Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Insider with Andy Levy

Episode Date: June 23, 2019

This week, Andy Levy joins Griffin and David to discuss 1999's 60 Minutes biopic, The Insider. Together they examine the performances of Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, and Christopher Plummer, go off on a The Good Shepherd tangent, present some Joe Camel casting options and more! 

no that's fame fame has a 15 minute half-life podcasts last a little longer i mean that's actually that's why it's pretty yeah that's pretty good i was looking for a pachino he has like 50 good quotes too he does you can't go wrong with uh plumber but there's a guy in this movie who does some really good yelling tortious interference tortious interference this is our last pachino too with man so. Getting pissed off. I'm getting curious. If you want to, you know, unless Pacino's going to be in, like, whatever Michael Mann's next movie is. I don't know.

I don't know. Well, I think Michael Mann's trying to let him sleep. Yeah, he saw Insomnia. He's like, I get it. I get it. Sure. You can sleep, pal. You have a pile of garbage.

I get it. Hello, everybody. My name's Griffin Newman. I'm David Sims. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their career are given a series of blank checks. Make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

Sometimes those checks clear. Sometimes they bounce. Baby. This is a weird check. But this is a bouncer. It's a big bounce. Like almost every man movie, it's a bouncer. It's a big bounce and it is kind of inexplicable that they gave him $70 million.

I'm sorry, when I say today. 90? The film's budget was $90 million. And the people who gave him that money were Disney. The Walt Disney Corporation. Which is insane. Pretty weird. Yeah.

And there are a lot of really interesting quotes from then head of Disney films, Joe Roth, being like, I don't know, we tried. It's a really good movie. We then uh head of disney uh films joe roth being like i don't know we tried it's a really good movie we're really proud of it we couldn't force people to go see it i mean i that's under that's fair but they kind of threw their hands a good movie but they were like i don't know why it didn't work it seems commercial why a two hour and 40 minute movie behind the scenes of 60 minutes like i work? I'm very surprised. We thought it would work. We're very proud of it. I love the movie, but it's not like screaming like audiences are going to be baying for this. They'll be at the box office being, no, I can't see it tomorrow.

It's going to be tonight. Joe Roth was talking about it like it was the Iron Giant. I don't know why it didn't connect with the audience. If we had this great product, then it's a crowd pleaser. It's good for families. We got everyone. Baker Hallora kraus you know what's the thing i love in this movie debbie mazar here's the thing i love go on and i feel like michael man movies have this other films have this but you see it less and less frequently these days really long opening

credits where almost every actor who has more than two lines gets their own card yes yes right right or even if it's a split card by the time you get down to like split cards it's like um uh uh chief from carmen san diego ripped horns in this movie yeah yeah i like for like two shots like one second right he gets a single card single card opening curtis is in this movie i think i think he's he's like one of the guys at the beginning right I think he is the guy the shake or whatever yes Curtis is the shake yes yes it's wild yes but single card billing yeah that's what I love the opening credits for this movie last 47 minutes yeah well it's a two hour 47 minute movie right and they're like Michael it could be two hours if you just cut the opening curtain i refuse can't do it um i didn't realize most of his uh movies play on tv

as alan smithy cuts uh sure because he won't he just refuses to get it down to three hours or whatever right to a three hour block he famously says i will add 40 minutes so you can put it into a five hour offer to beef up ali to make it four. Was it heat? Heat. It's heat. Both I think. Both. Sure. He was the big one where he was like I don't want to cut a second but I can add in 40 minutes. Apart from the keep what's his shortest movie?

Is it Collateral? Collateral is two hours. Oh yeah Thief's pretty short. But like apart from no Thief's two hours and two minutes. Really? So Collateral has it beat. Wow. Apart from that like Black Hat well The Thief's two hours and two minutes really so Collateral has it beat wow apart from that like Black Hat

well no Black Hat's longer yeah yeah Collateral is the one time he made like a quote unquote lean movie yes I think

yes yeah that's interesting yeah the guy we're talking about of course is Michael Mann this is a miniseries on his films

it's called Cast of the Podhecans aka Michael Mannsplaining sure and the film we're talking about today course is michael mann this is a miniseries on his films it's called cast of the pod heakins aka michael mansplaining sure uh and the film we're talking about today is the insider the film that that finally uh where where the academy finally legitimizes him he finally becomes a uh a serious filmmaker after being written off uh for so many years as a style over substance guy which is insane to think about. It is insane. Insane.

No, that hack who made that cop movie with De Niro or whatever. I guess I saw that on cable. Two hour and 40 minute popcorn film. Then he makes a movie about 60 minutes and people are like, well, 60 minutes is very important. So this movie must be important. We should give it many Oscar nominations. You and I talked about this,

but we went to see Detective Pikachu recently. That's true. A film that feels weirdly inspired by Michael Mann. Sure. There were many scenes where I turned to you and I went, this looks like Thief. It looks like Thief. It definitely feels inspired by that kind of like, and Manhunter. It's got the neon noir thing going on. And even the score

sounds like a little Tangerine Dreamy. Pretty good score. We did arrive at the premiere one hour early, so we heard the score on a loop like 18 times. And we were like Dreamy. Pretty good score. We did arrive at the premiere one hour early so we heard the score on a loop like 18 times and we were like, this is a good score. They said you had to get there early if you wanted to meet Pikachu. So we got there an hour and a half early. You should introduce our guest. He's allowed to talk on mic.

He's allowed to talk on mic. I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to get there. We said we gotta get there really early because we're not gonna miss a chance to meet Pikachu. Right. Pikachu's gonna be in demand. Right. We got there in an hour and a half early. They were like, yeah, sure, meet Pikachu. Right.

It was Pikachu, right? It wasn't like a guy in an inflatable costume. No. There was both a giant inflatable Pikachu. Right. And a smaller inflatable Pikachu. Right. Both of them were real. We met both of them. We took about 87 pictures. True. True. Got a free Slurpee. And then we went, well, what do we do now?

So then we walked into the theater and we just sat in the screening room for over an hour. Chatting. And that hour was just a still image of Detective Pikachu projected and the score playing. Yeah. And then occasionally a song from the movie would play. Right. Just to sort of break up the action. Right.

We had our old guy grump conversation. We were like, doesn't all music sound the same these days? Yeah, we were like, ugh. There's like a Rita Ora. Someone's like, get the detective, or whatever. Gonna detect my heart. Yeah. I just have never realized how old I am until the trailers for Detective Pikachu started

coming out. Sure. Because that's after my time. Right. That movie in general will make you, right. And I know nothing about Pokemon, but a lot of my friends are younger than me, probably because I look mid-20s. I got like a mid-20s vibe.

You look great. Let's just say you look great. I'm surprised to hear this. You're looking like a snack. Yeah, exactly. I thought you were too young for Pokemon. Yeah, that's what you were saying. I appreciate that.

You haven't grown up into your Pokemon phase yet. But no, I just, I don't get Pokemon at all. I don't, I barely know who Pikachu is. Oh, he's a detective. But see, I never knew that until the movie came out. Well, to be honest, I barely knew that Pikachu had become a detective, and I liked Pokemon. It is crazy, though, to be like, because we saw this movie, and the movie takes no time explaining the rules of Pokemon. and the movie takes no time explaining the rules of Pokemon.

And you're like, right, this thing has been around for long enough that they can presume that there is a four-quadrant audience that needs no table setting. And that's what makes me feel old, is that everybody talks about this stuff as if, well... It's a given. You know the 50 states.

It's literally that, though. The guy in the boardroom, we all know Pikachu. And there's one guy who's like, what's a Pikachu? Get out of my fucking office,erry like what's an 80s pikachu-esque mascot oh you know like a cabbage patch kid or whatever you know smurfs i feel like the smurfs had a similar kind of thing i guess it's that but yeah it's like i'm trying like if someone had been like right like the smurfs go to congress was like the first smurf movie that we were like you know that we were that deep with the first Smurf movie. Yes.

Whereas the first Smurf movie was actually what studios used to do, which is like- They show up in our real world. Yeah, they're in the real world and they have to figure out how to buy a Metro card or whatever. It is crazy how often- They meet the situation or whoever sort of you know hot that year is crazy how often studios would spend a ton of money acquiring a big big property then hire presumably a screenwriter for millions of dollars to break the story right who's like never seen the smurfs and then they come and they'd be like here's my take there's a portal and they end up in the city

like everyone kept on selling the exact same movie and then like a grown man who makes tens of millions of dollars a year is like yeah that's that's good that's good yeah yeah let's do this this is a good idea there was like an interview between um uh neil maritz uh my beloved godfather franchise and uh the the guy at paramount who now he just moved his deal over to paramount you know sonic the hedgehog is the first movie in his deal. And he said, you know, when Neil came to me and said he wanted to make a Sonic movie, I said, I don't get it. Not relatable.

Not the kind of thing we're interested in. And then he told me the hook to this movie. And I said, this is such a compelling, emotional human. That Sonic finds a portal and goes to the real world? That was the fucking thing. He runs so fast, he's in the real world now. I said, I don't want to see this movie about a hedgehog. But then he said, a hedgehog shows up through a portal and goes to the real world. That was the fucking thing. He runs so fast, he's in the real world now. I said, I don't want to see this movie about a hedgehog. But then he said, a hedgehog shows up through a portal and meets a human,

and he doesn't know how the fucking toothbrush works. It's crazy. Because then you even see the Paddington movies, and the Paddington movies are like, yeah, the bears talk. Yeah, right. The Paddington movie at no point is like, it's pretty fucked up that this bear talks. He's actually an alien who looks like a bear. They're just like, he comes from darkest Peru and he talks and now he's in the city.

So we're clear though, Paddington 2 was a perfect movie. It's a perfect movie. Yeah, we're all on board with Paddington 2. There's no portals. Right. We're saying that's the bold move is just to be like, if you're making a talking bear movie, just own that it's a talking bear movie. Don't be like, in his galaxy, they look like bears. He drank the serum.

Right, right. Magically. Yes. And all of what we're saying relates a lot to this film, The Insider. Oh, this is, it's like talking about,

I'm seeing The Insider in my head. Yes. Right, right. Mike Wallace would love to hear all of this. Right, right. If we brought him back, he'd be like,

I like where culture's at now. Yes. And our guest today is something of an insider himself. What? He spent time in the news trenches. I don't know if they were the trenches. Okay, on the level ground? They would have been, like, I could see the trenches.

You could see the trenches. Through my night vision goggles. Yes. Okay. The great Andy Levy is here. Levy. Levy. So great.

I can't even pronounce my name. Levy. Eugene Levy, my friend. I get called that a lot. Really? Okay. As long as I'm not the first. You know what?

Eugene Levy. You're right. Take it back. The guy who I famously said was good in every movie. Yes. Until I was reminded of most of the movies that he's in. You are so bold as to say- I was like, when's he bad? You asked it. You said of the movies that he's in you even you are so bad you

you asked it you said name one time i was like i don't know like that fucking olsen twins movie and i was like oh yeah right no oh yeah that's exclusively what he does right when he plays jim's dad in like five million movies right andy levy andy levy i can't believe i messed that up i knew i knew that too that's the other thing. I knew that. Well, Griffin mispronounces everything. I mispronounce everything. I mispronounce almost every word. You want to just do it again?

You have not mispronounced a single other word this entire time. This episode. That is just a bad excuse. This episode. Wait. Griffin is pretty notorious for mispronouncing things. Okay, let me take it again. Our goose this week.

Yes, good. The great Andy Levy. Levy. No! Don't do that to me that will that will confound him now i feel like i fell through a portal we all know andy levy what if he was a detective detective andy you were saying you were saying uh before we started recording that you're like you you you put cable news behind you and you're trying to figure out what the next stage of your life is. Yes. Have you thought about becoming a cartoon detective?

I would very much like to be... You need a hat. Yeah, a little hat. I got a hat for you. I own hats. What do you think? Just because I'm not wearing a hat right now doesn't mean I don't own a hat. You got great hair, good clean cut. Thank you. What kind of product are you using?

I prefer not to say. Okay, because you've got a good hold. Sure. Some good hair height, which we all know. Medium stiff. Medium stiff. Right. Doesn't look greasy. No. Doesn't look rigid. Nope. But it's got a good shape to it. Yeah, it's a matte finish. Right. Yeah. But sometimes you've got to put a little hat on if you want to be on the case.

You don't want to be on the trail. No, I do. Sometimes I will sit at home thinking I wish I solved more crimes. Sure. Of course. There's a lot going out there. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I feel like I've really, I've kind of slacked off in the last, I think maybe three or four years in terms of crime solving. Before that, you were a notorious crime buster.

On the case. Pretty good clip. Right, right, right. I mean, there were- 50, 60 a month, right? You put them away. Yeah, look, there were, I'm not saying there weren't days I didn't solve crimes, but most days-

You weren't telling anyone, though. I was solving- No, no, no, no. You were just sort of like- No, what I did was- Hear about it. I would do like, yeah, this guy did that. Kind of like what Sherlock Holmes would sometimes do.

He would just dash off a note to the police and send it off to Scotland Yard. That's sort of what I do. I just dash off notes to my local police person. I mean, on the subject- Sherlock Holmes is so annoying. A cool guy. What, you think he's annoying? God, imagine, on the subject. Sherlock Holmes is so annoying. You think he's annoying?

God, imagine working for the police. Sherlock Holmes writes you a note. He's like, I'm not even going to show up for this one. I'm just picking it out of my armchair in between opium bouts. David. Yeah. You think he's annoying. I got a counter argument. He's a boxer, ain't he?

Oh, Sherlock. Oh, fucking hell, mate. Sherlock Scrapping. That was Guy Ritchie's pitch, right? He can detect a punch. meant what he's a boxer ain't he oh sure like oh fucking hell man i love scrapping that was that was guy ritchie's pitch right is that he can detect a punch like and then move out of the punches way do you know it was incredible because like i feel like england never got mad enough that like a prominent american got to play sherlock holmes and everyone was just like yeah whatever it's kind of that's fine insane yeah right It's kind of wild. Right. Because that movie famously comes out of produced by Robert Downey Jr.'s wife, Susan Downey. They were basically like, let's find a vehicle for Rob. Right.

Because they knew like Iron Man was coming and she was like, let's do a victory lap franchise. Set it up. So they like announced it and we're setting it up before Iron Man, I think. And at the time they were like, you know, the books are actually really dark and Sherlock's like a heroin addict. Right. And we want to go in and do the messy version of it. And then Iron Man became so huge and they were like,

yeah, no, the heroin stuff isn't in it. It's about boxing. Yeah, right. That's true. It suddenly became like, no, he's kind of a goof. No, I think the initial concept was like, it'll be like Batman Begins. He'll be young. It'll be like, you know. But I was going to say, first of all, it was cocaine, not heroin. like Batman Begins. It'll be young. It'll be like, you know.

But I was going to say, first of all, it was cocaine, not heroin. Oh, you're right. You're right. You're right. Because it's back when they were like, put it in everything. It's great. It shows you out. But he does smoke it.

He smokes the cocaine. He injects it. Oh, he injects it. I knew it was an unusual way of doing cocaine. He doesn't like take off his boot and crush it on the table. Hey, this is producer Ben. Just wanted to check in. Andy, what were you going to say?

I was just going to say that you guys are talking about how nobody in England really got mad that we took Sherlock Holmes. They got us back. They took Batman. They did take Batman. They had Batman. They have Superman. They have Spider-Man.

Technically not American. That's a fair point, but he grew up in Kansas. He has a passport, right? He has a social security. Sure. Clark Kent does. Does Clark Kent have a social security number? Did they say like, yeah, we have this baby. Where's the birth certificate?

Is he a dreamer? Is Clark Kent a dreamer? Oh boy. That's all I have to say to that. Oh boy. Two Spider-Men from across the pond right I'm just happy that right now this podcast

is pure-blooded American for American men who have never lived in England I'm just so happy that I know there are no wait a second oh but I lived in England what swung the microphone right at Andy

almost whacked him I'm sorry for almost whacking him yeah I grew up in England. What? Swung the microphone right at Andy. Almost whacked him. I'm sorry for almost whacking you. No, that's okay. Yeah, I grew up in England, which is where I saw this film. Okay. This is the first Michael Mann film I ever saw. Interesting. I was 13, and I did not see it because I was hyped for a Michael Mann movie. Oscar season.

I was hyped for it as an Oscar movie. Right. And I was a Russell Crowe fan. At 13? I was a little nerd. Wow. I was a Russell Crowe fan. At 13? I was a little nerd. Wow. I was a Russell Crowe fan. I liked him. I was sort of like, I had like bought early on Russell Crowe.

