The Big Picture - ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ and the Steve Martin Hall of Fame

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Sean and Amanda break down a pair of big franchise releases—‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ and ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ (1:00). They then share their thoughts on the new Steve Martin documentary ‘Steve!’ (30:00) and build the Steve Martin Hall of Fame (49:00). Finally, Sean is joined by the director of said documentary, Morgan Neville, to discuss picking a subject, building rapport with that subject, and how he chooses projects (1:40:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Morgan Neville Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nathan Hubbard! Spring has sprung, the birds are chirping, and the pop girls are pop-girling. Oh, and you know what that means, Nora Princiati. Every single album is back! This spring is packed with new releases from some of the biggest pop stars in the world, including our girl Taylor Swift, and we'll be covering it all. We'll of course break down every angle on the Tortured Poets department, and we'll also cover new music from Beyoncé, Dua Lip maggie rogers casey musgraves and ariana grande it's pop girl spring on every single album new episodes starting march 28th on spotify or wherever you get your podcasts I'm King Kong.

I'm Godzilla. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Steve Martin. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Morgan Neville, the director of Steve, a documentary about the life of the legendary stand-up comedian, movie star, author, playwright, banjo player, Steve Martin. You know Morgan's work from the Oscar-winning 20 Feet from Stardom, his portraits of Orson Welles, Anthony Bourdain, Mr. Rogers, among many other hallowed, unusual pop cultural figures.

Morgan, one of the most insightful and kindest filmmakers around. I hope you'll stick around for our conversation. We'll talk about Steve. We'll build Steve Martin's Hall of Fame on this episode later in the hour, but Amanda, I've been out. I've been sick. A lot's been happening in the world of movies. Amanda, I've been out. I've been sick. A lot's been happening in the world of movies.

Do you want to do the 10-second recap of how you're doing now? People are concerned. A very interesting smattering of replies. And what we have learned recently from the United Kingdom

is that you want to give some information. Yes. So that speculation doesn't go awry. Yeah. I mean, you and I have toddlers, so we do get sick

from time to time, much more so than when I was an adult without a child. My daughter was wildly sick in the week running up to a trip to New York. She got me sick, as happens. I got on a plane. When I got on the plane, my body was like, you fucking fool. And I picked up, I don't know, a whole host of contagions, infections.

But I had no speaking voice for four full days, as you may hear on this show. Not totally back yet, but I'm getting there. And I appreciate all the kind words. The people who had not kind words, that's just weird. I honestly don't know what the vibe is there. But anybody who had a nice thing to say, I appreciate it. Happy to be back doing the show. Very happy to be back in the time of Godzilla Kong. Same. This is the movie sensation of the year, maybe more so than Dune Part 2.

I don't know if we made like $200 million over the weekend. I did not see that coming. I saw it a few weeks ago at a screening. I'm excited to talk to you about it because you and I talked about Godzilla versus Kong in 2021 in the hallowed pandemic days. That was actually one of the surprise hits of that time, even though it was a day and date movie. Remember, I saw that movie at a drive-in and I was like, this is pretty fun. I think I watched it at home and still had a great time.

You enjoyed it. I remember you enjoyed all the punching. Yeah. This movie, this is the second movie in the Monsterverse series directed by Adam Wingard, director who I've always had a lot of time for. Chris, Ryan and I, huge fans of his. He directed You're Next. He directed The Guest. He was a really big genre killer. And he's now thrown himself headlong into the monster verse. A lot of notable things

about this movie. Is this a great film? Will this go up there with Oppenheimer, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so either. And I would say in particular, the third act is, to quote you, quite poor. Quite poor, yeah.

But five minutes into this movie, I was like, oh, sick. I love these movies. I don't care. I just don't care. It was so dumb. And I have no time for the magic moth or whatever. Mothra.

Mothra? Mothra? Mothra is the character, yes. This is a canonical Godzilla character, yes. Okay, say more. Well, these movies are doing an interesting thing. Maybe this is a chance to talk about it. So these are American productions. Legendary, the big production company,

has the rights to these characters. They've been making these movies since 2014, since the Gareth Edwards Godzilla movie. And so they're using the kind of Toho Japanese brand of Godzilla movies, which started in 1950, but really had this kind of boom time in like the 60s and 70s, where they're making these like schlocky, but amazingly fun, like man gets in monster costume and flies around and punches each other kind of movies. I love those movies. There's an amazing Criterion box set of all of those movies. They're super fun.

But there's been something interesting about Americans trying to make these movies where they want to have this kind of fealty to these characters like Mothra, which is a very kind female character, a kind of non-violent monster character in the Monsterverse, but just kind of wedged into this movie because people are like, I fucking love Mothra. Is it because you don't like bugs? What's the issue here? Well, I do also think they're fealty to whatever.

I'm assuming some of the mythology of Hollow Earth and the tribe that protects. The Iwi. The Iwi, right. I don't think any of that stuff is canonical. I can't recall. Yeah, that just all felt a little bit like we got to make a sequel and we got to jam some more monsters in here and also fill out this absolutely pointless story,

which up until then was basically just Rebecca Hall doing Amanda's science corner. Which was like incredible. The first 20 minutes is monsters running around and then Rebecca Hall in like fake Fox News being like, We discovered a second dimension of the Earth called Hollow Earth, where King Kong can live happily and Godzilla will live on the surface. And as long as the portal does not open up, we have nothing to worry about. And that's, I mean, Bob, like maybe you should play Amanda's Science Corner because that is literally the science. And it's so dumb. Welcome to Amanda Dobbins' Science Corner. And I love it so much.

And then they just fight for a while in their respective homes. There's been an interesting thing in all of the Monsterverse movies, which is they get these incredible actors in these movies. John Goodman, Brie Larson were in the Kong movie. You know, you had Bryan Cranston and Julia Binoche in the original Godzilla movie, in addition to Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor Johnson. In these more recent movies, you had Alexander Skarsgård, you had Millie Bobby Brown, you had Aiza Gonzalez, Lance Reddick, the late Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, Damian Bashir.

Back for this movie, you've got Rebecca Hall, one of the most celebrated actors of her generation. Brian Tyree Henry, one of the best actors of his generation. You've got Dan Stevens having a shitload of fun. Like really top shelf, great movie presences. And they get very little to do and they get killed very quickly or they're just exposition machines.

Yes. But because the show is the monster, right? So like it's one of the most transparent paycheck situations in modern movies right now. Like, if you take a job in a movie like this, it is only for the money. Yeah. And frankly, that's fine. That's fine.

I got no beef with that. But it's really funny when you have to read, like, this quite serious scientific expositional dialogue. Which also just makes no sense because then she spends a lot of time talking about, well, Kong is actually a social creature. And so he's really lonely in Hollow Earth. And meanwhile, Godzilla hates everyone. But is, like, trapped on surface Earth because he has to, like, eat all the nuclear radiation to protect us.

Which we appreciate. We do. But. We like to say thank you to Godzilla. But it is, yeah, underappreciated. Which we'll come back to. But it is sort of like a, what if you guys had just put the solitary creature in Hollow Earth and let King Kong have some fun with his friends.

Great take. You're cooking. On surface Earth. Love it. And then also. This is like Stephen A. I love it. Then also.

Put Godzilla in Hollow Earth. Let the monkeys roam on Earth. You don't have to wreck the fucking pyramids in order to get Godzilla down to Hollow Earth to solve the problem which is ultimately what happens because it's really only Godzilla that can save the day so sorry let's just go right into this yeah we had a text exchange on Friday you saw the film it became no no no no no and I'll be really honest and people might get mad but I also think that people misunderstand the experience of cinema in 2024.

You and I had a text message during my 3 p.m. Thursday showing of Godzilla vs. Kong. I was sitting in the very back. There were two other people in the theater sitting in front of me. My brightness was turned down, and I had some thoughts that I wanted to share with you from the very, very first premiere showing of Godzilla Kong. And just in case anyone's wondering, the X is silent. The X is silent. It's Godzilla Kong colon the new empire. Why don't we just do a dramatic reenactment of our text exchange?

Because I think these were some salient thoughts that were shared here. Okay, let me pull it up. But anyone being like Yerba smmirching the sanctity of cinema is like you you don't understand uh the world right now and also you definitely don't understand these movies because i had the best time and it was a lot of fun yeah the second act in particular is a lot of fun right okay so this is thursday 3 36 p.m i went to landmark my favorite theater in pasadena. Everyone's so nice there. Still never been.

Love it. It's wonderful. I'm a Landmark member now, so I can take you. Good for you. But they only have 10 minutes of previews, also. So this is about 26 minutes into the movie. Okay. And I think it's when Godzilla's very lonely in Hollow Earth. Kong.

Oh, I'm sorry. Kong is very lonely in Hollow Earth. And Godzilla has just saved Rome from a giant spider thing. Yes. But everyone's worried about Godzilla. Everyone's worried about Kong. No one knows what Godzilla's up to. And so I just texted you, why can't Godzilla and Kong be friends? And I said,

I was hoping we could explore how their relationship resembles ours. Always there for you if you need me, but we have some disagreements. Also, like me, Godzilla loves a European vacation while you live alone beneath the earth. That is accurate.

Kong is the king, though. Godzilla won an Oscar and slept at the coliseum but kong had a cavity because he gets to eat what he wants okay and we're entering spoiler territory now even though i texted you this before it actually happened but it was pretty clear what was gonna happen oh you pre you yeah but it was very obviously it was very and listen as godzilla i knew what was coming right i hate when I have to cut my trip short to help you defeat the Scar King. Yeah, but you got to meet my little buddy Kong.

And then I said, miss me with this dragonfly, though. And I just wrote asterisk moth. It really looks, it looks more like a dragonfly. I understand, but it is. Please respect Mothra. Yeah, I mean, you're Godzilla and I'm King Kong. Like, there's just no, it's, I've never seen us more deeply in two characters than in those two characters in this movie. It's really, really true.

Godzilla is just going... Yeah, only in Europe, right? Because first, he's in Rome. Or she's in Rome, I should say. I don't know why I'm gendering it. Interesting. And, you know, and there is some sort of just... You know, the powerful woman has to come in and save the day.

Never understood, never appreciated. Sort of the Hillary Clinton of the monster. Yeah, totally. So then she takes a nap in the Coliseum, like you do. Yep. Only the finest accommodations. Then she goes to France for a while some there's some nuclear activities that she's gotta calm down you know just always putting out other people's fires then this is truly how you

see yourself then i mean and just like alone you know and it's just like you guys didn't fucking think ahead so now i have to eat all the radiation. And then Greenland, Iceland, which I don't know about their European status, like, EU status right now, but, you know, still same hemisphere. Okay. And there's, like, a, I don't know, a shark. What was that creature?

It's, like, the teffia. It's an underwater creature. Yeah, I prefer warmer water, so I, like, wasn't totally paying attention during that. And then King Kong lures her to Cairo. And I have always wanted to see the pyramids. So I was actually very, very upset when they just crushed them all. Yeah.

Godzilla is a messy bitch. Let's be honest about this. Yeah. Godzilla is like messy bitch. Like, let's be honest about this. Yeah. Like, Godzilla is like, no problem, I'll just destroy the pyramids. Right. Well, she's powerful.

She is powerful. So... The single best thing in this movie, I'm pretty certain this takes place at the pyramids. The single best thing that happens in this movie is Kong and Godzilla are getting into it, right? Yeah. They're having a little slap fight.

Which is the only thing that we want from this movie. And we love to watch them punch each other in the face. It's wonderful. And Godzilla gets into the power position, and Godzilla straight up suplexes King Kong. And it's the funniest thing I've ever seen. It is a perfect perpendicular suplex. We get Kong's feet straight up in the air,

right down on his back. It was like a Bret Hart executed this. It was beautiful. I loved it. And so, but that's all a ruse to slurp Godzilla into the hollow world because they need her help down there. And this is also, you know, I related to, like, people having to set elaborate traps to, like, convince me to do what they need me to do. But it was fine.

I went ahead and did that. And then, but then there's this whole other uh ape uh community yes right down below in hollow earth yeah hollow earth yeah which kong has discovered in his journeys and he has had some some differences with he's had some battles with right he he makes a kind of little diddy kong friend but that kong friend originally is an enemy and then he uses him as a weapon funniest scene in the movie yeah and then he encounters encounters this culture led by Skar King. Right. Who is a very powerful giant ape who has a whip with a crystal of power at the end of it.

