Blank Check with Griffin & David - Bound

Episode Date: April 18, 2016

Blank Check returns with another new mini series, this time examining the filmography of directors the Wachowskis. And like the past investigations (George Lucas, M. Night Shyamalan), Griffin and David aim to discover how did Hollywood go on to give these auteurs free reign and what were the consequences? Starting with 1996’s Bound, join the hosts as they discuss the greatness of Joey Pants, remembering the 90’s, Gina Gershon and the Sam Simon connection, plus why cell phones have ruined cinema.

I had this image of you inside of me, like a podcast of me. Okay. I don't remember that. That's the opening line of the film. Okay. And that's the opening line of a new miniseries. Wow. Crack.

You hear that sound? Is that us cracking open a new miniseries? Yeah, we've cracked it open. Okay. Like a champagne bottle. We crack it open. Great. And then drink from each half.

I don't remember that. That's the opening line. They repeat it.'t remember that. That's the opening line. They repeat it. Yeah. That's the opening narration and it's like a in media res and they bring it back later. No, right. I remember. I was trying to find the longer one. Look. Hey, great. Great. Great. Great. Look, you know we're doing great. We don't need to go into this. I'm David Simms.

I'm Griffin Newman. Alright. This podcast is called Blank Check with, surprise, Griffin and David. The two friends. The two friends. Maybe you heard of us. This is a new miniseries. Yeah, it's our podcast.

We talk about movies, talk about directors. We just finished a big old series on a director. Pod Night Shamacast. And now we're going to do a new one. The Podchowski Casters. The Podchowski Casters. Yeah. That's what it's called. That's what it's one. The Podchowski casters? The Podchowski casters. Yeah. That's what it's called.

That's what it's called. The Podchowski casters. Because we're here to talk about the Wachowskis. Yes. So this is, we like to pick directors. Every once in a while we do a one-off. We like to pick directors and go through the filmography and try to get a bigger sense of who these people are. You know, our friend J.D. Amato, past and possibly future guest of the show.

You love referencing this quote. He said that he thinks all movies are about their filmmakers. Sure. And so it's interesting to look at a career, you know, and we're watching things in linear time. So you see a movie, three years later, a new movie comes out.

Yeah, and then you're like, okay. But no, yeah, of course, we're watching everything in this larger context. But also in a condensed time period, which makes it interesting of course we're watching everything in this larger context but but also in a condensed time period which makes it interesting and we're watching movies made by directors who get a blank check from hollywood and that's the premise of our podcast and that's what we do that's the ostensible premise of this show yeah and we came up with the wachowskis like a six months ago and we're finally doing it. If not longer. We had this idea

almost concurrent with the Shyamalan idea because we were like, let's make sure we have two ideas. You had Shyamalan and I had Wachowskis. Yes.

I think that was, we came up with a pretty, you know, similar time. Now the Wachowskis at the time, interesting choice. Now,

a more interesting choice. Correct. Born, Andy, and Larry Wachowski's at the time, interesting choice. Now, a more interesting choice. Correct. Born Andy and Larry Wachowski. Sure. I think about four years ago. They were born four years ago? No, I'm saying four years ago. I don't know the timeline.

I believe Larry came out as a transgender woman and reintroduced herself to the world as Lana Wachowski yeah I think Lana came out sort of you know having it was a slow process but Round One Speed Racer came out so 2008 so like 8 years ago

okay already made their films very fascinating right? sure sure sure because their films are very prominent hollywood directors yes but who make pretty weird challenging movies for considering that oh and a big budget mainstream often on a big budget mainstream level yeah but very odd mainstream studio films and they're also all about identity. Absolutely. And the sort of like transience of identity and our physical bodies in relation to our human spirits. All these

interesting things, right? Yeah. So you start to look at through that prism, you go, huh, interesting. Wow. Yeah, sure. Right. Well, they used to, you know, they used to build themselves as the Wachowski brothers and now they're the Wachowskis and you're like, oh, that's crazy. And I think they were erroneously in the wake of the Matrix viewed as these hyper masculine filmmakers yeah because people were looking at the wrong

elements they were tagged as like and we'll get to this yeah you know but they were tagged as like sort of the ultimate like kind of nerdy bro types who like you know like you know ladies with guns and like skin tights you know i mean like the Matrix got ripped off in so many bad ways that maybe, and maybe that sort of got tagged onto the Wachowski. Yes, I think people, like, looked at the things that the people who didn't understand the Matrix liked. And, like, violence, guns. Exactly.

That kind of stuff. About a month ago. Yeah, really recently. Really recently. And much more, like, Lana's transition was kind of talked about for years. It was a gradual thing. There were murmurs, and then there was a while before she finally sort of came out publicly and addressed it and everything.

This was a sudden, sort of much more surprising thing. Yes. At least for me. I mean, I'll admit, I don't follow too closely the personal lives of most directors. Yes. Lily W most directors. Yes. Lily Wachowski, the second Wachowski sibling, it came out that the Daily Mail was about to out her,

and she took the bull by the horns in a very shitty situation. Very shitty situation. Garbage world I'm constantly reminded we live in. We live in a garbage world. One of these garbage worlds we live in. And wrote a piece about her journey to this point. So, you know, statistically the odds of two siblings in one family being transgendered,

very small. Don't know nothing about statistics. I don't either. I don't know. But it seems rare, right? Which makes it interesting. And then you also go like, okay, so they're two siblings in the same family.

They work together. They're filmmakers. We've never had a major transgender filmmaker before and now we have two of them. They explore these themes in their movies and in ways both major and their TV show. In ways both major and minor and sort of obvious and subtextual.

That's not the only prism we're going to view their films through. No, I mean, honestly, when I proposed this as a blank check, it's more obviously it's kind of like Shyamalan. These are guys who made The Matrix, and I use guys in a gender-neutral sense, but they made The Matrix, and it was a huge out of the box crazy hit second movie humongous unlike anything anyone was prepared for this like

weird r-rated movie was this huge like you know surprise smash and ever since then they've gotten to make the most bonkers movies like you can imagine what the biggest budgets none of them have hit i mean you know yeah none of them have hit i mean yeah none of them have really sequels i think made a profit or whatever but we're disappointing relative to the original and like you know these movies were pretty much disliked yeah and were other than matrix reloaded financial disappointment always had fans but critically disliked out of the gate you know almost always sort of rediscovered a couple years later,

maybe, for their, like, traits, you know, their good stuff, like movies like Speed Racer. Right. Cloud Atlas. Jupiter Ascending, which we've talked about on this podcast.

I think in our very first episode, we talked about how much we liked Jupiter Ascending. The Netflix series Sense8, which I think is coming back. Yeah. For a second season. Yeah. The Wachowskis.

The Wachowskis. We're going to talk about the Wachowskis. We're talking about their first film today, Bound. So excited. Yeah, we're going to talk about Bound today. But before we do, a little housekeeping. Oh, major housekeeping. Guys, it's been a crazy time.

It's been a crazy time. I've got a cold as well, so if you can hear that in my voice. Because you folks at home. Oh, boy. You just, every Monday morning Because you folks at home. Oh, boy. You just, every Monday morning, open your podcast app. Oh, nice clean episode. And you're like, oh, hey, blank check. Here we go.

Backstage, boy, chaos. Our schedule's been all over the place. It's been a lot of difficulty getting a new episode out every week, banking some up, not meeting for a while, trying to sneak in, whatever. Not important to you, but this is what is important. Last weekend, we recorded two episodes in one go. Yes. We recorded the very secret of M.H. on one.

Two very loopy episodes. Very loopy. We were feeling both pretty loopy. When we were running behind, Griffin's career has been very chaotic as of late. Yeah. Very exciting. Yeah.

But, you know, it's been hard to pin you down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very exciting. Yeah. But, you know, it's been hard to pin you down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we recorded two at once. We recorded Buried Secret, which you've heard at this point. Yeah.

A dissection of an unseen movie that nobody watched. Yeah, that no one makes sense of. Although I will say, our friend, friend of the show, Caroline Anderson, works for Comedy Bang Bang. Hey, Caroline.

A wonderful human being. Shout out, Caroline. I saw her recently and she told me that she, in fact, not only watched Buried Secret in preparation for her episode, but re-watched. Because Caroline is, to date, the only person I've ever spoken to who watched

that live when it aired on the SyFy channel. Oh, wow. So she re-watched it. That's crazy. I didn't think anyone. I thought I got a zero Nielsen rating. Yeah, I did too. Apparently one person is so negligible they round it down to zero, but I think Caroline was the only one who watched it live. We did that

episode, right? And by the way, if you've also... If you've listened to it, it's a thing. It's a thing. And you should give it a shot. We recorded a second episode right after that. We were filming Double Loopy. This is an episode we promised for a while. We usually like to do a little palate cleanser. It was a Sunday afternoon.

We like to do a little palate, a Sherbert in between miniseries to cleanse the palate, right? Yeah, we like to intersperse a little bonus between major miniseries. Right. like to intersperse yeah a little bonus between major series miniseries right right so we did a long promised uh batman v superman dawn of justice bonus episode that was alternately titled depending on who you ask who cares what it was titled griffin v david donna ben or watchman v bvs donna snyder something dumb like that right yeah we were pretty loopy oh boy it was pretty ramshackle yeah it was it was the worst episode we've ever recorded bar none i was gonna try to talk around it but yeah it was the worst

episode we ever piece of garbage i think about 45 minutes in we realized what was happening yeah and we didn't save it but we at least we proceeded to just be weirder as a result we threw a lot of shit the wall and then we sort of said to ben like well it was probably a good 45 minutes of there right? We talked for an hour and a half. I remember Ben when we were done recording Ben you just leaned in the microphone and spoke to your engineer and just was like I'm sorry. Yeah no I was telling

Brian who helps edit the show I am so sorry. This is going to take a lot of time. I don't want you to think that we haven't released this episode because it was bad. We were going to take a lot of time. I don't want you to think that we haven't released this episode because it was bad. We were going to release it. We were going to release it. We have no vanity.

It was going to go out there. I believe in this being awards and all show. I think we have tolerant fans, and I want you to understand the narrative of what we're going through psychologically on a week-to-week basis. But the Lord God himself reached down from the sky and corrupted the audio of this episode so profoundly.

Like every... It cannot be released. Like once a minute, five seconds of audio drop out. Is that accurate, Ben? Yes, yes. Is it more frequent than that? No, it's like every few minutes or so, yeah, a couple of seconds, but enough where it's just like you lose context

of the terrible things we're talking about. Yes, we're talking about awful things, but we're also in our classic style going like so fast through like so many dense different like bits upon facts. I mean literally, we started this episode thinking we were going to talk about Watchmen and Batman versus Superman. An hour in we're like,

oh, I guess we're just not going to talk about Watchmen. We're just only going to talk about bullshit. It was dense and it was messy, right? David was yelling. I was yelling. I was yelling. You were yelling. The audio was so bad that we were like, this episode's barely going to make sense. It already barely made sense.

It doesn't make sense. It's going to be difficult to listen to. So this is our current plan. We had long promised that we were going to do a Batman vs. Superman episode. At this point, the movie's been out a month. Literally nobody cares about the movie. Everyone's chewed it up, digested it, shit it out, ate the shit, shit it back out again, right? They didn't eat the shit.

They did. They ate the shit. They drank the diarrhea. They... I made a face at that. No one needed us to weigh in anymore. Nope. And I think about 15 minutes into the episode, we were like, oh, no one needs us to weigh in on this anymore.

But there was the much ballyhooed aspect that we were going to cover. It's true. It was much-ballyhooed. It was much-ballyhooed. Yeah, you... I'll just summarize this. You and Ben saw the fucking movie in 4DX. Wait, who? Oh, Jesus. Wait, David, who are you talking about?