Romper Stomper? Virtuosity? I could probably sell Romper Stomper later. Definitely sell Virtuosity. We love Virtuosity in this podcast, don't we? Yeah. Everyone? Yeah.

LA Confidential. Yeah. Right. That was the big one. I'm everyone yeah yeah um la confidential yeah right that was the big one i'm trying to think what else i guess that was the big one i mean this right this was right after la yes yes two years later but i mean his next film this is his big follow-up um right and yeah and it was so hyped it's like oh he gained weight he's you know playing older he's got makeup okay i want to ask Ben. What's up? How old do you think Russell Crowe was during the filming of this movie? It's going to blow up.

Shit. All right. I'm late 30. 33. 33 years old. Whoa. He's playing 55. Holy shit.

He gained 35 pounds? Yes. Yeah, he did. Shaved his hairline. This is the thing. Died of gray. Russell Crowe is now 55, right? He looks 35 pounds. Yes. Yeah, he's thick. Shaved his hairline. This is the thing. Died of gray. Russell Crowe is now 55, right? He looks exactly like.

He kind of does. I mean, if anything, he looks kind of good in this. You're kind of like, oh, yeah, this is Russell Crowe with like 10 pounds shaved off. That's the incredible thing. No offense to Russell Crowe. At the time, he was like. I like thick Crowe. I like, you know, sort of husky dad bod Crowe just fine.

But at the time, he was this very hunky veeral man. He's a year before Gladiator. Right. Like, you know. It was very surprising. He's looking at some chungus, some big chungus pics. Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben. Yeah.

Look, I love it. Again, I love him. You love your curvy crow. But like, you know, when Crow now is trying to be slightly more in action mode, like in Man of Steel or The Mummy or whatever, he's got that sort of like, I buttoned this shirt, but if we unbutton it, this might take a while to sort of read. So I'm in this jacket right now. There's a lot of tension in those buttons.

It's sort of like me at a wedding where I'm like, I kind of like put the suit on last, like the day before, and I was like, hmm, maybe has it been six months since I wore a suit? Sure. Let's just do it, guys. It is an incredible thing, though, because he was such like a conventional sort of like, you know, sort of tough. Square jawed, bruiser type.

Leading man and like we were like oh man, we haven't had a guy like this in Hollywood in a long time. It was so unusual for him to take this kind of part at this moment. And then his career has come full circle back to him playing these kinds of guys. Essentially seeking these kinds of roles out. Right, these same kind of broken sort of like. But he kind of rotated because he did A Beautiful Mind.

Yes, that's true. But in between those, he would do his gladiator type. Right, this is his incredible run where it's like he does L.A. Confidential. that's true. But in between those, he would do his gladiator type. Right, this is his incredible run where it's like he does L.A. Confidential. He's amazing. He was snubbed of an Oscar nomination. Sure. And he gets this as what most people view as the vindication for the lack of L.A. Confidential nom. And it's such a

classic Oscar nom because it's a transformation. You're playing a real person. Everything they like. Right. Spacey wins and people were like, Crowe should have probably won. 100%. So then the following year, when Gladiator comes out, they were like, this is his double makeup. This movie's so big. He's now a full-on A-list movie star,

but also he's kind of been owed two times in a row. And then he does Beautiful Mind, and people are like, fuck, is he going to win twice in two years? I think it was close. Three consecutive Best Actor nominations, and then he never gets nominated again. Which is silly.

Yeah. His movie after that, Andy, do you like Master Master and Commander I feel like you would be a Master and Commander fan I have to admit and I almost feel like you're going to make me leave I've never seen it I think you would really like it I think you would dig that movie that's one of my favorite movies and I think he's so good in it

but that's when he's definitely like I am a husky hunk I'm a bigky hunk. I'm a big, stocky guy. We're not even going to futz around with me being kind of skinny anymore. And then Cinderella Man in 05, so he's playing a boxer.

And both of those movies were like, he was getting all the precursors, he was predicted for best actor, and then he was left out at the last moment. He was kind of being taken for granted in those movies, and they were like these sort of bigger supporting stars who were kind of popping and all of them right but those are those are solid then in 2006 curveball he re-teams with ridley scott but only to make a movie about drinking wine yes called a good year yes well the year before he wears glasses

and drinks wine his band 30 odd foot of grunt. Sure. Unfortunately dissolved slash evolved. Oh, that's too bad. Is that like a conscious uncoupling? We're dissolving, evolving? What did it evolve into, a Raichu? Hey, you need a Thunderstone for that. You need one. No, and also he's throwing phones at this, right? This is sort of like classic Russell Crowe.

There's the South Park episode. He's a drunk. He's like constantly punching people. And I feel like there was that thing, I guess it was right after Gladiator maybe, where there was a documentary about the... Are they 30 or 40 odd photographs?

I once fucked this up at a trivia game. Remember when you fucked up Bandy's name? Oh my god, please. That was embarrassing. That was one of the worst things I've ever done. In an otherwise spotless life. A life of no regrets. We know I'm not someone who stews worst things I've ever done. In an otherwise spotless life. A life of no regrets. We know I'm not someone who

stews over everything I've ever said. You've never expressed any regrets to me. At all, for anything. You don't even seem like an anxious person. At all. I'm super chill, super confident, every word that's come out of my mouth. Harvey Weinstein bought a documentary about the

band for like two, three million dollars. Probably just to make Russell happy or something else. Right. I mean he was like A, this guy's such a big star that even his self-indulgent rock band documentary will probably do well. And B, I'm so desperate to get in the Russell Crowe

business that I'll buy a vanity project just in the hopes of getting like, but he's really kind of going like Ridley Scott like Ron Howard sure those are his guys right yeah he's saying those zones right and then I want to do the rest of crow actually because it's fun right then you get

like American Gangster 07 he's got 310 to human American Gangster which are both underrated he's very good and he's very good yeah he's great in 310 to Yuma he's fantastic he's terrific in 310 to Yuma um then both of them i mean i feel like denzel gets credit all the credit for american gangster he doesn't but crow's great in it i agree i think he's and 310 he's fun he's yeah that's a fun movie but that movie kind of kind of doesn't go anywhere in hollywood's like too old-fashioned right but it is funny that in those two movies he's still basically like a you

know leading man gun to-toting, right? Yes. And then the next year is Body of Lies where he is like suddenly like wearing sunglasses, fat, behind a desk, barking at Leo over the phone. I mean, no one remembers that movie, but like pretty – No, that movie is – That's the flip. That movie is so weird because the poster is like DiCaprio, Crow, and it's like this is going to be some espionage thriller. is like DiCaprio Crow and it's like this is going to be some espionage thriller

and then the whole movie is like DiCaprio with a gun on the ground and Crow like picking up his kids from school talking to DiCaprio on Bluetooth. Yeah. Like almost all of his scenes are him on like a Bluetooth headset while he's like doing the laundry or something. I had honestly completely forgotten that movie

existed until now. It's a Ridley Scott movie. I remember seeing it now. I think it's when Ridley Scott was just going from European financier to financier being like, Leo, do it. Russell, do it. It'll be like great, $80 million. He was kind of doing Tony Scott style movies.

He was. That was very, very Tony. Because I actually, in my mind, had that as a Tony Scott movie. It feels like a slightly higher brow Tony. Tony Scott probably would have made it a better body of life. No question.

I love Ridley Scott. Because I think Body Lies is a little unengaging. Yeah, probably would have made it a better Body of Lies. No question. And I love Ridley Scott. Because I think Body of Lies is a little unengaging. Yeah, right. Then he does State of Play, another movie no one remembers that is totally watchable. I like that movie a lot.

Like a fun, another fun journalism movie. Yeah, right. Robin Hood, which I think is great, the Ridley Scott Robin Hood, where he's, that's his last time

where he's like, no, I'm a, you know, I'm a leading man. I'm a action boy i remember him in interviews saying i think superheroes are stupid i'm embarrassed that my son likes superheroes i want to make an action movie to make a real hero that boy should respect he does shoot a cool arrow he shoots a cool arrow i'm sorry i know i'm older than you guys but the only true robin hood is kevin costner we love him Excuse me. We stan a sexy fox on that show. No, I don't.

Oh, well, sure. I know you do. We stan a sexy cartoon fox. That's true. Who else has played Robin Hood? Well, Taron Egerton, but that was terrible. Cary Alvarez. Right. Right. And then, like, Les Mis. Man of Steel. Les Mis is a notoriously disastrous performance. I mean, he's terrible in that. Noah, he just

seems uncomfortable in Les Mis. I am singing in Les Mis. He seems really like off his game. You know what I mean? He looks like in that. No, he just seems uncomfortable in Les Mis. I am singing in Les Mis. He seems really off his game. You know what I mean? He looks nervous through the whole movie. In Les Mis? Yeah, in Les Mis. Man of Steel, I think he's fun, actually.

I love him in Man of Steel. I love the first 30 minutes of Man of Steel. Yeah, his part of Man of Steel is what I'm into. I want more Kryptonian intrigue and bug flying. I re-watched just the Russell Crowe bug flying portion of that movie a lot. With the weird computer that looks like that toy with the metal spikes. Yes. We never know what the name of that toy is.

Once again, the best thing in Man of Steel, Kevin Costner. Oh, I mean, I do think that's a very good name. He is good in that. So you're just like, Costner shows up, you're like, you're pumping your fist. What's your favorite Costner? Interesting. Are you a postman? I'm not a postman.

He mailed that in. No. Take the draft. No Way Out might be great. I mean, it's definitely up there for me. Yeah. I'm trying to think what my favorite Costner is. I liked him in Jack Ryan.

Shadow Recruit? He's pretty good in that movie. He's just fun to watch in that movie. I mean, that movie is all mentor. It in Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit He's pretty good in that movie That movie is all mentor It's Jack Ryan that's the problem The one with Molly's game He's incredible in He is good in that That scene is wild

I was trying to think of the Coast Guard movie Not the recruit The Ashton Kutcher one It's not called the protector it's not called the defender the guardian thank you I didn't look that up I will watch that movie anytime it comes out

late night yeah is that and that's Mr. Fugitive right Davis Andrew Davis I think he did I don't even know that yeah I know that's one of those dependable sort of like old oak thriller directors. Field Dreams is my favorite costume. Yeah, I like that.

And Bull Durham. Tin Cup is also. Yes. Hey, you know what the villain's name is in Tin Cup? Played by Don Johnson. David Sims. David Sims, yeah. Is it really?

That's right. With two Ms. Yeah. Okay. You guys know the crazy thing about the russell crowe ridley scott robin hood right uh hit me like hottest i think we've talked about this script in hollywood ben just hit david ben's got a little tinted shirt on right now he looks very tinted he's got the full flip going on the top of the head right um uh hottest spec script in

hollywood what if robin hood was the bad guy Sheriff of Nottingham was the good guy? And it was a PR issue. It was called Nottingham. Right. Yes. Right. And it was supposed to be set from the perspective of Nottingham. Right. And Ridley Scott signs on to direct. Universal buys it for millions and millions of dollars. Russell Crowe signs on to play the Sheriff of Nottingham.

And then over the course of working on the movie, developing the script, Russell Crowe starts going like man I'd really like to play Robin Hood so then they go like what if it's a draft where Robin Hood and Sheriff Nottingham are the same guy he's his own worst enemy and then it just becomes what if it's just Russell Crowe I think someone just told him like did you know Russell Crowe I mean Robin Hood was a crusader yeah and yeah Ridley was like yeah that's cool but they spent like three four million dollars on a script that then they used none of.

We've definitely talked about this. Yeah. Well, I wrote that script and I'm a millionaire. Yeah. Whatever. I mean, now, of course, he's playing Roger Ailes. Yeah. Which is another one where he's like, it was a tough job, but I had to gain 80 pounds in a month.

Right. Like he says, he like eats spaghetti. Well, I think he said that for the insider, I think I read that he basically said he ate cheeseburgers. That's what he ate. The poor man. It's like, this is... You want a reward for that?

Fine. Here's a cheeseburger. There's your reward. I remember hearing... I've heard disgusting things. Jared Leto, the Joker himself, played Mark David Chapman in that movie that barely anyone remembers. Gave himself gout. Gave himself gout.

The John Lennon assassin movie. It's called Chapter, yeah. Yeah, Chapter 27. I think. And he would eat ice cream with olive oil. And when I heard that all the time, when I heard that, I was like, it's just, there's no way that's worth it.

Excuse me, my friend. The details are even grosser than that. I remember this because at this point in time, I was desperately trying to gain weight because I was a very, very underweight boy. You weren't trying to play Mark David Chapman. You literally were just trying to stop scaring your doctors. I was a spooky, scary, dancing skeleton boy. He would buy pints of Ben & Jerry's, pour olive oil in it, and then microwave it so that he could

just drink it. Oh my god. That's vile. Because I tried it once. And how was it? I did it without the olive oil, but the microwaving ice cream. It was awful. What are you talking about? Why would anyone drink ice cream? I don't, I mean, isn't that what milkshakes are? This is literally

just like thick milk though, you know? Isn't that what a milksakes are? This is literally just like thick milk, though. You know? That would have milkshaked. Terrible. Get out of here. Eat a turd. All right. Sorry.

The insider. Yes. I looked the other time. The one other time he tried to go back to classic Russell Crowe was Noah. Sure. I mean, he's a beefy Noah. He's beefy. But that was the last time he played like kind of.

He needs to be beefy. He's gotta get logs and, you know, make an arc. But Dr. Jekyll... Oh. Where he tells Tom Cruise that Tom Cruise is younger than him when, in fact, Tom Cruise is older than Russell Crowe. Winter's Tale, where he plays like a real

like... I've never seen Winter's Tale. Stocky gangster. I really need to. Now I'm just sad about the Dark Universe again. Oh, God.'m just sad about the dark universe again oh god you're sad about it well that it's gone oh you never know could come back that's what monsters like to do make you think

they are gone the dark universe will rise you know what if the second dark universe film is about the resurrection of the dark universe right like Sophia Boutella is like in an office and

someone's like we got a office and someone's like, we got a sequel and she's like, no, they canceled those movies and, like, it turns out it's like Jake Johnson

and he's like, no, we can, we just need to go to the tomb. I want, like, a dark universe twist movie

where, like, Universal's like, here's our big prestige play of the year. It's a biopic about, like,

Marie Curie and then halfway through the movie the dark universe the globe turns. Just when you thought it was safe. Marie Curie, if she fell into the Black Lagoon.

And then Pacino, we've talked about this era of Pacino a lot. This is such an underrated Pacino performance. So underrated. Goodness. Because I think this is seen as one of his yelling performances from that sort of devil's advocate time. He only gets there in the last 30 minutes. And when he does, he's frustrated.

Yes, yes. It's fine. 100%. He's in the zone. He's very good at being kind of just a stressed out producer guy. The first two hours, it's classic, understated, super quiet. His hair is this beautiful hair piece. It's astonishing.

It should have won a Nobel Prize in chemistry. I believe he's one of those guys who is using sectional pieces. It's like the Sistine Chapel. It's like scaffolding for his hair.

If it was purely a piece, they wouldn't design it like that. You end up at this hairstyle because he's like, I have these couple of long strands. Can we push them as far up as possible? Can we build volume around that? It's weird because this movie is considered like a Russell Crowe's movie. A, Pacino's role. he is the star of this movie. I mean, he is the lead actor in this movie. 100%.

It's not even close. No. And he's so fucking good. I hadn't seen this movie. I watched it since it came out in the theater. I watched it again. Me too, basically. In my head, I remembered Russell Crowe.

I did not remember how amazing Pacino was. Me neither. I thought of it because Crowe got the nomination. It's like, oh, Crowe just dominates. He's so incredible. You've never seen it. And Pacino is going like, what the hell do you mean? I'm Mr. 60 Minutes.

He's got a great ass. My program has a Mike Wallace has got a great ass. And my head's all the way up. We were talking about like Heat is him like kind of losing his mind, but it still works. Oh, yeah. I mean, I love it. But like the fact that he could still go back to being like this fucking present and non-showy in a scene.

In between these, he made Devil's Advocate, right? Right. And Devil's Advocate is I think the public is like, that's it. Pacino can't be subtle anymore. Right. It's over. Right. But then he has this and he has insomnia. I know. Both he rules in and then he's fully broken forever by the way he's

fantastic in devil's advocate oh agree oh yeah I mean in that movie what the movie wants from yeah exactly it's all right it's not like everyone else in the movie is like no this is a subtle tale of I mean worked for see Keanu Reeves is doing some mid-southern, North Pacific accent. That's one of his, yeah, where like who asked him to try that accent? I don't know. There are some incredible deep southern accents from British-Irish character actors in this movie. Michael Gambon's accent work is amazing.

