The King of Comedy with Stavros Halkias

13:16And that's the kind of shit that sustains you when you're 14 in a village with no running water. And that's who we should be. That's who young boys should want to jack off to. Okay? We should not be a pedophilic nation and Helen Hunt should have been a sex symbol at the time. Thanks for saying that.

13:30David Sims:Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. I think part of it is that I you saying it was not respected or acknowledged enough at the time. I think Helen Hunt's contemporaries were like, yeah, that's Helen Hunt. She's sturdy. I think we were of the exact right generation to be like, fuck, that's a grown up. That is an adult woman. Like you saying she was older. It's like she wasn't old. She wasn't older, but I saw it when I was 12. It was that when we were like children, she was playing characters that didn't feel like they were 15. Yeah, exactly. Versus a lot of like big female movie stars were still playing characters that were so underdeveloped that they felt like children.

14:05Or even pretending to be eight years younger than they are. You know what I mean?

14:08Griffin Newman:What if like my wife is like, okay, come on, let's have the conversation. What's your hall pass? And I'm like, Helen Hunt now. Hunting season. Number one. Exactly. And she's like, okay. And I'm like, I'll keep going. Caroline in the city. What's she up to? Oh, Carolina Thompson. Another good one. Yeah.

14:26David Sims:I mean, more tyranny. That's a huge one.

14:28Griffin Newman:Oh, tyranny. Right. Get out of here. It's mostly must-y TV. That was my whole problem with the affair. I think that's actually what we're all coming to. Right. It's just not TV TV. We were all 13 when fucking that. On Thursday. That's our sexual awakening. I mean, of course. It's very logical. We just weirdly jacked off to mad about you. And now we're like, why don't people talk about Helen Hunt so much? But like, wait, yeah, no, wait. What did I just say, Griff? You said more tyranny than the affair. No, my whole problem with the affair, right? Where he's like, I want to have an affair. I'm like, more tyranny is so boring.

15:00Griffin Newman:I'm like, more tyranny. You got more tyranny at home. No need for an affair, my friend. You are set. First episode of News Radio is. Oh, holy fuck. No, you should know more. I didn't actually know the. And I obviously know who she is. She cheats on him too. They all have, there's many affairs. They had to get like six seasons. And then like.

15:18David Sims:The later season, they like flash forward to the future. It's a weird show. It was a show about two couples and then like three of the four people quit. And it was like, the show's still on? That's awesome. What's it about now? I don't know. And you're like, he's starting new affairs. Cheating on whom? His wife and his mistress have both quit the show in protest. I think they got, yeah. That's awesome.

15:41Griffin Newman:of it. I'm not familiar with The Affair. That was one of my greatest, like, the Bill Simmons when he was just like, watch The Affair. If you're like 15 years married with your wife, that's just, no roller coaster can like compare to just watching that show with your wife Sunday night and just like, when do I make a joke? When do I try to deflate the tension? It was the funniest fucking review of a show ever.

16:01David Sims:Now, did you feel that at all? Watching The Affair? No, no. Stop you re-watching this movie because I will say our producer Ben, and Ben and I both used to do stand-up, have not in some years he came in and was like it poked wounds it got in my body the shoulders tensed up

16:19Griffin Newman:I just have not interacted with guys like this in a long time

16:23David Sims:but they nailed it by the way they nailed this guy so hard and almost predicted it as I said to Ben it's crazy that this movie is before even the 90s comedy boom where you're like this guy multiplies by like 8 ,000 at this moment culturally it was a little niche to care this much about being a comedian and not be funny. Totally. Versus the amount of people now who will like line up around the country to put their name in the Kill Tony. Yeah. That's a great. I mean, what is Kill Tony if not the Rupert Pumpkin marathon? Every 10 ,000 Rupert Pumpkins. You know, it's like that's a great point. I mean, look, this first of all, Scorsese in general, he's my guy.

17:05Like, truly, I don't give a fuck if it's the most hack shit of all time. and especially watching this because my approach to this was like I've seen his movies all over the place, right? I never looked at him in an academic way, let's say. I approached this where I was like I'm going to end like what if King of Comedy is the last movie he made? Like I'm not going to watch After Hours. Oh, sure. I'm going to take these chronologically and I'm just going to get a vibe of like these in order, whatever and watching those it's fucking crazy how much he nailed I mean between Taxi Driver and King of Comedy that's everybody on the fucking internet he nailed both fucking guys he nailed like incels and he nailed parasocial relationships and me watching this I have an interesting relationship with the movie because the first time I saw it I think I talked about this last time I worked at one of the last blockbusters in existence there's a liquor store now on O'Donnell Street in Baltimore uh right it's great good liquor store too but and i i basically got that job because that was my first it was the truly i was 19 and it was the summer where i was like i think i want to do stand-up i think i'm interested in like fucking movies acting a little more than i used to be and so i would just get whatever and i was like i made a list of people that i had heard were good at making movies right scorsese the cohen yeah spielberg you know everybody knows spielberg actually uh but it was like it was like you know basically scorsese honestly if i'm being honest it was mostly scorsese the cohen's and then like just random fucking movies i heard were good right um like uh like fucking platoon or whatever the fuck you know what i mean like maybe i looked up i don't know exactly how i went through it best pictures but the only directors that i really keyed in on were scorsese and the cohen's you've now done both on this podcast yeah yeah true yeah Which is fucking awesome.

19:00Griffin Newman:So who should we do next? I don't know. I mean, you guys did Michael Mann already. We did. To do the trifecta of the like, just bro, loud guys our age. I mean, Tarantino, obviously, if you haven't done that. We haven't done him. We'll do him one day. Yeah. He makes movie 10. Yeah.

19:15David Sims:Yeah. Hey, Quinn. Challenge issued. Yeah. We'll do the series as soon as you make that 10th picture. Or decide to get over yourself. Yeah, dude. Make as many. Yeah. Anyway, that's a whole different conversation. But so I watched this movie out of context, no idea for who Scorsese is, whatever. And I'm also I basically am Rupert Pumpkin when I watch this movie because I'm 19 about to start doing open mics. And I have this delusion of like, I'm the fucking man. I haven't done dick. Right. I'm fucking I'm just like I've never accomplished anything creatively. Right. I did an open mic at my dorm. so I watched this movie when I was 19 and I'm like it was so funny coming back to it because I dude I didn't remember anything except him kidnapping the guy for stage time and as Rupert Pumpkin I'm watching that being like oh he did fucking good he's fucking kidding like oh his jokes aren't so bad he's you know he did okay like and I completely miss the like how pathetic this guy is like I completely forgot like in my memories I didn't even remember the romantic subplot, the weird romantic subplot.

20:22David Sims:No, and the kidnapping comes late, and it's less than half of the movie. It's barely, it's the, yeah, it's like 20 minutes.

20:28Griffin Newman:Before I saw this movie, I thought the movie was like 10 minutes in, he kidnaps Jerry Lewis. That's what the movie's about. Like, that's the entire plot of the movie.

20:35David Sims:I have to say it.

20:36Griffin Newman:Go ahead.

20:36David Sims:I had not watched this film again since tangling with one Richard T. Joker. Sure, yeah, right. I forgot. It's crazy how much they rip it off. It's 90%. And then it just overcomplicates it and adds so much extra shit. Well, no, you're overdoing it. All it is is Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver plus King of Commerce. And that was the thing that... Yeah, that's what he did. That was his pitch. And by the way, awesome. Like, here's the thing. I don't... I was in the complete middle because I feel like, you know, a lot of people hated the movie. A lot of people... I had friends who, like, both hated it. I believe you guys hated it.

21:09Did not like it. Didn't like it. I didn't like it. It's fine.

21:12Griffin Newman:It's kind of stuck with me in a weird way, but no. But here's the thing. I'm more into following it, though. But... But the people who act like it was a fucking masterpiece were out of their fucking minds. The people who you guys are like, it sucked, Nick. You're fucking stupid too. Because the movie was, here's what this shit is. And this thing, that's all Marvel and DC. This is what they should be. I had to watch Marvel dog shit of where it's like, what they're stealing is like Josh Whedon's bullshit. This is true. You know what I mean? Finally, a dumb bullshit comic book movie, which the shit I like.

21:44I love Scorsese.

21:45David Sims:Shouldn't you try to rip off the good shit? Just wipe off the good shit. Todd Phillips is the fuck. I think he's a great director. I like Todd Phillips a lot. I'm a big Todd Phillips defender, and I struggle with the Joker movies. But otherwise, I basically like all of his stuff. But the problem that everybody has with this and every fucking comic book movie is like, look, they're not fucking movies. All right? Let's just, I mean, Scorsese's so right about it. Scorsese nailed it. And by the way, I like them, right? But don't fucking tell me the Winter Soldier is a fucking cold war. What do you mean?

22:13That's like three days of the Condor part two. Get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of it. That shit is, yeah, it is for fucking babies. If you needed to teach a baby what fucking Three Days of the Condor is, show him fucking Winter Soldier. The same way if you want to show a baby or an incredibly stoned 30-year-old taxi driver plus king of comedy with some dumb Batman bullshit mixed in because that's the only way you can make a fucking movie, great. But that's all it is. I'll never watch it again. I saw it in the theaters, loved it. We'll never see it again.

22:41David Sims:I think that movie looks incredible. Yeah. That's what I like. There's like the craft in that movie, I think.

22:47Griffin Newman:The movie looks good. You're halfway there. Truly. It's kind of the Inurido thing, too, where people like I hate him. And I'm like, his movies don't really work for me. At least they look good. You know, like it's just something.

22:57David Sims:I just think letting that. I mean, it's less about backhanding Joker, more about what's so impressive about Taxi Driver and King of Comedy is by letting the character graduate to being a literal supervillain and also telegraphing that by the poster. or that's the makeup, that's all of that, takes you off the hook of why these movies were so hot button when they came out, where people saw a little too much of themselves and pushed back. Of course. Because they're not giving you the remove of, well, this is the guy who fights Batman. Right. That's a good point. I mean, yes, it neuters it the same way every fucking Marvel movie.

23:31It's like, at the end of the day, no matter what they're building up, oh, it's two fucking guys shooting lasers at each other. Who gives a fuck? Shooting lasers at a hole in the sky. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, but that's the thing with those movies. And you're absolutely right. I guess this probably didn't do well because after this he had to go make... This movie was a bomb. This movie was a bomb and was reviled.

23:51David Sims:Awesome. People were angry about it.

23:54Griffin Newman:He's so good. I would say, I mean, there was some good reviews. It got some critics awards. It's not like it was completely critically reviled, but it did not.

24:02David Sims:Sure. Yeah, I wouldn't say it was... He's got the famous story that he tells in the Mr. Scorsese documentary of, I think it was Isabella Rossellini called him and says she wanted a divorce. Last Temptation of Christ had just fallen apart for the third time. It was New Year's Eve. He's alone in an apartment. He turns on the TV and whatever local chuckle fucks go like. And the biggest bomb of the year, the king of comedy, that's our turkey for...

24:29Griffin Newman:So that was Entertainment Tonight that called it the turkey or floppy of the year or whatever. But like, I think the high level reviews were good. It was one of those movies that tested so bad that like the studio was almost kind of amused. Right. Where they were like, oh, this isn't, there's nothing to be done. Like, we showed this to Kansas City and got a zero. Like, it's over. We'll release it. It will make no money.

24:52David Sims:Scorsese was not on a box office run, but De Niro had become such a major star that they were like, Yeah, De Niro is a real star, right. Well, there's a baseline, like, the floor for how poorly a De Niro movie can do is pretty high now.

25:05Griffin Newman:Right, right, right, right. And then this movie made hundreds of thousands of dollars. It made, now, now, now, It made$2.5 million. Oh, okay. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting, De Niro. We'll talk about that. But right, it's like... He wanted to do this one too, which is interesting. Oh, this is a him movie.

25:19David Sims:Marty didn't want to do it. This was De Niro being like, please, please, please, I love this script. I want to play this guy.

25:25Griffin Newman:You know, it's like... He was awesome. At this point, Griff, I will say about De Niro, he's basically still the Mean Streets, Godfather, Raging Bull guy. Now, that's a good guy to be. He has two Oscars. He's got two Oscars. He also has The Deer Hunter, which was a gigantic hit. He has already made like 1900 Last Tycoon and New York, New York which are all like big swings that don't work. No, they're all good. I'm just saying like at the time those were all movies that didn't connect. There are a couple flops. So he's not quite, because it's like after this Midnight Run. No, that's not for five years.

26:00Griffin Newman:So it's like he's got a weird it's like Once Upon a Time in America which was like a mess on release. I love that fucking movie. And, you know, later iconic. It's like a fucking four-hour movie. It's so good. Yeah, if you watch The Shortcut. Right. If you watch what Leonie calls The Compromise. That's literally what my mom... My mom showed me Godfathers 1 and 2 and Once Upon a Time in America. God bless your mom. I know. And completely out of nowhere. Just the sweetest, like, little Eastern European woman that'll bake anybody cookies. Loved mob movies. She's the reason I got into this shit. Because they're romantic.

26:34Griffin Newman:You know, they got a romance. But then it's like Falling in Love, Brazil. The Mission, which was a sort of, you know, award success, but not a big hit. It's 87, 88, where then he suddenly is, I think, just finally like, I think I should make fun movies. So he does like Untouchables, Angel Heart, Midnight Run, We Are No Angels. Like he starts just like clearly picking stuff that's like a little more down the middle. He's not box office. Who's this guy? He's playing motherfucking Lou Cypher and Angel Heart. Who's this guy? Well, the movie's called Angel Heart.

27:06David Sims:Clearly he must have the heart of an angel That's a movie I have not seen

27:11Griffin Newman:Since I was a teenager Bro that's a nice throw it on in the background You can miss half of it Lisa Bonet Lisa Bonet's fucking throwing 120 miles an hour Out of control How hot she is in that And honestly everybody's kind of a piece of ass De Niro's got evil scary daddy devil shit And then Mickey Rourke's in his like you know No he's still hot He hasn't done it all yet The beginning of twink death is happening to him. You know what I mean? Like, he doesn't exactly blow up like most guys do. He does some other shit. But he's still, there's some fucking awesome sex scenes in that movie. Now, wait a second.

27:46David Sims:I'm a little confused. David, you said he hasn't done it all yet. And you gestured to your face. By done it all, you mean several boxing matches. And that's the full extent of what he did, right?

27:57Griffin Newman:Is that what Rourke says? Much like where Michael Jackson was like, I got one little nose job and a little thing in my chin. That's it. It's regular.

28:07David Sims:The works line is like, I hate knives. I'd never let a knife touch me. Wow. The boxing matches fucked me up so much. I had to have a few medical reconstructive surgeries. Damn, dude. I've never elected to anything. That sucks. I mean, all these guys, first of all, what's the point of living in a misogynist society if you can't just, like, like, it just, like, look, it's not good by the way but we're not going to change it in our let's work to change in our lifetimes and in the meantime just don't just fucking age like shit who cares the thing about

28:39Griffin Newman:rourke that right where you're like he would have been a handsome older guy of course and it's just you look at you know young rourke he's so incredibly strikingly handsome that you are it's insane how hot the motherfucker looks like shrek it's fucked up now currently the taco bell picture where he's picking up taco bell is sad dude and i he's the man obviously i think he's a great actor. But anyway, that De Niro run, that's fun as fuck. The Untouchables, Angel Heart. Yeah, he just starts being a little more fun. Yeah, Midnight Run. And then we have fucking Goodfellas. Goodfellas. Awakenings. But even that's kind of like a crowd pleaser.

29:12Griffin Newman:That's a crowd pleaser. It's another nom for him. Can I amend my statement? Backdraft, Cape Beer. Yeah, I meant your statement.

29:18David Sims:Right, a lot of that backdrafty, Untouchables, like I'll be elder statesman in the ensemble and getting paid$5 million to do four themes. Exactly, give me the and. Right. I'm going to amend my statement, which is... I have like a couple divorces

29:30Griffin Newman:at this point.

29:31David Sims:And crush it. And be good.

29:32Griffin Newman:Right.

29:32David Sims:He is still married to Diane Abbott when he makes this movie. That is his wife who plays the woman he fantasizes about dating. Whoa, really? Yes. I think they're still married at this time.

29:44Griffin Newman:Yeah, they get divorced in 88. You know what? He's only been divorced once and his second wife he actually never actually divorced. And I think he now has a third. Grace Hightower? Grace Hightower is the second wife. But they're not actually divorced.

29:56David Sims:He has a new... He has a lover. Yes. A mother of a child, I believe. I think so. I think the difference is that at this point in time, if you won two Oscars, your box office almost doesn't matter. I think the industry still valued that so much that if you had done that, he won two Oscars in like five years and everyone was like, you're Brando. You get to be a movie star forever. We'd love it if you can make hits, but people made so many more movies back then too like now it's like you kind of every movie either makes or breaks people people look at movie stars like stocks at this point this is a great take and back then it was like you can make fucking four pieces of shit for fun because instead of doing a play basically it was artistic you know what I mean it was a little closer to doing stand up where you're like you're not gonna kill every night no you gotta try some shit out and this is a and what I love about this performance I see why De Niro wants to do it it's basically like he's doing the Roy G.

30:55Biv of anger right

30:56David Sims:This is a great take. Where this is the most pathetic. It doesn't ever really explode. Is this guy actually shittier than Travis Bickle? A little bit. Or fucking Jake LaMotta or whatever. Quickly that motherfucker turns to, like, you know, and obviously he's 36, whatever, he's older in life. Like, but it's more low simmering. De Niro's done so much explosion that everything is under the, and by the way, this guy's pathetic. When he's groveling, it's so good. When he tries to assert himself, when he's like, is that coming from Jerry? Like a fucking, he's being such a dickhead there. It's like, I see why I want to do this because it sort of let him do the final version of angry guy, but this is the most pathetic, you know, dickless version of that.

31:37David Sims:It also feels like to the point of us saying he's doing all the De Niro moves here, this isn't a transformative performance. He's growing out the hair to a stupid haircut and he's got the mustache, but it's not like he's doing something to really change his voice, his physicality, all of that. He put on a little way. But you know what I'm saying. But not like totally. For a guy who had done a lot of big, big swing. I'm learning a totally different language kind of shit. You watch this and you're like, he got this guy in some primal way. I'm not saying. Fully, bro. There's necessarily even. And I couldn't identify what specific part of him he's relating to.

32:14David Sims:But it's clear that he just read the script and was like, I know this fucking guy. I got to play him. I know exactly who he is. And might it, is the answer as simple as everyone who is successful at that level starts as Rupert Pumpkin? This is sort of my take. Is it like, are Rupert Pumpkins like fucking baby sea turtles? And most of them don't make it to the fucking water. But the ones who do live for 200 fucking years. You know what I mean? Where it's like, because, so going back to the original question, I bet you De Niro, when he was a young actor, was like, I'm going to be the fucking man.

32:49by the way which and i think about that sometimes too it's like the way i think and the way someone who i think is a real dog shit open my like my my psyche i was not a 19 year old who was horrible at comedy who was like i'm gonna be fucking famous i'm the best fucking comic of all time

33:04David Sims:you sit on the couch you watch other people do comedy and you go like i could fucking do that that's easy and you're delusional i do that all the time in my head the simulation of it i'm killing totally and i want to say for the record i was wrong i'm not i'm like but you are i've been accomplished stand-up.

33:20Griffin Newman:I know at the time you were not

33:22David Sims:I was wrong at the time. I wasn't ready. You're disabused and then you learn you have to do the work to get good. You're not naturally just a fucking genius. And the world tells you that fast. I was 19. Shit didn't really start rolling for me until I was 30. So it's like that was 11 years of just being broke as fuck, pure dog shit, whatever. But part of me is like I did get like I'm telling you when I first watched it, I felt like fucking Rupert. Right? I was like, I know this guy. And now it's like, you know, I'm obviously not as fucking famous as like, uh, as, you know, a guy who hosts the tonight show, but it's like, and by the way, if they remade this today, they would be fucking kidnapping Nick Mullen.

34:00Like watching this, it was like, these guys are like, like, I understand.

