The Last Temptation of Christ with Jamelle Bouie

Discussing Willem Dafoe

0:00If I was a woodcutter, I'd cut. If I was a fire, I'd burn. But I'm a podcast, and I love.

0:30That's good. I like that a lot. That's the only thing I can do. Thank you. That was the one I figured you would do. And I think that's a very good Willem. I was doing older Willem. Christ Willem. I was doing older, I'll admit. It's hard to do young Willem. I'm something of a woodcutter myself. I'm something of a woodcutter myself. I feel like I lost it on that one. Yeah. Is that always funny? I think it is, right? It is. Even though Marvel tried to ruin it by obviously, like, making it like an applause line in the Spider-Man movie, they can't ruin it. They can't ruin it.

1:00I'll say part of what makes it funny is actually, I mean, as a line, it's funny, but it's the face he's making. Yep. The kind of, like, very sort of like, oh, I'm just your friendly neighborhood Norman Osborn. We did a Raimi Spider-Man with you, obviously. It was one of those things that Raimi just understood of just, like, when to ask Willem Dafoe to smile. Beyond that, as Spider-Man has been back in the discourse and people are talking about the new movie, people, you know, will always post the fight in the first Spider-Man.

1:30Yes. Where they're just fucking wailing on each other in the churchyard or whatever, right? And people are just like, nothing looks like this anymore in these comic book movies where they're just beating the shit out of each other. And you're like, yeah, that rocks. Yeah. Take me back. Return. You know what else? I mean, the thing we were surprised by re-watching that movie is there's no fight in that film that lasts longer than, like, 90 seconds. Like, Spider-Man 2 broke that wall of, oh, shit. There are amounts of money now invested in letting these fight sequences go on for 10 minutes. And when you got to the subway sequence, it felt thrilling.

2:02Right. But that church fight is so short. Right. It's just brutal and it's direct. Bang, bang, bang. You're right. It's brutal and it feels, because the brutality gives it, like, these real stakes. Like, oh, he'll kill Spider-Man if he can't. He will. He's crazy. I'll kill Spider-Man. He's crazy. I'll say this, but I will say also this. Yeah. When the military is like, we don't want to do your goblin glider and instead we have, like, and then they roll out the worst guy you've ever seen. Yes. Horrendous. He's like this. Dumb goggles. And they're like, we're going to, if I'm Norman Osborn, I also am like, what the hell, guys?

2:33I built this company. Yeah. My thing is objectively better than this thing. Yes. Are they just doing a coup because he's crazy? Is that what it is? It's like, you're kind of too crazy. I don't know how to tell you this. You got kind of like a Willem Dafoe vibe that's unsettling everyone. I didn't foresee Willem-Norman talk, but I should have, of course. We had to. No, because it's, it's obviously Willem Dafoe gets used so much now, the last 25 years, as a villain and or an old coot.

3:04Oh, he's a rent-a-coot. Right. Aquaman was kind of like, it's sort of almost coot, but it's the rare, like, he's neither villain nor coot. That's an attempt at a Gary Oldman, Jim Gordon. Yeah, mentor. Right. Yeah, right, right. I would, I mean, I would cast, I mean, speaking of old coot, someone should make an old prospector movie. Cast Willem Dafoe. Wow. That's the prospector. He'd be fun. Live action Woody's Roundup, put Willem Dafoe in a fat suit, have him play Stinky Pete. He really is. He's going coot mode.

Making a Biblical Epic

3:32He's going coot mode. But this is to say, it just is wild to watch this film from 1987?

3:411988, is it not? Yes. 1988. And to be like, he was perfect as Jesus. Well, I mean. So beautiful. Yes. My understanding is that Scorsese had seen him in Platoon. Correct. Where he plays a very sensitive. Right. He's an innocent almost. Right. Character. And spiritual. Right. Yes. No, that's, that's a good point. Like, it was a different Willem. But part of him in Platoon is like, is this guy a little scary? There's even, it's tapping into that, which this movie is, in a way, in a really smart way.

4:11Yes, of course. Absolutely. Is he crazy? The whole thing is. Because, and I, God, this is going to be like a blasphemous episode or whatever. I know. But like, obviously one must consider if Jesus Christ was, was mentally ill. Like if, if, if one, not, not in this movie so much, but right. Yeah. That's an intense. Well, some of these miracles I watch and I go, Jesus, you're crazy for that one. One of my favorite Wikipedia articles because of, because of the image they use. One of my favorite Wikipedia articles, mental health of Jesus. He looks sad. Where they have picked a very sad 15th century painting of him looking very, very crazy.

4:44That is such a frown. Yeah. The question of whether the historical Jesus was in good mental health is a subject of consideration for psychologists, historians, and writers. I mean, I guess that makes sense. I'm, you know, I am willing to grant Jesus good mental health. But I think of like authors of the Christian Bible who were clearly insane. And I'm thinking John of Patmos who wrote the revelation of St. John, but we know it's the book of revelations. What do you mean? The book of revelations. That's just. Yeah. Totally normal. Blockbuster shit. That's just great. One thing, the movie, I mean, I imagine we'll talk about this a ton, but one of the things that I actually, if I'm really interesting about the movie is how much it's trying to capture the strangeness of the ancient Near East.

5:28You said this, I noticed this on Letterboxd, it's like making it an alien place in a way. And one of the things that's true to fact is that there were lots of people who were like, I am the Messiah. There were lots of people who were like, crazy things are happening in the world around us. It's clearly the end times. I am the Messiah. And when we meet Jesus in the film, we're meeting him constructing a cross for the crucifixion of one of these people. Yes. Right. Right. And that's the immediate anger that they start the movie with Jesus doing something that his disciples would find unforgivable.

6:02I prefer to the Mel Gibson Passion of the Christ thing where Jesus makes, it seems like, is it the first chair in existence? Oh, yeah. Where you see him kind of knock a chair together and he's like, hmm. The first lazy boy. And the movie's kind of like, he invented chairs. Anyway, moving on. That's part of Zemeckis' here, right? That you see Jesus making the first chair and then it turns into the first lazy boy. I mean, here was a, obviously that was a chair heavy film. Hey, Debra, it's crazy. The guy who made us his chair got crucified. For the chair? No, no, no. Good chair. The chair was good. The chair was good.

6:32The chair was pretty good. I liked you saying that and I was, I watched, I will admit, I watched this movie twice last night. Hell yeah, man. I watched it. Because I watched it and then I saw the Criterion had their commentary track, their vintage commentary track on the Criterion channel. And I said, let me throw that on. And it's intercutting between Cox, Schrader, Scorsese, and Defoe. So, what were you about to say, David? I'm just watching the chair scene. He truly is like, I fucking invented something cool for how to eat at a table.

7:04It's a chair. That movie is so bananas. Did stools exist but not chairs? I don't know. No one had thought to put a back on a stool. That's my question. When were chairs invented? Was it the legs were the invention? Ancient Egypt and around 2800 BC. So, no, they beat Jesus to that one. They beat Jesus to that one. Schrader said this thing. People evolved stools by adding a back. That's how the chair was invented. That makes sense. Mostly for pharaohs, though.

7:34Schrader said this thing that if you read of that time, people believed they were witnessing supernatural things on a near daily basis. That that was part of the weirdness of the time. What were they seeing? These guys. What was the supernatural stuff they were seeing? Jesus ripping his heart out. Yeah, that's a crazy thing. No, I'm serious. You know, right? Like, we're talking about, like, the weather. We're talking about animals. If you don't know about science. Sure. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what they would have been seeing. But Schrader, I mean, Schrader's read on that is right. I mean, the thing about the movie is that I actually tried to do some research on this and I couldn't find anything.

8:08But, like, it clearly is informed by sort of modern biblical studies. Like, just as someone who studied religious studies in college. Like, there's a lot in here that's sort of like, yeah, someone read a book about first century Judea before they did this movie. Well, and also that Scorsese grew up obsessed with biblical epics, always wanting to make a biblical epic. When he originally planned this movie, it was supposed to be more of a classical biblical epic. And then there's this blessing in disguise of being told, you can do this right now if you can make it for $7 million all in.

8:42Right. And whatever it was, 45, 50 days of filming, something like that. Sure, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah. And he had to scale it down and it becomes a small town movie. It becomes a ground level movie. Yes. Which I do think changes the way these stories are told. I think it's so much better. Because even most modern faith-based tellings of the Bible look closer to this than the 40s and 50s epics. Right. Right, sure. It looks closer to this. Yeah. In a weird way. When you think about this being like the most sacrilegious movie of all time when it was released.

9:15Which is crazy to me, but we'll talk about it. I'm so happy you have this take as well because I was watching this and I was like, am I just dumb? Am I just dumb for thinking? The first 90 minutes is lighter on sacrilegion. It's the last hour people were more upset about. People were more just upset when they heard about it, though. It's not like they watched the movie. No. Yeah. Even the last hour is only sacrilegious if you're an idiot. I would agree with that, but I'm no expert on sacrilegious. And I probably live my life being very sacrilegious. I'm the most sacrilegious person alive, but I did think watching this, this feels very respectful to Jesus Christ.

9:51This makes him a guy I like. Pro-Jesus Christ movie. Yes. That is for sure. This movie makes me pretty on his side. But you know what? It's also a movie about how people really got riled up about Jesus since he was around. And so I guess it's not a surprise that people got riled up. Because the movie's like, yeah, see? People have always been fucking riled up about this guy. He just makes people go loco. Talking about him riles people up. It's true. And we're going to have zero trouble talking about him today on Blank Check with Griffin and David.

Blank Checks and Controversies

10:21I'm Griffin. Thank you. I'm David. Wow. This is a podcast about faith, about deep spirituality, and about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they get denounced by the church, maybe? Sure. This is the second time Martin Scorsese feared for his life? Third? Are we talking about his general health or just kind of like people being after him? Great question.

10:51Okay. So if we're talking about his general health, this is like the one million. Yeah. He seems to me to be quite neurotic about that kind of stuff. A little sickly, a little neurotic, did too many drugs, you know, at a certain point in his life. What's the other? Well, I guess there was a lot of hand-wringing around Taxi Driver. Sure. There was some. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And then what was the Academy Awards ceremony? Oh, it was the Raging Bull year. That ceremony happens the day after the William Hinckley. Oh.

11:22So he was freaked out that he was going to get attacked next. Yes. Right. 1980 Oscars are delayed because of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. Oh, yeah. Okay. I guess I kind of get it. Still. I agree. I agree. I think people should chill out. I think Martin Scorsese is good at making movies. Yes. And we should be grateful that he makes them for us. I mean, I don't know if the podcast can handle that kind of incendiary content, Griffin. You saying he's good at making movies. I mean, come on now. I'm ready to rouse some rebels here today.

11:52I will also say I had this thought while watching the movie. The fucking cojones on him to make this thing. As much as I just said that I think people's outrage around this was kind of stupid. This is like, he knew what he was fucking getting into. He claims he doesn't. He didn't, though. 15 years of his life. I know. I know. Like, tilting at this windmill. Beyond the fact that this was just going to be an impossibly difficult movie to make for an asthmatic. Sure. All that sand. Horrible condition. True. I just give him, I can't think of a modern filmmaker who would take this big of a risk.

12:25Had you seen this film before, Griff? I had not. This was my first time watching. Okay. And Jamel, I assume you had seen this film before. Yes, I've seen this a couple times. And introduce our guest, please. This is a miniseries on the films of Martin Scorsese, who I think makes good films. Yep. Crazy boy. It's called Podcast Fellas. It is not called The Cast Temptation of Pod. No. Cast Temptation of Pod. People wanted that. Oh, whatever. But today we are talking about the last temptation. Bringing the pod out the cast. I mean, bringing out the dead. I love that. Bringing the party out the dead. It's a good movie. Yeah. But people would think it was pretty absurd of us to name our Martin Scorsese series after

12:57Bringing Out the Dead. As much as I love that film. That's what it's called. Podcast Fellas is what we are. It's who we are at our core. Today we're talking about The Last Temptation of Christ. His most controversial film. I suppose. I mean, Kundun maybe because of the Chinese government. If you're going by pure numbers, I guess you could go for Kundun. But I don't know how many actual Chinese people were mad about Kundun. Like, I don't know if it really reached the general populace. We'll get there. We show up in Shanghai.

13:27What do you think about Kundun? I'm not sure. It was a he-has-people-protesting-outside-the-the-theater movie, though. Yeah. What was I... Was there protests about a movie in the last couple years? I remember being at Lincoln Center and, like, there were some nuns protesting a movie. And it was, like, six nuns. Yes. You know, it was, like, really... Oh, it was Benedetta. Benedetta. And I was, like, oh, my God. Like, I was not, like, disturbed at all. I was, like, you're mad about this? Like, there's so much to be mad about. I think we made this point in our episode where we were, like, it kind of shows that they just can't be bothered anymore.

14:01Yeah. Yeah. It was, like, six nuns being, like, don't have, you know, tits in a Jesus movie. And I was, like, yeah, sure. You guys do your thing. I'll see you later. And Verhoeven said, no, don't worry. Give me the money. It's going to be a normal movie about nuns. They will wear clothes over their breasts. Give me the money. No, they don't. Just kidding. The teacher on display all the time.

14:22So we're here to talk about The Last Ambition of Christ. One of my favorite Marty movies. Jemele Bowie. Big movie for me. Oh, yes. The great Jemele Bowie, a friend from The New York Times, returned to the show far too long. It's been a minute. What was the last episode? The Hunt for Red October. The Hunt for Red October. Well, that's a pretty good movie. Yeah. Very similar films. Very similar films. Well, I mean, you know, I check in. Similar years. It's true. Late 80s. Yeah. Hunt for October, I think, is 90. I think so. Yeah. That sounds right. Yeah. I check in on the Discord and stuff, and people were like, well, when is Jemele going to be

14:54back? He'll obviously be back for Master and Commander. I'm sorry about that. No. I do think it's funny that it's sort of like, well, he did Hunt for Red October. He's got to do the other boat. One ocean movie. They're making you the boat guy. He went under the sea. Now he must go on top of the sea. How many more boat movies are in our future? We'll do Tony Scott, Crimson Tide. Yeah. You'll do the entire Venom trilogy on Patreon because you're our chief Venom correspondent. Chief Venom correspondent. That is one of my proudest bit runs we've ever done on this show. Not to pat ourselves on the back, but Eddie Brock reporter.

15:27Oh, yeah. People ring that up all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we need him back right now. Eddie? Yeah. He'd blow this white open. Look what's going on. Like, Matt, putting Eddie with like Hesketh, you know what I mean? Just matching those wits. Like, that'd be fun.

15:46Oh, God. Eddie interviewing Lettuce? What? Let me ask you one more question. Why are you giving people diarrhea? Why are you making everyone poop? Pete, where are the missiles at? Where do all the missiles go? Just point them. Point them out to me. I had a friend who had the poop thing, the lettuce thing. My sister had it. Yeah, your sister had it, too. Notable credit. And I was like, oh, man, what'd you eat? And she was like, well, I went on a hike and we ate some lettuce out of a bag. Oh, come on. And I was like, wow, that might be the culprit there. It was about the cleanest, like, detective work possible.

16:20Well, it wasn't even like I went to Taco Bell and I, like, you know, got, like, a lettuce wrap or whatever. I don't know. I know Taco Bell was affected. Yeah. But do you think Taco Bell was actually quietly celebrating being like, it's not just us anymore? Yeah, right, right, right, right. It's the fucking leaves. It's not our fault. We've actually moved down the diarrhea rankings. I mean, I've said this before, not on this podcast, but I've said it in places. If Taco Bell gives you diarrhea, you're not eating enough fiber. This is true. It's so often the case that it's like, right. Like, the mistake was made before.

16:52Yeah. I haven't had Taco Bell in a while. I get, so when I go grocery shopping on Sundays, there's a Taco Bell right by the grocery store. And I just go by myself. So my Sunday treats at myself is Taco Bell for lunch. But what do you get? I get a chalupa with beans and I get either a cheesy or did a crunch with beans. I always veganize everything. Right, right, right. Or I get, if you get like a bean and rice and cheese burrito, you can get it fresco style. So new cheese and they put like the salsa in there.

17:23And then you can ask for a grilled. Oh. And that's pretty good. The customizability. I haven't been there in a while. Yeah. I think I need to. And the menu hasn't changed much, right? Like Taco Bell's sort of in a... They're constantly throwing things on. I mean, there was stuff that got backlash for being pulled from the menu that they've started working back in. And they're doing a lot of throwback menu stuff and some classics coming back. God, they always have us on the treadmill, these fuckers. They do. They do. Here's what I tried the other day that was very good. The Tajin Cheesy Gordita Browns. Yeah. You know, I saw that on their website and that did look pretty good.

