The Rewatchables - 'The Player' With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Wesley Morris

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and The New York Times’ Wesley Morris were just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the podcaster from the podcasting process. They revisit Robert Altman’s satirical film ‘The Player’ starring Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, and Fred Ward. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Coming up on this podcast, I was just thinking, what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. The rewatchables is next. The critics are calling the player a masterpiece. It's going to be funny. Yeah, it'll be funny. Smart. You're going to have to have a little sex in this.

Yeah, sure. We'll get it. Sophisticated. Are you seeing someone else? No. You took her to a party, Griffin, several hundred of my best friends. Brilliant. It's out of Africa meets pretty woman.

A delectable high comedy. This is Pasadena. We do not arrest you on first. That's LA. Four stars. Yes. Robert Altman's The Player. Redid R.

Now playing at a theater near you. All right. Wesley Morris is here from the New York Times and some great photo shoots that I've really enjoyed. Sean Fennies. He's here from Ringer. You can hear him on the Big Picture podcast. We're going to talk about the 30th anniversary of an incredibly important movie called The Player. directed by Robert Altman.

He called it my fourth comeback. I remember seeing this in the theater in the East Coast, whatever week it came out, and just being like, I am so far away from all of this, and I'm so fascinated by all of it. I just want to know more. What is this?

What's going on here? Sean, is this the first meta-Hollywood thingy that we've had in the modern era? Does this set up Larry Sanders and curb your enthusiasm? and all these different things we've had over the 30 years. Does it start here? Is this ground zero? As usual, I've not had any time to prepare for this big question. Great question. I love it. It seems like you've thought through it. I think probably it's by far not the first movie about making movies or movie obsessed with the inner work because of Hollywood. Going back to singing in the rain, this is a subject that the movies love to explore. They love themselves.

They love showing themselves on screen and for all their foibles and all the greatness. This one, is way inside the joke, way inside of itself, and kind of up its own ass in a delightful way, and an amazing movie. Wesley, it's the first movie that said a lot of the stuff that was in like William Goldman's pieces and books and some of the early premiere magazine stuff of like, we suck, we're the worst, we suck at this, movies are going to hell, and let's have fun with this in an actual movie directed by a real guy. Yes. I would also say, well, like, to go back to your first question, Bill, I wonder, this is the same year that Wayne's World came out. Hmm. And it's just interesting that, you know, you have these two poles of kind of fourth wall smashing in order to comment on the thing that you are currently watching.

And, like, being very pointed about the fact that, like, I, you know, Penelope's Furis and Mike Myers, and Dana Carvey are commenting on the thing you're watching and Robert Altman and Michael Tolkien and everybody else involved with the players is doing a similar thing. And I also think it's the beginning

of the appetite for that sort of like fourth wall breaking and self-saturization. Well, hold on. Let's dive into that because there's a lot of stuff going on late 80s, early 90s, with books that are coming out. There's an awareness of the behind-the-scenes

aspect of Hollywood that I just don't feel like people had in the same way in the 70s. There's the rise of star studio executives and the jockeying and it's starting to float into movies in all of these subtle ways. But I feel like the player is where it kind of all comes together. I agree with you on the Rob Low, Waynesworld character. That's a good example where the studio executive is now a character in movies. And by the way, this is now 30 years of this.

But I really feel like it starts here. Yeah, I mean, I think that bringing the magazine, the sort of variety Hollywood Reporter, Premier Magazine, movie line magazine, all that sort of entertainment. Spy magazine. Spy magazines in there too.

Yeah. You know, and I can remember as a kid like following the blow by blow of like the bonfire of the vanities before I ever got near the movie, right? So I got to the movie completely prepared to be like,

this is terrible. I mean, it is. But it also, it also was interesting as well. But this was the, first movie to sort of win. This was the first, well, I mean, I think, you know, Wayne's World doesn't, Wayne's World works, obviously.

Well, not all if it's obvious to you guys, but like, I think Wayne's World still works. 100%. I think that, um, I think this movie is fascinating because it's just, it's an, it's a Robert Altman movie that is like making fun not only of Hollywood, but of the perception of a Robert Altman movie, too. Made by a guy. Complaining that people have done over the, you know,

what would have been, you know, two decades of filmmaking at that point. You know, all the sort of bitching about there's no story, you know, who's writing these things. The movies never go anywhere. There are all these people and it's like a traffic jam. And, you know, how much control does Altman really have? And what does he want from Hollywood?

You know, he gets close to, I mean, we can talk about, I don't know if we want to talk about, where Altman is before this movie comes along career-wise. But he is, I mean, you know, the idea that this is his fourth comeback is not wrong. And I always think about this movie as like him being, you know, them coming in with, you know, like him getting not mouth to mouth, but like electrical resuscitation, you know. And, you know, this is not a terribly healthy person lifestyle choice wise, right? And I always think of him being on his last leg at all times.

You know, maybe not, maybe barely being coherent enough to show up to set to film a movie, let alone still be brilliant, you know, from 1971 to, you know, whenever Cookie's fortune was, where was the last? Oh, no, no. The Prairie Home Companion is the last one, right? Yes. Well, and he hated Hollywood, which is, it's so funny that he's the one who made this movie. I like Wesley's think about how he was on his last legs. I think people probably felt that way from

Popeye on. He's a man of excess of Sean. Also, one of your all-time favorites, right? He's on the Mount Rushmore for you. He is in my top five favorite filmmakers ever. And in the mid-70s, when he was at the height of his powers, back then people were like, this old man is sneering asshole. And he hates Hollywood. And he took him another 20 years to make a movie about that whole concept. I mean, just kind of summarized, I think, like, a lot, like the snapshot of what he's known for as a director. But he was, like, a tremendously curious person. And I think that's why a lot of his movies are so interesting. And a lot of his, even his failures are such fascinating deep dives. I love directors who have, like, a bunch of misses along with five to six stone cold classics. This is the one that,

you know, this really put him, I don't want to just say back on the map, but it took him away from just being one of those guys from the 70s into a kind of, world-class status because he gets nominated for best director here and then gets nominated the following year for his next film shortcuts, which is like had been a passion project for him for many years. And he's an incredibly curious person. He loves to go into worlds. He loves to figure out what really motivates people. He loves to explore like the depth of crowds, like Wesley's saying. But this one is so funny because it's his world. It's the world he knew as well as anyone for the longest time. So he's bringing a level of specialty to it and skepticism.

and intensity and acidity to the story that makes it that much more special. I think it's really like definitely one of his three or four best movies. It's also exceptionally well-crafted. Every time I watch it, I always forget how well the suspense piece is handled.

There's a couple scenes that are just like really top-notch. We talked about this before, but I really started to care about movies in a big picture, historical way, probably late 80s, like right around this time. And I saw this,

and I just thought, thought it was so cool and I knew he was making shortcuts because people had been talking about that. And Carver was my favorite short story person. I just loved Carver. Wow. I absolutely loved Carver. Fascinating. And so he made the player and I'm like, I just the fact that somebody was turning shortcuts into a movie. I was just like, I was like, how are they going to do this? And then you saw this movie. It was like, wow, shortcuts has a chance to be amazing. It's flawed. It is kind of amazing. I mean, it's definitely, it has some peak moments. that's got some weird stuff.

But it caused me to go back and do Mash and Nashville and all the hits. But the first album movie I saw in the theater was Popeye. Same. Same here. And it fucking sucked.

And it was morque. It was morque as Popeye with these big biceps and Shelley Duvall. And it was just a disaster. And I never, I don't think saw another one after that. Has anyone ever had a career like this,

Wesley, where it peaks in a crazy way early. There is, a decade and a half abyss, and then this weird comeback with the player and shortcuts, and all of a sudden he's kind of like in the last part of his credit, it ends up doing Gosford Park. But has anyone have ever an abyss where what should have been his prime was actually the opposite?

And it's just bookended by these two incredibly interesting eras. I can't think of anybody who, but, I mean, because the thing that also makes the, the thing that makes his career so interesting, to me is that that valley had some good stuff in it too, right? Like, I mean, he was the, he was the person who kind of pioneered the cable movie, right? He's the guy who, who figured out that, like, well, if I can't work in this, in this conventional Hollywood way, there's a whole other, you know, soon-to-be conventional Hollywood way of working that I can be perfectly happy to do my

stuff in and make satires about things I care about that don't need a huge audience. in order for me to make another thing after this. So he understood a business model that was going to work for him. I also just think the movies that he made in the 80s were interesting. Popeye, for me, I also saw it in a movie theater. But Bill, I mean, to the degree that you're older than me in a negligible way is important with a movie like Popeye, where, like, I was maybe, I think, five or six. Right.

I saw that. And I mean, I don't even think I was, I think I was even younger than that. I don't, that is a first movie that I actually don't know where I was when I saw, but I can remember, I can remember that movie being like an erotic experience for me as a person who became the person that you were talking to today where like the biceps on Robin Williams, not knowing anything about Robin Williams,

I didn't know about Mork. I just knew that I was watching a movie where this cartoon character that I was familiar with was real. Like he was a flesh and blood creation. And, you know, he doesn't look like Robin Williams. He looks like Popeye, right? And Bluto looks like Bluto. And there's just something incredibly erotic to a young, to young gay Wesley.

I won't even say, like, well, yeah, I'll just say young gay Wesley. Like, I don't know what's going on in this movie. But there's something about the sort of, like, drunken, um, realist nature of these cartoon characters also seeming depressed and drunk themselves and sexual somehow.

I don't know. All the things Altman was at the time probably. He was a complete best at that point. Well, weren't they all, like, I mean, Robin William, they were all on drugs on the set and they got in huge fights. Harry Nilsson, who I also didn't know, I don't know who Harry Nilsen was, you know,

Harry Nilsen was, you know, in 1980. My hero. But, like, one of the greatest pop musicians ever is making the music for this, for this musical live action pop-up. That's like fueled by cocaine and craziness. Yeah. But that probably explains a lot of what happened to Altman. I would say that late 70s, Sean, we've talked about this, how many times that like 77, 78 through 8788,

how many weird things happen creatively? and it always goes back to cocaine. You just feel like, you just assume, oh, they probably thought that was a great idea because they were all doing cocaine. Yeah. Yeah. This is a secret,

this is a secret drug in the downfall of the new Hollywood, though. Everybody always talks about Heaven's Gate and, and, you know, Star Wars coming along and Jaws coming along, but Popeye coming along in 1980, the whole casting crew going to Malta,

the island is literally falling apart. Everyone's on drugs. Super TV star at the height of his powers and just a mega flop to everyone except a young eroticized Wesley Wesley Morris. You know, like, that's like, whether it triggers Altman's kind of like blue period in the 80s is kind of an interesting question because he definitely didn't have as much juice, but he was also really obstinate. Like, he was really tough. And he wouldn't take jobs the way that some directors take jobs to kind of like build themselves back up in the industry. You know, he really just did what he wanted to do, which was mostly just like adapt plays into TV movies, some of which are really good.