34:05Griffin Newman:I would not actually care about Jimmy power. Exactly. These are guys who love podcasters more than anything. So like watching it now from the flip side, but I bet you that was part of it for De Niro, which is like, I think every artist who makes it has to be fucking delusional. Because the odds are crazy. Hey, I kidnapped Fallon and NBC's like, who cares, whatever. We'll get one of the clones from the meat locker. One of his prestige clones. Okay, you think this is the first time fucking Fallon? We've lost a Fallon? If King of Comedy... Motherfucker. He's always wandering into the pool outside Rockefeller Center.

34:39Who cares? We got one of the backups. It's fine.

34:41David Sims:The only way to defeat Jimmy Fallon is to lay a bunch of rings out on table corners. If they remade this movie tomorrow with Jimmy Fallon, it would be a quibby. Absolutely. Because NBC just goes like, oh, it's a shame to hear and hangs up the phone. Okay.

34:55Griffin Newman:I guess we're going to just never do The Tonight Show again. And actually, wow, we saved a lot of money. Guys, great news.

35:02David Sims:He's all burned. It's about time. This is a blank check with Griffin. Yeah, thank you. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their career.

35:13Griffin Newman:It's going to be a short ep. Last week, we did two four-hour reps. Not this week, baby. No, no, definitely not.

35:20David Sims:This is a podcast about directors who are given, who experience a series of massive successes early on in their career, given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, it's a miniseries on the films of Martin Scorsese. It is called Podcast Fellows, of course. Hell yeah. Today, we're talking about... I love being a podcast fellow. That's what you are. King of Comedy his second bounce correct? Yeah New York

35:48Griffin Newman:New York New York is the first big bounce Yeah these are these are the two big bounces and then I mean he doesn't really have another big bounce kind of bringing out the dead I guess would be the third I like that one It's a great movie That's a fucking good movie I feel like that's the true third time that everyone's like is he cooked? Is this kind of it for him? Like his last temptation obviously gets like swarmed with controversy but That's not really a bounce in the same way. No, I don't think so. It's a good movie. People respected it. It's an audacious fucking swing. Yeah, right, right.

36:20David Sims:Our guest today, returning to the show, the combination of Rupert and Jerry. Kind of, yeah. Kind of. In our modern media landscape, you're sort of both. That's what's happened. Stavros Halkins. Hello. Thank you for being here. They kind of have Jerry Lewis glasses. I do. You do? Jerry Lewis was fucking incredible in this movie, too. He's so good. It's so cool to see him actually giving a shit giving a dramatic performer. Do you know this famous story that he, when he signed on to do the movie, he said, the character's gotta be named Jerry. And Marty said, why? And he said, because if we film in real New York City, people are gonna shout out shit at me.

36:57David Sims:And if my character's name is Jerry, we can use all of it. That is, that actually does rock. And Scorsese was like, what are you talking about? And then it was true. And then the first day they were filming, it was like, fuck you, Jerry Lewis! Get cancer! The get cancer moment is... A real moment, right? Based on something that actually happened. Yes. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was... Also, to see that kind of fame is crazy. Like, fame doesn't exist like that anymore. No, not at all. This is when there were 15 people. And if you ever were that famous... He was one of the five or six. You were going to be that famous for the rest of your life.

37:26Griffin Newman:It was even kind of that era of when you could do one stand-up set and make your entire career forever. Just do that forever. Right. Yes. Crazy.

37:35David Sims:Totally crazy. Right. People would go on The Tonight Show, the one thing that could launch comedians. They'd go on the road. the next morning, you're like, your milkman knows who you are. You could book a tour,

37:46Griffin Newman:but then you could also get a sitcom. Immediately. Yeah.

37:49David Sims:All these doors would just open up immediately. There was one gatekeeper.

38:02David Sims:David? Yes? Can I do an impression for you? Please. I'm the most annoying person in the world. You know who that is? Who is it? Someone who likes bank fees. Just kidding. That person doesn't exist.

38:15Griffin Newman:Nobody really likes bank fees. Nobody likes bank fees. That's true.

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39:33Griffin Newman:I have kind of no relationship to him. I will be honest to Johnny Carson no no Jerry Lewis I mean honestly to Johnny Carson too I guess Johnny Carson was retired by the time I was a little kid

39:44David Sims:no relationship to Jerry Lewis no not even the year that you were bartending in France

39:50Griffin Newman:weirdly I moved to France and got so into Jerry Lewis a one year dalliance and all the people just came up to the bar were just like do you know him do you know the original Latin Professor I love I don't think I've ever seen a Jerry Lewis movie in full you know like any of his classic movies that play in France 24 hours a day. I don't think I've ever seen a special. I've never seen a stand-up set. I've seen clips of him over the years. Like, I know who he is. Yeah, I mean, for me... Never seen like a Martin and Lewis movie, right? I've never... To be honest, truly the only movie I ever watched fully was the original Iron Professor because I love the Eddie Murphy one so much.

40:27So you're like, let me check this out. So as a kid, I was like, that was kind of the budding comedy nerd shit I would do was like, where did this fucking come from?

40:33David Sims:But you're also like, why isn't he fat? Where are the clumps? What the hell is this? What the, why is the... Hercules. Why aren't six of his family members farting around the dinner table? Right. His mom, dad, brother, and grandmother should all also be played by Eddie Murphy. Do you understand... The clumps is something... Go ahead, Steph. What, being a fat Greek child, when the fat boy was called Hercules in the biggest comedy movie of the year. You don't understand how much I heard Hercules, Hercules for like five years. And by the way, I was happy to lean in. I was that kind of fat kid where I was kind of doing like...

41:10I was kind of doing like... I'll take it on the chin. I was overdoing it. You were leaning into the stick. I was like in ways that are like, you know, I was embarrassed. Demeaning. Yeah, demeaning. I was being a fat clown for the enjoyment of my third grade class.

41:23Griffin Newman:But you were everyone's friends. But I figured it out. I figured out the formula where I could respect myself and still do this. Again, and you are wildly successful. We're doing okay. Right, yeah. But yes, and then I would, so I saw that shit. And then, yeah, a couple, the telethon where he's old. And then I was like, this isn't the same guy. Well, that's all the things. When I was, right, when I was a kid, I'm like, who's Jerry Lewis? And it's like, well, he's this kind of serious, fucked up looking guy who does these telethons. And he's famously an asshole to everybody. Right, and everyone, everyone, every single person in the world is like the worst motherfucker you'll ever meet in your life.

41:57Griffin Newman:And you're like, but he was a really good comedian. I'm like, was it good? And then there's like a clip of him with glasses, like sideways going like, ooh, is this good? And they're like, no, but it's respected for some reason. But also the French love it and we make fun of them for that. That makes so much sense that the French love him. Yeah. But I mean, speaking of this, talking about The Simpsons again, probably our actual, the way we actually know Jerry Lewis is them stealing his essence for Professor Frank. That was the bit.

42:28David Sims:Professor Frank is one of my 10 favorite comedians.

42:30Griffin Newman:Professor Frank is funny as hell.

42:33David Sims:Maybe Jerry Lewis should have ripped him off.

42:36Griffin Newman:Full circle.

42:37David Sims:My Jerry Lewis thing has always been, I still struggle with him as a performer outside of this movie. But like Jerry Lewis comedian has never been my cup of tea. I have tried to engage with the movies more. They are unbelievably well directed. Right. It's the thing that everyone says. And that's what the French people like. He directed his own movie. He's an auteur, yes. Really? He was making those movies and he was, A lot of the Martin Lewis ones are Frank Tashlin and these other great early comedy directors. The Bellboy or whatever.

43:06Griffin Newman:The ones that people say are really good. That's all him. So his destiny probably should have been director. Kind of a Mel Brooks thing. Like he was, if Mel Brooks, because Mel Brooks kind of did the opposite where it's like writer, director, and then he was like, you know what? Can I be the star? Now I'm the star. Right. Which was hilarious. It's like, come on, Mel. The thing about Mel Brooks is everyone's like, he rocked. person to collaborate with. Really smart. Whereas Jerry Lewis, everyone was like, what a nightmare. I see. Why was he directing? Because he had to. Because no one wanted to fucking deal with him.

43:40Griffin Newman:I'm simplifying.

43:41David Sims:The big thing, and a lot of these guys like Scorsese revered him as a filmmaker. It was a key part of him getting worked back into some of these things later in life. He invented video playback. That's his crazy thing. He needed to see how the bit looked. Exactly. That his his filmmaking style was hyper visual art directed like a little proto Wes Anderson. And he's doing intense physical comedy. He was like, I need to make sure that the physical comedy is registering on camera and I need to make sure the frame is maintained. So he was the guy who invented. Can we find the smallest camera we can, which I'm sure at that time was still 800 pounds.

44:18David Sims:Right. Right. Put it as close to the film camera lens as possible and have a live tapped feedback so I can watch it in real time and refine for a take. Like, he invents that. That's sick. You know, he didn't engineer it himself, but he was like, we need something. Yeah. And so he gets a lot of credit for shit like that. And if you watch his movies, you do see a lot of his influence in a bunch of different ways. What's fascinating about the Wes Anderson-y shit you were just talking about is like, this movie looks, the sets are so well-designed. It looks so incredible. It's clearly, it has such a specific sense of style, which to me is very futuristic.

44:54Like, I think it's interesting when you watch a movie where they almost are like, what's our alternate version of The Tonight Show, whatever. This is the first time it's ever been creative. And you could argue that. Yeah.

45:05David Sims:Rather than just doing a bad approximation, they're making choices. It's a choice. He has his own vibe. Honestly, futuristic. Like, it looks very futuristic in comparison to fucking Rupert, who feels very old fashioned, which is an interesting thing about, again, it's hard not to watch all these movies and think about Taxi Driver, think about New York, New York. to think about, especially when it's all De Niro. But, but it's like, Travis Bickle feels like, uh-oh, is this who's coming for us? Are these guys, this is the future. And this is like, this is kind of a, a loser in arrested development.

45:39Who's actually his problem is that he's more, it's like, he's drowning in nostalgia. He's not the new thing. It's like one, again, one is like a dangerous explosive, whatever. And the other one is like, so pathetic, he'll implode. and both are a type of young man that, you know, it's like, oh, we got to fucking fix these guys' lives or they're fucked. He's doing like 50 street jokes

45:58David Sims:with like a 70s look in the 80s. Yeah, it's a really fascinating choice. You know, he's like Sonny Bono doing like Henny Youngman.

46:06Griffin Newman:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which now is why now you watch him and you're like, he rocks. It's kind of funny. And his style is cool and all that. But that's only from now. This guy would have crushed it over the eight, you know? He definitely would have. He would have been a regular on the special. bro if a guy that dressed like that came to the over the 8 mics he would be a legend how many guys do we know like you know there's so many open mic fucking legends that are this exact guy but anyway my point was just like the visual sense of style to me was like pretty I mean not to take anything away from Scorsese because he's a fucking genius like New York New York that's what I loved about it too it looked incredible the thing to go sets was fascinating and then even when they're on location like that Harlem Jazz Club that fucking mural everything looks so wonderful and then you know, at the end, all the musical numbers.

46:52But this was just a different, it's neon. It really feels like what they thought the future was going to be like. So I wonder if that's like an homage to, you know, Jerry Lewis's film style. I don't know.

47:04Griffin Newman:The DP on this movie, Fred Shuler, it's the only time he worked with Marty. Hopefully, JJ will address this in the research. If not, I know what I'm doing. JJ, is he? Oh, yeah, hold on. A researcher who's constantly in danger of getting fired. No, I know. I saw in the bathroom, the blanket was a little over his crate. I could see his eyes. So I put it down, obviously. Thank you. As long as you didn't give him any. No, no. I kicked him for looking at me in the eyes.

47:34I didn't get there because my foot got caught in the cage. But I do think the tip of my toe made contact with the bridge of his nose. So I think he understood what I was doing. I gotta say, your foot getting caught

47:44David Sims:in the cage, that's our fault. And I'll apologize for that because we forgot to feed him earlier this week.

47:48Griffin Newman:Has anyone added water?

47:50David Sims:We'll do it tomorrow.

47:52Griffin Newman:I mean, I'll Google it later, but you can live without that for a while.

47:56David Sims:Ben, can you just make a note tomorrow, spray JJ with water and also we have some ads to do.

48:03Griffin Newman:And we'll just knock those out back to back. Shuler, I will say, did shoot Gloria. Cassavetes Gloria. Oh, sure. He has a couple like, he shot Arthur. Oh, hell yeah. But he's a pretty new DP, so I don't know what the story will be on. You're right that it's a unique style.

48:20David Sims:What I kept thinking watching it was, I was astounded by how much of the movie feels like a fantasy. That there is more of this film than Taxi Driver, which we've just watched really recently. These movies are fairly close together, but we're recording those episodes closer than even they were in years. But it's only, there's only two movies between them, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Raging Bull in New York. This movie feels a little bit like him being frustrated with people misreading Taxi Driver and being like, I'm going to keep this thing in a real kind of suspended dream state. I'm going to make this guy fully pathetic.

48:57David Sims:There's no accidentally cool part of him. Right, right, right. Even if you think he's funny, there's nothing kind of badass or heroic about this guy. Yes, yes. And there are more sequences that are demonstrably fantasy. No question. no gray area and they cut back and forth between fantasy and reality in a very cool way and the stuff that's real has that same sort of weird suspended tone it does have that heightened air where you're like this guy's whole life is unreal because he's not engaging with shit as a real person

49:26Griffin Newman:if this movie came out now Twitter would be like I didn't understand the scene where Jerry Lewis was nice to him they would need a scene where you'd like see a thought bubble come out of his head and like then the scene plays out in the thought like this is just what Twitter is or whatever here are two big things I'm beating up on a straw man

49:41David Sims:No, two things that jumped out to me in this movie that I thought were so good that wouldn't be the case today. One is that his trauma dump is literally the end of the movie, that we don't do the tragic backstory.

49:52Griffin Newman:Right, and it's part of his routine.

49:53David Sims:That when the guy gets his fucking fulfillment of doing the act, the act is, I need to turn my pain into comedy. And then he, in a perfect bit of characterization, does not know how to make it funny, but thinks joking about it will be what works for him. The second thing that's so good is he's not nearly as bad as most people would make him if they were making this movie today. There's a version of this where he's Joker style and you're just like, this is the least funny guy. He's bombing so hard on stage. He's all right. He's just so kind of, he doesn't have a voice. It's like Lights Can't Rejection.

50:28David Sims:He doesn't have a point of view. He's mimicking the guys he's heard. Yeah, he's just mimicking, right. But you're like, he's a pretty good mimic. And he's got the rhythms down. He's got a metronome. But there's just nothing interesting about him. And even the feedback they give him is genuine, which is like, you're not not you're not a bad performer. Maybe work on the material, maybe find jokes that are a little more unique. And instead, he's like, that sounds like too much work. I'm going to tape the shit out of Jerry Lewis. Yes, that point. And maybe we'll get into it more later. But the fact that, you know, he's not that bad, which, by the way, it's a really good amount.

51:07like that is what a fucking kind of good comic is like the the local reference you're you're fucking you're he starts talking about his town in new jersey for his first three jokes about clifton and you're you're fucking he's like i'm going coast to coast and it's all that's textbook i remember that it's like you try your jokes about your home you do your first road gig and you're talking about a hyper specific neighborhood and it kills in baltimore and people in fucking you know jersey like what the fuck are you talking about to do like hometown jokes as if it's i know

51:37David Sims:what you're all thinking. As if you're calling out the thing that people think when they see you walk on stage.

51:42Griffin Newman:And what's crazy too is I grew up near Clifton in North Jersey. It's not that bad of a town. That's what's even weird about it too. As bad as he is a comedian. Yes. But that's what's classic about it. It doesn't matter. He's just plug and play. You know, in reality, he's probably a little too good, but that doesn't matter because I think they walk... For this movie, this movie is not trying to nail the verisimilitude of stand-up what it's about one specific guy and what's interesting i think it's both a critique on the entertainment industry that's like oh look fuck you could do schlock bullshit and as long as you're lucky shit can be fine which i think was really good but also it shows you what this character actually gives a fuck about and the second time around now after having fucking worked i mean literally i watched this movie 17 years ago, fuck, that sucks.

52:35David Sims:I think that sounds right. And Ben and I just saw you sell out Madison Square Garden. No, it was Radio City. I'm sorry. Owned by the same people. I flipped the initials in my head. We're not there yet, but yes, I did sell out Radio City. Thank you for coming.

52:49Griffin Newman:Radio City's better than MSG. It's a better show. For comedy? But it's, you know, you fucking sell out an arena. That's fucking insane. It's amazing. It's just like, I've seen comedy in MSG. It makes no sense. It's not good.

52:58David Sims:It's actually not good, and it's bad for the fans. Radio City also looks so nice. It's so fancy. I said to you, I was like, the contrast between what you're saying on stage and the sanctity of the venue is boring. It's my whole life, dude. You know what? Great suit. Thank you. I wore tux. You were looking great. I wore tux for the occasion. My dad took 87 ,000 photos. Shout out to him. He's the man. Pistol Pete. Pistol Pete's the man. But it's that, and also, it shows you what this guy actually gives a fuck about because over and over again. He actually gets treated with kindness he doesn't deserve and pushed in the right creative direction.

53:35And if he was like, they're like, hey, you're actually not bad. Usually we fucking throw these tapes in the garbage, obviously. But it, and look, maybe that's a choice. Obviously, Jerry's blowing him off. But they're at least being like, even if they're blowing him off, they aren't telling him the right

53:49David Sims:thing. This guy could be good. You see people like that all the time who are like open mic freaks and then three years later, you're like, you figured your thing out. And they're seeing, this guy could You know how many people say that about me? Yeah, right. Like, wait, that fat idiot from 20 years ago at High Tops and Timonium sold out in fucking Radio City. Yeah. But, and it shows you he doesn't give a fuck about the work at all. No. All he cares about is what is it going to take to, you know, and that ending monologue story. And the very end of the fucking movie shows that, right? Where finally everyone's there to fucking talk to him.

54:23And it's just like, he's fucking nervous. He's got nothing to say. Anyway, but that was, I just wanted to talk about the making him kind of good.

54:29David Sims:Big, big thing I clocked this time. This guy doesn't do open mics. This guy doesn't do bringer shows. All this guy does is practice his material in his living room to a pre-recorded laugh track. Yes, yeah, which is insane. But he refuses to do the thing with the actual risk to refine his act.

54:45Griffin Newman:It is funny to do this podcast with comedians who are like, if he just put in the work, like most people watch this movie, this movie is about a psychopath. He could get JFL. This guy could get JFL. They're like, I don't know. I know guys like this I kind of was this guy what were you gonna say Ben he's kind of doing a podcast he's kind of he would be a good podcaster he would actually you should get his wall in your podcast absolutely it's great yeah right I mean one reason we're having Stavon obviously is you did for a while have a late night set in your house I did yes essentially I mean like you know what's funny there was a guy when the fucking crowd work craze was going insane who literally bought velvet curtains and pretended he was doing crowd work.

55:27It was working. And that's the moment where I was like, I have to stop doing this. I was like, this sucks so much, Dick. But yeah, there was a guy who literally was Rupert Pumpkin. In his defense, Jay hasn't been

55:40David Sims:on network in years. So what else is he going to do but buy curtains? Trying to make the Jay Leno joke. Oh, Jay.

55:47Griffin Newman:The only joke you can make about Jay Leno is that the mafia is going to kill him. Well, that or sure. I saw that in America. Or they're rolling in downhills. His Model T, like, caught on fire. Like, the kerosene his fucking car runs on, his antique car runs on, exploded or whatever. I'm opening the dossier, but one thing about the clumps. They were funny. Then society, I feel like, fully rejected the clumps and was like, this is distasteful. Now we're back just to, like, the clumps are funny. Clumps three. The children of the clumps are now, we run the world. Right, and we're like, oh, FYI, society, clumps are good.

56:23Griffin Newman:Clumps are good. We're pro clubs.

56:24David Sims:Look, we were talking about, you're filming an Apatow movie right now. And the Apatow wave, we talked about this on a recent episode, was largely a corrective to like 90s comedies that were big premise. Right. Heavy on fart humor. Makeup characters and shit like that. Set pieces. And everyone was like, this is so broad. Can we make comedies smaller and joke based and whatever? And now everyone's like, can a guy just put on a silly wig? Absolutely. And do a voice.

