The Shining with Timothy Simons

[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 Oh pardon, no cast makes Jack a dull boy Does he say that out loud?

[00:00:27] No Yeah, exactly No it's typed It's not even a line It's visually depicted on screen It is in fact never said out loud This movie has like a lot of famous quotes Yeah You know, here's Johnny That's really another quote Podcast Backwards is Oh Scrap No wait, yeah

[00:00:45] Scrap Alright, T-S-A-C-D-O-P Sack Sack-top Sack-top Sack-top You can talk, please talk Please talk I have a friend who you can say a sentence to And he can just do that He can do it backwards He'll do like that mental math for a second and then say it backwards

[00:01:09] And then he'll, you know He can do a sentence Oh yeah, he can do a full sentence Wow Friend sounds weird Well we're not like close Okay He's more of like a friend of a friend I really, I can't speak to what he's like

[00:01:20] I feel like maybe I overstated it Yeah You just saw this guy at a circus Yeah, yeah He's my friend You guys ever heard of Barnum and Bailey? Barnum and Bailey That guy was a chicken Spelt the words backwards by pecking Hello Danny, come and podcast with us

[00:01:34] There you go Forever and ever Come and podcast with us forever and ever That's a classic That's a classic This movie, here's the thing I'll say about this movie A lot of iconic elements Yeah right, sure, sure It is pretty wild re-watching this And just going like

[00:01:48] Oh, pretty much every single thing in this film is iconic There are few films that I feel like are this thoroughly seeped into the culture The fucking rugs are iconic That's the thing, even if you've never seen this movie before

[00:02:00] This is absolutely a movie that you absorb by cultural osmosis Where it's like the lines, the looks Okay The movements, the art direction, the costumes Even things like I did not see this movie until I think I was sort of much older

[00:02:18] But had soaked so much of it in through osmosis like you're talking about Even like Redrum Yes You would think would be a massive part of this movie But it's really just something that comes up and is dealt with in

[00:02:31] It's just something that sort of gives you a jolt And that's that Yeah, and that's it I mean it's sort of, yeah, hinted at for But right, it's not like One of the million things I love about this

[00:02:40] Right, it's not like at the end they have to put Redrum into a computer And that unlocks a Or whatever It's not like This stuff doesn't come together in some way that's important Nor needed But even the imagery of like the Grady Twins is another thing

[00:02:53] Where you're like How can this one movie contain all of these elements? And you watch it and you're like Because anything that happens in this movie That is on screen for more than three seconds Somehow became indelible But can I say something? I agree with everything you're saying

[00:03:07] And yet, it's also a movie with kind of like 45 minutes of slow setup That's not particularly spooky And is a lot of conversation Yeah And like, then that's fine I love it all You know what makes it spooky though? If you just put on dramatic strings

[00:03:23] Sure, I know It's also one of these movies where somehow The pacing is in and of itself scary Where even when you're in the 45 minutes It's like he edited this film with like The weirdest rhythms of like too much air in between lines Yeah, God, I love that

[00:03:40] Where the whole thing from moment one is just like Why won't this movie speed up? There is that thing like If you had never seen The Shining If you're a person who's never seen it But lives in this world You would think

[00:03:54] Oh, like what I know about that movie Is it is the scariest thing I'm ever going to see Yes And when it comes down to it Only one person gets killed The entire film? The entire movie One person I mean like other people in the story die

[00:04:12] Yeah, like And right, there have been deaths And there have been deaths But there's only one murder And then Jack is murdered by the weather So I guess, I mean, I don't know The ultimate serial killer Right But yeah, this movie is two years after Halloween

[00:04:28] Which is a film that really kind of rewrites the rules of like Oh, you can kill everybody in a movie Halloween only has like four murders though People just were, you know People were satisfied with a murder or two back then Sure They didn't need, you know

[00:04:42] 20 deaths a second But flash forward I mean, I am as much a part of the problem Because when I went to go see The Meg I was like There are Not enough kills? There are not nearly enough That's all you got?

[00:04:57] How many kills are there in The Meg? You go like that's all you got? That's all you got You got The Meg And there are only going to be like five or six people I saw The Meg on a plane This is five years after Jaws

[00:05:05] Jaws is one of those movies also where it like Feels like there are more deaths than there are It's really just the lady The couple at the beginning The kid Right

[00:14:47] The voice of Butcher Boy Member of Shank's gang In Ralph Breaks the Internet Oh fuck Dude hold on let me shake your hand Then he's taking out his headphones So nice to meet you I don't think I knew that Look up Butcher Boy Just to remind yourself

[00:15:05] What Tim looks like Big scary guy with a beard Yeah fucking handlebar mustache right? Handlebar mustache But he still has value Even though he crashes in the race Absolutely You should watch that movie again I only saw it the one time Yeah it's good

[00:15:18] I remember thinking it was funny I wrote down some housekeeping notes That had nothing to do with The Shining And only because you brought it up now Do it Read us for free I think like a lot of people I thought that this show was

[00:15:34] And I love you Griffin I love you too I thought that this show was To your old friends A weekly podcast where every week You talked about the movie Blank Check Many people thought that And every week it was just that And that's the bit

[00:15:48] We just never give up I'll say this too In your defense I believe the first time I ever asked you to do this show Was in the first year When the premise literally was We only talk about Phantom Menace every week

[00:15:58] So I definitely pitched it to you as I have a podcast with my friend And we talk about the Phantom Menace every week I remember a phone call with you Where you called me to say I'm going to be in New York next week

[00:16:08] And I went oh great You should come on my podcast And you went I might actually be busy And I was like This phone call started with you Pitching to me that you're in town And would like to see me And the second I told you

[00:16:19] Phantom Menace every week You were like the schedule's going to be tight The schedule's going to be tight But here's the thing I love you I love you too But the idea of going on something That was Blank Check every single week Of course It's like a true

[00:16:35] I ain't reading all that situation Like I'm happy for you Or I'm sorry that happened But I'm not reading all that And it was So I was listening to the LA Film Podcast Which is like A podcast where they only talk about movies

[00:16:47] That were made or filmed in LA Or about Los Angeles And they talk about how it affected the city Whatever And they mentioned what your show was about And I was like Holy shit that sounds great I had no idea I always thought it was this

[00:16:58] So that's when I started listening And yes And now Now I am mournful That it has taken this long To be into it Well we all get there In due time Thank you for coming on the show Thank you This show is very stupid

[00:17:12] We're here to talk about Have you seen the movie Blank Check? No I never have It's not good You know it was written by the man who wrote Save the Cat Right? Yeah It's like his actual Yes Proof is in the pudding Here you go And it was

[00:17:26] We did an episode on it Like years ago Just to complete the joke It's cool A woman kind of Is like attracted to a boy in it Yeah True There is some like Boy woman flirting in it Yeah It's a former MTV DJ VJ Duffy Duffy Duffy Duffy

[00:17:42] Yes Duffy is in it? Karen Duffy It's like 1994 the movie Like Tone Loke Duffy Michael Lerner fresh off an Oscar night Yeah Lerner just being like Sure I'll give you 10 minutes Sure Give me that check back I got the check But Duffy plays this like

[00:17:55] One of those walls of cathode ray TVs Where it's like 12 of them You know where you're like This is cool More TVs Like you know Duffy like full on kisses a boy Like a child Yeah he's What is he 10? Yeah He's like 10 10 Yeah He's like

[00:18:11] Geez what is he 10? Right If that Right That was the second volume Volume 1 Save the Cat Volume 2 French the Kid Right They don't French They almost do Okay Lips are a little parted But blank check yeah Bad movie The other housekeeping notes Oh yeah hit me

[00:18:27] Is I just want to point out That the coffee spill Oh boy From the draft day trailer Is not in the final cut No The fucks your mark done Well Or wait We've made it clear We've mentioned Here's Maybe

[00:18:40] Tim you and I have been friends now for almost a decade A crazy thing to consider I'm assuming you met on the set of Draft Day Yes we did We got to know each other Sure Staying at the Homewood Suites outside of Cleveland, Ohio Yes Beachwood, Ohio

[00:18:52] We were in Beachwood, Ohio Yes And Right We went to Cedar Point together Yes And rode roller coasters The largest collection of roller coasters Oh I know Cedar Point You got all the good ones in Like that's a real spot There was the one

[00:19:04] There was the one that got shut down I think I kind of didn't want to do it anyway We both didn't want to do it We both didn't want to do it And we really accepted the out given to us by mechanical failure

[00:19:12] It was like one of those kind of like ones where it's like it's all wood No it's the one where it's like it goes all the way All the way up Locks you there in that position And then crazy drop And then spins you down

[00:19:22] But it's not as long of a thing It's just really the one big drop And we both were like in line for this for like over an hour And we're like we're going to feel good when we've done this Like we'll feel good an hour from now

[00:19:34] And when they were like it's broken and it'll be back up in 20 minutes We were like we're good Yeah we're good, we're all good But we went on pretty much everything else I got a horrible sunburn But the opening scene That movie all takes place on a day

[00:19:46] The draft day Famously it is draft day And we had already shot a bunch of other scenes We'd been working on the movie for like three or four weeks And then we went to Cedar Point And I showed up on set and I was bright red

[00:19:58] And I had to like try to paint me pale on top of I always think like I mean like they've got like movie magic They can make me you know No it looks really bad I look That one scene It's that one scene But all this to say

[00:20:13] The main big stars in the cast We had a very large cast of characters Main big stars in the cast were all at The nice hotel in downtown Cleveland, Ohio Yes And everyone else they put in The Homewood Suites Right In Beachwood, Ohio

[00:20:28] A town that is pretty much A series of car dealerships Yes And The two of us Wade Williams Yeah Wade Williams was there Yes There were a couple other guys Wade Williams I know that guy Some prison break Prison break guy Yeah yeah yeah He's awesome Great guy

[00:20:47] There were a couple other guys like us Who were like in the whole movie But aren't like the lead characters So whereas like someone like Pat Healy would show up And they'd put him in the shitty Beachwood hotel But he'd only be there for two days Right

[00:20:58] And we were there for like six to eight weeks Yes In the shitty Beachwood hotel Yeah and Tim and I immediately became fast friends Wade Williams At one point he was like Hey come down I'll cook you steaks And he like cooked me Pan seared Homewood Suites steaks

[00:21:12] It was like the most Wade Williams shit That's ever happened Like in his room Like in his hotel room He just like had a frying pan Yeah they've got like little kitchenettes There you know what I mean Was it good? It was great

[00:21:24] I mean man knows how to do it That guy rules He's like I mean one of you is like guys And everything's like that I mean that movie He didn't There wasn't like a green on the side You know what I mean Oh sure

[00:21:35] You're coming down here for steak You're coming down here for steak That movie As we talked about Like it was the most bananas loaded cast That's the thing Beyond like the fact that like Chadwick Boseman is in it Right Just like a zillion character actors Where you're like

[00:21:48] And like fucking like Puff Daddy is in it And Terry Crews Exactly Fucking you know Is it I always forget Is it Chai or Chi McBride? I forget I think it's Chi McBride Chi McBride And like Fucking Sam Superman's in it Tom Welling Yes He's right He's

[00:22:05] Sam Elliott's in it Right Sam Elliott's a coach We were just saying our cat We forgot Yeah we completely forgot Her part's largely cut out But yeah But like she's in it Right The other little housekeeping note that I want to Sure Throw out there

[00:22:19] Is that I was present I was present I witnessed Oh okay The Ellen Burstyn thing Oh you saw Tri Silence I saw Tri Silence You saw Tri Silence I saw this happen So that's how it went down It was just an absolute fatality in front of you

[00:22:33] It is It was like The only word Scorpion Like freezing someone And then like punching them into a thousand pieces or whatever Yeah like It was withering Yeah It hurt It sounds withering Yeah It was I mean like I don't know that

[00:22:49] I feel like you've done a good job in describing this movie I think so But I can only describe how it felt inside I can't describe what it felt like to everyone else In a loaded hair and makeup trailer Yes Like every seat filled

[00:22:59] It was the kind of thing where you keep staring straight forward And at this point I know and love Griffin And we've gone to Cedar Point together Right right At this point Like we pretty much spent all of our downtime together Yes

[00:23:13] And we were in the same van every morning, every night On set we were like chilling in the corner with each other Like Because we were both in this position where it was like This is weird this movie we're on Yes

[00:23:24] You were a much bigger deal than me You'd done several seasons of V No no no I think this was after the I mean like the first season had maybe just come out I think it was You had just done season two

[00:23:33] But maybe season one was the only one that hit the air Oh wait no Maybe you're right Right No I think you're right yeah Yeah But still You hadn't done many films No no Or with crazy big stars And we're in there with like Dennis Leary Right

[00:23:46] You know like what are we You know there was that one time where Dennis Leary was like Everybody's on their phone too much And I was like fuck awesome alright we're talking And he was like oh I didn't know I think It literally turned into like a

[00:23:55] Not to say Leary special I would be like tell me Leary Come on come on Yes Yes I don't think that he was understanding He was like oh god now I gotta talk Yeah God What I could give Just go to like a coffee place with Leary Oh

[00:24:07] And like you know someone's like Do you want like the maple coffee And he's just like Alright Here we go let me tell you something I'm turning on the flamethrower It was truly a like You know on set I mean it was It was It was It was

[00:24:19] It was It was It was For real like You know on set People used to talk to each other And everyone put their phones down What's up With You And they were like go off But we Yes We spent a shaman san time together We saw movies together

[00:24:32] We We Go see comedy shows together Oh that's right I saw you perform You saw me perform Yeah We saw We saw Nic Nic Thun We saw Nic Thun Yeah But then at one point I saw you perform Yeah And you were great Thank you You did the

[00:24:50] And it's like, no. Oh, oh, oh, the space jam. The space jam. Oh, that's great. Classic Griffin. So all this is to say is that we were friends and I pretended like I didn't know you after she said that. It was, I did not,

[00:25:07] I didn't want to call any attention to it. I would say pretty much everyone else in the cast, I would have considered a coworker at the time. And I was like, you and I were firmly friends. We were firmly friends and I let you down.

[00:25:17] She fucking bought it. And then Griffin looked over to you and was like, do you want to do my like Star Wars podcast? And you were like, I'm. Hey man, y'all are really good. I have children. No, but when you come to New York, I'd go to LA.

[00:25:31] We'd still see each other and stuff. But a bit that Tim has kept running for years is when the trailer for Draft Day came out, my coffee spill, which was supposed to be my character introduction was given like a prominent position in the trailer. Yes.

[00:25:44] And a lot of my friends were like, holy shit, you're in the trailer. You have like a real part in this movie. And Tim took it upon himself to correct every single person on Twitter and let them know that the coffee drop is not in the film.

[00:25:57] Not in the film. It did not make the final cut of the film. Especially when the film comes out and underperforms at the box office and people make jokes about me being in the movie and their only frame of reference is the trailer they saw,

[00:26:07] Tim will always respond, I just need you to know the coffee drop is not in the final. He's kept this up for nine years. Nine years. And especially what's great about it is that there is a draft every year.

[00:26:20] So every year somebody brings up the movie draft day and I get to be like, just so you know. Beyond people bringing up the movie draft day, I actually think draft day has gone from sort of like mid-sized hit to kind of like,

[00:26:34] oh, like a dad movie people sort of enjoy on cable to like genuine quasi cult classic. Weirdly. I mean, Tim, have you had the same experience that I have where every year when the draft day residual checks come in I am dumbfounded? Yeah.

[00:26:48] Because we were both paid like scale for that movie. Pretty much everyone was paid scale. 90% of the budget went to Costner and 5% went to the other six big name actors. Were you there when Langella rapped? When Frank Langella rapped? Rapped? Frank Langella, famous in showbiz.

[00:27:04] No, no, no, I'm sorry. W-R-A-P rapped. Oh, yes, yes. I talk about this all the time. Okay, that's less interesting. Took the sunglasses off. So you know what? Well, I think you've told this story. Langella wears sunglasses the entire film.

[00:27:17] It says he took that from some team owner he saw in interviews who was wearing sunglasses in the interview. He went, that's an interesting character choice. And he wore the sunglasses on, off set, in between takes, lunch, trailer, whatever. 100% of the time.

[00:27:31] And then when they rapped and they went, that's a picture rap on Frank Langella. He very dramatically finger on each arm, like took the sunglasses off as if it was like, as if you were going to be like, wait, you were Frank Langella the whole time?

[00:27:44] You're not Cleveland Browns owner, Mr. Fuck? Plucked them off his face and revealed himself. He plucked them off his face and then he went like this. He like put his hands on the side of his face. Yes, and then took a bow. Yes.

[00:28:00] What did Leary do when he quit? When he rapped? He went, you know the fucking thing about rapping? Black coffee, okay? Black coffee, okay? I just want black coffee. 12 ounces, black coffee. What a weird fucking experience. Yeah, yeah. No, it's fine. Everything about that movie.

[00:28:14] I have a podcast about the films of Ivan Reitman. Yeah. Hey, you know who's the guy that loves to wear sunglasses indoors? Jack Nicholson. He does do that, although not in The Shining, but in general. I have never looked up to,

[00:28:29] I want this story to be true so badly that I don't look it up. But apparently he has been asked not to go back to the Staples Center because he spilled homemade chili on the court. And it like delayed the game

[00:28:44] because they had to clean up the homemade chili that he brought in. I believe, I believe that is an onion story that took on in life. Really? It can't be real. No, I mean like there are pictures of him

[00:28:56] with like a Tupperware and some chili on the floor and he's going like, oh, well, you know. But I mean like, I don't want it to not be true. I will say this too. I feel like in recent years when he has been captured at the Staples Center,

[00:29:09] he's sitting higher up in the bleachers. You never seen courtside anymore. I think he's generally withdrawn from like public figure Jack Nicholson life or whatever. I don't wanna, my buddy Matt, this is his story. But he at one point was, he was in his drive,

[00:29:28] he was driving in Los Angeles and he like, you know, the car is at a stoplight, we're a little bit off kilter so he's driving. His driver's window is sort of right next to the passenger back window of like a town car.

[00:29:43] So it's a little bit off kilter. The windows rolled down and he looks over and it's Jack Nicholson. And he gives him the little chin up nod. He just goes, he just sees him and goes like that. And Jack Nicholson, they make eye contact,

[00:29:58] gives him the little nod. Jack Nicholson looks forward and then the window goes up. He didn't even reflexively give him the little nod back and then put the window up. He just turned and then the window went up. God bless him. Wow. Cool guy. Cool guy.

