WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - The 'Marc on Movies' Special

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

For Christmas Day, Marc presents a special collection of exclusive segments that were published this past year on the Full Maron bonus feed as part of the Marc on Movies series. First, a conversation with WTF producer Brendan McDonald about the films of Martin Scorsese. Then, Marc’s girlfriend Kit tries to walk him through the puzzles and mysteries of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Finally, another talk between Marc and Brendan about the Sidney Lumet masterpiece Dog Day Afternoon. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18-plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast merry christmas christian people i guess it's not specific, is it? It's a holiday season. Merry Christmas to everybody who's getting presents today.

How about Merry Christmas to everybody who's being thoughtful about their year or reflecting or experiencing gratitude or joy, festive feelings, family niceness. Also, Merry Christmas to those of you who are miserable, who didn't get what you wanted, who can't stand being with their families, who are thinking about leaving, who have had enough. Merry Christmas to you.

And specifically for those of you who have had enough, just relax, all right? Just relax. Just let it go a little bit. Just ride it out. All right. That the holidays will be over. A new year will be here soon. If that means anything to you. Uh, but it is a good time now to, if you, if you can, if you got it in you to, uh, you know, try to be grateful for something. I can't suggest hope, but if you're capable of a little bit of joy or if you have some things about Christmas that make you feel nice, connected to your past, connected to the great big Jesus spirit, whatever it is, man.

I mean, grab hold of it for as long as you can. And if it's not for very long, you tried. That's all you can do. So this Christmas, just give it a try. Give it a try to have those good feelings. Today's show is interesting. For those of you who aren't part of the Full Marin community, we've been doing bonus episodes for Full Marin subscribers every week for a while now. And

a lot of them, Full Marin episodes are a great place to talk about movies is one of the things we do pretty often. Sometimes Brendan and I talk about other stuff. Sometimes we do bits and pieces of guest interviews that did not make the cut for the public interview. Sometimes we talk about episodes that just happened. We do a little post, a little, what do you call it?-game chat about my experience talking to certain people. Brendan has his own shows on there. I think there's, well, I think it's one show, but Brendan and Chris Lepresto do a thing on Fridays. It was wrestling-based, but it seems like they've broadened that a bit. It's a whole other world, and it's special stuff. Today's episode is a

collection of some of the recent Mark on Movies bonus episodes. We're talking about Martin Scorsese's entire filmography, also trying to understand Mulholland Drive, do a little of that, and a talk about Dog Day Afternoon. If you want to hear all our bonus episodes, sign up for the full Marin by clicking the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod.com and click on WTF plus. So for many of you, this will be the first time you're hearing this stuff. And it's, uh, it's more stuff in terms of, uh, engaged conversations on this particular episode about movies, my dates. Are you interested? I'm a dynasty typewriter this thursday december 28th then i'm at largo on tuesday january 9th san diego i'm at the observatory north on saturday january 27th for two shows san francisco at the castro theater on saturday february 3rd that might be sold out

portland maine i'm at the state theater on th, March 7th, Medford, Massachusetts. Outside Boston at the Chevalier Theater on Friday, March 8th. Providence, Rhode Island at the Strand Theater on Saturday, March 9th. Tarrytown, New York at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Sunday, March 10th. Atlanta, Georgia. I'm at the Buckhead Theater on Friday, March 22nd. And I'll be in Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theater on Thursday, April 18th as part of the Moon Tower Comedy Festival. Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all the tickets that I mentioned here. I'd also like to wish a special Christmas greeting to my dad's wife, Rosie,

and my dad, Barry, who are out there in Albuquerque listening, maybe. They were listening. I know that Christmas is a big time over there in that house and that family, so I wanted to do that. And also to my brother, who's a Jew, but he's involved with non-Jews, and Christmas is Christmas. Happy Christmas, Craigie. And to my mommy, who is always like the Christmas. Happy Christmas, Craigie. And to my mommy, who has always liked the Christmas. There were even a few times where we had Christmas lights. Perhaps a Christmas tree once or twice didn't stick,

but my mom's a big fan of the Christmas vibe. Now, these are all Mark on Movies episodes, and they were exclusive for full Marin listeners. First, you'll hear me and Brendan talk about Martin Scorsese's filmography right after we both saw Killers of the Flower Moon. Then you'll hear me and my girlfriend Kit try to unpack David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. And finally, I was very excited about this. I talked with Brendan about the masterpiece, Dog Day Afternoon, which I was, I mean,

I watched it two or three times. You know what else I just watched again, probably three times in the last few months? Midnight Run. I just wanted to see the beginning and there I was in it. But the Dog Day Afternoon experience over the last year was impactful for me,

just in terms of the sort of timelessness and transcendence of real art and great movies. All right, so enjoy these chats. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance,

mind your business. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. so scorsese that's his name i i believe it's actually scorsese yes but yeah i i have said scorsese my almost my whole life yeah i mean I mean, I'm not known for my accuracy with names, as you know.

But maybe if you're Italian, that's what makes sense. Yeah, yeah. So we've both seen Killers of the Flower Moon. Yes. And you have reactions to it. I could tell by your text. I wasn't clear on it. Maybe you were being a little cagey because you knew we were going to talk about it.

But going back over his filmography, which I did, I've seen almost all of them. There are some I don't remember. Yeah. But the one thing that stood out to me in retrospect, you know, after seeing Killers of the Flower Moon was the consistency in terms of the spectrum of morality of the Scorsese protagonist. That they're all, you know, morally, if not bankrupt, dubious. They're all, you know, sort of on some path of willful redemption at a certain point. And really, none of them really make it.

You know, and to create those characters where they're built for you to empathize with somehow, which I think is the amazing thing about all of them for me, maybe not everybody does, but they are, they should, they're, they're built out of humanity and,

and some of them are really, really shitty people or dumb well there's dumb there's the dumb ones but you know most of the time the dumb you know does it may play a part in the emotional liabilities of the character or his lack of conscience. But I still think the focus becomes the compromised conscience. Absolutely. And the sort of blinders any of these characters have up that they're not aware of that enables them to never quite, you know, get on top of it or be, you know, effectively redeemable, at least within the context of the films, right?

Oh, well, I mean, I think what you're skirting around here is that this guy is a theologian, ultimately. A Catholic one. Yes, well, you're getting at it. You're getting a catechism. Like you as a Jew who has never gone to Sunday school like I grew up going to,

you are learning all the same shit just by this guy. But there's very rarely is there Jesus in the picture. There's one time where he's literally in it. And that guy's got problems. Yeah. But he's like, it's funny, like he's the least compromised one. The whole movie is about how he has this moral conundrum. And he's the least compromised because he's Jesus.

Yeah, yeah. But is that, I can't, the thrust of that was basically it was Jesus that didn't want to be Jesus really? And also just the struggle between man and god right that's a fundamentally catholic thing that like every sunday you ate this cracker that they told you that he's in that we literally just put him in it yeah like it's not a cracker symbolizing him you're eating the dude yeah so like that puts a head trip on any kid who goes through that and this guy has dealt with it his whole life and what i kind of wanted to know from you mark was what was your journey with him like how what's your memory of the first time you were aware of him because you're in a

very i think advantageous position that i am not in, in that you've been around, you've been alive, and you've been aware of movies and culture his entire career. I guess for me, it's like Tarantino, right? Like I was a teenager when he made his first movie, I was into it, and then I've just followed the guy's whole career. I didn't have that luxury with Scorsese, but you did. And I'm wondering when he came on your radar as a person who you should pay attention to. Well, I think that if I have any film nerdom in me, nerdism, it started in high school. Me and

my buddy Devin Jackson became kind of like film heads. And for me, I think the first movie that opened the door was Raging Bull because I was a sophomore in high school. And I think I saw Raging Bull, you know, before I might've been a senior in high school, before I saw Taxi Driver, before I saw New York, New York, you know, and certainly before I saw Mean Streets. And Alice doesn't live here anymore, no matter how many times I see it, does not stay with me. I've not seen Boxcar Bertha, and I don't know the very early one. But Raging Bull became an obsession with me that lasts until this day because I remember seeing it. I remember, like, this is Scorsese.

He did Taxi Driver, but I don't think I had seen Taxi Driver before I saw Raging Bull or Mean Streets. And when I saw Raging Bull, that sort of opened me up to realizing that that, you know, film was, you know, a profound art and that you could make a film that looks like nothing else and that you could have a guy be the star of a movie that was a fucking monster, but a human monster. And I became sort of obsessed with that movie. I still watch it a couple of times a year and, and I don't even, and also I was very into the, the idea of actors, of method acting, of great actors and what they would do and what method meant. All that stuff was sort of happening for me in terms of being aware of it in high school. But when I saw, you know, Raging Bull and I mean, I was totally obsessed with it. I got movie stills from it.

You know, I was obsessed with the work that De Niro put in, the weight loss and everything else. obsessed with the work that De Niro put in, the weight loss and everything else. But, you know, we saw it when it opened and just the pace of that movie, the editing of that movie, the choice to make it black and white, the kind of the force of it. Like I just I'd never seen anything like it. And the character of Jake LaMotta, you know, being a guy like me who was sort of also obsessed with New York a little bit, you know being a guy like me who was sort of also obsessed with New York a little bit having not grown up there but not knowing anything about boxing really was just that you know this guy you know was a monster but when you're you're kind of a a sensitive dude who is not really that type of monster you're you you you like those guys it's like his mobsters, right? And his literal hard-headedness,

you know, throughout the movie, it was just like nothing I'd ever seen before. And certainly, you know, the way it was shot was nothing I'd ever seen before. But I really, like, the moment that comes to me the most, there's two moments that I always think back on in that movie,

and one is where they bust him, and he's just like in that little jail cell by himself with his big belly hanging out, punching the wall, just going, what'd I do? What'd I do? What'd I do? Literally, caged animal. Yeah, yeah.

