Scent of a Woman with David Krumholtz

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Women! What can you say? Who made them? God must have been a fucking genius!

[00:00:26] The hair, they say the hair is everything you know. Have you ever bared your nose in a mountain of curls? Just wanted to go to sleep forever. Lips, when they touched yours were like the first swallow of wine after you'd just crossed the desert.

[00:00:41] Tits, ooh-ah! Big ones, little ones. Nipples staring right at you like secret searchlights. Mm-hmm, legs. I don't care if they're Greek columns or secondhand Steinways. What's between them? Passport to heaven. I need a drink.

[00:00:58] Trust Mr. Sims, there are only two syllables in this whole wide world worth hearing. Podcast. Why is your Pacino southern? He's southern in the movie! I know, but... And also I just want to say... Mr. Sims, what are you talking about?

[00:01:13] You're putting more foghorn leghorn on it than he did. I say, I say! I don't think you can help but sound like the Muppet Telly from Sesame Street. A great Muppet. One of the undersung Muppets. One of the undersung Muppets. Who was in a lot of stuff.

[00:01:30] I have a young daughter, I'm watching a lot of Sesame Street. I feel like Telly doesn't get his credit. No, Telly's in everything. Yeah. Telly is like first draft, like first round draft pick Muppet that no one ever kind of puts on that tier.

[00:01:43] He's the Wade Boggs of Sesame Street. Absolutely he is. He gets on base almost every time. You know what I mean? Telly gets on base. Yeah, Telly is amazing. And that did sound more like Telly. A Southern Telly, but I liked it. Before this started said,

[00:02:00] get ready for the best impression you've ever heard. And you took me at face value and went, oh, I didn't know you did impressions. I really did, yeah. Well, you do do some good impressions. I do a couple good ones.

[00:02:09] I do think you've never had Pacino really in your pocket. Raja Raja! What's going on? That was an early bit, remember? Well, yeah, you would do him in Insomnia. Insomnia is the one I like doing. I can do tired Pacino. He's very gravelly.

[00:02:22] Let me sleep. Let me sleep. That's not bad. It's not bad, but that's very tired. I do a Pacino, but I don't want to. What's your Pacino? You got to, now you got to do it. I don't know, like from Carlito's Way, that last monologue. A little taste.

[00:02:35] The voiceover. Yeah, a little taste. Where he goes, late night, gonna stretch me out in Fernandez Funeral Home on 9th Street. Always knew I'd make a stop there, but a whole lot sooner than a gang of people thought. Last of the poor weekends. Well, maybe not the last.

[00:02:52] Late night, sun's coming up. Where we going for breakfast? Don't want to go far. Late night, tired baby, tired. I mean, the best line in the movie. You weren't looking at anything. That was verbatim. Off the dome. That movie is one year after Scent of a Woman.

[00:03:13] So he's got a little bit of scent left. Yeah, he's got a little scent left in him. This is like an actress doing Blanche Dubois. We've used this as an example before. Once an actress plays Blanche in Streetcar, you see it in their performance for a year.

[00:03:27] You know, Cate Blanchett, Lange. There's at least 10% that they hold onto for the rest of their career. There's no doubt, we can all, I think, agree. That Scarface, that playing Scarface, kind of transmogrified Pacino into late, you know, 80s and late 80s and early 90s Pacino,

[00:03:47] which was at a certain point unbearable. Here's my question. And we're going to talk so much about Pacino's performance style, obviously. You say early 90s, but then late 90s, you've got Devil's Advocate and Even Sunday where he is... Really, completely. Out of control. He sort of works.

[00:04:09] I mean, honestly, all three of those movies it sort of works. Well, he doesn't. There's an interview. He did like a 92nd Street Y interview to talk about Wag the Dog. That movie. Oh, yes. With De Niro and Barry Lewis. And in the interview, he talks about,

[00:04:23] or maybe he's talking about Heat. Is he just talking about... But I think it's Wag the Dog. And randomly they ask him about Heat. Regardless, he admits that he was coked up the entire time he shot Heat. And for years he would say that was my characterization. Yeah.

[00:04:38] I wrote the script, I can't figure out his psychology. But that was Scarface, right? It ruined him in a weird way. In a lot of ways, yes. I mean, it is what is fascinating about Pacino is what is fascinating about this movie

[00:04:49] and certainly this movie being positioned as and becoming the final sort of like anointment, the long overdue here's his moment, just looking at the fucking poster for this movie. And the poster for this movie has the energy of you're going to give him the fucking Oscar for this.

[00:05:07] There's a certain arrogance to the poster. Or a sense of like fate accomplished. And it's his, the letters in his name are so spaced out. It's just last name. You probably remember. Yes, I do. But I'll tell you this. Yeah, please. I get it.

[00:05:23] I, as an actor, I get it and I'll tell you why I get it. Yeah. I think he got bored and paranoid, which the cocaine might've helped with that. He's also, he had a very weird 80s, which we'll talk about. He felt, I think, Frankie and Johnny,

[00:05:40] he felt, I think, that the dog day afternoon guy, that that guy was a one note thing. And I think he got paranoid. He became more and more famous and he's thinking, hey, I got to blow it up.

[00:05:58] Then he goes into Scarface and people go, oh my God. And he gets all this street cred for it. And he thinks that's the real deal. Right, right. And people kind of mock the performance at the time, at least in like critical circles.

[00:06:11] But yes, it's like a huge cultural impact. And then ultimately people come all the way around to like, I guess this movie is a classic. He was paranoid. I think that he wasn't showing enough range in his work. And that's what he respected in other actors.

[00:06:25] The problem is he hadn't hit the realization that I think De Niro hit early on, which is like, oh, as long as I'm the most natural delivery actor in the history of acting, I can do anything as long as I just do that. Through every performance.

[00:06:45] I can play any role and I can do comedy, I can do drama as long as I just trust that people love my essence and as long as I'm just as natural as I can be. And I don't think Pacino ever came to that realization

[00:07:00] or maybe hasn't until like recently. But also by 1980, De Niro has won two Oscars. Pacino has won zero. He's given several of the greatest screen performances in history. And there's no doubt that Pacino feels competitive with De Niro.

[00:07:16] Of course. And he starts to feel like, am I too subtle? Like is my thing too small? Like he's kind of like letting other people score in movies where every actor is like he's the guy, but the Academy refuses to award him.

[00:07:29] I can see him sitting down prior to filming Scent of a Woman and saying to the producers, I want to leave no stone unturned. I want to make it without a doubt that this is the greatest performer. It's a really good impression. It's very good. You got it.

[00:07:46] You know what I mean? Yes. Introduce our show Griffin and then I want to continue this line of talking. This is a blank check with Griffin and David. Here's the other big discovery I made the other night. I rewatched Tropic Thunder on a whim a couple nights ago.

[00:07:58] I hadn't seen it in a while. And then rewatching this movie today, I was like, Downey Jr. Sounds a lot like Scent of a Woman Pacino. He's his quote unquote black voice. I'm a dude playing another dude. Yeah. It's a podcast about filmography. Directors who have early success.

[00:08:18] You really lose it the longer you go with it. Early on in their careers. It's totally telly. Giving us these blank checks. They make whatever crazy passion projects they want. You're also doing kind of William Shatnerian, like, you know, and sometimes they bounce baby.

[00:08:35] I don't even know what that is. Bounce baby. It's a miniseries on the films of Martin Brest. Yeah. Martin Brest. We're right in the middle of his career. Who directed one of the great films, one of my favorite films. Midnight Run. Undoubtedly. One of the perfect films.

[00:08:49] It's a very, a very you movie too. I learned so much watching that film. You learn everything from that. Everyone I have told we're doing Martin Brest has that response where they just go. Well, that's just an unbelievable movie. Yeah. It holds up so well. It'll never,

[00:09:05] that's a timeless movie. And gets better every time I watch it. As you said, like it's a movie you can study and you go, it's all in here. Everything you need to know about the craft of commercial filmmaking is in this film. It's perfection.

[00:09:18] And De Niro is so funny. Unbelievable. So he's got, you know, De Niro sat there and was like, shit, they're pairing me up with Charles Grodin. He's one of the funniest people ever. How am I not going to get buried by this guy? And he was like,

[00:09:34] you know what, I got a comedic bone in my body. Comedic bone or two. But that's like. And then he kind of is funnier than Charles Grodin in the movie. He's also at his, at his handsomest, I think. He's so hot. He's really hot in that movie.

[00:09:46] I mean, we will have talked about it last week, but this is Poverty Hill's cast. Oh yeah, that's what the films of Martin Brest. This is a very weird inflection point in his career. I mean, he is a guy who sort of has like a clear demarcation down,

[00:10:02] even though this movie was hit. He also directed Gigli, right? That's the one that kicks him out of the right. But this is this thing that happens with a lot of these guys, the most successful comedy directors in Hollywood who go like, I want to get serious.

[00:10:19] I want to make a comedy that makes you cry. I want to go Tony. I also think this was, this is the Dead Poets Society era where it's like these kinds of movies are hot. Right, right, right. A meaningful, a ton, right. Give me a Thomas Newman score.

[00:10:33] Yeah. Give me, you know, a prep school setting. Like, you know, someone's going to learn a lesson. But there's something like this. I was watching this and I was like, you know what? Green Book winning best picture has a lot to do with,

[00:10:46] I think a certain percentage of the Academy having nostalgia for this exact era of Oscar bait. Right. The kind of like light, light drama. Awakenings. Right. Yeah. Which is not a light drama but has some funny stuff. It's Robin Williams. It's a funny drama. It's a light touch.

[00:11:03] Right. It's like a movie where you're like, you know what? It's thought of. Because Green Book's got a light touch. That movie is, sorry, keep going. No, all these movies are if you look at them kind of insane. Right. This movie is crazy. But they're like, right, filmmakers.

[00:11:18] This movie does not hold up. It would be tough if you were coming in here being like, guys, I'm here to go to the main percent of them. No, no, this movie really does not hold up. No, it doesn't at all.

[00:11:27] I was kind of hoping to like it more this time. I liked it a little more this time than I remember liking it, but I do not think it holds up. The other crazy thing with the poster is it's like Pacino and these like dramatic spelled out,

[00:11:35] spread out letters. And then above it from the director of Beverly Hills Company. I've seen that. Yeah. And then it's this like just two men walking through a leaf strewn park. Look, I'm a friend who hasn't seen as many movies and sometimes, Oh, what do you watch?

[00:11:51] I'm watching sense of war. And she's like, what that what's that about? And I'm like, okay, here I go. Are you talking about your wife? Although she's another one where you're like, okay, okay. A kid in a prep school. It is such a hard movie to describe.

[00:12:05] Witnesses a prank and is weighing whether or not to snitch on his friend. Meanwhile, he's accepted a job completely unrelated to anything else. Right. As a caretaker for a horny blind veteran, right? Who whisks him off to his suicide journey in New York.

[00:12:23] Gotta get pussy and shoot myself. Basically, two plot lines have nothing to do with each other, but the movie at the end is like, well, they're going to have to. So together, the Pacino pussy suicide weekend is a full 90 minutes.

[00:12:37] And then there's basically a half hour before and after that. Sort of like a Alexander Payne light, you know, kind of social drama. Right. The fucking intrigue of the balloon prank and the court proceeding. There is a 40 minute disciplinary procedure in this movie.

[00:12:53] That's literally just Redburn going like now be honest. What did you see? I don't know. Be honest. I don't know. Over and over again. I like that. They sat that Martin sat there with his casting directors and the producers and they said, okay,

[00:13:08] they're telling us we got to cast this kid, Chris O'Donnell. We got to cast him. We have no choice. He's the hot kid. He's not the most captivating actor. But this is also famously one of those movies where everyone was up for. Everyone wanted this part so badly.

[00:13:23] But we're going to cast him as the protagonist. We need an antagonist who's not going to blow him out of the water as an actor. You don't want people rooting for the bad guy. And they go, there's this other kid. His name is Philip Seymour.

[00:13:38] Real piece of shit. And we think he's good. There's potential. But maybe dead behind the eyes. I'm not sure. It's kind of scary vibes. You know, plays the pain, but kind of, I think, I think they'll match up. I think they'll have amazing chemistry.

[00:13:53] Chris O'Donnell and similar careers. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Smoked off the screen. I'm going to throw this out immediately. Yeah. What if you swap them? What if you swap a man? Yes. Because like O'Donnell in this movie,

[00:14:05] it is you're watching two hours of a kid in a mop haircut going like, but Colonel. Right. You hate the handsome. You hate the handsome guy. He has no character. He has no character at all. There is no character here besides nice kid.

[00:14:17] Pacino's basically like loading a gun and being like, did you get the hookers yet? And O'Donnell's like, what are we doing here? Hoffman might be amazing. And O'Donnell's would be a great preppy bully. This exact same script with the two of them flipped. I'm like,

[00:14:32] it's probably a three and a half star for me instead of a two and a half. No, it's too long. This movie is, this is a rough movie. It's a rough movie. The Pacino-ish, I love, look, I love Al Pacino. Me too! But my God,

[00:14:46] he's so out of control in this. And I'll be dead honest with you. I saw the film and thought that's one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. Okay, so our guest today. But as I've gotten older, go ahead. Introduce our guest.

[00:14:58] One of our white whales of the podcast. White whales. We've wanted you on forever. Oh, I'm so happy to be here. So excited to finally make it happen. Yes, absolutely. I wonder if we should, is there any way,

[00:15:09] I wish you could take a live poll of who people think I am. Oh, great question. Al Pacino being very critical of his own career. Yes. This piece of shit. Introduce our guest, please. Here's what I'm trying to do in my head.

[00:15:23] The credits of which movies we have covered across the last nine years with the great David Krumholz. That's right. Because we have covered, we covered on our Patreon, we covered the Santa Claus trilogy of which you were in the first two. Correct. Oppenheimer. That's a movie I'm in.

[00:15:39] The Judge. Oh, I'm also in that film. Correct. You get your shoes peed on. Are you the villainous lawyer? Are you villainous? To some extent. Okay. I mean like whatever, you know. I'm trying to think if there are others that we've covered. I feel like there are.

[00:15:53] There probably shouldn't be. Get out of here. Adam's Family Values we have not covered is long promised. But that's a great film. David and I Contempt, one of the best comedies of the 90s. Period. Period. That's a great fucking movie.

[00:16:06] That's a film I've seen more than any other, almost any other movie. A sequel that is well funnier than the first. Yes. Yes. The original is actually an incredibly flawed movie. But I've made so many bad movies. You've made a lot of good movies.

[00:16:19] I've made some good ones. You did something terrible. I'm sorry to bring it up. Go ahead. You shouldn't be. You stabbed Kelly Martin, you jerk. What are you? Are you like a Midwest housewife? Like 80 years old, 75 year old grandmother. No,

[00:16:32] I was a hangover boy who had a huge crush on Lucy Knight and E.R. I was about to say, what's going on here? Ice Storm. The Ice Storm. Oh, that's right. Did you do the Ice Storm? I covered the Ice Storm. Great film. Very good. The Mexican.

