The Watch - Ep. 12: 'The Watch'

Episode Date: January 12, 2016

On today's episode Andy and Chris pay tribute to the life and music of David Bowie. Then they discuss the drunken Golden Globes (26:00), and break down the career of Denzel Washington (36:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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SeatGeek is giving $20 back off your first purchase with the code BSPN. To get $20 back off your first Seatkekeek purchase, download the Seek app. today, enter promo code BSPN. Hello, and welcome to the watch on the channel 33 podcast feed. My name is Chris Ryan and joining me on the other line. The man who fell to earth, it's Andy Greenwald. Hey, buddy.

What's up, man? You know, we were going to talk, obviously, about the Golden Globes and we still will. But late last night, really, really sad news. This one really hurt. David Bowie passed away at the age of 69. Andy, you know, this was one of those real gut punches. Yeah, well, just crazy though, right? I mean, we said we recorded a show on Friday and we said we were going to talk about him today because we loved Black Star.

We loved his new album, which came out on Friday. Yeah, we were going to talk about last week on the watch extra, but we wanted to talk mostly about television. Yeah, and this was, okay, I mean, this is a gut punch, you're right, but here's particularly why it was crazy was because obviously David Bowie, was not necessarily thought of as human. He was an alien. He was potentially an immortal. And a few years ago, we had actually heard that he was not well. He basically vanished from pop culture for almost a decade.

He didn't record. He didn't tour. So there were all these rumors that he was not well. And then he came back with the next day record. And then he came out with another record and seemed suddenly creatively reborn, incredibly vibrant. And we even, you know, because of the fears surrounding him, when we were at Granlin, we had Chuck and Alex Pappademus write a basically 8,000 word obituary for him.

Yeah. It didn't come true. And when you, I mean, who gets to, here's what I'll, here's how I'll frame it. And actually, I'm really curious about your own personal relationship to the guy and your own fandom. But who gets to, A, read their own obituaries ahead of time. I know. B, call their own shot. What I mean is there are very few cultural grates as significant, I think, across multiple mediums in our

our lifetime, certainly, is David Bowie. If you take that as, just take that in and of itself, that's amazing. And then you realize he called his shot. He played out his own exit music. He made a record that was a goodbye, was able to see it released and received, and let that be his final statement to his fans and to the world in a way that is really moving. Yeah, and his longtime producer, Tony Visconti actually talked a little bit on Facebook today about the sense that David knew that this was coming and that he,

wanted to finish Black Star and get it out there before he left us. You know, what an incredible career, man. I, you know, I, in a lot of ways, Bowie is just such the quintessential solo artist. I think you think about him in all these different. Chris, yeah, clearly you never spent much time with Tin Machine. We're going to get to that. Well, that was my, this is kind of my point. He's thought of as this sort of quintessential solo artist as he's making these records in the

late 60s and throughout the 70s and throughout the 80s, you know, you have these great bands like the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and Zeppelin and all these groups that are coming out and he's interacting with those groups, but he's always off on his own train. But one of the things I read today that really I found quite touching was Hilton All's obit in the New Yorker. And he has this piece, this part of his obit is about Bowie as a collaborator and Bowie as, you know, the generosity of Bowie's artistic spirit, and this is just a line I wanted to read out from the piece. I can link to it later. Rock stars are not generally known for their generosity to other artists.

It takes a lot to get up there and be such a huge presence. Early on, Bowie realized he was more himself, had more of himself when he built bridges to different worlds. And I think that's the key to why Bowie has been so relevant for so long, is that he never turned off his ears. And he never became a karaoke act of his own where he was just, You know, you would go see him every five or six years and he'd play heroes and wave goodbye. I mean, there was always something brewing with him, whether he was working in music or film or art.

And the thing that I'm going to take from him, as much as I'll take the music and I'll take his individual genius was just how what a brilliant, brilliant partner and teammate and collaborator he was. And the things that he touched, like Iggy Pops Loss for Life or Lou Reed's transmission or working with Philly's soul musicians. on young Americans. Yeah. And it's like what a great artist, what a beautiful, like, representative of the last 50 years of culture, is someone who had their hands and everything,

who had an ear open to everything, whose eyes were open to everything. And let's talk about how that was displayed just in the last 24 hours, because you think about where these tributes are coming from, think about the people who he absolutely genuinely touched and not even just in like in a passing fandom way. Because you would,

because, you know, even within the last 24 hours, we saw absolute outpourings of grief and respect come from, you know, people like Arcade Fire who he collaborated with or Trent Reznor who he collaborated with, but then also to live quali or Swiss Beets or Def Leopard, right? Like Def Leopard wrote about how much seeing David Bowie meant to them. And it's pretty hard to draw up. David Bowie wrote and produced a song that invented Depp Leppard.

That's what I'm saying. That is where the line went, but that's a kind of generosity, where he would create these personas and these possibilities, put them into the world and then move on and let his, literally his children find them, pick them up and run with them and play with them. And the thing that I was really moved by was how a lot of the conversation about Bowie is that he was this ultimate chameleon, which suggests a sort of insincerity, which is absolutely the wrong way to consider him. The thing that moved me the most today was watching something that I honestly had deleted from my hard drive. I had no memory of this happening, which is that he opened the concert for New York City after 9-11 at Madison Square Garden, playing for a room full of first responder.

and firefighters whose world had just been turned completely upside down. And he opened that concert sitting cross-legged in the middle of Madison Square Garden stage with a toy piano doing a cover of Simon and Garfunkel's America. And at the end, he said, you know, thank you to my fellow New Yorkers. And he said, especially to my local ladder company. I mean, how many people can get away with that? This is a guy who lived, there's so many layers to that. Everything that I just said, from toy piano to covering Simon and Garfunkel to thanking his

local ladder company and all of it is legitimate and all of it is genuine. And that is the sign of that's the sign of a pretty omega level artist. It's you know, there's so many, when you look at like the careers of great bands and great rock artists over the, great pop music artists, there's usually this distinctive, um, bracketed peak, right? And that's usually defined by a context where like they were very representative at the time that they were, they were living in. and that was, they were part of a cultural movement. And I think that a lot of those Beatles LPs, you know, the Beatles have two peaks where it's the singles band and then it's the album's band.

