Meet Joe Black with Richard Lawson

[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 neighbors will shy with Blank Check Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. I say fall head over heels.

[00:00:26] Find someone who can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Well, you forget your head and you listen to your heart.

[00:00:35] And I'm not hearing any heart because the truth is, honey, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, because if you haven't tried, if you don't...

[00:00:48] Just keep going. You have to try, because if you haven't tried, you haven't podcasted. That whole time I was staring at Griffin, dewy-eyed like Claire Fulani. I thought you were going to hum the score underneath. I think I would have embarrassed myself.

[00:01:03] I think you would have nailed it. It's hard to do Hopkins doing 50% of an American accent. I don't think it's easy to do Hopkins, period. He's supposed to be from Newfoundland in this, right? About halfway? He's got this mode that I feel like we all just accept.

[00:01:17] Where he's like, I just, I sound like Anthony Hopkins. I'm not full Welsh. Right. I was about to ask that. Who is the most American he's ever had to play? Richard Nixon. Right? Am I wrong? I'm not. I guess so, but then he played that as like...

[00:01:37] Most American, not greatest American. Richard, 10 comedy points. But Nixon, he kind of was like, Look here, you know, I'm from California. But he still sort of has the... I agree. Who is he in The World's Fastest Indian? That's a pretty American movie, right?

[00:01:54] He played a talking car in that one. That one's actually about a talking car. Acting credits. List of Anthony Hopkins performances. Let's just roll down this list and like, is there someone called like Cowboy Jack in here? You know what I mean? Like am I forgetting about someone?

[00:02:10] You've introduced, David, in the past, the Blank Check Hall of Fame. Certain actors across our nine years we've covered across multiple miniseries. It's not that one director liked them. Lots of directors have put them. We have covered a weird swath of Hopkins now.

[00:02:24] You did the whole Hearts in Atlantis season. We did one season just... Early podcast days. We did one Hearts in Atlantis minute where we went through it one minute at a time and pretended it was the only Stephen King adaptation ever made.

[00:02:38] No, we've done Silence of the Lambs. We've done Amistad. He's played two presidents. Spoiler, we have already recorded our Elephant Man episode which will obviously come in the fall. An excellent performance. We've done kind of his first movie breakthrough at least an American film.

[00:02:55] Obviously, Silence of the Lambs is like complete transcendence. I think there's one other... We've done the Thor's on Patreon. No acting required. You have the human stain Patreon coming up. If we did a Philip Roth Patreon I'm just saying there's juice there.

[00:03:13] The only problem is all the movies are bad. Juice? I just want to clarify you said juice. I'm so glad as a professor for saying there was juice in the Roth series. I'm an American professor. I've never seen The Human Stain.

[00:03:28] I've read the book, it's a fantastic book. If we did a Philip Roth series we'd probably go up to number one. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But we were like this man had no flaws. Finally, these guys are pissing on the third whale. Gillis would be inviting us on.

[00:03:44] Five million dollars a month. You want to talk about Philip Roth? It writes itself. Are there any other Hopkins we've covered? Mission Impossible 2 on Patreon? Sure. Which is the ultimate paycheck mode. He really gave a shit in that one. Oh man, did he care so much

[00:04:02] about the performance he gave. Amistad, we have yet to do Zorro although we must. We are the two popes, that's a competitive advantage. You and I. Which is which? I think you and I. They should have called that movie Benny and Frank. Have you not done Dracula?

[00:04:23] No, we've never done Coppola. That feels kind of inevitable in some form or another that we will cover that movie. Or Patreon series Hot Monsters Who Fuck has been my other pitch for a while. You haven't done Ed Zwick. We'll eventually do Ridley Scott.

[00:04:39] We haven't lit the Zwick. We'll do Ridley Scott and do another Hannibal. We could do Oliver Stone and some Alexander in there. And some Tricky. My favorite Hawkins performance. We're forgetting of course Beowulf. There we go. How could we forget? It's ok that we forgot that.

[00:04:59] David, come on. I just don't remember that he's in it. Wolfman we'll do one day. Joe Johnston, he's in that. Sure, Hot Monsters Who Don't Fuck. Does he know he's in it? Probably not. Anthony Hopkins turns into a wolf in that movie. And? Fights his wolf son.

[00:05:22] Does he do a good job? I want to wager that he is not the one under the makeup. You're kidding. I want to say that Anthony Hopkins was not really in the last 20 minutes of narrative of that film. But his character wolves out.

[00:05:36] I think we'll do James Gray someday. Armageddon Time, a wonderful performance. A performance I gave my blankie award for best supporting actor. We'll definitely do a Michael Bay series one day. And he introduced us to The Last Knight. And introduced us to Cogman. His psychopath butler, Cogman.

[00:05:57] The human sized robot who does not transform and beats fish. We've overlapped with him many times and we'll overlap with him many times more but he has conclusively never convincingly played an American in his 50 years of acting. A perfect example of someone where that doesn't fucking matter.

[00:06:13] Like Brian Cox in Succession. Yeah. There was another actor I was just thinking about where I'm like, I don't think they've ever actually successfully done an accent that overrides their natural speaking voice and I don't care. Liam Neeson. Liam Neeson's a really good example.

[00:06:33] A lot of these guys, it's just like, it's gravitas and it's also that they attack these things with a lack of embarrassment. And I think if you don't see the actor struggling with the accent, you just accept it. Like confidence goes a long way.

[00:06:44] I think the accent thing is we just have to buy it in the movie. People who get really hung up on the direct accuracy like Jodie Comer in The Bike Riders if that's not exactly Chicagoland I don't really care, I like it in the movie.

[00:06:56] I believe it in the movie. David was very eager to start this episode because as he said, this is one of the richer texts we've covered in a long time. I agree with this. We're starting Hopkins heavy but I want to put forth In 99.9% of actors' careers

[00:07:10] this performance would be at their absolute top tier. Even in a movie that was this derided and largely forgotten I hear what you're saying. 99.9% of people putting in this performance you'd be like, holy shit he tapped into something incredible in this. Just the absolute presence.

[00:07:26] And Hopkins standard of quality is basically so good that you're just like, yeah, this is in the top 50% Maybe. I think this is truly seen as in history I think this is truly seen as in his kind of phoning it in era He's so fucking good in this.

[00:07:41] Do you think he's good in the film? You can say no. I think he's good in a good movie. Wow, this podcast Ben, you're going to have to resist. What's up? Did you like me, Joe Black? We'll introduce the show and the guests and everything else.

[00:07:57] You seem a little out of sorts, Ben. Ben. I just locked into it. Ben Hossley. Ben is standing still kind of looking at us a little oddly and speaking slowly His tips are not frosted but imagine if they were.

[00:08:14] You seem a little confused by the room you're in right now as if suddenly And you know what? I just picked up on the reference you were making in your sound check, Richard. You weren't even here. Peanut butter! I forget! Let's just go around.

[00:08:30] I want to say I think Anthony Hopkins is good in a good movie. David? Good in a good movie, yes. Yeah. Listen, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies. David, what are you struggling with?

[00:08:48] How are we going to talk about this? No, we can talk about it. I think there's lots to say. It's just kind of crazy that we're all coming into land three planes in a row with like, good movie and air traffic control is like, what's going on?

[00:09:00] Go around. I think the box log was, what if I don't hate this? And it felt like the internet started sharpening their knives. And perhaps that's a better way of putting it. Like, I unilaterally do not hate anything about this movie.

[00:09:11] Not since Marwen have I been watching a movie being like, I can feel my appreciation for this bubble. You're insane for that one. I maintain you are still insane. But this is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers such as making

[00:09:25] a movie, and then they're like, I'm going to make a movie. Such as making a blockbuster so big Netflix is making sequels to it fucking 40 years later still. Has anyone seen that thing? XLF? Is it out? For all I know, it's out.

[00:09:43] That's the thing with those Netflix movies. They just did their big premiere and everyone's on their fucking press tour and I think it comes out like a week from when we're recording this. Yeah, it comes out July 3rd. You know what I fucking hate?

[00:09:55] All the posters they have up around New York City for Beverly Hills Cop XLF. Coming exclusively or streaming exclusively on Netflix planned starting at $6.99 a month. Yeah, what a bummer. There's now like a dollar sign underneath their fucking posters. Great company.

[00:10:14] Anyway, they're giving a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Boy does this qualify. This check was so blank it was clear. It was just like there was not a check actually. They just opened a vault.

[00:10:29] They were like, here's the blank check but they were just handing over air. Pure air. It's a miniseries on the films of Martin Brest. It's called Podverly Hills Cast and today we are finally meeting Joe Black at long last. Is this the first movie you guys have done

[00:10:45] where literally a studio head got fired because of it? That's a great question. I do think that studio heads have been fired for some of the things we've covered. Let's pull out though, this is the same season Fall 98

[00:10:57] and this is the same season as Babe Pig in the City and that is the two punch that gets them fired. It's both movies we've covered now. I was reading, I think he was fired before Babe came out but I think it was such a disaster.

[00:11:09] I think it was tracking badly or something and so they were just like, you're out of here. Who are we talking about here? Casey Silver I think his name is. He should have met Joe Black. Why settle for silver when you can meet Joe Black?

[00:11:23] Ben is staring very intensely at a cup as if he's never seen me in one. You're kind of like the Bluey episode Born Yesterday, I'm just gonna say. That's kind of what you're doing too. I know no one here has seen it but just for the listeners.

[00:11:36] Ben looks incredible today. He looks good. I don't know what it is but he's glowing. His eyes. He just said nutted butter to himself. The lights are catching your eyes so beautifully or I guess the other way around, maybe both.

[00:11:52] And when I asked you guys how you know Ben and you said he's just an associate of yours. And we took 20 minutes to say his full name? Ben. Good name! I like that name. Shout out for the name Ben. Mr. Hosley. That would make his name Ben Hosley.

[00:12:08] There's a peanut gallery being like Joe? Oh huh, Joe. That's a name. No one can deny it. Is there any more or are we done? He's a pro. He's a pro doer. That's enough of that. I don't even want you to start on that road.

[00:12:25] Three hours later, Griffin finishes. That has to be the nickname. It's just meet Ben Hosley. Meet Ben Hosley. Fine. Sure. Great. Ben's posture is incredible today by the way. I just need to keep calling out certain physical attributes of Ben's body language.

[00:12:41] The way he's smiling is more Clifford than This is true. He's doing a ghillie I would say. Bring her back Bring her back Bring her back Our guest today Return to the show for Oh, do you want me to check?

[00:13:00] I don't know actually. It might be the tenth time. Oh no, it's more than that. Really? Twelve? One, two, three, four Five, six, seven, eight Nine, ten, eleven, twelve Thirteenth time! A Goodman's dozen. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, because you forget Button You and Smabulent Pitt

[00:13:20] are hand in hand You got a bit of a running theme now. Yeah, I'm locked in on Brad Pitt's weirder epics. Yeah. Oh, can I do Legends of the Fall? Sure. It is I kept doing this mental exercise while watching this movie It just speaks to how

[00:13:42] the particularity of the time in which a movie comes out where it is in everyone's career where the industry is at, how audiences are feeling where you're like, you could absolutely see the reputations or less than I would say reputation the at-the-time receptions

[00:13:59] of Ben Button and Joe Black being completely flipped Sure. That's interesting. For both movies I would argue existing in a current similar status in legacy you could be like, oh yeah, me, Joe Black got nominated for like 13 Academy Awards

[00:14:15] and I got $150 million and everyone is kind of puzzled by it now. Versus Benjamin Button came out, was a big flop and was sort of totally blank by awards bodies I guess so Both had sort of fraught productions They both exist in a very similar

[00:14:29] zone now. It's true Except Benjamin Button was not on my college cable movie channel so I haven't seen that and I believe this was my 10th time seeing me Joe Black Your college cable movie channel? Boston College TV It was many universities They added like 4 or 5 new movies

[00:14:52] once a month and they would just play on repeat So it was Hannibal one year Me, Joe Black was definitely on there for some reason even though that was years after I was in college I feel like this thing was on TNT all the time

[00:15:08] I've watched sections of it. I'd never watched it in full before Oh really? I've seen this movie so And part of it is, I've said this in other episodes leading up to this in the series. Richard Lawson by the way Vanity Fair, little gold man

[00:15:19] Happy to be back. Hi Richard As such a Breast fan so dismayed by the latter half of his career I've always resisted watching this because I wanted to believe I would secretly think it's good but there's the Schrodinger's cat effect of like if I watch

[00:15:35] it I'll know for sure and what if I don't like it? I think the thing about watching this movie in the context of watching all of these movies is you're like oh no, Gigli is the thing that did it like this was probably a heartbreak for him

[00:15:47] Joe Black was for Breast and a frustration but in the fullness of his career this is not what killed him But also Scent of a Woman is a disaster Well that's true too. That's not a good movie but it was a success It was a success

[00:16:03] and it won a big Oscar This film is better than Scent of a Woman Unquestionably For one thing Al Pacino never once yells about pussy in this movie He actually does You just can't hear him. He's just in the background He's not mic'd He's yelling

[00:16:24] I wanted a hooah or something Other than that That movie is horrendous and you're just sort of like how the fuck did Breast make this whereas for all of its peculiarities this movie makes sense as Martin Breast trying to make a prestige film

[00:16:40] Scent of a Woman feels like all of his instincts are off and this is like warts and all in line with the first three films of his career It certainly feels very tied to Going in Style Hot Tomorrow isn't Going in Style baby

[00:16:56] Oh the first four, you're right Maybe a little less so to the fun movies that entertained people which I cannot deny this movie is not fun and entertained nobody Those are the issues with the film I think Scent of a Woman is like

[00:17:11] maudlin in ways that make me want to vomit and its comedy is galling I think this movie, what is now its main legacy is clips of it going viral and people are like what the fuck is this I didn't even know this movie existed Is this a bit?

[00:17:25] And in context of the movie all of those scenes are admittedly insane but within the context you understand the intentional comedy that Martin Breast is aiming for there and then when he pulls it off you can question it but if you take those scenes on their own

[00:17:42] you're like how could this ever make sense and watching in context you're like this makes sense from the guy who made Midnight Run and is now trying to evolve to something more emotional more contemplative but still has comedic bones in his body Yeah On the one hand

[00:18:02] it's like okay was Mecho Black dated It was an old fashioned epic at a time when Oscar plays were getting a little bit more modern The indie revolution had taken over Studios weren't doing well at the Oscars anymore Movies were getting rougher But also there was like

[00:18:18] not that this is some big success but there was like Bagger Vance around the same time This movie was not alone in its big sweeping magical realism Titanic wins Best Picture the same year this movie comes out which is kind of the last of those I would say

[00:18:33] Big, grand, broad, emotional Depends how you feel about it Shakespeare in Love Yeah Sure, Shakespeare in Love is obviously funny That's the difference So much more of a comedy versus this being so po-faced And this didn't have a monster albeit good awards campaigner behind it

[00:18:55] like Shakespeare in Love did And Lord of the Rings, Gladiator those movies are very old fashioned With technical modernity This is a movie about movie stars looking at each other And very expensive practical sets And saying things with deep meaning

[00:19:11] and just being like we demand this be taken seriously as like Thomas Newman fucking wilds out like Animal It's like someone melted a James L. Brooks script on a radiator and it just kind of spread out It's like this kind of like adages of wisdom

[00:19:27] What does that actually mean though? And it's an unbearably earnest film in a way that I think can just make some people like absolutely choke I will say, you know, I think this is my 10th time watching it I've seen it so many times

[00:19:42] I like the, I like a lot It looks so good, I like that they were spending all this money on it I like that a lot of it was filmed in Rhode Island Where you live And the final scene is filmed at your house

[00:19:54] Yeah, yeah, no, it's a documentary about my dad But I had never really been emotional with it before Watching it this morning when Forlani at the end says because she's accepting that her dad's gone I wish you could have met my father

[00:20:09] Which is an objectively insane thing to say to someone you just met I burst into tears I will say and we're going to talk about this a lot The final scene The second of two scenes between Brad Pitt and the Jamaican woman made me cry this morning

[00:20:25] And that should be impossible considering what Brad Pitt is doing in that scene He's doing Cameron Diaz's original voice from The Counselor Yup And I just think the profundity of her performance and the directness of the writing there She's so good

[00:20:39] It was one of those things where usually I do not cry at movies unless something is building for minutes upon minutes upon minutes it really has to accumulate There was some turn within two lines where suddenly I was misty Thank you I really want to be

[00:21:00] Nodding off on Mike again You gotta change your life David You gotta pull it together And you know what in fact You gotta change the way you experience coffee at home How do I do that? Well a lot of coffee out there is dull, stale and questionably sourced

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[00:22:44] for 30% off your subscription order drinktrade.com Use code check at checkout to save Meet Joe Black I wonder if you've never seen this film Nope, not in full I had also never seen it because I never had a week to devote to it

[00:23:01] It's just difficult to clear out a week I thought you guys were both like versed in this movie Nope, I knew that he got hit by the cars and I knew that he said everything was gonna be irie You know what's a different camber?

