Blank Check with Griffin & David - Dr. Strangelove... with Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: October 2, 2022

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, Sean Fennessey is finally on our podcast! The Big Picture Pod host joins Griffin and David to talk about Kubrick’s razor-sharp satire, the Peter Sellers tour-de-force that is “Dr. Strangelove”. We’re asking all the questions - Could Sellers have played *every* character in this movie? Is the film paradoxically funnier because Kubrick isn’t really a comedy guy? Would George C. Scott hate this podcast? Would you give “Tom Jones” a middling three stars on Letterboxd? And more! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack 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 Blackjack Survival Kit Contents Check In them you'll find 145 caliber automatic, two boxes of ammunition,

four days concentrated emergency rations, one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills, one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible, $100 in rubles,

$100 in gold, nine packs of chewing gum, one issue of prophylactics, three lipsticks, three pairs of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good podcast with all that stuff. Boy, oh boy. I didn't know what you were going to do. I didn't know if you were going

to do strange love or... I felt like some of them are so overquoted that I almost felt like I couldn't do them. That was good. I like that. Doing fighting in the war room feels like we're stepping on our buddies at fighting in the war room to podcast. And then it's like, I was like, sir, I have a plan.

Mein Fuhrer, I can podcast. Like, that's not. I don't want to fucking say Mein Fuhrer at the top. I want to wait 30 seconds before saying Mein Fuhrer. I wanted you to say Mein Fuhrer, I can podcast. Is Mein Fu Mindfury at the top. I want to wait 30 seconds before saying Mindfury. I wanted you to say Mindfury I can podcast. Is Mindfury I can walk? Is that actually the last line? Does anyone say anything else after that?

No, right? No, then it's just the song. Apart from the song. The song, right. It's a pretty good last line. I'll also say this. For whatever reason, Battling Insomnia was watching Robin Hood last night, Disney Robin Hood. Okay.

And the second I started doing that butchering, I was like, oh, fuck. Even though I watched Strangelove this morning, I'm having a hard time staying in the moderately more grounded Slim Pickens than Sheriff of Nottingham Slim Pickens. It was like, oh, listen here, I'm going to get Robin Hood. It's the last thing I do. The only thing Strange Love is missing is Roger Miller songs, I feel like.

That really would have taken it over the top. A little whistle stop, you know, it would have been beautiful. Could you imagine if the Crazy Frog did like a remix

of a Strange Love song? Wait, I'm sorry. What is that a reference to? You remember Crazy Frog? I remember Crazy Frog, sure. And Crazy Frog had like, Beepity-da-beep-a-dow-a-bow, right? Oh, that's right.

It's a sped up version of one of the Roger Miller, Odolali songs in Robin Hood. Do you guys want to start over? Nope. Yeah, 100%. Oh, no, no, no, we're going to keep it going. That's right. It's perfect.

Yeah, it's perfect. Oh, wow. How else no, no. We're going to keep it going. That's right. It's perfect. Yeah, it's perfect. Oh, wow. How else to talk about this movie? We're aiming to do the Doctor Strange Love Podcast episode, something that is both so intelligent and savage in its razor sharp wit, but yet funny. Just fucking gut busting. Like, it's so serious, but so funny at the same time.

I think we're nailing it. I think we are. Yeah. I want to put forward a thesis very early on in this episode. Is this one of those movies that just like absolutely ruined a lot of filmmakers? Okay, what do you mean?

I do think a lot of people go off the deep end trying to make this movie in particular, a thing that like very few people have ever even got close to doing. What's a movie you're thinking of? Like, what's what's an example of a whatever, a satire gone wrong, I guess, or whatever you're thinking of? Last 10 years of Adam McKay. That's a good I would say that's a good example.

There you go. Yes, because you can always say like, oh, I'm doing the right, the light, dark thing like Strangelove. Like, right. It's going to be it's going gonna have a message it's gonna be uh intelligent it's gonna be researched but also it's gonna be funny and that last part's really hard it's gonna be silly like we'll have some broad comedy in it you know we'll have comedic performances it's not just like bone-dry satire. That mix of tones, I mean, I'm going to come up with some other ones

as we continue talking, but I feel like the other ones are more maybe errant films in people's careers, but they tend to be some of their biggest

bounces. Like 1941. Sure. Yes. Yes. Right? That's trying to mix light and dark.

I don't know, what do you think? Guess, speak. I mean, it depends, Right. Because it's all it's all contextual. Right. It's like in the 60s, it's a little bit easier to push this and be abrasive and impressive because there's no social media, there's no commentary universe, there's no podcasting. So the first person who created the first black comedy about nuclear warfare, was always going to be the victor, right? And it just so happened to be maybe the smartest person who ever made a movie.

And so when you put those two things together... He got out there in front, right? Yeah, he kind of shit all over the landscape, for lack of a better phrase. But I think you're right, though, that McKay, this is probably his North Star, right, as a movie. This is like the number one thing that has been made that he is striving towards and just changing the subject ever so slightly and trying to do absurdist ridiculous deathly serious all at the same time and um it's hard to do this movie is a one of one there's not a single

thing in the movie universe i think that, that you can accurately compare it to. Well, and not to gang up on McKay, but it is one of those things where you're like, oh, he pretty much made four or five masterpieces in a row to start off his career. But it was because he found his own recipe for cranking up the goofiness, the silliness, the absurdity, and then putting a surprising amount of seriousness underneath it. And then the more he's been like, I want to get the exact Kubrick ratio and tonally present itself on that level, the more you're like, these have become less funny and the points you're making start to feel less nuanced and more you're yelling at me. Like it's the thing that doesn't work is when people try to make exactly this

movie. Iannucci has done a great job doing things that are similar to this, but finding his own style and tone rather than directly trying to lift the Strangelo vibe that I think dooms a lot of people. Look, this is a podcast

called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Very fast. It is a show about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes

they bounce. Maybe. And this is a miniseries on the films of Stanley Kubrick. It is called Pods Widecast. A lot of people were disappointed that we didn't make the miniseries title a riff on Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Wearing and Love the Bomb just because there were so many words to play with there. Missed opportunity. Yeah, I guess they thought that'd be funny.

Oh, you think it's a missed opportunity? Shit. All right. Well, we can always go back, bro. Yeah, How I Learn learned to stop potting and love the cast i mean that's right there for you i know hud's wide cast just felt so funny to me griffin was resolute about this and sometimes we fight and sometimes i'm just sort of like yeah okay that's fine you know and i just i i seeded this one immediately. I did not have a hot

counterpoint to this one. So it's Pods Widecast. I just think it's rare. You have like a three-word title where you can sub in pod and cast, and it so clearly could only be one movie. And I think Eyes Wide Shut

is such a good title to begin with. If I were to have taken a crack, and just to be clear, Pods Widecast, it was like first pitch, best. If I were to have taken a crack, and just to be clear, Pods Wide Cast, it was like first pitch, best pitch. I just said, we're fucking going with this. We never even took it to the lab. We never threw it up on the whiteboard

and tried to break down Dr. Strangelove. If I had tried to crack it, I think my approach would have been putting Pod and Cast in there three times each. Can I suggest one other option here? Yeah. You had full Pod Cast right in front of you. Sure. As an option. in there three times each. Can I suggest one other option here? Yeah. You had full podcast right in front of you.

Sure. As an option. And it seems simple, and yet it is so elegant. Yeah. Full podcast. Full podcast. What about pod metal jack cast? Sure, that's less elegant. But Sean, you're getting, exactly,

you're getting a window window into this brainstorming process where someone suggests something fairly simple and it's like uh-huh uh-huh and it sort of works its way through some little rube gold machine and comes back out really weird yeah um yeah and that's why i've learned not to fight you and love the bomb um essentially it's like you someone comes to me with a miniseries title suggestion and then I go

like let's get that up on the fucking treadmill let's let's build a little sweat on that thing let's get you a little winded you're doing a pleasant stroll up it's like fucking mandrake

walking up and just going like sir I found something I'm like no no no no no I'm gonna put you through the paces doctor podcast or how i learned to stop potting i'm getting off i think that's it oh that's great and the best one the best movie to invoke i mean that's the one you really want or podcast how did they ever make a podcast out of Lilia? I want to say like three things based on other conversations we've had.

Okay, one. Please, also by the way, our guest is Sean Fantasy. Hi. The ringer universe. Host of the big picture. Fairly permanent sort of co-host of the rewatchables, right? You're on almost all of those. Yeah, I'm on a lot of those.

I'm on a lot. I'm just delighted to be witnessing naming of podcast series, which is one of my favorite things that you guys do. So this is an honor. It's good to hear that that is enjoyed by people because sometimes

you have the thought who on earth would want to hear this? Well, but by me, I'm not saying by people. I enjoy it. By person. It's enjoyed by person

at the very least. You are, bar none, one of the most requested guests in the history of show. You are the one. This is, I said this to my wife yesterday. Sean, I apologize. My wife doesn't know who you are. I said like, oh, the podcast tomorrow.

We have like a big guest. And she was like, who? And I said, Sean Fenton. And she's like, I don't know who that is. And I was like, well, he's our most requested guest. That's how I put it to her. That's very sweet. I'm grateful to her for not knowing who I am or caring.

I am grateful to anybody who is excited and I'm excited. And as you guys know, I love your show. And I love Dr. Strangelove and I love Stanley Kubrick and everything else that you're doing. So this is weird. It's almost like I don't have anything to say. You know that feeling when you've seen a movie and you're like they nailed it like i got nothing you know like this is a perfect

document good you good good good 10 out of 10 no i but there's two things i want to say already so there are things to say yeah you had a list of three things yeah i forgot one of them already but when we were talking about how this defeats comedic filmmakers, does it help that Stanley Kubrick isn't funny? Because maybe Stanley Kubrick isn't funny. We're going to. And that's why Dr. Strangelove works. Right. Because the seriousness is so crystal.

Like it's so is so perfect. You know, that's what makes every joke funnier. And then my second point pin in that. My second point is Mandrake secretly the funniest of the three sellers roles absolutely like the actually the most underplayed yes but actually the funniest yes mandrake talking about being captured by the japanese is the funniest part of this whole movie and i don't even know i don't even understand that scene in full but his performance is amazing i feel like he could just and i assume he was

just sort of do that for like hours just kind of keep talking in this like absolutely like a chummy way about horrible things like just just endlessly with it with this the perfect like modulated it would be so funny to watch him just rattle stuff like that off it's kind of incredible like obviously yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna go on a limb here i think peter sellers had It would be so funny to watch him just rattle stuff like that off. It's kind of incredible. Like, obviously, yeah, I'm going to go on a limb here. I think Peter Sellers had quite a bit of range as an actor. And it is stunning that arguably his best work has come from across his career. The times he like almost violently underplayed things like when he plays boring people better than maybe anyone in history for someone who's capable of going fucking huge

and i was talking to a different uh podcast luminary named sean our buddy sean clements of hollywood handbook and the flagrant ones and everything. We were texting about, I don't remember what it started we were texting about, but it got to us talking about De Niro and Jackie Brown and how incredible a performance that is. And I was saying to him, like, I study that performance once a year going like, what is the difference between how full this guy feels, even though De Niro is almost spitefully going out of his way to underplay it in every single moment, do as little as possible. And when you get to like De Niro and Limitless where you're like, well, now he's actually doing nothing. And it's such a thin line where it's like to actively play someone who's got so little going on is so deceptively difficult because you watch something like this, like Mandrake, and you're just like, this could have been played by any stuffed shirt, any dramatic actor, Kubrick hired to fill this.

You could have had Sellers play a different character in this dynamic. You easily could have had Sellers play the Sterling Hayden character. And then you just have a guy who's like a straight man, right? Who would have been fine, but wouldn't have made this character as funny. And it's like, how is he making such active choices for such a passive guy? It's kind of a magic trick. He is, well, one, he was supposed to play another character, right? They were supposed to be that fourth character. He's supposed to be Kong and he wasn't Kong. But so that's also a testament to how he could have basically played any character.

Like, is he in that realm of is there any character in any movie that he can't play that I guess is a man? Because I don't know. I mean, he really is unusually good at tonal shift in performance across a movie. Like, how many movies did he play multiple characters? Six, seven? Like, he did it over

and over and over again. There's not really, I guess Eddie Murphy is in the conversation for that? Alec Guinness? There's like only a handful of people who really have been able to do that the way that he has.

I mean, you're of course forgetting, and spoiler alert, the end credit scene of DC League of Super Pets in which dwayne johnson simultaneously voices crypto the super dog black adam and black adam's dog and all three share a scene together and it's it's a really thrilling wait how did they pull that off all three of them sharing a scene my god you can't believe the synergy on screen i mean this

this thing the the fucking ice IP surprises are off the chart. I love IP surprises. Can you tell me more about Black Adam's dog? What kind of dog is it? Yeah, what's his name? I think he's like a Doberman. They never name him.

That's why I'm calling him Black Adam's dog. They never name him on screen. He talks a lot. He has a lot of dialogue. It's an end credit scene that feels interminable, where you're almost like is this am

i just watching the sequel now is this going to be another 90 minutes of my life that's the one thing that strange love is missing i think is like is a stinger you know like teasing strange love too that's what it's almost missing if i dare get the specific black adam's dog i feel like that's the character that's the fourth character that seller should have played i mean i do remember watching this and being like you know i knew sellers had almost played the pickens character and i was like well who else could he have played and i was like well he could have played jack d ripper right he could have been sterling hayden i was like why didn't he do that and then finally i was like oh right he would have been playing both characters in the same

scene with no other characters i guess that would have been hard i right but that i even considered that for a while very doable i was like i could have done that is is a testament to his uh how good he is at this i think eddie murphy is really funny i'll just let that sentence stand i think he's really funny sure that's bold yeah right and i i think sometimes when he did the multiple characters obviously was incredibly successful. Yeah. But it never felt like this. Right. Like there's no Eddie Murphy multiple role performance where you're like, man, these are really distinct. Instead, it's like, oh, Eddie Murphy found like a stupid thing to do as Mama Clump or what?

