Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Last Temptation of Christ with Jamelle Bouie

Episode Date: October 11, 2026

The controversy. The incredible Peter Gabriel score. The Last Temptation of Christ. This week, Jamelle Bouie returns to Blank Check to talk about Scorsese's long-gestating passion project, and David gets to geek out about the history of Christianity. None of us are particularly religious - yet we all find this movie profoundly moving. God bless Marty, man.Get your livestream tickets now and watch our Scorsese-spectacular via live show your fellow Blankies LIVE, or on VOD after (for a limited time).Get Tickets to Blank Check Presents: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie on Sun, Oct 25, 7:30pm at the Refocus Film Festival in Iowa CitySign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on.Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!Buy some real nerdy merchConnect with other Blankies on our Reddit or DiscordFor anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If I was a woodcutter, I'd cut. If I was a fire, I'd burn. But I'm a podcast. And I love. That's good. I like that a lot. I like that a lot. Thank you.

That was the one I figured you would do. And I think it's a very good, uh, Willem. I was doing older Willem. Christ Willem. I was doing older, I'll admit. It's hard to do young Willem. I'm something of a woodcutter myself. I'm something of a woodcutter myself.

I feel like I lost it on that one. Yeah. Is that always funny? I think it is, right? Even though Marvel tried to ruin it by obviously, like, making it like an applause line in the Spider-Man movie, they can't ruin it. I'll say part of what makes it funny is actually, I mean, as a line, it's funny, but it's the face he's making. Yep. The kind of, like, very sort of like, oh, I'm just your friendly neighborhood, Norman Osborne.

We did a Ramey Spider-Man with you, obviously. it was one of those things that Ramey just understood of just like, when to ask Willem Defoe to smile. Beyond that, as Spider-Man has been back in the discourse and people are talking about the new movie, people will always post the fight in the first Spider-Man. Yes. Where they're just fucking wailing on each other in the churchyard or whatever.

And people are just like, nothing looks like this anymore in these comic book movies where they're just being the shit out of each other. And you're like, yeah, that rocked. Yeah. Take me back. Return. You know what else? I mean, the thing we were surprised by re-watching that movie is there's no fight in that film that lasts longer than like 90 seconds. Like, Spider-Man 2 broke that wall of, oh, shit.

There are amounts of money now invested in letting these fight sequences go on for 10 minutes. And when you got to the subway sequence, it felt thrilling. But that church fight is so short. It's just brutal and it's direct. It's brutal. And it feels because the brutality gives it like these real stakes, like, oh, he'll kill Spider-Man if he can't. He will. He's crazy. I'll say this. But I will say also this.

Yeah. When the military is like, we don't want to do your gobbling glider and instead we have like, and then they roll out the worst guy you've ever seen. Yes, horrendous. He's got, he's like this. Dumb goggles. Yeah. And they're like, we're going to. If I'm Norman Osborne, I also am like, the hell, guys. I built this company. Yeah. My thing is objectively better than this thing. Yes. Are they just doing a coup because he's crazy? Is that what it is? It's like, you're kind of too crazy. I don't know how to tell you this. You can. I tell you this. You can. I tell you. got kind of like a Willem Defoe vibe that's unsettling everyone. It is... I didn't foresee Willem Norman talk, but I should have. Of course. We had to.

No, because it's... Obviously, Willem Defoe gets used so much now the last 25 years as a villain and or an old coot. Oh, he's a rent-a-cout. Right. Aquaman was kind of like... It's sort of almost coot, but it's the rare, like, he's neither villain nor coot. That's an attempt at a...

at a Gary Oldman, Jim Gloverman. Yeah, mentor. Right. I would, I mean, I would cast, I mean, speaking of old Kud, someone should make an old prospector movie, cast Wilhelm Defoe. Wow. That's the prospector. Live action, Woody's Roundup, put Willem Defoe in a fat suit,

have him play Stinky Pete. He really is. He's going Coot mode. He's going Coot mode. But this is to say, it just is wild to watch this film from 1987? 1988, is it not? Yes. 1980.

And to be like, he was perfect as Jesus. Yeah. Well, I mean... So beautiful. Yes. My understanding is that Scoresi had seen him in Platoon. Correct.

Where he plays a very sensitive... Right. He's an innocent. Almost. Right. Yeah. And spiritual. Right.

Yeah. No, that's a good point. Like, it was a different Willem. But part of him in Platoon is like, is this guy a little scary. There's even... Sure. ...topping into that. Which this movie is, in a way, in a really smart way.

Yes, of course. Absolutely. Is he crazy? The whole thing is... And, God, this is going to be like a blasphemous episode or whatever. I know. But, like, obviously, one must consider if Jesus Christ was mentally ill. Like, if one, not in this movie so much, but, yeah, that's an...

Well, some of these miracles I watch and I go, Jesus, you're crazy for that one. One of my favorite Wikipedia articles, because of the image they use, one of my favorite Wikipedia articles, Mental Health of Jesus. He looks sad. Where they have picked a very sad 15th century painting of him looking very, very, very, very... That is such a frown. Yeah. The question of whether the historical Jesus was in good mental health is a subject of consideration for psychologists, historians, and writers.

I mean, I guess that makes sense. I'm willing to grant Jesus good mental help. But I think of, like, authors of the Christian Bible who were clearly insane, I'm thinking John of Patmos, who wrote the Revelation of St. John, but we know it's the book of Revelations. What do you mean? Book of Revelations, this just, that's just, that's just a blockbuster shit. That's just great. One thing the movie, I mean, I imagine I'll talk about this a ton. But one of the things that I actually, if I'm really interesting about the movie,

is how much it's trying to capture the strangeness of the ancient Near East. You said this. I noticed this on Letterbox. It's like making it an alien place in a way. And one of the things that's true to fact is that there were lots of people who were like, I am the Messiah. There were lots of people who were like, crazy things are happening in the world around. us. It's clearly the end times. I am the Messiah. And when we meet Jesus in the film,

we're meeting him constructing a cross for the crucifixion of one of these people. Yes. Right. Right. And that's the immediate anger that they start the movie with Jesus doing something that his disciples would find unforgivable. I prefer to the Mel Gibson Passion of the Christ thing where Jesus makes, it seems like, is it the first chair in existence? Oh, yeah. Where you see him kind of knock a chair together and he's like, hmm. The first lazy boy. He invented chairs. Anyway, moving on.

That's part of Zemeckis is here, right? That you see Jesus making the first chair and then it turns into the first lazy boy. And here was a, obviously, that was a chair heavy film. Hey, Devere, it's crazy. The guy who made us his chair, got crucified. For the chair? No, no, no. The chair was good.

The chair was good. The chair was pretty good. I liked you saying that and I was, I watched, I will admit, I watched this movie twice last night. Hell yeah, man. I watched it. I watched it and then I saw the Criterion. I had their commentary track, their vintage commentary track on the Criterion channel. And I said, let me throw that on.

And it's intercutting between Cox, Schrader, Scorsese, and Defoe. What were you about to say, David? I'm just watching the chair scene. He truly is like, I fucking invented something cool for how to eat at a table. It's a chair. That movie is so bananas. Did stools exist, but not chairs? I don't know.

No one had thought to put a back on a stool. That's my question. When were chairs invented? Was it the legs were the intervention? Ancient Egypt in around 2,800 BC. So no, they beat Jesus to that one. Trader said this thing. People evolved stools by adding a back.

That's how the chair was invented. That makes sense. Mostly for pharaohs, though. Trader said this thing that if you read of that time, people believed they were witnessing supernatural things on a near daily basis. that that was part of the weirdness of the time. What were we seeing these guys? What was the supernatural stuff they were seeing?

Oh, Jesus ripping his heart out. Yeah, that's a crazy thing. No, I'm serious. You know, right? Like, we're talking about, like, the weather? We're talking about animals. No about science. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what they would have been seeing, but Traders, I mean, Traders read on that is right. I mean, the thing about the movie is that I actually went to try to do some research in this and I couldn't find anything. But, like, it clearly is informed by sort of modern biblical stuff. Like just as someone who study religious studies in college. Like there's a lot.

There's a lot in here that's sort of like, someone read a book about first century Judea before they did this movie. Well, and also that Scorsese grew up obsessive biblical epics, always going to make a biblical epic. When he originally planned this movie, it was supposed to be more of a classical biblical epic. And then there's this blessing and disguise of being told, you can do this right now if you can make it for $7 million.

all in and whatever it was 45, 50 days of filming, something like that. And he had to scale it down and it becomes a small town movie. It becomes a ground level movie. Which I do think changes the way these stories are told. I think it's so much better. Because even most modern faith-based tellings of the Bible look closer to this than the 40s and 50s epics. Right, sure. Closer to this.

Yeah. In a weird way. when you think about this being like the most sacrilegious movie of all time when it was released Which is crazy to me, but we'll talk about it. I'm so happy you have this take as well because I was watching this and I was like, am I just dumb? Am I just dumb for thinking? I would get where they're coming from. The first 90 minutes is lighter on sacrilege.

It's the last hour people were more upset about it. But even though, people were more just upset when they heard about it, though. It's not like they watched the movie. No. Right. Yeah. Even the last hour is only sacrilegious if you're an idiot. I would agree with that.

But I'm no expert on it. I probably live my life being very sacrilegious. I'm the most sacrilegious person alive, but I did think watching this, this feels very respectful to Jesus Christ. This makes him a guy I like. Yes, that is for sure. This movie makes me pretty on his side. But you know what?

It's also a movie about how people really got riled up about Jesus since he was around. And so I guess it's not surprised that people got riled up because the movie's like, yeah, see? people have always been fucking riled up about this guy. He just makes people go low- talking about him riles people. It's true. And we're going to have zero trouble talking about him today on blank check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin. I'm David. Wow. This is a podcast about faith, about deep spirituality, and about filmography, as directors who have massive success early on in their careers

and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they get denounced by the church. Maybe he? Sure. This is the second time Martin Scorsese feared for his life, third?

Are we talking about his general health or just kind of like people being after him? Great question. Okay. So if we're talking about his general health, this is like the one million. Yeah, he seems to me to be quite neurotic about that. A little sickly, a little neurotic, did too many drugs, you know, at a certain point in his life. What's the other? Well, I guess there was a lot of hand ringing around taxi driver.

Sure. There was some. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And then what was the Academy Award ceremony? Oh, it was the Raging Bull Year. That ceremony happens the day after the William Hinkley.

Oh. So he was freaked out that he was going to get attacked next. Yes, that, right. 1980 Oscars are delayed because of the assassination attempt on wrong. Oh, yeah. Okay. I guess I kind of get it. Still.

I agree. I agree. I think people should chill out. I think Martin Scorsese is good at making movies. And we should be grateful that he makes them for us. I mean, I don't know if the podcast can handle that kind of incendiary content, Griffin. You're saying he's good at making movies. I mean, come on now.

I'm ready to rouse some rebels here today. I will also say I had this thought while watching the movie. The fucking cohoney's on him to make this thing. As much as I just said that I think people's outrage around this was kind of stupid, this is like, he knew what he was fucking getting into. He claims he doesn't. He didn't, though. 15 years of his life.

I know. Like, tilting at this windmill, beyond the fact that this was just going to be an impossibly difficult movie to make for an asthmatic. Sure. Oh, that's sand. Horrible conditions. True. I just given, I can't think of a modern filmmaker who would take this big of a risk. Had you seen this film before, Greg?

I had not. This was my first time watching. Okay. And Jamel, I assume you had seen this film before. Yes, I've seen this a couple times. And introduce our guest place. This is a mini series on the films of Martin Scorsese, who I think makes good films. Yep.

Crazy boy. It's called Podcast Fellas. it is not called the pod the cast temptation of pod no cast temptation of the pod people wanted that but today we are talking about bringing the pot out the castes

I mean bringing up the dead I love that I love that it's a good movie yeah but it would people would think it was pretty absurd of us to name our Marksgrisci series after bringing out the dead

as much as I love this film podcast fellas is what we are it's who we are at our core today we're talking about the last temptation of Christ his most controversial film I suppose

I don't know Kundun maybe because of the Chinese government If you're going by pure numbers I guess you could go for Kundu But I don't know how many actual Chinese people Were mad about Kundu Like I don't really reached

The general populace We show up in Shanghai What do you think about Kundun? I'm not sure It was a he has people protesting Outside the theater movie though Yeah What was I

Was there protests about a movie? movie in the last couple years. I remember being at Lincoln Center and like there were some nuns protesting a movie. And it was like six nuns. Yes. You know, it was like really. Oh, it was, um, Benadetta. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, I was not like, disturbed at all. It was like, you're mad about this. Like, there's so much to be bad about it. I think we made this point in our episode where we were like, it kind of shows that they just can't be bothered anymore. Yeah. It was like six months being like, you know, tits in a Jesus movie. And I was like, yeah, sure. You. You. You know, it's like, you. you guys do your thing. I'll see you later.

And Verhoeven said, Don't worry, give me the money. It's going to be a normal movie about none. They will wear clothes over their breasts. Give me the money. No, they don't. Just kidding. The teacher on display all the time. So we're here to talk about the Last Intuition of Christ.

One of my favorite Marty movies. Jamel Bowie. Big movie for me. Oh, yes. The great Jamel Bowie. Our friend from the New York Times returned to the show far too long. It's been a minute. What was the last episode? The Hunt for Red October.

The Hunt for Red October. Well, that's a pretty good movie. Yeah. Very similar films. Very similar films. Well, I mean, you know, I, I check in... Yeah. True.

Late 80s or the... Yeah. Hun for October, I think is 90. I think so. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. I check in on the Discord and stuff and people were like, well, what is Jamel going to be back? Who obviously be back for Master and Commander.

I'm not worried about that. No, I don't know. I think it's funny that it's sort of like, well, he did hunt for a red October. He's got to do the other book. What ocean movie? They're making you a boat guy. He went under the sea. Now he made.

must go atop. Yeah. How many more boat movies are in our future? We'll do Tony Scott, Crimson Tide. Yeah, you'll do the entire Venom trilogy on Patreon. Because you're our chief venom correspondent. Yeah, chief venom correspondent. That is one of my proudest bit runs we've ever done on this show, not to pat ourselves on the back, but Eddie Brock reporter. Oh, yeah. People ring that up all the time. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, we need him back right now. Eddie? Yeah. He blow this white open. Look what's going on. Like, Matt, putting Eddie with like Heske.

You know what I mean? Just matching those wits. Like that'd be fun. Oh God. Eddie interviewing lettuce. What? Let me ask you one more question. Why are you giving people diarrhea?

Why are you making everyone poop? Pete, where are the missiles at? Where are our missiles go? Just point them out to me. I had a friend who had the poop thing, the lettuce thing. My sister had it.

Yeah, your sister had it too. Notable credit. And I was like, oh man, what'd you eat? She was like, well, I went on a hike and we ate some lettuce out of a bag. Oh, come on. And I was like, wow, that probably, that might be the culprit there. It was not the cleanest, like, detective work impossible. I wasn't even like I went to Taco Bell and I, like, you know, got like a lettuce, yeah, rap or whatever.

I don't know. I know Taco Bell was affected. Yeah. But do you think Taco Bell was actually quietly celebrating being like, it's not just us anymore? Yeah, right, right, right, right. It's the fucking leaves. It's not our fault. We've, we've actually moved down the diet.

Diarrhea rankings. I mean, I've said this before, not on this podcast, but I've said in places. If Taco Bell gives you diarrhea, you're not eating enough fiber. This is true. It's so often the case that it's like, right, like the mistake was made before. Yeah. I haven't had Taco Bell in a while. I get, so when I go grocery shopping on Sundays, it's a Taco Bell right by the grocery store.

