The Hunt For Red October with Jamelle Bouie

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David

[00:00:09] Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that they made it to

[00:00:15] show as Blank Check

[00:00:21] Once more we record our dangerous podcast. A podcast against our old adversary, the

[00:00:27] American Navy. For 40 years your fathers before you and your older brothers

[00:00:32] recorded this podcast and recorded it well. But today the podcast is different.

[00:00:37] We have the advantage. It always falls apart. Really turns that kind of

[00:00:43] act barred. It does.

[00:00:47] Today the advantage is just getting a loud phone call. We know that it's a trap.

[00:00:52] Is this his best performance? Let's let's exclude sort of James Bond.

[00:00:57] I was going to say you do know he played James Bond.

[00:00:59] Yeah, let's set that aside. This is Sean Connery's best film.

[00:01:03] Interesting question. That is a real interesting question. I would say it's my

[00:01:06] favorite Sean Connery film performance. I can't think of another one in the 90s.

[00:01:11] That's this good. I mean there's The Rock. The Rock is his 90s performance.

[00:01:14] That's probably the most robust, right? It's great. Yeah.

[00:01:17] It's great in that. But he's putting 80 slices of him on a piece of bread.

[00:01:22] This performance is like measured. No, it's incredible. Yeah.

[00:01:25] And especially for a guy who like jumps in on like two days notice.

[00:01:30] True. That's what we'll talk about. Do we all agree that his untouchables

[00:01:34] win is simultaneously pretty silly and I'm cool with it?

[00:01:40] Absolutely. Right? Yeah.

[00:01:42] Like I'm like, that's objectively kind of ridiculous to give him the Oscar

[00:01:45] for that. And also I have no complaints about it.

[00:01:48] It was a career Oscar. Totally. He's good in the untouchables.

[00:01:51] He's only in it for like 10 minutes. That's not true. He has like 15.

[00:01:55] That is not true. He has an iconic line. He's got an iconic line.

[00:02:00] He's in so much more of that movie than you think. I remember him dying like

[00:02:03] surprisingly early. No, we were having this conversation about

[00:02:06] Jack Palin's and City Slickers who was truly in that movie for eight minutes.

[00:02:10] You know what? You're only eight minutes.

[00:02:12] Malone's got, he's in like half the movie.

[00:02:14] I have not taken the stopwatch to Jack Palin's but his character dies

[00:02:18] before the 40 minute mark. We just watched executive decision on

[00:02:22] unclear and with Nick Weigar, correct? With Nick Weigar.

[00:02:26] And Steven Segal is in that movie. Of course. Much less than you think.

[00:02:31] It's so iconic that he gets taken out of that movie.

[00:02:36] I like executive decision entirely. Like I think it's a good movie.

[00:02:40] But the best thing it does is kill off Steven Segal.

[00:02:42] Not to go too far. No, spoilers for executive decision.

[00:02:45] Not to go too far away from Sean County, but I will say the best part

[00:02:48] about Steven Segal's death and executive decision is that it's not a kind

[00:02:52] of thing where the action that kills them happens and then it cuts

[00:02:56] to the other commandos and they react. It's it cuts to his body

[00:03:01] being sucked out into the air. Yes.

[00:03:03] And it's very funny. You see this mannequin just sort of like

[00:03:06] fly away in the air. And I think it's great.

[00:03:11] They are on an airplane.

[00:03:13] Weigar was texting us after he had done that episode with you

[00:03:17] and through to us the challenge of how would you cast that movie today?

[00:03:21] Who are the two appropriate movie stars? The one guy who's a little

[00:03:24] overqualified to be killed off that early and surprise the audience.

[00:03:28] And who's the guy who's kind of the brainy action star with the

[00:03:32] history and the gravitas to pull off the Russell part.

[00:03:35] And my two takes were put Damon in the Russell part.

[00:03:39] Here's a guy with action movie pedigree.

[00:03:41] Yeah. But he put class on him and you believe it.

[00:03:43] Right. And then I said the fucking Steven Segal,

[00:03:47] you put Gerard Butler in there.

[00:03:49] Right. And it would have the exact same time.

[00:03:52] And him dying. You're like, shit, they don't have him.

[00:03:54] Like you need that guy. Like you need the muscle.

[00:03:57] I think the difference though is that even by 96 Segal was very

[00:04:02] much on the down slope.

[00:04:03] Yes. Instead of having this terrible reputation.

[00:04:05] But Gerard people like Gerard Butler.

[00:04:07] We're not trying to place.

[00:04:09] We're not trying to say that Gerard Butler has Steven Segal's

[00:04:11] personality or politics. No, that is for sure.

[00:04:14] I agree. Seems like a great guy.

[00:04:16] But he did go from being like an A-list studio leading man

[00:04:19] for brief periods now being like the king of B movies.

[00:04:23] From secondary studios where for him to be in that type of role.

[00:04:28] Like Lionsgate has like a button they can press that calls his cell

[00:04:31] phone. Right. Like they just there's a G and they just

[00:04:34] like get us Butler.

[00:04:35] But the other thing with him is like and he he's schedules busy

[00:04:39] because he has to go to the funerals of like STX and every time

[00:04:43] one of these all the mid major studios that die right there.

[00:04:47] Like looking very solemn while there's like bagpipes playing.

[00:04:50] He's on bed rest for not bed rest.

[00:04:53] He's waiting bedside at catch up entertainment catch up

[00:04:57] entertainment. What are you talking about? Yeah, they're

[00:04:59] putting out Hallie Meyers's new movie.

[00:05:02] We're going deep in the weeds here.

[00:05:03] But what I liked about the Butler notion is that like similarly,

[00:05:07] if he showed up in like a universal, you know, like a major

[00:05:12] studio Matt Damon movie as like the second lead or the fake

[00:05:15] out lead, he'd be like this is weird.

[00:05:18] Butler's usually in smaller movies than this, but he's also

[00:05:21] always the guy. Yeah, that's right.

[00:05:23] He's never playing. It's never a two hander really.

[00:05:26] Like even playing which was sold a little bit as oh it's

[00:05:29] Butler and Colter Colter pieces out for like the middle

[00:05:32] hour of that movie.

[00:05:34] And that's Butler do his thing. Also, doesn't the plane piece

[00:05:36] out like they get off the plane?

[00:05:38] They get off the plane. They get off the plane. I like that

[00:05:40] movie. I enjoyed it. Here's my take on that movie.

[00:05:43] I think Colter is fucking unbelievable in it.

[00:05:46] And I'm like really into their dynamic.

[00:05:49] And then he disappears and he only comes back at the

[00:05:52] very end. They've announced that the plane sequel is a

[00:05:55] Colter spin off, which is exactly what I want.

[00:05:58] What's it called? I want to say it's called train.

[00:06:01] I'm not joking. I think it might be.

[00:06:04] You're wrong. It's called ship.

[00:06:06] Okay. Well, it's called ship a little more similar to the

[00:06:10] movie we're talking about. May make a cameo appearance.

[00:06:12] Okay. But yes, you're right. It's going to be my

[00:06:14] Colter centric.

[00:06:16] I wanted that whole movie to be the two of them side

[00:06:18] by side the entire time that haven't been said there's

[00:06:20] the one fucking one take fight sequence that

[00:06:22] Rudd Butler has that is so good and how messy it is

[00:06:26] and how they like let him take moments where he's out of

[00:06:29] breath. Yeah. And he's like fumbling to like keep up

[00:06:32] that shit rolls. Have you seen plane? No, plane has

[00:06:36] one of my favorite movie weapons. It's like a

[00:06:39] super gun that when it shoots people with tears

[00:06:41] chunks out of them. I was a big fan of that.

[00:06:44] I don't think the military should have been

[00:06:46] much like the caterpillar drive. It's too powerful.

[00:06:50] This is my other complaint with plane. You got the

[00:06:53] scene where all all the passengers are boarding the

[00:06:55] plane and you're like, okay, introduce me some good

[00:06:58] character. Correct one. Who are the fun people who

[00:07:00] are all going to have their little threads going on?

[00:07:02] Fucking Joey Slotnik boards the plane. Oh hell yeah.

[00:07:05] I'm in. I'm in the clear. I'm good. And then

[00:07:09] Slotnik also kind of disappears. Well, enough

[00:07:12] Slotnik for you. Well, you know, do your own

[00:07:16] plane. I will. It's called by plane. Yeah,

[00:07:20] exactly. It's a true two-hander. Yeah. Right.

[00:07:23] Introduce our podcast please. This is blank check

[00:07:26] with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

[00:07:28] It's a podcast about filmographies directors who

[00:07:30] have massive success early on in their careers

[00:07:32] and are given a series of blank checks make whatever

[00:07:35] crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes

[00:07:37] those checks clear and sometimes they bounce

[00:07:39] baby. Baby. It's also a podcast about dumb

[00:07:42] movies. Yes, it is. Mr. Connery himself is here

[00:07:47] with us today. That's true. Yeah, he's not going

[00:07:50] to talk much unless I suddenly feel a lot of

[00:07:52] confidence. But he would agree that we all love

[00:07:55] dumb movies. We all love the movies and this

[00:07:57] is one of them. We weirdly don't talk about

[00:07:59] him a lot on this show. John Connery? No.

[00:08:02] We got another one coming up in the same series.

[00:08:05] Yeah. One I've never seen. I'll say this

[00:08:08] is like the one me tuning I've never seen.

[00:08:10] Here's a spoiler. Take your time on that one.

[00:08:13] New rush. I would actually disagree and say

[00:08:16] make it top priority. Okay, maybe load up.

[00:08:18] Make it top priority in the way that you want to

[00:08:20] get tough things out of the way. Yes.

[00:08:22] Like, you know, you want to do your chores.

[00:08:25] You'll feel better long term if you watch

[00:08:27] Medicine Man sooner rather than later.

[00:08:29] Okay. It's quite a weird film.

[00:08:33] I suppose the thing with Connery is obviously

[00:08:36] we have not discussed his Bond films.

[00:08:38] And apart from that, he did work kind of

[00:08:41] sporadically at a certain point.

[00:08:43] Sure. You know, obviously we'll probably one day

[00:08:46] do Indiana Jones. And last crusade.

[00:08:48] Those are the two that feel inevitable.

[00:08:50] We'll probably do some Highlander commentary.

[00:08:54] Certainly if Ben has to say.

[00:08:56] I would love to be on a Highlander commentary

[00:08:58] when I went out there. Okay.

[00:09:00] All right. I love the Highlander.

[00:09:02] Do you like Highlander too, the quickening?

[00:09:04] I like all Highlander. All Highlander.

[00:09:07] I would say there can only be one, but I'm going to allow

[00:09:10] there to be two huge fans of Highlander.

[00:09:13] There was a point a couple years ago where we were

[00:09:16] recording a Patreon episode and we because of

[00:09:19] scheduling, we didn't know what the next series was going to be.

[00:09:21] I think it was like recorded very far in advance.

[00:09:24] And David and I were on Mike saying like,

[00:09:27] and what's coming up next?

[00:09:28] We don't know yet. And Ben goes, I have an idea.

[00:09:30] And we go, what is it?

[00:09:32] And Ben just starts going like this.

[00:09:34] Like pantomiming sword fighting.

[00:09:37] And we said like, what are you doing, Ben?

[00:09:39] And he just did it with more intensity as if like,

[00:09:42] this is so obvious.

[00:09:44] And then we stopped recording.

[00:09:45] We went Ben, what he went Highlander.

[00:09:47] Yeah, but Ben, it's obvious.

[00:09:48] As if it's the only movie where people do that.

[00:09:50] I would have gotten.

[00:09:51] If I'm putting my hands up like this in the air,

[00:09:55] that can only mean one thing.

[00:09:57] There can only be one.

[00:09:59] Yeah. It could only mean one thing.

[00:10:01] Listen, this isn't an episode on Highlander,

[00:10:03] but now we know.

[00:10:05] Yes, that our great guest would be down.

[00:10:08] All the more reason to do it.

[00:10:10] All the more reason to go through the quickening.

[00:10:12] That's that's a highlander.

[00:10:14] But this today, yes, absolutely.

[00:10:15] This is another entry into a mini series on the films of John McTiernan.

[00:10:19] Yes.

[00:10:20] Big McTee.

[00:10:22] It's called Podd Hard with a Vengecast.

[00:10:26] Good job.

[00:10:27] Although this is another title we could have used if we wanted to.

[00:10:30] It has the space.

[00:10:31] Of course.

[00:10:32] The amount of words.

[00:10:33] The Podd for Red Octobre cast.

[00:10:35] Casttober probably is what I would have done.

[00:10:38] Hun for Red October is what we're talking today

[00:10:40] with a man who I would say among his many esteemed credits and titles.

[00:10:45] One of America's preeminent Hun for Red October experts.

[00:10:48] Scholars?

[00:10:49] I guess I've made my name somewhat as a guy who likes Tom Clancy.

[00:10:57] I message you, I say we're doing McTiernan.

[00:10:59] You go, oh fuck.

[00:11:01] A lot of interesting opportunities there, right?

[00:11:03] And you're texting through them in real time and you're like,

[00:11:05] you're tired with the vengeance would be fun to do this and that.

[00:11:09] And then you just go, I guess I just kind of have to do Red October.

[00:11:12] Right?

[00:11:13] We didn't nudge you and you were like, I know I've talked about it in a lot of places.

[00:11:17] I've talked about it at length.

[00:11:19] I maybe shouldn't fight this and I should just do Red October.

[00:11:22] Right.

[00:11:23] Yeah.

[00:11:24] Would you say this is one of your all time favorite movies or is it just a movie

[00:11:27] that's so embodies the type of thing you'd like in movies that you sort of end up going back to it a lot?

[00:11:33] I think it's both of those.

[00:11:34] It is 100% one of my all time favorite movies.

[00:11:37] It's a comfort movie for me.

[00:11:38] I can put this on whenever and just sort of vibe out to it.

[00:11:42] It's impossible for me to try to do other things while watching it.

[00:11:46] Basically Tim and I'm just like locked in, like this is very compelling and I'm happy to watch it.

[00:11:52] It's also when I say it's a comfort movie, you know, I've maybe mentioned this on the show before,

[00:11:56] but my parents were in the military and they're in the Navy in particular.

[00:11:58] I grew up on a Navy town and a lot of time on Navy bases, new sub-submariners like some of my friends' parents were sub-mariners.

[00:12:07] Name War?

[00:12:08] Sorry.

[00:12:09] Yes.

[00:12:10] First I thought I heard name one.

[00:12:13] I was like, that's weird.

[00:12:14] Name a Submariner.

[00:12:15] Name War.

[00:12:16] Yes.

[00:12:17] Yeah.

[00:12:18] Basically started a very specific and intense job that you have to do.

[00:12:21] Like they put you through a lot of batteries of tests for, right?

[00:12:25] Yeah.

[00:12:26] You're going to have to get used to being in a windowless box for months.

[00:12:29] For months.

[00:12:30] And having little wings on your ankles, which most people can't pull off.

[00:12:33] It really is worth saying they are on those things for months.

[00:12:36] Yeah.

[00:12:37] But anyway, so it's also just I things that are sort of US Navy centric are very comforting to me because it's just my childhood.

[00:12:45] It's sort of like the kinds of people, the environment I grew up around.

[00:12:49] So it's a comfort movie in that regard to my favorite movies, but it also is kind of an encapsulation of a lot of the things I like in movies.

[00:12:57] I was going to say, like I know that.

[00:12:59] I knew that and I knew it was a comfort for me when you watch it.

[00:13:03] And I was curious of like, is it also would you put it on like your personal top 10?

[00:13:07] Because their movies, like what you're describing where I'm like, that embodies what I like out of a certain type of film.

[00:13:13] What I wish we had more of.

[00:13:15] I could watch it any day.

[00:13:16] Would I put it all the way at my top tier?

[00:13:19] But this is a movie where you can be like, no, it's a comfort food movie.

[00:13:22] It's like the perfect example of a genre we don't get enough of.

[00:13:25] And also you could argue it's kind of like underrated as a serious film.

[00:13:30] Like it is not taken seriously enough.

[00:13:32] I think that's on this rewatch.

[00:13:34] That was the thing that struck me the most, which is that it's, you know, we lump it in with the Tom Clancy thrillers.

[00:13:40] Yeah.

[00:13:41] It's sequel, Patriot games, Grand President Danger movies I like, but are a little popier.

[00:13:45] Yes.

[00:13:46] Than this is, but this isn't a lot of ways like a quite serious thriller.

[00:13:49] There aren't.

[00:13:50] There's very little action.

[00:13:52] Right.

[00:13:53] There's very little action to the extent like really be the dramatic arc of Jack Ryan and this is less overcoming any physical obstacles,

[00:14:02] but just trying to persuade people like at every and every at every stage of the movie, he has to persuade someone.

[00:14:09] Yeah.

[00:14:10] Until finally we get to the last act where he now has to survive.

[00:14:15] There is one gun battle.

[00:14:16] Yeah, there's a guy.

[00:14:17] But even then like I love Crimson Tide, a great submarine film.

[00:14:21] You know, but that movie is obviously like absurd.

[00:14:24] Right.

[00:14:25] It's about an absurd scenario and everyone it's egos are raging and there's yelling and there's guns being pointed and all that.

[00:14:30] I guess like that's what I'm throwing as a comparison point.

[00:14:32] This is like Crimson Tide like rules.

[00:14:34] Sure.

[00:14:35] Love it.

[00:14:36] Of rocks.

[00:14:37] And we don't get enough of anymore high level craft comfort food, but you couldn't argue like this probably should have been nominated for best picture.

[00:14:45] Seriously.

[00:14:46] That I think that's exactly right.

[00:14:48] Crimson Tide is is a it's a pulp novel of a film.

[00:14:52] Yes.

[00:14:53] In Humphrodictorpor is not it is it is a kind of a serious thriller with some legitimate somber moments in it and moments of real kind of dread.

[00:15:04] My favorite and not just because I love his voice, but when Fred Thompson when the when the it looks like an F-16 or F-14 can't make its landing on the aircraft carrier.

[00:15:14] And Fred Thompson's like this is going to get out of control and be lucky to live through it, which is a great line delivery is a great scene.

[00:15:21] It's sort of reminding the audience that like this is all very scary for these people what's happening.

[00:15:27] Yes.

[00:15:28] But also it's plugged into obviously what's happening in the real world.

[00:15:31] It's 1990.

[00:15:32] Yeah.

[00:15:33] The Cold War is still ongoing.

[00:15:35] Right.

[00:15:36] Soviet Russia is actually kind of in the state of slow motion collapse.

[00:15:39] This isn't even a recent history movie when it comes out.

[00:15:42] It is a movie about a different side of the history that people are still in.

[00:15:46] Right.

[00:15:47] Exactly.

[00:15:48] Right.

[00:15:49] It's just like sliding this movie right watching this movie in 1990 must have been like watching dumb money in 2023.

[00:15:54] Right.

[00:15:55] Where you're like, I guess we're a little past this but also kind of not really almost barely.

[00:16:00] Yeah.

[00:16:01] Right.

[00:16:02] I'm looking are you doing what I'm doing, David?

[00:16:04] Reading Fred Thompson's IMDb picture.

[00:16:05] Well that we're going to talk about for an hour.

[00:16:07] No, I'm like looking at Best Picture nominees from 1990.

[00:16:10] Sure.

[00:16:11] That's the Dances of Wolves here, right?

[00:16:14] I like this movie tremendously.

[00:16:15] I've seen it before.

[00:16:16] I did have the same thought rewatching this of like this movie actually should be taken more seriously and I'm surprised it wasn't taken more seriously at the moment.

[00:16:25] Considering that like the fugitive gets nominated for Best Picture three years later.

[00:16:29] That's true.

[00:16:30] The 90s were an era where there was a sort of balancing of like if you had top level great movie star high craftsmanship adult popcorn movies that punch above their weight class they would be taken seriously as Oscar contenders.

[00:16:44] Yeah.

[00:16:45] And this is certainly a movie like McTurnan wasn't an oscarie filmmaker.

[00:16:50] No, what?

[00:16:51] At all.

[00:16:52] No, no he wasn't.

[00:16:53] Yeah sorry.

[00:16:54] The universe this being the movie that like kicks him up to like you know what you get to make more adult kind of films.

[00:17:00] You're more cerebral and less action.

[00:17:02] Well it kind of is in that he makes Madison Man after this which I do feel like is him trying that and maybe not succeeding.

[00:17:12] Yes.

[00:17:13] The Oscars were just very different back then because you look at the Best Picture list and it's Dance of the Wolves and Good Fellas which and Ghost which are all big hits.

[00:17:21] Yes.

[00:17:22] And then Awakening which is sort of like the kind of you know middling prestigey thing no offense to Awakening that they used to really go for.

[00:17:31] Correct.

[00:17:32] And then Godfather part three which like kind of snuck into that nomination.

[00:17:36] Yeah.