I love Michael Gambon playing a southerner. He loves to do it. So good. Toys, he plays a southerner. He played Lyndon Johnson in like a TV series. Dumbledore, of course, is from Kentucky, canonically. Now, Harry Potter, you know, you

didn't put your name in this goblet. You didn't read J.K. Rowling's tweet about that? I do declare. I always thought of Dumbledore as a southern gentleman. He likes mint juleps. He's always sitting on the porch drinking a mint julep. This's always sitting on the porch drinking a mint julep. This Voldemort fella.

I do declare. I'm just going to say I do declare over and over. It's just Foghorn, Lighthorn. That's all I can do. Comfor. Comfior. I don't know how you say his name. Great southern accent in this. Not a good southern accent.

Diana Vreeland. The weakest element of this movie. Not a good southern accent. Diana Vreeland. Right. The weakest element of this movie. Not her performance. The entire treatment of her character by all parties. You mean Diane Vreeland? Yes. You said Vreeland. Jesus Christ. Are you okay? I'm not sleeping well. What's in that

water? Is it dum-dum juice? Dum-dum juice. It's just you're not sleeping well? I'm not sleeping well. Why not sleeping well wasn't why not i got i got that insomnia i got that pacino you were doing pacino bits i was doing pacino bits all night the actual answer is i was doing pacino bits all night well you're absolutely right i wasn't going to sleep because i kept on saying to my girlfriend let me sleep that is not a joke i was until like three o'clock in the morning. Let me sleep. Venora, who's obviously great in Heat,

is sadly pretty underserved. I think this character sucks. Horrible. I mean, I guess that must be part of the real story is that they got divorced, but don't have it be that she's like, I'm divorcing you because you're a whistleblower. Yes.

Which is sort of what the movie lays out. It's not all that dissimilar from her character in Heat, although it must have been weird for Pacino to be working with, she's your ex, but she's with the other guy in the movie. Yes. That must have been just awkward. Really strange. Working with your ex is just never fun.

Never fun. Right. But not all that dissimilar. I feel like in both movies she's married. She can't understand that a man's got a job to do. Yes, which is a real Michael Mann hang up. It's like he writes these incredibly nuanced, detailed male characters that are people making incredibly complicated decisions within a system. Who are never clearly good or bad.

Or always a mix of the two. And then the women are defined by how supportive or unsupportive. Yes. Right. So it's either Pacino's wife in this is great, but has very little screen time because she's just like, you're good. Right.

And, uh, and, and Dan of Nora is in this a lot, very poorly to just stand there and go like, yeah, I don't understand. Like you're doing this to me.

Yeah. And all the way. I mean, Gina Gershon's character, terrible, just like Debbie Mazer, like there's that scene where they're all explaining the legalities of it and everyone else knows exactly what they're talking about.

And she just butts in to be like, I'm sorry, do I not understand? Like explain this to me. Like all the women in this movie are fat. Unbelievably noted. And that is like Michael Mann's big Achilles heel as a director. I think his best female character ever is Viola Davis in Black Hat. I love that character.

Like, that's the one time he wrote a female character that, like, was not defined by being a woman. Right. You know? By her duties as a homemaker or lack of interest in that role that she should be loving. But yes, that's the weakest element of this movie. Her accent is very foghorn leghorn. Her accent is not great. He loves to trade

to sort of keep an actor for a couple movies. You know what I mean? So he's retaining Al and Diane from Heat. Is he retaining anyone else from Heat? I don't think so. It's a point. Val Kilmer is who he wanted to play a Y game. I could see that. I don't know.

I can't see Val Kilmer putting on weight like that. Val would never do it. He's looking great these days, right? Poor Val. Opposite direction. Opposite direction. Yeah, I guess that's it. Imagine if Val had done this and gotten an Oscar nomination.

That would have been so strange. But I don't think he was ever going to do it as well as Craig did. Maybe in the world where Steve Rogers went back. The alternate. Maybe Val Kilmer won an Oscar. What if that's what a Marvel movie is about? That's the only difference. Where it's like

Captain Marvel goes to see a movie and it's Val Kilmer in the Insider. Also, like, and I had forgotten this because all I sort of remembered was that it was kind of talky. Yeah. It's super tense.

Oh, yeah. Like, I went through, I think, an entire Juul pod while watching this nicotine movie. Vaping and it. And part of it is because they won't shut up about cigarettes. That's right.

The whole time they're like, the nicotine, it's so sweet and delicious. Through ammonia, we get it to your brain. It hits your system. It's like, oh, fuck off. Andy, I'm like, they're saying like ammonium or whatever. And I'm like, oh, I want a fucking cigarette. Salivating.

But it's really, and a lot of it is, I think Ben and I were sort of talking about this when we were on time. lot of it is i think i think uh ben and i was sort of talking about this uh when we were on time the it's the way it's the way he shoots it is even though it's a lot of scenes of people talking yeah it's just he finds a way to shoot it with with the the handheld camera and the angles and the you know tracking shots following there's the scene early in the movie where russell crowe is just i think when he's leaving yeah brown and williamson and the camera is like right next to his head. Yes. And it's not something you see in a lot of movies. It just makes it, like, it's just a guy leaving a building, but you're like, shit, I can't

stop watching this because it's so interesting. I think a lot of people crib from this movie, and then it becomes this sort of, like, overdone shooting an office movie like it's a thriller. You know? Yeah. Like, I mean, Paul Greengrass is pulling from this a lot. You know, there are a lot of people like that who are pulling from the style of this movie and adding things to it and evolving it but this

feels like a sort of key origin point of you know what if you shoot movies about like moral conundrums and like business and journalism like it's an action movie you know like it's a real like edge of your seat thriller.

Which also, I mean, the movie is so much about the paranoia of, like, you know, this guy's life is ruined because either he's being followed all the time or he's always gonna think that someone's following him.

It's sort of the classic ending of The Sopranos conundrum where it's like, even if Tony isn't dead... The one where Tony gets killed? Yeah, where he gets killed and his brains go everywhere. No, but it's like, even if he isn't dead, he gets killed yeah where he gets killed and his brains go everywhere no but it's like even if he isn't

dead he'll always be looking over his shoulder assuming he's about to die right like that's sort of the the ambiguous reading of the ending right the flaming car spoilers for the ending of the Soprano yeah when Russell Crowe drives by the flaming car and he like looks at it for a while my girlfriend was like what what what is that supposed

to be and it's like it's just now everything looks threatening to him right but also Michael Mann loves to shoot a complex man looking at something inanimate or something unusual with a furrowed brow and then moving on. Yes. One of his favorite things. Yeah, right. Okay, so yeah, you're right.

He wanted, I guess this... Oh, that's interesting. Mann had read The Good Shepherd. Eric Roth had this script about the birth of the CIA that De Niro, of course, eventually turns into an excellent movie that no one talks about. But it was one of the great unmade scripts in Hollywood. Right, and so Mann reads that, and he's like, you're cool.

Was that with Pat Damon, too? Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah, I remember that. Matty Damon, we got Jolie. Yeah. Who else is in that? Well, De Niro. De, yeah, I remember that. Matty Damon. We got Jolie. Yeah. Who else is in that? Well, De Niro. De Niro, Pesci.

Pesci. He's good in that. Everybody in that, yeah. Good movie. Never seen it. Really? Yeah. I mean, like the, it's, you know.

It's based on a book though, right? Yeah, it's based on a book. By the guy who, you know, Damon is playing. One of the. Right. I can look up that book. You said it was going to be a trilogy. De Niro was going to make three of them. All in on that.

That sounds great. De Niro, please do that. Did I tell you the Tribeca story? Should I tell it on mic? I don't know if you guys know this, but Robert De Niro doesn't like Donald Trump. This is top secret. He thinks that Donald Trump is

a clown. This guy is a chump. You're can you say that publicly? no he thinks that Donald Trump is a clown this guy is a chump but you're clear to say this publicly is he on the record with it? well here's what I want to tell you it's one of those sort of like Richard Gervais' it's almost like it's kind of like an insider it's like everyone knows

yeah but it's unspoken they don't say it and certainly they never say it he has dinner with Trump every week and Trump has no idea. Trump has no idea. But no. He's his best friend.

He's his best friend. He's the best man at all three of his weddings. So it's the closing night of Tribeca, which of course is De Niro's baby. And so De Niro is there introducing the film Yesterday, Danny Boyle's new film. And he comes out and he's like, when Danny, when I heard this is about a world with no one

knows what the Beatles are I was like how sad and everyone's like right right and he's like then I thought a good idea for a movie to be a world where no one knows who Donald Trump is and I mean he they forged a crown for him the audience is just like yes

he did it Trump immediately like turned ash, I think. He Thanos-ed. Himself. He just puffed away. Trump snapped himself. We all had bells that we started ringing. Yeah, exactly like that.

It was great. The movie started three hours late because of the riot. Well, it became a parade too. It became a parade. They had to immediately file. People kept turning to each other being like, that would be a good movie. Feel good comedy this summer. It was so funny. I just, I truly enjoy

De Niro as like, kind of like the grandpa from Thanksgiving who's just like like I want to say something I think Donald Trump's terrible and everyone's like wow geez grandpa I love it I love it uh my favorite uh totally misplaced uh Trump uh Twitter beef was uh after the the De Niro fuck Trump thing when he just said like oh the Tony Tonys, right. Yeah, Bob De Niro, overrated actor, clearly lost his mind. Shouldn't have done so many boxing movies.

The implication being this guy got punched in the head. He got his brain sort of smushed up. He did two, two boxing films. Right, and one of them was that one that no one remembers. Grudge Match. Grudge Match. Right, right. And those films are 30 years apart. Right. That same week he invited Sylvester stallone

over to the white house and was photographed shaking hands with him in the oval office great man an underrated actor right if you're gonna criticize one guy for doing too many boxing movies that's true well also a guy who talks like he's been watching the hell a lot yeah wait you think that don't think his insult through? I mean, now I don't like Trump anymore after hearing this. I know. Griffin has built such a logical case in here that now you just know.

Because up until now, his logic was... Oh, I'm hearing the House is starting impeachment proceedings. They heard about this. Right. They were like, you're right. Sylvester Stallone's done way more boxing movies. Let's do it. Let's spool it up. Let's make this robert de niro world a reality yeah you're right we got it we got it they're gonna build a memory gas that will spread across the land on the phone

okay look he had read the good shepherd yes which is what led us on this tangent and he had read the article the vandy fair he read. And so they get together. I'm pretty sure they met with Wygand. It was an article about the making of a story. Yes. Then they decide to write a story about the article about the making of the story. And then the producer, Peter Jean Bruges, told Michael Mann, watch LA Confidential. Uh-huh. Michael Mann thinks it's great.

He flies to Mystery, Alaska. He says, this guy's too young. This guy's a great actor. I don't know if he can do it. Crow wants it. He studies the tape of the interview. The real YGAN, right? Yes.

So he goes to say Mystery, Alaska, a movie that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It's kind of a cute movie. I like it. But it doesn't exist. No. We're the first people to speak of that movie in 20 years that's a mystery um crow gained 35 pounds he shaved his head back

the thing though is that when michael mann shows up the mystery alaska set crow has perfectly emulated the 60 minutes interview right and he said like this guy has nailed it so hard that i can't deny it so then it becomes the you have to figure out a way to make yourself look 20 years older. And then Pacino is always in place and he's the one who's like, you should cast Christopher Plummer, who is kind of the MVP of the movie. It's amazing. It's one of the greatest performances in my, I love this performance so much. And it not being nominated for an Oscar is one of the most bizarre snubs because it's

so in their lane. But you know what it is? He didn't wear makeup to look like Mike Wallace. Well, that's the thing. When I was a kid, I thought that Mike Wallace was in this movie as himself. Absolutely. I think walking out of the theater, I was like, Mike Wallace

is kind of hard on himself. And my mom was like, that was Christopher Plummer. I'm going to tell you the supporting actor nominees. I'm still mad about it. 2000, can I guess? Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, 99, but yeah, the 2000.

Right, the 2000, okay. Tom Cruise. It's a good one. Michael Caine. Yeah. Hilly Joel Osment. Correct. Michael Clarke Duncan.

Right. And then the fifth one is bad. No, it's great. You're giving me a knowing look. Caine is kind of the weak link. The fifth one is great. As cute as he is in that movie. Jeff Bridges in The Contender?

No. That's a year later. Okay. It's like a star-making supporting turn. Oh, Jude Law and the Talented Mr. Ripley. Oh, yeah. He was incredible. That's a really good category.

It is. The wrong man won. The wrong man won and was nominated. Yeah. Like, Plummer should just slide right into that spot. That was like the story of that whole year. Michael Kane had an Oscar. Yeah. Like, Plummer had never been never been nominated you know he's a legend you know a legend mr wayne right he's been around forever he's playing mike wallace he's doing it perfectly they were like

this guy's probably gonna be dead in four years we're never gonna get a chance to nominate him three more times and give him one win he just doesn't work a lot. He's never going to replace this year's best actor winner in a movie 20 years from now as John Paul Getty. He has three nominations and one win exclusively between the ages of 80 and 90. Yes, exclusively in his 80s. Crazy. It's amazing.

But he should have had four nominations. The other thing that I think worked against Christopher Plummer in this film is that Mike Wallace This was your take. I think you're right. Ran a pretty aggressive campaign against it and in a very, very meta narrative his complaint was he didn't

like that the movie made it look like he took too long to take the right side. But that's what happened I think. Right. But the way that Christopher Plummer in what should be his Oscar scene explains that at the end of a life, what matters to you most is the last thing that people remember. Right. Mike Wallace was so terrified of this narrative within the movie, superseding the narrative of when he did finally step up to the plate.

Right. That then he like, I think he's a connected man, you know. Yeah. Then he like, I think he's a connected man, you know? Yeah. And he was mad about the line that Christopher Plummer says in the movie about not wanting to spend the rest of his days in the wasteland of NPR. Yes. Because I remember Mike Wallace saying, I would never say anything like that.

It is quite a pointed line. It's a great line. I will say. It's probably made up. If I was an Oscar voter and real mike wallace yelled at me i probably would do whatever he says to the fuck this movie is about how if mike wallace is yelling at you it's scary yes you don't want him to do that uh absolutely this movie opens with mike wallace yelling at a chic uh you know uh who is disputing where he's gonna sit right man you know

no good i got the heart running well that's okay I want to talk about that scene because that scene to me. So we're at the beginning. This is good. You're at the beginning of the movie. Yeah. And Al Pacino's character, Lowell Bergman. Lowell Bergman. Yes.

Has arranged this interview with the sheik who's in Hezbollah. Yes. Lebanese sheik. So Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace flies there or whatever. He's got his classic kind of like Mike Wallace in a cargo vest. Yeah, exactly. And he's sitting there, and the sheik's people want him sitting further away. A little bit further away.

And it becomes this pissing contest. Right. And Mike Wallace gives this long, impassioned speech about, when I sit down for interviews nobody tells me where i'm gonna sit and you're sitting there going yeah journalism yeah journalism yeah and then it finally they come to an agreement and lowell bergman al pacino pulls my chair just over a little bit yeah and then and then he pulls him aside and says uh you want to you know you want to warm up some more you're good to go like right and he goes no i got

the heart rate like and the whole thing is basically an act. It's like him working the speed bag or whatever. But I just thought to myself, that tells you more about TV journalism than all of broadcast news did, just in that one scene. Right, I love broadcast news. Sure, sure.

No, no, I'm not. That's not a... I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. Right, right. Have you... I guess it hasn't been... It was at Sundanceance but there's a documentary about like mike wallace this year i forget what it's called but it's like mike wallace something that is so good about what

you're talking about that he wasn't like a hard journalist like he'd been a pitch man he hosted game shows like he was one of those early tv guys but he was so fucking great on camera yeah as long as he once he was like in personality right that he became like the most ice cold interviewer in the world yeah yeah but he was an asshole it's just so much of it was huge ass it's just yes it's performance it's it's so performative he was like one of the first people who figured out how to use a television camera on yeah you know what i mean but that's also like uh that like what fucking actors do like most big movie stars have like weird things like that that they have to

do to get into a scene sure you won't film a second of the tick until you've yelled at a shake which really it's actually a master shake so they bring out master shake from Aqua Teen Hunger Force and they yell at him no but there's stuff like the

thing in Wolf of Wall Street, the weird chest bumping, pounding, rhythmic thing that McConaughey does. That's what he does before every take. Hell yeah.