And I just go by myself. So my Sunday, my Sunday treats at myself is Taco Bell for lunch. But what do you get? I get a chalupa with beans. and I get either a cheesy or did a crunch with beans. I always veganize everything. Or I get

if you get like a bean and rice and cheese burrito, you can get it fresco style with their cheese and they put like the salsa in there and then you can ask for it grilled. Oh. And that's pretty good. The customizable. I haven't been there in a while.

Yeah. I think I need to. And the menu hasn't changed much, right? Like Taco Bell sort of in a... They're constantly throwing things on. I mean, there was stuff that got backlash for being pulled from the menu that they've started working back in. They're doing a lot of throwback

menu stuff. There's some classics. Come back. God, they always have us on the treadmill these fuckers. They do. They do. Here's what I tried the other day that was very good. The Taheen cheesy gourdita brown. You know, I saw that on their website and that did look pretty good. For the listener at home

because we're not a video podcast, what I just saw is... Ben did a sort of a... Three sets of eyebrows hit the ceiling. Damn. No, that sounds good. There was a collective... Ooh. It was good. It's like instead of Doritos Locos, it's a taching chas on us.

You could do that vegan sauce. You're smiling. Yeah. I've never seen you smile at Spick. Hey, listen, man, I just want to live moss. That's all I want my life. You can do it. We're trying our best to live moss. The world is not moss right now.

I wake up every morning and I push myself to think outside the bun. That's all I do. So, um, this is an episode on the, Last Temptation of Christ? We're talking about Last Temptation of Christ. It's a big movie for me, a big, like, David Watson in college while he was, like, studying the Bible as literature, you know, where I was like, this is my favorite Marty. I'm so clever.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like, I'm making fun of college, David. Sure. It's not still your favorite, but at the time. I think Goodfellas is the best Scorsese. Yeah. I, you know, as I get older, yeah, I'm sort of like, fucking some of these things. Good fellas.

That's how I feel about taxi driver. That's fine. I think those are both right. Right. He's, yeah. This is right up there for me. But I think it's a very special movie and this movie I've shown to friends over the years. And I think this movie is, it's not like a slog exactly, but it's a bit of a slow starting movie. And you're in it for a while being like, wait, I thought this was controversial. And instead I feel like I'm just watching a Jesus biopic. I'm just watching the Bible. And then, of course, it has, you know, the last temptation of Christ happened in the last act of the movie. and that's intriguing. And then the end comes,

and I've had this experience with a few friends where they are suddenly very moved by it and struck by the ending. I find the ending so incredibly moving. It is so transcended. I think it's one of the most transcendent things he ever captured.

And I'm getting worked up just thinking about it. And I listen to Peter Gabriel's score for this all the time. I also think this is... One of us influential film scores ever? It totally is. I think this is also like...

And we haven't maybe even talking about this because we've mostly recorded so far 70s, Marty, I guess. No, we've done mostly 80s. We've done all the 80s, too, right. This will finish the 80s. Right. We've gone relatively in order. His 70s movies, to me, I'm just kidding.

You know, it's Mean Streets, Alice, taxi driver, New York, New York, and I'm counting raging both. Like, they all feel... 79 production 80 release. Partly, it's the De Niro, you know, is running through a lot of them and, like, street level, raw, right? You know, like, even though New York, New York's a little... You know what I'm saying.

Yep. And then, like, his 80s canon, which I love so much, which is King of Comedy After Hours, Color of Money, and this. This feels, this is such an 80s movie. Yes. Yes. You forgot one other credit. Go ahead. So much cocaine.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the cocaine is running. He's trying to kick it, I guess. It's more 70s. Like, Raging Bull is him kind of being like, okay. I got a, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and but this is like, even though this film is obviously an ancient period piece, it feels so 80s to me in the best way.

Yeah. The score. The looks, the cast, the cast, the weird, like, eclectic, you know, the special effects. Like, I love all of that about it. And I love Marty's 80s. Because his 90s, that's where he's, like, you know, Baroque, right? Like, that's what's like, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Ate of Innocence and Kundoon are a little, you know. He's playing the studio game a little more.

But, like, bringing out the depth of movies that are just, like, super high emotion, long, crazy, you know. And then, so I'm, I kind of. I'm very fond of his smaller 80s. And then 2000s is prestige. For 2000s is the Oscar chase. It's right. It's, Gangston, New York Aviator, departed. That's it.

I think that's his entire 2000s. Because Shutter Island is 10 or 11? Right. And then, like, his 2010s are like beyond Baroque. Victory. Shutter Island, Hugo, Wolf of Wall Street. Again, silence. That's sort of...

Sure. You know, an Irishman. Like, these are like... Where he's like, you can't say no. Like, I can do whatever I want. Every movie's three and a half hours long. Yeah. The performances are so dialed up.

Like, I love these movies. Yes, same. They're great. What's your, what's your Marty history, Jamal? My Marty history. My Marty history is just years ago, maybe 10 years ago now. I just sat down. I was like, you know, I've seen Goodfellas a bunch, but I just sat down and I was like, I'm going to watch every single Marty Scorsese movie.

You're like David, where you like a watch project. Yeah. Yeah. So I just, over the course of that year, it was 2017, I just watched every Marty movie. and came away first like I mean this feels it feels so cliche to say but I just like

Marty Schwarz says he's great I came away thinking There's something going on with this guy You? Yeah Me to Marty I had a similar experience recently I went through a big

Duke Gellington thing and I was just listening to nothing but Duke Gallington for months And at some point I just thought to myself I was like Duke Gellington fucking rocks And like, on the one hand, it's like, well, of course he does. He's the most influential American musician, arguably, of the 20th century.

But the scale of influence and his importance can sometimes lead you to almost underrate these people. It's like when you drink a really cool glass of water on a hot summer day. Right. And you're like, wait a second. Water is fucking awesome. Right. Like, I take this for granted. Yo.

You need to just a good. Glass of water. I think, I think Marty gets taken for granted. It's taken for granted. Sometimes. That we have, we have this guy making movies. Yes. And then if you just sit and watch his stuff, you're like, it's remarkable that this man has this longevity.

Yes. Has produced this much excellent work. Has this much to say. Endless amounts. Maybe I need to listen to some Duke telling you. You really got to. I don't like that guy. Anyway.

So that's basically my, like my history with Scraussetzi is I, I spent a year watching all of his movies, came to really love the work. The Last Temptation is one of the ones that I was particularly struck by both as a kid who grew up going to church. Somebody still kind of goes to church. But also also from the level of, my main knowledge of the movie was that it was controversial. Yeah. And then to go in and actually see it and just to kind of be like, I don't understand what's controversial about this. If you just like heard about this movie like on the street or whatever Sure

You were like okay so is about like Jesus And he's like rolling big dice and he fucks hookers Right smoking fatty He's just like drives a big car Like where they're just like oh is he just like in a gangster movie Like because they're just making it sound like it's like Oh it's disgusting what like you know it's like this filthy movie You hear about this horrid film

Jesus drives a big car That was one of your eight examples He's like a gangster in a big car. You know, what? Like a mini-coop, certainly. No big! I'm sorry. We can talk about it.

But had you seen this movie before? No, I'd never seen it. What's your relationship with JC? Yeah. Your dad's, your dad raised you kind of like no religion, right? Yeah, yeah, right. Totally atheist. I've never really been to church.

I've obviously been for weddings. Yeah, yeah. But I've never sat through. No, but if you try to cross the threshold, you'd thrown out by a number. That's true. I've never been able to actually get through the door right. And a voice goes, I cast me out. You shall not pass.

But I do come from a Catholic family. My mom's side of the family, extremely Catholic. Almost a saint in your lineage. There's almost a saint. Oh, he's like trying to get that miracle. Almost a saint. Yeah. In my, in my mom's side of my family.

What's his name? Father McGinley. McGivley. McGivney. McGivney. Michael McGivney. John C. John C.

John Steve McGiffney One of the great J.C. 's McGinley. They're like, the original scrubs is recognized as a miracle. The reboot. We're waiting to see

if the boat approved. Yeah, he's blessed. Yes, he's currently blessed. We'll see, you know, fingers crossed. Yeah. But my dad was such

extreme atheist that he also really was against me learning anything about the Bible. So really all I know is from that Rugrats episode. Yep.

Oh, with the Hanukkah episode. The Maccababab. Amazing. That's how many people. God. They're like, ancient history lessons from like Arthur, Rugrats,

like, that Rugrats episode might be one of the most important like modern Jewish texts. When they had the little like the little sort of Bedouin hats. Yes. We were just talking to a friend of the podcast,

John Bass, the other night. Uh-huh. And we were, comparing stories, I forget what I said, but the moment in your childhood that you felt proud to be a Jew for the first time, rather than, like, kind of embarrassed. And he was like,

Regrette's Passover. That was the turning point. The 90s are very heavy on, like, let's actually have sort of Jewish characters. Yes. Say they're Jewish. Right. Right? And then be like, friends has that too. And piss their pants and fall down a flight of stairs. As I have always said, two pickles, is a hot

guy. Regress is very, it's, it's it was a big win for the people. Yeah. Rugrats is good. I'm trying to ruin that again soon. Like Ryan Gosling will make a Rugrats movie or something. They rebooted it with HitMaker.

They did? Yeah. It's like completely over my head. Wait, really? Yeah. Tim's in it. They did a CGI Rugrats that our friend Tim Simons was in. Who was he?

He was. Angelica? No, was he Drew Pickles maybe? I'm looking up. Possibly. Anyway, I'll just say that now later in life, I feel very much left out from these stories and these reference points. Yeah.

But I can't really bring myself around to reading the thing. I can open the good book. It's really hard. The B-I-B-L-E? Yeah. It's long, too. The basic construction before leaving Earth, as we learned on liquid swords. Yes.

No one, no one, no, no. No, I love liquid swords. Last track of liquid-sourge, Bible. Oh, you? Jim L. You've read the Bible, or at least. Yeah, yeah. I am, you know, I'm a, I'm a raised religious. I was raised religious.

I'm an African American from the South. I was raised religious. My parents are from the South as well. Yeah, I grew up going to church every Sunday and then took an academic interest in Christianity in college. So I have more than my fair share. I mean, and also just like by virtue of being somebody studies, U.S. history and like early American history, you kind of have to be somewhat fluent. in Christian theology and like the Bible just because like that's a major reference point. Like you can't you kind of can't properly understand 17th century America, for example,

if you're not like at least somewhat fluent. Sure. In Protestantism, Calvinism, Calvin. Like you need to know something. So yeah, that's that's my like religious background slash like knowledge of the Bible. Although the interesting thing about this movie is it's very Catholic. Like it's not surprisingly. It's despite, I mean, Paul Schrader wrote it.

It is a Dutch Calvinist. He's a Dutch Calvinist, right. But there isn't, and it's written by a Greek. Yeah, I think a Greek Orthodox. Yes, the novel. I know it's written by a Greek person. Yes, the original book. Like the straight, the strater of it is far more, I think, like, vibe and mood.

Sort of like, you know, when you have, when you have Jesus riding on the ground with a voiceover about how is how his life is terrible and he's tormented by his own minds. Oh, yeah. A little Schrader in it. Paul Schrader wrote this, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Man in a room. But the aesthetics of it are.

extremely Catholic. What do you make of? And then we can talk about this movie. This is what I ask anyone who's read the dang Bible. Because it's crazy. You read that thing? Griff, no. I haven't.

I'm like Ben, where I feel left out on this part of culture that most people just kind of have in their back pocket. We were, I would say, like, in honesty, a fairly agnostic family.

Sure. But felt the need to go through the Jewish traditions out of a cultural tradition. That's what my family did too, exactly. So I went to synagogue a fair amount. You know, there were a year. where it was only on the big holidays,

there were years where my parents were trying to be the type of family that went every Sunday. Because there's a social element. There's a kind of a, yeah, community element. Right. But the Old Testament I have in my head. We call it the O.T. I'm sorry. The O.T. Yeah, because we have to call the

original trilogy the O.T. That's right. That's the most important. Which is my old testament. Of course. Well, ironically, my Old Testament's the prequel trilogy, the P.T. But yes, no. so much of the story of Jesus

I just, I only know in sort of like, truly like comedy reference points. Right, right. Like enough to make my way through an improv scene. Jim, how does anyone deal with the fact? Because I didn't realize this so I studied the Bible sort of like in college. Like, there's the gospels, right? And Matthew Mark, Luke and John.

Matthew Mark and Luke are all like, yeah, this is what happened. We all basically agree. And John's like, no. No, it's all different, baby. Yeah. My version's different. And everyone's like, and that's, you know, that's, that's the story.

And you're like, wait, what do you mean? That's the story. They disagree. And they're like, I don't know. Like, that's just how it got written down. Growing up, there was no sense that there were tensions in the gospel accounts. Right. No sense that like, you know, the Pauline epistles are in a lot of ways like a fundamentally different thing than the gospels.

Like, there's all treated as just a single unified whole. Like, this is the Bible. And there's not really like temporal. or like theological this thing just made. But of course, as you point out, yeah. Like, John's just different. Like Matthew, Mark and Luke, there's a, I'm not sure if it's still hypothetical or if they know it existed, but they can't find it.

But there's basically sort of like a gospel that does not exist. But there's enough similarities between the Mark, Matthew Mark and Luke accounts that, and even like language that there's assumed to be, I think it's called Q, like a missing gospel that is maybe the source text for these other three. The Q source. Yeah, the Q source. There's a Q source that was written by someone anonymously? No, it was written by someone.

We just don't. It's like, yeah. It was, it was written. It's like you guys just said. There you go. It was written to torment picard. Oh, of course. Oh, yeah, that's true. Right. He would snap his fingers.

If someone would get a cigar and it'd be very funny. Wear a funny hand. But, um, and I believe it's like Mark is chronologically believed to be the first gospel written. Right. Then Matthew and Luke. Yes.

Yeah, but then John. But then John's just completely different. And even like, theologically, it's, I mean, John feels influenced by sort of, like, the Gnostic traditions that pop up, uh, in the,

in the century or so after the death of Christ. And it's like a very, it's a very different thing. Uh, but I, I, I, I,

I, I, I knew until basically, like, I took a class. Right. On sort of, like, the historical Bible,

right? Like, let's unpack this thing as, like, a piece of historical literature. I just, I remember this is in that great graphic novel Blankets. Remember that book? One of my favorite books of all time.

Unsurprisingly. Right, where it's about how Craig Thompson has this moment where he starts getting more into the Bible. He grew up very religious. And starts asking those kinds of questions. And the priest is like, yeah, it's very interesting. And like, let me tell you more about it. And yes, like, let me tell you that.

And then that shatters everything for him. He's like, wait a second. So you guys know this? Like, that like different people wrote the Bible? and like that it's you know kind of a so and then he's just like he couldn't get past it like it's yeah yeah but um i find the bible so interesting i find jc pretty interesting chasse uh and i find this movie wonderful but like it but like it's just like it's just i get i immediately get so as i guess my brain is like just so caught up on the history of it

where i'm like why did he catch on like when no one else you know like caught on in the same way. Why was this it? I had a professor in college who this was like one of her questions to us that was like it's kind of an unanswerable question. Because his life is brief and obviously his life is a rebel is even briefer. Right. Yeah.