And then the other one was when he tries to sell the jewels from the belt. He's like, well, do you have the belt? No, no, I got this. I got this. But like, and I'm not even registering necessarily the deeper things because I don't think I registered what I told you at the beginning of this conversation thoroughly until I watched, you know, Killers of the Flower Moon. In terms of like, knew the catholicism was there i knew the idea of of sin and the idea of uh you know people being imperfect and and flaws and the seven deadly sins like you know i knew all that was there in his work but then like then

i go back to mean streets and taxi driver and you know taxi driver again you know the the the effect of it you know the the sort of like the the kind of ballsiness of of building a movie around that guy and by that point it was sort of uh uh you know the equivalent of a meme you know travis bickle you know you're talking to me or whatever right but but then you start to realize like you know it's not you're not necessarily rooting for these guys but you're not not rooting for him right the fact that he's able to with his partnership with almost all his actors to to to pull the the ability for them to be empathetic characters is kind of amazing because Bickle out of all of them is is really the only one that gets redemption and he fucking barely deserves it well not only barely deserves

it it's dangerous that he got it because he's just gonna go do what he's done again I mean that's the last shot of that movie is him looking paranoid in that mirror actually I take that back that's not the last shot of the movie you see that but then the last shot which is under the credits is just the street of new york new york where you're like oh it could be 20 taxi driver guys in there 20 travis pickles yeah yeah and it's just like that you know the moment where you know the cut from when he's on the couch you know with his hands covered in blood you know and then you know you cut to uh you know the the sort of resolution around the around jodie foster's character it's menacing well i think

there's a difference though between those two main movies raging bull and taxi driver it's very distinct right and what everything you're saying about raging bull centers around the idea of the individual and, and focusing on this guy, like the moral arc of this very, very compromised person. I don't think taxi driver is about Travis Bickle's moral arc. I think that's a movie. Whereas Raging Bull is about the individual taxi driver is about the collective.

That movie is very specifically about us. And, you know, it's funny. You said that, you know, it became almost a meme. It was a thing in popular culture of you talking to me. It got used anytime anybody in a comedy stood in front of a mirror, like pantomiming with a gun or whatever. You talk to me, you talk to me. Roger Ebert is the one who pointed out that the line that never gets quoted

is the very next line and it's the most important one which is he says I'm the only one here yeah and that's fundamental to Scorsese's understanding of who this guy is and why a movie should be made about him right like if you think about the script of that it's just you know paul schrader told you this was what i was worried about becoming right i was worried about being isolated and and disillusioned feeling disenfranchised from the world i was afraid of becoming this guy well that doesn't mean martin scorsese was afraid of becoming that guy but he fully understood why someone would and what had happened around them because of the world we were living in because of who that guy Scorsese plays in the back of the cab right those people are the ones

that lead Travis Bickles to becoming who they are sure and then also the the the higher purpose is that you know the the fact that there's a crossroads that he's at where it's either assassinate a political figure out of sexual frustration and wanting to make an impact, and then, you know, then the shift to saving the girl, to saving the child. And they couldn't be further apart, really. Yeah, yeah. But yet they're on the same spectrum for that guy.

And yeah, I mean, I can see it's how it's about us. And I can see how it is about the kind of id of a city and the id of of what we, you know, what we hang our hopes on in culture. I mean, in beliefs or how we see ourselves, how we see accomplishment, what is our moral compass around our will. I mean, I see all that. It's a very dense movie. And by the time I saw it, I was probably in college and trying to understand things. And when I saw Mean Streets, that movie never really came together fully for me. I mean, I liked it. I know it was early and it was raw. And I guess Keitel is really the protagonist who's struggling with whatever his versions of the sins are, but it's a little more Catholic than the rest of them. Yeah. And it feels like Scorsese's starter kit.

That's how I always like it in Mean Streets. But then, of course, the King of Comedy, because I was interested in comedy, that became this other thing. Again, so then he takes it to this other level where the guy is fundamentally likable and charming and peculiar who has to commit a fairly major crime to get his personal redemption, which he also gets, actually. Yeah. In a weird way, Rupert Pupkin wins. Yes.

You know, Jake LaMotta does not. Travis Bickle does. Well, it's funny. You say Jake LaMotta does not. um but still it's funny you say jake lamotta does not but i am unconvinced that that fat guy sitting in that dressing room doing the lines in front of the mirror yeah yeah thinks he's a loser like i think he's like okay this is just where i am yes yes yeah but the fact that he's a loser is yeah it's it's that it's about a a not only a hard-headed fighter but a stubborn guy to the point of some sort of you know narcissistic problem yes but as long as

he's not dead he's he thinks of himself as a winner he's won in some way but that scene where he's trying to hug joe pesci oh yeah you know and and that was so many years later you know there that was the the only emotional moment where you do sense that he he does have some some guilt you know it's it's a it's a very it's a fleeting moment yeah you know but yeah he's like yeah yeah i'll call you i'll call you you call me you know it's tragic and maybe that is just for the audience yeah now did you did you see these later movies though when like did you like king of comedy and and taxi driver by the time you saw them were you like keyed into who this guy was or you you know you just knew them as movies and you you weren't really uh thinking about them as a tour presentation. Well, no, because I was rooting for, I mean, you know,

when Raging Bull was at the Oscars, you know, I was watching and I was rooting for it. Okay. And I knew that because of Taxi Driver, I knew that this guy was a guy. Right, right. You know, I knew Coppola was a guy. Okay.

You know, I knew, like, I was aware of this stuff by that point. And then, you know, when After Hours came out, to me, it didn't really fit the other ones totally because it was clearly a comedy. But again, that's a guy that just wants to get home. Well, you know the backstory of that, right? Is that he was going to make Last Temptation of Christ and it got canceled at the last minute.

The studio got cold feet because of the controversial nature of it and they were worried uh which turned out being valid because the movie was protested when it finally was made but uh but he was he was crushed because he'd put all this production work into you know prep for last temptation and then it was pulled and he was like i have to do something immediately like i have to do something that requires zero prep basically i'm just gonna dive into whatever i get my hands on and it was this script of after hours and he made it in like record time and it feels that way it's to the benefit of the movie yeah like run and gun kind of thing exactly yeah yeah i mean i like that

movie i think i'd have to rewatch it. Yeah. I saw it again recently and it really plays well. It's, it did not, it did not age poorly. It's very good. I do remember the one thing I read into it,

um, because by that point, you know, I was started, I had started kind of doing comedy or being interested in it. That scene where, you know, he's in that gay guy's apartment and like i think just

to use a phone and you know and he's he's in he's explaining everything he's explaining but it's in front of a brick wall and i'm like this is a comedy club this is a this is a riff on comedy and the gay guy's just looking bored on the couch because i think he just wants to get laid but to me i'm like that's what this is a reflection of. Yes. And it's funny because it's like he's bombing, but he won't stop. He has to keep going.

Yeah. To me, it was like, I know what this is. This has to be on purpose. That was my whole problem with the film analysis is that I didn't know what you bring to it and what is actually on purpose. And as I get older, I realize it's almost all what you bring to it. Yes. Yes. although i will say there's plenty in that movie after hours that is you know directly from his like you know fully catholic understanding of hell and purgatory being

trapped and as his taxi driver the first thing you see of that taxi is it coming through the smoke like it's emerging from like you know a stygian inferno right yeah and that we will we will get back to that in killers of the flower moons i just put a pin in that but this guy's a full understanding of hell as it is taught in in catholicism is in almost all of his movies yeah yeah and like i don't know you know i the color of money I thought was good. Yeah, that's a good version of a movie that anybody could have made. Yep, and Last Temptation I remember really enjoying because John Lurie was in it.

Yeah, but see, it's so funny because like that movie to me was the, that was the final straw for me. I guess that's not the way to put it, but that was when I saw Last Temptation of Christ, which was probably around 1997. So roughly, you know, nine years after it was made. Yeah. That was when I was like, oh, this is my guy. This Martin Squirt. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, and I had seen Goodfellas by that point. I'd seen, uh, I think Cape Fear had already seen. I, I don't know if I watched Taxi Driver by the time i was that age but watching last temptation was the moment where i was like i see myself in this guy

not in his movies in him like in who he is and how he thinks i get this and he's like my god and it's my new guide to life like i'm gonna i'm gonna pay attention to what he has to say right yeah i mean i don't know if i if i ever felt that connection to him as an artist other than you know i knew that there was nobody like him and what he could do with film and the layers of it um and i it was definitely not a world that i could necessarily relate to but i uh always look forward to and still watch whenever i can uh what he puts out in the world like i'll watch good fellas on regular tv well i was gonna ask you is that like the is that the most watched of his movies for you good fellas yeah that in raging bull you know for sure um and i watched king of

comedy but like i it doesn't hold up as well but yeah raging bull and goodfellas you know because goodfellas it's really to me it's about whatever he was able to pull together so thoroughly between the way he shoots the way he edits and the layers of music and the way he shoots violence to me like that was um everything was in that one yeah for me that's i mean you're absolutely right it's but i i believe his greatest movie i believe it's probably it's very arguably the greatest american movie ever made and uh And also amazingly rewatchable. You could watch it at any time. Because it's hilarious.

That's also when you said about how he edits, obviously it's in concert with his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, who I think that's the era, that Goodfellas is the moment where obviously, there's movies that came before that where they were collaborating, but Goodfellas is the moment where obviously you know it's there's there's movies that came before that where they were collaborating but goodfellas is the moment where you can see how the two of them are symbiotic how you can't really have one without the other that the the her understanding of his language and his pacing it's it's a it's gift. It's a gift to have a partner like that who just understands you and you don't have to verbalize what your vision is.

Yeah, I can definitely see that. But it is interesting now that I bring that up that Joe Pesci in Raging Bull and in Goodfellas, arguably a comic character. Arguably. Oh, sure. And much more violent in goodfellas but you know because when you see the turn that pesci takes in casino it's like that's a fucking monster and he was a monster in goodfellas but he was an endearing little fuck and he got his but he was funny yes well that's i mean that's always going to be you know if anything i think

that's the knock on casino is that the the fun is missing right and it's it's almost relentless just this i like i guess you could argue that las vegas is fun right so that's always there this ever-present nature of like this this place the temptation part of his of scorsese's thesis is always there and for the guys in goodfellas it's the temptation is aligned with their personalities these are fun guys like they yeah they're they're a good hang so of course they're going to want to live just by their appetite but then you got you know that i mean the sin of pride is really what goodfellas or casino's about, right? Yeah, sure.

I mean, more than anything else. Yeah, because he could have gotten out of that no problem if it wasn't for the fact that he always kept putting himself out there. And the clothes? Yeah. That character, that kind of like cowardly mob-affiliated guy who relied on the mob i mean that was you know the sort of comedic character because he's he's you know he's ridiculous it's so amazing how different it is from the goodfellas character whereas pesci is similar in both right he's you kind of map the one guy on top of the other and you just turn the dial a little bit but deniro in casino is such a loser and a schlub

and and you feel it every second he's around you're like i feel like they make fun of him for it they're like like oh yeah this sad time yeah well the tightly wrapped guy with his cigarette holder the mobsters are making fun of him all the time. Yep. Now we got to listen to the Jew, you know, Jew fuck. Now I love the Wolf of Wall Street. I love it. I think it's one of his best movies. I think it's in the top three.