And then they have their solo artist, their solo period. That's like the three sort of stages of them. Bowie has like six. Yeah. Bowie has like six peaks. And when you go through these records and you think about where he was when he made, went on the 71 to 73, four Diamond Dog. So he has like pinups.

you know, he does pinups in Aladdin saying Ziggy Star Dust and Diamond Dogs, not in that order in the early 70s. And then, like, it just goes through this transformation in the mid-70s. He does Young Americans, which is just an absolute, like, out of nowhere, brilliant record. I was listening to that on the way over. Me too. You forget how great songs like Wynn are. And he had that, like, Luther Vandros singing on that album, I believe.

And you think about people, here's something that was alien about him. Imagine being alive in a certain moment. being able to see the whole chessboard and see the future and listen to it. Yeah. And to be able to like think, to be, to be who you are, to be David Bowie in England and have the persona that you have and the reach that you have and be like, well, you know what the most exciting music is right now? It's Philadelphia's soul.

Yeah. So I'm going to go there. After you've invented glam rock. Exactly. And be like, I'm just going to go there and be not a tourist. Be as genuine as I can about my own limitations of what I can do, basically, and invent this idea of plastic soul and play with these musicians. And, you know, you see that throughout his career.

You know, people have been tweeting today the interview he did on MTV in 1982 where he was like, why don't you play any black artists? They were like, well, we don't want to scare people in the Midwest and radio stations don't do it. And he's like, why are you blaming someone else? Like, you have no power. And then in 2002 being like, I'm only signing with Sony for one album because pretty soon it's just going to be a spigot and people can get whatever music they want. Yeah, I mean, there's a bunch of articles. The role he played, whether or not he was right or not, whether or not it was necessarily a financial windfall. but this is a guy who was selling shares in his own music career.

Remember that? I forgot about that. And, you know, all sorts of weird and interesting progressive business decisions he made with his career. But yeah, I mean, do you have a favorite period? Well, here's what I wanted to say, and I wanted to know what you thought about this. I feel like our perspective, just in terms of our age on Bowie, is sort of interesting. Because when I became sentient to music, which was basically one of my... parents got MTV when I was like six or seven.

Right. So Bowie was all over it because that was Bowie's. 84 or 85 here. Well, his pop reinvention. Yeah. Right. So that was Let's Dance and China Girl. And then Modern Love and then ultimately dancing the street with McJagger.

Which probably shouldn't be spoken of today other than as the ultimate camp classic. I like that. It's awesome. So there was that period. And then when I started becoming like seriously into. music and wanting to like read reviews and buy records and and have opinions about them. He released a record called Black Tie White Noise, which is was generally reviled by critics, but it contains one of my favorite songs by him called Jump They Say, which is about his

his schizophrenic brother who actually, who killed himself. And the title track in this record is a duet with the R&B singer, Al B. Shore. And the whole tone of the record is super smooth. Wesley Morris, our friend and colleague, former colleague tweeted this today saying this is basically the falling in love with him on record. But this is not a cool Bowie record leading into when you and I knew each other and we were in college and we were like buying Ronnie size and represent bootlegs and like super into drum and bass and all of a sudden he comes out with Earthling.

I know. And there's the song Little Wonder that I will still ride for. So this is like my Bowie is no one's idea of the right Bowie. I mean, of course I bought changes Bowie about the box set. You know, the fabric of our listening lives are his greatest songs. But what I find so amazing is that that is a. my version of, like, that's my bracketed Bowie is like what some people would call the worst version of it. But it challenged me and opened me up to listening to music in a way that

very few other artists did, purely because, you know, this is this guy who's this supposed legend, like Hall of Famer, like already in Amber legend in the early 90s, collaborating with an R&B singer. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, I didn't know you were allowed to do that, you know, and all of my music fandom since is basically predicated on that idea. So I'm only bringing this up to say it was amazing to grow up having this treasure trove because if you ever wanted to know about a different era like you know low is out there yeah lodger is out there young americans was out there to discover but to have him be present even at what many people would not consider to be his peak he was always kind of an electric third rail of culture to be checked in with and to be aware of yeah i mean

he he was it was never vampiric it always felt altruistic i mean you know i'm sure people there are some people out there are different perspectives on that but whether it was him getting into It was him getting into Crout Rock with the Berlin Trilogy, whether it was the soul moves on young Americans. And it always seemed like he didn't just have the best intentions. His best intentions played out exactly like that. There was never this disaster where it's like, now no one will know of craftwork. You know, it was like, no. Like he's bringing this music to a larger audience.

And you've seen bands since then, whether it's R.A.m. or radio head, he really set up template for how you could sustain a career. You know, you were mentioning the concert for New York. One of the my favorite YouTube clips of Bowie is the performance he gives of, he does moderate love at Wembley during Live Aid. And you can see basically the fact that that's one of the five most charismatic artists who've ever played rock and roll music. He has this 100,000 seat capacity state. I'd have no idea how many people were at LiveA.

It was probably way more than 100,000 because they were on the sort of on the field as well. and he's playing Modern Love and people are losing their mind and it looks like he's playing a 400 seat capacity place. He's got every single person in the palm of his hand. And it's great.

