Blank Check with Griffin & David - Death Becomes Her with Katey Rich

Episode Date: October 25, 2020

Now armed with an arsenal of wild special effects, Zemeckis takes it up a notch with 1992's Death Becomes Her – the first to include computer-generated skin on film. Katey Rich returns as we reminisce Bruce Willis putting effort in, irritating European monologues, the thrilling billing and why Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn make a perfect cult pair. Subscribe to our patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod onTwitter and Instagram Merch is available at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

blank check with griffin and david blank check with griffin and david don't know what to say or to expect all you need to know is that the name of the show is blank check now a podcast now a podcast. Now a podcast! Now a podcast! Man, why don't more movies pull the 15 minutes of Isabella Rossellini trick? That feels like a card to play. One movie a year should play that card. Yes. More movies should offer a 15 minutes of isabella rossolini

wearing only jewelry her her costume is made out of various bangles like how has nolan never been like you know who should do this exposition isabella rossolini like you know what i mean like someone like that like just bring who's better just bring her in she'll just explain some shit and you'll be like that was a very classy and sensual explanation thank you i'm very involved i i think it was uh enemy where she's got like a couple really good scenes as jill and hall's mom where i was like oh fuck major filmmakers are going to start utilizing isabella rossellini in this capacity now and then that wave didn't happen there's joy you can't she's got that great scene in joy where she's like i have one rule in business remember she has like a crazy monologue in joy

a crazy monologue that has nothing to do with what happens in the rest of the movie like yes that whole movie is that whole movie is just scenes where you're like wait what does this have to do with anything joy is fascinating because somehow it defies space and time and that no scene has anything to do with any other scene in the movie or characters or actors or anything it feels like watching new york i love you like somehow it's an omnibus movie of 22 four films all made by the exact same director cast and crew but that's the only movie that I can think of that that did what you're talking about post

enemy like was like oh yeah we'll bring in Rossellini for two scenes that'll be you're right it's like look I have not seen tenant because I don't want to die and I don't have a car but sure that's the main issue right but I could see Isababella rostellini being the one who does what uh why am i forgetting her name now uh who i love the french actress

uh clement uh jesus clement posy yeah it is clement's posy right yeah there's her there's another character played by um her name is aple Kapadia, who is like she she she is the Isabella Rossellini role. Now that the person he cast is actually good, but, you know, an older lady who is worldly and knows about such things and, you know, can tell you about things over a glass of wine like Ben Hosling. can tell you about things over a glass of wine like ben hosling yes cheers ben is drinking wine he's got a glass of vino in front of a zoom background of goldie hawn and meryl streep's upside down decaying heads and he's wearing congratulations tea he looks very classy i am a very classy guy i gotta say i could see why she had this like the prolific modeling career she is just such a striking looking person she's really an incredible face like um i don't know enough about her like film career i only really know her and blue velvet you know this is the first time she's come up we might have to unpack rosalini there's one other big blockbuster movie using isabella rosalini to

add a little gravitas that you have forgotten david like of recent note or oh i know where this is going i see this do you know where this is going i'm on imdb so yes i see it as ambassador henrietta selick and the incredible still i think yes that's a very good point yes yes i mean again, I'm looking at her IMDb now. She's done two voice performances in her life. And the other one is in a movie called my dog tulip. That looks like sort of an independent animated film. Like she's got one of the most famous dang voices.

Bring her in. She was on the cover of Vogue, like, like many months in a row. Like it was, she, well, we're into it I mean well we'll get more into it but like when you're not only a famous and beautiful actress but you're also the child of a famous and beautiful actress and the manner of your birth was famous like that

you know there was this like gripping affair and all that yeah i mean you're gonna have to be on the cover of vogue like 12 times like that's just gonna have to happen like daughter of like like golden mount rushmore hollywood star right and firebrand political like neorealist filmmaker born out of a scandalous affair she becomes a world famous model marries two of the biggest directors of the 20th century that's true i think she never married lynch but whatever you know like i think they were dramatically with whatever you're right you're right engaged to gary oldman oh i didn't know that yeah yeah she was with gary oldman for a bit yeah um but then also yes like world famous model uh started her own uh cosmetics company you must remember this did a really good isabella rossellini episode talking about all the aspects of her life that don't get discussed

and one of them was that she tried to revolutionize the cosmetics industry standing up against what she thought was uh you know like big corporations owned by men trying to push different standards of beauty on women in order to sell products and she was trying to upend it by saying like i want to make high quality things with better materials that set a better standard of what women actually want whether than trying to sell them an idea of what they should want and it didn't totally work but it was like this very admirable uh failure can i say the one thing that we haven't brought up that used her properly uh two episodes of 30 rock really early 30 rock episodes where she's jack's ex-wife she's so funny yeah you love you know i love my

big beef and cheddar it's no i love my big beef and cheddar. No, I love my big beef with cheddar. It's the funniest line in the first season of 30 Rock by far. There's a lot of famous people who were in the first season of 30 Rock who don't come back, like Nathan Lane is Jack's dad, and they did what they needed to do. The show got better, but I don't get what happened. I don't get why they didn't keep bringing her back.

Her and Broderick. Broderick's performance in 30 Rock, those two episodes. Oh, yeah, Cooter? The Bush administration forgotten half child? Matthew Broderick has given good performances and has had a long and varied career and he's obviously worked on stage producers. Might be his singular that's like his best work is cooter

i'm and i'm not even being sarcastic and i'm not even being patronizing it just makes me his little face makes me laugh so much in that stupid episode where he he like is it donaghy like pulls off the the lampshade and there's a candle instead of a light bulb there was there was a a a crew member on the tick who peter serif and which one day pulled me aside and said i don't want to sound mean and i i really think he's a lovely guy and very good at his job but i come to this realization i need to share it with someone because it's driving me crazy. Do you not think that blank looks like a little boy who's been dressed up by his parents for Easter? And, and, and I couldn't unsee it. And Broderick has some of that energy. Like now that he's gotten older and he's gone grayer, he's still just the

way he combs his hair and the way he wears his little sweaters. And as you said, David, his little face, like he went from being Ferris Bueller, like the awesome, like cool team war games, like the kids fucking with the institutions. To now looking like a little boy who's dressed up for Easter services. I assume Peter Serafinis was right. Like that's a dead on description of this guy. It was, it was a brutal, brutal murder. He bodied this guy.

He called him like laundry. Yeah. Yeah. Dead in a ditch. David's new favorite phrase. Hey, listen, what is this we're talking about here? This is a loose fun episode. I can tell.

With an old fave. And we're connoisseurs of context. All this is relevant. This is a loose fun episode. I can tell. It's a loose fun episode. Ben, Frank, and Wyatt. And we're connoisseurs of context. All this is relevant. We're establishing context because this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. And the podcast is about filmographies. It's about directors who had massive success early on in their career and give a series of blank checks. They get every crazy cast crazy projects they want.

Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce down the stairs and you think they're dead, and then they come back up, and then they end up being an excuse to try out a lot of new special effects techniques. This is a mini-series on the films of Robert Zemeckis,

the infamous Bobby Z, and today we were talking Death Becomes Her, which I realized, I've been making a mistake for almost every episode of this podcast so far where I say that, I've said that Flight and Used Cars are the only two R-rated movies that Bobby Z ever made. Oh, sure.

You keep forgetting about this one. No, no, it's a PG-13 right oh yeah this was a pg-13 right allied is already yes allied has has fucking you know it has sex unlike you know like some grown-ups having sex with each other well these are two things i want to say one i i might be hoisted by my own petard making this statement as well, but I would categorize this as Robert Zemeckis' last proper comedy. I think he makes movies with comedic elements after this. And watching Forrest Gump, we were like, oh, that's more satirical than we remembered. But I think his light latest movies after this point are

family films they're they're not comedies first and foremost yeah i don't think i mean the honestly the witches i guess might be a comedy like that seems comic in tone but i don't think he's made a film that you could call a comedy since this gump, right? I mean, but Gump was, Gump was a drama at the globes, right? Like that's received as a drama received as a drop. I just think it's a thing we've covered before on this show. Tim Burton's another example for me of like someone who comes out of the gate and is like a comedy director first and foremost, and then starts to get caught up in the trappings of other stuff

and with burton it's just sort of like the size the machinery the art direction the intellectual property you know and with zemeckis it just like i mean partially it's the the special effects wizardry but it also is a little bit i think of what we talked about in our used car episode but like i want to be taken seriously you know i i want to be uh you know a serious adult filmmaker i don't want to be seen as childish i think it's the same as the spielberg thing even when he's making like you know populist movies they're edgier because he doesn't want to be seen as the amblin acute sort of Yes, he wants to shed His family Right, rep

That makes sense Introduce our guest, you introduce the show Introduce our guest, and then I have A question I want to ask Our guest today, one of our favorites One of the best Returning for the sixth time? Because last time was the five-timers

Yeah, that was the momentous moment And now here I am, just, you know I don't know what you get for the sixth time? Because last time was the five-timers. Yeah, that was the momentous moment. And now here I am just, you know, I don't know what you get for the sixth anniversary. Just pop it in. It's easy. It's chill. You get the gentleman's sixth, Kate. Yeah, all right. Gentleman's sixth. I couldn't be happier. It's tough to make the five,

but you don't really become a gentleman until you're six. Ladies and gentlemen, from Little Gold Men. Mother of Charlie. Mother of Charlie. And Sam. I guess Sam hasn't been on the show. Sam hasn't been on the podcast. He's gonna, I mean, we're just gonna have to wait until

he's, you know, eight and you guys have, you know, I don't know which miniseries you'll be doing at that point and then I'll have both kids on, um, to share their opinions. Yeah. Uh, Sam, Sam doesn't have his own blankopedia page yet. No, although maybe I don't know. I'm not sure. Maybe this is how he gets it. He doesn't have movie taste yet. So I can't get, I can't endear him to, to the masses yet. Uh, it's just Elmo right now.

Cause Charlie seems to be naturally a cinephile. Yeah. He likes movies. So like we used to go to the movie theater together, which I loved and was like looking forward to continuing to do. And like, obviously it's not going to happen for a while. Uh, but, uh, yeah, he's been watching me. He watches a ton of crap. Like Netflix is crammed with terrible kids movies do not get me wrong yeah i mean there's some good there's good stuff i'm kidding i can tell you about the good kid

stuff on netflix i don't know how many parents listen to the show but like storybots rules um but disney plus has been very helpful to us we've been watching fantastic mr fox and lilo and stitch rock solid is fantastic mr fox on disney plus it's on Disney plus. Yeah. It's a, is it because it's Fox searchlight? Yeah. I don't know how we got lucky enough to have it on there, but it works out. Also obviously toy story four and Forky.

Uh, for everyone. You know what? It was just, it was just Fox. So he's still down with Forky. He's still, we're still down. Yeah.

We like rotate the toy stories in and out. Uh, I mean, he got this book from school that it yeah we like rotate the toy stories in and out uh i mean he got this book from school that's like a lift the flat book where like it has a picture of the thing and then it shows you the word on the other side this is like a common kid thing but it's a disney book so it's all disney characters and the number of disney characters he recognized on site was terrifying creepy uh yeah he just knew all of them like for like like characters i did for

movies i didn't realize he'd seen like baloo and the jungle book like yeah it goes deep man that's what i was like that's a young griffin newman thing right absolutely i i got some bad news for you there might be an ominous future lying ahead you're looking at charlie's future yeah uh let me see i'm looking into the future I'm looking at my crystal ball Okay, so Charlie's podcast is going to do well Yeah, that's good He'll have a very valuable collection of action figures

That he'll sell someday Absolutely Romantic relationships, there might be some work in that That's where I come in Come on You just need Katie to fix you Steer him in the right direction today we're talking about death becomes over to the fucking buck wild movie

oh man it is wild this movie is like your kooky divorced aunt this movie smokes capri cigarettes it's got long fingernails it's it's wow it's wild i found the threads i have my readings but i still have a hard time keeping this movie in my head as a zomechis movie like it just doesn't click there and i remember like no what are you gonna say well just the way it clicked for me as a zomeckis movie is when I realized like, Oh, it's a loony tune. Like it's,

it's Roger rabbit adjacent. That's where I see him the most like that. That's where, because it is crazy that this is essentially an iconic queer film of the nineties directed by Roger, Roger, Jesus, Robert zemeckis directed by roger rabbit listen to the words coming in directed by robert zemeckis who i do not want to tell tales out of school but strikes me as an excessively straight person like i have there's nothing wrong with that, but I,

the guy doesn't really like, you know, scream like I've got a queer classic in me when, you know, when you're looking at interviews, he is your dad's friend who tinkers in the basement. Exactly. Like maybe he has some Hawaiian shirts,

you know, that's about as flamboyant as he's going to get. Katie, you know that's that's about as flamboyant as he's gonna get katie you were talking about uh your sons and your setup at your home before recording zemeckis feels like a suburban dad who has a train table does he not but like a big ass train table like astroturf on it oh yeah right right like will ferrell in the lego, but with the train. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's just intricately like every single tree, all the little shops. Like he feels like he has like a Beetlejuice town model. Now the question for his magazine,

like this might be what we get into with the actual context, but like, do we credit the screenplay for all of the like queer classic sensibility that's in it? Absolutely. The screenplay by, uh, let me check notes david kept and martin donovan who is a little more of a you know he's he's probably where that's coming from his script originally kept does the zemekis rewrite we'll dig into it but for me it's like i remember in like high school when i started really becoming obsessed with like viewing things

as part of careers tla video which i've talked about had their movies organized by director and i remember seeing death becomes her on the mecca shelf and going like was this put here accidentally like hey i hadn't heard of it like I feel like in 2002 or whatever, when I saw the, the sort of a forgotten derided film or maybe not derided totally, but for, yeah. Yeah. And we were talking about right before recording movies that like get

bumped up a star on Netflix, which are sort of like the, you know, the, uh, heir apparent to movies that would get bumped up a star on TBS or TNT or Comedy Central. And I feel like this was not a movie that was in that regular cable TV rotation, even though it feels like that kind of movie.