[00:23:11] No, it was Sebastian the crab Do you know what's a nice thing about choosing to do Martin Bress before David Lynch ended up winning March Madness Twin Peaks The Return will now only be the longest thing we've covered on main feed

[00:23:25] It'll also be the second thing in which someone effects an insane accent for no reason, I don't want to spoil anything for you I knew this movie to be sort of legendarily kind of slow and sleepwalking expensive and sort of right lavish

[00:23:43] and I knew it to be kind of the peak of like Brad Pitt as like pretty boy who kind of just stands there and like when he's making Fight Club I have to stop Like this and Seven Years in Tibet You know these kinds of movies

[00:23:58] where it's right Specifically the period between his 7, 12 Monkeys year and his Fight Club year There's four years there where he cannot figure out what kind of movie star he wants to be It was grim So Forky comes in I've got this on He says what are you watching

[00:24:18] She's like why have you been in here all day I'm like wow Your beard has gone grey Why are you sitting in the couch with spider webs all around Your child is like walking out of the door in her high school graduation It's like the Mayo Truff commercial

[00:24:35] It's fucking clickin' here I think it's a mustard anti-anus commercial Go on And I'm like yeah well the deal with this movie is that it's this very slow moving kind of toney drama and then once in a while it makes a choice so insane What is that

[00:24:51] That is what it is But I think I got it I think I got what he was going for I don't think this is a movie I would tell people to watch I don't think this movie is totally successful I agree with both of us

[00:25:05] I understand why this film did not bowl people over in 1998 Absolutely But I get what he's going for But I do think I look at certain prestige movies that were very popular with the audience This is kind of to my Benjamin Button point

[00:25:20] that were popular with the Oscars and box office successes in the 90s that you look at now and go what the fuck was everyone thinking I mean I was a big fan of the movie at the time but like this is a better movie than American Beauty

[00:25:32] It's a better movie than American Beauty? This is a better movie than American Beauty It's a better movie than Scent of a Woman American Beauty might have more to say but not in a good way You know what I mean?

[00:25:44] American Beauty just kind of like is of its moment I was thinking of another movie that comes out a year after this and is a huge hit and gets a bunch of Oscars and now everyone looks back on it and is like what the fuck were we thinking

[00:25:56] Green Mile? That movie could have just as easily been received at the time of its release the way this movie was I'll say this though Griffin I have mentioned before that the Green Mile is preponderous and bad and kind of insane

[00:26:15] I was surprised at that take because I think it did become something of a cable classic you know like Darabont, that contract with TNT where he was like he will show all my movies Right! And it's sort of lodged in people's brains

[00:26:29] whereas to me the Green Mile is shitty You look at that 1999 Oscar crop versus the 1999 movie crop It's one of the most insane disparities Versus 1998 being a pretty good Oscar year I genuinely wonder if this movie would have been received a bit more warmly in its day

[00:26:48] I'm not really exaggerating had Brad Pitt had a different hairstyle Possibly. I just want to restate I'm not saying I'm surprised people didn't go for this I'm only surprised in perspective when I hold it up against other movies I am astonished people went for

[00:27:02] It's not nearly as bad as reputation suggests which is always kind of a frustrating thing But the hairstyle thing Benjamin Button, the big scene where he comes back and it's the first turning point in the movie aggressively de-aging him where he's crested the midpoint

[00:27:16] and now we have to get Brad Pitt young and I think the key image that was like the money drop shot of the trailer was him walking into the dance studio and he looks perfect and David Fincher said the thing we aimed for was Mitcho Black

[00:27:32] as much as that's his hated movie it's like this was the perfect snapshot of Brad Pitt at his peak beauty before he starts getting so uncomfortable with it that he's like I need to fuck it up in some way in every movie

[00:27:47] and if I'm not fucking up my look I'm throwing off my energy I refuse to be a Kendall anymore He became a Kendall It's him at peak pretty and then some would say that peak hot was Fight Club But that's a huge shift that he stops being delicate

[00:28:05] and he starts trying to It's like when I first saw DiCaprio and he looked like he hasn't slept in two days and I was like this is a whole new thing but I'm into it and that's kind of what Pitt was about to do after this

[00:28:17] It's nowhere near as good as the two performances I'm about to cite but I think this performance in terms of the arc of the career Now I'm excited No, get excited and the directors that work with whatever is very paired with DiCaprio and The Departed

[00:28:33] and Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut where it's like three guys who are like I'm trying to level up, I'm trying to break out of my thing I'm handing myself over to someone and part of what's compelling about the performance is they don't quite have control

[00:28:46] of what they're doing They're being used in a way Part of the energy of the performance is them struggling if that makes sense I think Pitt's performance in this is fascinating because I think at times he is transcendently good and I think at times he is borderline inept

[00:29:04] and I would basically say I think what is transcendently good is when he's playing inept and when he's trying to play transcendence he is inept Yeah, I agree with that But there are moments of such raw power in what he's doing

[00:29:19] that he talks about I was lost, I was stumbling I was sad, I was going through personal things My eye was off the ball Every moment in this that works is because of that Is because of him not having a handle on this and Brest kind of understanding

[00:29:31] the weird empty beauty of him Yeah, that makes sense He seems like he's just giving himself over to him and there's stuff that works better than other stuff I think my favorite part is when he and you guys might not have noticed this at all

[00:29:43] but he does a Jamaican accent at one point and I just thought that was so good when he did that He tells you that everything is going to be alright Can you watch that scene again? My wife is just like It happened twice Two long scenes

[00:29:59] But you're like this didn't need to happen because they can communicate He doesn't need to do this There's already abstraction He's in the body of another person It's not like he's a walking skeleton It's not like he shapeshifted Although that was interesting Well, I thought about it

[00:30:18] I thought about a lot of stuff This scene makes more sense and is less jarring hypothetically Thought experiment here If the woman doesn't speak English and everyone's stunned He speaks to her No shit It's the first note It's the first note

[00:30:40] My first note is that the lady should be Chinese and he just speaks Chinese He speaks the Chinese language and that's it And Martin Brest is like This is the script and if Martin Brest is like I'm not changing that I'm like I will never make this movie

[00:30:54] Never ever ever That is my one note Everything else we can talk about They will invent something called YouTube You don't know what it is yet But that scene's going on there and everyone's gonna watch it my friend Marty, I will let four additional cars

[00:31:11] hit Brad Pitt if you change the language You can fucking do a street fighter chain attack He floats me here for 10 minutes We can make it look like that scene is stuck on a loop and he's just bouncing back between cars

[00:31:23] You can add a full hour to the run time just with the fucking car ping pong If you just change the language there Or you have to have other scenes where he does something similar Like he goes to order a pizza and he's like yeah two slices

[00:31:38] It would be better if it was It wouldn't be good But if it was an Italian lady and he was like hey don't worry about it honey Why are you breaking my balls? I'm deaf You guys are joking about underlining the bizarreness of him being like

[00:31:52] Why does it have to be that Martin? I just need to talk like her There's no language goal What a nice man That said, that actress She's wonderful Lois Kelly Miller, she's a legendary name Jamaican legend A cultural titan She really delivers in those two scenes

[00:32:12] It destroyed me This is the central tension of this movie The most absurd wrong-headed thing is happening simultaneous to something that I find so pure and direct and thoughtful Maybe the dossier can answer the question What's your question? Just like, is he just, why? The question is why

[00:32:33] I've read through the dossier and I hate to tell you that there is no answer for that So I guess the answer has to be that he's like I made Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run Then I did Sense of Woman

[00:32:43] They probably all thought that sounded stupid too and look what happened there He was bound to determine I read an old interview with him in Premier Magazine He was determined to prove once and for all that death is heterosexual The great mission of his life

[00:32:57] Can't make death gay Death is even asked if he's gay in the movie and he says no So that's on you guys I think the answer David, the movies you just listed all kind of have a scene like this Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run

[00:33:13] and Sense of Woman all have a scene where someone enters a room and affects a weird persona to code switch into to pass with the other people for whatever ultimate game This is what I'm saying about this movie being a straighter line between comedy breast

[00:33:28] and prestige breast than Sense of Woman where you can see him being like well the point is the heightened comedy of it The point is how bizarre this is But you watch it and it's really kind of hard I think for a lot of people

[00:33:44] Anything else would work Even if he was just like Look I know death is a spicy meatball but you're gonna eat it up David knocked five things off his table The thing it's nominally based on Death Takes a Holiday which is a play and then a movie

[00:34:01] It has little funny details where a guy jumps off the Eiffel Tower and can't die because death is not working Plants come back to life So there's whimsy to it There's much more comedy based around that That movie is 75 minutes long

[00:34:15] And if there was whimsy in Micho Black the patois would be like this is just part of this weird little world I love the movie where he has like Bruce Almighty-esque powers which makes it sound out more where it's like he's doing a weird thing

[00:34:29] inexplicably out of nowhere The whole time Martin Brest makes big movies in the 1980s In the 1990s he starts making remakes of movies that he saw at the American Film Institute in the 1970s Based on Italian comedies Right, it's based on an Italian comedy called Profumo Di Donna

[00:34:50] It's a 1934 film, Death Takes a Holiday which indeed is based on an Italian play and a Broadway adaptation of it He, I think was initially I think Hot Tomorrows is a little inspired by all this, right? Death is like his central concern But obviously it's very important

[00:35:06] to going in style as well as he says like death, mortality You know, I saw that film when I was in my early 20s He says he turned on the TV and was sitting on a bed and he watched the entire movie

[00:35:20] before he put the other leg in his pants Now, only 75 minutes So, not as big an ask but still And he then spent 20 years trying to make this movie Like trying to figure out how to do this We've talked about in the past like we've joked about it

[00:35:36] but like movies as a child that I was like, how dare you screen this for children? It has death in it. This is not funny 100% Right, my version of the Ackerman The Ackerman Joker bit Like you guys are laughing at this kind of thing I can totally see

[00:35:55] the way he talks about his obsession with death as a child that feels very paired to my own experience I can totally see Martin Brest watching the original film at 20 and being like, this movie is unspeakably sad and dark This is a light comedy

[00:36:09] but if you're actually digging into the text of what it is, it's fascinating and like it just having this permanent hold on him It's a pretty solid comedy It's Michael Leeson who directed a lot of Preston Sturgis scripts before he started directing his own films

[00:36:24] Easy Living and Remember the Night which are both as solid as hell Have you ever seen Remember the Night? Never! Fucking McMurray and Stanwyck Good guys. We like them What do they do in Remembering the Night? Sounds boring Oh is that the one where they go

[00:36:40] Is it kind of a road movie? Yeah, and you know what? It's actually a little bit Midnight Run She steals a bracelet and then they have to go on the run He's a lawyer representing her She's like miraculously good at that She's gonna be held over for Christmas

[00:36:52] He spends the night with her But she's kind of the Grodin It's Christmas Meet Joe Black Kevin Wade is the first screenwriter that Brest works with This film has four credited screenwriters Kevin Wade had written Working Girl He wrote four drafts over the years

[00:37:10] Then Jeffrey Noe and Rob Osborne They were a team who were from Moonlighting They take some swings there But then he brings in Bo Goldman Who wrote Scent of a Woman poorly in my opinion I agree But obviously a guy with credits A tremendous writer at his best

[00:37:27] And Brest says Look, death is a blank. It's non-existent So we realize the movie is about life and what life is because it's about to be taken away What's the major component of life? Love So what's love really? There's father-daughter love So that will be the movie

[00:37:43] It'll be about those two things It is the way that everyone talks about The Benjamin Button development Where like 15-20 years of everyone trying to make this movie No one can figure out a script And then Eric Roth writes this thing And everyone in Hollywood responds with

[00:37:57] This guy has tapped the wrong nerve And this is now fast-tracked as hell It just sounds like Bo Goldman comes on And everyone who reads this Let me note 130 page script A fleeter version of this movie Was like I get what Brest wants to do here

[00:38:16] I see the appeal Death Takes a Holiday Is not about that stuff Death Takes a Holiday is just like Why does nobody like me? I'm going to pretend to be a fancy man And then is horny and falls for someone And then she decides to go with him

[00:38:32] The ending is flipped But she knows what she's in for Yeah, I mean Similarly he's there Ostensibly to claim A man who he wants to use His fanciness Have him serve as a tour guide The difference is that It's the daughter of his rival

[00:38:53] Rather than being his daughter Who he falls for And the whole movie is in Jamaican Patron Yes, right But it is of course still about A proposed merger between two businesses But as Richard said It's much more leaning into the comedy

[00:39:09] Of what happens in a week where death doesn't exist Uh oh They don't want to do it in this way Where you're like At the end Where was the coffee shop guy this whole time? The sister he was on the phone with Did she go to a morgue?

[00:39:25] What happened? It's been many days if not weeks And I kind of do wish I like this movie a lot Richard, where is the time? In a movie this stuffed That's the thing where you're like Oh it's three hours long

[00:39:42] And you're like yeah but it's got like four characters So I mean of course it's long You were joking about how much Business merger sales Shit there is in this movie Do you know that unlike We've talked about other films recently Where they'll put all the deleted scenes

[00:39:58] In to be able to fill a longer block On movie channels I think if this movie Universal cut down to two hours And they did that by taking out all the business shit And breast disowned it Alan Smithie that shit hard

[00:40:10] But it would be a fascinating alternate version to watch I would be fascinated I'm surprised this movie wasn't at Fox Because it is in some ways like Don't worry Rupert Murdoch you're going to heaven It feels so Foxy It's just like You know wonderful media tycoon

[00:40:26] You're actually a very good man Richard The unseen tycoon is Murdoch That's how I take it That he's like I won't merge with that guy He thinks he can run the world through a communications firm Yeah Sort of Right it's not like

[00:40:47] We don't delve into what a noble life Anthony Hopkins had to earn this massive Running a com firm or whatever But like the way he talks About this person we never see Does kind of make him sound kind of Murdoch Or Maxwell or whatever JJ

[00:41:04] This was not in JJ's dossier And I'm always hesitant to cite something That is unsourced But I saw a number of places on the internet So I qualify this I tag this hard as rumor and legend Say that when Bo Goldman was writing The script in his mind

[00:41:20] He was designing the role for Gene Hackman Sure that I mean That's a different movie But he's right there It's interesting that when this movie starts out Anthony Hopkins is pretty soulful and in touch Perhaps You know like once he knows Death is knocking on the door

[00:41:38] He's like spend more time with my family Reprioritize a little bit But the scene in the helicopter with Claire Forlani Where he's like Actually live a life Comes before death has like That's the point He's already there Hackman you could see doing a version of this movie

[00:41:57] A little more traditionally cathartic For the audience Where he starts out as a little bit more of a scrooge figure And Joe Black lightens him up Yeah This time watching it I was thinking about certain narrative choices It's interesting that the wife has already died

[00:42:13] Before the movie starts Which I guess is supposed to soften him And bond him to his children But I just kind of wonder It makes it a little grimmer That these people are about to be orphaned I think there would have been an interesting tension

[00:42:27] If he was the first of that generation In the family to die Because like Something's crumbling It's Claire Forlani and Marcia Gay Harden's First experience of loss But that it's going to be the second one I think sort of softens the impact of the movie

[00:42:43] In a weird way I don't know I totally get what you're saying The maintained pathos Is kind of the Hopkins superpower Where if you're hiring him That's what you want out of this movie Like The thing I find The opening of this film

[00:43:04] Of just him sort of tossing and turning in bed Grabbing his chest And then just in voiceover Hopkins own voice whispering yes As like Thomas Newman is like Creating a fire on those fucking strings I don't know what you're talking about The Thomas Newman score is very subtle

[00:43:23] But it's like immediately kind of grabbing about This movie is starting from A very palpable sadness and loneliness Sadness and kind of whispering Literally like mystery I just think it's like To plop down in the fall of 1998 At your local multiplex And this is what greets you

[00:43:41] We don't really have that much anymore And I think that's one of the reasons I appreciate this movie as much as I do Because it's like a huge swing That isn't afraid to immediately announce itself Death Takes a Holiday As Griffin noted

[00:43:55] The scripts according to everyone who worked on them Were more like 135 pages They don't know how this movie ended up 3 hours Except that as Wade puts it This must have been on Marty's mind For a long time And when you own it in your own way

[00:44:09] You want it all in there So coming from Marty There's a quote later in the dossier Where Martin Bress says When people complain about the length of this movie He's right That's the thing I don't understand about The oh they made the 2 hour cut

[00:44:26] Where they took out the business Just take out all the pauses Ben David Grabinski, friend of the podcast Texted that exact thing to me today Take a vacuum cleaner and go like It is crazy to watch You could cut 45 minutes out from pauses Oh easily

