Blank Check with Griffin & David - Married to the Mob with Ang Ferraguto
Episode Date: January 5, 2020She's MARRIED to the MOB. Now that we have that out of the way, get ready for 25 minutes of discussion about the Kids Choice Awards. Which Marvel movie would work directed by Scorsese? Why in the worl...d is everyone fighting over Ed Begley, Jr. when Michelle Pfeiffer is so much better? What was everyone's shit job in New York? And find out why Ang is so perfect to guest on this episode.Â
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Blank Check with Griffin and David
Blank Check with Griffin and David
Don't know what to say or to expect
All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check
God, you people work just like the mob. There's no difference.
Oh, there's a big difference, Mr. Marco.
The mob is run by murdering, thieving, lying, cheating psychopaths.
We work for the podcast.
Sure.
Right?
Such a good line.
Okay.
Best line in the movie, right? Now, what's this thing you were burning to tell us?
All right.
On mic.
You're the one who's like, oh, Will Arnett.
Can you check his Kid Choice Award run for me there?
Can you delve in the database?
I knew he got nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Movie.
I guess the Kid Choice Award doesn't have support.
I think it's a favorite movie performer or whatever, I guess.
But for the Ninja Turtles movies.
And I couldn't remember if he had been nominated for both or he had won for one.
He was nominated for both and won for neither.
It is kind of absurd because he's in about two scenes of the second movie.
So funny. He's so funny.
He's so funny.
Kids love him.
So I'm looking at the 2017 awards when Will Arnett was nominated but lost to Chris Hemsworth for Ghostbusters for favorite movie actor.
I mean, a pretty great performance.
The nominees is Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill both for Batman v Superman and Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. for Civil War. Do you think a bunch of kids were writing into Nickelodeon
being like, please nominate Sad Fleck.
We love this performance.
But then I was just looking around
at some of the other categories.
Here's one.
This is the entire name of the category.
I'm going to say it out loud.
Hashtag squad.
That's the whole category.
Can I guess the nominees?
With a K.
No K.
No K.
There are six nominees for not even best hashtag squad, but just hashtag squad.
Okay, so one of the nominees is the Ghostbusters?
Correct.
Are any of them MCU?
One of them is.
So do they do Team Cap or Team Iron Man?
No, it's just Civil War.
You're being too inventive.
The squad is a war?
It's true.
The squad is very
definitively divided
in that movie.
It's pointedly not a squad.
They are not hashtag squad.
Wait, what year is that?
2017.
So the films of 2016.
You know what my favorite squad is?
World War I.
Well, here's some of the other
hashtag squads.
Okay, are they all movies? Is it Rogue One? Rogue One is one. Well, here's some of the other hashtag squads. Okay, are they all movies?
Is it Rogue One? Rogue One is one.
Oh, good catch.
We love when a squad gets annihilated.
They didn't even get to win
the Kids' Choice Award. They only got nominated.
Was the Suicide Squad
nominated? No, which they should have been.
But not the Kids. That's an R rated.
Yeah, okay.
I would just like to point out, the last time I was on for Josie and the Pussycats, the
first 20 minutes, are you guys talking about the Saturn Awards?
That's right.
So it's a great tradition.
Great tradition.
Dear God.
We're going to move through this, but the other nominees, well, one, obviously, what
was the film Will Arnett was in?
Oh, The Ninja Turtles.
Full title, please.
Who had come out of the shadows.
All right.
Well, fair enough.
And then you've got-
That film is called The Ninja Turtles, colon. Who had come out of the shadows. All right, well, fair enough. And then you've got... That film is called The Ninja Turtles, colon, who had come out of the shadows.
Yeah, it was structured like a New York Times headline.
And then X-Men...
What witch have come out of the shadows?
X-Men Apocalypse, which I suppose they're a squad.
Yeah, they're a squad.
They're an X-Men squad.
Yeah, there's some teamwork.
And then the winners, Finding Dory.
Is that a squad?
Who they're counting as the squad?
Here are the winners.
Nemo, Marlon, and Dory?
I assume all these guys got blimps.
Hank?
Ellen DeGeneres.
Okay.
Albert Brooks.
Caitlin Olsen?
Who'd she play?
Oh, Destiny, of course, Destiny.
What's that?
The beluga whale.
Beluga whale, okay.
Great character.
Hayden Rowland.
Was she a beluga?
Now I'm questioning.
Okay, she was a whale.
Anyway.
Willem Dafoe, Ed O'Neill,
Ty Burrell, and Eugene Levy.
Okay, here's what's kind of absolutely
bananas about this list.
Okay?
Run through that cast again and I'm going to speed it up.
Degenerous. Dory, herself.
Member of the squad. Albert Brooks.
Marlon, member of the squad. Caitlin Olsen.
Destiny joins
the squad. Okay. Hayden Rollins.
I assume plays Nemo in a recasting.
Must be right. Willem Dafoe. He's the
guy. Has a cameo after
the credits. Oh boy.
Where he does not interact with any of the other characters
mentioned here. Ed O'Neill.
Hank is a reluctant member
of the squad. What is he? A blowfish or something?
No! He's a septipus.
He's an octopus who had one of his tentacles removed.
He's a great character.
He won Best Supporting Actor that year.
Well, this, of course, this is Bailey, who is probably my...
I think Bailey's a beluga.
Anyway, he's probably my favorite character.
And then Eugene Levy.
Eugene Levy plays Dory's dad.
And the entire movie is that she's trying to find her dad.
He's not part of the squad.
Who's the mom?
Diane Keaton, and they didn't include her. Not nominated's not part of the squad. Who's the mom? Diane Keaton. They didn't include her.
Not nominated. Not part of the squad.
Not of the squad. The Otters should
have been part of the squad. You think if there was
a Seinfeld episode about this episode
I mean about this category, Seinfeld
would have gone, I'm the squad. She's not of the
squad. The turtles are in the shadows.
What do you think, Anne? They were in the shadows.
I don't know. I'm hanging myself.
Yeah, Andrew's
wrapping a cord around her neck. Self-murder happening here in the shadows. They were in the shadows. I don't know. Have you said that? I'm hanging myself. Yeah, Andrew's wrapping a cord around her neck.
Self-murder happening here in the studio.
Oh, boy.
Not part of the squad.
Very rude to snub Diane Keaton.
Very weird to put in Willem Dafoe.
Maybe Diane Keaton did like a Candice Bergen where she was like,
I've got enough blimps.
No more blimps.
Don't nominate me.
The larriket.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, the Kids' Choice Awards, of course, are voted on by children.
Yes.
But are nominated fully by adults.
Right.
Who decides that?
I just imagine one guy who's like, I don't know, who should be the squad?
It's just like a heavy set sort of middle-aged guy.
Sometimes it feels like they look at the box office or they ask their kids.
And sometimes there are nominees that are totally inexplicable.
Where like The Tooth Fairy, a film in its year, did all right.
And I could imagine they would go, my kid liked that.
And if you want to nominate The Rock for funniest performance, it makes total sense.
But in what universe did a large enough number of kids, if pressed for question, answer...
The Tooth Fairy.
No, Ashley Judd in The Tooth Fairy is my choice for best movie actress.
Oh, she is good in that.
But you know what I'm saying?
She sounds like she's pretty good in the movie.
Never mind, I'm hoisted by my hair.
Married to the mob.
This is the only year they did a hashtag squad.
It's a movie.
Married to the mob, that's true. Married to the squad. Married to the hashtag squad This is the only year they did a hashtag squad. It's a movie. Married to the Mob.
That's true.
Married to the Squad.
Married to the hashtag squad. It is a squad.
A mob is like a squad.
Very much so.
Yeah.
And yes, this is a movie about what happens when you leave the hashtag squad.
And this is a podcast about...
Not squad goals.
Demographies.
Directors with massive success early on in their hashtag career.
And they give it a series of hashtag blank checks.
Make whatever crazy hashtag passion products they want
and sometimes those checks clear
and sometimes they hashtag bounce baby.
Hashtag baby.
And this is a miniseries on the films of Jonathan Demme.
It is called Stop Making Podcasts.
That's right.
And this is a first.
This is the first time we've ever had a guest on the podcast
who was named after the movie they're discussing.
Right.
As far as we know.
Well, is anyone else even in contention?
Look back over the episode.
I'm trying to remember.
Oh, Terminator 2 Johnson.
I forgot that he was the guest on that episode.
I kid, of course.
Sam Regalarecia.
Katie Rich, actually, her first name is actually Collateral.
Katie's her middle name.
She just uses it.
Collateral Rich.
Oh, boy.
Good reason to call dibs on the episode.
Our guest today is Angela Faragudo.
Hello.
Angela Faragudo. Angie.
Angela.
Angela.
Angie.
You ever go by Angie?
That ever happen?
I don't really
so my mom
specifically
the one concern
that she
so here's the story
of how I was named
so here we go
so
my parents were
trying to think of a name
that went with
Rose Ferragudo
Rose is like
my grandmother's name
and they
so they knew that was
going to be your middle name
yeah so they had
middle name last name
like ready to go
they had blank at the beginning I have one more preamble question. Yes
This movie came out a handful of years before you were born. Yeah
Were your parents together when this movie came out like did they see it together or did they get together?
I I don't know the first time they watched it necessarily so they were watching this at home
So my mom's story was that they were like, they had a TV in their bedroom, and they were just like up late, like watching it one night.
And then I called them to like confirm yesterday, and my dad was like, and then they went back and forth.
Like, no, that wasn't in that place.
It was like, was it in Worcester?
Was it in Woburn?
From Massachusetts.
But basically, long story short,
my mom was pregnant and they were watching
this movie came on and then
Michelle Pfeiffer is introduced as
Angela and my mom went,
oh, what a lovely sounding name.
And the only pause is she
doesn't like the nickname Angie.
But she was like, oh, I might as well call her Angie.
Like Angie Dickinson, right? I feel like that name
was sort of... Angie Jolie, that tramp.
Yeah.
Well, I think she had like a...
Angie Jolie.
I'm named after Angie Jolie.
You're doing Angie.
That's what they say when she walks in.
Yeah, it's not...
Very few people call me Angie.
But like, I like Angie.
I feel like it's an older...
It is, yeah, yeah.
My mom had like an Auntie Angie
that was like not related at all.
You own Angie very well, I think.
And you've branded it very clearly where no one's going to call you Angie.
No, I would never call you Angie.
But it is like fun to do that voice when you're doing like excessive Italian shit.
So, yeah, basically my parents were like, oh, that's the name.
And then for context too, like my siblings' names are Anthony and Maria.
So we sound like we're on the cover of like a pasta box, the three of us.
It would have been funny if they named your siblings after Married to the Mob characters as well.
Tony.
Tony the Tiger.
Tony.
My brother's name is Anthony, so he was Tony for a minute.
There's no Maria.
There's a Connie.
No Frank Cucumber.
Yeah.
No.
No Cucumber.
Cucumber Ferdudo.
He's no.
Oh, God.
Cuc.
Cuc.
Cuc.
There's a reason his name is the cucumber.
Because he's got a big old dick.
I assume.
Is that what it is?
Oh, because I thought it was, oh, he's cool as a...
No, because he said they were putting the cucumber to the woman that gets killed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Really?
You know, I'm sure Alec Baldwin insisted on that line being inserted.
No, I don't think so.
I have to put the cucumber to her.
Just.
So, all right.
So, Mary to the mom.
Okay, so you were raised with this knowledge of like this was a film I was named after.
When you asked your parents, they would be like, it's this movie.
Yeah, my brother.
I think my mom just like it was like a family name.
And then Maria is like my mom's middle name.
And then me, they just like liked the name Angela.
I never watched it, like pretty much my whole life.
I just knew I was named after Married to the Mob.
Are you the third baby?
I'm the middle.
You're the middle, okay.
So what's funny too is that like I, my whole life I thought Married to the Mob was this like drama.
Interesting.
Sure, it sounds like it.
About a mafia.
Right.
She's married to the mob.
And like when you've seen
Michelle Pfeiffer and stuff
which is always kind of
like intense
like you don't always think
like comedy
sure
and then
I
I think like
three years ago or something
I was taking a bus
back to Boston
and I
downloaded it
on my iPad
for the ride
and I was like
this is not what I expected
at all
so yesterday was
the second time I've watched it.
So like I'm named after this movie but it's not like
I really. Sure I understand right. It wasn't
right. But you thought the definitive mob comedy
was Mickey Blue Eyes. I had to get that out.
I just like bringing up Mickey Blue Eyes.
You know Mickey Blue Eyes?
No I don't know it.
Oh wait you don't know the Mickey Blue Eyes?
Mickey Blue Eyes is Hugh Grant marries
into the mob. We love him.
It was the same summer as Notting Hill, which is kind of crazy to think about.
I like weirdly haven't seen like a lot of, so we saw Goodfellas.
We saw Goodfellas, but you had never seen it.
I had never seen it.
I think like just like my life was enough like Italian stereotypes.
Right, you didn't want to see the mob movies.
Yeah, I didn't like seek it out or anything.
You haven't seen a lot of mob movies, right?
Okay.
I watched...
I'm trying to think of like
other...
Moonstruck, I would say,
is like my favorite
like Italian...
Well, that's the greatest
Italian people in New York
yell at each other movie.
Yes.
It's also maybe...
Beautiful love story.
Maybe, maybe the greatest
film ever made.
I would say.
I would say so.
I think it's up there.
It's in the 10.
It's in my top on like
Letterboxd.
It's just like you just
put it on and it's just...
It's so good.
I mean, that movie, if you put it on near me, it's just me screaming just put it on and it's just it's so good I mean that movie
if you put it on near me
it's just me screaming
at you like
that line was so good too
like that's what
that movie is
look it's Cosmo's moon
that's like
RD
RPX
no what is it
yeah
what's the thing
you like
40X
well my favorite thing
is like I've shown it
to like
I remember showing it
to my friends
and being like
this is one of my
favorite romantic comedies
what's my favorite romantic comedies.
What's my favorite?
I lost my head!
Johnny has his head!
Sorry, Carrie.
David had to get that out.
He had to get that out.
My friend dressed up to sit with us.
But I told my friends,
like, it's this beautiful
romantic comedy.
I love it.