So I saw it on the shelf and I was like, was this put here accidentally? And then I looked at the back and I was like, are there two different directors named Robert Zemeckis? Is this a different zemeckis because everything about this just feels like oh this is barry sonnenfeld directing a paramount production of a paul rudnick script like you look at the front of the box and if someone had you guess what it is you're like scott ruby produced this rudnick wrote this and and sonnenfeld directed this that feels like what it is and instead it does feel right yeah it's it's zemeckis and otherwise pretty much all the above the line team that went on to do jurassic park the next year

like it's same dp iln has credited a lot of the breakthroughs that they did on this movie as pairing them for Jurassic it's the same production designer all the same people go over Jurassic with Spielberg plus John Lloyd are Zemeckis and Spielberg still bros at this point oh for sure

I mean when Zemeckis as we briefly talk about in the next episode when Zemeckis wins for Forrest Gump, which is two years from now, you know, from this movie, Spielberg presents the director award. And Griff, I rewatched it. And he says, he opens the envelope and he says, Alex, your dad just won an Academy Award. He's speaking to Robert Zemeckis' son.

That's like that is like a true like this guy's my pal. It's like I'm on first name terms with his son. It's like a sequel to Max Spielberg, the director of Jaws 19 and Back to the Future 2. He's sending out

messages to each other. Zemeckis takes the stage and is like the first person I want to thank is Steven Spielberg. Thank thank you for believing in me you know like it begins with him thinking like so they are very much still bonded at the hip i think it's also i mean it's fascinating to me that like dean uh cundy who was such such a big cinematographer for such a long while but was really huge for zemeckis yeah right but like he you know he does like uh b movies like carpenter kind of like legitimizes him and then there's the zemeckis like romancing the stone back to the future who framed roger rabbit back to the future

two and three uh you know with like big trouble and little china in between roadhouse and stuff and then after that fieldwork just pulls him for like two movies he pulls him he just did hook and jurassic right oh i'm sorry and jurassic that's what i mean yes with with this movie in between then he stays in the amblin zone he does like flintstones and casper yeah paul 13 is like his last great work i mean excuse me the parent trap he did shoot the parent excuse me you're right and the holiday um excuse me krippendorf's tribe yeah krippendorf's tribe is the is low-key the most bananas film released by a major studio in the history of the 90s at least. You know the premise of Krippendorf's

tribe. Do I know the premise of this movie? No, I know you know the premise. I've seen it. I've seen it too. I saw it in theater. Is this a Fantastic Beast? A Krippendorf? Yeah. Fantastic Beast and Krippendorf's tribe

is the third movie. No, I don't know. The Krippendorf's tribe is the third movie no i don't know krippendorf it's a movie about uh an anthropologist played by richard dreyfus who has failed to find a lost tribe in some you know he's journeyed into new Guinea or whatever. And he instead just makes up a tribe and like shoots a fake documentary with his family playing tribe members. And like, he's like, Oh,

and they do this and they do that. And he becomes super famous because of it. And like, so it's one of those like comedies where there's a lie that has to be revealed in the third act. It's the worst.'s disney made it he has to keep creating new mythology and finding new videos of this tribe which are just his kids in a suburban backyard and we must see these are his white his white kids his white kids in mud and puts like feathers in there he also falls in love with jenna elfman who he is like 25 years older than like it's not like a

small distance in age yeah if you look at the poster of this movie i think like every the poster's canceled imdb's canceled for hosting the poster it's uh yeah it's over yeah you have to watch krippendorf's tribe using like a vpn otherwise like groups are gonna track down your if i watch if i rented it from like a video store and then like i was nominated to be like secretary of defense like the senators would be like ah we looked at your blockbuster history krippendorf's tribe and i'd be like i i on advice of counsel i will not answer the question. Wait, is it on Disney Plus? Absolutely not.

It's on Disney Minus. Yeah, it's in the Disney Negative Zone. It's not in the Disney Vault. It's in the Disney Tomb. Do you remember when Chris Hansen did that special, David, that was called Dateline to Catch a Person Wanting to Rank Gryffindor 5?

And they set up a fake blockbuster the only problem was no one ever did it that was the only issue no one actually rented the movie they built this blockbuster they hired Master to pretend to be the employee and he was there with his stack of notes

ready to go so what were you planning on doing tonight what movie were you thinking of renting and they all come in they're like flubber and he's like okay okay, yeah, sure, take it. I guess you're safe. Technicality. Technicality. I guess he also shot The Holiday.

You know, he became a Nancy Meyers person because he shot Home Again. He shot her daughter's movie. Home Again was like the last major movie he shot. Because Home Again is now a major movie? Is that what we're... I mean... Can I list the six films before Home Again, Katie?

Lama Jama, The Girl in the Photographs, Diablo, Walking with the Enemy, Crazy Kind of Love, and then before that, what I would say is his last major film is

jack and jill duncacinos someone had to capture that yeah he shot the duncacinos so you know we stand but but like he was such a big deal he kind of defined the next like three years of blockbuster cinema with his aesthetics and much like Vilmos Zygmunt, like ended his career shooting 10 episodes of the Mindy pod project. It's very odd how he went from being like big, big, big, bigger. And then he sort of gets ghettoed into like, Oh, now you, you hire him if you want to do a movie where you have to combine live action and animation like he becomes the specialist for that he does garfield and looney tunes back in action nancy myers is still hiring him to do like rom-coms and then he just sort of

like falls off a cliff he he did a scooby-doo tv movie. He did Camp Rock, the Disney Channel original movie. Like, it's very, very odd. And he only directed one film ever, the direct-to-video Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. That's right, which I have seen. It's when they shrink themselves. That's the third one, right? Yeah. That's post-Blew Up the Cib.

Hey, someone punched Moranis, man. That's that's post blew up the cab. Hey, someone punched Moranis, man. That was fucked up. I was mad here about that. Oh man. So fucked up. I hope that dude gets locked the hell up and then shrunk into a mini jail.

And then I poured into a bowl of Cheerios and then eaten. By Rick Moranis. Really grim by Rick Moranis. Yeah. Moranis' revenge. The wildest shit was that the news reports were like, oh, Rick Moranis was attacked and the photo they use of him is from like the 80s because like no one even

thinks what he looks like now. He was in that like cell phone ad. Yeah, with Ryan Reynolds. Griffin, I'm aware that he was in a commercial yeah with ryan reynolds griffin griffin i'm aware that he was in a mid-mobile commercial i didn't want to talk about it it wasn't like a thing i wanted to revisit in my memory palace but it's with i'm not ryan reynolds correct he's like the owner of mid-mobile canadian? Yes, exactly. I want to get your opinion on this, Katie, because I was ranting about this. David and I were talking about this with some friends the other day. I feel very strongly about this.

What is this fucking trend of all movie stars and celebrities also at a certain tier when you've become like an a-lister suddenly feeling like you also need to be a venture capitalist why does ryan reynolds own mint mobile ryan reynolds you're a movie star that's the coolest fucking job that anyone can ever have make movies don't fucking buy a cell phone company and a majority share of a soccer team and a gin company what is all this shit because george clooney made like a literal billion dollars selling his company and they're like it's clooney but you know what when clooney did it was cool you're not george clooney it's like a jack kennedy line you don't it's like i serve with george clooney ashton kutcher doesn't have to work because he invested money in like Twitter

or whatever. See, that's fine. Why is Ashton Kutcher on Shark Tank? Why does he get a chair? He's not a fucking shark. Yeah, he's making a ton of money. He invested it all well. If you want to quietly invest in like Beats by Dre or whatever and just quietly make a hundred

million dollars and then like one day there's like a news article it's like oh did you know that like fucking krippendorf like made a hundred million dollars you know i'm like oh that's crazy but yeah if you're gonna start to build your brand around it you're gonna do instagram ads if you're gonna do fucking superbowl commercials about how you own a bank like i'm out of here i'm out if you're gonna pull fucking rick moranis out of retirement in order to look at the camera and go hi i'm ryan reynolds owner of mint mobile what you're deadpool bitch

i think if you are famous you are told that you are valuable and you are a brand and that you need to like market yourself and that like the people want to be a part of you and you believe it. And then you buy some shit. And I mean, many of them go bankrupt doing that stuff. So you can root for that for Ryan Reynolds. It's weird that he's doing that and he's Deadpool. Like he has like an iconic thing on the screen and now he's like trying to get his own Casamigos at the same time.

Yeah. And it also feels like his whole brand is like, I'm Ryan Reynolds. I'm making fun of the stuff I'm doing like even to the degree that the free guy trailers right the free guy trailers have like deadpool intertitles where it's like from the studio that brought you and then shitty movies like now every ryan reynolds movie is advertised as if deadpool was the head of the marketing department but also he wants to look us in the eyes and be like, hi, I'm Ryan Reynolds. This is my new lip balm. Go fuck yourself.

Be a movie star. Is that not enough? He's he, cause he it's cause he knows, he knows he's not a movie star. You know what I mean? Now a word from our sponsor. He's like,

Hey losers, it's me, Ryan Reynolds. You want to save money on your fucking phone bill? No, too bad. I don't even know. See, I can't do it. You know, that's his Deadpool magic. You know what I mean? I can't even be irreverent like he can.

So maybe I should take it back. It's hard. Well, and the real trick is he knows he's being irreverent. We should clarify that it's not that any of Ryan Reynolds companies are sponsoring this episode. Ryan Reynolds himself has bought free ads. He wants us to just promote him that he's cool and successful. Man, maybe I should buy some Casamigos. You know, Casamigos is classy.

Yeah, it is. Look how classy these bottles are. Have none of us had it? I've had it. i've had it okay i tried the running rounds gin it it sucks ass it's so bad well that's the point griffin it's called aviation american gin you weren't in the aviator are you matt ross no and he got married on a plantation i'm not forgetting about that ryan reynolds all of it i love gin it's my spirit of choice and i was at a bar and i ordered my usual back when bar still existed

15 years ago uh gin and ginger ale as you know is my go-to drink you do you do love it and they said yes what kind of gin would you like and it was this fucking spawn con instagram culture bullshit in effect i looked i saw aviation gin on the shelf i went isn't that the thing that ryan reynolds bought and i went why not try it and it tasted like fucking cat piss it's tough and i'm someone who often will say whatever is cheapest like i often order my mixed drinks with saying whatever's cheapest and this was worse than well jam anyway and now i mean no fucking around i don't want to do any bits anymore and now we're from our sponsors aviation american gin yes of course okay it just starts off with a raspberry

and it's like buy it jerk why doesn't this take more like canvas hi i'm dead all right you said you saw this movie recently for the first time you only have seen it in quarantine for the first yeah yeah i was we had some friends who stayed with us for a few weeks as they were between houses uh which is a great way to spend quarantine if you have a space for it because then you don't feel so locked in your house just with the people you already live with um and what and they've been doing like weekly like 90s movies nights in quarantine which is a great idea so we watched it becomes her, which like, like I had seen back to the future a million times, all three of them,

I'd seen Forrest Gump a million times. I'd like, and it's, they were both such like factors of being a kid in the nineties and this movie, like you were saying Griffin just kind of like slipped by me. Like I wasn't old enough for it when it came out and I didn't have like, I don't know who were the movie nerd friends who were like when I was a teenager would have been like you gotta watch this like I think that was happening for people but it just wasn't in my sphere and then I had heard people like coming back to it and like when it had its anniversary no maybe it's 25th anniversary

anyway edit a piece about like how it'd become a queer classic and I had just somehow never seen it and then it shows up and you're like I can't believe this movie existed in 1992 or ever in some way uh it's like this miracle that gets like dispatched to you on hbo max now so it's right there for you and also especially as like you know all three of us big oscar nerds when you're like this movie like slam dunk won best visual effects it was like a cakewalk of like well obviously that's the visual effects showcase of the year no other nominations yeah i can't reconcile what this movie is this feels so bizarre that this exists as a bruce willis comedy flanked by meryl and goldie Hawn that is mostly a visual effects showcase.