Oh, here we go. Producer Ben, a.k.a. Purdue-er Ben, a.k.a. the Menducer, a.k.a. the Poet Laureate, a. poet laureate aka the haas aka mr positive aka the tiebreaker aka birthday benny aka the fuck master aka the peeper yeah not professor crispy but he is ben night shamalon yep oh boy hey everybody how you doing yeah yeah kylo ben uh but you know he's know, he's in there in the booth. Man of many memes. Oh, HelloFennel.

HelloFennel. We greet him on HelloFennel. No, you and Ben saw it in 4DX, which is some sort of, like, radical, like, punching technology, like, you know, viewing experience where the seat, like, sucks your dick or whatever. I don't know. And it sprays you in your face with water. It just sounds terrible. First of all, that's very crass. I'm a very crass person. The seat does not suck your dick. It performs Then it sprays you in your face with water. It just sounds terrible. First of all, that's very crass.

I'm a very crass person. The seed does not suck your dick. It performs fellatio upon you. I'm a crass person, and it sounded like a crass experience for a crass movie. It was. It's like if you wish that all movies could be Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,

4DX has risen to that challenge. Yeah, it's like that Terminator movie where they face the T-1 million that's like a spider. Oh, you're talking that Terminator movie where they face like the T-1 million. It's like a spider. Oh, you're talking about Terminator 2 Battle Cross Time? Correct. Which has been replaced by Shrek 4D. Because I recently went to Universal Studios two days ago. Yeah, yeah.

And boy, Shrek 4D, not a great movie. Can I say this? Poorly written. Shit, really? Like I walked out of it. I heard Tom Stoppard did a pass. Yeah, right? I walked out of it not being like, that's a shitty amusement park ride.

I was like, that's a bad movie. Like, that's a poorly directed, acted, and written film. We don't care. We're recording this episode late because Griffin was held over in Los Angeles because of his fancy job as a superhero in a TV show. I was getting fitted for my superhero costume, and let me tell the audience, because I know they've been very invested in this, I can assure you the costume,

the current plan is for the costume to be two separate pieces, so I will be able to poop while wearing it. Not while wearing it, but easily get out of it. Did you talk to three-time Academy Award winner Colleen Atwood about needing to poop? Absolutely not.

Because she designed the costume, am I correct? She did, correct. And she has three Academy Awards from Absolutely not. Okay. Because she designed the costume, am I correct? She did. Correct. And she has three Academy Awards from 11 nominations. Yep. Can you guess the three wins? I know the three wins. All for not great jobs, in my opinion. I think good work.

Memoirs of a Geisha. Good work, but not her best work. Memoirs of a Geisha is one. Number two is Alice in Wonderland. Correct. Number three is Chicago. That's right. Which is really well-designed costumes.

The other ones, it's like, I hate those movies. She did... She did so many great... Edward Scissorhands. So many great movies. Oh, yeah. She's worked with Burton a million times. Silence of the Lambs.

Correct. Yeah. She was a big Demi person at the beginning. Yeah, Mars Attacks, Gattaca. She designed the fucking Martian Spy Girl, which is one of my favorite looking characters of all time. Yeah. Mars Attacks a great design.

Let me say this. Sweeney Todd. Also, like, one of the most badass human beings I've ever met. Oh, yeah? She's like a Suffer No Fools, Mince No Wards, like, awesome, awesome lady. Costume designers, man. Yeah, so she's making a superhero suit to fit my stupid body. Yeah, and a stupid body it is. It's really dumb.

For you listeners at home, I cannot oversell how dumb my body is. Isn't it great that there might be new listeners to this episode, by the way? Yeah. Who'd be like, let's jump in at the pod cast, podchowski casters or whatever. Yeah. And then you hear me talk about being able to poop in a superhero costume. I did not say anything to her. We were like.

You were silent. Fitting stuff. I was totally silent the whole time. We were like fitting stuff. I was totally silent the whole time. We were like fitting stuff and then she was like throwing ideas and she was like what do you think if we like split this in two so it was like a jacket and a bottom part with a belt in between. And I was like yeah yeah I think that sounds great. I think that sounds great.

So she presented it and I heartily agreed. So you're not in a jumpsuit is what you're saying basically. You're not in like a one piece. No it's a little closer. The current Flash costume on the CW where it looks sort of like two pieces but it's kind of continuous yeah yeah you know the flash poops a lot uh good costume i like it uh was very hard for me not to cry when i saw myself in it very exciting guys can't wait for you folks to see it but anyway back to this we saw it in 4dx No, okay. So let's just move on from this.

But you guys saw the movie in 4DX. We chatted about that for a while on this lost episode. I think that section was the- It might be worthy of release. The one part of value. So Ben's going to go through, try to clean up the audio, but I think we're going to release it like a 15 minute bonus episode. Yeah, you guys make a little chunk later in the week. Yes.

Just for funsies. Because that's the thing you want to hear. It's just for funsies. It's just for funsies. Because that's the thing you want to hear. It's just for funsies. It's just for funsies. Don't take it seriously. Just stop taking us so fucking seriously and wait for the funsie episode

and if it doesn't come out, you know what? Tweet angrily at Ben Honsley. Ever since we got right up on Podmask, everyone takes us so seriously.

Do they? So seriously. Thanks for the Podmask write up. Oh yeah, thank you Rebecca. I think we talked about that. Yeah.

Okay. Podcasting. The Pod. Thank you Rebecca. I think we talked about that. Yeah. Okay. Podcasting. The Podchowski casters. Jesus Christ. I like that this is flipped because like last season I had a hard time with our title.

Yeah. And this season you're having a tough time. I mean I like it though. I like the title. Yeah. Yeah. Bounce.

Yeah so. The year is 1996. That's correct. The Wachowskis. The Wachowskis. The Wachowskis are a couple of, you know, young writers in Hollywood. Midwestern? Where are they from? Chicago, Chicago.

Yeah, they're from Chicago. Yeah. They're Polish, like many a Chicagoan, you know. They probably ate a lot of kielbasa and, you know, what do people do in Chicago? Like, Griffey Nooms over here is also Polish. I don't know if you know that. Oh, you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I have some Polish descent. You know, I mean, do in Chicago? Like, Griffey Nooms over here is also Polish. I don't know if you know that. Oh, you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I have some Polish descent. You know, I mean, it's Jews. Yeah. I think I'm like three-fourths or something like that, maybe. Yeah, I'm mostly Lithuanian. Ew. So, yeah, you know, they are a couple of Chicagos, and I think one of them went to Bard College,

my brother's alma mater, and one of them went to Emerson College. So, you know, nice kind of them went to Emerson College. So, you know, nice kind of goofy liberal arts, you know, arty schools. And then they wrote comic books a little bit, I think. I think they worked at Marvel in their younger years. I believe so. And I think they also very quickly start like script doctoring, doing passes, punch up.

They wrote Ecto Kid. They wrote a lot of like Clive Barker. Remember Marvel had like weird little Clive Barker stuff? Yeah. But I think they also were credited on Assassins, perhaps? Well, this is the thing. They wrote a script for Assassins, which was a crappy 1994 action movie starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas when he was still figuring out how to speak English.

And Julianne Moore? Yeah. Weird cast. But Julianne Moore posts her five minutes in The Fugitive, you know, like early Julianne Moore. Right. But pre like one of our finest actresses. Vanya on 42nd Street, Julianne Moore.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Julianne Moore still figuring it out. Anyway, not a good movie. No. So did they write the original? They wrote the script. It was their spec script that then got butchered?

Warner Brothers picked it up and gave them like a two picture you know two script deal or something as part of that pickup yeah then director brian later director brian helgeland oscar winner brian helgeland who wrote la confidential and directed a lot of movies he like rewrote the script he's credited to richard donner made the movie it sucked and was was its huge bum. It's a bad movie. I've seen like 20 minutes of it on TV. If I'm not mistaken, I believe they write The Matrix and present to Warner Brothers as one of the two films in that deal. And Warner Brothers, they have two notes. One of them is, by all accounts, this is the legend I've heard,

is they return the script with a post-it note saying, what is this? Can you explain this to us? And we'll get to the Matrix. Right? But by all accounts, they were like, I'm not saying it's good. I'm not saying it's bad.

We just literally had that script. Don't understand the script. So the Wachowski sat down, explained the Matrix, the look, understood, you know, here's how it's going to make sense visually, all of this. And Warner said, OK, now we get it and we like it. We have no faith that you can pull off a movie of this size. You haven't directed a movie before.

Absolutely. So they said, like, if you've made another film, we feel a lot more comfortable. Yeah. A lot of this legend that I've also heard is from Joel Silver, who is the producer of the Matrix and is a legendary Hollywood fatso awesome man who wears Hawaiian shirts and has produced a million movies, half of them awful, half

of them great. Can I tell a really good quick sidebar story? Sure. My father would bring me to like, you know, things sometimes. I mean, Joel Silver is a parody of a Hollywood producer and I love the man and I think he's made a lot of fun movies and he's always fun on camera in like

you know, documentaries and DVD extras and stuff. Yes. He's just kind of a hilarious like, well, I told the you know, go ahead, go ahead. My grandmother works at a film festival in France, right? An American film festival in France. Oh boy. They, one year when I was like 12 or 13, were doing

a tribute to Joel Silver. Sure. So there was this big Joel Silver thing. And my dad was like. 48 hours. Die hard. All his classics. Predator.

The Matrix. The Hutt Sucker Proxy. Hudson Hawk. Okay. Yeah. So my dad was like, do you want to come to this party? Because I was a big fan of a lot of Joel Silver movies, right? Uh-huh.

And he's talking to someone who's like, I will not name him for the sake of Joel Silver movies, right? Uh-huh. And he's talking to someone who's like, I will not name him for the sake of, you know, not. Go ahead, go ahead. He was a higher up at Warner Brothers at the time, which is where Joel Silver was situated. That's where his shingle was placed, right? Silver Pictures. Right.

And my dad went up to him and said, hey, how are you doing? Went, hey, how are you? Da-da-da-da-da, this and that. And there was a woman standing close by but none of us knew who the woman was right okay and um the warner brothers my dad said to the warner brothers guy come on hey this is my son griffin he's 12 and he hates hollywood phonies which i don't know why dad said that my dad would always try to create a

fucking context for me right whatever it's a funny line and the warner brothers guy goes well you want to you want to talk about phonies this fat disgusting fuck in the ice cream colored suit over there and he points over to joel silver and he goes this is the grossest phoniest blowhardiest like like does he does he know it's joel silver 100 he's like a higher up at warner. And he's just ragging on Joel Silver. And he's like, I'm going to have fun saying this to this kid. And he's ragging on Joel Silver. And he's like piece of shit phony in this entire business. And then the woman goes, hey, that's my brother.

Oh, wow. That's crazy. That's a good story, right? Decent story. Yeah, decent story. Did he apologize? He went, this is what my dad did my dad went of course he is and we love him very much griff i think it's getting late we should head home

my dad immediately removed himself from that situation get out of there uh pistol pete newman does not like social discomfort awkwardness yep anyway so joel silver has often said i think what you're about to say which is like you know warners was like okay this matrix i don't know but we're we need we need something from you guys to prove that you can direct you're about to say, which is like, you know, Warners was like, okay, this Matrix, I don't know, but we need something from you guys to prove that you can direct. You're untested. This is a huge project.

And so Silver says they made Bound as like an audition piece. Like, you know, it's like, here we are. This is a small budget movie, but like, you know, look where we're putting the camera.

Look at like how we're like turning a little into a lot, basically. This was like a one or two million dollar movie? No, it was a little more. I think it was a six million dollar movie.

And so, the Wachowskis, I've read interviews where they've said like, oh, that's a little over. We wanted to make Bound, essentially. But who knows? I'm sure they wanted to make Bound, and it fits into a nice mythology. It's certainly interesting that they made a pretty small budget movie that basically takes place in two rooms.

