Dead Poets Society with Nia DaCosta

Introduction

0:00We don't listen to and record podcasts because it's cute. We listen to and record podcasts because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion in medicine, law, business, engineering.

0:33These are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But podcasts, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh. I did that as vocal warm-ups. Now, look, there are... He's not really doing huh. You know, he's not really doing that. No, but you still need to do it to get into the quiet. Huh, huh, and then it's huh, huh. But then when he does, like, the Brando impression, you're like, right, he needed just five minutes to just be a silly guy.

Robin Williams

0:58Let's just get straight into this, okay? Okay. It is kind of astonishing. I know this has been much discussed. Okay. But it's the first time we've tackled any of the movies in this set, okay? That Robin Williams has four Oscar nominations. He wins his fourth, right? He wins the fourth time, yeah. Oh, I was saying his fourth Oscar, okay. He won his fourth nomination for Supporting Actor. He had three Best Actor nominations. By the time he gets Good Will Hunting, it's like, is he overdue, right? The three movies all, where they didn't give him the award, feel like, hey, wow, incredible.

1:35You have found a movie where you can use Robin Williams as your dramatic actor and yet still let him do his thing. So the first nomination, of course, was for Good Will. Sorry. Good Morning Vietnam. Which is, he's at his most Robin Williams-y when he's on the microphone and all that, right? Right. So Good Morning Vietnam loses to Michael Douglas for Wall Street. Okay. Kind of a freight train. Yeah, I think so. This year he loses to... Daniel Day-Lewis for My Left Foot. Quite a good performance. And it's another freight train. He was never going to win because Tom Cruise was supposed to win.

2:08Right. And Day-Lewis for Born on the Fourth of July. And Daniel Day-Lewis kind of comes on late. Fisher King. Fisher King is his third nomination. Loses to, huh, Anthony Hopkins' Silence of the Lambs. Is that a good performance? I would argue... Is that one lodged in the culture? Yet another freight train. There was this feeling, perhaps, of, like, oh, he keeps being up against Titans.

Oscar Nominations

2:25Obviously, Robin Williams is beloved. He's just, over time, becoming only a bigger and bigger star. But I also think there was this feeling of, are we going to give him the Oscar when he's still kind of doing the Robin thing, right? Like, people were applauding the fact of, like, oh, my God, he can, like, carry a drama and he can, like, carry these emotions and whatever. And yet, all these movies, Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society are kind of ingeniously constructed to tap into the emotional-sensitive side of Robin Williams and surprise you and yet allow him to do fucking riffs.

2:56Yeah. Like, within the structure of him being an unconventional teacher and a radio host, he can just do 90 seconds of impressions in the middle of the movie. Right. Then Fisher King is, like, what if he doesn't do the riffs? Right. He's sad. It's a dramatic version of the manic comedy energy. Sure. Whereas, Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society are, like, dramatic tenor Robin Williams who occasionally does comedy riffs. So is Good Will Hunting basically Gus Van Sant being, just be sensitive and make us cry?

3:28Listen. Yeah. Yeah. And it felt like they were like, there we go. Yeah. We just need to see that you could drop all of it. Yeah. I do think he was also overdue. And obviously, that's a role where it's just, you know, monologues and speechifying and, like, you see, you know, making us cry and all that. Who'd he beat out there? He beat up Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds was seen as maybe the odds-on favorite to win. It was the competition for Boogie Nights, who's great. But a perfect comeback. But everyone hates Burt Reynolds. Yeah, no, we can't be doing all of that. Yeah. Right. That's crazy. It's a thing we're fascinated with.

3:58It's another example of someone, like, sweeps all the precursors and then you get to the Oscars and they lose. And it's, like, because too many people in this academy have worked with that person. Or their speeches. I love when you watch, like, an Oscar race or tour or whatever and all the speeches before are so insufferable that by the time they get to the Oscars, it's just like, no, we're not doing it. There's absolutely that part of it. Yeah. But I think I always cite Eddie Murphy and Sylvester Stallone. Eddie Murphy would have been Dreamgirls. Yes. Key examples of, like, they're winning everything until the big show.

4:30And the big show is a lot of people who are like, I fucking work with him and he. And also them being like, we'll let you know that how you're all wrong. Right. Yeah. Right.