And it's the movies that make us make in between the Back to the Future trilogy and Forrest Gump. I mean, if you're looking for a deliberate palate cleanser between like a huge trilogy that takes up like five years, seven years of your life and then Forrest Gump, like you can do worse than this. It's a very nice change of pace. But it's the other super odd thing about this film is that like on its face it seems like yes let's make a smaller movie i just did a big big trilogy that got increasingly more and more complex i did roger rabbit which is like the most insane visual effect movie ever made up until that point in time why not make like a smaller comedy get back to my

roots and instead he finds this script that's written by sort of like a journeyman writer who mostly had sitcom credits and he's like oh fuck this premise could be turned into a big visual effects extravaganza like all the sort of like looney tunes one-upmanship distortion of their body shit was all added by zemeckis who then brought on David Koepp to like rewrite it for visuals do you want well all right so my experience with this movie as a kid was that it was oh it was even though you're as you say it was not as much of a cable player it was for some reason always on the British TV channel Sky One at least for a while and I lived in Britain wait wait I lived in Britain. Wait, wait, wait.

I lived in Britain. I lived there. When I was a kid, from the age of nine. We haven't talked about it in a while, but it's true. Has this come up? It's come up before several times, and you guys sometimes pretend not to know it.

But I did live in Britain it looks like you're still working through this I feel like I would remember if I did a bit about forgetting things that I already know you would remember that you forgot right yes

don't worry I don't know if you remember this Griffin or if you had this experience at all. But they would play the commercial for this movie all the time. And it would emphasize that in it, Meryl Streep's head gets turned all the way around. And Goldie Hawn has a big shotgun hole in her chest. Right? And they would just show the ad.

And I would be like, that looks like the most disturbing movie ever made. Like, I would just watch it in horror. I be like, that looks like the most disturbing movie ever made. Like I would just watch it in horror. I'm like, how is that allowed to exist? And you know what really creeped me out was the blue eyes. Like on top of all the body horror stuff, just how like creepy they look. Right. Like, and so I was really scared of this movie, like until i was basically a grown-up like i think i thought this movie was that that was just a teaser for how fucking demented this movie is now this movie is

demented but the body horror obviously those are the those are the big you know bits of body horror like i think i must have thought like it just gets wilder and wilder on that front so i was very scared of this movie. Sort of the centerpiece of the movie. Yeah. That's the other weird thing. It's the damn poster. Right. Right. When that shit starts, I'd seen this movie once before. I probably watched it like streaming on Netflix seven or eight years ago. And when they finally start the one-upsmanship, the shotgun through the chest,

the twisting of the head i went oh so right is this just the remaining 45 minutes of the movie is just tit for tat spy versus spy escalating attacks i forgot that it's sort of like that's the big centerpiece of the movie is all the big effects money shots that are then put on the poster that were used in the marketing and then there's sort of a final like denouement chase yes right it's it's not only no um it is interesting also like you have as your virtual background david the the image is now like the cover for all the home video releases where it's Bruce Willis looking terrified, holding a candelabra through the hole in Goldie and has his other arm around Meryl, whose head is twisted backward. Weirdly, they flip their dresses.

Goldie is always wearing red. Goldie has the red dress. Yeah, right. It's an odd thing. I don't know why. That image is like the famous sort of promotional image from the movie. But I was digging into it. That was pretty much the overseas poster and then was used for all home video.

Yeah. The U.S. poster is the potion, right? It's the it's the purple potion and Isabella Rossellini's chest. And it just says in one small bottle the fountain of youth the secret of eternal life the power of an ancient potion sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't streep Willis Han death becomes her a very odd way to sell this movie but but the other way is also an odd way to sell it which is just like this is a movie about gross things happening to bodies if like if you're looking for like the depth of the movie though and i think that's definitely at least like why it's become like iconic for people and for women

as it goes along like it is about something in a way that like i mean i guess roger robert is as well but like you know and we'll get into this in depth but like what it hits on about like women and aging and hollywood specifically is real and like is the engine that drives the whole thing and it sells the looney tunes silliness and like the the kind of body horror that's like is the engine that drives the whole thing and it sells the looney tune silliness and like the the kind of body horror that's like under the surface even when they stopped doing all the effects stuff absolutely yeah i know the original screenwriter i'm forgetting his name martin donovan not the actor martin donovan yeah i had not that he's half not not not not not mr tenant not mr tenant from tenant mr tenant um he i think kind of disowned this movie because he was like i wanted to make a much sadder sort of satire

and zemeckis got his hands on it and became all about the possibility of the special effects and the promotional campaign became so forward with the violence and the body stuff that I felt like he got away from it. But I do think it is the weird combination of all those elements. Like if you look at this movie's Wikipedia page, it has an entire subsection pretty much just about this movie's legacy on RuPaul's Drag Race. How often it has come up on RuPaul's Drag Race, how many different drag queens will mention it as an inspiration, follow dressing up on it, that there was an entire challenge based around it, they named episodes off of it. And I do think there's something like, it's weird. The sadness of the script and the sort of like pointed accuracy of what it's satirizing combined with Zemeckis' cartoonish

gee whiz Looney Tunes sensibilities end up accidentally making this very camp movie. You know? That it shouldn't on its face be produced by these people. Right. It's like a weird combination

of tastes that harmonize into something different and there are so few movies that fall into that kind of like camp 90s or like gay classic from that era that like are this expensive is this like expensive mainstream blockbusters which comes out a couple years later but like it's just not the same scale as this and it's yeah it's again about like straight people and like women fighting over a man to some degree but like the way that they stop fighting over him and like team up is kind of subversive

in that way like there's not a lot of movies that would follow them in that direction and it's just like yeah it can't be they call each other hell and mad from the very beginning and wear amazing dresses and like fight with fireplace pokers like it's like a dynasty episode it is also from this crucial

window in streep's career post her first serious decade you know silkwood sophie's choice ironweed out of africa you know like all you know cry in the dark casually takes down two oscars two Oscars and also appears in four different Best Picture winners? Right. Is in a bunch of canonical masterpieces. Kramer vs. Kramer. Maybe it's three.

Yeah. And it's basically like She-Devil, Postcards from the edge defending your life death becomes her right one those are four years in a row and postcards from the edge is the one that's the closest to being a drama and even that is a comedy drama yeah and they're they're four funny movies they're all good i would say right like she devils she devil is probably the most controversial but the other three

are really good. That movie rips. I watched it recently. Has the worst rep, right, of those four movies. I always thought it, the reputation, I thought it was a calamity and I was like, I might like this, but I'll understand why other people hate it. And then I watched it and I was like,

this thing is just good. I don't understand why this was so reviled in its time but I do think it has something to do with can I throw it out there I think Meryl was going through a little bit of an Anne Hathaway thing where people started to resent how perfect

don't try and impress us yeah you know come on you're not you're not funny too. That was the whole thing. Right. It was like the classic Meryl isn't funny. Right. Which is like,

it's weird when you see this movie. It's insane when you see this movie. Yeah. Right. And of course it's later insane when she sort of like does devil wears product. Right. You know,

you see this older comedy crew, all the DNA of devil wears product product is in this performance and you look at this you're like how did you let that movie like get treated as a surprise when she was doing so much of it in this she's really good in this in a way where she's not trying to be funny i feel like not like in a desperate like you don't feel her being like straining for laughs like she's she will talk about anyway but it's just isn't it interesting griff that it's like that's her little comedy pocket and then death becomes her being the final one where she's like all right fine you guys want serious shit from me bridges of madison county marvin's room like one true thing music of the heart i'm back to that okay and then adaptation

i feel like is what finally unlocks her again where it's like you know what meryl why don't you just have fun why don't you do a bunch of different stuff like absolutely um but like she just gets thrown some river wild river wild is the movie she does right after this i love the river wild but she was again, sort of slammed for, uh, straying from her lane where it's like an action movie, Meryl, really?

Like, I love that movie. It's a great movie. She's great. She was, she was so prodigious. She came out of the gate. So hot.

She dominated so hard. And then I do think there was just like, people were waiting to find the things we couldn't do. And you read all those reviews and they do katie as you said have this tone of like well we found it here's the one thing meryl can't do it's comedy she's not funny she tries too hard like they all say that and it's interesting that of those four movies you're listing the only one that was like really successful financially was this one. Uh,

a postcards from the edge is the only one that gets awards. She gets an Oscar nomination. Right. Right. But everyone kind of treats it as like, why are you doing this comedy thing? Meryl move on, get back to like crying in different accents. Do accents.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and all these comedies, like, I mean, I guess defending her, your life is different, but, becomes her uh she devil and postcards from the edge i think all play on this perception of her

being too perfect like they're all kind of canny performances where she's playing these very self-involved image obsessed sort of divas and people were so fucking against them and then she comes back and does this again 15 years later and people were like finally what took you so long meryl and then she she finally becomes a box office star like a consistent box office star for the first time in her career doing straight comedies for like and kind of becomes like an iconic like you know queen type you know what i mean versus like a serious actress or you know she had to get older to do that though like that she had to get older to do it right and even though it's not like i mean how i mean honestly how old is she in this movie like it's not like she hasn't been fucking working she's in her 40s years i looked i looked this up at one point goldie is really almost 50 which is yeah because goldie is basically goldie is there with

this movie goldie's already an iconic queen that we love you know what i mean like when she's in this movie this is her in the pocket yeah right um and that's all the reviews are like goldie just fucking runs circles right they're like home run from goldie unsurprising right yeah of course like she she'll give you this any day um willis i mean we got to talk about him in a second but i just want to hey what you you talking about Willis? Yes. What? You are talking about Willis? Griffin, in terms of billing, I just have to bring it up. Yeah. So the movie begins with a hammer to the face. You know, it's like, to me, it's just like, I gasp at a billing type card like this.

You know, a film that begins with the three stars splitting a card yes all in one you know not like being billed one after the other they somehow negotiated it was going to be the three of them now as you probably would know griffin maybe you notice this the movie starts with goldie hawn bruce willis meryl streep that's the billing yeah yes the poster reverses it yes the poster is Meryl Streep Bruce Willis Goldie Hawn Bruce is always in the middle as he should be because he's sort of being warred over but I I love whatever fucking insane three-day divorce type lawyer negotiation in Hollywood the amount of sandwiches that were ordered the assistants who had to like abandon their families so they can end with like okay you

know what goldie can be top on the movie and third on the poster okay like you know that they finally agreed to that i am going to blow your mind one step further, David. Okay, please, please. You forgot to mention that the way they format it, Meryl and Goldie are on the same line and Bruce is center but dropped down. Only on the poster, to be clear. In the movie, there's three in a row. But yes, yes, that is true. I watched the trailer for this movie

for a reason I will come back around to in a little bit. Do you want to know what the. I watched the trailer for this movie for a reason. I will come back around to a little bit. Do you want to know what the billing is on the trailer as announced? Don't tell me. Don't tell me Willis is first. I feel like Willis is first. Hold on. I think it's Bruce Willis. Meryl Streep.

I'm watching it right now. I'm watchingeryl Streep and Goldie Hawn. I'm watching it right now. It's definitely and Goldie Hawn. They give her an and. This is going to give David an aneurysm. It's Meryl, Bruce, but you're right. It's and Goldie Hawn. I'm glad we decided

on this. I feel like all of our listeners were at the edge of their seat for that reveal. That was just huge. That was just huge. Rosalina, I guess still, I guess Rosalina just can't muscle into that because even though she's

pretty big at that point, you're, you know, and it gives you the weird sight of, I mean, we got to talk about his opening number where like, you see like Merrill strutting down the stairs and this Broadway show. And then Isabella Rosalina's name shows.

I feel like, Oh, we're still doing that. Huh? Cause we're in the middle of this. Amazing musical number that kicks off the whole thing that like no one ever talks about because it's, you know, there's all the special effects that come after, but like, Holy shit. Did Alan Silvestri do that? Who did that? It must be. I would assume.

