Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore with Katey Rich

A second chance

0:00A podcast for everyone who has ever dreamed of a second chance. The marking on this movie was insane. I'm going to put forward that it's insane that the poster for this movie

0:33is just Burstyn and Christopherson smiling. I think it worked because people are like, well, I'd like to see that. I'd like Chris Christopherson to take me in his loving arms. You like Ellen Burstyn like his beard. We all want that. Would you argue that's not really what the movie is? But what would you say the movie is? Just like her crying? I'm like, you don't want that. Yeah, but that's not going to go on a poster. I think it's funny. This is like, you know, it's Ellen Burstyn's Oscar winning performance.

1:04I would say it's an element. It's a strong element of the movie. No one's walking out of there being like, well, there was no Christopherson hugging in that film. I feel cheated. Like it's in there. But I think this movie is more than anything about a woman stuck in cycles. And this movie poster presents it as if like one door closed and another one opened. It is eventually open. Eventually. The door creaks open and she's like, I think it's safe to walk through this. Yeah, exactly. I mean, throwing out the idea that a movie about a woman is being sold with a man on the poster.

1:36This is true. That's never been done before. No. And him being above the title is kind of nuts. It's Ellen Burstyn and... It's fucking a big deal. ...and Chris Christopherson in... He's a big fuck... I mean, in what? This is two years? No. Where are stars born relative to this? After this, right? After this. After this. This is the early him acting. We can talk about it. But he's already very famous. But he's very famous. He's very famous. You know, he's someone you want, you know, to show off because it's like, hey, we got... Him and Bobby McGee. Yeah. Exactly. We got this guy. God. Oh, he wrote that song. He did. Dang. Yeah.

2:07He's the best. I'm not a Chris Christopherson guy, I have to admit. You're a big Whistler guy though, right? It's the character he plays in Blade. Blade's assistant. Oh. Right. Yeah. I was like, Blade, you got to go get those vampires. For a second there, I killed a vampire. Is Griffin asking me if I like Whistlin? Or like Whistler's mother, the painting? Oh. Oh. Whoa. This just got 100% jauntier in this room. I'll say I like Whistlin, which is the verb I use for watching Blade movies. Right. I'm going to have a... Is he in Trinity seeing the third one?

2:39He is, but he dies for the second time, I want to say. Rip. Because he dies in the first one. The second one, he's back alive. And they don't explain it. The third one, they kill him for good. But then Whistler's daughter shows up. Right. Whistler's daughter is Jessica Biel. Right. Whenever I have a daughter, I hope she looks like Jessica Biel from Seventh Heaven. Right. And then Planet of the Apes. Hmm? Excuse me? Planet of the Apes. Uh-huh. Parenthetical 2001. Sure. Estella Warren is his daughter. Oh, she's my daughter. I'm a human. I hope these apes don't kill me.

3:11Damn apes. You can make the checkout to its K-R-I-S. We can't do our favorite bit on that movie because it's too early, but the idea that you can see the actor doing direct deposit on their phone on camera. Uh, yep. Chris Christopherson, the handsome boy, is here. What a good looking guy. The handsome boy is the nickname? He's a man, David. Yeah. I think calling him a boy is immediately offensive.

3:42There is a boy in this movie who is distinctly a boy, so you gotta set Chris apart. Chris Christopherson, the young, handsome new boy, is here. The rancher. I think Chris Christopherson is as much of a man as anyone has ever been. Oh, yeah. He's an adult man. Uh, and the boy in this movie has the foulest mouth he's ever heard.

4:01That's a brutal thing coming from Chris Christopherson. Yeah, you imagine. That's the foulest mouth I've ever heard. Right. You imagine Chris has probably met a couple, uh, saucy, uh, fellas over the years. Spending all that time on the ranch, you know? You're not talking to enough people. You're not, uh, not used to it.

From movie to sitcom

4:16I just think it's funny that this movie was sold as a second chance rom-com and then spawned a non-s, nine season workplace sitcom. And you watch it and you're like, it's just like a pretty tender, small character study about a sad woman. But the minute that you start with the Mel's Diner sequence, you're like, oh, I would spend nine seasons here. It makes perfect sense. It emerges fully formed as the setting for a show that you would watch. If you showed someone the first five minutes of this movie, so the crazy prologue, right, and maybe just a couple minutes of her with a husband, she doesn't really like that much. And you were like, now hit pause.

4:47Now what if I told you this turned into a hit sitcom? You'd be like, what part of it turned into a hit? But exactly. A hundred plus episodes and a spin off. But if you show someone the last half of the movie, they would be like, oh, sure. I can see it. Ben looks befuddled. Producer Ben looks befuddled. There was a wildly successful sitcom that ran for nearly a decade called Alice's Restaurant that was based on this movie that was a workplace diner sitcom. It was just called Alice. It was just called Alice. It's all you need. Oh, really? Yeah. Why do I think it was called Alice's Restaurant? Alice's Restaurant is the- A play, right?

5:17No, it's the Woody Guthrie's son. Oh, that's what I'm thinking of. Yes. Sorry. I knew I was getting confused. It was just called Alice. It was the longest running sitcom starring a woman until Roseanne. It ran for nine seasons. Linda Lavin, the great Linda Lavin. And I would say it was, I mean, yeah, it was very successful. Like it spent a good half of its time on the air being like a top 10 show. And here's what's crazy. Diane Ladd in this movie plays Flo, right? A different actress plays Flo on the sitcom.

5:47Everyone is different except for one person. Vic Tabak. Yeah. Yes. The cook is the same actor, right? But everyone else is different because it was, you know, you're a movie actor. You don't go down to TV. The show is so successful, they spin off Flo into her own show. And then to replace Flo in the dynamic, they hire Diane Ladd to play a new waitress. That's crazy. That's how big the show was. But at first she's like, I'm not doing a sitcom of the movie I was in. And then five years later, she was like, I would gladly join the cast. I'd love to. And in fact, where can I sign on the document?

6:18But it's just like, what if it's just this fun diner minus any abusive relationships? Have you guys ever watched Alice? I thought about doing it for this and I didn't do it. I never have. I know Kiss My Grits. Uh-huh. Which is the catchphrase. Which Diane Ladd doesn't say in the movie, right? She's talking about grits. She's talking about grits. They get close. She's got plenty of like fun, colorful language. That was, you know, Pauly Holiday on the show. That was a show. So we can do these grits. Should I hug them? Should I gently caress them? David was just telling us to kiss morning grits. He was telling us to kiss morning grits.

6:49Evening grits also a solid. I mean, if you go to Waffle House, it's open 24 hours. You can have grits any time of day. What's your Waffle House order? Because you live in a Waffle House area. Oh, Scattered Smothered and Covered. Scattered Smothered and Covered. Also the name of a Hootie and the Blowfish album. I'm well aware I owned it on CD. Why did I wear my Hootie and the Blowfish shirt that I recently found in my parents' house? Why haven't you bought me one? I gladly buy you one. Google.com, Hootie and the Blowfish shirt. Alex Ross Perry is rubbing his hands together right now at this reveal. I don't even know what he's going to do with this. He's going to bully me somehow.

7:19I lived in Britain where Hootie and the Blowfish, much like sort of Matchbox 20, Dave Matthews bands, some of these like American bands. All nighted. No, it's just one of those things that completely failed to translate. Like, you know, they were, you know, they were brought over as like, this is one of the hottest bands in America right now. Their album just went like double diamond and in Britain was like, I think we're okay. It's just like how we don't get Robbie Williams. Like he just never landed here. There's just something that just never made it over. But I was gifted Cracked Rearview when I was 10 years old and I gave it a spin on the

7:51old Discman. Southern frat rock not translating does make sense to me. The whole thing with Hootie and the Blowfish and I've done this rant before is like, You have? Oh yeah. Is that Darius Rucker's voice is incredible. Like that's, it's the thing where you listen to it where you're like, he fucking rocks. And now he's become a massive solo country. Right. And then he had his country career and you're kind of like, God bless him. Because, you know, anytime you listen to Hootie and the Blowfish, you're like, all of this is pretty ordinary sounding except who the, Hootie, Hootie be Hootin'. I feel so bad for him. He's so good. I know his name's not Hootie. But that's, that's the thing that it's, it's the Blondie problem.

8:23He could never come out from under being Hootie. If you guys ever, so as I've talked about. And of course the Jerry Maguire gag. Yes. No, I am not Hootie, you know. As people who've listened to the show before know, I grew up in South Carolina. I don't live there now. But so if you drive into South Carolina from Charlotte, there's like a visitor's area there. And there is a video, like a South Carolina tourism video that Darius Rucker made. Wow. Or he's the star of it. It's like, hey, welcome to my state. I love it here. Yeah. If he wanted to run for governor of South Carolina, he would win. He would win. Darius Rucker? Hootie? Yeah. He's doing so well. He is, he is like a treasure.

8:54So he is doing just fine. You know, I agree. The man's a treasure. Let's, let's give him treasure status. I'm so glad I got us here. Let's make him treasurer. Put him in the trunk. Yeah. He's treasure. It is funny to imagine. Put him in the trunk. He's treasure. It's funny to imagine he could run, probably win. Sure. With the name Darius Rucker on the ballot. Just going, I love America. I can't do his voice. The second he won, everyone would be like, well, Governor Hootie. Hootie, Governor Hootie. Yeah. It didn't matter. He'd probably be fine with it. He'd just have to accept it.

9:25Yeah. Yeah. I'm not liking any of their merch. Hootie and the Blowfish? You're thinking about buying something? You gotta find. I just thought I had a thought, but I'm not. The shirt I have is from the 1995 tour that I went to. It was my first ever concert, and they don't look like you on the back. If you go on eBay, it's on there. Go, Scottie. They have the, there's the Friends episode that's about, one of the very few Friends episode that tried to touch on, like, sort of matters of, like, class and money. Okay. Like, usually Friends didn't really touch this stuff, and it's like, oh, they all live in

9:57giant apartments, and, like, don't worry about it. This is the one that Mike Leed guest directed. Exactly. It's the only one that acknowledges that three of the Friends are kind of, like, make good money and three don't, and it's, it's about that, and, like, it's, and a Hootie and the Blowfish concert is... Let's break this down. Do you remember who the three... Ross makes good money. Ross is... Ross? Monica makes good money. Chandler and Monica. Yeah. Are the, like, quote-unquote, richer, and then, like, Joey, Phoebe, and Rachel are the... But it might be Rachel is... I can't remember where it is, because eventually Rachel gets the fashion job.

10:27But she doesn't always... Rachel comes from money? Yes, but of course she gets, she has to cut off all her credit cards. Right. You know, because she didn't marry the dentist. But Monica and Ross come from money, too. They all grew up in the same, like, rich town, right? Well, Monica and Ross are coded... Well, they're coded as, like, suburban... Sure. Yeah, like, you know, like, they're fine or whatever. But, but it's sort of just like, it's saying, like, you know, like, Ross, I think it might be right. I can't. But it's like, yeah, Ross, these guys have white-collar jobs. They, they make money, blah, blah, blah. And, like, Joey, he's a struggling actor. Phoebe, Lord knows how she's bringing the rent together. She does Smelly Cat. Like, what, what is Phoebe's job, right?

10:59You know, and, and the crucial thing is that they, the rich ones get to go to a Hootie and the Blowfish concert. Wow. And it's like one of those things where it's like, no grander experience than seeing Hootie and his Blowfish. David, I think I found the right piece of Hootie merch for you. I just texted it to you. Send it along to me. I think you would rock the shit out of this. And Ben, as someone into fashion, I want your advice. Okay. I just think, and Katie, I'm going to, I'm going to show it to you. All right. Yeah, it's not too handsome. It is a charcoal colored bucket hat. On one side, it says the group therapy tour.

11:32Okay. And on the other side, there's this, there's this kind of tie dye logo. Oh, it's a little American flag. Hootie and the Blowfish. I cannot see Sims wearing this. Sims would rock the shit out of this. I'm not a huge bucket hat guy. Yeah. I'm not usually to be found. They're back. You didn't hear they're back? They're always, you know, threatening. Wait a second, David. You said you're not a huge bucket hat guy? But did you know that this one has an adjustable drawstring attached and the sizes run small? Thank God. Just in case I needed to especially hug the old noggin.

12:05Yes. I can't imagine a hat with a drawstring. You could get a going home candle. Oh, you're on like the Hootie website. Is your shirt like this? No. Okay. That's not great for an audio medium. I'm just trying to. I'm going to see what vintage era. Or is it like, does it look like this? Like, you know, the Crack Tree review. Nope. It's not even that one. Okay. All right. We're hunting. I know. This one is a hundred bucks on eBay. Yeah. Because it's a tour shirt from like 95. Like, you know. Yeah. How many people go?

12:36Yeah. Right. The one I found at my parents' house was from 99. A very underappreciated tour. And I was like, should I just sell this thing and send my kids to college? But it's not worth quite that much. Remember that. Get onto it. Remember all that concern that when the year 2000 hit, Hootie and the Blowfish were going to go to that back down to zero, that they were going to crash. We thought we were going to lose them. Yeah. That's why I saw them on tour in 1999, obviously. Y2H. Man, people tuned in. They hit play on their little podcatcher going, oh, Alice doesn't live here anymore with Katie

13:08Rich on Blank Check. We love it. Definitely a 10-minute Hootie run kicking this one off, right? People are disappointed only because they were certain it was going to open with 10 minutes of Becker. Oh, no. Becker's done. What were you going to say? I like to think I bring less chaos to this podcast than your average guest. I think so. You bring less chaos. But then I just started with the Hootie thing, so I'm sorry. You invite a lot of tangents because you and I and you and Griffin... We have plenty to talk about. And we have kind of, you know, shared brain waves about kind of like... Reference points. Right, the sort of entertainment weekly era of being a teen who loves movies and all.

13:43I don't know. I just feel like we got a lot of roads we can go down. 100%. Wow, get ready. Let's go down some roads. And you know, Hootie sang about those roads in his song. I wish I could remember. Unfortunately, I was like, if only I could make a lot of detailed Hootie and the Blowfisher references, which I don't know that I can.

Hootie and the Blowfish

13:57I texted you the shirt that I have. All right, here we go. You can now see it. It is the exact shirt. I did buy this one off eBay. I now have two Hootie shirts. And this is the one that I got at the tour in 1995. God bless. Wait, so you bought a shirt on Hootie? Oh yeah. Last summer, around my birthday, I was like, you know what I'm giving myself? Is Hootie and the Blowfish shirt for my birthday. This is why we're pals. Oh, this shirt is pretty fresh. It's a good one. It's green and blue. And hang on, Griffin. I got to text it to you, too. Please, I got to see. We hit the old drop down menu on this and hit and buy it now. Yes. There we go. All right.

14:28I'm texting it to Ben also. So now everyone loves it when we text each other on the microphone. Time. There you go. There you go. How you punish me. I remember that one. David, you have the voice of an Hootie. I've got the voice of a Hootie. Oh my God. I'm a terrible singer. I'm a bad singer. Not based on that. Well, I'll leave it there then. I'll end on a high. Oh, what was I'm running from an angel? What was the only want to be with you? That was the one that people were basically like, this band needs to be legally like disbarred

14:59from music. The Miami Dolphins were in that music video because it was just like fucking, you know, MTV played it like four billion times a day. MTV was like, wait, there's a Rootsie rock band with a black guy. Like this checks all her boxes. Fucking blanket the airwaves. Like we got to get this guy everywhere. Maybe we've cut that out. I should have worn it. It's a good shirt. I just bought it. All right. It's going to be, we'll link it in the show notes so everybody can go. We're going to write out all the eBay stores of these Hootie shirts. Great. Time.

15:31It's very funny. The Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore or the Alice sitcom Wikipedia has a section of differences between the film and television series. And it's like a various. Harvey Keitel, not included. That's the thing. It's all stuff like Alice's maiden name was Graham television series. Alice's maiden name was Spivak. And you're like film, sad sitcom doesn't touch dark stuff. Like that's what they're not saying. They're into like very granular details.

16:03Did you go through the guest stars of who was on this? This is one of those sitcoms. It was a hot show. But Jay Leno was on it. Celebrities would appear. Here's something. Celebrities would appear as themselves. Joel Grey as like customers. So George Burns goes like, how much for a tuna meal?

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

16:54Rude to Lavin. She and Chris Christopherson both passed in 2024. Pretty close to killing them. David. Sorry. I told you not to do that. Just for the record. They asked. It was kind of like a weird kind of like. I know, but I said, why you? That's what I said. You just don't need to meddle in their business. So Chris Christopherson died at the grand old age of 86. And I feel like Linda Lavin also lived a very long time. She Linda Lavin's a very long time. She was 87. 87, yeah. At the time we were recording this, Ellen Burstyn, 93, still working.