[00:44:42] It's so wild to watch this movie And Joe says to Bill Alright we'll do it tomorrow And then it cuts to okay it's day of the party y'all And you look at the time And you're like oh my god There's 15 minutes left of this movie

[00:44:56] And there's so many instances In that 15 minutes Where you could just tighten it Not lose a single bit of plot But compare it to Scent of a Woman Which I would argue feels 18 hours longer than this Has scenes that are so fucking repetitive And the 30 minute

[00:45:12] Fucking kangaroo court At the end On paper if you just look at a scene by scene Synopsis of this movie You're like doesn't feel padded That looks normal There's no scene here that sounds stupid on paper I'm going to mention

[00:45:29] A few other things when we get to them But I think there's a point To the pace and the slowness of the movie But I do think it's maybe A little much But it does successfully Conjure a very specific tone And feeling Which I understand

[00:45:48] But you're harming a lot of things By doing that Brad Pitt, Brest sees him in California A terrible movie An insane movie to cast him in this awful movie Decides he's terrifying in it And says I love the idea of this good looking young man

[00:46:02] That's going to kill this older man You know investing We get it Death's this hot young guy Who's straight by the way As an arrow Someone out of another era Tells us they're meeting with him And they were in a hotel room

[00:46:20] And he kept opening the window to smoke out the window Brest is like I was smoking a cigar And fucking stinking up the room But Brad was still opening the window To blow his smoke outside And Brest said You don't have to worry about it

[00:46:34] And Brad was like that's alright And he liked the old dignity of that What I find surprising about California being the thing He cites is it doesn't feel like scary When he is scary It is because he feels a little blank And I think Brad Pitt

[00:46:49] Basically had two modes at this time One of which was Let me go as crazy as possible Let me torture myself Fucking bloody up my face Which he was very good at And what he struggled with was just kind of holding the center

[00:47:03] And that's when he kind of becomes Like blank beautiful baby And sometimes the movie around him Like Legends of the Fall can kind of use it properly And other times you're like this guy is fucking checked out And the blankness here Is an asset I would say

[00:47:19] Yeah but I think audiences thought he was Absolutely Let me put it this way It's an asset now In the future when we've seen Brad Pitt Come into his own as a performer Versus in 1998 I can imagine people are sitting there going Is there nothing there

[00:47:37] Are we all totally reading something into this guy Which is also kind of what the movie is doing Like Claire Forlon is falling in love with a baby Who won't stop eating out of a jar And doesn't understand anything It's implied he's wearing a diaper too right

[00:47:50] Of course He comes so fast Pitt correct My letterboxd blog was Death comes prematurely Pitt correctly In a way says The film sounds on paper like a Woofie Goldberg Concept movie But then he says I read the script and it's actually quite beautiful

[00:48:11] You know Marty wanted this young guy Completely unaffected and very straightforward Great emphasis on straight So straight He does his job Like this is a guy who does his job And this is Pitt During a mad era of his career As he says Where it's like

[00:48:31] I can only imagine what it was like To pick a project Must have been a daunting thing Brad Pitt in 1998 Probably basically be in any movie He wanted barring like 5 to 6 auteur projects Maybe where the director is like I wrote this for De Niro That's it

[00:48:51] In his age class is he the number 2 choice Behind Cruise And there's a giant gulf between the two But Cruise is doing his own special thing And Pitt was so pretty And so Desired But Pitt had this specific thing That I think a lot of Straight men

[00:49:12] Rolled their eyes at But he needed straight men to want to see the things He was in and cast him in things And direct him in things And so it's such a delicate dance That he had to do in this period of time

[00:49:24] And he picked wrong a few times But like I don't envy If I make one false move I mean he did for this win It was such a razor edge Should have made one false move So later he says This film was a bit of a mistake

[00:49:42] In terms of the project he picked He says I got lost in the wilderness of fame a bit There's all these opportunities you're supposed to be taking And I got really discombobulated Then he says You mentioned this That was the pinnacle of my loss of direction and compass

[00:49:56] I dogged it I muffed it I shouldn't have been there in the first place I should have been better in it He's like Hopkins fucking nailed it He has full praise for that And they were already very close From Legends of the Fall

[00:50:13] They had a very good relationship And obviously As we've mentioned On our Fight Club episode Fight Club is his big response To him getting slaughtered for this movie Basically The term he uses now when he talks about his struggle And like He's like

[00:50:34] I'm going to make a contract after this And Troy was kind of a contractual obligation movie That's the last time he's sort of playing a blank And then he really doubles down On like I'm making my choices Very specifically after that

[00:50:46] The term he always uses when I think about a lot of this Is I needed to find directors Who wouldn't put me at the center of the frame Sure, right Who wouldn't just make the lazy choice Hopkins also loves the script That's why he signs on

[00:51:00] He's working with those young guys Claims he wrote him a fan letter after 7 Among 12 Monkeys I'm sure that was a normal letter Hopkins, have you ever read any of his fan letters? I know he writes them He's a sweetie pie And people will post them

[00:51:14] And they're very effusive It's funny to send a fan letter to him when he'd already worked with him Yes But maybe it's that kind of thing He does that like Brad I want you to know I see what you're doing Love Uncle Anthony Forlani, I don't really know

[00:51:31] She's a thing at this point I want to zoom into Forlani for a second Yeah But before that There's not much on Forlani in the dossier We can talk about what she'd been doing I want to talk about her Pitt obviously breaks out 91 Thelma Louise Johnny Suede

[00:51:49] Then 92 Cool World River Runs Through It 93 California True Romance That's him trying to rough it up a bit 95 The Vampire Legends of the Fall It's like women are 1000% on board with this guy And he's had two hits in one year Basements across the nation flooded Right

[00:52:07] 95 Seven Twelve Monkeys As we said it's like now guys like him Now he's worked with two weirdo auteurs 96 Sleepers I'd say that's almost net neutral for him Other than like putting him in a class of guys Framing him on a tier He was also cushioned by an ensemble

[00:52:23] Like he wasn't the lead lead of that movie 97 Devil's Own Seven Years in Tibet You're like huuuuuh This is in theory What he should be doing And he's really failing at this And then 98 Meet Joe Black Yeah Like Devil's Own and Seven Years in Tibet Are interesting

[00:52:44] Well because in Devil's Own he's trying an accent That goes disastrously And that production was a disaster And then Seven Years in Tibet Is just this earnest kind of dull movie And the thing that people most talked about Was how blonde his hair was

[00:52:59] It was just like oh it's a little too blonde now No one cared about the rest of the movie He looks just a little too perfect To be framed in a movie in any way But look at how perfect this guy looks But at the time

[00:53:11] Not to be cynical about it But at the time the Free Tibet movement Was so big I remember reading about this In Entertainment Weekly Because I was like about 14 or 15 It's a serious actor It's a period piece It's kind of a somewhat esoteric true story

[00:53:29] It's one for him It's how that movie was treated But you watch it now And you're like no this was a big Hollywood It was not some little indie he went to go make Claire Ferlani Mallrats is her first major American studio film Yes

[00:53:47] Mallrats is basically where she emerged She's British I always forget the police academies You are right But she apparently played a Russian in that I guess they go on a mission to Moscow Mallrats she does The Rock and Basquiat Which are both small parts

[00:54:04] But in movies that get good notices And she's good in both of them She pops in Basquiat I would say And in The Rock too but obviously The Rock is like Big loud movie You're just kind of like oh there's Claire Ferlani

[00:54:16] I'm going to get ahead of this 1999 Mystery Men A very formative crush for me Sure Just the way she relates to the unbearably Neurotic insecure angry Ben Stiller In that movie I was like oh this is what an adult Relationship looks like And she's the most striking woman

[00:54:34] I've never been a fan of hers And I don't particularly like her in any movie Interesting I'm sorry to say it about Claire Ferlani She's fine I just don't like her that much I've always liked her I feel like she's like completely her career derailed

[00:54:51] After this in a lot of ways it feels like she got Hitted harder by this movie than anyone else Universal has her clearly In Mystery Men already She's already locked for that then but she gets one She gets an Amy Heckerling movie Boys and Girls

[00:55:03] That's Amy Heckerling right? It's Robert Iscove What am I thinking of? I'm thinking of Loser the other Jason Biggs movie I thought it was Donald Petrie am I wrong about this? You're wrong Boys and Girls is a film directed by Robert Iscove

[00:55:18] Antitrust the Tim Robbins is evil Bill Gates movie Boys and Girls is so bad What everyone wanted Antitrust she's just kind of like The girl The problem is it's her and Rachel Lee Cook Two girls who aren't quite hitting With kind of short hair Unsurprisingly my two greatest

[00:55:36] But I think you're right Ferlani This wiped her out Can I tell you why it wiped her out? She's not that good in it There's a lot of weight on her in this movie She's fine It's not like Sofia Coppola and Godfather

[00:55:52] Where you're like oh my god get her off the screen I'm hard to watch I feel like she's suffering But there's a little bit of a Julia Ormond In Sabrina thing Where it's like you're framing this movie around Someone being undeniable And beyond just acting ability

[00:56:08] It's just like this movie is asking you To just accept fucking It factor off the charts With like wizened movie stars I think The central issue with this movie Which is maybe an insane thing to say For a film that is three hours long

[00:56:25] And has four of the most insane scenes ever committed to film I think the central issue with this movie The first let's say 15, 10, 15 minutes Where it's her relating to Anthony Hopkins I'm like this is what I like So much about Claire Ferlani I find her really striking

[00:56:43] I like all the scenes with Hopkins I like their dynamic a lot I think the scene where she meets Real Brad Pitt Pro bono lawyer in the diner Absolutely does not work I think a lot of it's Pitt's failing

[00:56:57] Of this is the exact thing he's not good at doing At this time He becomes so much better when he has to play a blank Rather than a quote on quote A real guy I just think the chemistry is not there with them

[00:57:09] And any time the movie focuses On the two of them together It doesn't work I agree with you she's not working But I think it's a mutual both of them aren't working And they're absolutely not in sync I do think she nails the final scenes with him

[00:57:24] She's nice in those scenes Well she's so good at being Half crying Yeah that's it She can just kind of stare with her eyes But I find the romance scenes The seduction scenes In this borderline too cringey to watch Agreed The only one that beats it for me

[00:57:45] Is the sex scene Because it's so bizarre And owning it's bizarreness Anytime they're talking to each other And flirting The movie does kind of make me want to rip my flesh off It's rough And part of it is Pitt says this

[00:58:01] I don't remember if this quotes in the dossier or not But his take that he felt like he didn't totally grab Was to do something a little being there And that's kind of the balancing act This movie is trying to play It's the poor things thing as well

[00:58:13] Everyone being very taken By this charismatic beautiful movie star That they don't notice That they're basically an idiot Right And like I don't buy That she's Falling for him in spite of how weird He's acting I don't like what you're saying right now I'm sorry Ben

[00:58:35] But I think her last three scenes I think the scene where she puts together That he's deaf Is really well done and I think it's also good writing And that they don't write it That I like Ten minutes of two close ups Which is insane On paper

[00:58:54] And like Bress says for him That's his proudest moment in his entire Filmmaking career And I totally get it I think it's insane that that's his opinion Because he has better work I remember I think the first time I saw this movie

[00:59:10] It would have been fall of my sophomore year of high school I believe I cut school To see it which was a common practice of mine I have a long history I cut school To see a movie once and I couldn't get in

[00:59:22] So I had to go see Flubber for the second time Because I was already at the movie theater Do you remember what you were trying to see instead? When was Flubber? 98 as well 97 I think they were both fall 100% Flubber is of course Thanksgiving 97 Anyway

[00:59:41] I feel like because I had read about this movie In Fall Movie Preview And various other things in EW And one of the things that excited me about it Was because I'd seen Mallrats And I was like I'm now at the age where I'm going to watch

[00:59:55] My movie stars emerge And Claire Furlani was going to be She got the lead in the big Brad Pitt movie You were watching the pipeline I was here on the ground floor And then even watching the movie the first time By the end I was like

[01:00:10] It didn't really work for me Something doesn't connect No one walks out of that movie being like I want tons of Claire Furlani Maybe she was good But me skipping this and going straight to Mystery Man I was like why is everyone not hiring this person

[01:00:24] Obviously we all saw Mystery Man That was about superheroes Who were crazy Let's also call out the fascinating reality I've been wanting to do Gray Scott for the last 25 years Two people who kind of have identical career tracks Where it's like end of the 90s

[01:00:38] The studio was like We're thinking yeah Big time And then 25 years of like Oh right And they just will pop up and stuff occasionally Sure, yeah they're both still working I remember her being in television ads As the spokesperson for some scotch Like 10 years ago She's still around

[01:01:01] What was it Maybe not actually It's actually been a while since Hawaii Five-0 She was on Hawaii Five-0 Not like full time She was in a Peacock original called Departure Which was about I think like air traffic controllers Okay look What's important is that on set

[01:01:19] This may stun you to hear if you've listened to any episodes Of our Martin Brest series But he was a bit of a perfectionist And asked for a lot of takes What made you laugh though The wind up I thought you had a funny comment No no no

[01:01:35] This movie the budget balloon to 90 million dollars It went several months over schedule This movie looks expensive And it has movie stars in it But I don't think it should have cost that much money You get two fancy locations Your work is done Yeah but it's time

[01:01:51] I'm aware of why I know why the budget balloon I'm just saying like As much as the estate itself I'm sure was very expensive And it's the primary location of this movie And we've talked about like Making movies about rich people is expensive To replicate their lifestyle

[01:02:10] It is The primary 60-70% of the movie is set in the one Fucking grounds The Matrix cost what 65-63 million dollars A year later That's all in the Matrix Everything in the Matrix that cost money Is just someone going boop boop boop

[01:02:31] How did you know it cost 120 million dollars Because the guy wouldn't call cut What are you talking about Those real Rothko's They bought them for the movie My dad was almost in the party scene Really? He was at your house We were in Rhode Island We spent summers

[01:02:51] And my dad was reading the Providence Journal And they had a little ad in the paper And it was a man over 50 Do you live in the Newport, Rhode Island area Come and my sister and I were like You could be in a Brad Pitt movie

[01:03:03] And he had a tuxedo because he was singing in a chorus thing And we were like You should do it And he almost went And then he kind of in the last minute decided not to do it And I forever

[01:03:15] He would have been at the mercy of Martin Brest Being like take 82 That would have been it I would have seen him walking over a bridge with Brad Pitt Everyone, there's like 400 people in this scene Yep, everybody plays You're like why did this movie cost $90 million

[01:03:30] You're like if the guys could do 50 takes of it That takes 4 years With these scenes playing out at the pace They're playing out And every take requires a 20 minute firework sequence As Pitt says I would hate to go shopping with the guy Funny line

[01:03:46] He's got something that's so fine tuned He's like a conductor directing an orchestra He brings up the strings, holds them, then cuts them off like that And then in comes the bass drum, he's so precise with the tuning He's a maestro But I do think that's You know

[01:04:00] This movie does feel symphonic Absolutely And that's why the slowness makes sense on paper I'm building a mood very very very carefully And it's consistent And the emotions are going to come up Now the only thing I'll say that is disrupting that Is Thomas Newman going like

[01:04:16] The whole time Because that's what Thomas Newman fucking does I'm an easy lay for him I like Newman's scores It just kind of gets me every time Even when I think he's doing the shittiest version of it I like Newman's scores on the phone He overwhelms movies sometimes

[01:04:33] I think especially in this I don't like when the score gets into the Percussion, like whatever The brassy sort of like shhh sound You know That's too much But I like everything else To the specificity of what Breast is doing And then they're having their third goodbye

[01:04:52] Between Brad and Bill And Joe And Hopkins says something like It's hard to leave isn't it And Brad Pitt says yes And Hopkins goes like Oh well that's life What can I say And as he says that a firework burst of light Is reflected on his face

[01:05:12] And the score kicks in That is so carefully calibrated To exactly that head motion And that's like take 50 That is like He figured it out I want it to be exactly here Right and Hopkins has talked about Consummate Pro Is like I'm like a three take guy

[01:05:34] You give me three takes I'll give you three really good options With a lot of variety in them You're going to get three perfectly crafted Different approaches To the piece you're asking me to do He's just like You're not getting anything different out of me On take 35

[01:05:53] This is Hopkins in 2022 So he hasn't let go Of this He's not saying this recently He is saying it recently To now Monty Breast the director Lovely man Take after take after take I never knew why I said to him one day On his 65th birthday

[01:06:17] I was like is he playing young in this He's 62 It makes sense There's just that weirdness of Hopkins Being a guy who basically didn't become a movie star Until he was in his mid 40s Where you're like He only kind of exists as an old man

[01:06:33] Even when he was 45 He played He read older Hopkins making this movie And being like I'm old For being a fucking old man And Lois Miller The Jamaican woman in the hospital Only died in 2020 At the age of 102 Death took another holiday For both of these people

[01:06:58] That's true And as you say Griff He does think the scene where death reveals Who he is to Susan The most accomplished he's ever been involved with Breast thinks this It's what you said I do this with everything tied behind my back Exposition, visual effects

[01:07:17] It's not like lightning will crackle out of the sky And then it's echoed When she accepts that her father is dead And says the line I wish you could have met my dad That's such a good way of not being like My dad's dead

[01:07:31] It is funny to think there's a crumpled body across the bridge That they're going to have to deal with But yeah I think that That is really well done And I agree with what you're saying David Specifically the kind of thing that Claire Ferlani was good at

[01:07:43] Is the sort of like Laughing through tears Sort of like half wry Kind of like I can't believe I'm showing my emotions This is embarrassing Kind of thing There's the quote in the dossier About the principle of Plating in cuisine Correct Can you read that?