56:50Griffin Newman:Dude, yeah. And play a guy with a thing. I just, I remember like seeing the trailer for The Clumps, Running Professor 2, with my mom in front of some other movie. And she just leaned over and she's like, I would rather die than see that movie. And I was like, I know. I know.

57:03David Sims:I'd already seen it. I was like, it's pretty good. Meanwhile, my father turned to me and was like, I will die if I can't go see that movie tomorrow. You're telling me he farts in space and it propels him? No, I'm ready. I'm ready for that shit. I need to, the things I want to check off of my career, got to do an action movie. Yeah. I got killed in an awesome way already, which feels cool as fuck. Wait, what did you get killed in? Begonia.

57:24Griffin Newman:Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You got a good ass death. I mean, everyone also spoils for Begonia. Like, no one really makes sense of that one. But you had a good death. They made like a big rubber head, right? Yeah. That was awesome. I got scanned and shit. Yeah. I want to do something. I don't know what it is. The big, broad, like, 90s version of it. You need a great clump. I need a clump. Like, can't you just like my big fat Greek wedding plus the clumps? I like that. Can't you walk in somewhere and say that? Yeah, yeah. And just get$40 million? I'm ready.

57:51David Sims:can you be the first comedian to do a skinny suit comedy where you wear a girdle and it's called my skinny little Greek wedding and you're doing your parody of real thin people. Some kind of shallow hell like where the girl looks at me as hot but then I'm fat or something. You're still getting married though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

58:10Griffin Newman:And I know you're bros with Nia Vardala so I'm not talking shit about her. But it is funny that she's like I'm making my Greek movie. Now she got Michael Constantine. He's Greek. He is. Lainey Kazan No Jewish She's Jewish No Kazan That's what I'm trying I'm like how Kazan's I know this because It's a great mark of shame That Elia Kazan's a snitch Even though he's one of the best Lainey Kazan is Jewish But is she Greek and Jewish She's got some Oh that's a tough combo She's got some Turkish and Russian roots So she's kind of Yeah yeah yeah Anatolian Yeah yeah yeah She's from the region Fatone is Greek Andrea Martin is Armenian I think Yeah Fatone's Fatone's Italian This is a big point Oh Fatone's Italian That was obviously a tough one.

58:50His name is like, what am I talking about? That was actually a big point of contention for me because I was coming out of my boy band era. Now, Gia Caridus is Greek. Yes. But she's not like that funny or anything. She's funny enough. Made the name Swallows.

59:05David Sims:Spire Shagman. And Caridus means nuts. So her name is Gia Nuts. There you go. Caridus means, yeah, they're nuts.

59:12Griffin Newman:And I'm just saying like, I feel like she didn't even tap all the Greeks. Like there's Greeks out there. Yeah, yeah. Although for future ones, And she went, she kind of went the complete other way. And she hired like actual Greek actors. Oh, well, that's cool. There was like a Greek heartthrob that I knew from Greek TV that she made her love interest in the Greek movie. And I was like, respect. Did she fucking kill off Corbett or something? I never saw this. Maybe this is my life in Rue.

59:34David Sims:No, that's right. She did that. But then she also made, I hate Valentine's Day, which was Corbett again, but not part of the Greek wedding. No, that was just, let's get the band back together. Can we just do, so that we don't disrespect our other friend of the podcast again, fucking like three amigos, you, Galifianakis, Manzoukas. Oh my God. That was really funny when we couldn't go with Manzoukas. And you just call it like Opa or whatever. I would die to do that.

1:00:01Griffin Newman:The three of you together immediately love that. I love how Galifianakis is like, leave me out. No chance. No chance. Imagine that poster. That's a great fucking poster. Who even cares what the premise is? Bro, we're coming back. Alexander the Great, we're taking back all the land. So many eyes. And Constantinople is coming back. if me Galifianakis and fucking and our boy Manzoukas get on a three hander bro the Ottoman we're taking back the land the Ottoman Empire

1:00:28David Sims:stole from us the three of you in togas feeding each other grapes on the poster we're laughing we're laughing and I'd also the one other thing I would like to do is like be the in a serious like spy thriller be someone getting falling for a honeypot operation oh yeah that's that's always funny like if you're making a sexy thriller where it's like yeah we talk business later right now pleasure you know what i mean and then i get fucking fucking somebody chokes me some hot girl tom cruise is on the other side being like all right

1:01:01Griffin Newman:now i'll kill him now all right move his head near the window he has the best answer for this

1:01:08David Sims:yeah but our shared buddy gabrus and i feel like he's even said it on this podcast is like my number one dream role, the thing I'd most want to do in a movie is play the guy who was sent to go undercover and has gotten a little too deep. Oh, yeah. They sent him to the tropical island and now he's too comfortable. He's gained 400 pounds. He's drinking all the time. Gone native? Yes. I do. I don't want to. I have an idea called. I might have to change the character's name, but Focchio Pussygetti. I mean, this is money in the bank. The ponytail of Justin.

1:01:41Griffin Newman:You cannot change this name. And it's spelled like spaghetti. Pussygetti. Zoran, you know, Zohan. This is exactly, it's basic, and he was the world's greatest, he was the CIA's greatest assassin. Right, right. And after he took down a left, he helped a fascist dictator take over. Basically, they were going to nationalize oil. Right. And in the 80s, Reagan sends me in. So the CIA propped him up. I kill the fucking leftist leader. Right. And I install a beautiful fascist dictator, but I fuck her so good she dies. And then the communists take over. I'm so ashamed of that. I go into the brush. They can't find me.

1:02:17Griffin Newman:And then kind of like a funny Costa Gavras. Yeah, it's basically like commando. It's my commando. Me, Z. So then they come back. Yeah, exactly. It's like, and so, and I don't know what the final mission is, what they need me to do. Maybe now it's to say, maybe they have to get me to like fix the 2020 election. I have to kill Biden or something. You got to get Biden out of there.

1:02:41David Sims:Can you get the door quickly? because I think every studio executive is knocking at it. And look, I'll budge on the name if I really have to. It doesn't have to be the title, but it can be the character name. We just might not be able to put it on a post. Yeah, fuck you. F-U-C-C-I-O-P-U-S-S-I-G-H-E-T-T-I. Fuck you, Pussigetti. And there's an anachronistic flashback where it's like Godfather 2. Yeah. Even though it takes place in the 80s. Whatever, who cares? in like 1909 in the Italian slump. Anyway, I think I've already said too much. Right, right, right. But no one steal any of that. Don't steal fuck your pussy Getty.

1:03:19Don't steal it. Okay, that's mine.

1:03:20Griffin Newman:Someone please make a poster. Please, for us. Everyone make a poster. So that we have like a proof of concept. If you know how to paint. Yeah, yeah. Please do it in oil paint. Yeah.

1:03:38David!

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1:06:33Griffin Newman:all right so here's the dossier guys i'm doing it paul d zimmerman this movie is written by a film critic he was the film critic for newsweek in the late 60s and early 70s but the whole time he wrote books uh he wrote a book about the mets as jj wants me to point out in 1969 and this guy stealing your whole fucking called the year the mets the lost last place about the mets the amazing and Mets who won the World Series in 69, obviously. He also was a writer on Sesame Street for a while in the early years back when it was Marxist propaganda or whatever. That's cool. Right. He watched those early Sesame Streets.

1:07:07Griffin Newman:They're so cool. Yeah. They were all. They're so interesting. He says he was watching a David Susskind show about autograph hunters. Okay. He was struck by this TV segment he saw about autograph hunters and one of them apparently said, well, Barbara's hard to work with. Essentially, meaning this autograph hunter is like, Barbara Streisand doesn't want me to bother her. And he translates into, she's a little hard to work with.

1:07:32David Sims:We're in the same industry and we're contemporary. Yeah, yeah. And he's like,

1:07:36Griffin Newman:the way he's using language to completely transform the experience he's having is very interesting to me. He also reads an article in Esquire about a guy who kept a diary of every single Carson show. He would write down things like, Johnny disappointed me tonight. You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't just like, here's who the guests were. It was like his review of every fucking night on Carson. So he writes this sort of idea as a novel at first and then turns it into a treatment that ends up in De Niro's hands. And what does De Niro say? He looks at the script and he goes, pretty good.

1:08:11David Sims:Not bad. Pretty good. Not bad. Pretty good. You. You. He's pointing at the script and saying, you.

1:08:22Griffin Newman:Scorsese also says, he got the screenplay it's a little everyone's sort of forgotten the answers here it doesn't really matter but Scorsese basically thought the script was funny but also thought it was kind of like a one line gag and was kind of like not that interested but De Niro was obsessed with it and was like I found Pupkin to be kind of like weirdly brave and have chutzpah he does have initiative I like the kind of single mindedness like he just like clearly relates to the character because he's kind of an obsessive person, Robert De Niro. Yeah. As you guys can probably tell by the way he like prepares for his role and all this shit.

1:08:58David Sims:His obsession has been applied to very heavy stuff where even while this is a heavy movie in ways, he's not playing a guy burdened with heaviness. Yeah. And like, just, it must be fucking exhausted to be De Niro and be like, the world is your oyster. Here are a series of Herculean tasks. Each of these movies is going to take fucking everything out of you.

1:09:18Griffin Newman:Yeah, yeah. Buck Henry worked on the screenplay at one point. direct with Milos Forman considered to direct it. Nobody really could decide on a good screenplay. J.J. wants to disabuse people. There's no... It's on the Wikipedia page that Bob Fosse considered directing this movie. There's no source for that that he could find. That seems like either a made-up story or kind of like... It feels like the kind of thing he would do. It kind of makes sense because Star 80 is a little like this. Right. But why would he do both? Right. I don't know. Yeah. Right. With Andy Kaufman would have been the...

1:09:49Griffin Newman:is the star, is the made-up idea there.

1:09:52David Sims:I mean, that's a fun fantasy movie to consider. That's interesting.

1:09:55Griffin Newman:Milos eventually drops out. They have a new script at this point or whatever. They send it to Marty. Marty apparently is writing a script about a comedian with Jay Cox called Nightlife. That never amounted to anything. But De Niro just won't let it go. Scorsese is obsessively trying to get Last Temptation of Christ to happen, which is something, obviously, he keeps trying to do after New York, New York, and Raging Bull and all this. and you know De Niro just kind of sells him on it I think he just kind of like wore him down I saw the the special features I got the DVD and and Scorsese was talking about how he didn't get because he read it before Raging Bull and De Niro's famous and Scorsese's not really and then he says once Raging Bull happens and he's basically Scorsese's so awesome he's so like humble and guilty about doing anything good that like he really undersells it But basically what he's saying is after I got fucking famous as shit, I understood this movie in a much different way, which is cool.

1:10:55It's an interesting way. You know, it's interesting to think of him as like, there's nothing here. And then he makes it and he's like, Oh fuck, I get it.

1:11:01Griffin Newman:The Scorsese quote that relates to this is like in the period of the last three or four years, I've cut off a lot of people around me because usually they need something. They want something nice to be the center of intention, but you know, like, and it's what Jerry Lewis calls zoo time essentially. Like, yeah, where it's just like you're just surrounded. Yes, right.

1:11:19David Sims:The Mr. Scorsese doc, he talks a lot about this one and how kind of loathe he was to make it and how he was like hours late to set every day, couldn't make it through, that everyone was like, is he... I mean, this is kind of the start of his like, is he uninsurable kind of era where like, is this guy spiraling? He's so fucking cool. This is sort of the piece Because he was doing cocaine and fucking a starlet. Yes. That's what he was doing. But also, it's all crumbling. Like, it's like he's like...

1:11:46Griffin Newman:Isabel Rossellini, I would feel insane every day. Right. I cannot.

1:11:49David Sims:But also like his heart's on the verge of exploding. Like everything's in chaos. And he's sort of like, I need that right now. I mean, I do have it. The heart thing. Where's Rossellini? Watching all that jazz and it's about a guy who works too hard and lets his vices kill him. I'm like, why am I watching this? I'm watching with a broken arm and a fucking thrown out back. Fucking a hundred pounds overweight. You're rewinding. 150 milligrams. Crunching tape. Yeah. It's like, I'm like, fuck, this is too much. But yes, I still do think that's cool. I have to stop that because it's going to kill me.

1:12:24But hearing other guys that I respect almost kill themselves for their fucking, you know, move, that shit is cool to me.

1:12:31David Sims:It's just interesting to me that this feels like a very tight focus movie in a lot of ways. And yet he's like, I basically, it was like pulling teeth for me and not because I was pulling something so personal out of myself. I just didn't want to do it. and when I watched it later, I was like, fuck, I didn't realize what I had. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:12:48Griffin Newman:He says he found it in the edit, but like while making the movie, yes, certainly. It was torturous for him. And it feels like they did find it because like, I did like this more than New York, New York. New York to me had awesome stuff that had some pacing. The early, I think the second half's incredible. There's amazing things. There's amazing things, but this movie, you can feel the craft even five years later how he's that much better of a fucking filmmaker. It's fucking, anyway, I fucking love Scorsese. so fucking much. Keep going. Sorry.

1:13:15David Sims:You've been, so you're watching everything up until this point. And then is your plan after this to keep watching? I know you had said on a recent Stavis World that you want to fill in the gaps of the non-gun ones. I think, I think, I don't know if I'll do, because some of these movies mean so much to me that I can't, it's like too potent. Like look, Casino and Goodfellas, I've watched 4 ,000 times and it better, fucking Spielberg better be doing those boys. That's all I'm saying. I better see some names that knock my socks off. That's all I'm saying. Might be Gaber's. You fucking piece of shit.

1:13:52I didn't want to be, I don't want to ask for a casino, but it, or whatever. Look, I love Gaber's. It's going to be so much. It might be Gaber's.

1:14:00David Sims:It's all in flux. Anyway, I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. King of comedy. I get it. Whatever. But I've seen those for, but it's like a movie like After Hours. And honestly, I really love the ones he made when he's, when it isn't like obviously the personal ones are incredible and they're they're sublime like it's next level and after hours too by the way that movie even when i was a kid i saw that one and i actually was like whoa this movie's better than goodfellas it's my personal favorite it is just so my vibe i also saw it at a time when i was 19 and i was in a shitty neighborhood and it's like it wasn't like the mafia but it's like growing in baltimore in the you know 2000s like yeah fucking your friends were criminals you know what i mean like it reminded me of that shit it, right?

1:14:43Things feeling just a little bit scary. Yeah, a little bit. Like you're not living boys in the hood, but

1:14:49David Sims:things are just a little bit, you haven't quite figured them out. Yeah, I would sell weed, but I never got a gun pulled on me. You know what I mean? Like I had a weird handoff a couple times, but it wasn't like, I was never in real danger because I was buying weed from my friend's brother. If I was just some kid in a minivan, he would have robbed me, but because I played football with his brother, he gave me a nice deal. You know what I mean? Like, so anyway, the ones he kind of had to make to prove he could put in a movie on time. We were just a pro. I enjoy those on another level because it's like, this guy is just so fucking good at filmmaking.

1:15:23Even when the story he's like, yeah, this I have to do this to get to make the shit I want. Even when he's, his soul isn't in them and he's doing them as a job, you almost get to appreciate just the filmmaking. Yep. Just the crap. Exactly. And then paycheck gigs are better than anyone could ever do. It's fucking incredible. and so I might skip some of the ones that really matter to me like color money it's just for you know sentimental reasons I love too much to just like wear out

1:15:49David Sims:it's in the way that you do it that's very true

1:15:54Griffin Newman:well I mean like it's just in the way that you use it we've recorded that episode color money you're just like do I need to quit my job and be a lowlife who lives at pool halls casino you're like I think I could run a casino. These movies are literally, the guy is like getting his head bashed in. And I'm like, yeah, but I think I'd be good at it. Color of money, the X factor,

1:16:18David Sims:as we say in that episode is, what if I could be the most handsome piece of shit of all time? What if I could suck and actually be really depressing and depressed but have the best bone structure anyone's ever had?

1:16:29Griffin Newman:I just like to think about like Paul Newman's tax return in Color of Money where they're like, money made playing pool, this. Money made doing anything else, negative five million dollars in a brown liquor. Anyway, but yes, I'm going to keep going, I think, and just, I'm definitely filling in any blind spots, but I might, you know, do I, I'll probably end up watching Casino and Goodfellas again, but yeah.

1:16:52David Sims:Yeah, this is such a joy to, to do even already,

1:16:56Griffin Newman:watch these movies. But, okay, all right, King of Comedy. Wait, let me go back to this. I'm a Regency movie. Regency Enterprises, of course, is the production company I want to point out founded by Arnon Milchan, the former Israeli intelligence operative who's turned his business dealings in the aerospace, chemical, and electronics industries into a movie career. I'm sure that guy was so normal. And it's only gotten more normal.

1:17:21David Sims:Someone who continues to haunt the film industry at large who would not believe how... I bet he's posting really cool stuff right now.

1:17:29Griffin Newman:I bet he's got some awesome opinions. And his face isn't haunting in the slightest. But this is the first Regency movie gets picked up by Fox after it gets made. So De Niro, obviously, starts prepping for this. What does he do? Autographed Hunter start coming up to him, and he just starts asking them a million questions to the point that they get freaked out. He starts to try and behave this way. At one point, wait, the guy who's waiting... Oh, right. Autographed Hunter comes up. Hunter. Hunter. I keep saying Hunter. This is terrible. Is waiting for him with his wife De Niro is basically like, can I come to dinner at your house?

1:18:09Griffin Newman:And like, they end up doing that. And, and like, you know, they get more freaked out than him. That awesome story about Pattinson letting a stalker in and she just left. You know that one? No. It's incredible. Like, yeah, there's some story. I don't know if it's real. I just saw it on Twitter, but it was like, but it seems to make sense with how Robert Pattinson is as a guy. Like some girl who was obsessed with Twilight, like broke into his house. He's like, all right, we can hang out. And then she's like, this guy is fucking weird. And left. She was going to suck Edward's dick or whatever the fuck.

1:18:38And it's actually just some fucking strange British guy. Right. Who's like, hello. God knows what in his house.

1:18:43David Sims:Let me practice my voices. Yeah. There was, I just rewatched a Larry Sanders episode. That's really good. Where Larry is convinced he has a stalker and Corbin Bernson's one of the guests. And he's like, oh, no, Larry, I'll tell you what to do. You just invite him in. And he's like, what do you mean? And he's like, here's one of my stalkers here. And he opens his green room door. And he's like, yeah, I cycle through them. I give each of them a day, like once every three months. they get their film they're good that's hilarious yeah

1:19:07Griffin Newman:I should rewatch Larry Sanders the best of Larry so alright Sandra Bernhardt had been in Cheech and Hot Chong's Nice Dreams as a girl nut she wrote on

1:19:18David Sims:the Richard Pryor

1:19:19Griffin Newman:like the network TV show yes like she was a big she read for it like it's like it's like you know they just kind of like found her well she's an incredibly striking

1:19:28David Sims:on screen presence it's one of the great like casting finds where you're just like Who possibly could have done this better?

1:19:37Griffin Newman:Yeah, 100%. No, she's perfect. And yeah, she just read for it. And obviously, they were kind of obsessed with her. And because she was... I think she's just odd at that point. She was like, I didn't know how to dress or behave. I'd never been around famous people that much. I was just this sort of weirdo hanging out at the comedy store and stuff.

1:19:57David Sims:She was a white Jewish woman who mostly wrote for black comedians. Right. And existed in this very kind of unusual space at a time where there are very few female comedians. How old was she? She's pretty young, too. She's like 25, I think. That's fucking nuts. But like Paul Mooney, she was Paul Mooney's protege.

1:20:14Griffin Newman:Right. Yeah. That's fucking insane. Yeah. And she was just like, once De Niro was in that geek outfit, everything is just natural with us. The way I'm kind of just poking at him, he doesn't have this shield on of being a hot movie star. The look is so good. And we could just be crazy at each other.

1:20:31David Sims:It looks incredible. They dialed it in so right where it doesn't become too much but it does just you're right completely disarm him fully and even a little bit lets you understand how people are being nice to him like when he's in those even when he's in that in the like office he is a guy who until the third time is in a suit has good manners just seems like a guy who really cares about his craft and but it's like so it does make it it fits everything fits the character because he's both a fucking lunatic that dress like that, but also it's the kind of thing that a different lunatic's disguise gets you kicked out of that office immediately.