[00:30:17] I've done so many Nicholson's. I was gonna look at the filmography to try and shake this out. Now it's four James Hope Brooks movies. Yeah, so I was gonna write that. Mars Attacks Batman. See, there's a lot of them, right?

[00:30:30] But you're right, like we've never done like Chinatown or Cuckoo's Nest or, you know, Easy Rider or like famous Nicholson movies. Witches of Eastwick. I feel like, but yeah, like Terms of Endearment, obviously. But wait, Witches of Eastwick is a big one though.

[00:30:43] Yeah, Broadcast News, Batman, Mars Attacks. Yeah, that's it, I guess. But it's a lot. How do you know Terms of Endearment? Yeah, yeah, I mean. Someone's gotta give as good as it gets. Somebody's gotta give. Right. Nancy. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. Don't forget that. No, not at all.

[00:30:56] But it is this run. I mean, we haven't sort of talked about like the initial golden age run of Nicholson, which I would say is like, I'd say Easy Rider to Shining is the first sort of like, because then I'd argue the James L. Brooks period

[00:31:11] is like a transitional stage in his career. Terms of Endearment is three years after this. Yes. And that obviously he's like, you know, kind of flabby and like, then that was like against type at that point. It was like, oh, look at Nicholson

[00:31:22] kind of like letting loose here. Reds is 81. Reds is 82, 81. Yeah, but that's him also being like, I'll be a supporting actor in your movie. I'll be a character actor. I'll be a supporting actor. I'll be a supporting actor. I'll be a supporting actor. I'll be a supporting actor.

[00:31:34] I'll be a character actor. I'll lend my clout in a different way. Postman Always Rings Twice is the next year. Okay. Yeah, and maybe that's a good cutoff. Yeah, that feels like a transitional point. You know, before then it's all basically, you know, starring, transformative starring roles.

[00:31:47] Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, King of Marvin Gardens, Last Detail, Chinatown, Tommy, that's a small role. Sure. Which we found out was meant to be Christopher Lee. Yeah. The Passenger, The Fortune, one of his rare bombs, Cuckoo's Nest, Missouri Breaks, Things Are Getting Weird,

[00:32:05] Last Tycoon, Things Aren't Going So Great, Going South, which he directs and doesn't do great. So The Shining's actually a bit of a bounce back for him. It's been like a few years since like Cuckoo's Nest, which was his last like massive hit.

[00:32:16] I forget who it is, but someone who worked with him had a story about like asking him how they thought the movie was gonna do. Someone who was in a movie with Nicholson in the 80s or 90s, a supporting actor.

[00:32:31] And he said like, I don't make movies, I make classics. And it is one of those things where even when you count the bombs or like the weirdo picks in that run, you're just like by 1980, how many iconic Hall of Fame, Mount Rushmore movies

[00:32:46] with equally iconic Mount Rushmore Hall of Fame performances does this guy have under his belt? And even if it was only like a Burt Reynolds run where then it's like, okay, and then it's diminishing returns with a few rare upticks. It's like pretty much until he retires.

[00:33:04] Yeah, the highest tier of Nicholson movies is just kind of unreal. And this- Are you a Jack fan, Tim? Huh? You're a Jack fan. How do you feel about Jack? I am. And one of the things, I have a very damaging take

[00:33:18] about this movie that I don't wanna bring up till later because I came here to do nothing but praise this movie and these performances. But one of the things that I love about his performance in this movie, there is a lot of the stuff.

[00:33:32] It's almost like he invented the cliche of so many of the things that he does. There's a moment where it's the second time that he's going back to the bar and I think he's just gotten in a fight with Wendy

[00:33:44] and he's doing like a lot of physical, big physical- Isn't that when he does the sort of, I got two 20s and two 10s, like he's got that whole monologue he delivers? Actually, it's in the walk. It's in the walk down the hallway

[00:33:59] it's like he's just silently waving his arms. And in the hands of a lesser actor, that just becomes a weird cliche of playing a crazy guy. But he has a way of making that real, of having that come from a real place

[00:34:16] and feel grounded even though it, I don't know. I think this performance of his is incredible and there are so many opportunities for it to have been wrong or in the hands of a lesser actor. It's Stephen King's big complaint, one of his many complaints.

[00:34:35] It's like the minute you see that guy, you're like, that guy's gonna kill his wife and kids. I actually- Like, you're King's like, it's supposed to be a descent into madness. This guy seems scary from minute one. I also know a lot of people who share that opinion

[00:34:45] and like big horror fans where they're like, that's the fundamental issue with that movie is that the first hour doesn't work because you know he's crazy and you're waiting for it to happen. I actually weirdly, I would have agreed with that until I rewatched it this time

[00:34:58] and one of the first things that I made a note of was that in that scene where he's talking to the guys, I mean like yeah, it's like a little weird when he's like, that's intriguing. I just remember coming out of that scene thinking,

[00:35:12] wow, they really make him sort of affable and likable. Like you understand why- It's also fascinating how well they're able to dampen his charisma in a way. Where he's not compelling to watch. You're used to the animalistic sort of like- It's not like Easy Rider where you're like,

[00:35:31] I love this guy. Like yeah. Right, right. It does feel like he's submitting to the Kubrick house style and it's as much as I understand that complaint against his casting, it's like, but it's so greatly outweighed by the stuff he does in the last half of the movie.

[00:35:48] His stuff no one else could pull off and especially no other like movie star of that stature and your point is interesting Tim because it's like, in a way this kind of is his sense of a woman, right? Where it's like, this is the performance

[00:36:01] where the guy sort of codifies all of his tricks and tics into such definitive performance that's all kind of like bombast and whatever. Yes. But Pacino has a hard time coming back out after that. Right, right. It feels like even though Pacino made fun movies

[00:36:21] in the 90s, right? It's like he uncorked something and he can't. Right, and it's more rare than that. He knows he can do that now and he's just kind of like, I can't fucking do that. All of a sudden he's like trying to push a rope

[00:36:32] and it's like, that doesn't work. The whole thing in Heat where he's like, I played the guy like he's on coke and I'm like, you did that well. I'm not saying it's a bad performance but it kind of feels like every movie he walked into

[00:36:43] he's like, I feel like this guy's on coke. And you're like, what? Yeah. He's like, I don't know. But it's like, I can't play 100% normal again. Like he had to justify. Insomnia, that's what's so interesting about insomnia. He's like, I feel like this guy's on anti-coke or whatever.

[00:36:57] Should I just do the awful take right away? In that second scene at the, so he talks to like where the big party is happening. He's like, I want to know who's buying my drinks. Right, because the first bar scene it's empty.

[00:37:11] The second bar scene the second one is full. His performance in that second scene is about one half of a percent away from an I think you should leave Tim Robinson performance. It is madness. And what I don't, why the reason I almost don't want

[00:37:32] to say that is because I don't want, it almost affects the rest of the movie because you then start seeing, oh no, this is a Tim Robinson performance. Well, I'll say this. I think it's the enunciation, right? Like which obviously is partly Kubrick being like, and take 87.

[00:37:48] And like, this is probably just like, I don't know, should I hit this try differently? Like what the fuck does this guy want? But like, obviously that's what Robinson is so good at. And I think you should leave or whatever.

[00:37:58] Like where he just says a sentence where you're like, I never would imagine someone saying this sentence. Yes, but he's like, he's kind of doing it. It's like, yeah, I would like a drink. Yeah, right. I would like. But that's why it's fascinating

[00:38:10] that he gives great subdued performances after this. Because you do feel like, if he successfully uncorks this in this movie, the temptation to just like, I can do that. I'm watching right now. You guys will let me get away with it? You'll let me go this big?

[00:38:25] Sure, right, yeah, yeah. Like, right, right. Why don't I just lean on that forever now? Right. I can do that. I'm watching it. And you're right. I mean, like, he's got this weird, like crazy guy swagger. He's kind of playing with his jacket

[00:38:37] in this kind of like, you know, way. Yes, like that, if you look at all the other scenes, you can kind of see it a little bit. And I don't, I almost don't, I don't want to uncork this because I don't want this to come across

[00:38:50] as me denigrating the performance because I think it's amazing. And this is gonna tie into my general thought about this entire thing, is that low key MVP of this movie is Shelley Duvall. Agreed, 100%. And one of the things that I love about that first scene,

[00:39:12] like the why I disagree with the take of, oh, he's not the right, it's a descent into madness. Those two scenes back and forth of Shelley Duvall at the house with Danny and him being interviewed for the job.

[00:39:29] You not only understand like why these guys would kind of, you understand why he's the guy who's in a position to take a job like this. So he's not like a guy that's gonna take over the world. You also understand why they would have hired him

[00:39:42] because he's charming and affable enough. And you also understand, like he has like the domestic violence undertones of this movie that really stuck out. And I want to be gentle in the way that I talk about this because obviously, yes.

[00:39:59] It's loaded with the history of this film and everything. Yes, it is. You understand the character wise, you understand why the wife is with him. You understand why he, when he says, I'm sorry, I won't do this again. Why she believes him.

[00:40:17] And you also see that underlying thing, that violence in him and you see her giving like these rehearsed things of like, you know, and he did a great job and it's been five months and you're like, oh no. The whole speech she gives about like,

[00:40:32] you know, you do 100 times, you grab your kid's arm or whatever. It's heartbreaking. And you almost believe it and then you're almost just like completely so sad about, you know, but like, that's the thing. Like King obviously writes this novel. It's about himself.

[00:40:46] It's about like a frustrated academic who's an alcoholic who's, you know, can't get ahead and he slowly goes mad. And so then he sees this movie and he's like, well, I'm not this fucking guy. You know, like that's so much of the undertone

[00:40:56] of King's objection to this movie. The other part of it too is that like King has said like, my father was like a man with rage issues and could be prone to violence. And like when I became a father, I was worried about that within myself.

[00:41:10] And like the being a new parent thing where suddenly you find yourself having so much animosity at this child because they won't go to bed or finish their dinner or whatever. Like the level of rage you uncork there. I'm afraid of that.

[00:41:20] Scared seeing the shadows of his father in that. And this book is written from the perspective of a man who has like come to terms with that, developed a healthy relationship to his children, has come to terms with his own like history

[00:41:32] and all of that sort of shit, his father and everything. But I think it scares him to see this movie where it's like, oh, this guy's like a bomb waiting to go off. Right, but then that's the thing. It's like, I don't watch this movie and think like,

[00:41:44] oh, he's like a psycho who's gonna go crazy. But you do think like, oh, this is a guy who's bottled so much up. And in that interview scene, he's a little charming and he answers the questions the right way. And also I love about that interview scene.

[00:41:59] And again, I do think this is what Kubrick gets out of doing 100 takes of boring dialogue. Like suddenly everything sounds stilted in this really cool way. Like you get the sense that they're just like, can we get this over with? We need to leave this hotel.

[00:42:11] Like, who fucking cares? Like, they don't really care if this guy's gonna chop up his family. The way they talk about it where they're like, ah, it was an unfortunate incident. He almost chuckles. The guy, what's his name? He chuckles. He's like, well. He's like my predecessor.

[00:42:28] He killed his family. It's just like, you just think like everyone is just trying to ignore the thing that you, the elephant in the room. And that's how you feel about Shelley Duvall. Like, and that's just how I feel about all of it.

[00:42:41] When everything, it should feel natural that everything goes to shit. Another thing about the Shelley Duvall performance. But also it's ghosts. Yes, yes, ghosts. Which is Kubrick's take. He's like, it's ghosts. Yeah. Like, cause that's why he, I don't talk about it,

[00:42:52] but he gets so resistant to the King thing of like, well, this is a metaphor. And he's like, that's too depressing. Ghosts. It's about what if ghosts drove you crazy? Like, which is interesting. There's this fascinating thing that JJ, our researcher pulled up. Okay.

[00:43:07] Like early conversations between King and Kubrick. And I mean, we could dig into this more, but it was like off of Barry Lyndon was a flop and he's made several movies now that were like so huge and unwieldy and whatever

[00:43:20] that he was like, I need like kind of a commercial genre play, right? And the challenge of can I make the scariest movie of all time? Like that's how to make myself excited about this. He reads through a bunch of horror books until he finds the shining.

[00:43:35] And that's the one, there's this great anecdote from like his secretary at the time where she said she kept on delivering stacks of different- The books hitting the wall. Right. She'd deliver stacks, like just get me all the bestseller horror novels.

[00:43:48] And every 10 minutes she'd hear a book hit the wall. Right? Like he'd like read it and they'd be like, this is trash and would throw it against the wall into the garbage. And then one day she didn't hear it happen for like two hours.

[00:43:59] She was like, fuck, that's a good sign. She opens the door- She's like, what's your page turner? And she's buried deep in the shining. And she's like, I think the search is over. But he reaches out. Can you, do you know the quote I'm talking about?

[00:44:10] I don't, but I can start looking at the dossier. Kubrick reaches out to King and says he like wants to do this. And he's like, there's something kind of sweet and like a poetic optimistic about the ending that ghosts are real, that there's like a thing. Yes, right.

[00:44:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And he's like, what do you mean? He's like, well, it's just kind of sweet like to consider that there is like an afterlife. All right, let me get you the quote because it is really good. Right, like King obviously calls up Stanley,

[00:44:35] I mean, sorry, Kubrick calls up King and King is still, he's famous, but he's like, Jesus Christ, Stanley Kubrick's on the phone. Like, you know, he's so flattered. And King, the first thing Kubrick says is the whole idea of a ghost is optimistic, isn't it?

[00:44:49] And King is like, huh, what are you talking about? And he says, well, the concept of a ghost presupposes life after death. That's a cheerful concept, isn't it? And King is silent and then says, but what about hell? And Stanley Kubrick is just quiet

[00:45:06] and then says, I don't believe in hell. And King's like, okay. But like, it's just that like Kubrick is not whatever, like engaging with whatever- Selectively. Yeah, like whatever personal demons are fueling King. It's like King is like, ghosts are like,

[00:45:24] no, those are the things that haunt you that reflect the traumas of your life. And he's like, no, I don't think about that. Isn't that nice that we get to keep on picking around? Isn't it nice that you can just be like

[00:45:32] eternally giving a blowjob wearing a bear costume? That's nice. That's nice. Like, you watch this movie and you know, my takeaway is not really like, Stanley Kubrick thinks ghosts are nice. No, it's- Like, so I don't really know. It's a funny anecdote. This movie's, yeah, it's so bizarre.

[00:45:48] It's one of those things where like, even watching this, I felt the like, am I like kind of dreading doing this episode just because it is one of the most chewed upon movies ever, you know? And people who go so far in different directions with it

[00:46:04] in terms of like what they want it to reflect or what they choose to focus on and everything. I started watching, so the things that I did to prepare were, I've watched the movie a few times. I started watching the Stephen King Shining miniseries with Stephen Webber.

[00:46:22] Yeah, I watched it before. I bought what is apparently like clearly a bootleg copy off of e-mail. Right, it's weirdly hard to find these days. And it's not great. Elliot Gould's in it. Really playing Gould? He plays the guy, the boss guy. Right, right. Oh, really?

[00:46:39] And he's like really aggressive of like, I cannot believe that the board has decided to entrust this beautiful historic hotel to an alcoholic. I mean, it's like the most, it's very, it's not great. And they use the original hotel that like King stayed in,

[00:46:55] that he based it on, not this like magnificent, scary fucking lodge that Kubrick finds. And Ben, you know, the whole thing is like that miniseries with Stephen King being like, okay, time to roll up my sleeves and show you folks the real Shining.

[00:47:09] It's like, you've seen, it's like six hours long though. Like it's the whole book. Yeah. And it was on ABC, so like how scary can it be? And it's Andrew McCarthy, which feels like him over correcting this, like,

[00:47:21] I want you to not believe this guy could go crazy at the beginning of the film. And you're like, but is Andrew McCarthy ever gonna be able to get to Jack Heights by the end? Wait, is it McCarthy or I thought it was- No, it's Stephen Webber.

[00:47:32] Stephen Webber. Oh, it's Stephen Webber, Jesus Christ. Rebecca DeMornay plays- Rebecca DeMornay is Wendy. Weird. Melvin Van Peebles plays Dick Halloran. Yeah. And let's see, Pat Hingle apparently is in it. Commissioner Gordon himself. Tony is actually like, there is like a floating teenage Tony who talks to him.

[00:47:51] Oh, you like see him. You see him. And also Tony is like, it seems to be a little bit more of a figure that like Rebecca DeMornay will ask, hey, how is the job interview going? And the kid will be like, it's going good.

[00:48:09] He's gonna get the job. Oh, he's like a sort of seer. She's like a seer and the mom knows to ask. And the kid is like, oh, that's great. But I also started watching Room 237. Sure, sure. Well, documentary people know it probably about

[00:48:26] shining obsessives and conspiracy theories and all that. It's a movie about how many different ways this movie can be read. But it's also just about that obsessive mindset in general. It's trying to be right. It's like proto-QAnon. I guess so, I don't know. A little, it has-

[00:48:43] How like you can dig so deep into an entirely new hole. If I can just vindicate myself quickly, Andrew McCarthy was in the American remake of The Kingdom, which I think was also for ABC, the Lars von Trier- And also Stephen King.

[00:48:55] I just confused those two projects, go on. So as I was watching it, I absolutely agree with what you're saying. I do feel like it's gonna be hard to do this episode because this is one of like, this is well, well, well worn area.

[00:49:12] But as I was watching it, I was like, this seems maybe a lot more, this seems a lot less complicated than people are making it. If you just look at it from like a domestic violence, but also at one, and like, maybe this is me oversimplifying it.

[00:49:26] But the first time he's at the bar, he says, I'd sell my soul for a glass of beer. And then a bartender appears and gives him a drink. It's like, I don't know, maybe it's the fucking devil. Like, I don't, like, it seems so direct that it's like-

[00:49:39] Look, the whole reason I think that people obsess over this movie and Kubrick movies in general, and I like Stanley Kubrick, is that every single scene looks so magnificent in its blocking and staging that you're like, this has to mean something.

[00:49:55] Which like, it's not like Stanley Kubrick's just like, yeah, and I'll point the camera over there, it looks nice. Like, obviously he's thinking a lot about the, like when I think of room 237 and the way the band, you know, the bands around the bathtub,

[00:50:07] the way everything's perfectly set, it's so indelible, you know, when you think about the girls standing there and then the cuts to them being, you know, it's all beautiful. But then you like watch room 237, they're like, I think it's about the moon landing, why?