Movie Discussion

4:40This movie has a lot of quotable dialogue. Sure.

4:44What's that face? What's that fucking look? I don't like the screenplay for this movie at all. I think it's. At all? I'm not a fan. Sorry. You know what you're saying? I remembered in an episode. I think this is kind of like the, not a very good movie that is just so handsomely made and well acted that it kind of puts a spell on you a little bit. I don't like this movie. Wow. That much. Fundamentally. Sorry, guys. This is very upsetting. I'm sorry. This is such a bomb drop at the beginning. I'm not trying to be a joke. David kind of coming in with like a Nia Dacasa and the Fog take here.

5:15I know. I know. I was literally just thinking about that. I cannot tell a lie. Nia, congratulations. Heats off you. David's fucking taking the slings and heroes. Don't tell a lie. I was really, you know, I'm still aware of how depressing that episode was for everyone. So thank you so much, David, for taking the mantle. Of course. Happy to. Would you like to give a speech of any kind? Yeah. Do you want to accept this honor of being the bad guy of this episode? David. Am I the bad guy? Am I just giving voice to some people who agree with me? I don't know. I don't. I can see where like in the structure of the screenplay, for example, it's a bit loosey-goosey.

5:47You're like, we're over here. We're over there. So I had questions actually about the ending, spoiler alert, like how earned. I would agree. What Dr. Wilson, where his story ends up. Yes. Dr. Wilson of Robert Sean Leonard. He will forever be Dr. Wilson. Unfortunately. Um, and, but I, I think you're absolutely right in that it's so handsomely made. Like I was thinking so much about this, like how beautifully shot it was, how wonderfully acted it was because those scenes, like those, like two or three scenes leading up to that,

6:17um, to him taking his own life, um, are so upsetting. Like, and so beautifully acted. Like his conversation with his father, his conversation. Like Kurtwood Smith on fire. Whoa, red. In full foot in your ass mode. That's true. It is so funny that like to our generation. He wants to put his foot in your ass. You watch that 70s show and then you go back and you see like fucking RoboCop and Dead Poets Society. The scarier Kurtwood Smith. And you're like, oh, it's weird to see like scary Red Foreman. Also, it's great casting then.

6:48You're like, oh, that makes so much sense that you would cast. Yeah. Because to everyone like 10 plus years older than us, they're like, how funny is it that that guy ended up being a sitcom dad making fun of how intense he is? No, it's, it's, have you seen the reboot? No, no. But it's all him, right? It's him with like the grandkids. It's him and the grandkids. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's always that weird uncanny valley of like a modern three camera, like multi-camera. Yes. Um, but he's just, I just love him so much. He rolls. Yeah. Sorry. You were about to say handsomely made earned those scenes.

7:21I feel like, yeah. Nia's. Well, Nia was possibly like inching towards the Vegas agreement with sort of my sentiment. What I'm not going to do is go back to the fog. Absolutely. So, um, I love this movie. It made me cry. Yeah. I took lots of notes and realized so much of my life is sort of, I went to, um, New England boarding school for five years. So I was like, I know these people. Right. Right. Right. You had this sort of experience. I mean, not in the fifties, obviously. Your Wikipedia, famously the most reliable resource. Yeah. says that you originally intended to be a poet.

7:54Oh my gosh. Yeah. Is that based on any truth? Yeah. When I was six. Okay. Okay. Her original aspiration was to be a poet. No citation.

Personal Connections

8:02No citation.

Personal Connections

8:02And when you were 16, apparently, this must be from an interview game or something. You took an AP English class and you read Heart of Darkness and that led you to Apocalypse Now and that led you to cinema. Well, what led me to cinema was my parents' divorce and becoming a latchkey kid. Sure. All of this is good. All of this is good. And watching HBO for hours during the summer and being like, I don't know what's going on in Full Metal Jacket, but I want to keep watching it.

8:32We sent you, let me, first off, let me just say, just to be very clear, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. A little slow. A little slow. I was looking at this Wikipedia page. Uh-oh. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, my captain. Mm-hmm. To the earlier point, I was setting up the other crazy thing about those four Robin Williams

9:03movies. I cite as all four of them were huge motherfucking hits. That this guy was such a star at an era where the fucking Hollywood system still worked, where his clout as a comedian could make a drama a blockbuster. This movie made $240 million worldwide in 1989. This was a huge hit. Fisher King, I would say, is the one of the four. Fisher King was a hit. It did okay. It was not a hit on the same level. 40.