[00:16:46] Oh yeah, the Mexican. Or Verbinski. We've never covered, but Verbinski we were talking about before. Was he nice? Off mic. Verbinski? I loved him. Yeah. He seems cool. I don't know. He's sweetheart. Yeah. That might be the full. I'm just looking at the list.

[00:17:02] There's a lot more that we need to get around to. Absolutely. I'm going to go to Golden Kumar. Great choice, but no, I was like 18 by then. I've been on a few dates. 10 Things I Hate About You. Oh, I apologize.

[00:17:12] You guys have never done 10 Things I Hate About You. We haven't. Well, we do directors. Gil Younger? Right. Gil Younger. Oh, you do directors. Right. I feel like we should squeeze that in somehow. What else has Gil Younger done? Didn't he do Romeo? No. Not Romeo and Michelle.

[00:17:27] No. He did something like that after. What did he do though? He did a Nia Vardalos movie I want to say. Oh. I don't know. The follow up to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Did he do Connie and Carla? No, I think he did. I don't know.

[00:17:39] My Life in a Ruin? No. I don't know. I don't know what he did. He did Black Knight, which I bet you Ben saw. Oh yeah, Black Knight. Did you ever see Black Knight, the Martin Lawrence movie? Hell yeah. That's right, he did Black Knight. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:17:55] We have talked about. He's done a lot of TV. It looks like he does a ton of TV. Doing a teen adaptation of Shakespeare series where that's where we could slot in 10 Things. Oh yeah, 10 Things I Hate About You. I'm not sure if I've ever heard of that.

[00:18:03] But the great David Krumholz. Hello. One of our favorite actors. I'm alright. You're one of our favorites. And like 10 years ago, almost, I guess, eight or nine, we had just started doing a podcast. We were like, how do we get anyone to guest on this show? Anyone.

[00:18:16] And I was on, I used to be a house team, I don't want to brag. I did make a house team. It was a mod team. It was a mod team. Sketch. I did a show. Someone comes backstage and goes, David Krumholz wants to meet you.

[00:18:26] And I'm like, I'm not sure if I want to. And he's like, I don't know, that's right. Because I was struck by how talented you were. You saw the one good show. What can I say? Something. Yeah. All right.

[00:18:44] I'm going to say something that I don't think this is going to be received well. Oh boy. If it's a compliment to me, our listeners are going to hate it. No, no. It's I bristle at some improv stuff.

[00:18:57] I find the LA improv scene to be a little taxing. I'm sure it is. As compared to the New York. And when I say improv scene, I mean UCB. Yeah. Yep. I have been doing, I've been a guest monologist at Ask Cat since I was 21 years old. Wow.

[00:19:17] So 24 years. So I did it when it was Ian and Matt. You've seen the air. Yeah. Horatio Sands. Yeah. And then later on I took UCB one, one on one, two on one and three on one. I think this was when. Yeah. I was,

[00:19:35] I was having to see shows. Yes. And I also took a UCB writing course. I think that's when. Yeah. Okay. And as a result. Yeah. I think some of it gets stale and in LA it's very witty referential. It's very inside jokey. I'm going to,

[00:19:50] I'm going to reference some random eighties movie. Yeah. And you'll find that witty. People are just trying to book a sitcom about LA. Right. And it's not the, it's not the performers that bother me. It's the belly laughter from the crowd over a referential witty joke. Yes.

[00:20:09] Rather than, oh, that's clever, which is what I'm thinking. Sure. Oh, that's clever. Yeah. But nothing that would make me guffaw. Right. Whereas New York UCB, I tend to guffaw more, but not even that much until I saw you. Well. And you made me fucking laugh hard.

[00:20:26] And I was like, look at this guy. He's breaking all the rules. You and, and Gil O'Zeary are two guys that just go fuck it. Fuck the high intelligence thing. Let's just fucking be funny. So you're, you're dumb as rocks.

[00:20:40] I'm a fucking moron and I'm proud of it. It was the Macca Hammers on stage. No, I did, it was the most successful sketch I ever had was the night you saw it. And I was just like, God for a, for a,

[00:20:52] for a guy I idolize so much, you couldn't have seen me on a better night, which made me feel really good. But it was a very dumb sketch about a physics professor who showed up to an English class. Okay. Okay. And I don't remember this.

[00:21:06] Everyone corrects him and they're like, actually, I think you're in the wrong class. And he's like, oh my God, I am mortified. I'm so sorry. A thousand apologies. And he walks out and then he just keeps walking into the class over and over again. Okay.

[00:21:19] You just do it 25 times. Right. And he just gets more and more irate about the embarrassment of it. And then starts pretending he's a different person. Yeah. Because he's wearing a different hat. But it's truly just repeating the same thing over and over again.

[00:21:33] It felt classic and mad. It was very silly. And crazy. And I, and I wish there was more of that. And that's what there used to be in the early days of UCB. We met, you were very nice to me.

[00:21:45] I go into Record with Ben and David the next day. I'm like, we're getting fucking Krumholz on the podcast. Yeah. I'm telling you this is an easy booking. Did you ask? I don't think I asked. You never asked. I think I tweeted at you.

[00:21:58] Is what I think I did. We don't need to litigate this too much Griffin. The point is I've wanted you on forever. And then over the years you and I have like reconnected, reconvened. We're also maybe the only two male actors. This is true.

[00:22:13] That came out against Woody Allen. During me too. Who had worked on, on movies of our simpatico in that regard. There are these things that would like we're together. You did George Lucas talk show a year or two ago. And then we did our Oppenheimer episode.

[00:22:27] It's that guy. What I did competing while I was in the audience. I saw it. Yes. You do a very good water. So do you, you do an excellent water. But then you messaged me when we did our Oppenheimer episode and sang your praises. And I was like,

[00:22:43] I'm fucking straight. We got it. That was very sweet. Thank you so much. I know you've been doing the, the, no, you know what? To be honest with you. Shit. I'm sick of hearing myself talk about myself. All right. Let's talk about Al Pacino.

[00:22:57] I send you a list of some of those things. Yeah. Right. We're doing this. We got coming up and you were like sent of a woman. And I say this to David and he's like,

[00:23:05] he'll be perfect for that as a dude who was a working actor in the nineties because of, and I feel like you're setting all this up. What this movie represented as like, this is acting. This is the new act. This is the peak of prestige studio filmmaking.

[00:23:20] This is the best actor sort of mentoring a younger generation below him. So happy when he won the Academy Award felt like it was so deserved. You watch that fucking ceremony and people are like, we did it. It's like Obama winning the presidency. Yeah. We finally,

[00:23:36] we broke it down in all the walls. We got a trophy in this guy's hands. We did it. Yes. And then three years ago. Yeah. I revisit the film at home. Sure. Just randomly. Of course it comes on or whatever. And I cannot believe how bad it is.

[00:23:48] It is insane. I cannot believe it. It is insane. And it has that thing like green book where you like describe scenes to people and you're like, and this movie was like taken seriously. This is like people cried and it got like a standing ovation at the Oscars.

[00:24:03] See, I was too young to be aware of that. Right. There's a movie that moved people. Oh, it was a huge thing. It was a big movie. And it being like hands down the best performance of the year,

[00:24:15] the movie was treated as a very sort of sweet and profound exploration of human frailty and whatever the fuck. It's really hard to imagine. And like you said, those were the kinds of movies that were being made. Awakenings, human frailty movies. Yes. And Penny Marshall.

[00:24:36] Well-meaning people that get screwed by life somehow. But Penny Marshall, another example, right? Like Peter Farrelly, David Zucker, these guys who are like big comedy directors. And then they're like- Let me shift half into drama. Let me shift. You know who never did that? Who?

[00:24:50] As far as I know. Well, he kind of did it, but he didn't do it into drama. Oh, well, we shouldn't bring this up. Who are you going to say? The greatest comedy director of all time. The greatest comedic film director of all time. Not Sang-Il Brooks.

[00:25:02] John Landis. Yeah, sure. Now Landis did the Twilight Zone movie, which is not necessarily drama. It's creepy, sci-fi horror. Drama is sad. And we all know what happened with that situation. Right. But he never said, and- No, you're right. He never said, you know,

[00:25:21] I should do a drama. He never did his strike at sort of like prestige, legitimacy. I met John Landis at a dog park, and I flipped the fuck out. Yeah. And I showered him with gratitude. Yeah.

[00:25:34] And it was as if no one has had said that to him in like a decade. Really? And I thought that was so wrong. Yes, I know he got written off because of what happened on the Twilight Zone, which really, how much can you blame him for that?

[00:25:50] Probably a good chunk, but not like the whole way. You can't give him- Yes. Regardless, come on. His legendary director- His legendary director was insane. Miracle, insane. Insane. But you're right. He never did the shift. Correct. Yeah,

[00:26:06] which I feel like these guys kind of always do at some point. It's the classic like, you know, I kind of made it to the top of the mountain, but there's something I don't have. Let me show them what else they can do.

[00:26:18] There's a final bit of respect that only gets anointed. And this and Green Book and like Awakenings have that thing where you're like, well, they're like quote unquote serious emotional dramas with like heavyweight actors. But then you watch them and you're like,

[00:26:33] a lot of this stuff on paper feels like bizarre, ribald comedy. Well, but let's talk about what happened after sort of the Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy thing. Yeah. Is dramedies. Yes. Big. Right. 80s, like a huge decade for like out now comedy. Right, a league of their own.

[00:26:55] Yes. Okay. So you've got these funny movies that are comedies marketed as comedies, but they have tremendous heart fried green tomatoes. Yes. Okay. Um, and they not only that, these are movies that are hugely successful. They make a lot of money. They drive cultural. Correct.

[00:27:11] The like proudest product that the major studios are putting out. Correct. Yes. Not made any, no one makes those movies anymore. No, they don't exist. No, this is my take on Green Book. It's a certain percentage of people were just like, fuck,

[00:27:24] I miss this being the thing 25 years ago. I'm voting for this. This doesn't happen anymore. Right. Um, I, it is interesting to consider like was Tom Hanks single handedly the transition point there like him going from bachelor party to big as a bridge to league of

[00:27:43] our own to Philadelphia, not just creates a roadmap that other actors are following, but almost like directors are following and sort of like we'll build something around a guy like this at a transition point, you know? Well, here's the thing. Battery is not included. Um, another movie,

[00:28:02] another comedy about robots, alien robots, but very sweet. Yeah. Um, here's the thing. How many directors can really show range in their, in their choices? Very few. And if anything, it's comedy to drama, right? It's always either drama to comedy or comedy to mostly comedy to drama.

[00:28:22] Rob Reiner, another example of what we're talking about. Another great example. Another great example. But then the, but then there's like Spielberg who has gone out of his way to direct every genre and kind of kicks ass at all of them. Yeah.

[00:28:35] And I feel like at some point you just got to go, well, he's in his own lane. He's that's it's not achievable. Yes. So if I'm a com, if I've banged, if I've banged up five straight hit comedies, I'm sticking with comedy. I'm not,

[00:28:50] if someone comes to me and goes, all right, listen, this is a story. It's a lighthearted story about a cancer. She's a teacher at an elementary. She has cancer. And the guy comes in and say, you know, I'm thinking I'm not going to do it. Yeah.

[00:29:06] I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to direct that movie. I see the draw and then yet, you know, I don't know. Even if, even if it's in the zeitgeist, I wouldn't have done it. It's also after a gap,

[00:29:17] but it is wild that this is the movie that comes directly after midnight run when he's basically perfected his thing. Mm. Two things. One, the thing that Spielberg is worst at is out now comedy. Not that he's bad at it exactly. He makes lots of funny movies,

[00:29:32] but he's had a tough time. I agree. And the terminal is like two biggest kind of comedy swings. Totally work. A little bit is kind of light and really good. But that's, that's got all his sad, divorce, sad, Christmassy stuff. Um, the other thing, uh, unrelated midnight run.

[00:29:53] I love midnight run. It's one of my favorite movies, but it is two hours and six minutes long. The runtime creep is starting to happen. And right. And maybe he's feeling like, yeah, I could take an hour, an extra hour of that movie. In that case, absolutely.

[00:30:07] Marvin Dorfler. This movie, I'm seeing this right here. This, uh, sense of a woman is 400 hours long. Right. It's the longest film ever. Well, until me to black, which is 800 hours long. And this is not a movie where you're like, yeah, no, but this is a roomy story.

[00:30:22] This is the opposite of a Ruby story. It starts with Chris O'Donnell showing up for the interview and end with saying goodbye to Al Pacino in the car. And you're like, okay, that's like a roomy, like plenty of movie there. Hour 40 minutes or whatever.

[00:30:35] There was 30 minutes on either end of just the school shit. Right. As you said, it's kind of unrelated. The second, the, the, the, the, the toward the latter end. It's, it's the trial. Yeah. This is the trial. This is the trial.

[00:30:54] Where James Redburn basically comes out and goes like, no, I want to make it clear. Actually. None of this means anything. I just set up some desks in our biggest venue. Biggest lecture. I never say Pachino.

[00:31:06] Someone ought to burn this place to the ground or something like that. That and eight Redburn is like, I want to make it clear what is on trial today is the moral fiber of our country. This case is a microcosm. And once again, I'm not a judge. Yeah,

[00:31:21] I'm not a judge. I don't have to accuse him of any crimes. That's the weirdest thing is like, I'll be his lawyer. We will put on trial the two supposed witnesses, not even the people who did the thing. Yeah.

[00:31:32] I feel like the direction to Philip Seymour Hoffman during the trial scenes. Okay. Now we're in the trial scene, right? You know, you're fucked. Yeah. So like play it. So that you play with that. We know you're sad. Like, Oh,

[00:31:47] you're the jig is up and you're caught because if you watch him, he's so obnoxious through the whole film. I actually remember watching that film and hating him in that movie. He's hate him. And being like, he's not a good actor. Yeah. He's overacting. Yeah. All this stuff.

[00:31:58] And then the trial stuff, he's just morose. He's just, and it's almost like play sad. And he just kind of literally makes a frowning face. And I thought, Oh, this is all not great acting in my opinion, especially with Pacino there. Pacino. You know, how can you,

[00:32:14] how can you give such a shit performance when Pacino is kicking ass? Years later, when you're watching the film, Seymour Hoffman's brilliant. Yes. Pacino is outrageously silly and way out. Pacino is at his worst in that scene because you're like, okay, well he's here. Yeah.

[00:32:31] So he's going to say something really interesting to turn this all around. And so he's just like, this is out of order. This boy's all right. He doesn't need you. Fuck you. And you're just like, that's it? That's his whole argument. And Redborn's just kind of like, Oh,

[00:32:44] who are you again? Dear fan to the boys fans. How do we get across? How do we get across that being blind sucks? I think we should have him just scream. I'm in the dark here. I'm in the dark because you know why? Because when you're blind,

[00:33:00] you can't see and it's like you're in the dark. So I think that's a really great way. I'm in the dark. I'm in the dark. I've been watching obsessively all of like, Michael Keaton's recent press tour for his movie, Knox goes away that he directed.