I don't know. Am I wrong? Is that rude? I mean, I like that any professor, the main two characters, obviously. Sure. I love that. Yeah. But beyond that, is there an Eddie Murphy character? I, I sort of love as much as one of these three.

Maybe I'm being rude. I think so. I mean, you're talking to nutty professors coming to America, Norbit. And is there another one? I'm forgetting where he plays multiples. Norbit is the one we need to,

to set aside. Yes. That's coming to America. Bowfinger. Well, Bowfinger. Fuck. Obviously, Bowfinger. That is the one.

But that is the one. But they're really distinct. So distinct. And especially because one of them is like absolutely no transformation. I think what's just so unique about this is Eddie Murphy, when he would do it with sort of like sketch instincts, go for like big handles on characters like really distinct, right? Define looks, voices, clear internal games. And this it's like Sellers chooses to have two out of three characters essentially be straight men, you know, like very, very buttoned down, quiet characters. It makes sense that they wanted him to also play another big, crazy guy.

And it also makes sense that they title this movie after the biggest, most cartoonish character he plays, because this movie's existence was pretty much predicated on Peter Sellers playing multiple characters seems to be big at the box office. Right. And that the takeaway from Lolita was like Sellers maybe saved that movie commercially. We need more of that. I mean, I think that that was also true for Eddie Murphy after The Nutty Professor professor which makes sense it's it's a it's slightly different though because the idea of green lighting a nuclear age black comedy from the difficult man who made spartacus

and lolita being predicated upon sellers playing four characters is outlandish i mean it is like forget about in 2022 like in any time in the history of hollywood that being the like okay we're a go picture here yeah take take a shot at it it makes it feel impossible it's almost like if like catherine bigelow making zero dark 30 was dependent on will ferrell playing three characters in it or chris pratt right or mark duplass yeah duplass should. Right. Or Mark Duplass. Yeah, Duplass should have actually done that because Duplass is the man

of a thousand faces. Anytime he shows up, I'm like, who is this? Yeah. What's even weirder is, okay, yes, Sellers had done

The Mouse That Roared and, you know, he's playing multiple parts. Parties happened at this point or is the party later? The party is later. The party is surprisingly late. okay i remember when i was shown the party it was like one of my mom's friends i was at like a dinner party and i was bored and my mom's friend was like uh you can

watch a movie uh and she put on the party and she was like this movie's really funny it's it's offensive but you know it's really funny and i was like i'm like is really funny. It's offensive. But, you know, it's really funny. And I was like, I'm like 10 years old. I'm like, okay. And even at 10, I was like, hmm, it does seem offensive. But no, the party had not happened yet. No, my point was he'd done The Mouse That Roared. And then like you say, he only plays one character in Lolita.

But I guess because that character changes his outfit and his manner enough, they were like, well, he was kind of doing it in Lolita but i guess because that character changes his outfit and his manner enough they were like well he was kind of doing it in lolita and that's that a hollywood studio would look at lolita and be like more of more of sellers is what we need to make a kubrick film hit it's like you say as sean it makes no sense well. Well, it's also you, I mean, at this point, our Lolita episode would have come out, but we haven't recorded it yet. We haven't yet. No, we're doing it next week. You have not rewatched it, have you, David?

I actually just rewatched it. Okay. So, I mean, there is like the therapist scene where he's fully like in a disguise playing a full character, where some of the other stuff is more like, oh, he's like loosely affecting a personality. Yeah. There's that scene like on the,

on like the patio where he is, has his back to James Mason and is effectively playing a different person, but doesn't identify as, but doesn't have a name or anything. No, it's one of those things where I, I think he's simultaneously kind of the best part of the movie and ruinous to the movie. Totally.

But I think everyone was sort of like, why is Kubrick making this movie? Why is Mason making this movie? This movie is going to be a career ruiner. This is disastrous. Don't touch it. And something about the cellars thing kind of like floated everyone along, salvaged that movie from being like a career ender for everyone involved.

And I think they were like, well, this was a little more profitable than we thought it would be, and it must be because people love Peter Sellers putting on different glasses. I mean, I think the critical thing that happens, though, is that he makes the Big Panther. Like, if he doesn't make the Big Panther immediately after Lolitaita then I

think the thing what you're positing and the idea that this movie like that's why the movie got made right yeah strange love got made because he became Clouseau and he had already been a widely celebrated comic actor and he was this chameleonic figure and you know the other thing too is like I love the fact

that he's like going through a divorce while he's making this movie you know he's like having a very personal like a real personal struggle which is why it's shot in England because he can't leave so he has to shoot at Shepard in studios like all this stuff leads to it being a movie that probably like would you say it doesn't work at all if there's no Peter Sellers in it no I mean this is getting back to David's point is like, I think the alchemy of this movie is that like one guy was pretty much handling the comedy and one guy was pretty much handling the seriousness of the thing. And when we talk about other filmmakers like jumping off a cliff trying to replicate this, the problem is usually it's a funny guy getting too self-serious or a serious guy trying too hard to be silly. guy getting too self-serious or a serious guy trying too hard to be silly.

And that's usually where the tone gets affected versus this movie where it's kind of like two guys meeting in the middle. And I don't know if there's another comedy star of this moment that could have done that. I'm trying to find the one thing I want to find is when they shot this. Just read the Pink Panther because. Right. This. Although I guess a shot in the dark is. Is this same year? When's that?

It's 64. The shot in the dark is 64. The Pink Panther is 63. Because this movie was delayed because of the assassination of. Oh, that's right. Oh, right. Yeah. So I want, I'm trying to remember when it was shot, but it looks like it was shot in

63. So I don't know. Like, I think it came together in 63. So I, but it's just look i i got obviously i have our dossier we can we can get into how this movie got greenlit a little bit but it is something that should just not work and it wouldn't work most of the time most of the time if you get people together to do a nuclear war comedy it's probably just not gonna work but i mean i guess also every movie that's a nuclear

war comedy now has just the strange love shadow that you can't escape and when you joked about this movie having a tag i remembered that don't look up has a tag right yes yes and and and and i get the tag i get why they did the tag because they're like well we have to have something funny at the end here and a little bit of poetic justice. But it also kind of undercuts the big sentimental ending of that movie. And I don't know if we want it or we need it. I don't know. Anyway, no, I think just thinking about the stakes.

Look, I think the ending is the best part of that movie. I either like me to look up more than most people or hate it less than most people. I don't know which of those truths I'm closer to, but I'm certainly less negative on it than a lot of people. But I think the ending is the thing. It gets right. And the tag is like a perfect encapsulation of everything. It gets wrong.

And it's too strong. It makes your teeth hurt. And also the Jonah Hill performance like doesn't work. It's it's the exact example of this where's like, here are two smart guys, like McKay and Hill, making the most surface-level observations about a dumb kind of person who represents a lot of the ills of current society with nothing to say beyond, isn't this guy annoying? Isn't social media stupid? Everything he says is dumb

yeah i i i feel similarly on don't look up as as you griffin which is like there's definitely good things in it there's stuff in there i agree with that it's not it's not it didn't totally cohere and it's almost like two star studded for its own good and it feels like it's after some sort of like poseidon adventure towering inferno kind of a thing but um it's ironic because you could make the case and david you basically already said this like the last line of strange love might be the funniest moment in the movie funny yeah and and the and the last the final moments of don't look up are like deathly sincere like over like so earnest that it's almost painful and it's effective but it almost betrays the whole tone of the movie and then it makes you think like maybe adam

mckay should have just made an earnest movie about you know climate change and annihilation i i think so yeah well because he's so earnest like he's in such an earnest place i think as an artist and i do think you're right he should just be making very earnest. Like he's in such an earnest place, I think, as an artist. And I do think you're right. He should just be making very earnest movies because it's often the satire that isn't functioning as well in the recent stuff. Yeah, I don't know. There's like human comedy in Don't Look Up that works well where I'm like, I think the dynamic between Chalamet and Lawrence is kind of interesting in terms of just like that movie. Yeah. Just like how do you recalibrate your entire brain if you know that you're going to die and the entire world's going to end and nothing fucking matters.

Right. Why wouldn't I hang out with this dumb stoner kid in the parking lot like that stuff is good. And then anytime it's like, what if the president cared about how many followers she has? I'm like, I don't give a shit. I really like you have nothing to say here. But but yes, this movie, I mean, and you talk about the ending being the funniest part of it. It's also like infamously this movie was supposed to end with this extended pie fight, which would have been like the broadest sequence in the movie. And Kubrick watched it and he was like, this is too silly. It's too goofy.

So you end like five minutes before it was intended to end and you end on like a comedy edit. Like the ending is funnier because the movie then ends so abruptly. I completely agree. It's like it ends on a jump cut to an explosion. That's amazing. That's genius. Yeah.

It's like a MacGruber edit. That's what it is. I just realized that's what it ends on a jump cut to an explosion that's amazing that's genius yeah it's it's like a mcgruber edit that's what it is i just realized that's what it is yes that's and you know what and kubrick was actually ripping off mcgruber and people love that's you can read they're the letters that kubrick wrote to will forte and yorma to come where he said i've studied your new three-part sketch they weren't letters they were faxes you know he looked at faxes right how did you do it to send a fax. Right. How did you do it? How did you find this mix? I think it was actually teletype, as I recall.

It was not fax. It was teletype. Yeah, you're right. You're right. He had a teletype machine in Spielberg's office or whatever. This is my first Kubrick. I assume it may have been yours as well,

or am I wrong? Maybe 2001, I guess, would be a lot of people's first Kubrick. But I was like 10 when I saw this movie. They were pretty close together. It was either this or 2001. I watched this because AFI, in the year 2000,

did their 100 Years, 100 Laughs, which I was obsessed with as a comedy-obsessed kid. I'm like, finally, here we go, the comedies. And then it was one of those things where I sat there flummoxed, turning to my parents going like, this must be the funniest movies of all time.

What is this serious black and white nuclear warfare movie doing? Right, why is there all this discussion of missile codes and switching to channels or whatever? Right, and I remember Blockbuster had the like 100 Years, 100 Laughs display where they put all of those VHSs in the same little section. So this was like

a quick rent for me after that special because it was, I think they put it at number three of all time. Number three. Above Annie Hall and behind Tootsie. I feel like they redo a lot of this. Some Like It Hot is the number one. Tootsie at two. Some Like It Hot is the number one. Yes.

I remember just feeling wild. I don't know. Do you disagree with that, Sean? We all like Tootsie. I watched Tootsie after that, and Tootsie made a lot more sense to me as a kid than this movie did. But even still, I was like,

this isn't the second funniest movie ever made. That's absurd. Well, this movie and Tootsie have a lot in common, right? Because they are extremely funny movies at at stages but they feel important and tootsie i think particularly to hollywood feels very important you know it's like this is about acting and transformation and identity and soul of art and so it it, you know, really valorized by the business. And then that's what, like the list that you're talking about.

And I, I was just like, you guys, I worship those lists. I learned a lot by just looking at them and saying like, what's on my checklist. What do I have to go through? That's probably,

it's definitely the reason why I got into strange love in the nineties when they did the first AFI 100 years, 100 movies. And I think he had the most movies out of any filmmaker on that, that list from, I think 98, I think it was probably clock movies out of any filmmaker on that that list from I think 98 I think it was probably Clockwork Orange Strange Love and what was the third one

2001 and Spartacus he had four on there too so four yeah Sean I threw this trivia out at David recently can you guess who is the actor who is currently the most represented on the main

AFI 100 list? Ooh. It's an interesting one. I mean, like, gut, you would say like John Wayne

or Catherine Hepburn or someone like that. I don't know. Who is it? Robert Duvall. Oh, yeah. Because you have

two Godfathers, Apocalypse Now, To Kill a Mockingbird, Network, and I think there's one other one. M and mash six wow but not but not a single lead performance exactly yeah right he was that's true even though he led dozens of movies yeah yeah but none of his duval and network uh my single favorite funniest monologue ever when he's toe to toe with Holden after Holden fails. And, you know, you know, we had a big, fat, big titted hit that that whole thing is like that is the pinnacle of overacting. In my opinion, he's amazing.

That's but that's another movie that similarly like this gets sort of an impossible tone, right? And in that it's like no traditionally comedic actors. right and in that it's like no traditionally comedic actors you have guys who mostly come from drama and it's such a fine tonal line on that film and i mean we talked about in a different episode and a shining episode i think we talked about coming later that kubrick was like one of only three people who even met to direct that movie and he and chayefsky they never they never clicked why did i think that they would have been a match. Right. Chayefsky essentially said,

like, look, you're great and you would do a good job, but we would kill each other. Like, we can't do this. Like, it's true. I mean, and it makes sense. And he picks Sidney Lumet and that makes sense too.

Like, it's just... I don't understand that. If Blank Check and The Big Picture can get together, I don't really see what the problem is. I know. That's right. Anything is possible

because we're such fierce competitors. Alphas. Yeah. Four alphas in the same Zoom window right now. I mean, producer Ben althing us the most by not even speaking. He's fucking letting us all hang ourselves with our words. Ben, when did you see Strangelove for the first time?

My uncle showed me when i was a kid and i was similarly like griffin very underwhelmed crazy i thought this was so funny when i saw it as a kid i think i like it remember it's like a thunderbolt moment when he says you can't fight in here this is the war room as a kid i was just like oh that's like brilliant oh i understand like okay like and for i guess maybe the sellers thing was enough for me to lock into the humor of it or maybe i was just also just compelled by the story because it is like a compelling story they are trying to avert world war three like there are stakes but i was like so into this movie when I saw it as a kid. As a kid, I think I didn't find anything funny in the movie until Strange Love himself shows up where I'm just like, well, this is recognizably comedic.