He's got this boxy suit on. He's got a guy who looks like he's in excess playing guitar. He's got this Amazonian woman playing saxophone and a guy on bongos and he's just ending it. There's no more stage left after he's done.

And I was thinking about like this is like somebody who could be at once the greatest rock star in the world and one of the most interesting idiosyncratic experimenters in the world. But here's another point that I think is worth making today especially, because we're seeing, and this is actually kind of touching, we're seeing people from all walks of life, people who are our friends, people we've never met, people who are famous artists themselves,

you know, pouring out their hearts about this loss and basically saying that he made it okay for people to be different. He taught people that the possibilities of basically not being a binary, not being mainstream, in a lot of different ways, whether that was in terms of, of your art, whether it was in terms of your sexuality, whether it was in terms of your perspective on the world. And I think that's, there's no way to overstate that. That's all true. But one thing that makes him especially noteworthy is that he also had the time of his life while he was doing it. And, you know, when you grow up, when you're growing up and you get into music, you get into

whatever, you, it's essentially for teenagers, and this is a central part of growing up, right? It's trying on, trying on identities to see which one fits or see which ones can give you a home. And, you know, I'm like, the cure was a big deal when we were younger. I mean, I think I'll still ride for that band forever. But, you know, so I had friends who were like become goth. Like they would get really into the cure and Sisters of Mercy and Susie and the banshees and they would dress that way. And it was really kind of about, as much as it was about finding a tribe was also a little bit about hiding and obscuring yourself, you know, or or sharing a certain experience with people.

Discover what Bowie was doing was trying off on different use, basically. Yes. What Bowie was doing was being like, I'm going to put on this red w red wreath. wig and makeup and put on this dress and I'm going to be the coolest person you've ever seen. And I'm going to have more fun doing it than you will ever believe is possible. And I think that swagger matters. I think that swagger is essential to rock and roll, but I think it's also essential to the inspiration that we're talking about because there was never a sense that he was hiding.

And I don't mean to imply that people who went to Sisters of Mercy's concert, sisters of Mercy concert were hiding. Sure. I just mean that there's a difference between, you know, there's a difference between being out and being proud. And like obviously that phrase means something that I don't totally intended to meet in relation to Bowie. Right.

Although the fan fiction surrounding that dancing the street video might, you know, lead you to believe otherwise. But, you know, that's something that is really, I will always take that away. And, you know, as a fan of fun in rock music in general, I hope that that is a lesson that never dims. So I want to make sure, maybe we could put together a Spotify playlist after this. But, you know, you mentioned what was the Earthling track that you liked a lot? Oh, little wonder. Little wonder. And I wanted to highlight.

I don't, you know, it's like saying it's your favorite Bowie song is like kind of trying to pick a favorite child, I guess, if you have a big family. Yeah, exactly. If you have 45 children. One of my, my favorite album by him is Scary Monsters in, in some ways because I feel like scary monsters was in some, like a lot in a lot of ways was a record about his other records. And it felt like he was doing really elegant revisions of some things that he had done before. And on that, on that record, it came out in 1980. and there's a song called Teenage Wildlife, which is, I think, fairly well known, but is not a kind of canon Bowie song, but it is basically what if he, a better version

of heroes, to me, if that's possible. And just the whole album is actually no perfect, but Teenage Wildlife is a song that I really hope people check out. And also, like I mentioned earlier, Wynn from young Americans. Can I also just take a little moment here to talk about how awesome he was as an actor? Yeah, please. I was going to hope that we would do this. Because he was, he was a surprisingly good actor.

I mean, that's, okay, it's not surprising because he was a performer, right? But, you know, people will point to the man who fell to earth. But, like, in smaller roles, in interesting ways, like, I love his Warhol in, in Basquia. Yeah. Like, he's, that is just a great performance. And I especially love, I tweeted this out today. He played a time, time traveling. FBI agent in a white suit in Twin Peaks Firewalk with me in one of the more unsettling scenes

in one of the more unsettling movies of all time. And the dude just went for it. He was phenomenal in the prestige, obviously, but another one that's... Oh, God, he was so good in the prestige as Tesla. A little long, like a while back, but he was actually quite affecting in his, he's placed Pontius Pile and Last Semptation of Christ. That's right. That's right. In general, it's funny because, like, In general, we're saying this the day after Lady Gaga was named the best actor in a supporting role in the television show, which was one of the funnier atrocities of the ridiculous Golden Globes last night. So I'm not generally, I mean, I'm a fan of people just like chasing their muse, like, do you? But I think there are very few musicians who are actually legitimately good or interesting actors because it's just different skill sets. Yeah.

But Bowie was always interesting. Everything he did, you would want to watch him. I wish he was in more stuff. I wish he had acted in more stuff. He seems like somebody was like, why isn't Bowie and Dune? You know? But here's the bigger picture. Here's maybe the bigger takeaway.

The movie Dune wouldn't exist without Bowie. You're probably right. At least not in the iteration that David Lynch imagined it. That's what I mean. Like, I think the novels, I don't know. Okay, I'm going to be honest with Chris. I don't know when Frank Herbert was just like... Frank Herbert just stays listening to pinups.

I don't know what really inspired the spice marks. This curve here comes the night. I just imagine a sandworm jumping out the ground. So I don't know the TikTok of that, but I just feel like the vision of it. But so I wanted to bring it full circle, though, just to say, because we were going to talk about today anyway, the new album is really stunning. And, you know, we could go, we could go track by track. We could talk about some specific tracks. But I really wanted to talk about the last track, which obviously now everyone is going to rush back and look for clues in.

But you don't even need to look that hard for clues, right? It's called I Can't Give Everything Away. I Can't Give It All Away. Since we're recording, it's called I Can't Give Everything Away. Right. And, you know, I was listening to it last week and I listened to it today and it's a very, very beautiful song. And I found it incredibly moving today because you hear that phrase, right? I can't give everything away.

