Blank Check with Griffin & David - In the Cut with Jourdain Searles

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

Want to hear us talk about how hot Mark Ruffalo is for two hours? Oooh boy, do we have a treat for you! Wikipedia-cited “In The Cut” stan Jourdain Searles joins us to unpack Jane Campion’s unjustly maligned erotic thriller. What happens to actresses once they turn 40? Would this movie have fared better with audiences if - instead of America’s Sweetheart Meg Ryan - it starred an edgier Nicole Kidman as originally planned? Do you remember the SCANDAL when Meg Ryan cheated on Dennis Quaid with Russell Crowe? Why did we care so much about that?  Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

You want me to be your podcast? I can be whatever you want me to be your podcast? I can be whatever you want me to be. Now, I was very tempted. I was very tempted to do. Some podcasts give terrible blowjobs. No rhythm at all. No sense of cock whatsoever. My favorite line.

I mean, that's, it's maybe one of the best lines ever written. And the fact that she immediately responds with no sense of cock whatsoever. Right. That she repeats it back to him. Yeah. It's one of the most absurd things ever said. Well, I just think there's so much that I love about this film.

It's a favorite film of mine. And I love Ryan's performance. I love a lot of the performances. But I do think the Ruffalo thing, it's easy to imagine many actors being cast in this role, right? Obviously, many an actor would love to play a New York City cop who's horny and kind of earthy. And like the world's best lover.

And sure, and gives good head. But like, could anyone be doing quite what he's doing here? No. Right? No. head right but like could anyone be doing quite what he's doing here no right no that's what's that's maybe the most magic element of this very sort of special movie with all kinds of great magic elements and i would argue he got dinged less for this movie than campion and ryan but it still arguably knocked his career back a step at At least to the side a step or something. Right, yeah, I don't know.

It kind of obliterated Ryan and Campion. He was just like, everyone went like, hold on one second, let's slow down on Ruffalo. They questioned a little bit. And even you read, some of the reviews are like, he's the only good thing in this movie. But this thing was so fucking radioactive. fucking radioactive it is hard to like explain to people how much this movie was just like sort of message as catastrophe right atomic bomb everyone should go to jail sure right right how dare you i strongly remember um something from vh1 and i don't know if it was like an i Love the 2000s thing.

Best week ever. Or 100 Hottest Hotties. It was one of those things where they mention this movie and they mention it in a way that like strongly suggests it's like this is disgusting. Meg Ryan looked and you had guts, your pubic hair. And like it was just this weird thing. My only experience within the cut was just that weird VH1 voiceover that seems to really hate it. And I was very confused.

But it's not hot beyond the fact that like, not just that it's, Oh sure. It's like a sort of sexy, filthy movie, but like, like that definitely was a bit of an undertone to some of the reaction. There was this weird two prong thing.

I don't want to see that. Right. Simultaneously people were saying, uh, uh, how dare they, right? Like sort of like morally offended.

I think more than anything by how dare you do that with Meg Ryan. That's not allowed. Right. Right. And then simultaneously people were like, this thing is silly. And it was like both at the same time. Like they were like,

this is too sexy and gross. And also it's ridiculous and laughable which are kind of contradictory things i mean it speaks to the very specific tone of this movie but people just like didn't know what to fucking make of it it made them angry it was so wildly derided the thing that i had forgotten that astonished me at the very beginning of this movie is that it is a Screen Gems release. It sure is. Which is one of those things

that just makes you pause and go like, oh, Screen Gems at this point is like less than five years old. Right. And it was just sort of Sony saying like, we want an arm for smaller movies. And smaller movies was a pretty broad umbrella.

And this same season like within a month this movie and underworld come out and that's sort of like oh cool that's the only thing screen gems is gonna do for the rest of time right i mean to be clear screen gems had existed for a long time and sony revived it as a modern as like a sort of smaller like horror slash teen slash genre but they were also like it's maybe for adult dramas like screen gems. A sort of smaller, like horror slash teen slash genre label. But they were also like, it's maybe for adult dramas. Like screen gems

would acquire girl fight at Sundance. They would do slackers. Like it was like, it was anything that felt a little too specialized for big Sony, but it wasn't like

Sony classics. But, but them releasing a movie like this is unfathomable. But they did not finance this film at all. Sure. Right.

I'm just saying. That's the only thing. That's the only thing. It got, Just to see the logo in front of it is bizarre. It is bizarre because usually you would see that in front of like the Mothman prophecies or whatever. Right. Right. Absolutely. It's bizarre. I mean, didn't this come out on like Halloween too? Yes.

It came out October 31st 2003. The day itself. Absolutely should not have come out well it should have come out in the summer absolutely

in terms of the atmosphere of the film like that would make the most sense hot months yeah it's a sweaty movie I guess it's like

if you're gonna sit someone down and say you gotta see in the cut I guess you would say like it's like a romantic thriller

but it is like you know there's a killer on the loose so I guess you could say like, it's like a romantic thriller, but it is like, you know, there's a killer on the loose. So I guess you could sort of convince the studio, like this is a fall thing. This is an adult thriller. But also look,

it had done the rounds of festivals. It was hated. And Halloween is kind of a dump weekend because like, you know, people go to fucking parties all weekend. I mean, it's like Halloweenlloween day itself wherever it lands is always like an incredibly bad movie going day right because everyone wants to fucking go out unless it's a horror movie for yeah right right but even then it's usually like

the day before or after that right movie might have a good weekend but that day is just like a fucking nothing to release like an adult drama on halloween just feels like a complete shrug of like i don't contractual obligation we backed ourselves into this this is talking about contractual obligations that we backed ourselves into uh this is year seven of a podcast called blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david uh it's a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they're in the

cut, baby. Sure. What's your contractual obligation angle here? I'll just make a joke about us being trapped doing this show forever, which of course, I kid because I love it. And I love you. Oh, I love you too. I'm trying to say I love you to people more. Yeah, you should. Ben, I love you. I love you I love you too I love you to people more

I love you too Griffin this is a main series on the films of Jane Campion it's called the podcastiano today we're getting to I was thinking with that just really quick have you ever thought we could go

like podcast podcastiano you know like was thinking with that yeah please just really quick have you ever thought we could go like uh podcast podcastiano you know like mambo mambo italiano have you ever thought about that guys i think i'm gonna put that on like a tbd right like this table david i have to admit i have thought about it you have thought about that well i have because i kept on saying like i wish the name of this main series was a little more abstracted when people hear it it makes too much sense too quickly right and hence why i've been throwing the italian accent onto it and i'm like no let's get further away from any recognizable word it's also funny now the piano is behind us and we're covering in

the cut but it's still called the podcastiano i know i'm like i'll say this in in that one sense i'm glad she hasn't made 20 movies like if we had to do 15 post piano episodes and i was still saying podcastiano i'd feel a little bit silly but i don't i feel very normal and smart good you are uh i guess joining us. Of course, film critic, host of the Bad Romance podcast, and a notable in-the-cut stan. I'm sorry. Say her name again. I'm sorry. I talked over it. Jermaine Searles, in-the-cut scholar. You recently introduced a screening of it,

right? At Nighthawk in Williamsburg. Oh, like very recently. Yeah, and it was a really good time. Almost every seat was filled. I feel like we only had four extra tickets or something like that. It was crazy. You are cited on the Wikipedia page for this movie in the subsection about the reclaiming of it. I'm so glad.

I saw this movie for the first time in the fall of 2018 and wrote about it for the first time in January 2019. So it's just been wild it hasn't been that long since i've seen it but i just immediately latched on to it and and i had been avoiding it for years because i had heard that it was bad and and i was and i've always been a jane campion fan i've loved jane campion since was a kid. I was that kid inappropriately watching the piano. So it's yeah. So it was it was kind of and I was so mad at myself when I finally watched it for avoiding it for so long because it's so incredible. I mean, David, you and I saw it together. You had already seen it. I saw this film when it came out. Right. I've always been an In the cut fan on the oscar watch okay i was well known for being the in the cut is good person wow little 17 year old

david thought he was so smart but it was good yes then and now we did your emily hulk it was your derided film of 2000 right i was probably not that high on hulk right whereas i was the person who was like i'm telling you four acting noms for Hulk. What a good year 2003 is. 03 was really good. Here's another thing. 03 was a really good year for like commercial cinema. Well, sure.

There are great like foreign art house independent films, but also 2003 has blockbusters that are like good. It has good comedies. It has like good populist movies on top of everything else.

Which makes it a little bit of a rarity in the modern era. But my first time seeing it was seeing it with you. Oh, so you'd never seen it. We went to the Quad, me, you, Alex Ross Perry and his wife. That must have been, I don't know, was that a few years ago? 2017. Right, yeah. I saw it at the Quad, so I wonder if it was

actually 2018. Because I know it was playing in 2018. I don't know if it was playing... I think, I mean, it's... At the time of that screening, I knew you liked it, but I was mostly going to see it... I mean, you know, we want to make plans for the four of us to hang out, right?

Right. And it was like, oh, let's go see this. I remember we were just kind of looking at like, what's a good wrap screening coming up? Right, right. And I was like, oh, I'm like interested in this movie

that's a famous disaster, but I, I think I was going to with morbid curiosity more than anything else, you know? And, and there was that bizarre feeling

of just like, oh no, this is like good. This is not, I don't even feel like I'm forming a radical opinion here. No. And the tide had maybe

started to turn a little bit, but I think it's gotten much louder in the last five years. Yeah. I was just surprised. And then yesterday I saw my dear friend, Andrew Taven. Yep. And we were talking about how he had been watching Campion movies for the podcast recently.

I am. And he was like, I was watching the cut, and I was like, oh, it's great, right? And he was like, yeah, you know, yeah, like oh it's great right he was like yeah uh you know i yeah i guess it is it made me feel uncomfortable sure and i've spent the last five years so in the mode of like of course in the cut is great and everyone was unfairly critical of it at the time that it took him saying that and then me re-watching it last night to remind myself oh it is a deeply uncomfortable movie like as much as I think most of the criticisms at the time were stupid, it is a movie

that does not, like, you understand it being off-putting to people, even if I feel like they misidentified what was making them uncomfortable and blamed it on

other things that were dumb. Well, yeah. I mean, it seems like it was a movie that people were scared of, which is fascinating to me because, you know, I've always been really into erotic a movie that people were scared of, which is fascinating to me. Because, you know, I've always been really into erotic thrillers because I had one of those moms that was just like, whatever I'm watching, you're also watching it. I'm not changing it to something for kids.

So I've been watching erotic thrillers like my whole life. And I think that I was just so shocked because it was just, this is an erotic thriller. There have been so many of these. What's the problem? But it's, I think it's the vantage point of it. It's the perspective. It's the perspective of it that really, really makes people uncomfortable. And this is, I would say, at the tail end, right, of the erotic thriller.

Like, you know, Unfaithful is the year before and I remember unfaithful having kind of this oh like Adrian Lyne's still kind of cooking with gas a little bit remember him you know like you know but and that movie's a lot more prestigey I don't even like

that movie I don't understand why people were going David loves it that movie people were okay fine I love that movie but that movie. I don't understand why people were going. David loves it. That movie. People were. Okay, fine. I love that movie. But, uh, but that movie is a very, I would say down the line. Yeah. Classic erotic thriller. Very male gaze.

Right. Not, not like in a, you know, awful way, but you know, it's an Adrian line movie. I love the snow globe. Snow globe's good. I love the wind blowing her around when she's feeling all crazy. Yeah. Let's also acknowledge, like, Michael Douglas was the king of the erotic thriller

for, like, a 10-year period. Adrian Lyne was the guy who helped define that. And that's the model of what America feels comfortable with in an erotic thriller. And Unfaithful is him kind of closing the loop a little bit. And it's like, that era is done. We have not figured out what the next era of erotic thrillers is. I'm looking at, like, a, you know, wikipedia but still a list of erotic thrillers and the only

other one in 2003 of any note is the french movie swimming pool which is a pretty good movie uh yeah and and was like that was like a breakout that was like an art house breakout yeah because it was your uncle's favorite movie absolutely it was the first french movie my father saw in like 15 years it was like because my mom is french my dad's very american and my father has like no interest in french movies but like and i just remember him being like is swivel still playing guy my mom was like he just wants to see this fucking obviously you heard there's the movie is bad but a couple years later you have big basic instinct too which is sort of this like hey can we like right you know, put this back in the microwave?

Pin in this point, I'm going to get back to this in a second. Yeah. Okay, wait, Swimming Pool is bad? No, no, no. Basic Instinct 2. Oh, Basic Instinct 2. Swimming Pool's good. I've never watched.

It's not good. No. I mean, it's not a good idea. No. What they did there. No, it doesn't seem... At some point, I want to be more thorough and loop back around to all the other weird Verhoeven sequels I haven't seen.

Oh, like that he didn't make? Well, I held off on seeing the Robocop sequels for so long. You finally watched those. But I've never seen Basic Instinct 2. I've never seen Hollow Men 2 with Christian Slater. The direct-to-video Hollow Men. There are the three direct to video uh starship there's a lot of there's a whole world of starship newmeyer directed one

phil tippett directed one there's the bizarre showgirl sequel oh man yeah pennies from heaven yeah directed or like conceived by one of the supporting actors and it's all about her character look yeah as jordaine was Supporting actors and it's all about her character. Look, as Jordana was saying, I do think it's the perspective was surprising to people. But also, the Meg Ryan of it just cannot be understated. It was just... Yeah.

It was whatever. It's such an iconic example of a star quote-unquote defying their image and it throwing people off versus it prompting acclaim, even though she rules in this movie. People's relationship to Meg Ryan is something that I've never really fully been able to grasp. Like, I mean, a lot of it has to do with me not being white.

I've always loved her. But the idea of her, like, stripping naked and getting eaten out doesn't like it doesn't negate anything like it doesn't change the way that i feel about any of her work where she isn't doing that in a way that it clearly did for white people there's sort of a three-point like sort of thing to address in sort of where meg ryan is culturally at this moment right we talk about i mean she's like obviously you have like you know uh she breaks out in like top gun and everything right but then like obviously when harry met sally is like the breakthrough right yeah and as often is the case with movie stars not that she isn't also

a very skilled actress but when you transcend into movie star the one where the audience falls in love with you becomes the thing in their mind she is the ultimate example that's the problem she's also just defining like she was the best version of that very packaged as a specific you know type yes anytime she deviates from it forget in the cut just think of like courage under fire or addicted to love or whatever any movie where she's kind of trying to like break out of the role she's best known for. Audiences are not interested. This movie obviously is way more drastic. A swerve of audiences are not interested.

