The Quick and The Dead with Roman Mars

[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

[00:00:22] I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach Shoot the tail feathers off a duck's ass at 300 feet, record a three-hour podcast, and still be back in bed before you wake up next to me

[00:00:58] I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach

[00:01:58] I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach

[00:02:58] I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach

[00:03:58] I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach

[00:04:58] That's the one thing you can't do on this show. That is brilliant, actually. Yes. You can speak before you're introduced and you can make a good point which you did before you can introduce yourself before you've been introduced.

[00:05:35] Well, I don't play by your rules. No, look, you're you're you're podcasting legend. I guess you could do what you want. Do you not immediately the second Roman came on the Zoom, David feel like my voice sucks like the second?

[00:05:48] But it wasn't. I didn't even have. I didn't even have the you know, the window in the front of my I didn't have a window open. Right. I just heard the voice. So right. I just heard. Hello. And I mean,

[00:06:00] I can't even do it. I was like, what? You know, yes, it really feels like I'm like a high school basketball player and like, you know, an NBA guy just walked in the locker room.

[00:06:11] And I feel like, oh, I see. I feel like I'm the kid and fucking Hackman just walk. Well, that makes Roman sound scary and mean. No, look, Griff, I want to say something about

[00:06:22] Sharon Stone right away. I want to say that it's a podcast about filmography directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they

[00:06:34] bounce pew pew baby shoot out. I couldn't think of a good whatever. It's a miniseries on the films of Sam Raimi. It's called Podcast Me To Hell. Today we're talking about his 1995 Western The Quick and the Dead, which I think a lot of people don't

[00:06:47] know exists. And I think a lot of people who know it exists don't realize it's a Sam Raimi movie, which is bizarre because it is so much a Sam Raimi movie. It is and it should be called the slaps and it's great.

[00:07:00] Yeah, no. Yeah. Sorry. It's so good. The rules and it fucks. Yeah, exactly. But listen. Yes. Speaking on Sharon Stone, our guest today is Roman Mars of 99 percent visible. He already introduced himself.

[00:07:12] Obviously, Sharon Stone's early career is busting out of hit genre films like Turtle Recall and then Basic Instinct and then Sliver. Right. Like these are these are where she's making her name this

[00:07:30] year. She's got The Quick and the Dead, which we will talk about today, but did not do that well at the box office. She has Casino, which is an undeniable hit, maybe a little bit of a come down

[00:07:40] from like Goodfellas or whatever. But still, she gets an Oscar nomination. I was going to say a hit. It's certainly a win for her, but it was like, oh, Scorsese made lesser. Goodfellas was

[00:07:51] the tag at the time. Now in the next year, in 1996, Griffin, she had two films. She had Diaboli, the remake of late Diaboli Big Flop, which is a big flop. And she had a Bruce Beresford movie

[00:08:02] called Last Dance that was also a big flop. Right now, this is what I want to get to. There's a Golden Raspberry Award. OK, that existed for quite a while until from 1982 to

[00:08:16] 1999 called for the Golden Raspberry for Worst New Star. Hmm. Yep. And she was nominated for it that year. And I saw that and I was like, what do you mean new star Sharon Stone? Like she'd been

[00:08:28] around for a while. Like, what were they thinking? So let me read you, Griffin, the five nominees for Worst New Star for the 1996 Golden Raspberries. OK, OK, OK. And these are rude to be.

[00:08:41] Yeah, no, I'm classic. I'm myself for rudeness. OK, here we go. All right. One. And Ben's going to be mad. Beavis and Butthead and in Beavis and Butthead do America. What the fuck? Great producer. That's so like undeserved. First of all, they're so cool. Whoever made this list

[00:09:02] is like such a nerd who doesn't like fun. I agree. And the movie was a hit. Totally. And it was a hit. And it was good as hell. Yeah. OK, so the next two are the guy from fucking unsolved mysteries.

[00:09:17] Right. Yeah. The unsolved mysteries. Sure. What is his name? I don't know. But that's a huge get as far as I'm concerned. That's your argument against a particular Razzy knob. I think there

[00:09:31] are other arguments. I don't think there's other stuff that's great, too. It's got Hank Hill in it. I mean, come on. Don't get me started. Robert Stack was at Robert's Robert Stack. Yeah. OK.

[00:09:40] OK, so some other nominees. Ellen DeGeneres was nominated for Mr. Wrong. I guess that was sort of the first Ellen star vehicle. It didn't work out right. That's more pretty disastrous movie. Yeah. Next, there's a group nomination for four friends cast members. So they're going after the friends

[00:09:58] cast members. So 96, would it be is is Ed in there? Ed is in there. Matt LeBlanc. I feel like that's the one they're really going for. Yeah, because the others are David Schwimmer in the pallbearer. Right. Matt Reeves is directorial debut. Lisa Kudrow and mother, which is like

[00:10:16] a supporting role. So that's a real stretch. Yes. And Jennifer Aniston. And she's the one which I feel like was a movie that everyone thought was OK. So they really should have just nominated Matt LeBlanc and Ed. That would have actually been on. Yes, fair. Yeah. Then they've

[00:10:31] got Pamela Anderson and Barb Wire. OK, now an obvious Razzie thing, right? They just pick on the model slash act. Right. You know, like let's put a pin in that. I'm going to come back to that

[00:10:42] later. This is connected to a larger point I want to make on. Sure. And then the fifth nominee is Sharon Stone. But it's billed as the new quote unquote serious Sharon Stone in Diabolik and

[00:10:53] Last Dance. So they're basically, you know, stamping her with the like, don't try and fool us. Right. And Stone, you're not a serious actress. You're a genre act. Last Dance is a Death Row

[00:11:05] movie. Yeah, right. She's she's the one making the clemency case. She is on death row for a murder. And Rob Morrow is trying to save her from death row. You've also got Randy Quaid, Peter Gallagher,

[00:11:21] Skeet Ulrich. Wow. I mean, I'm just I'm looking at how to hit. No, no, no, no. I'm just looking at after this. Right. So 97, she doesn't make a movie. Ninety eight. She's got Sphere, which is

[00:11:33] a flop. It is good. High profile flop. What if there was a sphere? Sure. She's got Mighty, which I think is viewed as another sort of failed Oscar bait movie for her.

[00:11:43] Yes. Although quite a sweet film. I haven't seen it since I was a teenager, but I remember being. Yeah, I remember being relatively fine. Gets a Golden Globe nomination for that. Right. She's kind of like a fake lead. Like the kids are obviously the leads. She's the

[00:11:56] supporting mom. But yeah, right. It's billed as a Sharon Stone movie. Right. Then voice and ants. Ninety nine is rough. Ninety nine. Ninety nine is Gloria. Yeah. Which is a Gloria remake. No disastrous movie. Right. Lumet remaking Cassavetes only 15 years later or whatever it is.

[00:12:15] Bizarre. A bizarre choice. Yes. The Muse, which she gets the Golden Globe win for that. And the story immediately becomes she bought every member of the Hollywood Foreign Press like a Rolex and

[00:12:28] she bought her way to the award. It's an infamous sort of this is how easily the Hollywood Foreign Press can be swayed story. Griff, here's the thing. She didn't even get the win. That was the nomination. Are you kidding me? Story. She lost to Janet McTeer for Tumbleweeds.

[00:12:42] Well, the Golden Globes ordered all 82 members to return luxury gift watches that Sharon Stone and or October Films had sent. So, yes, it became this embarrassing like she didn't even earn. Wow. The award. The nomination. She's pretty good in the Muse, isn't she? That means that movie's

[00:13:02] all right. She is good. Yeah. But but like truly from that point on, she's done. Simpatico. If these walls could talk to picking up the pieces, which I think isn't even theatrically released.

[00:13:13] Beautiful Joe. Like these are like movies that do not exist. I know by the time she's popping up in Catwoman as the villain. Yes. It's this like jokey thing of like Sharon Stone, like remember her?

[00:13:27] And of course, she was famously attacked by a Komodo dragon. Yes. Right. That's the other one. Yeah. Talking about she was like a Komodo dragon. He's talking about exactly what he just said. She was attacked by a Komodo dragon. She. How big are those fucking things?

[00:13:45] Her husband. The biggest land animals or whatever. They're like 10 feet long or something. They're terrifying. They paid to close down a reptile house at a zoo so they could have a private tour, right? Yeah. Well, she was married to Phil Bernstein, who was the editor in chief for,

[00:14:01] I don't know, something of the San Francisco Chronicle. So this is a local story that I knew of the time. And. Right. You're an SF guy. They closed down. I'm an East Bay guy.

[00:14:12] I will correct you. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Wow. You're a Bay Area guy. Wow. But I lived in San Francisco too, so I don't mean to be so rude about it. But they closed

[00:14:24] down to get a special viewing of the Komodo dragon and actually bit Phil Bernstein's foot. Which is notable because the way that they kill things is they have this horrible mess of bacteria in their mouth. They don't actually like kill things by killing them, chomping them. They

[00:14:41] kill things by biting them and then letting them fester and die. And then even later. Wait, that's kind of sick. That's so metal, actually. They are very bizarre. I remember when you're a kid, I feel like you learn Komodo dragons are

[00:14:55] the largest lizards that exist. And you hear like, that sounds awesome. They're called dragons. And then you see them and they just kind of look like big lizard. They're like, and you're a little disappointed. Like, they don't even look like a crocodile or something

[00:15:08] cool. They just look like. And you never see them in comparison to anything. So they just kind of it's tough to gauge size. That's the thing. I can't get any perspective on them. They just

[00:15:18] kind of look like lizards. Yeah, they're pretty big. They're a load of the ground, obviously. There's a James Bond with the Komodo dragons. And I think it's Skyfall is the one where he's in

[00:15:29] Macau and gets like kicked into a Komodo dragon pit or whatever. Yeah, classic. It's always happening. But that is truly her biggest credit in that five year period. Right between 99 and 2004 Catwoman where the repositioning it as is this the sort of ironic comeback of Sharon Stone playing

[00:15:47] full camp? It's just news stories like that. And it's her going on the Golden Globes and giving a rambling speech and then Amy Poehler making fun of it like she just becomes this weird sort of

[00:15:59] pop culture figure who isn't even thought of as an actor anymore. And it sucks because she is so good. So good. She is so good in that. She's so good in this. I think she's a very underrated

[00:16:11] star in general, not by everybody, but by a lot. I think her her 90s run is very strong and, you know, and she took good risks. And certainly the story of this movie is her

[00:16:23] making a lot of correct, creative decisions. Correct. You know, she she's handed some power and she uses it well. Yeah. I mean, when this movie came out, I was a 20 year old into movies.

[00:16:34] And so I saw it in the theater. I was very excited for this movie. And Sharon Stone was a thing I had to overcome to be excited about this movie because I only knew her as basic instinct

[00:16:45] sliver. You know, like and I didn't I never saw those movies, but they just were distasteful for me as a like a snobby movie guy, you know, at the time. And yeah. And but now when I when I watch it

[00:16:57] and I at the time I love this movie. But now when I watch it, I'm just like, she's amazing in this movie. Yes. She's so good in this movie. She has incredible onscreen presence. And I want it. I

[00:17:09] want more for her like a like a like a time machine. Me wants more for her in her career than that. But when we were doing the Verhoeven series some years ago and watching like Total Recall and

[00:17:20] Basic Instinct back to back, you're just like, how did within five years of Basic Instinct coming out all of Hollywood decide she is a joke? Like it just doesn't make sense. And it's not like that's

[00:17:30] a fluke performance. But I do think if I can circle back to the Pamela Anderson thing, right, because the Razzies are dumb and they're rude, but they do in their own stupid way represent the sort of

[00:17:44] worst type of consensus opinion around popular culture within eras. Right. There are things that they do latch onto of just like this is what the dumbest people feel. This is this is what they're

[00:17:59] reducing movements and pop culture to. And you look at a list like that, you look at a category like that, David. And two things I find run really, really strongly through the entire history of

[00:18:09] the Razzies is they hate things made for women. No, they absolutely do. Yeah. Right. They also look, they make fun of big dumb boy action movies. They hate Michael Bay and Sylvester Stallone and

[00:18:19] whatever. But like it does feel like movies that are specifically made for women. There's this attitude of the nerve. How dare you even try? What is this dumb shit? The other thing is they

[00:18:30] they like hate anyone who too explicitly titillates them. Right. Like I'm not saying Pamela Anderson is good in barbed wire, but there's this fury of how dare you make this movie where you show us

[00:18:41] your tits the whole time. Right. And like they gave basic instinct so many fucking nominations. It is absurd. And it's that is wild considering obviously the basic instinct. Right. Oh, my God. I'm realizing Sharon Stone was also nominated for worst new star in 1992. Exactly. Or that

[00:19:02] rude twice. Right. It's like rejecting, rejecting her before she has a chance to reject their nerdy asses. Right. Right. But it's like it's a Madonna and the whore thing of being like, how dare you

[00:19:14] be this sexy on screen in this hypersexual movie? That means I can't take you seriously. You have to be frivolous. And then once she makes the shift to like, I'm ready to use my clout to make serious

[00:19:26] films, interesting films, they're like, how dare you try to be serious now? You fucking piece of shit. You know, like the first time they give her worst star for being in an erotic thriller and

[00:19:36] the second time they give her a worst star nomination for not being in erotic thrillers anymore, because the run in between is her doing like sliver and specialist and the movies that you would do

[00:19:47] after basic instinct if that's the thing you want to maintain. And the second she starts veering off from that, like the Razzies get angry at her again. It's very interesting beyond the Razzies,

[00:19:59] that like, I guess the roles like quick in the dead is a great pick. That's sort of out of the ordinary in that she has actually identified a script with a very compelling female lead, right?

[00:20:11] Yes. That she can play. And she's like, cool, I'm going to do this casino. Obviously, that's Scorsese tapping her at the absolute perfect time for the absolute perfect role. She is such good casting and casino. I love that performance. And then after that,

[00:20:25] things like Diabolic Last Dance Sphere feels like her agents, Hollywood, whoever being like, OK, let's find you more like steely ladies. Right. Like how can we class that up or how can we, you know, make that a list? And I just feel like the scripts aren't there.