1:21:08But it sort of makes sense how he's in a suit. People give him a little, you know, a little respect.

1:21:13David Sims:And because he doesn't have the coiled anger thing that's usually De Niro's like stock and trade, you kind of look at him and go, at worst, is this guy a little slow? Yes, exactly. So people are overly gentle with him because they're kind of worried.

1:21:26Griffin Newman:Dick Cavett was who Zimmerman imagined when he wrote it. Obviously, he wrote the thing initially, like, you know, 10 years earlier. Who's so intellectual in Midwestern. Of course. Of course they want Carson. Like, that is their white whale. They're like, could we actually convince Carson to do this? And Carson's, like, one take is enough for me. Like, I just don't want to make a movie. Like, no thank you. I mean, the whole thing with Carson, right, is that, like, as he goes on in the years, he's like, can I do less and less, and I just sit here, and it's just easier, right? I'm on vacation half a year.

1:21:57Griffin Newman:Right, right. yeah it's the best he's a guy who accident i think not accidentally but it's like i don't think he goes into being a a talk show host in the 40s or whatever the fuck thinking he's going to be the the voice of america comedic america he's a presenter that gets this foisted onto him and he looks at it as a job he's like and he's like old-fashioned he's like i'm not telling you how much i make it's very interesting that he's the what everything is based off of he's the art arch type when from then on, it's people that have been doing standup. You know, it's a completely different way to get to that job.

1:22:30And I wonder if it makes you honestly worse at it. I wonder if like standups aren't that good at, you know, if somebody who just wanted to be a presenter hosted a Tonight Show, would that be better now? I mean, those shows are probably just cooked. But anyway, I mean, Letterman always talks about that where he's like, I hated doing

1:22:47David Sims:standup. I didn't want to do standup. there was no pathway to being a talk show host without proving that unless you were like an intellectual genius. Right. Interesting. Right. You were supposed to be a man of letters. Right. You're either a reporter who can become a little more light entertainment or you have to be a comedian who becomes good at interviewing.

1:23:06Griffin Newman:Another of my favorite Krusty jokes is like when you watch like an old episode and it's like him interviewing the head of the AFL-CIO and it's like black and white and he has a cigarette. I love the past. It's so fucking funny. Krusty's so good. Krusty's my favorite. Simpsons guy. That's the best one. Funny to use the money, Melon. No, that's... Yeah, that's correct. He says it to Mo, right? Who's my other favorite character? Yeah, Mo is my favorite. There is nothing funnier than Krusty being anguished to me. I mean, he's like, ah!

1:23:31David Sims:God! Like, it's just... I use this a lot in George Lucas talk show conversations when we're doing planning. Not even on stage, but when we're, like, planning our booking dates with Connor and Patrick is the sort of Krusty 0 to 100, I'm ruined! The notion that you've accidentally blown your entire fortune on one comedic decision. Of course. I think is the funniest shit in the world. Yeah, he's the main.

1:23:54Griffin Newman:He's so good. He's a great character. So Carson says no, to be clear. All right. Sinatra is their next choice. Another great choice. Like that is also crazy to think about. No. Yeah. They ask like Joey Bishop and fucking Sammy Davis Jr. Dean Martin is, well, this is how they get to Jerry, right? They're like, right, Jerry Lewis. They also considered Orson Welles, which is crazy to think about. They eventually are kind of like, he's not showbiz enough, but that is a whole other movie. It's a different movie. Yeah. Completely different movie. The thing about Jerry Lewis is you can't imagine anyone else.

1:24:26Griffin Newman:Sure, with Carson, that's an interesting movie. It's a different movie. You need someone who's as mean as Jerry Lewis fucking feels. Yes. And yes, that's the... I mean, both him and Bernhardt, it's like... This is another thing I love about movies where it's like they just cast the person. Yes. Like, he's that fucking guy. Right. De Niro is in this character. He's, you know, everyone else is just kind of like they did five minutes of work. That's just what they're like.

1:24:53David Sims:This one is arguably maybe. Which is not an incredible performance because of that. Like his whole his whole life is the sum. The sum of his whole life goes into this performance. I was going to say, is this the movie that really is the big inspiration for the modern kind of safety street casting school of thought? Yeah, sure. Sure. You cast one major movie star to transform themselves and play against type. Everyone else is some weirdo. Everyone else you cast to basically play who they are or you cast them for their innate energy. Right. That's a good point, yeah. And then after this, it's like, you know, the supporting cast of Goodfellas starts to be people who also fit into that.

1:25:34David Sims:Sure, sure, sure. But this is the one where it's like one established movie star surrounded by the thing. And in the very beginning, it's like that fat guy with the weird curly hair. Like they don't even show his whole face, but it's like, that's clearly a real guy. That's clearly a real fucking, and they could have maybe done more of that. But yes, that's a good point that this feels like the first time you get that really. Well, who knows? Maybe other people did it, but. Fuck them. I mean, in New York, New York, he had New York play itself. And New York is kind of like a character in that movie.

1:26:03Oh, that's an interesting concept. Isn't that? The city. I've been working on this. Hold on a second.

1:26:08David Sims:The city is a character, but it's a location. No, no, no. But it's kind of both. And in fact, in this specific instance, it's a city so nice they named it twice. Wow. So that's a whole other element. Not above the title. Make it the title. Oh. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yes, yes, yes. There's something. That's an interesting concept. Yeah. More people should think about that. Thank you. Making the location a character.

1:26:30Griffin Newman:Yeah. Yeah. So Jerry Lewis, he obviously, of course, says he's like he was the fucking guy. Like because he's the epitome of like a Vegas guy. you know what I mean? Like with this tension of like, he's a philanthropist. He's does good. But then there's just something where you're like, I feel like if this guy's tired and he lets his guard down, he'll be so mean to me. There's a sinister edge for sure. And Scorsese, like you were saying, Griff also is like, he is also like in this tradition of like Buster Keaton or Jacques Tati or whoever, like these sort of like auteur comedians who make movies.

1:27:06Griffin Newman:And, uh, Lewis said, you know, I was playing Lake Tahoe. There was a great show. Scorsese calls him and says... What gig is that? I'd love to get to... I'm playing the Reno. I'm playing... When does this come out? Who do you call? And he says, I'll go anywhere in the world for you, Marty. Awesome. I mean, this is what Jerry Lewis says. And then he said, Glavin. And ladies! Scorsese's like, I really learned about being a pro from him, which is basically just kind of like being an asshole, right? Where it's like, Marty's just like, you know, the way he would kind of like move through crowds, the way he would kind of be like, I need to be done at a certain time.

1:27:46Griffin Newman:Have real boundaries. I think about that. Mulaney tells that story. I think it's on Birbiglia's podcast. No, he makes Birbiglia tell it. It's like Birbiglia's mom. He saw Sinatra and was so excited. And then they're all like crowding around. And he says, get out of here. This is the way you pigs. And just like push it.

1:28:06David Sims:I believe it's you fat pigs.

1:28:09Griffin Newman:and they all are still like, legend! The greatest there ever was! Shit in my mouth, Frank.

1:28:16David Sims:I am a fat pig. He's yelling at his biggest fans and they only love him more. Yeah, that's awesome.

1:28:22Griffin Newman:You know, but basically Scorsese, I mean, he sort of talks around it, but he's basically like, the guy's a consummate professional, but this is what he's like. And he's skirting this kind of like, you know, nasty energy the whole time. And of course, yes, the woman who screams, you should get cancer that actually happened to him that's awesome and and that the beauty of this performance is every time he looks at rupert every before every line of dialogue he has he's deciding whether he should let this fucking guy have it or not every single time being polite or whatever frosty but like not right but you know that he could just be like listen you piece of shit.

1:29:06Griffin Newman:Yeah. Like, you know, like he could do it probably could destroy him to a point where it's like, even if he was a physical threat, you could make that man melt like a puddle if you wanted to. And he's considering it every single fucking time. Because for him, it's like a sport.

1:29:18David Sims:He would actually enjoy doing it. And I think that's what he wants to do. I think there are two calculations in his mind. One is sometimes you're surprised by who gets successful. Am I going to regret it if I shit on this guy now? Right. When the elevator goes the other direction. And then the second thing is, I think there's probably some part of him, like you said, that's like, I remember having to be this delusional in order to get my career started. I want to think I didn't look as lame as this guy, but I kind of get the hustle. And they have a bit of a meet-cute where it's sort of, you sort of give him - The first meeting is not so bad.

1:29:53You could even convince yourself that like, this kid fucking pushed some lunatics out of the, and look, should he have gotten in my car? No, but it's already, you could tell the calculations he's making. It's like, this is already a weird situation. Let's just get the fuck out of here. And it took chutzpah. It did. If you would respect that to some degree. And again, in a suit, polite, nervous. Like, I could, this did break just right for him. The thing that's crazy is no way do they drop him off at his house. No, no, no. No way do they drop him off at his house.

1:30:21Griffin Newman:But, you know, for the movie, it's a movie. Yeah, and I guess it's sort of back when enough that it does feel like back in those days, you didn't live in a gated community if you're famous. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I was looking up when John Lennon was assassinated. It was 1980. And that does feel like maybe this moment. That's one of those moments where it's like, oh yeah, you just feel a good point. There's fear if you're a celebrity of like that I could be attacked or hurt by someone who's obsessed with me.

1:30:47David Sims:By the way, I think that's a big reason behind the negative response to this movie and the kind of hostility it was met with where, you know. That's a great point. That happens and people point back to Taxi Driver. And then it's like, oh, Marty's coming out with a new movie about an obsessive fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fuck is this guy doing? Is he like breeding psychopaths? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Interesting.

1:31:09Griffin Newman:Okay, so Marty has pneumonia while he's mixing Raging Bull. He wants to do Last Temptation of Christ. De Niro is like, let's just do this. We can do it fast. We can do it in New York. Yeah. Like, it won't take a long time to shoot it. Right. There was a director strike looming. And basically, like, as long as you started, it was going to be okay. But like, you know, like, they had to start. and so he's like I wasn't really feeling ready I was like coughing and like you know writhing on the floor but we did it and the thing Scorsese says is like it's funny he's like Michael Curtis Sam Fuller Ida Lupino those guys could make a movie in four weeks I just can't do that like I just it's just not possible for me and he was like

1:31:52David Sims:reshooting scenes multiple times he was like we have four scenes in a day I'm gonna spend three days on one scene yeah damn yeah

1:32:00Griffin Newman:Shuler, okay. Okay. JJ's not fired because he does note. It's the only Scorsese film that he shoots. And Scorsese partly blames the slowness on him. The film took 20 weeks to shoot. Damn. For that movie? It does seem insane. That's crazy. Marvel movies shoot in like three weeks. That's fucking nuts, dude. And he says like, maybe a faster cameraman would have got me moving more. But he's like, but fundamentally it's my responsibility. Well, there are some... And they're shooting in New York, which I think is annoying. Like, you know. But a five-month shoot for this film is a lot. I mean, in terms of the really, really striking visuals, a lot of it is set deck.

1:32:39They shot a million feet.

1:32:39David Sims:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And pretty isolated. Not many characters. Yeah. In controlled environments. And I will say the most kind of DP, the one shot, the one setup that really feels like the DP was fucking putting his dick out was like when they're at her apartment, there's candles everywhere. That shit looks like fucking - Go in Barry Lyndon mode. Barry Lyndon. That actually looks like Barry Lyndon. Ben's favorite. Ben's best friend. Everything else. Oh, Barry Lyndon fucking rules, dude. It's an Irish scoundrel. I fucking love that movie. It's my shit.

1:33:07Griffin Newman:I just bought a - I believe I called him an Irish liar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did. Yeah. And I appreciated that. It was funny. But it's just interesting because I didn't feel like the cinematography was like -

1:33:20David Sims:No. It's not like a showy movie. I can't read it as a movie. I just like that, though. Some people are very slow and meticulous in a way that doesn't even register. in the final detail of the image. Right. They're just kind of obsessive. And it sounds like that's... Sometimes those people are helpful for a director who otherwise would be inclined to rush through things too much. Sure, sure, sure. It sounds like teaming someone like that up with Scorsese is a recipe for disaster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he's usually better with someone who works pretty fast because what Scorsese wants to do is collect a lot of material.

1:33:52David Sims:He wants to try a bunch of shit. He doesn't want to wait a long time for things to be set up.

1:33:56Griffin Newman:Yeah, interesting. this is Thelma Schoonmaker's only her third film with Marty so this is early in their kind of new collaboration is Raging Bull the first? I believe so right? isn't the whole thing she comes on to try to save New York no it's like she did who's that knocking at my door and then she goes and then she reunites with him with Raging Bull and that's there together forever so she you know that's so fucking awesome and everyone now we're at the point where people give editors their credit but it's like I fucking love Scorsese so much but it's like that all that means you also love Schoonmaker so much you know what I mean where it's like 50 %

1:34:39David Sims:kind of like so important the language that he settles into from from Raging Bull on is really a collaboration between the two of them it's beautiful dude and it's like that's the kind of shit that's the thing I've liked about making movies whatever is like it is collaborative again yeah Whereas like stand up, you're all by your fucking self. It's so fucking cool. It's like people don't think about how important like a camera, like the camera op is, bro. And it's like, I don't know. See, it's just, it's just, especially the way those movies are edited. Yeah. You really can't do it with a different editor.

1:35:12I mean, it would take such a learning curve to figure it out.

1:35:15David Sims:You know what I think about all the time? And I think this job still exists. It's just very different now with technology. But the specific role of the focus puller. Yeah, dude. It's crazy. The job traditionally was, they go like, okay, so in this shot, we're starting on his face and we need to rack focus over there. You eyeball it, Sully style. You do the math and you go, okay, so on this line.

1:35:37Griffin Newman:Good focus pullers are talked about with total reverence.

1:35:39David Sims:But it's like one guy who's just got control of one dial and is all about timing. And like, if the actor takes a step forward from where they were in blocking, you're just sort of like adjust in real time. and then we're not going to know immediately until they print the film and see if you nailed it or not. Like in video, it's totally different. That's fucking insane. That is crazy. For film, you had to eyeball it and pray that you got it right. Yeah, that rocks. That rocks. That's cool. That's how it's for me. That's what filmmaking is all about. And you're just like, when that guy nails it, he's a hero.

1:36:13David Sims:Yeah. And when he botches it, everyone is like, fuck, it doesn't matter what we all did right. It's out of focus. Yeah. Right.

1:36:20Griffin Newman:so I don't know it just feels like this movie's a fucking pain in the ass to make everyone was just tired and exhausted Scorsese says they shot a whole Jerry Langford monologue and decided not to use it because he's kind of like I don't want you to have an opinion on his comedy like you need to know that Pupkin's obsessed with him if you think he's funny or not funny it kind of starts to mess with the movie like that's not really what the movie is about like he has that one joke right to start where he's like, you know, thanks for waking up or, you know, where he ribs the sidekick and that's kind of it.

1:36:51Griffin Newman:You really don't see him ever being funny again. And it's all aura. It's all, he's the fucking man. Yeah, the thing that's important,

1:36:57David Sims:which is what you hire Jerry Lewis from is this guy carries himself like he's a legend. That's all you need to know and the world reacts to him that way. And by the way, to give him credit because we were saying like, oh, he's just being himself. The fantasy scenes, that's some real, he's got to do some real acting there. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, he's good. And my favorite scene with the dream sequence where it's, he's in the office and he's like, you know, some people are lucky if genius strikes them once. It's like, it's going to strike you more than, you know what I mean? When he's just sucking him off and he's like, and they do that, the physical choke where you're like, oh, they let Jerry do his thing for a second.

1:37:35And you're like, that's the funniest fucking thing in the movie where he's like choking De Niro back. And it goes on way too long. It's edited perfect. It's edited kind of like a fucking Tim and Eric sketch, actually. where it's like he's choking for four straight fucking seconds and his head goes back and forth eight times. De Niro's like really shaking his head around like a cartoon character.

1:37:53David Sims:You also get the sense it was a genuine dream come true for De Niro. Like De Niro, you know, every year at Tribeca, De Niro's like, which of my movies is experiencing an anniversary that ends with a five or a zero and does a talkback, right? Yeah. And he did several for this and he'd always do it with Jerry Lewis and De Niro is so famously taciturn at all these things. You can watch the videos of the like King of Comedy 30 years later look back things. De Niro's just laughing the entire time. He clearly thinks Jerry Lewis is the funniest guy in the world. This was his childhood hero. He's like, choke me, spit in my mouth.

1:38:28David Sims:Yeah, yeah. Well, dude. Tell me I'm pretty. The clip of him and Don Rickles where it's like, he's just shitting on him for not knowing his lines. Oh, the greatest. It's incredible. Honestly, no joke. I saw that. I was like, oh, I think I can have a Korean movie. De Niro doesn't know his lines. It's like, first of all, De Niro doesn't know his fucking lines, then they just brought in a guy who can just shit on. If you're good at roasting, even the most famous movie stars in the world will respect that. And honestly, they've kind of brought me in. I mean, Tony, they brought me in straight up to make fun of the antagonist.

1:39:00David Sims:David has seen it now. I'm so jealous. You're really fucking good. Anyway, yeah. You texted, like, Sims, I got one question for you, and it was an invisible text of I assume, did my roast make it into the movie? There's one bit. There's one really stupid bit I really wanted. And, you know, you'll have to see the movie out this summer at some point.

1:39:18Griffin Newman:I think it will have just come out. Sorry. Is that right? I believe so. This episode's coming out September 20th. The movie's out, baby. The movie's been out. Lobster Dick made it in. Shit, there might be. Hey, I might have a Netflix special coming out soon. Hey, wait a second. I don't know yet. Actually, I'll tell you guys. I'll give a... Hey, my Netflix special's coming out. Now. And then we'll put it right there. Ben's voice just comes in September 11th weird you're not going to forget it Netflix is like it's a Tuesday and you're like I don't care yeah King of Comedy let's talk about it so yeah I don't know let's turn the mics on Ben let's go we're done warming up

1:39:59David Sims:do you have a quote you ready we have a studio that's just a cut out of Ben and we practice podcasting black and white Ben Hosley.

1:40:10Griffin Newman:You know that mean. Which mean? It's like listening to... This is what listening to podcasts is like. Oh, yes, of course. The guy laughing along. This, like a guy with a poster. Oh, yes. This is what it's like to listen to a podcast. Like, you know.

1:40:26David Sims:Of course.

1:40:26Griffin Newman:Where is famous as Jerry Lewis?

1:40:28David Sims:That's what's important. If you're listening to this right now and you feel attacked, of course not you. Not you. You're actually our friend. We love you. You're the one we're talking to. Well, hold on. are you a Patreon subscriber? Well, actually. Are you the$10 tier?

1:40:41Griffin Newman:Because then I really love you.

1:40:42David Sims:You're not going to be one of these freeloaders getting by off the ads, are you?

1:40:56David?

1:40:57David Sims:Yes. Red alert. Uh-oh. There's been an outbreak. Biohazard. Of a new Patreon series. Yeah. It's contagious. Oh, that's so true. It's been cooked up in the lab for your pleasure. From the fine folks at the Umbrella Corporation, we are covering Resident Evil. The film franchise.

1:41:21Griffin Newman:Yes. We've got the first franchise. Six movies. Yes. That beautiful second franchise. How many? Six? Seven? It's got the one movie. Oh, it's got the one. We'll be covering all of them on Patreon, doing commentaries on, yes, the Resident Evil, Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife Retribution, the final chapter Welcome to Raccoon City

1:41:40David Sims:This is an exciting time Zach Kregor, friend of the podcast Has a new Resident Evil coming out We thought this was a good opportunity to revisit The history of Resident Evil movies

1:41:49Griffin Newman:Why not? Why can't we? Why can't we? We can Check in for that August 1st And it's going to be running all the way Through November 1st

1:42:00David Sims:Followed by your March Madness winner Dracula Dr. Acula himself That's so fun. So that's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much.

1:42:21Griffin Newman:So the film starts with, starts with Jerry, right? Does it start immediately? The first thing is Jerry. The credits are the credits of the late night show, basically. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we're with Rupert getting into the car with him. Mm-hmm. And Sandra Bernhardt going crazy trying to get the autograph. Yeah. God bless her. She's so good. She rocks. What was she? Oh, she was just in Severance. She's still just also in Marty Supreme. She was amazing in Marty Supreme. That was great. She's just like such a versatile actor.

