Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Quick and The Dead with Roman Mars

Episode Date: April 24, 2022

Considered a bit of a “blank check” for actress Sharon Stone (she used her clout to bring Sam Raimi, Russell Crowe, and a babyfaced Leonardo DiCaprio to the project), “The Quick and The Dead” may have been too quirky for mainstream audiences and too earnest for the post-Tarantino generation of cinephiles back in 1995. But boy, does it slap in 2022! Roman Mars - The golden-voiced host of “99% Invisible” - joins us as David offers his definitive Russell Crowe performance ranking, and as we finally get an excuse to go long on the screen persona of Gene Hackman. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

I'm so damn fast I can wake up at the crack of dawn, rob two banks, a train, and a stagecoach, shoot the tail feathers off a duck's ass at 300 feet, record a three-hour podcast, and still be back in bed before you wake up next to me. That's pretty good. Thank you. I was trying to figure out which one to replace with podcast, and then I was like, just add it to the list.

Just throw it in. It makes it even more impressive. The brag. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I thought that was an OK. Young Leo. Right.

I thought it was pretty good. It kind of had that. It's the rhythm of. Right. Yeah. The ring of Titanic and Romeo and Juliet. Well, not Romeo and Juliet. But like that kind of like swaggery quality. I don't know how to describe it. It's funny how different and how much he is still the same from adult Leo to child Leo. You know, like this is I'd say when you get to Titanic

and Romeo and Juliet right after this, right? Right after that That's when he's like a young man, right? He's become like a heartthrob. This is maybe the last performance where he still feels like a kid. He's literally playing the kid. But he feels like- He is playing the kid. Right. Absolutely.

He feels like a boy in this movie. Yeah. And he's about eight inches wide. He's very little. He's very little. He's quite petite. Yes. He's so little. He's very little. He's quite petite, yes. He's so little and delicate.

And I feel like I think so much of the narrative around Leo was like his whole post-Titanic Scorsese jump was like, I need people to stop thinking of me as boyish, right? Like he went so out of his way to stop being floppy haired, stop being sort of like charming and light and all that sort of stuff. But you still see so many kind of similar mannerisms and tricks, even in how he plays his most hard-boiled people today. Yes, you do. But there was that, and it suits him. Yes. Obviously, in this and in Titanic, I think. And it suits him Yes Obviously

In this and in Titanic I think There's that sort of Punky I think I'm so Special quality To these early performances That totally suits

Like it's perfect Perfect casting here Right? Right That he That he's maybe like Whatever Fully convinced that he's a movie star

When you're like Well you're not a movie star yet, Leo, but now it's weird because he isn't. He's Leonardo DiCaprio. I know it is one of the most fascinating things about watching this movie is like all the home media releases. And I imagine even just like the graphics they use on streaming sites and

rentals or whatever are sort of like the four of them at equal billing, right? Like Stone, Hackman, Crow, DiCaprio. and rentals or whatever are sort of like the four of them at equal billing right like stone hackman crow dicaprio and then you watch the opening of this movie and it's like stone hackman quick in the dead right russell crowe names names names names names names names names names and leonardo dicaprio and they are obviously and yeah I know I know they're the central quartet but it's like the two guys immediately become the biggest fucking movie

stars imaginable right after this movie and Hank Hackman has like six more years of being elder statesman before he retires and Sharon Stone this is one of the movies that I think causes Hollywood sort of

disregarded prematurely yes although this is also, is this not her Oscar nomination year? Is it? Because Casino is 95, isn't it? Yes, Casino is 95. But I mean, I think you're right that this is, I mean, there's a couple movies coming.

We can talk Stone in a minute. There's a few years coming up that I guess is the true nail in the coffin for her as a movie star. But this movie definitely underperformed go ahead i think it's her blank check like she's real producer she's like she's coming up that is my exact point yeah yes yeah more than ramey's ramey's is very confusing filmography for blank check purposes as far as i'm concerned but she used a check to hire Rami, someone people thought of only for doing sort of junky sci-fi horror sort of pulpy stuff.

I don't think they would have been quick, no pun intended, to hire him for this. She used her check for Crow. She used her check for DiCaprio. Literally. Yeah. No, but like, right. Exactly. This was really her thing.

Yeah. Got Sony to buy it for her. I do think you're right, David, that like casino feels like a coronation moment of like, fine, we're going to respect you as a serious actress, but also now can you go away? There was a weird dismissal

in the casino nomination, I find, where people are like, okay, Scorsese got a good performance out of her. Yeah, so the year after this, let's just dive right in i have to give this piece i know we have to introduce the show in our blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david and i'm roman mars now wait a second you can't do that i well i know i'm supposed to speak before i'm introduced but i wanted to introduce myself before i was introduced that's the one that you can't do on this show. That is brilliant, actually.

Yes. You can speak before you're introduced and you can make a good point, which you did before you're introduced, but you can't introduce yourself before you've been introduced. Well, I don't play by your rules. No, look, you're a podcasting legend. I guess you can do what you want. Do you not immediately, the second Roman came on the Zoom, David, feel like, my voice sucks. Like the second...

I didn't even have... I didn't even have the window in the front of my... I didn't have the window open. Same. I just heard the voice. Right. I just heard, hello? I mean, I can't even do it. You can't even do it! And I was like, what the...

Yes, it really feels like I am like a high school basketball player and like, you know, an NBA guy just walked in the locker room. And I was just like, oh, I see. I feel like I'm the kid and fucking Hackman just walked in. Well, that makes Roman sound scary and mean.

No. Look, Griff, I want to say something about Sharon Stone right away. I want to say that it's a podcast about filmography. 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. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce.

Pew, pew, baby. Shoot out. I couldn't think of a good whatever. It's a miniseries on the films of Sam Raimi. It's called Podcast Me to Hell. Today we're talking about his 1995 Western, The Quick and the the dead which i think a lot of people don't know exists and i think a lot of people who know it exists don't realize it's a sam raimi movie which is bizarre because it is so much a sam raimi movie it is and it should be called the slaps and it's great

i don't know yeah sorry it's so good the rules and it fucks yeah exactly but listen yes speaking on sharon stone our guest today is roman mars of 99 invisible he already introduced himself obviously sharon stone's early career is busting out of of hit genre films like total recall and then basic instinct and then Sliver, right? Like these are where she's making her name. This year, she's got The Quick and the Dead, which we will talk about today, but did not do that well at the box office. Then she has Casino, which is an undeniable hit.

Maybe a little bit of a comedown from like Goodfellas or whatever, but still, she gets an Oscar nomination. I was going to say, a hit it's a certainly a win for her but it was like oh scorsese made lesser goodfellas was the tag at the time now in the next year in 1996 griffin she had two films she had diabolic the remake of late diabolic big flop which is a big flop and she had a Bruce Beresford movie called Last Dance That was also a big flop Right? Now, this is what I want to get to There's a Golden Raspberry Award

Okay That existed for quite a while From 1982 to 1999 Called the Golden Raspberry for Worst New Star Yep And she was nominated for it that year And I saw that and I was like what do you mean new star sharon stone like she'd been around for a while like what were they thinking so let me read

you griffin the five nominees for worst new star for the 1996 golden raspberries okay okay okay the and these are rude to be quick no i'm classic, razzy fashion, I guess. I'm bracing myself for rudeness. Okay. Okay, here we go. All right, one, and Ben's going to be mad. Beavis and Butthead in Beavis and Butthead do America. What the fuck? Straight up rude.

That's so undeserved, first of all. They're so cool. Whoever made this list is such a nerd who doesn't like fun. And the movie was a hit. Totally. And it was good. And it was good as hell. Yeah.

Okay. So the next two are- They got the guy from fucking Unsolved Mysteries. Right? Yeah. The voice, Unsolved Mysteries. Sure. What is his name?

I don't know. But that's a huge get as far as i'm concerned that's your argument against a particular razzy knob i think there are other arguments i don't think there's other stuff that's great too it's got hank hill in it i mean come on don't get me started robert stack was it robert at the time yeah okay okay so some other nominees ellen degeneres was nominated for mr Wrong I guess that was sort of The first Ellen star vehicle It didn't work out, right?

That's more Pretty disastrous movie, yeah Next, there's a group nomination For four Friends cast members So they're going after the Friends cast members So 96, would it be Is Ed in there? Ed is in there, Matt LeBlanc

I feel like that's the one they're really Going for yeah because the others are David Schwimmer in the pallbearer Right Matt Reeves is Directorial debut Lisa Kudrow and mother Which is like a supporting role so that's A real stretch yes and Jennifer

Aniston and she's the one which I Feel like was a movie that everyone thought was Okay so they really should have just nominated Matt LeBlanc and Ed. That would have actually been on target. Yes, fair. Yeah. Then they've got Pamela Anderson and Barb Wire, who wins. Now, an obvious Razzie thing, right?

They just pick on the model slash actor. But let's put a pin in that. I'm going to come back to that later. This is connected to a larger point I want to make. Go on. Sure. And then the fifth nominee is Sharon Stone, but it's billed as the new, quote unquote, serious Sharon Stone in Diabolic and Last Dance. So they're basically, you know, stamping her with the like, don't try and fool us, Sharon Stone. You're not a serious actress. You're a genre actor. Last Dance is a Death Row movie.

Yeah. Right. She's the one making the clemency case. She is on Death Row for a murder, and Rob Morrow is trying to save her from Death Row. You've also got Randy Quaid, Peter Gallagher, Skeet Ulrich. Wow.

I mean, I'm just looking at after this. Not a hit movie. No, no mean, I'm just, I'm looking at after this. No, no, no, no. I'm just looking at after this, right? So 97, she doesn't make a movie. 98, she's got Sphere, which is a flop. It is. Good movie. A high profile flop.

What if there was a sphere? Sure. She's got Mighty, which I think is viewed as another sort of failed Oscar bait movie for her. Yes. Although quite a sweet film. I haven't seen it since I was a teenager, but I remember it being fine. Yeah, I remember it being relatively fine.

Gets a Golden Globe nomination for that. Right, she's kind of like a fake lead. Like, the kids are obviously the leads. She's the supporting mom, but yeah. Right. It's billed as a Sharon Stone movie. Right. Then, Voice and Ants.

99 is rough. 99 is Gloria? 99 is Voiceoria yeah which is the gloria remake no disastrous movie right lumet remaking cassavetes only 15 years later whatever it is uh bizarre a bizarre choice yes uh the muse which she gets the golden globe win for that and the story immediately becomes she bought every member of the Hollywood Foreign Press like a Rolex and she bought her way to the award. It's an infamous sort of this is how easily the Hollywood Foreign Press can be swayed story. Griff, here's the thing. She didn't even get the win. That was the nomination. Are you kidding me? Story. She lost

to Janet McTeer for tumbleweeds. Well. The Golden Globes ordered all 82 members to return luxury gift watches that Sharon Stone and or October Films had sent. So, yes, it became this embarrassing. Like, she didn't even earn the award, the nomination. She's pretty good in the muse, isn't she? That movie's all right. She is good in that. Yeah. But, like, truly, from that point on, she's done.

Simpatico. If These Walls Could Talk Too. Picking Up the Pieces, which I think isn't even theatrically released. Beautiful Joe. Like these are like movies that do not exist. I know. By the time she's popping up in Catwoman as the villain. Yes.

It's this like jokey thing of like Sharon Stone, like remember her? And of course she was famously attacked by a Komodo dragon. Yes, right. That's the other thing. Wait, what? What are you talking about? She was like Komodo dragon. He's talking about exactly

what he just said. She was attacked by a Komodo dragon. How big are those fucking things they're the biggest land animals or whatever they're like 10 feet long or something they're terrifying they paid to close down a reptile house at a zoo so they could have a private tour right yeah well she was married to phil bernstein who was the editor-in-chief or i don't know something of the san francisco chronicle so this is the local story that I knew of the time and uh you're an SF guy they they closed down I'm an East Bay guy yeah

I will correct you I'm so sorry I'm so sorry you're a Bay Area guy wow and then um but I I lived in San Francisco too so I don't mean to be so rude about it. But they closed down to get a special viewing of the Komodo dragon and actually bit Phil Bernstein's foot. Right. Which is notable because the way that they kill things is they have this horrible mess of bacteria in their mouth. They don't actually kill things by killing them, chomping them. They kill things by biting them and then letting them fester and die and then eating later wait that's kind of sick that's so metal actually to be honest they are very bizarre i remember when when you're a kid i feel like you learn like komodo dragons are like the largest lizards that exist and you hear like that sounds awesome they're called dragons and

then you see them and they just kind of look like big lizards they're like and you're a little disappointed like they don't even look like a crocodile or something cool they just look like and you you never see them in comparison to anything so they just kind of it's tough to gauge size that's the thing i can't get any perspective on them they just kind of look like lizards yeah they're pretty big they're low to the ground obviously what's there there's a there's a james bond with the komodo dragons and i think it's skyfall is the one where he's in macau yes he gets like kicked into a komodo dragon pit or whatever yeah classic it's always happening but but that is truly her biggest credit in that five-year period right between 99 and 2004 cat

woman where they're repositioning it as is this the sort of ironic comeback of Sharon Stone playing full camp. It's just news stories like that. And it's her going on the Golden Globes and giving a rambling speech and then Amy Poehler making fun of it. Like she just becomes this weird sort of pop culture figure who isn't even thought of as an actor anymore. And it sucks because she is so good she is so good in this she's so good in this i think she's a very underrated star in general not by everybody but by a lot i think her her 90s run is very strong and you know and she took good risks and certainly the story of this movie is her making a lot of correct her creative decisions

correct you know she she's handed some power and she uses it well yeah i mean when this movie came out i was a 20 year old into movies and so i saw it in the theater i was very excited for this movie and sharon stone was a thing i had to overcome to be excited about this movie because i only knew her as basic instinct uh sliver you know like and i didn't i never saw those movies but they just were distasteful for me as a like a snobby movie guy you know at the time and yeah and but now when i when i watch it and i at the time i love this movie and but now when i watch it i'm just, she's amazing in this movie. Yes. She's so good in this movie. She has incredible onscreen presence. And I want more for her, like a time machine me wants more for her in her career than this.