I mean, right. This is a thing. I'm so glad we're talking about. A phenomenon that i went like this no this feels worth doing a little sidebar on blockbuster directors who seemingly have the itch to direct a musical number but won't commit to doing a full musical i think of right like this is a great example of that you also have like you know little sort of semi-musical numbers and roger rabbit but this is him doing like a big fucking old-fashioned broadway style musical number but also it's terrible which is great yes right yes right

it's like noises off it's like also kind of bad right uh spielberg opening of temple of doom which is only finally finally making good on now with west side story but that's a similar like here's my big indiana jones sequel cold open and fucking anything goes in china right right spider-man 3 spider-man 3 everyone remembers the fucking dark spider-man disco number oh yeah but people forget that mary jane is starring in a musical in that and there are two extended sequences of watching her do broadway productions those sequences are so weird they're so weird i just remember reading

someone's review of spider-man 3 and just going like jesus christ someone let sam raimi make a musical it's clear he doesn't want to be doing another spider-man he can't stop putting dance numbers into this fucking thing i like a dramatic descent it seems fun oh yeah you like some stairs yeah it sets up the whole thing where everyone's like this is such a piece of shit and it's starting to like i don't know like there's bill boys and like meryl's got a dress on and then it's when they start doing the hustle like near the end of it you're like oh and yeah the sight of like meryl like hoofing on stage with people walking out is like the camera pans back it's uh it's gorgeous it's perfect it's gorgeous it's perfect and also get like you say like you know meryl doesn't do a lot of shit you know like this is some funny

dumb shit like you know and she's kicking off the movie with it and uh and it works it's great we'll get there again 20 years later I mean but the thing about Mamma Mia which I guess we will never do no we're not gonna we might do

here we go again we might just have to do that one but uh I can't who the fuck directed mommy what's what's her little loy i'll park into the sequel right he did the sequel yeah because she did she did mommy and then did the iron lady which i is my least favorite movie of all time um wow she had a movie this year forgot about that. I think it's not out yet. Yeah. It was a Sundance though. I remember. People were at least that they didn't hate it. It was, it was fine. Right. I don't know. Um, but mama Mia is Merrill being like, guys, look, look,

I'm in, I'm in Greece. I'm singing an ABBA song. Like just we're be having fun. This is going to be silly. It's very much her being like, just everyone relax. I know I'm in it, but everyone just relax. And this is her being like, guys, this is going to be wild. I've dialed up. This is stupid. Which I love. Before we get off of the directors who want to make musicals, Alan Silvestri authored the music for Captain for captain america the first adventure which has a great musical number in the middle of it great little musical number but that number i know is by alan mankin i mean as far as i believe you, Zemeckis is working.

I think, actually, I can't speak to the witches. I don't know what's up with the witches. But I believe Zemeckis is working on Pinocchio. Alan Silvestri will be working on Pinocchio. Pinocchio is a musical. I don't, you know, the movie. I don't know that the live action version will have songs. But I, I mean, I have to assume it will.

Mulan didn't seem to think that was important so who knows but you know offense to them go ahead now what were you gonna say make your make your offense i wasn't no offense to the songs in mulan which i enjoyed but like you know pinocchio's got some it's got some big honking numbers i got no strings you know when you wish upon a star like these are yeah hold your horses david i'll make a man out of you yeah but the the i think what what i david and i were both hearing when mulan was in development was like, Oh, this is the big test to see. Can Disney do a remake that is not that devoted to the Disney film that is

able to take a new sort of approach to it. And obviously other X factors at play a pandemic and such, but it does feel like that experiment is going to scare Disney back into do the remake where you do all the songs and everything is similar. And you wasn't Dumbo that too, though. Like it was like a departure, but Dumbo didn't do that.

Well, either. Right. I mean, but Dumbo Bumbo, much like Pinocchio was made by a veteran director who probably can kind of do a little more what he wants right you know like i assume zemeckis will have some leeway just because he's robert zemeckis he gets you tom hanks you know what i mean like but uh i don't know i don't

know um death becomes her what do we want to say about a willis musical number and then my single favorite merrill comedic moment in the entire film which is her practicing her reactions to goldie hawn walking in before she lets her assistant open the door that is so exquisite and and who's right off the bat who's what who's playing the assistant i don't know i think all right it's mary ellen trainer i'm looking around i'm pretty sure that's okay okay anyway sorry and she was funny anyway good go on you know zemeckis comes from comedy. His early movies were all comedies. And this feels like now he's got the clout, the stage, the budget, the star power as a director to really make this kind of like elegant, exorbitant screwball comedy. And just the timing of all of this, how much is sort of controlled by the actors he's got like such fluid camera movements in this which he always has but especially like the first 10

minutes of this movie cover like 10 years it moves so fast at the beginning i'd be right the cut is very very funny like the uh yeah you know the the i i have no interest and and you know like that is that is good but then you have like another seven years later like he's just barreling through sort of backstory table setting at the beginning of the movie and part of what i think makes it work is you have these like really really sharp. You have people who are capable of doing stuff that you don't really see in comedy movies today where things are like all based around improv riffs and a ton of coverage and editing together 18 different angles. So every line is a composite of four different shots. This is like, oh you're just watching 30 seconds of Meryl sitting in a

chair pantomiming how she's gonna look shocked until she finally feels ready and makes the hand gesture and lets her assistant open the door yeah and even before that you get that like take of like all the audience leaving the show and it all lands on bruce willis with this like struck look on his face and he's so funny and goldie next to him is so funny and they are like nailing every single bit of it in this really complicated shot. There's so much of that in this movie, which I love,

which is like super complicated camera move, like following a lot of action, a lot of information. And then you land on the final person and they have to deliver a perfectly timed joke. And that's sort of like super complicated. Like I'm willing to do 80 takes of this to get the one that works. Shit.

You rarely get to see comedy directors do this. You need to have made like a blockbuster or four to be given the permission to, to waste this much money trying to get that one good tape with a crane. Well, now it's so easy to imagine current Bruce Willis putting up with that and really staying on the set for a long time and wanting to get it right and diving into his character.

Let's get into this. I kept thinking over the course of this movie, I cannot just imagine the patience that Bruce Willis used to have. Yeah. Absolutely. Given his reputation, which we are alluding to as a person who you know helicopters into your bulgarian action movie like at 10 a.m and the

copter doesn't even turn its rotors off like he's he's gonna do his four lines and he's gonna get back on the copter like and you're gonna give him a million dollars in cash yeah thank you it's one million dollars per day he will do eight scenes if you can get them all done in one day but if it's two locations that you're gonna have to pay him two million dollars and you're gonna have to pay for a hotel my friend right like all this shit he's so lazy he just sits behind a chair he's probably not wearing pants he's like a guy behind a desk at the final scene. He lifts a gun up so they can put that on the poster. We talked about this Griffin. Like I have to assume that's not true when he's in something like motherless

Brooklyn, not that he has a big role in that, but right. Like that has to be Brooklyn. I think he's great in it, but you know what I mean? Like, that's what I'm saying. Like, he's not like, okay, Edward, I I'm going to need 5 million bucks. You know, like he's probably like, sure. I'll do, I'll do a nice one for you. You know, once in a while. Right. He's still so like, his name still means a lot overseas, which is why people still pay him to do those direct to video movies. Right. Right. right right and i would think the same thing but like there's the the when the bruce willis roast happened edward norton told this story about he was doing a play and bruce willis came and visited him backstage and had like tears in his eyes and it's like you're the exact actor i wanted to be when i was

young and i got caught up i became a sitcom star i became an action star i got so distracted with all this other stuff like i'm so inspired you've reinvigorated my passion i want to work with you someday someday we'll work together just let me know anytime i will be there and like in the 15 years that edward norton was always trying to get motherless brooklyn off the ground it was always there's a lot of saying like i'll be there i'll be there but then he's not in it very much you have to wonder he could have shot all those scenes in two days and asked for two million dollars it's not impossible it's not impossible it's a good part for him though it is a good part like it's the part that makes sense for him in the,

in that movie. I mean, he, I guess he could play the Alec Baldwin role, but like, you know, like, you know what I mean?

Like as the old mentor, but you are not wrong, Griffin, that you can watch the movie and think like, yeah, maybe he wrapped in two, like maybe three. And,

and this is why I think that because of glass, like, do you remember how excited we were before glass came out? We were like, Oh my God, it looks like Bruce is giving a shit again. It's Bruce fucking back. And then he's third bill.

And we were like, that's weird that his billing solo and you watch the movie. And for the middle 50 minutes, he's just locked in a room and no one sees him or talk to him. And you know what? He's not bad in glass at all. He's good. Like when he's doing, he's good acting. Like when he's playing the, yes, he's not bad in glass at all he's good like when he's doing he's good

acting like when he's playing the yes he's good but i mean i love bruce willis i do too but watching glass i did the calculations and i was like okay this movie cost 20 million dollars m night self-financed it you would think that he would throw his quote out the window in order to re-team with one of the directors who's been best for him playing an iconic role in a sequel that people have been begging for for years and to be clear maybe he did like to be clear maybe we don't know to be clear maybe he did but i watched glass and i'm like this might have been three days of filming and he asked for three million dollars it might have been a thing because m night was paying for it that his role

was written down because they couldn't afford more days that's all i'm saying i just want to say i want to ask you what you think of bruce willis katie and we can talk about him in general in general but i do want to say that last year he was in a film called 10 minutes gone that, uh, I think probably holds the Guinness world record for the baldest movie of all time, because it's Michael Chiklis and Bruce Willis. Like Michael Chiklis is in this movie. You think they were like, you know what?

We don't need Willis for this one. We have Chiklis. We've got a stocky bald action guy. And they were like, you know what? No, fuck it. Let's get Willis for a day.

Come on. They'll bald it up together. It'll be great. I'm looking at this poster. The third name above the title is a faded headshot of Telly Savalas. Yeah. What if they were like trying to do a bald Avengers and Telly Savalas died? Shit.

Yeah, we can't do it. Of course. Just checklist and willis yeah right a bottle of mr clean delroy lindo politely declining by email politely yeah politely like i really appreciate it'm busy. I'm doing the good fight right now. I can't be in 10 minutes gone. Katie, what are

your thoughts on Bruce? I don't have strong Bruce feelings in general. I'm pleasantly surprised when he's good and often have seen him be bad, especially like a lot of his movies I've seen in the last 15 years. I liken this him playing low status and what I don't totally have a grip on is like,

I like, obviously he's got diehard going in at this point. I've never seen bonfire, the vanities or Hudson Hawk. And I don't know what that had kind of done for him at this point. Like I know obviously there are huge famous disasters. They're two huge bombs. So he certainly needs a hit.

And he got really wrapped for those movies, even though I don't think he's the problem with either like at all i actually kind of like him like a big like passion project of his or was it somebody else's yeah he he wrote it or he wrote the story so he's the problem with hudson hawk well he but his performance is not but right yeah yeah yeah right right um yeah because yeah you're it's a fair point uh katie that like yes die die hards only four years ago and also he'd been in like in country which he got like good reviews and you know for and like we're not far removed from moonlighting obviously but yeah he's still a very big star at this point oh no 100 because like last year he

had the last boy scout which was a big hit you know like saying you know so like but he he's still a very big star at this point oh no 100 because like last year he had the last boy scout which was a big hit you know like saying you're so like but he he's definitely been dinged a bunch coming out of moonlighting you know like he's like transitioning into stardom and he's been dinged for non-action movies isn't the music career starting around this time too i mean he's got the weird thing where it's like you know he's sort of like a struggling actor for a while then they're fucking moonlighting huge breakout sybil was the known person he was the unknown and suddenly bruce willis becomes like beloved by women and men across america right he's he was the russell crowe yeah. He's also like, he's a little older.

He appeals to older women as well. You know what I mean? Like he's like a man's man, right? You know, he's like, it's just a little older, you know,

Russell Crowe, George Clooney, like those types, the guys who just emerged slightly later. You know, what's the evidence of his stardom at this point? Planet Hollywood launched October 91. Like that's still a huge deal.

He's in the player as himself you know like and like the joke is he's a you know he's bruce willis the movie star right but he's i mean griff it really is wild you're looking at his imdb i assume like yeah how many fucking bombs he made yes but but here's the weirdest thing moonlighting huge breakout right he's the guy everyone's like fuck this is gonna be that rare thing that happens sometimes where someone pops so hard on TV where they're like movie star, right? It's inevitable. It's inevitable. And very often that dooms a person. You have like the Taylor Kitt syndrome where you're like, this guy seems like a movie star. He should be a movie star. Push too hard. Out of moonlighting,

he does two Blake Edwards comedies that both bomb. He does Blind Date and he does Sunset, right? And so I think people are like, fuck, is Bruce not going to translate? It seems like he should be a good comedy lead. Is he not going to carry over? At that point, Die Hard, for which he was, I believe, the highest paid actor of all time. Even though he was like the seventh choice or whatever. For the first Die Hard, he was the highest paid actor of all time, even though he was like the seventh choice or whatever. For the first diehard,

he was the highest paid actor of all time. Wow. Katie, it's like a banana story about how fucked up agents and deal making became in Hollywood in the 80s. He got $5 million for it. It may not have been the highest of all time, but he was essentially paid an A-list salary, like a Warren Beatty salary, you know, for like a movie, even though he'd never been in a hit movie.

As seventh choice coming off of two comedy flops, they were so worried because when the trailers would play and Bruce Willis's face would come up, people in the theater would laugh because they'd be like the moonlighting guy in an action movie. So he wasn't on the poster they redid the poster and the main poster then was the one that's just the building and then diehard blows up and they're like fuck okay bruce proved us wrong i guess he is a movie star and also he's like kind of a serious movie star so then you get like in country he's doing like a dramatic role and supporting part you gotta look who's talking where it's comedy but it's only voice and it's playing off of his reputation's doing like a dramatic role in supporting Park. You got to look who's talking where it's comedy, but it's only voice and it's playing off of his reputation now as like a tough guy. Then like Die Hard 2, look who's talking too. And then he's like, cool, I'm ready to go back to comedy now.