And then, like,
the first 15 minutes
are like this, like,
really shitty proposal
with this, like,
total schmuck
who's, like,
talking about his mother
and they're like,
this is a love story
I'm like don't worry about this part just like it'll get
there. Do you know how old
Nicolas Cage is in Moonstruck?
No. This is one of those
23 years old.
Look at my friend who dressed up as him.
It's so good. It's an incredible costume.
That's
wow. Have you seen Moonstruck
Manny? Yeah. It's been a while but
Can you confirm this for me? I believe Nicolas Cage is you seen Moonstruck Manny yeah it's been a while but can you confirm this for me
I believe Nicolas Cage
is 23 in Moonstruck
he's pretty young
and he's playing like 30
yeah he's playing older
although he's supposed
to be younger than her
he's supposed to be younger
than her
but she's probably 40
in that film
you're right
he's 23
that's insane right
of course
but it's Cage
I know
can't fuck around
I know
it's that one
it's Cage throwing just heat and then of course around. I know. It's Cher, though. It's that one. It's Cage throwing just heat.
And then, of course, Cher just.
Cher's so good.
Yeah.
Snap out of it.
I mean, Olivia, I mean, don't say Olivia.
Olivia Dukakis.
Dukakis.
Olivia Dukakis.
Aiello is amazing.
John Mahoney is amazing.
That scene where they go on the date is incredible.
Like, you know, he plays the other guy who goes.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then just the whole dialogue.
Which he explains to him
like why all these
like young women
like don't work for him
or whatever
right
yeah
and then the whole dialogue
where she's like
why do men
you know
why do men cheat on women
uh huh
do you know the scene
I'm talking about
I do
and Daniela's like
well Adam's rib
and maybe they want the
sure
and she's like yeah
but okay
why do they chase
multiple women
and he's like
I don't know
because they fear God and she's like that's it that's the answer and she's like yeah but okay why do they chase multiple women and he's like I don't know because they fear God
and she's like
that's it
that's the answer
and she's like
he's like well I don't know
and she's like no
thank you for giving me
my answer
that's so good
Moonstruck
I have never been able
to get into Moonstruck
that's why I've been
staying silent during this
oh I mean I saw it
on your face
I saw the shape
I have no criticisms
of it but I've watched
it a couple times
and every time I'm like what am I not connecting with you?
That movie's just a big bowl of pasta.
It is.
It's like a nice, warm bowl.
Whereas this movie's a little more like people sort of keep throwing pasta at you,
and you're like, oh, my God.
This is more energetic.
I like a pasta fight.
Can I tell an anecdote about the downside of working on the Blank Check podcast?
Sure, go ahead.
So we get lunch at the Metrograph and then Ange and I go see—
We had a very serious work lunch and then Ange and I went to go see Goodfellas at the Metrograph.
Ange had never seen it before.
And a downside to working on this podcast and being friends with us idiots for years before seeing Goodfellas
is when the Billy Bats scene
started and
sighed
the first time
you said go get
your shine box
you went
ugh
ugh
out of all the
many boxes
that have
advertised
like at the end
of it you were
like that is a
great scene
but the second
he said it
you were like
ugh
here's the thing
I don't know
if I
did I sigh
like that
or I was just
like
he's gonna do it
yeah
yeah
here we go
here we go here we go
yep
oh
Mary Tudor
I saw you in it
why?
I sighed because
Griffin was like
vibrating in a seat
I was so kidding
so you're not helping
it wasn't at the thing
it was like
what the fuck is going on
here
it is
in and of itself
an incredibly tense scene
in a weird way
that's what I love about those movies
I didn't know
I knew
Shineboxes happened
but the music cue
is what sets Griffin off
and then so he like
sits up in his seat
and he's like
reading from ear to ear
and then like
looking at me
and then looking at the screen
and I was like
okay yeah here we go.
He's like
you're kind of offended
and you know
De Niro's sort of like
little bit, little bit, little bit.
The best De Niro line reading
of all time is little bit.
Little bit. That's
Alec Baldwin's entire De Niro
impression is just, little bit.
You've seen him do that, right? It's so good.
Little bit, little bit. And then the
Irishman, which will be out
by the time this is out, like, is so many
is like that scene so many times where it's
like, guys just kind of like getting on each other's
nerves by the way they're talking to each other. All kind of like getting on each other's nerves by the way they're talking
to each other.
All that shit.
Getting on each other's nerves
a little bit.
You also,
you didn't know how that scene
was going to end.
Sure, it's sort of a shocking ending.
You just know they're going to
yell at each other
about shine boxes.
No, I,
yeah, what did I know
about Goodfellas going into it?
Well, there's some Goodfellas.
Really?
No, yeah, there's some Goodfellas.
Greatfellas, if you ask me.
I know Marty.
But like like I really
I knew about like
the needle drops
and that they were good
but then like
Sunshine of Your Love
kicked in
and I was like
oh this movie
is fucking great
Atlantis
just breaking
I just want to let you guys know
if you haven't heard
Goodfellas
good movie
good movie
good movie
Goodfellas
more like good movie
that's what they say
at the end
that was me
half committing
to a Gene Scheller.
One fourth.
Had anyone spoiled the greatest shot in the history of cinema for you?
I feel like I like Goodfellas a lot.
I'm not one of the, oh, it belongs on Mount Rushmore people.
But there are elements in it.
There are horrible opinions out of you today.
Moonstruck's bad.
Goodfellas goes on Mount Rushmore.
I'm a big fan of Goodfellas. He doesn't say Moonstruck's bad. Heellas goes on Mount Rushmore I'm a big fan of Goodfellas
he just doesn't
emotionally connect to it
I don't emotionally connect
he said it was bad
and he spat on the ground
and he said
Maroon
no Goodfellas
I think is a great movie
it's just not in my
like top ten
wait what's the best shot
the best shot
in the history of cinema
is Paul Sorvino
slicing the garlic
in prison
with a straight razor.
There is nothing more erotic in the world
to me than that shot. It is erotic.
Just slicing the garlic real thin.
That's my favorite Scorsese. That is
one of, like, I love that movie. It's like
maybe one of more, you know, basic
opinions or whatever, but that movie's perfect. You know my favorite
Scorsese.
After Hours. That's the most top five
for me. The most Griffony opinion. The movie I'm named after. Yeah, but that movie's perfect. It is. It's the most top five for me. The most Griffin-y opinion.
The movie I'm named after.
Yeah, but that movie's perfect.
It is.
It's perfect.
Yeah.
That movie is perfect.
So it's not Shark Tale.
And you would love After Hours.
As someone who goes out in New York City and ends up at a house party where you're the
only person dressed as a MetroCard, you'd love After Hours.
You really would.
My brother worked on The Irishman.
Did he?
So I've been hearing about it for a hot minute. Yeah, her brother. Robert De Niro. My brother worked on The Irishman. Did he? So I've been like hearing about it
for a hot minute.
Yeah, her brother,
Robert De Niro.
My brother, Robert De Niro.
We're all related.
All us Italians.
Oh boy.
What did your brother
do on The Irishman?
My brother's a grip.
Nice.
And so, yeah,
if any New York,
I don't know,
film people.
What was he holding on to?
Is he mostly Boston based
or is he working over there?
No, he works in New York.
Okay, yeah. So what does he do on set? Shout out to Anthony. He will listen to this episode. Hold on Boston based? No, he works in New York.
What does he do?
Shout out to Anthony. He will listen to this episode.
Hold on to stuff?
Yeah, grip stuff.
I never really fully understood.
He just does a bunch of stuff.
He said Martin Scorsese was very nice.
One time I just walked up to him and was like,
oh, we haven't met yet. Let me introduce you to myself.
I'm Marty. My brother was like, yeah, I fucking know you're Martin Scorsese.
He said that to his face and he shoved him?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's crazy.
He kicked him down a set of stairs and he said, fuck Marvel.
And then he stabbed my brother in the back.
I like you as much as Griffin likes Moonstruck.
Fuck Marvel.
It's just so funny that all of this is from Marty going like,
I don't really like Marvel movies.
I think they're not so good.
And everyone's like, well, Jesus.
They're not my cup of tea.
Also, he was asked.
I'm aware.
It wasn't like he was like,
I'm not going to ask everybody.
He held a press conference.
It would be funny if he did hold a press conference.
Fuck Marvel.
They're not good films
so my brother
would just send pictures
the pictures lack integrity
it's not cinema
that's funny
your Marty's great
by January
this discourse
will still be going
yeah
oh it'll probably
be going more
it's never gonna die
yeah
it's October
people are gonna start
asking Marvel directors
what they think of Marvel
and they'll be like, oh yeah, not
very good. We'll be at that
stage. And then they'll respond to themselves
criticizing their own movies.
Who's this guy? He directed a Marvel movie?
He thinks he knows so much?
Just Taika Waititi fighting with himself?
Oh boy. It also is
like the
pushback to it. Oh boy. I'm trying like the pushback to it.
Oh, boy.
I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this.
This isn't a controversial statement at all.
People getting upset and being like, well, fuck you, Scorsese.
You aren't that hot anyway.
Couple eyes saw twits eat two farts.
Like whatever.
Like all of that discourse is just like perpetuating the problem,
which is treating it as Marvel movies versus everything else.
Like this binary like one versus one battle.
Where it's like every other type of film is in like hand-to-hand combat with Marvel.
Which is the exact thing Scorsese is saying is like it's a little unnerving how they've become all of film culture.
And then film culture is like
fuck you
your movies aren't
aren't shit
right
you got zero Thor movies
yeah
Thor's not in one of these movies
how do they connect
to the universe at all
if Martin Scorsese
got to direct
any Marvel superhero
who should it be
hmm
Moon Knight
well I feel like
Moon Knight
is like the go to answer for anything right now.
Death Law.
Punisher.
I will say, Deadpool would want Scorsese to direct him, and he would tell us.
Right, he'd say, like, can you believe this guy has an Oscar?
Yeah, yeah.
I'm trying to think.
I feel like there has to be like a weirder, deeper cut thing that Scorsese could do well.
Excalibur.
Yes, that's it.
No, it's not.
It'd be terrible.
Alpha Flight.
I've always wanted to see.
Is there like an Italian Marvel character too?
I'm also trying to think of this.
That's what I'm trying to think of.
Captain Pasta.
He should do.
Of course.
Of course.
Captain Pasta.
Of course.
We all know him.
He should do the Hammerhead movie.
They should do a Joker style solo film about the Spider-Man villain
Hammerhead, who is just a regular mob boss
with a flat head that he can ram into
things. I just looked up Italian
superheroes.
We have Punisher, Argent,
Scorpion,
Blue Shield. Frank Castle
is Italian. Castiglione
or whatever. Does Strega Nona count
as an Italian superhero? Yeah, sure. She has powers. Yeah, let's get her in whatever. Right. Does Strega Nona count as an Italian superhero?
Yeah, sure.
She has powers.
Yeah, let's get her in there.
Yeah, yeah.
She can control
a pot of pasta.
Yes.
And it overflows
into a city.
That would be bad.
Well, only because
Anthony doesn't do the...
Scorsese should direct
a man thing movie.
That's what he should do.
You know what he should direct?
Great Italian character.
What?
Super Mario.
Oh.
Oh.
Wow, how did we not even...
David is holding his hands out
like he just won the conversation.
Because the first...
The Super Mario Brothers movie.
He's the Italian superhero.
Yeah, he is.
I mean, yeah.
He's all we got.
The one with Hoskins.
Yeah.
The first 20 minutes of that
are very Moonstruck-y.
They're like in Brooklyn Heights
and they're plumbers
and they're like...
Before they go to the fucking dinosaur land.
Did you just say the Super Mario movie
is like a movie
have you seen it
of course I've seen that movie
yeah the Brooklyn Heights stuff
it's great
you mean when they're doing
like a dinosaur excavation
in the middle of Brooklyn
yeah
classic Italian activity
in the neighborhood
yeah
digging up dinosaur bones
god that movie
is so Italian
I mean they cast
the two most Italian-American actors ever,
Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo.
Oh, God.
Hoskins.
He's good, though.
He's very good.
Even though he was like, I was drunk, stone drunk the whole time.
It was the only way I could survive.
It would be great for Scorsese to just be like,
here's my fucking response.
You guys want me to do a goddamn superhero movie.
I'm doing Super Mario Brothers.
Yeah, right.
And I'm taking it dead serious.
For illumination.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay.
This episode's a mess.
So speaking of sacred cows, do you want to talk about Shrek for five minutes?
I wanted to talk about it for 30 minutes, but David said that is not allowed because
obviously we do not stretch shit out on this podcast.
Let's just say we spoke disparagingly about Trek on the Spirited Away episode, and it was our equivalent of Scorsese slamming Marvel movies.
People went ballistic.
And I will say by the time this episode comes out, it will have come out, but I record an episode of Podcast the Ride.
Oh, sure.
About Shrek 4D.
Which I think is-
In which you pooped all over it, I assume.
Well, Shrek 4D is bad.
It's a bad attraction.
It's sort of the bottom of the barrel.
It's a bad movie.
It is inarguably the low point of the Shrek franchise in my eyes.
But I tried to be a lot more even-handed because I recorded that episode after we had
After Reddit exploded.
After we were like, well, Shrek's bad, right?
And we, yes, there was a reaction
from people. I think sometimes
maybe also we think generationally, right?
People maybe a little younger than us where Shrek was a little
more in their adolescence.
But I explained on Podcast the Ride a crazy
stat that I don't know if I ever said on this show.
I saw Shrek three times opening weekend.
I saw it Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
I was all in on Shrek.
Ben is making a perplexed face.
Well, you were, I'm going to guess, 11 or 12?
12 or 13.
Yeah, you were 12.
I would have been 12.
I was like 9, 10.
I was 12.
I was 15 and went on a date to see Shrek.
To me, that just tells a story.
Ang is nine.
Totally.
Right, no, yeah.
And Shrek is just like...
I was direct target.
She's just like screaming into the stands.
Crack the bat, yeah.
Griffin is a fucking little freak, but he loves...
But you're in sixth grade.
You're in sixth grade.
You can go see a movie by... It's pre-9- sixth grade, you can go see a movie by,
you know,
you can probably go see a movie by yourself.
It is pre 9-11,
that's true.
We have to acknowledge that.
Yeah,
I probably just started seeing movies by myself.