Wesley said, and some of which are less successful. But you also, you know, I mean, you're insinuating 10 or 88, which I feel like is kind of the most important thing he does before the player, because that's where he figures out this satirical tone that he's then going to follow into the player. And he's using politics as like the entree into the world that he would figure out with, with Hollywood, where like these outsized egotomaniacs, these people who have a lot of power, but don't really have any ideas or creativity and kind of mocking them. These are things he's interested in as somebody who was making stuff since he was in his. 20s, he's always looking to pierce the bubble of the self-important jerk who doesn't actually

do anything creative. I just looked it up. Tanner 88 is available on HBO Max. Oh, yeah. And I think, I think speaking of ground zeros, that is kind of ground zero for that mockumentary throwing yourself into a world. There's cameos. And I don't know if I had seen that before that.

I watched that when it happened. I didn't fully understand what was going on. I wasn't smart enough. I think I was like a freshman in college. college. But I knew it was interesting and I kind of wanted to be in the world, but I also didn't really, I didn't have the world experience yet to kind of understand what he's trying to say. I'm sure it's, I'm sure it foreshadows a bunch of Bill Clinton stuff and all kinds of things. Oh, I mean, there's so much in that, Bill. It's going to blow your mind.

I want to watch it again. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to run that back, I think. The other thing that's interesting, though, about, about Altman as a pioneer of a kind of entertainment that we will wind up getting is that like all those, a lot of the tricks that he's using in the player, I mean, he uses in Nashville, right? I mean, just having famous people like come into a space and just like, like Julie Christie's showing up when she does for that amazing nightclub sequence in Nashville.

And, you know, that whole Henry Gibson monologue about the minstrels and the, I mean, is there's just he he is always interested in how much life I can bring into this kind of scripted and pre-fabricated environment and how much fee how much improvisation can I get away with in an inherently not or anti-improvisational artistic mode right like the movies should not have room by their very nature for a great deal of improvisation given you know, the number of people that are involved in making them. And given

the stakes, I mean, at a certain point, production-wise, but he is really interested in trying to bring a kind of abstract expressionism way of thinking to

an art form that does not, does not, it's hard to do it this way. Yeah, it wants pace. You said it, Bill. You said it. It's like, the player is a really good suspense thriller. It's a classic noir whodunit murder movie

that also has weird digressive alt-many crowd scenes where you're like, who is even supposed to be talking right now or why are we spending time in this place? The Bert Reynolds scene is amazing. It's incredible. The camera goes by the table.

It comes back and he's still in the middle of his story. I don't even know how they do some of that stuff. Yeah, it's pretty neat. I was thinking like what are the legacies of, of him beyond what he meant to the other filmmakers, right? Where MASH was a movie that became eclipsed by the TV show. Nashville was the peak of what he did.

It has the misfortune of its coming during this just incredible run of movies, right? It almost gets lost in some ways. And then the player, which sets off 30 years of people, I think, trying to imitate it. But I think what his legacy is more than a movie, it's like Coppola has like the godfather. Altman's legacy is what he meant to all of these other. other filmmakers that came up after him. Like, Paul Thomas Anderson, you just watched the beginning of boogie nights. He's just basically trying to do the player, right?

That whole opening scene, that entire movie is him just trying to do an Altman movie. And so in the research, not surprising that Paul Thomas Anderson was right there with Altman, and he almost took over the last movie Altman made when Altman was sick. But I think, isn't that like over any movie kind of his legacy of how many filmmakers that came after him just trying to do Altman things? I think so. I mean, I think the thing is that he was the quote unquote master of the ensemble movie. And I think it's he's, the 70s were a time of like hardcore character studies where single figures and their psychology was at the forefront of a lot of the storytelling. And Allman kind of goes in the other direction. Like he is actually looking at tapestry. He's looking at these big crowds and these big groups of people. People during the Korean War. People during basically like a country music festival over the course of a series of days. People, you know, like in the old west. kind of redefining what we think of as the West

in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, he's looking at collections and communities, and that's the thing he's most interested in. The players is just another example of that. He's looking at the community of Hollywood, the venality, the selfishness, the greed that drives and animates these people. And, you know, PTA has kind of shifted over the years

to being more singularly focused, but those first films, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, even Hard Eight in the kind of world of Vegas that he shows you in those movies. He's interested in those communities. And a lot of directors in the 90s, were really into that stuff. They really were into... Link later is another one. Same thing, showing worlds.

And so I do think that's probably his biggest legacy, but he also leaves behind, like, I don't know, 15 movies I feel comfortable recommending to anybody who likes movies. You know, he made a lot of great stuff. Yeah. I mean, I also think that... I mean, the Paul Thomas Anderson thing

is, it runs pretty deep, too. I mean, if you think about the way that that Shelley Duvall song from Popeye functions in Punch Trunk Love, You know, he needs me. The way that, I mean, I don't know. I feel like, I mean, Altman's legacy ultimately is his idio, his iconoclasm, obviously. And the iconoclasm, both in relation to his resentment of the sort of business of making movies and in his sort of unorthodox filmmaking style, right?

Like, I mean, a lot of, you can, there's, I mean, I don't know how long. the list of unhappy actors is with respect to Altman. But I think that you could double that list with a number of people who would have dropped everything to be in a Robert Altman movie, regardless of how difficult. He had a lot of return customers. Yeah. I think he did seven movies with Shelby DeValle. Yeah.

I mean, under, I mean, and again, like, Bill, you and I have had a, I don't know if I ever talked to you about this, Sean, but like I feel like maybe we've grazed it before, but there's like a class of Hollywood actor who, and it's funny because one of the people I'm about to mention has a bit part, like a cameo in the player. But like there is a kind of actor that no longer exists who is simultaneously both game for anything, a good sport, not a great actor, but has greatness in them somehow,

and you just need the right director and material to bring out that side of them. Shelly DeVall is one of those people. Terry Gar, who shows up in the player for a little bit as one of those people. Like Melinda Dillon, D. Wallace Stone. I mean, there is this, and, you know, Altman worked with a lot of those people.

Susan Blakely, or Ronnie Blakely, sorry? Who else is in Five and Diem, Jimmy Deed? I mean, like, there's so many three women. Citi SpaceX is one of those people or like she actually is a great actor. but she's also one of those people who left, who, you know, you can let her,

leave her in front of the camera, she'll figure out something interesting to do. And that is, like, the way actors are used, he's, I don't know what an actor's director is if you're talking about Robert Altman, but there's something about his substitute teacher, teachers away quality. Like, and everybody's going to just get to misbehave

in some way for the duration of the, shoot. No, I don't know if I'm, like, I don't know if it's harder to act in his movies than, like, than what it seems like, because there's a lot of technique that you have to have and, and be able to get right. Like that Bert Reynolds thing, seen that you're talking about Bill, where the camera starts on Bert Reynolds telling the story, bloviating. And then it sort of like, it's, I don't, I mean, is it a tracking shot or is it like a, like a, it's just panning, right? Like, he zoom and, you know, that's the other. He changes, he changes where the audio is coming from. Yeah, he flips, he goes along. Right. Yes. Is he.

It's hard to you, too. And I think that there's something about the way the zooming in and zooming out, obviously, but then there's just something about, like, how, Bill, how does he do that Bert Reynolds scene? How does Bert Reynolds, does Bert Reynolds know what's not going to be happening? Well, and how does he repeatedly end these scenes by zooming in on a poster or some sort of picture, which seems like a tacky, but it's not. Every time he does it, it's effective and it works. You mentioned he's had some issues, or he had some issues.

This is from the LA magazine piece about him in 1992. I sent this to you guys. In the years between MASH and Nashville, Altman chewed through six studios, a take-no prisoner's ethic the director seemed to follow in his personal life, dog by debts, many of them gambling losses, a renowned user of alcohol and drugs. Altman was notorious as a womanizer during his first two marriages.

He's now in his third, in the sire of five children, nine grandchildren, two great-grandchildren. Altman is mellowed, according to those who know him. That's part of the Altman legend. I feel like in 2022, he's probably canceled before he even makes Nashville, or right around, somewhere between Nashville and Popeye. This was like a different era. And I think guys like this got a lot of leeway, these creative souls who would snap and go nuts

and they'd get fired and act weird in the set, make people uncomfortable. But, you know. So he wasn't a kid. I mean, in the 70s, he was in his 40s at this point. He had had families, and he was, there's a good biography of him that's basically an oral history, the oral biography that Mitchell Zucoff did in 2009 that features a lot of stories of how he could really be a terror. He could really be a menace.

I think he scared people sometimes. He was a real bad drunk. You know, California Split is at least a little bit inspired by some of his gambling stuff. Obviously, the guys in MASH, those are not really good guys. It's a satire. It's a fun movie, but like, he didn't do heroes, really. That wasn't his thing. into the gray area stuff.

Whether or not he would have been able to make movies today, I think as he got older, he took on like a kind of a grand old man status in the 2000s and was much more appreciated and I think was much more forgiven for some of that stuff. But the player is that perfect time where he's like old enough to really not give a fuck but not so old that the work is bad. You know, like he still has the skills that, you know,

I'm sure we'll talk about the opening tracking shot, but like it's, that's really fucking good filmmaking that's happening. It's like there's a vital person behind the decisions of this movie. So it's kind of a perfect time for him. Can I just say one thing before we get into the movie about like where Altman is in the 1990s? Because, you know, he does do after Tanner 88, his, he does, critics start paying attention to him when, when Vincent and Theo comes out. Which is, I think, you know, sometime in the fall or maybe spring in 1990. And that's Tim Roth, as Vincent Van Gogh.