17:25God. I will say about Lavin, like, I don't look at Ellen Burstyn and go like, Linda Lavin's a TV version. Very different. It's a totally different type of character. There's also a crazy thing is that Ellen Burstyn later does a sitcom in the 80s. Sure. The Ellen Burstyn show. Was it good? But that was a fucking riot. I think it was just like a family sitcom. But that's another person where I don't go like, obviously, let's get her on a multicam. You know, I think it was one of those things where it's like, if you're someone like Ellen Burstyn, where it's like, you are a tremendous actress. You're an Oscar winner and you've been in huge movies like The Exorcist. But you're never going to be treated like a movie star by Hollywood because it's a sexist industry

17:59and you're a little older and you're more of like a great actor than you are. And I think she always preferred theater and loved teaching and maybe just wanted the consistent. And then like the call just comes along like, hey, do you want the consistent work and paycheck of one of these network shows? Right. She only did it. It only aired. 13 episodes. Megan Mullally was her daughter. Elaine Stritch was also on it. I think Elaine Stritch played her mom. No, played her mom. Played her mom. Seven year age difference. Yes. Her 80s are a lot of movies I've never heard of. Just going through her credits.

Ellen Burstyn's career

18:29It's interesting because like Ellen Burstyn is a hall of famer, right? She's a legend. There's no question. I think she's one of the best screen actors. I mean, best screen actors. She's mostly a legend because she told you to shut the fuck up that one time. That's not what she said. And you know that's not what she said. She said try silent. Correct. And you got to give credit. It's actually way better than her telling him to shut the fuck up. That's why it needs to be correct. It's poetry. I think she's one of the greatest actors of all time. But she no doubt has, as Katie's saying, when you look at her filmography, like just a bunch of stuff where you're like, what on earth is that? Yeah. What's what happens to women who are the stars of their movies? What are you going to do with them?

18:59But then also two additional Oscar nominations in the 80s. Like we're saying like, well, that's a weird decade for her. So what were her dying young? Did she get a new one? Oh no, Resurrection in 1980. That's 80. Yeah. And then I guess same time next year is 78. Did she get nominated for that? Yeah. Uh, yes, she did. Like she got a bunch of Oscar noms and she won one. And she's in a twice in a lifetime. The movie that Amy Madigan got her nomination for, which I had never heard of until the first run. Um, but I remember when she got her, uh, you know, nomination for Requiem for a Dream.

19:32It was that classic Oscar thing of like them being like, and where have you been? And she's like, I've been here. I've been here. You're so good in the movie where you played a crazy drug addict. And she's like, okay, well, you know, I've been in other stuff too. I do think that led to a then kind of elder statesman. And she's, she's now a legendary, immediate, instant gravitas. Uh, great actor. Um, we stan. And, uh, you know, today we discuss on a podcast that Griffin's about to introduce the film that won her an Oscar. Yes. Which unfortunately, in my opinion, steals the Oscar for what might be the greatest screen

20:07performance of all time. Oh, well then we can, oh, is it a, is it a Gina Rowlands? Woman under the influence is this year. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's a fucking great performance. That Ellen Burstyn wins. And Martin Sturzesi goes up to Cassavetes and Rowlands at the Oscars, like near crying. And he's like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make this fucking thing. Because this one also feels really Cassavetes inspired. Sure. Of course. I mean, it's Marty. We'll talk about it. It's in the research, I'm sure. Yeah. Well, and like, this is also among the great actress performances.

20:37Like, I think she's incredible. It's phenomenal. I just. She's amazing. I would have given her the Oscar for one of the two previous nominations. For like The Exorcist. But this is a fascinating ripple effect. For Last Picture Show. I think she's amazing in Last Picture Show. I obviously love the Cloris Leachman win. But if I had a ballot for 72, I would pick Burstyn. Well, let me now look. While I pull up some Oscar pages so we can relitigate this for a second. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I am Griffin. I'm David. We're about to relitigate some Oscars, but not as much as we will in next week's episode. This is a podcast about filmographies.

21:09Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Sometimes they do a gig for hire to prove that they can do that they're versatile. A lack of limitations. And it ends up being a bit of a guarantor because it wins. Wins a dang Oscar. A beloved actor. Makes some money. It makes some money. Oh, yeah. Makes a TV show. And launches a second. Becomes a multimedia franchise. Money from Alice? No, no, no, no.

21:39Successful. You can tell who has good teams by who gets baked into deals like that because there are people who just cash checks forever. I mean, this is the MASH story that I love is that Robert Altman had no stake in MASH. He had no upside from the film's box office success because they didn't want to hire him that he took the DGA minimum and waived any participation. It also meant he waived any participation in ancillary things that would go on later. His son, who was kind of a burnout and he wanted his kids to work on the movie, he was

22:15like, can you write a song for the dentist? His son writes, suicide is painless, gets paid every time any episode of MASH airs anywhere in the world. And he like hated his son for that. Oh, okay. That's less good. I thought he'd be proud of him. I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. This is a miniseries on the films of Martin Scorsese. It is called Podcast Fellas. That's right. Wow. No problems there. This is my first time hearing this. I looked to you. I wanted to see your response. You accepted it. It's such a short list of options you had, too.

22:46Like, there's not a lot of titles. The podcast list doesn't cast here anymore. That's what we should have called it. The pod that knocking at my cast. The podcast-nessence. Yeah, that one's tough. I'm not saying it was my best one. The pod of in a cast. The pod of cast street. There is a C in there. Yeah, yeah. Pods of new cast. But no, it's called Podcast Fellas because that's what we are. We're a couple of podcast fellas. And today- And sometimes girls. We have a pod lady with us joining us. Delightful. As we love to say, kind of the first Blank Check guest ever.

23:20It's very important. Yes. Very important. Helps codify the box office game. That's right. Yeah. And also, importantly, mother of still record holder, youngest guest ever on the show. True. Almost baby Charlie. Yeah. Are the listeners ready for the age of that baby from the Titanic episode? Because it's important to talking about this movie, too. Charlie's decade of dreams. Charlie's about to turn 10. He's about to turn 10. As when this episode is out, I assume he will have already turned 10 because it's very soon. When he was on pod, he was baby. He was three months old. Now he's a little man. He's so crazy that you brought a three-month-old baby to him.

23:51It's completely crazy. It's really evidence that none of us knew anything about babies is the fact that I did that. Katie, to remind you, because we were trying to remember this on the subject, your last episode with us was intolerable. Yes. When I stepped back in the studio, I was like, oh, yes. Now I remember us talking about George Clooney. Because we were like, well, I remember Prince of Tides. And I was like, no, but you've done something since then. I couldn't remember. Yes. Okay, this is also your 10th episode. No, really? No. Wait a second. My decade of dreams. Charlie's decade of dreams. Is that because are we counting Titanic as two or one?

24:22Counting them as one. Right. It is a real 10. Halfway through because I had a baby. It's the Kill Bill question. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. This is your true 10th episode. That's so exciting. Because Titanic doesn't really count. So congratulations. Wow. Now let's relitigate these Oscars. All right. So her first nomination, as you pointed out, was for The Last Picture Show. She lost to her co-star, Cloris Leachman. Now, they're both great in the movie. They are. I just think Pirsten's my favorite performance in that film, period. But that was like, she was like brand new. I guess they were all brand new back then. The other, I would say, big nominee there is Anne Margaret in Carnal Knowledge, which is

24:59a great performance. I'll just say it. Anne Margaret, kind of a looker. You've also got Barbara Harris in Who's Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me, an Ulu Grossbard film I've never seen, but obviously has an iconic title. Incredible title. And then Margaret Leighton in The Go-Between, which is a masterpiece, and she's very good. But like, you know, I would say with them, with there, it's kind of like, right, pick. And like, with Cloris, it's just kind of like, that's her Oscar, man. Like, she doesn't, you know, she doesn't have too many more swings at the movie award app.

25:29Yeah, sure. You know, whatever. Okay, so then she loses for The Exorcist to Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class. Now, we respect Glenda Jackson. I've never seen that film. I love her, you know, for Women in Love is an amazing movie. She had won three years previously. She had, it's a surprising, I think four, but yeah, you know, like surprising second win for her in, I think the reason she won was, it was a bit of a weird year. Like, it's Ellen Burstyn in The Exorcist, who's amazing in The Exorcist, is a mild stretch

26:00as a lead. Yeah, I would agree. She sort of counts, but like, she's not really in the back half of the movie, obviously. And she's not the thing you come out of The Exorcist. She's not. As straight as she is. But it's a powerhouse performance. Yeah. And she broke her damn tailbone. It's a little like Michael B. Jordan's Sinner's minus the skill piece of the twins thing, right? I guess so. Like, there's such a centering force in this film, which was also the highest grossing film of its year. It was a hit, and she's great in it. Yeah. And then you got, wait, wait, is the devil the lead? Well, I would say, like, Linda Blair is the lead. And they put Linda Blair in supporting in that classic kid thing.

26:34But I mean, like, she's the one, like, the movie's happening to her. Everyone else is a little bit in and out. I think Burstyn's the lead. I accept this. I think it's fine. I accept it okay. But I think it might have hurt her for a win. Yeah, possibly. And then you got Marsha Mason, the great Marsha Mason, in Cinderella Liberty, the James Kahn movie, Mark Reddell movie. I've never seen it. We got Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. We stan. Yeah. Yeah. Great performance. We stan. Yeah. Sure. I think that movie is a little silly. It's silly, but I think that's an excellent movie star performance. Yes, I agree. And then you've got Joanne Woodward in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.

27:05I've never seen that one. Not a movie I've seen. Yeah. No, this is a lot. That's one where you're like, maybe we could sneak it over to Alan. It is astounding to go through these and realize how rarely the Best Actress nominees were from Best Pictures. Oh, yeah. It was a ghetto. The 1950s. Yeah. It's a little better now with the 10 noms. Yes. You know, or whatever. But I bet you even now, if we didn't have the 10 noms, it would remain a bit of a ghetto. Oh, definitely. There are so many movies that do not exist outside of one lead actress nomination for a movie star. Is The Exorcist getting the horror snobbery with this too?

27:39Yeah. Because The Exorcist is obviously a big breakthrough. And it did win two Oscars. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it was, the noms were the reward a little bit of kind of like, well, you know, you, it won screenplay. Best Vomit and Best PP? Now, there's actually not a ton of PP in The Exorcist. There's some. I didn't say most PP. I said Best PP. You're right. It's notable PP. I thought the category was just Best Goo. I mean, it's... Oh, yeah. Well, no. See, it was like the Best Score Musical Comedy Drama thing. Most years, it's Best Goo. So, this is one of those years where they split it into Best Vomit and Best PP.

28:12There's just too much to choose from. And then Exorcist winning both made them think, maybe let's make it one category again. It won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound. It, you know, and you're like, how did it lose? It was a hit, Bob. It's like, it lost to The Sting, which was just also a phenomenon. Oh, so right. They were two of the 10 highest grossing movies ever. Yeah, they were just both movies that had, like, played for a billion years. I mean, it's an insane five. It's The Sting, The Exorcist, and American Graffiti. So, three just, like, critically acclaimed powerhouse blockbuster out-of-nowhere movies

28:45and out-of-nowhere in different ways. Three of the most profitable movies of all time.

28:51People are going to like this. It's like, people are going to love it.

28:55Exorcist, obviously. And then the other two nominees are A Touch of Class, which they really went for the kind of, like, British comedy back then. They love to sneak those in. Sure. And then, Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers. They loved Bergman. They gave him proper respect. Well, he was at his, right. They loved him in the final faves of his career. They would roll out the carpet for him, and I assume he would not attend. I don't actually know, but I have a feeling he didn't really show up to a lot of those ceremonies. Or he was a party animal. Yeah, maybe he was there being like, I love this show being hosted by Burt Reynolds,

29:26Diana Ross, John Huston, and David Niven. Is that the one where there's the streaker, and Niven goes like, he's got a tiny dick. That's the dream team. Those four people. We always want to see them together. The big four. It's just like, whenever I see Diana Ross, I'm like, where's John Huston? Her counterpart. You look naked without David Niven by your side. That is so funny that it's like... Oh, no, this is the year before Chinatown, so we're not in John Huston in that mode. Correct. Chinatown is the year after. So you're like, director first and foremost, menacing character actor secondly, right?

30:00But before his most notable film role, he has played the greatest ape. Third MC. Yes, third MC, then like the biggest pop star, and a feet British man. And then who's the fourth again? Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds. You know, he's just kind of like, hi, I'm from Hollywood. Just the dude's leading man. You've heard of me. Yeah. Chewing gum on stage, presumably. If you think about a world where Ellen Burstyn never wins an Oscar, then you're like, okay, well, then maybe did she win for Requiem? Does she win for Requiem as a makeup?

30:32But it's the swank year, right? No, it's the Julia Roberts year. And that was just a tough train to stop. Nor should it. No, you don't take that away. I agree. Would you both agree with the idea that she probably came in second? Ellen Burstyn? I remember there being a bit of a thing because Ellen Burstyn hadn't accepted her own award of wouldn't it be nice for her to give a speech that year. She doesn't accept for the Oscar. Although I will say, whenever anyone trots out that argument, I'm like, we're splitting hairs. Absolutely.

31:02Come on now. She won, but she didn't say a thing. She didn't get to give a speech. I'm like, okay. I mean, Laura Linney was the critic fave that year, but I could see the argument for Ellen Burstyn was me. I still feel like back then, critic faves didn't get you as far at the Oscars. Totally. That was a real nomination is the win. Of course it was. Yeah. Enjoy your Saturday at the Spirit Tent. But I can tell you that Best Actress Musical or Comedy that year was the not Oscar nominated Renee Zellweger for Nurse Betty. Oh, yeah. But there's the only overlap there was Juliette Binoche was nominated for Chocolat.

31:35Yeah. Are we underestimating the Chocolat train? This movie is so funny. They had Chocolat fever back then. The chocolate makes them horny. I did watch Chocolat for the first time in the last five years, and it does kind of fuck and roll. It's still terrible. One of those things where if you remove any, like, what did it steal nominations from, and you just watch it as its own thing, it is delightful. I mean, it's, I think I made this joke possibly, but Alfred Molina plays Snidely Whiplash even more than the time he literally played Snidely Whiplash.

32:06I made that joke, but it's, it's very true. He shows up with a mustache and he's like, where is all this Chocolat? Because he's Lithgow in Flashdance, right? I mean, uh, Footloose. Like, Lithgow's like, the town has to ban dancing. Yeah. And Milina's just like, no, Chocolat! I ban it from these walls! So thin and so long. It's making women talk back to their husbands! And he plays such a sniveling little fuck with a cape. It's amazing. Oh my god, he has a cape. Yeah. David?

32:42Yes? I got myself into a real pickle. Uh-oh. I thought it'd be funny to put on some Groucho Marx glasses. Uh-huh. Very, very funny. Very funny. Classic. Yeah, well, I've been stuck wearing them for five years because it's such a hassle to replace your glasses that once I made that commitment, now I'm walking around with the big schnoz, the eyebrows, the mustache, all times. I know what you're saying. Glasses cost hundreds of dollars. You know, you just kind of live with whatever you've got. Wait a second! What about Zenni Optical? David, I forgot about Zenni Optical! Zenni Optical is an online eyewear shop with stylish prescription glasses, sunglasses,

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Directing Alice

34:32Z-E-N-I dot com slash podcast promo code PODCAST15. Z-E-N-I dot com slash podcast promo code PODCAST15. Z-E-N-I dot com slash podcast promo code PODCAST15. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Robert Getschel, who has quite a career. I want to do a little sidebar on him. Goes on to write Bound for Glory and, you know. Well, that makes sense. You're like, oh. Yeah, writes very, very grounded, although he's one of four, I will say, credited screenwriters on Mommy Dearest. So I guess that's not all on him. Then he made the Patsy Cline biopic Sweet Dreams with Jessica Lange. He wrote that. He wrote a Bette Midler movie called Stella.

35:04I don't really know that. That's a Stella Dallas remake. Oh, fuck. It is. Wow. This is like genuinely a fascinating career. He got points on the Alice sitcom for creating the character. Yeah, you got it. If you're the writer, you're going to get points. But then he says he did okay, but come on. He writes Point of No Return, the La Femme Nikita remake. Right, yeah, yeah. And then he does This Boy's Life and the Client. Yeah. Yeah. He was a, you know, he was a work guy. Workhorse. We call him a work guy. He's a work guy. Yes. The film, yeah, it was, you know, a 1974 Christmas release that got good reviews, made money,

35:39won an Oscar, was a solid notch in Scorsese's career. I feel is often, obviously, under-discussed. It's very recently getting a Criterion disc. I believe Marie has gotten her hands on it today and is delivering it to the office tomorrow. One day late for me to have watched the Splashy Criterion disc. Not Marie's fault. We're, in fact, getting it early. Yeah. But was hoping it would time out better. But yes, it has only been on DVD for the last 15, 20. I rented it on the old iTunes. It looked all right.