[00:17:37] Like that was a weird I guess we have to do this.

[00:17:39] Right and then later they're like why did we do that?

[00:17:42] Like you know but it's a weird that's a weird year because a lot of good movies.

[00:17:48] But it's like a lot of the good movies of 1990 are too weird for the Oscars.

[00:17:52] It's like this Miller's Crossing Total Recall Wild at Heart Moe Better Blues like these movies are just a little too odd.

[00:18:01] Every other movie you've listed though I agree with being too odd and I look at this.

[00:18:05] This is not too odd.

[00:18:06] This is too commercial I guess like I guess that was what they held against it.

[00:18:10] I mean we read about McTiernan and we will dig into all of this but McTiernan read this book early tried to option himself even before he ends up coming back around to getting hired to make this at Paramount.

[00:18:20] And was just like this is the vehicle to make the kind of movie they don't make anymore.

[00:18:24] Like in 1990 or in the mid 80s when he reads it for the first time he's like this is a throwback which now we're watching it as a throwback to like they don't make them like this anymore throwbacks to the movies of the 60s.

[00:18:37] But I could see I mean I could see this as a throwback to it's a throwback to the Cain Mutiny right.

[00:18:41] It's a throwback to seven days in May.

[00:18:45] I don't know a lot of those sort of like Cold War thrillers set in the halls of power right where it's again it's mostly I mean most of what is happening it's just guys talking in rooms.

[00:18:57] Ten situations should we do this.

[00:18:59] What do I go tell the president they'll say I love Phil I love it when guys have to know what they have to go tell the president.

[00:19:06] Yeah gentlemen I have to go tell the president something.

[00:19:09] The term maternity use in an interview when the movie was coming out he said it's a sort of old fashioned men's movie.

[00:19:16] Well there have been very few of them in the last 20 years it has adventure and yet it does not offend your intellect.

[00:19:21] Now old fashioned men's movies an interesting phrasing but that feels like the real thing it has a venture and yet it does not offend your intellect.

[00:19:28] I believe the only woman in this movie is Gates McFadden who you see for 30 seconds as Jack Ryan departs.

[00:19:34] And his daughter who you see for 30 seconds right.

[00:19:36] Yes she actually has a lot more going on than Gates McFadden the daughter.

[00:19:39] I'll say another another movie along these lines run silent run deep.

[00:19:43] Never seen that.

[00:19:44] I've never seen that either.

[00:19:45] That's a submarine movie submarine movie Cart Gable Bert Langcaster old Cart Gable right.

[00:19:53] Yeah it's Krusty Cart Gable.

[00:19:55] That sounds good.

[00:19:56] Have you read The Hunt for Red October the book by Tom Clancy many years ago.

[00:20:00] Yes when I was in high school.

[00:20:01] Now I will admit I have never read a Tom Clancy novel because they have always been described to me as like filled with descriptions of like how to clean guns and so on and so forth.

[00:20:11] Like not in a psychotic way just in like an incredibly detailed right.

[00:20:14] In the same way that like Moby Dick is like 90% whale fact.

[00:20:18] This is what a whale is made him up.

[00:20:20] He's like whales can talk to plants and stuff and you're like sure he can well Herman Herman yeah whatever.

[00:20:26] Yeah Tom Clancy novels are like it's like half intense descriptions of guns of munitions of submarines and then 50% right wing a Jip prop.

[00:20:37] Right David's missing the bigger thing here though there's a clear explanation for why you've never read a Tom Clancy novel.

[00:20:42] What's that you don't like flying.

[00:20:44] Well then I would what how are you going to acquire a Tom Clancy book if you never go to the airport.

[00:20:50] You can probably get them at a train station.

[00:20:53] If you try to read them anywhere but a plane if you try to read them on the ground.

[00:20:58] I just remember a friend of mine in high school reading Rainbow Six which is the size of my head.

[00:21:03] It's a very large book yeah and me being like that's like the video game like is it good and he was like.

[00:21:10] It's like a lot it's like really heavy yeah like because you're like that game 13 year olds play where they just murky each other.

[00:21:19] Like Griffin you just described my third year.

[00:21:23] Yes like it's not like his books are densely written or whatever but it's just like he just will describe things I don't know what is it like like.

[00:21:32] I believe this is the case that right October Tom Clancy had never been on a US Navy submarine but his descriptions right of a US Navy submarine.

[00:21:41] We're so detailed right that federal authorities were like are you a spy right.

[00:21:48] Their response was who cleared this right yes and so which is to say that the books were Tom Clancy himself an incredible pedant and the books reflect that there's sort of full of insane detail about this world of military equipment of military procedure and Humphrey October is very much like this.

[00:22:10] But also on October the book is much more hawkish and like anti-soviet than the movie is the Reagan administration or Ronald Reagan.

[00:22:20] He loved it love this book that was the origin of his success right was Reagan being like I like this book right right and I can imagine I didn't like that but I think he said it's a good yarn.

[00:22:31] I can imagine you know part of me wonders if the difficulty the movie may have had getting made has to do with just like the political valence.

[00:22:41] Right the book is seen as maybe a little too right wing for lefty Hollywood there's this great anecdote that I mean we'll dig into all this deeper but right here at class Maria Brandauer drops out he was supposed to play right.

[00:22:57] He was a famous right.

[00:23:01] Facts it's a contrary on a Friday to potentially have him show up to film on Monday.

[00:23:05] That's the stakes and the pressure and the turnaround of this thing and he reads it and he's like it's good but like I'm not going to do the voice it's good but like isn't it doesn't feel a little retrograde and they realize that when they fax it to him they had left off the front page that explains the movie is set in 1984.

[00:23:21] Because it's right.

[00:23:22] Right and he was like this feels like six years behind where we are right now.

[00:23:26] Yeah, yeah and like that distance for him then he was like oh it's okay you know the space between when Ronald Reagan is like I endorse this and the time they're actually making the movie is like well now it's a little bit of a document but I'll say and I'm sure we'll talk about this more later the movie is not the movie has a lot of respect for the Soviet Navy right for Soviet.

[00:23:51] Sailors and to some extent for the Soviet Union as sort of like another world power the fact that be the you know the.

[00:24:01] The music the music you one of the prominent music use of the film is the Soviet national anthem and not played for dread right played kind of for triumph and for gravitas I think that marks it actually as it takes place in 1984 but it really isn't it really is.

[00:24:20] In the cold war is almost kind of over movie yes the cold war is almost over and we have a lot more in common with these people than we think well and there are two explanations for what you're saying right quote from mcTiernan when he's promoting this movie in 1990 which it's pretty

[00:24:36] wild that he admitted this at the time while selling the film but he said to the LA Times I had a secret agenda while making this film you may think this sounds silly but I saw this piece as a second Russian Revolution to me the emotional heart of the movie comes in the Soviet sailor sing their national anthem so he's reading this book early but immediately digging into like there is a way to actually not only.

[00:24:58] To pick their side of the story with integrity but make that sort of like a linchpin of perspective and then the second thing is when Connery comes on suddenly now this guy needs to have a much greater internal life because you need to justify getting one of the biggest movie stars in history.

[00:25:15] Yeah sure to play the villain and he brings in John Milius and is like rewrite all of the Russian stuff right and make it interesting and make it human.

[00:25:24] Alright Griffin be quiet for a second I need to tell you something and I'm going to actually call you out.

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[00:26:53] Have you read other Tom Clancy looks like how many Jack Ryan novels have you read I've read clear and present danger.

[00:27:00] Yeah static down the cartels please editorialize the yeah each one as Jamel list them rainbow six and then there's the one who's name I forget when.

[00:27:15] That's the same. Yeah there's a character named Ding Chavez.

[00:27:19] Yes that's right. That's a good fucking name who's in clear and present danger as well. Yes.

[00:27:23] And there's a book whose name I title forget but basically what happens is there's a terrorist attack that destroys the White House.

[00:27:30] It's very like pre 9 11 9 11 the book of course you're talking about I believe is called debt of honor.

[00:27:36] That's right. Yes. And Jack Ryan becomes president.

[00:27:38] Jack Ryan's kind of like a like the greatest Mary Sue of 90s Pulp.

[00:27:41] Yes. Pulp reaction. What if a CIA analyst nerd but he was also like he did he wasn't Marine. Yeah like let's not forget became the president a Republican president.

[00:27:51] Right of course explicitly. Yeah. Yeah I mean what a Democrat do you get the dick sucks exactly and it's like it's like it's thrust upon he doesn't he doesn't do anything so guverful as like run for president disgusting.

[00:28:04] No it's like he was like secretary is something or other right like everyone dies so he's the national security advisor or something so he has to be the president.

[00:28:14] Oh yeah executive orders that's the first one where he's the president and he's like right he's a he's a hero of brain and intellect but also he is only played by the most handsome men in Hollywood.

[00:28:23] Well that's what's interesting about the Jack Ryan character because again Envision as not a slubby middle aged white guy like a middle age. The best of middle aged white guy could be basically.

[00:28:38] Sure something of a Clancy analog right. He's Irish Catholic much like Clancy you know he's a nerd.

[00:28:45] And it's like this power fantasy. It's like you don't the things that make you unappealing and that make you kind of a butt of cultural jokes are actually the things that make you the hero in this story.

[00:29:01] Right. And you are you're also physically capable you don't need to be right in this movie. Ryan's really only physical in the last like 10 minutes. Yeah.

[00:29:10] So you need to be physically capable but you are. Yes and you can. I'm ready to go right if people throw down I'm ready to go.

[00:29:18] I do think Baldwin as much as Baldwin something of a pretty boy Baldwin the star of this film is the best Jack Ryan. I like the Ford movies a lot but they just feel like Harrison Ford is the hero.

[00:29:33] The big thing that jumped out like he has less of a sense of Jack Ryan. No I'm Harrison Ford American hero like you know that's what I'm doing but even I think Ford still works in the character precisely because he's sort of like peak middle aged white man.

[00:29:47] He's like everyone wanted to be right in the same way and then with the later entries and Affleck and some of all fears and then Chris Pine and Jack Ryan shadow recruit and then John Krasinski the definitive Jack Ryan.

[00:30:00] Yeah. Of course in this Amazon series I think those missed the point of the character. Well they all start to push him more towards a conventional action hero. Yeah he's more borny. Right. Yeah.

[00:30:12] Jack Ryan shadow recruit is a terrible movie but it's pretty awful but I don't know I saw it in theaters. I like some of all fears I actually like that movie quite a bit even though I don't think it's good I do enjoy watching it.

[00:30:22] I saw that in theaters opening weekend. I don't remember it very well except for of course the nuclear bomb blows up at the Super Bowl and kills the president which is a bummer for that guy.

[00:30:34] David I also saw that movie opening weekend when I was like 15 years old. And this was in Britain like that movie did not move in Britain. No one in Britain cares about Jack Ryan.

[00:30:46] That movie had a Game Boy color game. That movie was just like straight down the middle summer blockbuster for children. Yeah I guess so and yeah that's the thing I'm watching this movie about like yeah guys with epaulettes being like and you know what is what is deputy director

[00:31:01] I stake my career on it. I did see it opening weekend. Leaves Shriver plays John Clark in that one I believe. Yes. I mean this is the thing that's much like the Hannibal series the thing that's fun with the Clancy movies the Ryan verse films is tracking the different castings of every supporting part

[00:31:21] and being like how weird is it that those four guys all played that same character. Right. John Clark has been played by Willem Dafoe Leaves Shriver and of course Michael B Jordan right in without remorse.

[00:31:30] Three identical actors which is without remorse. Exactly. As I watched on streaming I totally forgot about without it happened just like I saw it. Do you Jack Ryan think I watched this or do you like Clancy think I want Clancy.

[00:31:43] I mean it's based on a Clancy book. So the hunt for October of course fame it's a famous sort of rags the richest story Tom Clancy is just insurance agent he writes this insane novel in his spare time submits it to the Naval Institute Press

[00:31:55] the person there they basically only ever published like manuals but they're like well maybe we can publish fiction. The editor reads it and is like I think this is a potential bestseller if I can strip like 100 pages of submarine descriptions out of it.

[00:32:09] Yeah. Yeah. Like whatever is published is is edited down from whatever he initially submitted and as you say that the famous line is the Naval Secretary said who the hell cleared this book basically yeah he'd never been on a submarine he was paid $5,000 dollars Ronald Reagan said he knows my kind of yarn and became a huge hit and so the book was optioned early

[00:32:33] for just $40,000 and churned away and was ignored McTurnan like you said was initially interested yeah and this is the 80s I think this book is probably seen as like a little too cerebral and boring that was the thing people are reading the breakdown once it had been optioned and was being pitched as a studio film they're like well it's expensive because it requires big submarines and special effects but it's mostly about

[00:33:03] conversations and it's incredibly dense and technical and there's a lot of information that you need to impart upon the audience and keep them interested in which is like a very hard task I think most people just went like too difficult.

[00:33:17] But they eventually get the Navy on board and why does the Navy get interested in being involved with this movie Jamel.

[00:33:23] I do not know Top Gun had just come out and done such great business for them jealous for the Naval aviation and all that that they were like maybe this can be a recruitment tool for suppering they thought this was the text that would make people sign up to go inside

[00:33:40] like the least cool in a way or at least sort of the least I mean the toughest one to want to do is serve on a pretty sad haunted story yeah yeah yeah you talked with Tony Gilroy about this I believe on his episode of your podcast.

[00:33:56] I wouldn't even go in danger what you call up by now yes I wouldn't even go in the submarine for a tour or would I would you go into the submarine say you're making a movie about a submarine.

[00:34:08] With the with the top open that I might do but I wouldn't go down I would 100% go down I think I could totally be in a submarine I'm not claustrophobic at all it doesn't bother me that bends on board to I think I think I think I could totally do a submarine I think the minute they closed

[00:34:25] the top and were like noises started to happen I would actually have a panic attack and I would run out of the there'd be like a David hole in this and like water.

[00:34:35] I would say I would say there are few environments I think of as being less inviting and less appealing to me than submarine and I think I have I like boats I like the water I'm not opposed to those you know what I don't like the water.

[00:34:49] I don't like the water I don't think I deal with claustrophobia as much but I don't like the water and then being in the water in a tube without we.

[00:35:00] Yeah I've so I've never been on when I've been I think I mentioned that I've been on aircraft carriers I've been on sort of like other naval vessels those are those are like in a whole order that's like you know it's a difference between being in a mansion and being in like a tiny studio apartment right like an aircraft carrier is truly a massive thing.

[00:35:15] The interesting thing to me about submarines or submarines in film was there are a lot of submarine movies I think all of them are usually pretty decent because I think it's just like a it's a space that is good for creating drama.

[00:35:27] Yes, no one can go anywhere and so all things must be hast out like people are right next to each other and it's it works for drama it's like boxing movies where you're like why did boxing movies have a better track record than any other sport in America and it's like because it's just it boils down to truth.

[00:35:44] Right.

[00:35:45] We're working out their differences in a physicalized form.

[00:35:48] Boxing is literally cinematic.

[00:35:50] Right and like a submarine is kind of like a physicalized version of the pressures of any sort of military operation.

[00:35:56] Yes, it's interesting to me that the the conceit of the submarine movie has not been used in sort of like other kinds of genres like there aren't very many space movies.

[00:36:05] There should be more space submarine movies that are sort of call submarine movies.

[00:36:10] We were before we were recording I was talking about Master and Commander that's like there's like there's like two ship movies.

[00:36:17] Yeah, but Master and Commander is in a lot of ways like a submarine movie.

[00:36:21] That's a good take something like Sunshine has a submarine.

[00:36:26] I mean, I love about that movies.

[00:36:29] Yeah, obviously the try to get at the claustrophobia but no and the mad like more I think sometimes I mean that's we've talked about this but the thing that's so great and sometimes that feeling of like these people have all been stuck in here.

[00:36:40] Together with each other for so long and you're starting at this like kind of breaking point.

[00:36:46] But like Sunshine is not as much a military movie obviously they are like they have ranks and stuff but like the submarine is also about like this is a tightly honed psychological ecosystem like you really do listen to that guy and you know like.

[00:37:00] There are hierarchies that must be followed there are rules that have to be attended to which is what I love about Crimson Tide is that George Zunza is like I can't I.

[00:37:09] I have to decide what then sell because like that's what my military brain is telling me to do like that.

[00:37:14] Right, that's how this should be working and even though he doesn't like him.

[00:37:17] Can I read these two quotes about the notion of this movie being a potential recruitment tool.

[00:37:23] Sure.

[00:37:24] So J. H. Patton Jr. says Top Gun did well as a recruitment tool for pilots but it probably hurt the submarine force because we compete for the same kids.

[00:37:33] So they're not only looking at what Top Gun did with jealousy but they were like that actually bit into our audience.

[00:37:40] It made that shit seem too cool.

[00:37:42] Yeah, because that's a fucking comic book movie where the coolest guy in the world tells everyone to go fuck off does everything exactly the way he wants to it looks awesome and everyone wants to fuck him right.

[00:37:55] And like oh a couple less cool guys unfortunately die along the way he has tragic loss but he's the rebel and nothing can stop him right.

[00:38:03] Yeah.

[00:38:04] And then Captain Michael T. Sherman says the submarine service has been quote the silent service both practically and philosophically that will change with red October the public is going to be amazed at the technology and the skill involved.

[00:38:17] Now what he's saying is correct and that that is exactly what's interesting about this movie but is not something that makes a 15 year old holy shit I got to do that right in the way that Top Gun you watch that and you're like I could be fucking Superman.

[00:38:31] And the funny and interesting thing is that like crimson tide which is much more along another Tony Scott picture much more along those lines.

[00:38:40] Yes.

[00:38:41] It's much more like way more cerebral than top gun right like it's just like I don't think it's possible to make an action packed Top Gun Esk movie know about being on a submarine impossible.

[00:38:53] You can make a fun movie like down Paris Benz.

[00:38:56] Yes, you could do it down periscope certainly and that I mean that entices people because they're like I can have a bunch of friends we could get into some hijinks lonely but if I joined the crew of a submarine.

[00:39:10] So John McTernan has long been interested in this movie he's initially maybe going to make a flight of the intruder which John Millius ends up making not a well known movie.

[00:39:19] That's the Defoe one.

[00:39:20] Danny Glover and yeah, it's all right.

[00:39:23] It's right it doesn't really work out he does as you say called an old fashioned men's movie has adventure and yet does not offend your intellect.

[00:39:31] This quote I like though and I feel like you'll like Griffin he says also it's Treasure Island it's the story of a boy who has to go off and find the scariest man of the sea on earth.

[00:39:40] And he turns out to be a sweet old bastard once I realized that I had the movie is a through line I love and McTernan that whether he's right or wrong it's it's common across his best films in his worst films.

[00:39:52] He always has a quote that JJ has pulled up that's like at some point of click for me I read the script and I went oh it's blank where he's like die hard is midsummer's night dream.

[00:40:01] Like last action hero is King Kong like he's always like there is some kind of mythic text that I'm looking at and I'm mapping the story on to that which is kind of smart in this way where he makes films with very complicated plots.

[00:40:15] Yeah, and a lot of characters and then he like relates it to a very successful totemic version of the basic core of what the movie is.

[00:40:24] And then he said like as they were adapting the film around this he was just like take the elements from the book that map on to Treasure Island most.

[00:40:34] That's the thing they're going through 700 page book with Larry Ferguson the screenwriter.

[00:40:39] Yeah, and he's just like does this have Treasure Island vibes keep it does it not it's got to go Tom Clancy very upfront about like I realize once someone told me one page equals one minute of screen time.

[00:40:50] I realized half my book was going to have to go basically. Yeah, I made my piece with it like he seems positive on this movie and also I mean I know he's dead now.

[00:41:00] RIP like you know but David's pointing to this guy when I had that thought as well.

[00:41:06] We all thought about pointing Tom Clancy does not seem like someone who is especially worried about his name being used for branding and merchandise.

[00:41:14] I'm sure he was just happy that it's going to be a movie.

[00:41:17] How much Xbox do you think Tom Clancy played his life given that his name was on like 50 Xbox games.

[00:41:24] Well, he liked SSX tricky right? That's the one I know he didn't even like Rainbow Six but he did play a lot of fable.

[00:41:31] So McTurden decides to do this instead of Sergeant Rock.

[00:41:34] If you guys know Sergeant Rock the comic book character DC military hero Stephen DeSousa had written that up.

[00:41:43] It's Joel Silver and Schwarzenegger is going to be like a full predator routine.

[00:41:48] Yes, and he was going to make this insane sort of action packed Sergeant Rock movie.

[00:41:53] He wanted John Cleese to be in it passes him the script and Cleese is like this sucks.

[00:41:57] Yeah, it's just a bunch of action scenes and then John McTurden loses interest because he's like without Cleese where this movie won't have whatever it is I want.

[00:42:07] Sergeant Rock was like a character in a tone and like imagery but he the comics are very interesting but he's like there's no core story there.