17:55For the listener at home, because we're not a video podcast, what I just saw is... Ben did a sort of a... Three sets of eyebrows hit the ceiling. I love Tajin. No, that sounds good. I love Tajin. Ooh. This is what I'm saying. We're all... It's like instead of Doritos Locos, it's a Tajin shell. They're jangling keys on us. That's great. And you can do that vegan style. You're smiling. Yeah, I have a vegan. I've never seen a smile that's big.

18:20Hey, listen, man. I just want to live moss. That's all I want in my life. You can do it. We're trying our best to live moss. The world is not moss right now. I wake up every morning and I push myself to think outside the bun. That's all I do.

Scorsese in the Eighties

18:34So, um... This is an episode on The Last Temptation of Christ. We're talking about The Last Temptation of Christ. Is it a big movie for me? A big, like, David Watson in college while he was, like, studying the Bible as literature. Okay. You know? Where I was like, this is my favorite Marty. I'm so clever. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like I'm making fun of college, David. Sure. It's not still your favorite, but at the time... I think Goodfellas is the best Scorsese movie. Yeah. I, you know, as I get older, you know, I'm sort of like, fucking, some of these things. Goodfellas.

19:04That's how I feel about Taxi Driver. That's fine. That's fine, too. I think those are both right. Right? He's... Yeah. This is right up there for me. But I think it's a very special movie. And it's a movie I've shown to friends over the years. And I think this movie is, it's not like a slog exactly, but it's a bit of a slow starting movie. It's quite slow. And you're in it for a while being like, wait, I thought this was controversial. And instead, I feel like I'm just watching a Jesus biopic. Yes. I'm just watching the Bible. Mm-hmm. And then, of course, it has, you know, the last temptation of Christ happen in the last

19:35act of the movie. Yes. And that's intriguing. And then the end comes, and I've had this experience with a few friends where they are suddenly like, very moved by it and struck by the ending. I find the ending so incredibly moving. It is so transcended. I think it's one of the most transcendent things he ever captured. And I'm getting worked up just thinking about it. Yeah. And I listen to Peter Gabriel's score for this all the time. I also think this is... One of the most influential film scorers ever. It totally is. I think this is also like, and we haven't maybe even been talking about this, because we've mostly recorded so far 70s Marty, I guess.

20:08No, we've done mostly 80s. We've done all the 80s too. Right. This will finish the 80s. Right. We've gone relatively in order. His 70s movies, to me, I'm just kidding. You know, it's Mean Streets, Alice, Taxi Driver, New York, New York, and I'm counting Raging Bull. Like, they all feel... 79 production, 80 release. Partly it's the De Niro, you know, he's running through a lot of them, and like, street level, raw, right? You know, like, even though New York, New York's a little... You know what I'm saying. Yeah. And then, like, his 80s canon, which I love so much, which is King of Comedy, After Hours,

20:41Color of Money, and this. This feels... This is such an 80s movie. Yes. Yes. You forgot one other credit. Go ahead. So much cocaine. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, the cocaine is running... He's trying to kick it, I guess. It's more 70s. That's more 70s. Like, Raging Bull is him kind of being like, okay. I gotta... Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and... But this is like... Even though this film is obviously an ancient period piece, it feels so 80s to me in the best way. The score, the looks, the cast, the weird, like, eclectic, you know, the special effects.

21:12Like, I love all of that about it. And I love Marty's 80s. Because his 90s, that's where he's, like, you know, Baroque, right? Like, that's what's, like, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino. So Age of Innocence and Kundun are a little, you know... He's playing the studio game a little more. But, like, bringing out the depth of movies that are just, like, super high emotion, long, crazy, you know, and then... So I'm kind of... I'm very fond of his smaller 80s. And then 2000s is prestige elder statesman. 2000s is the Oscar chase. It's right. It's Gangsta, New York, Aviator, Departed.

21:44That's it. I think that's his entire 2000s. Because Shutter Island is 10 or 11? Right. And then, like, his 2010s are, like, beyond Baroque. So, Shutter Island, Hugo, Wolf of Wall Street. Again, Silence, that's sort of... Sure. You know, an Irishman. Like, these are, like, where he's, like, you can't say no. Like, I can do whatever I want. Every movie's three and a half hours long. Yeah. The performances are so dialed up. Like, I love these movies. Yes. They're great, you know. What's your Marty history, Jamal? My Marty history... My Marty history is just years ago.

22:16Maybe 10 years ago now? I just sat down. I was, like, you know, I'd seen Goodfellas a bunch. But I just sat down and was, like, I'm going to watch every single Marty Scorsese movie. You're like David, where you, like, a watch project. Yeah. Yeah. So, I just... Over the course of that year, maybe it was 2017, I just watched every Marty movie. Mm-hmm. And came away, first, like, I mean, this feels, it feels so cliche to say, or it feels... But I just, like, Marty Scorsese's great. It's really... I came away thinking, is he... You're trying to get canceled on this episode, too. There's something going on with this guy. You! Yeah.

22:46Me to Marty. I'll put it this way. I had a similar experience recently. I went through a big Duke Ellington thing. And I just was listening to nothing but Duke Ellington for months. Mm-hmm. And at some point, I just thought to myself, I was, like, Duke Ellington fucking rocks. And, like, on the one hand, it's like, well, of course he does. He's the most influential American musician, arguably, of the 20th century. Mm-hmm. But the scale of influence and his importance can sometimes lead you to almost underrate these people.

23:18It's like when you drink a really cool glass of water on a hot summer day. Right. And you're like, wait a second, water is fucking awesome. Right. Like, I take this for granted. Yo! Yo! You need to drink just a glass of water. I think Marty gets taken for granted. Yes. It's taken for granted that we have this guy making movies. Yes. And then if you just sit and watch his stuff, you're like, it's remarkable that this man has this longevity.

23:49Yes. Has produced this much excellent work. Has this much to say. Endless amounts. Maybe I need to listen to some Duke Ellington. You really got to. I don't like that guy. Anyway, so that's basically my history with Scorsese is I spent a year watching all of his movies, came to really love the work. The Last Temptation is one of the ones that I was particularly struck by, both as a kid who grew up going to church. Somebody still kind of goes to church. But also from the level of my main knowledge of the movie was that it was controversial.

24:24Yeah. And then to go in and actually see it and just to kind of be like, I don't understand what's controversial about this. If you just like heard about this movie, like on the street or whatever. Sure. You were like, okay, so it's about like Jesus and he's like rolling big dice and he fucks hookers. Smoking fatties. Right. Smoking huge blood. He just like drives a big car. Like where they're just like, oh, is he just like in a gangster movie? Like, because they're just making it sound like it's like, oh, it's disgusting. What like, you know, it's like this filthy movie. Did you hear about this horrid film? Right. Jesus drives a big car.

24:57That was one of your eight examples. He's like a gangster in a big car. What? Like a mini coupe. Certainly. No big.

25:07I'm sorry. We can talk about it. But had you seen this movie before? No, I had never seen it. What's your relationship with JC? Yeah. Your dad's, your dad raised you kind of like no religion. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Totally atheist. I've never really been to church. I've obviously been for weddings. Yeah. But I've never sat through. No, but if you try to cross the threshold, you're thrown out by an invisible. That's true. Yes. I've never been able to actually get through the doorway. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And a voice goes, I cast thee out. Yeah. You shall not pass.

25:38But I do come from a Catholic family. Right. My mom's side of the family, extremely Catholic. Almost a saint in your lineage. There's almost a saint. Oh, he's like trying to get that miracle. Almost a saint. Yeah. In my mom's side of my family. Who is he again? Fuck, what's his name? Father McGinley. McGivley. McGinley. Yeah, McGivley. McGivley. McGivley. Michael McGivley. John C. John C. Yeah, John C. McGivley. One of the great JCs. Right. McGinley. Or they're like, the original Scrubs is recognized as a miracle. The reboot. We're waiting to see if the Pope approved.

26:10Yeah, he's blessed. Yes. He's currently blessed. We'll see. You know. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Yeah. But my dad was such an extreme atheist that he also really was against me learning anything about the Bible. Okay. So really, all I know is from that Rugrats episode. Yep. Oh, with the Hanukkah episode. The Maccabees. It's amazing. That's kind of all I got. They're like, ancient history lessons from like Arthur, Rugrats, like whatever.

26:43That Rugrats episode might be one of the most important, like modern Jewish texts. When they have the little, like the little sort of Bedouin hats, right? We were just talking to a friend of the podcast, John Bass, the other night. Uh-huh. And we were comparing stories. I forget what I said, but the moment in your childhood that you felt proud to be a Jew for the first time, rather than like kind of embarrassed. And he was like, Rugrats Passover. It makes sense. That was the turning point. The 90s are very heavy on like, let's actually have sort of Jewish characters say they're

27:15Jewish. Right. Right? Like, his friends has that too. And piss their pants and fall down a flight of stairs. As I've always said, Stu Pickles is a hot guy. Rugrats is very, it was a big win for the people. Yeah. Rugrats is good. I like Rugrats. I'm sure they're going to ruin that again soon. Like Ryan Gosling will make a Rugrats movie or something. They rebooted it with Hitmaker. They did? Yeah. It's like completely over my head. Wait, really? Yeah. Like animated. Tim's in it. They did a CGI Rugrats that our friend Tim Simons was in.

27:45Who was he? He was. Angelica? No. Was he Drew Pickles, maybe? I'm not looking up. Possibly. Anyway, I'll just say that now, later in life, I feel very much left out from these stories and these reference points. Yeah. But I can't really bring myself around to reading the thing. Cracking open the good book. It's really hard. H-I-B-L-E? Yeah. It's long, too. The basic construction before leaving Earth, as we learned on Liquid Swords.

28:16Yes. No one knows that last track of Liquid Swords, Bible. Oh, yeah? Jim, you've read the Bible, or at least. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I am, you know, I'm a... You were raised religious. I was raised religious. I'm an African-American from the South. I was raised religious. My parents are from the South as well. Yeah, I grew up going to church every Sunday and then took an academic interest in Christianity in college. So I have more than my fair share.

28:46I mean, and also just like by virtue of being somebody who studies U.S. history and like early American history, you kind of have to be somewhat fluent. Intertwined. In Christian theology and like the Bible, just because like that's a major reference point. Like you can't, you kind of can't properly understand 17th century America, for example, if you're not like at least somewhat fluent in Protestantism, Calvinism. Like you need to know something. So, yeah, that's my like religious background slash like knowledge of the Bible. Although the interesting thing about this movie is it's very Catholic.

29:19Like it's not... Unsurprisingly, I suppose. Despite, I mean, Paul Schrader wrote it and it's a Dutch Calvinist. Who is a Calvinist? He's a Dutch Calvinist, right. But there isn't... And it's written by a Greek... Yeah, I think a Greek Orthodox guy, right? The novel. I know it's written by a Greek person. Yes, the original book. Like the Schrader of it is far more, I think, like vibe and mood. Sort of like, you know, when you have Jesus writhing on the ground with a voiceover about how his life is terrible and he's tormented by his own mind. Oh, yeah. A little Schrader in it. Paul Schrader wrote this. Yeah.

29:50Yeah. Yes, man in a room. But the aesthetics of it are extremely Catholic.

Reading the Gospels

30:06What do you make of... And then we can talk about this movie. This is what I ask anyone who's read the dang Bible. Because it's crazy. You read that thing, Griff? No. I haven't. I'm like Ben where I feel left out on this part of culture that most people just kind of have in their back pocket. We were, I would say, like, in honesty, a fairly agnostic family. Sure. But felt the need to go through the Jewish traditions out of a cultural tradition. That's what my family did too. Exactly. So I went to synagogue a fair amount. You know, there were years where it was only on the big holidays.

30:37There were years where my parents were trying to be the type of family that went every Sunday. Because there's a social element. There's a kind of a, yeah, like community element. But the Old Testament I have in my head... We call it the OT. I'm joking. We don't call it that. Yeah. Because we have to call the original trilogy the OT. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's the most important. Which is my Old Testament. Of course. Well, ironically, my Old Testament's the prequel trilogy, the PT. Mm-hmm. But yes, no. So much of the story of Jesus, I just, I only know in sort of like, truly like comedy reference points.

31:11Right, right. Like enough to make my way through an improv scene. Jim, how does anyone deal with the fact? Because I didn't realize this until I studied the Bible sort of like in college. Like there's the Gospels, right? And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all like, yeah, this is what happened. We all basically agree. And John's like, nope. No, it's all different, baby. My version's different. And everyone's like, and that's, you know, that's the story. And you're like, wait, what do you mean that's the story? They disagree. And they're like, I don't know. Like that's just how it got written down.

31:41Growing up, there was no sense that there were tensions in the Gospel accounts. No sense that like, you know, the Pauline, the Pauline epistles are in a lot of ways like a fundamentally different thing than the Gospels. Like they're all treated as just a single unified whole. Like this is the Bible. And there's not really like temporal or like theological this thing just made. But of course, as you point out, yeah. John's just different. Like Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There's a, I'm not sure if it's still hypothetical or if they know it existed but they can't find it.

32:16But there's basically sort of like a Gospel that does not exist. But there's enough similarities between the Mark, Matthew, Mark, and Luke accounts that, and even like language, that there's assumed to be, I think it's called Q, like a missing Gospel that is maybe the source text. Yes. For these other three. The Q source. Yeah, the Q source. The Q source that was written by someone anonymously? No, it was written by someone. We just don't. It's like, it's, yeah. It was, it was written, it was written, it was written, it was written, it was written to torment Picard.

32:50Oh, of course. Oh yeah, that's true. Right. So he would snap his fingers and someone would get a cigar and it'd be very funny. Wear a funny hat. Right. But, and I believe it's like Mark is chronologically believed to be the first Gospel written. Right. Then Matthew and Luke. Yes. Yeah, but then John. But then John's just completely different. And even like theologically, it's, I mean, John feels influenced by sort of like the Gnostic traditions that pop up in the, in the century or so after the death of Christ. And it's like a very, it's a very different thing.

33:20But I, I, I, that's not something I knew until basically like I took a class on sort of like the historical Bible. Right. Like let's unpack this thing as like a piece of historical literature. I just, I remember this is in that, that great graphic novel Blankets. Remember that book? One of my favorite books of all time. Unsurprisingly. Right. Where it's about how Craig Thompson has this moment where he starts like getting more into the Bible. Like, and into religion. He grew up into. Yes. And starts asking those kinds of questions. And the, the priest is like, yeah, that's, it's very interesting.

33:51And like, let me tell you more about it. And yes, like, let me tell you the, and then that's like shatters everything for him. Where he's like, wait a second. So you guys know this? Like that, like different people wrote the Bible and like that it's, you know, kind of a, and then he's just like, he couldn't get past it. Like it's sort of. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, I, I find the Bible so interesting. I find JC pretty interesting. Chazé. Uh, and I find this movie wonderful, but like, you know, but like, it's just like, it's just, I get, I immediately get so, as I guess my brain is like, just so caught up on the

34:23history of it where I'm like, why did he catch on? Like when no one else, you know, like caught on in the same way or like, why was this it? I had a, I had a professor in college who, this was like one of her questions to us that was like, it's kind of an unanswerable question. Because his life is brief and obviously his life as a rebel is even briefer. Right. Yeah. Uh, but it's, it's, that's like the question, like why, why this guy, you know, there are a lot of, and as, as you mentioned, the film shows this, there are a lot of messiahs hanging around, a lot of people, a lot of, uh, you know, messianic cults, um, all sorts of things.

34:59And this is the guy who catches on such that like, within a couple hundred years, the religion that develops out of his life and teachings becomes like the official state religion of the, of the state that killed him. Right. Like pretty well, pretty quickly, right? Pretty quickly. Yeah. And like, I was reading about the first, so this, in this movie, like when Jesus gets old, right. And then there's, they're burning down thing, you know, there's this moment kind of late in the movie where people start running and they're like, they're fucking, the Romans are fucking everything up. Uh, that's like the first Judean rebellion, which is sort of like this big moment where the

35:32Judeans like rise against Rome and get crushed. And it's sort of the beginning of the end for like Judea. Like before then Judea was this place, you know, where the Romans were in charge, but they were kind of like, do your thing. And then after that, it starts to be over. I was in Rome and I saw the, um, the arch that depicted them attacking Jerusalem and taking all of the treasures back to Rome. And they destroy the second temple and all this shit. Yeah. But like, so I'm reading about that and then I'm sort of scrolling back and I'm being like, so where's Jesus and all this?