Everything else was too subtle for me where I even think like there's no fighting in the war room. Like a lot of those lines are delivered so straight that as a kid, I just was like, this is not pitched like a comedy. I don't get this. Yeah. Like George C. Scott didn't read at all as like comedic performance, but then watching it so fun, like earlier today, he's like incredible.

He's amazing. Like one of, I think my favorite performances in the whole movie, he's kind of the Deval of this movie where he's like, he's towing a really fine line of like overacting but with like a foot in reality and just making very small choices that sort of throw everything off the hump i was reading that he was he was kind of unhappy with this movie right because yeah kubrick used his more over the top line readings and that like he identified the comedy but you know george c scott is like one of the more serious theater and film actors of the

last 50 years so it's amazing well for one we should acknowledge that george c scott was the friendliest nicest person who ever worked in hollywood and everyone got along with him of course easy have you seen that oh my god wait uh have you seen it's so good uh fuck uh what's the jiminy glick interviewing nathan lane and asking about george c scott drinking on stage and nathan lane like just is in hysterics unable to answer him it's so i'll find it and send it to you guys but i've been watching so much glick jiminy gl too. Fucking funny. The funniest shit in the world. I think he's like taking over TikTok or something. I don't know why I'm getting more

of him recently, but he's sort of everywhere, right? No, I've been watching Glick Supercuts. How is that not streaming in its entirety anywhere? It's crazy. And it also could and should come back right now and just be a series. It would work perfectly. It'd still be good. It'd be better, probably. There should be Glick every year.

Like there was some year where he did the red carpet at the Spirit Awards or something. They gave him like a little cabana and he was interviewing like Ed Begley Jr. and shit. And I'm just like, send him somewhere

to do something on camera at least once a year as Glick. He should do the Barbara Walters special every year before the Oscars. Like that should be his lane now. Right. He should just do that. Yes.

I just remember him asking Ed Begley Jr. How does it know? How does it feel to know that you'll never surpass your father? And he's like, well, I'm still alive. I'm still working. He's like, Ed, it's not going to happen. The George C. Scott thing is, I mean, he's he's an ornery guy as as people may know um but uh

he would do these quote-unquote sort of practice tapes uh that would not like that you know kubrick was supposedly assuring him like we won't use these uh well let's kick off with these over the top performances get it out of your system get it out of your system exactly and then he quote-unquote used these warm-ups in the final cut and george c scott says he didn't like that but then there's also this whole thing where they would play chess all the time because i guess george c scott fancied himself a chess man and he respected that stanley kubrick like annihilated him at chess he was like right you know anyone who's good at chess is is a okay by George C.

Scott. What are you drinking there? Can I have one of those? Hammered chess with George C. Scott is also a show I would watch. Yeah. A hundred percent. That's like hot ones from the 1960s.

Yeah. I love that. That might be a great YouTube idea. Just playing chess with celebrities who were like, uh, what does the night do again? And I'm just like like, killing them. Also, like, more directors should take lessons from hot ones and realize, like, oh, maybe all actors would be most interesting ten wings up, ten wings down.

When you get them to a state of just raw honesty. No, I was going to say, it's funny because I feel like I've read so many different anecdotes about, quote unquote, serious or dramatic directors who work with like comedic actors trying to cast them against type. And that their process will often be to do the Kubrick thing and be like, after 100 takes, Jim Carrey is so exhausted that then you get the one real take out of him. You know, like Peter Weir and Michelle Gondry talk about that, where it's just like, you have to push him to go as big as possible because he's going to go as big as he can and get like 10 takes that wear him out so much that the 11th take is the first usable one because it's when he's just tired.

And then Kubrick actually reverses his own system on this movie and is like, to get one good take out of a notoriously self-serious actor I need to tell him it's a rehearsal and it doesn't count and then disregard everything he does after that it's funny too because George C Scott was not he was not George C Scott at this time no like he had made the hustle but like he really hadn't done a lot of stuff and like his early stuff is much more and this is true in anatomy of a murder too he's much more like serpentine and kind of sinister and not big not yelling he's got that fucking beak of a nose that makes him look so predatory i mean i love ge love George C. Scott. Certainly an early actor for me

where I was like, I like whatever this guy's doing. But you're right. I think he's... It's later when he's doing the really to the rafters kind of acting that I guess the apex of that is Patton. That's when it's like,

this guy has found a public figure that can fit how big an actor he is. And Patton's good. I like Patton. Humongous hit, wins Best Picture, and is the second time George C. Scott publicly refuses to be nominated.

There are a lot of guys who go, don't even talk to me about Oscars. Right. He really upped the game, and no one's been able to surpass it because you have your people who are like, Look, I think competition amongst creatives is stupid. I refuse to attend the ceremony. If I win, I won't accept it.

George C. Scott was like, No, I'm telling you, you didn't nominate me. And they're like, We did. You're on the list. And he's like, Absolutely not. I decline your offer. If you look at his imdb awards page and it says yes refuse to be nominated refuse to even be nominated and for patent says refuse to accept the nomination and the award because he did not feel himself to be in any competition with other actors my single favorite thing about that though

is that the following year after refusing the academy award he was nominated again again yeah they're like oh you like that all right they're like i'm still voting for this guy frank mccarthy the film's producer accepted the award on scott's behalf at the ceremony but returned it to the academy the next day in keeping with scott's wish it grand opening grand closing you know just get it out of here yeah take this piece of shit what a legend he put it in a big slingshot he shot it straight into the kodak theater that's what they're not mentioning they returned it through a fucking office window it's just funny because when you hear that and you know about george c scott you do he almost becomes like a daniel day lewis figure in my head

not that Daniel Day-Lewis didn't happily accept his Oscars but where you're like did that guy just like never work and he was really specific about the kind of stuff it's

like no not at all he did like great horror movies he did a lot of TV later in life like his final film was Angus that's true his final film was Angus no no Griff he was in

the Gloria remake after that oh Jesus right but you know like it's not he was not like a His final film was Angus. No, no, Griff. He was in the Gloria remake after that. Oh, Jesus. Right. But, you know, like, it's not... He was not, like, a pretentious actor, I guess, is my point. Right? You know? He was...

He was a real working guy. I don't know. I think he was... He was... Well, I mean, no disrespect, but he was obviously... Drag him. He was a bad drunk. He was a really bad drunk.

Yeah. Horrible drunk. And like many actors of his generation, like needed to make money at the end of his career. And so did a lot of genre stuff. Very famously did exorcist three and like one of the crazier performances. Right. The 80s.

I think he rules in that. Yeah. It's great, but it's like, it's so different even from just like the changeling, right? He's in the changeling, which is,

is really like solemn, serious horror film. So amazing. Incredible. and that movie is really scary but right that's a very literary serious horror film right and like so yes he he jumps from both of those like within six years it's kind of amazing we talked about this i think in a patreon episode for some reason but he also voiced smoke and cartoon all-stars to the rescue he sure did i can't remember why because i think ben was saying there should be a villain who's just drugs and cartoon all-stars to the rescue. He sure did. Barbara Bush produced. I can't remember why. Because I think Ben was saying there should be a villain who's just drugs. Right, right.

And he essentially plays that. He's like a sentient cloud of smoke who's like, hey, smoke this crack. But it's George C. Scott playing full intensity. Wow, you just brought me back to cartoon all-stars to the rescue, which is something i probably not thought about since 1989 a georgie scott picture my my brain is melting yeah it's just wild that

he did it like he's one of those guys who yeah i think you know would do things for a paycheck but was like but i'm gonna act like he wouldn't fucking arrive on set cynically you know it was just funny that he was like it's a job i just do my job you pay me to do my job and it's also funny that like campbell scott his son i feel like is one of the most gentle actors alive like campbell scott never raises his volume above this level he's like permanently in npr mode have you not seen jurassic world dominion this is the first time he goes off the rails his most unhinged performance and even still he's like i'm gonna play this like tim cook doing a keynote how dare you do this to me why did you unleash my dinosaurs

movie is so stupid um and and no offense to campbell scott who i think is a great actor and i think he's incredible in so many movies but i think I said this to you Griffin him being in Jurassic World Dominion felt like they called three bigger names and they were all like forget it and Campbell Scott was like sure I'll do it who cares I'm in an office whatever the best performance in that movie the best part of that movie and it almost feels like

he's giving a strange love-esque performance he's doing something in that movie yeah one other thing before I want to give you guys, I'm going to crack open the dossier, but Griff, a question for you. So George C. Scott is my winner in 1964 on My Beloved Spreadsheet. You put him as leader supporting? Supporting actor. Peter Sellers is my winner for best lead actor. Wow. Okay. Do you think George C. Scott would refuse my award yes absolutely okay

okay good i'm glad to hear it david spreadsheet is a sham why is he retroactively nominating things 70 years later he was not alive in 1964 and i refused the nomination and the win i don't care if my name is in bold. He would have to be deleted. Control F, C Scott, delete all mentions. If he hated award shows, imagine how he would feel about podcasts. Jesus Christ. Oh, he would absolutely despise us.

He would be grinding his teeth listening to this on Pocket Casts right now. George C. Scott. Okay, but but yeah moving on from george c scott to why stanley kubrick makes this movie so this is post lolita well i don't know i was almost gonna say like is this his first like true masterpiece but i might go to bat for the paths of glory i don't know yeah what you guys think yeah but this is sort of the first canonical masterpiece maybe within its time recognized as such right yeah because spartacus is a huge hit but not recognized as a masterpiece i i think it's such an interesting question with him you guys have already talked

about i assume a few of the movies yeah so i've spent more time like digging in but you know there's a pretty strong contingent of people that would call the killing like one of the best heist and noir movies ever killing fucking roles it rules i can't i can't argue with that and at the time it wasn't hailed as such but and there's a lot of retroactive love for it and like i think tarantino was like really really advocating for that movie in the 90s and so a lot more people got onto it that are more our age. But I think in the sort of like, in the AFI sense of the masterpiece word, like this is definitely the first one

where it was like, okay, our genius is upon us. Like our 1960s auteur hero in America has arrived. Right. And even just the framing of like, the killing is a B picture, you know? Paths of Glory doesn't hit in its moment.

Spartacus is humongous, but it's seen as a Douglas victory more than a Kubrick victory because he was sort of for hire. This is the first one where it's like Stanley Kubrick O-Tour. It comes out. Critics love it. It's liked by audiences. It's a hit. It gets Oscar nominations. This is the first one maybe where he's defining the like the specialness of a Stanley Kubrick film upon landing. It's also the beginning of like everything he does is from now on is now going to be in a new genre is going to be a landmark film in that genre is going to feel like this just Titan effort. This like gargantuan thing of like full metal jack and is the only one that maybe isn't quite there but like the rest of them obviously are anyway stanley kubrick becomes obsessed in the late 50s with nuclear holocaust makes sense both in terms of his personality and the uh cold war the the the times times people are living in.

I was thinking watching this movie for how much I panic about everything, especially the realities of the world that I cannot control. And it's not like it's no longer a concern. I cannot imagine the base level of anxiety I would have during the atomic panic. Yeah, I don't like the idea of just knowing that this could happen. I, well, not that of course it could still. Yes, I agree. It sucks. It sucks. But I'm like, if I had been like a kid in school being taught like

duck and cover, I would have been like, I'm out. I don't want to be alive. This sucks. But there's a case to be made that it felt that way because it was narrativized to the public that way. Absolutely. Like, that is something that, as you just said, David, like, is still true.

Like, we are on the absolute brink of nuclear annihilation right now as we are recording. And wouldn't it be a great episode if it just all went belly up at this exact moment? Yeah, it'd be pretty good. Yeah, thank God no one would ever have to listen.

As long as it's after Patreon billing in the month, I'd be fine with it. It is, no, it is, it is the thing that is so scary about nuclear weapons is that you just have

to push the button one time and it happens immediately. But this movie forces you to think about it the same way that the government was forcing you to think about it when you went to school every day. We just don't live in that society right now. No, we just now have agreed to not really talk about it that exactly yeah let's let's not worry about it and that's what kubrick is sort of fascinated by is as he's like digging into all

this stuff on nuclear war and all this is like this is the quote i like here's like what has struck me is their cautious sterility of ideas like where he's just like you're reading this absolutely bananas stuff but it's written almost academically with the sort of like yeah and then of course you know the world would be blanketed and you know ash and like you know if if this one little thing went wrong or if this strategy didn't make sense you know like he just it's very funny to think about it this way he's not even getting to that yet, but like just the, the,

the ruthlessness of what he's reading. Yeah. Uh, and then the clinical way it's being presented is very Kubrickian. I'm sure he agreed. Uh, and so he scoops up this book called red alert, which is of course what Dr.

Strangelove is based on by Peter George. That is a serious nuclear thriller. Uh, it's, it's not a comedy at all right it's heavy i assume no one's ever read red alert no i have not no no i mean he liked it just because he says just sort of like you know had the right kind of knowledge in it and but he brings in peter george and as they're breaking the script and they're joking around Stanley Kubrick is like would this be better as a comedy like

and that's where things start I guess they're just like what if one of their jokes is like what if everyone's hungry and like a sandwich delivery man shows up to the war room like things like that you know like they start to do jokes and they're they just they can't get away from the silly jokes of all this stuff so what it

what if dr strange love but with postmates like is that what that joke is yeah it's funny yeah i mean do you guys think that's funny a deli guy i mean that's that's draft one i mean they obviously they kept it out it's hard to believe you had to call Terry Southern to get involved. Well, here's the thing. 100%. They bring in Terry Southern to transform the screenplay into something satirical because they are actually not funny people. The other thing that's important

is that Stanley Kubrick had been offered the novel Failsafe, another nuclear novel. Right, right. This is often sort of misrepresented, right? Right. Well, basically, there was some kind of lawsuit filed during the production of Dr. Strangelove that meant that Failsafe had to come out

after Dr. Strangelove. Yes. And Columbia put out both movies, so they didn't care. But it does kind of kill Failsafe, which I've never seen. You're a Sidney Lumet completist, Griff. Have you seen Failsafe? No, I weirdly haven't seen Failsafe,

and there was sort of famously the early 2000s or late 90s George Clooney Failsafe. Yes, yes. Which, I've seen that. That's pretty good. I've seen that too, but I've never seen the original.