And Scorsese was the first guy to be like, can I film that? Right, right. And he's like, this is how I find it. You know? But there's so many things

like that where you hear like this actor needs to like make jokes on set until like the moment before they call action. Or this person needs to like get into an antagonistic fight, you know. Right. Whatever it is. And it like makes it clear like this guy's a performer.

Like even though he does have serious journalistic intent. Right. And that's the point. Like for actors, it's like, okay, yeah, you expect that. Right. You know, but growing up watching 60 Minutes. Yeah. You would never have thought any of

this was we were not told any of this was performance right you know and as we were talking about right before we recorded it is kind of crazy that 60 minutes was just the biggest show in america yes like it was number one show weird ratings when it got dethroned by a scripted show but the thing is for for a lot of us of a certain age i mean maybe for you guys, too, who are, like, two or three years younger than me. Oh, I thought I was older than you. Sorry, I'm just dazzled by the sight of you. No, I understand. I understand.

Right. That ticking fucking clock meant school was coming around the corner. Oh, because it's a Sunday night. I had forgotten that until watching this movie again this week. And I was sitting there actually shaking when they were playing that, thinking, because all it meant was football was over. And because right after football on CBS, then 60 Minutes would come on. And then you knew it was like, I got to do my homework.

Yeah, this is it. This is it. There's no more procrastination windows. And that was life. I did not watch football. My brother and father always did. My bedroom no more procrastination windows. And that was life growing up. I did not watch football. My brother and father always did. My bedroom was off the living room.

I just realized that I had the exact same sex somatic trigger from the click. When you heard the ticking. Right. Yeah. I'd be in my bedroom, locked door, browsing Oscar websites or whatever. Yeah. You know, watching cartoons. And then I'd hear the ticking.

I'd be like, God fucking damn it. Yeah. watching cartoons and then I'd hear the tech and I'd be like god fucking damn it I was saying though I remember going to dinner parties with my parents friends and then being like we have to finish in time to and then sitting around a TV with like 20 adults who were just wrapped in silence watching 60 minutes

like it was Game of Thrones yeah cause there was no you know there was no CNN MS yeah msnbc fox whatever no and you basically you had your local news you had your network nightly news and then you had 60 minutes because this was before you know even 2020 and dateline right those are the copycats right right but it was the flashier sort of yeah and everybody and everybody watched it. And it was just, it was unreal. It was all about Rooney. Right.

That's what we were all tuning in for. Look, yes, of course, Andy Rooney, the original comedian. 60 Minutes got... Hottest of takes. I remember seeing him at a Bite the Mob, and it just, like, I didn't know you could do that.

This is the crazy thing. This is a crazy thing. I saw a Matt Ruffese a couple of times. This is new. Let's see if this is anything from his notebook. what's the deal for one thing 60 i don't like it 60 minutes was the number one the number one show from it was number one show five years yeah um it was or you know it wavered between like six to one for

it's true 15 years yeah um last the last 2017 season it was the number 12 show in America. Really? It's not like 60 Minutes is some piece of shit now, you know? I mean, I assume that it's probably not great in the demo as they say. I would also imagine those numbers are much lower than they were back then. For sure. But still, absolutely. A 12 Nielsen rating.

That's amazing. Crazy. That's almost NCIS territory. Well, I mean, and again, I assume audience overlap with NCIS is amazing. Crazy. That's almost NCIS territory. Well, I mean, and I again, I assume audience overlap with NCIS is heavy. Yes. They do a lot of crossovers. I bet they do. Honestly, I'm sure Mark Harmon has done some

60 Minutes. Well, 60 Minutes New Orleans is actually not bad. Is it Rolling Stones? Is that the Rolling Stones are always in the theme song no the who that's CSI I already did my rant I did my rant about the CSI theme songs

on Podcast Legacy 1999 the Mystery Man episode you can hear it it's my masterpiece is NCIS just they don't use like a band song? They don't. They don't. I think it's pretty fast.

I am addicted to, I have never seen a single episode of NCIS in primetime. But those USA, Dirty Rhymes and PAX, ION, whatever. If that comes on on a weekend, I will throw that on the TV on a rainy day. That is on for eight hours straight. Yeah. comes on on a weekend i will throw that really on a rainy day that is on for eight hours straight yeah uh the the thing that's kind of uh incredible in this movie and you know i'm not someone who's bemoaning yeah it's just some piano music uh better things were in the old days i think things constantly move forwards and backwards simultaneously but there is something kind of romantic about the idea of something like 60 minutes holding so much power it's like this one show can change the entire conversation in a night everyone will watch it and if this story

is covered on this show it's indisputable it's out right you know i agree with you yes you're sort of waiting for the 60 minutes take and the fact that this movie is taking place within the same year as the unabomber right and the oj trial right it's like this is this year where like news becomes like huge like real life sort of soap opera ratings like bonanza sort of stuff but this is also it's just crazy to think that like in the 90s cigarette ceos could plausibly just sort of be like, we really, we were just putting some leaves in a tube. What do we know? We had no idea.

Oops. I don't know. Everyone's addicted. I mean, looking back at it now, it's just like, even that we all kind of knew, like I'm trying, I was trying to remember, we all knew they were lying basically, but they were still able to get away with it. Sounds like someone else. I know.

You know what I'm saying? Someone else in an office, an oval office. It's remarkable watching it now and realizing that, because this was not that long ago, that there was an argument. People could sit there and say, with a straight face, or lying under oath, saying, I do not believe that nicotine is addictive.

Anyone who has ever smoked a cigarette believe that nicotine is addictive. Anyone who has ever smoked a cigarette knows that nicotine is addictive. That's like what cigarettes are. You're addicted to them. And also for so long within the vernacular people say you know it's like nicotine to describe things that are addictive.

The whole life cycle, various life cycles of cigarettes were in the 60s everyone was sort of like, all right, maybe they're a little bad for you. I guess everyone's teeth are turning black and everyone's coughing all the time. It's so cool. And then by the 90s, they're like,

look, okay, we know they're bad. We'll give you a warning. But they're probably not addictive or anything. And now, I don't know. Cigarettes, I guess people still have them. Now everyone's Juuling. That other scene, too, where they're all sitting around the table and everyone other than Debbie Mazur knows what's going on.

When they say, like, they have literally never lost a case. Right. Like, that's the big difference is, like, they're still litigious as fuck. They still will destroy people's lives. They still will do anything they can to avoid paying out. But now, in the last 20 years, you know, 25 years, Big Tobacco loses. Sure. They have to make concessions. You know? They have to back down.

Up until that point in time, they were just like... But also, now you can't advertise cigarettes. Right. But they're anywhere. Their new thing is they're getting into the marijuana game. Well, that's what they should do. Like you said, things go in both ways. Implications of that,

like seeing this movie again, I'm like thinking like, what are they going to do chemically to make the marijuana they sell even more addictive? Get some ammonia in there. What if they're like marijuana with nicotine? Delicious. That's a good call. But yeah, like imagine that. Like if you watch a TV show, Netflix is like, and you know, now with our new nicotine stick,

like inject as you watch Stranger Things. And you're like, show, Netflix is like, now with our new nicotine stick, inject as you watch Stranger Things. And you're like, I gotta watch more Stranger Things. It'd be crazy if you were allowed to do that. That's also made me realize I've never seen any... Is there a movie where somebody duels? Maybe not yet. Good question. I keep waiting for that.

I mean, I'm working on a script. Sure. The only time I've ever seen something close was on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee when Seinfeld was in. I think it was Chappelle. Chappelle had one in his hand the whole time they were at the diner. But I've never seen anyone jewel in a movie. I don't think so.

I was thinking, because I saw a movie where the language we all know of someone's been cramming all night and they have they're stuffing cigarettes into an ashtray. Now it's going to be a pile of jewel pots. Yeah. And that's how you can tell a character's been cramming all night. How long does it take to go through a pot normally? It depends on what kind of mood

I'm in. I could probably burn two in a day. So like one pot equals how many cigarettes? Really? One pot's a pack? Yeah. And how many pods are two in a day. So like one pod equals how many cigarettes? A pack. Really? One pod's a pack? Yeah. And how many pods are you on a day, Andy? Me?

Yeah. One. Oh, good man. Because my dad was a two-pack-a-day smoker. Okay. But that required so much fucking time. Yeah. Like literally just you had to like go through 40 cigarettes a day.

You could also do it on the plane. You could do it everywhere you went. My dad on the plane once they banned smoking was a yeah my dad my dad was not great what would he do be a fucking pain in the ass eat uh what do you call the gum like the chew the gum like crazy you know it's the thing that really scares me in this movie and it's not like this is a thing that doesn't exist in the world today but the like the whole seven dwarves thing of like here are the seven ceos of the tobacco company and and prioritized above them competing with each other is like we're all a united front that has to compete against everyone else right right like this like code of like secrecy of honor yeah of just like look it benefits us all

right if we're not fighting each other. I mean, that's the other crazy thing about cigarettes. They all made the same product. And yet somehow there were seven of them. I also didn't realize Joe Camel, real guy. He was a real guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And surprisingly large role in this film. Yeah, the scene where Mike Wallace

screams at him for 10 solid minutes is pretty effective. And I think F.R.A. Abraham is good in the role. You're a shell! Get out of my face, you stooge! Yeah, F.R.A. Abraham is good in the role. You're a shell! Get out of my face, you stooge! Yeah, F.R.A. Abraham would nail a Joe Camel biopic. Frank Langella,

maybe? Frank Langella. You need that kind of voice. You definitely... Joe Camel has, like, a low, smooth, buttery baritone, right? Alright. So after that electric first scene that we just talked about. Right. Gauze over his eyes. Love that scene. Six inches of height hair. that we just talked about. Right, gauze over his eyes. Love that scene.

Six inches of hair height. Oh, my God. Right. Right. Yeah, he's almost got like a Phil Spector level. Yes. Yes. Phil Spector, what happened for that movie was they took the piece off of Pacino here

and they put it in some kind of growth chamber. And then when it was time to make Spector, they just pulled it right back out. Yes. Yeah. It's like the thing in life yes yes underrated movie you're throwing a lot of i think it's rated just fine yeah fine r that's right it's gross movie yeah um but yes that that tells you everything you kind of need to know about these two guys and how they approach their careers and their work uh It's really, really good fucking writing. I will say

this is man's best script. He's a great writer in general, but usually you think of him as a visual guy and a performance guy, and his scripts are very workman-like, and they got good lines maybe, but you know what I mean? This is his best script. It's all talk. Eric Roth.

Well, we wrote it with Eric Roth. They're co-credited. You give Roth a lot of the credit for this one? I would imagine. Yeah, you think man came in there and he's like, make the wife more of a pain in the ass. I don't like this. I'm sympathizing with the female character. Get her out of here.

Two-dimensional. Yeah, can we cut one dimension? That's Christopher Nolan too like um yes can the wife be zero dimensional please yeah

what if the wife was less alive what if she was a I don't want to say a ghost but what do you think you guys like

you mean like a ghost yes interesting idea yes um they bring him Dunkirk and he's like What do you think? You mean like a ghost? Yes. Interesting idea. They bring him Dunkirk and he's like, are there any wives? There's not a single wife in this fucking movie. It's a goat picture.

No, but the fact that this movie takes so long to set up these characters in such great detail, set up the world, set up their separate jobs, all of these things, the points don't really start converging until like 45 minutes in. I mean, my girlfriend who didn't really, TC-14, know of this movie

before we started watching it together, was like, I just paused. It took 45 minutes until this movie reveals what it's about, clearly. That's a fair point. Because we're cutting to Wygand, but it's a little... I would argue it takes longer than that. Arguably. Because what the movie...

Well, maybe that's not completely fair. No, go ahead. Because the first half of the movie or whatever is 60 Minutes the good guys. The unblemished good guys. Right. The heroes of journalism. And Tobacco Company, the good guys, the unblemished good guys. Right. The heroes of journalism.

And Tobacco Company's the bad guy. And then halfway through the movie, or whatever point that is, the movie is about 60 Minutes being the bad guys all of a sudden. And that's a complete shift. That's really because- Tobacco's still number one bad guys. No, of course. But 60 Minutes, they basically get their claws in CBS corporate.

All the ways. Right. But to the corporate. But if 60 Minutes hadn't fucked this up the way they did, this still would have been like a really good one-hour movie about Jeffrey Wigand versus the tobacco companies. A whistleblower movie and yay journalism and whatever. That's what makes it a near three-hour

epic. I know, and what makes it fantastic is that it completely shifts much in the way that I think like Serenity did. There's a huge shift halfway through that sends it into the realm of a classic. And you are speaking my language. Is there a twist in Serenity? Serenity? No.

Oh, okay. No, no. Zero twist. It's a very logical film. You know, this is my take on Serenity. It has rules. It does have rules. It has a personification of the rules. At this point, I'm just checking.

Yeah, at this point, John Wick 3 will have come out. I'm not spoiling anything. It has rules. But it has a character who functions similarly, who's basically like I am the rules. Very similar type of character. But I am the rules is the best line of dialogue ever in the history of movies. It has topped Here's Looking at You, Kid. I am the rules. I Am The Rules is the best line of dialogue ever. In the history of movies. Absolutely.

It has topped Here's Looking At You, Kid. That's true. I Am The Rules. In fact, they're actually going to re-dub Casablanca so that at some point Rick says, I Am The Rules. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. I Am The Rules.

Yeah, they're going to re-dub everything. The Godfather. I Am The Rules. It's going to be like that at the opening, right? De Niro saying, I'm the rules in the mirror. The end of Citizen Kane. Yeah. End of Citizen Kane.

Yeah, no, Serenity's a masterpiece. Stephen Knight. I said this yesterday. You didn't react. I said, Stephen Knight is an important artist because we were talking about Locke. I was agreeing with you. I know. It's not like you were like,

get the fuck out of here. Yeah. But I think you should have been like, David, genius thing to say. Great job. And clap me on the back. I did not realize, we talked about this yesterday,

that Stephen Knight is one of the creators of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Right. Because someone in our Reddit said like, oh, Serenity is Stephen Knight cashing in that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire check. And I was like, what, did he win? Is that how he self-financed this movie? Which is not a blank check, that who wants to be a millionaire check. And I was like, what, did he win on the show?

Is that how he self-financed this movie? Which is not a blank check, as we said to each other. That is a $1 million check. That's a pretty defined set check. But he was one of like four creators of the show. And has just presumably continued making money hand over fist forever and ever and ever and ever. And I imagine that as the creator of the show, his notes were things like,

what if the music's serious? Yeah, right, exactly. So it's this thing where you have to answer questions and you win a million pounds. And Steve Knight comes in and he's like, turn the lights down, and they were like, great, you get a creator credit. Who wants to be a millionaire?

Remember that was the number one show on television. Yeah. That was the number one show on television. That was the number one show on television that was the number one show on television just for a year you were talking about er being number one yeah er is the show that dethroned 60 minutes and there were like you know years where like friends would be number one or this or that any of those sort of must see tv but very often in the last 20 years the number one show has been some form of reality television yeah whether it's a game show or a reality competition. Because it was American Idol for a long time. Right, it was Once Upon a Millionaire for a year or two.

Yeah, Survivor definitely for a year. Yeah. Right. I can run it down for you, probably. I mean, was the last scripted show to be the number one show on television, NCIS? That's a good question. Yeah, it has to be, right?

Because that was... I mean, it is, isn't it? Yeah, I think it is. No. What? The Big Bang Theory. Was number one with a bullet? It's been the number one show on television for the last two years. Wow. Number two, NCIS.

Young Sheldon, Ben is pointing to Young Sheldon at number six, doing strong. Ben is holding up six fingers and dancing. The Sheldiverse is just out of control. Young Sheldon is number six of all shows on television? I mean, it's young Sheldon. I had no idea.

What is the premise of that show? What if Sheldon but young? Solves mysteries. Does he? Yeah. What does he actually do? I think he learns kind of winsome lessons. What if it was just him doing a lot of reading of textbooks,

which is sort of what Sheldon, I assume, does do. Yeah, I think the show is kind of... It's like him learning to code and, I don't know, theoretical physics. I think the whole hook to that show is that his dad seems like a gruff, kind of unemotional guy. But at the end of every episode, the dad goes like, you know, Sheldon, I know what's been going on here. His dad's Robert Prosky?

Yeah. Or Robert Loja. Yeah. Who's his dad? He grows up in the South and no one gets Sheldon. Lance Barber. And the dad seems like kind of like a glump. And at the end of every episode, he's like, I get it, kid.