Yeah. Back to Goodfellas form in pacing music. And like, I just watched it again night before last in a hotel room with commercials and dubbed. And because they have cable in the room, so I don't even remember what network it was on. But I'm watching it and I'm waiting for stuff. But the balance of comedy and horror and like that movie is a comedy. There's no fucking way it's not a comedy.

Of course. And that guy, totally morally morally compromised but totally excited but well maybe he's maybe the worst guy that scorsese has depicted but yeah the most irredeemable worst person yeah and the whole movie is about showing at every step of the way he's lying that this thing that happened is not true this thing that that happened, it didn't turn out well. It's like every step he fucked up and it gets you all the way to the end where people are still paying their hard-earned cash

to listen to him because they think he's such an expert and will make them all rich. It's like Trump. There you go. And then that movie was 2013, three years before Donaldald trump becomes the president yeah and the movie like the the maleness of that movie you know given that it i mean there is definitely throughout almost every one of it he's exploring the male psyche with oh and like this is this was

a this was a movie about toxic masculinity before people were even talking about that. But what was known as the fun kind of toxic masculinity. Like every shot, as the movie goes on, of that trading floor, at some point there are guys doing acrobatics. Yeah, it's like a backflip, like standing backflip. It's just a testosterone-driven shit show. Just the shots.

Like when they go across the room, and there's these ape-like guys, especially that one actor. You see him all the time. Ethan Suplee. He's got the huge forehead, the brow. He's losing his hair. And he's like, like an animal.

They're all like that. And then the one guy who's got a fish, you know, Middle Ditch, plays the guy with the fish. Oh, yeah. And Jonah Hill's like, what are you doing? Yeah. You're cleaning your fish tank now? And then he eats the fish. Oh yeah. Jonah Hill's like, what are you doing? Yeah. Cleaning your fish take now.

And then he eats the fish. It was, that movie is insane. And it's really when, when Scorsese can, you know, cut like that and shoot like that. And there's that pace to the thing. It's fucking great.

And again, much like my affinity for taxi driver, it's as much of a, uh, an indictment of the collective as that movie is. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah. And Margot Robbie is spectacular. And Jonah Hill is great.

He's great with those teeth. But everybody's good. It's like one of those... I mean, Killers of the Flower Moon is the same way. These people show up and they're there for a couple of scenes and you're like, Rob Reiner is the greatest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's calling Reiner

who's on a Tuesday? Where he's watching The Equalizer as he's furious. What happened? Oh, yeah, they're all kind of spectacular.

The two Quaaludes scenes or that one Quaalude sequence. Where he drives. Where the old Quaaludes kick in. But he drives and then he goes home and he tries to get Jonah Hill off the phone and they're both on Quaaludes scenes or that one Quaaludes sequence. Where he drives. Where the old Quaaludes kick in. But he drives and then he goes home and he tries to get Jonah Hill off the phone and they're both on Quaaludes. Yeah, yeah. And then Jonah, and he wants to kill Jonah Hill, but then Jonah Hill gets the ham sandwich stuck in his throat.

And the Popeye bit where he sees Popeye and then he does the cocaine. Do you like Popeye? It's fucking hilarious. That might be the best comedy in any one of his movies. Like that specific scene. Yeah, because it is so, you know,

it's not like a guy trying to be funny like Rupert, but it's like, he's literally like, we're going to shoot a comedy in this movie. This is going to be the comedy.

He's going to be at the country club. He can't talk. He's going to be at the country club. He can't talk. He's got to get to his car. Like, there are other people. Him crawling down the steps like a worm. Trying to roll. Yeah.

He couldn't move anything. He was completely debilitated. But nobody comes to help him. And I realized that when I was watching The Other Eye, and I'm like, oh, he knew. I mean, someone would have helped him. Always lying. Yes.

No, this is no this is this is yeah this is how this is gonna go yeah and that guy from uh friday night lights he's very good in that oh yeah kyle chandler yes yeah he's very is he all right i don't know that guy is there something wrong with him oh no i think it was a character no he had a heart problem in uh manchester by the sea uh yeah you're transposing the the the movie where he died in new england from uh copd yes yeah is he all right yeah i mean i heard he had a thing no it was in a movie oh it was terrible i heard his brother-in-law the whole family died in a fire it's so you know it's funny the other day we're talking about scorsese and i'm talking to lipsight you know who's you know can be one of the great uh you know like it was just you know we're talking about the scorsese movies i'm like well what's your favorite scorsese movie and he said honestly

silence and i said go fuck yourself fuck you that's ridiculous you really mean it yeah and he's trying to defend it i'm like no you can take that and just blow it out your fucking academic ass you're just saying that to be to what what do you get from saying silence it's the best corsese movie go fuck yourself there's always one there's always one it's like that guy who says i don't really love the beatles you know just leave my house yeah right what does that even mean yeah there's a couple of b-sides that are okay yeah fuck you fuck you yeah that's right that's the guy that's like what's your favorite beatles song rain

rain not even on an album That's the guy that's like, what's your favorite Beatles song? Rain. Not even on an album. Fuck you. Do you know that that's actually Ringo Starr's answer? Is it? Yeah, they said, what's your favorite Beatles song? He said, Rain.

Okay. Well, he's allowed. Yeah. But then we get to The Irishman, he's allowed. Yeah. But then we get to The Irishman, which you love. I do love The Irishman. I love it right in the top tier of the... It's of a piece with all the crime films that he's done. Totally. Goodfellas and Casino and even The Wolf of Wall Street.

But it's interesting because De Nro plays a dumb shit stooge a loyal uh a loyal henchman he's basically playing the dicaprio part in killers of the flower moon it's the same guy and also a bad liar like that's the that's the thing i love about the irishman it's like the whole thing's probably a fucking lie right like this guy is making up that he's he's like the zealot of american history he's there for every instance of something happening and it's this completely unremarkable uh you know yes man who can barely formulate a sentence at any given time you know the only thing that he was capable of and honored was loyalty yeah and and you know, and he gave it to that Joe Pesci character

who gave him a life primarily because he had no conscience about killing people. But it is interesting that how the memory works and what happens when you live a certain life and you're, because that character, unlike DiCaprio, it's seemingly, I mean, maybe until the end, it seems that once he lost the love of his daughter, that he did feel bad. Yeah, and I think the codas, without getting too much into the ending of Killers of the Flower flower moon the codas of both of those movies are very similar the the the and if you think about the ending of the irishman of him just

having to kind of sit there by himself as the custodian of his own legacy which is has amounted to nothing he's just he went out and picked out his own casket right yeah and he's just got to sit there by himself with the door open hoping maybe something redemptive comes by and it never is going to in the form of his daughter yeah but like but but the myth he has made for himself that he was the prime mover of the the the last 50 years of organized crime it's so ridiculous when you say, but that's literally what the movie is. I know. All right, so we get to the new one. Yeah, so you saw it in an ideal environment, though.

Giant screen, IMAX, great sound. I mean, this is an ideal movie for that. It's the only way to see movies. Generally, yeah. Because it's what I remember movies were, maybe because I was a smaller guy, but it was like, that screen doesn't seem big to me. No. Like it seems like this is the right size.

Exactly. Yes. What was what kind of impact did it have on me? fundamentally feel it as um signature scorsese you know out of the gate because of i mean i think because of the terrain and because of you know the expanse of it because of the subject matter so i found it kind of interesting that i didn't read it cinematically as specifically Scorsese. I knew that we were entering a big movie and, and I, and for the first half hour to an hour where he's laying the pipe and you kind of get a sense of this guy, um, you know, I don't, I don't know how I felt about that movie or Leonardo DiCaprio's real character, but I knew that the way it was handling Native history was something I never saw before. Right.

That I did not know about their position within the culture of oil in Oklahoma. I didn't know the story. I didn't know that they were sort of obviously sold the bill of goods, but were enabled to exist at a class that obviously they had never known before with money. And I liked that the sort of Americanization of native expectations around that kind of early period of capitalism. I liked all that stuff. but once de niro comes in as this benevolent fucking satan you know i knew that that something was up and then it became you know right when that first conversation with dicaprio you're like oh this is the irishman this is this is the loyal lunkhead uh you know who's going to to do his you know this old man's bidding, his uncle's bidding, no matter what, just because.

See, the thing that didn't work for me was that De Niro did not play the love of money that he says he has. And for me, that was tricky. De Niro didn't play it? No, I mean DiCaprio. Like, I thought that he built that character so deeply that, you know, when he actually falls in love

with Lily Gladstone's character, which I believe he did, even after you know that De Niro told him to marry her for the... For real. No, I believe it too, yeah. You know, I believed that. But throughout the movie, you know,

it became hard for me to believe the greed that was implicit in the script for that character. I knew he was afraid of Robert De Niro and he believed that he was stupid. I think that DiCaprio really deferred to the intelligence of whatever De Niro was and that moral kind of, it's not even a gray area. You know, I think that the racism of it where that De Niro's character, I believed really thought that he was doing good for the most part for the natives,

but he also didn't think there were people. Right. Well, that's, I mean, that's the undercurrent of the whole thing is that the, you know, just right from the get go, when you find out that these people have inherited all

this oil on the land that they were shunted to this terrible land and the, the oil money now is, uh, you know, has made them tremendously wealthy with these head rights, but also they are still kind of wards of the state they have to be deemed incompetent and have money managers right so the entire structure of this of of the of the osage nation with uh you know the wealth that they've accumulated is still mediated by white racists essentially like the one guy is ahead of the ku klux klan who is managing the money but that's what's interesting because the the the government is incompetent and distant yes but what you know but the people that were in power were capitalists yes and and i think

what's interesting in there is that you know right, right away, you know, De Niro's character is like, fuck the government. They're useless. And then you have this kind of that the Freemason thing in the middle of everything to me was brilliant because I would never have seen it coming. But that is the brotherhood of capitalism. Yes. yes so you know so what you're dealing with there is that these guys were like these guys were the guys that sort of like you know manifest destiny is like we're gonna we're gonna take it all yeah and we're gonna figure out how to do it and we're gonna do it with or without the government's consent and the government will stay away because we're managing this situation that they don't want