And then this is this pocket where he's like, I proved myself as an action star. I have my franchise. Now I want to go back to big budget comedy. And it's Bonfire the vanities hudson hawk fused flop last boy scout solid hit action movie like comeback and the death becomes her finally gets a comedy hit again and then after this he's like i guess i shouldn't fuck with comedies anymore yeah because even though this was a hit it was not a huge hit and post this he has the the double bomb of color of night and well he's barely in north

but he wears a bunny suit in it um and then but he did but then he also does pull fiction that year so it's like well all right even though like maybe he's not popping quite as much as the other two leads of it like the other three but like he's still come on that's huge my favorite performance in that movie nobody's full great small performance very good in that 12 monkeys his best performance ever love that uh he's so good in that movie but fifth element it's dude armageddon like you know fifth element rules i just want to go on the record and say i think that's one of my favorite that's like a major ass porch movie absolutely i mean i love yeah he certainly

he had a tough time retaining footing throughout the 90s and then the second half of the 90s he just sort of like ramped up and it was like hit hit hit like he was doing well but he would have like small flops in between like he would do like breakfast of champions and the story of us and disney's the kid and shit like that but it'd be buffered by like other movies doing well enough in between and that's pretty much yeah right and the six cents being the gamble that like pays off so much that it makes it. And he's so fucking good. Katie, your first appearance.

I mean, like it's such a good circle. I can't believe I don't have strong opinions after the second Bruce. And unbreakable is my favorite performance of his ever, but then he just sort of like falls off the cliff. I feel like throughout the two thousands, he's like really hit and miss. And then by the 2010s,

it's just like, Oh, he stopped giving a shit. You have that one year where he makes Moonrise and Looper, and then he goes back to being the laziest actor in history. I know. And even before Moonrise and Looper, he's in Red, which is not a good, great movie. But like he's, that's a real movie. And he's funny in it.

Right. I mean, the same year he's in cop out where it looks like that, that's a movie where the helicopter rotors are always going, but like, he's staying around long enough to make Kevin Smith and everybody else on set. He gives Kevin Smith a nookie every day. It was in his contract.

That's the thing. It like, you hear these stories that are like simultaneously he's so lazy also he terrorizes everyone he's lazy but he's also like committed enough to making people know that he dislikes them and it's just it's so compatible with like the bruce willis who seemingly like goes up to the fucking island to like shoot Moonrise Kingdom for scale and

deal with like... He's so good in that movie! He's so good in that movie. It was tinkering. Like, you're just like, how is Bruce Willis sitting on set where Wes Anderson keeps on going, sorry, I need to adjust the picture frame. Let me tilt your glasses a little bit. You know, like, how does he put up with this? What happened?

Like, where's the switch flipped where he just becomes completely incapable of ever giving a shit ever again? Is it one of those things where he owes a lot of money to Demi Moore? I genuinely wonder about it. He clearly has some debt. Is he over leveraged?

He wouldn't be flying to Bulgaria all the time. Is it Planet Hollywood? Is the mob chasing him? actor like he wouldn't be flying to bulgaria all the time you know right like is he just is it planet hollywood like does he is the mob chasing him can we get the man a gin brand to make him a billion dollars good question good question but it also it's like even nicholas page the king of financial troubles the king of how many bulgarian action movies can i make to dig myself out of this hole has now started going like great i can like relax i'm still gonna make a bunch of shitty red box movies that don't exist but also i'll make mandy also i'll do like joe and bruce just hasn't

really done anything you could imagine him caring about in the least outside of motherless broken, right. And glass and glass. Yeah. Glass. Yeah. Wild. I it's in, it's in a while.

It's basically before that it's, it's fucking, you know, moonrise kingdom. It's that year. It's looper. Yeah. I don't know what it is.

All I know is I do love him. And anytime I see a movie like death becomes, which I've seen before, but like, I just see him being a goof, you know, giving a shit, like being physical,

making faces. Like, I just love to see it. Like, it makes me happy. Like, and I wish he'd do it more. And like,

he's, I mean, he's obviously an asshole. I mean, or whatever he's, you know, everyone's an asshole. Like, but he's i mean he's obviously an asshole i mean or whatever he's you know everyone's an asshole like but he's i'm sure he seems like a difficult person in many ways i've never met the man but he also seems like kind of a mensch like kind of that russell crowe energy again right where you're like this guy's probably the worst if he's mad at you but like also he'll like get drunk with him all night you know like he's like friends you know he would like

pop in on like letterman and shit and you know and clearly it's like oh he's just doing this because he thinks it's funny like so i don't know man funny on letterman like such a good always so funny funny on snl like you know whatever has a sense of humor about himself but only sometimes right like between two ferns is great. He's like memorable episodes. He's so good. And this is such a telling performance. Like to be the guy coming off of two diehards and be like,

I want to make a movie. That's about like, I'm very much the third, right? And I'm a limp dick, fucking cuck. Like, you know,

it's kind of about the fact that this guy sucks right like the biggest joke in this comedy is that he's the guy they're fighting over yeah right exactly the first half of the movie they're fighting over him but then they're like oh oh oh forget it uh forget you to be our tool for the rest of our lives they're gonna continue fighting for him right and then at the end they're like he should stick around because we need you to be our tool for the rest of our lives. They're going to continue fighting for him. Right. And then at the end, they're like, he should stick around because we need a slave. Right. He looks good though. Okay.

He does. Looks great. He looks like the nerdy version of Bruce Willis, which is still looking Bruce Willis. A great look. Bruce has done so much for men with thinning hair. That's all I'm going to say. He is an attractive, balding man. Woof. Yes. I should go as, as i'm gonna be him for halloween oh just all exactly horn-rimmed glasses a cardigan yeah you did it

you're bruce willis and beth becomes her and some aspirin all right you gotta have a drink in your hand it is funny katie as you said this movie is creating the nerdy version of bruce willis like how nerdy can we possibly make this very handsome veer all movie star look and that look is now essentially the the absolute best case scenario mood board for most freelance film writers oh yeah like his whole look The sort of like Carefully Like sort of Combed thinning hair The mustache

The retro glasses Yeah he puts on a tux And you're like Ooh that's what like Everyone thinks That they look like When they have to dress up Right that's like

A swipe right on hinge You're like sure Yeah I mean there's a The pivotal scene In this movie Involves Meryl Streep Screaming flaccid

At him And it's She's perfect Flaccid My favorite and it's she's perfect and he is like doing this like cooped up rage thing but not like the cool guy John McClane where he's gonna figure it out he's like so impotent and incapable uh he's so good at it one of the best gags in the movie is him he's gonna rescue her before she falls down the stairs and then she says one last mean thing and he's like like it just always gets me but but the weird thing about him is on its face you think you could imagine what kind of performance this would be

of like oh this is like the rock playing a nerd like it's like a joke at this point in his career that an action movie is playing like this like limp dick like a sort of loser who's being like tug of war between two more compelling movie star actresses uh and instead it's like he seems to be relishing the opportunity to play like a sketch comedy character like Like there's no sort of winky, like, look at me. I'm like subverting my movie star persona bullshit here. This is just him going on to like making funny faces. Yeah, he has my favorite joke delivery,

I think, in the whole movie where they've taken Meryl Streep to the hospital and he realizes she's in the morgue and he's just like, in the morgue, show me furious. And he's so terrified of her in that delivery and he's just like in the morgue show me furious and he's so terrified of her in that delivery and he nails that line so well it's the hospital scene is so funny we've

got to shout out sydney pollack one of the great like one scene performers in so many movies my single i don't know if you saw this, but he was the runner up at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards that year for best supporting actor. For that, for this,

Death Becomes Her, Husbands and Wives, and The Player. They, they, but like, you know, Husbands and Wives, he's like one of,

he's like, he's playing a real real character in that like that they were like but you know what let's fucking fold in the player and his uncredited role in death becomes her into our little shout out i would have nominated so funny this performance he's he's so funny and and most of this scene is a one-er like it's crazy there are a couple times he'll cut to a reaction shot but the large majority of his scene in the office is like camera movements him in real time and his fucking comic timing is thoroughly it is perfect there are so many beats he does. I mean, what's the thing? Oh, when he checks her with the stethoscope and he doesn't hear anything and he like runs to the back wall, throws it out, pulls another stethoscope.

And then him taking the flask from Bruce Willis. I always think about, I remember seeing some Sidney Pollack interview where he talked about like being an actor, being in drama school with like all these like hunky guys and realizing like, oh, I'm never going to be a movie star. I'm going to be stuck playing, as he put it, the stodager or the friend of the guy who gets the girl. And that's when he decided I should be a director instead because I'm never going to have the kind of like acting career I wanted. That he weirdly went into directing out of vanity by realizing he was never going to be a leading man and i look at justin neapolitan's career as an actor which was very much like a tertiary thing for him and i'm

like that's my dream career yeah man michael clayton eyes wide shut doctor yes clayton Michael Clayton, Eyes Wide Shut Doctor Innocent, Clayton Eyes Wide Shut, you're talking, those four supporting performances are everything I want to age into that's the range of like, the worn out guy trying to give you advice the scary guy who you're not sure whether or not he's going to kill you so good as the scary guy

you know what occurred to me and this feels like it's going to tarnish this somehow but you know the scene in Elf where Jon like it's going to like tarnish this somehow but you know the scene in elf where john favaro plays the doctor who's examining welfare like that had do you think this inspired him to do that being like yeah this is the scene where the director gets to come in and have fun with the lead actor and like try not to laugh on camera every actor every director who also has an acting background should play a doctor in one of their movies yeah well i mean it's not his

movie but harold ramus is so good as the doctor in that one scene of as good as you get he's in a couple scenes but that one in particular i mean and he's i mean he's great when he's knocked up for that one scene like he's another one i mean obviously he's an actor like you know he's crazy that sydney pollack was in tootsie and then has no acting credits for 10 years until this. Like, I don't know what and that was what changed his first acting credit in forever. He was like, I'm out. And Dustin Hoffman asked him to play the agent. It's like Dustin Hoffman in his fucking method. It was like, oh, I need the agent to be someone I'm actually intimidated by.

Like, that's the story that he begged him to do it because he was like I want to be scared in those scenes but he's so fucking good in Tootsie right then doesn't act again for 10 years thank you a lot of value that has these days and then why what's up sorry

nothing better than a Ben Hosley why what's up yeah classic do you think about Sorry. Nothing better than a Ben Hosley why what's up? Yeah, a classic. Do you think about Sidney Pollack and Meryl being like on the set of Out of Africa for like whatever, six months or however long that must have taken to make and then coming back to this being like, hey, let's hang out in a set in LA for a night.

That's my question. It's not like Zemeckis has clear ties to pollock and this is everyone's starting to bring pollock back so it's like was street the one who was like hey can we get sydney for this one scene or was zemeckis like can you introduce me to sydney pollock like i feel i loved him in tootsie out of africa is the last best picture winner that i have not seen like the most recent. It's one of those things where I'm always like, oh, I should, I should watch it just to kind of check the box.

And then I'm always like, Jesus, it's like three hours long. And I'm like, what's it even about? And they're like, well, and I'm like, you know what? Don't even tell me. I don't care. But you don't want to hear about this like white European lady in Africa. Get the fuck out of here. I don't care. I'm sorry. I know we have a lot more to talk about but i just

remembered the big weird aberration in the last 10 years of bruce willis's career what we need to just acknowledge that br Willis did misery on Broadway with Laurie Metcalf. Yes. Although I believe it was reliably reported that that production was, I mean, the, the mood,

the show itself did not get great reviews, but I think the production was a nightmare. Yes. That's weirder that he would be like, I want to do this. Right. He must've wanted to do it. Yeah. She it was a mess it wasn't theater it was just like we did very well because he was a movie star and people wanted to see him in person but no one was really there for any reason that material doesn't really translate well to the stage it shouldn't have been a play in the

first place like everything about it's strange but then you're like, he did the full run. It must've been a nightmare to get the helicopter into the theater. I can't imagine. And they have to pay him a million dollars a day. Which I don't know, you guys may not know

Broadway economics, but that is, that is a lot for Broadway. Sure. I Googled Misery Bruce Willis page six based on what you're saying about it being

reported because then you found it oh apparently they banned drinks with ice in them because it made too much noise and um i'm assuming lauren mccaff is not the one who is demanding that adaptation well no well okay well there there's a page six thing that because you have not found it but there was the the rumor was and this was reported in page six is that he had an earpiece that was feeding him lines oh yes on stage like laurie meckhoff would say a line pause he would say his like that it was noticeable that he was being fed lines now this was like when it was in previews and the article even says like the script's changing a lot he's really nervous about it. Like, you know, so like there may have been a reason for it,

but that's not the buzz you want going on Broadway, you know, is like a, he needs a Nori Metcalf to her credit, got a Tony nomination. She's, you know, she's a pro. I mean, was it like, I feel that the Hillary Clinton play was the first Tony nomination. She didn't get in a year. She was eligible. It's improbable.

