The Rewatchables - ‘The Doors’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Chuck Klosterman

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan are joined by Klosterman to head to the desert and open up their minds as they revisit the 1991 biopic ‘The Doors,’ starring Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, and Kyle MacLachlan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On TV concierge, the ringer staff delivers a guide to the vast streaming landscape by discussing one show or movie per day, including premieres, the latest surprise Netflix hits, periodic check-ins on favorite TV shows, new movies available for streaming, and the host's favorite shows to watch right away. Check out TV concierge exclusively on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Build for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast. Because the asks aren't getting smaller. And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight.

With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly. I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly, real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Now, nothing went wrong. So, what's the problem?

That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood?

Is this table wood? I think it's laminated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on... Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.

Coming up, I am the lizard king. I can do anything. The doors is next. There are things known. And things unknown. And in between are the doors. Wow. And Oliver Stone film.

The doors. The doors red are. See it. March 1st at theaters everywhere. All right. Chris Ryan is here. Chuck Closterman is here. We brought in the big guns to discuss the 30th anniversary of one of the weirdest

most flawed, most entertaining, most memorable movies of the early 90s. The Dors about Jim Morrison. It was a highly anticipated movie. It was a banged-around Hollywood project for at least 10 years before it finally happened. And it has a fascinating legacy. Chris, I'll start with you. The legacy of this movie is Val Kilmer. This is the Valcomer.

Is the guy from Top Secret and Top Gun, and we don't know if he's a star, and then he blows everybody away. and 30 years later, it still blows me away. There are biographical films like Malcolm X or Lincoln where you're watching the movie and you can be really impressed because you know that this actor is doing a really good job in the performance of Malcolm X or Abraham Lincoln, Daniel D. Louis or Danza, Washington.

When I watch The Doors, I am like, that is Jim Morrison. Like, I have actual, like, problems understanding whether or not somehow I am watching Jim Morrison in a movie about Jim Morrison with Kyle McLaughlin and Kevin Dillon. And Val Kilmer so disappears into the role because I think it's just like that one in 20,000 chance that he just looks just like him and is able to act just like him. And it's so much so that I just kind of associate everything I associate with Jim Morrison with Val Kilmer. Chuck, did this change how you even think of Jim Morrison where it's hard to,

where Val Kilmer merges into Jim Morrison and it becomes some sort of double-per- Well, yeah. I mean, like what Chris says is completely right. I mean, and typically like say like that, you know, like when Jim Carrey was in the Andy Kaufman movie. He does a great job in the same way, but it seems like he's doing an impersonation. What is interesting about this is how much he seems like Jim Morrison without the sense that he is impersonating it. Like they just, I don't even know what that means how he could be like someone and we're not just trying to sort of replicate what they look like and how they talk and everything. You know, it is, there's a lot, this definitely, you know,

when this movie came out, it was like in the spring and I saw it the opening night, I was in college, it was a pack theater. And for the next two months, when you'd walk around the college campus, you just hear the doors music

kind of coming out of everywhere. So it seemed as though this sort of, you know, like restarted this resurgence of interest in the doors. But I think now it's pretty clear that this, movie has really damaged the way the doors are perceived and that this was ultimately a

real kind of negative thing for the band in terms of how they remembered yeah i had the same thing i saw this movie in college and i've said this before on the podcast this is like one of five or six movies in my life where i went and saw it again in the theater i thought it was so great i'd always like the doors it started the same thing for me like one of those two two month doors deep dives where you go and you you're a dog I never would have pegged you for a door's guy. I had two big runs. One in high school, went away, and then one in college.

And it's interesting, in the research of this movie, you know, there's a lot of stuff I had forgotten about in the early 80s. There's this whole Doors revival. And it starts with, it basically starts with the apocalypse now and then play in the end in 1979. At the same time, they have a greatest hits album. This was right at the stage of when greatest hits albums were reigniting bands' careers like the Eagles, the Doors, things.

like that. There was a TV tribute show that I don't remember. That was apparently a big deal. No one gets out of here alive was the book came out. And then Rolling Stone in 1981 had the cover Jim Morrison. He's hot. He's sexy. He's dead, which I remember. And that's when John Chavolto started doing the movie. So that revival starts then. And it really kind of goes through the decade with this project. They can never get it done. They could never get it made. They can never find the right person. And it's amazing that they catch Valcomber at this point of his career when he's the perfect all-time guy to play Jim Morrison. And we didn't even mention, he's not lip-syncing. He's singing all these songs. And this is why, Chris, like,

Rami Malik wins for Friday Mercury for the Queen movie, which I think we all thought was, you know, as watchable as it was, was not a great movie. But he lip-synced all the songs. and he wins the Oscar. Val Kilmer not even nominated for an Oscar for this. Should he even want a Grammy? It's like one of the all-time Oscar travesties ever. He doesn't even get a Best Actor nomination. So who were the nominees that year?

I have that. So Anthony Hopkins wins for silence. It's hard to argue. We litigated on the silence pot, even though he's only in it for 18 minutes. It's such a powerful 18 minutes. I'm okay with Best Actor for him. De Niro's in here for Cape Fair.

I'm okay with that. Gets a little dicey after that. Warren Beatty for Bugsy. Oh, man. I remember that. Nick Nolte for The Prince of Tides, which was a thing at the time I can see it. And then Robin Williams for the Fisher King. For Val Kilmer not to nudge out one of those three is incredible to me, considering he sang all the songs of this movie. Yeah, he's amazing in this movie and the physicality of it is the thing. It's like for as much as I think it's notable that he sings, which is mind-blowing. He actually also gets all of Morrison's mannerisms on stage and off and creates this kind of length. physical language of the guy that is just as impressive as the audio stuff that he does.

Chuck, people impersonating musicians over the years. Jamie Fox wins for Ray Charles. Angela Bassett nominated for Tina Turner. Rami Malk wins for Freddie Mercury. J-Lo, her career took off when she did Selena. Joaquin Phoenix got nominated as Johnny Cash. Gary Busey got nominated as Buddy Holly. Cici Space Act won for Loretta Lynn.

Jessica Lang nominated for Patsy Kline, Diana. Ross nominated for the Billy Holiday movie. I think Valcomer is the best of all of those. Where does it rank for you in terms of an actor playing a musician but becoming the musician? Is this first? Yeah, I think this is first. I mean, I think that it would probably be in contention for being first if he didn't sing songs.

The fact that he does sing the songs, I think there's a lot of people who aren't even aware of that. I think they just assume that. Because, you know, they're using real Doors music in a lot of the film. And it's only when he's actually, like, on stage singing songs. And, you know, early in the movie, when they're on the beach, then he sings the first song to Rayman Zerick and Rayman Zerick. That's a great song.

You know, let's start a band. Those are great lyrics, man. I don't play a conventional rock instrument, but let's start to, you know. He doesn't, when he sings that little section, he doesn't sound that good. Let's swim to the moon. Uh-huh. Let's climb through the tide. Penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide.

You know, like, it doesn't sound as though, boy, this person is, is a, you know, a credible vocalist. So then I think a lot of people watch the rest of the film, assuming, like, in most of these films, that he is, just sort of lip-syncing along. And so, you know, it really goes beyond, though, like the performance of stuff, which is great. I mean, it just has more to do with kind of the effect of his expression. Like early in the film when he's in L.A. and he's kind of wandering around her when he hitchhikes there the first time,

he has this look on his face that, you know, the kind of expression, there's just a kind of person who's like on drugs all the time even when they're not. It kind of has that look. And that was a very, you know. But I will say this. I'm not sure how much I know what Jim Morrison was like for real. And I think that this movie in some ways has replaced that in my mind. So I think it's almost not like I'll see footage of Jim Morrison from the period he was alive.

and I'll be like, oh, wow, he's doing Bell Kilmer very well. But that was also a big point of contention among the other bandmates was that Stone didn't quite capture the totality of like, I'm sure Jim Morrison was a guy who was like, you know, would watch a USC game on TV or something like that. You know, like it sounds like he was funny. It sounds like he was personable in various times, and he wasn't always, always, always on acid.

Well, I mean, if you watch this movie, you would have to come away with the, And it's all you knew. You would have to assume the other doors hated being in the doors. They're never happy. And yet, I can't really think of a band where the surviving members have worked harder to promote the legacy of that band.

I mean, the remaining doors are more interested in the doors than the Beatles and Led Zeppelin combined are interested in their groups. Well, it's not even close. I mean, it's like they're just, like, they, I think that now it's possible. Some, it could be that, like, that really was a tough.

period and we need to get something out of this. We need to be remembered as being important or whatever. But I think because this movie did change the way the doors are remembered, it is almost sort of galvanized their desire to kind of take hold of the legacy of it. Because like I say, it's like I do, like the queen movie ultimately helped queen. Like it's going to help them over time. This hurt the doors. I think there's no way around it. There's just like no way to argue that the way of the doors were perceived, certainly in rock circles prior to this movie, was not superior to how it was perceived by, say, the end of the 90s or now. And it became a cautionary tale for any band or any, like, singer in their estate or whoever. If you're going to make a movie out of it,

don't let it be like the Doors movie where basically the last hour of the movie is about what a drunk maniac Jim Morrison was. But at the same time, he kind of was a drunk maniac. And This is 20 years after the doors basically break up. And I think it's really important to put in a context. This is 1991. They've been around for about 20 years. And you just think about the Britney Spears documentary, which wasn't even that good,

and revived this whole nostalgic Britney Spears, Britney Spears, that era, TRL, all that stuff. And, you know, it's the right amount of time to look back at that stuff. And with the doors, this was the right amount of time. And this is why people were trying to figure out, how do we make this doors movie? Because classic rock was still gigantic.

People were still really nostalgic for, you know, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Woodstock, all of these things from that kind of love, love peace and war, the Vietnam era, all that stuff was in vogue. And there was a lot riding on this movie with Oliver Stones. People were like, this is going to be amazing.

And I don't think it was totally what they thought it was going to be. Well, you know, like in 1990, Jim Morrison was on the cover of spin. I mean, which is really weird, but the issue was 35 years of rock, okay, because they were like basically saying rock had started in 1955, now we're at 1990. This guy, you see like, you know, he was like this kind of this alcoholic, drug addict madman. That is true. That's how he was perceived in 1990. But an alcoholic, drug addict madman who was sort of tapping in to kind of the fantasy or illusion of what people like about rock.

After this movie, it seemed like people thought of Jim Morrison as an alcoholic, drug addict. drunken madman who was full of shit. That really is kind of, you get that sense as this movie moves on, that a lot of the things he's, you know, it also, it plays up certain aspects of his interest that makes it seem, you know, like, I think that they're really more tied now in the concept of like rock pretension than they were prior to this. Bill, to your point though, so that, you know, Oliverstone does another movie in 1991, very important to us, JFK.