And who plays the brother? Who plays Theo? Is it Jonathan Reese? Not Jonathan Reese Myers. No, it's Paul Reese. Paul Reese, yeah. Yeah. It's close.

And, you know, I think that the sort of, I don't even know. It's so obvious what he's aligned himself with with Vincent and Theo in terms of tortured artistry. and being misunderstood and being ahead of your time. And, you know, I think that this is a guy with a chip on his shoulder, no matter how iconoclastic he thinks he is, he still thinks he's underrated, overlooked, misappreciated, has been shat upon for, you know, at least a decade. And the idea that this movie comes out, critics seem to like it.

It does pretty well. I think critics absolutely dug this. Yeah, and I think that, you know, I think that, I mean, I don't know where his mind is when that movie comes out and is well received, but I do think it sets the table for some kind of, you know, thunder striking from a god on high when you get to the player. He has a fun last decade. He just finishes his career with the player, shortcuts, Preder Porter, Kansas City,

Gosford Park. The 1994 woman is called Ready to Wear. Did I say the French version of it? Predoporte. No, it came out as Predoport. Yeah. Predoport. And that was it. Gosford Park was his last one.

He got an honorary Academy Award in 06. He had two others. He had the company, which was a ballet movie. Yeah. Oh, I love the company. Yeah. And a Prairie Home Companion was the one that Wesley mentioned that PTA, or you mentioned, the PTA kind of helped him on

towards the end at the end of his life. And Cookie's Fortune, which is, I think, a really good movie that's kind of underrated. It's completely bad shit, but it's got another great Glenn Close performance. Seven nominations, never won, finally got the honor or Oscar. Tim Robbins said, Altman was offered full studio financing of the player if he had a bigger star than Tim Robbins. And Altman said, fuck you and got it financed himself, which is why you see spelling

entertainments involved in this movie. I think he was just grabbing money anywhere he could get. He convinced 65 celebrities to make cameos. including 13 actors and actresses who won an Oscar, including Sydney Pollock. Fifteen others had Oscar nominations, and somebody asked them, how did you get these people for the cameos?

And he said, I only told them, I'm making a film about a studio executive who murders a screenwriter and gets away with it, and they all wanted to be in it. I think that was probably true. Sure.

As you said, the book was written by Michael Tolkien, 1988 novel. He did. the screenplay too, which is I have no idea if there was like Ghost Writer or whatever. It's very, very different from the book. And

Altman is, I really love Michael Tolkien. I think he's a fascinating figure in movies. He wrote and directed a couple of wild movies in the 90s. One called The Rapture. The New Age. Mimi Rogers. Yeah. And the new age, yeah. Yeah, he's really interesting. But I just reread the book

over the weekend and it is so different. The ending especially is The ending of this movie is perfection, and it is very, very different. And Altman was a little unkind about Tolkien's screenplay. They clearly changed it because Altman was always changing people's screenplays. He was always junking people's pages. Well, he also had people ad living, which I don't think he invented that, but there is this whole generation of directors that follows Adam McKay, Apatow,

Paul Thomas Anderson, where they were encouraging the people to freelance and really liked working with people who kind of got that concept and Altmo was one of the first with that as well. Three Oscar nominations, best director, best adapted screenplay, best editing. Two golden globe wins, not surprising. Eight million dollar budget made 29 million bucks. Our guy Raj, four stars, not surprising. He said a smart movie and a funny one. It is also absolutely of its time. Here's a movie that uses Hollywood as a metaphor for the avarice of the 1980s. It is the movie the bonfire or the vanities wanted to be. I think I agree.

Oh, yeah. I agree. There's some really 90s L.A. stuff that we'll get into. We'll take a break and we're going to hit the categories because there's a lot more stuff to talk about this movie. 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, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale sign storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. All right, coming back, most rewatchable scene. The opening scene, seven minutes 47 seconds 15 takes were required they used the 10th

it includes highlights like Buck Henry pitching the graduate too which is fucking awesome it's so good aging mother who's had a stroke Mrs. Robinson has a stroke so she can't talk It's going to be funny?

Yeah it'll be funny dark and weird and funny and with a stroke maybe it's not a stroke maybe it's I don't know what it's it's a malady some sort. She's up there in the bedroom upstairs, listening to everything that happens. They've got a daughter who's just graduated from college. Young blood. 22, 23-year-old, like a Julia Robb.

Excuse me. What did you let me do with these scripts? It's people repeatedly doing the metaphors where it's like, it's out of Africa meets pretty woman. It's ghost meets Venturing Canada. I could have listened to those all day. It's Fred Ward, not seeing famous movies. It's the meta-quiv.

quiet at the set of the top, which I think I like, where it actually just brings us into the actual movie and then it kind of ties into the end. And it's got to be one of the most famous opening scenes of all time, right? It's so good. It's like a little, it's a Russian doll too. You know, like one of the screenwriters that's pitching is Joan Tewkesbury who wrote a bunch of movies for him in the 70s. The other one is Alan Rudolph, who is his protege, who's pitching this government conspiracy senator movie. And he's saying he thinks he can get Bruce Willis for it. He had just directed Bruce Willis in Mortal Thoughts the year before that. So Alan Rudolph knew from which he spoke. Like there's all these little tiny bits, you know, Fred Ward talking

about the tracking shot and touch of evil, but then revealing that he never watches foreign films. He's never seen Sheltering Sky. I missed that one. Like all the jokes and the bits and the lines and the way the camera moves is like all-time stuff. I just think even the way Griffin Mill himself, you're never quite sure how smart and knowledgeable he is about the movies. And then every once in a Well, he'll just be like, I know what that is. I mean, like, without, like, I mean, he couldn't have looked it up on a cell phone. There are no cell phones here, which is, we can talk about that in a second. But, like, there's no smartphone.

He couldn't look anything up. But, I mean, he knew what he knew and kind of pretended to like what he didn't know just to be safe. But the idea that, like, even this executive who kind of really doesn't seem to give a shit about Vittorio De Sica or the bicycle thief still manages to, you know, be conversant. in a whole realm of movies that I was like, oh, wait, he can actually talk. I don't even remember what it is. It's toward the end, but he's in somebody. Maybe he's at the detective's office.

And some movie comes up that Lyle Lovett brings up, and he's like, oh, it's freaks. Ty Browning. And he's like conversed in freaks, enough to like, you know, talk to freaky Lyle Lovett. So there is something really, that just felt really true to me. That guy wouldn't be an idiot.

Like he would know. he would know his movies, but I think that the business, the business aspect is, which is the thing that keeps coming up over and over again, which is the hegemony of studio impatience with anything at aeocentric,

with anything interesting, and the idea that they don't really know what the audience wants, so they keep trying to give the audience everything. You know, like the way that there is just like this kitchen sink. I mean, I wrote some of these things down. Like, it's a psychic political thriller,

but with a heart. It's just like, okay. I love that thing too where he keeps finishing everyone's sentence or trying to guess where the pitch is going. You know, it's like he is just smart enough to hang out with the smart people, but he doesn't really care about anything. Like all he really cares about is how saleable this idea is to his boss. That's it. Yeah. Yeah.

I can't tell you how impactful this was for me, know nothing about anything and living 3,000 miles away. like between this and the first couple years of Larry Sanders and I was just like so this must be just what Hollywood is like I just assumed that's what it was like and then when I got here it was at least a little different but it's not that different though well it's not when they do like these show especially like Sanders was like this too where agents and executives are just they're always the bad guys there's no good version of them and things like this because they're the villains

it becomes instead of the classic Cowboys and Indians movies that they used to make. In this case, the bad guys are anybody who can mess with creativity and talent in whatever way, which is why that quote he has at the top where he says, I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here. And he's got this small smile. He's like, I'm kidding, but he's not 100% kidding. Right, right.

He really is like, it would be cool. So then in Larry Sanders, in the last episode, Bob Odenkirk, who plays Sanders agent, who it's like marrying the whole Brad Gray thing. And he's just like, and he has a very similar line to that. It's something like, God, talent, such assholes. If only we didn't need them for, I forget what he says. But it's like a callback to that line because I think the creatives and the actors all think like these executives, they kind of wish we didn't exist.

They wish they could move the chess board and move these chess pieces, do all these and not use us at all, but they know they need them, which is the pull and tug. I mean, but think about, like, how Altman wouldn't exist if the studio system hadn't fallen apart by the end of the 60s. Like, think about how he needed the chaos of the business model having to change in the 1970s in order to be the direct, like, in order to be at the height of his powers. And what happens when the system reasserts itself in the 80s? Right?

Yeah. And how he has no career that means anything like what his 70s work meant. I think this is a person who really understands the ways in which business imperatives really do have nothing to do with art. Or like they can, but they can also be its adversary in so many ways, especially if you were of a generation that's disinclined to trust what a kind of executive ownership of artistic vision or executive stewardship. of artistic vision can do for an artist. And I think Altman just had no proof that that kind of stewardship was ever going to turn out positively for him. I will say, I got to say, though,

I think that that is a little bit of a canard in Hollywood history because the executives in the 70s who empowered those filmmakers and then the executives in the 90s, and some of those people who were not very good people, like Harvey Weinstein, all of those people were ultimately also driven by the dollar. They were not driven by creativity. Now, maybe they were a little bit more creatively open-minded, like Robert Evans or John

Callie. There were good executives. To your point, Bill, like John Callie is somebody that people always point to, you know, running Warner Brothers in the 70s, who was very sensitive to what filmmakers wanted to do. But the reason that he is a legendary figure in Hollywood is because his movies were good and they were hits. And he made hits. And so the thing with Altman is, it's just his time where the audience is ready to go to him

along with the executives. and those two things need to fit together. And it is cyclical. The taste of the culture is very cyclical. The 70s was ready for Altman in the way that maybe it wasn't ready for him. And it wasn't ready for him in the 80s. And it changes. It shifts.

Like, the cultural mood shifts and the kind of art that people want does shift. I do, I think what I'm saying, though, is that I think that, I mean, I'm agreeing with you, but I would just clarify what I'm saying is like a wavelength issue more than, I mean, maybe it's a business issue too, right?

where, you know, nobody needs... Nobody needed Altman's movies to do what Altman's movies wound up doing. That's true. There was no pressure on him to... I mean, I don't even know what people were looking for in the 1970s from the standpoint of a business model. That was the other thing that made the decade so exciting.

