Blank Check with Griffin & David - You've Got Mail with Bobby Finger & Lindsey Weber

Episode Date: July 12, 2020

AOL may have aged out but has this classic rom-com? We invited Who? Weekly's very own Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger to discuss another Nora Ephron box office hit–You've Got Mail (1998). We get into the all-star cast with Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Dave Chapelle, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, meet cutes, and Nora's New York City.

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the podcast. So good night, dear podcast.

It was between that. It felt like for this movie, it feels appropriate to pick one of the email monologues. I mean, you could also do the whole purpose of places like podcast is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever. This is the thing. I mean, the quotes page for this movie is very long, and I was struggling to find a good one.

And you said you're surprised because this movie does have some good zingers, but I feel like they're longer. This movie doesn't have, like something like When Harry Met Sally is so snappy. She has no podcast. Yes. Can I ask a question?

Please. This may make me seem like a an uncultured rube when he's taking the caviar yes what is that thing egg salad caviar is around oh i thought it was a goat cheese it was a big cheese ball is it a cheese it looks like a cheese ball yeah that's like covered in like a coating i think oh i thought it was egg salad when i watched it it almost looked like egg salad but then i'm like why is eggs and caviar seems like you know i would too it's just sort of a funny combo i don't know if i saw a ball of egg salad surrounded by caviar i would have skipped the caviar and gone right to the egg salad right meanwhile here mr david sims is pretending that

he's a country rube when in fact he blocked out everything but the caviar he went so caviar crazy the second it was on screen he couldn't even process what other food was happening give me that he couldn't be cavalier the best part about that scene is it's so utterly nora efron to comment on an etiquette issue like Like she is, I'll never forget Nora Ephron being like writing in, I don't even remember, maybe Heartburn or something else where she was like, you got to buy a round table. That's the table. You know, these, these, these little like advice things that she gives without being condescending somehow is throughout her whole career. She even puts it in a freaking movie that says the caviar is a garnish.

You can't eat the caviar like that. It's a garnish. The other thing I noticed last night that I'd never noticed before is when they're talking, she's taking the caviar off his plate and putting it back onto the plate, which is insane. Whenever Nora Ephron puts in like a Nora ism, it reminds me of watching Seinfeld where like they just fully put one of Jerry's stand-up lines in the dialogue for no reason.

And you're like, this has no business being in this episode. It's just something that Jerry said on stage once that got a laugh. Like sometimes these like the Starbucks lines are just things that Nora has said to friends, you know, and she just dropped it in. and she just dropped it in. Right, and in the same way that Seinfeld had 15 hours of really strong material that he could pull from across all the seasons of Seinfeld, Nora Ephron had an entire life of things like this. I have so much to say about this,

but I was talking to my sister, who will never be a guest on the podcast again, about the role of food in Nora Ephron movies, and she was pointing this out. And obviously her last movie is her overt food movie. Right, she finally makes the big food movie. But there are so many food scenes that are memorable throughout her films, whether they're overtly about food,

or whether they're just sort of using food to make some sort of point of characterization. The apple in Sleepless in Seattle. Right, and even obviously like Katz's Deli in When Harry Met Sally and the garnish here, and the pie in Heartburn. Between the films she wrote and the films she directed, the Carbonara in bed.

Yeah, the Carbonara. I would say her thing with like food but mostly about hospitality i think is a big nora effron thing it's like i said etiquette but i think i just mean hospitality like you know the way to make people feel the most comfortable in your space is what she's the most concerned with and it comes up again and again and again and for some reason she never ran out of ways to say kind of the same things over and over again which is like the best thing a writer can do and the way that she fits it into a movie like this is really so charming i mean you i just want to say this is my

favorite movie like you're not catching me saying anything bad about this movie this is this is it for me you already knew that but this is it for me. That's why we're having you. And in fact, I mean, A, we got some table setting to do here. Speaking of etiquette. We got some caviar setting to do here. Because this is blank check. This is a podcast about filmographies.

Directors of massive success early on in their career 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. It's a miniseries on the films of Nora Ephron. We've gotten to the titular film, the one that inspired the miniseries title.

Because, of course, this is You've Got Podcast. We're talking You've Got Mail. We really put so much thought into that yeah really i mean my pitch was you've podcast right which is two separate words i like that it only works if you say it that way yeah right right otherwise it sounds like you've podcast what what are you what is that a verb now uh-huh but our guest today a quick return a quick return from their last appearance but it was when we recorded our last episode they asked who are you doing like for the next two miniseries we brought this up and they said like oh my god we have to be on anora efron and we had in fact booked someone else to do you've got mail but we realized no we gotta do a swap here we gotta rearrange the table because this movie is

so fucking important to the two of you and we knew that and then as we started talking about more we realized even more layers to sort of the history both of you have with this movie, collectively and separately. Our guests returning from the Who Weekly podcast, Bobby Finger and Lindsay Weber. Yes, one of the first projects pre-Who Weekly that Bobby and I ever worked on together

was an annotated screening of You've Got Mail at the Housing Works bookstore. I don't know how we pulled it off. It had like pop ups. It had interactive saying and had a raffle with items from Nora. It was right before Nora died and she donated all these amazing items. We both have these signed DVDs that I have gotten framed in my kitchen. It's like one of the most important events of my New York City life.

And it made the movie even more like endeared to me personally I I went to that it was a fully great event uh re-watching the movie last night I I kept on going wait a second how did they pull that off because the last time I'd seen the movie was at that uh that show really and I was i was remembering eight years ago eight years ago eight years ago eight years ago it was valentine's day ish like the day before valentine's day 2012 and bobby why do you remember so specifically when that happened because it's the day i met my husband fucking whoa experience share host josh vielstad the best which is crazy after a screening of you've got mail that you organized wow which that's the fact i didn't know until after we had

finally made the swap and said let's get bobby and lindsey the fucking you've got mail is responsible for your marriage it's like so on that it's a little too much i don't even like thinking about it to be honest it's like it's a little it's like too much you're like no i know come on that's too much no it's so cute and it's really like i worked with josh and i peer pressured him as long as well as my other co-workers including tanner co-host of the iconic podcast Pokemon podcast which I have bullied my way onto twice and I will do it again his favorite

show David's favorite show in any medium here you go you have to come to this like I hope people come to this like it has to be a big thing right it was the two of you and Andrea Rosen and let me point out that it was it was such a big thing that I remember I watched the entire movie from a staircase.

Like, it was packed. That staircase. Yeah, I was on that spiral staircase. It was just so fun. Because of the movie, and I think also Andrea's like, Andrea is good. Andrea is good at what she does. She's a producer. She's still a producer.

And so Because it was Nora Ephron It was very easy To get press for this thing And I think I think it was It even had a little blurb As like something

You do in the New Yorker Like it was in the print issue So like It got The word got out In ways we never expected Because Andrea is so good at Like getting the word out

And talking to people And knowing people But also we got getting just random the call for artists that we just knew on tumblr donate stuff that we can raffle off we got the weirdest coolest stuff we just reached out to nora efron's uh assistant um out of the blue and said like does she want to come talk that would be great we because no one knew she was sick at this point right that's what i was gonna say i remember you making a point of the fact that like she left things downstairs with her doorman which picked up but that you didn't get to meet her and she

didn't come to the event in retrospect it became clear it was because she was very sick yeah and lindsey couldn't i i had to go alone and because we all sort of felt like, oh, maybe, maybe we'll luck out and she'll be there and hand it to us. And no, they handed, a big regret that I have is I threw away the bag that she gave all the stuff in. It was cause she gave us some old tote bags from the shoot. She gave us a lot of DVDs. She gave Lindsay and Andrea and I just DVDs for ourselves. But it was like a lot of also like like crew hats and like promotional stuff i can't believe i didn't steal some of that stuff the bag that the that the assistant gave it to me and was for was from an orthopedic shoe store

right right you made a joke about that oh my god this is nora effron's orthopedic shoe store bag and i threw the bag away when i moved apartments at some point not thinking and i was it was a yellow it was a yellow bag anyway i'm so sad about that but i think the reason why it has your blessing there was a email she specifically said nora has your blessing knowing that was yeah knowing that she knew that we were doing it was enough knowing that like right she had maybe read about it in the new yorker or saw that like that these young people were were doing something silly with it and is all truly all that i i could ask for but you also like i mean you guys are being

self-effacing about and saying it was like a silly thing. And Bobby, you're saying it's so weird that you met your husband there. But it's also like a bunch of young people, like a generation later, doing a you've got mail screening at a bookstore in order to raise money is something out of a Nora Ephron movie. is something out of a Nora Ephron movie. Like it is very much the type of event that the couple meets at or has their second or third argument at, you know? You're right. Yeah, and Housing Works bookstore is the most shop around the corner bookstore

you could get downtown. I mean, it is the epitome of that. Yeah, truly. And the two of you wrote, like you did all these like trivia facts and jokes about the movie that were like part of the video they were it was literally it was like pop-up videos like vh1 yeah there were like graphics popping up that was the thing while re-watching this last night where i was like wait a second how did they actually do that well andrea's ex-boyfriend

ricky who is now the host of many videos at aol build you might you definitely guys have seen this guy i have been interviewed by him yes yeah great guy he volunteered well we pressured him to do all of the graphics work on this thing and i made all the graphics he okay okay he overlaid them okay, true. But what's even funnier about this, and maybe makes it more special, is that that cut is lost. It's gone out. It was on his hard drive. Some hard drive got messed up. We don't even want to get into it.

It's very depressing. But that cut is lost to time. One night only. One night only. Truly one night only for hours and hours of work. We had to cut. Housing Works gave us a hard out. And so we had to cut, I think like 25.

There was a very specific number of minutes that we had to cut to the movie to make it fit between the raffle, the opening, the, you know, the goodbye, the leave. It's a long movie. It just so happens. We were like, what are we going to cut? This movie is perfect. How are we going to cut anything? And we cut the dabney coleman subplot and it turns out that if you cut the dabney coleman subplot entirely and the father it was the precise number of minutes that we needed to lose and no one cared and there's like outside of those scenes they're only referenced by characters

maybe once one time the enchanting thing they never and it makes sense there's maybe one stray reference that tom makes whenever he's not in a scene that we had to cut and like no one would have noticed it you need 20 more minutes of dabney coleman if you're gonna really like have that make sense because anytime that's brought up you're like what what's the what's the dynamic here his dad and grandpa are too horny and evil like the grandpa went on one date with her right and it doesn't really add to joe fox doesn't need the added layer of bachelor like we don't really need to know his like oh why is he like this it's like we get it has an annoying girlfriend. He's like a self-involved rich person.

Like that's, we don't need to know that he has like a bad family life. And that's why he's like this. I think it's there to soften him, right? It's sort of like, I mean, look at his, you know, dad and grandpa. Yeah. He's a victim of circumstance. He's cursed with a horny dad and grandpa who gave him millions of dollars and a business to run um i also i think that it's funny i didn't even realize you would cut that stuff from it but it

makes sense because as i was re-watching i was like huh i don't remember any of this dabney coleman stuff like every time i watch it and i've seen it one million times every time i watched i'm like oh right this and it was sad because Dabney Coleman had died and I remember being like fairly recently and I felt terrible because Andrea like made a point to say like Dabney Coleman and we had cut him from the whole movie

and Andrea had dated Dabney Coleman as well and that was another conflict of interest right yes yes they met at Zabar's actually I think you mean that John Randolph would die. Dabney Coleman still alive. Dabney Coleman still alive? Oh my God.

Are you kidding? Dabney still alive? Dabney Coleman lives on. He's 88 years old, baby. Wait. Wow. I'm misremembering. You can't fuck with Buffalo Bill.