[00:20:44] Here's the other thing. And this is totally superficial, but she cuts her hair. Right. Everything pre casino long hair and then post casino. She has the look that I knew when I was a teen person getting into a teen person getting into movies. Sharon Stone always

[00:21:01] had short hair. She always had the like very short blonde hair in movies like The Mighty, not in Gloria. Obviously, she needs like the big, you know, but Muse. She has it, too. Yeah.

[00:21:11] Yeah. Sphere like and does that like kind of like put her in a weird like sort of post, you know, femme fatale box? I have no idea. I just I just feel like her image shifts

[00:21:24] and Hollywood gives up on her or something. I don't know. I don't know. Sharon Stone thinks weird. No, but I mean, look, Roman, as the person who saw this in theaters at the time,

[00:21:33] as you said, it's like there is that sense of even if her erotic thrillers or her more sexy roles were big hits that it was like, but we can't take that seriously.

[00:21:42] I also think on top of that and tell me if I'm wrong here, everyone was just making fun of her all the time, like even when she was at the peak of her career, she was kind of like a classic

[00:21:51] like Leno style punchline. Yeah, I think so. I think that's the nature of those erotic thrillers like make in the same way that you talk about the Razzies. It makes people like nervous and nervously make jokes and nervously like dismiss her because they're afraid of their feelings.

[00:22:10] Right. And then when she cuts the hair and it's like, wait, you're not trying to be a pinup model anymore, like you're not looking like the idealized form of a femme fatale,

[00:22:20] then people get angry at her again. It's a tragedy what it is. But I also think that she probably, you know, she stepped away. She seems to have a lot of other interests. She's super smart,

[00:22:31] and I'm pretty sure that part of her career was her choice too. I wouldn't take that away from her because she definitely made choices later on to not be in things, I'm sure. Yes. I mean, she's talked about being like really fucking fed up with how everything works.

[00:22:47] I mean, why not? Absolutely, why not? And especially because I think this is one of those ones where it is both. It is so quick of the dead is so against the grain. Like,

[00:22:59] this is not the heyday of the Western. Sam Raimi is not an established director, A-list director. It is a strange role and she took all that stuff put together and made this thing happen.

[00:23:11] And it's just the testament to how on it she was and how much she was not really just trying to tick boxes in that sort of Will Smith way of just like, okay, I'm going to study all the

[00:23:23] blockbusters of the world and I'm going to decide I'm going to make blockbusters. She just made a cool ass movie with her power, which is awesome. She also like put her neck out on the line

[00:23:34] successfully for two of the guys who were about to become two of the biggest leading men in Hollywood and the man who would direct the first huge superhero franchise. It's amazingly prescient. It's stunning. Yeah.

[00:23:46] It's funny for 1995 and I can get into some of the context in a sec, but like when you think of Westerns, obviously it was sort of a supposed boom for the 90s Western was sort of had been

[00:23:59] right dances with wolves wins best picture and then unforgiven wins best picture. And then you have these movies like Geronimo, you have Tombstone, White Slickers, City Slickers, Maverick, City Slickers, right? Two legends of Hurley's. A huge one.

[00:24:15] Like and so in 1995, all the movies we just mentioned have come out and not I would say a lot. Most of the movies we just mentioned were hits, not wider, but most Geronimo Geronimo was not

[00:24:27] Geronimo. All hits. Yeah. And and like this, I would say is right when the bloom is again off the rose like Hollywood's Western comeback really just lasts a few years. Yeah. And by 1996, the only big Westerns I'm seeing here are from Dust Hill Dawn, which does not count.

[00:24:46] That's a horror movie, obviously, but it's got Western themes, I guess. Western aesthetics. I love that movie to be clear. Lone Star, which is like, you know, dark Neo Western mystery contemporary. And like, that's basically it. Like, I mean, this list has Last

[00:25:06] Man Standing. I don't think of that as a Western really is it? It's like a prohibition movie. It's like gangsters. Yeah, but it's definitely in the style of these movies. It's a remake of

[00:25:15] it's a remake of your Jimbo Jimbo and what's the what's the Western version of your Jimbo? I can't remember, but there's another one in between there. And then by 97, it's like The Postman. That's like the only Western. This is what I was going to say, though. Like

[00:25:29] Costner is the guy who's like really working to bring the Western back. And by the second half of the 90s, he's kind of shifted more to sci fi like Postman is like Western sci fi. He's done

[00:25:39] Westworld now or Waterworld rather not Westworld. You can sneak in horses and stuff in like the Masca Zorro. Yeah. You know, some wild, wild west, like something like that where it's like

[00:25:52] it's not just a straight ahead Western, but the quick and the dead is really stripped down in that it's like here we are in a town. There's a mean sheriff. There's guys. There's a saloon.

[00:26:03] Everyone's got guns. This is not about like the American experience, you know, in the West at all. It's about like what if there was a town where everyone's job was cowboy who shoots you? Right.

[00:26:15] Like, you know, there's no economics at work. No, it's it's like fucking like Karate Kid Part Two with with shootouts or whatever. But but also, yes, you have Gene Hackman doing a Western for

[00:26:28] the first time since he won an Oscar for playing the bad guy in a Western, which was just like three years ago. It wasn't that long ago. It is really funny to me. The juxtaposition of those

[00:26:39] two characters, which are basically the same character. Yeah. But one of them is like serious with serious motivations where you can see he's a good guy or maybe at one point in his life was

[00:26:49] a good guy who went down a very, very dark path. And and and the Herod character in this one where he's just a cartoon villain and they're both so good. I know I like both performances so very,

[00:27:03] very much. And it makes me think that maybe Gene Hackman is the best actor of all time. There's a solid argument. Anytime I hear someone suggest that it's it's hard to shoot it down like you. He's at least in that very, very upper realm of debate.

[00:27:20] The whole thing with Gene Hackman is he could absolutely just give you Gene Hackman, right? Like if I just called him up and I was like, you're going to play kind of like a gritty,

[00:27:29] tough guy in this who doesn't take a lot of shit and you're maybe going to have a mustache. He would be like, you know, that would be fine. And so you could be fooled into thinking like,

[00:27:38] yes, Gene Hackman was a great movie star, but he kind of just did his thing. And then you'll see something like Get Shorty, one of my favorite Gene Hackman performances ever, where he plays like a quivering buffoon, like like absolute idiot,

[00:27:53] cuck, great character, so funny. And then you're like, Gene Hackman secretly could do anything. Yeah. And like and like that is why, yes, there's an argument that he is the greatest actor in Hollywood history. I think I think he's

[00:28:07] a there's an argument. You never hear horrible things about him. He's sort of like he he just is able to do. Everyone said and I think he's admitted in the years since he retired and

[00:28:18] chilled out, he was incredibly difficult. Oh, OK. That he was not a friendly man. I'm not using like language to skirt around it, but I feel like even like when they've done Royal Tannenbaum's retrospectives and that's like his second or third to last movie ever,

[00:28:38] they all say like he's not he's not pleasant, like he's very intense and he's angry, which look is his superpower on screen. Like he is better at harnessing anger. Oh, he's so good. He's so good. His levels of anger are fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. I like his

[00:28:56] sort of growly anger. And I like his like when he gets upset, it's like when he gets in his register, he goes, you're not faster than me. You know, he gets really up here. Like

[00:29:05] I just fucking love it. You are dead right, though, Roman, that like the facility in in just sort of him understanding the difference between these two characters, you know, this character and the character in Unforgiven that on paper are very similar and the differences,

[00:29:24] the sort of shifts he makes in energy modulation and performance style to fit into each movie and the demands of that narrative properly. It's totally different because I was coming in.

[00:29:34] So I watched A Quake in the Dead and Unforgiven for this. Oh, wow. For this little broadcast here. And and I was like because I was going to make the case that they were the same character

[00:29:46] and they are not. They are very, very different. And it all comes from the way Gene Hackman plays it, not how necessarily how they're written. It is surprising that he was cast because of what

[00:29:58] you're just the super. Yeah. Yeah. On paper, you're like, right. It's the kind of thing where studios are both like, let's just have him play little Bill again. But also you wonder if that's a deterrent, if audiences can be turned off by seeing something they've already seen.

[00:30:10] Right. But but they're totally different. I mean, it takes a it takes a minute to notice it in a way or you have to really be paying attention to it the same way. I think

[00:30:18] you have to notice all the incredible things I think Sharon Stone is doing. Like she's one character at the very beginning. She is she is playing a character of what is what if Clint

[00:30:27] Eastwood was this role, but it's a woman playing it. And then Harrod shows up. It freaks her the fuck out so much that every moment after that she's twitchy. She experiences her trauma all

[00:30:39] the time. You see it in her face. You see it in the movie. They really train on her reactions in her face. And I think it's brilliant. I think it's a brilliant choice. I think it's a brilliant way

[00:30:49] that she plays it. And I and and it really is about a person being affected by another person that changes their whole like facade. And I think that the way they interact together is like is

[00:31:00] incredibly well done. I think you see how much you learn from working on those for Hovind movies about not needing to be realistic, right? Or or naturalistic in her performances that she can do

[00:31:15] something more expressionistic to better suit the tone, the mood, the genre to sort of make bigger statements because so much of her character is this sort of I mean, this entire movie comes

[00:31:25] out of this like if you were to just have the man with no name be a woman, how does that change the dynamic of every scene? Right. And so she's playing with that very consciously of when she

[00:31:34] needs to play the emotions of the character, when she needs to play the iconography of what she's representing. And it's yeah, it's like really impressive work. And Hackman is able to make this entirely different character from Little Bill, despite not doing any obvious actory things.

[00:31:49] It's not like he said, I want a prosthetic nose and a mustache. So the character is different. I'm going to do a different voice. I'm going to call it some tick to make him really unique.

[00:31:56] It's just emotional modulation and knowing exactly what movie he's in and what role he needs to serve within that story. You guys know Hackman lived with like Dustin Hoffman and the other right to fall right back in the day in New York, the original Pussy Posse. Yeah.

[00:32:18] But like imagine living with him, even young Hackman, like who's maybe has less gravitas. Yeah. Or what you know. And like you ate his cheese out of the fridge or like just imagine

[00:32:28] like having a roommate conversations. Chills me to my bone. Yes. Yes. Like trying to ask him to do the dishes like, hey, um, you kind of left them. Can you not slam the door? It's waking me up.

[00:32:42] Like whatever. I mean, the other thing is he just he always looked like that. Yeah. You know, he just like had she'd Hackman face and he had that voice. Yeah. Young Gene Hackman. I it's very, very hard to picture. Obviously, there's sort of like

[00:32:59] night moves, Gene Hackman, right? Like sort of like middle Gene Hackman with the stash where he just looks exactly the same. You look at young Gene Hackman. You're like, yeah, I get it. Like, I get that that makes sense. But he's like a little he's he's bulkier in

[00:33:16] French Connection, which is his yes roll. And he's he's a little sausage. She's, you know, he's with a little hat and a little jacket like, yeah, he's he's yeah, he's not a trim guy. Intimidating. Yeah, that's basically it. He's intimidating. But but I think one of his

[00:33:35] reasons why, like I have such reverence for him is because he was never quite that leading man style. Yeah, he was able to be the best part in so many movies.

[00:33:47] While he you know, he can be big, he can be smaller. I mean, he didn't just do so much. And I kind of like all of it. Agree. He's fascinating because he can selflessly take

[00:33:59] on a supporting role or a villain role or be a mentor character or whatever it is and be the most interesting part of the movie. And then whenever he was placed at the top of the movie to play the

[00:34:09] the plot driver, he also somehow remained the most interesting person in the movie. Like he never collapsed under the weight of that sort of narrative responsibility or needing to be the leading man type or any of that. There's a story I think I sent this to you

[00:34:22] and the doughboys, David. We were texting about how good Hackman is. And I sent you guys that clip of Kevin Costner on The Rich Eisen Show talking about Hackman. Did you watch that? Maybe. What's what's the there was whatever thriller the two of them did together,

[00:34:39] Hackman and Costner pretty early in Costner's. Oh, no way out. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So they were talking about on that movie. Costner was coming in pretty hot, right? Like he is a man with a

[00:34:54] lot of opinions and he was very ready to be a leading man and a director and all of that. So they're doing all these scenes. And I think he was saying that, like, most of his scenes with

[00:35:08] Hackman were in, like, office rooms behind a desk and they didn't feel very dynamic. I've never seen this movie, but that he was behind a desk for most of it and that he got to set and

[00:35:19] was sort of like, this is boring. We should do this. Move this chair, stand up, change the blocking, whatever. And was just being very opinionated with everything wrong. Roger Donaldson was sort of pushing back on him. He was really being stubborn about like, I finally become a leading

[00:35:33] man. Like, I don't want to blow it. I don't want to be lazy. I don't want to wrestle my laurels. I want to make every scene as dynamic as I can. This is Gene Hackman. This is one of my idols.

[00:35:40] And Hackman was just sitting there like silently the entire time as these fights were happening and then would just wait for them to settle and would do whatever they landed on. Right.

[00:35:50] And at the end of the day, and costume was like, I don't know if I pissed him off. I don't know what's going on here. And at the end of the day, Hacken stops him when he's like walking

[00:35:59] in his trailer to get to his car and he goes like, hey, kid. And Costner, Kevin Costner was like, Gene Hackman is about to shoot me out, like is terrified of Gene Hackman, even at peak physical

[00:36:11] Kevin Costner. Right. And it's just like this guy's going to fucking destroy me. And Costner goes up to him and he is like, you know, I had a bad divorce and I had to take some

[00:36:21] movies I didn't really want to do and pay my settlement. I think I sort of forgot what I like about doing this and watching you today fight for that. It reminded me of when I was a young actor

[00:36:34] and I cared about every single choice. So thank you for that. Wow. And he like walked off. And then Hackman has like a golden period right after that. Yeah, it's true. Passes the you're right.

[00:36:48] He like reignites the torch. Sorry. Yeah, it's like when Hackman because I feel like why Hackman won an Oscar for Unforgiven. I mean, obviously he's really good in Unforgiven. It's a perfect

[00:37:00] supporting act. But it was also kind of the Oscars being like you still got the juice, buddy, like or whatever. You know, like it's that rediscovery thing. Yeah. I mean, I think his 80s were not particularly great outside of Hoosiers. And Costner says that Hoosiers,

[00:37:16] I think, came out when they were shooting No Way Out. Yes. Right. And it was like, I got to be honest. I I didn't know what we had. I thought that was a piece of shit and I didn't think I

[00:37:26] was giving it my all. He's incredible in Hoosiers, but it's obviously a very quiet internal performance. Yeah. But Hackman, by his own admission, was like, I feel guilty by how much I wasn't respecting

[00:37:36] that movie and appreciating it while we were making it. I feel like he did a lot of stuff for money, right? Like he's in Super 4. That's kind of embarrassing. He's in a lot of shit.