36:09The tunes for the eyes. It looked all right. Yes. And it's a film we should discuss. And with us is, have we introduced Katie Rich? Yeah. Ten time guests. Katie Rich, who I think of you as a fairly, like, you discovered this movie back when you did the Scorsese screen dress. Is that right? I didn't want to come on here and promote someone else's podcast. Oh, please, go ahead. That was in my podcast. But no, I did screen dress with the Scorsese group ranking. So I was in charge of the middle 10. Yeah, it seemed like quite a stressful approach. It's a very chill podcast. Nothing stressful has ever happened on that. Not a lot of work. This one was especially chaotic.

36:40Emily St. James, a friend of us and of this show, was on the 30 to 21 group. Didn't she fuck everything up by drafting something last or whatever? It was a group effort of fucking everything up. But just like chaos reigned on that. Like, they didn't want to deal with the Dylan doc. So they left us with like, No Direction Home Bob Dylan in the middle 10. Where we were like, I don't want to get more like, they left us out of here. They left us with Who's That Knocking At My Door? Which, I don't know if you guys have done that episode already. It's already aired by now. It's a perfectly fine movie. It belongs in the bottom 10. I would put it down there. It belongs bottom 5.

37:10Well, but that's what I don't understand about this approach of like, they get to choose. It's making a group project. Well, it leans into the chaos of it. Wait, but now I'm looking. I mean, this podcast, I will confess. And how this ranking worked out? Well, there's just, oh, there's like vetoes. Oh, the Patreon members got to veto things? Yeah, I don't think that affected what we did. Someone was trying to do. Like, Irishman 29th? That wasn't me. That was that. Blame Emily. Sorry, they did. Sorry. Bring this up with your friend, Emily St. James, not me. What was Dead Last and what was number one? Dead Last was Shine a Light, which like, sure.

37:40But it looks like someone tried to put. Is, I think, the worst one. Fine. I mean, but again, it sort of doesn't count. Like, I mean, what are our parameters here? It's making it even 30, I think. They bring Shine a Light and a Rolling Thunder review, which I don't think was a theatrical thing. That was a Netflix thing, which is actually kind of fun. As a lover of rules, it's stressing me out. He's smiling and throwing his thumbs up. But no, it looks like someone tried to put The Departed last. Yes, that was their real chaos. It was trolling. I think we wound up putting The Departed in our middle 10, which I would put it in my top 10, honestly. Also, you're wondering why someone tried to put The Departed last.

38:11You must have missed that Frank Costello was a guest on that episode. I smell a rag on this podcast. I think they did Age of Renaissance as number one. I wasn't on that one either. We were in the- They do have it number one, and they have Goodfellas 2, Taxi Driver 3. I mean, like- Age of Renaissance is number one. It's a little too chaotic, guys. This is a little much. I tried to make it less chaotic. My big accomplishment- But it looks like their veto system really messes with stuff, because then stuff will get bumped up. There's a lot of rules, a lot of- Like, we wound up putting Wolf of Wall Street in our middle 10, because our pal Joe Reed

38:45is not a fan of it, and I didn't have the ability to veto it, to bump it up. I would put Wolf of Wall Street in my top 10. But the thing I'm really proud of from our group is that we left Alice for the top 10. Like, we said, collectively said, we're not drafting Alice. You guys can have it in there, because I think it's in my top 10, for sure. That's totally fine, and it's a great movie, but Cape Fear is number 10. I just don't know about this. Cape Fear does not belong in the 10. No, what's going on? And it feels like because you guys left dishes, it's weird that there's, like, movies that vault up the list because the prior guys just didn't want to talk about this.

39:18It's an exquisite corpse thing, where you're like, oh, I guess, who's that knocking at my door is number 19 somehow. You did the Pixar one? I feel like you had, like, an aneurysm doing that episode. I did. I say this respectfully to the fine folks at the Screen Drafts podcast. They have asked you to come on, and I've been like, I've heard your episode's a four hour long. I won't be doing that. No, you would die. Right. I did it once with JD, and we did Jim Henson movies, and we had a wonderful time. With your friends. Katie and I were in sync, and we were like the fucking Bash brothers. Yeah, you gotta do it with your friends. Right. And it was contained. Right. And then they were like, do you want to do a Pixar mega draft?

39:49It's every Pixar movie, which at that point maybe was 21 or 22. And I believe it took six hours. Everyone else was on the West Coast. I finished the episode, and the garbage trucks were coming to collect. The sun was rising. This was deep lockdown. And I say this. I say this kindly. I don't blame anyone involved in this episode. This is just what it was. It was the worst day I had in the pandemic. I remember you having a tough time. And that's the most damning thing I could say about any 24-hour period.

40:19Yeah, that's tough. I couldn't handle it. So it's exhausting every time I have done that. And then at the end of it, I say, wow, but I watched every Martin Scorsese movie. That's the nice part. I mean, you guys are doing the same thing. This is the thing. That part of it paid off so much for me because I still think about it all the time. We have a podcast that gives us an excuse to do the same thing on a more manageable schedule. Although you do make some long episodes. We do. But I don't know if anyone's heard about that. But I get stressed out even when like our friends at the Big Pick are doing drafts and they're like, I have to watch 80 things to prep for one episode.

40:50Yeah. You know, or Hall of Fames. We did the Big Pick Oscar changing things like we were just doing and figuring out how to prep for that. And like, you can't watch everything, but knowing what you need to pay attention to, it is when you have that wide of field, it gets really crazy. But that's the thing. You're just sort of like, well, what? I don't need to watch Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams or whatever. I'm sure that's some bullshit. And then Chris Ryan shows up being like, guess what? I have a hot Joanne Woodward take. Yes. Yes. What's that noise? Oh, it's the Dostier cracking open. Creak! Oh, Ben, you are on it today. Good job. Ben's doing great. He's guarding against my mental health.

41:22Sometime during the protracted and difficult production of William Friedkin's 1973 classic, The Exorcist. P.P. Fama. Which, as you may or may not know, as with many a Friedkin film, was a bit of a trying shoot. Some personalities at play here? Yes. There are some wild stories about that film. Yeah, where such as, like, Friedkin would just fire a gun without telling anyone to make everyone freak out, like, on camera. And then say, like, action! And then, like, tie a harness around Ellen Burson, just fucking break her tailbone. And, like, the entire set was a refrigerator.

41:54Yes. And Max von Sydow had makeup on, but by the time the movie was over, he just looked like that. Yeah. Um, so that film is really, really hard, but they make it, and the studio, uh, which is a little studio called Warner Brothers. And David's wearing his Warner Brothers shirt. Uh, realizes it might have something special on its hands, and he's pretty impressed with one Ellen Burstyn. Yes. Basically, John Calley is the in-charge of Warner Brothers. Mm-hmm. They're looking at dailies of the film, and they basically just, like, call Ellen Burstyn and are like, we want to do a movie with you. What do you want to do? Exactly. Like, we have a pile of scripts.

42:27Take a look. Mm-hmm. Like, we'd like to be in the Ellen Burstyn business. Ellen Burstyn, who I think is, like, a woman of taste. Yes. Or, like, you know, a really, a great actor, but also clearly a very intelligent one and a very thoughtful person who, you know, tries to give a shit, right? I don't know. And she's one of the earliest members of the actor's studio, studies under Lee Strasberg, is, like, real protector of the flame of the sort of, I don't know, the beauty of acting. She studied under Lee Strasberg when he only had a half inch of chest hair, and it wasn't

43:00even white yet. He would sit there all day and just grit his teeth. Before he had the full four inches. Try to push it out. Like, in Godfather, he actually doesn't die when they shoot him, because the chest hair just catches the bullet. Mm-hmm. Um, she's, she is a rare American to have the triple crown of acting, as it's called, where she has an Emmy, a Tony, and an Oscar. What's her Tony for? Her Tony is for, uh, same time next year. And she has two Emmys, one for an episode, I believe, of Law & Order SVU.

43:30The other one, of course, for Political Animals. Oh! Wow! Which you were on. Which I was on. And she told you to try Zyland. No. Oh. You're forgetting. I was three times in a project with her. It was like, you're like, I've worked with you before, and she's like, never heard it. Correct. Try Silence was on draft day, which was the third and final time I worked with Ellen Burstyn. She started building into a contract after that. Except I never worked with her. The conversation was in the makeup trailer. It was in the makeup. I know, I know, I know. And just in case someone hasn't heard the story, it's an old episode.

44:01I was talking to Tim Hitmaker Simons in the makeup trailer for Draft Day. Who's a bit of a chatterbox, let's be honest. We like to talk, us silly boys. We were probably not even talking about Blu-rays. Who knows what we would have been talking about. Back then. Mr. Show Sketches or some shit. And she showed up in the makeup trailer, and I thanked her because at the wrap party for not political animals, but possible side effects, a pilot directed by Tim Robbins that wasn't picked up where she basically played the matriarch of the Sackler family.

44:31Right. It was like succession with medicine, and she was Brian Cox. I went up to her at the wrap party and told her how much I was a fan of her work and how much she meant to me and that I was trying to start. And she recommended me an acting teacher who was very, very important in my life. She said, I use this person. So I say that to her, and she said, I don't remember being on that show.

44:50If you say so. She wasn't like, what a moving thing to hear. She didn't say this in a mean way. Right. But she is an intense woman. Okay. And then I went back to talking, and she goes, well, I'm glad that helped you. And then I went back to talking to Tim, and after like 10 minutes, she went, Griffin? And I went, yes? And she went, try silence. You didn't even say, why don't you try silence? No, it was try silence. It wasn't an invitation. It was the most withering thing anyone has ever said. Tim has described it as witnessing a murder. Like five minutes later, she apologized. Well, and why not say it to Tim?

45:21He was talking too. Ellen Burstyn realized it was so devastating that she was like, look, you were being a little loud. I'm sorry. You might be surprised to hear. And Ellen Burstyn is someone who can command a lot of force without raising her voice. I imagine. She does it rarely, you know? Now, the entire makeup trailer went silent. Oh, yeah. And Draft Day was a fairly low-budget studio movie. They were shooting on set. They stopped talking. They didn't even know why. Dennis Leary shut up. It was like six to ten chairs in the makeup trailer. Like, everyone was in there. So there's a full line of people, all with their own, like, hair and makeup people.

45:55And, like, 20 people are just stunned silent. And after five minutes, she goes like, I'm sorry. It's just that I use this time to try to run my lines. She said something like that. You're on fucking draft day, Ellen. Come on. What are your lines? Don't draft that guy. Sonny, I'm your mother. I don't remember what she does in that movie. She plays Kevin Costner's mother, of course. Great. It's just so funny to imagine. Your father would be proud of your drafting. Or not. Yes. Her to imagine, like, her and Dennis Leary, like, sharing scenes, which I'm sure they do not. The three things I was in that she was in, she played the same role, basically, in all three.

46:30The elusive matriarch, slightly domineering. She was very good at it. Josh Lucas's mom, Sigourney Weaver's mom, and then Kevin Costner's mom. Feels like a wide age range of people's moms. Yeah. But, you know, actors who can cover a lot of ground themselves age-wise. And at that point, Ellen Burson just read as old lady. Like, it was just sort of like, this is your classic old lady on screen who isn't trying to look young. You know, she hasn't had, like, bizarre shit done. She's in her 90s now. Yes. I mean, and she's thriving. She famously, my favorite awards thing with her is that she was nominated for an episode of Big Love that I think she maybe doesn't have a line in.

47:06But she was just submitted kind of by mistake because they, like, submitted a whole host of actors from Big Love for guest actress or whatever. And I think voters were just kind of like, Ellen Burstyn and Big Love, I assumed she was good. Let's give her the nom. And they had to, like, apologize for giving her a nomination. That also happened with that TV movie that Bob Balaban directed. That was, uh, what was it? It's Susan Sarandon and Ray Fiennes, I want to say. It's like a butler who killed the woman he works for. Wait, is this Mrs. Harris, which I'm just looking up? I think so. It was Big Love.

47:37Oh, you're saying, oh, no, no, Mrs. Harris was a big thing. This one is Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley, which is not off of what you were just thinking of. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. There's, like, that, that movie has, like, a faux mockumentary style where it will cut to talking heads occasionally. Okay. And Ellen Burstyn did a cameo as a favor where they cut to her and she goes, like, I never liked her anyway. Oh, maybe that is what I'm thinking. Oh, yeah. She has one line and it was, like, an automatic nomination. And she was just, like, this is offensive.

48:07You should un-nominate me and nominate someone else. And I believe Entertainment Weekly did a rundown and they were, like, look, she makes, like, 15 choices in her three seconds. They were, like, this is a ridiculous nomination and clearly people didn't watch it. But also, this is sort of proof of how good she is. I mean, David and I were talking about the Emmys before coming here. The Emmys are completely ridiculous in what they nominate. They see the name. Like, Don Cheadle got that nomination for the, like, 40 seconds he was in a Marvel show. The Captain America Museum or whatever and being, like, pretty good exhibit. I think people see that name.

48:39They're scrolling through, like, I don't know what this is. I don't know what this is. And they're, like, great. Don Cheadle. I've heard of you. Especially if someone's a movie star and they're in a project that people know is legitimate but didn't watch. They're, like, that was, like, a real thing, right? Yeah. That was an HBO movie? How shitty could it be? Even with, like, movie stars on TV all the time now, it still has that weird, like, oh, Ellen Burstyn. It must be. I mean, if she's in it, it makes it seem legit. Correct. She was nominated for House of Cards. I didn't know she was on House of Cards. Did she play Frank Underwood's mom? Probably. Probably. Seems like a good guess. She plays Elizabeth Hale. I don't know.

49:09She played the leader of the cult. Did she not? Yeah. She's, like, a matriarch or something. Sounds like something Ellen Burstyn would do. I'm going to move on to the script she was sent. She was sent a big pile of scripts. And she's, look, she's, like, it was an education. Every woman in these scripts is either the victim, the understanding wife of some hero out saving the world, or a sex object of some sort. There's no script where the woman was the protagonist. Stories were about men. And women played a role in that man's story.

49:39So let's also call out Ellen Burstyn had, like, three bad marriages that all ended before the time she makes this movie. She knows from dysfunctional marriage. She tried divorce. She tried divorce several times. Neil Burstyn, her third husband, is who she gets her name from. Yes. Was schizophrenic and, I think, fairly unbalanced. Her actual name is Edna Gillooly. Yes. Which you can see why she didn't use that as a stage name, because it doesn't quite trip off the tongue.

50:10So it's early in the women's lib movement, as she says. It's the 70s. We're starting to look up and wake up and look around. And she wanted to make a different kind of film. And so she finally reads, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, a script by Bob Getschel. She sends it to John Kelly. He likes it. But it had been optioned by David Susskind. And so he had no deal at his studio, but he had it. On the last possible day, he picks up his option to block the root of him, because he doesn't have a studio.

50:40And so her agent calls him, or maybe Tony called, you know, someone, her agent calls him and is like, Ellen wants to do this movie. And he's like, I'm doing it with Anne Bancroft. And he's like, we have a fucking green light from Warner Brothers. Like, if we can do this, like, you have, like, an idea of doing something someday. You know, we have a studio, like, who will make this movie? And Susskind said, hmm, I think we should make this movie with Ellen Burstyn and Warner Brothers. Yes. You know. Now, this is crazy. John Kelly then says to Ellen Burstyn, do you want to direct it?

51:11Crazy. That is wild. That is pretty wild. That is kind of, I don't know, without parallel in this time period. Pretty much. I mean, like, Paul Newman's wife is directing. Like, you know, there's... Her name is Joanne Woodward. Joanne Woodward. Yes. Please. No, but it's like, when you think about, like, female directors in the studio system... I mean, how hard Streisand had to fight. Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, Lena Vertmuller is getting that first woman Best Director nomination around the same time. Yeah, I just am wondering if that causes that somehow. Maybe. I mean, I think it might be just truly John Kelly being like, this is a cheap movie.

51:46I want to be in the Ellen Burstyn business. And, you know, you pick the script, like... It's talent management. Yeah. We're also still in new Hollywood risk-taking era. And here's someone who kind of represents the new guard of acting styles. Here's someone who's kind of like a female De Niro in terms of, like, she's locked in some whole different process. Maybe she'd get interesting performances out of other people. Uh, so, instead, she calls up a handsome Italian director by the name of Francis Coppola and says, you know anybody?

52:17And he says, why don't you watch a little movie called Mean Streets? It hasn't even come out yet, but I recommend it. And she watches Mean Streets. And Coppola had just seen it and been like, I like this De Niro guy. I think I'll put him in my movie, The Godfather Part 1-1.