It might be coming up later this year of The Rewatchables. I saw JFK in the theater. I don't think I saw the doors in the theater. I was just in the beginning of high school. But I saw JFK with my mom. And I remember being out in the parking lot after we saw that movie. And the way she had reacted to that movie was so, which was really vulnerable. You know what I mean?

Obviously, like JFK's assassination was this huge, huge moment in her life. And to see it depicted on screen like that really shook her up. And I kind of didn't get it because to me that was like ancient. history. That might as well have been like, you know, the Wild West. Like the 60s didn't register for me. But the same thing is true for this movie for people who maybe grew up with the doors and like this movie is not as when this movie was made, it was not as far away from the actual thing that it was talking about as we think it is now. You know what I mean? We think of this as like, oh yeah, that's like madmen era. You know what I mean? Like that's like so long ago. But for 1991 to do a

19 late 60s, early 70s project was, it would be like doing a Nirvana movie now. Right. No, but it's not, it's not though. You don't think so? Well, the gap, the cultural gap between, say, 1971 and 1991 is much greater than even the gap from 1991 to now. How so?

I disagree. Well, okay, like, oh, it absolutely is, Bill. Because when you, okay, there's this idea that, there's this maybe the slow cancellation of the future. There's this guy, Mark Fisher,

are you familiar with him, Chris? No. He's like, he's written a book about horror films to like the weird in the eerie. He was kind of

one of Simon Reynolds buddies. But he talks about the slow cancellation in the future, which is that once basically the internet became central to everything, our relationship

to time changed. And then if you took music from 1991, so let's say he took like Nirvana and like a low-in theory and blood sugar sex magic. I think all those records came on the same day.

And you brought them back to 1971 and played them for people. They would be like, this isn't music. What is this? Like it would make no sense to them. But that sort of ends when we move into the 21st century. You could take any music that's kind of available now and play to people in 2001,

and it would not seem crazy. And in fact, his example is he talks about like an Arctic Monkey song that he hears in like, say, 2010, and he actually assumes it's a post-punk band he missed entirely, that everything is sort of marginally retro now. So when the doors came out in 91, it seemed like they were talking about a band that's pretty distant. But I wouldn't say any more distant than we think of them now.

That's interesting. I get what you're saying. The greatest hits album factor cannot be underestimated. It was a huge part of the 80s. You know, and like the Eagles' greatest hits album, I think it's the greatest selling album of all time. The Doris had a really good greatest hit's album, and it was one we listened to in high school and in college,

and it had the perfect blend of songs. And there's some songs on that album that I still think are really great. Like, I think LA Woman is, I still really like that song. Even now if it came out and I would get fired up. So I do feel like there were stakes with not only the musical performances in this movie, but who was playing Jim Morrison, because at that point he was a little bit mythical, right? and Kilmer, who was basically goose from Top Gun.

I mean, I'm sorry, Iceman from Top Gun, the guy who just went toe to toe with Cruz and was on HBO a few times. I think that's why I went to see it in the theater twice. I just couldn't believe how good he was at Jim Morrison. So I did some research. He learned 50 songs, 15 in which were performed the film. He spent his own money on an audition video

to try to convince Stone to give him the gig because Stone wanted a bigger star, spent hundreds of hours with Paul Rothschild, the Doors producer who's in the movie, being played by an actor. And then when it finally got to the point where he performed, they played it for the doors and they couldn't tell who was who between him and Jim Morrison.

Like, that's how good he was. And the concert scenes did all his own singing. They played the Doors master tapes, but removed Morrison's vocals. And he would just sing. And they would have these concert sequences, is which Stone said it took several days to film, and Kilmer's voice would start to deteriorate after a couple takes.

So they had to be really careful about how they did. Same thing with the end, which took that sequence, took five days to shoot 24 takes. And then Kilmer, between takes, is doing that whole thing where he's like, I'm Jim Morrison,

I'm not Valcomer. I'm behaving, talking like Valcomer the entire time. He put so much of himself into this. He said afterwards he had to like see a therapist. like he couldn't break out of the character. So it was one of those things. I bet he was surprised.

He didn't get a best actor nomination, but to me it's one of the most memorable performances in the 90s. I don't know what the complete list is, but if you just asked me to list off top of my head, most important performances of the 90s, I would put this on there, and I don't think it has that kind of legacy, Chuck. Oh, like the memory of him as an actor?

The Valcomer in the doors, I feel like should be discussed with the great 90s performances, and I'm not sure it is. Well, it is odd because I feel like very often when people talk about the great Val Kilmer performance, they use Tombstone as the example. And there seems to be more of a positive feeling toward his performance in that movie. I think that there is generally a negative feeling toward this film, which I've seen probably five times, and I'm watching it again, it is interesting because it is a very flawed movie,

and yet in this kind of the conceit you have of rewatchability, it really does kind of fit that quality that if you just happen to see it. Because also it's any kind of a fictional version of nonfiction events, you can kind of just drop in anywhere. It seems to me clearly like the best performance of his career. But I'm also prone to think of that because I like rock stars more than cowboys. Well, we talk about if you played this piece of music for somebody in 2001, or if you played this piece of music for somebody in 1970.

I don't think that this movie is very in vogue right now. I don't think this movie, it may have aged well for the three of us, but I don't think this is how people do biopics anymore. You know what I mean? Like they don't make these sort of... They're hegeographies. Yeah, but it's also an impressionistic fever dream. You're often just like, wait, so did they record two other albums here?

Or, you know, it's basically broken up into four major live performances. I think and a bunch of these other scenes that are kind of sprinkled throughout. But as a biography, you have very little understanding of why Jim Morrison became who he was and what happened to the doors. It is a strange, you're right. It's a strange combination of things because it is in some ways impressionistic, you know, like when they're watching him on stage and suddenly he's dancing with these Native Americans again and the whole life.

Like it doesn't ever explicitly say that he believes that he became possessed by the spirit of this guy, but you can kind of figure that out. And yet at the same time, it often does the thing that makes me love biopics, because I have a weird obsession with biopics. I love insanely expository dialogue. Like, I love it when they're like, it's like, we took drugs to expand our mind, not to escape. They're like, you know, they're on the beach. They're walking on the beach, and Ray Van Derrick looks out over the water and goes,

Vietnam is over there. I love that. I love when movies do that because I always think about this. Like, okay, so like, let's say, like, they made a biopic about you, Bill. Okay? So it's about your life. It would be exactly like the doors. At one point, at one point there would have to be a situation like where, like, Chris looks at you and it's like,

Prantlin worked, but we're going to do something different with the ringer. It's like you're always got to have, you know, you're going to basically boil down. Donald Trump is over there, man. Yes, yes. It's like you could, it's because what happens is in life. you know, and in mediated life or in regular life, we're always sort of talking around the idea what we really feel. Like we're trying to explain what somebody represents or what we think of something, but we don't directly say it. In a biopic you do, you have someone say exactly what,

say, six months of thought and conversation boils down to, and I just find it hilarious. And in this movie, they go back and forth between kind of an abstraction of Jim Morrison's life, and people literally reading from a really poorly written story about him. Like he's like when he's in the movie class, okay? So he makes this movie and it's, you know, and then it creates this polarizing effect in the class. So one guy in the class is like, it's better than a Warhol movie. And someone's great response is, no, it isn't.

And the guy goes, he made a movie of a guy sleeping. It's like, okay, this movie has no social conscience. Yes, yes. And then Ray Benzer comes down and he's like, Jim, don't believe him. This is brilliant, okay? Just so you know, I'm kind of your hype, man, and all your crazy ideas. I might lose patience later, but right now, I like what you're doing. Like, I think that is just, you know, I find, like, the biopic I know is, like, considered

almost like the lowest level of filmmaking in some ways. And yet I will watch anyone about any figure who is legitimately famous. Because what these movies are trying to do is somehow explain the way people understand fame. And they have to do it in the fastest way possible. Right. Bill, did you take peyote and turn to house and say, what if I wrote about the draft as it was happening? Draft diaries.

That's what would have to happen. It would be like house going like, boy, you know, we really like the draft, but I wish somebody would write about the way it feels to watch it. That's like, what about a diary? And then I climb on a car and I start timestamping it. Yeah, I'm with you, Chuck. Some of my favorite scenes in this movie,

like I love, we'll get it to it with the rewax. But I love the last time he sees the doors when he's going around. Yeah, and he goes to Frank Whaley. And Frank Whaley's like, I played music with Dionysius. He's just like, who says that to another human being? Or farewell. Even when he walks up there, the guy's like, hey, we added rain effects to writers on the store. It's like, oh, they're doing that right now.

Five minutes before this child's birthday party, we're putting rain effects on this. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. The cake's coming out. Can you press pause on the rate effects? We should mention the Oliver Stone piece of this. So this is the direct moment in Oliver Stone's career where he loses his mind.

Because up to now he's done, you know, he does platoon and Wall Street, born in the 4th of July. Those are movies rooted insanity, but he's gone for big themes. Starting with The Doors is when he just unravels as a filmmaker for better or worse. He's got the Doors, JFK, Natural Born Killers. he does Nixon, he does that crazy any given Sunday, which we love, which we've done on the rewatchables. But he almost has to do the Oliver Stone on steroids for any movie he does.

And there's no better example of this. There was an easier way to do this movie, and he's just like, fuck it, I'm doing the weird way. Well, I would say that what you're talking about, I feel really that happens during natural born killers. I feel like that is when, like, these movies, like JFK. I can't believe you don't think that happened during JFK. Well, JFK is insane.

I know it is, but have you guys been watching that Adam Curtis documentary? Yeah. That's been like, okay, like, he talks about Garrison in that. And it's odd because he's kind of like takes Garrison seriously, which hadn't happened in so long. So like maybe that did work out. Like maybe, maybe all of you. What's also interesting is Oliver Stone was perceived as being so insane for forwarding the idea of like a, you know, the just JFK conspiracy. but at the time

a majority of the United States believed that there was some kind of conspiracy involved with J.K. Case and satisfaction. So it was like, that's how different conspiracies were looked at in the early 90s. That if you made a movie about a conspiracy that most people believe, he was still widely criticized.

Bill, I think that Chuck's right. I would almost be curious to see the version of the doors made by the natural born killers filmmaker. Like the doors to me... completely off the rails. For as much as they have like those vision quests and stuff, it is pretty straightforward in places. It's pretty linear. It's pretty much like there are these five or six major events that we need to capture. There's Ed Sullivan's show. There's this show in

San Francisco. There's New Haven. There's Miami. But I kind of watching back some of his movies from that era, and especially JFK and natural born killers where he's doing all this multimedia stuff and all this wild cutting. I kind of think it would be kind of neat to see. like a recut of the doors using that technique of just like addled sort of, you know, channel flipping, all this different like lighting, all this different multimedia. It probably wouldn't necessarily fit because it's such a, it's so rooted in like that like sort of late 60s classic rock era. But yeah, I do think it's really natural born killers where he completely goes off menu. Well, you also have the doors doing the, the doors are involved in this movie. Rayman's Eric.