You know, like it's, she's such a talented actress and yet never got enough shots. No, and like the most rate she was given was like, you can do City of Angels or When a Man Loves a Woman. You can play the sad version of a Meg Ryan character. She's great in When a Man Loves a Woman. She's a good actor. I think that she's actually great in Addicted to Love. That's another one that I... That movie ruled. It's one of David's favorite movies. Yes! That's one of those that I heard was bad. Addicted to Love

is really good. I'm planning on doing a bad romance episode on it to explain no, it's good actually. What is wrong with all of it? Jardine, David has pushed the idea of a Griffin Dunn miniseries many times and I've said to him, we could also just do an addicted to love but i also like practical magic oh yeah you want to talk about practical that would be those are the two i mean i'm not like a big fierce people fan sure but like lisa picard is famous i never saw lisa sure but um but addicted to love is great

but even addicted love sure she's got the blonde, but it's a little spiky. And it's sure she's a romantic, but it's like a bitter one. Yeah. Right. Like people were just so sort of reined into what they wanted from her. And I think part of it is like, a,

that's what they fell in love with her for doing. Right. But B it's like, that was sort of a peak time for those genres. Yeah. There was like a real, like Hollywood makes a lot of those kinds of movies, and she's sort of the top of the heap.

And she was so clearly the best at it that I think there was also a degree that when she wasn't doing that, people were like, come on, you're depriving us. Why aren't we getting our Meg Ryan movie this year? Right, right. Fucking, you're being selfish here.

Before in the cut, obviously, she's in Proof of Life a couple, three years earlier. Okay, so that's point two which is sort of Again it's sort of that's the one Where she did it with Russell Crowe and also She like cheated with Russell Crowe Well she right her she she her marriage

To Dennis Quaid who of course seems like a Totally normal chill dude with no problems at all This is what is so I was trying to recount this To my father it's a huge you know Tabloid thing like they're obsessed Over it it wasn't just that like there was a cheating scandal though it was like it's it's the russell crowe thing with like yeah of course russell crowe's gonna steal your lady you know he was at the peak kind of like

this is the masculine idea he's rugged so charged and it was like i mean i guess the phone throwing incident happens after this sure Sure. He's crazy. But also that next year there was that thing that I totally forgot about and dug up. And I feel like I mentioned this on a recent episode that there was like the FBI intercepted a threat that the Taliban wanted to kidnap Russell Crowe before the Oscars because they thought it was the message that would most destabilize America. They were just like, this is the hinge point. Despite him being an Aussie. I do remember that. This would really fucking shake them up and we kidnapped they were basically we need to get the number one movie star right male movie star right i just think a everyone was so excited i'm doing another

list of abc yeah yeah people were just so excited that it was like fucking new male star new fucking alpha male and he's like a heavyweight actor and he can fucking do action and all this shit and he's fucking women and whatever and then he fucked med ryan and they were like fuck you med ryan you've gone too far i know it was there was no like shade on him everyone seemed to take

dennis quaid side which is a little bizarre considering as you said that he's clearly a very normal okay dennis quaid was in his parent trap era at the time. He was like, I've kicked booze. I'm hot. Go ahead, Jordane. Dennis Quaid is a creep.

And I knew this when I was a child. He has always come off like a creep to me. It's a lot of stories. It doesn't take a lot of time to dig down. You guys aren't into the denissance? Well, look, we're all, we have no choice. The denissance is just a reality. We have to he has a podcast called the denissance that's a real thing that's on now absolutely untrue no this is fake if you think about that way he's

actually a co-worker of ours i absolutely hate the thing about it is is that like i hate both dennis quaid and russell crowe and so my opinion to this information was girl i want more for you yeah well but i but i also understand that like she the thing is also that dennis quaid cheated on her a lot too so it's just like i mean it's like wild it's just like okay so so he can so he can go and get it somewhere and she can't like give her some space, man. Absolutely. But I think as opposed to maybe like Kidman, Cruise, Willis, Moore,

I think a lot of this was Ryan. There was a perception of like, they're the normal Hollywood couple. Right. They're the People Magazine friendly types. Right. And I think people knew Dennis Quaid had a wild man reputation,

but it never was like Sean Penn where it was like all over the fucking tabloids. And I think the perception Dennis Quaid had a wild man reputation, but it never was like Sean Penn where it was like all over the fucking tabloids. And I think the perception at the time was, oh, she kind of domesticated him. So by the time she cheats on him, people were just very into it. It's like you said, her and Dennis Quaid,

Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. It was a power couple era. Alec Baldwin came based on a famously stable relationship. But I think they were perceived as the most normal of those. Because Meg Ryan is the girl next door. Anyway, after that. And then the third thing, which we just have to acknowledge is,

she turns 40, right? And I think she is aware of the fact where it's like, I can't be Meg Ryan within these narrow confines forever. I need to, in some way, sort of start to experiment with what else I can do. Well, post-Proof of Life, she makes Kate and Leopold, a great film. So, Proof of Life is, like, step one of, like,

can I try to work in, sort of, the Courage Under Fire genre, right? That movie's a flop, and it's a fucking... Not a bad movie. Nightmare for her, press-wise, right? Then, as you said um she does which is her highest grossing film in the last 22 years it's it's her last last meg ryan meg ryan movie yes yeah and she's doing it with a younger man and it's sort of like her being like i maybe got one

of these left in me yeah before i just i'm a woman now like i can't keep on playing these sort of what you call the the flibberty gibbet roles and i mean you can and you can see it in kate and leopold where her whole thing is like yes i'm meg ryan but also like i'm tired i'm tired of your shit i'm tired of all of this i may be a little over being meg ryan it's her character in kate leopold yeah because he's been ripped from the timeline elevators no longer exist my favorite part of kate and leo because he invented the elevator elevators start vanishing that movie has such like weird fungible like rules about like time travel that i am obsessed with it's that weird mangled effect

of just everything's a little better than it needs to be i agree where you're just like he puts a little more thought into the logic of these things in a way that makes it compellingly bizarre. It's the sort of Hugh Jackman is early and so he's not picking his projects yet and he's been like shoehorned into this like time travel you know English Lord

thing and he just is sort of again he's just kind of like 20% more than whatever like someone else could have been. I don't know. I defend that movie. Me too. No, it's good. But that, yes. So that.

You want to watch Kate and Leopold right now? Yeah. Episode over. His butter scene. Really good. Oh, man. But that, that movie is a hit. Right.

And just to go back. It's a solid hit. To acknowledge an obvious thing. 99 is You've Got Mail. So she ends off the millennium with like fucking third time around with Hanks, Efron again,

just doing the exact thing. And then it's like Hinge Point, 2000, Russell Crowe, Proof of Life, Kate and Leopold, okay,

you're back where we want you. Mm-hmm. Now, In the Cut. And then In the Cut. Is obviously intended for Nicole Kidman. Yes.

Campion had been working on this movie since the mid 90s when she read Susanna Moore's novel which came out in 95. Yeah. Kidman acquires it like Campion takes it to Kidman and is like your company should option this book.

It's interesting and Kidman reads it and is like I agree. So that was the plan. Right. And it's like right after Portrait of a League. This book's published in 96? reason is like I agree. So that was the plan right. It's like right after Portrait of a League books published in ninety six ninety five ninety five. OK.

Yeah. And they have this idea that they can finance the film themselves out of by by doing all the foreign pre-sales. OK.

They're like we have Kidman. We have a book that people can read. Sure. And Campion says she feels bad because she told Harvey Weinstein. Harvey

Weinstein? Who is obviously a major producer of the moment. Yes, yes. That it could be kind of a seven type. She compares it to seven. Huh. Yeah. And she says like, I probably shouldn't have done that because it's not a great comparison. Like, obviously, there's superficial comparisons you can make or whatever right but harvey i think heard that and was like like we could use it like you know like you know like great yeah and then

the budget inflates and they're in the whole thing gets harder to do right harvey's involved for a while and then drops out okay um. Because he's insane and awful. Or whatever. He's doing his usual bullshit where he's, I don't know, making weird demands about the story. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

So they drop out and Pathé ended up funding the entire film. $12 million. Okay, okay. And then Screen Gems gets distribution. But Kidman is such a huge part of the package. Absolutely.

You know, like, obviously. And this is, look, we talked about Portrait of a Lady like up until this point, but, you know, Kidman post- a huge part of the packet. Absolutely. You know, like, obviously. And this is, look, we talked about Portrait of a Lady, like, up until this point, but, you know, Kidman post-divorce has this, like, kind of wild run, but she also drops out of a lot of things. Like, she's supposed to do Panic Room and drops out, like, a week or two before.

That's a big one. Right. She's really making, like, strong choices in her movie stardom and, you know, some of them good good some of them bad she's post divorce she's post eyes wide shut which is this huge grueling shoot she had a bad knee injury she said

which is the reason she didn't do panic room she says it's the reason she didn't do this movie and she also said right because Moulin Rouge was like a two year shoot because of her injury and she said like I love I was so happy when Meg Ryan got the chance. I love when people get chances to do things

you don't immediately think, oh, that's perfect for them. I love all of Jane's films. People like her changed the world artistically. I mean, she speaks very, like, Yes. benevolently about, like, that was great.

Meg Ryan's great. No beef. I don't think in either of these cases the film would have been maybe loved by... No, but the film would... People would have gotten it with Nicole Kidman, I guess.

And by the way, I think they would have gotten it with Jennifer Jason Leigh. I think both of those are actresses. Just to do the mental experiment because I was watching the movie and flipping them in my head. Certainly. I mean, right. Jennifer Jason Leigh, this is just an arthouse movie right right but like kidman you could have because i mean she does fucking movies like birthday girl around the same period of time where people are like i don't know it's a crappy nicole kidman erotic there's no quite right like even if they disliked

it they wouldn't have been like how dare you how do you feel about kidman in this movie jordan like you know the original plan probably works i don't know yeah i mean it probably works but there is something i think that meg ryan brings something so interesting to it like i like i believe meg ryan as an english teacher i think more than agree with that absolutely as an english teacher yes nicole kidman is like a harder edgeged performer. Like she would just maybe a little tougher to sell. Because there's elements of this character that's kind of she's a little bit of a whatever.

And Meg is more chill. Her presence is more chill than I think that Nicole's would have been. Agreed. Meg Ryan's a much more naturalistic act. And I love Nicole Kidman. I'll watch anything with nicole kidman i ride i ride for destroyer i think that it's actually really interesting in a situation

where like you might be on the destroyer episode whatever that happens not a lot of destroyer writers out there no like well this thing is like i feel like the destroyer situation is similar to the meg ryan situation with this which like it's Nicole doing something that nobody really expected her to do and nobody really wanted her to do and just really rejected her. I mean, the makeup didn't help, but just like rejected her on it.

Whereas like, yeah, this is something that you would not expect Meg Ryan to do. And I think that there's an easy rejection that comes with that. But I think that Nicole could have done it. But I also think that Nicole did Eyes Wide Shut and that was quite enough right that's yeah right she's sort of been in that zone recently that's true the movie is better for having meg ryan in it from today's vantage point but it certainly worked against the movie at the time and and yeah

i think nicole came in is general, a far more stylized performer. Yeah, exactly. Right? And I think this movie is so stylized that it helps to have someone in the center of it who's, like, very raw and understated and gentle. I think that's what discombobulates people a little bit, right? They're like, I don't get it. Is this movie X or is it Y? Because the movie still does have vaguely 7S aesthetics.

Like, it has, like, the color palette of a Francis Bacon painting and the weird shallow focus and the jagged editing and all these things. And then to have someone at the center of it who's not sort of steely and holding their own in this femme fatale way, I think made everyone go like, A, how dare you make us look at Meg Ryan in this light?

And B, she feels miscast because she's not matching the energy of the look. And it's like, but she is. Yes, absolutely. She, she,

it's, it's just like, the thing is, is that when you have a kind of like new are not everybody is going to be on the wavelength of that. And that's, what's interesting because if everybody's playing the game, then it almost kind of seems like, like a joke little bit absolutely yeah absolutely i don't know i was

thinking about like who else i could see in this role and like aside from nicole kidman i would honestly say that like holly hunter could have done it i mean yes i am to get it on this holly hunter has a similar and the thing thing about Holly Hunter is that, like, I don't think that she had the same, like, confines in terms of what people expected from her. People, once again,

might not have liked the movie. She'd already done Crash by this point. They wouldn't have rejected it as violently. But again, that would have put it more in an arthouse bucket.

Yes, this is true. Where it probably just would have been in a different cell but yeah this movie probably i don't know it's probably not probably not going to go over that well well i mean i i wonder if it's just like it was a bunch of like mainstream audiences watching it and expecting what they usually expect from her and it's like yeah i guess you don't really think about Meg Ryan as an arthouse performer.

Look, this is one of those movies that famously got an F cinema score. And there's that argument that you could now, like, curate an incredible film festival, a retrospective series of just movies that got Fs from cinema score. But the thing about the F rating is that is solely reflective of audiences feeling betrayed by how the movie was marketed to them, right? Yes, exactly. Because you're gauging people

who went to see the movie opening weekend had that desire to go see it and then feel like they were bamboozled or tricked in some sort of way. That's usually what an F Cinema score suggests.

Yes, of course. Like, this is not the movie I was expecting. Right. I thought I was seeing a fucking cool Brad Pitt crime movie and I'm watching him do monologues movie I was expecting. Right. I thought I was seeing a fucking cool Brad Pitt crime movie, and I'm watching him do monologues about the economy collapsing. Great movie, but that's like an example.