1:42:51David Sims:I saw Marty Supreme with my dad. And her name comes up in the credits. And he goes, where was Sandra Bernhardt in that? And I was like, she played kind of like the Sandra Bernhardt character. What the fuck do you mean? Who do you think she played?

1:43:05Griffin Newman:but there's I mean the Fran Drescher like there's so many people in Marty it is a little overwhelming guess what she was the woman standing

1:43:12David Sims:next to Fran Drescher also complaining she was meaner Fran Drescher with her entire career right

1:43:21Griffin Newman:which is like can I get a sitcom what if Fran Drescher made you morning in a scary way instead of in a regular way that's basically Sandra Bernhardt now Now, I'm sort of freaked out by Rupert immediately. Yeah. Right? Like, it's like, I don't think the movie's hiding the ball at all.

1:43:38David Sims:There's something uncanny about him. Yes. That's what's different is we talked about with Taxi Driver that part of what's interesting in that movie is you can ignore the red flags with him for a little bit. You understand why people give him a chance. Yeah. Rupert, everything just feels off.

1:43:54Griffin Newman:But, like, at the same time, I never really think Rupert's going to kill anyone. Yeah. He's not dangerous in that way, but he is unsettling. He's unsettling, but again, he's so pathetic. And it's also, again, you can see, even though we see him for who he is through the movie does that, you also understand how in doses you could be convinced this is just a harmless guy who's a little, maybe a little slow, but even maybe not. Maybe just kind of a weird, nice guy who really wants it. You know what I mean? But yes, very quickly we see him because they show him in the scrum with the rest. He clearly knows these people.

1:44:32He's clearly one of the autograph seekers.

1:44:34David Sims:But acts like he's above them. It's sort of, they look to him like a ringleader. He wants to think that he's not at their tier because of course he's going to make it. He is going to cross over. Hasn't done a goddamn thing. No. Didn't do a fucking mic. All he's done is like just practice the cardboard cutouts. It's so important that this is a, I could do that guy and not a guy who's actually failing with real stakes and trying to do comedy.

1:44:55Griffin Newman:But he has been immersed in it seemingly every day. He studies the blade. Like he goes home to his mother's house and he goes into his room and just fucking talks to himself. And by the way, his like, what his mom calls him, that's the best acting De Niro's ever done. He's channeled just an annoyed 12 year old. He's like, he's so pathetic and such a little bitch in that moment. I'm like, fuck this guy's, you know what? This De Niro guy's good, man. But yeah, yeah.

1:45:27David Sims:And then he is unsettling for sure. But you're right. I mean, the movie really just like a rocket. It's like the opening is the monologue. Then it's him having the brief moment with him trying to get his attention, going to the car, free frame credits. And then it goes to another night of them waiting outside, Sandra Bernhardt and him getting in the backseat. And then that's like 10 minutes in. He goes to the restaurant with Jerry. Yeah. Yeah. Or he imagines going to the restaurant. By the way, that, I think that's the moment where they're just like, hey, and if you didn't get it, this guy's an insane piece of shit.

1:46:03You're doing it so early. Which I like because there is a reading of him that's like, even if he has that conversation and it's his big break and oh fuck. And then what we see him imagining is working on his craft, doing shows. Like he's like, this is what I love. What he imagines instantly is the guy who just half did him a favor groveling. He doesn't even imagine like in a mansion with chicks getting fucked up. What he's doing this for.

1:46:34Griffin Newman:Is Jerry, like you'll be doing me a favor. Is every, yeah, is respect. And he can't imagine more respect than the guy he respects the most begging him. He's dreaming of big timing. And he's dreaming of big timing. He's dreaming of becoming a piece of shit. the thing you try so hard not to become a fucking guy you know acts like he's fucking Hollywood like if you're a good person you should you know fight against it he's like I can't wait to big time the guy who got me my start are you fucking kidding me that to me is the moment where you're like oh he is a piece of shit he talks about how Jerry had like a big break where he was a guest host right like and he's like I remember when I watched that and that was he clearly thinks like that's what will happen I'll do one gig.

1:47:19Griffin Newman:I'll do one appearance on his show and I'll explode. Like, it'll be just the exact same thing. He has no obvious real notion of what Jerry's life is, which is funny because it's like now the obsessive fan might know everything about him. And instead, he has more just like an idea of like what he is as a famous guy or whatever.

1:47:37David Sims:We should also talk about this for half a second because it is almost a novel concept at this point in time. But you were saying this, that Johnny Carson didn't love working and every year would take more and more weeks off and they would have guest hosts and they would have people under contract where like Jay Leno is guaranteed 10 weeks of the show per year. And there were many of them in rotation. And part of that was seen as like Johnny's laziness. And part of it was seen as a generosity of giving other people a shot. And letters. Totally. Right. Right. And then Joan Rivers took a rival show and he like never talked to her again.

1:48:10David Sims:Jay was the most popular and most successful guest host. But Letterman obviously had the slot after. and Leno ended up getting the show because they threatened him with, he's going to go to another network unless you give him the Tonight Show. Right, he's going to gazump you. And when Leno took over, he was like, I'm never fucking taking a day off because that's how I beat Carson. I'm not letting snakes in. He's the guy who, he got, he was the, he also did it for scale, right? Like everybody, that was his nut. Everybody, yeah, exactly.

1:48:41Griffin Newman:He doesn't spend that money, the tour money. No, it's fucking crazy. like at that at the trial period everybody else there's a story where i think it was in the shandling documentary or somewhere like that where because shandling was one of these guys too that's why and we got the better version of this like larry sanders i don't want to do a talk show i

1:48:56David Sims:want to do a show about a talk show awesome by the way the greatest show but yeah everybody else like hey like we're gonna negotiate with the network we're all in we feel like you know we're basically doing johnny's job for him right we should get paid not we should get paid real money five or six big ones. Leno was like, nah, fuck it. I'm doing it for scale. I'm a fucking company man. And that's a fucking dickhead. And just made it a countdown clock. And was like, you have like 15 minutes to like decide before I run off and become competition. But, but this is part of his fantasy is like, well, that's how Jerry got.

1:49:29David Sims:Ruthlessness. Yeah. And I could get big the same way. And I, I wanted to get the exact line. Cause it's the moment for me that is so definitional of what a piece of shit he wants to imagine being. is that he goes like, the exact line is, I'll do anything for you. Just please don't make me do six weeks. Right? That I'll give you anything, but don't ask me to do six weeks. I can't take over the show for six weeks. And that he plays it with such exasperation. It's not even he's dreaming of a brush off of being like, I don't know, six weeks is a long time. He's like, six weeks that kill me, Jerry, please.

1:50:05David Sims:What other favor can I do for you? not hosting the show that I currently dream about hosting. Of course, he's past the dream. He's dreaming about being past it. He didn't even dream one time hosting the show. No, no, no. He jumps. It's fucking awful.

1:50:17Griffin Newman:He's dreaming of having the same shitty mustache and haircut. But everyone loves the worst. The look isn't going anywhere. The worst suits of all time. He's got the look dialed in.

1:50:27David Sims:But also, like, while this conversation is happening, the Sardi's caricature artist is there drawing. And he'll, like, he made you bigger.

1:50:35Griffin Newman:Yeah. Which I think is really funny. in his dream. He's still like getting cocked a little bit. He's a little petty. Yeah.

1:50:40David Sims:But this is all like 15 minutes of the movie. It's so fast. You're straight to it. And then he goes right from there. He shows you the operating, the what's important to him. The like, number one, big time, my hero. Number two, go to engage in a romantic relationship with the symbolic woman. The woman I loved when I was fucking 16. and I was too much of a coward. Now I'm using the cred of having a conversation with Jerry Langford to now, I immediately need to turn this into a, again, symbolic relationship. If I can convince her that I'm a big deal, I closed the loop. Like, that's what it is. It's that he never got over the fact that she wouldn't, you know, that she wouldn't give him the time of day or didn't see him that way or that he never had the courage or whatever it is.

1:51:31David Sims:He is still suck on, man, I wish I had dated her when I was 16. I wish I had kissed her one time. Which, by the way, another thing they nail about everyone that wants to be a stand-up comedian. Yes. It's like, if I had gotten pussy in high school, I'm probably a lawyer in Baltimore right now. You know what I mean? Like, truly, it's like, you're just trying. Everyone is just looking. This is the one thing you can do for attention from beautiful girls. But what's interesting about him is, and I think they make a very explicit point of saying this, like, look, she doesn't even remember him. She's clearly, her life's not going good because she agrees to go out with him.

1:52:04Yeah. And she even is not having a good time. And then at the very end, she's like, well, I guess you're entitled to come up for some coffee, which is like, look, I'll suck you off. Just leave me alone. And he doesn't want to. He's almost like offended because this is not about that to him.

1:52:19David Sims:No, and he also doesn't want pity. It's like to him, the only thing he wants is for her to be impressed by him. And in the same way, it's like he would fantasize about being like, come on, I'm tired. We've already fucked five times today. Right, right. Right, yeah, yes. He'll leapfrog to that over dreaming of sleeping with her. But it's not, because it's about his king and queen. Yes, exactly. it's proof of the girl, the specific girl. It's like, he's just trying to be cool for high school. You made something of yourself. I mean, look at the, not the jump, we can go chronologically, but jump ahead to the fucking.

1:52:52No, jump ahead.

1:52:52Griffin Newman:Nothing, there's not a lot of plot until he gets to his house. Like, the first half of the movie is relatively disconnected. Yeah. And like, it's mostly just his fantasy. But it goes to drop off the tape.

1:53:02David Sims:It flows for sure. Right, yeah. that scene that's so uncomfortable where he just keeps being like, well, we'll get back to you. And he's like, so about what time do you think? Yeah. I can just wait here. I don't have anywhere to be. I like this chair.

1:53:13Griffin Newman:The first half of the movie is him getting brushed off largely not even by Jerry. And kind of politely. A little bit. Very politely. For the context, incredibly polite. Right. And then, I feel like it kicks into the second act once he goes to Jerry's house and Jerry has to kind of like, you know, remove him more. has to humiliate him, essentially. I just was going to say, because I don't want to skip over it, when he is having the dream sequence, the next moment or next scene is showing Jerry at home. Right, how sad his life is. His fucking life is pathetic. That's a great point. And I think that is a really...

1:53:53Griffin Newman:I didn't pick up on that... That's a great point. ...when I first saw this movie as a younger man, but now really recognize, like, this guy has achieved the dream, and he is sad and lonely. Eating a fucking like sandwich in his like palatial home. Right, with his staff who are like, good job.

1:54:11David Sims:A lot of that feels like Johnny Carson commentary who was famously a very antisocial guy. Like just didn't like talk to people. Right. Didn't have friends and show business outside of the show. Was divorced many, many times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And was just kind of like a quiet to himself alcoholic. Yeah. And that was like basically known. like he would make jokes on air about like another big divorce settlement and then seem like the most personable guy in the world on television.

1:54:39Griffin Newman:The joke that I think about with Carson, I think it's George Axelrod was he was basically like if people had like red lights in the middle of their heads then Johnny would be really social. Like if he, if essentially like if there's a camera on, that's when he's like that and he just couldn't operate like that. And there wasn't a guy when people weren't around and that was the problem with every one of his

1:54:56David Sims:marriages. Oh yeah, he'd be a great Twitch streamer it sounds like. Johnny Carson dude you needed a camera to be on. Johnny going live? Could you imagine? That would be awesome. Doing 20 hours of a trash stream? That sounds pretty fun. Yeah. That's a great point though Ben and then yeah like the funny thing about the house too when he visits his house too is like And he's going off of a conversation he had. That's when he's the most insane. Because everything else is rooted in some sliver of reality. But the invitation to his house happens fully in a dream sequel. Yes. Fully in a dream sequel.

1:55:31Oh, yeah. Right. There is no even hinting at it at any other point. And that's the point where you're like, oh, this guy's fucking a loon. Because he's been tossed out of the fucking... At that point, he had been tossed out. Yeah. Right? He had been goaded into going back up there by Sandra Bernhardt. And I think he's already gotten the call back from the talent person.

1:55:49David Sims:Oh, he's been rejected. He's been tossed out. Right. But also, once again, like, work harder on your material. It's not bad. He's had every chance. Yeah. It's not, excuse me, sir, lose this number. She takes the time to call him back. What, David? Do some mice, bro. Again, just so funny.

1:56:01Griffin Newman:We think you guys are just like, I mean, he's close. He's close. He is. No. It's kind of crazy. His persistence. Like, he actually really has this moment. You should have put it in the, you put that persistence in hitting Mike. I mean, this is pathetic, but like, yeah, I'm like, dude, I'm literally a, like in everything but comedy in comedy, I am a fucking like, uh, pull yourself up by your bootstraps Republican in light. You know, I am the exact opposite of my political stance where I'm like, they say no, they say fucking promise to you, you motherfucker, go out and work, go hit, go bomb for five fucking years straight.

1:56:35And like, he has every opportunity to do that. And he just does not. But yes, I do. I cannot help it, David, but like see this motherfucker and be like, come on, bro. Also, genuinely, like, just try it.

1:56:46David Sims:Try it. Try it twice, you fucking brick. When we're saying that he's close, I think like this guy could very easily have a career as like a host. He could be a middle on the road. Absolutely. He could like headline in small markets. He would, if he stuck with it, eventually get on at least a handful of late night slots because it was a smaller industry. And if you had a good enough five minutes eventually you'd get it. Would he get a sitcom ever? No. Would he ever become a giant star? I don't think so. Who knows? The number one predicting factor in somebody being successful in show business is that they are a sociopath.

1:57:23That is the number one absolutely predictive thing. It's like, not even that I respect him as an artist, but it's like, bro, you have the insanity needed and the drive. It's like, how many shitty fucking people do we know that just like make like I know people have like spreadsheets of fucking journalists to to like pretend they're friends with I know people who have like you know no no when when some you know when they're being you know they're friends with agents it's like yeah you're an agent you don't even work with is at your fucking birthday party right the fuck out of here some of those people like I don't know

1:57:57David Sims:if you find this as well but I I think some of those people a lot of those people in fact once they get not even fame, but like whatever kind of brass ring they're going for. I want a headline here. I want to get a TV spot. I want to get this festival, whatever it is. There's a feeling of, oh, fuck, this doesn't complete me. And I don't know how to sustain the hustle anymore. I thought this would all sort of fall into place. But there is that like that. There are people you meet where you're like one way or another, that guy's going to figure something out. because this guy's not going to quit until he gets some sense of completion in him.

1:58:33Yeah. And it's not a meritocracy at all.

1:58:35David Sims:No. No, some guys just fucking grind and wear everyone down. And he sort of did that. Yeah, he sort of does. If he was even kind of good at stand-up, he's close to being the successful kind of psycho. Yeah. And he takes a step over the line and can't go backwards.

1:58:51Griffin Newman:He's the king of mics.

1:58:52David Sims:Yeah, he could have been.

1:58:53Griffin Newman:Because if you just show up to enough mics all the fucking time, you would just get booked on those shows. And then that's your stepping stone to get on the bigger kind of show and to eventually get into like doing clubs because you get past. I mean, there's a way to do it. And it doesn't you don't even have to be funny necessarily. The persistence sometimes is all you need.

1:59:13David Sims:Just sort of professional enough, which he is. He does an impression of a professional comedian. in, it's like a comedy adjacent enough that like audiences and clubs who aren't comedy fans would feel comforted by what he's doing if he could just have like 20 % better joke writing. But also, he's definitely not a guy who ever will look inward at all. And that's really the, that's his limiting factor for sure, is like he just cannot, he cannot look within even for one second. No, and even at the end when he fantasizes about doing this big, you know, kind of tell-all about his life, he doesn't know where the joke is.

1:59:53David Sims:Exactly. He just thinks saying like, my dad used to beat me will make people cheer. Which is another hallmark of open micers attempting. Yes. How many open micers are like, alright, man, we don't need to hear about your mom getting cancer, bro. Right. You don't have the tools. I'm going to scare them with dark shit. You're like, everyone tries to do that. Right after that TIG special that Louis put on. Oh, that fucked everything up. You know how many fucking open mics start getting real confessional

2:00:20Griffin Newman:I believe it because the whole story was like, she didn't even plan on doing it. She just went up there. She almost stayed home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck, that was a menace on mics, man. And I, yeah. As an open mic-er at the time who just didn't do anything. I was like, I just watched it, but it was like, fuck, this is brutal. And I tried some of that shit about my family. And guess what? It wasn't funny for another 10 years. Right. It takes time. Now, and even now it's like, fuck, I'm not gonna be able to write about the fucked up shit going on now for another five years. So your hour... There's like someone with a big rolling pin.

2:00:52Griffin Newman:Someone else is smashing a plane. I'm trying to talk about this sensitively. I don't know what your family is.

2:00:57David Sims:You talked about this. Your hour you did at Radio City. That will be out. Maybe on Netflix. Now. January 6th. I requested that date. Storm the servers. Let's end this woke bullshit. Stop the steel. Three-body problem can no longer command the view count. Oh, man. There was stuff in your hour where you were sort of like tiptoeing around heavier family stuff, and then you'd sort of say like, that's for next year. That's for the next special. There's too much going on right now. And it's one of those things, which isn't to say that you won't someday be able to like harness this stuff, you know, or that you couldn't do it tomorrow if you wanted to.

2:01:41David Sims:But I was like, when it just drops as like a stealth bomb of you just making this offhand comment that hints at something a lot heavier. It's so much funnier than when the person comes up and tries to do the Tignitaro, where it's like, for 40 minutes, I'm going to open my soul. And you're like, you got to be so precise and you got to be going through such a specific set of circumstances that are actually unique to hold everyone's attention on that.

2:02:06Griffin Newman:You also have to be a human being with like an actual personality that has like real life experience. Maturity. Big rolling pin. Big rolling pin. pictures are wrong. Absolutely. Well, I will say with jokes, just like movies, it's like you want there to be much more that you don't get to. Right. You want it to be so layered. Like, like the best movie, like the shit that has, stirs up a fandom, like Lord of the Rings or some shit like that, where it's like you see a little bit, but then people are like, yo, what the fuck are those horse guys up to? And then you start, I mean, who the fuck am I talking to?

2:02:37Star Wars. You know what I mean? Star Wars. How many fucking novels they wrote that were just based on that shit. And standup is not as deep an art form as filmmaking at all, but you still want people to, you want some more depth.

2:02:50David Sims:Some jokes are Boba Fett. Some jokes are you with control of the situation acting like you're telling them slightly more than you wanted to when in reality, you're telling them way less than you could. There's so much more to it that's actually fucked up, but not funny. Right. Yeah, yeah. But anyway.

2:03:04Griffin Newman:What else happens in this movie after he gets kicked out of the house? That's when I feel like he sort of triangulates with Sandra Bernhardt. Right. It's kind of like he's like, okay, me being polite and sort of nagging people. I tried the traditional route. Sneaking into a man's car. Right, right, right, right, right. I tried to pay my dues. Right, right, right. Yeah, I've tried to pay my dues. Show up at his home. He's an executive producer directly three times. He's an assistant directly three times. No, but that is his attitude.

2:03:33David Sims:And he's like, unfortunately, there's no other option.

2:03:35Griffin Newman:Yeah. And I feel like Bernhardt is the nuclear bomb. He kind of knows her energy will be useful to me. Yes. He's not like her friend. And all these late night hosts have these things. Well, like they're connected by him. Their relationship is, can we talk about this for a second? Because it's like, I watch it again to be like, am I, the first time I'm like, is there any sexual tension? There's not. He's not a very sexual character. That's the point. He is a completely asexual character. He doesn't really have any desires. Other than respect from his high school. He's not even like, I'll be rich and I'll play golf.

2:04:10David Sims:He just wants to be on TV. I think even more specifically than that, wants everyone he went to high school with to see him on television and go, wow, I used to bully that kid. But he's the man. And look at him now. He just imagines that moment. And that's kind of the beauty of this movie is that it is not about anything but symbols. Like this is a... We talk about... At the beginning, we joked about it being like him inventing parasocial relationships. But this is at a time... And you said it, David, where it's like, now people actually know way more about everyone. This is a time where a parasolist relationship, you actually had to completely invent it.