9:34Like, Fisher King was just kind of like a made-its-budget-back movie. Fisher King's worldwide was 40? That's great for Terry Gilliam. We're upset. What was this domestic? The other three were huge. I think it's... No, okay. Let's see. Yeah. See, this is what I'm saying. No, it's domestic was 40. There we go. And it's worldwide was 70. It was totally fine. Totally fine. But like... The other three were genuine... Good Morning Vietnam, this... A hundred million dollars. Obviously, Good Will Hunting was a big hit. I mean, you know what else was a big hit? Aladdin. Frickin' Aladdin and, you know, Mrs. Doubtfire.

10:05I'm just saying, this guy... Why was the Birdcage? Birdcage was a huge hit. Wasn't it? A huge hit. Birdcage made a ton of money. We're gonna talk about this. His 90s were incredible until it fell off a cliff. Basically, right after he wins the Oscar. Well, he started... I mean, God bless him. He started making really bad movies. Like, I mean, he... I don't know... What was the first bad one? I mean, I think Griffin's right that it's sort of like... Right after the Oscar. He starts to pick out these projects that are so treacly. Jacob the Liar. What Dreams May Come. What Dreams May Come. Patch Adams, Jacob the Liar, Bicentennial Man.

10:38Right. So it's like these movies that are all, like, big, expensive movies that he will be the star of. Patch Adams is a giant hit. The other three are flops. It is. Patch Adams is also immediately reviled. Like, it being a hit made people hate it more. I feel like actors do this a lot, though, where they are like, now I'm the lead. And it's like, well, sometimes that supporting part is the best part of the movie. And Poet Society is a great example. He's on screen for 30 minutes. Stop. Right. He's got a Best Actor nomination. He's above the title. He's Robin Williams. And he's sort of the lead, although you're right.

11:09It's an ensemble, I guess. There's no real... Yeah. Because not even Robert Sean Leonard or Ethan Hawke are really... Like, it's like, there's not even a lead kid. I'd say it's Robert Sean Leonard. Sort of. But I looked up. There's the one account that does the fucking stop watching. Yeah. And it's 33 minutes out of two hours and eight minutes. Let me just finish the intro, because we're obviously getting deep into the weeds here.

Peter Weir

11:27This is the main series on the films of Peter Weir. It's called Podnick at Hanging Cast. Today, we're talking about Dead Poet Society. We are the Dead Podcaster Society. Sure. Pod K, cast them. Okay. Producer Ben has shown up. Producer Ben is, yeah, he's outfitted. He's fitting the dress code for the first time. We've always recommended a dress code here on Blank Check that we fail to abide by. But Ben has shown up in his finest boarding school wares. Yeah. Wearing a striped tie. I have a nice brown sports jacket on.

12:00Some loafers. Yes. I guess the only thing I'm wearing, denim, that wouldn't be allowed at a prep school. You have your glasses on. At my school, you got to wear... Well, my first boarding school, every other Saturday, we had a class for a half day, which obviously is terrorism. That's so rude. Yeah, that's actually the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. I know, it's terrible. And then, but we got to wear jeans, wear casual dress. Oh, yes, yes. You got to, right, sure, sure, sure. I had to wear a uniform, which is so common in Britain, private school, public school. Like, it's like, I think it's still kind of the norm for so many schools.

12:34I've... So, St. Ann's, was it recommended that you should really, like, just wear, like, whatever household objects? I have shared this before, but in my freshman year at St. Ann's, the horrible school I went to... Where's St. Ann's? At Brooklyn Heights. Prep school? No, it's like a fancy school with no homework. The fanciest fucking... Oh, water story energy? Yeah, kind of. I mean, like, it was once back in the... It was founded as, uh, we're going to be alternative. It was founded as, what if you build a whole school out of John Keating's?