[00:42:17] And they wrote this script that kind of had no core story outside of like extremity and intensity.

[00:42:22] And I was like there has to be some test for him make it a like odd couple of comedy of manners with John Cleese is like an uptight British officer.

[00:42:31] And he was like if that's the thing then I can do all the extremity around that and I think he said that like at the moment they offered to Cleese Predator hadn't come out yet.

[00:42:41] Where he kind of felt like if Predator existed as a proof of concept.

[00:42:45] Maybe you could see that.

[00:42:47] We haven't asked but I assume you like the film's Predator and Die Hard.

[00:42:48] I do like the film's Predator and Die Hard.

[00:42:51] I think they're very good, yes.

[00:42:53] Old fashioned men's movies.

[00:42:55] Yeah, old fashioned men's movies.

[00:42:57] You know as my grandfather likes to enjoy movies a man covered in mud fighting a monster.

[00:43:03] Big lizard with crazy teeth.

[00:43:06] Two great dirty men movies.

[00:43:08] Yeah, that's true.

[00:43:10] Number one choice for Jack Ryan, Kevin Costner made off of the Untouched.

[00:43:13] A ton of sense.

[00:43:15] America's man.

[00:43:17] It's like he's probably the closest thing to Redford, like the new Redford right?

[00:43:22] Like just kind of like a fair haired kind of you know a list face.

[00:43:27] He says no.

[00:43:29] Then he wants Harrison Ford very, very badly buttonholes him at the premiere of Working Girl.

[00:43:35] Harrison Ford says he wants to play the Russian captain.

[00:43:37] Interesting.

[00:43:39] He gets his chance with K-19 the widowmaker many years later.

[00:43:41] And he proves us all right or not letting him play the Russian captain at this time.

[00:43:47] Have you seen K-19 the widowmaker?

[00:43:49] I have not seen K-19.

[00:43:51] It's a bleak movie.

[00:43:53] It's really bleak.

[00:43:55] They just announced it's finally coming out on 4K and we're like, I guess we're going to give this another spin.

[00:44:01] Like give it another try.

[00:44:03] Are you kidding?

[00:44:05] You're going to buy it?

[00:44:07] Shell Factory is going through the effort.

[00:44:08] That is one of the worst movies we've ever done on this show.

[00:44:12] 4K screen straight from the negative.

[00:44:14] You know it's about a nuclear disaster, you know so it's a lot of people dying of radiation sickness on a submarine.

[00:44:21] In certain ways I do think it's the most boring movie we've ever covered on this show and it's not the worst.

[00:44:26] But it is a movie where it's like Stoic Harrison Ford playing Russian which allows him to go even more stoic.

[00:44:33] Everything goes wrong 10 minutes in and then all the men sort of silently stand there and go like, I guess we're all just going to die slowly.

[00:44:40] Who else is in Working Girl?

[00:44:42] The other person who's in Working Girl is one Alec Baldwin.

[00:44:45] Alec Baldwin and Baldwin's perspective on how he ends up getting the role is,

[00:44:49] I was at the point in my career where there were five guys who had to die before I got the part.

[00:44:53] They had to pass or die.

[00:44:55] Thankfully none of them died.

[00:44:57] Okay Alec, Jesus, almost any quote I read from that man right now.

[00:44:59] Let him finish the quote.

[00:45:01] That's the end of the quote.

[00:45:04] Baldwin obviously best known at that point is a supporting player, Beetlejuice, married to the mob, Working Girl.

[00:45:10] She's having a baby.

[00:45:12] But it was basically a strategy, right?

[00:45:14] Like him knowing if he goes up for the leading man parts, if there's a good script in town all those guys fight for it.

[00:45:20] He's not going to get it unless they all pass.

[00:45:22] So his strategy for years was like go after the more interesting supporting parts in the hot scripts with the good directors and good movie stars.

[00:45:29] So he'd rather be like color in married to the mob or Working Girl or Beetlejuice where he is ostensibly the lead but in a way that no one will ever give him credit for being.

[00:45:41] This is like his first strike at like let me try the leading man thing because he basically-

[00:45:46] It's this and Miami blues same year.

[00:45:48] Yeah, Miami blues is the other one.

[00:45:50] Well, and his calculation he basically said was like-

[00:45:52] Sliny movie.

[00:45:54] Yeah, real scumbag movie. Not bad at all.

[00:45:56] The good leading man projects I'm going to lose to Costner.

[00:45:57] I look enough like a leading man that people will offer me the chance to be top of the call sheet, but that's going to be in projects that kind of suck.

[00:46:05] Or like Miami blues a little more R rated.

[00:46:09] Right, like yeah, Costner is not going to do that kind of role.

[00:46:12] But this is him finally evolving to that.

[00:46:14] It's like this is after five or six years of let me pop in the good films without needing to be the guy at the center until someone finally gives me a shot on a weirder film like Miami blues or a movie like Conferred October where everyone else is.

[00:46:27] The best thing about the guy is that he has to be a great character that people will think of as a great character from a great point of view.

[00:46:32] So he's the one that looks like a great character that everyone else has.

[00:46:34] MacTurin says he wanted the character to be an empty vessel the audience could put themselves into.

[00:46:36] And he thinks Baldwin maybe is working a little too hard in the role.

[00:46:39] Baldwin himself also says that today.

[00:46:41] I think that's why Jack Ryan works in this movie because-

[00:46:44] I think it's a try hard yeah, yeah.

[00:46:46] The reason why he actually has a better handle on him than any other guy-

[00:46:50] Yeah.

[00:46:52] Because it's that thing of like a nerd who kind of reads as cool.

[00:46:54] What we're saying about like him being in a leading man's body, him being this kind

[00:46:58] of like idealized version of whatever middle-aged dad wants to be, right?

[00:47:03] Yes.

[00:47:04] But the secret is that he is just kind of like a dork.

[00:47:06] Like he's like a numbers dork.

[00:47:07] I was like, I'm going to agree completely with both, both with this take.

[00:47:11] Like Harris, I like Harrison Ford in the role, but it's Harrison Ford.

[00:47:16] We all know Harrison Ford is just like effortless cool.

[00:47:19] That's like his thing.

[00:47:20] He's an effortlessly cool guy.

[00:47:23] Just like competence.

[00:47:24] It's all right there.

[00:47:25] And his Ryan is sort of like, yeah, he's a very competent guy and you don't have

[00:47:29] to worry that Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan is going to ultimately do the right thing

[00:47:34] or accomplish the task.

[00:47:36] Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan can stand up to the president and yell him in the

[00:47:41] Oval Office, like in Clear and Present Danger.

[00:47:43] Alec Baldwin's Jack Ryan is nervous talking at a meeting.

[00:47:47] Yes.

[00:47:47] And what I out the president without the president, just a bunch of admirals.

[00:47:52] He's he's he's he knows his stuff.

[00:47:54] He's smart, he's competent, but he's kind of like he's kind of like a grad student.

[00:47:59] Yes.

[00:47:59] Right.

[00:47:59] He's like a little nervous, a little sort of like, I don't know if I should be here.

[00:48:05] I'm going to tell you what I think and I have strong opinions about what I

[00:48:07] think because I've read a lot of fucking books.

[00:48:09] Right.

[00:48:10] Goddamn idiots.

[00:48:11] Yeah.

[00:48:11] But I'm not going to it'll take me a bit to get to that point of being

[00:48:18] a resolute about what I think.

[00:48:21] And at the first, I'm going to I'm going to be like, I don't know if I necessarily

[00:48:24] should be here.

[00:48:25] No Baldwin's take was like he saw the empty vessel thing as a challenge rather

[00:48:29] than like what McTurne and wanted was just audience surrogate.

[00:48:33] Just have a guy hold the center of the movie, look the right way, hit the

[00:48:36] mark, say the line, have some basic charisma.

[00:48:39] Baldwin was like my assignment is to build a character inside of this.

[00:48:43] And also because you've been taking these flashier supporting roles,

[00:48:45] there's like a lot of stuff for him to grab on to in these other movies

[00:48:50] where it's like you're a ghost, you're a mobster.

[00:48:53] He was like, you know, I get a script and I'd be like, what's my dialect?

[00:48:56] How do I dye my hair?

[00:48:57] What glasses do I put on?

[00:48:59] And this is like, no, they're selling you as the guy.

[00:49:01] This is your first test of like your conventional movie star.

[00:49:06] And he was so eager to be like, I got to fill this character with shit.

[00:49:09] I got to find handles.

[00:49:10] I got to make him interesting and that when he watches the movie now,

[00:49:14] he feels like do less, do less.

[00:49:16] Like I'm watching it and saying, do less.

[00:49:18] The fact that Jack Ryan as a character doesn't know to do less

[00:49:23] is what makes this performance interesting.

[00:49:25] Yes.

[00:49:26] Because as you're saying, it's like he feels like the guy who doesn't

[00:49:29] realize I am handsome and charismatic and cool.

[00:49:32] And I could play this scene off the way that like James Earl Jones does

[00:49:37] his eagerness to like what you're saying, the grad student thing

[00:49:39] of like show the work.

[00:49:41] He really needs to like oversell his points.

[00:49:44] Right. And even that scene where he figures out for the first time

[00:49:47] and starts laughing and everyone turns to him and they're like, what?

[00:49:50] That's a moment where Ford does that.

[00:49:52] It's like when he starts laughing, everyone goes quiet and goes like,

[00:49:55] holy shit, what is this guy figured out?

[00:49:57] Right. And when Baldwin's Jack Ryan does it, it's like,

[00:50:00] this is kind of embarrassing.

[00:50:01] Is this guy.

[00:50:02] You know, when he exclaims.

[00:50:04] No, it's a classic nerd guy.

[00:50:05] It's a classic nerd guy thing.

[00:50:07] Oh, this weird nerd is like laughing about something he figured out

[00:50:10] in his brain. Please stop it.

[00:50:12] I think he's truly unconsciously playing it like a guy who got hot late in life.

[00:50:17] Yeah, yeah, a guy, a guy, right?

[00:50:19] A guy.

[00:50:20] I feel like I knew people like this in high school, right?

[00:50:23] Sort of like, yeah, you're you're summering your 14,

[00:50:26] you're playing Magic the Gathering and then they go off to camp

[00:50:29] and they come back and all of a sudden it's like you've grown three feet

[00:50:33] and have like facial hair now, but you still clear it up.

[00:50:35] Right. You still want to play Magic the Gathering.

[00:50:38] Right. And most of them want to play it right now.

[00:50:40] They're the group of guys who like have that transformative summer

[00:50:43] and come back and they're just like, I'm big time in everyone.

[00:50:46] I get it. I looked in the mirror.

[00:50:47] I understand what I'm playing with now.

[00:50:49] My whole style is different.

[00:50:50] And then there are guys who seem unaware, right?

[00:50:53] That the outside perception of them has changed.

[00:50:55] Right.

[00:50:56] And yeah, he's still just playing Magic the Gathering.

[00:50:58] Yeah, I would play Magic the Gathering with you, Jamel, or with Jack Ryan.

[00:51:03] I have a great Macrim deck if anyone ever wants to take me on.

[00:51:06] Class Maria.

[00:51:06] I just want to quickly say, if you ever feel like playing

[00:51:08] the awesome powers collectible card game, which is my equivalent.

[00:51:12] I have a complete set here.

[00:51:14] I do if you want to take some cards with you.

[00:51:16] I have a packet of Judge Dred 95 trading cards.

[00:51:21] That sounds like. But is it a game or their rules?

[00:51:23] I don't think it's a game.

[00:51:24] I think it's just trading cards.

[00:51:25] If you ever want to take Magic mushrooms, get together.

[00:51:29] I'll do that too.

[00:51:30] OK, cool.

[00:51:31] Class Maria Brandar is originally who had, you know,

[00:51:34] he's obviously a filmmaker as well,

[00:51:37] but he had been nominated for an Oscar for out of Africa.

[00:51:39] So he's kind of like on a slightly bigger stage.

[00:51:42] That is the classic.

[00:51:43] You get that kind of supporting actor nomination.

[00:51:45] You're going to be able to for the next 10 years,

[00:51:47] cash in on playing big budget early European guy, like 100 percent.

[00:51:53] He's he drops out at the last minute to Starn Direct

[00:51:55] in the film, Seven Minutes about a carpenter who tried to kill Hitler.

[00:51:58] Never seen it.

[00:52:00] They send the emergency facts to Connery, obviously.

[00:52:03] And McTurnan basically is immediately saying to him,

[00:52:06] like, you don't need to do an accent.

[00:52:08] Yes, I am not going to make you stomp around and be like,

[00:52:12] you know, talking in Russian, like I'm going to sell

[00:52:16] everyone on you as this character just by you being you.

[00:52:19] Connery's two things when he reads it are the doesn't this feel a little out

[00:52:22] of date thing, which they correct.

[00:52:24] And then he goes like, it convinced me that the audience isn't going to laugh

[00:52:27] at me basically, right?

[00:52:29] Yes, which McTurnan says the right thing of just like,

[00:52:31] I'll frame the movie around you and make people accept.

[00:52:34] Now, Connery has also accepted his baldness.

[00:52:38] He's bald in the Untouchables.

[00:52:40] He wants to be bald in this.

[00:52:42] And McTurnan had envisioned this guy is looking like Samuel Beckett,

[00:52:45] the Irish playwright and talks Connery into the hairstyle,

[00:52:48] which I think is iconic.

[00:52:49] I think you have that.

[00:52:51] Great.

[00:52:52] Well, I think you have that flipped.

[00:52:55] I think he said the Beckett thing.

[00:52:56] You're right. You're right.

[00:52:57] Right.

[00:52:57] Because Connery was wearing pieces from the beginning of his James Bond run.

[00:53:02] But because yes,

[00:53:03] that's there was no James Bond movie where it's 100 percent his real.

[00:53:06] No, yeah, he lost his hair very early.

[00:53:08] It's true. But obviously for like a very handsome dashing physical leading man,

[00:53:12] no one was going to let him be bald on screen.

[00:53:14] So he was always wearing tubes to some degree.

[00:53:16] And even as they started to like gray out, go back a little bit,

[00:53:20] he was like no studio would let him go tubeless.

[00:53:23] And then I do think it was a big decision of like last crusade,

[00:53:27] right, Untouchables.

[00:53:28] He's playing Elder States.

[00:53:29] A lot of hat wearing now.

[00:53:31] But when he takes it off, it's like total dome.

[00:53:33] Yes. And as he put it to McTiernan,

[00:53:36] other people at the time, McTiernan was aware of this,

[00:53:38] that he was like, I feel like there's a greater honesty in my acting now

[00:53:43] because I'm just existing and I'm like removing layers of artifice around it.

[00:53:48] But McTiernan made it a challenge to him.

[00:53:51] The way instead of saying you need to wear a tube, right?

[00:53:54] Said I want you to come up with a physical analog for how you'd like to look.

[00:53:58] Right. And Connery said Samuel Beckett and then he modeled the.

[00:54:01] Yeah.

[00:54:02] Alec Baldwin's terrified once he steps on set says this is a good quote.

[00:54:06] Because the thing with Baldwin is, you know, you'd be very quotable.

[00:54:09] We're going to talk about all of this.

[00:54:10] He says I'm so screwed.

[00:54:11] I'm invisible in this movie now.

[00:54:12] This guy looks like $10 million stacked end to end.

[00:54:15] No one even going to see me in this movie.

[00:54:17] That's a phenomenon.

[00:54:18] That's such an evocative quote.

[00:54:19] Great quote. And it's true.

[00:54:21] Like Connery, just the second you see him,

[00:54:24] you're like this guy has been in this submarine for 30 years.

[00:54:26] Like I don't know why it is.

[00:54:28] He just really does have Gravidus beyond anyone else.

[00:54:32] But it is fascinating.

[00:54:33] I mean, Baldwin has talked about this so much, right?

[00:54:36] There's obviously so much about what is the actual story of him no longer

[00:54:41] getting to play Jack Ryan in the further films?

[00:54:45] And there's so many different

[00:54:46] tellings of it that telling has always changed and probably seems like a combination of factors.

[00:54:51] But he's talked about so much like he gets this part,

[00:54:54] the part that he can only get if 10 guys in front of them all pass on.

[00:54:57] Here's the lottery ticket he's been waiting for.

[00:55:00] He tells the story about signing the contract and getting on a plane,

[00:55:04] I think back from his test or to whatever

[00:55:07] and seeing like one out of every five people on this plane is reading a Tom Clancy novel.

[00:55:12] Right.

[00:55:13] Suddenly it hitting him the enormity of like I basically just been cast as

[00:55:17] like the American James Bond.

[00:55:19] Yeah. This is like the part that's going to transform my entire career

[00:55:22] and the whole development in the movie is framed as like this is your thing.

[00:55:27] This is going to launch you.

[00:55:28] This is a tailor made blockbuster of franchise ready to go.

[00:55:33] It's he's the whole time thinking it's with Klossmer and Brando.

[00:55:36] Yeah, that guy is going to fucking deliver.

[00:55:38] Sure. But like he's not going to movie star. Right.

[00:55:40] Yeah. And then yeah, Connery comes on.

[00:55:42] It's just like immediately the poster is Connery's face.

[00:55:45] Connery's name is above the title.

[00:55:47] His name is below the title.

[00:55:48] Everything shifted entirely not to mention Connery

[00:55:52] bringing in Milius and being like beef up my part.

[00:55:55] Yes. Make my side more interesting.

[00:55:57] Apparently, yes. Connery quite scary.

[00:56:00] Doesn't suffer fools gladly.

[00:56:03] McChunan said was scared of him.

[00:56:05] But the second day at the end of the day,

[00:56:07] Connery said to McChunan, goodnight, boy.

[00:56:09] Yeah. And McChunan realized that must feel great.

[00:56:12] Exactly. He was like that.

[00:56:13] I felt very warm.

[00:56:14] I knew that was like him, you know, kind of extending warmth to me.

[00:56:20] Says, you know, he loves movies.

[00:56:22] We're moving the cameras around a lot and he was interested by that.

[00:56:26] Like, you know, I think he's like a lot of those stars where it's like

[00:56:30] if he figures out that you're smart, he's probably going to make.

[00:56:34] Yeah. No, McChunan had like a somewhat new bracing

[00:56:39] visual and cutting style at that time.

[00:56:42] And Connery is perceptive enough and like

[00:56:45] invested enough in the movie at large

[00:56:47] that when he sees the way the set is being run

[00:56:50] and clocks the kind of movie he's constructing, it's like you've passed my test.

[00:56:54] I approve of you. I respect it.

[00:56:56] McChunan's other biggest casting decision is James Rove Jones.

[00:56:58] Is Admiral Greer that character is not black in the book.

[00:57:02] But obviously James Rove Jones also has auto gravitas.

[00:57:05] Yes. And he's in at least one of the Ford movies as well, right?

[00:57:10] He is in. He's in Clear and Present Danger for sure.

[00:57:13] Because he dies in Clear and Present Danger.

[00:57:15] If I have that right.

[00:57:18] David is saluting.

[00:57:20] It's this era of his career, which I love.

[00:57:22] Field of James is what, you know, the year before

[00:57:27] sneakers is the year after just like him being this kind of like

[00:57:31] wise dad guy like in some supporting role.

[00:57:35] I love James Rove Jones.

[00:57:36] But also in a position of real authority.

[00:57:38] Yes. I mean, this is the thing that we've talked about on Clear a bunch

[00:57:42] with a lot of these movies, but this is like a period where you're

[00:57:45] beginning to see these like black male figures of traditional

[00:57:49] authority throughout movies, like cops, politicians, judges, military.

[00:57:54] Right. And it's like an interesting

[00:57:56] it's an interesting turn in sort of like who gets to be an authority figure.

[00:58:00] But McChunan's line. I mean, not a lead actor.

[00:58:02] Yeah, not a lead actor.

[00:58:03] No, no. The audience don't identify with this person.

[00:58:06] But if this guy tells you you've got to cut it out, cut it out.

[00:58:11] Right. Right.

[00:58:12] And McChunan's a description.

[00:58:13] He said the combination of sternness, rectitude and warmth.

[00:58:18] And it's like, right, that's the whole fucking thing that like if it's

[00:58:21] the guy who's got to listen to what the hero is saying, neither approve or disapprove.

[00:58:25] James Earl Jones has that balance simultaneously

[00:58:27] where the guy is terrifying and so comforting.

[00:58:30] Right. It's like the reason he is would not want to make him disappointed

[00:58:33] in me, right? That he's like Hall of Fame cinematic dad

[00:58:36] as both best and worst example, basically, because you're like all you want

[00:58:41] us for this guy to approve of you. Right.

[00:58:42] And when he disapproves, it's the scariest thing in the world.

[00:58:45] Now, my favorite performance is Scott Glenn

[00:58:49] as Commander Bart Mankuso of the USS Dallas

[00:58:53] because he never raises his voice.