2:04:49These people are not... He's an opaque person. You don't know anything about him. Yes. Sandra Bernhardt is like, you know, clear some, I'm guessing some rich girl who like her parents were, you know, whatever. For some reason, she's a rich girl who this person, and this is her way of acting out.

2:05:04David Sims:Well, that's the Harley Quinn character in Joker Falia, duh. Oh, hell yeah. But it does feel like it's a similar backstory. I will say I have not seen oh you didn't want to see that terrible movie I started watching some of it I basically watched enough on a plane so I could take a picture of Tim Dillon and be like lol and text it to him that's all I did it for but like yes it's all symbols or ideas they don't know this guy at all and for him too it's like he wants nothing but the symbolic like yes everyone was wrong I'm the fucking man I mean the wedding his literal principle is the officiant.

2:05:43Griffin Newman:The most authoritative person you can think of. That's crazy. He's a child. It's interesting. It's like when he does his set, he doesn't do any political humor. He doesn't make fun of Jimmy Carter. Part of that is that in a movie you can't do topical humor. I understand.

2:05:59David Sims:But it does still become characterization.

2:06:02Griffin Newman:It's like, no, this guy doesn't even know about that. That's not

2:06:05David Sims:really something he gets. He's in one track exclusively. I also think it's like You talking about the parasocial, I thought for a second, Stavi, you were raising your hand to make a point, and then I realized you were doing arm exercises. I'm just doing arm exercises for my broken arm. My PT told me to do them. I was going to say that there has been an extensive history. It's scaled down now that our culture is less monolithic. But these talk show hosts having really extreme stalkers and people who are convinced delusionally that they are in a relationship with this person and Letterman had several who were very high profile.

2:06:41David Sims:I believe Johnny Carson, several as well. Leno maybe had zero. But you're right. It was much more of an invented backstory. And part of it was in a world where you're not getting that kind of intimacy from things like podcasts or YouTubers or fucking whatever, people were like, I fall asleep with Johnny every night. This is a ritual with me. He does monologues to me. This feels like the most consistent relationship in my life. and people you would hear always would like in court say like, well, he was, we were talking all the time and they were like, you were having conversations with him and they'd be like, well, he would wear a blue tie to signal something to me.

2:07:23David Sims:Like truly, it would be stuff like that. And when he does this with his ear, that's him saying, I love you. Yeah. I mean, yeah, absolutely. That's again, Marty on top of it because yeah, you're right. This is the closest to a fucking podcaster you get because they're there every day. and they're not acting. Right? Right. They're just talking. I mean, they obviously are to some degree, but you don't know that as somebody watching. That's what you think. It's just a guy. The trick is he's just really interested in people. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, Bernhardt basically goads him into fucking storming.

2:07:53Then he goes to the house, which was a hilarious scene where Jerry's finally like, fuck, you're a fucking piece of shit. You know, Hitler made a mistake to you compared to Hitler.

2:08:03David Sims:It's also funny that it's like her fantasy basically is just to like sexually dominate him. It's not even... She's so undeterred by him not only being uninterested in her, but being hostile against her. It's just like, I just want to fucking rule you. Well, that makes sense, right? He's a powerful older guy, especially if she means something to her parents. He's like a father figure.

2:08:25Griffin Newman:He's probably been around long enough that, right, it's like he represents something nostalgic and in that creepy way for her. Yes. I mean, we're all just talking around like the word like daddy issues or whatever. But yeah, sure. She's so good. Now this is something that's been like not Mr. J. Yeah. Did she get critics award? She got the National Society and she got a BAFTA nom. This movie was weirdly loved by the BAFTAs. It got like seven BAFTA noms. Nothing else. Okay. Best jokes, Rupert Pumpkin. No, it's like the whole cast got nominated. Like the BAFTA, I mean, maybe it's the Jerry Lewis effect.

2:08:59Griffin Newman:Yeah, Europe. But like, it was like best director, best actor De Niro, best supporting actor, Lewis. Like, you know, It won best screenplay. It's like zero Oscar noms, right? Oh, yeah. Because it was a bomb. It was a big bomb. Yeah. The moment where she's holding the gun and she's like, can I please have a second here? Like, that was... I mean, I thought she was good and had an incredible presence, most of it. But that scene, I was like, holy fuck, that's incredible.

2:09:25David Sims:She feels genuinely dangerous and it's fascinating because... Much more so than Rupert. That's the thing. And then 10 years into a career where you're like, I know what Robert De Niro movies deliver. I'm watching this guy who seems a little quiet and introverted, but he might explode at any moment. And in this, he never pops and she's the one popping and she won't fucking stop.

2:09:43Griffin Newman:Even when he first kidnaps Jerry and he gets out of the car, he drops the fucking gun. It's so good. His look is incredible, by the way.

2:09:50David Sims:I try his like sort of, yeah, his dress down. I did immediately think this might be my Halloween costume this year. People would be like, are you doing a shitty... Tony Clifton. Yeah, I mean, so many. Like the big glasses, it's like kind of Leo from One Battle. And then the weird fedora. Like everything about it is just so funny. And then the series of signs that he translates into being cue cards. That's what I was going to say. Don't walk around with a cue card that says I have a gun. I replicated one for the photo for this episode. And I will throw it out. Good. I will walk into our closest place.

2:10:24Griffin Newman:I just want to protect you guys. Thank you. Did I tell you guys, did I tell you a story about like, because I had a fake gun on Begonia. Oh, yeah. And the difference between England, because we shot most of it in England. We shot the exteriors here. So I had a fake gun. And, you know, I've gotten fake guns for shit. And usually they fight. They're like BB guns, whatever. This is a fully plastic gun, right? And so I was like, oh, funny. And I just take it out of the gun. I start fucking pointing at people's heads. I'm like, I pointed to a PA's head. I'm like, give me a fucking peanut butter jug.

2:10:52I'm going to kill you. And the armorer was like, ah! He was like, oh, my God, what are you doing? And I was like, bro, it's a fucking plastic gun. And he's like, no, we cannot have that. It's like the gun safe. I guess this makes sense.

2:11:04Griffin Newman:But I feel like he's like my larger job is to make sure that no one ever fucking does that with whatever I give them. Right. Like it's like rule number one. We don't pretend to shoot.

2:11:18David Sims:The whole rust issue was being like, this is a fake gun. Why would I hesitate to pull the trigger? Well, also, isn't it like a hundred year old gun?

2:11:26Griffin Newman:No, I know.

2:11:27David Sims:That was a perfect storm. But like those guys' job is to be so intense about everything to correct for the one in eight million times that the worst fucking possible thing happens. It is funny. But he was just being a real Ben about the gun stuff. That's all I'm saying. Fucking whiner. Big Ben. The disciplinarian. Big Ben! one last thing when he's getting kicked out i want to i want to highlight how funny the shot of him running back and forth although when it's locked on the hallway door and you see rup and then the camera follow and he runs past the camera and it follows him through the fucking that was like holy fuck that's an incredible because the to go seamlessly from a hilarious slapstick like him running back and forth looney tunes bit to then doing i guess i don't know fucking they just follow him through.

2:12:19It was so fucking awesome. And just I mean, that was that was shot. That's another thing where it's like if that's the, you know, cinematographer, that's fucking awesome.

2:12:27David Sims:It does feel like Scorsese, Hitchcock and Spielberg are like the three big Western. They actually know how to use camera moves to evoke emotions 100 percent of the time in a way that feels supernatural because it was Hitchcock. It was like dread and tension and Spielberg gets like, you know, wonder and awe and excitement. And Scorsese's the king of using camera moments to make you just feel really fucking weird. You know, just like, oh, what is this weird mood? Because it went from really funny to like now frantic, which is kind of probably what you felt like what it would feel like if a fucking lunatic was running through your office.

2:13:05You'd be like, who the fuck is that kind of powdered blue tuxedo knocking over the Doritos? And then it becomes like, oh, wait, is this guy a fucking lunatic? Anyway, I just wanted to point out that one camera before we move into the move on to the like kidnapping portion.

2:13:18David Sims:But yeah, basically they have this the phone call with the cue cards where he just negotiates that he's going to be the guy that the guest is going to be bumped that he's going to get his shot and then he just leaves him with Sandra Bernhardt and this is all like let's see they get into the back of the car over an hour into the movie.

2:13:40Griffin Newman:It's like an hour 50 minute movie. It's not a long movie. It's one of his shortest. It's an

2:13:44David Sims:hour they get him in the car, they're on the phone. Like when he, when Sandra Bernhardt is with him for the first time, it's an hour and 20 minutes. He's in the studio around the same time. And then the movie at this point is just like Sandra Bernhardt's going off and De Niro's getting ready. He's all taped up. And De Niro, yeah. And his tape suit is so funny. Again, just his pure slapstick cuts. There's so many funny cuts and like how he, like him mad is such a funny laugh. So much more tape than you think there would be so much more tape than necessary yeah hold on let me see yeah anyway sorry i took a couple notes but hey we love notes no anyway you should just say is so funny i know you don't

2:14:25Griffin Newman:have a cast anymore and then you could have written the notes on your i should have no you're

2:14:29David Sims:right you know what speaking of open mics i do want to call out my favorite weirdo open mic i ever saw like one of those like one-time open mic wonders was a guy who looked like an it guy in his 40s who said he had taken the Metro North in to do the show. He called it a show. It was a pure open mic. And his bit was that he was doing like his version of Letterman Top 10 lists. It was like the top 10 websites on the internet. Or I think it was top 100. Sure. And the bit was that he kept being like, numbers 83 to 70. Porn! But for some inexplicable reason. He's wearing like a shirt and tie and slacks.

2:15:10David Sims:And he chose to pull his tie up and act like he was reading the notes off the back of his tie. There were no notes on the back of his tie. It's almost a choice. He had planned to bring a piece of paper with him, didn't have it and was like, what makes the next? Oh, of course, tie notes. And he just really wanted to nail the cue card, like note card. But my buddy Sam Rogal and I just always talk about that guy. We're like, Like, we genuinely laughed about as hard as that guy as we've ever laughed at any professional comedian. I mean, I remember one of the first open mics, this is how long I've been doing stand-up, was it was Hillary Clinton was running against Barack Obama.

2:15:45And there was an old guy, and the thing that stays in my, it's just an old guy who's doing fine. You know, not bombing, not killing. And then he just, like, it was around the time of the Iowa caucus. He's just like, Hillary, yeah, I'm sure he did really good at the cock ass. ass. And it was like, what are you saying? She got like, what are you even going to go? But he said, yeah, Hillary did real well with the cock ass. And he just kept saying caucuses cock ass. Like, right.

2:16:14David Sims:Is this pointed? Is there any commentary here? Do you just hear caucus on TV and think that's funny? It sounds like cock and ass. And that's where the joke begins and ends. He didn't even particularly seem like a guy who hates Hillary Clinton. Like he wasn't like a weird Republican, whatever. I think it was just pure right down the middle misogyny where it's like, oh, there's a woman running, cock and ass. Maybe they fuck her in the ass, whatever. You've never forgotten this. Dude, I know exactly what that guy looks like. He's an old guy. He has kind of that fucking brown gray hair, aviators on.

2:16:45He's wearing a sweater. It's literally seared into my mind. Do you have one, Ben, like a classic open mic weirdo?

2:16:50Griffin Newman:Well, I'm thinking of, and I wonder if this is a guy that crossed either of your past. Do you remember Ron? He was an older guy. He had a ponytail. And his whole shtick. He always went at the end of the show. Ron was an Eastville guy, right? Yes. I remember him vividly. And I worked at the Creek briefly. He was always there. Yep, yep, yep. He would be at every show. And yet, everyone was so annoyed with him because he was terrible that he was always last. And it would be like a fucking bucket show or whatever. And last in an open mic is like, last in a real show, you're headlining. Last in an open mic is everyone's left.

2:17:27David Sims:It also means you're going on after three hours and Ron would act like he was headlining. Ron would take to the stage with the energy of here to close it out.

2:17:34Griffin Newman:It was a bucket show where it was randomly your name would get picked and yet he was always that last one. They'd pick up Ron and be like, not Ron.

2:17:44David Sims:They would tape a rock to Ron's slip in the bucket so that it would always be at the bottom. Those mics were always rigged. Those mics were like fucking... But then he would go up there. I had the votes. He would go up there and just

2:17:58Griffin Newman:mostly do eating pussy jokes. Of course. Pretty good. Sounds pretty good. A thoughtful lover.

2:18:07David Sims:It's like this is a

2:18:08Griffin Newman:55 year old man. Uncle June thumbs up.

2:18:12David Sims:Yeah.

2:18:14Griffin Newman:And then he sees people sing it. He's like. Uncle June eats box. Shout out to Ron, dude. That's awesome. I just always think of when Ricky Gervais did his stupid special where he got to talk to his rock, CK. And Seinfeld. And he brings up the guy who says, sitting on a cock because I'm gay. It's CK brings him up. Right. And Ricky Gervais is like, oh, that sucks. And the rest of them are like, no, it's pretty funny. And I think about it every day.

2:18:39David Sims:He does the Otis Ray and Otis Redding. And they get into the logic. And they're just like, the implication that he has to do it. Because he's gay. The wording of. Yeah. Sitting on a cock because I'm gay. Because. And by the way, I mean, listen, what is Comptown if not sitting on a cock? Because I'm gay 1 ,000 times. Sitting on a cock because I'm gay launched a million podcasts. I'll still slip into that. Maybe they fucking went back and time traveled and watched me in an open mic. You're going to turn out to be the looper.

2:19:12Griffin Newman:Oh, my God. All right. So they tie him up.

2:19:17David Sims:Yeah, I don't know. No, it goes straight to basically, right, Sandra Bernhardt driving him insane. Yeah, she's so funny. And Rupert getting ready. Tony Randall, very funny as the guest host. Yes. Tony Randall kind of just like... Did I have to say that?

2:19:30Griffin Newman:Yeah, doing exactly what he's supposed to do.

2:19:32David Sims:He's really a pro. And Scorsese giving him the jokes. Yeah. I mean, this is a classic talk about its sort of approach to street casting. This is a movie that has like four different and a special appearance by blank as themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the opening credits. but you have Joyce Brothers, you have Victor Borg, you have Tony Randall, who's such a good, like, sub in. Perfect. And that guy that doesn't exist, by the way, like, yeah, these guys are just hosts on a bench. Yeah. It's just not a job that exists. Presenter, host. Entertainment has just gone in such a different direction. And a guy like Tony Randall, who's, like, not a comedian, he's an actor, but he's a very skilled comedic actor.

2:20:12David Sims:He doesn't have, like, a stand-up act, but these guys know reliably arguably, he's one of the best guests. If people drop out, always get Tony Randall on panel. And he can read a cue card. He'll fill in. It's fine. He doesn't want to do this, but he'll do it.

2:20:26Griffin Newman:There are presenters, but they're really now like on TikTok and YouTube. Well, yeah. I mean, I do think some of it is a, yes, TikTokers have become, which is a real bad thing. I mean, some of them are really good, but some of them are fucking dog shit at it. yes I think that and also like it becomes it's kind of seen now as like alright if you can't get into act like I remember I was offered a couple a couple things and my agents were like we don't want people to think of you as a host you know what I mean so now I think it's seen as a lower thing whereas at the time I think it was like that's the job you want of course because it's like you run the coolest club in the world right and I would love to I mean when you guys were talking about the six week like I don't want to these shows seem like a fucking nightmare I don't ever want to be tied down but I would love to do a week that would be fucking awesome you know what I mean like that would be fun I'm a little well I don't know if I should

2:21:23David Sims:say this on mic I don't know if it's a thing you can't talk about but I'm a little surprised you haven't gotten the ass to do these types of things yet but it feels like that's more about these jobs disappearing I think it's just about the disappear I mean I would love to do them and like Call Byron Allen. Call him up. It's time to get unleashed. Wait, have you done Byron Allen? No, I think, yeah. I don't know if I'm going to get unleashed yet. I'm scared to get fully unleashed. Right, right. Because this is me leashed. Lord knows what will happen. If I'm fully unleashed on Byron Allen's comics unleashed, bro, you know, I'm a different guy.

2:21:55David Sims:It might be the first time he leashes a comic. He might go absolutely. Leash him up. He's talking about eating pussy in Israel too much.

2:22:08Oh, God. No, I mean, but those jobs are just like, you do it more like four. It's so funny because I loved, doing Seth Meyers was so awesome. And he's the man. He's great at it. And it felt more like, whoa, this is just like, it almost felt like fantasy camp. Whereas I would love to do those shows and it is an opportunity to be funny, but it's like, yeah, they just don't exist the way they used to.

2:22:30David Sims:They're so strange now. Yeah. I guess we're on the thing that replaced them. Of course. We're talking on it right now.

2:22:37Griffin Newman:Now Seth has one of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure Colbert will soon announce that he has one of these or whatever.

2:22:43David Sims:Our buddy Connor Ratliff said a year or two ago, he was like, I had the legitimate thought of which ends first, the Tonight Show or blank check. And I was like, Connor, the fuck are you talking about? And a year later, I was like, it might be a photo finish.

2:22:56Griffin Newman:I'm not going anywhere and I don't really get it with that thing anymore. Oh, man. Damn, he's right. I had to like cover the last week of the Late Show because the Atlantic cares, right? And like, I was, you know, it's like... I grew up with Stephen Colbert. I love Stephen Colbert. I don't watch The Late Show. I see a clip or whatever. So I had to dial back into it. He's kind of peering into the past. It's weird. Just like that format. It's not bad. There's still good stuff being done. It's a lab for some good stuff. I think Seth is good.

2:23:26David Sims:When's the last time I watched a full episode of Seth Meyers? I watched a lot more.

2:23:32Griffin Newman:I mean, I watch Fallon every night.

2:23:33David Sims:Of course. That's just a jacket. Yeah, you don't watch that. They feed it. You don't watch Jimmy. They feed it into your veins. Yeah, right, right, right. And then it comes out of your balls. But it was the weird thing of Colbert when he had that show. I remember being really excited because I loved Colbert and I loved the Colbert Report. And I was like, oh, this guy is an interesting, he's done an interesting show. There's some of the best satire. He's going to do something different with this. Right, and instead, no, he more fit to the old-fashioned format. kind of neutered in my opinion kind of neutered himself to the same problem that I think I mean they never let the Conan show fucking breathe for a second but part of me is just like I love like I want masturbating like bring the masturbating bear to fucking 11 baby you know what I'm saying it's about time they would have I mean Conan definitely would have figured it out Conan was the best

2:24:21Griffin Newman:for me it was when Corden went right I mean we had to talk you off a ledge this is over I mean you were on the top of Blank Check headquarters going like it's over you were holding a big rock you were gonna jump Ben

2:24:33David Sims:was never going to last that long. He was always challenging the powers that be. Yeah, that's true.

2:24:39Griffin Newman:Right, he spoke

2:24:40David Sims:too much truth on that show. He was so fucking wild. Yeah, you couldn't put it talk about somebody who couldn't be, who was unleashed. Talk about someone who didn't give a shit. Who was just like, I'm doing what I think is funny and I don't care what anyone else thinks. I have no ulterior motives taking this job. It has nothing to do with trying to break into America. No, I'm not trying to book other gigs. I'm not just desperate to play a mouse in Girlboss Cinderella. That's when, that's really when Late Night Died. Did he play the Fat Mouse?

2:25:09Griffin Newman:Gus is Gus? They changed the name, right? No, the funny, yeah, he's Gus. Yeah, he's Gus. Are you fucking kidding me? Don't worry, it was in Bad Girlboss Cinderella. You'll get to play Gus. I want to play Gus, dude. You'll play Gus. In a better one.

2:25:21David Sims:It's fine. They just announced a Wicked Stepsisters only movie. I bet you could be Gus. Yeah, Akita is doing that. Gus was my guy, bro. Oh, really? Yeah, you should look into that. Call him up. Honestly I'm gonna try dude Who's got Gus? Gus Gus no joke that fat little mouse was Again I'll throw that into Roger Rabbit and Hercules Hercules That fat little mouse so big for me

2:25:43Griffin Newman:It's like how Emily Ishida talks about how Nia Nyum from Star Wars Was Asian to her Even though like obviously he's an alien But she was like there were just no Asian characters So I was like he is Asian And she was like empowered by it She was like exist in this universe And you're just like, you see Gus and you're like, this is me. I fucking love this guy. He's clearly my personality. My daughter loves Gus. That movie is, my daughter loves that movie so much. Really? The original? Is that her favorite of like the classics? I guess so. Because what are the others? Like Peter Pan, that was one I put on where it has like the woke Disney thing at the front where we're like, we're sorry about this movie.