[00:33:17] And obviously most of these interviews he's doing for his independent film. All anyone wants to ask him about is just Batman and Beetlejuice over and over again. So most of these interviews have become about Beetlejuice. And he just keeps saying things to the effect of like,

[00:33:31] the thing I loved about Beetlejuice as a character that made me like, want to return to it all these decades later is you're just like, this is a character where nothing is out of bounds. You can get away with doing anything. This guy has no rules.

[00:33:42] You can't go too big. You could swerve at any moment. It felt very free. It's basically a cartoon where you can, where there's no rules to there's no human rules to nothing, nothing human holding him down.

[00:33:54] That's the magic of that performance is you feel his boundless energy and imagination and everything he does is funny. But also Beetlejuice is in 20 minutes of that movie. And despite being the title character, he is in no way the movie, the movie's narrative spine.

[00:34:08] It is not hung on him. He like throws some chaos in. He disappears again for a stretch of the movie. But she knows in full Beetlejuice mode in this movie where he's like, okay, so I'm blind. I can do anything. That's right.

[00:34:22] There's nothing I could do that would be out of character. Martin. I was thinking last night, thinking about if he's blind, he's got to have super hearing. What if I can hear conversations taking places in other scenes that I'm not in? I can hear the time.

[00:34:40] I can hear the time when I say, I know you talked about me in the last scene you was in. He can hear facial gestures. I can hear your face move. Yes. He can hear Chris O'Donnell's background. He knows what his parents did.

[00:34:54] Unprune, unprune your chin young man. How did you find this out? You're on fucking Wikipedia. Mom and pop store. It's amazing. It's insane. And look, look, I have some experience that you can be a great actor, but when you're,

[00:35:12] if you have an intimate scene with someone who's not, it can make you sort of overplay, overcompensate for what's not there. Yeah. In Pacino's defense, and look, and I'm not, I look, Chris O'Donnell's probably a wonderful human being. This man is not an actor.

[00:35:30] This man was never an actor, continues not to be an actor of any merit. No one has ever, there's not a single scene in the Chris O'Donnell filmography that someone says, wow, he really surprised me. He really, he's just, and he knows it. He knows it.

[00:35:47] The irony is this is, I think, literally his peak as an actor. Not in terms of my opinion of his performance, but just in terms of Hollywood being like, is this going to be a guy? We're all in on this guy?

[00:35:58] Let's talk about the movie that this movie, basically the studios went, we need another movie like this. And made Son of a Woman, Rain Man, right? Rain Man, you've got an autistic, another example. Here he is. Went from writing Mel Brooks movies to then making people cry.

[00:36:15] Cruz is the handsome guy who's fucking amazing in that movie. The better performance. One of the best performances Cruz ever has given. The reason that movie works is Cruz, not Hoffman. Correct. Correctamundo. The first time you watch it though, you are mesmerized by what Hoffman is doing

[00:36:30] and the mystery of that character. I mean, I don't love Rain Man, and Rain Man's fine. It's pretty good. It's a pretty watchable movie, and it has stakes to it. And it's very sad, and his performance is really hard to like, swallow. And they have a real bond.

[00:36:47] Whereas in this, O'Donnell really just kind of feels like he's like, I got this horny grandpa on my ears. Like, I don't know what to do with him. And why did this happen to me? And then once in a while he's like,

[00:36:57] what's going on with the snitch situation? He's like, maybe I'm going to get out of it. Okay, let's drive a Lambo. I'm going to get another blood. When I watch interviews now with the guys of Chris O'Donnell's class, his generation, right? Like, mostly the School Ties group.

[00:37:13] But when any of those guys do retrospective interviews, Damon, Affleck, Fraser, Wahlberg, DiCaprio, all those guys who became A-listers, all talk about in the 90s they were just like, we're losing every fucking part to O'Donnell. You get into the audition room, it was always the ten of us,

[00:37:27] we'd see each other, and O'Donnell was just a guy who was unstoppable. It's School Ties, this, he's in Fried Green Tomatoes. He is in Fried Green Tomatoes. And then the year after this, he's in The Three Musketeers, a film I certainly saw in theaters.

[00:37:44] And then eventually he's Robin. And I think to them, Right, they're like, he got the brass ring. He's a superhero now. He's leveled up in a way none of us can ever imagine. Which back then wasn't a common thing. No, there were...

[00:37:58] One of these parts emerges once a decade? Yeah, and he's like, I don't get many shots at this. And then it's weird that his career basically is then over. Well, he's on NCIS. No, that's the thing, he rebound. He never stopped working. But like, even,

[00:38:16] obviously Batman and Robin has such a negative response. But it's like, right, then he's doing Vertical Limit. Then it's like, okay, he's like a B action star now. You know? And he's going to TV. And then he's turned into a film.

[00:38:34] Turned into a 70s Italian film by Dino Risi, who's a celebrated Italian comic director. The actor won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie was nominated for the Oscar for Foreign Film and Screenplay. Got two Oscar, yeah, Screenplay, exactly.

[00:38:49] And Brest saw this movie and loved it. At the time. Yes. Like it was stuck in his mind back when Brest is basically an AFI student in the mid-70s. This movie seems vaguely unwatchable now. I was trying to find it for this episode.

[00:39:03] You mean hard to watch? I could not find it anywhere, in any form. But I was reading up on it as much as I could. And that film's plot seems to be a lot more straightforward. It is like, he is a military veteran.

[00:39:16] He hires a kid to help bring him to visit one of the other men he served with. Oh, totally different movie. And then it is revealed that he has the suicide pact. That this is like the final trip, the weekend.

[00:39:27] I want to know a woman one final time and then I'm going to shoot myself. All the fucking school shit, this narrative around the escort kid. Like none of that's in there. It's seemingly. It's very interesting. And I think that movie is a little more overtly comedic

[00:39:45] while being a little tragic comedic. But it's like Italian countryside. Is Roberto Benigni the veteran? That's a good question. That would be amazing. He would be good. And he was around in 1970. Howard Benigni, sir? Yeah. Oh! Aki! No, that's Spanish. Vittorio Gassman.

[00:40:11] Imagine him trying to climb over the chairs blind. And Alessandro Momo. Those are the actors. You know who we're not talking about and I think we need a moment to talk. Why does the movie win me over when I'm a kid and maybe you too? Sure.

[00:40:27] The charming, subtle cuteness. Gabrielle Anwar. Who is sublime on film. Right. And doesn't have to do much. No. She's very cute. She's very sweet. She's very genuine and natural. She's in For the Love of Money with Michael J. Fox. She's the female lead in that.

[00:40:50] That's right after this. Not a great movie, but you know, she's doing good. She's a cutie pie. Fell off the face of the earth. Where is Gabrielle Anwar? Was that a USA show? That was a USA network or TNT or one of those. According to her IMDb trivia,

[00:41:06] she once held the record in the Guinness Book for world's fastest talker. Really? Yeah. Isn't that bizarre? Was that like a movie? Faster than the Micro Machines guy? She competed against auctioneers, sports announcers, etc. I don't know. And the Micro Machines guy.

[00:41:28] If he didn't show, I would contest that. Yeah. Because the Micro Machines guy is... And Busta Rhymes. And Busta Rhymes. Busta Rhymes is very good. All right. So, Bress loves the movie. He finds out the rights are available. He's casting around for something to do after Midnight Run.

[00:41:46] The man takes his time. Five years in between the two films? Yeah. Four? I mean, that means 88, isn't it? I thought it was 87. It's 88. In a sense of what it's 1992. But basically he's completely drawn to this. He is an Academy Award winning screenwriter.

[00:42:02] He wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He wrote Melvin and Howard. And may I say it's not a bad script? It's not a bad script. It's not a great script, but it is not a bad script. No. The dialogue is strong. He certainly asks...

[00:42:16] And he basically is like, look, adapt this movie, but vaguely. You can do what you want. I really am just interested in that idea of the central character, the blind veteran. He watches the movie and Goldman says, you know, who served in the army,

[00:42:32] served in the Marshall Islands after graduating from Princeton. He's like, I remember my first sergeant in the army. I remember my long lost brother who became an alcoholic and had a tragic life. And like, I sort of combine these characters together to make Al Pacino.

[00:42:51] Like that's what he's doing, he says. This kind of like lost character and this like intense drill sergeant character. He's merging into one person. Okay. So that's interesting. Goldman writes it for Nicholson. It makes sense. It would have been incredible.

[00:43:09] And like you can imagine there's some sort of last detail in there, right? Like, you know, let's check in with that guy 20 years later. Right. Combined with, obviously that comes later, but combined with what he later does with Colonel Jessup, you know,

[00:43:21] you could see him finding the midpoint between the two. Absolutely. Like, you know, wearing sunglasses, hitting on women in the streets of New York City. The movie sells itself. It's a huge hit. It's a huge hit. Nicholson doesn't want to do it or is unavailable.

[00:43:37] I'm not really sure what Nicholson's doing in the early 90s, but I feel like it's a sort of an odd period for him, right? Like isn't that when he directs a movie? Yeah. Mars Attacks. That's a little later. Is 2 Jake's early 90s? Isn't 2 Jake's? Yeah, that's 1990.

[00:43:55] That's when the movie comes in. Now, he doesn't make sense for this character. The Witches of Eastwick. Go on. Great movie. We've covered it on this show. Pacino is not really giving military, like I would say. But here's another example. Pacino's looking over as his contemporary,

[00:44:11] Jack Nicholson, who at this point also has two Oscars. Like if you're Pacino, you're like, Hackman's got two. No. 100%. Nicholson's got two. De Niro's got two. Duvall's got one. Okay. So now here's something I learned working with Alan Arkin. The Great.

[00:44:27] Okay. And I brought this up on another podcast, but it bears repeating. Alan Arkin, he was unabashed, bashed, about saying he wanted to win an Academy Award. At 65 years old, he was upset that he had not won. Not just, he had been nominated twice.

[00:44:42] But that he hadn't actually won one. And it really bothered him. It really bothered him. This was when you were working on Slums of Beverly Hills. I thought to myself, what a thing that is. To care that much. To care that much that your willingness,

[00:44:53] it's slightly embarrassing to go out and say, yeah, but I wish I won an award. Yeah, I'm a great actor and all, but I wish I'd won an award for it. It's kind of embarrassing, but I think these guys think like that. And so you're right, Griffin.

[00:45:07] He probably was like, how come I'm the one? That's funny to me, especially because with Arkin, it's like he gets those two nominations in the 60s for Russians Are Coming and Heart is a Little Meek. And Russians is his first movie ever. He's so good in those movies.

[00:45:19] But he gets a lead actor nomination for the first movie, which is a comedy, by the way. It's very funny comedy. Which is incredible, but every part of that nomination goes against tradition. My mom, I think, who is a Jewish woman of that generation,

[00:45:32] is like, this was a Jewish handsome prince of a man. We loved Alan Arkin. He could do drama, he could do comedy, he could do thrillers. And Catch-22 is this bust. And I feel like by the time you're working with him,

[00:45:44] it's sort of like, yeah, his star years are... Well over. He was in the Jerky Boys movie. Right. And I feel like then his old man comeback where he wins the Oscar, that hasn't even arrived yet. But when that happened, I knew he was so happy. Yeah.

[00:46:00] In my opinion, he deserved it for that performance. He really deserved it for his performance in Slammer's Beverly Hills, which is also great. He's so funny in that movie. They owed him, it happened, I was thrilled for him. Yeah. Because I knew how happy he was.

[00:46:14] He played it off. My theory, he beat someone... Eddie Murphy. Oh, the dream girls here. Yeah, that was the thing where everyone thought he was gonna win it and it came down to like, well, but people don't really like Eddie Murphy and people like Alan Arkin.

[00:46:27] My theory has always been, with the dynamic you're talking about, right? Is like the guys who hit such a level of movie stardom, and not just movie stardom, but like respectability. Not only were these guys like leading movies

[00:46:41] and hit films and working at the top levels of the industry, but people were like, these are important actors. The public loves them. They're reinventing the rules of screen acting. They're like mavericks. They're like generation defining. At that point, when you've proven yourself to that degree

[00:46:58] at a fairly early age, like late 20s, early 30s, and you've proven that you're not a one-trick pony, you've been able to do four or five hits in a row, at that point, what you're competing with is like legacy. Right? Those guys are no longer like,

[00:47:13] I'm trying to move up the mountain to the top of the hill. I want my shot. What I'm competing with now is do I go down in history alongside Jimmy Stewart? I do think that becomes the calculation. And for a guy like that, you're like,

[00:47:27] if I die and I don't have an Oscar, do they not remember me? I think there is some insecurity where it doesn't matter if you're in the fucking Godfather movies. If you're like, yeah, but I never won. No, I'm sure it weighs on him.

[00:47:37] See, for me, and call me cheesy, it's not an Oscar. It's a star on the walk of fame. That's what you want? I want the star on the walk of fame. You literally get one, you can buy it. But I want to have people go like,

[00:47:51] I don't want people to be like, oh, look at this, he bought one himself for a band. Does he really deserve it? I want people to walk past me. There are names, have you ever walked recently? And you're like, who the fuck?

[00:48:04] I've never heard, and they're stars from like the 1920s. Fred Trevelina? But they live on forever. People don't catalog who won Oscars in their minds, but you just take a walk down the damn street Do you know what I, the term I use internally in my head

[00:48:19] that I don't say out loud because I think it's embarrassing? I remember being young and going to some random pizzeria in Chelsea, and they had a mural of like the great movies. And it's like Rhett Butler and like Vito Corleone and the Ghostbusters or whatever.

[00:48:35] And I'm like, that's the dream, to end up on the pizzeria mural. I do think that is a sign of monocultural fame beyond anything else. You're like, this isn't Planet Hollywood. This isn't a restaurant devoted to the history of movies.

[00:48:46] They bought some stock piece of art that's just some of the great movies. You know what must have been the biggest honor? What? Was like in the late 40s or in the 50s when Looney Tunes. Oh, when they like do a guy that looks like you.

[00:48:57] No, it's actually, there's one, there's a cartoon, it's like Peter Lorre and like Edward G. Robinson. Yeah. Dude, that would have blown my mind. I would have been like, there it is. There's my legacy. Magazine's one of those too.

[00:49:10] That's what I feel like people talked about for so long. If like, if you get drawn by like Mort Drucker in Mad Magazine, that's like something. I was in, they did a numbers thing. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah, there you go.

[00:49:25] Can I tell, I don't know if you know this. I am pathetically, this is the thing I admit to you with some embarrassment, but our listeners unfortunately know this all too well. I suffer from a crippling addiction to a cell phone game called Disney Emoji Blitz. Okay.

[00:49:40] Yeah, I know, I know what you're talking about. It's like a Candy Crush-esque matchup, the shapes of the same type. And there is a Bernard one, is it? There is. And when you play this game, you win the emojis that you add to your keyboard.

[00:49:52] Now I have a Bernard. I have an emoji of you with multiple expressions that I send to people if I'm in that mood, if I'm in a Bernard mood. That's a form of immortality that I don't think you can take for granted.