Like, in the moment, you know, there were obvious things that would have been obvious hits. But a lot of the hits were like, wait, what? American Graffiti? I mean, things like that where you just don't know, you really don't know what's going to stick to the wall. And I think that there was,

I think that the, the lack of eyes on him and burden on his filmmaking, I think is how you, how you're allowed to have people like Julie Christie and Warren Beatty be in something as like ostensibly misshapen

as, or, you know, unstructured as McCabe and Mrs. Miller and have the movie still work. Next rewatchable scene, the big party scene when we meet Sidney Pollock's character, but just in general,

like, Altman's so good at those big-ass scenes with lots of things going and quick one-liners, different people, and knowing how to linger on somebody for long enough that you recognize them,

but not too long, and it just moves around, and it's never long enough. You always feel like, I wish this was two minutes longer. I'm really good at that stuff. Bill, have you ever? ever been to one of those parties where Jack Lemons playing the piano and Arabella Fonte is lingering

by the pool? Sunday night. Sunday day. What are you? No, I've, I have been to a couple where there's just a lot of famous people and it just becomes surreal. You look over there and like, that person's really famous. And then you go over there and it's like, these two people are smoking cigarettes. I know who both of them are. And you're just like, what's going on? You feel like you've climbed out of your TV set. The Burt Reynolds scene we mentioned. Griffin hunts down Vincent DiNafrio's character at the old movie theater

bicycle thieves which I'm sure Sean owns on Blu-ray. I do. Five minutes shows a five minutes for the end of the movie. I have a copy of it too.

It's a great movie. Of course it is. They end up having drinks. I don't know why I didn't just bid it that way. And then DeNafrio's character says the ultimate insult, I can write. What can you do?

Stop all the postcards shit. I don't write. Postcards. I don't. Both wrong, okay? No, you're wrong. Buddy, you're in over your head. That's why you're losing your job.

And then what are you going to do? I can write. What can you do? This is going to go badly with these two guys and ends up, we end up having a little murder, which we'll talk about later in picking nits. End up having a little murder. A little murder.

Like an appetizer for this film. Casual murder. I got four more. Next one is the hotel pool pitch meeting when he thinks he's going to meet the postcard guy and runs into the other two guys. and they pitch him habeas corpus, which has no stars in a depressing ending. Who's the DA?

Ah, no one. No one. No stars on this project. We're going out of a limb on this one. You know, like unknown stage actors or maybe somebody English, like, what's his day? Why? Why?

Why? Because this story is just too damned important to risk being overwhelmed by personality. You know, that's fine for action pictures, but this is special. want real people here. We don't want people coming with any preconceived notions. We want them to see a district attorney.

Bruce Willis. No, not Bruce Willis, not Kevin Costner. This is an innocent woman fighting for her life. And we'll talk at Dionne Waiters about one of the two people in that. But that seems fucking hilarious. It's like the most over-the-top pitch. I love the black tie function when Robbins gives the speech about art. It's like the most generic, terrible.

It's all about the storytelling art. And just like, it's like a cliche fest. We and the other major film studios have a responsibility to the public to maintain the art of motion pictures as our primary mandate. Movies are art. Now, more than ever.

Thank you. Then we get to see, habeas corpus. Yes. We do the one year later, and it's like, what's going on here? Oh. Oh, we're doing this. There's Julia.

Oh, my God, there's Bruce Willis. And they just go for it, and it has the, what took you so long, traffic was a bitch, ender. It's absolutely perfect. And then the ending in Sean said, Griffin gets the pitch for the player. And as Rolls Royce, is he's driving home and his pregnant wife in the house that has the most flowers I've ever seen. the end. Strong. Any other rewatchables for you guys?

You forgot one. Wesley cited a big one in our text exchange about this movie. Come on. Sean, go. Speak. Well, when he gets arrested by the Pasadena police and he's brought into the station and he's being interrogated simultaneously by Lyle Lovin and Whoopi Goldberg and like an all-time Whoopi Goldberg performance. She's so funny in this movie. All time. All time. And it's not just, I mean, she is one of those people. And I mean, not everybody is. in this movie who is required to improvise does a great job. But there's something about Whoopi Goldberg.

You know, because I feel like Tim Robbins is finding his performance as the movie goes on. He gets better in the last quarter of the movie where you really feel like he understands exactly who he's playing. I mean, she's got three scenes or four scenes. I mean, she doesn't care who she's playing. But there is something about this black woman being charged with being the law enforcement. and her knowing that her job, if she can remember her basic lines, she will be free to do whatever it is she wants.

And there is some comedy goal involving a tampon, a missing tampon. Willa, excuse me. Did you happen to see where the tampons went that were in here? Of course, I can't seem to find him. I didn't take him. Who took him? Did he take him?

I don't know. I didn't take him. Well, who did? I didn't take him. This is? Damn. There's something about her, I mean, what she's playing in this sequence,

in all her scenes with Tim Robbins and people at the studio, is white people, right? She's playing like a black detective who is just like mixed up in some white people shit. And it's amused the whole time. And it's amused the whole time, except, you know, when she's like, who is that guy who just got beat up on the video? And somebody's like, Rodney King, Rodney King. So we don't do that.

We arrest the right person in Cassadena. That's L.A. where they arrest the wrong person. I don't know. Every scene she's got is fantastic. And it says a lot about how good this movie is that you don't miss her when she's not there. But when she is there, you're like, oh, we got Whoopi for a little bit. This is great. I had this in Apex Mountain.

This is definitely the Apex Mountain of the air of Whoopi Goldberg coming in hot for a few scenes and just stealing scenes. It is also 1992. Right. And Ghost is right before this. And it's just, you drop her in a movie like a grenade for 15 minutes. There's also two little mini moments in the movie that are so perfect. The one is when she's in his office and she picks up the Academy Award and holds it. And she's like, oh, this is heavy.

It's like a year after she just won an Academy Award for Ghost. So, of course, she knows what it's like to lift one. And the other is the lineup when he gets called in to read the lineup. And everything she's saying to the woman who's trying to identify the perp in the lineup, when she's like trying to compel her to choose. Shoes number three is so fucking funny. I love her in this movie. I have most...

I think we all do, though. It's got to be the opening scene, right? Yeah. It's just mesmerizing to watch. Yeah. Yeah. Although I have watched that whoopey tampon scene a bunch of times. But the opening sequence, I always love those because you're just looking for like,

is there a tell here that lets me know that somebody involved in this sequence is not entirely sure what they're doing? And everybody is just dialed into their responsibilities to get the scene to work. It's just wonderful. It's just wonderful. What's age the best? Early 1990s Hollywood in this whole, some of these movies, like Grand Canyon has a couple, Grand Canyon Flood movie, but has like Steve Martin's like a producer.

We go in here, Tarantino kind of dips into that his version of L.A. with true romance. Yeah. I just like this version of LA where it's like pre-internet. I had friends that just graduated college and were just like, I'm going to LA to see if I could make it

or new friends of friends, things like that. And it was like this great mystery where the only way we really knew about it was either the books or movies like this. The concept of a movie with no stars when they're like, no stars? Like they're just completely float away as age the best.

How about, Uh, pre-tupé Jeremy Piven. Oh, yeah. With like the full kind of comb over. He's like 31. Yeah, you could see it all. I mean, it's all there. He probably doesn't like this movie.

That's PCU, Jeremy. That's really, he's getting ready to soar like an eagle a couple years later in PCU. Morewood's age the best, Griffin, seeing Angelica Houston and John Cusack, who just do not like him. And it's like, he's going to be a teller ride? He says to John Cue. John Cusack's like, get me the fuck away from this guy. That's probably my favorite cameo. A lot of deadfish handshakes in this movie.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, hi. Hi. Hey, hey. Hey, nice to see you. Oh, Griffin Mill. Yeah, hey.

I have Randall Battenkoff as a witsage the best. Ooh, who, who. The loser in the Ben Affle. We've talked about this before. The Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris O'Donnell, this whole, Brendan Frasier, all of these dudes. Battenkoff was probably like the odds on favorite to be the biggest star of all of them in peaks in 92. And then it just never happens.

I was saying I had his rookie cards. I invested. I had his upper deck rookie. Yeah, I thought he was going to make it. Tall. Six foot four? Yeah. For Keeps is the movie that was supposed to like be the beginning of the Randall Battenkoff era.

And it just never had. I mean, he was market corrected like seven different ways. Oh, he might have had the market correction record. He had in 1992, Sean, the player, where he plays a hilarious character, by the way. Don't sleep on how funny that character is. The guy's son, he's on his phone. He's trying to get laid. The banker's son from Boston?

Incredible stuff. He's in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And he's Rip Van Kelt in school tests, Matt Damon's roommate, who turns on him at the end, he swings her out in the chair. He's my roommate. he's my best friend for four years and just inexplicably decides to help out Brandon Frasier's character.

And that was it. That was Peak Battenkopf, but I was always in. I'm still rooting for him. I'm still rooting for Battenkoff. I'm with you. Like, obscenely handsome Battenkoff too. He's a tall guy. He's got to be like, how did Affleck beat me? What did

I do wrong? How did Brendan Fraser beat me? Yeah, he's like what happened? I think, well, we know what happened. I mean, those guys have something that Randall Batenkoff just didn't. They're charismatic. They're all charismatic people. More would stage the best.

Being tormented by a mystery person who knows a secret. I've never seen that device not work in a movie. It's always good. I have a secret. Oh, this one mystery person knows about it. And I keep getting mail or postcards or whatever for them, which is great. How about Brian James? Oh, yeah.

Hell yeah. One of the great that guys ever eventually became, Brian James. Brian James, Brian James. I don't know how you pronounce it. Wait, who is that? Who are we talking about? Joel Levinson.

The studio head, the studio chief. The bad guy from Blade Runner. That's that guy's name. That's my one, that guy then, because I had no idea what that guy's name is. He doesn't look like a Brian James. He's not the guy from Blade Runner. He's Keough from 48 hours and another 48 hours. He turns out to be the Iceman at the end of 48 hours too, another 48 hours.

which is the most annoying sequel thing that has ever happened to me in a movie ever because it actually changes the way you watch the first 48 hours. It's like if this guy's the ice man the whole time, then what, explain these three decisions in 48 hours? Like, why didn't anyone ask anyone who loves the first movie

making him the bad guy? I had no idea. In my house growing up, he was Bruce Willis's arch nemesis in striking distance. That's another one. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I remember him from.