2:26:21Griffin Newman:Cigarette smoke coming. Jesus, who cares? Then you watch Peter Pan and you're like, damn. Racist. Racist. The Native American shit's out of control. but like so she never really cared about that what are the other classics she's never seen like Pinocchio Pinocchio Dumbo Snow White I've never shown a Dumbo because that'll fuck her up Snow White terrified her and she refuses to watch it Bambi you're not going to show her

2:26:43David Sims:which one? Bambi Song of the South I showed her that but I was like she loves it

2:26:48Griffin Newman:right just absorb the information right this one is news

2:26:52David Sims:this is school you're right yeah how fucking how fucked up would it be dude I like buy a bootleg VHS. An adorable little kid and she's just vibing with racist shit. She's like, she has no context for it. You're just like, what? Did I race? Does my DNA contain a super racist? We've heard this before. It just makes sense. Such things should be. We've talked about this before, but like, it'll come up in the box office game that Song of the South was re-released in theaters in like 1989. Where we're like, they were keeping in circulation so much later. Brutal. By the time we're like growing up in conscious, they're like, We don't put this out on video.

2:27:30David Sims:They never gave it that permanence. And yet, they were showing Zippity-Doo-Dah all the time. Zippity-Doo-Dah never went away. Kids today don't know what that's from.

2:27:37Griffin Newman:And they're like, don't worry.

2:27:38David Sims:Don't matter.

2:27:40Griffin Newman:We would see the scene.

2:27:42David Sims:It would be like Uncle Remus.

2:27:44Griffin Newman:No, I love Zippity-Doo-Dah.

2:27:44David Sims:Yeah, of course. Everyone loves it. It's a big hit. Yeah. But Zippity-Doo-Dah comes out in the club. The little birds. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a bluebird on his shoulder. It's back that ass up and Zippity-Doo-Dah. The two must get on the dance floors for. Zip-dee-doo-dah feet, Fat Joe

2:28:03David Sims:That's what the 90s were, kids I'm sorry, you might not like it, but

2:28:07Griffin Newman:So He does this monologue We've talked about it already, but like

2:28:13David Sims:It's like an incredible sustained performance

2:28:15Griffin Newman:I think it's incredible because It's just Kind of funny and regular enough Whereas that's one thing I don't like about Joker Is that he's He just sucks Yes. And you're just like, yeah, right. I get it. I got it. Who the Joker has to follow.

2:28:32David Sims:My friend Sam Rill. Better than following the Joker.

2:28:34Griffin Newman:That'd be tough to win the room back after Joker gets up. Right. Ben, what were you going to say? He performs in a way where you can tell he's practiced it in the mirror and taped himself and listened to himself a million times. It's kind of no perfect. Right. Yeah. Where it's so honed, but again, has never done it in front of anyone ever before. I will say like, yes, watching that. I mean, obviously we all know De Niro is the best, one of the best actors of all time. Good at being in movies. The way that he, and they said that he did that in one take too, which is incredible, right?

2:29:11David Sims:There are no cuts in the sequence. It goes on for so long. They did it. They filmed it like you film a real standup set. and the fact that yes not only is he doing that but his rhythm he does this insane thing where his rhythm is just a little off from the audience which is like what a guy who doesn't really know how perform like you can nitpick like would this guy even be this good you can nitpick like oh would they even be this nice to him but in terms of like somebody performing real stand-up then that's the best i've seen probably other than you know funny people but that's so clearly a real stand-up show that they handle it a different way.

2:29:49And that's done well, but they're really doing stand-up. He's acting like he's doing stand-up. And like, you know, again, before I rewatched it, I thought it was way more of a stand-up movie because I watched it when I was 19 when that's all I was thinking about. And I was planning to just sort of watch every stand-up movie. Like I was going to watch Punchline with Tom Hanks. I was going to watch Lenny. I was going to watch all this just to see how people did it, but ended up not really being that much of a stand-up movie. But I was shocked at how, no disrespect to fucking our boy Will Arnett, who I thought that movie was fun, but that's not what stand-up's like.

2:30:26Griffin Newman:Just not at all. Which we discussed, obviously, on that episode. We discussed, and everyone was happy

2:30:29David Sims:with everything I had to say. I haven't listened, sorry. No, you should listen now. I will now that I've seen that movie.

2:30:35Griffin Newman:It's mostly Griff being like, open mic doesn't work that way, which is fair. It does not. That is a hard part with that movie, but I was able, I've fucked with Cooper enough where I was able to suspend. I love Cooper. And there's some weird... I like balls. Balls, he crushed his balls, dude. But anyway. What if Cooper's like, I'm bringing back balls. Give me the ball spinoff, bro. This is balls? Yeah, this is balls. I love that. What, like, this is for me? Are these balls on? I do think to your point... Tap a guy's nut sack a little bit. I think to your point... Are these balls on?

2:31:05David Sims:It's very key that we see Jerry, who's escaped. He's pulling the tape off his shoe. He's walking by the electronics store. By the way, I was watching that. I'm like, the whole scene, I'm like, this is crazy. This woman's lunatic. Then she just takes her clothes off. I'm like, I think I'd probably fuck her. She raises some interesting points. I think I probably would.

2:31:24Griffin Newman:I don't have a sense of Jerry's sexuality either. He's probably divorced like 10 times. I think he's just so over it at this point. Yes. I mean, that's the thing about Carson, though. It's like he'd always get divorced for infidelity. And you're like, so Carson was fucking? Yeah, for sure. He's a drunk pussyhound. but also was like emotionally distant.

2:31:43David Sims:It felt like Carson was in a series of anomalisas where the second he actually got to know someone they just turned into a blank person. He couldn't talk to them anymore. No, but I think at that moment it's like, come on. He's going to be like, why don't you cut a hole in the tape? Whatever you do from here, that's up to you. Maybe cut the nipples out as well. No, you see him walking by the electronic store. He's pulling the tape off his shoe and there's the grid of TVs and like notably the sound is off. He can't hear it and he's just seeing it and they cut to Jerry Lewis and the amount of contempt on his face.

2:32:17David Sims:And it's not just this guy fucking kidnapped me. You can see that what he's angry about is if the sound is off he looks like a real comedian. He's actually practiced his moves so much that he looks right in front of that curtain. He's got the right gestures and it's just him seething at what is the very end of the routine, which you don't get to hear. It's the first time you cut out of the unbroken take of just De Niro doing it all straight to camera. It's pan across the electronics store, cut to Jerry walking by, he sees it, and it looks like he wants to punch through the fucking window. And he hates that.

2:32:55David Sims:He can kind of see what the movie's about to reveal when it cuts ahead. He becomes this weird kind of folk hero. It's sort of like, it actually doesn't matter what he's saying. It doesn't matter whether or not this is funny. he looks kind of right on camera. A moment has been created that has some kind of stickiness to it. And Jerry knows TV enough to know that's happening and be like fucking shit. And what does that say about everything he's poured his fucking life into? Yes. The reason he's fucking alone in this beautiful apartment is this thing that a fucking lunatic could fake. Was his life a fucking waste?

2:33:28David Sims:He understands how to do something that is so delicate and so ephemeral and so rare that that justifies his life. Yeah. And this guy could commit crime. He could do 85 % of it. Right. And people are rooting for him in a way. No one's saying, hey, Rupert, go get cancer.

2:33:42Griffin Newman:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And this is what's so scary about the era of going viral. People now commit crimes on social media to get clout. Yes. It is so, like, actually normal now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an everyday thing that I hear about. It's a type of guy you can be. Yeah, yeah. No, it's really fucking scary how prescient this film is. Totally. It is right this very moment.

2:34:07David Sims:This is that era where Scorsese keeps making these movies where people are like, is this socially irresponsible? To be right. And 10 years later, everyone's like, man, dude nailed it with that one. Yeah. He was giving us a warning shot. Totally. He was not creating anything. He was commenting on a thing he saw and none of us knew how bad it was going to get. Yeah. Another nice thing about the walkout too is like just some extra filmmaking. There's so much tension where you're like, you don't know when it is and they recorded it, but are they going to air it? Part of you is like, oh, fuck, is he going to?

2:34:38Because now they've tricked you into rooting for Rupert, right? Now you're like, fuck, I want this to go on air. Even though, again, I misremembered so much shit from the movie for the first time I saw it that I'm like, oh, wait, does it actually never air or whatever, you know what I mean? Is it ambiguous if it happened? Right, right. Is it one of those, it's like the taxi driver ending? It's taxi driver-esque

2:34:56Griffin Newman:of him being, but like, no, you kind of want this. It feels real. I think more stuff is fake earlier in the film. Oh, yes. But this one's real. Yes. That's how I feel.

2:35:05David Sims:He's clearly hallucinating. The People magazine cover being the very private world of Rupert Pumpkin is so funny where they're sort of admitting like, well, now the public's fascinated by him. But what is there? There's no guy here. You know, what are you going to say? He stays at home and talks to cardboard Liza. Yeah. He just wants to live in the TV. It's a very private world that Rupert lives in. Ma! He's so fucking awesome. But then, yeah, it works. he gets to

2:35:32Griffin Newman:that just always is funny yeah to me things that are always funny someone throws something by mistake and then you hear a cat make a noise that's always funny that's really good or like plates a clatter and then a cat yeah dynamite someone's like doing something really serious and then the mom's like hey do you want to say shut up mom always funny that's just always gonna make me laugh come on come on

2:35:54David Sims:I'm hitting the nuts I'm hitting the nuts I was gonna say I won't get into specifics but there was a project I worked on in which there was a producer who fancied himself an expert in comedy who had no background in comedy and was a blowhard and he would constantly come in and pitch. Can't we get a little person in here to punch the lead actor in the nuts? Hold on a second. He just kept being, there's nothing funnier in the world. You're the director in the show and you're like, let me talk. This guy has an awesome idea. Big guy, big guy in the frame, little person walks in. He doesn't even have to lower his fist.

2:36:24David Sims:It's eye level.

2:36:25Griffin Newman:Yeah, I understand. Nothing funnier in the world than that.

2:36:28David Sims:You know what? I don't know man

2:36:31Griffin Newman:this is what I'm saying about the clumps coming back yeah yeah we're kind of just getting back there

2:36:35David Sims:if they announced tomorrow Eddie Murphy to return for Sherman

2:36:41Griffin Newman:uh yeah colon clumps 3 or clumps legacy or whatever it's called but the problem is it would be like it's a prime original you're like yeah he's gonna film the whole thing like in his car he's just not gonna care

2:36:53David Sims:obviously one of my favorite movie stars of all time I now end up only watching his movies on airplanes and just going like, literally, what do we have to do to get him to make a movie for theaters again? Do we have to like pull a Rupert Pumpkin on Eddie Murphy and be like, dude, it's okay to like wait and pick a good script? Well, do you think for him it was like as soon as he didn't win for Dreamgirls, he's like, all right, fuck this. I think that fucked him up and then, you know, he kind of soft retires for close to 10 years there. He really pulls back and then Dolomite, I think he wanted the same kind of like second wave.

2:37:26David Sims:Which is a good movie, but it wasn't. It's a good movie. But he wanted that to be what's the, you know,

2:37:31Griffin Newman:the lifetime achievement. Right. Right. Uncut gems.

2:37:34David Sims:And I think what happened was he didn't get the Oscar nomination and Netflix rolled out the fucking red carpet for him. And he was like, this streaming shit's great. I had fucking 10 years of Hollywood loving to make fun of my movies bombing. Now, none of this shit matters. And he's just done like three Netflix movies, three Hulu movies, three Amazon movies. It's just what he does. Tough stuff. He's the man. He's the man. And yeah, I'm with you. I do want, I think he still has, one. I think he still has his basketball. He just needs to try. He definitely does. Even that documentary, which felt like half-assed.

2:38:05Griffin Newman:It's just like, we suck Eddie Murphy's dick for two hours, the documentary. It was still like, him talking is just interesting.

2:38:10David Sims:What it was clearly meant to be was there were all those stories that Netflix had made a big deal for him to come back to stand-up. And the documentary starts in 2019, around the time of Dolomite coming out. And it's him prepping to do stand-up. And then the pandemic hits. And he's like, eh, I don't feel it anymore. And they keep filming him thinking that he'll get the bug, and he doesn't. and then they were like, let's just cut this into a thing about how everyone's like, it'd be cool if Eddie ever did stand-up again. That's so fucking tough, though. But there are interview clips in that where you're just like, this is the most charismatic performer alive.

2:38:41David Sims:He's incredibly good. He can turn it on in a millisecond and he's fascinating. I would love if you worked with like a fucking, like a real deal director. That's the shit you want to see. He and Spike Lee are always like tempting us with the like, there was the Mary and Barry one that got floated. Holy fuck, that would be incredible. Would have been unbelievable. Oh, well. Fuck, that'd be an awesome movie. I mean, it would be very interesting. Would you break culture? I would be incredible, bro. It'd be incredible. The scene where he's fucking, they elect him after he smoked crack, after he gets out of jail for crack.

2:39:07Yeah.

2:39:08David Sims:Is he still alive? Did he find him? Marion Barry, I think he passed away.

2:39:10Griffin Newman:Did he lose? Did we lose Marion? Yeah, he left us. R.I.P. R.I.P. to you, Marion. All right. This film, like I said, tested horribly, was released February 18th, 1983. Not a release date. That shows a lot of confidence. That's true. A week before my birthday. Hey, made about 2.5. There we go. Okay. A couple of Pisces. Yeah, baby.

2:39:34David Sims:I'm technically a cusp. I dip a toe in that Aquarius pool. The water's fine, brother. Come on in. All right.

2:39:44Griffin Newman:You're, yeah, you're an Aquarius. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gross 2.5 million on a budget of 19. So big flop. Damn. Scorsese's like, I think it might be De Niro's best performance. He's incredible. And Zerriman's basically like, I think people just didn't know whether or not they should laugh. It's not a comforting movie. It's not giving you the sort of cues you might need if you're feeling kind of confused by it. I think the movie rocks. It's so incredible. I mean, it's so trite to say ahead of its time, but it's like a movie like this right now. This, I mean, look, This is what people, people would just call this a straight up comedy now.

2:40:27They wouldn't, they wouldn't, they wouldn't fucking, you know, say, oh, which genre is it? This is, and to me it is, there's some fucking hilarious part. This is a comedy to me. And yeah, fully, fully ahead of its time.

2:40:40Griffin Newman:It then goes to Cam in that sort of classic way of like, you know, it's already come out back then. The reputation. Yeah. Sergio Leone takes him backstage and is like, it's your most mature film. Scorsese's like I don't actually even know if that meant he liked it but I sort of just took the compliment anyway you looked great up there man when you didn't like your boy's performance like bro that is your most mature brando really liked it and like invited De Niro out to the island awesome and you know the Moreau island oh fuck and Marty went with him and he was like I figured he wanted to talk about some project or whatever.

2:41:23Griffin Newman:We got there. We were there for five days. He never showed up. What? Perfect. That's awesome. And Marty's like, I fucking hate... I'm an urban person. I did not want to be on vacation. I didn't want to be on the beach. And at some point, someone's like, I don't know if you walk around, you might find him. And then after five days, he finally shows up or something. and yeah I don't know that's just a hilarious story Stephen Trask the guy who wrote Hedwig and the Angry Inch the show at one point tried to turn this into like a Broadway or Off-Broadway show he wrote the music I think that would work yeah yeah I think that would really work it would I did I hear with the lyrics yeah right yeah you know didn't happen and I feel like you said it's like everyone sort of thinks of it fondly.

2:42:19David Sims:It's become, I feel like, the cool favorite Scorsese pick. Right. It's the very Linden of the filmography. It's the one if you don't want to pick the obvious one. You know which one is actually my favorite? I think After Hours is that.

2:42:30Griffin Newman:After Hours has been that a little bit. I think it's After Hours rising more now. I think that's After Hours. I think King of Comedy still, like, look, I love the movie. I wouldn't say it's my fucking, that's insane. No, it's not my favorite. It's your favorite. Yeah. But it's a fucking incredible movie. One thing I was just thinking about, you know what I'd love to see? What? I would love to see De Niro from Copland yell at De Niro from King of Comedy. They have similar looks. You blew it! You blew it! It's like his older brother yelling at him. I would love to see that. That would be fucking awesome.

2:43:01David Sims:That's his gold wash, Color of Money movie. It's a mashup sequel of Copland and King of Comedy. He's de-aged, plays young Rupert Pumpkin. The Pumpkins. That's good. Let's play the box office game, I guess. Okay, so this opens to number one. You guys don't have any other thoughts? Come on. You know, Ben, anything? No, I'm kidding. Comedy great. So glad it's legal again.

2:43:25Griffin Newman:Oh, yeah, we're clocking about 240. That's it? That gentleman's 240. We can get to three. Come on. We'll do it with the box office game. Number one at the box office, David. It is a big hit of 1982. I mean, that makes sense because it's February 1983. So, you know, we got holdovers. Comedy. Gigantic, gigantic fucking hit. It's not. It's not.

2:43:48David Sims:It's a Tootsie. Tootsie. It's Tootsie.

2:43:50Griffin Newman:It's Tootsie. Yep. Been out for three months at this point or whatever. We talked about Tootsie plenty in the box office game. And maybe one day we'll do Sidney Pollard. Maybe. There's a lot of boring ass movies. A lot of boring. He's got a lot of boring. Tracy Letts could do like half of them. He could. And maybe we take off. Yeah. You know what? Tracy, you do it. I'm not saying he likes boring movies. It's just like the 70s and 80s. It's just his milieu. Yeah. Number two, another comedy, action comedy, just you know, a foundation. We were just talking about The Star. 48 Hours. You had it. Just like the foundational buddy comedy.

2:44:29Griffin Newman:It is. It is the one. I don't think it holds up.

2:44:33David Sims:I love it and I think there's four awesome scenes. Everyone thinks the scene in the bar. Yes, that scene's incredible and that's the scene that shows us what Eddie can do. Obviously, as he comes out of this, it makes so much sense and there's bang. But it's like, I rewatched it being like, ooh, ooh, ooh, can't wait. See, this is why I'm surprised you don't like him more because I think it's gotten an unbelievable premise. I remember watching it for the first time and realizing what the movie was actually about. Not just, oh, a cop clears a criminal for 48 hours to help him solve a case. The movie's about, this guy now has to accompany a cop everywhere, but he's got 48 hours to get laid.

2:45:10David Sims:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the fact that every scene ends with Nolte being like, let's get out of here. And Murphy's like, I was a minute away from sealing the deal. And by the way, if Nolte... It's funny to me every time. It's awesome. Yeah, yeah. If he's a real bro, he lets him get sucked off quick so that he can then focus on the crime. I got no time for fellatio. And that's just bad leadership on Nolte's part, if I'm being honest. I got a crime to come in. I got to solve the crime, not let you get brain. Number brain. You promised him one on the back end, too. you let him smash immediately and you prompt like once we catch the guy you get the fuck twice that's your bonus

2:45:46Griffin Newman:number three the box office is a crazy fucking movie that I own on DVD on DVD or Blu-ray Blu-ray or 4K I think I have a blue you want me to check my database I'm just curious what level of commitment you have to this movie I was going to start a database for the bus DVDs hell yes you should do a letterbox list that's what you should do

2:46:09David Sims:because you should let other people lock into the canon yeah that's a good point

2:46:14Griffin Newman:just to check I'm pretty sure it's a Blu-ray but that's probably because that's the highest level yeah it's a Blu-ray

2:46:19David Sims:it's Duranche you own it on Blu-ray

2:46:20Griffin Newman:yeah I bought it when I was doing my Haunted House series that I curated myself this is actually a Haunted Person movie

2:46:27David Sims:is this an 83

2:46:28Griffin Newman:or an 82 Holdover

2:46:29David Sims:82 Holdover Haunted Person oh no you know what

2:46:32Griffin Newman:it's an 83 release in America okay oh oh so is it it's an 83 movie

2:46:37David Sims:it's a foreign film

2:46:38Griffin Newman:no no no no it's a really trashy American movie it's got a really compelling female lead performance that's very good but it's like a movie that is incredibly like nasty and uncomfortable and thus

2:46:52David Sims:it's not like Demonoid is it? I don't know that's a big video archives movie okay so it's a possessed woman movie? sort of

2:47:01Griffin Newman:it's a woman being that's a good movie it's a great movie attacked by like a poltergeist.