[00:37:46] Like Uncommon Valor was a movie that was like a hit, but wasn't respected. Like he did a lot of in the 80s. This is what he was saying. He had like a bad divorce and he did a lot of movies

[00:37:56] for money. And it's not like in the 90s he did all jams like he did. No, but but I mean, God, this year he has quickened the dead crimson tide and get shorty is his ninety five. Well,

[00:38:08] I just feel like even though he you know, he's in movies that don't turn out to be great. He always comported himself well, where I don't think the stink of a bad movie ever really stuck

[00:38:18] to him, which is part of the you know, the grace of not being a Dustin Hoffman or Robert De Niro or, you know, like that he gets to be good in things and be respected. But I don't know,

[00:38:32] like he doesn't take I don't I don't remember him in those bad movies. No. And I also think I mean, David, we've talked about like the Tommy Lee Jones phenomenon where Tommy Lee Jones is another actor whose superpower is like anger. Right. And so when he's giving

[00:38:46] him a ring and right, right. And like disgust and distaste for everything around him when he's giving a movie his all, he's incredible. And when he hates that he's in a movie, he's incredible because his actual disregard of his movie translate. So I think like whatever period

[00:39:04] Regine Hackman's heart was maybe in it a little less, the performances were still really fucking compelling. And then I think in the 90s, he started just being like putting his heart fully back into everything. And then, yes, even when he was taking paycheck jobs,

[00:39:18] he's like over delivering on all of it. God, he's so good. He is good. The Quick and the Dead is good. This film is directed by Sam Raimi. And boy, was it directed? It really was.

[00:39:34] Directed the shit out of this. Look, I love Sam Raimi. And I love this movie. And I love how he directed it. But it is that kind of thing. Like when I was 12 years old and

[00:39:44] I was trying to understand like what is a director? How can I watch a film and understand how it was directed? This would be a good entry level where you're like, did you notice there were a few

[00:39:56] subtle choices in terms of how the story was told? Yeah. That's sort of Sam Raimi's fingers that you're his little fingerprints that you're noticing here. Right. You know, like, do you notice that that gun floating across the screen for no reason? That's a very Sam Raimi

[00:40:11] move right there. You watch this movie, you're like, was he the only guy who watched the Man With No Name trilogy and during all the shootouts and standoffs was like, come on, let's throw some juice in here. Not enough stuff happening.

[00:40:23] Right. I love it. I think it's like, it's weird that, you know, Western, which is often kind of an excuse to kind of have a movie do nothing except for just have Vistas being in display,

[00:40:39] that he takes that and just like pours Sam Raimi-ness into it in a way that is like, I find so compelling. Like, I really love it. It's just like, I would never put it together

[00:40:52] that these like succession of shootouts is the perfect use of his superpower, but it totally is. It's a, just a video game of like, of a boss level, like, you know, like continue with like

[00:41:05] series of boss level fights that allow him to like do canted angle that just flips all the way over or the jaw, the jaws like pull back angle sort of thing. And he just does every single fight is

[00:41:17] different. He's like, it's so good. It is. He uses every tool in the toolbox. He doesn't repeat himself. And the other thing with him is for how loud his directing style is. I don't think

[00:41:28] there's a single thing in this movie that is like the flash or style for its own sake. I agree. Every choice he makes as loud as it is, is in support of trying to convey the emotion of that

[00:41:40] moment with the most sort of extreme amount of energy, which for a film that is very, very clean and simple and straightforward plot wise, it does help a lot. I totally agree. And I think that also the emotion stays with it. I mean, there's some

[00:41:57] key emotional moments that are played sincerely and you feel them sincerely. They are not a joke and it's a really delicate balance to, to strike. And he does it, I think throughout this movie,

[00:42:10] which is why I think one of the reasons why I think it's a real triumph. I agree with everything you guys are saying, but I think that at the time critics did not agree.

[00:42:18] At the popular reaction was this movie is all flash. You know, it's all sizzle, no steak and I'm not getting any emotion and Sam Raimi can't fucking calm down. Right? Like that was

[00:42:29] the hit at the time. Also, all the Westerns you're talking about in this sort of like nineties, late eighties, nineties wave, right. That is dying at this moment. All of them are like very austere. They are prestige adult revisionist Westerns by and large that have

[00:42:48] like a simplicity to their filmmaking style. And this is a popcorn movie. Right. I would say Tombstone is the trashiest of those nineties Westerns. It's not nearly as sort of fizzy as this movie, but Tombstone obviously definitely a little more,

[00:43:06] a little less austere. And then city slickers was not the most austere work, but of course I'm joking when I include city slickers and all this, but, but truly city stickers is more austere cinematically than this is like cities. I would say that most things are more austere.

[00:43:23] It's a low bar, but yes, it absolutely is. Yeah. So quick in the dead, even though it has actors from unforgiven and it has, uh, like the aesthetics, uh, the, the, the,

[00:43:37] the look, not, not the way the camera's moving, but you know, the, the frontier town and the costumes and all that, that would feel very recognizable. Yes. It is aesthetically, uh, completely different from all the other Westerns people are seeing. So maybe that

[00:43:49] threw people off like too goofy. I'm looking at Gene Hackman here. I forgot that in between unforgiven and quick of the dead, he is also in wider and Geronimo. He's in two of the other movies we've mentioned. He would sign on. He would sign on. He still

[00:44:04] liked money. Yes. I remember this being a flop or being a critical flop as it was completely confounding to me. Like, cause I saw it and I just like, well, that's one of the greatest

[00:44:15] movies I've seen this year. And I mean, I think that one of its, the other thing that was going on is like, you're, you're kind of in the pulp fiction, you know, I ironic, uh, like this,

[00:44:27] this is a pastiche in a, in an interesting way of Sergio Leone, but it's also not ironic. It's not, um, me not ironic spirited. It's not, it has a real sincerity to it that I think also short

[00:44:41] circuited the kind of cinephile reaction to it too. Like it had, it didn't get embraced by any group of, of movie goers at the time. And I just, I don't know why it was this a big fat

[00:44:54] meatball for me. Yeah. It was a February release. Like, I feel like that's kind of a weird dumping from Sony and like the whole thing is just kind of neither. It's like, well, this is an expensive

[00:45:05] movie with movie stars. Is it a prestige project? No. Is it for families? Definitely not. Oh, okay. You know, like the, the, the options are kind of narrowing. It's only award nomination is a Saturn

[00:45:17] award for best actress. That's it for her. Wow. From Dusseldorf is the year after this. And that's what you're talking about, Roman. Like that's the Western that is now speaking to the post Tarantino generation by being written by Tarantino, starring Tarantino and 30 minutes in being like,

[00:45:34] just kidding. We're not a Western. Right. I mean, and to be clear, I adore them. Same. But right. The whole joke of that movie is that it stops being a Western and it's, you know, right.

[00:45:43] You know, anyway, the quick and the dead. Let me give you guys some context. Okay. Please. All right. So this film is written by Simon Moore, who at the time is best known for the TV miniseries

[00:45:54] traffic with a K. How would you know that traffic is spelled with an IC in the United States of America where we all have lived our entire lives in 1989. There was a British miniseries for Channel four in it called Traffic. Are you talking like that, David?

[00:46:14] Doesn't sound right. Famously turned into the film traffic by Steven Soderbergh many years later. I'm assuming none of you have ever seen it. I have never seen the film. Sorry, the miniseries. Well, David, how would we have seen it? I don't think it aired in the United

[00:46:31] States until 2000. No, it aired on Masterpiece Theater in 1990. It was a very big deal. Well, how would you know that? I'm reading Wikipedia. I've never seen traffic despite having lived in England for getting very close to something. I said it. I said it. What?

[00:46:50] No, it's funny when you look at traffic, because obviously the Soderbergh movie was about the cartels, right? And all that, you know, like it was about Mexican drug dealing and so on and so

[00:47:01] forth. But the British movie was about heroin dealers, I think. And it was about like Afghan and Pakistani growers and all that. Right. It's funny how it got transposed anyway.

[00:47:12] That thing was a big deal. So I guess Simon Moore gets kind of brought out to Hollywood where it's like, OK, buddy, what do you got? And he had written a movie called Under Suspicion. He writes

[00:47:24] and turned into a movie. Right. Did he direct it as well? He did direct it, which I've never seen. Hilariously, of course, Gene Hackman later starred in a different film called Under Suspicion. That is not what we're talking about. We're talking about the Liam Neeson,

[00:47:39] Laura San Giacomo, like kind of sex thriller, which I've never seen. It is funny sometimes when you like troll through IMDb like that and you find a movie where it just feels like four things pulled out of a hat. You're like, yeah, try and you're slapping

[00:47:52] magnets on the board. You're like Liam Neeson fucks Laura San Giacomo. Is that a movie? Yeah, right. It just sort of sounds like something that would have happened in 1991. Like what are you going to check? Like that's what I call it. I don't know. Under suspicion

[00:48:04] or something. So Simon Moore basically is like I loved spaghetti Westerns. I loved the, you know, Sergio Leone style Western. I loved the Mexican standoffs. And I was just like, what if there was a movie that was all that cool? We cut everything else out and it's just

[00:48:21] shoot out after shootout. The Princess Bride effect, you know, the kind of yeah. Take all the good stuff. So smart. It is quite smart. And he wanted to do it spaghetti Western style.

[00:48:32] He was going to direct it himself. He was going to go out to Italy, you know, try and get like four million dollars right from some studio. And basically what happened was eventually Sony,

[00:48:46] who had turned down the idea of the movie with him directing, calls him and they're like, we'll buy it for a lot of money. Like we will, you know, turn it all around. And he truly like

[00:48:56] I think he didn't even know what script they were talking about because he was so confused. Like I guess he had several scripts out. And then like the way he puts it is like

[00:49:05] it was a Frank Capra moment where you're you know, like where he was like, I'm never going to have any success. I'm always going to be poor. And he got the phone call and like that was it.

[00:49:14] It was like all the money in the world. And he was suddenly like his whole life change or what? Was that because Sharon Stone had found the script with Sony buying it to try to lure Sharon

[00:49:24] started Sharon Stone asked Sony to buy it. Yes. Basically, I think the and it sounds like classic Hollywood stuff, which is like Sony calls him and they're like, we want the script.

[00:49:34] We'll pay top dollar. And he's like, what do you want to do with it? And he's like, we can't tell you. Sony like, you know, like it won't reveal any of that. And then eventually

[00:49:43] they are like, so yes, we're going to have this is going to be a star vehicle for Sharon Stone. And she wants Sam Raimi to direct it. And Simon Moore was like, wait, that sounds great. I love

[00:49:54] Sam Raimi. Like, you know, like I think like he they maybe assumed that he would be like Sam Raimi, like forget that. And he was like, Sharon Stone. Yeah. Yeah. And they he he did the rewrites

[00:50:05] like it's like basically they never took the script away. Like, well, no, I'm sorry. No, yes. No, there's the John Sayles thing. Right. Yeah. Right. For a while, he's he's working on

[00:50:16] it for them. And then one day they fired him and they brought in John Sayles and he beefed up the script to a two and a half hour movie. Jesus. Well, it's so funny that you mentioned Lone

[00:50:28] Star, which is John Sayles written and directed that came out at the same time, which is almost like if you could have a polar opposite Western from Quick and the Dead, it's probably Lone Star, which is a movie I fucking adore. Like I love that movie is

[00:50:43] fantastic. Phenomenal. Certainly it is not a it's not the Quick Buster tinge. Right. Exactly. It is a slow and interesting film. And what's interesting about it from the way I read it

[00:50:54] is that I think they brought in sales because they were like this thing might be a little too popcorn. Can he add some like serious Western gravitas to it? Right. And then he does that by

[00:51:06] adding an hour onto the runtime, which they're like this thing is overblown now. So then they bring more back to rewrite sales draft. And what he did was just took out all the sales stuff and

[00:51:18] they went, great, you fixed it. So he was like essentially what they made was the first script from before they fired me. What a waste. I mean, it is like Griffin, you and I have heard stories

[00:51:29] like this. Absolutely. About Hollywood production where they ruin a script trying to fix it and then like turn back around and they're like, hey, can you fix it? And the answer isn't, hey, can we go

[00:51:40] back to your original draft? It's, hey, could you come back and change your change script so that we like it again? Like they can never admit the mistake enough that they're actually like, you

[00:51:51] know what, let's go to draft eight instead of draft 47. Draft eight was actually when it was good. Like they just have to keep going. They feel like it has to be an additive process. And especially

[00:52:00] in this day and age, you can just be like, go to my email from February. There's a draft that is dated. There's a story I remember hearing about an uncredited writer who I think he was a critic

[00:52:14] did rewrites on the first Tim story, Fantastic Four movie. And Jessica Alba kept on coming in with notes every day about her character not making sense. Yeah, because a miserable woman

[00:52:23] doesn't make the most sense in the world. But OK. But they were just sort of like this whole movie doesn't make sense. Like chaos. Like what are you talking? She come every day and have so many notes

[00:52:33] on the scene. This and that. I want this and I want more of that. And at some point, the this writer just cut like 90 percent of her dialogue out and was like because the studio

[00:52:47] was just sort of like she's becoming like a nightmare. We just can't solve this. She's holding everything up. Can you just like cut her dialogue down so she's got as little to do in every

[00:52:56] scene as possible? And he comes to set the next thing. He's like terrified that just Alba is going to chew him out. She runs up and gives him a kiss and a hug. And she's like, finally, someone

[00:53:04] cracked my character. Not present. All they did was just remove. It's look, I'll say this is someone who writes professionally for a living. Sometimes, you know, you'll turn in a story and

[00:53:18] you're right. It'll be like, I want this, this, this, this and this. And you'll like make one change and it'll be like, yeah, I love it. It looks great. Like, you know, like it's sometimes

[00:53:25] it's just some weird vibe thing. It's it's it's it's so bizarre. I don't know. It is a mystery of editing. I edit for most of my life is is focused around editing and it is

[00:53:36] weird how much of it is like we work on it, work on it, work on it. And the answer is let's just cut that. Yeah. Simon Moore here says that a specific concern the studio had was the repetitive

[00:53:48] nature of the movie. Like it's just gunfight after gunfight. Is this isn't this going to be boring? But Ramey solves that. Yeah, like I guess I understand that concern in theory, but like it

[00:54:01] is mortal combat boring. No, we love this. Street fighter boarding. No, you motherfuckers. I mean, I think something that's very important is that you make every character, even if they're a little character, really pop shoot. It was just a bunch of anonymous villains who are getting shot

[00:54:20] off the screen because, you know, Sharon Stone is not going to die until, you know, like then. Sure. Maybe that would be an issue. But Sam Raimi is like, no, there will not be one face that you

[00:54:29] do not remember in this movie. Yeah, it reminds me. It's sort of like when when we make radio, which is my only context for this, I don't I don't do anything visual at all. Is like if you

[00:54:40] can read a script and it functions the same as as the audio product, then you didn't actually make radio, you know, like sure you shouldn't be able to read it and have it be the same.