You're thinking about it more critically though.
You're saying if you're seeing it three times,
that feels like you have the agency to go see it.
Because like,
what parent is going to be like,
yeah,
sure,
every night this weekend, let's do it. Can I, what parent is going to be like, yeah, sure, every night this weekend,
let's do it.
Can I speed round it for you?
Friday,
Romilly is what,
three or four?
We take her after school to go see Shrek.
Saturday,
there was a kid in my grade
named Max Shrek.
His birthday party was
let's all go see Shrek.
Oh, that poor child.
Max Shrek,
like from Nosferatu?
And from Batman Returns.
Wait, yeah,
Batman Returns,
his name is Max, right?
Yeah, no, but it's in homage to the character Nosferatu. Correct. His name was Max Shrek, like, from Nosferatu? And from Batman Returns. Wait, yeah, Batman Returns, his name is Max, right? Yeah, no, but it's in homage to the character Nosferatu.
Correct.
His name was Max Shrek.
Okay, okay, cool.
And he went all in on the Shrek franchise.
Crazy.
So we went to see—
I feel like you kind of have to.
Yeah, you gotta be.
You have to.
This better be good.
All credit to him.
You gotta be miserable.
He owned it.
He, like, took what could have become, like, a schoolyard taunt and was like, I'm buying
the merch.
Right. I'm painting myself green like I'm buying the merch.
I'm wearing the shirt.
I'm Shrek baby.
And then that Sunday I was so hot on it having seen it twice in two days
I said to my dad, Dad we gotta go see this Shrek thing.
This thing's phenomenal.
You're gonna love it. And my dad went Masterpiece.
I saw it on a bus.
Cool. Where was it going?
It was parked.
Ben was alone. was Ben's hometown
it had no wheels
it was like the bus and stranger things
there's a guy running on a treadmill
that's like hooked up to the power line
just to get the movie going
if he gets tired the movie kind of like goes like
if he just stops running.
It's just a toxic Avenger running on a train.
Oh boy, he's on a bus.
Yeah. Good times?
I mean, it was a good bus movie.
Yeah, great bus movie.
Is that the lowest category
of a movie? It's not even
a good plane movie, but you know what?
Good bus movie.
I just wanted to make it clear.
I'm going to let Ange do her stump speech for Shrek.
I just want to make it clear.
I have recorded a full two and a half hour podcast in which I am far more sympathetic to Shrek
and tried to be far more even-handed about it and explain my criticisms of it,
but also explain that I used to love it and that I recognize that I like a lot of dumb shit that most people have grown out of.
It is hilarious that we're talking like, you know, some political scandal.
We have to like equivocate our Shrek racism.
I was like, oh, I guess I kind of disagree.
And then like everyone blew up and then I like saw some responses and I was like, oh, actually, no, I think Shrek good.
They galvanized you.
I tweeted just like, oh, I'll defend it next time and it got like
a hundred. Everyone was like fight for
us Angela. So here it is
blankies. I'm going to unroll a scroll
as my
pros and cons list.
I did not prepare notes.
It would have been very Shrek-y of you though.
To have a scroll with like old timey
writing on it. And then you flush the outhouse.
So you guys point out. Alright here's the so you guys point out, so, all right, here's the thing.
You guys point out the outhouse is, like, immediately, like, farts and poop, like, down the road.
He also flushes it.
I can't wait to hear this counter-argument.
Yeah, okay.
She's putting all her chips on the outhouse?
Chips are in the middle of the table.
Well, my, okay, but the whole point of the movie is that Shrek,
the character,
Yes.
is so,
like,
just pushed
to the edges
of society
because of these
shitty fairy tales.
So when he
Sure.
is reading this book
of fairy tales,
he's like,
what a crock of shit.
Right.
Like, this is,
I'm an ogre,
I've been,
Right.
It's not just, this is propaganda for the fancy, nice looking shit. Like, this is. I'm an ogre. I've been. Right. It's not just.
This is propaganda for the fancy, nice looking people.
It's fucking propaganda.
No, I'm kind of into this take, actually.
Yeah, no, but no, but he's, it's not just like, oh, we're going to make like a toilet sound.
Like, you instantly understand the character of Shrek is, this is a monster who's like,
I am treated like absolute dog shit because of books like these.
And this is what I think of them.
I'm going to wipe my ass with it.
And then here we go.
My whole character is just like, I'm fine on my own.
And fuck all these fairy tales.
And then he gets pulled in and he has to face them head on.
And then he goes through this really progressive story where, you know, he learns to connect with other people even though they see him as a monster.
But they, like,
they cheer him on
when he's in the, like,
duelock when he's fighting.
The woman tells him to get the chair.
Yeah.
And then there's a fucking Joan Jett cue,
which is, like,
this is another point I like about the movie
is, like,
there's some really fucking great needle drops in Shrek.
I was big into the Shrek soundtrack.
Yeah.
We all were.
It had eels on it. I'm pretty sure I watched this on my birthday. So the thing about Shrek. I was big into the Shrek soundtrack. Yeah. We all were. It had eels on it.
I'm pretty sure
I watched this on my birthday.
So the thing about Shrek
is like,
it was like a big sleepover movie.
My beloved monster and me.
Yes, that one.
Of course.
I'm watching a clip,
I forgot about this
wrestling scene.
Yeah.
It was like a wrestling ring.
Yeah.
With bad reputation.
Look, Shrek 1 is
very funny.
The Duloc song
with the little doll sing. That's funny. I remember Trek 1 is... Very funny. The Duloc song with the little dolls sing.
That's funny.
I remember that.
Yeah.
I think.
Because they sing this little song and then they go like, keep off the grass, shine your
shoes, wipe your face.
Oh, face.
It's face.
And then when you're like nine, you're like, they were going to say ass and it's fucking
comedy gold.
Other point I would like to make.
Okay.
So this is...
So you're saying you answered the theater with a bag of comedy gold. Well point I would like to make, okay, so this is, that's like the main thing. So you're saying you actually did the theater
with a bag of comedy gold.
Well, I don't remember, yes.
I don't think I saw it in theaters,
but I probably watched it like a thousand times.
I remember like dancing on a couch with my friends
to like All-Star, whatever.
The problem with Shrek is,
I mean, this sounds very sweet.
Yeah, it sounds lovely.
But I think the issue is like Shrek,
Portrait of Childhood.
You guys have been like,
I think when you compare it to Spirited Away,
which is a beautiful masterpiece.
There's that.
And then there's the element of all star.
It's just a fucking meme now.
And people forget that there's actually a good plot.
But as the woman in the room, I wouldn't.
Yeah, here it comes.
She's playing a woman card.
It's life sized.
The woman card.
Wow.
She had to sort of go like.
Flip it over.
I mean, the first
notice is just like
you find out that
the dragon is a woman.
Yes.
And she's attracted
to a donkey,
which is fun.
But she's like a
powerful female character.
They have drunky babies.
They have drunky babies.
Which, like,
you don't even think
about when you're a kid.
You're just like,
yeah, fucking,
it's fun.
It's donkeys with wings.
And then, but I would like to. But the whole point of Fiona is
every princess movie I had seen up
until this point, it's all
perfectly flawless
Disney princesses with
flowing hair
and maybe the beauties.
Little Mermaid. Very worth making fun of this.
But yeah, Little Mermaid,
she's like, Daddy, I love him.
And you're like, you're 16, and you two have not spoken at all.
And you have Fiona.
Yeah, but she did see him playing the guitar on that boat, so.
I think it was a lute.
Or the drums or whatever it is.
It was a fucking lute.
Whatever he's doing.
But, like, Fiona is probably, like, the first female character I remember where her looks are not important.
And at the end of the movie
she's like oh god I'm ugly again
and he's like you're beautiful
to me it doesn't matter
it's like completely irrelevant
Ben has tears in his eyes
now here's my
counterpoint I remember in Shrek 2 there's a scene
where they have the gingerbread
man and he's like wearing a thong
and they mock him for wearing the thong they're like he like wearing a thong and they mock him for wearing the thong.
They're like, he's got a thong!
And I remember in the theater, right, and then
they do and they like snap it. That's Shrek 2.
It's a different conversation, David.
And I remember in the theater me being
like,
I can't be here.
That's not a counter argument.
You just don't like the thong joke
that doesn't take away the feminism
and the beautiful
love story
of really
really really
that's what they say
to each other
there's a fucking
Otis Redding in there
no I just
I think
I do think part of the
people turning up
like if Shrek was just Shrek
I think people would more
just you know
if that movie just existed
people would be like
Shrek
this is another thing the sequels obviously
people got a little
sick of the
right the Shrek
industrial complex
Shrek 2 is fine
there's the Katzenberg
thing of just like
milking every franchise
down to the bone
where it's like
every
like the fucking
4D attraction
5 holiday specials
and 4 sequels
and a spin off
like just so much
shit that devalues all of it.
My other thing is, yes, I want to make clear,
this is the one big retroactive correction I want to make clear.
When I was like, no one likes Shrek,
I wasn't saying it is impossible that one could like Shrek.
The thing for me was I felt like because of how prevalent
Shrek memes have become on the internet, I took that incorrectly as a sign that the kids who grew up with Shrek don't like Shrek.
Don't make fun of it now.
Sure, sure.
I was like this is the same phenomenon as B-movie where people are like how fucking weird is it that we liked this when we were kids.
But I think when you really dig into Shrek, I mean it it's like a nice... If you just focus on the story,
if you ignore all the memes...
If you look just at the first one,
there are...
When Donkey's like,
I'm blood!
Their winning point.
And then he realizes he can't see color anyway.
That's funny.
When you said,
milk it to the bone,
you gave me an idea.
Oh, of course I did.
What about bone remakes
where it'd be Shrek but bones now?
Everyone's like skeletons
and there's just a bone world.
Is this tracking for anybody?
Bone world, I kind of like.
You can kind of sell any studio in any kind
of world too. It's like, you know,
it's in the bone world and they're like, bone world?
Bone universe. We can cross shit over?
Wait a second, maybe this is my thing. Bone universe.
The universal logo spins and
turns into a rib cage.
Yeah.
Let's work backwards in this way.
But also the universal music is like someone banging on a skeleton.
Like skeleton sign of bone, you know?
We have to stop talking about Shrek.
We have to talk about Married to the Mob.
I thought Ben's idea was going to be bone milk.
Gross.
Interesting, though.
Married to the Mob.
Married to the Mob.
The last movie you would expect is the film someone makes before Silence of the Lambs.
Right?
I mean, like.
Silence of the Lambs, obviously, is coming up.
Masterpiece.
This film, also, I think, really fantastic, fantastic film. Yeah. Opening credits this film also, I think really fantastic.
Great film.
Yeah.
Opening credits are like,
you know,
married to the mob.
And then there's like bullets that like riddle the mob part and it all falls
down.
Don't forget.
Hey,
mom,
bow,
Italian.
We're right.
Like you could show them
that sliver
and people would be like
oh this is
is this offensive
I just remember my parents
not only is this bad
but
I remember my parents
telling me it was a great movie
when we like saw it on shelves
at the video store
and I was like
that looks so fucking goofy
the cover yeah
the cover's so goofy
the title
where she's sort of going like
she's got her
yeah
well then the right
no that's the poster.
The poster's better.
But then there's that cover where it's...
That looks like a very old school kind of like Madcap.
The cover is like her big face.
Well, that's the shitty DVD cover, the Photoshop.
The sort of Scooby-Doo.
But I'm saying the VHS cover, I think, was like that.
Probably that, right?
That poster.
And it just looks so broad.
And I was like, you take that seriously as a movie?
And they were like, yeah, it's great.
And it is sort of the fascinating juxtaposition of this movie
in that it is so goofy and so ridiculous
and so legitimately artful and insightful and intelligent in so many ways.
I guess you've got a lot of sort of mobby comics.
Because Prissy's Honor is a couple years before.
I guess that was sort of a mini trend in the 80s, right?
Like the kind of broader mafia comedy.
Yes.
This is the era of John Gotti and the mob being in the tabloids
and being these kind of cartoonish tabloid figures.
Right.
But this movie is so sort of unpretentious.
I mean, yes.
In a way that a song like like Crazy's Honor is like,
but there's like death. Yeah, because that's like a John
Houston movie, right? That's a little more, right.
There's something kind of incredible. I mean, this movie
mostly comes out of Demi being like, I need
a hit. I guess
so. Let's see. So he had made
something wild a couple years
earlier, right? And then he makes Swimming to Cambodia.
Yeah. And I guess something wild was not a big
hit. Yeah. And I think he felt the pressure of like, I need to make like a commercial crossover. Right, right, right? And then he makes Swimming to Cambodia. Yeah. And I guess Something Wild was not a big hit. Yeah. And I think he felt
the pressure of like,
I need to make like
a commercial crossover.
Right, right, right.
Like a big sort of
star-driven,
like broadly appealing comedy.
And the film is kind of
of a piece with
Something Wild.
I mean, these two films
feel connected
in sort of sensibility
and energy.
But it's almost like
he's putting that energy
onto like a much broader sort of cleaner hook.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's married to the mob.
She's married to the mob.
Isn't that a title?
What if you were married to the mob?
Interesting.
What if there is a wife who is in the mob?
There you go.
I mean, we're done here.
What if Glenn Close.
Remade married to the Mob now.
In The Wife 2.
This time she's married to the cucumber.
Oh, boy.
Was someone else supposed to be playing the Michelle Pfeiffer role?
I was looking at the IMDb if David wants to pull it up.
I thought they tried to get Tom Cruise for Matthew Modine, which is fucking funny.
That would be wild.
Modine is so perfect for this movie.
He is great.
He's a cornball.
Exactly.
He's that guy, right?
That kind of like middle America, like sort of, yes, sir, ma'am.
You know, like that kind of a guy.
The filmmakers did.
And there's something a little like off about him.
Right.
The filmmakers did six rewrites to convince Tom Cruise to play Mike.
Cruise opted for Cocktail instead.
I mean, Cocktail was a colossal hit,
so I guess, you know.
I can't really picture him in this.
No, it's weird to imagine.
Matthew Modine's good.
But Modine, okay,
Matthew Modine said he initially didn't think
that there was anything funny about the script.
He has also said that he was depressed
the entire time.
That I know.
Well, he's coming off of Full Metal Jacket.