In a limited capacity. They're protecting the legacy. And I think. they felt even this version was way worse than I think what they were hoping and they disowned it pretty much immediately. It's sick. It's like it sounds like Stone talked to every single person and just did the exact opposite. Right. So the quick background. So we mentioned in 1981, there's this huge revival.

Him being on the cover of Rolling Stone is amazing. I'm trying to think of what the Sports Illustrated equivalent of that would be, you know, like 1981 where there have some dead athlete on the cover. 82 Chavolto is now really into it. He's studied Jim Morrison for months, gets Brian De Palma to get involved because they've just done blowout together. But then there's this other part of people also trying to make the movie.

They have William Friedkin. And so there's two different things going on and everything falls apart. Chavolta calls it the biggest disappointment of his career. He said, quote, I had it down. I worked on this guy for months. Next five years, multiple people, multiple scripts,

all these deals fall apart. 1988, the rights are about to expire and somebody jumps in. Guess who jumps in, Chris Ryan? Our guys, Mara Casasar and Andrew Vajda. We still don't know if their fictional characters are real. They keep popping up with the rewatchables.

They own Carol Co? How do you say it? Carol Co. Yeah. Carol Co. Yeah. So they buy it last minute, get Stone to Direct,

give them three to four million plus gross, some gross points, and the film is on. 32 million dollar budget, 34.4 million made, so barely broke even. Roger Ebert, any guesses for one out of four stars for this?

Two and a half. Oh, I would have guessed you would have liked it. I said, quote, the experience of watching the door is not always very pleasant. These are the songs, of course, and some electrifying concert moments, but mostly there is the mournful self-pity and dissent of this young man and this selfish and boring stupor.

Not wrong. We're going to take a break. Come back through the categories. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch.

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Most rewatchable scenes. So I really do like the opening in this, but I'm not going to put that in. The first rewatchable scene to me is the... I do enjoy the film school thing for all the reasons Chuck mentioned. But the first gym and race scene when they're on the beach.

Amazing. Those are great fucking lyrics, man. And then he starts talking about the 60s. He's like, people want to fight or fuck. And he does that whole. Basically tries to set up the 60s in three sentences with the bad Rayman's Eric Wagon. All of it is just great. I just love it.

It's just love it. You can feel it in the air. People want to fight or fuck, love or kill. Vietnam is right out there, man. Sides are being chosen. Everything's going to flame, man. The planet is screaming for change. Morrison, we've got to make the myths.

there are the great origins, man. Like when Dionysus arrived in Greece, made all the women mad, leaving their homes and dancing off into the mountains. It's a great four minutes. I love Kilmer. I also like that Kilmer, as Chuck pointed out earlier, he's not singing that great yet.

And then we see Peak Jim Morrison. Then in there, the end, he figures out how to do drunk Jim Morrison, where it's almost like a different veris, a little raspy ear, a little like, so he has all these different Jim Morrison parts, but I love, what beach

what beach would you think that was? You think that was Santa Monica? It's Venice, isn't it? It was Venice. Yeah. Next rewatchable scene, this is probably going to be my pick unless you guys could talk me out of it.

The first band rehearsal where Light My Fire comes together in two minutes. Literally two minutes. If I was to say to you, girl, we couldn't get much higher. Come on, baby, light my fire. Pretty good.

for me. Try to set the night on fire. That's great, Robby. You got some nice changes. There's more lyrics? Yeah, yeah, some. I call it light my fire. If I'm going to compete with your stuff,

it better be about earth. Snakes or fire. I like you. Sounds like the birds, though, man. But you know, there is one particularly good detail about that scene. It's when he's showing the song and he's kind of playing it a rough version.

And then at one point when he goes like, G-A-D, where it's like, It's like that was a F minor A minor. I can remember seeing that in the theater and being like well, they wouldn't have needed to include this. It's like it does like it does now seem when I watched it again

it seems crazy how fast that song is put together. But it does sort of have some qualities of how maybe it's always a mystery how like when a guy comes up with a song and there's four other people or three other people in the band and they

sort of have to figure out from his version, how to make it the full version. And I kind of appreciate that they did that. Then it was interesting, though. Then they got to work on the organ intro. It's so great. Let's go outside. They go on time for five minutes and they'd come back in a man's like, nailed it.

Got it. Thanks for that two and a half minutes, guys. I figured out the organ to show. I also love when somebody writes a song and they play a version. And then the lead singer's like, let me see that. And just immediately remembers all the words and has the perfect way to

spin it up. That scene hits all of my favorite things. I've said this before, but I always love in these music movies when they're trying to figure out basically the path to a hit song and it all comes together in five minutes.

This is not the only movie where this is a device. I enjoy it every time. Yeah, there's the first time they play that thing you do where he speeds it up with the drums. I think that's like a very famous version of that. The NWA movie has that one too. They have a moment like that. They all kind of do that and they all have to

then say, the first live performance of the end is just incredible and hilarious. At the whiskey, yeah. Oh, my God. That whole scene, we could put some other stuff in there from the early 60s, but I was just grabbing that one. I also like the, it's short, but the scene when he won't face the crowd and then turns around and gets into, it. It's just a really, really good performance. It's a very attractive crowd at that show.

Oh, my God. I went to many, many rock shows. It's never like at a poison show. It's not like that. Like I've never seen a crowd look that way. But the scene that I really like is I think that one thing Oliver Stone does do a good job of is when he sort of simulates like their initial mania over the band and like people are rushing up to them. I had that coming up. The everything's taking off montage.

What are my favorites? And he shoots it with a camera that kind of looks like news, from the time. And then they get on the plane and they all say who they are and they do a good job of that. Like it's like it's in some ways it's like a device. Let's remind the audience who all these people are. So they're like, who is the drummer again? Like let's have him say his name and what he plays. So he could be like percussion. Yes. But yes, but then he has them sort of describe themselves in ways that do to a degree reflect how we're supposed to assume these characters perceive themselves. So like Remainz-Zerick takes himself.

be serious. Raymond Daniel Manzarek, one, two, 1239, musician, organist. The drummer takes himself slightly more seriously than he should. John Densmore, percussionist, 22 years old. The guitarist seems like a normal guy. Robbie Krieger, the top player. The girlfriend seems like I don't even have any agency and any of this.

I'm an ornament, yeah. Name, occupation. Pamela Morrison, ornament. And then Morrison just says, like, I'm Jim. Name, occupation. Jim. Which, I remember everyone in the theater laughing hilariously when he does that. Now it seems like, I mean, it's just, it's so hard for me in some ways to jump back into what, like, my mind was like when I was, you know, 19 or whatever, where I saw this movie.

It's like I can't remember what I knew about the doors if I knew anything. I mean, I must have known some of their songs. But I think that it really was, I don't know if I read if I read no one gets out here alive before or after this movie. I can't remember any of that. And it's hard to sort of think of what the impact would have been at the time. I love the everything's taking off montage, as we've discussed in previous episodes. I also love what Chuck just mentioned.

We're resetting the movie right here with Blue. little snippets of what each person's really like. Because it's like my favorite boogie nights deleted scene is that one when Dirk wins the word the second time. And it's just slow motion cuts to everyone at all the different tables. And each person is like doing the perfect thing that you would know their character for. And I still don't know why he cut it. But that's that reset of them all introducing themselves.

You're right. It's all you need to know about each person. It also resets who their names are, leads into the Ed Sullivan. I really like that part. New Haven, 1968. it's just really like I don't remember I have to go

I don't really remember anybody filming giant concert scenes like this before no I know it's not even any footage of the Miami incident yeah no but I'm saying like in real like an actual movie where they're like we have 4,000 extras for five days of shooting

for this New Haven concert sequence I feel like this was a new thing right well also like a was I the only one who really thought the guy introducing the band and talking to the crowd at New Haven, sounds exactly like Mike Francesa. By the best he sounds just like him. At first I was like, could this have even been, you know,

it's like, I'm trying to do big concert scenes where you, you know, I'm trying to think in the 80s if that. Because I remember like the Blues Brothers have a good one, but it wasn't 4,000 people. It was probably like 1,000 people. Well, I mean, you know, the idea of big crowds at rock shows doesn't really start until 1964, 63, whatever, like big crowds or whatever. So there probably wasn't there.

I can't, like, were there movies in the 80s about the early days of rock? There was Buddy Holly, of course. But that is, you know, all the scale is small. Lomba. Like, a lot of that is, like, televised appearances or small shows. But a lot of the stuff they would cheat because they would do the same stuff with sports movies, right? You watch the first two Rockies and they have all the extras on one side or they make the, They made the seats in the back black or whatever.

This was Stone being like, no, we're fucking doing this. We're bringing 4,000 people. I'm going to have topless people standing on guy's shoulders, and this will be a rock concert for the entire time. We filmed this. It was really ambitious. The dinner party scene is really funny when Meg Ryan meets the mistress. And they're making a duck.

The Thanksgiving scene is amazing. They all of a knife out, and it's just like, hey, it's another average day with Jim and his girlfriend. Patricia Caneli, are you Patricia Caneally? You must be Pamela. You actually put your dick in this woman, Jim? Well, sometimes, yeah. Well, I understand. I really do.

But just don't you ever expect that Jim's going to love you or take care of you because you're one of a hundred, you know? Come on, you don't know when to stop. Look who's talking. Well, I like to think that Jim can make up his own mind about who he loves and who he doesn't. Well, don't kid yourself, sweetheart. He's crazy, but he's not that crazy.

He loves me. Come on, Pam, let's go check on those sweet potatoes. But now, though, like I say, this damaging the way the doors are perceived, that scene and the scene where he locks the girlfriend in the closet and lights at a fire, well, they're both made up events. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, the Thanksgiving scene is particularly deceptive because it seems as though this must have had to happen, partially because it's thanksgiving.

and they're making a duck. So when there's some weird detail like that that you're not using the obvious example of what you'd make on Thanksgiving, your mind tells you, it's like, well, this must be from real events because these little strange details of burnt duck taking acid before people show up and all that. But I guess that didn't happen at all. Yeah. That's a stone trick, though, isn't it?