[00:54:52] And so if you read it, you know, and and that's what is added with all the visuals and all the tricks and all the cool things with it is just like they made a true movie, because if you read

[00:55:02] the script of it, you'd be like, well, that's dumb, you know, like that doesn't do enough. But it shouldn't. Yeah. No. Yeah. Not only does he have sort of unique visual ideas for each gunfight

[00:55:15] and is are those ideas uniquely paired to each gunfight, not arbitrarily applied for the sake of variety. Right. But also, as you sort of said, David, it's like we've got to get through a lot

[00:55:28] of characters fast. How do you characterize them fast? How do you cast great character actors? People that has a scar. Right. Will be remembered as Scar. How do you style them specifically? Like all of this shit? It truly is, though, like I've been listening to so much

[00:55:44] Dead Eyes, our friend Conor Rattliff's podcast, and so much of that is talking about the weird when he talks all these other actors, when you lose parts or gain parts or how people gain parts

[00:55:53] and the weird eccentricities of casting. And part of it is like a movie like this, where Sam Raimi has to make sure that every person looks distinctive, right? Has a different voice,

[00:56:02] has a different name, has a different gimmick. Is it an actor who we all know? So we got the shorthand of that's Keith David. Or is it a guy who you make like be named Ratsby and you kind

[00:56:12] of give him fucking rat prosthetics? Or like Ace and his cards. And it's it is so it is so Mike Tyson's punch out that like I'm 10 years older than you, so my video game references are

[00:56:22] slightly older. That's a good reference. But it's like it's very much just like this is the guy that does Flamingo dancing. And so he has the name Flamingo in his name, you know, like it's just

[00:56:31] it's right with one for one. But it's a very smart understanding of how what the audience is going to need to hold on to in order to be able to stick with this movie. Yeah, because when it starts,

[00:56:43] it's like, wow, you're introducing a lot of characters in the first five minutes, you know? Yeah. How do I keep track of this? What complicated spiderweb narrative? Right. And then you're just like, yeah, they're all gonna be on chalkboard. We're just introducing me all now and then there's

[00:56:57] going to be a tournament one by one that will get shot down. So Sharon Stone, as we said, is the producer of this movie along with the star. She picks this movie because she likes

[00:57:11] the role that's been written here. It's unusual. She likes the idea of a woman with no name, right? She had, I guess, been mogul enough on Sliver and said that she like rolled over a lot there,

[00:57:23] like she was trying not to step on toes or whatever. And that movie, you know, didn't do amazing. I mean, Sliver is sort of like a trash masterpiece, I guess, of the early 90s, but it's

[00:57:33] not like a well-received film. No, and we're certainly right. Not well respected. So this is her like I am putting my foot down like movie, right? Like this is where she has all the she's

[00:57:46] calling the shots and she's like, I'm not fucking this around. Like just because you like a big thing she cites is that someone some people quote who shall remain nameless wanted her to wear a

[00:57:57] dress when she rides into town. And she was just like, we're not doing that. I am not going to be sexy in like whatever way you like, whatever normal way you think for this movie. They actually

[00:58:08] shot a sex scene that got removed with her and Crow. I must have been. It's not clear. It's not cited. Yeah. Where would that happen? Yeah. Outside. Yeah. You always chained up to the

[00:58:21] fountain. Wait, is that where it moved down? And of course, she got to pick her director and she picks Sam Raimi. And it's sort of a weird thing because Sam Raimi, I don't think he's ever

[00:58:33] directed a movie at this point that he didn't write. Right. Like this is his first kind of for hire job. Correct. And the main thing I read that she hired him off of was Army of Darkness.

[00:58:43] That was loved Army of Darkness. Right. And like Sam Raimi, not only this is the thing had basically never worked with a big actor before, because like Liam Neeson in Darkman is not like that famous at

[00:58:55] that point. No, it's pre fucking Schindler's List. Like this is the first time he's working with established movie stars. And then everything else is like literally his friends. Like, you know, it's almost what's most impressive to me about this movie is that like Crime Wave was obviously

[00:59:13] such a sort of knockback for him. But how well he transitions to like new budget level, working with established movie stars in a new genre, in a studio system with a script he didn't

[00:59:25] develop. And it's just seamless. It feels as personal as any of his earlier films. And it feels as of a piece. Bruce Campbell, I think, does actually have a tiny role in this movie,

[00:59:35] but he was Raimi wanted him to have a bigger role. One of the gunfighters, obviously. But he was shooting Briscoe County Junior. So he was that's a good reason at least. Yeah,

[00:59:44] it is a good reason. But he should have been one of these guys. He absolutely I mean, any one of these roles is basically. And he's very nice in that kind of Raimi way where he's like,

[00:59:56] this is Simon Moore's thing. Like, it's a great script. 90 percent of it is him. Like, good job by him. I just wanted to do a good job, like putting it on screen. Like

[01:00:07] he I think he as someone who had never directed another person's script before was very deferential to the script. What a mensch. He is a bit of a mensch. He had a good time working with Sharon

[01:00:18] Stone. Guess who he had a tougher time working with? Gene Hackman. That's correct. Things were a little difficult. He says, Gene, very strict, reminded me of an elementary school principal teacher called Mr. Little. Sounds kind of cool, actually. He was shooting Geronimo. Sam Raimi

[01:00:39] goes to meet him and he says, Sam, tell me about the picture. At that point, I would shoot myself and piss my pants. I just said, tell me about the picture. I would be like, no, I won't. I will.

[01:00:49] I will commit suicide in front of you. By the way, he said that with a gun, a loaded gun cocked. Tell me about the pictures. So Sam says he talked for about 15 minutes and he was kind of just like,

[01:01:03] and then Hackman says, tell me about my character. Does he love the kid or not? Talking about DiCaprio. Yeah. And Sam Raimi is like, well, of course he does. That's why he's so mean to him all the time. And Gene Hackman apparently nods and goes like,

[01:01:16] and then there's no further discussion because then he accepts the part. But I guess like that was Gene Hackman sort of weird test was like, do you understand this character in the way I want

[01:01:28] you to or something? Do you know that Brian Cox succession thing? Either of you. He plays. I know he plays the role of Logan Roy on succession. He does. Okay. That's what I was asking. It's a

[01:01:38] little trivia fact. I found IMDb. I didn't know if you know. No, what's Jesse Armstrong when he was, uh, I get maybe he had taken the part already. They're meeting with him. They hadn't

[01:01:49] started filming though. Right. And he said to Jesse Armstrong, like, I just have the one question for you. I can do all my work. I'm not going to pester you with shit. The one question

[01:01:59] I just need to know before I can play this part and either answer is fine, but I need to know what your definitive answer is. Does he actually love the kids or not? Right. And I wonder how much the

[01:02:10] Hackman thing was like a test versus him being that kind of very practical actor where he's like, I just need you to tell me which it is and I can tell you whether or not I can get my head around

[01:02:21] playing this guy. I do get the sense that right. Brian Cox is a fairly practical actor. Yeah. In what is because obviously he does a lot of weird crap. Like, right. I mean, no offense to

[01:02:30] him because my favorite thing, I mean, I haven't read the Brian Cox book yet. I'm going to, but obviously, you know, everyone's heard that that book is him being like,

[01:02:38] you know, at Jeremy Irons. What a hack. I hate it. And he has 10 paragraphs and all the shit he's been in. And it's like, Brian Cox, you've done like 40 movies that no one's ever heard of that

[01:02:48] are like, you know, you yelling at Gary Oldman on a submarine and then you walk off with money in bags. They didn't even freak. They forgot to cut that out of the movie. Like you're,

[01:02:56] you're handed some like aluminum that you can go, you know, barter with it. Like, right. Like, you know, it's just weird that Brian Cox is such a hack and yet also so comfortable calling everyone

[01:03:07] out. And I love him to be clear. Did the last chapter of the book, by the way, David, because he said you haven't read it yet. I haven't read it yet. The last chapter of that book is him

[01:03:14] calling you out for not having read the book. He knows he knows classic sitting around doing fucking podcast. Read my book. God damn it. Fuck off. Fuck all Sims. So Gene Hackman,

[01:03:32] I, this again, this may not, this may stun you guys to hear was not super into Sam Raimi's style of film. Very technical, complicated setups, many takes as he says he cuts the film in the camera

[01:03:46] to some degree, meaning that he never lets a master scene run through. So I guess that's Hackman saying like, why don't you just point the camera at me and let me be Gene fucking

[01:03:56] Hackman. And Sam Raimi's like, no, no, no, no. I want to do this. And then I want to do this. And then, you know, like I, I, I, it has to be exactly this way or else the studio is going to

[01:04:03] not like, you'll let me do it. Right. You know? So I'm sure he got on his nerves. Yes. It is a reason why I think I look, I don't know what his technique is with actors by and large, but I do

[01:04:15] think Sam Raimi doesn't get enough credit for how good the performances are in his movies considering how difficult his style of filmmaking is for performances. And I think part of that is he

[01:04:26] cast very well, even if he wasn't getting along well with Hackman, Hackman is so fucking good in this and especially we'll get to it. But the moment after the shootout with the kid,

[01:04:37] he plays that in such a fascinating way. That's not Hackman like pulling a scene off of the shelf that he's done before, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's that scene is the best scene in the movie,

[01:04:48] I think. And there's a lot of good scenes to this movie. Can I read this thing? You were talking about David, the terror of imagining living with Gene Hackman as a struggling actor. Go ahead.

[01:04:57] I'm just on his Wikipedia. So his one of his main jobs at that period of time living with Hoffman and Deval was that he worked at a, the Howard Johnson in Times Square.

[01:05:08] So if you think it's scary to be his roommate, imagine having to order ice cream from Gene Hackman at a fucking diner. But he one of the people he served at that restaurant was previously

[01:05:22] one of his instructors at the Pasadena Playhouse who said that him working at Howard Johnson was proof that he wouldn't amount to anything. Damn. Wow. Jesus. Yes. And then Marine. He had

[01:05:37] been a Marine. He enlisted in the Marines when he was 16 years old. He lied about his age. Well, he probably looked 47. I don't think he had to lie. Yeah, he's 24 in this movie. But he lied

[01:05:51] about his age at 16 to enlist in the Marine Corps for four years as a field radio operator. Right. So he's had this Pasadena Playhouse guy tell him you're not going to amount to anything.

[01:06:02] And then a year or two later, he's working as a doorman. And the former Marine officer, his former commanding Marine officer said, Hackman, you're a sorry son of a bitch. And there's this quote from Hackman here where he talks about how much everyone dismissed him at

[01:06:18] that time. And he said it was more psychological warfare because I wasn't going to let those fuckers get me down. Hell yeah. I insisted with myself that I would continue to do whatever it

[01:06:27] took to get a job. It was like me against them. And in some way, unfortunately, I still feel that way. But I think if you're really interested in acting, there is a part of you that relishes the

[01:06:35] struggle. It's a narcotic in the way that you were trained to do this work and nobody will let you do it. So you're a little bit nuts. You lie to people. You cheat. You do whatever it takes to get an

[01:06:43] audition. You get a job. It does feel like that is the energy Gene Hackman carried with him throughout his entire career until he retired. Like he was just sort of adversarial to everyone

[01:06:54] he worked with. Not like abusive, you know? That's right. I think when I was thinking that I hadn't heard much bad about him is like it never went to level of abuse. It seems like he's the

[01:07:05] typical kind of artist style. Yeah. He was just constantly locking horns with everyone all the time. Yeah. And it's one of the reasons he's like when the rare times he does interviews

[01:07:16] been very clear on why he doesn't want to come out of retirement. He's like, I'm a lot happier now. I finally let go of all that shit. Yeah. Is this the movie where Ramy kind of puts on the suit and

[01:07:26] does stuff like this? Is this him trying to like, like I wear fancy clothes too basically as my armor and my costume. Yeah. Confidence. Like I get it. And here to four, you know, he had been,

[01:07:40] like you said, just mainly working with his friends and maybe that wasn't required, but like, do you know when he made that transition to kind of wearing a suit all the time?

[01:07:48] I don't, although I know of course that is his on set by right. He dresses up right, right, right. Yeah. I would not be surprised if this was the moment and if it isn't, it still does feel like

[01:07:59] this is the one where symbolically the shift happens. Well, this that's what I like. My psychology is this is the moment I would dress up if I was asking Gene Hackman to sit there while I

[01:08:10] rearranged the cameras would be the moment when I would be sure I was wearing a suit when I asked him respectfully to do this. JJ, our researcher found this. He he posted this on Twitter recently.

[01:08:21] I imagine it was in doing research for the show, but I don't know what specific episode. Did you see this quote, David? Which one? I don't know where this interview is from, but they said

[01:08:30] to Ramey. He just did the screen grab of this question and answer. You always wear a suit on set. Rumor says it's a nod to Hitchcock. And he said, although I have a tremendous amount of

[01:08:39] respect for Alfred Hitchcock, who is the true master of horror and the father of such modern filmmaking technique, I don't actually wear a suit as a tribute to him. Believe it or not,

[01:08:48] I wear a suit and tie as a sign of respect to the cast and crew. I like a very serious and well-ordered film set. For me, it's the best way to work. And out of that order, I like to get a

[01:08:57] tremendous amount of creativity. At the same time, the old masters used to dress in a very formal manner on set. And I always thought it was super cool. And then in a line that might have been

[01:09:06] ghostwritten by my father, the end of this answer is Sam Raimi saying nowadays everyone's got the nose rings and the colored hair. So for me to wear the suit and tie is a different way to go.