He was on cable TV all the time playing Eddie. I can't wait. I can't wait till we do striking distance on the rewatchables and Craig quits. Craig's just like, what happened? I'm doing a Pittsburgh Coast Guard action movie from 30 years ago. I quit. With Sarah, Jessica Parker, is she a Coast Guard cop too? She's not even a love interest.

She's a cop. It's got Farina. It's got Seismore. We should do Rowdy Harrington Week. Roadhouse. striking distance. By the way, I love striking distance. I just can't believe it got green.

Like, when me and Chris Ryan are literally the only two audiences for a movie, it probably shouldn't be greenlit. Listen, I ride or die there, Jessica Parker, so I was there. She looks great in that movie. Don't worry. More would stage the best. Larry Levy going to AA meetings to make deals. He doesn't ever drink the problem.

That's great. It fucking kills me. Malcolm McDowell's cameo is great. Sidney Pollock, the actor? This is a 10-year drought since Tootsie, where he's not in anything. And then this sets off a chain of movies culminating in him in the leather, sleeveless vest and eyes wide shut, which was peak Pollock, peak, maybe movies. Yeah. Pollock wearing suspenders and no shirt and slacks.

That's what it was suspenders. Yeah. That's the energy I'm striving for in my life. That's, I want to get there. Sean and Chris and I may or may not occasionally text. each other that photo of Pollock just for no reason at all. I can't believe I have not received

a photo of Sidney Pollock and Eyes Wide Shot because... You're getting one later today. Wesley, that is my version of seeing Popeye at 5. Seeing Sidney Pollack in 1999 in theaters wearing suspenders and no shirt. Raw masculinity personified. What a movie. I love

Sidney Pollock as a human being. He was real sexy. He's got to be like way up there in directors who moonlight as actors for actually being a good actor. He's a really good actor. Trained as an actor. He tried to be an actor. Husbands and wives. Husbands and wives. So good. He's so good in that.

Three more would stage the best. How Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis get suggested for every movie is just a funny running bit. Really enjoy that. Who would be the two now? Who would they do that? It's still Julia Roberts. It's still Julia Roberts. I would have said Zendaya for the actress.

And I don't know who the actors. Is it Shalame? Or Tom Holland. Yeah. Yeah. Tom. That's a good one, Sean. Yeah. But I would say Shalema. I feel like it's still Julia Roberts for everything. I heard somebody

two days ago or three days ago talking about like, well, she's no Julia Roberts. I'm like, it's 2002. We're still looking for her. Grown kids at this point. But they never found Julie. But this is a joke about that, this is what was so amazing about that joke in the player,

which was that she had only been famous that she'd only been the Julia Roberts at that point for not even two years. So it's like a year and a half, yeah. Right. I mean, and so, well, Pretty Woman comes out in the spring of 1990. So it's been two years of Julia Roberts Mania, right? So she's still the most

famous actress in Hollywood and the one who still has her whole career ahead of her. And she, I mean, we're still at the beginning of the next Julia Roberts conversation. And it never died. She came up and market corrected every other actress for like six years.

And then Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock finally like clawed their way in at least a tiny bit. But it was Julia for a half a decade. That's the only one that mattered. I never asked gossipy questions about these, about on this show. But I actually have a gossipy question. Did Julia Roberts meet Lyle Levitt on the set of this movie? Or like because of this movie or is it just how did they meet? It had to have been.

It's just right around the time, yeah. It's an incredible poll, Wesley. Yeah, good job, but that's got to be what it is, right? Two more would sage the best. The throwaway line, come to think of it, Pasadena is as good a place to die as anywhere. It's just iconic. I don't know why they did the drive-by shooting of Pasadena, but they did. And then apparently every time Griffinville enters a bar restaurant or party, he orders or is served a different brand of bottled water.

Something to look at if you are. I noticed one, was it a Volvick that he got one? I didn't know that was that existed in 1990. There's like 10 different ones. Any other what stage the best for you guys? I think Wesley's point was really smart, which is like the Wayne's World, Larry Sanders, the introduction of that kind of storytelling and letting the world in on these ivory towers of power and how they operate has obviously been done over and over and over again in the last 30 years. Well, you know who maybe started this?

Jack Waltz. she was the best piece ass I ever had and I've had them everywhere twice till Sunday it'll make her a big star and I can't have that well let me tell you

that my crown Mick friend do we need the godfather again did he win Deanne Waiters I don't think so did Luca win Johnny Fontaine will never get that movie I got to say I've watched that movie now twice,

and I've been trying to make it so that I can watch it with my friend Brian. And there was a time in my life when you guys would be having this conversation, and I would have no idea what you were talking about. I'm just not, I'm not godfather versed. But now you're getting there. We're working on you. I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

Let's take one more break. We'll do, What's Age the Worst? All right, what's age the worst? Spelling Entertainment, being at the opening credits of this, is so fucking funny to me that they're simultaneously working on 902 and O, Melrose Place, models ink, and the player.

It makes no sense. What is their history of films? What films did they produce? I think he needed money. I think he independently financed this and was grabbing $2 million here, a million there, whatever. But I also think it speaks highly in some ways

to the spelling entertainment model, right? Like, I mean, if you think about, I mean, to be really, really this person. If you think about what an Altman movie really is, I mean, it's a deluxe love boat, right? It's deluxe fantasy island, right?

All Altman is doing is really like being a very good cruise director, right? There are going to be some rocky seas ahead people, but y'all, we're going to get you coked and liquored up enough to not even mine. Robert Alman's love boat would have been

one of the most incredible things anyone ever made, and there would have been just an incredible man of cocaine. Mrs. Miller. Morrowitz-age-the-wrest. Fax machines in the car. Those giant old-school mobile phones, that jumped out.

I don't know how they came up with June Goodman's daughter. You mean as a name or? Yeah, it's like a 14-letter name. I don't even, is there a joke? What are they trying to do with that? Altman's line on it was that he said it was in Iceland it was like the name Smith.

It was like one of the most common names. I don't actually know if that's true, but that's something that he said in an interview. I know to Gottman's daughters, so yes. There you go. There you go. I mean, I don't know how common it is, but I know too,

who don't know each other as far as I know. But I will also say, well, we'll just keep going because I want to return to... I don't like two more. There's no way you're going to leave this conversation without talking about Greta. Greta.

Greta Skokie, yeah. Murder in the rattlesnake. I gotta say, when you're watching it, did you think he was going to use the hook of the umbrella to just pull the snake out of the car and drive the issues with that scene? I think it'd be way more afraid of the rattlesnake personally. Be like, ah, I'm just going to kill it with the umbrella.

I'm pretty sure the rattlesnake could come out and get you. I got to say, sending a dude to rattlesnake. That's some next level torment. That's pretty... Not cheap either, by the way. They shipped that in from like the gobi or the Sahara? Like, where did that come from? Not cheap.

the what the fuck are you laughing at seen in the police station it's a little weird i don't i know they're trying to show like he's starting to lose it a little bit but it's a little over the top little hitchcock homage i feel like yeah and then listen greatest gotchi i remember seeing presumed innocent in the theater with my buddy bish and we left the theater and we're just like would you like cut your foot off for a night with greta scotchie like what what kind of mutilation would have to happen would you give away like three years of your future income that's how much we're in love with her. The player, and I don't think she's that good in the player.

I have that as a what's age, the worst for me. Yeah, I do. I think they could have, I never really got a full feel for that character. And I think for me personally, I don't really understand that character that much. Yeah, okay. Why isn't she more suspicious of this guy? Why was she living with Vincent Dinafrio? What's her end game?

Why won't she sleep with them right away? Does she want to be in this world or does she not? I just, there's some, I left with more questions than answers. And I don't know if that's a reflection on her performance or the way it was written. No, it's definitely not her. I don't understand a lot of the motivations of that character. Sean looks tormented by this. I don't think it's a good take, Bill.

I think she's really good in this. But it feels like a very... I do too. I'm not saying she's not good. I'm saying I don't understand. And ultimately I don't get the character. I have some of your character questions too. I do.

What I'll say is I think that that character is an echo of another Altman character, the Nina Van Palant character in The Long Goodbye, who is this sort of like European ice queen who you don't really know what her motivations are. She's kind of like a little bit withdrawn. And that in and of itself in Long Goodbye is like a riff on femme fatals in noir movies in the 40s who are also sort of like icy and a little bit at a distance. but they're also manipulating men to get them to do the things that they want. And so it feels like a little bit of a... If you're unkind, you're like, it's a photocopy of a photocopy. But it feels like a very purposeful thing. It's like it's a riff on these kinds of movies.

You mentioned that the film is always like zooming in and lingering on these movie posters. Almost all those movie posters are noir movies. They're almost all of these kind of smoky 40s and 30s mystery crime movies. So she is like an apparition, like the way that a lot of those characters, are. She's not a fully developed person. We don't ever really spend any time with her, not with Griffin. So the movie is this not interested in her if it's not interested in what Griffin has, what his relationship is to her. So I get what it's trying to do what, what like her inner life is? Who the fuck knows? Was she dating the guy before? Like Wesley, let's say, let's say this guy

calls out of nowhere and you're living with somebody who you don't really like and they're asking all these questions. Then that night the guy's, it's like, he's, he's, at this movie theater. Like, cool, thank you. And that night, the guy's murdered. And then he shows up at the funeral. And then you start hanging out. At no point, you're like, hey, wait a second,

did you murder the guy I was living with? Wouldn't you be like 20% concerned, curious, whatever about the link of that night? It's just, she's not curious about it at all. It's almost like she's happy the guy got murdered. I don't get it. I mean, look, in the logic of this world, I'm sure he was addicted.