But when we were doing the Verhoeven series some years ago and watching Total Recall and Basic Instinct back to back, you're just like, how did within five years of basic instinct coming out, all of Hollywood decide she is a joke? Like, it just doesn't make sense. And it's not like that's a fluke performance. But I do think if I could circle back to the Pamela Anderson thing, right, because the Razzies are dumb and they're rude, but they do in their own stupid way represent the sort of worst type of consensus opinion around popular culture within eras, right? There are things that they do latch onto of just like, this is what the dumbest people

feel. This is what they're reducing movements and pop culture to. And you look at a list like that, you look at a category like that, David, and two things I find run really, really strongly through the entire history of the Razzies is they hate things made for women.

No, they absolutely do. Right. They also, look, they make fun of big, dumb boy action movies. They hate Michael Bay and Sylvester Stallone and whatever.

But like, it does feel like movies that are specifically made for women, there's this attitude of the nerve. How dare you even try? What is this dumb shit? The other thing is they like hate anyone who too explicitly titillates them.

Right? Like, I'm not saying Pamela Anderson is good in Barbed Wire. But there's this fury of how dare you make this movie where you show us your tits the whole time. Right? And like, they gave Basic Instinct so many fucking nominations it is absurd and it felt that is wild considering obviously the basic instinct right oh my god i'm realizing sharon stone was also nominated for worst new star in 1992 exactly for that right twice right it's like it's like rejecting rejecting her before she has a chance to reject their nerdy asses right right but it's like it's a madonna and the whore thing

of being like how dare you be this sexy on screen in this hypersexual movie that means i can't take you seriously you have to be frivolous and then once she makes the shift to like, I'm ready to use my clout to make serious films, interesting films, they're like, how dare you try to be serious now? You fucking piece of shit. You know, like the first time they give her a worst star for being in an erotic thriller and the second time they give her a worst star nomination for not being in erotic thrillers anymore because the run in between is her doing like sliver and specialist and the movies that you would do after basic instinct if that's the thing you want to maintain

and the second she starts veering off from that like the razzies get angry at her again it's very interesting you know beyond the razzies though that like i guess the roles like quick in the dead is a great pick. That's sort of out of the ordinary in that she has actually identified a script with a very compelling female lead, right? Yes. That she can play. And she's like, cool, I'm going to do this. Casino, obviously, that's Scorsese tapping her at the absolute perfect time for the absolute perfect role. She is such good casting in Casino.

I love that performance. perfect role she is such good casting in casino i love that performance and then after that things like diabolic last dance sphere feels like her agents hollywood whoever being like okay let's find you more like steely ladies right like what how can we class that up or how can we you know make that a list and i just feel like the scripts aren't there here's the other thing and this is totally superficial but she cuts her hair right yes everything pre-casino long hair and then post-casino she has the look that i knew when i was a teen person getting into a teen person getting into movies sharon stone always had short hair she always had the like very short blonde hair in movies like the mighty not in Gloria obviously she needs like the big you know but muse she has it too yeah yeah sphere like and does that like kind of like put her in a weird like sort of

post you know femme fatale box I have no idea I just I just feel like her image shifts and Hollywood gives up on her or something I don't know I don't know the Sharon Stone thing's weird femme fatale box i have no idea i just i just feel like her image shifts and hollywood gives up on her or something i don't know i don't know the sharon stone thing's weird no but i i mean look roman as the person who saw this in theaters at the time and as you said it's like there is that sense of even if her erotic thrillers or her more you know sexy roles were big hits that it was like but we can't take that seriously i also think on top of that that, and tell me if I'm wrong here, everyone was just making fun of her all the time. Like even when she was at the peak of her career, she was kind of like a classic like

Leno style punchline. Yeah, I think so. I think that's the nature of those erotic thrillers. Like make in the same way that you talk about the Razzies, it makes people like nervous and nervously make jokes and nervously dismiss her because they're afraid of their feelings. Right. And then when she cuts the hair

and it's like, wait, you're not trying to be a pinup model anymore? You're not looking like the idealized form of a femme fatale? Then people get angry at her again. It's a tragedy. It is. But i also think that she probably you know she stepped away she seems to have a lot of other interests she's super smart

you know and um and i i'm pretty sure that part of her career was her choice too i wouldn't like take that away from her because she um she definitely like made choices later on to not be in things i'm sure yes i mean she's she's talked about being like really fucking fed up with how everything i mean why why not yeah like absolutely why not and so and especially because i think this is one of those ones where it is both it is so quick of the dead is so against the grain like this is not the heyday of the western this is not sam ramey is not an established uh of the Western. This is not, Sam Raimi is not an established director, A-list director. It is a strange role. And she took all that stuff put together and made this thing happen.

And it's just a testament to like how on it she was and how much she was not, you know, really just trying to tick boxes in that sort of, you know, kind of Will Smith way of just like, okay, I'm going to study all the blockbusters of the world and i'm going to decide i'm going to you know like make blockbusters she just made a cool ass movie with her power which is awesome she also like put her neck out on the line successfully for two of the guys who were about to become two of the biggest leading men in hollywood and the man who would direct the first huge superhero franchise it's amazingly prescient it's it's stunning yeah it's it's it's funny for 1995 and i can get into some of the context and stuff but like when you think of

westerns obviously it was sort of a supposed boom for the 90s western was sort of had me right dances with wolves wins best picture and then unforgiven wins best picture and then you have these movies like Geronimo you have tombstone uh why slickers city maverick city slickers two that's a huge one uh like and so in

1995 all the movies we just mentioned have come out and not I would say a lot most of the movies we just mentioned were hits not wyatt herb but most not geronimo geronimo was not geronimo all hits yeah and and like this i would say is right when the bloom is again off the rose like hollywood's western comeback really just lasts a few years yeah and by 1996 the only big westerns i'm seeing here are from Dust Hill Dawn, which does not count. That's a horror movie, obviously, but it's got Western themes, I guess.

Western aesthetics. I love that movie, to be clear. Lone Star, which is like a dark neo-Western mystery contemporary. And that's basically it. I mean, this list has last man standing i don't think of that as a western really is it it's like a prohibition movie it's like gangsters yeah but it's it's definitely in the style of these i mean it's a remake right it's a remake of yojimbo yojimbo and what what's the what's the western version of yojimbo i can't remember but

there's another one in between there and then by 97 it's like the postman that's like the only western holiday this is what i was gonna say though like costner is the guy who's like really working to bring the western back and by the second half of the 90s he's kind of shifted more to sci-fi like postman is like western sci-fi he's done west world now or water world rather not west world you can sneak in horses and stuff in like the mascazaro yeah you know some wild wild west like something like that where it's like it's not just a straight ahead western but the quick and the dead is really stripped down in that it's like here we are in a town there's a mean sheriff right there's guys there's a saloon everyone's got guns this is not about

like the american experience you know in the west at all it's about like what if there was a town where everyone's job was cowboy who shoots you right like you know there's no like economics at work no it's it's like fucking like karateate Kid Part 2 with shootouts or whatever. But also, yes, you have Gene Hackman doing a Western for the first time since he won an Oscar for playing the bad guy in a Western. Which was just like three years ago. It wasn't that long ago. It is really funny to me the juxtaposition of those two characters, which are basically the same character. Yeah. characters which are basically the same character yeah but one of them is like serious with serious motivations where you can see he's a good guy or maybe at one point in his life was a good guy who

went down a very very dark path and um and and the harrod character in this one where he's just a cartoon villain um and they're both so good i know i like both performances so very very much and it makes me think that maybe gene hackman is the best actor of all time. There's a solid argument. Anytime I hear someone suggest that, it's hard to shoot it down. Like, he's at least in that very, very upper realm of debate. The whole thing with Gene Hackman is he could absolutely just give you Gene Hackman, right? Like if I just called him up and I was like, you're going to play kind of like a gritty, tough guy in this who doesn't take a lot of shit.

And you're maybe going to have a mustache. He would be like, you know, that would be fine. And so you could be fooled into thinking like, yes, Gene Hackman was a great movie star, but he kind of just did his thing and then you'll see something like get shorty one of my favorite gene hackman performances ever where he plays like a quivering buffoon yeah like like absolute idiot cuck great character so funny and then you're like gene hackman secretly could do anything yeah and like and like that is why yes there's an argument that he is the greatest actor in Hollywood history. I think I think he's there's an argument. You never hear horrible things about him. He he's sort of like he he just is able to.

Everyone said and I think he's admitted in the years since he retired and chilled out. He was incredibly difficult. Oh, OK. That he was not a friendly man. incredibly difficult. Oh, okay. That he was not a friendly man. I'm not using, like,

language to skirt around it, but I feel like even, like, when they've done Royal Tannenbaum's retrospectives, and that's, like, his second or third to last movie ever, they all say, like, he's not pleasant.

Like, he's very intense and he's angry. Which, look look is his superpower on screen like he is better at harnessing anger oh he's so good he's so good his levels of anger are fantastic yeah yeah i like his sort of growly anger and i like his like when he gets you know upset it's like the when he gets in his red shirt he goes you're not faster than me you know like he gets really up here like i just fucking love it you are dead right though roman that like the facility in in just sort of him understanding the difference between these two characters uh you know this character and the character in unforgiven that on paper are very similar

and the differences the sort of shifts he makes in an energy modulation and performance style to fit into each movie and the demands of that narrative properly it's totally different because i was coming in so i watched a quick in the dead and unforgiven for this oh wow for this little broadcast here and um and i was like um because i was going to make the case that they were the same character and they are not they are very very different and it all comes from the way gene hackman plays it not how necessarily how they're written it is surprising that he was cast because of what you're just the superficial connection yeah on paper you're like right it's the kind of thing where studios are both like let's just have him play little Bill again. But also you wonder if that's a deterrent, if audiences can be turned off by seeing something they've already seen.

incredible things I think Sharon Stone is doing. Like she's one character at the very beginning. She is, she is playing a character of what is, what if Clint Eastwood was this role, but it's a woman playing it. And then Harrod shows up. It freaks her the fuck out so much that every moment after that,

she's twitchy. She experiences her trauma all the time. You see it in her face, you see it in the movie. Like they really train on her reactions in her face and i think it's brilliant i think it's a brilliant choice i think it's a brilliant way that she plays it and i and and it really is about a person being affected by another person that changes their whole like facade and um i think that the way they interact together is like is incredibly well done i i think you see how much you learn from working on those Verhoeven movies about not needing to be realistic, right?

Or naturalistic in her performances, that she can do something more expressionistic to better suit the tone, the mood, the genre, to sort of make bigger statements because so much of her character is this sort of... I mean, this entire movie comes out of this, like, if you were to just have the man with no name be a woman, how does that change the dynamic of every scene? Right.

And so she's playing with that very consciously of when she needs to play the emotions of the character, when she needs to play the iconography of what she's representing. And it's, yeah, it's like really impressive work. And Hackman is able to make this entirely different character from Little Bill, despite not doing any obvious actor-y things. It's not like he said, I want a prosthetic nose and a mustache so the character is different. I'm going to do a different voice. I'm going to call it some tick to make him really unique. It's just emotional modulation and knowing exactly what movie he's in and what role he needs to serve within that story.

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airbnb.com you you guys know hackman lived with like dustin hoffman and uh who's the other deval right back in the day in new York The original Pussy Posse Imagine living with him Even young Hackman Who maybe has less gravitas And like you ate his cheese Out of the fridge Just imagine having roommate conversations

It chills me to my bones Like trying to ask him to do the dishes Like hey Gene when you come home and i left them yeah slam the door it's waking me up like whatever i mean the other thing is he just he always looked like that yeah you know he just like had gene hackman face and he had that voice yeah young gene hackman i it's very very hard to picture obviously there's sort of like night moves gene hackman right like sort of like middle gene hackman with the stash where

he just looks exactly the same you look at young gene hackman you're like yeah i i get it like i get that that makes sense but he's like a little little, he's, he's bulkier in French connection, which is his breakout role. And, um, he's, he's a little sausage. He's,

you know, he's with a little hat and a little jacket. Like, yeah, he's, he's, yeah, he's not a trim guy.