Like he would do that in JFK, too, these really detailed things that turned out wasn't real at all. And that, I mean, that's, that is fine, I guess, but it does, you know, the idea of locking her in the closet letting it on fire, like, I don't know where that came from. There's even a myth about that, but if it's made up, you're basically saying this guy who's crazy, actually he's a murderer. Like, he's a homicide. That is a big shift, you know. And it's, so when you want, like, like, what's good about that Thanksgiving scene is like, I think many people have been in situations like this

where you go to like a small party and something that's going on with two people. And you're on acid and then a bunch of bikers show up and your lover is there while you're there with your girlfriend. Yeah, well, I just know, because what Morrison does in this movie, it's like there are certain guys who are like that. It's like, hey, I'm going to invite my ex-girlfriend

or the girl I'm sleeping with on the side to this situation just because it almost kind of extends my power over both of these women. Also, I guess I just read this after watching this movie this last time, I guess that the Pam character and like the Patricia Keneally character. I guess they were actually very cordial to each other. They had no issues with each other because it was a different time where the idea of him being this way wasn't that weird. Yeah, I was curious. Do you know if his sobriety is something that she advocated for at this time?

because that's another thing that's sort of like kind of passed off in the Thanksgiving scene is when they're walking up the hill. And she was like, you promised me you wouldn't drink. And he's like, well, I just took some low grade acid. And I was like, were they trying to get Jim Morris and Queen? Because her family was involved with the making of this movie. Because there's some, there was some, okay.

The rumor she, that she was responsible for his death. And I think they were trying to. That she bought the heroin. So, like, was she really advocating for his sobriety? I mean, even in that scene, she says it's like you were supposed to wait to take acid because now you're going to peek early. So it wasn't like she was teetotoling.

She was just like, let's not burn the duck. One thing I like about that scene, I like Jim's friends. I know Chris would sign off right now for a prequel with just his friends, like Michael Madsen and the hell's angels guys. Michael Madsen and Billy Idol, yeah. In Billy Idol, like that could have been its own movie

that Chris would watch. A couple more rewatchable scenes. I love when drunk Jim records touch me. It might be killed. single best scene he said what was that promise made me

he's all prima donna's too drunk to fucking see I'm gonna love you till the heaven stop the rain he's just on it he does you're all about you're lacking slaves

and then he's fine and then he's not fine and then he hears the light by fire commercial and he flips out how much 75,000 look man we couldn't

reach you, we figured, you know, you're talking. It's not a big deal, man. The song has already been commercialized. Feliciano's already sold 2 million copies. Fucking face! There's a lot. There's some other stuff to unpack that we'll get to later,

but I just think he's really good in that scene. I also love the plane scene with Madsen, even though it's short, when they're late for the Miami concert. And this goes back to Chuck's point about the terrible dialogue that's secretly great, where he's like, you tested all the limits, man.

What's you going to do for? act three. Who says that? You're hanging out on a plane. But I really like Batson. If you're hanging out with somebody at the age of 27 or 26 or whatever he was and they ask what you're going to do

in the third act of your life. It's basically saying like, hey, I don't think you're going to live more than 10 years. You know, it's like we're an act. It's a little odd in that scene that like Jim just turns to his producer and says, hey, can you get me some heroin? It's just a great snapshot of like, now we get annoyed if somebody has like a teacup Yorkie in the seat next to us on an airplane.

And Jim Morrison is smoking a cigar and he's like, where's my heroin? So the Miami scene, I like when drunk Jim starts insulting everyone. But really the key part of the scene is after when he, the Native American all of a sudden is the police come on the stage. Is he hallucinating? And he ducks the police and these things break on through and he just glides through the crowd. And they're just falling him around. I think that's one of the coolest two-minute scenes, not just of this movie, but of this era.

Like how they film that. Everything about it, like his performance, you don't know if it's real or not. That's like kind of when the movie, I think, peaks as whatever Stone was trying to achieve with his fantasy or real type thing. It's really good. So you can go on YouTube and hear the entire Miami concert.

There's like a 14 and a half minute video where you can hear Morrison berating the- with Kilmer singing. No, I mean, like, in real life. Oh, the actual thing. Okay. You can hear it. There's no video, but you can, you can hear Jim Morrison do that whole thing. And I know that this is weird, but the Kilmer version is better.

Like, the Kilmer version is equally unhinged and everything, but it is actually, it's just so captivating. The Miami sequence is my favorite from the backstage stuff of everybody coming up and saying the exact way they feel about the doors to him. And then him dropping to taking peyote with with with with Krieger before they go on stage. And it's you'll play like an orgasm. Isn't there even that's the seat also where like it opens with for some reason that journalist is there writing a review into his tape recorder. And he's like talking about like the soft parade has been a disappointing really like it. Yeah.

And the drummer is right. And Densmore's right behind him like listening. And then he's just like man, there's right there's rock critic completely. took us apart. I mean, this is why this movie's rewatchable. This is why this movie, if you're with four people, is actually more fun to watch because there's some off the rare stuff. When Denzmore, when Kevin Dillon says,

we took drugs to expand our minds, not to escape, is not something anyone who has ever taken our drugs is said. It's like definitely for escape. Because he's acting like, you betrayed me by giving me these I had no idea that we liked doing it. I thought this was like ban practice. It's like, I've been, you know, it's like, I've been, you know, the funniest thing about some of those lines is like, you know, Oliver Stone wrote this with Randall Johnson.

You know, they're in front of some typewriter in the early 90s. And Randall's like, what about this? We took drugs to expand our minds that whatever he says. Like, just some of those lines fucking kill me. What do you guys think about the fact that Oliver Stone, for whatever reason, felt he needed to really amplify the idea of Jim Morrison often being impotent in the movie. I love that.

He makes that a pretty critical part of the story. Yeah, they're hilarious. Why don't people want to have an affair with him? Was he notorious for that? Like, I mean, like, I looked it up. And there are, you know, but I mean, he was all, there are women who did say that about him. But of course, you know, he was an insane drunk, too.

You know, and in fact, they're like an interview we gave once where Jim Morrison was like, the best drug is alcohol because I can't waste time when I go to a new city trying to get other drugs. Like I can just go to a liquor store, buy booze or whatever. So, you know, he's just this drinking all that. But like in the one scene, he's having an impotentity. Impotency issue and like, she's like, here, give some coke. Do some coke. Yeah. Cut yourself.

You can mellow it out. Yeah. Yeah. And then he drinks blood or whatever. Yeah, it works. Now I'm ready to go. Yeah, I got a boner. Like that, I know this usually comes up later, but I feel like the whole kind of Wiccan blood

marriage, that is the thing of the movie that's like, I wouldn't get that out. Because this is a long fucking movie, man. It's like two hours and 20 minutes. I don't, I feel like there's a lot of space in this film that could be whittled down. The Morrison impotency thing, it's like when you read about all the JFK affairs and all the women are like, yeah, had a bad back, premature ejaculator. Wasn't really that much fun to have sex to them. just a report over and over again on JFK.

Same thing with Morrison. I realize that in some way he's trying to be like, okay, this very sexual person that was part of the illusion of this sexuality or it was a dichotomy or whatever. And he was too drunk to get a boner. It seems like a bigger part of the movie that I would have guessed,

somebody would have focused on. I would definitely say that if I had a critique of this movie or if this movie was being made now, the stuff that's in the background, like, you know, when they go on Ed Sullivan and they sort of break the rules there or when they sort of break all these decency laws, that's like handled within, I don't know, like a minute or two.

And yet there's so much time dedicated to his like rantings and Wiccan, you know, ceremonies that he goes through. But it's like Charles Manson is like a quick cutaway. You know, like there's all this stuff that's happening in the background that seems really important. But the stuff that Oliver Stone is interested in is like wandering around the Mahatah desert and communing. But this is why I say it's confusing to try to remember like what I knew at the time

or what most people knew at the time. Like now it seems very odd that he kind of goes into a detailed description at one point of what shamanism is and what a shaman is and other. But then another part of me was like, was that the first time I ever heard of what a shaman was? Like I could have been. Like I don't totally remember which of the things now that are so in kind of ingrained in

that kind of like, I don't know, how weirdness culture or whatever, how popular that was at the time. But you're right, that there are like, like the Ed Sullivan stuff too is like another I guess I understand why they kind of manipulated

that scene to make it seem more dramatic. But now that when you know what actually happened, it's kind of dumb that they did that. Well, it's definitely a little drama in the movie. Okay, so the Rolling Stones had done that, and they had changed the lyrics to let's spend the night together.

As Revan Zerke thoughtfully points out in detail. But when Mick Jagger did that on the end of his show, like he rolls his eyes real melodramatically every time he sings the line and really signals to people, it's like we're being forced to do this. The doors, if you watch their actual performance, they just play the song. They just play the song, you know, and he doesn't change the lyric. it's not even like I I you know

I bet most of the people watching the Ed Sullivan show at the time didn't even connect the term higher with drug use that was you know they were just like oh higher some higher plane of romance I think the whole point of that scene because there's that whole shot of all the other acts that are kind of getting ready for the Ed Sullivan

show Sullivan show and it's like ventriloquist dummies and it's all like very kitsy 1950s really wholesome entertainment and then these guys show up and they're all fucked up and they're singing about getting much higher. So I get why, you know, he shows it the way he shows it, but you would think that I'm surprised that Stone doesn't spend more time kind of getting into the nitty gritty of why they were so transgressive at that time and instead spends way more time kind of like wallowing in the like the sort of

faux poetics of being on acid. A few years ago, Grill Marcus wrote a book above the doors. It's like a short book, it's called The Doors. It's like a hundred and ninety five pages. I don't know if this is true, but apparently it can't, like sometimes Grohl Marcus will just take one month and just write a book as much as he can and then that becomes the book. And he's in, it's about the doors, right? He loved the doors. He saw the doors like 12 times during the early part of their career. The book itself is odd. He talks about like inherent vice as much as he talks about band but but uh he does a much better job of described like people didn't lose their mind over like the end when it was actually performed like i can't believe he's talking about

fucking his mom or whatever it's like you got to imagine who was at like the whiskey and stuff at this time it's like it was there were not people who were going to be offended by things what it had more to do i think just with the with the combination of the sound of the music and rock lyrics that really like prior to that like if you look at like Beatles lyrics or Stone's lyrics or whatever it's like without being specific

the door's lyrics are clearly indicating that there is a different way to live that you should like live in it that like that culture's at a point where you can live differently and I think you know and that's not really part of this movie

but then again how would you illustrate that? No, I mean, that's why they probably have such an on-the-nose scene on the beach where Rayman's Eric and him are just like, we have to start living differently. Right. Last rewatchable scene for me, we mentioned earlier when he sees the band the last time. I just, I like when the band's together. And those are my favorite parts of the movie. I like when I saw that, I think the first time I was like, are they in, is he in heaven? Is this what's happening?

Like, what is it? It's so weird. They're all saying goodbye and just Kevin Dillon, who's, I guess, trying to. push forward the thing that this guy just didn't like Jim Morrison, but kind of did like them. And they're just trying to do 90 things to that scene. I enjoy it. My favorite rewatchable scene, though, is I love the light my fire, basically all the way through to the everything's taken off montage, Ed Sullivan. I think if that's on TV, I'm probably going to watch if I got nothing to do. What do you have for most rewatchable, Chuck?