Pumped down to 2,000 screens. Solaris, I thought this was like a sci-fi movie. Right. Why is everyone crying? It does make you question, though, like, what you're saying, Jordan. People just don't want to see Meg Ryan doing this. But then you go, what did people think they were buying a ticket for? Like,

I understand that being, I don't understand what they thought they were seeing. There's just some movies like that, that are just not, they're ahead of their time or whatever. They're not for their moment. This movie rules. It had its defenders,

speaking as a little snotty teenage defender of this movie, it had its defenders at the time, partly, you know, the Jane Campion factor is always huge for that. Manola Dargis wrote a review where she was like, it's kind of the best messy movie of the year. Yes. Right.

But yeah, so, you know, it was not universally despised, but obviously it was not an awards contender. And the Meg Ryan thing just sort of dominated the contemporary discussion. And then the year after this, there's, what's it called? Against the Ropes, the Charles S. Dutton boxing trainer movie, where people are like, what the fuck is this? And then the year after this, there's, what's it called, Against the Ropes, the Charles S. Dutton boxing trainer movie,

where people are like, what the fuck is this? And then she's sort of like, is gone for three years. Yeah, she comes back, does In the Valley of Women. That movie doesn't go anywhere.

Does the, the The Women remake. Like, hasn't done anything in seven years since directing a film. Has done like, in the last 10 years,

like three TV pilots that didn't go, where a film. Has done, like, in the last ten years, like, three TV pilots that didn't go, where a couple times networks have been like, it'd be cool to save Meg Ryan, right? Like, we should reclaim her. But it, she just really winds down more and more after this movie. The women was her big commercial play. Her only big commercial

play that I can remember since then. Right. She was in a Curve episode once. Remember, she'll show up in something and you'll be like, She did four episodes of Web Therapy, the Lisa Kudrow thing. She was going to be the Bob Saget of the Greta Gerwig How I Met Your Father that never went

beyond the pilot. Oh, man, that would have been so much better than what Kim Cattrall is doing. Right, it's Kim Cattrall. Not only, no, I have not seen it. I've seen the first four episodes. It's not only that it's her voice, but you see her, right?

Because they're trying not to get into the box themselves by filming some kids and then realizing like, oh shit, these kids are going to grow up and it won't make any sense. So you're seeing her on a couch. No, yeah, you're seeing her on the couch. But I also think the thing is, is that unlike in the original,

where it was very clear that the kids were going to turn out to be white the show keeps on having hillary hillary duff's like dating people who are not white oh so okay that's another right right you can't right right right right when we would know what if you shroud them in darkness like uh like they're on cnn or whatever Like the blowjob scene and then the cut. She's literally just looking at a computer screen that we can't see. That's wild. Fair enough. No, but I found there were like two other like TV movie quote unquote credits on her IMDb that were pilots that didn't go.

There was some like she's a fucking magazine editor show they tried to do. Like they've tried to do it a couple times and she just is sort of seemingly semi-retired now can we talk about ruffalo a little bit one of the great i mean he's like rough what a man so he's this like theater dude who talks about he like couldn't get hired for so fucking long right this sort of supporting roles in the movies and then is just has this like insane breakthrough in You Can Count On Me. Right? Great performance. This like great fucking movie that gets Linny who's been respected for a while, the Oscar nomination

and it's a two-hander and everyone's like, who the fuck is this guy? And immediately everyone perks up and they're like, well, this is a new leading man. He got the Brando talk. It's that anytime someone shows up and gives this sort of mumbly natural performance and is handsome,

there's the immediate kind of like, is this sort of a Brando type? This guy's earthy, he's sexy, but he's a serious actor. He's got this interesting masculinity. So they start trying to put him in things, right? And he talks about he's getting courted by all these big directors.

He's taking just massive meetings. He starts to get put in a couple big studio movies. And then he has this like fucking horrible health crisis. He has a brain tumor. He has a brain tumor. It was like they thought it was an inner ear infection. It becomes a brain tumor. And he's like out of commission for like two years.

I guess it's right. He has the brain tumor in 2001. Yeah. So it's right after you can count on me there's a bunch of stuff he drops out of like he's supposed to be walking phoenix and signs yeah right that was the that's the big one that i remember there's another big movie i'm forgetting that he turns down where it like he doesn't want people to know that he's sick because it's still a time in hollywood where people hold that against you i guess so so he like sort of gets pegged with

like is this guy torpedoing his career? Why is he dropping out of all these big movies? But in reality, he fucking had a very scary experience. He had, you know, an operation. He was out of commission for about a year. Obviously he has some facial paralysis, which you can see to this day.

Things that have only made him more compelling and charming as a performer. He was, I think, deaf in an ear for a while. The whole thing is, you know, that's an early, but he is, this is his comeback movie, basically. This is my exact point. So it's like, the perception at the time is like, this guy torpedoed his fucking career for this?

Like, he dropped out of all these other movies, and this is what he's doing instead? Does he, like, not want to be a movie star? Sure. And post this, he has this interesting little run of supporting roles that he's really good in.

Eternal Sunshine, Collateral. He's in Just Like Heaven, which he feels like kind of uncomfortable in, feel you know what i mean like you know and 13 going on 30 well he's cute and he's talked about that he was just like a he wanted to like prove box office viability again by being in hit movies right and b that everyone just said like this is a no-go you're never going to be considered for romantic comedies and he's sort of out of spite was like i'll give it a shot he'll give it a shot and then he got stuck in this

fucking corridor and it's like he did view from the top 13 going on 30 just like heaven rumor has it yeah this was a period of time when my brother called ruffalo the mailman because it was like this guy used to be great i was fucking just mailing it in standing next to a woman i don't know but you see i was always again itty little guy, but I was always like, In the Cut, Eternal Sunshine, Collateral. These are three really weird performances. Very different. But he's taking supporting roles

with interesting directors. Yes, yes. I'm saying after the Collateral and Eternal Sunshine. This is a lead role, yes. Collateral is the one where I feel like people walked out of that movie not knowing he'd been in it. Right.

Because he looks so different and he's not in it that much. And that, you know, like that was just like, ooh, right, you know, collateral. You have Reservation Road and We Don't Live Here Anymore, which is very middling,

but him sort of doing the earnest adult drama thing. Reservation Road was one of those movies that was sort of like, well, that's not, you know, Joaquin, Ruffalo, Connelly, had an Oscar, Terry George. Like, you know,

no one's ever seen that film. No one's ever seen that film. Blindness, which was another one where it's like, oh, that's the follow-up from the City of Your God, Constance Gardner guy, Julianne Moore. That'll be big.

I would argue that despite it being a flop at the time, Zodiac was the moment where it's like, oh, he's kind of reclaiming the role that we all thought he was 100 right kids are all right it's his first oscar nomination right which is how long it's sort of like oh that feels weirdly overdue for a guy who in 2000 felt like he's about to become edward norton or whatever right yeah and then for kids are all right you're like it's funny that this was his first nomination.

He's hot in that movie too. He's very hot, but it's like, he's essentially hot and charming in that movie. He's like, I did four days of work on it. I was in this period

where I thought maybe I didn't want to act anymore. He was trying to direct. And he was like, I did like less than a week on this movie and I got this Oscar nomination and now I guess I'm back.

And then he fucking gets Avengers off of that. Pretty much. And like like you know Shutter Island great in that yes there's a good run here

yeah you know like yeah he rules do you like Ruff apart from do you like to Ruff are you a general Ruffalo fan

I love Mark Ruffalo I I mean part of it is that I find him to be very hot so hot and also I heard that his kids call him Papa which I also find very hot I heard that his kids call him Papa,

which I also find very hot. I call my father Papa. I just, Papa, that's just, there's just something hot about that. No, but I love Mark Ruffalo. He's amazing and you can count on me, which I actually saw. I saw that after in the cut.

I had never seen it. It's like, he's so, no, I think that he's great. I think that he has it. I am very- Continues to have it. He continues to great. I think that he has it. I am very... Continues to have it. He continues to have it. He's always had it. He will always have it.

And I'm very... And I will be very happy when I don't... When I can watch him do not a Marvel. I mean, like, he does do not a Marvel. I would say that I appreciate... Right, is that he at least... He'll consistently do non-Marvel stuff. Yeah.

And anytime the Marvel stuff comes up, he's like, yeah, I don't know. He's like, yeah, but I can still watch Dark Waters, and I can be like, yeah, that's my man right there. I mean, David and I talked about this, but in our Space Jam episode, we took stock of the fact that essentially since being brought into Marvel, Don Cheadle has done 10 Marvel things and two Showtime series. Right, he's kind of just doing that.

Right, Don Cheadle's kind of an actor we lost to movies outside of Marvel. Now maybe he's coming back a little bit, right? But Ruffalo has sort of, he's kept things fairly balanced. Did you guys watch that twin thing he did? No. I feel like no one watched that.

No one watched that. You gotta look at that before it. I know. It was a thing. And he's now had four Oscar nominations? Three. Three. It's Foxcatcher, Kids Are All Right, and Spotlight. They knew.

They knew. It's funny how everyone was like, Spotlight's gonna get like, fucking three best supporting actor nominations, and then it was sort of like, cannibalizing each other, and he was the one who got in because he has the Oscar scene. No disrespect to him, but he would be like my fourth

pick out of that cast. But it speaks to at that point, everyone was just sort of like, yeah, Mark Ruffalo. And I remember at the Oscars that year when everyone's expecting Stallone and they announced Mark, I was like, they're fucking giving Ruffalo the career achievement. I, for that second, when they said Mark, I was like, it's

Ruffalo. Well, it wasn't. It was Ryland. It wasn't. It was Mark Ruffalo. Mark Ruffalo is so hot. Another guy has had his penis sucked on camera. That's true. Yeah. Mark Ruffalo is so hot that slipping that in on this episode, we were just talking about it. Because it's a movie about blowjobs. It is a movie that begins

with a blowjob, basically. It's pretty much the first thing in the movie is uh franny uh franny avery yes is meeting a student she's a high school teacher right or is she like a is this it's just right okay okay wait wait wait i was trying to think i thought that it was community i think that's what i community college right right yeah that was students are fairly young but they do look older than, you know, teenager teenagers. Yeah, Cornelius looks like...

He looks like 20. Yeah, he looks like 20. Okay, so she's a writing teacher, kind of. She's an English teacher, but I feel like she's a writing, she's a creative writing concentration. She's talking to Cornelius at a bar. I guess that's another indication

that he's not 17 years old. Right. Theyius at a bar I guess that's another indication That he's not 17 years old Right Yes And she sees this sort of She like walks back into the back of the bar And sees like a woman Sucking a guy's dick And you know there's like blue fingernails

And the guy has the tattoo Those are the only details right Yes It's all otherwise right um but but this is shot like anytime they show up and see the new dead body in seven like i you know what i'm saying like the seven analogy is interesting um now griff yeah you're downtown Griffey Nooms it is what they call me this is a movie

that's very much centered in downtown Manhattan yes it's very much an east Lower East Side so this bar

that's what I just felt like we have to say because this bar is like a recurring sort of like setting in the movie it is so

Lower East Side yes even just down to like you go to the bathroom in the movie. It is so Lower East Side. Yes. Even just down to like, you go to the bathroom in the basement and it is, they're always truly terrifying and it looks like you're going to get murdered there. I'll say this.

The year I turned 21, I lived on 2nd Avenue and 6th Street and I'm very glad that timed out the way it did because I feel like at the exact moment that I could legally go to any bar I wanted to, I got the final wave of all those bars before they closed down. Like I was just,

all those fucking incredibly grimy in the cut is someone been murdered here tonight or people having sex in that booth bars. I got before all of them got turned into fucking city banks. Truly. But yes, it is interesting to watch this movie now because it captures such a specific moment of... The Lower East Side is still genuinely grimy.

Well, yeah, I noticed in some... I really don't like reading negative reviews of movies that I like. Like, I don't like... That's not something that I enjoy, but I did suffer through a few of them for this one. And the way that they talked about New York, it's just like it's a fake kind of like 70s-esque New York. And it's like it's and I'm just like, I mean, no, not really. I mean, it's it's shot in a very stylized way, but it looks more like New York than a lot of movies set in New York.

I mean, we've talked about this a lot on the show, I feel, like we invoke whenever we talk about sort of old New York movies or new New York movies or whatever it is. But there's this point in which I think between Seinfeld and fucking Sex and the City, the public's idea of New York radically changes. And it's also Giuliani's coming out and he's like, Disney Store, Times Square. And everyone's just like, New York isn changes. Sure. And it's also Giuliani's coming out and he's like Disney store Times Square and everyone's just like New York isn't scary anymore. At best the tough guys are a walk on part in one scene and they give you business and you tell them to fuck off.

And like all of New York is Magnolia Bakery now. Well, I think that like large swaths of New York were right. We're sort of being clean, quote unquote, cleaned up. Right. You have a certain amount of shows that are very selectively covering certain neighborhoods large swaths of New York were, right, were sort of being cleaned, quote unquote, cleaned up, right? You have a certain amount of shows that are very selectively covering certain neighborhoods

and establishments and it starts to, as Wild the Mayor is getting out there and saying that he's cleaning it up and I think it is, well,

that in 2003 people were like, what is this fake, dangerous New York he created? It's like, pretty fair representation of what New York felt like.

The novel is set in the West Village because it was written in the 90s. Sure. Campion felt like. The novel is set in the West Village. Because it was written in the 90s. Campion changed it to the Lower East Side. Because West Village had already been totally Bradshawed at this point. Because, right, she's like the, it's a little more, you know. Yeah.

So, like, there's that danger she obviously wants to seek out. Ruffalo is playing, I mean they're you know like he's playing a very specific type of cop that i think you know he's he's doing the thing where he's like did a hundred hours shadowing these guys these like scumbags you know as had the uh as had um suzanna moore like the author of the book like she'd spent tons of time riding around and going to crime scenes. They basically had this takeaway of these men are kind of doing whatever they want to do. It's like this...