We're recording this episode in the middle of a national pandemic, in a global pandemic. Sure. Who's got eyes on Dabney coleman can we put him in a panic room what do we do to make sure if he's lived this long we cannot lose dabney cole the last time i remember seeing him was remember he was in boardwalk empire he was very old and he played like nucky thompson's old mentor or whatever and he was like in a wheelchair and he was like How am I remembering that Dabney Coleman died? That is like a very weird I remember that too. I had that exact same

memory around that same period of time. That's like a Shazam memory that we're sharing or whatever a Kazam memory, like a fake memory A Berenstain Bears memory Yes! When you said he died, it did ring a bell to me. I was like, yeah, I definitely read a Dabney Coleman obit.it yeah and it was like you know buffalo bill i do remember it just being a real a real

problem because we both the movie was so precious to us that we were like we can't cut anything like we're just like we're gonna have to cancel the event we can't cut a fucking frame out of this movie right but then when you watch it you're like oh it's a little long this needs to be here none of this two hours is is a long running like sleepless in seattle which has a more movie right but then when you watch it you're like oh it's a little long needs to be here none of this two hours is is a long running like sleepless in seattle which has a more convoluted plot than this yeah yeah is an hour 45 and that's about right yes especially for this movie especially for the content of this movie you're right it should be a it should be sweeter it should be shorter right i'm i'm never having an unpleasant time while i'm watching it but it does seem like perhaps the dabney cut or the dabney list cut is stronger i will say too that like

in terms of the backstory the character shading all of that you get a better sense of the dabney coleman and the john randolph characters just from the scene where tom hanks is explaining the relationship to the two kids yeah then you do from any scene that they're in like that's they're in you're like oh these must be his bosses right there's just no family relationship that's really clear it doesn't matter dabney dabney and john randolph almost like humanize them a little too much uh-huh right they they seem like they seem like nastier people when they're off screen, like especially John Randolph. It's like,

Oh, what a sweetie. So it just skipped a generation. Dabney Coleman is the only bad one. Like John, John Randolph is famous for many things, of course, but I've,

I know him as, as the, as the man that Jerry Stiller replaced as Frank Costanza. Right. Wow. And on the DVD, they have the original cut of the episode so you can see his one performance and you can totally see what's wrong with it because he's just playing george's dad is this kind of like old guy who is kind of doddering like it's

he doesn't have an angry take on it the episode that he's in, did they reshoot it with Jerry Stiller later? Yes, for syndication. Because on Hulu, it's the original cut too. I watched that first episode. I did all of Seinfeld recently. They reshot it for syndication. You can watch on YouTube

like side by side. Wow. All the actors came back and everything. It's crazy. Because it is so bizarre. I mean, there's like three castings of Jerry's dad

right before they land on the right person. But you can watch those and none of them bump. And to see one performance of Frank Costanza not being Jerry Stiller is very upsetting. It's very weird. He's not good. I mean, no offense to him. He's good. He's usually good.

No offense to him. Fuck that performance, John Randolph. Wait, one thing that they did cut from this so there was a longer subplot about a serial killer killing people from rooftops right because steve zahn holds up the newspaper about it right right so there are like dots of references to that which is so funny to me because they kind of don't make sense like she really should have gotten rid of the whole thing but i think it was the fear of meeting somebody online she wanted to to the joke right yeah like what if it's the serial killer like maybe you know whatever so like I I love that she had this like catfish thing in

there but then had to cut it but it still kind of like remains in pieces with Steve Zahn who does a good job with what he's given, which is very little, essentially. And that script is like out there on the, like if you want to read the original script, all the Rooftop Killer stuff is in it. That's amazing. It's there, it's easy to find.

So she was like, look, I'm going to mash it all up. Barnes and Noble displacing West Side Books, the Summer of Sam, the internet, it's all going in one pot, baby. You know, and it is, like, it isn't that much of a loss because, like, that's I mean, a plot line that is really of a time and a place in 1998. You don't

need it watching the film in 2020 because now we know, of course, if a woman meets a man on the Internet, everything is safe and nothing bad could possibly happen. Every man is being honest and fair and gentlemanly on the internet and that behavior will carry into the real world they they compose whole messages to each other with like periods and commas and stuff such good writers there is i i really love

that in the in the final version though the rooftop killer gets like it's two references and the final one is so funny when they when they wonder why he ghosted her on the date and then the cover of the new york post is like they caught the rooftop killer and they're like well that explains it and then they're done they're done it's so funny it was him um all right so i i gotta say i watched this i think i'd only seen the movie twice before i think i saw it on vhs when it came out and then i saw the the screening the dabney list cut so yes right this was i mean a fairly new viewing for me because a that was almost a decade ago and b i was watching it without pop-up facts but but with extra Coleman and Randolph. And the previous time I'd watched it before that

was VHS full screen. A, it's very bizarre that I didn't see this movie in theaters. Specifically- Yeah, you were probably old enough. What, have you been like nine or 10? I was nine or 10, but the bigger thing was,

I, of course, grew up in New York City, downtown Griffey Nooms, so not quite my neighborhood not quite my tempo but still the city i love uh my mother at this period in time was like all about protecting saw businesses and fighting against chains taking over new york city that was her entire fucking thing she was trying to make a documentary about it for years there was this guy reverend billy who's like a performance artist i think he's still working i know reverend billy thing. She was trying to make a documentary about it for years. There was this guy, Reverend Billy, who's like a performance artist. I think he's still working.

Yeah, I know Reverend Billy. Right. Who's like the church of stop shopping. We would go to all of his rallies. Like my mom's entire life that she was bringing my brother and I into was all about like, we have to fight like Banana Republic. And Barnes and Noble was like a big target and protect small bookstores. I don't know why she didn't make us go see this movie in theaters, but I pointedly remember I only saw it at home when she rented it on video however many months later.

I wonder if it's because she thought it was gonna be flippant about that subject, but I remember watching it with her and both of us being impressed with like how sad the movie is in that aspect yeah well it definitely it doesn't give up but it doesn't solve her business problem like her store closes that's why the movie works i think if she defeated him it'd be like oh fuck this like you know this is stupid but it's also i mean it's treated with a

lot of weight like it's not just like well this is sort of But it's also, I mean, it's treated with a lot of weight. Like, it's not just like, well, this is sort of the thing you need to do to set up the movie. And I feel like the movie has a very similar approach to sort of the vanishing New York that my mother did at the time. Context. Come on. Well, that's what I was going the Blu-ray of this movie, which is weirdly fucking packed, including all of Shop Around the Corner on a second disc, which I watched for this. That's awesome. And this amazing featurette where there are like Nora clips of her talking about the different locations they shot in and why they shot there. That's so cool.

And like a bunch of featurettes and stuff. So I went deep watching everything on the disc last night. It seems like the origin of this movie was in the mid 90s. I know what the origin of this movie was. I was going to say it. Excuse me. Yeah, but I'm from the Upper West Side. It's Uptown Davey Sims' time to shine.

We all know that. You're from the Upper West Side. It's the only place you've ever lived. We all know that. You're Uptown Davey Sims. So I grew up on 89th and Amsterdam. Of course. And you lived there. Yes.

Wow. Until 1995. Wow, this rivalry. I didn't know there was like a war between uptown and downtown. Well, it's a basic fact that he lived on the Upper West Side and continued to do so. So in 1998, he probably saw this movie and I don't know, 84th?

The 84th Street AMC? I mean, then a Lowe's, right? You must have seen it there. It was a Lowe's back then. But no, I saw this movie on a plane, actually. I remember that very clearly. But I lived in Britain. I lived in Britain by the time this movie came out. Oh, you lived in Britain.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh, yeah, right. Right, I've heard that. See, they know. Griffin, see, they know. And I realized that once again for the eighth episode in a row, I have, I fucked up the bit that we were trying to do,

which is, I am confident in the fact that he lived in England and him being from the upper West side surprises me. That's what the bit's supposed to be. And I fucked it up. And here's a peek behind the curtain and we're keeping it in. We're doubling it. It actually did surprise me.

Cause I thought I did think you were actually from England only. I didn't know you had this other place you were also from. And that's why the bit would be funny if I had remembered it. I did grow up. I lived on the Upper West Side till I was nine. I lived on Amsterdam. All right. And and there was when I was a kid, this big controversy when the big Barnes and Noble,

which is it still there? I believe it's still there on Broadway and 83rd. Yeah 83rd yeah moved in which is like basically a full city block you know this giant fucking superstore uh and it killed a lot of businesses including west side books which was like the nice neighborhood bookstore right around there and so obviously i mean this is just she's completely doing that like it is it's in the upper west this is just, she's completely doing that. Like it is, it's in the Upper West Side. This is her Upper West Side movie. Yes. Harry Met Sally has some Upper West Side content, but it's kind of all over the city. You know, some of it's downtown, some of it's in the village.

It's, you know, Katz's, the Met, right? But like this is that, this movie has that feeling of the Upper West Side in the 90s where it's like, we don't need to leave these 40 blocks. Like everything I need is covered from like 59th to 110th. west side in the 90s where it's like we don't need to leave these 40 blocks like everything i need is covered from like 59th to 110th like you go to zay bars you go to fairway you go to the park like that's all you got to do like you know you've got your culture down in lincoln center like that weird hermetic feeling of that neighborhood and that's why everyone was so horrified by that barnes the noble which if you've been there is colossal. And when I was a kid was a total paradise.

Cause you could just run around like for kids. It was unfortunately exactly what Fox Joe Fox is promising. Well, that's what I was going to say. That's what Joe Fox says. Big chairs. Like now I'm nostalgic for that fucking place. Like that place is going to go soon.

Chris Messina, not knowing about the shoebox. Messina. Sarah Ramirez. There's so many people in this movie. Everyone in this fucking movie. I mean, I said this to you last night, David. I was texting you and I was like, every single person in this cast is

a ringer. And some of them are just like, oh, this person's a little overqualified to be doing this role at this time. And some of them are like she fucking picked Chris Messina 10 years in advance the casting on this movie is flawless everyone is perfect everyone is even

people who aren't people that are picked so smart like everyone is perfect Debra Rush in the elevator it's perfect yes Katie Finneran as the nanny. Oh, yeah. Who plays the woman who comes into the store,

the author who ditches them to do the book signing at Fox Books? She's incredible. Who is the Seinfeld laugher. Oh, what? She is great. She's the woman who laughs too much at Seinfeld. Wow. During his bit.

Yes, I forgot that. Jeez. I forget who she too much at Seinfeld. Wow. During his bit. Yes. I forgot that. Jeez. I forget who she is, but she's great. Her name is Vianne Cox. I believe. There we go. Thank you. Something that the movie is really smart about, or maybe it's not smart.

Maybe this is a stupid compliment, but I like the fact that it's, you have the way you, it very clearly communicates the importance of this like small town thing and like how how awful it was when these big box stores came and destroyed the neighborhood in a way it's smart enough to recognize meg ryan's like privilege and her like sort of inherited wealth because you have there's never a moment where the movie wants you to think that she's going to become destitute after this happens and if anything she's going to become even more wealthy because she's going to become destitute after this happens. And if anything, she's going to become even more wealthy because she's going to get this job as like a children's book editor.

So like, the movie is very, the movie never makes you sympathize with her in that level. It's very much about the death of a community, not like the death of this woman's income. And I think it could have gone that way. And you would have been like, shut up. We always kind of mock the Meg Ryan character because what I love about her is that she's so specifically not perfect.

She's like out here being like me and my mother twirling and daisies are my favorite flower. Like she is not she really is out of touch. So part of you kind of does look at Joe Fox and say, like, I know we're supposed to think you're bad but also like you're doing what you're you know like you it's not this easy split like she dates the worst guy right like she is dating frank nevaski who's based on a real person and it's like you can everyone is groaning at this guy even though his intentions are supposed to be in the movie good he's like trying to do all these things but he's so up his own ass that you're like if she's dating this idiot like she is she's so far from perfect you know it's one of those like the movie's very well balanced in that sense that it

finds a way to make the characters that seem unsympathetic sympathetic and it finds a way to make the characters that are naturally sympathetic a little bit unlikable. Yes. Oh, it's so good. Frank is, I think, Frank DiGiacomo, right? The guy who used to run the transom at The Observer. I mean, when I was a kid, I watched this movie and I was like, that's what my ceiling is. I'm going to maybe get to write for The Observer and be kind of a pain in the neck who's a little self-satisfied you'll be that nut at the observer when he's at the party and he and and parker posey says she's read his piece and he goes wait uh you read it i just i really didn't expect people for you put stuff out there and you

you don't know if people read it i was like this is my life this is twitter i which is also which is a sign which is a scene that's ultimately like lifted from when Harry met Sally. Yeah. The shock at being red. The partner swap. Right, right. Kinnear in this, I feel like at the time, he's in this movie, he's in a couple others around. This is post as good as it gets, right Griffin?