to manage and then we'll fucking own them right that was deep stuff you know a movie like this it it relies on being able to take its time it relies on presenting you with the the whole lay of the land so that then when when inciting incidents happen and things are occurring you've had what feels like a lot of time to become adjusted to this time warp that you're in and it's like i hear people complain about the length of it it's like i could watch it for another hour and it's like what are you what else are you gonna do with your time i guarantee you that if this movie was two hours as opposed to three and a half the other 90 minutes of your day would be worse than the 90 minutes that this genius provided you. Like, look, Lily Gladstone, you know, held that thing together. Like she is

the emotional core, but also she, she carries the movie. She's the, she's the center of the film. Absolutely. And not just the moral center, but the magnetism of the film. You cannot stop looking at her. She is luminous. She reminded me of Meryl Streep in The De a fascinating part of American history that, you know, this was a person who existed and was deemed incompetent by the government, despite the fact that she's smarter than everyone else around her and and more capable to and intuitive. And to be able to hold all that with very little dialogue is a tremendous thing. It's pretty horrifying the way that it really focuses on... I think the thing that makes it more menacing than other genocide movies

around Native people is the military action is what the entire sort of cowboys and Indians mythology was built on. But this is really specifically about capitalism and the beginning of a still existing systemic racism in the name of big business, right? Right. in the name of big business, right? Right. And this is the amount of human sacrifice that involved in a very intimate way

around a culture of people, whereas now thousands and thousands of people, you know, die because of lack of regulation, because of systemic racism in terms of business practices and products and whatever. And this is a very intimate sort of understanding of the roots of of not like you know these are savages these are this these are that but literally how capitalism was fundamentally built on on racist

policy and the dehumanization of people and and it goes on and in that sense i agree with you that the de niro character you know believes he's just he's he's doing the right thing this is what he's allowed to do and he he he thinks these osage are beautiful people and it doesn't matter that he's killed a hundred of them he's just there to be their friends and that's what a devil is you know yeah but i also will say the scorsese hellscape is so perfectly rendered in this movie and it all boils it all culminates in that scene where he's committing insurance fraud on his cattle ranch right he's lit the ground on fire yes but it's like up until that you think about it it's like this everything

was basically normal i mean there's murders going on sure but meanwhile like they're having weddings they have drag races there's a parade going on everybody meets at the pool hall it's like normalcy in life then these lawmen show up so it's the first time you really get outsiders in this movie outsiders meaning not just the white men but not the white men who lived there right yeah so this this washington shows up and the pov just shifted 10 degrees this thing looks like a fucking bosch painting now right like yeah through the through the window you see this like these black demons these silhouetted demons like this guy is one shot of the guy with like a

shovel or a pickaxe over his shoulders and he's got his arms on it it looks like that shot out of fantasia in the the night on bald mountain when the the the demons are are dancing in the flames and also the nature which we see today of of this sort of like short money grift that like, you know, they're, you know, they're talking about land rights, you know,

forever, but he's still doing insurance scams. Yeah. I think that's probably how he made a lot of his money was through insurance fraud. And, and just that, that just still goes on where he's like complaining about $25,000.

Yeah. Do you know what I about $25,000. Yeah. You know what I mean? Which, okay, granted, it was a lot of money in there then, but that's the nature of this type of greed. It's like the entire Trump administration, all those guys that he put into those positions. They were always fishing for couch change, always. Yeah, seven grand.

Yeah. But that's the nature of that guy, that person. And corruption, right? When corruption starts, then everyone wants a piece because it's unfair to not get it right right so that's the chain reaction of corruption yeah so that's great i mean i gotta see it again obviously yeah that's like i said next time we should sometime we should talk about uh his documentaries because i think uh there's a lot of stuff there. And maybe I got to rewatch Silence just to load up a little bit

to yell at my friends. Yeah, let's have you and Sam on to talk about it. It was sort of like, you fuck. You can't. Not allowed. It's not allowed. Not allowed. It's not allowed. Not allowed. All right, so now I think I should establish at the beginning of this conversation that you are obsessed with David Lynch to the point where you walk by his house.

Only the one time. Yeah, I know, But you sought it out. I didn't seek it out. All right. I didn't seek it out. Let me let me explain. Let me explain. Right.

At some point during the pandemic, I Googled where does David Lynch live? Right. Because I was curious whether he lived in Los Angeles. Right. I did not expect Google to provide me with his exact home address. Right. And once you see the house and realize that it's the house from Lost Highway, it becomes difficult to forget that that's the house. You mean once you see it because you went there because you knew David Lynch?

Well, no, you see it on the, I Googled where does David Lynch live and like boom, there was his front, you know, door and the exact address. And it was like here. And I was like, oh, I know where that is. So now that you've moved into the neighborhood-ish. Yeah, yeah-ish. You just walked by there once? Only the one time. Did you linger out front like a weirdo?

Absolutely not. You were aware of that? I was aware of that. That you shouldn't. That I shouldn't. Uh-huh. That I shouldn't. Did you walk slowly to look and see if he was around of that? I was aware of that. That you shouldn't? That I shouldn't. Uh-huh. That I shouldn't. Did you walk slowly to look and see if he was around, like outside?

No. No. Not at all. There was a car in the driveway, and I thought, oh, God, and I kept moving. But I did—no, I'm not going to actually say anything about the friend of the house. There was a facet that I appreciated, but I'm not going to say that because I don't want to dox him. Oh. Yeah. The way the numbers—I mean, how can you dox him. Oh. Yeah. The way the numbers. I mean, how can you dox him? You looked it up on Google.

It's since been removed, though, which is good. Oh. This was. How many times do you look for it? Well, I was showing someone that like because shortly thereafter, I was like, I can't believe that you can just Google his. That seems inappropriate. And then it had thankfully been taken down by then. OK.

Yeah. I mean, I have people that visit my house occasionally. Yeah. Yeah. We won't get into that, I guess. So, all right. Well, look, now, despite what you may think, I don't have a problem with David Lynch. I know that. I liked it. I'm looking here at his filmography. I've seen Eraserhead. I've seen The Elephant Man. I didn't see Dune.

I've seen Blue Velvet. Do you remember? I'm sorry. I saw Wild at Heart. Did not see Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me. Saw Lost Highway. Saw The Straight Story. Yeah.

Saw Mulholland Drive. Saw Inland Empire. You saw Inland Empire? I did. That's with Laura Dern, right? Yeah. You sat through that? Yeah, barely.

But see, I must have sat through Mulholland Drive at some point, too, before watching it again. Because you remembered the little people. Yeah, and I thought that was from Inland Empire. Yeah, well, it seems like something that comes from Inland Empire. Inland Empire is about an actress, right? Yeah, Inland Empire, Laura Dern is an actress. And there's a fucking scene in it of Jeremy Irons, and he's a film director. I'm just mentioning this real quick. But there's a scene in it where Jeremy Irons and he's the film director. Right. I'm just mentioning

this real quick but there's a scene in it where Jeremy Irons is trying to direct on set and David Lynch is in the background shouting things

pretending to be an electrician having a problem and Jeremy Irons breaks on camera because of it. Too funny. They keep it in though.

I enjoy David Lynch as an actor and I believe I watched Twin Peaks all of it. Oh really? Yep. I'm impressed. When it was though. I enjoy David Lynch as an actor and I believe I watched Twin Peaks. All of it. Oh really? Yep. I'm impressed. When it was happening. I'm impressed. Why? Because that doesn't seem like something you would sit through. I don't know.

It was like episodic and interesting. Were you sober at the time? What year did it come out? Hold on. Let me look. He's made a lot of short films, man. He sure has. Twin Peaks, 90 to 91, 93. It was only six episodes?

He was only involved in the first season and a couple episodes in the second season. I was pretty newly sober if it was 90 to 91 and then after that. No, wait, was I? No, I wasn't. I wasn't sober at all. That makes more sense. I wasn't in the least bit sober for another nine years or so. See, there you go.

Eight or nine years. Now I can imagine you sitting through it. But I saw Eraserhead as a midnight movie and then I watched it again as a regular movie. Yeah. You know, Elephant Man I'm a fan of. But here's the point. And you and I watched recently, we went to the movie theater. Yeah.

And watched that one. Lost Highway. Lost Highway. Yeah, we did that for my birthday last January. Right, and then we saw Twin Peaks in a theater. No, we did not. Not Twin Peaks. I mean, Blue Velvet in a theater.

We did see Blue Velvet at the New Bev, yeah. And you hadn't seen it in a theater. No, I had not in a theater, no. Yeah, it's a difference. It's a film. I'd never seen any Lynch films in a theater before going with you to Lost Highway and Blue Velvet. So that was sick. That's a good experience.

Yeah. But it turns out, because, all right, so Mulholland Drive. Now, generally, we talk about horror movies. I think it could be classified as a horror movie. Yeah. Right? I agree with that. I think it could be classified as a horror movie. Yeah. Right? I agree with that. What else would you classify it as?

Well, David Lynch classifies it as a love story, which it is, but it's also, in my opinion, a horror movie. Now, you see, right there, out of the gate, it's like, to me, that's snarky and kind of hilarious that he calls it a love story. It's a joke. I love him. Yeah. I love the snark. But when I watched Lost Highway, it was okay. There was a story.

There wasn't a lot of a switch up to where it didn't kind of make sense to me. Lost Highway is kind of a Mobius strip. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. And this one, I was on board.ius strip. Yeah. It's fine. And this one, I was on board. I was watching it. It looked good. I liked the stylistic

elements. I liked all the little bits and pieces of it. But then in like the last act, it takes a switch. People are in different roles, playing people you're kind of familiar with, either as corpses or other characters. And then I'm sort of like, what's happening? And what's, you know, what's with the box, with the key? Who of like, what's happening? And what's, you know, what's

with the box, with the key? Who's who? What's happening? And, you know, I just, not unlike other Lynch projects, I just got aggravated. And I tried to make sense of it. And I know that, you know, I was told Sam Lipsight said, well, there's a dream logic to it. And it's like, okay, so when I wake up and dreams are still fresh in my mind, I try to figure them out. And you know what? I can't. And so I'm not going to say it's a bad movie. But for me, it was not a great experience because I just I end up frustrated at the end.

And when I go over the parts and stuff, I can be like, well, that was a good part. This is a good part. That was interesting. That was acted well. That was, you know, I like this view of Hollywood and whatnot. It's a Hollywood movie. It's a Hollywood movie. But you claim that there is sense to be made.

Yeah, there is. There is. I mean, look, he has never come out and said this because he doesn't like to have authorial intent over his own films because the point of his films is to interpret them through your own consciousness. I get that. But what's his problem with story? There's a great story in here. What is it?