[00:58:55] Yeah. Like he never even really seems like some kind of like Ramrod

[00:59:01] captain guy and that is the thing that feels like the truest to me

[00:59:06] about what this environment must be really be like.

[00:59:09] His quote, which is good, is that he went on a real sub and he's like

[00:59:15] subs aren't like the way I thought they were at all.

[00:59:18] Like when you go to battle stations, the chain of command is very formal

[00:59:21] and rigid and specific, but all the other times things are loose.

[00:59:24] You call guys by their first and last names.

[00:59:26] The captain is like a father, big brother guy.

[00:59:29] It's interesting to think about.

[00:59:31] Like, is that specific to submarines?

[00:59:33] Do you think because they're so close in it?

[00:59:35] I think I mean, I wouldn't know personally, but my guess should be yes.

[00:59:38] That it's it's easy to see how you get that dynamic.

[00:59:42] It is so small and tight and you're never really escaped from anyone

[00:59:47] that there was just a loose looseness of it, sort of like you're kind of all

[00:59:50] bunking together.

[00:59:52] But because everything about submarine work has to be so precise

[00:59:56] when you're kind of on the job proper, it just you got to

[01:00:00] you got to chain of command.

[01:00:02] Right.

[01:00:03] Proper hierarchy.

[01:00:04] Listen to right like whoever gives them specific orders right at all.

[01:00:09] I watch this with the commentaries I've been doing with a lot of these

[01:00:12] because I think the comments are very they sound like they're really good.

[01:00:16] Yeah, the one for this is good.

[01:00:17] Yeah, he's a candid guy.

[01:00:18] Yes.

[01:00:19] And like this is one where and I've seen the old Blu-ray review sites

[01:00:24] criticize a lot of his commentaries for this, whether like a lot of dead space.

[01:00:27] And I'm like, I'd rather a guy who only speaks when he actually has

[01:00:29] something to say.

[01:00:31] And then the rest of the time I can just listen to the movie.

[01:00:33] But he said that like one of his big conceptual gambits for this movie was

[01:00:39] in the submarines go kind of 50-50 in casting between actors and actual

[01:00:44] former or current submariners.

[01:00:46] Sure.

[01:00:47] Right.

[01:00:47] Sure.

[01:00:47] And his idea was like the people with actual submarine experience

[01:00:52] will teach the actors behaviorally.

[01:00:54] What you're sort of saying, the Scotland thing of like the tone,

[01:00:57] the sort of control, the focus to make it sort of feel like the real version

[01:01:02] of submarining rather than the movie version.

[01:01:04] And then he was like, and these guys who don't have acting experience,

[01:01:07] they'll learn from the actors.

[01:01:09] They'll be on a set with Courtney B. Vance and Scott Glenn and whatever.

[01:01:11] Courtney Vance, great.

[01:01:12] Unbelievable. We'll talk about him.

[01:01:14] The thing he said was like day one, the submarine guys were all incredible.

[01:01:18] Right.

[01:01:19] And he was like, why?

[01:01:20] And they were like, we do drills all the time.

[01:01:21] Right. Right.

[01:01:22] It's a regular part of our job that they come in, they go,

[01:01:24] here are the circumstances and then we have to play out like

[01:01:27] that's happening and play it totally real with stakes where he was like,

[01:01:30] those guys were incredible.

[01:01:32] Right.

[01:01:32] And the actors actually had to learn a lot.

[01:01:35] A guy like Scott Glenn is probably pulling a lot from the guys

[01:01:38] surrounding him on the set and going like, huh, that's interesting behaviorally.

[01:01:41] I think it's why this movie is so good.

[01:01:44] The sets are so good.

[01:01:45] They're all built sets, obviously, you know, like the sub footage itself

[01:01:51] is this like murky dark footage.

[01:01:53] It's not very blockbuster.

[01:01:54] He right.

[01:01:55] Like it's very realistic.

[01:01:57] It's I don't know.

[01:01:58] I feel like most submarine movies, like the torpedo launching.

[01:02:02] I was very cinematic in the final confrontation.

[01:02:06] I think in a typical blockbuster, you would have almost like a torpedo camp.

[01:02:10] You'd always it always be cutting back exactly to the torpedo showing you

[01:02:13] where it's coming in the hunt for October.

[01:02:16] It's just it's just it's Courtney B. Vance saying six thousand yards,

[01:02:19] yeah, five thousand yards.

[01:02:21] And it's all focused on the people in

[01:02:25] the submarine and on their skill and their expertise and all of that.

[01:02:29] Like, that's that's where the attention is not so much

[01:02:32] the torpedo, but sort of like, how are they reacting to all of this?

[01:02:35] Yes, I was going to say as well that one thing, you know,

[01:02:39] one thing I like about what is like a lot of like quite naturalistic

[01:02:45] performances, it's not very showy is that when it comes time to go into action,

[01:02:51] they're all very competent.

[01:02:54] Right? You get to you get to see the captain of the Dallas at the end

[01:02:58] demonstrate this is why he is a submarine captain.

[01:03:00] Right. This is why he can do this.

[01:03:02] I think it the way the actors kind of move between

[01:03:07] we're just listening, we're paying attention.

[01:03:09] Yeah, things are tense, but like we're we're not on alert.

[01:03:12] And then it's alert Sean Connery does it perfectly when he has to move

[01:03:16] from what's going on to we are in a combat situation.

[01:03:20] Yes, it's sort of like it's on off switch.

[01:03:23] And it's a cool trick to watch.

[01:03:26] There's a couple quotes you've just triggered in my mind.

[01:03:28] But I wrote this down because I wanted to rebate him from the commentary

[01:03:33] where there's a moment where Mactarene is like silent and then he goes like

[01:03:36] this really is kind of a throwback, right?

[01:03:38] I guess movies have changed so much they don't make things like this anymore.

[01:03:41] And then he's sort of talking through the difficulty of imagining

[01:03:44] pitching this to a studio and going through the development process

[01:03:49] without them trying to flash it up, add big explosions, fistfights or whatever.

[01:03:53] And he goes like because it doesn't feel like traditionally exciting.

[01:03:57] And then he just pauses and he says it's a silent world of navigation

[01:04:01] and mathematics and engineering, right?

[01:04:04] Which I'm like that's the thing that he loves about this movie

[01:04:07] that he seems so thrilled that he got through of like

[01:04:10] it is a quote unquote action movie where there's basically no action

[01:04:14] and the actual action is this sort of stakes you infer from the looks

[01:04:19] in people's eyes as they do the calculations in their heads,

[01:04:23] which he makes feel thrilling.

[01:04:27] Then talking about the sort of having to build the submarine,

[01:04:31] he said because a lot of movies, they'll build a set that's bigger

[01:04:34] to fit the cameras and they'll design things in a way that's more

[01:04:36] cinematic or helps the story.

[01:04:38] And his approach was the opposite, like build it exactly the way submarines are built.

[01:04:42] And then we work off of that.

[01:04:45] And he said everything is in a particular place in a submarine

[01:04:48] because they've learned this is the best way to do it.

[01:04:50] Almost every piece of equipment on a submarine is there in that particular

[01:04:53] way because somebody probably gave his life to learn that it was a mistake

[01:04:57] to put it some other way, which is such a good way of like,

[01:05:01] well, you're saying those moments of silently people moving and shifting

[01:05:04] or doing a thing with such authority.

[01:05:05] It's like, right, this is all learned.

[01:05:07] These are guys who are so hardened by like

[01:05:10] there's one way to do this correctly without everything going fucking sideways.

[01:05:14] And so they built everything exactly that way where he's like,

[01:05:17] let's get that accuracy, especially because when we're going to bring

[01:05:20] the real former submariners in here, they need to know that it's like

[01:05:24] passing the smell test.

[01:05:25] And then he said, then they took like aircraft technology,

[01:05:30] which was a little shinier and flasher and cooler looking

[01:05:34] and use that to like perk up everything the way it was.

[01:05:38] And then the real submariners come in and like start freaking out.

[01:05:45] What was it? What's the line here?

[01:05:48] The irony was when some of the Navy brass came and were visiting the set,

[01:05:51] they looked around and they asked two or three times how we arrived

[01:05:53] at these changes in the set.

[01:05:55] I explained that we just applied aircraft technology

[01:05:58] instead of shipbuilding technology.

[01:05:59] They sort of relaxed at that point and then explained to me

[01:06:02] that that was exactly what they had done in the design

[01:06:05] of the Seawolf submarine that they were just turning out the first copy of.

[01:06:09] It was supposed to be super secret at that point and we stumbled into it.

[01:06:12] They thought they had a leak or something.

[01:06:15] How fucking cool is that?

[01:06:17] That multiple times across the development of this book

[01:06:19] and this movie, people were like, who's the fucking mole?

[01:06:23] Who is the spy who's blowing this for everybody?

[01:06:27] There's only three Seawolf submarines.

[01:06:29] They're supposed to build 29 and then the Cold War ended.

[01:06:32] I want to say it's a cool name.

[01:06:35] It is cool. It's very cool.

[01:06:36] Yeah, cooler than Ohio class or whatever.

[01:06:39] No offense to Ohio.

[01:06:40] We need nuclear submarines to the United States.

[01:06:42] This is a very good question.

[01:06:43] How many do we currently have running?

[01:06:45] Yeah. That's a great question.

[01:06:49] That's it.

[01:06:49] I mean, we're talking before about what's scary about submarines

[01:06:52] and it was all just like the psychology of living inside of it.

[01:06:54] That's the other thing.

[01:06:55] You're living inside like a silo underwater filled with

[01:06:58] true clear power.

[01:07:00] Yeah, I mean, when you get a zoom out and think about what we built

[01:07:04] a nuclear submarine is a virtually silent machine

[01:07:08] that can launch weapons that in the world and no one would know

[01:07:12] until it was too late.

[01:07:13] Correct. And it's also simultaneously almost as effective

[01:07:16] at breaking men's spirits and minds.

[01:07:20] Like it's like a psychological torture device

[01:07:23] if not managed properly.

[01:07:26] And you know, there's these like there's the USS Scorpion.

[01:07:29] There's K 129.

[01:07:30] There's these nuclear submarines that we lost that we don't know why.

[01:07:34] I have a couple of them.

[01:07:35] OK, cool.

[01:07:37] You know, cool conspiratorial.

[01:07:38] They're so mysterious and strange nuclear subs

[01:07:41] because they can just go down there.

[01:07:42] I mean, that's how this movie ends.

[01:07:44] Is still in Skarsgard blows up.

[01:07:45] Yeah.

[01:07:46] And no one's going to really be able to check on what happened there

[01:07:49] because it would be too hard.

[01:07:51] Right. Right.

[01:07:51] Like you can't get away with it.

[01:07:53] Yeah. You can't go too deep.

[01:07:56] David. Yeah.

[01:07:57] The economy.

[01:07:58] No. I know that's

[01:08:01] actually more robust than the press would have you think.

[01:08:03] But you know what? What?

[01:08:04] It's hard talking about the economy in this economy.

[01:08:08] It ain't cheap talking about the economy.

[01:08:10] Hard doing an ad read in this economy.

[01:08:12] This economy.

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[01:10:12] OK, OK, buddy.

[01:10:17] So the film begins with Marco Ramis.

[01:10:23] Ramiah Ramis opens with a really tight close up

[01:10:26] on the eyes of a man who is about to steal

[01:10:28] the entire movie out from Alec Baldwin's nose.

[01:10:30] It's true.

[01:10:31] Like it's what Baldwin's talking about of like,

[01:10:33] this movie just knows where the money is now.

[01:10:36] I won't be letting it go.

[01:10:37] Yes.

[01:10:38] He is the captain of the Red October,

[01:10:41] which is a typhoon class submarine with a caterpillar drive.

[01:10:46] Now, the caterpillar drive is the thing that is fake.

[01:10:48] Yes, that is the thing that is fanciful.

[01:10:53] OK.

[01:10:54] Like typhoon class submarines are real,

[01:10:56] but I do not believe caterpillar drives are real at this time.

[01:10:59] Maybe at all.

[01:11:00] I don't think so.

[01:11:02] And the Red October name of course for the October Revolution of 1917.

[01:11:06] Cool name.

[01:11:07] Great name.

[01:11:08] We're also supposed to call out that before the Connery shot,

[01:11:11] you get the super titles of like officially none of this ever really happened.

[01:11:15] Yes.

[01:11:16] Which is like the movie prefacing itself with the joke

[01:11:19] of what we talked about just kept happening where they're like,

[01:11:22] yeah, this isn't leaked.

[01:11:23] Yeah, right.

[01:11:24] It's true.

[01:11:25] They really lean into it because they know how realistic it feels, I guess.

[01:11:28] Yeah.

[01:11:29] And like what I love is that like you basically piece together

[01:11:32] what Ramius is doing for the whole movie,

[01:11:35] but he doesn't really say it aloud until right at the end,

[01:11:37] which is basically like this thing is too powerful to exist.

[01:11:39] Yeah.

[01:11:40] So I just don't want this to be in charge of this.

[01:11:43] Yeah.

[01:11:43] And yes, there's these supplemental motivations

[01:11:46] he has his wife died at the hands of somebody

[01:11:49] who was then protected by the state.

[01:11:51] Right.

[01:11:51] Like for like patronage reasons or whatever.

[01:11:54] He's Lithuanian, which they underlined.

[01:11:57] So he's not like ethnically Russian.

[01:11:58] So maybe he's a little less loyal to the motherland.

[01:12:01] I don't know if this is your memory, Jim,

[01:12:03] but McTiernan said that was one of the big things in adapting.

[01:12:06] I think there's a quote from Ferguson about this as well.

[01:12:09] They needed to give him a little more.

[01:12:10] Right.

[01:12:10] The book it's like those two things first and foremost.

[01:12:13] Why is this guy defecting?

[01:12:14] It's because he well,

[01:12:17] he doesn't really care that much about Russia

[01:12:18] because that's not really his birth, right?

[01:12:20] And also his wife died.

[01:12:21] Now he's kind of going through an emotional crisis.

[01:12:24] The sort of principle of it is something that really got added

[01:12:27] for the movie, right?

[01:12:28] Which gets to something I was putting out earlier,

[01:12:30] which is how much how much like respected empathy

[01:12:34] this movie has for Soviet soldiers.

[01:12:36] I mean, that whole notion that Ramius is doing this

[01:12:40] as much because he just doesn't think

[01:12:42] the submarine should exist.

[01:12:43] Yeah.

[01:12:44] He it's too dangerous.

[01:12:45] It's sort of like it's essentially saying

[01:12:47] to an American audience like, listen,

[01:12:50] these people aren't maniacs.

[01:12:51] Right.

[01:12:52] Like these are honorable, decent people

[01:12:55] who live under a different system

[01:12:57] and don't think that we should be trying

[01:12:59] to murder us as well.

[01:13:02] Right.

[01:13:02] Which is like considering that not just most other fiction

[01:13:07] at the time, but the news is largely depicting

[01:13:10] these people as like cackling James Bond villain maniacs.

[01:13:13] Right.

[01:13:13] And instead now you have James Bond playing him

[01:13:16] as a man who's like really thinking about like the the moral

[01:13:20] weight of responsibility to mankind.

[01:13:23] There's the singing, as you mentioned,

[01:13:25] like the sense of camaraderie in the boat feels real.

[01:13:28] Like they don't feel like a bunch of stooge's or maniacs.

[01:13:32] I'm also going to say all the Russian

[01:13:33] tailors have great faces.

[01:13:36] Everyone I feel like was cast for having that kind of a face.

[01:13:39] Right. Obviously, the supporting cast here on the boat

[01:13:42] is Sam Neill and Tim Curry and Thomas Iranya.

[01:13:44] You can't just quietly go, of course.

[01:13:46] The supporting cast on this Russian submarine is Sam Neill

[01:13:49] and Tim Curry.

[01:13:50] But even the like the tertiary faces are good.

[01:13:53] Yeah, like, you know, those are great faces.

[01:13:55] No, I agree, but I'm just like the fact that this movie

[01:13:57] is just throwing those kinds of ingredients in the pot

[01:13:59] casually over shoulder in every scene.

[01:14:02] Well, so like obviously Tim Curry, like Rocky Horror is

[01:14:07] you know, from long ago, Annie Clue Legend.

[01:14:09] Like he's he's a guy.

[01:14:11] He's a real guy.

[01:14:11] Sam Neill, I feel like is he's really been around

[01:14:14] for a while too.

[01:14:15] But Jurassic Park is not yet.

[01:14:17] No, no, that's three years.

[01:14:18] And he hasn't done the carpenter movies yet.

[01:14:20] But he has done like Dead Calm and Crying the Dark

[01:14:24] and Omen 3 and like possession.

[01:14:26] And you know, he's been he's a noted New Zealand actor.

[01:14:29] Yes, but also did a lot of Australian film,

[01:14:32] which is why people mistakenly think he's Australian.

[01:14:35] He's both or whatever.

[01:14:36] You know, there's I think he lived in Australia for a

[01:14:38] time. People don't like us making assumptions.

[01:14:40] To a good point.

[01:14:41] I dated a Kiwi through college.

[01:14:43] They don't they really don't like it.

[01:14:44] Yeah, I believe I believe he lived in Australia for a long time.

[01:14:47] But I'm not actually sure.

[01:14:48] Well, no, he clearly he did a lot of work there

[01:14:50] and was strongly associated with a lot of Australian film makers.

[01:14:53] He currently owns does he have a sheep?

[01:14:55] He's always posting from a farm.

[01:14:57] Yes. He once dunked on me on Twitter.

[01:14:59] Really? What?

[01:15:01] I think I said something about how his neckerchief

[01:15:03] in Jurassic Park, as I love it.

[01:15:05] It's silly.

[01:15:06] And then he like he dunked on me.

[01:15:08] I mean, I was I was I was proud to have attracted

[01:15:13] negative attention of Sam Neill.

[01:15:15] Yeah, he's got like a big farm and he's always

[01:15:18] Instagramming from it.

[01:15:19] Looks pretty cool.

[01:15:19] I think it's also a wine array.

[01:15:20] It's like a venue.

[01:15:21] Yeah, I mean, he's one of those guys.

[01:15:24] He's very cool.

[01:15:24] When I look at old Sam Neill social media

[01:15:26] dunking on Jamel inside, I do think like that seems to be

[01:15:30] a guy's got to figure out.

[01:15:31] He does.

[01:15:31] I look at him and I'm like, I think that guy's

[01:15:33] got to figured out to a tee.

[01:15:35] He does seem pretty no bullshit.

[01:15:37] It does not seem too affected by massive fame.

[01:15:40] By anything.

[01:15:41] Yeah.

[01:15:42] Yeah.

[01:15:43] So the first thing this guy does, Ramius, obviously

[01:15:47] we're on his side because he's Sean Connery.

[01:15:48] Yeah.

[01:15:49] But still, the first thing he does, he sits down

[01:15:51] with Peter Firth, great actor from Equus and just

[01:15:55] fucking just kills his ass.

[01:15:59] Just like without mercy.

[01:16:00] Yeah.

[01:16:00] Yeah.

[01:16:01] My favorite one of my favorite scenes in the

[01:16:02] movie is when he's telling me officers this,

[01:16:04] one of them's like, we should have at least

[01:16:06] discussed this.

[01:16:07] Yeah.

[01:16:07] Which is a fair point.

[01:16:08] And obviously he's I assume his opinion is kind

[01:16:12] of like you would have said no or you would

[01:16:15] have felt culpable, right?

[01:16:16] Me just doing it is the correct way to do it.

[01:16:18] Let's also call out the character's name is

[01:16:20] first Lieutenant Putin.

[01:16:21] So anytime in the movie they go, Putin is dead.

[01:16:23] You go like, God, wouldn't that be nice?

[01:16:25] Wow.

[01:16:25] What a nice world.

[01:16:26] Well, it was funny, but it's you as he lives.

[01:16:29] Putin was he was he was an intelligence officer.

[01:16:31] Yeah.

[01:16:31] He was a political officer.

[01:16:32] I mean, he was this kind of person.

[01:16:34] He was this kind of guy.

[01:16:35] Yeah.

[01:16:35] And it just a sliding door opportunity.

[01:16:38] If only Sean Connery had gotten his hands on

[01:16:40] him early, he'd live in a very different reality.

[01:16:44] He presents the lie that he slipped on his tea.

[01:16:48] Correct.

[01:16:49] Yeah.

[01:16:49] After he kills him, he dumps the tea on the ground

[01:16:53] and kind of put some sprinkle some on the body

[01:16:55] like it's crack and then no need to investigate this.

[01:17:01] Loose leaves.

[01:17:02] This guy was a junkie.

[01:17:04] It just it feels a little obviously I know

[01:17:06] his officers are in on this with him in some form,

[01:17:10] but still it's a little it's a little clean.

[01:17:13] But I guess he's also just got the advantage of like

[01:17:17] it's a submarine who's going to fucking come get me.

