Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore with Katey Rich

10:27David Sims:But she doesn't always. Rachel comes from money?

10:29Griffin Newman:Yes, but of course she gets... She has to cut off all her credit cards. Right. Because she didn't marry the dentist. But Monica and Ross come from money, too. They all grew up in the same, like, rich town. Well, Monica and Ross are coded... They're coded as, like, suburban... Sure. Yeah, like, you know, like, they're fine or whatever. But it's sort of just like, it's saying like, you know, like, Ross, I think it might be right. I can't. But it's like, yeah, Ross, these guys have white collar jobs. They make money. And like, Joey, he's a struggling actor. Phoebe, Lord knows how she's bringing the rent together.

10:55Griffin Newman:She does Smelly Cat. Like, what is Phoebe's job? Right? You know, and the crucial thing is that they, the rich ones get to go to a Hootie and the Blowfish concert. Wow. And it's like one of those things where it's like, no grander experience. than seeing Hootie and his blowfish.

11:13David Sims:David, I think I found the right piece of Hootie merch for you. I just texted it to you. Send it along to me. I think you would rock the shit out of this. And Ben, as someone into fashion, I want your advice. Okay. I just think... Oh, boy. Yeah, I can't see it. I'm going to show it to you. All right. It is a charcoal colored bucket hat. On one side, it says the group therapy tour. Okay. I don't know where that is. I assume. There's this kind of tie-dye logo. Oh, it's a little American flag.

11:38Griffin Newman:Cutie and the blowfish. I cannot see Sims wearing this. Sims would rock the shit out of this. I'm not a huge bucket hat guy. Yeah. I'm not usually to be found. They're back.

11:48David Sims:You didn't hear they're back?

11:49Griffin Newman:They're always, you know, threatening, right?

11:51David Sims:Wait a second, David. You said you're not a huge bucket hat guy? But did you know that this one has an adjustable drawstring attached and the sizes run small? Thank God.

12:01Griffin Newman:Just in case I needed to especially hug the old noggin. Yes. I can't imagine a hat with a drawstring. You could get it. You gotta get it.

12:09David Sims:A going home candle. Is your. Oh, you're on like the hoodie website. Is your shirt like this? No. Okay. That's not great for an audio medium.

12:18Griffin Newman:I'm just trying to see what vintage era. Or is it like, does it look like this? Like, you know, the cracked review. Nope, it's not even that one. Okay. All right. We're hunting. I know. This one is a hundred bucks on eBay. Yeah. Because it's a tour shirt from like 95. Like, you know, it's like. Yeah. How many people go? Yeah, right. The one I found in my parents' house. This was from 99, a very underappreciated tour. And I was like, should I just sell this thing and send my kids to college? It was not worth quite that much.

12:44David Sims:Remember all that concern that when the year 2000 hit, Hootie and the Blowfish were going to go to that back down to zero, that they were going to crash. We thought we were going to lose them. Yeah, that's why I saw them on tour in 1999, obviously.

13:00Griffin Newman:Y2H. Man, people tuned in. They hit play on their little podcatcher going, I went, oh, Alice doesn't live here anymore with Katie Rich on Blank Check. We love it. Definitely a 10-minute Hootie run kicking this one off, right?

13:13David Sims:People are disappointed only because they were certain it was going to open with 10 minutes of Becker. Oh, no. Becker's done. What were you going to say? I like to think I bring less chaos to this podcast than your average guest. I think so. You bring less chaos. But then I just started with the Hootie thing, so I'm sorry.

13:28Griffin Newman:You invite a lot of tangents because you and I and you and Griffin... We have plenty to talk about. And we have kind of shared brain waves about kind of like... Reference points. Right. The sort of entertainment weekly era of being a teen who loves movies and all. I don't know. I just feel like we got a lot of roads we can go down. 100%. Wow. Get ready. Let's go down some roads. And you know, Hootie sang about those roads in his song. I wish I could remember. Unfortunately, I was like, if only I could make a lot of detailed Hootie and the Blowfish references, which I don't know that I can. I texted you the shirt that I...

14:00All right. Here we go. Here we go. You can now see it. It is the exact shirt. I did buy this one off eBay. Now I have two hootie shirts. And this is the one that I got at the tour in 1995.

14:08Griffin Newman:God bless. Wait, so you bought a shirt on Hootie? Last summer, around my birthday, I was like, you know what I'm giving myself? Is Hootie and the Blowfish shirt for my birthday. This is why we're pals. Oh, this shirt is pretty fresh. It's a good one. It's green and blue. And hang on, Griffin, I got texted to you, too. Please, I got to see. Hit the old drop down menu on this and hit and buy it now. Yes. All right. I'm texting it to Ben also. so now everyone loves it when we text each other on the microphone. Time! There you go! There you go! How you punish me. I remember that one. David, you have the voice of an ear.

14:40Griffin Newman:I've got the voice of a hootie. Oh my God. I'm a terrible singer. I'm a bad singer. Not based on that. Well, I'll leave it there then. I'll stand in on a high. What was that? Running from an Angel? What was the only want to be with you? That was the one that people were basically like, this band needs to be legally like disbarred from music. The Miami Dolphins were in that music video. Because it was just like fucking, you know, MTV played it like 4 billion times a day. MTV was like, wait, there's a rootsy rock band with a black guy. Like this checks all her boxes. Fucking blanket the airwaves.

15:16Griffin Newman:Like we got to get this guy everywhere. Maybe we've cut that out. I should have worn it. I just bought it. All right. It's going to be, we link it in the show notes. So everybody can go, we're going to write out all the eBay stores of these hoodie shirts. Great.

15:28David Sims:Time! It's very funny. The Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, or the Alice sitcom Wikipedia has a section of differences between the film and television series. And it's like a various... Harvey Keitel, not included. That's the thing. It's all stuff like, Alice's maiden name was Graham. Television series. Alice's maiden name was Spivak. And you're like, film, sad, sitcom. doesn't touch dark stuff. Like, that's what they're not saying. They're into, like, very granular details. Did you go through the guest stars of who was on this? This is one of those sitcoms. It was a hot show. Jay Leno was on it?

16:10David Sims:Celebrities would appear as themselves. Joel Grey as themselves. So George Burns goes like, how much for a tuna milk?

16:21Griffin Newman:Joel Grey. It is set in Arizona. Like, it's still, like, it's not like they're like, Alice moved to a diner in Hollywood or whatever, but people are just passing on through, I guess. It's a funny thing because like it was a hit show, but you can tell by its kind of lack of Emmy noms that it was never taken very seriously. Like Lavin got a grand total of one nom. And she's a legend. She's a legend. Recently passed. Yeah, recently passed. Of course she's Seth Cohen's grandma on the OC. And that was her only ever Emmy nom, which is rude. to Lavin. She and Chris Christopherson both passed 2024.

17:00David Sims:David, I'm sorry. I told you not to do that. Just for the record. They asked. It was kind of like a weird kind of like... I know, but I said, why you? That's what I said.

17:10Griffin Newman:You just don't need to meddle in their business. So Chris Christopherson died at the grand old age of 86. And I feel like Linda Lavin also lived a very long time.

17:19David Sims:She Linda Lavin a very long time. She was 87?

17:21Griffin Newman:87, yeah.

17:22David Sims:At the time we were recording this, Ellen Burstyn, 93, still working. God. I will say about Lavin, like, I don't look at Ellen Burstyn and go like, Linda Lavin's a TV version.

17:31Griffin Newman:Very different. It's a totally different type of character.

17:33David Sims:There's also a crazy thing is that Ellen Burstyn later does a sitcom in the 80s. Sure, why not? The Ellen Burstyn show.

17:38Griffin Newman:Was it good?

17:39David Sims:But that was a fucking riot. I think it was just like a family sitcom. But that's another person where I don't go like, obviously, let's get her on a multicam.

17:46Griffin Newman:You know, I think it was one of those things where it's like, if you're someone like Ellen Burstyn, where it's like, you are a tremendous actress. you're an Oscar winner and you've been in huge movies like The Exorcist but you're never going to be treated like a movie star by Hollywood because it's a sexist industry and you're a little older and you're more of like a great actor than you are like a... And I think she always preferred theater

18:04David Sims:and loved teaching and maybe just wanted the consistent...

18:06Griffin Newman:And then like the call just comes along like hey do you want the consistent work and paycheck of one of these network shows? Right? She only did it...

18:13David Sims:It only aired... 13 episodes. Megan Mullally was her daughter. Elaine Stritch was also on it. I think Elaine Stritch played her mom. Sister? or no played her mom seven year age difference yes her 80s are a lot of movies I've never heard of just going through her credits

18:29Griffin Newman:it's interesting because like Ellen Burstyn is a hall of famer right she's a legend there's no question

18:33David Sims:I think she's one of the best screen actors she's mostly a legend because she told you to shut the fuck up that one time that's not what she said and you know that's not what she said she said try silent it's actually way better than her telling him to shut the fuck up that's why it needs to be correct nothing better

18:47Griffin Newman:I think she's one of the greatest actors of all time She no doubt has, as Katie's saying, when you look at her filmography, just a bunch of stuff where you're like, what on earth is that? That's what happens to women who are the stars of their movies. What are you going to do with them?

18:59David Sims:But then also two additional Oscar nominations in the 80s. We're saying, well, that's a weird decade for her. So what were her? Dying young? Oh, no. Resurrection in 1980. That's 80. Yeah. And then I guess same time next year is 78. Did she get nominated for that?

19:17Griffin Newman:Yes, she did. Like she got a bunch of Oscar nomads and she won one. Well, she's in Twice in a Lifetime, the movie that Amy Madigan got her nomination for, which I had never heard of until the Amy Madigan run. But I remember when she got her, you know, nomination for Requiem for a Dream, it was that classic Oscar thing of like them being like, and where have you been? And she's like, I've been here. You're so good in the movie where you played a crazy drug addict.

19:42David Sims:And she's like, okay, well, you know, I've been in other stuff too. I do think that led to a then kind of elder statesman. She's now a legendary, immediate, instant gravitas.

19:53Griffin Newman:Great actor. We stan. And, you know, today we discuss on a podcast that Griffin's about to introduce, the film that won her an Oscar.

20:01David Sims:Yes, which unfortunately, in my opinion, steals the Oscar for what might be the greatest screen performance of all time. Oh, well, then we can... Oh, is it a Gina Rollins film? Gina Rollins? Woman Under the Influences this year.

20:13Griffin Newman:and there's a famous story.

20:14David Sims:Yeah, I mean, obviously that's a fucking great performance. That Ellen Burstyn wins and Martin Sturzesi goes up to Cassavetes and Rollins at the Oscars, like near crying. And he's like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make this fucking thing. Because this one also feels really Cassavetes inspired. Sure. Of course. I mean, it's Marty. We'll talk about it. It's in the research, I'm sure. Yeah. Well, and like, this is also among the great actress performances. Like, I think she's incredible in this movie. It's phenomenal. She's amazing in this movie. I would have given her the Oscar for one of the two previous nominations.

20:45David Sims:For like The Exorcist. But this is a fascinating ripple effect. For Last Picture Show. I think she's amazing in Last Picture Show. I obviously love the Cloris Leachman win, but if I had a ballot for 72, I would pick Burstyn.

20:55Griffin Newman:Well, let me now look. While I pull up some Oscar pages so we can relitigate this for a second. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin.

21:02David Sims:I'm David. We're about to relitigate some Oscars, but not as much as we will in next week's episode. This is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Sometimes they do a gig for hire to prove that they can do, that they're versatile. A lack of limitations. And it ends up being a bit of a guarantor because it wins a beloved actor. Makes some money. It makes some money. Makes a TV show. And launches a second.

21:35David Sims:Becomes a multimedia franchise. Disgurses make money from Alice? No, no, no. No, good. Successful. You can tell who has good teams by who gets baked into deals like that. Because there are people who just cash checks forever. I mean, this is the MASH story that I love, is that Robert Altman had no stake in MASH. He had no upside from the film's box office success because they didn't want to hire him, that he took the DGA minimum and waived any participation. It also meant he waived any participation in ancillary things that would go on later. his son who was kind of a burnout and he wanted his kids to work on the movie he was like can you write a song for the dentist his son writes suicide is painless gets paid every time any episode of MASH airs anywhere in the world oh my god and he like that is good hated his son for that oh okay that's less good I thought he'd be proud of him I don't think so okay I don't think so all men get together what's our this is a mini series on the films of Martin Scorsese it is called Podcast Fellas That's right.

22:39David Sims:Wow. No problems there. This is my first time hearing this. I looked to you. I wanted to see your response. You accepted it. It's such a short list of options you had, too. Like, there's not a lot of titles you weren't with. The pod list doesn't cast here anymore. That's what we should have called it. The pod that knocking at my cast. The pod of catness. The pod of catness. Yeah, that one's tough. I'm not saying it was my best one. The pod of in a cast. The pod of cast street. There is a C in there. Yeah, yeah. Pods of new cast. but no, it's called Podcast Fellas because that's what we are. We're a couple of podcast fellas.

23:12David Sims:And today... And sometimes girls. We have a pod lady with us joining us. Delightful. As we love to say, kind of the first blank check guest ever. It's very important. Yes, very important. Helps codify the box office game. That's right. Yeah. And also importantly, mother of still record holder, youngest guest ever on the show. True. Almost baby charting. Yeah. Are the listeners ready for the age of that baby from the Titanic episode because it's important to talking about this movie too, which is that Charlie's about to turn 10. He's about to turn 10. As when this episode is out, I assume he will have already turned 10 because it's very soon.

23:46When he was on pot,

23:46David Sims:he was baby. He was three months old. Now he's a little man. He's so crazy that you brought a three month old baby to a my check episode. It's completely crazy. It's really evidence

23:55Griffin Newman:that none of us knew anything about babies is the fact that I did that. Katie, to remind you because we were trying to remember this on the subject, your last episode with us was intolerable. Yes. When I step back in the studio, I was like, oh, yes, I remember us talking about George Clooney. I remember Prince of Tides, but I was like, no, but you've done something since then. I couldn't remember. Okay, this is also your 10th episode. No, really? No, wait a second. My decade of dreams, Charlie's decade of dreams.

24:19David Sims:Is that because are we counting Titanic as two or one? Counting them as one. Right. It is a real 10. It's the Kill Bill question.

24:27Griffin Newman:Yeah. Wow. Yeah, this is your true 10th episode. That's so exciting. Because Titanic doesn't really count. So congratulations. Wow. Now let's relitigate these Oscars. All right. So her first nomination, as you pointed out, was for The Last Picture Show. She lost to her co-star, Cloris Leachman. Now, they're both great in the movie.

24:44David Sims:They are. I just think Pirsten's my favorite performance in that film, period. But that was like, she was like brand new. I guess they were all brand new back then. Yeah.

24:53Griffin Newman:The other, I would say, big nominee there is Anne-Margaret in Carnal Knowledge, which is a great performance. I'll just say it. Anne-Margaret, kind of a looker. Uh, you've also got Barbara Harris in, uh, who is Harry Kellerman and why is he saying those terrible things about me? And Ulu Grossbard film I've never seen, but obviously has an iconic title.

25:11David Sims:Incredible title.

25:12Griffin Newman:Yeah. And then Margaret Layton in the go between, which is a masterpiece and she's very good, but like, you know, I would say with them, with there, it's kind of like, right pick. And like with Clarice, it's just kind of like, that's her Oscar, man. Like she doesn't, you know, she doesn't have too many more swings at the, at the movie award app, you know, whatever. Okay. Okay, so then she loses for The Exorcist to Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class. Now, we respect Glenda Jackson. I've never seen that film. I love her, you know, for Women in Love is an amazing movie. She had won three years previously.

25:46Griffin Newman:She had, it's a surprising, I think four, but yeah, you know, like surprising second win for her. And I think the reason she won was it was a bit of a weird year. Like it's Ellen Burstyn and The Exorcist who's amazing in The Exorcist. He's a mild stretch as a lead. Yeah, I would agree. She sort of counts, but she's not really in the back half of the movie, obviously. And she's not the thing you come out of The Exorcist. She's not. As great as she is.

26:09David Sims:But she's good. It's a powerhouse performance. Yeah. And she broke her damn tailbone. It's a little like Michael B. Jordan's Sinners minus the skill piece of the twins thing, right? I guess so. There is such a centering force in this film, which was also the highest grossing film of its year. It was a hit, and she's great in it. Yeah. And then you got...

26:26Griffin Newman:Wait, wait, is the devil the lead? I would say Linda Blair is the lead. And they put Linda Blair in supporting in that classic kid thing. She's the one, like, the movie's happening to her. Everyone else is a little bit in and out. I think Burson's the lead. I accept this. I think it's fine. I accept it okay. But I think it might have hurt her for a win.

26:45David Sims:Yeah, possibly.

26:46Griffin Newman:And then you got Marsha Mason, the great Marsha Mason, in Cinderella Liberty, the James Caan movie, Mark Reddell movie. I've never seen it. We got Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. We stan. Yeah, yeah. Great performance. Sure. I think that movie is a little silly.

26:59David Sims:It's silly, but I think that's an excellent movie star performance. Yes, I agree.

27:02Griffin Newman:And then you've got Joanne Woodward in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams. I've never seen that one. Not a movie I've seen. Yeah. No, this is a lot. That's one where you're like, maybe we could sneak it over to Alan.

27:12David Sims:It is astounding to go through these and realize how rarely the Best Actress nominees were from Best Pictures. Oh, yeah. When you get the 1950s. Yeah.

27:21Griffin Newman:It's a little better now with the 10 noms. Yes. You know, or whatever. But I bet you even now, if we didn't have the 10 noms, it would remain a bit of a ghetto.