[01:09:18] Sam Raimi is not here for the nose ring. My father always talks about the Mohawk hairdo and only refers to it by that full name. The definite article. Look, the no the Mohawk hairdo and the thing in the nose is what my dad always says.

[01:09:33] I mean, there's this story that Bruce Campbell relates because I feel like Sam Raimi doesn't talk a lot of shit. Right. Like Sam Raimi strikes me as someone who's not going to be

[01:09:41] a gentleman. Gene Hackman was a huge pain in the ass. But apparently, Sam had a very specific setup. He wanted Gene to do six different things. And Gene looked at him and said, I'm not doing any

[01:09:51] of that. And and Sam had to talk to him for like 15 minutes about the character to be like, this is why I want you to tip your hat to sit in the chair to say this. You know, like, you know,

[01:10:04] he had to like talk him all the way through it. It's clearly Gene Hackman was like, I'm not your action figure, you fucker. Right. Or whatever it is. Right. But but like with Campbell was his

[01:10:14] action figure, you know, he like he had this big goofy friend who was also a producer who was down for anything and he could just manipulate into a billion takes by himself. It's just I just think

[01:10:24] every single performance in this movie is good. And he gets people at very different stages in their careers. Well, speaking of when are we going to talk about Russell Crowe? Because this is his

[01:10:33] first American movie. Yeah, yeah. About to pivot to Russell Crowe, who I mean, I feel like I've lavished some praise on Russell Crowe on this. You're a fan. Griffin. Yes. Have we covered a lot of Russell Crowe films? Insider. Insider, obviously really compelling, wonderful performance.

[01:10:50] But is there another one? That's a good question. I feel like we talk about him a lot. We're obviously developing a live action Donkey Kong movie with him, but that might be the only

[01:10:59] proper Russell Crowe film we've covered. Well, in addition to Ramey, the thing I was most excited about when it came to this movie was Russell Crowe because I had seen him in Australian movies.

[01:11:10] You did you see Romper Stomper? That was I saw Romper Stomper, which was a big deal. And and but but this other movie that another one that I hope people find in love is this movie called

[01:11:21] Proof from 1991. Proof is a wonderful. Yes. Jocelyn Warhouse. It is so good. And he plays just a dude that is not very notable in any way except for he is so charismatic that he makes this very

[01:11:38] ordinary guy very compelling. And between that and Romper Stomper, I was like, this is the guy I was like, I was super convinced on him really early on. Well, guess who else was convinced? Sharon Stone. Sharon Stone. Fucking good ass taste. Because guess who Sam Ramey wanted for

[01:11:54] this role? Oh, I don't know. Liam Neeson, who he had just worked with. Oh, obviously. Now, at this point, Liam Neeson is coming off of Schindler's List. I don't know if Liam Neeson

[01:12:03] would want to do this. He would be make total sense for it. Like totally big and imposing. But Sharon Stone had seen Romper Stomper. She thought he was charismatic, attractive, talentless, talented, not talentless. Yeah, I was going to say what a neg talented and fearless,

[01:12:22] which I do feel like is fairly crucial. Crow had auditioned for a small role. He'd auditioned for one of the, you know, many gunslingers, I guess. And Sharon Stone basically was like, you have to

[01:12:32] audition for the lead role for court. And I basically talked Sam Ramey into it. Like, you know, and I this is not even a probably not even a top 10 Russell Crowe performance. He's given a

[01:12:46] lot of wonderful performances. But he is really fucking magnificent in this movie. And he is so hot. It is crazy how good he looks. I think it's one of his best. I agree. Maybe it is.

[01:13:00] It's sort of like his subtlety that I you know, his bluster that sort of comes on later is like is the part of Russell Crowe I don't enjoy as much. You know, I mean, he can bluster me all

[01:13:11] over the room. He can throw a fucking phone at your head. But him his ability to play gentle and tough and kind of an addict and kind of like he's basically a violence addict that's

[01:13:25] recovering. And for him to do that and be I this might be my favorite role of his ever. That's obviously look, I'm not just disgusting. Listen, David, go ahead. I may be a notorious soft boy, and I don't want to fucking become Eddie Redmayne here. But I do

[01:13:48] think there is a fragility in this performance that I don't know I've ever seen Crowe capture as well. And the way that is cut with his natural sort of brutish animalistic intensity is really

[01:14:00] fascinating. It's it's a I don't think he is ever called upon to pull up this same amount of energy, the same kind of energy rather. It's a different energy. And also like he's when you capture him

[01:14:13] here and something that you get is this infinite possibilities with him. You just see all the movie stars he could possibly be. And just over time, you watch them narrow and those walls close off

[01:14:26] and he chooses a path and he becomes more of a Russell Crowe as a person. And in this one, I just see this like amazing performance in this infinite potential. And it sort of delights me when

[01:14:36] I see it. It's so good. I'm regretting the top 10 comment. I think I might revise it to a top five because I'm just looking at his filmography right now because my favorite Russell Master is not

[01:14:47] mastering. Oh, what? That's probably my favorite Russell Crowe movie. That's probably what you know. But L.A. Confidential is my favorite performance. That's like one of my favorite performances of all time. Yeah. And that's right after this, right? Yeah. It's two years later.

[01:15:01] Virtuosity is basically confidential, right? It's basically his for his next performance in a serious movie because God bless Virtuosity, which is a very bananas piece of 90s, you know, Hollywood crap. And he's he is really good at it. He's like, you know, he pops really hard at it.

[01:15:20] But that's like a, you know, a real serious movie or whatever. You know, yeah. So L.A. Confidential. This looks good. You haven't seen six point seven, the ultimate killing machine.

[01:15:31] Correct. He is a VR amalgam of every serial killer bed. Ben, do you know what it stands for? No. Sadistic, intelligent, dangerous. That's right. I got my hands on this shit. Damn. I'll bring it over, Ben. I've got it on Blu-ray. I'll bring it to you.

[01:15:53] That's another movie I saw in the theater. I was very excited for that movie. But why wouldn't you be? You're a pro. Yeah. Look, Bud White is my favorite crow performance ever. That's one of my

[01:16:03] favorite characters ever. I love that movie. And that is true. I would put maybe that one is higher than this one, but I just find this one so he just has a different type of appeal in. No, I mean, and that I just I find it really stunning.

[01:16:18] What's interesting, you saying, Roman, the thing about like you see all the different ways he could have gone in this. You see how he could have become a little more like Liam Neeson. Like,

[01:16:28] I think Liam Neeson probably had a little too much gravitas to pull this off at this point and also was probably a little too known and is a little bit too much of a physical presence.

[01:16:38] There's something about the fact that Russell Crowe in this movie still even watching it from a modern perspective, you can't really tell if that violence is inside of him or not. You know, there's an actual tension to how much this guy seems to be fighting this stuff.

[01:16:56] Totally. Can I fill out my top five? I'm now thinking, okay, I think it's only confidential. I do think I would put Master and Commander second. That performance is so beautiful. Then I guess I would have the insider. Those are sort of right. That's kind of like your

[01:17:10] Holy Trinity of Crowe. And then you guys are talking about tenderness. I don't like the movie that much. I know what you're going to say. I do think his performance in A Beautiful Mind

[01:17:25] is like that. You know, I was tapping into that. You know what? I did not. I was going to say it. No, I thought you were going to say Boy Erased. Boy Erased is a look. We talked about it. It's

[01:17:36] I like that performance. That movie did very little for me. Yes. He looks so strange in the movie that it's almost as you said, his eyeballs are fat. Like, do you remember that line?

[01:17:51] No, I do. It haunts me. Yeah. Nice guys is a sort of underrated crow that people forget about. That's a really great performance. Great. Obviously, Gladiator is a movie star performance like no other. Like that shit is for real. I like Gladiator and Master Commander less than you.

[01:18:11] Rude. I know. I'm with you. I like Master and Commander better. I did not like Gladiator. It did nothing for me. And I've given it a few more tries since then. It doesn't work for me.

[01:18:23] It's kind of the point where I kind of got off the Russell Crowe train. That's what people got on. That's what the train was overcrowded. I know. That's what's so weird. People are on the roof.

[01:18:32] And I would take, you know, take him or leave him in certain places. Like I think, for example, Nice Guys, I think is like the perfect use of him in a certain way. He's so good at that. Right.

[01:18:41] But he never like sold a movie for me the same way again after Gladiator. No, I think for me, it's probably I probably say Insiders the best performance. And then I think this L.A. Confidential, Nice Guys. And I'm trying to think what my fifth would be.

[01:18:56] Well, I mean, there's some others good performances for not showing out 310 to Yuma. He is actually fantastic. And he is fantastic in that. I think he's good in Man of Steel that

[01:19:06] I wouldn't call that, you know, but he's very good. He's a lot of fun. He played two characters in a little film called The Mummy. Dr. Jekyll and wait a second. What's this? It's coming into focus. Hold on. Justing. Mr. Hyde.

[01:19:21] David is holding a jeweler's loop up to his computer screen. I love I love Russell Crowe. And then absolutely, you know, Romper Stomper is an incredible performance. If anyone has not seen that film, Proof is a really good movie that Hugo Weaving

[01:19:34] is also in that film. And he's also really good. That's a gem that people should find. And it's another movie where they made another movie called Proof. Yeah. The. Yes. The math play movie. That bad movie. Decent play.

[01:19:49] And in the other movie was so small that nobody cared. He's also he was also an Australian movie called The Some of Us, where he plays a gay character that was sort of, you know, for 1994, like, you know, a fairly adventurous role.

[01:20:04] Like, you know, he's pretty good in that, too. Thinking of his pre Hollywood stuff. You guys don't like Gladiator. Gladiator is based on a painting. We got to cover Gladiator for that story alone. Yeah, it's just fucking Ridley Scott seeing a

[01:20:16] painting of a Gladiator match and being like, God, we got to do it. This is going to be great. Can I just run through what what Russell Crowe has like on deck? Sure. Because it's a pretty exciting lineup, actually. He's working. The man works.

[01:20:31] The man's working. OK, he's playing Zeus in Thor Love and Thunder. Yes. He directed a movie that he's starring in called Poker Face, where he plays a tech billionaire who gathers his childhood friends to his

[01:20:42] Miami estate for what turns into a high stakes game of poker. I am to use the term all in on that show. It sounds pretty good. He's in the love of this cast, but sure.

[01:20:54] Sure. He's in the greatest beer run ever, which is Peter Fairley's follow up to Green Book. It's him and Efron, a man's story of leaving New York in 1967 to bring beer to his childhood

[01:21:06] buddies in the army while they're fighting in Vietnam. Then he's I think Bill Murray is in there. He is. Yeah. Yes. He's doing Craven the Hunter playing who knows what he's playing Rothko in a Mark Rothko biopic. And then what's the last thing here? Oh, American Son.

[01:21:26] Oh, he's doing the remake of a prophet, a movie that Sam Raimi was originally supposed to direct. Right. He's he's playing the the Neil's Neil's Alstroemer. Yeah, that's cool. That's an interesting lineup of movies. I like him working.

[01:21:41] I look unhinged was a good time, but I'd like him to do more serious stuff as well. Sure. Another actor who's in this film, guys, is Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah. Have you heard of him? Yeah. Yeah. Big time movie star. He was he was a recent Oscar nominee,

[01:22:01] of course, at the time. Right. Because Gilbert Grape is what the year before. Yeah. And he was sharing someone's intent on casting him. Apparently, Stone and Raimi paid him themselves out of their budget, out of their salaries, I guess. Yeah.

[01:22:17] Correct. She was so insistent on him being hired that she had them take his salary out of her salary on this movie. It's weird that they wouldn't want him. That's the only thing I

[01:22:28] don't understand is like he seems like a really hot name. Yeah. It does feel like there might have been a perception thing because you also have this boy's life. It's like De Niro has said,

[01:22:37] like, this kid's good. Right. But I almost feel like there was a perception thing of like he's a serious actor. He's not a movie star. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Which is incredibly bizarre

[01:22:49] to think. Is it that he was too baby face like or was it that right? He only did like serious movies. Yeah. I had read that that Matt Damon was also considered for the day. Sam Rockwell was

[01:23:02] considered. Yeah. You know, this is those 90s whenever like Damon or whoever is interviewed now. It's like you think about all those all these A-list movie stars like who are like young Hollywood bucks, like trying to get a good role. Right. Because when Damon gets courage under fire,

[01:23:17] he's like, I got the role. Like, you know, that's why he like lost 400 pounds. It was like, I got to go all in on this. Right. You could see Damon's face working in this movie,

[01:23:28] although I love Leonardo DiCaprio in this, but like he he has a like a harder like, you know, like face and you could see him fitting in this milieu a little more than

[01:23:38] then. One of the things that's funny and odd about Leonardo DiCaprio is he just seems like a 90s teen heartthrob in this role, which is kind of what the role needs, you know, but it's not

[01:23:49] it doesn't have the Western part of it. He's not dirty at all. He's not a speck of dirt. He's a true like golden boy. Yeah. That's why it does work for me, because he does feel like freaking,

[01:24:01] you know, I mean, this isn't an old movie, but like Alden Ehrenreich and Hail Caesar or whatever. Like, yeah, he does feel like some shiny little Hollywood star from the 30s. Right. I think that's right. I think that's what's what's funny about him is he's he's like

[01:24:16] being cast in a Western movie. Like, yes. He's like, hey, guys, so fast. Bang, bang. He's not being he's not in a Western like he's not it's a complete meta commentary of a certain type of movie. He feels like Bobby Driscoll and like a live action Disney movie

[01:24:33] or something like this is this is the very last performance DiCaprio gives that still has any child actor energy in the like growing pains sense. Right. Because when he makes the transition from

[01:24:46] like growing pains and Critters three and whatever, it's like, oh, no, but he's working with heavy duty actors and De Niro's telling people that he's like very serious minded and he's like wise beyond his years. And Gilbert Grape, everyone said, how could someone so young give a performance

[01:25:00] like that? This is the last movie where he's got a little bit of child star shine on it. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's that cleanliness to his delivery and even just how he's styled.

[01:25:10] And I do think you're right that like Matt Damon's face, even at this age, fits into this milieu better. But it works against the movie almost if you have someone who is more realistically cast.