52:31Her quote was, she said, you go look at a movie like Mean Streets. Or, no, that's what Francis said to her. She said, uh, it felt exactly what Alice needed because it was a wonderful script and well-written, but for my taste, it was a little slick. Script's a little slick. You know, in a good way. She wanted some grit. And kind of a Doris Day Rock Hudson kind of way, and I wanted something a little bit more gritty. It's smart to just go like, okay, I like the script and the foundation of this, but if someone deals with it on a superficial level, I think it's not going to work. So how do I get someone who's sort of like, hire a director against type for the film to

53:03bring it down? I have a hard time imagining that script. I feel like, I wonder if like, did he change the script itself? Or is it really just all in style that changes how this feels? I don't know. Maybe it's three episodes of the sitcom that he retroactively submitted. Or it's the Chris Christopherson rom-com that the poster makes you think it is. But it does make you consider how cool it would be if like, either Safdie brother did this today. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know? I wonder if there's an analog, because there are some directors who've done stuff like this, but yeah, like, I'd have to think. But, love this. She meets with this, as she puts it, small, nervous little guy.

53:36Yeah. That's a good way to describe him. And, you know, he's like, he's excitable, and they're talking about it. And she says, you know, it's hard to tell from that film, Mean Streets, what you know about women. Do you know anything about women? Which is a fair note. Have you met one? And he says, no, but I'd like to learn. Which is pretty cute. Pretty good answer. The person said his intelligence beamed through his face, so we went to work together. Had he started any of his failed marriages by this point? Where are we? For sure. Where are we in this? Says he bad husband history. He's one divorce down.

54:07Yeah. I mean, look, it's the classic, like, 60s, you know, he's, yeah, he's not married to Julia Cameron yet. He's divorced from Lorraine Brennan. Like, the 60s early marriage where it's like, well, we had to live together and our parents would be mad. Like, you know. I wanted to have sex, which of course meant we had three children and bought a house. So, he has years of being a bad husband still ahead of him at this point. Much more to learn about women. He has quite a revolutionized bond. The field of bad husband. Oh, I assume you guys have talked about Mr. Scorsese, the documentary over the course of doing this, but just the amount of his ex-wives and daughters in that movie who are like, yeah,

54:39he was terrible. We love him, though. Yeah, but they're just like, he did rock. I never saw him. He was really around one. It's just really remarkable how affectionate they are for all the horrible things. Not like horrible, but he was just not useful. He wasn't. He was mostly absentee. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's not like, yeah. I would not want to have been married to him at this time. But I think I'd get a role. The vibe I got, right, because in talking about a movie about bad marriages and such, we don't want to, like, imply a different kind of bad marriage. Sure. You watch that and it just feels like everyone who married him kind of felt bad for him.

55:13Not that they were marrying him out of pity, but they were just like, I was just really worried about him. Like, everyone talks about him like a little endangered, like, fawn that they tried to nurse back to health. And they were like, ultimately, it ran back into the woods. He and Robbie Robertson just stayed up all night for three days. And I said, you go, buddy. Yeah. Go live your life. They call that the woods. So, they get to work. He's dating Sandy Weintraub at the time. And she sort of was the one who kind of read the script from across his desk or whatever

55:44and said, like, this is good. Like, you know, this has interesting characters because I assume he was basically just getting a lot of, like, gangster movies being sent to him, right? Yes. So, it's like, he's smart. He's like, I should make something completely different, right? Like, what better way than, you know, than, you know, to avoid being typecast? Alice was a way of trying to find another way. Can I make genre in Hollywood? It was something like a vehicle, like a Bette Davis vehicle or Joan Crawford vehicle. I enjoyed those movies, like Mr. Skeffington. So, this would be a way of embracing the genre. It is so funny that even young 20-something Martin Scorsese making movies about guys who

56:19shoot each other is like, but I am a huge movie nerd who has seen every single woman's picture. The actor has made a women's picture, right? I have great respect for Mr. Skeffington. Well, you do have to assume the script did not include the prologue in this that looks like The Wizard of Oz set on a farm lake. It is so wild. It's gorgeous. I mean, you start out with, like, a fucking, like, Douglas Sirk opening credits sequence. Yeah, like, the silk rumpled in the background with the titles over it. I love it. You feel like you're watching the wrong movie. Mm-hmm. And obviously, as you just pointed out, very inspired by Mr. John Cassavetes.

56:50Mm-hmm. Which you see a little bit. And look. Do an actor-driven movie. He has a great relationship with his mom that's, like, it's different from this movie, but he has, like, a chatty, obviously, right, informal kind of relationship with his mom, and so he's investing a little bit of that in there. You know, his dad is clearly sterner and more reserved, but his mom is a cut-up. Like, she's funny. Gatchell's screenplay, apparently, he wanted to change the third part dealing with the farmer. Okay. He means Chris Christopherson. Get rid of Chris? You can't.

57:21I don't know. It's, like, the beginning is not quite right, and the last sequence is not quite right. They rewrote it together. They weren't satisfied. Then they start doing some improv in New York with Ellen. That's kind of cool. And then they would sort of throw it back to Gatchell. I don't know. They're just describing rewriting the movie. Who cares? They did a good job. There is an alleged, like, three and a half hour cut of this movie that I'm sure is more of an assembly than a proper cut, but this is one of those movies where I would watch kind of any footage they have. I'd watch them all hanging, and I would watch an entire movie set at a diner, but I would

57:52say this is a well-paced movie. No, it is. It does not need to be long. It is. But I'd be curious. I mean, and that's the difference between him and Cassavetes, where there's, like, the famous story of him screening husbands and a killing and being like, the audience is enjoying it too much. We're adding an hour into it. Like, Cassavetes was like, if the audience is enjoying it too purely, I've done something wrong. And it doesn't feel like this movie is taking easy outs, but you can tell that Scorsese's like, I'm not trying to punish people. As mentioned earlier, David Susskind once viewed this as an Anne Bancroft vehicle.

58:24Supposedly, at one point, Diana Ross was attached. Well, well, well. Which is crazy. I mean, obviously, and she was like, well, I'll only do it if David Nibbitt is there. My pal. And obviously, Walter Houston plays my son. John Houston. Fuck. I think Walter Houston might have died by then. Walter Houston could play the chef. He's like, there! He's out. Order up! Mail. Shirley MacLaine, in 2005, said she turned it down because she didn't know who Scorsese was. JJ adds in parentheses, this has to be a false memory.

58:54Like, there's no way that's true. But she said in other places that the script was offered to her. She regrets it. Right. I don't think she would have been offered the Scorsese version, but the script obviously had been around for a while. Well, if it was kicking around a studio, like, presumably every actress in that industry. It's just one of the people you would have offered anything to. Ellen Burstyn says the biggest regret she has is she didn't take a producer credit, which she should have because she was like, I was the shepherd of the film. I should have been an executive producer. I didn't ask. I demurred. Oh, I don't need credit. I'm the star. If I had been an executive producer, I would have gotten points on that fucking sitcom.

59:27Would have made that Alice money. Like, because I do feel like usually it'd be like, oh, well, it's a credit. Who cares? And Alice is the one scenario where like, you're telling me this small domestic drama turned into a regular paycheck? Yes. I mean, she made, she did make one of the coolest deals of all time eventually for the Exorcist, the last Exorcist. Do you remember this? It's like they created an acting school or something. They created a scholarship that runs indefinitely. Right. They kept offering her money. They were like, we'll give you a million dollars. Okay. You're going to be in the movie five days. I don't give a shit. And they're like, $10 million, 25% of the gross.

1:00:00And she was just like, here are the actual terms. Scholarship for acting school every year granted full ride in perpetuity and made them like make a commitment to doing that. Yeah. So, which rules, of course, the only downside is she's in the movie for like two minutes being like, I too was once an Exorcist. Ah, I think it's her eyes gouged out. You're like, what? The kids get that acting scholarship. Don't need to know that. Well, they make them watch the movie. Unfortunately, it's so funny that they were like, we have to have you in the movie. Why?

1:00:30So we can gudge your eyes out two minutes in. That's definitely a reshoot thing, though, right? It sounded like that. No, that movie felt clean to me, Griff. That movie felt. Nobody touched it. The famously bleak thing about that movie is they make the big rights deal. Like in summer 2020. And they were like, we don't have a script yet, but can we really wait and take the chance of Ellen Burstyn dying? Here we are six years later. Exactly. So they wrote a couple scenes just to be able to shoot with her in 2020. Then didn't finish the script until a year later.

1:01:02Oh, God. Then when they shot the rest of the movie, they were like, huh, the stuff we shot with Burstyn doesn't really fit. So then they reshot and they were like, what if you don't have eyes? What if I gouged out to just kind of have something shocking happen? Yes. Halfway in the movie. She did not attend the Oscars, as we mentioned. She was busy starring in Same Time Next Year on Broadway with Charles Grodin. Oh, which is what she wins her time for. And then we'll get an Oscar nomination. She thought, Mort Gottlieb, sounds like a guy. I'm not going to look up who that is. Thought she should fly back to Los Angeles to go to the Oscars.

1:01:37And she was just like, I didn't want to disappoint people. I didn't, you know, I don't want, no offense to understudies, but like people are paying to see me and Charles. It happened a lot in the 70s. People just didn't go to the Oscars in the 70s. They just didn't fucking go. And they went like, I didn't realize it was a big deal. Yeah. And now like when Sean Penn doesn't go, it feels like sight. Sean Penn is the first acting winner to not go since Paul Newman won in the 80s. So we're not actually crazy. We're not counting Anthony Hopkins. Yeah. Yeah. We're forgiving him because he was.

1:02:07He was asleep in Wales. Right. Right. But less living Oscar winner, non-Anthony Hopkins. Isn't that nuts? Yeah. That is funny. Yeah. Remember the Oscars were like, and now best actor. Oh, Anthony Hopkins and the father. Well, good night. You have to do your Joaquin Fetus impression while doing that. Oh, I forgot it was Joaquin. Yeah. Joker himself. Just like the awkwardness of the moment of him being like, I don't really want to be here. Joaquin, the weirdest guy in the world, is like, this feels awkward. Even I'm getting a sense that this is awkward.

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Chris Christopherson and the cast

1:04:43Chris Christopherson. It's just his fifth film. What has he done? Had just done Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Which he's phenomenal in. Which is such a cool movie. Have you ever seen that one, Ben? I haven't. I think it has a bit of a vibe you might gel with. But the Dylan connection. Dylan's really good. Dylan rocks in it. It's so been on my list forever. The music is so cool, obviously. We'll watch it together, Ben. I haven't seen it either. I love a Western. You know, he's also in Dennis Hopper's insanely normal,

1:05:14the last movie. That's his first appearance. Right. Which was, that title's a threat. Dennis Hopper was like, I'm trying to end movies forever. That movie rules. That movie is very cool. That's another one you would like. I assume you, have you been enjoying the recent Catherine Lanasa from the Pitt press cycle of I am haunted by Dennis Hopper's go. I interviewed her last year and she does just like, she will drop a Dennis Hopper. Just like, it doesn't have to get into it, but just like, you know, everyone just needs to know. That lady. She married him when she was like 19. I fucking love her. The craziest fucking thing is she was saying like,

1:05:45you know, he was the great love of my life. And so he continues to haunt me. Obviously we got divorced and then he married someone else after me. But when he was dying, they were in the process of getting divorced. So I was the last person he was married to where it ended on good terms. And I'm like, well. Hence this ghost comes to my house. You also got divorced. What are you talking about? Yeah, but we patched it up. And I'm on the pit. In the afterlife. And now she's married to, what's his name from Melrose Place? Who she married to? Oh my God. Hang on. Okay. I love her. You can Google this faster than I can.

1:06:17Grant's show. Oh, I love Grant's show. They're married. Remember when he was on the threesome show? He's a hunk. Swingers. Swingtown. It was called Swingtown. Oh, Swingtown. I remember. It was one of those CBS was like, can we do a show about swingers on CBS? And it's like, well, you have to have nudity and sex in your show. And they're like, no. Well, can you have drugs in your show? Like, not really. It's like, well, then why are you making that? It's going to be so risque. In episode six, someone mentions that they saw a butt. That's what the 2000s were like. They were so jealous of HBO.

1:06:48Right. They're like, we want one of those. Yeah. Dennis, there is the job where they were like, he's going to say shit one time every other episode. We'll give TV Guide advance warning that this is one of the episodes he says shit on. Yeah. Quietly as he exits a room. Ah, shit. Exactly. He was also in a film called, starred in a film called Cisco Pike, which I've never seen, but. Oh, sure. It's like Gene Hackman, Karen Black, Chris Christopherson, Harry Dance, Dean Stanton, and the Warhol superstar Viva.

1:07:19I mean, like how bad could that be? That sounds fun. Maybe a little formless. Who knows? I was going to say that movie was called Quiet, Calm Conversations on the Set.

1:07:31Everyone's easy to deal with the movie. Respectful disagreements. The motion picture. And then he's in something called Bloom in Love, a Paul Mazursky movie I've never seen, starring George Siegel, where I assume he's got, like, I feel like he was often kind of the energy beard-o guy. Yeah. Right? You know, he's coming in off the bench. I was double-checking that. He's giving you some sort of hot, cool energy. Viva is Gabby Hoffman's mother. Oh, there you go. Yes. That's right. I was trying to remember who it was, but yes. Sorry. Go on. Scorsese is like meeting him

1:08:05and basically being like, I love Pat Garrett. And Christopherson's like, everyone fucking hated that movie. What's the matter with you? And, you know, they had a great relationship after some early, you know, nervousness or whatever.

1:08:20Christopherson, this is an interesting way Burstyn puts it. It's like, he just couldn't accept that he was an actor. After every take, he'd cringe and be like, oh man, that was dog shit. Like, he just had no, like, you know, confidence in his own ability. And I bet you that Burstyn and Scorsese are both kind of like, I don't know, man, pretty hot. I'm so annoyed by that being like, dude, get on my level. No, she loves it. She says he was wonderful. Like, you know, we would be really connected. He was a new voice in America.

1:08:51Like, I mean, you know, how do you not have a crush on this guy? You know? Marty? No, Chris. Chris. Chris. Chris Overson. Yes. Marty, I feel like you're a little more like, oh, Marty, you're so great. Chris Overson is just one of the most, I feel like, inarguably hot people. He's just the camera. He just has unbelievable rizz. Yeah. Alfred Lutter, who plays little Tommy. They saw 300 kids. He's so good, and this. And Sandy Weintraub, you know, says, hey, Marty, you got to see this guy.

1:09:21He sees this kid. They say, what do you want to be when you grow up? And he says, a stand-up comic. Marty must have loved that. And he's like, let's get him in the room with Alan. And they're like, hey, just, you know, improv or whatever. And they start just kind of like bouncing off each other. And there you go. He's really great. Do we have any idea how much of their scenes together are improv? I think a lot. I think a lot of their kind of rat-a-tat is like, you know, their back and forth stuff. It's so perfect. Yes. And you kind of can't script that stuff, especially with a child. And just the way she's kind of like, what? You know, like half the time,

1:09:52like that way you are as a parent where you're like, I'm picking up, I think I'm picking up where you're putting down, but what are you talking about? This is like the huge thing for me in this, and both the times I've watched it, again, having an almost 10-year-old, is like when you like love this kid and you had to put up with him, but like if he tells you that story one more fucking time, you're going to jump out the window. It's that joke that he's trying to tell her, where she's like crying, asking him to stop telling that joke. He reminds me a lot of myself in that way when you tell me about these things. Yes. Just like, I mean, they're like the dynamic of your kid who you love and is the thing you'll do anything for,

1:10:23but you're like, you're so annoying, I cannot listen to you for another moment. I think she is meaner to her kid. David, you can tell me what you think, then I would be to my shoulders. She has a bit of a breaking point in this film. I would not kick them out of the car and make them walk the final mile to get home, I would think. Yeah, no. But there are some relatable moments in this movie. I would say there's some 70s, like, oh, you'd get a phone call about this these days. I mean, it's a movie that builds to spanking. It is a movie about how do you... We'll talk about the hitting kids part of it too,

1:10:54or like Jodie Foster, juvenile delinquency. Jodie Foster. Holy shit, she's amazing in this movie. It's unbelievable. Well, I assume we'll get to her in the dossier. I am about to tell you that Jodie Foster just shot all her stuff. Two days. Wow. Oh my God. Real pro. What a pro. It was like doing another commercial first. She came in, bang, bang, bang, two days. She knew all her stuff. Two days, two bottles of wine. That was all.

1:11:15And this is a Scorsese. And there's this damn situation with the welfare workers where a woman came over to me and said, stop. And I was like, what do you mean stop? And they were like, stop. She has to go to school. And I was like, okay. She's Jodie Foster. She's in the grand tradition. Judy Garland. Judy Garland worked 20 hours a day. You know, they've got a lot of like actor studios people kind of peppered in the background here. A lot of Ellen Burstyn faves, you know, are filling in the cast. What were you going to say, Katie? Oh, just where Jodie Foster was and I got on her Wikipedia page. She's like doing Disney stuff, but this is still before anything where she's a star.