27:28David Sims:Oh, definitely. There are so many movies that do not exist outside of one lead actress nomination for a movie star. Is The Exorcist getting the horror snobbery with this too? Yeah, of course. Because The Exorcist is obviously a big breakthrough.

27:42Griffin Newman:And it did win two Oscars. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it was, the noms were the reward a little bit of kind of like, well, you know, it won screenplay. Best Vomit and Best PP? Now, there's actually not a ton of PP in The Exorcist. I didn't say most PP. I said Best PP.

27:58David Sims:I thought the category was just best goo. I mean, Oh, yeah. no, see, it was like the, it was like the best score musical comedy drama thing. It most years, it's best goo. This is one of those years where they split it into best vomit and best PV. There's too much to choose from. And then Exorcist winning both made them think maybe let's make it one category again. It won best adapted screenplay and best sound it,

28:21Griffin Newman:you know, and you're like, how did it lose? It was a hit ball. It's like it lost to the sting, which was just also a phenomenal. so right. What? They were two of the 10 highest grossing movies ever. Yeah, they were just both movies that had like played for a billion years. I mean, it's an insane five. It's The Sting, The Exorcist, and American Graffiti. So three just like critically acclaimed powerhouse blockbuster out of nowhere movies and out of nowhere in different ways. Three of the most profitable movies of all time. People are going to like this. It's like people are going to love it. Exorcist, obviously.

28:56Griffin Newman:And then the other two nominees are A Touch of Class, which they really went for the kind of like British comedy back then. They love to sneak those in. And then Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers. They loved Bergman.

29:07David Sims:They gave him proper respect.

29:09Griffin Newman:Well, he was at his... Right. They loved him in the final faves of his career. They would roll out the carpet for him. And I assume he would not attend. I don't actually know. But I have a feeling he didn't really show up to a lot of those ceremonies. Or he was a party animal. Yeah, maybe he was there being like, I love this show being hosted by Burt Reynolds, Diana Ross, John Huston, and David Niven. Is that the one where there's the streaker and Niven goes like, he's got a tiny dick. That's the dream team. Those four people. We always want to see them together. The big four. It's just like whenever I see Diana Ross, I'm like, where's John Huston?

29:41Griffin Newman:Her counterpart.

29:43David Sims:You look naked without David Niven by your side. That is so funny that it's like. Oh, no, this is the year before Chinatown. So we're not in John Huston and that mode.

29:52Griffin Newman:Correct. Chinatown is the year after. So you're like,

29:56David Sims:director first and foremost, menacing character actor secondly, right? But before his most notable film role, he has played the greatest ape. Third MC. Yes, third MC, then like the biggest pop star, and a feet British man. And then who's the fourth again? Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds. You know, he's just like, hi, I'm from Hollywood. He's a leading man.

30:19Griffin Newman:You've heard of me.

30:20David Sims:Chewing gum on stage, presumably.

30:22Griffin Newman:If you think about a world where Ellen Burstyn never wins an Oscar Then you're like, okay, well then maybe did she win for Requiem Does she win for Requiem as a makeup? But it's the swank year, right? No, it's the Julia Roberts year And that was just a tough train to stop Nor should it No, you don't take that away I agree

30:40David Sims:Would you both agree with the idea that she probably came in second? Ellen Burstyn? I remember that being a bit of a thing because Ellen Burstyn hadn't accepted her own award of wouldn't it be nice for her to give a speech that year. She doesn't accept I will say, whenever anyone trots out that argument,

31:00Griffin Newman:I'm like, we're splitting hairs. Absolutely. She won, but she didn't say a thing. She didn't get to give a speech. I'm like, okay. I mean, Laura Linney was the critic fave that year, but I could see the argument for Ellen Burstyn was me. I still feel like back then critic faves didn't get you as far at the Oscars. Totally.

31:15David Sims:That was a real nomination is the win. Of course it was. Yeah. Enjoy your Saturday at the Spirit 10.

31:21Griffin Newman:musical or comedy that year was the not Oscar-nominated Renee Zellweger for Nurse Betty. Oh, yeah. But there's the only overlap there was Juliette Binoche was nominated for Chocolat. Yeah, are we underestimating the Chocolat train? This movie is so funny. They had Chocolat fever back then. The chocolate makes them horny.

31:43David Sims:I did watch Chocolat for the first time in the last five years, and it does kind of fucking roll. It's still terrible. one of those things where if you remove any, like, what did it get? What did it steal nominations from? And you just watch it as its own thing. It is delightful. Uh, I mean, it's, I think I made this joke possibly, but Alfred Molina plays Snidely Whiplash even more than the time he literally played Snidely Whiplash.

32:07Griffin Newman:I made that joke, but it's, it's very true.

32:09David Sims:He shows up with a mustache and he's like,

32:10Griffin Newman:where is all this chocolate? Cause he's Lithgow in Flashdance, right? I mean, Footloose. Like Lithgow's like the town has to ban dancing. And Millian is just like, no chocolate.

32:21David Sims:I ban it from these walls. So thin and so long. It's making women talk back to their husbands. And he plays such a sniveling little fuck with a cape. It's amazing. Oh my God, he has a cape. Yeah.

32:41David Sims:David. Yes. I got myself into a real pickle. Uh-oh. I thought it'd be funny to put on some Groucho Marx glasses. Very, very funny. Very funny. Classic. I've been stuck wearing them for five years because it's such a hassle to replace your glasses that once I made that commitment, now I'm walking around with the big schnoz, the eyebrows, the mustache, all times.

33:01Griffin Newman:I know what you're saying. Glasses cost hundreds of dollars. You know, you just kind of live with whatever you've got. Wait a second. What about Zeni Optical?

33:08David Sims:I forgot about Zeni Optical.

33:10Griffin Newman:Zeni Optical is an online eyewear shop with stylish prescription glasses, sunglasses, and customizable lens options at prices that make it easy. Expensive prices.

33:18David Sims:No, to own more than one pair. It starts at under$30. I got some new sunglasses from Zenni and I'm loving them. I got some aviators. Green lenses.

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34:13Griffin Newman:Alice doesn't live here anymore. Yes. Is that the movie you're here to talk about? Are you trying to tell me something about where Alice is? Alice doesn't live here anymore. It's a 1974 American romantic comedy drama film according to Wikipedia. I guess that's what I'd call it. I would call it a drama. I call drama a character study. Right. A light or, you know, quiet drama. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Robert Getchell. Who has quite a career. I want to go a little sidebar right now. Goes on to write Bound for Glorian, you know. Well, that makes sense. You're like, oh. Yeah, writes a very, very grounded, although he's one of four, I will say, credited screenwriters on Mommy Dearest.

34:52Griffin Newman:So I guess that's not all on him. Then he made the Patsy Cline biopic Sweet Dreams with Jessica Lange. He wrote that. He wrote a Bette Midler movie called Stella. I don't really know that.

35:05David Sims:That's a Stella Dallas remake. Oh, fuck it is. Wow. This is like genuinely a fascinating career. He got points. on the Alice sitcom for creating the character. Yeah, you got it. If you're the writer, you're going to get points. But then he did okay, but come on. He writes Point of No Return, the La Femme Nikita remake.

35:21Griffin Newman:Right, yeah, yeah. And then he does This Boy's Life and the Client. Yeah. Yeah, he was, you know, he was a work guy. Workhorse.

35:28David Sims:We call him a work guy.

35:29Griffin Newman:He's a work guy. Yes. The film, yeah, it was, you know, a 1974 Christmas release that got good reviews, made money, won an Oscar, was a solid notch in Scorsese's career, I feel is often obviously under-discussed.

35:45David Sims:It's very recently getting a Criterion disc. I believe Marie has gotten her hands on it today and is delivering it to the office tomorrow. One day late for me to have watched the Splashy Criterion disc. Not Marie's fault. We're in fact getting it early. Yeah. But was hoping it would time out better. But yes, it has only been on DVD for the last 15, 20. I rented it on the old iTunes. It looked all right.

36:08Griffin Newman:The Toons for the Eyes. It looks alright. Yes. And it's a film we should discuss. And with us is, have we introduced Katie Rich? Ten time guests. The great Katie Rich. Katie Rich, who I think of you as a fairly, like you discovered this movie back when you did the Scorsese screen dress. Is that right? Yeah, I didn't want to come on here and promote someone else's podcast. Oh, please, go ahead. It was in my podcast. But no, I did screen dress with the Scorsese group ranking. So I was in charge of the middle 10. Yeah, it seemed like quite a stressful approach. It's a very chill podcast. Nothing stressful has ever happened on that.

36:36Not a lot of work. this one was especially chaotic Emily St. James a friend of us and of the show was on the 30 to 21 group

36:44Griffin Newman:didn't she fuck everything up by drafting something last it was a group effort of fucking everything up but just like chaos reigned on that like they didn't want to deal with the Dylan doc so they left us with like No Direction Home Bob Dylan in the middle 10 where we were like I don't want to get or like they left us

36:59David Sims:they left us with Who's That Knocking At My Door which I don't know if you guys have done that episode already it's already aired by now it's a perfectly fine movie It belongs in the bottom 10. I would put it down.

37:10Griffin Newman:But that's what I don't understand about this approach of like, they get to choose. It's making a group project. It leans into the chaos of it. Now I'm looking. And how this ranking worked out? Oh, there's like vetoes. Oh, the Patreon members got to veto things? Yeah, I don't think that affected what we did. You heard the Irishman 29th? That wasn't me. That was that. Blame Emily. They did. Bring this up with your friend, Emily St.

37:36David Sims:James, not me. What was Dead Last and what was number one?

37:38Griffin Newman:Dead Last was Shine a Light, which, like, sure. But it looks like someone tried to put... Is, I think, the worst one. Fine. I mean, but again, it sort of doesn't count. Like, I mean, what are our parameters here? It's making an even 30, I think. They bring Shine a Light and a Rolling Thunder review, which I don't think was a theatrical thing. That was a Netflix thing, which is actually kind of fun. As a lover of rules, it's stressing me out.

37:56David Sims:He's smiling and throwing his thumbs up.

37:59Griffin Newman:But no, it looks like someone tried to put The Departed last. Yes, that was their real chaos. It was trolling. I think we wound up putting The Departed in our middle 10, which I would put it in my top 10, honestly.

38:09David Sims:You're wondering why someone tried to put The Departed last. You must have missed that Frank Costello was a guest on that episode. I smell a rat on this podcast. I think they did Age of Renaissance as number one. I wasn't on that one either. We were in the 20 to 11.

38:24Griffin Newman:They do have it number one, and they have Goodfellas 2, Taxi Driver 3. I mean, like... Age of Renaissance is number one. It's a little too chaotic, guys. This is a little much. I tried to make it less chaotic. But it looks like their veto system really messes with stuff because then it's like stuff will get bumped up. There's a lot of rules. A lot of like I we want to putting Wolf of Wall Street in our middle 10 because our pal Joe Reed is not a fan of it. And I didn't have the ability to veto it. You had used your veto. I would put Wolf of Wall Street in my top 10. But the thing I'm really proud of from our group is that we left Alice for the top 10.

38:55Like we said, we're not drafting Alice. You guys can have it in there. because I think it's in my top 10. It's really excellent.

39:02Griffin Newman:That's totally fine and it's a great movie, but Cape Fear is number 10. I just don't know about this. Cape Fear does not belong in the town. No, what's going on? And it feels like because you guys left dishes, it's weird that there's like movies that vault up the list because the prior guys just didn't want to talk about this. It's an exquisite corpse thing where you're like, oh, I guess who's that knocking at my door is number 19 somehow. You did the Pixar one. I feel like you had like an aneurysm doing that episode.

39:26David Sims:I did. I said this respectfully to the fine folks at the Screen Drafts podcast. They have asked you to come on and have been like,

39:31Griffin Newman:I've heard your episodes are four hours long. I won't be doing that. I have no animals. You would die.

39:34David Sims:Right. I did it once with JD and we did Jim Henson movies and we had a wonderful time. And your friends. JD and I were in sync and we were like the fucking Bash brothers. Yeah, you gotta do it with your friends. Right. And it was contained. Right. And then they were like, do you want to do a Pixar mega draft? It's every Pixar movie, which at that point maybe was 21 or 22. And I believe it took six hours. Everyone else was on the West Coast. I finished the episode and the garbage trucks were coming to collect. The sun was rising. This was deep lockdown. And I say this, I say this kindly. I don't blame anyone involved in this episode.

40:11David Sims:This is just what it was. It was the worst day I had in the pandemic. I remember. And that's the most damning thing I could say about any 24 hour period. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's tough. I couldn't handle it. So it's exhausting every time I have done that. And then at the end of it, I say, wow, but I watched every Martin Scorsese movie. and it felt that's the nice part I mean you guys are doing the same thing this is the thing that part of it paid off so much for me because I still think about it we have a podcast that gives us an excuse to do the same thing on a more manageable schedule although you do make some long episodes we do but I don't know if anyone's heard about that but I get stressed out even when like our friends at the Big Pick are doing drafts and they're like I have to watch 80 things to prep for one episode yeah you know or Hall of Fame we did the Big Pick Oscar changing things like we were just doing and figuring out how to prep for that and like you can't watch everything but knowing what you need to pay attention to, it is, when you have that wide of field, it gets really crazy.

41:01David Sims:But that's the thing. You're just sort of like, well, what? I don't need to watch Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams or whatever. I'm sure that's some bullshit. And then Chris Ryan shows up being like, guess what? I have a hot Joanne Woodward take. Yes, yes.

41:13Griffin Newman:What's that noise? Oh, it's the Dostier cracking open. Creak! Oh, Ben, you are on it today. Good job, Ben. Ben's doing great. He's guarding against my mental health. Sometime during the protracted and difficult production of William Friedkin's 1973 classic, The Exorcist. P.P. Fama. Which, as you may or may not know, as with many a Friedkin film, was a bit of a trying shoot. Some personalities at play here? Yes. There are some wild stories about that film. Yeah, where such as, like, Friedkin would just fire a gun without telling anyone to make everyone freak out, like, on camera. And then say, like, action!

41:48Griffin Newman:And then, like, tie a harness around Ellen Burson and just fucking break her tailbone. And, like, the entire set was a refrigerator. Yes. Max von Sydow had makeup on, but by the time the movie was over, he just looked like that. Yeah. So that film is really, really hard, but they make it, and the studio, which is a little studio called Warner Brothers. David's wearing his Warner Brothers shirt. Realizes it might have something special on its hands, and he's pretty impressed with one Ellen Burstyn. Yes. Basically, John Calley is in charge of Warner Brothers. They're looking at dailies of the film, and they basically just call Ellen Burstyn and are like, we want to do a movie with you.

42:23Griffin Newman:What do you want to do? Exactly. Like, we have a pile of scripts. Take a look. Like, we'd like to be in the Ellen Burstyn business. Ellen Burstyn, who I think is like a woman of taste. Yes. Or like, you know, a really great actor, but also clearly a very intelligent one and a very thoughtful person who, you know, tries to give a shit, right?

42:42David Sims:I don't know. And she's one of the earliest members of the actor's studio. Studies under Lee Strasberg is like real protector of the flame of the sort of, I don't know, the beauty of acting.

42:54Griffin Newman:She studied on Elise Strasberg when he only had a half inch of chest hair and it wasn't even white yet.

43:01David Sims:He would sit there all day and just grit his teeth.

43:03Griffin Newman:Before he had the full four inches. Try to push it out. Like in Godfather, he actually doesn't die when they shoot him because the chest hair just catches the bullet.

43:13David Sims:She is a rare American to have the triple crown of acting as it's called where she has an Emmy, a Tony and an Oscar. What's her Tony for? Her Tony is for same time next year. And she has two Emmys, one for an episode I believe of Law & Order SVU. The other one, of course, for Political Animals.

43:33Griffin Newman:Wow.

43:35David Sims:Which you were on. And she told you to try silence. No. You're forgetting. I was three times in a project with her. You're like, I've worked with you before and she's like, never heard me. Try silence was on draft day, which was the third and final time I worked with Ellen Burstyn. I started building interdewer contract after that. Except I never worked with her. The conversation was in the makeup trailer. It was in the makeup. I know, I know, I know. I know you were.

43:58Griffin Newman:And just in case someone hasn't heard the story, it's an old episode.

44:01David Sims:I was talking to Tim Hitmaker Simons in the makeup trailer for Draft Day.

44:05Griffin Newman:Who's a bit of a chatterbox, let's be honest.

44:06David Sims:We like to talk, us silly boys. We were probably not even talking about Blu-rays. Who knows what we would have been talking about. Back then. Mr. Show Sketches or some shit. And she showed up in the makeup trailer and I thanked her because at the wrap party, for not political animals, but possible side effects. A pilot directed by Tim Robbins that wasn't picked up where she basically played the matriarch of the Sackler family. Right, it was like succession with medicine and she was Brian Cockburn. I went up to her at the wrap party and told her how much I was a fan of her work and how much she meant to me and that I was trying to start and she recommended me an acting teacher who was very, very important.

44:44Griffin Newman:You said I use this person. So I say that to her

44:46David Sims:and she said, I don't remember being on that show. If you say so. She wasn't like, what a moving thing to hear. She didn't say this in a mean way. Right. But she is an intense woman. Okay. And then I went back to talking and she goes, well, I'm glad that helped you. And then I went back to talking to Tim. And after like 10 minutes, she went, Griffin? And I went, yes. And she went, try silence. You didn't even say, why don't you try silence? No, it was try silence. It wasn't an invitation. It's the most withering thing anyone has ever said. Tim has described it as witnessing a murder. Like five minutes later, she apologized.

45:19Well, and why not say it's him? He was talking too.