36:02And it's like, that's 35 years ago. But like, there's nothing in the historical record basically beyond like, yeah, we also killed that guy. Yeah. I mean, they kill him and then they're like, oh, and it really caused us a lot of problems. There's my understanding is that like the historical record there, there are the existence of Jesus is attested to by basically multiple, there are multiple sources that are like, there is this guy, his name was Jesus. He was from Nazareth. He had a following behind him. He was kind of weird. He was crucified. But, but you know, he was kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was like a record, like the things around him.

36:32Someone wrote in a big taboo, like weird. Strange guy. He taught me it was okay to be weird in a lot of ways. He did go on Pete Holmes' podcast. He did. I'm sorry. Jesus made it weird. He sells brain powder.

36:44Right. There's a little bit of record or whatever. There's enough to basically say this guy existed. That's like actually not really debated anymore. Right. Just as a historical man. Right. Yes. But it's like, yeah, he wasn't of any particular significance to Roman authorities. Right. It's not like missives are being sent of like, oh my God, we should not have crucified this guy. Everyone's mad. It's starting a religion that's going to fuck us up. It's what's so fascinating about the Pontius Pilate scene. I was just about to say. Yes. Which is just treated as like, oh my God, what's this next meeting?

37:17Right. Can I say, I, when the first time I saw that movie, I was so struck by that performance. Bowie's incredible. Bowie's incredible. It's like five minutes. Yeah. And Bowie's just, it's exasperated, tired bureaucrat. Yes. Somewhat superior in a way that really works. And he's not in front of a full council. It's like, he's taking one meeting in a side room with this guy. Yeah. And he wants to help him. He wants to be like, dude, I don't relax. There's no reason for me to have to kill you here. Right. You know, you can go home. I want a three day weekend.

37:48You want a three day weekend. And I'll say what was striking. Coming. Somebody grew up going to church. In the Christ story, as I was taught it, Pontius Pilate is like a great villain. Right. And so to portray him in this very humanistic, recognizable way as simply a person who, he is a bureaucrat, nothing more, nothing less, was really relevatory to me. And then Bowie, Bowie just has like this look of both sort of, I, this is not a part of

38:22my job that I particularly like kind of compassion for the guy, but also sort of like, oh, that's what you want and that's what you want. I am going to speak out of both sides of my mouth here because like my initial thing is it's stupid that people got this fucking offended by this movie. On the other hand, versus what you guys were saying where you watched it and for the first time up until the sort of dream ballet sequence of him imagining what his life could be or being shown some quote unquote version of what his life could be. Well, no, he lives that life. Yes.

38:53Yes. I think that what the movie suggests is that like, no, he actually did live an entire life. That entire thing happens. And then, and then at the end, Judas is like, you know, that's Satan, right? Yeah. That little girl, that's the devil, bro. Straight up.

39:10I was clocking things throughout the movie, starting from the beginning that I'm like, if I held a certain set of beliefs and I was so strident in them, I would be offended by this. I get the small things that this is doing. All the small things? All the small things that don't feel designed to be incendiary. But, but like that, where there are people who want Pontius Pilate to be a mustache twirling villain. The only way it makes sense to them is that this was a targeted campaign against the most

39:41special man who self-evidently was special from the very beginning and who never had any doubt about anything. From the degree to which this movie is so early on, Defoe's performance is just caked in him being uncertain. Yeah. Which to me is interesting. Is the most I've ever been able to connect to Jesus as a character depicted in a fictional film. But if your belief is, I need this guy to have been perfect. Sure. Placed on earth, immovable, you know, it's the kind of performance that is usually given

40:15that is like incredibly stoic and serene and sort of like straight arrow laser focused. That's Charlton Heston. I am Jesus. Totally. It's a lot of posing and a lot of, you know. I'm trying to make my chin look square than it is. He had a great chin, that guy. He had an unbelievable jaw. But this is, you cast Defoe, and back to sort of our early discussion at the beginning of the episode, this is a guy where there's going to be innate sort of tension within the performance. Even if you get the most calm, kind of beautiful era of Defoe you possibly can get, and you

40:50put him in the lowest register possible, there is a little mania inside that guy. And there's an itchiness inside of him. Itchy is good.

Development and Casting

40:58Yeah. I'm going to open the dossier. Do it. 1955. Two years before his death, the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis, I did my best, published The Last Temptation of Christ in his homeland. The novel presented a deeply human Christ, contemplating a normal life spent with Mary Magdalene, and was instantly controversial. The Greek Orthodox Church tried to excommunicate him. I think he might have died before they even got that done, but they were mad at him.

41:28I don't waste some time. Yeah. And, you know, this is the guy who wrote, like, Zorba the Greek, and, like, other famous works of Greek literature. Like, he's not, like, a nobody, but he thinks it was his best novel. An American translation was published in 1960. In 1961, Scorsese, who is an NYU student, I think maybe at that point, hears about it. Yes, given it by a classmate. Just mentions it to him. He says he actually didn't read it until David Carradine gave it to him on the set of Boxcar Bertha in 72.

41:58Yes. And then he says he didn't even read it, really, until, like, the end of the 70s. So he had the books. He said in the commentary that it took him decades to learn how to be a good reader. That he was just like, I grew up in a household without books. My parents both dropped out of grammar school. I learned everything visually. Right. It wasn't until later in my life where I started knowing how to sit down and actually, like, focus on a book. There's another book that he likes called King Jesus by Robert Graves. I do not know the book, but, which was another one he sort of thought about in terms of, like,

42:32if I ever make, like, a biblical epic. But he couldn't stop thinking about this because the battle between the spirit of the flesh is something he really understood. Let's also call out. He liked the human, you know, accessible, neurotic Christ, you know. When Barbara Hershey gives him the book in 72. No, John Carradine gave it to him. But, yes, sure. Barbara Hershey's also a book. They're married. Yes. And Hershey says, you better let me audition and play Mary Magdalene. Well, he did. Well. Well, we'll get there. Yes. Okay. But it's planted in his head by her. Yes.

43:03So he likes the book. This is a Jesus you could sit down with and have a dinner or a drink. So, you know, which is really. I want my Jesus. That'll help him in the purple steaks. I want my Jesus. Yeah, exactly. Listen, I got to pick between two Jesuses in November. And the Jesus I want. My Jesus likes football. I can have a beer with him. I don't want the Jesus who orders the gray poupon. Who's so stuffy. Exactly. My Jesus doesn't wear earth tones. No. No. It's a little 2000 election humor for you kids out there. And my Jesus always shows off his pin with pride.

43:35The first Christ movie he remembers seeing is The Robe. Uh-huh. That's the first Panavision movie, I believe. It's early, like, 50s biblical epic. Yes. But that was the first widescreen film. Hmm. That's cool. Yeah. Yes. The first film released in Cinemascope. Cinemascope. There we go. Um, so, he's long, you know, he's struck by this from a young age. I don't know if you know this, but he grew up Catholic. I do know that. He was an ultra boy. Yeah. That's come up in some of the earlier episodes. But Paul Schrader, as we already pointed out, was a Calvinist. And he was sort of intrigued by, like, what could our sensibilities together produce?

44:09Right? Like, Paul can strip stuff away. Um, it's a long book. If you wrote it all down, it's probably more like a six-hour movie. You know what I mean? Like, so he's just like, I needed Paul to kind of, like, sort of sand it down. Because Jay Cox ultimately ends up doing a lot of the work on this movie, along with Scorsese. I think we'll get there, yeah. He doesn't get credit. Yeah. Schrader says in the commentary, his big thing was to sit down with the book and identify the themes, identify the big scenes, identify the recurring patterns. Um, and then I think a lot of the more detailed work came from Cox and Scorsese later.

44:41Um, Paul's first version, apparently, he has Jesus taking his heart out. He has a literal version of the Last Supper in terms of swallowing the flesh and blood of Jesus. I took that out. Um, he says that his most important contribution was the outline. He sort of, like, listed everything in the book, like, three or four hundred scenes. And then just, like, kind of used that approach. He sort of, like, was like, what's the most relevant? You know, whatever. Screenwriting stuff.

45:12Uh, Mary, mother of Jesus, is a bigger character in the book that's not really in the movie at all. I feel like they don't really address her. It's, uh, uh, Verna Bloom in this, who's married to Jay Cox. Right. And who's in, um, After Hours. Yes. Has been an important figure throughout Scorsese's life. This is her last performance, maybe? Uh, I can probably know. I think so. Um. There's something kind of interesting to me about... Yeah, essentially, yes. Yes. Her and Barbara Hershey do have similar faces. And they are styled somewhat similar in this movie. Yeah, sure. I think there's a really strong resemblance between the two of them.

45:42That's interesting. Okay, so he's got a script. Uh, they give it to Irvin Winkler, uh, United Artists. They, uh, turn it down. Mm-hmm. King of Comedy is released, and Paramount signs on board, which we talk about this, I think, on our After Hours episode. Uh, and his pitch to them, and so it's Katzenberg and Eisner. Before they go to Disney, they're in charge of Paramount, and he says, like, I want to get to know Jesus better. Uh, like, you know, first I was going to be a priest, it didn't work out. Katzenberg and Eisner essentially give him the F. Murray Abraham, like, I don't see a

46:14lot of money here. Uh-huh. And, you know, they're not like, this is blasphemous, but they're just like, you want to get to know Jesus better? This doesn't sound commercial. It's not really, like, lighting the world on fire. Yeah. And they're like, how much money do you want? Uh, and that's where Scorsese starts to be like, I could make it an intimate character study. Like, don't worry. Like, I do not need, like, a biblical amount of money. But even at that point, it was going to cost almost twice as much as it ultimately did. I think $13, and then it goes up to, like, $16. Yes. Uh, Jay Cox comes aboard. They thought the script was too arty, so they want him to make it a little more regular.

46:45Um, the budget starts to go up. The religious groups start to catch wind of what this project is. They start to get angry. The protests were so immediate that they scared off Paramount from making the movie the first time. Um, Aiden Quinn, of course, is the original choice for Jesus. He's got a Jesus-y look. But it's, I think, way too obvious. Sure. Yes. But, I mean, he looks like a... He's a good actor. He looks like a painting of Jesus. Yeah. But I don't think he would have had the inner conflict down. Sure. Yes. I mean, I don't want to be rude to Aiden Quinn, because I'm like, I mean, I've never seen

47:20an Aiden Quinn performance where I was like, holy shit. Like, but he's a good actor. I don't know. What's Aiden Quinn in? Legends of the Falls? Yeah. Uh, magic. Eric Roberts, which would have been insane. Yeah. He turned it down. I would like to watch the movie made with Eric Roberts. Yeah, that sounds kind of fun, actually. Uh, he turned it down because he thought it was too risky. They did consider De Niro, and Trader said that De Niro's response was, I don't think I can wear a robe. Okay. And he's like, I think Bob might be right. I think the audience might not buy it.

47:52Um, so it all starts to fall apart. Yeah. Uh, The Right Stuff, which is a Winkler production, is a huge bomb. That's a great movie. Yeah. I love that movie. But it's a big, long movie. It's an expensive movie, and it didn't work. And, uh, they, so they canceled Last Temptation days before shooting is supposed to begin, according to Scorsese. Sting was also supposed to be Pontius Pilate in that version. He always had the British rock star thing in mind. I think it's, yeah. There's a lot of, there's a logic to that, right? Yes. Um, so then, okay, the French Minister of Culture gets involved.

48:25He's trying to, now, now he's like trying to find money anywhere he can, right? Uh, this is a tough point in his life. He says at one point he told Katzenberg, I'll do Flashdance 2 if you let me make Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah. That, you know what? I'd watch it. I would watch the hell out of Marty Scorsese's Flashdance 2. If they got Beals back. Color of Money is sort of him being like, okay, like, it's like a fancier version of like, what's a, like, sequel I can do? Right. Um, De Palma, uh, all right, this is a quote by Scorsese. De Palma and I were talking about it one night.

48:56He'd just shown Scarface, a Hollywood audience didn't like, and he said, what do we do? Are we going to become teachers or something? Like, are we done? Uh, and we were at Hugo's Restaurant, and I realized, honestly, I didn't know what else I could do. I wish I'd learned to write music or paint or express myself in literature. I just don't have anything else I could do. Uh, I find that so relatable. I don't know. Yeah. I also have occasional nights where I'm like, why am I, why do I do this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. I wish I had other skills. Yeah.

49:27Um, they make one effort to shoot it in like Russia with like a $5 million budget. Egypt at one point. Um, this is where I'm talking about the cojones though, where it's just like everyone is telling him not to make this movie. His life would be so much easier if he gave up on this. He is so fucking driven to see this thing through. And so he makes After Hours, which is a great movie, but it's obviously him being like, see, I can make movies quick. I can be responsible. Right. And then he makes, uh, Color of Money to be like, I can work with stars.

49:57I can work with studios. I can make money. I can make a hit. Yes. Uh, and then he's got Goodfellas percolating. And that looks like it's going to be his next book. That's the Nick Pileggi book, Wise Guy. You know, he's working on that. Uh, and then he starts talking to Mike Ovitz, Paul Newman's super agent. Yes. The King of CAA, obviously a very important person and Ovitz poaches Marty. Yes. From Harry Upland, who is like his old, the classic agent. Uh, and suddenly Universal's interested. You know, Ovitz works his magic.

50:27Ovitz has some kind of deal with Universal or at least some sort of ongoing conversation to bring them a couple of movies. Um. I think he's able to sort of bundle a couple things together. Exactly. And so Universal, according to Marty, is basically just like, do what you want. Like, the budget has to be fairly low, but like, no notes. And then he shows them the movie and they like the movie. Yeah. They're like, we're moved. It's great. Yeah. He has a surprisingly, this is the underrated part of this. There's actually a surprisingly chill part. The making of. Like, once Universal's aboard. Tom Pollack had read the, who was the head of Universal at the time, he'd read the book.

50:59Mm-hmm. He's like, interested in religion. He's an admirer of Marty. They foolishly, I think this is the most, everyone's being foolish with it. They're like, I think we're gonna move people with this. Yes. I think this is gonna work. And obviously, it's a great movie. You know, like, they start to ignore the sort of pressure of like, religious groups are gonna be mad at us. Right, right. You know, they start to be like, no, no, no, no, no. This is good. Can I just, just to interject real quick. Just thinking about the outside world reacting to this. It's like an, it's an odd period in American history, in American culture, because like,

51:34the age of the biblical, like, biblical epics aren't made anymore by the 80s, right? Like, that's long, a decade, a decade. Not cool. Not cool. Not cool. Incredibly uncool. It's not something that happens anymore. And so, you could imagine, you could imagine exactly this movie being made in like the 60s, but like, something like this being made in the 60s, I don't think would have been as controversial. No. Precisely because the biblical epic already existed in like the public mind. It was close enough to that being a extreme line of, yeah. And so, people would just be like, oh, this is just like a weird biblical epic. Totally.

52:04Not like anything to get too upset about. It's just, it's, you know, I can ignore it. I'll just go see Ben-Hur again, you know. This being the first major depiction of Jesus in movies. In decades. Yes, yes. Puts a lot of pressure on it. And then simultaneously, in the 80s, this is like, you have the rise of the moral majority in the religious right. So, it's sort of like a, you have a newly organized. With like, aggressive. Right. Aggressive and organized like religious conservatism. You also have televangelists. You have, these people have platforms. These people are broadcasting on a daily basis with a larger audience.

52:37Unfortunately for Marty, it's sort of like a perfect storm of the public isn't primed for this. Yes. And the people who are super attentive are insane. Yes. Yes. Can I throw out two things? Unfortunately. Yep. Tom Pollack, who you mentioned, was head of Universal at the time. Tom Pollack was producer on draft day. But most notably, he started out his career as an entertainment lawyer. And the thing that he made his career on is he is the one who got George Lucas the Star Wars deal. Okay. He is the one who got the, if you're not going to pay him his quote, he owns sequels and

53:07merchandising forever. Right. The most famous. Right. So, he's responsible for the contract clauses. The greatest entertainment deal of all time. Okay. And was a very cool guy. Sure. I mean, he fucking greenlit this movie. That's what, to my point. The other thing, Scorsese said, and why Barbara Hershey kept on coming up in his brain while he was making this movie or developing it, beyond the fact that she was one of the people who gave him the book, was that he had to approach, once they finally greenlit it at such a small number, making this movie Corman style. He said, like, I never would have been able to make this movie if I didn't have my Corman

53:40background. Right. And the experience of Boxcar Bertha specifically, that he drew out every single storyboard, every shot of this movie, and he timed out how long they could take to get that shot. Like, this shot is going to last this amount of seconds, and I'm allotting us three hours to get this shot. And if we're going over three hours, we have to pivot in some way. We have to figure it out. Like, he had the whole thing diagrammed out so cleanly, because he had no room to fail on this. And I'm sure it was stressful.

