I need to give my perspective on the magnificent Ambersons. Like I just have to go. I remember Orson said to me, it's such a good title.
[01:49:24] You shouldn't even make the picture. That's his paper moon story. He always tells that he said he said, Orson, I don't know what it's about yet, but I have an idea of a title for a picture. What do you think about a picture called paper moon?
[01:49:41] And Orson said, it's such a good title. You shouldn't even bother making the picture. I just imagine the both in like smoking jackets on like a clear table just covered in cocaine. One of those glass tables. So I'm flipping the pitch. It's Sybil Shepard directs Peter Bogdanovich.
[01:50:03] That sounds great. Right. And Bob sounds good. Yeah, Peter's the mule. Hmm. I just think the mule should turn into one of those like, wait, there are eight Jarhead movies, direct to video franchises where each time it's a different optogenarian, Alaska actor. Right.
[01:50:24] But increasingly it becomes people like Peter Bogdanovich where it's like, well, he can't be the lead of a studio movie. We can be it right. The mule for you can we can film in Bulgaria and pretend it's set in a rodeo drive, you know, right?
[01:50:37] Mule day of the soldado. I want Mule Day of the soldado. God, yes. Guys, this is great. We're going to be billionaires. Yeah, yeah, we'll play it on the slate. Blank check pictures are first franchise. But but yes, this the scene, the dinner scene, right?
[01:50:54] You have this incredibly sexy scene where unlike the last picture show scene, it is cloaked in absolute darkness. You see less than nothing, right? And it's just about this promise of they're not going to touch. They're going to get as close to each other as possible without touching.
[01:51:08] And they do so. And it is so thrilling. And then she brings him over for dinner and he does his fucking thing. I'll just quote the part of it because this was my backup if I couldn't find the full long intro I wanted to do originally.
[01:51:28] He says this is honest food. There's no lying in that beef. There's no insincerity in these potatoes. There's no deceit in the cauliflower. This is a totally honest meal. And he's framed it as like my entire life I've won an honest meal.
[01:51:43] I finally found honest food and then it's almost a hard cut to them walking into the office, closing the door behind him and Eddie Alper saying during dinner tonight, I was listening. I find that I can tell more about a man by listening to his dinner table
[01:51:56] conversation than by reading all the books in the world. I heard everything you said about honest food and Charles Groen is like nodding excitedly like he's nailed it. Fuck in landed this.
[01:52:07] And then just the delivery on I have never heard such a crock of horseshit in my life. There's no deceit in the cauliflower. I mean, the fact that he's he's praising the honesty and integrity of these food. We've spent the whole movie watching him lie.
[01:52:27] Yeah, he loves deceit. This is a good point. It's really the only tool he has. That's really the entire Swiss army knife. Yes, even even like when he's trying, he's getting rid of the boyfriend at the college, Sybil's boyfriend.
[01:52:44] And he's like, well, obviously I'll pretend to be a federal narcotics agent. And like somehow has a fake badge that we have no explanation for. It's a great question. There's probably a whole prequel to this movie about like what
[01:52:59] how he sells his athletic goods and probably deploys all kinds of underhanded tactics as a veteran. I want you to purchase this with the ball bats. Yeah, I guess maybe maybe the badges is left over from the army somehow. Right, right, right. Oh my God.
[01:53:19] But yeah, but he but he pulls it off. Like you said, we have that hard cut from, you know, like to him, like whatever he convinces him or that he breaks down the wall, I guess. And then he's trapped in his like time
[01:53:31] and up at last Twilight Zone ending. Like I got to be around wasps for the rest of my life. I got to have these fucking conversations walking out of the theater to that. Like what I mean, because this movie was a comparable hit.
[01:53:42] I know everything else she made. But you compare this. I mean, this movie is such an interesting parallel to the graduate. Right. Like it's it's the second Nichols film. It's the second May film. It's a breakthrough for both of them.
[01:53:55] But then their directing career is obviously going very different directions and graduate was not just a hit. It was like a cultural phenomenon and like an Oscar darling. And this was more of like a hit, you know? And nothing crazy. Right. Right.
[01:54:12] And I do think it's like as much as people talk about like, holy shit, the ending of the graduate when you see him looking off there and realizing there's something kind of easily digestible about it. I saw a quote.
[01:54:25] I don't know if it was in the Bright Wall dark room piece I would have been citing or another one I read, but saying that like, you know, as opposed to Neil Simon, who makes comedies that go down easy.