Well, so is most rewatchable is like the best scene? I guess I would have agreed to you. Your favorite. My favorite scene is the first time they're present. I think that is, you know. Okay. And I think that he does the best job with that, like I say, that mania stuff where the people come, it looks very realistic. And he does a, you know, the, sort of like that, the woman comes up and kisses up and, like, the girlfriend hits him with a purse or whatever.

Like, I like that stuff. The live performances, I do feel, go on a bit long in this film. But, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Chris, what do you have? The whole Miami sequence, from backstage to the performance. What's age the best?

We mentioned a lot of stuff already, just a couple things. The concept of selling out with commercials, which was a big part of, I don't know, my 20s and my 30s, and now it's just somebody has a hit song. It becomes a commercial right away. But it was interesting, like the genesis of that. Oh, my God, we sold our song for a commercial. What are we doing? As it so often happens with movies about the past, they,

end up telling you more about the exact time the movie was made. So, like, that concern over selling out in 1991 was huge. Now, at the time, you know, like the Rolling Stones had, like, sold a song to, like, I think it was Rice Krispies or whatever. It wasn't that odd to do have done that. Like, I wonder how much Jim Morrison was actually bothered by that. Because, you know, there was less of a meaning, like, selling out. it was like that's people knew what that meant but in a different way um but in 1991 of course it's

like that was the most critical aspect of any band or artists had to decide so like michael stipe would have rather killed himself than had an rm song in a commercial he really would have and the reaction of morrison in this movie is like closer to what we expect of the reaction of like kirk colbane or something if this had happened like you know that's that's kind of what he's i mean Cobain wasn't famous yet when this movie happened, but someone like that. Morowitz, age the best. Chris, you have the floor. Give us 15 seconds on Oliver Stone's cameo as a USC film professor.

The thing that really hits home is the goatee because it's a really thick goatee, which you know Stone either had at the time or had them manufacture for him as a fake goate. It looks very fake to me. Yeah. It's really, really fake. And I just love the idea that they're having this workshop where they're just, Everybody is just pissing on this movie from a great height. And he has to get up there and be like, well, let's hear from the filmmaker himself.

I love it. The Top Gun connection has aged the best in a fun way. You have Iceman and Goose's wife as the leads in a movie. I like Jim turning around her and the break on through performance. The theme of death, which I didn't pick up the first time, really. And then the second time in the theater, I remember being like, oh, the bald guy, he must represent death. but Stone's really trying to hammer home like, oh, when you see that bald guy,

that's coming closer. And then he moves closer and closer to Jim by the time we get to the movie. It's actually kind of well done. He looks a lot like Jeff Bezos. Oh, interesting. That's also what stage is the best. It's a good theme, though.

The last one for me for Woodstage the best, because we mentioned a lot already. I really like the closing credits because I was so mad the first time I saw this movie that didn't have LA woman, because that was my favorite Dora song. And then they bring it in closing credits and they go around and it's like kind of the glory days

of when the, but then it goes to Fat Jim like basically sitting in a boat booth singing it. But the whole thing, it's just really good. And I like how they do all the credits. There's a pause. And then it's like, and Val Kilmer is Jim Morrison. It's just well done. You know, closing credits always get screwed up.

That was actually pretty good. Any other words stage the best for you guys? I want to go to, this is a two-parter. This is the Doors music, which when I was in high school, I, so I was, I never had a doors period. Like when the, when classic rock was kind of taking over in my high school, people were more into Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin than they were the doors. Like the doors weren't heavy enough, I don't think. And then I kind of never really got back into them until I really got into apocalypse now is when I probably first started listening to the doors with any like sincerity.

But the music sounds pretty good. And I would also say for as much as we've sort of lauded Val Kilmer for singing, Frank Whaley's, looks like he's playing guitar. He does a lot of little gestures when he's playing that really, really make it look like. It's not just like I'm an actor who learn to play guitar, but he's doing all this stuff, especially in the Miami concert

and in some of the live performances where he's like, it seems like he's using tremolo a little bit, or he's like kind of just eking sounds out of the fretboard. I think he's the second best person in this movie. Frank Whaley? I agree. And then I think it looks like Kevin Dillon is drumming.

I have no idea if, if Colin McLaughlin knows how to play in Oregon. Because they never really show him and he's just sort of always looking and then kind of like going like... He's always playing with one hand low and one hand up. There must be some image he saw of Mancerra doing this because every time you see him

playing organ, he's playing the top one in the bottom on simultaneously. For what's age the worst? Well, there's a lot. This movie's 25 minutes too long, I think. I think you could for me, you could get rid of the reporter. That could be

you know, Mimi Rogers is in this movie for a minute as the photographer who's lusting after Jim. For me, the reporter easily could have also been in this movie a minute and I'm not sure I lose anything. I don't need the reporter to make me realize Jim was nuts. It's just also confusing as to when they're together and when they're not together. And I know it was the 60s and early 70s,

but there is a, he just kind of glides over like he's with her and then he's with Pam. Then he's back with Patricia. Was Patricia like his East Coast girlfriend? Yeah, and they wanted to introduce that Wiccan thing and this is how crazy. Jimmy was and blood and I don't know. I just, I don't know if you needed it.

But then they negated all too, because at the end when she's talking about being pregnant and she's like, we married each other in this blood ceremony. He was like, I stoned. It seemed fun. So it was like this whole thing, which at one point while watching the movie, I assumed, was, oh,

this was a real central part of how he viewed like, you know, all the Dionysian stuff. Then it's like, actually, I didn't care at all. So it does seem pretty superfluous. Well, here's the number one, what's age the worst, which I'm going to get to in one second after we took a break. All right, this is the all-time, what's age the worst. You greenie teased that.

You greenie teased that. That greenie teased it. This podcast is basically at an hour, and we haven't mentioned her yet. Meg Ryan is, as Pam, horribly miscast, felt horribly miscast in the moment. I don't think she's good in the movie. There were better options at the time. And even Stone, years later, has been, like, basically disowned the Meg Ryan casting.

like I you know that that she just wasn't good in it she's for the everything we said about how velcomer you can't separate him in jim morrison he becomes jim morrison i just feel like it's meg ryan with a wig who's in a different movie basically it's it's a little like when jennifer aniston was in that terrible rock star movie that mark walberg made where it's just like why are you in this did your agent talk you into this i just think she's bad uh you guys can chime in or we can move on it's a thankless part the way that Stone conceives of it, I think. You know, and I think a lot of the people who were in and around the doors at the time

had a lot of critiques for the way Stone rendered that role. Whether or not that's Meg Ryan's to blame or not, I, you know, I don't know. But yeah, she definitely seems like she was in another movie. Okay, well, I guess I have a different view. I don't think she's that bad. Okay. And, you know, there's, although what I'm going to say now is going to seem like a criticism, But, you know, there's the early scene where they're kind of lying together, I think, on a roof.

And, like, he's talking about shamanism and stuff. As I was watching that, I was thinking, she almost seems to be doing an impersonation of Nicole Kidman in this scene. And then I thought to myself, how great it would have been if Nicole Kidman had been in this role. Like, how much better it would have been if it would have been her. But I think that, you know, there are parts like when she, when she's, you know, she grinned over the, the fact that he's taking acid on Thanksgiving. I feel like she's pretty funny in that. Like her, like, oh, Jim, why, you know?

But, yeah, it is a pretty thankless role. I guess it was a central role, partially because her family did contribute to the making of this. I think she had notes or something that they felt that they needed. It's not great. It won't be in her first paragraph in her obituary.

Wasn't it a big controversy, too, that she had, like, had, never appeared topless or something in a movie. And she's kind of coerced to do this by Oliver's. I shouldn't say coerced. Maybe, you know, because it's hard to argue, though, how that is in some way necessary to this film. There were nude scenes and sex scenes that he was pretty adamant, whoever got this part

had to do. And I think they kind of ended up going halfway with it. The story's about the casting of the female parts. Yeah, we're going to get to that in a second. Morewood's age the worst. Kevin Dillon, to me, is Johnny Drama. I have a. It's just really hard to watch this and not think of an entourage.

His Kevin Dillon stock, his like hold the line position on Kevin Dillon. Because he's in Platoon, obviously. And it turns up here, it is bizarre. And I was thinking as I watch this, Entourage actually should have pretended this was Johnny Drama's best part when he was the drummer in the doors. And it like all went downhill. Like, why not just play into that?

But yeah, it's just weird to see him there. another thing that's aged terribly is the Wayne World's Two parody of all the doors Native American stuff, which if you watch Wayne's World 2, Wayne's World 2, it's like a central theme of the entire story they're trying to sell or the Shaman keeps coming back. And now if you watch that, like when my son, my son kind of liked Wayne's World 1, we watch Wain's World 2, he's like, what's going on? Didn't understand it. So it has aged poorly. Another thing that's aged poorly, the wigs in this movie, are particularly terrible. Everybody looks like they have a wig on except for Jim Morrison.

Meg Ryan looks like she has a wig on. Kyle McLaughlin looks like they forgot that he needed a wig and they ran out and got it. I don't know what's going out of the Whaley. Whaley looks like a burn victim. And the hairdresser, Ed Sullivan even makes a joke about it. It was like, I'm not even touching that hair.

Yeah. Right. And Kevin Dillon, like all of them. And then Oliver Stone comes in. He looks like he's got. So I don't know. They must have spent all their money on the music budget, not the wigs.

the special effects in the desert drug scene I think have definitely are a little dated we mentioned the witch reporter girlfriend this just is an age to worst just for life this movie reminds me that the doors did not get invited

to Woodstock and what a giant miss that was and I guess it had to do with the Miami stuff but when you think like how are the doors not in Woodstock they were still alive and they might have actually stolen the show or been the worst band at Woodstock

It would have been one or the other, right, Chuck? Yeah, I mean, it'd be hard to be the worst man there, but it would have been a drunk Jim could have done it. I guess I never, you know, it's because at the point the doors are in 1969, you know, there's still hippies in a way, but they're kind of, they're moving into sort of this kind of, or like 68, 69, I guess, how you look at it, like kind of moving into this darker thing that seems almost antithetical to the hippie movement. I guess I did remind me.

I mean, it's always weird. Like Zeppelin wasn't it? Woodstocks. Like all these bands that weren't there. And, you know, Credence was there, but wouldn't be filmed. So it feels like they weren't there at all. The Doors has a California band. It feels like that was a miss.

Another great expository scene, though, is when Morrison shows up and, like, all of those, like, office assistants, like, everybody he knows is in a room. And they're like, Jim, you got to change your pants. Jim, we didn't get invited to Woodstock. Jim, you can not call the Skypack. Right. There's some, you can go rabbit hole this on your own if you want, but there's some bad stuff with the casting process with this movie,

especially that some of it came out there and when the Me Too stuff started in 2017 about how Oliver Stone was casting different people. Malora Hardin talked about it. Melissa Gilbert talked about it. An actress named Caitlin O'Haney broke a non-disclosure agreement to talk about it, but it really sounded like they were not operating correctly

behind the scenes. You can go research that on your own if you want. Casting what ifs. They offered Overstone offered the role of Jim Morrison to the lead singer of the cult.