[00:50:21] Well, the kid wears like a moon sweater and you're like, uh-huh, anything else? No, like, I think it's about like, it's on an Indian burial ground. Oh, is that because someone says that and then there's like a fucking can- There's like a label- An Indian barrel, a headdress?

[00:50:33] Right, on a can of food in the back. And then I'm like, so what do you mean? And they're like, well, it's like, you know, they angered the Indian, you know, burial ground. And I'm like, yeah, with the premise of 80 horror movies, fine!

[00:50:43] I don't mind that, that's fine! And I don't really care what is happening here. I'll say this too, like, Nope just came out, a movie that all three of us, like, Ben, you haven't seen it yet? Not yet. But there's like such- You were supposed to say Nope.

[00:50:55] Yeah, you should've said Nope. Okay, we'll take it again. To try to accomplish it. Have you learned nothing? Have you ever listened to this show? Ben, you should've said Nope! You should've said Nope! To that question! Fuck! The industry around like the second Nope is released

[00:51:14] and every single outlet has their, all the Easter eggs decoding Nope. Sure, no way the modern internet responds to these things. And even you watch the movie, you're immediately like, I guess I gotta read some articles on this. You texted us, I feel like,

[00:51:25] and we have our Blank Doe thread as well. We're just sort of like, what are the good note pieces you guys have read? What are the things? And I think you get to a point where people like, and I think successfully, but like Peele,

[00:51:39] Shyamalan at times certainly, Ari Aster to a degree. You have filmmakers now who are sort of consciously constructing movies like this, where they're like, I know the expectations going into my movies are that people are going to look to do that work to crack the puzzle.

[00:51:54] So why not put that many weird sort of puzzle pieces in there? Whereas I think Kubrick was not intentionally like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for people to. Maybe he thinks that's interesting, the Indian, but I'm just sort of like, that's fine. That's a totally fine read.

[00:52:11] It just doesn't strike me as something where I'm like, throw everything else away. From minute one, I'm only thinking about Indian burial grounds or where I'm like, it's fun to read into movies. I love that. It's fine. It's great. It also doesn't mean that it's true.

[00:52:26] Right, and it becomes this weird sort of thing of like, no, we have to investigate the secret message the director was leaving for us. And I feel like most of the time when directors get into like Lynch or Kubrick, who are people obsessed over the most,

[00:52:40] they're kind of like, what do you think? And you're like, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, yeah, I like that. Or like, yeah, you should think what you think. It's rare that Lynch would just be like, wrong. Mulholland Drive's not about that. Think again!

[00:52:54] The secret message part of it is the interesting part to me because people watch this movie, not everyone, but so many people watch this film going like, what's the thing I'm supposed to decode here? Right, and it's not just like, what is the secret meaning of this film?

[00:53:10] But they treat it almost like it's like a fucking Dan Brown. You know, like, what is the puzzle left by the Knights Templar to uncover a conspiracy? Obviously, it's compelling to fold this conspiracy theory moon landing shit into it and be like,

[00:53:23] he was, you know, he's telling us something. Like, yeah, it's a confession, you know, like, that's cute. But I've never really gone beyond that, beyond the fact that he wears a fucking moon. Right, that's the main thing. To your point, what you're saying, Tim,

[00:53:38] I started watching the movie feeling daunted by like, how the fuck are we gonna talk about this? And then I just watched the movie. I'm like, oh, I can just talk about the movie I just watched. Talk about the movie, because it's fucking great.

[00:53:48] Right, we could just not feel the burden of fucking everything this movie really represents. Right, the other thing apparently is that the moon is 237,000 miles away from the Earth, which it actually is, and it's like 238. Yeah. I mean, by the end of this, we're all gonna be like,

[00:54:03] oh, it's about the moon. Oh, it's about the moon. This is a moony movie. Anyway. I'm gonna throw this out, and it's related to what we're talking about. And I do, I recognize the irony that I have come on a podcast which is like a talky medium.

[00:54:17] One of the talkiest. I'm fucking so sick of talking. Yes. As a performer, I guess, I'm sick of talking. And I am sick of the take industrial, this is very stupid, the take industrial complex surrounding television and movies where, the thing that always comes to mind

[00:54:39] is the last episode of Mad Men aired. I watched it, I enjoyed it. And then the next day, and even later that night, you have 1,500 articles where every person involved in the production tells you exactly what it means. Right, yeah, it became more, yeah.

[00:54:56] The oral history being published three hours after the thing is released. Yes. And so there is that part of me where, as much as I have both read and enjoyed some of those, and also participated in some of those as a performer,

[00:55:12] one thing that was really exciting about NOPE, and one of the reasons that I wrote to you guys to be like, what do you guys have on this? Because I didn't really want somebody to tell me what it was.

[00:55:21] I just wanted to read people being excited about it. I wanted to, that was one of the things I loved about NOPE. And so it was one of those times where I, a rare time where I really wanted to hear. I really wanted to hear more

[00:55:36] about what people thought about it. But that's like, I mean, the thing that's so exciting about Peele is that he's making movies at such a high level that are like super commercial mainstream in the sense that like you put his name on a poster

[00:55:51] and it's gonna open big, and everyone's gonna see it and engage with it. And part of the experience is that people know, I'm gonna see this movie and I'm gonna need to talk about it afterwards. And that people want to do the fucking work on his movies.

[00:56:04] That there's that kind of like challenge to them where it's just the best thing. When I had this thing, NOPE, and I had this, us opening weekend where it's like, people spill out of the theater really slowly. And then they hang around outside

[00:56:16] and they're like, so what do you think that was? And it just feels like we so rarely get that rather than the sort of pre-digested take, here's how you're supposed to process this thing. And this movie is such a, dare I say it,

[00:56:32] Rosetta Stone for engaging with movies in that kind of way. But such an extreme example of it getting like gamified. And I think Room 237 where people were sort of saying like, oh, are you guys gonna do a Patreon episode on that? It's like, no, just watch that movie.

[00:56:49] We don't need to do an episode on that movie. And I think the bigger point- We thought about it, but right, it's sort of like, what are we gonna say? But the bigger point of that movie, I think is almost like about the weird relationship

[00:57:00] so many different people will have to this movie in so many different ways rather than trying to solve that film. People do it, you know, 2001 obviously is one of those, like, wait, what's the meaning of that? What was happening at the end there?

[00:57:12] Obviously Eyes Wide Shut has become this thing where people are like, he's telling us about like Jeffrey Epstein and like Hollywood sex abuse. This weird Kubrick, so dark the kind of man every film is like, it's this very like QAnon way of approaching things

[00:57:26] where it's like the confession is right in front of our eyes and we need to decode it. And everything has to be some like buried message left to be discovered. Buried secret. Buried secret around my shambles. This happened recently where like a sort of an ex family

[00:57:42] member had been texting, long story short, it turns out that this person is kind of gotten some QAnon shit. Oh sure. And is texting someone who's still in the family. Some threads or some, check this video out or whatever, right? They texted, they were like, you know,

[00:58:03] here's all this crazy stuff that happens in Hollywood. And I mean, you know, Tim has mentioned that Hollywood's crazy before. And I was like, yeah, yeah. It's a little crazy. But why didn't you think of the 15,000 other fucking reasons it could be an insane place to work before

[00:58:24] we harvest children for adrenochrome or whatever the fuck. Just admit it. Just admit that you harvest children for adrenochrome. It'd make your life so much easier. That's what you make your film stock out of probably, something like that. That's what you're doing. It's hard to find.

[00:58:41] Wait a second, the clues were there the whole time. They were and honestly, like Dr. Sleep is kind of about that. Like Dr. Sleep, the sequel to, which I feel like is actually a better movie than people are willing to give it credit for.

[00:58:54] I think the movie rules. Rewatching this made me even appreciate Dr. Sleep more. And the director's cut is an excludement if you haven't seen it. We are doing that on Patreon. Oh, you are? Okay, I actually haven't seen the director's cut,

[00:59:04] but I will have to go check it out because I really liked it. But that is like, guys, that's just like part of like, that's just part of that movie. Like, yes. I'm trying to remember now. They're just like, they're trying to get the gas from the kids.

[00:59:15] Yeah, yeah. It's like, guys, if we were really doing that, do you think we'd, I don't know. You think we'd leave hints in movies about it? Yeah, it is fascinating though. Right, the hints part of it is always what confuses me where you're like,

[00:59:27] you think these people have these secrets that they have to hold onto their dying day, but yet they leave these hints out in public to sort of like taunt everyone into like, you'll never fucking catch me. And the weirdness of the Kubrick thing

[00:59:39] where so much of it is that like, he doesn't do press. There's years in between the films. He's got such a sort of- He lives in like a castle in England. He has a sense of control over his movies. He's so mysterious that people just are going like,

[00:59:50] every one of his movies is him revealing the secrets that he can't directly speak about the weird subcultures, conspiracies, and mysteries that he's gotten too close to where it's like, you think he's tied to all of this? He's like the one man link between every secret society,

[01:00:12] every like American ill, you know? And it's just like, I don't know, he just might be a guy. All right, let me give you some context while we might as well actually get onto, right, researched evidence of Kubrick's thinking. Yes. Post-Barry Lyndon, as you say,

[01:00:32] Kubrick doesn't know what to do with himself. Movie's not exactly a colossal hit, although it does get Oscar nomination. So like you say, he's just reading. He's reading, pulling anything he can find, newspapers, magazines, anything. Paddy Chayefsky approached him. To do network.

[01:00:50] To direct network, which is an interesting what if. Yep. Because I feel like Lumet is a master, but Lumet is the master of like, I'll mold myself to whatever this project is, I do all kinds of different stuff. I mean, in the opening credits for that movie,

[01:01:05] it's Paddy Chayefsky's network. And I remember people at the time asked Lumet, like why did you do that? And he's like, well, he's like the major author of this film, I'm not gonna, I just directed it. I mean, look, that's what's so good about Lumet.

[01:01:17] Like he was so generous about it where he was just like, I'm just serving this script. You say Lumet and you say Lumet. I say Lumet. I say Lumet. It is Lumet. I think I say Lumet as like a matter of, Oh, okay.

[01:01:28] I do it all the time. I've been thinking, okay, I was wrong. It's in Lumet, right? It's in Lumet. Did you ever read the Lumet book? It's incredible. The best. I love that he's just like, The number one best book on movies.

[01:01:36] Here's my, here's how to make movies. Don't forget to take a nap at lunch. Everything about it's so practical. I avoided reading that book for years because I thought it was going to be a lot of director books where they're like, let me take you through my filmography.

[01:01:49] And I was like, I should watch more of his movies before I read that book. And then one day I cracked it open and it's obviously more just that. It's just him being like, let me tell you about what it is like to make a movie.

[01:01:58] Every element you have to balance. Like he mixes in some anecdotes. I mean, you must be obsessed with this book. Like it's like your favorite, right? Yes, yes. But there's every type of thing. Like he talks about like taking a nap. I mean, it's like that, the fucking-

[01:02:11] Talking to actors. Looking at brushes. Teaching acting, especially that was then transcribed into the book where it's just like, okay, here's what you should eat or not eat. You know, that sort of shit. Yeah, you don't want to turn up to set

[01:02:24] on with like bacon in your stomach or whatever. And then Lumet will like talk about shit where he's like, I made this movie, Daniel, about a suicidal guy. So my big choice was like never show the sky. So it feels really claustrophobic

[01:02:35] and like save it until the end of the movie where his world finally opens up. And you're like, that's smart filmmaking. What's also smart filmmaking is you know, have a banana in the morning. Right, or whatever. Always have a pocket banana.

[01:02:48] The other thing that's amazing about that book is that Lumet like never worked in Hollywood. Like that's why he's the greatest ever. Like he says, like I shot like one movie in LA. Right. I always just work on location. But it's like, I fucked this one up.

[01:02:59] Here's what I learned about what I did wrong. I love that too. Yeah. And when he's so mean about some actor but he won't name him and you're like, sick of me, you class act. Anyway, Kubrick, considered for network, liked the script, but Chayefsky eventually is like,

[01:03:11] you shouldn't do it. We're two control freaks. It won't work. It's two type A's. Seems very correct. Yep. He reads The Shining. He's consumed by it. He had seen Carrie, but otherwise has no experience with Stephen King and not read Stephen King's books or anything.

[01:03:25] Look, in this research, there's a lot of him being kind of like, you know, a little passive aggressive about Stephen King or a little like backhand complimenting where he's like, Stephen's ingenuity lies in construction of the story. I don't think he's very interested in writing himself or whatever.

[01:03:41] You know, like- Yeah, there's that quote I saw from him. He keeps sort of saying like, look, he's a little trashy, but he- He puts like every idea he has on the page without editing, which makes for a compelling read but doesn't make for a compelling movie.

[01:03:51] But I also think Kubrick's whole thing was like, a movie's not about what it's about. It's about how it's about it. Sure. So he's just like, Kubrick lays out a really good plot. King rather. Right, yeah. He's got a really good plot, really good elements.

[01:04:05] I can make whatever movie I want with that as a blueprint. And the way he puts it is he's just very compelled by the you're gonna be in this movie for so long wondering, I mean, it's such a simple concept now, maybe a little different then.

[01:04:19] Is this guy crazy or are these supernatural events? Like he loved, I mean, he just loved, he calls it ingenious and exciting and extraordinary balance between the psychological and the supernatural. I guess I don't know enough about horror literature to know maybe that really was revolutionary

[01:04:37] when King's writing where he's like, I'm writing a character study of a broken guy, like of an alcoholic. And so you can read this book for a long time thinking, like, is this an unreliable narrator? Like, is this just not supernatural? Sure. I don't know. I don't know.

[01:04:56] Yeah. It's really not. I mean, it's been going on since fucking whatever, right? Jekyll and Hyde or whatever. Not to be like a fucking obvious motherfucker. Okay. Well then don't be. Fine, then I retract the statement. What were you gonna say? What were you gonna say?

[01:05:10] Did you guys find as I did that this movie plays differently post pandemic? Oh yeah. Oh Jesus, that was one of the things that I wanted to talk about. Right, right. Because you do have that thing where like, even beyond like the alcoholism,

[01:05:23] this guy's sort of latent rage, you know, his own anger, what have you. There is that thing we're watching it. I'm like, yeah, I understand how being stuck in one place for this long would eventually make you break your fucking brain. And I do find now that like,

[01:05:37] if like I had stomach troubles yesterday, I spent the whole day in bed. It's so much easier. It takes so much less for me to start feeling like I'm losing my mind if I am in isolation for 24 hours after spending like 15 months in isolation.

[01:05:53] Like it slips back so quickly to like, what is my reality? Like somebody I know got heat stroke one time and apparently once the body finds, gets heat stroke for the first time, it's almost like the body says, I'm not a doctor. It's like the body says,

[01:06:09] oh, well now we know how to get there. And it becomes, so I had to, over the course of the pandemic, twice I had to go to Canada to finish jobs. I had to do two separate two week hotel selections. Sure, sure.

[01:06:26] And one thing about spending two straight weeks in one room without leaving is that you go insane very fast. And so yes, this did hit differently post pandemic, especially because by like the 11th day, you're like, I belong in here. I don't exist anywhere else.

[01:06:49] And frankly, I don't want to go out there because it's better for me. And there's no going back. I can't be the person I was. No, I can't be the person. And that pathway, I remember the second time, I hit that on like day five

[01:07:03] because the body was like, oh, we know where we're going. That's the thing. Right, I mean, when I got COVID and I was pretty lucky in that I got a pretty mild case and I was like free of symptoms

[01:07:14] and testing positive again after like five days or whatever. When I text David and Ben and Marie on like a Sunday to say like, I just tested positive. We got to fucking reschedule episodes for the next 10 days or whatever. I was like, I feel not great, not horrendous.

[01:07:31] The thing that scares me most is I just now have this like, I have to be alone in my apartment for 10 days and I'm just preemptively worried about knowing how quickly my mind is gonna slip into just like Jack Torrance shit. So it's 34-

[01:07:45] I'll be in this hotel forever. I've been here forever. It's 3411 into the movie and you get the title screen a month later and he has lost it. And I'm like, oh, big deal. One month later, like post pandemic. Whereas before this shit, I would have related

[01:08:03] a little bit more to the isolation. I'm like, whatever. Whatever, you can deal with that. A month and you're already showing signs of insanity. I watched this movie and maybe it is a little bit of a post-pandemic thing. I've seen this movie 1 billion times.

[01:08:16] It's like one of my favorite movies. But just the tour they do where, and you know, Scatman's doing a great job. He's so friendly. I wanna circle back to Scatman, who I think is the second MVP of this movie. Yeah, fucking rules. But like where he's like,

[01:08:32] and in here we've got like 20 chickens and eight, and I'm just like, obviously there's the comforting side of like, great, they've got enough food. And then the other side of like, fuck, this is it. It's for you. You're gonna be locked in here.

[01:08:45] Like I just start to, my hands itch. There was one thing- What are we gonna eat tonight, love? I don't know, another fucking lamb shoulder or whatever. I have a thing about like transitional spaces. And there's a great moment in the movie where the family comes up

[01:09:04] and the guys are kind of walking them around and they show them that room. And it's like, why can't they like stay up in like the nice penthouse room? Why did they have to stay in like that shit? Yeah, right, right.

[01:09:12] Why are they in like a boring hotel room? But they're showing them around during that tour. The fact that it's like so busy. It's one of the scariest things is this idea that it's so busy, but they're like by five o'clock

[01:09:23] it's gonna be like no one was ever here. That transitional time has gotta be fucking terrifying. I started thinking about it, and I think there's a little more of it in the book, which I haven't written in a long time, of the idea of like you sit down

[01:09:35] and then you watch people leave. And it's like watching Sand Through an Hourglass where you're like, oh, they're not coming back. That's another one that's gone forever. And then like, you know, the janitors start to go and you're like, off they go.

[01:09:45] And then it's like just Scatman maybe and he's like, all right guys. All right. Crank it up. You know, I see it obviously. We just cut forward, but like that is so scary to think about. I wouldn't take this job. I wouldn't either.

[01:09:57] It's like any of those movies or TV shows where people are on like Arctic bases, you know, like the ship or whatever, where it's just like, oh, cargo delivery. This is the first new face you see for six months.

[01:10:07] And then you can set your watch at six months until there's another, you know. Have either of you guys ever seen, any of you guys, there's the great fucking Twilight Zone episode. I'm trying to remember what it's called, but it's Jack Warden.