13:05Right. But also, maybe half of those John Keating's were sexual predators. Oh, dear. Well, that's what we'll find out later. Yeah. But now it's just a very fancy school. There's lots of rich people in Brooklyn who want to send their kids to fancy private schools. I, as some weird meta-conceptual bit, being the most annoying, precocious child at the worst school, in freshman year, wore my own version of a school uniform for months. Sounds cool. That was my big act of rebellion of, like, you're all so fucking rebellious. I'm going to dress like I'm part of the...

13:35You're a sheep. There was. I'm Griffin. So I did kind of dress the way Ben's dressed today. Ben doesn't look impressed. No. Our guest today, returning to the show for the fourth time. Fourth appearance? Yes. Nia DaCosta. Hello. We are recording this very far in advance because you're a very, very busy woman. Well, you're around and you got a couple movies in the can. We've recorded with directors who were like, oh, and by the time this episode comes out, your movie will have come out. You were the first person where we're recording at a point where by the time the episode comes

14:08out, two films will have come out. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. When does Hedda come out? Director of Hedda and 28 Days Later, Colin, The Bone Temple. Yeah. I like to go 28 years later. Excuse me. Sorry. Part two. The Bone Temple. And then ask everyone, where does the colon go? These are the questions. I noticed the new trailer that just came out at the time we're recording this didn't have the part two. It doesn't. I just like to add it. Okay.

14:33We went to see the film.

14:36Hedda. I'm sorry. Well, we saw Hedda, but also when Ben and I saw it 28 years later. Right. At the end, the lights come up, right? After there's the big, the Jimmies. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. This crazy ending. Yes. And Ben turns to me and he goes, I like how random that ending was, but part of me just wishes I could watch an entire movie of that. And I said, Ben, do I have great news for you? It's already in the can. It's directed by our friend and it's subtitled The Bone Temple. And it was like his eyes turned into like three sevens.

15:09My eyes started turning into like a slot machine and it just landed on bones. You're talking flop out of your mouth. Yeah, exactly. Yes. I will say tonally, my film is quite different from the energy of that scene. But yeah, the Jimmies are a focal point in the film and they're just, yeah. Is The Bone Temple going to be okay? I understand you probably can't answer this question. Also, just to be clear, by the time this episode comes out, we will have recorded an episode on us having seen the film. I'm like, they're going to fuck up all this bone.

15:41Let's keep the box in touch. He worked so hard on that. It is okay in the end. Okay, great. Thank God. That's actually great news. I'm actually buoyed by that. That's great. We saw Hedda, though. Oh, thank you for going. Thank you so much. Which I love. Oh, thank God. Which sucks. Yeah. No, no, no. It's actually awesome. Yes. Thank you. I really loved it. I did ask your dad. I said, did Griffin like it? He met my dad as well. Yeah, which was amazing. Yes. My dad also loved it. Let's talk about the Dead Poets Society. Come on, guys. Okay, so you go to boarding school. Yeah, I went to boarding school. Does this happen after your parents' divorce?

16:12Where is this in the timeline? I want to put all this together. My parents got divorced when I was nine. Okay. Rude. I know, I was very disrespectful, but thank God they did. Okay, fair enough. Yes, you're right. I was like, it was the right thing.

16:24I went to boarding school for eighth through 12th grade. Okay. But I was in private school when I was younger, and then public school for a bit, right after my parents' divorce. And my mother's huge on education, and she was like, we're not doing this anymore. She was like, you know, like in New York City, you have to go to the school where you're living. Yes. And so the first thing we tried was she gave her office address, so I can go to a better school downtown. Okay. And like day one, they were like, can we have Nia Dacosta come to the principal's office, please? Fucking. They were like, get out. Oh, they rumbled you. Yeah, they did. Jesus. But then I ended up going to Robert Wagner on the Upper East Side.

16:56Okay. And then when it came time to leave. Because you grew up in Harlem? Yeah, more or less, yeah. Yeah, I was born in Brooklyn, raised mostly in Harlem, had a stint in Queens. East or west? West. Okay. So I was like kind of like near 145th ABCD station, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And we, my, I think seventh and sixth and seventh grade, my mom was like, you know, we can do better. And so we started looking at private schools. I almost went to Spence. Wow. Which would have been, I think I would have been a shell of a person. I don't, these, you know, upper crust, upper upper crust places.