But it's it's that's like the question like why why this guy? You know there are a lot of in as as you mentioned the film shows this. There are a lot of messiahs hanging around. A lot of people it's a hot time. A lot of you know messianic cults all sorts of things. And

this is the guy who catches on such that like in a couple hundred years the religion that develops out of his life and teachings becomes like the official state religion of the of the state that killed him right like pretty well pretty quickly right pretty quickly yeah and like i was reading about the first so this in this movie like when jesus gets old right and then they're they're burning down thing you know there's this moment kind of late in the movie where people start running and they're like they're fucking the romans are fucking everything up uh that's like the first Judean rebellion, which is sort of like this big moment where the Judeans like rise against Rome and get crushed. And it's sort of the beginning of the end for like Judea. Like before then

Judea was this place, you know, where the Romans were in charge where they were kind of like, do your thing. And then after that it starts to be over. I was in Rome and I saw the, um, the arch that depicted them attacking Jerusalem and taking all of the treasures back. And they destroy the second temple and all this shit. Yeah. Yeah. But like, so I'm reading about that. And then I'm sort of scrolling back and I'm being like, so where's Jesus and all this? And it's like, it's like, it's 35 years ago. But like there's nothing in the historical record basically beyond like, yeah, we also killed that guy. Yeah, I mean.

They kill him and then they're like, oh, and it really causes us a lot of problems. There's, my understanding is it like the historical record. There are the existence of Jesus is attested to by basically multiple, there are multiple sources. There are like, there is this guy. His name was Jesus. He was from Nazareth. He had a following behind him. He was kind of weird.

He was crucified. But, you know, he was kind of weird. He was kind of weird. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was like a record, like, the things around him. Someone wrote in a big tab of like weird. Strange guy. He taught me it was okay to be weird in a lot of ways.

He did go on Pete Holmes' pocket. He did. I'm sorry. Jesus made it weird. He sold brain powder. Right. There's a little bit of record or whatever. Possibly, yes.

And there's enough to basically say this guy existed. That's like actually not really debated anymore. Right. Right. Just as a historical man. Right. Yes. But it's like, yeah. he wasn't of any particular significance to Roman authorities.

Right. It's not like missives are being sent of like, oh my God, we should not have crucified this guy. Everyone's mad. It's starting a religion that's going to fuck us up. It's what's so fascinating about the Pontius Pilots thing. I was just about to say. Yes. Which is just treated as like, oh my God, what's this next meeting? Right. Can I say, when the first time I saw that movie, I was so struck by that performance.

Bowie's incredible. It's like five minutes. And Bowie is just, it's exact. It's exasperated, tired bureaucrat. Like somewhat superior in a way that really works for like a pop star. And he's not in front of a full council. It's like he's taking one meeting in a side room with this guy. Yeah.

And he wants to help him. He wants to be like, I don't relax. There's no reason for me to have to kill you here. Right. You know, you can go home. I want a three day weekend. You want a three day weekend. And I'll say what was striking coming, somebody grew up going to church.

And the cry story as I was taught it, Pontius Pilate is like a great. great villain, right? And so to portray him in this very humanistic, recognizable way as simply a person who he is a bureaucrat, nothing more, nothing less, was really relevatory to me. And then Bowie, Bowie just has like this look of both sort of, this is not a part of my job that I particularly like, kind of compassion for the guy. But also sort of like, oh, that's what you want and that's what you want. I am going to speak out of both sides of my mouth here because, like, my initial thing is it's stupid that people got this fucking offended by this movie. On the other hand, versus what you guys were saying where you watched it and for the first time up until the sort of dream ballet sequence of him imagining what his life could be or being shown some quote unquote version of what he lives that life.

Yes. I think that what the movie suggests is that like, no, he actually. did live an entire life. That entire thing happens. And then, and then at the end, Judas is like, you know what that's Satan, right? That little girl, that's the devil, bro. Straight up. I was clocking things throughout the movie, starting from the beginning that I'm like, if I held a certain set of beliefs and I was so strident in them, I would be offended by this. I get the small things that this is doing. All the small things?

All the small things. That don't feel designed to be incendiary. But like that, there are people who want Pontus Pilate to be a mustache twirling villain. The only way it makes sense to them is that this was a targeted campaign against the most special man

who self-evidently was special from the very beginning and who never had any doubt about anything. From the degree to which this movie so early on, Defoe's performance is just caked in him being uncertain.

Yeah. Which to me is interesting. It's the most I've ever been able to connect to Jesus as a character depicted in a fictional film. But if your belief is, I need this guy to have been perfect. Sure. Placed on earth, immovable. You know, it's the kind of performance that is usually given that is like incredibly stoic and serene and sort of like straight arrow laser focused. Charles Heston. I am Jesus.

Totally. It's a lot of posing and a lot of, you know. I'm trying to make my chin look squareer than it is. He had a great chin that guy. He had an unbelievable jaw. But this is, you cast Defoe, and back to sort of our early discussion at the beginning of the episode, this is a guy where there's going to be a innate sort of tension within the performance. Even if you get the most calm, kind of beautiful era of Defoe you possibly can get and you put him in the lowest register. or possible, there is a little mania inside that guy. Yeah.

And there's an itchiness inside of him. Itchy is good. Yeah. I'm going to open the dossier. Do it. 195. Two years before his death, the Greek author Nikos, Kazan... Let me get this right. Kazan Sackas. I get it my best.

Published the Last Semptation of Christ in his homeland. The novel presented deeply human Christ, contemplating a normal life spent with Mary Magdalene and was instantly controversial. Greek Orthodox Church. tried to excommunicate him. I think he might have died before they even got that done. But they were mad at him. Yeah. And, you know, this is the guy who wrote like Zorba the Greek, like other famous works of Greek literature. Like, he's not like a nobody, but he thinks it was his best novel. An American translation was published in 1960. In 1961, Scorsese, who is an NYU student, I think maybe at that point, hears about it. Given it by a classmate. Just mentions it to him. He says, he, he says, he says, he just mentions it to him. He says he actually didn't read it until David Caradine gave it to him on the set of Boxcar Bertha in 72.

Yes. And then he says he didn't even read it really until like the end of the 70s. So he had the books. He said the commentary that it took him decades to learn how to be a good reader. That he was just like, I grew up in a household without books. My parents both dropped out of grammar school. I learned everything visually. It wasn't until later in my life where I started knowing how to sit down.

actually like focus on a book. There's another book that he likes called King Jesus by Robert Graves. I do not know the book, which is another one he sort of thought about in terms of like, if I ever make like a biblical epic. But he couldn't stop thinking about this because the battle between the spirit of the flesh is something he really understood. Let's also call out. He liked the human, you know, accessible, neurotic Christ.

When Barbara Hershey gives him the book in 72. John Carrady gave to him. But yes, sure. Barbara Hershey's also. They're married. Yes. And Hershey says, you better let me audition to play Mary Magdalene. You did?

Well, we'll get there. Yes. Okay. But it's planted in his head by her. Yes. So he likes the book. This is a Jesus you could sit down with and have a dinner or a drink. So, you know, which is really.

I want my Jesus. That'll help him in the purple space. Yeah, exactly. I got to pick between two Jesuses in November. And the Jesus I want, I can have a beer with them. I don't want the Jesus who orders the gray Poupon who's so stuffy. Exactly. My Jesus doesn't wear earth tones.

No, no. It's a little 2,000 election humor for you kids out there. And my Jesus always shows off his pin with pride. The first Christ's movie he remembers seeing is The Robe. Uh-huh. That's the first Panavision movie, I believe? It's early, like, 50s biblical epic. Yes.

But that was the first widescreen film. Hmm. That's cool. Yeah. Yes. The first film really. least in Cinemascope. Cinema scope. There we go.

So he's long, you know, he's struck by this from a young age. I don't know if you know this, but he grew up Catholic. I do know that. Yeah. That's come up in some of the earlier episodes. But Paul Schrader, as we already pointed out, was a Calvinist, and he was sort of intrigued by, like, what could our sensibilities together produce, right? Like, Paul can strip stuff away.

It's a long book. If you wrote it all down, it's probably more like a six-hour movie. You know what I mean? So he's just like, I needed Paul to kind of, like, sort of sand it down. Because Jay Cox ultimately ends up doing a lot of the work on this movie, along with Spursuze, he doesn't get credit. Schrader says in the commentary, his big thing was to sit down with the book and identify the themes, identify the big scenes, identify the recurring patterns. And then I think a lot of the more detailed work came from Cox and Scorsese later. Paul's first version, apparently, he has Jesus taking his heart out.

He has a literal version of the Last Supper in terms of swallowing the flesh and bloods. of Jesus. I took that out. He says that his most important contribution was the outline. He sort of like listed everything in the book, like three or 400 scenes, and then just like kind of used that approach.

He sort of like was like, what's the most relevant? You know, whatever. Screenwriting stuff. Mary Mother of Jesus is a bigger character in the book. That's not really in the movie at all. I feel like they don't really address her. It's a very Werner Bloom in this who's married to Jay Cox And who's in after hours Yes has been an important figure throughout Scorsese's life

This is her last performance, maybe? I can find out There's something kind of interesting to me Yeah, essentially, yes Her and Barbara Hershey do have similar faces And they are styled somewhat similar in this movie I think there's a really strong resemblance Between the two of them, that's interesting

Okay, so he's got a script They give it to Irvin Winkler United Artists they turn it down King of Comedy is released and Paramount signs on board which we talk about this I think

on our after hours episode and his pitch to them and so it's Katzenberg and Eisner before they go to Disney they're in Georgia Paramount and he says like I want to get to know Jesus better like you know first I was going to be a priest

it didn't work out Katzenberg and I essentially give him the F. Murray Abraham like I don't see a lot of money here and they're not like this is blasphemous but they're just like you want to get to know

Jesus better. It's not really like lighting the world on fire. Yeah. I mean, like, how much money do you want? And that's where Scorsese starts to be like, I can make an intimate character study. Like, don't worry. Like, I do not need like a biblical epic amount of money. But even at that point, it was going to cost almost twice as much as it ultimately did. I think 13. And then it goes up to like 16. Yes. Jay Cox comes aboard. They thought the script was too arty. So they want him to make it a little more regular. The budget

starts to go up. The religious groups start to catch wind of what this project is. They start to get angry. The protests were so immediate that they scared off Paramount from making the movie the first time. Aidan Quinn, of course, is the original choice for Jesus. He's got a Jesus-y

look. But it's, I think, way too obvious. Sure. Yes. But I mean, he was a good actor. He looks like a painting of Jesus. But I don't think he would have had the inner conflict down. Sure. I mean, I don't want to be rude to Aiden Quinn because I'm like, I mean, I've never seen a Aiden Quinn performance where I was like, holy shit. Like, but he's a good actor. I don't know. What's Aiden Quinn in? Legends of the Fall?

Yeah. magical magic. Eric Roberts, which would have been insane. Yeah. He turned it down. I would like to watch the movie made with Eric Roberts. Yeah, that sounds kind of fun, actually. He turned it down because he thought it was too risky. They did consider De Niro. And Trader said that De Niro's response was, I don't. think I can wear a robe.

And he's like, I think Bob might be right. I think the audience might not buy it. So it all starts to fall apart. The right stuff, which is a Winkler production, is a huge bomb. That's a great movie. Yeah. I love that movie. But it's a big, long movie.

It's an expensive movie. And it didn't work. And so they canceled last temptation days before shooting is supposed to begin, according to Scorsese. Sting was also supposed to be Pontius Pilot in that version. And he always had the British rock star thing in mind. I think it's, yeah. There's a lot of, there's a logic to that, right?

So then, okay, the French minister of culture gets involved. He's trying to, now he's like trying to find money anywhere. He can't, right? This is a tough point in his life. He says at one point he told Katzenberg, I'll do flash dance too if you let me make Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah. You know what?

I'd watch it. I would watch the hell out of Marty Chorseszi's FlashDans too. If they got bills back? Color of money is sort of him being like, okay, like, it's like a fancier version of like, what's a like sort of sequel I can do? Right. De Palma, all right, this is a quote by Scorsese. De Palma and I were talking about one night. He just shown Scarface, a Hollywood audience didn't like it.

And he said, what do we do? Are we going to become teachers or something? Like, are we done? And we were at Hugo's restaurant and I realized, honestly, I didn't know what else I could do. I wish I'd learned to write music or paint or express myself. in literature. I just don't have anything else I can do. I find that so relatable. I don't know. I also have a casual day night's term. I'm like, why do I do this?

Yeah. Yeah. Big time. I wish I had other skills. Yeah. They make one effort to shoot it in like Russia with like a $5 million budget. Egypt at one point. This is what I'm talking about the Cajones though. We're just like everyone is telling him not to make this movie. His life would be so much easier if he gave up on this. He is so fucking driven to see this thing through. And so he makes after

hours, which is a great movie, but is obviously him being like, see, I can make movies quick I can be responsible. Right. And then he makes color of money to be like, I can work with stars, I can work with studios, I can make money. Yes. And then he's got Goodfellas percolating. And that looks like it's going to be

his next book. That's the Nick Pilegy book, wise guy. He's working on that. And then he starts talking to Mike Mike Ovitz, Paul Newman's super agent. The king of CAA, obviously a very important person. And Ovitz poaches Marty. Yes. From Harry Upland, who was like his old classic agent.

And suddenly Universal is interested. You know, Ovid's works his magic. Ovitz has some kind of deal with Universal or at least some sort of ongoing conversation to bring them a couple of movies. I think he's able to sort of bundle a couple things together. Exactly. And so Universal, according to Marty, is basically just like, do what you want. Like the budget has to be fairly low, but like no notes. And then he shows them the movie and they like the movie. Yeah.

They're like, we're moved. It's great. Yeah. He has a surprisingly, this is the underrated part of this. There's actually surprisingly chill part. The making of. Like, once Universal is aboard, Tom Pollock had read the, who's the head of universal of the time, he'd read the book.

He's like interested in religion. He's an admirer of Marty. They foolishly, I think this is the most, everyone's being foolish with but they're like, I think we're going to move people with this. Yes. think this is going to work. And obviously it's a great move. But, you know, like, they start to ignore the sort of pressure of, like,

religious groups are going to be mad at us. Right. You know, they start to be like, no, no, no, no, no. This is good. Can I just, just to interject real quick. Just thinking about the outside world reacting to this. It's like an, it's an odd period in American history, in American culture.

Because, like, the age of the biblical epa, like, biblical epics, aren't made anymore by the 80s, right? Like, that's long, a decade. Not cool. Not cool. incredibly uncool. It's not something that happens anymore. And so you could imagine, you can imagine exactly this movie being made in like the 60s,

but like something like this being made in the 60s, I don't think would have been as controversial. No. Precisely because the biblical epic already existed in like the public mind. It was close enough to that being a mainstream line of. Yeah. And so people would just be like, oh, this is just like a weird biblical epic. Totally. Not like anything to get too upset about.

It's just, it's, you know, I can ignore it. I'll just go see Ben Hur again. This being the first major depiction of Jesus in movies. In decades. Yes. Yes. Puts a lot of pressure on it. And then simultaneously, in the 80s, this is like you have the rise of the moral majority in the religious right.

So you have a newly organized. With like aggressive. Right. Aggressive and organized like religious conservatism. You also have televangelists. You have these people have platforms. These people are broadcasting on a daily basis with a larger audience. Unfortunately for Marty, it's sort of like a perfect storm of the public is.

prime for this. Yes. And the people who are super attentive are insane. Yes. Yes. Can I throw out two things? Yep. Tom Pollock, who you mentioned was head of Universal at the time.