[00:50:02] Can I say one thing about numbers? Yes. I always liked how. I didn't get to respond to that. I always liked the arts and crafts house, the Judd Hirsch's house, all that nice furniture. Oh, it's a nice craftsman house. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:50:18] I just remember any time I was watching numbers. It's a very cozy house. It's a great house. You would imagine Judd Hirsch lives in that house. He's comfortable. It fit him, you know? I want to say something. I said I didn't want to talk about me,

[00:50:34] but let's talk about me briefly because I'm here. What I'm learning is you don't want to be an actor's actor. Interesting. I don't think that I'm a good actor. Great actor. Great. Yeah, fine. Yeah. You meet, I ran into that, what's her name? One from Maestro, Carrie Mulligan.

[00:50:54] Unbelievable actress. Yeah. Knew who I was, told me she loved my work. Now that's crazy, right? That's what I would be very pumped about. Very pumped about that. Anne Hathaway is another one. Beautiful woman and woman. Son of a woman. I smell her water. Anne Hathaway.

[00:51:14] But here's the thing, I'm not a producer's actor. I can tell you that much. Boy, do I know this feeling now. Okay. I'm not a director's actor. Well, some directors, but here and there. I push back on that too. Producer in a studio is where they fuck you.

[00:51:30] I should stop complaining. Now it sounds like a complaint and I'm whining. No, you can complain. But I'm not a, yeah. It's like, and the thing is, Pacino for a while was the actor's actor.

[00:51:45] He was a rare example of an actor's actor who was also a leading man. People could not, like Dog Day Afternoon, you can't believe that performance. You just can't believe that, wow, he's just re, like you said, rewriting every rule. Yes. It's happening in front of us.

[00:52:01] He's measured and yet he's loose. He's explosive when he needs to be. He's explosive when he needs to, but he's holding back in certain points. You know, you're like, oh, he's going big, but he's pulling it off.

[00:52:11] It felt at the time like this is the biggest he could go and it's impressive that he's gone this big. But someone, I think he thought to himself, you know, all these actors respect me. Yeah. But I got to make European financiers respect me.

[00:52:24] Well, can we talk about. And so he started talking like this. Can we talk about his eighties? Now that we're getting to the point of the dossier, we're breasts. One thing I want to know, Al Pacino obviously never won an Oscar in the seventies.

[00:52:35] He was in The Godfather. He was in Dog Day Afternoon. He was in Serpico. He was in Injustice 4. Five nominations within the seventies. Zero win. But who beat him for Dog Day? Dog Day is a good year. I'm saying that he loses to someone good or someone bad.

[00:52:52] Loses to someone good. Is it Rod Steiger? No, no, that's too. That's before. It's 76. It's 75 Oscars. It's not Ernest Borg nine. See how Oscars really don't. It's the walk of fame you want. Because that year is, is that the same year as Network? No, you guys are sure.

[00:53:14] Rocky. No, what's another big Oscar winner in the seventies? Oh, The Godfather. No, no, he's in The Godfather. Right. Supporting rudely for the first movie. All right, fine. He lost to come on. We just mentioned his name. Nicholson for a one floor with a cuckoo's nest.

[00:53:34] Because it's one of those things where you're like, it's crazy. It's time for Nicholson to win his Oscar. And so there is the weird irony of like when he finally wins an Oscar, it's for a part that was written for Nicholson.

[00:53:45] But yes, yeah, no, his seventies are huge. And then right in his eighties, he does cruising, which is a huge, strange bomb. Kind of a good movie. I would say. But at the time was a like you should go to jail.

[00:53:58] Everyone involved in this movie goes to movie prison and real prison. Right. Yeah. Scarface, which we kind of talked about big hit, kind of derided long cultural movie. Then he does that movie Revolution. That's such a big bomb that he basically goes into hiding for like six years.

[00:54:13] Yeah. The only thing he doesn't like is then Sea of Love in 89. And Frankie and Johnny somewhere. So that's 91. Like this is when he's coming back. He comes back out. He does feel love. He does Dick Tracy.

[00:54:29] Yeah, Godfather three, which she is kind of measured it like that movie is very flawed, but he's not like no control. Someone I think, well, that's Coppola going, right? Like, I'm going to take it down here. But Frankie and Johnny.

[00:54:38] And then this is the year where he's in Glen, Gary, Glen Ross, but he is fantastic. Fantastic. He gets a double nomination. Yes, he does. And this. Yeah. And he wins the Oscar for this. And the year after this, he does Carleaders Way, which put me on the

[00:54:54] Cadillac board. Oh, that's such a great performance. But you're seeing the interesting shift of like Scarface. He's like, OK, so this is as big as I can go. And then he's like, I'm going to do it again. And then Dick Tracy's like, can I go a little further?

[00:55:05] But and they're like, we like this. And he's like, great. OK, and Dick Tracy. No problem. He's in crazy makeup. It's great. It fits supporting roles. Hilarious. Yeah, totally works. Caprice after this, he's in heat. I feel like we all love heat now.

[00:55:25] But right at the time, people like she was kind of, you know, off the leash. He is fascinating. And then you have this explosive, which is probably the right balance. You have your like... Sorry that dinner got overcooked. Balding my wife.

[00:55:41] I'm going to be so bold, bold as to say, and bald. I'm also balding. That the scene, the big lauded scene between De Niro. Between De Niro. The diner scene. The diner scene between De Niro and Pacino in heat doesn't work. Wow.

[00:55:55] Those two actors, as great as they are, have zero chemistry. They do not have any chemistry. They do not speak the same language rhythmically. Interesting. I watched it the other day. I'm telling you that scene. It's a hot take. In my opinion, does not work.

[00:56:10] De Niro struggling in it. Pacino struggling in it. The words aren't there. It's too serious a scene. You almost want to see a little bit of levity, a moment of like realism and levity. My friend sounds like you should watch Righteous Kill. That's what you're looking for.

[00:56:26] I just don't, I don't like it at all. I don't think Pacino took it down an appropriate amount until HBO's Angels in America. Now, I love that performance. Until his performance in that. It's Roy Cohn. And I was relieved that, oh, look at him. He's going small.

[00:56:42] The HBO stuff? Going small again. I would say that's a pretty big performance. It's a really good one. It is, but then there's moments that are super-sales. I think that performance is underrated. And then playing Brian Spector. Phil Spector. Brian Spector's a Broadway producer, I know. Sorry.

[00:57:02] Jesus Christ. Hi, Brian. Phil Spector. Oh, he's amazing in it. I saw Paterno, but that's just him sitting in a chair going, I guess I know a little bit of this scene. But this is also like Spector and Roy Cohn,

[00:57:16] he's picking real-life people who he's a good fit for. And he can't make them, he's prohibited. He has to do the real person. Right. And those people are already a little outsized. So him underplaying them suddenly feels like

[00:57:32] he's still getting to go big and go small at the same time. Right? I think that's what was very clever. And then when he shows up in the fucking Irishman, you're like, here's fucking 70s Pacino again. He's yelling his head off in that movie. I love. You cocksuckers!

[00:57:50] He says that every eight seconds. He's incredible in that movie. I think he's so funny and he's very sweet and vulnerable in it. This is the movie I want to see. Before they croak. Two older ex-mafia hitmen are now old and retired. There's no more mafia.

[00:58:10] They go on one last attempt at a hit. They fuck it up. It's a comedy. And they're both bumbling. And one is just as bumbling as the other, but they pretend that I'm dominant in the relationship. No, I'm not. You're not. I'm the dominant one. That's the movie.

[00:58:36] And it's Pacino and John Cena? It's Pacino and Joe Pesci together as two bumbling. Come on. That never happened. I'd love to see Pesci be funny. Everybody loves to see Pesci be funny. Yeah. Well, he did bupkis. One of the few shows to be on a renewed.

[00:58:53] Yeah, I know. Why? Did people watch it? I honestly think Pete Davidson was like, I'm sick of doing all this shit about myself. I think that was the vibe. I think the third time he makes something about his own life,

[00:59:05] starring Academy and Emmy Award winners playing his mom, it's going to work. Okay, back to the research. Third time's the charm. Pacino says the script is the script. I am not improvising this movie at all except for Hua,

[00:59:17] which I, when I got taught how to load and unload a gun blind, which he does in the movies, cleaning the gun and all that. And that guy, every time he did it would say Hua! When he was done. And isn't it supposed to be hurrah?

[00:59:30] Well, no. So it's... Isn't that the military thing? So the military thing is kind of just this grunt. Some people say hurrah. But a lot of people say Hua. H-U-A, heard, understood, acknowledged. So Al does go all in on the military. He goes all in on...

[00:59:47] He talks to blind people. And he says to Marty Breast, the only thing I'm adding is Hua, but don't worry, I'll only say it 25 times a scene. I'll only say it as punctuation. I'll show restraint. They thought about putting contact lenses on his eyes

[01:00:03] to kind of truly communicate the blindness. They decided not to because he didn't want to, I think. I think it's a huge pain in the ass to wear that stuff. I worked with the great Jamie Foxx who did it. He did it for...

[01:00:13] And he was amazing with that. I'd helped him and I... And you want a little bit of an in with the Academy? You go, you know, I wore the prosthesis over my eyes. I literally couldn't see that. They had to walk me to the set. Yes, he knew.

[01:00:30] Jamie knew what the hell he was doing. He was fucking winning an Oscar. Yeah, he was winning an Oscar. He was like, I'm going to win this thing. Just put those things on my eyes. So Pacino's thing was just, he was just looking off to the side.

[01:00:43] That's his visual approach to communicating the blindness. It's classic movie language for blind. Yeah, I played a blind guy once. In a couple episodes of a show called Raising Hope, which was on a wonderful show. And I just literally, they put sunglasses on me.

[01:01:02] And I was like, oh, I'm doing Stevie Wonder. Like it's just me and I'll talk with my regular voice. But the movements and the, I have to communicate I'm blind more than just with the sunglasses. I'm not that cheap an actor that you put the sunglasses on me,

[01:01:20] tell the audience he's blind. And that's enough. Oh, I did the whole, literally like, it's hard to communicate on, well, because it's, but you know, I did, not only did I do the head waving thing, but I also kind of did that one thing that Stevie does

[01:01:34] where suddenly he kind of buries his chin and he goes. He kind of, you know what I'm talking about? Of course. I don't know what that is, but he kind of buries his chin. The Pacino thing is such a classic, like old Hollywood blind where it's like,

[01:01:48] you just look at the wrong place when someone else is talking, but in a way where you're constantly playing to your best angles, catching the light. Here's the thing though, as Chris O'Donnell said, he's like, I'm working without Pacino.

[01:02:00] This is a legend. He says this many years later. And then he realized basically he never was looking at me on camera. Like he noticed nothing about my performance. He couldn't give me any feedback. He's always looking basically like three feet to the left of me

[01:02:14] if we're acting together. So O'Donnell applied his vocal strengths. If he can't, he won't, if he won't look at me, he will hear me. Yes. Damon Affleck, Brendan Fraser all auditioned for this part. I don't really know why they, you know, he says Anthony rap.

[01:02:33] Damon says like everyone was like really into it. And he, Damon has this story, but he ran into O'Donnell one time and he was like, how did your audition for Scent of a Woman go? And he was like, oh, it went all right.

[01:02:44] And they were all just like, oh, he fucking got it. Like, you know. This is the thing, they viewed him as like the annihilator. Wow. This guy was a fucking like locomotive clear out of the way. You're only getting fucking O'Donnell sloppy seconds.

[01:02:58] Chris Rock says he read for it, which is like crazy to think about. Although probably would make the prep school dynamic more interesting. Like they're really against this guy. Yes. Because with O'Donnell, they're like, oh, this Oregon poor kid.

[01:03:12] And I'm like, this kid seems like he was born at Harvard Wesleyan. He's so preppy. Like, um, Brest says he liked O'Donnell's virgin purity. Okay. Like, because like, I guess Pacino is so jaded and horny

[01:03:25] that he wanted like a very kind of chaste seeming presence next to him. I'll tell you, that's a sentence that's never been spoken. Virgin purity? Brest said he liked O'Donnell's virgin purity. No one on earth has ever said those words. No, it's the first time.

[01:03:44] You could trademark that David. In the history of the world. I'm sorry, Mr. Sims. The bit, the other thing that Brest says, Philip Seymour Hoffman gave one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen. It was ridiculous. It was like something out of a Kazan movie.

[01:03:58] Uh, he's incredibly impressed with that actor. That's the only other actor he really showed. He's my favorite actor of all time. It is fascinating to watch his movies from this era where this was like his stock type. Well, here's the deal. Of like preppy asshole, like loud mouth.

[01:04:13] Right. Obnoxious. Gregarious. Right. And I just imagine if you're seeing this at the time, you're like, oh, so this is just like this guy's gonna be playing this friend. Right. That's what he does. I totally felt that. He fits into this silo and he'll make a good career

[01:04:25] playing the guy you want to see get punched. And then, so I walk out of that movie going, I fucking hated that guy. That guy's so annoying. He is really not a good actor. And then Boogie Nights and you just go, holy shit.

[01:04:38] Holy shit. Where's this guy been? This is the actor of his generation. Correct. Just go, holy shit. Did you ever work with him? No, I met him once, but yeah, I never worked with him. Friend of the show, recent guest James Urbaniak has a story.

[01:04:50] I forget whose play it was, but it was some off-Broadway play that Urbaniak read for to play a character who was like a demon in some sort of satirical comedy. I just want to say, I love James Urbaniak. A great actor's actor. I love him very much.

[01:05:12] The play is called The Author's Voice, Richard Greenberg play. Okay. And he went and auditioned for it and was like, I nailed that as hard as I possibly could. I had everyone laughing. I am like this as written to a T.

[01:05:23] Urbaniak had sort of built his reputation in the New York theater scene where he was like, clearly this is mine for the taking. Doesn't get it. It's like, who's this fucking Philip Seymour Hoffman guy who gets my part?

[01:05:35] He goes to see the show when it opens and he's just like, he is thinking of things that no one else ever would have conceived of for this role. This guy is like, like 10th dimensional. And just his like, and I do think there's something to like,

[01:05:49] he plays this character so well that if you don't have the context of knowing his craft as an actor, you're like, I hate this guy. Oh dude, I hated him. They just cast an annoying guy.

[01:06:00] It made me think he was a bad actor in a way because I was like, that is a putrid presence on screen. He's so weasel-y. He's such an asshole in Scent of a Woman. Oh my God, he's such an asshole in this movie.

[01:06:12] Because he's worse than the other kids, the bullies who do the actual prank. You're like, yeah, well I get these, they're just like, you know, miscreants. No, he like, it's sadistic. Yeah, he's got like a really slimy energy to him that's perfect. Amazing.

[01:06:22] Only other thing I want to note in our research is movies, 449 minutes long. Did you say 449? It sounds like it. It's actually 156. It's not 149. 156 minutes long. That apparently tested better than the shorter cuts. They had shorter cuts and they said in the shorter cuts, Pacino's character seemed meaner.

[01:06:42] Like the more you gave him, like, the more sympathetic he came off. I can sort of understand it. Yeah. But I do think this movie's length is like really punishing. It's really, like, poor. And you read reviews from the time and people say that.