[01:08:05] This is Brad Pitt again Talking about nouveau cuisine He says Brest and red bread You know how in nouveau cuisine They'd serve one piece of something on a very bare plate And that one piece of whatever Better be a very high quality Because it wasn't smothered in something

[01:08:22] The nature of this film is there's not a lot of technique That covers the actors It's just them working Funny considering that Scent of a Woman Is like drowned in fricken Bernier's sauce That's exactly why I not only think this film Is infinitely better

[01:08:36] But is a much stronger showcase of Brest as a filmmaker I don't think this movie is bad I think it's hard to argue That the person making it Isn't like a real film artist Versus Scent of a Woman And this was made by Domestic terrorists

[01:08:52] I think that's the frustration About the way this movie was treated at the time And has been since Is that it's treated Like it's Bagger Vance Which you know there's style in that movie Sure but where it's just Well no if you actually watch the movie

[01:09:09] This was like very carefully made None of this is like accidental Or they didn't luck into any of this They didn't stumble into it And I just think that It gets kind of derided for Its corniness or its slowness or whatever Is okay fair

[01:09:25] But we don't have shit like this Anymore in the same way I just wish that we valued it at the time But we didn't know what we had David? What's going on girl? Why are you angry? The nerve The nerve of what? It's so unfair David

[01:09:47] Are you talking about the fact that Netflix hides thousands In shows and movies from you Based on your location And has the nerve to keep increasing prices on you Yeah That's the sound of my teeth grinding Only thing you can do is cancel your subscription And protest right?

[01:10:03] Yeah! Make sure you're getting your full money's worth Like I do Use ExpressVPN That just washed over me like a warm bath Netflix is always hiding stuff from you Based on where you are ExpressVPN lets you change your online location

[01:10:20] You can control where you want Netflix to think you are Currently located They've got servers in a hundred countries or more You can get access to thousands of new shows And never run out of stuff to watch David I was George C. Scotting out So hard

[01:10:35] And the calm, the inner peace I feel now Look Disney Plus it works with BBC iPlayer Lots of these kinds of services And it's really easy to use What about Crackle? I think so Crackle Australia for all I know What about Gem? I don't know what that is

[01:10:55] I think that's the Canadian one You can fire up the app You click one button to change locations It works on all your devices And you can stream in HD with zero buffering Blazing fast speeds It's not going to mess with any of that stuff And that's cool

[01:11:11] In my opinion Do you agree? I'm just trying to pull up again what the names of the Canadian streaming services are Because they're funny And I don't say this mockingly But they're funny And so you can just look around And see what's available On what country's Service

[01:11:32] Wow I'm looking at a giant service now Did you know this? What are you doing? To see what's in what country Okay Like Friends is available on British Netflix Did you know that Griffin? I didn't and that's going to change my life Monty Python's Flying Circus A classic

[01:11:52] That's available On British Netflix Okay Like these are things That you can get through ExpressVPN Okay All you have to do is open ExpressVPN Select whatever country you want Tap one button to connect Refresh Netflix and there it is Is British Netflix spelled with a U?

[01:12:14] So be smart Griffin Stop paying full price for streaming services And only getting access to a fraction of their content Get your money's worth at ExpressVPN.com Don't forget to use my link At ExpressVPN.com To get an extra three months Sounds good

[01:12:33] Big Cheebo shoots the film coming right off of Little Princess First Oscar nom? Yes he likes another Little Princess Brad Pitt He looks like a pretty little princess Dante Ferretti of course A three time Oscar winner mostly A Scorsese collaborator and a Fellini collaborator

[01:12:47] At this point and a Pasolini collaborator These are like A list Like top shelf crew guys Exactly Nancy Meyers did all the interiors That's why it cost 90 million Marty and you have to respect it said This is the movie he wants to make Says the editor Michael Tronick

[01:13:06] Casey Silver agreed Bo Goldman loved it We could have put together an alternate version in a week That was not the case We knew it was long but movies released pre-holidays The prestige factor There's a lot of long movies Do you want the breast line?

[01:13:22] Because they do movies so rarely I just wanted to pack so much in It's not one of my more popular movies It's a movie I'm proud of and it has very powerful advocates That makes it sound like Thanos What does he mean? The Saudi government

[01:13:36] And it has its detractors People complain about its length I think what they're really complaining about is its pace Not that it's three hours And that's a legitimate complaint Sentimental Woman is 1992 He's like become a movie every six years guy That's what he is

[01:13:52] And then he became a movie every never guy After making a little film called Gilly We can talk about it when we record that episode But I talk into my app remote To order the film I do want to promise that we will talk about that movie

[01:14:05] When we record that episode That's a guarantee And I just I press speak on my app remote And I go Gilly Guess what? Apple doesn't know what I'm saying It's like Jiggly, what are you talking about?

[01:14:19] Do you want to read reviews of Vanessa Hudgens' production of GG on Broadway? I just kept being like Gilly And they're like right, that's not a word You can just say that Anyway Another classic like Marty We'll give you a green light if you call the movie

[01:14:33] And the character anything else Can it be called anything else? I love that you got Ben and Jen Come on Call it Vinny You can call it Gobble Gobble For all I care It's not Gilly For crying out loud Call it Eat Me Out From Behind

[01:14:54] The title of the movie is You Won't Believe What Justin Bartha Does In This Would have made more money probably David's heads in his hands The Bartha performance The Bartha performance He got hired in other films after that National Treasure is after that It's after

[01:15:10] Isn't The Hangover after? Yeah, way after But it's like National Treasure is them being like I think we can put him in a blockbuster I think we can make him The Pesci This lethal weapon So Men In Black Is a great film about aliens and stuff

[01:15:29] Meet Joe Black however How the fuck did we get to Men In Black? Was Men In Meat Joe Black the porn parody? Where he's decidedly not straight I'm gonna find out about that It's Joe Black's Meat Let me change It took three passes but Joe Black's Meat

[01:15:45] Is the title Bill Parrish, Anthony Hopkins Is a media mogul of some sort It's succession vibes We don't even really know what he does It's something In comms He is contemplating a merger With another media giant But something else is happening

[01:16:05] Marsha Gay Harden is planning a birthday party for him Something else is happening His other daughter, Claire Forlani Is maybe gonna marry Jake Webber One other thing Taxis are striking down pedestrians He keeps hearing his own voice whisper to him Which I find just very evocative

[01:16:22] It is very evocative Here's another thing I immediately clock In this movie Talking about the time capsule of 1998 You're like, oh right This is when the richest people In the world had taste Now when you see anyone Like this character's house You're like, this is the ugliest shit

[01:16:42] I've ever seen in the world And you're like, this man lives in the fucking Beauty and the Beast castle I get it He lives a nice life I would say This film has no interest in Engaging with like Has he led a somewhat evil life? Like you say

[01:17:00] There's the Gene Hackman version Of what have I built and I'm about to die And instead everything happens Yeah, I mean honestly I'm really close to my daughter Marsha Gay Harden Sure she's always busy But we love each other too It's a nice place I've built for myself

[01:17:17] And then we left the end When in one of the three goodbyes Hopkins says to Pitt Should I be scared? And Joe says With the life you've led, no And it's like, don't worry Media Mogul You've lived an unimpeachable The movie actually takes pains To tell you that

[01:17:37] The critics at the time Several of them noted That this film is like seemingly a weird rebuke To the it's harder for a rich man to enter heaven And I was watching and I was like If they made this today

[01:17:50] They would not let the guy be a billionaire Like no one wants to see this movie about an uber wealthy guy But it is kind of tied into the premise That it's like death Who is like a baby Is like well who would be the best person

[01:18:02] To show me life And what he sort of learns in the process Is like this guy isn't like haunted by his mistakes He's not like morally corrupt But there is some deep Intrinsic sadness in him And what I do think Hopkins plays well And is cast well for

[01:18:18] Is a guy suddenly faced with the like You can't take it with you aspect of it Not the like blood on his hands But what was all of this worth That like you can build a great empire But like you are going to leave it at some point

[01:18:30] Right, what does this all fucking Add up to And I don't know if I have a second, a minute, a week Or a month left And you're not going to inject yourself with teenagers blood Like our present day billionaires are doing Yeah and have incredibly young looking penises

[01:18:45] I mean for the record A perfect example of We don't make rich people like we used to It used to be Joe Parish Wood furnished offices Not injecting his son's blood into his dick I sit here and I do my work Do I love my daughters? No

[01:19:01] I'm a news man And now it's like I'm so young This guy who looks like he's been Like through a car wash Just looks insane And he lives in like fucking Jared Leto's home From Blade Runner 2049 And they're all in like the Maldives

[01:19:17] Or something, it's like why do you live there? It's like, uh, reasons I eat dirt because they're telling me You'll give me two more years of living And then they're also on Twitter replying to people And you're like, I don't know, you're rich

[01:19:29] Surely you don't have to do that once you're rich Surely there's a private rich person's version of this No, fuck you, LOL I'm like aren't you rich? I'm so happy but everything strangers say Makes me cry Isn't your life just like Minecraft?

[01:19:44] You can just go like boop boop boop There needs to be a scene in this movie Where Marsha Gay Harden explains to Anthony Hopkins What the crying face emoji is So he can get a preview of what wealth is gonna look like The sideways crying face

[01:19:56] All these horrible people of our modern hellscape That we're talking about are people who are just like Infinitely distracting themselves With things, right? Right, because they hear the voice, they hear the yes Well, they don't hear it, they're blocking it out They know it's coming though

[01:20:11] Hopkins hears the yes immediately That's kind of the key to this character Especially because his wife has passed I do think that's the reason It's already on his mind He's already kind of one, not foot, but toe out His career is about to end

[01:20:25] There's something waiting for me on the other side Because my wife is already dead Marsha Gay Harden is like planning What's sort of essentially It's supposed to be a birthday party But it's kind of a retirement party You'll be the grand old man

[01:20:39] And beyond that it has this energy of like Who knows how many years dad has left Like this isn't his death party But why not go big now because who knows Meanwhile Susan Goes to a coffee shop up on Morningside Heights I've been there myself It's the Broadway

[01:20:55] Did you get home okay? Well, I love to when I cross streets in New York City Stand in the street for 15-20 seconds Just kind of see what happens With Billy smiling What's weird is he got home okay a week later That's true Showed up wearing a tuxedo

[01:21:12] And his wife seemed to be continuing a conversation That he had no memory of She has a meet cute With a straw haired man in a suit Right? I don't know how else to describe This scene, right? Where they're both She's quasi engaged to

[01:21:28] What's his name? Weber? Jake Weber You already have the scene in the helicopter Where Anthony Hopkins is like look I think he's my best lieutenant I approve but do you love him? Open conversation I really don't sense any excitement there And I think you deserve more

[01:21:44] She goes to this coffee shop She connects to this guy It's like sort of classic Bulk Goldmini He's on the phone arguing with someone You think it's his wife It's his sister He cares so much He's a lawyer who doesn't make any money

[01:22:00] But he would make money if he had a wife And you have these sort of abstract ideals Of what do you want out of your life That immediately is a more meaningful conversation Than any she's ever had with Jake Weber Jake Weber, I think a very solid actor

[01:22:13] Who I always forget is British Yeah, he's a good douchebag Oh god that's right He's not even a douchebag As much as I feel like his stock Character casting Is deeply Fundamentally unimportant person Right, a guy where you're just like He's not going to matter

[01:22:34] Because a lot of British guys playing roles like this Go full Patrick Bateman Lean so hard into douchebag Where you're like I want this guy to be shot between the eyes Weber's just a little bit not it And sometimes that in like a business context

[01:22:46] Sometimes that in a romantic context In this movie it's both He's in the Pelican Brief just on video As a former whistleblower lawyer Who has mysteriously died And he's really good in that Which I think he's very good in And that's sort of like

[01:23:02] This guy has a little more depth than you thought That movie has such a good cast Like Mecca Pfeiffer Ming Rames Ty Burrell's really good in it Michael Kelly's really good in it And it was the start of a great directing career

[01:23:16] With lots of great movies after that I can't believe I haven't watched The Scargiver I'm so mad at myself I'm waiting for the fucking Demetrio Black length cuts coming I'm not gonna watch these if you're telling me these are bad It's kind of true

[01:23:31] Okay the car accident scene After this meet cute they walk down the street I just want to repeat I think it doesn't work I think they're just not insane You don't feel what they're feeling You don't feel what they're supposed to be feeling

[01:23:43] And then when they're looking over the shoulder At each other over and over and over again Which out of context on Twitter or whatever Looks even more insane But even in the movie you're like Jesus we get it The point just so that you get it

[01:23:57] Now in our current media language It does feel like fucking lonely island Dear sister editing Where you're like oh well the bit is that you're Another over the shoulder And then of course Pitt gets hit by two cars And he goes boink boink

[01:24:11] And Rachel Handler Vulture wrote a scene A scene she wrote a big story About this scene considering how it was made Apparently Breast wanted it To be done with a real stuntman Can I do the quick summation of this I'm the dossier from JJ

[01:24:26] So Breast was like this has to be 100% real I want not a lick of CGI Which obviously is not where it is today In 1998 They hired the stunt guys They're like if you want to do this on camera It's going to take 3 weeks of concentrated stunt rehearsal

[01:24:40] Rigging like nonstop And they kept on being like Okay we'll get started on that next week And the stunt team is like guys if we're going to do this We have to do this And they're like wishy washy about it And they're like no fuck this

[01:24:55] Stop shutting it down I'm not letting this happen If you do this wrong someone gets horribly injured They're like we can make a dummy Breast is like dummies are fake They're like we can make the most expensive High end fully articulated The fingers have proper bone structure dummy

[01:25:11] They do a life cast of Brad Pitt's entire body Poor Brad Pitt Brad Pitt goes into a hotel room In a g-string And they like lather him in baby shampoo And they put him in the fucking caster And get everything correct And they're like he'll have glass eyes

[01:25:27] And every hair follicle punched Destroy what you make Locked in eye contact You have to promise me the molds are destroyed I'm so worried about a black market Ring of Brad Pitt Realistic sex dolls existing And they make this perfect dummy That they like hit multiple times

[01:25:45] And they were like the only part of it That CGI is we shot the dummy Many many fucking times And then they shot Pitt in front of a green screen I think without telling Breast And they built a perfect foam replica Of the front of the car

[01:26:00] So they could get real Pitt being hit Full speed by the front of the car With no damage In the exact position the dummy would be in And then you just get About 15 frames of CGI they say It's truly just for the impact Crazy cables

[01:26:16] To make the double hit work But they never explained why they built the Jeffrey Tambor dummy Well that was for a black market Pitt requested that It was in his contract It's actually every movie he makes He's like Tambor dummy? Tambor is not in this one

[01:26:32] Tambor is so in the pocket Tambor is excellent in this film The problem with that scene is it doesn't make any fucking sense Why does he just get hit by one car That's enough he would die Why does it have to be this comic thing

[01:26:44] Because getting back to It's like breast innate absurdist tendencies It doesn't make any sense With the tone of the scene I'm not defending it I'm trying to psychoanalyze why he made the decisions That's all I'm saying It's especially maddening to hear how much work people had to do

[01:27:01] For one of the most mocked scenes In like 90s movies And a scene that Completely just like To the romance you just watched Paid out I get the joke of right and in an instant And it's like hackier In a way for him to just go like

[01:27:20] Like the old fashioned car accident I think in the exact same camera set up If it's just one car Yeah and you cut to black the second of the impact Again That's the boring way to do it But that's why people do it that way

[01:27:34] The old thing is like I could be hit by a bus tomorrow Just have it be a bus and it kind of almost pushes him off screen And have him not stand in the middle of the street Like an idiot I think we've like

[01:27:46] Talked about this when you have Like guys like David Dobkin And Peter Farrelly Right? Shit like The Judge And Green Book Which are obviously both much worse Great films that you want to be mentioned in the same way But these like broad comedy guys

[01:28:02] Who then are like I'm ready to grow up They still can't avoid like Having Downey piss on Krumholtz's shoes They can't avoid The double pizza fold But like the shit like that I think this is like the 5% Of like Hot Tomorrows still in his brain

[01:28:19] Cause if this happened in Hot Tomorrows It would not stick out at all You'd be like great Well it would stick out and you'd be like damn This movie suddenly has money Sure yes But you're like if you cut out two of the look backs

[01:28:33] And he gets hit by one car Yeah This scene Just zap If there's like a thunderstorm He's the first person in New York City to get hit by lightning There's like skyscrapers everywhere I just like Carr just barely clipping him He steps back, woo, lightning bolt Grand piano

[01:28:53] Or like a bug or something goes like bang But this like We're talking about early dossiers Breasts What if Shealy shot him? A call forward At the end of the credits it says Shealy will return The early dossiers I'm not saying like my film education was not sophisticated

[01:29:12] It was like Three Stooges and Little Rascals This is kind of like a Three Stooges bit Oh yeah Right? I'm trying to remember at the time I'm not defending the decision I'm just trying to understand where it came from It was immediately greeted as silly

[01:29:28] I think even at the time I'm watching it and I'm like well that was weird And jarring and shockingly violent And weird with the tone of a film that's largely very somber And slow and thoughtful And it's in the context of how Men felt about Brad Pitt

[01:29:43] It felt a little bit like they were punishing him Sure, fuck that guy Yeah, it's comic It's like Paris Hilton getting decapitated in House of Wax Except this didn't actually happen In real life Good movie I think also she gets a pull through her head

[01:29:59] Chad Michael Murray's season right? Yeah but we could do a Jean-Colette Serra season But I consider Chad Michael Murray to be the primary auteur of his films Yeah totally He certainly is in the Brooke Shields film that I just watched He's in a new CMM BS movie?