1:11:45Obviously, this is how Marnie knows her for Taxi Driver, which is the next movie he makes. Which changes her whole career. But she's really only done a couple movies. Right. She's, but she's like a TV star, right? Like she's, She did the Paper Moon TV show. We love it. Didn't know that existed. She played Addie Prey on that. Am I wrong in thinking that she even replaced Tatum O'Neill in some later version of Bad News Bears or am I conflating the two things? I know she was the voice of one of Charlie Chan's children on the Hanna-Barbera Charlie Chan cartoon, which I'm looking up here

1:12:16has aged perfectly. I was about to say, sounds like something you'd want to be pushing out right now. It sounds like something that you would know and no one else would know. Yeah, correct. This is a perfect junk in my brain forever. You're conflating that Jodie Foster was supposed to be the star of Bad News Bears. That's what it was. Turned it down to do a little movie called Taxi Driver. There we go. Yes. But no, she'd done some Disney movies. She'd done a lot of like TV stuff. And Freaky Friday is much later. That's after Taxi Driver. I think, right? Like, it's like that's, that's the same year

1:12:46as Taxi Driver. That's nuts. That's nuts. What can I tell you? You can do it all. And Bugsy Malone is also the same year. Wow. All three of those are 76? 76? Wow. That's weird. But you know, she'd done the Tom Sawyer movie. She's basically like sort of the second lead of that. That's before whatever. You know, she's a punky little kid. Little tomboy. That's her thing. The perfection of her as a queer icon in this movie, like just from the jump of her being like, yeah, this is. It's funny. This woman had to come out of the Golden Globes 40 years later.

1:13:17It is so funny that it's like this overt in this movie and then it's just like, quietly, let's just go back in the closet and not really talk about it for a while. They weren't ready. I want to call out Leia Goldani. Goldani? Yeah, sure. Who was the female lead in Shadows, the Cassavetes movie. Ooh, yeah. Leila. Leila. Leila Goldani. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is a movie about white-passing African-Americans. Yes, I mean, if you've ever seen that iconic Shadows poster, that's her face. She is incredible in that film. Yes.

1:13:47She was a fully Caucasian woman. The success of that movie, critically... She's Italian, I believe. Yes. Damaged her career. Right, because they assumed... It's this insane thing where she was a white person playing a white-passing black person who then lost roles because people assumed she was black and couldn't play white. So it just feels like this was kind of a menchie move for Scorsese to throw her a role. And like we said, you know, he's a devotee of Cassavetes. Well, and she's in, what, two scenes like in the very beginning where they're doing

1:14:18like the dress fitting and then the yard sale. She's the one who's with her when she gets the phone call to her husband. Yeah, like that relationship between the two of them is so perfect and real and you know so much about them. So as soon as she gets that phone call and then they say goodbye at the car and like the little boys are rolling their eyes at them and they're so emotional. It's just wonderful. She got a BAFTA nom for this. Oh my God. Well, the BAFTAs went bananas for Alice. Alice fever. They gave it best picture, right? I think so. I think they did. Yeah, the BAFTAs love this movie. This movie traveled well,

1:14:49I guess. Did they nominate Dianne Ladd also? Well, the Oscars did. Yeah, I just... I believe so. Let me double check that. But I think it won screenplay, picture, actress and then it got, yes, it got double noms. Dianne Ladd won the BAFTA. Oh my God. And this is, you know, the BAFTAs treated this like a 75 because it didn't make it to Europe till 75. So this is the 1976 BAFTAs. So it's beating... It beat Barry Lyndon Dog Day Afternoon in Jaws, which I might have some notes on that as much as I like this movie.

1:15:21And she won Best Actress and Dianne Land won Best Supporting Actress and won Best Screenplay. Yeah, they fucking went nuts for it. I can only imagine the British viewing audience being like, what's this movie about like an Arizona diner waitress is better than Barry Lyndon? Are we sure?

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

1:16:07I guess we'll find out. Oh, that's where she's going.

1:16:11Anybody not made Alfred Lutter? I indeed gave it to one Jenna Rollins for A Woman Under the Influence. My other nominee, Sissy Spacek for Bandit. Wait, why do I have Faye Dunway for Chinatown here? I don't know. This is a crazy person. Ellen Burstyn, Brigitte Meera for Ali, If You Reads the Soul. Oh, sure. Anyway, the movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is about a lady named Alice Hyatt who lives in New Mexico and has a kid whose name is... Tommy? That's right.

1:16:41Wanted to be a singer. Damn it, she is a singer. Is a singer. She's a former singer and now she's married to a guy called Donald who is a Coca-Cola delivery truck driver played by Billy Greenbush. This guy sucks. Real piece of work. But who... It sucks in just kind of like a boring, shitty way. It's not even like a true kind of like page-turning melodrama kind of like he's the nastiest husband and she casts it. It's just like she's just stuck with this loser. Or not even like Harvey Keitel later where you're like he's got charisma. He's just a fucking loser.

1:17:13Keitel is compellingly awful. Oh my God. Yeah, and it's Keitel too so you're kind of like can't stop looking at this guy. We've been talking about this, Katie. It is just so funny that for Who's That Knock at My Door and Mean Streets Keitel is Scorsese's analog. It is... And in a way where past those two movies I would say Scorsese does not have self-insert characters. You feel him as the character watching the movie and making the movie but there doesn't feel like there's someone who represents him. The second he stops having those characters he's like Harvey, here's the deal. I'll still put you in my movies.

1:17:44You only play the most contemptible people in the world. You play real shithead. Child pedophile Judas. Judas. Literal Judas. Hey, it's a complex portrayal of Judas, okay? Yes, the name is name is a bit of a scarlet letter or whatever. But it's funny that in this one you're like oh, maybe he plays like a sweet guy if you dare a little bit. And you're like he's good looking like I know this guy let's see what he does. Bigamist!

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

1:18:40a little unknowable. So I just yeah, I really saw a lot of her in this character. Hey, Ben the actor Alfred Lutter who plays Tommy New Jersey legend he's from Ridgewood. He graduated from Ridgewood High School then he got a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Stanford. Well, that's not your Jersey but sure. Well, so we can be proud of him. Yeah. I don't know. Master of Science degree. He founded Lutter Consulting a company providing technology strategy and he later

1:19:11started a website called lynda.com. What is lynda.com? That's a Wikipedia page. lynda.com became LinkedIn Learning. Oh, wow. So it's sort of like a online certification. It was an online learning site that LinkedIn bought. Wow. He was like an early tech guy. Yeah. The original tech man. The original tech man they call him. Yeah. Well, this movie reminding you of your mom, Ben is another thing that feels so important about it to me that it's about like the relationship

1:19:42between a parent and a child in a way that I just don't think that many movies do it where it's like it's a relationship. There's a push and a pull. It's not about a mother's love. It's not about like a kid looking after their parents. It's like actually complicated and I can't get over how like real that feels and how rare it is. Maybe you guys have better examples than I do. No, I'm thinking as a counterpoint to this Kramer vs. Kramer which is not a movie I love where people But it's a very watchable No, it's a very watchable movie. I don't think it's a bad film but it's not a movie I deeply care for and a lot of people credit Hoffman's Oscar win

1:20:14for how good he is with the kid but that feels a little more like an actor showing off how good his chemistry can be with a kid and that movie also sets him up to be like you'll never believe how surprisingly good this guy is. Like it's like Big Daddy without the jokes of like he really gets it together. Yeah. It doesn't feel like a very accurate portrayal. Yeah. And it's so reductive in sort of the way it treats the Meryl Streep character It's like so plot driven and being like can he step up to it? Totally. And it's like oh he makes good breakfast what an incredible dad.

1:20:44Yeah. And like in the very beginning of this movie the husband's being a jerk about something or another and she goes over to the son and she's basically like hey look help me out here. You gotta get we gotta get around this guy like they are co-conspirators getting through this and that is so often what especially as your kids get older and you can be like look give me a break here I'm trying my best you're trying your best like it's almost like she's letting him kind of see like she's just a person who's trying to figure this out and again she's making some choices I wouldn't make but I love that it makes it they're not equals but it makes it a real back and forth which parent child things don't do often. Well let's also call out the inciting incident

1:21:16of this movie which is it's hard to get kids to act on screen like this. Yeah. It's impressive you know her piece of shit husband dies they get in a bad fight he hits her it does not seem like this is the first or only time this has happened he's a loser and then a day later he dies in a meaningless Coca-Cola truck accident which is like it's meaningful all that Coke's not gonna get delivered but I'm saying there's people thirsty out there you're right you're right they need a pep in their step it was a costly death yeah didn't you just imagine like little Marty like staging that accident

1:21:46like the tableau of like the people hanging out of the car there's some blood on the street it's perfect well you also imagine him being friends with Spielberg and being jealous of like Duel and being like I have one shot to show the aftermath of Duel you know they're not letting me stage action sequences yet nope but she's grieving a bad relationship yeah she's experiencing real grief for this and her son is as well and she tries to take this as an opportunity to uproot her life something she's clearly dreamed of doing but not felt the courage to do it felt too radical

1:22:18to blow up her life in order to do that but now her life has been blown up for her and so so much of the weird tension between her and her son is that her son is like grieving the loss of a father who he's starting to realize like maybe sucks yeah yeah and the kid is just getting into the age where you start thinking of your parents as people too like him being he was already feeling that way yeah like he's at the perfect phase to see her as a person and to look back at his dad as not just like a hero right he was putting salt in the coffee which does feel let's call it out very Ben it feels like

1:22:49a little Ben move definitely yeah Ben I was wondering if like something where she's saying like if you keep your mouth open one more time I'm gonna throw you out and he just like opens his mouth as wide as he can is that a little Ben move yes definitely like I'll show you the final workaround you can't slam my mouth shut while you're driving so what happened so husband dies I think it's really well played by her where she's sad because her husband died plays the emotion quite honestly but just you just kind of buy

1:23:19that she pretty quickly is kind of like snapped out of a dream or whatever like that she's just kind of like let's just go like there's nothing fucking there's no reason for us to be here like well it's the past tense present tense thing of like I think of myself as someone who wanted to be a singer and didn't have the courage to follow through right and then she just decides like I am a singer I sing there's nothing keeping me here why not reconstruct my life around this dream and fairly quickly that scene of her singing at the piano at home where like it lingers on her singing for a while and you get the kid outside and he's kind of like

1:23:49reframing how he thinks of her like it's an interesting venture into his perspective about her talent which you don't get that much of and it's I mean it's just like really well done that's one of the early moments where you're like oh here's Marty testing it out figuring out what he can do with the camera and the Layla Goldani character reads as her one person support system where you're just like this is kind of scary for her to go out there are no you know she there's the notion of the family home of going back to where she came from but it doesn't feel like there's a solid base of support

1:24:20from her family extended or close yeah do we even know who's in Monterey like she talks about it all the time but like who are they going to not really yeah yeah I mean you also have no sense of the kid's life but he's a kid I guess he's just gonna make those kids go where you want them to he could be like I have friends at school or whatever it's like you're bad baby we're fucking in the room we got Jodie Foster and some wine waiting for you so she gets him to Phoenix right like that's where she gets him to where she starts singing I mean this says she finds work as a lounge singer

1:24:50like in the narrative kind of I would barely call what she's singing in lounges yeah there's like a microphone over there if you really want to go over the griminess of these bars that she's going to like bars in the 70s just were not they didn't seem like fun places to hang out I had my intent up the whole time I'm like geez is someone going to be like a mega creep or whatever and instead they're all just kind of like I don't know like you know there's the why don't you turn around moments yeah yeah yeah but no one's ever like oh yeah you can have this gig if you come with me over here there's no compliance

1:25:20but this was kind of a style of a bar of a very particular time basically it's like kind of don't bug anyone like sing something that'll be nice in the background but like yeah this is like a little value add ambiance yeah right like bars with no windows like I remember there being some around when I was a kid like after this but like you would never like women wouldn't go to these bars much like you wouldn't bring your kids into any of these places but let's also just call out the like the velvet opening titles then this like blood red sound stage

1:25:51completely as you said very like beginning of Wizard of Oz it felt like the one big idea Marty has right like he's like I want to do this I know I don't have a lot of money but like I want to do this one thing right this little girl like practicing this hymn over and over again it literally says like Monterey California Alice a young girl yeah and then it's just sort of like her loneliness you only see her parents in like silhouette basically and they're like yelling at her yeah you get a sense of why this person didn't have the courage to follow their dreams and has settled in their life that's what this movie

1:26:22rocks and she's singing a song about caring and no one cares about her I mean he was a good kisser guys oh the husband give it up for Donald I think that's his name Donald I love when she tells a kid like ask me again in a few years and I'll explain it to you he's like what are you gonna say to him when he's 14 yeah that's not a good conversation that's really just pushing things off well I think she'll say to slightly open your mouth uh huh instead of like yes you know try to tighten your lips you're going too wild you're about to eat someone's skull with that kind of pet mouth right now

1:26:52this film was shot in Tucson, Arizona where it's set why is it set in Arizona? why not? okay I think that's a really good answer don't really know I mean Marty says it was a movie town you could do anything you want there it's a great town to shoot in I was just thinking about Spielberg like having kind of that like southern US part of things to himself and Marty being like let me out of New York it's a place back then you know Arizona in you know after the war but you know 60s 70s it's sort of like there's a ton of space it's cheap as hell and it's growing and like it's not even really begun to explode in the way

1:27:22that the Southwest would but like it makes sense for somewhere someone's gonna go where it's like well you know there'll be something for me to do over there you know like it's like Jodie Foster says it's a weird place I think I mean like honestly like the Southwest obviously has its own character to it now but yeah back then I bet you it was pretty weird yeah I don't know a single thing about Tucson except for a place on this movie basically I think I don't know much about Tucson either it's not far from Phoenix I think of it as the kind of crunchier more liberal cousin to Phoenix it's a big town I don't know the Jodie line is my favorite

1:27:54single line of writing in this movie which is weird very weird he's even weird for Tucson and Tucson is the weird capital of the world right I mean it's the college you know it's where the University of Arizona is so it's got the you know you know from college towns you're a southern gal from college towns Duke University right around the corner you live in like an old school house right you like accidentally became I don't just live with a 10 year old and a 7 year old I live with like 20 20 year olds or I guess more of a neighbor's house maybe yeah I guess you're warring with the frat boys

1:28:24in the store so yeah they went a week over production you know they went a week over schedule went a little over budget you know it's Marty just getting ready for his real sojourns but a little over budget it's 1.6 million yeah it was budgeted at 1.6 and ended up more like 1.8 or whatever sure there was a gas crisis which was an issue to do with that oh interesting I was gonna say this was also you know Mean Streets was basically an independent film that became a negative pickup for Warner Brothers this is him like making a film for Warner Brothers

1:28:55I think that must have also been appealing to him you know it's a lot easier to sell them David's drawing us a shirt I'm wearing the 70s logo it's a lot easier to sell them on something like Taxi Driver that seems really risky at Columbia when it's like you made a studio film you were responsible enough the amount you went over budget was more than covered by the success and you won someone an Oscar do we think he had final cut on this probably not right definitely not yeah well you never know in the 70s I guess I don't think they cared as much I don't know if you tested well they wouldn't yeah my guess is

1:29:27well anyway and they're not like look on page 15 we need Alice already at the diner like they're not coming in with those dumb notes I will say and yet this was turned into a sitcom that they got Alice to the diner New Hollywood and then they're they watch and they're like okay well but actually diner page one every Tuesday night why did they end up in Tucson well there was literally a gas crisis and they could not make it to Tucson basically it has nothing to do with the picture it has everything to do with production is what Martin wow okay there you go everything nothing was shot in LA

1:29:57except the opening sequence was on a lot obviously the red prologue he basically says I had a chance to use a Hollywood set how else are you gonna do a flashback how do you wanna do a flashback that's the whole point goddamn script opened and said flashback 1948 Monterey California and he was just adamant you know they're like what if you do like black and white like that that would make more sense and he's just like the characters hung up on movies I feel like she would remember in this kind of half fantasy way

1:30:29it should look like a 40s movie it should look kind of indoors he admits I got a little crazy with the redness it's very red I had fun with the fog it feels like Marty being like I love old movies let me make stuff I have access just for a day or two to the tricks and to who knows how long I get this has he ever been on a soundstage before doing that like probably not probably not and he says it's a square screen it's 130 the academy ratio you know the first scene is Tobacco Road it's copied exactly obviously Wizard of Oz

1:31:00Duel in the Sun for the redness of the sky Little East of Eden Little Gone with the Wind you know he's got a lot of William Cameron Menzies Invaders from Mars of course it's like it was like one-fifth of the budget it cost $85,000 which was all so yeah and he's like and my first feature who's that knocking cost $35,000 for the whole movie right like definitely easy right so yeah it's like him for the first time getting to you know play in Hollywood yeah and Warner Brothers