This is post as Oscar nom. Right, and most of his other roles after this, around this time are. He's the third guy who gets dumped or whatever or the villain or whatever right like he's the baxter yeah right right then the next year is mystery man where he's like the baxter of superheroes right a hundred percent and like he's not quite playing the bill pullman role in this you know what i mean like it's a different vibe. Well, can I throw out some context? Yes. Because it's interesting, David. You were so fast to trump me with explaining the context of where this movie came from. But somehow you didn't cover the things that I was going to say.

Well, I just wanted to talk about the Barnes & Noble. Well, great work. Congratulations. Ten profundity points. Well, great work. Congratulations. Ten profundity points. It's Delia and Nora Ephron. Go see As Good As It Gets. And they go? They offer it to Kinnear and Kinnear says, I'd love to do it. But as it kind of feels like the ending was supposed to be Meg Ryan dumps him after the argument at the movie theater, that was supposed to be the ending of it. And he said, I feel like I've seen that in so many movies, this thing where like the guy reveals himself to be a little bit too much of a pill.

There's some brutal breakup. You know, what is the more traditional like Bull Pelman kind of role? He's a drip or he's an asshole or whatever it is. And he was like can we do something a little more modern? It's entirely a Greg Kinnear pitch.

The restaurant scene? Yep. I love that. Oh, I had no idea. That's Kinnear. Kinnear said I scene where they both. Yup. I love that. I had no idea. That's Kinnear. Kinnear said, I'll do the movie if this is how my character line ends. I love that scene too. Yeah. It's a good scene.

You wouldn't even think to write that. It almost feels unfinished. But then when you watch it, you're like, Oh, this is a great, this is great. Isn't that incredible though?

That like Ephraim was like, Oh, you're right. That's better. And incredible, though, that Ephron was like, oh, you're right, that's better. And it feels like such an Ephron scene, but that was Greg Kinnear being like, these are the terms of me taking the part. I'll do it if you do this. Right. There's also just no guilt.

In the beginning, when they're both kind of hiding their computer activity, you're like, well, nothing has really happened yet. Is this emotional cheating? Ah, we're bordering, but not quite, not quite. So you don't really get them cast in that like cheater realm you kind of just because you have these girlfriend boyfriends who are so kind of annoying

and you know they're not right and you know they're all kind of like about to break up in a weird way there's it's like kind of a magical thing that Nora and Delia are able to do by making it making you not hate them for kind of being a little shady with their, with their partners. Even the scene when they're watching the Jane Addams show. Yeah. He's flirting with her. And Meg Ryan is like very, like openly recognizing that he is flirting with her and that she's

flirting back. You can sense this like relief in her. She's like, okay, I'm not the only one. Like we're both doing this. Like it's, it's somehow manages to be cute so much this movie is like towing the line between like these people are fucked up yes and these people are really really sweet so and and she is so fully anticipating the reveal that he's with jane adams and when he's like no no no no but do you think yeah he's so on board to give him advice and be like no it seems like the two of you would fit well together.

I think also one of my favorite lines, which maybe one of my favorite lines, Nora Ephron lines ever is, yours is the only show I do watch. Which has so much to do with Greg's delivery, but still, yours is the only show I do watch. Is this the thank your? They do the thank your? Thank your. Thank your, ladies and gentlemen. Thank Your. Thank Your.

For a little more context, as often seems to be the case in Nora Ephron's career, despite the fact that she was already very well established before she starts directing movies and had numerous hits, most of her movies seem to come out of another rare powerful woman in hollywood at that point in time setting the movie up so like so much of her career is like amy pascal and linda obst and this one is lauren schuler donner it's like these female producers or executives who had risen uh in a time that was not very hospitable to women in the industry unlike now where the internet is safe for all women and women are all ruling Hollywood and it's great and girl boss, hashtag yay.

But, everything's perfect. We fixed the world. Lauren Schiller Donner, who mostly, I mean, obviously is married to Richard Donner.

as a superhero person. Right. And even if you look at her career prior to like X-Men and everything, it's mostly pretty masculine films.

She did a lot of, well, Richard donner movies right so like uh uh that but uh free willie free willie she did dave oh i love but i'm also looking here like assassins lethal weapon movies any given sunday uh i mean yes after this she starts to make some more female driven films but then she also just makes a lot of x-men movies she gets sort of tied into the x-men thing yeah totally but this is uh i i think warner brothers reaches out to her they've merged with turner so they've just inherited a lot of the turner, which includes so many classics. And Warner Brothers is now, with all these new films they've acquired,

aggressively trying to figure out which ones would make good remakes. So Lauren Schuller Donner looks at the library and goes, huh, shop around the corner. That's a, I mean, that thing has legs. It's been already remade once. It was a musical. Like, that seems like seems like it's based on something yeah right there's so many versions of it yeah right so then she said that seems like a

good nor ephron project reaches out to nor ephron nor ephron goes oh delia and i that's one of our favorite movies ever and one of our favorite musicals ever and the two of them go let's take this thing which obviously is sort of just like potent and primal enough that it's worked already in a couple different forms and figure out how to put as much of our own interest into it as possible all the upper west side stuff it's exactly what you said bobby which is their big thesis for this movie the thing they said that they wanted to do was uh new york is so often even in movies where new york is a character as we know, New York is often above the title and it's almost like a character in the movie itself. But it's often treated as this very overwhelming kind of hostile, massive thing.

And they wanted to make the movie about how New York City is a series of small towns. That any sort of like six block neighborhood in New York City does feel like a small town where you have your local places and the people know you and all of that sort of stuff. So that was one of the things they were bringing to it that they thought they could update the film with in a modern way. And then the other thing was the book angle, like that the two of them specifically love children's books, that Delia had written a bunch of children's books at this time, that they were like, the loss of city books was like fresh to them. And every previous version of this story, She Loves Me, Shop Around the Corner,

and In the Summertime, they're co-workers. Like the other three versions are centered around they work at the same store and they hate each other. And as opposed to what you're saying, Bobby, where if the shop closes, Meg Ryan is not going to be destitute in this movie. In the other versions, it's very much, this is in an economic crisis. If people lose their jobs, they might become homeless. So, so much of the rivalry between the two characters is they're fighting for who becomes

the most valuable employee of this store. Because if one of them nudges out the other, their entire life might be ruined. And she brings to it the whole element of, oh, it's rivals in different companies within the same business, which is almost a little bit of a Ninochka. I mean, she's pulling from like a different Lubitsch movie, which is here are two people who are opposite sides of the coin, don't realize they get along that well. And then the sort of secret correspondence element, which only makes more sense in an email age than it did in a letter age.

Oh yeah. Which is crazy to me. It's still crazy to me that Delia and Nora, who were born in the 40s, they're my parents. Yeah. How did these two women write an internet movie? I, to this day, do not understand.

It is still, to this day, difficult to write movies about people on the internet, people texting, people doing anything with computers. How do you get somebody to be interesting behind a computer? That, to me, is insane that they figured it out. How did they do it? I still do not know. And the other, what's so amazing about it is maybe the reason why this movie is so good

is because of how little they really know about the intricacies of online communication. They're just like, let's just say it's letter writing. And when the IM pops up, that's as far as we're getting into this computer which is why it doesn't feel dated even to this day because all they're really doing is emailing and we still email so right they never get into the weeds of what like we don't see that like if we had seen the aol interface a lot or if we had seen how the

internet actually worked then we would have been a little like oh wow this didn't age well but all you see is the email box really and they don't have phones that they don't have phones where the emails pop up by the one a great part is when uh he he ghosts her uh she uh he goes her and she's walking home and she doesn't have any access to even say where are you or you didn't come or did she has to go home open the the computer, check the mail, shut the computer like that to me. That's just it's so lucky almost that it was this time that they chose to do this because it would not work outside of that context. Or even just this title. I mean, do you remember this movie like seeing the trailer and going, fuck, that's a slam dunk title. Like, what a good idea.

And two years later, the title wouldn't work. Like two years later, it was overplayed. And three years after that, AOL was sort of bombing. Yeah. And that AOL let them use it free. I mean, obviously, why would they not? But they let them use it. And that it became such a catchphrase.

And it still has meaning nostalgically to us as like a generation. Right. It's such a perfect snapshot. I mean, it's also there's this long feature on the Blu-ray that I think is from ported over from the 10th anniversary DVD. So it's Hanks and Efron and Ryan sitting in a very nice living room on white couches um drinking coffee like in 2008 and then they cut in talking head interviews with delia and lauren schuler donner and they're talking about how the movie got made and they're all sort of saying like 10 years out how surprising it is that the internet has grown into what it has but also that the film doesn't feel like a relic like it is aged so much better than

a movie like the net which is so explicitly about like we understand the internet and everything in that movie feels so fucking dumb now and this movie it was surprising for someone who doesn't seem very like computer literate even sitting on that couch 10 years later, Nora's understanding of the sociological impact of the internet was so on point. And I think it circles back to the food thing. It's like her movies up until Julie and Julia are not explicitly food movies, even though she is known for being such a foodie in her real life. But the thing she really understands that she put into all of her films is the sociological power that food has.

You know, what it means to have a meal with somebody or to have someone make a meal for you or where you're eating it or what you're eating or the sort of, as we were saying, like the social decorum around food. Yeah. And I think she just was one of those people who understood those things so well

that even in 1998 or even in 1996 when she's writing the script or whatever, she understood how the internet was going to change human interaction.

Well, she also, never forget, one of my favorite Nora Ephron things is kind of later in her life, she started a HuffPo blog about divorce. I mean, she,

to even, to even know how to start a blog, like, I know that she obviously had help. She was friends with Ariana Huffington, I'm sure. And like, Ariana was like,

Nora, we got to get you back on the internet or on the internet. A lot of writers at her level would have really looked down on the fact that they would be labeled a blogger and she embraced it.

And Alec Baldwin were the two people blogging. When I worked at AOL, it was like those two people. And it was shocking that even they were doing it. But Nora always got how important, I mean, even just making Julia and Julia into a movie from start to finish, like how cool blogs were and how important they were and how to translate the idea of a personal web blog into narrative or whatever.

It is particularly fascinating that Alec Baldwin was blogging because that was after he had said goodbye to public life. He had fully retired from public life and then we never saw him again. Yeah, we still haven't seen him since. It's actually wild. I wish he could pop up and tell us he's okay and then punch someone in the face. Let him play his words with friends. Get Griffin. Yeah. He's busy fighting for a parking spot or whatever. Oh my God. Let him play his words with friends. Get Griffin. Yeah.