[01:10:20] And he's like stuck in a weird desert in a small house with his wife. The lonely. The lonely. He's got this beautiful wife and he's, you're like, is he, is this some experimental? Is he here for research? What is this?

[01:10:35] And then these guys come down to get him and it turns out like, no, this is a form of prison. Right, he's been like put on an asteroid or whatever. He's been put on an asteroid. He's on like a prison planet where the whole thing is isolation.

[01:10:46] But they're like, we don't want them to totally lose their minds, so we give them a robot. So there's like someone to talk to. And his wife is this robot and they're like, we can't take the robot back with us because she's too heavy.

[01:10:57] There's not space for her on the ship. And he's just like, my entire identity has become. Being in love with this robot. Yeah, I can't, like he's like, I have to kill one of you. I have to get off this planet, but I can't lose her.

[01:11:14] You know, and it's like, he gets so conditioned to this bizarre reality, this punishment. At the end, the guy shoots the robot and then she's a robot and that snaps him out of it, right? Like that's what it is.

[01:11:25] Yeah, you see her face like with all the gears and wires under it. It's a really fucking good episode. Yeah. Problematically when I think about the show Westworld, it never really hit for me because mostly I'm just like, I don't know, turn them off. Right.

[01:11:40] You know what I mean? Just turn it off. Yeah, like, okay, I'm sorry, this robot loves its daughter. Okay, they're both fucking robots. I don't know, turn them off. You would be considered a villain in Westworld. I think I would be a villain in Westworld.

[01:11:52] Honestly, you might've been good at like one of the guys with like the iPad. Yeah, turn them off. Like the trauma meter is so high on the, why is this thing so traumatized? Back to the death storyline. I don't know, I mean, like does anybody feel bad about,

[01:12:08] like one of the parents like at my kid's school even asked me, they're like, well, what if you found out that, you know, our son was a robot? I don't know, fucking turn him off. Like what the fuck? Like what if I found out the toaster didn't work?

[01:12:21] I don't like, I don't, anyway, that's like we don't need to go too far. Yeah, yeah. The shining. So right, so Kubrick, another backhanded quote, the novel is by no means a serious literary work, but the plot is extremely well worked out

[01:12:36] and for a film that's all that matters. Again, be nicer Stan. Yeah. Just be like, you know what? I love the book. Like why doesn't he just say that? It's really just the same sentence. It's especially interesting because when the movie comes out. Thought the book was great.

[01:12:49] Right. Yeah, yeah, sure. But from the first screening Stephen King's like, fuck. They like, they massacred my boy and then proceeds to like for five years be very polite about this movie. Right, right, the griping was like a slow incline, like very slow increases.

[01:13:03] Whereas Kubrick, when the movie's coming out is like, I mean, obviously this novel's dog shit. Right. This guy can't fucking write his way up a paperback. It's just very interesting all the Kubrick quotes, which is funny considering that people are, you know,

[01:13:16] unpack his movies in this way of like, what does it mean? And he's instead just like, a story of the supernatural shouldn't be taken apart or analyzed closely. The whole test of its rationale is whether it's good enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck.

[01:13:29] Right. Which she's right. Every way he described this movie was just like, I really want to see how much I could scare people. It was an interesting challenge to me. I bring up Casablanca all the time for this example, because I showed Casablanca to my friends

[01:13:42] because I love Casablanca. Good movie. What do you guys think? It's a great movie. Great movie, yeah. Fans probably not seeing it. Is that the one where they're in Casablanca? Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I remember showing it to my friends as a teenager.

[01:13:57] It's like a little budding cinephile. Sure. And them watching it and being like, that movie's corny. And I would be like, well, I mean, no, every movie copied it. Right. And when you watch The Shining for the first time, literally there are little girls who say,

[01:14:12] come play with us forever and ever and ever. And you should be like, well, that's the, I've seen this a million times. Like, right? If you're in 2022 and you've never seen The Shining. Creepy little girls being, come play with us. Like, anyway.

[01:14:25] And yet it is still so, so scary. We were talking about where you're like, how do you talk about this movie? And it's like, oh, you just watch it and react to it. Because the thing, you don't have to like, create a context around it.

[01:14:34] It appears to her being like, I had to correct them. Again, like just feel like that's cheesy. And yet not at all when you watch the movie. You're so unsettled. It's so, it's so good. And while I was watching it this time,

[01:14:47] instead of thinking about those big things, those sort of like big analytical things, I found myself thinking about how, like about how the fuck did he make this so scary? And I feel like one thing that I noticed, and it happens a few times,

[01:15:04] is he waits a really long time. Like it happens a few times, I think three or four with Danny. The first time Danny sees the girls in the game room, the tennis ball, and shit, there's one other time, where it kind of gets in on his face.

[01:15:21] Somebody sees something, and he just doesn't fucking cut to show you what they're looking at. And the first time is in the game room, it goes into Danny, and he just holds on that kid. And you are like, show us what it is. You are, it is maddening,

[01:15:40] because you are fucking show me, I am so scared. And when it turns, like even just the technical things of like a new horror filmmaker, or somebody like maybe without the clout might do like a zoom in on the twins or on the two girls.

[01:15:57] But it's just, he just kind of has them wide in that room. And it's like you are now inside Danny's head, just seeing these two girls in the room. The weird magic of the editing rhythms of this movie where you're like everything goes on for too long

[01:16:13] without being boring. And it somehow only makes you more on edge where you're like, can we please fucking hurry this up? Whether it's the terrifying image, whether it's the windup for the terrifying image or a conversation, you're like, something's wrong here. Can we just get on with it?

[01:16:28] One of my favorite scenes is the scene Tim, you know, read for filth earlier and said was basically just like a fucking Netflix sketch. The bartender scene. Because like, it's, you know, Danny's in his weird air taker outfit, his like sweater thingy.

[01:16:45] Everyone else is in like 1920s regalia. Joe Turkle, who recently died, right? Very recently died. Who's the bartender. Who just has like a face like a fucking slab, like the most incredible tomb's fate. And there's also a Tyrell and Blade runner. Right. Love him. Oh shit, yeah.

[01:17:01] He's like so clipped and chill and nothing happens in that scene except this weird exchange of dialogue that's so stilted. And you're just like, what the hell is going on the entire time? Like, or what's the turn that's about to come?

[01:17:15] Like what's the, and there's no, you know, there's no jump. There's not really jumps in this movie, really, right? I mean like, I guess, getting axed is a bit of a. I'm sure, yeah. But even that, even that you, it's, even that when you're going up the hall,

[01:17:31] every one of those pillars, you're like, fuck, he's behind that one. Right, you're pretty prepared for it. And then you're like, oh fuck, he's behind the next one and then he isn't. Yeah, and also just the way the music works. It's just, it's not whatever.

[01:17:41] It's not how jump scares evolved. I don't know. I think Skepman Crothers is kind of incredible in this movie. And it's an obvious like complaint, the people who like to ding this movie and it's rooted in King's analysis

[01:17:55] of what he thinks Kubrick missed or lost from the book. But like Kubrick's whole thing was, he took all the emotion out of it. He's like such a icy clinical filmmaker. And he's like, literally the book ends with fire and the movie ends with ice.

[01:18:08] The guy seems crazy from the beginning. No one really feels like a human. He made Nancy, Wendy, Wendy. He made Wendy into too much of like a victim from the beginning, all this sort of stuff. That's sort of like the push against it.

[01:18:25] I think Skepman Crothers has so much humanity in this film. Yes, so much warmth with the kid and later. It's such a respite that scene. Like every time I watch this movie and I get to the scene where he relates to Danny and talks about The Shining,

[01:18:38] I'm like, this is the only scene in this movie that makes me feel a little comfortable. And there's something about the fact that like talking about the whole dynamic between Wendy and Jack, the other piece that I think Shelley Duvall plays so well

[01:18:54] is like her undying love for this kid and the understanding that she's sort of gotta be with this guy. And the way that I think a lot of people who are in abusive relationships justify these things to themselves. It's like, I have to maintain this family dynamic

[01:19:06] for this kid. I have to try to fix this man for this kid. I can't ever truly hate him because he gave me this kid. And Jack has this resentment of his kid being weird. Right? Like why can't you be normal? And Scatman Crothers, like you think like

[01:19:22] going back to this idea of like Redrum being this gigantic thing, like you think The Shining, The Shining, The Shining. I had forgotten that Scatman Crothers is like, we called it The Shining because it's a positive thing. You shine. And it's like, here's the one person

[01:19:38] who knows how to talk to this kid. You know, Wendy has so many levels of sort of self justification and sort of what she chooses to accept in her reality or not as much as she loves this kid. Scatman's able to talk to her, to Dani so directly,

[01:19:53] so calmly, so confidently and with such a true like warmth. There's that feeling of like, when you see someone who really knows how to talk to a kid, not talk down to them, treat them as an equal but with understanding of the delicacy of the thing,

[01:20:09] you know, it's really impactful. Yeah. And that it is like, you shouldn't feel burdened by this. He's so, he's so goddamn good. Tony's cool too. Yeah, he's a cool guy. Like I like his voice. Little finger guy, you're saying? Yeah, absolutely. What? No, I was gonna say,

[01:20:28] do you know that Scatman Crothers was the voice of Hong Kong Phooey? Really? Yeah. He was the voice of Hong Kong Phooey? He's jazz, right? Autobot jazz? Yes, with the Transformers. Will you tell me, because I didn't intentionally, didn't look up a lot about it,

[01:20:41] what did Scatman Crothers do outside of this? Hong Kong Phooey, Autobot jazz. Well he was like a big band leader and then singer. Like that was his, that's how he got famous. Like initially he's like a famous singer and performer. He's called the Scatman because.

[01:20:59] The song Scatman is about him. Well yeah, he was a scat singer. Like he would do that. That's what I assume. But yeah. It would be funny if he was just like, no it's just his name. Just like, no. No, his real name is Benjamin Crothers.

[01:21:08] Yeah, it's like if there's a guy named Rock and Roll Tompkins and they're like, why you call him Rock and Roll Tompkins? It's like, that guy created Rock and Roll. Right. He's in a. He was the best at it. I mean he's in a zillion movies,

[01:21:19] but he had been in a bunch of Nicholson movies. He's in King of Marvin Garns. Oh sure. And The Fortune and Cuckoo's Nest. And so Nicholson recommends him for this. And Nicholson apparently said to Kubrick, like look, he's really good, but he will struggle with these lines,

[01:21:32] like to remember his lines. He's not like, that's not his forte. And apparently, you know, that was because Scatman struggled with the Kubrick 80 takes per shot thing. But Nicholson does say like, Kubrick was never gonna replace him. Like there was never any kind of tension like that.

[01:21:50] All right, so here's a Scatman quote. One scene I get out of a snowcat and I walk across the street with no dialogue, 50 takes. Yeah. I really do wonder what you think as an actor when that's happening to you. I don't know, I just think, I think Kubrick,

[01:22:02] like even with a very obviously emotional performance like Wendy in this, he finds a way to break his actors to a point where they all have that odd Kubrick vibe to them, you know? And even Danny Casting, like a real kid, they had such an extensive search

[01:22:16] to find a kid who felt real. But he exists on this Kubrick wavelength. And Scatman somehow avoids that, where you're like, he's from a different movie. He's from a warmer reality where people know how to relate to each other. And when that one scene

[01:22:29] where he's on the phone at the airport, you're weirdly chilled out all of a sudden. That's the thing. Oh my God, right, real people. Every time he's on screen, every time you cut away to him, whether or not I think he's gonna be able

[01:22:37] to save anyone or stop anything from happening. I knew he would die because of Groundskeeper Willie. Like, I'd seen the Simpsons episode before I saw this. He has, he strikes me as one of those guys, like everybody else on that set is gonna show up

[01:22:52] and be like, oh wow, Stanley Kubrick, okay, well, okay, Stanley Kubrick. And he strikes me as the kind of guy who's like, who the fuck's that? Like, okay, all right, but I'm Scatman Crothers. Right, I'm here to do my thing. I'm here to do my thing.

[01:23:04] And he would be like, and maybe that's, I always admire people like that, that they're so willing to not worry. There was this thing went around recently, this anecdote where the movie he did after this was Bronco Billy, which is a Clint Eastwood movie.

[01:23:19] And apparently like, after months, that's the thing, after months and months of Kubrick, he shows up to Bronco Billy, they shoot a shot, they do one scene and Clint's like, great, move on. And Scatman says, like, he started crying because he was like, yeah, that was good.

[01:23:35] You know, like the opposite. And so people were like, God, you know, then the narrative of course just sort of rears up. PTSD. Yeah, Kubrick was so awful. And like then- He broke Scatman. JJ does link to a video here that I watched beforehand.

[01:23:47] That's why I clicked on it. Where like, he seems very positive about doing this movie, having done this movie. It's not like he was like, what a nightmare, but I do think he was baffled by doing 180 takes of like listing chickens and-

[01:24:00] He's a guy who doesn't come from like an acting background and it's like, you're an interesting charismatic figure. We should put you in movies. And his career like sort of grows and grows and grows and grows, but it's based on his understanding of his own naturalism and whatever.

[01:24:13] And then here's this guy who's like forcing him into rigid perfectionism. But it's like, that's why it works because he's coming from an entirely different... I mean, Shelley Duvall is also so fascinating on this- Don't talk about that. Because it's like- That's a whole thing.

[01:24:25] Right, but I'm just saying in terms of background, like- Well, she had not really worked with another director. Yeah. At all, right? She's discovered for Brewster McCloud as like a makeup tester at a mall. And the producer was just like, Bobby, you gotta come see this woman.

[01:24:39] She's the most fascinating human being I've ever witnessed. That's how she ended up in this movie? In Brewster McCloud, in her first movie. Because like she does what, six Altman movies in a row. It's Brewster, McCabe, Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill, three women.

[01:24:52] She was doing like makeup demonstrations at a mall and the producer went to Bob Altman and was like, you gotta see this woman. And they like have her audition and they're like, is this an act? This is how she talks and how she moves,

[01:25:03] what she looks like and everything. Like just the most bizarre energy. And he essentially was just like, well, you can't act, but you're so fascinating. And then movie after movie, she starts to like really develop where you get to the point of three women

[01:25:16] where you're like, this is like a fucking incredible performance. This is someone who clearly has come into command of- But she also does just have such magnificent natural energy in those movies. It's so cool. And then she is in Annie Hall for a second. That was her only-

[01:25:30] That's her only non-Altman. Altman until then. And Altman's whole thing was like when he found somebody, he was like, you only work for me. This is like my little mafia. I'll keep you high. And obviously he made like a movie a year, so at least you were working.

[01:25:42] But yeah. But like Bud Cort does Mash and Brewster back to back and then gets offered Harold and Maude and he goes to take that and Altman's like, door closed, you're never welcome back. What a fun, chill guy. Incredibly unchill guy.

[01:25:56] So like her taking this was a big ass deal because Altman was like, have fun. She's cast in Popeye against Altman's wishes. Like the studio's like, you have to cast- No one has ever looked more like Olive Oil as a human being.

[01:26:12] And he's like, I don't talk to her anymore. Oh my God. She's so good in Popeye. That might be like- That's her best performance. Greatest performances, yeah. But it's like, you know, she's someone who sort of developed her own acting process purely through working with one director

[01:26:25] who had a very unique approach to actors over the course of a decade. Where you get to the point where three women, she like wins the best actress at Cannes, right? And people were just like, oh, this is someone who clearly knows what they're doing.

[01:26:38] This is not just an interesting energy anymore. Everything that she does in this movie is incredible. Yeah. Even when, like, you know, when he's finally writing and she goes in to talk to him, she has this way of keeping everything light in that way of like,

[01:26:59] well, I just thought I'd come in and check on you. You know, like in that way of like somebody who is like, well, I never know what I'm gonna get from this person. Right, just constantly dealing with a powder keg. Yeah.

[01:27:11] And also like the sort, it feels like, especially like what we were talking about earlier, that scene where she's talking to the doctor who comes to the house looking for Danny and she's telling the story about, you know, like a hundred other times you do this.

[01:27:24] It feels light but also rehearsed and it feels like she has gone through it enough times that it sounds true, but if you dig through it enough, you're like, oh no, this is an act. Like it's a really amazing performance that she gives. King's objections are known.

[01:27:47] So I'll just wrap that with, he has his quote, it's a big, great Cadillac with no motor inside. It sounds spooky. Sounds like the premise of a Stephen King novel. Yes. And like you said, he has a sort of like, the book is hot, the movie is cold,

[01:28:00] you know, ends in fire, ends in ice. Kubrick hates emotions, he doesn't care to dig into these things. And he has the complaint that many have lodged over the years of like, it's misogynistic, she's a shrew, she's a nag, like turns Wendy into this one dimensional character,

[01:28:13] which I don't think is true, but. I, wow, I couldn't agree with that. I think she's one dimensional in the way that every character in this movie is one dimensional, which is not, but you know what I mean? Like where you're like, well, Nicholson's crazy and she's scared.

[01:28:24] Like it's just because the performances are so at the surface. They're very primal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, obviously he co-wrote this movie with Diane Johnson, who's a very famous novelist before and after. And she obviously is a huge influence on the writing of the script. Yeah.

[01:28:41] And they, like, she like moved to London, you know, and worked on this script with him for months. Like it wasn't just some kind of like, she took a pass. It was a lot. Look, I mean, look, we love you, JJ, but it's the longest dossier ever.

[01:28:53] I can't do it all. Yeah. It's also just one of those things with The Shining where you're just like, if you start digging into the context too deeply, you're like, am I ever gonna get out of this? The more I know, the more aware I become

[01:29:05] of what I don't know or haven't considered or whatever, you know? It's such an endless pool. It's the thing you said, Kubrick's kind of complaint of like he just puts everything into it so they start pulling stuff out. The topiary animals that come to life. There's all flashbacks.

[01:29:20] They remove all of that, like, that are in the novel, things like that. Have you guys read that? Has anyone read The Shining apart from me? I think we've- I read it when I was like the sixth grade. One of my bona fides for being on this

[01:29:31] is that I grew up in Maine. Right, right. That's true, you're a Mainer. A Mainer. You're a Mainer. Right, like, you can go back and they're like, you're still a Mainer or are you excluded because you left?

