Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Witches of Eastwick with K. Austin Collins

Episode Date: April 19, 2020

Film critic K. Austin Collins (Vanity Fair) returns to Blank Check for an episode covering 1987’s fantasy comedy, The Witches of Eastwick. Together with #thetwofriends they discuss author John Updike’s original novel, how producer Jon Peters tried shoehorning an alien into the film, assign themselves which witch they would be and Griffin defines what a ‘movie movie’ is.

Do you think God knew what he was doing when he created podcasts? Huh? No shit. I really want to know. Or do you think it was another one of his minor mistakes like tidal waves, earthquakes, floods? You think women are all like that? Fuck. I fucked up the...

I'm going to reset. I have to replace the same word four times. Okay, ready? Yeah, I'm ready. And I can improve. Believe it or not, I can improve the impression. The idea is I'm going to cut out that last take. Yes, cut it out.

Absolutely. No one is hearing this, Ben. Not even at the end of the episode. I'm making a note of this right now. Yeah. Nowhere. Not as a bonus. Nothing.

All right. Okay, ready? Do you think God knew what he was doing when he created podcasts? Huh? No shit. I really want to know. Or do you think it was another one of his minor mistakes like tidal waves, earthquakes, floods? You think podcasts are like that?

Smatter. You don't think? God makes mistakes. Of course he does. We all make mistakes. Of course, when we make mistakes, they call it evil. And when God makes mistakes, they call it nature. So what do you think?

Podcasts, a mistake, or did he do it on purpose? You're really getting into a groove when you hit nature. You're really getting into a jack when you hit, when you hit like nature, really getting into a Jack group. That's why I wanted a long quote. And for the listener at home, I felt like my hand gestures were very, the timing of the hand thrusts. It was really something else.

Thank you. I just want to say, yeah, well, I just, I just looked at the spreadsheet and, uh uh hymns apparently is a sponsor this week so you can bring jack out i don't know what you're talking about i can't control who walks into this studio to interrupt our ads i i'm not gonna call it i don't have his number the amount

of the amount of times jack has pitched uh hair cream and uh viagra on our show. Yes, no, of course. It makes total sense for you to complain about one of Hollywood's brightest star doing free ad reads for us. Unprompted. What a hard life you live, David. Should we all have three-time Academy Award winners pitching

boner pills and hair loss? He's won three. He's won three. He's won three. He's won three. Can you name the three? No, apparently not. That's a good question. Let's see what your three guesses would be.

I'll give you this hint. Two leads, one supporting. Yeah. Was one of them reds? Incorrect. Nope. Rudely. Great guess.

Well, then I don't fucking care. Okay. That's the answer then fucking care okay that's the answer then i guess that is uh he was incredibly hot in that film he deserved an oscar for it and uh so i don't care what bullshit they came up with but no tell me i mean i'm curious in terms of endearment supporting yeah oh i accept that sure one floor over the cuckoo's nest lead i can't believe i forgot that uh as good as it gets lead he won for two separate james l brooks movies i think he should have won for the shining you know i mean but whatever you know look it's not it's not up to me i mean you're never gonna win for your best work it's fine well but i mean with how things are going next year it might be up to you i i don't know what the oscars are gonna look like in 2021 it very well could be up

to you it could be up to any of us i would love a couple facts to be up to me a couple facts just want to swing in with he lost the reds oscar to john gielgud for arthur which is a weird win yeah and and why don't we fucking talk about the Oscars? This is exactly why they pissed me off. Arthur? The 80s, there's a bunch of that. And like, Emetre winning for Cocoon. There was a lot of like,

let's give it to an old timer for like their 18th best performance this decade because it makes us feel sentimental. The 80s were a rough time for the Academy. They just fucking lost their minds. What is it? 79 is Melvin Douglas wins for being there. And they were like, oh, that made us feel good

to give it to an old guy right before he dies. And then they start just doing it too hard. They do it a lot. They're like, Gilgud, Ameche, everyone gets one. The other thing I want to know is that he wasn't nicholson was not nominated for witches of eastwick obviously of course he was because he was nominated that year for ironweed oh fair i guess i haven't seen it um but i've heard of it which i've all i've also never seen this is hector brabenko right but uh i know the book i guess so that was like that was like uh his oscar

nominee right they were like you get you get both so i i'm gonna bring up a thread that i don't know if i will be able to resolve by the end of this episode but i'm going to try okay okay on the subject that we're talking about jack nicholson jack nich, in 1987, gets the Ironweed nomination. That becomes his Oscar horse over Witches of Eastwick. Even though his Witches of Eastwick performance was widely adored and praised. What kind of horse is an Oscar horse? Probably Palomino. Got it.

The New York Film Critics Circle did split his best actor award they gave him best actor that year and they gave it to him for ironweed witches of eastwick and of course his third leading performance broadcast news that's ridiculous ridiculous now this is the thread i don't know if i'm going to be able to resolve. Unsurprisingly, during self-quarantine, I've been spending even more time than usual looking up award season ephemera, different nominations and awards. To be clear, he's he's very funny in broadcast news. I love him. Not a lead performance. It's just it's no. They just tossed it in. They were like, well, why not acknowledge it? You know, sure. Well, that's the thing.

Okay. And you've talked about this in the past, David, that this last year, New York Film Critics Circle gave Best Supporting Actress to Laura Dern and they split it for Little Women. And yeah, they throw it to the room. Yeah. It's like, should we acknowledge both? And you made the joke. Do we want to acknowledge Cold Pursuit as well? I did.

This is the thread I don't know if I can resolve. I swear to God, sometime in the last week, while googling too many things, I came across an even more egregious example of this, where a third performance was lumped in and ended up getting an award that you would think never got an award ever. And I'm

determined to try to find it by the end of this episode because i wanted to mention it at some point on a blank check it is something more insane than jack nicholson technically winning best actor for broadcast news i will figure out what it is by hook or by crook okay i love this journey you're on i'm on a real journey of self-discovery and i think i will find myself the moment i find this answer i just i just gotta say i think it was very insightful for witches of eastwick to be to be uh you know nominated noticed to win to win i mean he won the movie didn't win but but no and i think he got a golden globe nomination as well because it was

you know, they were able to nominate him both comedy and in drama, but I feel like no, no, no, no, no, no,

none. Well, okay. But who are those people? Like, we're not even gonna talk. I'm not talking about the HFPA right now. No,

I mean, I'm not acknowledging those goons. We're not doing that. They are goons. But no, the only acting awards he won were the Critics Awards and a Saturn. Jeez. Well, good for Saturn. Good for Saturn.

That feels like such a slam dunk for the Globes to give him Best Actor in a Comedy for this. The Globes completely snubbed it. Weird. Is it weird? I mean mean it's the globes right this is why we should never you're right let me let me redact my previous statement normal pretty normal yeah normal in the jungle right yeah yeah well i mean so exactly right can i can i say something i maybe shouldn't say very quickly? Oh, boy. I love it. Yeah.

Let's do it. This is me saying something I shouldn't say about someone who is fully canceled. So it doesn't really matter. executive who loudly told people that they were going to win best comedy at the golden globes three years in a row before the first year that they had won best comedy at the golden globe sure there there's right there's there's it's a couple there's ways to win a golden globe but it was it was like i'm i promise you just wait and see we're winning the next three years and it was like first season of transparent first season of mozart in the jungle and then there was a fucking third one that i'm a third first season of mazel mazel here's what i want to say to you griffin one introduce the show two then i want to talk to you about the golden globes this year okay okay sure okay introduce the show but then we're

going right to the 1988 golden globe i can't wait because look i'm gr. Because look, I'm Griffin. Yeah, I'm David. And this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby.

I feel like my jack's been better in the past. This is a miniseries on the films of George Miller. It is called Mad Pod Fury Cast. And today we're talking about Witches of Eastwick, which is ostensibly the only for hire film he ever took. It is the only film that he did not develop himself or he did not have complete control because he's very much a man who kind of wrote his checks by just having i mean starting out in his

own country and his own industry independent financing even when his films got bigger it's always sort of been the deal of i'm bringing my own financing to the table and you don't get to tell me anything and this is the one time that he was playing with the house's money. And it's an interesting film for that reason. And our guest today for Vanity Fair, return to the podcast for the second time, the great Cam Collins, AKA Austin Collins.

Happy to be here. I mean, we're not here, you know, I'm in my, I'm in my, you know, my bubble.

We should mention we're in wildly different rooms. I'm in a bubble. We should mention, we're in wildly different rooms. I'm in a room with Vin Diesel. David is in a room with a poster for Witches of Eastwick. And Cam is against a brick wall. I have a brick wall behind me. But I just, can we for a second? I mean, so it's a film about three witches. There's three of us.

Yeah. So tell me, tell me who's who. What was your plan? Who do you hear? you oh boy great ben is definitely daryl so just that's for sure you know that's handled so so the of the witches ben's got big van horn energy i think this is hard cam is shared oh i think so too love you for saying that i mean they're all right answers as far as I'm concerned they're all great

that was an amazing thing to say I think I'm Susan and you're Michelle great great great I think we're all really happy with how this shook out that was perfect no disagreements I think that's indisputable all three of those are indisputable here's what I wanted to say about the Golden Globes

this year which ignored this movie which i assume was submitted as a comedy right we can all agree yeah the comedy field that year was pretty darn incredible okay here are the five best picture comedy nominees okay the winner is john boorman's hope and glory which i guess is a comedy that's sort of like a serious you've already lost me so this is already falling apart so you know okay that so that that got snuck in you know that's oscar nonsense okay fine but then here are the others dirty dancing okay broadcast news moon struck oh wow and okay and then the fifth is baby boom which is not a bad movie but it was a good movie no that's the one that's a little bit of a stretch i not hoping what's it called

yeah hope and glory come on hope and glory is all right you know i'm sorry but i'm here to talk about which is a beast pick and i would absolutely choose I mean right yeah okay just so we're clear it's just like sometimes sometimes you look at the Globe lineup and you're like oh my god like Salmon Fishing and the Yammin I'm just saying like this was the year of Moonstruck

and Broadcast News and then Dirty Dancing biggest movie of the year no good for them for those sure as I continue to search for this, I just want to point out that the LA Film Critics Association also split with Witches of Eastwick and Ironweed for Best Actor, didn't do broadcast news. This is not the one I was looking for.

I'm going to continue searching while giving this podcast my all. But I want to point out that in 2011, giving this podcast my all, but I want to point out that in 2011, LA gave best actor to Michael Fassbender for A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame, and X-Men First Class. Ugh. All four.

That kind of rules. Yeah, sure. That's a low-key bop. All right. You know what? You know what? You alright you know what you know what there's worse there's worse things happening there are I can name a couple things going on in the world today

that are worse than when nine years ago the LA Films critics gave one fourth of an award that was quite a year for him good for him right I mean you kinda that was his like Jessica interesting Daryl in a remake fourth of an award. That was quite a year for him. Good for him. Right? I mean, you kind of have no choice but to stay in here.