I'm sure that the dead writer, David Cahehan, it's a dick to to Ms. Goodman's daughter. Yeah. Great pronunciation on that. I think she's probably really good at withstanding it. I also just think she's a cliche, right? I mean, by this point, if you think about where the movies are

with respect to, first of all, she's an artist. It's important to maybe point that out. She is a woman who can make her own art. Her entire house, as far as we can see, is just a studio. But movies will do this. They'll be like, she's this crazy, quirky artist, and then, like, all normal bets of intuition or interaction are now

thrown to the side. Because it's like, well, she's an artist. Yeah, I don't know if I'm using that as an excuse or just an observation. Like, that's the place. That's a place where Griffin feels safest, right? Like, he's created all this trouble and he's now found, like, a safe haven in a woman who happens to be the widow or, like, you know, the, the sort of widow of the man he's murdered, but also there's something about her fascination with his vulnerability with her. He goes into her place and just kind of like collapses on the floor and she's like, okay, well, we're not going to do this now. If you want to come back and try this another day, we can do it again.

But she's sort of like, she's the mother, therapist, sex partner. You know, it's like the 90s. This sort of character becomes the model of, I mean, she's not manic pixie dream girl, But she's definitely like that character, that cliché is very godmother. Maybe it's the sister's ice queen artist. I'm not going to judge you, girl. But that character is soon going to be like in movies, she'll no longer be an artist.

She'll be a schoolteacher. She'll be a gallerist who will have no sexual appetite. She'll have no, there'll be nothing interesting about that character in about three years. I just wanted to have one moment where they're in the, the mud bass and she's just like, hey, I got to ask you something. Like, did you kill that guy that night? It's literally, but that's the thing is it's literally the opposite. He's trying to confess and she's like, I want no, I don't want to have it. No interiority here. I don't want to know,

I don't want to have a real experience with you. Everything is literally floating from iceberg to iceberg. How can we get- I want to be a cliche. Let's just live the cliche. Like the idea that the movie ends with like the, the like, the like dreaded happy ending and she's pregnant and they have all these flat. I mean, it's such a cliche, but she's, she's never been happier because she's living a totally meaningless life. Her art is terrible, right? She's not even a good artist. The other thing that, I mean, but to go back to Gradescocchi for one second, um, and the career that kind of never happened for her. Yeah, it's, it's fine. I'm still good with it. She's a legend. She's so sexy. She's one of the sexiest people. One of the great Italians of all time. Oh my God. I put her, I put her with all the,

all the great Italians we've ever had. That scene where Griffin is sort of talking to her outside his house, while she's on the phone, he's on the phone. I mean, scream alert, hello, hello. You're right. I mean, I, you know, but I also think she's so good at, I mean, she just knows how to be in a Robert Altman movie. You know what I mean?

I don't know how scripted that scene was. I don't hear two people acting. I hear like an actual phone conversation. And they record her dialogue through the phone call, right? So you hear her on the phone and you're with him outside the house watching her take this call. It's funny how you say. And she's so good at it. Some people know how to be in a Robert Altman movie because Julian Moore's like that in shortcuts.

And she has the famous scene where she's bottomless, which in the theater, it was like, oh, my God. What are they? How are they doing this? Is this legal? Am I going to jail for being in the theater for this? What is that? But Julian Moore, that was the movie where she was clearly going to become a major star. Now, some people would say Hand That Rocks the Cradle, actually, was the moment.

Maybe I'm willing to accept that argument, but by shortcuts we do. But she's great to hand the rocks the cradle. She is great in the Rocks of Cradle. She dies because the glass collapses on her, which always happens. Any other What's Age the Worse for you guys? The clothes. Oh, man. those double-breasted power suits.

Yeah. They're coming up in Apex Mountain. I have a funny one. I feel like the Range Rover as like the vehicle of power is a really funny one. That's a good one. That's a good one. He upgrades to the world's race. He does.

Casting what ifs. Chevy Chase wanted to play Griffin Mill. Warner Brothers said, thanks, but no thanks. Allegedly Robert Altman was considering John Travolta for the lead at one point. No. That's a really interesting Travolta sliding doors, all the sudden the pulp fiction effectiveness isn't the same.

And I'm kind of glad that didn't happen. No, me too. I think Robbins needed this for his Bull Durham to the Poir to Shawshank, kind of the three-step arc to becoming a guy. Was Bob Roberts this year? Was Bob Roberts also 92? I think it was. Yeah, I think it was.

I mean, Tim Robbins had a killer, had a killer early 90s. You know, he was what, he's, what, two years away from Dead Man Walking? Yeah, he's. Which that scene, you know, that shot of Susan Sarant. Did he get the idea for the movie? You know, while shooting that scene, it's so crazy. This movie might be more important than we even know.

So predictive. There's scenes with Jeff Daniels playing golf and a surgeon gown at a hospital and Patrick Swayze is showing off karate moves that were filmed but cut. But apparently you can find them on Sean's Blu-ray. Just go over to Sean's house. Do not come to my house. You can come, Bill, but nobody else is invited. This one floored me.

The goddess Gradescotchie married to Vincent Dernoffrey in real life. They were in a relationship when it happened. They have a daughter named Lila George who's married to Sean Penn. Tim Robbins directed Sean Penn in the movie Dead Man Walking.

There's just all kinds of six degrees of separation stuff. I believe Sean Penn and Lila George broke up. They probably did. Well, they were together at some point. Best Act guy, aka the Joey Pants Award. Our runner-up is going to be Richard E. Grant, who plays Tom Oakley, the pitcher of habeas corpus. Unbelievable.

Oh, so, oh, amazing. The hands are flying. He's so into it. The clothes cigarette, like, the sort of manic over-caffeinated, possibly coked up. And I would just love to know, like, you know, Dean Stockwell is not with us anymore. But, like, their thing, like, how did they work out? Dean's like, I'm just going to set some picks. You do your thing.

You go nuts. Our winner, though, for the best that guy. Uh-oh. The first person you see in this movie, Von Doms'am's love interest in Bloodsport, Lee Ayers, is one of the people that works for the studio. Oh, yeah. You guys didn't know her name. I didn't know her name.

She is the love interest in Bloodsport, one of the most important action movies in 1980s. Oh, she's the woman working with Von Domb at one point. She's the secretary in Joel. She's allegedly working on the expose about Kumate. And then by the end of it is just sitting front row for Vandam against Chung Lee. Anyway, she's in this. Wait, you're putting her over Richard Grant?

Richard E. Grant is unbelievable in this movie. Unbelievable. Well, he might be Richard E. Grant to some people. Nobody knows the Bloodsport lady's name. Not one person. I really did not know her name. So I won't even mention Cynthia Stevenson, although we should talk about her ever so briefly

because I you know coming up in the recasting couch can we do it then let's let's go yeah new category that I think we should add for movies that are 30 years or older I thought about this last time this happened best former that guy okay the former joey pants of word I think Fred ward and and Brian James were both former that guys Brian James you could argue is still of that guy but there was a Fred Ward stretch where I didn't know what his name was until I'm going to say mid 80s range but he was just like that guy that guy and then he was just like that guy and then became Fred Ward. I got him confused with,

I confused him, Peter Coyote, and Sam Shepard for the longest time. I could not. They're obviously different people, but they were the same person to me. Fred Ward is making Frederick Forrest. Sean,

he's making secret admirer in 1985. Well, in 1985, I was three. I wasn't really clocking. No, I know, but I'm just saying, I didn't know what his name was.

And then I forget what Fred. Tremors. Tremors. Tremors. But I forgot what year that was. In 1990. Tremors is 91. That's when he becomes Fredward.

From that point on his Fred word. Yeah. He's a Fred word. No, no. Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word for overacting down it up. Bonnie's last scene.

That's where Bonnie, the wheels come off a little bit for the Cynthia Stevenson casting, which we'll get to in a second. The Dan Waiter's Award. Apologies to Vincent Donofrio. Apologies to Richard E. Grant, who's really fantastic.

Uh-oh, this is going to be good. No, this has to be whoopey, right? Whoopies in three scenes? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think that's right. And Richard E. Grant has to be like, what more could I have done? What more did you want for me? What was that missing? I wouldn't sleep on Dean Stockwell, honestly. Andy Sevella? Yes. Really, really wonderful. He was really wonderful. But the thing about what is anybody ever won Dionne Waiters being funny? Like just pure comedy? Okay. Yeah. It's happened. Recasting couch. I have two. Just walk with me here, 1992 range. It's two years after Goodfellas.

It's one year after Cape Fear. It's right before we get into that mad dog in glory, this boy's life stretch for De Niro. Could he have just played the Fred Ward part for like four scenes? Just popped in and out of this Fred Ward. Just completely overqualified. Why would he take this part? Just because it's Robert Holman.

How did he get anybody? How did he get Julie Roberts? To be in it. But I don't, does Robert De Niro make sense in a Robert Altman movie? I mean, I don't think that... Did he make sense in Jackie Brown? Yes.

Yeah, but that's a different... Yeah, of course he did. That's one of his best performances. But I think that something about the way Altman works, I think is probably counterproductive for De Niro for the way De Niro works. I mean, there's, like, what... Here's no preparation time.

Like, what is he... I don't know what he can grab onto as an actor in an Altman production. I'm more excited about this one. The Bonnie part. All due respect to Cynthia, Stevenson, but this, it just has Jennifer Jason Lee crying all over it. Yeah.

Just ready. That's right age. I could see it. I think she's going to be more interesting, especially in the final scene. Her or somebody like that, I think in that part would have helped. But see, I loved going back to this and seeing Cynthia Stevenson because it takes you back to 1992. Jennifer Jason Lee having the same part, it wouldn't have made as much sense.

There's something kind of uptight and. like rule abiding about Cynthia Stevenson. She seems like she went to a good school, comes from a good family. So who would you go with? An actress. Give me a name then. Oh, God.

I mean. Mary McDonald? No. Too old. Too sophisticated. She would be running the studio. She wouldn't have that part. There's something like you got to have a young,

eager person playing. Holly Hunter. But she's Holly Hunter by 19-19. Yeah, she's too famous. I think it's got to be somebody who has a maniac. Sean, that's the right impulse, but she would tip the part over. Do you know what I mean?

Joan Cusack. Yeah. Joan Cusack. I don't think he would be dating. What about Annabelle Ciora? Too sexy. She wouldn't want that job. Yeah, she wouldn't want that job.

Also, she'd be Greta Skokke. Yeah, right? Has to be the counterpoint to Gretaxcchi, right? So that's like, that's specifically why Alton cast Cynthia Stevenson is he's like, and there's the reason she has the nude scene and Greta Skokie doesn't have the nude scene. Glenn Headley?

He's... Oh, that's pretty good. Oh, that's it. But too quirky. Too quirky. She's not going to run... Glenn Headley's not going to work at a studio. Do what I mean?