[01:29:41] No, I guess just because the cat had kittens in the oven don't make them biscuits. My parents are from the Midwest. So- That's, because that's what my, we have close family friends in Maine and I guess it's the mom married the dad and like the dad's a Mainer

[01:29:55] and she's lived there for like 40 fucking years and she's like, I'll never be a Mainer. Like, they'll never accept me. I'm from Ohio or whatever. I mean, like, I was born at a hospital in Augusta, Maine. Sure. The capital. I grew up my entire life there. Right. 207. But-

[01:30:11] Is that? That's the area. Oh, sure. That's the main area. But no, I mean, like, I met a guy in Chicago and I said, oh, it's like, I'm from Maine. He's like, yeah. I was like, yeah, where were your parents born? Jesus Christ! Give me a break!

[01:30:24] This motherfucker. Also you left the siren call of the adrenochrome. You couldn't- Yeah. You couldn't resist. The adrenochrome. Yeah. Kubrick casts Jack Nicholson, a famed actor. He had wanted him to play Napoleon in his Napoleon movie. Yeah, which is wild. Kind of unbelievable.

[01:30:42] Like what the fuck is that movie? Nicholson is Napoleon? Reading that though, and Kubrick had some quote about like, yeah, I think pretty much everyone in Hollywood wants Nicholson for every leading role. You're like, oh, Nicholson was kind of in that Adam Driver position where it's like-

[01:30:57] It's like, why wouldn't you want this guy? We have a leading man who is so unique and so interesting and also has become bankable. If you're a serious director with a difficult role, why wouldn't you pick this guy? He actually is seen as a box office drop.

[01:31:09] He's also like a top actor. Kubrick compares him to who he thinks are the two greatest stars, Spencer Tracy and Jimmy Cagney. So, and both of those make sense where it's like, those guys are not like conventionally handsome. Sure. And they're not even necessarily like big robust guys,

[01:31:26] but they are such good actors and they were movie stars, like fuck off movie stars. Yeah, and I think the thing he shares with Cagney is the like, why is this guy so watchable? Like this guy can kind of make anything interesting,

[01:31:39] you know, and can play dark and can play light and funny and serious and anything. It's just like, oh, he can kind of sell an audience on anything. So the more difficult the material or the character, the more you're like, just give me Nicholson.

[01:31:53] Then the movie makes sense. Then I don't have to pitch it to people. They both like the book. They talk about like, what do we want to keep? What do we want to, the thing they fight over is Nicholson wanted like the sexual element,

[01:32:03] like the sort of sexual repression, sexual violence element. How surprising. And he says like, I think there's more for me to work with. I thought it'd be really terrifying. And Stanley's answer was, it will be too terrifying. Yeah. Which is interesting.

[01:32:13] I was like, put your dick away for a second, Jack. Not everything's about fucking. You know, the way Stanley put it, like the murders have to be less sinister to keep the idea of the supernatural real. I don't really know what that means,

[01:32:26] but it does make a sort of sense anyway. Like if she said that to me, I would be like, okay. Like, you know, I wouldn't really fight Kubrick on that. I will say this too. I do think you talk about how few people die in this movie,

[01:32:39] especially for a movie where a guy's wielding an ax for over an hour straight, it feels like. He's got an ax for a while. Yeah. There's a bat in there. You know, there's some weapons. There is a certain catharsis, weirdly, to a killing on screen, right?

[01:32:50] Where like, if you see Michael Myers stab somebody, the tension's released out of the balloon for a little bit because you're like, well, at least it's probably five minutes until that happens again. That's exactly what it is. You can sort of set your watch over. Right.

[01:33:03] And now, great. The movie's gotta dip for a moment. Because the whole thing with a slasher movie is like, if he's gonna kill someone else, we're gonna have to meet them, figure out where they are, and then we're gonna get going.

[01:33:12] Like, you know, even if we've met the character before, we're gonna need to be like, okay, this character's in a funhouse, and like, you know, whatever. Like, and in the same way, it's like, if you're never letting this guy fuck,

[01:33:22] and you're kind of never letting him swing the ax at people, you know, and making impact, then it's just building and building and building and building. You looked like you had something you wanted to say. No, no, no, I just really enjoyed your like,

[01:33:35] oh, they're in a funhouse. Sure. I really enjoyed that. Yeah. Like, Myers is in a funhouse. Nicholson says the scene where he's writing, and he unloads on her. Right, that was his suggestion. Yeah, he's like, that's like me when I got my divorce. Yeah.

[01:33:51] And you know, under the pressure of like, being a family guy, and like, I don't know, like, he talks about that. You know what I think is so good about that scene? It's like, the torturous relationship to writing, where you're like, well, first of all,

[01:34:08] the reason I can't write is one problem. And if I fix that one problem, then floodgates are gonna open and this won't be a torturous process to me. Oh, the problem is I'm around too many people. I got to move to a empty hotel, top of a mountain,

[01:34:21] and then it will flow, baby, right? Like there's, the amount of times I've told myself like, oh, the problem is I don't like physically writing. If I get a text to speech headset, then I'll write fucking four novels a week, or whatever it is, right?

[01:34:34] And I love that like, all of that is present in that first scene, where he's like, well, I'm working on an outline of a new story. And it's like, oh no. An outline, great. Yes, outline. You're gonna crush this living alone in a cavernous hotel.

[01:34:50] He's so committed to this idea of like, I got to take a big swing to solve the writer's block, you know, to just loosen everything up. But also when he spills on his like, you don't understand the pressure keeping this family, whatever. So much of it is like,

[01:35:03] I can't write because I'm so busy with this family. That's the problem. And when she comes in and quote unquote disrupts him, it's that thing where you're like, I'm looking for there to be an outside thing I can blame this on.

[01:35:16] Yeah, you can just place all this on too, right? Right, where it's like, I was gonna be writing for the next 10 hours. Now you've broken the flow. It's addiction too. Yeah. I mean, that is what, that's my big read. I mean, and it's obvious,

[01:35:31] but like him not having alcohol for five months and now locked in a space with basically the cause of it, which is his wife and his kid. I mean, that behavior, that reaction, that like, it's like subconscious when you're an addict.

[01:35:48] Like you just lash out at anyone around you because you just want the thing. You're the thing that's stopping me from getting the thing I want. Making me feel empty. But it's also the same line of thinking where it's like, okay, how do I kick the bottle?

[01:36:01] How do I seclude myself in a mouth? Right, keep myself away from bottles. If I don't have access to alcohol, then I'll be fine. Then I just, if I can't, then I will be okay. It's like, no, you're gonna go nuts.

[01:36:09] Yeah, so Ben, you had said you would take this job. So is it like the simple plan where you were like, if I'd found that money, I would have kept it and used it wisely. Here you're like, if I'd gone to that hotel,

[01:36:19] I would have written a great novel and not- Guy comes back, hotel spick and span. Big straight American novel, finished. I would have been eating fucking racks of fucking ribs. I would have had a good ass time. Dining out like a king. Yeah, man. You and my eggs.

[01:36:33] Ben's watching this movie, like jotting down recipe ideas as Scatman's going through the dry story. I went to indeed.com looking for people. I can't peaches. Oh man, get some ice cream. That'd be a delicious little dessert. How long, I think I could do a week.

[01:36:50] And then I would have to go. I think about a week is what I can imagine doing. Just like, you can't fucking leave. You're just in this empty hotel. I was an only child. So I think I could do a solid two months. I'm not kidding.

[01:37:03] I had stomach problems yesterday. And by the end of the day, staying in bed, I felt like I was losing my mind. I think it is the pathway though, what you're saying of like- It's just been opened up and you just like, you're tumbled down that hole.

[01:37:16] It takes an hour alone. I start to go like, well, do I ever leave? All right. There was the moment where he's throwing the tennis ball against the wall. Like it starts on the typewriter with nothing on the page and then it pans out and he's throwing

[01:37:28] the tennis ball against the wall. I'm like, oh man, I've been there buddy. Get it. Like, there was something very relatable and great about that. Even though it was about him going, like beginning to go crazy. I was just like on like the writerly part being like,

[01:37:43] yeah man, yeah do it. Yeah, actually two months seems like a long time. Yeah, that's a lot of time my friend. All right, I'll scale it back. You get Netflix in this world. Oh, okay. Just Netflix. Also Ben, you wouldn't need that much time.

[01:37:59] I had Netflix when I was in those hostels and I still went fucking insane. I don't think it really would help. But Ben, you wouldn't need that much time because you'd finish the novel in like three days. Oh, easy. Yeah, right. It would be funny if this movie,

[01:38:14] it's like day three and he's like, novel done. And then he goes crazy. Just be funny if he actually wrote the novel. No, he has to start editing it. Then he goes crazy. It's also, it's interesting that this comes from Stephen King

[01:38:31] who I think is thought of as like a faucet. Yeah, right, he just writes and writes and writes and writes. Right, and like Kubrick's complaint is like, well, he puts every idea in the book. But it is, the benefit of that is like

[01:38:43] he writes four books a year. Like he just takes whatever he's feeling at that moment. He talks about writer's block and he said he's had it and I'm sure he has, but then also you're like, your writer's block must be very short and intense

[01:38:53] because you do produce so much. Well, I think he was like struggling to come up with a concept for The Shining or for his next book before this. And he talks about like- Well, he said something shiny and he was like,

[01:39:03] I don't know, what am I gonna do with this? Shining? No, but I saw quotes from him where he was sort of like, I went on vacation and then I was in this abandoned hotel and then there weren't that many people there

[01:39:15] and the hallway started to scare me. Like it was true, like a 12 hour process where he like woke up the next morning and he was like, I think I got the whole book in my head. And then he starts writing. I mean, that's the same with Pet Sematary.

[01:39:25] It was like a truck almost ran my kid over and I was like, all right. And then I wrote a novel and showed it to his wife and his wife was like, this is the most fucked up thing you've ever written.

[01:39:32] Like what the hell is going on with you? You know, Pet Sematary is my favorite. I saw some interview with him recently where it was him in sort of conversation with another writer and I forget who it was on stage and he was asking him like,

[01:39:46] how do you fucking do it this much? And he's like, well, you know, I just think my books tend to be about 500, 600 pages long and I just commit to writing 10 pages a day. So that means you pretty much get it done in two months. Yeah, I mean.

[01:39:56] And they were like, and you just open up the laptop and you successfully get 10 pages done every day. And he's like, yeah, pretty much. He was like, I don't use a laptop. Write it by hand. Oh sure, sure, whatever. Just as another shout out to Maine. Who?

[01:40:10] To Maine. Oh, Maine. Shout out Maine. The state generally. Sure. What is the, what's this, like it's the what state? You know how like, it's like, oh the nutmeg state or whatever. Like does Maine have a- Oh, we're the pine tree state. Oh, pine tree state. Wow.

[01:40:24] So there is a certain New Englandy work ethic that that speaks to of like, I think everybody there has a hard, would have a hard time being an artist. And so it makes sense that he may, he's like, I just get up and write.

[01:40:38] He's like, right, it's work. I'm not precious about this. I woke up and just like every other person that lives here, I did my work and at the end of the day, I was done doing my work.

[01:40:45] If I'm a writer, it is my job to write every day. I'm not gonna question whether Dreamcatcher is insane. Yeah. I'm just gonna finish writing Dreamcatcher. That's the goofballs book where he was like, I do not remember writing that book. I was 100% on painkillers the entire time.

[01:41:02] Nothing about that book of course suggests that at all. No. Very chill book. And you know, we talked about this on the King Cusp. You know what the original title of that book was? Boat Weasels? Cancer. Oh boy. And like his agent was like, that's a bummer.

[01:41:16] And also this book isn't about cancer. I don't know, I feel like it. He was like, argh. Anyway, Shelley Duvall. Yes. Kubrick casts her. Both Nicholson and Kubrick sort of talk about her in the same way that feels like mildly insulting,

[01:41:29] but you know what they mean where Kubrick's like, you can't have Jane Fonda play this part. You need someone who's mousy and vulnerable and eccentric. And Nicholson talks about- Nicholson kind of wanted Jessica Lange who makes more sense because especially at this time, she's so fragile. He does.

[01:41:42] Emotionally in those early roles. With her the next year, which is a bad movie. But she was a very delicate actress despite being very poised. Sure. At the early run. I think the first 10 years or so. They both sort of have this thing of like,

[01:41:56] we need to, in the book, she's a much more self-possessed person, but you're like, why is she still putting up with him? We wanted someone who felt a little more vulnerable or whatever. That's the sort of logic of casting someone like Shelley Duvall.

[01:42:09] They also talk about that thing where it's like, the fact that she's not a trained actor, she didn't have all these weird behavioral tics taught out of her. There's something just, she does things on screen, the way she moves her body, the way she holds herself,

[01:42:24] her energy is just stuff that like, she's completely unique. She just sort of vibrates in every moment. I think she totally, she's such an incredible actress. I mean, I think the whole conversation around her has gotten tied up in the fact

[01:42:39] that she had mental problems later in life and people sort of connected the dot of like, well, The Shining ruined her. Which is not true. And she's very clear that that's not true. But there's that one interview, what was it? Was it Dr. Phil?

[01:42:56] That's devastating to watch where you're like, she shouldn't be in front of a camera. It's from a few years ago. Very exploitative man. Right. He used to be very pro-Phil. I went through a period where I was finding it very cathartic to watch Dr. Phil yell at families.

[01:43:09] It was 2016. It was just one of those things where it was clearly like, turn the cameras off. She's not ready for this or whatever. And she did that Hollywood Reporter interview last year. Yeah, which was good actually. It felt a little more like,

[01:43:22] okay, she sort of found her peace a little bit. Right. But there's no question that making this movie was an absolute nightmare for her. One of the biggest things that Nicholson talks about that's interesting is he's like, we all lived in London. We all rented places in London.

[01:43:37] And she rented a place in Elstree, which is north of London where the studio is, and never fucking went into the city. Yeah. Because she was so in it. All right, shut up. And he was like- How do you know geography? A little bit.

[01:43:53] Elstree is actually a later stop on the Thameslink, which is what I took to school every day. Well, but I'm sorry. I'm leaving. You took the subway. No, not the subway. It was the Thameslink, not subway. But that's a really long train ride

[01:44:07] to go into New York City. It would be funny if- For school every day? What's the turnaround time? I took Thameslink from Kennistown to Blackfriars, guys. Hit me up or any other Thameslink riders. Those are such strange names for MTA. Right, I'm like, what line is that?

[01:44:23] Two, three? I'm so sorry. You're a guest on our show. This is just so- Here's David, just like- This feels like some Kubrick-esque- I remember- Is there a mystery he's creating for us? My college roommate was Irish. He's from Northern Ireland.

[01:44:39] And when he came to visit me the first time in London, where I lived for 13 years- What? Yeah, I lived in Kennistown. And he was like, it's such a funny name. And I was like, why is that? What do you mean?

[01:44:50] And he's like, you know, it's like, not Kent, Kentish. Like, I was like- It's like if there was New York-ish city. Where someone's like, this place is like a lot like Kent. The guy's like, no, I'm not. It's okay. It's Kentish. It's Kentish. Yeah.

[01:45:05] Just as absolutely as a side note. David, I think you're gonna appreciate this. As the podcast has gotten bigger, you know, and it feels like people are really starting to listen- I described it as unwieldy, but go on. Unwieldy. Good call, yeah.

[01:45:22] Griffin, you've gone fucking soft on the bits. You've let David get in your head. And you know what? Fuck him. You thought I was gonna enjoy this? I like this, I like this, I like this, I like this. I am, you fucking do you.

[01:45:38] I will fucking do you. No, no, no, no, no. Do the bit. Do the fucking bit. You've been, don't let it- I've been giving him a break because he's got the kid at home. You went soft. He's sleeping less. You went fucking soft.

[01:45:48] No, I admit it, I admit it. You're kowtowing to David. I know. My reply, I think you stopped doing it- Jack Torrance over here. I don't want you to laugh out at me. You think what? That you stopped doing it just because it was getting incredibly boring.

[01:46:01] No, no, I think this is exactly the kind of like lifeblood infusion that bits me. I'm a new listener. What is this? If I met you right now, I would never believe that you would be the kind of guy

[01:46:13] to do a weekly podcast about the movie Blank Check. Right. And I just wanna know what you're putting out into the world right now. Right, today you'd be like this pussy would never ever do something that punishing. He would never commit to a bit that hard.

[01:46:29] Yeah, anyway, she lived in Elstree. How would you know that? So wait, wait, sorry, I did derail that. I'll give you a clear example, like a New York example. It'd be like if you fucking like were shooting a movie in like even beyond Westchester, like Rockland County.

[01:46:45] And rather- It's like if you were holed up at a hotel in Beachwood, Ohio while everyone else was yucking it. Okay, that, how long was like the car ride from your hotel to the set? It was, the car ride to the hotel to the set was very short.

[01:46:57] We were closer to the location. Okay, that helps because like basically it's like Nicholson is like, look, we took the two hour car ride. But it's worth it. It's a year and a half making this fucking movie cause it's a Stanley Kubrick movie.

[01:47:10] You live in London, you can go home. No, we were in that position. Like Kevin Costner was like hour plus car ride and we were like 15 minutes from location but with nothing around us. But of course, like how long does draft day take to make?

[01:47:23] I don't know, how long was it? We were out there- Four years? Yeah, no, no, we had like six weeks of real filming our section of the movie. She lived in Elstree for 18 months. Definitely, also, and Charlotte DeVoe didn't have a Tim Simons to keep her sane.

[01:47:34] Yes, there was a- Where were you? The Cedar Rapids. Yes. You were two years old, three? I don't know, I'm two years old. Three at the time, you could've been helping. So I would say like I had an experience. I was filming something in New Orleans

[01:47:48] but if you know New Orleans, it was like on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. Sure. Which would be like staying in Elstreet. Sure. Wherever that place is. Way the fuck out. And it's not something I'll ever do again.

[01:48:02] That thing, like that, it wasn't for a year and a half but that thing you're talking about rings true just because if you are that isolated from everything, it wears on you and I wouldn't make that choice again. Right, Angelica Houston talks, she's dating Nicholson at the time,

[01:48:19] she talks about like I would see Shelly having a hard time. She's like an outside observer. She's not there all the time but she's like, I may have been misreading this but it kind of felt like the boys were ganging up on her.

[01:48:30] Like it's like, do you reckon Nicholson needs old hands and she's like much more inexperienced with a production like this? There's always been this and look, I don't think it's exclusive to this movie, this dynamic, these actors and director but this is sort of an example.

[01:48:46] It perfectly kind of exemplifies this thing that you hear about sometimes where it's just like it is assumed the man can act and it is assumed that the director has to trick the performance out of the woman.