[01:54:35] Elaine May makes movies that get stuck in your throat. You know? And there is just such a difference to the tone of this ending of oh, and now this is the first day of the rest of his life versus that exact
[01:54:47] same type of ending in the graduate, which is underscored with, you know, Simon and Garfunkel and feels kind of like sweet and self-pitying rather than an existential nightmare. It's kind of a who knows what next? Like, you know, are they scared? Are they like regretting?
[01:55:05] Are they, you know, yeah, like, you know, it's much more ambiguous. This is he's in hell. He's trapped in a glass case like he can never escape until I guess he tries again. And he's thinking of Lila like he's humming. He's humming, why do birds or whatever?
[01:55:23] What are their tunes? Yes. And like, yeah, this is a man who we know once he gets himself cemented into a situation immediately wants out of it and is, you know, is thinking of the greener grass on the other side.
[01:55:37] And yeah, he's got to be thinking, oh, I messed up. I got to get back with Lila somehow. It's fine. I mean, this movie just rules. It's fucking perfect. And then it's yeah, good movie. Good movie.
[01:55:50] It feels like she could have had an easy career path trying to do this kind of thing again, right? Be one of America's foremost wit directors, the witty director. Like, do the do some Neil Simons do. Right. Get a best selling paperback, you know. Yeah.
[01:56:07] You know, just movies for the sort of Hoy Palloy, you know, the chattering classes or whatever. It feels like the same way. She was just like, I've done that. I don't really want to do that again. You know, Cassavetes loves this movie.
[01:56:18] He's the one who preaches out to her and is like, I want to do something together. And so that's the thing that excites her more is doing something entirely different. Whereas Groton, I think really wants to keep doing this and can't find as good
[01:56:30] of a match, at least for him as a leading man. Artistically, you know, who let him right? Yeah. Right. He had to wait until he met this curious Saint Bernard. That was the he finally found the right collaborator again. Finally.
[01:56:45] So I saw people tweeting about this a couple of months ago when we knew that we were going to do this episode. And I still can't get the exact straight answer. But as to why this film is so out of circulation,
[01:57:00] there was a DVD that was already out of print by the mid 2000s. I remember that DVD I bought on eBay. It's an anchor bay DVD and it sucks. The transfer is awful. It's from like 2000 even. It was only in print for like a year.
[01:57:17] Like even when I my one semester of film school before I dropped out, Charles Groton style of anything that gave me too much pressure. I remember a student organized screening of this movie on a projector
[01:57:30] from a DVD and it was a big deal because they were like, we got a copy. No one can see this movie. Like this movie is so hard to find the DVDs go for so much money now. And then that was now, you know, whatever, 15 years ago almost.
[01:57:43] And it's only become more difficult. It never was re-released. It was never on Blu-ray. I think it was on Netflix for like a weird period of like two months in like, you know, 2010 and then now it'll pop up on YouTube. It'll get pulled, you know?
[01:58:00] But it's mostly sort of traded. And by all accounts, it is that it was produced by Palomar pictures. And I don't understand why this movie ended up in a more complicated fate than the other Palomar movies. But Palomar was a subsidiary of ABC. Sure.
[01:58:20] And then before Disney bought ABC, Bristol Myers acquired a majority stake, the pharmaceutical company. OK. And they just every time, apparently, anyone has tried to re-release this movie. I'm sure criterians tried. Everyone's fucking tried. The asking price they throw out is just absurd because they're just like,
[01:58:47] this is how much money we make selling pills. We're not a movie studio. We have ended up with these rights. You know, there are other Palomar movies like they shoot horses, don't they? The birthday party, take the money and run sleuth that I know are like,
[01:59:02] you know, but taking Pal 1, 2, 3, the original Stepford wives movies are out there. Somehow this movie got fucked and whatever this company is called, not Meyer, Bristol Myers has like the final say over anything that happens. And apparently they just always go, we would rather make no money
[01:59:21] than license it out for forty thousand dollars or even two hundred dollars. We want ten million dollars. You know, the whole thing like I have to assume criterion to the big Mikey and Nikki, like, you know,
[01:59:36] that the whenever I talk to them, they're like it can take years. Like just the process of essentially doing what you're coaxing the rights from someone or coaxing a filmmaker out to be like, hey, do you want to like help us restore your movie or whatever?
