The Insider with Andy Levy

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check He has like 50 good quotes too You can't go wrong with Plummer

[00:00:35] But there's a guy in this movie who does some really good yelling Torsches in Afference This is our last Pacino too with Man Getting pissed off, I'm getting curious Unless Pacino is going to be in like whatever Michael Man's next movie is

[00:00:51] I don't know, I think Michael Man is trying to let him sleep Yeah he saw insomnia and he was like I get it, I get it, I get it You have a pile of garbage, you can get it Hello everybody my name is Griffin Newman I'm David Sims

[00:01:04] This is Blank Check with Griffin and David, it's a podcast about filmographies Thrasher's who have massive success early on in their career are given a series Blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce, baby This is a weird check

[00:01:17] But it's just a bouncer It's a big bouncer Like almost every man movie it's a bouncer It's a big bounce and it is kind of inexplicable that they gave him $70 million I'm sorry, when I say today 90? This film's budget was $90 million

[00:01:31] And the people who gave him that money were Disney The Walt Disney Corporation Which is insane Pretty weird Yeah, and there are a lot of really interesting quotes from then head of Disney films, Joe Roth Being like I don't know, we tried

[00:01:47] It's a really good movie, we're really proud of it We couldn't force people to go see it I mean, that's fair But they kind of threw their hands up A good movie But they were like I don't know why it didn't work It seems commercial

[00:01:59] You don't know why a 2 hour and 40 minute movie behind the scenes of 60 minutes didn't work I'm very surprised, we thought it would work We're very proud of it I love the movie but it's not like screaming like audiences are gonna be paying for this

[00:02:11] They'll be at the box office being No! I can't see it tomorrow, it's gonna be tonight Joe Roth was like talking about it like it was the Iron Giant Or like I don't know why it didn't connect with audience

[00:02:20] If we had this great product and it's a crowd pleaser, it's good for families We got everyone Baker Hall Venora Crows You know what's the thing I love in this movie? Debbie Mazer Here's the thing I love

[00:02:34] And I feel like Michael Mann movies have this, other films have this But you see it less and less frequently these days Really long opening credits Where almost every actor who has more than two lines Is in the opening Oh their own card, yes Right

[00:02:48] Or even if it's a split card by the time you get down to like split cards It's like a chief from Carmen San Diego Rip Torns in this movie? Yeah, I like For like two shots For like one second right?

[00:03:01] He gets a single card, single card opening credits I love Curtis is in this movie I think I think he's He's like one of the guys at the beginning right? I think he is the guy The shake or whatever Yes, Curtis is the shake Yes, yes That's wild

[00:03:13] Yes But single card billing Yeah Well the opening credits for this movie last 47 minutes Yeah, well it's a two hour 47 minute movie Right And they're like Michael it could be two hours if you just cut the opening No I refuse I can't do it

[00:03:28] I didn't realize most of his movies play on TV as Alan Smith he cuts Sure Because he won't he just refuses to get it down to three hours or whatever Right To a three hour block

[00:03:40] He famously says I will add 40 minutes so you can put it into a five hour block He offered to beef up Ali to make it for What was it heat? It's heat Both I think

[00:03:48] Yeah, he was the big one where he was like I don't want to cut a second But I can add in 40 minutes Apart from the keep what's his shortest movie is it collateral collateral is two hours Oh yeah, thieves pretty short

[00:04:00] But like apart from no thieves two hours and two minutes Really? So collateral has it beat Wow Apart from that like black hat well no black hats longer Yeah Collateral is the one time he made like a quote unquote lean movie Yes I think Yes, that's interesting Yeah

[00:04:19] The guy we're talking about of course is Michael Mann This is a main series on his films it's called cast of the Pot Heakens A.K.A. Michael Mann's Blaming Sure And the film we're talking about today is The Insider

[00:04:29] The film that finally where the academy finally legitimizes him He finally becomes a serious filmmaker after being written off for so many years as a style over substance guy Which is insane to think about It is insane Insane

[00:04:47] No that hack who made with that cop movie with the nearer or whatever Yeah, I guess I saw that on cable Two hour and 40 minute popcorn film Then he makes a movie about 60 minutes and people are like 60 well 60 minutes is very important So this movie must be important

[00:05:02] We should give it many Oscar nominations We got this but we went to see detective Pikachu recently That's true A film that feels weirdly inspired by Michael Mann Sure There were many scenes where I turned you and I went this looks like thief It looks like thief

[00:05:14] It definitely feels inspired by that kind of like end man hunter It's got the neon noir thing going on And even the score sounds like a little tangerine dreamy Pretty good score But

[00:05:23] We did arrive at the premiere one hour early so we heard the score on a loop like 18 times And we were like this is a good score They said you had to get there earlier if you wanted to meet Pikachu

[00:05:32] So we got there an hour and a half early You should introduce our guest He's allowed to talk on my He's allowed to talk on my I've been sitting here trying to figure out He's not allowed to talk on my Encourage

[00:05:41] We said we got to get there really early because we're not going to miss a chance to meet Pikachu Right, Pikachu is going to be in demand Right, we got there in an hour and a half early They were like yeah sure, you're meet Pikachu Right it was

[00:05:52] It was Pikachu right? It wasn't like a guy in an inflatable costume No, there was both a giant inflatable Pikachu Right and a smaller inflatable Pikachu Right, both of them were real We met both of them, we took about 87 pictures

[00:06:04] Got a free Slurpee and then we went what do we do now So then we walked into the theater and we just sat in the screening room for over an hour Chatting And that hour was just a still image of Detective Pikachu projected And the score playing

[00:06:17] Yeah and then occasionally a song from the movie would play Right Just sort of break up the action Right we had our old guy grump conversation where we were like doesn't all music sound the same these days Yeah, yeah we were like There's like a read or a

[00:06:29] Get the detective Gonna detect my heart I just have never realized how old I am until the trailers for Detective Pikachu started coming out Sure Because that's after my time Right That movie in general will make you Right

[00:06:44] And like I know nothing about Pokemon but a lot of my friends are younger than me Probably because I look mid 20s You look great You look like you're a pilot I'm surprised to hear this You look like a snack Yeah exactly

[00:06:56] I thought you were too young for Pokemon Yeah that's what you were saying I appreciate that You haven't grown up into your Pokemon phase yet No I just I don't I don't get Pokemon at all I barely know who Pikachu is and Oh he's detective

[00:07:09] Well I never knew that until the movie came out To be honest I barely knew that Pikachu had become a detective And I liked Pokemon It is crazy though to be like Because we saw this movie and the movie takes no time explaining the rules of Pokemon

[00:07:23] And you're like right this thing has been around for long enough That they can presume that there is a four quadrant audience that needs no table setting Well and that's what makes me feel old is it Everybody talks about this stuff as if well Is it given

[00:07:36] Yeah we all know it's like part of the monocle You know the 50 states It's literally that though it's like we all you know the guy in the boardroom We all know Pikachu And there's one guy who's like What's Pikachu And he's like

[00:07:45] Get out of my fucking office cherry Like what's an 80s Pikachu-esque mascot Oh You know like a cabbage patch kid Smurfs I feel like the Smurfs had a similar kind of thing I guess it's that but yeah it's like I'm trying like if someone had been like right

[00:08:01] Like the Smurfs go to Congress was like the first Smurf movie That we were like you know that we were that deep with the first Smurf movie Yes Where's the first Smurf movie was actually what studios used to do Which is like

[00:08:13] They show up in a real world Yeah they're in the real world and they like have to figure out how to buy a metro car Whatever It is crazy how often They meet like the situation or whoever sort of you know hot that year

[00:08:25] Is crazy how often studios have spent a ton of money acquiring a big big property Then hire presumably a screenwriter for millions of dollars to break the story Right who's like never seen the Smurfs And then they come in and be like here's my take

[00:08:37] There's a portal and they end up in a city Like everyone kept on selling the exact same movie And then like a grown man who makes tens of millions of dollars a year is like Yeah that's good That's a good idea Yeah let's do this

[00:08:50] This is a good idea There was like an interview between Neil Moritz My beloved godfather of the Fast and Furious franchise And the guy at Paramount who now he just moved his deal over to Paramount Sonic the Hedgehog is the first movie in his deal

[00:09:05] And he said you know when Neil came to me and said he wanted to make a Sonic movie I said I don't get it not relatable Not the kind of thing we're interested in And then he told me the hook to this movie

[00:09:16] And I said this is such a compelling emotional human That Sonic finds a portal and goes to the real world That was the fucking thing He runs so fast he's in the real world now I said I don't want to see this movie by the Hedgehog

[00:09:26] But then he said the Hedgehog shows up through a portal And meets a human and he doesn't know how the fucking toothbrush works It's crazy Cause then you even see like the Paddington movies And the Paddington movies are like yeah the bears talk

[00:09:39] Yeah right the Paddington movie at no point is like It's pretty fucked up that this bear talked He's actually an alien who looks like a bear They're just like he comes from Darkest Peru And he talks and now he's in the city

[00:09:49] I'm sure we're clear though Paddington 2 is a perfect movie It's a perfect movie Oh yeah we're all on board with Paddington There's no portals Right we're saying that's the bold move Is just to be like if you're making a talking bear movie

[00:09:59] Just own that it's a talking bear movie In his galaxy they look like bears He drank the serum Magically Yes And all of what we're saying relates a lot to this film The Insider Oh this is like talking about I'm seeing the Insider in my head Yes

[00:10:19] As Mike Wallace would love to hear all of this Right If we brought him back he'd be like I like where culture's at now Yes And our guest today is something of an insider himself What? He spent time in the news trenches

[00:10:34] I don't know if they were the trenches Okay on the level ground They would have been like I could see the trenches You could see the trenches Through my night vision goggles The creating and do Levy is here Levy So great It's never been my home Levy

[00:10:51] Eugene Levy my friend I get called that a lot Really? You know what Eugene Levy you're right Take it back The guy who I famously said was good in every movie Yes Until I was reminded of most of the movies that he's in

[00:11:02] You even you were so bold as to say I was like when's he bad? You asked it You said name one time He was like I don't know like that fucking Olsen twins movie And I was like oh yeah right Oh yeah that's exclusively what he does

[00:11:15] When he plays Jim's dad in like five million movies Andy Levy Andy Levy I can't believe I messed that up I knew that too You should have known that Well Griffin mispronounces everything I mispronounce almost everywhere You want to just do it again

[00:11:29] You have not mispronounced a single other word this entire time This episode That is just a bad excuse This episode wait Griffin is pretty notorious for mispronouncing Okay let me take it again Our goose this week Yes good Great Andy Levy Levy No Don't do that to me

[00:11:47] Oh boy that will confound him Now I feel like I fell through a portal We all know Andy Levy What if he was a detective Detective Andy You were saying before we started recording That you're like you put cable news behind you And you're trying to figure out

[00:12:05] What the next stage of your life is Have you thought about becoming a cartoon detective I would very much like to be I would like to have Yeah a little hat I don't have a hat for you I own a hat

[00:12:17] Like just because I'm not wearing a hat right now Doesn't mean I don't own a hat You got gray hair, good clean cut What kind of product are you using I prefer not to say Okay cause you got a good hold Sure Some good hair height Medium stiff

[00:12:31] Yeah Medium stiff Right doesn't look greasy Doesn't look rigid But it's got a good shape too Yeah to matte finish Right But sometimes you gotta put a little hat on If you want to be on the case You gotta be on the trail No I do

[00:12:44] Sometimes I will sit at home thinking I wish I solved more crimes Sure Of course So you're not going out there Yeah no absolutely And I feel like I've really I've kind of slacked off in the last I think maybe three or four years

[00:12:54] In terms of crime solving Before that you were I was doing I was crime buster I was doing a good clip Right Right I mean there were 50, 60 a month Yeah You put it away Look there were I'm not saying there weren't days I didn't solve crimes But they

[00:13:09] Most days You weren't telling I was solving No no no You would just sort of like Hear about it I would do like that Kind of like what Sherlock Holmes Would sometimes He would just dash off a note To the police Yeah right

[00:13:21] And send it off to Scotland Yard That's sort of what I do I just dash off notes To my local police I mean on the subject Oh cool guy I'm not sure how much Holmes writes he would note Hey He's like

[00:13:31] I'm not even going to show up for this one Hey I'm just picking it out in my arm chair In between opium bouts David Yeah You think he's annoying I got a counter argument What He's a boxer ain't he Oh Oh fucking hell man Sherlock scrapping That was

[00:13:46] That was Guy Ritchie's pitch right Is that he can detect a punch Like And then move out of the punch's way Right Do you know what was incredible Cause like I feel like England never got mad Enough that like A prominent American got to play Sherlock Holmes

[00:13:59] And everyone was just like Yeah whatever You know that's fine It's kind of insane Yeah It's kind of wild Right cause that movie famously comes out of Produced by Robert Dey and Junior's wife Susan Downey They were basically like Let's find a vehicle for Rob Right

[00:14:14] Cause they knew like Iron Man was coming And she was like Let's do a victory lap franchise Set it up So they like announced it And we're setting it up before Iron Man I think And at the time they were like

[00:14:24] You know the books are actually really dark And like Sherlock's like a heroine addict Right And we want to go in and do like The messy version of it And then Iron Man became so huge And they were like Yeah no the heroine stuff isn't in

[00:14:35] It's about like boxing Yeah right that's true Like it suddenly became like No he's kind of a goof No I think the initial Concept was like It'll be like Batman began to be young It'll be like you know But I was gonna say

[00:14:45] First of all it was cocaine Not heroine Oh you're right It's cocaine You're right Cause it's back when they were like Put it in everything Yeah He does smoke it He smokes a cocaine He injects it Oh he injects it

[00:14:57] I knew it was an unusual way of doing cocaine Yeah he doesn't like take off his boot And crush it on the table Hey this is producer Batman's one Let's check it Andy what were you gonna say I was just gonna say that

[00:15:07] You guys are talking about how Nobody in England really got mad That we took Sherlock Holmes They got us back They took Batman They did take Batman They had Batman They have Superman They have Spider-Man I mean technically not American Why I didn't But that's a fair point

[00:15:21] But you grew up in Kansas He has a passport right He has like a social security Yeah sure Does he Does Clark Kent have a social security Did they say like Yeah we had this baby Yeah Where's the person Is he a dreamer Is Superman

[00:15:36] Is Clark Kent a dreamer Oh boy That's all I have to say to that Oh boy Two Spider-Man Two Spider-Man from across the pond Right That's right I'm just happy that right now This podcast is pure blooded American For American men who have never lived in England Amen

[00:15:55] I'm just so happy that I know there are no Never lived Wait a second What Oh but I lived in England What Swung the microphone right at Andy Almost whacked him I'm sorry for almost whacked him No that's okay Yeah I grew up in England

[00:16:09] Which is where I saw this film Okay This was the first Michael Mann film I ever saw Interesting I was 13 And I did not see it because I was like Hyped for a Michael Mann movie Oscars season I was hyped for it as an Oscar movie Right

[00:16:22] And I was a Russell Crow fan At 13 That was a little nerd Wow I was a Russell Crow fan I liked him I was sort of like I had like bought early on Russell Crow Or whatever he A Romper Stomper? Virtuosity

[00:16:36] I could probably saw a Romper Stomper later Definitely saw a virtuosity We love virtuosity in this podcast don't we Yeah Everyone Yeah LA Confidential Right That was the big one I'm trying to think what else I guess that was the big one I mean this Right

[00:16:51] This was right after Elegana Yes Cheers later But I mean his next film This is his big follow up Right And yeah And it was so hyped It's like oh he gained weight He's you know playing older He's got makeup Okay I wanna ask Ben What's up

[00:17:06] How old do you think Russell Crow was during the Filming of this movie It's gonna blow up Shit Alright Cause this Late 30 33 33 years old He's playing 55 Holy shit He gained 35 pounds Yes Yeah he think Shades his hairline This is the thing Died at gray Russell Crow's now 55 Right

[00:17:28] He looks exactly like It kinda does I mean if anything he looks kinda good in this You're kinda like oh yeah this is Russell Crow with like 10 Pounds shaved off That's the incredible thing No offense to Russell Crow At the time He was like I like thick crow

[00:17:40] I like you know sort of husky dad bod crow Just fine But at the time he was this very hunky veeral man And it was like He's a year before Gladiator Right Like you know It was very surprising He's looking at some Chungus Some big Chungus bits Yeah

[00:17:54] Ben Ben Ben Ben yeah Look I love it again I love him You love your curvy crow But like You know when Crow now is trying to be slightly more In like action mode Like in Man of Steel or the mummy or whatever

[00:18:05] Like he's got that sort of like I buttoned this shirt But if we unbutton it Right This might take a while to sort of Like so like I'm in this I'm in this jacket right now And there's a lot of tension in those buttons

[00:18:16] It's sort of like me at a wedding where I'm like I kind of like put the suit on last Like the day before and I was like Hmm maybe has it been six months since I wore a suit Sure Um it is Let's just do it guys

[00:18:28] This is an incredible thing though Because he was such like A conventional sort of like Like you know Sort of tough Square-jawed Bruiser type Leading man And like we were like Oh man we haven't had a guy like this In Hollywood in a long time

[00:18:42] It was so unusual for him to take this kind of part At this moment And then his career has come full circle back to him Playing these kinds of guys Essentially seeking these kinds of roles out now Right these same kind of broken sort of like

[00:18:55] But he kind of rotated Like because he did a beautiful mind Yes But in between those he would do his Gladiator type Right this is his incredible run where it's like He does LA Confidential He's amazing He was like he was snubbed of an Oscar nomination Sure

[00:19:10] And he gets this as what most people view as the vindication For the lack of LA Confidential not And it's such a classic Oscar not because it's a transformation You're playing a real person Everything they like Right Spacey wins and people were like Crow should have probably won 100%

[00:19:24] So then the following year when Gladiator comes out They were like this is his double makeup This movie is so big He's now like a full on A-list movie star But also he's like kind of been owed two times in a row And then he does beautiful mind

[00:19:36] And people are like fuck is he going to win twice in two years It was I think it was close Three consecutive best actor nominations And then he never gets nominated again Which is silly His movie after that Andy do you like master and commander?