Directly off of it.
Which is a really, I'm sure,
really brutal film experience.
Yeah, and it was like a 17-year shoot.
Right.
As all Kubrick movies were.
So he was probably, yeah, he was probably really in his head.
Emotionally broken.
And Demi's like, I'm going to the bar.
Hey, you know, you've got like socks in your bed and then you're, you know, there's like
suspenders.
You wake up like Pee Wee Herman.
Yeah, right.
You have a whole thing.
It's fun.
So we got, I want to talk about this. It is kind of fascinating how adjacent this feels to Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
Interesting.
Which is two years earlier and then this is the same year as Beetlejuice.
To think of these two Baldwin performances at the beginning of his career and then this film has a lot of actors that Burton goes on to use, like Oland Jones and Michelle Pfeiffer, obviously.
That's true.
But there's something in sort of sensibility and the wildness of it and everything.
This and Something Wild feel like they might have been part of the, you know, the stew of things that –
I mean, he's a contemporary.
You know, these films are happening at the same time that Burton is making his films.
And then there's After Hours, initially a Burton project, but also around now.
The sort of madcap Manhattan comedies.
These movies that feel very 1980s East Village.
Like, Married to the Mob looks like a Two Boots Pizzeria location.
Hell yeah.
You know, it has those aesthetics. I also love, like, she moved into a total shithole in the Lower East Side.
Like, imagine that shithole today.
Right, but yeah, that's what, I mean, I love old New York movies.
Yeah.
And 80s movies now count as very old New York.
Oh my God, I just watched Chud recently.
I fucking love it.
I know, those Chuds.
You gotta watch them.
It's so great.
They're still around.
They are.
Underground.
I, right, I first saw this movie, was at like a friend's house
we had like a family dinner
and then we just put on the TV
and this came on and my mom was like oh this is a good movie
I love Michelle Pfeiffer
and I was like what is this and then Baldwin shows up
right at the start
looking fun
this is kind of the movie that I think
David's doing it like oh sexy
chef kiss
but I feel like this was the movie where everyone went, oh, this guy's a movie star.
This guy could be in action here.
He's in it for five whole minutes.
Totally.
But he is so electric.
But you see that sexy, sexy butt.
He is so hot in it.
His butt's compelling most of the time.
Right.
I feel like this was the big supporting part that then put him on the map.
Because he's great in Beetlejuice, but Beetlejuice is a total outlier in his career.
It is.
And this year he's also in Working Girl, like in talk radio.
He's in a bunch of, this is his year.
This is the year when he's showing up everywhere.
A couple people from Working Girl.
And then two years from now you've got, yeah, well, John Cusack.
John Cusack.
And Melanie Griffith is in something wild.
Working Girl came out this year, yes.
But a couple years he's in Hunt for Red October.
Like a couple years Hollywood's like, yep.
You've got to be a leading man.
Yeah, handsome man.
More than just a cucumber.
For sure.
Well.
But it is the fact that this movie opens with him and he's kind of the fake out lead of the movie.
100%.
The first couple of scenes proceed as if he's the character you're going to be following.
Well, that's what's fun, too, is that it's this nice twist on like every mobster movie you've ever seen.
The wife is just so like, oh, what are you doing?
And then just like flushes away
drugs. That's right. 100%.
Only Demi would make a mob movie about women.
Yeah. I mean, not
only Demi, but you know what I mean? Like, it does feel that way.
And this is a film written by
the two guys who then went on to write
She-Devil. Yes. Which is like a
very, very broad kind of
Pretty wild to think that Meryl Streep made a comedy
with Roseanne. Yeah.
Like that that came out.
In which the two of them are fighting over Ed Begley Jr.
What?
The conflict of the movie is these two women cannot let go of Ed Begley Jr., Meryl Streep, and Roseanne.
That's bonkers.
But you're like in another universe.
I just looked up Ed Bigley Jr.
I did not know what he looked like.
Wow.
What a poster.
What a poster.
Yeah.
Good poster.
It looks like she's going to eat Meryl Streep, though.
Looks like she's going to eat the dog.
And we've talked about this, too, but the reviews of She-Devil are all like, well, we
finally found the one thing that Meryl Streep can't do, comedy.
Right.
They all were like, book closed, Meryl Streep isn't funny.
It became the book on her, right. Yeah. It was like, right, she can't be funny. She cannot be funny. Imagine. Right. They all were like book clothes. Meryl Streep isn't funny. It became the book on her. Right. Yeah. It was like
right. She can't be funny. She cannot be funny.
Imagine. Yeah.
But yes you imagine what
their script looked like
and you imagine
what Demi took from it and worked
with it. Right. Because these guys
let's say Barry Strugatz
sounds like a secondary character
from Goodfellas.
And Mark R. Burns.
She Devils are only other real big credit.
Right. Yeah, they never really.
Right, but you're like, this is a broad 80s comedy.
Orion, you know.
This is an Orion picture.
Gave Demi some freedom.
You got Michelle Pfeiffer.
The same year as Dangerous Liaisons came out this year as well.
So she's also becoming a huge star.
But she had been in The Witches of Eastwick the year before.
So she's, like, you know, and she's in Scarface.
She's in Grease, too.
Right?
I mean, she was, like, an up-and-comer.
She's the fucking best.
She really is.
I know every time.
We all love Michelle P.
We do.
Every time she comes up, I just feel like I'm at a loss for words other than to say
she's the best.
She's the best.
But I just feel like
she's constantly underrated
even for how much
people stan her.
Right.
It just feels like
she never kind of gets
the credit she deserves.
She's always very exciting
when you see her on screen.
Like, I was looking at her IMDb
and I totally forgot about Mother.
And, like, how...
I think we all forgot about Mother.
She's the MVP of Mother,
for sure.
But she's so chilling.
Like, every line she says, you're, like, fucking terrified.
She's great in Stardust.
I like Jennifer Lawrence, but Michelle kind of, like, boxes her out of that movie.
Yeah.
And she's one of those people who's just naturally very electric on camera, but she's also such an intelligent actor.
on camera, but she's also such an intelligent actor.
She is so canny about how she
sinks herself with the
tone of the movie around her and the material.
And she is one
of those weird examples of like,
and somehow she has made it
work, but she's like a character
actress in the body of a leading
lady. She approaches her
roles like a character actress, like a
supporting actor. She happens to
look like a movie star. And she
takes lead roles and makes them a lot more
sort of esoteric than most people would.
It doesn't feel like she ever
approaches any role with a protectiveness.
She's got a vulnerability. I feel like that's
why Fabulous Baker Boy, she's so great in that.
Batman Returns, obviously.
She's so wonderful in that. As Eddie Redmayne would say,
a certain fragility.
He might say two times in a regal first look.
I also really like her in One Fine Day.
I feel like you guys brought her up recently in that and just kind of like brush it off.
I love One Fine Day.
Oh, I did not brush off One Fine Day.
How dare you?
I would never brush off One Fine Day.
The great film.
The great film.
The great film.
Michael Hoffman's great One Fine Day.
That's the other thing.
Michelle Pfeiffer's so funny. She's such a like deft comedic actor to me it's just it's i am
sam that's where you're like i guess she did have no no yeah that's the year after what lies beneath
yeah after i am sam her career was like really weird tatters and she barely made movies and when
she did it felt like an odd choice that Right, it's that and then White Oleander
then it's like a bunch
of years off.
A bunch of years off
and then like,
you know,
like, you know,
she's in Stardust.
She's kind of funny.
She's in Hairspray.
I think she's very good in Stardust.
Yeah, she's good in Stardust.
I think she's very good in Hairspray.
But those are like,
you know,
it's kind of like,
do one thing.
Right.
You know.
Cherie doesn't exist.
Then it's like New Year's Eve.
I mean,
Dark Shadows,
she's really kind of lost in that one.
Do you know who she hooks up with in New Year's Eve? Oh, I she's really kind of lost in that one. Do you know who she hooks up with
in New Year's Eve? I don't fucking know.
Snack at her. Taylor Lautner. What?
You were so close.
She plays the mousy
lady at the office that no one's ever noticed.
She plays essentially Cillian Kyle 20 years later
if she hadn't become Catwoman. Oh god that's depressing.
I feel like she's a little bit back
now and maybe making a little more stuff.
She's in Mistress of Evil.
She is.
I mean, spoiler alert, she kind of is the Mistress of Evil.
Cool.
You know, Maleficent's not so bad.
Yeah.
She's all right.
Yeah.
Much like Shrek.
Not so bad.
Poorly, you know, she's being judged by her looks.
The opening of Maleficent.
She's got horns and she's got those, like, lemon juicer cheeks.
When you think about it, Maleficent is Shrek.
Can I spoil the opening scene
of Maleficent,
Mistress of Evil?
You saw it?
Yes.
Michelle Pfeiffer reads the book,
reads the script
for the first Maleficent
and then goes,
what a load of,
flushes an outhouse
and kicks the door open.
Yeah, that's what happens.
Did you actually see it?
No, I might go see it after this.
I thought you were serious for like a hot second.
Are you juggling Queen and Glory and Mistress of Evil?
I'm trying to decide which one.
It's a coin toss for me.
So, in Married to the Moth, Michelle plays Angela DeMarco.
She's married to Frank DeMarco, better known as the Cucumber,
possibly because he's cool, possibly because he has a giant rod,
who is sort of like a lieutenant
in the mob
he shoots a guy
on the train
he's a hit man
yeah
well we're not gonna brush over
what a fucking sequence
great sequence
first you got
e mambo
mambo
e mambo
mambo
italiano
e mambo
mambo first you got that.
Right.
Which plays every time I walk into a room.
You guys heard it.
Yes, of course.
Ben had to edit it out.
And then, yeah, it's on the Long Island Railroad or whatever.
It's on a commuter train.
But you open with him and what's his name?
The actor who Demi always uses who's so good.
Wait, which one do you mean?
Tommy.
The right hand man
with the weird sort of lazy eye.
Paul Lazar.
Yeah, right.
With the lazy eye.
Who's in...
Zons of Lambs.
Zons of Lambs and Barry.
Yeah, right, right.
I was also thinking
Charles Napier is another one
but he's the hairdresser.
He's so good.
For five seconds.
But so good.
But them on the track of the Long Island Railroad, the side of the track, talking about meals, right?
I always love it when a movie talks about a character before you meet them.
Like preloads on some, not like an expectation, but like
this is how the rest of the world views them.
And it's like, you immediately know
something about Angela, even though you
haven't solved it from the fact that
she said they weren't available for
dinner, and Baldwin's angry at that,
and the guy's already
like, yeah, that's a good dinner.
You missed a dinner.
What's her weird, like, sort of like skittishness around dinner you missed a dinner right that everyone's like what's her weird like sort of like
I go to the dinners
skittishness around
can't miss dinner
but then this fucking
this train murder sequence
it's good
is like
also they use like
a snoring sound effect
after they pull his head back
it's so good
who's snoring there
I don't know
I don't know
it's like the final air
leaving his body
yeah
I like the blood dripping
out of his eye personally
and the flickering red
as they're like
going through the tunnel.
It's so stylish
and it's like
that feels like
this little step
of like Sansa Lam's
coming through.
Like that sort of like
thriller muscle
he's got in.
And then
New Wave song
starts playing
and they like
dance off this song.
And then we cut
to the hair salon.
Yes.
Yeah. Angela got a hair cup
and she
but she's
she feels ennui
she feels malaise
yes
she's spiritually bereft
and all the other wives
she's part of a
system of murder
and graft
and the other wives
judge her because
they can tell
that she doesn't feel
comfortable
better than them
what you think
you're better than me
yeah
that's basically
right
she thinks our shit don't stink.
Exactly.
But you got Cusack,
you got Olan Jones,
you got the other actors I'm forgetting,
and then you got fucking Mercedes Rowe.
No, Nancy Travis is the one who gets murdered.
Oh, that's right, that's right.
Now, can we talk about the costumes?
Yes.
Holly Matwood.
Holly Matwood.
Young Colleen.
The looks that are on screen
are so amazing and just comforting to me as like someone who grew up in the 90s.
I remember these looks and I remember hairspray driven hairstyles.
It's just so cool.
Very big hair.
I don't think that this will come back around in the sense of fashion sort of is repeated, but maybe it will.
But man, was that a cool time.
There's a credit at the end that is hair designed by, which is so specific.
It's not hair styling.
Someone drawing a little cloud around Michelle Pfeiffer's head.
They've all got their own looks too.
But Ben, you don't need to tell me about the nostalgia you feel watching this movie.
This is a film that takes place late 80s, East Village,
and you're talking to downtown Griffey Nooms himself.
Oh, baby.
I'm in the pocket watching this movie.
Clinton and Rivington, that's where it is.
That's where her tenement is.
God, that is such an awful part of the city.
Currently, right now, it's –
Do you want to hate rich people?
Go there. It's just a bunch of rich, awful
people. Right.
But yes, this and Something Wild
are both so clearly
in that post-swingshift, post-stop
making sense, that's it. I'm
gonna have fun every movie I work on.
Post-swingshift, only with
the people he likes. Right. But also
this movie feels like fun.
Like, you're watching, like, a visualization of fun.
Bit bumbo.
But even when, like, heavy shit's happening, like, the costumes being that bright and the soundtrack choices.
Well, the motel is, like, the most fun.
And all their performances are so – you're like, right, why isn't the motel medieval themed?
Like, everything in this movie is kind of why not.
Why isn't there a piano player that starts playing Tony the Tiger as soon as he walks in?
Why doesn't Modine have, like, weird devices he uses to put on all of his clothing items?
That, but then also, right, just the, I mean, the fun it has.
Well, we're going to keep talking.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, right, this movie is just, like, infectiously fun.
But it doesn't feel showy in a weird way because it is so unpretentious.
To Modine's character, is that like the first or like – is that early eccentric detective kind of type character?
In a modern way.
I mean I feel like eccentric detectives at this point are like, you know, a lot more haunted or rumpled.
You know?
You got your Columbumbo's,
your alcoholics,
or your,
like,
they got a weird tank.
They don't join,
like,
acapella groups
when they're trying to spy on women.
The do-up thing.
Right.
I just fucking love that.
Yeah.
Just the joke of Modine
just singing sincerely
along with them
is so good.
It's so funny.