He's busy fighting for a parking spot or whatever. He has to. I gotta say, I heard a story that Alec Baldwin and his 17 children with Hilaria were applying to move into a different co-op because they needed more space with their ever-growing platform uh with their they already combined like eight apartments yeah i wasn't gonna say that but i think that this was when they were looking for the apartment before that yeah yeah they bought a friend of ours a childhood apartment and combined it with the floor below it or above it i forget the details really was it the building they were already living in no i think they bought i don't think they were already living in no i think they bought i don't think they were already living in it i think they bought it and the one next door to it

and so he's like every time al baldwin posts a photo of him like with his young children he's like that's my childhood bedroom it's very weird the gossip i had heard was that around that time when they were looking for the new apartment or apartments they kept on getting rejected by different co-op boards because they'd be like we don't want him fucking punching a guy in the paparazzi's taking pictures right outside our door like every time he has an altercation like that it's outside his front door of his building and all these buildings were like we don't want to get dragged into that shit well or it's on a plane because he wants to play words with friends let's be clear david you are muted oh what the fuck no david's my headphones have been weird david's a full buster keaton routine right now he is

talking very empathetically with his hands you're fully muted david i'm not. My headphones. There you are. Oh, you're back. You had to restart my audio. Oh. Also, not to be depressing about it, but I'm wondering when you guys were watching this, let's put into context right now, I've never been more depressed. Okay. Than I, never, truly never been more depressed. You mean about what the movie's saying? No, about New York City. About looking at New York City in an idyllic way right now. New York City in the fall. never been more depressed you mean about what the movie's saying no about new york city about

looking at new york city in an idyllic way right now new york city in the fall like everything they say about new york city in the fall is it cuts even deeper than it ever has yes now they cgi'd those falling leaves did you know that bobby no i didn't know that if you can listen to the commentary with which is nora and lauren schuler donner the greatest double act and i have the blu-ray griffin's been talking about but i have not listened to the commentary yeah bobby we gotta listen to this commentary they're like all of the fall stuff is cgi baby we were shooting this in the summer or whatever you know it's it's all like there's a lot of holidays like that look yeah we're it's may 2020 this is a time of great

political turmoil i really don't want to get canceled okay in a moment of great sensitivity i really don't want to get canceled but i texted david this last night and i feel strong enough of my convictions here that i feel like i need to repeat it on mike gosequences be damned. I heart NY. You apple it? I apple it. I was watching this movie last night, and Lindsay, just like you were saying, and this has been a running thing in all these Nora Ephron episodes,

all of which we've been recording in quarantine. I almost cry or cry in any one of these movies with the way she photographs New York City, feeling a loss for a city that I currently still live in. And it's not just the vanishing New York element of, oh, a lot of these businesses are gone from 20 years ago. It's literally just seeing people walk around the city I love without masks on. The opening of this movie is like, beautiful. It's like, everything I love about living here is walking around, holding a coffee and

just looking around. It's so funny. You're forgetting that, of course, the actual opening of this movie, Bobby, is a pixelated 90s Warner Brothers look. Zoom into the earth. Please don't forget that. Which is great, to be clear. The moment the cranberries start, that's it.

That's it. We haven't even gotten into the soundtrack. We haven't even gotten to the soundtrack The moment the cranberries start. Yes. That's it. That's it. And there is. We haven't even gotten into the soundtrack. We haven't even gotten to the soundtrack of this iconic film. Nora gives you a pass. Yes. For feeling as feeling the sappy sentimental feelings that you sometimes feel about this place. And it makes you recognize that, like, it's OK to think those things because like, look around you.

This is a perfectly acceptable feeling. This place rules. Yes. This rules. Absolutely. This is a movie about the New York, the Upper West Side, the Manhattan,

whatever that she loves passing into memory. Like, even though she's making it just as it's happening, she knows what's going on, right? Yeah. I'm getting a phone call. One second.

Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. Hollywood Sims over here. When What's-Her-Face complains about having to maybe move to Brooklyn and then Steve Zahn says that he has a six bedroom for $4.50 a month. I was like, I can't. What in New York is this? Yeah. So much fucking shit going on.

Jesus. She is great. What is her name? Heather. Heather Burns. Heather Burns. I know on. Jesus. She is great. What is her name? Heather. Heather Burns. I know her best from Bored to Death. Remember she was in

Bored to Death. She was in Miss Congeniality. Right. And she's in so many Sandra Bullock movies. She's perfect. She's like a weird Sandra Bullock good luck charm

because she's in like Two Weeks Notice as well, I think. Yeah. She is. Yeah. Yeah. You know who's also so good i know you're

gonna say i know you're gonna say oh i thought you were gonna say gene stapleton but yeah oh no well they're both would we say equal they're both giving equal i just because um well because well because um lady gaga's iconic album chromomatica came out last night. We did a listening party for our fans and we were listening to Gaga A Star Is Born. And I was thinking about A Star Is Born. And then I was watching this and I was thinking, Dave Chappelle looks so good in A Star Is Born. Just incredible. What a great actor. And this was his first, one of his early movies i would say for sure i think this and half baked

are the same year maybe okay he's so natural like i don't they kind of put him in a weird place as a character like he doesn't he's not quite flushed out but like he still is so able to say things like call her hot many times call her say that she's not a dog so many times. And somehow it's like, it's weird, but it's not the worst. No, no. And I think like, look, this is an ultimate example of that thing I'm kind of obsessed with that I always bring up on this podcast where big A-list movie star casts an up and coming actor 20 years younger than them to play their best

friend to make them seem a little more modern and current. Yes, yes, yes. And very often, very often, it is a person of color to make the white A-list star feel a little more hip as well.

Totally. They're used for that sort of like modern cachet uh right but he is so good in this that somehow you actually kind of buy that they're friends and like well you also kind of buy that tom hanks's character doesn't really have a lot of close friends and so his only close friend is his assistant his friend is this guy who's doing the construction that's why it works so it's almost like it's not crazy that he'd be like working out with him at equinox or wherever they're not equinox but like pre-equinox whatever watching the tv or something like it's not that crazy but i did like watching this made me wish and i understand a thousand the, crazier things happened in his career. And he, you know, adjusted accordingly.

But I wish he were in more movies, even if it was just a role like this or a role like Star is Born. He is such a good actor. And he talks about, I think, in his Inside the Actors studio, how he didn't just want to be a stand-up who would then appear in movies and just sort of be doing his routine. How he was like taking acting classes when he was 18 years old because he recognized that the stand-ups were best in movies, had an acting background.

Weren't just, I'm funny on stage, I'll know how to do this. And Dave Chappelle has genuine chemistry, friend chemistry with Tom Hanks here. It's not just that he's funny. I mean, he is a really fucking skilled actor in a part that's not actually demanding that much of him. I also get a sense that Tom Hanks is very good

at creating friend chemistry with almost any person he's ever worked with on film. I think that's definitely part of it. I do think being opposite Tom Hanks is about the best. It's quite easy. I feel like. Right. Yeah. It's believable that both Tom and Meg Ryan wouldn't really have that many friends.

Like Meg has her boyfriend and she has her mom's best friend. She has her co-workers. Right. She has her co-workers and Birdie. She has inherited her mom's best friend along with her mom's business. She has nothing that she made on her own. Yes. That's what this movie is kind of quietly about, right?

It's like, even though her life is so cute and she's got this great place. It's not hers. No, it's not hers. Yeah, it's like she is kind of living this sort of, it's like, who is this person? Like even her apartment, she probably inherited. When she says, maybe nobody will remember me,

but people remember my mom and they loved her. Like that is the sleekest sentiment oh my fucking god this is my whole take i was saying this to griffin last night because we have been talking about going through this mini series it's like the big nora hits are the movies that people think of as more like these sort of like lovely slightly sappy kind of like you know you know sleep is in seattle you've got mail julie and juliet right like true love the right people ultimately find each other what people think of as the nora effron movies when they talk and the ones that bomb are the ones where she tries

to go kind of acidic and like mix nuts lucky numbers which you know the ones that are closer to her writing as a humorist i mean the stuff that she yeah bones right this is kind of i think the salty sweet movie you just have to sort of be aware that these characters are all a little sad and like yes that the ending is nice sure they get together i you know i hoped it would be you you know but but like uh like you know i don't know that it just feels like something's sort of dying in this and there's a there's a harder edge to their fighting than i remembered their being it's not like jerk he's an asshole yeah right yes yeah he's a total asshole when he humiliates her

like when he goes into the cafe and she's waiting and she just he just rips into her. Like that is probably the cruelest thing you could do to somebody. Yes. I could, like, that's unforgivable in a way, you know? It's why the ending is, I mean, yeah, the ending is, you know, you got your beautiful Summer of the Rainbow cover happening, but she like breaks down into tears

because she's like, oh my God, you were so mean to me and i knew i wanted it to be you i wanted it to be you so badly but you were such an act like it's sad she's remembering all of these things like she's it's like it put a magnifying glass over like the sadness of her life yes and she's like i mean thank god i have this happy ending but oh my god what a terrible trajectory there's a there's a version where she's like, I mean, thank God I have this happy ending, but oh my God, what a terrible trajectory we've had. There's a version where she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. So you stood me up and then came and visited me to torment me? Like, can we just, I'm sorry, can we go through a couple of events before we kiss?

Right, she's crying not because it's him, but because she wanted it to be him. There's something so destructive about them being attracted to each other. Yeah. And think about the, the kind of the, the through line about niceness and meanness. It's like, he's too mean.

She's too nice. Like he's teaching her to be mean and she's teaching him to be nice. And like, it's like, how do we meet in the middle? But ultimately when they're both mean it's like it's not actually that cute like no one is really doing meanness in like the way that they think they're doing meanness i think like hers her snap her clapbacks are like even worse than his original meanness in a way like i don't know especially because of the

types of people they are, which is kind of both a little lonely. Do you think Hank wanted to be like, you know, like in Sleepless in Seattle, I'm such a saint. Like I want to play this as a little more of a jerk. Like, you know, what's my read on this guy? I hope, I think so. Because I think he has to,

his hurdle to being mean is big. He has to really try to be mean. That 10 years later retrospective thing, they talk a lot about the Cafe Lalo scene, which they're pretty much only three scenes in this movie because it really uses shop around the corner. And the play that was based on in the two later versions, the musical and the movie musical, it pretty much just uses that as a springboard. It takes a lot of, you know, new directions from it. But there's three scenes that exist almost verbatim in all three movie versions, which are the scene with the friend, the Dave Chappelle scene where he takes a look at her and like down to

specific wordings. She almost has the same coloring as that line exists in all three movies which is which is such a weird line in context when you hear it for dave chapelle totally which that's where i start to go like man chapelle's fucking good in this movie because i have he can pull off saying she has the same coloring as that woman kathleen kelly like that is not how that's not how a person would say she looks like kathleen Kathleen Kelly and if you look up the actor who played the best friend role in shop around the corner it's like an older eastern European man with a mustache who's from Ninochka and that line sounds normal coming out of him and recognizing having seen them in such close succession like

oh my god Chappelle's about to do this word for word, almost as if it were from the original script, how was he going to pull this off as an actor pulls it off. That seems almost identical. And she said she picked cafe Lalo because in the other versions of it, it's that thing where even in the original, it's like the cafe is elevated. So the friend is able to walk up the stairs and the guy in the street level isn't able to see it. And the cafe scene itself is very similar without being word for word it's b for

b very similar and then the scene where he visits her when she's sick is very very similar b for b which is truly one of our favorites to rag on that scene that's meg balling out fully off the rails. Right. The explanation for that is she likes that scene being in the previous movie. Meg is, is so the kookiness is so pronounced in Harry Met Sally and sleepless. And in this, it's a little more muted,

like even though she is still a kook, as we've been discussing, like, you know, it's, it's not really there in the same flippity-jibbity kind of way. This movie is so much more honest about how sad she is. Yes, right, right. Like, Sleepers in Seattle makes vague references to it,

and one of them is more of like a joke, but the scene that I always think of as like a really sad moment in Sleepers in Seattle, that's like my favorite line in Sleepers in Seattle, is when she's trying on the wedding dress and it tears and she goes, it's a sign. And her mom goes, you don't believe in signs. And it's just like, even when she's trying to open up, her mom is like, no, no, no, this isn't you. You know, like that's kind of the extent of the window into her sadness that you get in sleep is in seattle as opposed to just her being like overtly crazy the entire time but like and you've got mail she is like a persistent refrain of this movie is that she's so lonely and she misses her mother so much

and she understands that she will never have the impact that her mother did and her entire neighborhood was was built up around this like the true Piazza. Like Tom Hanks says that he built the Piazza, but it's like, she had the original Piazza in this neighborhood and she's like, I'll never build anything. And that's like, that's so persistent throughout the whole movie.

And that doesn't exist in either of the other ones. Like, I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the quote, like just quotes. And there's, I forgot this part where he's, where Frank Navasky is reciting something to get

her pumped up for something and he says you are a lone reed standing tall waving boldly in the corrupt sands of commerce and she goes i'm a lone reed and he goes yes you're alone like he's like telling her like you're alone like he she lives with this man and he's like, you are alone. But on a fundamental level, you are alone in this world. It's so bleak. There's also the Godfather, you know, which is a classic Efron thing, like Casablanca and Harry Met Sally and the Dirty Dozen. She loves to reference these like movies that men love. But like there's the repeated like, you got to go to the mattresses. But she never does.

She never goes to war. Like, she doesn't even try. That's not even a plot. She goes on New York one and does. She goes to the press. Her war is that she begs her boyfriend to write an op ed or whatever. And she's like, would that be a conflict of interest? And I immediately out loud was like, yes.