There are two apartments. Yeah, and was clearly clearly shot like 90 on sound stages correct yeah and then of course transition to the most definitive action epic sci-fi masterpiece of cinema that has not yet been equal yeah i don't mean to imply that bound was like means to an end i think it's a a fully passionate film of theirs that they wanted to make. But I also think it was like strategically like even you look at how much style is in this film. And it's like they want to show with limited resources what they can milk. Mm-hmm.

And you talk about, I mean, like that the Matrix is something that hasn't sort of been met since then. It hasn't. I have often said that like- Maybe Mad Max? Like, you know. Yeah, but I mean, I know it's 99, but let's say like 21st century. I think the two movies of the 21st century, Love Him or Hate Him, whatever you think,

that like came in with like a completely new aesthetic that hadn't been crystallized before, elements before, and sort of changed the game, are The Matrix, and I would argue the second one's Napoleon Dynamite. I'm not even going to begin to discuss that. I said love it or hate it. I'm not going to begin to discuss that. But you know what I'm saying? Both of those movies... But that's a whole other thing.

That's indie, that's whatever. But I say this to make a point where it's like, you rarely get something where it's like, well, now the whole thing's changed. And now you're going to get 20 years of people... I'm not getting sucked into a conversation about Napoleon. I'm trying to refocus this on The Matrix. But I'm saying I think they had similar effects on their respective genres.

And I think The Matrix, yeah, it's like everything exists in the shadow of The Matrix now to one degree or another. We live in a post-Matrix culture. We do. And if you're making like an action film, if you're making a sci-fi film, if you're making anything like that, you're either influenced by the matrix or you're consciously choosing to not like copy the matrix. Do you know what I'm saying?

I do. But let's talk about the matrix next week. We're talking about, I'm just trying to set this. No, I agree with you. I agree with you. And like they're bound to sort of bound to the matrix,

you know what I mean? All right. All right. But I mean, bound comes out 96, three. David, David, two comedy Bound comes out in 96. David, too comedy point. That is too many. You know, it comes out three years before The Matrix,

comes out in 96. And I was talking about it with producer Ben before. It kind of has that great, trashy 90s vibe that is so common to so many 90s crime thrillers. Yes. Kind of the after effects of De Palma kind of washing upon the shore, all these crappy De Palma knockoffs. Barbet Schroeder's Kiss of Death. And then mixed in, I guess, with the Tarantino, we can just do pulpy noir movies again, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Things to do in Denver when you're dead. Like all these like, you know, forgotten 90s crap. Pretty much every David Caruso film.

I said Kiss of Death but also Jade. Sliver. Is it called Sliver or Silver? I always forget. Yeah, I think it's Sliver. Yeah. How about True Romance?

Yeah, True Romance. You know, that's the Tarantino thing but yeah, you know, exactly. Like it's just, it's like, what's it about? A bunch of garbage people.

What do they do? They fucking kill each other. Over what? Eh, money. Like, here's the thing. Are there, is there some sex? Yeah. If you were flipping through the channels.

I think this is a smarter movie than the movies we're talking about, but it has that vibe. Well, this is what I was going to say. If you're flipping through the channels, you know, like Cable 98, pre-DVR, so you can't get info on the title you're watching, right? You're flipping through. If you saw like two seconds of Bound, you'd be like, is this an episode of Red Shoe Diaries? Yeah, because it has a slightly stilted quality of the dialogue. You know, it stars Jennifer

Tilly and Gina Gershon. Gershon? Gina Gershon? I always thought it was Gina Gershon. Who are not like, you know, renowned thespians otherwise. They're good actors, both of them. But, you know, I mean, like Gina Gershon. Who are not like, you know, renowned thespians otherwise. They're good actors, both of them. But, you know, I mean, like Gina Gershon's probably most famous for Showgirls. Yes, a movie that is known for being like, you know.

Right. I mean, Showgirls is the apex of this kind of movie, right? Paul Verhoeven, I forgot to mention him. You know, like Basic Instinct, Showgirls, all the Joe Estes movies. I would love to fucking do a blank check because he's one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. Love Verhoeven. Great. Yeah. Showgirls, all the Joe Estes movies. I would love to fucking do a blank check because he's one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. Love for Hovind. Great. Yeah.

But Showgirls is a film that was like notorious for how disastrous it was and now has sort And it came out a year before Bound, I think. It's 95, I think. And there's like a balance between people who like love it because they think it's terrible and people who think it's brilliant and other people don't get it. Yeah. But it's like, you know, oh, let's get the second lead from a movie that just lost a tremendous amount of money.

And the reason they got her, I think, is because she's perfect for the role and perfect in the movie. So good. Right. Same for Jennifer Tilly. Jennifer Tilly coming off an Oscar nomination for Bullets Over Broadway. For doing the one thing she can do. Let's say that. Absolutely.

A well-deserved Oscar nomination. I think Jennifer Tilly's great, but she's definitely, you know. Yeah. You know, she's got like, she's like sort of a breathy. Yeah. Sex pot. Like, she's definitely, you know, she's got like, she's like sort of a breathy sex pot. Like she's awesome, but she does like one thing really, really, really, really well. I'll say this about both Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly. And she's an incredible poker player.

Yeah. Well, I want to talk about Jennifer Tilly a little because her life is a little fascinating. Jennifer Tilly had been around for years. Yeah. Just doing stuff. She played a Gary Shanley's girlfriend on It's Gary Shanley show. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Just doing stuff. She played a Gary Shanley's sister. She's Meg Tilly's girlfriend on It's Gary Shanley

show. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. She's in, yeah. She on that. She like pops up in things like, I don't know, like The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Doors and stuff. You know, like she'll just sort of like have little bit parts and stuff. Yeah. Her sister Meg Tilly in Academy Award nomination. Yeah, I was going to say Meg Tilly.

And then she just gets an Academy Award nomination when she's hysterically funny in Bullets Over Broadway. It's just like a perfectly cast Taylor made role, right? Absolutely. But she on It's Gary Shandling Show

meets Sam Simon. Oh, sure, the writer. Prodigious comedy writer producer. R.I.P. Sam Simon. R.I.P. Sam Simon. The youngest showrunner ever in network television history.

Okay. They get married. They get divorced soon after. And post-divorce, he becomes one of the creators and executive producers on The Simpsons. Yeah. He leaves The Simpsons after season two, I believe. Three maybe. Yeah.

Or after the early, you know, yeah. But as executive producer and co-creator, developer. Yeah, he's always there. He retains residuals for all aspects of the show in perpetuity. And so a legend that I love is that Jennifer Tilly has never remarried because the second she remarries

she stops becoming entitled to spousal support. Oh, I see. Because they divorced. But now Sam Simon is deceased. So I don't know. Jennifer Tilly's also like a World Series of Poker winner as well. That's the other thing we have to talk about. Jennifer Tilly's like low-key one of the best poker players in the world.

Jennifer Tilly's like swimming in money. But I just always like the idea that any man she ended up with was just like, just so you know, there's no possible world in which we get married. Because I'm on that Simpsons train. Hey, I don't know. I mean, look. If you got it, flaunt it. Yeah.

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon, I think both fall into a category. They're like loaded gun actors for me. Where it's like, it's a lot of responsibility if you're going to put them in a movie. You got to know how to use them. This is the thing. I don't want to diss either of them because they're both fantastic. I'm not dissing either of them. No, I know you're not.

But it's like, if you look at Jennifer Tilly's IMDb page, it's just like there are these nice little moments in it like Bullets Over the Broadway. Bullets Over the Broadway. Bullets Over the Broadway. Celia in Monsters, Inc. Celia, the receptionist. She's got one of the most distinctive voices.

You could still do a Jennifer Tilly impression and people would still get it even though Jennifer Tilly is not in a lot of movies these days. You could do a Jennifer Tilly. It people would still get it even though Jennifer Tilly is not like in a lot of movies these days. You could do a Jennifer Tilly. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Thank you. A little breathier, but it's pretty good.

Jennifer Tilly. You know, and then like she's in like Bride of Chucky, but she's also in 50 million other movies that you've never heard of. Correct. Love her. I mean, she's in Liar Liar, which I've seen a million times. And she's very funny. Very funny in that.

No, what I mean to say, I'm not dissing either actress, but I think they both. Gina Gershon is like more of like a great classy stage actress. Yes. Who does like all this amazing stuff on Broadway and off Broadway. Yeah. And then also kind of like a queen of Hollywood trash for some reason. Right, right. As a movie star, let's just say, right?

The Gina Gershon like Hollywood persona as a character in line with, like, the Jennifer Tilly persona are both things where, like, I think they're incredibly strong actresses. So good. When well used. But in the hands of bad directors, they can both be catastrophic. Yeah, because the bad directors or, you know, will just be like, yeah, you'll just play, like, the other woman or you'll play, like, some sort of, like like tempting lady or like some kind of mean hollywood lady or something i don't know she's in what she's in like let me i'm looking at her now she's in like red heat and cocktail she's in the player those are like her early roles and then after again it's like after that nice year with bound it's like what's she like the 14th lead in Face Off? What is she in Face Off? Oh she is Nicolas Cage's

baby mama in that film. Right, right, right. Who John Travolta as Cage like teams up with. You know she like pops up in good movies like The Insider but she's not like a major part of them. I'm sorry I just need to correct my previous statement. Do you know who Gina Gershon is in Face Off? Sure. She's the person

to whom Nicolas Cage says, I'm going to take his face off. Oh yeah, that's right. That immortal line is delivered to Gina Gershon. With the hand motion. Yeah, for the listener at home, we're doing the motion. But you know, I mean, again, she's like a Tony nominated actress. I love

Gina Gershon. I do too. But yeah, people can misuse her. It's a loaded gun, you know? You've really gone down a long road with these two actors. I think too. But yeah, people can misuse her. It's a loaded gun. You know, it's like- You've really gone down a long road with these two actors. I think it's important to state because it's like, if you walk into a video store in 1997 and you see a box and it's like, oh, here's an erotic thriller starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon. You go, ooh, that sounds dangerous.

I mean, it sounds- That's risky. That's a good call. I mean, in England it's rated 18, which is in England the highest rating. Things aren't rated R, they're rated like 15 or 18. Most movies are rated 15. You have to be extremely violent or extremely, extremely explicitly sexual to get an 18. It's got a bit of both.

And it's got a little bit of both. And 18 is like a red circle with an 18 in it. So it really kind of has like a slightly scarlet lettery like this is a you know intense bad movie and so when you see it on the on the vhs shelf you're like oh yeah all right this looks gamey you know and like the tagline on the poster is sex and crime forever that's the tagline yeah i don't know what kind of a tagline that's supposed to be. And the poster is like them tied together. Yeah. In like this very sort of like sort of suggestive S&M way

where in the movie the like the titular moment where they're bound is very much like a terrifying upsetting thing. Like it's not like a like ooh we're binding each other. So let's move on from perception and move into the actual movie which is great. This movie's fucking great. So let's move on from perception and move into the actual movie, which is great.

This movie's fucking great. So good. This movie is so, so strong. It's like an insane debut film. Yeah. I mean, I just, I tried to watch this. I'd never seen this film before. I thought I had, but I didn't. Yeah, I thought I had too.

I think I'd only seen certain scenes. Weirdly, I had not. As much as like, yeah, I'm sure, you know, obviously it has like a couple of, really just one sex scene that's kind of like. Yeah, it's got one. It's like, you know, when you watch it, you're like, oh, this is like a nicely done, it's not like a particularly

like over the top, like ooh. Oh, I agree. What's the word I'm looking for? Salacious. Yeah, yeah, sex scene. When I was like 14 or 15, I was like,'s the word I'm looking for? Salacious. Yeah, yeah, sex scene. When I was like 14 or 15, I was like, ooh, this scene sounds great. Like looked it up, found it, you know, probably downloaded off Kazaa or whatever it was, you know?