[01:59:51] But like so maybe hopefully one day they or someone like them can do a proper remaster of this movie, which it needs desperately. It just feels like one of those things where this company won't even pick up the fucking phone. Well, fuck them.
[02:00:07] They got to figure it out. It's just one of these things not to not to spiral out too much. But that scares me about like fucking companies like AT&T buying Warner Brothers
[02:00:15] because they start looking at it and go like, why would we make a star is born? That's nothing. That's two hundred million dollars. That's nothing to us. The whole thing that happens because that's as much as it's freaking out. It's always been true. These studios get by.
[02:00:29] But bought by these companies and then like Coca-Cola owned one of the company Warner Brothers. I can't remember who Columbia maybe they own Columbia when she was making Ishtar. That's one of the things that's right.
[02:00:40] Yeah, and then and then ten years in there like, why are we doing this? We keep having problems with the movies they make like Selvis. Like fucking flip Columbia to whoever wants it. We don't want it anymore. Yeah. Anyway, hopefully is there anything left?
[02:00:56] Just that I mean, fingers crossed with this Dakota Johnson movie supposedly happening like maybe Elaine May gets enough buzz and clout that enough people want this to get a proper release. We were originally going to do Elaine May last year, last April.
[02:01:14] And then that story came out of like, oh, Dakota Johnson says she's making a movie with Elaine May. And then we realized we were going to do our Razzies versus Oscars bracket. And she was the only female director who had fit into either quadrant,
[02:01:26] unfortunately. So we were like, we have to hold on. But then with COVID and everything, we're just like, I don't know, like is this movie going to happen? She's 88 years old now. Production is in such a weird state, you know.
[02:01:37] And it always felt like the movie was just kind of at early formative stages. Who knows? But I want nothing more than to see her make another movie. Nothing more. I would die for it. It would be really like a lovely argument for generational Hollywood stardom.
[02:01:54] As much as I detest seeing these legacy actors, like if Dakota Johnson is using her family connection to Hollywood and, I guess, love of old film to be like, yeah, Elaine May needs to be out there. That might redeem that nepotistic system for me for a moment.
[02:02:15] But not only that, Avery. I'm sorry. Ellen, that's not the truth is maybe the best Elaine May movie that Elaine May never directed. The Dakota Johnson Ellen DeGeneres birthday party interview is it's this. It's what we're talking about. Like that alone makes me go like, oh,
[02:02:31] Dakota Johnson would be a good Elaine May protagonist. Yeah. Right. Box office game. And sorry, can I talk about the remake for a second? We do that box office. We talked about two options because we can't find the box office for this.
[02:02:44] So we're saying we'll either do the top 10 of 1972. OK, we'll do them both quickly and we'll do the top 10, the top five when the remake came out. The remake came out when I was trying university for the second time.
[02:03:00] I have I have tried three times and never, never completed. Very Charles, Charles Groden ask. Hell yeah. But yeah, the second time was the university at the Cine World Cinema near me. A franchise people from England or who have spent time in England might know of.
[02:03:18] They had a sort of precursor to a movie past called Cine World Unlimited where you pay, you know, 11 pounds a month. And you can go see as many movies as you like. And I signed up for this knowing that I would be skipping classes and going to
[02:03:32] see films so I should get the best bang for my buck. Not knowing that Cine World or at least the one near me had just trash movies. Right. It was like the runoff theater. Yeah. So I saw and, you know,
[02:03:46] I had to get the value out of my unlimited card. So I saw the Heartbreak Kid remake twice in theaters. I saw Dan in real life twice in theaters. I saw good luck, Chuck, twice in theaters. I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry.
[02:04:02] It was a Chuck heavy year for movies. A lot of Chucks. How many Chucks could have what could have industry Chuck? Too many. So that's that's my experience with Heartbreak Kid seeing it for free twice. Hating it, obviously. Well, let's let's do it right now. Yeah, yeah.
[02:04:20] Right now, October 5th, 2007. Look, maybe we'll do the Farrelly's one day. Maybe we'll do this again. But I didn't see this in theaters. The one thing I remember vividly is this movie underperforms. It comes out in a dead period where it should have had an easy big number
[02:04:35] one it underperforms and the studio's spin on it was that the movie had come out the same weekend that Halo 3 came out. And it was the first time that the movie studio said like we scheduled ourselves against a video game too big. We fucked up, right?