Yeah. That was done sort of like Playhouse 90 style like live to tape. Right. It was live. That's why it was cool. Yeah.

Yeah. I've seen the original Fail Safe. It's fucking amazing. It might be some of Lumet's best movie. Like I highly recommend it. It is so taut

and interesting and very different from a lot of his other movies and it's really, really fascinating to imagine a world in which these two guys like flipped other movies. And it's really, really fascinating to imagine a world in which these two guys flipped these movies. If Lumet takes on Strangelove, yeah.

It's Matthau? Yep, Matthau. Yeah, it's Matthau. Fonda is the president, right? Yes, Henry Fonda's the president. Can I amend a thing quickly from our Spartacus episode? Okay. I don't remember anything about our Spartacus episode.

I talked about Tony Curtis after he had gone to Hollywood and was successful driving back outside his old acting class and yelling at Walter Matthau that he couldn't get pussy. That's, I believe, the quote that I attributed to Tony Curtis. I looked up the original quote the other day.

The thing, he drove back outside his old acting class. Walter Matthau was standing outside in the rain holding a newspaper above his head. And the thing that Tony Curtis yelled out was, I fucked Yvonne DiCarlo. Which I just think the specific of that is so funny, I had to amend it.

Fair enough. Thank you for making that clear. Can I request a Patreon-only only episode about math how sex life yes uh tony curtis made it sound unexciting i mean curtis really worked the bag on math how sex life but you know walter math how had a bunch of kids he had a couple wives i'm sure he had a little fun in there like uh anyway they bring in Terry Southern uh and he I guess uh is the one who gets Sellers involved in some way right uh no I'm sorry no other way around sorry Sellers is the one who gets uh Southern involved because Sellers had given uhrick a copy of The Magic Christian, Terry

Southern, and so that's how it all happens. JJ's read on the screenplay, though, is that it's, Kubrick wrote it, George inspired it, and Terry Southern finalized it and made it funny. Gotcha, okay. The first page of the screenplay says,

the story will be played for realistic comedy, which means the essentially truthful says, the story will be played for realistic comedy, which means the essentially truthful moods and attitudes will be portrayed accurately with an occasional bizarre or super realistic crescendo. The acting will never be so-called comedy acting. So basically, the script tries to make it very clear, like, play this about as straight as you want, right?

Like, don't, you know, like the seriousness will help the comedy, which I think is true. I don't know. I mean, with the occasional flourish from Peter Sellick, essentially. Sure, or some of the bigger George C. Scott moments. I did finally have the breakthrough

watching this of how much of an influence this movie must have been on the Zucker Brothers and John Abrahams. Like, it feels like this is the style they lom onto of like oh can we even go bigger from here what if we have the actors play it flatter and the things they're saying or doing become even more ridiculous well but also they don't allow for what strange love does Strangelove will have whole sequences of technical discussions or relatively realistic military code things.

Whereas the Zuckers are like, yeah, okay, but there has to be a joke every 20 seconds, no matter what is happening. And at the very least, something funny has to be happening in the background or written on a sign or something. But it does feel like this is a launching point for them. I think also

Kubrick is a little bit more comfortable, even as absurdist as this movie is at times, doing things that if you don't think about them, seem banal or as set up, but are actually a joke. I mean, the whole opening title sequence is just one

big dick joke. know it's just about how like bombs fuck the world and like the idea of refueling a plane in midair like i'm sure the first two or three times i watched that movie i never even thought about that i was like oh this is just a way to like get us into the story you know no you're just zoning out right aircraft footage right a hundred percent and then the more you read about it the more you think about it then we were like oh every single sequence here is a sight gag or is a part of the point and you know the zuckers and abrams are like what david said they're just like you will be entertained at all times like i we will never take our foot off the gas kubrick eventually said to someone right like yeah the

whole point of strange love is it like there's so many sex jokes in it it ends in this big orgasmic finish like i was going for something with that i can i think i'll find that somewhere anyway they bring in sellers as we all said it's a stipulation of the studio that you play four roles for the price of a million dollars apparently cuba kind of groused about that at the time but also there's this really funny sellers quote where sellers would be like stanley would be sitting outside my front door saying, what about Buck Schmuck? You've got to play Buck Schmuck. And, you know, like so that like Stanley Kubrick is just like leafing through the screenplay being like, what about this guy? You can do this.

But the movie also costs like two million dollars. Like he was all Sellers. It was all Sellers. And in retrospect, I think they were like kind of a bargain. Yeah. He gives you three incredible performances. was all sellers and and in retrospect i think they were like kind of a bargain yeah he gives you three incredible performances i really love stewart freeborn who does the makeup for this movie says that for muffly he gave him this giant bald cap to give him this like bulbous head and he does look incredible as the like because it doesn't look exaggerated but he really does look

like a different guy as a result like yeah it's it's quite drastic without being he just looks like a you know middle-aged guy with with no hair like it's not i don't know i really love muff i love all three fellas performances uh and the thing where he sprains his ankle and he can't do kong everyone seems to think that that's basically that's kind of just an excuse like he just just wasn't into it. He didn't like doing the voice and they just moved on and they got slim pickings. I mean, he always said he didn't want to do it, that he didn't feel comfortable doing the voice. They didn't think he had a grasp on the text and accent.

And I think that role works a lot better with like slim pickings, like hire the real type you want this role to fit into and have him play it straight rather than having Sellers do a satirical take on it. If you're going to have him, I mean, we were talking about before, like which characters in this movie couldn't he play? That's arguably one of the characters that most needs to be played by someone who isn't straining to affect something else upon their their natural disposition you know i think especially in that the final sequence where you know the yahoo and all that like it would have felt too broadly comic yes yes yes it would have just felt like out of a hat yeah yeah exactly yeah but but you even like you could very easily see a version of this movie, I think, where Sellers plays Buck and Strangelove instead of Strangelove and the president, you know, especially because in those early scenes before Strangelove enters, Buck is like the driving motor. Do you know who the original plan was to cast for Jack D. Ripper, the Sterling Haven role?

No, I don't Gene Kelly Jesus isn't that crazy wouldn't that be cool Gene Kelly played Jack D. Ripper if it was like Gene Kelly wound up to psychosis like firing guns and talking about fluids I don't know I just love that idea

that's who Kubrick wanted he wanted Gene Kelly when he doesn't get Gene Kelly he casts George C Scott and George C Scott then was like I want to play Buck Turgison instead and Kubrick was like okay and then he brings in Sterling Hayden from The Killing it all works out I mean it does everything's good Sterling Hayden's great in this uh It is fascinating because Gene Kelly was notoriously kind of an asshole, an unpleasant guy. Yeah, sure. But his screen persona was so tightly controlled.

And I like it's like I did he ever play against type? Was he ever anything but sort of gentle and genial on screen? Like as much as there are off camera stories where you're like, oh, I can imagine that he could be a guy who was, like, yelling his head off Taskmaster. I just wonder if he ever would have let himself be captured on camera doing that. There's two funny things about it, right? Because on the one hand, he was kind of, he was pretty good at playing a shitheel who changed throughout movies, right? Yes. He was often, like, redeemed.

His characters were always redeemed his characters were this incorrigible guy yeah but he had this like um genteel virility you know it was like he was very sexual and physical but it was very it was very safe and appropriate and like ripper is the exact inverse you know he's like this emasated, psychotic man who is so full of rage because I guess his dick doesn't work. Like whatever, however you want to read it. That's where I'm reading it. That's how I'm reading it. And so that would have been really it would have been fun to see Gene Kelly do that.

I think Sterling Hayden is the right person for it, but it would have been fun. That's spot on, Sean. Like the thing about Gene Kelly was that he was so comfortableling Hayden is the right person for it, but it would have been fun. That's spot on, Sean. Like the thing about Gene Kelly was that he was so comfortable as a performer and he made audiences comfortable and he could take characters that were a little unsavory

and make them sort of family friendly without you really interrogating what's going on underneath the surface, which is why a character like this who is like all text, no subtext

and shouted loudly. It's like just hard to imagine him letting go enough to do this. As much as the idea of him doing it is interesting. Jack D. Ripper also is very obviously based on Curtis LeMay, who was the head of the Air Force at the time, who is basically famous for, like during the Cuban Missile Crisis, whenever you read any book about Kennedy, it's basically Curtis LeMay is in famous for like during the cuban missile crisis whenever you read any book about

kennedy any it's basically curtis lemay is in there being like listen you pansy we need to nuke now like he's the one who's just constantly like my recommendation bombs uh so and he later ran for vice president with george wallace i want to say cool A couple of cool guys. Famously chill dude. But then they throw in that disclaimer at the beginning of the movie, I guess, to cover their asses and not freak people out too much. That disclaimer that almost reads funny

because it's so, again, so straightforward where they're like, the Air Force has assured us nothing like this could ever happen. And you're like, oh, cool. Like, thanks. Thanks. thanks like that really settles me down it almost feels like

a like a monty python thing right right it's just it feels like bureaucratic language yes the movie gets interrupted to have eric idol say like we are of course obligated by lawyers too and then while they're shooting it uh you know sellers is improvising some of his dialogue which hubrick would then write down and put into the original shooting script um james earl jones uh as you guys know is in this film it's his first film appearance i believe yeah um and he was supposed to he had a big role he's the one who questions the mission and is like

pushing back against everything inside the plane and eventually Kubrick decided he didn't want the guy protesting to be a black guy and cuts everything out

wow and so and so that's why James Earl Jones is kind of in this movie but doesn't really do anything he's just like an X-Wing pilot. I mean, they just cut

to him a lot in the cockpit saying yes or whatever. And James Earl Jones said to Kubrick, like, but I took this part because of all the good stuff that you're cutting. And Kubrick was like, we don't need it. And that was that. So that's the James Earl Jones story. I mean, because he's already

pretty fucking established as a stage actor at this point. Right. And you just imagine people viewed his move to films as somewhat inevitable. I guess, as much as a black actor could feel that way in the 1960s.

Yeah, I don't know. He also was not like a character actor. He was like Hamlet. That's the thing. He was in Shakespeare. He had done Oth's the thing he was in Shakespeare he had done Othello yeah yeah and like he'd done all kinds of giant Shakespeare stuff and I guess the great white hope

is a few years after this and that's gets turned into a movie that that's his Oscar nomination and all that but yeah anyway I just remember as a kid I knew who James Earl Jones was and I was yeah of course he's in this movie. It also just like it. It feels weird to see this voice coming out of him.

Like, I'm sure if you were a theater goer in the 50s or 60s and you saw James Earl Jones on stage, you'd be like, man, this guy can project. And then when there's like throwaway lines by James Earl Jones in a cockpit in this movie looking like a young snack, you're like, who turned up the fucking base on this thing? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's no reason for him to be like pontificating. Right, right. He's got a great voice. Famous. Incredible.

I would say the other big thing is Ken Adam doing the production design. He had just done Dr. No, and Stanley Kubrick had loved Dr. No. Obviously, Ken Adam is best known as the James Bond designer. But the design in this movie is so crucial to it working, right? And it feels so Kubrickian, obviously,

to have these big, angular sets, and the war room just feels perfect for him. But a lot of that is driven by Ken Adam who justified that it should be triangular to Kubrick who was very skeptical of that and he and Kubrick together

designed the whole lighting scheme so they could stop the cinematographer from designing any of the lighting because Stanley Kubrick always would fight with his DPs about lighting this movie is like the last vestige of the Kubrick documentary style in pieces. And I think so much of that is just that his hand is forced by sellers who like notoriously just hated repeating himself and doing the same take over and over again.

So Kubrick was like, I just had to set up six cameras and just get what I got. You can't be as meticulous. And this movie shifts between like very deliberate Kubrick compositions, which Lolita was obviously moving towards and away from that sort of more fly on the wall approach. And then from this point out, it's like everything is fucking locked down and precise. I feel like there's still some dissonance for me as somebody who has just read a lot about him and a lot about the productions of his films and you get conflicting reports pretty consistently and this movie feels like an interesting turning point where you know you talk about the production designer who's this

legendary figure who's well known for basically having like shaped the look of the most powerful ongoing franchise in movie history right um yes and he obviously designed this movie and that in the production of this movie there's a lot of like commentary or counter commentary about how kubrick was a real like collaborator you know that he was a person who would like sit in a room and every morning for an hour people would talk and share ideas and he would just pluck the best ideas and he would curate. But I feel like publicly, his reputation is like monomaniacal,

obsessive, singular tyrant, right? And so like I can never kind of figure out, well, is he a great, like if you see Film Worker, you know that movie about his right hand person for many years, like is so laudatory and really warm about what it was like to work with him.