Ian Aspery. Yeah. Who turned it down. Who then toured with the doors in like early 2000 playing doors material. So I mean,

I think that his voice is often seen as like kind of the modern, you know, people said about Eddie Vedder too, that they kind of sounded like Morrison.

So I had also, I don't know if this is true or not, what time they said like Bono wanted to be Jim Morrison? There's a bunch of people who were up for this. And Michael Hutchins too, right? Well, actually, that's not surprising. Michael Hutchins could have been good, yeah. Well, also, he was kind of, he seemed pretty interested in like, I'm going to be in this band and also I'd like to be an actor and all this.

It would have been strange for Bono to do this, but at that time. I just can't imagine he would have done it. Michael Madsen audition for Jim Morrison. and then they moved him to the Tom Baker role, which initially was Billy Idol. He had to lose 40 pounds. Initially it was Billy Idol. Billy Idol had this motorcycle accident

that has now come up in two rewatchables because he was initially the choice for the T-1000 in Terminator 2 had the motorcycle accident. The Billy Idol, what if? Like the Billy Idol if he doesn't have that motorcycle accident, he might be like huge accident. I don't get it. He would have played Abraham Lincoln instead of Daniel DeLu.

if he hadn't had that motorcycle accident. He's right now. He would be like doing some HBO prestige series. The casting director said that Patricia Arquette auditioned really well for the role of Pam and should have gotten the role. That's a fun one to think about because, so she gets true romance two years later. But I think that actually would have been a better idea to go with somebody we didn't know that we didn't have a history with.

And I think she would have a good job. And then I just found this out in the research. Did you know Kyle McLaughlin was Oliver Stone's first choice for the Charlie Sheenroll and Platoon? No. Yeah. He could have been good in that. So he always was a Kyle McGlachlan guy.

Next category, best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award. So Frank Whaley's not a guy. I feel like Pulp Fiction made him Frank Whaley. I think people know him as Frank Whaley, right? Yeah, I think so. Okay. So the two nominees would be the manager, whose name was Josh Evans. And then the producer who, I don't even know his name was.

It's Michael Wincott. I think he's the winner. Yeah. He was more familiar to me, even though I don't know who he is. I don't know who he is, but I know I've seen him and stuff. So he wins. The Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word. He's big, because a lot of people know him from the crow is Michael Wincott.

Yeah, you're right. Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word for best overacting. We're, Val Kilmer, I think. Separate. It's completely separate. Oh, also, can I just build. There was one more, that guy, which he's not a that guy. but at the time he was,

is Titus Welliver plays the cop who catches... Oh, great call. Yeah. Kathleen Quinlan and Val Kilmer in the shower together. Good one. Give me all you got to work.

For me, comes down to Crisp and Glover just going forward in this one, Andy Warhol scene. And then, I got to say, everything Kevin Dillon does makes me feel like Johnny Drama is playing the drummer, and he's dialed it up in each scene. But I think Crispin Glover has to win.

I don't know what he's doing in that scene. No, the thing is, it would be an okay depiction of Warhol, if not for all that weird tongue stuff. Yeah. Like the way he's talking and like when he plays with the phone and he kind of is not really

listening to people who are talked to him and he just kind of pedantically lectures, he's really good at that. But then he adds this kind of weird sexual aspect where like the whole time he's talking to Jim Morrison. Speaking of like it's going to like blow him. Yeah. And that and like it's all because of his tongue. If they

just told him not to do that, because There was like, around this period of time, there were, you know, like David Bowie plays Andy Warhol in that movie I shot Andy Warhol. And there's, there were a few other situations where people depicted Warhol on screen. And I think that his is pretty good except for this one detail, which makes the whole thing weird. Chuck, just speaking of the factory stuff, was that an accurate, that was not an accurate depiction of Nico, was it? I mean, I don't think so. I mean, she's also kind of like a confusing person, but like it's, I just think of her. I think of her wearing a turtleneck.

Like, I don't, that was just really strange that she's just like, let's fuck. Yeah, also, it kind of makes her seem like somebody who is like, I, my craving for, for fame is like, they like it's like a star fucker or whatever. Like, yeah. Like, and also, Lou Reed is nowhere to be seen in this. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not sure why he isn't. included in this circle if you're just you know but they don't even have him show up maybe maybe

there i don't but here again i don't know if that was factual or i mean you were talking about things that like uh that haven't aged well i think one of the things that i think hasn't aged well is the fact that if you make a movie like this now it's very easy to fact check these little details about it where in 1991 you couldn't so it's like you know it if you're i i'd if you're if you're trying to do a movie about a real person, I think you have to be much more careful now. Yeah, well, because it's like it... Would have been bad for Oliver Stone.

Right. For a variety of his movies. People would have talked about it. They would have, they would have, instead of talking about, like, you know, that Roger Ebert review, you mentioned how he's like, oh, it's kind of sad seeing this self-destructive person. I think somebody would have been like,

well, it's kind of unfortunate that they've depicted him in this way with all these scenes that as far as we can, tell never happens, you know. Maybe that's why movies are less fun now. Deanne Waiter's word for her best he check. Runners up include Mimi Rogers, one of my all-time favorites as the horny photographer. I wish she had had more scenes. Crisp and Glover, we mentioned whatever Billy Idol is doing in this movie, I enjoy it.

But for me, the clear winner is Michael Madsen, who this is a great six-year run of Michael Madsen makes everything better, whatever it's in. I'm just enjoying. I'm still bummed out. He wasn't in heat. I don't know how they couldn't have stuck him in there. But I don't really know what the point of him is in this. He's like Jim's friend who I guess makes porn movies.

I think he's supposed to be the devil on his shoulder character because he's constantly getting him hot. But he's basically Michael Manson. He's not playing a character. He's just, they're like, hey, show up and could be Michael Madsen for five scenes. I enjoy every minute of Michael Manson in this movie. I also, I like Bill Siddons, who's the first manager who approaches them. And he goes up to Jim. He's just like, drop these guys.

I'm making million dollars. Right. Recasting couch. So obviously have to recast the Meg Ryan part. Thought of this one. What about Robin Wright as Pam? Because she'd basically be playing Jenny Gump, right? The Jenny Gump, 1970s, Jenny Gump, just in this movie.

And I think it would have worked. And I think she is a better actress, frankly. What about, I mean, this might be too on the note. knows, and I'm not going to pronounce her name because I'll get it wrong, but the teenage daughter from the Wonder Years. Olivia Diaba from kicking and screaming. Yeah. She could have been good too.

She would have been the right age. All right, Chuck. Good one. And it would have been, you know, you would have been very easy to buy her as that kind of person because, you know, it would have seemed as though that was the most thing she was famous for at the time. What do you guys think of gone young and aged her up versus older and. What about Sharon Stone?

Oh, wow. Oh, my God. That would have been... I think she would have competed with Morrison too much. I don't know if she could have... I don't know if she could have stepped back. She could have played the Kathleen Quinlan part, for sure. We'll go over half-ass internet research really quick.

There's a lot of stuff online about just the doors opposing this and the whole thing that you can find. But it was a classic thing where kind of what happened with the Queen movie, where if the doors, if they were in it, they want... wanted to make sure they were in the movie so you can read up all that. Same thing with the Corson, the Pam's family about, they basically wanted her to be portrayed as an angel. There's a whole bunch of stuff about that. There's some stuff about Val Kilmer, which definitely happened where there was this memo,

and it was unclear who the memo was for, but it was basically like, don't make eye contact with Val Kilmer during the filming, stay away from him. And it was unclear who the memo was for, but it definitely existed. When I did that profile or a profile on Val Kilmer in like 2005 or six, I think it was, I interviewed Oliver Stone. And at the time, he said that he assumed that the biggest issue that Val Kilmer had during this movie is he was very tired of wearing the same pair of pants every day. And he said that Val Kilmer progressively grew annoyed by the fact that he had to wear these same black leather bands. Right. And that because he was like,

we made Alexander. He was great, you know, different pants. Poor Val. There's, we mentioned some of the discrepancies with the violence,

the closet, Thanksgiving, Morrison getting mad about light my fire. Everybody agrees Stone made, either made some stuff up or took a lot of liberties. You can go read about that if you want. After it came out,

they all criticized the movie, The Dors. that they made him seem like an out of control psychopath. Manzarek just was like, this is Manzarek's quote in 1991. Jim with a bottle all the time, it was ridiculous. It was not about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunk, God,

where was the sensitive poet and the funny guy? The guy I knew was not on the screen. And then the character, this is even more frustrating with the reporter character. It was a composite character. So they spent all this time on this side story with the Patricia, the reporter, had the, and it was like not even a real person.

So if you're looking for places to cut, do that. They filmed, they filmed the desert stuff in the Mahavi Desert at the East Mojave Preserve and got in trouble and had to pay a fine. And then Billy Idol's role was much bigger, as we mentioned earlier, but he had had that motorcycle accident. So anytime you see him, he's, um, he's sitting down or he's being framed a certain way. Then the last thing, Chris, this is just something I found out. the bar that Jim Morrison and his buddies frequent in this film.

Do you know what bar it is? It's in West Hollywood. No, what is it? It's a bar you've been to. What is it? Barney's Beinery. Is it? They actually shot in Barney's Beinerie?

Apparently. Is that the bar he pisses in? Yeah, that was, it's became like a sports bar eventually. So anyway, big day for Barney's Beatery. Apex Mountain. Wait, there's one more, I just want to throw one more internet research thing because I read this last night. Did you guys come across this?

that in Jim Morrison's apartment when he died, there was a copy of an early Oliver Stone script called Break, which was an early version of platoon. Really? That's what I read last night. How could that be? That seems half-assed. It is half-ass. I only saw it on one site.

It was 71, right? When he died? Yeah. It's not inconceivable, but it seems. In France? His apartment in France. He has a copy of an early Oliverstone script. Yes.

This was on an article about the re-release of the DVD and like its restoration. So I have not seen this anywhere else, but I like the idea of it. All right. Let's go to Apex Mountain. Oliver Stone. No. No. Oh, this is Kilmer's Apex Mountain.

I personally think it's Kilmer's Apex Mountain. You could make a case for he was in a Batman movie, but I think this is it for Kilmer's. Who gives a shit? That was like, this is by far his, like, I mean, I guess there are like two some people out there who would say that in that smaller role, he's actually better in like the whole Huckleberry thing. I hear people quoted that line. No, this is a giant movie star role.

Yeah. This made him an A-Lister and this changed his career and put him in the conversation with a bunch of the most important actors. So I agree. Meg Ryan, no. Desert drug scenes, Chuck. Apex Mountain? Did we do better in the desert

with people doing drugs? Has it ever been topped? I suppose this movie really galvanized the idea that if you're going to take hallucinogenics, you should go to a desert. Why do we think that? Why not go to like a hotel resort pool?