[01:48:58] You know, and I think this is tied to this sort of thing. Why don't we like psychologically get her to and also like she's fucking sobbing and screaming for so much of this movie. This is the big thing. God, endlessly. I wanna put a pin in that,

[01:49:10] I'm gonna get back to that in one second. But I do think there's that thing and I think it's tied to sort of this like the way that method acting is mythologized with this certain type of leading man, right? And these men who punish themselves

[01:49:22] but have the strength to create the circumstances for themselves, set them up for themselves, give the performance, take themselves out of it, survive. Right? Whereas like women are not really given the cultural leeway to talk about what they put themselves through for a performance

[01:49:40] but I also think they don't feel this sort of need to make acting feel tough in that way. I think it's very much this sort of like masculine overcompensation of what can be seen as a dainty job of like I have to make this torturous. Sure, right.

[01:49:55] Whereas like when you hear interviews with the best female actors of any era, they're all like you just do the work. It's more studious, it's more academic, you know? But like all the best actors sort of just talk about like Meryl Streep, I mean there's the anecdote

[01:50:09] I always think about when Meryl Streep's on the set of Doubt and Meryl Streep is by all accounts someone who just turns it on, turns it off. Right. Right? And she's in the scene with Philip Zellner Hoffman, he's like pacing back and forth

[01:50:19] and like punching himself in the head and like digging his nails into his leg and she just is going like, you don't need to do it, Phil. You don't need to do all that, I'm telling you. And of course she's so good in that movie. The point is.

[01:50:31] Pow! Pow! Got her! Jesus. Sorry. Meryl Streep dead on the floor, you conjured her out of the air just to murder her in Ben's apartment? Little bit. So there's that whole thing, right? And then the other part of it is I was reading,

[01:50:46] I think it was in the dossier, but some quotes from Shelley Duvall in the making of this film, which just because the production is so fucking long. Yes. I think they'd originally told her it was going to be 12 weeks and then it was like 18 months, right?

[01:51:00] But she said like, there's a lot of crying in Three Women. She was like, I think that's why he hired me because I had this extended sort of emotional breakdown at the end of that movie and it showed him that I could do that sustained

[01:51:11] for a longer period of time, whatever. 18 months is a different story. And she sort of was like, look, there's a certain point in time and it goes almost back to what you're saying, Tim, about like the heat stroke thing, right? Where it's like whatever tricks you have

[01:51:23] to get your body into that state, your mind into that state. I have a playlist, sad music, I'm listening to it on a Walkman, whatever, right? She's like, at a certain point, your body doesn't enjoy that and it starts to go like, I'm not falling for that.

[01:51:37] I'll give you the quote. After a while, your body rebels. It just says, stop doing this to me. I don't want to cry every day. Right. And the thought alone would start to make me cry. Waking up on a Monday so early and realizing I'm crying all day.

[01:51:50] Like that's the schedule. Right. I would just start crying and I would be like, no, I don't know how to do it. I can't, and yet I did it. I don't know how I did it. Jack said that to me too.

[01:52:00] He said, I don't know how you do this. It's this weird thing of like all the tricks you have to be able to do it in your own control start to go away because your basic survival mechanisms start to rebel against the way you're fucking with yourself.

[01:52:14] And she would say, like, I would actually by the end of the day, I would find myself feeling very relaxed because it was like sort of I've exercised everything from my system. It's really hard to get there.

[01:52:25] And it's harder to get there the longer the shoot goes on. And then it is this weird thing where it's like, oh, the thing that gets her to cry is the fear of needing to cry, which then becomes a very unhealthy cycle.

[01:52:38] I will say that like, I had not read that quote, but even as like in the same way when I watch a movie that like when they're shooting out in the cold, I'm like, oh, everybody was cold that day. I'm watching this movie and watching her performance.

[01:52:52] And I'm not saying this to take away from Jack Nicholson's. Jack Nicholson's is very good, is incredible. But also, but I look at that, I'm like, okay, he's doing it. And I look at her and I say, I don't know how she is doing this.

[01:53:05] That is so, it's so hard to do for such a long time. Nicholson's performance is also like iconic. And I mean that in like, he feels like an icon or like whereas she's giving this just like insanely emotional performance. They're very, very different.

[01:53:20] I don't know, she's really good. Everyone's good in this movie. I agree, the think you should leave thing, right? Yeah. I went to a rabbit hole watching Robert Duvall interviews recently. One of the best to ever do it.

[01:53:34] Now one of our last sort of living elder statesmen of that. Don't even fucking bring him up because you'll probably die. It's worrying, especially with the way we've been losing a lot of the greats recently. I mean, this is the thing someone was like,

[01:53:45] I can't believe all these guys are dying. I'm like, they're old. Like what are you supposed to do about it? I know, I know, we're like getting to a generation of more celebrities existed, which means more iconic people are able to die in greater numbers.

[01:53:56] That's part of it and then it's also- There used to be fewer movie stars. Yeah, you're right, you're right, go on. But I- I don't know how to tell everybody this. Everyone that created something you liked will die. They will die at some point.

[01:54:09] And if you're lucky, you die before them. You don't have to grief them. Colbert did an extended like Robert Duvall episode sometime last year where he like went to his fucking ranch in Montana and talked to him for like 30 minutes, right? It's really cool.

[01:54:27] And Colbert just kind of keeps on pushing him going like, okay, but how do you act so well? And he's like, I don't know, I read the script and then I say the things. And he's like, but what's your process? He's like, I don't know, I just act.

[01:54:36] Like he's one of those guys who's very unfussy about it. And he sort of says like, but what is the secret? Like what makes you so good? And Duvall puts it this way that it's just been ringing

[01:54:45] in my head, but it kind of nails it where he's just like, it's about understanding your basic temperament. Like who are you? What is your temperament? What are you feeling that day and not allowing yourself to reach outside of that.

[01:54:59] So whatever is on the page that you have to find a way to dramatically depict that day, you don't want to push for something outside of where you're feeling at that moment. You wanna find a way to do the best version

[01:55:12] with the emotion you have in you at that point. And I think that I think links Tim Robinson and Jack Nicholson is they're two guys who can go so fucking big, have these crazy outbursts, but it never feels like they're pushing.

[01:55:28] It somehow feels like that's within their basic temperament. No, because it is this thing when you're talking about like, does it ruin this performance? Right? I think the unified thing and Tim Robinson uses it for comedy, but that with Nicholson, you're just like,

[01:55:43] he's able to go fucking humongous and you never feel like this guy's overacting. You're like somehow he has this access to like mania in a second. And there was a clip from the Vivian Kubrick documentary, which is one of the things that people study to go like,

[01:56:00] were they torturing Shelley Duvall? But there's a moment where he's there with his script and he's like sort of underlining just his character name on his lines with like a check mark. And he goes like, I stole this from Boris Karloff.

[01:56:14] I saw that Karloff used to mark his lines this way and I started doing it. And then the camera pans up and he's like, and much like Karloff, I can go mad at any second. And you're just like, oh, he literally can just like turn that on.

[01:56:29] Right now it doesn't feel like goofy. Yeah, no, it doesn't. Right, and it is that thing with him where you're just like, oh, he had this very broad canvas and could go bigger than most actors could without it ever feeling like a push.

[01:56:45] Like it was outside of his basic temperament. What's the point? The fucking making of. There's a whole bit with him brushing his teeth in the bathroom, right, before going to set. And then that day, right, when they're shooting that little moment, he then goes and grabs an ax

[01:57:02] and starts swinging it at a fucking door. And he just goes from like a normal funny guy to being so fucking unhinged. He famously broke the door down more than they thought he could, because he used to be a fireman as well.

[01:57:15] I think he knew what he was doing. There's the story too that on A Few Good Men, he did every single take of the you can't handle the truth scene, where there's coverage of 15 different people in that courtroom. He always was sitting in the court marsh.

[01:57:29] He did off camera for everyone's fucking takes. And he did full energy every time. And Rob Ryan would go up to him and go like, Jack, very generous kind of you, but you don't need to do that for like fucking Demi Moore's coverage. It's fine.

[01:57:43] And he'd just go like, I love acting. Like he was just like, this is the good part. I enjoy this. Like he's one of those guys who just seem to have kind of endless energy, never got tired of doing the thing.

[01:57:57] I mean, you hear the stories about like when Bob Rafelson was writing Head With Him, another recently departed legend. Where he thought like, I'm gonna be more of a writer director, maybe I'll act a little bit. And as they were writing the script,

[01:58:11] Nicholson would like get up and act out every part. And he'd be like, where the fuck is this guy a movie star? Like anything he starts embodying, he'd do an impression of a dog. And I'd be like, this guy's so fucking compelling. You know, where it's like,

[01:58:25] you can give him a role like this, where it's like, by the way, at the end, all bets are off, nothing's too big. And it remains somehow a little bit grounded. It really, I think your point is a good one. That like when Tim Robinson does the thing

[01:58:40] where he like tilts his head 90 degrees and starts going, do you really think that that's, you actually believe that that is what he. That's the thing. That's the magic. And I agree with that, but I am now calling, we will not talk about Tim Robinson anymore.

[01:58:56] We've not discussed The Shining enough. Tim Robinson, the Jack Nicholson of his generation. No, I'm retiring him. His number's getting pulled up to the wrap. Jesus. The last Cawson has flopped. We are moving on. Wow. He's done. We can't keep,

[01:59:11] someone's eventually gonna send it to him being like, do you realize you're compared to Nicholson for like 25? The memes, the Reddit's gonna go fucking wild on this one. Either putting like Nicholson photos with I don't wanna be around anymore.

[01:59:25] This is why I was almost worried to bring it up because I don't want to, anyway, anyway. All right, The Shining. We've obviously been talking about The Shining. Obviously. I mean, maybe do we talk about Danny a little bit? Here's the thing I wanna say.

[01:59:39] This is the thing I wanna say because it gets into this whole, we've mentioned what happens in the movie. Yeah, you know, I can do that. Can we talk about Scatman Crothers? Kubrick's a little bit of a fucking freaky deaky because he fucking puts,

[01:59:54] like as you go in Scatman Crothers' Miami apartment, you have like the naked woman picture above his TV. And then in the reverse shot, there's another fucking giant naked woman picture above him. Well, this guy's a fucking hound dog. He's a hound dog. He's having fun.

[02:00:12] Yeah, he's got a good energy. He's having a good time. No, thing I wanted to say about Danny, I guess I got this whole thing. The actor's called Danny Lloyd and it's basically the only thing he ever did. He makes a cameo in Dr. Sleep.

[02:00:25] He does, yeah, yeah. He's like, but like- He's in the stands of the baseball game or whatever. Right, I think it's the Jacob Tremblay scene. Jacob Tremblay, another actor who by all accounts can kind of just turn it on and turn it off. He's incredible in Dr. Sleep.

[02:00:37] Yeah, incredible. You ever worked with Trems? No, never worked with Trems. One day I want someone to give me a Trems anecdote. I know. Go on, what were you gonna say about Danny? Danny, I struggle with kid actors. I just, like with this kind of kid actor

[02:00:51] where it's like, it's not like he went on to become a grownup actor and you're like, oh, how interesting. You're just like, what an interesting, you know, they did a great job conjuring a performance out of a kid. No, this is what I- Who's got a great look.

[02:01:01] This is what I was gonna say because the whole conversation of like, Kubrick breaking people, does he have to force these performances out of them? What is it? He was very adamant that like, this kid did not know he was in a horror movie.

[02:01:11] They talk about that a lot, right? We built this like it was a drama. Right. I like found ways to get the shots I needed out of him without ever submitting him to the reality of this film. Right. I was very protective of this kid. Yeah, totally.

[02:01:22] And then this kid seemingly had good parents and they were like, you're not gonna do this for the rest of your life. Great, great, great. Yeah. I say this as a joke, but I actually kind of mean it. I don't think children should be allowed to do this.

[02:01:36] Yeah. I think that you should have to play, babies should be played by 18 year old people. You're just, and I know what you mean. Like, it's just like child acting is just kind of inherently exploitative no matter how much control you put on it.

[02:01:51] Even in the best circumstances, it's not a great idea. I also think like at the very least, my thought has always been, you get to do one. Yeah. If you're a kid, you do one job and then you gotta move on. Right, we can't reuse.

[02:02:06] The second it becomes a career and you're spending too much time in this adult world and all of that. What's his dude for that ran, that show ran Sons of Anarchy and his writer on the shield. Kurt Sutter. Kurt Sutter. Yeah.

[02:02:18] He talked about like his kids were like, what if your kids want to go into, because I think he's married to Katie Segal. Yes, yes. And they have kids together. And he was like, yeah, they can absolutely act if they want.

[02:02:28] They're in a high school, they can do high school plays. Yeah. But they're not stepping on a set until they are legal adults and they can make that choice. Right, and this is like, this is a happy story where it's like,

[02:02:38] here's a kid who gives great performance in iconic film. Everyone on the crew in the making of the film went out of their way to not let this traumatize him. And then he pretty much retired and he's a school teacher and he's very happy.

[02:02:49] And he's great in this movie. Yeah, he is, he is. It's just very natural. And like, there's just something about the way his face, you know, those reaction shots that get out of him. Just a little sickly, like they put a little,

[02:02:59] I think like, bruise under his eyes or something. It's just like, he's got a little... David's doing the face. I'm gonna do Danny. I mean, the big wheel scenes are just like my favorite. It's like, I could just watch that for hours. It's unbelievable. It's a truly hypnotizing.

[02:03:13] It's a sort of economic thing, right, of the carpet and then you need the wood floor. Yes, the carpet and then the, oh, I love it. So when I was looking at the special features, there was a commentary with people who worked behind the scenes, camera operators.

[02:03:31] And he said the inventor of the Steadicam? Yeah, his name is Garrett Brown. This was early enough in the run of the Steadicam. I'll give you the Steadicam research because it is important, right. Bound for Glory's the first one, right? Correct, that's the first time it's used.

[02:03:45] And Kubrick, I guess, had been sent a demo reel like even before then and writes a long letter back being like with lots of questions where he's like you need to... He actually gave notes on the reel where he's like you can see a shadow

[02:03:59] of the person using it and it's gonna give it away. So, you know, to protect your patent, you should delete that from your reel. And he also is like, is there a minimum height at which it can be used? He has like lots of questions.

[02:04:09] And he calls it like a magic carpet, which is really cool. I think that's a really fun way to describe it. And Garrett Brown, who invented it, does all, operates the camera for all the Steadicam shots. Like John Alcott's the DP of this movie,

[02:04:22] but who works on other Kubricks. But like that's all Garrett Brown. And it just sounds really cool. Like, I mean, you know what Garrett Brown says about him? What? Really demanding lots of takes. 50 to 70 takes of going down a fucking hallway.

[02:04:40] I mean, people have talked about it for a million years. The Steadicam's really important. It's kind of like a character in the movie. Like what about, like it's so hard to talk about shit like this. No, it is, it is. There's the moment that I think

[02:04:52] is pretty directly lifted from this, even though it looks different in. You better not bring up I Think You Should Leave. In that episode of Key and Peele. No, no, in Zodiac. It's one of the killings. It's like the car killing where you have that extended overhead shot

[02:05:12] that I think is done entirely in CGI. But Fincher steals that move of like when the car turns a corner, the camera somehow turns with the car remaining perfectly placed in the center of the frame. And it does make you feel like,

[02:05:27] oh, there's like some sort of uneasy, otherworldly presence. Right, which I think is really taken from this where it's like the speed at which the camera is able to adjust every time he turns a corner and he remains perfectly centered in the frame makes you feel uneasy.

[02:05:44] And the other thing is like the difference between the carpet and the wood, it's that thing where when you're a kid and you're able to like let your mind run off of so little, you can just start imagining where you're just like,

[02:05:55] oh, this game of the difference of the sound, right? How much carpet do I have left before I hit wood and how different does the wood sound than the carpet? It's like, yeah, you can spend six hours doing that

[02:06:06] when you're a kid and never get bored of it. That would be, if I was in the mansion, that's something I'd be doing. Yeah, you'd kill it. I'd be riding around. You'd break his fucking records, he'd eat your dust.

[02:06:16] It's also funny, like, I mean, it was a thing and I should mention only 90s kids will understand this, but watching this movie for the first time when I was in high school or whatever and going like, oh, the opening to Bobby's World is a reference to this.

[02:06:33] That's weird. What? Is Bobby on a big wheel in Bobby's World? Yeah, the opening credits of Bobby's World are Bobby on a big wheel running through his family home and everyone jumping out of the way. And it so clearly has to be an homage to this,

[02:06:47] but you're like, that's a pretty cursed thing to put in the middle of your cartoon about a little boy with a big imagination. Yeah, he's on the big wheel and there he goes. He's on the big wheel. How is... That's fucking weird. I don't know how he does.

[02:06:58] Yeah, how he do it. I don't know how he do it. What are some things in The Shining we haven't discussed yet? We did discuss Bear Blowjobs. I wanna give a little bit of a shout out to the costumer because at one point they go straight from...

[02:07:12] There's that one shot of Jack Nicholson in the green turtleneck where he's just kind of staring blankly out the window and it's like the moment where it's like, all right, so he's gone crazy. It's happened. They cut right from that to that yellow coat

[02:07:27] that she wears and it's such a fucking amazing coat. Oh my God. It's such an amazing coat. So I wanna throw out those two specific costuming choices are just great. Dude, that whole fit, I wrote that down too. It's like a yellow chore coat

[02:07:45] with this beautiful embroidery on it and then she's wearing very now hip, straight kind of denim jeans with moccasins. That is like, yeah, one of the best looks. The fact that you're like Shelley Duvall fit watch right there. Oh yeah. Yeah. Jack's got some cardigans too.

[02:08:05] I was gonna say, it's one of those movies where at least the three Torrance characters, anyone who walked into a bar in Bushwick wearing any outfit they wear in this movie would be the coolest person at the bar. Even Danny. Yeah, I'm saying even Danny.