1:31:31watches the movie and their one thing is like can we fucking cut that weird crazy opening with all the red and Marty's like take my name off the picture like I'm going crazy you know like immediately I'm sure they were just like oh Jesus who cares like whatever Burstyn ran into Peter Bogdanovich and says I'm doing Alice with this guy Martin Scorsese and he said tell him not to move his camera so much and Ellen says I did not relay that to Marty he moves it quite a bit it's funny he loves to move that camera this feels like his most kinetic camera work

1:32:01until Goodfellas oh yeah this movie in sequences has the coke energy in the way the camera moves into the conversation yes yeah one idea he wanted as many women in authority on the picture as possible Sandy Weintraub is the producer Toby Raffelson art director Marsha Lucas is the editor he wanted it to be as honest as possible he wasn't trying to make a feminist track but he wants this movie you know about women to be in front of women and being like he wanted to find out what women are like know what you don't know yeah he trusts Marsha's

1:32:31judgment implicitly and he says like hey you know I know a stained glass guy I was delighted by the return of Marsha Lucas as a character for this podcast I don't know how long it's been since you guys have gotten into Marsha lore I mean she only edits what his first three or four like it's a taxi is taxi driver the last time she works with him because Thelma reappears and then she goes on to Star Wars New York New York is her last oh okay which was a famously easy movie to edit yeah settled and to make yes yes everything about it the first cut okay this is your thing

1:33:01the assembly was three hours and 16 minutes ton of character stuff gets thrown out you know like the husband there's a lot more of him you know I mean wisely they reduce him to about 10 minutes he's like we have to get in the car you don't need anything from him to find out what his deal is that's the difference is you know Cassavetes was like I want to make movies primarily out of the scenes that anyone else would cut out of a film the scenes that are not the interesting part or the exciting part but I want to show where the drama is in that

1:33:31and it makes sense that Marty would want to shoot all of those things and then ultimately whittle it down to that stuff helps inform the other stuff keep the most exciting moments and the major plot points it helps that he dies within 15 minutes or less I completely agree yeah now I want to talk about I want to give you some news on the end like some research on the ending but let's talk about the movie first to get to the ending because it's an iconic ending obviously but uh shithead husband dies she goes to she goes to Phoenix she starts being a lounge singer and she meets

1:34:02my handsome fellow Harvey Keitel chill she calls him a baby a child he's got kind of a baby face and he has kind of the moppy haircut like it makes him look younger she's so adamant that he looks like he's underage and I'm like Harvey Keitel was born looking like a Vietnam vet he doesn't look like underage he's got a baby face quality for Harvey Keitel and it's that thing where you see actors when they're young now so you're like oh my god they look so young yes like De Niro

1:34:32looks more like a baby at this point than Keitel does no question Keitel just always had old man features he did yes even when he was young and his skin was smooth but she shouldn't have trusted him her first instinct was correct yes her first instinct is correct he is well he's a married guy who's having an affair I mean it's actually not that complicated he's also violent yeah no he's a jerk but like his big secret is just like oh I am cheating on my wife with you is sort of his dark but David it's justified because he says

1:35:02his wife is crazy she's crazy for example she shows up asking why I'm sleeping with another woman how dare she she's angry I fuck other people this lunatic this calls for a switchblade yes breaking some glass the door and then he has the entire dresser yeah it is funny that like Scorsese's now doing the break of you're no longer my leading man and yet in this performance he kind of gives everyone the like show reel to be like hey and here's how you use Harvey Keitel

1:35:33he does and they do they do I wonder if Keitel resents it in a way of kind of like the way Marty shifted me to the supporting character the villainous character that just became my type like because even when it's the lead he's a villainous lead well is there a story if you've done Taxi Driver yet of like why it's not Keitel why it's De Niro in the lead never even considered and beyond that that was a De Niro part beyond that Sport was written to be black and very wisely the studio was like if the pimp is black people will burn down

1:36:04the field the end of this movie is a little charged right yeah no it was always De Niro he was obsessed with De Niro I mean I think I think it truly was like he fell in love with him on Mean Streets and was like this guy is the key as does everybody who watches Mean Streets De Niro is unbelievable in that movie yeah yeah he pee good he pee good he pee good he pee good which is different than pee pee good the award they gave to the exorcist you're right so good I love that at the end of that Keitel scene in the motel where like they get out of there

1:36:34and the camera just stays for a little bit and you see all of the wreckage it made me think about I haven't rewatched Raging Bull in a while but like that big like domestic fight there and like in that movie you're with the guy and this is like the woman's point of view of this like dumb bullshit these men are bringing on with them obviously in Raging Bull that stuff is very powerful and it's very but like this stuff gets me even more where she's just trying to keep it together for the kids yeah after all that happens I mean this is Ellen Burson's superpower her fastball is like is anyone better at quiet suffering than her she has this fascinating balance of feeling

1:37:05really steely and strong and the kind of person who could say try silence and break you for decades and also at all times you're like is she on the verge of breaking down in tears I just wish you had recorded her saying try silence so that I could then play it on the podcast when I need you to try silence you get that big red button in front of you you can just play try silence to wrap up the show she's just I feel like that's kind of where she wins the Oscar more than anything right is just how well she plays the sort of and just like the betrayal of like I fucking

1:37:36you know let someone in yeah I'm in this like fragile situation she seemed nice you know and then here I am again like in front of my kid like getting humiliated like this and like being scary you know what felt irresponsible to her was that she was starting an affair with a man who was so much younger like she was like this is silly and maybe not like wise of me what she realizes is I fell for the same type of guy again which I think really devastates her well and it's so episodic because like you could make a version of this movie where she gets on the road

1:38:07and lands at the diner and the movie's about the diner but you need this sense of like oh no like something in me is making these choices again I gotta get out of this you need her to sort of abandon her dream again she's just starting to be like well maybe I could sing and it's like no I need to get the fuck out of here I need to just take a job as a waitress I need to just keep my head above water for the kid it's also so big though that it's not the movie's not Nashville it's not I always wanted to be a country music star and now I'm gonna pursue my dream it is I miss singing

1:38:37I just want to sing for a living right like once upon a time I like that I'm also happy if that paycheck is 50% serving beers and 50% singing one song a night you know and that was also the moment right before she met her husband yes so it really is like she's like I want to start right from where I left off the last sort of free version of myself yeah yeah can we also shout out before we move on to the diner I love the bar owner mm-hmm the one that hires her yes yes he's just got some

1:39:08great funny moments he has this one part I wrote down where she asks what's a song he likes and he just starts saying lyrics to her and she's like I don't know that song and he's like well why'd you ask I mean ironically this is a movie this is a movie made up of characters that feel like they could be sitcom archetypes and yet all of them are played like real people right it's like Cassavetes sitcom right yeah I mean and then the sitcom I never really watched Dallas I've maybe seen it on TV once but like I assume it's more

1:39:39sitcom sitcom the Criterion Disc has all nine seasons on it right I'm gonna find out you have to play it backwards yeah you should at least have the pilot yeah throw it on there yeah so yeah when's the water fight scene I love the water fight scene that's a classic like mother son thing where it's like we're having fun we've kind of it's gone out of control yeah because boys are too excitable I think it's after that is it yeah yeah yeah but yeah it is a little bit like you can mess with your kid in a way

1:40:09like she's not hurting him but like they're both taking it too far because you kind of like get on your kid's level and do things like that you are a parent of a child of two sons it's true Katie Rich I am also a parent of two sons but they are in a different part of life you are a parent of sons closer to this this age range and like you I feel like can speak more to right like what that is like and what maybe when can you say what I might be in for but like like to what this feels like an underrated mother son movie underrated only in that it's not discussed

1:40:40all the time like it was rated well at the time but like it does feel like it kind of nails nails that specific dynamic you don't see like that's a less discussed dynamic in movies right mother son like I remember again talking about like Charlie as a baby who was on this podcast I remember having this baby and being like why are there not movies about like the relationship between a parent and a baby because this is the most fascinating relationship I've ever had in my entire life sure there's a reason for that like I now am aware that it's better if they can talk but it is Tully nailed it there's no reason to make any other

1:41:10commentary on them it is just a specific thing of like I made this person I am responsible for this person and but like they turn you into a kid again in some weird way they make you think about things like they say the weirdest stuff and you kind of just have to roll with it they tell terrible jokes in that way and like the two of them against the world like and David you may have this feeling if you're just like even without your wife you're just with your kids and you're like alright it's just us we gotta figure this out like we're at and about we gotta get through the subway or down the street and this is such a heightened version of that where it's like

1:41:41I got you under my arm and we're gonna make our way through the world and it's really moving the way that it gets into the weirdness of it but also has that kind of bedrock we're in this together part of it I want to say a couple things first of all Lane Bradbury is the actress who plays Rita who's Keitel's wife who I think is incredibly good oh she is so good in one extended scene yeah it's just a smart decision to not have it be the like she comes storming in who's the harpy who's sleeping with my wife she's so sad she's so sad and she's so empathetic and she's like

1:42:12I'm trying to warn you I'm trying to save you even more than I'm mad at him and I'm trying to catch him yeah she also has a son yes who has some kind of health issue yes and he's clearly just doesn't want to deal with the extra difficulty of that burden of that responsibility and Ellen Burstead in that scene where she is immediately just like oh yeah okay yes we have to have this conversation she's not trying to get out of it she's not trying to make any excuses she like takes responsibility instantly the water fight scene is basically right after her first day at the diner I think and it's you feel that it's her

1:42:43trying so hard to make her son's life fun again because there's been so much upheaval and then it just comes to that point where she's just kind of like okay I need to be a parent it's like you gotta sit down at the diner and be bored I don't care if you're bored because it's that feeling of like not just I want to console him emotionally but just like this has all been so dramatic that I can't even pretend it's normal so what if instead I act like a little kid for like one night I get to his level a little bit more and at least it's just kind of fun just because people have probably been yelling at the podcast that I didn't make this connection

1:43:14basically the only other movie that Alfred Lutter was in is Bad News Bears oh sure where he plays the brainy nerd in that and the first sequel it's good at it you know what's great The Bad News Bears yeah but do you know what else saying Bad News Bears as a term baseball there we go less so baseball the crack of the bat crack of the bat I do like I don't remember if this comes before or after the water but there's like the kid in the hotel room alone where he's like sitting two inches from the television and watching some old movie I didn't recognize I don't know if you guys did good question but that felt like

1:43:45Scorsese self insert like this lonely boy watching old movies by himself yeah except this kid doesn't have asthma so he can go out and flirt with Jodie Foster he just chooses not to yes I feel like he's watching though something where it has a singer that's kind of in the tradition of what his mom is pursuing it's a Betty Grable movie called Coney Island oh there you go and right and those old Betty Grable movies that's the kind of music Scorsese was thinking of when she's like I wish I was a singer yeah yeah cool but yes she gets to Mel's Diner

1:44:16and we establish what will be one of the greatest ensembles in sitcom history and it is immediately like oh yeah I want to hang out here Dianelad is so fucking goodness she is money in the goddamn bank I swear to God because like she got the Oscar on for this and you watch the movie and you're like huh like she doesn't have a huge role like funny that she snuck in but then you just think about her and you're like she's just so great every second she's on screen and she communicates the authenticity of the character just so perfectly and it's sort of like a star is born performance

1:44:46just like I just love watching this person 100% and I like that they don't get along yeah she's pretty tough with her at first yeah yeah making comments about her body in front of everyone but then they have that scene where she freaks out when the short order cook or whatever asks her where's Vera and her line is she went to shit and the hogs ate her and the like explosion of the what is it the ketchup all over her apron the great Valerie Curtin as Vera

1:45:17the sort of the quieter she's so funny I mean the very end of the movie when they're in the bathroom talking and it just keeps cutting back to Vera like trying to like handle all the places she's like crying while people are throwing napkins at her it's amazing the cousin to Jane Curtin of course of course but the scene where they're finally sort of endeared to each other and Diane Ladd starts giving her the tips and here's how you get good tips and then it turns into them like sunbathing oh yeah it goes from this

1:45:48moment of just like reflection and respect to just like actually let's try to get some color well and it's like female friendship again and it made me think about Scorsese like Age of Innocence or Silence or these other movies where he's like what is this world how can I figure out how this works and it is kind of him being like what's it like to be a woman with a friend and that curiosity drives it and makes it feel so true in the process yeah and he hired good people he surrounded himself with good people he did you guys ever work in a diner no did you ever work in a diner David no

1:46:18just like seems like such a cool you know like gig oh it seems so hard nothing feels more stressful but like when I say cool I don't mean like cool to do but just like it's like having like epaulets you know stars on your it's a purple heart more badass than being like a line cook or a fucking diner waiter yeah the scariest people you're ever gonna meet in your life I went to my friend Caitlin's wedding last weekend and humble break thank you

1:46:49a co-host of it's different my not secret podcast about baseball that you should definitely subscribe to and we drove through Pennsylvania the great state and we stopped at a diner in Scranton that had real Alice doesn't live here anymore vibes where we walked in because we're hungry and it's like we're in a rush you know we're trying to it's a seven hour drive and we walk in and we're like oh fuck should we turn around because the vibes were bad in what way the one that was kind of just known around I mean there were customers but there's no waiters around and then we

1:47:19see one waitress and she has just like the worst like scowl on her face and we're just like oh boy and we're like okay yeah and she's like yeah and we're like okay and we like sit down and then like we are served fantastic food like the food rocked like an exceptional BLT and grilled cheese sandwich right they don't need to woo you they got great food you can do whatever you want and then I we realized like oh there's some drama happening where the waitress I think just maybe got in a fight with another customer and then maybe got chewed out by a boss

1:47:50and now she's complaining to somebody else about you know how fuck this play you know what I mean and then when she like gave us her check we were like the food was really great and she was just like you know that actually means a lot to hear it and we're like oh my god what is happening in this way in this fucking time and that's what it's like and Alice doesn't live here anymore where you're like what's going on with all these people they're just so intense and like there's such this is every waffle house around right exactly we started with it but you go in that waffle house because you see the whole kitchen is right there in front of you

1:48:21and you're just you sit there long enough you can figure out everybody's everyone's mad at each other isn't waffle house even more intense because it's 24 hours so you have to be like you're like a fucking navy seal in there if you're working like a night shift absolutely everything the waffle house storm warning thing yeah it's totally real right David yeah the waffle house index where if the waffle house closes some waffle houses are closes it's orange it's like the national weather service or FEMA or whatever branch of the government still cares about this how serious the threat right if waffle house has to be like maybe a limited

1:48:52menu today they will if waffle house is closed you better get FEMA in there immediately that's the thing like they don't even take their notes from the government the government goes like oh fuck that waffle house is closing yeah because those people are

Waffle House and diners

1:49:05they have seen absolutely everything I don't want to go to waffle house come on it's the best you remember pre-covid you guys were like we're driving to Florida yeah we had a plan yeah there was a plan then David had a bunch of kids summer 2020 he kept slipping and having another kid it can still happen throw everybody in the car come on down the closest waffle house at least last I checked is in Allentown Pennsylvania I went there when I lived here I remember looking it up at some point it's like a two hour drive it's pretty far I think you might be mad if you drove two hours to waffle house

1:49:35it's one of those things where it's like I need something that's open now and when you're a teenager it's somewhere you can go and that is where the truth is it's still there it's near Allentown I've never had a waffle house meal not exceed my expectations and I go in with sky high expectations every time it just delivers I like the waffles too to be clear obviously the hash browns are what everyone talks about but I think the waffles they have the hash brown bowl now where you can get like a hash brown with cheese and an egg on top of it this isn't coming it's really good it's good I don't know if I need any newfangled additions

1:50:06it's been there probably for 15 years it's a little newfangled oh yeah whippersnappers you can't change these things on me Christopherson doesn't enter the movie until like an hour and 15 minutes he does not if you saw the poster and were like can't wait to see Chris K you're kind of like where's my guy you know especially since we've already had a she wants to be a musician arc and he didn't appear for that and too bad relationships and then he's just like

1:50:36you know what's his name David hey it's my name hey he's one of the guys he's a customer he's divorced he's a rancher got a farm plays a little guitar got a got a nice little beer he's got some blowing locks might want to run your fingers for him he does but he shows up around the same time that she finally kind of gets her standing within Mel's I mean god damn like Harvey Keitel fucks her up so bad that she won't fuck Chris Christopherson right away like she should be fucking him right away and Keitel should be on this side

1:51:07but she's gotta learn how to have some restraint life is tough yeah life is tough however he is he does spank kids and she does get mad at him as saying you're the kind of guy who hits kids and watching this now you're like yeah don't get with that guy that doesn't feel shocking to me in the same way I guess that she gets so mad at him about it sure well he shouldn't spank her kid I guess that's what it is he's not the kid's dad but I think he wants to be when he comes back to her I was waiting for him to be like oh and yeah I shouldn't have hit your kid and he doesn't do that he's kind of like yeah man he doesn't quite do that yeah