54:12Mm-hmm. Jay Cox, just to close that loop, fought for WJR arbitration, didn't get it. Mm-hmm. Says he's very proud of his work, and he did a lot of work on the movie. That's cool. So, yeah, De Niro was never really interested, as we said. Um, he was also very interested in Christopher Walken, who makes a ton of sense. Yeah, very similar to DeFoe. Right, very similar to DeFoe. And the same with Eric Roberts. I feel like those guys were, you know, Aiden Quinn, it's like, too normal. Yes. Walken and Eric Roberts is like, too crazy?

54:43Yeah. And DeFoe's like, okay, we found it. Is this good? Like, Walken's almost a little bit too on the eccentric side. Yes. Yeah. Eric Roberts potentially too evil. Right. Yeah. Aiden Quinn had been in this movie called Reckless. I mean, Aiden Quinn's obviously very young at the time, which I've never seen. It's a James Foley movie that I think is like classic horny 80s thriller. He dug him in that. He like liked his intensity. But obviously the studio's like, what the fuck? Like, I've never heard of this guy. Willem DeFoe, obviously he's in Platoon. He's also the villain in To Live and Die in LA, which he's incredible in.

55:17And so those are the things Scorsese knows him best from. Willem is obviously like, it had never crossed my mind to play Jesus. But Marty's passion was really infectious.

55:29And I believe it when he says this, a very difficult role, Jesus of Nazareth. He said an interesting thing in the commentary, which was... Are they all together in this commentary or is it one of those kind of separate tracks? It's one of those because it's like an early, like, 96 laser disc commentary that's been repurposed. This weird thing Criterion used to do where they would record like five different conversations and edit them together. But he said, the first time the project was coming around, the Aiden Quinn version, and his rep said, like, Scorsese wants to do a Jesus movie. He's like, no interest in that.

55:59Don't submit me. The second time he comes around, they're asking for him because his career has obviously boosted up so much. And he went, I don't think that makes sense, but why not? I'll take a meeting with Scorsese. Right. And he takes the meeting with Scorsese and Scorsese tries to explain to him what his version is. And he's like, it sounds insane to say. But like five minutes in, I was like, I think I'm the only person who can play Jesus. That the way he explained it, within minutes, he went from being like, this is probably not something I should do or would even know how to do, to feeling like he was the only person who understood what he was trying to get at.

56:36So then he's committed. Yes. Bowie filmed a scene in one day. Yeah. They said one day of rehearsal, one day of filming. Harvey Keitel and Barbara Hershey were part of previous projects. Like, he brings them back. And Hershey's kind of having a career resurgence at this moment. He does make Barbara tests because he's like, I don't want to feel obligated because like you and David gave me the book. Yeah. But she tested for the role. That was fine. I mean, Keitel is obviously bananas casting.

57:06It's sort of the most mocked part of the movie, I feel like, at the time. Doesn't he get a Razzie nomination? I think he's amazing. He got a Razzie nomination. Which is, I mean, again, I think it's mostly for the wig. Like, it's like the Razzie was for the wig. It's like they get him sounding like a New Yorker. Well, that's how Judas is in the Bible, right? He has red hair. Judas is in Brooklyn. Yeah. That's what I was assuming. So I thought that was like an authentic capturing of the Bible. 100%. He's always eating pastrami. But Keitel's sort of, Keitel's energy is like aggression. Yes. Like the jealousy, the weird kind of like loathing or whatever.

57:41Yeah. Scorsese said that it was like I wanted him to embody like violence. Yes. And anger. Yes. And it's like, I mean, even the red hair in that regard, like it works. It's like, it's a great, I think it's a great performance. I think so too. And I'm not sure the movie quite works without Judas being there. And, you know, the point towards the end where Jesus is like, you need to betray me. Yeah. You have to do this. Like doesn't work unless Judas is this almost like diametric opposite of Jesus who comes to be devoted to him.

58:12Right. It's totally. Completely. Obviously. I knew nothing of Judas beyond like he's the guy who betrayed Christ. Right. That made it make so much more sense to me. Yeah. Right. But it's like we all have to fill a role here. Even that must be. This is your role. Touchy for some people. Right. Right. To round out Judas this much more beyond just being a betrayer. The, you know, Marty says that the thing that attracts me to the story, it's a struggle between the spiritual and the physical and all these things. And the story is about taking seriously the fact that Jesus Christ was a man.

58:44But like one consequence of that is they have to take seriously that everyone in this story is just a human being. Totally. And so like human beings are not one note villains. No. For the most part. And what makes people interesting is that they are tested. Right. And that the best people among us are able to resist and persevere and the most tragic people among us like succumb to these things. Right. That the testing is a big part of it. If you remove the testing from it, then people become uncomplicated.

59:15Right. I also, this is my hottest take on this movie. Uh oh. Here he goes. I think this movie is fascinatingly, structurally, so similar to New York, New York. Okay. But it feels like a corrective where he figures out, obviously in an entirely different story, how to pull off that type of movie. Which is, you have like an hour and 45 minutes to two hours where there's a lot of kind of repeat performances going on. This movie is almost a musical in the series of movies. This movie is almost a musical in the series of miracles and the set pieces that he's doing.

59:49And the central relationship between Judas and Jesus, where Judas is trying to suppress Jesus or at least be like, calm the fuck down, man. Stop it. But you're making the person who has the light within them, but you're making the person who has the light within them be the prominent character rather than letting the person who's trying to stop them overrule the entire movie. And then much like New York, New York, it has its last 45 minutes that are like, well, it's all been building to this. Like now we go into the inner life and the inner mind and explore all the possibilities of what could have been and what have been and what are to then get to the final like tragic hammer blow ending.

1:00:25But the central relationship feels very similar to me. And Keitel's presence in this feels like a better version of what Jimmy Doyle is trying to be without trying to make him charming. And I think it's the modern energy. I mean, this is the other thing he said was you had so many biblical epics that sort of like take the posture and the language of Shakespeare and giant humongous sets and very pronounced, you know, King's English and all of that. And it makes it feel very, very distant and theatrical. Yes. And that his whole thing was like, this has to be street level.

1:00:57These have to sound like guys talking on a street corner. Just, you know, this debate is still happens every single time someone does this. And Nolan had this happen this year with the Odyssey where people are like, well, I don't understand. They say fuck and dad. And Nolan's like, I like anything apart from it. Scorsese says here, like, unless they're speaking Aramaic, we're wrong. Like, we already blew it. So, yes, I wanted New York. Like, you know, you've got Harry Dean Stanton doing kind of his like little sort of Appalachian lilt, right? Southern Baptist like thing. He said the big thing was to give, let the Romans be British.

1:01:30Yes. Do the Ben-Hur thing of the Romans are British. But otherwise everyone brings their own American. It's very funny to me. That seems to be what we've decided in movies is that your evil imperial power, they're British. Of course. It doesn't matter what the world is. You're in space. Yeah. In space. Yeah. In ancient Judea. Yes. It does not matter. It doesn't matter. They're all British. It always works. It really always works. Victor Argo, who I think is phenomenal in this movie. He is so good in this. Who plays Peter as essentially like a fucking stevedore from like Red Hook, you know, like

1:02:05has like a sort of fisherman kind of like, you know, accent. And I was going to say, has the energy of someone leaning on you to pay back your debts. And according to Scorsese, was smoking a cigar all the time. And then when they would start filming, he's like, oh, right. And he would have to take the cigar out of his mouth. Defoe said that he was a big smoker at the time of filming, but beyond the fact that Scorsese is so asthmatic and doesn't want people smoking around him, he was like, Jesus shouldn't smoke. He was like, Willem, if people get fucking pictures. Jesus just ripping cigs. I mean, isn't that a thing from the Gibson movie that were like, everyone still does the

1:02:38memes of like Caviezel in Jesus makeup covered in blood, just kind of sitting on set, like drinking a Mountain Dew or whatever. Because like, I mean, he's got to drink his Mountain Dew. Wasn't there the one with Joaquin going around too? Yes, that movie. Smoking a cig. Oh my God, I forgot that movie happened. People forget that Joaquin played Jesus in, of course, a movie called Mary Magdalene. Uh-huh. I've never seen it. I know nothing about this. The movie where he falls in love with Ernie Mara. Yeah. I was going to say, just as a quick thought, and I get this, I kind of already mentioned

1:03:09this earlier, but it's relevant to this. Um, the, the, the movie both does, makes the, or Scorsese makes the choice of having everyone kind of sound like modern Americans to sort of at least try to capture the sense that these are ordinary people. They're like talking in like, you know, vernacular language. Like they're not, it's, it is, it is not Shakespeare. We're not trying to elevate things, but then also it does this in tandem with the world

1:03:39presented. It's very strange and alien. A hundred percent. With like customs that we are impenetrable to us. It feels like Mos Eisley. Right. Yes. Um, yeah, it feels exactly like Mos Eisley. And to me, the alienness with which the world is presented feels very like Robert Eggers to me these days of like trying to take seriously the fact that the past is truly different than what we experience. Um, and kind of, kind of put you there as much as possible. They shoot in Morocco and Marty says like when they got there, he's like, I wish I had 10,000

1:04:12extras. Like, cause this is so beautiful. And like, I could, you know, make, you know, he thinks about his epics and then he's like, but it's all in the landscapes. You go from village to village. There's just a few people like, that's what it was like.

Shooting in Morocco

1:04:23So there's the scene where the centurions attack them at the town center at like the marketplace. Yeah. And it's five centurions. You only had five centurions. And he's like, this is all we got. He's like, great. This is what we're going to do. Whip pan to five centurions attacking from this side. Then we're going to move them to a different place. Whip pan, different direction, five centurions. And he reuses five centurions to make them 25 centurions. You just never need to see them all in the same frame at the same time. Michael Ballhouse, who's a cinematographer who'd already done after hours with them, obviously, is like, and who's his best DP, is like it, it being a quote unquote poor movie

1:04:59like fits the subject. I think it like worked for the movie better.

1:05:04He loved Pee Wee Herman, Marty Scorsese. Marty Scorsese loved Pee Wee Herman? He would tape, he would have tapes sent to him of the show every week. This is like Albert Einstein watching Beanie and Cecil. This is the greatest thing I've ever heard. He would have, he was so into Pee Wee Herman that they would send him like pal tapes of like that week's show. That's so funny. Yes.

1:05:26And yes, to bring up something brought up by Miriam Bale on our Mean Streets episode, yes, it shares a lot of locations with Ishtar. Hell yes. Which was made around the same time. It does look very similar. Right. Yes. Was shot incredibly quickly. 58 days, you know, for a big movie like this, big, you know, like for an epic movie like this, he finds the experience very physical, very challenging or whatever, but yeah, I mean, he says it was the worst shoot. Okay. So it's, and there's weather shit. It was bad. It was, it was, it wasn't dramatic, but it was difficult.

1:05:56And they had no rushes. They like couldn't check dailies. Yes. And he says he kind of did it blind essentially. But he had it so planned out. It was his most planned movie so that he went in with such a strong game plan, which was the only way to actually get it done. I mean, like all the stuff in the crucifixion, he could only be up there for like three minutes before any of those actors start to go delirious. So that's like two days on the cross where he just had to be so mechanical about what do we get and for how long.

1:06:27And basically the thing that's just like the greatest irritation of filming is you go, okay, and we're ready actors in places. And then the second the actors in place, they go, wait a second, we got to move this light. This thing isn't working here. The microphone isn't turning on. But if you're doing that after you've put Willem Dafoe up on a cross, you're losing time rapidly. Right.

1:06:59So let's talk about the movie. Yeah. It's about Jesus. As my friend Carolyn put it, who's read the book, she's like, the book starts with imagine a guy who sucks and is lame and he's miserable and everyone hates him. And then he goes to a monastery and like starts to freak it. I feel like the movie is a little bit more like starting pretty much like he's he's kind of knows what to say. But it starts him at a point where everyone's pissed off at him because of him making the crosses. Because he's, you know, you know, he's I mean, look, there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. This is true. And this is the most important episode to say that.

1:07:31And Rome was capitalist. So, you know, I don't I don't know if I'd say that. Yeah. No, I mean, you meet Jesus. He's not I mean, he's not quite at the point where he's like ready to begin the ministry, but he's like clearly like a tormented man. Yeah. Who, you know, by his own account doesn't understand why he's being tormented by God and just wants it to stop. He's like, am I crazy? Is this just nuts? And that's where that's where I think, you know, Defoe is right that maybe he's the only guy to play this play this particular iteration of Jesus, because it's like Jesus, the character

1:08:05is like, am I going insane? Right. Yes. And Defoe. I'm either the son of God or going insane. What do you guys think? And Defoe looking like he's on the verge of insanity at all times makes that like sells. He doesn't have to say anything for you to kind of get, oh, this guy thinks he's losing his mind. Yeah. Yeah. And it gets back to like what we were saying about Defoe earlier is even in his old coot era, like some of those old coots are menacing and some of them are like the one voice of reason this character has in the world, even though they seem crazy.

1:08:37Like Defoe at his most still has that wrestling inside of him. Right. Right. Which is great. Yeah. I mean, it completely works for the character, but. More like Willem de Saviour. I just remember the first time I, yeah, Willem de Saviour, thank you. I wanted to give it a shot. What do you think? I think it was a wild success.

1:09:00I'm a little on the fence. Yeah. I'm trying to think of alternatives to the savior. The savior. The lamb of God. That doesn't want to work too much. The lamb of God. The lamb. Willem de Lamb of God is fun. I said hip hop. He does like really, really boring. My name is Jesus Christ and I'm here to say. It's fun to be, you know, blasphemous and inelegant. I don't know. It's fun to be blasphemous. Yeah. I don't know. He calls himself the king of blasphemy. He does. I mean, look, he's obviously he's a troublemaker in the Jewish community of Judea, which is a

1:09:35client state of Rome that's sort of run by the Romans. But like it's a backwater. Right. Like that's the that's the history. Right. Right. It's not of any particular importance. Right. I mean, that's the thing with people like Pontius Pilate, where you're like, well, what does the record say? And it's like, I don't know. That's some fucking guy who got that shit job. Yeah. Of having to go there. You know what rocked Rome? That's where you want to be. You don't want to be all the way over there where there's like scorpions and whatever and angry Jews. Talking snakes.

1:10:03And like, I guess like Jesus is part of like a larger Jewish rebellion. But he's just one element. Right. And he's not a very organized element. It's not even clear he's like part of the rebellion. It's just like he's just like he knows people involved. Right. It's like Judas. Judas. Right. Who, you know, who Judas calls himself a zealot, which is like kind of this is where I think there's like actual biblical scholarship here, because if I have this right, Judas Iscariot, which is sort of the traditional name, Iscariot is like basically a transliteration of like zealot.

1:10:33Right. OK. And he's like he is someone who's like sent to deal with Jesus because they're like this is a collaborator. Right. Because the zealots were an actual group of like anti-Roman Jewish or Judean rebels. Right. And right. So like, yeah, he sent the film implies that they know each other like they've known each other for a while. And that part of the issue is that the zealots are telling Judas, you got to kill this Jesus guy for making the crosses.

1:11:05And Judas, this is not on screen, but you can kind of kind of guess. It's like, I don't want to, you know, he's fine. He's OK. I can persuade him to stop doing this. And then he starts being like, are you the Messiah? Are you the son of God? Right. Like he starts to sort of believe in him. He's an early follower. Right. Yeah. And we see him saving Mary Magdalene. And like, that's the beginning of him acquiring more followers. I'm trying. I'm trying to even getting tempted in that first Mary. Well, I guess there's a second Mary Magdalene scene because there's a scene where she tries

1:11:37to stone him or at least throws rocks. So when so there when he is carrying the cross to crucify the Messiah, the other Messiah that we need, she spits in his face. Yes. Um, we meet her again. So he goes to meet her after he's in a cave with the priest. He's talking to the one priest. And he's like, you know, the priest is like, I've never met God. I'd like to meet God. And like, cause the, the, the priest who greets him at this place, he's like, you know, your

1:12:09brother greeted me. And he's like, well, that guy's, that guy's been dead. Yeah. Here he is dead. Uh, you were dead for a day. You were met by God. Uh, and so this, this sort of like, he's like, Jesus asking her, what do I do next? And then he, he's like, I'll go see Mary Magdalene. Yeah. Which the, the dead guy is Robert's blossom. Uh, yeah. That's right. In all the Jonathan Demme movies, but also of course is the old man in Home Alone. The old man in Home Alone. Yes. Oh, great guy. Yeah. Uh, the other crazy one is, uh, uh, Zebedee. Yes. Yes. Is Irving Kirshner.