[01:25:21] They leaned into something that might seem incongruous, but it worked, I think, for the movie really, really well. And it's exactly why that fucking final moment between him and Hackman is a goddamn hammer blow, because when like the entire child star facade drops from him

[01:25:39] and he's just going to the paint like full DiCaprio. It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. And what you said, this thing where you're just like kind of impressed that this movie is able

[01:25:50] to pull off slow, quiet moments of genuine emotion to that degree in a film that is otherwise so kinetic and frenzy. Right. In a film that is about a March madness of shooting.

[01:26:02] Like that is what it's about, because it's like Sharon Stone rides into town. There's the little brief prologue with Tobin Bell. But basically, she rides into town and Pat Hinkle is there

[01:26:14] and he's got like a chalkboard with a bracket on it. And he's like, well, are you are you in? Yeah, it's a knockout. Here's the deal with this town. We just do a fucking shootout every day at

[01:26:26] the at the strike of noon. And it's a quick draw. This town's run by this shitty guy. I mean, it's such a bad town. Like what if you want to go buy an onion either? Right. Yeah. It's like, sorry, there's no onion salesman here. Only shooters.

[01:26:43] The only other person I want to shout out is Lance Hendrickson, who will talk about David in a second, but I don't think there's any keep David rich research specifically in here. But I mean, we love keep David, obviously.

[01:26:55] But just the funny Land Hendrickson thing is he knew someone who I guess worked in Wild West shows and stuff. His name was Rex Rossi. And Lance Hendrickson before the movie starts,

[01:27:09] before production starts, goes to Rex Rossi and says, I got to shoot a card out of this kid's hand. That's in the script. I think there should be more to it than that. So teach me a horse trick.

[01:27:19] So Rex Rossi taught him the trick where he flips off the horse backwards. And when he showed up on set, he says, Sam, I want to show you something. They bring a horse over. He jumps on the horse. He flips out off of the horse,

[01:27:32] shoots under its belly. And Sam Raimi was like, this rules. That's in the movie. Like, that's great. So let's say we showed up with a special horse trick. And I guess rather than Sam Raimi being like, Jesus, like, why did you work so hard on this

[01:27:46] without telling me? Sam Raimi was like, of course, like, you got to do this. A horse course. Of course. Of course. I'm looking here at the notes. It also says that

[01:27:57] Lance Hendrickson showed up to set dress like this and said, where is hair and makeup? And they said, we're just going to put you on camera in this look. That's a joke. But his look in this is

[01:28:10] unbelievable. The long jet black hair, the hair. Yeah. He truly is dressed like, God, like, like a rapper now. Yes. I'm saying like, who's the rapper with all the face tattoos?

[01:28:26] Who's like does country stuff to post Malone post some shit post Malone would fucking go out at the VMAs wearing. But he's got that sort of like the Renaissance Van Dyke facial hair. Oh, yeah.

[01:28:41] I mean, just he's he's leaning so hard into his gimmick. He has all the aces in his deck of cards for each kill. You've got Keith David absolutely swagged out looking incredible. The best outfit.

[01:28:55] Sick ass pipe. Big pipe. Big voice like he's got it all. He's like, it's incredible. Yeah. I love the outfits in this like unironically love. Oh, good. Yeah. So like Henrickson and David are such specific castings of like,

[01:29:10] not only are these actors who are very familiar faces to audiences at this time, even if they don't know my name, they're going to stick out. They're going to remember them. And they also have incredibly distinctive voices because you need to just introduce

[01:29:22] them the first five minutes, put a pin in them and make sure the audience doesn't forget when they come back and are relevant again. Totally. You got Mark Boone Jr., who, of course, Griffin,

[01:29:31] you once said on his performance at Batman Begins, it looks like he sleeps under a pizza. Another line I've never forgotten. Oh, my most savage. No, it's just like he is. He is the bat. Anytime you're in a movie, isn't a movie or like,

[01:29:48] oh, I get it. This guy's a bit of a scumbag, isn't he? Like he's just got the perfect face for he scars. You got Tobin Bell, Jigsaw himself. Right. What do you what he strode? This is his

[01:29:58] final movie, right? What he strode right at the end of his career. You're right. Yeah. He died before this movie even came out. Yeah. You've got what's it called? What's his name? Robert's Blossom. Oh, famous old man. Yes. He was in Christine. We've discussed him in that. Obviously,

[01:30:13] he was in a couple of the Demi's. He's the old man in Home Alone. Yeah. And you've got Keith Kevin Conway, who I've always liked as what's it called? As dread. Yes. Judge who gets his

[01:30:27] dick shot off. Yeah. Not to not to find a point. Deserves it. Deserves it. My opinion. Yeah. He's a bit of a jerk. I think he played I think Kevin Conway. Yes. He played Kahless in Star Trek. The

[01:30:38] Next Generation. If anyone's a Star Trek fan out there. Yeah. It's just it's just an incredible lineup of beautiful character actors. Great faces. Yeah. Such good faces. Yeah. It's really, really fun. And there's been there's others I'm not remembering. And obviously, like Bruce

[01:30:55] Campbell shows up for a second and Gary Sinise obviously shows up in flashback, which is kind of a coup, kind of a casting coup. Gary Sinise like right off of Farrah Forrest Gump. Yeah.

[01:31:05] I remember that being notable at the time. But you see his you see his face as a kind of daguerreotype, before he shows up and yeah, and he plays a good role. And he plays like you can see the way that

[01:31:17] he looks and mirrors court in a lot of ways. And it's really something. And I also think that flashback scene of her initial trauma, which is it takes a surprising turn where he's like, and it mimics or reflects the moment that court is brought in. Right. The hanging.

[01:31:39] The chair and the and and, you know, she's given the gun to save her father and shoots him in the head instead. It's like a real moment. It really you feel it to me.

[01:31:52] At least. No, I agree. I agree. You think it's a good job being genuinely visceral in all the cartooniness? Yeah, exactly. There's the thing I've invoked too many times, but I always just think it's such a good like storytelling lesson for movies. But the Andrew Stanton finding Nemo

[01:32:08] thing where originally he had that movie structured where you would get glimpses to the flashback of the barracuda killing his wife and all the other babies throughout the movie. And when they screened it for people, they were like, I cannot stand this Albert Brooks character. He's driving

[01:32:24] me fucking insane. Why won't this fish calm the fuck down? And so they were like, as an experiment, what if we just take the scene and we run it in full at the very beginning of the movie and

[01:32:34] the movie immediately worked? And it was just that thing of like, you think you're being clever by withholding information for later. But not only is it almost never worth it, it also you're depriving the audience of the information that will help them understand the character at the

[01:32:49] beginning. So when this movie is doling out these little glimpses as the flashbacks with Gary Sinise, I'm not turned off, but I'm like, why aren't they just telling me the thing? But that final reveal

[01:32:59] is so good. I'm like, this is one of the examples of this being done right, because you think you put together all the pieces. I get it. Hackman killed her father. That's why she hates him.

[01:33:09] Why are we like tiptoeing around this? And the final hammer blow they're like holding back on is it's the mirror of the scene you've already seen. And you remember that moment, but it just

[01:33:19] felt like cool Western shit in that moment. And now everything in the movie has like added weight. I think it's one of the few times where that device actually benefits the film at large.

[01:33:31] Yeah, but you're right about the tension up to that point, because the sort of vague flashbacks don't do anything for you. They're like they don't do much, but it really does pay off. And

[01:33:42] it does. It does that perfect thing and make you reevaluate the rest of the movie. And you do see her fear and her when that moment happens where it is the exact same scene of her father.

[01:33:53] And it's like just like the memory of it like jolts you in this great way of reevaluation. I think that scene is really, really great and harrowing. And it's also truly surprising. Like

[01:34:06] I expect her to miss a bunch of times or whatever, but first shot hits her dad is like is a real gut punch. It's like it's just perfect backstory. That's all you need. You know, it's like everything

[01:34:19] you need to know about this character is in that one moment defining her. And it shows her motivation, but like, you know, she's not until the end where you put all that stuff together and there's the sort of final confrontation. She is not presented as superhuman.

[01:34:32] She's presented as competent. She's pretended as very good, but, you know, she doesn't shoot the rope once and she just go bam, bam, bam. You know, she really like it is not that she's perfect at

[01:34:43] this. She's just driven. And I think that's another great move with this movie is that. Yeah, everyone is good, obviously at shooting, but that's why they want to do the shooting. But no one is presented as a total terminator. If anything, the kid is maybe the most like

[01:35:02] naturally gifted in a way and that he keeps being like, I'm so fast, like, you know, and that sort of seems to almost be a superpower. And Gene Hackman seems to have a certain superpower to him.

[01:35:12] Well, he's scary, but he also feels so vulnerable in that way where you're just like, I mean, it's especially the scene, obviously, where the kid dies and he's like,

[01:35:23] it was never proven that he was my son. Like, he's so like sort of pathetic in that scene and like, clearly just unable to admit his humanity or what, you know what I mean? Like that you

[01:35:33] kind of are just like, oh God, someone take this guy down. Like it's so perfect. Yeah. Off of that, David, I'll just say too, like there's the time when after a fight and he wins, obviously he pauses to wait for everyone to clap for him. Yeah, exactly.

[01:35:48] It made me think of Mr. Burns when Mr. Burns competes in the film, you know what I mean? Festival. Yes. And it just had that vibe. Like he is really just pathetic, truly. Yeah. That is a really good moment. Him holding up his hands and

[01:36:05] please clap for me. It's so good. Like, and he's expecting it. He's like, I am, you know, the hero of this movie, right? Yeah. The moment with the kid is so fucking good. And you've set up this uneasy thing of like,

[01:36:21] DiCaprio has told you, I think he's my father, right? You've seen them have a number of exchanges and you can't tell whether Hackman is completely oblivious, knows but is trying not to acknowledge it or doesn't believe it's true. Right? Right.

[01:36:37] And then, you know, he's sort of saying like enough's enough kid. They go to the shootout. Stone's trying to talk DiCaprio out of it. He says like, I just need him to acknowledge me. Right? I need to earn his respect. Right. It's oh man, it's sad.

[01:36:54] It's so sad. What do you want out of this? It's like, I just need him to fucking respect me. And then the moment, the way he sets that up and cuts it so that it's like draw,

[01:37:06] draw Hackman responding to the bullet on the neck. You almost think DiCaprio's one. And then when you cut back to DiCaprio's face, you see his like, shock that he landed a bullet that immediately turns into the physical like. He plays it really well.

[01:37:23] He plays it really fucking well. The collapse. Yeah. And then he just collapsed. Right. He's like full on, like embarrassing child crying. So terrified. I don't want to die. Right. And Hackman stands over him and he fucking reaches out. That's what plays that moment. Yeah.

[01:37:40] He just fucking reaches out and Hackman, as you said, once DiCaprio dies, he goes through all the motions of, well, they never proved he was actually my. Right. I tried to give him an out. I told me to have to do this. This and that.

[01:37:51] Like Hackman's making every single excuse when he looks at DiCaprio. He is inscrutable. You cannot read his face and DiCaprio just wants anything out of him. Yeah. Gives him nothing. Yeah. It's really good. And again, like Roman saying, like it would be easy for these

[01:38:10] more emotional moments to fall really flat because the movie is so heightened. Like it's it's a tricky task, like getting that stuff to work when you also have like someone shooting a perfect hole and keep David's head and the wind blowing through it.

[01:38:24] So that's the other unbelievable Hackman scene for me. Yeah, I've just it's a really good scene. Yeah. You've you've kept David on the shelf for a while, right? You're like, why would you introduce if you're not really use him for like 40 minutes or whatever?

[01:38:39] He's around. Yeah. But like such a distinctive dude. Then he has that little meeting where he susses the guy out and he is like, OK, they paid you to bring me in. And then that fucking just brutal, like the rules have changed.

[01:38:52] This is now to the death. Right. I'm knocking this guy down. I'm blowing a hole in the back of his head and I'm telling all of you how quickly it turns into the like, oh, so you complained to me about not having enough money,

[01:39:03] but you paid some fucking guy to kill me. It's great. His menace, like turning that moment around is like, yeah, adding to his like overall power is like it's it's great. It's like, right. I think this movie is so perfectly structured.

[01:39:16] It like it mimics, it really mimics a video game more than probably anything. And where you just get progressively each each sort of setup of the gunfight is is like, yep, that has to be the way it is. It can't be another way around.

[01:39:31] You know, like it has to be court and the lady at the last one. It has to be that it's just like it's perfectly structured in the kid and

[01:39:40] Herod at the very end. Like all of it is like set up really, really perfectly as a as a plot mechanism. And you have four perfect character arcs like totally and it hits it amongst this like really, really, really silly premise. It is undeniably ridiculous premises. No one

[01:40:00] could possibly defend it. It's true. I think there is like truly one scene in this movie that feels a little bit wonky to me. I think it's the only scene in this movie that feels just a little bit miscalibrated, which is the Sharon Stone, Robert Blossom

[01:40:18] confrontation in the graveyard in the rain. It just feels over cranked like her and blossom are both sort of overacting. The scene is overwritten. It feels too expository. It's also coming kind of late. So the movie has to slow down to do it. And it's sort of like,

[01:40:37] man, we kind of already figured this out. You know what I mean? Like, it feels like you're kind of the movie's catching up in a way that you don't need it to. Yeah. The rain is good, though. The rain is good. I agree. It's slick.

[01:40:48] Yeah. It's not ruinous, but if like if you're making fun of Sharon Stone in this, it is the scene you make. It's the scene to pull out. It's the one scene that maybe plays

[01:40:56] to her weaknesses. And I also think the rest of the movie is just kind of like so clean and lean and economic and diamond cut that this one scene ends up feeling a lot sloppier by

[01:41:06] comparison. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm totally able to get over it, though, when I'm watching it. Well, me too. It's just such an easy watch. Yeah, go ahead, Ben. I want to shout out Spotted Horse, that character fucking rules. I love that his whole thing is

[01:41:24] he's like, I'm just not afraid of this, you know, because like I don't think we really discussed him like his whole trait, though, of like and he runs through all the bullets he's taken and he just

[01:41:35] seems so fucking badass. He cannot be killed by a bullet. Yeah, I really I was very sad to lose that character. Oh, that scene is also really intense and clever. The whole thing with court like by,

[01:41:51] you know, like being like, give me another bullet, give me another bullet, you know, the blind kid. This movie is I do wonder right in 1995 if people were just like too much, too many bits like there's a blind kid like rifling through the bullets like, you know,

[01:42:08] like is no one in this normal is that was that the complaint? Because I was just thinking of that scene and I'm like, right, it's not only is it everything I'm describing, but the blind

[01:42:17] kid is then working through the bullets to find a thirty five millimeter or whatever. Yeah, no, maybe everything. Ramy was too fast, too early and culture has caught up to him, right? And how we can process information and all of this, especially when so much of it's visual.