[02:04:52] The kids are all home with their Xboxes. That's hilarious. What do you want? The World of Warcraft expansion just released. What do you expect? I expect that is so funny because it's absolutely right. It came out like days after Halo 3 came out. October 5th, 2007.
[02:05:08] It opened at number two, 14 million dollars. Nothing to be ashamed of these days for a comedy. But yes, for a Ben Stiller vehicle, even if it was an R rated one, this is not acceptable. And this is him reteaming with something about Mary people.
[02:05:20] This is like six months after Night at the Museum. Especially when you hear what number one is. It's a holdover. It was number one the last week. It is a Disney family comedy. The Game Plan. The last Buena Vista film. Yes, the Game Plan. Starring The Rock.
[02:05:40] Big kid. He's a football player and he's got a kid who wants to do ballet or something. I have never seen the game. David, that kid was not part of the game plan for him. It was not part of the game. I remember there's a dog.
[02:05:54] He's like holding a dog. It's like one of those things where he's like, I'm a football player. Here is this kid who's in a tutu and I'm holding a dog. He looks like everything right now. He's flummoxed as hell.
[02:06:08] It is fascinating and I feel like under discussed that there was that six year period where The Rock was like, I am only a kid star. Yeah. Like it was like Witch Mountain Game Plan, Tooth Fairy.
[02:06:20] Like he was like, I just do family movies where when he came back to doing action and fast five people were like, oh. Oh, yeah, you're you are a famous athlete. You're holding a gun. Oh, I enjoy this. Mr. Game Plan. You are covered in muscles.
[02:06:39] I forgot about that. That's the other thing he slimmed down. He lost a bunch of weight in the family movie because he was like, I want to be less scary anyway, anyway, anyway. OK, so the game plan is number one. That's embarrassing. Number two is embarrassing.
[02:06:53] It's Heartbreak Kid. Correct. Number three is the movie that I covered the red carpet for in London and one of the stars of it drove his Hummer down the red carpet and into the lobby of the Odeon Laster Square. The Kingdom? The Kingdom. Jamie Foxx.
[02:07:09] The two red carpets, if you bring that up, I know it's either going to be the kingdom or Lions for Lambs. I covered many red carpets, but those are the two that always come up. The funniest things happened. Right.
[02:07:19] He came out, he pop and locked into several like poses for the photographers. He said, the kingdom, go see it. He got back in the Hummer. It reversed up. He did not even pretend to go into the theater to watch the movie.
[02:07:34] And then Jennifer Garner told me she would never let her kid act. And I wrote that up for people and got like a bajillion hits. She rolls. So my boss was like, great job on the kingdom red carpet. Yeah. Jennifer Garner, great mom. I've never seen the kingdom.
[02:07:49] I mean either. I just love Jamie Foxx turning to a bunch of people on the red carpet and saying, go see it. It feels like a slap in the face. We're not invited. We'd be there if they gave us a ticket. We're out here behind railings.
[02:08:06] Barricaded in like animals. I just remember, I remember being really hyped for that movie because Peter Berg seemed like this really exciting because he'd just done Friday Night Lights, which is like, oh, this movie's kind of like tender
[02:08:19] and interesting and like he's got Jamie Foxx coming off an Oscar win. And I think Reese Ray is what? When's Ray 2005? It's right after. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this was that was one of the first things he shot entirely after the Oscar.
[02:08:34] You know, you've got Garner and you've got Jason Bateman in a dramatic role and like a rest of development is still, you know, this cool thing that just, you know, is still on and you're like, oh, that's interesting. And then like everyone was just like meh.
[02:08:45] And I never saw it. And so I've never seen the kingdom. I had the same excitement and never saw it. Avery, have you seen the kingdom? I have not even heard of the kingdom. It's set in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Oh, OK, one of my favorite.
[02:09:02] I don't know. It's like it's like a gritty, you know, modern contemporary like war movie, I guess, but they're like maybe their FBI agents or to see. I don't know what they're doing.
[02:09:13] But it is like I just I'm just look at this now and it's like you say that and I get bored. But then I just go like, but it's starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Gordon, Jason Babin. That has to be a little bit interesting, right?
[02:09:24] And I've never heard anyone say anything more enthusiastic than it's fine. You write it. Oh, yeah, you know, whatever. OK, number four, it's a series we'll do on the Patreon one day. It is entry number three.
[02:09:39] Is it so three or so for not so that's not a saw. Oh, because right, it wouldn't have a number. You don't know it is. It's the third. It's Resident Evil Apocalypse. Nope. That's the second, but good. Correct answer, you know, correct franchise. Oh, extinction, extinction.