And the first thought, the first reaction to that phrase is someone who's trying to. And maybe they've run out of time. Like they can't quite give it all away. Like a Brewster's Million situation. You know what I mean? And it's actually the opposite of that. And what I found so moving about it is that to me, this is. an artist's last statement in the sense that the artist is saying at the end of it,

I am a human. I am a man that lives in this world and I have a family and people that I love. And I have not shared those things with you. I've been generous with every other part of my being, but I will keep this. And among those things that I will keep are my illness, you know, my last journey basically around the sun here. And I'm giving you this album, but I'm keeping the rest for myself. I cannot give it all to you.

And even though he may have tried at times. Yeah. I think that's a really beautiful insane way to be an artist. in such an incredibly public person to have to be able to maintain a level of privacy like that obviously it's changed I mean he was one of those the most sort of speculated on and investigated in a lot of artists in mean in some ways he was probably the quintessential 1970s pop culture artists if you look at his career spanning that decade it's you know you can see how much attention he garnered but the idea that he was able to have so much dignity through throughout

his life is just, what a beautiful contribution you made to the world. Yeah, he, you know, it's funny to think about it. You were talking about important 70s artists. I mean, you put him and Lou Reed up there, and they obviously cross paths. And there was a, you know, pretty amazing thing that Bowie wrote about hearing Velvet Underground for the first time and changing his life and changing his career. Both those dudes just lived in New York City. Yeah. You know, for the ends of their lives, and well, Lou Reed never left, but for the last 20 years of their lives, they just lived downtown. And they didn't have entourages and people would see them. Like I remember our friend Maxwell, Louvreed just hanging out on Worcester Street with a skateboard, like at age 62.

I saw Lou Reed came into Kim's when I was working there. This is my Lou Reed anecdote. I think I've told this before on the podcast, but he basically, he actually also came into Kim's with a skateboard. He had a longboard. And he went up to my co-worker, who was Jeremy, who is Australian. And he said, do you have any kung fu movies? and Jeremy for some reason is responsive

you mean instructional or narrative and Lou Reeve goes narrative I don't even know if we had instructional Kung Fu movies at Kim's but the point is is that they were out there man

they were at Kim's I'm sure Bowie was at Kim's I think the bigger idea is that Jeremy is willing to share his personal stash of instructional Kung Fu movies with the great God Lou Reed no but like you know they were just out there like our friend Sarah Lewitt wrote today on Facebook about the time she shared a cab with Bowie because it was raining. And she just hopped in a cab and he let that happen.

He lived here. That was his life. And to have gone through everything that he went through. And that's regardless of whether you believe the like he just lived on cocaine and red pepper stories in the 70s, which by the way, the beauty of it is it doesn't matter if that was true. He gave us these stories. And I'm sure he loved that more than anything else. But despite all of that and all those reinventions and the success and the attention that he could, maintain a core human at the heart of it, that's the key to authenticity, I guess, and that's also

the key to a healthy and happy life. And so, yeah, it's weird. It's something we don't often think about in the moment, I think, you know, with artists, contemporaries, like people who are, because you and I think of Bowie as like a legend even before we were born. Yeah. But we don't think about how much they're giving away and how much they're maintaining for themselves, because you can't take the long view on someone's career really when you're in the middle of it. And it's something we're thinking about, right? Like the people who have had the most successful careers and lives are those who have not given everything away. That's a fascinating point.

I mean, in some ways it speaks to the multiplicity, the multiple ways in which people are going to appreciate him. Because he's going to be, I think the best thing you could say about him is that he could be studied and or enjoyed. He's going to, fame and modern love. are going to be on the radio on next Wednesday or whatever, and it'll be like the first time you heard it, and it'll just be a banger, and you'll turn your car radio up, and you'll be so happy that they're on.

And you can go into a K-hole and listen to Lodger for a while if you want to do, you know? And he's got it all. It's one of the most diverse and rewarding contributions. I feel like anyone's made to pop music. So what you're saying, as we move on to our next topic here, is that David Bowie's career and catalog is both instructional and narrative. Like a good kung fu library.

Yeah. We're going to talk about the Golden Globes in just a second just a quick break from our sponsor. The National Academy of Sports Medicine is looking for people who want an exciting career in the fitness industry where you wake up every day doing something you love. NASM trainers are improving people's lives by helping them reach their health and fitness goals

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guaranteed. Go to myUSAT trainer.com for a free 14-day trial of their fast and fun online program. That's myUSatrainer.com, myUSAtrainer.com. Restrictions apply. Visit myusatrainer.com for details. Support for this podcast and the following message come from HBO now. The new way to stream all of HBO. Every episode of every season of HBO series plus the biggest and latest hit movies before any other streaming service. And no TV packages required. Download the HBO nap on your favorite device to start your 30-day free trial instantly. All right, man, we're back. We're here to talk about the globes, the golden globes last night. I don't want to belabor it because I do feel like these award shows are having shorter and shorter shelf lives.