17:30I can't imagine what the kids are like. I mean, it freaks me out. No, I know some Spence girls and they're like, you escaped. Spence has some Dead Poets Society energy. I'm sure it does. I met a girl who went to one of those schools. I don't think it was, it might have been. Nightingale Bamford? Yeah. And like, I was like, oh, I grew up in New York. Like, you know, I said something about how I always loved taking the subway as a kid. Because I did. Uh-huh. This came up. Sure. And she was like, yeah, I never took the subway until I was a grown up. And I was, it was just, I was like, and you went to school, like, fucking, you know, across the park from where I grew up.

18:02And like, you'd never, ever, like, it was like a whole other life. Sorry? How old were you for your first subway ride? I would, a baby, I imagine. I don't know. I mean, solo, solo. Oh, that's a good question. You know, I started, well, I had moved to London by then. Yeah. But I started taking myself to school when I was 10. Yeah. And my guess would be that would be like when I was first. Yeah, mine was nine. See, my thing was, right, 9-11 happens when I'm 12. I feel like I had just started to get independent subway rights.

18:35And then I got knocked back. Then there was, there was a year of my parents being like, the subway is going to be blown up. You cannot get on it. My parents are weirdly fucking not subway riders. What neighborhood did you grow up in? I grew up in the West Village, but it's, they're just crazy people. My dad would fucking, like, would lease a car and drive it everywhere and just be upset all the time. This is what I'm talking about. But, um, anyway. But he lived in New York for decades. So I had to, like, come by my love of the subway. Yeah. On your own time. Not that they didn't take me on it, but it was not there.

19:06Yeah. Ben, you want to weigh in? Yeah, I just wanted to share. I actually went to an unprepped school. Oh. Where are you from, Ben? You were unprepped. Jersey. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Continue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They wanted you not prepared for anything. So it was an unprepare-tory school. Yeah, good. I left and I didn't know what the fuck I was going to do. It is so rude that prep schools, I didn't, you know, like, I never went to a prep school, but, like, they're like, we're prep schools. We're prepping. The backhanded implications. Are schools not generally supposed to prepare? Unlike some of these others. Supposed to prepare. It's the Fairsley difference.

19:37Why do you get to be the prep school? We always have apples. I never thought about that. Anyway, I assume it's probably rooted in some, you know, awful thing of Victorian version said. Probably something dark. But were you in, like, what part, what kind of Jersey were you in? So just an hour outside of the city. My city. This city. Yeah, correct. In my city. Sorry, I was just like, I just started thinking about Jersey cities. So extremely suburban. Yeah, like kind of near Patterson, that area. Okay, okay, yeah. It was a small area, only a couple bone temples.

20:07Not like a major hub. But what boarding school did you end up going to? I went to the Rumsey Hall School in Connecticut. Okay. And then I went to the Master School in Westchester. You? That's an intense name for a school. The Master School? Yeah. Yeah, it used to be all girls. Elizabeth Masters was the founder of the school. Okay, there we go. It wasn't like we're going to be masters of the universe. Or it wasn't like big Paul Thomas Anderson fans where they were just like. No, no, thank God. Founded in 2013. No sad handjobs. Actually, probably high school students after all. I'm sure a sad handjober too. I'm so sorry.

20:39You're not promised. I know. That was absolutely. In the Math Resource Center. No, because we, knowing you had like a back-to-back press tour is coming up and you were going to be in town now, we gave you like the schedule for the whole first six months of 26. And you threw out a couple, but we were immediately like, Dead Poets is interesting, not knowing the level of connections.

Tom Schulman

21:00Well, that was what was so crazy because I literally, and I guess we can talk about the movie now, but I literally, when I got to the yawp scene, I was like, oh my God, Mr. Ketchum made us go outside and yawp. And I was like, and I'm like, he was so. What is this word you are using? Yawp. Right. The thing he makes Ethan Hawke. Yeah. Right. The primal. A primal yawp. But Mr. Ketchum was your Mr. Keaton. Absolutely. Ash Ketchum. Yeah. And I was, Ash Ketchum. Yep. He taught you how to rear Pokemon. He taught me how to rear Pokemon. He taught me how to rear Pokemon. He taught you both the Nia and the Griffin in this episode.