[00:19:48] I feel like you would be a master and commander I have to admit And I almost feel like you're going to make me leave It's fine I'll be okay with it I've never seen it I think you would really like it I know

[00:19:57] I think you would dig that movie That's one of my favorite movies And I think he's so good in it But that's when he's definitely like I am a husky hunk I'm husky hunk You know I'm a big stocky guy

[00:20:07] You know we're not even going to futz around with me Being kind of skinny anymore No And then Cinder Eleman in 05 So he's playing a boxer And both of those movies were like He was getting all the precursors He was predicted for best actor

[00:20:20] And then he was left out at the last one He was kind of being taken for granted in those movies And they were like these sort of bigger supporting stars Who were kind of popping and all of them Right but those are solid Then in 2006, curve ball

[00:20:31] He retains with Ridley Scott But only to make a movie about drinking wine Called a good year Well he just wears glasses and drinks wine And he's banned 30 odd foot of brunt Sure Unfortunately dissolved Slash evolved Oh that's too bad Is that like a conscious uncoupling

[00:20:48] We're dissolving evolving What did it evolve into? A Raichu? Hey you need a thunderstorm for that You need one No and also he's thrown phones at this Right this is sort of like Classic Russell There's the South Park episode Right he's a drunk He's like constantly punching people

[00:21:04] And I feel like there was that thing I guess it was right after Gladiator maybe Where there was like a documentary about the Are they 30 or 40 odd foot of grunt 30 I once fucked this up at a trivia game Remember when you fucked that bandie's name

[00:21:18] Oh my god please That was embarrassing That was one of the worst things I've ever done In an otherwise spotless life A life of no regrets We know I'm not someone who stues over everything I've ever said Ever You've never expressed any regrets to me

[00:21:31] At all for anything You don't even seem like an anxious person At all I'm super chill Super confident I'm gonna come out of my mouth Harvey Weinstein bought like a documentary About the band For like two, three million dollars Probably just to make Russell happy For something else

[00:21:51] Right he was like A this guy's such a big star That even his self indulgent rock band documentary Will probably do well And B I'm so desperate to get in the Russell Crow business That I'll buy a vanity project Just in the hopes of getting it

[00:22:04] But he's really kind of going like He's got like Ron Howard Sure Those are his guys Yeah he's staying in those zones I wanna do the rest of Crow actually Cause it's fun Then you get like American gangster Oh seven he's got 310 to Yuma and American gangster

[00:22:19] Which are both underrated And he's very good in both Yeah he's great in 310 to Yuma He's terrific in 310 to Yuma Both of them I mean I feel like Denzel gets credit All the credit for American gangster He doesn't But Crow's great in it I agree I think he's

[00:22:33] And 310 he's fun Yeah that's a fun movie But that movie kind of Kind of doesn't go anywhere in Hollywood It's like too old fashioned Right But it is funny that in those two movies He's still basically like a You know leading man Gun toting

[00:22:45] And then the next year His body of lies where he is like Suddenly like wearing sunglasses Fat behind a desk Barking at Leo over the phone I mean no one remembers that movie But like No that movie That's the flip That movie is so weird

[00:22:59] Cause the poster is like The Caprio Crow And it's like this is gonna be Some espionage thriller And then the whole movie is like The Caprio with a gun on the ground And Crow like picking up his kids From school talking to the Caprio On Bluetooth

[00:23:11] Like almost all of his scenes are him On like a Bluetooth headset While he's like Like doing the laundry or something I had honestly completely forgotten That movie existed Ridley Scott moving until now And now I remember seeing it now But he would

[00:23:23] I think it's when Ridley Scott Was just going from European finance Here to finance here being Leo do it Russell will do it It'll be like great $80 million He was kind of doing Tony Scott style movies He was That was very Tony Cause I actually in my mind

[00:23:38] Had that as a Tony Scott movie It feels like a slightly higher ground tone Tony Scott probably would have made it A better body of books No question I love Ridley Scott Cause I think Body Lies is a little unengaging Yeah right Then he does state of play

[00:23:49] Another movie no one remembers That is totally watchable Like another fun journalism movie Yep Robin Hood Which I think is great The Ridley Scott Robin Hood Where he's That's his last time where he's like I'm a leading man I'm an action boy I never had an interview saying

[00:24:07] I think superheroes are stupid I'm embarrassed that my son like superheroes I want to make an action movie To make a real hero that boys should respect He does shoot a cool arrow Shoot a cool arrow I'm sorry I know I'm older than you guys

[00:24:19] But the only true Robin Hood Is Kevin Costner We love him Excuse me We stan a sexy fox on that show No I don't Oh well sure I know you do I know Who else has played Robin Hood Well Terran Edgerton but that was terrible Carrie Always Right

[00:24:34] And then like Lea Mizz Man of Steel Lea Mizz a notoriously disastrous performance I mean he's terrible in that Noah he just seems uncomfortable in Lea Mizz I am singing in Lea Mizz He seems really like off his game You know what I mean

[00:24:48] He looks like nervous through the whole movie In Lea Mizz Yeah in Lea Mizz Man of Steel I think he's fun actually I love him in Man of Steel I love the first 30 minutes Of Man of Steel Yeah his part of Man of Steel is what I'm into

[00:24:57] I want more like Kryptonian You know intrigue and like bug flying I rewatched just the Russell Crow Bug flying portion of that movie all the time With all the weird computer that looks like That toy with the metal spikes

[00:25:09] Yes yes we never know what the name of that toy is Once again the best thing in Man of Steel Kevin Costner Oh I mean I do think He is good in that So you're just like I Kevin Costner shows up You're like He's an American icon

[00:25:22] I will What's your favorite Costner Interesting Are you a postman I'm not a postman Yeah he mailed that No I got to take the draft No way out Might be Great I mean it's definitely up there for me Yeah I'm trying to think what my favorite Costner is

[00:25:40] I love him Like I like him in Jack Ryan Shadow recruit He's pretty good in that movie Like he's just fun to watch in that movie I mean that movie is all mentor You know it's Jack Ryan It's the problem Yeah

[00:25:50] Oh and it's the same in the one with Molly's game Molly's game He's incredible in Yeah He is good in that That scene is wild But he's good in it I was trying to think of the Coast Guard movie with Oh the Not the recruit

[00:26:02] No no the Ashton Kutcher one Yeah It's not called the protector It's not called the defender I know what you're talking about The Guardian The Guardian Yeah Thank you I didn't look that up I will watch that movie anytime It comes out in late night Really Is that

[00:26:16] And that's Mr. Fugitive right Davis Andrew Davis I think that's Andrew Davis Oh really That sounds right Yeah I think he did I don't even know that Yeah He's a terrible sort of like Old Oak thriller directors Yeah Field James is my favorite costume Yeah But

[00:26:33] A tin cup is also Yes Hey you know what the villain's name is In Tin Cup Play with Don Johnson Oh David Sims Is it really That's right With two M's You guys know the crazy thing about The Russell Crowe Ridley Scott Robin Hood Right Hit me

[00:26:48] Like hottest I think we've talked about this But Speckscripts in Hollywood Ben just hit David Ben's got a little Tintin shirt on Right now The full flip going on the top of the head Right Um Uh Highest specscript in Hollywood What if Robin Hood was the bad guy

[00:27:02] And Sheriff of Nottingham was the good guy And it was a PR issue Yeah it was called Nottingham Right Yes Of course it was Right and it was supposed to be set From the perspective of Nottingham Right And Ridley Scott Signs on to direct

[00:27:15] Universal buys it for millions and Millions of dollars Right Russell Crowe signs on to play The Sheriff of Nottingham And then over the course of working On the movie Developing the script Russell Crowe starts going like Man I'd really like to play Robin Hood

[00:27:27] So then they go like What if it's a draft where Robin Hood and Sheriff of Nottingham Are the same guy He's his own worst enemy And then it just becomes What if it's just Russell Crowe Someone just told him Like did you know Russell Crowe

[00:27:39] I mean Robin Hood was a crusader Yeah And Ridley was like Yeah that's cool But they spent like Three four million dollars On a script That then they used We've definitely talked about this Yeah Well I wrote that script And I'm a millionaire Yeah Whatever

[00:27:54] I mean now of course he's playing Roger Ailes Yeah which is another one where He's like It was a tough job But I had to gain 80 pounds in a month Right Like he says Is he like eats spaghetti Well I think he said That for the insider

[00:28:07] I think I've read that He basically said He ate cheeseburger Like that's The poor man And it's like This is You want a You want a reward for that Fine Here's a cheeseburger There's a reward I remember hearing like I've heard like Leto The Joker himself

[00:28:23] So it's like Played Mark David Chapman In that movie That like barely anyone remembers Gave himself gout Gave himself gout The John Lennon assassin movie It's called chapter yeah And he would Get chapter 27 I think And he would Eat ice cream with olive oil Oh

[00:28:38] Like and when I heard that Like all the time When I heard that I was like It's just There's no way that's worth it Excuse me my friend The details are even grosser Than that I remember this Because at this point in time

[00:28:49] I was desperately trying to gain Because I was a very very You weren't trying to play Mark David Chapman You literally were just Trying to Stop scaring your doctors Right I was a spooky scary Dancing skeleton boy He would buy Pints of Ben and Jerry's

[00:29:04] Pour olive oil in it And then microwave it So that he could just drink it Oh my god That's Vile Because I tried it once And how was it? I did it without the olive oil But the microwaving ice cream It was awful What do you talk about

[00:29:18] Would anyone drink ice cream? I don't I mean isn't that what milkshakes are? This is literally just like Thick milk though You know That would have milkshake It's terrible Get out of here It's heard Alright sorry The insider He uh I looked at it I had to be

[00:29:36] The one other time He tried to go back To classic Russell Crowe was Noah Sure I mean he's a beefy Noah He's beefy But that was the last time He played like He needs to be beefy And you know But Dr. Dr. Jackal Where he tells

[00:29:53] Tells Tom Cruise That Tom Cruise is younger than him When in fact Tom Cruise is older than Russell Crowe The younger man Winter's tale Where he plays like a real like I've never seen Winter's tale Stocky gangster I really need to

[00:30:03] Now I'm just sad about the dark universe again You're sad about it? Well that it's gone Oh you never know You could come back That's what monsters like to do Make you think they are gone The dark universe will rise

[00:30:16] You know what if the second dark universe film Is about the resurrection Of the dark universe Right Like Sophia Boutella is like in an office And someone's like We got a sequel And she's like No they cancelled those movies And like it turns out It's like Jake Johnson

[00:30:29] He's like No we can We just need to go to the tomb I find like a dark universe twist movie Where like Universal is like Here's our big prestige play of the year It's a biopic About like Murray Currie And then halfway through the movie The dark universe

[00:30:44] The glow turns Just one you thought that was safe Murray Currie If she fell into the black lagoon And then Pacino We've talked about this era of Pacino a lot This is such an underrated Pacino performance He's so underrated Because I think this is seen

[00:31:05] As one of his yelling Performances From that sort of devil's advocate He only gets there in the last 30 minutes And when he does it It's fine Yes, yes 100% In the zone He's very good at being kind of Just a stressed out producer guy The first two hours

[00:31:23] It's classic understated Super quiet His hair is this like Beautiful hair piece It's a beautiful 90s hair piece It should have won A Nobel Prize in like Chemistry or something See I believe he's one of those guys Who is using like Sectional pieces Like right it's like

[00:31:41] It's like the Sistine Chapel Cause I think if it was Like scaffolding for his hair If it was purely a piece They wouldn't design it like that I think the You end up at this hairstyle Because he's like I have these couple of long strands

[00:31:54] Can we push them as far up as possible Can we build volume around that Right But it's weird cause this movie is considered Like Russell Crowe's movie Yes Pacino's role He is the star Of this movie I mean he is He is the lead actor Of course

[00:32:10] I'm a percent of this movie Like I'm even close And he's so fucking good Like I hadn't seen this movie I watched it you know Since it came out in the theater And I watched it again Me too basically In my head this was I remembered Russell Crowe

[00:32:21] I did not remember how amazing Pacino was Me neither I thought of it Because Crowe got the nomination He's like Oh Crowe just dominates He's so incredible You've never seen it And Pacino is going like What the hell do you mean I missed a 60 minute

[00:32:35] I got a grade I got a grade My program has a Mike Wallace has got a great ass And my head's all the way up We were talking about like Heat is him Like kind of losing his mind But it still works Oh yeah

[00:32:49] I mean I love it But like the fact that he could Still go back to being Like this fucking present And I'm showy in a scene In between these He made Devil's Advocate Right And Devil's Advocate is I think the public is like That's it

[00:33:01] Pacino can't be subtle anymore It's over But then he has this And he has Insomnia I know Both of which he rules in And then he's fully broken forever By the way He's pretty much In Devil's Advocate Oh agree Oh yeah I mean it's what the movie

[00:33:14] Wants from them Yeah exactly It's not like everyone else In the movie is like This is a subtle tale Of if you worked for scenes Keanu Reeves is doing Some mid-southern North Pacific accent That's one of his Yeah we're like Who asked him to try that accent

[00:33:29] I don't know There are some incredible Deep Southern accents From British, Irish Character actors in this movie Michael Gambon's accent work is Amazing I love Michael Gambon playing a Southerner He loves to do it Toys he plays a southerner He played Lyndon Johnson In like a TV series

[00:33:47] Dumbledore of course Is from Kentucky canonically Now Harry Potter you know You didn't put your name In this goblet You didn't read JK Rowland To me did that I do declare I always thought of Dumbledore as a southern Gentleman He likes mint julips

[00:34:01] He's always sitting on the porch Drinking a mint jula This Voldemort fella I do declare I'm just gonna say I do declare Over and over It's just five chord and like Chord that's all I can do Confror Confior I don't know how you say it Great southern accentness

[00:34:20] Not a good southern accent Diana Vreeland Right The weakest element of this movie Not her performance The entire treatment of her character By all parties You mean Diane Vernore Yes what was that You said Vreeland Jesus Christ Are you okay? I'm not sleeping well What's in that water

[00:34:37] Is it is it dum dum juice Dum dum juice No I mean it's just You're not sleeping well I'm not sleeping well Why not I got that insomnia I got that Pacino disease You were doing Pacino bits I was doing Pacino bits on it The actual answer is

[00:34:50] I was doing Pacino bits on it But you're actually right I wasn't going to sleep Because I kept on saying To my girlfriend Let me sleep That is not a joke I was until like Three o'clock in the morning I love you sleep

[00:35:02] Vernora who's obviously great in heat Is sadly pretty underserved I think this character sucks Horrible Horrible I mean I guess that Must be part of the real stories That they got divorced But don't have it be that She's like I'm divorcing you Because you're a whistleblower Yes

[00:35:19] Which is sort of what The movie lays out But it's not All that dissimilar From her character And he although It must be weird for Pacino To be working with Like she's your ex But she's with the other guy In the movie Yes

[00:35:33] That must have been just awkward Really strange Working with your ex It's just never fun Right But not all that dissimilar And like I feel like in both movies She's like Mary She can't understand That a man's got a job to do Yes Which is a

[00:35:48] The Michael Mann problem A real Michael Mann hangup It's like he writes These incredibly nuanced Detailed male characters That are people Making incredibly complicated Decisions within a system Where they're never clearly good Or bad Or always a mix of the two And then the women are defined

[00:36:03] By how the chicken is overcooked Or unsupported Right so it's either Pacino's wife in this Is great but has very little Screen time because she's just Like you're good Right And And Dan Van Nora Is in this a lot Very poorly to just Stand there and go

[00:36:18] Like I don't understand Like you're doing this to me Yeah And all the I mean Gina Gershaw's character Terrible Like Debbie Mazer Like there's that scene Where they're all explaining The legalities of it And everyone else knows Exactly what they're talking about Except