1:12:41That's right. Director of Empire Strikes Back. My favorite moment of the movie when Jesus is like, Zebedee, that widow you've been with, and someone in the background yells, Judith!

1:12:54Um, you know, there's a hole up there. The, um, uh. The second Mary Magdalene scene. Well, at first I just want to say, you know, the French cartoon, The Magic Roundabout. Oh, is that the British? British. Yeah. But it's, it was originally French. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The book is French? No, I think it was, all right, now, oh boy. Now I gotta, oh boy. We gotta go deep on this. Uh, yes, it used footage of a French stop motion animated show called Le Ménage Enchanté. Wow. Okay. With completely different scripts and characters. So it is the British one that, of course, the main character. So it was like a Saban's Power Rangers kind of deal. Exactly.

1:13:24But the main character is called Zebedee. I do know that. Yeah, with the guy with the mustache. Yes. In the spring for a lower half of his body. Wait, I think it was voiced by Ian McKellen in the CGI movie. Probably. Yeah. Who ends every episode by going, time for bed. And so that's where I learned the word Zebedee, who, of course, is the father of James and John, right? Like, that is who Zebedee is in, in the Bible. But yeah, it is funny that he's played by Irvin Kershner, who, like, did he teach Marty at school too? Because he wasn't, he was George Lucas's. Yes. Like, like, teacher at USC.

1:13:55Right. But I think he had some connection with him, maybe just through George. I mean, the whole casting of this movie is like a collection of, like... It's his debut as an actor. I can tell you that. Yeah. I just know all those guys cited him as being really good with actors and teaching them how to direct actors better than others. The whole casting of this movie feels like a Martin Scorsese, this is your life. Yeah. Like, he's pulling people from such different directions. The great Andre Gregory, as John the Baptist, one of my favorite scenes. But, like, has my dinner with Andre... Yeah, that's already come out.

1:14:26Yeah. Right. And this is post-Mosquito Coast too, right? Yeah. Right.

1:14:30Yeah. So what does Jesus get up to? All right. I'm trying to remember the linear plot of... Because there's, there's... He meets Magdalene. Yes. And you see Magdalene's a prostitute. Yes. He's there waiting. You just have men who sit, like, crisscross applesauce on the floor watching, waiting for their turn. Right. Yeah. And then he gets baptized, right? Yeah. So there's a point between that, it kind of gets a little hazy for me, but then he meets John the Baptist, he gets baptized, and then he goes into the desert where he meets... He's tempted the first time.

1:15:01In the book, tempted by a serpent with human breasts. Uh-huh. In the movie, it's more just kind of like some fire and a regular serpent. Snake with a voice. It'd be very funny if they tried to give the serpent human breasts boobies. I would be very into that. I'd learn a lot about myself. I do think Barbara Hershey is fantastic in this movie. You know, it's not a gigantic role. It's probably the most developed female role in the movie, though, and she's great. Apparently, the female roles were worse in the book. My friend's biggest review of the movie, when I watched it with her a while ago, because

1:15:35she'd read the book, was she was like, amazing movie. She was also like way less sexist than the book. The book is very sexist. And even the angel at the end of the movie or the physical form of Satan disguised as an angel was a boy in the book. No, I just want to call out that Barbara Hershey scene because it is a big early scene of her trying to call bullshit on him before he wins her over and being like, you're just like these other guys. You came here to watch me fuck and you want to fuck me, which I do understand if you are a very literal minded follower of the Bible, could be a thing that like clashes against

1:16:10your very beliefs. You know, the notion of even depicting a scene like that position. He's peepers? In that position. Yeah. Yeah. He's peeping. But I do think Defoe plays it as like, there is the part of him that's like, God, do I just have to sacrifice everything? You know? I think Defoe does that really well throughout the movie, which is he's 90% sure that he wants to keep going the way he's going. But also, it's so fucking difficult. It's so fucking difficult and there's so much sacrifice.

1:16:41Yeah. Yeah. Much like the Odyssey, which I'm now thinking about because of that comparison with the language. You don't hear like God talking to him. Right? It's not this kind of, you know, like he's saying like, I'm getting little bits and pieces. Like I'm doing what I, you know. God speaks to me in these different ways. Right. I'm only like a little bit ahead of you guys. Like I only like sort of know the next thing to do. The desert stuff is so striking. Um, I'm sure it was a pain to shoot, but like, I just love the plainness of it. It's just like empty. Uh, it's rockier, you know, than like your classic desert.

1:17:15You know, it's not your like. It's not Lawrence of Arabia. It's not Agrabah. It's not Agrabah. It isn't Agrabah. They thought about filming in Agrabah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they couldn't get the permits. Well, the tax incentives there are actually really bad in a weird way. You'd think they'd want to get more production. You know what happens to me? What? Like, I'm out there in the desert and like some fucking lion is like, hey, you want some money? I'm like, yeah, please get me out of here. Take the hell out of me, baby.

1:17:40I'd be so bad at this. Uh, but then like the, and then he, uh, he does take his heart out. He does. In front of his followers. That was Schrader's biggest idea. Yes. Yes. I don't know. What do you guys make of that scene? He takes out like a rubber heart from his chest. Well, let's say in the reality of the movie, the heart isn't rubber. I know, but it kind of looks... You know? Yes. You're like, oh damn, like he has like a little, a little prop heart. But we've also seen a lot of blood in the movie up until this point. There's just constant, this was a thing that I think Cox said in doing his research, he

1:18:12wanted to get in there, which is just like, there are just grates everywhere of blood flowing, of animals being slaughtered. Yeah. There's just like blood constantly running through the streets and the walls and everything. So you've seen like internal organs falling to the ground already at this point in the movie. Correct me if I'm wrong, you know, like that's not in the Bible. No. Jesus doesn't like pop his heart out and go like, see, I'm magic, baby. That's a Schrader invention. He does other magic stuff. Yeah. I think it's kind of rude of Schrader. No, I don't know. I don't know if it's in the book. Maybe it is.

1:18:43I don't know. I'm watching it.

Miracles and Condiments

1:18:45I don't think so. Here's my problem. The heart isn't beating. You want the classic, like the cartoon. Like, yeah, like a Temple of Doom style. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it would hit harder for me if that was happening. Then he returns and of course does the most important thing in this movie, which is the gif.

1:19:05Where he raises a cup. Is this used as a gif? Oh, dude. It is. That is a classic gif. I don't think I've seen it in a while. Of like Jesus being like. Giving the toast. You know, you too, brother. Yeah. Like basically like just a, it's a very funny image to me now. It's not intended in the movie. It's funny, obviously. He heals a blind man. He heals a blind man. He heals a blind man. Him doing miracles. He attempts with the canonical miracles. Right. He turns water into wine. Yep. Which I do like. You better check that water. The guy's like, it's fucking water.

1:19:35It's like, I don't know. Maybe it's wine. That scene is so funny. It's very good. It's so funny. And then when he drinks it, he's like, fuck, it's wine. She says, he says, Jesus Christ. Because that's who did it. It is so funny that it's the one scene where Marty goes into like shine box rhythms, right? Where it's like two guys on the street fucking with each other. Where he's like, do me a favor. Check that wine one more time. Check that water one more time. Do you think it's crazy that in the middle of all that, Jesus did raise a guy from the dead? Yeah. And the guy came out of the cave being like.

1:20:06It does feel like, it does feel, the miracles feel, you know, water into wine. Right. Kind of closer to a parlor trick. Right. Healing the blinds. That's pretty impressive. I give that like an eight out of ten. But it feels like, you know, his power levels just explode. Oh. When he's raising people from the dead, he goes, it's like he's going super Saiyan, super Christ. Do we need to nerf Jesus's power levels? Let's just power scale Jesus, you know, Jesus versus Superman.

1:20:39John Byrne will come in. Right. He'll reset everything. He can leap over a building. Like he's not, you know, Superman. Because like, how are you going to be able to beat Jesus with a Kirby? You know what I'm saying? Like, that's not a fair matchup.

1:20:52Thomas Aranio plays Lazarus. Just shout him out. He's also in Hunt for Red October. He's a million things. He's one of those guys. They said they didn't have the money to dress that scene in a way to get across how disgusting the team was. He's not like totally right. It could be, you could go more kind of zombie with it. So this is their like pragmatic problem solving of like, okay, so what's the way we visualize how disgusting the space is? And they were like, oh, it can smell really bad. Every actor just needs to be like, ooh, pee you when they roll the boulder out of the way.

1:21:26It's really funny to watch just 40 guys go like, yeah, stinky poo poo. Oh, my God, the greatest miracle I've ever seen in my life. After that is the temple where he trashes the money lenders and all that. And like at this point, we're 90 minutes into the movie. Yeah. And I really feel like the first time I was just like, I don't, we're just watching the Bible. This is just, I'm so surprised that anyone thinks this is controversial. Jesus is great. Sure. There's some nudity. Like that's like the extent to which I've been like surprised by.

1:21:57I'll say there's one scene. I love this movie. There's one scene that did make me go. That dialogue could be a little better. And it's when he is first teach is before he hasn't had disciples yet. It's just him and Judas. And he's speaking to a group of people, some of whom become disciples. And he's about to basically do the beatitudes. And he doesn't quite say like the meek will inherit the ear. He doesn't quite say it. But like the rhythm of the way Dafoe is delivering the lines feels like he's about to just like say the line. And I had a very short of like, yeah, this is the Jesus biopic.

1:22:29It's like Paul McCartney singing a guitar in the window. Right. Exactly. Like love me do. Yes. Right. Why is that guitar gently weeping? There's the counterpoint scene that's so well done, which is the let ye who's without sin cast the first stone scene where they never say it. Right. They never say it. Yeah. Where they actually just show don't tell. Right. The idea. Yeah. Jesus is weird because like, I mean, Jesus was weird. Listen. No, you got it. Keep going. He told you it was OK. Jesus was all right to me, I'll say. That's so true.

1:23:00Um, you read like some of the parables. Good. Right. Really good. Ben. Ben's like, bad joke, Jamel. Yeah, I know.

1:23:12If people knew the faces Ben makes during records, some of the parables are very obvious and resonant and are things essentially along the lines of like, you should be nice to people and love your fellow man and help. And then there's the weird ones where he would be like, if you plant a mustard seed, it grows a plant. And people are like, should we write that down? And he's like, I guess we'll write it down. How much do you like mustard? 2,000 years of scholarly debate to be like, what is that fucking one about? And he's like, that's all you got.

1:23:43I can, you know, it is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and put in his own garden. It grew and became a large tree and the birds of the sky lodged in its branches. And everyone's like, mm-hmm. And he's like. And that and relish are the only things you should put on your hot dog. And they're like, Jesus hates ketchup. Oh, that's so true. For eight-year-olds. Yeah, it's for children. Come on. Yeah, you gotta. When did you guys get into mustard? I was saying, because my daughter rejected mustard the other day, which is fine. She's five years old. They all do. And I'm like, I get it. It's spicy. I get it. You know. So I never. I never. But I was like, when did I fall in love with mustard?

1:24:14I never. When it comes to condiments, on the subject of condiments, I never liked mayo. Sure. And so I'd always be like, give me some mustard. Right. Because you have to have a condiment on the sandwich. You must. And I was like, well, I'm not gonna have mayo. I gotta have mustard. So I don't. I've always liked mustard. So you got there fast. Yeah, I got there fast. But it felt like a process of elimination. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was thinking about how in Britain, you know, the mustard is super spicy. Because they got that English mustard because it kind of clears your sinuses out. Yeah.

1:24:44And so I think I sort of skipped yellow mustard and then later found like your American hot dog mustard. I never liked that kind of mustard. Right. I still don't like that kind of mustard. I think I got into it probably in my early 20s because along with horseradish, I was like, should I keep this in the fridge to clear my sinuses? Right. Right. And then I started putting it on stuff. It's good for that. Yeah. It's good for that. Van you a mustard guy? I love mustard. So good. Dijon. Yeah. He's my top. Yeah. Yeah. Great Poupon. President Poupon over here.

1:25:16We should have a fancy. Ben is wearing a tan suit today. Yeah. And I look great. But I also came around to it later in my 20s. Yeah. Like I rejected mustard. I was only ketchup. Your 20s are for mustard. Yeah. Your 20s are. That's your mustard era. It's for experimenting. Your mustard maxing. Your mustard maxing. Mustard mogging. Maybe a little relish. I don't know. Maybe a little chutney. Relish is for your 30s. Okay. Fine. Uh. Around now is when, uh, Harry Dean Stanton shows up as Paul.

1:25:48As well as not yet. As Saul first. As Saul as Tarsus. Right. Right. Right. He's going to have his road to Damascus later. Right. Um. One of those things where it's like. Well, this. Harry Dean Stanton belongs in the 20th century. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like where it's sort of surprising to see him in robes. Yes. But he also does feel eternal to me. He does. In some way. And soulful. And, you know, ring, you know, his, his, his permanent wrinkles and his kind of like weird face like does kind of make him work in the movie.

1:26:20I don't know. See, it's, it's not an iPhone face cast, but I did think it's a vinyl record cast. Yeah. They all have vinyl record face. Yeah. All of, all of these people have, have dropped a needle on, on the record, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah. Do you guys enjoy this, uh, you know, this performance, Harry Dean Stanton? Sure. Yes. No. I like it. It's great. I think, I think when he, I think when we see him again later in the film and he is Paul. Yes. I think that's great. I think it's a really great moment and sort of. And you kind of need a very recognizable face for that. Yeah. Purpose. Right.

1:26:50For the sort of like you see him again. Yes. I mean, even, even when you meet him the first time, you're sort of like, well, he must be someone important. I mean, there's a bit, the purpose of casting someone as recognizable as Harry Dean Stanton. Like this is clearly a significant person. It's also, it's his straight talk quality. Yeah. Yeah. You know, this is a guy who can't lie on screen, who, who can, who underplays everything. But yeah, this script does not have a lot of like, and I'm Thomas and I'm always doubting stuff. Like it does not, I guess, really, you know, it sort of relies on its, on its audience, figuring

1:27:22things out or not worrying about it. Like you're sort of like, you know, Judas. You know, Jesus, you know, Mary, you can figure out that the rest were followers of some renown or whatever, you know, right. And if you know more about the Bible, you'll, you'll probably recognize things. I do appreciate that. It doesn't put like a point on things. Like you see, you get the moment where Peter denies Jesus three times, but it's not like telegraphed. No. It's not like a zoom in, zoom in. No, I don't know Jesus. Like that doesn't happen. And it's just sort of like, someone's like, Hey, I think that guy, I think that guy is

1:27:55one of Jesus's followers. He's like, no, I'm not. No, I think, I think I, I, I swear I've seen you with that dude. I know him. We all know him. Heard of them. There's a little counter in the bottom of the screen. I'm friendly with him. I wouldn't say I'm friends with him. I haven't been to his hut. I don't hang out in his cave. Um, Lazarus gets killed. There's the big riot in the temple. Things are popping off. That's so fucked up. This guy just came back to life. If I'm him, I'm so mad.

1:28:25It's a waste of incredible work. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of, kind of the one time that it ever happened and they immediately undo it. Which I don't think is in the Bible either. I don't think it's in the Bible either. No. Like that's. Did they kill him? Yeah. No, I don't. There's like, you know, we're moving on. Jesus is like, come out, Lazarus. He's like, all right, let's keep the road moving. Come on, Lazarus. They don't just kill him. They slice him open like he's a fucking pig. Yeah. They got him. It's pretty brutal. It's rough. The movie is, like you said, Griff, it's violent.

1:28:55It's not violent in the way of like a Marty movie can be like so insanely violent. There's like a hero kicking some guy in the ground. Perfectly. The ultimate display of violence. Connecting every time. Yes. Foot touching flesh. Leg going all the way back and making such a journey to direct impact with muscle. These are cheap jokes, of course, but it is. The fact that it's a Scorsese directed the local epic. And then you know the rest of his movies. I do like when I want what I've watched this. I do think of like, it'd be funny if there were a scene of like Jesus laughing like De Niro

1:29:30and Kate Fear. Right. Just like at the temple going.