Intimidating. Yeah. That's basically it. He's intimidating. But, but I think one of his reasons why, like I have such reverence for him is because he was never quite that leading man style yeah he was able to be the best part

in so many movies um while he you know he he can be big he can be smaller he i mean he can just do so much and i kind of like all of it agreed he's fascinating because he can selflessly take on a supporting role or a villain role or be a mentor character or whatever it is and be the most interesting part of the movie and then whenever he was placed at the top of the movie to play the the plot driver he also somehow remained the most interesting person in the movie like he never collapsed under the weight of that sort of narrative responsibility or needing to be the leading man type or any of that. There's a story.

I think I sent this to you and the Doughboys, David. We were texting about how good Hackman is. And I sent you guys that clip of Kevin Costner on the Rich Eisen show talking about Hackman. Did you watch that? Maybe. There was whatever thriller the two of them did together hackman and costner pretty early in costner's oh no way out yeah uh yes yes um so they were talking about on that movie costner was coming in pretty hot right like he is a man with a lot of opinions and he was very ready to be a leading man and a director and all of that.

So they're doing all these scenes. And I think he was saying that like most of his scenes with Hackman were in like office rooms behind a desk and they didn't feel very dynamic. I've never seen this movie, but that he was behind a desk for most of it and that he got to set and was sort of like, this is boring. We should do this. Move this chair, stand up,

change the blocking, whatever. And was just being very opinionated with everything. Roger Donaldson was sort of pushing back on him. He was really being stubborn about like, I finally become a leading man.

Like, I don't want to blow it. I don't want to be lazy. I don't want to wrestle my laurels. I want to make every scene as dynamic as I can. This is Gene Hackman. This is one of my idols. And Hackman was just sitting there, like, silently the entire time. As these fights were happening.

And then would just wait for them to settle and would do whatever they landed on, right? And at the end of the day, and Costner was like, I don't know if I pissed him off. I don't know what's going on here. And at the end of the day, Hackman stops him when he's like walking out of his trailer to get to his car. And he goes like, hey, kid. And Costner, Kevin Costner was like, Gene Hackman's about to chew me out. Like is terrified of Gene Hackman, even at peak physical Kevin Costner. Right.

And it's just like this guy's going to fucking destroy me. and Costner, right? And it's just like, this guy's gonna fucking destroy me. And Costner goes up to him and he's like, you know, I had a bad divorce and I had to take some movies I didn't really want to do

and pay my settlement. I think I sort of forgot what I like about doing this. And watching you today fight for that, it reminded me of when I was a young actor and I cared about

every single choice. So thank you for that. Wow. And he i was a young actor and i cared about every single choice so thank you for that wow and he like walked off and then hackman has like a golden period right after that yeah it's true he passes the yeah he you're right he like reignites the torch sorry yeah it's like when hackman because i feel like why hackman won an oscar for unforgiven i mean obviously he's really good in Unforgiven. It's a perfect supporting actor. But it was also kind of the Oscars being like, you still got the juice, buddy.

It's that rediscovery thing. I mean, I think his 80s were not particularly great outside of Hoosiers. And Costner says that Hoosiers, I think, came out when they were shooting No Way Out. Yes, right. And Hackman was like, I gotta be honest, I didn't know what we had.

I thought that was a piece of shit, and I didn't think I was giving it my all. He's incredible in Hoosiers, but it's obviously a very quiet internal performance. But Hackman, by his own admission, was like, I feel guilty by how much I wasn't respecting that movie and appreciating it while we were making it. I feel like he did a lot of stuff for money, right? Like he's in Superman 4.

That's kind of embarrassing. He's in a lot of shit. But like Uncommon Valor was a movie that was like a hit but wasn't respected. Like he did a lot of the 80s. This is what he was saying. He had like a bad divorce and he did a lot of movies for money. And it's not like in the 90s he did all jam it's like he did no but uh but i mean god this year he has quick in the dead crimson tide and get shorty is his 95 well i just feel like even though he you know he's in movies that don't turn out to be great he always comported himself well

where like i don't think the stink of a bad movie ever really stuck to him um which which is part of the you know the grace of not being a dustin hoffman or uh robert de niro or uh you know like that he gets to be good in things and be respected but i don't know like he doesn't take i don't i i don't remember him in those bad movies no and i also think i mean david we've talked about like the tommy lee jones phenomenon But I don't know, like he doesn't take I don't I don't remember him in those bad movies. No. And I also think I mean, David, we've talked about like the Tommy Lee Jones phenomenon where Tommy Lee Jones is another actor whose superpower is like anger. Right. And so when he's simmering. Right. Right. And like disgust and distaste for everything around him when he's giving a movie his all, he's incredible. And when he hates that he's in a movie, he's incredible because his actual disregard for the movie evolution translates. So I think like whatever period where Gene Hackman's heart was maybe in it a little less,

the performances were still really fucking compelling. And then I think in the 90s, he started just being like putting his heart fully back into everything and then yes even when he was taking paycheck jobs he's like over delivering on all of it uh god he's so good he is good the quick and the dead is good this film is directed by sam raimi and but and boy was it directed it really was directed the shit out of this. Look, I love Sam Raimi. And I love this movie. And I love how he directed it. But it is that kind of thing like when I was 12 years old

and I was trying to understand, like, what is a director? How can I watch a film and understand how it was directed? This would be a good entry level where you're like, did you notice there were a few subtle choices in terms of how the story was told yeah uh that's sort of sam ramey's fingers that you're his little fingerprints that you're noticing here right you know like do you notice that that gun floating across the screen for no reason that's a very sam ramey move right there you watch this movie you're like was he the only guy who watched the man with no name

trilogy and during all the shootouts and standoffs was like come on let's throw some juice in not enough stuff happening right i i love it i i think it's like it it's weird that um you know western which is often kind of an excuse to kind of um have a movie do nothing except for just have vistas being in display that he takes that and just like pours sam raminess into it in a way that is like um i find so compelling like i really love it it's just like i would never put it together that these like succession of shootouts is the perfect use of his superpower but it totally is it's just a video game of like yes of a boss level like you know like continued like series of boss level fights that allow him to like do canted angle that just you know flips all the

way over or the jaw the jaws like pull back angle sort of thing. And every single fight is different. It's so good. It is that thing. He uses every tool in the toolbox. He doesn't repeat himself. And the other thing with him is for how loud his directing style is, I don't think there's a single thing in this movie that is like flash or style for its own sake.

I agree. Every choice he makes, as loud as it is, is in support of trying to convey the emotion of that moment with the most sort of extreme amount of energy, which for a film that is very, very clean and simple and straightforward plot wise, it does help a lot. I totally agree. And I think that also the emotion stays with it. help a lot i totally agree and i think that also the emotion stays with it i mean there's some key emotional moments that are played sincerely and you feel them sincerely they are not a joke and it's a really delicate balance to to strike and he does it i think throughout this movie which

is why i think one of the reasons why i think it's a real triumph i agree with everything you guys are saying but i think that at the time, critics did not agree. No, absolutely. The popular reaction was, this movie is all flash, you know, it's all sizzle, no steak, and I'm not getting any emotion,

and Sam Raimi can't fucking calm down, right? Like, that was the hit at the time. Well, so all the Westerns you're talking about in this sort of, like, 90s, late 80s, 90s wave right that is dying at this moment all of them are like very austere they are

prestige adult revisionist westerns by and large that have like a simplicity to their filmmaking style and this is a popcorn movie right I would say Tombstone is the trashiest of those 90s Westerns. It's not nearly as sort of fizzy as this movie.

But Tombstone, obviously, definitely a little more, a little less austere. And then City Slickers was not the most austere work. But, of course, I'm joking when I include City Slickers in all this. But truly, City Slickers is more austere cinematically than this is like city slickers is very saccharine yes i would say that most things are more austere that's the thing it's a low bar but yes yes it absolutely is uh yeah so quick in the dead even though it has actors from unforgiven and it has like the aesthetics the look, not the way the camera's moving, but you know, the

frontier town and the costumes and all that that would feel very recognizable. Yes, it is aesthetically completely different from all the other Westerns people are seeing. So maybe that threw people off, like too goofy. I'm looking at Gene Hackman here. I forgot that in between Unforgiven and

Quick of the Dead, he is also in Wyatt Earp and Geronimo. He's in two of the other movies we've mentioned in this run. Yeah. He would sign on. He still liked Money. Yes. God, he loved it. I remember this being a flop or being a critical flop as it was completely confounding to me.

Like, because I saw it and I just like, well, that's one of the greatest movies I've seen this year. Completely confounding to me. Like, cause I saw it and I just like, well, that's one of the greatest movies I've seen this year. And I mean, I think that one of it's the other thing that was going on is like, you're, you're kind of in the pulp fiction, you know, ironic, uh, like this, this is a pastiche in a, in an interesting way of Sergio Leone, but it's also not ironic. It's um me not ironic spirited it's not it has a real sincerity to it that i think also short-circuited the kind of cinephile reaction to it too like it had it didn't get embraced by any group of of moviegoers at the time and i just i it i don't know why it was just a big fat meatball for me yeah it was a february release like i feel like that's kind of a weird dumping from sony and like the whole thing is just kind of neither it's like well this is an expensive movie of movie stars this is a prestige project no is it for families definitely not oh okay you know like the the options are kind of narrowing it's only award nomination is a Saturn award for best actress.

That's it. For her. Wow. From Dussel Dawn is the year after this. And that's what you're talking about, Roman. Like that's the Western that is now speaking to the post Tarantino generation by being written by Tarantino, starring Tarantino and 30 minutes and being like, just kidding. We're not a Western.

Right. I mean, and to be clear, adore that same but right the whole joke it's great of that movie is that it stops being a western and it's you know right you know anyway the quick and the dead let me give you guys some context okay please all right so this film is written by simon moore uh who at the time is best known for the tv miniseries traffic with a K. How would you know that? Traffic is spelled with an IC in the United States of America where we all have lived our entire lives. In 1989, there was a British miniseries for Channel 4 in it called Traffic.

Are you talking like that, David? Yeah, this is very odd. It doesn't sound right, actually. Famously turned into the film Traffic by Steven Soderbergh many years later. I'm assuming none of you have ever seen it. I have never seen the film. Sorry, the miniseries. I have not seen the miniseries.

Well, David, how would we have seen it? I don't think it aired in the United States until the mid-2000s. No, it aired on Masterpiece Theater in 1990. It was a very big deal. Well, how would you know that? I'm reading Wikipedia. I've never seen Traffic, despite having lived in England for many, many years.

I feel like we're getting very close to something. I said it. I said it. What? No, it's funny when you look at Traffic, because obviously the Soderbergh movie was about the cartels right and all that you know like it was about mexican drug dealing and so on and so forth but uh the british movie was about uh heroin dealers i think and it was uh about like afghan and pakistani

growers and all that right like it's funny how it got transposed anyway that thing was a big deal so i guess simon moore gets kind of brought out to hollywood where it's like okay buddy what do you got and he had written a movie called under suspicion he writes and turned into a movie right did he direct it as well he did direct it uh which i've never seen hilariously of course uh gene hackman later starred in a different film called under suspicion that is not what we're talking about. We're talking about the Liam Neeson, Laura San Giacomo, like kind of sex thriller, which I've never seen.

It is funny sometimes when you like troll through IMDb like that and you find a movie where it just feels like four things pulled out of a hat. You're like, what if we try and you're slapping magnets on the board and you're like, Liam Neeson fucks Laura San Giacomo? Is that a movie yeah right it just sort of sounds like something that would have happened in 1991 like what are you gonna check like that sounds fine what do we call it i don't know under suspicion or something so simon moore basically is like i loved spaghetti westerns i loved the you know sergio leone style

western i loved the mexican standoffs and i was just like what if there was a movie That was all that We cut everything else out And it's just shootout after shootout The princess bride Effect you know Take all the good stuff So smart It is quite smart

And he wanted to do it Spitgetti western style He was going to direct it himself He was going to go out to Italy Try and get like 4 million dollars right from some studio and uh basically what happened was eventually sony who had turned down the idea of the movie with him directing calls him and they're like we'll buy it for a lot of money like we will you know turn it all around and he truly like i think he didn't even

know what script they were talking about because he was so confused like i guess he had several scripts out and then like the way he puts it is like it was a frank capra moment where you're you know like where he was like i'm never gonna have any success i'm always gonna be poor and he got the phone call and like that was it It was like all the money in the world. And he was suddenly like his whole life changed or whatever. Was that because Sharon Stone had found the script? Was Sony buying it to try to lure Sharon Stone? Did Sharon Stone ask Sony to buy it? Yes.

Basically, I think, and it sounds like classic Hollywood stuff, which is like Sony calls him and they're like, we want the script. We'll pay top dollar. And he's like, what do you want to do with it? And he like we can't tell you sony's like you know like it won't reveal any of that and then eventually they are like so yes we're gonna have this is gonna be a star vehicle for sharon stone and she wants sam ramey to direct it and simon moore was like wait that sounds great i love sam ramey like you know like i think like he they maybe

assumed that he would be like sam ramey like forget that and he was like sharon stone like yeah yeah and they he he did the rewrites like it's like basically they never took the script away like uh well no i'm sorry no yes no there's the john sales thing right yeah right for a while he's he's working on it for them and then one day they fired him and they brought in john sales and he beefed up the script to a two and a half hour movie jesus well it's so funny that you mentioned lone star which is john sales written and directed that came out the same time which is almost like if you could have a polar opposite western from quick and the dead, it's probably Lone Star, which is a movie I fucking adore. That movie is fantastic.