[00:36:32] And she just butts in to be Like I'm sorry Do I not understand Like Explain this to me Like all the women In this movie are Pat Unbelievable note And that is like Michael Mann's Big Achilles heel as director I think his best Female character ever Is

[00:36:47] Viola Davis and Black Hat I love that character Like that's the one time He wrote a female character That like Was not defined By being a woman Right You know By her duties as a homemaker Or lack of interest in that Role that she should be loving

[00:37:05] But yes That's the weakest element Of this movie Her accent is very fog horn Leg horn Her accent is not great I get He loves to trade You know to sort of Keep an actor for a couple of Move You know what I mean And like

[00:37:18] So he's retaining Al And Diane from He Is he retaining anyone else From He I don't think so Supporting Val Kilmer is who he wanted to play A Y game I could see that I could see What about Val Kilmer I can't check out Kilmer

[00:37:32] Putting on weight like that Val would never do it He's looking great these days right He's the Poor Val Opposite direction Opposite direction Yeah I guess that's it I imagine if Val had done this And gotten an Oscar nomination I know That would be nice

[00:37:44] That would be nice But I don't think he was ever Going to do it as well As correct it Maybe in the world Where Steve Rogers went back In the alternate Maybe Val Kilmer won an Oscar What if that's That's the only difference

[00:37:56] What a Marvel movie is about That's the only difference Where it's like Captain Marvel goes to see a movie And it's Val Kilmer in the Insider Also like And I had forgotten this Because all I sort of remembered Was that it was kind of talky Yeah

[00:38:12] It's super tense Like I went through I think an entire jewel pod While watching this nicotine movie Vape and Andi And part of it is because They won't shut up about cigarettes That's for the whole time With the like the nicotine It's so sweet and delicious Through ammonia

[00:38:26] We got a tear-brain system It's like Oh, fuck off And I'm like They're saying like ammonium Or whatever And I'm like Oh, fuck it's cigarette Salivating God But it's really And a lot of it is I think Ben and I Was sort of talking about this

[00:38:43] When we were on time The It's the way It's the way he shoots it Is even though it's a lot of scenes Of people talking Yeah It's just he finds a way to shoot it With the handheld camera And the angles of it You know Tracking shots

[00:38:59] Following there's this scene Early in the movie where Russell Crowe Is just like I think when he's leaving Yeah And the camera is like Right next to his head Yes And it's not something you see In a lot of movies It just makes it

[00:39:10] It's just a guy leaving a building But you're like Shit, I can't stop watching this Because it's so interesting I think a lot of people Crib from this movie And then it becomes The sort of like over done Shooting an office movie Like it's a thriller You know

[00:39:21] Like I mean Paul Greengrass is pulling from this A lot You know there are a lot of people Like that who are pulling From this all of this movie And adding things to it And evolving it But this feels like A sort of key origin point of

[00:39:34] You know what if you shoot movies About like moral conundrums And like business and journalism Like it's an action movie You know like it's a Real like edgier seat thriller Which also I mean The movie is so much about The paranoia of like

[00:39:51] You know this guy's life is ruined Because either he's being followed all the time Or he's always going to think That someone's following him Exactly, it's sort of the classic Ending of the Sopranos conundrum Where it's like even if Tony isn't dead The one where Tony gets killed

[00:40:02] Yeah, where he gets killed And his brains go everywhere No but it's like even if he isn't dead He'll always be looking over his shoulder Assuming he's about to die Right, like that's sort of The ambiguous reading of the ending Of the Sopranos Right, the flaming car

[00:40:13] Spoilage for the ending of the Soprano Yeah When Russell Crowe drives by The flaming car and he like Looks at it for a while My girlfriend was like What is that supposed to be? And it's like It's just now everything looks threatening to him Right, but also

[00:40:25] Michael Mann loves to shoot A flaming car Well right But also like a complex man Looking at something inanimate Or something like unusual Like with a furrowed brow And then moving on Yes He just loves that Yeah Okay so yeah You're right He wanted I guess this

[00:40:44] Oh that's interesting Man had read The Good Shepherd Eric Roth had this script about Like the birth of the CIA Right That De Niro of course eventually turns into An excellent movie that no one talks about But it was one of the great unmade Scripts in Hollywood

[00:40:58] Right and so Mann reads that And he's like you're cool Which I went to Bat Damon too Okay yeah I remember that Maddie Damon We got Jolie Who else is in that Well De Niro Pesci He's good in that Everybody in that Yeah Good movie Never seen it

[00:41:14] And so really Yeah I mean like Based on a book though right Cause I had read the book Yeah it's based on a book by the guy Who you know Damon is playing One of the Right I could look up that book

[00:41:25] They said it was going to be a trilogy De Niro was going to make three of them All in on that That sounds great De Niro Please do that Did I tell you the Tribeca story? Should I tell on my Yes please Please

[00:41:37] I don't know if you guys know this But Robert De Niro doesn't like Donald Trump Yeah this is top secret Can you say that public? No he thinks that Donald Trump is a clown A clown This guy is a chump But you're clear to say this publicly

[00:41:49] Is he on the record with it? Well here's what I want to tell you It's a rumor It's one of those sort of like Richard Vase's name It's almost like it's kind of like Insider It's like everyone knows Yeah but it's not spoken You'll say it

[00:42:01] And certainly they never say it No He has dinner with Trump every week And Trump has no idea Trump has no idea But no This is his best friend This is his best friend I was his best man All three of us went in

[00:42:12] No so it's the closing night of Tribeca Which of course is De Niro's baby And so De Niro is there introducing the film yesterday Danny Boyle's new film And he comes out and he's like When Danny, when I heard this is about a world

[00:42:24] Oh no one knows what the Beatles are I was like how sad And everyone's like Right right And he's like then I thought A good idea for a movie would be A world where no one knows who Donald Trump is

[00:42:36] And I mean they forged a crown for him The audience is just like Yes He did it Trump immediately turned into ash I think He Thanos'd You know Himself He just puffed away Trump snapped himself We all had bells that we started ringing Yeah exactly like that

[00:43:01] It was great The movie started three hours late Because of the riot chain suit Well it became a parade too It became a parade They had to immediately file People kept turning to each other And they were like That would be a good movie

[00:43:16] Feel Good Comedy in the Summer It was so funny I just I truly enjoy Dineiro as like Kind of like the grandpa from Thanksgiving who's just like I want to say something I think Donald Trump's terrible And everyone's like Wow jeez grandpa I love it I love it

[00:43:32] My favorite Totally misplaced Trump Twitter beef Was After the Dineiro Fuck Trump thing When he just said like Oh the Tony's right Yeah Bob Dineiro overrated actor Clearly lost his mind Shouldn't have done so many boxing movies The implication being this guy got punched in the head

[00:43:51] He got his brain sort of smushed up He did two Uh huh Counted him two boxing films Right and one of them was that one That no one remembers Grudge match Grudge match Right right and those films are 30 years apart Right That same week He invited Sylvester Stallone

[00:44:05] Over to the White House And was photographed shaking hands with him In the Oval Office Great man An underrated actor Right If you're gonna criticize one guy for doing too many boxing movies That's true Also a guy who Guy talks like he's punched in the head a lot

[00:44:20] His implication was Yeah wait you think that Donald Did he think his insult through I mean now I don't like Trump anymore I know I know Griffin has built such a logical case Yeah In the here Right That now you just know

[00:44:36] Cause up until now his logic was Oh I'm hearing the house is starting impeachment proceedings They heard about this Right They were like you're right Sylvester Stallone's done way more boxing movies Like let's do it Let's make this Robert De Niro world a reality We gotta get

[00:44:50] Are they gonna build a memory gas That will spread across the land On the phone Okay look He had read The Good Shepherd Yes Which is what led us on this tangent And he had read the article The Vandy Fair article

[00:45:03] He had read and so they get together They I'm pretty sure It was an article about the making of a story Uh yes Then they decide to write a story about The article about the making of the story And then the producer Peter Jean Bruges

[00:45:16] Told Michael Mann Watchword Ely Confidential Michael Mann thinks it's great He flies to Mystery Alaska He says this guy is too young This guy is a great actor I don't know if he can do it Crow wants it He studies the tape Of the interview

[00:45:33] Of the real wagon Yes So he goes to Mystery Alaska A movie that doesn't exist It doesn't exist It's kind of a cute movie I like it But it doesn't exist No We're the first people to speak of that movie In 20 years Well it's a mystery

[00:45:47] Crow gained 35 pounds He shaved his head back The thing though is that When Michael Mann shows up The Mystery Alaska set Crow has perfectly emulated The 60 Minutes interview Right And he said like this guy Has nailed it so hard That I can't deny it So then it becomes

[00:46:03] That you have to figure out a way To make yourself look 20 years older And then Pacino is always in place And he's the one who's like You should cast Christopher Plummer Who is kind of the MVP of the movie It's amazing It's one of the greatest performances

[00:46:15] In my... I love this performance so much And it not being nominated for an Oscar Is one of the most bizarre snubs Because it's so in their lead You know what it is He didn't wear makeup to look like Mike Wallace Well that's the thing

[00:46:28] When I was a kid I thought that Mike Wallace Was in this movie As himself Absolutely Like I think walking out of the theater I was like Mike Wallace is kind of hard on himself And my mom was like That wasn't... That was Christopher Plummer Yeah

[00:46:40] I'm gonna tell you the supporting actor nominees I'm still mad about it 2000 can I guess? Yeah Okay Well you know 99 but yeah The 2000 The 2000 Tom Cruise It's a good one Michael Cain Yeah Hilly Jalazmin Correct Mike Clark Duncan Right And then the fifth one is bad

[00:46:59] No it's great Cain is kind of the weak one The fifth one is great As cute as he is in that movie Jeffridge is in the contender No That's 2000 That's a year later Okay It's like a star making supporting turn Oh Jude Law and the Talented Mr. Rip

[00:47:12] Oh yeah he's incredible That's a really good category It is The wrong man won The wrong man won and was nominated Yeah Like Plummer should just slide right into that spot That was like the story of that whole year Michael Cain had an Oscar Yeah Like

[00:47:26] Plummer had never been nominated You know he's a legend You know a legend Mr. Wayne Yeah He's been around forever He's playing Mike Wallace He's doing it perfectly They were like this guy's probably gonna be dead in four years We're never gonna get a chance to nominate him

[00:47:38] Three more times and give him one win He just doesn't work a lot He's never gonna replace Yeah This year's best actor winner In a movie 20 years from now As John Paul Getty He has three nominations And one win Exclusively between the ages of 80 and 90

[00:47:53] Yes exclusively in his 80s Yes it's crazy It's amazing But he should have had four Nominations The other thing that I think worked against Christopher Plummer in this film Is that Mike Wallace This was your take I think you're right Ran a pretty aggressive campaign against it

[00:48:09] And in a very very meta narrative His complaint was He didn't like that the movie made it look Like he took too long To take the right side But that's what happened I think Right But the way that Christopher Plummer In what should be his Oscar scene

[00:48:25] Explains that at the end of a life What matters to you most is the last thing That people remember Right Mike Wallace was so terrified Yeah Of this narrative within the movie Superceding the narrative of when he did Finally step up to the plate Right Then he like

[00:48:41] I think he's a connected man You know And he was mad about the line That Christopher Plummer says in the movie About not wanting to spend the rest of his days In the wasteland of NPR Yes Because I remember Mike Wallace saying

[00:48:55] He's like I would never say anything like that It is quite a pointed line It's a great line I will say If I was an Oscar voter And the real Mike Wallace yelled at me I probably would do whatever he says too

[00:49:07] This movie is about how if Mike Wallace is yelling at you It's scary Yes You don't want him to do that Absolutely not This movie opens with Mike Wallace Yelling at a chic You know Who is disputing where he's going to sit Right Man you know

[00:49:21] No good I got the heart running Well that's Okay I want to talk about that scene That scene to me So we're at the beginning This is good We're at the beginning of the movie And Al Pacino's character Lowell Bergman Lowell Bergman Yes

[00:49:37] Has arranged this interview with the shake Who has been Hezbollah Yes And Lebanese shake So Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace Why is there and whatever And he's got his classic kind of like Mike Wallace And a cargo vest Exactly Yeah And he's sitting there And the shakes people

[00:49:55] The shakes people want him sitting further away A little bit further away And becomes his pissing contest Right And Mike Wallace gives this long impassioned speech about When I sit down for interviews Nobody tells me where I'm going to sit And you're sitting there going Yeah journalism

[00:50:09] Yeah journalism Yeah And then finally they come to an agreement And Lowell Bergman Al Pacino pulls My turn in the chair Just over a little Yeah And then he pulls him aside And says you want to You know You want to warm up some more

[00:50:22] Or you're good to go And he goes no I got the heart rate And the whole thing is basically an act Yeah It's just like him working the speed back But I just thought to myself That tells you more about TV journalism Than all of broadcast news did

[00:50:37] Like just in that one scene Right I love broadcast Sure No, no I know what you're saying Right Have you I guess it hasn't been It was at Sundance But there's a documentary about Mike Wallace this year I forget what it's called But it's like Mike Wallace something

[00:50:50] That is so good about what you're talking about That he wasn't like a hard journalist Like he'd been a pitch man He hosted game shows Like he was one of those early TV guys But he was so fucking great on camera Yeah

[00:51:03] As long as he once he was like in personality Right That he became like the most ice cold interviewer in the world Yeah Yeah But he was an asshole too It's just so much of it A huge asshole It's just pure It's just pure It's just pure

[00:51:17] It's just pure It's just pure You might won't call a tire Like you need a television camera on Yeah You know what I mean But that's also like That's like what fucking actors do Like most don'tà 甚 hehe Movie stars have like weird things Like that

[00:51:30] That they have to do To get into a scene You won't film the second Of the chick until you've Yelded a shape Right Which really Added a shape Like a milkshake It's actually a master shape We bring out master student From Aquateen hunter for's Now yell at him

[00:51:43] Umm No, but there's such Like the thing in wolf of wall street rhythmic thing that McConaughey does, that's what he does before every take. Hell yeah. And Scorsese was the first guy to be like, can I film that? Right, right.

[00:51:56] And he's like, this is how I find it. You know? But there's so many things like that where you hear like this actor needs to like make jokes on set until like the moment before they call action. Or this person needs to like get into an antagonistic

[00:52:09] fight, you know? Whatever it is. And it like makes it clear like this guy's a performer. Like even though he does have serious journalistic intent. And that's the point. Like for actors, it's like, OK, yeah, you expect that. Right. You know? But growing up watching 60 Minutes, Yeah.

[00:52:23] you would never have thought any of this was. We were not told any of this was performance. Right. You know? And as we were talking about right before we recorded, it is kind of crazy that 60 Minutes was just the biggest show in America. Yes. Like it was weird.

[00:52:36] The number one show. Ratings once. When it got dethroned by a scripted show. But the thing is for a lot of us of a certain age, I mean maybe for you guys too who are like two or three years younger than me.

[00:52:46] Oh, I thought I was older than you. Sorry. I kind of just dazzled by the sight of you. No, I understand. I understand. Right. That ticking fucking clock meant school was coming around the corner. Oh, because it's a Sunday night.

[00:53:01] And I had forgotten that until watching this movie again this week. And I was sitting there actually shaking when they were playing that thinking because all it was football was over. And because right after football on CBS then 60 Minutes would come on.

[00:53:16] And then you knew it was like I got to do my homework. Yeah, this is it. This is it. There's no more procrastination. Windows. And that was life growing up. I did not watch football. My brother and father always did. My bedroom was off the living room.

[00:53:29] I just realized that I had the exact same sex matter trigger from the click. Yeah, yeah. I'd be in my bedroom locked door, browsing Oscar websites or whatever. Yeah, watching cartoons. And then I'd hear the ticking of God fucking damn it.

[00:53:45] I was saying, I remember going to dinner parties with my parents' friends and then being like we have to finish in time. And then sitting around a TV with 20 adults who were just wrapped in silence watching 60 Minutes like it was Game of Thrones. Yeah, right.

[00:54:01] Yeah, because there was no CNN, MSNBC, Fox, whatever. And basically you had your local news. You had your network nightly news. And then you had 60 Minutes because this was before even 2020 and date lines we were talking about. Those are the copycats.

[00:54:19] That's right, but it was the flashier sort of. Yeah. And everybody watched it. And it was just unreal. It was all about Rooney. Right? That's what we were all tuning in for. Look, yes. Of course Andy Rooney, the original comedy. 60 Minutes, God is of takes.

[00:54:34] I remember seeing him at a Vite them up and it just like, I didn't know you could do that. This is the crazy thing. This is all about Rooney. This is a crazy thing. He's a couple of times. This is new. Let's see if this is anything.

[00:54:44] From his notebook. What the deal? For one thing, 60... I don't like it. 60 Minutes was the number one show from... It was not one show five years. Yeah. It was, you know, it wavered between like six to one for 15 years. Yeah.