What? You can't do that. He says yes, too. And then he says no. He's like, oh, no, I don't know. I just love how immediately that doesn't work, yes. What? You can't do that. He says yes, too. And then he says no. He's like, oh, no, I don't know. Yeah. I just love how immediately that doesn't work, too. Yeah.

Like, isn't it the next scene? Birdie's like, no, no. The year over here. Brian's like, no difference. It's done. No difference. And then you're basically just cutting to them at Stapleton's house where they're like, yeah, well, the decision is no more store.

But it's too real that is such a real thing though like raising money for a cause and everyone getting fully around it and getting so into it and giving all their money and it doesn't make a difference because a year later they're it's the same issue or you know nothing has changed the economy hasn't changed like the situation hasn't changed so it's just like yeah it is it is actually a truly like a very compact lesson in that where it's like everyone's willing to rally around and does really care but cannot focus their entire lives around saving this business that is no longer a business that can stay alive and it's like the author who's like i need to promote my book of course i'm

going to do it at fox books like that's where i'm going to get more readers. Right. There's a very earned cynicism and sort of like honest cynicism to the idea that, oh, everyone loves the emotional idea of this store existing. But also everyone loves saving money on books and being able to get a coffee at the same time. Like as much as they're invested in the idea of shop around the corner, they cannot turn down the convenience of Fox books. Yeah. And just the idea that 22 years on we miss borders. Right.

We love those Barnes and Nobles that are still standing. Like the one in the square, the one in the other way. We're like, those are great places. Like they're part of the firmament of New York. And if anything, those stores are dying and little bookstores are coming back.

So you have now the reverse. How would Nora even deal with this? I'm so curious how she would respond to the idea that it's like now it's the reverse. The curation of the books is so much more valuable to people that Barnes & Noble is not really a thing anymore. People are buying books online when they want to buy kind of cheap used books. She'd reopen a store. Yeah. In the sequel,

she reopens the store. Right. Books are magic. I was just thinking about, and Jean Stapleton is so good in this movie. Like she feels like, she feels like a true gift.

You feel very privileged to have had this performance in this movie. Every time she appears on the screen, you want to say to Nora, thank you so much. How did you know? It's just what I wanted.

It's so gentle and funny. When she's like this from behind the thing. We're fine. But when she, when she walks up and the whole, but when she walks past

the window display of the author at Fox Books, just to continue our last conversation, like, she's not angry. No, she's like,

of course. She's like, well, we knew this was bound to happen. Like, she's not upset. She's just very sad. It's not angry she's sort of like she's like well we knew this was bound to happen like she's not upset she's just very sad business yeah yeah i mean you can tell this woman is a she's a volunteer i can tell she's volunteering oh yes birdie is not getting a check she just knows the software what do we think of zon we haven't mentioned zon i love zon i'll take it he's so he's very very very good especially this time period he is so in the pocket of just like my favorite kind of

character actor and i put heather burns into this too where it's like you can give them one scene and without stealing too much focus they somehow find a way to make everything interesting they're both just kind of innately interesting as performers. Their energy is bizarre. Their voices are bizarre, but they're also intelligent actors. Like they know how to underplay stuff. They know when to take their moments.

They're both really good actors. This is the same year as Out of Sight, which is awesome. He's such a good foil to her, to Meg Ryan's character too. like she needs to be grounded by people who are like living a real life and these people are living a real life you know I had I had a false kazam like memory that Zahn and Burns ended up together at the end of this movie and watching it I think I just want that to happen i think i just did

slash fic in my head you also want navaski and parker posey to get together like somehow you want them just to switch i remember that happening too in my i feel like we can just declare a canon that that probably happens oh yeah she definitely gives him a book deal uh and parker posey is of course in mixed nuts she's the rollerblader along with Jon Stewart right so she had worked with Nora before and apparently her and Nora were good friends like they were actually social that could not make more sense

to New York women I have not seen Mixed Nuts since watching it since renting it with my family when soon after it came out and everyone was like what the fuck was that and I never I was like oh that movie sucks and i never gave it another thought very bizarre this is when she's in this i feel like she's just fully the queen of indie cinema right like she's been like generation kicking and screaming

suburbia basquiat house yes waiting for guffman like that's all leading up to this and i feel like it's still a novelty for her to be in a mainstream movie when she's it's like oh parker posey like the coolest girl if you guys haven't seen um the remake of high fidelity tv show which is shockingly good i don't even know how i have not watched it oh my this has no right to be good it is literally should be against the law for it to be good but it's fantastic and there's an episode that you could just watch this episode where Parker Posey is in it. And she plays this New York city, Upper West side woman who is selling her like shitty husband's records to

them. And she is so good. And it really reminded me of this woman. It's like the future of this woman whose name I'm now. What is her name? And you've got mail. What's her name? What's her character's name? Patricia. I all. Oh yeah. Clearly I'm now what is her name when you've got mail what's her name what's her character's

name uh I all yeah clearly I'm yeah Patricia oh because Patricia makes coffee coffee nervous Patricia makes coffee nervous line okay sorry yeah so she I always think of that five fidelity woman as the future Patricia like that is just what she became you know that woman Hank said like so perfectly she's perfect casting and her performance is perfect because from the moment you see them on screen together, you're like, oh, this is a temporary thing. Yeah, but it makes it make sense that they would have found a way to connect at some point and say, hey, this sort of works on paper. They're both cynical in the same kind of way. In the way that Kinnear and Ryan make sense on paper. But they're like, yeah, unfortunately unfortunately we just don't love each other,

but it works on paper. Do you think Nora's like the movie's too cute as it is with the little, you know, with the email, like maybe I shouldn't have everyone else linking up at the end. I don't know. I thank God she didn't. The movie's long enough.

We don't need like the two butlers getting together. We don't need it. The babysitter and the, the valet get together. We don't need it the babysitter and the the valet get together we don't need it nancy myers is starting you know around the same time as this movie's coming out and she's like yeah baby everyone's gonna be together at the end i agree with that it's better for the film that having been said jeffrey wells style i would like to ask the ghost of nora efron to quietly send me the footage of steve

zahn and heather burns fucking on a soundstage not because they filmed it yes they filmed it they filmed it uh bobby you were going to talk about the the elevator scene um i i just love the elevator scene it's just i i think that it's something that Nora does very well, which is take a situation that seems very contrived and add a lot of humanity to it and turn it into something actually memorable and sort of very profound. Like something about like getting trapped in an elevator with who like essentially cliche is like the upper West side, witchy,

which ritual with no personality other than the fact that i have a small dog and i'm rich and the michael bottle show another we haven't shouted him out yet but you know and and the fact that like it's it's it's weird to to see like this like upper west side woman like nora efron like sort of right people who were in the service industry and you're like oh this is probably going to come across as condescending and shitty. And like, it's not. Yeah. And he actually, he is the reason that Tom Hanks is like, this sucks.

Wait, what am I doing? I'm doing this all wrong. That line that I'm going to poorly paraphrase now. I love it. I was envious of a man knowing with such confidence what he wanted in life. He realized that guy has it much better than he does. That could have been so, so condescending. And it's not.

Yep. And also the idea of getting trapped in an elevator is like kind of a big New York thing. Not just because we live in buildings. We live in old buildings. And so elevators break all the time. The New Yorkiness of that is right. Those weird old shuddery elevators. They're still all over the Upper West Side.

And that everyone has this sort of like, you know, folk remedy to fixing like an elevator. Everyone jumps. If we push all the buttons, I don't know. Maybe like that. Everything about that rings true, even though the situation feels so comical and implausible. though the situation feels so comical and implausible. And I feel like most versions of that scene are the meet cute or the scene that finally makes the two people work through their issues and realize that they kind of love each other. And instead, she uses it to end the unnecessary romance of a different character, you know?

He finally sees her. Well, it's also because she's like, i ever if i ever get out of here i'm getting my eyes lasered and then he goes to say something like like beautiful like everyone else and she says she's like where are my tic tacs and then she goes what it's perfect can we dissect a similarly crucial scene uh the zay bars line yes oh my god what a great ramirez which is another classic as you're saying like kind of new york situation it's like what if you got in the wrong fucking line and it was cash only and all the people are gonna yell at you the people with their smoked fish are behind you with their picture it's like six and only on november tuesday the worst time to go

it's so cute and it does it really pushes the neighborhood thing that you would run into 6pm on a November Tuesday. The worst time to go. It's so cute. And it does, it really pushes the neighborhood thing that you would run into someone at Zabar's like very likely. And I think a lot of people do run into people they know at Zabar's, you know, that's not unusual. And so like the fact that they run into each other is not one of those rom-com meet-cute things. It feels like a real situation that she's already she's already set it up so that you believe that which I like a lot that these two would keep running into each other and then kind of

run into each other on purpose. Sarah Ramirez is. Oh no what were you going to say Bobby? I was just going to say Sarah Ramirez is like the her best moment is whenever she goes from smiling and being charmed by Tom Hanks to being like completely like despising of Meg Ryan. That facial transition is always hilarious.

It was the first movie ever to shoot at Zabar's, which is crazy because it feels like everyone should have been using this location for 30 years. But the other thing is they would only give them one night to shoot it. And it was like in between operation hours so they filmed the entire thing from like 10 p.m until 5 a.m and hanks consummate pro he is mayor of hollywood uh apparently kept on getting on the zay bar's pa system which they used to

announce like which items are special deals to entertain all the extras and keep spirits high at like four o'clock in the morning the one that that nora efron quoted which is too fucking charming to handle is he apparently got on the pa and went uh ladies and gentlemen uh shoppers at zay bars uh want to announce that meg ryan is appetizing uh meg Meg Ryan is appetizing. Meg Ryan is appetizing. Wow. That's cute. What an angel sent from heaven. We're too, the shoe is, might drop.

That's how good he is. The shoe is about to drop. I worry every day of my life. I also feel like this is, to me, this seems like such an accurate representation of who tom hanks is as a person like he's a rich and powerful man like he's an asshole he's a rich and powerful baby boomer man yeah of course he's an asshole of course he could be snarky but he's also a sweetie pie and i think that this is the closest not that i know tom Tom Hanks, but like, to me, this is how I picture him in real life.

The dude loves a typewriter. Who is also like, you want nothing more than to be friends with him. But this is what I wanted to say about the Zabar scene. What you're talking about, essentially. Like, she's in the line. She can't pay. She doesn't have cash. Okay.

So she's pleading to use her credit card. Sarah Ramirez is given her, you know, the hard line. Then Tom Hanks comes in, does the same thing. And what's the message here? Like,

cause it's not like he's like, you catch more flies with honey. She wasn't being rude. She was doing the same thing, which is just like, look, I'm sorry. What am I going to do?

Like, you know, and Tom Hanks just comes in and sort of mansplains the exact he's like there's a credit card reader and Sarah Mears is like well alright so it's the idea it's just like he's just automatically gets a pass because he's a rich charming guy yeah 100%

yes I think I think that's part of it and I also think like the statement here is you're casting Meg Ryan who at this point is still firmly America's sweetheart like everyone still firmly America's sweetheart. Like everyone calls her America's sweetheart. She's like the cutest, most charming. We all want to be her.

We all want to be with her movie star in the 90s. And Tom Hanks is sort of the male equivalent of that. But also he is objectively playing the asshole in this movie. He is playing the villain to the business conflict of this film. I think the point is because I was thinking this while watching it, the inverse of the bonfire of

the bandit is problem where he's supposed to be unsavory in that movie, but even when he's playing his most unsavory, there's still something kind of charming and likable about Tom Hanks that he cannot dim. And I think the point is, it's not that he's being better to Sarah Ramirez than Meg Ryan is. It's not like she's not being considerate. She's being very sincere and sort of like considerate in her earnest plea, please just help me out. The point the movie needs to make

with this scene is there's something undeniable about Tom Hanks, even when he is going to be responsible for shutting down her business. Yeah, right. He's come out and said about remember when there was that all that like kind of weird press around him being like, I don't play villains or like I'm not like I don't want to play. He was like, I don't want to play a villain like I did. But I think it's also that like he is not maybe he's not meant to play a villain he's not really good at playing a villain and a lot of directors and writers maybe know that when they're like looking for a tom hanks vehicle bonfire is also his biggest failure like that's his biggest mistake as an actor i think he took that l hard and it's not about like i don't want to ding my reputation it's i fundamentally

know there are things the audience will not buy me doing. Right. But I think that's why the Mr. Rogers role was so successful for him. Because if you, it's more, it's referenced in the movie. It's referenced in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. But in the documentary, it's very explicit that like his children don't really like him.