You're smart. You're going to someday. Someday you'll live in an apartment with a bunch of nerds. Someday you'll live next to a girl. This real piece of meat's going to move in next door. I don't know. Isn't that the premise of Big Bang Theory? Yeah, the premise of Big Bang Theory is what if nerds live next door to a girl?

An attractive woman, yes. Yes. Yeah, Sunday Night Football, NCIS have been trading off for years and then before then is the many year run of american idol what's the football show about uh it's like what if on sunday night people play football interesting yeah like people play football sunday day if you watch during the day on sunday there's football games on and then what they'll do is they'll the sun will set the sun will the sun will go down sure sure. And they'll wait like an hour or two. Great.

And then they will play another one. It's a different game. It's not the same game running every day until night. It's the same game. Yeah. Football. It is in general. Great iron football.

A different match. Yeah. Yes. And then before that, CSI for a while. Right. Before that, you got Survivor. God, CBS just really holds on to that spot. They rarely let it go.

And before that, it is just ER and Seinfeld trading places for years. And before that, it's 60 Minutes. And then if we keep going, it's, oh, I've never heard of this. The Cosby Show? Who's that? Oh, we're not talking? Well, I do think CBS is the network of people who can't figure out how to turn Netflix on. Right.

But it's kind of. No, I mean, I think. I don't even mean that. No, truly. I guess maybe sounds mean. I don't even mean it. No, you're right. Meanly, but I think it's, you know.

I think you are 100% correct. And it is like the reason why they still run the table on network. Yeah. Yeah. CBS is the AOL of TV. Right. No one ever told them that you can just get internet on a. Yeah. Yeah. CBS is the AOL of TV. Right. No one ever told them that you can just get

internet on a browser now. Right. I had to check my AOL recently. Your what? My AOL account. You have an AOL account? Yes, I do. Do you pay for it?

No, I don't. Okay. Okay. I think my dad was paying for it for a while. Whew. But I still have the email address. Griffin, it's going to gonna come back they just bought a

time warner it's going great my father you're on an age now you shouldn't be still be on your parents aol account hey listen this socialism crap is out of control my father i just want to be clear on the record you know you should be on aoc my father she's going straight to the top my father sorry responds to oh that was hysterically funny. My father responds to responds to emails from his AOL account on his BlackBerry.

That's my father's life, is getting at AOL.com with the BlackBerry signature. That's like the old country. You know, oh yeah, BlackBerry. I loved my BlackBberry when I had one. It was great. Griff, I like having the buttons.

I like killing the thing. But my father sends emails that should be texts. So he sends emails going, you okay? That's the subject heading. Right. Uh-huh. No body. Great.

And then it's just sent from Blackberry, the most secure mobile device. Which he types out. Yes. Every time. Yeah. It is crazy that that was a narrative for a long time. It was like, well, I need the buttons. It's like the button is the size of a freaking pea.

Yeah. I have to say I miss the keyboard. I liked my BlackBerry a lot. I very much enjoyed my years with BlackBerry. I do like the people who still have sent from my iPhone as a signature, though. Otherwise, how would I know? A, it's important to know. And B, it's like, what is this new iPhone thing?

An iTelephone? Some kind of space computer? I have a wall telephone. You have an iTelephone? In the ball? Yeah, right. Right there? Right in here.

In the eyeball? For the listener, Griffin and I are pointing at our eyeballs. Our eyeballs. All right. So, yes. Let's talk to the insider. The Michael Mann thing where it's, like, just, like, two fucking lines, like, just slowly inching towards each other until they form a right angle. Sure.

You know? Like, I feel like all his movies are, like. You just described pornography to me. Yes. That's what that is. Right. But you have a lot of time setting up. And Weigand and Bergman start to cross paths.

But it's this weird thing where, I mean, this is what's so beautiful about this character. And Roth and Mann did an insane amount of research for this movie. Yes. This is one of the few movies based on a true story that at the end has the disclaimer like, you know. Some of these things didn't happen. We tried our hardest. Right. Whereas usually they'd be like, everything in this movie is true as like Bohemian Rhapsody. Or that's the

legal disclaimer they have to put at the very end of the credits. And man has to be like, I have to admit, I fudged a couple of things to make the movie flow better. I condensed a couple dialogue scenes. The Bruce McGill lawyer was only 35% of a showboat, okay? Not 80.

That scene. What a performance. That scene is... I want that to be a TV show. That scene should be the state song of Mississippi. Mississippi should enshrine that scene. You want that show. Bruce McGill is a yelling lawyer. Bruce McGill

DA. Call it whatever you want. Bruce McGill is a yelling lawyer. Bruce McGill DA. Call it whatever you want. Bruce McGill yells at evil industry attorneys. It is incredible that that wasn't on CBS. Wipe that shirt off your face. Right. Bruce McGill running a law firm in the South. I'm all in. That should have been running for 15 years on CBS.

Absolutely. His suits have to be frumpy, though. Yes. Of course. They can't fit him well. And every courtroom should be, like, fluorescent lights, you know, card tables. Yeah. Breach chairs.

Whatever that is. Okay, we gotta get to that scene. We gotta get to that scene quick. I'm so excited. Fuck. But there is the beautiful Pacino, like, gauze, you know, bandage. Oh, shit, we're still on the first scene? Yeah.

Come on. How cool this guy is. How he shit. We're still on the first scene? Yeah. Come on. How cool this guy is. How he's killed you. He's opening shot. That's cool. Okay, so it says touch-drawn pictures. Oh, no. And the load's always like.

So it's like a blue load. What's the name of the show? It's Blank Check. Name of the show is Blank Check. But we get Weigand eating cake in his office or watching people eat cake in the lab. And the world is heavy on his shoulders. And you realize very quickly as he goes home that he has been laid off.

Been fired. For reasons that are unclear. This guy seems so milquetoast. This guy seems so bland. When Roth and Mann met him, they said they thought it would be difficult to make a movie about him because they found him unlikable. And he is in the movie. He does a him because they found him unlikable. And he is. He is. And Crowe does a really good job playing an unlikable guy.

Absolutely. And his performance goes from this guy feels kind of unengaging to being this guy's actually actively unlikable. The only scene in the whole movie he's likable in is when he's introducing the chemistry class. And he's being kind of like bashful and he's like talking about what he likes about chemistry. I think there's one other example. He won teacher of the year you know. Yes. Oh I was pumping my fist when that title card came up. Can you imagine how crazy it must have been for that guy to be

your teacher? I know. In the middle of all of this? When it was all over the news? When they like cut in the middle of the battle to him just like writing on the chalkboard and you're like are you still teaching? Yeah. And everyone's talking about his failed child support in the news. That's true.

He's getting bullets in the mail. He's getting bullets in the mail. The other scene that I think he's likable is when he explains what's going on to his daughter when she's having the asthmatic attack. Yes, that's a very good scene. Yes, of course. That's a good dad. And that's another good characterization thing where it's like, this guy gets science really

well. Right. And he has no sort of emotional facility. Yeah. But if he can explain what's going on scientifically, he can connect to someone. But we were talking about it earlier with Diane Verona or Breland. Venora. Venora.

Venora. Jesus. Now I scream. Now you're going to pull a real griffon. I call her that all the time it feels like her name should be diane venora verona yeah because she was in romeo and juliet right right um the scene so he he has the boxes in the back of his car yes and he runs out from dinner to go get more choice house i think it was And she comes out after him and he's like,

those are my boxes in the car. She's like, why are your boxes in the car? And he says, well, I didn't know where else to put. And it takes her like four questions for him to finally say, oh, I got fired today. Right. From that job we had that supports the whole family. So between that scene and then there's a scene later where he and his wife go to New York to unbeknownst to her,

he is going to tape. He doesn't know why they're at dinner with Mike Wallace. He doesn't tell her he's there to tape this interview. But meanwhile, so you have those two scenes. Clearly, this is not a good husband. No, he's kind of a pain in the ass. And if he gets stressed out,

what does he do? Start socking him away. He gets to the bar and he's like, all right, give me a double. And goes target shooting. It goes the bar and he's like, all right, give me a double. And goes target shooting. And goes target shooting and maybe owns like, you know, a lot of guns for one guy.

Guns in many different calibers, apparently. Yes, right. It is a thing I love about this movie that Russell Crowe's performance at the beginning is so strange. Yeah. And then they just sort of unpack this guy. Yeah.

And like he's playing the same guy the same way pretty much the whole movie, but the more details you get about him, the more it starts to make sense. But this key thing that like, he's playing the same guy the same way pretty much the whole movie. But the more details you get about him, the more it starts to make sense. But this key thing that, like, this guy is not a hero. This is kind of a shitty guy who, because of his anger issues, ends up doing the right thing. Yeah. The morality of the thing is way higher. The decision he makes is.

Snowden. Sorry. Took me a second. But he's not a Snowden. Sorry. Took me a second. But he's not a Snowden. He's not a guy who's trying to pat himself on the back. He's a guy who, if someone intimidates him, he's like, fuck me, fuck you. I'm going to whistle blow. Every decision he makes is that.

Right. Because there's that scene where the Mississippi DA is like, look, honestly, you probably shouldn't do this. Anyway, I got to go. And Crowe's like, yeah, what should I do? Let's fuck it. Let's go to court. You know what I mean? He's just got a chip on his shoulder.

I was a little annoyed. The fuck me, fuck you. How did Pacino not get that one? I know. That's true. My God. Fuck me. Fuck you.

He says, he 100% says that in Angels in America. He just got it later. Someone said it to him and he was like, I got to do that later. Does he say it in that? Because I looked up. Angels in America? I did a search for a fuck me, fuck you, Al Pacino and could not find it. There's the whole speech in Angels in America where he starts screaming at Jeffrey Wright.

I could have sworn he said fuck me. I'm pretty sure also that's what Al Pacino says when you ask him for an autograph. Right. Mr. Pacino, I loved your performance in china doll people waiting backstage that's the one that's my joke is that they're waiting by the stage door fuck me fuck you uh yeah because that's it no it's right it's not he never says that quite but it's the whole thing is like was it legal fuck legal what about the nation fuck the nation right where he i love Angels in America pissed off

and curious is my favorite line of his in this movie I love the line that I think I tried to suggest to you which happens in that scene where the wife storms out of the drinks the dinner with Wallace who are these guys and I want to

find the exact line do you remember it I do not it's what do you expect from that they're ordinary people ordinary people under extraordinary pressure mike what the hell do you expect grayson's consistency yeah i just love that like i also love it where wallace is like and he delivers it really well so like it's so good but like wallace's life is more like i i deal with like very very fancy people. Like, who are these jerks? And Lowe's like, my job is to find these people, and they're not going to be like you, you know?

But also, I started getting the feeling at that point that maybe this story was being told more from Bergman's point of view than Wallace's. Sure. Sure. Yeah, yeah, of course. No, I mean, obviously. But it was like, oh, okay, we get it.

You're the man of the people. You're the good guy. But I also think, I mean, the film ends up selling Bergman as a very self-destructive, self-righteous guy in a not entirely noble way, even though he is the one who ultimately triumphs. I feel like when you're introduced to Pacino, he seems so together. The guy's so calm and collected in these extreme circumstances and when you compare his home life to like why gan's home life it's like oh the kid's coming into bed with them he's on the cheek and they're

reading the paper and everything's good and i feel like even though he ultimately succeeds the movie like i i think the movie argues that this guy's sort of ego tied to the sanctity of the idea of journalism is kind of his undoing at the end of the movie he's kind of fucked like he's sort of destroyed he's doing fine didn't get that at all

the end of the movie they should be like by the way you leaked like that private tape to the New York Times you're so fired. And instead, Mike Wallace is like, you got what you wanted. Who cares? Right. It's fine.

No, I quit. I'm going to go be a professor at USC or whatever, wherever he ended up. Berkeley. Berkeley. But he does get to deliver that great line. What got broken here doesn't go back together again. Yeah, which I think is fair, actually. I think you're right. That's what the insider is mostly about right it's like that

60 minutes has this lofty view of itself of course we would never be like swayed by business interests or anything like that steven toblowski we'd never be swayed by steven and the most pivotal scene and one of the best scenes in the movie is the gina gershon scene where she's like i'm totally on your side guys would we just have to run it by legal and start saying things that make no sense yeah and pacino's like the only one who's like yeah what is she saying yeah oh you mean that scene that feels like when i ask people why there hasn't been a funko of arthur yet is and it's gina gershon who tells you right also like in a snappy series i'm telling you is that what they said the emails i get read exactly like that it's like i know you're saying a lot of stuff i don't really think

you're saying anything that's it's like with tortious interference the more the more true the thing is right the worse it is right for them because it so i think with the phone that's what the president of funko said to me he said this is an issue of tortious interference. Because the cooler it would be, the less they can do it. Now when you get the email, does it bounce on your monitor like a weird, old-school animated...

Which I have never seen outside of a movie. No, that doesn't exist. It's got wings on it. It does have little early pixel gif wings. Love that scene. We're talking multiple emails here. I was like, three months ago, you remember, I was like, I think I finally solved this thing.

And I was emailing between Sony, Amazon, and Funko. Right. And it got caught in this kind of boondoggle. Right. Someday I'm going to sell the rights to Michael Mann and he's going to make a story about me trying to make a Funko of myself. God, imagine trying to tell Michael Mann what of myself god imagine if imagine trying to tell michael michael man

what a funko pop is like imagine the disdain like if i've got a five minutes with michael man you know i'd be like oh he's i admire him so much he's like one of my favorite directors and for some reason the only circumstances under which i'm allowed to talk to him is if i have to explain what a funko pop is to him like mi like Miami Vice characters or something. Yeah, I'm like, anyway, so yeah, they all kind of look the same. They got big eyes. They stand about yay high. But their eyes are like blank. Yeah, black circles, you know, with kind of a... And it specifically has to be the Arthur Funko Pop that you have to discuss. Yeah, Arthur. Okay, the tick. Let me get into this fast. Fourth version. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, so started

out indie comics. Underground, self-published. Yeah, okay, let's talk about- You might know the Fox series. You might remember that. Right, Fox Kids. It's really owned by Disney. It was on before Eek the Cat.

You're familiar with Eek the Cat. Let's talk about Eastman and Lard first before we can get even to Ben Edlund. Yeah, and then Michael Mann like shoots me

with a scatter gun. Right, he pinches you. Right. Lo wants some cigarette background info first. He needs someone to translate for him. He's got this really dense dossier. He's received anonymous

information. Right. Realizes that Wygand is kind of a perfect whistleblower. He's like a guy who's kind of ready to flip. He's been laid off. He knows everything. It's beautiful that he's just asking Wygand, can you translate this for me? After they've had their weird facts exchange, that's like, right.

So, so terse. Yeah. But I also just love like, just fucking two like middle-aged men standing over their fax machines, waiting for handwritten one sentence notes. The nineties. Yes.

So good. The original Twitter. Right. So he's like, why is this guy this defensive? And then when he sits down with him in the hotel room, the guy's like, is this guy this defensive and then when he sits down with him in the hotel room the guy's like i just want to make it clear i'm not giving you any more information right but she was like what other information he's like doesn't matter not

giving you any of it not giving you any kind of information about ammonia right he like volunteers that he's not gonna tell me not about the ammonia right right all of the secrets I can't tell you them. Right. What secrets? The ones I can't tell you. But the thing is, I'm assuming, even though I know it's a movie or whatever, I'm assuming that's how they met in real life. I believe 100%. But it's really bad screenwriting if it were

fiction. Yes. You would fix that. It would be like, no, this is a really dumb coincidence. Like, right after he gets fired, he's ready to spill the beans. And then he accidentally, or not accidentally, but he alludes to something else. But I mean, so many stories like that. They stumbled into it by mistake.

And it totally makes sense for this guy with such a hair trigger, you know? Sure. Right. Make these sort of, like, knee-jerk decisions. And not be able to maintain his cool. And then early there's the scene with michael gammon that is fantastic where they're essentially like yeah you're gonna give you a super confidentiality agreement in which you uh agree to shoot yourself if you ever tell anyone anything right you know like that's great and

then crow just like flips out yeah yeah fuck Yeah. Fuck me, fuck you. Fuck everyone. Has the conversation, I think he got it, is still a good kiss-off line, though. Yeah. Has the combo with Al in the rainy car. There's a lot of rain. And the great Michael Mann line is Pacino saying,

I don't burn people. That's when he thinks that Pacino sold him. I like the Knicks line in that scene. You think the Knicks are going to make the semifinals? What are we talking about? Outside your world. Yeah, no, all that stuff with the two of them in the cars together. I remember...