2:47:07David Sims:It's a woman being... Poltergeist? It's not a poltergeist. It's not like deadly...

2:47:12Griffin Newman:Words you said? Not Deadly Friend. No.

2:47:15David Sims:That's a woman attacked by a computer?

2:47:17Griffin Newman:Deadly Friend is a boy has a robot and then puts the robot into his dead friend's brain and she throws basketballs through people's heads. Really normal movie. All right. I'm going to... All right. I'll tell you the stars of this movie. And this is... You know movies. Definitely not going to be trashy with these stars. Barbara Hershey and Ron Silver. They're great. by the way. It's a good movie. Is it a one-word title? Two words. I'll tell you. It's The Entity. Oh, sure. It's the movie where Barbara Hershey is being raped by a poltergeist. Holy shit. That's tough stuff. Exactly. And the thing about it is it's actually good.

2:47:48Griffin Newman:The movie is actually about how no one believes her.

2:47:51David Sims:Oh, Jean-Luc Godard director?

2:47:53Griffin Newman:Sidney J. Fury, the director of Superman 4. Okay. But other better movies, too. Yeah. But yeah, no, it's about how no one believes her. And Hershey is really good. and Ron Silver is like the one guy who believes or he's like a weird, you know, ghost detective doctor guy or whatever. But it's a fucked up insane movie. It's kind of like Hollow Man. I mean, I like Hollow Man. That's what I'm saying. This is kind of like interesting but also it's so nasty and maybe doesn't quite have his hands around all the difficult topic matter here. But it's not uninteresting.

2:48:26David Sims:They should let Verhoeven finish his dark universe today. They should let 80-year-old dark Verhoeven monster universe, all of the monsters are sexual predators. Is that what he wanted to do? What do you know? I'm just saying he did one. He did. What if Invisible Man was really, really horny? Gotcha. Which I would argue is part of the larger you were talking about Wolf earlier, but the Sony Hot Monsters Who Fuck. Yeah, right. Which was an unofficial franchise that starts with Bram Stoker's Dracula goes to Banger. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but then just goes modern, horny, Wolf and Hollow Man.

2:49:00David Sims:Mm hmm. And they never got to Creature. That's sort of what, I guess, Del Toro's correcting with Shape of Water. With everything he's ever made. Yes. I mean. What if the monster fucks? Shout out to him, dude. It's awesome to just be like, what if a fucked up looking guy got pussy? Every movie is that. When you're a fat guy who makes movies. But maybe he's handsome from a certain point of view. She considers him actually more handsome than regular guys. Respect, bro. Like I said, that's why I started doing stand-up. So you could be cast.

2:49:34Griffin Newman:I think you and Guillermo would get along. I want to make that happen. I fucking love that guy. You like building model kits? I didn't know he lives in fucking Toronto, apparently. Oh, he spends a lot of time. He does a lot of production. Yeah. Okay, that was number four? That was number three. Number four is the Best Picture winner of 1982. So that would have been Gandhi? Yep, that's correct. Get an Indian guy. Apply a little layer to him, though, still. I love how they still were like, let's hit Kingsley with a little spray tan. A little. Just a little. Let's hit him with a little bronzer. Which is a funny move to be like, look, he is Indian.

2:50:08David Sims:Right. Oh, we're gonna give him a little spritz. People aren't gonna be happy. Unless he really looks like a cartoon character. Yeah, it's not fucking, what's his face playing Genghis Khan. But it's still pretty funny. That is so insane that John Wayne did that movie. It's awesome that in between being like, we shouldn't do this. They're like, why don't we just get a guy who technically is, but fucking really amp it up a little bit. That was Hollywood being woke. That was Hollywood being woke back then

2:50:34Griffin Newman:where they were like, relax. We didn't. You know, hire fucking John Wayne. So relax.

2:50:40David Sims:But we brought out a bunch of crayons.

2:50:42Griffin Newman:Number five is a movie with the same title as a CBS TV show in the 2000s. It is a drama about a missing kid. It is basically like Eton Pats, the movie. Like it's not about Eton Pats exactly. who's the boy who disappeared in New York in the 70s.

2:51:00David Sims:That's the same title as a... Like when I was a kid,

2:51:02Griffin Newman:like my family was basically like Eton Pat's and Eric Clapton's kid. They were like, don't talk to strangers and hold my hand on the street and don't you walk out of any windows like on any tall buildings. Like those are the two kid stories that were like burned into my parents' brains. 2000s or 2010s? 2000s or... 2000s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a procedural? CSI Miami. Yeah. The movie's called CSI Miami. No, it was a CBS procedural about missing persons. What was it called? Three years. It ran for years. Without a trace? Without a trace. Without a trace. And that is this movie, Stanley R. Jaffe's Without a Trace.

2:51:39Griffin Newman:Okay. Who, it stars Kate Nelligan and Judd Hirsch. I think it's, I don't know. I mean, one of these movies where you're like, who the fuck would want to see this? What is this about? This kid's missing. I'm Judd Hirsch.

2:51:50David Sims:The kid's missing. Where's that kid at?

2:51:53Griffin Newman:We gotta find him.

2:51:54David Sims:He sounds not that stressed out, I'll say. I'm a little suspicious. That's his attitude, though. It's just always lightly stressed out. Where's my cab? I want to drive my cab. Yeah, no matter if it's like life or death or he's just like, you know, on the way to meet a friend for lunch. He has the same vibe. I'm never fully calm,

2:52:10Griffin Newman:but I'm never too stressed out. I mean, it's just the part of Independence Day where he goes, John Lennon, nice guy. Someone shot him. I just wanted someone else to be like, what the fuck? Who is this fucking guy? I know. There are aliens. Yeah.

2:52:21David Sims:Why is he here? Also, Hirsch is like 15 days older. than Goldblum and they're like, look at this ancient old Jewish book. He's like seven years or something.

2:52:30Griffin Newman:They give him like a silver tan spray on the hair.

2:52:33David Sims:Aliens in this economy?

2:52:35Griffin Newman:That movie, it's just the Roland Emmerich thing where he's like, I love America. There's an old Jewish man. He has the wisdom.

2:52:43David Sims:It's my favorite thing. I gotta tell you, talking about ordering discs, my finger was hovering over that 2012 4K UHD the other night. I was like, do I need this on the shelf and is there a steal? is what I was asking myself. I'm with you. That's a, that's a, such a foundational, that's, now that's a bus movie to its core. That's a bus movie. Hell. Oh, we actually did watch it on the bus this, this, this go around. Banger. Banger. When you talk about like 90s Grisham being like drugs to you, that's like any Roland Emmerich movie where humanity has to band together to defeat a thing. They do band together.

2:53:17What else? Give me the other ones. Day After Tomorrow I rewatched recently,

2:53:20David Sims:slapped so hard. Maybe best American film of all time. Rewatch Godzilla, also recently bought the 4K steelbook. That was kind of fun. All of them are half the worst film I've ever seen. Half the best movie

2:53:31Griffin Newman:I've ever seen. Godzilla's got enough stuff that I can never quite dismiss it. Here's what we know.

2:53:36David Sims:He's a thousand feet tall. He breathes fire. He's got electric scales and he's pregnant. Yeah, maybe it's not the best. Godzilla is a mama. All I remember is the P. Diddy Cashmere song. Oh, yeah.

2:53:52Griffin Newman:That's all I remember from Godfather. That was track one. Really? Godfather from Godfather

2:54:00Griffin Newman:Come with me I got the real life shit from front to back Right? Where I can't remember the rest That also has the wallflowers That was the busta part That's what seared into my memory Because I never saw the movie as a kid But they played the video all the time And he's standing in the middle of Times Square

2:54:18David Sims:Inviting Godzilla to come face him He's wearing a big white shirt face to face to Godzilla. Godzilla leans down to make eye contact with Puffy. The whole thing with Puff Daddy

2:54:29Griffin Newman:was like, even as a kid, I was like, he's not a good rapper. No, he's actually speaking once every 45 seconds. But even as a kid, I knew that. That is true. It was partly that also, as a kid, I'm just fucking watching MTV and I do get to see Busta Rhymes or whatever. Quite a good rapper. Biggie's incredible. Anytime Puffy was on any track. It was like, these lines have clearly been written for him. But meanwhile,

2:54:57David Sims:DJ Khaled, his ears are burning and he's going like, wait a second, what if I did this but said less? What if I did this with less effort? Which is more respectable somehow.

2:55:06Griffin Newman:Buster Rhymes, it just felt like somebody had snuck on to empty. Those videos are insane. Alright. So that's the top five. Number six is Sophie's Choice. Number seven, you know, good.

2:55:18David Sims:I don't know, whatever.

2:55:19Griffin Newman:Roland Emmerich directed that one too. Number seven is The Verdict. Actually incredible. One of the best. Oh, manger and a half, bro. Number eight is Let's Spend the Night Together, which is the Stones concert movie that's directed by Hal Ashby. Oh, sure. Of like kind of their 80s, you know, kind of getting it all together. I don't know. Number nine is E.T., which has obviously just been out for like six months. Quite successful. And number 10 is The Dark Crystal. A Griffin movie. I love The Dark Crystal. Quite a Griffin movie. We will hopefully cover someday on this podcast.

2:55:49David Sims:Yeah. Sure. I'll take that.

2:55:51Griffin Newman:I'll do it one day. Like I said, I'm going to string up a hammock. Yeah. I'll just take a big old nap. Once in a while I'll be like, I like the puppets. You got to be engaged. You got to be locked in. David Bowie, just the most clearly pedophile he's ever played. Yeah, that's Labyrinth.

2:56:08David Sims:But that character, I mean, that is a movie about... Wait, which one is... Dark Crystal is all puppets. It's all puppets. That's a fucking good one, dude. It's beautiful. That's a great movie. The Skeksis? Yeah.

2:56:18Griffin Newman:I like that one.

2:56:19David Sims:Yeah.

2:56:20Griffin Newman:Right. It's got like people puppets. Kind of. I know they're like aliens. But they have like faces. They have faces. Yeah. But there's no human beings in the whole movie. No, but I'm saying like, no, I'm saying the puppets kind of look a little more like people. Yes. They're like Brian Crouch fairy people. Yeah. Rather than like they're fucking monsters and muppets. You know what the fuck you're saying, Griffin. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Stop being obtuse, you little fuck. If that's how you're reacting to me, then like you just might not want me talking on those episodes.

2:56:45David Sims:Okay, never mind. I'm chill. Say anything you want.

2:56:50Griffin Newman:actually what that is it's like John Fuck the famous puppet designer and I'm like who cares

2:56:56David Sims:you gotta show respect to Agra oh man this motherfucker's gonna have like an hour on the toys from that shit well it was mostly a cancelled toy line they didn't put it out in stores maybe we'll just have a bed just a full bed

2:57:10Griffin Newman:four poster bed with like netting I collected them but it was quite expensive

2:57:15David Sims:it was a hard collection a hard set to pull together Any King of Comedy action figures? No. You know what? I bought... I think I put it next to the Blu-ray player. I found what I think is the only Scorsese action figure that exists, which is a Rupert Pumpkin. Fuck yes. Done as if there was like... No, it's a Travis Bickle. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, it's a Travis Bickle. Oh, yeah. But done as if it was like a 70s Star Wars style.

2:57:38Griffin Newman:They never made like, I don't know, the Hugo toy or something? I'm trying to know.

2:57:41David Sims:I don't know. They're like Goodfellas Funko Pops now that look like dog shit.

2:57:45Griffin Newman:Who's this for? Me! Me! And who else?

2:57:50David Sims:Collectors.

2:57:51Griffin Newman:Fans of cinema.

2:57:53David Sims:You're saying like commercially who is the story. Appreciators of American cinema. Yeah.

2:57:58Griffin Newman:All right. Stavi. Yes. Thank you, boys. You got a show. I have. It's often on Netflix at some point. Yeah, yeah. My special. I mean, Tony's been out. Tony will be in theaters now. Tony is in theaters right now. Tires is out. Tires season two. Season three. Three. Tires is out. And now. And I'm pretty sure. by now I have at least announced when the special sorry everybody I broke my arm my special was supposed to come out in July I broke my arm now I'm doing the special in July you're doing it Sully style you should have done it in July exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah and now I'm fucking you picking up the pieces and I'm at some point I think I have a Netflix special either now or hopefully within two weeks yeah yeah Uncle Stav check it out oh yeah actually it's a great hour thank you man you did yes I appreciate you guys coming out to see it And just, we already talked about this privately, but just for the pot, Banderas, who you worked with on Tony, is that cool.

2:58:52He's so much, he's even better than you think he's going to be. Important. He's not a dick. He was the nicest mother, he was nice as shit, talked to everybody, like hung out with everybody. We all had fucking lunch. Because he's playing kind of an aloof guy in the movie, so he could be aloof. Yeah, no, he's the man. He's so fucking cool. and like truly a theater nerd, like being that much of a piece of ass who doesn't need to do anything to have an awesome life. He, he's like, obviously, you know, it's helped how good looking he was helped him. But it's like, he's so about the crap. Like this motherfucker, like he went to like a seminar on making clothes for like theater and like made his own clothes for, he has a, in Spain, he has his, what he does on his off time, he has a theater that he does theater at Malaga where he's from, he just brought a theater there and just because he likes live theater in his hometown, he was the fucking man.

2:59:47David Sims:Is this potentially his Color of Money moment?

2:59:50Griffin Newman:Dude, I think he rocks in the movie so hard. I want him to get like, obviously he's been Oscar nominated.

2:59:55David Sims:But it took a while and then there was that sort of like, have we been underappreciating him for so long?

3:00:00Griffin Newman:Obviously, it's a small movie. It's a small scale story. Blah, blah, blah. I have no idea how it'll go over. I hope it does well but like he rocks obviously Stavis well now I don't know what you're talking about you know it's September it's been number one at the box office eight weeks running it went on an obsession run everyone's bringing like lobster claws to the screening Matt's dad helped him direct it

3:00:26Griffin Newman:that was the funniest thing to me I was like oh yeah well this movie was ghost directed I'm like oh yeah the DGA they love it when other people direct movies. Famously so chill about that. Yeah, they love that.

3:00:37David Sims:People are such fucking haters, man. Get off these kids' dicks, bro. They truly are haters. I'm also like, I think that movie is good and is very well directed and will be hyper-topical by the time this episode comes out.

3:00:48Griffin Newman:They're also thinking about the back rooms as well,

3:00:50David Sims:which I'm sure has been a huge hit by now. But that movie absolutely feels like it was made by a 26-year-old. I think that's a lot of its value. In a good way. In a cool way. You never see movies directed by 26-year-olds who just are good at the technical side of it.

3:01:02Griffin Newman:No, Griffin, I think the corpse of Irvin Kirshner ghostwriter. I don't even know what people think is happening. I honestly think there is a moment right now where a lot of people in our generation, we got our asses fucked, truly. This is true. A lot of people had no... The cock ass. The cock ass, yes. The Iowa caucuses. It's a tough generation to 9-11, right into recession as soon as you're out of college.

3:01:29David Sims:My mom apologized to me once. she was like, I really kind of botched the timing of having you, didn't I? I mean, you've sort of gotten all of it, the business end. We, we, we, we're the few that kind of, we're on the life raft somehow. The podcasting life raft off the Titanic of being a fucking millennial. Yes. Uh, but I think a lot of people who are like, you know, who we got the rug pulled out from under us, what we thought. And then these kids never grew up thinking traditional success was an option. So they did their own shit. And I think there's a lot of fucking haters who are like, a 22-year-old can't do this.

3:02:03A 22-year-old can't do this. I'm 40 and a fucking loser. How did a 20-year-old do this shit? I think that's a lot of it, dude.

3:02:09David Sims:Yeah, also a lot of it too is like these fucking kids like had to spend like high school and college over Zoom. Right, right, right. Yeah. And got like hyper. Motherfucker learned Blender because he couldn't see his fucking friends. We took away everything.

3:02:21Griffin Newman:I interviewed him. That's literally what happened. Yeah. I mean, and when in the interview, he said, the gas zone when my first year of high school was COVID and I immediately, of course, shot myself in the head. Then you kill yourself. And now we're actually podcasting with the ghost of David. But then my ghost appeared. It was like, oh, that's interesting, by the way. Keep talking.

3:02:37David Sims:But it's like, how did they get so good so young? It's like, I don't know, society collapsed and the technology was readily available. What do you mean? Yeah, I'm excited for this shit. Me too. I think it's good. It's awesome. It's like we should more old motherfuckers should. I love. It's like the new Hollywood. We finally replicated it. We need that shit, bro. The inmates are taking over the asylum. People have learned how to make this shit outside of the normal systems. And now the studios are just giving them money and saying, we don't know. We don't get why this is working, but go do it. Thank Christ.

3:03:05David Sims:We needed this. Let them give us five, let them give a lot of different people five million bucks to make a movie. I would love to see that.

3:03:11Griffin Newman:That's the big note on this episode. It's another three hour episode. Hell yeah. We did it. I live in hell. It's great. We're letting you off easy. Although I guess with ads. You guys are, you guys are, yeah, I mean, David's very lucky. This is not Casino. this is, I could have honestly done, I literally would have done any, I think I would have done any movie, but I think I would have.

3:03:30David Sims:You said you were very open and we just immediately felt like, it makes perfect sense knowing that you were busy. It was like, this was the right time to slot it in. And it was great. You said, I'm glad you texted us and said, I'm glad that what will certainly be the peak moment of my fame is cresting with you guys covering my favorite directors so that we, I can convince you guys to have me on the show. And we were like, we're glad that us covering the biggest directors is cresting with your interest so that we can book you yeah yeah we both feel like somehow we've tricked the other i just love dude i truly love like i never get to talk about movies in a don't be funny necessarily first and foremost way not what the hell does no yeah yeah yeah we talk about all the time but i just i fucking love doing movie podcasts because i this is what i have sort of you know obviously stand up as i'll never stop doing it.

3:04:23But the last, the last like five years of my life, I've really thought very, I'm starting to think very deeply about movies and it's, I have a blast talking about them. I will do, if people fall out, I'll do every Scorsese. This could be a blank check with, yeah, with Griffin, David and Stavros as far as I'm concerned during Scorsese. That sounds great. It sounds great. It's a good backup. You could be the guest host. You could be the Gary Shandling, the Leno.

3:04:46David Sims:Yes. Yeah. How fucked with, like if Dave, if there's an emergency and David can't be here in just an eight hour episode. Don't give him the idea. Don't give him the idea. Thank you for being here. Thank you all for listening. Thank you. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Next up in Scorsese is After Hours. After Hours. Can't fucking wait. My favorite. It's really fucking good, man.

3:05:05Griffin Newman:And as always... Well, wait. We should shout out our Patreon. Okay. Right now, we are in the midst of doing Resident Evil.

3:05:15David Sims:Mm-hmm. We're doing the Resident Evil movies. And just a day after this drops, we will be releasing it Resident Evil Afterlife Ah yes the afterlife It's a great one So sign up for that Obviously covering a lot of Scorsese stuff over on Patreon as well the docs I actually ignored a call From Martin Scorsese I was supposed to be on the other end of a phone call with for the movie So this Is he famous? I am harming my career Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were filming a scene. I mean, look, they should have fucking told me earlier. They should have. Then 10 minutes before. Don't they know you're on Blank Check?

3:05:57Maybe cut this, but... Yeah.

3:05:59David Sims:We will cut that or bleep it out and keep in the laugh because the laugh was good. Yeah, yeah. And as always, I think we can all agree, Rupert Pumpkin was this close to getting. It was this close, man. Just hit a couple mics, Rup. This close to making it big. Hit a couple mics.

3:06:18Griffin 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 JJ 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.

3:06:56Griffin 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.