It's kind of frightening, but also undeniably, they have a lot of attraction. They're very attractive to people because they have this kind of like... No one's fucking checking in on them. Which is why they're like both hot and really scary. Which is the whole fucking dynamic of

this movie and it's like in microcosm this movie's whole exploration of sexuality and power dynamics in general is like this weird thin line between like hot and scary. He is just so bizarrely good at both playing cops which

he's done a lot in different modes right detectives but also yes uh in in collateral right he's this like slick back in fucking uh shutter island he's a federal marshal he's duly appointed right right um but but also he is incredibly good at playing new yorkers right like you look at shit like margaret's where you're just like he really gets like new york specificity he isn't playing some one-size-fits-all he's like from wisconsin and like i think he spent his teen years in like virginia or whatever he's certainly not a new yorker at all and he's like a very gentle politically pretty radical guy and you're like he's always like right i imagine like riding up to me on a skateboard and asking me if i like you know want

to sign his fracking petition crunchy i think his wife's name is like sunshine but like it's he's so weirdly good at playing sunrise i was correct to there you were pretty close my man he's so weirdly good at new yorkers and cops and is this the only time he's played in New York? Huh? I guess so. So he's like, he's fucking bringing it all together and he's arguably in peak hotness at this point.

I think he's so hot again. Jernaine. I don't know. I mean, you, we agree that he's hot, but I feel like at the time people were like, ah,

there's what's this like porn stash he's got or whatever. What's this? Whatever, whatever. These people, listen, listen, I don't porn stash he's got or whatever? What's this voice he's doing? Whatever, whatever. These people, listen, listen. I don't understand what is wrong. Like, this is, like, as a professionally horny ex-Baptist person, I truly do not understand.

Everybody sounds so puritanical. It's like, oh, he's got a mustache and he's talking about eating pussy. And it's just like, what the fuck are you talking about like watching him eat meg ryan's pussy and it's hot that is hot it's hot and then get on top of her and like hold her shoulder and all that that's all super hot but then i would say almost as hot is then him post-sex recollecting on the older lady oh the big bush who taught him how to eat pussy and like you know like in this like weird mix of like macho

and vulnerable you know what I mean like I kind of don't want to talk about this but you can tell like he kind of wants to talk about this the hottest thing for me the thing that I don't know if I've ever seen a movie depict is like oh wow that was some sex we just had there can we dissect the sex we just had right and he's like let me tell you about that sex we just had there. She's like, dissect the sex we just had.

Who told you? Who told you how to do that? And he's like, let me tell you about that sex we just had. And then he starts having sex with her again. And I'm like, right back into it. The shot of him

laying there naked, obviously, like, so I have the DVD, which has the unrated cut, which like this movie is sort of weirdly hard to, there's no Blu-ray of it,

except for as we discussed, there's weird. Do you know about this, Jordan? There's six degrees of Kevin. I for as we discussed, the weird. Do you know about this, Jordaine? There is. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. I have it. Oh, I have it. We are the set of all time.

Does that have the unrated? I didn't check. I don't know. I really don't know, because I also have it on DVD. Right, right, right. So, yeah, no, I don't know. I'd have to check. But that one is so wild, because it's got Hollow Man.

Flatliners. Flatliners. It's Abandoned. It's the big picture is it it's wait a second is it like trapped trapped i'm sorry i was gonna abandon and trap yes i can't believe that i usually mix up trapped and panic room all the time it's like one one of them has kevin bacon and one of them has jared it is a weirdly blank checky box set it's wild like for how disparate the films are it is a fairly good encompassing oh and it's got where the truth lies that mcgoyan exactly the threesome movie that like what if dean martin and frank sinatra fucked you movie that's what that movie is yes um it's just bananas yeah uh like exclude the big picture and swap in one more kind of horny bacon movie sure like you know

because it's not giving you like the other sides of bacon the other sides of bacon yes but it is a good encompassing of like i guess they throw in like wild things erotic bacon yeah you know like that would be like uh it's a fairly good sweep of those it's just wild that it's a campion or verhoeven a schumacher, a fucking Goyen, a guest. I don't know who made Trapped. I don't know. I'm going to look it up. Jimmy Carter.

Luis Mandoki. Oh, right. Yes. The guy who did Angel Eyes. Oh, he did When a Man Loves a Woman. Okay. Anyway. I will say, I think this is where you were going with this david yeah i was watching it on netflix out of convenience yeah it's on netflix the netflix compression is so bad that i was like i'm gonna switch over and put my disc in because i don't want to lose any dick

in this well also it was so crunched and the movie's so shadowy it is but the american cut has a little like it chops little bits here and there so you don't right you know because they've gotten nc-17 i believe the Blu-ray is the unrated version, but I might be wrong. You know, Campion's line about the NC-17 rating was, how do you know your film's gonna get past the rating? You don't know until you try.

So she, you know, she submitted what she submitted and they cut out, they cut out like the visible penis in the blowjob scene and they cut out a little bit of Ruffalo dick. But the shot of him lying there all casual, naked. And her, she's standing there and she's taking her dress off and he's like,

pick those off. And she shakes her head. You don't see that in Hollywood movies. Like, it is, there's like a, you know, it is not just like, let's get to business. You know what I mean? Like, there's actual foreplay depicted in the movie in a non-sort of goofy or scary way.

Like, it's not there to build the tension or there to, you know, like... It's extremely real. It's there to emphasize his prowess, their intimacy. Can I read this Meg Ryan quote? Please. So this is her at the Toronto Film Festival

before the movie is declared. The movie doesn't go over well. Right. A class five health threat to the public. They're asking her about doing the sex scenes, which of course, before the movie came out, was already the talking point.

You know? Right. When I think people were like... How do people do that? What are you supposed to say? I don't know. What do you say about that? This is one of the ultimate examples

of a Meg Ryan publicity. I mean, the Michael Parkinson interview being the most famous where people just keep asking her like, how could you do something like this? Well, and I think with movies like this, there was always this thing of like, will the American public pay

because they've always secretly wanted to see her naked? Sure, right. And she was in this weird zone where it's like, no, Meg Ryan has to remain like a Kewpie doll for me. Like she has to be,

I just think the public did not want to have to engage with her as a woman with wants and needs in any way. And she's so hot in this. Like I was told, like the way that people talk about her body in reviews,

it's insane. Like what are you talking about? Everyone's just like, she's too old. She shouldn't be doing this, this is embarrassing. She, it's so, it just speaks to how puritanical America is because like

Isabel Huppert could do this in her fucking sleep, man. And we would all Once again, right. And then they're like, oh, well, I know what that is. But these are all people, it's like fucking, Holly Hunter did the piano early on Kidman did Dead Calm

early on it's like if you are able to make that part of your reputation from the beginning people will continue to accept you doing that and they won't accept it this late but I also think it's this thing that I think I think this is true of the piano as well

I mean several movies in particular, but like she's talking about how fascinating she is by watching people who are naked because it's like, there's an awkwardness to it, right? Sure. Of your physicality when you're that exposed. But I also think as opposed to so many nude scenes in movies that are like

so composed and sort of like choreographed and all this sort of shit, she will hold on shots. So in this way, like Ruffalo, what you were saying about him just laying out fucking casually, but like Ryan too, you watch like the physics

of their bodies changing as they move, which is a thing that you realize you don't see in movies. That is like, yeah, everyone looks different sitting than they do standing up than they do lying down,

you know? Anyway, she's asked on the red carpet or whatever while fucking promoting this movie like, yeah, everyone looks different sitting than they do standing up than they do lying down. You know? Anyway. Yeah. She's asked on the red carpet or whatever while fucking promoting this movie at Toronto about doing the nude scenes. As you said, one of these questions where it's like, what the fuck are you supposed to answer? So were you comfortable doing the nude scenes? And she's saying, like, you know,

she would have preferred not to do it, but like, you know, she felt like she trusted Campy and all this. And she said, I think the scenes are really good though. I think they're very honest. Jane didn't want them to be coy. So I don't think they are at all. And I love how much dialogue is in those scenes. That's what makes them really intimate.

Yeah. Yeah. Agree with that. Absolutely. Totally agree with that. And we're all like agreeing the hottest fucking moment in the movie is the two of them talking in between the first two times they fought. But it's all pretty hot.

Oh yeah. I think. Yes. Yes. Uh, I also love that Kevin Bacon is in this movie. Uncredited. Uncredited. In a fairly small role. And I think Kevin Bacon is so handsome. And I love him as an actor. Playing

the worst, least attractive guy in the world. He's playing a text from your ex post. The way he's styled. The way he's inexplicably shirtless a lot. The dog. Everything about how he seemingly styled the way he's inexplicably shirtless a lot the dog everything about how he seemingly appears in the middle of a conversation he's been having with someone his energy is always wrong he is always misreading the he's too light when he should be serious he's too serious when he should be like he's the worst new york city boyfriend like he encapsulates that in

some way like i feel like i know so many people have dated guys he feels like a fucking instagram screenshot of just like this is this insane thing this guy sent to me after one fucking tinder date right like all of his dynamics of like threatening to put the dog down unless she takes it and it's like what are you talking we don't have a relationship like oh my god him just like walking up to random it is like, will you have sex with me? I'm going fucking insane. Yes. And also the idea that he was a soap opera actor who played a doctor that now is in medical school.

This is. But it's not presented as like a noble thing of like he realized he wanted a more substantive job. It's almost like he got off on people viewing him as a doctor. He's like, oh, I should do this for fucking real. You know? And this guy like and after like fucking Meg Ryan, He's like, oh, I should do this for fucking real. Oh, absolutely. You know? And this guy, like, and after, like, fucking Meg Ryan, it's like, okay, well, maybe I should just fuck your sister Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Like, this is fine. It's so insane, right? And you're like, is this some weird negging move from him, or does he actually have this little tact that he doesn't think that's a fucking bananas thing to say after you've broken into this woman's apartment? I think he has no tact, right?

I do think but like he's also obviously he's there as a red herring yes obviously that's like although he's so ridiculous that it's hard to think like oh yeah this is the guy right like it'd be too obvious um but um i just applaud bacon for being like yeah i'll do that what three scenes of me just being unpleasant like in a funny way like so. What, three scenes of me just being unpleasant in a funny way? It's funny. He loves it. He loves being unpleasant in movies, and good for him.

He's very good at it. There's the profile guide. I don't remember where it was from, but I read it, but it was in the early 90s, I think, when Tremors was coming out, about how he just made the choice where he's like, I'm ninth on the list. Right, right. I'm a movie star. I'm ninth on the list. Right, right.

I'm a movie star. I'm never going to hop Brad Pitt or whatever. Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise. Right. And he's like, I would rather be like the best character actor

and just hand myself over to great directors and be like, I have no ego about how small the part is. I want like, I want the fucking part in A Few Good Men

rather than being turned down for the Tom Cruise role, you know? Right. Yeah. Give me like fifth build. Let me be on credit. I don't care what it is.

Yeah. And, and being freed by no longer needing to like play the game of the rat race, but also like I get to play weird unsavory characters now and not be told that it's digging my quote because you still need to be the guy above the title who can sell a movie with some sort of accessible movie star persona this is i think the cornerstone of why he's like your favorite actor is just that pivot that is just so unconventional for someone in his position to do

i think when i was a kid i was obsessed with six degrees of kevin bacon that's the other reason the six degrees things exist because he's willing to be an ensemble guy. But it meant that someone taught that game to me when I was little. Like, oh, there's this actor, Kevin Bacon. You may have seen him in a movie. And he's in all these movies. And so I started to do it where I would learn what movies he was in so I could play the game. But then I started watching the movies and I was like,

he pops in every movie he's in even if he's the seventh lead or he's the star. Yeah, anyway, I love Kevin Bacon. He's very good at identifying what the most fun role for him to play would be in any film. Yes. Anyway.

Anyway. So she sees this beach in a bar while she's there with her student. While she's there with her student, it's sort of thrilling and frightening. Right. And then not long after there's a murder and a limb gets dumped in her garden uh-huh

and a cop shows up Kevin Bacon's also just sort of having bacon's hanging out it's hot outside she's seeing subway poetry and writing it down yeah that's trying to think of like some of the elements that are floating in the air like this is one reason this movie discombobulated people.

As much as it is a murder mystery and a sex thriller, it doesn't proceed with total narrative ordinariness. No. And our friend, Raisin Tory, friend of the podcast, worked on this movie as an intern PA in the art department. Yeah. And said like, she had like a fucking 300 page lookbook for this movie. Right. That he was just kind of obsessed with and had never seen someone who had sort of that depth of sort of like sort of visual vision for a movie.

And that the thing was where so many lookbooks are like, here are other shots from movies that this is going to be like because there's so much trying to frame to other people. Like, here are things you know can be done in this medium or to sell to people. Like, it'll be like this other movie you know. Her lookbook was like all different types of art. Like, so

many different weird influences. That she's throwing so much shit in the pot here stylistically. I think that's confusing to people. But yes, I mean, it's just like reading the Wikipedia synopsis, the plot synopsis of this movie. Where the fuck was this? It's one of those things where once again, I step back and I'm like,

I understand why some people think this movie is weird. Paragraph two is like, it's like, you know, she stands there watching, though it's dark, can see a three of spades tattoo on the man's wrist and the woman's blue fingernails. That's, you know, opening paragraph, setting up the movie, erotic thriller normal. Paragraph two, periodically as she rides the subway, Franny reads poems that appear on posters in the

subway cars, which seem to have bearing on her own life. New paragraph. Several days later, Detective Giovanni Malloy. You're like, right, that's a whole fucking element in this thing good element yeah yeah i i love the subway poetry i also just love i love it when the subway looks like the fucking subway it's the real subway like yeah stolen shots as opposed to sort of exactly let's just commission car right and it's like that weird sense of new york is she's like searching for inspiration in various

areas of her life new york is this kind of bubbling cauldron and like subway poetry is funny because it can be very profound yes also super mundane right like it's just you know on a subway car like it's disappeared a little i know i miss it's still right they still have right it was like by the mta. Now everything on the subway is just wear your mask. But it was poetry in motion. Mm-hmm. And you just have poems

that would get swapped out every six months on subway cars. I love it. Yeah. Again, just whatever. Next, like, sandwiched in between

Dr. Zizmor ads. Mm. Could we talk a little bit about Jennifer Jason Leigh? Yes. One of my favorite people. She's another one who is just like, no, I don't need to be a leading lady.

Absolutely. I will do this. This is interesting. I will do single white female and I will kill. She's so good at that. She's incredible in that movie, obviously. Yeah. That is a high point commercially for her, I feel like, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely the high point. That was the closest maybe she ever came to, like, having a movie star thing, right? Yeah. That could have been, like, quantified and replicated. I guess. I mean, there's the early, there's the fast times,

you know, the early. Oh, yeah. Which I feel like we both would have fucking given her an Oscar nomination that year But at this point yeah What's Jennifer Jason Leigh up to She did like the anniversary party Right Road to Perdition

Isn't that The year before this She had that hot 90s where she's in like Georgia and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Kansas City These talky interesting indie movies That's the period where critics are like, is she the best actress in America?