That's my favorite
of the million Modine disguises.
Right.
I mean,
that montage at the end where he sees him walk through the door over and over again
and different is fabulous.
Oh, so good.
Yes.
But yes, I mean, it's like the sort of like the Scooby-Doo-esque disguise of like Scooby-Doo
can put on a mustache and a chef's hat and the monster will be convinced that he's, you
know, like an Italian pizza maker.
The way everyone takes it at face value.
The like reveal. All the cops are absurd in this it at face value. The, like, reveal.
All the cops are absurd in this movie.
Absurd.
They growl at Tony.
They're like, oh, wait till Tony shows up.
And then they growl, and then there's no explanation for why they do that.
Demi being like, try this.
Yes.
And then it's funny.
And he's like, we're just going to do it.
We're just going to put that in the movie.
And you've got a bunch of.
Platt and Modine.
You have a bunch of actors who are at the early stages of their career,
having done enough that they're starting to feel comfortable,
but not big enough that they have anything to lose,
letting go, and he's just encouraging all of them to have fun in everything.
Really playing in this.
And then you have Michelle, who is such a beating heart.
She's so raw and she's so lovable.
You're on her fucking side.
Baldwin comes home.
Yeah.
And she's sort of in the midst of what has clearly been a years long sort of slow breakdown about like this whole fucking life is gross to me.
And he sort of.
Everything fell off the truck.
Right.
The house.
He's got a gun in a drawer.
That's such a.
But like plastic on the furniture,
marble columns.
And then when Tony gives her the table with the crazy swans.
Like brass.
Yeah, like glass.
It's so cheesy.
Real classy.
That must have been such a fun movie to design.
Set design, oh my God.
To go to those stores and buy that.
What's the tackiest piece of furniture you have?
It's nice to watch a mob movie
where no one is genuinely stylish.
Other than Baldwin, arguably.
Stockwell in the white
suit with the hat, he's got a look.
He's got a look.
Like the Miami look.
He's rolling around at the airport.
Stockwell's popping a little bit.
We're like Team Popwell.
Pop very well. Stockwell's popping a little bit. But he's got some... We're like Dean Popwell. Oh, boy. Pop very well.
Stockwell's also
a very interesting career
because he was a child star.
Yes.
And like...
He was a little cutie patootie.
There he is.
There's a little Dean.
He was like a big, big child star.
And his biggest sort of like credit
in a way was
The Boy with the Green Hair.
Right.
Which was this very early
counterculture film.
Like a 1950s RKO,
almost on its face issues drama,
but that is about a boy who wakes up one day
and his hair is bright green
and everyone in town starts treating him like a pariah
and he can't figure out how to reverse it.
What a weird plot.
It's a very weird plot.
That's the whole premise?
It's a fear of the other movie.
Well, yeah.
But.
Of course, later he would become society's biggest.
For the prince of crime.
Well, of course.
And of course that bit is retired.
I am the young Jared Leto.
Oh, so sorry.
Retired bit.
But.
But it was a film that got sort of like reclaimed in punk culture.
Like on TV and VHS in the 70s
and 80s
as like
this fun kind of
proto-punk thing
because it is about
like
at a time where
then dyed hair
became cool
for sure
for sure
for sure
and then like
he becomes
I don't know
like a real
like junkie
supporting actor
for a long time
and fucking
quantum leap
well then he gets
quantum leap
but he has like
a full like
15 years
where he's like
he'll be in anything yes and he's talked about it But he has like a full like 15 years where he's like, he'll be in anything.
Yes.
And he's talked about it.
I think he's done it.
He's in like a Robert Forster kind of like zone.
100%.
Right.
But then it's like David Lynch reclaims him.
I mean, he's incredible in Blue Velvet.
Yes.
That's an incredible performance.
So he's the guy singing in Blue Velvet with the makeup.
Oh, man.
Is that the most amazing performance?
And that's kind of the first time someone like...
Well, he's in Dune first.
He's Dr. Ewan.
But Lynch was the first guy to really kind of like reclaim him in a postmodern way.
He's also in Paris, Texas, which he's very good in.
Oh, I forgot.
Of course, he's so fucking good.
So good in that.
And then I forget when Quantum Leap begins, 89.
So it's the year after this.
He gets the Oscar nomination for this.
Yeah.
Which is,
I mean,
this is the year that he's also in Tucker,
uh,
the man in the stream playing Howard Hughes,
which he got a bunch of critics awards for as well.
So he was just,
he had like a really hot year.
Yeah.
And so I guess the Oscar nomination is one of those,
like what a year you've had.
You're an actor.
We all know kind of,
but he's good in this movie,
but it's kind of a surprising nomination.
Kind of.
He's not that broad.
He's not that silly.
He's good.
But it's a pretty great performance.
I agree.
He's just fucking good.
Mercedes Ruhle is more the sort of big, broad performance.
But she got a bunch of critics' noms, and it's kind of surprising she didn't get the nomination for this.
Yeah, I wonder what the story is.
And to some degree, it feels like her winning for The Fisher King is like,
well, she's been good for so long.
She's good in everything.
Right, and in retrospect, kind of a weird win.
Right.
She's good at that.
She's very good at that.
I mean, she's a very good actor.
She's very good in Hustlers.
She is. But it is weird that she wins for The Fisher King,
a film which otherwise is not much of an Oscar player,
and then pretty much retires from acting.
She does.
The 88 supporting actress lineup is insanely stacked.
So does Pfeiffer get in?
Pfeiffer.
Right.
For Dangerous Liaisons.
Yeah.
Joan Cusack and Sigourney Weaver for Working Girl.
Two great performances.
Right.
And everyone thought Weaver would win.
Yeah.
But she didn't.
Frances McDormand for Mississippi Burning.
Because this is the same Gorillas of the Mist year.
And then, I was nodding.
And then Gina Davis who wins for The Accidental Tourist. Which was sort of
a surprise. Right. Everyone thought Weaver would win.
But I think she split the vote.
It is crazy that Sigourney Weaver has not
been nominated in 30 years.
Does she have an award? No.
She's one of the big
still hasn't won. Right. She gets
nominated three times in the 80s
including twice in this one year.
Right.
And everyone's like,
well,
it's a matter of time.
It's gotta happen
and then it just,
yeah.
And then she never
gets nominated again.
Yeah,
she struggled to
find,
I feel like,
that sort of Oscar-y role,
right?
Like,
you know what I mean?
Galaxy Quest.
Huh?
Galaxy Quest.
She fucking rules
in Galaxy Quest.
I'll tell you that much.
Well,
we disagree.
I think she should've been
nominated for the Ice Storm.
Sure, she's not my favorite from that one, but she's good. She's not my favorite either, but I think she should have been nominated for the Ice Storm. Sure, she's not my favorite from that one,
but she's good. She's not my favorite either, but I think she should
have been nominated. She's good.
She's good in everything. She's good in everything.
Dave, she rules in Dave. Oh, she rules in Dave.
Love Dave. Have you seen Dave?
I'm looking at Dave. Well, you are looking at Dave.
You're looking at Big Dave.
Big Dave, which my history teacher used to call me.
No, but...
Have you seen Dave, Ben?
No.
You know, Kevin – the president, he gets – he has a stroke or whatever.
And so they get a guy who looks exactly like him to pretend to be him.
But he's nice, whereas the president was mean, both played by Kevin Kline.
And they don't want him to say anything.
They want to just use him as like a public face while like Franklin Gala –
And he starts taking over the country.
He realizes he's got the power of the platform,
the microphone.
Even if his cabinet doesn't listen to him
because they know he's a phony,
he can get out in front of the public
and say shit.
He can just tweet,
and people will believe what happens.
Let me say this.
To the James Newton Howard score for Dave,
slaps.
Those slaps.
Listen to it all the time.
For a second,
I thought you guys were talking about Meat Dave.
No, but that soundtrack also slaps. Oh soundtrack also slaps What's on Meat Dave?
Okay can we play this game?
I want to guess who did the score for Meat Dave
I got it down to two guesses
If you get this I'll be astonished
Is it David Newman?
No
Is it John Debney?
Yes
I knew it was one of the two.
You are a weird guy.
I'm disappointed I picked the wrong one first.
It's still 9-1-1.
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
Now, can you tell me, John?
The lizard home David actually took out his phone and looked at it.
The cops are outside.
They're banging on the door.
For a bonus, you know, 10 years in jail, can you tell me the only Oscar nomination in John
Debney's career?
The only nomination in Debney's career.
That's a great question.
It is.
It is.
Can you give me the year?
Is that too much of a hint?
2004, I think.
2004.
The movie.
The movie came out in 2004.
Wow.
I forgot Debney got a nom.
He did get a nom.
So 2004, you have.
Big hit movie.
Was it live action?
Yes, very much so.
And was it an Oscar play or otherwise?
Three tech nods. Three tech nods.
Three tech nods.
Makeup, music, cinematography.
Well, it's not a series of unfortunate events.
No.
Is it based on a true story?
Well, it's in dispute, but some would say.
It is.
It's based on a true story.
Did they say that?
They should.
Inspired by true events.
It's in dispute?
No, I mean, like, it's, I mean, there is, this certainly happened in history.
A lot of the sort of periphery around it is in dispute.
iRobot?
It's a matter of debate, I guess.
Oh, boy.
iRobot is a wild guess for that movie.
It was the first movie that came up when I looked up 2004 movies. 2004 in film, of course we all know iRobot is a wild guess for that movie. It was the first movie that came up when I looked up 2004 movies.
2004 in film.
Of course, we all know iRobot.
2004.
Passion of the Christ.
We got it.
She just said it.
She just said it.
Wow.
She said it.
Passion of the Christ.
I'm guessing.
I'm sorry, Griffin.
I wanted to let you have that.
I would never have remembered that he did the score for that.
Why would you?
Because he's mostly a mid-level studio comedy guy.
I think of him as a Disney guy, like a real B-list Disney guy.
That's why I knew he was probably the meet Dave guy, because it's like, you got a limited
budget and broad yucks, and a comedy star who's like 10 years past being edgy?
Hire Debney.
Yeah, crazy.
Anyway, that was a fun digression.
Beautiful digression.
Thank you, Griffin, for asking.
I feel like Passion of the Christ was on a box office game.
We'll criticize it and everyone will get mad at us again, probably.
I don't know.
Shrek's better than Passion of the Christ.
Shrek's better than Jesus, as we all know.
I think that's a true joke.
Sort of like a galaxy brain.
Shrek 2001 is better than the past.
Shrek is better than Jesus.
It is a crazy stat that now everyone's...
I mean, we're recording this in October.
Yes, that's true.
Coming out in January.
But everyone's talking now about the fact that a retired bit
just beat
Deadpool
for the highest
R-rated.
Yes.
The highest R-rated worldwide,
I believe.
Because domestic,
it is still
Passion of the Christ
and is unlikely
to be toppled
any time soon.
Yeah, right.
I mean, they really
planted that cross firm.
I know. That was offensive. I mean, they really planted that cross firm. I know.
That was offensive.
I'm sorry to Jesus.
Jesus Christ.
Okay.
Married to the mob.
Not sorry to Mel Gibson, though.
Take that.
Ange is uncomfortable
with her lifestyle.
Angella.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ange is uncomfortable
with this podcast episode.
You're comfortable
with your lifestyle.
Don't you think so?
What? You're comfortable with your lifestyle don't you think so? what?
you're comfortable
with your lifestyle
yeah it's fine
you're doing fine
but this episode
mildly uncomfortable
no it's fine
more Jesus jokes
I can take it
yeah okay
so Angie
yes
Roman Catholic
Italian
she feels
you know
she knows it's bad
she knows it's bad
there's the scene
where the kid
casually gets the gun
out of the drawer
that's not great
he's playing
three card Monty
with
I assume that's Tony's kid, right?
The sort of boss kid.
Tony Jr.
And there's that joke, Alec Baldwin, who barely has any line readings in this movie,
just nails when he's like, how much do you make?
And he's like, 12 bucks.
He's like, not bad.
I think he's a pretty good schoolboy.
Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
Yeah.
It's funny.
Yeah.
He looks unbelievable.
Baldwin?
Yeah, his face.
Because he needs that dirt bag thing
Now that's what you say about Beetlejuice is true
That's a total outlier
Right
Or none of that's present
And he's incredible
Yes
But like classic Baldwin
Right
You need to be like
Oh yeah this guy's kind of a douche bag
Right
It is weird for how much
He is so fundamentally Irish
How well he plays Italian
Oh yeah
Yeah
And how well he looks the part
100%
Yeah
But I mean that's another thing That's sort of funny Is like I can't imagine Dean Stockwell's Italian well he plays Italian. Oh yeah. Yeah. And how well he looks the part. A hundred percent. Yeah.
But I mean,
that's another thing that's sort of funny is like,
I can't imagine Dean Stockwell's Italian.
No,
absolutely not.
He's like a Hollywood guy.
Right.
He's from,
yeah.
Uh,
I,
Mercedes rule,
uh,
is very New York.
Yes.
But she's like, uh,
German and Irish.
I think that she's got,
she's not Jewish.
No,
she's not Jewish.
Wow.
There are no Italians in this movie.
This is what I'm saying.
Right?
Isn't that nuts?
And you compare it to like...
I'm offended.
When we saw Goodfellas recently,
it's kind of crazy watching Goodfellas on a big screen
and in almost every single scene,
there's someone in the background
who at least had a five-episode arc on Sopranos.
Yes.
Like you're like all of the Sopranos cast.
Mickey Blue Eyes is the one where actually
it has the same cast as the Sopranos.
They basically just made them in tandem.
Right.
And in this, it's like, who do you get to play the old sort of patriarch of the mafia?
Oh, Grandpa Munster.
Yeah, right.
Fred Gwynn, right.
Not Fred Gwynn.
Al, right.
Yeah, sorry.
Fred Gwynn is in, he's in another dead movie.
My Cousin Vinny.
Vinny.
My Cousin Vinny is the judge.
No, he's in another movie, though.
Fuck.
I have to look it up.
But no Italians in the movie.
Right.
The film has very few Italians.
Michelle Pfeiffer is not Italian.
No.
Joan Cusack is not Italian.
No.
None of these sound like Italian names.
She's a Chicago girl.
Yeah.
I think she's Chicago Irish.
Yeah.