[02:08:19] Danny's got some fits. Right? All three of them. The space sweater, love that thing. And all the weird Shelley Duvall sweaters. I'm just like, all of these you'd just be like, where did you find that? I wanna throw out one shot that I made a note of

[02:08:33] without revealing too much about myself but feeling very comfortable with you all that there is a great moment where and it sort of has to do with, I like how the titles of the timing become more and more frenetic because it starts out like the interview

[02:08:49] and then one month later and then all of a sudden it's like 8 AM. 8 AM, 2 PM, whatever. So at one point when it's like a one month later she's bringing breakfast up to Jack in the room and he's like slept until 11 30 and just immediately you're like,

[02:09:09] oh fuck, depressed dad. Immediately. And there is a moment later on where Danny has to go up and get something out of the room and she's like, just don't wake up. Just don't wake up your dad. He was up late. And there is just this,

[02:09:28] Danny comes into the room and you can see Jack in the reflection of the mirror and he has this sort of nice scene with Danny and there was something that I liked about the mirror being there in that he's only seeing who he is.

[02:09:48] Jack is only seeing who he is in that moment and sort of what he's become is because his son is the mirror. Like only by looking at his son does he realize who he is and who he's becoming

[02:09:58] and it kind of leads to a nice moment between them. And I just wanted to throw that out that was just something like the fact that there is a literal mirror there and then the sort of metaphoric figurative mirror

[02:10:09] of the child there, I don't know, I liked that. Yeah, that's good. I love that. I don't know how it would fit into like I think you should leave but. I like that shot where Jack Nicholson's looking out the window

[02:10:19] and the camera just kind of looks at him and you're like, oh this guy's going crazy. Yes, I think that's the green turtleneck shot. Yes, it's just, I'm thinking there's some crazy shots. I mean, Jack Nicholson's face is just designed for the Kubrick stare.

[02:10:34] As much as he had all of his actors do that pretty much, it's like he's just got the right dimensions, that forehead and those eyebrows. The way his hair is just moving. Kind of, yeah, looks kind of animalistic slightly. He writes this book but it's all just

[02:10:51] the same word over and over again, terrible book. Terrible book. Yeah, I wanted to say the poor fucking PAs. Yes. Having to write all that shit. Lost up spent fucking hours because you know Kubrick is such a psycho. And they're like, can we Xerox it?

[02:11:05] And he's like, uh, no. The spacing's wrong. And it's also like whatever, it's a stack of 50, or no, let's say a stack of 200. It's not like he asked them to do 200 pages but 100 if not 150. Do you know what I mean? Yes, yes.

[02:11:20] She's going through them and they did 50 takes and some of those pages, you can't have them. Every one of them needs to be real. They kind of look crumpled, you can't reuse them. They need to be clean. Right. There probably were thousands typed up manually by hand.

[02:11:34] Do you think it was manual? Well, because they look different so they have to. Yeah. Here's one thing I'll say about, and it's I don't want to be psychologically manipulated so I'm not asking for this. But as like, there was one director that I worked with

[02:11:51] who I loved working with but was one of those people that did a bunch of, a bunch, a bunch, a bunch of takes. And you do kind of disassociate. Yeah. But what it does is allows, you almost blow something up so completely it doesn't make sense anymore.

[02:12:09] And then it can become something else. That's the way Fincher talks about it. That his whole thing is like, it's not psychological manipulation. I'm very direct about what it is. I like getting to the point where you know the line so well

[02:12:22] and you've gotten out of your system any preconceived notions you had of how you would play this scene. The intent of the scene is bone deep and now suddenly you're free to just like, play it any way that comes to you in the moment.

[02:12:35] And I do kind of, I do kind of enjoy that. But in the same way that like, it must suck for the PAs to type that many things. Yeah. I don't, I want to balance this by saying like everybody,

[02:12:50] nobody has to, nobody should have to work 20 hours a day. No one has to suffer. Like, nobody should have to suffer for all of it. But there is a reason, there is a point at which something becomes good because you put that much work into it.

[02:13:05] The Shining is incredible and they did 70 takes for each thing. Right, right. You know what I mean? I mean, The Shining is beyond incredible. It is like a landmark work of its medium or whatever. It will always be remembered forever and ever and copied and thought about.

[02:13:21] It's like beyond what? You're like, I hope you remember forever. And this, you know, this landmark film. It is beyond whatever masterpiece level you want to reach. It's on some higher echelon where it's like, no, no, no, you've made like a thing

[02:13:34] that's just etched into the collective memory. That's hard. But it is. The Shining and Assassin's Creed. Right, the top tier. It's what's so difficult about Kubrick though where you're like, you have so many people who try to follow his example, misunderstand,

[02:13:53] are not able to execute the same level as him. You know, like they're taking the wrong lessons from him for the wrong reasons and applying them incorrectly and then justifying the sort of difficulties that they put people through. And so it's like, this is what Kubrick did. Right.

[02:14:11] I'm like Kubrick. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're not. No. Here's the thing. Boy, howdy, you are not like Kubrick. You are not. You are not. And like, you know, it's, we'll devote an entire episode to this on Patreon, but it's one of those things that I appreciate

[02:14:27] so greatly about Dr. Sleep where I'm like, as opposed to a lot of guys who self-style themselves as like, well, I'm a Kubrickian filmmaker, I feel like that is not Flanagan's default mode or style. I think when he needs to, he replicates the Kubrick style incredibly well

[02:14:42] in that movie without it feeling like forced pastiche. Like it actually feels like a direct invocation of the thing and also all stories you hear about him are like super chill, collaborative, low-key guy that he didn't feel like I have to Kubrick the shit.

[02:14:55] We'll talk about that movie, but it's also crazy how it has to thread paying some homage to Kubrick but then also like being a sequel to a book that is like, I hate the movie, The Shining. Like, you know, like Stephen King's like,

[02:15:08] I'm gonna write a movie, a sequel to The Shining and boy do I not bring up that fucking movie. Like you almost just have to automatically give that movie a masterpiece stamp just for doing both things at the same time. But that's also when it came out

[02:15:18] why I think everyone was like, what? What is this? How do I deal with this? You cast someone else as Jack Nicholson but it looks like Jack Nicholson, like what is this? Like anyway, we'll talk about it later. What do you guys think about the scene

[02:15:31] where he goes into room 237, he sees a naked lady and she's all sexy but then she looks scared. Well, but even you talk about the fucking Kubrick thing. It's like the strings are swelling, her walk is too slow. I'm never turned on by this.

[02:15:44] This is the least I've ever liked seeing a naked lady. Oh, I say, hachi machi. No, see, I don't, cause I'm just, it's the fucking, the weird shining rhythms where it's like, this feels wrong. It feels wrong and also again, it's the, I've got the movie queued up.

[02:15:56] I'm just looking at- See, when you show me a still image like that, I'm like, oh yeah, boobs, love them. But I'm watching the movie. I was trying to say, well, I mean, I think you're right, but it's also, it's the framing of it

[02:16:06] where you're like, you almost feel like he's in like a death chamber or something. Like there's just something really frightening about the symmetry of it. But also her walk is so fucking slow. You're like, what's wrong? If I walk into a hotel room that's abandoned

[02:16:18] and I see a naked lady, I'll tell you what I'd do. Walk slowly towards her and give her a kiss. David! You just give her a little- Good behavior, right? David, you're a bad man! That's true, but no, I'm like,

[02:16:29] I might be like, one, there's also the impulse to be like, oh, I'm sorry and leave. But also, two, like the, oh, no one's in this hotel. You're a ghost, goodbye! And she very quickly turns into Henrietta from Evil Dead 2. Yeah, and she's like, eh!

[02:16:44] Another thing about that scene is that my memory of it is that they went to the room five times and we saw that naked lady eight times and the old, scary, crazy woman that she becomes is kind of always around.

[02:17:02] It's the same thing, there's so much less of the twins than you remember there being. There's so much less of everything. And not only that, they don't matter. Obviously, they matter, but it's like at the end, Jax has to fight the twins and the lady

[02:17:14] and like, or like meet them all again or they all come together and it's like, and here's what happened here. It's like, no, no, just a crazy hotel filled with ghosts. All kinds of shit happened. You know what has no bearing on the movie?

[02:17:28] A bunch of blood coming out of the elevators. It's just fucking scary. Right. No, that's actually, it's a thing that happened. A bunch of blood checked into the hotel and lived there for a while. It's just actually referencing. There was a blood convention.

[02:17:42] It had lost its key and had gone all the way up to the room. It's like it's spirited away when like a river shows up and they're like, fuck this, the blood is coming. This is gonna be a nightmare! They were trying to get to room 24AB,

[02:17:53] conference room 24AB, which is the guest speaker. And we have another, his money's good, okay? The blood guy pays. It's blood money! Well, sure. Yeah, I mean, what else do you expect them to have? I hope you're wearing red pants.

[02:18:09] You're gonna hide all that blood money in your pocket. They only did three shots of the blood. That is one of those things where everyone's like, that's one of the ones where Kubrick didn't actually focus. He showed a little compassion in the blood

[02:18:19] where he's like, it might be tough for them to do multiple takes. Here's one thing that I'll say. I wish they had bolted down that one chair. You don't like it? I think that it was like. I kinda like it just because it makes it feel natural

[02:18:34] or mistaken, I don't know, I like that. I like that it breaks the Kubrick, like everything's totally controlled. I don't know. I just wanted to throw that. I know what you mean that every time you watch the shot, you're like, it's funny that the chair moves.

[02:18:48] Yeah, what do you wanna say? We're talking about some dang ghosts, right? We're framing it, it's like, this is just a story about ghosts in a hotel and I think we need to shout out too or just mention that the hotel in itself

[02:18:59] is kind of a character kind of alive. Yeah, go on. So you're saying the hotel is a character in the movie kinda like New York is a character in Sex and the City or whatever? That's what I'm kinda saying. Okay, yeah. Should've been the billing, Nicholson DeVall Hotel.

[02:19:12] Hotel. Hotel played by Hotel. Which is kinda the vibe of Doctor Sleep. Like at the end, the third act, they're like, and you missed him, Hotel, he's here. It's what, the Timberline Lodge, correct? Yes, which is in Oregon. It's just the outside. Sets and the exterior.

[02:19:31] All the inside, it's just sets and it's mostly based on the Iwani Hotel in Yosemite. It's also just something about the hotel where it doesn't feel congruous. Like there's like a massive gold room and then there's the big lobby that feels a little more Native American

[02:19:49] and has kind of like a totally different aesthetic. And then the bathroom is all red and white and it looks like a futuristic bathroom in a way. Every room feels a little, which I love. Well, it is that weird thing. Most movies you hear about,

[02:20:04] like oh, the exterior was one place, this was shot in a set, this was shot here. The rooms are piecemeal constructed from different places. If it's an office building, if it's a home, whatever it is, right? Where you're like, oh, World Tana Bombs.

[02:20:16] Each of those rooms was somewhere in an entirely different part of town because he found this bedroom looks right, but it's in a different building or whatever. And usually, magic of movies, you accept it all in your head. It all threads together.

[02:20:28] And this is almost like making the most out of like, no, these things wouldn't fit together. The transitions between room to room, hallway to hallway or whatever, it's like there's too much going on in each individual space and it's hard to place them all

[02:20:44] as part of one continuous structure in your head. There's a teddy bear blowjob happening. There was a teddy bear blowjob, we haven't talked about that enough. How do we feel about all those ghosts at the end? Fucking love it. Wait, was that always in the original movie?

[02:20:55] Yeah. All of those? Yeah. Were, really? Yeah. It was something that I had weirdly erased from my, I had completely forgotten about all of them. I don't remember the head wound guy, the guy's like, huh. The thing about him, Oh God, that guy's scary.

[02:21:08] The thing about him that's interesting is that it's Wendy who sees him. And of course, like Jack is obviously the one who's mostly seeing all this stuff. And so when Wendy sees him, you do have this sense of like, it's all kind of bleeding out right now.

[02:21:18] Like they're all coming out because like shit's going down, and Scatman's dead, maybe Scatman dying, they're like, all right. But like, Wendy sees him, it's weird. And he's just like, ooh, which I love. Love that guy. She sees all of those ghosts at the end. Eventually, yeah, right.

[02:21:35] Like, it's just like, she only right at the end is she starting to see him too, I feel like, right? But to Ben's point. Skeletons in the cobweb is like, fucking are you afraid of the dark? I wasn't, I was like, you're looking at me for backup

[02:21:48] and I will back you up on this a little bit, Ben. I think that maybe the, who am I to say anything against Stanley Kubrick? No, I kind of agree with you in that, sorry, I'm wrong. I think those skeletons maybe are a little bit like,

[02:22:03] we don't really have a lot of money left. We're supposed to be three months. For you to say, this is an expert opinion coming from the 10th build lead of Goosebumps. You have all the, Tim, are you in Goosebumps? I am.

[02:22:15] Oh my God, I gotta see that movie. Right, you're one of the cops who doesn't take anything seriously, right? And don't bother me with these Goosebumps kids. Don't bother me. I got coffee to drink. That was one of my famous lines, don't bother me with these Goosebumps kids.

[02:22:29] Yeah, hey kids, don't bother me. That was one of the first times that I felt like kind of famous was when one of the kids at my kid's daycare was like, hey, are you in Goosebumps? And I was like, that movie's kind of spooky for somebody your age.

[02:22:44] And they were like, yeah, but I'm tough. And I was like, all right. Yeah, cool, fucking rad. You won over the toughest kid in Europe. Did you read all the Goosebumps or it's preschool? Did you read any Goosebumps? How deep did you go on research?

[02:22:57] I was, I think about a year too old for Goosebumps. In the same way that I was a couple years too young for 90210, I was in a very weird. You were like a teenager or whatever and it was sort of like, eh.

[02:23:11] It's a little too young for me. I was obsessed with Goosebumps, thank God. Were you? Are you kidding me? But I think that's one of the things that I brought to the production is that I just didn't, I was kind of like the Scatman Crothers

[02:23:23] of the Goosebumps set, you know what I mean? I was there paying homage to the old masters. You're like, I'm here to do my own work. I was here to pay my own legacy. I'll say this, I love that she goes into the lobby

[02:23:35] and it's suddenly covered in cobwebs. That's cool. The skeletons, maybe it's the only, Skellington's, it's the only hat on a hat thing of I was already creeped out and this is almost out of the monsters or whatever. It's not really but it's one of those images

[02:23:55] in The Shining that whenever I rewatch the movie I'm like, oh right, skeleton room. Yeah, forgot about that one. It's a little bit like the haunted houses that I would go to in a small town in Maine and they'd be like, what is this room, ma'am?

[02:24:08] Ooh, some skeletons. And then it's just one skeleton that heads to. Turns toward you. To Ben's point though, it just reminded me, he asked if the bear blowjob was always in the movie. The two notable sort of cuts of this film. Yes, go on.

[02:24:25] There was the original ending that he cut out pretty quickly but that did screen originally, right? Where there was sort of the epilogue. There's like an explanation scene. Wendy and Dave, it's sort of the end of Psycho. Which I love the end of Psycho and I defend it

[02:24:38] but I think Hubrick was kind of correctly, they don't need that. Wendy and Danny in the hospital and the guy who froze to death. Your husband froze to death or whatever. But we never found the body, how weird. And it was like, oh, don't explicitly get into

[02:24:50] did this happen or not shit. They were like, it's better to leave it all elusive. There's also something around a scrapbook of photos that was also something that was shot but got cut out that is, you see it in the final cut still on his desk.

[02:25:07] It's a photo album that he discovers sort of midway into the movie that shows a picture of him. That shows that picture of him. Right, right. It's in the book but yeah, whatever. I think Hubrick kept erring on the side of like no explanation. Yeah.

[02:25:26] Like wait, the less the better. Like it has to be for so long because he's basically like until the door, the meat locker door opens and he comes out, you can still be like this is all in his head. Right.

[02:25:39] That's when you have to be like, well, okay. Like something supernatural opened that door. Yeah. But he loves that. And David wouldn't understand this but the other thing is in the UK, the movie was not playing well and Kubrick himself cut 30 minutes out of it.

[02:25:56] He cut it like way down. He cut it to like two hours. Some people prefer that cut. Yeah. Which I've never seen. Not me. But it is an interesting, it was like he himself at the same time was like, well, I want the movie to play well.

[02:26:10] You know, it wasn't like a sort of forced studio concession and he just has a cut that just like gets to the point faster that some people swear by. Ready Player One, they go to the hotel. They have a fun sequence in there. Yeah, that's bizarre.

[02:26:25] I really love that sequence. One of these days, you've now forced me to fucking re-watch this movie at some point. Huge fan of that movie. And obviously Kubrick and Spielberg are very close. And he's like, meh. They're doing a TV show called Overlook? Oh yeah.

[02:26:41] Maybe that'll never happen. But like one of those like classic HBO announces like, hotel origins, get pumped, 10 episodes. Is Mark Romanek doing it or was he previously attached to do some version? Mark Romanek? Yeah, who's it? Who so badly wants to be Kubrick.

[02:26:59] No, he, it's like a doomed prod. It's like one of these many like, it was gonna be called the Overlook Hotel. Right, this is no different. So it would sound kinda cool, but. What's the name of Scatman's character again? Scatman's character in The Shining? Yes.

[02:27:15] The character that he plays? Yes. Oh, Holloran, Dick Holloran. So that's the other thing. When they were making Doctor Sleep and they were so bullish on like, this is gonna be a fucking blockbuster. They had Flanagan Wright, a Holloran movie. Cause they were like,

[02:27:28] fucking Shining expanded universe, let's do all of this. And then the second the movie bombed, they were like shelf. But another thing that's probably better left unsaid. I mean, I feel like it always, anytime they would sort of talk about doing any Shining followup, it was like hubris.

[02:27:46] Don't do it, you're gonna fail. And Doctor Sleep does it so well. It does it so well. And bombed and was only sort of half well received when it came out where I'm like, don't do it. You're never gonna do it better than this.

[02:27:57] And this didn't even work at the time. I think that all work and no play make, like that would be a really great movie. Do you know what I mean? Oh, just adapt the book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just take that straight from the source.

[02:28:11] Hollywood announces IP, great IP. It's in the movie. Yeah, Sean Anders. Everyone loves the movie. It's a family comedy. It's like a family comedy. Right. What do you guys make of the closing shot where Jack Nicholson's in the picture, but it's from a long ago?

[02:28:29] I'm just trying to do the thing where I reference moments in The Shining that are famous now. It's funny that people talk about that being so elusive. And I still find the ending of 2001 confusing and have a hard time even coming up with a thesis

[02:28:42] in my head that tracks. The ending of 2001 is just like, man, this shit's just gonna keep on going, baby. No, it's just like, ball keeps rolling. What can I tell you? Spoilers. For an episode we've already recorded. Sure. By this point, even though we haven't in real life.