He would be an interesting Daryl in a remake. I don't know who the witches would be. He could be a Daryl. Have you seen 12 Years a Slave, my friend? Okay. I have. Yeah. Right. The literal devil. I mean, he's got the energy.

I'm trying to think. When is he funny? See, that's my only hold up. When is Fassie funny? He's funny in Inglourious Bastards. He is funny in Inglourious Bastards. Thank you for answering because I was stumbling there. I was stumped.

Yeah, that's the one. That's the one that speaks to me. He gets his thing. Hilarious in Hunger? Oh, you're right. the one that's the one that that speaks to me he gets his thing hilarious and hunger you're i mean well i just i love bathroom humor you know me yeah you know right yeah hunger the first act is one long poop joke okay griffin you want to say inadvertently funny i just want to say ben Ben is right now remotely recording. I agree with that. Ben is right now remotely recording in an attic where there is no heat,

and he has a blanket draped around him, and he looks like he's in the movie Hunger. He looks like... He does. Yeah, it's because the blanket, too, is like an old ratty green blanket. Yeah. You look like Bobby Sands. You just look like the Troubles.

He looks like he's amidst the Troubles. And he's in a confined space. The walls are closing in on him. Everything's angled around him. It's quite an image. And he's also, it's green. Both the blanket and his ski cap are green. The ski cap is really what makes it. It's quite an image. And he's also, it's green. Both the blanket and his ski cap are green. The ski cap is really what makes it.

It's just so, it's Oliver Twist. Honestly, if I tilted the computer down, like the camera, and I was like a round of trash can on fire, you wouldn't even be surprised. That is my vibe currently. Wow. Man, this is a good year for movies 87 is a hot year i'm sorry yeah just just hey hey that's why can we go through the top 10 of the box office because i i didn't spoil uh this film's box office performance but i did quickly glimpse that it was in the top 10 for this year

this is one of the top 10 films of 87 good choice this is a big year i mean this is robocop also comes out this year right greatest of all american films right right right yeah um yeah you had the top movies i mean three men and a baby number one okay but you do have fatal attraction beverly hills cop 2 good morning vietnam moonstruck the fifth highest grossing movie of the year share on goddamn fire in 87 and then you got the untouchables secret of my success stakeout lethal weapon witches of eastwick but there's a lot of other good movies like you say i just yeah definitely um. One of my favorite hobbies is reading reviews from when The Untouchables came out and feeling depressed. Because all the reviews are like, yeah, you know, it's like disposable popcorn trash.

And you're like, it's a De Palma movie written by David Mamet with a Morricone score that has an homage to Battleship Potemkin in it. And everyone at the time was like, you know, it's like fluff. And Kevin Costner is kindemkin in it. And everyone at the time was like, you know, it's like fluff. And Kevin Costner's kind of good in it. Everyone's kind of good in it. Good year. Here's some of the 87 movies. Raising Arizona. You got, what's it called?

The John Sayles, Matt Wan. Evil Dead 2. Full Metal Jacket. Swimming to Cambodia Yeah You got Catherine Bigelow's Near Dark

Good for us A lot of blank check movies I mean it's interesting how many filmmakers were either cresting or debuting right around this time And then you know

your best picture winner that year is The Last Emperor which I feel like where is that on this sort of you know where do people

I love that movie I watched that like within the last emperor which i feel like where is that on the sort of you know where do people i like that uh like within the last three years and um i'm not surprised no one mentions it but it's not bad i've never seen it i feel like it gets thrown into the sort of the gandhi bucket of like oh that's like out of africa don't exactly like like this sort of prestige oscar movies but like it's much much better than that it's a beautiful movie it's not having seen it but my perception of its reputation is that it was seen as a far more sort of like esoteric international uh movie than gandhi which is such a hollywood version of an international story well look first of all ben kingsley can play any ethnicity he wants and i support that he's got

the past yeah i mean even if he didn't have the past he he he he did it and he did it and good for him he's earned the past he has right he's shown for example yeah you know yeah gandhi we're not gonna do that last emperor but it's also not like amadeus to me like there are things about last emperor that feel like yeah this is what we're calling oscar bait of that moment whereas like amadeus to me is like uh just weird just a weird movie a weird movie. A weird comic book. I mean, you know what else is weird? What is weird? The Witches of Eastwick. I've never heard of that.

This is what I wanted to say. Okay, so we'll fill you in, Cam. I love that I'm Cher. I just want to. You know, of course. You're definitely Cher. There's no disagreement. Everyone in this movie is hot.

Like, everyone in this movie is peak hot. Yeah, especially Richard Jenkins. I said everyone. Everyone. No, I'm just spotlighting my boy Ricky Jenks. Yeah, absolutely. Because we're talking so much about this cast and about where everyone was in their career at this point and how much it just feels like this is the only cast this movie could have. It is fascinating how this cast kind of came together at the last second was not the original roadmap. And the thing that is most surprising about this movie

is that it was Bill Murray as Van Horn, not just theoretically, but pretty deep into the process. And Jack Nicholson was still with Angelica Houston at the time. She went to screen test for this movie, and while she was doing that, he heard that Bill Murray had pulled out of the film. The film had been set up around the fact that Bill Murray was attached, and he had to say to Angelica Houston, hey, if you're going in there, would you tell them that I would be interested in taking it if they're looking for somebody now? idea that this movie wouldn't immediately go oh this is a jack nicholson vehicle that this movie was set up additional on it being a jack nicholson vehicle is insane a sexy devil yes what was the idea behind the bill murray i just think he was

the guy at that moment and i think this is is also, this is probably what it is. This is probably why they went to Bill Murray first. This is in the weird wilderness after Ghostbusters where he doesn't make a movie for five years. And it was like he had the biggest goddamn hit. He became the biggest star. And then he walked away from it all. And I think he just negged hollywood so hard that they were so desperate to get him back that he then became like the most coveted movie star for any

executive or any director because the goal was like can you be the one to lure him and he doesn't return until scrooge save for the one scene in little shop of Horrors. Scrooge, which I appreciate. You return for Scrooge in 88, and then Ghostbusters 2 in 89. Scrooge, love it. Yeah. Good for him. Yeah, but not this.

Not this. No. Not this, Bill. You could see it working, but that would be a concession pick. It would make more sense the other way around. You see it working? I can't. No. I mean, i'd watch it yes right he can't sustain this level of horniness i he's not a horny guy here's the

other thing i don't think he has the energy for it he is he's a much more casual actor right every type of energy and i don't think he has the menace although he clearly has a dark side there is something to the fact that it's just like nicholson is just like a fucking tasmanian devil of evil and horniness in this movie like he's like animal from the muppet show you need someone who's just like live wire the entire fucking film but you also need it's like he needs to be someone who you're like i would have sex with him of course but i would also feel weird about it yeah and like i would think he was hot but then i would also be like why wait like you know i would like stand

back for a minute and be like what what why is it that i think this is hot and that is jack nicholson's 70s but especially 80s 90s movie vibe he i don't think yeah well you have to believe that the women want to hate fucking right exactly you can't do that with bill murray and well here's the thing i think i think certain filmmakers a different version of this movie there is a version of it that works with bill murray that is this story transformed into a more traditional broad comedy in which he is not actually sexy and he is playing sort of a sketch comedy version

of a smarmy misogynistic asshole. Not interesting. No, not interesting. We want the horny movie. We don't care about that other stuff. No. And I'm going to keep on coming back to this word, but I had never seen this movie before. And it is... I know. i'm sorry oh my god oh my god no don't apologize i'm excited for you the mistake has been corrected but yeah the thing that was most striking to me about this film is

that as opposed to a lot of the kind of comparable dark comedies of the time and supernatural comedies of the time and dark supernatural comedies of the time and supernatural comedies of the time and dark supernatural comedies of the time because you have like devito you have beetlejuice is the year after this mississippi burning yeah a great supernatural dark comedy um yeah uh but but even barry the bridesmaid sonnenfeld is about to start his uh adam's family run a couple years later like the paul rudnick zone like this is like a thing frank oz that's like kind of existing in mainstream hollywood at this time this sort of sensibility and i love that whole era of studio comedies that got dark and violent and all of that

but this movie has a little more genuine menace to it than those other films there is like a real kind of it's not even a scariness because those other movies can have tension to them but there is something that feels actually evil about this movie and not performatively dark. It's unsettling. It's also gross. Yes. Is what's evil, is what's gross the fact that it makes you horny? I don't... I think it's hot. It is evil, but it's hot, right?

It's a hot movie, right? But I think the fact that it's genuinely hot and the fact that it's genuinely menacing are one in the same. They're partly parceled because it's about the fact this movie isn't putting anything in comedy quotes for a comedy it is not a film that is structuring most of its big scenes for laughs right it is really trying to dig into the actual sort of ugliness of all of those primal emotions of fear of lust you know it also doesn't have a plot at all like it it just like it's the girls hanging out for a bit and then he shows up and then we basically just sort of like like without acknowledging it just

cut to like yeah they're like a harem now and everyone's freaked out about it. The plot is The Bachelor. The show. You're right. They conjure up this man and he goes on dates with all of them and back in the harem they get into fights.

His house is even very bad for him. Oh, completely. He fucks everyone ahead of its time this movie cannot believe that this is a George Miller movie this is like the thing that astonishes me

I think George Miller can't kind of believe that this is a George Miller this is the one that sticks out weird but in a good way yeah I mean look the guy has never made a bad film i haven't seen all of them i haven't seen happy uh happy might be his worst movie it's my least favorite that's why i said that one because i figured that'd be the whole one but guess what

spoiler it turns out happy feet 2 is kind of a masterpiece yeah happy feet 2 not bad yeah i'm like really into it um i'm trying to find some stories about how he got involved in this project other than i think much like bill murray uh george miller had become the sort of unattainable for studios for him to do three mad maxes in a row, each one sort of topping the previous one in terms of scale, in terms of technical sort of craft and box office and everything. I think it was just like, this is so clearly a guy we should be pulling into the Hollywood system.

And he kept on avoiding it. He would get distribution deals with American studios, but he wanted to play the game his own way by his own terms. So I think they actively pursued him because I don't know if he was the first choice, but it was just like the fact production. It was the two John John Peters and Peter or the two Peters rather John Peters and Peter Goober, who are the notorious sort of swinging dick producers of the 80s, who then became the heads of Columbia Pictures and almost ran it into the ground. And this was a movie that was a total war between the two of them, who would then go on to do Batman with Nicholson and Burton and Miller. And Miller had never had to deal with producers who were against him. He had always worked with his best friend as his producer and his own sort of team that he had built. And come up with. And the money was Australian money.

Like he'd never worked with a studio. Totally. And so this he's dealing with a bunch of big stars. For the first time. Which he hadn't done before. He'd essentially made Mel Gibson. And he's dealing with a studio. And he's dealing with two powerhouse producers.