[01:17:19] Also, you were talking about the military brain thing,

[01:17:22] especially if you're a submarine

[01:17:23] and you're just like hermetically sealed with these people

[01:17:25] for months at a time, you're just like,

[01:17:27] if he's saying it, I guess that's right.

[01:17:29] Yeah.

[01:17:29] Yeah.

[01:17:31] Are you really going to challenge your storied commander?

[01:17:34] Right.

[01:17:35] Especially if he's got this energy.

[01:17:37] Yeah.

[01:17:37] You know, this amount of presence and command.

[01:17:39] But it's just like the fascinating thing of like

[01:17:41] it's they have their orders are not to go in New America.

[01:17:44] It's not like this is some crisis point

[01:17:47] from which there is no turning back.

[01:17:48] No, it's just like take your fancy new submarine

[01:17:50] and do missile drills.

[01:17:51] Right.

[01:17:52] It's scary.

[01:17:53] Yeah.

[01:17:54] But Connery is already of the mindset of like, no,

[01:17:56] this like this is a this is going to ruin the.

[01:17:59] We must destroy.

[01:18:00] It's kind of exactly.

[01:18:02] Yeah.

[01:18:02] We must.

[01:18:03] Um, so then he the leaves with his sub.

[01:18:08] Mm hmm.

[01:18:09] And I guess he's near the Dallas or the Dallas has maybe

[01:18:12] been shadowing him and then he just disappears.

[01:18:14] The subject disappears and that's what gets everyone excited.

[01:18:17] Right.

[01:18:18] Yes.

[01:18:18] That a sub has disappeared off the map.

[01:18:21] But this is what's great.

[01:18:21] I categorize this movie in my mind all the time

[01:18:24] as an action movie.

[01:18:25] And then when I rewatch it, I'm like, this is a chess movie.

[01:18:27] Yeah.

[01:18:28] Right.

[01:18:28] This is a movie of like three different parties all trying

[01:18:32] to read the intent of what the other party is doing.

[01:18:34] Right.

[01:18:35] Silently without really having clear lines of communication.

[01:18:38] Right.

[01:18:38] Now Connery has helped matters by sending a letter to his

[01:18:42] buddy in Russia being like high FII plan to defect.

[01:18:46] Yes.

[01:18:46] Uh, America great.

[01:18:48] Right.

[01:18:48] You stinky.

[01:18:49] Right.

[01:18:49] But that guy doesn't want to tell the fucking Americans that right.

[01:18:53] Like anyone who has information in this movie is being very

[01:18:57] selective about who they share with.

[01:18:58] And then there are a lot of theories that people are trying

[01:19:01] to convince other people of, I mean, there's the fucking Roger

[01:19:05] Ebert just like reigning threes left and right from beyond the grave.

[01:19:10] Yeah.

[01:19:10] But what is the line here?

[01:19:11] He says, um, uh, this was from his review of the film 3.5 stars.

[01:19:16] He said, the movies have one sure way of involving us that never fails.

[01:19:20] They give us a character who is right when everybody else is wrong

[01:19:24] and then invite us to share his frustration as he tries to talk

[01:19:28] some sense into the block heads.

[01:19:29] Yes.

[01:19:30] He is Roger perfectly said.

[01:19:33] Jack is at a table satisfying with a bunch of hard-nosed American

[01:19:38] military men who are like, wow, we got to blow this guy up.

[01:19:41] Right?

[01:19:41] Like with, but you understand why they're concerned.

[01:19:45] I don't know.

[01:19:45] Like, yes.

[01:19:46] Right.

[01:19:46] I mean, that's, I think that's what makes it work as well.

[01:19:49] Like it's not as if their response is unreasonable.

[01:19:51] No, right.

[01:19:52] No.

[01:19:53] And that's what also provides like the necessary friction for

[01:19:55] this to be dramatically satisfying.

[01:19:57] Like they have their perspective is 100% reasonable.

[01:20:00] You're telling me there's a, a high tech rogue Russian nuclear

[01:20:04] sub heading to the United States.

[01:20:06] Exactly.

[01:20:07] Like he's making huge extrapolations.

[01:20:09] Like his aha moment is, oh my God, it's the one year anniversary of

[01:20:13] his wife's death.

[01:20:13] Right.

[01:20:14] What the fuck are you talking about?

[01:20:16] You jump to this shit, my man.

[01:20:19] And then yes, that like nervy like Jack Ryan energy of him being

[01:20:23] like, no, you don't understand.

[01:20:24] Listen to me.

[01:20:25] And like doing all his Alec Baldwin business is more a reason

[01:20:28] they wouldn't trust him.

[01:20:30] Because as an actor, he's overselling it.

[01:20:32] That's why one of the best scenes of the film is him with

[01:20:35] Fred Thompson and the other guy.

[01:20:37] Fred Thompson who should have won all four acting categories

[01:20:40] at the Oscar.

[01:20:40] He should have won everything except for the presidential

[01:20:42] nomination, which he never did win.

[01:20:43] No, that's the only thing.

[01:20:44] We created a new Oscar category for most buttery accent in a film.

[01:20:49] Got his fucking cigarette work in this movie.

[01:20:52] Wanted to hand me a hot chicken sandwich.

[01:20:55] It's so good.

[01:20:56] This is my body dysmorphia is I watched this movie.

[01:20:59] His first scene.

[01:20:59] I go, God, that's exactly how I want to look.

[01:21:01] This is the energy I want to have in rooms.

[01:21:04] I want to sit back.

[01:21:05] I want to look like smokey the bear without hair.

[01:21:07] Cigarette up like isn't good.

[01:21:09] I live on me here.

[01:21:09] Look, Fred Thompson is an awesome actor.

[01:21:12] I mean he could do like one thing, which is this, but

[01:21:14] he always did it well when he was in law and order.

[01:21:17] So he's after.

[01:21:18] So it was who was it?

[01:21:21] He's the third DA maybe.

[01:21:23] Okay.

[01:21:23] It's like Diane Weese comes in for a couple of years to

[01:21:25] replace Steven Hill and she's good.

[01:21:28] But you know, Diane Weese, she's sort of an A player.

[01:21:30] She moves on.

[01:21:31] He comes into the idea it's the Bush year and he's more conservative.

[01:21:34] He had juice on that.

[01:21:35] Oh yeah.

[01:21:36] The banter juice.

[01:21:37] And then he decides to leave law in order to run for president

[01:21:39] like a fucking moron.

[01:21:41] No one cares.

[01:21:42] Classic rookie move.

[01:21:43] But when he's talking to Jack Ryan with the other guy, I

[01:21:47] forget who the other guy is.

[01:21:48] Yeah.

[01:21:48] The guy who doesn't like Jack Ryan.

[01:21:49] Just some just some guy.

[01:21:50] Some guy.

[01:21:51] Yeah.

[01:21:51] And then Jack Ryan leaves and the other guy is like, that guy sucks.

[01:21:56] Like he's so annoying.

[01:21:57] Yeah.

[01:21:57] He thinks he knows everything.

[01:21:59] And Fred Thompson reads him to kind of like look served in the

[01:22:01] Marines, like injured, like learn to walk again.

[01:22:06] Basically like this guy is tougher than you think.

[01:22:08] Yeah.

[01:22:09] You're just all in on Jack Ryan after.

[01:22:11] Yeah.

[01:22:11] Yeah.

[01:22:11] 100% Fred Thompson.

[01:22:12] The endorsement.

[01:22:13] Just to clarify, I don't wish I looked like Fred Thompson

[01:22:16] when I'm like on dates or at the supermarket.

[01:22:19] Maybe you do.

[01:22:19] But I look at this movie and I'm like, I wish I could do

[01:22:22] that as an actor and 50% of that is just rolling in with

[01:22:25] that look with like that look in that voice and just being

[01:22:28] like, I'm the guy behind the desk.

[01:22:30] To be clear, he was an actual politician, right?

[01:22:33] He's not going to watergate.

[01:22:34] He looked at the White House counsel or he was not.

[01:22:38] He was my he was the Republican counsel.

[01:22:41] He served in the Senate.

[01:22:43] Well, he was in the Senate in the 90s.

[01:22:46] Right.

[01:22:46] So after this movie, it's a weird career.

[01:22:50] He's like a Republican lawyer who works.

[01:22:54] He's part of the Watergate Committee, which is like what

[01:22:57] he's most famous for.

[01:22:58] Yeah.

[01:22:58] Becomes a lobbyist.

[01:23:00] Somebody is like, you really could fucking just slot into

[01:23:04] some admiral role in my movie.

[01:23:06] Right.

[01:23:07] He does that for like 10 years and then someone's like,

[01:23:10] he was you have senator vibes.

[01:23:12] He wouldn't just be one.

[01:23:13] Let's go all the way back.

[01:23:13] No way out.

[01:23:14] It was no way out.

[01:23:15] Right.

[01:23:15] Right.

[01:23:15] That was a horny ass movie.

[01:23:17] Yeah.

[01:23:17] Very horny movie.

[01:23:18] That very kind of strikingly, like illegally though.

[01:23:21] Jesus.

[01:23:22] Kevin.

[01:23:22] A movie so horny that they made it today, they'd throw you in jail.

[01:23:26] They would throw you in jail.

[01:23:27] Don't fucking look at home.

[01:23:29] Let's run though.

[01:23:30] Okay.

[01:23:30] No way out.

[01:23:31] 87, 88 feds, 89 Fat Man and Little Boy.

[01:23:36] Yeah.

[01:23:36] Then 1993 movies.

[01:23:38] He does Hunter Red October, Days of Thunder, Die Hard 2.

[01:23:42] 1991 he's in five movies.

[01:23:45] Like the man's just gaining steam.

[01:23:47] Right.

[01:23:47] Because if you watch him do this for one scene, you're like, well,

[01:23:50] yeah, let's buy that and put it in our movie.

[01:23:52] And then he becomes a Tennessee senator.

[01:23:54] He's a fairly mediocre senator from all like, he's just like a standard

[01:23:59] generic rubber stamping guy, retires, goes back to be on law and order.

[01:24:04] And then some idiot is like, you should run for president.

[01:24:07] Yeah.

[01:24:08] Well, it was what's interesting about the president, I was trying

[01:24:10] to find out what he articulated this on social media.

[01:24:12] Wait, it's the one that McCain went right.

[01:24:14] Right.

[01:24:14] So it's 08.

[01:24:15] And so Bush, you know, Bush, it's in the Bush's term, but there

[01:24:19] is still a thought that sort of like maybe the secret sauce to winning

[01:24:23] a national election was like kind of being a folksy sub-unit.

[01:24:26] Right.

[01:24:27] It's like you got Bill Clinton.

[01:24:28] I mean, basically for 20 years, it's like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, who

[01:24:34] almost became president and then Bush, they got these folksy sub-units.

[01:24:39] And just like, well, both were propaganda and Democrats.

[01:24:42] Like, well, maybe you should just like put up a folksy sub-unit.

[01:24:44] So Democrats had John Edwards from North Carolina.

[01:24:47] Folksy.

[01:24:48] And a straight shooter, that straight shooter.

[01:24:50] Yeah.

[01:24:51] I'm not, not at all a scumbag.

[01:24:53] Um, and then which I say that in my voted form.

[01:24:57] Um, really?

[01:24:58] You know, I was an Edwards guy in 08.

[01:25:00] Yeah.

[01:25:01] Yeah.

[01:25:02] He had the populist energy.

[01:25:04] There's the moment as well.

[01:25:05] Yeah.

[01:25:05] I was an Obama kid.

[01:25:06] I was.

[01:25:07] I mean, I was, I was one of those delusions.

[01:25:09] I was like Obama can't win.

[01:25:10] They're not going to like the fuck out.

[01:25:12] I was like the plucky 22 year old or whatever it was.

[01:25:15] The Edwards thing fell apart hard.

[01:25:16] And I do think part of it was the calculation of like, quote,

[01:25:19] is this more realistic to get behind this guy?

[01:25:23] But he had Clintony vibes.

[01:25:24] Right.

[01:25:25] Two Americas man.

[01:25:26] I ended up on his, I don't know why what triggered this, but I end up

[01:25:30] on his Wikipedia for like an hour the other night.

[01:25:32] Johnny Edwards.

[01:25:33] Yeah.

[01:25:33] Where I was like, I want to relive this spiral.

[01:25:36] I mean, it remember, of course, he'd been the vice

[01:25:38] presidential nominee and people thought he that meant he might be

[01:25:41] the, the standard bearer.

[01:25:42] Answer him.

[01:25:43] Wait on the stump.

[01:25:44] Like, yes.

[01:25:45] Great on this.

[01:25:46] Like it's you understand it's what you're getting at with Fred Thompson

[01:25:49] where you're like, this guy is fucking incredible on television.

[01:25:52] Right.

[01:25:52] Right.

[01:25:53] And Fred Thompson was the test of that where like, let's get a folksy guy.

[01:25:56] How about we get the guy who both has political history

[01:26:00] and also plays this type of guy in movies and TV and when he does it,

[01:26:05] everyone loves that literally an actor.

[01:26:07] But the other the other guy who fit this type was Virginia

[01:26:10] Senator George Allen, who was widely thought to be kind of like the heir

[01:26:14] apparent or one of the airs.

[01:26:15] That is so much I forgot ever that word he said.

[01:26:20] I may have mentioned this on the on the show.

[01:26:22] The guy, the kid who said that to lived in my dorm in college.

[01:26:25] Wow.

[01:26:26] Because he was of course a Virginia politician.

[01:26:30] So it was it was like a it was like a type.

[01:26:32] It was like a type of thing we can get that word.

[01:26:34] He said folksy.

[01:26:36] He called dude monkey.

[01:26:37] I mean, it's like yeah.

[01:26:39] It's like he's right.

[01:26:41] It's true.

[01:26:42] Somehow it would have been less racist.

[01:26:45] Had he just been like you're a monkey.

[01:26:46] It would have at least been like the problem was it was days of people

[01:26:50] being like what did he say and what on earth did he mean by it?

[01:26:54] And even he had to be like, I don't know, man.

[01:26:57] I don't know.

[01:26:57] It just came out of my mouth.

[01:26:58] Like I don't know what to do.

[01:26:59] But it's like more effort and then took more litigation

[01:27:01] on the part of everyone else to figure out what it was.

[01:27:04] But there's this thing with like racism, right?

[01:27:07] Where which I don't like.

[01:27:09] I just want to say this.

[01:27:10] Not great.

[01:27:11] I'm a noted opponent.

[01:27:19] But sometimes maybe this just means like a southerner

[01:27:22] and when you grew up in the South, there's like ordinary

[01:27:24] casual racism, which isn't great, but it's also like quite

[01:27:28] thoughtless and like non ideological and just sort of like,

[01:27:31] OK, you're kind of just an asshole.

[01:27:33] You're repeating stuff.

[01:27:34] But then there's things people say that like indicate

[01:27:37] like a kind of deeper like the nerve read some book

[01:27:41] with skull measurement, Senator.

[01:27:43] Right.

[01:27:43] And you're like, what the hell is going on?

[01:27:45] Like a measure of craft.

[01:27:46] Like you're really honing what you want to say and how to say it.

[01:27:49] The George Allen thing was sort of like you're not just calling him

[01:27:52] a slur, but it's a slur to foreign language.

[01:27:55] It's like it came very naturally to you.

[01:27:57] It's kind of singer, not the song racism.

[01:27:59] Yeah, it's like this is really weird that this that's the word

[01:28:01] that came to mind for you.

[01:28:03] I completely remember.

[01:28:04] Of course, he loses re-election.

[01:28:06] The Jim Webb does not run for president.

[01:28:08] Yeah, Jim Webb, another normal normal guy, totally normal.

[01:28:13] Another kind of folksy Southerner, less folksy, more sort of like hardened.

[01:28:17] But he's kind of a Tom Clancy guy.

[01:28:19] Yeah, like I know he was a Democrat, but he was sort of like a marginal Democrat

[01:28:23] and he was, you know, served in the military.

[01:28:26] The last stranger I'll say on this note is that what's interesting

[01:28:30] about this affect from Southern politicians is I think it does

[01:28:34] like reflect much longer than the rest of the country.

[01:28:37] The South still had this sort of like barn burner tradition of like campaigning.

[01:28:41] And so there's just a there's a style of campaigning that's still kind

[01:28:44] of like in circulation in the South really up until like the 80s and 90s.

[01:28:50] That doesn't exist anymore.

[01:28:51] Yeah.

[01:28:52] And the guys who try it now sound like idiots because it's clearly

[01:28:56] an affliction John Kennedy and Louisiana tries to do the thing.

[01:28:59] But like, you're like, oh, you went to Oxford.

[01:29:01] You were no one's buying this.

[01:29:03] Right.

[01:29:03] Well, like to build the bridge back to red October, the thing that's so

[01:29:07] fascinating about Fred Thompson as an actor is that he is so weirdly internalized.

[01:29:12] Yeah.

[01:29:12] And such as in this movie, but even like the broader action thriller movies

[01:29:16] he was doing, what was fascinating about him is he's a real like makes

[01:29:19] the audience come to him actor for a guy who can get up there and fucking stomp.

[01:29:24] But his face is not red.

[01:29:25] He's not like he's he's just like.

[01:29:27] And as you said, it's like the turning point of the movie is him just with

[01:29:31] so with such ease offhandedly being like, no, Jack Ryan knows what he's talking about.

[01:29:36] You know, like he can't even be bothered to get wild up to make the case.

[01:29:40] This is a movie where Sean Connery plays a Russian sea captain.

[01:29:44] Yes.

[01:29:44] And yet I don't think anyone in the movie is over the top.

[01:29:46] No.

[01:29:47] Yeah.

[01:29:47] Like that's that's surprising.

[01:29:49] Yes.

[01:29:49] And it's a movie with actors like Tim Curry, Alec Baldwin, people who

[01:29:55] can go over the top.

[01:29:57] Like it's like it's not like they don't have it in him.

[01:29:59] And it's directed by MacTurne and coming off of Predator and Die Hard, both of

[01:30:02] which are much more kinetic movies.

[01:30:04] Yes.

[01:30:04] That are crazier and louder than this movie.

[01:30:06] Before I saw this film just, you know, seeing the the VHS box, right?

[01:30:11] OK, this is Tom Clancy movie.

[01:30:13] It's Baldwin and Connery.

[01:30:14] That's what I know.

[01:30:15] And at some later point, I read the entire supporting cast list.

[01:30:20] And I remember having the thought as like a teenager of like, how could all

[01:30:24] of these performers be in one movie and not be clashing up against each other?

[01:30:28] You cannot put that group of people, even if they're not sharing scenes.

[01:30:33] Tim Curry cannot coexist with James Earl Jones with Connery as a submarine

[01:30:38] captain, whatever.

[01:30:39] As you said, like everyone is doing not just the sort of more

[01:30:44] the most reserved version of what they could do.

[01:30:47] But one that is totally in sync with the movie and the other performers.

[01:30:52] Like he's cast everyone very strategically for what their innate

[01:30:55] quality is, but pitched them all perfectly at the exact same level.

[01:31:00] Cordy B. Vance, I think is a great example of exactly this.

[01:31:02] Someone who is doing the most down tempo version of the thing that he does.

[01:31:07] Right.

[01:31:07] But that is still distinctively him.

[01:31:10] Yes.

[01:31:10] And fits completely well with it.

[01:31:13] Like, of course, the open when we meet him for the first time, you say,

[01:31:17] you know, it was it was not Paola Gucci.

[01:31:19] It was like, it was.

[01:31:20] That's exactly what that guy would be like.

[01:31:24] Yes.

[01:31:25] And it's entirely believable and it's dynamic in like, you're like, oh,

[01:31:29] who's this actor?

[01:31:30] Right?

[01:31:30] You're like, who's this guy?

[01:31:31] Yeah.

[01:31:32] But you're right, Griffin.

[01:31:33] It's not it's never too much, but it's always precisely what

[01:31:40] that actor can do very well.

[01:31:42] Yes.

[01:31:42] Yeah.

[01:31:43] And you're the only guy who's doing too much as we've discussed is Baldwin,

[01:31:47] which is appropriate.

[01:31:49] Yeah.

[01:31:49] Yeah.

[01:31:50] And he could even, he could do more.

[01:31:52] He's not like Glenn Gary up there.

[01:31:53] No, no, no, no.

[01:31:54] Like he's not like he could, he could go crazier.

[01:31:56] Can we do a little Baldwin sidebar?

[01:31:58] Cause I was really thinking on this while watching.

[01:32:00] I just talked about him a lot in this era, just in that we've done

[01:32:04] Beetlejuice and married to the mob.

[01:32:05] And is that it?

[01:32:07] Maybe a third one.

[01:32:08] I think there's a third one.

[01:32:09] I'm forgetting David.

[01:32:10] This is the exact point I wanted to make.

[01:32:12] Yeah.