But on the other hand, he has that 100-take psychology that makes him seem like a demon. And I can never kind of figure out what is true or maybe both things are true about him. Do you have thoughts on this, David? Because I certainly do. Let me say my thoughts,

because obviously it comes up more and more, especially as we're going deeper into his filmography and he becomes more powerful right like he he has more clout and it really does remind me of fincher and when i did this piece interviewing all of fincher's collaborators i may have said in a different episode it's like the the the same thing of like the absolute warmth all of them have towards him and like how dismissive they were of like oh the multiple takes like people like doing that you know people were just you know they were just like come on

it's acting it's work we all come here to work and we're having a great time and that's the vibe you get from so many of these it's not like Kubrick collaborated with people one time and then they moved on like he would people would return to him and clearly found the process of, uh, you know, Ken Adam, for example, he wins an Oscar with Kubrick for Barry Lyndon a few years later. Like, so it's obvious that if you bought in or if you got onto his wavelength or whatever, that there was such a rich, like collaboration you could have with the guy. And then it just feels like the stuff like the shelly duvall

stories you're like well this is someone who clearly was like well you know they they they were not in in any kind of um symphony or what you know like they were they were just there's just some kind of uh crossed wire and like the communication seems so horrible here and then it just that just sounds like torture when it's being described to you. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a weird, I mean, I have made this comparison already in other episodes, but like he's compared so much

to Hitchcock and the precision of the vision and everything like that. But Hitchcock was a guy who like, the movie exists in my head, it's perfect, and now I need to figure out how to communicate to you idiots how to do exactly what I want.

Right? Right. Sure. Yes. Whereas Kubrick, I think, was really looking for things that excited him. Like he wanted discovery. You know, he wanted exploration. He wanted the things that he couldn't come up with

himself. But I think it was like his sort of exacting control freak nature came in the relentless pursuit of I'm not going to stop until I find that thing. And when he finds the thing, it's like it's exactly that. It's that without moving an inch to the right or to the left. that. It's that without moving an inch to the right or to the left. And I think sometimes he would hire people and say, I'm hiring a collaborator like Peter Sellers. And what I'm hiring him to do is be Peter Sellers and give me a lot of material to keep generating until I find the thing I want. And then sometimes, be it on camera or sort of, you know, in craft positions or whatever, he'd hire people to say, I like that thing you did in this other movie and I want you to replicate it here. I already completed the process of finding what I want because I saw it in your previous work. Now just do it again.

And I think that's when, like when he had difficult relationships with people because then they were like, I'm not being encouraged to create. He just wants to use me as a color on a palette. Whereas other times, I think he was saying, I haven't found it yet. I'm hiring someone to give me options, you know? Yeah, I think I have a kind of a reverse relationship, though, to Kubrick and Hitchcock because I think I like Hitchcock at his most powerful. I like him in the North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, you know, Rear Window. That era are my favorite films of his when he's like, I'm in Hollywood and I'm in control of everything. And Kubrick, it does eventually get to this place, right, where he's like, and you guys i'm sure we'll talk about this at length in the future but you know by the time you get to full metal jacket and and eyes wide

shut i really i love those movies but you can feel a man holding a stick very tightly in those movies in a way that this movie is like you could the hundredth time you watch it it feels surprising the hundredth time you watch it you're like boy a lot of really fascinating like risk-taking people seem to be in a room together making this happen and i that's just for whatever reason for him it's just a slightly more charming for me slightly more exciting it's also so interesting because like spartacus the story is like i got hired by an actor i'm on the set with all these fucking august well-established ego-driven actors and i'm fighting to like get what I want to have this in any way reflect my voice. And he comes off of that being like, I'm making movies my fucking way.

I'm not working for anyone else ever again. But then this is a movie in which he views an actor as a true collaborator. And then you get to stuff like, you know, Eyes Wide Shut, where he's working with Tom Cruise at like the peak of his fame. And he's like, you are an instrument. You know, they're all the stories of Tom Cruise coming to him like crying going like what do you want Stanley tell me what you want and Tom Cruise is so obsessed with being the guy who's like I can execute anything right and Kubrick's like you're a cat just wander around until I find what I want you know you can You can't deliver it to me. Also, his last three movies,

Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, I think the reason the Shining and Eyes Wide Shut are more successful in that they are two of my favorite movies, than Full Metal Jacket, which I think is a very good, slightly flawed movie, is that the Shining and Eyes Wide Shut are about the most tightly wound protagonists imaginable,

so they really fit with a very tightly wound, ultra controlling artist who is crafting these like very hermetic and frightening and claustrophobic movies. Whereas Full Metal Jacket, I'm like, I feel like I'm in a room and I'm supposed to be in Vietnam. Like, you know, I struggle a little bit with Full Metal Jacket for that reason. You're so right. And also all three of those movies are really psychological and I strange love is intellectual but I'm not so sure it's psychological no no I mean no I the only

stuff where it feels more like Kubrick is is the stuff I'm referencing where it's like oh wow did I just watch guys put codes into a box for five minutes like you know that's that's just where you're like, I think a lot of directors wouldn't do that. And I and I like that he does. To be clear, I like that he's so obsessed with the process because part of the satire of Dr. Strangelove is there's all these fucking processes and rules and, you know, fail safes and things built in.

And then everyone gets in a room and they're like, oh shit, there's so much stuff that we actually can't tell these guys to turn around. Like, like there's so many stupid codes and so many like, you know, systems built up to stop that from happening. That one crazy guy just ended the world. Oh, and then like, that's what it's equally as funny when the Russian guy, the Russian ambassador shows up and it's like, we built this doomsday thing. I don't know. You guys are so crazy. We figured we had to do something crazy too. And they have to explain all these like logic ofnerving from the moment Trump got elected was like,

here's this guy who spent the last 10 years going online and going on talk shows and going like, if I were president, I would just do this instead with no thoughts about like, what is the chain of actions that happens from you saying that? And then he got elected and gained no perspective on the chain of action from what he says. And it is like, it's the absurdity of when you cut to a fucking room like this and it's a bunch of guys in suits

sitting in chairs being like, first pitch, bad pitch, but what if? And you're like, the repercussions of what you're casually throwing out are so wild to think of how much they hinge on like a conversation is kind of insane yeah i feel like he's also gotten a little bit stuck in a good way on process and technology being portrayed on

screen and like 2001 like there's a huge stretches of 2001 they're just like pressing buttons on how and trying to figure out like what is the right way to do something the same i think is even true of clockwork orange where there's like long stretches of deprogramming where you're just like thinking through what you have to do to the human brain to fix it and he kind of like gets way far away from that stuff as he gets further into his career but you can see like the same way that i feel like technology just sat right on top of society from like 1960 all the way through our present day he seems really invested in that and so that's part of the reason why i think he's like we're gonna sit in this plane for watching this movie for like the 60th time i'm like god

this is a lot of time on this plane for a 90 minute plane yeah yeah for when it barely matters except i guess at the end you're like oh i guess we needed to know that the plane was damaged etc you know we need to understand why at the very end this plane just can't be caught like these guys are actually too good um which i'd love that i love it where where uh when uh buffley is like it's initiative like what am i supposed to you know he's on the phone to the soviet guy he's like we trained them to get away from them. Dude, when he goes into the safe and pulls out the hat, like that that is part of the plan.

Yes. Do you know what I mean? Like, God, that's like Looney Tunes level joke. It's so good. But I mean, it also gets to like what you were talking about, Sean, of like the dick measuring contest of this shit. You know? what you were talking about, Sean,

of like the dick measuring contest of this shit, you know, that it's like the idea of being like the cowboy of the atomic bomb, you know, the man wild enough to ride the thing and that it wasn't an impulsive decision, but that like this guy was going to go out like a fucking cowboy when the moment called him. Yeah, Kong almost like channels Ripper once he accepts that plan r is real like once he's accepted it he's like you're goddamn right we're doing this how exciting

you know what a weird impulse to be like it is doomsday it's here and i'm fired up yeah and i'm gonna do it like a fucking man i also i love um enan win who plays the uh the colonel who bat what bat guano is that his name who shows up and you know there's just the the super extended sequence of mantric just being like for god's sake man give me some money i need to call this guy on the phone the president and he just like the the like the the so slow ben's laughing i mean it well he's like he's like you're gonna have to deal with coca-cola it's a great it's a great final line but like just just every time you see the layers and layers of rules that have been created out of some sort of like of course we need these kinds of rules to have a just society that will not bomb you know at random and then

you just watch how all those rules just make everything impossible it's uh it's really good should we attempt to go through the plot of this movie uh because it is more plotty it's plotty then then maybe its reputation would suggest no it is, but it's just also surprisingly simple or at least doesn't have a lot of sets. You know what I mean? It's sort of like you've got the plane, you've got the, you know, the 843rd bomb wing or whatever. Yeah.

You have Jack D. Ripper on base with Lionel Mandrake and you have the war room and that's it right like there's the one scene of george c scott with his girlfriend uh the only woman in the movie i'm guessing right yes yes i believe so there's no yeah uh tracy reed and uh that's everything right i'm not i'm not forgetting something it's one of these deceptively sort of cheap economic films, like even though it looks so broad and these sets are so impressive. Right, right.

It's basically three sets. I guess four if you include George C. Scott's bedroom. Apartment. Right, apartment. Yeah. So actually while we're recording this, I was preparing an episode of my show and the theme of the show is like the best one crazy night movies and i was like is this one

of the best one crazy night movies like interesting kind of a kind of the i the the ultimate one crazy night it's a fair point it is absolutely one crazy it's practically an afternoon i mean yeah it's just a short a short period of time. But Sean, what about the wolf pack? I mean, that night was so crazy. I couldn't even remember it the next morning. That's a wild one. That is a wild one.

These guys are so fucking wild. Sean, what was the peg for one crazy night? Is there a one crazy night movie coming out or something? I know August is. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Of course. Right, right. Bodies, bodies, bodies.

There you go. Yes. I just imagine August is the toughest for the big picture because it's like uh looking at the schedule what could be possibly you know one could make the case that every episode is tough to do at this stage of hollywood but uh that's okay it's true i i admire the opportunities that you guys have to talk about the great films. We designed this well by accident. It was certainly a thing, like, especially when the pandemic hit, where I was like, God, am I happy that five years ago we committed to a format that does not revolve around any current going on. Well, that's the thing. But then anytime we actually do have to, like, you know, review a new movie, we're like, oh, this is coming out. We're deciding that that is worthy of being in the pantheon of what we cover.

And then now we're almost like trying to find ways to disqualify new releases by technicality. Yeah, it's like, I think there are downsides to the format that you guys have. But for me, it's like, so can I ring 37 minutes out of Bullet Train? For me, it's like, so can I ring 37 minutes out of Bullet Train? Like, really, do I have 37 minutes of conversation about a movie that has vanished into dust the minute I exited the theater? That's the challenge. But hey, we're all professionals. You know, we can all do it.

Right. Look, certainly, I mean, we'll cover movies that are like that, but also have the added benefit of being decades old and not seen by anybody. Those are my favorite episodes, though. Right. And then, exactly, we can have fun being like, well, what's this over here? You know, where is... Right.

What do you have for lunch? People are like, well, all-time best tangents. Griffin asking David what he had for lunch in the Loveless episode. I had a burrito, but let me tell you guys, I ordered it.

I got home this morning. There's no food in the house. I ordered delivery from a place around the corner. Thank you. And they sent me the wrong order. They sent me a different David S's order. There's two David S's ordering at the same time. David S. Ward?

And I just called them, and they just ran me my order and I gave them the other guy's order back. It all worked out. That could have been an inspired bit in the sandwich delivery scene in Dr. Strangelove

that Kubrick had conceived. Like, what if they got the wrong Mr. President sandwich? That's what he was missing. That is actually what he was missing. The joke was right there, Stanley. David, and you running down

the basic shape of the plot, which I do think we should delve into a little more. I do think that's a thing watching this as like a 10-year-old or whatever that confused me is I was actually a kid

who liked this type of movie where there's like a fundamental misunderstanding or miscommunication in the chain, the ripple effects of which put the entire world on edge, right? We talked about in some recent episode how much I loved The Russians Are Coming.

The Russians Are Coming as a kid, which is a movie that is kind of similar in its setup where, and it is also a comedy about the Cold War, you know? Cold War comedy, similar era, 66. Yeah. Right. Or I mean, one of those movies that I remember thinking was so funny as a kid, and yet I don't think I could tell you a single thing that happens past the 15-minute mark. The gods must be crazy.

A movie I assume plays terribly today. But one of those things where my parents could pitch me, like, here's the premise of the movie. They find a Coke bottle, and it destroys their entire understanding of reality. And I'm like, funny. I understand comedic cause and effect. This movie, I think if you're watching it as a kid, it's hard to even gauge when the realization of what's going on with Ripper has happened because it's done in such a sedate, dry way.

It's it's it's very ordinary until it's not right then he gets crazy but like that happens so much later than the point where mandrake figures it out and it's when i guess it's when mandrake has the radio right like that's what it is yeah uh that's that's the revelation and again sellers underplays it just so well he's like you know funny business yeah i was listening to the radio here you know doing, I wish I could do him. Yeah, I don't know about the plot, Griff. It's like, yeah, you see the planes. They're airborne.

And then you see Ripper issuing wing attack plan R and you see them doing all the communications and all that. And then eventually Mandrake realizes there's no attack order. Nothing is happening. Ripper has just gone mad. Ripper locks them in the office, starts talking about fluids.

And then we cut to the war room pretty much, right? We cut to Buck with his girlfriend and then we cut to the war room. Hinging on this sort of overthought idea that once that plan is put into effect, all communications have to be ceased because they're too worried about their enemies interfering with false communications. That now a false communication has set them in a place where no one can correct them with the real message.

Yes, the only guy who can undo it is insane. Yeah, I mean, he's also, you know, there's a lot of unfortunate kind of like sexual metaphor to read into the entire movie. But like he's trying to put a prophylactic around the whole base. Right. And everybody else, especially George C. Scott, is like, I'm ready to fuck like the movie literally starts with like him in the bathroom getting ready to fuck. And then he's like, well, I can't fuck here, but I have to go downstairs and fuck in the war room. You know, like that's sure. Every setup is

about a man trying to have sex with something well and it gets back to like the weird cowboy uh sort of fascination with with the bomb of like it's all these like it's it's it's sport for these guys you know it is like a sexual thing the idea of being able to dominate on this scale to control that much power even if it fucking kills them right they feel like i'm gonna die like john wayne right it's what scott plays so well is you do buy him as the general the joint chiefs presenting options to the president but then just like the hint of excitement he clearly has it like, look, what if we actually do it? You know, maybe we could catch him with their pants down. You know, we've, you know, the famous, you know, you know, 10, 20 million, we'll get

our hair must. But like that, that he's like, look, I've spent my whole career planning for something like this. We might as well. The ball went down the hill. I'm not going to go get it. Like, let's just let's see what happens. Maybe we knock him out.