Who want things done the way that they wanted it done. And George Miller, his big thing he always says about this movie is that Jack Nicholson saved him, that Jack Nicholson exerted all of his movie star power to support him, to make sure his vision was kept intact. but also that Jack Nicholson really kind of tutored him on how to make sure he got what he wanted. Because he said, I can tell you're a real filmmaker, and I want to make sure you don't lose battles. Not just here, but going forward. Do you think that Jack Nicholson voted for Spotlight or Mad Max 3 Road? Oh, wow. We're not going to go there? I think he voted for Mad Max think he did you think that chaos energy the way george miller continues to talk about jack nicholson it feels like nicholson really took

such a goddamn shine to him and felt so protective of him that i can't imagine him looking at Fury Road and saying anything other than, that'll do, George, that'll do. He must have felt such beaming pride watching Fury Road. Nicholson was in Mars Attacks. Just remember that performance.

Think about that man. I forget. I played hooky to go see Mars Attacks. I snuck in. Right. I didn't go to school. That's how much I fucking cared. No, youuck in right i didn't go to school that's how much i fucking cared no you went to school yeah you went to see mars attacks that's you were schooled that was so beautiful can i read just two quick uh miller nicholson peter goober's uh beyond

thunderdome cage match uh things. Yeah. So John Peters, very famously, amongst other things, there is the story about him developing the Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, Superman Returns

that has now been widely circulated where he was desperately trying to get Kevin Smith to write a robot spider in which he then later shoehorned into Wild Wild West.

Here's a very similar story. Okay, I'm just going to read this verbatim from IMDb Trivia. Sure, go ahead. According to George Miller, producer John Peters into wild wild west here's a very similar story okay i'm just going to read this according to george miller producer john peters suddenly decided he wanted aliens to appear in the movie even though it didn't make sense with the story miller thinks that peter was influenced by the box office success of aliens 1986 he even showed up one day on set with a stuntman He even showed up one day on set with a stuntman dressed as an alien and told Miller to put him in a scene. Any scene.

In Witches of Eastman? Yes. Miller and Jack Nicholson then left the set until Peters gave up on his fixation. I just want to point out, fucking John Peters didn't just say at like a script stage, can we write aliens into it? He didn't even say while filming, can we find a way to put an alien in somewhere? He showed up to set with a guy in a full goddamn alien costume and said, put him in a scene today. What do you think the costume looks like? I don't know. I respect it.

This is what I want to say. I'm imagining the guy from shape of water showing up i i mean i feel like it probably is your classic kind of gray almond eyed alien yeah but just like it's like normal meddling hollywood producers do annoying things like say at the script stage why don't we put aliens in this movie only john peters got a guy to dress up i know showed up on the set and was like come on he can be in the background like who's it gonna hurt i will not name the project but there is a thing i worked on once where there was a horrible sort of cigar smoking slick back hair producer and he would repeatedly go to the sort of creative head of the project and pitch them on having a scene where the lead got punched in the nuts by a little person. He never brought a little person to set.

He would bring it up every day. He would pitch it in detail. He would pull up YouTube clips to try to support his point, but he never got to the point of saying, here's a little person. I've hired him. I put him through hair and makeup. Pick your scene. John Peters did that, and he did that with a special effects

costume with some degree of makeup to make a fucking human being look like an alien. I respect it. I think it's great. Sugar shot. I think that's great. Sugar shot. I think that show you're committed to the idea. This is the other big part of this. And I think this really causes like a turning point in George Miller's career.

He never does a movie like this again. He never gives a studio this much control over him. But I think it makes him twice as sort of stubborn and steadfast about his vision. So let me just read this. twice as sort of stubborn and steadfast about his vision. So let me just read this. After the alien thing, Miller and Jack Nicholson left the set until Peters gave up on his fixation. So this is connected to that. In Australian magazine Cinema Papers, early 90s,

director George Miller revealed the shoot had been extremely difficult. Da-da-da-da-da. This is so fucking telling of everything that is still to this day incredibly stupid about the sort of Hollywood studio system mentality. Well, be nice to Hollywood studio system right now, because those poor guys.

Okay, let me couch this. Let me try to say this while pulling some punches. Until like a couple months ago. Right, punching bag. Okay, but this is, I swear to God this shit still happens today. In a meeting to discuss ways to reduce the budget. Miller volunteered to give up his trailer because he was always on set and had no time to use it. So they began to interfere with his production requests. If he asked for 50 extras, the studio would provide a dozen.

If he asked for two cameras, they would provide one. Miller decided to fight fire with fire and refused to shoot each scene until his production demands were met. The studio responded by looking for a new director, but Jack Nicholson, who supported Miller, vowed to walk off the production if he was replaced. So this is the psychology here. A guy comes to set and goes, look, if we need extra money for this movie i don't need this creature comfort put it back into the production so the value is up there on the screen and they said this guy is such a cuck that he doesn't even want a trailer that must mean he's a bad director

so we shouldn't give him anything i swear to god this is how these people still fucking operate right but i mean it is the 80s is the height of this kind of like, hey, look, you know, the guy with the biggest dick is the real director over here. You know, right. Like what you said, the cigar chomping, Hawaiian shirt wearing producer. You understand how if this is the one experience he has with this and even still the movie is a hit, it comes out well, it gets good reviews. The movie stars all align with him.

It's really smartly. Yeah, really fucking hot. George Miller smartly is like, I'm going back to Australia. I'm doing everything on my fucking terms. I'm getting my own fundraise, like financing, and I'm buying back the rights to Mad Max. Like I'm optioning Babe myself. Like everything becomes, I have to do this on my own.

Mrs. Dalloway said, I'm optioning Babe myself. That's fucking poetry, dude. And at the time, that didn't really make sense. Like, when she wrote that, it didn't really make sense. Until George.

Yeah. I gotta say, what you're saying clarifies for me, you know, the behind-the-scenes dick energy of George here clarifies to me why this is his hottest movie. Because I think, I think there's something about this movie that feels like a fight to me. When I watched it, like when I watched it recently, it just, first of all, you gotta have that moment where you think, man, remember when just a mainstream Hollywood movie really was a movie? Like someone is awake behind the camera. The fucking shot compositions are more than just rudimentary.

And the fucking outfit and just everything. It's like a fucking film. It's not a popcorn movie, but it's like a fucking film this is the term you're saying oh yes getting at that it's getting at that for me but like no we're gonna make a fucking good movie instead of this alien i really i respect starting up with an alien i don't know yeah no no i mean look respect it as an individual move but also respect george not letting it interfere with oh great Oh, great commitment from Peter's, one of our finest comedians.

I had a friend who lived on my couch for like almost a year because he had lost his job and had insurmountable credit card debt. And my roommate and I were like, stay on our couch until you rebound. And most of that year because most of my social life is

sitting on a couch and watching things was uh me watching stuff with him late at night because he now lived on uh his bed was the couch um yeah and when i would have to try to sell him on a nightly basis on something to watch something that i want to watch that he would also approve of because it was his bed um he would always say i want to watch like a movie movie. Yeah. Like he was a guy who liked movies, but was not like very serious about them. And I was like, I would always say, what do you mean?

And he was like, you know, like a movie movie that has like cinematography and like a music and acting. And I would say all movies have that. He's like, no, but you know what I'm saying? And what he was saying is what you're saying now, it's a term i think about all the time it's it's a certain level of studio film made with real movie stars giving real sort of in the pocket performances with real production value real vision real voice behind it real ideas and like just top of the line craft and whether or not the thing works. And still just product. It's still product.

Right. That was his thing. Sometimes I'd be like, this is a really good foreign film, this is a really good indie film, and he was like, I want to watch a movie movie. No, I know exactly what he means. And this is... I mean, this is a movie that lives up to the fact that it stars Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Cher, and fucking... Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Michelle fucking Pfeiffer. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It lives up to that. The poster structure of big Nicholson above, like, top of everything, and then one line down. Oh, you mean the naming. Yeah, right. It's Nicholson in huge font and then slightly smaller font,

one line down share sarandon pfeiffer and it's rare that you have like the number one guy at the top is humongous and also the three people below him with that gulf are still all legendary legends legends true legends all legends all as cam is saying pretty much at the height of their powers right bar none yeah maybe fifer is still in her sort of ingenue phase i guess she's the youngest of them like she's a grown-ass woman a runway right i mean no she is she is but like at this point she's incredibly overqualified on you know she's got baker boys in a couple years she's got batman a couple years after that right like she's got she's ramping up this is her ramping up i guess dangerous

liaisons that's next year right yeah i i gotta tell you guys like the weird thing about me and george miller is that my introduction to george miller uh you know i didn't see the mad max films until college um sure etc etc my george miller films i didn't see the Mad Max films until college sure my George Miller films I didn't know this at the time were this and Lorenzo's Oil the movie that he made afterward these movies were on TV

all the time so you only knew his Sarandon I did not know that George Miller directed Witchers of eastwick until fury road it's pretty they're completely divorced and lorenzo's oil is just like are you an oil boy what do you think of what do you think of the oil uh i mean in the words of the tin man and the whiz would you suggest that people slide some oil to you well it's like depressing sorry yeah it is but it's good it's like a childhood illness that's like yeah i know i'm sorry it is a real slog but it is also

but it's also nothing like it it's there's nothing like it but also if your lens on i just want to i live in a weird universe where these were the two these were two big movies for me as a kid i watched them a lot they were on all the time there's this oil i mean susan trandon just jersey legend i'm a jersey guy shit of course oh where jersey i'm from plainfield north plainfield so it's from Edison, where I also live for a time. I'm Patterson area. Oh, I love that for you. I don't love the movie.

I don't love the movie Patterson. How dare you? I like it. Come on. Love that movie. I like it. I just. It's fine.

You don't have to like it. No, it's all right. I mean, you know, just Jersey art. It's a high standard. It's fine. I mean, we have Philip Roth, but it's fine. don't have to like it no it's all right i mean you know just jersey art it's a high standard it's fine i mean we have philip roth but it's fine patterson's good um angelica houston it seems like was their first choice and by her own admission she fucked up the audition who was she says she was gonna be alex which it just feels like obvious sort of casting she's in such a witch zone then had she already done the witches or does that come after this

I don't know but that's fucking iconic that's a couple years after but that is iconic and of course she's Morticia we know she didn't get any nominations for the witches right are we sure I'm pretty sure I would love to be wrong I'm going to look it up and I i want to bet she got one i would love to be wrong i'm gonna look it up

and i want to bet that she got one she won uh critics awards but that's it for the witches no yes good for critics i'm loving us right now she won the lafka and the national society but that was also but but here's the thing though here's the thing it was tied for with that and the grifters okay okay the grifters was her prestige movie right so it was similar to this it was similar to but they still shouted it out yeah i mean she is so good in the grifters and so good in most movies that she would have been great in this yeah she would have been great in this but she she sort of said like i i felt like this was in my court and i couldn't get my head around the language and i went into the screen test ill-prepared and it's probably the worst audition i've ever done is

there i think i'm looking for it because god youtube is perfect for this kind of thing absolutely i would love to see what she thinks is her worst audition so then everything goes like sort of out the window pfeiffer was the one of the three who was cast earliest after i think they considered amy madigan and also daryl hannah daryl hannah turned the film down and i quote on moral grounds oh tell me more i love it i have no further info horny clan of the cave bear i was going to say are we not all but certain that daryl hannah turned this film down because she thought it was disrespectful to witches i'm not even making a joke i have to imagine i'm i'm a thousand percent serious I guarantee you that was the reason

oh boy that's the reason we're just going for that I have no inside track I just I feel it in my fucking bones that she thought this film gave witches I would fucking love that a bad look it makes sense though like just like Angelica

Houston they went with Cher like yeah Daryl Hannah was in that zone in in that Michelle Pfeiffer, ingenue zone right then. So Pfeiffer, then they lock down and then they're looking to cast the role of Alex. And who do they cast? Susan Sarandon. Susan Sarandon is officially cast as Alex, accepts the role, starts doing the work. Then they're struggling to get the third witch.