[01:06:55] People are like, why is this so long? They were like, it is fully one hour too long. And I got to say, this is a rough thing to say, but Breast hangs Pacino out to dry. Yet another sentence that's never been said. Breast hangs Pacino out to dry.

[01:07:09] But no, he does. I agree. But it's wild that at the time... The camera is on Pacino too much. And he becomes sort of exposed. And yet... At the time, it's like he's giving the ultimate gift to Pacino. He's finally giving him the vehicle.

[01:07:25] But looking back on it and watching it now... Brutal. I'd be mortified if a director did that to me. And yet he won an Academy Award for it. So we're wrong in a way. I've been with this character for two and a half hours.

[01:07:37] I have no handle on the Pacino character in this movie. What is his character? Lunatic. He's an angry, old, embittered military man who has gone blind from stress? Except he was also juggling grenades? That's a real mystery. You get to the scene where you're like,

[01:07:55] how did he go blind? And you're trained by movies like this to be like, there is going to be a tragic story. Or like he was abused by their father. And somehow part of that... There's something where he either did something heroic

[01:08:08] or he was tortured in a way where you're like, oh, here's the sympathy for this guy. I fight crime in Hell's Kitchen at night. He's crazy because something so inconceivably bad happened to him. And instead you're like, this guy was a fucking moron. He was an alcoholic.

[01:08:22] He did the dumb shit everyone told him to do. Bradley Whitford, who's also kind of great in this movie, has the line where he says, he always was an asshole, now he's just a blind asshole. Oh, that's right. And you're like, well, yeah,

[01:08:35] that's kind of the problem with this movie. Which is a good line, by the way. It's a great line, but it identifies the issue with building the movie around this version of the character, the way it identifies him, the way Pacino plays him,

[01:08:45] is this guy's just kind of insufferable. And the blindness doesn't really have anything to do with it. He's basically a jerk who can do two things. He can be kind of a smooth smoothie with the ladies who will then like dance the tango with him.

[01:08:57] It's not like he sleeps with anyone through being charming. He in fact talks about the fact that like, the core of his loneliness and his sadness in his life is like no woman wants to stay with me the next morning.

[01:09:10] That you only see him pay for sex in the film. And it's so oddly chased the way that he just shambles it. Yeah, and he's like, that was meaningless. No woman will ever love me. I would love to hear a super cut if someone could do it.

[01:09:25] And I bet if we ask for it, someone will do this. Someone will do this. Put together a conversation between Dog Day afternoon Pacino saying, I'm dying over here. And a scent of a woman going, I'm in the dark. I'm in the dark!

[01:09:40] And just them yelling at each other. I'm dying over here. Oh, you're dying? I'm in the dark here! I'm dying over here. I'm in the dark here! It's the other funny thing with Pacino where when you talk about the different eras of his acting,

[01:09:55] you're like, 70s Pacino and 90s Pacino are two entirely different impersonations. They have no commonalities. You just did two entirely different voices. It's not even like, you know, in the trip where they're like, well, Michael Caine started up here and now he's down here.

[01:10:09] It's like, I ain't listen to you. It's the 90s, baby. Y2K is coming. We gotta get crazy before it happens. Come on, what are you talking about? Like, it used to be, yeah, this totally different thing. Amazing. Yes. This movie starts with 30 minutes

[01:10:28] of boarding school antics, basically. You get a pop in of Pacino for this one extended scene at like the 15, 20 minute mark and then like minute 30, the plot really begins in earnest. Or I guess the, you know, the quote unquote heart of the movie.

[01:10:41] But you start at this like very Dead Poets Society-esque, insufferably preppy boarding school. You have Todd Louiso with a disconcerting amount of hair. It's actually just disorienting to see. Philip Simmerhoff and Todd Louiso. Wow. Actor's actor. Holy shit. I auditioned for his role in High Fidelity.

[01:11:05] He's in High Fidelity. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. And he is very good in that. Yes. I mean, I'm sure you were a cross-check, but I don't know. I had a very bad audition. He's the shy one in High Fidelity, though.

[01:11:14] I'd almost wonder if you'd be better in the Death Rock role. I had a rough audition. Stephen Frears directed that movie and read a newspaper during my audition and flipped... Sometimes you feel like Stephen Frears read a newspaper making the movie, not that one.

[01:11:29] Yeah, and I flipped the pages quite crisply during my read. So I had, I will out him. I don't know if I've ever told this story before. I had a callback bordering on a test for a TV show where Brian Robbins was going to direct the pilot.

[01:11:44] Oh, my. And he spent the entire audition looking at his phone. Like, he was just texting rabidly, head fully down. And at one point I went, like, should I start? Because there was just 30 seconds of silence as I was waiting for him to finish texting.

[01:11:59] And he just looked up and nodded me like, yeah, you should start. And the second I started talking, he looked back down. I feel like I auditioned for him too, but I don't know what movie was that. This was a TV show called Blue Mountain State

[01:12:11] that I think was a Spike TV original. It was about a football team. Yeah, and I was, of course, auditioning to play the quarterback. No, nerdy guy, some fucking dude they shove in a log. Water in a garbage can. Fuckowitz or whatever his name is.

[01:12:26] Fuckowitz, you dweeb, what are you doing? I'm just trying to get laid, man! Brian Robbins was like, wasn't good enough to make me look up from my phone. Wow. That kid had no handle on Fuckowitz. Todd Louisa's there. Phil Seymour Hoffman is there.

[01:12:41] You got Nicholas Sadler is the bad kid. Right, but Chris O'Donnell is just this weirdly angelic boy with no personality. He seems to have no other friends. He's poor. We're just like, oh, he's the poor kid. He's the scholarship kid. He's gotta work hard. Saintly.

[01:13:03] He's got a lot of people and is quiet. He's got this very odd dynamic with the three rich assholes where it feels like they don't fully bully him. Yeah, they're like, you're one of us, right? Scholarship kid. But also neither party seems to actually like the other.

[01:13:17] No, because they're jerks. Rich jerks. James Rebhorn, third billed, love to see it. Probably the best thing about this movie is just James Rebhorn's billing. He's a great actor, but this is the ultimate James Rebhorn part of he's the guy in the blazer who's like,

[01:13:31] you're not following the rules. He did that the whole 90s. You must have worked with Rebhorn. No. That's crazy. He was in four billion movies. I just had a realization. What's that? The realization is the movie, maybe unbeknownst to the people who made the movie,

[01:13:49] is really about evil white people. Sure. And how they're not all evil because Chris O'Donnell is a good white person. Right. But he's not the worst of white people. Yeah, you know what? Nothing wrong with that guy. Yeah.

[01:14:08] The worst of white people, but there are a couple good eggs out there. There are. Yeah. I think that's what this movie is trying to say. I think it's Pacino's evil white. Yeah. Hoffman. Yeah. White devil. Yeah. And then it's like there's a white there.

[01:14:23] There are white angels, ladies and gentlemen. A couple. We have one. It's as if they're saying, yes, white people can be bad. Is there any ethnic person in this film? That's a great question. Is there a single? Pacino is the most ethnic person. Yeah, yeah. Think about that.

[01:14:40] There's not a single. I even feel like the maids in the hotel. Yeah. You know, like the waiters, like every it's very Anglo-Saxon. It is very. Yes. There's some Roger Ebert review, I think, where he was like, I actually would give this movie another star

[01:14:57] if it was going to be an angel at the end of the film. It is the only way the movie makes sense. The character is like so simple, so pure, so unchallenged that to not literally make them an angel actually works against the film.

[01:15:11] And I had that thought watching this where it's like and starting and ending with like the fucking boarding school drama doesn't help it. You want this movie almost to be like, well, of course, and this was a saint sent down from the sky to help out.

[01:15:24] To stop him. The boy who could fly is more believable than this. Because there's nothing to this guy. The other thing that doesn't make sense to me about this movie is that, OK, yeah, he has this boarding school drama. There's a prank. He's a witness.

[01:15:37] Then Redhorn's like, look, if you snitch on your friends, I'll write you a letter. Let's just make it clear the stakes of this film. The three rich kids hate that Reborn has a nice car. Yeah, he got a nice car from like the trustees or whatever.

[01:15:48] So they blow it up with paint. But they despise him from the beginning. They're like, isn't he just the fucking worst human being who's ever lived? Look at him in his car. We got to get him back for his car.

[01:15:58] So they put a giant balloon with a cartoon of him kissing the trustees ass above a street lamp, above where his car is parked. And they're setting this up at night when Academy Award nominee June Squibb walks out.

[01:16:16] Chris O'Donnell happens to be walking by, catches them in the act, is talking to Philip Seymour Hoffman. They both distract June Squibb. She doesn't notice the prank, but the next day when it happens, she puts it all together.

[01:16:28] The prank also is that the balloon is on top of his car. It embarrasses him in front of everybody. And then it's filled with milk. I think it's like white paint. I don't know. I couldn't figure it out. He's embarrassed. It doesn't matter.

[01:16:40] Moral rod of America. Look, we have to get to the bottom of this. You two are the witnesses. One of you needs to rat on the other one. Or rat on the kids who did it. That's the weird thing. They're not even ratting on each other.

[01:16:51] No, they're ratting on the kids who did it. One of you must have seen something. Right. And so he's trying to bribe him with this. He says to O'Donnell. O'Donnell's like, okay, well, let me deal with that. Give me a weekend to think about it.

[01:17:03] Goes in and he's going to be caretaker to Al Pacino, who's a blind, horny, mean veteran. He doesn't have money to go back to visit his family on Christmas, so he's going to spend Thanksgiving break. Yeah, yeah, sure.

[01:17:13] He goes to the whiteboard and of course there's the postings of jobs over Thanksgiving weekend. Right, horny, uncle. Right, and he pulls down the one. 20 minutes in, goes and interviews Pacino. Pacino reads him for filth. He walks out. That went horribly. You got the job.

[01:17:28] You got the job. Fine, fine, fine. Then Pacino's like, we're going to New York. We're going to stay at the fucking plaza or wherever they go. That's like minute 35, 40, the movie basically beginning in earnest. Now here's actually what this movie is.

[01:17:38] But then this character acts like he's king of New York. Right, even though he's from the south. He seems to know people. That's what I just couldn't understand. It almost makes sense more if it's a Jack Donaghy style,

[01:17:48] like some old master of the universe who used to go to the plaza and the rainbow room and still knows all these old guys and he wants one last hurrah. Yeah. But Pacino's character doesn't even really fit in. No. It's like he was in the army.

[01:18:05] That's it. We don't really know anything else about him. No. He's not like a high society guy even. No, no, David, please. Another formulaic mistake because they had two formulas to choose from and I feel like they chose the wrong one is there's the moment in the film

[01:18:20] where he basically tells Chris O'Donnell, you are a weak, nothing, piece of crap. I don't need you. You're not helping me at all. You are no good and you'll never. And okay, so at that point you go,

[01:18:34] well, Chris O'Donnell is going to come back and prove to Al Pacino that he is strong and that he... No. They go the other way. They go, Al Pacino feels bad. So now Al Pacino has to come to this kid's rescue

[01:18:45] to make up for the mean shit he said to him. You know, I wanted to see Chris O'Donnell rise to the occasion and prove to the old military guy, hey, I got some balls. Does he ever do that? No.

[01:18:59] The most he does is he kind of wrestles the gun out of his hands when he's trying to kill himself and he's sort of like, you're going to have to shoot me. But the scene is so devoid of any, like, you know, nothing.

[01:19:09] Pacino is like, my life is terrible. I got nothing to live for. And Chris O'Donnell makes his big stand trying to argue why his life is worth living. And I'm not saying that Pacino's character should commit suicide,

[01:19:20] but if I'm in his position, O'Donnell's speech does not sway me. I don't think O'Donnell presents a single convincing argument. I agree. He's like, well, look, there's a sun in the sky. You can eat meals. By the way, your impression of Chris O'Donnell in this movie

[01:19:35] is better than your impression of Al Pacino in this movie. I'm going to tell you that. No, no, that's a good Chris O'Donnell. I don't know. Yeah, I'm telling you. Am I wrong? His speech is like... Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. Did I just hurt Griffin?

[01:19:53] No, you're right. I'll take it as a compliment. Yeah, no, O'Donnell never, like, you're similarly waiting for some reveal of what drives this guy. Yeah. And the most you get is he doesn't really like his stepdad. Right. My dad left and my stepdad, we don't get along.

[01:20:07] Why? He's just not a great guy. Anything, like, really dramatic there? No, he's just kind of a dick. And Pacino early on is like, hey, listen, kid, you should fucking rat out those guys because they won't hesitate to rat you out. He's correct. Who gives a shit?

[01:20:22] They're masters of the universe. You've had to build yourself out of the dirt. Why not? Like, there's no stakes to this, in a way. Right? Like, there's no moral integrity in the situation Chris O'Donnell's in. He's done nothing wrong. These guys suck.

[01:20:38] Yeah, at the end of the movie, he doesn't snitch. The only stakes, I will say, there is, is Pacino gonna do the right thing? Yes. But by the right thing, do you just mean be nice to Chris O'Donnell? Stand up for him, help him out. Which he does.

[01:20:53] And you're like, thanks, thanks, Pacino. And that's why you win the Academy Award, right there. Because it's... It's the best thing deserving of an award. The dance, and it's the tango. And by the way, I remember how they promoted and how they marketed this film.

[01:21:06] Hua was very much a part of it. Oh, it was like their catchphrase. That was their catchphrase. The audience was saying Hua. Alaska to Hawaii to Barcelona to Mada. I'm curious, and if there's a way to figure this out, I don't think there... there might not be.

[01:21:21] What other movies came out that month? Or that weekend? I'm gonna say, I'm gonna guess one. Okay. I'm gonna say Big Top Pee-Wee came out that month. And I don't know why I think that, but something tells me that was around Big Top Pee-Wee time.

[01:21:36] I'm sorry to tell you, you're a couple years off. Oh, shit. That was 88, this movie was 93... 92. 92. This film came out Christmas 1992. Like, that was... So Miracle on 34th Street, the reboot. The remake. That's maybe like a year later.

[01:21:54] Look, I mean, look, David, this is the box office game. This is the box office game. I'm sorry, I'm late. Okay, good. I didn't realize that was a thing we do. It's a big thing. It's been codified into law. But we think this is alike.

[01:22:10] I've never listened to this podcast once. That's what we love to hear. I'm sorry, I apologize. I don't listen to podcasts. My friends do. It's a check in your positive box. I don't know how someone sits and listens to a whole podcast. Well, I walk. I walk.

[01:22:28] But still, I do feel like it was kind of a like, old and young can enjoy Scent of a Woman, right? It's an R that you take your mature kids to. Because they'll learn a lesson about integrity. And it's not, this is not a lurid movie particularly,

[01:22:38] apart from him saying like, "'Titties!" It's not like, "'Nipples!' There's no real violence in it. The big stakes are, is he going to be a gentleman to Gabrielle Anwar? Yes, he is. Is he gonna drive this Lambo into a wall? Or is he gonna drive this Ferrari?