Okay. All right. A girl goes to Hollywood to make a break. Shush for a second. Do you remember? By the way, I guess we should tell your listeners we're going to spoil the shit out of this film. The movie came out. It's 22 years old, yeah.

I don't think you can spoil it because it's still not going to make sense. No, it is. Maybe you should have spoiled it for me before I watched it. Okay, I wanted to and I offered to, but you said, no, I've seen it. And then you went in. All I remembered was the little people and thinking like, that's stupid. I fucking love the little people. Go ahead.

They freak me out. Okay. Do you remember how it ends? Oh, so let's see. Like, maybe I need to be like on weed. No, you don't. All right. I mean, it's better that way.

But do you remember how it ends? Yeah. It ends on Mulholland Drive. Okay. Kind of. Kind of. But do you remember the final bit with Naomi Watts? Where she kills the lady?

She kills herself. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the little people were bothering her. They got big and they annoyed her to suicide. They got big and they annoyed her to suicide. That's right. And she's in that bed when she shoots herself, remember? In the bed that they saw the other corpse in earlier in the movie.

Yeah. That had killed herself. Yeah. But it wasn't her that you could tell. Well, it ends up... Okay. Okay, so the movie is super color-coded, and you have to kind of...

Color-coded? Color-coded. You have to kind of be careful and pay attention, and there are clues... To colors? Yeah, to colors. Okay. Because the bed that she falls into

and then pulls the drawer and grabs the handgun out of the drawer and shoots herself is a bed with a magenta pink bed sheet set and a nasty avocado green throw blanket yeah in the beginning of the movie the first shot is the jitterbug sequence with the awesome angelo badalamenti music in the background. Yes, yeah, yeah. The second shot is someone's point of view falling down into that bed. So it begins with the jitterbug sequence and then that. Yeah. And then Mulholland Drive in almost black and white, that zoom in of the street side.

And then all of a sudden you're with this character in the back of a car who is, what's her name? Laura Herring. Laura Herring's character. Yeah. We don't know her name at this point. And she doesn't either. But this is what I'm saying.

So the context of the film is that Naomi Watts is playing a character named Diane Selwyn. Yeah. Who went to Hollywood and had a very terrible time and ended up doing some very terrible things because of it. Diane Selwyn kills herself with a gun, and as she's dying, this is my theory at least, as she's dying and her brain is sparking out, this is the fever dream that her dying brain is having to comfort her. It's a mix of fantasy of what she wanted to happen in Hollywood

and memories and rearranging people that she's seen in her life into other roles to make herself more of a heroine. And it's just a sort of comforting dopamine trip that she is going on during the very brief, quick process of dying. So the first, like, you know, two hours of the film is this poor girl's, you know, dying dream. And the final half hour are the events leading up to her taking her life, the real events. So her character in the end, in that apartment, all kind of strung out. That's reality. Oh, that's where she ended up in Hollywood.

Yeah. So we don't know, and it's not Oh, that's where she ended up in Hollywood. Yeah. So we don't know, and it's not necessarily important, that did she stay at her aunt's house? Did things go bad? I mean, like, is there a story in there that we... Yeah, it's revealed in the dinner scene on Mulholland Drive. She's talking to the older woman whose name is Coco, and she tells the real story.

The real story is that she won a jitterbug contest that led to her trying to become an actress. When her aunt in Canada died, she left her money that Diane used to go to Hollywood. Diane met this other upcoming actress, Kamala Rhodes, at an audition for a movie called The Sylvia North Story. Yeah.

They became friends and lovers. Right. But then Kamala got big. Yeah. They became friends and lovers. Right. But then Camilla got big. Betty didn't. Right. Camilla got attention from this director that Betty wanted. Justin Theroux? Yeah, Justin Theroux, that Betty wanted so desperately

to have the roles that he was giving Camilla. Right. And at the same time, she was losing her lover to this director who was taking a romantic interest in her. So that's the real story. It's all revealed in that dinner scene. So the other story about Justin Theroux, you know, not being able to make the movie because of the weird not being able to cast it the way he wanted to. And that was like she wanted that role.

It's a dying cynics fantasy about all the excuses and mysterious dark Hollywood reasons that she didn't end up the way she wanted. So tell me more about this color coding. What's with the box? I think, I mean, listen, I'm not an expert and I don't know, but I think that the color blue kind of represents awakening in the movie. And so when we meet Rita, she's got the blue key. We don't see the box until almost the end. Yeah, with the scary homeless person. With the scary homeless person.

So what you did this sort of like you've gone over, you've done a forensic analysis of this movie. I've watched this movie so many times. I love this movie. It's so fun to watch over and over and find new things. Why, because you keep finding things? Yeah, yeah. Like the last time I watched it was the first time I noticed. And I think this is I completely think that this is intentional. But in that diner scene in Winkies. Which one? The opening scene? The.

Or the one where she goes back and zooms on the name tag? The opening scene with Patrick Fishler where he describes the dream of the man behind the diner and says he's the one who's doing it, which is one of my favorite lines. That's so mysterious. What is that? Doing what? I don't know. Like, is he the one who's doing it, which is one of my favorite lines. That's so mysterious. What is that? Doing what? I don't know. Like, is he the one causing this pain? And who's the other guy he's talking to? Does that guy come back? I've read on the Internet that that guy's supposed to be his therapist.

Okay. That he dragged to Winkies. Okay. All right. But I don't know for sure. So the last time I watched it, I noticed for the very first time that when they're having that diner scene as the friend gets up to pay the check yeah the camera actually tilts down for a second to linger on their eaten meal yeah of eggs and bacon and that comes back well no

then it cuts to them getting up and leaving and then from from the opposite side and then the camera just slightly tilts down again and this time the table they were just at is perfectly clean and set which i don't think is an accident or if it was an accident initially i think it was an editorial choice yeah like i think it's a noticed thing by lynch which means my opinion which means that they were never there to begin with they were a dream this is a dream happening for diane in the winky setting so that's So this is, he said, I've already had this dream twice. And I think that this is the third dream that he's having. And in it, he's just, this is my dream.

But he's part of, what's her name's dream? Yeah, he's part of what's her name's dream. Why, how does he fit in? Because just, she saw him in passing. Oh, that's right. In that scene where she's talking to the- She saw him in passing at the Winkies. At the cash register looking at her.

Yeah, she just, there's a bunch of people that sort of, and I think the thing they have in common is whether or not they're doing it intentionally. The way they look at her in the moment makes her feel inferior. And she fills them in later to play small roles. Like there's, I fucking took notes on this. Because I was so fucking excited. But like the people at that dinner party. Later in the movie. Angelo Badalamenti is at that dinner party. The this is the girl girl.

Is at that dinner party. The cowboy is at that dinner party. The waitress. The Patrick Fischler. They're all like in these scenes. No he's not at the party. He's at the diner. But like just these very brief.

All the people that you've seen in different roles really throughout the movie or an insidious as like the cowboys, like a creepy, weird character. It's almost like The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy's having a dream. And then she wakes up and says, I had a dream and you were there and you were there and you were there. And that is David Lynch's favorite movie. It is. Yeah. Okay, fine. But see, I think that David Lynch gets a lot of leeway by, okay, so you picked through this and it all makes sense to me. But what if I don't want to fucking do that work? And I'm just a guy that enjoys movies. Is it my job to allow him to rationalize this nonsense by saying it was a dream? No, I don't think so.

I think that you can enjoy the movie on a subconscious level. I think it's fucking hysterical. That whole fucking drawn out scene with the assassin and shooting the extra bullet through the wall. Yeah, that was funny. I think that you can feel this movie as well as understand it on an analytical movie. I feel like that feels like a reality frame. That didn't feel like a dream. Yeah, you know, that one.

It feels like that guy's story is real. I think that that guy is a real, he's an assassin in both the dream and reality. And I don't know how good of an assassin he is in reality. But in the dream, he has to be kind of a bumbling assassin for it to make sense that Rita, quote-unquote, got away. So she comes up with these, you know, her brain is dying.

Not all of it is going to make sense. I don't think all of it is keys to a mystery. Well, the fact that she, well, the fact that he was after Rita, that's one thing, but it feels like that perhaps this sort of the initial crime he does

to kill that guy to get that black book was something that maybe the real Naomi Watts character was party of or knew about because that seemed to be like genuine backstory. It wouldn't add up as a dream. No, no, it's in the dream

because see, in the dream, that guy that he kills is in the dream because see in the dream that guy that he kills um is in the car crash that gets uh camilla rhodes run away oh and i think it's um i think it's implied that he finds the black book in that car crash i think that's why the assassin has to he has to get the book and kill the girl i think you know oh so yeah so I think it's all part of the dream. Oh, and the black book, I guess, in dream language, represents her connections. Yeah, yeah. And why she's where she is.

Why she needs to get gone. Because in the dream, it's... But it also represents that she's at a different level in show business. Yeah, yeah. But all the gangster characters, the producer characters, these are just bits and pieces of a dying brain. narcissistic almost. I think that she wants to believe that Justin Theroux would have preferred her over her friend Camilla if it hadn't been for these mysterious producer forces

backing him up. I do like the whole dream story of Justin Theroux. I love the Justin Theroux story. Billy Ray Cyrus, the pool guy. He's so perfect as the pool guy. But there's some pretty good comedy where the fat thug comes in and just throws the woman on top. Yeah, yeah.

And they're all covered in pink paint. Yeah, I love that. That was all good. Because I can see what it buys Lynch in terms of creative space is that if you're dealing with dream time and these bits and pieces of the story, you, it gives you a completely blank canvas to do whatever the fuck you want with these certain characters. And it almost seems that whether or not he dreamt some of the scenarios or not

that the idea that, you know, Justin Theroux's character in the dream space goes and takes his wife's jewelry and then dumps a bunch of pink paint on it. And then she freaks out and they all end up covering. They're covered with this pink paint in this very kind of sterile environment of that postmodern house. And then he has to get in his car all covered in paint. And then end up.

Like, I don't know if Lynch dreamed that or it was just impulsive. Something that happened to him one day. Not that it happened to him one day. No, I know't know if Lynch dreamed that or it was just impulsive. Something that happened to him one day. Not that it happened to him one day. No, I know. I'm kidding. You know, CK used to do, when he would write movies, I could never understand how you could commit to these scripts. Oh, so you think it was something in the moment that may have happened that day. Well, no, I just think it's something like that a kind of untethered creative mind will do and you'll script it out.