They finally get through to Cher. Cher agrees. She likes the project. And then after signing on, she takes another read of the script and she goes, actually, I'd rather play this role than that role.

And so they swap them out. Cher becomes Alex. Sarandon does not even know that her role has been switched until she arrives on location for pre-production. It's so rude. Yeah. But it's pretty wild because then it's like you look at this cast and you go, oh, all three of them must have been first choices for these roles. This feels like the three most obvious prominent women to play these parts. But it actually was

like a circuitous path to get there and a circuitous path to get Nicholson. I'm glad we're dwelling on this. This is an extremely well-cast movie. Yes.

Yes, it is. Like how they figured it out. And right, because Jenkins, who, I mean, this is very early in his career, this is this is one of his earliest movies even though he was born like 45 years old and balding he's like that snl

sketch where will ferrell comes out named ted brogan already owing people money oh man and then remember that where they're in a delivery room yeah yeah good sketch and then veronica cartwright is incredible fucking cartwright i was gonna say veronica is my stealth pick for the best performance in this movie i think her work in this is unreal unreal i ever watched the birds recently and first of all iconic movie talk about witches i mean just if you add birds to this movie oh i just combine these two movies somehow we got to do that this movie could use some credit that's what peter should have been doing yeah yeah he should have been throwing birds onto the set

do you guys know that Veronica Cartwright and Jack Nicholson used to date in the 70s tell me when in the 70s I don't have more specifics I will look for answers right now but this is the big headline I don't want to bury this lead

they rekindled their affair during production of this movie wasn't he still with Angelica or is he not he's being a bad boy they rekindled their affair during production of this movie. Wasn't he still with Angelica or is he not? He's being a bad boy. Cartwright and Nicholson were fucking during the filming of this film on camera during takes. That's not true. Wow.

I would just like to reiterate that this is George Miller's hottest film. And everything that's coming up just feels like it's just fate, right? That even those two characters were fucking... Call it God, but I just, I call it, I don't know how, I don't have a word for how perfect.

Of course, some people in this movie are fucking though, right? I mean... Well, right. Everyone in every movie is having sex um i just it's yes but yes i the date i have here 1978 is well that's what she's in going south i believe that's when they met and then had an affair dated after that yeah um but so so right so this is kind of a like hey veronica like you know it's like they're rekindling they're not even one of the witches and she fucking starts fucking jack nicholson

i mean there's a really there's a good chance that jack nicholson had sex with all four primary actresses in this film right there's a really good chance who wouldn't sleep with everyone in this movie i know there's a good chance that everyone in this film slept with everyone else in this movie. It's a perfect orgy. There's a good chance that Richard Jenkins fucked Jack Nicholson off camera. Well, I hope so. That Cher was stuffing Sarandon. I'm talking every which way but lose.

I think everyone was stuffing everyone else. And Carol Strickian, you know, the lurch. Who wasn't picking off a piece? There's enough of that guy to go around. Lurch was laying pipe. He's a fucking buffet. Lurch himself. Fidel.

Fidel is a funny name for that guy. Yes. Because every time Nicholson goes on about him, I had to remind myself he's not talking about Fidel Castro. Right, right. Because the scenes work that way. Nicholson goes on about him, I had to remind myself he's not talking about Fidel Castro. Right. Because the scenes work that way. If you think that this guy just keeps on bringing up Fidel Castro as a non-sequitur, he wants to talk about Fidel's hog

size. His vibe could be I know Fidel Castro socially. That's why I accepted that. I went, oh, what a good character detail. This guy hangs out with Fidel Castro. You know, the devil. guy hangs out with Fidel Castro. The devil. 1980s devil and Fidel. So the plot of The Witches of Eastwick.

I have. I think. Is that there's a little town called Eastwick. There are these three ladies who have. Is it like a standing Thursday date? Yeah, it's in Rhode Island. Right. It's like... They have a little martini club. I feel like we're skipping over something.

I feel like we're skipping over the era of the 80s and 90s Reagan-esque sweeping aerial shots of fall Connecticut, Rhode Island, with the John Williams music and the, you know what I'm

talking about, right? This mode. Yeah, which leads to, I mean, I think what you're describing pretty much ends the following year because Beetlejuice just fucking takes it to the mat. Absolutely. With the fucking psych out of the model. The pick and fax thing

becomes comical right around now. No, but also the opening of the elf men score over what looks like the helicopter shot and then turns out to be a model in an attic. I love that. They butcher him. They take him to the cleaners. They fold him like laundry. They get juiced

is what I'm saying. But yes, that is very representative of this time period and it's also worth noting that the book The Witches of Eastwick, obviously written by John Updike, of course, takes place in the 60s. A big immediate change for this movie to set it in the 80s.

Yeah. Not the only change they made, but a big immediate one. Yeah, and a very clever no you said you dabbled right i read a few pages yeah well i mean right i mentioned this to you before that this is the only john updike novel on harold bloom's list of the western canon the rabbit novels are not there none of the other little shit's there very bizarre very bizarre but that would mean i mean obviously i was curious and yeah i mean i have to say in

the opening pages women are talking and that was interesting for him yeah i didn't realize that this is like he's he's the guy funnily enough you know nicholson's line in as good as it gets like you know how do I write women? Well, come on. What's the line? Like, I imagine. All right. Now I have to look it up.

Oh, I write a man and then I remove like reason. It's like reason and something else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I saw I before this. I said accountability. Yes. Right. I said I wasn't going to shade. That's right. I said I wasn't going to shade Updike, so I apologize for that. No, no shade, yeah. But yeah, look, it stands out in his work. I think it can only, this is the only time any critic of books has called, like, an Updike novel feminist, right?

Like, this is right yeah well and i think it's also like the this is a weirdly adapted work i think one of the reasons that it's not thought of as an uptake novel because it's rare that a writer who is that prominent has a book that is this prominent and the two are rarely sort of associated with each other yeah and part of it is that this thing keeps on getting adapted into different mediums at different time periods uh over the last 30 years um but i think one of the running things that if you read the the sort of response to the book at the time and even the legacy now and also every version the the tv show the musical this movie there's constantly this question of like is this thing a satire of what it seems to be saying yeah is it a work that other people can reclaim like what was

his intent in writing it is he trying to sort of reassert gender roles or is he trying to deconstruct them like it's it's a kind of an interesting thorny text. The movie? For all of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I, I, for me, what I love about this movie is that it, it kind of floats beyond all of that for me. Like I, I,

I don't mean to keep coming back to the sexual energy, but I guess it does for me like i i don't mean to keep coming back to the sexual energy but i guess it does for me it is a movie star movie full of great sexual energy so to me that is what it's about it like witches are a sexual thing a horny goat man is a sexual thing all the fucking is literally sexual so satire or not i it it i i feel like it's beyond that it's about it's a movie star movie to me and also whether or not it's satire it's sort of like it's a comedy playing off of the the cist had perception of gender roles within a relationship. Yes. Whether it's trying to deconstruct them or support them

or just acknowledge that they exist and find comedy within that, it is about people literally willing themselves into a relationship that represents all the best and all the worst of straight male-female pairings. But because the movie is so ridiculous, it just sort of, it just finds an escape hatch beyond lingering to me on those questions. In the end, I don't,

I just laugh. I think it's a successful comedy because it just floats beyond these things. It's acknowledging, but really it's, I mean, if ever I were to say, this is just a movie about something like for all the really interesting things that are happening,

this to me, just as like a movie movie, I, I, I don't know. Once I get into like the gender politics of this movie, I'm like, I don't know.

To me, the gender politics are everyone wants to fuck. Everyone wants to fuck. But there is this sort of vibe of like, he worships them. And he sort of is, he's amazed by, you know, there's this sort of vibe of like he worships them and he sort of is he's amazed by you know there's that speech where he's like women they can make babies right you know where he's like talking about how incredible women's bodies are and but you know he doesn't really want to roast about it exactly and he doesn't really want to do uh like you know he he can only he thinks of them

best as bodies i feel like that is his vibe for most of the movie like he wants to make babies with them i i also think he's a problematic guy yeah he's a problematic man i mean he's a problematic but i think that what is great is that it acknowledges how alluring and like horny it would be to be worshipped that way but also right at the end of the day you're just sitting in a fucking bubble bath kind of bored out of your mind so this is my big take on this movie because it is literally about the these women conjuring this guy together right from essentially like a pitch meeting of everything they would want in a guy but it's very specifically the the pitching you do

when you're drunk yeah you know with friends uh you're sort of like your id is talking um i think this movie is above all else uh about being attracted to things that you know are bad. Oh, yeah. Right. You know, whether they're qualities in a person or dynamics in a relationship. Which is why Jack Nicholson is perfect. Yes. He is that.

Where you're like, I love this. I know there's something. I know this is not ideal. I know this guy's got a dark past. I mean, you cast Jack Nicholson, I'm not going to immediately go, well, this is the guy to root for. I'm going to go,

well, I got questions about this guy. But I want to see him. But I want to see him on screen. I want to see him be problematic. And even from his perspective, he is drawn to them because they are like strong-willed but he himself admits late in the movie that all he really wants is someone to fucking do his ironing you know like it's like maybe yeah he he would not be

turned on to someone who was more subservient but he also still at the end of the day wants domesticity right but the thing that the movie does that's interesting is that it doesn't wait until the end for the women to have a sort of moment where they realize this is bad for example share pretty immediately is like okay you're you're you're a piece of shit like the first thing she says to her basically you okay like not saying that we're not gonna fuck but i'm just saying that you're a piece of shit. Uh, it's like,

it's like, it's, it's not like we're swinging around at the end towards some revelation about how terrible he is and how they're, they're able to be strong from the get go. They will him into being they're in control. They're in control throughout the movie more than they realized. And they're harnessing like crazy. crazy and they have wish power right they have witch powers the whole time but

are not even really conscious of them for half the damn movie and the witch power is being horny it just is simple people you know i i this is anything for the hornness and magic. As a child, I knew what this movie was about. I mean, between this and Catwoman, it's just like, Michelle Pfeiffer, you're representing sex on screen to me, and Scarface.