[01:32:12] You recently on a Prince of Tides episode introduced the concept

[01:32:16] of the blank check hall of fame, which we're still kind of defining

[01:32:20] in real time.

[01:32:20] Right.

[01:32:20] Was it talking about an old team that you were talking about?

[01:32:22] No, you're talking about like people we have covered weird amount,

[01:32:26] a weird amount in wildly different roles with different directors where

[01:32:32] you're like, man, if you just take our Nick Nolte arc and you put

[01:32:35] fucking a Hulk and Prince of Tides and Lorenzo's oil and I'll do anything.

[01:32:40] That's a weird assemblage of roles, right?

[01:32:43] Right.

[01:32:43] Baldwin is one of those guys you could almost argue we should put

[01:32:46] in that here, except Baldwin so weirdly for a guy who doesn't disappear

[01:32:51] into roles is always Alec Baldwin.

[01:32:53] When I try to zoom out and think about his career, I'm like,

[01:32:56] that's eight different guys.

[01:32:57] The eras of Baldwin are so bizarre and distinct.

[01:33:00] And that's even if we remove like Baldwin, the man from it,

[01:33:04] which is its own additional like 10 eras of extreme drama on highs and lows.

[01:33:10] Yeah.

[01:33:10] Just looking at him as an actor, it is hard to be like,

[01:33:14] even within just a five year span, Beal, Juice Guy, married to the mob guy,

[01:33:18] Red October Guy, same guy, let alone that you get to 25 years later.

[01:33:23] He's the same guy who's in the two mission impossibles.

[01:33:26] He sure is.

[01:33:28] You made a terrible choice and I could just get to his line from thought.

[01:33:32] It is interesting to look at his career, which he follows this up

[01:33:36] with Miami Blues, does some supporting stuff in like Alice,

[01:33:40] Glenn Gary, obviously he pops like crazy in that.

[01:33:44] And you're like, man, this guy hasn't made.

[01:33:45] And then it's like, Malice, the getaway, the shadow,

[01:33:48] the juror, Heaven's prisoners.

[01:33:50] He basically just runs into a wall.

[01:33:53] He does a run of the exact thing he said he was avoiding up until this movie.

[01:33:57] The types of movies that would offer me the leading role are the third tier projects.

[01:34:02] Which is what those all are.

[01:34:03] The supporting guy.

[01:34:04] But after he's done this, he's like, I guess I got to be the guy at the

[01:34:07] center of the poster.

[01:34:08] Like to the point that when he is in the cooler, it truly is like,

[01:34:13] oh, shit, Alec Baldwin, like he can act.

[01:34:16] I forgot about that.

[01:34:17] And that was like total presence.

[01:34:19] He breezed to an Oscar nomination.

[01:34:21] He did.

[01:34:22] I think if we watch that today, we'd be like, this is like the fourth best

[01:34:25] performance he gives in any year.

[01:34:27] You're just like, oh, he's just like doing Jack Donaghy basically.

[01:34:29] But it's like, yeah, but that was exciting.

[01:34:31] That was coming off an era where he had had like five, six years of

[01:34:35] being a terrible leading man and then started to like bulk up.

[01:34:40] And then he's doing like Thomas the Tank Engine.

[01:34:41] Well, this is what I was saying.

[01:34:42] And then he's just like taken.

[01:34:44] But it's also a voice and final fantasy of the spirits within.

[01:34:46] And I just remember my dad being like, why is Alec Baldwin hosting SNL again?

[01:34:51] And I was like, he's weirdly good at this.

[01:34:53] My dad was like, but who cares about him as a movie star anymore?

[01:34:56] And then he would pop up as like the boss in one scene of a comedy.

[01:35:00] And he'd be like, fuck, he's good at this.

[01:35:03] There's that period where he doesn't totally want to own just

[01:35:06] being a comedy actor.

[01:35:08] A husky comedy.

[01:35:08] But it was the only thing that he was ever like popping in.

[01:35:12] And then Kula was the one time in that run where it was like, he knows his new body.

[01:35:16] He's bringing the energy from the comedies to a drama.

[01:35:19] I've also just been right to 30 Rock.

[01:35:21] I've been rewatching 30 Rock the last couple of weeks.

[01:35:24] It's an incredible performance.

[01:35:25] Yes.

[01:35:26] And it's just watching this in the middle of a 30 Rock run is wild to put in perspective.

[01:35:32] It's like two different.

[01:35:32] It's like effectively two different people.

[01:35:34] Yes.

[01:35:35] The scene where he does Cosby and then a bunch of other offensive

[01:35:38] stereotypes in trying to counsel Tracy Jordan and then Tracy Jordan's like,

[01:35:43] do do like my second grade teacher.

[01:35:45] And then he does like a sort of like, well, you know, you know, like does that?

[01:35:49] And Tracy Jordan is like, hey, we don't need to resort to stereotype.

[01:35:53] You couldn't do it today or whatever.

[01:35:55] It's not very funny.

[01:35:56] I love but the 100th episode with the gas leak where it becomes

[01:36:01] a sort of hallucinatory clip show.

[01:36:02] Yes.

[01:36:03] But the whole underlying part of it is they need to put on their 100th episode.

[01:36:07] The cable town guy maybe wants to cancel the show.

[01:36:10] I swear all of this is relevant and they're trying to get Tracy back on the show

[01:36:16] or else the show will get canceled.

[01:36:18] And it's after he's won an Oscar and has gotten too legitimate

[01:36:21] and hates that he's now seen as a pillar of like society and wants to lower

[01:36:26] his reputation again.

[01:36:28] And he's like complaining to Jack Donagher rooftop at the end of this episode.

[01:36:33] Like how do I get people to stop taking me seriously?

[01:36:35] I've tried everything.

[01:36:36] I go on the talk shows.

[01:36:37] I say the offensive thing.

[01:36:38] I do something bad in public.

[01:36:40] It all seems to go my way.

[01:36:42] And Baldwin gives this monologue where he's like, it's easy.

[01:36:44] Go on television.

[01:36:46] And he's like what?

[01:36:46] And he's like, the way to lower yourself back to television is to be on television.

[01:36:50] Television delegitimizes anyone and then gives a speech where he's like,

[01:36:54] even if you were a star and then Donaghe relays Baldwin's career

[01:36:59] are course with full intensity and he like puts extra like fucking mustard on it.

[01:37:05] When he's outlining the like hunt for red October part of it.

[01:37:09] And in that moment, you're like, right, I have to accept this has all been the same.

[01:37:13] It's the same guy.

[01:37:14] And it's like that was his moment to vault the ladder.

[01:37:18] Yeah.

[01:37:18] And he didn't really do it.

[01:37:19] And then it was just this long decline.

[01:37:22] Yeah.

[01:37:23] Now he's in a different phase of his life.

[01:37:27] I can't even think of what the joke is to make of this.

[01:37:30] But I just think we all I think the narrative became so much.

[01:37:35] He failed.

[01:37:36] They gave him the shot to be Jack Ryan and they replaced him with a bigger movie star.

[01:37:40] He wasn't up to par, right?

[01:37:41] And then the stories become conflicting while he was already committed to do

[01:37:45] streetcar named Desire on Broadway.

[01:37:47] I dropped out of my own volition.

[01:37:48] And then it was like, no, they kind of went behind his back

[01:37:51] and they just got wiggled out of the.

[01:37:54] The true story now seems to be Harrison Ford saw hunt for red October

[01:37:57] and was like, I fucking I do want to do that.

[01:38:00] Calls them and it's like, I will play Jack Ryan.

[01:38:02] And they're like, great, cool.

[01:38:04] Alec Baldwin can go into a garbage can for all we care of Harrison Ford wants

[01:38:07] to play Jack Ryan and that's what they do.

[01:38:10] Yes.

[01:38:11] And they screw him out.

[01:38:12] And yes, they have cover story of like, well, he was committed to do a play.

[01:38:15] I'm like, I think you could have worked around him doing a play.

[01:38:17] Yeah.

[01:38:18] Fuck, give me one second to find this quote because it's in the dossier about this.

[01:38:24] This is for Baldwin.

[01:38:24] OK, it's your exact point.

[01:38:26] The currency quote.

[01:38:28] He says for newcomers, the train pulls out at 12.01.

[01:38:32] You're on it or you're not.

[01:38:33] The greatest plateau in Hollywood is when they hold the train for you.

[01:38:37] I think that's exactly what you're saying, where he was committed to do this play.

[01:38:40] Yeah. Ford Express Interest and they were like, oh, no, if we're going to film,

[01:38:44] we have to film at the time of the play.

[01:38:46] Ford is available, though, so we'll see you later.

[01:38:48] We can't wait for you.

[01:38:49] Oh, no.

[01:38:50] Yeah.

[01:38:51] Because like Harrison Ford in Air Force One might as well be Jack Ryan.

[01:38:54] That's a more action.

[01:38:55] Yeah.

[01:38:56] Yeah.

[01:38:56] Yes.

[01:38:56] But it might as well just be what if Jack Ryan became president

[01:38:59] and then some terrorists hijacked his plane.

[01:39:01] Yeah.

[01:39:02] I mean, for all I know that does happen in a Jack Ryan novel,

[01:39:04] there's a lot of them.

[01:39:06] I'm not in charge of this.

[01:39:07] Can we talk about the fucking the Russian choice and the translation moment,

[01:39:11] which is just one of the most audacious things.

[01:39:13] I love it.

[01:39:14] The spooky does.

[01:39:14] I love it.

[01:39:15] It does so simply and you're like every white white.

[01:39:18] You know what?

[01:39:18] I don't want to pull this off this well for five minutes.

[01:39:21] Yes.

[01:39:21] And then you zoom in on is it Peter Firth's mouth, one of their mouths.

[01:39:25] Yes.

[01:39:25] When they say the word Armageddon,

[01:39:27] which is the same in both languages.

[01:39:28] And then when we zoom out, everyone's speaking English.

[01:39:30] I think not to be persnickety.

[01:39:32] I think it's not even a zoom.

[01:39:33] It's like a dolly in, right?

[01:39:35] Yeah.

[01:39:36] But it's without cuts.

[01:39:37] It's a classic McTiernan thing of like you're in this conversation.

[01:39:40] The camera slowly starts to track in on this guy's mouth.

[01:39:43] What's going on?

[01:39:44] He gets to the word.

[01:39:45] Why is there so much emphasis on this?

[01:39:46] And then after Armageddon, he's speaking in English

[01:39:48] and the camera slowly pulls back.

[01:39:50] And it's like you've shifted reality of this scene.

[01:39:52] You've entered their brains or whatever,

[01:39:54] which makes the then twist of them speaking Russian

[01:39:58] at the end of the movie hit hard.

[01:40:00] Yes.

[01:40:01] Where you're like, right.

[01:40:02] I mean, it's like the unspoken thing of all Star Trek,

[01:40:05] where it's like they're actually all speaking their own languages

[01:40:07] and there's just a computer making everyone sound the same.

[01:40:09] But it's what I was saying in the Die Hard episode about

[01:40:12] like the degree to which so much of McTiernan's technique

[01:40:15] is like magic tricks, where it's like he's making it feel

[01:40:18] like a twist at the end of the movie.

[01:40:21] The reveal that, oh yes, they are Russian.

[01:40:24] They were Russian all along.

[01:40:24] A thing you know and that we've all just been in agreement

[01:40:26] to accept the reality of hearing them in English.

[01:40:30] Now, the plot of the film seems more complicated

[01:40:32] than it is because it really is just like

[01:40:34] the sub is going in one direction

[01:40:37] and everyone in America is arguing about where it is

[01:40:40] and what it wants to do.

[01:40:41] Is this an offensive attack?

[01:40:42] And finally in the middle of the movie,

[01:40:44] Jack Ryan convinces someone like,

[01:40:46] I know what he wants to do.

[01:40:47] He wants it effect get me onto the sub that is near him.

[01:40:51] And we are gonna figure this out.

[01:40:53] And that is when the film shifts more from boardroom

[01:40:55] talk to like underwater tactics of like,

[01:40:58] let's send him a signal.

[01:41:00] Let's say like, hey, we think you know what we know

[01:41:02] what you're doing, just let us know if we're right.

[01:41:05] And that's when Connery's character then has to basically

[01:41:08] get his crew off of the boat.

[01:41:12] So that he can defect.

[01:41:14] He can enact the latter stage of his plan.

[01:41:16] To call out that the USS Dallas is basically

[01:41:19] in between those two points.

[01:41:20] They're the both of us.

[01:41:21] The Dallas is the right,

[01:41:22] is the boat that's near the red October.

[01:41:25] That's right, trying to figure it out.

[01:41:26] That's Scott Glenn, Courtney B. Vance,

[01:41:28] fucking Ned Vaughn who's one of those guys

[01:41:31] who's in everything.

[01:41:33] He's the sort of red hair guy.

[01:41:34] Yes.

[01:41:35] The guy's in everything.

[01:41:37] But it is a lot of, you know, chat and conversation

[01:41:42] and subtle diplomacy, I guess, right?

[01:41:46] Like, what are some other scenes

[01:41:48] you guys wanna mention?

[01:41:49] I don't know.

[01:41:50] We talked about this a lot obviously

[01:41:52] with the dead reckoning that I called out

[01:41:55] a few months before we were actually doing this series

[01:41:58] that I felt like McQuarrie was really kind of doing

[01:42:02] McTiernan style in the dialogue scenes of that movie, right?

[01:42:06] Sure.

[01:42:07] And it opens up with a submarine scene

[01:42:10] so it's like a pretty easy comparison point.

[01:42:13] But I was like, there's something to the way

[01:42:15] that in these long dialogue scenes

[01:42:17] where people in boardrooms have to like

[01:42:18] dump a bunch of exposition,

[01:42:20] he is shooting this like it's an action movie

[01:42:22] and not in the way Michael Bay does

[01:42:24] where he's adding a ton of flash.

[01:42:26] Camera is going all around.

[01:42:28] Where it's truly just style poured on top of it.

[01:42:30] And then one of the Empire McQuarrie

[01:42:33] interview episodes recently,

[01:42:36] he said this thing about like why he jumps the line

[01:42:40] in some of the dialogue scenes and dead reckoning

[01:42:42] and what the intent was of his camera movement

[01:42:45] and cutting between shots

[01:42:46] where the camera was moving in opposite directions.

[01:42:48] And he said this thing that I have to imagine

[01:42:50] was McTiernan strategy here,

[01:42:52] especially knowing the way he talked about

[01:42:55] how he studied shot lengths and movements

[01:42:57] for diehard and everything,

[01:42:58] which is McQuarrie's like,

[01:43:00] I basically find that if you have characters

[01:43:02] dumping a bunch of exposition

[01:43:04] every 10 seconds the audience will check out.

[01:43:07] And they'll think they're listening

[01:43:08] and paying attention but they're not.

[01:43:10] And you have to do things

[01:43:11] cinematically to wake them up.

[01:43:14] And so if you like jump the line

[01:43:15] you're slapping on the face.

[01:43:16] If you tilt the camera,

[01:43:18] if you have an aggressive camera move,

[01:43:20] the trick is to make those things

[01:43:22] feel kind of motivated and organic

[01:43:24] and not just like flashy for flash sake.

[01:43:27] But it does feel like this whole movie

[01:43:28] is incredibly talky

[01:43:30] and McTiernan is using every trick in the book

[01:43:32] to make every sentence feel important

[01:43:35] so that it lands with the impact of like a punch, right?

[01:43:39] Sure, absolutely.

[01:43:40] That's my big thesis.

[01:43:41] I agree.

[01:43:42] The American stuff is calmer though.

[01:43:44] Like there is more chit chat there.

[01:43:46] Like when Courtney Bivance is like,

[01:43:48] I think I'm hearing something

[01:43:49] like I thought I heard singing.

[01:43:50] No, and his camera movement in this.

[01:43:52] The captain isn't like quiet petty officer.

[01:43:54] Like he's like, all right.

[01:43:56] But this is my point.

[01:43:56] He wants the performances to be quiet

[01:43:58] so he's doing all of that through editing and camera movement.

[01:44:02] And the camera fucking never stops moving in this movie.

[01:44:05] The camera moves a lot.

[01:44:07] We should shout out to Jack Ryan obviously.

[01:44:09] I do love him because he's afraid of flying.

[01:44:12] Yeah. Like me.

[01:44:13] He overcomes his fear of flying obviously

[01:44:15] at the end of the movie.

[01:44:16] Be a little bit of an inspiration to you.

[01:44:18] Yeah, maybe it should be.

[01:44:19] I hear Jack Ryan's doing a lot of live shows these days

[01:44:21] in other cities.

[01:44:23] The reason why I'm playing the music box here is because I have a kid

[01:44:26] not because I'm afraid of flying.

[01:44:29] What's the big daring sequence of the middle of the movie

[01:44:33] is him getting on the sub?

[01:44:35] With the static.

[01:44:36] Which seems hard.

[01:44:37] Yeah, I wouldn't do it.

[01:44:38] Like this seems like a huge pain in the ass.

[01:44:40] My choice would be to not even try.

[01:44:42] And the sub is like, we gotta go up now.

[01:44:45] Yeah.

[01:44:46] It seems like the people on the sub themselves

[01:44:49] are like, why are you doing this?

[01:44:51] Right. Like we already had him basically.

[01:44:53] Like you distracted us by making us come pick you up.

[01:44:56] But then once he's there, I mean, so like his big,

[01:45:00] Jack Ryan's big gambit is that he guesses

[01:45:02] he's going to turn starboard.

[01:45:04] Uh-huh. Right.

[01:45:05] And when he does correctly guesses that,

[01:45:07] Scott Glenn is impressed.

[01:45:08] Sure.

[01:45:09] And he later reveals he just guessed.

[01:45:11] Right.

[01:45:12] It was gonna be one or the other.

[01:45:13] Yeah.

[01:45:14] And he had to win him over.

[01:45:15] But that's like this sort of essence of Jack Ryan,

[01:45:17] I guess, beyond just like he reads a lot.

[01:45:19] He's like, he has a little bit of maverick in him.

[01:45:21] A little mad.

[01:45:22] He'll do these like right.

[01:45:23] He'll do these kind of like out on a limb things

[01:45:25] that kind of, you know, distinguish him.

[01:45:27] Right?

[01:45:28] Yes.

[01:45:29] Okay.

[01:45:30] Ben was calling out how this felt like a perfect watch

[01:45:32] for rainy January when we're recording this.

[01:45:35] Muggy, foggy, gross January.

[01:45:38] Kind of unseasonably warm but it's very much a wet rainy day.

[01:45:43] Yes.

[01:45:44] And so I woke up and started watching this at like 10 o'clock

[01:45:51] and it was just like truly like perfect.

[01:45:53] Yep.

[01:45:54] I want to call out.

[01:45:56] A nautical film takes place on the seas, right?

[01:45:59] A lot of it is, it's a damp flick.

[01:46:01] I wouldn't say it was on the seas.

[01:46:03] It's in.

[01:46:04] In.

[01:46:05] Under.

[01:46:06] Under the seas.

[01:46:07] Oh yeah.

[01:46:08] The score for this movie was done by a Huck Rastatian band.

[01:46:10] It was done by Sebastian.

[01:46:11] That's right.

[01:46:12] Basil Pollard.

[01:46:13] Who's the fucking?

[01:46:14] I mean, the score for this movie is amazing.

[01:46:16] Who's better than Russians at singing in unison?

[01:46:21] They're the best.

[01:46:23] Boys to man.

[01:46:24] They were pretty good.

[01:46:25] Yeah.

[01:46:26] This movie was shot by Jan de Bon.

[01:46:28] Yeah.

[01:46:29] Is this the final McTiernan and de Bon collaboration?

[01:46:32] I would assume so because I don't think Jan de Bon

[01:46:34] shot Medicine Man.

[01:46:35] No.

[01:46:36] And then de Bon's making his own things.

[01:46:37] Yeah.

[01:46:38] I mean, after this, Jan de Bon goes on to shoot

[01:46:41] Lethal Weapon 3 in basic instinct, heard of it.

[01:46:44] Yep.

[01:46:45] And then obviously makespeed in 1994.

[01:46:47] This movie looks incredible.

[01:46:49] Yes.

[01:46:50] It is so fucking dark in a way that is like audacious.

[01:46:52] Yeah.

[01:46:53] And de Bon said that his big thing was that he didn't want to fake

[01:46:56] what the lighting would be in a submarine

[01:46:59] and had them build it to how it would be,

[01:47:01] which is real submarines do this thing

[01:47:03] of having the different colored lights at different times

[01:47:05] so people can starve off madness.

[01:47:07] They feel like, right.

[01:47:08] They feel like there's changes in the day.

[01:47:10] That's a real thing.

[01:47:11] The red-blue-white thing is a, you need to differentiate between times of day

[01:47:14] and demarcate the days and the cycles or else people go insane.

[01:47:18] My guess is it's gotten more complex now.

[01:47:21] I assume like submarines now are even more

[01:47:24] attuned to this sort of stuff.