It wasn't hosted in any sites or whatever. And then watched it and I was like, this is disappointing. I want to acknowledge, by the way, it is outrageous and offensive that the two of us, two boring straight guys who suck, are talking about this fucking landmark movie. It sucks. It sucks. I know. Like an important cornerstone of queer cinema. I'd rather have a guest on this episode, but our timing has been terrible. Terrible.

We haven't found, you know, it's just terrible. Terrible. Whatever. I really apologize. That's another piece of housekeeping here, just like table setting. Because my schedule's a little crazy right now, this might be a guest light season. That, you know, that's fine. We're great.

We just want you to know. We just want you to know. But this episode, I'm just particularly upset. I know. We're a bunch of jamokes, and we shouldn't be fucking talking about this. But we love it. Yeah, no, it's a great movie. What I was going to say was I watched this scene when I was 15, and I was like, eh, what's

the big whoop? And then I watched the scene in the context of this movie, and I was like, that's a great piece of cinema. Oh, it's awesome. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, as masturbatory material. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Masturbatory? That's not how you pronounce that made-up word. Like, most great art. If you're looking to masturbate, you'll be disappointed. Do you know what I'm saying? I do, I do. The best art should not be masturbated to. Let's glide past this as quickly as

we can disturbatory no but i know what you mean yeah i mean it's actually a well done scene it's not a porn scene it's not a scene meant for a 15 year old to download off kazaa yeah right it's a real piece of cinema yeah wachowski's uh works with um a i need to look her up a sex educator called Susie Bright who's like a legend in the you know like sex education she's like a feminist writer you know and they were like big fans of hers and

they wanted to like get the scenes right I don't know how you know I mean I think both Tilly and Gershon are straight actresses I'm pretty sure. I don't. I don't. I actually am.

Sam Simon, you know. It looks slight in scale. I mean, we all exist in shades of gray, David. I think the Wachowskis were pretty intent on not making a gross, porny, lesbian thriller that was just about boobs, you know, and like they wanted to get the sex scenes right. There's lots of focus on hands. Yes.

Susie Bright has talked about like that this is a wet movie rather than a hard movie. Like if that makes sense, like, you know. Yeah, that makes sense. It's interesting. It's not like this like aggressive male sort of like sex thriller and it works. I'll say this. It's. And like, you know, the bar scene where Gina Gershon goes to the gay bar.

Yes. Like that is all Susie Bright's buddies, including Susie Bright, like all the customers, you know, all the patrons who Gina Gershon is trying to all the patrons who suzy bright is the one because i looked at idb i believe suzy bright's the one that she hits on yeah yeah um i i will say this i i do think this is maybe the most erotic film i've ever seen boy but it's like intellectually erotic it's it's a great movie do you know what i'm saying yeah like yeah okay we're watching two pretty ladies kiss you know I'm human gets a rise out of me whatever you know Ben you have anything to say about this

um I mean Gina Gershon I just wanted to cut that off Gina Gershon I gotta tell you as a 90s kid I had a major 90s boner telling you right now well because like in showgirls which is such a gross episode I really want to move past this because this is so incorrectly yeah it's crappy. I'm telling you right now. Well, because like in Showgirls, which is such a gross episode. It's so gross. I really want to move past this

because this is so incorrect. Yeah, it's crappy. I'm not into it. No. Yeah. No, what I mean to say is I found this film almost unbearably erotic

because of David. David. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The way the Wachowskis film it, edit it, and sort of create

the tension and the chemistry between the two of them. It's not a very graphic movie. And thus we will move on. Right. But I'm saying this film builds up like a fucking hot kettle. It's steaming up. Well, the thing about this movie is I think if you went

into it, you would think, oh, these two are going to get together at the end, and it's going to be this sort of big like climactic thing where like their romance kind of finally like you know comes into the forefront of the movie. It's like minute 20? Yeah it's basically the movie is like Gina Gershon she's out of jail. She's playing a. Her character's name is Corky.

Yeah. Which is really fun. A work a day jobber called Corky an ex-con. Yeah. Fresh out she's. She's working for a mafioso. Sort of doing maintenance in the building. Yeah and she's basically cleaning up working for a mafioso. Sort of doing maintenance in the building. Yeah, and she's basically cleaning up some apartment, you know, that's now empty. Right.

And next door lives a sort of, like, you know, a capo, you know, some mafia guy. Named Caesar. Named Caesar, played by the wonderful Joe Pantoliano. How do you say it? That's how you say his name. Yeah, I think so. Pantoliano, you know, he's the best. Joey Pants.

Joey Pants, the legendary Joey Pants who would be in the Matrix later and obviously he's in the Sopranos he's in the Fugitive he's in the Zillion Fuckers I would argue he's in Risky Business

he's also he's great in Midnight Run he's great in Midnight Run Gattadouk yeah I mean he's Gattadouk he's always been a classic like

angry little Italian guy yeah he's in Memento he's wonderful in Memento. Yes. Oh, he's so good in that. I forgot about that. But this is like kind of like a perfect vehicle for him.

Like they just like perfectly harnessed everything that's incredible about him. Yeah, absolutely. In this film. And they gave him a lot. I mean, he is not a supporting character. He's almost the third lead. And I'd argue he's almost an equal lead of the film.

Yeah, absolutely. It's always interesting because it also hands off spotlight. Right, right. Corky's kind of the main character of the first 30 minutes, and then Jennifer Tilly's character, Violet,

is kind of the main character in the middle where they're sort of hatching this plot. Yes. And then Caesar's kind of the big character at the end. I agree.

The third act, I think, is really his spotlight. It's a pretty tight, I was going to say it's like an hour 40. It's I think is really his spotlight. It's a pretty tight I was going to say it's like an hour 40. It's like an hour 50. It's pretty long actually. But anyway so Corky's next door in this empty apartment. She meets her neighbors who are Caesar

this mob guy and Violet who's basically like a gangster's mole. She's sort of dressed to the nines at all times and she's very obviously like they've been together for years, but she sort of serves this like arm candy function. Yes. She's like a gangsters mall. There's this great scene early.

Well, no, go ahead. No, no. What were you gonna say? I was gonna set up something further. Yeah. Well, there's this great scene early. Well, I mean, basically Corky, who is like obviously like an openly gay woman like pretty early on hooks up with Violet

and then I love this scene where Caesar comes home and they're kind of just in the apartment and he reacts to Corky who he thinks is a man because it's like dark and Corky's short hair from behind and he's like hey what the fuck and it's like you know there's just this weird like

it's all there that like Caesar's like you are my, there's just this weird, like, it all, it just, it's all there that, like, Caesar's like, you are my property and you are not allowed to be with any man. Like, clothed, not clothed, in this apartment, no. Then she turns around, he sees it's a woman, and he goes like, oh, God. Oh, and he's like, forget it. Oh, never mind. And it's just, it's like, it's a great scene to just set up, like, yep, this is an antiquated person.

Yeah. Like, the idea that uh violet would be gay or anything like that yeah never even enter his brain yeah but it's just like if you were in here with another man like you are dead meat even if you're we've been together for years like it doesn't matter there's a lot of really sharp economical storytelling in this movie and it's also like it's one of these thrillers that's just like tight as a drum like it runs like a clock you know and um especially since it's really there, it's one of these thrillers that's just like tight as a drum. Like it runs like a clock, you know? Especially since it's really, there's one scene where Corky goes into this gay bar, as we said.

Yeah. That I think is really just there for kind of color and like just a little bit of characterization. Well, that's also the first time we find out. No, that's not the first time we find out. But there's that great scene where she goes in. She goes up to the woman. She starts hitting on her. The other woman comes up. Oh, we find out she's an ex-con. Exactly. That's where you find out. Right. I was trying to remember if that was the first time we find out, but there's that great scene where she goes in, she goes up to the woman, she starts hitting on her, the other woman comes up. Oh, we find out she's an ex-con.

Exactly, that's where you find out. Right. I was trying to remember if that was the first time we find out. It might be. But the way they show that is she's hitting on one woman, another woman comes over and goes like, oh, Corky, huh? What are you doing? I didn't know you were out so soon. And then flashes her badge, and Corky's immediately like, okay, but if you get tired of Cagney

and Lacey, come find me. You know? Yes. So you get a sense of her character, her attitude, her sexuality, the way she interacts with other people. You know, this is a woman who doesn't fuck around. Right. And she's an ex-con. Right. And she's not flustered. And as she says, she comes to the bar and she's like, I'm looking to get laid because it's been a while.

Yeah. Clearly. But what I was going to say is apart from that that scene mostly this takes place in these two apartments correct in this empty apartment Corky's working on yeah and this kind of lavish

mobster apartment that's next door yeah other than that and the walls are thin other than that as we keep well that's the thing I want to set up

that's like a crucial thing which I love in this movie now this movie's shot by Bill Pope the great Bill Pope who is a great cinematographer who's like the master of like in cameracamera effects. He like

shot The Matrix. He shot Spider-Man. The Spider-Man movie. Spider-Man 2 I think. I think he shot all three of the Raimi ones. Because he's a Raimi guy. He did Army of Darkness. He did Darkman. He shot Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. He's the fucking best. He's one of the most underrated cinematographers alive. He's never been nominated for an Oscar which drives me crazy.

He shot Freaks and Geeks. Yeah. I believe he shot The Pilot so he he set the look for it. Right, right, right. The other thing he shot, I think one of the most underrated cinematography jobs of the last 40 years. True. He shot Team America. Oh, yeah, right.

Another tough one. Which is this crazy challenge, which is like making- A movie I can't stand, but- Oh, I love that movie. I hate that movie. He made it genuinely look like a Michael Bay film. Yeah, no, I agree with you. The look is perfect.

Yeah, it's crazy. But, and he's got all these sort of camera passes. I mean, like you say, it's obviously a soundstage where he'll like sort of jump from one apartment to the other in these seamless moves, like over the wall, basically. Oh, the over the wall shot. Just to give you an idea of like how tenuous the wall is

and like how obvious the, you know, you can hear one through the other. That's another thing. I guess when I like keep on harping about how erotic this movie is, half of it is that. No, but half of it is. Rolling my eyes. I have such a hard on it, the fucking mise-en-scene in this film.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. The fucking craft in this film. Like we're saying, it's the Wachowskis kind of showing off, consciously or not, and saying, look what we did with a little money. Yeah. It matched what we could do with a lot of money.

Yeah. It's these two parallel rooms. The wall's really thin. They set that up early which feels like a very Hitchcock-y device. This whole movie feels very Hitchcock-y to me. And that it's like. Yeah. I think they have said Billy Wilder.

You know like the noir-y Billy Wilder movies like Double Indemnity I think are a big influence. But there's that element of like. Where it's like everyone's kind of a gangster. Yeah. You know and like so that element of like, where it's like, everyone's kind of a gangster, you know? And like, and like, so that kind of forgives any obvious, like, cause like Jennifer Tilly,

Violet just is like, I want to have sex with you. And Gina Christian's like, okay. Even though it's like, dude, maybe a bad call. Yeah.