1:29:36Right. And that's when they have to arrest him. That's when he's being too loud. Yes. Right. And that's when Pontius Pilate's like. And then. Like he also does that whole thing with Mary Magdalene's retainer. Yes. Yeah. Then there's the Pontius Pilate, you know, which we talked about. But is there more, you know, like we're just like total stillness again, just a spare set. Well, he was such a good actor. You and I both rewatched Prestige recently. Fucking rocks in that. He's so fucking good. And it's the same use of him in Prestige. Yes. It's like we kind of need someone who just communicates instantly weirdness and like, you know,

1:30:08authority. Yeah. Like in this kind of peculiar way. But he knew how to not overdo it. And it doesn't overdo it neither. And in fucking Prestige, he's like doing an accent. And he's Tesla. He's Tesla. He's in a cyber truck.

1:30:22He looks awesome. He looks so good. Everyone's cheering as he drives down the street. He makes comedy legal. That movie's about how Hugh Jackman's trying to make comedy legal. That's the war. Hugh Jackman. I don't know. Save free speech. Yes. They should remake Prestige, but about the Austin comedy scene. That's great. That's great, right? That's great. Isn't that great? Yeah. No, I just find it so fascinating that Bowie was able to completely tone down his rock star energy. Yeah.

1:30:53And just lean into the alien-ness. Right. And like you watch The Man Who Fell to Earth and you're like, well, of course, he's great at this. This is the one appropriate time you could cast David Bowie in a movie and it's not distracting. And yet, every time he's put in like a one or two scene role like this, he just fucking knocks it out of the park and he gives it an energy that no one else could. But it feels like he was a very smart actor. Like he really understood his moves. Is he the best rock star actor? I think so. The best rock star actor. Okay.

1:31:23Who are the competitors here? Mick Jagger made real movie Sting. Chris Christopherson. Chris Christopherson. James Belushi. Yeah. Oh, yeah? I guess more blue star actor. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bruce Willis. Yes. Right. Eddie Murphy.

1:31:41Steven Seagal. Of course. Yeah. Jared Leto. Jared Leto. Come on. Let's not forget.

1:31:50No, I mean, if we're having the honest question, it's like the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger. But Bowie's a very interesting case of like he actually took these sort of like different roles. Because Jagger's, I mean, he's good in some like performance. He could be good. He could be good. You needed to craft around these guys right in the right way. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think. Because when I think of musician actors, I actually just think of rappers. Yeah. Which like. They've taken up. Rappers are basically always good at acting. Yes. Because like, I feel like there's so much performance.

1:32:21Yes. Like that you have. There's so much presence you have to have. Right. Even when you're like essentially performing in like the tiniest scale. Right. Right. How many rappers turned actors were bad is the question.

1:32:34They're all good. It's a good question. I just, I just went to the 25th anniversary of Fast and Furious. Sure. Re-release. Sure. Ja Rule wasn't like the greatest actor of all time. No, but even still you're like, he had a little juice. Yeah. There was a reason they wanted him back for the second one in the greatest bag fumble of all time. Oh, is he says no? Is that the bag fumble? And then they go like, fine, we'll ask Ludacris. And Ludacris is great. Ludacris is great. I almost want to see like Ice-T has like limited reign. That's right. He's so powerful. Come on.

1:33:04He's got the hours. Yeah. He's got the hours. He's got the hours. But Ice Cube is a very good actor. Yeah. Like, you know. Ice Cube has given legitimately good screen performance. Ice Cube is a really good actor. Most Def is a great actor. Most Def should have been like a major star. To me, DMX is the rapper. Turned actor where I'm like, I don't think anyone ever sat DMX down and taught him how to act. Right? Like, and I don't think he was ever in like a particularly good movie. Anytime DMX is on screen in the movies he made, I'm like, I cannot take my eyes off this guy.

1:33:34This is unbelievable. He's got a couple good scenes in Exit Wounds. Yes. Which I don't say lightly. Like, I mean, like, that's the sort of the example where I'm like, right, you know, like, it's just kind of like, I don't know, just point the camera at him. This is going to work. Like, are there answers where we're just not thinking of them? Where I'm like, is the game good? You know? I don't know. Exactly. Other people we should, Madonna. Madonna? Yeah. Madonna. Who's got a lot of shit, but has given good performances. Yes. Like, she's kind of up and down. Courtney Love, a very good actor. That's what I was going to say, too. Courtney Love, we have to shout out. Yeah. Cyndi Lauper, I feel like never got her full.

1:34:06Would she? I don't think I've seen Cyndi Lauper. That's a movie called Vibes. Debbie Harry. Debbie Harry. Debbie Harry. Yeah. Debbie Harry's great. I mean, like, look, you have to have stage presence. Like, it makes sense. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Keep going. Forget Meatloaf.

Musicians Turned Actors

1:34:23Forget Meatloaf. Yeah, Meatloaf is a good actor. Meatloaf's a good actor. Hey, Tom Waits. Tom Waits? Tom Waits. But Meatloaf was more of an actor first. Sure. I guess. Musical theater actor, who then became, yes. His name was Bob. Waits is a great answer. Yeah. Waits. Isn't that the line from Fight Club? Right. Waits is a good answer. David was giving me a look like Ben has lost his fucking mind. Ben knows what he's talking about.

1:34:50Tom Waits might be the guy who challenges David Bowie, in my mind. Tom Waits, very cool. If you look at the breadth of the work. Yeah. And the directors he's worked with. The guys we're naming mostly did not take, you know, they work very well, especially in supporting roles and character roles. And his scene is great in this. Oh, oh. Justin Timberlake. Conversation over. Anyway, so back to Last Temptation of Christ. That's a good performance.

1:35:14Yeah. Well, then they crucify Jesus. Yes. You know. They make him. They give him a crown of thorns, which I think is really rude. It's really rude. They make him carry the cross, which I think is really rude. A note about these scenes. This is the part of the movie where I really like this part of the movie. And I really like that Scorsese seems to linger on the compositions a lot because they do look really incredible. Like the of Jesus being marched down the corridor. Right. With the crown of thorns. Crowds. There is a sense of scale. When he's coming in to Jerusalem on the donkey is a great sort of like competition as well.

1:35:49Did we talk about the scene where he tries to convince Judas to kill him? Yeah. Like when he's having the dark night of the solar, like right before all this. And he's also like, I'm going to die. You should just do it. Yes. You can just do it. I need to die as a sacrifice. Right. Yes. But of course he sort of realizes like, no, I have to be like publicly a symbol like to. Well, Judas also is like, can you imagine how bad my reputation would be in history if I'm the guy who kills Jesus? I'm not doing that. Now I have to take one meeting.

1:36:20Yeah. Crucifixion. A bummer. You know what? That happened in a year. Wait, did we pass the last supper? You got to shout out the last supper. I gave you the gift, but no. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's what he did. It was a Seder. But did they shout out that it's the last one? No. No. They were like, we're going to do this forever. I'm so full. I couldn't do another one of these. That's just what I'm saying. Yeah. Guys, meet back here same time next week. Right. And so let's promise. I feel so great, guys.

1:36:51I'm going to live forever, man.

1:36:54No one's betraying me. Like Christ is on the cross. No one's betraying me is such a funny thing to announce. This summer was such a bummer. No one's betraying me. Where everyone's like, oh, this is good. And Judas Jesus is like, why are you going to betray me, by the way? It's like, what? What's he talking about? God, I hope this doesn't get painted onto the wall somewhere. That would suck to get walled. Christ is on the cross. Two hours and five minutes into the movie. Yeah. So it really, the last temptation is really the last sort of half hour of the film.

1:37:25This is the happy ending sequence. Right. And, you know, a girl approaches him and is like, you did it, buddy. Come on down. Like, you're all right. Real quick. Mm-hmm. There are things, like, I always expect this happen. I know it doesn't in the movie. Famously, on the cross, there's two criminals being crucified with him. Yes. With unshittier crosses. Unshittier crosses. One of them is sort of like, ha-ha, look at that guy. He's the king of the Jews. Fuck you. And the other guy is like, you know, will I be okay? And canonically, in the lore, Jesus says, you know, you'll be with me in paradise.

1:38:00And so it's like his last blessing is to this other crucified criminal, which is not in the movie, but it's like it's part of the... But they are there. They are there. And you do see the other crucified man. This young girl is sort of like, hey, listen, Jesus, just like, you know, God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he's seeing if you were going to do it. You did it. You proved that you were ready. Yeah. It's much like the binding of Isaac of sort of like, yeah, okay, then we believe you that you wanted to do it. Yeah. And so now you are free, essentially.

1:38:34And here's Mary, and you're going to live a happy life. Yeah. And he does have sex with her, which people were mad about. We will get into this in a second. And then she dies. And then he just, I just, I mean, it's blasphemous, I suppose, to compare the life of Christ in this film to Star Trek The Next Generation. You can't not think of The Inner Light, the most famous episode of that show. Has anyone, does anyone know what I'm talking about? Okay. Do you know what I'm talking about, Jamel? You know the Star Trek guy?

1:39:04Once you start explaining, I think it will jog my memory. Like, the starship just like, it's like, hey, there's a weird beam. Picard looks at the beam. The whole episode is him living an entire life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's on a village, a very simple life. And then at the end, they're like, hey, what happened? Like, you got knocked out for a second. And it's like, this lost civilization downloaded its culture into you. Yeah. And you, and he's like, I just lived a whole fucking life, like 50 years. And they're like, oh, okay, weird. You know, and it's an amazing, beautiful episode.

1:39:35What's like Inception 2? I like any story that does this. Oh, right, of like, right, of someone snapping out of it. Yes. And like, the other person's like, hello. And they're like, I just was gone for 50 years. Sure. Wasn't there recently a story about a young woman who was in a coma? Oh, boy. And she similarly had like a very extreme lucid dream of living an entire lifetime and then woke up and then was like, where are my children? That's the worst feeling. I don't like that. I don't like that. It's deeply upsetting. But obviously profound. Yes. And like, that's what happened.

1:40:05Jesus has an inner light. We watch him in like, you know, sort of an accelerated pace, like live a whole life. And he's actually living this life. I mean, the interesting thing in the kind of the tell that this little girl is Satan is she's like, you know, Mary's dead, but there's only one woman. Yeah. Just with different faces. With different faces. So just like find another one. Right. For a second, you're like, are Scorsese's gender politics that bad? But then you realize what she's saying. No, that's actually like little. That was the devil. That's the devil. I love the devil. Little Andrew Tate right there. That's. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. What's going on?

1:40:37Yeah. But then he goes to Mary, sister of Lazarus. Yes. Who he meets earlier. They after he comes out of the desert after the first temptations, he meets her and her sister, Martha, and they bring him back to health. And so he were in Mary is clearly interested in him. Right. So he returns to her and that's with her that he has the family. Though it's suggested that, like, it's like kind of a polyamorous situation going on. A little bit. Yeah. Well, Jesus was poly. No, I'm kidding. I don't. This is what I'm saying. Or has everything we've said been offensive?

1:41:09I think it's important, though, that it's not like his life is, like, perfect and idyllic. He has to lose Mary Magdalene. No, he has a realistic ish, although it's odd and fantastical in a way. But, like, right. It's that he lives a normal life. Right. Is that a life of a normal human being without this burden? It's like fucking kids, like, coming back from, like, the market. Right. And then, you know, that's when he sees now Paul preaching about him. About the road to Damascus. And Jesus confronts him. He's like, I'm the guy you're talking about.

1:41:41He's like, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't resurrected. I'm a man. Right. I'm just hanging out here. I'm just a guy. I fuck. Isn't there the thing, too, where he, he does yell that. He says, I fuck. He goes, I fuck. But I guess that's sort of the implication of, like, this is imagining a world where, like, Jesus's myth exists, but the real guy is sort of put in parallel with it. Right. And then occasionally we'll just realize that that's happening around him, of, like, people are spreading his gospel. But also sort of, like, Paul is preaching and, like, no one's particularly interested.

1:42:12Yeah, that's true. It's not catching on. It's not catching on. Yeah. So the message is out there, but the absence of the sacrifice means it's sort of, like, you know. Well, also, when Mary Magdalene dies and he says, like, why can't we bring her back the way you brought me back? Right. And it's like, no, it's not. Like, this is God's will. Like, she has to go. You get to stay. This isn't a thing you get to horse trade about. Like, he realizes that part of the give of living a normal life is he's not in conversation with God.

1:42:43Yeah. And miracles don't happen. He doesn't get to negotiate with reality in that kind of way. Right. And then when he is on his deathbed, and Ben, we've talked about deathbeds before, if you remember, on our Sense and Sensibility episode, Deathbed, the bed that kills. We should cover that movie on this show, don't you think? Yeah. Yeah. We can cover that someday. Who directed that? John Badham? I just assume when you say deathbed, that's what we're talking about. It was in the Sense and Sensibility episode at the beginning of the movie. It's Tom Wilkinson's character. I believe so. Someone's on a deathbed. And Ben very earnestly said, we see this old guy.

1:43:14He's on his deathbed. And then we never see him again. What happened to him? I didn't say deathbed. I said he was in bed. And we're like, yo, that was his deathbed. That was the deathbed. You're like, well, no one communicated that it was the deathbed. Wasn't clear to me. Right. It was just a bed to me. It wasn't like made of skulls. Ben wants clear demarcation of what is a bed versus a deathbed, which is a good point. You don't want to get into a deathbed by accident just because you're sleepy. Right. That's true. I never wake up. Ben just looked at me so seriously when he said, right. And it's what I've been saying.

1:43:45And also people can visit you while you're in bed and you can have a conversation. That's totally fine and normal. It doesn't mean that you're on your deathbed. That's true. No, but that guy was on his deathbed. All right. Well, Jesus here is on his deathbed and he is very aged. Yes. And yeah. And they bring in Judas. And then other guys. It seems like the rebellion's happening outside. So we hear like, you know, there's fire, you're screaming and the disciples come in and they all come in and they're sort of like, heard you were dying, wanted to see you, been a long

1:44:16time. And Judas comes in and is like, you fucked up. It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to sacrifice yourself. You got scared, essentially. He's like, I'm about to die. And then you got off the cross. I did my part. Right. Why couldn't you do your part? And this is my favorite part. Then he like turns to the, he's like, then, then due to Jesus is like, well, I had, I had a guardian. God sent a guardian angel. And Judas like looks over and he's like, bro, that's Satan.

1:44:45Tricks one look. One look. He's like, have you ever seen a movie? A little creepy girl. Yeah. What are you talking about? Like 10 years old. Who's like really calm. That's always a bad guy. Have you ever seen Resident Evil? Yeah. Have you ever seen fucking X-Men 2? The Red Queen and the White Queen. Yeah. Come on. William Stryker's in your brain, bro. He's made Cerebro bad, bro. Jesus goes, yeah, I saw X-Men 2. Yeah, of course I saw X-Men 2. X-Men United. And he was like, was that the actual title or is that more of a promo title? No, the title is X2. The title card in the movie is just X2. But I think it's fun to call it X-Men United.

1:45:16Kind of. But how united are they? They actually are fighting most of the time. It is weird that the movie goes into a 15 minute argument about the title of X2 between Harvey Keitel and Willem Dafoe. And then, so Jesus like runs out, you know, being like, I want to be fucking Jesus. I'm sorry. He drags himself out. Yeah. And it's a great scene.

1:45:46It's also a very kind of like, it's a wonderful life scene. Yes. You know, yeah, no, sure. Well, well, I want to be crucified. That cross looks fun to me. They do a rewind like effect. They're like, they bring it back to him. That would be very blasphemous, but good. Him like going, like getting rewound black back onto the cross. Right. And you have that like Marty zoom of him like back on the cross.

1:46:18Yeah. Right. And he says it is accomplished. This is where I'm starting to freak out. Like, and I'm just like, oh my God. And then it, you know, it goes to those crazy lights. And that was because a cameraman exposed the magazine too early. Oh yeah. And it fucked up, you know, the film. But it's like Stan Brackett shit almost. That's the thing. And so, and when they shot it, they're like, we're, we're screwed because like, Willem can only be up there for a minute. And like, it's so hard to shoot this shit. And then like, they watched it. Like they, they, he keeps the damage take as he's like, it's like his soul is going

1:46:52to have it. It's the whole thing. It's perfect. I, when I was watching this, I watched this, uh, on Tuesday night. Was it, was it last night? Yeah, it was last night. We were recording. I watched it last night. Yeah, I watched it Tuesday night last night and I had to like do stuff around the house. So I have it on and I'm like paying attention and I'm watching it, but I'm also sort of doing things where I can. But this last 30 minutes, I'm just like transfixed. And that part, I'm, I'm like, every time it moves me, it's just, it's crazy. It's sort of like, really gets me.

Peter Gabriel Score

1:47:17Well, it's like the movie itself is transcending. Like the phone from the camera is like rising to the heavens. It feels like in that moment that like they captured something very real. Yes. And like, it can't be expressed through normal beans anymore. Yeah. And it is one of those things where I'm like, if they could just tell all the people who are mad to watch the whole movie, but they got to watch it all. They got to watch it all. They got to watch it all. Because the end really sells it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the fact that it's, yeah. And then the Peter Gabriel just popping off. Yeah. He did the movie basically for free.