They had a terrible relationship. They had a lot of problems with him as a father. Like he kind of was an asshole too. Like, so I think that thing where he has to play a little bit of both, but ultimately Charmer wins is the thing that he does best. That movie's incredible. It's because it's tying the Hanks persona to the Rogers. I read this Mariel Heller interview where she said,

I couldn't make sense of how to tackle this movie. And then I reread the script and I realized Mr. Rogers is the antagonist of the film. A hundred percent. Like Mariel Heller comes out with him being the villain. He is the obstruction. That scene in Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood where he starts taking out the toys to talk to Matthew Rhys is like a horror scene.

Like Matthew Rhys is like, stop it. Stop it. I'm not into this. Yeah. Like Tom Hanks is the same character in our culture as Mr. Rogers is in people who have Mr. Rogers in their culture. He is this,

this iconic, nice man, but he is unknowable. He is, this is, and there's like a force field around him. Right. And we get everyone who knows him could say,

he's a great guy. I know him, but like, you don't know him. No one will ever know him. And that is, force field around him right and we get everyone who knows him could say he's a great guy i know him but like you don't know him no one will ever know him and that is that's why that casting was so great because it is like if when there's a movie made about tom hanks yeah maybe there is one day it will have to be the same type of structure right who's gonna play Hanks? Ansel. Ansel Elgort. Josh Gad. He is. Dumbass. No, I think you're right.

And obviously, like, Hanks is very effective in a number of different types of roles, including man who is very good at his job. But there's something about when he uses that tension, knowing that he can never play full villain, but like the thing going on here and in Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, play full villain but like the thing going on here and in beautiful day in the neighborhood and even sort of it's the flip side of this but something like um road to perdition which is sort of like the most villainous character he's i mean he's literally like a murderer and a gangster but that movie plays all he's a good dad that's the thing it plays off that tension of when it started out and the guy seems like a sociopath and he's totally cold and shut off but the crux of the movie is he's gonna let too much of the hanks shine through there's something about this guy that is willing to die in order to preserve his son's humanity i don't

think him not wanting to play villains is a protectiveness ego thing i think it is just right he can't yeah i think so too and that's but it's funny because that's how it came out through the press where he was just like i just don't like playing bad guys everyone's like when road to perdition comes out which he is not a bad guy but he is a murderer yes there was a fucking like you know they had to have a whole pr thing of like yeah tom hanks he's gone dark you know he plays the mark zuckerberg character The Circle, a very bad guy. Yeah, that's true. He's a villain in that.

That movie is unfortunately not very good. No, it's so unfortunate how bad that movie. No, no, no. That book is great. It's so sad how bad that movie is. It's really sad. He's also, of course, the villain in The Lady Killers. I'm trying to think of any other.

The Lady Killers is a huge flop for him I know but he's good in it I agree Lady Killers is the movie that ends his 10 year 100 billion dollar grocer run and that was the last time he was like pure villain even if it's funny

the circle doesn't exist you can reference it as many times as you want it still doesn't exist and that's a fact um i welcome you to the circle griffin join the circle uh john boyega's in that movie no way no he isn't because it doesn't exist you can't be in a movie that doesn't exist um in the circle emma roberts catches him having sex. Emma Watson catches him. Anyways, that movie is so bad. It's so bad. So, so bad. Well, I find your fan fiction very interesting, Lindsay, describing a movie that doesn't exist.

True, true, true. Okay. I wanted to talk about, we spent a lot of time on Tom Hanks, but I wanted to talk about Meg Ryan because the year before this, she was in another New York-y rom-com that I saw for the first time recently. Were you talking about the masterpiece Addicted to Love? Addicted to Love. Yes. Which is a very downtown New York movie. A very caustic movie.

That movie's in my neighborhood. That movie's got some big downtown New York inside. I love that movie. The movie is not very good. It's really interesting. It's outrageous. That movie is great very good. It's really interesting. It's outrageous. This movie, that movie is great. I can't call it great.

It's tough for me. I've only seen it once also. David has many times tried to sell me on the idea of doing a Griffin Dunn miniseries because he so badly wants to cover A Day to Love. And Practical Magic. Those are the two. Those are the twin pillars. I love Practical Magic. But I think that Meg, the reason I bring it up is I think that it's the opposite here.

I think Meg can do both. I think Meg is capable of being like a really dark, villainous, questionable character. Like Addicted to Love is pretty straightforward. But if that were more of a thriller and you were supposed to be like, is meg ryan up to like she's capable of playing those things and in addicted love she plays an asshole she plays like a true lunatic it just so happens she meets someone else who's a lunatic but despite being a full stop movie start meg ryan has more character actor versatility than hanks does in terms of how she can play with her persona. And like in the cut. In the cut that came right after. Tom Hanks could not do the equivalent of in the cut.

No. Well, I'd like to see him try. I would too. I would love to see Tom Hanks suck Mark Ruffalo's dick if that's what you're saying. I think that Tom Hanks could do the weird rom-com. Yes. I think that Meg Ryan can do the weird rom-com.

Maybe pre-Sleepless in Seattle he could have, right? Where he's maybe not quite as established as tom hanks yeah turn on hooch i mean that's his weird rom-com because the money pit is like weird but it's a pretty straightforward right like that's the thing joe versus the volcano the money but the burbs that's sort of like when that is his weird rom-com i mean that's the answer yeah but he's not a bad guy like he's not a bad guy in it meg ryan post this like it because like this movie is a big box office hit she's had some flops in between this and Sleepless in Seattle like Courage Under Fire didn't really work Addicted to Love was a flop I feel like French Kiss was not no I think it did okay I love French Kiss

and you can't stream it anywhere that's weird I mean IQ was definitely a bomb that's a weird so weird what a weird movie think So weird. What a weird movie. Think about how different the 90s were, where you just listed four or five bombs in between. And even still, that entire time period, she was uncontested America's sweetheart. Yeah. I would say so.

She didn't lose that title. This year, she has You've Got Mail, and she has City of Angels, which, despite being a remake of a German masterpiece, is roundly just dismisses like eh chick flick wow right like at the time right we wouldn't have uninvited without city of angels it is one of the best i am not dismissing it i'm saying that one of the most heartbreaking twists in cinema yes can i bobby and lindsey can i give the two of you the pitch that I came up with in our previous episode

I think Nicolas Cage and John Travolta should have done a face off style swap I think Nicolas Cage should have played Michael and John Travolta should have been in City of Angels with Meg Ryan well didn't he play an angel in Michael that's what I'm saying

do a face offoff Angel swap. That's amazing. Doesn't that improve both films? Oh, you're saying Cage should have been Michael. Michael was so weird. Michael the character. That's correct.

That's fine. I think Cage is weirder in a way that would fit Michael. And Travolta is a little more successful at playing conventional romantic lead at one moment fit Michael. And Travolta is a little more successful at playing conventional romantic lead. I'm going to be right. One moment. Michael.

Yes, Michael would have worked if it was Nick Cage. I'm going to be like sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere thinking about how good of an idea that is. Right? That's good. Sorry, nobody's ready to reclaim Michael. But if it was Nick Cage,

we might be ready to reclaim Michael. Look, we spent two hours plus in our last episode trying to reclaim it. And I'll tell you, it's kind of impossible. Yeah, it's impossible. Sorry, go ahead. So Meg Ryan, I'm just like, so after, you know, she's doing great

when You've Got Mail comes out, right? Big hit. She's, I think she's about 36, 37 when this movie comes out. And then, then she has in 2000, she has Hanging Up, which Griffin, we're going to discuss on Patreon. On Patreon, we're doing that discuss on Patreon. On Patreon.

We're doing that as a Patreon bonus. Delia. Yes. And so that's not a hit, but whatever. Like, you know, it's sort of similar to like a French kiss. We're like, it did okay. You know, it didn't hurt anyone's feelings. She's got Proof of Life and the big sort of Russell Crowe quote unquote scandal where she and Dennis Quaid break up.

In 2001, she has Kate and Leopold, which I love. It's a decent hit. Decent hit and it's a great movie. And that's more her just being like, I'll do a rom-com. But then after that, it's over. She does In the Cut and then it's just over. The Russell Crowe thing

totally ruins her. Russell Crowe ruined it. It's Russell Crowe and totally ruins her. And what is... Russell Crowe ruined it. What is more... It's Russell Crowe and In The Cut, right? Like, you know, they're very separate things, but like Russell Crowe ruins it. And then In The Cut, people are like, no, you're not allowed to do this. We give up.

Right. And In The Cut is amazing. It's also one of those things with distance where you're like, it is so incredibly sexist that the Russell Crowe thing destroyed her that hard when Russell crowe only grew in prominence because of it was it was literally good press for russell crowe and bad

press for her and also how many fucking times did dennis quaid cheat on her i'm not speaking to any knowledge i have but come on like water is wet no that she was she left dennis quaid that was the story it was like can you believe this idiot woman we thought she was, she left Dennis Quaid. That was the story. It was like, can you believe this idiot woman? We thought she was America's sweetheart and she just ruined this like perfect marriage. Right. And now we know that Dennis Quaid was like, you know, a cokehead for like that entire period of time. He's still an asshole. He's still such an asshole.

Right. In the 90s, there was that thing of like, if two movie stars are married to each other that is the ideal marriage that was like that was just how people magazine etc thought of it was like bruce willis and to me more married can you imagine that must be the perfect marriage can i shout out their son jack quaid who's turned out to be a really good actor and choosing amazing projects even though again he's not been in that many projects but but he's out here doing like The Boys, which was great on Amazon. And fucking Plus One,

one of the best rom-coms of the past five years somehow that got nowhere. I'll say this too. Jack Waite, a friend, worked with him on vinyl. Great guy. He is also one of those dudes

who, for being the son of two massive movie stars, has no fucking ego, no entitlement whatsoever. He is like, consummate, like, just fucking amazing actors, work ethic. I'm going to do whatever I can to make the scene work. I'm going to go out of my way to treat everyone well on set. I want to believe he got that from Meg Ryan. But he is just sort of like he's he's a fucking great guy he's the real deal so you're saying he's the opposite

of chet hayes tom hanks yes exactly he's what you want tom hanks is on debate do you think chet hayes will play tom hanks in the tom hanks movie 10 years from now he'll try he'll try he's gonna play peter scolari um just i feel like we already talked about this on this podcast but i still will always cherish the day when tom hanks had coronavirus and chet hayes became a voice of reason online where he's like you know one love to everyone like dad's doing okay like on instagram and i was watching it sincerely being like oh he's giving me news about tom hanks and I appreciate it. Right. I always call Chet

Rita's son. That's Rita's son. That's Rita's boy. That's Rita's boy. But on that day, he revealed himself to be a steady hand of reason. I absolutely appreciated his content that day and not the content of the leaders of our

country, right? Like, I was like, at least Chet is giving me facts on the ground. I mean, he's weird, but he got sober in the past few years, so he went from being truly a terror to being just weird. Just weird, you know?

I hope Chet Hayes wins an Oscar. I want him to prove us all wrong. Best original song. Weirder things have happened. Or best picture. He's not terrible in Shameless. He's on Shameless, or he was on Shameless for a few episodes. He's not the worst. He's not great.

Every time I've seen him pop up in something as an actor, often in a very small role, I'm like, fuck, he's pretty solid. He's fine. He's okay. He's okay. I had no idea he was in Shameless shameless but it is also like if you pointed a gun at me and were like is shameless still on the air i'd be like yes and they'd be like i don't know 11 it's the longest running show on on pay cable it's it's showtime's gun smoke yeah it has more episodes than ozzy and harriet When Felicity Huffman went to prison, she was like, well, at least we'll always have the Shameless paycheck.