21:32But he was, he was amazing. And my, when I started, I think we were in eighth grade, in the equivalent of whatever aping should be for an eighth grader. But we were reading like Faulkner and Walt Whitman and E.E. Cummings and William Carlos Williams. And now that I look back at it, I'm like, oh, of course we're yawping. Like, Arbor Bark, yawping around, you know, whatever. It's like, so I was like, oh, he's clearly watched this movie and he's obsessed. When did you see it? The first time? Yeah. Well, it was on TV a lot, wasn't it?

22:03Yeah. I saw it on TV in high school. Yeah. Absolutely. I never, I had the same experience of Sound of Music where it's so long because of the commercials that you never get to the Nazis. I never got to the suicide. And so I rewatched it a couple of years ago and I, and I was like, no, what's happening? It's fair. It was so crazy. Yeah. Because I feel like, right. Everyone's like, yeah, but he gets fired and they all get on their desks. Right. Yeah. Like, I mean, that's sort of what everyone references with Poets Society. Yeah. I saw this film when I was like 12 or 13 years old.

22:36I rented it with my friend Saba and she loved Ethan Hawke. And she was like going through Ethan Hawke phase. Okay. And she was like, I want to rent this movie from like, it was back in the day when you still would be like, we're going to go to the video store and rent a movie. And I was like, oh yeah, I've never seen that movie. I know that. That's like a good movie. Right. And I watched it with her and I thought it was okay. And we both cried and I never saw it again. And then I watched it today or not, you know, the other couple of days ago. And I was kind of impressed by how, obviously it's a culturally significant, like it's in

23:11the air. Yeah. But I was like, damn, I remember like almost all of this. I haven't seen it in like 25 years. Yes. And it made me cry when they said, oh, captain, my captain. And I was kind of like, this is bullshit. Cause like, I don't even like this movie that much. I'm like, man, I'm a pretty easy cry, but I'm like, I know they're going to do it. Like, it's like, I'm not exactly like getting caught off guard by, oh, captain, my captain. It's like kind of a magic trick movie in that sense where you're just like, you, you can't not get hit by that.

23:41It did work me up. I cried a couple of times watching it. And I have kids now and I, you know, there's things that this, there are buttons this movie You yell at your children every day that they got to be doctors. Yelling at twin babies. It's just such a weird conflict where he's like, you can't be an amateur actor in any sense. Also, just like, I'm sorry. If your son is Robert Sean Leonard, you're not changing that path. He has the most fucking theater actor-y face. So true. No one has ever looked more like an actor and had the demeanor of an actor. Doesn't the acting thing come so late in the game?

24:14Pretty late. Dude, cause I was like, did I miss him mentioning liking acting before he was like, it's my passion in life. No, it like finds him like halfway through. Right. And then he's immediately in the play. Yeah. He's sort of like, it feels like he auditions without having told you or anyone that it's a thing he's ever had a desire for. And he immediately is like, which, you know, there are certain, there is a type of actor who is like that.

24:38Who's just like, yeah, my friend asked me to like be in their short film. Now I'm actually think I might like start auditioning and stuff. I'm like, maybe I want to do this. I saw it in high school. Yeah. Similar to you. Like high school was just like cable movie channels all the time. I'm like checklist obsessive. I need to watch all the movies and anything like this that was referenced so much that I knew had Oscar nominations. It's like, that's stuff you have to cross off the list. Right. Hadn't seen it since then. David, I feel like at some point the last year or two of the podcast, it maybe came up

25:11in a box office game. It certainly did because the box office game we'll be playing is a movie we covered before I think. And you said like, does that Poet Society suck? And I was a little surprised by that take knowing that you love Peter Weir. And this is the big miniseries. And honestly, I love Robin Williams. You've been beating the drum for it for so long. And I love private preparatory education single set. That's how I think it should be done. Always. Not having seen this movie in 20 years, I was like, huh, that the take kind of sounds right. I could buy that. Yeah, sure.

25:42If I watch that now, am I going to roll my eyes at all of this? Right. And then I watched it last night and I was like, I think this thing totally works. Yeah. I do not think it is one of Weir's best films. And I agree with you that it's like, what works is, I think, the decision and the control and the taste that he applies to it. But I also like, I think this script works. I think it is like. No, I agree with that, that it works. It's a well, yes, yes. It's a, it's a, it's a machine like that it does what it's supposed to do.