Tom Pollock was producer on draft day. But most notably, he started out his career as an entertainment lawyer. And the thing that he made his career on is he is the one who got George Lucas the Star Wars deal. Okay. He is the one who got the, if you're not going to pay him as quote, he owns sequels and merchandising forever. Right. The most famous. Right.

So he's responsible for the. the contract clauses The greatest entertainment deal of all time And was a very cool guy Sure, I'm just saying Fucking greenlit this movie Right to my point The other things,

Scores as he said, and why Barbara Hershey kept on coming up in his brain while he was making this movie Or developing it, beyond the fact that she was one of the people Who gave him the book Was that he had to approach Once they finally greenlit it

It's such a small number Making this movie Corman style. He said, like, I never would have been able to make this movie If I didn't have my Corman background and he experienced a boxcar bertha specifically that he drew out every single storyboard, every shot of this movie,

and he timed out how long they could take to get that shot. Like, this shot is going to last this amount of seconds, and I'm allotting us three hours to get this shot. And if we're going over three hours, we have to pivot in some way. Right. We have to figure it out. Like he had the whole thing diagrammed out so cleanly

because he had no room to fail on this. And I'm sure it was stressful Jaycox, just to close that loop, fought for WJ arbitration, didn't get it. Says he's very proud of his work and he did a lot of work on the movie. That's cool. So, yeah, De Niro was never really interested, as we said. He was also very interested in Christopher Walken,

who makes a ton of... Very similar to the foe. Right, very similar to a foe. And same with Eric Roberts. I feel like those guys were, you know, Aiden Quinn, it's like, Too normal. Walking in Eric Roberts is like too crazy?

Yeah. And I was like, okay, we found it. Is this good? Like, Walkin's almost a little bit too on the eccentric side. Yes. Yeah. Eric Roberts potentially too evil. Right.

Yeah. Aiden Quinn had been in this movie called Reckless. I mean, Aiden Quinn's obviously very young at the time, which I've never seen. It's a James Foley movie that I think is like classic horny 80s thriller. Okay. He dug him in that. He like, liked his intensity. But obviously the studio is like, what the fuck?

like never heard of this guy. Willem Defoe, obviously he's in Platoon. He's also the villain in to live and die in L.A., which he's incredible in. And so those are the things Corsese knows and best from. Willem is obviously like, it had never crossed my mind to play Jesus,

but Marty's passion was really infectious. And I believe it when he says this, a very difficult role, Jesus. He said an interesting thing in the commentary, which was... Are they all together in this commentary? is a one of those kind of separate tracks. It's one of those because it's like an early, like, 96

piecing together. Laser disc commentary that's been repurposed. This weird thing Criterion used to do where they would record like five different conversations and edit them together. But he said, the first time the project was coming around, the Aden Quinn version, and his rep said, like, Scorsese wants to do a Jesus movie.

He's like, no interest in that, don't submit me. The second time he comes around, they're asking for him because his career is obviously boosted up so much. And he went, I don't think that makes sense. but why not, I'll take a meeting with Scorsese. Right. And he takes the meeting with Scorsese and Scorsese tries to explain to him what his version is.

And he's like, it sounds insane to say. But like five minutes in, I was like, I think I'm the only person who can play Jesus. That the way he explained it, within minutes, he went from being like, this is probably not something I should do or would even know how to do to feeling like he was the only person who understood what he was trying to get at. So then he's a great match. Yes. Bowie filmed a scene in one day. Yeah. They said one day of rehearsal, one day of filming. Harvey Keitel and Barbara Hershey

were part of previous projects. Like he brings them back. And Hershey's kind of having a career resurgence at this moment. He does make Barbara test because he's like, I don't want to feel obligated because you and David gave me the book. But she tested for the role. That was fine. I mean, Kytel

is obviously bananas casting. It's sort of the mocked part of the movie, I feel like at the time. He doesn't he get a Razziness? I think he's amazing. Which is, I mean, again, I think he's mostly for the wig. Like, it's like the Razzie was for the wig, right? It's the way to get him sounding like a New Yorker. Well, that's how Judas is in

the Bible, right? Yeah, yes. Red hair. Judas is in Brooklyn. Yeah, that's why I was assuming. So I thought that was an authentic capturing of the Bible. 100%. He's always eaten post-traum. But Kitell's sort of, Kitell's

energy is like aggression. Like it is sort of the jealousy, the weird kind of like loathing or whatever. Yeah. Scorsese said that it was like I wanted him to embody like violence. Yes. And it's like it's it's I mean even the red hair in that regard. Like it works. It's like it's a great.

I think it's a great performance. I think so too. And I'm not sure the movie quite works without without Judas being there. And you know, the point towards the end where Jesus like you need to betray me. Yeah. You have to do this. Like doesn't work unless Judas. is this almost like diametric opposite of Jesus

who comes to be devoted to him, right? It's totally. Completely obviously right. I knew nothing of Judas beyond like he's the guy who betrayed Christ. Right. That made it make so much more sense to me. Yeah. Right.

But it's like we all have to fill a role here. Even that must be. This is your role. Touchy for some people. Right, right. To round out Judas this much more beyond just being a betrayer. The, you know, Barty says that the thing that attracts me to the story,

it's a struggle. between the spiritual and the physical and all these things. And the story is about taking seriously the fact that Jesus Christ was a man. But, like, one consequence of that is they have to take seriously that everyone in this story. It's just a human being. Totally. And so, like, human beings are not one-note villains. No.

For the most part. And what makes people interesting is that they are tested. Right. And that the best people among us are able to resist and persevere. and the most tragic people among us, like, succumb to these things. Right, right. That the testing is a big part of it. If you remove the testing from it, then people become uncomplicated.

Right. I also, this is my hottest take on this movie. Uh-oh. Here he goes. I think this movie is fascinatingly, structurally, so similar to New York, New York. Okay. But it feels like a corrective where he figures out, obviously, in an entirely different story, how to pull off that type of movie, which is you have, like,

an hour and 45 minutes to two hours where there's a lot of kind of repeat performances going on. This movie is almost a musical in the series of the miracles and the set pieces that he's doing and the central relationship between Judas and Jesus, where Judas is trying to suppress Jesus, or at least be like, calm the fuck down, man, stop it. But you're making the person who has the light within them be the prominent character, rather than letting the person who's trying to stop them overrule the entire movie. And then much like New York, New York,

it has its last 45 minutes that are like, well, it's all been building to this. Like, now we go into the inner life and the inner mind and explore all the possibilities of what could have been and what have been and what are to then get to the final, like, tragic hammer blow ending. But the central relationship feels very similar to me. And Keitel's presence in this feels like a better

version of what Jimmy Doyle is trying to be without trying to make him charming. And I think it's the modern energy. I mean, this is the other thing he said was, you had so many biblical epics that sort of like take the posture in the language of Shakespeare and giant humongous sets

and very pronounced, you know, King's English and all of that. And it makes it feel very, very distant and theatrical. And that his whole thing was like, this has to be street level. These have to sound like guys talking on a street corner. This is, you know, this debate is so happens every single time someone does this

and Nolan had this happen this year with the Odyssey where people like well I don't understand they say fuck and dad and Nolan's like I like anything apart from Ed Scores as he says here like unless they're speaking Aramaic we're wrong like right we already blew it so yes I wanted New York like you know you've got

Harry Dean Stanton doing kind of his like little sort of Appalachian Lilt right or sort of them Baptist like thing he said the big thing was to give let the Romans be British yes that do the Ben Hurth of the Romans are British. But otherwise, everyone brings their own American.

Correct. It's very funny to be that. That seems to be what we've decided in movies is that your evil imperial power, they're British. Of course. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what the world is. You're in space.

Yeah. In space. Yeah. In ancient Judea does not matter. Doesn't matter. They're all British. It always works. I really always works.

Victor Argo, who I think is phenomenal in this movie. He is so, he is so good in this. He plays Peter as essentially like. a fucking stevedore from like red hook you know like has like a sort of fisherman kind of like you know accent i was and i was going to say has the energy of someone leaning on you to pay back your debts and according to scorsese was smoking a cigar all the time and then when they were start filming he's like oh right and it would have to take the cigar out of his mouth defoe said that he was a big smoker at the time of filming but beyond the fact that scorsese is so asthmatic and doesn't want

people smoking around him he was like jesus shouldn't smoke he was like willam if people get fucking pictures. Jesus, just ripping Sigs. I mean, isn't that a thing from the Gibson movie that where like, everyone still does the memes of like Kavisel in Jesus makeup covered in blood? Just kind of sitting on set like drinking a mountain dude or whatever.

Wasn't there the one with Wakene going around too? Smoking a SIG. Oh my God. I forgot that movie happened. People forget that Joaquin played Jesus in a course movie called Mary Magdalene. I've never seen it. I had known nothing about this. The movie where he falls in love with Bernie Mara. Yeah.

I was going to say, just as a quick, a quick thought, and I get this, I kind of already mentioned this earlier, but it's relevant to this. The movie both makes the, or Scorsese makes the choice of having everyone kind of sound like modern Americans to sort of at least try to capture the sense that these are ordinary people. They're like talking in like, you know, vernacular language. Like they're not, it is, it is not Shakespeare. We're not trying to elevate things.

But then also, it does this in tandem with the world presented. It's very strange and alien. 100%. With like customs that we are impenetrable to us. It feels like most icily. Right. Yes. Yeah, it feels exactly like most icily.

And to me, the alienness with which the world is presented feels very like Robert Igers to me these days. Of like trying to take seriously the fact that the past is truly different than what we experience and kind of put you there as much as possible. They shoot in Morocco. And Marty says like when they got there,

he's like, I wish I had 10,000 extras. Like, because this is so beautiful and like I could, you know, make, you know, he thinks about his epics. And then he's like, but it's all in the landscapes. You go from village to village. There's just a few people. Like, that's what it was like. So there's the scene where the centurions attack them at the town center,

like at the marketplace. Yeah. And it's five centurions. You only we had five centurions and he's like this is all we got he's like great this is what we're going to do whip pan to five centurians attacking from this side then we're going to move them to a different place whip pan different direction five centurions and he reuses five centurions to make them 25 centurions you just never need to see them all in the same frame at the same time michael ballhouse who's cinematographer who'd already done after hours of them obviously is like and who's his best dep um is like it it being a quote unquote poor movie like fits the subject

I think it, like, worked for the movie better. He loved Pee Wee Herman. Marty Scorsese. Marty Scoress has he loved Peewee Herman? He would tape. He would have tapes sent to him of the show every week. This is like Albert Einstein watching Beanie and Cecil. This is the greatest thing I've ever heard.

He would have that he was so into Pee We Herman that they would send him like pal tapes of like that week's show. That's so funny. Yes. And yes, to bring up something brought up by Miriam Bell on our Mean Streets episode, yes, it shares a lot. lot of locations with Ishtar, which was made around the same time. It does look very similar. Right. Yes.

Was shot incredibly quickly. 58 days, you know, for a big movie like this, big, you know, like for an epic movie like this, he finds the experience very physical, very challenging or whatever, but yeah, I mean, he says it was the worst shoot. Okay. So it's, and there's weather shit. It was bad. It was, it wasn't dramatic, but.

And they had no rushes. They, like, couldn't check dailies. Yes. and he says he kind of did it blind, essentially. But he had it so planned out. It was his most planned movie so that he went in with such a strong game plan, which was the only way to actually get it done. I mean, like, all the stuff in the crucifixion,

he could only be up there for like three minutes before any of those actors start to go delirious. So that's like two days on the cross where he just had to be so mechanical about what do we get and for how long. And basically the thing that's just like the greatest irritation of filming is, is you go, okay, and we're ready, actors in places, and then the second the actors in place, they go, wait a second, we got to move this light, this thing isn't working here, the microphone isn't turning on. But if you're doing that after you've put Willem Defoe up on a cross, you're losing time rapidly. Right. So let's talk about the movie. Yeah. It's about Jesus.

As my friend Carolyn put it, who's read the book, she's like, the book starts with, imagine a guy who sucks in his lame, and he's miserable and everyone hates him. And then he goes to a monastery and, like, starts to freak it. I feel like the movie is a little bit more like starting pretty much like he's he's kind of knows what to say. But it starts him at a point where everyone's pissed off at him because of him making the crosses. Right, right. You know, he's a, I mean, look, there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. This is true.

And this is the most important episode to say that. And Rome was capitalist? No, I, you know, right? I don't, I don't know if I'd say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, you meet Jesus. He's not, I mean, he's not quite at the point where he's, like, ready to begin the ministry. But he's, like, clearly, like, a tormented man.

Yeah. Who, you know, by his own account, uh, doesn't understand why he's being tormented by God and just wants it to stop. And he's like, am I crazy? Is this just nuts? And that's where, that's where I think, you know, Defoe is right that maybe he's the only guy to play this, play this particular iteration of Jesus. Because it's like, Jesus, the character is like, am I going insane? Right. Yes.

And Defoe. Even the Son of God are going insane. What do you guys say? And Defoe looking like he's on the verge of insanity at all times. Correct. Makes that, like, sells that. He doesn't have to say anything for you to kind of get, oh, this guy thinks he's losing his mind.

Yeah, yeah. And it gets back to, like, what we were saying about DeFoe earlier is even in his old coot era, like some of those old coots are menacing and some of them are like the one voice of reason this character has in the world, even though they seem crazy. Right. Like, Defoe at his most still has that wrestling inside of him. Right. Right.

Which is great. I mean, it completely works for the character. But more like Willem de Savior. I just remember the first time I went, yeah, Willem to say, thank you. I wanted to give it a shot. What do you think? I think it was a wild success. I'm a little on the fence.

Yeah. I'm trying to think of alternative to the Savior. The Savior. The Lambegated. God. That doesn't want you to work too much. Delamma God. Delam.

Delam a god is fun. I said hip up. He does like really, really boring. My name is Jesus Christ and I'm here to say. It's fun to be, you know, blasphemous and elegant. I don't know. It's fun to be blasphemous. Yeah, whatever.

Yeah. I don't know. He calls himself the king of blasphemy. He does. I mean, look, he's obviously he's a troublemaker in the, in the Jewish community of Judea, which is a client state of Rome. that's sort of run by the Romans but like it's a backwater right like that's

the that's the history right right right it's not of any particular importance right I mean that's the thing with like people like Pontius pilot where you're like well what does the record say and it's like I don't know that's some fucking guy who got that shit job yeah of having to go there you know what rocked Rome that's where you want to be you don't want to be all the way over

there where there's like scorpions and whatever and angry Jews talking snakes and like I guess like Jesus is part of like a larger Jewish rebellion, but he's just one element. Right. And he's not a very organized element.

It's not even clear he's like part of the rebellion. It's just like he knows people involved. Right. It's like Judas. Judas, who, you know, who Jesus who calls himself a zealot, which is like kind of, this is where I think there's like actual biblical scholarship here, because if I have this right, Judas Ascariot, which is sort of the traditional name.

Escariat is like basically a transliteration of like zealot. Right. Okay. And he's like, he is someone who's like sent to deal with Jesus because they're like this is a collaborator essentially. Right, because the zealots were an actual group of like anti-Roman Jewish or Judean rebels. Right. And right. So like, yeah, he sent. The film implies that they know each other.

Like they've known each other for a while. And that part of the issue is that the zealots are telling Judas you got to kill this Jesus guy for making the crosses. And Judas, this is not on screen, but you can kind of guess. He's like, I don't want to, you know, he's fine. He's okay. I can persuade him to stop doing this. And then he starts being like, are you? Messiah?