Never seen anything quite like this. And then also has been keeping another Godzilla, Ice Godzilla. An ice dragon, yes. Under lock and key for centuries. And this is when... This is a complicated film. So this is when it got a little bit away from Oscar tier actors saying nonsense so that monsters could punch each other. So to me, this was the innovation of the

movie now i think some people might think that this is just like brain dead moron ip stuff and in some ways it is but in another way it was just a silent film for like 30 minutes we were just with the monsters yeah having their battle with who were nonverbal for a huge, the longest stretch of time I can remember in a movie like this. That was like kind of a bold creative stroke. Now, obviously it's a silly movie, but I, when we halfway through, I was like, this was a mistake. And then at the end I was like, that was fucking cool. So a crucial thing though, because halfway through for the first part,

once they get Godzilla down there and Kong's down there, and you got all your skar king followers and you got the ice dragon and then you have the eewee have who have like a crystal pyramid yep and they're using gravity and i didn't understand why but brian tyree henry just kept yelling gravity yes um also caster that he is also part of the science corner extended universe so they but they fight for a while in hollow earth which is video game land and then eventually they get up to regular earth again yes and at some point it's and they also kind of remove the extraneous characters so once again it's just two big monsters and i couldn't even tell you was who was it was it ice godzilla and

king kong fighting each other yeah up top at the end yes but then got regular godzilla and then godzilla shows up right and then right it's a four-way battle right which is like a i'm a little bit confusing because once ice godzilla is is defrosted then you're like is that good godzilla or bad godzilla but he turned because he was on held under the sway of scar king with his with his crystal of power yeah but like it was two monkeys versus two dragons basically that was what we had right but then you i mean you know how it's gonna work out anyway once they were out of video game land and in the real world, and just the monsters fighting each other. You just went to plot synopsis town.

This is amazing. Well. I can't remember a single time when you've done this on the podcast. But for this film, you were like, let's detail each step of each act of this movie. Well, I still don't really, I don't understand part of the third. That's the thing, is that it was very muddy and overcomplicated and lots of competing mythologies and yelling about gravity but not explaining gravity and i was like what i want is monsters punching each other like i just we need to go back to that and at the end of that silent film act they are just back to the four monsters punching each other yes and that was like a lot better in my opinion so it's like

the bet kind of pays off but and and I liked the little the little Kong. He had big Knox energy in my opinion. He did. Didn't he? He did. Yeah. Wow. I mean, that's that's troubling, though, because I'm Kong.

What does that mean? I'm not sure. That's confusing. Nevertheless, a couple of other things I liked about this movie. Kong does, in fact, get a cavity and Dan Stevens removes his tooth. Yeah. And then implants a kind of metal tooth, a filler. And the filling becomes an object of derision from Skar King. When it becomes clear that he's, you know, interacted with the human

world and that he's had a tooth replaced, somehow he becomes more of an outsider like that storyline. Rebecca Hall selling Volkswagensagens that was an incredible product shot i'm so glad you remember that because i was just like i didn't know volkswagen had gotten into this game it happens immediate in the immediate aftermath of a very emotional conversation between rebecca hall and her adopted daughter who is an ewe woman who is very connected to the hollow world and everything that's happening very connected to king kong king kong and they have this and it's sort of ultimately the the princess who was promised she is and she's deaf mythology they communicate via sign language right and they have this heartful conversation about you know when i'm with

you we're together and that that's everything to me and then the it's a hard cut to a glamour shot of a volkswagen like a volkswagen golf i don't even knowour shot of a Volkswagen, like a Volkswagen Golf. I don't even know what it is. And it looks like a car commercial. Like it doesn't look like a shot in a movie. It has like, it has serious Barbie car chase energy to it. And I just got to say to any car company people who are listening, you guys got to trust the real cinematographers.

You know, this is not... They want their cars to look a certain way. I understand, but it just doesn't look right. I thought the car looked good. I would drive it. I know, but it didn't look good in the... It stood out. Yeah. Are you the type of person who goes to see Godzilla Kong, the new empire, and then it's like, hmm, I should also get a Volkswagen.

These are subtextual choices that filmmakers are making i mean they're trying to incept upon you oh yeah i have seen this volkswagen before yeah but they in another time when you forgot about it that's what i'm saying it's like it was obvious to car commercials so they you know the car company's got to let go if they want to get the inception what would you give this movie in a 1 out of 10 scale? In terms of like going to the movies? Yeah. 5?

It's like a 6.2. Yeah, 5, 6. Yeah, I had a lot of fun. Get a lot of candy. Get a big soda. I got the giant, like the popcorn soda combo, you know,

that immediately upgrades you to a large. And then I actually had to ask them to like not fill the bucket all the way up. I was just like that would be wasteful. Too gluttonous. No, not even too gluttonous. I was just like I can't actually eat that full bucket of popcorn and I don't want to have to throw it out.

So can you just give me like... Are you on a landmark payroll? I would love to be. Should I speak to the landmark people when I go to CinemaCon next week? Yes. Okay. See what they're up to? They're doing great. The Pasadena Theater is so lovely. I'm an AMC guy.

Yeah, I know. And I understand that you like to have your Dolby and you like to have your IMAX. But what I really like to have is a pleasant time at the cinema. They have churros. They have a cheesecake. That's disgusting. You would bring a cheesecake into a movie theater? That's insane.

It doesn't smell. It's not the smell. It's just weird to be eating cake. It's sort of like theaters and airplanes to me. It's sort of like you got to watch the smell is the number one issue in the food that you're bringing in. But cheesecake doesn't smell.

There's just something about dairy in the movies that just isn't right to me. That's you projecting your anti-dairy, you know, crusade on the rest of us. Do they make a cheesecake with like oat milk? Tofu? Yes, they do. I don't want tofu, no. I want like an almond milk cheesecake. I'm sure they do. Okay. I'm going to look into that. I think sometimes they use like a lot of coconut milk. Okay. I'm a little more dubious of that. Okay. You want to talk about Ghostbusters Frozen Empire? Yeah. I mean, it's aious of that. Okay. You want to talk about Ghostbusters Frozen Empire? Yeah. I mean, it's a good, it's a good contrast to, which I also saw at the landmark

Pasadena. I was the only person in the theater. I was at a very crowded screening of Ghostbusters Frozen Empire before I got sick. You know, these two movies are funny to talk about together. One, they both have empire in their title for some godforsaken reason. That's just really weird that they both chose the word empire in their subtitle. They were both semi surprising successes of legacy IP brand extensions from 2021. Yeah. The Ghostbusters movie is a sequel to the Jason Reitman reboot of the Paul Feig reboot of the original Ghostbusters duo of films from the 80s. This movie did not do quite as well at the box office in its opening weekend or in its second weekend as Godzilla Kong.

It's directed by Gil Keenan. Reitman co-wrote the screenplay of this one. And this movie also has an insane cast and roughly 300 characters. Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, McKenna Grace, Celeste O'Connor, and Logan Kim all from Afterlife, and then Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and William Atherton from the original films,

plus they added Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Emily Allen Lind, and James Acaster. This movie's set two years after the events of Afterlife. You saw Afterlife, right? We talked about it briefly on the show. We went together. Did we? Yeah. I don't remember that. Yeah, because remember, I think the green guy's really funny. Oh, Slimer. Yeah, you love Slimer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slimer gets a look in this one, too. But honestly, not enough of one, which is one of my complaints. In this movie, the veteran Ghostbusters must join forces with their new recruits to save the world in New York

City from a death-chilling god who seeks to build a spectral army. That's the story. Yeah. That's very similar to the story of the 80s Ghostbusters movies. This is a wildly shameless like a sequel reboot extension. I did not think it was very good. No. I don't think it's like atrocious. It's got like a ton of very, very talented people in it. So you're just like, all right, I'm just like with Kumail. This is fine. Yeah. You know, like I like Kumail.

I like Kumail. And Bill Murray and Kumail have one scene together, which is just like two comedians being absurd about Ghostbusters stuff. And I was like, this is the most disconnected scene from the movie and also my favorite because that's kind of what I want from Ghostbusters. And it is what the first Ghostbusters is. subplot is the most successful part of the movie and also respectfully i just like don't really want teenagers in my ghostbusters well this was a problem in the first one yeah which is mckenna grace and logan cam were kind of the key figures in that first one and it's all about mckenna grace and finn wolfhard who played brother and sister they were descendants of the spangler family the

late egon spangler they inherit this farm, and then ghosts start showing up. And, like, I understand that, like, Jason Reitman's, like, eternal project is to uphold the nuclear family forever. But, and listen, I also enjoy my nuclear family, but, like, I don't know. I kind of just want funny people being stupid. Yeah, I mean, Ghostbusters is not premised upon the nuclear family. It's premised upon these four guys who get thrown together who are like some are friends some are just working together they've got a daffy secretary they're fighting against the mayor like it's a it's a buddy workplace comedy right and it has somehow devolved into this kind of gloopy story that has a lot of

ghost busting i thought the ghost busting was kind of subpar if i'm being honest not my favorite they sideline slimer he just had to live in the attic and eat uh they silenced slimer and I thought the ghostbusting was kind of subpar if I'm being honest not my favorite ghostbusting they sidelined Slimer he just had to live in the attic and eat they silenced Slimer and they and he ate

like a haunted pizza yep which you know that was a good effect that was good but like otherwise he doesn't get to do anything I thought

Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon were very funny like they're wonderful I like being around them this scene from the trailer when they're just, like, doing the Ghostbusters song, very funny. Also, I did think to myself several times during my viewing experience that, you know, this is upholding the history of cinema in its own way. Because this is money that is going to Carrie Coon.

Oh, that's right. That is covering, hopefully, living expenses that would not be covered by the money going to the greatest individual film library that we know of. Yes. So, in Tracy Letts' extensive physical DVD collection. And Carrie Coon has been talking about how, you know, these people are saving cinema. So, while I still don't get physical media,

I, you know, i'm happy that that family is making money and putting it to good use let's just say i'm happy as well yeah uh did you read the piece in the guardian about physical media you know i know you were quoted in it you skipped it stuff it's just like, with all respect. To whom? To everyone else in that piece. Like, I get enough of it here. Tim Simons is quite a piece as well.

Oh, that's nice. I saw Tim at the farmer's market the other day. Oh, nice. Yeah, he's the man. I love Tim. Met his kids too. I just, I do feel like personally, I am on the ground, ground you know by sitting here across from you regularly and hearing about you're in the trenches what you're doing you're acknowledging the movement

yeah okay um are you respecting the movement no okay um but i'm like deeply psychoanalyzing it uh and you know i think preserving cinema is great men would rather gather thousands of pieces of plastic than go to therapy. Is that what you're saying? Sort of. Okay. Yes. Yeah.

But that's... I'm way ahead of you. That's cool. Yeah, I got it all mapped out. Okay. It's all part of a plan. Great. Yeah, Ghostbusters number five is...

It's fine. It's like, it's okay. I didn't really like it. Also, it seemed like... There's a huge number of movies like this coming out this year. We got so many legacy extension brand sequels coming out this year. Right. It's a little like we're already...

We've swallowed three already. And how many more do we need? It's not a question of need. You're right. It's a question of have to deal with yes on a weekly basis on this show it also just didn't have like that they didn't even play the music with gusto at the end they played it but it wasn't exciting do you think when ray parker jr wrote busting makes me feel good do you like was it a double entendre or did he know what he was doing? Like, did he know I'm a poet?

Or was he just like, this is a jam? And ghostbusting, in fact, makes Peter Venkman feel good. I like to think that he, someone, if not Ray Parker Jr. himself, was like aware of the joke. You know, because that is like sort of an essential quality of the original Ghostbusters is that people are aware of the joke, you know? Because that is, like, sort of an essential quality of the original Ghostbusters is that people are aware of the jokes. In this movie, I don't really think, they're not aware of all the jokes. They're aware of finding feelings

through artifacts. Okay. But... I missed freaky Sigourney Weaver in this movie. That would have been a nice thing to have had. I mean, Sigourney Weaver is always a nice addition to a movie. I gotta point something out.

You know who I thought brought it to is Dan Aykroyd, who's clearly just an absolute weirdo, and Ghostbusters originates with him and a lot of his ideas. And his original take on Ghostbusters was that it should be like a serious drama about paranormal activity and not a movie about goofy guys fighting ghosts. Overgrown men, yeah. But man, he always comes to play there's the scenes early in the movie where kumail's trying to sell him like a bag of junk from his grandmother's house and akroyd is locked in and i just appreciate his efforts that's true oh we didn't talk about podcast the character yeah logan kim's character who is back and basically is relegated to a basement where all the tiny marshmallow men are replicating at a rapid pace.

That was my least favorite part of Afterlife, so great that they brought that back. Oh, podcast? No, all the little Stay Puft marshmallow men. Oh, I don't mind them. It was just the most like, hey, remember this thing from the old thing? Here's a new thing that's like the new thing that's like the old thing. But at least they're cute. Are they?

And funny. I don't know. Like them smashing against stuff, to me, is a lot funnier than 60% of. But, you know, I'm. It's just like cut-rate gremlin stuff to me. I'm like, I saw this 40 years ago. We're good. All right.

Sorry. I'm just putting that out there. Okay. Steve Martin? Big fan. Did you watch Steve, the documentary? I did. I watched both parts.

So, this is a four-hour documentary about Steve Martin on Apple TV+. Not a lot of people have Apple TV+. I don't know how seen this has been. If you even like Steve Martin, I would highly encourage you to watch this. It is a very expansive telling of his mythology. I thought we could both share our histories with Steve Martin. I have a very elaborate relationship to him. Why don't you go first?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's generous. We jokingly, I think on the Babylon Pod, it was like they keep making documentaries about relationship to him. Why don't you go first? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's generous. I'm joking. I think on the Babylon pod, it was like, they keep making documentaries

about all my guys. Yeah. Like, they keep making these huge. I think what you said was, he is one of the most instrumental forces on my personality.