I read something really interesting today in the Atlantic by a writer named Megan Garber. I wanted to start a conversation with. And she was basically talking about how the reality televised teleification, I guess, or the reality televisionification of award shows and how what's happening off the stage, especially for something like the Globes, where you get to see. all the activity is almost more important than what happens on stage and who gets what award, especially for something like the Gloves where like The Martian is winning comedy. But, you know, all the sort of reactions and the way they're sort of, they'll cut to Regina King

when Quentin Tarantino is talking and things like that. How that's become pretty much the draw on these. I was wondering last night, were you watching, what would you put the percentage of at? I'm watching for the awards versus I'm watching for the sort of drama offstage. Well, it's important to say this every year is that Golden Globes is a ridiculous farce. Yeah. I mean, it's an insane thing that exists where basically a shadowy cabal of European maybe journalists, like who number anywhere from like three to 22 get all of the most famous people in Hollywood

to literally kiss their asses for a period of weeks and pay attention to them because they get a televised award show. Yeah. Like there is no, there's, these are the people who are not, it's not the industry itself. These are not people with strong, with good opinions. They are in no way qualified to vet any of this. They're just given a show. And it's because it's part of the, you know, it's part of the, the gravy train of awards

that leads to the Oscars. So every year you've got to say that it's ridiculous. But there's, there's something that's not altogether terrible about that because, because that is not a large group, because it is not a predictable group, there is. is no group think. So really random things can happen. And sometimes those random things that happen aren't bad. You know, so when Jane the Virgin wins Golden Globes two months after it premieres last year, maybe that gets more people to talk about it. Maybe that gets more people to watch it. Maybe that gets the CW to renew it despite ratings. So that's a good thing, right?

That's fine. Anything beyond that, I don't know what to do it. Because my first reaction to last night in general was revulsion, not because of the award choices, but because the night sucked. Yeah. Like the last few years, when Tina Faye and Amy Poller hosted it, they are funny. The mood in the room seemed light. You know, no one was taking it seriously, but no one was literally like sneering at it while it happened.

That was not the case last night. Do you chalk that up to the host? What's that? You chalked that up to the host. Well, I think it's a large part to do with the host. I mean, Ricky Jervais had such contempt for all of it, and whether that's performed or not, it doesn't really matter. It's just sort of gross. And you could be upset by it, or you could choose to look at it, and I'm curious if you're able to do this.

This is the night that Hollywood really lets its ass out. You know what I mean? Like, the Jig is up here. Yeah. Like, The Martian is not a comedy. Everyone knows these are absolutely meaningless. There seem to be a lot of Amazon advertising. People don't like each other.

Yeah. You know, it is purely. cynical exercise. And if you believe that to be the case about all of Hollywood, then here is your poster child for it in one evening. You know, the contrast, but then everyone plays along. So all night. So then this morning there's like, Ricky Jervais's six most shocking things.

It's all prescripted. Everyone is playing the game and winking. The ratings are up, so he'll come back and host again. And being part of that economy bums me out, I guess is my, main my main takeaway. Yeah, I think that the Golden Globes are drunk, and sometimes you can get yourself a fun drunk, and sometimes you can get yourself a bad drunk.

And last night they were a bad drunk. They were a bad drunk, not only on the hosting side, they just had like a weird vibe. And, you know, I think that for some, like, Mel Gibson to have, whether or not you think Mel Gibson deserves, like, a redemption moment, I don't think the Golden Globes were the right stage for that, because it was just like, here's a guy he's going to try and, like, maybe put it back together.

He's got a Hollywood movie coming out next year that he's directing, or this year with Vince Vaughn and Andrew Garfield. And it's a war film. And I'm sure he feels like he's been in the penalty box for a while. But you're not going to get a lot of leverage when Ricky Jervais is making sugar tits jokes at you. Well, unless it's the same leverage that Justin Bieber got by doing a roast. You know, like, that must have been part of the thinking that, like, look,

he's a good sport about it. He knows he's messed up. But that's not what this was either. you know and it's like everyone had signed up to be a part of a different circus and yet all the circuses were happening at once so like you know so i have a moment where like brie larson wins best actress and i think she's one of the best actors for generation i think she's amazing and everything she's in i think she's terrific she could have been nominated for supporting actor for train wreck because she was so good in that in a role that was nothing right um and then she kind of slipped up too though

she's like it's been so interesting meeting you members of the hollywood foreign press you're also And now you've rewarded me for my time spent. No, seriously, though, that's exactly what she was saying. She's like, I went to you and maybe I dressed nicely and had my hair done and I sat next you and I held Werner's hand for 10 minutes and then I got an award. Like, that's literally what it was. I held Werner's hand is the creepiest thing you've ever said on this podcast. Intentionally so.

Yeah. Like, Werner is a clammy dude. Yeah. That's what this is. And then, you know, Lady Gaga wins, which again, who cares? but they must have been thrilled with that moment because she thought it meant something. She's up there giving her Cinderella Oscar speech.

And they don't play her off because she's like, she is basically indulging them and rewarding them and making the people behind this event feel like they've actually done something. Because here's the thing to remember about the awards. Like Fargo doesn't win and Wolf Hall wins.

Now, I've heard Wolf Hall is brilliant. People love the novel. They love this mini-series. I did not watch it. Shout-outs on. I love to watch it sometimes. But here's the thing about it. Once Wolf Hall won, it's not necessarily that they polled 500 industry professionals

and a majority of them preferred Wolf Hall to Fargo. It's that the nine people from Estonia didn't like Fargo or watch it. They didn't watch it. So like as soon as Wolf Hall won, Chiersson Dunst and Patrick Wilson can go to the bar, right? Because they're not going to win either. That's just not how this is working tonight. So it's kind of fascinating in the same way that if you took a sample size of six people in Iowa and you're like, who are you voting for?

It's not going to tell you who's going to win the election, but it might be interesting about the six, it might tell you something about the corner. So the Golden Gloves are the caucus of award shows. That and they have such a chip on their shoulder. They really want to, they love the fact that they can influence the narrative. You know, they come before the Oscars or even nominated, so they feel that they can sway things.

And so they don't reward loyalty in terms of the TV side, like loyalty or consistency or quality. they are obsessed with being the first one to plant a flag. So, you know, Homeland won two months into its existence. Jane the Virgin one, Mr. Robot one, which, you know, the dude Sam Esmail, who we know is listening to this show at some point in the future. We're thrilled for that dude. We love that show.