Phenomenal. Certainly it is not a blockbuster tinged. Right, exactly. It is a slow and interesting film. And what's interesting about it from the way I read it is that I think they brought in sales because they were like this thing might be a little too popcorny can he add some like serious western gravitas to it right and then he does that by adding an hour onto the runtime which they're like this thing is overblown now so then they bring more back to rewrite sales's draft and what he did was just took out all the sales stuff and they went great.

You fixed it. So he was like, essentially what they made was the first script from before they fired me. What a waste. I mean, it is like Griffin, you and I have heard stories like this about Hollywood production where they ruin a script trying to fix it and then like turn back around and they're

like, Hey, can you fix it? And the answer isn't, hey, can we go back to your original draft? It's, hey, could you come back and change your changed script so that we like it again? They can never admit the mistake enough

that they're actually like, you know what, let's go to draft eight instead of draft 47. Draft eight was actually when it was good. They just have to keep going. They feel like it has to be an additive process and especially in this day and age you can just be like go to my email from february there's a draft that is dated um there there's a story i remember hearing about a uncredited writer who i think he was a critic did rewrites on the first Tim story fantastic

for movie and Jessica Alba kept on coming in with notes every day about her character not making sense because I'm a woman doesn't make the most sense in the world but okay but they were just sort of like this whole movie doesn't make this like chaos like what are you talking every day and have so many notes on the scene

this and that I want this and I want more of that and at some point uh the uh the this writer just cut like 90 of her dialogue out and was like because the studio was just sort of like she's becoming like a nightmare we just like can't solve this and she's holding everything up can you just like cut her dialogue down so she's got as little to do in every scene as possible. And he comes to set the next day. He's like terrified that just Alba is going to chew him out. She runs up to him, gives him a kiss and a hug.

And she's like, finally, someone cracked my character. Not present. All they did was just remove. It's look, I'll say this is someone who writes professionally for a living. Sometimes, you know, you'll turn in a story and it're right it'll be like i want this this this this and this and you'll like make one change and they'll be like yeah i love it it looks great like you know like it's sometimes it's just some weird vibe thing it's it's it's it's so bizarre i don't know it is a mystery of editing we i i edit for most of my life is is focused around editing and it is

weird how much of it is like we work on it work on it work on it and the answer is uh let's just cut that yeah simon moore here says that a specific concern the studio had was the repetitive nature of the movie like it's just gunfight after gunfight is this isn't this going to be boring but ramey solves that yeah exactly like i i guess i understand that concern in theory but like it's but is mortal kombat boring no we love this street fighter boarding no you motherfuckers i mean i think something that's very important is that you make every character even if they're a little character really pop if it was just a

bunch of anonymous villains who are getting shot off the screen because you know sharon stone is not going to die until you know like then sure it maybe that would be an issue but sam ramey's like no there will not be one face that you do not remember in this movie yeah it reminds me it's sort of like um when when we make radio which is my only context for this, I don't do anything visual at all, is like if you can read a script and it functions the same as the audio product, then you didn't actually make radio. Sure. And so if you read it, you know, and and that's what is added with all the visuals and all the tricks and all the cool things with it is just like they made a true movie. Because if you read the script of it, you'd be like, well, that's dumb. You know, like that doesn't do enough, but it shouldn't. does he have sort of unique visual ideas for each gunfight and is are those ideas uniquely paired to each

gunfight not arbitrarily applied for the sake of variety right but also as you sort of said David it's like we got to get through a lot of characters fast how do you characterize them fast how do you cast great character actors people that has a scar

right will be remember his scar how do you style them specifically like? People that will be. This guy has a scar. Right. Will be remembered. And his name is Scar. How do you style them specifically? Like all of this shit. It truly is though. Like I've been listening to so much Dead Eyes. Our friend Connor Ratliff's podcast. And so much of that is talking about the weird. When he talks to all these other actors.

When you lose parts or gain parts. Or how people gain parts. And the weird eccentricities of casting. And part of it is like a movie like this. Where Sam Raimi has to make sure that every person looks distinctive right has a different voice has a different name has a different gimmick is it an actor who we all

know so we got the shorthand of that's Keith David or is it a guy who you make like be named Ratsby and you kind of give him fucking rap aesthetics Ace and his cards and it's it is so it is so mike tyson's punch out like i'm 10 years older than you so my video game references are slightly older but it's like it's very much just like this is the guy that does let me go dancing and so he

has the name flemingo in his name you know like it's just it's right with one for one but it's a very smart understanding of how what the audience is going to need to hold on to in order to be able to stick with this movie. Yeah. Because when it starts, it's like, wow, you're introducing a lot of characters in the first five minutes. You know? Yeah. How do I keep track of this? Right.

What complicated spider web narrative. Right. And then you're just like, yeah, they're all going to be on chalkboard. We're just introducing you all now. And then there's going to be a tournament one by one. They'll all get shot down. You know role that's been written here It's unusual she likes the idea of a woman With no name right She had I guess been mogul enough On Sliver and said that

She like rolled over a lot there Like she was trying not to step on toes Or whatever and that movie You know didn't do Amazing I mean Sliver is sort of like A trash masterpiece I guess of the early 90s But it's not like a well received film No and was certainly right not well respected So this is her like i am putting my foot down like movie right like this is

where she has uh all the she's calling the shots and she's like i'm not fucking this around like just because you like a big thing she cites is that someone some people quote who shall remain nameless wanted her to wear a dress when she rides into town. And she was just like, we're not doing that. I am not going to be sexy in whatever normal way you think for this movie.

They actually shot a sex scene that got removed. With her and Crow? It must have been. It's not clear. It's not cited. Where would that have happened? like outside yeah you always chained up to the fountain yeah wait is that where we move down um and of course she got to pick her director and she picks sam ramey uh and it's sort of a weird thing because sam ramey i don't think he's ever directed a movie at this point that he didn't

write right like this is his first kind of for hire job uh correct and the main thing I read that she hired him off of was Army of Darkness that was loved Army of Darkness right and like Sam Raimi not only this is the thing had basically never worked with a big actor before because like Liam

Neeson in Darkman is not like that famous at that point no it's pre uh fucking Schindler's List. Like this is the first time he's working with established movie stars. And then everything else is like literally his friends. Like, you know, it's almost what's most impressive to me about this movie is that like Crime Wave was obviously such a sort of knockback for him. Like, Crime Wave was obviously such a sort of knockback for him.

But how well he transitions to, like, new budget level, working with established movie stars in a new genre in a studio system with a script he didn't develop. And it's just seamless. It feels as personal as any of his earlier films. And it feels as of a piece. Bruce Campbell, I think, does actually have a tiny role in this movie. But he was, Remy wanted him to have a bigger role one of the gunfighters obviously but he was shooting briscoe county junior so he was that's a good reason at least yeah it is a good reason but

he should have been one of these guys he absolutely i mean these any one of these roles is made for him basically and he's very nice in that kind of ramey way where he's like this is simon moore's thing like it's a great script 90 of it is him like good job by him i just wanted to do a good job like putting it on screen like he i think he as someone who had never directed another person's script before was very deferential to the script what a mensch He is a bit of a mensch. He had a good time working with Sharon Stone. Guess who he had a tougher time working with? Gene Hackman. That's correct.

Things were a little difficult. He says, Gene, very strict. Reminded me of an elementary school principal teacher called Mr. Little. Sounds kind of cool, actually. He was shooting Geronimo. Sam Raimi goes

to meet him and he says, Sam, tell me about the picture. At that point, I would shoot myself and piss my pants. Tell me about the picture. I would be like, no, I won't. I will commit suicide in front of you. By the way, he said that with a gun, a loaded gun cocked to Sam Raimi's temple.

Tell me about the picture, the pictures so sam says he talked for about 15 minutes and he was kind of just like and then hackman says tell me about my character harrod does he love the kid or not talking about dicaprio yeah and sam ramey's like well of course he does that's why he's so mean to him all the time and gene hackman apparently nods and goes like and then there's no further discussion because then he accepts the part but i guess like that was gene hackman's sort of weird test was like do you understand this character in the way i want you to or something do you do you know that brian cox succession thing either of you well he plays i know he plays the role of

logan roy on succession he does okay that's what i was asking it's a little trivia fact i found on either of you? He plays, I know he plays the role of Logan Roy on Succession. Is that what you're talking about? He does. Okay, that's what I was asking. It's a little trivia fact I found on IMDb. I didn't know if you know. No, what's, Jesse Armstrong,

when he was, I guess, maybe he had taken the part already. They were meeting with him. They hadn't started filming though, right? And he said to Jesse Armstrong, like, I just have the one question for you. I can do all my work.

I'm not going to pester you with shit. The one question I just need to know before I can play this part. And either answer is fine. But I need to know what your definitive answer is. Does he actually love the kids or not? Right. And I wonder how much the Hackman thing was like a test versus him being that kind of very practical actor where he's like, I just need you to tell me which it is.

And I can tell you whether or not I can get my head around playing this guy. I do get the sense that, right, Brian Cox is a fairly practical actor. Yeah. Because obviously he does a lot of weird crap. Right. I mean, no offense to him. Because my favorite thing, I mean, I haven't read the Brian Cox book yet. I'm going to.

But obviously, you know, everyone's heard that that book is him being like you know and jeremy irons what a hack i hate him and he's 10 paragraphs and all the shit he's been in and it's like brian cox you've done like 40 movies that no one's ever heard of that are like you know you yelling at gary oldman on a submarine and then you walk off with money in bags they didn't even they forgot to cut that out of the movie like your hand did some like aluminum that you can go you know barter with like right like you know it's just weird that brian cox is such a hack and yet also so comfortable calling everyone out and i love him to be clear the the last chapter of the book by the way david because he said you haven't read it yet i haven't read it yet the last chapter of that book is him calling you out for not having read the book he knows he knows classic he's sitting around doing fucking podcasts read my book god damn it fuck off fuck off sims so gene hackman i this again this may not this may stun you guys to hear was not super into sam ramey's

style of filming very technical complicated setups many takes as he says he cuts the film in the camera to some degree meaning that he never lets a master scene run through so i guess that's hackman saying like why don't you just point the camera at me and let me be gene fucking hackman and sam ramey's like no no no i want to do this and then i want to do this and then you It's Hackman saying like, why don't you just point the camera at me and let me be Gene fucking Hackman? And Sam Raimi's like, no, no, no, no. I want to do this and then I want to do this. And then it has to be exactly this way or else the studio is going to not like let me do it. Right.

You know, so I'm sure he got on his nerves. Yes. It is a reason why I think I look, I don't know what his technique is with actors by and large, but I do think Sam Raimi doesn't get enough credit for how good the performances are in his movies, considering how difficult his style of filmmaking is for performances. And I think part of that is he cast very well. And even if he wasn't getting along well with Hackman, Hackman is so fucking good in this and especially we'll get to it. But the moment after the shootout with the kid he plays that in such a fascinating way that's not hackman like pulling a scene off of the shelf that he's done before you know yeah i mean that's that scene is the best scene in the movie i think and

there's a lot of good scenes of this movie can i read this thing you were talking about david the terror of imagining living with gene hackman as a struggling actor. Go ahead. I'm just on his Wikipedia. So his one of his main jobs at that period of time living with Hoffman and Duvall was that he worked at the Howard Johnson in Times Square. So if you think it's scary to be his roommate, imagine having to order ice cream from Gene Hackman at a fucking diner. from Gene Hackman at a fucking diner. But one of the people he served at that restaurant was previously one of his instructors

at the Pasadena Playhouse who said that him working at Howard Johnson was proof that he wouldn't amount to anything. Damn. Wow. Jesus.

Yes. And then a Marine, he had been a Marine. He had been a Marine. He enlisted in the Marines when he was 16 years old. He lied about his age. Well, he probably looked 47. Absolutely. I don't think he had to lie.

Yeah, he's 24 in this movie. But he lied about his age at 16 to enlist in the Marine Corps for four years as a field radio operator, right? So he's had this Pasadena Playhouse guy tell him you're not going to amount to anything. And then a year or two later, he's working as a doorman. And the former Marine officer, his former commanding Marine officer said, Hackman, you're a sorry son of a bitch. And there's this quote from Hackman here where he talks about how much everyone dismissed him at that time. And he said, it was more psychological warfare because I wasn't going to let those fuckers get me down. I insisted with myself that I would continue to do whatever it took to get a job.