Son of God, right? Like, he starts to sort of believe in him. He's an early follower, right? Yeah. And we see him saving Mary Magdalene, and like, that's the beginning of him acquiring more follower. I'm trying to... But he's even getting tempted in that first, Mary.

Well, I guess there's a second. Mary Magdalene Singh because it's a scene where she tries to stone him or at least throws rocks. So when he is carrying the cross to crucify the Messiah that the other Messiah that we meet,

she spits in his face. Yes. We meet her again. So he goes to meet her after he's in a cave with the priest. He starts into the one priest. Right. And he's like, you know, the priest's like, I've never met

God. I like to meet God. And like, because the priest who greets him at this place, he's like, you know, your brother greeted me. And he's like, well, that guy's, that guy's been dead. Yeah, here he is. Dead for a day. You are met by God. And so this, this sort of like, he's like, Jesus asking him, what do I do next? And then he's like, I'll go see

Mary Magdalene. Yeah. Which the, the dead guy is Roberts Blossom. Yeah, that's in all the Jonathan Demi movies, but also, of course, is the old man in home alone. Yes. Oh, great guy. Yeah. The other crazy one is Zebedee. Yes.

Yes. Is Irvin Kershner, director of Empire Strikes Back. My favorite moment of the movie when Jesus is like, Zeppity, that widow you've been with, and someone in the back room goes, Judith!

You know, there's a hole up there. The second Mary Magdalene scene. Well, at first I just want to say, you know, the French cartoon, The Magic Roundabout. It's that the British. British. British.

But it was originally French. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The book is French? No, I think it was... All right, now... Oh, boy. No, we gotta...

We gotta go deep on this. Yes, it used footage of a French stop-motion animated show called Le Ménage Enchanté with completely different scripts and characters. So it is the British one that... So it was the main character... So it was the main character...

Power Rangers kind of deal. Exactly. But the main character is called Zebody. I do know that. Yeah, with the guy with the mustache in the spring for a lower half of his body. I think was voiced by Ian McKellen in the CGI movie?

Probably. Yeah. Who ends every episode by going time for bed. And so that's where I learned the word Zebedee, who, of course, is the father of James and John, right? Like, that is who Jezibati is in the Bible. But it is funny that he's played by Irvin Kirchner. Who, like,

did he teach Marty at school, too? Because he was George Lucas's like teacher at USC. Right. But I think he had some connection with him, maybe just through George. I mean, the whole casting of this movie is like a collection of like... It's his debut as an actor. I can tell you that. Yeah. I just know all those guys cited him as being really good with actors and teaching them how to direct actors better than others.

The whole casting of this movie feels like Martin Scorsese, this is your life. Like he's pulling people from such different directions. The great Andre Gregory, as John the Baptist, one of my favorite scenes. But has my dinner with Andre? Yeah, that's already come out. Yeah. And this is post-Musquito coast too, right? Yeah.

Yeah, so what does Jesus get up to? I'm trying to remember the linear plot of that. He meets Magdalene. Yes. And we see Magdalene to prostitute. He's there waiting. You just have men who sit like crisscross applesauce on the floor watching, waiting for their turn. Right.

Yeah. And he gets baptized, right? Yeah. There's a point between that. It kind of gets a little hazy for me. But then he meets John the Baptist. He gets baptized. And then he goes into the desert where he is tempted.

He's tempted the first time. In the book. attempted by a serpent with human breasts. In the movie, it's more just kind of like some fire and a regular serpent. Snake with a voice. It'd be very funny if they try to give the serpent, human breasts, boobies. I would be very into that. I'd learn a lot about myself.

I do think Barbara Hershey is fantastic in this movie. I agree. You know, it's not a gigantic role. It's probably the most developed female role in the movie, though, and she's great. Apparently, the female roles were worse in the book. My friend's biggest review of the movie. When I watched it with her a while ago, because she'd read the book,

she was like, amazing movie. She was also like way less sexist than the book. The book is very sexist. And even the angel at the end of the movie or the physical form of Satan disguised as an angel was a boy in the book. No, I just want to call out that Barbara Hershey scene because it is a big early scene

of her trying to call bullshit on him before he wins her over and being like, you're just like these other guys. You came here to watch me fuck and you want to fuck me, which I do understand. And if you are a very literal-minded follower of the Bible, could be a thing that, like, clashes against your very beliefs, you know? The notion of even depicting a scene like that,

in that position. Yeah. Yeah. But I do think DeFoe plays it as, like, there is the part of him that's like, God, do I just have to sacrifice everything? You know? I think DeFoe does that really well throughout the movie, which is he's 90s.

percent sure that he wants to keep going the way he's going, but also it's so fucking difficult. It's so fucking difficult and there's so much sacrifice. Yeah. Yeah. Much like The Odyssey, which I'm now thinking about because of that comparison with the language, you don't hear like God talking to him. Right. It's not this kind of, you know, like he's saying like, I'm getting little bits and pieces.

Like I'm doing what I, you know. God speaks to me in these different ways. Right. I'm only like a little bit ahead of you guys. Like I only like sort of know the next thing to do. the desert stuff is so striking I'm sure it was a pain to shoot but like I just love the plainness of it

it's just like empty it's rockier you know than like your classic desert you know it's not your like it's not Lawrence of Arabia it's not agribas it isn't Agrabah they thought about filming an Agrabah

yeah yeah but couldn't get the permits well the tax incentives they're actually really bad in a weird way you think they'd want to get more production you know what happens to me what like I'm out there in the desert and like some fucking lion is like hey you want some money I'm like yeah please get me out of me baby I'd be so bad at this but then like then he he does take his heart out he does in front of his followers that was Schrader's biggest idea yes yes I don't know what do you guys make of that scene takes out like a rubber heart from his chest well let's say in the reality of the movie the heart isn't rubber I know but it kind of looks you know. Yes. You're like, oh, damn.

Like, he has, like, a little prop heart. But we've also seen a lot of blood in the movie up until this point. There's just constant, this was a thing that I think Cox said in doing his research, he wanted to get in there, which is just like, they're just grates everywhere of blood flowing, of animals being slaughtered. Yeah. There's just, like, blood constantly running through the streets and the walls and everything. So you've seen, like, internal organs falling to the ground already at this point in the movie. Correct me if I'm wrong, you know, like, that's. That's not in the Bible.

Jesus doesn't pop his heart out and go like, see? No, I'm magic, baby. That's a Schrader invention. He does other magic stuff. Yeah, I think it's kind of Ruta Schrader. No, I don't know. I don't know if it's in the book. Maybe it is.

I don't think so. Here's my problem. The heart is beating. You want the classic, like, the cartoon. Like, yeah, like a Temple of Doom style. Yeah. Yeah. It just, it would hit harder for me if that was happening.

Then he returns, and of course, does the most important thing in this movie, which is the GIF. Where he raises a cup. Is this used as a GIF? Oh, dude. It is, that is a classic Giff. I don't think I've seen it in a while. Of, like, Jesus being like, you two, brother.

Like, basically, like, just a, it's a very funny image to me now. It's not intended in the movie is funny, obviously. He heals a blind man. He heals a blind man. He has been doing miracles. He attempted to the canonical miracles. Right. He turns water into wine.

Yep. Which I do like... You better check that water. You know, guys like, it's fucking water. It's like, I don't know. Maybe it's wine. That scene is so funny. It's very good.

It's so funny. And then when he drinks and he's like, fuck, it's wine. Jesus. He says Jesus Christ, because that's who did it. Well, yeah. It is so funny that it's the one scene where Marty goes into like shine box rhythms. Right? Where it's like, do me a favor.

Check that wine one more time. Check that water one more time. Do you think it's like, do you think it's like, crazy that in the middle of all that Jesus did raise a guy from the dead. Yeah. I mean, I came out of a cave being like it does feel like it does feel the miracles feel

you know, water into wine right kind of closer to a parlor trick Right. Healing the blinds. That's pretty impressive. I give that like an 8 out of 10 But it feels like you know his power levels just explode. Oh. When he's When he's raising people from the dead he goes,

It's like he's going super saying, Super Christ. Do we need to nerf Jesus's power levels? That's the power scale Jesus. You know, Jesus versus Superman. John Byrne will come in. Right. He'll reset everything. He can leap over a building.

Like, he's not, you know, superman. How are you going to be able to beat Jesus with a Kirby? You know what I'm saying? Like, that's not a fair matchup. Thomas Arranya plays Lazarus. Just shout him out. He's also in Huntford, October. He's a million things.

It's one of those guys. They said they didn't have the money to dress that scene in a way to get across how disgusting the team was. Right. He's not like totally right. It could be, you could go more kind of zombie with it. So this is their like pragmatic problem solving of like, okay, so what's the way we visualize how disgusting the space is? And they were like, oh, it can smell really bad. Every actor just needs to be like, ew, pee, you. When they roll the boulder out of the way. It's really funny to watch just 40 guys go like, Stinky Poo-Poo. Oh, my God, the greatest miracle I've ever seen in my life.

After that is the temple where he trashes the money lenders and all that. And at this point, we're 90 minutes into the movie. Yeah. And I really feel like the first, I was just like, I don't, we're just watching the Bible. I'm so surprised that anyone thinks this is controversial. Jesus is great. Sure, there's some nudity. Like, that's like the extent to which I've been like surprised by.

I'll say there's one scene. I love this movie. there's one scene that did make me go that dialogue could be a little better and it's when he is first teach before he he hasn't had disciples yet it's just him and judas and he's speaking to a group of people

some of whom become disciples and he's about to basically do the beatitudes and he doesn't quite say like the meek will inherit the year he doesn't quite say it but like the rhythm of the way Defoe is delivering the lines feels like he's about to just say the line and I had a very sort of

like yeah this is the Jesus biopic It's like Paul McCartney's singing a guitar in the window or whatever. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love me do. Yeah. Why is that guitar gently winking? There's the counterpoint scene that's so well done, which is the let ye who's

without sin cast the first own scene where they never say it. Right, they never say it. Where they actually just show, don't tell the idea. Yeah, Jesus was weird because like, I mean, Jesus was weird. Listen, no. No, you got it. Keep going. You told you was okay.

Jesus was all right to me. That's so true. You read the parables. Ben, Ben's like, bad joke, Jamel. Yeah, I know. If people knew the faces Ben makes during records. Some of the parables... We could put out a coffee table book.

Are very obvious and resonant. And are things essentially along the lines of, like, you should be nice to people. Right. Right. Love your fellow man and help. And then there's the weird ones where he would be like, if you plant a mustard seed grows a plant and people are like should we write that down?

And he's like I guess we'll write it down How much do you like mustard? 2,000 years of scholarly debate to be like what is that fucking one about? And he's like that's all you got. I can, you know, it is like a grain of mustard seed

which a man took and put in his own garden. It grew and became a large tree and the birds of the sky lodged in its branches. And everyone's like, mm-hmm. And he's like, and that and relish

are the only things you should put on your hot dog. And they're like, Jesus hates ketchup. Oh, that's so true. For eight-year-olds. Yeah, it's for children. Come on.

Yeah, you got to, yeah, you got to, when did you guys get into mustard? I was saying, because my daughter rejected mustard the other day, which is fine. They all do. They all do. And I'm like, I get it. It's spicy. I get it. You know, we get there.

I never, I never. I never, when did I fall in love with mustard? I've never, when it comes to condiments, on the subject of condiments, I never like, I never liked mayo. Sure. And so, I don't always, give me some mustard. Right. Because you have to have a condiment on the sandwich.

You must. And I was like, well, I'm not going to have me. I got it have mustard. So I don't, I've always liked mustard. So you got their fast, right? But it felt like a process of elimination. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I was thinking about how in Britain, you know, the mustard is super spicy. Because they got that English mustard because like kind of clears your sinuses out. Yeah. And so I think I sort of skipped yellow mustard. Uh-huh. And then later found like your American. Yeah. I never like that kind of mustard.

Right. I still don't like that kind of mustard. I think I got into it probably in my early 20s. Because along with horseradish, I was like, should I keep this in the fridge to clear my sinuses? Right. Right. And then I started putting it on stuff.

That's good for that. Yeah, it's good for that. Ben, you, mustard guy? I love mustard. So good. Dijon. Yeah. My top.

Yeah. Yeah. Great Pupon? President Poupon over here. Of course. I should have a fancy. Ben is wearing a tan suit today. Yeah.

And I look great. But I also came around to it later in my 20s. Yeah. Like I rejected mustard. I was only ketchup. Your 20s are for mustard. Yeah. Your 20s are...

That's your mustard era. It's for experimenting. Your mustard maxing. Your mustard macking. Mustard monging. Maybe a relish. I don't know. Chutney.

Relish is for your 30s. Around now is when Harry Dean Stanton shows up as Paul. As well as not yet as Saul first. Right. Right. He's going to have his road to Damascus later, right? One of those things where he's, it's like, well,

Harry Dean Stanton belongs in the 20th century. Like, where it's sort of surprising to see him in robes. Yes. But he also does feel eternal to me in some way. He does. In some way. And, you know, his, his permanent wrinkles and his kind of, like, weird face

like does kind of make him work in the movie. I don't know. It's, it's not an iPhone face cast, but I did think it's a vinyl record cast. Yeah. They all have vinyl record face. Yeah. All of these people have dropped a needle on the record, you know? Mm-hmm.

But yeah, do you guys enjoy this, you know, this performance, Harry Dean Stanton? Sure. Yes, no. I like it. I think when he see him again later in the film and he is Paul. Yes. I think that's great. I think it's a really great moment.

And you kind of need a very recognizable face for that purpose. Right. Yeah. For sort of like, you see him again. Yes. I mean, even when he made him the first time, you're sort of like, well, he must be someone important. I mean, there's a bit of the purpose of casting someone as recognizable as heredine's dead.

Like, this is clearly a significant person. It's also, it's his straight talk quality. Yeah, yeah. You know, this is a guy who can't lie on screen who can, who underplays everything. But yeah, this script does not have a lot of like, and I'm Thomas and I'm always doubting stuff. Or like, it does not, I guess, really, you know, it sort of relies on its, on its audience, figuring things out or not worrying about it. Like, you're sort of like, you know Judas, you know Jesus, you know Mary. you can figure out that the rest were followers of some renown or whatever, you know, right?

Mm-hmm. And if you know more about the Bible, you'll probably recognize things. I do appreciate that it doesn't put like a point on things. Like you see, you get the moment or Peter denies Jesus three times. Right. But it's not like telegraphed. No. It's not like a zoom in.

Zoom in. No, I don't know Jesus. Like that doesn't happen. It's just sort of like, hey, I think that guy is one of Jesus. I don't know. I think that guy is one of Jesus's followers. He's like, no, I'm not. No, I think, I swear, I've seen you with that dude.

I know him. We all know him. I heard of them. There's a little counter in the bottom of the screen. I'm friendly with him. I wouldn't say I'm friends with him. I haven't been to his hut. I don't hang out in his cave.

Lazarus gets killed. There's the big riot in the temple. Things are popping off. That's so fucked up. It's so rude. If I'm him, I'm so mad. It's a waste of incredible work. Yeah.

Kind of kind of the one time that it ever happened and they immediately undo it. Which I don't think is in the Bible either. I don't think it's in the Bible either. No. Like that's... Did they kill him? Yeah, no. They're just like, you know, we're moving on.

Jesus is like, come out, Lazarus. He's like, all right, let's keep the road movie. Come on, damn, Lazarus. They don't just kill him. They slice him open. Like, he's a fucking pig. Yeah, they got him. It's rough.