1:47:48Yeah. You know, because like Marty and everything money. And he was like, I loved it. I brought in like voices from like all over the world, like mixing all this music together. It's released as passion. Yeah. Music from The Last Temptation of Christ. Great work music. I listen to it all the time. Yeah, I do. I listen to it quite a bit too when I'm reading. But like every movie set in the Middle East now sounds like this because of this score. A little bit. Well, there's that 2000s era where there's always just a woman going like, oh, the minute they cut to like the helicopter shot of Somalia or Saudi Arabia or wherever. Usually the way it goes is it's like, ah, and then like a cut that's like a guy on like

1:48:24the street, like kind of looking. And then it's like drumming. And you see like a market. Yeah. A market. I feel like I'm in a pitch meeting right now. But I like watch this and I was like, oh, so this is where it all starts. And then I go on to the Wikipedia page for the album. And it's like commonly cited as the breakthrough moment for world music in America. No, very much so. I mean, I feel like is it like this changes the way people think of scoring films set in the Middle East, but this like popularizes new age world music. Yeah. I mean, along with like Graceland, right?

1:48:55The Paul Simon. Sure. Like that's sort of like late 80s, kind of like, hey, man, there's music beyond European music, classical music. Like there's there's other continents out there. Which I got their own instruments. I'll believe it when I see it.

1:49:09The Scorsese. So this film. OK. In post-production. Mm hmm. Start to get in a little bit of trouble. There's some demonstrations. They're editing the film. They want to show it to some religious groups like to screen it. You know, it's just sort of like get ahead of things. The religious groups don't show up. Instead, the only people at the screening are Marty, his crew, Jack Valenti, head of MPA, I assume, at the time. Boom, boom, Valenti. Paul Newman. I guess he's just he's just in town. The King of Kings. Color money. Yeah. And a man from Time magazine. Mm hmm. Then they finally got some religious people to see it who are a little hostile, but mostly

1:49:43are kind of into it. You know, demonstrations are getting really ugly. There's a lot of anti-Semitism directed towards Lou Losserman, who's the head of MCA, who has nothing to do with the movie. You know what I mean? Like, there's just a lot of general kind of like hate stuff happening. Schrader's viewpoint is like, this is an anti-intellectual wing of social and political Christianity. Like, it doesn't have much to do with like Christian theological thought. Yeah. It's what you're talking about, this sort of like weaponized political sort of wing of whatever. Christianity that's sort of like becoming more and more powerful.

1:50:17The old Schrader script gets sent around. Apparently, that has something that sort of suggests that Jesus was maybe gay for a minute there or something. And they get really mad about that. And they're like, that's an old script. Like, we didn't shoot that. There's an actual thing called the secret gospel of Mark, which is like one of the apocryphal gospel texts. Right. That was on ABC Family. Yeah. Sorry. That's just a terrible, terrible joke by me. Can I get my alt? Yeah, please. And you could read that gospel on Lipstick Alley, right?

1:50:49That's right. It's correct. Yes. Okay. But is that gospel, does that have... That has some... That suggests... It suggests like, you know, that they have this like moment of ecstasy and like, it's sort of like, well, what does that mean? And one suggestion is it meant sort of like an orgy. But like, that's... I doubt Schrader's right. I mean, look, if they ever want to like, you know, sort of jazz up the Bible for like a new generation, they can throw that in there. Are they sure it wasn't like a literal moment of ecstasy? Like they took half a tab?

1:51:19Yeah, half a tab. Yeah. That's true. It's possible. I mean, just the... Like, we've said this a couple times already, but the movie really does take quite seriously the... Like, it positions Jesus as being very strange, a very strange man in that he's in an age where the expectation is that the Messiah would be a literal king. Yeah. A literal guy who would like kill the Romans. And right. Who would overtake and rule us all.

1:51:50Right. That's what people... The expectation is that, yeah, there's going to be a Messiah. He's going to show up and he's going to sort of like beat the Romans to death and establish a kingdom where we can live as we please. That's leadership basically in those days. Yes. I mean, hey, man. It's kind of the one way. And the movies, Jesus portrayed us saying, no, it's, you know, the kingdom is already here. It is spiritual. It is like us loving each other. Us like, you know, accepting each other as like fully each other. It's recognizing God's limitless and universal love.

1:52:23And everyone's like, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. But, um, and... Which makes... People die at like the age of 32 back then. Right, right, right. What are you fucking talking about? Maybe we're like, we should be open to rethinking some of this. And the movie shows like Jesus is so persistent about this. It convinces people. People are persuaded. They believe him and they follow him. And it's, it's a very powerful depiction of both like the radicalism of the message and the way that, yeah, then and now it's sort of a, it's kind of a crazy thing to say.

1:52:56Yes. And it's like very funny to me that people who like hold, who self-identify as like, you know, conservative Christian, fundamentalist Christian, what have you, would like see this and get angry about it. It's like, I don't, this is quite flattering to the entire system. It's why you assume a lot of them just didn't see it. Yeah, the insid, didn't see it, aren't thinking about it in those terms. Also that they've built a relationship with a modern version of Jesus that they have rebuilt to their worldview. That they don't really want to be in conversation with what this guy was originally.

1:53:30And I'll say, I mean, to me, the most important line in the movie, theologically speaking, is when he is arguing with the religious authorities. And he says, God is not an Israelite. And that's very much a statement of like universalism. That like God doesn't belong to us. He's not a nationalist figure. He's for everybody. Given the current political climate, like I think people would hear that and get very upset even today. Even that. Right. Right. Like, you know, because quite literally, like the people running the military are like, yeah, God's an American and he fucking loves F-35s.

1:54:06You wrote this on your Letterboxd log last night, but you said, one final thought. It makes total sense to me that fundamentalists hate this movie. Of course they would. Christ as emissary of total and all-encompassing love is in direct tension with the quote-unquote Christ of vengeance and domination that is in vogue in this country. Which is the thing. That sounds really good. It's a good piece of writing right there. That's a nice little write-up. But it is. It's that, you know, they would hate this guy if they met him tomorrow.

1:54:37Yeah. Sure. Of course. Right. I mean, it's the same with all this shit. Yes. They'd fucking hate Ronald Reagan. They'd hate Ronald Reagan. They'd hate his ass. Nah, he'd win him over. He went to bed with a monkey? So, the film fundamentally also just comes out in August, which is a bit of an odd time to release it, but whatever. And doesn't make much money. You know, it made about $8 million. Would you have done Christmas?

1:55:01Possibly. I mean. Easter? I mean, I don't know what the 80s landscape is. Like, now you're like, well, this is a prestige movie. Like, yeah, you want it in the fall. Like, blah, blah, blah. I mean, if you're trying not to court controversy, you release it in August. Yes. It's kind of smart of them to put it out in August, considering what clamor there was around it. If this were a Christmas movie. People would be up in arms. Marty would legitimately have good reason to want to bodyguard with him at all times.

1:55:33He says the movie put him in debt, and, like, he didn't come out of it until he made Cape Fear. It did do very well overseas. It made a decent amount of money. It made back its budget, certainly. Because it ended up making, like, $30 worldwide. I think $28 or $30. I don't know where you're getting that number. But I believe you. I saw it in a couple places. But, sure. I mean, because, you know, the box office and all that are bad now. But internationally grossed $25 million for a worldwide gross of $33 was in a variety right up in 1995.

1:56:05But as part of the deal of him agreeing to make this movie, he promised Universal that he would make a bigger budget film for them later, which he was planning to make Schindler's Ark, which later became Schindler's List, which turns into the swap that lands with Spielberg giving him Cape Fear. Right. And so Cape Fear is... Which is a moneymaker. Right. Although he says, then, then, Gangs of New York put me back in debt, and then The Departed took me out of it again. Got him out of it. You know, who knows. But, yeah. Cape Fear is a direct result of his deal with Universal for this movie.

1:56:35It's a movie, like Mulholland Drive. I wonder how many of these movies exist. It gets one nomination at the Oscars for Best Director. Yes. It's very rare. Kind of the Oscar thing of, like, I don't know, man. Good job. Like, fuck. Jesus. Well, Blue Velvet was the same thing. Did Blue Velvet only get the one nom? Blue Velvet only gets the one, I believe. I think Lynch is the only guy to pull that off twice. Wow. I need a full list of this, if the nerds can tell me, of, like, how many times that's happened. The film got great reviews, like, it was celebrated by critics, but, obviously, between the controversy

1:57:08and it being a two-hour, 40-minute movie about Jesus, you know, it's not a life-changing, like, sort of success. It's had a great legacy. Yeah. I think it's now so well appreciated. I think most people who, like, you know, think about this stuff recognize it as, like, one of, like, the highlights of his career. And I think it's given people much greater appreciation for it because it's just religious pictures, right? Like, yeah. Right. Because, of course, because he makes Kundun in Silence, he has this kind of loose trilogy

1:57:40about faith that is really fun to sort of, like, take in totality. Take as you will. Collider says there are seven movies. The Inn of the Six, Happiness, in 1958. I don't know where that is. Alice's Restaurant, Arthur Penn. Okay. Fellini Satyricon. Oh, that's one for sure. Yeah. Blue Velvet. Yeah. Last Temptation of Christ. Shortcuts. Mulholland Drive. Shortcuts is a wild one, too. Again, where they're just kind of like, look, man. You're back. Maybe too weird for us, but good job doing that.

1:58:12Yeah. That looked complicated. Right. Exactly. Those cuts were really short. Obviously, that's the Rain Man year at the Oscars. Barry Robinson wins Best Director. Let's do the box office game. Barbara Hershey got a Globe nomination. That's interesting. Yeah, I forgot about that. Okay. Yes. God bless her. And I think it got Picture and Director at the Globes as nominations as well. The Globes were friendlier to this movie. Because they were more Euro, and I feel like this movie, apart from the fact that like half of Europe was on fire about it, like this movie played better in Europe. Yeah. No, it just got, no, it just got Barbara Hershey in score.

1:58:46Oh, weird. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, that's kind of it. It made like the MBR top 10. Like it didn't, yeah, it was mostly ignored. The rude, uh, Cartel Raspberry nomination. Right. And then, of course, like his follow-up is Goodfell. His follow-up is Goodfell. Which is like a good follow-up. Which probably just overshadows this as well, you know? A little bit. 100%.

The Box Office in 1988

1:59:06The movie comes out August 12th, 1988. It's opening number 13 at the box office, Griffin. So we're not going to consider. Unlucky. Yeah, that's true. Number one at the box office is, um, uh, Western. It's a Western in 1988. It's not Silverado, is it? No. I would say it's a, a little, it's a Western with more of like a modern twist. Not in terms of setting, but in terms of like kind of attitude. Young Guns? That's correct. What if Guns were Young? You know, Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen.

1:59:39Mm-hmm. Dermot Mulroney? The big six? How many are we up to at this point? Yeah, that's six guys. Six reasons why the West was wild. That's the tagline. Never seen Young Guns. Me neither. Um, but, uh, you know, Brat Pack. I guess it's like, it's Emilio Estevez is Billy the Kid, but it's like all made up. Right? I think, I think they kind of made it up after that. I think that movie took some liberties. Uh, haven't seen Young Guns 2, but of course, that also has the, the, the, the classic tagline, uh, the West just got wilder.

2:00:10The Wild Wild West, you might say. Yeah. Well, and then, of course, we were introduced to the Wild Wild West. Wild Wild West. Tim West, Esperanto. Keep going. Roughneck. No, you don't. No, Nada. Yeah, there you go. Want Nada or Nona? I can't remember. Yeah. I remember Nada. Nada. We all remember Nada. Uh, what's number two at the box office? Number two at the box office is number one the previous week. Mm. It's a big hit. Starring a big movie star. You know, it's a bit of a cult classic. I would say this movie is stupid bullshit.

2:00:42You would say this movie is stupid bullshit, but you say it has rocks for brains? Yes, exactly. That's one of your favorite slams. This movie has rocks for brains is exactly how to describe it. It's pretty fun. Cult classic might be too nice to it because it was a hit. Like, it was a huge hit. Is it like one of the big action stars? It's one of the big action stars. It's not an action movie. It's not. No. It's a dumb. But it kind of has an action movie sensibility to it. It's not Kindergarten Cop. No, it's even stupider than that. It's dumber than that? It's one of the dumbest movies ever made. It's one of the dumbest movies ever made. One of the biggest movie stars of all time.

2:01:14What could this possibly be? So it's not a Bruce, a Stallone, or shorts? No, no. Okay, no. Sorry. Action star was maybe misleading then. No, bigger star than that. Big A-list star. Okay. Kind of early-ish in his stardom, but no, he's pretty famous. You know, he's made giant hits. It's not a Hanks. No. You're close. I'm close. Same first name. Tom Cruise. That's right. Is it Cocktail? That's right. Jamel, were you going to go Cocktail? I was about to say Cocktail. Yeah. I mean, the stupidest movie he ever made. Correct. Right? That's when he's making a string of these movies.

2:01:45He's like, young, hot shot guy. Yeah. It's true. And it's just, it's the classic, like, you know, he's like, so I became the best cocktail guy in the world. And you're like, what does that mean? And he's like, you know how you could mix a drink like this? I don't do that. I do. The crazy thing. A movie based on TGI Fridays. Right. Based on the guy who invented TGI Fridays. Yeah. And how hot that was that they created a singles bar for the first time. What if bars weren't where men went to not go to therapy? What if bars are where men went to try to get laid? And the guys did crazy cocktails.

2:02:16Tom Cruise, Brian Brown. Brian Brown is still alive. Do you think Brian Brown every, like, six months, like, texts him being like, Cocktail , too, mate? Yeah. Let's do it. Cocktail two is when we need to, like, hold a Tom Cruise intervention. The fact that he's prioritizing color of money or prioritizing Days of Thunder over color of money. I'm like, my guy, if you want to do another legacy sequel over doing Top Gun three, don't do the fucking racing movie when you've already done Top Gun and they've already done F1.

2:02:48I don't think there's anything left to be said there. Yeah. I assume with Days of Thunder, you're just kind of like, you know, Carville, go fast. People seem to like that, right? Like, I don't know. Do fucking color of money with, like, Kaylee Spaney or some shit. Cast someone I'm not thinking of. I don't understand. Well, if you were to do a color of money legacy sequel, wouldn't it just be the color of money again? I think the way you could make it work is if it's somewhat, you flip it back. Because what works in color of money is that there's such different types. Yeah. That you need to think of what's the third type.

2:03:20Of pool hall hustler where crews wouldn't quite understand coming from being such a hot shot, how they do it. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's crypto. Maybe it's crypto. This time. That sounds great. Crypto. It's in the way that you lose it. Maybe it's like a Finding Forrester kind of movie. Thank you, David. That was pointed, wasn't it? I like that. Yeah.

2:03:42Yeah. So Cocktail is number two. I've seen Cocktail once. It's a... What movie more has rocks in its brains than Cocktail? Right? Like that's... Right. It's on the rocks. Yeah. Well, it is on the rocks. Number three at the box office is an action film. It's one of the best movies ever made. It's one of the best movies ever made. Die Hard. There you go. There you go. 1988. Die Hard. No question there. Been out for a month. It's doing great. People like it. And it's going to have a strong legacy as an action film. What's proving to be very popular is its goodness.

2:04:13Is all the stuff that happens in it. The quality of the movie. Number four at the box office is a comedy that is a pretty solid hit and is also nominated for Best Director at the Oscars and is somewhat surprising... A Fish Called Wanda? A Fish Called Wanda. Had to be. Yes. Which, you know, Kevin Kline also. Charles Crichton, the Ealing comedy director, who's very old at that point. Yes. So it's kind of a like, hey, good job. I think his line was like, it's an 80 year overnight success story or something like that. Yeah. Haven't seen it since I was a teenager.

2:04:45Loved it then. Yeah. You okay? Peanut. Peanut. Do I have to give you the Heimlich maneuver? Yeah. I mean, God, this many years and we got to spice things up every year. Something crazy. We all need to save each other's lives. It was like, remember the Heimlich episode? That's how we get another 10 years out of the podcast. Do you like A Fish Called Wanda? Anyone like A Fish Called Wanda? I've never seen A Fish Called Wanda. It's funny. I like it. I believe the BAFTAs that year gave their Best Supporting Actor to Michael Palin. That's right. And I agree that Michael Palin is the best performance in that movie.