Helped shape my personality. Yeah. Yeah. He did. So, I would say, which actually does track,. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He did. So... Which actually does track, but continue. Well, when we were kids,

Three Amigos, Parenthood, Father of the Bride, there were a handful of movies that came out that were big, mainstream hits that we loved.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Like, you know, when we're six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, figuring out movies, those movies, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, he's got a run in the 80s to the early 90s

of just all time, basically like family classics that are perfect movies to watch with your parents. And so that's an entry point for us, which is very different, I think, for a lot of people. If you're in your 60s or 70s, you came upon him differently than if you came upon him. If you're 25 now, maybe he's a little cheaper by the dozen, you know, or the Pink Panther or something like that. So he's got this massive career arc. But when I was a kid, and I recognize that this makes me sound like a

serial killer, like Joker stand-in, but I was super into magic and I was super into stand-up comedy. I thought they were both really fascinating when I was like 10, 11, 12. And I already knew who Steve Martin was. And I discovered as I was like researching the history of comedy and getting interested in it, watching like HBO comedy half hours and hours, that Steve Martin at a time was the most successful standup comic in America. Maybe the most successful standup comic in the world to that point,

which seemed strange relative to what his onscreen persona was, which was very dad-like, sort of avuncular, a little goofy, but not the guy from the 1970s. So at my library, I would always rent movies and obviously take out books. And I was a voracious reader and a voracious renter of movies. And they also had CDs there and could rent CDs. And they had his three key comedy albums there to rent. So I would rent Let's Get Small or Wild and Crazy Guy or all these albums. And, you know, when I was 10, 11, 12, my parents split up.

So I would always go to my dad's every two weeks. And I fucking hated it. It was so boring. Right. And the house, the new house is never set up properly. It was not set up. It's really depressing. It's not good for kids.

It's like, you know, a set of four bowls. Yes. I've got two siblings. Yeah. I had a, my stepmom's sister was the same age as us so she was always there

playing with my sister. My brother was younger than me. I was like, you know, moody teenager, wanted to be alone and I would just listen to these records

over and over and over again which is what a lot of people did in the 70s when they were coming out when he was this massive star and I was like addicted to these comedy records. Like did you have them memorized? Start to finish. In fact, I'm almost sure that one night when i was like addicted to these like did you have them memorized start to finish in fact i'm almost sure that one night when i was like 12 i performed the entire record for my my dad and my

stepmom and my siblings and for the first 10 minutes they were like this kid is sick and needs to go to an institution and then by the end they're like that was impressive um which is a story that you hear about a lot of comedians when they're growing up. Did you make tickets? No. I had a phase. I mean, not for stand-up comedy. It was more, you know, musical theater. Okay.

What was your show of choice? No, no, no. Original compositions. Oh, wow. Or maybe they were plays with like a dance element, you know? I mean, having just heard you recap Godzilla vs. Kong, yeah, that makes sense. There were tickets, you know, it would be like bungee cords with a blanket like draped over it for the curtain, that sort of situation. And often just me, you know, because I was an only child, which is pretty sad.

No, I look back on it now and I'm like, sure, that's easy to make fun of. What a clown we must have been. Yeah. But this is why we are where we are. Like, we were obsessed with this stuff and we got interested in it and we stuck to it. Anyhow, if you listen to stuff like this over and over again, like it seeps into your bloodstream, you start to like figure out a tonality that feels,

like you feel close to that you get, that you really understand. Steve Martin's standup comedy, I think would probably sound weird to people now if they listened to it, given that we've had 50 plus years of comedy since then, but he had a kind of anti-irony, blowhard showbiz persona, a kind of absurdity, ridiculousness, a kind of non-punchline, punchline form of comedy that just spoke deeply to me, that I just thought was like the coolest thing i'd ever heard i barely even knew what he looked like then except for the the pictures right cds i wasn't watching video there was no youtube there was no way to access

this except for this cd that i would that i would take out which is so funny because so much of his comedy and even a lot of the stand-up stuff is very physical very visual he was a prop comic in a lot of ways. He was a magician. The face. Yeah, the goofy face. He was playing the banjo. All this stuff that he would do on stage.

So for the records to be so big is unusual. Nevertheless, I loved it. That ultimately led to me going down a deep dive with his entire career.

I've always loved him. It's been kind of sad for me to watch the last 20 years of his movie career because he kind of gave up. He stopped caring about it. He got much more interested in writing his novels and writing his plays and he's a world famous art collector and he's just been moved out of the thing that I care about most even though he was instrumental in getting me interested in it in the first place

so I love him has he come up more than two or three times on this podcast in seven years? Probably not, though he really was so influential. It's such an influential part of movies for both of us, which is, but you're right that it is kind of siloed off. And so, you know, I probably start with Three Amigos for a Minute. I've since seen the earlier stuff but that classic you know america's like goofy dad vibe that he did from what like 89 through 2013 2013 yeah um is like seared into my brain but i really i i because i was not a stand-up comedy nerd I had some knowledge of I mean listen like excuse me is something that we all said to each other in elementary school without knowing oh my god I was like why are you unbuttoning your shirt but you're wearing your excuse me

t-shirt I'm wearing my Steve Martin excuse me that was like really really upsetting for like half a second until I saw that you were showing me a logo shirt. Don't worry. But like I had a physical reaction of like what's happening. You know, and wild and crazy guys. You know, like, you know, my. The catchphrases. Yeah.

And I have realized that Steve Martin was probably like very big with my dad because my dad does the Mac the Knife bit. Oh. And I had not realized that that was like a Steve Martin thing until I watched the first part of this documentary, which is, it's called The Then. Is that right? And it's entirely about his 70s stand-up, like, comedian rise to fame. And it's like a whole other life that I did not really know about and, like, was not around for.

So you have not read Born Standing Up? No, I haven't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in, I want to say 10 years ago, maybe a little more than that, Steve Martin wrote a memoir, a very interesting memoir, that chronicled only his childhood and specifically his rise to fame as a stand-up star. And it basically ends when he abruptly quits comedy because he feels he has accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. It's widely considered one of the best entertainer memoirs ever written.

I mean, he also is a very, very gifted writer unto himself. But he's got, you could see in that book, a kind of sensitivity, sensitivity a thoughtfulness a vulnerability that you hear about in comedians all the time you know I said like comedians are always like the sad clown and people who are kind of have these unresolved feelings but he had a kind of maturity to the way that he expressed himself and so the first half of this Morgan Neville documentary is chronicling very closely what's in that book and when I talked to Morgan he was like you know it's kind of a Bible. But also getting to talk to Steve now, many years after having written the book, too, is really revelatory.

The movie does a really good job, though, of showing us all that stuff that I was listening to. Yes, exactly. And so I think, you know, I was aware of the stand-up stuff. And obviously, like, some of the bits, you know, have traveled down pop culture. But just to actually see for an hour and a half, just see the bits you know have traveled down pop culture but just to actually see for an hour and a half just see the the bits it is you hear steve martin's voice but from like in present day reflecting on it but you never see him it's all archival and or comics that he's written explaining the experience which there's one thing i would really recommend to people if

they love steve martin and don't know there's like a DVD set called Steve Martin the TV stuff I think is the name of it and it's a collection of a couple of his stand-up specials a bunch of his appearances on talk shows you know on network television back then you would have like one-off variety hour specials he appeared on those all the time he got to start like writing for the Smothers Brothers he knew how to do all that stuff really well commercials like there's all kinds of stuff on that collection, that box set. It's very weird. But from 1971 to 1977, he did so much that otherwise would have been lost to time if it wasn't saved by this stuff. The movie puts some of that stuff in, but not even, it barely scratches the surface.

But it shows you the energy that you're talking about. Right. you the energy that you're talking about right and also you know it does use his journals and i suppose a lot from his memoir to kind of paint a psychological portrait of him at that time and his comedy um that also sets up part two i think very beautifully so i guess you could watch them independently if you wanted to but um it was i watched it with Zach and we were both huge Steve Martin people who really just hadn't seen a lot of this comedy stuff because we weren't checking things out from the library. God bless 12-year-old you. And also we weren't invited to your one-man show. That would be incredible.

How much money do you think you could raise if you... Just did his act? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously some copyright issues, but maybe he wouldn't care. I would need his sign-off, I think, to do Let's Get Small in its entirety. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just, like, I would pay a lot of money. Yeah, I mean, I probably could recite The Cruel Shoes from start to finish right now.

I wouldn't do it. But if people haven't listened to this stuff, it's worth exploring just as an artifact. The second half of the movie, though, is this unusual thing where it is simultaneously a snapshot of this amazing movie career, right? The movies are kind of the center of the storytelling. But what it really is is a kind of contemporary examination of a pretty sad guy working through and like getting to the other side of his depression yeah but but like also a very very lovely movie about like a guy who figured it out he did he figured it out he figured it out and like a large and also why it's like it's very sweet that it mirrors you because like he got married he has a daughter. And he's just, like, obsessed with them. I mean, I thought about it.

And so much of his humor and the first part of the documentary is, like, emotionally closed off. Yes. And that is a part of, like, what's funny about it. And then his movies start exploring this like more sentimental side. But part of the magic of them is that like the movies themselves are very sentimental. And he even has moments of sentimentality in them. But there is this kind of like distance from it. He says this fascinating thing, which is that like he almost realizes that he knows how to be and wants to be a father by constantly playing fathers in

movies. And, you know, his movie career is more or less split between these zany comedies that start with the jerk and then go through roughly the mid-80s. And then he takes on that fatherly persona that you're talking about. It's almost like a person in complete arrested development for a long period of time. You know, he's looking for love. He's got this massive complex about approval from his father. The way he was raised, his relationship to his dad is super complicated. A very common story about baby boomer men. Right. You know, who'd never really find a way to connect to their dad to get the approval of

their parents. And it hangs with him for a long time. You know, I felt a little bit of self-association, like watching him get married, find the right person, have a daughter. And then he'sation, like watching him get married, find the right person, have a daughter. And then he's like, oh my God, this is actually,

and now he's like wildly rich, successful, accomplished, beloved. I mean, he's like in the rare 100% approval rating. Like who doesn't like Steve Martin? It's, I mean,

I don't know, but there is also, you know, another like sweet minor subplot is his relationship with Martin Short. Yes. Who he tours with now and obviously he does

only Murders in the Building with which who I watched half of that. It's very popular. It's very very popular. I watched it. It's okay. I think honestly

Hulu started showing me commercials in a 25 minute show and I was like I'm out. I kind of watch it out of a loyalty to Steve Martin to be honest with you. He has for so long and especially in the

the first segment documentary he's a solo act and he's a guy who has a very specific career and he's kind of monastic about it you know he has all these these journals and he's very strategic and scientific about his approach to the jokes but it's like a man alone on the stage and then he finds a buddy and they travel together and they're just really lovely. You know, he's kind of your CR. And there are like lovely scenes of them

in just like a multi-million dollar home with like so much incredible art hanging on the walls. Drinking white wine. Drinking white wine. And like with their iPads, just going back and forth on their jokes and being like, oh, that's funny.

And it's, you know, that illustration of the thing comics say all the time of, well, when comedians are talking about something, they don't laugh. They're like, oh, that's funny. That's funny. And they're, like, doing that back and forth. You know, they're, like, driving around Santa Barbara. They're biking around Santa Barbara, which was just, it's very sweet. But so even in that context, he finds someone else,

like he finds partnership. And it's really, really lovely. And it, you can kind of like see it like opens up stuff for him. There's an incredible, I'm sorry to spoil the documentary, but there's one scene where he's like going through all his old stuff and he

has all his scripts bound and he brings out the planes trains and automobiles um script and he has talked a lot in interviews about that movie and kind of that final scene with john candy and apparently john candy gave like an incredible monologue that for whatever reason gets really cut down in the final edit. And he said- The monologue is about being alone, basically. Yes. And he said so many times, he was like, I was just like across from this person who was doing this like amazing thing.

He crushed it. It was so moving. And so he turns to the page in the documentary and is telling the story again and like gets choked up looking at the script. And I was just like, well, this is just, I mean, it's very sad and also just beautiful. and is telling the story again and like gets choked up looking at the script. And I was just like, well, this is just, I mean, it's very sad and also just beautiful.

I was like, oh, your like heart is open. It's a really a lovely thing. I really think Morgan Neville's in a rare class of documentarians who can do this. I think I personally have given the kind of hagiographic bio doc a lot of shit in the last few years. It's something Bill and I talk about all the time as like huge fans of documentary. Morgan is like kind of exempt because he's so good at it.

And he so often gets people so emotionally open. And he becomes so fully consumed by their work that he knows how to put people in positions to have amazing moments like that. That scene in the doc that was crazy because it's like a person identifying with a character on the page being completely destroyed by the fact that the words that were written by john hughes are so powerful but also destroyed by the fact that scene isn't in the movie but also destroyed by the fact that john candy is dead yes and he's so proud of that movie and that movie means so much to so many people it's this incredible collision of feeling three hours into this movie that you've been watching about Steve Martin's life. But it's a huge payoff moment. It's a crystallization.