It was like me against them. And in some way, unfortunately, I still feel that way. But I think if you're really interested in acting, there is a part of you that relishes the struggle. It's a narcotic in the way that you were trained to do this work, and nobody will let you do it. So you're a little bit nuts. You lie to people, you cheat, you do whatever it takes to get an audition, you get a job. It does feel like that is the energy Gene Hackman carried with him throughout his entire career until he retired. Like he was just sort of adversarial to everyone he worked with not like abusive you know that's what that's what i think when i was thinking that i hadn't heard much bad about him is like it never went

to the level of abuse it seems like he's the typical kind of artist style scare yeah he was just constantly locking horns with everyone all the time yeah and it's one of the reasons he's like when the rare times he does interviews been very clear on why he doesn't want to come out of retirement. He's like, I'm a lot happier now. I finally let go of all that shit. Yeah. Is this the movie where Raimi kind of puts on the suit and does stuff like this? Is this him trying to like, like I wear fancy clothes to basically as my armor and my costume.

Yeah. Confidence. I get it you know and um and heretofore you know he had been like you said just mainly working with his friends and maybe that wasn't required but like do you know when he made that transition to kind of wearing a suit all the time i don't although i know of course that is his on set vibe right is he dresses up right right right griff yeah i would not be surprised if this was the moment. And if it isn't, it still does feel like this is the moment where symbolically the shift happens. Well, this that's what I like. My psychology is this is the moment I would dress up if I was asking Gene Hackman to sit there while I rearrange the cameras would be the moment when I would be sure I was wearing a suit when I asked him respectfully to do this. JJ, our researcher, found this. He posted this on Twitter recently. I imagine it was in

doing research for the show, but I don't know what specific episode. Did you see this quote, David? Which one? I don't know where this interview is from, but they said to Ramey, he just did the screen grab of this question and answer. You always wear a suit on set. Rumor says it's a nod to Hitchcock. And he said, although I have a tremendous amount of respect for Alfred Hitchcock, who is the true master of horror and the father of such modern filmmaking technique, I don't actually wear a suit as a tribute to him. Believe it or not, I wear a suit and tie as a sign of respect to the cast and crew. I like a very serious and well-ordered film set. For me, it's the best way to work. And out of that order, I like to get a tremendous amount of creativity.

At the same time, the old masters used to dress in a very formal manner on set. And I always thought it was super cool. And then in a line that might have been ghostwritten by my father, the end of this answer is Sam Raimi saying, nowadays, everyone's got the nose rings and the colored hair. So for me, to wear the suit and tie is a different way to go sam ramey's not here for the nose rings my father always talks about the mohawk hairdo and only refers to it by that full name the definite article look the no the mohawk hairdo

and the thing in the nose is what my dad always says i mean there's this story that bruce campbell relates because i feel like sam ramey doesn't talk a lot of shit right like sam ramey strikes me as someone who's not going to be a gentleman gene hackman was a huge pain in the ass but apparently sam had a very specific setup he wanted gene to do six different things and gene looked at him and said i'm not doing any of that and and sam had to talk to him for like 15 minutes about the character to be like this is why i want you to tip your hat to sit in the chair to say this like you know like you know he had to like talk him all the way through it because clearly gene hackman was like i'm not your action figure

you fucker right or whatever it is right but but like with campbell was his action figure you know he like he had this big goofy friend who was also a producer who was down for anything. And he could just manipulate into a billion takes by himself. It's just I just think every single performance in this movie is good. And he gets people at very different stages in their careers. Well, speaking of when are we going to talk about Russell Crowe? Because this is his first American movie. Yeah.

I'm about to pivot to Russell Crowe, who I mean, I feel like I've lavished some praise on Russell Crowe on this. You're a fan. Yes. Have we covered a lot of Russell Crowe films? Insider. Insider, obviously a really compelling, wonderful performance. But is there another one?

That's a good question. I feel like we talk about him a lot. We're obviously developing a live action Donkey Kongong movie with him but that might be the only proper russell crowe film we've covered well in addition to ramey the thing i was most excited about when it came to this movie was russell crowe because i had seen him in australian movies you did you see romper stomper that was i saw romper stomper which was a big deal and um and but but this other movie that another one that i hope people find and love is this movie called proof from 1991 proof is a wonderful yes jocelyn warhouse film it is so good and he plays just a dude that is

not very notable in any way except for he is so charismatic that he makes this very ordinary guy very compelling. And between that and romper stomper, I was like, this is the guy I was like, I was super convinced on him really early on. Well, guess who else was convinced? Sharon Stone. Sharon Stone. Fucking good ass taste. Because guess who Sam Raimi wanted for this role? Oh, I don't know.

Liam Neesonon who he had just worked with obviously now at this point liam neeson is coming off of schindler's list i don't know if liam neeson would want to do this he would be make total sense for it like totally big and you know imposing uh but sharon stone had seen romper stomper she thought he was charismatic attractive talentless talented not talentless yeah i was gonna say what what a neg talented and fearless which i do feel like is fairly crucial crow had auditioned for a small role he'd auditioned for one of the you know many gunslingers i guess and sharon stone basically was like you have to audition for uh the lead role for court and i basically talked

sam raimi into it like you know and i i this is not even a probably not even a top 10 russell crowe performance he's given a lot of wonderful performances but he's really fucking magnificent in this movie and he is so hot it is crazy how good he looks. I think it's one of his best. I agree, Roman. Maybe it is. It's sort of like his subtlety that I, you know, his bluster that sort of comes on later is the part of Roscoe I don't enjoy as much.

You know what I mean? He can bluster me all over the room. He can throw a fucking phone at your head. But his ability to play uh gentle and tough and kind of an addict and kind of uh like he's basically a violence addict that's recovering and to for him to do that and be i i this might be my favorite role of his ever that's the thing obviously look i mean That's outrageous and disgusting. Listen, listen, David.

No, go ahead. Go ahead. I may be a notorious soft boy. Sure. And I don't want to fucking become Eddie Redmayne here. But I do think there is a fragility in this performance that I don't know I've ever seen Crow capture as well. And the way that is cut with his natural sort of brutish animalistic intensity is really fascinating. It's it's a I don't think he is ever called upon to pull up this same amount of energy, the same kind of energy, rather.

It's a different energy. And also, like, he's when you capture him here and something that you get is this infinite possibilities with him you just see all the movie stars he could possibly be and just over time you you watch them narrow and those walls close off and he chooses a path and he becomes more of a russell crowe yeah um as a person and in this one i just see this like amazing performance in this infinite potential and it sort of delights me when i see it it's it's so good i'm regretting the top 10 comment i think i might revise it to a top five because i'm just looking at filmography right now because my favorite russell master is mastering

is not mastering oh what that's probably my favorite russell crowe movie that's probably you know but uh la confidential is my favorite performance that's like one of my favorite performances of all time yeah and that's right after this right yeah it's two years later virtuosity it's basically confidential right it's basically his for his next performance in a serious movie because god bless virtuosity which is a a very bananas piece of 90s you know hollywood crap and he's he is really good at it and he's like you know he pops really hard at it but that's not like a you know a real serious movie or whatever you know yeah so la confidential this looks good you haven't seen 6.7 the ultimate killing machine correct he is a vr amalgam of every serial killer, Ben. Ben, do you know what SID stands for?

No. Sadistic, intelligent, dangerous. That's right. That movie is. I gotta get my hands on this shit. Damn. I'll bring it over, Ben. I've got it on Blu-ray.

I'll bring it to you sometime. Perfect. That's another movie I saw in the theater. I was very excited for that movie. Why wouldn't you be you're a pro yeah yeah look bud white is my favorite crow performance ever that's one of my favorite sure you know characters ever i love that movie and that is true i would put maybe that one is higher than this one but i just find this one so he just has a different type of appeal

in no it's amazing and that i just i find it really stunning what's interesting i mean you saying roman the thing about like you see all the different ways he could have gone in this you see how he could have become a little more like liam neeson like i think liam neeson probably had a little too much gravitas to pull this off at this point and also was probably a little too known and is a little bit too much of a physical presence there's something about the fact that russell crowe in this movie still even watching it from a modern perspective you can't really tell if that violence is inside of him or not you know there's an actual tension to how much this guy seems to be fighting this stuff.

Totally. Can I fill out my top five? I'm now thinking about this. I think it's Eleconfidential. I do think I would put Master and Commander second. That performance is so beautiful. Then I guess I would have The Insider. Those are sort of, right?

That's kind of like your Holy Trinity of Crow. And then, you guys are talking about tenderness Like The movie is I don't like the movie that much I do think his performance in A Beautiful Mind Is like that Is tapping into that

Did you think I was going to say that? I thought you were going to say Boy Erased Boy Erased is Look we talked about it I like that performance that movie did very little for me Yes He looks so Strange in the movie that it's almost

Off-putting As you said his eyeballs are fat Like it's just Do you remember that line Griffin No I do it haunts me Nice guys Is this sort of underrated crow that people forget about. That's a really great performance. Great.

Obviously, Gladiator is a movie star performance like no other. That shit is for real. I like Gladiator and Master and Commander less than you. Rude, I know. I'm with you. I like Master and Commander better. I did not like gladiator when i saw it doesn't do it i was it did nothing for me and i've given it a few more tries since

then doesn't work for me it's kind of the point where i kind of got off the russell crowe train yeah i i that's what people got on that's what the train i know that's what's so it's so weird and and i would take you know take him or leave him in certain places like i think for for example nice guys i think is like the perfect use of him in a certain way right and um but but he never like sold a movie for me the same way again after no no i think for me it's i probably say insiders the best performance and then i think this la confidential nice guys and i'm trying to think what my fifth would be. Well, I mean, there's some others good pro performances

for not showing out. 310 to Yuma. He is actually fantastic in that. He is fantastic in that. Yeah. I think he's good in Man of Steel. I wouldn't call that, you know,

but he's very good. He's a lot of fun. He played two characters in a little film called The Mummy. Dr. Jekyll, and wait a second. What's this? It's coming into focus. Hold oning mr hyde david is holding a jeweler's loop up to his computer screen

i love i love russell crowe and then and then absolutely you know romper stomper is an incredible performance if anyone has not seen that film proof is a really good movie that that hugo weaving is also in that film and he's also really good that that's a gem that people should find and it's another movie where they made another another movie called proof uh yeah the time later yes the math play movie that bad movie decent play and uh in the other movie so small that nobody cared you know he's also he was also an australian movie called the sum of us where he plays uh a gay character that was sort of you know for 1994 like you know a fairly adventurous role like you know he's pretty good in that too thinking of his pre-ollywood stuff you guys don't like gladiator gladiator's based on a painting we gotta cover gladiator for that story alone

yeah it's just fucking ridley scott seeing a painting of a Gladiator match and being like, Gladiators, we got to do it. This is going to be great. Can I just run through what Russell Crowe has on deck? Sure. Because it's a pretty exciting lineup, actually. He's working. The man works.

The man's working, okay? He's playing Zeus in Thor Love and Thunder. He is. He directed a movie that he's starring in called Poker Face, where he plays a tech billionaire who gathers his childhood friends to his Miami estate for what turns into a high-stakes game of poker. I am, to use the term, all in on that shit. Yeah, it sounds pretty good.

Don't love this cast, but sure. Sure. He's in The Greatest Beer Run Ever, which is Peter Farrelly's follow up to Green Book. It's him and Efron, a man's story of leaving New York in 1967 to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the army while they're fighting in Vietnam. Then he's I think Bill Murray is in that movie. He is. Yeah. Yes.

He's doing Craven the Hunter, playing who knows what. He's playing Rothko in a Mark Rothko biopic. And then what's the last thing here? Oh, American Son. Oh, he's doing the remake of A Prophet, a movie that Sam Raimi

was originally supposed to direct. Right. He's playing the older guy. Yeah, the Neil Zalstrup yeah the neil salstrup right yeah that's cool that's an interesting lineup of movies ahead i like him working i look unhinged was a good time but i'd like him to do more serious stuff as well sure another actor who's in this film guys is leonardo dicaprio yeah have you heard of him yeah familiar yeah big time movie star he was he was a recent oscar nominee of course at the time right because gilbert grape is what the year

before yeah and he was uh sharon stone was intent on casting him apparently stone and ramey paid him themselves out of their budget out of of their salaries, I guess. Yeah, correct. She was so insistent on him being hired that she had them take his salary out of her salary on this movie. It's weird that they wouldn't want him. That's the only thing I don't understand. It's like he seems like a really hot name.

Yeah, it does feel like there might have been a perception thing because you also have this boy's life. It's like De Niro has said, like, this kid's good. Right. But I almost feel like there was a perception thing of like, he's a serious actor. He's not a movie star. Yeah. Right.

Right. Right. Which is incredibly bizarre to think. Is it that he was too baby face? Like, or was it that? Right. He only did like serious movies. Yeah.

I had read that that matt damon was also considered for this one damon sam rockwell was considered yeah uh you know there this is those 90s whenever like damon or whoever is interviewed now it's like you think about all those all these a-list movie stars like who are like young hollywood bucks like trying to get a good role right like because when damon gets courage under fire he's like i got bucks, like trying to get a good role. Right. Like, cause when Damon gets courage under fire, he's like, I got the role. Like,

you know, that's why he like lost 400 pounds and was like, I gotta, I gotta go all in on this. Right. You could see Damon's face working in this movie. Although I love Leonardo DiCaprio in this, but like he,

he has a, like a harder, like, you know, like face and you could see him fitting in this milieu a little more little more than one of the things that's both funny and odd about Leonardo DiCaprio is he just seems like a 90s teen heartthrob in this role, which is kind of what the role needs. But it doesn't have the Western part of it. He's not dirty at all. He's not a speck of dirt on them.