1:51:37it's not a sticking point to be clear I'm not pro spanking kids I just feel like in the 70s plenty more kids were getting spanked right I mean I assume I agree but the extent of which she was mad at him for it like does he apologize enough for that for her to take him back in that great scene they've been through so much together and like the last thing that poor kid needs is someone laying hands on him exactly like he's witnessed violence he's just been in that you know she understands he was being a jerk in that scene with Christopher Soperson you know 12 year old it's got the foulest mouth we should also call out

1:52:08that he has been sneaking around with Jodie Foster drinking wine oh yeah drinking wine shoplifting learning about grown up stuff being bad kids Jodie Foster has a foolproof plan for a shoplifting from that guitar store though like to make an injury that's the classic move oh yeah create a distraction and someone else grabs the thing shoves it down their pants yeah been there done that are you more the kid or are you Jodie Foster like of these kids who are you relating to more interesting

1:52:39what does she say to the cops when she leaves the police station like does she say like suck it pigs or something I think so it's so good it is so good she's pretty cool she's a badass I was a little bit of the bad influence at times okay but then also sometimes just the one follower took the bad yeah it's an exchange yeah yeah yeah what happens I mean nothing really they hang out at his ranch yeah once the the spanking happens we're pretty close to the resolve of the movie yeah you get the great scene

1:53:10with him in the bathroom where Diane lands like you're mad at him it sounds like you love him and she's crying and they're laughing and it's perfect she doesn't want to fall into the same thing again of course why would she and it's she's jumping at the first trigger but ultimately the fact that this man is willing to apologize and is Chris Christopherson he is Chris Christopherson your face keeps turning bright red what's going on on your screen I don't know you don't know is he turning bright red it is there was something I do have a Reader's Digest story about the Titan implosion which happened three years ago rest in peace

1:53:42to all those beautiful people open and there might I think it was a weird autoplay it's very relevant to this current conversation obviously it looks like a Waffle House storm warning is happening on David's face Jodie Foster says when she exits the police station so long suckers yeah there you go very the classic she's got kind of a roadrunner energy to her oh my god call her anywhere remember when that fucking thing I feel three years ago it feels like it happened ten years ago yeah it was three years ago I know exactly where I was I just will never forget where they're like a thing a thing's lost

1:54:13down there and I'm like oh oh what is it and they're like I'll check it out it's this kind of metal tube a guy threw together it's got like a playstation controller and I'm like this was being sent down regularly and it was like one guy in there alone no like ten rich people there would be those cartoons where it was like you know five little stick figures inside and you're just like what is this insane you sound like James Cameron who spent a lot of time on television there being like I knew it wasn't gonna work mistakes for me I could have told you that thing was gonna explode he's like I knew they blew up fuck them would you

1:54:44stay with a man who spanked your children without permission it is something I feel very strongly about I think it would really upset me but I mean I don't live in 1973 I know I don't know if I feel differently then but I'm not pro spanking no it made me think about how I don't know if you experienced this too David's like other kids are much more annoying to me than my own like I have a much higher threshold for like what I can put up with from my kids and you're around like your kids friends and you're just like I can't do this right now but yeah no I mean right hard not to be like judgy or just like my tolerance has reached a limit

1:55:14like I cannot listen to your jokes anymore you don't belong to me I don't have to do this so I guess Chris Christopherson being like I'll listen to this kid's bad jokes because he gets do you guys understand the joke that he's trying to tell about the nuts I do not I can't figure it out it really pissed me off honestly even in the movie I was like shut the fuck up it makes no sense because he tells it to Chris Christopherson too who's doing the same thing and being like I'm really doing my best here I mean I feel like the joke is that you know the nuts are balls and like there's

1:55:45kind of like a dirty joke you sound like the kid explaining it but I still don't really it just never quite gets resolved and they like the adults keep kind of like interrupting him to give sort of what they think is the punchline I think because they want him to shut up and so that ruins it only more he's you know he's a little annoying but no spanking you know you don't want to associate discipline with violin would you go live on that ranch though he's growing like alfalfa I think or look I don't want to live in Arizona you're a city boy you don't want to live on this ranch

1:56:15well I'm just saying like if I wanted to live in the countryside my guess is I would want a more verdant and moist part of the world I'm not really a dry heat guy not what I grew up with not really what I'm used to I think I'd probably need a steam room not a sauna you know I am I love a steam room I know I know yeah exactly you Ben would you go live on that ranch I'd love to ride a dang horse yeah you love the horse okay yeah but you know are you built for Phoenix like what do you think of Arizona like no getting out there no cacti I couldn't do it

1:56:45tumbleweeds I've actually never been to the desert is that a goal we could make for you next time you go to LA it's not that far you can drive like two hours out and you're in the desert and I as like an east coaster I have the same thing where you get out there you're like god those mountains are like 100 miles away how is this possible right now Griffin I'm going to I'm not one I want to speak for you but I'm also going to assume like the Arizona desert maybe not you're not moving to that ranch what about a visit I did I did a go get a cup of coffee you know I've been to Arizona

1:57:16I did a a short film in Albuquerque a couple years ago yeah I remember and my body almost retired you got off the plane and your body was like I'm going to sit this one out you're going to figure it out all by yourself physically incompatible we shot we were supposed to shoot a thing it was like a survivalist post-apocalyptic thing and I'm supposed to be someone who's not well suited for that and even then we shot a thing at the top of a mountain very high altitude

1:57:47and my eyes were just like oh by the way we're not going to open I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't keep my eyes open and we had to shoot around it and they put me in a car and put the car seat all the way back and then like poured a bunch of water on a towel and I just lay there with a wet towel over my eyes for like two hours until it reset a little bit a little bit wow there was also like a dust storm so let's keep you in the northeast I like being here I would think

1:58:17that Scorsese honestly would be in the same way he does not feel like a creature of the west but I think he found it very interesting as just an alien landscape and film wise it was exciting for him to have this alien landscape he goes back for Killers of the Flower Moon 40 years later and I assume he directed from within a plastic bubble I sort of assume that too probably for both of those movies the ending is very very like great is great cinema because it's got this sort of touch of ambiguity to it it's got this kind of earthy naturalism to it oh the very end with them walking down the street you know and just him

1:58:48coming back to her now it's written as more of a straightforward happy ending they got married Burstyn is just like I don't want it to have that kind of a cut and dry ending like why does she have to end up with a man so you know she insists on rewrites and Warner Brothers is like we're not fucking doing an unhappy ending like they're like we had just done Scarecrow Paul Mazursky right no it's not Mazursky I'm sorry like Grusbard no it's neither it's the gambler guy

1:59:20Carl Rice is that who it is no come on I'm so annoyed by this right now who directed Jerry Shattsberg there we go it only took seven tries fucking obviously Jerry Shattsberg what an embarrassing thing for me to say Penn's mocking us Paddock and Needle Park you know and he's like and Scarecrow is this happy ending and that made no fucking money we're not doing an unhappy ending again and Ellen Burstyn's like I'm not saying unhappy ending I'm just saying does she need to end up with a man like are you telling me she doesn't end up with a man is an unhappy ending everything can't be perfect at the end and he's like what I'm telling you

1:59:51is she doesn't end up with a man we're not making the movie wow it's the one time they kind of push back in terms of like sorry and so they kind of compromise on this like she sort of says maybe we'll get back you know like it's a little more ambiguous right they'll try it's a pretty good ending I can't deny you know you get the kiss in the diner and everyone's clapping and like you get the energy of that scene even leading up to that when they're in the bathroom oh god she really breaks down that is like I think one of the best scenes

2:00:22yeah and like that's more of the emphasis than the one with Christopherson almost so that's the person kind of getting what she wants is that friendship is so important the way she puts it is Chris improvises okay come on I'll take you to Monterey and like it's not about staying on the ranch or you know it's more of a free exchange the man is willing to support the woman in her aspirations he's making a sacrifice exactly he's sort of releasing me from the bondage of the old way of thinking thank god for Chris

2:00:53he was smart and aware you know so she's like she's pretty happy with how it goes Scorsese still acknowledges like yeah it's a little pat that like she gets the handsome man at the end but I think we do a good job suggesting like it's still probably going to be kind of stormy like it's not like Chris Christopherson's like I'll chill out it does feel like this scene I know this vampire hunter let's go find him blade it does feel like the other patrons applauding and getting roped up and him having to make the big apology in front of everybody

2:01:24feels like the scene that gives them the codex to be able to make a sitcom like true it's the one scene where it's like the diner is acting like one organism yeah yeah yeah well Laura Dern in the background as they smell a child eating ice cream according to Wikipedia I think I spotted her she's like right behind Ellen Burstyn I think because of course daughter of Diane Ladd this is her first on screen appearance she's got huge glasses yes oh yeah wow she's so cute Roger Ebert says the movie's been both attacked wait wait we should talk about

2:01:55the actual ending of course it's what saves the movie for me yes is that if it ended on everyone applauding her and Christopherson that's too packed but it goes back to the kid it goes back to her relationship with her son yeah I'm laughing because I'm watching the bathroom scene and they're cutting back to the other Vera oh my god it's so funny and everyone's getting into a fight and there's so much chaos and so funny Tommy saying mom I can't breathe is also improvised and is very sweet that's good you know like that's because she truly was yes gripping him too tight yeah but and they're walking

2:02:26down that like kind of shitty street and there's a sign in front of them that says Monterey like that's the version of what they're heading toward but they might not I guess I'd live there they've got all that all that fish got a big aquarium oh in Monterey yeah oh sure where is Monterey in California it's like south of San Francisco like isn't that where Big Little Lies is set I think so yes and everything went well for those guys yeah if you're not that rich it might turn out fine for you remember how Adam Scott's in that yeah it's like you know all this you know insane drama is happening he's like this sucks

2:02:57witherspoon's husband yeah and he's like a tech guy and she's like I'm going crazy about the school board and he's like okay it's like this is a one and done right limited series no second season did he come back for the second season I watched it it's all kind of vanished from my brain in that show oh yeah who is Dern's husband oh because Skarsgård's obviously married to Nicole Kidman and Shailene doesn't have a husband no she's a single mother for somebody in the second season but Dern definitely has a husband she tells someone I will not not be rich

2:03:27because she's Renata Jeffrey Nordling oh of course the great yes the great Nordling and then everyone's just kind of scared of Zoe Kravitz yeah well she's oh I forgot about her but she's married to some guy too you know James Tupper she's married to someone's ex exactly is she married to Reese's ex yeah it's it's Reese's ex got it okay and you know there's a if you if you really pay attention there's a a lie or two being told a big one or are they little they could be both and they could be both at the same time

2:03:58David yes everyone hates bank fees right that is where Chime comes in it's changing the way people bank they offer the most rewarding fee-free banking you're just gonna get 5% cash back on a Chime card in a category of your choice gas groceries whatever year you're spending a lot on you're gonna build credit through regular everyday spending with no credit check you should join

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2:05:07it's just interesting to hear this movie discussed at the time this movie's been attacked and defended on feminist grounds it sounds like he's on film Twitter you know what I mean he's like I'll wade into the discourse but Alice doesn't live here anymore where are they doing all this fighting just in the village voice I think so it's fascinating to consider the way there was discourse at a time where only 20 people had a platform of any size so much more peaceful I mean still annoying probably but more peaceful people would write letters into the

2:05:38newspaper and be like I disagree with that review arguing outside Lincoln Center probably this is pretty good Ebert here though I think it belongs somewhere outside ideology maybe in the area of contemporary myth and romance you know the movie seems less about Alice than it does about the speculations and daydreams of a lot of women her age who identify with liberation of other women but are unsure on the subject of themselves I think it's a great way of putting it Pauline Kale did she have an opinion on this she usually was just kind of like oh I don't know it's alright three stars Ben when

2:06:09David said Pauline Kale can we edit in like a thunderclass someone playing the organ one of the rare films that genuinely deserves to be called controversial again this is Alice doesn't live here anymore it's not fucking cannibal holocaust I think people really fight about it it's the story of a woman who has a second chance thrust on her she knows enough not to make the same mistake again but she isn't sure of much else neither is the movie oh Pauline in for the kill after setting up what seemed like a nice

2:06:40review oh boy people responded to this like it was lady ghostbusters where they're like what are they trying to push on us she's basically like the movie is totally enjoyable and funny and absorbing I just don't think it has like a take on its big issue so why does she think it deserves to be controversial I don't know Molly Haskell the great film critic and obviously is a leading voice in feminist film criticism and all that sort of has the same problem of like they're making a women's picture self-consciously

2:07:10and I think right he's sort of playing ironic tribute and it didn't quite feel authentic enough for me that that makes sense for like a critic at the time watching this movie and being especially given the opening of it being like this is a little too cute for me I think Marty you know doesn't quite know you know what he's playing with here or whatever now you watch this movie and you're like my god if only Hollywood made movies like this anymore and like what a refreshing thing that Scorsese made something like this early in his career with a studio with a fucking movie star that

2:07:41won Oscars like that's fantastic at the time they're basically just kind of like I don't know seems like a bunch of bullshit to me like good for them commercial pablum they could fight about it back they could fight about it back now we're just kind of like take me to the back rooms yeah we get so many of the people the worst takes on Scorsese being like he makes these movies that are about men he has any understanding of it and if you just sit someone down be like no this guy made this with the exact amount of curiosity of everything else like it's always been there I think it's a very good film it is not like my favorite Martin Scorsese movie I'm

2:08:12not sure I would put it in his top 10 I'm not sure where I put it though I have it I probably have in like his top you know 20 he's made a lot of good fucking movies I think when I did my like letterbox ranking after watching all of them I was like 15 of them are five star masterpieces like it's really hard to rank them in that it's kind of a day by day thing could I share a quote from a film review in the Times the New York who is it by Vincent Canby okay all right Alice doesn't live here anymore has the distinct advantage over most films by growing on you by getting better and better as it goes along until at the

2:08:43end you look back over it with some of the wonder and pleasure with which you might suddenly acknowledge an unexpected friendship I thought that was such a solid summary it's the Diane Ladd of movies and Canby was not in the Haskell Kale like you know where he's like like he's a he's a down the line movie critic of like this is a good experience like you're gonna have a good time watching this book also him making this between Mean Streets and Taxi Driver which are just like sad and violent and intense is like exactly the taxi driver

2:09:14coming after this you also just have to think about a lot of people have careers that start out with things like Taxi Driver and who's that knocking at my door or excuse me Mean Streets and who's that knocking at my door and then it's like great you made your little personal movie you've shown us that you know how to make a movie on a technical level now you're in the studio system you have to imagine that people could have assumed is he just gonna be a guy who hops from genre to genre and isn't making deeply personal films anymore and instead after this

2:09:44every movie he makes feels almost every movie he makes feels very personal even when it is a genre exercise are you calling Mean Streets the guarantor or is this the guarantor that gets Taxi Driver it's kind of a double it's like the two pieces it helps to have made a movie that succeeded have made money like I don't think anyone's watching this being like I think he's already working on Taxi Driver in some sense and like he's a big exciting director the first one for sure sure sure I mean yeah I don't know we were kind of arguing that's the real blank check Taxi Driver

2:10:16is more the guarantor like Taxi Driver is not an expensive movie and that's a movie where he's fighting every minute to get anything through but it's just such a crazy movie yeah it is but New York New York is more him being like I want a lot of money to make something that is awesome and they're like we think you can make that work of course while he's making it he's like I think everyone's going to like it which is the crazy part was he doing any drugs at the time that would have clouded his judgment anything about that I don't think Martin Scorsese never messed around with that sort of stuff and his marriage was going very well you can see on screen it has a great view of relationships absolutely

2:10:46a fascinating movie we almost had you do that one I know and I got really excited about it and it's a tough movie I don't love it the way that I love Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore I'm so glad I get to talk about this but New York New York is like such a rich text I feel like I'm similar to you in that I really like wrestling with it and the stuff in it that works I think is like exceptional oh it's a fascinating it's what you guys are saying I think if you're out here being like that is one of his best movies I think even Marty would kind of be like are you sure about that like that movie is flawed but it's a fascinating

2:11:17the soundstage opener of this leads you directly to New York he's like give me more of those you know backdrops painted I'm ready and you know there's a there's a mean boyfriend or two in that film there is in fact one major mean boyfriend one in particular I'm thinking of kind of worst boyfriend in the history of movies I can't wait for you guys to because you got your Scorsese rankings but ranking like De Niro as the guy who will ruin your life like at the end of Scorsese I mean you can throw Kytel in there too if you want to between the two of them they have a lot just so much to choose from that's a good question who is the like which De Niro

2:11:48is the best dating option in the Scorsese canon in the Scorsese canon I'm like is it Irishman guy well I was gonna say if I'm gonna fight anyone I want to fight that guy because he can't even punch near you he's got a hell of a kick yeah if you're air if you're air you're like oh no he's kicking I might go with Johnny Boy from Mean Streets yeah Johnny Boy is just kind of a rascal yeah he's trying hard you can only date him if you're in your early 20s