It's an apotheosis of what we're seeing in Steve Martin's life. The doc itself is really worth seeing. It's also just four hours spent in Steve Martin's company and in the company of his vast catalog of work, whether it is the comedy or the movies or the banjo or the art or the comics or the writing. Um, it's, you know, or his feelings. It's, it's just, it's a great hang. It's, it's a really, it's a really good time. And, um, you know, there's a few more of these coming. You haven't seen the Paul Simon one yet, right? No.

So there's a Paul Simon documentary, similarly a four-hour documentary by a similarly hallowed figure of documentarianism Alex Gibney did called In Restless Dreams, The Music of Paul Simon. It's on MGM Plus right now, I think. Okay. I think I have that. Okay.

That's one that not a lot of people have. I hope it comes to a bigger service soon because it's the same thing. It's a have that. Okay. That's one that not a lot of people have. I hope it comes to a bigger service soon. Because it's the same thing. It's a two-parter. It's four hours. The first part is basically like childhood all the way up through the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel. And then the second half is like solo career all the way through present day while capturing him in the present day. Similarly beautiful.

Similarly like how did this guy, like how does he do it kind of? You know? Yeah. Similarly beautiful. Similarly, like, how did this guy, like, how does he do it, kind of? You know, like Paul Simon, you're like, how do you just have the quick silver genius to write the things that you write? Right. And Steve Martin's very similar, where it's like, you just hit on a tone that no one had really done before. I felt this, honestly, re-watching a lot of the Steve Martin movies, where I'm like, these movies are very strange. They are. But they're so embedded in our brain you know it's it's they're

so strange and we're so popular and influential you know it's like it's hard to overstate how much he just wormed his way into all of our like our brains do you think this will be a very hard hall of fame i don't know i don't i don't think so totally but we'll see there are a lot there's a lot of movies and there are some that are like you know sentimentally very important to us individually i would say there are some that are sort of historically important um but those kind of overlap a little bit you You want to get into it? Yeah. If you've never listened to a Hall of Fame episode before,

we picked 10 movies from an actor's filmography and put them in, make them the official historical record of their greatness. I think in this case, a couple are going to get left out that are going to be big ones. I'm not totally sure. Steve Martin's first movie is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,

the catastrophic quote-unquote adaptation of the Beatles album that was made 10 years later starring the Bee Gees. He has a role as Dr. Maxwell Edison. Bad movie. I got more deeply familiar with this movie actually when I was working on the Mr. Saturday Night documentary. This movie was also produced by Robert Stigwood in the same year as Saturday Night Fever when he was like, it's time for me to take over movies now. So he puts his group, the Bee Gees, in the Mr. Saturday Night documentary. Right, right, right. Because this movie was also produced by Robert Stigwood in the same year of Saturday Night Fever when he was like, it's time for me to take over movies now. So he puts his group, the Bee Gees, in the movie. Obviously, this is not going into Steve Martin's Hall of Fame. The Muppet movie, 1979. Obviously, hugely important to us, but it's a small appearance.

He has a brief cameo where he plays a waiter who's waiting on Kermit and Miss Piggy. He's hilarious in this movie. This is right when he is about to become a big movie star. He's been the biggest stand-up comedian for a very long time. The Muppet movie is chock-a-block with megastars. It's crazy how many famous actors are in the Muppet movie. It's been going pretty hard in my house lately. Alice is really into it. Oh, I haven't thought about that one, but that's... I think

it would really play. Okay. She's very unsurprisingly Miss Piggy for life. That's like, that's her energy. The rainbow connection and then the rainbow at the end of the movie is like life melting. Anyway, I love, love, love, love, love the Muppet movie. Very sad to see Henson and Oz go down in the blank check voting for March Madness. I would have loved to have seen a Henson and Oz series. Alas, it's not happening. But Frank Oz will come up again because he is a part of many of these Steve Martin movies. Muppet movie out, right? I mean, do you want to give it an honorary yellow?

An honorary yellow. I like that. I like that. 1979, The Jerk. This is very green. It's very green. Yeah. A wild movie to rewatch.

Yeah. Well, it's born out of so many of the stand-up bits. Yes. You know, I was born a poor black child, which is one of the first things that Navin Johnson says in this movie is a bit that he would do on stage. You know, some of it, I guess, would be considered inappropriate

or you wouldn't do that comedy. Yeah, you would do it differently or not at all now. It begins this long collaboration with Carl Reiner, the producer of the Dick Van Dyke Show, Rob Reiner's father, comedy legend,

who was directing a lot of movies in the 70s and 80s. And Steve Martin was kind of his muse. He was kind of his meal ticket. They had something going together. The Jerk is the first of those. This movie was a big hit. It's beloved.

It's beloved by me. This is the closest I could get to seeing him in the stand-up era when I was a teenager. So I definitely saw this at a young age. Love this movie. I love Bernadette Peters in this movie. She's so beautiful and so funny. So yes, I agree. It's a green.

Did you watch Pennies from Heaven? I watched some clips because it's presented in the documentary as a big detour from him.

He's like done with comedy. The jerk was a hit but he wants to explore what else is there and so he does a musical and

I obviously was interested and wanted to see some of the numbers. But it was also a huge, huge flop. And that really affected him, you know, as I think flops do. So I wasn't like, oh, I need to. If it wasn't successful, it's probably not going to go in. So this is, well, one, this is our friend Amy Nicholson's favorite movie of all time. Okay. If it wasn't successful, it's probably not going to go in. This is, well, one, this is our friend Amy Nicholson's favorite movie of all time. Okay.

I think when she said that to me a long time ago, probably eight or nine years ago, I was like, I got to go find this. Because it was hard to find for a while because it was such a bomb. But, you know, reunites Peters and Martin. It's directed by Herbert Ross, who we were talking about on the 77 draft. Herbert Ross got around. He'll come back to Herbert Ross later in were talking about on the 77 draft Herbert Ross got around this is he'll come back to Herbert Ross later in his career

Steve Martin loves this movie and the people who love this movie love it the premise is basically that it's a kind of musical romance but the actors

lip sync the songs right and it's jukebox musical with 20s and 30s songs like Let's Misbehave and Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries. And it's shot by Gordon Willis.

And it's written by Dennis Potter, who wrote The Singing Detective. And it's beautiful. It's like a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful movie. But it came two years after The Jerk and everybody was like, what happened to Steve Martin? Why is he like dancing and dressed elegantly in 1928? And people didn't like it um i would just yellow it yeah of course out of a sense of gratitude for its unusualness yeah um 1982 dead men don't wear plaid another really weird movie this is a carl reiner movie another homage to older films. It's a hard-bitten noir comedy

that uses historical noir scenes interspersed with these scenes of Steve Martin playing a detective. So it's like kind of a precursor to The Naked Gun. It's got a little bit of that like Airplane, Zucker Brothers energy

to it, but it also has this gimmicky thing that also works really well where they're cutting in the old movies so you're seeing Rita Hayworth from Gilda

you're seeing Bogart from the Maltese Falcon it was like not a hit but not a big failure yeah

it's kind of a middle ground like okay this guy's gonna do well again notably shot by Michael Chapman who worked a lot with Martin Scorsese and is one of the best cinematographers of his time. I would say it's probably red.

Yeah, I don't, this next stretch, the transitional, I used to be a comedian. I'm not Steve Martin of the movies quite yet. And I'm trying a lot of stuff. And actually, like, very cool experimental, you know, run of it. Like, credit to him. They're funny if you didn't grow up with them. They're funny to rewatch now. Because, you know, with all things like comedy the pacing has changed since the

certainly since now but like even from if you compare a 90 1992 steve martin comedy to a 1982 steve martin comedy you're like oh okay so like the punch lines are like or the not punch lines are in different places and this is moving kind of in slow motion. And I like that you're trying it, but also like, what are we doing here? So... I agree. I think, especially for this one, I felt that.

Yeah. Or some of it really works and some of it really doesn't work. And it's a cool attempt at something. It's a pretty bold attempt for basically your third feature movie. Right. Coming off the failure of Pennies from Heaven.

But you can see he's like a curious guy. He's like a searcher. He's trying to do something different. The Man with Two Brains comes after that. Also a Carl Reiner movie. It's almost like he's going back to the well to kind of secure success. This is sort of a riff on the 50s science fiction movie about a mad scientist.

In this case, a kind of neurosurgeon who gets ensnared in a murder plot and uh like i like it but i'm i feel like my bias is that i just like steve morton in this time right that's what i'm saying. It's like, you know, a lot of credit for trying all of these weird things. But I don't know if I would put them in the Hall of Fame.

Okay. Well, this puts a brief pause on the Carl Reiner run after doing two in a row with him. And 1984 does The Lonely Guy,

which is a, again, this is the closest he probably gets to Albertra Brooke's territory. It's an Arthur Hiller movie. It's adapted by Neil Simon from a Bruce J. Feldman novel. It's this weird combination of whimsy and sadness and goofiness. It has Charles Grodin, so I like it.

Right, no, I was going to say it has Charles Grodin, so I like it. Right. No, I was going to say it has Charles Grodin, so you like it. And we can yellow it. Yeah. I don't think it's in, but I feel like all of these are basically like a yellow era. Yes. Right? Yes. So I'll say it's out.

Yeah. And then you get to all of them. And then all of them. Yeah. So I feel like this is the first one where I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is a green. I think it is. Yeah. Can you explain all of me?

Sure. So I don't even pretty sure this is a green. I think it is, yeah. Can you explain all of me? Sure. So I don't even... Steve Martin is a lawyer. And Lily Tomlin is a very rich heiress who has had health problems. And so she's given up on this body and this life and has recruited a whole team of spirit guiders, transfers, whatever. And so she's going to have her body transferred into, her spirit transferred into someone else's body and then live the life that she always wanted to live.

Victoria Tennant, actually, is the actress. which is which is important notable yes and then and and she'll have all the resources that she did have as an heiress because she's transferring all of those she's leaving everything in her will to this one and then the spirit transfer goes awry and she winds up in steve martin's body instead and so it is steve martin doing like very intense funny physical comedy um because she only has like half control of half of his body and he has control of the other half and then they speak to each other a lot and it's you know it's kind of you see the spark of we're not even the spark like the full expression of completely weird and bewildered and floppy Steve Martin just all over the place and it's really really funny and like a type of comedy that is also just very skilled, very hard to pull off. It's an amazing physical performance.

Super funny movie. Very weird. Successful. Yeah. I think kind of like resets the table a little bit for him. And he's a good match for Lily Tomlin. But it's still high concept. It's still weird.

It's not like the next movie on the list, for example. Yeah, but I mean, honestly, all of these movies, until I think we get to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, he's playing kind of a weird guy in a weirdly toned movie. Sure. And, you know, his hair has gone fully white at this point. And then in 1986, he gets to Three Amigos. He plays Lucky Day, a Hollywood movie star who's sent out.

I actually didn't revisit this. Out with his co-stars. I did. And, like, but really just for comfort and fun. But this is the one where I, sitting on the couch, having seen this movie a million times, but, like, I started laughing at parts, you know? It's just, like, I had a physical reaction of that. It's truly funny.

Just, like, a perfect movie. Five-star masterpiece. This is auto-green. parts you know it's just like i had a physical reaction of that is truly funny uh just a like a perfect movie five-star masterpiece this auto when they take the tequila shots and then that pause and then they're just both like hey you know do you know who wrote this movie um this is one of the best screenplay credits of all time tell me steve martin of course who becomes the author of many of his movies in this period that's coming up lauren michaels oh right and randy newman sure those are the three authors of this movie which is fascinating um i love it i don't i maybe people want to hear us talk about three amigos for a while three amigos should be on the rewatchables probably yes that

seems like an oversight um chevy j notably absinthe from the documentary. He is. I clocked that as well. No one says his name. Yeah. And even as he's like trying on the, because there's one point where he tries on the jacket and does like that.

It's delightful stuff. It's a fabulous movie. 1986, Little Shop of Horrors. Movie I love. Movie I was shown in an introduction to rock and roll class in high school. Okay. Which I thought was an interesting usage of that.

Sort of blending of the rock musical. He's got a pretty small role as the dentist, Orvin Scrovello. Right. He's very, very funny. He dyes his hair jet black and is a menace. But I feel like it's kind of too small a part, right? I agree. If this were the Rick Moranis Hall of Fame,

and maybe we should do that one day, we'd definitely be going in. The Ellen Greene Hall of Fame? Sure, definitely. That's notably, though, his collaboration with Frank Oz, and we'll come back to him down the road. 1987, Roxanne.

This is where Steve Martin auteur comes through. This movie is directed by Fred Sopici, but I feel like basically Steve Martin directed it. He wrote the screenplay. He wrote the screenplay and you can see him

moving into a slightly more sentimental, emotional stretch of his career. Right. This movie pairs very neatly to me with L.A. Story.