He's a dirty at all. He's not a speck of dirt on them. He's a true, like, golden boy. Yeah. But that's why it does work for me, because he does feel like frickin', you know, I mean, this isn't an old movie, but like Alden Ehrenreich and Hail Caesar or whatever. He does feel like some shiny little Hollywood star from the 30s, right? I think that's right. I think that's what's funny about him is he's like being cast in a Western movie. Like, yes.

He's like, Hey guys, so fast. Bang, bang. He's not being, he's not in a Western, like he's not,

it's, it's a complete meta commentary of, of, of a certain type of movie. He feels like Bobby Driscoll and like a live action Disney movie or something. Like this is, this is the very last performance DiCaprio gives that still has any child actor energy in the like growing pains sense, right? Because when he makes the transition from like growing pains and Critters 3 and whatever,

it's like, oh, no, but he's working with heavy duty actors and De Niro's telling people that he's like very serious minded and he's like wise beyond his years and Gilbert Grape everyone said how could someone so young give a performance like that this is the last movie where he's got a little bit of child star shine on it yeah yeah like there's that cleanness to his delivery and even just how he's styled and I do think you're right that like Matt Damon's face even at this age fits into this milieu better but it works against the movie almost if you have someone who is more realistically cast they they leaned into something that might seem incongruous but it worked I think for the movie really really well and it's exactly why that fucking final moment between him and Hackman is a goddamn hammer blow because when like the entire child star facade drops from him and he's just going to the paint like full dicaprio it's it's heartbreaking it's heartbreaking and it's what you said this thing where you're just like kind of impressed that this movie is

able to pull off slow quiet moments of genuine emotion to that degree in a film that is otherwise so kinetic and frenzy right in a film that is about a march madness of shooting like that is what it's about because it's like sharon stone rides into town there's the little you know brief prologue with tobin bell uh but basically she rides into town and pat hingel is there and he's got like a chalkboard with a bracket on it and he's like well are you are you in yeah it's a knockout here's the deal with this town we just do a fucking shootout every day at the at the strike of noon and it's a quick draw this town's run by this shitty guy i mean it's such a bad town. Like, what if you want to go, like, buy an onion? Right, yeah. Like, it's like, sorry, there's no onion salesman here. Only shooters.

The only other person I want to shout out is Lance Hendrickson, who we'll talk about Keith David in a second, but I don't think there's any Keith David research specifically in here. But, I mean, we love Keith David, obviously. But just the funny Lance Hendricks thing is he, uh, knew someone who I guess worked in wild West shows and stuff.

His name was Rex Rossi and Lance Hendrickson before the movie starts, before production starts, goes to Rex Rossi and says, I got to shoot a card out of this kid's hand. That's in the script. I think there should be more to it than that. Teach me a horse trick. Rex Rossi taught him the trick where he flips

off the horse backwards. And when he showed up on set, he says, Sam, I want to show you something. They bring a horse over. He jumps on the horse. He flips out off of the horse, shoots under its belly. And Sam Raimi was like, this rules. That's in the movie. That's great. So Latesa let's ever showed up with a special horse trick and i guess rather than sam

ramey being like jesus like what why did you work so hard on this without telling me sam ramey was like of course like you got you got to do this a horse course a horse of course i'm looking here at the notes it also also says that Lance Henriksen showed up to set dressed like this and said, wear his hair and makeup. And they said, we're just going to put you on camera in this look. That's a joke.

But his look in this is unbelievable. The long jet black hair. The hair, yeah. He truly is dressed like, God, like a rapper now. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Like, who's the rapper with all the face tattoos

who's like, does country stuff too? Post Malone. Post Malone. That's some shit Post Malone would fucking go out at the VMAs wearing. But he's got that sort of like the Renaissance Van Dyke facial hair. Oh, yeah. I mean, just

he's leaning so hard into his gimmick. He has all the aces in his deck of cards for each kill. You've got Keith David absolutely swagged out, looking incredible. The best outfit. Sick ass pipe. Big pipe. pipe big voice like he's got

it all he's like it's incredible yeah i love the outfits in this like unironically love henriksen and david are such specific castings of like not only are these actors who are very familiar faces to audiences at this time even if they they don't know my name, they're going to stick out. They're going to remember them. And they also have incredibly distinctive voices because you need to just introduce them in the first five minutes, put a pin in them,

and make sure the audience doesn't forget when they come back and are relevant again. Totally. You got Mark Boone Jr., who, of course, Griffin, you once said on his performance at Batman Begins, it looks like he sleeps under a pizza. Another Griffin line I've never forgotten forgotten all of my most savage no it's just like he is he is the bat anytime mark boone jr in a movie is in a movie you're like oh i i get it this guy's a

bit of a scumbag isn't he like he's just got the perfect face for he scars you got tobin bell jigsaw himself right uh what do you what he strode this is his final movie right what he strode right at the end of his career you're right yeah he died before this movie even came out yeah um you got uh what's it called what's his name uh roberts blossom oh famous old man yes he was in christine we've discussed him in that obviously he was in a couple of the demis. He's the old man in Home Alone. Yeah. And you've got Kevin Conway,

who I've always liked as, what's it called, as Dredd. Yes. Judge Dredd. Who gets his dick shot off. Yeah. Not to put too fine a point on it. Deserves it, in my opinion. Yeah, he's a bit of a jerk.

I think he played, I think Kevin Conway, yes, he played Kalos in Star Trek The Next Generation. If anyone's a bit of a jerk I think he played I think Kevin Conway yes he played Kalos in Star Trek The Next Generation If anyone's a Star Trek fan out there Yeah it's just it's just an incredible Line up of Beautiful character actors Great faces yeah such good faces Yeah it's really really fun

And there's been there's others I'm not remembering and obviously like Bruce Campbell Shows up for a second and Gary sinise obviously shows up in flashback uh which is kind of a coup kind of a casting coup gary sinise like right off of farah forrest gump yeah i remember that being notable at the time like you see his you see his face as a kind of daguerreotype you know before he shows up and and um yeah and he plays a good role and he plays a like you can see the way that that he looks and mirrors court in a lot of ways and uh it it's uh it's it's really something and i also think that that flashback scene of her initial trauma which um is it takes a surprising turn

um where where he's like in it and it mimics or you know reflects the moment that court is brought in and he's like they shoot at the chair and and um and you know she's given the the gun to save her father and shoots him in the head instead it's like a real moment it really you feel it to me at least yeah no i agree i agree you think it's a good job being uh genuinely visceral in all the cartooniness yeah exactly there's the thing i've invoked too many times but i always just think it's such a good like storytelling lesson for movies but the andrew stanton finding nemo thing where originally he had that movie structured where you would get glimpses to the flashback of the barracuda killing his wife and all the other

babies throughout the movie. And when they screened it for people, they were like, I cannot stand this Albert Brooks character. He's driving me fucking insane. Why won't this fish calm the fuck down? And so they were like, as an experiment, what if we just take the scene and we run it in full at the very beginning of the movie and the movie immediately worked? And it was just that thing of like, you think you're being clever by withholding information for later, but not only is it almost never worth it, it also you're depriving the audience of the information that will help them understand the character at the beginning. So when this movie is doling out these little glimpses as the flashbacks with Gary Sinise, I'm not turned off, but I'm like, why aren't they just telling me the thing?

But that final reveal is so good. I'm like, this is one of the examples of this being done right because you think you've put together all the pieces.

I get it. Hackman killed her father. That's why she hates him. Why are we, like, tiptoeing around this? And the final hammer blow they're, like, holding back on is

it's the mirror of the scene you've already seen. And you remember that moment, but it just felt like cool Western shit in that moment. And now everything in the movie has like added weight. I think it's one of the few times where that device actually benefits the film at large. Yeah, but you're right about the tension up to that point because the sort of vague flashbacks don't do anything for you. They're like, they don't do much, but it really does pay off and it does that perfect thing of making you reeval it like just like the memory of it like jolts you in in this great way of reevaluation i i i think that scene is really really great and and harrowing and it's

also truly surprising like i expect her to miss a bunch of times or whatever but first shot um you know hits her dad is like is a real gut punch it's like it's it's just perfect backstory that's all you need you know it's like everything you need to know about this character is in that one moment defining her and it shows her motivation but like you know she's not until the end where you put all that stuff together and there's the the sort of final confrontation she is not presented as superhuman she's presented as competent she's pretended as very good but you know she doesn't shoot the rope once and she just go bam bam bam you know she really

like it is not that she's perfect at this she's just driven and and it and I think that's another great move with this movie is that yeah everyone is good obviously at shooting that's why they want to do the shooting.

But no one is presented as a total Terminator. If anything, the kid is maybe the most, like, naturally gifted in a way, in that he keeps being like, I'm so fast, like, you know, and that sort of seems to almost be a superpower. And Gene Hackman seems to have a certain superpower, too. Well, he's scary. But he also feels so vulnerable in that way where you're just

like i mean it's especially the scene obviously where the kid dies and he's like we it was never proven that he was my son like he's so like sort of pathetic in that scene and like clearly just unable to admit his humanity or whatever you know what i mean like that you kind of are just like oh god someone take this guy down like it's so perfect yeah off of that david i'll just say too like there's the time when after a fight when he wins obviously he pauses to wait for everyone to clap for him yeah exactly it made me think of mr burns it when mr burns competes in the uh film you know what i mean festival yes like it just had that vibe like he is really just pathetic truly yeah it that that is a really good moment him hold up

his hands and please clap for me this is so good like and he's expecting it he's like i am you know the hero of this movie right yeah no the moment with the kid is so fucking good. And you've set up this uneasy thing of like, DiCaprio's told you, I think he's my father, right? You've seen them have

a number of exchanges and you can't tell whether Hackman is completely oblivious, knows, but is trying not to acknowledge it, or doesn't believe

it's true, right? Right. And then, you know, he's sort of saying like, enough's enough, kid. They go to the shootout. Stone's trying to talk DiCaprio out of it. He says like,

I just need him to acknowledge me, right? I need to earn his respect. Right. It's, oh man, it's sad. It's so sad. What do you want out of this it's like i just need him to fucking respect me and then the the moment the way he sets that up and cuts it so that it's like draw draw hackman responding to the bullet on the neck you almost think dicaprio's won and then when

you cut back to dicaprio's face you, like, shock that he landed a bullet that immediately turns into the physical, like. He plays it really well. He plays it really fucking well. The collapse. Yeah. And then he just collapsed. Right. He's, like, full on, like, embarrassing child crying.

So terrified. I don't want to die. Right. And Hackman stands over him and he fucking reaches out and Hackman plays that moment. Yes. He just fucking reaches out and Hackman, as you said, once DiCaprio dies,

he goes through all the motions of, well, they never proved he was actually my kid. I tried to get him out. I told him he didn't have to do this. This and that. Like, Hackman's making every single excuse. When he looks at DiCaprio, he is inscrutable. You cannot read his face looks at DiCaprio, he is inscrutable. You cannot read his face. And DiCaprio just wants anything out of him.

Yeah. Gives him nothing. Yeah. It's really good. And again, like Roman's saying, it would be easy for these more emotional moments to fall really flat because the movie's so heightened. Like, it's a tricky task like getting that stuff to work

when you also have like someone shooting a perfect hole in Keith David's head and the wind blowing through it so that's the other unbelievable Hackman scene for me yeah it's a really good scene yeah yeah yeah you've kept Keith David on the shelf for a while right you're like why would Keith David introduce

if you're not gonna really use him for like 40 minutes or whatever. He's around. Yeah. But like such a distinctive dude. Then he has that little meeting where he susses the guy out and he is like, okay, they paid you to bring me in. And then that fucking just brutal,

like the rules have changed. This is now to the death. Right. I'm knocking this guy down. I'm blowing a hole in the back of his head and i'm telling all of you how quickly it turns into the like oh so you complained to me about not having enough money but you paid some fucking guy to kill me that's great his menace like turning that moment around is like yeah it's adding to his like overall power is like

it's it's it's great it's like i think this movie is so perfectly structured it like and it mimics it really mimics a video game more than probably anything and where you just get progressively each each uh sort of setup of the gunfight is is like yep that has to be the way it is it can't be another way around you know like it has to be uh court and the lady at the last you know last one it has to be that it's just like it's perfectly structured and the kid and harrod at the very end like all of it is like set up really really uh perfectly as a as it's a plot mechanism and you have four perfect character arcs like totally and it hits it and amongst this like very really really silly premise you know like it is undeniably

ridiculous premises no one could possibly defend it it's true i think there is like truly one scene in this movie that feels a little bit wonky to me what i i think it's the only scene in this movie that feels just a little bit miscalibrated which is the the sharon stone robert blossom confrontation in the graveyard in the rain it just feels overcranked like her and blossom are both sort of overacting the scene is overwritten it feels too expository like the movie it's also coming kind of late so the movie has to slow down to do it and it's sort of like we kind of already figured this out you know what i mean like it feels like you're kind of the movie's catching up in a way that you don't need it to yeah the rain is good

though the rain is good it's good it's slick yeah it's not ruinous but if like if you're making fun of sharon stone in this this is the scene you make it's the scene to pull out it's the one scene that may be placed to her weaknesses and i also think the rest of the scene you make fun of. It's the scene to pull out. It's the one scene that maybe plays to her weaknesses and I also think the rest of the movie is just kind of like so clean and lean and economic and diamond cut that this one scene ends up feeling a lot sloppier by comparison.