[02:09:57] It's the one where it finally was like, oh, this is cooking with gas. Yeah, I will say because the first one is a fun throwback thing. The second one, in my opinion, is not very good. The third one is where you're like, OK, OK.
[02:10:08] You know, I've only seen first and last a good argument for doing them all. We got to do great movies. Number five. Oh, boy, this is sort of why I wanted to do this. I do remember this by name. It is a fantasy film.
[02:10:28] It is an adaptation, I believe, of a popular young adult series. And my guess is they wanted to do more of them. But obviously no one saw it. The Seeker of the Dark is Rising.
[02:10:40] I mean, like that's pretty fast for you to get the Seeker of the Dark is Rising. You know what? Opening at number five to three million dollars. That's why it's not rising. A, it's one of the worst openings of all time.
[02:10:52] It's still charts pretty high up there in terms of low opening for that many screens that it had such big franchise ambitions. And also when you said I remember the title, I knew it was this because it's just one of the most apocalyptically bad titles ever.
[02:11:08] It's up there with Ballistic X versus Seven where it's like you're saying so much and not anything at all. Can I ask? Do you guys know this one of my most hated pet peeves in like film and media, games, TV, whatever? What is the obsession with things rising?
[02:11:27] I don't know. They're always rising. It's just constantly. Rising. Yeah. If people can't think of a title for their thing, they'll be like, well, does anyone rise in it? And then can we? I have to say also it just like I think without fail, Don always gets me
[02:11:43] more excited than Rise, right? I don't love Don even. I don't love it, but it hits more for me. I don't think Rise has ever gotten a rise out of me. It's funny since Planet of the Apes did both. I know. And then Don.
[02:11:56] And arguably did them in the wrong order. Yeah, absolutely did them in the wrong order. It made no sense when they announced that it was Don. I was like, the fucking sun already rose. It's gone now. It's in the sky in your metaphor.
[02:12:10] And then they went to war for three. I'm like, there's nothing to do with the weather. But it's also like you look at like, I'm sure if you look at the synopsis
[02:12:18] on the back of the DVD, it says like in in Don of the Planet of the Apes, the Apes rise to power. You know, Rise the Planet of the Apes, say the dawn of a new species.
[02:12:29] The most recent example is like this game just came out Immortals Phoenix Rising. And I just hate that they think I'm meant to look at that. Oh, Phoenix is rising in this one. It's like, I don't know. I don't know who that is.
[02:12:43] It's the whole thing that the seeker. I don't know who's the seeker. I don't care. All right, all right, all right. Don't worry about it. The dark is rising and I'm like, all right, 10 tickets, please. Like, what? Oh, God, anyway, that's the top five.
[02:12:59] Yes. Can I just say? OK, very quick side tangent. But talking about titles with this many words, it just the fucking. What are you saying? I zone out, right? The power of a good one word title. I was looking earlier through, you know,
[02:13:15] careers of the actors in this movie and trying to chart them all. And Jeannie Berlin, who's so great in this, gets an Oscar nomination essentially does like three more movies and then doesn't act for like 15 years, writes a movie that her and her mother in doesn't
[02:13:28] act for another 11 years until Margaret and now has come back and has become like a fucking awesome older character. She's on succession. She's on succession. Hunters, right? She just rules. She rules in everything now, right? She's so good.
[02:13:41] I feel like she's finally getting appreciated in the way she was in Margaret, though it was mind blowing. It was like Jeannie Berlin. Yeah, what the fuck? Yeah. Given just like a Hall of Fame performance.
[02:13:50] So I was looking at the movie she did right after this and this this same year, she makes a movie directed by Larry Cohen, you know, sort of great trash filmmaker, bone, David, do you know about bone?
[02:14:05] I only know that it's a Larry Cohen movie with Yaffet Kato. I've never seen it. I don't know much about it. Yes. So this is all I want to tell you and then we can move on. This is all I want to tell you, OK?
[02:14:15] This is the IMDb synopsis. When a criminal breaks into the Beverly Hills home of a wealthy couple having marital problems, he unwillingly provides the spouses with an unlikely resolution to their conflicts as well as a solution to his own secret problem.
[02:14:30] Starring Yaffet Kato and the poster is black and white, white background, full body shot of Yaffet with a hand on a hip, smiling. And then in just black stark letters, it says love bone before he loves you.