Yes. Another movie that he wrote which is coming a little bit later basically about a guy who just like really, really wants to be in love with a blonde lady. But like can't quite get there. Yes. And Roxanne, it's a modern day update of Serenade Bergerac. He plays C.D. Bales, C.D. Serenade, who is a fire chief, works in a firehouse, has an exceptionally

long nose. Yes. An absurdly long nose. And a woman comes to town, played by Daryl Hannah, who is an astronomer and a PhD in training, and he falls for her, but she falls for a more handsome fireman, played by Rick Rosovich, and then they proceed with the Cyrano de Bergerac story where he is writing on his behalf

and she falls in love with him, but she's really falling in love with Steve Martin's character. It's just another one of those movies like Three Amigos where I'm like, I love this movie. I've seen it 300 times.

It was on HBO every day. It was on HBO? I guess that makes sense. It's also like, it's an important transition point as well. Yes, it's an important like transition point. Yes. It's a turning point for this era of a kind of sentimentality in his stories where he's this sort of like yearning guy. Yeah. Becomes this archetype for Martin. I think it's Tina Fey in

the documentary who isolates that like quality of longing that's in so much of his work. And this is a real expression of that. And even the close-ups of his face, even with that giant nose, he's making a certain wistful Steve Martin face. It's a good performance. That becomes really essential to the next decade. So I'm good with it.

We're not talking about him as an actor. I would say let's yellow it as a safety precaution. I think we're not really talking about him as an actor that much because so much of what he's doing in these first 10 movies

is so comic. Yes. But he has to rely on his ability as a screen presence a lot more in stories like this. He does have this like bravura sequence where

he does the 20 big nose jokes in the bar. Yeah. Where like he gets to get his comic rocks off. But a lot of this stuff is way different Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

which comes right after Roxanne is at times he's not really funny at all no I mean he's kind of the like stick in the mud

he's nasty at times to John Candy's character it's a it's a movie of events it's a movie of sequences and pratfalls and bad luck

but he's not a wild and crazy guy in this movie that being said it is also like a movie of sequences and pratfalls and bad luck. But he's not a wild and crazy guy in this movie. That being said, it is also like a movie that will probably live for another hundred years. Like an absolute classic. Loved. I love it. I didn't revisit it just because I've just seen it so many times. I was trying to see some other stuff for the first time. But I feel like it kind of has to be auto green.

No, it absolutely has to be a green. That gives us four greens in 1987. Okay. I mean, that seems right. I kind of feel like the next two are auto green too. Am I crazy? I do as well. Okay.

I mean, but this is like... This is our generational bias. Well... So the next two movies are Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Parenthood. So in 1987, he goes Plane Chains and Automobiles, then 88 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and 89 Parenthood. Movies that I'm sure we have seen many, many, many times. So many times. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and 89 Parenthood movies that I'm sure we have seen many many many times

so many times Dirty Rotten Scoundrels a reunion with Frank Oz magnificent scammer movie with Michael Caine is it set in the

south of France south of France I think yes or is it a is it a a town in Italy I can't recall one of

it's in Europe your favorite on location two guys who scam women out of their money, who join forces slash become rivals, and who both fall for the same woman played by Glenn Headley, who's wonderful in this movie.

Another movie that's kind of in my bones. It's kind of hard to do this. Well, so... I've just seen these movies so many times. I know, but we're gonna... I think it's gotta be Dirty Run Scoundrels, and then it's gotta be Parenthood. Right.

So Parenthood is that crux turning point. It's a Ron Howard movie where he starts, for the first time he plays the dad. He's like the. He's the er dad. Right. He's the classic dad. And I can't remember what his son's name is in the movie, but the way that he like cares for his son who is like nervous and has anxiety and, you know, struggles in playing sports

and all that stuff is heartbreaking or when he dresses up as a cowboy at his son's birthday and he really like a magnificent movie complicated movie actually

like probably one of the more sophisticated Ron Howard movies when you think about the family dynamics Diane Wiest and Keanu Reeves and Martha Plimpton

Joaquin Phoenix like pretty remarkable movie Robards is the dad who's like you know definitely a stand-in in a lot of ways

but he gets that moment of resolution when it's like well you're you know you're a good dad what would you do? Right.

With who's the actor who plays Mozart? Tom Hulse. Tom Hulse. Yeah. As like the loser son. Yeah.

The scamming son. Really really good movie. Yes. I think Green. It has to be a Green. Okay. It has to scamming son. Really, really good movie. Yes. I think Green. It has to be a Green. Okay. It has to be a Green. So, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Dirty, Rotten, Scoundrels, and Parenthood, the rare

consecutive trifecta of Green. 1999, My Blue Heaven. I'll go to the mattresses for this movie. You're going to try to fight this for Green? I don't know, but I fucking love this movie. Okay. This movie is so funny to me. I watched this movie 10,000 times.

This is another movie that was on all the time. I know, but at some point, sort of like your HBO privilege is coming through a little. We didn't have HBO in my house. This movie is written by Nora Ephron. I know. And it is clearly based on her experiences being married to Nicholas Palenji

while he was writing Wiseguy, which became Goodfellas. I understand that. I know. It's really. This movie came out the same summer as Goodfellas. It's delightful. That's crazy. And you can put it in the Nora Hall of Fame if you want to.

I think it would be. Yeah. But I think. What are we doing that? I don't know. I'm asking you. Find an anniversary. Okay.

So now I'm just like thinking about. We'll come back to Nora Ephron on this list. Is it, it might be 35 years since when Harry met Sally. Are we doing 35s? I think it's kind of a weak one, but I'll do it. I think so as well. It's fine. Okay.

When Harry met Sally came out. 89. 89. Yeah. This summer. Yeah. July 21st, 1989. Yeah.

Interesting. Okay. Maybe. Interesting. Okay. Maybe we will. It can be a definite yellow, but we're just looking at a couple more must greens, I think. I know my My Blue Heaven heads are out there. I know they're listening. I'm not saying that they're not. I'm not saying I'm not part of it.

Arugula. It's a vegetable. I have so many lines from that movie committed to memory. Also, Rick Moranis, once again, reunited. Yeah. This would also be in the Rick Moranis Hall of Fame. My Blue Heaven, for anybody who hasn't seen it, is a movie about a mobster who gets put into witness protection in a small town and tries to insinuate himself into this small town and quickly takes over the town because he is such a charismatic and ridiculous person.

I really, really like this movie. I'll yellow it. Okay. Did you watch L.A. Story? I did. I really, really like this movie. I'll yellow it. Okay. Did you watch L.A. Story? I did. L.A. Story is fascinating. You very rarely see this where a super famous person is like, here's all of my anxiety in one movie. By this point, C. Martin is from California, famously worked at Knott's Berry Farm as a magician when he was a teenager. That's his

kind of introduction to show business. So he's a California kid. And he's lived in LA for a really, really long time. And he has penned this, it's a poison pen love letter. Yeah. It has. To the city. It's before the player, but there is like a lot, even that like one scene at lunch,

which is maybe not at this same Malibu restaurant as that. Olé dit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was like, there is a lot of overlap here in the attitude of the show. It's supposed to be like The Palm or something or Craig's or something like that. You know, it's a movie clearly about a guy who's falling in love with or has fallen in love with his co-star, who's Victoria Tennant, who he met on All of Me, who's this English actress. You know, I give the documentary credit for getting into this, where he, like, talks about his divorce.

In these movies, you never— He talks about it for, like, three sentences. But it never—that stuff never comes up in these movies. They elide these breakups. Steve Martin is a professional, and you need to have—any professional just needs to know you need to have three sentences prepared about everything that you don't want to talk about. And you have your three sentences and then you move on. He had his three sentences prepared. You know, this movie is about a guy, a weatherman in L.A. who's kind of like a stifled creative like all people living in L.A.

Who won't really look at what's happening around him who like refuses to kind of see what's actually happening and they have this great convention in the movie where an electronic billboard is kind of communicating with him like one of the traffic signs yes and it's a very absurdist touch in a grounded movie. And he does this over and over again. Like, he makes grounded movies with weird stuff in it. Like, Roxanne, he's basically, like, a martial arts master. But he's just a fire chief. And you're like, well, how does this guy know kung fu?

I think it's, like, a seminal text for him. I was going to say that this has to be green for me, even before Roxanne. The movie is a little raw. It has not aged super well for me. Yeah. You know, like, it's really important for his story. And the documentary spends a lot of time on it

because you can tell that he sees it as a kind of skeleton key. Yeah. I would yellow it. You'll yellow it? Yeah. Because we have a lot of stuff coming up here. No, I know.

But. You would green it? Well, I would green L.A. Story and yellow Roxanne, personally. Oh, interesting. Well, that's a personal preference. Okay. Well, let's just do two yellows there and we can make the decision.

Okay, okay. 1991, Father of the Bride. Green. Just the greenest green. I shouldn't be allowed to rewatch this movie. I saved it until the night before I thought we were going to do it. And I was just fucking weeping. I couldn't even finish it.

I got to, you know, I said that I was just going to watch through the hot dogs, right? Which is still a problem that we have not solved. I had this problem this weekend. It's fine. That's the number of hot dogs that are sold versus the number of buns that are sold. Yes.

And, you know, and it's just like a vast conspiracy. Yeah. Big hot dog. Yes. And, you know, and it's just like a vast conspiracy. Yeah. Big hot dog. Yeah. And then I kept watching and I like knew

that I shouldn't watch until the scene like the night before the wedding when he and the daughter are playing basketball and it starts snowing. But it's like

that's preceded by the, by a just pitch perfect montage and like and a cut to Steve Wistful Face, and Darlene Love is singing, Today I Met the Boy I'm Gonna Marry. And I was, like, well, now I'm watching this. And then I watched him say, like, I just know I'll remember this moment for the rest of my life. And then I, like, I, like, was ugly crying. And then I had to turn it off.

So I'm, like, tearing up now. This is a wonderful performance. This is a very important movie to me and he it is like a incredibly incredibly sentimental bordering on treacly movie but he grounds it and he is you know in in his absurdity and the way that he reacts to all of the ridiculous wedding stuff and then brings in the gut punch of the emotion, it's just perfect. He's so good.

I concur. It is definitely green. Hugely important movie for him too. Yeah. Because he moves away from being the father of a child to the father of an adult, which is kind of where he lives for a while. But he also has Kieran Culkin.

He does. He does. Yeah. But Kimberly Williams, you know, she's in her 20s. I mean, yeah. I mean, he also has Kieran Culkin. He does. He does. Yeah. But Kimberly Williams, you know, she's in her 20s. I mean, yeah. I mean, she's 22. She's young.

She's young and she's getting married at 22, but that's a year older than Diane Keaton was when Steve Martin married him. How old do you think Alice will be when she gets married?

Well, that's really up to you. I was going to ask you whether you... That's up to me. I was going to ask you whether... It depends on the size of the dowry.

I was going to ask you whether you've rewatched Father of the Bride since you became a dad. I always liked this movie. I mean, I'm sure I will be annihilated by it. But I can also really see your energy coming through in this situation in whatever form it is. Girl Dad is like the lamest fucking shit ever that is so real. It's scarily real. It is. It's like they

proved the existence of Gollum or something. Right. Yeah. This actually is happening. 1991 Grand Canyon.

Not a movie I'm a fan of. A very curious film from one of the great filmmakers Lawrence Kasdan, one of the best screenwriters of his generation.

I just feel like this is a crazy misfire. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna be honest. I think we're about to go on a run. I agree. Of,

of misfires, which like, you see this happen. Someone gets on a hot streak, can do anything. Yep. And the tough thing about all of these movies

is that like Steve Martin is like featured prominently in the poster. It's just like a giant picture of Steve Martin and then whatever movie.

But sometimes movies don't work. So there are right now seven greens on our list and two yellows that we feel passionately about. Yeah.

And you could make the case that he's only got two to three movies left for the rest of his career that are worth greening. Yeah. Let's go through them in a somewhat speedy fashion. 1982 is a reunion with Frank Oz, House Sitter, a Goldie Hawn film. Not a movie I like.

No. I like that they tried. An interesting experiment that I would say failed. I find this movie a little grating to be honest i'm like in a different world you would think that they should have the right chemistry and it should be i know i never clicks yeah she's a little too zany and he's a little too stiff and that's the thing is he has shifted to a kind of straight man right in this in this era but a straight man who loses it right and so he has to have the room to to be put in jail for stealing hot dog buns. That's right.

1992 Leap of Faith. Interesting movie. Not a successful movie in my opinion, but an interesting concept. Steve Martin plays a kind of con man televangelist. And this is in the era of like the Jimmy Swagger types. It's directed by Richard Pierce. Got an amazing supporting cast. Deborah Winger, Lolita Davidovich, Liam Neeson.

This was one of the first Philip Seymour Hoffman movies. Never totally comes together. Actors really love to play televangelists. They do. They do. I guess he's a faith healer too. And I just, has it ever really yielded something that we enjoyed

as much as the actor did? I love, this isn't quite televangelist, but I love The Apostle, the Robert Duvall movie that he directed. Sure, yeah. That's a great movie.

Gosh. Elmer Gantry, that's a pretty good one. It just, it often feels like the actor inside, every actor really leaps out and it's like, oh, televangelists would be really fun for me. Yeah, it doesn't quite work in this one.

1994, A Simple Twist of Fate. A weird movie considering like what his life turned out to be. Another kind of dramedy about a guy who kind of stumbles into fatherhood, you know, does not plan on being a father, and then some life events occur with his wife that are very unusual, and he ends up having a little girl who's played by Carolyn McCormick, or excuse me, who's played by Alana Austin.