The movie is, like you said, Griff, it's violent. It's not violent in the way of, like, Marty movie can be like so insanely violent. There's like a three-year-old kicking some guy in the ground. Perfectly. The ultimate display of violence. Yes. Leg.

Touching flesh. Leg going all the way back and making such a journey to direct impact with muscle. These are cheap jokes, of course, but it is the fact that it's as Scorsese directed the local epic. And then you like know the rest of his movie is I do like when I want what I've watched this, I do think of like it'd be funny. if there were a scene of like Jesus laughing like De Niro and Kate Fear. Right. Just like at the tempo going, ah, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Right. And that's when they have to arrest him. Because when he's being too loud. Right. And that's when Pontius pilots like here too. And then. Like he also does that whole thing with Mary Magdalene's retainer. Yes.

Yeah. Then there's the Pontius pilot, you know, which we talked about. But is there more, you know, like we're just like total stillness. Again, just a spare set. Well, he was such a good actor. You and I. both rewatch prestige recently. Fucking rocks in that.

He's so fucking good. And it's the same use of him in prestige where it's like we kind of need someone who just communicates instantly weirdness and like, you know, authority. Yeah. Like in this kind of peculiar way. But he knew how to not overdo it. And it doesn't overdo it neither. And in fucking prestige he's like doing an accent. And he's Tesla.

He's in a cyber truck. He looks awesome. He looks so good. Everyone's cheering as he drives down the same. legal. That movie's about how Hugh Jackman's trying to make comedy legal. That's the war. Make comedy legal. Save free speech.

Yes. They should remake a prestige but about the Austin comedy scene. That's great. That's great, right? Isn't that great? Yeah. No, I just find it so fasting that Bowie was able to completely tone down his rock star energy. Yeah.

And just lean into the alienness. Right. And like, you watch the man who fell to Earth. and you're like, well, of course, he's great at this. This is the one appropriate time you could cast David Bowie in a movie, and it's not distracting. And yet, every time he's putting in, like, a one or two scene role like this, he just fucking knocks it out of the park. And he gives it an energy that no one else could. But it feels like he was a very smart actor.

Like, he really understood his moves. Is he the best rock star actor? I think so. So, the best rock star actor. Okay, who are the competitors here? Mick Jagger made real movie sting. Chris Christopherson. James Belushi.

Yeah. Oh, yeah? I guess more blue star actor. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bruce Willis. Right. Eddie Murphy.

Stephen Seagall. Of course. Yeah. Jared Letto. Jared Lettow. Come on. Let's not forget. No, I mean, if we're having the honest question,

it's like the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger. But Bowie's a very interesting case of like he actually took these sort of like different roles. Jaggers, I mean, he's good in some of like performance. He could be good. He could be good. You needed to craft around these guys right in the right way. I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think.

Because when I think of musician actors, I actually just think of rappers. Yeah, which like they've taken up. Rappers are basically always good at actors. Because like I feel like there's so much performance. Yes. Like that you have, so much presence you have to have. Right. Even when you're like essentially performing in like the tiniest scale, right?

Right. How many rappers turned actors were bad is the question. They're all good. It's a good question. I just went to the 25th anniversary of Fast and Furious re-release. Sure. Jarl rule wasn't like the greatest actor of all time. No, but even still you're like, he had a little juice.

Yeah. There was a reason they wanted him back for the second one and the greatest bag fumble of all time. Oh, is he says no? And then they go like, fine, we'll ask Ludacris. And Ludacris is great. Ludacris is great. I almost want to see like

Ice tea has like limited rain. That's, but he's, come on. He's got the hours. Yeah. He's got the hours. He's got the hours. But Ice Cube is a very good act.

Like, you know, Ice Cube has given legitimately good screen. Ice Cube is a really good actor. Yeah. Most deaf is, is a great actor. Most Def should have been like a major star. To me, DMX is the rapper

turned actor where I'm like, I don't think. anyone ever sat DMX down and taught him how to act, right? Like, and I don't think he was ever in, like, a particularly good movie. Anytime DMX is on screen in the movies he made, I'm like, I cannot take my eyes up this guy. This is unbelievable. He's got a couple good scenes and exit wounds, which I don't say lightly. Like, I mean, like, that's sort of the example where I'm like, right, you know, like, it's just kind of like, I don't know, just point the camera at him.

This is going to work. Like belly. Are there answers where we're just not thinking of them? Or I'm like, is the game good? You know? I don't know. Exactly. Other people we should.

Madonna. Madonna? Who got a lot of shit but has given good performance Yes Like she's kind of up and down Courtney love a very good actor That's what I was gonna say too

Yeah We have to shout out Yeah Cindy Lopper I feel like never got her full Would she I don't think I've seen Some of the vibes Debbie Harry

Debbie Harry Debbie Harry Yeah Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah I mean like look You have to have stage presence Like it makes sense

Yeah Sure Yeah keep going Yeah meatloaf For him. Lawrence Welk. Yeah, Meelof is a good actor.

Meelhoff is a good actor. Hey, Tom Waits. Tom Waits? But Meelope was more of an actor first. Sure. I guess. Musical theater actor who then became, yes. His name was Bob.

Waits is a great answer. Yeah. Waits. Isn't that the line from Fight Club? Right, right. Waits is a good answer. David was giving me to look like. Ben has lost his fucking mind.

No, Ben knows what he's talking about. Tom Waits might be the guy who challenges is David Bowie in my mind. Tom Wait's very cool. If you look at the breath of the work. Yeah. And the directors he's worked with and how well. The guys were naming mostly did not take, you know, they work very well, especially in

supporting roles and right. Character roles and his scene is great in this. Oh. Justin Timberlake. Conversation over. Anyway, so back to Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah, well, then they crucify Jesus. Yes.

You know, they make him, they give him a crown of thorns, which I think is really rude. It's really nice to make him carry the cross, which I think is really rude. A note about these scenes. This is the part of the movie where I really like this part of the movie, and I really like that Scorsese seems to linger on the compositions a lot. Because they do look really incredible, like of Jesus being marched down the corridor. Right. Crowds. There is a sense of scale.

When he's coming in to Jerusalem on the donkey is a great sort of like composition as well. Did we talk about the scene where he tries to convince. Judas to kill him. Yeah, like when he's having the dark night of the solar, like right before all this. And he's also like, I'm going to die. You should just do it. You can just do it. I need to die as a sacrifice.

Right. Yes. But of course he sort of realizes like, no, I have to be like publicly a symbol like to. Well, Judas also is like, can you imagine how bad my reputation would be in history if I'm the guy who kills Jesus? I'm not doing that. Now I have to take one meeting. Yeah, crucifixion. A bummer.

You don't want that happening to you. Wait, did we pass the Last Supper? You got a shout out the Last Supper. I gave you the GIF, but no, yeah, that's pretty good. That's what he did. He had a lot. It was a Seder. But did they shout out that it's the last one?

No. No, they were like, we're going to do this forever. I'm so full. I couldn't do another one of these. That's what I should say? Yeah. Guys, meet back your same time next week, right? And so, let's promise.

I feel so great, guys. I'm going to live forever, man. No one's betraying me Like Christ is on the cross No one's betraying me is such a funny thing I mean the last summer was such a bummer No one's betraying me Where everyone's like oh this is good

And Judas Jesus is like why are you gonna betray me by the way It's like what? What's he talking about? God I hope this doesn't get painted It isn't onto the wall somewhere That would suck to get walled Christ is on the cross I'm two hours and five minutes into the movie So it really the last temptation is really

the last sort of half hour of the film. This is the happy ending sequence. Right. And, you know, a girl approaches him and is like, you did it, buddy. Come on down. Like, you're all right. Real quick. There are things, like, I always expect this happen. I know it doesn't in the movie.

Famously, on the cross, there's two criminals being crucified with him. With unshittier crosses. On shittier crosses. One of them is sort of like, ha, ha, look at that guy as the king of the Jews, fuck you. Right. And the other guy is like, you know, will I be a. okay and in can not canonically in the lure yeah jesus says you know you'll be with me in paradise and that so it's like his last blessing is to this other crucified criminal which is not in the

movie but it's like it's part of the but they are there and they are there you see the other the other this this this young girl is sort of like hey listen to you this just like you know god asked abraham to sacrifice is he's seeing if you're going to do it you did it You proved that you were ready to do. It's much like the binding of Isaac of sort of like, yeah, okay. Then we believe you that you wanted to do it. And so now you are free essentially. And here's Mary and you're going to live a happy life.

Yeah. And he does have sex with her, which people were mad about. We will get into this in a second. And then she dies. And then he just, I just, I mean, it's blasphemous, I suppose, to compare. the life of Christ in this film to Star Trek the next generation. You can't not think of the inner light, the most famous episode

of that show. Has anyone... Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Okay. Do you know what I'm talking about, Jamel? You know that Star Trek guy? Once you start explaining, I think it will draw your memory. The Starship just like, hey, there's a weird beam. Picard looks at the beam. The whole episode is him living an entire life. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know the

episode. It's on a village, a very simple life. And then at the end, they're like, hey, what happened? Like, you got knocked out for a second. It's like this lost civilization, like, downloaded its culture into you. Yeah. And he's like, I just lived a whole fucking life, like 50 years. And they're like, oh, okay, weird. And it's an amazing, beautiful episode.

What's like inception too? I like any story that does this. Right, of someone snapping out of it. And like the other person's like, hello. And they're like, I just was gone for 50 years. Sure. Wasn't there recently a story about a young woman who was in a coma? Oh, boy.

And she similarly had like a very extreme lucid. dream of living an entire lifetime and then woke up and then was like where are my children that's the worst feeling about i don't like i don't like i don't like that's deeply upsetting but obviously profound and like and and and like that's what happened jesus has an inner light he we watch him in like you know yeah sort of an accelerated pace like live a whole life and he's he's actually living his life i mean the interesting thing in the kind of the tell that this little girl is sadden is she's like you know mary's dead but like there's only one woman yeah we just with different faces.

Different faces. So just like find another one. Right. For a second, you're like, are Scorsese's gender politics that bad? But then you realize what you're saying. That's the devil. That's the devil. Little Andrew Tate right there. That's. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But then he goes to Mary's sister of Lazarus. Yes. He meets earlier. After he comes out of the desert after the first temptations,

he meets her and her sister Martha. And they bring him back to health. And so he were in Mary is. clearly interested in him. Right. So he returns to her and with her that he has the family. Though it's suggested that like it's like kind of a polyamorous situation going on. A little bit. Yeah.

Well, Jesus was poly. No, I'm kidding. I don't. This is what I'm saying. Has everything we've said been offensive? I think it's important though that it's not like his life is like perfect and idyllic. He has to lose Mary Magdalene. No, he has a realistic is, although it's odd and fantastical in a way.

But like, right. It's a hard life. normal life. Is that a life of a normal human being without this burden? You see him with his fucking kids like coming back from like the market. Right. And then, you know, that's when he sees, um, he sees Paul preaching about him. About the road to Damascus. And Jesus confronts him. He's like, I'm the guy you're talking about. Yeah. He's like, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't resurrected. I'm a man. Right. I'm just hanging out here. I'm just a guy. I fuck. Isn't there the thing too where he, uh, he does yell to. He says I fuck. He goes, I fuck. But I guess that's sort of the implication of like, this is imagining a world where, like, Jesus's myth exists, but the real guy is sort of put in parallel with it.

Right. And then occasionally we'll just realize that that's happening around him of, like, people are spreading his gospel. But also sort of like, Paul is preaching and like no one's particularly interested. Yeah, that's true. That's, that's not catching on. It's not catching on. Yeah. So the message is out there, but the absence of the sacrifice means it's sort of like, you know.

Well, also, when Mary. Magdalene dies and he says like, why can't we bring her back the way you brought me back? And it's like, no, it's not like this is God's will. Like, she has to go, you get to stay. This isn't a thing you get to horse trade about. Like, he realizes the part of the give of living a normal life is he's not in conversation with God. Yeah.

And miracles don't happen. He doesn't get to negotiate with reality in that kind of way. Right. And then when he is on his deathbed. Yes. And Ben, we've talked about deathbeds before, if you remember. on our sense and sensibility episode. Deathbed, the bed that kills?

We should cover that movie on this show, don't you think? Yeah, yeah, we can cover that someday. Who directed that? John Baddam? I just assume when you say deathbed is what we're talking about. It was in the sense and sensibility episode at the beginning of the movie. It's Tom Wilkinson's character. I believe so.

Someone's on a deathbed. And Ben very earnestly said, we see this old guy. He's on his deathbed. And then we never see him again, what happened to him? No, I didn't say, I said he was in bed. And we're like, yo, that was his deathbed. And you're like, well, what, no one communicated that it was the deathbed. Wasn't clear to me.

Right. It was just a bed to me. It wasn't like made of skulls. Ben wants clear demarcation of what is a bed versus a death bed, which is a good point. You don't want to get into a death bed by accident just because you're sleepy. Right. That's true. Right.

I never wake up. Ben just looked at me so seriously when he said, right. And it's what I've been saying. And also, people can visit you while you're in bed and you can have a conversation. That's totally fine. It happens all the time. It doesn't mean that you're on your. deathbed. No, but that guy was

on his deathbed. All right, well. Well, Jesus here is on his deathbed and he is very aged. Yes. And yeah, and they bring in Judas. And then we'll... I don't know the guys. It seems like the rebellions happening outside. So we hear like, you know, there's fire, you're screaming. And

the disciples come in and they all come in and they're sort of like heard you were dying. I wanted to see you been a long time. And Judas comes in and is like, you fucked up. It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to sacrifice yourself.

You got scared essentially. He's like, you were about to die and then you got off the cross. I did my part. Right. Why couldn't you do your part? And this is my favorite part. Then he like turns to the he's like,

then Judah Jesus is like, well, I had a guardian, God sent a guardian angel. And Judas like looks over and he's like, bro, that's Satan. Takes one look. One look. He's like,

have you ever seen a movie? A little creepy girl? Yeah, what are you talking about? old who's like really calm that's always a bad guy you're seeing resident evil yeah you've ever seen fucking x-men too the white queen yeah come on William strikers in your brain bro he's made cerebral bad Jesus goes yeah I saw x-men too yeah of course I saw x-men too obviously X-Men United and he was like was that the actual title or is that more of a promo title title title card in the movie is just X2 but I think it's fun to call it X-Men United kind of but how united are they actually are fighting most of the time

It is weird that the movie goes into a 15-minute argument about the title of X2 between Harvey Kaitel and Willem Dauphel. And then so Jesus, like, runs out, you know, being like, I want to be fucking Jesus. I'm sorry. He drags himself out. Yeah. And it's a great scene. It's also very kind of like it's a wonderful life scene. Yes.

You know? Uh, yeah. No. Sure. Well, well, well, I want to be cross five. That cross looks fun to me. they do a rewind like effect

they're like they bring it back to it would be very blasphemous but good him like going like getting rewound black back onto the cross right

and you have that like Marty Zoom of him like back on the cross right and he says it is accomplished this is where I'm starting to freak out like and I'm just like oh my god and then it goes to those crazy lights

and that was because a camera man exposed the magazine too early. Oh, yeah. And it fucked up, you know, the film. But it's like Stan Brackett shit almost. That's the thing. And so when they shot it, they're like, we're screwed because like, Willem can only be up there for a minute. And like, it's so hard to shoot this shit.

And then, like, they watch it. Like, he keeps the damage take as he's like, it's like his soul is going to happen. It's the whole thing. It's perfect. When I was watching this, I watched this on Tuesday night. Was it last night? I watched it last night. We were recorded. Yeah, I watched it Tuesday night.