45:22Griffin Newman:Ellen Burstyn realized it was so devastating that she was like, look, you were being a little loud. I'm sorry. You might be surprised to hear,

45:29David Sims:and Ellen Burstyn is someone who can command a lot of force without raising her voice. I imagine. She does it rarely, you know? The entire makeup trailer went silent. Oh, yeah. And Draft Day was a fairly low-budget studio movie.

45:41Griffin Newman:They were shooting on set. They stopped talking. They didn't even know why. Dennis Leary shut up.

45:46David Sims:It was like six to ten chairs in the makeup trailer. Like everyone was in there. So there's a full line of people all with their own like hair and makeup people. And it's like 20 people are just stunned silent. And after five minutes, she goes like, I'm sorry. It's just that I use this time to try to run my lines. She said something like that.

46:04Griffin Newman:You're on fucking draft day, Ellen. Come on. What are your lines? Don't draft that guy.

46:08David Sims:Sonny, I'm your mother.

46:09Griffin Newman:I don't remember what she does in that movie.

46:11David Sims:She plays Kevin Costner's mother, of course.

46:13Griffin Newman:Great.

46:14David Sims:It's just so funny to imagine. Your father would be proud of your drafting. or not.

46:20Griffin Newman:Yes. Her to imagine like

46:22David Sims:her and Dennis Leary like sharing scenes which I'm sure they do not. The three things I was in that she was in she played the same role basically in all three. The elusive matriarch slightly domineering. She was very good at it. Josh Lucas's mom Sigourney Weaver's mom and then Kevin Costner's mom. Feels like a wide age range of people's moms. Yeah. But you know actors who can cover a lot of ground themselves age wise. And at that point Ellen Burstyn just read as old lady. Like, it was just sort of like, this is your classic old lady on screen who isn't trying to look young. You know, she hasn't had, like, bizarre shit done.

46:57She's in her 90s now. Yes. I mean, she's thriving.

47:00Griffin Newman:She famously, my favorite awards thing with her is that she was nominated for an episode of Big Love that I think she maybe doesn't have a line in, but she was just submitted kind of by mistake because they, like, submitted a whole host of actors from Big Love for guest actors or whatever. And I think voters were just kind of like, Ellen Burstyn and Big Love, I assumed she was good. Let's give her the nom. And they had to like apologize for giving her a nomination.

47:22David Sims:That also happened with that TV movie that Bob Balaban directed. That was, what was it? It's Susan Sarandon and Ray Fiennes, I want to say. It's like a butler who killed the woman he works for. Wait, is this Mrs. Harris, which I'm just looking up? I think so. It was big.

47:37Griffin Newman:Oh, you're saying, oh, no, no, Mrs. Harris was a big thing. This one is Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley, which is not off of what you were just thinking.

47:44David Sims:That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. There's like that movie has like a faux mockumentary style where it will cut to talking heads occasionally. Okay. And Ellen Burson did a cameo as a favor where they cut to her and she goes like, I never liked her anyway.

47:57Griffin Newman:Oh, maybe that is what I'm thinking. Oh, yeah. She has one line and it was an automatic nomination.

48:05David Sims:And she was just like, this is offensive. You should un-nominate me and nominate someone else. And I believe Entertainment Weekly did a rundown and they were like, look, she makes like 15 choices in her three seconds. They were like, this is a ridiculous nomination. And clearly people didn't watch it. But also this is sort of proof of how good she is. I mean, David and I were talking about the Emmys before coming here. The Emmys are completely ridiculous in what they nominate. They see the name like Don Cheadle got that nomination for the like for fucking secret. 40 seconds. He was going to the Captain America Museum or whatever and being like pretty good exhibit.

48:37David Sims:I think people see that name. They're scrolling through like, I don't know what this is. I don't know what this is. And they're like, great. Don Cheadle, I've heard of you. Especially if someone's a movie star and they're in a project that people know is legitimate but didn't watch. They're like, that was like a real thing, right? Yeah. That was an HBO movie. How shitty could it be? Even with like movie stars on TV all the time now, it still has that weird like, oh, Ellen Burstyn. It must be. I mean, if she's in it, it makes it seem legit. Correct. She was nominated for House of Cards. I didn't know she was on House of Cards.

49:03David Sims:Did she play Frank Underwood's mom? Probably. Probably. That's like a good guess. She plays Elizabeth Hale. Big Love, she played the leader of the cult.

49:12Griffin Newman:Did she not? Yeah. She's like a matriarch or something. Sounds like something Ellen Burstyn would do. I'm going to move on to the script she was sent. She was sent a big pile of scripts. And she's like, it was an education. Every woman in these scripts is either the victim, the understanding wife of some hero out saving the world, or a sex object of some sort. There's no script where the woman was the protagonist. stories were about men, and women played a role in that man's story.

49:39David Sims:So let's also call out Ellen Burstyn had three bad marriages that all ended before the time she makes this movie. She knows from dysfunctional marriage. She tried divorce. She tried divorce several times. Neil Burstyn, her third husband, is who she gets her name from. Yes. Was schizophrenic and I think fairly unbalanced. Her actual name is Edna Gillooly.

50:04Griffin Newman:Yes. Which you can see why she didn't use that as a stage name because it doesn't quite trip off the tongue. So it's early in the women's lib movement, as she says. It's the 70s. We're starting to look up and wake up and look around. And she wanted to make a different kind of film. And so she finally reads Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, a script by Bob Getschel. She sends it to John Kelly. He likes it. But it had been optioned by David Susskind. And so he had no deal at his studio, but he had it. on the last possible day, he picks up his option to block them. Rude of him. Because he doesn't have a studio.

50:39Griffin Newman:And so her agent calls him or maybe Tony calls him. Her agent calls him and is like, Ellen wants to do this movie. And he's like, I'm doing it with Anne Bancroft. And he's like, we have a fucking green light from Warner Brothers. If we can do this. You have an idea of doing something someday. We have a studio who will make this movie. And Suskind said, I think we should make this movie with Ellen Burstyn and Warner Brothers. You know, this is crazy. John Kelly then says to Ellen Burstyn, do you want to direct it? Crazy. That is pretty wild.

51:13David Sims:That is kind of, I don't know, without parallel in this time period. I mean, like, Paul Newman's wife is directing.

51:22Griffin Newman:Her name is Joanne Woodward. No, but it's like, when you think about female directors in the studio system.

51:30David Sims:I mean, how hard Streisand had to fight. huh yeah um i mean lena vertmuller is getting that first woman best director nomination but she's around the same time yeah i just wonder if that causes that somehow maybe i mean i think it

51:42Griffin Newman:might be just truly john callie being like this is a cheap movie i want to be in the ellen burston business and you know you pick the script like talent management we're also still a new hollywood

51:53David Sims:risk-taking era and here's someone who kind of represents the new guard of acting styles Here's someone who's kind of like a female De Niro in terms of like, she's locked in, some whole different process. Maybe she'd get interesting performances out of other people. So instead she calls up a handsome Italian director

52:13Griffin Newman:by the name of Francis Coppola. And says, you know anybody? And he says, why don't you watch a little movie called Mean Streets? It hasn't even come out yet, but I recommend it. And she watches Mean Streets. And Coppola had just seen it and been like, I like this De Niro guy. I think I'll put him in my movie, The Godfather Part 1-1.

52:32David Sims:Her quote was, she said, you go look at a movie like Mean Streets. Or no, that's what Frances said to her. She said it felt exactly what Alice needed because it was a wonderful script and well-written, but for my taste, it was a little slick.

52:43Griffin Newman:Script's a little slick.

52:44David Sims:You know, in a good way. She wanted some grit. And kind of a Doris Day Rock Hudson kind of way, and I wanted something a little bit more gritty. It's smart to just go like, okay, I like the script and the foundation of this, But if someone deals with it on a superficial level, I think it's not going to work. So how do I get someone who's sort of like, hire a director against type for the film to bring it down? I have a hard time imagining that script. I feel like, I wonder if like, did he change the script itself? Or is it really just all in style that changes how this feels? I don't know. Maybe it's three episodes of the sitcom that he retroactively submitted.

53:16Or it's the Chris Christopherson rom-com that the poster makes you think it is.

53:20David Sims:But it does make you consider how cool it would be if like either Safdie brother did this today. Oh, yeah.

53:26Griffin Newman:I wonder if there's an analog because there are some directors who've done stuff like this. But yeah, like I'd have to think. But I love this. She meets with this, as she puts it, small, nervous little guy. Yeah, that's a good way to describe him. And, you know, he's like, he's excitable and they're talking about it. And she says, you know, it's hard to tell from that film, Mean Streets, what you know about women. Do you know anything about women? Which is a fair note. Have you met one? and he says no but I'd like to learn which is pretty cute pretty good answer said his intelligence beamed through his face so we went to work together had he started any of his failed marriages by this point where are we in this bad husband history

54:05David Sims:he's one divorce down

54:07Griffin Newman:it's the classic like 60s you know he's not married to Julia Cameron yet he's divorced from Lorraine Brennan like the 60s early marriage where it's like well we had to live together and our parents would be mad

54:19David Sims:I wanted to have sex, which of course meant we had three children and bought a house. He has years of being a bad husband still ahead of him at this point. Much more to learn about women. He has quite a revolutionized the field of bad husband. I assume you guys have talked about Mr. Scorsese, the documentary over the course of doing this. But just the amount of his ex-wives and daughters in that movie who are like, yeah, he was terrible. We love him, though.

54:41Griffin Newman:Yeah, but they're just like, he did rock. I never saw him. He was really around. It's just really remarkable how affectionate they are for the horrible things. Not like horrible, but he was not useful. He was mostly absentee. Yeah. Right. It's not like, yeah. I would not want to have been married to him at this time.

54:59David Sims:The vibe I got, right? Because in talking about a movie about bad marriages and such, we don't want to like imply a different kind of bad marriage. Sure. You watch that and it just feels like everyone who married him kind of felt bad for him. Not that they were marrying him out of pity, but they were just like, I was just really worried about him. Like everyone talks about him like a little endangered like fawn that they tried to nurse back to health. And they were like, ultimately it ran back into the woods. He and Robbie Robertson just stayed up all night for three days. And I said, you go, buddy.

55:30Yeah. Go live your life.

55:31David Sims:They call that the woods.

55:33Griffin Newman:So they get to work. He's dating Sandy Weintraub at the time. Okay. And she sort of was the one who kind of read the script from across his desk or whatever and said like, this is good. Like, you know, this has interesting characters because I assume he was basically just getting a lot of like gangster movies like being sent to him, right? So it's like, he's smart. He's like, I should make something completely different, right? Like what better way than, you know, than, you know, to avoid being typecast. Alice was a way of trying to find another way. Can I make genre in Hollywood? It was something like a vehicle, like a Bette Davis vehicle or Joan Crawford vehicle.

56:09Griffin Newman:I enjoyed those movies like Mr. Skeffington. So this would be a way of embracing the genre. It is so funny that even young 20-something Martin Scorsese making movies about guys who shoot each other. It's like, but I am a huge movie nerd who has seen every single woman's picture. Great director has made a woman's picture. I have great respect for Mr. Skeffington. Well, you do have to assume the script did not include the prologue in this that looks like The Wizard of Oz set on a farm.

56:34David Sims:It is so wild. It's gorgeous. I mean, you start out with like a fucking like Douglas Sirk opening credits sequence. Yeah, like the silk rumpled in the background. with the titles over it.

56:43Griffin Newman:You feel like you're watching the wrong movie. And obviously, as you just pointed out, very inspired by Mr. John Cassavetes. Which you see a little bit. To an actor-driven movie. He has a great relationship with his mom that's like, it's different from this movie, but he has like a chatty, obviously, right, informal kind of relationship with his mom. And so he's investing a little bit of that in there. You know, his dad is clearly sterner and more reserved, but his mom is a cut up. She's funny. Getchell's screenplay, apparently he wanted to change the third part dealing with the farmer. Okay. He means Chris Christopherson.

57:20Griffin Newman:Get rid of Chris. You can't. I don't know. It's like the beginning is not quite right and the last sequence is not quite right. They rewrote it together. They weren't satisfied. Then they start doing some improv in New York with Ellen. That's kind of cool. And then they would sort of throw it back to Getchell.

57:36David Sims:I don't know. They're just describing rewriting the movie. Who cares? They did a good job. There is an alleged like three and a half hour cut of this movie that I'm sure is more of an assembly than a proper cut. But this is one of those movies where I would watch kind of any footage they have. I'd watch them all hanging and I would watch an entire movie set at a diner. But I would say this is a well-paced movie.

57:54Griffin Newman:It does not need to be long. It is.

57:55David Sims:But I'd be curious. I mean, and that's the difference between him and Cassavetes, where there's like the famous story of him screening husbands and a killing and being like the audience is enjoying it too much. We're adding an hour into it. Like Cassavetes was like, if the audience is enjoying it too purely, I've done something wrong. And it doesn't feel like this movie is taking easy outs, but you can tell that Scorsese's like, I'm not trying to punish people.

58:19Griffin Newman:As mentioned earlier, David Susskind once viewed this as an Anne Bancroft vehicle. Supposedly at one point, Diana Ross was attached. Well, well, well. Which is crazy. I mean, obviously, and she was like, well, I'll only do it if David Niven is there. My pal. And obviously, Walter Houston plays my son. John Houston. Fuck.

58:37David Sims:I think Walter Houston might have died by then. Walter Houston could play the chef. He's like, there! He's out. Order up!

58:45Griffin Newman:Shirley MacLaine in 2005 said she turned it down because she didn't know who Scorsese was. JJ adds in parentheses, this has to be a false memory. There's no way that's true.

58:55David Sims:But she said in other places that the script was offered to her. I don't think she would have been offered the Scorsese version, but the script obviously had been around for a while. Well, if it was kicking around a studio, presumably every actress in that industry. She's one of the people you would have offered anything to.

59:09Griffin Newman:Ellen Burson says the biggest regret she has is she didn't take a producer credit, which she should have because she was like, I was the shepherd of the film. I should have been an executive producer. I didn't ask. I demurred. Oh, I don't need credit. I'm the star. If I had been an executive producer, I would have gotten points on that fucking sitcom. Would have made that Alice money. Because I do feel like usually it'd be like, oh, well, it's a credit. Who cares? And Alice is the one scenario where like, you're telling me this small domestic drama turned into a regular paycheck? Yes.

59:38David Sims:I mean, she made she did make one of the coolest deals of all time eventually for for Exorcist the last Exorcist. Remember this? It's like they created an acting school or something. They created a scholarship that runs indefinitely.

59:51Griffin Newman:Right.

59:51David Sims:They kept offering her money.

59:53Griffin Newman:They were like, give you a million dollars. OK, you're going to be in the movie five days. I don't give a shit.

59:56David Sims:And they're like, 10 million dollars, 25 percent of the gross. And she was just like, here are the actual terms. scholarship for acting school every year granted full ride in perpetuity and made them like make a commitment to doing that.

1:00:12Griffin Newman:Yeah. Which rules. Of course, the only downside is she's in the movie for like two minutes being like, I too was once an exorcist. Ah! And he gets her eyes gouged out. And you're like, what? The kids get that acting scholarship don't need to know that. Well, they make them watch the movie, unfortunately. It's so funny that they were like, we have to have you in the movie. Why? So we can gudge your eyes out two minutes in. That's definitely a reshoot thing, though, right?

1:00:33David Sims:It sounded like... No, that movie felt clean to me, Griff.

1:00:36Griffin Newman:That movie felt... Nobody touched it.

1:00:39David Sims:The famously bleak thing about that movie is they make the big rights deal, like, in summer 2020. And they were like, we don't have a script yet, but can we really wait and take the chance of Ellen Burstyn dying when she's high risk? Exactly. So they wrote a couple scenes just to be able to shoot with her in 2020, then didn't finish the script until a year later. Then when they shot the rest of the movie, they were like, huh, the stuff we shot with Burstyn doesn't really fit. So then they reshot and they were like, what if you don't have eyes? What if I gouged out

1:01:12Griffin Newman:to just kind of have something shocking happen halfway in the movie? She did not attend the Oscars, as we mentioned. She was busy starring in Same Time Next Year on Broadway with Charles Grodin. Oh, which is what she went to Tony for. And then we'll get an Oscar nomination. She thought, more Gottlieb. sounds like a guy. I'm not going to look up who that is. Thought she should fly back to Los Angeles to go to the Oscars. And she was just like, I didn't want to disappoint people. I don't want, no offense to understudies, but people are paying to see me and Charles. It happened a lot in the 70s. People just didn't go to the Oscars in the 70s.

1:01:48They just didn't fucking go.

1:01:48David Sims:And they went like, I didn't realize it was a big deal. And now when Sean Penn doesn't go, it feels like size. Sean Penn is the first acting winner to not go since Paul Newman won in the 80s. So we're not actually crazy. We're not counting Anthony Hopkins. Yeah, yeah. We're forgiving him because he was COVID. He was asleep in Wales. Right, right. Less living Oscar winner, non-Anthony Hopkins. Isn't that nuts?

1:02:15Griffin Newman:Yeah, that is funny. Yeah, it's become such a thing. And now, best actor. Oh, Anthony Hopkins and the Father. Well, good night. You have to do your Joaquin Fetus impression while doing that. I forgot it was Joaquin. Yeah. Joker himself. Just like the ultimate prank. The awkwardness of the moment of him being like, I don't really want to make it. Even Joaquin, the weirdest guy in the world, is like, this feels awkward. Even I'm getting a sense that this is awkward.

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1:04:47Griffin Newman:Chris Christopherson. It's just his fifth film. What has he done? Had just done Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Which he's phenomenal in. Which is such a cool movie. Have you ever seen that one, Ben? I haven't. I think it has a bit of a vibe you might gel with. But the Dylan connection. Dylan's really good. Dylan rocks in it. It's so been on my list forever. The music is so cool, obviously. We'll watch it together, Ben. I haven't seen it either.