And at the Japanese restaurant. Oh, so good. And he does that fucking thing. He crosses the line like four times in three seconds. Yes, yes, he does. This very disorienting thing where he's literally just crossing the line in four times in three seconds yes yes he does this like very disorienting thing where he's literally just crossing the line in two shots and he just goes from one side to the other back and forth uh which is like very disorienting it's this weird courtship phase of the movie

where it's just like crow being like i think i'm interested right invites pacino out and then it's like fuck you get away from me. Right. I remember, not having seen this movie when it came out, Entertainment Weekly running an article, not maybe a full article, but a little half-page thing about how distracting it was that the Pepsi girl was in the movie. Who's the Pepsi girl? Hallie Kate Eisenberg. Oh. Younger sister of Jesse Eisenberg.

Yeah, right. Who plays Russell Crowe's older daughter but at this time was the spokesperson for Pepsi and that campaign had started right after right before this movie came out I would guess after she finished filming this before it was released and talking about like trying to

explain fucking Funkos to Michael Mann could you imagine how angry he must have been when someone was like she's the girl who like drinks a Pepsi and smiles. And now people are laughing in the theater when she's on introduced on screen. Right. Oh, my God.

Yeah. She was the Pepsi girl. How quickly we forget the Pepsi girl. The Pepsi girl. Very distracting. It distracts me from the whole. I couldn't pay attention. So I don't remember what happens after that.

Can you guys tell me? They finally. Yeah. I mean, I i mean they're right they start working on the thing where he has to testify so that they can like skirt his confidential like he has to be like compelled to testify in court and that's how they can get him on the record yeah right and they have to go take him in mississippi to do it right this is this because because the state of miss Mississippi has a lawsuit already, I think, pending or on file. So someone tells Pacino this. He basically tells Mississippi, depose Wygant. They won't be able to

enforce the NDA. But Wygant is getting so angry about tobacco muscling him. And the bullet in the mailbox. He's like, I have to film it now. And Pacino's like, I can't film it until you've been testified. He's like, you don't have to air it. Right.

I just need to get the shit off my chest. So then takes his wife to New York City. You know, just a casual dinner with Mike Wallace. It is wild.

Maybe we'll catch a show. Right, as one does. Also, tomorrow I'm going to film for six hours. Like you were saying, again, Hollywood screenwriting would not be like,

would be like, you have to build to the climactic interview and have that be a big moment of release at the end of the movie. And instead they do it like 50 minutes in. Right. And the rest of the movie is about if they're allowed to air the interview completely or if they're going to edit it. And he kind of does the interview at that point out of petty anger.

Yeah. Like once again, it's not like I need to get this out to the people he's like i don't care when you air it right i just need to fucking yell about these guys well the interesting thing is like as part of the interview mike wallace asks him you know do you have any regrets about coming out as a whistleblower it's like but he hasn't yet right right at this point he's still like yeah and he's like yeah i've got some regrets and and like by the end of movie, you understand why he would have regrets. But at that point, I guess the bullet thing had happened.

Yeah, and he got fired. A couple of things had happened, but not to the extent the dossier hadn't been prepared that we'll get to in a bit. So at that point, it's kind of weird for him to already be like, yeah, just for that to happen. It is crazy when he has the full security detail courtesy of Pacino, and he's going in the fucking carcade with all the police cars in front and behind, and that everyone in the government agencies is just like, oh, he's speaking against Pac?

Yeah, no, they're going to try to assassinate him. It is so accepted that this guy needs this much protection because, like, no, they will straight up try to murder him. I watched... Not if the state of Mississippi has anything to say about it. Well, right, Mississippi, the last bastion of justice in America. It's amazing. I do love that Mississippi is just presented as, like, the purest, like,

that shit don't fly in Mississippi. Right, it kind of cuts both ways. Kentucky? Yeah. North Carolina? South of cuts both ways. Yeah. North Carolina. South Carolina. That scene is phenomenal. It's on YouTube, by the way.

I'm going to watch it. Because I watched it like eight times last night. I'm going to get that scene tattooed on my body, frame by frame. I mean, Bruce McGill is in like, what, around five man movies, right? He's in everything. Even he plays like a door if he's not gonna have a speaking role, right? He's so fucking good. He's good in collateral coming up.

Yes. But that's his tour de force man one shot. I think that's his best scene as an actor. I think it's the best scene of an actor. Yes. Right? Like in acting school 101, everyone should sit down and they'll be like,

roll it? And you just watch that clip and they're like, any questions? Do what that guy did. But it is such an incredible thing of like, okay, like death threat emails, right? Bullet in the mailbox. Like wife leaves him, security detail installed. Like motorcade like running for miles. Getting him into what then turns out to be him essentially saying one sentence in, as you described it, a shitty fluorescent lit room.

Right. Like, it's kind of incredible how, like, sort of nondescript the actual action is. Yeah. Of what he's doing. McGill is theatrical, you know? The lead up to it's theatrical, but it's just like, that was a line that was never crossed. Where this guy walking into the shitty Mississippi office. Right.

And just being like, yes, I believe that it's addictive. I just. Right. God. Yeah. Right. The lawyers like you really can't say that. Don't answer.

Don't answer. Don't answer. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one sentence they're trying to get him to say on the record. Yeah. Right. So that happens.

The bullet in the mailbox. I can't remember if it's right after that or right before that happens concurrent with the email yeah because the wife hears it they move to the fbi show up and they're like let we'll just take your computer right did you touch the bullet right you have a gun yeah like they start thinking because also at this point a pacino like does the due diligence of like tell me everything shitty about about you. And Crow is pretty forthcoming of like, I have anger issues. I have a shoplifting record. I drink too much.

Right. I got in a physical fight with my wife once. Sure. And you're like, okay, this guy's got some baggage. And then it turns out there's a whole other suitcase underneath the table. Although I think it was mostly bullshit because that's sort of what the movie bears out. It was like kind of... It's mostly bullshit but he's a messy guy. Yeah, he's a messy guy.

We're all messy guys. We're all messy guys. I think that's one of the themes of the movie. Microscope, right. The thing I was going to say watching this movie, appreciate so much about Michael Mann. This movie has some of the best instances of it. What is

often called in filmmaking shoe leather that most directors get bored and want cut out sure let's just skip that you just do this right away let's cut the shoe leather usually make scenes feel fucking wonky and hollow is the kind of stuff that leads to like why don't you ever see someone hanging up in a movie why they never say goodbye you know why the classic like William Goldman like we don't need to see them hail a cab.

We shouldn't see three cabs go by before they hail the cab. They need to hail the cab so they're going to hail a cab. Michael Mann is so good at making all that stuff tell you a lot about the characters. He's not showing it to you for the sake of showing it to you, but the fact that every time anyone's on the phone in this movie, and this is a movie where people are

often speaking to each other over the phone. A lot of phone. Yeah, a lot of phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always in the middle of them doing something else. There's never a scene where Pacino's just drinking a cup of coffee in his living room. Gotta take some calls. Right.

The most casual thing is him waking up in the middle of the night from sleep. Right. But when he's in the edit bay, and you see the craft of him establishing the edit of the segment yeah and then he's taking the call in the middle of that and then he's giving more notes it's like it's such good fucking character building and world building um so they have the piece it's tight it's ready it's ready to go it's locked like halfway through the movie they all sit down and watch it don't touch my film it's good right uh Right. And then there's the conversation with

Helen Caporelli with Gina Gershon. It's a great three-scene performance. I think it's a weird performance. Really? I love her in this. Again, the character is so bad. That's my problem. Oh, you think it's too one-dimensional? Yeah. I think you even

compare, I think in his movies, when he has people just talking business, the women are dumber. I don't think she's dumb. Like I think Tobolowsky speaks better than she does in terms of the actual verbiage. No, Tobolowsky's a chin bearded fool in this movie. Hey, first of all, it's a good beard. Wallace demolishes him in that scene. It's the other scene.

Well, I'll wait till you get to it. Well, let's get to it. Let's get to it. What do you mean? Well, no, because it's further on. Okay, okay. When... You mean when the credits roll and we see all the names of the people who worked on the movie? Yeah. That's a little later, I guess. Okay. Right, right. The best boy I grew up in this way blew my mind. I did not

see that coming. Well, okay, so what happens then? I mean... Go ahead. You go ahead. No, because my thing is later. It's much later in the film. Fine. I feel like we're jumping around a lot. I don't want to ruin your chronology. Well, because my thing is much later in the film. Fine. I feel like we're jumping around a lot. I don't want to ruin your chronology. Well, not really. It seems to mean a lot to you, David. Once they get it down, once they have the tape down...

David has the rules. He has the rules. I grew up in England. I did grow up in England. That's true. Where I saw this film with the Hollywood audience. We're cutting between the 60 Minutes legal stuff. Right.

And the sort of Lowell realizing they're getting further and further bogged down. And Jeffrey Rigan is in the process of being bought. They're being bought by Westinghouse. Which apparently nobody knows except Lowell Bergman. That scene is the one scene that's really confusing where he's like, it's a sale. It's for real. I'm like, it would be reported.

I found this SEC filing. Yeah. The CBS Corporation was being bought yeah you found it right yeah whatever maybe maybe that's how it worked i have no idea when he calls the guy in new orleans and is like i did the research like how many of like uh your fbi agents have been hired by private security firms right like this is a guy who just reads every fucking dense document he can to try to find the connection. He's like a very effective conspiracy theorist who like really backs it up.

Yes. Yeah. We see him at home with Lindsay Krauss and stuff. I love Lindsay Krauss. She's an amazing actress. She's got, as you can not do in this movie, except be like the opposite of Diane Venora and heat. She's just like,

yeah, no, go ahead. Please read a Bible's worth of documents Venora in Heat. She's just like, yeah, no, go ahead. Please read a Bible's worth of documents while I make dinner. I saw her name in the opening credits, which as you pointed out in the 25th minute

of the opening credits. And I was like, oh, I completely forgot she was in this movie. I can't remember who she plays at all. And by the end of the movie, I was like, oh, is she in that one? That's why I couldn't remember where she was in this movie. She's so incredible in House of Games. That's one of my favorite thing. Oh, she in that one? That's why I couldn't remember where she was in this movie. She's so incredible in House of Games. That's like one of my

favorite performances. Yes. Anyway, but oh no, so I'm saying we're cutting between that and Jeffrey Weigand sitting in various chairs

while opera music plays. Yes. Right. And his wife leaves him off screen. Right. But mostly he just sits in chairs.

Right, and they've developed this whole sort of like counter-narrative against him to make him seem like a slippery character. But mostly he just sits in chairs. Right. And they've developed this whole sort of like counter narrative against him to make him seem like a slippery character. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

The knives are out for him. So his name's being dragged in the press. Right. His interview is not being played. Right. His wife has left him. Yeah. Lowell is sort of saying like, I'm sorry, I'm trying.

You know, like that's all he's got for him. Right. That scene where Pacino's just like, look, there's no good way to say this, so I'm gonna say it. Interview's not airing. Not great. I would definitely listen to some mind opera, too. But Russell Crowe's pretty

effective, like, you have no idea what it feels like to be in my shoes. You cannot imagine what my life feels like right now. Before that, though, in the scene with Gina Gerson that we were talking about earlier, when basically Mike Wallace and Bergman

get told, basically, it's the first version of you're not going to be able to air this. You're not going to be able to. Right. It's all on Wallace. And that's the thing. The scene where, as Bergman is becoming more and more Al Pacino-ish, his voice is reaching that perfect pitch yeah uh and he's and he's expecting uh he's expecting wallace

to back him up yeah and then you hear wallace to say i'm i'm with i'm with don i'm with don and the look on pacino does such a great job in that scene. There's just this look of like the, he's so stunned and so betrayed. And, and like, it's a, it's a shot that holds a little longer than you would expect with like kind of silence.

Yeah. Yeah. Until he figures out. And then this is it. This is it. Yeah. It's such a great scene. Both,

both of these scenes. Cause then there's the later one where Wallace pulls the same trick backwards like where Wallace holds all the power in both yes like even as everyone's arguing basically once Mike weighs in the die is cast I love like Palmer is such a he this

guy has such a sense of like dramatics even in a boardroom he knows exactly when to be like yeah he's like Simon Cowell like I'm not going to not support Lowell on this one. But he doesn't kind of catch it.

It's like because in the later scene as you're saying like Philip Baker Don Hubert. We love Philip Baker. Oh my god. Basically says to Mike Wallace, you know, explain it to him. And Wallace just goes,

we blew it. Or however he says it. He says we blew it, I believe. I think it's we blew it. We blew it, Don. And it's kind of just, he just says we blew it, Don. Like, it's just matter of fact. And it's so great. It's amazing. Right. And then it's that great line where the 15 minutes of fame thing. Right. Right. When Phil Baker Hall is just like, okay, I'm blocking out Pacino. That's fame. Right. And then it's that great line where the 15 minutes of fame thing. Right.

Right. When Phil Baker Hall is just like, okay, I'm blocking out Pacino. That's fame. And he's like, look, Mike, listen, these things blow over. Yeah, right, right, right. 15 minutes is done. Right. Yeah.

That's that these things don't blow over. The other Pacino scene I love because so much of the movie. And then Wallace gets the line wrong too, which annoys me. Yes. Because he goes, no, it's fame that has a half-life of 15 minutes. Like, no, that's not the line either. Yeah, yeah. It's everyone will be in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Right. It's not we'll have a half-life. Yeah, yes. Right. That would be seven has a half-life of 15 minutes. No, that's not the line either. In the future, everyone will be famous

for 15 minutes. It's just not we'll have a half-life. Yes. The other Pacino scene I love because so much of this character is about his line of integrity that he's got such a clear moral compass about. This is how journalism works. This is how you take care of your sources.

This thing kind of breaks him because this is the first time he feels like he's he hasn't done right by a source someone who put their faith into right because the whole movie when he's saying things like i don't burn people like he's speaking from a position of why would i do authority like he totally believes in it i have a code and i'm backed up by cbs and you won't you know we will protect you on this right so he's talking so much about what he stands for and who he is as a person making this a personal relationship like they do sort of become weird friends over the course of the movie because they're so invested together in this like this

crusade you know yeah uh that they sort of become like like uh i don't know like brothers in arms right uh in this the shared battle uh but that early scene where uh the crow tries to uh psychoanalyze his relationship with his father and fatino is just like we don't talk about that what's your deal with right yeah that's good yeah um money now no what's going on what's your father can we do something did i mention that all the opera singing? A lot of opera singing. The crazy scene where the wallpaper behind him kind of melts.

That's the scene that I didn't... As a kid, I was like, this must be like what art is. Yeah. Like during this

fairly realistic biopic, then this happens. Yeah. That scene didn't fully work. Rewatching it now, I'm kind of like, where the Michael Mann

did this? Yeah. Weird moments. Very out of character. I kind of like it. I don't mind it. It's just odd. I didn't mind it because what happened was I rewatched this movie a week or so ago.

Right, before Griffin rescheduled. Yeah. I wasn't going to even say that you rescheduled. I was going to say it and I said it. Until less than 24 hours before we were supposed to tape. Right, which you said, you'll give us a wave this time, but next time, cancellation fee. I get a full cancellation fee.

Which I think should be the Griffin. That should be it. Okay. You lose $100 on the table. So that scene didn't bother me. Ben's laughing. That scene didn't bother me when I rewatched it, when I watched it really for the first time since 99. Sure, sure, sure.

A week ago. I rewatched it again last night. Oh, boy. And I tried to prepare. Well, honestly, I was just going to kind of skim through it, and I got sucked back in. It's a freaking great movie. And I ended up just,

I was going to maybe just watch the first half. That has happened to me with this podcast. This was after Game of Thrones. This was like at 11.30 at night. And the next thing I knew, it's like 1.15. I'm like, well, there's only a half hour left. I can't stop watching this now. But it bothered me then.

What the movie shows at the end is like for Bergman ultimately this guy was a source and he's already breaking the Unabomber story apparently the very next day that's insane just a great week for him he was having the best week ever so like quitting CBS so for him it's always like best week ever yeah no he really was uh so like quitting cbs or whatever

and yeah so for him it's always like he's on to the next yes it's just you think throughout this movie that these guys are developing a friendship and then i think at the end you realize that and not necessarily this makes bergman a bad guy but that at the end it was really he was a source not a friend you know I want? I just realized exactly what I wanted. What I want is the fucking Richard Parker Life of Pi scene. Like, I don't want a closing scene where they're on the phone, they're like, I love you, man. I know, I love you too. I want the scene.