[01:42:32] But I do think it's a thing I love about his movies where it's just like every single thing can be something. There's no like unimportant detail moment character performance shot.

[01:42:43] I think this was a victim of its time. This is a movie and he's a director of unfettered enthusiasm. And this was a moment in cinema where enthusiasm was not rewarded. It was really a cynical time.

[01:42:57] And but I think if you pulled it out today, people would just like, you know, this showed up on, you know, HBO Max today, it would be the talk like everyone would love it. Everything was the

[01:43:08] most amazing second coming type of movie. We were saying this right before we started recording Roman. I feel like at least once a miniseries, there is a movie that we've covered on the podcast, which because of the nature of this podcast covering an entire career,

[01:43:21] is the kind of movie that maybe other podcasts will never devote an entire episode to. That's sort of a forgotten middle thing, whether, you know, whatever. And I feel like there's one movie per miniseries that like our listeners are like, holy shit, this fucking thing. How did I

[01:43:37] not know? Yeah, this is my new favorite movie. And I do expect that a lot of people are going to be like, oh, my God. How was I unaware of this film existing? Or that's some movie I watched on TBS

[01:43:49] when I was a kid. I had no idea that was the same Ramy movie. It all makes more sense now. I bet like it. But I remember it having, you know, 10 percent more mustard than right. Yeah.

[01:43:58] I think that movie stuck in my mind as a kid or, you know, when I saw it in a dorm room or whatever. It's so good. It is funny to think of it in Sam Raimi's career as well, where like

[01:44:08] we are all basically just like, I love it. More Dutch angles, more smash. Great, great, great. But Sam Raimi's reaction to making this movie was I need to relax. I need to retreat into a hold.

[01:44:20] He comes back in 1998 with a simple plan, which is his most toned down, you know, you know, sort of visual trickery free movie ever. But then the for the love of the game and

[01:44:32] the gift are similarly much more muted. Right. Like it takes him quite a while before Spider-Man sort of encourages all of his his Looney Tunes stuff again. Like he really goes into hibernation.

[01:44:42] Yeah. And let's acknowledge the other shift is I mean, it's what we've been like, you know, setting this up the entire miniseries. But it is so bizarre that he gets Spider-Man at that moment

[01:44:55] because they're almost calling him off the bench to do the thing he had sort of walked away from doing. Right. Like he had worked so hard to not be seen as that guy. And they were like, hey,

[01:45:04] the entire industry's changed. We need that guy. You know, it's like them finding the Gruber like at the fucking church in Mexico. We need you to cut your head and come back into action.

[01:45:14] We need an enthusiast is what they need. I mean, the thing is, like there was that's what that's what as a comic book fan, that's what we were calling for was someone who understood the

[01:45:22] material or at least the spirit of it in a way that that didn't nobody really did. Everyone was like, OK, we got to take him out of the costumes. We got to take him out of this. We got to ground

[01:45:32] them in this. And that was all the impulse. And he didn't do that. Right. Because Tim Burton, Bryan Singer, those were directors where it's like they were well-regarded directors. But in the interviews, they'd be like, yeah, I never really read a comic book like, you know,

[01:45:47] and that was seen as like, good, good, good, good, good. Yeah. You're not going to embarrass us here or whatever. Right. And yeah. Yes. Sam Raimi is a different vibe. I just remember walking on the first Spider-Man and going, that's the first movie I've seen that

[01:45:58] actually feels like a comic book. And so many people had tried to in a literal way, like Dick Tracy style, make something look like a comic book. But then they're like, you can make a movie with the aesthetics of illustration. And that's the first movie where

[01:46:13] I'm like, emotionally, this feels like a comic book. Right. They took the archness of its presentation. And I the thing was, when I read comic books, I treated them seriously, like they were, they had emotion between the panels and it wasn't just putting a proscenium arch

[01:46:31] around a frame. It really was something else. And I thought that he captured that for the first time more than anybody. And then also the technical aspects of it were so great. And like, he just

[01:46:41] sort of nailed it. And it wasn't until actually, I thought he was pretty muted for him in Spider-Man one and then Spider-Man two, where they have an actual horror scene inside of it with the

[01:46:53] surgery where you go like, oh God, that's the guy. That's right. Now he's fully back in it. Right. One, it still sort of feels like he's auditioning a little bit. Yeah.

[01:47:03] You'll get there. Yeah. No, I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. The other thing just to call out before I guess we should go on the box office game or any other thoughts we have is that the

[01:47:11] other thing that happens in the three years between this and Simple Plan when he sort of tries to remake himself as like a serious adult picture maker is the entire TV empire. Yeah. Which is part, that's part of his hibernation, right? That's part of him being

[01:47:29] like, okay, okay. Yeah. He's doing something else. Yeah. And he's actually figuring out a really good path for him, which is kind of fascinating and probably both more lucrative and more like

[01:47:41] ability to have success and also not have your life determined by a bunch of morons who run movie studios. That's the biggest thing I think is he sort of gets, he gets his freedom. He gets his

[01:47:52] sort of like confidence, you know, he's built this little empire. It's syndicated. They're not really beholden to anybody. It's ever expanding. He's employing all of his friends and his brothers.

[01:48:03] And it's like that. It puts a lot of the anxieties to bed maybe so that he's able to come back and just go like, what do I want to do as a filmmaker? That's the only concern. Yeah. It makes total sense

[01:48:15] to me that, that it would take something like Spider-Man to be like, okay, well that's a thing with enough resources and enough, you know, like whatever to, to pull me off of this other thing in

[01:48:25] which I control everything. And I don't have to listen to any of you idiots, you know? And, um, and that's a good position to be in, in your career to be able to say no to everything,

[01:48:33] which he probably did. He, you know, like he probably said no to a ton of things that we would have loved him to do, but it just wasn't right. And more power to him. We'll do, uh,

[01:48:42] at some point in some episode, but there he's one of those guys where there is an entire Wikipedia entry just on unmade Sam Raimi projects. It's not a subsection of his wiki page. It is its own page. I'll say non-merchandise spotlight. I know you've made the, uh, comparison

[01:48:59] very aptly a number of times now, Roman, but watching this, I kept on thinking like, God, I really wish there had been like a Sega Genesis game. It just, you could make sure

[01:49:09] the shootout game with all of these guys who would translate so perfectly into that sort of pixelated art style. Make that now make, you know, a web browser shooting game, 16 bit. I want to see,

[01:49:23] you know, fricking, uh, keep David and Lang's Hendrickson's faces all pixelated. Like I give me that please. With Gene Hackman is the final boss, obviously. Right? Yeah. Yes. Right. It just, it's feels like a layer. It's perfect. So yeah. What are some moments we have? Obviously this

[01:49:42] movie is sort of all moments. I do love Pat Hingle shout out Pat Hingle, uh, very well cast here. Commissioner Gordon himself with a little bowler hat. We've choked about this before,

[01:49:54] but it is so funny that like casting commissioner Gordon now is like casting a Yago or something. And it's like, who is worthy of picking up the bat? And at that point they were like,

[01:50:03] I don't know who's some guy who looks like a cop. Like never fit commissioner Gordon as a type. God love him. I mean, I love it both in all movies and as commissioner Gordon, but it is funny that

[01:50:15] every other commissioner Gordon, well, I mean the ones post, uh, Gary Oldman, right? Yeah. It's like a soft spoken, intelligent cerebral kind of, you know, war weary cop bangles just like basically

[01:50:28] got a pocket watch. He's like Batman. Are you here yet? Mr. Freeze is tearing up the museum. Like, you know, he's just, it also feels like every scene right before he goes on camera, he goes like, what's my guy's name again? Uh, yeah, exactly. Commissioner. What?

[01:50:44] Um, so, uh, Pat Hinkle, anything else? Yeah. I did the ending. I think, I mean, they, it's fun that the last 20 minutes of this movie are like an extended work, right? Like everything from DiCaprio's death on. And the payoff, like I, I love, um, court kind of

[01:51:02] turning superhuman for, you know, at this last moment where he just like shoots people behind his back and like, you get like his full powers and realize how much he's been holding back. And the, the whole premise of, uh, of like, she's literally not a better gunfighter than

[01:51:18] Gene Hackman, but in this moment she is and both you believe it. Gene Hackman believes it. They just made that really work for me. Like they, they built up this whole thing to lead to this moment and it's super convincing and very satisfying ending. And then she throws

[01:51:36] the Marshall star at court. Who's now going to be, you know, like the new, new sheriff in town. Just what you wanted, even though you haven't been thinking about it at all. And you're like,

[01:51:45] yep. Oh, that's perfect. You know, like it has all these things that come together and then it's like, and then black and then it's like done. And it's like no wasted time. You know? I mean, sheriff of what's left of the fuck.

[01:51:56] I know not the greatest town in the world. He left the, she left quite a mess in her week. Is it a lot of people showing up being like, Hey, is this where we do the shooting? And it's like,

[01:52:07] no, we don't do that anymore. Like, is that happening over and over again? Like, I don't know. It is this thing I love though, that, you know, she throws the star back to him. You're completing

[01:52:20] his arc, right? Here is this guy who never wanted to be a killer, who was forced to shoot this pastor who's tried to recommit himself to the cloth because he feels like he can never get over

[01:52:29] the sin. Uh, they tease him out. He realizes these innate instincts he has. He cannot help but kill when placed in this situation. That first moment, his first shootout, when you truly feel like he's ready to die and he is surprised that his hand reached for the gun

[01:52:47] and shot that really, really cool. It's, it's, it's shot really well. And he's also his like, his twitchiness when they give him guns to like, yeah. You know? And he, he's looking at him and

[01:52:57] he knows how to use them and he knows he wants to touch them and it's all there. It's shot really, really well. And, and it's super convincing. And then you get this moment at the end where you're

[01:53:06] like, I wasn't thinking about this. I wasn't thinking about the redemption of court this whole time at all. And, and then it's like, oh, this is the perfect marriage of the things he's

[01:53:15] feeling and wants to make amends for and his literal skill set, you know? And it makes tons of sense. It just, it just works. It feels like this very clean, neat, tidy, happy ending that

[01:53:26] is fully earned. But, but he like lingers on it for an additional moment before it fades to black where you see him looking at the badge and considering it like Ramy could have cut like

[01:53:41] a second or two earlier and it was just, he has the badge, everything's in order. And it does feel like there's this extra moment there of him looking at it and debating whether or not he wants to do

[01:53:50] this. And I think of like all three Spider-Man movies and like that it is this thing that's so distinctive in those movies that all three movies end with this weird lingering moment of Mary Jane

[01:54:00] being like, what happens now? You know, like all three of them end on her face, I think. Yeah. And the Evil Dead movies obviously all end with Ash getting like upended in some way. But I feel like

[01:54:11] he always like for a, he always needs to pull the rug a little bit or at least leave some kind of graduate ask lingering question of like, but is it really going to be that tidy? The guy, the guy

[01:54:22] still at odds with himself a little bit, you know? That's interesting. I think I read that differently. I think I read it as like taking time for you to recognize the genius of all this stuff

[01:54:34] coming together in the right way is like part of the way I read that too. But that's super fascinating. I do think he becomes sheriff, but I don't think it's something that like.

[01:54:44] It's not a tidy resolution in the end. I don't think he can take it on easily. I think he's nothing else. He has to start hiring a bunch of contractors to come. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[01:54:54] He's got shit to do. Such a good fucking movie. It's a good fucking movie. It's a good fucking movie. You want to play that box office? Last last thing, Lance Hendrickson's death, the squib shot. Oh, also the speed with which everyone takes all of his clothing.

[01:55:13] Oh, I know. Yeah. It starts fighting each other over it. And him, him like the image of him and is just his long underwear after he's been stripped. And he's like this naked, like plucked chicken looking thing is a real also kind of like pathetic and sad

[01:55:29] and and is a good image to end on him with with all of his like since he's all surface, you know, he's all like leather and you know, and yeah, it was all the costume basically. I mean, not all,

[01:55:41] but yeah, love Lance Hendrickson at all times. He also seems like someone who would scare the shit out of me in real life. But that's absolutely the box office game for this one is great. I got

[01:55:52] to be honest. Okay. Well, this film came out February 10th, 1995. Okay. This is a real there's a lot of Ben's choices in here. I think I'll just say quick in the dead open number two, six and a half million dollars on its way to an 18 million dollar gross,

[01:56:08] which is about half its budget. So rude, not go bad. Yeah, unfortunately. But it is also opening behind a very dumb comedy that was the launch, I would say, of a major comedy star. So is Billy

[01:56:23] Madison like sort of a Ben pick? It's a bit of a Ben pick. And it is indeed the film Billy Madison. Yes. Wow. And I do think getting your lunch eaten by Billy Madison, if you're like Sharon Stone and

[01:56:35] you're like, you know, big fancy Western is not a good look. Right? Yeah, it's rough, especially that one where it's right. So particularly dumb style movie, although I think it's a very good like that's one of my favorites. So absolutely. Right. We all that's top tier. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:56:52] Tamara Davis is also someone if there was ever a Ben region in March Madness, she is a real candidate. Yeah. Well, you know, it's a weird it's a weird bunch of movies. It's gone crazy,

[01:57:02] which I've never seen. But is the Drew Barrymore, Michael Ironside kind of like action indie, right? Yeah. Then CB for a crucial artifact. Yep. Then Billy Madison, then best man, the Dean Cain anti Dick. I've never seen that doesn't really exist. But what's the next one,

[01:57:23] David? It's a little film called Half Baked. Hell yeah. Half Baked is like hands down the movie I've seen the most. Not too surprising to hear that. Then skipped parts, which is like a Jennifer

[01:57:38] Jason Leigh movie that never really came out. Then the Britney Spears movie Crossroads. Yes. And then she made like a Basquiat documentary. And also an incredible, incredible like amount of music videos for awesome bands. Like, yes, really big music video. Some really huge stuff.