[01:22:58] I forget what it is. But am I wrong in thinking that you look at all the marketing material of this movie, and it's like, Universal proudly presents the movie that is going to win Pacino its Oscar. Like, all of the marketing material has the energy of like,

[01:23:08] This is what this movie is designed to do. Hundred percent. Undeniable, right? And now when we get that kind of like, obvious this film is a vehicle to give an overdue actor their overdue Oscar, it's usually the thing of like, oh, still Alice plays at a film festival.

[01:23:24] It's a scrappy indie. Sony Classics buys it because they're like, we can fucking win off of this. Right? It's crazy hard. It's like that kind of thing. It gets done in sort of like a gritty, smaller indie character drama way versus a studio being like,

[01:23:40] we're building this whole thing as like a monument to Pacino. Right. It's, it's, they see the movie and they go, wait a second. This is, this is all we got. We could campaign. And if we just campaign with this,

[01:23:56] we can't put this person in the same color as Pacino. Because there were other things other films they made that year. That might have been, did not turn out well. Yes. Yeah. Are there other scenes we want to talk about in Scents of a Woman that matter?

[01:24:17] Like, it lets hit some, you know, what do we? Well, I think this thing I'm interested in of these directors doing this like broad comedy as I was kind of saying earlier, the premises still feel on their paper where you're like, 15 degrees in the other direction,

[01:24:31] this is still a broad comedy, right? The basic setup of this movie is kind of adventures in babysitting, right? It's like, uh, Pacino's niece says, like, look, it's an easy job. We're going away for Thanksgiving. He's just gonna sleep all day, watch TV,

[01:24:49] just sit in the house and watch him, right? They leave, and Pacino's like, -"We're going on a trip." Right. -"Right now. Get your coat." What? One whirlwind weekend. What are we doing? Getting pussy. Right? And then, like, a day into it,

[01:25:02] he outlines what his plan is. Because O'Donnell starts noticing, like, hey, you're acting like Jack Donaghy. What's with the limo and the hotel and the $25 cheeseburger, you know, and all this shit. And then he outlines, like, very specific plan. Here's my weekend.

[01:25:19] Ends with me shooting myself in the head. Yes. It's really just, like, get food, stay in a fancy hotel, see my older brother who hates me. Right. Stir some shit up. Bullet in brain, you know? Sleep with a woman. Yeah, I said, get laid.

[01:25:33] Did I not say that? Okay. Uh, if I'm Chris O'Donnell, it's like my friend put me in charge of dogs sitting there, like a very old dog. And they're like, the dog barely does anything. Just give him food twice a day. And then you're just like,

[01:25:47] this dog better not fucking die while I'm awake. And then the dog's like, I'm gonna shoot myself! Exactly. O'Donnell's like, I just... Bok bok! There's no way to blow this job except the guy shoots himself at the plaza. But the whole thing is like... It's Gremlins.

[01:25:59] If don't feed him after midnight. It's this broad comedy premise. Be harmless if you just don't feed him after midnight. He's like a What About Bob, like, dilemma character. Mm. That this movie is, like, piling sentimentality on top of. Where this, like, you know, straight man kid

[01:26:13] is stuck in a position where it's like, I got a handful. I don't know how to manage him. What do I do with this crazy guy? But the stakes are like, no, but I'm very serious. Here's my loaded gun. And it's very much about a square... Yes.

[01:26:28] ...being taken into the wild side. Yes. Right? Like, this kid has no idea, you know, what it is to, you know... Flirt with a woman. Flirt with a... Play Russian roulette. -...and survive. Juggle some grenades! Juggle some grenades! Let's do it.

[01:26:49] I just want to make this very clear. I'm gonna take him to class real quick. For anyone who did not watch the movie, the reveal of how he blinded himself is that he used to juggle grenades for fun and to entertain his troop.

[01:27:00] And one day he got so confident that he was like, let me pull the pins out. And blew up his best friend? Yes. Killed my best friend. And fucked up his eyes in a way that... And the Lord left it that my friend died

[01:27:13] and I lost my sight. But, like, conveniently has no scarring. Let's talk about the logic of that. That's correct. The logic of your juggling the goddamn thing. How are your hands still there? Right. Your eyes are fucking, like, blown to smithereens. Did it blow up midair?

[01:27:28] And if it did, wasn't it in front of your face at the moment that it blew up? And wouldn't that have destroyed your whole head? Yes. The other thing is he has his gun and he's like, it's my service. I never give up.

[01:27:40] I'm like, they didn't take your gun away after you were caught throwing grenades around. Yeah, I take fucking everything away. I wouldn't let you hold a pencil after that. It's not just a sort of like, well, it's time for you to retire.

[01:27:51] It's like you blew someone up in the American base. You're supposed to throw those at the enemy. By the way, like doing a bit. Doing a bit. Not even like an accident in training, you know? But before he does all this stuff, they do go to White Plains.

[01:28:06] They do have the worst Thanksgiving dinner with Bradley Whitford and various other people that ends with Al Pacino putting Whitford in a chokehold. I actually like when he puts him in the chokehold. Because you're like, he is... He does actually have this guy dead to rights.

[01:28:20] Like, that's the one time you really feel him like... It's also Whitford saying all these shitty things about him and he's just taking it. But the thing that makes Pacino pounce on him, he keeps calling him Chucky. Yeah, right.

[01:28:32] And you do kind of like that moment where you're like, okay, this guy's integrity is like, as much as he's been giving this kid chin music, he doesn't like anyone who's a snob, who's disrespecting others on baseless grounds. But in that moment,

[01:28:46] let's assume that there were hundreds of kids that call themselves Chuck, that were watching that movie thinking... -"What's wrong with me?" -"What's wrong with me?" Chuck's not a bad name. There's a homicidal doll sitting in the front row

[01:28:58] of the theater going, am I really that bad? No one wants to be associated with me. So what? I kill a few people. The next big thing is the tango scene, which I do think is the most compelling scene in the movie because of Gabrielle Anwar.

[01:29:14] She's amazing. She's so cute. She's so cute. She's so charming, and she's charmed by him. And she's forgiving. It should be like, they're being a pain in the ass. Like, this girl's waiting for her date or whatever. And instead you're like, no, she's into it.

[01:29:29] And I believe that she's kind of just having fun with it. She's the key to that film. I'm telling you, she's the key to the success of that film. I think she's pretty high on the billing order. She had a decent career.

[01:29:40] She's in, you know, she's in some good movies. I don't know. No, I mean, she didn't have the career she deserved. Maybe we didn't. Yeah. That's... Is that his Oscar clip? The tango scene? Or is it him screaming, I'm in the dark?

[01:29:53] No, it might be dark, but it might be... It's this whole place is out of order. That's the scene. Right there, you know. If I was to take a flame thrower to this place! I'm a lawyer now for some reason.

[01:30:06] That's the thing that's so weird about the ending of this movie is it feels like they're like, let's undo a little injustice for all. Can we have him play all the hits? Right. Yes. No, no. He's doing a medley of Pacino shit, you know?

[01:30:19] And now, again, I'm being going to be openly critical of Pacino in this film. There's scenes like the tango, and then later the Ferrari, where he's, ah, I love this! Yeah! And then he communicates depression like a robot running out of batteries.

[01:30:34] Like, there's multiple times in the movie, he's like, I'm starting to feel sad, Chris. Getting real sad. And he's literally, literally stooping. Like, he just starts to look down. Yes. And it's communicating like, oh man,

[01:30:47] Tim will run us to this, and this guy's putting a gun to his head. See, but I also thought he was just running low on Jack Daniels. Yes. I wasn't sure if it was depression or it's just... Top me up! He had finished one bottle and needed another.

[01:31:02] He had finished one bottle and needed another. Am I wrong that he calls it John Daniels at some point? He does. He does. He likes proper names. He's not going to call him Jack or Chuck. He knows him like that. He knows him like that.

[01:31:13] My dear friend, John! Like, there's four different times in this movie where he's like, gonna kill myself. And he's like, Donald's like, ah, let's go rent a car! Okay! All right! I'm back! -...like that is the vibe of this weekend. Yes.

[01:31:27] Is that he's not even really enjoying it. No. We don't see him having sex with the escort. He's perfectly polite about it. But like, did he have a good time? No, and it comes after the Anwar moment where it's sort of like, he's like, watch and learn, son.

[01:31:38] Like, you don't understand women. Right? Goes to this woman, what are you doing sitting alone? My boyfriend, he's running late. Well, let me dance with you. Does this whole tango, right? And you're like, oh, wow, he's going to romance this fucking beautiful young woman.

[01:31:51] Or he's going to like introduce her to Chris O'Donnell and they're going to fall in love. It's to the movie's credit that they're like, no, no, no. Shitty boyfriend shows up and he's like, oh, thank you for dancing with my girlfriend.

[01:32:00] And then Pacino just feels like sad and dejected. And then you basically just see like yada, yada, yada over. And then he like called some escort. They slept together and she left and then he was really sad the next day. It begs the question because in a way,

[01:32:12] it's the reiteration of blindness is awful. Yeah. Like you are, you can have the best time. You're going to drive a Lamborghini down the street. You can dance with a young woman, tango. But ultimately, blindness fucking sucks. You're reminded of your blindness at all times.

[01:32:32] Now, what if they took the blindness out of scent of a woman? It wouldn't be called scent of a woman. No. Because the whole idea that's also by the way, I can smell him. It's an insane title. It's an insane title.

[01:32:44] I can't stop subscribing to watch my movies. Let's say we take the blindness. He can smell real good. Right. It's like taking the divinity out of the Bible. Yeah. Let's take the blindness. It becomes an allegory. It's a much better movie about a guy

[01:32:57] who has to live down his demons. Just a guy with PTSD. He blew up his fucking friend. Exactly. He blew up his friend. That's enough. It's enough. You can make a whole movie, oh, he's this fucking, he's a bad guy, man. He blew up his fucking friend.

[01:33:10] He didn't feel bad. You know, he was like, Jesus Christ, this is his redemption story. The blindness ruins this movie. But I would argue it's also the additional actor in the bit. I don't think he wins the Oscar for the version you're describing, which is undeniably a better

[01:33:27] film. It's not a good film or a great film, a better film that probably would age better. But the extra 10% of like, God, Pacino, you know, he just like the way he holds the bottle. Right. You know, there's all that shit that you just like,

[01:33:40] you watch it now and you can just see people studying this in 1992 in every acting class. Right. Yeah. You can tell he thought about every choice he makes physically. And so that's exciting, I guess, to see.

[01:33:52] Now, remake of Scent of a Woman, they have to cast a blind man. A blind actor. But no blind person, you know, would want this. No, I agree. They're going, hey, I have a good life. I've, I've, I work on staying positive.

[01:34:06] And, you know, and this movie is about a guy who he goes blind late in life. It's sudden, like, you know, it's not like the circumstance all blind people face or whatever. Like you can sympathize that. But you're right. It's just this kind of I'm a monster.

[01:34:20] But it's also why the Whitford line, it like hits so hard where you're like, you're already an asshole. Right. The blindness is kind of just like the whipped cream on top of your thing. Pre-social media, people believed that there's no way that a blind person could be happy.

[01:34:36] Right. Post-social media, people are like, oh, you know what? A couple of my friends are on the... All different people live all different types of lives. That's right. So this movie doesn't work. Like, no, this just happens to be a very upset guy

[01:34:48] about a bunch of other shit. And on top of that, he's blind. Yes. This movie is disgusting. It's a disability movie in which we're meant to go, to feel awful for the person who has the disability. It's not one of those where you go,

[01:35:03] he succeeded despite his disability. It's one where you walk out going, goddamn that poor son of a bitch. You know, this movie is wrong. I agree. Now, this is what's fascinating. Martin Brest has made three great movies up until this point. So you like Midnight Run? Love Midnight.

[01:35:22] How do you feel about Beverly Hills Cop? Unbelievable, Beverly Hills Cop. Have you seen Going in Style? Incredible. What's that? Going in Style... It's so good. I highly recommend it. ...is an old man robbery movie starring George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg.

[01:35:34] I know exactly what this movie is. I did not see it. It rules. You can watch it today. It's easy to rent or whatever. It's a great Queens movie. Great, like, you know... I'm from Queens. I know you are. There you go. Where are you from in Queens?

[01:35:48] I'm from Queens. I'm from Forest Hills, Queens. Yeah. Not the rich side of Forest Hills. I'm from the streets of Forest Hills. Yeah. There's a very rich side of that neighborhood. I'm not... I had nothing to do with that. The rough side of the hill.

[01:36:01] I was on the dark side of the train track. Literally, there's a train that... The Long Island Railroad. Oh, yeah. I was on the wrong side of the track. That's right. Great movie. Highly recommend. Like, never, never lets it turn into, you know, get too cartoonish, right?

[01:36:17] Never fucks up the plot. Never falls prey to this movie. Yes, all three of those movies are just like perfectly balanced, measured, judged. Do not take themselves too seriously. All comedies, right? All comedies, but have more depth and human insight than you expect from that type of comedy.

[01:36:31] And then he says, I'm gonna make a drama, and it's the most illogical... Yes. ...hard to believe, insulting, cancelable, disrespectful to blind people movie ever. But he gets a Best Director nomination, is nominated for Best Picture, gets the credit for being the guy

[01:36:49] who finally wins Pacino his Oscar, is a hit, although I was surprised to see... It wasn't like a hundred million dollar hit. No, no, but it was a big hit. It was a hit, and it was certainly culturally a big fucking movie.

[01:37:01] And much like Pacino, this is a case of like, we've talked about so many times on this podcast, people who, like, get a little broken by a failure, a bomb, a folly that, like, they can't handle the response to. This is the weird example of a guy

[01:37:16] kind of being broken by a success, where he was rewarded for the wrong things in a way that I think just like then recalibrates him to a certain degree. You know? Like, if this movie hadn't worked... He might go back to comedy.

[01:37:32] He's like, you know what? I tried to do my thing. I now know what my zone is. Right. And instead he's like... Because he is batshit insane... Yeah. ...in the, what is it? The canneries? The canneries. The, the, the... The canneries. Oh, Devil's Advocate. He is batshit insane.

[01:37:50] Because it does the same thing for me. I remember watching that movie. You want more out of him. I remember watching that movie as a huge fan of Al Pacino. Sure. Yeah. Which I've always really been. And thinking, fuck. Like he's lost it.

[01:38:02] He's fucking lost his fucking mind. Yeah. He has... Why didn't someone stop him? And I've seen a lot of performances of a lot of actors where you go, I wish someone had just stopped him. In the moment said, hey, you know what?

[01:38:15] Eh, take it down a notch for this next one. You just don't use those takes. You just don't use those takes. Or you, or if that's all you got in the moment, say, it's a bit much. I know you're Al Pacino, but it's a bit much.

[01:38:26] But that's the example of like, yeah, you let Pacino do a take like that. Just to see if anything interesting comes out of him, to get it out of your system. And at a certain point, it feels like everyone was always

[01:38:37] either using the single most insane take he did of every piece, or he only ever was delivering it that way. And it's proof positive... Yeah. ...that even the world's greatest actor, or one of the world's greatest actors can still suck. Can still totally suck.