[00:55:01] Last, the last 2017 season, it was the number 12 show in America. Really? It's not like 60 Minutes is some piece of shit now. No. I mean, I assume that it's probably not great in the demo. I would also imagine those numbers are much lower than they were back then.

[00:55:16] For sure. But still, like a 12 Nielsen rating. That's amazing. Crazy. And the thing with this movie... That's almost NCIS territory. Well, I mean, and again, I assume audience overlap with NCIS is heavy. Yes. They do a lot of crossovers. I bet they do.

[00:55:33] Honestly, I'm sure Mark Harmon has done some 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes New Orleans is actually not bad. 60 Minutes of Cybers. Is that the Rolling Stones are always in the theme song? No, the Who. That's not NCIS. Ernie did my rant.

[00:55:52] I did my rant about the CSI theme songs on podcasts like it's 1999, Mystery Man episode. You can hear it. It's like masterpiece. Is NCIS just or is it like... They don't use like a band songs. They don't. I know, I think it's pretty fast. I am addicted to.

[00:56:09] I have never seen a single episode of NCIS in prime time with those USA. Right, Dory Rhymes and PAX. OK, yeah. Ion, whatever. Yeah, if that comes on in a weekend, I will throw that on a TV on a rainy day. That is on for eight hours straight.

[00:56:25] Yeah. The thing that's kind of incredible in this movie and you know, I'm not someone who's bemoaning. Yeah, it's just some piano music. Better things were in the old days. I think things constantly move forwards and backwards simultaneously. But there is something kind of romantic

[00:56:41] about the idea of something like 60 minutes holding so much power. It's like this one show can change the entire conversation in a night. Everyone will watch it and if this story is covered on this show, it's indisputable, it's out. Right. You know? I agree with you.

[00:56:57] Yes, you're sort of waiting for the 60 minutes take. And the fact that this movie is taking place within the same year as The Unabomber and the OJ trial is like this is this year where like news becomes like huge like real life sort of soap opera ratings

[00:57:13] like Benayans sort of stuff. But this is also, it's just crazy to think that like in the 90s, cigarette CEOs could plausibly just sort of be like, we really, we were just putting some leaves in a tube. What do we know? We had no idea. Oops.

[00:57:28] I don't know. I guess it's a different. It's addicted. Looking back at it now, it's just like even that we all kind of knew. Like I'm trying. I was trying to remember we all knew they were lying. Yes. Basically. Sure.

[00:57:40] But that but they were still able to get away with it. Sounds like someone else. And now you know what I'm saying? Someone else in an office, an oval office. It's remarkable watching it now and realizing that because this was not in my lifetime, not that long ago

[00:57:55] that there was an argument like people could sit there and say with a straight face or lying under oath saying, I do not believe that nicotine is addictive. What anyone who has ever smoked a cigarette knows that nicotine is addicted. That's like what cigarettes are.

[00:58:10] That's your addiction to them. And also for so long within the vernacular people say, you know, it's like nicotine. Right. Yeah, exactly. Things that are addictive. But yeah, the whole like life cycle of various life cycles of cigarettes were in the 60s.

[00:58:24] Everyone's sort of like, all right, maybe they're a little bad for you. I guess everyone's teeth are turning black. And everyone's coughing all the time. It's so cool. And then by the 90s they're like, look, OK, we know they're bad. We'll give you a warning.

[00:58:35] But like they're probably not addictive or anything. Yeah. And now I don't know, cigarettes, I guess people still have them. Now everyone's Juulin. That other scene too where they're all sitting around the table and everyone other than Debbie Mazer knows what's going on.

[00:58:48] When they say like they have literally never lost a case. Right. Like that's the big difference is like they're still litigious as fuck. They still will destroy people's lives. They still do anything they can to avoid paying out. But now in the last 20 years, you know, 25 years,

[00:59:03] a big tobacco loses to make concessions. You know, they have to back down up until that point in time. They were just like, well, also like now you can't advertise cigarettes. Right. But they're anywhere. Right. Their new thing is they're getting into the marijuana game.

[00:59:18] Yes. Well, that's what they should do. And like you said, things go in both ways. That's where it is of that. Like seeing this movie again and like thinking like, what are they going to do chemically? Sure, the marijuana make the marijuana they sell even more.

[00:59:31] Yeah. That's a ammonia in there. Oh, like marijuana with nicotine. Yeah. Delicious. That's a good call. But yeah, like imagine that like if you watch a TV show, Netflix is like and now with our new nicotine stick, like inject as you watch stranger things.

[00:59:47] And you're like, I got to watch more stranger things. Like it'd be crazy if you were allowed to do that. Yeah. That's also made me realize I've never seen any like is there a movie where somebody jewels? Maybe not. Yeah. Like I keep waiting for that.

[01:00:00] The only time I'm working on a script. Sure. Yeah. The only time I've ever seen something close was on comedians and cars getting coffee when time fell was. I think it was Chappelle. Chappelle had one in his hand. Yeah. The whole time they were at the diner.

[01:00:13] But but I've never seen anyone jewel in a movie. And I don't think so. I was I was I was thinking because I saw a movie where the language we all know of like someone's been cramming all night and they have their stuffing cigarettes into an astray.

[01:00:28] Yeah. Now it's going to be a pile of jewel pot. Yeah. And that's how you can tell a character's been cramming all. How long does it take to go through a pot normally? It depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

[01:00:39] I could probably I could probably borrow two in a day. So like one pot equals how many cigarettes? Really? One pot's a pack? Yeah. How many pots are you on a day? Me? Yeah. One. Good man. Because my dad was a two pack a day smoker.

[01:00:53] OK. But that required so much fucking time. Like literally just you had to like go through 40 cigarettes. You could also do it on the plane. You can do it everywhere you went. My dad on the plane once they banned smoking was really.

[01:01:06] Yeah. My dad. My dad was not great. What would he do? Be a fucking pain in the ass. Eat what do you call the gum like the gum like crazy. You know the thing that really scares me in this movie

[01:01:19] and it's not like this is a thing that doesn't exist in the world today. But the like the whole seven dwarves thing of like here are the seven CEOs of the two actor companies and prioritized above them competing with each other

[01:01:32] is like we're all united front that has to compete against everyone else. Right. Right. Like this like code of like secrecy of honor. Yeah. Of just like look it benefits us all. Right. If we're not right fighting each other. I mean that's the other crazy thing about cigarettes.

[01:01:47] They all made the same product. Right. And yet somehow there were seven of them. I also didn't realize Joe Camel real guy. He was a real guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a surprisingly large role in this film.

[01:01:56] Yeah. The scene where Mike Wallace screams at him for 10 solid minutes is pretty effective. And I think I think Abraham is good in the role. You're a shell. Get out of my face you stooge. Yeah. I'm for Abraham would nail a Joe Camel biopic. Franklin Jella maybe.

[01:02:13] Franklin Jella. You need that kind of voice. You definitely Joe Camel has like a low smooth buttery baritone. Right. All right. So after that electric first scene that we just talked about. Right. Gauze over his eyes. Love that. Six inches of height hair. Yeah. Hair height. My God.

[01:02:28] Right. Right. Yeah. He's almost got like a Phil Spector level. Yes. Yes. Phil Spector what happened for that movie is they took the piece off of Pichino here and they like put it in some kind of like growth chamber. And then when it's time to make specter

[01:02:43] they just pulled it right back up. Yes. Yeah. It's like the thing in life. Yes. Yes. Underrated movie. It's written a lot. I think it's rated just fine. Yeah. Fine. R. That's really gross movie. Yeah. But yes that tells you everything you kind of need

[01:02:59] to know about these two guys and how they approach their careers and their work. It's really really good fucking writing. And the yeah well I will say this is man's best script. Like he's a great writer in general

[01:03:13] but usually you think of him like as a visual guy and a performance guy you know and his scripts are very like workman like and you know they got good lines maybe but you know what I mean like this is his best script it's all talk. Eric Roth.

[01:03:25] Well let me write it with Eric Roth. Co-credit. You give Roth a lot of the credit for this one. I would imagine. You think man came in there and he's like make the wife more of a pain in the ass. Yeah. I don't like this.

[01:03:36] I'm sort of I'm sympathizing with the female character. Get her out of here. Really. Two dimensional. Yeah can we cut one dimension. That's Christopher Nolan to like. Yes can the wife be a zero dimensional please. What if the wife was less alive.

[01:03:56] What if she was a I don't want to say a ghost but what do you think you guys like you mean like a ghost. Interesting idea. Yes yes yes. And they bring him Dunkirk and he's like are there any wives that there's not a single wife

[01:04:12] in this fucking. Go picture. No but the fact that this movie takes so long to set up these characters in such great detail set up the world set up their separate jobs all of these things. The points don't really start converging until like 45 minutes in.

[01:04:31] I mean my girlfriend who didn't really T14 know of this movie before we started watching it together was like it. I just paused it took 45 minutes until this movie reveals what it's about. Clearly that's a fair point. We're cutting to why again. But it's a little.

[01:04:49] I would argue it takes longer than that. Arguably because what the movie. Well maybe that's not completely fair. Go ahead because the first half of the movie or whatever is. 60 minutes. The good guys the unblemished good guy right. The heroes are generally and tobacco companies

[01:05:07] the bad guy and then halfway through the movie or whatever point that is. The movie is about 60 minutes being the bad guys all of a sudden and that's a complete shift. That's really because. I go still number one bad guys but. 60 men they basically get their claws

[01:05:23] in CBS corporate. Otherwise what's at the top but if 60 minutes hadn't fucked this up. The way they did right this still would have been like a really good one hour movie. Yes absolutely right about like Jeffery Wigan versus the tobacco or movie and. Yeah journalism whatever story.

[01:05:40] That's what makes it a near three hour. I know and what makes it fantastic is that it completely shifts it much in the way that I think like Serenity did. There's a huge shift halfway through that sends it into the realm of the

[01:05:52] closet and you are speaking my language. Is it twist and Serenity. It's really no. No zero twist. It's a very logical film. You know this is my take on Serenity. It has rules. It has a personification of the rules. At this point I'm just checking yeah

[01:06:10] at this point John Wick three will have come out. I'm not spoiling anything. It has rules. But it has a character who functions similarly who's basically like I am the rules. Okay very similar time. I am the rules is the best line of diet. Yeah yeah that's true.

[01:06:23] Ever in the history of movies. It is top here's looking at you kid. Yeah that's true. I am the rules. In fact they're actually going to redub Casablanca so at some point Rick says I am the rules. Maybe not today maybe not tomorrow. I am the rules.

[01:06:40] Yeah they're gonna redub everything. You know the godfather. I'm the rules. He's gonna be like that at the opening right. Daenerys saying I'm the rules in the mirror. The end of Susan King. Yeah. End of Susan King. You know Serenity's a masterpiece.

[01:06:57] Steven Knight I told I said this yesterday you didn't react I said Steven Knight is an important artist because we were talking about Locke. I was agreeing with you. I know it's not like you were like get the fuck out of here. Yeah.

[01:07:07] But I think you should have been like David. Genius thing to say great job. It caught me on the back. I did not realize we talked about this yesterday that Steven Knight is one of the creators of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

[01:07:17] Cause someone in our Reddit said like oh Serenity is Steven Knight cashing in that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire check. And I was like what did he win on the show? Is that how he self financed this movie?

[01:07:26] Which is not a blank check as we said to each other. That is a one million dollar check. That's a pretty defined set check. But he was one of like four creators of the show. Wow. And it's just presumably continued making money

[01:07:39] hand over fist for ever and ever and ever and ever. And I imagine as the creator of the show his like notes were things like what if the music's serious. Yeah right exactly. So it's this thing where you have to answer questions and you win a million pounds.

[01:07:52] And Steven Knight comes in and he's like turned the lights down and they were like great you gotta create a credit. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Well remember then that was the number one show on television. Yeah. That was the number one show on television.

[01:08:05] That was the number one show on television. Just for a year. But you were talking about ER being number one. Yeah ER is the show that the throne 60 minutes. And there were like years where like friends would be number one or this or that.

[01:08:15] Sure any of those sort of must see TV. But very often in the last 20 years the number one show has been some form of reality television. Yeah. Whether it's a game show or a reality competition. Because it was American Idol for a long time.

[01:08:26] Right it was Wants To Be A Millionaire for a year or two. Yeah survivor definitely for a year. Yeah right. I can run it down for you probably. I mean what was the last scripted show to be the number one show on television NCIS. That's a good question.

[01:08:41] Cause I was I mean it is. Yeah I think it is. No. What. The Big Bang Theory. It's number one. Has been the number one show on television for the last two years. Wow. Set number two NCIS. Wow. Young Sheldon Ben is pointing to Young Sheldon

[01:08:58] at number six doing strong. Ben is holding up six fingers and dancing. The Sheldonverse is just out of control. Young Sheldon is number six of all shows on television. I mean it's Young Sheldon. I had no idea. What is the premise of that show?

[01:09:13] What if Sheldon but Young. Sol's Mystery. Does he? What does he actually do? I think he learns a kind of winsome lessons. What if it was just him like doing a lot of like reading of textbooks which is sort of what Sheldon I assume does do.

[01:09:29] Yeah I think the show is kind of. It's like him learning to code and I don't know theoretical physics. I think the whole hook to that show is that his dad seems like a gruff kind of unemotional guy.

[01:09:39] But at the end of every episode the dad goes like you know Sheldon I know so what's been going on here. His dad's Robert Prosky. Yeah. Or Robert Lozier. Yeah. Yeah who is his dad? He grows up in the south and no one gets Sheldon.

[01:09:56] And the dad seems like kind of like a glum and at the end of every episode he's like I get it kid you're smart. You're gonna someday. Someday you'll live in an apartment with a bunch of nerds. Someday you'll live next to a girl.

[01:10:10] This real piece of meat's gonna move in next door. I don't know what's this isn't that the premise of Big Bang Theory. The premise of Big Bang Theory is what if nerds live next door to all girls. An attractive woman yes. Yes. Yeah Sunday night football NCIS

[01:10:23] have been trading off for years and then before then is the many year run of American Idol. What's the football show about? It's like what if on Sunday night people play football. Interesting. Like people play football Sunday day. If you watch during the day on Sunday

[01:10:38] there's football games on. And then what they'll do is they'll. The sun will set. The sun will set the sun will go down. Sure sure. And like they'll wait like an hour or two. Great. And then they will play another one. It's a different game. Yeah.

[01:10:50] It's not the same game running every day until night. Game. Yeah. Football. Right. Right. It is in general. Great iron football. Different match. Yeah. Yes. And before that CSI for a while. Right. Before that you got Survivor. God CBS just really. And who wants to be a millionaire.

[01:11:06] Hold on to that spot. They rarely let it go. And before that it is just ER and Seinfeld trading places for years. And before that it's 60 minutes. And then if we keep going it's a. Oh I've never heard of this. The Cosby show. Is that who's that.

[01:11:20] Oh we're not talking. Well I do think CBS is the network of people who can't figure out how to. Change the turn Netflix on. Right. It's. But it's kind of. No I mean I think. I don't even know. Truly truly. I guess maybe sounds mean.

[01:11:31] I don't even know you're right. But I think it's you know. I think you are 100% correct. And it is like the reason why they still run the table on network. Yeah. Yeah. CBS is the AOL. Of right. Like TV. Right.

[01:11:46] No one ever told them that you can just get. Internet on a browser now. Right. I had to check my AOL recently. Your what. My AOL account. You have an AOL account. Yes I do. Do you pay for it. No I don't. OK. OK.

[01:11:59] I think my dad was paying for four. All while. Woo. But I still have the email address. It's gonna come back. They just bought a time Warner. It's going great. My father. You're in an age now you shouldn't be still be on your parents AOL account. Hey listen.

[01:12:11] This socialism crap is out of control. My father I just want to be clear on the record. You know he should be on AOC. My father. She's going straight to the top. My father. Sorry. Responds to. Oh that was hysterically funny. My father. Your high response to.

[01:12:28] Responds to emails from his AOL account on his Blackberry. Wow. That's my father's life is getting. That's a really old. At AOL dot com. That's an old phrase. Respect. With the Blackberry signature. That's like the old country you know. Blackberries. My father.

[01:12:44] I love my Blackberry when I had what it was great. Well I like having the buttons. I like having to tell him the thing. But he my father sends emails that should be text. So he sends emails going you OK. That's the subject heading right. Nobody. Great.

[01:12:59] And then it's just sent from Blackberry the most secure mobile device. Which he types out. Yes every time. It is crazy that that's was a narrative I was like well I need the buttons like the button is size of a frickin P. Yeah.

[01:13:15] I have to say I miss I miss the keyboard. I like my Blackberry a lot. Yeah. I very much enjoyed my years with Blackberry. I do like people who still have sent from my iPhone as a signature though. Otherwise how would I know. Yeah. It's important to know.