Yeah, I agree with that. I'm totally able to get over it though when I'm watching it. Whoa, me too. It's just such an easy watch. Yeah, go yeah go ahead ben i want to shout out spotted horse that character fucking rules i love that his whole thing is he's like i'm just not afraid of this you know because like i don't think we really discussed him like his whole trait though of like and he runs through all the bullets he's taken and he just seems so fucking badass

he cannot be killed by a bullet yeah i i really i was very sad to lose that character oh that scene is also really intense and clever the whole thing with court uh like by you know like being like get me another bullet get me another bullet you know like like being like, get me another bullet, get me another bullet, you know, like the blind kid. God, this movie is... I do wonder, right, in 1995, if people were just like, too much, too many bits. There's a blind kid, like, rifling through the bullets. Like, is no one

in this normal? Was that the complaint? Because I was just thinking of that scene, and I'm like, right, it's not only is it everything I'm describing, but the blind kid is then working through the bullets to find a 35 millimeter or whatever yeah no maybe everything raymie was too fast too early and culture has caught up to him right in how we can process information and all of this especially when so much of it's visual but i do think it's a thing i love about his movies where it's just like every single thing can be something there's no like unimportant detail moment character performance shot i i

think this was a victim of its time this is a movie and he's a director of unfettered enthusiasm and this was a moment in cinema where enthusiasm was not rewarded it was really a cynical time and uh but i think if you pulled it out today people would just like you know this showed up on you know hbo max today it would be the talk like everyone would love it everything was the most amazing second coming type of movie we were saying this right before we started recording roman i feel like at least once a miniseries there is a movie that we've covered on the podcast, which because of the nature of this podcast covering an entire career is the kind of movie that maybe other podcasts will never devote an entire

episode to. That's sort of a forgotten middle thing, whether, you know, whatever. And I feel like there's one movie per miniseries that like our listeners are like, holy shit, this fucking thing. How did I not know? Yeah. This is my new favorite movie. And I do expect that a lot of people are going to be like,

oh my God, how was I unaware of this film existing? Or that's some movie I watched on TBS when I was a kid. I had no idea that was the same Ramy movie. It all makes more sense now. I, but like, but I remember it having,

you know, 10% more mustard than right yeah i think right that movie stuck in my mind as a kid or you know when i saw it in a dorm room or whatever it's so good it is funny to think of it in sam raimi's career as well where like we are all basically just like i love it more dutch angles more smash zooms like great great great but sam raimi's reaction to making this movie was I need to relax I need to retreat into a hold

He comes back in 1998 with A Simple Plan Which is his most toned down You know Sort of visual trickery Free movie ever But then For the Love of the Game and The Gift Are similarly much more muted It takes him quite a while

Before Spider-Man sort of encourages All of his his looney tune stuff again like he really goes into hibernation yeah and let's acknowledge the other shift is i mean it's what we've been like you know setting this up the entire mini-series but it is so bizarre that he gets spider-man at that moment because they're almost calling him off the bench to do the thing he had sort of walked away from doing. Like he had worked so hard to not be seen as that guy. And they were like, hey, the entire industry's changed. We need that guy. You know, it's like them finding MacGruber like at the fucking church in Mexico going, we need you to cut your head and come back into action.

We need an enthusiast is what they need. I mean, the thing is, like there was that's what that's what as a comic book fan that's what we were calling for was someone who understood the material or at least the spirit of it in a way that um that didn't nobody really did everyone was like okay we got to take him out of the costumes we got to take him out of this we got to ground them in this and and that was the all the impulse and he didn't do that right because that yeah tim burton brian singer those were directors where it's like they were well-regarded directors but the in the interviews they'd be like yeah i never really read a comic book like you know

and that was seen as like good good good good good they're not going to embarrass us here or whatever right and yeah yeah sam raimi is a different vibe i just remember walking on the first spider-man and going that's the first movie I've seen that actually feels like a comic book. And so many people had tried to, in a literal way, like Dick Tracy style, make something look like a comic book. But then they're like, you can make a movie with the aesthetics of illustration. And that's the first movie where I'm like, emotionally, this feels like a comic book. Right. They took the archness of its presentation and i the thing was when i read comic books i treated them seriously like like they were they had emotion between the panels

and it wasn't just putting a proscenium proscenium arch around a frame it really was something else and i thought that he captured that for the first time more than anybody and then also the technical aspects of it were so great and and like he just sort of nailed it and it wasn't until actually i thought he was pretty muted for him in spider-man one and then spider-man two where they have an actual horror scene inside of it um with with the doc ock uh surgery where you go like oh god that's, that's the guy. That's him. Right, now he's fully back in it. Right, one, it still sort of feels like he's auditioning a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. We'll, right, we'll talk about that. You'll get there. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. The other thing, just to call out before I guess we should go on the box office game

or any other thoughts we have, is that the other thing that happens in the three years between this and Simple Plan, when he sort of tries to remake himself as like a serious adult picture maker is the entire TV empire. Yeah. Which is part that's part of his hibernation. Right. That's part of him being like, OK, OK.

Yeah. He's doing something else. Yeah. He's doing something else. Yeah. And he's built this little empire. It's syndicated. They're not really beholden to anybody. It's ever expanding. He's employing all of his friends and his brothers. And it's like that.

It puts a lot of the anxieties to bed, maybe so that he's able to come back and just go like, what do I want to do as a filmmaker? That's the only concern. Yeah, it makes total sense to me that that it would take something like spider-man to be like okay well that's a thing with enough resources and enough you know like whatever to to pull me off of this other thing in which i control everything and i don't have to listen to any of you idiots you know and um and that's a good position to be in in your career to be able to say no to everything which he probably did he you know like he probably said no to a ton of things that we would have loved him to do but it just wasn't right and

more power to him we'll do uh at some point in some episode but there he's one of those guys where there is an entire wikipedia entry just on on made sam raimi projects it's not a subsection of his wiki page it is its own page i'll say a non-merchandise spotlight i know you've made the uh comparison very aptly a number of times now roman but watching this i kept on thinking like god i really wish there had been like a sega genesis game it just you you could make sure the shootout game with all of these guys who would translate so perfectly into that sort of pixelated art style. Someone make that now. Make a web browser shooting game. 16-bit.

I want to see, you know, freaking Keith David and Lance Hendrickson's faces all pixelated. Give me that, please. With Gene Hackman as the final boss, obviously. Right. Yes. Right. It just feels like a layout.

It's perfect so yeah what what are some moments we have obviously this movie is sort of all moments i do love pat hingel shout out pat hingel uh very well cast here bartender commissioner gordon himself with a little bowler hat we've joked about this before but it is so funny that like casting commissioner gordon now is like casting a yago or something and it's like who is worthy of picking up the badge and at that point they were like i don't know who's some guy who looks like a cop like pat hingley never fit commissioner gordon as a type god love him i mean i love him both in all movies and as commissioner gordon but it is funny that every other commissioner Gordon, well,

I mean the, the ones post, uh, Gary Oldman, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like a soft spoken,

intelligent, cerebral kind of, you know, war weary cop. Bangles just like basically got a pocket watch. He's like, Batman, are you here yet?

Mr. Freeze is tearing up the museum. Like, you know, he's just, it also, it feels like every scene right before he goes on camera, he goes like, what's my guy's name again?

Uh, yeah, exactly. Commissioner what? Um, so, uh, Pat Hinkle, anything else? Yeah. The ending, I think, I mean, they, it's fun that the last 20 minutes of this movie are like an extended work, right? Like everything from DiCaprio's death on. And the payoff,

like I, I love, um, court kind of turning superhuman for, you know, at this last moment where he just like shoots people behind his back and like, you get like his full powers and realize how much he's been holding back. And the,

the whole premise of, uh, of like, she's literally not a better gunfighter than Gene Hackman. But in this moment, she is. And both you believe it, Gene Hackman believes it. They just made that really work for me. Like they built up this whole thing to lead to this moment.

And it's super convincing and a very satisfying ending. And then she throws the marshall star at court who's now going to be you know like the new new sheriff in town just what you wanted even though you haven't been thinking you haven't been thinking about it at all and you're like yep oh that's perfect you know like it has all these things that come together and then it's like and then black and then it's like done and it's like no wasted time you know i mean sheriff of what's left of the fuck sure I know not the greatest town in the world. He left.

She left quite a mess in her wake. Is it a lot of people showing up being like, Hey, is this where we do the shooting? And it's like, no, we don't do that anymore. Like,

is that happening over and over again? Like, I don't know. It is this thing. I love though, that, you know, she throws the star back to him you're completing his arc right here is this guy who never wanted to be a killer who was

forced to shoot this passer who's tried to recommit himself to the cloth because he feels like he can never uh get over the sin uh they tease him out he realizes these innate instincts he has he cannot help but kill when placed in this situation that first moment his first shootout when you truly feel like he's ready to die and he is surprised that his hand reached for the gun and shot that it's really really cool it's it's it's shot really well and he's also his like his twitchiness when they they give him guns to like yeah to you know and he's looking at him guns to like, to, to, you know, and he, he's looking at him and he knows how to use them and he knows he wants to touch them and it's all there.

It's shot really, really well. And, and it's super convincing. And then you get this moment at the end where you're like, I wasn't thinking about this. I wasn't thinking about the redemption of court this whole time at all. And,

and then it's like, Oh, this is the perfect marriage of the things he's feeling and wants to, you know, make amends for and his literal skill set you know and it makes tons of sense it just it just works it feels like this very clean neat tidy happy ending that is fully earned uh but but he like lingers on it for an additional moment before it fades to black where you see uh him looking at the badge and considering it like ramey could have cut like a second or two earlier and it was just he has the badge everything's in order and it does feel like there's this extra moment there of him looking at it and debating whether or not he wants to do this and i think of like all three spider-man movies

end like that it is this thing that's so distinctive in those movies that all three Spider-Man movies end like that. It is this thing that's so distinctive in those movies that all three movies end with this weird lingering moment of Mary Jane being like, what happens now? You know, like all three of them end on her face, I think. Yeah. And the Evil Dead movies obviously all end with Ash getting like upended in some way. But I feel like he always like for he always needs to pull the rug a little bit or at least leave some kind of graduate ask lingering question of like, but is it really going to be that tidy? The guy the guy still at odds with himself a little bit. You know, that's interesting. I think I read that differently.

I think I I think I read it as like taking time for you to recognize the genius of all this stuff coming together in the right way is like part of the way i read that too um but that's that's super fascinating i do think he becomes sheriff but i don't think it's something that like it's not a tidy resolution in the end i don't think he can take it on easily i think he's nothing else he has to just start uh hiring a bunch of contractors to come yeah yeah yeah it's got shit to do such a good fucking movie it's a good fucking movie uh it's a good fucking movie you want to play that box office okay last last thing uh lance hendrickson's death the squib shot oh also the speed with which everyone takes all of his clothing oh i know yeah it starts fighting each other over it and and him him like the image of him and is just his long underwear after he's been stripped and he's

like just this naked like plucked chicken looking thing uh is a real also kind of like pathetic and sad and and is a good image to end on him with with all of his like since he's all surface you know he's all like leather and you know and yeah it was all the his like since he's all surface he's all like leather and playing cards and stuff it was all the costume basically I mean not all but yeah love Lance Hendrickson at all times he also seems like someone who would scare the shit out of me in real life

but that's okay the box office game for this one is great I gotta be honest this film came out February 10th 1995 this is a real there's a lot of Ben's choices in here This one is great. I got to be honest. Okay. Well, this film came out February 10th, 1995. Okay. This is a real,

there's a lot of Ben's choices in here. I think quick in the dead open number two, six and a half million dollars on its way to an $18 million gross, which is about half its budget. So rude, not good, Ben. Yeah.

Unfortunately, but it is also opening behind a very dumb comedy that was the launch, I would say, of a major comedy star. So is this sort of a Ben pick? It's a bit of a Ben pick, and it is indeed the film Billy Madison. Wow. And I do think getting your lunch eaten by Billy Madison, if you're like Sharon Stone and you're like, you know,

big fancy western It's not a good look right yeah It's rough especially that one where it's Right it's a particularly dumb style movie Although I think it's a very good Like that's one of my favorites Absolutely right we all agree That's top tier

Tamara Davis is also Someone if there was ever a Ben region In March Madness she is a real candidate yeah well you know it's a weird bunch of movies it's Gun Crazy which I've never seen but is the Drew Barrymore Michael Ironside

kind of like action indie right then CB4 which is a crucial pop culture artifact then Billy Madison then Best Men The Dean Cain anti-dick I've never seen that movie

That doesn't really exist But what's the next one David? It's a little film called Half Baked Hell yeah Half Baked is like hands down The movie I've seen the most Not too surprising to hear that Then Skipped Parts Which is like a jennifer jason lee

movie that never really came out then the britney spears movie crossroads yes uh and then uh she made like a basquiat documentary and also an incredible like, amount of music videos for awesome bands. Yes. She was a big music video director. Some really huge stuff. A lot of TV as well. But also, let's not brush over her Basquiat documentary. She worked at an art gallery in 1986.