Like, you need a person who you just is going to... You're going to believe this person in the power suit... So Lisa Kudjo's out to do that. Lisa Kudra probably could have done it. That's pretty good. I didn't know Lisa Kudra at that point. She would have been young. Which is all the more reason to...

But Cynthia Stevenson was a known quantity in 1992. right? Like she was in things she had played, like she'd been on some TV, she'd done some TV stuff. I knew who that actor was when I saw her in the player. All right, fine. I'll go to Niro then. I'm not going to listen to you guys. I'm calling Deneer. I'm telling him he's in.

Halfassan her research. Skokie said no nudity. So that was why they filmed the sex scene from the neck up. Skokke's like, I fucking went to town on Harrison Ford and presumed innocent. I'm not doing that again. Mm-hmm. I don't blame her. I don't blame her at all.

I wonder what Cynthia Stevenson knew about Hersey when she's in the hot tub. I mean, it looks very natural, but I also, and she seems utterly unselfconscious about it. Yeah. But I wonder, I don't know. I'm not real deep on my Cynthia knowledge.

Sean's a big hot tub in the backyard guy. In the scenes. Do not own a hot tub. So no, I'm not. In the scene when Tim Roberts says to Lord of Bert Reynolds, Reynolds improvised the scene and knew nothing about Griffin, but still managed to improvise that he was an asshole. He just instinctively knew. Being an asshole.

The assholes identify assholes. Is he a studio executive? He must be an asshole. Bert Reynolds, incredible stuff. Here's what Robert Altman said about casting Cynthia Stevenson. She didn't look like a Hollywood glamour accident. She was great, or glamor actress. She was great about it.

She said, quote, why me? Nobody's ever asked me to be nude. before and he said that's the reason. That's why he didn't see Greta Scott. Skok is naked. And then he said, this is inappropriate, but this is what he said.

Paul Newman's comment was, you don't get to see the tit you want to see and you get to see the ones you don't want to see. And that was it. It was about movies and people's expectations of movies, putting them together in the jacuzzi was a Hollywood thing in itself. So it's a real thought from Robert Altman.

I have some questions about that Paul Newman quote. I can imagine Paul Newman like he's donating dressing to charity but at the same time has thoughts on nude seats and rubber what does he even mean? He means in movies you see women nude that you don't want to see but you

know that you do want to see I think that you do want to see. I think he's thinking like people like me in college are like I can't wait to see Greta Scotchie get naked. Right right. Because I feel like Paul Newman didn't have a problem getting people to take their clothes off, you know? He did not. He was Paul Newman. The other thing

about that idea, I guess. Because, I mean, if you think about what, who, like, you know, Cynthia Stevenson being naked versus Greta-Skaki is, I mean, it's very Godarty in that kind of frustration of the, I mean, let's just go there for one second. Like, that frustration of the male gaze, you know, like, like not giving you a thing that you as a,

as a consumer of capitalist culture have, like, maybe think you've paid to see, which is, you know, That's how I felt in Popeye. Like when Williams broke the biceps up. By the way, I just got the text, Young Gay Wesley has been greenlit by UPN. We're casting now. We're looking for seven-year-U-Pen?

Yeah, U-PN. They've just greened like Young Gay Wesley. What? I want the F. No, I want the FX version of that show. You have, oh, I'm sorry, it's Peacock. I read it wrong. It's Peacups in.

Oh, Peacock sounds exactly right. You have an EP credit, Wesley. Congrats. You could also call the show Peacock if you want. I really, that's what we're going to call it. Apex Mountain. Tim Robbins, no. Vincent DiNafrio, no.

It does raise a good question of what his Apex Mountain was. I don't know the answer to that. Vincent DeNofrio? Yeah. Probably law and order, right? Like those seasons he spent on Law and Order. And he was Private Pile. Yeah.

I mean, he had a lot of good, great movie moments. I mean, talk about Dion Waders. He's got, he could win a few of those. Robert Altman it's Nashville it's got to be Nashville right Apex Mountain I mean peak of his powers is postmash I think

because postmash he I mean he makes Brewster McLeod is the first movie he makes after MASH which is a wild movie a movie that only a guy who has just made a add in nowhere smash hit that got nominated for Oscars could make so pure power is probably right after that Cynthia Stevenson yes

meta Hollywood movies I guess it would be like this, Tropic Thunder they're more on the TV side than the movie side Well there's a call I mean like I said

Singing in the Rain is a classic example of this But I'm thinking about the actual like industry movies like modern The modern version of them Where there's some judgment about the industry itself

I mean Yeah and it's a satire I don't know I don't know Facing the crowd is still, I mean, that's, you know, facing the crowd. Network. Oh, network's a good one. Bamboozled?

I feel like it's more a New York movie in my mind. Argo? I mean, Argo is one of these movies. I mean, yeah. Argo's good. I guess the Alan Arkin stuff. But you have never seen a movie this acidic about, you know, the, the, the, and also involving the level of, I mean, Julia Robbins.

and Bruce Willis and Susan Sarandon and, you know, Sally Kellerman. I mean, the range of people signing this petition, Young MC is playing the boyfriend of Jan Tim Robin's secretary in this movie. Young MC! So good. I mean, like, the number of people signing Robert Altman's

anti-Hollywood petition is like, no, that's never happened before, which is also probably why it's not nominated for Best Picture. The funny thing about that, though, is this movie, widely satirizes Hollywood but it doesn't really take any shots at any specific people. That's true. No one takes a blow.

You could say, well, this person resembles this executive or resembles this agent. John Peters drive by by shooting joke, nothing like that. Yeah, the joke isn't on anybody, really, except Griffin, I guess, who ends up with the happiest possible ending for himself. Yeah. But I also, I mean,

just to sort of, I mean, I agree. And I also think that one of the things I mean, talking about what's aged the best, I mean, it's prediction that what is happening to the movies right now is what is going to happen. You know, the idea

that we are talking about, like, the death of stars, the death of great screenwriting. I mean, these are the conversations that have been going on since before 1992. But the idea that they have, like, truly, they are coming to pass in this major way I think is not insignificant. and the thing that I would love to go back and read all the premier magazines from that.

You know, I had them, and I didn't have the 92 issue. So I got to work on my EBA skills. I was all excited to dive into the, there's a good L.A. mag thing that you can find on that Cineophile and Beyond site. They have the Alton interview that really captures, like, where Altman was at. Can I also just say one other thing? I'm really curious to know how, I was. love to read a piece about Japanese people and Japanese culture in the 80s and 90s. Because the way the Japanese function here is the way they function all over the movies in the 80s and 90s,

which is like as tourists in an environment that they potentially are like possibly going to buy or colonize, but the movie isn't afraid of them the way they are everybody else from someplace else who comes into the movies. That's interesting. There's something about this share. I mean, Los Angeles. I mean, it's not like Japanese people are foreign to Los Angeles. Angeles. But there's something about the way Japan and Japanese culture, Japanese people in Japanese culture, function

simultaneously as like punch punchlines and as wallpaper. And that's a thing that happens in this movie a couple of times. Mori Pex Mountain. We'll do it quickly. Peter Gallagher, no. Some great, Peter Gallagher is IMDB. I continue to think is just wildly underrated. As you know, I love

to Jillian on her 37th 37th birthday. It's one of my favorites. Just for Pfeiffer. Peak Pfeiffer, just as a ghost. But he does corporate so well. I mean,

there's something about, like, he's simultaneously so corporate and so dad. That's, I mean, that's why he was so good in sexualized and videotape.

He basically was in playing the same part the whole time. Keen of Gershon, no. Oversized, double-breasted suits. It's either this or the Talking Heads movie.

I don't know. They're in the finals. I don't know who's the winner is. This is definitely the winner and hopefully to the death and it dies. Is this your least favorite era of fashion ever, Wesley? Yeah, because it had also infiltrated at this point the NBA. This is how Michael Jordan is dressing. This is how Lenny Dykstra, all those guys are dressing like this. And it's terrible.

I'm going to send you a couple of pictures. of me in college. Wayne Gretzky, I mean, yeah, it's rough. Lisa Gibbons, I'm going to say yes. I don't think things got better than her in 1992. A player cameo, she's crushing on entertainment tonight. She was a

smoke show back that. Fred Ward, no. Brian James. Probably not. I mean, Whoopi Goldberg, no. I think, but it's right around here. I don't know, maybe. She won an Oscar for Ghost. This is, I mean, the early,

the late, like from 1980, to 1995 is Whoopies, I mean, she's one of the biggest stars in the world. Ghost is the number one movie of that year, and she's, it does get better for the thing. I think it's Sister Act.

I think it's Sister Act, because people were going to Sister Act and Sister Act 2 to see Whoopi Goldberg. Well, if Sister Act was the same year as this movie, then the answer is, yes. She had a great, she had a great 1992. Gratis Scott, Scottie. Scotkey.

Scotty. I want to say Scotchy. But I know it's skaki. Like scungeal. Skokie. Skokie. I think it's presumed innocent for her. That was a major, major, major movie.

She was a new face and she was the breakout person in that movie. What about do she outdoor L.A. meals and drinks? 2020 through 2022. Fair. Randall Batkopf, it never got better. No. The trio of school ties buffy and the player. Great stuff.

Murdering a screenwriter, probably not. All right, picking nits. Probably not. Picking nits. How does Greta not see Griffin through the window as she's talking to him? And he's like five feet away. She's in her art. She's in her art.

I believe that. I also like the De Palma-ness of that. Altman is like, oh, there's, ah, De Palma, you can't do it better than this. And it's true. It's so good and it goes on so long. and is so creepy for both what you

identify with and what you don't want to be identified with. It's like, it's a total dunk on DePama. We like dunks. That would be a good

spin-off podcast to the rewatchables, Wesley. You hosting total dunk where it's just directors dunking on another. She's a 10-minute podcast.

Just one scene where directors dunking. There's a lot of it. How would DeNafrio know this much about the inner workings of Tim Robbins' studio in the Hollywood situation during an era when there was no internet

or anything else. Did he have a mole in the office? He reads the trades. Right, it's in the trades. That's it. It's in the trades. Just the trades. He's claiming everything.