But most other people would be like, this is silly. Why would I put this in a movie? But Lynch is sort of like, this came out of me as it stands without editing. You know, I saw this. The jewelry was covered in paint. They got paint on them. I wanted to use it in the script and I'm not going to question it. Yeah.

That's what I love about him. You know, sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn't land. And I don't give a fuck. I appreciate that he does it. There is a joke in Twin Peaks, The Return about Mount Rushmore. I won't get into it, but people have seen it know which one I'm talking about. And I fucking died the first time I watched Twin Peaks, The Return. I rewound that scene like three times and just laughed so hard that it was painful because because when I was little, my best friend was my little sister and we spoke in a private language of jokes.

And that was 100 percent the kind of like innocent, weird, nonsensical child joke that we would have come up with at ages eight and five. And the fact that it was being presented with a budget by an acclaimed director was hysterical and amazing to me. This man is like working with his inner child in a way that no one else does, that no one else has the balls to do. Sure. And he's working with sort of breaking down that barrier between conscious and unconscious thought. Yeah. Well, what about, so what's this, the homeless person who you told me is now in the Nun series? She's maybe one of the biggest arguments for why this should be classified as a horror

movie because this lady almost exclusively does horror movies. Yeah. Her name is Bonnienie aarons i think she has a beautiful natural face that i don't think she's ever done anything to god bless her is very angular and interesting and a lot of people have chosen to profit off of that in not necessarily kind ways by casting her in horror roles yeah well she's all over billboards yeah she's the nun yeah and she's the nun too yeah i don't know i think she's all over billboards right now. Yeah, she's the nun. Yeah. And she's the nun too. Yeah.

I don't know. I think she's been the nun in a lot of things. She was in Drag Me to Hell. She's playing scary people a lot. She's just covered in soot. And like oil. Like her hair is shiny. Yeah, well, I mean, but it's not.

It's just filth. Yeah, but it's not unusual to see homeless people in that kind of condition. Yeah. And she's sort of parked herself behind the dumpster at Winkie's. Yeah. And I have to assume that that's a real character. Yeah. I think that that's.

So that character, I love her so much. And I think that you can interpret her a few ways. And I think one thing to maybe keep in mind about that character is that this started out as a pilot for a Twin Peaks spinoff. And I think maybe, I'm not positive, but I think maybe that character was initially intended to be something that she's not necessarily in the final cut. that she's not necessarily in the final cut. You saw Twin Peaks. Yeah, but she could be just that if it were a Twin Peaks spinoff. She could be exactly that character. She could be exactly that. I think maybe she's real, but she also exists in a world of dreams. I think maybe she's like the man from another place in the Red Room.

You know? Right, but also she's the possessor of the box that is... She's the possessor of the box. ...that is unlocked after the death. That is the key to the death of... He's the one who of the box that is. She's the possessor of the box. That is unlocked after the death. That is the key to the death. He's the one who's doing it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So she represents the dark world. I think that this character is. Of this character. I think this character is somehow meant to represent the dark underside of Hollywood. Yeah. I think this character is like.

And that's humanity. The physical. Well, yeah, maybe. Or maybe of just Los Angeles. Hollywood. Yeah. And that's humanity. Well, yeah, maybe. Or maybe of just Los Angeles. Yeah, yeah. But in either event, I think that she is the physical embodiment of some kind of dark, cruel thing. And she feeds off this pain that is happening to Diane.

Yeah. All right. Well, I still, like, even with all that exciting interpretation and possibilities, I'm not sure that it'll make me enjoy the movie if I watched it again more. What? I'm not saying it's a bad movie. I'm just saying it seems like a lot of work. I mean, I imagine you could do the same on Eraserhead on some level. You know, the weird thing is it's a lot of work to talk about but it's not a lot of work

to just sit and feel yeah like i knew all that shit before i knew how to explain it to you out loud yeah but like i can watch a racer head for a while but eventually i get fidgety but i did but i did like that i did notice it when i i was watching mahaland Drive that when she starts playing the real her, the real, would it be Diane? Diane, yeah. That like I knew that there was a different frame here. Yeah. And one of them was idealized and the other one wasn't. Yeah.

And that I was in a different realm, which was, turns out it was reality. Yeah. And she's such a great actress. Oh, she's amazing. This is kind of what put her on the map yeah so i mean okay i feel better about it i'm glad of that i don't feel like well i definitely missed a lot of things yeah because i wasn't like i missed the key to the movie which is this is a brain dying i mean look that's just no one's no one attached to the film has ever come out and

officially said that but that is your read that's no one attached to the film has ever come out and officially said that. But that is your read. That's how I choose to interpret it. And a lot of people go with, if not a brain dying, they go with a dream theory. So so I find it to be. Yeah. Brain dying means it would happen pretty quickly. Yeah.

Who the hell knows? Well, I mean, when your brain is dying, I imagine it can, you know, everyone says they see their life flashing before their eyes and they see the whole thing. But it takes like a second. I imagine that a brain could come up with this and that's a different time frame yeah yeah well yeah i've i've i think i tried to work on a joke once that once you start getting nostalgic for the past that is the beginning of your life flashing before you're like that you're at a certain age when you're sort of back in the daying it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the beginning. Oh, yeah. Someone was watching videos of himself on Conan the other night. That was a dream. That was a dream that I had. Yeah, that's a dream. That didn't happen.

Well, yeah, but I liked when I showed you, it was really to prove to you that I was a little heavier at some point. Yeah. And then I started watching them, and I said, you don't want to watch these? She's like, not really. Well, I just was like. You were tired? I was worried that you were going to go somewhere dark if you kept watching young videos of yourself. I was trying to nip that in the bud, my friend. Generally, I was just sort of like, I had it.

I was doing all right. No, you were cute. You were cute. Your hair wasn't as cute, but you were cute. I was full of the beans. You were. You were cute. Your hair wasn't as cute, but I was I was full of the beans. You were you were very jazzy. So Dog Day Afternoon. Yeah, man. You watched it. I did. I mean, I watched it again after not having seen it for maybe about 20 years. I was trying to figure out the last time I watched it. I think it was about 20 years ago. I couldn't figure out when

the last time I watched it. But again, not about 20 years ago. I couldn't figure out when the last time I watched it, but again, not unlike I've been talking about on the show proper, that there are these things I'm watching and I realized that there's so much I just didn't pay attention to. Like I couldn't have encapsulated the story of that film prior to seeing it again last week. Like I would have said, yeah, he, he had hostages and, you know, and, but I didn't remember the ending. I didn't remember the beginning. It just stuck in my head as Pacino doing the thing outside, but I couldn't remember or it never really sunk in or I didn't pay attention to properly the nuance of that movie.

What made you pick it up? You just decided, oh, I haven't watched this in a while. No, we were in a hotel room room and it was on Turner Classic Movie. Oh. And, you know, it was just starting. So I'm like, fuck it. This, we can't lose with this. Yeah.

With Dog Day Afternoon. But essentially what's, what's drawing me into it is my belief that Pacino, you know, out of all of that second generation method guys is, is probably the best one. And, and also he's the one that can still kind of do it when he wants to. Like he's willing to take risks with vulnerability. I talked to Jessica Chastain about this, I believe a little bit. But to see him like that, you know, kind of raw and utterly, you know, vulnerable and emotionally erratic. You know, when you compare that to The Godfathers or to Serpico or anything that he was, you know, outside of Injustice for All, which I think he was in the same spectrum, but still more control. Like this character is emotionally complicated and they never, and it's never overwrought given the circumstance.

And it's so clear that the actors within the bank and certainly out in front of the bank, he really had run of the place. I mean, the blocking was minimal. They were shooting it from medium to long shots almost always. And I don't know how much of it was necessarily improvised. A lot. Oh, really? Yeah.

So as far as I know, the general structure was there. It was a full script. It was not an improv script. But they were told to be as naturalistic as possible and take it where they wanted. And this is 1970? Filmed in 74. Right. It came out in 75.

And this is a classic, although somewhat sublime, 70s movie. I mean, this is... Absolutely. An antihero, and it doesn't end well. It's not just... I would go one further, and it's a classic, transcendent, 70s New York movie. Totally. It's very specific to New York City.

And all the players are like guys you know from the movies. And yeah, it's definitely New York at the time. And I think what, in seeing it again, how many of the issues, you know, this is the beginning of gay rights or just shortly after. I don't know when Stonewall was, but it's got to be right around there. Shortly after. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that that element, which is almost in passing where the gay rights protesters sort of take him on as a hero. It's a relevant movie still. It does not. It's not dated in in many ways emotionally, but it's dated because of the technology available and that the entire thing would never have played out like that now.

Sure, but it's like once you understand the context of the tools they had, the emotions are exactly current. Like there's nothing about it that is old. Yeah, and also what I didn't really realize is how much comedy is in it. You know, oddly, from the get-go, it is a comedy, almost. That right away, like, and I didn't remember this on first viewing, the third gunman just sort of like, I can't do this. And leaves. And that was real. That was what really happened.

I'm sure. They took a thing that was, you know, the actual facts of the case and realized like the, I mean, throughout the movie they do this. They realized the humor or the absurdity or the human foibles in what was happening for real in the moment. happening for real in the moment. But I think that, you know, that's why Pacino is so amazing in it is that, you know, the gunman leaves and there's no money in the bank and he's got like seven women and, you know, and a kind of, uh, you know, impotent security guard and a bank manager. So right away there's, there's no winning and it's, it's comedic because the truck already came to get the money. And immediately, within 10 minutes, these women know that he's not going to hurt them. They don't know about Saul, but they know that Pacino fundamentally is way over his head in every way.

But he's way over his head, you know, in every way. And, you know, given as the movie progresses and you see his relationship with women and his mother and his wife, that, you know, he, you know, that moment where he goes, who else needs to go to the bathroom? You know, it's fucking over, man, for that guy. Right. Right. Yeah. And because of that, that's fairly early in the film. And it was something I noticed this time watching it that when you are aware of what's going to happen, when you know how the movie plays out, the pathos of those early scenes are almost unbear uncomfortable to watch this guy who you know is actually a sensitive soul, who is not a maniac, a lunatic, a bad guy by any means, and watch him try to get out of this terribly stupid situation he's put himself through and do it with an amount of grace and humanity toward the people he's with his desire to be liked by the people around him. Yeah. And to tell that bank manager that, that he's okay with him, his,

his almost, uh, uh, childlike yearning for Charles Durning to be nice to him. Yeah. Like I, I found myself so sad watching it this time and not because I was, you know,

in any way, like not wanting it to end the way it ends. It's just knowing that how it's going to end this guy and it's all Pacino, but the vulnerability and, and fragility of this character were almost too much for me to take. But his, his fragility was sort of innate where John Cazale, his vulnerability is dangerous, but he's painfully vulnerable. But I think what really, and I noticed this in watching Paris, Texas and some of these other 70s movies, is there was no overriding.