2:05:15He's very funny. Um, they nominated Klein in lead as part of why that happened. Interesting. But then they gave John Cleese the trophy for best lead. They loved that movie. I mean, it's a very British movie. Oh, 100%. And it was a success. Uh, so I think they were really happy. But Palin's very funny in that movie. I think Palin's phenomenal in it. Palin also just one of my favorites. I was going to say, you also just love the guy. I love him. But Klein's really funny in A Fish Called Wanda. Klein's great in it. And it's the rare, like, full comedic performance winning an Oscar, kind of, right? Like, where it's like, goddamn, like, we gotta, you know what else Klein is in that movie?

2:05:46Hot. Hot. He's really hot. No! Klein rules. He does. Jamel, what do you, the scene in Dave, as someone who covers politics. Oh, boy, here we go. The scene in Dave where. I didn't do this. I've not seen Dave in many years. Oh, really? Yeah. Do you remember the scene where Sigourney Weaver walks in on him in the shower? Not at all. Okay. Is he hot, Matt, though? He's really hot in it, yeah. Is Sigourney hot in that, though? Sigourney's smoking hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn't she? Yeah. Even though she's got, like, a Hillary Clinton haircut and pantsuits or whatever, she looks

2:06:17great. Do you remember the basic premise of Dave? It's like the president's accountant or something becomes president? No, it's just a guy who looks like him. The president's a jerk, has a stroke, goes into a coma. Rather than deal with this, they find someone who looks like him, and they're like, you'll just do what we tell you, because we just need to get this, like, budget passed and shit. Right. And Klein's like, okay, well, whatever you want. And then he's like, and by the way, I have some ideas, like, and he starts to be a really good president. It's so funny. That's funny. But also, in reality, when this happens, which it does on occasion, the president has a stroke.

2:06:50Yeah, of course. They pull a Dave. They do a weekend at Bernie's. No one pulls a Dave. They do, like, a sort of like, yeah, the president's still alive. Sure. Who gives a fuck? The big thing in Dave is they're like, he's never waking up. Right. Right. It's like, this is it. Right. Is that then that is true? No, he does. He does. No, he dies. They pull the plug. Yeah, they pull the plug. You know, I kind of think, you know, we have. Not on Dave, the other guy, but then they pretend that Dave died. Right. These are Dave spoilers. If Trump were to be debilitated, I think I think we get a couple of weeks of a week in the Bernie situation.

2:07:26Yes. Like before weird tweets before anyone from a long distance thought was happening with Biden for a while. We're like, he was so bad at the debate that people were like, is he like fucking dead or something? Right. Or like a puppet or something? What was that? And it was like, now he's fine. He has the flu. Don't worry about it. And then, like, people start being like, I don't know. I got a meeting with him. And he, like, didn't know who I was. And everyone started going crazy. But Mitch McConnell's really alive, right? Yeah, he's totally alive. So alive. Never been healthy. Never been better. I saw a really fun video of him tap dancing yesterday. The thing where he was holding the day's newspaper in the one picture is the sort of like, my T-shirt is answering questions as, you know, you know what I mean?

2:08:04We're still like, I'm so alive. I'm holding this newspaper. It's like, right. We all love to hold the newspaper to prove that we're alive every day. Like, that's the normal way to go through life. I hate generative AI, but have you seen this subsection of videos that are like, I'm Mitch McConnell and I'm holding up today's newspaper. And then he takes out a helmet and he, like, pulls an ollie on, like, a skate ramp. I have not, but that sounds like a use of AI. I think that's maybe the most productive use we could come up with. Number five at the box office. One of the great movies in 1988. One of the great movies. We covered it on this show.

2:08:34It's a classic. It's not. Broadcast News is 87. That's right. 88. Also shopping like a box. It's a classic. In what genre?

2:08:44It's a comedy, I guess. Family. But, you know, it's cool and crazy. So, like, you know, kind of classic movie that, like, scars kids a little bit. It's cool and crazy and it scars kids and it's a classic. Makes them feel crazy. It makes them feel crazy. It does. I mean, I'm right. You'll agree with me. It's not a Lynch movie. No, no, no, no, no. It's a kids movie. It's a Disney kids movie. Oh, no, because Little Mermaid's 89. Is it The Great Mouse Detective? No, Great Mouse. Great guesses from you both. No. It's a Disney movie that makes it.

2:09:15It's bigger than this. Big movie. Big hit movie. Big director. We covered it. It's a big hit movie from a big, big director. Mm-hmm.

2:09:23And it's a kids movie. It is. You're going to get mad, maybe, but it is. It's a kids movie. It's for kids. But it's really horny. It's got, yeah, it is. No one's going to object. These are good clues. Huh. And it's scary. Main feed director we covered. Oh, yeah. This is my favorite of his movies. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm right about all of it. Oh, oh, oh, oh, he's right about all of it. This picture is entitled Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Oh, yeah. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, I mean, perfect tense. It's horny. It's scary. Very horny. It's for kids.

2:09:54One of the best movies. I watched that like eight months ago. You show it to one of your kids? No, absolutely not. And the scene where the shoe gets to dip genuinely upset me. Fucked up a generation. Yeah. Really upset. It fucked us all up. I was very upset by it. Yeah. It's one of the most tragic things to happen in the movies. Number six of the box office, so we will do this box office again one day, is Francis Ford Coppola's A Flop, Tucker, The Man and His Dream, which is also good. Yes. Just interesting that Marty and Francis on the same weekend released like passion projects

2:10:25and everyone's like, okay, like, you know, like, well, let's be clear. They weren't saying okay about Last Temptation of Christ. They were saying boo, hiss, he, then. Well, but audiences, I think, were largely sort of like, you know, pleasantly ignoring this movie. Yes. Sure, but also you have to imagine if there's that level of protest happening outside the theater, you might not want to go to the theater. I think there wasn't so much of that after a certain point. It was more pronounced in Europe, I think. Tucker, The Man and His Dream is an awesome movie for you. It's a great movie for cool kids.

2:10:57Yeah. I don't know if you've seen it, Jamel, but it's about Preston Tucker. I'm not. It's about like, you know, like the problem of America, of a guy being like, I think I can do things differently within the system. I can build a better car. Stop it. You know, you're fucking everything up. Like, you're not allowed to do that. Great movie. Very interesting. But it was a flop. Number seven of the box office is Coming to America, one of the big hits of the year. It's my favorite movie. Yeah. It's a good movie. Yeah. Still haven't seen the sequel. Waiting for a great day. I want to be bummed out.

2:11:28I remember it being fine. But here's what I also remember. It was none of the COVID pandemic. Early 2021. Exactly right. My brain was engulfed in flames. Number eight is Midnight Run. Great movie. I mean, there's some good movies in the box office right now. Number nine, Penny Marshall's big. Big. We'll cover it on the show someday. Do you know that he has a dad in that movie?

2:11:51Sure. What do you mean? You watch that movie and it plays as if Mercedes Ruhle is a single mother. Uh-huh. And there's one scene where they go to the carnival where he sees the Zoltar machine for the first time and makes the wish. And there's a guy who's like, hey, don't go far. And you're like, oh, this is Mercedes Ruhle's shitty boyfriend or something. Right. There's a director's cut. There's a Penny Marshall cut that's 30 minutes longer that mostly adds in more Elizabeth Perkins. And I would say makes her character make a lot more sense. Makes her seem far less demented.

2:12:23But also at the same time adds back in the father. And she just cut out every single time the father appears for this one moment. Okay. It's fascinating. We're going to talk about it whenever we do Penny Marshall. Yeah. Which we will do. Yeah. What's that? Her second film. Yeah, it's her second film. Jumpin' Jack is the first. Weird movie. Number 10 at the box office is a film I'm sure you like as well. Michael Keaton stars in Clean and Sober. A movie I love. I defend it thoroughly. I was not able to get enough respect for it when I did Michael Keaton, Mount Rushmore on Big Picture.

2:12:55But I would have made the case for that to be one of his four. It's that and Beetlejuice the same year. Right. And the National Board of Review. Or was it New York Film Critics Circle? Maybe. I think New York Film Critics Circle gave him best actor for Clean and Sober and Beetlejuice. I'm sorry you got no respect. Thank you. It's 100% what the Oscars should have done this year. Given you respect? No. Given a trophy. Oh, to Keaton. That was half Beetlejuice, half Clean and Sober. Of course. Yeah.

2:13:25And listeners, give Griffin your respect. Give me a little respect. Finally. The National Society of Film Critics did that. New York gave him best actor for Spotlight. Also kind of a cool win. Yeah. Number 11 opening new this week is Mac and Me. Just wanted to shout that out too. So as we said, great movies up and down the list. Mac and Me. That's the one with the Paul Rudd clip. Correct. And a lot of McDonald's. Right. Yep. Where they have the big dance sequence at the McDonald's. Yes. Which kind of goes. And Mac is usually a puppet. But in that scene, it's a little person in a costume. Oh, good.

Legacy and Final Thoughts

2:13:58So that's the box office. Yeah. And you know, it's, I just, I think, I'm not sure when this movie got its respect. Speaking about giving something proper respect. But when did this movie have its anti-Rodney moment? You know, I think it's very esteemed now. I guess because of Marty's general esteem and because of the run he went on in the 2000s. Mm-hmm. It's still not like a canonical Marty masterpiece for some. Sure. I guess. But it's a very well-regarded movie.

2:14:29It's one of my favorites. It's interesting. I think it's well-regarded. My sense it's well-regarded. But when I think of, when you say canonical Marty movies, it kind of falls out of that. Right. Because I just don't think, I don't think that people think, this happened a couple years, this was the thing a couple years ago on social media. People still think of Scorsese as, he's the gangster guy. Yes. Yes. Right? And so. This is JJ's favorite bit. Right. People just don't think of The Last Tentation of Christ or Silence. Age of Innocence. Age of Innocence as being like Marty movies.

2:15:00Right. In the same way. But what's like, Jesus is as central of this guy's entire filmography as anything. Right. Yes. Going back to Mean Streets. Going back to Mean Streets.

2:15:14Jamel, is there anything you want to plug? Anything I want to plug, you know, my columns every week at the Times. I have a YouTube channel. You've been doing great videos. That I've been doing. Are you still on TikTok or are you kind of moving over to YouTube? I'm still on TikTok. I know you're doing TikToks. Yeah. I'm still doing TikToks. But the YouTube channel, I feel like it's called Takes. It's called Takes. Takes. Ever so often, someone was like, you didn't really trademark, because it's like Takes TM. Yeah. You didn't really trademark Takes, did you? No. It's a joke. No, you did it. No, I did, actually. If anyone does a Take, five bucks to you. I get a couple dollars.

2:15:44It's a joke. Well, you make a lot of money any time I film a movie, because they're on Take Five, and they owe you $25. Now, Jamel, are you telling me that people on the internet can't take a joke? Maybe. People on the internet can't take a joke. Okay. So it's my YouTube page. It's just like Jamel Bowie. Easy to find. And check that out. It's sort of like, if you, I understand people have feelings about the New York Times. And so, if you don't want to, like, read the New York Times, then I do kind of basically sort of, not the equivalent of my columns, but like, you know, a little seven, eight minute arguments, observations, that kind of thing.

2:16:14You're doing some video editing? You're getting in the mix here. I'm getting in the mix. Let me also throw this out, not to steal Ben's usual line of compliments here. You've been throwing fits. You've always been a well-dressed man. You're good to know. But the last year or so, I think you've stepped up to a whole other level. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. You look incredible today. You look incredible in the video. Yeah, your jacket is great. Thank you. Amazing jacket collection. Thank you so much. So, that's the main other thing. And I don't really have anything else to plug.

2:16:46You know, they released these, like, three weird flavors of Oreos, chicken and waffles, banana pudding, and fried. Banana pudding sounds kind of good. Fried? It's fried. Before I came here, I ordered them, and they'll be at my house when I get home, and I'm going to do, like, a stream. That's exciting. So, if you want to see me eat weird Oreos, I am looking at this. This is very interesting. I'll be doing that, too. Amazing. Deep fried. They just call it deep fried. Yeah, deep fried. Because that's, like, the carnival thing. No, I know that, but obviously, it looks like the actual Oreo that you're buying, though.

2:17:18It's just kind of a, it's kind of like a triple-decker Oreo. But the cream inside is flavored as if there's a fried coating. It sounds a little against God, but I'm genuinely curious about these chicken and waffle Oreos. Chicken and waffles is very interesting. Savory Oreos I get a little touchy about. Have I told you about the Citi Field egg rolls? Have we talked about this? No, I mean, I've been to Citi Field. Yeah. With you. So, you know, Citi Field has a walk and roll, which is like an egg roll place, and they have a different themed egg roll. A very funny egg roll place, we should mention. Walk and roll. Yeah.

2:17:49Different themed egg roll for every visiting team. And so for the Atlanta Braves, they had a chicken and waffles egg roll, which is what I'm thinking about. America's just such an interesting place. Yeah. You know, where they're just like, what if we stuff X into Y? Yeah, it's interesting how we nailed it. We're failing across so many different levels. Yes. But on the question of food innovation. Oh, food science. We've never been better. Tajin. Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Tajin. Cheesy Gordita Crunch. That's true. We started with this chat. Now we're ending with, obviously, you've been on Doughboys several times, I feel like.

2:18:21Yeah. Check out those appearances. I'm jealous of whoever's going to get the Tajin menu as an episode. Right. Probably Barack Obama. Next week. Bro, I'm actually reasonably confident Barack Obama would go on Doughboys. Do we think he listens? Do we think he's Spoon Nation or Burger Brigade? I don't know. Good question. I'm something of a heat seeker.

2:18:45Next week on Blank Check, Goodfellas. Goodfellas. Haven't recorded that one yet? No. Over on the Patreon. Yeah. What do we got? We released New York stories. Oh, yeah. Sure. As well as amazing stories. Right. Stories. A double header of stories. A double feature of stories. Yes. But we're just going to cover Marty's New York story. Just Marty's segment. Twilight Zone, the movie rules. So that's happening over there. Thank you all for listening. This reminds me. Oh, no. Yes. I have one more thing to plug. Please. My podcast, Unclear and Present Danger with John Gantz, about the political and military

2:19:18doors of the 1990s. Of course. Great pod. Yeah. So just need to plug that. What movies have you covered recently? This week, we're recording the X-Files movie. The new cut? No, the old cut. Okay. Fight the Future. Fight the Future. Okay. But do you know about the new cut? I've heard about the new cut. I want to see the new cut because my main thought on this old cut is that the editing choices are inexplicable. But this is new cut of second movie. Yes. Okay. New cut of second movie. That's called like Der Frankenstein? David? Something like that. Look, Chris Carter, I love you.

2:19:48I'm very glad you're getting pushed out on a big boat or an ice floe. And this is the last thing. Like, it so clearly reeks of him. Like, he brought back the X-Files. Yes. Right? And the first season he brought back was pretty bad. People didn't like it. Everyone was like, God, but it's great to see everyone. And there were a couple good episodes in there. He's like, ah, I can fix it. I can fix it. I can fix it. And he's like, I'll do another season. And everyone was like, oh my God. Enough. Enough. You know what? Enough, buddy. And he's like, what? And they just picked it up. And he's like, okay, but before you take it away from me, can I recut the second movie and call it, I want to believe, Vak Frankenstein?

2:20:20And they're like, well, yeah, whatever. Yeah, fine. Like, go ahead. We'll put it on Disney Plus and that's enough out of you. It's new subtitle is Dr. Frankenstein in German because he's like, I'm like Dr. Frankenstein reconstituting this corpse. All right. Well, we didn't watch that. No, no. Fight the Future is canonical 90s conspiracy thriller. Great movie. I love that movie. It has some weird choices. I agree. But great movie. So that's all. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, no. Very important.

2:20:50You need to plug the podcast. Of course. Absolutely. And with that having been said, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Goodfellas. And as always, I'd like to try some alts. If I can try some alts quickly. Okay. Willem da Redeemer. Willem da Bread of Life. Willem da Lord. Willem da Son of the Living God. Yeah. How about Willem da Carpenter?

2:21:21Yeah. Willem da Carpenter. Willem da Son of Man. Willem da Image of the Invisible God. Willem da Lion of da Tribe of da Judah. And of course, Willem da Christ. Willem da Christ. Willem da Christ. Willem da Christ. Father, Son. No, sorry. Let me try that again. Father, Willem da Son, and Holy Ghost. Willem da Father, Willem da Son. Yeah. Willem da Father, Willem da Son, Willem da Holy Ghost. Because it's the Trinity. They're all one and the same. They are.

2:21:51Beautifully said. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in The Great American Novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds.

2:22:23Our 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, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

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