[02:14:45] Why did no one tell me that bone is the great American movie? I don't know. I don't know, Griffin. I guess I got to watch Bone. Love bone before he loves you. Nothing could get me into the fast. The theater faster.
[02:15:00] Is his solution to their marital problems like have sex with your wife or I will? I hope it's fuck bone. I hope this is about everyone fucking bone. Everyone should fuck bone. I don't know. Everyone should fucking bone watches. I don't know what's going to happen.
[02:15:16] I got to check it out. Bone on prime video. Oh, I'm watching a 10 night. All right. 1972 in film. Let's do this quickly. This is well, I only wanted to do this because it's just like this is where you are. Like, oh, it is another world.
[02:15:33] You know, like you look at an 80s box office, you're like, come on, there's a lot of sequels. There's a lot of action movies. All right. So number one, obviously, what's the number one movie in 1972? Griffin is the Godfather. It's the Godfather, one of the most
[02:15:43] successful films ever made at the time to this day. If you adjust for inflation is the Godfather. Now, number two is a prototype blockbuster. A disaster film, a famous disaster film. Is it Poseidon? It's the Poseidon adventure. That's right.
[02:16:00] And like, you know, it made half as much as the Godfather, but that is the movie where you're like, oh, right, like the seeds are planted here, right for the sort of modern blockbuster. Even if this is the Poseidon adventure,
[02:16:11] sort of like weird half character, you know, movie half disaster epic. Right. I don't know. Do you like the Poseidon adventure, Griffin? I've never seen it. I've never seen it. Oh, OK. You know, it's fun. I just those feel like movies that just never it never feels like
[02:16:31] there is any argument to revisit the 70s, Erwin Allen disaster movies as much as I find the idea of them charming. They're right. I've just never heard anyone present them in a way where it's like that movie is still of intrigue to watch today.
[02:16:45] You know, they're they're watchable. That's but you're right. Yes, they're not great art and they're they're prototypes in a lot of ways. Now, number three, though, that Griffin, we were talking about him a lot. He's a hot director this year. Last year he made
[02:17:00] an incredible debut film that got all kinds of Oscar attention and launched big stars. Who is it? Griffin, we could talk about him in this episode. 1971, he launches two big stars. Obviously not like Nickle's multiple big stars. Not Mike Nichols. It launches multiple big stars.
[02:17:17] It might be two. It might be two. OK. But but a comedy director. This is a comedy. The 1971 film is a drama. Huh, we were talking about who do we talk about so much in this episode? I just think about Nichols. You did a bit about Bogdanovitch.
[02:17:33] Peter Bogdanovitch. So this is a paper moon. No, which was also a hit. But no, what's the number three movie of 1972? What's up, Doc? What's up, Doc? What's up, Doc? Last picture show was not a debut. I forgot he made targets before but but early obviously. Yes.
[02:17:52] But but yes, what's up? Isn't that crazy? But the third most successful film of the year. Great movie. Yeah, rules. You should watch it. It's so much fun. One of Ben's best letterbox reviews.
[02:18:03] He watched What's Up, Docs over the summer and he just wrote maybe old movies are good. Broke my heart that Ben couldn't do this episode, by the way. I know. Absolutely. That's it. I was the heartbreak kid in that sense. Number four, Griffin.
[02:18:20] A best picture nominee, an iconic film with famous scenes that are remembered to this day with a big star, still pretty crazy that it's number four. Most successful of the year. Like a harrowing R rated thriller. With a big star. Yeah, a big star.
[02:18:41] I mean, you know, his stardom is on the rise. But yeah. It's a is it Storodocs? Not Storodocs, but you're in the right zone. In the right zone. So like that kind of star. It's like a sort of shocking transgressive film. It's not Dear Hunter.
[02:18:58] It's not Marathon Man. Not Marathon Man. These are all good 70s films that were shocking. Fuck, it's not conversation because that's after Godfather. Fuck, fuck, but a big shot. Like there's a scene that's still kind of iconic. Well, yes.
[02:19:19] I mean, there's multiple scenes that are iconic in this film, but there's one that's iconic in a fun way. It's a musical scene in a film that is otherwise not musical. Do you know what it is Avery? Is it Deliverance? It's Deliverance.
[02:19:33] John Borman's Deliverance with Bert Reynolds and John White. Why am I killing 1972 more than I don't know. Trashing it is absolutely Deliverance number four Griffin. No, before and number five is a less well remembered film except as a gif. It's an iconic gif.