1:05:10David Sims:I love a Western.

1:05:10Griffin Newman:You know, he's also in Dennis Hopper's insanely normal, the last movie. That's his first appearance. Right.

1:05:16David Sims:Which was, that title's a threat. Dennis Hopper was like, I'm trying to end movies forever. That movie rules.

1:05:23Griffin Newman:That movie is very cool. That's another one you would like. I assume you, have you been enjoying the recent Catherine Lanasa from the Pitt press cycle of I am haunted by Dennis Hopper's go. I interviewed her last year and she does just like, she will drop a Dennis Hopper. Just like it doesn't have to get into it, but just like, you know, everyone just needs to know that lady. She was like 19. I fucking love her.

1:05:43David Sims:Thing is she was saying like, you know, he was the great love of my life. And so he continues to haunt me. Obviously, we got divorced and then he married someone else after me. But when he was dying, they were in the process of getting divorced. So I was the last person he was married to where it ended on good terms. And I'm like, hence this ghost comes to my house. You also got divorced. What are you talking about? We patched it up. And now she's married to What's his name from Melrose Place Who's she married to? Oh my god Hang on Okay I love her

1:06:15Griffin Newman:You can google this faster than I can Grant's show Oh I love Grant's show They're married Remember when he was on the threesome show He's a honk Swingers Swingtown It was called Swingtown Swingtown I remember CBS was like Can we do a show about swingers On CBS And it's like Well you're allowed to have Nudity and sex in your show And they're like No Well can you have drugs in your show I'm like, not really.

1:06:36David Sims:It's like, well, then why are you making that? It's going to be so risque. In episode six, someone mentions that they saw a butt. That's what the 2000s were like. They were so jealous of HBO.

1:06:48Griffin Newman:They're like, we want one of those. Yeah.

1:06:51David Sims:Dennis Laird's the job where they were like, he's going to say shit one time every other episode.

1:06:56Griffin Newman:We'll give TV Guide advance warning that this is one of the episodes he says shit on. Yes. Quietly as he exits a room. Ah, shit. Exactly. He was also in a film called, starred in a film called Cisco Pike, which I've never seen, but... Oh, sure. It's like Gene Hackman, Karen Black, Chris Christopherson, Harry Dean Stanton, and the Warhol superstar Viva. I mean, how bad could that be? That sounds fun.

1:07:21David Sims:Maybe a little formless. Who knows? I was going to say, that movie was called Quiet, Calm Conversations on the Set. Everyone's easy to deal with the movie. Respectful disagreements. the motion picture.

1:07:37Griffin Newman:And then he's in something called Bloom in Love, a Paul Mazursky movie I've never seen, starring George Segal, where I assume he's got... Like, I feel like he was often kind of the energy beard-o guy. Yes. Right? You know, he's coming in off the bench. I was double-checking that. He's giving you some sort of

1:07:53David Sims:hot, cool energy. Viva is Gabby Hoffman's mother.

1:07:57Griffin Newman:Oh, there you go.

1:07:57David Sims:Yes. I was trying to remember who it was, but yes, sorry, go on.

1:08:03Griffin Newman:So, Scorsese is like meeting him and basically being like, I love Pat Garrett. And Christopherson's like, everyone fucking hated that movie. What's the matter with you? And, you know, they had a great relationship after some early, you know, nervousness or whatever. Christopherson, this is an interesting way Burstyn puts it. It's like, he just couldn't accept that he was an actor. After every take, he'd cringe and be like, oh man, that was dog shit. Like, he just had no, like, you know, confidence in his own ability. And I bet you that Burst and Scorsese are both kind of like, I don't know, man.

1:08:38Griffin Newman:Pretty hot. I'm so annoyed by that being like, dude, get on my level. No, she loves it. She says he was wonderful. Like, you know, we would be really connected. He was a new voice in America. Like, I mean, you know, how do you not have a crush on this guy? You know? Marty? No, Chris. Chris Grisalverson. Yes. Marty, I feel like you're a little more like, oh, Marty, you're so great.

1:09:01David Sims:Kiff Gristofsson is just one of the most, I feel like, inarguably hot people. He's just the kid. He just has unbelievable rizz.

1:09:11Griffin Newman:Alfred Lutter, who plays little Tommy. They saw 300 kids. He's so good, Ness. And Sandy Weintraub says, hey, Marty, you got to see this guy. He sees this kid. They say, what do you want to be when you grow up? And he says, a stand-up comic. Marty must have loved that. And exactly. And he's like, let's get him in the room with Ellen. and they're like, hey, just, you know, improv or whatever. And they start just kind of like bouncing off each other. And there you go. He's really great. Do we have any idea how much of their scenes together are improv? I think a lot. I think a lot of their kind of rat-a-tat

1:09:44David Sims:is like, you know, their back and forth stuff. It's so perfect. Yes. And you kind of can't script that stuff.

1:09:49Griffin Newman:And just the way she's kind of like, what? You know, like half the time, like that way you are as a parent where you're like, I'm picking up, I think I'm picking up where you're putting them up. What are you talking about? This is like the huge thing for me in this. and both the times I've watched it, again, having an almost 10-year-old, is like when you like love this kid and you had to put up with him, but like if he tells you that story one more fucking time, you're gonna jump out the window. It's that joke that he's trying to tell her where she's like crying, asking him to stop telling that joke.

1:10:13David Sims:He reminds me a lot of myself in that way when you tell me about these things. Yes. Just like, I mean, they're like the dynamic of your kid who you love and is the thing you will do anything for, but you're like, you're so annoying. I cannot listen to you for another moment. I think she is meaner to her kid. David you can tell me what you think then I would be to my shoulders I would not a bit of a breaking point in this film I would not kick them out of the car and make them walk the final mile to get home I would think

1:10:37Griffin Newman:yeah no there are but there are some relatable moments in this movie I would say there's some 70s like oh you get a phone call about this these days like Joyce said

1:10:47David Sims:I mean it's a movie that builds to spanking it is a movie about how do you we'll talk about the hitting kids part of it too or like Jodie Foster juvenile delinquency and Jodie Foster holy shit She's amazing in this movie. I assume we'll get to her in the dossier. I am about to tell you that Jodie Foster shot all her stuff.

1:11:04Griffin Newman:Two days. Wow. Oh my God. Real pro. What a pro. It was like doing another commercial first. She came in, bang, bang, bang. Two days. She knew all her stuff. Two days. Two bottles of wine. That was all. And this is Scorsese. And there's this damn situation with the welfare workers where a woman came over to me and said, stop. And I was like, what do you mean stop? And they were like, stop. She has to go to school. And I was like, okay. She's Jodie Foster. She's in the grand tradition.

1:11:26David Sims:Judy Garland. Judy Garland worked 20 hours a day

1:11:29Griffin Newman:you know they've got a lot of like actor studios people kind of peppered in the background here a lot of Ellen Burstyn faves you know are filling in the cast what were you gonna say Katie? oh just where where Jodie Foster was and I got on her Wikipedia page she's like doing Disney stuff but this is still before anything where she's a star obviously this is how Marnie knows her for Taxi Driver which is the next movie he makes but she's really only done a couple movies right she's but she's like a TV star right

1:11:56David Sims:She did the Paper Moon TV show. We love it. Didn't know that existed. She played Addie Prey on that. Am I wrong in thinking that she even replaced Tatum O 'Neill in some later version of Bad News Bears, or am I conflating the two things? I know she was the voice of one of Charlie Chan's children on the Hanna-Barbera Charlie Chan cartoon, which I'm looking up here, has aged perfectly. I was about to say, sounds like something you'd want to be pushing out right now. It sounds like something that you would know and no one else would know. Yeah, correct. This is a perfect junk in my brain forever.

1:12:26Griffin Newman:You're conflating that Jodie Foster was supposed to be the star of Bad News. That's what it was. Turned it down to do a little movie called Taxi Driver. There we go. Yes. But no, she'd done some Disney movies. She'd done a lot of like TV stuff. And Freaky Friday is much later. That's after Taxi Driver. That's all later. Like I think, right? Like it's like that's the same year as Taxi Driver. That's nuts. That's nuts. What can I tell you? You can do it all. And Bugsy Malone is also the same year. Wow. All three of those are 76? Wow But you know She'd done the The Tom Sawyer movie She's basically Like sort of The second lead of that That's before Whatever You know She's a Punky little kid Little tomboy That's her thing The perfection of her As a queer icon In this movie Like just from the jump Of her being like Yeah this is It's funny This woman had to come out Of the Golden Globes 40 years later It is so funny

1:13:18David Sims:That it's like This overt In this movie And then it's just like Quietly let's just Go back in the closet And not really talk about it For a while They weren't ready. I want to call out Lea Goldani. Goldani? Yeah, sure. Who was the female lead in Shadows, the Cassavetes movie.

1:13:35Griffin Newman:Ooh, yeah. Leila.

1:13:36David Sims:Leila Goldani. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But is a movie about white-passing African Americans? Yes. I mean, if you've ever seen that iconic Shadows poster, that's her face. She is incredible in that film. Yes. She was a fully Caucasian woman. The success of that movie, critically... She's Italian, I believe. Yes. damaged her career. Right. Because they assumed, right. It's this insane thing where she was a white person playing a white passing black person who then lost roles because people assumed she was black and couldn't play white. So it just feels like this was kind of a menschee move for Scorsese to throw her a role.

1:14:11David Sims:And like we said, you know,

1:14:12Griffin Newman:he's a devotee of Cassavetes. Well, she's in, what, two scenes? Like in the very beginning where they're doing like the dress fitting and then the yard sale. She's the one who's with her when she gets the phone call that her husband bought the farm. Yeah, like that relationship between the two of them is so perfect and real and you know so much about them. So as soon as she gets that phone call and then they say goodbye at the car and like the little boys are rolling their eyes at them and they're so emotional. It's just wonderful. She got a BAFTA nom for this. Oh my God.

1:14:38David Sims:Well, the BAFTAs went bananas for Alice. Alice fever. They gave it best picture, right? I think so. I think they did.

1:14:46Griffin Newman:Yeah, the BAFTAs love this movie. This movie traveled well, I guess. Did they nominate Dianne Ladd also? Well, the Oscars did.

1:14:53David Sims:I believe so. Let me double check that. But I think it won screenplay picture actress and then it got, yes, it got double noms. Diane Ladd won the BAFTA. Oh my God.

1:15:05Griffin Newman:And this is, you know, the BAFTAs treated this like a 75 because they didn't make it to Europe till 75. So this is the 1976 BAFTAs. So it's beating. It won. It beat Barry Lyndon Dog Day Afternoon and Jaws, which I might have some notes on that as much as I like this movie. and she won best actress and Diane Land won best supporting actress and won best screenplay. Yeah, they fucking went nuts for it. I can only imagine the British viewing audience being like, what's this movie about like an Arizona diner waitress is better than Barry Lyndon? Are we sure?

1:15:36David Sims:Jenna Brolin's won the Golden Globe against her. She's pretty good in that there movie. I think it's maybe the best performance ever committed to film. Burstyn didn't win any of the Critics Awards. So I think it must have been seen as a slight surprise, especially considering the BAFTAs come so much later, because I think basically New York Film Critics, NBR, they all gave it to Jenna Rollins. Sure. It's a tough call, man. It's a tough call. Who am I giving it to?

1:16:07Griffin Newman:I guess we'll find out. Get that spreadsheet going. Anybody nominated Alfred Lutter? I indeed gave it to one Jenna Rollins for A Woman Under the Influence. my other nominee Sissy Spacek for Bandles wait why do I have Faye Dunway for Chinatown I don't know this is a crazy person Ellen Burstyn Brigitte Mira for Ali Fury it's the soul oh sure anyway the movie Alice doesn't live here anymore is about a lady named Alice Hyatt who lives in New Mexico and has a kid

1:16:37David Sims:whose name is Tommy sounds right wanted to be a singer damn it she is a singer is a singer

1:16:44Griffin Newman:she's a former singer and now she's married to a guy called Donald who is a Coca-Cola delivery truck driver played by Billy Greenbush. This guy sucks. Real piece of work. But he sucks in just kind of like a boring, shitty way. Yeah. It's not even like a true kind of like page-turning melodrama kind of like, he's the nastiest husband and she casts it. It's just like, she's just stuck with this loser. Or not even like Harvey Keitel later. I was going to say. He's got charisma. He's just a fucking loser.

1:17:12David Sims:Keitel is compellingly awful. Oh my God. Yeah, and it's Keitel too. So you're kind of like, can't stop looking at this guy. We've been talking about this, Katie. It is just so funny that for Who's That Knock at My Door and Mean Streets, Keitel is Scorsese's analog. It is, and in a way where past those two movies, I would say Scorsese does not have self-insert characters. You feel him as the character watching the movie and making the movie, but there doesn't feel like there's someone who represents him. The second he stops having those characters, he's like, Harvey, here's the deal. I'll still put you in my movies.

1:17:44David Sims:you only play the most contemptible people in the world. You play real shithead. Child pedophile Judas. Literal Judas.

1:17:50Griffin Newman:Hey, it's a complex portrayal of Judas, okay? Yes, the name is a bit of a scarlet letter or whatever.

1:17:57David Sims:But it's funny that in this one you're like, oh, maybe he plays like a sweet guy. And you're like, he's good looking? Like, I know this guy. Let's see what he does. Bigamist!

1:18:09Griffin Newman:So yeah, Ben, what did you think of this movie? I haven't I haven't even gotten your take yet because I feel like it's kind of a bad movie. I had never seen it before. No, sure. No, I just mean like the vibe is sort of Ben appropriate. I loved it. Yeah. It's really good. It really reminded me of my mom and our dynamic. Your mom sounds really cool. And I can see Ben having a bit of a Tommy, you know, little Ben. A hundred percent. But she, my mom was so funny and silly, but slightly aloof. Like she was always a little unknowable.

1:18:42David Sims:So I just, yeah, I really saw a lot of her in this character. Hey, Ben, the actor, Alfred Lutter, who plays Tommy, New Jersey legend. He's from Ridgewood. He graduated from Ridgewood High School. Then he got a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Stanford.

1:18:59Griffin Newman:Well, that's not New Jersey, but sure. Well, so, but we can be proud of him.

1:19:03David Sims:Yeah, Master of Science degree. He founded Lutter Consulting, a company providing technology strategy. and he later started a website called lynda.com what is lynda.com it's a wikipedia page lynda.com became linkedin learning oh wow

1:19:21Griffin Newman:it's sort of like a online

1:19:24David Sims:it was an online learning site that linkedin bought wow he was like an early tech guy yeah the original tech man

1:19:32Griffin Newman:the original tech man they call him yeah this movie reminding you of your mom ben I think it's another thing that feels so important about it to me that it's about like the relationship between a parent and a child in a way that I just don't think that many movies do it where it's like it's a relationship. There's a push and a pull. It's not about a mother's love. It's not about like a kid looking after their parents. It's like actually complicated. And I can't get over how like real that feels and how rare it is. Maybe you guys have better examples than I do.

1:19:59David Sims:No, I'm thinking as a counterpoint to this Kramer versus Kramer, which is not a movie I love. But it's a very watchable movie. No, it's a very watchable movie. I don't think it's a bad film, but it's not a movie I deeply care for. And a lot of people credit Hoffman's Oscar win for how good he is with the kid. But that feels a little more like an actor showing off how good his chemistry can be with a kid. And that movie also sets him up to be like, you'll never believe how surprisingly good this guy is. Like, it's like Big Daddy without the jokes of like, he really gets it together. Yeah. It doesn't feel like a very accurate portrayal.

1:20:34Yeah.

1:20:34David Sims:And it's so reductive in sort of the way it treats the Meryl Streep character. It's like so plot driven being like, can he step up to it? Totally. And it's like, oh, he makes good breakfast. What an incredible dad. Yeah. And like in the very beginning of this movie, the husband's being a jerk about something or another. And she goes over to the son and she's basically like, hey, look, help me out here. You got to get we got to get around this guy. Like they are co-conspirators getting through this. And that is so often what especially as your kids get older and you can be like, look, give me a break here.

1:20:59I'm trying my best. You're trying your best. like it's almost like she's letting him kind of see like she's just a person who's trying to figure this out and again she's making some choices I wouldn't make but I love that it makes it they're not equals but it makes it a real back and forth which parent-child things don't do often. Well let's also call out

1:21:15David Sims:the inciting incident of this movie which is

1:21:17Griffin Newman:it's hard to get kids to act on screen like this. Yeah.

1:21:19David Sims:Impressive you know. Her piece of shit husband dies. They get in a bad fight.

1:21:24Griffin Newman:Yes.

1:21:25David Sims:He hits her. It does not seem like this is the first or only time this has happened. No he's a loser. He sucks. A day later he dies in a meaningless Coca-Cola truck accident. Which is meaningful. All that Coke's not going to get delivered. But I'm saying - There's people thirsty out there. You're right. You're right. They need a pep in their step. It was a costly death. Yeah. Didn't you just imagine like little Marty like staging that accident, like the tableau of like the people hanging out of the car. It's just like there's some blood on the street. It's perfect. Well, you also imagine him being friends with Spielberg and being jealous of like Duel and being like, I have one shot to show the aftermath of Duel.

1:21:59David Sims:You know? They're not letting me stage action sequences yet. Nope. But she's grieving a bad relationship. Yeah. She's experiencing real grief for this, and her son is as well. And she tries to take this as an opportunity to uproot her life, something she's clearly dreamed of doing, but not felt the courage to do. It felt too radical to blow up her life in order to do that, but now her life has been blown up for her. And so, so much of the weird tension between her and her son is that her son is like grieving the loss of a father who he's starting to realize like maybe sucks. Yeah. Yeah. And the kid is just getting into the age where you start thinking of your parents as people too.