Well, you want to be in nature, but you don't, I don't know if you necessarily like a forest is just as good. Although it's like the desert is where you do these things now. I mean, that's just like, if you were making a mock,

like a, like a, mock satire of like rock movies you always have them go to a desert um and like uh like the mohavi desert i know that's the coldest desert in the world where is what's the actual location of the mohavi desert it's like the high desert eastern california right yeah it i it did like i've never really spent time in the desert but it's like it didn't look like any place i'd ever seen before was like there's a like a aerial shot it doesn't look like joshua tree or something like that no it's an awesome looking desert. Like, it looks like the Sahara.

That's why they weren't allowed to film there. Frank Whaley might say Pulp Fiction for him. Yeah, I'd probably put it at Pulp Fiction. I really like Frank Whaley. Or career opportunities would be Frank Whaley. Yeah, I still have Frank Whaley stuck. Is that like you're saying when he was,

how is this work? When he had the most juice in his career. Most juice. I love that Chuck always wants to have a definition. really does make no sense to me because I can't tell if you're saying that was the height of his career or if it was the position when the height was possible to reach. Like I never get it. It was both A height and his career that led to he never had more opportunities coming out of this movie. Right. But wouldn't have this movie, this movie would have given him the opportunity to be in

Pulp Fiction, right? Well, but the problem with this movie is that it wasn't a success. Yeah, that's why I can't give it to it. It didn't really set him up. for anything. He put him on the radar, but I feel like after Pulp Fiction, it was like, he was so good in a short dose in that, unlike Bruce Willis's girlfriend, who almost ruined the movie for 20 minutes, which fantasy was here. Kyle McLaughlin, I'm going to say no. Twin Peaks. Yeah, it has to be. Michael Madsen, no. Billy Idol's movie career, I think definitely peaked in 1991. He's got

James Cameron and Oliver Stone, like dying to work with him. Barney's Beanery, no question. And then the doors music, you could argue in 91, this was the most pot. You think the doors were bigger in 91 than they were in 69? Well, because there were more people that had the ability to listen to music in 91. And I'm telling you, there was a one-year stretch there where the doors were a thing again. Well, yeah, I mean, there was three doors periods.

There was the period when they were new, and all those first three records all charred really high. There was again in 1980, and then there was just the period following this movie. What is interesting, though, is that it kind of gets like boiled down every time. Like, oh, like it's a sound like Peace Frog or something, which I think a lot of Doors people look at is like one of like their favorite songs. It's not a greatest hit, so you're not going to hear it. It did definitely reintroduce Doors music back into the culture at large. No question about that. But I don't know.

It's, you know, like, one of these things that aged worse, you know, I don't know if this is even like a viable answer. But one of the things that I think has aged worse is the potential audience for this movie. Whereas the audience for this movie when it came out, like, it's not as though Jim Morrison's behavior in this movie is lionized. I mean, people are consistently throughout this film. You're ruining our lives, you know. But I think now if someone sees this movie, there's this weird obligation to sort of like, this movie needs to more specifically declare that Jim Morrison is a bad person. And that the, you know, whereas in the early 90s, it was like, well, he's a bad person.

Sometimes people like this are. Like sometimes artists are good people and bad people at the same time. But isn't that a philosophical question with art right now where? The whole point of art is, like, you're supposed to decide for yourself what you think of this person. But, like, you don't, using JFK as the example or whatever, that's not, you don't have to, if somebody watches JFK now, they're not sort of forced to, to make this decision where if I like the Garrison character or I don't, that it somehow reflects something about, like, my worldview. Now, I feel like if someone were to watch the doors for the first time, like, you know, they would feel like, well, I need to make sure it's clear that like, I think that this is- I don't endorse Jim's antics. Yeah, like this is toxic behavior.

Even though people thought that at the time, I mean, it wasn't as though people watched this movie in 1991. It was like, he's totally cool. Everything about this is cool. It was more like, well, that's kind of how things are. That's like, that was the culture of rock at the dime or whatever. So I do think that to a new person, like if there's like a 19 year old now who would see this movie, their feelings about it would, they would be forced to feel certain things that like I wasn't forced to feel. Like I was not, there was no obligation for me in 1991 walking out of that theater to be like, well, you know, that was entertaining. But like, that's this is problematic.

But let's talk about Jim's problematic behavior. That was just not a conversation. I agree. But at the same time, it wasn't assumed not to be problematic. It was assumed at the time that the person in this movie is a sociopath, essentially, in a lot of ways. More so in the movie that he probably was in life. But it was like, well, you can just, that's just how movies are. Like, movies do that, you know?

Well, that's why movies are less interesting, though. Because we, because we didn't have a problem building a movie. I don't know. I mean, you have to go. You have to do things differently. Like you would, especially in a movie with this much exposition. Like you would need more characters. You would need more characters to be like, Jim, this is super weird that you're doing this.

Jim, I'm triggered by your behavior. Yeah. Oh, another thing that was funny about this movie is, so I watched, I watched this movie at night, but earlier that day I had gone to the dentist. And at my dentist, you can lean back and they show Netflix on. Yeah, they do that at my dentist's too. But yeah, but it's not really Netflix. It's like some, you have very limited options.

So I ended up watching The Office and these old episodes of the Office. And it's funny because often in the office, somebody says, Jim and Pam. So then I watched The Doors movie that day. And then at one point after he kind of stalks her and follows her home, he's like, you know, she's like, oh, my old man's in there, you know, getting us drinks or whatever. And he's like, what's your name or whatever? And she says, Pam. And it's like, Jim and Pam. And I was like, it would have been funny if.

the office would have adopted the relationship of Jimmy Pan from the door. If Jim, if Jim was just doing peyote and making calls for paper mill? Yeah, that should have at least been a special episode. The other thing that's really funny about this, and it's just that Oliver Stone is so, like, I don't know. I think he did,

wrote a great script for Conan the Barbarian. Like, I'm not against Oliver Stone. But so Jim Morrison writes and saying and talked, and a lot of his poetry was about death, okay? but he's somebody in his 20s. When you're in your 20s, very often, you're into the idea of death because you have a consciousness of what it means,

but it's so far off it doesn't seem possible. This movie works from the premise that artists interested in death want to die. That's not how it is. It's like, in your 20s, that's like, oh, it's like I'm interested in these, you know, these big questions or whatever, what does it mean to be alive?

What does it mean to die? It doesn't mean, you know, like I wrote a book, killing yourself to live. I didn't actually want to kill myself. It's like that's just what you do when you're that age and your mind is sort of maturing to the point where you can understand something that no one understands. That's right around the time when I became obsessed with the fact that I might live my whole life and die without seeing a Red Sox World Series. So I totally identify. Yeah. Well, it's just it's a funny thing. But like they he really wants to hammer home this idea that like anytime

Jim Morrison gets in a scenario that's complicated or uncomfortable, he just challenges someone to kill him. Yeah, right. Or climbs out on a balcony. Yeah, right. We got to take a break, and then we're going to come back and finish the categories. If data management is slowing down your business, you need the Intuit ERP. If one entity is here and one here and one here, you need the Intuit ERP.

If scaling your business feels like start starting over, starting over, You need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite is the AI-native ERP solution that consolidates, migrates, and automates, all in one place. Learn more at intuette.com slash ERP. All right, we're coming back. Pickin Nits. So we all agree we don't need the reporter girlfriend for nearly as long as we ever in the movie.

That's the obvious nitpick. The dinner party, which didn't happen and seems like a pivotal scene, it seems like a nitpick. Like if you're going to have a scene like that with lots of witnesses, it probably should have happened. Do we need... I'll give you three choices.

Do we need any of the Native American stuff? Do we just need some of the Native American stuff? Or do we need what we ended up with? So let me pitch a different version of this to you guys. Okay. Instead of the opening 25 minutes of this movie being like the dream sequence on the road with his parents, which I know plays into the end.

Which was also made up. This sort of like wandering kind of opening, wouldn't you much rather have like a very basic, like, this is what Jim Morrison's actual early life was like? Well, that would have been interesting, although the reason there was so much intense desire to make this movie is exactly for this Native American stuff, though. Really?

The idea that, well, yeah, because it's like the idea that somehow the Doors and Morrison kind of transcend the world, of what we love rock or whatever and he just emerges out of the desert yeah I mean like and then and the sugarman book the Danny Sugarman book is a big part of that um he all like Danny sugarman also wrote a terrible duns and roses book in 1991 I shouldn't really say this the guy's dead I but it's insane like the book is awful and it's awful because he's still fixated unlike diannicey and sort of like the relationship of these musicians what's age the worst dianicies yeah well because it's like it was this obsessive idea that like like it was this obsessive idea that like

Like the doors were important, not just because they made these songs, but because they're almost like tapping in to this kind of deep history of like, you know, like the, I think this even comes up at one point where it's like when they're in the war hall scene, I hope I'm not getting this wrong. Where like a guy is saying like, well, you know, Andy believes that like pop stars are now the gods or whatever. It's like that, you know, that's really part of it. So the idea of just making the movie about the doors because the doors are interesting. I don't think that could have happened. Like you can do that now with Queen. I don't know if in 1991 or 1990, there was a reason all these guys wanted to make this movie.

And it was because they wanted to be more than just that. So the movie you're describing, I might be better, but I don't think it would have happened. Like, I don't think it could have happened at that time. Another nitpick. Ray just basically disappears in the second half of this movie. I feel like he's an important character in the first part.

And just in the last hour, he's just kind of looking on sadly and it really needs a scene where they're just like Jim's life is falling apart and they're I don't know at some coffee house or they're on a beach or it's just the two of them in a studio and

for Ray to express concern or anything it's just not in there. They just kind of abandoned the character completely. My thing on this word is just like these are small details that bother you of all the things in this movie that are explicitly discussed in the most straightforward terms

why is there no discussion about not having a bass player in the band? Why is there not a scene where they're like, we can use an organ. It's like that to me is one of the most important things about the doors is that they're like, this is like a different. The reason that music actually, I think one of the reasons, the colds up pretty well is because it does sound different than rock music. Yeah, it breaks up the hegemony.

Yeah. You know, and like, you know, and it was a good scene early when they're at Venice Beach. it made me realize when you hear like the organ part on break on through that's kind of like surf music yeah it's kind of like an organ version

of Dick Dale or something so I mean I would have loved the scene where they discuss why they're not they don't have a bass player in the band but you know that's so that's my biggest nitpick is here's the other thing

maybe you might know this bill when he is recording his book of poetry he's wearing a jersey of number 66. It looks a little bit like an early Cleveland Browns jersey. Do you have any idea what, who that's

supposed to be or why he's wearing that? Like, if it was 99, that's out of Graham. I don't know who's 66 is. I was like, well, Al Zado wasn't in the league yet. I think it's like Marion Motley? Do you, I wonder if it's like was he, was there? I don't know Marion Motley's number. I feel

embarrassed not you. I have no idea what Marion Motley's number. I don't know. I don't know who was. I just assumed there was a made up jersey. Somebody checked that. check, Marion Motley's number. Did Jim Morrison, like, was he like a Bruins alumnus? Like, did he support the UCLA? He's a booster?