I mean, Catman must hate this movie, right? It must just freak him out. Gosh. So these these women they have this movie is like dark practical magic i know practical magic came out later but practical magic is like you actually could summon your ideal husband just through a spell and he'd turn out to be a nice guy and this is like if you tried to do that you would literally literally find yourself fucking the devil and they so they they summon this guy kind of by mistake his introduction is incredible the the you know they're at the

classical music concert and he's snoring and making these like wild boar noises based on my he did that at one of my middle school bands on Sex Once so to introduce him he's so disgusting and it's so good and it's not like he is styled radically different in this film

than he is in general other than the tiny little ponytail the ponytail but from the moment he comes on screen I realized film than he is in general other than the tiny little ponytail the ponytail ponytail is an incredible touch but from the moment he comes on screen i realized oh jack nicholson looks like george miller designed him right you know like almost is like the bullet farmer like jack nicholson's natural eyebrows are how he styled a Morton Joe. Oh, can we talk about the most natural fuck up face in Hollywood? Just a guy whose eyebrows who smile.

Yeah. When we lose Jack Nicholson, we lose everybody. But like, there's no one who's got a face like this. Right. No, there's no one who's got like that. And just I also argue the energy. That's the thing for me. who's got a face like this. Right. No, there's no one who's got like, and just, I, I also argue the energy.

That's the thing for me. I just, I argued there is no one today who has this much energy on camera. It would be, not only could you not name today's Jack Nicholson, but it would be laughable to even like shortlist candidates. Like, I'm not even looking for someone to be exactly like him.

I'm like, what's an equivalent? No, but like no one's in that zone. That's what I'm saying. But it's just like, he's got the most juice. He's got the most battery of anybody,

you know? And to be so good at comedy and like fucking drama. With the same freaking smile. Yeah. With that same shit. That Cheshire like. He rarely disguises himself. He's a very distinctive, specific guy. He's got specific voice. He's got specific mannerisms. And he is able to apply those to such wildly different things in different films and also hand himself fully over to directors. a case like this,

and you'd hear the same stories about Batman a couple years later, which is also Peter and Goober's, where like, even with a young director, if he believed in them, he was like, I got your fucking back. You know,

like I'll fight the battles for you because I'm Jack. But he'll say it in a voice that kind of scares you. Yeah. Would you say like, fuck you, Tim Burton. Go ahead, Ben.

Would you say that his approach to acting in like that manly kind of way that makes him special like i think of that and like like harrison ford too of like how they're not like like it's artful but they're not like taking it too seriously or themselves too seriously do you know what i mean sure definitely you don't think about what school of acting they come from. No, they don't give a shit about that. He is the ultimate sort of in quotes movie star. He is kind of the only movie star

who is constantly deflating his persona every single movie he makes, even when the film is built around supporting that persona. I also think of like the classic Elaine May quote about like improv improv where she said if you don't know what to do in a scene seduce seduce seduce she was like that's always the most interesting choice you can make as an actress to seduce which is elaine may's opinion but jack nicholson treats every single scene as a seduction even if it isn't literally it always is even if

it's a business scene you know every scene is some sort of seduction. He's always trying to lure someone over to his side. I need an Elaine May, Jack Nicholson. Oh, God. Collapse. Let's make it happen. Fucking right now. Are you fucking kidding me?

I know. And the fact that she is, you know know allegedly coming out of retirement to direct another film and Nicholson's been off the screen for over a decade it's like if she could fucking lure him out if we can do a new leaf 2021 that's optimistic

I'll say this 2022 I'll even say this I think Elaine May Jack Nicholson is the only fucking, why am I blanking on the title? The Marianne Ade film that Nicholson was supposed to remake. Tony Erdman. Oh, good call. Elaine May is the only person I would be interested in seeing remake Tony Erdman.

Yes. And Nicholson was supposed to do it. But my initial feeling about, and this is getting at what we're talking about, my initial feeling about that was, damn, it really fucking depends on who directs that movie. Totally. Because he so easily gets

lent to, because he's a mainstream actor. So he gets lent to some dog shit yeah i mean i i i actors are like actors with careers like his are tough because you you know as a writer you kind of have that moment where you want to do a thing about an actor and you actually go line by line through their filmography and watch the shit and you're like fuck you're a lot of terrible movies and and jack has been but like he's been in a few bad ones he's been a few bad ones meryl sheep too just named like you know people who are great but whose movies aren't always great well

meryl made a lot of mediocre movies Meryl has been in a ton of things that are not very good, but she is good in them. Well, that's how you rig the game, right? You let everyone else slum it, and then you're like, I'm fucking Meryl Streep, so I'm going to get an Oscar for this terrible movie. She's got great movies, obviously. It inspired one of my favorite Onion articles ever.

I just pulled up the exact headline here but it is an op-ed column quote unquote written by Meryl Streep and the headline is name one masterpiece of cinema that I've started and the thesis is it's Meryl Streep saying like look I mean

I'm not complaining I've had a good career obviously I'm very respected but like have I ever been in a truly great movie? And that article is from 2009. Yeah. And The Onion makes a pretty good argument against her being in a single flat out masterpiece. No, she's been in some great stuff. Agreed.

But this is, everyone will read the article on their own time. But the proportion is not healthy. Yes. It's not healthy. Yes. It's, you know, she's got a lot of, you know, Marvin's rooms in there. Forgot about Marvin's room. No offense to Marvin's room. Do you know what I think is the ultimate...

No offense to Marvin's room. Here is my opinion. The ultimate example of what we're talking about. Are you ready for a surprisingly difficult question? Oh, I love it. Yes. What is the best movie that Angelina Jolie

has ever been in? By the Sea, directed by Angelina Jolie. Next question. She is the only one who's ever done right by angelina jolie and she made brad pitt do accents which he's bad at and that's yeah that's what you do to your ex-husband man she made him do like four accents at the same time and and he sucked at really really yeah face planning that's how you it. For someone who is that iconic, who is like one of the biggest box office movie stars

of the last 20 years, also has won an Oscar, it is astonishing how bad her filmography is if you really look at it film by film. She would get hit with, she's not a star. No, I'm saying there's an honest argument for that and that in and of itself is kind of astonishing when you consider how unquestioned she is as one of the biggest stars.

And just a great, a great star. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite Angelina Jolie movie is Alexander. I think that's the answer. But like, once again, a controversial answer. Like both of you are picking movies that are controversial. Griffin, I understand the premise of it.

I think it's fascinating. Controversial only because people haven't caught up. I mean, yeah, people need to catch up. It's tough being an iconoclast, but I appreciate David's answer as well. That's why similarly, I think her best film is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which people have not caught up with yet. But you know what? I respect that. I love this conversation.

I really I'm struggling to think of a better one than any of these. I kept wanting to say Titanic. It's just kind of incredible how undeniable she is that she's been big in three separate decades now. And she has done so few films that have any sort of lasting imprint. Even beyond the quality that have like really held up in anyone's minds.

This is stardom. Yeah, it's right. That's the point. It's undeniable stardom. You don't watch the movie. You watch for her. Her stardom is so much bigger than any film she's ever been in. I rewatched Tomb Raider recently. I don't really even know why.

It's so fascinating, and it's such a, like, I don't know, like a nostalgia warm bath that just reminds me of, like, the early 2000s in this great way. Yeah, when did it come out? That was 2000. 2001. 2001, maybe? Yeah. when did it come out? That was 2000? 2001. Is it 2001 maybe? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh. Can I just... 9-11, that was a different time. Daniel Craig. May I just very quickly just speed around this? I just want to list

some titles in order. No, no, no. I'm going to do this so fast. We got to talk about the movie. Oh, god damn it. All right. The Bone Collector. Gone in 60 seconds.

Wait, hold on. Bone Collector. We can't do this because we're going to have to stop.in no no no life or something like it stop stop griffin stop griffin i want to say something about original sin okay good shepherd written and directed by michael michael masterpiece michael christopher who wrote this movie and also plays Truxton Spangler and Rubicon. And is also Angelica Houston's ex-husband on the NBC series smash. Yes. And she throws a drink in his face.

Should I watch that? Iconically. Yes. I think the answer right now during the quarantine to that question is always yes. Like, should I watch? I'm like,

yeah, what else are you doing? Have I already made this show on this podcast that a friend texted should i watch the good dinosaur and i was like yeah i mean now that's one where i'm like let's let's see like if this is a six-month that that that movie is bad in ways that are entirely inoffensive. Why not watch it? We all apparently have all the time in the world to watch anything. Watch The Good Dinosaur. It won't make you angry.

The only thing that could possibly anger you is I wasted an hour and a half on this. You're not going to have that complaint anymore. A month from now, what is the next series of movies like when how further do you go down that path you watch cars that's what happened oh my god a month from now we're all gonna be watching cars too by the time this episode comes out everyone's watching cars look i don't want to be i'm not trying to be get cancelled I'm not trying to be controversial but a month from now everyone's going to be watching Cars 2

I really don't want that that is a bleak that's the bleakest thing I've heard since this began and I've heard some bleak shit I'm not going to joke around here that's so bleak Cam one month from now flashback is gonna

be doing an episode on cars too don't say that all right so i just want to say to get back to the witches of eastwick there's the in his introduction scene i love how his simple existence and the fact that everyone starts remembering his name creates like waves of horniness that spread through the area veronica cartwright falls down the stairs i've heard of pearl clutching but pearl exploding right the pearls go everywhere like everything is just suddenly so viscerally sexual that literally like you know how in crash sandra bullock falls down the stairs because she's racist like veronica cartwright falls down the stairs because she's like because there's too much horniness right sandra bullock has a supernatural level of racism in her body and crash that affects

the universe around her it fucks with time and space it's so crazy that i have any respect for an act i have i love sandra bullock in a lot of movies i have respect for her as an actress it's crazy considering i've seen crash like i think about that once in a while so this is my wildest oh non-stop fell down the stairs and and to answer your question kim dare i say it a month from now we're going to be watching cars 2 two months from now we're going to be watching that scene on the loop that's the only thing that anyone's gonna be watching oh my gosh

I could see like a good TikTok you know developing around Sandra Bullock eating it on the stairs here is my absolute I'm surprised that hasn't become a meme structure yet actually that you post like a bad take on Twitter

and then the next image is her falling down the stairs. We have to make that happen. Yeah. The bad take and the fall down the stairs. I'm going to throw out what I think is my wildest take on this movie. Oh, I can't wait. But I believe that

you will all, within a few seconds of contemplation agree with me i think this is george miller's most naturalistic film it does like over lorenzo's oil i feel like that's the competitor yeah lorenzo's oil you're forgetting is is like is fucking insane the entire film looks like the opening of raisinging Arizona. Yeah. You're right. And they're right. And it has scenes of Nick Nolte falling down the stairs while the camera zooms in on words in a medical document and things like that. It invented a beautiful mind. Ron Howard.