We love him. I love Christian Slater. I was thrilled for them. But, you know, is this the same as being rewarded by your peers? No. And the biggest reflection of that is the greatest comedy of our time, Mozart in the Jungle. That is so funny, such I have not seen it, but I hear it is hilarious. Here's the thing.

People thought, I made some, I tweeted some jokes. You know what's also hilarious is when Matt Damon makes potatoes out of his own poop, and then they all get freeze-dried by Martian atmosphere. That was hilarious. Not as funny as when Ridley Scott, the great Ridley Scott, starts talking about International Q. With the binder clip on his real. I'm like, if that dude starts talking about QM, you know, like,

Yeah, he's like Star Wars. It raises all boats. He was basically one more bottle of Moe away from talking about IP. Yeah. You know, how much fun it would be to play in the Martian Expanded Universe. But when I tweeted some jokes about Mozart in the jungle, which... Hold on, pause. I tweeted some jokes.

I know. You know why, though? Because I got it, I got a text from Werner. And he was like, we need to start popping off on social media. Yeah. We need to engage. No, I'm just saying people thought I was hating on Mozart. in the jungle, but like, why would anyone hate on Mozart in the Jungle?

Why are we talking about it? Like, it is one of the most inessential shows that I've ever seen. It's bizarre that it exists, and part of me thinks that it exists for the same reason that Amazon machine that you touch and you're like, send me paper towels. And it's like, yes, master. You know, this like Amazon Echo thing? It's like, why are they making this? Because if they say that it was a mistake, then their stock price goes down.

That's how I feel about Mozart in the Jungle. Like, for all the people who were super into, like, the backstabbing politics of symphony orchestras and also Saffron Burroughs, you got a show. Saffron Burroughs in that? Sure. Was that the tall lady? Yeah, Gail Garcia Bernal, you know, the funniest actor on television, he's in it. Like Malcolm McDowell, like Lola Kirk, who's in, you know, amazing in Mestris America.

I love Lola Kirk. She's great. Can we take a second? Did you ever see Gone Girl? No. Oh, she's good in Gone Girl. Never mind. I'll see her from my Gone Girl Pod.

That's a movie, right? Yeah, look, it's just, it's just bizarre. And as you alluded to, like, you know, did Amazon give everyone on the voting jury, like free shipping? Like, it's not outside the realm of possibility. I just think it's super sketch when something wins an award and then the next ad is for that show. And they're like, yo, by the way, we just bought some NBC Prime Time. I know. The whole thing is just it's always kind of gross.

But like usually if you get funny, talented people in a room, that's entertainment. So it's a good show, even if the award. awards are silly, but this was neither. So I think a good barometer for how seriously people took the show would be, not seriously, but I think that, you know, for instance, Denzel Washington gets the Success Will Beed a Mill award presented to him by Tom Hanks, who gives a very like emotional and loquacious speech that he tries to deliver over the sound of hundreds of celebrities smashed out of their mind chattering in the Beverly Hilton.

Well, literally, Katie Perry ordered in and out to her table. So respect Katie Perry. And Denzel gets up there with his family and it's like a lovely moment. And then he's obviously forgotten his reading glasses and he's just sort of like getting through some names. Sidebar, I am a very big appreciator of when someone shouts out a guy inevitably named Len or Brad who's like a deep Hollywood person. And you know, we got to got to say thank you to my Bob. greenblatt or grab you know whoever it is and every and you hear like yeah like in the back like someone who's just like that's true Hollywood dog I know I know it's like building blocks

people thanking their team yeah I love it couldn't have made it without my team I love it um but Denzel that you know Denzel gave his is won the lifetime achievement award or whatever it is man and for a minute there there was some talk on Twitter uh Wesley Morris had tweeted out his six favorite Denzel performances. Rembrandt had his list. I tweeted out mine. I was promptly told by my buddy Sean Witsky that I was an idiot or something or crazy for my list. There are a lot, here's the thing that was funny. You're watching the montage, it is true that Denzel has made two guns. And he has made two guns a couple of times where you're like, God, is unstoppable in this montage? You know, two guns was the last film image that they showed in the montage. I don't know how

that happened. But he's made some bangers. And he's also been great in movies that weren't back bangers. So I was just thinking you know, do pivot out of the globes unless you had any last, you know, lasting impressions? I didn't. I mean, if you

bring your jervase to your, to your birthday party, your birthday party's going to get ruined. I don't know what to tell you, you know? Yeah, I mean, I was shot. I was bummed in the sense that these things matter for momentum that spotlight won nothing. But like, ensemble movies, are tough cells.

And, you know, I guess that, I guess, I mean, Leo is going to win the Oscar, but, you know, I guess the bear is more powerful than we realized. But yeah, like, I want to talk to Anzel because I thought that was, I thought that was a pretty interesting moment, too. And to see all those performances, like, like, back to back to back to back like that, you realize the thing about that dude, are there any other stars like him in Hollywood other than maybe Tom Cruise where it's just like, he is just on one in every scene and just the most magnetic thing in the screen.

I'm not comparing them as actors because Denzel is a much, much better and more nuanced and more, you know, basically with much more range as an actor than Tom Cruise. But just in terms of like white heat stardom, right, there are very few others like them. I think that was sort of Tom Hanks's point last night. And it's interesting that you bring up Tom

Cruz because I couldn't help but think that Cruz was the only person. Cruise in Washington are sort of similar in terms of the breadth of their career. And, you know, I think that Cruz has probably had box office success and Washington's had more critical success. Yes. But that they have a very similar thing where they soak up a lot of the oxygen on stage.