Definitely. And I think a lot of it was just also her choices. Yeah. And her representing different types of women who weren't in movies. She sort of came synonymous with that idea. Yeah.

In this, she is, she's Meg Ryan's chaotic sister, I guess is the best way to put it, right? Yeah. Man, I love her. And I love how casually they talk about her antics. She's got good antics. She's just fucking this married doctor.

Stealing his suits from the dry cleaners. Then, like, she just casually is just like, oh, yeah, I gotta go to court. There's a restraining order. She's a more gentle sweetie. Yeah. Yes. And, like, but there's an appeal to Franny. Like, right?

Like, again, this is sort of, like, a side of her that she's not unlocking, Meg Ryan's character. But also, once again, it's like, Jennifer Jason Leigh is comfortable in this milieu. If you're an audience member watching this movie, you're like, yeah, Jennifer Jason Leigh fits into this universe. Yes. Right? She makes sense. I accept her in these images. I think it's part of what they're calling out that it's like Meg Ryan is aware of this world existing.

And she has been adjacent to it. Sort of on the outside of it. But at arm's length. You. Patrice O'Neill. Great use of Patrice O'Neill here. Locked in, I would say. He's so good that you forget that it's him. You do. You kind of every time

you're like, I forgot he's in this. That's a real club. That club that she lives above. That was on Church Street and white. Right by the tombs, right's in this. That's a real club. That club. Okay. She lives above. That was on Church Street and like white, you know, right by the tombs, right by the prison. Yeah. David looked at me, by the way, just for the listener at home. Continue.

Have you been to the tombs? No. I've been to the tombs. I know you have. Yes, I know. It's been discussed. I feel like. Baby.

But, you know, that, you know, that weird sort of no zone. It's still a weird area of new york between canal street and uh chamber street yes where there's the prison and the courts so there's a lot of like bail bondsmen and there's like the on ramps to the two bridges yeah it's just a bit of an odd area anyway so that's that area there's like a lot of jewelry places like the fringe of chinatown there's some good vietnamese places. Like the fringe of Chinatown. The fringe of Chinatown. There's some good Vietnamese places on White Street.

Still are. But anyway, so like that's where that is. That's where she lives. Anyway, so she's got the chaotic sister and this cop comes and questions her and he's got a creepy partner

played by Nick Dimici. I don't know that guy. He is mostly known as a screenwriter now. He co-wrote all of Jim Mickles' movies. And he's the star of the Stakeland movies. Not a series I know. He's like

genre stuff. He wrote that movie Bushwick. Is it a one-take movie? It's like the Dave Bautista... No, you're confusing. It's a Survive the Night movie, but it's not a one-take movie. I don't think it a one-take movie, right? It's like the Dave Bautista. No, you're confusing. It's a Survive the Night movie, but it's not a one-take movie. I don't think it was one-take. Anyway, but yeah, but it's right.

It's like, it's called Bushwick, but it's like a genre movie with like zombies or something, right? Invasion of aliens. There's a politics threat and he's got to get her across. It's almost like a children or men sort of thing. But yeah, Jim Mickles is like a good direct.

Cold in July. We are what we are. This dude wrote all of those movies. Well, he's here. But anyway, like, is it that like he asks her out and she kind of rebuffs him. And then when she gets attacked on the street and hit by the car, that's when she has him over, right? Yes. Yeah.

It's another interesting thing this movie does that her bruises develop over time. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? She comes out of the car with a scrape on the cheek

and then the next day she wakes up and she has the black eye. One thing about the attack sequence, there is a horrible fake scream. Oh, sure. Like, canned screams. There is a horrible fake scream. Oh, sure. Like, canned scream. Is it a Wilhelm?

It might as well be. You're, like, referencing some, like, really old scream. There's a famous scream that, like, everyone fucking uses. And it went from just being, like, oh, it's an easy

royalty-free stock scream and now it's, like, an in-joke with directors sometimes or editors or whatever, sound mixers. But it's, like, a ahhh! We'll put it in. Star Wars uses it hearing it like whenever a fucking stormtrooper falls or whatever sure no you're hearing right now yeah yeah um but uh i assume she's being attacked by look spoiler alert

his partner is the killer in this movie yes come on what is he attacking her there like is it happening okay so the way in which the killer is deployed in this movie is so wild to me because David, come on. Is he attacking her there? Like, is it happening right then? Okay, so the way in which the killer is deployed in this movie is so wild to me. Because, like, now that I've seen it so many times, I realize, yeah, that's, you know, that's absolutely him getting his dick sucked in the beginning. Yes. And it is absolutely him. There's the scene in the coffee shop where Jennifer Jason Leigh and Meg Ryan are, like, talking. And there's a table behind them them and he's just sitting there.

Wow. That's interesting. Oh, yeah. You miss him in the... He sits there and he listens for as long as he needs to, gets the information that he needs. Like, I think he needs to know where she's staying or something. And then, like, we cut away and we cut back

and the table that he was sitting at is empty. But yes, no, he's in there. And the tattoo is some kind of cop brotherhood thing it's not to do with him being a serial killer right that's just that fucking cops and firefighters are always getting these like specific tattoos like we're the kinship right yeah that's why he's the red mark ruffalo's the red hair but yeah yeah yeah but i do think that that is him that attacks her because he's trying to figure out how to how to like he's just yeah so you find it that he's just been following her throughout this movie right it's been happening he's such a like an openly misogynistic loud unpleasant like trying to kill his wife or something he tried to kill his wife because she because she threw out a statue that he

that he like won for some kind of like a latino kind of statue i'm not right like whatever yeah like some some award but it's like so he doesn't get a gun and i'm like oh great he's still a cop he just doesn't get a gun this is the funny thing though like this movie is playing on our relationship to watching thrillers like that like this in the sense that like you're like who could it be ruffalo this tender man with a sort of dark aggression to him right right and then like or like a kevin bacon this fucking like oddball creep who sometimes explodes with temper and has boundary issues i mean for Campion to have bacon in her movie and not show his dick, the restraint. It's wild. I'm almost offended.

To not put a strip on the pan and let it sizzle? But this guy, Nick DiMicchio, you look at him and you're like, well, it's not this guy. It's too obvious. Right. He's just the partner. This guy sucks. He's a fucking wife beater. He's an asshole. He's a misogynist. They took his gun away. He's the one who's there. He wouldn't be the killer because he misogynist. They took his gun away. He's the one who's there.

He wouldn't be the killer because he's already too awful. But he's also the contrast where it's like, oh, yeah, like, you know, Ruffalo's character might be rough around the edges, but he's sensitive. And that's interesting. You're just like, if a guy is this coded up front of being like a problem, then you're like, well, he's not the killer because then there's no mystery here. Well, yeah, exactly. And then they.

Right. But she gets accosted. is not the killer because then there's no mystery here well yeah exactly um and then they right but uh she gets accosted she gets hit by a cab and fleeing goes back to her apartment says i didn't hit you oh man i love that so realistic he's just like i didn't hit you uh i didn't do anything wrong but i'll give you a ride home you hit me me. Right. Yeah. Really, we're equal forces here. She goes home and she, you know, does order the best medicine you can get after

a bad night out. A dicking from Ruffalo? Yeah, just like a fucking night with Ruffalo. And they have this very steamy, like, you know, we just talked about it. It's great. It's so good good it's so hot the foreplay is hot the sex itself

is also hot like I appreciate that yes it is distinct hotness to both and then to the post sex well they had that conversation afterwards where it's like I think I've never been with a man every man I'm with tells me what he wants and how to do it right and I don't think I've

ever been with someone who's like like, asked the same of me, or whatever it is. I'm fucking paraphrasing poorly. You know what I'm saying. And she's finally got a story for her sister, too, because her sister's always the, you know, the one with the story. Who knows if the lunatics

submitting IMDb trivia can be trusted. But here are two stats that are here listed under spoilers that i find interesting franny meg ryan spends 40 of the film in her underwear and nude i don't know if that's true detective malloy mark ruffalo spends 20 of the where are these numbers coming i don't know that's not true but she's certainly naked in the movie playing which is great yes Anudity is great. He was doing clothes math. Exactly. Yeah, no, I don't know. That's the creep.

People on IMDb just, that's a wild place. I'm glad that the message boards don't exist anymore. As Campion says. I'm sorry, I'm just checking who submitted this fact. It's Detective Richie Rodriguez. All right, all right, all right.

As Campion says. It's the character. He's the character. It's the character. Oh, okay. I'm joking that he's not going to be used. He is the sick fuck. I bet he does some good trivia. As Campion says.

Stop. Stop. Hush. Dr. Chase Meridian because she chases Batman. He's not blindly fumbling in there. He's working his way to pleasuring her. He's paying attention to being and to be paid attention to is a really beautiful feeling And yeah you know obviously

To have movies with that That kind of intimate sex Because like with Basic Instinct I love Basic Instinct But the undertone of every Sexy and Basic Instinct is is she about to murder him Right like or whatever like is this about To go over some crazy edge I mean it's like the sex in Basic basic instinct is like a parody of sex 100 it's like the fucking sex scene

from hot shots part it's well it's like i mean obviously it's directed by the great paul verhoeven but sometimes it feels like it was directed by like a glittering diamond or whatever like something where you're just like the fakest thing you know right right um in the cut the sex is very intimate and real and then you're then it's like okay back to my murder case where someone is like cutting heads off of women and putting them in plastic bags like this like really and like putting a ring on them you know there's this whole serial killer what's the pattern she asked him not dismembered but he uses a term he uses a disarticulated yes that is yeah there's something about that uh and like you know later there's that thing where he's sort of he's like she he's cutting through the esophagus yeah god is the like he's cutting on her this guy

likes blood and i think that stuff is really good in this movie because he's not saying it in that kind of whatever, you know, cop with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth like steam rising, super dramatic. He's saying it

in a more mundane way. Matter of fact. Yeah. That's what's scary is for a guy like this, how you can become desensitized to this and this is a job.

He's able to look at it and clinically go, I understand what's going on here and then makes her go, is he a sociopath? That's the susanna moore said about her experiences shadowing the detectives like it's a different from a beat cop where you're like you know the detectives it's like she's like it's no way to live you're only visiting these fucking insane crime scenes that are so ghastly right yeah and like so obviously you have to turn parts of your brain off right

like you know like just to deal with it i mean everyone makes fun of the sort of like iced tea meme of like you're telling me that this show where he's still he's been on the right he's been 25 years but i truly some guy likes to diddle himself thinking about cupcakes you know i truly believe that is because it is harder to relate to a character who's like, oh, yeah, one of these. Yeah. Versus like that guy who's still just like this fucking makes me angry and I'm perplexed. Yeah. It's like, I mean, this is a dude with kids.

This is a dude with an ex-wife. He sleeps on the couch. Sleeps on the couch. Right. He's just he's not going to he can't just go into work every day and put his whole heart into it like it's right he's got other shit to do no but also you do anything long enough and it's like it just it becomes the reality of your life yeah you know a part later in the movie when meg ryan is like you were thinking about like this ghastly murder while we were just sleeping together

he's like it's just it's on my mind time. Like, it's just a reality for him. Like, even she is like, that is sick, man. Right. It's like, at any point in time you can ask me, I'm thinking about opening quotes, you know? It's my job. I'm on all the time. Of course.

Right, 24-7. It's not like I just, like, struggle to pull up an opening quote five minutes after we agreed to start recording the episode. I'm thinking about it all the time. I'm sort of looking through the dossier to see if... Meg Ryan just clearly loved making this

movie, loved working with Jane Campion, loved doing something different. She's very positive. Here we go. Here's my bridge to the next stage of my career. And everyone's like, bridge has been shut down. Chris Christie's come in. He's fucking exploded this. It's so wild because like you know i feel like when when we have like filmmakers like jane campion these these female

filmmakers who are like you know really trying to go for something different really trying to give actresses something else to do and they get so excited to work with them and then everybody acts so fucking weird like why, why are you doing this? Because this is a job. Like, I would get bored doing the same thing over and over again. And like, as a person who's finally met Jane Campion, the moment that I met her, I was just like,

I want you in my life. Yes, it is just kind of astonishing that the piano worked so well. Sure. And the Holly Hunter casting and piano, which seems in many ways as bug nuts, looking at where her career was at that point. Oh, absolutely. Just totally fucking worked for everyone. Yeah.

It's like this bizarre thing where someone makes like entire career of movies that are all very much of a piece, even if they're tonally stylistically different. And one time everyone's like, yes, we all can get behind this. And the other time people are like, what the fuck are you doing? You know? Absolutely.

I want to say something else about the sex scenes here. That is so good. Please. Apparently during the filming, Campion would just be shouting things at Ruffalo. Like you're not at school anymore. You know what you're doing like she was really trying to get him in the headspace of like

no you know total confidence right I love it and Ruffalo's responses it was very stressful I was really scared and Meg was currently dating Russell Crowe and I was like am I gonna be like you know what does she think of me like

it's interesting to think that he was so self-conscious in these scenes where he's oozing. Yes. It's unbelievable. Right. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. But yeah, the thing that you're talking about is the Ryan casting, in my opinion, is a total success. Correct.

But in terms of how the movie went over at the time, it was not. And that's right. And it's funny because the piano could have gone that way and it didn't. I think it is. One of her greatest skills is being really smart of about using the baggage of her stars in interesting ways, right? Like playing with the expectations of what,

you know, these people do it like that's, I mean, that's's the most effective element in Power of the Dog. A movie we'll obviously cover soon. But where you're just like, is he miscast? You're watching it the whole time being like,

he's almost pulling this off, but why would you hire him to do this? And then the movie totally warps your brain around that. And it's like, oh, that's the whole fucking point. Um, and I think I think piano does similar thing. Holy smoke to some of it. I mean, yeah. Anyway, these are incredible quotes from Ruffalo.