I mean, the last decade. Yeah. No, she got a Tony nomination for that. Wow. She, she's got, she's gotten four in a row. That's crazy. And that's hard. It's just hard to do that many fucking plays.

And didn't her, who's favorite junior to do that many fucking plays and didn't her who's favorite junior wolf like not open it didn't open i think it's opening night was like the night tom hanks got coronavirus tom hanks ruined it for everybody that was yeah that was with i forget who that was gonna be rupert everett that's right that's right um anyway death becomes wait can we talk about the hospital for a second and that shot where the nuns are floating down the hallway for no goddamn reason and it's so funny and I don't understand it or why it's in there so much visual humor in this movie that's so like delightful so much background detail Fabio the use of Fabio oh

that's real Fabio holy shit shit. That is real Fabio. You know, it's hard. You got to go by the year to know if it's just Fabio or if, if it's a Fabio type, you know, this is when it's still just Fabio. Wow.

You know, if you've got a, a muscled European with long hair, like it might, if it's the early nineties later, it might just be Fabio. Yeah. Fabio as the bodyguard.

Yeah. It's just amazing. The, the, the opposite of this episode, the amount of ground this movie covers in the first 10 minutes, musical number, them going backstage. I will never, ever like see him again. The rivalry being established. never ever like see him again rivalry being established right right goldie goldie overeating getting institutionalized hatching her plan for revenge i always forget that you cut to goldie like fat and then in a mental institute i always forget that there's that two minutes right at the

start of the movie and then and then it's over with and then we never are amazing like for i mean they are i don't know what fat suit technology was at this point and also i would say the fat jokes have probably aged the worst of anything in this movie but it's an amazing effect totally and and then you she gets the idea and then it says like another seven years later like the movie is honestly making a joke about how many time jumps it's made in 10 minutes yeah it's just wild how like how quickly it's sort of covering a lot of terrain you have to assume that's where it is losing the audience losing the critical community like now i think people would be like this is wild i love this but like you know what in like 92

they're just like what now get out of here right you always feel that tone in those reviews right so then you get to sort of like the status quo of the movie proper which is unhappy marriage between the two of them they've been together for seven years willis is drinking himself into oblivion he's disgraced no longer doing surgery now a mortician and meryl sort of blooms off the rose in her career obsessively uh worrying about uh her fading beauty which is the other area you say like what what are the zemeckis links where do you see this where do you see the zemeckis dna and him even wanting to do this project one is the looney tunes potential right for all the physical sort of back and forth two is oh this is another tapestry to try a lot of new special effects technique because that becomes so much of the juice for him is there a new technique i can pioneer for the first time in this movie

let alone multiple techniques i can try, let alone are there techniques that I've used before that I can refine with this material. And then the third thing is, it took me a little while to crack that you can view the movie through this prism. It does fall into that subcategory of perfectionist directors making movies about futile obsessive quests it does fall into even in its weird comedy way like fincher doing zodiac james gray doing lost city of z these directors who are so obsessed with these sort of like herculean efforts that they can never quite conquer it is a movie about like and especially because zemeckis is so technical so visual is so poppy the idea of just like these women are never ever going to get the physical

form that makes them happy it's just going to be an endless quest in the name of fighting over this shitty guy who who in and of himself is just like a baxter. He's just the, he's the representation of the rivalry between them. And the exterior appearances are what they think can actually turn the war in their favor. And I think that's part of how it has empathy for them too. Like it's, it's obviously making fun of the idea that like, you can try to stay forever young and how it's kind of a privileged pursuit. But you think of how so many movies, especially from this time, would like treat women for getting plastic surgery or for like trying to stay

young forever. And it doesn't do that. It's not shitty about it the way that you would expect it to be. And that might be what you're saying, Griffin, that like he recognizes that impulse in himself about something different and therefore will treat them more as human beings in pursuit of perfection, which we all want. Much like the other thing, the other theme is that much like other movies

that Sidney Pollack has made guest appearances in, such as Michael Clayton and Eyes Wide Shut, it is a movie about a secret society of rich, insane people who have meetings and in big fancy houses that are kind of inexplicable. That's all. Just want to also point,

like just at the end you're like oh this is like an eyes wide shut party like it's just a chaperware party though do you know what i mean it's got like that crossover vibe right right also the party is like him doing the roger rabbit thing again of like how many visual bags can you establish of revealing oh this person is actually this celebrity. Like the party becomes, oh, this cult is unifying every tragically young celebrity death or disappearance. And in like 10 minutes, he sneaks in James Dean, Andy Warhol, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Jim Morrison. Like he just starts cramming them in.

Also a very boomer Zemeckis thing to do right like it is a little bit of a walk down memory lane for him it's like yeah Forrest Gump preview like getting all the famous faces in the background shots absolutely

and they're all revealed as if they're Porky Pig and Roger Rabbit they all have that kind of like yeah because the minute they start talking about it you're like oh And they're all revealed as if they're Porky Pig and Roger Rapp. They all have that kind of life. Yeah, because the minute they start talking about it, you're like, oh, who's it going to be? Who's going to be hanging out in the party, like making surprise appearances? But yes. So but back to the plot, though. Yes.

I mean, the main sequence we need to talk about next is her and Isabella wrestling like that. You know, after all this insane preamble, right? Right. You see, their marriage sucks. He's a mess. Then they go to the party. Right. Right. They go to... They go to the Goldie Hawn party.

Her book party. She's finally written the book and she looks amazing. How did she do it? Can you believe she's 50? I cannot. Goldie Hawn looks amazing. That's all. can you believe she's 50 i cannot goldie humlick's amazing that's all he looks incredible and also uh meryl had meryl also visits her young uh bit on the side young lover young mistress and and and he has rejected her for a younger woman right um i feel like this movie is before digital touch-ups now most movies with a-list actresses and even with a-list actors uh have like extensive visual effects applied to making everyone look as shiny as possible and removing all the wrinkles and this is before that

but i feel like this movie through some combination of makeup and lighting and and you know lenses and uh does a really good job of showing the two of them in the first timeline at the beginning of the movie then cutting forward almost 10 years where you're actually seeing like the appearance of early wrinkles on meryl i feel like the movie really wants to make you start to notice where her face is beginning to fall and then how quickly they sort of undo all of that. And there's like a little bit of visual trickery, but I also just think it's really good styling on both of them.

Well, there's a great shot of her like watching her like butt lift, like in real time, which I don't know what they did for that. I mean, maybe it's a digital effect that like, it looks um and then yeah she just looks gorgeous can i read the big merrill quote yeah this is from some interview where they asked her about what it was like doing death becomes her as like her first big visual effect movie because he hadn't really done anything but she says my first my last my only i think it's tedious whatever concentration you can apply to that kind of comedy is just shredded you stand there like a piece of machinery they should get machinery to do it i loved how it

turned out but it's not fun to act to a lamp stand. Pretend this is Goldie right here. Oh no, I'm sorry, Bob. She went off the mark by five centimeters and now her head won't match her neck. It was like being at the dentist. I mean, it's very funny quote. Like, and it is funny that more people don't just say like, fuck that man. Like, you know, like they, they just kind of whatever put up with it. She makes it sound so miserable. I mean, look, I had to do a bunch of this on the tick and it sucks and it's really difficult.

It is as fucking tedious as she makes it sound. And it's very hard to act with any sort of emotion or comedic instincts when you're working around like the exact centimeters of placement and lighting and timing and all that sort of shit. But I also think people have just gotten beaten down of like, that's how most things are made now you just can't fight it this is now acting and isn't there more ability to fix it in post now at least like you know at this point like they didn't they couldn't tweak things the way they can now but there's still i mean if you're doing high visual effect stuff there's still that sort of like precision where it starts to become more like dance choreography than it does like traditional acting and you try to fit whatever sort of uh you know energy and and naturalism you can into it um but this movie is such a wild because it is sort of at the tail end of practical you have you have ilm doing cgi uh refining a lot of the techniques that they

really bring to bear on jurassic park this is the first movie where cgi was used to replicate human flesh that's like it's big right sort of like uh asterisk is that like the all that transformation stuff it was the first time that had been ever done uh sort of organic material via cgi in that way and uh but there's so much stuff that is mechanical that is prosthetics where it's like the amount of different devices that were strapped to her the amount of time she probably had to do a scene three different ways to get three different elements one time her body walking backwards one time her head walking forwards wearing a green sock one time saying the dialogue off screen while no one was there like all that shit it's just one of these movies where like any sequence where any of those things happen had to be so meticulously done and this thing that i love that's like the american

werewolf of london in london thing where you have to build these big like prosthetic devices for one shot like if you want to do the gag of she falls down the stairs and then her neck gets twisted every single part of that is like an entirely new dummy they had to build or appliance for her you know there's one that goes down the stairs there's one they puppeteer that can get up on its feet there's one that's down the stairs. There's one they puppeteer that can get up on its feet. There's one that's for wearing the upside down, like back chest. You know, all that stuff. It's just so labor intensive, but it's fucking cool to watch. And that shot of her falling down the stairs is really visceral.

Like you, it is worth making all those dummies because boy, do you feel it? Forky was like, what? I mean, was generally taken aback by this movie, which is a weird movie to just throw on. Now that I think about it, like, like the first part,

you're like, Oh, okay. This is okay. I'm with this, but we have to talk about Isabella Russell. We have to talk about that scene. It's such a tone setter.

It's such a crucial tone setter that the jewels on the boobs are so like like one of those like costume decisions you can't take your eyes off like where you're just like are they glued on like what's going on like is she wearing anything under it like i never yes she never wears a top the entire movie she wears a robe over it at the end but otherwise she's just wearing jewelry over her naked body the entire funny it it's i i am such a sucker for an irritating european monologues at me in a ridiculous room like i just that always makes me laugh or makes me really involved. I, she's so funny. Yeah. And it's, it's, she's fancy and European and intimidating and beautiful, but also being

really funny in the process. I don't even totally know how she's nailing that tone. Like there's, you know, she has Meryl gets her age and she gets offended. Like that's an actual joke, but the whole thing is just very like it's art. It's camp. joke but the whole thing is just very like it's art it's camp when meryl sees the transformation of her hand after she puts the drops on it and she goes my god and isabella rossellini goes thank you of isabella rossellini thinking she's calling her a god is so fucking well done but it's such like it feels very goldie and and bruce and meryl are very heightened in this movie and somehow isabella rossellini gets away with seemingly playing it

very straight while knowing that she must be aware of where the comedy is and what she's doing yeah but she's not really pointing at any of the. The comedy is kind of in her being is about Isabel Rossellini and having this amazing accent and being this beautiful and being kind of present in the world that Meryl Streep inhabits and intimidating her in the process. Right. She's so confident that Meryl just has to buy it. She just has to believe this crap. And she never breaks the facade at any point. Right. Like even when at the end when like bruce willis is getting away like she's like very cool and collected the whole time right yes no never never raises her voice never breaks the sweat she would be a great halloween costume

also let's just all go as death becomes her yo that would be fun yeah i don't know where we're going but on zoom on zoom i'll be sydney pollack at home you have a stethoscope that you throw out for another step is i just keep throwing them out the the reveal of the the potion working by having her boobs like cartoonishly like zap up is great the all of that stuff is great there's the sort of like there's like a digital sort of like vaseline on the lens effect on her face and then her hair sort of gets more volume the the breasts and the boobs tighten the breasts and the boobs jesus christ but even even uh the hand the hand effect is really well done the hand that's like just

basically the same technology as martyFly's disappearing hand, right? Like that's just like whatever the name of the technology is. Optical effect. Yeah, they make the one hand disappear, but they have the other hand underneath it. That's how they did the effect, Katie. That effect was actually done all in camera. They had an actress who was playing the older hand, and then they went back in time and stopped her parents from getting together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In real time, her hand disappeared on camera. And then they went back in time and stopped her parents from getting together. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so in real time, her hand disappeared on camera. And Chuck Berry got involved, yeah. Yes, the younger hand underneath. That's entirely in camera stuff. But weirdly, Zemeckis doesn't have a DeLorean. He had to borrow Isabella Rossellini's. That's the thing.

You would think it's his. But actually, she was like, oh, you can use it. But then we get to murder. Then we're on murder. Post that whole thing, we're into murder. We're into Bruce being convinced to kill his wife by Goldie in their eternal struggle. Yes. And then this is the big set piece, right?

This is all of it. This is the head. This is the head. This is the shotgun. Because Goldie is seducing Bruce while Meryl is with Rosaline. Those two things happen at the same time. Then Meryl comes back home. He's sort of, oh, did you get a haircut? Yeah.