Mobster's girlfriend next door. Like maybe you don't want to do that. Yeah. But you're just like, well, this is what's happening. Cause this is about like, kind of,

you know, edgy people. But I also think that scene at the gay bar sets up that she's a lady who flirts with danger literally fair enough that's true you know i think that's why that scene's important i also i think that um god this is so good the fucking the thin wall thing it like it it sets up like a language going forward in the film so anytime any conversation's happening on one side of the wall there's's this immediate tension of like, can it be heard on the other side? They use that

like that fear, that like unknown of like what's happening on the other side of the wall a lot in the film, you know? And sometimes they call it out and they use it. Sometimes it's a thing in the back of your mind. There are these two phones that they use to communicate with each other that are like right on the opposite sides of the wall. There's a great fucking scene where

they track from the phone cord on one side of the wall through the wall to the good movie. OK. So. But I was just about Bill Pope just to finish this a little anecdote. They had another DP. I don't know who. And the DP said this is six million dollar movie. I can't do the camera moves you want with this budget and so he quit and Bill Pope was like nah I can do it you know and like you know like Bill Pope worked within a very small budget to achieve some fairly ambitious stuff

but I think that's like the Raimi school you know like Raimi is like a guy who does like crazy camera moves like he has a very expressive camera and until Spider-Man he was doing it on a very limited budget and mind you like Spider-Man Well and The Matrix. The Matrix is $99. Yes. Right. I forgot. Yes. But

Spider-Man was a movie that he had a big budget and what did he do? He like had this crazy inventive like innovative idea which was like what if we get a helicopter and a wire and we attach the camera to the bottom of the wire on the helicopter right and that'll

get that sort of swinging and film the plates from that and then cgi spider-man into it which is like still the best depiction of spider-man in motion in any of the films it's very like just those sequences are so perfectly realized um anyhow back to bound uh bounds a great movie and so the plot is, let me just I'll just recap the plot real quick. Sure. So you've got these two women and they meet and they hook up real fast and maybe they're not in love with each other exactly. It's not like they're

just professing like, oh, you're the greatest woman I've ever met. There's a real energy there. But there's a strong connection that is like very apparent and very well played by both Tilly and Gershon. Gina Gershon, in fact, very early on in the film. She's so fucking good in this movie. Yes.

Very early on in the film says like, we're very different people. Right. You know, like you're, she sort of implies that Jennifer Tilly

is like looking for an experience. Well, and there's also this judgment that I love where Gina Gershon, like she can hear Jennifer Tilly having sex through the walls with multiple partners,

I believe. Yes. I think there's the implication there. Different men of this sort of crime family. And she's like kind of like you know what am I gonna. And Jennifer Tilly pretty like dresses her down and says like you know I'm not judging you. You don't

judge me. That's my job. Like you know I've fallen into this situation and it's the situation I have but it's work we both have done in our lives what we need to do is survive. Like you ended up in jail and this is my jail it's like being stuck in this apartment with these shitty men you know

but very that's the thing this beautiful thing in the film is very early on Gershon is like attracted to her but is like we're fundamentally different people and the movie is them starting to realize how similar they are which is that line I mangled at the beginning of the episode was like this idea of them becoming like one, you know?

Yeah, bound. Yeah, bound together. But anyway, so Tilly works with this mobster, lives with this mobster. Right. And he has a bag of money. Yeah. He has a bag of money that's covered in blood. All movies should just have a bag of money. Yeah. He has a bag of money that's covered in blood. All movies should

just have a bag of money. Bag of money. It's two million bucks in a paper bag. Yeah. It's covered in blood because a sort of more wacko mobster who's a little like you know off the rails. Played by Christopher. Young Christopher Maloney. The great Chris Maloney. One of his earliest roles. One of our finest

actors. He shot someone in vicinity to this bag of money and so the bag of money is covered in blood so Corky, I mean not Corky, Caesar, the mobster has to literally launder the money and make it clean again. But in a perfect encapsulation of how this film is, no detail

is unimportant. Like everything serves a larger purpose. That becomes this point of animosity between the two of them. Where it's like, you made me have to clean this money because you got overzealous and attacking this guy.

Yeah, because you shot a guy. Right. And then it's like, Joey Pants punches Maloney as punishment for the thing. Yes. So there's this tension between the two of them.

He's pissed off already. Right. So Tilly knows about the money. He notices this. Yes. Sees the tension and is like, there's this tension between the two of them. He's pissed off already. Right. So Tilly knows about the money. And Tilly notices this. Yes. And he sees the tension and is like, there's room to play here. And goes to Gershon and says, we can exploit this. We can basically, you can take the money.

Yeah. And I can imply to Caesar that Chris Maloney took the money. Right. You know, while we were out. Yeah. And then that will be enough. You know, he'll realize that he's in trouble and he'll get out of town Chris Maloney's dad is like

the chief the godfather right and the idea is that if the money's missing he'll know Maloney took it or you know if he pants will know that Maloney took it but pants will also know that they'll think that he can't win right so he's like all he can do is go on the

run and then they. That's their plan. Run away with the money and become happy, happy people together. So. Living their own free life for the first time. Not having to make these concessions and play the game. So it's a fairly simple plan. The plan is essentially we steal the money.

Yeah. And then we leave together. When you're watching the movie, you're like, well, this is riddled with problems, this plan. It's an overly simple plan. But nonetheless, what the movie, what works about the movie is this is not some Ocean's Eleven shit. No.

Corky's going to take the money. Yeah. Violet's going to make Joey Pants think that another guy stole it. Yeah. And they're hoping that he's going to take the hint and just get out of Dodge, and then they can escape scot-free with the assumption that the money just vanished into thin air. Right. They all spend

their time looking for pants rather than looking for them. Joey Pants thinks Maloney took it. The mobsters will think Joey Pants took it. It's sort of like when you go to one friend's house says that you're at the other friend's house. It's like the old teenage switcheroo. And the plan

is so simple that the crux of it, the fulcrum of their plan revolves around a bottle of whiskey. Yes, around Tilly dropping a bottle of whiskey so they have to go out and get some. What if I break a bottle of whiskey,

go out and buy a new one and then pretend that I saw the guy outside, which will freak pants out. And much like so much of this movie, which is like bound up in identity,

like Tilly, you know, Viola is playing on this like thing of like, knows that caesar's going to need a particular bottle of whiskey yeah to impress this particular mobster who's going to come over and collect this money that's like freshly laundered everything needs to be right everything needs to be perfect the money needs to be like ironed there's this great image where they're hanging every hundred dollar bill over these, like, clotheslines all over the apartment. Yeah. So good. Good movie.

And, like, and as long as Tilly maintains this image of, like, oh, I'm just, like, your ditzy girlfriend who dropped a bottle of whiskey and, like, uh-oh, you know, then, like, they can carry this off. Mm-hmm. So good. Agreed. And then, of course, it falls apart. Everything goes to shit, but it also goes to shit pretty early on.

That's what's fun. The whole thing happens in the middle of the movie. Right. So, like, at, like, minute 40, they're, like, plans in place, here we go. And by, like, minute 50, everything's fucked up. Yeah. And so the next hour of the movie is, like, how do they get out of this as this just becomes worse and worse and worse and worse. And their plan was also very much based around their like their sense of like human intuition.

Like this is how we believe people are going to behave. Right. And they misjudge everyone. You know. So it's like I guarantee you he's going to do this. She'll do this. He'll do this. Yeah.

It's a lot of right. Guessing at human motivations. Right. And what happens. Everything goes wrong. Everything gets. Maloney shows up. Yeah. With his monster with his godfather of a motivations. Right. What happens? Everything goes wrong. Everything gets true. Maloney shows up with his godfather of a dad. Right.

And Joey Pants kind of snaps, thinking that he's stolen the money. Right. Which they didn't think he'd do in front of the dad. Right. They thought that he would just take the bullet or run. He calls them on it. Yeah. And in a fit of rage, he kills Maloney.

He shoots him dead. his father and then he shoots his dad dead who's who's the el chefe yeah who's played by uh i can't remember his name peter spellows yes and then and then also a henchman he kills three big important people and that like sends the whole thing off the rails because now he's like okay how do I do this? He's basically like how do I survive this? Is there a way for me to get this money back somehow? And at this point the movie almost takes place in real time.

I'd say the next 45 minutes maybe take place in an hour and a half. And the crazy thing is it's Joey Pants and Tilly. Gina Gershon we cup to her quietly on the other side of the wall. She hides the money in a can of paint, which is brilliant. Two cans of paint. Two cans of paint, you know, in plastic bags.

And she doesn't do anything. She's always connected to the action, but she's not actually involved. Yeah. But there's this passing of the baton. Like, Gershon's the main character at the beginning of the film. And when the plan starts to come into place, Tilly, it's like, she's the one who's like, we should do this. And it becomes becomes her film and then when things go off the rails it

becomes pants's film because it becomes this horror movie of these two women being like is there any way we can make this right again right you know um and also now because he snapped it's like he could kill us like all bets are off you know and he's also becoming increasingly desperate and manic right which is like a great mode for Joey Pants

to be in I mean that's a treat for us to watch yeah I'll say this you see a lot of Joey Pants' body in this movie

yeah there's a whole scene where he's in a towel yeah but he's like holding the towel just in front of his dick it's like you see all other parts but then there's a subsequent scene where Yeah, but he's like holding the towel just in front of his dick. It's like you see all other parts.

But then there's a subsequent scene where he, like a 10 minute like tension. If not longer, yeah. Where he's showing, like having a showdown

with another mobster where he's just wrapped in a towel the whole time. But there is one scene where he is holding a towel in a way I've never seen someone hold a towel

before in my life which is just like lightly in front of his wiener. I've done that. You see like the sides of his hips. You see like everything else. He's just like lightly in front of his wiener. I've done that. You see like the sides of his hips. You see like everything else. He's just like draping it.

Yeah. I love Joey Pants. Great actor. Did you know that he wrote, he founded a nonprofit organization called No Kidding, Me Too. Did you know that? No. About people in the entertainment industry who have suffered from clinical depression. And the idea is like when you say like, well, actually, I've suffered from depression in

my life. And like when you say that to someone, the other person goes, no kidding, me too. Anyway, I love Joey Pants. I do too. I think it was my buddy, Jesse Knight, who is a film writer, Jesse Ryan Knight. Oh, sorry. I keep kicking you. It's fine.

God. Don't worry about it. I'm very, you know, fidgety. You. Jesse Ryan Knight. Oh, sorry. I keep kicking you. It's fine. God. Don't worry about it. I'm very fidgety. You're antsy today. I hope I'm not misattributing this to the wrong person. I believe my buddy Jesse Ryan Knight, who's a great guy and a good film writer. A great film writer. I mean, it sounds like he was-

What about him? He tweeted, I can't believe it's been 10 years since Joey Pants wasn't even nominated for Bound. He must have tweeted this 10 years years ago you mean 20 years oh yeah that's what i mean i don't know he should have been nominated because he's great it's a great performance uh and it's like a full meal like it's like a guy getting a chance to really dig in in a way i don't think he'd gotten the chance before i mean but it's also a great a great like um portrait of like at the beginning of the movie he's a big shot he's well dressed he's got this nice apartment he's got this nice girl and like of like his masculinity his like his whole image just being eaten away from

the inside by like forces he doesn't even understand it's like fragile masculinity at its at its most fragile his biggest flaw in this movie is that he cannot conceive of the idea that jennifer till violet would be working with corky right you know that they would have a connection yeah that they would be in love or anything like that i mean he eventually figures it out but it takes him i don't know an hour and 25 minutes like it takes him most of the movie to figure it out because he he's so arrogant that he can't fathom the idea that jennifer tilly would want anything other than to be with him forever yes you know even though like what the fuck does he offer her like jesus well there's that great line where he says like you know what does she offer you she's she gives me everything I'm going to fucking misquote it.

But there's a part where it's like, what does she give you that I can't? And Jennifer Tilly, I think, says everything. It's like something like that. It's great. It's a great movie. I mean, like, let's not spoil the ending in detail. I mean, I don't know. It's like there's this whole subsequent, as we said, like third act where Joey Pants is trying to hold it all together.

He's trying to act like the mobsters never showed at his apartment when they're actually like in the bathroom. The bodies are like being kept in the bathroom under the sink. Yeah. Like cops show up and they kind of get around the cops because the cops heard like gunfire. That's a great scene. This is like such a Hitchcock sequence where they like. So Hitchcock-y. The cops come in. Oh and Joey Pants pretends that he's hard of hearing

and he has like a gangster movie on the TV and that's what the gunshots were. It's great. He's got a gun tucked into the back of his pants the whole time so you don't want him to turn around the whole time. It's so weird that Wachowski's never made another movie like this. That he's like so hinges on those little tense little setups. It's so weird that Wachowski's never made another movie like this. That it's like so like hinges on those little tense little like, you know, setups.