His biggest concern at this point is almost just being blue ball. Like, he's so close to the thing that he's waited his whole fucking life for, prepared for. It's how it ends, too. You know, and he's like, we need to be prepared when they take over more underground caves so that when we emerge, our numbers are stronger. Right. The mindshap gap.

Yes. Yes. No. And like, I, Muffley is a very funny performance. Like it is a good comic performance from Peter Sellers is a slightly ineffectual wet blanket of a president.

He modeled it on Adlai Stevenson. Like he's doing a thing but you're also kind of watching this guy be like plainly heroic and he's like fuck it i'm gonna call the soviet premier i'm just gonna give him the like location of these planes i'm gonna like plainly be on military right i'm gonna i'm gonna just be like just shoot those guys down we're sorry total mistake by us he's not gonna like be an evil war hawk you're watching a guy you know do the decent thing in a weird sort of a way it doesn't really work but like it's cool it's cool it's such an interesting point too because to griffin's

point about don't look up in the meryl streep character it feels like the last time in american history where a satire like this the most reasonable person in the film was the president. And that's a great, it's because Kennedy was the president and he seemed like a, if not reasonable, at least a measured person in the face of possible nuclear annihilation. And so that choice to make everyone around the president crazy is so smart and works so well in this movie. But that's the thing that Nixon breaks where it's like, now we know a president can exist in the modern age, in the media, who can behave unprecedentedly at their very core, not just do corrupt things, but like clearly lose it, you know, like not be able to hold their shit together on camera. And then from that point, the possibilities comedically get a little

out of control. Can I throw out 1960 is the year that Bob Newhart releases the Button Down Mind and Button Down Mind Strike Back, right? Which are like the best-selling albums of that year and win the Grammy for Album of the

Year? Yeah, sure. I feel like a heavy influence on the way the president's phone call with Russia play out in this movie. Like, they are essentially doing the Peter Sellers, I'm sorry, the Bob Newhart bit.

Like, Peter Sellers is doing Newhart where the joke is in filling in the blanks of what they must be saying on the other end of the phone. Only getting the reactions in a conversation where it feels like the other person is saying the larger things.

And isn't that the album that has Abe Lincoln versus Madison Avenue? Yes. It's like the presidential inspiration connected there, too. I do think that's the most clear-cut example because he's really kind of pulling Bob Newhart's format, which, by the way, what's his name? Shelley Berman kind of created before Newhart. Newhart may be lifted a little bit, but Newhart at least popularized to a different degree. But even just comedically, I think the whole tone of this movie is very much on that wavelength

of the Abe Lincoln versus Madison Avenue, where it's like, can you really dig into the banality of these conversations around things that we view as being very important and dramatic? I mean, there was some quote from James Earl Jones where he was saying that, like, Kubrick's main thing was he constantly

wanted them to be eating, that he kept on giving them, like, Twinkies to shove in their mouths and shit, and he was like, I think he was just really into putting these very banal mundane things in the middle of a very high pressure situation which gets to the the meal order and everything right this is the quote i think uh that was a comment on how people deal with fear i think he liked the mundane aspect of horrific events uh and it makes sense like again that's sort of that feels like a kubrick conversation that would not be observation jesus that would not be obvious to other people yeah i think all that little detail stuff is so funny like obviously the big

lines in this movie hit it when it gets broad it works they were probably right to cut the pie fight or whatever like they probably recognized the moments where it was like too much. Like, strange love is probably the limit of how broad a thing can get. But strange love works, too. But I just love all the little stuff you're talking about, like the conversation with the Russian premier or whatever. Like, all the little haggling that George C. Scott does. Like, that stuff is just as funny as anything else. The line where he's like,

he would see the big board when he's protesting the ambassador showing up. Like, God, I have to say too, cause, and he's come up in a later episode already, but I just was really getting Tim Robinson vibes at times. Oh my God.

From George C. Scott. We have to stop invoking Tim Robinson on our Q&A series. Okay, a call for him. It's just I couldn't help it. You don't understand, Sean. There's like 20 minutes of talk about this

on The Shining episodes. More. More. No, but it is that thing of like the complete commitment to absurdity, you know? just like full throttled. I strongly believe what I'm saying. I'm getting too emotionally worked up about it.

I think the only other person who could do all four of these roles is Tim Robinson. Yeah, imagine the remake. We're starting to realize that perhaps Tim Robinson is the only person who could have starred in every Kubrick movie aside from who he actually cast. Yeah. Born too late. The only, yeah, I mean, like, so the attack is happening. They're trying to figure out how to recall it. They bring in the Soviet ambassador.

They, you know, they try to call up the premier on the phone and he reveals, well, we have this doomsday machine that if anything goes off in our country, it's just going to blanket the world in nuclear fallout and so everything will be destroyed and that's when dr strange love comes in i feel like he's the last element to arrive and i remember as a kid like you say griff i was like i get that this is funny obviously this is a big broad performance but what is going on like who is this why would he be here and i remember my parents having to be like well after the war you know there are all these german scientists like you know like having to

explain the context of that bit to me it makes me laugh so much now and it's almost a more understated performance than i remembered yeah is that crazy to say no he's actually kind of you know he he's kind of quiet with the lines a lot you know you you just remember him shrieking and he doesn't really shriek that much like it's it's am i i don't know like it's it's almost subtle at times it's the one character that plays most in close-up yeah right i i feel like this is a movie that's really big on on wide shots uh and and holding like you know your master shots for like the entirety of a scene as long as you can. And and his stuff is played really close. Like when he starts talking, he is kind of the only thing that exists on screen.

And so so if he were over the top, it would play even bigger at that range. And you're right that he is actually pretty controlled. Yeah. He saves the mania. I mean, he really takes a while to build up to it and picks his moments very strategically. I can't remember. I don't know.

I'm not going to get the title of this wrong, so forgive me. But, you know, there's a story that Orson Welles used to tell about starring in a play called something like waiting for mr wong and he was playing mr wong and everybody had to wait through the first two acts of the play for mr wong to show up and that like you really needed to deliver on mr wong because everybody who showed up for that thing dr strange was kind of the same thing i mean you have to wait almost 55 minutes just to get to sellers as strange why is the movie

called dr strange love and even at the end is the movie called Dr. Strangelove? And even at the end of the movie, I'm not even totally sure why it's called Dr. Strangelove. It's just the best title, but it's not the most representative title. And there are, like, so many titles that they messed with that I'm sure you've seen, David. Like, Kubrick wrote down, like, 30 different titles. Half of them are kind of genius and would have been great for the movie, and yet strange love and that character like it became the most emblematic thing but you're right that it's kind of a miracle that the character actually does deliver he does that it feels like a heightening when we've already had like two sellers on screen because they only create that expectation by

calling the movie that like they the movie is not foreshadowing him. If his name were not in the poster, that pressure would not be on the character. You could see reality in which the film had one of the other titles, which I'm sure David's about to run down. And then when Dr. Strangelove shows up, you're like, oh, pleasant surprise,

in the last act there's this Peter Sellers character you'll never see coming versus me as a kid I'm leaning and going like when are we getting a fucking strange love that's where the money is right like wonderful bomb is a funny one that he he came up with that

is kind of amusing Dr. Doomsday or how to start World War 3 is one that feels like probably came close sorry how to start World War 3 without even trying. Okay. The weird one is Dr. Strangelove's secret uses of Uranus. I don't know what got cut from the screenplay

that that would make more sense. What else? I'm looking at it. There's this note page. Yeah, that piece of paper. That he'd like, don't knock the bomb uh dr doomsday meets ingrid strangelove he's just like writing shit down i i i don't some of this stuff doesn't make sense don't look up vice yeah the big the big short what was it called

is that what it's called how do i not remember I got it. Yeah. Some of the names they don't use. General Buck Schmuck. Alexei. Alexei Desedesky. So it was going to be called Ambassador to Assad. That's kind of funny. Major Nance. Lieutenant Quentin Quiffler.

I like the idea of Peter Seller saying, not only am I refusing to play Buck Schmuck, but there should not be a fucking character named buck schmuck in this way take that out of the goddamn script one of the funniest scenes to me and tell me if this is too dark is when strilling hitting kills himself because of the the monologue that mandrake is doing that's so banal he's like yes some water on your neck that's what you need you know that'll wake any man up like the whole oh Oh, it's so funny. And then he shoots himself. It gets me every time. Yeah, it's fine. I don't know what you guys think of that. It's funny. Sure. I'm just trying to look at some of these other I'm trying to look at these other names. I just feel like the bomb and Dr. Strangelove

or how to be afraid 24 hours a day is just an amazing good how to be afraid 24 hours a day. Yeah, I like that. That's really good. But it's interesting that Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb is the only or title that works. Like even the other titles that are good. You're like, you could have picked the back half of the front half. When you put the or in there,

it's too much. I think it has to be called Dr. Strangelove. And they were right to pick that, even though it doesn't really set you up for what the movie's going to be, just because it's just a great name. It just sits in your head so well.

You'll never forget it. Yeah, and also just the fact that when the character arrives, as you said, he delivers, so it feels earned in your head. You know, there's no more context about this movie. Like, this is, like, the most chill Stanley Kubrick shoot. He doesn't fight with the studio that much. Everybody's basically on board with what he's doing.

Sure, George C. Scott's a bit much, but he respects him. Like, this is just the one that is not loaded with either big fights with his producers or crazy tales of a hundred takes driving people mad or anything like that. Like, and like you say,

Griff, like it's a hit, you know, moderate hit and more importantly gets Oscar nominations and whatever becomes just whatever the most respected comedy of all time in some circles. That's why when Sean picked it, I was like,

wow, you picked kind of the most unimpeachable one in a way like it's it's an interesting pick sean you had your pick of kubrick's that was i'm very grateful for that um of course well you were i don't think i said when i first saw it and i actually don't know when i first saw it but it is definitely not the first kubrick that i saw so what was i i definitely saw the shining before this? I definitely saw The Shining before this, and I definitely saw Full Metal Jacket because it was on HBO nonstop in circa 1990. So I may have even seen 2001 before this as well. So then the golden one.

2001's the only one I'm not sure. I may have seen that first. It was one of these two. Go ahead. But just to see this movie and not know anything about Killer's Kiss or The Killing or Lolita or Spartacus or any of the,

I never saw any of those movies before I saw this but i had seen all of his sort of like later period masterpieces and this is the biggest what's it to me this is the biggest like how come you never tried anything like this again because you're so good at this yeah and it's the one that is the most singular to me it's the one that i probably watched the most obviously the funniest but it's also you know there are 900 million like newyorker.com essays about this but it's the one that's like this movie still applies it is nothing has expired about it at all and even though we don't live in an age of nuclear panic it's like this is exactly how government works this is exactly how power operates this is exactly how like masculinity motivates people to do awful stupid things

and so it's it's this unusual document a lot of his movies i'm sure you guys are talking about like This is exactly how like masculinity motivates people to do awful, stupid things. And so it's this unusual document. A lot of his movies, I'm sure you guys are talking about, like really continue to resonate strongly. But this one in particular, I'm like, it nails the absurdity of modern life in 1963. Like that's wild. But there is the interesting aspect of, I mean, you asking why wouldn't he do this again when he nailed it with this is like, it felt like he was sort of competitive with himself in terms of if I've succeeded doing something, then the next challenge is to take on a different type of movie I have not made before and see if I can make it better than everyone else. Right? I'm going to make the scariest movie of all time. I'm going to make the most sort of all time. I'm going to make the most sort of like

intellectually respected comedy of all time. I'm going to step up to the table, pick a genre, pick a milieu, whatever it is, a technical challenge.