And it's, again, like kind of treacly and not very funny, and they went for something, but it didn't work. There's also, and I'm thinking of baby boom here, but like in the late 80s, early 90s, people just like really stumbled into having a kid in ways that just like, just defy belief to a point. And as a joke. That's kind of the premise of Look Who's Talking as well. Yeah.

It's just like, oh, oops, now I'm in charge of this baby and no one seems to have a problem with that. Three men and a baby. Yeah, totally. And like, you know, sometimes like you can look past it

and Three Men and a Baby is actually very funny. I don't think I realize that this movie is based on Silas Marner, the George Eliot novel. Nor did I. I haven't read a lot

of George Eliot, I have to be honest with you. I'm still working through Middlemarch. I know people love it. It's just a lot of George Eliot, I have to be honest with you. I'm still working through Middlemarch. I know people love it. It's just a lot of stuff about the medical profession or something. I haven't read Middlemarch. Okay.

Simple Twist of Fate is a red. Yeah. 1984 Mixed Nuts. Whew. If we're going to do the Nora Ephron Hall of Fame. This will not be in it. This is going to come up. Yeah. Nora Ephron Hall of Fame. This will not be in it. This is going to come up. This is a movie,

a Christmas movie that's based on a French film that is set at like a suicide prevention hotline sort of thing. Like a call center for people who are struggling. And nice idea

for a movie. Apparently the French version is very funny. This just like for a minute one you're like, oh, you don't got it. And the like the tone the you don't got it and the

like the tone the jokes don't land it's pretty shrill and weird yeah it's just all off yeah

Steve Martin Rita Wilson Juliette Lewis Adam Sandler again like Madeline Kahn like an amazing cast of actors

you've got Nora Ephron right in her kind of sweet spot right like about to be the person and it just failed

sort of is the person at this point but is not the person and he talked about the failure of this movie too in the documentary which I thought was interesting where he was just sort of like

it's my face on the poster I'm wearing a Santa hat and it just didn't work so what do you do when something like that happens you know when you're at the center and the sadness that you feel when something like that happens from there he kind of like over at the center and the sadness that you feel when something like that happens.

From there, he kind of like overreacts a little bit. Does the Father of the Bride sequel, which is okay. It's good. It has one of the most honest representations

of pregnancy I've ever seen, which is the scene of Martin Short leading the two pregnant women in aerobics. Okay. And they just are huffing and puffing

and look like they're about to die. And Martin Short's just being Martin Short in the Father of the Bride universe. And that is what it feels like to be pregnant. It's just like some overexcited person, you know, just being like, you got this! If you're just like trying to lift one leg. So this is the best representation of being pregnant and then... Alien is the best representation of giving birth. I thought you were going to say the Marilyn Monroe film Blonde.

Oh. Oh. Father of the Bride 2 is red. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good. It's good. 1986, Sergeant Bilko. This is during a streak of remakes

of hit television shows from the 1960s. This was an Ernie Kovac show. Very funny TV show, actually, if you've ever seen it on Nick at Night. Where the kind of like wily creative scam running sergeant in the army gets his crew of privates to pull off scams with him uh not a bad movie but not a good movie this is in that run of like the brady bunch movie beverly hillbillies um there were a bunch more that

were like that the flintstones you know like where they were just raiding Nickelodeon shows for movies in the 90s. I saw this at the time. Didn't revisit it. Have basically no memory of it. Except for the poster. It's pretty forgettable. Yeah. So that's Red.

97, Spanish Prisoner. Now, I love this movie. Love this movie. Have you ever seen it? I don't think so. Okay. Spanish Prisoner is a super cool David Mamet movie about a kind of con man businessman

who comes into the life of a software developer, like a kind of corporate engineer who's played by Campbell Scott. Campbell Scott is this guy who has like an algorithm essentially. Steve Martin is the businessman who wants to buy it. And then it becomes a movie of like double, triple, quadruple crosses.

Super slick, subtle, amazing style. Ben Gazzara, Rebecca Pidgeon, all the stuff you expect from David Mamet in the 90s. Really like it.

It's a tough sell for the Hall of Fame. Okay. Because it's a supporting part, but it's Steve Martin doing no jokes. It is like a serious, subtle, weird performance. Ricky Jay's in it. You can imagine the conversations

between Ricky Jay and Steve Martin about magic. I would want to be in the room for that. Listen, I like idiosyncratic choices. You can yellow it. Let's yellow it. I don't think it's going to make it in, but I'm a big fan of it. And if people haven't seen The Spanish Prisoner, I highly recommend it. 1998, The Prince of Egypt.

He does a voice in an animated movie. Yeah. The voice of Hotep. Sure. I'm not sure I think Hotep when I think Steve Martin. That's a red. I did see that movie in theaters. Did you?

Yeah. What did you think? I think that I was at my grandparents' house probably for Easter. I don't remember if The Prince of Egypt was the first DreamWorks animated movie, but it was one of the first. And it was this attempt by DreamWorks, which was then, you know, the Katzenberg, Geffen, Spielberg studio. No, it was Christmas that I would have been there because it was a December release. I don't know. My grandparents' house was like incredibly boring.

They didn't have cable. So what are you going to do? No, Ants. Ants was a December release. I don't know. My grandparents' house was like incredibly boring. They didn't have cable. So what are you going to do? No, Ants. Ants was the first one. Ants with a Z. I thought you were going to say Anastasia. Ants, which was memorably featured

the voice work of Woody Allen as the lead aunt. Okay. Followed by The Prince of Egypt in which here are the characters and the names. Val Kilmer played Moses.

Ralph Fiennes played Ramses. Michelle Pfeiffer played Zipporah. Sondra Bullock played Miriam. Jeff Goldblum played Aaron. You noticing anything? There's a lot of white people. Patrick Stewart played Pharaoh Seti. Okay.

Steve Martin played Hotep, and Martin Short played Hui. Well, that's nice that they got to do it together. It is. That's a red. 1999, a remake of The Out of Towners, which I nice that they got to do it together. It is. That's a red. 1999, a remake of The Out of Towners, which I think was a reunion with Goldie Hawn.

Yes. Which I remember also being kind of an annoying movie. Yeah. They don't clip. They don't got it. They should got it. They are like the two

late 80s or mid 80s, I guess, comedy icons. Yeah, that's weird. But it does not, it doesn't mix. Did you ever see the original? Yeah, of course. Yeah, with Jack Lemmon. That's really good. I was thinking of Jack Lemmon a little bit when I was thinking of Steve Martin. but it does not it doesn't mix did you ever see the original the Neil Simon

yeah of course yeah with Jack Lemmon that's really good I was thinking of Jack Lemmon a little bit when I was thinking of Steve Martin he's like a good comp like him at his best

especially in those movies he's written like in Roxanne or in All of Me or in LA Story he has like Jack Lemmon in a Billy Waller movie energy yeah it's like a little befuddled and then

and dazed but also still funny. Can be daffy, like handsome in an ordinary way. Okay. Bowfinger. So I think this is a green. I do as well. This is one of the great Hollywood send-ups.

This is, I think, the last movie he made with Frank Oz. Incredible script, also a script that he co-wrote. Eddie Murphy cooking in dual roles. Kind of in that get shorty, the player era that you were talking about, where like Hollywood is shooting at itself on a regular basis. Martin is really like the center and the engine of the movie. It's really, really funny. Another movie that should be on the rewatchables, in my opinion.

Yes. Love Bowfinger. And also like moving back a little bit towards satirical, sarcastic. Yes. It's not, you know, feel good weeping at your daughter's wedding. It's kind of the last time I think he was like really, really funny in a movie. Uh, yes. You agree with that?

I think so, yeah. Looking at the rest of the list, yeah. I mean, yes. Some dark times ahead. Yeah. 2001, Novocaine, an interesting like black comedy about a dentist that really doesn't work that's a red

2003 Bringing Down the House collaboration with Queen Latifah which I think was a hit but I remember not liking it all yeah and I can feel him being like it just gets broad

they all get broader that's what it is he gets really broad these movies 2003 Looney Tunes back in action super fun Joe Dante Looney Tunes movie

he's got a small part in it that's red 2003 Cheaper by the Do dozen speaking of broad and speaking of yikes and and also a remake a remake of another 60s movie um and also a book that i read like oh 15 times as a child i don't really know why i i don't know i think it was like a summer reading thing i i couldn't tell you i remember nothing about it it except the paperback cover. What was the original movie? Who was the star? Myrna Loy and Clifton Webb were the stars of this movie. Interesting.

Directed by Walter Lang. I've never seen this. There's two Cheaper by the Dozen movies and there's two Pink Panther movies in this time. Both remakes that got sequels because they were very financially successful. I thought that all four of these movies were not good were so bad I know people like the Pink Panther remakes

but I think they're so crummy Jason Statham and Beyonce are in the original Pink Panther wow well not the original not the original the first of the

excuse me I know about Peter Sellers excuse you yeah it's very confusing well excuse me yeah you need to stop unbuttoning your shirt like it's just

i forgot and once again i was just like on alert this is what it's like i know the millions of adoring fans at home okay just imagining me slowly unbuttoning a button-up shirt to reveal a t-shirt um yeah i i don't think that the pink panther movies work he's also like i mean i know he's doing inspector clouseau. I know it's a Peter Sellers thing, but he doesn't get to be as funny. It's just not as funny. Yeah. He's going for something very broad.

Those movies worked, you know, financially, but I can't imagine they were that fun to do. Yeah. I don't know. So, in between those, you basically get one more big movie from him. And that movie is Shop Girl, which is based on his... Excuse me. We're going to get to the last one. We're going to get to the last one.

But I'm just saying like where he is really like the center of the movie. Sure. Yes. Okay. Like the movie won't happen without him. You know what I mean? I accept. In 2005, it's based on...

I want to say it's his novella. Yeah. So he wrote a novella in 2000 called Shop Girl. At this time, he started writing short stories and personal pieces for The New Yorker. This is actually where he met his now wife, who was a fact checker at The New Yorker. And they developed, quite sweetly, not weirdly, but quite sweetly, this relationship over the phone because she had to interrogate details of his life as a fact checker. And the New Yorker fact checkers are serious. They're the best in the biz.

Absolutely. And then they're like kind of meet cute. After that was he invited her to a lunch and they both arrived early to do their crossword puzzles, which is, that's very sweet. It's all very sweet. I feel like I'm in that era of my life. Just doing crossword puzzles? So Shop Girl is this interesting movie

about a woman who works in a store who meets two guys and she has to choose between the two guys. One's like an older guy who's a bachelor who's a little weird but who has money and could change her life. And then the other guy is Jason Schwartzman who's younger and is like maybe more right for her but she's torn between these two guys. Right. It's kind of sad story. Is this before he got married when he wrote this story? I don't think so. kind of sad story. Is this before he got married when he wrote this story?

I don't think so. I think it's, well, when was the 2000 novella? Yes, it is. So it's before he got married. But the film is, I believe, after he got married.

Okay. It feels like a guy who's like, I fell in love with a younger woman. Yeah. And I'm going to write a book about it. Yes. No, the film is also before he got married. Sorry, I'm incorrect.

Okay. There you go. Well, I don't think it I'm incorrect okay there you go well I don't think it's going in the Hall of Fame I don't either I don't think Baby Mom is going in the Hall of Fame no Jesus

though I do like that I like the idea of Steve Martin in a lineage with Tina Fey and she's one of the few talking heads that participates in this movie and she's very good 2009 is It's Complicated

this is a Nancy Meyers film a reunion with Nancy it is after the Father of the Bride films which she co-wrote Father of the Bride films which she co-wrote Father of the Bride films yes and produced

so you would make a case for it in well I think it's one of the only rewatchable films since 1999 which is sort of tough

this is this is one of my soft favorite Nancy Myers films I think it's underappreciated because something's Gotta Give, 2003, rightfully gets all the glory. And I think that is her masterpiece. And this is like... This is Alec Baldwin, Diane Keaton, and Steve Martin?

No, it's Meryl. It is Meryl Streep. Meryl. Okay. What's the other Diane Keaton, Nancy Meyers movie? Not Something's Gotta Give. Baby Boom. Are those the only two?

And she's in Father of the Bride. She is the mom in both Father of the Bride movies. So she's only starred in two directed Nancy Meyers movies? Yes. Okay. It's Meryl. Wow. Okay.

So Meryl is married to Alec Baldwin. No, Meryl is divorced from Alec Baldwin. Who has remarried Lake Bell. What's up? That is true. And then she meets Steve Steve Martin who's an architect yes okay because it's a good movie I like this because she's redoing her kitchen she's building the dream kitchen that she always wanted and for years my top my bit has been like it's a

perfect kitchen as is but last time I re-watched it which was fairly recently because it was on Netflix it's open shelving and that stresses me out. So I understand now why she would want to do it. Okay. Because you just have to keep it so clean. You know what I'm saying? And I know that's not a problem for you, but like I don't want the clutter out on Main Street

in my open shelving kitchen. You know where cleanliness is next too. Godliness, sure. So, but yeah, she lives in Santa Barbara. She runs basically like the Dean and DeLuca of Santa Barbara. And she, yeah, because she's a cook and she trained in Paris. So she knows how to make croissants and, you know, they get high and then they go, she and Steve Martin go on the date to the bakery and she makes chocolate croissants.