I mean, what unfolds is that Pacino is in a marriage that is a disaster. He's got two kids. His wife is completely overbearing and panicked. His mother is completely overprotective. But none of that is really said. And, you know, he's playing this thing that this guy, whether he's sexually confused or overwhelmed or whatever,

he's had to put together this emotional life that encapsulates all of that. And then, and then through his decision to rob this bank for whatever reason, whether it was to get Leon money for a sex change or just to sort of like, there's always that premise in these bank robbery movies where, you know, it's like, Hey, it's not your money. It's insured. It doesn't matter. Why are you going to, you know, but, but I just thought it was sort of amazing. The subtlety of, of the script and Durning was, it's the best he's ever been. It's arguably the best.

He's the greatest. No, I mean, it's like, and you can tell he's riffing it and he's out there and he's sweating and he's trying to manage his situation and he's Charles Durning. And the two of them going at it out in front of the bank is, is some of the greatest stuff I've ever seen in movies. it out in front of the bank is is some of the greatest stuff i've ever seen in movies well and it's it's because there is a sense that no matter what is going on there's a hope there's a there's a kind of optimism in the sense that people can still reach people right a person can talk to another person and let's just be people for a second here. The minute that Charles Durning comes on the phone in the bank, when he picks up the phone and the bank manager says, it's for you,

and he realizes they're screwed. Now, all of a sudden, somebody knows he's in there. And he gets on the phone and you hear Durning's voice. It's the first time in the movie that someone actually feels in control. Because until then, whether it's the people in the bank whether it's pacino whether it's john kazale everyone feels like they're barely holding on yeah now all of a sudden you get this guy on the phone and he's like what are you even doing in there yeah what's going on and he's he's he's so calm and the that feeling is taken away instantly because basically the entirety of the nypd shows up to this small block in brooklyn like it is crawling oh like the the fact that even back then in 1975 they were signaling very strongly about how bad over policing is yeah right and how a delicate

moment can be turned into just such a clusterfuck so fast by all of a sudden, boom, this like authoritarian dragnet shows up. Yeah. It's a very knowing movie about how humans under pressure can suddenly just crumble. Right. And

then Durning all throughout the movie is just sort of like, put the guns down, put them, like he's like. Yes. He knows that if he could just do this by himself, he would fix it. Right. And then Durning all throughout the movie is just sort of like, put the guns down, put them. Yes. He knows that if he could just do this by himself, he would fix it. Right. And then it's just, and I guess that's true, like from the get-go, having seen the movie, but even if you don't, you kind of know that it's futile. Yes. That they're, you know, from, you know, 10 minutes in, it's a lose-lose situation. That's right as soon as as soon as institution gets

involved whether it's government whether it's police whether it's a bank anything the institution will stomp out humanity it will end their ability to talk to each other and just read like there's a the one of the very touching scenes in the movie is Durning talking to Chris Sarandon, who plays a transgender woman. Yeah. I mean, that was a transgender woman who was being told at the time in the language of the mid-70s, oh, you're a woman trapped in a man's body. Right. You know, people chuckle at that. But that's what we now understand, that that is a trans woman who had not transitioned.

And because of that is the inciting incident of the whole crime. Right. That like that, I guess that is the incentive is to get her money for the operation. Right. And he, he was so fucking brilliant in it. Chris Sarandon. Yes. Yes.

Like it was like, everyone is so at the top of their game. And the other point I wanted to make about, you know, not, you know, over explaining is that it's a very brief moment where you learn two things about Cazale and, and Pacino's character is that, you know, you realize at some point that, that Pacino's character, one had worked in a bank, that was clear, but he was in the military, But we don't know in what capacity at all. And this is just post or maybe towards the end of Vietnam. Right. I mean, so it's the actual incident happened in 1972. So and then you learn, you know, again, in the same way in passing that Cazale was in prison. Yes. And,

and that, you know, and because of the way those guys acted and the nature of the craft that they were involved in, which is, which is method, you know, they acted the,

the fuck out of that without having exposition behind them. You know, the nature of Cazale's hopelessness and his willingness, it seemed, at some point. I love, that's one of my favorite moments in the movie, but his willingness to kill.

Yes. It was driven by not wanting to go back to prison. Right, right. And also, you know, when his attitudes about women unfold later, you know, he is like,

that performance is something transcendent. You can't even wrap your brain around it. The focus of that. And Pacino brought him into the film. He probably would never have been looked at otherwise because the actual part was supposed to be a much younger man. He was supposed to probably be about the age of that, that other kid who bails, right.

The one you mentioned, the guy who leaves right away. and Pacino, you know, was in theater with John Cazale. They were, you know, acting partners for quite a while.

Then they're in the Godfather together. And he said, you know, no, no, this should be the guy. And he was absolutely right. So as the plot,

you know, kind of unfolds, you know, the, no, this should be the guy. And he was absolutely right. So as the plot, you know, kind of unfolds, you know, these act points, which are kind of fascinating because everything, like you said, is done, Lumet kind of was aware of maintaining this documentary vibe and to really let the city infuse the thing and to let, there was always a bit of chaos

on the periphery just because of the nature of the crowd, which I imagine were all those people were playing themselves to some degree. But these plot points where you realize it becomes hopeless. When Cazale, his character is sort of like, you know, I'm ride or die here. And Sonny Pacino's character realizes that, you know, there's probably no real way out. So the demands of that era were always around, we need a plane, which never pans out.

There's never been a situation in any movie where a guy demands a plane and that works out. You know what I mean? There's just, it does this too many. It's just, but it was the only option. And then like at the same time where they realize it's hopeless and you realize that,

that because they'll will kill people and that Sonny is now lost and he's making these demands, you know, they play along, you know, Durning as the cop plays along. And then there's always that thing where, you know, you've got the detectives with the guns and you've got the regular officers

with their guns. And then there's always the FBI shows up and he's like, this is my, this is my game. You let me handle this, you know, until he doesn't. Right. And when that, when that FBI officer, James Broderick, who is a, is a seventies guy, you see him a lot of movies. Yeah. Matthew Broderick's dad. Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah, he's great.

And also, I didn't realize that, and I learned two things this morning, that that was Dominic Tornese, right? Yeah, Uncle June. Yeah, he plays Sonny's dad. I only picked him out because of his voice. Yeah, but dude dude i didn't know he was johnny ola like oh right right yes yes in in the godfather 2 i mean like i i always knew that guy as an actor but i didn't make the connection that that was uncle june yeah like he

was one of those new york 70s actors yes he's in a few movies same with the bank manager you see him playing a sweaty guy off that guy sully boyer and carol kane's there you know okay and it's the same year she's nominated for an oscar for uh hester street but anyway there's a moment where you know you know things break down to the point where derning has to surrender some control and james broderick as the fbi agent comes in right unarmed to to make sure the hostages are okay. And there's a moment there that I cannot forget where he talks to Sonny and then he looks at Kazale

and he says, Saul, you know, and there's a moment there where he clocks as an actor without saying anything that this guy can kill people. Yes. And I think it's after that where he says we'll take care of saul right to pacino but that that acting in that moment where what what happens there you know how you doing saul or whatever where he's just sort of like all right this is a real problem this yes well you you've talked about that before of like the idea of being in front like you

personally being around someone who you know has killed someone. You're like, oh, the energy is automatically different. Yes. And what you're identifying there is an actor having to communicate, picking up on that vibe from another person who's just playing a killer. But to communicate that, like, oh, I have figured it out in this silent moment that this guy can kill people and you saw it right yeah oh sure yeah it's the whole reason why he thinks for that moment the fbi agent james broderick thinks i can maybe convince sunny to give up to throw this guy under the bus too yes yes because like if i could just tell him that i'm on the same page

knowing that that guy's a psychopath and maybe i've maybe i can tip him and and and and then pacino gets mad and says you think i'd sell him out you know yeah he still thinks about it for a second right but but there's no indication that he would and and that and it doesn't play that way right but also the interesting thing is you know now by that point in the movie, most of the women who are hostages are kind of concerned about Sonny. Yes. And concerned about the other women. Like, there's a real sort of community happening in that bank, you know, around these women. Like, they're all sort of, they, very quickly, they all realize, like,'re, we're, you know, these guys, yeah, we're in control still.

You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. They're, you know, like, you know, Sonny's teaching them how to do the gun thing. And, you know, it's, it's all crazy. But, you know, the slow burn of Kazale, you know, just sitting there and you realize that all he's locked into as the type of actor he is, is that he's not going back to jail. Right. And you don't really know anything about that guy other than this is his last ride.

Right. Well, and I do love that moment. I think you were alluding to it where, you know, there's a point when the cops kind of first show up and Sonny's getting all panicky. And he says, you know, if you don't back off, I'm'm gonna start throwing bodies out the door right it's just bluster and and and then sal gets him to the side at one point and he says you know the the thing you said about the throwing the bodies out out the door are you did you mean that and you know sonny says like well you know you gotta you know gotta let these guys know we mean business. He says, because I'm ready to do it.

Meaning he's ready to kill these people if he wants. And you see that in that moment, Pacino does this amazing thing where he realizes that he is like the den mother now. And there's a point where he's actually even complaining about it to the bank manager. Like all these things that he's got to do. That he's like, you know, I got the air conditioner not working. Now they need me to go out there and get the food for you guys.

And it's like, it's this thing that keeps coming up in this motif in crime movies, whether it's about the mafia or whether it's just about low-level criminals like this like the work that is involved is so laborious and like he he's as much a working stiff in this movie as as anybody else and he realizes it in different degrees like in this degree it's like okay all right now i'm gonna have to figure out how to make sure that my friend here doesn't murder everyone. Yeah. Okay. And he's like, you see it churning in his head.

Okay. All right. I'm going to have to take care of this part. Now I also have to go take care of that. They need to go to the bathroom. All right. I'll be right back. Yeah.