1:22:36He was already feeling that way.

1:22:37David Sims:Yeah. Like he's at the perfect face to see her as a person and to look back at his dad as not just like a hero. Right. He was putting salt in the coffee, which does feel, let's call it out, very Ben. It feels like a little Ben move. Definitely. Yeah. Ben, I was wondering if like something where she's saying like if you keep your mouth open one more time, I'm going to throw you out. He just like opens his mouth as wide as he can. Is that a little Ben move?

1:22:59Griffin Newman:Yes, definitely. Like, I'll show you. The final workaround. You can't slam my mouth shut while you're driving. So what happened? So husband dies. I think it's really well played by her where she's sad because her husband died. Plays the emotion quite honestly. But just, you just kind of buy that she pretty quickly is kind of like snapped out of a dream or whatever. Like that she's just kind of like, let's just go. like there's nothing fucking

1:23:26David Sims:there's no reason for us to be here. Like, well, it's the past tense, present tense thing of like, I think of myself as someone who wanted to be a singer and didn't have the courage to follow through. Right. And then she just decides like, I am a singer. I sing. There's nothing keeping me here. Why not reconstruct my life around this dream? And fairly quickly, that scene of her singing at the piano at home where like it lingers on her singing for a while and you get the kid outside and he's kind of like reframing how he thinks of her. Like it's an interesting venture into his perspective about her talent which you don't get that much of.

1:23:56And it's, I mean, it's just like really well done. That's one of the early moments where you're like, oh, here's Marty testing it out, figuring out what he can do with the camera.

1:24:02David Sims:And the Layla Gul'danian character reads as her one person support system. Where you're just like, this is kind of scary for her to go out. There are no, you know, she, there's the notion of the family home, of going back to where she came from. But it doesn't feel like there's a solid base of support from her family extended or close. Yeah, do we even know who's in Monterey? Like she talks about it all the time, but like who are they going to?

1:24:25Griffin Newman:Not really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you also have no sense of the kid's life, but he's a kid, I guess. He's just going to make those kids go where you want them to. He could be like, I have friends at school. It's like, you're bad, baby. We're fucking in the room. We got Jodie Foster and some wine waiting for you. So she gets him to Phoenix, right? Like that's where she gets him to, where she starts singing. I mean, this says she finds work as a lounge singer, like in the narrative here. Kind of. I would barely call what she's singing in lounges. There's like a microphone over there if you really want to go over the camera.

1:24:59The griminess of these bars that she's going to, like bars in the 70s just were not, they didn't seem like fun places to hang out.

1:25:05Griffin Newman:I had my antenna up the whole time. I'm like, geez, is someone going to be like a mega creep or whatever? And instead they're all just kind of like, I don't know. Like, you know. There's the turnaround moments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no one's ever like, oh yeah, you can have this gig if you come with me over here. There's no compliance. but this was kind of a style of a bar of a very particular time kind of don't bug anyone like sing something that'll be nice in the background but like this is like a little value add ambiance yeah right like bars with no windows like I remember there being some around when I was a kid like after this but like you would never like women wouldn't go to these bars much like you wouldn't bring your kids into any of these places

1:25:44David Sims:but let's also just call out the like the velvet opening titles then this like blood red soundstage completely, as you said, very like beginning of Wizard of Oz.

1:25:54Griffin Newman:It felt like the one big idea Marty has, right? Like, you know, he's like, I want to do this. I know I don't have a lot of money, but like, I want to do this one thing.

1:26:01David Sims:Right. This little girl, like practicing this hymn over and over again. It literally says like, Monterey, California, Alice, a young girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's just sort of like her loneliness. You only see her parents in like silhouette, basically. And they're like yelling at her. Yeah. You get a sense of why this person didn't have the courage to follow their dreams. and has settled in their life.

1:26:21Griffin Newman:That's what this movie rocks.

1:26:22David Sims:And she's singing a song about caring and no one cares about her.

1:26:25Griffin Newman:I mean, he was a good kisser, guys. Oh, the husband? Give it up for Donald. I think that's his name. Donald. I love when she tells the kid, like, ask me again in a few years and I'll explain it to you. He's like, what are you going to say to him when he's 14?

1:26:37David Sims:Yeah, that's not a good conversation. That's really just pushing things off. Well, I think she'll say to slightly open your mouth

1:26:44Griffin Newman:instead of, like, you know,

1:26:46David Sims:trying to tighten your lips. You're going too wild. You're about to eat someone's skull with that kind of pet mouth right now. This film was shot in Tucson, Arizona where it's set. Why is it set in Arizona?

1:26:57Griffin Newman:Why not? Okay. I don't know what to tell you. Really good answer. Don't really know. I mean, Marty says it was a movie town. You could do anything you want there. It's a great town to shoot in. I was just thinking about Spielberg like having kind of that like Southern U.S. part of things to himself and Marty being like let me out of New York. It's a place back then. You know, Arizona in, you know, after the war is, but you know, 60s, 70s is sort of like there's a ton of space. It's cheap as hell and it's growing. And like, it's not even really begun to explode in the way that the Southwest would, but like, it makes sense for somewhere.

1:27:26Griffin Newman:Someone's going to go where it's like, well, you know, there'll be something for me to do over there. You know, like it's like, Jodie Foster says it's a weird place. I think it's a weird place. I mean, like, honestly, like the Southwest obviously has its own character to it now, but yeah, back then I bet you it was pretty weird. Yeah. Like a lot of, I don't know a single thing about Tucson except for this movie. Basically. I think I don't know much about Tucson either. It's not far from Phoenix. I think of it as the kind of crunchier, more liberal cousin to Phoenix is a big town. I don't know.

1:27:52David Sims:The Jody line is my favorite single line of writing in this movie, which is weird. Very weird. He's even weird for Tucson. And Tucson is the weird capital of the world. Right.

1:28:01Griffin Newman:I mean, it's the college, you know, it's where the University of Arizona is. So it's got the, you know, you know, from college towns. You're a southern gal from college towns. I live in college towns. Duke University right around the corner.

1:28:12David Sims:You live in like an old school house, right? You like accidentally became the... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't just live with a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. I live with like 20, 20-year-olds. Or I guess more of a neighbor's house, maybe. Yeah, I guess you're warring with the frat boys in the store.

1:28:25Griffin Newman:So, yeah, they went a week over production. They went a week over schedule. Went a little over budget. You know, it's Marty just getting ready for his real sojourns over budget.

1:28:36David Sims:But a little over budget, it's$1.6 million.

1:28:38Griffin Newman:Yeah, it was budgeted at$1.6 million and ended up more like$1.8 million or whatever. Sure. There was a gas crisis, which was an issue. to do with that. Oh, interesting.

1:28:46David Sims:I was going to say, this was also, you know, Mean Streets was basically an independent film that became a negative pickup for Warner Brothers. This is him, like, making a film for Warner Brothers. I think that must have also been appealing to him. You know, it's a lot easier to sell them. David's drawing us a shirt. I'm wearing the 70s logo. It's a lot easier to sell them on something like Taxi Driver that seems really risky at Columbia when it's like, you made a studio film, you were responsible enough, the amount you went over budget was more than covered by the success and you won someone an Oscar.

1:29:16Do we think he had final cut on this? Probably not, right? Definitely not. Yeah.

1:29:20Griffin Newman:Well, you never know in the 70s, I guess. I don't think they cared as much. I don't know. If you tested well, they wouldn't. Yeah, my guess is, well, anyway. And they're not like,

1:29:28David Sims:look, on page 15, we need Alice already at the diner. Like, they're not coming in with those dumb notes. You're right. I will say, and yet this was turned into a sitcom. That's the funny thing. That they got Alice to the diner.

1:29:39Griffin Newman:New Hollywood, and then they watch it, and they're like, I can get nice seasons out of there. Okay, well,

1:29:42David Sims:But actually, diner page one every Tuesday night.

1:29:46Griffin Newman:Why did they end up in Tucson? Well, there was literally a gas crisis and they could not make it to Tucson, basically. It has nothing to do with the picture. It has everything to do with production is what Martin's... Wow, okay. There you go. Everything, nothing was shot in LA except the opening sequence was on a lot, obviously. The red prologue, he basically says, I had a chance to use a Hollywood set. How else are you going to do a flashback? How do you want to do a flashback? That's the whole point. goddamn script opened and said flashback 1948 Monterey, California. And he was just adamant.

1:30:17Griffin Newman:You know, they're like, what if you do like black and white? Like that would make more sense. And he's just like, the character's hung up on movies. I feel like she would remember in this kind of half fantasy way. It should look like a 40s movie. It should look kind of indoors. He admits, I got a little crazy with the redness. It's very red. I had fun with the fog. It feels like Marty being like, I love old movies. I have access just for a day or two to the tricks and tools. Who knows how long I get this. Has he ever been on a soundstage before doing that? Like, probably not. Probably not. And he says, it's a square screen.

1:30:54Griffin Newman:It's 130 to the Academy ratio. You know, the first scene is Tobacco Road. It's copied exactly, obviously Wizard of Oz. Duel in the sun for the redness of the sky. Little East of Eden. Little Gone with the Wind. You know, he's got a lot of... It was like... William Cameron Menzies' Invaders from Mars. Of course. It's like, it was like one fifth of the budget. It cost$85 ,000, which was all that. So yeah. And he's like, and my first feature, who's that knocking, cost$35 ,000 for the whole movie. Right, right. Like definitely. So yeah, it's like him for the first time getting to, you know, play in Hollywood.

1:31:28Yeah.

1:31:30Griffin Newman:And Warner Brothers watches the movie and their one thing is like, can we fucking cut that weird, crazy opening with all the red? And Marty's like, take my name off the picture. Like, I'm going crazy. You know, like immediately. I'm sure they were just like, oh, Jesus, who cares? Like, whatever. Burstyn ran into Peter Bogdanovich and says, I'm doing Alice with this guy Martin Scorsese. And he said, tell him not to move his camera so much. And Ellen says, I did not relay that to Marty.

1:31:55David Sims:He moves it quite a bit. It's funny how he loves to move that camera. This feels like his most kinetic camera work until Goodfellas. Oh, yeah. This movie in sequences has the coke energy in the way the camera moves into the conversation. Yes. Yeah.

1:32:10Griffin Newman:One idea, he wanted as many women in authority on the picture as possible. Sandy Weintraub is the producer. Toby Raffelson, art director. Marsha Lucas is the editor. He wanted it to be as honest as possible. He wasn't trying to make a feminist tract, but he wants this movie, you know, about women to be in front of women and being like... He wanted to find out what women are like. Know what you don't know. He trusts Marsha's judgment implicitly and he says like, hey, you know, I know a stained glass guy. I was delighted by the return of Marsha Lucas as a character for this podcast. I don't know how long it's been since you guys have gotten into martial lore.

1:32:42Griffin Newman:I mean, she only edits, what, his first three or four? Like, is Taxi Driver the last time she works with him? Because Thelma reappears. And then she goes on to Star Wars the next year.

1:32:50David Sims:Oh, no, New York, New York is her last. Oh, okay. Which was a famously easy movie to edit. Yeah. Settled. And to make. Yes, yes. Everything about it.

1:32:59Griffin Newman:The first cut, okay, this is your thing. The assembly was three hours and 16 minutes. Ton of character stuff gets thrown out. you know, like the husband. There's a lot more of him, you know. I mean, wisely, they reduce him to about 10 minutes. He's like, we have to get in the car. You don't need anything from him to find out what his deal is.

1:33:19David Sims:That's the difference is, you know, Cassavetes was like, I want to make movies primarily out of the scenes that anyone else would cut out of a film. The scenes that are not the interesting part or the exciting part, but I want to show where the drama is in that. And it makes sense that Marty would want to shoot all of those things. and then ultimately whittle it down to, that stuff helps inform the other stuff, keep the most exciting moments and the major plot points. It helps that he dies within 15 minutes or less. I completely agree.

1:33:47Griffin Newman:Now, I want to talk about, I want to give you some news on the, like some research on the ending, but let's talk about the movie first to get to the ending because it's an iconic ending, obviously. But a shithead husband dies. She goes to Phoenix. She starts being a lounge singer and she meets a handsome fellow, Harvey Keitel, chill. She calls him a baby? A child? He's got kind of a baby face. It is funny.

1:34:09David Sims:And he has kind of the moppy haircut. Like, it makes him look younger. She's so adamant that he looks like he's underage. And I'm like, Harvey Keitel was born looking like a Vietnam vet.

1:34:18Griffin Newman:He doesn't look like underage. I'll give you that. He's got a baby face quality for Harvey Keitel. And it's that thing where you see actors when they're young now. So you're like, oh my God, they look so young. Yes. Like, De Niro looks more like a baby at this point than Keitel does, I think. Keitel just always had old man features. He did.

1:34:38David Sims:Yes, even when he was young and his skin was smooth. But she shouldn't have trusted him. Her first instinct was correct.

1:34:45Griffin Newman:Yes. Her first instinct is correct. He is, well, he's a married guy who's having an affair. I mean, it's actually not that complicated. He's also violent. Yeah, no, he's a jerk as well. But like, his big secret is just like, oh, I am cheating on my wife with you. It's sort of his dark secret.

1:35:01David Sims:But David, it's justified because he says his wife is crazy. She says she's crazy. For example, she shows up asking why I'm sleeping with another woman. How dare she? She's angry. I fuck other people. This lunatic. This calls for a switchblade. Breaking some glass at the door and then he has the entire dresser. Yeah. It is funny that like Scorsese is now doing the break of you're no longer my leading man. And yet in this performance, he kind of gives everyone the like show reel to be like, hey, and here's how you use Harvey Keitel. He does. And they do. They do.

1:35:36Griffin Newman:I wonder if Keitel resents it in a way of kind of like the way Marty shifted me to the supporting character, the villainous character that just became my type. Like, because even when it's the lead, he's a villainous lead. Well, is there a story if you've done Taxi Driver yet of like why it's not Keitel, why it's De Niro in the lead?

1:35:53David Sims:Never even considered. And beyond that, that was a De Niro part. beyond that sport was written to be black and very wisely the studio was like if the pimp is black people will burn down the field the end of this movie is a little charged right yeah no it was always De Niro he was obsessed with De Niro I mean I think I think it truly was like he fell in love with him on Mean Streets and was like this guy is the key as does everybody who watches Mean Streets yeah De Niro is unbelievable in that movie yeah yeah he peed good he peed good he peed good he peed good which is different than PP good. The award they gave to the exorcist.

1:36:29David Sims:You're right. So good. I love that at the end of that Keitel scene in the motel where like they get out of there and the camera just stays for a little bit and you see all of the wreckage. It made me think about, I haven't rewatched Raging Bull in a while, but like that big like domestic fight there and like in that movie, you're with the guy and this is like the woman's point of view of this like dumb bullshit these men are bringing on with them.

1:36:48Griffin Newman:Obviously in Raging Bull, that stuff is very powerful and it's very, but like this stuff gets me even more where she's just trying to keep it together for the kids. Yeah.

1:36:56David Sims:all that happens. I mean, this is Ellen Burson's superpower. Her fastball is like, is anyone better at quiet suffering than her? She has this fascinating balance of feeling really steely and strong and the kind of person who could say, try silence and break you for decades. And also at all times you're like, is she on the verge of breaking down in tears?

1:37:14Griffin Newman:I just wish you had recorded her saying try silence so that I could then play it on the podcast when I need you to try silence. You get that big red button in front of you. You can just play try silence to wrap up the show. She's just, I feel like that's kind of where she wins the Oscar more than anything. Right. It's just how well she plays the sort of, and just like the betrayal of like, I fucking, you know, let someone in. Yeah. I'm in this like fragile situation. He seemed nice, you know, and then here I am again, like in front of my kid, like getting humiliated like this and like being scary, you know,

1:37:50David Sims:what felt irresponsible to her was that she was starting an affair with a man who was so much younger. Like she was like, this is silly and maybe not like wise of me. What she realizes is I fell for the same type of guy again, which I think really devastates her. And it's so episodic because like you could make a version of this movie where she gets on the road and lands at the diner and the movie's about the diner, but you need this sense of like, oh no, like something in me is making these choices again. I gotta get out of this.

1:38:15Griffin Newman:You need her to sort of abandon her dream again. She's just starting to be like, well, maybe I could take it. It's like, no, I need to get the fuck out of here. I need to just take a job as a waitress. I need to just keep my head above water for the kid.

1:38:28David Sims:It's also so big, though, that it's not... The movie's not Nashville. It's not, I always wanted to be a country music star, and now I'm going to pursue my dream. It is, I miss singing. I just want to sing for a living. Right, like, once upon a time, I like that. I'm also happy if that paycheck is 50 % serving beers and 50 % singing one song a night.

1:38:48Griffin Newman:And that was also the moment right before she met her husband.

1:38:51David Sims:Yes. So it really is like, she's like,

1:38:53Griffin Newman:I want to start right from where I left off. The last sort of free version of myself. Yeah. Yeah. Can we also shut up before we move on to the diner? I love the bar owner. The one that hires her. Yes. Yes. He's just got some great, funny moments. He has this one part I wrote down where she asks, what's a song he likes? And he just starts saying lyrics to her. And she's like, I don't know that song.

1:39:20David Sims:And he's like, well, why'd you ask? I mean, ironically, this is... I really like that scene. This is a movie made up of characters that feel like they could be sitcom archetypes and yet all of them are played like real people. Right.

1:39:31Griffin Newman:It's like Cassavetes sitcom, right? Yeah, I mean, and then the sitcom. I never really watched Dallas. I've maybe seen it on TV once, but like, I assume it's more sitcom sitcom.