[01:47:26] But he was like build it the way it would be

[01:47:28] and I'll figure out how to shoot around that.

[01:47:30] I don't want to like sneak and hide other lights in

[01:47:32] and he basically was like to this point

[01:47:34] of like ways to keep the audience's attention.

[01:47:36] He was like, if you have less light on a movie star's face

[01:47:39] the audience pays more attention to what they're saying.

[01:47:42] Sure.

[01:47:43] If their face is fully lit in a classical movie star way

[01:47:46] the audience pays attention to how they're saying it

[01:47:49] and this is not a movie of like clever line readings.

[01:47:54] No.

[01:47:55] You know, it's a movie of you need to understand the points

[01:47:57] of what they're articulating.

[01:47:59] So he was like the most effective thing you can do

[01:48:01] is put half of Sean Connery's face in shadow

[01:48:03] and if it's harder to see Sean Connery

[01:48:05] they pay more attention to the actual meat of what he's saying.

[01:48:08] When you see Skalyn Skarsgard in this film

[01:48:11] who you only glimpse briefly.

[01:48:13] I'd say you barely see him.

[01:48:14] Who is of course the sort of Soviet sub-captain

[01:48:16] who's been sent to destroy Connery.

[01:48:19] It literally looks like he's just like in hell.

[01:48:22] Like it's just red and he's like he's the only half his face.

[01:48:27] Yeah.

[01:48:28] It's the perfect choice.

[01:48:29] Like he's just this like demon chasing them

[01:48:32] and you don't even get the sense that he's a bad guy.

[01:48:34] He's just following orders probably right.

[01:48:36] Like he's not like maniacal or anything, but he's so scary.

[01:48:40] But it's also this McTiernan thing we keep coming back to

[01:48:42] which is like the guy was so fucking good with ensemble casts

[01:48:46] dealing with like many, many characters

[01:48:48] and casting them so well

[01:48:50] where it's just like people with very different faces

[01:48:53] and different vibes

[01:48:54] so that you're not getting them confused.

[01:48:56] Right.

[01:48:57] This is a movie where so many versions of this

[01:48:59] the 15 supporting guys are all indistinguishable

[01:49:03] from one another.

[01:49:04] And for a movie that visually does not display their faces

[01:49:08] very clearly, you are very capable of keeping track

[01:49:12] of who's who and what's what.

[01:49:14] Yeah.

[01:49:15] So, you know, Jack Ryan gets on the ship.

[01:49:17] Mm-hmm.

[01:49:18] He signals to them Ramius is sort of surprised

[01:49:22] to realize that they've guessed his plan I guess

[01:49:26] because of a plucky Jack Ryan of course.

[01:49:29] And they basically accept the offer by via Morse code pings.

[01:49:35] I mean, like that is right.

[01:49:37] Like everything beyond that is just him wrapping it up

[01:49:41] the whole fake emergency, the surfacing of the sub

[01:49:44] leaving everybody in the emergency vessels

[01:49:48] and it should go off without a scratch

[01:49:50] except for the fucking chef turns out to be a, you know,

[01:49:53] KGB agent or GRU or something.

[01:49:56] GRU.

[01:49:57] That is the whatever that era is KGB.

[01:50:00] And that's the one action sequence in the movie

[01:50:03] is chasing him through the sub with guns.

[01:50:05] Like that's about it.

[01:50:06] It's like barely an action sequence.

[01:50:07] Yeah.

[01:50:08] Like you get the initial gunfire Sam Nils character

[01:50:10] gets killed gets the best line of the movie.

[01:50:12] I would have liked to have seen Montana.

[01:50:14] Incredible.

[01:50:15] It's very sad.

[01:50:16] He's going to have a round wife who catches him

[01:50:19] rabbits and cooks them that earlier scene

[01:50:21] where like fantasy of American life.

[01:50:23] Nils the one guy.

[01:50:24] It's so nice.

[01:50:25] Connery's looping in on everything he's thinking

[01:50:28] and there's that scene where Neil just so perfectly

[01:50:31] plays this incredibly stoic emotionally closed off man

[01:50:35] trying to describe his dream life in America

[01:50:38] that is just kind of like complacency.

[01:50:41] It is just like banality.

[01:50:43] American banality seems like the most exciting thing

[01:50:45] in the world to him.

[01:50:46] Pick up truck round wife rabbit.

[01:50:48] Yeah.

[01:50:49] I mean the thing that always strikes me about that scene too

[01:50:51] is like, you know, I don't think we need a pass

[01:50:53] to leave the fucking thing.

[01:50:55] You can just drive from straight to state

[01:50:57] and you don't need a pass and you don't need approval.

[01:51:00] Yeah.

[01:51:01] It's very touching.

[01:51:02] It's very it's like it's in a movie

[01:51:04] like as I've been saying that is very sympathetic

[01:51:06] to the Russian sailors.

[01:51:09] It is maybe sort of like the most quietly

[01:51:11] sort of like this is what makes America great.

[01:51:14] It's an early scene.

[01:51:16] It's like 15 20 minutes in before we've really built

[01:51:19] early in the film for Jack Ryan out.

[01:51:21] I mean, that's the other funny thing about this being

[01:51:23] the movie that like all the hopes are pinned on

[01:51:26] this being Baldwin's transformative

[01:51:28] A-list leading man moment.

[01:51:30] They talk about when they were adapting the book

[01:51:32] there's like a run of 150 straight pages

[01:51:35] that Jack Ryan is not in.

[01:51:37] That Tom Fancey goes into his corridors and whatever.

[01:51:40] Even in its current form where they were trying to

[01:51:43] pre-connery construct the movie

[01:51:45] with more emphasis on Jack Ryan.

[01:51:47] It is moving between the three camps as we're saying.

[01:51:50] Primarily right?

[01:51:52] Like the Dallas whoever Ryan's talking to

[01:51:55] and the why am I forgetting the name of the Russian submarine.

[01:51:58] The red October Jesus fucking Christ.

[01:52:01] Not to mention like the back room conversations

[01:52:05] after Jack Ryan's like your Fred Thompson scenes or whatever.

[01:52:08] It is a movie that will go like 10 plus minutes

[01:52:11] without seeing your leading man.

[01:52:13] Which is what's cool about it

[01:52:16] is that it's so much more unsumbly

[01:52:18] than you would imagine it to be.

[01:52:20] But it does make you feel like

[01:52:22] if Kevin Costner were in this

[01:52:26] would he pop harder

[01:52:28] or would the movie just morph itself

[01:52:31] more around making him more traditionally heroic?

[01:52:34] It seems like if Kevin Costner in this movie

[01:52:36] it would just become a Kevin Costner movie.

[01:52:38] Like you lose the moment with Sam Neill.

[01:52:40] Like you lose some of this stuff

[01:52:42] that builds out through the characters

[01:52:44] and kind of builds up the stakes a bit more for everyone.

[01:52:46] The greater good of the film.

[01:52:48] There's by co-host John Gans

[01:52:51] has a fun theory about this movie

[01:52:54] because we watched his movie and I think the same year

[01:52:56] he watched Under Siege.

[01:52:58] Probably.

[01:52:59] Summertime.

[01:53:00] Both both movies obviously.

[01:53:02] Yeah, both both movies.

[01:53:03] And he hates Steven Segel

[01:53:05] but that's sort of besides the point for this anecdote.

[01:53:07] Hates his art but likes him as a person.

[01:53:09] Yeah, of course.

[01:53:10] Weirdly actually.

[01:53:12] Loves his personal life and his political beliefs.

[01:53:14] But the thing about Under Siege

[01:53:16] is that in Under Siege you have

[01:53:18] the terrorists take over the ship

[01:53:20] and Steven Segel is like this singular person

[01:53:23] who was able to save the ship

[01:53:25] and although others work with him

[01:53:27] at the end it's sort of like the celebration of the individual.

[01:53:30] But I think one of the compelling things

[01:53:33] about Rod October is it's really none of that.

[01:53:35] Like Jack Ryan does know what's going down

[01:53:38] but he is not able to accomplish anything

[01:53:40] without the assistance of other people.

[01:53:42] Yes.

[01:53:43] All the resolution of the problems

[01:53:46] that are confronted are done collectively.

[01:53:48] Yes, it's true.

[01:53:50] The most impressive thing Jack Ryan does is shoot the cook

[01:53:52] but that's just gets him where he's gone

[01:53:55] and he pulls the trigger

[01:53:57] but like that's it.

[01:53:59] There's not, you know, this is all for one

[01:54:02] one for all kind of stuff.

[01:54:04] The big moment is Scott Glenn dipping the subs

[01:54:07] so that the torpedo hits Scar's Guard instead of them.

[01:54:11] I mean this running thread across

[01:54:13] like doing a whole mini series on McTiernan

[01:54:15] Oh, it fucking rules.

[01:54:17] Oh and then the guys like you arrogant fool

[01:54:19] you've killed us.

[01:54:21] This running thread of like McTiernan's

[01:54:25] clear distaste for other action movies

[01:54:28] right? Sure.

[01:54:29] That all these movies he makes are almost an opposition

[01:54:31] to be like no this is how you should be doing it.

[01:54:34] This is the responsible way of making this

[01:54:36] or the intelligent way of making this.

[01:54:38] It is fascinating how often his movies

[01:54:41] kind of avoid the like lone man tropes

[01:54:44] of storytelling and even Die Hard

[01:54:46] which looks like that on its face isn't really

[01:54:49] like it is so much about

[01:54:51] well it's one guy in a building one good cop

[01:54:53] who gets it right but also it's like

[01:54:55] no it's the collaboration with everyone else.

[01:54:58] He's isolated but it is also still about partnership

[01:55:01] and like Predator is a movie where a guy loses his team

[01:55:04] and it seemingly like dies inside

[01:55:07] you know? Yeah he goes crazy.

[01:55:09] Right that even though he's a guy who makes these

[01:55:11] like star vehicles that are about like these iconic

[01:55:14] action heroes casting like the biggest leading men

[01:55:18] they're always very like about a collective

[01:55:21] and people's like exchanges with each other.

[01:55:24] Should I say below?

[01:55:29] It's a sub movie I've never seen.

[01:55:31] I'm sure I think of like sub movies I haven't seen below.

[01:55:33] Is the David Tohey one? Yeah.

[01:55:35] I've ever seen that. I think Zach Galifianakis

[01:55:38] is in that movie. He sure is.

[01:55:39] You know it's a good one a recent one the Wolf's Call.

[01:55:41] I need to see that one. It's a French one.

[01:55:42] I've heard that's good and I want to check it out.

[01:55:45] It's a lot of fun. I believe it's on Netflix.

[01:55:46] You know what's surprisingly good?

[01:55:48] We were talking about Gerard Butler earlier.

[01:55:50] A Hunter Killer.

[01:55:52] I'm just gonna watch in these.

[01:55:54] Yeah so when that came out it was like

[01:55:56] Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman in a sub movie

[01:55:58] I was like well that sounds good.

[01:56:00] It had also been on a shelf for like 12 years.

[01:56:02] Right but it also is it a Red Box movie

[01:56:04] because like those guys can go either way.

[01:56:07] It was a relativity media release

[01:56:10] that stayed on ice for like five years

[01:56:13] after the company went bankrupt.

[01:56:15] Like there's no way it's not at least pretty fun

[01:56:18] to watch those guys growl like dive, dive.

[01:56:22] Jamel's never been wrong about anything in his life

[01:56:24] and he just told us to do it.

[01:56:25] I've been wrong about plenty.

[01:56:27] I'm also gonna have to watch the undisputed

[01:56:28] Straight To Video sequels.

[01:56:30] Hunter Killer is it's like a totally fine

[01:56:33] you know TNT on a Sunday kind of movie.

[01:56:36] I guess that thing Gerard's the only guy

[01:56:38] who makes that kind of movie anymore.

[01:56:40] I mean you what I was supposed to go watch

[01:56:42] Sundance premieres on my you know TV.

[01:56:44] No I'm gonna watch Hunter Killer

[01:56:46] from five years ago.

[01:56:47] Hunter Killer, Plain, Kandahar.

[01:56:49] One of those movies where half the credits

[01:56:51] on Wikipedia don't even have pages.

[01:56:53] Linda Cardellini.

[01:56:55] The heart of Green Book is in it.

[01:56:57] Common Michael Nyefiz.

[01:56:58] Well the submarine runs on her energy.

[01:57:00] Of course.

[01:57:01] She's spinning around in a centrifuge.

[01:57:02] She's the heart of the submarine.

[01:57:04] Film ends with them.

[01:57:08] Yeah this sort of like exciting torpedo sequence

[01:57:12] but very what feels like it's trying to be accurate.

[01:57:15] It's really just a lot of like go 30 degrees this way.

[01:57:19] Yeah.

[01:57:20] Like rather than like crazy countermeasures

[01:57:23] and like visuals of torpedoes exploding

[01:57:25] and all that the one big visual

[01:57:27] is Skarsgaard's submarine exploding which is cool.

[01:57:30] Yes.

[01:57:31] But then after that it's like great

[01:57:33] let's go to Maine.

[01:57:35] Have one conversation and then Jack Ryan

[01:57:37] can bring a teddy bear home to his daughter

[01:57:39] and sleep on a plane.

[01:57:41] But also as we said like this is a movie

[01:57:43] that has expensive special effects

[01:57:45] special effects that were hard to achieve

[01:57:47] and even still the goal is like

[01:57:49] make it look realistic it would be dark down there

[01:57:51] and hard to see what it is.

[01:57:52] Yeah I mean this film was not nominated

[01:57:54] for its special effects at the one for sound effect editing.

[01:57:57] Got nominated for editing and sound.

[01:57:59] Yes but obviously this is the year of like

[01:58:02] total recall which has like insane

[01:58:05] special effects you know like that are like next level

[01:58:09] leaps you know.

[01:58:10] That's the thing about this movie is like

[01:58:12] it has expensive complicated

[01:58:15] special effects that are pretty unshoey and quiet.

[01:58:18] Yeah it costs 35 million dollars

[01:58:21] that's a good budget it's an insane one

[01:58:23] and I think a lot of it went to Connery

[01:58:25] and a lot more went to building the sets

[01:58:27] like I think the sets are really like expensive

[01:58:29] and it made you know there was this fear when it came out of like

[01:58:32] is this like is this old hat like the Berlin Wall has fallen.

[01:58:36] No I mean it was a recent history obviously.

[01:58:39] It was a big hit.

[01:58:41] It was a big hit thank you Griffin.

[01:58:43] $120 million.

[01:58:45] Two words.

[01:58:46] I'm just gonna say two words there.

[01:58:47] A big hit.

[01:58:49] Should we play the box office game or is there anything

[01:58:51] else we need to discuss?

[01:58:52] Jamal anything else?

[01:58:53] October.

[01:58:54] I don't think there's I don't have anything else.

[01:58:56] It's a great movie.

[01:58:57] What else does it say?

[01:58:59] You should check it out.

[01:59:01] It's a great film and it opened number one on March 2, 1990

[01:59:05] Griffin so like the time the Oscars of the previous year

[01:59:08] are happening that's the other reason it's less of a you know

[01:59:11] prestige film.

[01:59:12] That's true.

[01:59:13] It's coming out a year before.

[01:59:14] Right they didn't even put in the summer blockbuster slap

[01:59:16] but it was one of the highest grossing films of 1990.

[01:59:19] So it opens to $17 million

[01:59:21] and number two is the film that is about to win

[01:59:24] Best Picture at the Oscars.

[01:59:26] From 89 which is dances with walls.

[01:59:29] No that's this year.

[01:59:30] That's gonna win in a year.

[01:59:32] Rain Man?

[01:59:33] Nope.

[01:59:34] That's 88?

[01:59:35] Yep.

[01:59:36] Fuck 89.

[01:59:37] It's not Oscars finest hour.

[01:59:38] I'll put it that way.

[01:59:39] Okay and it's not oh it's...

[01:59:41] Oh it's Scent of a Woman.

[01:59:42] It's Driving Mistage.

[01:59:43] It's Driving Mistage.

[01:59:44] It's Driving Mistage.

[01:59:45] A huge, well a huge is actually too strong

[01:59:47] but a very big hit considering it's about a

[01:59:49] you know guy driving an old lady around.

[01:59:51] Yeah.

[01:59:52] Made $106 million.

[01:59:53] Look the title didn't lie that is what the movie's about.

[01:59:55] It is still so insane to me that

[01:59:57] Driving Mistage, Lindsay Oscar

[02:00:00] Yes.

[02:00:01] Sort of like the opposite of do the right thing.

[02:00:03] Yes.

[02:00:04] Like just the same year.

[02:00:05] Total ideological opposite and then what like 30 years later

[02:00:08] Let's do this again.

[02:00:09] Black Plansmen they just listen to the classic macho.

[02:00:12] Let's do this once again.

[02:00:13] It's a car again.

[02:00:15] It's another.

[02:00:16] But this time, this time.

[02:00:18] This time.

[02:00:19] Miss Daisy is the black man.

[02:00:20] Right and they're like well we gotta get this one

[02:00:22] and Oscar.

[02:00:23] I've already done a green book joke on this podcast.

[02:00:25] I won't do it again.

[02:00:27] But the driver is a spicy Italian man.

[02:00:30] This is spicy.

[02:00:31] It was radical.

[02:00:32] People understand how radical that movie was.

[02:00:34] This is the best part of chicken I've ever had.

[02:00:36] Hey.

[02:00:37] Hey.

[02:00:38] You know it's funny, I don't know if you guys

[02:00:39] are spending time on TikTok but that movie

[02:00:41] I think on TikTok it's people like will chop up

[02:00:43] movies and like post them in like five

[02:00:45] minutes.

[02:00:46] Is green book big on TikTok?

[02:00:47] It is weirdly big on TikTok.

[02:00:49] Oh boy.

[02:00:50] And you'll go into the comments and people be like

[02:00:51] man this is a great movie.

[02:00:52] This is a great movie.

[02:00:53] Just wonderful message of this movie.

[02:00:55] Were we talking about this with YG's David?

[02:00:58] But just like how weirdly big green book was.

[02:01:01] In China.

[02:01:02] We were talking about that.

[02:01:03] And France.

[02:01:04] Well you know what?

[02:01:05] Where you're like you expect we import that.

[02:01:07] We export that over to other countries and they're like

[02:01:09] you gave this shit best picture and other countries

[02:01:11] liked it more than we did.

[02:01:12] Have you ever seen a French comedy?

[02:01:14] I have.

[02:01:15] They have green book vibes.

[02:01:17] They do.

[02:01:18] Right.

[02:01:19] The joke is.

[02:01:20] It's a bunch of unreal.

[02:01:21] It is green book vibes.

[02:01:22] Yes.

[02:01:23] Virtuoso.

[02:01:24] Italian for pretty good.

[02:01:25] That's the line I was trying to remember.

[02:01:28] I'm so glad you dug it up.

[02:01:30] Number three the box office speaking of this actor.

[02:01:34] It is an action film starring Steven Segal.

[02:01:37] Hard to kill.

[02:01:38] Eldest.

[02:01:39] Which is what his third?

[02:01:42] Yeah because his first one is above the law.

[02:01:45] It's above the law.

[02:01:46] Alpha Justice, Hard to Kill.

[02:01:47] Great titles.

[02:01:49] They really are all kind of so good.

[02:01:52] Yeah, Steven Segal is above the law.

[02:01:55] Steven Segal is marked for death.

[02:01:57] That's what's smart about the titles.

[02:01:58] They're all set up the dot dot dot then the title.

[02:02:01] They tell you about the man.

[02:02:03] In 92 he gets under siege and it's sort of like

[02:02:06] oh he's like a little more.

[02:02:07] He leveled up.

[02:02:08] Like a pop who beats people up in this one.

[02:02:10] And under siege was a huge hit.

[02:02:12] It was a huge hit.

[02:02:13] I mean it's stupid but it's a good movie.

[02:02:15] Yeah it is.

[02:02:16] What?

[02:02:17] You haven't even seen it.

[02:02:19] He said that about under siege.

[02:02:20] Not under siege too.

[02:02:21] Oh you did finally see it.

[02:02:22] Okay good for you.

[02:02:23] Famously I loved under siege 2.

[02:02:25] Never saw one until probably like two years ago.

[02:02:28] Under siege 2 is a lot of fun.

[02:02:29] Yeah it rolls.

[02:02:30] Yeah dude they're on a fucking train.

[02:02:31] They are on a train and they do go into dark.

[02:02:33] And then so you get under siege and then actually

[02:02:35] the next film that's released in Segal's career

[02:02:37] is Undeadly Ground.

[02:02:39] Yes.

[02:02:40] Which is his magma mode.

[02:02:42] That's where you start to see some cracks in the facade for sure.

[02:02:46] I know we just did the March Madness and decided

[02:02:50] should we do a Segal?

[02:02:52] No.

[02:02:53] Cover all the Segal's.