Really special stuff. But he is sort of like sad, lonely guy in the corner. Like one of the recurring bits is that he keeps listening to his self-help book about divorce in the car, but he doesn't know how to turn it off, and so it keeps playing when Meryl Streep

is in the car with him. But, so, you know, the normies and the kids will be like, obviously it's complicated as going in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because this is the last

relevant movie that they saw him in. Yeah. We don't have to. That's fine. But, like, this movie's not more important to his career than L.A. Story and Roxanne.

No, I agree with you. You know what I mean? I agree. So it's a tough one. I wanted it to be yellow. It is 100% yellow. I wanted to talk about it. I mean, it's one of the better movies.

It's the best movie he's made this century. Yeah. He does sort of get blown off the screen by Alec Baldwin, which is just tough on a number of levels. He does. Baldwin's cooking in this movie. I mean, he gets the better part. He does. You know? He does.

He's just... Kind of a thankless part for Steve Martin. in this movie. I mean, he gets the better part. He does. You know? He does. He's just... Kind of a thankless part for Steve Martin. Yeah, he gets forgotten. But he... He does design a wonderful... But he does get her in the end or she chooses no one?

She tries to choose no one, but then he shows up to start the renovation and they have a moment together. Nice. And you believe that, like, maybe something nice can happen. Love that for them.

Yeah. Okay, let's go quickly through the end. Okay. It's complicated as yellow. The big year, which is a bird watching comedy with Owen Wilson

that on paper should have been a huge hit just didn't work. Are you a bird guy? No. Okay. I like birds. But there could be a thing

where secretly you just like have a journal of all the birds you've seen, you know, and I wouldn't know about it. Last time I saw our friend Gilbert Cruz, he was explaining to me

how he and his son were bird guys. Oh, really? And I was like, what in the world? That's so cute. I didn't know that.. Last time I saw our friend Gilbert Cruz, he was explaining to me how he and his son were bird guys. Oh, really? And I was like, what in the world? That's so cute. I didn't know that. There's like apps and stuff. There's a whole world of stuff that you can do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's cool. 2015, he voices a character in the animated movie Home. Never seen it. He plays Captain Smeck. Okay. Red. Love the Coopers.

He also voices a dog and is the narrator of the film. Family comedy. Red. And then he has a small role in billy lynn's long halftime walk the 48 fps ang lee movie starring taylor swift's ex-boyfriend um i thought that was an interesting film ultimately unsuccessful uh it's red poor joe allen he's trying it's it's gonna be a long summer for joe. Let's go through the Hall of Fame. Okay. So at present, we have two, four, six, seven yellows. And we have two, four, six, eight greens.

We're choosing two yellows. One, two, three. Well, that seems pretty easy to me. To me, I think all of the greens are locked. Yes. Do you agree? Yes. I'll read the greens just to get those out of the way.

The Jerk, All of Me, Three Amigos, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Parenthood, Father of the Bride, and Bowfinger.

Now, the yellows. Mm-hmm. The Muppet movie, obviously, that's going to be a red. Yeah. Shout out to the Muppet movie. Please rewatch that film.

Why can't it just live on as a yellow? Okay. You know, why do we have to, like, give it the indignity of a red? It's just, it's yellow, but yellow is not green. I'm bringing up Alice a lot because I've spent so much time with Alice in the last 10 days.

But, you know, we're in a real like red means stop, green means go. And then when you ask what yellow means, she's like, because no one in America knows what it means when there's a yellow light. Do you go faster? Do you slow down? Do you proceed with caution? Next is yells yellow because he can identify the color. That's where you got to start.

Uh, 1981 pennies from heaven. That is out. Yeah. I recommend people check it out. It's a very interesting film. 1987 Roxanne. I don't know.

Tough. I like it a lot. I it's to me, it's really between Roxanneanne my blue heaven and la story okay respectfully the next so my blue heaven is next 1990 1991 la story yeah 1997 the spanish prisoner we can knock that off right another movie like pennies from heaven a fascinating little movie that not a lot of people have seen and i'm fine with knocking it's complicated you are yeah very gracious of you thank you i I understand that he is not the central figure, and it's complicated.

He's very good in it, but, you know. Not even to give him anything in the 21st century? That would be the only case for it. Well, that's on you, because you care about that more than I do. I mean, Only Murders in the Building is the thing he's done in the 21st century that has resonated. And also, his banjo albums. He's got hugely successful banjo albums. He's touring with Martin Short.

He's done a lot of stuff. He's done books. He's done a lot of stuff he's done books he's done New Yorker stuff yes been very successful but he's moved away from movies my personal choice

my personal choice would be My Blue Heaven probably in Roxanne but I don't think that's the right choice for the haul okay

I think Roxanne and L.A. Story is the right choice for the haul I do as well and then we'll do Nora Ephron and we can do My Blue Heaven then.

Will you rewatch My Blue Heaven? Of course. Okay. It's pretty funny. I think it's funny. I'm not against it. I'm just saying in the Hall of Fame.

Do you think it's problematic to glamorize mobsters? No. Do you think Martin Scorsese and Steve Martin should both be put in jail? I don't. I don't think so either.

But they would make a good comedy album if they did. Oh, I would enjoy their let's read the the steve martin hall of fame okay the jerk all of me three amigos roxanne plane trains and automobiles dirty rotten scoundrels parenthood la story father of the bride and bowfinger weird career yeah one of the signature male stars of the late 20th century very true but also we basically cut the Hall of Fame off in 1991. I think only one of these movies is a masterpiece. And which one is that? Three Amigos.

It really is a masterpiece. It is a masterpiece. It's so good. So funny. I like these movies a lot, though. The three. Okay, Godzilla. You feel good about this? Yeah,, though. The three. Okay, Godzilla. You feel good about this?

Yeah, I do. All right. I didn't think it was going to be contentious, and I don't feel that it needed to be contentious. I don't know about what we're going to do at the end of this week. I think it's either going to be Monkey Man. Yes. Or best movies slash hidden gems of the year so far.

Okay, so you need to let me know sooner rather than later because there are a few things that I still have to catch up on before Thursday. Okay. So I would prefer... You want to do Monkey Man? That we do Monkey Man

because I'm going to see it tonight by myself. Monkey Man it is. Do you want to come? Yes. To Monkey Man tonight? No, I can't. Okay. I have to go see Civil War again.

I'm seeing that next week. Okay. I have to go see Civil War again. I'm seeing that next week. Okay. I just don't think me going alone to see Monkey Man is ideal for me having a good time. You know what I mean? You want King Kong to go with you. That's what you're saying. Yeah, basically. Yeah.

I got it. It's a good idea. But that's okay. Okay. I'll see if I can find you a Monkey Man attendee. I would like to go with my husband, Dev Patel's number one fan. Is he? Zach thinks Dev Patel is the most handsome man on the planet.

And I want to be clear that I also think Dev Patel is incredibly handsome. But it's notable that Zach is just like, ooh, it's Dev Patel every time he shows up on the screen. Intriguing. Okay. All righty. Well, let's go to my conversation now with Morgan Neville. delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings.

Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Returning champion Morgan Neville is back on the show. He's got an exceptional new documentary called Steve, which has an exclamation point in the title. It's about Steve Martin. Morgan, I wanted to start by asking you, do you remember the first time you ever saw Steve

Martin? It must have been on Saturday Night Live. My dad was a real comedy guy. Steve first went on Saturday Night Live in the fall of 76. I was eight, and I'm pretty sure I stayed up and watched it with him. My dad also had the first Betamax machine in the neighborhood. So he would record SNL. And so I would watch it and then my friends would come back during the week

and we would watch it. And then I think when a couple of things, the Muppet movie, big, big moment for Steve there. And then his first album, Let's Get Small, memorized it back and forth. You know, we'd listen to it after school. I mean, this is what we would do in my age. And Steve was, people forget this, but it was a real cultural phenomenon.

I mean, he was the guy that everybody in the schoolyard was imitating. It sounds like you were a super fan. And if you're a super fan, does a project like this originate with you? Does it originate with him? Like what transpires to make this happen? I mean, I remember reading Steve's memoir and thinking, God, I would love to make a documentary about Steve. And I had always heard that Steve was never interested

in doing a documentary. And the story I heard was that there was a producer that lived in Steve's building who would see Steve in the elevator every six months and say, Steve, you should do a documentary. And Steve would say, nope, not interested. And about three years ago, he saw Steve in the elevator and said, Steve, you should do a documentary. And Steve said, maybe. And then word got out that maybe Steve would do a documentary. And I said, just let me sit down with him and talk. And so, um, I went to New York

to have lunch in his apartment and he sent me an email saying, um, we're having salad. Would it be okay if we put some salmon on it? And I thought surely other people can ask this on Steve's behalf. He's a busy guy, but I came to realize, like, that is Steve. Like, he is the most thoughtful, considerate, hands-on person in a way. And when we first got together, we ended up talking about kids and art and not actually much about the documentary. And at the end of it, he said, okay, well, let's do this. What do you think it was three years ago that made him more comfortable with the idea of doing something like this at this stage of his life? I've thought a lot about this. Part of it is, so when I had this conversation with him, only murders had not premiered. Ah, I also think a couple of things. I think one, his how happy he was at that moment, you know, he, I think the final journey step on his journey is having a daughter.

I just think it's the ultimate thing that gave him this kind of unbelievable source of happiness that he had been looking for forever. And I think maybe COVID too, I don't know, somehow, I think a lot of us kind of took stock of our lives and started to think about it in a big way. And I think all those things just made him think that, yeah, maybe I would do this now. I think I've asked you this before when you've been on the show and you have a great subject, but how do you get someone like this to trust you? Because I was surprised, particularly in the second half, by how open he is about basically his own psychology around his

success and his creativity. And I also am a massive super fan. I share the, I'm a little younger than you, but I also memorized all the comedy albums. I read the memoir voraciously. I've seen every movie multiple times. Like I am, I'm fully in the bag for this guy. And knowing that, I also know that, you know, he was a little bit disconnected from talking about his inner life historically as a

famous person. And so I was kind of blown away by what you get out of him in the second half of the movie. So how did you build towards that? Well, trust, I always say I'm in the trust business, you know,

but not, not in a facetious way, but in a, like in a way that one, you know, so what my process is for something like this is I started showing up at his house. I was announced, but with the tape recorder and we would just talk and I would, we just talk for hours and we talk about whatever. And it's also getting to know each other, but also seeing how he sees his own life and everything.

Are you talking about like his life and career? Are you just talking about like the weather? Like what is your strategy when you go into those discussions? I will talk about anything. I will talk about anything. Because also for people who've been interviewed a lot or people might feel protective, I don't go in with any agenda. Like I'm there just to kind of learn, you know, and that's something I try and make

clear is like, even though I'm a fan or even though I may have opinions, I'm not there with any prejudgment. I'm just there to understand him, you know, and his story. And, and I love doing that. Like those conversations were so great. You know, I ultimately did maybe, I don't know, 18 hours of conversations with him or something before we started filming. And you also build a relationship. And then, you know, I think as it went, I think Steve got into it, you know, and you know,

it does become a bit of a therapeutic relationship between you and your subject in that way, at least the way I make documentaries. And there were certain steps along the way that felt like I was really, things were changing, you know, in the beginning. So for instance, in his basement, he had all this stuff and we were scanning for months, thousands of things. And he had this one box that said private. And in the beginning he was like, no, that's, you know, don't look in there. And then after a few months, it's like, Steve, can I look in the private box? And, uh, he's like, yeah, we opened it up and it had some of his old diaries uh and steve's like you can take them home wow without him even pre-reading them he just handed them to me

and that both was huge creatively but also just like a big step in our relationship like that he trusted me and one of the things in that box was his diary of 1975, which was kind of the most pivotal career year he had, which was the year he turned 30, the year he almost walked away from show business and the year his act really took off. So that was a great moment, you know, and I think in the beginning, you know, the, the, the two things that Steve didn't want to get into he had written to his dad that he never sent. And in both cases, I just left it in the film of me talking to him about it. I'm trying to be honest with the audience about this. But then I think in both cases, you actually understand the thing I was trying to get at,

which is, how does he feel about his dad and how does he feel about his daughter? Yeah. I mean, maybe just because we've all got complicated relationships with our dads, and if you've got a daughter, it'll hit you. But both of those things just really are incredibly powerful in the second part of the film. But I wanted to ask you actually about the diary and the relationship to the memoir, because that memoir was a big hit when it came out, and it was really, it was acclaimed. And, you know, a lot of people had been waiting, I think, to kind of hear from him about this

period in his life and he had not talked about it for a while. So how much when something like that exists, are you depending on it and how much are you trying to kind of subvert what we, many people may already know about him? I mean, I love his memoir and I think how he structured essentially the ending of the memoir. I mean, the memoir talks about his dad more than the first film does, but the idea that he quietly walked away from his standup career without telling anybody is kind of like, what an ending, you know? And I do feel like that was the end of the first part of the story um but i didn't use the memoir to guide how i talked to him about it i mean i just we did the fresh conversations talking about it but the other thing that unlocked it was um all the archival footage like so much of that archival footage

has never been seen before. Steve hadn't seen a lot of that footage before. And I think that's the other dimension to that early story that he couldn't have put into the book. And that it was interesting. I went back, he used to do air checks, I guess. He would record on a cassette his stand-up

act just to hear how the audience was reacting so we had a box full of cassettes i listened to all of them you know it's fascinating to listen to it and steve i played a little you know in the second film steve plays a little bit of one and he just he he's like crawling out of his skin. He can't stand to listen to his own standup. And I said to him, I was like, you should put out a whole other album of just like all the early Steve stuff. And he was like, who would, who would want to listen to that? And it's like, I think a lot of people would listen to that Steve. Like he's very modest and, you know, genuinely modest about these things.