26:12I was very ready for, in my mind's eye, not having seen since I was a teenager being like, I'm going to be more cynical about this now, I'm going to have my bullshit meter up really high for like manipulation, you know? And I, I think the script is like pretty controlled. Now we'll talk about it. The guy had one of the most insane post Oscar careers that we've discussed before. Peter Weir. No, not Peter Weir, the screenwriter who wins the Oscar for this. Tom Shulman. Yes. This was, wasn't this his first? Yes. You know, exactly.

26:43And he goes on. It's a semi-autobiographical script that he. It's about a teacher who inspired him, yada, yada, yada. Right. He gets put on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. His job is to make it a comedy. Is that right? Yes. It was like a late rewrite thing. From the Stuart Gordon version, which I think was more sci-fi, which of course he wanted to call teeny weenies.

27:01And then it's like a bunch of big scripts. Well, two. What about Bob? Yeah. Which is, you know, it's a bad movie. It's a fun movie. It's kind of a hit. And Medicine Man, George Miller's Medicine Man. Sorry, John McTiernan's Medicine Man. Right. That's why we talked about it. Horrendous. A horrendous movie. I'm like, who the fuck wrote this movie? Should I watch it? Yeah, go ahead. Kind of. You know what? I kind of should watch it. I should watch all John McTiernan's, yeah. You should. Yeah. Yeah. Then he wrote and directed the film Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. A bang favorite.

27:32Joe Pesci comedy. Have you ever seen it? No. It's pretty fun. I should watch all the Joe Pesci's. Um, there's like eight heads in a Duffel Bag. Tell me more. And so basically. Gets lost or something? I watched it. It gets lost. Joe Pesci plays a hit man. You know, I'll hold my questions until after I observe the film. His last. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, you should hold your question. His last. Oh, no, no. Jesus. Then it's Holy Man, the Eddie Murphy film. Which I watched for the first time recently and is one of the most insane films I have ever. Wait, is that the. No, I'm thinking of Golden Child.

28:03Never mind. Yeah, Golden Child's all right. I enjoyed that. Golden Man is like almost impossible to describe, but it like feels like trying to make a Dead Poets Society for Eddie Murphy. It is weirdly like more of a drama and also much like Dead Poets Society. Eddie Murphy is maybe only in 30 minutes of the movie and Jeff Goldblum's actually the lead. Right. But the premise is that Eddie Murphy is like a weird spiritual guru they find on the side of the road who may be magical or is like a lunatic, someone with like mental illness

28:34and amnesia. I think I've seen this. And Jeff Goldblum is an exec who works for a cable shopping channel. Who like makes him a sort of TV star. And he puts him on the air and it almost becomes like a network thing where he like goes on these long rants, like anti-consumerist rants. Oh, interesting, yeah. But it makes the sales go up. So he's commodifying this. It's insane, insane movie. Is that, do you think that was an inspiration for One Million Merits? Absolutely. Good. I love One Million Merits. Oh, well. Welcome to Mooseport is his final base, basically his final credit.

29:07Which I moved recently and is not a very good movie. Which is Gene Hackman's final film. That guy just starts his career with like a fucking seismic, he wins the Oscar for an original screenplay and then you're just like. Like, that happens not infrequently. Absolutely. It's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

29:34David. What's the matter? I'm going to share for you a horrifying tale. A tale of woe and suffering. Whoa, this is scary. It's a tale of human error. A failing on my part. Tell me. We went to the Wisconsin Film Festival. Sure. We visited our dear researcher, JJ Bursch. I'm scared already. Participated in a screening. We dined out. We had fried cheese curds. We drank Wisconsin beer. What was the mistake? Tell me. I forgot to pack my... Oh, Jesus.

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32:45Do you want me to open the dossier? Why not? Can I open the dossier? Yes. Okay. So Tom Schulman was disheartened, I guess, the early arc of his career trying to be a Hollywood screenwriter. He was writing stuff, probably trying to get stuff sold, right? You know, he was just writing genre stuff and comedies and whatever. And he writes dead poets, not thinking of it as a commercial script, but more, you know. Colin Card writing sample. And paying homage to this teacher he had, he said, a very volcanic teacher who would

33:16talk about theater and acting and movies and we'd all go out to drinks and, you know, he imbued me and my, not him and the teacher, I think him and the other students, but they were all like, you know, fired up by this teacher. That's like that classic story of like someone's trying to break through in Hollywood, no one will open the door for them. And then, you know, someone gives them the advice of just like, write the movie that only you can write. What's the personal story that only you have? Yeah. That's the thing. Right. Um, uh, so he's got all this nostalgia.