It's so small and focused. And like it's one of these movies where you have to lean in and like pay attention to every detail. Because it's like everything shifts the entire standing of the characters, you know? Like any sound. God, the fucking sound in this movie is unbelievable. But they come in and Joey Pants is like, you want a beer or something? And they're like, no, but I could use the bathroom. Oh, no.

And Pants is like, oh, okay. But that's where the body is. But he knows he can't break character. Right. Guys, great movie. You really should check it out. In the bathtub. So the guy goes in the bathroom

and you see blood dripping from the curtain. And it's like, is he going to notice? And then the cop's looking around and he's like, real nice apartment you got here. And Joey Pants has just moved all the furniture to cover up all the shit. Right. And you're like, is he going to notice? And he's like, nice place, nice place.

He steps on a rug and the rug goes like. Yeah. And he put the rug over like this immense pool of blood. Yeah. So you see blood seeping out of the rug and getting on the guy's shoe. And you're like, is he going to notice? Is he going to notice? And so these great movies where like in a dumber movie that would be like the hinge

and that would become a plot point and he has to shoot the cops. But this movie is like so much about like things going wrong that you can't predict that also like things go right. The cops never notice that he's got like blood on his shoe. Right. And then these mobsters show up. Yeah. You know these like other mobsters, the sort of major mob characters played by Joe, John

Ryan. You know, they show up being like, oh, well, where's the boss? Like, we never got the money, you know. And they have that dialogue where it's like, hey, moved all the furniture around. And like Joey Pants is like, yeah, you know, Jennifer Till, you know, Violet. Violet wanted to impress everybody. Yeah. And they're like, huh, you know, Jennifer Tilt. Yeah, Violet. Violet wanted to impress everybody. Yeah, and they're like, huh, ladies,

am I right? You know, again, they cannot conceive of the idea that the women around them would have any independent sort of thought or action. Are smarter than them. Yeah. It's just like, oh yeah, of course she moved the furniture around because she's a dumb broad. You know, it's the best. It's very much a fragile masculinity

movie. And I also think, um, okay, so here's something. Once again, as like a shitty, stupid piece of garbage. Are you going to talk about eroticism again? No, but I mean, I'm going to try to talk about this in the correct way, right? Jesus Christ. Because I think this is an important thing. I'm probably going to fuck this up, right?

You know, there are a lot of, I've read a lot of really good pieces about like the male gaze in cinema? You know, there are a lot of I've read a lot of really good pieces about like the male gaze in cinema. You know? And how like most male directors, if they sexualize a woman, it's sort of very objectifying. Sure. You know? And this movie, watching it, maybe it's through the prism of knowing everything we know

now. It is. But I look at it, it's a movie that's very obsessed with their bodies. And not in a titillating way, you know? I mean, there's not very much nudity. It is. But I look at it and it's a movie that's very obsessed with their bodies. In a titillating way, you know, I mean there's not very much nudity. It's this one shot essentially. Well the sex scene that I mean I think that everyone talks about from this movie is this very cool camera move that sort of goes

like down one side of the bed and loops around it. Like it's really well done. It's not the classic like pan down like a person's naked body thing that's sort of like, When I say the movie's obsessed with their body,

your classic, like, red shoe diaries, or, you know, whatever. When I say the movie's obsessed with their bodies,

I don't mean that, like, the movie's obsessed with their tits. I mean, like, the movie's obsessed with their,

like, existence. You know? Like, them being human females. And there's even, like, the first time they kiss,

maybe my favorite shot in the entire film is like their two lips essentially in shadow like you just pretty much see their two lips and super close up getting closer and closer each other talking and i feel like the film at points like fragments like oh god look at their hands look at their feet like yeah there's a lot of focus on the hands right yeah but and once again i'm speaking as a shitty white guy. So, you know, write in if I'm wrong.

Straight guy. You're a straight guy. Right. But I, yeah, the straight is more important than the white guy. Apparently you downloaded a scene from this movie from Kazaf.

Yeah, I was a piece of garbage. Whatever, you're a teenager. I was a teenager. But I look at this film and from my perspective where I'm speaking from no point of like, you know,

knowledge or intelligence from this place, I can't speak for other people. I feel like this film doesn't really have that same sort of male gaze. I look at this movie and I think it shoots. Yeah, no, it does a pretty good job. And I think it is because, you know, for reasons that are now like a lot more obvious, not to psychoanalyze this thing too deeply. This is a film made by two filmmakers who have this like immense fascination and respect for the female body. Yeah.

Not as like something to covet, you know, but as something of like this. This is like Griffin made the point, made the point. I think you did an OK job. I did an OK job. I should move on. Get out of here before it becomes problematic. I'd like to add to this in the sense that

I kind of saw this movie from a millennial kind of perspective. So we left off talking about how the mobsters show up, right? The second batch of mobsters. The John Rhine mobster, yeah. I guess I couldn't help but just

think situationally with this whole film, like, if there were cell phones, like, that kind of thing. And it was, like, almost refreshing, again, like, to remember those days. It's just, it's interesting with, like, modern movies now. We're going to have to deal with the fact

that everyone can be in touch with everybody at all times. There's a plot hinge in this movie that is the phone being off the hook. Right. Yes. Which is something that doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, that is correct. And the equivalent is I was on silent?

Like, do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's weird to think that way, but it's actually a thing now. It's also interesting because The Matrix is literally all about cell phones. Yeah, totally. And it was the first movie to be about where the cell phone is this powerful prop. But there's also, I mean, the opening. Remember owning the Matrix phone was an early thing. When kids started getting cell phones,

you'd get that slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the opening of The Matrix is Trinity using a pay phone rather than a cell phone. I mean, it's phone-based. We're talking about Bound. We're talking about Bound. Great movie.

We'll get to the main thing. I do agree with you, Ben, that like- Ben? I agree with Ben. I'm joking. Go ahead. Ben? Benjamin?

Don't do the whole thing. Don't do the whole thing. No, I was just going to say your name. Benjamin. Yes, sir? I agree with you that like, I see movies like this, and I get depressed thinking about how much advancements in technology have made plot lines like unnecessarily simple. You know, because now anyone can do anything at any time, essentially. But there are also things where you're like a phone being off the hook.

That's so visual. Well, and the the image of Corky in the empty apartment with just the phone on the floor is great. And like she's basically just waiting for you know like it's all to be over like in the apartment it's great. But there's like 10 minutes of the movie where in the background of all the shots they're in the bedroom you see the phone being off the hook they're not calling attention to it but it's there

as a visual element. So when they call it out later you're like right of course I noticed that. Whereas the equivalent today would be like you'd have to do a close up of a screen and then the little bell with the line through it. Look, I agree. Or like, I'm at, you know, does anyone have a charger? Oh, no, my phone's dead.

Like, it's just, it's so much, like, more inelegant, you know? Well, yes. I agree with you guys. But, hey, man, this movie was made in 1996. I know. That's the best part. Okay, so here's what I'm going to throw out. I think all movies should be set in 1996.

Anyway. That was the last good year. Anyway, let's just wrap up the plot of this movie. Anyway. That was the last good year. Anyway, let's just wrap up the plot of this movie. Okay. It all comes apart. Caesar eventually figures it out, like,

that Corky's involved. He figures it out via the phone ringing in her apartment. Mm-hmm. And, um, he ties her up

and, like, throws her in a closet. Hey, there's some fucking great fighting, though, too. Yeah. Let's not,

let's not forget that. Yeah, like, I mean, yeah, Gina Gershon gets a couple real, like, cold her in a closet. Hey, there's some fucking great fighting, though, too. Yeah. Let's not forget that. Yeah. Like, I mean, yeah, Gina Gershon gets a couple real, like, cold cocks in the Joey Pants. She's fucking awesome. She's cool. She's, like, the greatest. She's cool. She just never lets her kind of, like, mask drop, like, her sort of impassive, you know, persona.

Yes. Even when she's being genuine. And you get when she's being genuine. But she's just always perfectly in character. I love her in this movie. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, so, you know, but then he has to make a deal with Violet

to kind of play along because he's trying to fool these other mobsters because now Joey Pants is in the soup too because he killed Chris Maloney and he killed the Don. So great scene. She's in the bathroom. He's like, don't fucking do anything

or I'll fucking shoot you. Like, don't get smart. Gina Gershon's in the bathroom he's like don't fucking do anything or i'll fucking shoot you like don't get smart gina gershon's in the closet and uh he's you know she's all bruised up now and he's like just stay here yeah i'm gonna pretend that i was in the shower yeah he tries to distract the mobsters yeah i didn't hear the phone ring because i was in the shower and then tilly calls him yes and says like just pretend like there was a car accident and that's why the mobsters didn't show up. She calls and pretends to be Maloney and is

like I'm creating a fake phone call for you so that you have an alibi and the story checks out. But then she's also like I'm also getting half the money. Like do as I say. Yeah. Yeah. And so he tells the new mobsters this they buy it they leave and then how does it exactly i mean it plays out that corky kills joey pitts corky kills caesar

yeah they um uh caesar goes to get the money kill caesar yeah no violet right yeah of course sorry yeah there's a great no Violet right of course sorry yeah there's a great which is crucial of course yeah Corky finally I mean Caesar finally gets it out of Corky the money's in the paint cans he goes to get it

you know he's finally vulnerable Violet with a weapon points a gun at him and he's like if you were gonna kill me you know you'd have killed me before like I know you're not gonna kill me and she says like

Caesar you don't know shit and then she you don't know shit about then she shoots him a bunch and he dies like in this like big puddle of paint and there's like blood everywhere it's great it's the best

can I talk about another sequence I love when Jennifer Tilly's trying to get away and she runs down the stairs and there are these great like these sort of moves up and down the banisters, yeah. Right. So she's, like, running down the stairs. There's a great shot from, like, the stairwell

where you're looking up and you're seeing them, like... Yeah, it's kind of blue velvety. Yeah. And she makes it down to the ground floor before he does, and you're like, you don't understand why she's, like, running, what exactly her plan is, like, what she's doing. Yeah. It doesn't totally make sense.

The second she gets downstairs, she runs to the elevator, like run what exactly her plan is like what she's doing yeah it doesn't totally make sense the second she gets downstairs she runs to the elevator and it's like if she can get back in the elevator back upstairs she has like three minutes to get the gum yeah it's so cool to like get gershon and get the gun and it's a great low stakes action scene yeah you know like that's highest you know like low budget action scene basically. Like high tension, low budget. Action scenes are about

the stakes, you know? That's right, stakes is the wrong word, but yeah, it's not low stakes, it's high stakes, but it's-

It's high stakes, but it's like, it's not flashy. It's a small set piece. It's a small set piece, but the stakes are so clear, the spatial geography is so clear, you understand what every character

is trying to do, and you're like, edge of your seat. Now, here's the thing. Like, if this were a 40s Billy Wilder movie or a Hitchcock movie, you know, a sort of Hays Code, you know, Hollywood movie, like a classic noir.

It'd be sort of winking. Well, no, the other thing is, like, everyone would be dead or in prison at the end of this movie. Correct. Like, you know, everyone would get their comeuppance. Anyone who does bad stuff, like steals or kills, would be, like, would meet some sort of justice. And they would imply that they were lovers but not be able to actually forget all that. Of course, both elements, I think, are important.

Looking at it as a film that was made in the time it was made. But here's what happens in this movie. They kill Joey Pants. They convince the mobsters that Joey Pants took the money. Yeah. The mobsters are like, hey, fuck that guy. We'll go get him. You know, I get it. You want to get out of here. And they're like,

and Violet's like, great. She escapes with Corky and two million bucks in a bag. The end. Yeah. And they'll go off and be happy. Just go live their truth. It's great. Be millionaires. Good movie. It's great. Great characters. Happy to see things work out well for them.