And I had to do stuff around the house, so I have it on, and I'm like paying attention to them watching it. But I'm also sort of doing things where I can. But this last 30 minutes, I'm just like transfix. In that part, I'm like, every time it moves me. It's crazy. It's sort of like. It really gets me. Well, it's like the movie itself is transcending.

Like the phone from the camera is like rising to the heavens. It feels like in that moment that like they captured something very real. Yes. and like it can't be expressed through normal beans in the environment and it is one of those things from like if they could just tell all the people who are mad to watch the whole movie

but they gotta watch it all they gotta watch it all the way to the end because the end really sells it yeah yeah um and then Peter Gabriel gum just popping off he did the movie basically for free

yeah you know because like Marty and I have any money and he was like I loved it I brought in like voices from like all over the world like mixing all this music together it's released as passion music from the last I'm a little bit of them Great work music. I listen to it all the time.

Yeah, I do. I listen to it quite a bit too, and I'm reading. But like every movie set in the Middle East now sounds like this because of this score. A little bit. Well, there's that 2000s era where there's always just a woman going like, oh! Yeah, yeah, exactly. The minute they cut to like the helicopter shot of like Somalia or Saudi Arabia or wherever the fucking horse. Usually the way it goes is it's like, ah, and then like a cut that's like a guy on like the street, like kind of looking.

And then it's like drumming. You see like a market I feel like I'm in the pitch meeting right now But I like watch this and I was like Oh so this is where it all starts And then I go on to the Wikipedia page for the album And it's like commonly cited as the

Breakthrough Moment for World Music in America No very much so I mean I feel like Is it like this changes the way people think of scoring Film set in the Middle East But this like popularizes New Age world music period Along with like Grace Land right The Paul Simon up like that's sort of like late 80s kind of like, hey man, there's music beyond European music,

classical. Like, there's other continents out there. Which I got their own instruments. I'll believe it when I see it. This score says he. So this film, okay, in post-production, start to get a little bit of trouble. There's some demonstrations. They're editing the film. They want to show it to some religious groups, like to screen it, you know, to sort of like get ahead of things. The religious groups don't show up. Instead, the only people at this screening are, Marty, his crew, Jack Valenti,

head of MPA, I assume at the time. Boom, boom, Valente. Paul Newman. I guess he's just in town. The King of Kings. Color money, right? And a man from Time magazine. Then they finally got some religious people to see it

who are a little hostile, but mostly are kind of into it. You know, demonstrations are getting really ugly. There's a lot of anti-Semitism directed towards Lou Losserman, who's the head of MCA, who has nothing to do with the movie. You know what I mean? Like, there's just a lot of general kind of, like, hate stuff happening.

Schrader's viewpoint is like this is an anti-intellectual wing of social and political Christianity. Like it doesn't have much to do with like Christian theological thought. It's what you're talking about of this sort of like weaponized political sort of wing of whatever, Christianity that's sort of like becoming more and more powerful. The old Schrader script gets sent around. Apparently that has something that sort of suggests that Jesus was, maybe gay for a minute there or something, and they get really mad about that.

And they're like, that's an old script. Like, we didn't shoot that. There's an actual thing called the secret gospel of Mark, which is like one of the apocryphal gospel text. That was on ABC Family, right? Sorry. That's just a terrible, terrible joke by me. Can I get my alt?

Yeah, please. And you could read that gospel on Lipstick Alley, right? That's right. It's correct, yes. Okay, but is that gospel, does that have, that suggests some. It suggests like, you know, that they have this like moment of ecstasy and like it's sort of like, what does that mean? And one suggestion is it meant sort of like an orgy.

Interesting. But like that's, I doubt, I doubt traders. I mean, look, if they ever want to like, you know, sort of jazz up the Bible for like a new generation, they can throw that in there. Are they sure it wasn't like a literal moment of ecstasy? Like they took half a tab. Yeah, half a tab. Yeah. That's true.

It's possible. I mean, just just the, the, like, we've. We've said this a couple times already. But the movie really does take quite seriously the, like it positions Jesus as being very strange, a very strange man in that he's in age where the expectation is that the Messiah would be a literal king. Yeah. A literal guy who would like kill the Romans. And right, who would overtake and rule us all. Right.

That's what people, the expectation is that, yeah, there's going to be a Messiah. He's going to show up. and he's going to sort of like beat the Romans to death and establish a kingdom where we can live as we please. That's leadership basically in those days. Yes. I mean, hey man. It's kind of the one way. And the movies, Jesus is portrayed to say, no, it's, you know, the kingdom is already here.

It is spiritual. It is like us loving each other. Us like, you know, accepting each other as like fully each other. It's recognizing God's limitless and universal love. And everyone's like, that's the crazy. thing I've ever heard. People die like the age of 32 back then. What are you fucking talking about?

Maybe we're like we should be open to rethinking some of this. And in the movie shows like Jesus is so persistent about this. It convinces people. People are persuaded. They believe him and they follow him. And it's a very powerful depiction of both like the radicalism of the message and the way that, yeah, then and now it's sort of a kind of a crazy. thing to say.

Yes. And it's like very funny to me that people who like hold, who self-identify as like, you know, conservative Christian, fundamentalist Christian, what have you, would like see this and get angry about it. It's like, I don't know. This is quite flattering to the entire system. It's why you assume a lot of them just didn't see it. Yeah.

The incident didn't see it. Aren't thinking about it in those terms. Also that they've built a relationship with a modern version of Jesus that they have rebuilt to their worldview, that they don't really want to be in conversation with what this guy was originally. And I'll say, I mean, to me, the most important line in the movie, biologically speaking, is when he is arguing with the religious authorities. And he says, God is not an Israelite. And that's very much a statement of, like, universalism, that, like, God doesn't belong to us. Right. He's not a nationalist figure.

He's for everybody. Right. Given the current political climate, like I think people would hear that and get very upset even today. Right, right, right. Like, you know, because quite literally the people running the military are like, yeah, God's an American and he fucking loves F-35s. You wrote this on your letterbox log last night, but you said one final thought, it makes total sense to me that fundamentalists hate this movie. Of course they would. Christ as emissary of total and all-encompassing love is in direct tension with the quote-unquote Christ of vengeance and domination that is in vote.

in this country, which is the thing. It's like... That sounds really good. It's a good piece of writing right there. That's a nice little write-up. But it is, it's that, you know, they would hate this guy if they met him tomorrow. Sure. Of course.

Right. I mean, it's the same with all this shit. They'd fucking hate Ronald Reagan. They'd hate Ronald Reagan. They'd hate his ass. Nah, he'd win him over. You went to bed with a monkey? So, the film fundamentally, also just comes out in August,

which is a bit of an odd time to do. release it, but whatever. And doesn't make much money. You know, made about $8 million. Would you have done Christmas? Possibly. Easter? I mean, I don't know what the 80s

landscape. Like, now you're like, well, this is a prestige movie. Like, you want it in the fall, like, blah, blah, blah. I mean, if you, it's like, if you're trying to not the court controversy, you release it in August. Yes. It's kind of smart of them to put it out in August, considering

what clamor there was around it. If this were a Christmas movie, people would be up in ours. Marty would legitimately have good reason and want a bodyguard with him at all times. He says the movie put him in debt and he didn't come out of it until he made Cape Fear. It did do very well overseas.

It made a decent amount of money. It made back its budget, certainly. Because it ended up making like 30 worldwide. I think 28 or 30. I don't know where you get in that number, but I believe you. I saw it in a couple places. But sure, I mean, because then, you know, the box office mojails and all that are bad now.

Internationally gross, $25 million for worldwide gross of 33 was in a variety right up in 1995. But as part of the deal of him agreeing to make this movie, he promised Universal that he would make a bigger budget film for them later, which he was planning to make Schindler's arc, which later became Schindler's list, which turns into the swap that lands with Spielberg giving. him Cape Fear. Right. So Cape Fear is... Which is a moneymaker. Right. Although he says then, then gangs in New York put me back in debt and then the departed took me out of it again. You know, who knows? But yeah, Cape Fear is a direct result of his deal with Universal for this movie. It's a movie like Mulholland Drive. I wonder how many of these movies exist. It gets one nomination of the Oscars flown. That's director. Yes. It's very rare. Kind of the Oscar thing of like, I don't know, man. Good job. Like, fuck. Jesus.

Well, Blue Velvet was the same thing. Did Blue Velvet only get the one number? that only gets the one, I believe. I think Lynch is the only guy to pull that off twice. I need a full list of this, if the nerds can tell me, of how many times that's happened. The film got great reviews. Like, it was celebrated by critics, but

obviously between the controversy and it being a two-hour 40-minute movie about Jesus, you know, it's not a life-changing, like, sort of success. It's had a great legacy. Yeah, I think it's now so

well appreciated it. I think it's, I think most people who like, you know, think about this stuff, recognize it's just like one of like the highlights which I'm like the highlights of which I say he's career. And I think it's given people much more greater appreciation for his just religious pictures, right? Like, yeah. Right. Because of course, because he makes Kundun in silence, he has this kind of loose trilogy. Yeah. About faith. That is really fun to sort of, right, take in totality. Take as you will. Collider says there are seven movies. the Inn of the Six Happiness in 1958.

I don't know where that is. Alice's restaurant, Arthur Penn. Okay. Felini Satiricon. Oh, that's one for sure. Blue Velvet. Last Temptation of Christ. Short cuts. Short cuts is a wild one too.

Again, where they're just kind of like, look, man. You're back. Maybe too weird for us, but good job doing that. Yeah. That looked complicated. Those cuts were really short. Obviously, that's the Rain Man year at the Oscars. Barry Levinson wins best director.

Let's do the box office game. Barbara Hershey got a Globe nomination. That's interesting. Yeah, I forgot about that. Okay. Yes. God bless her. And I think it got picture and director at the Globes as nominations as well. The Globes were friendlier to this movie. Because they were more Euro and I feel like this movie, apart from the fact that like half of Europe was on fire about it.

Like this movie played better in Europe. Yeah. No, it just got, no, it just got Barbara Hershey and score. Oh, weird. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, that's kind of it. It made like the MBR top 10. Like it didn't, yeah, it was mostly ignored.

The rude, uh, Cotel Raspberry nomination. Right. And then of course, like, his follow-up is good follow. His follow-up is good follow. Which is like a good follow-up. Which probably just overshadows this as well, you know? A little bit, right. A little bit.

The movie comes out August 12th, 1988. It's opening number 13 of the box office. Okay. So we're not going to consider. I'm lucky. Yeah, that's true. Number one at the box office is, um, uh, Western. It's a Western.

in 1988. It's not Silverado, is it? No. I would say it's a little, it's a Western with more of like a modern twist. Not in terms of setting, but in terms of like kind of attitude.

Young guns? That's correct. What if guns were young? You know, Emilio Estevez, keeper Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen,

Dermott Mulroney? The big six. How many are we up to at this point? Yeah, that's six guys. Six reasons why the West was wild. That's the tagline. Never seen young guns. either. But, you know, brat pack. I guess it's like,

it's Emilio Savez is Billy a kid, but it's like all made up, right? I think they kind of made it up after that. I think that movie took some liberties. Haven't seen young guns too, but of course, that also has the classic tagline. The West just got wilder. The Wild Wild West, you met back. Yeah. Well, and then, of course, we were introduced to the Wild Wild West. Wild West. Jim West Esperato.

Keep going. Roughneck. No, you don't. No, NADA. Oh, they want Nata or Nona. I can't remember. Yeah. I remember NADA.

Nata. We all remember Nata. What's number two at the box office? Number two at the box office is number one the previous week. It's a big hit. Starring a big movie star. You know, it's a bit of a cult classic. I would say this movie is stupid bullshit.

You would say this movie is stupid bullshit. But you say it has rocks for brains? Yes, exactly. That's one of your favorite slams. This movie has rocks for brains. is exactly how to describe it. It's pretty fun. Cold Classic might be too nice to it because it was a hit.

Is it like one of the big action stars? It's one of the big action stars. It's not an action movie. It's not. No. It's a dumb. But it kind of has an action movie sensibility to it. It's not kindergarten cop.

No, it's even stupider than that. It's dumber than that? It's one of the dumbest movies ever made. It's one of the dumbest movie stars of the all time. What could this possibly be? So it's not a Bruce, a Stallone, or shorts? No, no. No, sorry, action star was maybe misleading.

No, bigger star than that. Bigger star than that. Bigger star. Okay. Kind of early-ish in his stardom, but no, he's pretty famous for this. You know, he's made giant hits. It's not a Hanks. No, you're close. I'm close.

Same for his name. Tom Cruise. That's right. Is it a cocktail? That's right. Jamel, were you going to go to cocktail? I just about say cocktail. I mean, the stupidest movie he ever made.

Correct. Right. That's when he's making a string of these movies. There's like, young hot guy. It's true. And it's just like, it's the classic. Like, you know, he's like, so I became the best cocktail guy in the world. And you're like, what does that mean?

And he's like, you know how you could mix a drink like this? I don't do that. I do. A crazy thing. A movie based on TGI Fridays. Right. Based on the guy who invented TGI Fridays. Yeah.

And how hot that was that they created a singles bar for the first time. What if bars weren't where men went to not go to therapy? What if bars are where men went to try to get laid? And the guys did crazy cocktails. Tom Cruise, Brian Brown. Brian Brown is still alive. Do you think Brian Brown every like six months, like texts and being like like,

Legacy 2, mate? Yeah. Let's do it. Cocktail 2 is when we need to like hold a Tom Cruise intervention. The fact that he's prioritizing color of money or prioritizing Days of Thunder over color of money, I'm like, my guy, if you want to do another legacy sequel over doing Top Gun 3, don't do the fucking racing movie when you've already done Top Gun and they've already done F1. I don't think there's anything left.

to be said there. Yeah. I assume with Days of Thunder, he's just kind of like, you know, car will go fast. People seem to like that, right? Like, I don't know. Do do fucking color of money with like Kaylee Spaney or some shit. Cast someone I'm not thinking. I don't understand. Well, if you were to do a color of money legacy sequel, wouldn't it

just be the color of money again? I think the way you could make it work is if it's somewhat, you flip it back. Because what works in color of money is that there's such different types. Yeah. That you need to think of what's the third type of Pool Hall Hustler where

crews wouldn't quite understand coming from being such a hot shot how they do it. Yeah. Maybe it's crypto. Maybe it's crypto. This time. That sounds great. Crypto, it's in the way that you lose it. Maybe it's like a Finding Forrester kind movie. Thank you. David, that was pointed, wasn't it? I like that.

Yeah. Yeah, so Cocktails Number 2. I've seen cocktail once. It's a What movie more has rocks in its brains than cocktail? Right? Like that's right. It's on the rocks.

Yeah. Well, it is on the rocks. Number three of the box office is an action film. It's one of the best movies ever made. It's one of the best movies ever made. Die hard. There you go. There you go.

1988. Die hard. No question there. Been out for a month. It's doing great. People like it. And it's going to have a strong legacy as an action film. What's proving to be very popular is its goodness.

Is all the stuff that happens in it. The quality of the movie. Number four of the box office is a comedy that is a pretty solid hit and is also nominated for Best Director at the Oscars and is somewhat surprising. Fish called Wanda? Fish called Wanda. Had to be. Yes. Which, you know, Kevin Klein also.

Charles Crichton, the Ealing comedy director who's very old at that point. Yes. So it's kind of a like, hey, good job. I think his line was like it's an 80-year overnight success story or something like that. Yeah. Haven't seen it since I was a teenager. Love it then. Yeah.