So I guess it's zero for zero.
Right.
Yeah.
Or zero for ten or whatever.
Yeah.
I mean, it's funny how much he is like
simultaneously having everyone play like very broad stereotypes and also kind of avoiding them
right you know oh you know what no it was fatal attraction i just watched fatal attraction which
he's in bizarrely he's like michael douglas's boss i was like oh I don't know about this. He didn't play the rabbit? A little too tall.
Shouldn't murder me.
So pretty quickly, things go south.
You've got the big sequence at the motel slash medieval times.
The weirdest.
Slash mistress fuck palace.
Like, what is that? But this is this movie's entire philosophy.
It's like, why not?
Why not make everything as interesting as it could possibly be?
Can I point out, actually?
So, like, on the bed, I think you only see it in the end credit scene.
It's like the play on Vinny, Vinny, Vici.
It's like, I came, I saw, I conquered.
And then on the bed, it just says, Vinny, Vinny, Vinny.
So it's just, I came, I came, I came.
Wow.
That's fun.
That's funny.
That's fucking fun.
That's good decor sex humor.
A little bit. A little bit.
And you got
the introduction of the tiger
in his white suit.
Which Gary Goatsman does an impromptu song
or maybe the song he demands a song
every time he walks in. No phony baloney.
He tips him now.
Tony tips him.
And then you got Nancy Travis
who dies immediately. Gets fucked. Ben the tiger. Yeah. Tony tips him. And then you got Nancy Travis.
Who dies immediately.
Gets fucked.
Then gets fucked.
Correct.
Right.
Kind of.
I mean, you know, I get it.
Being an actor is weird and hard, but it is one of those weird things to in perspective go like this movie comes out a year after three men and a baby is the highest grossing
film of its year.
Right.
And Nancy Travis is in this movie essentially to take her top off and get shot in the head.
But like they probably made it before.
Probably.
That's the answer.
Because that movie came out like.
Three Men and a Baby came out like seven months earlier or whatever.
Right.
Oh, it was end of the year?
Yeah.
It was a Thanksgiving film.
She filmed them back to back.
Yeah.
And that was her first role.
Yeah.
That's her first screenplay.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
And she's such a big part in that.
And that movie makes all of the money. It did. Yeah. And it was directed by Leonard Nimoy. Yeah. That's her first screenplay. That's crazy. Yeah. And she's such a big part in that and that movie makes all of the
money.
It did.
Yeah.
And it was directed
by Leonard Nimoy.
Yeah.
So but yeah I mean
it's a brutal it's
brutal.
Yeah.
Stockwell's killing
Baldwin in cold blood.
Well that's the.
I loved you like a
father.
The demi tonal balance
thing.
You disappointed the
shit out of me.
The demi tonal balance
thing is that he's able to have
like real stakes
in this movie
like violence
that is upsetting
without it being gory
right
you know where there's
no blood
there's no emotional intensity
there's no sort of like
trickle or whatever
that's about it
there's an emotional intensity
to every shooting
in this film
yes
so it doesn't feel flippant
in a movie that
is so flippant
about other things
but it is also still
like
all of it is still somewhat comedic.
Totally.
But that's like –
Never like let's go of that sort of rope.
It's the weird element of this movie kind of being perfect training for Sons of the Lambs because Sons of the Lambs, he just has learned all the muscles of how to like control that dial so specifically even if it's in different directions.
They are right next to each other, so it's, you know.
It's so weird, yeah.
Matthew Modine felt there wasn't anything funny about the script.
He said that there's, oh, Oliver Platt's debut.
This is the first Platypants.
He's really good in it.
He is good.
The platypus?
Yeah, the platypus himself.
I like in the end when all the cops are in their bathing suits.
Yeah.
I like all that.
Maybe I'm a sucker for that.
I love that joke
where it's like
you've cut to a new scene
and then there they are
and they're in their
bellhop uniform this time.
I always think that's funny.
And that everyone
always buys it.
They always like
fully integrate themselves
into the environment.
At one point,
he's like,
he's like working
on the plane too.
Yes, right.
Yes.
He offers her the drink.
Right. Like, it's almost like he can't help Yes. He offers her the drink. Right.
It's almost like
he can't help himself.
He doesn't even need to
sometimes,
but he can't help himself.
He's always got
the spare uniform.
What are you looking up?
The other actor
I want to talk about
in the supporting cast here
because after I watched
this movie
and I couldn't fall asleep,
I was looking
for another comedy
to watch
to calm down
my brain on Hulu. Your brain was on Hulu calm down my brain on Hulu.
Your brain was on Hulu?
My brain was on Hulu,
so I switched over to Netflix.
No, I was on Hulu looking for another comedy
with a temperament that might calm me down.
And I watched Bull Durham,
which I'd never seen before.
You'd never seen Bull Durham?
Kind of a crazy blind spot for me.
I guess the sports had maybe kept you out of that one.
I think so. Sure.
But that's barely a sports movie. That's a fucking great
sex movie. But it also is so much about
baseball and is one of the few movies that makes me
appreciate baseball. That movie has a
romanticism for baseball that, like Moneyball,
makes me go, wait, do I love baseball?
But that's the thing about baseball. It's so good for
movies. It's so good for movies.
League of Their Own. League of Their Own. Yeah.
Dead Masterpiece own Field of Dreams
you got The Natural
Eight Men Out
Bull Durham
Space Jam
Major League makes Ben cry
let's go fucking win the thing
that gets me going
most of these movies are in the 80s
the 80s were just incredible for baseball
dramas, comedies, fantasies
period, modern
the generation lines up perfectly
like all those filmmakers
had grown up with baseball
like you know
as like the sport
you know
before America
had many sports
that it cared about
and there
yes there is something
so fundamentally about
American about baseball
it was really like
baseball
it was baseball
and then like in the 50s
and 60s people
it's like oh
what about basketball and football?
We could think about these.
And people were like, oh, right.
Oh, sure.
Okay.
Newfangled.
He puts the ball in the hoop.
Crazy.
And then hockey.
Then he got hockey.
Trey Wilson.
Now it's UFC.
Yeah, right.
Feel the punches.
Now it's just filmed murder.
America's favorite sport.
Now it's just filmed murder.
America's favorite sport.
The reason I'm bringing this up is that Trey Wilson,
who has a fascinating character actor career,
his first credit is in 1976.
He dies in 1989.
Okay.
At the age of 40.
Okay.
He plays the...
Why am I fucking blanking on his character position here?
He's like the chief in this.
Regional director Franklin.
He also plays the manager of the team in Bull Durham.
Yeah, you skip.
He is also Nathan Arizona in Raising Arizona.
Right, right.
He has this incredible run for a couple years there, which he dies right at the end of.
He dies a year after this film at the age of 40.
He's also in Twins and Great Balls of Fire.
He dies of a cerebral hemorrhage.
And if I had to define what made him interesting as an actor, it's that he always looked like he was about to have a cerebral hemorrhage.
He's always playing these guys who are right at their wits end, like, I'm going to fucking fire you.
He does not look like a good 40
in this movie. No, no. He's 40
years old and he always looks like he's about to
pop a vein. Yeah.
And his brain explodes a year later.
Jesus Christ. I'm not trying to be grim about it
but it's kind of a fascinating career and he was
like a beautiful character
actor type. Yes. I love him.
Love that guy. Yes.
What? Two scenes in this? How many scenes in this? A couple. Yeah. He. I love him. Love that guy. Yes. What?
Two scenes in this?
How many scenes in this?
Couple.
Yeah.
He's got a couple.
He's got a couple.
Is he the one who says the line?
Yes.
He says the killer line.
Yes.
And then also the racist as fuck line right before it.
Oh, you mean the immigration thing?
Yeah.
Yes.
It's so bad.
But that lets you know that this guy's the bad guy.
Right.
I mean.
Not to defend it, but like he's sort of. 100%. That's the bad guy right I mean not to defend it
but like he's sort of
100%
that's the idea
these guys are fucking creeps
like
one thing I love about this movie
Modine's no
like
Modine's a nerd
yes
he's not particularly a hero
he's so flabbergasted
you're not really rooting
for them to win
I don't give a shit
I guess I
I mean
Stockwell's bad
you don't want him to hurt
Angela
right
you want Angela
to be okay
but this is not a movie
about like the cops
taking down the mob
but you get the idea
that like everyone's
kind of fucking her over
no matter what
she meets this nice guy
in the elevator
and it turns out
she's the victim
of the patriarchy
yes
right
he's trying to pin her
so they can get to Tony
they're two authoritarian
systems like run by men
right
and like the second
that hurt women
the second Tony
pops the cucumber
sure
he's like at the funeral he's like okay great Tony pops the cucumber. Sure. He's like at her
at the funeral he's like okay great and he like
basically just grabs her to make out with her.
Exactly. But that's also like. You're mine now.
The weird power of and
who knows how much this was intentional on Demi's
part but casting like a floppy
haired golden retriever of a man
who also was in
the grips of
Q-Bert PTSD and depression
means you have a guy who's trying to do
the goofiest, most charming performance in the world
where there's something weirdly haunted about him.
He's weird.
He's not playing that at all,
but it's just innate in his bloodstream at this point.
I'm such a sucker for a good Modine.
What else do I like?
What are some other good Modines?
I mean, I like, you know,
and the band played on. I haven't seen that in a long time. I'm trying to think of other good Modines, though. What else do I like? What are some other good Modines? I mean, I like, you know, and the band played on.
I haven't seen that in a long time.
I'm trying to think of other good Modines, though.
What was he in recently?
I mean, recently he was in Stranger Things, which kind of like brought him back after he popped up in the Dark Knight Rises.
Oh, he's in that pirate movie.
Cut the Rhode Island?
Yes.
I watched that many times as a child.
Interesting.
He was like a weird family favorite.
many times as a child and he ran
interesting
he was like a weird
family favorite
he ran for president
of Screen Actors Guild
and
made like a joke
about
they said
why are you the most
qualified for this job
and he said
because I'm the only man
on this stage
Maddie
what the hell
yep
and then he went like
what you can't joke
about things these days
and then
yeah but come on
look at his Wikipedia
profile picture I mean that's a good photo.
It's got a bandana.
It's got a bandana and a jean jacket.
Yeah, that's all, man.
It's a choice.
Yeah.
So she's in trouble because Tony's putting the moves on her.
Yes.
The wives don't like her.
Modine's already sick.
Her husband's dead.
He gets the photos.
And Modine, I love that he's so shitty about this, but then he goes to his boss and he's like judging Pfeiffer.
Yeah, they're like, who's the bimbo?
He's like, this tramp already.
She's already moving up the ladder.
Right.
Right.
This hussy is our key.
We're going to use her as bait to get Mercedes' role to flip on Tony.
Right.
Yeah.
Mercedes' role.
She's scary.
When she.
Well, she's the only person
that makes Tony
sweat
which is great
but oh the eggs
why don't you get a leash
it's in aisle 5
that's a good line
it's such a good line
the flea collar
she says I'll get a flea collar
they're trying to do
as much grocery store
insults as they can
but I love the like
targeting of the women
they each
ram into her
in the aisle
they're terrifying
so she
packs up her shit
in a little U-Haul
and gets the fuck
out of there
donates her entire
house to Goodwill
I love that it's not just
she goes to Goodwill
like take everything
out of here
but she goes
the house is yours too
right
and moves to a tenement
in the Lower East Side
with a bathtub
in the kitchen
with her kid
who kind of vanishes
from the movie
after that.
She basically just puts him in school.
No longer a concern. Puts him in a hole.
She goes to Miami. I'm like,
do they explain to us watching the kid here?
They do. They show the hairdresser.
It's a throwaway.
They wave out the window for two
whole seconds.
And the hairdresser does not get deported.
That's another thing this film is about,
which is like, the mob,
the FBI, and the mob wives
are all similar
forces in her life.
Controlling. Controlling,
asking her to behave more like them, or how they want
her to behave. And when
Modine is doing that thing, it's sort of
reading from her file, and he's like,
yeah, she went to Bayside High
one semester at beauty school.
College education,
none.
She's a moron.
He is saying it cruelly,
but also you're like,
right,
she just got like
sucked into this.
She had a kid
and then she's just stuck.
Right.
It's a sympathetic list.
It's like every mob wife
if you watch Goodfellas
is exactly what happens to her.
That scene in Goodfellas
where Lorraine Bracco,
I mean,
one thing I love about Goodfellas
is that Lorraine Bracco will just take over the narration for a while.
Yeah, yeah.
She's just like, these women are ugly.
They look terrible.
They don't talk about anything.
And I'm supposed to hang out with them?
Like, this is all I can do?
Right.
I love that so much.
She just comes back to like, oh, my husband's so sexy, though, so here I am.
She talks just like that. oh my husband's so sexy though so here I am. But this larger thing that the movie
is about which is like it is so
difficult to change one's life.
It is so difficult
to remake yourself. And she
is in like a particularly extreme example because
of these three larger forces that are constantly
circling her. She's married to the mom.
And that's a little bit of a spoiler.
But that is. It's like
I feel like that's where Demi's sort of like real empathy for the character comes through.
And that's just like it's tough for anyone.
Right.
So she moves to the lower east side.
Well, this is what I was going to say.
Yes.
She's married to the mob.
She's married to the mob and that's a spoiler.
Mambo Italian.
Mambo Italian.
Mambo.
Mambo.
Mambo.
Mambo.
Mambo.
Mambo.
Mambo. Mambo Italian. Mambo Italian. E mambo, mambo Italiano. E mambo, mambo Italiano.
But in a certain way, it feels like this is the story of a girl getting out of college
and moving to the city and trying to make it on her own.
Except this is someone who has already lived another life full of regret.
And she's trying to reset, rebuild.
And she's got these larger forces circling her.
set, rebuild, and she's got these larger forces circling her.
But there's a real sort of
innocent earnestness to her
want
of something. She wants to go straight, too.
Yes. She really wants to really
earn money. What she's saying to the kid,
she's like, we're going to have a life we're going to be proud of.
One of my favorite moments, too,
is when she's job hunting and she has no
luck, and then she sees the
guy playing with spoons.
The spoons.
And like you know they're broke.
I love all this.
I love a spoon man.
Oh boy.
Shout out to Mike Mitchell.
No but no.
She dropped
but she's broke.