And that they're coming around the back. He's got to get the bank manager to move the thing. But yeah, I mean, that's space. Like I've been watching a lot of Mike Lee, very early Mike Lee stuff on the BBC and the allowance for space around action is a real humanizer. It's a real trick. And I think it does take a certain type of actor to allow it to happen. And obviously more more so a director. to allow it to happen and obviously more more so a director yes well and you have a with lumet being as good as he was and and they'd work together on serpico right so so you know they had a pattern down already but like the the the gift from heaven above to have an actor like al

pacino handle that scene when he gets off the phone first getting off the phone with leon and then getting off the phone with his wife these two completely different emotional levels yeah that he's on where he's essentially saying goodbye to both of them yeah but in different ways yeah and and then it's you know i don't know 90 seconds of virtual silence of pacino just sitting there and having to register Sonny's utter defeat, just being totally pummeled down by the world and not getting what he wants and having to move on with that,

move on knowing the next step's not going to be pleasant, but like, what am I going to do? Put a gun to my head right now and pull the trigger. He's not going to do that either. And also, yeah. Then also it speaks to this amazing kind of fragile i don't know if i would say confused but you know chaotically

vulnerable male character which you're never going to see that that you know without without over dramatizing that this guy you know whether he loved his wife or not he was responsible to it it was clear that he loved his kids and not, he was responsible to it. It was clear that he loved his kids. And whatever his relationship was with his mother, that was some other love. And then the true love he had for this trans person, for Leon, was something new and something he didn't understand or was overwhelmed by. But he wasn't questioning it. Not in the context of the film. But he wasn't questioning it, you know, not in the context of the film, but to carry that emotional burden and to be at the edge of that kind of emotional chaos is an astounding character. And, you know, the New York City theater scene contributed immensely to having a pool of actors who could you could reliably put in roles like this and you know john kazale is a perfect example of what was it's the famous like five for five right like he he only had five movie

roles and they're all amazing and his performances are great but there is something about al pacino in this that was noticeable within the first two minutes of him being on screen that he is simultaneously a schlub and a movie star and there's just no there's no explaining it like it is you can't you can't just uh uh train someone to be that and have that kind of charisma you can do all the method acting you want but you're not going to come across as both a totally broken, you know, barely respectable person and at the same time feel the magnetism of being a star. Well, that's it. He's able to do it. That was his thing.

Because I think about this when I think about these guys, and I've talked about it before, that, you know, that as some of these method actors get older, they can really kind of rest on their sort of tics and quirks and habits that identify them as emotional expressionists. But, you know, Pacino later in life, like I always go back to that Kevorkian biopic on HBO. I mean, like he can really, you know, take know take the emotional risks you know in a very real way still if he wants to or else he's just gonna like hey hey what are we yes you know yeah he can he can hoo-ha his way through an entire movie now well it's almost like the that he got uh it's like it was like bad behavior that was rewarded right like you know like when he started doing that in in the in you know i think it was like scent of a woman well scarface was like the first one that really like tipped it off right and then it's like he was scarface and then he was in the

dick tracy movie and he got like an oscar nomination for that it's ridiculous but like it's encouraging all his like worst traits to the point where even a great movie like heat like the volume is turned up so loud on his performance in heat it's almost comical like it rides right to the line of being too much yeah well that's what's interesting when you see him bring it down you know like and like i you know i think that you know de niro can do it but like i wonder you like for me and and i i've said it before that that the the most you know soft and vulnerable performance de niro's had in the last 20 years is in that

fucking movie The Intern and you know and I'll I'll stand by that you know it's not like I don't I don't mind watching De Niro but but like he really you know he really found an emotional zone there that was sympathetic that's the other thing about Dog Day Afternoon is that everyone is sympathetic you know they're they never go over there's no there's no villains and they're they're you know the evil is is slippery to me it's like the evil is pressure the pressures of life like that's there's and there's no getting around that that's just a ever-present force that everybody's gonna have to deal with yeah it was great watching it again oh well i'm glad you suggested to watch it because i i don't know there's it's like one of those movies that like you think well yeah i've seen it it's great

i love it but it it's really worth watching and kind of luxuriating in it over again we got to watch things as a grown-up you just it's just just, there's no way, you know, when you're 20 or whatever, you know, you just have to watch it as a grownup because your emotional spectrum has expanded to a point, you know, that, you know, it's fully formed. Well, and a movie like this is so good. I was thinking this in the first like 15 minutes of it is that if it wound up being a movie just about a bank robbery that was botched yeah it would be great yeah like it's so like the the details of actually like this screwed up robbery and how good it is and how like the the the tension of it and how well directed it is and the placement of people the the decision to shoot it on location is so brilliant to basically eliminate any kind of barrier between the street and the the bank only the the glass

that they keep locking and you know if they had shot it in a studio like shot the the internal scenes yeah in a studio and then cut to just like okay now we have external scenes where they're at the front no you needed that camera inside the bank to be shooting out on the street so you could see that stuff and you feel like it's a unity and it's all one spot and if you're just watching it on that level the basic level of like this is a bank robbery movie it's still fucking great yeah totally but what i'm noticing about a lot of these movies with this community you're talking about with the method guys is that and the 70s in general these are you know character studies

they're they're they're character studies that yeah you know the characters in these films are are equal to if not greater than the the storytelling you know that right that there's a premium put on the depth of these characters which i don't think you see anymore. Well, and it's very that's very rooted in theatrical drama. Right. There's the classical stage is a conduit of that. Yeah. You know, it's why a lot of these people were from that that type of school. And I think just for myself, like as I get older and, you know, tropes are tropes and you've seen things and you things kind of get patterns get repeated in that but you know what's never the same one person's reaction to something right

like the way one person reacts to something is going to be different than the way another person reacts to it and so ultimately like that's what i care about when i'm watching something like how's a human being responding to this yeah like what what's the what's the personal edge right that i can take away from this right yeah and it's rich with that well you know sometimes we we talk about these things and you know you go oh i wonder like what they actually what was actually popular at that time like did a classic movie like this get ignored for something that wasn't as good the the five movies nominated for best picture that year this is insane so it's dog day afternoon barry lyndon jaws nashville

and the winner one flew over the cuckoo's nest good year that's crazy what a year great every movie great in its own way and and some of them pretty classic uh constructed movies but just done uh a little a little more and again even jaws is a character study dude absolutely and jaws is jaws is the the the most traditional hollywood movie on that list right and it still relies on the characters. Yep. All right, man. Good job. Well, good suggestion. We should rely more on your hotel room viewing choices. Hopefully

they don't gut Turner Classic movies by the next time you're doing that. Well, I'm in this zone where I'm re-watching things so we can definitely find more of these. Yes, let's find more of those. And then next time you talk about movies, you'll be talking about them with Kit.

And I think you have one picked out, right? Suspiria. We watched it. And I liked it as a horror movie more than I liked the other ones so far. All right, well, we'll find out why. That's going to come up soon. Okay, good.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to kids night on Saturday, March 9th at 5.

PM in rock city at Toronto rock.com. To hear all the full Maron bonus episode, subscribe by clicking the link in the episode description, just scroll to it and whatever podcast player you're using or sign up at WTF pod.com by clicking on wtf plus and we now leave you with a story i told on the very first mark on movies episode about my fake balls when i was in the horror of dolores roach enjoy yeah fake balls merry christmas you still have something in the pipeline. This is that Prime Video series with Blumhouse,

Horror of Dolores Roach. Oh, yeah, the Horror of Dolores Roach. I just shot that. Yeah, and you're dead in it. That's not a spoiler, right? Like, you're the guy who dies. The first guy that dies. Right, right, okay.

I don't know if it's a spoiler. I can't wait till it comes out so I can tell that fucking, the fake boner story. I should tell it now. I mean that that's a tease and a half to oh god it was so did i tell you yeah yeah you told me you had a fake boner that you had to put on did i tell you about the french guy no oh dude so so they i'm in my under all day because i she's a masseuse right and she killed you because she's a masseuse, right? And she's a masseuse in the basement of this building that I own.

Yeah. And I think I'm going to get a happy ending and I'm the gentrifier. Yeah. She kills me during a massage, right? Yeah. So it's in the script that I'm dead and I'm dead and I'm like, you know, laying there and I got a stiffy. Right. So they have to fabricate something to make it, you know, to have the tent in my underwear. Yeah.

Right. And I'm going, I'm free. You know, I'm not, I didn't let them pack my underwear with balls and shit, you know, to show. I'm like, this looks ridiculous. It looked deformed, you know, like, cause I'm wearing tighty whities. I'm like, I'll just looked deformed you know like because i'm wearing tighty whities i'm like i'll just wait i got enough dick to pull this off the john merrick package oh yeah well it's just anything it's just like you know it's a it's like a it's like a cup yeah you know what i mean and it's another way i'm like this look ridiculous i'll just i'll take

the hit and not you know i i'll do it which is with my own dick. So they got to fabricate this boner. So they made me, it's just like a foam thing. It doesn't really look like a dick. A little bit on top so they would get the ridges. Yeah. You know, and they just want me to, you know, it's a strap and it goes in. But the thing, the shaft is coming up like from my taint. It's just coming, sticking right up.

So they just want the tenting thing. So I put it on, and we do the shot, and the director's like, it doesn't look right. It's not tenting enough. And I'm like, well, it's too low, and there's no balls. I mean, like, there's no balls. And the thing looks like it's coming out of my asshole. And, you know, there's no way it could look right.

And then I'm sitting there with the wardrobe guy or the, is he wardrobe or is he props? It might be. In this case, I hope he was props. It's got to be props, right? So I'm like, look, dude, I mean, if we can, if I can pull it up so like it's higher up in the the underwear you know and we could pin it so like you know the well yeah we had to roll up the strap it was on so it would pull the thing up and i said if we have balls you know it would look right right so he's like oh the balls yes so so so we i pin it up so like it at least is higher right and uh we're gonna do another shot

so we do another shot and uh and i tented it like differently it was up higher and then the director everybody they go cut and everyone's in there and the director's like i think we got i think we got it and then the french guy runs in he's like i have some balls i need some balls he had gone and made like he'd fabricated some little foam things. Like, you know, it looked like one of those, you know those dolls where they use, like, a pantyhose and they punch it in the face to cover up? Like, they, you know, if you put, like, a pantyhose over, like, a wad of cotton or something, you can...

Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a mush face. Yeah. Right, right, right. Well, he kind of did that with these two things that look like balls and he's holding them like the balls and they like we're moving on and i'm like dude let me have them and i and i put them in i'm like good job you know he did it in a pinch and it looks right but i'm sorry we didn't get to use him. You validated his balls, though. That's all that needed to happen.

I did.