In fact, I would argue that whether or not it's a business decision or not, and a lot, Denzel is not great at sharing. And it's not his fault. He's just too good. So Philadelphia is actually an outlier in his career where he's really sharing the spotlight. with somebody else. And I think he's amazing in Philadelphia. He is really good in Philadelphia. But he has to kind of, you know, he does have to play Pipp into Jordan there for a little bit because that's a very, very showy role for Hanks. But Crimson Tide is the other one, right? Yes.

I mean, I know that's one of your all-time favorites. And that's, that's in my top five. Let me look at see, Wesley had, let me see what Wesley's top six. Well, while you looked that up, I wanted to say, the thing that I was really interested in in them in, in, in, in, in, that montage was for all the opportunities Denzel has had and the enormous success he's had, the opportunities he hasn't had. And the biggest one that I would say is there was a lot of Pelican Brief in there. Now, Pelican Brief is entertaining. That's a fine movie. I actually kind of miss the high-gloss, high-budget Grisham adaptations with big stars in them because it's just fun to watch. But one thing that Denzel was never really allowed to do on screen is he could never play

a romantic lead. Like mainstream Hollywood didn't let him do that. So. Yeah, deja vu is got obviously a very, I mean, he's played romance. He's played romance, but I'm saying, yeah. You look at Pelican Brief, and what that movie is, is regardless of what the plot is, it is an opportunity to put incandescent superstars opposite each other, right? And that's happened only a couple of times in his career, where it's- You put Julia Roberts and you put Denzel up against each other.

And usually when you put movie stars in movies together, they kiss, right? Like, they get to have a romance. And you look at Denzel, and he is basically just like, he's just stomping up and down the set of that movie, just owning it like it's a nuclear submarine and no one else can keep up, let alone the director, right? So that was my thing about that movie. It always felt completely jumbled.

Like his performance was so exciting and the movie was not worthy of it. And it was screaming out for some sort of romance in there, yeah. Or just something else to match it in terms of intensity. And so you can look at the arc of his career when for the last 15 years he basically plays good Denzel, bad Denzel, but regardless of which character, it is.

He's the top spinning and the movie spins around him. Yeah, it's sort of interesting to see the arc of his career coming out of Glory where he wins the Oscar and going into Mo Better Blues. Dude, he's so good in Glory. Mississippi Massala, ricochet. So he's just kind of messing around there. Then in 92, obviously Malcolm X, which might be one of the great best actor tragedies. I can remember, right?

Can't remember who won in 90? Take you look up who won Best Actor for 1992. and you know Pelican Briefs 93 Philadelphia is 93 Crimson Tide 95 and then he does a bunch of interesting stuff in the second half of the 90s where it's devil

in a blue dress which is actually quite underrated Carl Franklin movie of a Walter Mosley novel which you haven't read the novel is one of the great sort of post 80s American crime novels and then but didn't Don Cheadle to steal that movie out from under him Anthony Hopkins? Anthony Hopp is that Silence of the Lambs

yeah well that's tough beat but still well it's tough only in this sense that he deserved an Oscar, Hopkins deserved an Oscar, but that was the supporting role. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's the argument. I mean, I mean, Denzel is in like every frame of Malcolm X's three hours. And what's, like, what's Hopkins screen time? It's like 12 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. It's, but anyway, I mean, you're right. Is there ever been, wait, can I, can I sidebar something? Sure. I feel like this is probably, we would need Bill in on this just for the sports

analogies here, but like, has there ever been a more profitable 12 minutes? Like, because Hopkins did 12 minutes in that movie and then would probably made a hundred million dollars going forward from it for all the sequels and everything else and the rest of his career and and to do the do it a couple more times like it to the point where like you know Patrick steward it talks as like on the maryin podcast talking about the greatest actors he's ever seen and he said like seeing tony hopkins on stage was the greatest thing he'd ever he's ever seen and he said he'll never see it again but tony hopkins likes living in california it just doesn't ever want to do it again because he doesn't have to my man uh I love that Anthony Hopkins, I was just looking at his IMDB, Mission Impossible 2, playing

Mission Commander Swanbeck, uncredited. They got dapped up for that way. Can you imagine he was just like, you know what? No thanks. Thanks, but no thanks, John Wu. I'm good. Some of my favorite performances from Denzel that I just, you know, thought I'd shout out. Just obviously Crimson Tie is a very big movie for me.

I like everybody think that Malcolm X Training Day in Philadelphia are part of a sort of unimpeachable Trinity. But I want to shout out the Siege, which is an Edzwick movie from the 90s, which he actually has to do a very hard thing in that movie where he is again, in almost every scene,

acting up against Net Benning and Bruce Willis and doing a lot of like story management and communicating a lot of stuff, but has some incredible moments in that movie. And it's actually, I am probably

would go back and be a little bit disappointed by parts of it, but considering when it was made, it's quite prescient for today. Yeah, in terms of terrorism. Yeah, and just the idea of like how a nation reacts to that challenge. Can I throw my favorite, I think my favorite Denzel performance is Inside Man. Yeah, I feel like Spike Lee's Inside Man is a,

I mean, I guess it wasn't underrated. It's his most profitable movie ever, but it seems to have been a little bit overlooked in retrospect, and it is absolutely terrific. crime flick and it allows Denzel to do two things that he's supremely capable of that I love. One is that he gets to be kind of

cocky loose Denzel which he doesn't often do anymore but that's always been like way high in his in his toolbox like that's something he can do. But he also is flawed in that movie in a way that is more emotional than strong and silent like Man on Fire which is a pretty

dope insane movie. That character is messed up but the character is a violent superhero basically. So the way that he communicates that being messed up and that that those flaws are much more they're movie starry. They're silent. But inside man, he's kind of, he's a bruised character in that in a way that is really appealing and feels almost a lo-fi movie star. And that's underrated. Like, that's the kind of role that we're talking about Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise could do a version of man on fire. He could not do inside man. Yeah. And I wonder whether the question is whether or not

Denzel Washington could do Magnolia. You know, could he play Frank Mackie and be part of a six-person ensemble, or at least in terms of the way that screen time is to do it. Yeah, I mean, well, in that case, because P.T. Anderson wrote that part for Tom Cruise. So he basically wrote a movie that had a holding cell, like the one that the Syrian terrorist put Peter Quinn in on Homeland that could contain him. You know what I mean? So like the energy the Cruz brought was intentionally, literally put on a stage and kept away from the rest of the movie in a way that kept everyone out of the blast zone.