[01:13:31] And B it's like what is this new iPhone thing. I telephone. Some kind of space computer. I have a wall telephone you have an eye telephone. In the ball. Yeah right. Right there. Right near. Near the eyeball. For the listener Griffin and I are pointing at her eyeballs.

[01:13:47] Her eyeballs. All right. So yes. Let's talk to the designer. The Michael Mann thing where it's like just like two fucking lines like just slowly inching towards each other until they form a right angle. Sure. You know like I feel all his movies are like.

[01:14:02] You just described pornography to me. Yes. That is what that is. Right. But you have a lot of time setting up and and Wygan and Bergman start to cross paths. But it's a weird thing where I mean this is what's so beautiful

[01:14:14] about this character and Roth and Mann did an insane amount of research for this movie. Yes. This is one of the few movies based on true story that at the end has the disclaimer like you know. Some of these things didn't happen. We tried our hardest to. Right.

[01:14:26] Whereas usually they'd be like everything in this movie is true as like Bohemian Rhapsody goes right. Or that's the legal disclaimer they have to put at the very end of the credits. And man has to be like I have to admit.

[01:14:37] I've fudged a couple of things to make the movie flow better. I condensed a couple of dialogue scenes. The Bruce McGill lawyer was only 35 percent of a showboat. OK. Not 80. That scene. What a profile. That scene is. God. Should be in museums. That's a TV show. Yes. Right.

[01:14:55] That scene should be the state song of Mississippi. Yeah. Mississippi should enshrine that. I want after that. You want that you're like Bruce McGill is a yelling lawyer. Bruce McGill DA. It is actually. Call it whatever you want. McGill yells at evil industry.

[01:15:08] It is incredible that that wasn't on CBS. Why that's right. Your face. Right. Right. That Bruce McGill running a law firm in the South. I'm all in that should have been running for 15 years. Absolutely. I'm so happy to be frumpy though. Yes. Of course not.

[01:15:24] I can't fit him well. Every courtroom should be like fluorescent lights. You know card tables. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever that is. OK. We got to get to that scene. But we got to get to that scene quick. I'm so excited. Fuck.

[01:15:37] But there is a beautiful Pacino like gauze. You know bandage. Oh shit we're still in the first scene. Yeah. Come on. How cool this guy is. How he's got his field. He's opening shot. Yeah. That's cool. OK so it says touchdown pictures. And the little. Blue logo.

[01:15:54] What is that. Stretching. It's her name in the shows. Blank check. With. Name of the shows. Blank check. But but we get Wygan eating cake in his office or watching people eat cake. In the lab. And the world is heavy on his shoulders. Yeah.

[01:16:09] And you realize very quickly as he goes home that he has been laid off. Been fired. The reasons that are unclear. This guy seems so milk toast. Sure. This guy seems so bland. When Roth and Mann met him they said

[01:16:20] they thought it would be difficult to make a movie about him because they found him. Unlikeable. And he is. He is. He's quite a good boy. And he does a really good job playing like a good guy. Absolutely. And his performance goes from this guy

[01:16:31] feels kind of unengaging to being this guy is actually actively unlikeable. Yeah. Only scene in the whole movie he's likeable in is when he's introducing the chemistry class. That's being kind of like bashful. And he's like talking about what he likes about chemistry.

[01:16:45] I think there's one other example. He won teacher of the year. You know. Yes. No. Oh, I was pumping my fist. Oh yeah. That title card came up. Can you imagine how crazy must have been for that guy to be your teacher. I know.

[01:16:55] In the middle of all of this. In the middle of all of this. Yeah. When they like cut in the middle of the battle like to him just like writing on the chalkboard. You're like. You're still teaching. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's like talking about his like

[01:17:07] failed child support in the news. That's true. He's getting bullets in the mail. He's getting bullets in the mail. The other scene that I think he's likable is when he explains what's going on to his daughter once she's having the asthmatic. Yes, that's a very good. Absolutely.

[01:17:20] Yes, of course. Yes, that's a good. That and that's another good characterization thing where it's like this guy gets science really well. Right. And he has no sort of like emotional like facility. Yeah. But if he can explain what's going on scientifically, yeah, he can connect to someone.

[01:17:36] But we were talking about it earlier with Diane Verona and or Breeland. Benora. Benora. Benora. Yeah. She's now I'm going to pull a real grip. I use I call her that all the time. It feels like her name should be Diane VanNor. VanNor. VanNor. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:17:48] Because she was in Romeo and Juliet too. Right. Right. The scene so he has the boxes in the back of his car. Yes. And he runs out from dinner to go get more soy sauce. I think it was and she comes out after him

[01:18:04] and he's like those are my boxes in the car. She's like why are your boxes in the car? And he says, well, I didn't know where else to put. And it takes her like four questions. Right. He had to finally say, oh, I got fired today. Right.

[01:18:15] From that job we had. Yeah. That supports the whole family. So between that scene and then there's a scene later where they he and his wife go to New York to unbeknownst her. He is going to tape. He doesn't know why they're at dinner with Mike Wallace. Yeah.

[01:18:29] He doesn't tell her he's there to take this interview. But meanwhile, so you have those two scenes clearly this is not a good husband. No. No. He's kind of a pain in the ass. And if he gets dressed out what does he do? Starts sucking him away.

[01:18:41] He gets to the bar and he's like, all right, give me a double. And goes target shooting. And goes target shooting and maybe owns like, you know, a lot of guns for one guy. Maybe different calibers. Yes. Right. It is a thing I love about this

[01:18:53] movie that Russell Cruz performance at the beginning is so strange. Yeah. And then they just sort of unpack this guy. Yeah. And like he's playing the same guy the same way pretty much the whole movie. But the more details you get about

[01:19:04] him, the more it starts to make sense. But this key thing that like this guy is not a hero. This is kind of a shitty guy who because of his anger issues. Right. Ends up doing the right thing. Yeah. The morality of the thing.

[01:19:18] All those three decisions he makes is. He's throw it in. Sorry. He took me a second. But he's not a snowden. Like he's not a guy who's like trying to like pat himself on the back. He's a guy who like if someone intimidates him, he's like,

[01:19:32] fuck me, fuck you. Yes. Every decision he makes is that. Right. Because there's that scene where the Mississippi is like, look, honestly, you probably shouldn't do this. Anyway, I got to go. Right. And I was like, yeah, what should I do? Let's fuck it. Let's go to court.

[01:19:45] You know what I mean? He's just got a chip on his shoulder. He's got a chip on his shoulder. I was a little annoyed though the fuck me, fuck you. How did Pacino not get that line? I know. That's true. My God. Fuck me, fuck you.

[01:19:55] He says he 100% says that in Angels in America. He just got it later. Someone said that to him and he was like, oh no. I actually looked up. I got to do that later. I looked. Does he say it in that? Because I looked up.

[01:20:05] In Angels in America? I did a search for a fuck me, fuck you, out Pacino. And could not find it. There's the whole speech in Angels in America where he starts screaming at Jeffrey right. I could have sworn he said fuck me. I'm pretty sure also that's

[01:20:18] what Al Pacino says when you ask him for an autograph. Right. Mr. Pacino, I loved your performance in China Doll. China Doll, man. The people waiting backstage. That's the one. That's my joke is that they're waiting by the stage door. It's so crazy though. Fuck me. Fuck you.

[01:20:34] Yeah, because that's it. No, it's right. It's not, he never says that quite but it's the whole thing is like, was it legal? Fuck legal. What about the nation? Fuck the nation. Right where he, I love Angels in America. Pissed off in Curious is

[01:20:46] my favorite line of his in this movie. I love the line that I think I tried to suggest to you which happens in that scene where the wife storms out of the drinks with Wallace. That is a great line. Who are these guys?

[01:21:01] And I want to find the exact line. Do you remember it? I do not. It's what do you expect from that? They're ordinary people. Ordinary people under extraordinary pressure, Mike. What the hell do you expect? Grayson's consistency? I just love that. Like I also love it where

[01:21:14] Wallace is like. And he delivers it really well too. So like it's so good. But like Wallace's life is more like I deal with like very, very fancy people. Like in total like who are these jerks? And Lowe is like my job is to find these people

[01:21:28] and they're not going to be like you, you know. But also I started getting the feeling at that point that maybe this story was being told more from Bergman's point of view than Wallace's. Sure. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Of course. No, I mean obviously

[01:21:42] but it was like after it was like okay we get it. You're the man of the people. You're the good guy here. He's the right. But I also think I mean the film ends up selling Bergman as like a very self-destructive self-righteous guy

[01:21:56] in a not entirely noble way. Even though he is the one who ultimately triumphed. I feel like when you're introduced to Pachino he seems so together. The guy's so common collected in his extreme circumstances. And when you compare his home life to like Wigan's home life it's like

[01:22:11] oh the kid's coming into bed with them and he's on the cheek and they're reading the paper and everything's good. And I feel like even though he ultimately succeeds the movie like I think the movie argues that this guy's sort of ego tied to the sanctity

[01:22:27] of the idea of journalism is kind of his undoing. It's his. At the end of the movie he's kind of fucked. Like he's sort of destroyed. He's doing fine. Didn't get that at all. Really? Yeah. The end of the movie they should be like

[01:22:40] by the way you leaked like that private tape to the New York Times you're so fired and it said Mike Wallace is like yeah you got what you wanted who cares. Right. It's fine. Yeah. I mean it was like no I quit. I'm gonna go be a professor

[01:22:54] at USC or whatever wherever he ended up. Berkeley. Berkeley. Berkeley. Berkeley. Yeah. But he does get to deliver that great line what got broken here doesn't go back together again. Yeah which I think is fair actually. I think right that's what the insider is mostly about right.

[01:23:07] Like that 60 minutes has this lofty view of itself. Course we would never be like swayed by business interests or anything like that. Steven Tobolowski we'd never be swayed by Steven Tobolowski. And the most pivotal scene and one of the best scenes in the movie

[01:23:20] is the Gina Gershyn scene where she's like I'm totally on your side guys we just have to run it by legal and start saying things that make no sense. Yeah. And Pacino is like the only one who's like what is she saying? Yeah. Oh you mean that scene

[01:23:33] that feels like when I ask people why there hasn't been a Funko of Arthur yet. And it's Gina Gershyn who tells you right. Also like in a snappy series. I'm telling you is that what they say the emails I get read exactly like that.

[01:23:45] It's like I know you're saying a lot of stuff. I don't really think you're saying anything. That's it's like with tortuous interference the more tortuous interference the more true the thing is right the worse it is right for them because it so I think with the Funko pop

[01:23:58] that's what the president of Funko said to me. You said this is an issue of tortuous interference. Did you no no you said because the cooler it would be right right the less they can do it. Yeah. Now when you get the email

[01:24:10] does it like bounce on your monitor like a weird old first of all animated like. Which I have never seen outside of a movie. No that doesn't exist. It's got wings on it does that little little early pixel GIF wings. Love that seat. We're talking multiple emails here.

[01:24:25] I was like like three months ago you remember I was like I think I finally solved this thing and I was emailing between Sony Amazon and Funko and it got caught in this kind of boondoggle. Right. Someday I'm going to sell the rights to Michael Mann

[01:24:38] and he's going to make some story about trying to make a Funko of myself. God imagine if imagine trying to tell Michael Michael Mann what a Funko pop is like imagine the disdain. Like if I've got a five minutes of Michael Mann you know

[01:24:54] and be like oh he's I admire him so much he's like one of my favorite directors and for some reason the only circumstances under which I'm allowed to talk to him is if I have to explain what a Funko pop is to him. With like Miami Vice character.

[01:25:05] Yeah I'm like anyway so yeah they all kind of look the same they got big eyes. They stand about you know they're like blank. Black circles you know with kind of a. And it specifically has to be the Arthur Funko pop that you have to. Yeah.

[01:25:18] Okay the tick let me get into this fast. This is the fourth version. Right yeah so started out in the underground self-published. Yeah okay let's talk about. You might know the Fox series you might remember that. Right Fox kids really owned by Disney.

[01:25:30] It was on before Eek the Cat. You're familiar with Eek the Cat. Let's talk about Eastman and Lord first before we can get even to Ben Edelund. Yeah and then Michael Mann like shoots me with a scatter gun. Right he benches you. Right. Loa wants some cigarette.

[01:25:46] Background info first. He needs to translate. Yes but then. He's got this really dense dossier. He's received anonymous information. Right. Realizes the Wigan is kind of a perfect whistleblower. He's like a guy who's kind of ready to flip he's been laid off. He knows everything.

[01:26:00] It's beautiful that he's just asking Wigan can you translate this for me after they've had their weird facts exchange that's like. Right. So so terse. Yeah. But I also just love like just fucking two like middle age men standing over their fax machines waiting for a

[01:26:16] handwritten one sentence notes. The 90s. Yes. So good. The original Twitter. Right. So he's like why is this guy this defensive and then when he sits down with him in the hotel room the guy's like I just want to make it clear I'm not giving you

[01:26:28] any more information. Right. But she was like what other information he's like doesn't matter not giving you any of it. Not being any kind of information about ammonia. Right. He like volunteers that he's not going to tell him anything about the ammonia. Right. Right.

[01:26:39] All of the secrets I can't tell you them. Right. What secrets the ones I can't tell you. Right. But the thing is like I'm assuming even though I know it's a movie or whatever I'm assuming that's how they met in real. I believe a hundred percent past. Yeah.

[01:26:55] But it's really bad screenwriting if it were fiction fiction right you would you would you would what it'd be like no this is a really dumb coincidence like right after he gets fired right. He gets fired. He was asking about something else and then he accidentally

[01:27:09] or not accidentally but he alludes to something else. But I mean so many stories like that it's always like they stumbled into it by mistake. And it totally makes sense for this guy with such a hair trigger you know. Sure. Right. So like I mean make these sort

[01:27:22] of like knee jerk decisions and not be able to maintain his cool. And then early on there's the scene with Michael Gammond that is fantastic whether essentially like yeah you're going to give you a super confidentiality agreement in which you agreed to shoot yourself if you ever tell

[01:27:37] anyone anything right you know like that's great. And then Crow just like flips out. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck me fuck you. Has the everyone has the conversation. I think he got it is is still a good kiss off one. Yeah. Has the combo with that

[01:27:51] Al in the rainy car. There's a lot of rain and the great Michael Mann line is a Pacino saying I don't burn people. That's when he thinks that Pacino has burned. Right. I like the next line in that scene. Hey make this semi-finals. Yeah.

[01:28:06] What do we talk about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Outside your world. Yeah. You know all that stuff with the two of them in the cars together. I remember. I met the Japanese restaurant. Oh so good. And he does that fucking thing. He like crosses the line like

[01:28:20] four times in three seconds. Yes. Yes. He does. This very disorienting thing where he's literally just crossing the line in two shots and he just goes from one side to the other back and forth which is like very disorienting. It's this weird courtship phase of the movie

[01:28:38] where it's just like pro being like I think I'm interested. Right. Invites Pacino out and then it's like fuck you get away from me. Right. Um. I remember not having seen this when it came out. Entertainment Weekly running an article not maybe a full article

[01:28:51] but a little half page thing about how distracting it was that the Pepsi girl was in the movie. Who's the Pepsi girl? Halleke Eisenberg. Oh. Younger sister of Jesse Eisenberg. Yeah right. Who plays Russell Crowell's older daughter. Right. But at this time was the spokesperson for Pepsi

[01:29:08] and that campaign had started right after. Whoa. Right before this movie came out. I would guess after she finished filming this before it was released and talking about like trying to explain fucking Funkos to Michael Mann. Could you imagine how angry he must have been

[01:29:23] when someone was like she's the girl who like drinks a Pepsi and smiles and now people are laughing in the theater when she's on introduced on screen. Right. Oh my god. Yeah. She was the Pepsi girl. How quickly we forget the Pepsi girl. The Pepsi girl. Very distracting.

[01:29:38] It distracts me from the whole. I couldn't pay attention for the movie. So I don't remember what happens after that. Can you guys tell me? They finally, yeah. I mean. I mean they right. They start working on the thing where he has to testify

[01:29:48] so that they can like skirt his confidential like there he has to be like compelled to testify in court and that's how they can get him on the record. Yeah. Right. And they have to go take in a minute Mississippi to do it. Right. This is the strategy.

[01:30:00] Because the state of Mississippi has a lawsuit already I think. Yes. Penning or on on file. Yeah. So someone tells Pachino this so he you know they say. He's basically tells Mississippi like depose Wygan. Right. He won't you know they won't be able to enforce the NDA.

[01:30:16] But Wygan is getting so angry about tobacco muscling him. Right. Right. And the bullet in the mailbox. He's like I have to film it now and Pachino is like I can't film it until you've been testified. He's like you don't have to air it. Right.

[01:30:28] I just need to get the shit off my chest. So then takes his wife to New York City. You know just a casual dinner with Mike Wallace. Yeah. It is wild. Maybe we'll catch a show. Right. As one does also tomorrow I'm going to film for six hours.