Ruffalo might be the great, the great one. Might be the best. I mean, I adore him. He's talking about the method acting, right? He's like people use it as a shield. It shields them from being vulnerable. I hear all these young actors who are like, I'm method. I'm'm gonna go live in the house i'm gonna you know it kills spontaneity they'll give a good performance but they're not playing with the other actors it's all about them yeah spontaneity and vulnerability are gold on screen and stage

they're fucking magic when brando reaches down and picks up the glove and puts it on his hand which is an improvised moment on the waterfront, that's magic. I appreciate Brando in a way he's ideal, but this is what I love. The opposite end of the spectrum is Marcello Mastroianni, who had a lightness of being, a joy in his acting, wasn't precious about it. He did good movies and bad movies. He's bad in some. He's great in others.

He has a sense of humor. He loved life. People had a good time around him. I like his career better. My style would be one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel yeah he fucking that's that's the line where i was like come on he's the goat no there is a bizarre lightness of touch to ruffalo in whatever he's doing whether the role is happy or not the hackiest shit this role absolutely i'm the fucking tough cop you know you don't mess with me suck my dick like you know yeah Absolutely. I'm the fucking tough cop. You know, you don't mess with me, suck my dick, like, you know.

Yeah, but also, I'm the king of cock. That was my audition. Yes. Campion left me out of the room. You did not get a call back. 17-year-old dude.

Hey, I'm a tough cop. Yeah. Can you grow a mustache? Uh, no, no, I can't. Why are you so tall? What was the thing I was going to say about the rough man?

I don't know. Yes, it's fascinating. There's the moment. This is what I was going to say about The Rough Man? I don't know. Yes, it's fascinating. There's the moment. This is what I was going to say. There's the moment in You Can Count on Me, and I haven't seen the movie in embarrassingly long time. I haven't seen it in long time. I'm meaning to re-watch that one. Lonergan's one of those guys where if he ever does another fucking movie, we might just

be like, fuck it. Four episode Lonergan series done. We got to do it. Absolutely. Because he's probably my favorite living dramatic writer. But there's the moment you can count on me and Jordaine, if you've seen this more recently, correct me if I'm getting this wrong,

we're like in the middle of like a fucking monologue scene with Laura Linney, like a bug comes into frame and he like, or like a butterfly or something and he holds his hand out and like catches it on his hand and keeps

on talking and it's like the exact thing you're talking about or that he's talking about in that quote which is like here's my big dramatic moment now there's a bug in frame like rather than like try to ignore this or like go like the take is fucking blown he just worked it into what he was doing you know

I do not remember that I'm gonna look out for it now. I've heard a lot of fucking actor friends of mine cite that as just like, that's the moment I realized this was the fucking guy. And I would like to have

one moment like that in my entire career. Where you're just, it's such a state, like zen state of flow, like comfort with the material, but also open to any spontaneity that happens.

You know? So, he rules. He's got a nice penis. He's got a nice penis. He's got a great dick. Yeah, fantastic dick. Another person gets murdered. Their head's in a washing machine. Right, this is number two.

Very gross. Love that scene, though. Scene is so good. Love how it looks. This film was shot by Dion Beebe, by the way. One of the heroes of the 2000s. He shot Collateral, he shot Miami Vice. Right. He defines the Michael Mann digital look.

Right. I feel like he did Gemini Man recently, but he hasn't done a lot of work recently. But he's Rob Marshall's guy, so he's shooting Little Mermaid. Great. Anyway. What if Little Mermaid looks like Collateral? Or like in the cut. Yeah.

I would love that. And then there's that scene where he takes her and he's like shooting at the garbage bags in the water and then she's a good shot. What a great date. You would write that. What a great date. Go shoot some garbage.

Yeah, go drive down an abandoned road, shoot us some garbage in a lake. Ben took out his notepad and wrote down proposal ideas. Watch it in this movie. And then they just like kiss on the hood of the car. Is Ring in garbage bag or on gun? I mean, obviously that scene again

is sort of supposed to, I guess, be red herringy. And then it's like, oh, is he like taking her to an abandoned spot is this dangerous well you're taking out his gun is this guy hiding something you're like no this guy's like pretty transparent right this is just what this guy wants to be doing right right yeah right he's in a pretty comfortable state with himself i mean even just the scene with the wife thing she keeps on being like look we both know it you're fucking married and cheating on your wife with me he's's like, no, I sleep on

her couch because I couldn't afford to move out. My mom fucking drives me crazy and I like seeing the kids. And she just keeps on assuming that he's like fucking misrepresenting something to her. Right. Like there must be something else going on. Yeah. You've got Cornelius, her student, like gets, does he get arrested

or he just gets like hauled in? He gets brought in for questioning. Because he wrote something in blood? There's the point where she... And he keeps saying John Wayne Gacy was innocent. The John Wayne Gacy thing is so funny because

it's very clear that it's supposed to be something where... I wrote about this in my review. Just this idea of like men making excuses for each other being fascinated by each other's like oh but he must have done he must have thought in the idea that like if a man is very violent it's because he lost control and not because he like intended to and there's all of that subtext but it also just like seems like and i don't know if cornelius was black

in the book uh-huh because i have not read the book but it just almost just seems like yeah you know brothers they have like conspiracy theories it felt very like i don't know it was it was a really interesting way to have i mean him being into conspiracy theories Makes sense Especially because it's like clear that he's not Actually a violent person He's just weird He's being read as

Well you must be a suspect Because he's weird Well this is part of the movie It's just like all men are kind of weird And threatening in some way or another Bacon's character being the most like nakedly threatening, but also the least actually threatening problem. Right.

Right. And Cornelius still gets like, cause when he shows up at her place, like near the end and he like has like, he's, it's clear that he'd been punched and he'd been punched by. The cops have beat him up. Right.

Yeah. There's the earlier moment, right. Where they show her like sort of the contact sheet of all the possible suspects. And you see for the first time that, like, 85% of the suspects

are young black men. And you're just sort of like, okay, so these guys are getting targeted. When he shows up with the black eye, you could just immediately put one and one together.

Oh, yeah. I mean, he says specifically, it is Ruffalo's partner who does that. Oh, but I'm saying even before he says it yeah just like i know exactly what the fuck happens yeah right um he fits the profile that they're fucking looking for uh and the adam he's trying to split is john wing gacy is innocent

because it was his desire that made him kill those people. So the desire is guilty. And you're just like, what the fuck are you talking about? He's not responsible for his feelings because his feelings took over. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And I think that that's so much of the underlying critique of this film. Is that men are acting on their impulses. And you can't hold them responsible for that. Men just have urges.

Right, yeah. That's like the argument that men keep on making in this movie to her. And then he does this fucking extra fucking graphic design on his essay. He like puts MS paint blood spatter on it. See that it's like red flag out the butt. But then as you were saying, when he shows up at her place and she just sort of like puts the brakes on it. Right? Like reciprocating his advances at first. They're kissing. She's taking her shirt off. And then she's like, I'm drunk. I'm traumatized. I can't handle this. He immediately goes into, fuck you.

I don't want to sleep with you. How dare you turn me down? I'd never fuck you. So many of the conversations in this movie truly just, I know I'm repeating myself here, feel like Tinder correspondences that people post. I know what you're saying. Right.

Obviously, also what happens is your sister gets her head cut off as well. That's happening in the third act of the film. She gets disarticulated. She gets all chopped up. And Meg Ryan, I mean, walks in. What's the thing she sees first? Well, she sees like there's blood all over like the boiler. Remember?

Right. Like in the bathroom or whatever. It's just, it's that shot of her opening the doors and there's like steam coming out of the bathroom. I just feel like there was, I'm forgetting, but there's something. There's a little piece of hair on the bed. Oh, that's what it is. Oh, yeah. Right, right, right.

So she's the little piece of hair on the bed, but otherwise the apartment looks kind of fine. But then she's already sort of like ready for. She knows. And you sort of realize it, too, because it's not being shot that way, but you're like, uh-oh, wait, we're about to enter a crime scene. And then the bathroom is just a fucking nightmare,

and her head is in a garbage bag. She's all dead. In the bath. And Meg Ryan just cradles the head and cries obsessively. And Ruffalo has to come in and be like, you have to give the fucking disembodied head back. I mean, I guess it's not long after that, you know, that's, then that's... Wait, he explains how, right.

Right. She demands, tell me how this happened, and he gets into too much detail. He does. I mean, he's desensitized. Yes. Or whatever. Or is he a sociopath?

She wonders, so she locks him To uh you know To her pipe in her apartment Right well cause first First is the there's the murder There's Cornelius confronting her Uh there's But the scene where she fucks him Where he's like I want to watch you fuck me

Right that Is that when she handcuffs him Yeah and then afterwards she handcuffs. Yeah. And then afterwards she handcuffs him. She asked him about the tattoo. Yes. And she's completely

discombobulated when she gets basically picked up by Rodriguez and he takes her to Little Red Lighthouse. I mean, this is a point where I think people who are already out in this

movie go like this is absurd. What the fuck is happening? Why is she literally going to the lighthouse? Why is she following this guy?

It's so good, though. Yes. I mean, the Little Red Lighthouse is one of the great, you know, New York City locations. It's never been used well in a movie. I love that Jane Campion's like, let's just finish that. They have everything there. Sure. And it's a great motif.

Weird villain headquarters. Yeah, that's where he wants to... What does he want to do to uh what does he want to do like does he want to give her food or something like or he says i'm probably gonna have to keep you here for a couple weeks because people saw me leaving with you but then you know and he's doing the will you marry me thing oh yeah he's got like wine and he's like the wine music right right right and then and then he just like has the knife with the engagement ring on it yeah it's like put on the fucking ring it's it's there's also we should

mention i mean the the running thing of of the sort of ice skating flashback i love that shit oh man yes it's so good love the love the whole like silent film aesthetic of it right this this entirely artificial idea of this like very sanitized chivalry and and sort of courtship and all the details of it are so absurd that they met and 15 minutes later were engaged it's something out of a fucking 40s movie but actually really he's been married five times like they're half sisters yes you know like you find out like so much more about who this guy really was.

It's like a fucking fantasy that they grew up on that I think Meg Ryan has spent her life hoping she could replicate in her life. That she could experience

a Meg Ryan movie plot. Right? Like she wishes she had had a Meg Ryan rom-com romance. But just Campion's choice to frame that

in this very stylized artificial way just like makes it clear like just how much of an impossible rom-com romance, but just Campion's choice to frame that in this very stylized, artificial way just, like, makes it clear, like, just how much of an impossible ideal this is. But the more important thing is her going back to Ruffalo

in that final shot of them when he's still handcuffed. Oh, man. It's such a great way to, it's such a good mic drop. Yeah, and he's also, like, he's been trying to, like, get his hand free,

so he's, like, and it was, like, connected to, like, a water pipe, so there's also, like, water everywhere. It get his hand free so he's like and it was like connected to like a water pipe so there's also like water everywhere it's so good this is a movie where you expect when she goes to the lighthouse

that you're gonna think she's about to be killed and then a shot comes from somewhere and you see Mark Ruffalo there and he's like yanked the fucking heater out

and he's made it there somehow in like record time and saved her ass and instead he's just still there locked up and she figures out her own shit I love it I love it and it absolutely probably sends

you out with just like question mark question mark question mark F stamp stamp I just I just I totally get it and I remember seeing it at the time and it was one of those things of like kind of like I talked about AI right one of those things of like kind of like I talked about AI right that

you know like movies like that of the era where I walked out and I was like well I know that wasn't you know that that was messy or like that didn't follow like the normal parameters of what I'm learning is a good movie so like I would be like but it's underrated

and it's interesting and it's like a four out of five you know like I would be like, but it's underrated and it's interesting and it's like a four out of five. You know what I mean? Like back when I was a teenager and I quite, I lacked the courage of convictions. Yeah. Courage of my convictions.

Yeah. You know, because that's the year obviously of like Lord of the Rings. Hulk. Sweeping. Yeah, Hulk. Yeah, sure.

But it's also like Lost in Translation is sort of the indie sensation of the year. Kill Bill. Finding Nemo. Matrix sequels. The Matrix sequels.

Another thing where I had to discover the courage of my convictions. Mystic River. And Elf are sort of like that's now officially the next wave of comedy anointed. Pirates of the Caribbean, obviously, is the big summer movie. Master and Commander is the big, like, you know, prestige-y movie. Big boat movie of the year. Elephant wins the Palme d'Or. Sure, sure.

You know, it's a very interesting, exciting year in cinema, in my opinion, but this is absolutely on nobody's list. It's not getting any critical awards. No. It's at TIFF. It's not at a awards-y, it's not at Cannes or Venice.

Oh, and I guess TIFF was not as awards- as it was at Comic Con it's more of just like a fall launch pad because the following year is Sideways still never seen that Sideways is fucking good I will say when that movie came out I was not crazy about it and I was such a big Alexander Payne fan and such a big Giamatti fan and I was disappointed by

it and unsurprisingly that is maybe a movie that plays better when you're not 15 years old. Yeah, I would imagine. Like, I was in middle school when that movie came out, so. I just remember being like, no, no, no, I get it. I get it. I just don't think it's very good. And then I watch it now, and I'm like, oh, now I've made some

mistakes in my life, and I'm in my 30s. I think this is a good film. I have not seen Sideways since 2004. I had not seen it since 2004 until about a year ago and i think it's very good um sideways that was such a thing that is funny but i'm saying that was such a like toronto launch for sure and it won every critic's award maybe like oh whatever wins the toronto was going to be a major player for the rest of the well this didn't win at toronto let me see what won at toronto that year 2003 won at toronto do you want to guess is major player for the rest of the year. Well, this didn't win at Toronto. Let me see what won at Toronto that year. 2003 won at Toronto.

Do you want to guess? Is it one of the movies we list already? Where's the awards? Jesus. That's the other thing, because Toronto is the audience award. It's like, oh, this isn't a jury. You're never going to guess. Zatoichi won the People's Choice Award

that year. The Takeshi Kitano, you know, blind swordsman. No, because after this point, outside of that weird movie, Bella, which inexplicably won the audience award. It's usually a... Everything that wins becomes like a fucking... A contender. Bella? It was this weird fucking half Spanish drama that won the audience award out of nowhere. And then everyone's like, is this thing going to be some crossover success?