[01:30:13] No, the one that was out I just watched it for the first time Apparently CMM is in Freaky Friday too Thank God Which he was in Freaky Friday of course I think his first role actually No, he was on Dawson's before that I think

[01:30:27] His first film role, you're right Of course he was Excuse me, before he was on Dawson's Creek He was on Gilmore Girls People forget I want to also say I've been watching Twin Peaks For Lynch series, it's so crazy

[01:30:42] I already knew this because I'm a Gilmore Girls freak But it's even more prominent when you rewatch Twin Peaks How many people Amy Schumer-Pell Pulled from Twin Peaks for Gilmore Girls Like she clearly was like Because there's so many, they share so many actors

[01:30:56] And she was clearly like I'm also making a weird small town soap Yes mine is not Twin Peaks But I kind of like embracing the weirdness It's so obvious like Sherilyn Fenn Machename, Kathleen Wilhode There's all these actors she pulls in It's really cool Family dinner Oh God

[01:31:16] Yes, family Well he meets Def before the family dinner Right? No, during The maid comes by and says oh there's someone at the front door First he gets the whisper He gets the whisper that says I will be outside the front door

[01:31:30] And he's like he asks the maid And she goes you're right there was someone there This guy I think the scene is very good It's arresting I like the way they manifest a sort of shimmery non-corporeal form I agree

[01:31:45] And there's the other thing until he comes out from behind the glass It's still Hopkins doing dialogue with Hopkins Where you're like two great actors working together Yeah And that's how he runs lines back at home Of course Whales, whales sorry

[01:31:59] When Pitt comes out from behind the glass He's like a little bit more like a Viking looking But you do immediately feel the shift of He cannot sell being This like eternal force It's a tough thing to do Hopkins can Hopkins can of course I was thinking about

[01:32:18] I feel like I was thinking about personifications of death So obviously think at this time Neil Gaiman's death in The Sandman Sure great character Where he imagines her as this kind of peppy She's like a goth but she's got all the energy in the world

[01:32:32] And it's such a clever reversal Now it feels obvious Back then it was like this is brilliant Think about Terry Pratchett Did you ever read those books? Discworld is that what we're talking about? Discworld books I never did Did anyone ever read the Discworld books?

[01:32:50] I'm sure some of our listeners did Death is a character Big character in Discworld There are several books just about him He's a skeleton with a scythe But he's actually this kind of quiet philosophical person Who really likes people And wants to get to know them

[01:33:07] You have multiple movies all wafting off The Bergman Yes Bogus Journey and Last Action Hero Anything where it's like Let's do the pale guy In the robe Scepter Scythe It's a scythe It is absolutely I'm trying to find it in film I guess the 7th seal

[01:33:33] Is probably forever The king of that Right Scrooge stuff Sure Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come Films about the personification of death Here we've got a whole list Give them to me Death Takes the Holidays on here A little film called Meet Joe Black Pico

[01:33:58] Is actually playing death all along Pico Death Alexander Honestly we kind of named a lot of the big ones Monkey Bones on here Whoopi Goldberg is death Much Brad Pitt's point of it sounding like A high class of Whoopi Goldberg Whoopi is death is a little more

[01:34:14] I would say in the Sandman varietal Of like Oh this person's not scary at all This person's fun But also kind of like stressed out overworked middle manager Right like hi hi My job sucks So here is death And he's specifically intrigued

[01:34:33] By the speech that Hopkins gave his daughter Like that's what has Piqued his interest In appearing to him specifically You seem to have some understanding Of how life should be lived And if I'm going to try a week of living And try to make sense of it

[01:34:49] You seem like a good guy Not to mention you got resources I get to sleep in a mansion You got all the stuff Have you ever had peanut butter though? It's so good It is! I love peanut butter I had it growing up

[01:35:05] I don't even have it with toast You just spoon in it You must have eaten it a lot as a child Whose child? Okay we're back on track The thing is he doesn't actually do much of that He does some of the stuff of like

[01:35:19] What is this? Oh interesting He's like walking into a door and being like what's that? And they're like you have to open it This is what I think Pit's good at though Pit is an incredible eye actor Pit is so good at Looking at the other actor

[01:35:34] In the scene And having his eyes dart around Trying to figure out what they're saying And he does this incredibly well Where they don't overplay the Head tilt what are you talking about He could just be sort of holding

[01:35:48] A movie star close up and there's just a certain Weird searching blankness in his eyes But I do feel like most People thought he was Too blank right? Like that was the reaction If he hasn't shown you yet that he really can play a guy

[01:36:02] Like this with depth You're watching and you're like well this is a movie Revealing this man's blankness If he did it now people would be like Yeah he nailed it I think people would be more interested Right like think of it

[01:36:16] I know this isn't a one to one but think of like De Niro and Jackie Brown Where he's similarly playing this guy Who's weirdly kind of like blank and checked out And when you're watching that With like three decades Of De Niro being able to load up

[01:36:31] Better than anyone in your back pocket You're like it's incredible That he just scooped it all out And gave us nothing And same with Peter Sellers in being there But in this you're just like So far I know if you wind Brad Pit up

[01:36:45] He can like freak out Or he can stand pretty He's stand pretty It was too soon to do this kind of thing And I understand why he wanted to do it To prove himself but it was just like Not the right timing Who's the right person

[01:37:02] There's things I like about Brad's performance But is there someone else Who would have worked better That the other guy in his class Who makes a ton of sense But I also think this would have been out of reach Of his craft at the time is Keanu

[01:37:16] I mean Keanu would be interesting but I think it's out of reach But wouldn't it have run into the same thing No I'm saying it would have I think he more inherently Fits the vibe of what Breast is looking for And probably would have been better

[01:37:28] At the romance I want to argue But would have had similar Like absolute nonsense What is this This is out of his reach You know like he looks dumb as hell Scenes But you kind of maybe I'm just thinking You can't really do it

[01:37:47] With just some random actor You picked out of Rada or whatever It has to be a movie star What about Joe Alwyn Bring him in Circa 98 too He would have been what like 6 Eating out of all kinds of jars Butler And Elordi Who are both being talked about

[01:38:09] As they're building their movie star careers As sort of like On similar trajectories Both of those guys out of the box Innately better actors Just like innately have better command Of craft And have been given projects that ask them to do that Totally

[01:38:27] Whereas Pitt it was this thing And it's sort of interesting as a counterpoint to Hopkins Where like there are some people Who just arrive fully formed Or build both aspects Up together at the same time And then you have people who are just like They're movie stars

[01:38:44] Long before they actually figure out how to act But there's a thing there And I think we just have less and less of that Right And Hopkins is a guy who took 45 years For him to become a movie star Even though he was undeniably a great actor

[01:38:58] And here's a movie where like These two guys undeniably hold the screen equally well But there's a huge gulf In terms of their craft Yes Well certainly It's about a national anthem right? You what? Yes It's called O Canada Oh my god it is It's very boring

[01:39:23] But Jacob Elordi plays the younger Richard Gere Which totally they look exactly like And I found myself thinking I think that Jacob Elordi might be too tall It's possible It looked like he was sitting in baby furniture It was just a little too much

[01:39:37] And I felt like Paul Schrader had to like tilt the camera up He was kind of like on his tippy toes Just to get him in frame It's like the opposite of when Marco Rubio sat in that big chair Remember when he did that?

[01:39:47] Do you remember what I'm talking about? It's an interesting question I agree with you It has to be someone who has that undeniable Formed level of like Command and presence And just like magic happening under their skin And behind their eyes Another unsourced thing

[01:40:05] I saw people saying that in Goldman's mind He was writing it for Cruise And Cruise has too much Like Cruise would have been too in control For this He would have been too menacing And I think DiCaprio would have been too young

[01:40:20] But if they did this five years later with DiCaprio That would be fascinating But we've kind of talked through Everyone who could have fit into it There weren't that many pretty boy movies You need the gravitas of like This is death They have this conversation

[01:40:36] You are my guide You will not die That's the deal As long as I'm here I'm not taking you there I'm not saying you're not going to die You get extra time How much longer? Who knows Depends how much fun I'm having

[01:40:54] Am I going to like peanut butter? We're going to find out It depends how exciting your meetings are Isn't it the intrigue happening at your company? I love merger shit I came here to do three things Eat peanut butter, fuck your daughter And learn about the IRS

[01:41:11] And I promise you I'll come into your daughter so fast It's going to be so fast But the scene is going to be long The scene will be long and my semen will be dead It's so funny that her response is I don't know how to put this

[01:41:23] It's almost like having sex with someone who has never had sex before It's such an accidental insult She says it like she's sort of like charmed by it Yeah She really actually does a good job Making herself sound charmed by it

[01:41:36] Yo, you don't know how to fuck good Joe Black There's a really really brisk tiny Like five second scene where they explain What his name is to everybody It takes no time at all whatsoever It's like one of those Shakespeare play things Where someone's like

[01:41:55] And will you betray me? And the guy's like, betray you And then he turns to the audience and is like Betray him I shall But I won't tell him now His name, names What is his name? I'm thinking his name is Joe

[01:42:12] And then they all have to be like Yeah, Joe's a name What a beautiful name, Joe And it's like no, that's not how anyone would react Hey this is my friend Joe Joe, now that's a name Joe's a good name I love the name Joe

[01:42:28] What do you mean? If we're done that's fine Let's just find out You do the England bit every single time? And then Even though This is a new bit The bit is he doesn't know the bit That's funny The bit is not being discussed today

[01:42:50] It's not the bit, it's a new bit It's the Uber bit Even though this film is 180 minutes long I would say That after Joe Black is introduced And lays out his whole deal Nothing happens until the end Yeah A couple things happen That basically takes

[01:43:11] That's a long build up to him I wouldn't say it takes an hour But it takes a good chunk of time I'll admit I've watched part of this movie At night before sleep Part of this movie again upon wake So I was like time coding certain points

[01:43:25] First bite of peanut butter is 45 minutes That makes sense And then it's like what happens after that? There's the merger drama And Joe Black gets with Claire Forlano And the party must be planned A crazy thing where you have the dinner scene Where they meet Joe

[01:43:44] And then for whatever reason Bill is like I want to do dinner at my house again To the point that his secretary is like But didn't you just do that last night? And he's like And so we just go back to the same scene

[01:43:56] And when he shows up again for dinner Everyone is crying being like I know you're all planning a party for me But I want to hang out constantly And this guy will be here the whole time And don't worry about him either

[01:44:08] But he certainly does not seem like an absentee father That's the thing I really love the Marcia Gay Harden scene later One because she's an exceptional actor Especially this is her era Where you're kind of like ah she's always good

[01:44:20] Like when's she going to weirdly win an Oscar When she quietly wins an overdue Oscar two years later But that scene where She's basically saying You have always worked And we have our own way of talking to each other

[01:44:33] But you have never really not been there for me It's a nice scene And that lays out how you imagine Hopkins has been Because yes Claire Folani is clearly the darling apple of his eye Who's not annoying Marcia Gay Harden is a little annoying

[01:44:47] But this feeling of a guy who is very present But also in some ways maybe a little inaccessible While being friendly Supportive He's not making anyone do bore on the floor There's an age difference between Harden and Folani Where you're like maybe when Marcia Gay Harden was younger

[01:45:01] He was a bit more distant You know whatever And then Folani was like the She's like ten years older than him She has Folani at an age where he is So conclusively made it That he can control his schedule a little more That he can choose his battles

[01:45:17] She's the do over Where he can be more connected with her This is the sort of breast stuff Where I'm like in anyone else's bad version Of this movie There isn't that much thought into the dynamics Which isn't to say this movie is like Subtle

[01:45:33] But you're just like It is clearly thought through And that stuff sort of like bleeds Into the sort of text Of the movie And that is sort of like 50 take shit You know to a certain extent Of just like forcing this actor to live with this shit

[01:45:49] Over and over again to try to find some Totally Watching the Marsha Gay Harden stuff She's so good at it, she really elevates the material But you could look at it From one angle of like Oh well you know straight guy has to write this

[01:46:03] Middle age-ish woman character And what's her thing? She's just obsessed with flowers and parties and whatever But what you're actually What you kind of are learning throughout the course of the film Is that like oh no this is how she Forever is trying to prove to him

[01:46:17] That she loves him And just trying to get him to say it back And to thank her to whatever So it could be anything Not a party, maybe it's something else So I think if you actually look at it It's actually a very sensitive depiction Of that relationship

[01:46:34] That would be flattened out and cheapened In less caring him I agree with you I also think there is intelligence To the characterization of Quince The Jeffrey Tambor character And their relationship Which is on its face Assuming the movie is going to point To the hardened Tambor relationship

[01:46:54] As this is the marriage you don't want A guy who works for your dad Who's kind of a dunce And unlike Jake Webber This guy looks like Jeffrey Tambor He's kind of silly He's at peak Kingsley He can't stop fucking up He drinks a little too much

[01:47:12] And instead you're like there is a meaningful relationship there He's fundamentally a good guy He's a little goofy and embarrassing But he actually loves him in spite of everything That's a little silly This movie is crazy It's insane The plot of the movie is that Jake Webber

[01:47:28] Is the one pushing for This is the A plot, honestly Is pushing for this murder With some sort of corporate giant Hopkins is initially on board Because why not I guess And now that his legacy is all he has to think about

[01:47:42] He's like no, I don't want to do it And he slowly realizes that Webber Is a corporate raider sent over by the other guys To strip the company for parts That's what's going to happen And Tambor is his loyal deputy Who has kind of betrayed him

[01:47:56] Is kind of being used as a wedge Yeah Loyal deputy who married the boss' daughter Exactly He loves Anthony Hopkins He's not a wombscam In the way that he's in love with his power He actually likes the guy He loves this guy Is no one here

[01:48:16] I mean yeah Webber I guess No one here is kind of like a cold blooded You know Rich person Tambor is just like I actually love the old man You can imagine audiences being like Where is the grit to this movie Because it's nowhere

[01:48:34] If that's the A plot Which I think I agree with Then the B plot is like B, A, B, and C Right The 1B, 2B, 3B The three romances PB The three romances are For Lonnie and Pitt Which is the most straight forward In a way

[01:48:57] Then there's Hopkins and Pitt Which is sort of like Hopkins learning to accept The idea of death Right it's kind of moving through all of the movie And Pitt learning to love life Or appreciate, understand it And then the third one is Hopkins and Pitt with his daughters

[01:49:13] Learning to finally connect with them In the most meaningful way In his final moments That's all meaty shit It is kind of Corporate espionage shit It's kind of like whatever It's just weird because it's Hopkins going I won't do it, we're not gonna do it I say no

[01:49:33] And everyone's like Yeah okay that's kind of a disaster for us Also who's this guy What are you talking about? You can just have a guy here Iroblack shows up to every meeting And he refuses every time they ask who he is

[01:49:47] He stammers as much as in the introduction At the dinner scene One of the board member guys He's had advisors before And it's like how many times has this happened He's just like welcome It's James White He's just like collecting people and then hunting them