[01:30:42] Like you were saying like again Hollywood screenwriting like would not be like would be like you have to build to the climactic interview and have that be right a big moment of release at the end of the movie. And instead they do it like 50 minutes in. Right.

[01:30:54] And the rest of the movie is about if they're allowed to air the interview completely or if they're going to edit it. And he kind of does the interview at that point out of petty anger. Yeah. Like once again I'm not like

[01:31:04] I need to get this out to the people. He's like I don't care when you air it. Right. I just need to fucking yell about these guys. Well the interesting thing is like as part of the interview Mike Wallace asks him you know do you have

[01:31:13] any regrets about coming out as a whistleblower. It's like he hasn't yet. Right. Right. He at this point. And yet he's still like yeah. And he's still like yeah I got some regrets and like by the end of the movie you understand why he would have regrets. Right.

[01:31:25] But at that point something I guess the bullet thing had happened. Yeah. He got fired. A couple of things had happened. But yeah. But not to the extent like the dossier hadn't been prepared that we'll get to in a bit. And yeah. So at that point it's kind

[01:31:38] of weird. Yes. For him to already be like yeah just for that to happen. It is crazy when like he has the full security detail courtesy of Puccino and he's like going in the fucking like the car arcade with like all the police cars in front

[01:31:55] and behind and that like everyone in the government agencies is just like oh he's speaking against PEC. Yeah no they're gonna try to assassinate him. Yeah. Like it is so accepted that this guy needs this much protection because like no they will straight up try to murder him.

[01:32:09] I watched Not if the state of Mississippi has anything to say about it. Well right Mississippi the last bastion of justice in America. For me. I do love that Mississippi is just presented as like the purest like That shit don't fly in Mississippi. Right.

[01:32:23] It kind of cuts both ways. Kentucky. Yeah. North Carolina. North Carolina. South Carolina. That scene is phenomenal. It's on YouTube by the way. Is it? I'm gonna watch it. Because I watched it like eight times last night. Yeah I'm gonna get that scene tattooed on my body

[01:32:36] frame by frame. I mean Bruce McGill is in like what around five man movies right? He's in everything. Yeah. Even if he plays like a door if he's not gonna have a speaking role right like he's so fucking good. He's gonna he's good and collateral coming up. Yes.

[01:32:51] But that's his tour to force man one shot. Right. I think that's his best scene as an actor. I think it's the best scene of an actor. Yes. Right. Like in acting school 101 everyone should sit down and they'll be like roll it. I mean you just watch that

[01:33:05] clip and they're like any questions do with that guy. But it is such an incredible thing of like okay like death thread emails right bullet in the mailbox like wife leaves him security detail installed like motorcade like running for miles getting him into

[01:33:20] what then turns out to be him essentially saying one sentence in as you described it a shitty fluorescent lit room. Right. Like it's kind of incredible how like sort of non-descript the actual action is. Yeah. Of what he's doing. Yeah. McGill is theatrical you know

[01:33:38] the lead up to its theatrical but it's just like that was a line that was never crossed where this guy walking into the shitty Mississippi office. Right. And just being like yes I believe that it's addictive. I just right. God yeah right there were the

[01:33:52] lawyers like you really can't see that don't answer don't answer. That's the one sentence they're trying to get him to say on the record. Yeah. Right. So that happens the bullet in the mailbox I can't remember if it's right after that or right before that. That happens concurrent

[01:34:07] with the email. Yeah. Because the wife hears it they move to the new apartment show up and they're like we'll just take your computer. Right. Did you touch the bullet right you have a gun. Yeah. Like they started thinking because also at this point

[01:34:19] a Pacino like does the due diligence of like telling me everything shitty about you. Yeah. And crow is like pretty forthcoming of like I have anger issues. Yeah. I have a shoplifting record. Right. I drink too much. I drink too much. Right. Right.

[01:34:30] I got in a physical fight with my wife once. Sure. And you're like okay this guy's got some baggage and then it turns out there's like a whole other suitcase underneath the table. Yeah. Oh well I think it was mostly bullshit because that's sort of what the

[01:34:41] movie bears out right. It was like kind of supposed to be bullshit but he's a messy guy. Yeah he's a messy guy. Yeah. Yeah. Um. We're all messy guys. We're all messy guys. I think that's one of the put you under the microscope. Right. You know like. Exactly.

[01:34:55] Watching this movie. Appreciate it so much about Michael Mann. This movie has some of the best instances of it. What is often called in filmmaking shoe leather. Yeah. That most directors get bored and want cut out. Sure. Let's just skip that. You just do this right away.

[01:35:10] Let's cut the shoe leather. Usually make scenes feel fucking wonky and hollow. Is the kind of stuff that leads to like why don't you ever see someone hanging up in a movie? Why they never say goodbye? You know why you never see that. The classic like William

[01:35:24] Goldman like we don't need to see them hail a cab. Like we shouldn't see three cabs go by before they hail the cab. They need to hail the cab so they're going to hail the cab. Michael Mann is so good at making all that stuff

[01:35:35] tell you a lot about the characters. He's not showing it to you for the sake of showing it to you. But like the fact that every time anyone's on the phone in this movie and this is a movie where people are often speaking to each other over the

[01:35:45] phone. Yeah. A lot of phone. Yeah. It's always in the middle of them doing something else. There's never seen where Pacino is just like drinking a cup of coffee in his living room. Gotta take some calls. Right. Like the most casual thing is him waking up in the

[01:35:57] middle of the night from sleep. Right. But when he's like in the edit bay and you see the craft of him establishing the edit of the segment. Yeah. And then he's taking the call in the middle of that and then he's giving more notes.

[01:36:09] It's like it's such good fucking character building a world building. Right. Right. So they have the piece it's tight. It's ready. It's ready to go. They watch it. It's locked. Like halfway through the movie they all sit down and watch it. Yeah. They don't touch my film.

[01:36:21] They're like it's good. Right. Right. Right. And then there's the conversation with Helen Caparelli. Gina Gershwin it's a great like three scene performance. Yeah. I think it's a weird performance. Really? I love her in this. It's again it's the character is so bad. Like that's my problem.

[01:36:38] Well you think it's too like one dimensional. Yeah. I think you even compare like I think in his movies when he has people just talking business the women are dumber. Like I think Tobolowski speaks better than she does in terms of the actual verb.

[01:36:54] Chin bearded fool in this movie. Hey first of all it's a good beard. Wallace demolishes him in that scene. It's the other scene. Well I'll wait for you to get to it. Well let's get to it. Let's get to it. What do you mean?

[01:37:06] Well no because it's further on. OK. OK. When you mean when the credits roll and we see all the names of the people who worked on the movie. Yeah. That's a little later I guess. OK. Right. The best boy grip in this way blew mine.

[01:37:17] I did not see that count. Well OK so what happens that I mean. Go ahead. You go ahead. My thing is later is much later in the film. Fine. I feel like we're jumping around a lot. I want to ruin your chronology. Well not really it seems to

[01:37:28] mean a lot to you David. Once they get it down once they have the tape down. He has the rules. Like grew up in England. We did grow up in England that's true where we saw this film with the Halloween audience. We're cutting between like the 60 minutes

[01:37:40] legal stuff. Right. You know and that sort of low realizing they're getting further and further bogged down. And Jeffrey Ryden. Because CBS is in the process of being bought. They're being bought by Westinghouse. Which apparently nobody knows except Lowell Bergman. That scene is the one scene

[01:37:55] that's really confusing where he's like it's a sale. It's for real. I mean I would be reported. I found that would be in the news. That would be in the news. Yeah. The CBS corporation was being bought. You found it. Right. Yeah. Whatever. Maybe maybe that's how it

[01:38:08] worked. I have no idea. Like he calls the guy in New Orleans and is like I did the research like how many of like your FBI agents have been hired by private security firms. Right. Like this is a guy who just reads every fucking dense document he can

[01:38:23] to try to find the connections. He's like a very effective conspiracy theorist who like really backs it up. Yes. Yeah we see him at home with Lindsay Krause and stuff. I love Lindsay Krause. She's an amazing actress. She's got. As you cannot tell. You'll study on this movie.

[01:38:39] Except be like the opposite of Diane Vanora in Heat. She's just like yeah no go ahead please read a Bible's worth of documents while I make dinner. I saw her name in the opening credits. She's so as you pointed out you know in like the

[01:38:53] twenty fifth minute of the opening credit. And I was like oh I completely forgot she was in this movie. I can't remember who she plays at all. And by the end of the movie I was like. You had the exact same set. Oh she in that one?

[01:39:01] That's why I couldn't remember She's so incredible in House of Games. That's like one of my favorite performances. Yes. Anyway but over now something we're cutting between that right and Jeffrey Wygan sitting in various chairs while opera music plays. Yes. Right. And his wife leaves him off screen.

[01:39:21] Right. But mostly he just sits in chairs. Right and they've developed this whole sort of like counter narrative against him to make him seem like a slippery character. Yeah yeah right right the knives are out for him. So his name's being dragged in the press. Right.

[01:39:32] His interview is not being played. Right. His wife has left him. Yeah Lowell is sort of saying like I'm sorry I'm trying you know like that's all he's got for him. Right. That scene where Puccino's just like look there's no good way to say

[01:39:45] this so I'm gonna say it. Right. Interview is not airing. Not great. Not great. And then Russell Crowe does the I would definitely listen to some mind opera too. But Russell Crowe's like pretty effective like you have no idea what it feels like to be in my shoes.

[01:39:59] You cannot imagine what my life feels like right now. Before that though there's in the scene with Gina Gerson we were talking about earlier when they basically Mike Wallace and Bergman get told basically it's the first version of you're not going to be able to air this.

[01:40:15] You're not going to be able to air this. Right. And then the scene where it's all on Wallace. Well and that's the thing the scene where as Bergman is becoming more and more Al Pacino right. Right. Yeah. His voice is you know reaching that perfect pitch. Yeah.

[01:40:30] And he's and he's expecting he's expecting Wallace to back him up. And then you hear Wallace just say I'm with I'm with Don on with Don. The look on Puccino does such a great job in that scene there's just this look of like the he's so stunned

[01:40:47] and so betrayed and like it's a it's a shot that holds a little longer than you would expect with like kind of silence. Yeah. Until he figures out and then this is it. This is it. Yeah. It's such a great scene. Both of these scenes

[01:41:02] because then there's the later one where Wallace pulls the same trick backwards like where Wallace holds all the power in both. Yes. Like even as everyone's arguing basically once Mike weighs in the dia's cast. I love Plummer. Like Plummer is such a

[01:41:17] this guy has such a sense of like dramatics even in a board room. He's a showman. He's the guy to show. He knows exactly when to be like yeah he's like Simon Cowell like I'm not going to not support Lowell on this one. Right.

[01:41:31] The other but he doesn't kind of category. It's like because in the in the later scene as you're saying like Phillip Baker. Phillip Baker. Don Don here. Great. We love Phillip Baker. Oh my God. Basically says to Mike Wallace you know explain it to him. Yeah.

[01:41:47] And Wallace just goes we blew it. Or however he says. He says we blew it I believe. I think it's we blew it. We blew it. And it's kind of just he just says we blew it down. Yeah. Like it's just matter of fact. Right.

[01:41:57] And it's so great. It's amazing. Right. And then it's like great line where the 15 minutes of fame thing. Right. Right when Phillip Baker halt like it's just like I'm blocking out Pachino. That's fame. And he's like look Mike listen. These things blow over. Yeah. Right. 15 minutes is done.

[01:42:12] Right. Yeah. That's that these things don't blow over. The other Pachino scene I love because so much. And then Wallace gets the line wrong too which annoys me because you're going no it's fame that has a half life of 15 minutes. Like no that's not the line either. Yeah.

[01:42:22] It's everyone will be in the future will be famous for 15 minutes. Right. We'll have a half life. Yeah. Yes. Right. Now every seven and a half minute. The other Pachino scene I love because so much this character is about like just like his line

[01:42:33] of integrity that he's got such a clear moral compass about like this is how journalism works. This is how you take care of your sources. You know that like this thing kind of breaks him because this is the first time he feels like he's he hasn't

[01:42:47] done right by a source. Someone who put their faith into right because the whole movie when he's saying things like I don't burn people like he's speaking from a position of why would I do that? Art. Right. I totally believe in him. Right. I have a code.

[01:42:58] I have a code. And I backed up by CBS and you won't you know we will protect you on this. Right. So he's talking so much about what he stands for and who he is as a person making this a personal relationship. Like they do sort of become

[01:43:08] weird friends over the course of the movie because they're so invested together in this like this crusade you know. Yeah. That they sort of become like like I don't know like brothers in arms. Right. In this shared battle. But that early scene where Crow tries to

[01:43:28] psychoanalyze his relationship with his father and Fatino is just like we don't talk about that. What's your deal with that? Right. Yeah that's good. Yeah. Um. Pay your money now. No what's going on? What's your father? Tell us something. Did I mention that all the opera singing.

[01:43:44] Lot of opera singing. Crazy scene where the wallpaper behind him kind of melts. That's the scene that I didn't as a kid I was like this must be like what art is. Yeah. Like during this fairly like realistic biopic then this happens. Yeah. That scene didn't fully work.

[01:44:00] Re-watching it now I'm kind of like we're the Michael man did this. Yeah. Yeah. Very out of character. Yeah. Yes. I kind of like it. I don't mind it. It's just odd. I didn't mind it because what happened was I re-watched this movie a week or so ago.

[01:44:14] Right before Griffin reschedules. Yeah. Every schedule. Yeah. I had a hair cut. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of scenes for the people at home. I wasn't going to even say that you rescheduled it because of a haircut. And I was going to say it and I said until you know

[01:44:24] less than 24 hours before we were supposed to do it. Right. Which you said you'll give us a wave this time but next time cancellation fee. I get a full cancellation fee. Which I think should be that should be it. Yeah. Okay. So I. You were sorry.

[01:44:34] 100 bucks on the table. So that scene didn't bother me. It's laughing. That scene didn't bother me when I re-watched it when I watched it really for the first time since 99. Yeah. A week ago. I re-watched it again last night. Oh boy. And I tried to try to prepare.

[01:44:48] Well honestly I was just going to kind of skim through it and I got sucked back in. It's a freaking great movie. And I ended up just I was going to maybe watch just watch the first half because that has happened to me with this podcast.

[01:44:54] After Game of Thrones this was like an 11, 38 night. And then next thing I knew it's like 115. I'm like well it was only half hour left. I'm right. I can't stop watching this now. But it bothered me then what the movie shows at the end

[01:45:08] is like for Bergman ultimately this guy was a source. Yeah. Right. And he's already on to he's already breaking the Unabomber story. Apparently the very next day. Hell yeah. Right. Right. I mean that's insane. Just a great week for him. Yeah. I mean just a great one.

[01:45:21] He was having the best week ever. Yeah. No he really was. Yeah. So like quitting CBS or whatever. Yeah. So for him it's always like he's on to the next. Yes. It's just you think throughout this movie that these guys are developing a friendship

[01:45:33] and then I think at the end you realize that and not necessarily this makes Bergman a bad guy but that at the end it was really he was a source not a friend. You know what I want? I just realized exactly what I wanted.

[01:45:44] What I want is the fucking Richard Parker life of pie scene. Like I don't want a closing scene where they're on the phone they're like I love you man. I know I love you too. I want the scene. I want the scene that's like

[01:45:57] like Crow saying like we did it and Pacino going like yeah I'm sorry I gotta get back into the edit. Right. Right. You know I want the final wrap up scene that's underlining the fact that this isn't a friendship. Right. Right. I'm talking to this.

[01:46:07] I want to be great. Unabomber. If Wigan had called and Debbie Mazer who picks up. Right. Who's so great. Who picks up and then Pacino's like tell him I'll call him back. I like I want one note like that. Yeah. Because it feels like that scene

[01:46:19] with the hotel room changing. You think it's too late? Maybe. I mean he could go back. He goes back. He's definitive. I mean you don't need to put any makeup on Crow now. Yeah. Just turn the camera on. Yeah. They might. Pacino they can do some Irishmen de-aging.

[01:46:32] Yes. Right. Yes. It does feel like that scene with the hotel room transforming because that character is at such a rock bottom where you're so worried and he's so worried that he's going to commit suicide. Like I was watching the movie going like

[01:46:46] fuck am I going to Wikipedia just to feel the relief of knowing that he isn't dead today? Right. Or am I going to stick with the movie? Right. Because I got so nervous I was like I kind of like to just know that he makes it.

[01:46:54] Yeah please don't tell me this ends like on truly tragic. Right. Right. According to Wigan that never like he never. The wallpaper never changed. The wallpaper no he didn't actually I have not seen him deny that. Okay. Right. Yeah.