Yes. We saw what you did. But his camera movement's a lot less extreme in this movie. The lighting is less like dramatic. He usually like everything looks like a fucking Renaissance painting in a George Miller movie. I love production value. Don't love production value. I love seeing that money up on screen. This movie looks like a paperback romance novel.

Like the lighting, like the color of it. Every house they're in, like, you know, shares like little log cabin, right? Like everyone has an amazing environment. I just think because he's a filmmaker of such like endless imagination and also technical skill that he can sort of pull off

bringing anything to the screen for a movie that has such insane set pieces there is a surprising amount of restraint when you compare it to the rest of his filmography in like scenes like the fucking tennis match

where Susan Sarandon plays her cello so hard it catches on fire like shit that's literally out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Like in the tennis match, there's a shot where Jack Nicholson has one hand on his hip and the other hand is like casually holding up the tennis racket as he like hits three balls simultaneously. And it feels like a Bugs Bunny image.

It feels like an Ania Stinker sight gag. It's a fucking hilarious movie somehow most naturalistic film no that's what's so wild about his movies totally yeah he's a great director you guys i don't know if you know well i haven't seen happy feet so i can't really say uh skip straight to two you'll be able to pick up on everything it's a really easy universe to understand i gather yeah yeah no songs right what it would never mind we'll cover that later okay well look no i i i think i i get what you mean and i agree with you it is just still so weird to me that he directed this film because he is someone that i think of as actually, well, I mean, okay, it helps that you have how many Mad Max movies

comprising your filmography and then, right, you have four and then you have two Babe movies. Yeah, and two Happy Feet. You have a lot of, two Happy Feet, right? You have a lot of repetition. So yes, things like this would stand out. But I mean, the Mad Max films are not,

are not gingerbread cutout films. No. Each of them are strange in their own ways. You just reinvent everything with such ease. Yes. Well, Babe 2 should have been nominated. And that's just fucking...

Babe 2 is possibly his second best film. It's very high on the list. Iconic. It is iconic. And, like, Lorenzo's Oil is the high watermark for 90s Oscar-bait drama. Like, it's like that and Philadelphia for me. There's nothing like it.

If all, like, Oscar-baity drama was like this, People wouldn't resent Oscar baby drama. But if all sex comedies, not that they really exist anymore, were this good, you could say the same thing about Mad Max with action films. And you could say the same thing with babe and happy feet about children's films. Like every time he steps up to the plate and makes a movie,

it sort of becomes like, well, if every film in this genre was this inventive and this thoughtful, then we would be living in a perpetual golden age of cinema. And obviously they won't be because he's an exceptional talent. But if they even aspire to be, if I felt like more films, if I felt like more comedies wanted to be as good as this comedy, which it just works as a comedy. It is funny funny it is sexy

it is star-powered the scenes are good the writing's good the concept's good it's just like why can't everything be at least this good it's also a weird comedy in that so much of the comedy is tone is like subtlety of performance and individual moments and decisions and it's all these these face-offs like like after he shows up it's these one-on-one scenes one after the other yeah that are all sort of like faintly well more than faintly ridiculous like sort of completely ridiculous but also kind of for real yeah i don't know and i love it too and then we just kind of hard cut to they just all live there and veronica cartwright is just having like a horny aneurysm well can i say also i i think another thing about the comedy in this movie is that uh almost every scene it

feels like is primarily structured for drama. Yeah. And the comedy comes from like sort of what's going on within it. But even when you get into the more hijinx-y stuff, it never feels like it's building around comedic rhythms. And even though there's a lot of funny dialogue in this movie, it doesn't have many jokes. Like it's not a movie with punchlines. It's not a movie with punch lines it's not a movie with payoffs that are comedic the payoffs are more based intention or trauma but there's just a

simmering comedy to everything that's happening what you're saying is really making me think back to the bill murray version because i can see where the punch lines right would be right you can see an ivan rightman bill murray version of this movie that might be very funny but it would be just a very conventional studio comedy version of this premise and you would have a scene like a cello catching on

fire I don't know how obviously it's hysterical when that happens in this movie but also you're like yeah that's hot like you know it's somehow it's like an overt sexual symbol that works right which is a hard thing to do i say this with no disrespect to the movie i'm about to reference because this is a movie that i think is great in its own right but the bill murray version of this movie would at best be 9 to 5 it would be 9 to 5 with magic right

you know it would be like what are the comedic hijinks of them torturing a guy who is so unpleasant that the audience wants to see him get it and what this movie is yeah is but you kind of want this guy too because he's hot yeah he's hot that's the Yeah. He's hot.

That's the thing. That's the thing that works. So let's talk about what's scary about sexuality and our own desires and impulses. Don't you love this, like, I don't know. I feel like this double feature, Veronica Cartwright, the birds and this, and just weird erotic movies. It's like, can we make that her thing? Not that she's really a part of the erotic stuff in The Birds, but...

An alien? Oh, yeah, yeah. She's got that... That's a weird erotic movie. It's like the pent-up, wound-up... Yeah. Yep. Like, just waiting for something in the movie

to be the catalyst to make her just burst. She has one of the best panic faces. Right. Yeah, she's great at hysteria. Like, she's the one who's right yeah she's great at hysteria like yeah she's the one who reacts the most vehemently to the chest bursting scene and it was partly because the blood got all over her and she as an actress did not know that was going to happen yeah but it's also she's she's just great at her dialing it up yeah yes i also think that um her scenes especially the ones just like at home with jenkins are just like she they're like virtuosic in terms of just like they're like monologues like they're just like pure unbottled mania where she is just like spinning around wheels and Jenkins is just

kind of sitting there. But it, but it's like, and what we're getting at I think is like, George Miller, I mean, this is a hard kind of scene

to do because this is like a big personality. It's like, you get the joke, you get the difference between the two archetypes,

you get like, you get what her hysteria is doing, you get what his yes dearness is doing, you get how it fits in the difference between the two archetypes you get like you get what her hysteria is doing you get what his yes dearness is doing you get how it fits in the scheme of the movie and and why we need to dwell in her hysteria as a thing because it's witches it's Salem we get it but it could

just as easily not be interesting because you get it like to still have like the I mean the cherry vomiting goes on so long it is so god it's so fucking insane excruciating it's just like george miller he just these two modes of just perfectly pitched smart comedy but also when he goes there he like fucking i mean the voodoo doll shit like he just yes he doesn't then he does like the george miller thing where he's like all right I mean, the voodoo doll shit. Like he just, yes, he doesn't.

Then he does like the George Miller thing where it's like, all right, let's do the weird shit. And he does it perfectly. Can I throw an amazing, amazing fact? Always. They built a life-size animatronic Veronica Cartwright so that after the shot, we see where there's clearly like a tube running through her sleeve and the cherry pits are coming out of that you know it is very well done yes yes very well done they built a full size animatronic

that they could load up with cherries and cherry pits like it was a fucking tennis ball machine and just shoot it incessantly straight out of her mouth and they shot that it worked. And it was so fucking disturbing that audiences were revulsed by it. And they cut all the footage out.

They were like, it was too effective that it upset people. I need to see this. Yep. Yeah. Me too. Hell yeah. I need to see this footage right now i the fact that like her barfing the cherries

is so gross that richard jenkins is just like i have to kill her right now this is self-defense against grossness this is just too insane i just have to take a poker to her head immediately. Which she's like terrible to do and you never lose sight of the fact that he killed his wife and it's terrible

but this movie is so weird because it's never that easy. She's terrible. Yeah, look, look, officer, what can I say? It was yucky. And they went,

fair enough, case closed. And you know what? She hates women. So, you know, she hates sexuality right well Richard Jenkins is not doing his job

it's not very weird to see Richard Jenkins with a little bit of hair on top just a little like 30% more just a little I love him I love him too um he so yes yeah he's right but he's the local newspaper man and he's not really oh god like but on the side note local news and movies god guys i know but also i love

that it's local news right but then also the news is so local that the front page news is like three women live at this guy's house like get a load of this share michelle pfeiffer and susan sarandon x3 x3 fucking going on up in that their house anyway so they all live in the house for a while i love that they're the tennis scene i guess is the closest to them out loud saying like i guess we have magic powers but they never actually say it i love that there's no expositional moment where they're like we are the witches of east actively deny it i mean they all realize we all were wishing for rain at the same time isn't that weird and they're like can't be

it can't be then they start pitching this guy they form a writer's room they do like a whole like a week or two pitching on their dream size where one of them's like too big one of them's like really small so he ends up very important very important thing that happens there women talking about dick size in the movie i'm'm very proud. Yeah. And that they explicitly talk about the curvature of his dick. I mean, that's like not something you see in a studio comedy that is not like a fucking National Lampoon movie. And that is not like a joke about it being gross. You know, I appreciate that arm share and that share really takes me to that conversation. Likes the curve.

Yeah. Likes that curve. Even when she doesn't want to, even when they make, when they, when they make the voodoo doll, when they make the voodoo doll, it initially has like a sort of modest penis.

And then they, they kind of like, well, you cut to it. It has a huge penis. Needs, it needs a little. I love it too.

You can't lie. He's problematic. Let's not, let's not lie. Right. Right. Let's like, exactly. he's problematic let's not let's not lie right right let's like exactly let's give him his respect where it's due but that's the great thing is once he comes to life once all three of them fall for him once

he fulfills so many of the things that they pitch they're still like we're not witches this just we're lucky this guy happens to like all three of us at the same time well to be fair I mean right i mean real life who would think that means you're a witch it makes you a woman no men being bad so i get it i get i get why they're slow to connect the dots to some higher power yeah right yes right and even once

they're with him they're like they're mostly chilling and then i guess what why is it that they i guess it's because veronica carwright dies that's where they they tap out of the whole situation and start ignoring him and that's when he freaks out and starts like tormenting them there's just too many uh undeniable elements at that point yeah one of the great men are needy movies right of all time he immediately flips out he's immediately like what do you mean you're not gonna hang out with me all the time yeah um a part i really liked was that they shoot the vhs footage and then use that later as like a hit like showing his obsession right yes yes his big wall of TVs wall of TVs was a

very cool prop in the 80s like you know I got 16 TVs in a grid god I love that though right yeah I mean yes but you love that blank check blank check I mean I wasn't gonna say it because I didn't want to say it but no but you gotta

acknowledge it. It's also. You got to acknowledge it, yeah. I like that the film also works in this sort of slut shaming of all the other women in the town around them. That it's not just Veronica Cartwright standing in for it, but you have that scene where Sarandon goes to the market and all the women in line keep on making comments about her. all the women in line keep on making comments about her. So that at the moment that they make the connection to car rights death, they're like,

look, already this thing's fucking dinging our reputation. Everyone knows about it. It's front page news. And now this woman puked up cherries. Right. I hate small towns in that way. Having come from a suburb. Yeah.