[02:02:55] Here's my idea.

[02:02:56] We just yesterday settled both brackets for main feed and Patreon.

[02:02:59] My pitch is throw them both out.

[02:03:01] Yep.

[02:03:02] Segal on main feed, Segal on Patreon.

[02:03:04] So number four is a box office.

[02:03:07] We just decree Griffin.

[02:03:09] It's both.

[02:03:10] It's a comedy.

[02:03:13] Yeah.

[02:03:14] Of the, you know there's a lot of these kinds of movies.

[02:03:18] This guy's a sitcom star.

[02:03:20] Okay.

[02:03:21] He's winning Emmys.

[02:03:22] He's a big deal on this TV show.

[02:03:24] Can he do a movie?

[02:03:25] It's not a dance him.

[02:03:26] No.

[02:03:27] But it's an 80s sitcom star.

[02:03:29] Yeah lesser than that but he was certainly a big deal.

[02:03:32] And I like him.

[02:03:33] And you know what his female co-star is from Cheers.

[02:03:37] So it's a Shelley Long movie?

[02:03:38] No.

[02:03:39] Fuck.

[02:03:40] It's not a Cure Ciali.

[02:03:41] It is.

[02:03:42] But he's, but she's not the star of the star.

[02:03:43] I mean she's the co-leader.

[02:03:44] Okay.

[02:03:45] So I've never seen this film.

[02:03:46] Huh.

[02:03:47] I don't think it was a big hit.

[02:03:48] Cure Ciali and a different sitcom star.

[02:03:51] Yes.

[02:03:52] Can you tell me which network the sitcom star was on?

[02:03:55] I can tell you that you watched a lot of this sitcom recently.

[02:03:59] Is it a larracat?

[02:04:00] John Larracat.

[02:04:01] It's a larracat in Cure Ciali?

[02:04:02] Correct.

[02:04:03] Huh.

[02:04:04] There's the Larracat Brunson Pinchot movie.

[02:04:06] We're one of them's like a psychic.

[02:04:08] I know.

[02:04:09] I'm rever- I'm fucking process of elimination.

[02:04:11] I don't know what that movie is, but it's not this one.

[02:04:14] Second site is that movie.

[02:04:15] Thank you.

[02:04:16] This movie is called...

[02:04:18] It's got a very generic name.

[02:04:20] Oh no.

[02:04:22] That's my guess.

[02:04:23] It's called Mad House.

[02:04:25] Okay.

[02:04:26] Very generic.

[02:04:27] There are a couple and it looks like they have some house guests who are crazy.

[02:04:30] And the house gets angry at them?

[02:04:32] No, the house guests.

[02:04:34] They have house guests.

[02:04:35] I have a sense called Mad House.

[02:04:36] Is the house angry that they invited guests over to it?

[02:04:39] Possibly.

[02:04:40] It's like a sentient monster house type premise, right?

[02:04:42] Don't think so.

[02:04:43] I think they just have some wild house guests.

[02:04:44] Sounds like missed opportunity.

[02:04:45] It does.

[02:04:46] Number five of the box office is probably the movie that people thought was going

[02:04:49] to win Best Picture for a while and wins Best Director in the...

[02:04:53] Born on the 4th of July.

[02:04:54] In the drive of Miss Daisy or it's Born on the 4th of July.

[02:04:57] Yeah.

[02:04:58] Another big hit, but you know, serious.

[02:05:01] Very serious.

[02:05:02] Very serious movie.

[02:05:04] I've never seen it actually.

[02:05:06] It's not amazing.

[02:05:07] It's pretty good.

[02:05:08] Have you seen Born on the 4th of July?

[02:05:10] Never seen it, no.

[02:05:11] Where do you stand on stone?

[02:05:12] Are you a stoner?

[02:05:13] You like to get stoned?

[02:05:14] I mean, I...

[02:05:17] So I love JFK.

[02:05:19] Yeah.

[02:05:20] I think it's an insane movie.

[02:05:22] It's an old fashioned men's movie.

[02:05:24] I think JFK...

[02:05:26] To me, JFK must be like what it feels like to go through a drug and do a stupor.

[02:05:31] Yeah.

[02:05:32] But I do love it.

[02:05:33] Do you like Nixon?

[02:05:34] I like Nixon a lot.

[02:05:35] Hell yeah.

[02:05:36] Even better, in my opinion.

[02:05:38] That one too, punch of JFK and Nixon, I think are terrific.

[02:05:42] But otherwise quite lukewarm on Oliver Stone.

[02:05:46] He's kind of out of fashion at this point.

[02:05:49] I wonder if we'll ever do him.

[02:05:50] I like his later documentary work.

[02:05:53] I like just when he sits down and tries to redeem the souls of desperate.

[02:05:56] Also got Men Don't Leave.

[02:05:59] Yeah.

[02:06:00] Just Galang, Arliss Howard.

[02:06:01] Okay.

[02:06:02] I've never seen a movie on this podcast before.

[02:06:03] Revenge, the Kevin Costner film.

[02:06:05] Oh sure.

[02:06:06] What is that about?

[02:06:07] I don't know.

[02:06:08] That's Tony Scott, is it not?

[02:06:10] Let's find out.

[02:06:11] Is it a Tony Scott film?

[02:06:13] It is.

[02:06:14] Thank you.

[02:06:15] Yeah, with Anthony Quinn, Madeleine Stowe.

[02:06:17] You know why I know that?

[02:06:18] Why?

[02:06:19] Because it's a classic weird Tarantinoism that he writes true romance and then here's

[02:06:25] Tony Scott's interested in directing your script and he went, the guy who did revenge.

[02:06:30] It's like, no he's the guy who did top gun you fucking twerp.

[02:06:32] But he always in interviews was like, the reason I let Tony Scott do true romance is

[02:06:36] because I liked revenge.

[02:06:37] No, I should check out revenge.

[02:06:38] It's a Scott I haven't seen.

[02:06:40] Yeah.

[02:06:41] And I should do it on Scott I haven't seen.

[02:06:42] You should.

[02:06:43] Glory is number eight, another Oscar player of that year.

[02:06:46] Yeah.

[02:06:47] Steel Magnolia is another one.

[02:06:48] Mm-hmm.

[02:06:49] Feeling good film.

[02:06:50] And the Bette Midler comedy Stella.

[02:06:54] There's sort of a dramedy.

[02:06:55] I don't think that's how the title said, David.

[02:06:57] Stella.

[02:06:58] Thank you.

[02:06:59] Also starring John Goodman.

[02:07:01] I know nothing about that.

[02:07:02] She's a feisty woman working in a bar who.

[02:07:05] Is that a Stella Dallas remake?

[02:07:07] Gets pregnant.

[02:07:08] Am I wrong about that?

[02:07:09] Yes, it's a Stella Dallas remake.

[02:07:11] It's a weird.

[02:07:12] Barbara Stanwyck movie.

[02:07:13] It's like only the lonely.

[02:07:14] That era of them like remaking old Oscar bait films as studio comedies.

[02:07:19] She gets knocked up and you know then she's a single mom and she meets a bar

[02:07:23] fly played by John Goodman.

[02:07:25] Sounds pretty good.

[02:07:26] Trini Alvarado.

[02:07:27] Yeah.

[02:07:28] But it's around October season, baby.

[02:07:31] Everyone loves it.

[02:07:32] Open 17.

[02:07:33] Number one for a month until Pretty Woman knocks it off.

[02:07:36] It makes 130 domestic.

[02:07:38] It makes 120 domestic, 200 worldwide.

[02:07:41] I mean, good numbers.

[02:07:43] Great numbers had crazy multiplier.

[02:07:45] Yeah.

[02:07:46] You know.

[02:07:47] So for a big T-R-N-N this is about three in a row now.

[02:07:49] Yes.

[02:07:50] So he just has to fuck it up.

[02:07:52] Yeah.

[02:07:53] And then the other thing is right.

[02:07:54] This movie successfully launches a franchise that basically has no relation to this movie.

[02:07:57] Right.

[02:07:58] James Earl Jones is the only carryover.

[02:08:00] The director doesn't return.

[02:08:01] The star doesn't return.

[02:08:02] Yes.

[02:08:03] But like for McTiernan it's like off of this he does medicine, man.

[02:08:07] Yeah.

[02:08:08] That doesn't do well but people can kind of sort of be like, well it was a smaller

[02:08:11] movie and whatever.

[02:08:12] Yeah.

[02:08:13] Didn't really hurt anyone's feelings.

[02:08:14] Then he does Last Action Hero.

[02:08:15] Right.

[02:08:16] And that's the kind of noxious bomb he has to then retreat to do Die Hard

[02:08:19] with a Vengeance as a sort of like reset.

[02:08:21] Remember what you all like about this.

[02:08:23] Yes.

[02:08:24] I will be interested to hear what you guys think of a Last Action Hero.

[02:08:26] That is a movie I like quite a bit.

[02:08:28] I like it a lot.

[02:08:29] Yeah.

[02:08:30] Spoilers for episode good.

[02:08:32] But that episode is mostly us discussing how good is it?

[02:08:36] Like is it great?

[02:08:37] Is it flawed?

[02:08:38] Like what works, what doesn't?

[02:08:39] You know it was very interesting episode.

[02:08:40] I can totally see why the reaction was what the reaction was.

[02:08:45] At the time it was cooking with weird new gas that people didn't understand.

[02:08:49] When I saw it when I was 15 like 10 years after it had come out and bombed

[02:08:53] I was like this is frustrating.

[02:08:55] And I should like this.

[02:08:57] And then I rewatched it and I was like no this is good and it's interesting.

[02:09:01] And I wish we had this kind of...

[02:09:03] We were talking about this pre-record.

[02:09:05] Yeah.

[02:09:06] This type of mess you miss?

[02:09:07] Yeah.

[02:09:08] A personal mess.

[02:09:09] A mess with character.

[02:09:11] So that's it.

[02:09:14] Yeah, we're going to go to Medicine Man from here.

[02:09:17] We've recorded that episode.

[02:09:19] Just with the doctor prescribed.

[02:09:21] Yes, no one raises their voice in that one either right?

[02:09:23] Everyone's very subtle.

[02:09:24] No, that's a movie with two very normal voices at the center.

[02:09:28] Who's the co-star?

[02:09:29] Lorraine Braco!

[02:09:31] Get out of the jacquo!

[02:09:35] Lorraine Braco an actress I often like.

[02:09:38] Not her best work.

[02:09:39] No.

[02:09:40] Let's be clear that was specifically an impression of Lorraine Braco in Medicine Man.

[02:09:44] If what you heard us do just now sounded mean,

[02:09:46] wait until you watch Medicine Man.

[02:09:48] It's going to feel forgiving.

[02:09:50] It's going to feel like Tim Curry in Unfrored Act Over.

[02:09:54] Exactly.

[02:09:55] Wow, he's not uncorking it at all.

[02:09:58] Jermell,

[02:09:59] Take us out.

[02:10:00] Unclear and Present Danger.

[02:10:01] Yes.

[02:10:02] Yes, my podcast on Clear and Present Danger, John Gans.

[02:10:05] Got a Patreon.

[02:10:06] We got a Patreon.

[02:10:07] We cover movies basically like the Unfrored Act Over.

[02:10:10] Hell yeah.

[02:10:11] Most recent episode that should be relatively soon after this record is Executive Decision.

[02:10:18] We're moving chronologically.

[02:10:20] This is more than anything over the podcast.

[02:10:22] It's moving chronologically through the 90s.

[02:10:24] So we're currently in 1996,

[02:10:27] which is a good fun year because we'll have Independence Day later on.

[02:10:30] We should get through 97 this year as well,

[02:10:33] which will get us to Air Force One.

[02:10:36] We're kind of in like Prime 90s action film territory.

[02:10:41] And then on Patreon we do kind of like classic Cold War movies.

[02:10:45] We just did Marathon Man, a great movie.

[02:10:49] Yes, very fun.

[02:10:50] Had not seen it a long time.

[02:10:51] Very disturbing and unsettling dental torture scene.

[02:10:54] Oh yeah.

[02:10:55] That is undoubtedly true.

[02:10:56] Quite a lot.

[02:10:57] Is it safe?

[02:10:58] Is that what he says?

[02:10:59] Yeah, is it safe?

[02:11:01] Yeah.

[02:11:02] Just like Dustin Hoffman's desperation.

[02:11:03] No, it's really well-heard.

[02:11:05] It's really unsettling.

[02:11:07] Famously that's where Olivier Totem on a new tri-acting,

[02:11:10] which is really funny,

[02:11:12] but they're both really good at that movie.

[02:11:14] That's what's fascinating about this scene.

[02:11:16] They're coming out from different angles and you're like,

[02:11:18] both are effective.

[02:11:19] Am I wrong in thinking that this is Jermel's fifth appearance?

[02:11:22] What?

[02:11:23] Oh, let me look that up.

[02:11:24] I almost let the slide behind me.

[02:11:26] Am I a fiver now officially?

[02:11:27] Because there's one Patreon appearance,

[02:11:29] which is its own column.

[02:11:31] So I was on the Blic Pinter

[02:11:34] and the Stray of the Blic Pinter.

[02:11:38] That was pain.

[02:11:39] I think I got to rewatch that movie.

[02:11:41] Because the thing about it is that it rocks,

[02:11:43] but it does have like campy classic stuff too.

[02:11:45] That's so good.

[02:11:46] So that was a Patreon, but then Olivier...

[02:11:48] Rosewood.

[02:11:49] Rosewood, Forest Gump, Spider-Man 3.

[02:11:52] No, this is your sixth episode.

[02:11:54] This is my sixth episode.

[02:11:55] What?

[02:11:56] Olivier, Forest Gump, Rosewood, Spider-Man 3

[02:11:57] and Battling Butler in the general are.

[02:11:59] That's right.

[02:12:00] So you're already a five-timer.

[02:12:02] Okay.

[02:12:03] Well, welcome to the Six Timers Club.

[02:12:04] What happens when you hit 99 on your show?

[02:12:06] Have you discussed this?

[02:12:07] Well, so it might turn two keys

[02:12:09] and something happens.

[02:12:10] I don't know if I've discussed with John,

[02:12:12] but my conception of the arc of the podcast,

[02:12:16] the actual last movie that falls into this type

[02:12:19] is The Sum of All Fears.

[02:12:21] Right.

[02:12:22] Oh, wow.

[02:12:23] It begins with the month of October.

[02:12:24] It ends with The Sum of All Fears.

[02:12:25] The Sum of All Fears very much is a post-Cold War.

[02:12:29] You know, these are the threats to the United States.

[02:12:31] It's terrorism, but it's not Middle Eastern terrorism.

[02:12:34] It's like Russia's unstable.

[02:12:36] It's like it's very post-Cold War to me.

[02:12:39] We will likely, assuming our friendship continues,

[02:12:42] we will likely just keep moving through in the 2000s.

[02:12:46] Do the 9-11 thing.

[02:12:47] But that's what I was going to say.

[02:12:48] I was going to say, right.

[02:12:49] The political thrill.

[02:12:50] Some of All Fears is like the last one out of the gates

[02:12:53] that isn't influenced by 9-11.

[02:12:55] Exactly.

[02:12:56] That's what's interesting about it.

[02:12:57] And then they're all very much like 9-11 influenced.

[02:13:00] But quite a while.

[02:13:01] Right.

[02:13:02] I remember that being a movie where there was like

[02:13:04] consternation in the marketing of like,

[02:13:06] should we include this scene with the plane?

[02:13:08] Yeah.

[02:13:09] There's a shot of an explosion.

[02:13:10] And even though it wasn't about anything close to what it happened,

[02:13:13] people were still touched about.

[02:13:14] That's fascinating.

[02:13:15] Well, people should listen.

[02:13:16] Yep.

[02:13:17] And you can find me over at the New York Times.

[02:13:19] Assuming you read it, if you don't, that's okay.

[02:13:21] It doesn't offend me.

[02:13:22] Wait, I should send you an email updating you

[02:13:25] on how subscribed I am to the New York Times at all times.

[02:13:28] Yeah.

[02:13:29] Do you read the crosswords at all?

[02:13:30] I do that a lot.

[02:13:31] No, I do the wordle every day.

[02:13:33] Yeah.

[02:13:34] All right, wrap it up.

[02:13:35] I gotta go back.

[02:13:36] Okay, David's going to the bathroom.

[02:13:37] Yep.

[02:13:38] Now we really get to have some fun.

[02:13:40] Thank you all for listening.

[02:13:42] I don't know.

[02:13:43] Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.

[02:13:45] Thank you to Marie Bardi, our associate producer.

[02:13:48] Thank you to AJ McCann, production coordinator,

[02:13:51] and also editor on the show along with Alex Barron.

[02:13:55] Thank you to JJ Birch for our research.

[02:13:58] Jeb Bohn, Pat Reynolds for our artwork.

[02:14:01] Lane Montgomery, the great American novel for our theme song,

[02:14:04] you go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to some real nerdy shit,

[02:14:08] including Blank Check Special Features, our Patreon,

[02:14:12] where we do franchise commentaries right now.

[02:14:15] We're doing the Terminator movies.

[02:14:17] What's your overall sort of Terminator feeling?

[02:14:20] I really like the Terminator movies.

[02:14:24] Yeah.

[02:14:25] I am forgiving of most of them other than Terminator Genesis,

[02:14:30] which I think is just like...

[02:14:31] That's my fucking opinion.

[02:14:33] Yeah.

[02:14:34] Genesis is the one where I'm just like, this is running on fumes

[02:14:38] and not very enjoyable.

[02:14:39] Terminator Salvation, not a good movie.

[02:14:41] Has some cool visual stuff.

[02:14:43] I agree.

[02:14:44] Like has some cool concepts.

[02:14:45] I enjoy it.

[02:14:46] I'm glad David's in the bathroom for this

[02:14:47] because we got into a fucking fight over this one, Mike.

[02:14:50] But I feel like the Terminator franchise is a franchise

[02:14:52] that performs well below what it could be.

[02:14:55] Absolutely.

[02:14:56] For reasons I don't quite understand.

[02:14:57] I thought Dark Fate was like...

[02:14:59] Even though it was basically sort of like,

[02:15:00] what if we did T2 again?

[02:15:02] Yeah.

[02:15:03] It's good.

[02:15:04] And that's a good choice

[02:15:05] of what they should have been doing the whole time.

[02:15:07] But it's always been so strange to me that that franchise,

[02:15:10] which is out the gate with two phenomenal films

[02:15:13] and it's just not been able to figure out...

[02:15:16] And part of me wonders if it's just sort of like,

[02:15:18] it's so wedded,

[02:15:19] the franchise becomes so identified with Schwarzenegger.

[02:15:22] How do we fit Schwarzenegger into this?

[02:15:24] That's a big problem.

[02:15:25] And then they get too caught up in the lore.

[02:15:27] Like what is the lore?

[02:15:29] What's the timeline?

[02:15:30] What's the lore?

[02:15:31] When sort of like the thing that makes the franchise work,

[02:15:33] it's like, these are glorified chase films.

[02:15:36] These are...

[02:15:37] You are being chased by the scariest thing you can imagine

[02:15:41] and nothing you can do can kill it.

[02:15:43] Yeah.

[02:15:44] So let's talk about the Terminator, David!

[02:15:46] Let's turn that...

[02:15:47] Let's find...

[02:15:48] Let's write around that.

[02:15:49] Yes.

[02:15:50] I will say like,

[02:15:51] living in the time of watching the reboots

[02:15:53] happen over and over again,

[02:15:55] I found it frustrating to watch them fuck it up.

[02:15:57] And now that we're in a space where like,

[02:15:59] Terminators on Ice and everyone stopped trying to make it happen,

[02:16:02] it has been very fun to do the commentary episodes

[02:16:05] and basically from a safe distance watch

[02:16:08] Sideshow Bob's step on the rakes over and over again.

[02:16:11] Yeah.

[02:16:12] Like that's what it becomes.

[02:16:13] Yeah.

[02:16:14] Of like, let me turn the other way.

[02:16:15] That's also a rake.

[02:16:16] I mean, the one...

[02:16:17] The...

[02:16:18] I think the...

[02:16:19] So I do have like a Terminator ranking

[02:16:21] and like in my ranking,

[02:16:23] I think my third favorite Terminator thing

[02:16:25] is the Seraconic Chronicles.

[02:16:27] Wow.

[02:16:28] In part because I think it actually gets some of what works about Terminator.

[02:16:31] Like not so much timelines that sort of like,

[02:16:33] oh you're being chased by something that's unstoppable

[02:16:36] and wants to kill you

[02:16:38] and that's all it cares about.

[02:16:40] Well, Tramiel, I love that.

[02:16:42] Thank you again for being here.

[02:16:43] You're welcome.

[02:16:44] And as always,

[02:16:45] it sounds like we now have to do all of the Seraconic Chronicles

[02:16:48] on Patreon, David.

[02:16:49] Oh my God.