[01:47:06] But he does say that the movie took like yeah. He never hit him like that much more. He was never or sure. Near suicide or anything. That's more Pacino just is afraid that it's going to hurt. No absolutely absolutely. But the fact that the hotel room changes

[01:47:19] into just the daughters around and makes it like this whole movie is just about him trying to get his daughter's respect. Well we also know that he has a previous daughter from a previous marriage who he's been shitty to. Yep. You know a sick x y. I agree.

[01:47:31] A magic camera pair. Right it's the one thing that maybe feels neat. The daughter thing feels a little neat and binary. Yeah. When the room starts transforming I was like so thrilled because I was like this is such a cool like expressive visual thing

[01:47:43] to just show his like world sort of like more fair way. I thought I was going to turn out who's in the video game. Yeah sure. Right. Like a movie that won't be named. No. Wreck it Ralph. But the moment when it then turns

[01:47:54] into the very clean meatback yard then I was like well now this is less interesting. Full less interesting. Like I thought it was cool that it's just like the way this guy feels right now is just like the walls are like morphing around. Right.

[01:48:05] I don't need them to settle into a different location. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were also saying this was the last year where you could have this sort of whaling in a soundtrack and not have it be a historical epic or a war film. Right.

[01:48:17] This is the last time you could have whaling in an office or a hotel room. I didn't even the first time. This might be the only time. There was also at one point in the score and I thought it's towards the end of the movie

[01:48:28] because it's in like sort of a tense area. All of a sudden as part of the score there's a heavy saxophone. Yes. And I was sitting there going Big Jazz sax. This is a 90s movie. Oh yeah. Big Jazz sax. Man where did that saxophone go?

[01:48:42] That's Michael Mann. Yes. Wow. I know. I'm sad. But yeah absolutely. Life. Yeah. Peace feeling a zee with the set. It has to be the guy from the vampire movie. Lost boy. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It has to be that guy.

[01:48:57] And I think it's right because I remember reading an interview with the sound guy where he was like I was furious. Like he ruined a bunch of good takes. He just whipped out the sax and started whaling. No but that whole extent sequence

[01:49:10] where Pajino is on his force vacation like on the beach and he's still miserable. Right. And when he's like at night in the dark standing in the middle of the ocean like in his pants on the cell phone screaming to Roger Bart. Poor Roger Bart. Yeah.

[01:49:26] He's getting it from both sides in that scene. Yeah. Because Wagon's not nice to him either. But Michael when he his look when Wagon's like when Wagon grabs the phone and then slams the door and like he grabs the phone and he goes

[01:49:39] he kind of like jerks back. I just realized nobody can see this. He's and then for the first time he slams the door in his face and he jerks back again. And it's a good great little acting rattling. He's lucky that credit and throw the phone

[01:49:52] in his face. Oh hello. Hey hello. What was it? Joke Bell. Now can we please now talk about the scene where Mike Wallace annihilates everyone around? Yes. Because he only says one line in a in a reason. That's the scene I wanted to talk about.

[01:50:08] That's just Gina Gurson's favorite scene. And I love him when when he calls. That's the scene where I literally lean forward and then when the scene was over said wow allowed. I was so happy. But when he calls Lowell it is like look I know you're upset about

[01:50:21] you know the alternate cut but I think you're gonna be pretty happy when you see what I do. Yeah he's really like this is gonna blow your mind. I really put my foot down and Lowell's like go fuck yourself and he's like how

[01:50:31] dare you wait until you said no you know you were right. You ent. You cut the cuts out of what I said. God it's so scary. What's his answer? He says yes. Who says. Do you think CBS interfered? Yes. Why the hell's the rest? Let's see.

[01:50:51] You corporate lackey. Tovalowski saying you know the time constraints. Who told your incompetent little thing as you got the requisite skills to edit me. He's so good. 50 years. Yes yes but that's the scene. 15 fucking years. That's the scene where I felt like again

[01:51:10] the sort of the treatment of Gina Gurson's character the female character. Sure she gets a lot of it. I mean Tovalowski was but he gets run over immediately. He just gets run over. He's like ineffectual and he's sort of treated as like an embodiment of Satan.

[01:51:23] Well and he's like you know because she calls him Mike. Yeah. Which he gave Mike. Mr. Wallace. And the whole thing was like it was I don't know maybe I'm just overly sensitive to it but it was I felt the same way. It was a little icky.

[01:51:35] And also watching all these Michael Mann movies it's just it's enough of her events. Exactly. It becomes so unavoidable. Absolutely because it started making me think of Pete and other stuff. And his male characters are so fucking nuanced and conflicted. They're like eight dimensional. Right.

[01:51:50] But this movie is not eight dimensional but they do all have the same code. They do. Yes. Well man has to have a code. Talk to Sid. But Mike Wallace is not a he's the not quite villain but he is certainly an unsympathetic character in this movie.

[01:52:02] Oh sure. He's just this kind of insane force of nature. Yeah right. But then yes the tides turn because of. You corporate lackey. Yeah. Imagine if Christopher Paul would call me a corporate lackey I would burst into tears. I would. Yeah I would cry.

[01:52:16] I would just think it sounded cool. I would think it was cool. I would also smile. Yeah. What if I had to talk about Funko to Chris as Mike Wallace. It's Christopher Plummer. Christopher Plummer might have a Funko at this point. I'm going to look it up.

[01:52:33] Mike Wallace. I sit wherever I damn please. Yeah that's about it. What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? I could just listen to Al Pacino read dialogue like that all day. The dialogue is just like so fucking

[01:52:48] musical without being overly sort of written. He finds that way to just boil it down to the cleanest most distinct thing that still has a good rhythm to it. Yeah it's like a much less theatrical mammoth. Yes. Yeah. It's basically what it is.

[01:53:04] It's mammoth without you feeling so heightened that you're like okay this is a mammoth. Yeah. Right yeah. Yeah. Lindsey Krause too. Yeah. What are you looking at? Funko Miami Vice is the closest I think we've gotten to the Michael Man. Funko Man. But they're not even.

[01:53:19] No why would they be? No but see they're not the standard they look kind of good. All right. Whoa. Yeah. So I need to tell my DGA story. Please. Oh go ahead. Yeah. So back when this movie came out I was at the time I was the

[01:53:33] there was the deputy communications director for the director's guild. And as part of that I ran I was in charge of like the red carpet the press line at the DGA awards. And then during the show I was back in the press room and I where the

[01:53:50] winners would come back and you know talk to the press whatever. And every nominee at the DGA Awards gets a freaking trophy. So that's we have everyone's a winner. We had just started either that I don't know if that was the first year but it was

[01:54:02] right around the time they started this thing where they would give. Well I guess maybe they always gave the trophy like the big plate. Yeah. What we started doing was having an actor from the movies present because that gave us star power. Yes.

[01:54:19] So that year we were able to get They present each nominee. Each feature film nominee throughout the night we get presented with this plate and it would be presented by one of the actors from their movie hopefully. So Russell Crowe agreed to do it

[01:54:34] for Michael Mann for the insider. So I'm you know the show is going on and it's a Hollywood award show so it's a good eight nine hours long. Very long. A tight nine. Yeah. I remember the DGA Awards as an Oscar watcher you'd be like they'd be like

[01:54:46] the DGA Awards is starting and I'd be like great I'll wake up tomorrow and find out who's on. Yeah. Unless you want to find out who the best achievement for directing in a children's program. You can get that in like 10 minutes. Right that happens during our dervish.

[01:54:58] That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. At one point we're back there and and all of a sudden this guy comes back. Russell Crowe and he he's like phone in hand. I want a beer. No he's like I really just like he couldn't he just he wanted a beer. Uh-huh.

[01:55:12] And you know at these a lot of these at these dinners you're at a table and it's it's just wine basically and he wanted a beer. Sure. He's a nosy. So one of the security people we work with is like I'll get your

[01:55:25] beer and he goes and he comes back five minutes later and he hands Russell Crowe beer and Russell Crowe gives him a hundred dollar bill. Wow. And that's my story. That's a pretty good story. What kind of beer was it? Was it like an Anstos? Anstos.

[01:55:36] No because it was like you know it was a Beverly Hilton or whatever. Do you think that Russell Crowe thinks beer costs a hundred dollars? It's entirely he may have thought they were pens and we had put something. Yeah I don't know.

[01:55:46] No it's nice but it was very nice. That's very nice. And he was you know despite his reputation which I'm sure is completely deserved. Even back then it was like this guy's like he's moody. Yeah. He also has that rep of being

[01:55:58] kind of like a massive lad like a good you know it's sort of yeah you know he you could have like a bunch of pints with him and he'd be like telling you stories. I think he just has that rep of like he kind of runs hot. Right.

[01:56:10] Ben is looking at me confused and he mouth word massive lad. A massive lad. What is that? Yeah what language are you speaking to? What are you talking about? Don't if you're doing the bit I'm mad at you. Not doing the bit. Okay. Okay.

[01:56:19] For those of us who grew up here David what are you talking about? Can you convert a babble fish for him? A lad is like a Is he like a bro? Yeah like a bro. You know what I mean like kind of like something you'd be like

[01:56:28] aww a pair of lads here you know like it's something you would just say if you were drinking and you would do this which is crazy. If it is hitting me. He's doing a hard pat. What would you do? You know you kind of pat the guy on

[01:56:39] the shoulder. English people can only like emotionally interact when they're drunk or drinking and so like that's the that's when it starts you know what I mean like two men can now talk about things. What I what I heard about Russell Crowe from people who have worked with

[01:56:55] him recently. Okay. Crew members not like you know other actors like extends even to like PAs and such that he will he has his bars he has his restaurants he likes wherever he films he finds the place and he will just sort of rent out

[01:57:14] if they have a basement if they have a top floor if there's any sort of separate area that he can take and anyone from the cast or crew who wants to come with him and drinks are just on him all night. That he just wants to drink

[01:57:27] six hours a night. He's a big social drinker. Sure. He likes going out. Right. He's very massive lad. He's very generous. David I'm a massive lad. And extending that to anyone. But but I think he is a very you know. You know what that is that's a

[01:57:42] great way of like you know you say well I'm not an alcoholic I don't drink I never drink alone. I never drink alone. Right. So what you do is you buy out the bar every night and invite everyone there and pay for their drinks.

[01:57:53] I think he wants to just still be a guy who can like go into a pub and just like spend the night there and have great conversation. But now he's too famous to do that in an environment he doesn't control. Right. So he essentially goes like can I

[01:58:03] rent out a section of your pub right and create my own guest list and the guest list is people who have gotten desensitized to Russell Crowe. Right. And have worked with him enough that they're like yeah I can drink with you it's fine.

[01:58:13] I would love to drink with Russell Crowe. He loves maps which I also love. Do you know that he loves maps? Maps. He talks about maps a lot. I got to find you the legendary Russell Crowe maps tweet. Yeah. His Twitter is A plus if you

[01:58:25] have one of the great divorces of all time where he sold off a bunch of his life mementos and curios to pay off his alimony. Yeah. And he sold it all at like Christie's or one of the Sotheby's one of the auction houses.

[01:58:45] Here's one of them that I just love. It's a spread I love maps. But this is my favorite one. Maps I love them. Love reading them. Love planning adventures. Love seeing how things relate topographically. And there's some I'm going to find it there's some photos of

[01:58:58] him like at some kind of map museum where he's like so into it. That could not be more of a drill treat tweet if you know right. Love to relate to them topographically. David can you look up a Russell Crowe art of divorce. This was he sold.

[01:59:13] He had his big. Oh I remember this. Yes because like you got divorced very recently. A lot of people were like vying for like they sold the the jockstrap from Cinderella man. Right. He's one of these actors. He's like Gladiator props and stuff.

[01:59:27] Like De Niro is a guy who famously if he does a movie any single object he touches contractually he gets to own. De Niro has archives and he's like if I use a prop in a scene if it touches my hands it's it's mine. Really.

[01:59:41] Yeah and someday he'll donate it all it'll be the De Niro archives and it's everything he's ever used. Russell Crowe I think is not that controlling. I think more actors should be like that. I think they get like a library when they die like a president. Right.

[01:59:54] Like I have a friend who was very proud that he got a De Niro prop that he here are here are some of the props but that image is what I want to show you this one. This the middle image of him toasting the glass.

[02:00:04] That was the cover of the auction catalog beautiful and auction catalogs are usually very austere and they just show the items and it was him and a tuxedo toasting a glass and it said Russell Crowe the art of divorce. He made three point seven million dollars. Yes. Wow.

[02:00:18] Pretty good. The art of divorce but yeah he kept all his props and he sold them off. Like here you could buy the purple suit from virtuosity. Oh my god. He kept like everything. You could buy a hockey jersey from Mystery Alaska. Can you see if there's anything

[02:00:30] from insider? What with the glasses? The glasses. Button down. The glasses. The bullet. The bullets. He touched the bullet. Yeah. Let's find out. By the way I think he may have me blocked on Twitter. Really? Russell Crowe? Yeah. Did you piss him off?

[02:00:47] Well I tweeted after I saw Lim is. Not a great movie. I tweeted something. And I didn't add him because I'm not a jerk. Not a jerk. But I tweeted something like I guess Lim is a Rob is a reference to the people who just listened

[02:01:02] to Russell Crowe singing for two hours or something like that. Fair enough. I mean right and after he had to he had to pull himself off the wall that you had nailed him to. Yeah exactly yeah. And I if I remember correctly I think he blocked me after

[02:01:13] that because I tried to look at a tweet of his. He loves maps. It's too bad. You couldn't you could have heard. I know I could have bonded with him over maps. There is one item related to the insider. Okay in this lot here we go.

[02:01:25] Item number nine. Two Louisville Slugger baseball bats given to Russell Crowe during the production of the film The Insider signed by Al Pacino. Don't understand it. Don't know why he got a baseball bat. Don't know why Pacino signed it. Signed both of them. It was Kentucky. That's true.

[02:01:45] That's true film set in Kentucky. Maybe they like went to visit like the Louisville Slugger factory. Yeah. Sometimes you're a big famous. They're like please come. You know have a free tour. Big famous big famous. This was sold for five thousand one hundred and twelve twenty four dollars.

[02:02:02] We could have had together our money. We could have got that. Two bats two friends. Let's see if any other art of divorces are I think it's all gone. Yeah no this is a couple years. Yeah it's all over. This is what I wanted to say

[02:02:14] the couple things I found. One do you know that when they were filming the film when they were in pre-production and production several years after the real events Russell Crowe could still not meet Wygan because of his confidentiality agreements. Wow. He was not allowed to help them

[02:02:32] at all. That is fascinating. So it was all sort of the public record stuff. Roth met him just to get a sense of him as a person but couldn't ask him any questions about the case. Said he found him unlikable. All Russell Crowe had to go

[02:02:44] off of was the raw footage from the 60 minutes. Wow. His entire performance was just that nuts. Right. That is nuts. That's crazy. It's crazy that the confidentiality agreements extended that far and that long. The other thing. Figure of companies I think those guys might not be on the

[02:03:01] level. I mean sure in 20 you know I guess it's easy to say that now. Right. I guess right. I mean look I'm not saying it's still I'm just saying I don't think you're very brave in saying that. I think I'm really brave. I think I should be on 60

[02:03:17] minutes. I think Lil Bergman should be pumping me up right now. You're a hero. So yeah OK the end of the movie is that Bergman you know there's this sort of smear campaign that kind of gets discarded like the Wall Street Journal digs into it

[02:03:31] and they're like this doesn't seem like much. Yeah Bergman leaks the tape to The Times. I love that scene where he calls the reporter. It's Pete Hamill by the way. I know played by Pete. I mean it was the real Pete Hamill. And I believe Jack Paladino

[02:03:44] who's an actor like plays himself as well. And that's such a good scene where he's like trying to wrangle Pete Hamill. It's like this will be on page one right and Pete Hamill is like do you think I'm in the page one meeting? Right. Yeah.

[02:03:55] I don't fucking know. I'll talk to someone which would never be in a normal movie like a normal movie. He'd be like it's got to be page one right. Of course of course it's going to be on the wall. Of the mold. I have page one right here.

[02:04:07] Let me just yeah. He just goes hold page one. Pachino's on the line. David Mazar is like holding and then that's it. I mean then there's the scene where Wallace flips. Yeah. That's it. That's the dam that breaks. And then Bergman quits. And then Bergman quits. He quits.

[02:04:26] I think the ending I mean the I want to be a professor. Slow motion. I was going to say it's the matrix he turns into Neo. It does feel like Neo. Absolutely turning into the crap. The music is going like it's a dance beat going

[02:04:37] and the baseline is popping. It's insane. So you want to hear this in insane series of quotes from the Wikipedia page. The film was considered to be a commercial disappointment. Right. No kid made 60 million worldwide lower than 90 million dollar budget. Disney executives once again

[02:04:56] Disney when Disney still made movies for grownups before they said they didn't want to make movies for grownups and then decide to buy an entire other studio just so they could make movies for grownups again. Disney executives had hoped that man's film would have the same commercial and

[02:05:09] critical success as all the president's men. OK. They greenlit this thinking it was going to be a block buster because all the president's men was a big hit. 20 plus years earlier. The president's men was about Richard Nixon's impeachment a fairly big story. This is about a segment on

[02:05:25] 60 minutes like a big deal. However, the insider had limited appeal to younger moviegoers. No that can't be true. Take that back. Diane Vanora is in this. They they you know she was she was she won a kid's choice award that year didn't she. Studio executives reportedly

[02:05:40] said the prime audience was over the age of 40 and the subject matter was quote not notably dramatic. Then Disney chairman Joe Roth said it's like walking up a hill with a refrigerator on your back. The fact of the matter is we're really proud we did this movie.