[01:50:03] It's also a little bit of what we've talked about With the Dwayne Johnson problem Who the fuck is this? How did this happen? He's had other advisors before You're like this guy? Exactly But The tension As it were Obviously the main tension is that Hopkins must die

[01:50:25] One day this will all Get cut short The original title of the Aaliyah Jet League They were trying to knock him off And he was too fast for him He's slippery But then as death Joe Grows closer to Susan Forlani There's this sort of tension

[01:50:45] Risk of like wait what does this mean Is he going to essentially take her To the underworld Are we dealing with a Persephone here? What does it mean? And Hopkins goes from no fall in love With the prettiest straw colored haired person You ever meet

[01:51:01] And then he's like well I would be careful about Joe Black I don't know anything about the guy but he's not going to be around forever I feel like there are a lot of supernatural comedies like this His cum is filled with skulls

[01:51:10] Where the thing you're building to His cum is filled with skulls And it comes faster than you could ever imagine That was the line in the original poster Meet Joe Black His cum is full of skulls And he comes fast The O is a skull From October 1998

[01:51:30] Coming to theaters too soon And actually it did probably come out too soon The original trailer the Benny Hill theme is playing the whole time Of course He's just splooging everywhere So many movies like this The obvious like Solve at the end is

[01:51:52] The guy has to give up his supernatural status And become a human being In order to stay with the woman There was an interesting tension That this movie is setting up And it's not even in question And you're sort of watching it going like

[01:52:06] Are they gonna bail themselves out by doing that Which they don't And it is interesting that the original film Just has him fucking take the woman And she wants to do it It's a voluntary thing

[01:52:18] But I like the way that they kind of deal with that in this Where Bill When he hears this plan He's clearly terrified And doesn't want that to happen But he knows there's no point in overreacting And screaming and pleading He's like that's not how this entity works

[01:52:34] And also realizing Sure death as embodied by Joe Is learning to feel And whatever But he's been like Some version of a stone cold sociopath Since time began And so he doesn't see anything wrong Or anything like a big deal With taking Susan away

[01:52:54] He's basically just an idea That is like a function He has no interest Possibly wisely in asking questions about this Such as What does it mean that he's taking a holiday Are people not dying What does that mean Not asking that question Where is he from

[01:53:15] What does he do all day It knows I think If you do that You're gonna get in trouble Does no one die until they walk over a bridge Does he meet everybody There's some reference To how he can be everywhere at once But they're not

[01:53:33] Again it's not like Which is kind of the same as Sandman death Where they're always like where am I going And she's like don't worry about it I'm here to take you This is one of the ideas I find Kind of interesting in this movie

[01:53:47] As much as it doesn't totally know how to unpack it Is They're not treating it like Death is a guy in a hood with a skull face Who holds a fucking scythe And lives up in the clouds Or lives down in the fucking underworld

[01:54:01] And now he has taken a human body It almost treats it like This has never been a consciousness before And now Exploring being a consciousness Right our friend pilots great line About Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars prequels That every line is delivered

[01:54:17] Like he's never said anything before Yeah There's that quality to Joe Black That's not even the baby thing It's like how does this Sidney Sweeney too also really good at that Jake Sully running around in his avatar body Like this kind of feeling It's almost AI

[01:54:37] Becoming sentient or something Yeah By the time this happens This final 45 minutes Not to zoom all the way ahead Of like Three 15 minute long Conversation shot and take close ups Right While Thomas Nguyen is like almost dying Right He's playing all 10 toes on the piano

[01:55:01] Thomas Nguyen is fucking the cello And not Joe Black style Exactly not fast They are kind of trying to wrestle with The darkness of this idea That feels like the thing that stopped Martin Brest from putting his second pant leg on Right And also I think he

[01:55:22] Quote unquote You know Death whatever It realizes Like no you love this Body This person That this once was You know And it's like You know It's like You know This person That this once was You don't love me Because why would you love me

[01:55:56] I literally just stand around eating peanut butter Not saying anything Writing of like When he walks into the dinner party She says like oh my god What are you doing here He doesn't hear the full story When she's actually quoting the shit back to him

[01:56:12] He's like our entire relationship Is built on a dynamic He understands how selfish it is For him to take her away That's what I like about the Hopkins confrontation Where he basically says to Hopkins Like look I'm probably going to take your daughter And Hopkins is like

[01:56:28] Like you say he doesn't get too mad Because he knows what's the point But he is like you wouldn't be saying this to me If you didn't think it was wrong Like you know there's something wrong About what you're proposing And that's why you're mentioning it

[01:56:42] You would just do it if you wanted to do it He's like what's scary to me Is I do believe both of you feel in love With each other And you're not thinking through What is actually being presented Dad can you meet my new boyfriend

[01:56:56] Oh what's his job He's the grim reaper What's his cum full of It trickles out slowly After multiple hours Tips unfrosted I hope Chad Hartigan Chad Hartigan loves this film I read his article about it Did you read his article about it On talkhouse.com

[01:57:20] Where he talks about how much It was a very fun article Because I saw on letterboxd that he rated this like 5 stars And is like this is one of the most important films to me I understand that's basically not true for anybody else And that's fine After recording

[01:57:34] Well it's another future episode But I saw a screening of The Wiz recently There was a summer in the park screening And I saw a screening of The Wiz That similarly is a movie for me A big movie for you at the right age An unruly 3 hour movie

[01:57:49] That everyone else is like everything about this is wrong And it just all makes sense to me I can't argue it works But I'm just so on the wavelength of this thing Even though I think parts of it are unbearable But Hartigan talks about how obsessed he was

[01:58:01] With Jim Carrey when he was young Much like many people our age Doing Jim Carrey impressions And seeing all the Jim Carrey movies I remember watching this movie with a girl In the theater when he was 16 years old It was like one of the quietest

[01:58:15] Most grown up movies he'd seen at that point In a theater And like you know What a like You know obviously films about the meaning of love And the meaning of life And all this stuff And Pitt obviously is the opposite of a Jim Carrey performance He's silent

[01:58:33] He's observing He's doing zero bits apart from one bit And that's the worst version of this movie Would possibly be the single worst version of this movie What is this stuff Or whatever He's just full majestic hyper earnest

[01:58:47] The whole hospital scene is just him talking up his butt And that sounds pretty good That seems funny And like he basically taught me To like be a good listener Like how to behave as an adult To stop doing fucking Jim Carrey bits And then he says

[01:59:05] I've seen the film 30 more times I really feel like yeah it's this symphonic You know beautifully realized Like a gorgeously mounted Production blah blah blah But I recommend reading the article It's just a funny read I co-sign that And this film just does feel kind of unique

[01:59:23] Yeah it does I was watching It wasn't on this rewatch It was one previous With all the fireworks at the end And in every play I wrote in college There is either a stage direction That says fireworks Or characters refer to there being fireworks later on

[01:59:41] And it's like It's because I was obsessed with this final sequence It felt like the ultimate emotional heightening And then fireworks are going off in the background While all of this catharsis is happening And like wouldn't it be lovely if all of life

[01:59:53] You know all lives had that sort of happen at the end And a grand party I find As ponderous and probably repetitive As the final 30 minutes of this movie are I find them captivating I agree I think they're kind of a triumph

[02:00:08] The ending is the best part of the movie It's just as slow But you're kind of on the hook at this point And you're like what is How will this all play out If the movie was like half an hour shorter

[02:00:20] I don't think there's any version of this movie That totally works for everyone Right But you're like if the party starts at an hour and 45 This movie is a lot more manageable There's a friend of mine Josh Perillo who directed a comedy show

[02:00:34] I did years and years ago Used this term once that has always stuck with me Where he was like You got like 3 pause tokens You got 3 tokens in your pocket For when you can choose to slow something down To make it feel like it has more impact

[02:00:48] And if you use that trick more than 3 times It suddenly means nothing And it starts to get repetitive And this is a movie that's like Pockets full of pause tokens Falling out of its pockets Whereas like If the last 45 minutes If everything once you got to the party

[02:01:06] Slowed down to this pace It would feel like levitational maybe Of like I cannot believe The state of like meditative Concentrated conversational intensity This film is at It would be like Cemetery of Splendor Kind of yeah I like Joe Black pretending to be an IRS agent

[02:01:24] As much as I don't care about the plot line as much It's a fun solution to that plot line But the writing all of a sudden becomes Something totally different It becomes Beverly Hills Cop It's fucking Axel Foley pretending to be a different guy

[02:01:36] Yeah cause Pit has that like mini little monologue Where he's like talking about the levels Of whatever and it almost sounds like Pseudo Kevin Williamson or something It's very weird the script just kind of veers Into this other thing

[02:01:48] Not to repeat what I just said but it's litmus configuration It is this type of scene that Bress did a bunch in his comedies Where a guy just finesses his way Through a situation by committing really hard to a bit Yeah it's weird But it's fun

[02:02:02] There is just Energy to that scene of like It's time to wrap this up This was the tension of the movie but It's not actually important at the end of the day And like let's just get to the happy ending Which is like Weber you are disgraced

[02:02:16] You know company saved Tambor redeemed Hopkins can sort of leave this being like great There's like legacies in safer hands There's a catharsis to This scene wraps up All of this in a tidy bow so the movie can go back To the emotional shit

[02:02:33] And only worry about that And if I'm watching this movie in a theater And I paid you know 9 whole dollars Or whatever I would pay in 1998 I might be kind of like why did we spend so much time On this given that it just kind of gets

[02:02:45] Wrapped up in one neat Like fell swoop whatever You talk about in episodes I mean like in our next two consecutive Mini series that we have already recorded About hating alternate unofficial cuts I do I mean not hating but like Especially right the type of where

[02:03:01] Someone's basically like I kind of Made a cut That's not totally sanctioned But it's out there if you want it I have no question that to quote Elaine May The no business cut Of this movie Let's say the unmulleted Cut of this film right

[02:03:19] It's like a party in the front Party in the back Big party I have no question it messes With the ecology of the film I'm sure it does I would be very curious to just see How the movie plays

[02:03:35] If you just don't focus on any of that shit Go back in time and watch it Was that on a plane or yeah If any of our listeners have any Ripped version of that or a lead on it Please let me know

[02:03:47] You know I've seen some of the Like Jeeley where breast is Basically like after the fact like look They kind of fucked with the movie beyond Recognition and like this is a you know This is the movie he wanted to make Yeah like and yeah

[02:04:01] He says if you don't like it right he'll He'll own that right like you know You don't like the pacing I understand Love that his attitude isn't People were wrong about that No he's like I hear you Like yeah this is exactly

[02:04:15] Like, people like to get those soundbites from actors of like, ah, what the fuck? I'd mess that one up. But usually, and I feel like this is the case with Pitt here, it's him being like, I think I could have done a better job.

[02:04:26] Not him being like, oh, that movie's just a calamity. Like, you know, he talks, you know, fondly about what Brest was going for. BOWEN Yeah, it's interesting. I can't think of many movies that Pitt throws under the bus.

[02:04:40] There are a lot of films where he's critical of himself and says, I shouldn't have been there. He's critical of himself in California. I remember that. Like, there's a few, you know, where he's... BOWEN Troy, he always talks about that way

[02:04:49] of just like, that's a boring character to me. I shouldn't have been there. I didn't have a handle, whatever. But I think it's always like, incredible production. I was surrounded by good actors. Wolfgang's good at that kind of thing.

[02:05:00] He always kind of avoids being like, that movie was boring. Yeah. BOWEN The film, do we have anything else to say about Meet Joe Black before I tell you about the release of Meet Joe Black? BOWEN I mean, I want to actually talk about

[02:05:13] the two Jamaican patois scenes for a moment. BOWEN I don't think we should talk about it for that much longer, but if you... BOWEN I said a moment. BOWEN The niceness of the sort of meaning behind it. BOWEN We talked about everything that's bizarre

[02:05:25] and jarring about it. But yeah, I think the actual meat of it is the core of what Brest is trying to do here, which is this elderly woman in a hospital. If we remove all of the cultural context

[02:05:35] of what the scene is doing that is so distracting, right? This elderly woman with a mother who's about to go in, with her daughter, rather, pushing her in a wheelchair, is about to go in for surgery with Claire Ferlani. Brad Pitt's there to visit her,

[02:05:47] and this woman immediately recognizes him as a demon. Like, starts calling him the cultural name. BOWEN Well, she's like, you've come for me. Yeah, exactly. BOWEN Just sees him for what he is. BOWEN She's close enough, I think the idea would be,

[02:05:58] right, on the edge of death that she sees him and she's right. BOWEN At the thin place, yes. BOWEN And the inverse of Death Takes a Holiday, which is getting a lot of comedic juice out of a world where death isn't possible.

[02:06:10] This is a movie where no one's talking about the idea of people not dying, and in fact, he does kill someone on screen. But it is in this sort of like dance of intimacy, of almost being like, I mean, the way people talk about like death doulas.

[02:06:24] BOWEN Sure. BOWEN You know, where it's like he exists to try to help give her a seamless transition to the other side as she's trying to come to terms with this thing. And Hopkins dies in the film as well, although in a much more metaphorical...

[02:06:36] BOWEN Very elegant, yes, way. BOWEN Which I also think the sort of like visual simplicity of what Breast was doing, I do get choked up at just fucking Hopkins stoically walking over that bridge with Pit and Pit walking back alone.

[02:06:50] BOWEN And I get choked up at the dying woman saying like, you know, I know that you saw a little pretty, you know, took a lot of pretty pictures. BOWEN That's the fucking part that made me cry. BOWEN But we're all pretty lonely here on this side

[02:07:03] down here too, you know, and asking if she's ready to go and he's like, did you get enough pretty pictures? And she's like, yeah. Like the idea that like, yes, there are nice things in life, but they are not, nothing is permanent. Like I just...

[02:07:15] BOWEN And all of it's sad. BOWEN Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like it's a refreshingly for a studio film in 1998, it does not have... It has a comforting outlook on death, but not in the way you'd think, you know? BOWEN Yes, and consider that within a month

[02:07:32] of this movie's release, Universal puts out Patch Adams, which if you're talking about like fucking deathbed... BOWEN Bigger hit. BOWEN ...bedside manor scenes, a huge hit. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN Right? Like that's the movie that's doing the absolutely disgusting saccharine version of this. Versus like Meecha Black,

[02:07:50] which is kind of saying something bracing, which is just like, there maybe isn't any true happiness. There maybe isn't any real meaning to this. It's like collecting the moments, telling a manifestation of death itself. Death actually isn't that scary if you think about it,

[02:08:07] because life doesn't really make that much sense. And as you said, you just hope you come away with it with a nice... enough nice moments. BOWEN Yeah, it's like in Let Them All Talk, you know? The cruise is actually life. BOWEN Right.

[02:08:22] BOWEN All of life is a cruise. You're just on a journey from one place to the next and it's full of weird, you know, whatever. Like, and that stuff can be corny, but I don't think it's corny in either case.

[02:08:30] BOWEN And there is a bluntness to her performance and a lack of, um... like, razzle-dazzle, like fireworks. You know, the stuff that Brest is trying to avoid in the making of this film that's very similar to what Hopkins is doing, where it's just like, this is lived in.

[02:08:46] This is someone who is speaking from some real well of feeling and does not need to dress it up. And then it's this perfect encapsulation of the entire movie. That scene is playing against an uncomfortable looking Brad Pitt doing the most ill-advised... dialect imaginable.

[02:09:03] It's just kind of the whole movie's right there. It is like the movie's greatest profundity and its greatest mistake. There it is. Literally in conversation with each other. BOWEN Whoa, guys. Um... I don't even know how to say... I just... I feel like I've been microdosing.

[02:09:20] I don't even know where that episode went. BOWEN What episode do you think we're recording right now? What's the last thing you remember? BOWEN I don't even know. We've been jumbled up in our recording schedule so much. I feel like I might have been acting weird.

[02:09:33] I'm sorry about that. BOWEN Well, no, we were at the coffee shop. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN Right. Right. I remember that. BOWEN And we were vibing. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN We were all getting horny. There was a four-way eye fucking contest going on. BOWEN This is maybe crazy.

[02:09:46] Were you talking about cum bones? BOWEN Yeah, we were talking about cum. BOWEN I might have come up. BOWEN Cum skulls. BOWEN Not my finest hour. BOWEN Yeah, semen bones. BOWEN Wait, cum skulls. BOWEN I don't know if I came across this acting as acting kind of goofy.

[02:09:59] Like walking into scenes, kind of just not saying anything and like, you know, shooting scenery. BOWEN Ben, I actually thought you had a lot of presence. I will say, Ben, I really wish you'd been able to know my father.

[02:10:09] BOWEN There is a weird backlash, I will say though, against what you just did that's kind of building out there. So watch out for that. People are mad. BOWEN But then people are gonna... I don't see anything behind me. BOWEN That's right behind you.