Or is it 83? She was friends with Basquiat. It's a documentary of footage she shot interviewing him as her friend. Right, right. Two years before he died, and she sat on it for 20 years before she was ready to edit it. So it's like someone making a documentary with all this unbelievable unseen footage.

Fine! We're doing Tamara Davis. She's on the list. Half podcasted. I don't know. Billy Madison, number one. Quick and the Dead, number two Number three is a It's a sort of It's a holdover from Christmas season

It's a very Tony, pretty Epic movie That is not very good It's one of those movies That was clearly a major Oscar play And was widely ignored, uh, except for technical nominations.

Um, but it is a major moment for its star, uh, who is on the up and up. It's, it's one of those movies that is basically forgotten except as sort of a title and it's, it's score is kind of famous. Huh? It's a period film. It it's it's an it's a western as well it's another western actually we forgot to mention this one uh so frontier movie big it's it's long it's dramatic there's crying people die you know did you have a guess until he said western roman it looked like you had a notion no i i nothing is ringing

a bell with me and this is like a this is a hallmark of me listening to the show and listening to the box office games so uh yeah i don't i have no idea the score is sending me because i feel like i i keep track of like those sort of weirdly overused scores overused in trailers that people even forget what movie they're originally from exactly the holiday time of 94 it was released Christmas 94 it was a hit it made a lot of money it made

not maybe not is enough it made 66 million dollars 160 worldwide you know it was a pretty pretty solid hit for what I think is an R rated you know super long it's like you know it was a pretty pretty solid hit for what I think is an R rated you know super long it's like you know 2 hours 20 minutes or whatever yeah

what about the director he's a director who has made a lot of epic films okay he's a fairly major director but I would say he is not the best it's not a zwick is it it is a zwick So what's the zwick after glory

It's after glory He also did a movie called leaving normal In between this and glory With Kristen Lottie and Meg Tilly One of his better movies Of course he does courage under fire right after this movie I already mentioned that This episode

So is this the last samurai it's not the last samurai that's in the 2000s okay that's why it's really far off but that's the only thing i can think of that's the first time i remember his name that is his wick of course he also made blood diamond he made uh the siege he made love and other drugs somewhat bizarrely it's not it's not legends of the fall it's legends of the fall okay uh brad pitt anthony hopkins aiden quinn julia ormond yes movie i recently watched for reasons i cannot remember can confirm pretty boring looks nice right right uh and it's kind of like a pit performance because this is post you know pit emerging as like himbo king

johnny suede thelma louise cool world right like it's post that it's in his like river runs through it you know uh interview with the vampire legend of the fall days where he's so pretty but he's boring like right he doesn't get to have any fun like and it's like once he's in 12 monkeys and true romance and shit it's like fun yes right brad pitt is actually a very twitchy over the top actor it is funny that 95 is 7 and 12 monkeys like legends of the fall interview with a vampire is peak like 94 let brad pitt just be pretty let him he's straight up bad in interview with a vampire like tom cruise acts him off the screen in that movie and it's annoying because it should be like here we go cruise and pit you know right like you know this is going to

be great and pit is such a dishrag in that movie and in legends of folly is a little more fun but he's you know just very serious very sure sure uh yeah uh yeah it's a james horner score grip it's right yeah no no yeah for some reason, I always think that movies earlier because of how big it was for Pitt's career. But yes. Yeah. That's why I was second guessing it. Uh,

number four is a, you know, a drama D, uh, female characters. Um, I've never seen it. It's the final film of a fairly well-known director.

You had a very long career making, know hollywood comedies and dramas um three female stars i would say two very famous at the time one kind of on the up and up but famous now i always get these confused. Is it Boys on the Side? It's Boys on the Side. Okay. Well done. Who directed it, Griffin? That's what I'm trying to remember. Boys on the Side is Herbert Ross? It's a Herbert Ross.

It's his last film. Okay. After a very, obviously, Herbert Ross made Funny Lady and The Turning Point and The Goodbye Girl and, you know, Pennies from Heaven. He made so many. Footloose, you know, Steel Magnolias. He made tons of movies.

It's written by Don Roos, which is interesting, Griffin. You know, before, obviously, he becomes a director. Yeah. Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore, Mary Louise Parker. I get boys on the side confused with how to make an American quilt. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I think that's okay. And I feel like there's one other movie of that era

where I'm just like, which combination of the actors is it? Those movies where they're kind of generational. And I'm like, which one's Drew Barrymore? Which one's Winona Ryder? Which one's Whoopi? Which one's Anne Bancroft? Exactly.

Has anyone seen Boys on the Side? I have not. No, I've not seen Boys on the Side. It is really amazing to watch this in person boys on the side? I have not. No, I've not seen boys on the side. It is really amazing to watch this in person because I was 20 years old when this came out and I have no memory

of it whatsoever. I think you were maybe nine, Griff? I don't even want to tell you how old I was. I think you were like six. I was six. I was six.

And so, this is a pleasure to watch. Honestly, he was about to turn six. It's February 9th. My birthday's coming up. All right. Number five at the box office. It's a hit comedy that had come out in Christmas.

It's made $111 million. Is it like a family comedy? No, it is more of a teen gross out vibe. Although the characters are not teens. Okay. So it's a 1994 gross out comedy. Is characters are not teens sure okay so it's a 1994 gross out comedy is it dumb and dumber it's dumb and

dumber wow yeah another Ben pick right Ben I'm sure you liked dumb and dumber no I hated it it was actually really like felt like so beneath me kind of you found it disrespectful yeah it was disrespectful it was tasteless you know vulgar.

Absolutely. I'm sorry for saying anything, Ben. Yeah. I mean, I don't love when somebody just makes a really loud, annoying noise for a long extended period of time driving a hitman insane. Not your kind of thing. And leading him to have a heart attack. That isn't hilarious to me.

Some other movies in the top 10. You've got Nobody's Fool, the Paul Newman Oscar vehicle. You've got In the Mouth of Madness, a little movie we've discussed before. Very good movie. Great movie. I remember seeing it in the theater and I enjoyed your coverage of it. I think that one's another underrated movie. Agreed.

I think that was similarly kind of the quick and the dead of that series. Yeah. Yeah. You got the kind of mostly forgotten film Murder in the First, which was one of the quick and the dead of that series. Yeah. You got the kind of mostly forgotten film Murder in the First, which was one of the many... That's Kevin Bacon, Oscar play. Yeah. Exactly. One of the many early 90s movies that Kevin Bacon

pops in and will get... He got like a SAG nomination and got an Oscar. You know, like there's just like that run of Bacon in the 90s where it's like he's... It's post, you know, cute Bacon in the 80s where it's like he's it's post you know cute bacon in the 80s it's him proving himself like jfk few good men river wild murder in the first apollo 13 right i don't need to be the star i want to do good supporting parts in big movies yeah he's good

in all of them and he's always overlooked is gary oldman the other counterpart in that one or am i thinking of a different movie well gary oldman of course is in jfk he plays lee harvey no no but in murder yes he is in murder in the first with christian slater right slater slater is the he's the do-gooder lawyer who is uh defending kevin bacon and i think oldman might be the villain lawyer or something. He's the associate prison warden of Alcatraz. Oh, he's the prison warden. That's right. Yeah. And he's, oh yeah, he's actually really good.

This is one of those movies that's like, it's a total six out of 10. Yeah. But the actors, Slater is kind of whatever, but like everyone else is good because William H. Macy is in it. And Beth Davids, Brad Dourif, Arlie Ermey, Tobolowsky, Mia Kirshner. Arlie Ermey is the judge i think yeah that's what he has a lot of fun um it's a very subtle performance of course by earlier uh ben another film here i'm noticing that maybe you were interested at number nine the jerky boys in theaters you know again david you David, you're completely off. Of course.

Prank calls. I was too busy just deep into reading Moby Dick and fine works of literature. I would never laugh at a guy who says, you kicked my dog. And number 10 at the box office, Highlander

3, The Sorcerer, also known as Highlander the final dimension another ben pick uh another ben pick of course because can we say he's been petitioning to do highlander on patreon yes so if you guys are into that hit us up a series of diminishing returns that you have a that would be a hard day for you right Right. It'll be fun, though. It will be very fun. We'll have a blast. David, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just to circle back quickly.

I think I missed, or you maybe weren't specific enough. Which Jerky Boys movie was it in the top 10 at this point? Which one? It's the Jerky Boys. I think it's the original recipe. It's the original. 1995. The Jerky Boys.

I'm just confused. They made so many successful movies together the jerky boys yeah 81 minutes long honestly longer than I thought it would be when I looked at the running time I was like

was this a cool 75 no they got it to 81 okay yeah so it didn't qualify for Oscars you know above 80 so that's your top 10 fun top 10 in my opinion even very fun quick of the dead was treated rudely yeah um yeah we're done uh roman you host a wildly successful podcast that does not need our boost 99 visible but it's a phenomenal show thank you so much i it's a real honor to be here like i listened i've listened to nearly every episode of this show i'm a patreon subscriber

i it was my it was my real companion during the beginning of the covid uh wow novel coronavirus the what yes i'll be familiar with it um but like, especially that I jumped in there with all the Marvel movies and and no, been very supportive and a good friend to the podcast, even though it's only manifesting on Mike now. But I'm glad I threw you just sort of the list of like, you know, oh, by the way, we should have you on at some point. Here are some of the things.

And you immediately spark to like Crick and the Dead rules. Yeah. When you mentioned Raimi, the one thing is like, I feel like when it comes to like Evil Dead and Spider-Man, like there's there's a scholar of these things that is required for those movies in a certain way. And Quick of the Dead was sort of my like my favorite. And also low stakes enough for me to feel like I wouldn't ruin it. We do. We do arguably have three different scholars lined up for the Spider-Man trilogy.

We do. We do. We do. It's going to be, that's going to be a good little run. I think it's a good run. No, but I'm, it's a real pleasure to be here and thanks so much.

Pleasures all ours. Now, please never come on the show again. You make us sound like a pubescent voice. No, you'll be back. I think I did great. I think everyone,

I think everyone sounds marvelous. Everyone sort of talks about my voice, but like, I big lover of all voices, to tell you the truth. That is not a bias I have. Yeah, but your voice is better. Even just the way you said that. I couldn't deliver it that well. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

See, Roman, he says subscribe subscribe i refuse to say follow which it's just i'm all team griffin on this one thank you all right even if the terminology is wrong everyone knows what i'm saying i don't i don't like follow i don't know what it means i know subscribe means something different to people but it's like it's one of those ones that i don't i do not like follow i don't know what does it mean i'm going to download the thing i don't know i don't know that's my thing i'm like i feel like if i say rate review and follow people are like on social media exactly exactly no i feel your pain as a producer ben because i'm a i i'm a longtime producer in addition to being a host and when you try to get your hosts to do something and they will refuse to do i i understand that pain so i'm with you on that side you're your hosts to do something and they will refuse to do, I understand that pain. So I'm with you on that side.

You're just trying to do what's right for the show. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a dream otherwise. It's never difficult to get me to do anything. But subscribing is what it's called. I can't get behind this. You gotta subscribe. You gotta subscribe.

Then it's official. We've decided we're back to subscribe. You gotta subscribe. And here's the thing. If you want to follow, you can follow our social media accounts run by Marie Barty. David's happy that I pulled off that transition. He's also saying wrap it up.

Thank you to A.J. McKee and Alex Barron for our editing. J.J. Birch, Nick Loriano for our research. Lane Montgomery and the Great American Owl for a theme song. Pat Reynolds, Joe Bowen for our artwork. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for all the nerdy things that used to take up seven

different call-outs in this outro. Tune in next week for A Simple Plan. You can go to patreon.com slash blankcheck for blankcheck special features where at this point, we are getting ready to do the batman movies right

yes we're doing all the batman movies we haven't covered before uh it's called hashtag not all batmen uh so no burton uh no uh nolan but we're including animated uh i think it'll be a fun weirdly diverse series considering that all the movies star a Batman. And as always, this is a different thing than I usually do for and as always. But I felt like I I had to read this, David. It could not go unread. The final little bit that JJ and Nick put in their research dossier for this week for Quick andicken the Dead. It's not specifically relevant to this movie, but I just think it's a beautiful thing.

It says, there's this great quote from Bruce Campbell that I want to throw in because I haven't yet talked about how much Raimi loves to garden. And this is the quote. He's had compost piles in the back of his house from the first time I've known him. Sam used to take Super 8 film and grind it up and then grow vegetables and eat the

vegetables. He's the only filmmaker who eats film. That is pretty cool. That's pretty fucking cool. I love that. That's both cool and sweet and also badass. Yeah. And I hope his digestive tract is handling that okay.