I want the scene that's like... You got a great ass. Like, Crowe saying, like, we did it. And Pacino going like, yeah, I'm sorry, I gotta get back into the edit. Right, right, right. I want the final wrap-up scene that's underlining the fact that this isn't a friendship. Right, right. I'm talking to this Unabomber guy.

If Wigan had called and Debbie Mazur, who's so great. And then Pacino's like, tell him I'll call him back. I want one note like that. Because it feels like that scene with the hotel room changing. You think it's too late? Maybe. I mean, he could go back. He goes back.

I mean, you don't need to put any makeup on Crow now. Yeah. Just turn the camera on. And Pacino, they can do some Irishman de-aging, right? Yes.

It does feel like that scene with the hotel room transforming because that character is at such a rock bottom where you're so worried and he's so worried that he's going to commit suicide. Like, I was watching the movie going like,

fuck, am I going to Wikipedia just to feel the relief of knowing that he isn't dead today or am I going to stick with the movie? Because I got so nervous I was like, I'd kind of like to just know that he makes it. Yeah, please don't tell me this ends on truly tragic. Well, according to Wigand, that never, like he never The wallpaper never changed.

No, he didn't. Actually, I have not seen him deny that okay right yeah uh but he does say that the movie took like yeah i never hit like that he was never or sure near suicide or that's more but chino just is afraid no absolutely right absolutely um but the fact that the hotel room changes into just the daughters around him makes it like this whole movie is just about him trying to get his daughter's respect. And we also know that he has a previous daughter from a previous marriage who he's been shitty to.

You know, a sick ex-wife. It's the one thing that maybe feels neat. The daughter thing feels a little neat and binary. When the room starts transforming, I was like so thrilled because I was like, this is such a cool expressive visual thing to just show his world sort of like i thought

it was going to turn out he was in a video game yeah sure right like a movie that won't be named no uh wreck it ralph um but the moment when it then turns into the very clean neat backyard then i was like well now this is less interesting like i thought it was cool that's just like the way this guy feels right now is just like the walls are like morphing around right i don't need them to settle into a different location yeah yeah we were also saying this was the last year where you could have this sort of wailing in a soundtrack and not have it be a historical epic or a war film right this is the last time you could have wailing in an office or a hotel room might have been the first time this might be the only time There was also at one point in the score It's towards the end of the movie

Because it's in like sort of a tense area All of a sudden As part of the score There's a heavy saxophone And I was sitting there going This is a 90's movie Big jazz sax That's Michael Mann

On set. Absolute life. He's feeling his z. He has to be the guy from the vampire movie. Lost Boy. Oh, yeah. It has to be that guy. I think David's right. Because I remember reading an interview with the sound guy where he was like,

I was furious. He ruined a bunch of good takes. He just whipped out the sax and started wailing um no but but that whole extent sequence where pacino's on his forced vacation like on the beach and he's still miserable right and when he's like at night in the dark standing in the middle of the ocean like in his pants on the cell phone screaming to ro Bart poor Roger Bart he's getting it from both sides in that scene because Wagon's

not nice to him either his look when Wagon grabs the phone and then slams the door and like he grabs the phone and he goes he kind of like jerks back I just realized nobody can see this and then Pro slams the door in his face and he jerks back. I just realized nobody can see this. And then Crow slams the door in his face

and he jerks back again. And it's a great little acting job. He's lucky that Crow didn't throw the phone in his face. Oh, hello. Hey! Joke bell! Now, can we please now talk about the scene where Mike Wallace annihilates everyone around him?

Because he only says one line in a news interview. That's the scene I wanted to talk about. That's just Gina Gershon's favorite scene. And I love him when he calls. That's the scene where I literally leaned forward and then when the scene was over said, wow, aloud. I was so happy. But when he calls Lowell and is like, look, I know you're upset about the alternate cut, but I think you're going to be pretty happy when you see what I did. He's really like, this is going to blow your mind.

I really put my foot down. And Laurel's like, go fuck yourself. And he's like, how dare you? Wait until you see. No, you were right. You ent. You cut the guts out of what I said. God, it's so scary.

What's his answer? He says yes. Who says yes? They go, do you think CBS interfered? Yes. Where the hell's the rest? Let's see. You corporate lackey!

Tobolowsky saying, you know, time constraints. Who told your incompetent little fingers you had the requisite skills to edit me? He's so good. Fifty years! Yes, yes. But that's the scene fucking years that's the scene where i felt like again the sort of the treatment of gina gerson's character the female character sure she gets a lot of it i mean tabalowski was but well he gets run over immediately

he just gets he's like ineffectual and he's sort of treated as like an embodiment of satan well and he's like you know because she calls him Mike, which he gave him Mike. Mr. Wallace. Mr. Wallace. And the whole thing was like, it was, I don't know, maybe I'm just overly sensitive to it. I felt the same way. It was a little icky. And also watching all these Michael Mann movies, it's just, it's enough of a recurrent event.

It becomes so unavoidable. Absolutely. Because it started making me think of Pete and other stuff. And his male characters are so fucking nuanced and conflicted they're like 8 dimensional right

but this movie is not they're 8 dimensional but they do all have the same code they do yes well man has to have a code

but Mike Wallace is not a he's the not quite villain but he is certainly an unsympathetic character in this movie oh sure

he's just this kind of insane force of nature yeah right but then yes the tides turn because of He is certainly an unsympathetic character in this movie. Oh, sure. He's just this kind of insane force of nature. Yeah. Right. But then, yes, the tides turn because of- You corporate lackey. Yeah. Imagine if Christopher Plummer called me a corporate lackey, I would burst into tears.

I would. Yeah. I would cry. I would just think it sounded cool. I would think it was cool. I would also smile. Yeah. What if I had to talk about Funko to Chris as Mike Wallace Chris

your plumber might have a Funko at this point I'm gonna look it up Mike Wallace I sit wherever I damn please that's about it what does this have to do with the price of tea in China I could just listen to Al Pacino read dialogue like that all day. I mean, the dialogue is just like so fucking musical without being like

overly sort of written. Right. You know? He finds that way to just like boil it down to like the cleanest, most succinct thing that still has a good rhythm to it. Yeah, it's like a much less theatrical mammoth. Yes. It's basically what it is. It's mammoth without you feeling just,

it feeling so heightened that you're like, okay, this is a mammoth. Yeah. Right, yeah. Yeah. Lindsey Krauss, too. Yeah. What are you looking up?

Funko Miami Vice is the closest I think we've gotten to the Michael Mann. To a Funko Mann? But they're not even. No, why would they be? No, but see, they're not the standard. They look kind of good. All right. Whoa. Yeah. So I need to tell my DGA story. Please. why would they be no but see they're not the standard they look kind of good all right whoa yeah so i need to tell my dga story please oh go ahead yeah so back when this movie came out i was

at the time i was the there was the deputy communications director for the director's guild um and as part of that i ran i i was in charge of like the red carpet, the press line at the DGA Awards. And then during the show, I was back in the press room where the winners would come back and talk to the press, whatever. And every nominee at the DGA Awards gets a freaking trophy. Everyone's a winner. We had just started either that. I don't know if that was the first year, but it was right around the time they started this thing where they would give... Well, I guess maybe they always gave the trophy. Like the big

plate. What we started doing was having an actor from the movies present, because that gave us star power. Yes. So that year we were able to get... They present each nominee. Each feature film

nominee throughout the night would get presented with this plate. And it would be presented by one of the actors from their movie, hopefully. So Russell Crowe agreed to do it for Michael Mann, for The Insider. So the show's going on, and it's a Hollywood Awards show,

so it's a good eight, nine hours long. Very long. A tight nine. Yeah, it's a tight nine. I remember the DGA Awards as an Oscar watcher. They'd be like, the DGA Awards are starting, and I'd be like, great, I'll wake. Very long. A tight nine. Yeah. I remember the DGA Awards as an Oscar watcher. They'd be like, the DGA Awards are starting

and I'd be like, great, I'll wake up tomorrow and find out who it will be. Yeah. Unless you want to find out who the best achievement for directing in a children's program is. You can get that in like 10 minutes.

Right. That happens during hors d'oeuvres. That's fairly early. Yeah. At one point, we're back there and all of a sudden this guy comes back,

and it's Russell Crowe. He's like, phone in hand. I want a beer. No, he's like, I really just, like he couldn't, he just, he wanted a beer. And you know, at these, a lot of these,

at these dinners, you're at a table, and it's just wine, basically, and he wanted a beer. Sure. He's a nosy. So, one of the security people we work with,

he's like, I'll get your beer. And he goes, and he comes back five minutes later, and he hands Russell Crowe a beer. And Russell Crowe gives him a $100 bill. Wow. And that's my story. That's a pretty good story. What kind of beer was it? Was it Auster's?

It was like an Amstel. No, because it was like a Beverly Hilton or whatever. Do you think that Russell Crowe thinks beer costs $100? He may have thought they were pens. Or something. I don't know. No, it's nice. It was very nice of him. Despite his reputation, which I'm

sure is completely deserved. Even back then, it was like, this guy's moody. He also has that rep of being kind of like a massive lad. Like a good sort of... You could have a bunch of pints with him and he'd be like telling you stories.

I think he just has that rep of like, he kind of runs hot. Right. Ben is looking at me confused and he mouthed the word massive lad. A massive lad. What is that? What language are you speaking? What are you talking about?

Don't, if you're doing the bit, I'm mad at you. Not doing the bit. Okay. For those of us who grew up here, David, what are you talking about?

Can you convert a babblefish? A lad is like a bro? Yeah, like a bro. You know what I mean? Kind of like you'd be like, oh, a pair of lads here. It's something you would just say if you were drinking and you would do this, which is crazy.

But it's true. What would you do? You kind of pat the guy on the shoulder. English people can only emotionally interact when they're drunk or drinking. And so that's when it starts. You know what I mean? Two men can now talk about things.

What I heard about Russell Crowe, from people who have worked with him recently, crew members, not other actors, it extends even to PAs and such, It extends even to like PAs and such that he will. He has his bars. He has his restaurants. He likes wherever he films. He finds the place and he will just sort of rent out if they have a basement, if they have a top floor, if there's any sort of separate area that he can take. And anyone from the cast or crew who wants to come with him and drinks are just on him all night. That he just wants to drink

six hours a night. He's a big social drinker. He likes going out. I'm a massive lad. He's very generous in extending that to anyone. But I think he is a very, you know.

You know what that is? That's a great way of like, you know, you say, well, I'm not an alcoholic. I don't drink. I never drink alone. I never drink alone. Right. So what you do is you buy out the bar every night and invite everyone there and pay for their drinks.

I think he wants to just still be a guy who can like go into a pub and just like spend the night there and have a great conversation. But now he's too famous to do that in an environment he doesn't control. Right. So he essentially goes like, can I rent out a section of your pub and create my own guest list? And the guest list is people who have gotten desensitized to Russell Crowe and have worked with him enough that they're like, yeah, I can drink with you. It's fine.

I would love to drink with Russell Crowe. He loves maps, which I also love. Do you know that he loves maps? He talks about maps a lot. I gotta find you the legendary Russell Crowe maps tweet. His Twitter is A+. Well, he had one of the great divorces of all time where he

sold off a bunch of his life mementos and curios to pay off his alimony. Yeah. And he sold it all at like Christie's or one of the Sotheby's one of the

auction houses here's one of them that i just love this is what i love maps but this is my favorite maps i love them love reading them love planning adventures love seeing how things relate topographically and there's some i'm gonna find it there's some photos of him like at some kind of map museum where he's like so into it that could could not be more of a drill tweet. I know, right? Love to relate to them topographically. David, can you look up Russell Crowe art of divorce? This was he sold.

He had his big auction. Oh, I remember this. Yes. Because like. He got divorced very recently. A lot of people were like vying for like they sold the jockstrap from Cinderella Man. He's one of these actors. De Niro's a guy who famously, if he does

a movie, any single object he touches, contractually he gets to own. De Niro has archives. And he's like, if I use a prop in a scene, if it touches my hands it's mine. Really? Yeah. And someday he'll donate it all. It'll be the De Niro archives. And it's everything he's ever used, and someday he'll donate it all. It'll be the De Niro archives,

and it's everything he's ever used. Russell Crowe, I think, is not that controlling. I think more actors should be like that. They get a library when they die, like a president. Right. I have a friend who was very proud that he got a De Niro prop, that he pulled one for De Niro. Here are some of the props. But that image is what I want to show you.

This one? The middle image of him toasting the glass, that was the cover of the auction catalog. Beautiful beautiful and auction catalogs are usually very austere and they just show the items and it was him in a tuxedo toasting a glass and it said russell crowe the art of divorce he made 3.7 million dollars yes wow pretty good the art of divorce but yeah he kept all his props and he sold them off. You could buy the purple suit from Virtuosity. He kept everything. You could buy a hockey jersey from Mystery Alaska.

Can you see if there's anything from Insider? The glasses! The glasses! The bullet. He touched the bullet. Let's find out. By the way, I think he may have me blocked on Twitter. Really? Russell Crowe? Did you piss him off well i tweeted uh after i saw les mis

not a great movie tweeted something and i didn't add him because i'm not you're not a jerk yeah jerk but i tweeted something like uh i guess les miserables is a reference to the people who just listened to russell crowe sing for two hours. Fair job. Or something like that. Fair job. I mean, right. And after he had to, he had to pull himself off the wall that you had nailed him to. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And if I remember correctly, I think he blocked me after that. Wow. Because I tried to look at a tweet of his. He loves maps. It's too bad. You couldn't. I know. I could have bonded with him over maps.

There is one item related to the insider in this lot. Here we go. Item number nine. Two Louisville Slugger baseball bats given to Russell Crowe during the production of the film The Insider, signed by Al Pacino. Don't understand it. Don't know why he got a baseball bat. Don't know why Pacino signed it.

Signed both of them. It was Kentucky. That's true. That's true. Film set in Kentucky. Maybe they like went to visit like the Louisville Slugger factory. Yeah. Sometimes you hear Big Famo, they're like, please come, you know, have a free

tour. You say Big Famo? Big Famo. You know, the Big Famos. This was sold for $5,124. We could have built together our money. We could have put together our money. We could have got that. Two bats, two friends. Let's see if any other art of divorces.

I think it's all gone. Yeah, no, this is a couple years. Yeah, it's all over. This is what I wanted to say. The couple things I found. One, do you know that when they were filming the film, or when they were in pre-production and production, several years after the real events, Russell Crowe could still

not meet Weigand because of his confidentiality agreements. Wow. He was not allowed to help them at all. That is fascinating. So it was all sort of the public record stuff. Roth met him just to get a sense of him as a person but couldn't ask him any questions about the case. Said he found him

unlikable. All Russell Crowe had to go off of was the raw footage from the 60 minutes interview. His entire performance was just that. That's nuts. That is nuts. That's crazy. It's crazy that the confidentiality agreements extended that far and that long.

The other thing... Cigarette companies, I think those guys might not be on the level. I mean, sure, it's in 20, you know, I guess it's easy to say that now. Right. I guess. Right. I mean, look, I'm not saying it's still I'm just saying I don't think you're very brave

in saying that. I think I'm really brave. I think I should be on 60 minutes. I think Lowell Bergman should be pumping me up right now. You're a hero. So, yeah. Okay. The end of the movie is that Bergman you know there's this

sort of smear campaign that kind of gets discarded like the Wall Street Journal digs into it and they're like eh this doesn't seem like much Bergman leaks the tape to the Times I love that scene where he calls the reporter I know

I believe Jack Paladino who's an actual like plays himself as well. And that's such a good scene. Where he's trying to wrangle Pete Hamill. This will be on page one. And Pete Hamill's like, do you think I'm in the page one meeting?

I don't fucking know. I'll talk to someone. Which would never be in a normal movie. Like a normal movie, he'd be like, it's gotta be page one. Of course it's gonna be on page one. Of course, of course, it's going to be on page one. I have page one right here. Let me just...

Yeah. He just goes, hold page one. Yeah, right. Pacino's on the line. Davey Mazur is like, holding. And then that's it. I mean, then there's the scene where Wallace flips. Right?

That's it. That's the dam that breaks. And then Bergman quits brings in bergman quits and then bergman quits he quits i i think the ending i mean i'm gonna be a professor slow motion it does feel like neo the music is going there's a dance beat going and the bass line is pop is popping it's uh it's insane so you want to hear this uh in the insane uh series of quotes from the wikipedia page uh the film was considered to be a commercial disappointment right uh no kid It's insane. So you want to hear this insane series of quotes from the Wikipedia page. The film was considered to be a commercial disappointment, right?