[01:38:55] Because acting has no parameters. It's not a... Yes, there's a craft to it, but it's a matter of degrees, of subjective degrees between the worst actor in a porn movie, let's say, and Robert De Niro, and Marlon Brando. It's a matter of degrees, and they're incalculable degrees,

[01:39:17] and that is why I stand firmly in my position that acting is not an art form. It's not an art form. Because in every other art form, you can judge things based on certain parameters. Even in abstract art, you can do it,

[01:39:32] in terms of the layout and the color schemes and what have you. Acting is not an art form. I don't know what it is. It's a form of expression. It's like birds shrieking in the jungle, right? It's like, hey, I'm here, listen to me.

[01:39:50] I just need to hear myself to know I'm alive. I'm realizing, obviously, you acted as a young man. Like, how did you get even into acting? Like, was there a way... Life was like this for me. This story's been told, but I'll tell it again.

[01:40:05] No, you don't have to. No, I'm happy to. Very thrilled to, actually. Wow. No, because you know what? I did a podcast recently. Dude, I've been doing so many of these. This is my second to last one. I just want to say, I've been on this press tour

[01:40:19] for this movie Lousy Carter. Yes. We'll be streaming Rentable now by the time this comes out. Yeah, it's already streaming. Yeah. I'm done. I don't like hearing that. I hate myself so much. And you also did. I hate myself more, which I didn't think was possible.

[01:40:35] You had to go through the whole award season gauntlet at Jason Taub and Heiner. I'm tired. I didn't like this to begin with. I don't like myself to begin with. We're big fans. But I recently told this story... You're an A-plus guy. Yeah.

[01:40:47] We're giving you a couple A-pluses. Yeah, but people don't deserve me. Um... That is a really good point. That is true. There it is. You know what? I'm hiding the light back under a bushel. You guys can't see what's under this bushel. Society is at fault here.

[01:40:59] That's right. Um... Let me... I told this story and they cut it. So, I'm gonna tell it again. Great. And hopefully you guys don't cut it. This is a brief story. I'll try to make it as brief as possible.

[01:41:10] Ben told me to cut to stand down and stand strong. No desire to be an actor whatsoever, 13 years old, going to school in Queens. Sure. Junior high school, seventh grade. Halsey Junior High School. Hell yeah. Which the Ramones and Simon and Garfunkel went to.

[01:41:26] And no desire to be an actor whatsoever. No thought of it. Of being anything at all. Do you like movies or like... I am... My dad and mom have been divorced since I was two. Uh-huh. My dad does not know what to do with me on weekend,

[01:41:44] with his weekend custody, other than take me to every movie. To two movies a weekend. So the whole relationship's built around that. Correct. And he won't take me to any R-rated movies. So I'm seeing every PG-13 comedy when I'm seven years old, eight years old, nine years old.

[01:41:59] I'm seeing all of them. And maybe an R-rated comedy here and there, as I'm getting older. Okay, I'm seeing mostly comedies with my dad. This is like late 80s? This is mid... No, mid 80s. Early 80s to mid 80s. The whole 80s. Sure.

[01:42:12] And early 90s is just me and my dad, Saturday, Sunday, a movie a day. Okay. Right? That's what it is. I'm learning so much, I have no idea what I'm learning. My grandmother is a super funny, talented lady. Literally doesn't... has never explored that,

[01:42:30] but is quite a character. She's teaching me comedy. My whole family's funny. Who gives a shit? It doesn't matter to me. I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm 13. Who gives a shit? And... I decide to take part in the school play,

[01:42:46] which was a production of Bye Bye Birdie. The director of the school play happens to be my English teacher. Okay. So, I'm at junior high school. It's early 90s. They're starting to air commercials where instead of actors telling you, you know, selling you a product,

[01:43:04] they're going out on the street and interviewing people. What do you think of this product? And using real people's interviews as their commercial. And this new thing happens, of real people are more interesting than actors. Yeah. So, they go, hey, with kid actors specifically,

[01:43:22] we don't want a kid that is too trained. Doesn't act like a kid in a movie acts like a real kid. So, they cast like private parts, young Howard Stern on an open call. Open calls. Which is anybody can come in off the street,

[01:43:37] you don't have to have an agent. You just like put flyers up at local schools. At local schools. Very rare thing that they were doing, but they were doing it. Because we specifically want kids who just sound like, look like, seem like a kid off the street. Correct.

[01:43:52] Yeah. They come to my teacher and they go, hey, there's this Broadway play, big part in Broadway play, Judd Hirsch's Son. We're looking for someone who can play Judd Hirsch's son. My teacher comes to me, says, you're a funny kid. You look like Judd Hirsch.

[01:44:07] I know who Judd Hirsch is. Yeah. I love Dear John at the moment. You have that leg up on people where you're like, I understand who I'm playing against. Oh yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. I love Taxi. Had you done Bye Bye Birdie at this point? Correct.

[01:44:21] Who'd you play in Bye Bye Birdie? Randolph McAfee, the son of the family. I sing kids. You sing kids. Kids, I don't know what's wrong with these. Mom, mom, mom. Anyway, Billy Eichner was also in that production. In that same production with you? Correct. Who did he play?

[01:44:38] He played... Albert Peterson? He played my father. I'm pretty sure he played my father. Oh, he's pretty good at that. I'm pretty sure. I may be wrong, but he was awesome. Ed Sullivan. Me and Billy went to school.

[01:44:48] We grew up together, so Billy and I go and audition for this play. He also goes in it. He doesn't look a damn thing like Judd Hargis. But he's a little Jewy kid from Queens. Yeah. You could play John Larroquette's son. Long story short, six weeks of auditioning.

[01:45:01] Every time I go back, there's less and less kids. It started with like a thousand kids from all over the city. Very known, it's down to me and Jason Walliner. Wow! The director, Jason Walliner. Yes. Who was a professional actor kid and was in a Saturday morning cartoon,

[01:45:20] a commercial that would air. Yeah. A commercial for a toy that would air during Saturday morning cartoons. Which toy? I don't remember, but so much so that I walked in, saw him at my audition and became petrified. You were like, that kid's a big deal.

[01:45:33] This kid's got micromachines. He's got, that's the kid. He has the whole collection. Correct. And he's telling me to collect them all. Anyway, I get the frigging part. And I'm on... What's the play? It's called Conversations with My Father. We ran for a fucking year.

[01:45:45] I did six months. All of a sudden, I am an actor. Yeah. Herb Gardner. On Broadway with a large partner Broadway show. The show next door is a show called Falsettos. The guy who wrote and directed that show is about to direct his second movie,

[01:45:59] first studio movie called Life With Mikey. Yeah. He sees me in that show. He goes, hey, I'm gonna put you in Life With Mikey before you know it, I'm making a studio movie. That's a movie basically about child actors. The producer of that movie is gonna produce

[01:46:10] a movie called Adam's Family Values. Before you know it, I'm on set. It's crazy. The writer of Life With Mikey wrote my first TV series. I do that TV series. The director of that TV series... Of the pilot of that TV series

[01:46:23] directs the Santa Claus, his first movie. Wild. Before you know it, within three years, I've made three studio films, a Broadway play and a TV series. Yeah. And I hadn't wanted to be an actor. Right. I had no clue what acting was. It hadn't happened by accident,

[01:46:39] but there was no intentionality to it. Insane. Yeah. And my family and I are like, this is insane. We know it's insane. A thing you're kind of like learning on the job. I knew. Yeah. I knew I was good enough, and I knew a lot about movies. Yeah.

[01:46:55] I knew that like... I remember on the Santa Claus thinking, if I could just do like a Bill Murray thing in moments here or whatever. Yeah. You know, like grabbing from that. You understood the language of it. I did. Yeah. And it wasn't a problem.

[01:47:11] And thank God, man, I'd be dead. Do you know what's like... I would be dead if that hadn't happened. No doubt about it, I'd be dead. No doubt. You just don't know what like... No, I was not a kid. First of all, my family did not have money.

[01:47:27] Yeah. At all. I was not a smart kid. I didn't do great in school. I was a lazy student. A lot smarter. Later on, I fell in love with weed and alcohol and I would have totally gone farther. That would have been everything. Correct.

[01:47:43] I would have become a copay. If you had gone to that without the career... I either would have become a lonely school bus driver in Queens. Well, that sounds sort of... That was an inspiration to children. Tuesday nights on CBS, actually. Or a total crackhead. Or both.

[01:48:01] Dead crackhead. Believe in yourself. Right. You could be a school bus driver. Crackhead. You could have died on the bus. Crackhead school bus driver. Yeah. Absolutely. Which would be good like Sunday nights on FX. There's no doubt in my mind that would have happened.

[01:48:13] How would I have afforded college? How would I have... Possibly, I would have given up. Well, there's one way you could have afforded college. Hmm. If you had agreed to, let's say, look after a blind lunatic for a weekend. Convinced him... Kept him from committing suicide? Yes.

[01:48:30] And then he, you know, does you a favor by... Representing you in court. Serving as your sort of pro bono attorney at a disciplinary hearing in front of the entire school. Wait, you're repaid with a... I'm the sole witness to a prank... Yep. ...that pisses off.

[01:48:41] His face is literally like, this sucks. And they're like, you know what? It does suck. It's just the last three minutes of this movie when you get back down to it. First of all, thank you so much for sharing that story. I love the way we walk...

[01:48:49] It's a wonderful story. ...we work our way back around. I also just want to point out... That was beautiful. ...Walloner replaced you on Broadway, I just looked up. Walloner did replace you on Broadway. Wow. And Jim Belushi replaced Hirsch. Jim Hirsch, yes.

[01:48:59] It became the Jim Belushi, Jason Walloner. It's not that bad. It's a bit of a downgrade. It's a hell of a... It's a hell of a leap. Yes. It's just crazy. It's just crazy. Like, oh, let me buy tickets to that. Like, oh, well, you're getting Belushi tickets.

[01:49:10] And it was an overtly Jewish play. Right, right, yeah. It was an overtly Jewish play. And Jim Belushi, who's Albanian... Yes. ...and I remember seeing it with Jim Belushi and going, what the hell is going on here? Also... What happened? Jason Biggs was in it, I'm seeing.

[01:49:21] Jason Biggs played my older brother, yeah. Wow. That's crazy. Mm-hmm. Young Jason Biggs, yeah. Little Biggs. And Hirsch won the Tony. He did, for Best Actor. I just, I Googled. And then you worked with him. And Tony Schauble, yeah. I played him as a child, yeah. Wild. Yeah.

[01:49:37] It's a great play. Great play, yeah. You worked with Hirsch so much again later. Is he just the best? You know, when I first worked with him, he was doing Dear John, and he was really kind of bold and brash.

[01:49:44] And I don't want to say he wasn't the best. He was the best, but he also had an ego thing happening. Later on, The Greatest. Yeah. Hilarious. Yeah. I mean, I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is.

[01:49:54] I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is. And like, this guy's like at full fighting weight. He is an ox. Yeah. He's something else, man.

[01:50:34] I mean, they don't make him like that anymore. He's a tough, tough guy. We should clone him. We should have an army of Hirschs. We got to restart the Yiddish theater. That's what we got to do. Sure. Yeah. OK, I was just going to say, when this movie,

[01:50:46] the last 30 minutes boils down to like this insane ersatz hearing. I mean, it's awful. No school does that. I just keep going like, first of all, no school does nothing. None of this, as Ben has said before, this isn't real. It doesn't make any sense.

[01:51:01] This isn't a thing. It would make more sense if then June Squibb got up and was like, we don't really know why we're here. This is a very strange proceeding. And we, the disciplinary board, whoever we are, reject it. But speaking of this movie being like 10 degrees off

[01:51:14] from like an absurdist comedy, you're like, this is like the end of Billy Madison, where they're all admitting like, this whole setup is insane. But it has like the end of Harry Potter, where Dumbledore is like, Harry Potter, you 11 year old for killing Voldemort, 50 points.

[01:51:30] And everyone's like, yay! And you're like, what is the high low tone of it? Yes. It's the same thing here. He's basically, everyone's just trying to humiliate him. Pacino calls it out. And then June Squibb is like, our verdict is, he's bad, he's bad, he's fine.

[01:51:46] See you all later. Also, the stakes of this are a prank where a rich old man was embarrassed. Like nothing really happened. And we don't, and there's no emotional, like... Is there ever a moment in this film where Pacino goes, you know why I want to kill myself?

[01:52:04] Because I hate myself. I'm a terrible person. I did terrible things and I'm bad. I'm the problem. Not really. Not really. Instead, he's dancing around it too much. Had there been that moment, maybe it's a watchable movie 30 years later. O'Donnell doesn't turn him around with anything good either,

[01:52:24] except like, come on, don't do that. You shouldn't do that. But that's also why this is a bad performance, right? And if we're talking about the weirdness of acting, which I do think is the interesting thing to talk about here. Like, the thing with this movie,

[01:52:38] I will say, like backhandedly, is it's like, it is watchable, right? It is incredibly long, it is exhausting. But like, and I would never give Brest an Oscar nomination for this in a million years. But you also understand why the Academy is like, it's tony, it's classy.

[01:52:56] It kind of has like, it's smooth, you know? It has these like big emotional waves and big scenes and whatever. It's in focus. The score is lush. Like all this sort of shit. And in the same way, you're like, everything Pacino is doing is compelling.

[01:53:13] It is certainly watchable. Right. Which like, there is a... It's a spectacle to some extent. Right. And you rarely, like, people who don't see performances by people who truly cannot act, because almost anyone who ends up in any professional level project

[01:53:29] has some modicum of if not like skill or craft, at least some innate charisma that at least makes them like compelling in that frame. The people who have none of that barely end up on a radar where anyone could even see them. Right?

[01:53:43] But you're like, the reason I think this is a bad performance is you're like, he's not playing the story of this well. No. He's not serving what this movie should be. He's making the mistake of playing the persona... Yes. ...of the guy... Yes.

[01:53:59] ...rather than there's a human being behind this persona he's put up so that we get the sense as an audience, oh, this is who he has to be. Why is he doing this? He feels he has to be this person... Right. ...because he can't live down his mistakes,

[01:54:15] but there's this other person behind him. Right. And so he's... It's not in the writing. No. Correct. It's not in the writing. It's just a flat one-note character all the way fucking through. But this kind of movies are, to a certain extent,

[01:54:27] if it's not there in the writing, part of their job is to be like, we have to fucking find the center of this. Hooah. Right. We need to do a couple drafts. Instead he was like, here's the spine. I say hooah. So who's at fault?

[01:54:39] Is it Brest, Pacino, Bo Goldman? Is that his name? Bo Goldman's the writer. I would say Brest is most at fault. I think Brest is most at fault. Yes. I agree. But then Brest is like, what are you talking about? I mean, a hit movie that went unanswered.

[01:54:51] Right. Well, here's the other thing. So then what? You learn no lessons from that because you're like, I was rewarded. But here's what happens on movies, right? Here's what happens. You can be Martin Brest. You can make three great movies in a row.

[01:55:01] You can work with De Niro and whatever. Got a great performance out of De Niro and Grodin. You get on that set and the elephant walks in the room. The big gorilla. Al Pacino, you don't tell me how to act. I'm Al Pacino. Yeah.