[02:05:54] People say it's the best movie they've seen this year. They say why don't we make movies like this. Everyone's really proud of this movie but it's one of those rare times when adults loved a movie if they couldn't convince their friends to go see it any

[02:06:03] more than we can convince people in marketing the film. What they should have done is they should have the trailer should have just been the opening scene with Puccino with the blindfold yes and in the Middle East and all that and then cut to

[02:06:15] the very end of the movie with Puccino in slow motion turning up his collar of his trench coat and marketed it to the teens. That's what the recruit turned it out. Cool Puccino who fucks. So let's go over the box I know I'm really annoyed

[02:06:30] because I did that thing where you know box office module will take you to the second weekend for some reason and on the second on this movie second weekend Pokemon the first movie debuted in theaters and an adjusted fifty five million dollars which is

[02:06:42] crazy but that is not what we're going to talk about. Did this movie win any Oscars? No it was nominated for seven. Right picture director screenplay actor. Sure. Sure. Cinematography. Cinematography editing. Editing. Sound mixing. Sound yes which is sound. It was the one. Yeah.

[02:06:57] It didn't win any golden globes either it got nominated for one BAFTA for acting and one screen actors Guild War for acting. Plummer was snubbed across the board. I'm crazy. Really weird. Yeah. It did however sweep the Los Angeles film critics it got picture actor supporting actor cinematography.

[02:07:14] Wow. And like did well in general at like critics awards at the National Society gave it actor and supporting actor you know like. But I think this movie it was well liked by Curtis and its reputation at the time was more this is the real serious undeniable

[02:07:29] launch of Russell Crowe. It felt like that's for sure. Right. Yes. That was now Russell Crowe's proved himself and now he's going to become big movie star and then the next couple of years he does. It's just kind of funny because I feel like yeah

[02:07:39] it was a flop but it's such an Oscar movie on paper. Yeah. But it's not really. Right. You know director who otherwise is not very successful with the Oscar and this is one real hit with the right. That's it. Ali like gets a couple

[02:07:51] nominations and I mean it was no American beauty. Oh my God. 1999. That movie. I know. All right. November 5th 1999. Number one at the box office the insider's opening number four with six million dollars. Not good. No good. How many screens. 1800. Ah. Tops out at 29. Yeah.

[02:08:13] About a third of its budget. Really. Not good. And internationally it made Oh I'm seeing here. No no 31 million. OK so 60 total. OK. Number one. It's a serial killer movie. The new movie November. 99. Is it domestic disturbance. No. No that's 2001. Yeah. 99. 99. It's a serial killer movie.

[02:08:36] Is it a horror film? Is it like an adult thriller. I would call it like adult thriller. Ben you look like you got a. An iconic star of the 90s and an up and coming star. It's not. What's the one with that. Was it McGee.

[02:08:49] It's not a McGee. OK. That's a bad movie. It's from a somewhat serious. At Charlie's Angels for the Trouble. Word is in the title and I love. There's a word you love in the title. Yeah this is going to be one of those classic confusing Ben. Dirty. Nope.

[02:09:03] No. Jewel. No. Jewel. Vape. No. No come on this is a 90s movie. It's a 90s. It's 1999. It's two stars. One of them is emerging. The other one is legendary. Top of the heap. Serial killer. Which one plays the serial killer. Neither of them. They're on the case.

[02:09:22] It's not a bone collector. It is bone collectors. Geez. And that's come up before. It has. I had struggled to get off. It's not one that you remember off the top of the deck. Philip Noyes. Philip Noyes film. Collected those bones. Denzel Washington. Those bones. Yeah of course.

[02:09:34] Angelina Jolie Queen Latifa. Michael Rooker. You like the word collector? No I like the word collector. I love Curry. I love to curate. But that was her big movie right before she wins the Oscar. Correct. Correct. Exactly. Number two is a horror remake.

[02:09:55] It's a remake not a continuation. It's a hard remake. Hard remake. Zemeckis. Not Zemeckis. 99. 99. It's not a good movie. Oh is it? It's not Gus Van Sands Psycho is it? No. Love that movie. That's 98. It's a wild point. Remake from...

[02:10:14] My favorite thing about Psycho is how Gus Van Sands always gives a different answer as to why he made it. Yes. Like sometimes he's like well I wanted to make sure no one else remade it. Yeah. It's like okay.

[02:10:23] Other times he's like I don't know I thought it'd be cool to just do a shot for a shot remake and change three things. What come on? What era is the film that's remaking from? It's an ensemble? Yeah.

[02:10:36] Is it uh it's not the haunting is it the other one? That's one of the other ones. It's the Hill House one? Yes. It's called uh it's not called the haunting on Hill House is it? No. It's called uh... Sort of like a flex version of the title.

[02:10:51] House on a hill? House on a hill. Close on a hill. We got Jeffrey Rush, Chris Catan. Thank you. Thank the answer. Peter Gallagher, Cowley Larder, Tay Diggs. Chris Catan. Chris Catan. Yeah. It's the uh you know he's like if you you'll get

[02:11:07] one million dollars if you just stay one night. Right. Saw it. Great setup. Yeah right. It's a Vincent Price one. That and the haunting had similar setups where both remakes came out within six months. Yes. It's the mechest one that's what I think. And they're both fairly bad.

[02:11:18] Yo that's the mechest. No. The haunting was horrible. Well that's not the mechest. That's uh... Is that John DeBont? Oh what am I? Oh what am I beneath? Which is which is I like that one. Yeah that was all right. I know it's not.

[02:11:29] But that's right it was John DeBont. The haunting is uh Neeson uh... Owen Wilson. Owen Wilson whose head falls off. Lily Taylor, Catherine Zade Jones. Yeah. Right. Not good. No. Neither of them good. No. 1999 I just remember 1999 there were only two movies

[02:11:43] that hit number one at the box office and didn't make a hundred million dollars. Okay. And they were The Haunting and Eyes Wide Shut. Is a weird stat. Mm-hmm interesting. All right. The number three at the box office is a movie that like truly beautifully does not exist.

[02:12:02] Like it's like a masterpiece of nonexistent. Is it a romantic drama? It's a romantic comedy. It's a remake but that's not a helpful clue. It's not a help. So it's like an obtuse remake or the thing it's remaking is not one of them?

[02:12:13] It's a remake of something that's incredibly old that no one remembers. It's obviously not uh Meechio Black. It is not. That's not romantic comedy and also that's insanely long. When that clip had its day on Twitter it was a blast. That was so funny.

[02:12:29] It's always fun to watch a new generation realize that happened in a film. Yes. That's the birth of Brad Pitt eating too. That's when he realized how good he was at eating. It was just funny how many people had no idea that movie existed. Why would they?

[02:12:42] I don't know. I guess why would anyone show that film? No, I know but it's crazy. Like Paul F. Tompkins tweeted like I have no idea what this is and I don't want anyone to tell me. But it was like surprising people. That's what I mean.

[02:12:51] Right not even like 15 year olds. Yeah like people who were yeah. So it's um it's an old old film. In whatever don't worry about the remake part. It's a rom-com that with like two stars I guess at the moment um that's like kind of high concept.

[02:13:10] Like it has like a sort of weird hook to it. Has like a weird hook to it and did the stars did their careers last or was this really their one and only moment? Both of their careers the female lead's career is only going up.

[02:13:24] Okay she's on her way to an Oscar. Really? She's a star. Her career now is kind of done but like she definitely you know she's got more to go. Leader supporting. The Oscar was a supporting win. It was a support. But she played many lead roles.

[02:13:39] Is it the Nelly B Crew? No. The male lead it's so beautiful how nonexistent this film. You've never heard of this film. No. The male lead is an I would call a 90s star who never quite popped

[02:13:52] but you know certainly was around and now he's a TV guy. No he's hardcore a TV. So TV. Is it a Chris O'Donnell movie? Well done. Speaking of NCIS. That's yeah. Oh I know. LA right? I know exactly what film this is. Truly does not exist.

[02:14:11] Hey you telling me to not think about the remake. If I said the director's name it would I wouldn't be I'd be like because he doesn't exist he doesn't know. You telling me to forget that. Tell me what it's a remake of. It's a remake of Seven Chances.

[02:14:24] Correct. Well your your boy. Your film. Yup. That was the thing that would have made me figure out this movie. I know that's why I was trying to put you off the trail. Well fuck you. The movie's called The Bachelor and it's Chris O'Donnell and Renee Zellweger. Correct.

[02:14:34] And it was kind of her comeback after J.R. McGuire. She had been like quiet for a couple years. I guess that's true. I remember the local news in New York doing a segment. No kidding. Yeah remember her?

[02:14:44] The only real big movie she'd been in was One True Thing. Right. That was sort of her comeback and there was a there was like a fucking CBS like two news story that was like remember her and they played the J.R. McGuire clip.

[02:14:56] Can I read you the rest of the cast in The Bachelor? The premise of the movie is he will inherit a million dollars if he gets married. $100 million if he gets married in the next like 30 days or something. Who is the director? Barry Sinyor. Oh wow. Okay. Okay.

[02:15:14] I don't know what to tell you. Wow. Here are some I just want to run down this cast because it's one of those things where it's like it's like a left hook and then a right hook and then like an uppercut. Okay. Hal Holbrook. James Cromwell. Artie Lang.

[02:15:28] And Asner. Marlee Shelton. Peter Eustonov. What? Brooke Shields. Wow. Sarah Silverman. Man what a thing. 9% on Rotten Tomatoes according to this. Nine. Wow. Nine. More than eight. Yeah. That's probably what they said to the director at the time. Yes which opened to $7 million. It grossed an insider-esque 21.

[02:16:00] And it's just one of those Chris O'Donnell vehicles like really. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Those those don't have a long shelf life. No. They are fake movies that like Cameron Diaz cuts trailers to in the holiday. I'm looking at the other films that Annie Sinyor directed.

[02:16:13] He did Stiff Upper Lips which was like the parody of British like Manners dramas. Do you remember that? No. It was like someone trying to make a Zucker Brothers film about Merchant Ivory movies. Okay. Stiff Upper Lips. Sure.

[02:16:25] And then he also directed Bob the Butler which is a high concept family comedy in which Tom Green becomes a butler. That's how I'm sold. Starts a bumbling buffoon who after landing at butling after working his way through all the other A to B jobs. Okay.

[02:16:44] A Seinfeld pilot. Yeah. Tom Green Berkshire's Bob the Butler. Number five of the box office for his insider is a good movie I think. From a director who's still working it's like I guess like a romantic drama sort of comedy

[02:17:02] drama that's like kind of the best example of this kind of movie. Aimed at a particular audience. A young audience? A lot of great actors. Sure. Sort of a coming of age movie kind of a like becoming a grown up movie. It's like a wedding movie. It's a 1999.

[02:17:19] Is it The Best Man? The Best Man. Directed by Malcolm D Lee. Correct. Yeah. Because like that I feel like every like awesome young black actor of the late late 90s is in that movie. Let's Perino digs Howard. Terence Howard. Regina Hall. Regina Hall, Maris Chesnut, Harold Perino.

[02:17:40] Who else we got? Nealong. Nealong. Sanaa Leithan. Yes. Sanaa Leithan. I think Sanaa. Sanaa Leithan. Yeah. Great. Great. Great. When are they gonna finish the trilogy? Those sort of underrated 99 movies and yes of course they got a sequel many years later. Yeah. That's it.

[02:17:57] That's so yeah that's that's your box office. I mean well see you got Double Jeopardy which is a huge hit that no one remembers. A movie star? Tell me how much Double Jeopardy made. 117. 116. How do you see do it? He's such a nerd.

[02:18:11] That's the one with Ashley Jones. Ashley Jones and Tommy Lee Jones. And who's the guy she's pretending the guy who uh faked Zone D. Right. Because the premise is she went to jail for killing him but he actually never died.

[02:18:23] Yeah murder is a noise of crime as we all know. Right. It is Bruce Greenwood. We've also got American Beauty which I guess won best picture. We got the sixth sense. A blockbuster that makes like 170 million dollars domestic. 130. Really? American Beauty. What did you do worldwide? 356. That's crazy.

[02:18:45] Yeah. Why did American Beauty play so well overseas? So well. I mean it was the movie of our time. I guess so. It's the movie of the moment. I guess everyone knows what a plastic bag is. Spoken truth. Fight Club is up there. Music of the Heart.

[02:18:56] West Gravins music of the heart. That's it we're done. Wow. Right? Yeah no we are. Any final thoughts Andy? No just thank you guys very much. Oh thank you for paying any attention to us idiots and like coming to our show. This is great. This is great. Right?

[02:19:15] Uh yeah no we are dumb that is a fact. That is a fact. That's a fact. We're dumb. We're two dumb boys. We are dumb. We're dumb boys but we're also the two friends. Yeah the two dumb dumb friends.

[02:19:25] I was by the way I was this close for those of you at home I'm holding my thumb and forefinger very close together. Very close. Mirror inch apart. I'd say even less than an inch. I think less than an inch. Less than an inch.

[02:19:35] I was going to have a three friends t-shirt made up. Are you kidding me? That does feel like an Andy stunt. And that is a good surprise. Maybe it was a little too single white female so I decided not to.

[02:19:46] No but if you have me back I will do that. Wow okay so yeah we will definitely have you back on for the who's the person we're now joking. Penny Marshall used to be the joke that was our next mini series but now we started to see

[02:20:01] her second fitter. Yeah right. Right she was in the March Madness but we need a new director we're gonna constantly claim as the next one. Okay uh I don't know. No. Walk back. Andy Sirhear. Gary Senior. The bachelor himself.

[02:20:18] I don't know we'll have you back on on uh enter a funny reference of movie and director later. Gaspar Noe I don't know. Yeah sure the Gaspar Noe is here. That's not funny he's great. That's very serious. Enter the podcast. Enter the podcast. Whoever directed a Serbian film.

[02:20:33] Yes yes. Yeah that guy. I love when people keep on asking us if we're ever gonna do a mini series on someone who directed like two movies or one movie. Right.

[02:20:41] And we're like or we could just do that what we wouldn't treat it like a mini series necessarily. Right. This is we're sort of. Repeating out. Yeah. Repeating out. Yeah definitely. Energy's dipping. Yep. It was a very long episode. It was a very long episode.

[02:20:54] He's usually putting his head on the controls. Yep uh we're done. We're done thank you all for listening. Sure. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Please. Thanks to Ang for a good over social media. Thanks to Lea Montgomery for a theme song.

[02:21:06] Joe Bowen Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Go to Ben's eyes are closed. He's like dreaming of another place. The hotel room is changing around him. He's imagining that he's in Russell Crowe's backyard. Go to blankiesoutread.com for some real nerdy shit.

[02:21:21] Uh uh T-Public for some real nerdy shirts. Patreon for Blank Check bonus features. You know follow Andy Levy on Twitter. One of the best. Oh TV's Andy Levy. TV's Andy Levy one of the best in the game. Is it still TV's Andy Levy? It's not. Okay.

[02:21:34] Well as you change it. Oh you know what I'm thinking of? It was TV's Andy Daley was always his Twitter handle. That is his Twitter. And you are TV's Andy Levy. No but I you are just Andy Levy. That was my nickname for long. Self given. Right.

[02:21:45] But now I'm now I'm a uh I'm actually a former battle angel. I changed my Twitter bio. I was a battle angel for a while. Andy battle angel. Now I'm a former battle angel. Ah god. We stand some big eyes on this podcast.

[02:21:56] It says right now you're pal Andy. Yeah yeah. You're a battle angel. Right yeah here we go. And let me tell you folks that name ain't lying. Because he's our pal Andy. He's our pal. Campanning for the third friend. Yeah.

[02:22:07] You gave him comedy points all those years ago. I did. On air. On air. On television. It was huge. Yes. That was my uh yeah that was fun. That felt like the first moment that we were legitimized. Yeah that was it.

[02:22:17] That was when it was all happening for us. Our minds were blown. Yes thank you all for listening. Sure. Tune in next week for uh Ali. That's right with um Jamel Buie. With Jamel Buie. Yeah. Coming up next week.

[02:22:33] Very uh thoughtful and well done episode by uh Jamel Buie and not us. There's one more tour. It's like we did a good job. There's no tour of next week's episode. It's not any of the people who was currently in this studio. Jamel was great.

[02:22:45] We were our usual idiot cells. Two domos. And as always. Let me sleep.