[02:10:22] BOWEN Ben, just to talk you through this. BOWEN Yeah? BOWEN People are gonna be mad. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN Then they're gonna totally forget about it. BOWEN But then, yeah, just do some other stuff and you'll be fine. BOWEN And then like 15 years from now,

[02:10:32] I'll get a lot of attention, maybe for the wrong reasons, but it's kind of innocent and innocuous. BOWEN Just keep an eye out for YouTube. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN Do you think when YouTube was created, Brad Pitt was like, oh, fuck, they're gonna put the fucking car crash

[02:10:43] and the fucking Jamaican Patois. BOWEN Well, even the peanut butter, which is kind of like, is this the first major Brad Pitt eating movie to this degree? BOWEN Yeah, I can't speak to like Johnny Suede or right, those really early ones.

[02:10:56] I haven't seen them in a long time. BOWEN It's definitely not the first time he ate on camera, but the idea of multiple scenes where you're just watching him lick a spoon for minutes. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN I was kind of doing a Brad Pitt face.

[02:11:04] BOWEN But all bits aside, this movie does really watch like your friend took three hits of acid and is just trying to act normal in front of your parents. BOWEN That is what the acting is. BOWEN That, you're not... BOWEN And then your parents are like,

[02:11:17] what's your friend's name? And they're like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna tell you his name. It's coming. First name's gonna come first. BOWEN Some of the scenes where Pitt... BOWEN Almost there. BOWEN ...walks in, in like a loose suit,

[02:11:29] and you just see him not know what to do with his hands, that I think are borderline subtle. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN Yeah, there's choices... BOWEN And just kind of got to me. BOWEN ...that are actually more than just he's standing there.

[02:11:42] Like it's, he's not just like going limp and blank. Like there is choices. BOWEN Yes. Did this movie hit you at all emotionally, Ben, or were you two... BOWEN No. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN The end was effective. BOWEN Yeah.

[02:11:54] BOWEN I mean, I think it was a good ending for sure. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN There's stuff in here. BOWEN There's stuff. BOWEN For sure. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN Well, I'll tell you what else was in Me, Joe Black. BOWEN Mm. BOWEN The trailer for Star Wars Episode One,

[02:12:03] The Phantom Menace! BOWEN Yeah, this weird thing where the trailer was not exclusively attached to this movie. This was a Universal movie and that was a Fox movie. BOWEN True. BOWEN It was on some other releases. I remember the weekend this movie came out,

[02:12:17] not to get ahead of the box office game, although this would have been a more limited release. BOWEN Uh, yeah. BOWEN I remember being... BOWEN I remember being very angry that as weekend movie outing with the family,

[02:12:27] my parents voted Waking Ned Divine when I desperately wanted to see Me, Joe Black because of the trailer. BOWEN Ah, sure. BOWEN And I was so fucking grumpy being dragged to Waking Ned Divine and then the fucking Phantom Menace teaser popped up before it.

[02:12:41] And the relief I felt where I was like, well now I can enjoy Irish people. BOWEN I mean, taking a child to Waking Ned Divine isn't... BOWEN I don't know. BOWEN I don't know. BOWEN Taking a child to Waking Ned Divine isn't...

[02:12:51] BOWEN I had a great time, especially when I was fucking running off the high of Jar Jar Binks. BOWEN Yeah. BOWEN It is true that yes, this film has acquired the reputation of being the movie that you had to see to see the Phantom Menace trailer.

[02:13:05] BOWEN It was sort of a rumor that got out of control. BOWEN When in fact, the trailer was attached to everything that was in theaters. BOWEN And then there was this belief of like, well, everyone bought tickets to Me, Joe Black and then left after the trailers

[02:13:16] and didn't watch the movie, which doesn't explain why this movie opened poorly. BOWEN Like that math has never mathed for me. BOWEN Yeah, maybe it would have opened even worse. I don't know. BOWEN That's the question. Are you arguing that this movie would have made a

[02:13:28] $10 million opening weekend if there weren't ain't it cool posts about the trailer maybe being in front of it? BOWEN Maybe. The film didn't do very well. We'll talk about the box office in a second. BOWEN Did okay overseas.

[02:13:41] BOWEN Yeah, because of the pit factor, it ends up making one... BOWEN Well, it does. Wait, let me find the number here, BOWEN because fucking the numbers doesn't have it. BOWEN It did like 40 domestic? BOWEN Did 44 domestic and like 140 worldwide on a 90 budget. I mean, it's not a...

[02:13:56] BOWEN No one's happy. I remember this getting a two... BOWEN It got obviously no awards attention. BOWEN Sure. BOWEN Which it was supposed to. BOWEN Yeah, absolutely. BOWEN Two disc, high end packaging, special edition DVD at a time where two discs had barely been breached as a concept.

[02:14:15] BOWEN Which felt arrogant almost to do. BOWEN I remember holding it up at the video store and being like, this got two discs? BOWEN And it's like, oh, the second disc is Death Takes a Holiday. BOWEN Oh, that's fun.

[02:14:24] BOWEN That was the thing which I thought was fun. But I was like, it's not like you did like fucking 20 hours of special features. BOWEN You just put a second movie on there. BOWEN Film got bad reviews. Ebert liked it.

[02:14:35] BOWEN Ebert, I think, liked it more than Son of a Woman. BOWEN Possibly. He gave it three stars. Everyone else of the big critics, I think, did not really like it. BOWEN It's Streakly and Slow, which it is. BOWEN You can't argue with that.

[02:14:47] EBERT I can't deny that. BOWEN Right. EBERT Both of those things. BOWEN It's not a movie any of us are going to argue is a masterpiece that everyone's wrong about.

[02:14:53] BOWEN No, I'm not going to argue that. But I was interested by how much I sort of vibe with what it was going for. BOWEN I could see myself rewatching it. I could see myself getting in the mood.

[02:15:03] BOWEN Will I ever watch it straight through beginning to end in one sitting? BOWEN I don't know. But if I heard there was a rep screening happening of this, I'd be a little curious. EBERT I might be curious about a rep screening. BOWEN In a theater, sure.

[02:15:15] EBERT If they were like, there's a 35 millimeter print of me, Joe Black, and you can sit in a room with strangers and see how people ride out. BOWEN And it was like 100 degree day. I'm like, hey, great. Get me in there. EBERT Absolutely.

[02:15:26] BOWEN The film came out November 13th, 1998. EBERT It's opening... EBERT Oh, Flubber Time. Flubber Season. EBERT We already covered that was a year earlier. BOWEN Flubber is 97. EBERT But the same time of year. BOWEN But it is right. EBERT No, that's what I meant.

[02:15:38] BOWEN It's what Hollywood calls Flubber Season. EBERT What's coming out of Flubber Season this year? BOWEN Well, Wicked. EBERT Wicked. BOWEN Which is green. EBERT What color is Flubber? I was going to say. Green. BOWEN She's sort of flubbery in a way that she's green.

[02:15:52] EBERT And there's a mad scientist. EBERT You remember when Flubber came out and they had not advertised that it was part one of two? EBERT And people got so mad. BOWEN People got so furious. EBERT It ends with Flubber ascending into the sky. BOWEN Yes.

[02:16:02] EBERT And you're in the coming evil. BOWEN The car starts flying and you don't know if it's going to land or not. EBERT Speaking of Flubber, Marcia Gay Harden. BOWEN Yep. EBERT Is she in Flubber? BOWEN Is she in Flubber?

[02:16:10] EBERT That's a sign that I haven't seen Flubber since 1997. BOWEN You're forgetting that the opening of Flubber is that Robin Williams EBERT I'm forgetting everything about Flubber, to be clear. BOWEN Got to give Flubber another stint. EBERT So there's the professor. Have you heard of him?

[02:16:20] EBERT Another bounce, please. BOWEN A true bounce. EBERT I mean it is a bounce, but I'm just saying Flubber bounces around. BOWEN Yeah, that's what I'm saying. BOWEN The opening of that film is that Robin Williams is so busy working on perfecting his recipe for Flubber,

[02:16:31] he forgets to show up to his wedding. EBERT That's right. BOWEN Of course, it's a remake of The Absent-Minded Professor. And the way they update that for times is he's so absent he doesn't show up. EBERT It opens number three at the box office, Griffin. $15 million.

[02:16:44] BOWEN And where was Flubber in the box office? EBERT Flubber is not seen here. I do not see Flubber. BOWEN A year later? It was already out of theaters. EBERT It's already out of theaters. It's not in its 50th week.

[02:16:53] BOWEN It was like Ben-Hur. It just kept coming back. EBERT Number one at the box office is a holdover from last week. BOWEN Okay. EBERT It was a gigantic hit. BOWEN In what genre? Comedy! EBERT It's a funny. It's a laugher. BOWEN Oh, it's a...

[02:17:08] EBERT I just want to see if he gets it from this. BOWEN The Waterman? EBERT What? Jesus Christ. It is The Waterboy. BOWEN It's Adam Sandler as the Waterboy. EBERT Yeah. BOWEN I still say, anytime I'm saying to my partner or anybody,

[02:17:23] you can do it, I say you can do it. EBERT You have to. BOWEN I can't. And that's 25 years of that. 26 years of that. EBERT There is simply no choice. BOWEN You can do it. EBERT The Waterboy might be the stupidest fucking movie he ever made.

[02:17:35] BOWEN I did a pretty serious... EBERT It's funny that Kathy Bates had Titanic one year and that the next year. BOWEN I did a pretty serious... EBERT What? BOWEN Sandler... EBERT I would check with your time code to find the super part.

[02:17:49] Start at minute 0000 and then watch it till the end of the movie. And you're going to see... All right, what were you saying, Griffin? BOWEN No, I did a pretty serious Sandler... EBERT You did some Sandler! BOWEN ...blind spot filling and rewatching.

[02:18:00] And that movie just is so strange. It is so weird that that was his breakthrough. That's where they're like, Congratulations, you are now the ultimate A-lister. EBERT It's hit the moment also right where it's like, whatever you pitch is green lit. BOWEN Yeah.

[02:18:16] EBERT Because if this worked this big, yeah, you must just be good at everything. BOWEN I think it was when he was on Conan's podcast, but he was talking... Conan was saying how strategic Sandler always was about his career, that people thought he was dumb,

[02:18:30] and he really thought about things at length. And he was like, well, like Wedding Singer was a point where I felt like, I need to try to play slightly more of a real guy. Let me test if people will buy me as romantically...

[02:18:42] EBERT I think that was crucial to his career that he did that. BOWEN Absolutely. And that comes out, I think in February of 98? And then Waterboy is November of 98. And then May or June of 99 is Big Daddy. Waterboy is sandwiched between two movies

[02:18:55] where he's trying to find the middle ground of like, stunted adolescent rage, but I'm playing a real guy who can have real emotions. EBERT He's playing a guy who pays rent and knows where his keys are and can make pasta in a pot.

[02:19:05] BOWEN And in between he made the most bananas. EBERT Yeah. BOWEN Where you're like, did you think the guy in Billy Madison was a little too put together and smart? Great, here's the Waterboy. EBERT And that was the one where America was like,

[02:19:19] congratulations, you are elected mayor of Hollywood. BOWEN It's also like, after years of him being on SNL and everyone being like, I'm kind of sick of the guy who just does that fucking voice. He's like, well, the whole movie is me doing that voice. EBERT Yes.

[02:19:31] BOWEN And people are like, yes! EBERT And it's like a plot that is almost as sweaty as Ratatouille, where you're like, what is the internal logic? His anger is so repressed that if he visualizes the football as something else, he can kick it really hard.

[02:19:47] But only if he can redirect the anger and then it can turn into something else. EBERT The Waterboy is number one. It's making $24 million in its second weekend. So it's made 80 mil in two weeks. BOWEN Yeah, it opened a floor. EBERT It did. BOWEN Yeah.

[02:20:03] EBERT And it's going to end up making $161 million. BOWEN Humongous. EBERT Number two at the box office. And I think this is the one it kind of stings to be opening below. Waterboy, you can at least be, I'm sure Martin Brest watched the Waterboy

[02:20:17] with a pretty straight face. Like, I don't think Martin Brest was like a worthy opponent. Like, but at least he's like, look, the movie's a phenomenon. It's a big hit. BOWEN It's a phenomenon. EBERT This one is a horror sequel

[02:20:29] and it's opening to $16.5 million over Meet Joe Black. BOWEN It wouldn't be. It's too late for Scream 2. EBERT It's not a scream, but it's certainly in that ballpark. BOWEN Is it I Still Know? EBERT It's I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.

[02:20:44] You don't want to lose to I Still Know where like the whole joke is the title. They've done no other work. BOWEN Correct. EBERT They're like, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a great title for a horror movie. That movie is fun.

[02:20:57] And they're like, should we just do it? Should we just like do a sequel to This Cold I Still Know? Should we just do that? BOWEN What if we, yeah, it was like a joke that then they were like, but wait a second.

[02:21:05] EBERT Let's just fucking do it. Like someone's like, should Brandy be in it? Like let's just put Brandy in it. BOWEN Let's just put Jack Black in it. Yeah, and he's a Rastafarian. BOWEN Everything's gonna be iry. EBERT So I Still Know What You Did Last Summer,

[02:21:17] which I think I've seen, but I have no memory of. BOWEN I've never even seen the first one. EBERT The first one is fun. It's not like a brilliant film, but it's, you know, it's perfectly good. BOWEN The Fisherman? EBERT Yeah, he's got a hook.

[02:21:29] And he knows what you did last summer. BOWEN But certainly he doesn't still know. He must have forgotten by now. EBERT He'll always know. Right? That was the third one. BOWEN Top tier Ryan Felipe in that movie too. EBERT I believe they're making a new one.

[02:21:42] Yeah, top tier Ryan, but that's in I Know. I Still Know the Only Survivors, spoiler alert, are Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. The rest have died at the hands of the hook guy. BOWEN Including Pete Sampras' future wife. EBERT Brigitte Wilson, indeed.

[02:21:59] So that's Beating Me Joe Black. Number four at the box office. Oh, we mentioned this director. Thriller, big movie star. I think this movie's kind of bad. BOWEN Is it Gibson? EBERT No. BOWEN Is it Gere? EBERT No. BOWEN Is it, it's not Cruise? EBERT No.

[02:22:19] BOWEN Big movie star, like that A-list here, it's not a Ford. EBERT In my IMO, yes. BOWEN But it's a little debatable? EBERT I mean to me, no. BOWEN What's the others? EBERT Maybe, I don't know. BOWEN Big movie star. Adult thriller.

[02:22:32] EBERT Yeah, it's a big action thriller. It's kind of like a, you know, what if this terrible thing happened kind of movie. I don't know. It's really hard to describe this movie. BOWEN Huh, and it's a director already mentioned. EBERT Yeah, we mentioned him. BOWEN What studio?

[02:22:46] The studio is 20th Century Fox. EBERT It's not, well you said it wasn't Mel. I was going to say Conspiracy Theory. BOWEN It's not any of the state. EBERT No, it's a little closer to that type. EBERT Director we've already mentioned. What if this happened?

[02:23:04] BOWEN So it's got a big star. EBERT Oh, it says it's the siege. BOWEN Wow. I was about to start queuing up to Bruce Willis as well. EBERT I think that's a fascinating movie. BOWEN It is politically fascinating.

[02:23:13] EBERT It was kind of the Civil War of its time. In the way, if you read all the hand wringing in the press leading up to its release. BOWEN Yes, I would say it's stupider than Civil War and I might have my issues with Civil War,

[02:23:24] but I think the siege is a little dumber. But yes, right. The speculative like, the day after tomorrow kind of like terrorism is suddenly everywhere and blah, blah, blah, blah. Denzel and at Banning Bruce Willis. It's a big, big trio. EBERT Yes. BOWEN Bruce Willis with the and.

[02:23:41] EBERT Mm-hmm. BOWEN It's an Edward, Edward movie. Obviously. Number five at the box office is an animated film. EBERT Is it Anastasia? BOWEN No. EBERT Is it the Rugrats movie? BOWEN Nope. 98? Mulan? EBERT Nope. It's not yet A Bug's Life that comes later. BOWEN But what is it?

[02:24:01] If it's not A Bug's Life? It's Ants. EBERT I see ants. BOWEN Ants with a Z. EBERT Ants with a Z. BOWEN Ants. You ever seen Ants Ben? EBERT Ants. BOWEN Oh, right. You haven't seen any movies. EBERT No, he's back. BOWEN Oh, right. You're back.

[02:24:13] EBERT Yeah, he's back. BOWEN You ever seen Ants? EBERT No. BOWEN Okay, great. EBERT Written by... BOWEN I saw Bug's Life though. EBERT Written by our friend Chris Weitz. BOWEN He did write it. Number six at the box office is...