1:39:40David Sims:The Criterion Disc has all nine seasons on it, right? I'm going to find out.

1:39:44Griffin Newman:You have to play it backwards. Yeah, you should at least have the pilot. Yeah, throw it on there. Yeah. So, yeah, when's the water fight scene? I love the water fight scene. That's a classic like mother-son thing where it's like, we're having fun. We've kind of, it's gone out of control. Yeah. Because boys are too excitable. I think it's after that. Is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it is a little bit like you can mess with your kid in a way. Like she's not hurting him, but like they're both taking it too far because you kind of like get on your kid's level and do things like that. You are a parent of two sons.

1:40:18It's true.

1:40:19Griffin Newman:Katie Rich. I am also a parent of two sons, but they are small. In a different part of life. You are a parent of sons closer to this age range. And like you, I feel like can speak more to, right? Like what that is like. And what maybe, when can you say, what I might be in for. But like, this feels like an underrated mother-son movie. Underrated only in that it's not discussed all the time. Like it was rated well at the time. But like, it does feel like it kind of nails that specific dynamic. You don't see like, that's a less discussed dynamic in movies, right? mother son like I remember again talking about like Charlie as a baby who was on this podcast I remember having this baby and being like why are there not movies about like the relationship between a parent and a baby because it's the most fascinating relationship I've ever had in my entire life sure there's a reason for that like I now am aware that it's better if they can talk but

1:41:08David Sims:Tully nailed it there's no reason to make any other commentary on them it is just a specific thing of like I made this person I am responsible for this person and but like they make they turn you into a kid again in some weird way. They make you think about things like they say the weirdest stuff and you kind of just have to roll with it. They tell terrible jokes in that way. And like the two of them against the world, like and David, you may have this feeling if you're just like even without your wife, you're just with your kids. You're like, all right, it's just us. We've got to figure this out.

1:41:35Like you're we're at about. We've got to get through the subway or down the street. And this is such a heightened version of that where it's like I got you under my arm and we're going to make our way through the world. And it's really moving the the way that it gets into the weirdness of it, but also has that kind of bedrock, we're in this together part of it.

1:41:53David Sims:I want to say a couple things. First of all, Lane Bradbury is the actress who plays Rita, who's Keitel's wife, who I think is incredibly good. Oh, she is so good. In one extended scene. Yeah. It's just a smart decision to not have it be the like, she comes storming in, who's the harpy who's sleeping with my wife. She's so sad. She's so sad and she's so empathetic and she's like, I'm trying to warn you, I'm trying to save you. Yeah. Even more than I'm mad at him and I'm trying to catch him.

1:42:17Griffin Newman:Yeah. She also has a son

1:42:19David Sims:who has some kind of health issue. And he clearly just doesn't want to deal with the extra difficulty of that burden, of that responsibility. And Ellen Burstyn, that scene, where she just immediately is just like, oh, yeah, okay. Yes. We have to have this conversation. She's not trying to get out of it. She's not trying to make any excuses. She, like, takes responsibility instantly. The water fight scene is basically right after her first day at the diner, I think. And you feel that it's her trying so hard to make her son's life fun again. because there's been so much upheaval. And then it just comes that point where she's just kind of like, okay, all right.

1:42:50David Sims:I need to be a parent. It's like, you got to sit down at the diner and be bored. I don't care if you're bored. Because it's that feeling of like, not just I want to console him emotionally, but just like, this has all been so dramatic that I can't even pretend it's normal. So what if instead I act like a little kid for like one night? I get to his level a little bit more. And at least it's just kind of fun. Just because people have probably been yelling at the podcast that I didn't make this connection. Basically, the only other movie that Alfred Lutter was in is Bad News Bears. Oh, sure. Where he plays the brainy nerd in that and the first sequel.

1:43:22David Sims:Great movie. You know what's great? The Bad News Bears. Yeah, but do you know what else? Saying Bad News Bears as a term. Baseball. There we go. Less so. Baseball. The crack of the bat. Crack of the bat I do like. I don't remember if this comes before or after the water, but there's like the kid in the hotel room alone where he's like sitting two inches from the television and watching some old movie. I didn't recognize it. I don't know if you guys did. Good question. But that felt like Scorsese self-insert. Like this lonely boy watching old movies by himself. Yeah, except this kid doesn't have asthma so he can go out and flirt with Jodie Foster.

1:43:54David Sims:He just chooses not to. Yes.

1:43:55Griffin Newman:I feel like he's watching though something where it has a singer that's kind of in the tradition of what his mom is pursuing. It's a Betty Grable movie called Coney Island. Oh, there you go. And right. And those old Betty Grable movies, that's the kind of music Scorsese was thinking of when she's like, I wish I was a singer.

1:44:13David Sims:Yeah.

1:44:13Griffin Newman:Yeah.

1:44:14David Sims:Cool. But yes, she gets to Mel's Diner and we establish what will be one of the greatest ensembles in sitcom history. And it is immediately like, oh yeah, I want to hang out here. Dino Ladd is so fucking good in there.

1:44:26Griffin Newman:She is money in the goddamn bank. I swear to God. Because she got the Oscar on for this and you watch the movie and you're like, huh, she doesn't have a huge role. It's funny that she snuck in, but then you just think about her and you're like, she's just so great every second she's on screen. And she communicates the authenticity of the character just so perfectly.

1:44:45David Sims:And it's sort of like a Star is Born performance. I just love watching this person. 100%.

1:44:49Griffin Newman:And I like that they don't get along. She's pretty tough with her at first. Yeah. Making comments about her body in front of everyone. But then they have that scene where she freaks out when the short order cook or whatever asks her, where's Vera? And her line is,

1:45:07David Sims:she went to shit and the hogs ate her. And the like explosion of the, what is it, the ketchup? all over her apron. Right. The great Valerie Curtin as Vera,

1:45:18Griffin Newman:the sort of the quieter. She's so funny. I mean, the very end of the movie when they're in the bathroom talking and it just keeps cutting back to Vera, like trying to like handle all the places. She's like crying while people are throwing napkins at her. It's amazing.

1:45:30David Sims:The cousin to Jane Curtin. Of course. But the scene where they're finally sort of endeared to each other and Diane Ladd starts giving her the tips and here's how you get good tips and then it turns into them like sunbathing. Oh, yeah. It goes from this moment of just like reflection and respect to just like, actually, let's try to get some color. Well, and it's like female friendship again. And it made me think about Scorsese, like Age of Innocence or Silence or these other movies where he's like, what is this world? How can I figure out how this works? And it is kind of him being like, what's it like to be a woman with a friend?

1:46:05And that curiosity drives it and makes it feel so true in the process.

1:46:10David Sims:Yeah, yeah. And he hired good people. He surrounded himself with good people. He did. You guys ever work in a diner? No. Did you ever work in a diner, David? No.

1:46:19Griffin Newman:Just like, seems like such a cool, you know, like gig. Oh, it seems so hard. I was going to say hard. I mean, nothing feels more stressful to me than that. When I say cool, I don't mean like cool to do, but just like, it's like having like epaulettes, you know, stars on your head. It's a magical heart. It's a purple heart. More badass than being like a line cook or a fucking diner waiter. Yeah, the scariest people you're ever going to meet in your life. I went to my friend Caitlin's wedding last weekend. Humble break. Thank you. A co-host of It's Different. Secret podcast. My not secret podcast about baseball that you should definitely subscribe to.

1:46:55Griffin Newman:And we drove through Pennsylvania, the great state. And we stopped at a diner in Scranton that had real Alice doesn't live here anymore vibes where we walked in because we're hungry. And it's like, we're in a rush. You know, we're trying to... It's a seven hour drive. and we walk in and we're like, oh, fuck, should we turn around? Because the vibes were bad. In what way? One, there was kind of just no one around. I mean, there were customers, but there's no waiters around. And then we see one waitress, and she has just like the worst scowl on her face. And we're just like, oh, boy. And we're like, yeah.

1:47:27Griffin Newman:And she's like, yeah. And we're like, okay. And we like sit down. And then we are served fantastic food. Like the food rocked. Like an exceptional BLT and grilled cheese sandwich, right? They don't need to woo you. they got great food you can do whatever you want and then we realized like oh there's some drama happening where the waitress I think just maybe got in a fight with another customer love that and then maybe got chewed out by a boss and now she's complaining to somebody else about you know how fuck this place you know what I mean and then when she like gave us her check we were like the food was really great and she was just like you know that actually means a lot to hear it and we're like oh my god you made her day what is happening in this way in this fucking time and that's what it's like and Alice doesn't live here anymore.

1:48:09Griffin Newman:We're like, what's going on with all these people? They're just so intense. And like, there's such... This is every Waffle House. People get your arms around, right? Exactly. I know, we started with it, but you go in that Waffle House because you see the whole kitchen is right there in front of you. And you're just, you sit there long enough. You can figure out everybody's ceiling. Everyone's mad at each other. Isn't Waffle House even more intense because it's 24 hours? So you have to be like, you're like a fucking Navy SEAL in there if you're working like a night shift. They have seen absolutely everything.

1:48:34David Sims:The Waffle House storm warning thing. Yeah. It's totally real. right David? Yeah. The Waffle House Index where if the Waffle House some Waffle House closes it's orange it's like the National Weather Service or FEMA or whatever branch of the government still cares about this stuff.

1:48:47Griffin Newman:How serious the threat. Right. If Waffle House has to be like you better get the fuck out of there. Maybe a limited menu today. They will if Waffle House is closed you better get FEMA in there immediately. That's the thing like they don't even

1:48:58David Sims:take their notes from the government. The government goes like oh fuck that Waffle House is closing. Yeah. Because those people are they have seen absolutely everything.

1:49:06Griffin Newman:I don't want to go to Waffle House. Come on. Remember pre-COVID, you guys were like, we're driving to Florida. Yeah, we had a plan. Yeah, there was a plan. Then David had a bunch of kids. Summer 2020.

1:49:15David Sims:He kept slipping and having another kid.

1:49:19Griffin Newman:It can still happen. Throw everybody in the car. Come on down. The closest Waffle House at least last I checked is in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I went there. I went there, right? When I lived here, I remember looking it up at some point because I'm so deeply devoted to Waffle House. It's like a two-hour drive. It's pretty far. I think you might be mad if you drove two hours to Waffle House. It's one of those things where it's like, I need something that's open now. And when you're a teenager, it's somewhere you can go. And that is where the truth is. It's still there.

1:49:42David Sims:It's near Allentown. I never had a Waffle House meal not exceed my expectations. And I go in with sky high expectations every time. I mean, I like the waffles, too, to be clear. Obviously, the hash browns are what everyone talks about. But I have a hash brown bowl now where you can get like a hash brown with cheese and an egg on top of it. This isn't coming. It's really good.

1:50:03Griffin Newman:I don't know if I need any newfangled additions. It's been there probably for 15 years. It's a little newfangled.

1:50:10David Sims:Whippersnappers. You can't change these things on me. Christoph doesn't enter the movie until like an hour and 15 minutes. He does not. If you saw the poster and were like, can't wait to see

1:50:21Griffin Newman:Chris K, you're kind of like, where's my guy? Especially since we've already had a She Wants to Be a Musician arc and he didn't appear for that. And too bad relationship. Yes. And then he's just like, you know, what's his name? David. Hey, it's my name. Hey. He's one of the guys. He's a customer. He's divorced. He's a rancher. Got a farm. Plays a little guitar. Got a nice little beer. He's got some blowing locks.

1:50:51David Sims:Might want to run your fingers for him. He does. But he shows up around the same time that she finally kind of gets her standing within Mel's.

1:50:58Griffin Newman:I mean,

1:50:58David Sims:God damn. Like Harvey Keitel fucks her up so bad

1:51:01Griffin Newman:that she won't fuck Kris Kristofferson right away. Like, she should be fucking him right away. And Keitel should be on this side. But she's got to learn how to have some restraint. Life is tough. Yeah, life is tough. However, he is, he does spank kids. And she does get mad at him as saying, you're the kind of guy who hits kids. And then watching this now, you're like, yeah, don't, don't, don't get with that guy. that doesn't feel shocking to me in the same way. I guess that she gets so mad at him about it. Sure, well, he shouldn't spank her kid. I guess that's what it is.

1:51:28David Sims:He's not the kid's dad. but I think he wants to be when he comes back to her I was waiting for him to be like oh and yeah I shouldn't have hit your kid and he doesn't do that he doesn't quite do that it's not a sticking point for me

1:51:40Griffin Newman:to be clear I'm not pro spanking kids I just feel like in the 70s plenty more kids were getting spanked I agree but the extent that she was mad at him for it does he apologize enough for that for her to take him back in that great scene they've been through so much together and the last thing that poor kid needs is someone laying hands on him Exactly. Like he's witnessed violence. He's just been in that car. You know, she understands her kid emotionally. He was being a jerk in that scene with Christopher Soperson.

1:52:05David Sims:Sure is an annoying, you know, 12-year-old. It's got the foulest mouth. We should also call out that he has been sneaking around with Jodie Foster drinking wine. Oh, yeah.

1:52:14Griffin Newman:Drinking wine, shoplifting.

1:52:16David Sims:Learning about grown-up stuff. Mm-hmm. Being bad kids. Jodie Foster has a foolproof plan for shoplifting from that guitar store, though. Oh, go ahead. To make an injury.

1:52:24Griffin Newman:That's the classic move. Oh, yeah. Created distraction. And someone else grabs the thing, shoves it down their pants. Yeah. Been there. Done that. Are you more the kid or are you Jodie Foster? Like of these kids, who are you relating to more? Interesting. What does she say to the cops when she leaves the police station? Like, she say like suck it pigs or something. I think so. It's so good. It is so good. She's pretty cool. She's a badass. I was a little bit of the bad influence at times. Okay. But then also sometimes the one. Hook the bad. Yeah. It's an exchange. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What happens?

1:53:00David Sims:I mean, I mean, they hang out at his ranch. Yeah. Once the spanking happens, we're pretty close to the resolve of the movie. You get the great scene with him in the bathroom where Diane lands. Like, you're mad at him. It sounds like you love him. And she's crying and they're laughing and it's perfect. She doesn't want to fall into the same thing again. Yeah. Why would she? And it's, she's jumping at the first trigger. Mm-hmm. But ultimately, the fact that this man is willing to apologize And is Chris Christopherson. He is Chris Christopherson. Your face keeps turning bright red. What's going on on your screen?

1:53:32David Sims:I don't know. You don't know.

1:53:33Griffin Newman:Is he turning bright red? It is. I do have a Reader's Digest story about the Titan implosion, which happened three years ago. Rest in peace to all those beautiful people. Open. And there might... I think it was a weird autoplay. It's very relevant to this current conversation, obviously.

1:53:49David Sims:It looks like a Waffle House storm warning is happening on David's face.

1:53:52Griffin Newman:Jodie Foster says when she exits the police station, so long suckers. Yeah. Very classic. She's got kind of a roadrunner energy to her. Oh my God. Call her anywhere. Remember when that fucking thing I feel three years ago feels like it happened 10 years ago. Yeah. It was three years ago. I know exactly where I was. I just will never forget where they're like a thing's lost down there. And I'm like, oh, oh, what is it? And they're like, I'll check it out. It's this kind of metal tube a guy threw together. It's got like a PlayStation controller. I'm like, this was being sent down regularly. And it was like one guy in there alone.

1:54:26David Sims:No, like 10 rich people.

1:54:28Griffin Newman:There would be those cartoons where it was like, you know, five little stick figures. And you're just like, what is this? You sound like James Cameron, who spent a lot of time on television there being like, I knew it wasn't going to work. Mistakes for me. I could have told you that thing was going to explode. It's the funniest thing in the world where he's like, I knew they blew up. Fuck them. Would you stay with a man who spanked your children without permission? It is something I feel very strongly about, actually. I think it would really upset me. But I mean, I don't live in 1973. I know. I don't know if I feel differently then.

1:54:54Griffin Newman:But I'm not pro-spanking, no. It made me think about how, I don't know if you experienced this too, David, is like other kids are much more annoying to me than my own. Like I have a much higher threshold for like what I can put up with from my kids. And like you're around like your kids' friends and you're just like, I can't do this right now. But yeah, no, I mean, right. Hard not to be like judgy. Or just like my tolerance has reached a limit. Like I cannot listen to your jokes anymore. You don't belong to me. I don't have to do this. So I guess Chris Christopherson being like, I'll listen to this kid's bad jokes.

1:55:21because he gets... Do you guys understand the joke that he's trying to tell about the nuts?

1:55:26Griffin Newman:I do not. I can't figure it out. It really pissed me off, honestly, even in the movie. I was like, shut the fuck up. It makes no sense. Because he tells it to Chris Christopherson, too, who's doing the same thing and being like, I'm really doing my best here. I mean, I feel like the joke is that, you know, the nuts are balls. And like, there's kind of like a dirty joke. You sound like the kid explaining it. Right. But it just never quite gets resolved. and they like the adults keep kind of like interrupting him to give sort of what they think is the punchline I think because they want him to shut up and so that ruins it only ever more he's you know he's a little annoying but no spanking you know you don't want to associate discipline with violence would you go live on that ranch though he's growing like alfalfa I think or look okay I don't want to live in Arizona you're a city boy you don't want to live on this ranch well I'm just saying like if I wanted to live in the countryside my guess is I would want a more verdant and moist part of the world.

1:56:22Griffin Newman:I'm not really a dry heat guy. Not what I grew up with. Not really what I'm used to. I think I'd probably need a steamer and not a sauna. You know I am. I love a steamer. I know. Yeah, exactly. What about you, Ben? Would you go live on that ranch? I'd love to ride a dang horse. Yeah, you love the horse. Okay. Yeah. But, you know, are you built for Phoenix? Like, what do you think? Are you Arizona? No. Getting out there? No. Cacti? I couldn't do it. Tumbleweeds? I've actually never been to the desert. Oh. Is that a goal we could make for you? Ooh, road trip. Next time you go to LA, it's not that far.