And like, once I knock that out of the park, I have no interest in repeating myself. I think part of the other reason that it's interesting to me

is the last thing that you said, David, which is that it's not a film that is mired in in production controversy, which I do think creates a lot of interesting conversation. But he's one of the few people who I'm like, I don't really care about that. I do care about it with David Fincher for whatever reason. But with Kubrick, the movies themselves are these big ideological tentpole concept driven

films that I think are worth just like tearing apart and looking at closely especially also starting with this if Kubrick fights with people he wins he always triumphs it's not like some of these other poachers where it's a you know whatever a give and take or but like one for them one for me like right yes Kubrick loses some battles on like Spartacus and lolita but after dr strange love like as much of a pain in the ass as he could be he ends up making a revered movie that is discussed forever like that's that is so it gets a little boring to talk about it it's an interesting point you raise because i feel the same way but i I almost think I have become less interested in that side of

Kubrick over time because of how much other people are obsessive about it and focus on that more than the movies themselves. Like, you know what? I will read any fucking interview with like Fincher or Soderbergh or any of that classic guy, James Gray, these guys who are so good at explaining their process, their interests, their tastes, their beliefs on the industry at large. There's nothing elusive about them. They're charming and funny and intelligent, and they're open books about like, this is exactly what I was going through. This is how I work. I want

to demystify the thing. And something about how elusive Kubrick made himself makes it so easy for people to project all this fucking shit onto it. And I think also they want to believe that he was just this absolute galaxy brain genius who saw everything more clearly than everyone else and did everything perfectly. And it's like, that's so much less interesting to me. You know, I mean, like Terrence Malick is another person who is like spent decades being reclusive by design, doesn't speak to the press, doesn't explain his own work. There are questions about his process and all of that. But as much as I find his process more interesting to consider because it's so organic and shapeless until it comes together,

there's that lack of intentionality. I'm also not like, I need to read diaries of the day by day accounts of how he's working. It is fun though, to hear Adrian Brody talk about making the thin red line in a way that like, maybe it's not as interesting to hear people talk about the production on the kubrick films right because because you're like when it's like you're gambling when you're getting cast in a terrence malik movie you know a hundred percent a hundred percent yeah no malik is so much

more fun right you're like kubrick what was it like working on a kubrick movie he was very demanding and exacting and he made the exact movie he wanted to make it was a lot of takes he had it in his head right yeah malik's interesting because malik shoots like a fucking shoes to run adventure book and people are just like well they didn't choose that adventure it's not in the book well and also malik just it's like he's this like fey creature from like an elvish land they're just like oh you know this sort of jolly mysterious guy in a straw hat and you know i had just done the best acting of my life and he was shooting you know a dandelion instead or whatever and then he like assembled the movie and he was like you're not in it except for one shot you should come to the

premiere and i went and i saw it and i wept at a masterpiece like you know it's like it just sounds like a delightful experience but they all call him terry in every they all call him terry he's terry and none of us idiots will ever call him Terry. But every actor who has been cut out of his films is like, well, Terry is a dear friend. David, by the way, he'll never call them and say, you've been cut out, but by the way, come to the premiere. An assistant or producer will say,

you should come to the premiere. And they show up in their fucking finest wares waiting to see themselves up on the big screen. I think I just remember remember i remember a clooney interview where he malik told him like you're not really in the movie but i'm using your one speech birth in red line and clooney said i begged him to cut it out like yeah i was like please don't just have me in one scene it would look so weird and malik was like no what are you talking about and cluny said like i love the movie like yeah whatever but but just certainly upon hearing it was just like please don't do that please don't have me be sticking out in one weird scene the

first time i ever watched thin red line it was with my buddy doug rosenberg who is uh at college and we rented it from like the school library and went to a private viewing room or whatever and when Clooney came on screen I think he literally like fell off the chair onto his knees and was like he's introducing George Clooney two and a half hours in like this so disrupts the ecosystem of every you can't just casually throw in a quick Clooney monologue. George Clooney, like at his absolute hottest season four of ER, you know, three Kings, like really it's,

I love that movie. I need to rewatch it. Yeah. Fucking masterpiece. We got to do Malick. We got to do Malick. We should do Malick. Yeah.

Yeah. Should we do Malick, Sean? Who should we do? Yeah. I mean, I want in on, on song to song. I just feel like that is like really sort of I want in on on song to song I just feel like that

is like really sort of discussed mastery going on in song to song capturing the hotbed of Austin circa 2011 that was really I think those three hated movies are really interesting I do too I really love night of cups the most that's the one I

weird ones yeah but song to song is the one that i like i just remember seeing it like the dolby screening room and being like uh i don't know i have to write a review oh shit like and i would like to return to it that's the one that i had the most trouble with but uh i do like all those movies i like all his movies it's fascinating that a hidden life is like i mean part of it i guess is or whatever, but was like the most quiet comeback movie of all time. Fucking rules. Like he had this mysterious legacy,

then made three bombs that made everyone go like, is this guy a false king? And then he had this like return to form movie that already I feel like has kind of been forgotten. He foretells the like onstage personal crisis of Ben Affleck arguably better in To the Wonder than in Gone Girl. He is ahead of the curve on what's happening to Ben Affleck. Malick, he knows more than he lets on.

And I feel like I should rewatch To the Wonder for that reason, where it's like, I saw it when it came out, and I was like, oh, this is sort of interesting that Affleck's in it. And now, as part of the Affleck taxonomy it is it was it would be feel crucial it's an interesting text god i somehow had completely forgotten that he has made a jesus christ movie with guess what right as jesus christ and mark rylance is satan but that's something five years away in the editing room from us getting to see yeah i mean, Malick rules. There's no debate about that.

He absolutely rules. He rules. He's only 78. He's got a bunch more twirling left. It's great. We're going to get more Malick. Should we play the box office game, guys? Can we do that?

Yeah. Are there any final thoughts you have, Sean? Yeah. Is there any Strangelove stuff we haven't mentioned? My favorite tidbit is that Stanley Kubrick cast one of his hero's daughters in this movie and put her in a bikini in a scene.

That's just absolutely absurd. Like, Carol Reed's daughter is Tracy Reed. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's crazy. And, you know, like, he really aspired to make these sort of, like, patrician, beautiful English, you know, he makes Barry Lyndon later on.

And so, I i just there's something very perverse the whole movie is very perverse but that in particular is a very perverse act in my opinion yeah that is interesting that's not a closing thought but it's a little indicative of like have we really put our finger on just how quite twisted stanley kubrick is the guy who made lolita and eyes wide shut like he's, he's a weird horn dog and, um, it needs to be reminded of that. A weird horn dog.

Oh boy. Would I not want to be in that bedroom? Like, yeah. And I, I'm a horn dog. I respect it. And I'm just like both this,

you're right. Both like all the movies here and eyes wide shut. I'm like, I don't, I don't think I'm interested in whatever this is. Unique predilections for sure. Did she have a thing with Peter Sellers sellers because i'm looking in like after this her two biggest credits are shot in the dark and casino royale she was married to edward fox all the way up until the production of this movie okay and then they split up and then i think it makes it

seem like maybe she made a leap to sellers. I mean, obviously he was very active at this period in swinging London. Yeah. Another guy where I'm just like, I imagine having sex with Peter Sellers was the most vacant activity in the world. I mean, it's obviously the thing everyone talks about where like there was no guy there

beneath the characters. But imagine if he stayed in character during the act. Then it'd be thrilling. I'd love to fuck some of these guys. Oh, God. No, keep me away.

No, I don't want it. I don't want bits. No bits. Those are my closing thoughts. Stanley Kubrick is a perv. Yeah. Okay, so this movie, which box office game

should I do? Should I do the one where it actually is on the charts? Which is the end of February 1964? Why not? Yes. Okay. When does it technically come out? That

December or something? Technically came out right at the end of January 1964. Oh, wow. So it's getting nominated for Oscars a full year later? Yeah, man. And like, shit, we didn't even talk about those Oscars. I don't even know what beat it. Do you guys? Well, no. Let's talk about that. Let's fucking pull it up. My Fair Lady. My Fair Lady. Pretty boring. I mean, I love My Fair Lady, but that's not a good movie.

And like, you know, whatever. Yeah. George Cukor wins best director. Rex Harrison wins best actor. Come on. This is boring. Yeah, this is pretty boring. And Julie Andrews, of course, wins best Director. Rex Harrison wins Best Actor. Come on. This is boring as hell. This is pretty boring. And Julie Andrews, of course, wins Best Actress. That's a great Oscar win because it's so shady. For Mary Poppins. But then Peter Ustinov wins Supporting Actor for Top Cappy, even though

he won for Spartacus like five years earlier. You know, you could give that to George C. Scott. I don't know. that just feels like a Christoph Waltz thing where they were just like we just love what this guy's doing give us as much as he got has an actor ever been nominated

for best actor for playing multiple parts since this happened I think this is the only one kind hearts and coronets Nicolas Cage and adaptation oh good? Nicholas Cage and Adaptation. Oh, good. Good call. Cage and Adaptation is a good call. I don't think Guinness

got a nomination for Kind Hearts and Coronets. Okay. I'm double-checking that. Obviously, that's a notorious multiple. No, he didn't. But that's pretty cool. He did for Lavender Hill Mob. Oh, Lavender Hill Mob. Okay. But that's not multiple roles. All three characters being

nominated for that performance and then thinking about what rex harrison does in my fair lady you know rex harrison god bless him he's very talented but come on peter sellers and dr strange love come on uh yeah yeah i agree army hammer of course not nominated for uh social network i know paul dino not nominated for there will be. I'm looking at like lists of famed multiple role performances. These are all twins though. You're all twins. We're talking about twin characters.

I know. These are three separate and distinct humans. No, I know. Yeah. Tom Hanks not nominated for Cloud Atlas. Rude. Right. Ewan McGregor not nominated for The Island.

It is an interesting... That is a good performance. Especially the second guy, I think, is a really good performance. I agree. It's an interesting point, and you're framing it as like, how insane is it that they snubbed Peter Sellers?

I look at this where I'm like, how cool is it that they nominated him? Despite him being a big movie star at the time, this being a big film and whatever, it is such a unique nomination to be like, this guy is the lead of the film because he plays three supporting characters in an ensemble. Right.

It's true. Yeah, you're right. And it's a big, look, the other nominees are Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, both for Beckett. So two fucking titans yelling at each other in robes for three hours like that's you know that's oscar uh catnip and then anthony quinn for zorba the greek uh and they all lose to rex harrison being like where my damn slippers i look i love rex harrison

but it is like if i'm peter o'toole or richard I'm like, come on. I put it all on the stage for you. Like a most fucking acting. Yeah. I had a damn crown. I had a crown. I did have another thought about a real missed opportunity on two different roles, which is John Travolta as Sean Archer and Castor Troy in face off. I feel like, you know,

because he's embodying when his face is removed, he's playing a second he's playing caster troy in john travolta's body yeah like we've never had an opportunity for that could peter sellers do that yeah i think he could he maybe he could yeah yeah i think it's one of the things that's impressive about sellers is like he disguises himself less thoroughly than a lot of the other people were talking about who who throw a lot more on top of themselves to differentiate the characters visually you know like i mean they talk about how like he wanted the head shape change for the president so they didn't just put a bald cap on it but they sort of elongated the shape of his face and whatever

but he still like basically got the same face and he puts different wigs and mustaches on top of himself for most of these movies, you know? He's not a major like prosthetics guy. No, yeah. The other thing too about the Oscars is like, it's a missed opportunity to nominate Sterling Hayden. Yeah.

And he's like a very complicated character in Hollywood history. I don't know if you guys talked about this on The Killing, but just his participation in who act. And this is an amazing documentary that was made about him and his life was kind of falling apart in the eighties. But he, this is the first time when like his personal struggles, like were actualized in a movie.

And then I felt like filmmakers only use this in movies going forward where they were like, this is a man falling apart who has like an ethical crisis going on and like in the godfather and in the long goodbye and it's really it basically like it fortifies his persona going forward in a way and kubrick like identified that really well and he's really great in this movie yeah i mean the long goodbye performance is the one that really jumps out to me of like the the idea of a sort of golden age hollywood actor who became too messy for that controlled era and then a new hollywood can kind of be reclaimed as

the guy who's gone through the shit who's like on the other side and sort of towing these lines i mean his performance in longunkerby is like spiritual. It feels like he's just operating on a different wavelength than the rest of humanity. I love him. I do feel like we didn't mention the Huark thing mostly because that's, I guess that happens after the killing, right? Like when the killing is what, 48?

Right, it's between the- No, when's the killing? No, I'm wrong. What are we talking about? What? The killing's 56. No, it's before. It's before. He's like wrong what are you talking about what's the killing's 56 no it's before it's before he's like he gets reintegrated into hollywood in some ways which is kind of unusual but i if people haven't seen it i can't remember the name of the film the documentary that it's like a greek produced documentary about sterling hayden that is one

of the most like punishing things i've ever seen about a guy at the end of his life being like what have i done i think it's called pharaohs of his life being like, what have I done? I think it's called Pharaohs of Chaos or something like that. Is that what you're talking about? Incredible title too. Apparently he's smoking hashish and drinking heavily throughout

so that they have a record of alcoholism. Yeah, ooh, this sounds crazy. He's torn asunder. It's wild. It's an amazing thing. And he's just saying, this sounds crazy. He's torn asunder. It's wild. I gotta watch this. It's an amazing thing. And he's just saying, this is the worst thing I ever did

that I, you know, that I cooperated with Huac and all that. Yeah. Well, he's just also one of those guys with the most incredible, you know, slab of a face. And I love to look at him. And like fascinating at every age.

And shot below like he's Mount Rushmore in this movie too. That angle that he's shot from. Yes this movie to that angle that he shot from. Yeah. He looks like a giant statue is harrowing. OK. The box office game.

Yeah. So the the Oscar it's just a boring Oscar year. It's my fair lady. It's a lot of Beckett. It's Zorba the Greek. Never seen Zorba the

Greek. Neither. No. It's an incredible 64 is an incredible year for movies. In my opinion, uh, you got woman in the dunes,

which is actually nominated. You've got umbrellas of Sherberg. You've got hard days night for crying out loud. The Beatles, you know, it's a great time working like a dog. Um, but anyway,

this movie comes out. Let's all right. So number one, it's, you know, you were talking about, uh, Russians are coming. And what it's you know you were talking about uh russians are coming and what's the other one you were talking about griff uh god's must be crazy

is much later but yes yeah but both of those are movies where the the poster has a million guys on it right yes like the poster's trying to give you the sense of like oh my god there's so many people this number one at the box office is a comedy with a set the same vibe like you wouldn't believe how many people are involved but it's it's not mad mad mad mad world it is it is mad mad mad world yeah i mean that's another one i was fascinated by as a kid where i wonder if i watch it now if i would find anything in it funny it's gone all the way around this the globe for me it was a kid that my aunt showed me probably like 15 times whenever I would sleep over her house. It was her favorite movie. And as a kid, I got so sick of it and hated it. And then I rewatched a couple of years ago,

and I was like, this is a masterpiece. Really? It's really, really hard to do this. Yeah. It's really hard to do ensemble zany comedy. It's also funny that I loved it so much as a kid, and it was my introduction to almost all of their people and their screen personas like you compare that to something like dumb analogy but grant me this for a moment end game where you're like does this movie have any weight for people who haven't watched the fucking 25 things leading up to this this movie isn't doing the work of setting up the characters themselves for this one film perhaps and mad mad mad mad world distills everyone's comedic persona so well that i'm like i get what buddy hackett's deal is you know i'm not like coasting off of my love of seeing buddy hackett show up and cut it up with ethel merman i'm meeting both of them

and immediately understanding their appeal it's a great call um that's funny. Now I want to rewatch that. I don't think I've ever seen that in full. I've seen it on TV. Like, I don't know that I've ever seen it that bad. Very long movie. One of the longest comedies ever made. Number two at the box office is the Best Picture winner of 1963.