For a while there, I was worried, but it all works out. Were you worried about them? I was worried about them. I liked them. I wanted things to be nice in the end. There's some,

here, talk for a second. There's some famous thing that I want to try and find. Ben, any additional thoughts on the film for you? Well, I would say in the end,

I mean, fuck, the Wachowskis definitely passed the test with this. Yeah, I would say in the end, I mean, fuck, the Wachowskis definitely passed the test with this. Yeah, right? It's so good. It's so good. For a first movie, it's insane. Yeah, it's got a great story.

It's got really cool visual elements. Like, you know, they set out to do that and I'm sure they impressed the executives and got to make The Matrix. Here's another thing I'll say about it too, right?

Like, if we're talking writer-directors, right? People who are multi-hyphenates and do both. Very often, they start out being better at one thing than the other thing, you know? Like, I mean, a lot of filmmakers are better at one than the other. But the people who become masters, they start out, okay, they're a good shooter,

and then their scripts get better, or vice versa. This is a film where, like, both skill sets are in full force. And it's actually, I mean, the thing it's sort of similar to is Blood Simple in that way. Absolutely, I like Blood Simple. Here's this two-headed filmmaker. These siblings who clearly have this very close, like, symbiotic relationship, right? And are able to just sort of like do twice as much work because they have another person

at their side. And just this script that's super tight, this really fucking sharp like cinematic language, like really like no fat filmmaking, and just like a bold like statement of like we're fucking here to stay. We're real deal filmmakers.

Absolutely. I wanted to say, one thing we forgot to mention, this movie was produced by Dino De Laurentiis, another famous parody of a Hollywood producer. And Aaron Spelling? Is that right? The production company before the movie

was the Spelling Company. Well, he's not listed as a producer, but maybe, I don't know. But Dino De Laurentiis, who was like this crazy Italian guy who made a lot of great movies and a producer, but maybe. Interesting. But Dino De Laurentiis who is like this, you know, crazy Italian guy who made a lot of great movies and a lot of terrible movies. Made the King Kong remake. He also made like Silence of the Lambs. Yeah.

Or is it Manhunter? I think it's Manhunter is the one he made. He made Manhunter so he retained the rights. Right, right. He didn't do Silence of the Lambs but then he produced all the other Hannibal movies. He produced Hannibal and right, right. He's always been Red Dragon. Yeah. He's now dead. He's also the father of Giada DeLaurence, or grandfather. Something like that.

Yeah. But I wanted to say about him is he went to the Wachowskis and in what can I only imagine was a cartoonish Super Mario Brothers accent said like, don't make it a lesbian's. Get a guy in there. It's more commercial. I don't know how you actually talk. I heard Arnold Schwarzenegger on a podcast- And they refused.

They were like, this is not how, that's not the idea of this movie. The idea of this movie is very tied to the fact that these are two women. De Laurentiis produced the Conan the Barbarian movies. And I heard some podcasts where Arnold Schwarzenegger was talking about that process. And it was Arnold Schwarzenegger doing his impression of. Of Deena De Laurentiis. So it was like a hat on a hat. It was like one of the cartoonist accents of all time

trying to do another of the cartoonist accents of all time. My favorite thing about watching Dino De Laurentiis productions going through the credits and seeing how many people have De Laurentiis as a last name. Hey man, he was old school. No, I'm not saying that in a negative way. It's like fun. It's like, oh, Michelle

De Laurentiis was the caterer? Right. Like there's just a lot of De Laurentiises. It's like fun. It's like, oh, Michelle De Laurentiis is the caterer? Right. Like there's just a lot of De Laurentiises. It's a family business. The movie was not a hit by any means. It made like four million bucks. You know, basically didn't even make its budget back. But I don't think that was, it became a cult hit.

I think it had a pretty long life on video and like, you know, became sort of like this, don't make any jokes, became this sort of like, you know make any jokes uh became this sort of like you know legendary little cult movie it's huge on kazan that was the only joke i was gonna make i wasn't yeah it's great it's a great movie and it was enough to convince i guess warner brothers and silver pictures to like take this chance on the matrix script yeah i wouldn't be surprised if it was a big home video seller like i was like i'd have a tough time watching this movie in a theater like we said these vhs like legends of the 90s

these like these these great trashy thrillers except this is even better than you know jade or whatever you know but also if you're a film kid and you see the matrix you walk out there and go i gotta fucking see what well of course and of course that in wachowskis what do they make that increase the where they come from the legend of this movie way more. Because it's like, oh, here, that's the movie they made before The Matrix? I can't believe I hadn't seen it until now. But you know what? It was a pleasant treat.

Because I've seen all these other films. So it's like, this is the one I get to discover fresh. So a little bit of trivia. Please. I'll lay some trivia on you. Oh, is this the INDB trivia section? It is. So, you know, take you know at first Jennifer Tilly was gonna play Corky and the actress who's gonna play Violet whoever

that was dropped out and they found Gina Gershon who was like suddenly available or whatever and Jennifer Tilly agreed she'd be a better Corky and happily switched roles. A better Violet. She agreed Gina Gershon would be a better Corky. Good call. Yeah. Yeah. Gershon then recommended Joey Pants.

Yeah. So she brought Joey Pants on board. They told Joey Pants to watch The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to base his performance on Bogart. They liked that as a sort of like Caesar's kind of chip on the shoulder attitude-y kind of performance. He's so good.

Susie Bright, they sent her the script. They loved her and she said this is a great script and the women are having sex and enjoying it and not apologizing, which is very rare for any Hollywood movie, and said put the script low on details for the sex scene can I like design the sex scenes for you

and obviously like that's one reason the sex scene works so well and the rest was history you know Marsha Gay Harden auditioned she would have been good oh she would have been good for which one it doesn't say but you know she'd probably work in either I'd say her role in Miller's Crossing is pretty similar to Violet

in this there's you, definitely. I mean, it's the sort of gangster's mole. Yeah, but the one who's actually sort of running the thing. I mean, you can watch that movie and put together a pretty clear parallel universe version of her being in that. Jennifer Tilly considers Violet her greatest role.

Yeah, I'd probably agree. Yeah. I mean, it's her most three-dimensional, like, you know, sort of, like, fully flesh's her most three dimensional like you know sort of like fully fleshed out role with like a lot of agency she's hilarious in Bullets Over Broadway but she's playing a stereotype she's playing like the airhead actress

I can't put a better metaphor than the gun thing the loaded gun thing. Jeff Fertilli is like a really good pair of cowboy boots and it's like you have to know when to wear cowboy boots you know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. Like, you have to match them with your outfit. Like, it has to be of a piece. Right.

Great fucking boots. Oh. One Violet was, Linda Hamilton was almost Violet. Linda Hamilton? Which she would have been a better Corky almost, because she's like tough as nails. Yeah, I don't see it as a Violet.

I mean, you think of her in Terminator. Maybe she was just trying to play against type. I don't know. Shot in 38 Days. Yeah. This is also Joey Pence's favorite role of his. God, I think he's still good in The Matrix. I would have given an Oscar nomination for The Matrix.

He's fantastic in The Matrix. I think I would have given him a Oscar nomination for Memento, which I think is one of his best performances. Rewatch Memento. I've only seen it once. You've only seen it once? Yeah.

Which means I haven't even really seen it, you know. With a film like that? You should definitely rewatch Memento. Yeah, I watched it once probably. We'll do Nolan one day, though. Yeah. I mean, Nolan's a classic blank checker. I'll save it.

A classic blank checker. He's a classic blank checker. I'll save it. A classic blank checker. He's a classic blank checker. God, you know, we always talk about wanting to do, and it's come up recently, Jimmy Cameron, the great Jimmy Cameron. Jimmy Cameron. I keep on being like, God, we'll just wait for Avatar 2. Look, the man takes a while. So we can come up with that.

But it keeps on. Now we're getting five of them. He went to cinema con yesterday which is a stupid industry conference of cinema chains and studios theater owners and the stars come out and they're like you gotta book my movie people are gonna love it which is makes no sense because it's like do you think paramount like is gonna like you know has to sell them on like mission impossible six or whatever like i think they're like yeah definitely like you know we weren't worried about that.

Yeah, but Warner Brothers sends Kevin Hart out, and he's like, please, please put my movie in your theaters. It's not like they come out and they say, we've got this indie project, but we really think it's going to pop. They just come out and say, plenty of Avengers movies on the way. Yeah, as if all these exhibitors are saying, they're going like, I don't know if we should book a Kevin Hart movie. Those movies make a lot of money.

That would be a weird choice. Kevin Hart movie. So it's just those movies make a lot of money. That would be a weird choice. It has just become another like place for studios to just like promote their upcoming franchises and say like we've got films planned through 2023 or what you know like as much about your Devin Farachi's and your Peter Sereta's and so forth and so on. I love Devin. I mean I don't know. Let's say that in a negative way. You know, Devin's fun because he's at this thing and he's like-

He's calling bullshit on it. He's calling bullshit on it. But yes, absolutely. The sort of LA industry film blogger types are all there. What I mean is that this convention that's ostensibly just to sell the theater owners has as much become like a press event to show footage for the first time. But it's a weird thing that doesn't really make sense anymore. It doesn't.

Anyway, Jim Cameron was there. I guess, who made Avatar Fox? Fox. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he said like, cinematic universes. I got a cinematic universe for you. Avatar 2, Avatar 3, Avatar 4, Avatar 5. Right.

And everyone's reaction was like, what the fuck is that for? Five avatars? Avatar 2, I think think was originally supposed to come out last december something like that around now that was like the original date like the first one came out in 09 yes yeah i think that was the original plan and he was like you know okay it's gonna take a little longer but i got three of them and then it was like we're pushing it back a little, but good news, it's four. And no one's ever gotten out of Zoe Saldana or whoever if they've actually shot Avatar movies. Yeah, very unclear. The whole thing is always,

I mean, where the original Avatar was too, where it was like people would say to Zoe Saldana or Sam Worthington, like, so Avatar. And they're like, yeah, I guess so. I think I shot that like three years ago now. I guess that's coming out. Like, you know. There was, God, I wish I could properly credit credit this person but there was an amazing tweet i saw yesterday after the

announcement which was like cameron announcing more avatar movies while he also delays the like the next one is sort of like the principal in breakfast club like the scene where he's like you want six weeks attention let's make it six he's like fine seven right it's like, you want six weeks' attention? Let's make it six. He's like, fine, seven. Right. It's like this game of like, wasn't Avatar 2 supposed to come out a month ago? And he's like, yeah, but now we got seven of them. Don't worry about it. We'll do Jim Cameron at some point. We should definitely do Jim Cameron at some point soon.

Jimmy Cameron. Because I do, I mean, I think my tweet was along the lines of like, if Jim Cameron thinks we need five Avatars, then we need five Avatars. Because he doesn't make bad movies. Yeah, he also, any time he's done something. Now, a lot of people think Avatar's a bad movie.

But I disagree with them. Those people are wrong. They are wrong. Hardcore wrong. Ben, how do you feel about Avatar? I never saw it. Ben, do you know the central conceit of Avatar? There's like a blue race of people.

Do you know the height of those blue people? Oh, wait, no. They're like 10 feet tall. They're big? They are big. Get the fuck race of people. Do you know the height of those blue people? Oh, wait, no. They're like 10 feet tall. They're big? They are big. Get the fuck out of here. I forgot about that. Oh, shit.

Yeah, they're like really big, Ben. I love this. I want to see this now. Yeah, you'll love it, Ben. Oh, my God. All right, I'm excited. You know what? I might even watch that and then report back next week.

We'll see. Okay. Well, and speaking of reports, I think it's time for our favorite segment to close out the episode. The Burger Report. This is a segment that we sometimes remember to do. Yeah, in which we talk about seeing famous people eating burgers.

It was inspired by that time I saw Michael Shannon eat a burger. I saw a Chevo. Chevo L Chevo! Lubezki. Yes. So now it's a segment that has- Ben Hossley basically has seen every American president eat a burger while getting fellatio from Marilyn Monroe.