[01:58:03] Lot of TV as well. But also let's not brush over her Basquiat documentary. She worked at an art gallery in 1986 or is 83. She was friends with Basquiat. It's a documentary of footage. She

[01:58:16] shot interviewing him as her friend. Right. Right. Two years before he died and she sat on it for 20 years before she was ready to edit it. So it's like someone making a documentary with all this

[01:58:26] unbelievable unseen footage from fine. We're doing Tamara Davis. It's decided on the list. Half podcasted. I don't know. Billy Madison, number one. Quick and the Dead, number two. Number three is a it's a sort of it's a holdover from Christmas season. It's a very

[01:58:44] Tony pretty epic movie that is not very good. It's one of those movies that was clearly a major Oscar play and was widely ignored except for technical nominations. But it is a major moment

[01:59:02] for its star who is on the up and up. It's one of those movies that is basically forgotten, except as sort of a title. And it's it's score is kind of famous. It's a period film. It is.

[01:59:17] It's it's an it's a Western as well. It's another Western. Actually, we forgot to mention this one. So Frontier movie big. It's it's long. It's dramatic. There's crying. People die, you know. Did you have a guess until he said Western Roman? It looked like you had a notion.

[01:59:35] No, I nothing is ringing a bell with me. And this is like a this is the hallmark of me listening to the show and listening to the box office. So yeah, I don't I have no idea. The score is sending me

[01:59:47] because I feel like I keep track of like those sort of weirdly overused scores overused in trailers that people even forget what movie they're originally from. Exactly. And you say

[02:00:00] the holiday time of ninety four, it was released Christmas ninety four. It was a hit. It made a lot of money. It made not maybe not is enough that it made sixty six million dollars, one hundred

[02:00:12] sixty worldwide. You know, it was a pretty, pretty solid hit for what I think is an R rated, you know, super long. It's like, you know, two hours, 20 minutes or whatever. Yeah. What about the director? He's a director who has made a lot of epic films.

[02:00:28] OK, he's a fairly major director, but I would say he is not the best. It's not as weak, is it? It is as weak. It is as weak. So what's this week after

[02:00:40] glory? It's after glory. He also did a movie called Leaving Normal in between this and glory with a lot of Magdali. I think one of his better movies, of course, he does Courage Under Fire

[02:00:51] right after this movie. I already mentioned that this this episode. So is this the last samurai? It's not the last samurai that's in the 2000s. OK, that's really far off. But that's the only

[02:01:02] I can think of. That's first time I remember his name. That is this week, of course. He also made Blood Diamond. He made The Siege. He made Love and Other Drugs somewhat bizarrely. It's not it's

[02:01:12] not Legends of the Fall. It's Legends of the Fall. OK, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormond. Yeah, I recently watched for reasons I cannot remember. Can confirm pretty boring. Looks like right. Right. And it's kind of like a pit performance because this is post,

[02:01:35] you know, pit emerging is like Himbo King, Johnny Suede, Thelma and Louise Cool World, right? Like it's post that it's in his like River Runs Through It, you know, interview with the vampire legends

[02:01:46] of the fall days where he's so pretty, but he's boring. Right. He doesn't get to have any fun like and it's like one season, 12 monkeys and true romance and shit. It's like fun. Yes. Right. Brad

[02:01:57] Pitt is actually a very twitchy over the top actor. It is funny that 95 is seven and twelve monkeys like Legends of the Fall. Interview with a vampire is peak like 94. Let Brad Pitt just be

[02:02:09] pretty. Let him stand straight up bad and interview the vampire like Tom Cruise acts him off the screen in that movie. And it's annoying because it should be like, here we go. Cruising Pit,

[02:02:19] you know, right? Like, you know, this is going to be great. And Pitt is such a dishrag in that movie in Legends of the Fall. He's a little more fun, but he's just very serious. Very, very serious.

[02:02:29] Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's a James Horner score. Right. Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, I always think that movie is earlier because of how big it was for Pitt's career. But yes. Yeah. That's why

[02:02:41] I was second guessing it. Number four is a, you know, a dramedy, female characters. I've never seen it. It's the final film of a fairly well-known director with a very long career making,

[02:02:59] you know, Hollywood comedies and dramas. Three female stars, I would say two very famous at the time, one kind of on the up and up, but famous now. I always get these confused as a boys on

[02:03:15] the side. It's boys on the side. Okay. Well done. Who directed it? Griffin. That's what I'm trying to remember. Boys on the side is Herbert Ross. It's a Herbert. Right. It's his last film. Okay.

[02:03:27] After a very obviously Herbert Ross made Funny Lady and yes, the turning point in the Goodbye Girl and you know, Penny's from Heaven. He made so many Footloose, you know, steel magnolias. He

[02:03:37] made tons of movies. It's written by Don Roose, which is a Griffin, you know, before obviously he becomes a director. Yeah. Mary, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore, Mary Louise Parker. I get boys on the side confused with how to make an American quilt.

[02:03:54] Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I think that's okay. And I feel like there's one other movie of that era where I'm just like, which combination of the actors is it? Those movies where they're

[02:04:02] kind of generational and I'm like, which ones drew Barrymore, which ones were on a rider, which ones will be, which ones and Bancroft. Exactly. Yeah. Has anyone seen boys on the side?

[02:04:14] I've not. No, I've not seen boys on the side. It is really amazing to watch this in person because I was 20 years old when this came out and I have no memory of it whatsoever. I think you were maybe

[02:04:26] nine Griff. I don't even want to tell you. I think he was like six. I was six. I was six. And so this is a pleasure to watch. Honestly, he was about to turn six.

[02:04:39] My birthday's coming up. All right. Number five at the box office. It's a hit comedy that had come out in Christmas. It's made one hundred and eleven million dollars. Is it like a family comedy?

[02:04:50] No, it is more of a teen gross out vibe, although the characters are not teens. Sure. Okay. So it's a 1994 gross out comedy. Is it dumb and dumber? It's dumb and dumber. Wow. Yeah. Another Ben pick. Right, Ben? I'm sure you liked dumb and

[02:05:06] dumber. No, I hated it. It was actually really like felt like so beneath me kind of. You found it disrespectful. Yeah, it was disrespectful. It was tasteless, you know, vulgar. Sorry. Sorry for saying anything, Ben. Yeah. I mean, I don't love

[02:05:20] when somebody just makes a really loud, annoying noise for a long extended period of time driving a hit man insane, not your kind of thing, leading him to have a heart attack. That isn't hilarious

[02:05:30] to me. Some other movies in the top ten. You've got Nobody's Fool, the Paul Newman. Yes. Oscar vehicle. You've got In the Mouth of Madness, a little movie we've discussed before. Very good

[02:05:43] movie. Great. I remember seeing the theater and I enjoyed your coverage of it. I think that one's another underrated movie. Agreed. I think that was similarly kind of the quick and the dead of that

[02:05:53] series. Yeah, yeah. You got the kind of mostly forgotten film Murder in the First, which was one of the many Kevin Bacon Oscar play. Yeah, exactly. One of the many early 90s movie, the

[02:06:04] Kevin Bacon pops in and we'll get he got like a SAG nomination and got an Oscar. You know, like there's just like that run of bacon in the 90s where it's like he's it's post, you know,

[02:06:17] cute bacon in the 80s. It's him proving himself like JFK, few good men, River Wilde, Murder in the First, Apollo 13. Right. I don't need to be the star. I want to do good supporting parts in

[02:06:28] big movies. Yeah, he's good in all of them. And he's always overlooked. Is Gary Oldman the other counterpart in that one or am I thinking of a different movie? Well, Gary Oldman, of course,

[02:06:37] is in JFK. He plays Lee Harvey. No, no. But in murder. Yes, he is in Murder in the First with Christian Slater. Right. Slater Slater is the he's the do-gooder lawyer who is defending Kevin

[02:06:51] Bacon. And I think Oldman might be the villain lawyer or something. He's the associate prison warden of Alcatraz. He's the prison warden. That's right. Yeah. And he's oh, yeah, he's actually

[02:07:02] really good. This is one of those movies that's like it's a total six out of 10. Yeah. The actors of Slater is kind of whatever. But like everyone else is good because William H. Macy is in it.

[02:07:12] And Beth Davids, Brad Dourif, Arlie Ermey, Tobolowsky, Mia Kershner. Arlie Ermey is the judge, I think. Yes. What? He has a lot of fun. It's a very subtle performance, of course, by Arlie Ermey. Ben, another film here I'm noticing that maybe you were interested in number

[02:07:29] nine, the Jerky Boys. You know, David, you're completely you're completely off. Of course. Frank calls like, you know, I was too busy just deep into reading Moby Dick and, you know, fine literature. I would never laugh, you know, at like a guy who says you kicked my dog.

[02:07:50] And number 10 at the box office, Highlander three, the Sorcerer, also known as Highlander, the Final Dimension. Another Ben pick. Another Ben pick, of course, because can we say he's been petitioning to do Highlander on Patreon? Yeah. So if you guys are into that,

[02:08:08] hit us up a series of diminishing returns that you have. That will be a hard day for you. It'll be fun. We'll have a blast. David, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just to circle back quickly.

[02:08:21] I think I missed or you maybe weren't specific enough. Which Jerky Boys movie was it in the top ten at this point? Which one is this? Jerky Boys. I think it's the original recipe. The original 1995. The Jerky Boys. I'm just confused. They made so many successful movies

[02:08:38] together. It was hard. All right. The Jerky Boys. OK. Yeah. Eighty one minutes long. Honestly, longer than I thought it would be when I looked at the running time. I was like, was this a cool seventy five? No, they got to 81. OK. Yeah. So you're qualified for Oscars.

[02:08:56] You know, yeah. About 80. Yeah. So that's your top ten fun top ten, in my opinion. Even very dead was treated rudely. Yeah. Yeah. We're done. Roman, you host a wildly successful podcast that

[02:09:10] does not need our boost. 99% invisible, but it's a phenomenal show. Thank you so much. It's a real honor to be here. Like I listened. I've listened to nearly every episode of this show. Patreon

[02:09:21] subscriber. It was my it was my real companion during the beginning of the covid novel coronavirus. Yes. I'm familiar with it, but like especially that I jumped in there with all the Marvel movies

[02:09:38] and no, I this show means a great deal to me. So I'm really honored to be here. Thank you so much. It is long overdue. You've been very kind to us and we've been talking with you for like years now

[02:09:52] since you started listening to the show and you've been very supportive and a good friend to the podcast, even though it's only manifesting on Mike now. But I'm I'm glad I threw you just

[02:10:03] sort of the list of like, you know, oh, by the way, we should have you on at some point. Here are some of the things and you immediately sparked to like quicken the dead rules.

[02:10:11] Yeah. When you mentioned Rami, the one thing is like I feel like when it comes to like Evil Dead and Spider-Man, like there's there's a scholar of these things that is required for those movies

[02:10:22] in a certain way. And Quick of the Dead was sort of my like my favorite. And also low stakes enough for me to feel like I wouldn't ruin it. We do. We do arguably have three different scholars

[02:10:33] lined up for the Spider-Man trilogy. We do. We do. It's going to be that's going to be a good little run. I think it's a good run. No, but it's a real pleasure to be here. And thanks so much.

[02:10:43] Pleasure is all ours. Now, please never come on the show again. You make us sound like a pubescent voice. No, you'll be back. I think I did great. I think everyone I think everyone

[02:10:54] sounds marvelous. Everyone sort of talks about my voice, but like I'm a big lover of all voices, to tell you the truth. Like, yeah, that is not a bias I have. Yeah, but your voice is better

[02:11:04] just the way you said that. Yeah, I couldn't deliver it that well. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Roman. He says subscribe. I refuse to say follow, which it's just I'm all team Griffin on this one. Thank you.

[02:11:24] All right. Even if the terminology is wrong, everyone knows what I'm saying. I don't like follow. I don't know what it means. I know subscribe means something different to

[02:11:32] people, but it's like it's one of those ones that I do not I do not like follow. I don't know what does it mean. I'm going to download the thing. I don't know. I don't know. That's my thing.

[02:11:40] I'm like, I feel like if I say rate, review and follow, people are like on social media. Exactly. Exactly. No, I feel your pain as a producer, Ben, because I'm I'm a longtime producer

[02:11:50] in addition to being a host. And when you try to get your hosts to do something and they will refuse to do, I understand that pain. So I'm with you on that side. You're just trying to do what's right

[02:11:59] for the show. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a dream. Otherwise, it's never difficult to get me to do anything. But but subscribing is what it's called. I can't get behind. You got you got to subscribe. Then it's official. We've decided we're back to subscribe.

[02:12:13] You got to subscribe. And here's the thing. If you want to follow, you can follow our social media accounts run by Marie Barty. David's happy that I pulled off that transition.

[02:12:22] He's also saying wrap it up. Thank you to AJ McKee and Alex Berrian for our editing. J.J. Birch, Nick Loreano for our research, Leigh Montgomery in the Great American Elf for a

[02:12:33] theme song. Pat Rounds, Joe Bowen for our artwork. You go to BlankCheckPod.com for all the nerdy things that used to take up seven different call outs in this outro. Tune in next week for a simple

[02:12:46] plan. You can go to Patron dot com slash blank check for blank check special features where at this point we are getting ready to do the Batman movies, right? Yes. We're doing all the Batman

[02:13:01] movies we haven't covered before. It's called Hashtag Not All Batman. So no Burton, no Nolan, but we're including animated. I think it'll be a fun, weirdly diverse series considering that all the movies star a Batman. And as always, this is a different thing than I usually do, friend,

[02:13:23] as always. But I felt like I I had to read this, David. It could not go unread. The final little bit that JJ and Nick put in their research dossier for this week for Quicken the Dead is not

[02:13:36] specifically relevant to this movie, but I just think it's a beautiful thing. It says there's this great quote from Bruce Campbell that I want to throw in because I haven't yet talked about how

[02:13:45] much Ramey loves to garden. And this is the quote. He's had compost piles in the back of his house from the first time I've known him. Sam used to take Super 8 film and grind it up and then grow

[02:13:56] vegetables and eat the vegetables. He's the only filmmaker who eats film. That is pretty cool. That's pretty fucking cool. It's both like cool and sweet and also badass. Yeah. And I hope his digestive tract is handling that okay.