I'm like, nobody cares about this stuff. And I was like, I think people really do care about this stuff. So that, that was a fun part of it is just being able to kind of make that story from the memoir come alive and be more dimensional and start. And like one of the, one of the things I realized that I don't even think Steve realized, but like in looking at a standup career under a microscope is yes, the culture changed and all these things were changing to make his act finally connect. But if you look at what he was doing in standup and say 1974, he was still essentially very silly, but sweet. And if you look at his stand-up in 1976 the year he really breaks

he's kind of a dick and and the there's this change where he just adds this um arrogance to the character that suddenly just makes it work that much better which is fascinating and i said this to steve and he's like really like he didn't wasn't even that aware of it yeah well man i have so many thoughts about this as somebody who has listened to those records so many times too it felt like it took him 10 years to kind of like crack the persona that became the comic persona and he talks about it so interestingly in the film knott's berry farm working as a musician being a kid who liked to perform, using that as an outlet. But his comedy, and this was explained to me basically in the 80s when I got interested in him after he had already done all this, that he effectively redefined our idea of what is or what could be funny. That there was an element of irony, that there was a showbiz persona that he was kind of playing with that Martin Short also plays with so well.

But that's kind of a heady concept. So when you're in a documentary, how do you decide who's going to explain some of these ideas? What's the best way to illuminate? And then also, who do I interview to make us understand who he was then and what it was that he was doing that was so special? Yeah, I mean, I think essentially Steve's act was performance art more than comedy you know um he had this idea which he largely explains himself because you go through the thought process and looking through his notebooks of

literally you know almost kind of scientifically working the puzzle again and again and again to figure it out. It was this idea of doing comedy without the punchline and the idea that comedy is based on tension and release. But what happens if you've never released the tension with the punchline? The tension will keep building and what will happen? And what would happen in Steve's idea was that the laughs would start to come out in random places out of sheer tension release and nervousness. And you get giddy and then you start laughing and you don't know why you're laughing. And he said, that's the best laughter that is. That's the laughter you have with your friends when you're a kid. And that was kind of a revolutionary comedic ideal. It took people a long time to get it. And when they started to get it, it went from a few people getting it in the 73, 74,

that suddenly by the time he hits Saturday Night Live in the fall of 76, it just explodes. The culture is ready for it. People get it. Then it becomes this thing where part of why he walked away from stand-up is that once everybody gets the joke, he can come up with new bits, but it's the same joke, the same performance piece. To him, what's the point? He could have milked that for a lot of time and a lot of money. But to him, it was like, well, I've done it. The piece is over. And so he never really does that character again, which I find fascinating,

but it's very Steve. It seems like the stand-up aspect of his career is one that has all of this intentionality and it has this long run-up to a kind of philosophy and a science, like you say. And then the movie career, which is something that I think most people now know him best for, it also feels kind of bifurcated to me.

It feels like in the 70s and 80s, he's exploring and kind of feeling around in genre and like what his onscreen persona should be. And then in the 90s, a lot of people are more familiar with him as sort of like dad. He's like a he's a which is ironic, of course, because he did not have children, but that he is parenthood. And, you know, the family friendly films that he was making later in his career. But that 80s period is so interesting to me. And you spend do spend some time on it but i like what relationship did you find he had with this like feeling in the dark

sense of like what is success and what isn't success in this mode as opposed to the stand-up comedy mode i mean actors often say that the only real power you have are the choices you make on what roles to take. And, you know, I think Steve spent a long time trying to figure that out. I mean, he, his first film's The Jerk, which he co-writes. It's a huge hit. And he does Pennies from Heaven next, which he loves it's the kind of thing that's much closer to his sensibility and the kind of the emotion of that story um but it's a total bomb you know it's a film that's been re-evaluated and it's actually a really amazing film to go back and watch but the audience was in no way ready to accept him for that and then he goes and he does a couple more films with carl reiner um man with two brains demo don't wear plaid

which are not nearly as successful as the jerk and then all of me i think is actually a really important film because even though it's a comedy and it's a really successful comedy, Steve's role is actually a straight guy. It's the first time he played a straight man in that way, but the straight man gets possessed and he gets to be funny, but his underlying character is actually closer to the characters he plays later in his life. Um, and I think that starts to open him up to, oh, I can play different kinds of things. But also, I think, if you really want to understand a lot of what's important to Steve, look at the films he wrote. So, you know, beyond the early comedies, he wrote Roxanne, he wrote L.A. Story, he wrote Bowfinger,

you know, but films like Roxanne and L.A. Story are these bittersweet romantic stories, which is really who Steve is, you know, and that was something that I hadn't really put together until I was working on the film and started to really see, oh, this is the real Steve. Steve wants that kind of deep emotion to it. And I think Steve loves the kind of deep, bittersweet emotionality of those things. And if you look at films like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles or Father of the Bride, and they're comedies, but they are also really deeply emotional films. And I think that's what Steve has always been going for.

It's so interesting. And in such incredible contrast, it's like maybe the primary dynamic conflict of your film, which is this person who gets incredibly famous by effectively like parodying our idea of a famous comedian. And then everybody's like, can you just be a famous comedian now?

And he's like, that's not really who I am. And then he has to spend the next 30 years making us reevaluate and re-understand who he is as an artist. And, you know, obviously he goes on to do other things that are even more serious than that, but I don't, did you, is that something that you understood when you were sitting down and talking to them? Is that something that you discover when you're doing those 18 hours of interviews? Yeah. I mean, the 18 hours are just in the beginning then we ended up doing you know filming that was even before we filmed but yeah i mean like um you know the fact he has all his scripts bound in leather on his bookshelf and just standing there and talked to him about it

and i it's one of my favorite moments is when he pulls down the script from planes trains and reads that last speech that was cut because that speech that john candy's character gives which was cut out of the movie is really more about steve than it is about john you know steve in a way was the lonely guy the real lonely guy you know steve was um the person who didn't necessarily have a place to go on the holidays. And that is so interesting. And that the roles he plays in say these father movies or even LA story, you know, these like very romantic or very kind of stable family stories were also a projection of like, that's who I, I feel like I should be that person.

I want to be that person, you know? And then when Steve said to me, you know, having kids in movies made me think I could actually have real kids, like in a way the move, the making those roles was like, let me try on what it's like to be a dad or to be a romantic, loving person, you know, that he got to do all that. And the thing is, that's exactly who he is now. Now he is America's dad. Like, in real life, he is that character. He's like the most loving, sweet family guy, you know, and it's interesting because he was playing those roles before he was. It's really funny to think about that. What's your favorite Steve Martin movie?

In my personal journey, The Jerk was like such an epic film for me at my, that time in my life. But I love so many of them, you know, and all, you know, from Three Migos to Planes, Trains to, you know, I love LA Story too, you know, many of them.A. Story too. You know, many of them. Bowfinger. I like so many of these. It's fun going back. I have two teenagers. We went back and watched so many of these movies with them when I was working on this.

And it was just great to see it through their eyes too. Because, you know, not all films age well. And I think a lot of those films actually really are perennial in a way that doesn't happen at all i think i might have asked you this the two previous times you were here but i at this stage of your life and career what is it like to be the person who basically gets the call when an incredibly famous person or a famous person who's passed like wants to do a documentary like i feel like you are the number one on the call sheet for well, can Morgan do it? Because he'll do the best version of this kind of a doc. Do you like having that reputation?

Does that bother you at this point? Where do you stand on it? Yes, I like it. And it's not... I like making great stuff about people i'm interested in you know like i'm not like the one thing that i have to know is that the subject is going to go on the journey with me you know and i've started other documentaries that I quit because. Yeah. I was going to ask you, how do you vet that?

You just have to sit down with the person and start talking to them. And pretty quickly, you're going to see, are they really on board to kind of do what we need to do to make something great? Um, or do they just see this as a way of, you know, um, doing something to celebrate themselves, you know, for Steve, it's, it was the opposite. It was Steve. Steve is, like I said, so modest. He was like, really, does anybody care about me?

You know, um, but also Steve, maybe also because Steve's done therapy for so long and everything else, it was like, he understood what the journey needed to go on. And honestly, going back and rereading some of his novels, I mean, some of the other ones too, like, I mean, he, he understands character at a deep level in a way that I knew he would understand intellectually what I needed to do as a storyteller to really kind of understand. And what I, when I go into the situations, I don't go in with an agenda. Like I'm not trying to prove any point. I'm just trying to understand

them and like, see what it is. And you know, when I showed Steve the cut, finally he wrote and said, I loved it. And then he sent a second email and said, can I show it to my shrink? Which I thought was like the best, the best review. Um, and then, and then he sent another email and said, you didn't even mention my Oscar. And I was like, well, no, that was literally, that was Steve's only, only note. And I was like, well, no, that was literally, that was Steve's only, only note. And I was like, but that's the three stages of the therapized famous person, you know, that's really nice.

Uh, but it's part, and he got it, you know, I was like, it's not about your achievements. It's about, actually, I spend way more time on his failures than I do on his achievements because that's the stuff that shapes us, you know? So like, I'm not trying to tell a story about a famous person. I'm trying to tell a story about a person who's lived a really unique life. Well, that makes me think of something

that's related to what I just asked you too, which is that a lot of the people, not all the people, but a lot of the people that you've spent time with or that you focused on in your films are kind of irrefutable. Like we actually don't need to see Steve Martin's Oscar to acknowledge that he is a legend.

He is truly an iconic film star for multiple generations and maybe one of the most significant stand-up comedians of the 20th century, if not the most significant in the second half. So, like, he did it. Like, Orson Welles did it. You know what I mean? Like, you've trained your lens on people Orson Welles did it. You know what I mean? Like there you've trained your lens on people.

Mr. Rogers did it. Like there is no denying some of the folks that you've spotlit. Is that something that is like a subconscious thing that you're drawn to? Is it something that feels like essential to some of the stories you want to tell? No. And I've made films about smaller characters too,

you know? Um, you know, and I, I love those those films too and it's not just you know there are certain characters i mean oddly steve martin orson wells mr rogers i mean these are characters that are actually hugely important in my life and go way back to when I was young. So I don't know, I feel like I'm getting to the end of that list. Yeah. It's like your, your memoir of influence, right? Like, I feel like they're, you're checking off a hit list of people who probably shaped you. It is. I mean, I'm the next thing I'm doing is this, um, film with, uh, Paul McCartney about the 70s and kind of what happened to him the day after the Beatles broke up. You only make my wet dream movies.

It's actually bizarre. You only do things that I'm like, that's exactly what I want to see. That's incredibly funny. But actually, I hope you'll come back and talk to me about that because I will have even more questions about it. But I want to ask you about this Pharrell thing that you're doing. Can you talk about that at all? I can can I have not talked about it yet okay for you for you I will thank you more I'm incredibly excited about it uh because um it's not like any other movie you know and I know people say that, but it's a documentary animated feature musical biopic that is 100% a Lego movie. And it's 100% a documentary, but you can watch it and not realize it's a documentary.

So you are using all of your traditional interview archival methods, but then recreating entirely in Lego. Yes. But beyond that, then using animation to say, okay, if we're now in a headspace or listening to a song, it doesn't have to be rooted in the real world. It can be fantastical just visually. So I feel like there are these different gears of what is the kind of documentary grammar translated into Lego and then kind of the grand, fantastic animation style put into a documentary. So anyway, it's hard to explain, but I'm looking forward to people i mean i've interviewed for a couple times too and he's an excellent subject he's such an

interesting and thoughtful guy so i'm really excited for that uh morgan we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen have you seen anything good recently yeah zone of interest i loved, tell me what you like about it. It actually is, and I came to understand this more in reading about the film, part documentary. That's what I really enjoyed about it was, you know, I feel like so much of what we do as documentarians is try to put things into a structure and grammar of narrative. And I love it when narrative films try and do the opposite and try and put the kind of chaos and unpredictability and tactility of real life into scripted. And so I know I felt like that was a film that was reaching towards me creatively in a way.

So anyway, it gave me a lot to think about. It's a great recommendation. Morgan, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on the show. Great talking to you. Thanks to Morgan. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Like I said, it's either going to be Monkey Man or something else.

I hope you'll stay tuned later this week on The Big Picture. See you then.