He's seen the most salacious, incredible things when he worked at the Spotted Pig, a restaurant known for its burger. I just love that it's a segment that has nothing to do with the rest of our podcast. But I like it as a through line. You were in LA. You were in Los Angeles. And guess what? I went to Umami Burger.

Big fat goose egg. Oh, there was nobody. Big fat goose egg. I saw my bestest friend, Derek Simon. How's he doing? He's doing great. Does he listen? He listens.

Does he listen? I think he does. I don't know. I don't know. Hey, Derek, if you listen. He's a writer for Supergirl. He is. He's the closest I got to a FAMO.

And I've known him since I was 10. Wow. That doesn't count. It doesn't. So, yeah, I unfortunately came up short, but I'm going to make a promise to the listeners. I'm going to try to attend as many Burger Troints as I can in the next week. I'm trying to eat less burgers, to be honest. Here in New York.

I'm trying to eat more just because I feel like we need content. You know what I'm saying? But Ben, do you want to serve us up a nice patty? Yeah, you out, Ben, or do you have any more? No, I actually, honestly,

could keep this going for a while. Fantastic. Good thing, because we're never ending this segment. Great. So we've been like,

Michael Shannon, the cinematographer from The Revenant. Ben's been like, Kanye West, LeBron James, one of the most famous people. LeBron James got a haircut at

the bar and then I served him a burger. Allegedly. Allegedly, according to you. Allegedly. Okay, so Jay-Z's book. Oh boy, this is already such a good start. Whoa, Jay-Z's book. What was it called?

I don't remember. Decoded? No, man. I think it was Decoded. It wasn't that, but it was something close. So he is like a part owner of the restaurant group that falls under the umbrella that the Spotted Pig is part of. Okay. Yeah, it was called Decoded. I was right.

Nice work. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so he's an investor. He has a little chunk of the Spotted Pig. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. So, he's an investor.

He has a little chunk of the Spotted Pig. Exactly. And so, he had an event around the premiere of his book at the Spotted Pig. And there was a bunch of people there. It was really cool. It was like Chris Rock. Damn. I'm like blanking like maybe like Alicia Keys.

Okay. Was Beyonce there? So, that's what the story is like. How does he do this how does ben do this he's the fucking best in the best that's how he does it so uh yeah so um the the uh jay-z and beyonce came in and uh they were kind of just chatting with people but then at one point uh went to this uh if you know the spot I picked on the second floor, there's like a little like kind of alcove, like a little separate area. And when we have VIPs, sometimes we'll put the curtains up

so they feel like they're a little more secluded. And so basically I got the opportunity to have some FaceTime with Beyonce and Jay-Z and they were super nice. They were really lovely people. That's very nice to hear. I will say I don't remember. They might have got a burger. I don't remember exactly, but I will say that Beyonce was probably one of the most beautiful women,

if not the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in person. Now, Ben, God. Were you going to chew them out? A little bit. I mean, look, thank you for sharing this story with us. But, Ben, I mean, you're saying maybe they got a burger? We can't. We have listeners at home.

This is the burger report. Right, right, right. We can't be wishy-washy with this. No, okay. How about this? Beyonce, she got a burger. Oh, my God. Whoa!

Medium rare? American cheese on that? She got American cheese. Smart. And she, yeah, medium rare girl. I want to say something that I feel to be profoundly and violently true. If you get a burger with any kind of cheese that's not American cheese, you fucking suck. And you're a communist.

And you should be thrown in jail. Sounds like I'm a communist. Yeah, baby. I'm definitely a communist. Only American cheese. Because I fuck around with them cheeses. Nope. When I'm at some fancy place and they're like,

you, we put Gruyere on it. I'm like, uh-huh. How about you take the Gruyere off and put on a slice of Kraft American cheese? I don't care if your burger's made out of you know, filet mignon. You know what I say? What? I say, you can call me Cookie Monster because I'll take a slice of Munster cheese on my

burger. I will say, Munster is a terrific cheese. Hells yeah. It melts very well. I like some crumbled blue. No, you lost me. Love it. Lost me.

Hey, stay tuned for the next burger report. Let's talk about John Mayer. Oh, that's a good tease. New York City legendary asshole, John Mayer. God, that's such a good cliffhanger. Yeah, let's just say he was wearing a puffy vest jacket. Tell us no more. Tell us no more. Save it for the next episode. We need listeners to come back because

God knows no one's going to want to hear us talk about The Matrix, one of the biggest movies of all time. Of course. Love the Wachowskis. They're great. I'm very excited to talk about this episode. I mean these directors. We were saying before we record this it's nice to go into a miniseries and be like,

I'm not bummed about watching any of these movies. There are not these movies where I'm like, oh, fuck, is that time of the week again? Yeah. I mean, some people, I think, would disagree and say that the Matrix sequels or even Cloud Atlas or Jupiter Ascending are chores. No, they are not. They're great. Yep.

So, there's not one that you don't like I don't like the Matrix sequels but I haven't seen them since they came out yeah you're probably still not going to like them but we'll see

I liked Reloaded okay but you're excited to rewatch them I'm very excited to rewatch them I strongly disliked Revolutions I would say Revolutions is the only film of theirs I disliked

but I have not seen it since then yeah we'll see and I don't stand behind anything I believed when I was 14 years old yeah I mean I also at the time strongly disliked them but we'll see. And I don't stand behind anything I believed when I was 14 years old. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I also at the time strongly disliked them, but we'll get to that. Yeah. But next week, we're going to do an episode about The Matrix. The Matrix. Which was a successful film that they made. It was a big movie. In 1999. Hey, you know what's interesting? Mm-hmm.

The Matrix. Uh-huh. Sixth Sense. The Phantom Menace. 1999, baby. Maybe this podcast should be called 1999. Baby. The Matrix Sixth Sense The Phantom Menace 1999 baby Maybe this podcast should be called 1999

Baby Baby Isn't that crazy that like the three films that we've really focused on that everything like our investigations have spun out of

all three 99 They're directors who popped in 99 which is generally agreed to be like a high point in American cinema

and worldwide cinema but especially in Hollywood Georgie Porgie didn't pop until 99. That was when he got his moment. He popped in 99. Maybe he'd pop before. Big pop. Big poppy. Pop pop. George Lucas, we love you. Georgie, make a movie. Make one

of your radar movies, Georgie. Make a fucking movie about a car going around a track. Make a movie about anything. Seriously. And for all our new listeners, if you want to understand this bit, go back to our original three seasons of the- Go back to our original 36 episodes. Yeah. And you'll get it.

Yeah. The Phantom Podcast, Attack of the Podcast, Revenge of the Podcast. Great listens all. They are. Yeah. And then you can listen. Yeah. We talked about M. Night Shyamalan.

You can listen to that. Rate, review, subscribe. Ben, you threw out last week the challenge to see if anyone could write a book report on, what's it called? I Got Schooled, M. Night Shyamalan's. Yeah, and we've gotten some tweets about that. M. Night Shyamalan's book about the education reform, basically.

Yes. It's his book explaining how he would... It's essentially the cookbook if the cookbook was focused only on fixing schools. But it's a lot of crazy ideas that people might not like. I found a review that's really annoyed at me. I should read it out loud.

Oh, yeah, please. This is from Steve Marth. Crabby David ruins it. Were you going to finish your point? Well, I was just going to say, so this is a running thing. Some people have tweeted us, shown us that they've checked out the book from their libraries. Of course, if you've read the book, you want to write a book report, send it to us. We'll read it on air. The first person to-

Keep it short, guys. Keep it short. We might not read the whole thing. Keep it short words, please. But first person, I'll say this. First person to send us a book report gets a ComTech chip. I think I still got some ComTech chips left.

But don't make the report anything like Griffin's book report. No, that was not a book report. Or you don't know what I mean. That was a research paper. Research paper. Use that as an example of what not to do. Review. Oh, Steve Marth, he gave us three stars because I ruined the podcast.

Crabby David ruins it. I was burning through this star. I can't read the whole thing. It's long. But apparently, during the Star Wars episodes, we hit a point definitely around

the original trilogy, maybe a little before, and unbearable on Return of the Jedi, where whenever David Griffin tries to talk about something, David gets really crabby and makes him hurry up

and says something like, all right, what's your point? Hurry up. It's funny once, but it gets funny and stressful. David, we're listening to the podcast because we like hearing you guys talk about this stuff. All right, buddy. I'm sorry. Okay, good review. Finish it up.

Finish it up. Get to the point. Apparently our friendly banter got downright hostile. A couple things. One, the Return of the Jedi episode, I snapped at you. You were driving me crazy. But also because we were so worked up about the fucking Force Awakens. We were recording like three episodes in one day.

We were recording three episodes in one day in between the day that all the press had seen the Force Awakens. Yes. And the day that we could see it. So like a bunch of our buddies had seen it. It was crazy. And here we were recording a fucking Star Wars podcast. And you start going on about marcia fucking lucas well i think it's a fascinating it is it's fascinating but also we had to like wrap it up

like tightly and we had talked about maybe jabba the hut in return of the jedi that's all that's worth talking about i only fuck a job we had like two hours of movie to go and you were like anyway so marcia lucas but uh love marcia uh but anyway But anyway, I know I snapped at Griffin, but you know what, guys? If I didn't do it, he'd literally talk for five hours about God knows what. Here's the thing. I think that's the dynamic. Do you know what I'm saying? Hey, man, if you don't like it, I get it.

Like, I'm going to be annoying, and you're going to snap at me. You know what I'm saying? Right. And, like, if you didn't cut me off. Then you would have talked for 40 minutes about jerking off to a Kazaa clip of Bound. Right. And would anyone have enjoyed that? Yeah, probably.

But also here's the thing. You don't want none of that. No, you would need a little bit, but there's got to be a rubber band. There's the push and pull. That's the dynamic. It's salt and vinegar. And then of course you got a poet laureate on your side. Well, yeah.

I mean, that's the secret sauce. You look at reviews now. I would say like 75% of our reviews now single out Ben as the element of the show. The black dark side, spelled like the DC villain dark side, said, Griffin and David are not the heroes podcasting deserves. Agreed. Agreed. We are not.

Nope. And then Ben, of course, is a revelation. That's the whole review. I think that's the end of our episode. I think that's all that needs to be said. You're a revelation, Ben. Anyway, yeah, it's very exciting. New miniseries.

We don't totally know what we're going to do after this, so if you want to suggest stuff to us, I suppose, we will listen on, you know, we're at Blank Check Pod on Twitter. And Gmail. We've had some thoughts but yeah nothing locked down so please you know uh maybe maybe we'll do a twitter poll at some point with some of the candidates we're considering and see what people want yeah i mean we've talked about cameron crow yep we've talked about james cameron uh-huh we've talked about christopher nolan yep who else have

we talked about a couple other I'm forgetting yeah some good candidates out there yeah yeah we talked at one point

about doing specifically post Oscar Spielberg oh that's right that's a good one yeah Spielberg after

his 1993 success with Schindler's List. His choices get really interesting after that. They do, they do. A lot of good ideas, a lot of fun. The only way you're going to know what we do is to keep listening. That's all you got to do.

You just got to listen to the podcast. So, yeah, so Bound, I hope we weren't too lame. I don't know, I think this is a good episode. I think so, too. It's a great movie. Watch the movie. Mm-hmm. Watch the movie. know watch the movie

next week we're gonna talk about the Matrax yeah the LeMatrix LeMatrix yep thank you for listening yep

and as always well before that I just want to say big shout out to the Hoss Hogs the David Dogg the Griff Heads and the Blanket

and our our wonderful fans the Blanket yes and our wonderful fans, the Blankets. Yes. And as always, apologies for being shitty, stupid bullshit. Oh, well. Straight through. Yeah, we're fine.

I don't know. We're fine. This has been a UCB Comedy Production. Check out our other shows on the UCB Comedy Podcast Network.