[02:19:54] Jeremiah Johnson or GIF if yes. Jeremiah Johnson. Robert Redford is Jeremiah Johnson. Yeah, wild. A good movie. I've never seen it. Movie. I was so astonished by the recent realization that people think that gif is Galifianakis. I can't see it as Redford. I cannot really.
[02:20:16] Yeah, you've been Galifianakis pilled. I get that it surprises people that it's Redford because he's like very full face in it. It's not like the classic Redford profile. He looks like he has this like sort of big chin, but it's just the beard.
[02:20:31] I think like it's just here. I'm going to make it my background now. I just want to break it. It's I mean, like honestly, like the revenant is just Jeremiah Johnson. Interesting. Just like, you know, a more well, that's what I'm saying. Like I'm more gritty and various.
[02:20:47] God, it's so good. He looks so good. Avery, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you for crashing the box office game. Oh my god. Thank you for staying up through all that. Geez. Oh yeah.
[02:21:02] Thank you for being a good friend. Yeah, you're recording this in your time zone, which is pretty wild. But David was like, I don't know if it might be tough to record with Avery. And I was like, I think Avery and I have similar sleep schedules,
[02:21:13] which means I think we'll be able to record the episode around our usual time. Yeah. That was my guess. Yeah, it's four in the morning here, so I'll be going to bed in five hours. Yep, perfect. Yep, that's how I live. It's great.
[02:21:27] I essentially I essentially a bartender hours now because I just everything I do starts at eight or nine p.m. I never leave my home and I spend my whole day ramping up so my energy peaks at like eight 15. Respect. It's great to all of you guys.
[02:21:44] It's great. It's great. It's great. I'm so happy. I feel really well adjusted. Avery, people should follow you on Twitter. Yes. You have what may be the best Patreon of anybody where you offer absolutely nothing. Nothing. You get nothing. You get nothing.
[02:22:02] It's two dollars and you you make it very clear that you're not promising people anything in return. Nothing because I'm just I've not been capable of making things for a long time. If if you're if you're a fan of podcasts,
[02:22:15] which you might be if you are listening to this right now, then I made four maybe five. I can't remember episodes or podcasts called swings and roundabouts. It's a great show. We plugged it on blind check back in the day. Yeah, I remember a great listen.
[02:22:30] It's it's a it's a scripted thing. I do a lot of voices and have other people voice and the sound effects. And I think I think it's interesting. It's like stories from my past, but with like twists and there's also fun
[02:22:48] little segments with with like game shows that I made up and stuff because it's hard to do a sketch that isn't a game show when you watch too much SNL a few years ago, I found out.
[02:23:03] Yeah, so please it's it's it's still up at swings and roundabouts podcast.com. So check that out. And let's make it clear you you've posted daily podcast on your Patreon. You're just not promising that to people. They should know use to that.
[02:23:16] Yeah, I might I might do it if you feel like it. Yeah, but I would I wish I could charge one dollar. Patreon recommends you charge two because of the way their fees are structured. So I'm like, OK. And yeah, you get nothing.
[02:23:29] But my my Twitter is pretty good. Yeah, and you can buy naked pictures of me on there if you like. You know, there are some famous directors who have done so who I will not name because I provide excellent customer service. Hell yeah. Thanks again.
[02:23:42] I look forward to getting a pizza express at some point 10 years in the future when we can travel again express. Every night had like pizza express hangouts in London. It was so much fun. Yeah, doble's forever. Doble's forever. Thank you all for listening.
[02:23:56] Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to the Great American Novel for our theme song. Thank you to our editing team, Alex Barron and AJ McKeehan. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. Thank you to Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our art work.
[02:24:14] Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Check out our Shopify page for some real nerdy shirts and other types of merch. Patreon we're trekking along. Right? We're still we're still trekking at this point. Absolutely. Tune in next week for Mikey and Nikki.
[02:24:31] And as always, I just want to point out I sent in the chat of our Zoom, the poster for Bone. And now that I'm seeing it full size, it is clear that in the poster, Yafat Koto playing the character Bone is holding a rat.
[02:24:49] He's holding a rat possibly dead. I think that might be the solution to their marital problems. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We can't we can't go any further here. We don't know. I like I like too many questions. I like bone. You love bone.
[02:25:06] Well, I got it before he loves me.