One of the most forgotten and derided Best Picture winners of the 60s, but a movie I like, partly because it stars one of my favorite actors around the world in 80 days no i've never seen that shit it's not great a show on earth no i've never seen that shit either those are like the two best picture winners if like i'm like i'm not rushing to those right fuck that i don't want to see him it's not tom jones is it it's tom jones well i don't feel like that's that derided. I know you love Tom Jones.

I'm always on Letterboxd seeing people file their three stars best picture, question mark, reviews of Tom Jones. Come on now. That's like a cool best picture winner. That's one of the ones that makes you think maybe the Academy should not be torn down.

It is crazy that in the middle of like a lot of, you know, very stayed Oscar winners, there's just one costume drama where it's like, what's it about? And it's like the horniest guy. Everybody wants to fuck him. Uh,

what do you think of Tom Jones? Three stars on letterbox. Best picture question. I think, uh, it's a little bit of a thank you for changing British cinema movie, but this is the least good of your good movies. Wow.

Like it's not as good as a taste of honey, loneliness, a long distance runner, not as good as the loved one, which comes right after it. It's cool. It's a movie that's built on one performance, you know,

Finney, which is a very good performance. Yeah, he's great, but it's, it's like, it's pretty, it's pretty mid,

I would say. Yeah. It's also just again, but again, to give you the run of best pictures in the sixties, it's pretty mid, I would say. Yeah, it's also just, but again, to give you the run of best pictures in the 60s, it's The Apartment, West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, Tom Jones, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music. It's like all these very totemic movies

and then Tom Jones kind of sitting in the middle there. Anyway, Tom Jones is number two at the box office. Number three is Dr. Strangelove. Now, number four is a movie that I almost brought up it's another political thriller with kind of a similar vibe but it's serious and it's a movie I really love but it's also

about like the military clashing with the president in a big cold war plot it's not it's not failsafe no I'm sure you like this movie. It's written by Rod Serling, Griffin. Oh, why am I not thinking of what

this fucking is? Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Because Serling didn't write that many movies. Sean, do you know it? Do you know what I'm talking about here? Great ensemble cast.

Is it Seven Days in May? Seven Days in May. John Frankenheimer's wonderful political thriller. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Frederick March, Ava Gardner. So I just want to share a take that I've shared in the past before, which is that this movie comes in the middle of the most underrated five-year run in any American filmmakers history, which is John Frankenheimer from 1962 to 1966 makes bird of man of Alcatraz,

the Manchurian candidate seven days in May, the train seconds and Grand Prix. So that's fucking good. It's very similar to what you were just describing Griffin where Kubrick is like, I'm going to try a different kind of a thing every single time. Slightly different genre moves, slightly different style of filmmaking, and I'm going to nail it every time. And all of those movies are brilliant. Okay, that's my, sorry, that was my spiel.

I've seen all but The Train. I gotta see The Train. How have I never seen a movie called The Train? Might be the best one. Burt Lancaster plays a French resistance fighter at the end of World War II. The Nazis are trying to steal very valuable French art and get it into Berlin. And he's trying to make them not make the train go. The whole movie is how

he doesn't want the train to move. It's great. Wow, who plays the train? Thomas the Tank Engine plays the train. It's a incredible performance. He's young. Fresh face. His first film. It's like James Earl Jones He's young. Fresh face. His first film.

It's like James Earl Jones in this where you're like, I didn't realize he was acting at that point. Seven Days in May completely fucks. Movies used to be so much simpler

where you could just say, hey, it's Burt Lancaster in The Train. I'd be like, there, done. Sounds good. Agreed. It's just great star

in the blank. And you're like, perfect. Can't believe no one thought to make a movie about that before. Number five at the box office is an Otto Preminger movie. Big, big movie. Got a bunch of Oscar nominations, including, I think, best director, but maybe not best picture.

It's not Man with the Golden Arm. No. It's not fucking Anatomy of a Murder. No. It's not his performance as Mr. Freeze on the Batman TV show. It's not that. Good call. But no, it's not that.

I believe it's a religious drama, which might be a clue to its title. Is it The Cardinal? The Cardinal the cardinal oh yeah thank you sean not a movie i've seen nope i wouldn't i would not have gotten it without religious drama that's the only auto-premier religious drama i'm familiar with some kind of you know irish catholic priest moral drama kind of thing going on i don't't know. Uh, interesting fact about bass poster. I'm looking at it. It's a very cool poster. Yeah.

And Pope Benedict, the, the later to be Pope Benedict, the 16th was the liaison officer from the Vatican for this. Wow. A little bit of trivia for you. It was, it was also the first 35 millimeter blow up. Oh,

that's the first movie to be shot in 35, but projected on 70th. Some other movies in the top 10. You got man's favorite sport. Question mark. The rock Hudson, uh, Howard Hawks comedy.

Um, which, uh, I've never seen. Um, all apprentice. Uh, you've got love with the proper stranger.

That's that Natalie wood movie. That's a wild that up recently think we brought that up recently. Yeah, I brought it up. Were you talking about it? For what reason? Have either of you seen that? I haven't. I just would like to acknowledge

that I have a big crush on Paul Apprentice. I'd be remiss if I didn't say she's really, she has my heart. Parallax View. What else is she in? Oh, she's in the Stepper Brides. Catch 22. What's New Plus?

Yeah. Oh, and she was in a sitcom with Richard Benjamin called He and She. Married to Richard Benjamin. She's been in Richard Benjamin's life for many, many years. They are still kicking, right? Since 1961. They're both still alive. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Richard Benjamin, just a ridiculous person. A 60-year-plus marriage. Good for them. Good for them. Good for them. Shout out. It's awesome.

Those kids might make it. What if, like, by the time this episode comes out, she's filed for divorce? Oh, God. I hate that guy. Reconcilable differences.

What was the thing I was going to say? Love with a Proper Stranger, neither of you have seen it, right? I haven't seen it. It's a fascinating movie because it's, like, it's about abortion at a it's like a it's it's

about abortion uh at a time where you cannot believe a movie can that candidly be about it but it's also about it in a relatively light way and it's one of mcqueen's first movies and it's like essentially it feels like viewing an alternate path his career could have gone where you're like, what if Steve McQueen was Paul Rudd instead? Right, right. Like, he's just kind of playing, like, young, glib guy in it. And he's very funny in it. It's a good movie. Natalie Wood's really good in it.

You've also got The Victors, which is a war film starring Albert Finney, among other people. Big, boring Carl Foreman movie uh you've got the misadventures of merlin jones that's a disney comedy right that's a robert stevenson movie yes yeah okay sure and uh i don't know merlin jones invents some bullshit all kinds of stuff happens um one of those things and then you've got sunday in new york uh the adaptation of the play starring jane fonda and rod taylor it's a lot of movies i haven't seen it's an interesting box office game you know it's a lot of stuff that with movie stars um that i don't really know that well jane fonda reflected in 2018 she was surprised how many people say they love Sunday in New York why

I too am surprised Jane Fonda not a fan but yeah that's it I don't know and then Dr. Strangelove goes on to be a moderate hit and then Stanley Kubrick goes on to make a little movie called 2001 A Space Odyssey and by that point he's like on the other side of his divorce he's remarried and he's

firmly established in London right like that's sort of like the beginning of like Stanley Kubrick the fortress he's remarried and he's firmly established in London. Right. Like that's sort of like the beginning of like Stanley Kubrick, the fortress on. Right. But like, this is the one where it's like,

it shoots in London because he's going through the, you know, like, because there's like reasons. And like, I feel like by 2001, it's like, yeah,

you come to me like here I am. I'm here. It's the last, it's the last time he also like makes a movie in 18 months for the last time. And then from here on out, it's like, everything will take five years. Right, right. Right, right, right.

It's also, right, he, like, kind of rewrites the rules of what a director career can be in a certain way. It's also just funny. Like, I was watching the fucking Making the Shining or whatever it's called, the Vivian Kubrick documentary short.

Every time I see a clip of Stanley Kubrick speaking, I'm once again surprised he doesn't have a British accent. And I know, like, I know he's from the Bronx. I know he wasn't British, but I just half expect that he like from being there for so long affected a Madonna esque lilt at the very least

and then every clip of him is just like yeah I don't know I don't don't fucking do that that's my Stanley Kubrick impression and I don't do that and I ain't no good so my entire family is from the Bronx and Brooklyn yeah and um let's just say that hearing Kubrick interviews is a is is a nice warm bath for me. Oh, sure. It takes me home. Yeah, you do think of him as English in your head. That is like a people voice coming out of that mouth.

And even just like when you look at photos of young Kubrick, I'm like, I see that guy living in the Bronx. And then when you see old sort of wizard Kubrick with the beard, I'm like, that guy must be British. A British voice must come out. We're done, Griff. With the beard. I'm like that guy must be British. A British voice must come out. We're done. We're done. I just ended the podcast forever. This is our final episode. Sean, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

What do we have left to do? We had Sean Fennessey on. People have been asking for this for fucking seven and a half years. You're right. Well, we have to have Sean Fennessey back now. Oh, that's a reason to keep going. No, I said, Griffin, we haven't discussed this, but I said to David that I would only do this

if you guys came on the big picture, so I have to figure out. That's true. We're going to do a home and home. I don't know what you want to do, but I want to do what you want to do. So you tell me what you guys want to talk about on the pod and we'll do something. That's a good question. So brainstorm it. We will air them in relative vicinity to another yeah we

have we have a few months okay yeah and if you if you wanna if you want to theme it up we can theme it up you know if you wanna you know if you want to just write strange love to on the fly on a pod we can do that too cool I leave it in your hands both of you guys all three of you guys this was an honor I'm I feel

blessed thank you oh thanks thank you for doing the show hey so it's so cool I leave it in your hands, both of you guys, all three of you guys. This was an honor. I feel blessed. Thank you. Oh, thanks. Thank you for doing the show. Hey. It's so cool. Truly, it's one of those things. I mean, you've been a supporter of the show for a while.

And any time our listeners would see you tweet like a new stack of Blu-rays or see you logging on letterbox one of the directors brings me such joy yeah right they're perverse joy every mini series they go like which one is he fucking doing that's very sweet i mean honestly just because i am listening to the show and watching the movies with you guys until now which is nice until now which look it's much appreciated uh but but i think it has driven people insane i think they have had blue balls for like three fucking years we kind of screwed up we should have just never done it that was maybe i know it was a good bit but whatever and then you'll yeah and you can keep him guessing you'll come back at some point and okay you know all right yeah just keep him

guessing well should we just back girl this episode yeah what if we put it on the shelf what if we realize that we stand to make 70 million dollars by never releasing this episode for some weird tax loophole we had him on the show

but it saves us millions Sean we're cutting you in a fourth a fourth a fourth the windfall of this episode is just gonna be insane sold

which means no one will ever even hear this conversation no and it's it's a problem actually because we've already recorded the next episode and Michael Keaton's in it and now that's not going to make sense

because we haven't established him. Michael Keaton's going to appear like three more times in this miniseries and everyone's going to go like, when did they make him a permanent third host? Well, I feel comfortable announcing that I'm actually going to be the next Batman. I'm the post-Patinson Batman.

So, you know, I'm breaking it here for you guys. I love the idea of Michael Keaton being Batman twice, but the second time never being seen. Right. He's just out there. Yeah. There's just a lost three-movie Batman arc. Sean, everyone should listen to the podcast that you do

that they already listen to because they're the biggest podcast. Listen to the big picture. Listen to Rewatchables. I just finished the Unforgiven episode. I'm caught up. Thank you for listening.

Thank you for having me. And thank you for all the work that you guys do. Love your show. Yeah, that's too nice of you to say. Thank you. Take us out, Griff. Thank you all for doing all the work that you. Take us out, Griff. Thank you all

for doing all the work that you do in listening to the show. And I ask you to continue that work by rating and subscribing the annoying things that we just

have to tell you to do every week. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. Thank you to AJ McKeon,

Alex Barron for our editing. Pat Reynolds, Joe Bowen for our artwork, Lane Montgomery, the Great American Idol for our theme song, JJ Birch for our research. Go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon blank check special features where we do commentaries on franchises, among other things. We're currently doing the Roger Moore-Bonds movies that have a lot of

Doctor Strange-Love-War Room typesets. It is funny how this movie, this hiring a James Bond guy to design the War Room changes the way you're allowed to put these things on screen forever.

Like, now they have to look like this or they feel too boring. I don't know. That's the final point. I shouldn be making this there's i'm trying to end the podcast what the fuck am i doing tune in next week for 2001 a space odyssey a pretty big movie yep guess tbd guess tbd yeah Yeah, we can't even say. And as always, I was looking at a list of actors who played multiple roles but didn't get an Oscar nomination. And there are a couple big ones

that we forgot about that I just want to quickly shout out people who should have gotten Oscar nominations, including in past episodes. Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap. Of course. Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future Part III. Sure.

Right? That's, I guess... Two and three. Two and three, yeah. Yeah, he should have gotten two Best Actor nominations back-to-back years. Wait, I had another one here.

Fuck, I don't know. I give up. Great, good, done. No, wait, what's his name in Assassin's Creed? He plays two characters? Yeah, great. That's the final one. That's the end of the episode.

It's Michael Fassbender in Assassin's Creed.