And it came out and everyone shrugged. In the cut, though, is actually the best. Yeah. Yeah. And rules. Just sidebar. The only reason I remember Bella is because Bella's entire marketing campaign was, here are 15 other movies that won the audience award at Toronto.

Sure. It literally was just like, we have no other hook for this other than to say Sideways won and fucking Princess Bride won. Well, I don't know that movie. I haven't seen it. Right. It doesn't exist. Yeah. But yes, it is.

I mean, well, there's the occasional, like, Eastern Promises won one year. That's the Canada thing. Occasionally Canada will win out at the Right. Belfast, Green Book. You know, you're forgetting Where Do We Go Now? A weird winner. has won one year. That's the Canada thing. Occasionally Canada will win out at the time. Right. Belfast, Green Book. You know, you're forgetting where do we go now? A weird winner. What the fuck is that? Exactly. Occasionally it's something unusual. Okay. What won last year

though? I mean, last year. Last year? 2021 I mean, you know. Right. Belfast. Oh, well, I just said Belfast. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Really? It's usually the straight down the middle thing. I forgot well, that's... I just said Belfast. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Really? That... It's usually the straight down the middle thing. I forgot what year it was.

I thought you were saying 2020. I know. I realized I was being... The year before was Nomadland. Right. Georgia Rabbit. Right. The year before that was Green Book. Yes. Anyway. Anyway. Box office. No attention though. Just none. Yeah. It sinks like a stone. Gets bad reviews.

I don't know when it had its reappraisal, to be honest. I guess it was just sort of a slow thing. I think when we saw it in 2017, it had not been fully retailed. Well, I was. I remember when I published my piece at the beginning of 2019

um the only other like uh published work that i knew liked the movie was uh um christina newland's book um she lost it at the movies there's a there's a pro in the cut essay in that and this is like it's funny because like if you get it it's like it was in the cut essay and like so many people would assume that it was me and it's like no it turns out there was someone who there are thousands of us yeah yeah there there was someone else and when i saw oh it's another woman who rides for this movie i was like okay maybe i can start talking about this movie and i remember at first when i talked started tweeting about it and talking about how much i loved it i got like a lot of like anger and a lot of pushback from people. And it was just like a weird thing where like people just get mad because I liked the movie.

And I mean, that's still that doesn't really happen that much anymore. So it really does feel like it was in like the last three or four years. Yeah, I think people finally chilled out. I mean, the Wikipedia page, there's the section on reception, and it's first contemporary, and it's mostly people giving it bad reviews or people going like, there's some interesting things going on here,

but it's obviously a mess, right? Sort of like what you're saying, David, the way you talked about it at the time. And then it says, in the cut was among the films discussed favorably by Slavoj Žižek in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. He did do that. So it feels like that's an early example and then it says in the cut was among the films discussed favorably by slavage jack in the perverts guide to cinema he did he did so it feels like that's an early example of someone really like stanford hard and then the next paragraph is retrospective and dragaine you're the one person

who sort of like voted an excerpt in that from your piece i but now it's like vangoria has reclaimed it uh nick james put it on his sight and sound list fucking David Thompson I mean yeah Demby I'm seeing some of the reviews JJ's putting here JJ and Nick sorry I put it here Demby panned it said it was phony didn't like the ending the ending I should

note in the book she died right in the book the guy kills her right with a scalpel right whereas in the movie can't be almost like I with a scalpel right uh whereas in the movie campion was like i just can't have that uh and talk to the author about like she like that can't be how the this character's journey concludes um but he just you know like just very dismissive review there stephanie zaharik uh a colleague who i admire obviously but uh wrote a really good negative review uh that is sort of worth checking but wrote a really good negative review

that is sort of worth checking out. Not like a super negative review, but kind of like a I struggled with this movie review. I want to... This incredible... Let me find it. Can I share an unsubstantiated

IMDb trivia fact while you search for this? Because I just find this very funny. Mickey Rourke was initially considered for a supporting role. However, his involvement was allegedly vetoed by Nicole Kidman on the strength of Rourke's wild reputation. Rourke has stated

in interviews that he was disappointed by this as he believes it would have fast-tracked his comeback. Yeah, I don't think that's true, Mickey. No. No, Mickey Rourke, the most self-sufficient man. That sounds made up to me up looking at the response in the cut and going like fuck i wish i'd been in that thing well him being in anything in that era probably would have helped i guess he was he was but they put him in shit and people

would be like like he was in fucking domino once about time in mexico and whatever yeah anyway here's the depiction sorry the description of critics the Campion has recently that I love. The first ring of reviewers in America are always men. It's this mountain of corduroy you have to get through. That is the line I love. They're not secure. So to see women talking about them rudely, it might as well be them. David's trademark blazer found. She calls it the corduroy wall.

And they set the tone. And so she thinks that if you're showing them a movie that has extreme content or something sometimes it can just not go over yes the corduroy wall um that's anyway uh so good um manola dar just as you said has a much more interesting review right uh rosenbaum also had she kind of have defended Noel Murray I think kind of half defended it Great movie Opened Alright so let's do the limited release though

A week before Halloween How wide does it go on Halloween? On Halloween it goes up to 825 screens And it goes to number 11 Behind a film called Good Boy That I've never heard of That's something about

a talking alien dog. Yeah. The week before, it's fairly... I think Matthew Broderick's the dog. There are no... I'm a dog! There are no new releases.

Call me Good Boy. On Halloween, as you noted. Yes, right. The only new release is The Human Stain on limited screen. So it's the same, basically.

So number one at the box office when In the Cut is tanking is a parody film. A parody film. Opening huge to $48 million. Yes. It is Scary Movie 3. 3.

It was huge. The first of the Zucker scary movies, right? With Charlie Sheen. 2 kind of dipped a little bit. And it felt like maybe... They did it a little too quickly, too. It came out really fast.

And then the Waynes brothers move on. And then there was this sort of like, let's just fucking get a Zucker in here and throw everything into the mix. And it's not really about scary movies anymore. And now it's fucking Matrix parody and shit. Matrix, 8 Mile. Right, just do everything.

Right, yeah. Scary becomes a meaningless term. But yes, a humongous hit. Huge hit. Scary movie three. Never seen. Number two is a remake of a horror film. Number two is a remake of a horror film.

In 2003, it would have been Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That's right. Film that has an unbelievable trailer. Does it? It has a trailer that chilled me to my core. And I was like, is this going to be a fucking masterpiece? And the movie is not as interesting as the trailer. It was from my memory, at least

the first modern trailer to use the trick of it feels like the projector is breaking down. Sure. Right. Which is very unsettling to see in a theater. What's that? What's that company? The Michael Bay company called Silver... Platinum Dunes. Not Silver Dunes, David. Platinum

Dunes. Like the beginning of the platinum dunes run but that movie was very big and that kick-started the remake horror fever for all these movies that were seen as uh untouchable and had been diminished by multiple sequels it was i've never seen them all i've never seen have you seen the texas chainsaw yeah it's pretty boring i mean like it looks really good it has a couple performances in it like arlie ernie is really fucking good in that it's just it it cannot capture the weird sort of like gonzo artistry of the original number three at the box office is one of the most notorious failed attempts at an oscar nomination of all time oh i honestly credit to this movie which i considered

a complete flop to opening to 13 million dollars huh more than i would have thought yeah uh yeah you're saying for a best picture on mission or is there like an acting okay it's notorious notorious yes oscar-winning actor playing someone with, let's be honest, an intellectual disability. Oh, of course. Oh, wait. This motion picture is called, do you want to say it, Jordan? Oh my god, are you talking about I Am Sam? No. Not talking about I Am Sam, but it's in the I Am Sam zone. This movie is called

Radio. Oh my god, I remember Radio. Radio and shopping carts. I remember my mom renting this and me watching it in her bedroom and being like, what? What is happening? He's I've never seen radio. I know he has a radio and that's why they call him radio.

But what does he do? Like he plays football or something. No, he helps out with the team. Yeah, he helps out with the team. He's like, oh, yeah, he's kind of like our mascot. Right. It's like a dramatic version of the water boy, except he doesn't play. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's based on a real story the water boy except he doesn't play right yeah

it's based on a real story and they were like radio is the most inspiring man it was based on some sports illustrated story of like oh you know this high school football team has this guy who's like sweet and helps out like and they were like Oscar we're gonna get one but you want yeah I mean you want to talk about like let's exploit

the story about this black man definitely did not get paid. Oh, totally. Interesting counterpoint, or not counterpoint, but like counterweight to all this stuff we're talking about with fucking Meg Ryan's career and where she was at crossing 40

and no one knowing what to do with her and rejecting her attempts to stretch out of this. I believe Radio was Debra Winger's first movie in like six years and in that downtime uh rosanna arquette had made the documentary searching for deborah winger okay which got some traction that was like her talking about like why do all actresses disappear after 40 right right right right and like deborah winger was like the woman of her generation got fucking four oscar nominations and now just hasn't appeared on screen. And it was like, what happened to her? And it was her interviewing actresses on the cusp of 40 who had just turned 40.

That thread of just feeling the parts disappear. And then they get to Deborah Winger. She's just kind of like, I don't know what's giving me anything fucking good. I just like nothing dramatic happened to me. It's just there's no reason to work. And then she comes back and she's like thankless supportive wife role to Ed Harris coach and radio. And it was so depressing. It's well, I mean, I'm glad that she's back now with.

Yeah, she does. Yeah. She was in Kajillionaire and I thought that she was really great in that. She's in The Lovers. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. She's really. Yeah.

With Tracy. She's really great in that. Hundred episodes of The Ranch. Quietly Netflix's most watched series ever. Oh, my God. The Ranch. She's really great in that. 100 episodes of The Ranch, quietly Netflix's most watched series ever, maybe. Oh my God, The Ranch. The Ranch. She is on The Ranch. But like,

wasn't the whole thing with Debra Winger, though, that she was like difficult? That was also part of it. Yeah. Which was, by all accounts, when you look at it now and you read the exact pieces in which people tried to explain her difficult behavior,

you're like, sounds like she had integrity. Sounds like she wanted things to be good. Anyway. David's doing a shaky hand. Yeah. Number four at the box office is a dying genre. The Grisham thriller. Oh.

Might be the last one, I think. It's Runaway Jury. It's Runaway Jury. Oh, yeah. I think this is the final Grisham movie that's not like Christmas with the Cranks or whatever, which technically is a Grisham film. It's Hackman's second to last film,

and the whole thing is like Hackman and fucking Hoffman together. Right, although, are they? I've seen this film, because I watched every John Grisham movie in quarantine, or maybe before. I can't remember when I did that. So the funny story of this movie is they put them together. Everyone's like, fuck these two guys and the degeneration.

Big 70s actors. Living together, all this shit. They've never been in a movie together. And then they do the movie and then they're like, oh fuck, we forgot to write any scene for them to be in. Because they're both like in different war rooms, like going like, we got to get the best runaway juries or whatever. I saw this movie on a plane 19 years ago,

but there was one scene, I believe where they stand next to each other at urinals and talk. And they had to like do that in reshoots because they realized they had fucked up so badly and never had them interact. That like the Grisham run is the firm, the Pelican brief, the client, a time to kill.

Like this is where these things are huge at the box office. Then the chamber, the rainmaker, the gingerbread mannequin, the bloom is off the rose. And then this is just kind of, it's like, okay. Hollywood's just like, great. Nobody wants these anymore. But it was like a middling double. I'm sure it made a bunch of money on DVD.

It made $49 million. Yeah, it did okay. Was that the one with John Cusack? And Rachel Weisz. It was like a stacked cast. It has a good cast. It's Cusack, Weisz, Hackman Hoffman, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven. Oh, man. Jeremy Piven.

Leland Orser. Do you think he plays a creepy guy? This is maybe the third episode in a row where you've made that joke. I don't even remember why. I don't know why. He's always popping up. Anyway, you know what? But I watched that movie pretty recently and I don't remember anything except that I think Hackman's good yeah because the thing with

Hackman is in those movies he's good like even when it's a total like behind enemy lines like total like nothing he's still good we were we were texting about Hackman with our friends the doughboys recently and our ongoing thread of just like remember that guy when he was like the best actor in the fucking

world he was good and everything and I shared with you guys this clip that I highly recommend of Kevin Costner being interviewed by Rich Eisen talking about doing what's that movie called not no sudden move no way out moves no way out no way out the

Costner Hackman movie yeah no way yes it's an incredible story about just Costner talking about Hackman being the best actor he had ever worked with and the sort of advice early Costner-Hackman movie. Yeah, no way. Yes. It's an incredible story about just Costner talking about Hackman being the best actor he had ever worked with and the sort of advice that he gave him. And Hackman was just the goat. But also, fucking rad to just be like,

I don't need this shit anymore. I'm just going to retire and write fucking historical thrillers. He's still alive? Yeah. Kicking ass. Jordaine, Resurrection just got bought by IFC Shudder.

I love that. Good place for it to go. This is our favorite Sundance. I love more than overcranked Rebecca Hall horror. My favorite subgenre. Oh my god. I can't wait. Were you a Nighthouse fan?

I'm not a Nighthouse fan. I feel like I'm the only person who loves the Nighthouse. No, people really do like the Nighthouse. I love her performance in it. I think the ending is what gets me. See, I was warned about the ending that worked for me, but her performance is just like... Oh, yeah.

You're going to like Resurrection. I can't wait. Yeah, it's really good. Number five at the box office is, this is the funny thing. It's also based on like a paperback bestseller. But this is a movie that got nominated for Best Picture. This is like a big deal movie.

Nominated for Best Picture, 2003. It's sort of a comeback for its director. Right. Critically. Well, it's Mystic River. It's Mystic River. But like it's funny that like, Eastwood charts the new path

of how to do the airport novel. I mean, Dennis Lehane is above an airport thriller or whatever. But like, he's still, you know, he's a best-selling paperback type, you know, genre writer.

Anyway, Mystic River. Mystic River. Not a movie I think either of us love. I don't love it, but do you know who's good in it? Kevin Bacon. You, I mean,

this was an early thing that you and I bonded over. You also agree that he's far and away the best performance in the movie, and the two guys who won Oscars for that movie are bad in it, right? Yeah, oh, 100%. Bacon's incredible in that movie. He's incredible in that movie, and that movie is not good.