They live in a crappy apartment
and she throws money in
and then that's the guy
who's like oh
this place is hiring next door
and obviously it turns out
to be a nightmare
which like same
my first restaurant job
was a nightmare.
How do we feel about the peep bit in general?
You are the peeper.
I am the peeper.
We haven't acknowledged it in a couple episodes, but you are the peeper.
You are the peeper.
I am the peeper.
I got that nickname.
You have a chicken frame in your home.
What's that?
You're a meat lover too.
Yes.
Yes.
And he has a chicken frame.
No, I'm saying Ben is, but then you were saying he has a chicken frame no I'm saying Ben is but then you were saying
he has a chicken frame
I was like oh yeah
Ben's house right
when I pig sat
when I cat sit for pig
you have like that big
painting of a chicken
yes
with an eye hole
yes
so you have
you have a pig peep
you're a meat lover
and a peeper
I am
he peeps into his own home
he peeps into his kitchen
though he just wants to see
what's for breakfast
right
no
yeah
no no
there's good peeping
and bad peeping
and this is
bad peeping
this one goes in the
bad peeping category
but I do think
the aesthetic
of
the eye hole
in a painting
is kind of funny
right because
it's such a classic
against Scooby Doo
kind of thing
like
yeah but I also get it's such a classic against Scooby-Doo. Yeah.
But I also get, it's these shots that remind me very much
of Silence of the Lambs, of the
like, leering kind of
gazes. It's fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tracy Walter, another demi-regular.
Yes. And also another
retired bit regular.
Sure. Right-hand man
of the retired bit.
Well, I don't.
We can say he's Bob the Goon.
Yes, he's Bob the Goon.
Bob the Goon is not retired.
No, he's not retired.
How long until Warner Brothers makes a Bob the Goon project?
I'm all for it.
Let's do it.
Come on.
Who's a good Bob the Goon these days?
Who's this generation's Tracy Walter?
It might be Tracy Walter still.
Bring him back. Yeah. It's like a Nick Offerman type. Yeah. That's this generation's Tracy Walter? It might be Tracy Walter still. Just bring him back. Yeah.
It's like a Nick Offerman type, right?
That's this generation's Tracy Walter.
Yeah. But he's peeping.
It's a bad peep.
Well, that whole scene is so...
That whole sequence. The whole job. And I love all that
New York, you know, color and care.
And just the idea.
There's going to be a guy doing spoons on a corner
who will know something.
Everything's fun. that's where you have
Matthew Modine
doing the doo-wop
sure
which is like a lovely
delayed joke
I filmed it on my phone
because I love it so much
and then he's in
he's like basically
he's in Chicken Lickin
but wait she throws
a milkshake
and then he turns
to his head
there's kind of some
like yeah
the one job
if I were ever
to be in a movie, the one job I would
want is the woman who's just
like, you tell them, girl!
Yeah! You get them.
It was great. You mess with our city,
you mess with all of us, Green Goblin.
Yes.
Chicken, look at Green Goblin.
I love the uniform.
I love the uniform. Dirtbag.
Her weird captains.
I'm a sucker for epaulette.
Epaulette, that's what I'm like.
It's so weirdly formal.
Yes.
I love all the sort of theater he does of trying to sell her on the idea that no one's looking.
He like oversells her.
I will close the lock the door.
Yes, curtain for your privacy
madam
but then the fact
that she just like
he's like well give me
the uniform bag
and she's like fuck you
and then spends the next
20 minutes wearing
just this
like weird
captain's
captain's jacket
over a bra
yep
she works it
she's Michelle Pfeiffer
she's fucking Pfeiffer
there's a thing the podcast that I guys talk about a lot.
It's not unique to them, but it's something I'd never heard of before them, and now I think about a lot,
which is this principle with theme parks of kinetic energy,
that the thing that separates like a Six Flags where we went.
Are we talking about MCU movies right now?
No.
Sorry, I wasn't paying attention.
No, we went to Six Flags.
I do.
Great adventure. Wow, what a thing. It was a. No, we went to Six Flags. I do. Great adventure.
What a thing.
I actually like Six Flags better than Disneyland.
That seems like a scorching hot take.
I've never been to Disneyland.
You kind of ruined the exact thing I was about to say.
I'm sorry, Griffin.
Finish what you were saying.
You went to Galaxy's Edge.
The second thing I spoiled for you.
You went to Galaxy's Edge recently.
Yes, I did.
Oh, you did.
That's right.
You're the only Galaxy's Edger.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're on the edge.
I was edging.
You've edged.
You've gone straight edge.
Did you enjoy it?
Galaxy's Edge was fun.
I just...
It's so funny.
I felt like David in Six Flags.
Wow.
Have you ever been before?
Well, I had to...
I've never been to Disneyland.
I've been to Disney World.
I have not been to Disney World since I was 18.
David is taking out.
I'm opening some Haribo.
Sour Haribo with real intensity.
So the thing about Disney is, well, because Star Galaxy's Edge is still pretty brand new,
you have to book things that you want to do.
So what we did.
You have a set window.
It's a little involved.
Right.
And I haven't been to Disney where I've had to plan my day.
You know what I mean?
And so this is the first time where I went with my friend Holland,
and we were, yeah, it was just the kind of,
it was counterintuitive to like the magic of Disney,
where we're like, we have to book this time slot.
And if we want to do that, and then Magic Kingdom,
it was like Halloween weekend, and like Adventureland or whatever
was closing by 7, and we wanted to go on the Tower of Terror
aka Guardians of the Galaxy ride
which was the only good thing over there
so we went over there and then it was closing
so then we went over to the other part
Did you not get to go on it?
No, I got to go on. It was just a 45 minute wait
and the waiting was rough
That ride was pretty fucking great
No, it's still fucking great
It was just a lot of zigging and zagging and we didn't game the system as well as we should have.
It feels like something you more have to plan for.
I would recommend.
Whereas like at Six Flags we just sort of walked up and we were like, all right.
Right, exactly.
Because we're trying to plan a trip.
The rides were the most fun.
I mean the things I would suggest are if you're going to do Galaxy's Edge is to book it for maybe like the end of the day.
Because we also, so we did the cantina,
which was like packed still.
But it was fun,
but it was also like,
I don't know,
you're trying to like drink,
but we haven't really eaten and we're trying to figure that out.
And then I-
What were the space drinks like?
They were,
well, I mean,
I had the milk,
I had the milk
and it was like kind of warm.
I feel like I'm-
But that was non-alcoholic, right?
No, yeah.
I didn't feel like drinking
at like 2 p.m. No, my friend did. It was good-alcoholic, right? No, yeah. I didn't feel like drinking it at 2 p.m.
No, my friend did.
It was good.
Yeah, that sounds cool.
Yeah, yeah.
Is that the one that comes in like a...
Full of booze.
One comes in a Porg.
Right.
I was going to say.
There's like a Porg tiki glass.
Yeah.
Okay.
And you get to keep it?
Yes.
I'm sold.
It costs like $35 to $40.
I'm there.
That's the thing.
She didn't even say the price in your selfie.
She's like, that's why it costs $40.
And tell me how much I'm spending. She didn't even say the price in your selfie. She's like, that's why it costs $40. And tell me how much I'm spending.
Right, right, right.
Well, I mean, I spent $200 on a lightsaber.
Of course.
So I would recommend.
One must.
So the thing you can do is, so I built a lightsaber.
It's very much like the make your own wand experience,
in which they literally tell you it's cool because there's like Jedis in there
and they're telling you how it works.
But then they're also like, oh, some say the crystal chooses the Jedi.
I'm like, that's fucking Harry Potter and you know it.
But whatever.
They have tried a little bit of that in, like, the cartoons or whatever.
Yeah.
Like, you, like, search for your crystal.
Like, give me a break.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Get out of here.
You pick a color.
But at the same time, though.
You're right.
No, you close your eyes.
They have you close your eyes.
And then you, like, think about the color that you like. They describe, like, which characters have had a color. But at the same time, no, you close your eyes. They have you close your eyes and then you like think about the color that you,
they describe like which characters have had each color
and then they get to purple.
And because I was,
I was personally between blue and purple.
And then,
but when they got to purple,
they were like,
you know,
like it's,
it's different and unique and special.
And then they only list Mace Windu.
And I was like,
yeah,
I'm going to fucking get purple.
All right.
We're all Star Wars fans here
we haven't talked about Star Wars but
by the time this episode is out it'll have just
come out that is insane to think about
can I throw out a hot prediction
based on what we're talking about there's no way
it doesn't end with a new lightsaber color right
like I understand
that every lightsaber color has been like
debuted in the cartoons but in the movies we've still
only had blue red green and the purple and then I feel like it ends with Rey with like a fucking gold lightsaber color has been like debuted in the cartoons but in the movies we've still only had blue, red, green,
and the purple.
And then I feel like
it ends with Rey
with like a fucking
gold lightsaber.
Right?
Stripes.
Well, stripes would be
like a peppermint.
Yeah, like the barbershop.
Like the barbershop
thing kind of rotated.
Doesn't that just feel
like the kind of thing
Abrams is like,
we gotta do that.
Yeah, you think that's
gonna be like the final image or you think that's gonna
be a reveal in the final fight or something?
Rey, sort of, right, exactly.
Because she's rebuilt his lightsaber, right?
Doesn't she have like a cobbled back
together? I'm trying to
even remember what the status of her lightsaber is.
Well, the lightsaber that's split in half is Luke's.
She has the pieces. Right. So she has the
pieces. So it's presumed that she will
use that, so maybe it'll be blue and something striped.
Yeah.
Right.
I just feel like they haven't gone to that well in a while because the new movies were very much like, well, let's get back to the classics.
But now it's time for a yellow lightsaber.
I'm saying yellow because that just feels like the color they haven't done.
Yellow or orange.
Yeah.
Can I make a prediction?
Even orange is a little too reddish.
Yes.
My prediction is I can Finn and Rey kiss on the mouth. It won't happen, but I'm just going to speak it into existence. I or orange. Even orange is a little too reddish. My prediction is I can Finn and Rey kiss on the mouth.
It won't happen, but I'm just
going to speak it into existence.
They're so cute in Force Awakens.
They're adorable.
I think they're great as a tongue kiss.
For context, I went into The Last Jedi
with my friend Ashley, and she likes
Kylo Ren and Rey. You went in with Rey hair.
With Rey hair. You did the Rey hair.
I had Rey buns and a Rey stand
and then
like it gets to the like
here you guys have
like bracelets
that tell you
where each other are
and I'm like
they're connected
across the fucking galaxy
and then like
she fucking force
connects with Kylo
the whole movie
and I just like
slowly deteriorate
while my friend's
just like glowing
beside me
and I was like
ah fuck you
so I'm praying JJ.
You think about me?
Yeah.
Did you say that to her?
Yeah.
I like to make a prediction.
Now I love that movie.
Here it comes.
I think the discourse surrounding the new film
will be pleasant.
We all love discourse.
We love discourse.
Measured.
0% exhausted.
Measured.
It'll definitely be measured.
That's actually, that's true. He's right about that. That's true.
He's right about that.
And very chill.
I went down a rabbit hole of watching Bad Faith.
You know they now call themselves the fandom menace.
I have been doing it so much less.
Fandom menace.
They call themselves the fandom menace.
Yeah, go ahead.
Give me some credit.
I've been doing this far less than I usually do.
Because usually every time I see you,
I tell you 18 bad things I've seen
online and you say, why are you exposing
yourself to these things? You haven't done that in a while. I've not been doing that
for a while. And I was watching
the Star Wars trailer and then YouTube,
as they are wont to do, started recommending
bad faith.
Right, they recommend Last Jedi is bad
and then that recommends
to you I assume
like why Donald Trump
will make America great again
and that recommends
right here
it keeps going
and by the way
I do think he probably
is the president
that God chose
I've seen a couple videos
that changed my mind
but
I just
all it took was three videos
and I realized
I was wrong
I was too easily
triggered before
but
someone should take me away in an I realized I was wrong. I was too easily triggered before. But someone should
take me away
in an ambulance.
I was watching
these bad videos
and these guys
keep on making
these like
grand sweeping
statements like
nobody actually
likes Rey.
What?
And I'm like
you cannot like
Star Wars
but to act like
she is universally
agreed upon
as a failure
of a character
like it was the response to Jar Jar, is so wildly incorrect.
Because they haven't met me.
Yeah.
Rey fucking rules.
Rey fucking rules.
Rey is the greatest.
Tons of people love Rey.
I understand tons of people don't like Rey, who also don't like their mothers.
Go talk to your mother.
Go talk to your mother.
Love Rey. Talk to your mother. Talk to your mother. Love, Ray. I hope that it all works out in the Skywalker.
I don't know.
That's our Star Wars prediction.
It's all going to work out.
It's all going to work out.
I mean, I think it probably is, I guess.
I guess that's sort of true.
I mean, Kylo, I guess he's the one where you don't know where the chips are.
Can it say that in like the Star Wars font at the end of the movie?
Just like, and then it all worked out.
It just scrolls down.
Oh, boy.
I'm weirdly
unexcited for that movie
except that I like
love Star Wars.
That's my thing.
I'm so
I'm like hey
it's Star Wars
I do appreciate
that I still don't really
know anything based off
the trailers.
Because that's how I felt
going into The Last Jedi
and then I actually
didn't really even love
The Last Jedi
like after the first watch
no after the first watch because it was three hours long and I was like that was so much and then I saw it a really even love The Last Jedi like after the first watch no after the first watch
because it was three hours long
and I was like
that was so much
and then I saw it a second time
and I was like
this is the greatest
to ever exist
I think
I am so weary
of the
discourse
I'm afraid of how measured
it is going to be
that
that dampens my excitement
somewhat
but also every time
I see a trailer
I remember that Star Wars is the fucking coolest.
And when I sit there and watch it, I'm going to have a grand old time.
We're all going to have a grand old time.
I've got tickets in my pocket.
Throw it in a hole.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, paper tickets.
They're right here.
Paper?
I was telling, you've got paper tickets?
I'll explain.
And you keep them in every jean pocket.
You bring them with you every day. I was saying
to David, the most asshole move possible
would be like the person
who's like, I don't want to have to share a row with
anyone on the airplane, so I'm buying the seats next
to me. If you just bought out
five seats for opening night
at Star Wars, just so you didn't have to
sit next to anyone else.