Shameless money. Shameless was a UK show. And the premise of it is like, what if there was a family that was wacky that lived on the wrong side of the tracks? And Showtime was like, we'll take that premise. Thank you. And milk it for a generation. I mean, that show is very problematic in many ways, but a lot of people really love it

because it is like one of the few shows that's like about poor people in a way that like a lot of shows are not, even though the show itself, when you watch it, because it's been going on for honestly way too long, has had to have so many storylines that it's just gotten so far out of control. Even Emmy Rossum was like,

I can't even do this anymore. And this show made me who I am. I have to get out of here. But like the show is weirdly interesting. And if you look at it from that lens, but only very briefly. Shameless just ended in January. It's 10th season on air.

There have been 122 episodes. And they're doing an 11 of course they are an angel yeah well as long as william h macy steps up to the plate they'll do it um can i offer my big take on this movie yes you've got please i want nothing more for how much i feel like norafron movies are sort of quoted and shorthanded being like the most generic prototypical like it's well executed, but it's like, Oh, you know, that type of like rom-com. The two Hanks Ryan movies, which are seen as like the big ones are both weirdly experimental in their

approach to a rom-com because Sleepless in Seattle is obviously like, can you create a rom-com with chemistry between the two actors without them ever actually communicating until the last scene of the movie. And then this feels like an opposite test, which is like they're in the movie a lot together. But what you guys were sort of talking about of like the Hanks character is so much more of an asshole than you're used to this character being. And the Meg Ryan character is so much sadder than you're used to this

character being in any sort of like oil and water rom-com like this, where it's like a Hepburn and Tracy, they fight and they fight and they fight until they realize they have to be together movie, that's pretty much always the dynamic. Like one is always like a little too snide and flinty, and one is always like a little sad and lonely. And ultimately, they realize they have to be together. And this movie is her pushing those two things to their furthest extremes that she can because you have this narrative conceit in the middle, which is in the email exchanges,

they can just be pure rom-com bliss. Like in the scenes where they're not actually together, they can be the most romantic, the most charming, cross-cutting in different rooms so that allows you to be like we're gonna actually investigate like the sadness of a manic pixie dream girl so that she no longer becomes that and like the horrible qualities of like the confident like man with the quip at the ready at all times until he no longer becomes a good guy yeah i'm just saying there's something about you saying

this wasn't the way that rom-coms were prototypically then, but I think Nora Ephron, she made now going forward, rom-coms are the way that Nora Ephron made them. Like she changed the, now we all think of, now every rom-com is sleepless

as you've, oh my God, is whatever you're saying. yes that's lindsey that's kind of what i was going to say it's like i i think there's been so much for the past 10 plus years there has been that like bubbling narrative of like man i wish we had rom-coms again and like unpacking that unpacking that narrative another two hours and it's it's its own mess but i think speaking for myself because i felt the same way for a long time but then i think it was like a few times ago because i watched you've got mail a few times a

year and it was a maybe maybe a year or two ago i was watching it and i was like wait a second i don't miss rom-coms i miss nora efron rom-coms. I miss like three or four, you know? Like, of course these aren't going to come back because she's dead and this was a very specific time and place. Like, it's not that I miss the rom-com. I miss this specific thing. And guess what?

I can watch it whenever the fuck I want. And I think the close, which is why I think the rom-com that I think is my favorite since You've got mail is probably enough said, which I think captures this dynamic pretty closely. In that you have this person, like these people who are being deceitful and people who are being really, really messy because they are in love and people who have to deal with their own personal shit before they can deal with another person's shit and and that's part of it but it's like i miss nora efron i miss you've got mail it's not that i miss the the general concept of a rom-com i miss the way these people talk and i miss the way these people like i think there's also the the missing the rom-com thing is also just the loss of like a mid-tier movie like the loss of

like that's i always think of it it's not even like rom-com it's just like what's a movie that costs x amount of money that's not a huge superhero or an indie dirt cheap yeah so it's like everything in the middle is is lost maybe we'll come back because of streaming as well i mean it's a movie that is driven by a star and not a franchise the franchise is the star. I think actors want to make those movies, though. They want to,

but they have a hard time finding the ones that then become whatever. I think, like, for example, I don't know if it's even good, but, like, The Lovebirds, that movie that just came out

that's on Netflix, is one of those types of movies. I don't know if it's good, again, but, like like that feels- And not a rom-com, but Mariel Heller movies too. Long shot, the long shot, great rom-com. One of those movies felt in between, somehow not crazy expensive or dirt cheap,

had stars and didn't do well. I mean, I- They opened it against Avengers, it's still one of the weirdest things. Yes, I do think, I mean, I have a against Avengers It's still one of the weirdest things Yes I do I do think I mean I have a couple things To say here But

The one that I always Jump to When I think about Like What's my model For the best rom-com Of the last ten years Like modern

Is Sleeping with other people Which I love And I feel like Leslie Hedlund Is someone who is Kind of an heir apparent To And she'll look There are a lot of things That Leslie Hedlund is someone who is kind of an heir apparent to,

and she'll look, there are a lot of things that Leslie Hedlund is good at that she could do in her career. I'm very excited to see her make a star war show, but I also feel like she is someone who could have a, uh, Nora Ephron or Nancy Myers or Cameron Crowe or James L. Brooks type career,

where she is a writer director with a very specific sense of sort of like acerbic comedy character driven comedy good star Bobby knows that's one of my favorites that is one of my favorites fucking rules so hard but I do think that's another problem we talk about what killed the rom-com you know the main culprit is they are very cultural they're very specific to cultures and stars and comedy is very cultural. And in the 10 years where the industry shifts to being very global, you want movies that play equally well in any country. Rom-coms go first and then non-rom-com comedies go second because those things don't translate as well. But the other part of it is,

I think you look at the 2000s and more and more rom-coms start to be written and directed by men. And I'm not saying only a woman can make a rom-com, but I was watching this movie and thinking about the fact we have covered now four filmmakers on blank check who have predominantly done rom-coms or rom-com adjacent movies and they're cameron crowe james l brooks nora efron and nancy myers and two of those four guys got best picture nominations and best director nominations and the women did not brooks won yeah the women did not she she got like a nomination for sleepless in seattle right and one for when harry met sally one for silkwood that's it right and nor nancy rather got the private benjamin nomination but and like when this movie came out it obviously

completely ignored it's not a real movie meg ryan got the token golden globe nom and that's it right and like even though this movie was a christmas hit like there was there would never have been anyone to suggest like, Oh, well we should like take this seriously. Right. Like even the fucking globes didn't nominate Hanks. Like that's insane.

And I do think, you know, there are other things you can analyze in terms of the differences between the F round cannon, the Myers cannon and on the other side, the Crow Brooks cannon. But it does sort of speak to a thing of just how much seriously these films seem to be taken when they're directed by women. Oh, it's just pure entertainment. That's not a substantive movie,

but yet the ones that linger tend to be those ones that are written by a very specific sense of, of comedy, sense of respect and a viewpoint writer, director, female, a tour, like, like half center, like, like Headland. But this is the final thing I want to say. I'm building up to a point here. headland but this is the final thing i want to say i know i just have something i need to tell you i know this is the final thing i want to say uh in that 10 years later retrospective hanks talks about how difficult making this movie was in a certain way because ephraim was known for being very exacting and he was saying the scene

the cafe lalo scene is like the hardest scene he's ever done as an actor. It was a four night shoot. It's an incredibly long, like 12 page scene or whatever it is. And Nora Ephron, I didn't know this did extensive rehearsals for all of her movies in a way that the only other person I know who did this in the last 30 or 40 years was Sidney Lumet where she would collect her actors in like a black box theater and tape out the sets and give them fake props and run every scene with full blocking weeks in

advance before when they film so that when they actually get to the set it's just perfecting the fine details but was locking everything in I mean she was very rigorous which people don't talk about because they assume, oh, she's just kind of funny and light and she hires movie stars and they show up and they do the work. And Hanks was like, I was pulling out my hair trying to figure out that scene. It was the hardest thing they've ever had to do. And he said, I think it is the most sophisticated scene I have ever seen in a movie that is not supposed to be viewed as sophisticated. Right. Yeah. And I think that's such a great descriptor for everything she did well it's like the sophistication she is applying to

everything in terms of form in terms of actual just insight is so invisible and she's not asking to be taken seriously as a prestige movie she is trying to make pure entertainment for people as a writer she was already a director I mean she was like born to be a director even you know like people always talk about like the writers who say the actors can't improvise you got to say everything from the script it's like that was her from the beginning and maybe that would have been seen as uptight when for like a man it's seen as like he's just very precise like you just have to stay on script it's like it's a it's part you know it's part of the film or whatever,

but it's like, she was already at that point. And I think also it's something like these actors are willing to give Nora whatever she wants at this point. Like, like that, that Tom Hanks who up until her death, I mean,

I remember he did a Broadway show that I went to that she wrote, like he would do, he would do anything for her, you know? And so that was from the very start to do that type of elaborate rehearsal for a movie like this like i think he almost pointedly did that play because he knew she was dying like he wanted to pay tribute to her one play was weird i gotta say weird play weird play very strange anecdote before david says this

very important thing in the steam. This is getting so much buildup for something. It's going to be total bullshit. It's going to be so important. Everyone's going to love it. And David's about to win another Obie. But, uh, Hanks was saying he was pulling his hair out and he couldn't make sense of

the Lalo scene. And he just couldn't get over like, why is he here? Like, why does he go into the cafe? Why does he stay this long? Why does he torture her to this extent? And he kept on trying out different things

and it wasn't working. And the script supervisor is the one who came to him and just said, Tom, you want to tell her it's you. Your motivation in this scene is you think if you stay longer, you'll finally build up the courage to say it. And that's what he's playing. And it's so good.

And that's why that scene is so good. Well, you want him to say it too. Right. David is now going to say the most important thing that anyone's ever said in the history of this podcast so griffin you you pointed out i mentioned meg ryan nominated for golden globe best performance by an actress in a comedy or musical uh she lost she did not win as you might guess she lost to gwyneth paltrow for shakespeare in love who goes on to win the oscar right nothing crazy about that nope right uh she lost she did not win as you might guess she lost to Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love who goes on to win the Oscar right nothing crazy about that nope right but then you all you you also mentioned Tom Hanks was not nominated for best actor so can you tell me the five nominees for best performance by an actor in a comedy or musical at the 1998 Golden Globes.

Okay. And just to be clear, Hanks was nominated for drama actor the same year at the Globes? He was for Saving Private Ryan. He famously lost to Jim Carrey, who was then snubbed by the Oscars. Right. Okay. So best comedy, 1998. Here's what I want to say to you.

I think you can get four. I don't think you could ever get the winner unless you just remembered him winning. I definitely watched the ceremony live. Is Ben Stiller for Something About Mary one of the nominees? No, he is not. But Cameron Diaz did get nominated? Yes, she did. Okay, I'm trying to think.

Comedies of 1998. Are they all comedies or is one of them sneaking in under the musical? I don't know that I would explicitly call any of these movies a comedy but certainly they all fit but none of them are musicals they are all comic dramas or comic adventures one of them i guess is kind of a comic i don't fucking know zero nominees from this category are nominated for oscars comic adventures 1998 so zero of these nominees go on to get oscar nominations only three of the drama nominees made it they sub in two other guys who were ignored by the globes you couldn't pay me anything to watch these movies in a row this this is the worst movie marathon are these movies

some of them are good movies i like a couple of the movies yeah i would say by and large these were hits there's one kind of oscar-y there's a couple of oscar-y i don't know there's really only two hits in here actually god damn it what the fuck all right okay all right all right so here's some clues okay yeah give me one of them is um it's like a big adventure movie a huge action hit from 1998 and it's actually good job on the globes for nominating this performance it's a great performance and it's sort of underrated although i feel like now everyone's talking about this movie again fun movie for next oh oh antonio bandera's mascazzaro that's right okay so that's one okay two is an actor two is an actor we talked about extensively

just now he's been in multiple nori efron movies and it's sort of weird that the oscar snubbed him this was like a big acty performance from him playing a basically playing a real guy a real guy versus it's travolta yeah. Oh, it's a big novel adaptation. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Okay. So that's two.