The feeling of, yeah, the feeling of fucking everybody knows your business. You can't even fuck a dude, right? Especially because Jersey is so crowded. It's like everyone's all up in each other's business. I can totally relate because I grew up in Greenwich Village,

which is just like a little small... Oh, I couldn't imagine. It's a village. It's just a little village. Well, I couldn't imagine. It's a village. It's just a little village. Well, David also grew up in the city, so. Right. I can't really relate to both of us. David doesn't need to make a different joke.

He lived in New York City his entire life. No, until I was nine. Then I moved to London. But one thing I want to say. As a New Yorker, one thing I want to say that I truly appreciate is that when they decide, they get back together, and they're like, okay, let's take him down. Let's make a candle version of him that we torment. Here's how they distract him.

They're like, go out and get some bagels and locks. And he respects the mood. He's like, yeah, that sounds good right now. Sounds like a bagels, locks and ice cream. So he trots on down the road sounds like a bagels and ice cream so he trots on down the road to go get bagels and locks and that whole interaction with the guy where the guy doesn't have ice cream and he's like well just give me the bagels and the fish i like i love that that's in this movie it's such a long it's a long seed as they are about to like torment him. And he's going to do a whole fucking heebie-jeebie dance in the ice cream store and then turn into a colossal demon.

But let's make sure there's a full interaction of him getting grovlux at like the Rhode Island County store. Because you need to know that he has good taste, that he went for the grov. Exactly. Exactly. Just very important food movie went for the grov. Exactly. Exactly. Just a very important food movie, I have to say. Ooh. Cherries. Just the food elements.

I mean, the cherries, it's not like a positive food know griffin i can't imagine like not having grown up with the cherry scene which yes and the snake scene which are two of the most that's a lot of snakes you want to hear a killer burn vivid things of my childhood a a killer burn uh uh according to the imdb trivia page uh which i'm consulting a lot in this episode because there's just a lot of good stuff for this one. When they were shooting the scene with the snakes and Cher was preparing to get into bed, she said, which one of these is John Peters? Hey. And to that, I want to offer Cher a very belated five comedy points i i i appreciate that while she's getting ready to get in a bed full of snakes she's like i have a zinger i could pop

out a quick yuck wait and this was the same year as moonstruck yeah that's nuts same year as Moonstruck. Iconic. Truly iconic. Genuinely great. She's so wonderful in this and then Moonstruck is a whole other thing and she's obviously incredible in Moonstruck. I just want to circle back to they offer her the remaining role in this film.

She goes, nah, I'd rather have that part. They said that part's already taken and she went, no, I think I'm going to play that part they said that part's already taken and she went no i think i'm gonna play that part and they just swapped parts yeah they didn't even tell sarandon and she beat i mean the people she beat for the oscar that year she beat glenn close for fatal attraction and holly hunter for broadcast news two of the most iconic performances of the 80s and you can't really argue with it like it's not a thing where you're like well that's unfair those i mean there's glenn close in fatal attraction is one of the most definitive like movie star actress performances

of that decade i was gonna argue there's a case to be made that those are the top three most iconic and enduring performances from leading actresses in the 80s. Right. I mean, they're in the five. Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, Moonstruck. There's a valid argument to be made that in studio filmmaking in the 80s, no three leading actress performances have endured more and had a greater impact and they were in the same goddamn year this is why i want to see the tallies of the votes how close yeah the answer is yeah well what if there was a wife david that's too big of a question to introduce this

to the episode we don't have time to answer all right what if there was a woman so they destroy jack nicholson by smashing i know i i'm just wrapping it up that we're even bothering to go through the font. You know, I just like that he does turn into a giant monster for one second just because George Miller's like, well, he's not going to not. I mean, come on. Those effects are so goddamn impressive, though. Both like the animatronic, whatever that model is that they made,

looks so amazing, moves so well. They have two different models. There's the little baby preemie one and the giant monster one. Oh, the baby. The baby is crazy. so well. And like, I love both of these movies,

but you compare this to like the big creature, the big demon at the end of Evil Dead 2, which is the same year as this.

You compare this to the sandworms and Beetlejuice the following year and neither of those look like they're integrated into the same space. And when that fucking thing appears out their window,

I don't understand how they fucking made this. Well, it's Jack Nicholson. Oh, he was just on one that day, yeah. Right. Yeah. It's weird how it looks like here. Yeah. Those aren't visual effects. They're really unnerving looking yes george was like yeah jack you gotta be a demon today and

he's like yeah sure whatever like you know what was what was the other one you said it was evil dead 2 and what was the other the sandworms and beetlejuice were after this yeah yeah that's what the year after both of those movies are embracing a sort of artificiality and and they're more sort of expressionistic in what they're doing but in this it's just like even just from a compositing level it really looks like they're occupying the same space and so often movies like this where there's a giant creature in the 80s, you constantly have that like green screen halo around them where they look collaged onto the image. And in this I was like, is there just a 30 foot robot outside the set? It's George Miller, you know.

It's George Miller. It might have been. It might have just been fucking huge for one shot. you know it's george miller it might have been it might have just been fucking huge for one shot and then and then of course he turns into a baby and then goes like which is but then i just like to imagine like people at their like local multiplex seeing this movie that we cut to 18 months later they all have devil babies with their own hair colors and jack nicholson's on the big tv being like give daddy a kiss and they turn it off and it's like roll credits get out of here we gotta clean the theater like are people just leaving being like oh it was pretty good huge hit like huge fucking huge hit must have huge like people

are they just not walking out of there being like are you crazy yeah i agree i agree here's the thing I mean it's a sad question but remember sex at the movies Hollywood like no Hollywood having sex in its movies sure yeah with a sexual energy with a real only slightly

I got really close to answering at the theater yeah right yeah I know you have no trouble remembering that fred willard over here i'm sitting in my bedroom i'm not allowed to go to theater so even that's like evaporated but this is damn i know this is another crazy thing uh because uh none of us have read the novel fully uh and three of us have not read the novel at all. I read five pages. I just want to be clear.

No, impressive. I mean, you have a five-page lead on the rest of us. You're way ahead of the pack. But according to Wikipedia, it says at the end of the film, or towards the end of the book,

and just a quote here, Daryl unexpectedly marries a young innocent girl named jenny and the jail us three witches magically cause her to die of cancer none of the three witches get pregnant at the end and daryl flees town with jenny's younger brother chris apparently his lover so like the ending of this film is totally invented. The pregnancies are invented. The sort of lingering like look he's still at large. He's trying to get through to his kids. He's sort of seeded the

earth with his progeny. Like all of that is just fucking Hollywood. Ben what you're hearing is the people clapping for the healthcare workers at 7 o'clock. This will hopefully be a nice moment for people listening

to this podcast that we're capturing the sound of me living too close to hospitals. Yeah, because Griff lives in sort of a hospital-y area. I can admit now

I try not to list too much about where I live just for personal privacy. I do live in a wing of Mount Sin sinai which has been a little i have to be a little scary recently wow oh boy um let's play the box office game um so this movie came out too pretty good i think the reviews were good ebert gave it three out of

four the thing i found more stars than he gave which is a piece of cake. He loved. He said everyone had the same takeaway which is like this is superlative Hollywood filmmaking. It's like a perfect star vehicle. It's funny. It's sexy.

Everyone says the last 20 minutes just devolve into too much special effects which is a crazy thing to think about now right where the last like 20 the last 40 minutes of every movie now is 18 characters fighting a hole in the sky whereas like the the big special effect is actually jack nicholson like i mean especially you know when he's like flinging himself around and like pretty limited makeup and here's i want to read this from ebert there's a scene where nicholson dresses in satin pajamas and sprawls full length on a bed twisting and stretching

sinuously and full enjoyment of his sensuality it's one of the funniest moments of physical humor he has ever committed like he eber was all in on Nicholson in this movie. This is the other great line in Ebert's review. A lot of the time, this movie plays like a plausible story about implausible people. Yeah. Right. That's a great take. Yeah.

But there is, there's that weird plausibility. It's common. That's a great take. Yeah. But there is there's that weird plausibility. I mean, I and it's it's why I think in a certain way, this movie is a little more toned down than most of Miller's films, because he understands he's dealing with a very, very wild starting point in terms of the material that the audience is going to have to buy into. But he's a smart enough filmmaker to go like, I got to play against some of my overcranked tendencies as a filmmaker because we're already at a 10. Do we know what Updike thought of the movie? No idea. Good question, actually. I have no idea. It's weird that it never occurred to me until now, I wonder. inspires three different TV adaptations. The first two are pilots that never went. The third one ran for a season. Also turns into a musical

that played in multiple different major markets. And then in 2008, John Updake's final novel before dying is a very belated sequel to this, which I have never heard anyone talk about, called The Widows of Eastwick. No, I've never heard of it until called the widows of eastwick no i've

never heard of it until you you mentioned it today wild miller should do it get michelle susan and share michelle susan and sarah share are all available get them in miller loves to do a sequel why not yeah i'm in i'm in all right so here's i'm in but where can we go from here i i don't know you're right how do how do we tell me how do we tell he's the king of topping things though like that is his oh i love that very suggestive um my kind of joke yeah i i i agree and he can top anything he wants. I'm looking here at the Wikipedia to try to summarize what the plot of The Widows of Eastwick is.

No, you can't. Don't bother because it's so involved. I can't. I try. It's nonsense. It involves that Jenny character a lot so it doesn't really matter. I'm only going to read the final line of the Wikipedia entry, okay? Yeah. Okay. The novel ends with the two

women happily making plans to meet up for another vacation oh that sounds so that sounds like a great ending yeah great ending june 12 1987 this film opens to nine million dollars but it's number two middle of the summer once again one of the ten highest grossing films of its year so did the pop culture witch thing like i'm like specifically the strain that includes the craft practical magic etc is that because of this? Maybe. Like what's, what's before this? Maybe a little bit. I think the witches is more directly because of this. Cause the witches is 1990 and isn't in a sort of similar vibe to this. Yeah.

Well, but the witches doesn't have, like, I guess I mean like the, like the women's ensemble, which movie. Yeah. Like the,

where the witches are. You're talking about a coven movie, a good coven movie. Yes. A good, I feel. Yes, a good Coven movie but with like Nicole Kidman like characters. Yeah, I can only think

of one Coven movie with Nicole Kidman in it. But... Yeah. I mean, but that's what I mean, right? She belongs in a Coven movie. Yes.

Alongside Susan Duran and then Michelle Pfeiffer and all of them. Hocus Pocus Oh, yeah. Craft, Practical Magic.

Those are, those are sort of their own 90s little connection. But I feel like, I mean, Practical Magic obviously owns so much.