[01:55:16] Now maybe Pacino doesn't say that. But the air is there. There's an air. There's an air of Pacino's God. Yeah. My job is not to direct Pacino. Meanwhile, we like... In fact, I don't even want to take the chance because what if Pacino yells at me?

[01:55:31] Anything he's giving me is gold. Before you know it, it's now Pacino directing the movie. Which by the way, if you're just sitting behind the monitor watching Pacino do take after take of this, you are like, this is compelling. He's doing a lot of shit.

[01:55:44] But that's the moment where your job as the director is to zoom out and go like big picture. Correct. Track the performance. Yes. If he's not doing it... Right. Because it's really Pacino's responsibility to track the performance, especially if he knows he's not being directed. But then, Breasted,

[01:55:59] someone has to be sitting there going, good Lord, it's the same shit over and over in every scene. Yes. To be fair, the movie is also just not very well written and what are you gonna do, I guess? Like, it's a silly movie.

[01:56:12] I don't know if I'm Breasted if I'm gonna come in and be like, this is... Oh, I'm blind. Like, I don't know what he's supposed to be doing. No. Let me tell you who he beat for best actor. Robert Downey Jr. for Chaplin, Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven,

[01:56:27] Stephen Ray for The Crying Game, and Denzel Washington for Malcolm X, which is of course the searing one. That's outrageous. Denzel had just won an Oscar three years prior. Neither do I. And Pacino, of course, had never won an Oscar

[01:56:42] and that is why I think this is the totemic like, that's why you don't want to get into a make-up Oscar situation. I don't want to call the Academy racist, or at least racist at that time. But my God almighty. Real bad? The greatest, in my opinion,

[01:56:56] hands down the greatest biopic ever made is Malcolm X. Yeah. And that movie wasn't not... The only nomination it got was Denzel. Yeah. Right? Yes. And maybe some creative like art stuff. Yeah. Insane. Which is insane. Yeah, that movie's a masterpiece. That's correct.

[01:57:13] So that's just a crazy situation. You look at that, you're like, he's the worst of those five actors. Yeah. Not only that, I mean, I think Downey Jr. and Chaplin is the second worst and that's a really interesting performance. That movie's kind of like all over the place.

[01:57:26] I think he's phenomenal in it. Eastwood is incredible in Unforgiven. Like, I mean, it's his best screen acting ever probably. Stephen Ray getting the crying game nom, like sure, you'll only get a nom there, but that guy's a legend. And then fucking Malcolm X. Like... Yeah.

[01:57:40] And instead it's Pacino because it has to be. It's not just that he gave a big performance. They're just like, we cannot skip out on this. It was Pacino's time. Chaplin Downey Jr. is, I mean, echoing what you said a couple minutes ago.

[01:57:53] He's like, at that time I worked so hard. I thought I deserved that Oscar. I was really crushed. I didn't win it. If I had won it, I would be dead. Right. He's like, if I had gotten the encouragement at that moment in my career of like,

[01:58:04] by the way, kid, you're better than Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Denzel Washington. I would have been dead within five years. There would have been no limit to my self-destruction. Right, right. Yeah. No, I know an alcoholic writer, comedy writer, who's a recovering alcoholic. He was won several Emmys.

[01:58:21] And if you go to his house, they're nowhere in sight. Yeah. You say, where are your Emmys? And he says, oh, if I even look at them, if I'm in the same room as them, I will become a full-blown alcoholic again. Yeah. Box office game.

[01:58:35] We're going to do the weekend that went wide, Griffin, rather than because Christmas, we've already done that weekend. And it doesn't, you know, we'll do it. So this is January 8th, 1993. We're going to guess the top five movies of this weekend. David.

[01:58:47] Scent of a Woman's at number three, with eight million dollars. It's going to make it all the way to 60 plus. What's number one, Griffin? It is, it's a Best Picture nominee this year. Big hit drama. Good movie, better movie than this. Well, is it?

[01:59:01] You just gave it, it's Unforgiven. It's not Unforgiven. No, because Unforgiven's like a very slow burn. Unforgiven had come out. Unforgiven won. It did win. It did. But this is a nominee. This is just, this is up against Unforgiven. Okay. Unforgiven's stat it had for a while,

[01:59:14] that I think it maybe still holds, is that it was the slowest it has ever taken any movie to get to 100 million dollars. It played for like a full year. It had come out in August. I assume after it wins Best Picture,

[01:59:25] it gets a bit of a sort of bump. And we know Malcolm X wasn't nominated. No, it's not that. And it's not Crying Game. No, it's not the Crying Game. And it's not. These movies are floating around in the sort of 20s. Right.

[01:59:36] But it's a Best Picture nominee 1992. Big hit movie. Highly rewatchable and quotable. It's not The Fugitive? Is it big? No. Nope. Nope. What genre? Legal. Oh, I know what this is. It is. Few Good Men. That's the same year as this. Yes.

[01:59:54] So him, Nicholson doing Few Good Men over Scent of a Woman is really interesting when you consider them being at the same time. Correct. But that's a supporting performance. Yeah. And I believe Nicholson was nominated. He was nominated. He lost to Gene Blackman for Unforgiven. But that's like...

[02:00:08] In history, in long view history, that was the smarter decision for him. Oh, 100%. To do five days on Few Good Men. Scent of a Woman, he's like, I mean, in Few Good Men, all on Corkett for two great scenes. That's like, you know, it'll be right.

[02:00:22] He understands the function of that part, which is get that big for five minutes. Like imagine if he yelled, you can't handle the truth at everyone for two hours anyway. Number two at the box office. Gigantic animated film. You know, biggest movie of the year. Aladdin. Aladdin. Aladdin.

[02:00:34] Aladdin. Okay. Aladdin. So, Few Good Men, Aladdin, Scent of a Woman. Number four, another smash hit of 1992. It's been out for two months. Big drama. Drama. Malcolm X sort of... No, it's like sort of like a thriller, but like it's like a romantic thriller.

[02:00:51] It's hard to categorize this movie. It's a romantic thriller drama? Yes. Weird. That's what Wikipedia calls it. Wow, I nailed it. It's not Basic Instinct? No, it's lighter than that. It's lighter than that. It's more romantic than erotic. Yes, yes, exactly. What is it? More romantic than erotic.

[02:01:08] Yeah. Who is the distributor of this picture? It's being put out by Warner Brothers. British director. It's a British director. It's not a Frears. It's Frears. It's Dangerous Liaisons. It's not Dangerous Liaisons. It's A Great Guess. It's trashier than that. It's trashier than Dangerous Liaisons.

[02:01:26] And is it a period piece? Is it an Adrian Lyne? No, not a period piece. Fuck. It's not a period piece. We're just hovering around these extremes. Huge movie. Oh, Notting Hill. Not Notting Hill. You're a few years off there. It's an American movie. British director.

[02:01:40] It's an American movie with a British director. It was huge. Giant movie star and then even bigger celebrity. Oh, it's The Bodyguard. It's The Bodyguard. Oh, The Bodyguard. The Bodyguard. Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston. Who directed that? Mike Newell? Mick Jackson. Mick Jackson. The guy who did LA Story.

[02:01:55] I worked with Mick Jackson. Yeah, I'm on. What's Mick Jackson like? Mick Jackson directed the Pilot of Numbers. Wild. There you go. Yeah. Was he nice? Extremely. Number five, I feel like is the only movie in this top five that's kind of forgotten. Because it's a big five.

[02:02:09] Yeah. Well, it's Christmas time, you know, it's a drama, a sort of weepy fantasy romantic drama with a big movie star. The poster is his fucking face. Is it Forever Young? It's Forever Young. Forever Young. Mel Gibson is Forever Young. That's one.

[02:02:29] No, that's not the one where he has. That's the man with two faces. Man with two faces or no face. No face. Not even a face. Two faces. He directed that? He directed that. Forever Young is the one where he like wakes up from like. A time capsule.

[02:02:43] Yeah, like cryonic freezing and then he starts aging really quickly. But it's written by JJ Abrams' first script. Really? Yes. Wow. But I think it's like a derided movie. Like it was a flop. Yes. I believe so. Yeah, like it was a cheesy movie.

[02:02:57] Yeah, it's like serious blasphemy in the past. Although it beat blasphemy in the past. You've also got number six Home Alone 2. Uh-huh. Talk about Pesci being funny. Number three, number seven Chaplin. Sure. You know big Oscar movie. Number eight new this week because it is January.

[02:03:13] Leprechaun the horror film. Leprechaun. With Warwick Davis and Jennifer Aniston. Number nine a big Oscar flop of this year. Jack Nicholson again in Hoffa. The Danny DeVito movie. Which is actually a great movie. It's not a bad movie. Very good movie. But Danny DeVito did a great job.

[02:03:28] He's a fucking good ass director. He is a good director. And number 10 a movie we were recently discussing The Distinguished Gentleman. The uh, Oh Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy Congress. Yeah. Now that's a movie that people have forgotten. That for good reason. Yes. Time has forgotten. Cheryl Lee Ralph.

[02:03:45] The great Cheryl Lee Ralph. I made the argument. And Lane Smith. Yeah. He must play the meanest congressman in that movie. Well, I nailed him. Exactly. Love Lane Smith. David and I were talking about how as children we were like,

[02:03:59] oh, I remember seeing the cover of that movie's video box. Which I don't know if you remember the poster is a painting and he's lifting the lid off the Capitol. Okay. And he's like pulling money out of it. Right. As if it were a piggy bank.

[02:04:12] I remember it now. Right. Yeah. And we as children both were like, this is a movie about a giant man. Ha ha ha ha ha. Who's just stealing money. And their huge dollar bill was stuck inside a building. Like we just absolutely literal face value.

[02:04:26] That was the moment that Eddie Murphy really started with the equivalent of what Botox would be like. He started like really trimming his eyebrows. Really glad. Very natty. A little too much eyeliner. Yes. You know. Yes. And you went, wait a second. Is he trying to be handsome?

[02:04:48] Yes. Because he's handsome but we kind of liked it that he was. That's his period. And Boomerang is right before that I want to say. Right. Boomerang is very funny. Yes. Distinguished Gentleman is not funny. No, but Boomerang is about like obviously like a player. Like a player.

[02:05:05] So you believe that okay, he looks good. He's kind of going for it out there. But then yeah, I remember Distinguished Gentleman and thinking uh oh. Yes, that was a big uh oh moment, but it is in the top 10. Yeah. Okay. Wow. That is our podcast basically Griffin.

[02:05:18] We're basically done right? Yeah. Is there anything else? I just had a quick merch spotlight. I just sent a link over. Okay Ben. Perfume. It's available to buy right now called scent of a woman. Yep. It's available at Costco's.

[02:05:32] My browser is concerned that I even opened this link. I got a pop-up worried about me. Yeah, I do love how that just with Guy Verlaine where he's like, do I smell soap and water? And I'm like, like do you smell that on everybody? One would hope.

[02:05:48] Most people would. One would hope. It's also insane that he would know all of these different perfumes. Where did he learn? You have to understand I can super smell. Right, but be able to define them by name. It's like he would go to Macy's and hang out.

[02:06:02] That's Dracone Noir. That's Fahrenheit 451. In Rain Man you're like look, this is a somewhat cartoonish representation of like severe autism, but we understand there are people, you know, who have this kind of mental ability, right to do math in their head and all that.

[02:06:17] And this is just like he's blind. So he knows all the perfumes like it's the worst logically. I have a subscription to the Braille edition of Vogue magazine and I open that flap with the perfume sample and I never forget a smell.

[02:06:30] He charms fans as Conroy at the end of the movie. I mean, is it this one? And she's like, oh, yes it is. And you're like, ah, Pacino's gonna be okay. He's gonna date this lady now. You smell like Club Mentalco.

[02:06:42] David, I know you said that you no longer like being called an actor's actor, but the anecdote you threw out about working on the Santa Claus performance, so iconic. It's now immortalized in emoji form about like already thinking about how you fit into it. Yeah, right.

[02:07:02] Like, oh, should I be the Bill Murray in this movie and whatever? That is like the thing I have always loved about you as an actor and talking about like the weirdness of this craft and how Pacino is sort of out of sync of this movie and all

[02:07:13] this sort of shit. You're a guy where I'm like, you always know exactly what you're in. I every performance I've seen from you. I just feel like you understand the exact function of the type of film you're in, the language of the movie you're in, what

[02:07:25] your character needs to do. I credit my dad. He just took me to so many movies and I loved movies. I love movies. I just love movies. He didn't hesitate to take me to really weepy dramas. Yeah. You know, I just learned genres like it wasn't, you know.

[02:07:42] That's great. I'm lucky. I'm really lucky in that regard. You know, my dad, my dad literally didn't know what else to do with me. Yeah, and it worked out. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good story. My dad was just a simple guy and he was like, let movies

[02:07:56] teach him how to live. You know, let that be his liberal education. Just movies. Midnight run. Don't ask me for advice. Never go on a midnight run. That's right. These things go down. Thank you so much for doing this. Dude, you're the man. Thank you, Sims.

[02:08:11] Why am I, why are we, why don't we call him? Mr. Sims. Oh, I know no one even brought up the midnight run. I said it a couple times. Ben brought it up too. Ben said we should only call you Mr. Sims. Also, 2 Davids on the same track.

[02:08:21] It's a 2M Sims, which I'm often hit with the 2Ms. I only have one M. Just one M for me. Lousy Carter. Yeah. Lousy Carter out on VOD. Martin Star, Olivia Thirlby. Correct. Oh, I love them. It's not a terrible movie. Hey, fuck, I'm in.

[02:08:38] You know, I mean a pit like that. It's really not bad. Do you have anything else coming up? No. You want to plug? No. Not literally, no. Thank you for being here, Dave. Thank you for having me. Thank you all for listening.

[02:08:52] Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for helping to produce the show. Joe Bowen, Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Leigh Montgomery in the Great American Novel for our theme song. JJ Birch for our research. AJ McKeon for our editing.

[02:09:07] AJ McKeon is also our production coordinator. I said everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Gets hard to remember. I remember how all of them smell. That AJ McKeon. He sure does smell like your classic old spice. It smells like soap and shampoo. But it's deceiving. It's actually Pantene Pro-V.

[02:09:29] Do I smell sweat? Are you a human being? I do know that JJ is a Garnier Fructis man. Herbal essences. Leigh Montgomery, Pantene Pro-V all the way. They're none but Paul Mitchell. You go to blankshakepod.com for links to some real nerdy shit,

[02:09:51] including our Patreon, Blank Shake special features, where we're finally onto tabletop games. Are we still doing toy-dols? I don't remember. Let's take a look. I think it matters. I actually, David, I do think it matters. Okay, we are of course still doing turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[02:10:08] Out of the Shadows next. Out of the Shadows. A film we enjoyed. Yes. Yeah. Tune in next week for Mecho Black. Thankfully, Martin Brest is going to swerve away from this movie with a longer, weirder, weepier, star-filled. Yeah. What a weird career. And assault waves. Yeah. Oh, wow.

[02:10:30] Very good. Thank you.