1:56:54You can drive like two hours out and you're in the desert. And as like an East Coaster, I have the same thing where you get out there, you're like, God, those mountains are like 100 miles away. How is this possible?

1:57:02Griffin Newman:Right. Now, Griffin, I'm going to, I'm not going to want to speak for you, but I'm also going to assume like the Arizona desert, maybe not your preferred club. You're not moving to that ranch with Chris Chris Havre? What about a visit? I did a cup of coffee, you know.

1:57:15David Sims:I've been to Arizona. I did a short film in Albuquerque a couple years ago. Yeah, I remember. And my body almost retired. You got off the plane and your body was like,

1:57:28Griffin Newman:I'm going to sit this one out. You're going to figure it out all by yourself. Basically incompatible.

1:57:32David Sims:We shot a, we were supposed to shoot a thing. It was like a survivalist post-apocalyptic thing. And I'm supposed to be someone who's not well suited for that. And even then, we shot a thing at the top of a mountain, very high altitude. And my eyes were just like, oh, by the way, we're not going to open. I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't keep my eyes open. And we had to shoot around it. And they put me in a car and put the car seat all the way back and then like poured a bunch of water on a towel. And I just lay there with a wet towel over my eyes for like two hours. We got a voice in this guy's lid.

1:58:08David Sims:Reset a little bit. Sounds pretty good. A little bit. Wow. There was also like a dust storm. So let's keep you in the Northeast. I like being here. I would think that Scorsese honestly would be in the same way. I think he does not feel like a creature of the West.

1:58:22Griffin Newman:But I think he found it very interesting. It's just an alien landscape. And film-wise, it was exciting for him to have this alien landscape. Yeah, well, he goes back for Killers of the Flower Moon 40 years later. That's true. And I assume he directed from within a plastic bubble. I sort of assume that too. Probably for both of those movies. The ending is very, very like great, is great cinema. because it's got this sort of touch of ambiguity to it. It's got this kind of earthy naturalism to it. Oh, the variant with them walking down the street. You know, and just him coming back to her not. Now, it's written as more of a straightforward happy ending.

1:58:52Griffin Newman:They get married. Burstyn is just like, I don't want it to have that kind of a cut and dry ending. Like, why does she have to end up with a man? Mm-hmm. So, you know, she insists on rewrites and Warner Brothers is like, we're not fucking doing an unhappy ending. Like, they're like, we had just done Scarecrow. Oh, sure. Paul Mazursky, right? No, it's not Mazursky. I'm sorry. Is it like Grusbard? No, no, it's neither. It's a fool. Is that Carl Rice? Is that who it is? No, come on. I'm so annoyed by this right now. Jerry Shatsby. There we go. It only took seven tries. Fucking obviously Jerry Shatsby.

1:59:29Griffin Newman:Obviously. What an embarrassing thing for me to say. Penn's mocking us right now. Peddick and Needle Park, you know. And he's like, and Scarecrow has this happy ending and that made no fucking money. We're not doing an unhappy ending again. And Ellen Burstyn's like, I'm not saying unhappy ending. I'm just saying, does she need to end up with a man? Like, are you telling me she doesn't end up with a man is an unhappy ending? Everything can't be perfect at the end. And he's like, what I'm telling you is she doesn't end up with a man. We're not making the movie. It's the one time they kind of push back in terms of like, sorry.

1:59:58Griffin Newman:And so they kind of compromise on this, like she sort of says, maybe we'll get back. You know, like it's a little more ambiguous. right they'll try it's a pretty good ending I can't deny you know but you get the kiss in the diner and everyone's clapping and like you get the energy of that scene even leading up to that when they're in the bathroom oh god she really breaks down that is like I think one of the best scenes yeah and like that's more of the emphasis than the one with Christopherson almost so that's the person kind of getting what she wants is that friendship is so important the way she puts it is Chris improvises okay come on I'll take you to Monterey and like It's not about staying on the ranch.

2:00:39Griffin Newman:It's more of a free exchange. The man is willing to support the woman in her aspirations. He's making a sacrifice. Exactly. He's sort of releasing me from the bondage of the old way of thinking. Thank God for Chris. He was smart and aware. So she's pretty happy with how it goes. Scorsese still acknowledges. Yeah, it's a little pat that she gets the handsome man at the end. But I think we do a good job suggesting like it's still probably going to be kind of stormy. Like it's not like Christopherson's like, I'll chill out. It does feel like this scene. I know this vampire hunter.

2:01:14David Sims:Let's go find a blade. It does feel like the other patrons applauding and getting roped up in him having to make the big apology in front of everybody. Feels like the scene that gives them the codex to be able to make a sitcom. Yeah. It's the one scene where it's like the diner is acting like one organism. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, Laura Dern in the background as they smell a child eating ice cream, according to Wikipedia. I think I spotted her. She's like right behind Ellen Burstyn, I think. Because, of course, daughter of Diane Ladd. This is her first on-screen appearance. She's got huge glasses.

2:01:47David Sims:Yes. Oh, yeah.

2:01:49Griffin Newman:Wow. She's so cute. Roger Ebert says the movie's been both attacked. Wait, wait, we should talk about the actual ending of the movie. The actual ending, of course,

2:01:57David Sims:it's what saves the movie for me. Yes. Is that if it ended on everyone applauding her and Christopherson kissing. Well, then that's too packed. But it goes back to the kid. It goes back to her relationship with her son.

2:02:08Griffin Newman:Yeah. I'm laughing because I'm watching the bathroom scene and they're cutting back to the other Vera. Oh, my God. It's so funny. And everyone's getting into a fight and there's so much chaos. And so funny. Tommy saying, Mom, I can't breathe, is also improvised and is very sweet. That's good. You know, like that's because she truly was. Yes. Gripping him too tight. Squeezing him too tight. Yeah. And they're walking down the kind of shitty street and there's a sign in front of them that says Monterey. Like, that's the version of what they're heading toward. I guess I'd live there. I got all that fish.

2:02:36Griffin Newman:I got a big aquarium. Oh, in Monterey? Yeah. Oh, sure. Where is Monterey in California? It's like south of San Francisco. Like, isn't that where Big Little Lies is set? I think so. Yes. And everything went well for those guys. Yeah. If you're not that rich, it might turn out fine for you. Remember how Adam Scott's in that? Yeah. It sure is. It's like, you know, all this, you know, insane drama. happening, he's like, this sucks. Is it Wither Spoon's husband? Yeah, and he's like a tech guy. And she's like, I'm going crazy about the school board.

2:03:02David Sims:And he's like, okay. This is a one and done, right? Limited series, no second season? Did he come back for the second season? I watched it. It's all kind of vanished from my brain in that show. Oh, yeah. Who is Dern's husband? Because Skarsgård's obviously married to Nicole Kidman. And Shailene doesn't have a husband.

2:03:21Griffin Newman:No, but she falls for somebody in the second season. But Dern definitely has a husband. She tells someone, I will not not be rich. Because she's Renata.

2:03:29David Sims:Jeffrey Nordling. Oh, of course. The great. Yes. The great Nordling. And then everyone's just kind of scared of Zoe Kravitz. Yeah, well, she's fucking scared. Oh, I forgot about her. But she's married to some guy, too.

2:03:41Griffin Newman:James Tupper. She's married to someone's ex. Exactly. Is she married to Reese's ex? Yeah, it's Reese's ex. Got it. Okay. And, you know, if you really pay attention, there's a lie or two being told. A big one. Or are they little?

2:03:56David Sims:They could be both, and they could be both at the same time.

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2:05:07Griffin Newman:Roger Ebert. It's just interesting to hear this movie discussed at the time. This movie's been attacked and defended on feminist grounds. It sounds like he's on film Twitter. You know what I mean? He's like, I'll wade into the discourse. Alice doesn't live here anymore. Where are they doing all this fighting? Just in the village voice? I think so. Yeah, in reviews.

2:05:25David Sims:It's fascinating to consider the way there was discourse at a time where only 20 people had a platform of any size. It was so much more peaceful. I mean, still annoying, probably. I guess people would write letters into the newspaper and be like, I disagree with that review. Arguing outside Lincoln Center, probably.

2:05:43Griffin Newman:This is pretty good, Ebert, here, though. I think it belongs somewhere outside ideology, maybe in the area of contemporary myth and romance. You know, the movie seems less banalist than it does about the speculations and daydreams of a lot of women her age who identify with liberation of other women but are unsure on the subject of themselves. I think it's a great way of putting it. Pauline Kael. Did she have an opinion on this?

2:06:05David Sims:She usually was just kind of like, oh, I don't know. It's all right. Three stars. Ben, when David said Pauline Kael, can we edit in like a thunderclass? Someone playing the organ.

2:06:17Griffin Newman:One of the rare films that genuinely deserves to be called controversial. Again, this is Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. It's not fucking Cannibal Holocaust. I think people really fight about it. It's the story of a woman who has a second chance thrust on her. She knows enough not to make the same mistake again, but she isn't sure of much else. Neither is the movie. Oh, Pauline in for the kill after setting up what seemed like a nice review.

2:06:42David Sims:Oh, boy. It's fascinating that people responded to this like it was Lady Ghostbusters, where they're like, what are they trying to push on us?

2:06:47Griffin Newman:She's basically like, the movie is totally enjoyable and funny and absorbing. I just don't think it has a take on its big issue. So why does she think it deserves to be controversial? I don't know. Molly Haskell, the great film critic, and obviously is a leading voice in feminist film criticism and all that, sort of has the same problem of like, they're making a women's picture. Self-consciously. And I think, right, he's sort of playing ironic tribute, and it didn't quite feel authentic enough for me. That makes sense for like a critic at the time watching this movie and being, especially given the opening of it, being like, this is a little too cute for me.

2:07:26Griffin Newman:I think Marty doesn't quite know what he's playing with here or whatever. Now you watch this movie and you're like, my God, if only Hollywood made movies like this anymore. And what a refreshing thing that Scorsese made something like this early in his career with a studio, with a fucking movie star that won Oscars. That's fantastic. At the time, they're basically just kind of like, I don't know. Seems like a bunch of bullshit to me. Good for them. Commercial pablum. They could fight about it back then. They could fight about it back then. You know what? Now we're just kind of like, take me to the back rooms.

2:07:55Griffin Newman:Yeah. We get so many of the worst takes on Scorsese being like, he makes these movies that are about men. He hasn't any understanding of it. And if you just sit someone down and be like, no, this guy made this with the exact amount of curiosity of everything else. Like, it's always been there. I think it's a very good film. It is not like my favorite Martin Scorsese movie. I'm not sure I would put it in his top 10. I'm not sure where I put it, though. Where do I have it? I probably have it in like his top, you know, 20. He's made a lot of good fucking movies. I think when I did my like letterbox ranking after watching all of them, I was like, 15 of them are five-star masterpieces.

2:08:25It's really hard to rank them in that. It's kind of a day-by-day thing.

2:08:28Griffin Newman:Could I share a quote from a film review in The Times? Who is it by? Vincent Canby. Okay, all right. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore has the distinct advantage over most films by growing on you, by getting better and better as it goes along until at the end you look back over it with some of the wonder and pleasure with which you might suddenly acknowledge an unexpected friendship. I thought that was such a solid summary. It's the Diane Ladd of movies. And Camby was not in the Haskell, Kale, like, you know, where he's like, he's a down the line movie critic of like, this is a good experience. Like, you're going to have a good time watching this book.

2:09:06Also him making this between Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, which are just like sad and violent and intense is like exactly the... Taxi Driver coming after this.

2:09:15David Sims:Well, you also just have to think about a lot of people have careers that start out with things like Taxi Driver and Who's That Knocking at My Door or excuse me, Mean Streets and Who's That Knocking at My Door. And then it's like, great, you made your little personal movie. You've shown us that you know how to make a movie on a technical level. Now you're in the studio system. You have to imagine that people could have assumed, is he just going to be a guy who hops from genre to genre and isn't making deeply personal films anymore? and instead after this every movie he makes feels almost every movie he makes feels very personal even when it is a genre exercise are you calling mean streets the guarantor or is this the guarantor that gets taxi drivers it's kind of a double it's like the two pieces it helps

2:09:58Griffin Newman:to have made a movie that succeeded have made money like I don't think anyone's watching this being like I think he's already working on taxi driver in some sense and like the first one for sure sure sure I mean yeah I don't know. We were kind of arguing. New York is the blank check. Oh, sure. That's true. Taxi Driver is more the guarantee. Taxi Driver is not an expensive movie. Yeah. And that's a movie where he's fighting every minute to get anything through. It's just such a crazy movie. Yeah, it is. But New York, New York is more him being like, I want a lot of money to make something that is awesome.

2:10:28Yeah, yeah.

2:10:28Griffin Newman:And they're like, we think you can make that work. Of course, while he's making it, he's like, I think everyone's going to like it, which is the crazy part. Was he doing any drugs at the time that would have clouded his judgment? Anything about that? I don't think Martin Scorsese never messed around with that sort of stuff.

2:10:41David Sims:And his marriage was going very well. You can see on screen, it has a great view of relationships. Absolutely. A fascinating movie. We almost had you do that one. I know. And I got really excited about it. And it's a tough movie. I don't love it the way that I love Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. I'm so glad I get to talk about this. But New York, New York is like such a rich text. I feel like I'm similar to you in that I really like wrestling with it. And the stuff in it that works, I think is like exceptional.

2:11:04Griffin Newman:Oh, it's a fascinating, it's what you guys are saying. I think if you're out here being like, that is one of his best movies. I think even Marty would kind of be like, are you sure about that? Like that movie is, movie is flawed. But you see, the soundstage opener of this leads you directly to New York. Oh, correct. He's like, give me more of those, you know, backdrops painted. I'm ready. And you know, there's a, there's a mean boyfriend or two in that film.

2:11:27David Sims:There is in fact one major mean boyfriend. One in particular. thinking of kind of worst boyfriend in the history of movies. I can't wait for you guys to, because you got to your Scorsese rankings, but ranking like De Niro as the guy who will ruin your life, like at the end of Scorsese. I mean, you can throw Kytel in there too if you want to. Between the two of them, they have a lot. Just so much to choose from. This is a good question. Who is the, like which De Niro is the best dating option in the Scorsese canon?

2:11:52Griffin Newman:In the Scorsese canon?

2:11:53David Sims:I'm like,

2:11:54Griffin Newman:is it Irishman guy? Well, I was going to say, if I'm going to fight anyone, I want to fight that guy because he can't even punch near you. He's got a hell of a kid. Yeah, if you're air, if you're air, you're like, oh no! He's kicking I might go with Johnny Boy from Mean Streets Yeah Johnny Boy is just kind of a rascal

2:12:13David Sims:Yeah He's trying hard You can only date him if you're in your early 20s Can I date him in Casino

2:12:20Griffin Newman:And kind of just sneak on by I'm not doing coke like Sharon Stone does That relationship is not good You don't think so? You can't stay with him for too long Yeah but I feel like if I'm with him in Casino I'm just kind of like I got a hotel room Fine I'll leave you alone like whatever I don't know I'm not gonna

2:12:37David Sims:this is your version of Ben's this movie would end with me owning an island you're running the casino you're busy you're stressed out I get it I don't think it ends well

2:12:45Griffin Newman:I think bottom is Cape Fear you gotta have Cape Fear at the bottom I want to text the driver though do you think Max Katie like picks up some women who he doesn't aren't reconnected someone he wants to fuck with and like has a good time and then moves on you're forgetting the Iliad of Douglas I know I know but she's like she's part of the whole scheme though like if she's like not connected to that I think it's a bad sign I think it's a real bad sign

2:13:05David Sims:It's possible, but I don't think you want to play those on.

2:13:08Griffin Newman:It is just funny that Travis Bickle might not be bottom because of Max. I think he has to not be bottom.

2:13:13David Sims:Let's also say, like, Travis Bickle's more attractive than Rupert Pumpkin. He's a looker. So you have to put him above Rupert. Rupert doesn't know how to fuck. Rupert does not know how to fuck.

2:13:24Griffin Newman:He's not going to shoot anyone, probably. Probably? Well, with taxidermy, he's not going to shoot someone.

2:13:29David Sims:He commits crimes. He has a gun. That's not loaded. Are we throwing out Killers of the Flower Moon? like that's not my top pick but not the worst this is what I'm saying that guy ends up being like top three and he commits genocide he does

2:13:45Griffin Newman:but he's got a he's got a great car great goggles driving gloves what more do you need in a man I think Irishman is near the top and Anna Paquin literally doesn't even want to speak to him I think by default that's number one and you know what he's always probably like you know I killed Jimmy Hoff and it's like sure you killed Jimmy Hoff where's my clam Jimmy Hoff on the other hand take him home

2:14:09David Sims:yeah well I cannot wait to do Irishman bits I swear to you

2:14:17Griffin Newman:that was my favorite thing is like on Twitter I would post him saying they wouldn't dare anytime it was like Taika Waititi promises like a madcap satire for his name Taika they wouldn't dare Yeah. Wouldn't let him do that.

2:14:33David Sims:Whereas my response when I see a headline like that, it is what it is. It's one of those, it is what it is. That movie rocks.

2:14:40Griffin Newman:That movie is the best. It's for cool kids. It's so good. I mean, this entire series is you guys being like, you know this movie? Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. Let's do the box office. This film came out on December 9th, 1974. A little Christmas treat for you. Ah, under the tree. Number one at the box office is a film that has been out for, I want to say, conservatively five months. And it's doing quite well at the box office, which is maybe speaking to some cultural issues in our country at the time. It's about a guy who something very bad happens to a member of his family. Death Wish? It's been out for five months.