Sure. And so the bigger question is not could he do it because he's such a good actor he could do anything. It's that where he is in his career, what he gets paid for, what audiences like to see him and how old he is, you know, not that he's an old man, but like he's, you know, he doesn't have to work if he doesn't want to. Right. The question is, does he want to do one more like, does he want to put the cleats back on and do one more really, really big thing?

So I don't know if this is going to be any kind of return to form. I think flight is not a great movie with an incredible performance in it. And just for the record for our listeners, I know we joke about how I don't see movies. I will never see that movie. Okay. I will never. If you tell me there is a movie about an airplane flying upside down and crashing, I will never see it. I do want to shout out the fact that his next film likely will be the Magnificent Seven remake, directed by the god Antoine Fukuwa.

That's your dude. starring Chris Pratt, Matt Bowmer, Denzel Washington, Vincent Donofrio, Ethan Hawk, and Peter Sarsgaard. That's super weird. So I'm ready for that. Yeah, that's one of those movies that, like, I feel like I, when things like that happen, I call them Athena's, and that they were born in your skull and, like, forced their way out. I know. That just feels like something I had a fever dream about one night, and it's just become reality.

Is it exciting or scary to have that power? I feel like with Fukua, to be honest, I've come to the place where I really enjoy his movies, but I'm not expecting them to be Training Day anymore. Right. So I think I'm okay with Magnificent Seven, possibly not being a cinematic masterpiece. Possibly. Yeah. But the idea of Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarzgard, Denzel Washington, and Chris Pratt together on screen is really exciting.

There are movies that you have to see because of the cast. I mean, I don't know if our listenership understands your relationship to Training Day. Like, you came out about Heat with Bill the other week. That's right. But there are only two movies. in the history of our 20 years of knowing each other, which, by the way, 20 years this year, buddy. Oh, yeah, that's right.

That you have reacted in quite that way to. And one was he was one of the first things you told me was about how you and your buddy, John, like, walked through the blizzard in Philadelphia. To see the movie like five times in one week. But Training Day, you felt the same way about. Like, training day, you were basically... I felt very strongly about training day.

I think one of the best feelings when you go to see the movies that happens less and less these days because I think we know so much about movies going into them and you just get such a feel for what the movies are going to be like. But even in the last year, something like Big Short of Sicario both had a certain surface presentation that then was just completely upended during the experience of the movie. And in some ways,

having something that could just be a mainstream film that feels so fresh and alive is way more exciting to me than watching something that's supposed to be fresh and alive. Do you know what I mean? Like that you go, go into an art house picture, expecting an art house picture, but when you go into a Hollywood movie and you get something very weird and new, you almost want to go back and watch it again

just to make sure you were right. And that was what happened with Training Day is I think that you had, it was good cup, bad cup, old guy, young guy dynamic, and it was broken up into these little pieces by these performances. But it was also just gully. Like, that is just kind of, that was a rugged movie, man. Like, that movie is just kind of rugged. And we're at a point with, you know, I know how qualified I am to talk about the state of cinema. I appreciate that. I will come out and say it. But, you know, we're pointing to something.

Like, I haven't seen The Revenant yet. Like, maybe it's good. You know, team bear, whatever. But, like, it worries me in the scheme of things that for as much as the Revenant should be celebrated because, you know, apparently it was hard to make. I don't know. They've been playing pretty coy about that. But celebrated for not being a superhero movie.

In many ways, it still is a superhero movie. Because it's basically in Yari, and Leo being. like we are superheroes for doing this intense, aggressive macho movie and putting into the world through the power of our will. And I feel like one of the great things that, you know, when I was talking about Pelican Bree for Training Day, like let's see something with that budget, with those stars, with that talent. Let's just, let's do the best version of something. Let's like, let's make a really, really good movie that isn't trying to show off or doesn't need to show off. We don't need to reinvent the world with a tracking shot every time. We don't need to invent bear a vision.

I don't know what the movie's about. It's crazy when you are watching Revenant, if you watch it in the road show version, you start to feel your hands grow fur. Whoa. That's great. No, that's really good to know. Yeah, I've always. I love hot bear spit being sprayed on me from the air conditioning vents while I'm watching The Revenant.

Oh, so you saw it at the Pavilion in Park Slope. Yeah. I didn't realize that. Actually, it wasn't the Revenant. It wasn't the Revenant. No. It was just inside out. Anyway, all right, man.

I think that's a good place to stop. Denzel's the king. Bowie is the king and the Golden Globes can do one. Anything else? No, I just appreciate that we now have like a what we learn segment on the show. I think that's something we stick with going forward. I know. We'll get back to some television.

Maybe not this later this week. I'm not sure. Definitely next Monday. Maybe. Maybe. You know, I might be out there on the couch with you soon. You never know. And I'll try to dial up a Bowie's speech.

Bowie playlist for us for our listeners. Okay. Great job, Beredsky! Later. Thanks for listening to everybody. Channel 33 is brought to you by Seekek as well as HBO Now. The new way to stream all of HBO with no TV package required.

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