Three is one of the huge comedy stars of the 90s in a massive hit. It just happens to be a terrible movie. Is it another Jim Carrey movie? No. But it's a big comedy star of the 90s. And it happens to be terrible. And I'm close. Terrible movie. But it was a big comedy star of the 90s and it happens to be terrible and i'm close terrible movie and but it was a huge hit yeah it's a terrible movie it's a huge hit was he a comedy

came out of tv yes i mean and this was definitely being positioned as an oscar movie it just fucking sucked so but it wasn't it was a huge hit like it made a hundred million plus dollars yes robin williams okay okay fourth is one of the most famous movie stars of all time in a movie that he made i believe it got a screenplay nomination eventually the movie was kind of a flop it's absolutely demented bulwark yes okay these hints are really yeah all right number five is the winner the winner i can't believe he won for this everyone's everyone's favorite movie from 1998 this is it was a movie that was like you know it's it's a british film it's in that british film zone of the 90s where they you know i feel like once a year yeah weinstein or or some fucking weinstein pretender would get his hands on some inspirational

british film yeah and just cram it down everyone's throats be like you'll never you won't believe how like charming this is surround i remember this is one of the very iconic this is like the movie that in your local newspaper would somehow get like three quarters of the page and it would be covered in quotes and stars and And you'd be like, I've never heard of this. And this is only playing at one theater in my city. Is this, is it the guy from waking that divine?

No, I mean a fair guess, but that would be a more charming thing. That would have been charming. I forgot this guy was in this movie. I've seen this movie. I could name like several other actors in it. I he's a famous actor.

I forgot he was in it. I certainly forgot. He won actors in it. I, he's a famous actor. I forgot he was in it. I certainly forgot. He won a golden globe. Wait a second. If you get this, wait a second. Did Michael Caine win best actor in a comedy for little voice? Yes.

Wow. Which isn't, he's undoubtedly, he's supporting. I was going to say, I wasn't even thinking about it. Cause he's supporting. Oh God. It's so weird. Like Travolta seems like kind of a slam dunk winner there. I wasn't even thinking about it because he's supporting.

It's so weird. Like Travolta seems like kind of a slam dunk winner there. You know what I mean? Like why, why were they like, you know what? Let's give it to Kane. It's also, it feels like, were he not trying so hard to prove that he was a serious actor, they would have put Carrie in comedy for Truman Show. Yeah.

Yes, but they campaigned that in drama. Which I get, but Truman Show is more of a comedy than, say, The Martian is. 100%, yeah. You could sell it

as a comedy. Who cares? Yeah. Jesus. I mean, Primary Colors, I mean, these are comedies, yes, but like, they're drama comedies.

But it's also just funny that Little Voice got Little Voice got actor, actress, but didn't get film or wasn't even nominated for film like patch adams made it to the big category but this little voice that got both of those performances did not even get the nod for its for itself as a film did little voice ultimately get a supporting actress nomination it got brenda blethen who gives a, I have no beef with Brenda Blethen, but who gives one of the worst performances of the 90s in that film.

And she snuck in because they had just given her the nom for Secrets and Lies, which she's good at. Yeah. And this is kind of a- Imagine having beef with Brenda Blethen. I love Brenda Blethen.

I have no beef. Wait, but Bobby, scroll down. My rap beef with Brenda Blethen ended years ago. Scroll down to the best original song noms. I gotta say,

an incredible lineup. Just one of the finest. You have the prayer rich witch run, reflection Christina Aguilera, uninvited from City of Angels, which was already brought up in this conversation. When you believe

the Whitney Houston Ryan Carey duet. Great year for best original song. Good list song good list good list yeah that's right this is also the year that

aging rocker comedy Still Crazy was nominated for best picture by the Golden Globe but like the weirdest thing and then we'll be done

we can do the box office game and then we'll be done but like the best actor nominees they carry over Hanks from private ryan mckellen from gods and monsters and nick nolte from affliction those three got globe knobs and then they add in edward norton from american history acts sort of surprising that the globe

snubbed him yeah and then roberto benigni is the winner why did the globe snub him he should be beating out michael caine right he was the flavor of the month. Yeah, are you kidding me? Here's the box office, Griffin, for December 18th, 1998. Is this her biggest hit? Does this end up being her highest grossing film? I believe this is her biggest hit. Yeah. Do you guys know?

I think, let me find out. It did 115 domestic. That's right. It made $250 million in worldwide. It must have been, yeah. I mean, which is another one of those things where people are like, ah, these rom-coms don't travel. It was a huge worldwide hit. Yeah, I know.

It's not like this movie was ignored elsewhere. Yeah, but a rom-com's not going to make a billion dollars. That's the dumb thing. I mean, it's that story of Disney wouldn't make a sequel to The Proposal because it didn't make enough for them, and it made $300 million. It made less than sleepless in

seattle domestic but more worldwide just to answer your question um all right so number one though it's you've got mail 18 million dollars number two is a movie we just mentioned it's a christmas animated film prince of egypt prince of egypt and this is this is december yeah okay what do you guys think of christmas eve We had Prince of Egypt. Even though Prince of Egypt is an Easter movie, it's a Passover movie. I love the Prince of Egypt.

Yeah, they were trying so hard to compete with Disney and Disney had been a summer film so they wanted to take It's no Rugrats Passover special

but it'll do. Prince of Egypt is yeah, one of the best is better than so many, so many Disney movies from that time period. That's true. And When You yeah, one of the best, is better than so many, so many Disney movies from that time period.

That's true. And When You Believe is one of the best songs ever. It's also quietly got the most stacked cast of any animated movie ever. Are you kidding me? Incredible cast. It's Cats and Bird calling in all the favors. Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock jeff tulban danny glover patrick stewart helen mirren steve martin martin short that's the that's them amazing i need to rewatch it i haven't

seen it since the came out the years i just they i guess they staged a production of it somewhere i don't know there's a new cast recording maybe it's coming to broadway but the cast recording's out and i listen to it it's good it's on Spotify. I recommend it. It's great. Number three, Griffin, as I imagine your favorite animated film of 1998. A Bug's Life. Correct. Although I need to re-watch Prince of Egypt,

but I think it's a Bug's Life. That movie fucks. It ruts its consciousness into me. Number four at the box office, and it's sort of crazy that this movie came out at Christmas. It was not a huge hit compared to... It's a sequel in a long, long, long running franchise. And because the last movie had done so well,

I think they were kind of emboldened to make this like a big deal release. Scream 2? And it's kind of bad. No, sci-fi franchise. Oh, it's Star Trek bad no sci-fi franchise it's oh oh it's um uh star trek insurrection that's right yeah where they're like okay first contact huge hit let's do one where it's like f murray abraham is a villain and he wants to do more plastic surgery he's got too many wrinkles it's a wrinkle thriller exactly and let's throw in like a patrick stewart donna murphy romantic plot like all the decisions they made you just like what were you

thinking this is the worst pivot anyway number five griffin is a christmas family comedy um that i feel like is now just best known as a horrifying internet meme um how to describe it's a bad meme now it stars one of your favorite actors oh yeah it starts a lot of my favorite actors oh yes this movie is a terror it is called jack frost with michael yes yes now do you know a fact about this movie uh i i know that he turns into a snowman uh i know that during in the trailer which i've seen like 400 times even though i've never seen this film at one point like some snowballs hit his snow snowman body and he has boobs and he's like i don't think so he goes like yeah um that movie

sucks that movie is a nightmare. That's what they should make people watch it. Abu grab. Uh, I do want to say, uh, that movie, the snowman is largely a practical effect and animatronic.

So they had to build it. He's a big weird puppet. A long time in advance. They spent a lot of money building this puppet, but they built it off of the likeness of the actor who was supposed to play the title role, who dropped out very late. God, you've told me this and i've forgotten who is it look at a picture of jack frost i know i know i'm looking at it now that is pointedly snowman george clooney it is meant to be george clooney oh my god how did george clooney ever consider being i know and i think

like even at the time after he finishes filming batman and robin he's like fuck i might need to get a little more selective in what i do right he's like clear the decks i'm only doing soderbergh and cohen movies for a few years that's one of the best fun facts i've ever done cluny should be paying Keaton like a wage still, like paying him because he got out of this movie. Yes. Like monthly, a monthly salary.

I think that's how Michael Keaton survived without making a film for the next 10 years. I think it was. Right. Clooney was just like, oh Jesus. Clooney was paying him in tequila and Nespresso or whatever he sells. Right, it was like Alamo or whatever.

It's George Clooney. Oh my God. Yes. It's crazy. And it's what he's like a rock musician who dies and then returns as a snowman. He's worse. He's like a,

like Bruce Willis style, Bruno, the kid, white man, a harmonica based blues musician. But it's also incredible because Michael Keatonaton has such a distinctive face that would be so easy to caricature on the snowman but instead he's got like the clooney chin the little button nose it's also just weird that that one batman threw it to another

and that keaton was already through the they lobbed the snowball at the other one yeah what is with the what is it what is with is with the genre of dads having to be dads despite crazy circumstances? Like, he wants to be a good dad. Like the Mothimo demon where the shitty father becomes a dog. Like, he wants to be a good dad, but he's a snowman. Like, how is he going to do it? He wants to be a good dad, but he's a dog. I'm forgetting who it is.

He wants to be a good dad, but he's Santa Claus. This is crazy. Griffin, I'm seeing that Jack Frost is 101 minutes long. It is long. That feels like an eternity. It's long. It's long. It's really long.

It's really fucking long. That movie should 100% be 73 minutes with credits. It's also weird that Keaton is already on a downturn at this point. He's probably the sixth lead in Jackieie brown it's great hey wait no no disrespect to the ray nicolette oh he's amazing in it but i'm saying he's not like his leading man bloom is like sort of off the rose at this point multiplicity is the end so for them to spend all this money building this snowman and just go like i don't know fucking michael keaton we just need to film we cannot swallow the money on this snowman um last last thing i want to say uh what we're talking about jack frost uh keaton uh uh fuck fuck fuck i was about to say something that

was funny what ray nicolette i don't know i might have lost it i might have lost it i'm gonna listen this episode i'm gonna scream at myself i had one really funny short anecdote to say that i think was adjacent to jack frost i can't remember it in the episode well why don't you play us out um and maybe while you're doing that it'll occur to you and as i'm doing that remind me of the things we were just talking about uh bobby and lindsey thank you for being on the show people should listen to who weekly one of the best thanks for having us we'll take any excuse to talk about You've Got Mail. It's the best.

Yeah, truly. We have our own. If you're a patron subscriber to Who Weekly, there's a full DVD commentary track of us just doing more bullshit talking over the film. That's a good selling point. Just saying. That's a good selling point.

Just saying. And follow both of you on Twitter, too. The best in the game. Why not? Yeah. Why not? This was really fun. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thanks, the best thing game. Why not? Yeah. This was really fun. Thanks guys.

Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah. You know, until our president outlaws both of you from tweeting personally. I pray he does every day. I love to be sweet, sweet release. And thank you all for listening. And please remember to rate and review, subscribe.

Thanks to you and for good for co-producing this show and doing our social media. Thank you to Rachel Jacobs for editing. Hell, Lee Montgomery for a theme song. Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for artwork. Go to blankies.right.com for some real nerdy shit. Go to patreon.com backslash blank check for our show.

Blank check special features where at this point we are covering the mentioned impossible movies. And as David said, I think right around this time, we'll be doing a special episode on hanging up Diane Keaton's one feature film directing credit. A movie where my sister just texted me and said, how is it possible that there is a movie starring Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan,

Lisa Kudrow written by the Efron sisters directed by Keaton. And I've never heard of it. And I said, because it's that movie, it is the only version of that movie that you would have never heard of. It's a weird one. We'll talk about it. Were you about to say something,

Bobby, you had your finger pointed up. Oh, it was, I was waiting until the episode was over. Oh, is it over? Tune in next week for lucky numbers.

Do you want to announce the guest? Uh, we almost certainly know who it is, but I don't want to say it just because in case anything goes wrong. Okay. But I think people will be very happy with it. Very on brand, uh, uh, anything goes wrong. Okay, great. But I think people will be very happy with it. Very on brand. A favorite guest returning.

And as always, Dave Chappelle is Tom Hanks' best friend. But I was also very tempted to do... Starbucks? No. What is that? What is that? What are you doing? You're taking all the podcast?

That podcast is a garnish. I was between those two.