2:15:14Griffin Newman:Yeah, and it is a box office sensation. Wow. You know, and some people might be like, well, that was terrible and I need to process this motion. And he's like, where's my piss?

2:15:24David Sims:And he does it so well that other people come to him and they're like, can you solve my family shit? Sure.

2:15:30Griffin Newman:Why not? Death Wish, Charles Bronson and Michael Winner film. Yes. Death Wish. Anyone ever seen? I've seen it. I've never seen the Death Wishes. Seems like a bummer. The first one is like a pretty effective movie. Like you definitely get it. And it's even movies that are about how New York is like a fucking crime soaked hellhole in the 70s. You watch them now and you're like, New York City, baby. It's great to see her on screen.

2:15:56David Sims:The second one is the one that's like unbelievably nasty. I believe the second one

2:16:00Griffin Newman:is where they're just kind of like, okay, so what worked about this is just like violence and racism, right? Yeah. I have not obviously seen like Death Wish 4, The Crackdown, which is funny to think that by 4 he's like, I think it's time to start cracking down. I've been taking it too easy. Time to expand outside of my problems. What's the Simpsons joke? And now I'm going to Emmett's fix it to fix Emmett. He's on like the Phil Silver show. That's good. All right. Number two is a disaster movie. The Sidon Adventure? Nope. Is it Towering Inferno? Keep going. Earthquake. Earthquake!

2:16:36David Sims:There we go. And that's your 40X, right? It wasn't called Shake-O-Rama, but it was called something like that.

2:16:43Griffin Newman:It was called Sense Around. Sense Around. Ben, there's an earthquake. Did you do the earthquake ride at Old School Universal Studios? Yeah. Just some guy. I can't remember if it's that they put motors under the seats or they put speakers under the seat.

2:16:59David Sims:It was speakers.

2:17:01Griffin Newman:I think they would like blast like basically subwoofers to make your seat vibrate a little bit. It's a little like the Dolby theaters now. Right. It was like a D-box, sort of like a proto D-box.

2:17:11David Sims:No, but closer to Dolby where you're like, the sound is so loud, the chair shakes rather than the movie is synced up to shake in a specific way. Yeah, and it's not like built on some gimbal that's shaking the floor or anything like that. It's gimbal-less. It's gimbal-less. This is some gimbal-less bullshit. It's a Macy's. No gimbals. No gimbals.

2:17:27Griffin Newman:Number three at the box office is a sequel to a sort of Death Wish-esque kind of like shock hit. It's not Billy Jack, is it? It fucking is Billy Jack. Which one is it? It's the second. Goes to Washington? No. He's yet to go to Washington. Billy Jack did eventually go to Washington. I didn't know that was a thing. I bet he told them to clean up their act. Drain that swamp.

2:17:48David Sims:The return of Billy Jack?

2:17:49Griffin Newman:It's called The Trial of Billy Jack.

2:17:52David Sims:Of course it went on trial.

2:17:53Griffin Newman:They put him on trial! Oh no, I'm so sorry. The second film is called Billy Jack, but I'm forgetting that the first film is called The Born Losers, and that actually introduces Billy Jack. But he's not the main character. No, and I think Billy Jack, the 1971 film, was the surprise, like, you know, essentially an indie film.

2:18:11David Sims:And I think there is in a Washington, I was thinking of the trial of Billy Jack. That's what I was...

2:18:16Griffin Newman:No, there definitely is. There is? Is that the... Oh, no, Billy Jack goes to Washington. That's the third one. Okay, so... He cleaned it up. And then the return of Billy Jack, which was not released. Yes, I know this. In which he takes on child pornographers and I guess they were kind of just like, let's call it quinnacle.

2:18:33David Sims:Wasn't there also some death involved in that production?

2:18:36Griffin Newman:Maybe, let's see. I want to say it was like also not completed for some reason. It was not completed. 17 minutes were filmed. Oh, good. He suffered a head injury while making it and they ran out of money. Yeah, so no one died, but you know. So that's number three at the box office. We've threatened to do the Billy Jacks on Patreon. Let's do it. Let's jack it up. Do those and the Death Wishes all together. Yeah. That sounds like a bummer. Anti-woke winter. Number four is a sports film. Mm-hmm. Kind of one of the original sort of sports comedies, you know, as Bad News Bears has come around the corner.

2:19:13Griffin Newman:It's not, well, it's not Slapshot. No. Worse than Slapshot. It's not Longest Yard. In fact, it is Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard. It's a ruddy picture.

2:19:26David Sims:Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard. Ever seen it? No, but he wasn't the real artist behind it. The greatest film producer who ever lived. The bravest man. Albert S. Ruddy as portrayed by Miles Teller. Hey, I got an idea for an offer.

2:19:40Griffin Newman:In the Paramount Plus picture. Making the offer references in 2026. This is more for you. Griffin will be making offer references on his deathbed.

2:19:47David Sims:It's the best TV show that's ever happened. It's also incredible and it's never been more relevant because Michael is the most offer-coded movie that has ever existed. With Miles Teller in it. Down to Miles Teller basically reprising his performance. Miles Teller as Al Ruddy, as John Branca. I just saw a movie that Miles Teller is good in,

2:20:04Griffin Newman:and it's one of those things where you're like, right, like, he just needs, well, you know, good director, he needs a character to work with here. Like, he's not the fool that I take him for these days

2:20:17David Sims:all the time. Well, because, like, a businessman will develop a movie about how good of a businessman he was and then hire Miles Teller and be like, where is this?

2:20:25Griffin Newman:It's crazier than that. A businessman will make a movie about the Godfather and be like, and the person who should get the most credit is me, not Francis Ford Coppola, you know, Al Pacino.

2:20:37David Sims:It's a much smaller part, but Michael has major tones of that, of like, his story's going to continue and Bronco's going to save him. Right. The offer, of course, has the greatest screenwriting credit of all time, which is based on the experiences of Al Ruddy making The Godfather. It's not even based on a fucking book. It's based on a couple conversations. He sat down and dictated it, and that's all you need.

2:20:59Griffin Newman:I don't even know if he dictated it. Number five at the box office is a film that I wish featured characters like Guile, Chun-Li. Okay, is this Lady Street Fighter, or is this the original Street Fighter? It is a film, simply a Japanese martial arts film called, starring the great Sonichiro? Yes. called The Street Fighter. I believe I recently bought the Shout Factory box set of this. Sounds like something. You'll get to that one in 2029 or whatever. Yeah, sure. Let's hope so. It's just so funny when like the Radiance, you know, drop comes and it's like, this Yakuza film and I'm like, I'll just get it.

2:21:33Griffin Newman:You don't even need to tell me. And I'm like, how many fucking Yakuza films do I have on like, you know, waiting to be watched at this point? It's an addiction, Katie. You're not in a Blu-ray addiction. No, no. Do you have a disc player? Yeah. Sure. I've gotten discs that I've collected over various times, like getting them through press stuff mostly. But no, you guys in your physical media thing, I don't... Don't include me. Okay, I wasn't looking at you. I'm just looking... Ben's normal. He doesn't have any physical media problems. No, he hates it. Well, I do. Yeah, there we go. But it's vinyl.

2:22:03Griffin Newman:You're the vinyl. You already did this with the vinyl, I feel like. The cracks. The hands and the pots. Okay, unfortunately, I am starting to get into art books, which are, you know... Well, they're really small, right? and light weight. Yeah, and light weight.

2:22:16David Sims:You just kind of throw one in your tote bag. You run around town. Easy to store. You should get into like art novellas where it's just like two paintings. Number six at the box office is a film I know you're very fond of, Griffin. The Little Prince. It is a movie I love. Have you ever seen the Stanley Doan and Little Prince? No, I have not. With, of course, Bob Fosse. It's one of the wildest movies ever made and Bob Fosse plays the snake in it and he creates Michael Jackson's persona. know. Oh, I mean, he did that in so many of the other dance movies. Yeah. But this, he's dressed like head to toe black with like a jazzy glove.

2:22:51David Sims:He's got the hat. And the white socks. I think I've seen clips of this. He like moonwalks. Yeah. It's a famous, like his dancing in it is remembered. I think I have seen that. Gene Balder plays the fox. He would make my best supporting actor ballot this year. He's un-fucking-believable in that movie. I love how long Stanley Donan's career was. That guy was making movies for decades. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Dude, Donan, one of these days. Come on, guys. I wanted to Donan. But it's a lot. that's a lot of movies yeah there's

2:23:14Griffin Newman:maybe there's a way to sort of hack it I don't know number 7 is one of my favorite films of all time The Taken of Pelham 1, 2, 3 yeah Taken of New York number 8 is Airport 1975 which is what is that the second one wait so it came out in 74 but it's called Airport 1975 they're getting ready for the excitement

2:23:36David Sims:of tomorrow like new car models Blues Brothers 2000 came out in 1998 obviously the comp yeah obviously

2:23:44Griffin Newman:which is Charlton Heston Karen Black George Kennedy whatever a million people are in that number nine a reissue Cabaret we love it so they 72 films that's what like two years after but you know there's no fucking DVDs back then if a movie was a hit

2:24:00David Sims:at that scale they would re-release it every year you know what I would love to see in theaters right the second Cabaret sounds great

2:24:06Griffin Newman:number five number ten is a movie called Law and Disorder I have to look it up I don't know there's so many like visual Carol O 'Connor, Ernest Borgnine. Oh, I know. And you're telling me there's law and a disorder in this one?

2:24:19David Sims:And you're telling me their shirts are tucked in properly, right? Nothing rumpled, sleeves all the way down. Nary a belly in sight.

2:24:27Griffin Newman:I'm feeling a little anxious about this one. Let me run the plot here by you. In the crime-infested New York City of the 70s, two residents and friends played by Carol O 'Connor and Ernest Borgnine. So, you know, grumpy barrel-shaped white guys. decide to join the auxiliary wing of the New York City Police Department to help take back their neighborhood from criminals? Do you think they do that in a responsible way?

2:24:52David Sims:Vincent Canby called it a gentle, touching, sometimes disruptively funny movie. Wow. This is all important practice for Taxi Driver. You guys need to watch all of these before doing that episode.

2:25:05Griffin Newman:Maybe this is more of just a straightforward comedy. Maybe. Albert Finney is an uncredited producer on it.

2:25:11David Sims:What the fuck is this? sure, I'll produce it for you. I didn't know uncredited producers was a thing. Because when Finney produced,

2:25:17Griffin Newman:he would talk like his character Nero Brockovich.

2:25:20David Sims:It's one of... Aaron! It's one of Angelo Badalamenti's first credits, but he did it under the name Andy Baddale. There you go. He was trying to pass.

2:25:29Griffin Newman:Or maybe Andy Badale. And then they tried to give him some espresso, and he went, shit. And they were like, oh, fuck, this guy's Italian. Fuck, goddammit, he's Italian. It's just crazy that one of the Simpsons writers went in the fucking submersible before it blew up.

2:25:45David Sims:Yes. Yes, it is. That's all. Would you ever go into submersible?

2:25:49Griffin Newman:Uh, uh, no. Nor I. I'm going to answer for you on that one and it is no. All right. Ben is sending us ad copy and I got to go pick up my daughter so I think we should bring... Ben and I have to go see Toy Story 5 again. Oh.

2:26:06David Sims:Ben's smiling. I signed up for it. Okay. I liked it a lot. No, I liked it too. What Ben said to me was I really want to see that again before. It's rare for me. It was interesting. I will be seeing it again with my daughter. I will be seeing it with my children probably on Sunday as well. They are. I don't think I've told you this, Griffin, that like they didn't think they were into it because like they don't have a lot of Toy Story knowledge. It's not like one of our movies. And then we saw the trailer before Hoppers or something like that. And they're both like, oh, yeah, absolutely.

2:26:31Griffin Newman:That trailer nailed it for them. I truly wonder what my daughter's going to make of it. But she's more a fan of the other films. Anecdotally, I mean. She loves the other films and she loves Jesse. I think that'll be great for her. Oh, yeah. Well, it's a Jesse movie, right? It is. But I just, I truly wonder if the message will resonate with her at all because it's a little over her head at this age, I would say.

2:26:50David Sims:Anecdotally, I've witnessed a couple examples of kids who do not previously like Toy Story being interested in this one and or loving this one. It certainly looks like it's going to make a lot of money. The pump feels very primed. I was so surprised that it, because like, you know, Charlie, again, like he's 10, like we saw Disclosure Day, like he's ready for the Odyssey, but like Toy Story, it's, you know, it works. My 10-year-old little cousin, who always loves to say that he hates the Toy Story movies, the thing that's really challenging me, testing me. The foulest mouth I've ever seen. He's rebelling against you.

2:27:19I'm so sorry.

2:27:20David Sims:He did say to me, when does Toy Story 5 come out? I can't wait to see that. We got to take George and Charlie to the movies together someday. That's the dream. That's interesting. They might get along. Okay. All right. We're going to make it happen. Someday we're going to make it happen. Katie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, guys. Katie, you're always welcome on. I check with Griffin and David. I will find my way back in whenever you'll have me. Auntie of Blankies? Was that the nickname we gave you last time? I think so, yeah, because Emily is the mother and I think I get to be the auntie.

2:27:45So I will gladly take that role.

2:27:47David Sims:Prestige Junkie? Yeah, Prestige Junkie at the Ankler. Me and Chris Rosen talking about award stuff and I have guests on, including you guys, whenever the time comes. I did an Avatar episode that people were really normal about. That was one of those social clips that like, I was like, why am I still getting notifications about this? Five months later. It was so crazy. It was insane. Please get your next hottest take ready and come on back on. I will. Well, Big Jim's got to announce another Avatar movie, but I'll think of something else. Oh, and I have to say Fighting in the War Room because David O 'Reilly never mentions it.

2:28:19No. Someone's got to do it. We tried to make him do it. Ben Hossley had guests not that long ago. We never have guests. That was so fun. It's like you and John Ratzenberger are like the only two guests who've ever come on. John Ratzenberger? That was like 15 years ago. Really?

2:28:30Griffin Newman:I have guessed it on Fighting in the War Room many times. I don't know about many. like it's usually too lazy for it but yeah Ben came on and talked about Slow Christmas it was a great time yeah you came on one time and talked about The Tick I think I'm also on the iconic episode I think Griffin is too where David is getting married and we're all together oh yes oh on the porch that was a porch record a porch record you're right I have a picture of you guys recording that I'm gonna find it that's a good picture yeah we did a lot of like wedding episodes because we were all getting married because they just had

2:29:00David Sims:their 10th anniversary right no it'll be it'll be next year because Charlie was a baby. I had just left New York and I drove back up for that wedding. So it's in... That sounds... You're right, you're right. It was in 2017. My wife... No, no, 17. It was 17. Their anniversary

2:29:12Griffin Newman:is my wife's birthday and she was turning 29. I'm finding this picture of you two sitting on the porch and yakking. Yeah. That was what we did back then.

2:29:23David Sims:That's what we did back then. And it's very different from what we're doing right now. Yakking in a room indoors with a porch. Oh my God, you guys are so cute. I'm sending this picture down. I don't want to see that. I'm going to have a fucking existential crisis looking at this picture. Try having a 10-year-old where you're like, you were just a baby, weren't you? Now all the listeners can share in it. Anyone who's listened to the Titanic episode recently. Well, a decade of dreams, a decade of dreams of Charlie. You want me back? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm on back. You can't get rid of me. Charlie will be back.

2:29:53Oh, my God. I would love, especially because you're not doing video. He does not want to be like on video anything. But coming and talking to a microphone, I think he could do it.

2:30:00David Sims:Yeah. He's got to come back to his birthplace. Do a family trip. Yeah, he's got to do it. We're coming. New York City's own. He's a native. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Taxi Driver with Tracy Letts. We apologize in advance. The episode's a little short. We were facing a couple hard outs.

2:30:19Griffin Newman:It's the longest episode we've ever done.

2:30:20David Sims:Fortunately, by... Four hours? Yeah.

2:30:22Griffin Newman:Luckily, I murder everyone in the room when it's done, so... Yeah, it's admissible in court, this episode. Just kidding. In my memory, as long as it was, a very good episode. Yes, I think so. Yeah, we were pretty locked in with old Tracy. That's part of why it's stressful. It's like we're really trying to be present and effective with Mr. Tracy Letts. But he also is like, I'm going for it. Yeah, he's like, how long? How long is the record? And I was like, don't nobody tell him. Well, I feel like when you have your friends come in and try to break the record, you can be like, no, shut up. You're not doing it.

2:30:51But when it's Tracy Letts, even though he is your friend, he's Tracy Letts. You kind of have to let the man cook.

2:30:55David Sims:He threw the Pulitzer down on the table and he started cooking.

2:30:59Griffin Newman:over on the Patreon recently we just put out Resident Evil Apocalypse

2:31:05David Sims:it's the end of the Resident Evil franchise, oh no wait no there are four more god this photo, Jesus Christ look at these babies I look better now

2:31:15Griffin Newman:you can sign up for that as well as other bonus content over at patreon.com slash blank check

2:31:21David Sims:do I look better now? I'm gonna say yes I think you actually might I think I might people figure out how to dress better I looked pretty good. I need to tell myself this. Yeah. And as always, kiss my grits.

2:31:36David Sims:What was I going to say about Marshall Lucas stained glass? I don't know. Something funny. Yeah. It would have been really good. Imagine the funniest thing.

2:31:46Griffin Newman:Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

2:32:24Griffin Newman:Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

2:32:54is the only purest thing in this world.

2:32:56Griffin Newman:Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Avatar Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG-13.