Doesn't he say that he saw it in the trades? Yeah. Read it in variety. I'll rescind the knit. How did they get so much information about the David Keahen, Cohane, Kehan, Kehan, the David Kahane murder?

How did they get it the following morning? He got killed like, Seven hours earlier. They already had suspects and evidence. The LA Times don't play. They don't play? It was eight hours later.

It's an incredible poll. It's a great point. That's really fast. Was it like a 10 p.m. showing of bicycle thieves? Yeah, that's fair. Six hours. It was completely reported out. Even Tokyo Vice doesn't work this fast.

Love Tokyo Vice, by the way. No surprise. Neither of you would be shocked that I really, really like Tokyo Vice. It's. Sean's too sloppy for it, but I'm in on Elgort. I bought, I'll buy Sean's Elgort stock. You name me the stock. I'm not giving mine up.

Okay. I'm not giving mine up. I will watch Tokyo Vice. I don't know what you're talking about. Why did post guard guys stop messing with Griffin for like a year? Did you get another gig? What happened there? Probably.

It ends. I don't know how it just comes to a halt. Police lineup doesn't work out. They let them go and it's done. Should this movie have had more cocaine, Sean? Should there have been a... Who is our guy from True Romance? Saul Rubenek?

Should there have been a Saul Rubenek kind of just coaked up guy who's just got cocaine on his mustache character? I think it's Richard Grant and Dean Stockwell. Dean Stockwell is definitely the closest we get to a Joel Silver stand-in, which is who Rubenick plays. Yeah. And those two are pretty kooky. You don't actually see any white powder,

but they are talking a mile a minute. any other any of the nipicks for you guys? Um I mean I think we've addressed the clothes I you know but I mean like what are you going to do that's the time but I will say like the opposite direction will be in the clogs

in the white in the white socks she had found her look by 1992 and she was not going to let it go I guess like what is the screenwriter want? You know the guy who is sending him in the postcards is it just to be acknowledged is it to have a screenplay purchase?

I think he's a crazy person who is offended by the lack of follow-up. It's basically every producer's worst nightmare, right? That they give the run around with a screenwriter and the guy just snaps. Can I be this person, though? I actually think there's something. I've appreciated the harassment of Griffin-Mill as a cosmic metaphor, right? Like, I mean, it's a person, but it's also like a like a condition. right? This is a, this is the ghost of many a screenwriter, you know, coming back to haunt and harass.

I don't, I don't really, it's one of those things, I don't really care. This movie feels like it's being made up as it goes along anyway. And the idea that like it's going to know who's responsible for doing this or like that, you know, that it's going to make a kind of sense. Like, I just accept it as cosmic, as cosmic justice in some way. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? God damn it. I hate myself for even thinking this would be a good idea, but I was kind of into it. But I really planted it out in my head.

I was like, yeah, that would be pretty good. Go on. If you updated it with the internet, you stretch this out. We got to know the different characters. We got to spend real time with them. Each character got their own episode. You could definitely get, I mean,

if they can get two fucking seasons out of the 1980 Lakers, I'm pretty sure the player I'm pretty sure the player could have worked. But isn't this just called super pumped? Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like

I might be full up on on like spending 10 hours with an asshole. Right? Well, but the difference is this has this has a mystery element to it that I think could work with the with the way these shows go

where if you do the show correctly, it's like, oh, I got to watch one more. Now I got to like from a binge watch model it could work. But I wouldn't. touch it. I have a feeling somebody probably will at some point. But do you think about like remaking

a Robert Altman movie? Like what... I don't think you remake the movie. I think you would remake the book. You'd take the book. You'd say, hey, the book was totally different. Blah, blah, blah. We're doing that and it's... We're not trying to do the Altman movie. I can see somebody doing it. Okay. I can...

I can... Malina go there. Sean, is the book worth taking another swing at? Yeah, it's interesting, but it's not as linear. It's much more philosophical, I think, about Griffin's role in the world. Then Altman is like, weirdly, Altman, who is this digressive, kind of meandering filmmaker a lot of the time is like, we need an ending on this movie. And so he gives it one.

Probably in answerable questions. Did Altman see the future of movies? Oh, for sure. I mean, yes. I mean, this feels so ahead of its time now with like every piece of this. the Tim Robin speech at the gala is really instructive because it's so transparently full of shit you know, and you know, movies now more than ever that tagline that you see

on the building. Yes, so brilliant. And using those phrases over and over again, like it does preview. But just to go back to the point I was making earlier, like in the 1960s, in the late 60s, people were like movies are fucking dead. You know, these big terrible studios

and the carcasses that they're dragging to the multiplex. Yeah. Like by 67 alone? So it turns over. Right now, movies, I'm back in on movies. I've seen a bunch of good movies in the last few weeks. I'm like, I don't know.

Everything's going to be all right. Carrie and I watch, my wife and I watch Fresh on Saturday night. It's good. The old Fresh? The 1996 one? The one was Sebastian Stan. Yeah, it was fun. Oh, that is got it.

Good horror movie. I'm with Sean. I think movies have been good for like 15 months. You guys, that's not the, I mean, do we need to have this conversation? Well, I guess this is the conference. This is the place did actually have it in about a Robert Albin movie. He's right, but also he was always right. Like, you could have said that in 1937, and it would have been true.

Yes, but that's not my question, though. My question is, like, you guys are right. Like, I'm enjoying the movies I am watching too. I still think that there is a conference. Like, I hate to go back to a conversation the three of us had back when Moonlight won best picture. but I don't know if you guys, Bill and I, you and I have kind of talked about Underground Railroad.

Sean and I, I don't, we have not. No. I think that is the most astounding thing I have watched that is neither nor, you know, it's its own thing. And the idea that that person made it, and it's as good as it is, and it just like fell in a forest and nobody heard it, is, it just feels like,

indicative of something, right? And I think the movies are good, too. I agree. But the only thing that matters to me is, like, are people going to see them and how do we know? That's the only thing that I'm... I think people are going to see them, just not the way we used to see them.

I think people are going to see most of them at home, and that's just the way we're... That's where we're going. And to that point, Bill saw Fresh at home on Hulu, which is where it debuted. And I saw Code at home on Apple. Well, that's how Coda wins best picture. We talked about Tanner 88, and we talked about Vincent and Theo, both of which were made for

TV and seen on television or not seen on television, as it were. And then 30 years later, here we are on a podcast singing their praises. So nothing, it doesn't, it just takes time. The Underground Railroad will ultimately be hailed as an incredible masterpiece of storytelling. And it was really in its time by the community, but I don't think a lot of people have seen it. But people will discover it over the years. I want an air mouth. the gods ears is all I'm saying.

This season of Atlanta will be an interesting one for what, if you really go for it, what cuts through and what doesn't? Because they're going for it this season. And it's really interesting to watch. And I think they've gone to a lot of places already. And I don't think the narrative is the same as it's been with other seasons.

No, I mean, but I also don't, I mean... It also might have been a way too long, too. Which sometimes hurts with these shows. I think the culture is changing this really interesting way. and I feel like somehow I'm watching this show and nobody in my life is talking to me about it. Van and Remmer did an unbelievable podcast after the third episode that I thought was one of the best podcasts

we've run in the past year about all the themes that came out of that episode. And then the fourth episode, which again, the main characters weren't even in. But that's a show, I think the biggest chances now seem to be being taken in some of these TV projects. where whoever is the quote unquote, the guy, the lady, whatever,

when you have some cachet to take some swings, it just is easy to do it on TV. I mean, your apex mountain. Sean seen Barry. I don't know what Barry's done, but I could see Hater going in that direction as that show starts fading toward the end. I could see him just being like, fuck it.

Rewatch the second season. The whole second season, you're like, oh, he's evil. He's actually not the hero. He's a damaged dude. But you're right. Those shows, it's much easier to do that on those shows than it is in movies right now. But I don't know. There's always going to be an Altman who's going to come along and be like, you know,

I am an iconoclast. Fuck your feelings. I'm making what I want. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? What poster, Sean? What poster are you the most jealous of in the office? I mean, the M poster, the Fritz Long movie, I think, is probably like the movie I like the movie I like the most that is featured.

A lot of the other movies are like a little smaller, a little more obscure. Like, isn't there what there's like a prison break movie poster? A couple, couple of others. Wesley would want one of the double-breasted suits. I'd just lock them down for that. A game-worned Robin suit. What about that Rolls-Royce.

I want to work. Oh, that's good. A wild love its jeans. His denim jeans, not his biological jeans. I would say, sacrifice the memorabilia to have more movies like the Rialto. Because I see those movies like that in these, or theaters like that in these movies.

I'm like, oh, man, what an era. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, last but not least, who won the movie? It's got to be Altman. Huge winner. Oh, what a comeback. Huge winner. Yeah. Yeah.

His fourth comeback. Incredible. Has there been a killer Robert Altman documentary, Sean? There has been one. I don't know that. But not a, whether you like it or not. I mean, all the voices. are in it, all the key people, you know, a lot of those people that you guys were talking about, too,

the Shelley Duvall's and the people who came back to him over and over again. It's good. It tells the story of his life. It's probably not as nitty-gritty as it could be. It could be like six hours, too. To me, the oral biography is where to start with him. The Mitchell Zukhov one is the place to be on that. All right, Wesley, it was fantastic to see you, as always. We can, oh, I'm on one of the new still processing episodes coming out. It's back this week, right? Yes. Thursday. Thursday. Holy shit. Yes. Starts Thursday. This Thursday. And then, Sean, you're still cranking at the big picture?

Still cranking. You and CR did ambulance? It doesn't feel cranked. It doesn't feel cranked. I really... Why wasn't I invited for the ambulance podcast? This is a very important question. Other than like it was just hurtful. I, I, one, if you want to do an instant rewatchables on ambulance with me and CR and Wesley, if Wesley, if Wesley is interested in ambulance, which I assume he would be. I am going to go see it on Wednesday. So you think that could be an instant rewatchable?

I mean, well, nobody saw it at the theaters this weekend, unfortunately, for all of us. That's an example of what Wesley's talking about. That's my point. Everybody ignored it, which is an absolute bummer. Bill, if you don't like this movie, I'll be fucking shocked. No, there's no way. It's lock it down. I'm definitely going to like it.

It's so fun. All right, this podcast was produced by Craig Horrell back. As always, we'll be back next week with yet another one. Thanks, Wesley. Thanks, Sean.