Yeah, like, I'm curious whether or not, was he a real big wooden guy? Like, he helped keep Bill Walton there for the second year. My biggest nitpick, because there's a lot of deleted scenes on YouTube. There's somebody has a whole playlist and there's like 12 things. There's one scene. I think it's the second scene of this guy's whole playlist where it's, it's basically just another performance scene, a little like that Whiskey-A-Gogo scene early on

when he won't turn around, then he turns around, where they're just kind of working stuff out on stage. And it made me realize, like, I could have taken 10 more minutes of another performance on Sunset in 1966, or like what Chuck talked about, just an argument about whether they should have the bass player, all the stuff about the formation of the band,

the band crystallizing into what it became, leading to that everything's taking off montage. I would have a little bit more about the first record where he's like, we made an album in six days and it's like. Right. How'd they name it? Like there's just all early band stuff. I would have much rather had that than everything that happens in the last hour

or it's just like 15 minutes too fat. So what do you guys think is the last, like the last I guess is being either 12 or 19 minutes of the movie? Like the whole like it almost seems like, I think it's like there's 20 more minutes in the movie after Miami. Yeah. Because there's the birthday party, that whole thing. You get the birthday, yeah.

It could have definitely could have gone a little faster. Also, it's always great that when he dies in the bathtub and his girlfriend finds him, she does the thing that all people do and all movies are television shows upon finding a dead person. You immediately accuse them of joking. Like, quit joking around. Yeah, there's no panic. Like I can't imagine that if I found a dead person, my first thing would be like, I'm going to try to, you know, I assume this person is playing the always hilarious joke of pretending to be dead in a bathtub of it two in the morning. Chris, what did you think of the artistic choice to have skinny, most handsome Jim Morrison dead in the bathtub instead of fat, bloated bearded Jim Morrison?

It was up there with the two Jim Morrison's who were following that person down the hallway to go meet Andy Warhol. I like that too. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Please know. No, but I would do a late, a 1960s sunset Boulevard show. Yeah, that would be good. I bet that's been discussed. You need a lot of good actors for that.

Probably in answerable questions. I guess I only have one. Chris, would you have watched a prequel about Jim's entire stint at USC Film School? Yes, the whole thing. Absolutely. Every class. Him being like, you know what I'm going to do is get Triumph of the Will, but then I'm also going to be walking around on a rooftop reading poetry. What a great movie idea.

Another unanswerable question that I have is, did they always have such incredibly telling books lying around? Like, when they're showing the Buick commercial and Norman Mailer's Armies of the night is propped up right next to the TV. I'm like, did that really, did you guys really have such like a representative text? Yeah, early in the movie, they show all the books he's been reading. The Rambo's poetry, yeah. And it is very interesting in the sense that apparently one of the things Jim Morrison wasn't into was stacking books on top of each other. He needs to lie them all out so that every title is visible. And like he's like, oh, also, it's like Oliver Stone is like, I bet he would want a, like, I'm a McLuhan book in here too.

Yeah. Or like they found some interview where Jim Morrison talked about the books that he liked. They sent someone to like the Barnes & Noble of the time. Bill's being quiet because he's got a Larry Bird book in the background there. so he's actually subscribes to the Oliver Stone set dressing idea. In the biopic of you, that would be like, you'd be you lying in the bed and there'd be like drive would be there. breaks to the game. The Halberstam book would be there.

Oral History Center at Live. Yeah. He said it would be lying there. Bill would also have a book about medals. I should have that in the background. Chris, was this the best use of an Arthur Rimbaud book or would you say Eddie and the Cruisers? Eddie and the Cruisers, definitely. Yeah.

All right. I want to clear that. I don't have any more unanswerable questions. No, me neither. Was Michael, other than was Michael Madsen's character, like,

was he a Roger Corman type of male actor, or was he just doing straight? No, he was an actual hangers on. I think he was like the Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey, kind of like art, art porn, right?

For who won the movie? One of the most obvious ever, the Kilmer wins this convincingly. And it's like, the unanimous MVP vote in an NBA season. I think this is no question he wins the movie. It's a really, I gotta say, enjoyable rewatch. I hadn't watched it from start to finish in a while.

And I really enjoyed it. My wife kind of came in and watched, I think, two-thirds of it with me and was supposed to go somewhere and stayed. It's, I think, on Cinemax. It's on Amazon as well. So if people want to watch it, it's, the Kilmer performance is the legacy of this movie. Chuck Closterman, I have one last question for you before we go.

Ask me. So when I was in college, and then even a little bit in high school, the doors were like the most polarizing rock band from that era. They were the one that the snooty music people kind of looked down on, I felt like. And that was part of the legacy. It was like, ah, the doors, they never should have been that popular. they were kind of the proxy for what would happen. The Troy from Reality Bites characters Yeah.

Yeah. Troy from Reality Bites hated the doors. And it was kind of, they became like a proxy for what we would get with the internet, where if something became a little too popular, whatever, we had to just trash it. Were the doors like that in the 80s out of all the rock bands,

or do you think it was a different rock band? You know, like I said, my memory of the doors in the 80s is pretty scant. I mean, it's like I knew their biggest, songs and they were part of kind of the original class of the canonical rock bands. They were like the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, the Kinks, the Who, and the Doors were always in that group. And I feel like the doors was the least respected one out of all of those.

Yeah. Not by me personally, but just in general. Yeah. I think I have, I think that certain bands, that people have a, a lot of people have like, kind of the same trajectory with the band, which is that the doors are a group that you get into at one point when you're sort of a younger person. And or even if you're not that young,

your mind is younger in terms of your experience with rock music. And it seems really kind of good and interesting. And then it kind of keeps getting worse and worse and worse, that your idea of the band keeps going down and down and down. And then you just sort of forget about it and come back to the music. And it seems pretty good again. I mean, I definitely like the doors now more than I would have in 1999 when I think I would have considered, like, during the late 90s, early 2000s, my thing was like the two most overrated rock musicians of all time are Jim Morrison, Eric Clapton. I don't like either of them. And I just, I didn't like them for all these secondary reasons, some of which I know were created by this film. But when I like like five to one is a good fucking song

It's a scary song kind of in a lot And got really revived by Jay Z when he did takeover He sampled it Well it has like you know it's it's a little bit like don't fear the Reaper In the sense that like you don't know what the meaning of the sun actually is like is this about Vietnam Is it that like the idea that like one in five Americans going to Vietnam are going to be killed or whatever Or we're killing off one of every five young people in Vietnam or all these things And it kind of then transfers this idea of a song about basically like wide-scale revolution.

We outnumber the cops five to one and they have the guns, but we have the numbers and all that stuff. I think that's a pretty great song. And I, you know, I, to your answer your question, like, were the doors uncool in the 80s? I don't think they were uncool. I think they were polarizing. Well, probably. I bet they were. But I mean, like, I'm a bad judge for that because it's like I was listening to Faster Pussycat.

So I was like, I had no, the idea of, do we like, I've said this many times, but like in the 1980s, bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and groups from that period, they seem so old to me, much older than they seem now. This kind of goes back. I said this thing, you can look forward on YouTube. It's just called like the slow cancellation of the future. It's a guy sitting at a table given like a 40 minute speech and it's very interesting. But it really has changed.

So I like I, the doors probably seemed older in 1985 than they may now in a way. I don't know. It's like hard to describe that definitely has happened. I think the Spotify, the Spotify playlist era has really helped the doors because they have some songs that these songs are 50 years old now. I think that's the other thing that's crazy. They're 50, 51, 52 years old. But when you talk about the sense that like snooty music people look down on them,

so in your memory, who are the bands those people appreciate it? Right. So if you, you know, who do you remember that the people who criticized the doors, who do you remember them liking or saying was good? Beatles Rolling Stones, I feel like carried a lot of weight. The Eagles, it's weird. The Eagles, I think people were really down on in the late 70s, But then when they released the two greatest hits albums,

there were so many good songs on the albums that you kind of were like, man, these guys had a lot of good ones. But in the classic rock era, I feel, you know, what year did the classic rock format take off? That was like 83, 84 range, or maybe earlier in 82?

Much later, actually. Because in 1982, music like the Doors and Zeppelin and all that stuff, that was just considered album rock. But it was definitely mid-80s. I mean, as, I think that there were stations. Because that was a K-Rock and the, I'm blanking on the one in New York. But that was when the big kind of formats.

Plus, that's when CDs kind of started, came out, 83, 84. And you're building a CD collection. There's really only been 15 years of good music. So you would do, you'd buy the Eagles one. You'd buy the Steve Miller band, Greatest Tates, you'd buy the doors. There were like 20 CDs that everybody had. Right. And I feel like that's when the door.

as like that 81 to 85 range, they got kind of revived. And then there was a backlash. I was like, no, no, they weren't as good as this, this and that. So I don't know. Maybe it was just something I felt with all the friends I had and stuff like that. But I never felt like they were as respected.

So, I don't know. Just a theory. Well, there's not a culture around the doors the way there is around the dead. Like I remember in my high school yearbook, there was a few years there where people would have Jim Morrison quotes like the seniors would. But there was nothing to do if you liked the doors. Like if you liked the dead, there was like a whole subculture to participate in,

and you could go see other bands like them and go see them even back then. But if you like the doors, there's like four albums and that's it. Well, and people who like the doors very often are much, that was kind of a signal. There's like, I also like poetry. Yes. Like I like the idea of, oh, he's just not some rock star. He's actually this other person who has these sort of deep thoughts about like these kind of existential problems. So I guess there was some of that.

Like it's there's definitely something that's already about the doors that we don't really sense now. We've seen like real art bands, you know, bands, that's their whole deal. But among like groups that were that popular, you know, that it's, they were more sort of, transgressive like Chris was saying than other groups in that position. You know, so it's like Well, also I think their music has age really well because

as you pointed out earlier, their sound was so unique just because of the way the band was constructed. Nobody would construct a rock band like that where you'd be built around an organist instead of a bassist. Like, it's just, nobody's really done it. So as the years past,

you listen to some of those songs, that haven't really been replicated. But anyway, They were checking out if you haven't listened to the doors. They would have made, if he had lived and they had kept making records, I think some of those late 80s, or like late 70s, early 80s, Doors Records would be awful. Like they would be like sort of like this like like like, you know, kind of Jefferson Starship type music.

I mean, it just would not have worked, you know. Yeah. Chris Ryan, Chuck Closterman. A pleasure as always. See you guys soon. Thanks, Bill. Bye. You know,