[02:28:58] The ending of this, I'm just like, oh, it's sort of like that's where everyone's cursed to. It's not like, oh, he was literally there before. No, he was literally there before. That's what's weird about Kubrick's rejection of the idea of hell or whatever,

[02:29:11] where I'm just like, that night is weirdly the frozen in time night that repeats itself in a continuum in this hotel. It's the cursed night. And if you become a victim to this hotel, you're like stuck there, right? That's how I take it.

[02:29:26] That's how I take it too. But maybe he was at the July 4th Ball in 1921 or whatever. Maybe he's a time travel. I mean, obviously it's that shot. Maybe he's a quantum leaper. I read something that was actually about this. No, he can't be a quantum leaper

[02:29:37] because in the picture he would appear as the person that he led into. You're right. Yeah, so quantum leap logic does not apply. Just trying to think of anything else. Did I mention the little girls who say come play with me? Creepy. Come on, is there anything else?

[02:29:54] Blood elevator. It's just funny, Red Rum. Red Rum? We talked about Red Rum. Crash zooms are just always so effective with that fucking Wendy Carlos music. It's so scary. Yeah. Good. You know. I don't know, it's a good movie. It's one of my favorite movies ever.

[02:30:10] I watch it all the time. If I'm ever like on vacation in like the winter in like Vermont, like if I'm in some kind of cozy lodge, which one of my best friends has a little ski house and like a little ski lodge in Vermont. Humble Brick?

[02:30:26] I mean, it's very humble. So yes. The Humblest of Bricks. We always are like six hours into getting there we're like all right. Really? Let's throw on the shiny. That's like when I least wanna watch the shiny. I wanna watch it.

[02:30:39] Although I will say, I mean he's always been a big shiny but he's not a, you know, whatever, cinephile or whatever. And then one time he was like, you know, Kubrick, I've seen X, Y, and Z. And I was like, have you ever seen Barry Lyndon?

[02:30:49] He was like no. And I was like, I'm putting it on. And like 10 minutes in he was like, what the fuck is this? And then I was like, don't worry and we watched it. And then like he watched it like 10 more times. Yeah.

[02:30:58] And that was just a nice memory. He just kept texting me being like, I can't stop watching that movie. Like that's a movie. Have you guys done 2001 yet? No. No, I mean I did it about 21 years ago. I had a good time. I was 15 years old. Yeah.

[02:31:15] I can't remember. Yeah, I saw Shrek four times. Right, Lord of the Rings came out that year. It was a sophomore. Oops, I did it again. Oops, I did it again. Is that 2001? Yeah, right, because Hit Me Baby One More Time is 99. Oops, I did it again is 2000.

[02:31:30] Fuck. Flat on your face. Fuck. Lucky? Yeah, lucky or I'm a slave for you. I'm a slave for you. Is 01? Is 01. I would have bet any amount of money that was two or three. It's Baby One More Time 99, Oops 2000,

[02:31:46] Britney, which is the one with I'm a Slave For You, which is kind of like a relaunch, is 2001, it was that brief. Because wow, because In The Zone is two or three. Right. She took a break. Her greatest hits are 04, she's been a pop singer for five years.

[02:31:58] It's incredible. All right, so quickly I'll just share this as an Entertainment Weekly article with Johnson, the producer and writer, is quoted. Diane Johnson. There is an explanation for the photo, though it's a bit strange and paradoxical because it's both real and unreal.

[02:32:16] The idea that Jack was always at the hotel in some earlier incarnation. Jack had somehow been the creature of the hotel through reincarnation. Right, it's like there's always gonna be a, but that to me is just, that's the poetry of it.

[02:32:28] It's like there'll always be some fucking person being tortured by this place. Right. Like he's not, he's Grady, but he's also not Grady and yeah. Yeah. And like that's why I like that Grady, when you're like, you imagine a most feral guy

[02:32:41] because you hear like oh my God, he like chopped up his kids and shot himself. And then he's like a posh butler type. Like you know, that's cool, that's creepy. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, good movie, B plus. Yeah, I think good movie.

[02:32:55] Two knives out of 10, I already gave my grade. Good, scary movie. Yeah. No, I love it. I feel like you don't love it as much as I do. I feel like you've never been a Shining. No, I mean, you know, I'm less of a Cooper.

[02:33:06] You're more of a Shining Time station. Well yeah, that's my vibe. But I feel like I'm less of a Cooper guy than most, but this is at the very top tier for me even still. I think I like this movie a hell of a lot.

[02:33:18] I think I didn't realize how much you loved it, the scale of which you loved it. It's one of my faves. Yeah, no but I'm a big ass fan of this movie. This is near the top for me. All right, you wanna do the box office game?

[02:33:30] Tim, is there anything else in your notes? Come on, we're winding down. It's been a long. I just run down a couple. Please. Just a few. Because you brought your lap, I mean you flew in to do this podcast and the Coca-Cola thing. On your laptop.

[02:33:42] And brought your laptop in so you could consult your notes. Oh yeah, absolutely. Guys, I'm a guest here. I wanted to be a good guest in your home, Ben's home. It's been amazing. The ax was intense, but it's fine. We don't need to talk about it more.

[02:33:53] An actor prepares. Don't question Tim's method. Whatever it takes to get there. I have to do whatever it takes me to get there. It's kind of like a dainty job and I need to. It's justified. It's justified. All's fair in art. So. There are no crimes.

[02:34:06] I would say that there are like a couple things just going along with what I was really noticing was that sort of like the domestic violence thing is the Jack's manipulation, especially when he's in the freezer or in the dry goods storage room.

[02:34:24] When he's saying like, you really hurt me. I really hurt me. It's just like that. It does a really good job of like, he tries all the tricks to get like that sort of tracks with that thing. And also the fact that even as he's coming at her

[02:34:40] with like, you know, I just, she's like, I just wanna go back to my room. I just wanna go back to my room. Like, she's like, I just wanna think a little while, whatever that is. Like she is still trying to make it all okay.

[02:34:54] And the only reason that he gets hit in the head with the bat is because she kind of accidentally brushes his hand with the bat. Right. You know what I mean? It's not like a, I'm gonna take this moment to take control of this.

[02:35:11] Oh fuck, I hit him a little bit, which means now he's gonna kill me unless I do this. Right. And I just thought that part of it was incredible. She rarely directly attacks him. When she hits him with a knife later, that's a mistake too basically.

[02:35:25] She's just kind of like flailing with it. She mostly just wants to get away from him. They kill him by running away from him. Yeah. He dies in the maze. Like it's like, you know, again, you know, you could put Snow on trial.

[02:35:36] We could, but I don't think she killed him. We could and we should. Yeah, we should. And also like that cut to him being frozen, incredible. I think that was generally all the stuff that I have from my notes.

[02:35:44] Yeah, that cut, I forgot how quickly they go from like him sort of like lurching through the maze to just hard cut. He froze. Yeah. The Simpsons, I really, that is the only problem. I had seen that episode like 50 times before.

[02:35:59] I feel like I'd seen so many parodies of different elements of this. The Simpsons one is, yeah. But one thing that I love. All work and no play makes Homer something something. Go crazy. I don't mind if I do. It always gets me. Just shinin'. So fucking funny.

[02:36:13] One thing that I love about movies like this is that no matter how many times they've been parodied, no matter how many times they've been ate. You can't hurt it. The power is cradly still there. No matter how many times they tried to make a sequel,

[02:36:27] like you know, 100% bulletproof. No matter how many times some asshole comes on a podcast and says, this is just like Tim Robinson. It will never put a dent in how good and scary that movie is from the first moment to the very end.

[02:36:41] And the bones are their money. David, I. The bones are their money. The bones are their money. Man, if you found a big old skeleton room, you'd be rich. David. Yes. I saw, I was not trying to look up box office stuff. Oh sure.

[02:36:55] But I did just see that like most of the Kubrick movies were kind of platformed. That they were like, well this is this heady filmmaker. You have to build like slowly the interest in this film. This movie was like 10 theaters opening weekend and then like a thousand.

[02:37:08] Like they were like, this is a commercial. This played more as of course it was famously nominated for two Razzies and got like mixed-ish reviews at the time. I feel like the Harvard Lampoon also like dubbed this the worst movie of the year.

[02:37:20] Like a lot of people thought they were smarter than this film. People never behave that way. What are you talking about? I just real quick, one more thing. Yeah. We've been going a long time. Very sorry. Yeah. No.

[02:37:32] In that scene right before she hits him with the bat. He's gone crazy. Danny's been strangled by a ghost. And she says, I wanna talk to you. And he says, what do you wanna talk about? Which is so funny. And so scary. Anyway, that's it.

[02:37:49] The thing I think you're trying to reference Griff is this movie came out platform against the wide release of another very famous movie. Empire Strikes Back. The most successful movie of the year. The Empire Strikes Back. Which I was surprised that this was a like Memorial Day weekend.

[02:38:02] Correct. I don't know when it is. Right. Release. I just would have assumed this movie came out in the fall or winter. You would think you'd wanna put this out in the winter. It's set in the winter. Famously. Empire Strikes Back also a snowy movie.

[02:38:14] But no, it's for people, you know, fanning themselves. It was a very. Go to a cool air condition. Very snowy May at the cinemas that year. So number one is the Empire Strikes Back. New this week. Luke, I am your father. Yep. Spoiler alert.

[02:38:28] Number two is a horror film. And I just, it didn't say in the episode description it would have spoilers for Empire Strikes Back. Oh, sorry. I wouldn't have listened to the episode if I knew they were just gonna spoil other movies. Okay. Did Truman Capote listen to it?

[02:38:44] Yeah. I don't know. I found the film distasteful. Number two is a horror film. I cut open a tauntaun. We actually mentioned this, you know, this franchise at the top. A slasher film. Is it the first Friday the 13th? It sure is.

[02:39:02] Here to think about them like coexisting theaters at the same time. That's insane. So two very different things right alongside each other. These two movies, Friday the 13th and The Shining opened up the same week? No. Or they were just playing at the same time?

[02:39:16] Friday the 13th had opened maybe two weeks ago or whatever. Like it's been around. Empire and Shining are new this week. Wow. Friday the 13th just opened. And yeah, you could bounce from Star Wars over to Jason over to other things. Those movies can't coexist.

[02:39:32] One of them must have flopped. How could audiences want both of them at the same time? It's bizarre that it's like, no, both of these work. This was a very solid hit. Very opposite ends of the spectrum. This is like, you know,

[02:39:42] one of the true hits of Kubrick's career. Obviously like Spartacus is the biggest. But this was a big ass hit. And 2001. But like this is big. Shining opening limited number three. Number four is a movie I've never heard of. I'm gonna have to look it up and see. 1989.

[02:39:57] Dave's never heard of that. I've never heard of it. It's a teen comedy. Okay. Depicting crass and mischievous antics. Screwballs. Practical jokes. A 1950s era car club. This looks like a kind of American graffiti knockoff. Mischief. Sorry? Mischief. Is there mischief in the movie?

[02:40:18] I'm throwing out titles of movies I know that are like this. It's not mischief. I will say this film stars an actor who you know personally. Who I know personally? Tim Simons? No. Actor who I know. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Is it the Jacky Roll Haley? Nope.

[02:40:32] No, fuck. Okay, when I say you know him personally, I mean you've watched a lot of his television show with him on the internet. How many people have you done that with? How many people have you live streamed watching their TV show with them? Robert Wool's.

[02:40:45] Is it Hollywood Nights? It's the Hollywood Nights. Yeah. Robert Wool? Tony Danza? Michelle Pfeiffer? Yeah. Fran Drescher? His character's name in that movie is like Pangborn Krillhorn or something. Bubam Turk. Yeah, it's one of the. What kind of fucking name is that?

[02:41:00] It's one of the great movie character names. That was like an Animal House runoff. But it's like set in the 50s. So I guess it's got like. Animal House is set in the 60s? Actually, this is also set in the 60s. So there you go. Yeah.

[02:41:12] So total Animal House. But yeah, Robert Wool's playing like the Bluto type character. It was incredibly weird. Never met Robert Wool. Right, you've only. That's why I did have to correct where I'm like, you're not like Jacky Roll Haley type friends where you actually work together.

[02:41:24] No, I thought it was losing it maybe, which Jacky Roll Haley isn't. Yeah, okay, anyway. Number four, the box office is The Hollywood Knights. Number five of the box office is the film version of a sort of cult TV show of the moment.

[02:41:41] So it's a continuation of the show having been on air? Or is it much later? It's. Is it The Nude Bomb? No, sorry, the show had just gone off the air. Okay, okay. But it's like not a narrative show. It's like a variety show.

[02:41:58] This is one of the famously awful movies. It's The Gong Show Movie. The Gong Show Movie. Yeah, okay. Chuck Beres' The Gong Show Movie, which was like. The Gong Show Movie? I think it was like. Remember how you used to watch The Gong Show

[02:42:09] and you'd go, I wish this thing had more plot. I wish there was a real strong narrative backbone to this thing. Was one of those things where it was like taken out of theaters immediately basically. It was so bad. Is it the plot that's like a mystery

[02:42:22] happening on the set of The Gong Show or whatever? I don't know, sounds bad to me. How did he get the paper bag on his head? That's the question. You've also got Walter. It's an unknown comic origin. A Walter Hill Western called The Long Riders.

[02:42:34] I feel like we've mentioned this one before. It's got all three caridines in it. Right, isn't that the one that has like, but then it also has like both quades. It has both quades, both guests. Yes. Christopher and Nicholas and both Keaches. Right. James Stacey.

[02:42:48] It's the brothers movie. Sounds stupid, but I don't know. Kind of want to check it out because of Walter Hill. You've got Tom Horn. What is that? No idea. That is another Western, a Steve McQueen, old Steve McQueen, like late in life.

[02:43:04] He probably died just a couple of years after. He died that year, 1989. You've got The Nude Bomb, which is, that's the Get Smart movie, right? I fucking just guessed it. You just guessed it earlier, you mean.

[02:43:14] I guessed it for number five when you said it was a TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Nude Bomb. I feel like we must have done a movie around here recently because I feel like we talked about The Nude Bomb, didn't we?

[02:43:23] We were just talking about The Nude Bomb. Have you seen The Nude Bomb? Because The Nude Bomb is like 10 years later, right? Yeah. The Nude Bomb? It's The Nude Bomb. It's the Get Smart movie, but it's, you know, Get Smart ends like 20 years after the show.

[02:43:36] It was like 12 years after the show had gone off the air and it was a huge bomb and Hollywood's takeaway was like, never put the word bomb in the title. That means the movie will bomb. Truly that was their-

[02:43:46] Well, or at least like the fucking press will leap at it. Like they'll put it on all their headlines. Number nine is All That Jazz. Maybe that's when The Nude Bomb came out. Right, and then number 10 is Cole Miner's Daughter,

[02:43:55] which I also feel like we mentioned on that episode. That episode had Lin-Manuel Miranda on it. Yeah, it did pretty well. Pretty cool. This whole time I've just been thinking that if I can't imagine you at the breakfast table with your father, the box office game hits different.

[02:44:10] Oh sure. You know what I mean? Like it lacks some emotion. If I can't imagine you really trying to guess with your dad, David's a stand in for your father. In many ways. Absolutely, no, because it is with things like this,

[02:44:24] I'm like what are other movies we've covered from this year? When I've looked at box office, it's like remembering triangulating versus- What do we think of the Starship Troopers steal? I think it's pretty good. Pretty cool. You see this Tim? Pretty cool. Oh that's sick.

[02:44:37] So I have the previous steal they put out for Starship Troopers that was sort of like the Nazi propaganda poster. Which I liked. And I'm looking at this and I'm questioning are they gonna get me to fucking swap steals? Am I gonna upgrade?

[02:44:50] Because it's not a new edition. Anytime I do that now, I just give it to Emma Stefanski who lives near me. Every time I see her, I'm like I got like six more DVDs that I would do for her. Sure, black.

[02:45:00] I have offered this service to you guys. Just text me and I'll say don't spend your money. You're offering the opposite service. You're saying don't buy the thing in the first place. Don't do it, you don't need this stuff. Emma gives me the other thing which is like

[02:45:13] sure I'll take Interstellar off your hands if you're upgrading. Ben wants us to text him and say should I upgrade to the new steal? And then we'll go no and you shouldn't have bought the last one you got. Go outside.

[02:45:25] You never should have bought an edition of this movie, period. I'm so hungry. I am too, we gotta get sandwiches. Tim. What a pleasure, thank you so much for having me. You gotta come back. I will absolutely come back. In my opinion.

[02:45:38] In my opinion, IMO, I'm HO, you gotta come back. You're the best in the best. Thank you for having me, you guys are great. Is there anything you wanna plug? I know you've been doing the V podcast, right? Yeah, no I don't wanna plug anything. Great, perfect. Okay.

[02:45:54] Fine, don't plug anything. You don't even wanna plug Goosebumps? Come on. Goosebumps, fun for the whole film. I would say, I'll fucking plug, I'll plug, I don't know, fucking Double Indemnity. I just watched Double Indemnity a couple nights ago. It's fucking great, go watch that.

[02:46:08] Can I just say, you do have such a fucking cool career. Like I do think when I look at your filmography you've been able to do such different stuff. Both in terms of you working with very cool first time filmmakers,

[02:46:23] having small parts and fucking inherent vice and shit. You're building one of those ideal random roles careers. Yeah. Which is my favorite kind of acting career where it's just different sizes, different projects, different genres, budget levels, working with really interesting different people.

[02:46:41] I have come into a thing where all I want is to have anything that resembles the careers of people that I admire. When it comes down to it, I think Roy Schneider is sort of quickly becoming my favorite movie star. Yeah, good answer.

[02:46:56] And Steve Buscemi and those guys. Those are the guys that I've always loved. So I don't know, anything that gets me close to anything that those guys do. I think you're doing it. Well, thank you, you're very flattering. Well, thank you for doing this podcast.

[02:47:14] And thank you all for listening. Yeah! Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to put the show together. Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork, AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing, JJ Birch for our research.

[02:47:31] Go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon page where we're doing James Bond, Roger Moore commentaries. And we'll do the Dr. Sleep episode. Tune in next week for Full Metal Jacket, seven year break in between movies.

[02:47:46] Who's going to be the guest on that one? I don't know. We have no idea. That's the end of this episode. And as always, I'm checking my notes here. I believe the coffee drop made the theatrical cut of draft day.

[02:47:55] I have to tell you it did not, Griff. I'm so sorry. I'm double checking my notes here. It turns out the coffee drop did not make the final cut of draft day. God damn it. Theatrical.