No kidding. Made 60 million worldwide, lower than its 90 million dollar budget. Disney executives, once again, Disney, when Disney still made movies for grown-ups, before they said they didn't want to make movies for grown-ups, and then decided to buy an entire other studio just so they could make movies for grown-ups again. and then decided to buy an entire other studio just so they could make movies for grown-ups again. Disney executives had hoped that Mann's film would have the same commercial and critical success

as All the President's Men. Okay. They greenlit this thinking it was going to be a blockbuster because All the President's Men was a big hit 20-plus years earlier. All the President's Men was about Richard Nixon's impeachment. A fairly big story. This is about a segment on 60 Minutes.

Like a big deal. However, the insider had limited appeal to younger moviegoers. No, that can't be true. Take that back. Diane Venora's in this. She won a Kids' Choice Award that year, didn't she? Studio executives reportedly said the prime audience was over the age of 40 and the subject matter was, quote, not then disney chairman joe roth said it's like walking up a hill with

a refrigerator on your back the fact of the matter is we're really proud we did this movie people say it's the best movie they've seen this year they say why don't we make movies like this everyone's really proud of this movie but it's one of those rare times when adults loved a movie if they couldn't convince their friends to go see it any more than we could convince people in marketing the film what they should have done is they should have the trailer should have just been the opening scene with pacino with the blindfolds and in the middle east and all that and then cut to the very end of the movie with pacino in slow motion turning up his collar of his trench coat and marketed it to the teens. That's what the recruit turned it up. Cool Pacino who fucks.

So let's go to the box office. I know, I'm really annoyed because I did that thing where Box Office Mojo will take you to the second weekend for some reason. And on this movie's second weekend, Pokemon, the first movie, debuted in theaters and it adjusted $55 million, which is crazy. But that is not what we're going to talk about.

Did this movie win any Oscars? No, it was nominated for seven. Right. Picture, director, screenplay, actor. Keep going, sure. Cinematography. Cinematography. Editing.

Editing. Sound mixing. Sound. Yes, which is sound mixing. It was one, yeah. It didn't win any Golden Globes either. It got nominated for one BAFTA for acting and one Screen Actors Guild War for acting.

Plummer was snubbed across the board really weird it did however sweep the Los Angeles film critics it got picture actor supporting actor cinematography and like did well in general at like critics awards National Society gave it actor and supporting

actor you know like it was well liked by critics and it's reputation at the time was more, this is the real, serious, undeniable launch of Russell Crowe. That's for sure. Right, yes. That was now Russell Crowe's proven himself, and now he's going to become a big movie star,

and then in the next couple of years, he does. It's just kind of funny because I feel like, yeah, it was a flop, but it's such an Oscar-y movie on paper, but it's not really. Right. You know what I mean? A director who otherwise is not very successful with the Oscars. And this is his one real hit with the Oscars.

Right. That's it. Ollie gets a couple nominations. And I mean, it was no American Beauty. Oh my God, 1999. That movie. I know. All right.

November 5th, 1999. Number one at the box office. The Insider's opening number four. Okay. With $6 million dollars not good no good how many screens uh 1800 and tops out at 29 yeah about a third of its budget really not good and but internationally it made oh i'm seeing here no no 31 million okay so 60 total. Number one. It's a serial killer movie. It's a new movie.

November 99. Is it Domestic Disturbance? No. Oh, no, that's 2001. Yeah. 99. 99, it's a serial killer movie. Is it a horror film?

Is it like a more adult thriller? I would call it like an adult thriller. Ben, you look happy. You got a clue. It's an iconic star of the 90s and an up-and-coming star it's not uh what's the one with that uh was it mcgee it's not a mcgee okay that's

i bad movie it's from a somewhat serious story charlie's angel's word is in the title and i love there's a word you love yeah this is gonna be one of those classic confusing ben dirty nope no jewel

no vape no no come on this is a 90s movie it's a 90 Classic confusing Ben clues. Dirty? Nope. No. Jewel? No. Vape? No. No, come on. This is a 90s movie. It's a 90s. It's 1999. It's two stars.

One of them is emerging. The other one is legendary. Top of the heap. Serial killer. Which one plays the serial killer? Neither of them. They're on the case. Oh.

It's not Bone Collector. It is Bone Collector. Oh, jeez. And that's come up before. It has. I had not Bone Collector. It is Bone Collector. And that's come up before. It has. And I've struggled to get it. It's not one that you remember off the top of the dome. Philip Noyce. Philip Noyce film.

Collected those bones. Benzo Washington. Collected those bones. Yeah, of course. Angelina Jolie, Queen Latifah, Michael Rooker. You like the word collector? No, I like the word collector. I love to curate. Right was like that was her like big movie

right before she wins the oscar correct right correct exactly number two okay is a horror remake it's a remake not a continuation it's a hard remake hard remake zemeckis not zemeckis 99 99 it's not a good movie. Oh, it's not Gus Van Sant's Psycho, is it? No. Love that movie. That's 98. Hmm.

It's wild. Hmm. Remake from- My favorite thing about Psycho is how Gus Van Sant always gives a different answer as to why he made it. Yes. Sometimes he's like, well, I wanted to make sure no one else remade it. Yeah. It's like, okay.

Other times he's like, I don't know. I thought it'd be cool to just do a shot for a shot remake and change three things uh what come on uh what era is the film it's remaking from uh it's an ensemble yeah is it uh it's not the haunting is it the other one the other one it's the hill house one yes it's It's called, it's not called the Haunting on Hill House, is it? No. It's called. Sort of like a dyslexic version of the title. House on a Hill?

House on Haunted Hill. House on Haunted Hill, okay. We got Jeffrey Rush. Chris Kattan. I forgot about that movie. Peter Gallagher. Chris Kattan. Allie Larder.

Taye Diggs. Chris Kattan. Chris Kattan. Yeah. It's the, you know, he's like, you'll get $1 million if you just stay one night. Yeah, no, I saw it. Great setup. It's a Vincent Price movie.

That and The Haunting had similar setups where both remakes and came out within six months of each other. Yes. That's why it's Zemeckis one. That's what I thought. And they're both fairly bad. Yo, Zemeckis. Haunting was horrible.

Well, that's not Zemeckis. That's Yundabant. Yundabant. Oh, what am I thinking? Oh, What Lies Beneath is what I'm thinking of. Which is, I like that one. That's Yonda Bunt. Oh, what am I thinking? What Lies Beneath is what I'm thinking of. I like that one. Yeah, that was all right. But that's right.

It was Yonda Bunt. The Haunting is Neeson. Owen Wilson. Owen Wilson. Lily Taylor. Lily Taylor. Catherine Zeta-Jones. Right.

Not good. Neither of them good. No. I just remember in 1999, there were only two movies that hit number one at the box office and didn't make a hundred million dollars okay and they were one of them the haunting and eyes wide shut is a weird stat interesting all right the number three at the box office is a movie that like truly beautifully does not exist like it's like a masterpiece of non-existence. Is it a romantic drama? It's a romantic comedy!

It's a remake, but that's not a helpful clue. So it's like an obtuse remake or the thing it's remaking is not one of them? It's a remake of something that's incredibly old that no one remembers. It's obviously not Meet Joe Black. It is not. That's not a romantic comedy. And also that's

insanely long. When that clip had its comedy. And also that's insanely long. When that clip had its day on Twitter, it was a blast. That was so funny. It's always fun to watch a new generation realize that happened in a film. That's the birth of Brad Pitt eating, too. That's when he realized how good he was at eating on camera. It was just funny how many people

had no idea that movie existed. Why would they? I don't know. Why would anyone show that film? No, I know, I guess. Why would anyone show that film? No, I know, but it's crazy. Like, Paul F. Tompkins tweeted, like, I have no idea what this is and I don't want anyone to tell me. But it was, like, surprising people.

That's what I mean. Not even, like, 15-year-olds, but, like, people who were... Yeah. So, it's an old, old film. Whatever. Don't worry about the remake part. It's a rom-com that,

with, like, two stars, I guess, at the moment, that's,'s a rom-com that with like two stars i guess at the moment um that's like kind of high concept like it has like a sort of weird hook to it has like a weird hook to it and did the stars did their careers last or was this really their one and only moment both of their careers the the female leads career is only going Okay. She's on her way to an Oscar. Really? She's a star. Her career now is kind of done, but she definitely, you know,

she's got more to go. A leader supporting. The Oscar? Yeah. Was a supporting win. It was a supporting... But she played many lead roles. Is it Penelope Cruz?

No. No. The male lead... It's so beautiful how non-existent this film is. You've never heard of this film. No. The male lead is, I would call, a 90's star who never quite popped, but certainly was around.

And now he's a TV guy. Now he's hardcore TV. So TV. Is it a Chris O'Donnell movie? Oh. Well done. Speaking of NCIS, LA, right?

I know exactly what film this is. It truly does not exist. You telling me to not think about the remake. If I said the director's name, it would, I wouldn't be, I'd be like, cause he doesn't exist.

He doesn't, you telling me to forget. Tell me what it's a remake of. It's a remake of, uh, uh, seven chances. Correct.

Well, your, your boy film yep that was the thing that would have made me figure out this movie i was trying to put you off the trail well fuck you the movie's called the bachelor and chris o'donnell and renee zellweger correct and it was kind of her comeback after jerry mcguire she had been like quiet for a couple years i guess that's true i remember the local news in new york doing a segment no kidding yeah remember the only real big movie she'd been in was One True Thing. Right. That was sort of her

comeback. And there was like a fucking CBS 2 news story that was like, remember her? And they played the Jerry Maguire clip. Can I read you the rest of the cast in The Bachelor? The premise of the movie is he will inherit a million dollars if he gets married. 100 million dollars

if he gets married. In100 million if he gets married. Inflation. In the next like 30 days or something. Who is the director? Gary Senior. Oh, wow. Okay. I don't know what to tell you.

Here are some... I just want to run down this cast because it's one of those things where it's like a left hook and then a right hook and then like an uppercut. Okay. Hal Holbrook. James Cromwell arty lang ed asner marley shelton peter ustinov what brooke shields wow sarah silverman man what a thing. 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, according to this. 9?

Wow. 9. More than 8. Yeah. That's probably what they said to the director at the time. Yes, which opened to $7 million. It grossed an insider-esque 21. And it's just one of those Chris O'Donnell vehicles, like really... Wow.

Yeah, those don't have a long shelf life. No, they are fake movies that Cameron Diaz cuts trailers to in the holiday. I'm looking at the other films that Andy Signore directed. He did Stiff Upper Lips, which was like the parody of British manners dramas. Do you remember that? No. It was like someone trying to make a Zucker Brothers film about Merchant Ivory movies. Okay, okay.

Called Stiff Upper Lips. Sure. make a zucker brothers film about merchant ivory movies okay okay stiff upper lips and then he also directed uh bob the butler which is a high concept family comedy in which tom green becomes a butler that's how i'm sold starts a bumbling buffoon who after landing at butling after working his way through all the other a to b jobs okay um a seinfeld pilot yeah tom greenberg the butler uh number five at the box office four is the insider is um a a good movie i think um from a director who's still working uh it's like uh i guess like a romantic drama sort sort of comedy drama, that's like kind of the best example of this kind of movie. Aimed at a particular audience. A young audience?

A lot of great actors. Sure. Sort of a coming of age movie, kind of like becoming a grown up movie. It's like a wedding movie. It's in 1999. Is it The Best Man? The Best Man. Directed by?

Malcolm T. Lee. Correct. Yeah. Because like that, I feel like every like awesome young black actor of the late 90s is in that movie. Perrineau, Diggs, Howard. Terrence Howard.

Regina Hall. Regina Hall, Morris Chestnut, Harold Perrineau. Who else we got? Nia Long. Nia Long. Sanaa Lathan. Yes. Sanaa Lathan. Yes. Sanaa Lathan.

I think Sanaa, yeah. Great, great, great. One of those sort of underrated 99 movies. And yes, of course, they got a sequel many years later. That's it. So yeah, that's your box office. I mean, what else you got?

You got Double Jeopardy. Yeah. Which is a huge hit that no one remembers. Tell me how much Double Jeopardy made. 117. 116. How does he do it? He's such a nerd.

That's the one with Ashley Judd. Ashley Judd and Tommy Lee Jones. And who's the guy she's pretending, the guy who faked his own death. Right. Because the premise is she went to jail for killing him, but he actually never died. Yeah, murder isn't always a crime, as we all know.

Right. It is Bruce Greenwood. We've also got American Beauty, which I guess won Best Picture. We've got The Sixth Sense. A blockbuster that makes like $170 million domestic. 130. Really? American Beauty.

What did it do worldwide? 356. That's crazy. Yeah. Why did American Beauty play so well overseas? worldwide? 356. That's crazy. Why did American Beauty play so well overseas? So well. I mean, it was the movie of our time. I guess so. The movie of the moment. I guess everyone knows what a plastic bag is. Spoken truth. Fight Club is up there.

Music of the Heart. Wes Craven's Music of the Heart. That's it. We're done. Wow. Right? Yeah. No, we are. Any final thoughts, Andy? No, just thank you guys very much. Oh, thank you for paying any attention to us idiots and coming to our show. It was great.

Right? Yeah. No, we are dumb. That is a fact. That is a fact. That's a fact. We're dumb. We're two dumb boys.

We are dumb. We're dumb boys, but we're also the two friends. We are the two dumb, dumb friends. I was, by the way, I was this close. For those of you at home, I'm holding my thumb and forefinger very close together right now. Very close. Near inch apart. I'd say even less than an inch.

I think less than an inch. Less than an inch. I was going to have a three friends t-shirt made up. Are you kidding me? That does feel like an Andy stunt. Like I thought maybe it was a little too single white female, so I decided but if you have me back i will do that wow okay um so yeah we will definitely uh have you back on for the uh who's the person we're now joking penny marshall used to be the joke that that was our next mini-series but now we've started but then she kind of slayed yeah

right she was in the march madness but we need a new director we're gonna constantly claim as the next one okay uh i don't know gary senior the bachelor himself uh i don't know we'll have we'll have you back on on uh enter a funny reference of movie and director later gas Gaspar Noé, I don't know. Yeah, sure, the Gaspar Noé series. That's not funny, he's great. Enter the podcast. Whoever directed a Serbian film. Yes, yes.

Yeah, that guy. I love when people keep on asking us if we're ever going to do a miniseries on someone who directed like two movies or one movie. And we're like, or we could just do that one. We wouldn't treat it like a miniseries necessarily. It would just be an episode. Right. This is, we're sort of... We're petering out.

Yeah, definitely. Energy's dipping. It was a very long episode. It was a very long episode. Ben's putting his head on the controls. We're done. We're done. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Please. Thanks to for our social media. Thanks to for our theme song, subscribe. Thanks to Ange for our social media.

Thanks to Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Go to... Ben's eyes are closed. He's like dreaming of another place. The hotel room is changing around him. He's imagining that he's in Russell Crowe's backyard. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. T-Public for some real nerdy shirts.

Patreon for blank check bonus features. You know, follow Andy Levy on Twitter. One of the best. TV's Andy Levy? TV's Andy Levy. One of the best in the game. Is it still TV's Andy Levy? It's not.

Okay. Did you change it? Oh, you know what I'm thinking of? It was TV's Andy Daily was always his Twitter handle. Oh, that is his Twitter. And you are TV's Andy Levy. No, but I used to. But you are just Andy Levy.

That was my nickname. Yeah. Self-given. Right. But now I'm actually a former used to. You are just Andy Lee. That was my nickname for a long time. Self-given. Right. But now I'm actually a former battle angel. I changed my Twitter bio. I was a battle angel for a while. Andy battle angel.

Now I'm a former battle angel. We stand some big eyes on this podcast. It says right now, you're pal Andy. Yeah. Yeah. Former battle angel. Right. Yeah.

Here we go. And let me tell you folks, that name ain't lying. Because he's our pal Andy. He is our pal Andy he's our pal campaigning for the third friend you gave him comedy points all those years ago on air it was huge

that was fun that felt like the first moment that we were legitimized that was when it was all happening for us our minds were blown thank you all for listening tune in next week for Ali. That's right, with Jamel Bowie.

With Jamel Bowie. Yeah. Coming up next week. Very thoughtful and well done episode by Jamel Bowie and not us. You're just going to give him... It's not like we did a good job. There's no tour of next week's episode. It's not any of the people currently in this studio.

We were our usual idiot selves. Two domos. And as always, let me sleep.