Yeah, Practical Magic. Yeah, sure. Griffin, what was number one at the box office June 12th,

1987? RoboCop comes out in August, right? It's, it's like, it's, yeah, it's not RoboCop, but it's like that. It is a sort of sci-fi action franchise starter. It's a franchise starter.

They're kicking it off. Yeah. They're kicking it off. It opens to $12 million. It's got a big star. Is it the Terminator? No. 87.

Terminator's 86, right? Yeah. Right actor. Right actor. It's an Arnold franchise starter. Yeah. Why am I not thinking of this? Oh, it's Predator.

It's Predator. It's the movie Predator. It's Predator. It's the movie Predator. Which he is not in any other Predator movies, but he was in the start. But Predator grossed less than the Witches of Eastwick. Like, total.

You know, Witches of Eastwick had a longer tail. Yeah. Sounds about right. Predator is such a weird franchise because you go from Predator to Predator 2, then Big Gap, and it's like the, oh, this is what Predator 3 should have been, Predators.

Then another Gap, then this is what Predator 3 should have been, The Predator. And then in between, you have Alien vs. Predator, Alien vs. Predator Requiem, and Hanson vs. Predator. I took that walk just for that

one fucking joke. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Boy, oh boy. I'm sorry. All right. Number two is Eastwick. Number three is one of the big movies of the year, an action comedy sequel. It's not Lethal Weapon 2? No.

Huh. It's not Beverly Hills Cop 2, or it is it is that's what oh yeah great movie tony scott never seen it only seen the first one you got rules oh i'm a breast man well but tony's pretty good tony come on you come on you can uh i don't know i can't do a pun with this name all right i'm a bit of a scotsman too yeah sure there you go number four is a movie we talked about on this episode uh big auteur director sort of uh trashy fun movie at the time now feels like an austere freaking prestige untouchables yeah now number five is the one that i have never heard of so i'm gonna have to look it up yeah all right john slight john slicing slicinger jesus jd amato just tried to facetime both of us

while we're recording if if they're you're hearing a notification and and for the listener at home david just texted jd the word no hell yeah something that definitely will not make jd stress out okay so it's a john schlesinger film that you had not heard yes never heard of it i mean he must have been no he had more movies yeah uh who's that martin sheen is the star martin sheen robert loja what i there's no this novel before. Jimmy Smits is in this movie. What? It's like... It's a...

Oh, boy. It's like a... It's also a witchy movie. It's like a New York City cop murder movie, but there's witchiness. What? What is... We're never gonna get...

I mean, unless you want to do like... What the fuck is he talking about? He's making this up....tr like we style you try to get us to guess the title word by word it's it's written by mark frost who of course would then go on to co-create you're fucking lying what are you talking about and i believe it it is new this week so it was not a big hit david this is a pro smiths no bits podcast and right now you are betraying that rule, because you're doing a bit about Smiths. This movie doesn't exist. The movie is called The Believers.

No, it's not. I'm checking on this. I refuse to believe it. It's a neo-noir horror film directed by John Slicinger, and based on the novel The Religion by Nicholas Conde. Oh, based on the novel The Religion by Nicholas Conde. Oh, based on the novel The Religion

by Nicholas Conde. It's Martin Sheen. I've got to see this. It's like a satanic cop movie with like voodoo curses and shit. Jeez. Are you kidding me? I'm printing it right now. It got bad reviews, but I don't know.

Sounds kind of good. The book, it right now apparently it got bad reviews but i don't know sounds kind of good the movie was the book oh i've never agreed with that more damn 1.5 from eber uh the the book was about judeo-christian satan and for the movie they changed it to an afro-Caribbean Satan, which sounds really, really thoughtful. Some other movies you have, Harry and the Hendersons. You have Ernest Goes to Camp. That was in theaters. A movie that we'll never talk about on this podcast.

Right. You have Platoon, which is still in theaters six months after yeah and yes they have the secret of my success Vietnam man that's it that's it we're done we're done talking

about the witches of Eastwick a horny masterpiece so we gotta wrap it up yeah do you have any final thoughts Cam well I'm really excited for the B2 episode, I have to say. I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to say this. Because I want to warn people in advance.

We've got a great guest on the episode. I think people will be happy that they are on the podcast finally. Long overdue. Friend of the show. IRL friend of ours. They turned out to not be a Pig in the City fan. So the episode is, I wouldn't say it's contentious. A little contentious.

A little contentious. So they hadn't seen it before. Which I did not know because they so immediately asked if they could cover the film. And then they said they started watching it and realized they were wrong. They had not seen it. So what do they think they've seen? I guess they just watched the first Babe

two times. That's a good question because there is no movie like Babe Big in the city in the history of the film dark. Let me think about that. They watched Babe and then they had a fever dream and that's what they're remembering.

Right. Babe 2 is such a good stoner movie. Yeah. Stoner classic. Do you know who loves Babe 2? Yes. Tom Waits, which makes so much goddamn sense because Babe Pig in the City is the closest anyone has come to making a Tom Waits song visually. Yeah. Do you think that David Lynch has seen it? Unquestionably.

I sure hope he has. David Lynch has probably jerked off to Babe Pig in the City. I don't know. I this I don't know I literally I don't know what to say for the lizard homes cam is speechless but also the attic in which Ben is recording the sun has set

there is just one light in the corner not above him but underneath him and there wasn't initially initially it was just dark light in the corner, not above him, but there wasn't initially. Initially it was just dark. Ben turned the light on. It now, it now looks like he is in night of the hunter. It is like, yeah.

Or that he's fucking Jane Eyre, you know, he's the goddamn lady in the attic. He's got the blanket over him. I, it's a Mrs. Haversham shit. I'm going to take a photo of this.

I got to find a way to screen grab this well there's no lights up here apparently so this is the best I could do so whose attic is it should we say I'm in New York and I'm in New Hampshire and they are like

weird up here and like don't believe in heat it's cold up there, don't believe in heat. It's cold up there. I don't know if they know that. It's crazy. I screenshotted it. Griffin also to do, um,

that's quite all right. Uh, Cam, thank you for joining us. It's so nice to talk to you and see your face in this quarantine. I know it's weird, right? How so weird? Like, like yeah but you know what it's fine because we have witches of eastwick and other shit to

rewatch it's what's keeping me going uh can i just say cam in in the last year and change since you have been on the podcast, our Batman episode, which I guess was a little over a year ago now, you have written several pieces that made me angry. Oh, I love it. good they were and that i mean where i just i my anger uh dissipated quickly but where it felt like you found a way to perfectly uh sort of capture something in the air that seemed impossible to verbalize your piece on uh retired bit and how it relates to the Scorsese movies that it's homaging. No, I'm not. I'm talking about Retired Bit. We retired the bit. Thank you for translating.

Yes. I'm just saying to our listeners at home, go to Vanity Fair, click that hyperlink, K. Austin Collins, and look at everything you've written in the last year because it's all been goddamn cool. Well, thank you. I'm just hoping that in quarantine

when I can't go outside and think, I can still write. It's been hard to write. It's been really hard to concentrate. I can't, yeah. It's been hard. But it's weird. This is one of the't yeah it's been hard but it's weird you know this is like one of the movies I have to say movies right now have not been good distraction for me they haven't been distracting me

but watching parts of this was actually pretty diverting it might be because I've seen it a million times but I think George Miller is just like just a perfect like just your ideal mainstream director smart I think George Miller is just like, just a perfect, like just your ideal mainstream director,

smart, alert, and, and diverse and, and repeats himself. Like, I guess in the sense of making sequels, but, but it never feels like he does.

It just never. Yeah. He just really a jam. I mean, this is this take that we've been developing over this miniseries that george miller is kind of unquestionably the king of sequels wait what one can when he was the jury president oh that's a good that would be something that i'd hold against someone actually baby can you pull that up yeah, I'm pulling it up. But I think to your point about George Miller movies being...

Oh, he picked... They picked I, Daniel Blake. That's one of the Ken Loach years. Weird. Not my favorite Ken Loach. No, although not a bad movie. I still love George Miller. Yeah.

You know? Kes is great. So you chose a movie by the guy who did Kes. I also think, I mean, Griffin, you've said this, but I think it's true. It's like they often gravitate towards movies they could never make. Like Tim Burton picking

Uncle Boonie or Steven Spielberg picking Louis the Warmest Collar. Where they're like damn how oh damn so george miller picking like an incredibly austere work of social realism with no like even though you know embellishment city is is the more politically convincing film in my opinion but but i would agree with that but we're moving the word austere that's that's the differentiating factor no and and and i think

retired bit i mean like it's all i i think it's usually a filmmaker going that's not in my vocabulary i wouldn't even know how to start with that thing that one that last one though man i mean you have to be it's it's a pretty good bit that she gave that the golden lion. It's a better troll than appeared in the movie. Yes, absolutely. That was a better troll. It is more provocative, genuinely, than the film. I mean, she went off. She was like, fuck marriage story.

Fuck Ad Astra. Irishman's not even fucking here. Yeah. So fuck him. It's pretty wild. No, I love it. You know what? Zama, I love it. You know what? Zama, go see it.

Go rent it. Zama rules. But I don't know. Why not end here? Because this is a thought that just sort of came to me. We recorded most of these episodes before the world went into lockdown. This is one of only three that we're doing post lockdown over Zoom. But our listeners will probably be watching these movies along with the episode releases

while they're stuck at home. And this is not anything we could have anticipated or predicted. But even though a lot of these films are very apocalyptic and nightmarish, the Mad Max franchise in particular, and Lorenzo's Oil is a movie about the fascinating terror of not understanding diseases and bodies and medicine and science and all that sort of stuff. These films are weirdly easy to watch in a time where it is hard to stay focused on anything.

And I think it is because George Miller has never made a film that is a passive watch. His films are so sort of operatic or using every single tool of filmmaking in one way or another that you have to

fully submit yourself to it. If you put it on, you're going to be fully engaged by it. Whether or not you love it. And I'd say it's hard not to love. Yeah.

Well, Cam, thank you for being on the show. People should listen to Flashback. Yeah, Flashback on Slate Plus. You and the great Dana Stevens, past and future guests. Yes. And thank you for being here, Cam. And thank you all for listening. And please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

Thanks to Anne Faragudo for co-producing this show. Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Joe Bone and Pat Rollins for our artwork. Go to blankzaret.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to patreon.com backslash blank check for blank check special features where we will still be on the Toy Story commentaries where I am sure I behave in a very, very serious and sophisticated manner. And, as always, life or something like it, Lara Croft Tomb Raider, The Cradle of Life, Beyond Borders, Taking Lives, Shark Tale, Sky Captain, The World of Tomorrow, Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Good Shepherd, A Mighty Heart, I've been waiting all episodes to finish off this list, Beowulf, Kung Fu Panda, Wanted, Changeling, Salt, The Tourist, Kung Fu Panda 2, she doesn't do another movie until fucking Maleficent, By the Sea, Kung Fu Panda 3, Maleficent, Mistress of Evil.