You okay? You know. Do I have to give you the... A Heimlich maneuver? I mean, God, this many years we got to spice things. Something crazy. We all need to save each other lives.

Remember the Heimlich episode? That's how we get another 10 years out of the podcast. Do you like a fish called Wanda? Anyone like it? I've never seen it. It's funny. I like it. I believe the BAFTAs that year gave their best supporting actor to Michael Palin.

And I agree that Michael Palin is the best performance in that movie. He's very funny. they nominated Klein in lead as part of why that happened but then they gave John Cleese the trophy for Best Lead They loved that movie I mean it's a very British movie

And it was a success So I think they're really happy But Palin's very funny in that movie Palin's phenomenal in it Palin also just one of my favorites I was gonna say you also just love the guy Klein's really funny The Klein's great in it

And it's the rare Like full comedic performance Winning an Oscar Kind of right like where it's like God damn like we got it And you know what else Klein is in that movie Hot. Hot is...

He's really hot. Klein rules. He does. Jamel, what do you... The scene in Dave... As someone who covers politics. The scene in Dave... I've not seen Dave in many years.

Oh, really? Yeah. Do you remember the scene where Sigourney Weaver walks in on him in the shower? Not at all. Okay. Is he hot in that, though? He's really hot in that, yeah. Is Sigourney hot in that, though?

Sigourney's smoking hot, man, isn't she? Yeah. Even though, she's got like a Hillary Clinton haircut and... pants suits or which it looks great. You remember the basic premise of Dave. It's like the president accountant or something becomes president. No, it's just a guy who looks like him. President's a jerk, has a stroke, goes

into a coma. Rather than deal with this, they find someone who looks like him and they're like, you'll just do what we tell you. Because we just need to get this like budget past and shit. Right. And Klein's like, okay, well, whatever you want. And then he's like, and by the way, I have some ideas. And he he starts to be a really good president.

It's so funny. That's funny, but also in reality, when this happens, which it does on occasion, the president has a stroke. Yeah, of course. They pull a Dave. They do a weekend at Bernice. No one pulls a Dave.

They do like a sort of like, yeah, the president's still alive. I'm sure. Who gives a fuck? The big thing in Dave is they're like, he's never waking up. Right. Right. It's like this is it.

Right. Is that then that is true or no, he does myself? No, he dies. They pull the plug. Yeah, they pull the plug. You know, I kind of think, you know, we have, not a Dave, the other guy, but then they pretend that Dave died.

Right. These are Dave spoilers. If Trump were to be debilitated, I think we get a couple weeks of a week in the Bernie situation. Yes. Like weird tweets. Before anyone would find out. I mean, it's sort of what people thought was happening with Biden for a while. We're like, he was so bad at the debate where people were like, is he like fucking dead or something? Right.

Or like a puppet or something? Like, what was that? And it was like, now he's fine. He has the flu. Don't worry about it. And then like people started being like, I don't know. I got a meeting with him. And he like, didn't know where I was.

And everyone started going crazy. But Mitch McConnell's really alive, right? Yeah, he's totally alive. So. Never been healthy. You never been better. I saw a really fun video of him tap dancing yesterday. The thing where he was holding the day's newspaper in the one picture is the sort of like, my t-shirt is answering questions as, you know, right?

You know what I mean? I'm still alive. I'm holding this newspaper. It's like, right, we all love to hold the newspaper to prove that we're alive every day. Like, that's a normal way to go through life. I hate generative AI. But have you seen this subsection of video? that are like, I'm Mitch McConnell and I'm holding up today's newspaper.

And then he takes out a helmet and he like pulls an alley on like a skate ramp. But that sounds like a use of AI. I think that's maybe the most productive use we could come up with. Number five of the box office, one of the great movies in 1988. One of the great movies. We've covered it on this show. It's a classic. It's not broadcast news is 87.

That's right. 88. It's a classic. And what genre? It's a comedy, I guess. family, but two was really, you know, you know, it's cool and crazy, so like, you know,

kind of a classic movie that, like, scars kids a little bit. It's cool and crazy and it scars kids and it's a classic. It makes them feel crazy. It makes them feel crazy. It does. I mean, I'm right. You'll agree with me. It's not a Lynch movie. No, no, no, no. It's a Disney kid's movie.

Oh, no, because Little Mermaid's 89. Is it the Great Mouse Detective? No, great gosh. Great guesses from you both. No. It's a Disney movie that makes a Disney movie that It's bigger than this. Big movie. Big hit movie. It's a big hit movie from a big, big director.

And it's a kid's movie. It is. You're going to get mad maybe, but it is. It's a kid's movie. It's for kids. But it's really horny. Yeah, it is. No one's going to object.

These are good clues. Huh. And it's scary. Main feed director we cover. Oh, yeah. Oh, oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. about all of it.

This picture is entitled Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Oh, yeah. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I mean, perfect tense. It's horny. It's very horny. It's very scary.

One of the best movies. I watched, I watched that like eight months ago. You show it to one of your kids? No, absolutely not. And the scene where the shoe gets to dip, genuinely upset. A generation. Yeah, really upset us all up. I was very upset by it.

Yeah. It's one of the most tragic things to happen in the movies. Number six of the box office. So we will do this box office again one day. is Francis Ford Coppola's A flop, Tucker, the man in his dream which is also good. Just interesting that Marty and Francis

on the same weekend released like passion projects and everyone's like, okay. Like, you know, like... Well, let's be clear. They weren't saying okay about Last Temptation of Christ. They were saying boo his, he then. But audiences, I think, were largely sort of like, you know,

pleasantly ignoring this movie. Sure, but also you have to imagine, if there's that level of protest happening outside the theater, you might not want to go to the theater. I think there wasn't so much of that after a certain point. It was more pronounced in Europe, I think. Yeah. Tucker Manon's Dream is an awesome movie for cool kids.

It's a great movie for cool kids. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen it, Jamel, but it's about Preston Tucker. I'm not. It's about like, you know, like the problem of America, of a guy being like, I think I can do things differently within the system. I can build a better car. Stop it.

You know, you're fucking everything up. Like, you're not allowed to do that. Great movie. interesting, but it was a flop. Number seven of the box office is Coming to America. One of the big hits of the year. It's my favorite Eddie. It's a good movie. Yeah. Still haven't seen the sequel. Waiting for a great day. I want to be bummed out. I remember it being fine. But here's what I also remember. It was... None of the COVID pandemic. Early

2020. Exactly right. My brain was engulfed in flames. Number eight is Midnight Run. Great movie. I mean, there's some good movies of the box office right now. Number nine? Penny Marshall's big. Big. We'll cover it on the show someday. Do you know that he has a dad in that movie? Sure.

What do you mean? You watch that movie and it plays as if Mercedes Rule as a single mother. Uh-huh. And there's one scene where they go to the carnival where he sees the Zoltar machine for the first time and makes the wish. And there's a guy who's like, hey, don't go far. And you're like, oh, this is Mercedes Rule's shitty boyfriend or something. Right. There's a director's cut.

There's a Penny Marshall cut that's three. 30 minutes longer. Okay. That mostly adds in more Elizabeth Perkins, and I would say makes her character make a lot more sense. Sure. Makes her seem far less demented. But also at the same time, adds back in the father. And she just cut out every single time the father appears for this one moment.

Okay. It's fascinating. We're going to talk about it whenever we do Penny Marshall. Yeah. Which we will do. Yeah. What's that? Her second film.

Yeah, it's her second film. Jumpin Jack is the first. Yeah. Weird movie. Number 10 of the box office is a film. I'm sure you like as well. Michael Keaton stars in Clean and Sober. A movie I love. I defend thoroughly. I was not able to get enough respect for it when I did Michael Keaton, Mount Rushmore, on Big Picture.

But I would have made the case for that to be one of his four. It's that and Beetlejuice the same year and the National Border Review. Or was it New York Film Critic Circle? Maybe. I think New York Film Critic Circle gave him best actor for Clean and Sober and Beetle Juice. I'm sorry you got no respect. Thank you. It's 100% what the Oscar should have done this year.

Given you respect? No, given a trophy. That was half beetle juice, half clean and sober. Of course. Yeah. Listeners, give Griffin your respect. Give me a little respect. Finally.

The National Society of Film Comics did that. New York gave him best actor for Spotlight. Also kind of a cool win. Number 11, opening new this week is Mac and Me. Just wanted to shout that out too. So as we said, great movies up and down the list. Macon Me, that's the one with the Paul Rudd clip. Correct. And a lot of McDonald's.

Right. Yep. They have the big dance sequence of the McDonald's. Yes. Which kind of goes. And Mac is usually a puppet, but in that scene, it's a little person in a costume. Oh. Oh, good. So that's the box office.

Yeah. And, you know, it's, I just, I think, I'm not sure when this movie got its respect, speaking about giving something proper respect. Sure. But, uh... When did this movie have its anti-Rodney moment? You know, I think it's very... esteemed now. I guess because of Marty's general esteem and because of the run

he went on in the 2000s, it's still not like a canonical Marty masterpiece for some. Sure. I guess. But it's a very well-regarded movie. It's one of my favorite. It's interesting. I think it's well-regarded. My sense it's well-regarded. But when I think of

when you say canonical Marty movie, it kind of falls out of that because I just don't think, I don't think that people think this happened a couple of years ago on social media people still think of Scorsese as he's the gangster guy yes right and so it's jj's favorite bit right people just don't think of the last temptation of christ or silence age of innocence as being like marty movies in the same way but what's like this Jesus is as central of this guy's entire filmography is anything right yes going back to mean streets going back to mean streets

Jamel, is there anything you want to plug? Anything I want to plug my columns every week at the times. I have a YouTube channel. You've been doing great videos that I've been doing. Are you still on TikTok or are you kind of moving over to YouTube? I'm still on TikToks. I'm still doing TikToks.

But the YouTube channel, I feel like it's called takes. It's called takes. Takes. Ever so often, someone was like, you didn't really trademark it's like Takes TM. Yeah. You didn't really trademark takes, did you? No, it's a, it's a joke. No, you did actually.

If anyone does it take? Five bucks to you. I get a couple dollars. It's a joke. Well, you make a lot of money anytime I film a movie because they're on take five. That's true. Now, Jamel, are you telling me that people on the internet can't take a joke? Maybe.

People on the internet can't take a joke. Okay. So it's my YouTube page. It's just like Jamel Bowie, easy to find. And check that out. It's sort of like if you, I understand people have feelings about the New York Times. And so if you don't want to like read New York Times, then I do kind of basically sort of not the equivalent of my columns, but like, you know, little. seven, eight minute, like, arguments, observations, that kind of thing.

You're doing some video editing? You're getting in the mix here. I'm getting the mix. Let me also throw this out, not to steal Ben's usual line of compliments here. You've been throwing fits. You've always been a well-dressed man. But the last year or so, I think you've stepped up to a whole other level. Oh, thank you.

I appreciate that. You look incredible today. You look incredible in the videos. Yeah, your jacket is great. Thank you. Amazing jacket collection. Thank you so much. So that's the main other thing

And I don't really have anything else to plug I you know they release these like three weird flavors of Oreos Chicken and Waffles Banana pudding and fried Banana pudding sounds kind of good Pride And I'm gonna I before I came or I ordered them And they'll be at my house when I get home

And I'm gonna do like a stream That's exciting So if you want to see me eat weird Oreos Yes absolutely I am looking at this This is very interesting I'll be doing that too Amazing

deep fried. They just call it deep fried. Well, because that's like the carnival thing. No, I know that, but obviously, it looks like the actual Oreo that you're buying, though. It's just kind of a, it's kind of like a triple decker Oreo? But the cream inside is flavored as if there's a fried coating. Sounds a little against God, but I'm genuinely curious about these chicken and waffle Rios is very interesting. Savory Oreos I get a little touchy about.

Have I told you about the City Field Egg rolls? Have we talked about this? No, I mean, I've been to City Field with you. So, you know, Cityfield has a walk-and-roll, which is like an egg roll place, and they have a different themed egg roll. A very funny egg roll place, we should mention. Walk-and-roll. Different themed egg roll for every visiting team. And so for the Atlanta Braves, they had a chicken and waffles egg roll, which is when I'm thinking about it.

America's just such an interesting place. Yeah. You know, they're just like, what if we stuff X into Y is such a brand of how we nailed it? We're failing across so many different levels. Yes. But on the question of food innovation. Oh, food science? We've never been better.

Taheen, cheesy gordita crunch. Cheezing gordita crunch. That's true. We started with this chat now. We're ending with, obviously, we've been on doughboys several times. I feel like, uh, check out those appearances. I'm jealous of whoever's going to get the Tahin menu as an episode. Probably Barack Obama.

Next week. I'm actually reasonably confident Barack Obama would go on doughboys. Do we think he listens? Do we think he's Spoon Nation or Burger Brigade? I don't know I'm something of a heat seeker Next week on Blank Checked, Goodfellas

Haven't recorded that one yet? No Over on the Patreon Yeah, what we got? We released New York Stories Oh yeah sure As well as amazing stories Stories, a double

A double feature of stories But we're just going to cover Marty's New York story Just Marty's segment We're twilight zone the movie rules. So that's happening over there. Thank you all for listening. This reminds me.

I have one more thing to plug. Please. My podcast, Unclear and Present Danger, John Gantz, about the political and military doors in 1990s. Of course. Great pod. Yeah. So just need to plug that. What movies have you covered recently? This week we're recording the X-Files movie.

The new cut? No, the old cut. Okay. Fight the future. Okay. But do you know about the new cut? I've heard about the new cut. I wanted to see the new cut because my main thought on this old cut is that the editing

choices are inexplicable. But this is new cut of second movie. Yes. Okay. New cut of second movie. That's called like Durr Frankenstein. David? Something like that. Look, Chris Carter, I love you. I'm very glad you're getting pushed out on a big boat or an ice flow. And this is the last thing. Like, it's so clearly reeks of him. Like, he brought back

the X-Files, right? And the first season he brought back was pretty bad. People didn't like. Everyone was like, God, but it's great to see everyone. And there were a couple good episodes in there. I can fix it. And he was like, oh, my God, enough. Enough. You know what? Enough, buddy.

And he's like, what? And he's like, okay, but before you take it away from me, can I recut the second movie and call it, I want to believe, Vac Frankenstein? And they're like, well, yeah, whatever. Yeah, fine. Like, go ahead. We'll put it on Disney Plus and that's enough out of you. It's new subtitle is Dr.

Frankenstein in German because he's like, I'm like Dr. Frankenstein reconstituting this corpse. All right. Well, we didn't watch that. No, no. Fight the future is canonical 90s conspiracy thriller.

Great movie. I love that movie. It has some weird choices. I agree, but great movie. So that's all. That's all you interrupt. No, no, very important shout out. You need to plug the pot.

Of course, absolutely. And with that having been said, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Goodfellas. And as always, I'd like to try some alts. if I can try some alts quickly. Okay.

Willem de Redeemer? Willem de bread of life? Willem de Lord. Willem de son of the living God. Yeah. How about Willem to Carpenter? Yeah, Willem de son a man. Willem de image of the invisible God.

Willem de Lion of the tribe of de Judah. And of course, Willem to Christ. Willem to Christ. Willem to Christ. Father's son. no, sorry, let me try that again. Father, Willem, the Son, and Holy Ghost. Willem to Father, Willem to Son.

Yeah, Willem to Father, Willem to Son. William to Holy Ghost, because it's the Trinity, they're all one and the same. They are. Beautifully said. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon.

This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKean and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help.

Head over to Blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank CheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.