[02:24:23] It was a big movie for me when I was 12 years old. I thought it was so clever. EBERT I had a score on CD. BOWEN That's weird. EBERT Are you surprised? BOWEN Who did the score to Ants? EBERT It wasn't Henry Gregson Williams, I don't think.

[02:24:38] BOWEN Oh, the score of course was done by Harry Gregson Williams and John Powell. EBERT Yeah, there we go. Number six is Jonathan Taylor Thomas's I'll Be Home for Christmas. BOWEN You shouldn't let me guess. EBERT I could have guessed that too. BOWEN That movie bombed.

[02:24:52] You saw that opening. EBERT You're telling me this movie opening at three mil bombed? BOWEN Because... EBERT You seen that one, Benny? BOWEN No. EBERT His rival in that movie went to my college. BOWEN Oh.

[02:25:03] EBERT And so Beale was at Tufts and she would come visit him on campus and it was like a big thing. BOWEN There he is. EBERT That was like his one kind of transitional to grown up movie. BOWEN I think so.

[02:25:14] Yeah, it's the only time they're trying to put him above the title basically. EBERT He basically retires from acting after that. BOWEN Yeah. EBERT Well, he was above the title man of the house. He just had to split it. BOWEN You're splitting it with the grown up.

[02:25:25] EBERT Right. BOWEN You know when he got even with dad or wait who? No, that was McCallum. EBERT No, that was man of the house. BOWEN Right. EBERT It was him and Chevy. BOWEN Right. EBERT Wild America was him above the title with Sawa and Berristo. BOWEN Right.

[02:25:35] EBERT This was his lone... BOWEN He'll Be Home for Christmas. EBERT Then it's a really smug shitty movie. BOWEN Yeah, I remember it's sucking. EBERT I don't think there's any defenders of this film. BOWEN Oh, my sister. You can probably shake.

[02:25:47] EBERT Number seven of the box office is Pleasantville. BOWEN Yeah. EBERT Number eight of the box office is some weird old movie. I've never heard of called The Wizard of Oz. BOWEN True. EBERT Big and Wicked. BOWEN Yeah. EBERT Number nine is... BOWEN It's Big and Wiz.

[02:25:58] EBERT Yeah. BOWEN We did the triple crown in this one episode. EBERT No, we didn't talk about Oz the Great and Powerful. BOWEN Well, that's a quadruple crown. EBERT You can't mention him. BOWEN He's too powerful. Number nine of the box office is Living Out Loud.

[02:26:11] EBERT Oh, Richard Lagravinese. BOWEN The Holly Hunter. EBERT Yes. BOWEN Yes. BOWEN Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah, Three Hander. EBERT Just a perfect, the obvious three amigos. BOWEN Big three. EBERT DeVito, Queen Latifah. BOWEN I honestly remember when it came out,

[02:26:24] but like that was a film right where I'm when I'm a kid. I'm like, well, this is for grownups. I assume that's just about them having to like do their taxes or something like it's so beyond me. EBERT If I watched it today,

[02:26:32] would I think it's like a Mike Lee film? Would I be like... BOWEN Possibly. EBERT It had Oscar buzz actually. BOWEN It might be good. Yeah, it was like a TIFF movie, you know. Number 10, a film I like. EBERT Hmm? BOWEN Practical Magic. EBERT A film you love.

[02:26:44] BOWEN Getting a Legacy sequel. But as much as I like Practical Magic, then being like we're doing a Practical Magic Legacy sequel. I'm like you guys are officially done making Legacy sequels. EBERT Did you, and it's not a Legacy sequel, but it just dropped today.

[02:26:57] Did you guys see the Red One trailer? BOWEN I did, but then my eye went blind. In one second, I lost my sight. EBERT I was about to watch it, and then Joe Black showed up in my apartment. BOWEN Yeah. My ocular nerves detached,

[02:27:11] and then when it was over, they reattached, and they were like, don't do that again. EBERT Joe Black grabbed my laptop out of my hands and carried it over a bridge. BOWEN I agree. EBERT Before I could finish watching.

[02:27:20] BOWEN It's one of the bleakest things I've ever seen on film. EBERT Yeah. Really? For a film? BOWEN No. EBERT Based on an idea by The Rock's ex-brother-in-law? BOWEN It's even bleaker than expected, I will say. Yeah, anyway. EBERT What's it about? BOWEN It's about...

[02:27:33] EBERT I just threw it on. BOWEN It's basically a serious, quote-unquote, franchise version of the fucking Blackhawk Down, Santa Claus, South Park episode. EBERT I guess so, yeah. BOWEN It's like Santa Claus is kidnapped, and they have to send in specialists. EBERT And Santa Claus is like a...

[02:27:48] BOWEN Supernatural bounty hunter. EBERT So JK Simmons... BOWEN Academy Award winner JK Simmons is Santa with muscles. EBERT He is, he is doing reps. I will say he's lifting. BOWEN And I think like Dwayne Johnson is like... EBERT Dwayne Johnson's like his bodyguard. What the fuck?

[02:28:02] BOWEN He's like an elf, and Chris Evans is like a bounty hunter. EBERT Yeah, yeah. And then like they fight like Krampus... BOWEN Lucy... No, no, they don't. EBERT Or they're... BOWEN You be quiet. EBERT And then they fight big snowmen who are like...

[02:28:14] BOWEN David, you might be surprised to hear, they think it has huge franchise potential. It could branch out to all the other holidays. EBERT Why does every movie have to be about like... BOWEN Easter egg one? Pumpkin one? EBERT Harbor one. BOWEN Oh, there's a polar bear.

[02:28:30] BOWEN Groundhog one? EBERT The polar bear is sassy. BOWEN Tree... I just hate this movie where it's like... Did you just say tree? EBERT Yeah, I did. You know, Chris Evans being like, you know, hey, my job is I drink coffee and I got a beard.

[02:28:44] What do I do? Don't worry about it. And then it's like, sir, listen, you don't know this, but Red One has been kidnapped. What are you talking, Santa Claus? And then like a polar bear shows up and he's like, what's going on? That seems to be the vibe.

[02:28:56] EBERT Twice a year, Chris Evans, you just hear whispers that's like, he might be done with acting. He's getting disillusioned. He wants to walk away from it all. And I'm like, here's my advice, buddy. Stop making Red One.

[02:29:06] BOWEN Don't you have enough money for the love of God? Don't make Red One. EBERT You're going to do fucking like Ghosted, Gray Man, Red One. Like there was an uninterrupted five movie run. BOWEN You're right. That is absolutely astonishing. EBERT It's crazy. BOWEN Yeah, that's like,

[02:29:19] I would quit. EBERT Yes, right. BOWEN But instead he seems to be addicted to shit. To eating shit on screen for no one's entertainment. EBERT For like $50 million up front. BOWEN He makes Knives Out and everyone's like, man, this guy has the juice.

[02:29:34] What's he going to do next? EBERT He's finally hung up the shield. BOWEN I'm going to fart into the wind. Goodbye quality. EBERT And also like basically be complicit in like the destruction of the industry by taking these insane up front residual buyouts.

[02:29:49] BOWEN In a way they actually kind of had to happen. Like Netflix had to make these $250 million movies that zero people remember. And then like it just kind of has reordered things back to, yeah, Netflix movies are DTV garbage or art house, you know, objects of interest.

[02:30:07] They are not making blockbusters. They tried, they failed. No one's going, no one cares. The end. EBERT Here's his entire career post Knives Out, right? 2019, hangs up the shield, end game, goes out on top, Knives Out people are like, he might have a good post Marvel career.

[02:30:26] He does eight episodes of Defending Jacob for Apple TV that we all remember. BOWEN People watch that, but no one remembers. He defended. EBERT In 2021, he plays Chris Evans in the movie Free Guy. BOWEN Oh, I have to go. EBERT In Don't Look Up,

[02:30:41] he plays the role of Devin Peters, which I would argue is basically Chris Evans in the movie Don't Look Up. BOWEN I don't even remember that. EBERT He appears in the movie about where he's playing whatever. But like both of those are him parodying his own thing.

[02:30:54] He does two cameos in 2021. 2022, Lightyear and Gray Man. 2023, Ghosted and Pain Hustlers. BOWEN Yeah, and Pain Hustlers is a Netflix movie, but you'd in theory are like, oh, okay, that's like a true story drama. Is there something there? I mean, I haven't seen it. EBERT Nothing.

[02:31:13] BOWEN I assume nothing. EBERT It's not good. EBERT And then 2024, Red One. BOWEN I mean, Emily Blunt is good. EBERT That's the whole run. BOWEN But isn't he? EBERT He's doing a Celine Song's movie now. BOWEN Okay, so that's like, EBERT And he's doing the new Coen movie.

[02:31:27] BOWEN Yeah, Honey Don't. EBERT Yes. BOWEN Which is a funny title. EBERT The singular Coen. BOWEN And he did return to Scott Pilgrim. EBERT Cook. BOWEN He co-starred with him in Scott Pilgrim. EBERT Yeah, we spent so much time together. BOWEN So there's he did do that.

[02:31:42] He sort of, you know, right? The menschy move of like, yeah, I'll be Lucas Lee. EBERT He did it for scale. BOWEN Yep. EBERT And I'm sure he'll be filming the Red two or three, you know, because the movie is going to do so well.

[02:31:51] BOWEN And there's so many numbers. EBERT The trailer actually takes embarrassing pains to say it's going to be in theaters. And it's like, BOWEN Thanks guys. EBERT Who's gonna say yeah. BOWEN And theaters are like, seriously, you don't have to.

[02:32:01] EBERT You know, we're just going to re-release Inside Out two is fine. BOWEN I know we've been complaining about not having enough product, but actually, EBERT We found this old print of a movie called Meet Joe Black. We think we're going to put that on.

[02:32:12] BOWEN He's making a movie with Romain Gavras, who made that movie like Athena that like that action movie. EBERT He's finally got a line up of movies that feel. BOWEN With Anya Taylor-Joy and Brendan Fraser. EBERT Like he's taking some risks. BOWEN Right, right.

[02:32:23] Where you're like, right, that's sort of interesting. EBERT He's got like three real movies in a row lined up. BOWEN But he's also got Red One. EBERT Well, Red One was also shot like three years ago. BOWEN What are you talking about?

[02:32:33] EBERT They've been doing triage on that thing. BOWEN Red One had normal production. Nothing weird happened. They had one script that they worked on. Everyone showed up on time. EBERT People only peed in toilets. BOWEN No one was tired. People peed in toilets privately.

[02:32:46] EBERT urine went to the one place it should go. EBERT That's what it says in the end credits. It's just no animals were harmed. And also, also people peed normal. BOWEN Every bottle empty. EBERT You could check. We have the bottles. No weird smells.

[02:33:05] BOWEN Richard, do you have any closing thoughts? EBERT I mean, I don't I'm wondering if anyone listening to this because I sometimes listen to your episodes where in this movie I haven't seen. BOWEN Very kind of you. Too kind. EBERT Actually a lot I do.

[02:33:17] But I it's the kind of thing of like would I recommend this to somebody? BOWEN Yeah. EBERT The only thing I would say is I don't personally feel it's bad in exactly the way it got a reputation for being bad. I think I mean, I like the movie,

[02:33:32] but I think that like if you think it's just like 90s studio pablum. BOWEN Yeah, I think it's firmly not and I know I basically made this point already, but I'd restate that all of the most insane things you've seen

[02:33:45] abstracted into memes from this movie remain insane in the context of the film. EBERT Fully. BOWEN But they there there is some internal logic to the insanity, which is not to say that they work. EBERT No. BOWEN But when you see the clips,

[02:34:01] you're just like how could any movie get to this point? EBERT Right. It's like it's like that clip that went around of the editing from Bohemian Rhapsody. BOWEN Yeah. EBERT In that one scene and you're like I mean that movie's not good,

[02:34:09] but like but I think that in the case of Mecho Black, the context does help a little bit because you're for me anyway, I'm more on the movie side. And so I'm like, oh, this is probably shouldn't done this but but I don't it doesn't it doesn't detract

[02:34:23] from what's around. BOWEN And it's also just fascinating where you're like, okay, this being a failure and kind of being the first genuine bounce of Breast's career. EBERT Yeah. BOWEN Not kind of really being. EBERT Was yeah. BOWEN Yeah.

[02:34:36] The only like unqualified bounce of his career up until this point. You're like so how does he pivot now? Does he go back to comedy and try to go back to his roots?

[02:34:44] This is what he tries to do and fails at or does he like stay in this adult prestige zone but figure out how to like get it a little more under control. I wish you show a little more discipline.

[02:34:56] BOWEN I wish he'd I mean knowing what we know about what was to come next. Like I wish he'd stayed because I think you know Minghella had what two more movies in him at this point.

[02:35:10] Three I guess if you can't rip Ripley was yeah but like you know Minghella was near unbeknownst to us nearing the end of his run and I just think that big high grade meticulous epic filmmaking we lost. I mean, you know,

[02:35:25] I would have loved to see if breast could have like been one of those people because he's the promises there in this movie. Yeah, you know, yeah and I do think in 1998 as much as like heads rolled over this movie sense

[02:35:39] of a woman still loom so fucking large like there's a certain amount of cash a you still swing around from being like this is the guy who won Pacino was Oscar and that movie is like gonna play on fucking cable TV forever. Yeah now it's it's a relic.

[02:35:56] It's just like a relic Tom Sizemore's guarding in a museum. Well said Linda Hunt's there too. Yeah, good movie Penelope on the Miller right? Richard anything to plug. Oh, you can read my work at BF comm you can listen to my podcast plural little gold

[02:36:12] men which is like award season movies and then still watching right? I don't know when this is dropping but I think we're still going to be covering week to week HBO's House of the Dragon which is a spin-off prequel to a show

[02:36:23] called Game of Thrones never heard of it. It's a July episode right? Yeah, July 7th. We're doing it. So we still be in Westeros talking about child characters who all have this a version of this.

[02:36:33] There's a Raina a rain is a rain near it's just like come on me throw us a bone. Please man. I can't wait to never watch that part of the rule is that like we really are supposed to refer to the character names not the actor names. Yeah,

[02:36:44] and I basically have like a lexicon in front of like I just this huge guy guide in front of it. Luckily they all have the same color hair. So it's really easy to distinguish between Targaryens.

[02:36:53] This is why I think the show is successful but where they were like we're going to do a whole Targaryen show. I'm like all the Targaryens look the same and have the same name. That's the whole deal with them.

[02:37:02] You they should probably be off to the side like yeah, I got like 40 of them. I want to make it very clear unlike what some people think I don't like what not watch Game of Thrones in some anti like I'm not like the other guys kind of thing.

[02:37:16] Yeah, you just know lack of interest right but anytime anyone talks about it. I feel such a sense of relief of this being a pop culture blind spot for me where I'm like, I'm not even saying I think I would hate it, but it just sounds like work.

[02:37:29] It's where I enjoy I enjoyed the House of the Dragon and the podcast is fun, but it's just funny like to be like what I remember recording the first episode of the season and being like, holy shit.

[02:37:39] I'm never going to get these names because there are characters who are named a twin brothers named Eric and Eric and you're supposed to keep them apart. Yeah, but then they fight then they fight. I mean I read the book. That's not another fight. Okay,

[02:37:50] that episode will have aired by now. So anyway, that's the longest plug. No, but yeah, cool. Meet Joe Black. Yeah, if you see Joe Black, let us know obviously watch out for him. He's still at large Joe Black call your local authorities. Yes, call 911.

[02:38:06] Jake Webber tries it doesn't work and if your cum is full of skulls. Yeah, immediately. Yeah, or hymns or whatever can probably sort that out for you. If you have come skulls AG one. Yeah, right many of our sponsors could help you. In this area.

[02:38:24] Thank you all for listening. Please remember rate review and subscribe. Thank you to rebar T for helping to produce the show AJ McKeon for editing also being our production coordinator Joe bone Pat rounds for our artwork JJ Birch for our research lame Montgomery in the Great American Novel

[02:38:41] for our theme song. You can go to blank check pod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our patreon blank check special features. We do franchise commentaries were finishing up. The turtles were maybe just ending the turtles and moving on to we are of course. Yeah,

[02:38:58] we still got a couple turtles left. We got one turtle left actually next is our spread master delight episode. Oh, well, there you go. Look at that. Look at that by popular demand. I guess sure. Sure.

[02:39:10] David is very patient with me in that episode and am I are you being annoying? You remain even keeled. No, my hurry. Oh, you take forever being like and my son. I'm sorry. I don't have fucking 80 years locked and loaded. Yeah, maybe that's the exercise.

[02:39:27] Maybe lock it up. That's the exercise. Tune in next week for the end of her Martin breast series. Of course he goes out with a bang Geely 20 years ago. He bleep and as always everything going to be ivory.