33:47He went to Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. Okay. And, uh, he also, I guess, had a stern dad who didn't, uh, want him to, you know, be a Hollywood screenwriter or whatever. Didn't want him to be in Hollywood. Right. No son of mine will ever put heads in a duffel bag. Uh, his, the real teacher's name is Samuel F. Pickering Jr. And much like the character in Dead Poets Society, he was an alum who had returned as a teacher and much like Dead Poets Society, he left pretty quickly. I'm not sure if he got fired or anything, but like he moved on and then he ends up at the

34:19University of Connecticut. He becomes a bit of a minor celebrity after this movie comes out, obviously, because he's the real Dead Poets Society guy. Shulman decides to set the film in the 50s, even though he, this, I think, had more of this experience in the 60s. He'd been born in the 50s, in 1950. I do think this movie is, has no sense of when it's set. I agree. And it sort of gets away with it because boarding schools are weird and hermetic and like trapped in time or whatever. But I, I'm like, I think it was Hoberman's review. I was reading old reviews of it and Hoberman was like, this movie's set in the 50s?

34:52Like, there's no like sense of that. Like, there's no music. There's no, you know, like sense of what's going on in the world. I'm truly wondering if I clocked it until you're saying that right now. Yeah, I would say, I think a third or two thirds into the film, someone mentions it's 1950 something. And I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Or maybe I wikied it, actually.

35:14First, he writes it more about the teacher. He returns to the script. He revises it, makes it more about the students, you know, which there you go. And he thinks about Neil as the sort of student that goes too far.

35:27I guess is sort of whatever. I mean. Too far doing what? I don't know. Getting too into acting. I mean, this script is so. JJ? JJ? This interview is making me feel justified. No, no, no. Carry on, carry on. No, but I mean, but I totally get that. But I think it's like, I was thinking about the holdovers when I was watching it. Yes. And I think that feeling of the script being a bit like, what's happening? Why does this matter? And like the fact that all the boys have these completely different sort of needs and things

35:58that they do because they're inspired. And one of them is kissing a girl while she's sleeping, which is very distressing. It is. It is the element of this movie. Josh Charles being a creep. It does make you kind of tip your head and go like, what's happening? Really? That's inspirational? Yeah. This is like. I have to do it. I just, I'm so sorry. I had to. This is so distressing. But, but it is sort of, it just, but it feels very like, it's like vibes, you know? Yes. It's like, we're in this place, man. It certainly has like a very kind of comforting autumnal feeling.

36:29Yes, exactly. And also this sort of, I know this movie is 89, but it feels like it's starting to synthesize the look that I feel like becomes the dominant 90s prestige drama look. Awesome. Yeah. Yes. This kind of buttery golden colors. Absolutely. I mean, and in this movie, again, it's got a great director. It's got an incredible John Seale, incredible DP, like, but anyway, he's taking the script around. Nothing's really happening. He's not getting any traction. And, and then at some point, Jeffrey Katzenberg at Disney calls and is basically like, I hear

37:04someone wants this script. I want it now, you know, and he was basically like $4 million, like, give it to me immediately. Like, yeah, right. You know, and it basically became a one person bidding war. I guess so. Yeah. The way he puts it is everyone else had passed on the script and not really read it. Jeffrey had actually read it. And he had someone who's gone to private school. He had whatever, you know, resonated with him or whatever. And he just got super excited. This is also fairly early Touchstone, which was such a big project for Eisner and Katzenberg.

37:37And a lot of their thing and trying to find like, what are the grownup movies that Disney makes through this offshoot was like find good vehicles for depreciated stars. That was a lot of their strategy was like being like Richard Dreyfuss, Bette Midler, you know, like making Splash, you know, like what are the scripts that everyone else in town is passing on that we can make with someone who has name value, but has a couple flops in a row. So you can get them for cheaper.