2:12:18can I date him in Casino like and kind of just sneak on by I want to do coke like Sharon Stone does that relationship is not good like you can't you don't think so you can't stay with him for too long yeah but I feel like if I'm with him in Casino I'm just kind of like I got a hotel room fine I'll leave you alone like whatever I don't know I'm not gonna this is your version of Ben's this movie would end with me owning an island you're running the casino you're busy you're stressed out I get it I don't think it ends well I think bottom is Cape Fear you gotta have Cape Fear at the bottom I want to throw up

2:12:48do you think Max Katie like picks up some women who he doesn't aren't reconnected someone he wants to fuck with and like has a good time and then moves on you're forgetting the Iliad of Douglas I know I know but she's like she's part of the whole scheme though like if she's like not connected to that I think it's a bad sign I think it's a real bad sign it's possible but I don't think you want to play those on it is just funny that Travis Bickle might not be bottom because of Max Katie I think he has to not be bottom but let's also say like Travis Bickle's more attractive than Rupert Pumpkin he's a looker so you have to put him

2:13:19above Rupert Rupert doesn't know how to fuck Rupert does not know how to fuck he's not gonna shoot anyone probably probably well with taxidermy he's not gonna shoot someone he commits crimes he has a gun that's not loaded are we throwing at Killers of the Flower Moon like that's not my top pick but not the worst this is what I'm saying that guy ends up being like top three and he commits genocide he does but he's got a he's got a he's got a great car great car great goggles driving gloves

2:13:50what more do you need in a man I think Irishman is near the top and Anna Paquin literally doesn't even want to speak to him I think by default that's number one what a body of work and you know what he's always probably like you know I killed Jimmy Hoff and it's like sure you killed him he fucking cares where's my clams and Jimmy Hoff on the other hand take him home yeah well they wouldn't dare I cannot wait to do Irishman bits I swear to you they wouldn't dare they wouldn't dare that was my favorite thing is like on Twitter

2:14:21I would post they would him saying they wouldn't dare anytime it was like Taika Waititi promises like a madcap satire for his name I'm like they wouldn't dare they wouldn't dare Taika they wouldn't dare wouldn't let him do that where is my response when I see a headline like that it is what it is it's one of those it is what it is that movie rocks that movie is the best it's for cool kids it's so good I mean this entire series is you guys being like you know this movie like pretty good

1974 box office

2:14:48yeah

1974 box office

2:14:49let's do the box office this film came out on December 9th 1974 a little Christmas treat for you ah under the tree number one at the box office is a film that has been out for I want to say conservatively five months and it's doing quite well at the box office which is maybe speaking to some cultural issues in our country at the time it's about a it's about a guy who something very bad happens to a member of his family Death Wish it's been out for five months yeah and it is a a humongous sensation wow you know

2:15:19and some people might be like well that was terrible and I need to process this emotion and he's like where's my piss and he does it so well that other people come to him and they're like can you solve my family shit sure why not Death Wish Charles Bronson and Michael Winner film yes Death Wish anyone ever seen I've seen it I've never seen the Death Wishes seems like a bummer the first one is like a pretty effective movie like you definitely get it and it's even movies that are about how New York is like a fucking crime soaked hellhole

2:15:50in the 70s you watch them now and you're like New York City baby it's great to see her on screen the second one is the one that's like unbelievably nasty I believe the second one is where they're just kind of like okay so what worked about this is just like violence and racism he lives in hell right yeah I have not obviously seen like Death Wish 4 the crackdown which funny to think that by 4 he's like I think it's time to start cracking down I've been taking it too easy time to expand outside of my problems what's the Simpsons

2:16:21joke and now I'm going to Emmett's fix it to fix Emmett when he's on like the Phil Silver show that's good all right number two is a disaster movie Poseidon Adventure nope is Towering Inferno keep going Earthquake Earthquake there we go and that's your 40x right what did they call it wasn't called Shaco Rama but it was called something like that it was called Sense Around Sense Around then you're there's an earthquake do you do the earthquake ride at Old School Universal Studios yeah I can't remember

2:16:55if it's that they put motors under the seats or they put speakers under the seat it was speakers I think they would like blast like basically subwoofers to make your seat vibrate a little bit it's a little like the Dolby theaters now right it was like a D-box sort of like a proto D-box closer to Dolby where you're like the sound is so loud the chair shakes rather than the movie is synced up to shake in a specific way yeah and it's not like built on some gimbal that's shaking the floor or anything like that it's gimbal-less it's gimbal-less this is some gimbal-less bullshit it's a Macy's

2:17:26no gimbals no gimbals number three at the box office is a sequel to a sort of Death Wish-esque kind of like shock hit it's not Billy Jack is it it fucking is Billy Jack which one is it it's the second goes to Washington no he's yet to go to Washington Billy Jack did eventually go to Washington I didn't know that was a thing I bet he told them to clean up their act like drain that swamp the return of Billy Jack it's called The Trial of Billy Jack of course they put him on trial oh no I'm so sorry the second film

2:17:56is called Billy Jack but I'm forgetting that the first film is called The Born Losers and that actually introduces Billy Jack but he's not the main character no and I think Billy Jack the 1971 film was the surprise like you know essentially an indie film and I think there is in a Washington I was thinking of The Trial of Billy Jack that's what I was no there definitely is Billy Jack goes to Washington that's the third one he cleaned it up and then the return of Billy Jack which was not released yes I know this

2:18:27in which he takes on child pornographers and I guess they were kind of just like let's call it quits wasn't there also some death involved in that production maybe let's see I want to say it was like also not completed for some reason it was not completed 17 minutes were filmed oh good he suffered a head injury while making it and they ran out of money yeah so no one died but you know so that's number three at the box office we've threatened to do the Billy Jacks on Patreon

2:18:57let's do it let's jack it up do those and the death wishes all together yeah that sounds like a bummer anti-woke winter number four is a sports film kind of one of the original sort of sports comedies you know as bad news bears is coming around the corner it's not well it's not Slapshot no worse than Slapshot it's not Longest Yard in fact it is Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard it's a ruddy picture Robert Aldrich's

2:19:27The Longest Yard ever seen it no but he wasn't the real artist behind it the greatest film producer who ever lived the bravest man Albert S. Ruddy as portrayed by Miles Teller hey I got an idea for an offer in the Paramount it is making the offer references in 2026 this is more Griffin will be making offer references on his death it's the best TV show that's ever happened it's also incredible and it's never been more relevant because Michael is the most offer coded movie that has ever existed with Miles Teller down to Miles Teller basically reprising

2:19:58his performance Miles Teller as Al Ruddy as John Branca I just saw a movie that Miles Teller is good in and it's one of those things where you're like right like he just needs well good director he needs a character to work with here he's not the fool that I take him for these days all the time well cause like a businessman will develop a movie about how good of a businessman he was and then hire Miles Teller and be like it's crazier than that a businessman will make a movie about the godfather

2:20:29and be like and the person who should get the most credit is me not Francis Ford Coppola you know Al Pacino a much smaller part but Michael has major tones of that of like his story's going to continue and Bronca's going to save him right the offer of course has the greatest screenwriting credit of all time which is based on the experiences of Al Ruddy making the godfather it's not even based on a fucking book it's based on a couple conversations he sat down and dictated it and that's all you need I don't even know

2:20:59if he dictated it number five at the box office is a film that I wish featured characters like Guile Chun-Li this okay is this Lady Street Fighter or is this the original Street Fighter it is a film simply a Japanese martial arts film called starring the great Sonichiro yes called The Street Fighter I believe I recently bought the Shout Factory box set of this sounds like something you'll get to that one in 2029 or whatever yeah sure let's hope so it's just so funny when like the radiance you know drop comes and it's like

2:21:30this just accuse a film and I'm like I'll just get it you don't even need to tell me and I'm like how many fucking Yakuza films do I have waiting to be watched at this point it's an addiction Katie you're not in a Blu-ray addiction no do you have a disc player yeah I've got discs that I've collected over various times like getting them through press stuff mostly but no you guys in your physical media thing I don't don't include me no okay I wasn't looking at you I'm just looking Ben's normal he doesn't have any physical media problems no he hates it well I do yeah there we go

2:22:02but it's vinyl yeah you're the vinyl you already did this with the vinyl I feel like the cracks yeah the hands and the pots okay unfortunately I am starting to get into art books which are you know well they're really small right lightweight you just kind of throw one in your tote bag you run around town easy to store you should get into like art novellas where it's just like two paintings number six at the box office is a film I know you're very fond of Griffin The Little Prince

2:22:32it is a movie I love have you ever seen the Stanley Doan and Little Prince no I've not with of course Bob Fosse it's one of the wildest movies ever made and Bob Fosse plays the snake in it and he creates Michael Jackson's persona oh I mean he did that in so many of the other dance movies yeah this he's dressed like head to toe black with like a jazzy glove he's got the hat and the white socks I think I've seen clips of this he like moonwalks yeah it's a famous like his dancing in it is remembered I think I have seen that Gene Balder plays the fox he would make my best supporting

2:23:02actor ballot this year he's un-fucking believable in that movie I love how long Stanley Doan's career was that guy was making movies for decades yeah sure yeah do Doan one of these days that's a lot of movies there's maybe there's a way to sort of hack it I don't know number seven is one of my favorite films of all time The Taken of Pellam 123 yeah Taken of New York number eight is airport 1975 which is what is that the second one wait so it came

2:23:32out in 74 but it's called airport 1975 they're getting ready for the excitement of tomorrow new car models blues brothers 2000 came out in 1998 obviously the comp yeah obviously which is Charlton Heston Karen Black George Kennedy whatever a million people are in that number nine a reissue cabaret we love it so they 72 that's what like two years after but you know there's no fucking TV's back if a movie was a hit at that scale they would re-release it

2:24:02every year you know I would love to see in theaters right the second cabaret sounds great number five number ten is a movie called Law and Disorder I have to look it up I don't know there's so many like vigilantes Carol O'Connor Ernest Borgnine oh and you're telling me there's law and disorder in this one and you're telling me their shirts are tucked in properly right nothing rumpled sleeves all the way down nary a belly in sight I'm feeling a little anxious about this one let me run the plot here by you in the crime infested New York City of the 70s

2:24:32two residents and friends played by Carol O'Connor and Ernest Borgnine so you know grumpy barrel shaped white guys decide to join the auxiliary wing of the New York City Police Department to help take back their neighborhood from criminals do you think they do that in a responsible way Vincent Canby called it a gentle sometimes disruptively funny movie wow this is all important practice for Taxi Driver you guys need to watch all of these

2:25:04before doing that maybe this is more of just a straightforward comedy maybe Albert Finney is an uncredited producer what the fuck is this movie sure I'll produce it for you I didn't know uncredited producers was a thing because when Finney produced he would talk like his character Nero Bracovic it's one of Aaron it's one of Angelo Badalamenti's first credits but he did it under the name Andy Baddale there you go he was trying to pass or maybe Andy Badale and then they tried to give him some espresso and he went shit

2:25:34and they were like oh fuck this guy's Italian he's Italian it's just crazy that one of the Simpsons writers went in the fucking submersible before it blew up yes yes it is that's all would you ever go into submersible uh uh no nor I I'm not going to answer for you on that one and it is no god alright uh Ben is sending us ad copy and I gotta go pick up my daughter so I think we should bring Ben and I have to go see Toy Story 5 again oh

2:26:04Ben smiling I signed up for it okay I liked it a lot no I liked it too what Ben said to me was I really want to see that again before wow which is rare for me I will be seeing it again with my daughter on Sunday I will be seeing it with my children probably on Sunday as well but they are I don't think I've told you this Griffin that like they didn't think they were into it because like they don't have a lot of Toy Story knowledge it's not like one of our movies and then we saw the trailer before Hoppers or something like that and they're both like oh yeah absolutely that trailer nailed it for them I truly wonder what my daughter is going to

2:26:35make of it but she's more a fan of the other films anecdotally she loves the other films and she loves Jessie I think that'll be great for her it is but I just I truly wonder if the message will resonate with her at all because it's a little over her head at this age I would say anecdotally I've witnessed a couple examples of kids who do not previously like Toy Story being interested in this one and or loving this one it certainly looks like it's going to make a lot of money the pump feels very primed I was so surprised that it because like Charlie again like he's 10 like we saw Disclosure Day like he's ready for the Odyssey

2:27:06but like Toy Story it's you know it works my 10 year old little cousin who always loves to say that he hates the Toy Story movies the thing that's really challenging me testing me the foulest mouth I've ever seen he's rebelling against you I'm so sorry he did say to me when does Toy Story 5 come out I can't wait to see that we gotta take George and Charlie to the movies together someday that's the dream that's interesting they might they might get along okay alright we're gonna make it happen someday we're gonna make it happen Katie thank you so much for being here thank you guys Katie you're always welcome on Blank Check with Griffin

2:27:37and David I will find my way back in whenever you'll have me Auntie of Blankies was that the nickname we gave you last time I think so yeah because Emily is the mother and I think I get to be the auntie so I will gladly take that role Prestige Junkie yeah Prestige Junkie at the Ankler me and Chris Rosen talking about award stuff and I have guests on including you guys whenever the time comes I did an Avatar episode that people were really normal about that was one of those social clips that like I was like why am I still getting notifications about this I was getting it five months later it was so crazy it was insane

2:28:07please get your next hottest take ready and come on back on I will well Big Jim's got to announce another Avatar movie but I'll think of something else oh and I have to say Fighting in the War Room because David O'Reilly never mentions it and someone's got to do it we try to make him do it Ben Hosley had guests not that long ago we never have guests it's like you and John Ratzenberger are like the only two guests who've ever come on that John Ratzenberger that was like 15 years ago I have guested on Fighting in the War many times I don't know about many like it's usually too lazy for it but yeah Ben came on and talked about Slow Christmas it was a great time

2:28:39yeah you came on one time and talked about the tick I think I'm also on the iconic episode I think Griffin is too where David is getting married and we're all together oh yes oh on the porch that was a porch record a porch record you're right I have a picture of you guys recording that I'm gonna find it that's a good picture yeah we did a lot of like wedding episodes because we were all getting married because they just had their 10th anniversary right uh no it'll be it'll be next year because Charlie was a baby I had just left New York and I drove back up for that wedding so it's it's in you're right

2:29:09you're right it was my wife no no 17 it was 17 their anniversary is my wife's birthday and she was turning 29 I'm finding this picture of you two sitting on the porch and yakking yeah that was what that was what we did back then that's what we did back then and it's very different from what we're doing right now yakking in a room indoors with a porch oh my god you guys are so cute I'm sending this picture I don't want to see this guy I'm gonna have a fucking existential crisis looking at this picture try having a 10 year old where you're like you were just a baby weren't you

2:29:39now all the listeners can share in it anyone who's listened to Titanic episode recently a decade of dreams a decade of dreams of Charlie you wanna be back oh yeah yeah you can't get rid of me you're the best Charlie will be back oh my god I would love especially cause you're not doing video he does not want to be like on video anything but coming and talking to a microphone I think he could do it yeah he's gotta he's gotta come back to his birthplace do a family trip yeah he's gotta do it we're coming New York City's own he's native thank you all for listening please remember to rate

2:30:10review and subscribe tune in next week for Taxi Driver with Tracy Letts we apologize in advance the episode's a little short we were facing a couple hard outs it's the longest episode we've ever done unfortunately four hours yes luckily I murder everyone in the room when it's done so yeah it's admissible in court this episode just kidding it's in my memory as long as it was a very good episode yes I think so yeah we were pretty locked in with old Tracy that's part of why it's stressful it's like we're really trying to like be you know present and effective with Mr. Tracy Letts

2:30:41but he also is like I'm going for it yeah he's like how long how long is the record and I was like don't nobody tell him well I feel like when you have your friends come in and try to break the record you can be like no shut up you're not doing it but when it's Tracy Letts even though he is your friend he's Tracy Letts you kind of have to let the man cook he threw the Pulitzer down on the table and he started cooking over on the Patreon recently we just put out Resident Evil Apocalypse it's the end of the Resident Evil franchise oh no wait no they're four more god this photo Jesus Christ

2:31:11look at these babies talking on the porch I look better now you can sign up for that as well as other bonus content over at patreon.com slash blank check do I look better now I'm gonna say yes I think you actually might yes I think I might I'm looking at a picture of me taking that weekend figure out how to dress better I looked pretty good I need to tell myself this yeah and as always kiss my grits what was I gonna say about Marshall Lucas stained glass I don't know who knows

2:31:41something funny yeah it would have been really good imagine the funniest thing 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

2:32:12and 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 join our Patreon blankcheck 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 blankcheckproductions I see you

2:32:43Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney Plus it's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet go go go go a true epic and completely jaw dropping this is the only purest thing in this world return to Pandora on Disney Plus it will be an adventure for the whole family and watch the Oscar winning phenomenon at home this is sick Avatar Fire and Ash now streaming on Disney Plus rated PG-13 and there's no

2:33:24no thing same as oh oh go go go