And then they're fighting Aspelade to the staircase. Just the visual of her balancing off the stairs and the heels like where she's like 45 degrees yeah you know and she's like come on help me you don't have much longer like that she has that yes right it's like such a precise balance but that frank tasselin kind of thing of like we are going to build a joke out of a purposeful denial of physics like we're going to have like to nail that thing where it doesn't look like you've done a bad job with wire work but it looks like this is a deliberate choice to have her defy the laws of gravity and balance on the edge of her heels for slightly too long uh is so good you also have that great

shot of like where they're talking uh meryl is watching goldie hawn and bruce willis talking uh from the top of the staircase and hears that they were plotting to kill her and then says she's a has-been and then Meryl's claws go down the banister and scratch the wood. Zemeckis, I've noticed a couple movies in a row a lot of Zemeckis using

mirrors and obviously Contact has one of the greatest special effects shots of all time with the bathroom mirror. And I do think this type of very precise like sort of technically obsessed director often tends to become obsessed with mirrors because of the like economy of being able to frame a shot where you're able to get multiple faces in the same frame all at once but also with this movie he does it a lot and i feel like it's also a reflection of

how obsessed these people are with how they look to themselves yeah not even how they look to other people but uh what they see when they look in the mirror but there's like a lot of that there's several scenes where there's like a conversation being played out from one angle and you're looking at one person head-on and then the reflection of the mirror on the other side uh but yeah merrill falls down the stairs uh uh he calls goldie i love just what a fucking idiot he is like goldie hahn's plan isn't even that good but at least it's fully thought out and then he immediately does the opposite of what she told him and then fucks up by calling her calls her and and just her doing the thing of like

being like you idiot and then having to retract because she's sort of like well this is the person i've schemed for for years like i guess i have to support him In his stupid decisions It's more about her being mad at Meryl than wanting him Like that seems to be what she eventually Comes around to when they finally see each other It's like oh I was just mad at you I didn't Love him so much Right

He's just like I mean I feel like That's the other thing that maybe Zemeckis is keyed into although Forrest Gump is the one that comes after this. But the very Hollywood thing of like, is the next thing going to make me happy? If I get this part, if this movie is a hit, if I win an Oscar, and what tends to ruin a lot of people is they just become obsessed with trying to fill the void without ever recognizing that the void is never going to get filled and it's that same kind of thing where they're like so hung up on the idea of what this guy represents to their sense of

femininity and valuable value and also what he means to their history but neither of them really seem to give a shit about this guy much of them no do we know why he becomes an undertaker like why he like they like blame merrill for it but it's unclear to me why that happens my read on it is that he started drinking so much because of their marriage failing because there's that bit where he gets served his bloody mary and then he picks up the scalpel and his hands shaking too much and he throws it i read that as it's a maccasy storytelling thing of like he's his hands too shaky to perform on living people and every day he tests to see if he's got it that makes sense yeah right that makes sense to me yeah yeah not super unpacked

um yeah but whatever yeah it doesn't matter now you have meryl and goldie in the house and you have 12 minutes of obviously just throwing all the tricks in in the in the bag out on the screen just just a delight like this whole thing just rules it still looks pretty terrific it really does like considering that it is innovating so much of the stuff that it's doing like yeah sure you can see some of this but like the the head spin like stuff like that it looks pretty fantastic the only effect that i don't think has aged very well is the one that is most wholly digital which is meryl walking with her head on backwards that's the one that's really like two different images composited a lot of the other stuff is using makeup using clever angles that shit all looks perfect yeah like when she bashes

meryl's head down and it's like all her like neck skin scrunched up around like like a sharpay yeah i was pulling the neck up like a sharp i mean meryl's bit of like when the neck has been sort of dislodged and she's trying to place it back, but she keeps on falling forward. Yeah. Like she's got this weird prosthetic neck piece, but that's also just physical comedy. That's just her playing it really well. The sticking out neck bones that terrify Sidney Pollack so much are so cool. They give me the creeps to think about it. Although she's got like 12 different neck pieces that like are applied at different parts

of the movie there's the one with the bone there's the one that looks twisted backwards there's the one that's just like sort of like saggy because it had been stretched out there's so much neck shit in this movie good neck shit um who did the makeup on this i mean it's mostly visual effects though i mean like yeah i guess so no there is i know it's funny that it was only even acknowledged by the oscars for visual effects that makeup was i mean like makeup feels like such an obvious uh you know there's so much prosthetic stuff in this but um wait now now now i'm annoyed and now i have to look up what the makeup category was that year dracula which is huge okay batman returns which is huge but then

hafa which i think is more just like old guy makeup yeah there's always one of those every year yeah dick fucking smith did the makeup dick smith legendary the greatest makeup man of all time right so whatever i don't know why they ignored him but yeah yeah i mean that's why they got the best who ever did it dick smith little big man and godfather and and i mean to be clear this movie rules like i mean it's a feather in his freaking cap absolutely um and then right i remembered the rest of the movie just being tit for tat body damage but then of course there's this whole thing where like he gets fed up is like enough the two of you can be with each other i'm over this and then they realize like you know it's

this weird arc of like it stops being about them competing with each other. They, they solve the psychological trauma of you thought I was cheap. I tried to get back at you by sleeping with all the guys, taking all your boyfriends. Like they just talk it all out. They have this great heart to heart by the fireplace. That happens midway through. Right. Exactly. Right. And there's such a good little Zemeckis-y, like a tiny moment that undoubtedly must have caused so many headaches it's such a like a quietly complicated visual

effect shot but meryl has thrown the spear through her and then it goes through her hits the couch meryl cheers and then realizes no i've only damaged my own couch and goldie keeps on talking and then at one point she sits down on the couch and when she sits down on the couch the sphere goes perfectly through her it's really funny yeah but that might be the most

complicated shot in the entire movie and it's like a sort of throwaway gag it must have taken it's true there's so many things like that where you're like god this must have taken fucking forever that's the like Zemeckis having the budget It must have taken, it's true. There's so many things like that where you're like, God, this must have taken fucking forever. That's the like Zemeckis having the budget to do comedy with this kind of effects thing that he's doing at this period, right?

It's like nobody else I can think of now certainly would do a gag like that, that complicated and take that much time and resources. Like it's just, it's all in the service of like money shots and not a joke that it's not even like a full laugh. It's like, oh, and then, but it's just, it's all in the service of like money shots and not a joke that it's not even like a full laugh. It's like, oh, and then, but it's just, it's all part of like tapestry.

As Meryl said, that kind of technical craft is counterintuitive to a lot of how comedy performing works it is to his credit as a director even if it was unpleasant for them to do that he was able to handle both and especially with three very different movie stars very different i mean like i don't know has goldie haunt i obviously goldie haunt at this point is still just like a an a-list comedy icon yeah has she done a lot of like i don't think she's really ever done anything that would be this convoluted right now this came out the same year as house sitter where a movie i definitely saw as a kid for some reason of course ben classic house house sitter did have a 50 million dollar vf but that movie is the house is all CGI no

you never saw House Sitter? no I don't know you'd like it Steve and Goldie it's about a scam Ben Ben you did see House Guest right is that who's in that

Sinbad Phil Hart. Hell yeah. Of course. Yeah. Maybe if you hadn't seen that, I'd be like, are you not Ben? Like,

are you an imposter? Yeah, no, I would never have not seen that. I couldn't have dodged that if I tried. David, can you name the director of house guests? can you name the director of house guests can i name the director of house guests does my life depend on it no i cannot name the director of house guests

why it's none other than convicted manslaughter randall miller oh of course the uh the maker of the sixth man and uh. I don't know. What else has he made? No, he's the guy. He was the one responsible for that horrible incident where the, the, like recently,

this is like a few years ago, right? A crew member died on one of his films. Cause they were filming on train tracks without a permit. Oh, it was the midnight rider thing with the writer guy. Yeah. Oh yeah. He went to jail

and has been arguing for his release and now got released. And one of the conditions of his sentencing was that he could never make a movie again. And he went to like Germany and made a movie about competitive baristas or some shit. Jesus. Right. He's the one who made that like he made a wine movie at some point

he made. What is it? One of those wine movies. Yes, that one. He made the awful CBGB's he's he's one of the worst actors of all time in many different respects yeah but i did see house guests house sitter was directed by frank odds have you guys ever put him on the march madness bracket we we've talked i mean he's never been a a bracket boy but i mean he's obviously a candidate that would be a really fun run and you gotta do the stepford wives but it'd be fun is a fascinating disaster and in a certain way stepford wives is the thing that completely definitively kills this type of comedy yeah expensive big effects driven movie star comedy bew but which and separate wives are like the one,

two. Yeah. Like 2004 and 2005 Kidman kills. The closest things he's made movies that are close to truly incredible, like little shop of horrors, you know, bow finger move and take Manhattan in and out is more like, it's a like fun movie that would also

just be wild to discuss today but again there's nothing in his filmography where i'm like well this would be boring to talk about because like even something like the stepford wives or the score you're like well shit you know there's a lot to dig into so do we have we obviously talked about the hospital scene which is iconic um we there's the shotgun there's like we've talked about all that like i guess the only it's just that that final party scene in the sort of triumph of earnest not taking the fountain of youth drink right like because there's that there's that window after he takes her to the hospital he realizes she's dead when he finds her in the body bag uh before goldie comes in where he seems re-enamored with her because she is this medical miracle like he starts getting very

attracted to her again and falling back in love with her because of the whole like sign of god thing um right but then he is able to spray paint her back shows his value in that way you have the final sort of cat and mouse chase through the party all those demacosy uh look who's still alive gags uh right and then he makes that final choice now do you know that this movie uh the reason i watched the trailer and saw the billing before this this is like a weird rogue one trailer where there is so much footage that is not in the final well because there's this whole subplot with right yeah tracy allman being the big olman tracy allman is the woman that he was going to leave both of them for and she is not in the movie

at all but she has dialogue in the trailer she was a bartender that he went to to complain about what's going on and then he falls in love with her and goes off and marries her wow and like i get why they cut it like there's a whole ending that they cut that's not even available you can't even find it on like a dvd or whatever no deleted thing um no but you know where that's him meeting her and getting with her i think it's funnier to cut to his funeral and have the priest be like and then he had such a nice life yeah and here it's funny that we don't see grandchildren yeah is tracy allman in that scene, like as in like old age makeup or if she is,

we don't see her, right? An entirely different ending. Oh, they reshot the ending. Absolutely. Cause like the audience has hated it. Um,

the ending, uh, uh, most directly, the original ending was entirely redone after test audiences reacted negatively to it. The ending featured Ernest after he has fled Lisa's party, meeting a bartender tracy allman who helps so it's going to happen after he escapes yes yeah yeah absolutely yeah uh a new bartender helps him fake his death

to evade madeline and helen the two women encounter ernest in the bar center 27 years later living happily as a retired couple zemeckis thought the ending was too happy and opted for the darker ending feature in the final cut. Ullman was one of five actors with speaking roles in the film to be eliminated there's a lot of like big people who had big supporting roles

who just don't exist at all Jonathan Silverman of Weekend at Bernie's another Porsche classic I assume Ben played meryl's agent uh are you looking at this on wikipedia can you click on jonathan silverman's page and see the photo i did click on it and it's one of those iconic like has no one addressed this images where it's like why is he mid sneeze like what is his face could you click on porsche movies for me just tell me what comes up uh it's weirdly a picture of jonathan silverman sneezing is what comes up

i just think it's interesting that like they they tested the movie the trailer the first image in the taylor trailer is big title card a robert zemeckis film it shows you how big he was at this point in time that that's the first thing they put in the trailer is like get ready it's the new zemeckis and then the trailer has so much shit that's not in the movie not just tracy oldman not just i think a little bit of jonathan silverman but also like it has a bunch of pieces from what seems to be an entire set piece of him trying to freeze meryl streep and putting her in the fridge and then she comes out she's in the fridge yes yes there's like all this expensive stuff that they shot and uh they test screened it uh clearly after that trailer had come out

and zemeckis was like the movie's not fast enough there's too much other stuff let's cut it down and then they reshot the ending uh and none of that stuff has ever been released in any form but the thing is the ending rules like the funeral is so funny and then falling down the stairs and popping into pieces as ben's uh background is great like and the movie ending on a joke like how many movies pull off that like having a one liner like you know you think of sound like it hot as being like the peak version but it's really hard to pull off it's a solid button Truly like to go out on. Very good. And also it is the rare case of like bad test screening, come up with a new ending that is darker.

The audience hates that. The first ending is too happy. And you are like more cynical, funny ending. That's not the vibe of this movie. Like you got it wrong. Like, yeah,

this should be, this should be dark. Yeah. The audience kind of got it from the beginning. it's good that they that they have each other in a weird way like yeah they've both been fighting against things they can't defeat but at least they have each other even though they're these weird you know you know crack the weird sweet thing about this movie is it ultimately becomes a romance between the two of them. Yeah.