Sean Penn, can't remember the last time Sean Penn was good. It is just kind of funny how much that movie did for eastwood robbins and and bacon's just like guess i'll go fuck myself whatever and when you look at it now you're just like embarrassing work from all three yeah i mean i think robin's getting attention for that very funny and it makes dennis lahane like this like hot you got an exact author and you're like that's the worst adaptation of his work it's a good book too it's a very good book um uh yeah robbins to me is the one who's really bad in that oscar win is inexplicable beyond i

guess just a sort of a career thing the pen performance i don't hate it but when you think about eastwood too right where it's like you just imagine pen just detonating bombs like on set and being like great let's move on you know like no no attempt to modulate you know it's just he's just like more more you know like that's how i imagine that but then like i just that movie comes out in your times is like this is perhaps the greatest performance in the history of cinema like it was just like received not just as like it's time for him to win the oscar but like we have to reckon with he has redefined the art there was also a thing of right of like well he should have won for dead man walking and like pen is undersung i mean look yeah despite being a person who like

was constantly burning bridges and making enemies and all of that that was his whole ostracism was like i know i haven't been easy to root for and it's like literally never i was actually just recently found out that he and Vincent D'Onofrio's daughter are breaking up, and I was so glad. I thought that that was so weird. Cool. For her to be very...

I'm so surprised to hear that marriage didn't work. It's just so weird. It's just like, I guess I married my dad's friend. Whenever anyone asks D'Onofrio about that, like on fucking Twitter, the terminally online Vincent D'Onofrio, he's just like...

He is very online. He wants the pigs to look at the sky I will not comment on this because you know he hated it he just hates it he hated it Sean Penn married

Vincent D'Onofrio now he doesn't have to do those family dinners yeah totally forgot about that that is wild it's the only thing Vincent D'Onofrio

will not comment on on Twitter it's so good it's so funny some other films in the top 10. He'll tweet about West Elm Caleb. He'll tweet. He'll tweet.

Of course. He'll hit those trending topics. He'll barge right in. Yeah. School of Rock. A masterpiece. Kill Bill Volume 1. Intolerable Cruelty.

A movie I love. And one of the best movies about Star 69-ing Italy under the Tuscan sun. Can you Star 69 Italy? That's what sandra o says in the trailer yeah no i never thought never never forgot that's a charming under under the tuscan sun beautiful wait is this was this also the down with love year it is the

that's that summer incredible movie oh three is like a good sign the whole year is good it's a good year for movies it really is it's a good year a good year for movies no it really is just a year where you're like people have diverse tastes audiences are going to see different genres at different budget levels yeah it's it's such a smorgasbord and we don't really have that anymore and i also just recently watched matrix reloaded for the first time oh jordan you cannot drop this goes off, man. I couldn't believe it. I had spent all these years being like, oh, The Matrix Reloaded is bad.

And I was just like, you mean, by bad, do you mean incredible? Great opinion by Jordan Searles. Added to the Wikipedia section. Amazingly, not my number one movie of 2003, though. Your number one movie of 2003 would have been? Master and Commander. Oh, well, of course.

And then Kill Bill is a great movie of that year. Is In the Cut your number three? In the Cut is my number... five, because I have Reloaded and Revolutions at two and three. Wait, so what's your two? It's my number four. I'm sorry. Okay, okay, okay. And Kill Bill is my number five.

Okay, wait, wait, wait. I need you to go down this list. One to five right now. Master and Commander, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, In the Cut, wait, wait, wait. I need you to go down this list. One to five right now. Master and Commander, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, In the Cut, Kill Bill, Volume 1. But you should think of those two Matrixes as I'm kind of cheating by having them next to each other. Unknown Pleasures, still one of my favorite

movies. I'm sorry if I mangled his name. I love Hulk. Griff, who do you love? I do love The Fog of War. Errol Morris' The Fog of War. Big movie for me when I was 17. I do love Jerry. Gus Van Sant's Jerry. I love Down with Love.

We've covered. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You loved Jerry? Oh my God. I was all about Hulk. I'm learning so much about you right now. I love Open Range The Kevin Costner film Oh Open Range goes off

It goes all the way off I do love All the Real Girls It was a champion At the end of my teenagehood I love Guy Madden's Dracula Pages from A Virgin's Diary As you should I do love City of God Haven't seen that in a long time I mean Sky Madden's Dracula pages from A Virgin's Diary. As you should. As you absolutely should.

I do love City of God. Haven't seen that in a long time. I haven't seen that a lot of the time. Since it came out. I mean, as covered on this podcast, I was obsessed with Big Fish at the time and saw it like eight times in theaters because it was the only movie that made me cry. That was definitely my number one at the time.

I have not gone back and done a list through a modern prism. Both things I didn't see at the time, like In the Cut and All the Real Girls are certainly way up there for me. That was not All. Both things I didn't see at the time, like, in the cut and All the Real Girls are certainly way up there for me. But I'm like,

is my number one Hulk by default? I'm just like, I wonder if there's a movie I have invested more energy in. You know? I don't know.

I'd have to, I'd have to think it over. Absolutely. Sorry. Some of my other, wait, I was just, I got distracted.

I love, I love Intol of Cruelty. Huge defender of that distracted. I love Intolibacruelty. Huge defender of that movie. Nemo. I love Shattered Glass. I think that movie is good. I like School of Rock. It's fun. I like the station agent. I like Something's Gotta Give. I still

need to see the station agent. Love Something's Gotta Give. Spike is 3D Game Over. Sure. And then there's a lot of like like there's like demon lover which is a movie that that's sort of like an in the cut kind of thing where like i've never been able to get to loving that movie but i certainly admire that movie's energy very ben hosley movie i'm sure he's never seen it but he would he would dig i'm just looking at like fucking august of 2003 and on one weekend you had like Freaky Friday, right?

Like a surprisingly good Disney family comedy coming out at the same time as Secret Lives of Dentists and Magdalene Sisters and Julie. And Julie. Just like the variety there, you know? There's, look, there was more variety back then. I love SWAT, as you know. Well, of course.

A movie you've threatened to cover On the podcast a couple times Clark Johnson film I'll stick up for Dreamcatcher Any day of the week Hollywood should put out more Dreamcatchers And less Spider-Man I am a loose cannon Fighting Temptations obviously You know I have seen that but not

It's kind of fun I love Fighting Temptation Beyonce and Cuba Gooding Jr. Actually work really well together Beyonce's memory hold movie career Is a thing I will never stop being obsessed with Early Beyonce when she was just like Should I just you know kind of be in movies

Doing parks Carmen a hip hop rock Gold member She's incredible in Cadillac Records, obviously. Like, I love that early run of hers. Yeah. Before she became whatever. But then even when she did a goddess atop a pyramid we must never perceive.

Fucking other woman. Is it Obsessed or? Right, which was like a weirdly big hit. No one remembers. Yeah, Obsessed is a bad movie, but it was a big hit. It was a big ass hit. It was a big ass hit. Ali Larder, watch out for her. She's great in Cadillac Records, which obviously we always stay in any chance we can. Yeah.

And then she was in what I think was the highest grossing movie of all time, the Lion King remake. I believe that was the number one highest grossing movie of all time. Because of her. Yes. Oh yeah, it's definitely because of her. Definitely. I guess she'll be in the Lion King. She did double duty on that, like releasing that album.

Like, girl. I guess she'll be in Barry Jenkins' The did double duty on that, like releasing that album. Like, girl. I guess she'll be in Barry Jenkins' The Lion King 2 Simba's Pride or whatever. Well, the idea is... It would be funny if he was like, so here's my take.

It's just Simba's Pride. I'm just doing that in the same thing. I really want that to be it. I hope he does Lion King 1 1⁄2. Yeah, do 1 1⁄2, baby. The voice of Francis Kilmer

in his death. No, isn't the thought that it's Godfather Part 2, that it's like a split narrative of young Simba. Yeah, it's grown up Simba and young Mufasa or whatever. King Simba and young Mufasa and Scar. I mean, hey, look. I don't know.

Wouldn't it be great if it was actually animated? Wouldn't it? I would appreciate it. What if the trailer event was hand drawn? I would actually watch it. Because I still have not seen the lion. It's not very good. It's a bad movie.

You may have seen it and forgotten you saw it. It's pretty plausible. I watched Black is King and I was like, oh, this guy, the songs. Yeah. Black is King. The lion is not, unfortunately. Did Black is King come out in quarantine There are now things Where I'm like I watched that

But in that sort of swirling mess Of early quarantine right Yeah July 2020 Yep okay We're done we're done One of the great films I hope people enjoyed it and if if they didn't, too bad. Yeah.

Jordaine, do you have any final thoughts you want to share? The thing that In the Cut does that, even now, like in current times, we still really don't see kind of like a reclaiming of eroticism in American cinema. Still, still, eroticism is basically gone and watching in the cut just makes me think about like all of the female directors that could have because she

really is one of the few that got a chance to make a movie like that we didn't really talk about it but like not a lot of women got to make erotic thrillers during that time yes right this is a pin i put in two hours ago that I'm now remembering. I never got to resolve. But there is that weird thing. I mean, just talk about the deeply ingrained puritanical nature of American audiences and all of that shit. And now there's obviously the every one month discourse of, like, are sex scenes bad? Why are Marvel movies sexless?

And both arguments, like, bumping up against each other. But so many of the most like hated like this was a disaster. This movie is embarrassing. It needs to be mocked. Hollywood movies of like 1990 to 2005 were highly sexual. Like things like Basic Instinct 2, which obviously like we haven't seen and I don't think is defendable. But like the backlash to that was so much stronger than like a backlash to an action movie sequel, you know, where it's like, how dare you do this?

Showgirls, obviously. Like there is this thing where like if you make a bad, sexy movie, it's like a crime against nature. How dare you put this in front of me? Well, yeah. And I mean, also. And look, it's happened with male stars like Color of Night and shit like that. But I think you are right. This movie is unique in that it's one of those directed by a woman with the perspective of a woman, which is maybe why it got an even worse response. Yeah.

And it's not just that it got like a response because people are afraid of sex. It's that people decided that it was badly made like the cognitive dissonance of deciding that a film that is this well made is badly made like it was like there was something about the rewiring of the brains like i'm you don't have to like this movie but to say that it's badly made is just factually untrue yeah so it's just yeah i just i i i am one of those people where it's just like can we please bring sex back to movies can you please bring back uh chemistry casting my lord yep like like you it's just it when you watch when i watch it the thing that's that was so that really like jolted

me it was really like a shot to the arm and i was really energized by this movie it was because it just reminded me of when people were able to like have their bodies in an american film yes and it be casual just like her like meg ryan lying in bed with jennifer jason lee like them in the bath things like that them just like spending time together and like the way that they're they're close to each other it's like they're so like the sisterhood and that is like it's so intimate and it's so real like of course you're not gonna put on all your clothes to hang out with your sister right like you know and they're like and she and you know jennifer jason lee like, thanks for for for letting for sharing your bed. Just like this, like this ability to be close and to be in your body and to display your body.

And especially at like in getting like older, which they both were getting older at the time. And they just like it just it was just so it was just so beautiful to see them. And it's beautiful to see how they're shot. And I think that a lot of the backlash had to do with the fact that so many of these erotic thrillers that we grew up with didn't really like sex. And In the Cut is a movie that likes sex, that likes women's bodies, that isn't afraid of women's bodies. That's not punishing people for having sex. And for how hot this movie is, the sexuality in the movie is not exclusively designed to titillate.

And I do think sometimes with maybe the Wall of Corduroy, there is this violent response of like, I didn't find this fucking hot. I didn't have a boner. What the fuck is this movie doing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a bunch of people who like really and that's

why like sometimes when people are talking about like the male gaze people are so obsessed with the male gaze subverting the male gaze what the male gaze is but the thing about it is is that like as a bisexual woman who watches movies like it's hot like if it's hot it's hot if it's not hot it's not hot like it's not like in Like, it's not like in a situation like this where, like, you are able to see there are ways to display a woman's nude body in a way that you don't have to say male gay. It's true.

I agree with that. Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Movies are innately voyeuristic. Absolutely. Yeah. And sexiness is inherently part of the chemical makeup of movies as an art form. We shouldn't be running away from it. Yeah, and I think that it's notable that the loudest voices reclaiming it right now are women

because we find it hot. It was almost like nobody really asked us before. Sure. And I mean, of course, there are women who did not like this movie, but they're also from like a different generation than a lot of us who are writing for it right now. And I think that that also matters. I mean, full circle, but fucking whatever it was four years ago, Nicole Kidman signed this big deal with Amazon about like, I want to bring erotic thrillers back. Where are these 30 million dollar star driven movies you can watch with a bottle of wine? And it was a big fucking deal

that she was going to bring this thing back and not one film has come out of that deal Jordan thank you so much for being on the show people should listen to Bad Romance yeah please do please do great podcast Ariel Isaac and I want to thank everyone for

listening to this show wow please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, AJ McKee and Alex Barron for our editing,

Lynn Montgomery and The Great American Novel for our theme song, JJ Birch, Nick Laureano for our research. You can go to patreon.com

slash blank check for blank check special features where at this point, we're still on Ghostbusters. research, you can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features. Where at this point, we're still on Ghostbusters? I have no sense of time. We're doing Ghostbusters, then we're doing The Matrix. Yeah, I don't know where we're at. I don't remember where we're at.

Who knows where we're at? I think we're in the Matrix. We're either in the afterlife. The Matrix is about to start. We're about to enter The Matrix. Yeah, we're going to do The Matrix. We're in The Matrix. You sick fucks, we're going to do the Matrix again. We've got the last Ghostbusters coming up. It's great and it's very normal. The Ghostbusters episode, we're in a really good mood for those last two episodes.

They're two movies that are really fun to talk about. Go to the Blank Check website. I'm not going to list all the other links. Yeah, we've fucking done it. I'm just so tired of doing all this shit. We thank nobody. I will never thank anyone ever again. Tune in next week for Bright Star.

Your favorite movie of 2009. Definitely. Great movie. You love. I do. And as always, no sense of cock whatsoever. no sense of cock whatsoever. No sense of cock whatsoever.

No sense of cock whatsoever.