I would imagine that's also part of it. Like becoming part of the queer canon too. It's like these like women being like, fuck this guy. Like let's run off. Ladies are doing it for themselves. This was a big hit. I mean,

it was coming in between mega, mega hits. I would not, I would not call this a big hit I would dispute that it made it made 58 domestically and it's budget was

55 now it you know it did okay overseas so it makes 150 worldwide but I don't think I don't think anyone was like what did Back to the Future 3 make because that was the one that came right before 3 made 90. 3 is the one that dropped 3 made like 90

but it's still a lot more than this sure it's obviously more than this like if 3 had made you know similar numbers to the other 2 they would have figured it on making a 4th maybe you know what I mean? I feel like 3 made just I don't know about that. I don't either know yeah they were you're not wrong but i'm just but like just imagine if

it had made like 500 billion dollars you know you know like it's just one of those things where at a certain point the studio would be like well we got to do something you know like but anyway but it did i was i mean they had weird creative control and kill rights over stuff. But also, I was looking at the box office after we recorded, and 2 and 3 were so big overseas. In the late 80s, early 90s, before that was really a thing. Even though 3 dropped off a bunch domestically, it pretty much made the same amount internationally. So that franchise was so huge. This movie, a step down, and then his next movie is the third highest grossing movie of all time to that point. So let's play the box office game.

It's a July 31st, 1992. So it is a summer release, a little later in the summer. And it does open number one, $12 million. So, you know, not bad. Number two at the box office we referenced one of its sequels on this episode it's a children's film it's a sequel yeah we referenced

another entry this is number two it's made $38 million in three weeks. Not the kind of gangbusters performance of the first one.

Which brings the third one to video. Oh, it's Honey, I Blew Up the Kid. That kid's big. definitely saw that movie in theaters that's what I was doing in 72 Death Becomes Her in 92 absolutely an early theater going memory

for me I had the novelization of that movie which really shows you how deep I was in I have seen that movie multiple times I feel like we rented it a lot or whatever the only thing I remember is like the kid in the red overalls like yeah stopping around yeah and carrie ross playing the guitar yeah i mean um is it good probably not

like i just don't remember the movie really i re-watched both of them recently i think the the first honey i shrunk the kids is underrated i think it should have yeah the same status that shit like goonies has i think it's much better than goonies or home alone i know people are going to attack me for this but i think for that era of that sort of like kid adventure movie it's joe johnson it's fucking well done it's it's a good yeah for sure the whole cast is good the second one's kind of a mess randall kleiser directed grease it's it's a good yeah for sure the whole cast is good the second one's kind of a mess randall kaiser directed grease it's just like not the right tone um but the first one i think is really really number three at the box office griffin is a film that is i would say mostly

lost to history i just want to read the tagline and see if you get it from that okay you ready here's the tagline some of the best things in life are free but if you want it all it all underlined just say mo just say mo just say Mo Money Mo Problems you got it it's Mo Money with Damon Wayans, Stacey Dash the debut performance of Bernie Mac

wow written by Damon Wayans right unsurprisingly a Ben classic Mo Money Mo Problems Mo Problem problems is implied i do believe problems ensue i do

think that there are some problems right has to be about something yeah no more problems would have been how they built out the franchise is his name mo in that movie no same as johnny oh would be cool i agree with you

um just kind of like money kind of a like reese money damon wayans like in living color is on last boy scout just came out like you know like he obviously i'm gonna get you stuck and stuff like you know like let's just let let's have a Damon Wayans vehicle. Right. Why not? Yeah. And it doesn't really hit. It's interesting that Damon Wayans like made a lot of movies until Jim

Carey became a movie star and then he kind of disappeared. Yeah. I mean, it's true. I mean, like I saw blank man in theaters fully, like saw that in theaters thought it ruled probably doesn't rule but i remember loving it no it still rules it still rules on an elastic like strand hit somebody it comes back to you that's good that's just good like a garbage robot sidekick he gets yes yes that shit right he lives in a subway station i mean of course that

movie was like one of my top 10 movies when i saw it uh it's directed by mike bender of man doesn't marry man it is that's right but then like after you've got like celtic pride great white hype bulletproof in 96 where it's like oh a lot of jim and damon wayans movies and then that is it like he's made five movies since then at all and one of them is playing the hey that's my ass penguin in farce of the penguins oh yeah but he also had a a show that we had 123 he had my wife and kids you know that was right that was his money maker and yes he had my life and kids for many years and he also spent three years of begging to quit lethal weapon please fire me every time he did the interview just saying please let

me stop being on this show and then they were like okay okay we won't let you leave the show we will fire the guy playing riggs and he's like okay you're gonna recast him no sean william scott will play a new character he's not gonna play riggs this show is called lethal weapon no he will not play riggs we're gonna kill riggs little brother no just some other guy riggs dies off screen riggs a character defined by the fact that he is suicidal just sort of died off screen for unrelated reasons in between. Anyway, number four

at the box office, Katie, we've talked about this movie so many times. A movie we will do on this podcast one day. A sports comedy. A hit of 1992 oh little giant no there's a lot of sports comedies in the early 90s yeah but we're gonna do it on this podcast yeah no offense to little giants but i don't think it's gonna make it it. Is it, is it an adult? Is it for grownups? Yes.

Uh, sure. I mean, it's a family movie, but you know, it's about grownups. It is. It's no angels in the outfield.

If, if that's, you know, like it's not white men can jump. No, no, no, no.

For families will enjoy this film. Families. Yeah. It's for everybody. It's about adults, but a broad appeal. I definitely saw this movie this year. It's probably a PG, I would assume. And we're definitely going to do it someday. Yeah. Yeah, this director was on our bracket last year.

I love this movie. I just rewatched it. I had a great time. Tell me about the stars of this picture. I just rewatched it. I had a great time. How about the stars of this picture? We've got a major female star who is more famous as a singer, but nonetheless, definitely an actress as well. And then we have a male star who's kind of roughing up his image just enough. Still cute. Great supporting turn. Should have been Oscar nominated. It's a week of their own. A perfect

movie. Amazing. Literally perfect. I agree. And it has Laurie Petty who, Ben, I assume you're a huge Laurie Petty fan. She's Kate in A League of Their Own and Tank Girl.

Oh, well, yeah, of course. I had a poster of their own and tank girl oh well yeah of course and i'm assuming ben you also had a poster of john lovitz on your wall no or david straff iron as the uh handyman oh yeah i i had a poster of lovitz on my wall no you still do uh league of their own what a great movie um big hit in 1992 penny marshall of course number five at the box office a film best known for the television series it eventually spawned opening this week a huge flop buffy the vampire slayer had to be uh 1992 to starring uh christy swanson directed by fran rubel kuzui who is uh credited on every episode of the series and gets a paycheck for all of them despite having nothing to do with the series nice work if you can get it yeah she essentially got residuals for the rest of her life for ruining joss whedon's screenplay for fucking up like right he was like you fucked up my movie

so badly that i now need to make a series to try to rescue what i thought the thing was about continue to capture checks right wild stuff you guys ever seen it it's not very good i've not seen it i saw it yeah it's all right it's like it's kind of dumb yeah jokey i knew it existed enough that when the show came out i was like hmm that's weird and then yeah it was exactly uh you've also got sister act here. Um, all of these like adult comedies. Absolutely. You have, um, baby's kids,

the cartoon based on the comedy stylings of Robin Harris. I mean, passed away by the time the movie came out. I believe that's right. Had died like two years earlier. i watched it recently that movie is fascinating because he was like a great stand-up comedian yeah baby baby's kids uh rules it fucking yeah written by reginald hudlin who directed boomerang yeah it's so good and so well animated but he was a stand-up who was fairly successful then he was in the house party movies that was sort of his movie breakout and then they took this routine

of his that was about going on a date with a woman and accidentally realizing he had been tricked into taking care of babysitting kids but they weren't even her kids they are baby's kids that's the whole bit is that like he's taking care of some other person's kids who's baby what i'm sorry they fucked up so much i'm sorry to be a hack but the 90s are so great like this is a great box office game david i watched the original routine it's so. And every time he drops another they babies kids, it lands. They babies kids. I know there's the joke. We don't die.

We multiply. Right. Like that's that's the sort of like, yes. Yeah. It's a little stinger. Right. So that's the end of the routine. They were like, we could make an entire high-jency animated film about this guy being tricked into taking care of some other person's kids at a theme park.

And that's the movie. And because animation took so long, they made the deal with him. They started on the movie, and then he died. And the movie came out like two or three years later, and Faison Love plays him. Because he never even got to record it. Yep. Wild stuff, man. You've also got Unlawful

Entry, a film in which Ray Liotta makes unlawful entry into someone's home, the home of Kurt Russell and Madeline Stowe. Adds up. Sounds about right. Yep. And Universal Soldier. Hey, hey universal soldier that's a fun one

ben you've seen universal soldier i assume absolutely that's it that's the box office game what a great what a great time in america 1992 yeah yeah things are going great there's no problems yeah yeah bill cl Clinton was about to be president and that didn't create any problems at all. No problems there. Great time to be a boomer, honestly. Between this and Forrest Gump's coming right down the pike.

We talk about it. It really is. They're just like, this is it! We did it! Forrest Gump is absolutely like a ticker tape parade for that entire generation. When did the millennials get that,

man? Did we already get it? You don't deserve it. Neither did they. I don't know. It was Captain America Civil War or something. They're going to tell us that was actually for you. No, it's going to be like a gif or like a vine that has been deleted from the internet somewhere

yeah you're spot on it's gonna be a thread it's gonna be a thread with gifts in it it's gonna be a fucking listicle oh boy great great everything we did it. Everything. We're done. Katie, you're the best in the biz. It's always a pleasure. This is, it is my favorite thing to do.

I have been having a great time listening to this series. Also. We'll see, see how it, see how it goes when the, when the going gets tough in a couple of weeks. But you were asking us before we start recording and it's like neither of us are worried usually we're like any miniseries that's longer than five films

we're usually like i'm worried about these couple yeah i don't know how we're gonna make an episode about that but but all of the bad ones are also just so weird what is the episode airing election week is it this one what do you guys contact no no you're right it's Forrest Gump you're right it's Forrest Gump I forgot how early election week works out perfect and the witches screwed up your

schedule I assume no we had a spot for it at the end of the series so yeah yeah we'll do it in order because the story mess up your schedule correct the witches took its is essentially just going into the west side story

spot it all lined up pretty sounds like everything's going just fine I got no complaints making this show has been super easy you want to ask me I got no complaints. Making this show has been super easy. You want to ask me?

I don't want to go back into a studio ever again. I love the way we make the show now. Also, the way you do this allows me to be on it more often, which I accept as a plus. See? That's true. I mean, the advantage, it's opened the door to us doing this anytime,

but we don't have to do it all the time. And for example. Next week, Forrest Gump is wild that this guy goes from Death Becomes Her to Forrest Gump. But next week we'll be talking about Forrest Gump with our friend returning guest, the great Jamel Bowie from the new york times i like that jamel bowie has been writing like amazing op-eds about like the threat that democracy is under and then was like i'm watching forrest gump and i'm like oh god they got him to take his eye off the ball to watch forrest we gotta talk gum i i told my dad that we had recorded with jamel and he was like how did you get him and i was like he like listens to the show and is our friend even as i was saying it was hard for me to not put the stain on it like i think he's smart but

for some reason he literally said good point ben to me he's like a legit thought leader and yet he's giving you guys his thoughts yeah i think you're one of the smartest people in america anyway tune in for that it's a good app it's a good app it's a good app it just continues to be the only thing that makes me question. And same for you, Katie. Katie, you were the first person where you were like, I'm listening to your show,

David. And I was like, Oh shit, this is real now. I listened to all those phantom menace episodes for some reason. And I was like, I don't know why I like this. I think everyone went through this. We were like, why do I keep listening to this? And then

that's how you got us all. And now it's been like, what, 15 years since that all started? You know, 20? 15 years since the pandemic started. That's correct. Yeah, that's right. Right. No, no, because our fifth anniversary was this March. So now we're at 15 years. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And it shows on all of our faces absolutely uh no i mean we said before but you were you were kind of the first proper guest of blank check you're she didn't name the show and you were the first guest on a proper director miniseries uh and then then you're you're in the dna of the very show i'll be back anytime i will be glad to be a part of it uh forever and we yeah when penny marshall's uh number comes up you better bring me back on i'm just gonna be four hours later on episode i i promise we will ask we will offer a penny for your thought and i'm'm offer only by the way. So I'm not auditioning for that shit. Yeah, of course. No, no, no, no. Offer, offer only. Um,

listen a little gold man. Yeah. And fighting in the war room. I got mad at David when he came on and never plugged the podcast that we have been doing for actually 10 years. He's a dummy. Yeah, he's a dummy. He didn't plug it. So fighting in the warm. Also little gold men. Yeah, that's where you can find me. Do I plug my Twitter? You guys do that? Sure.

What's your Twitter? A-T-E-Y-R-T-H. I listen to the show, but I often do not make it to this part of it. I apologize. I forgot the rules. That's fine. I mean, look, this is the best part we're just done we're just like i guess where david's like we gotta go and you guys are like but what else can we talk about this it's that and that's me going what did did i forget anything

no that's right that's all the we're done yeah past midnight Thank you all for listening Please remember to rate, review, subscribe Thanks to Lane Montgomery for her theme song Joe Bonaparte for her artwork Thanks to Ange For Guto For social media And helping to produce this show Go to pagechannel.com

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