God. They sold out pretty quick.
Anyway, that's what I did. I got five seats for each of us.
Great.
I bought like 60 seats.
Yes.
Five seats for the five people in this room.
No.
David, Ben, Griffin, and Ben's red boy here on the desk.
He gets his own chair.
He gets his own chair.
Can we get him like a little tiny box of popcorn?
Of course.
Ben's little red boy.
There is the red boy.
Ben's looking at his red boy and beaming
he's pretty happy
with the red boy
I know like the red boys
probably won't come back
because they're gonna do
Knights of Ren
but like I want them
well but they have
the fucking Sith Troopers
the Sith Troopers
the Troopers are red now
Red Troopers
they've like combined them
they're the new red boys
slash old red boys
right
but as long as we've got
red boys represented
hey maybe we'll get
a new
color of Storm Boy.
That's what that is.
That's what that is.
I'm seeing red, now what?
Oh, sure.
Like a lightsaber.
Frost Trooper or, you know, Forest.
Well, you had Forest.
I want glow-in-the-dark Troopers.
I want Troopers with a sort of milky plastic.
And then you turn on the lights.
Bright green.
Crazy.
Yeah.
So, married to the mob, she gets the job.
She gets the hairdressing job.
Hey, Mambo.
Mambo Italiano.
Hey, Mambo.
Mambo Italiano.
Hey, Mambo.
This is the point I was going to make.
Look at it.
Something mozzarella.
Well, of course.
Gabagool.
Gabagool.
But the thing that the podcast
The Ride Boys
talk about all the time
is this theory
at theme parks
which is kinetic energy
which is the difference
between something
like Six Flags
and something like
Disneyland
is that Six Flags
is just like
make some good rides
and Disneyland
and, you know,
other parks of that ilk
put a lot of energy
into like
there's something
kinetic happening around you at all times.
Can I point out that they released crows when I was in Disneyland?
We were walking into an entrance and we're like,
there's a lot of crows.
And then there was a fuck, there was a murder of crows.
A murder.
And we're like, 100% Disney just released a murder of crows for, like, ambiance.
But that's part of this thing.
It's like design architecture.
Six Flags does not do that.
They just have them.
Six Flags, they don't release anything.
Learning in a corner.
Design architecture that is like kinetic,
have things in motion,
have people performing in different capacities
in different places.
And I feel like Jonathan Demme movies have that.
And the fact that this like series of bad job interviews
leads to a spoon man giving her the tip on where she should apply like feeds into that where it's like, why make that some boring guy?
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, why make it a generic bar and like motel?
Should have been Hannibal Lecter.
It should have been Hannibal Lecter.
It should have been Hannibal Lecter.
It should have been Hannibal Lecter.
You know, but like why not make everything that could be sort of like rote shoe leather or just like take it for granted like this type of guy.
Which is very New York.
Very New York. Very 80s New York.
You don't know who's around the corner.
Demi is such a New York filmmaker.
Even though most of his movies aren't set in New York.
A lot of them are though.
But he's very influenced by the New York sensibility and the way that like the East Village
used to feel
in the 80s and the 90s
I guess it's just this
and something wild
I'm trying to think of
other New York movies
he's made
but most of something wild
isn't in the city
yeah that's true
but they have
an interest in New York
that's what I'm saying
yeah I guess that's
kind of it
yeah
but I think he really
nails it
and as someone who
moved to New York
and then like
had to find shitty jobs
yeah
yeah so 100% so you go to Jesus yeah what's yeah do you guys And as someone who moved to New York and then had to find shitty jobs. Yes, 100%.
I know, too.
Jesus.
Yeah, to you guys, I feel like that would be a fun thing to discuss.
What's you guys' experiences?
Because you worked at the Disney store.
I worked at the Disney store.
It was everyone's first shitty, like, I'm in New York.
I have to figure shit out.
My first New York job was at the chess shop.
I think I've talked about this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which was a bizarre job because it was a one-man job running a whole shop.
So it was kind of like cool in a way because no one was there to boss me around.
But then also James Gandolfini might show up expecting to pick up a fancy chess set for his son.
And you have to be like, oh, excuse me.
Yes, let me find it for you.
And like you have to go in the back room.
I'm totally extremely professional.
How may I not say?
The most stressful.
Where's my fucking pawn? The most stressful go in the back extremely professional like the most stressful
fucking plan the most stressful person in the world to just stand there waiting
because him breathing is a whole fucking experience and he just looks like he does
not want to like wait a second not a jerk at all nice guy right he was one of the only human beings
ever to breathe and surround sound.
Absolutely.
Hey, I'm here to.
And you're like, oh, yeah, it's under you, Gandalf.
Oh, OK.
And then you have to go into the back, which was just like a fucking jungle of chess sets.
And like, you know what?
Chess sets look like each other.
Like, there's not a lot of variation. And yet, like, some cost 30 bucks and some cost 2,000.
Because they're made out of like indian rosewood and you know like you got all the chess sets that say no child labor involved
and you're like do the other ones have that story that was also a place it was in the village it's
closed now sadly there's still the other one's still up chess form still going yeah um on thompson
street the guy above lived in a like apartment like a rent control department was
like a one bajillion years old and it was rent controlled and the guy like my boss would be like
that guy pays like 75 bucks a month and he would come down this is not mockery this is just
experience that i had all the time the man was so fucking old that in between how old was he
in between him leaving his
apartment on the second floor and coming to the
ground floor, he might have to go to the bathroom
again. He might have to pee again.
It's just not working that well anymore.
He would come into our shop
and bang on the bathroom door
even if someone was in it and be like,
Get out of there! I gotta go to the bathroom!
It was very stressful. It was so stressful.
Wow. You know what's the thing I love about the hiring scene? Go ahead. It was very stressful. Wow. It was so stressful. Wow.
You know what's the thing I love about the hiring scene?
Go ahead.
That she goes in there.
She leads with the fact that she went to beauty school.
Yep.
Then realizes she dropped out and immediately just pivots to I'll do anything.
Like she like tries to go in with like, oh my God, this is a thing I actually have some area of expertise.
But I think she kind of knows though.
Yeah.
She looks in a mirror that says, are you a thing I actually have some area of expertise in. But I think she kind of knows though. Yeah.
She looks in a mirror that says,
are you ready for a new you?
Yeah.
Very cute.
It's sweet just how much they take her in
and are like.
They give her a haircut too.
Yeah.
So then after all this.
Good cut.
Wait,
Ant,
what was your shittiest job?
Yeah.
My shittiest job?
Yeah.
My shittiest New York job.
My shitty jobs were in London. Go ahead. Yeah. My shittiest job? Yeah. My shittiest New York job? My first- My shitty jobs were in London.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Where?
Mary.
Why were you working on vacation?
Weird.
What if it was some like
complicated rom-com plot?
Like,
I gotta make the money back
for my plane ticket.
Yeah.
You're gonna fly yourself back?
So what?
Like a one week,
two week job maximum?
I wish.
I lived in London. What? Jesuson what go on with your job story what was your bad job yeah oh um i would say like well my first like
year here was like a waking nightmare you were on um rebecca bolness's classroom crush i feel
like you talked about just a little bit you guys want to hear about uh shitty i moved here
i broke up with my boyfriend,
I moved to New York,
I immediately got the flu,
which like at the time
I did not know it was the flu,
but like when I described it later.
You had like the walking flu,
essentially,
I guess.
I was crashing with my brother
and I can say this now
because he's since moved,
but bed bugs were a factor.
Oh boy.
Yeah,
it was rough.
Oh boy. Oh boy. And then it was rough. Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
And then I was also like, I was kind of doing some work for my cousin back in Massachusetts,
but that was like fading.
So I was like, I need to do something quick.
My brother's friend, Harry, who you guys have met, is a chef in New York.
Chef Harry.
Chef Harry.
Yeah.
Worked at Alamo, no longer works at Alamo. But he worked at this place called STK in meatpacking, which if anyone has ever been there, it's a nightmare place.
But he was a chef there, and he was like, I can probably hook you up with a hostess gig.
At STK.
At STK.
That was my first.
And I remember I got there.
Basically like hustlers.
Like the type of clientele who are coming in.
Yes.
Are the guys from hustlers.
I worked there for a very long time before realizing like how many sex workers walked
in and out of that place.
Sure.
Like a lot of sugar baby situations.
Also weirdly like parents who brought their children stayed until like 11 p.m.
And they're like, should we call like services or something?
Because this is bad.
People fucking in the street on a Sunday.
Wow, that's regular.
And also because the window was blacked out so we could see out and they couldn't see in.
So like a couple people at brunch and then like half the staff just like watched a couple go at it on a car once.
On a car?
On a car.
On top of a car.
They were feeling themselves.
Good sex.
Genuine.
But yeah, that was like my first like roadie.
I like met the manager and I was like, I've never worked at a restaurant, but I'm like,
I work really hard.
I'm a real can do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm like, I work in retail.
And then like all the other hostesses were like models who like hated everyone.
And then I did not last long.
I was there for like
basically the summer
and I was also
and that's when I started
the UCB internship
hey
and so I like
right here
the podcast
here we go
so it was all
worth
can I say
I just
I found something
on the Wikipedia
that I'm very confused by
on our own Wikipedia
yeah
is it about London
well it says
every time David accidentally implies
that he lived in London, England
during part of his childhood,
Ben and Griffin act like it was a shocking revelation.
Yeah, see, this is,
I've never heard before.
This has come up.
I've never heard about this.
No, honestly,
I don't listen back to episodes like David does.
It says we milk it for all it's worth.
I don't think that,
I don't,
I can't think of one time that's happened. I mean, maybe bone milk it for all it's worth. I don't think that, I can't think of one time that's happened. I mean, maybe bone
milk it for all it's worth. That's very possible.
Um, anyway,
if anyone gives you shit online, Ang, you can just
nuke them. You're the, you know, you're the, you
run the social. I could destroy people. Yeah,
nuke them. Or directors.
Ben, what was your bad New York
job? Uh,
I had. Like, when did you move here?
Uh, Because I started
going to the new school in
2008.
I think.
Maybe no. 2006
maybe.
I've been in
New York a while. Those are two different years.
It's kind of,
I don't know. My memory is a little foggy.
It definitely wasn't 2007. we know that for a fact
of course not
absolutely not
why
no
but
I got a job in construction
and I had no experience
you talked about this one
I feel like
maybe we've only talked about it
it might have come up
but
you built the Empire State Building
oh
I did.
It does kind of seem like your style now that you mention it.
It is very big.
I love that.
Yeah.
And it took a while.
No, and so the thing I learned with working on a construction crew
is people like me have built the house that you live in.
And that is very scary.
So your point is no house is safe.
No.
So it's not Jimmy Carter.
Jimmy Carter built my house.
Well, okay.
Yeah.
It's just Ben's and Jimmy Carter's.
Married to the mother.
Yes.
So Modine sees her in the elevator.
Starts flirting with her.
Only after he has had a run in with Tony the tiger and his associate.
That's true.
In which.
He realizes what's going on.
It's a common everyday.
What does he say to Tony?
He says you're a menace to society.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Because he remembers that later.
Watch it on the road. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because he remembers that later. Watch it on the road.
Yeah, but that's the point.
He makes the fatal mistake of making slightly too much of an impression.
Like any contact at all.
On Tony and his friend.
Which is going to matter later.
And he's trying to get out of the building because he's been bugging Ange's apartment.
But then, I keep on calling her Ange.
But then, of course, when he goes down the elevator, he runs into her, which makes him go right back up in the elevator to continue talking.
Can I ask a question?
Does he live in the – but he already lived in the same building as Angela?
No.
My understanding is they get an apartment so that they can stake out.
Yes, 100 percent.
Okay.
Because that's what it seemed like, but then that apartment had so much shit in it that it seemed like it was also his apartment, like the one with the four cats.
Yeah, right, right, right.
No, I think that's a separate apartment.
Yes, right, right, right, right. His life was so automated that he has to do that. This is purely a stake four cats. Yeah, I think that's a separate apartment. Yes, right. Right, right, right.
His life was so automated.
This is purely a stakeout apartment.
Stakeouts seem fun.
Don't they seem fun?
Yeah, sure.
You get like Chinese food.
I think they're fucking boring.
Well, I'm sure it has this
and you're watching people
and it's just back to beeping.
I just think it seems fun.
But they you know they
start to flirt.
Right.
But I like that this is
not a romantic comedy
per se.
No.
That they do not
exactly fall in love.
Well I also appreciate
the complicated thing.
The lie doesn't go on
long.
It's basically like one
night and then she
finds out the truth.
That one night is so
good.
Yeah it is.
Yeah.
I'm trying,
I'm just,
bring up anything that's,
yeah, we gotta talk about in these later scenes.
I'm trying to think.
Well, there's the burger shooting.
Right.
Oh, he loves.
Oh, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wait, can I just say
my favorite bit
leading up to that
is they're like,
you know where we're going?
Burger World.
And then like the two mobsters
driving behind them
and they're like,
oh, that place is terrible.
Why do we have to go there?
And then they're singing the song.
Dean Stockwell's.
I forgot about that.
That's really fun.
There's that side plot that Stockwell himself is in trouble.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that's a really good scene.
Yeah, yeah.
Where Stockwell has these, like,
they got a different guy, right?
Yeah.
Two monsters show up.
He shoots at them with two guns,
kills them both, and then he goes,
the clown.
He doesn't recognize the clown, who is, of course, Chris Isaac.
God.
There's so many weird cast.
Chris Isaac is the clown. David Johansson
is the priest at... Did you notice
that from the New York Dolls?
David Johansson plays the priest at
Baldwin's. Demi must have just been so cool.
Hanging out with these cool people.
Yeah.
They could swim into Cambodia
and start making sense
in his off time.
Yeah.
What a cool fucking dude.
What a cool fucking dude.
Did you notice his cameo in the movie?
Yeah, he's the guy
getting off the elevator.
Yeah, when they're in Miami
and there's a guy
in like a tropical shirt
and his pregnant wife.
Oh, with the wife.
That's him?
And that's Demi and his wife,
I think pregnant with one of their children.
Good looking guy.
Good looking guy. He is. A sweetie pie. And that's Demi and his wife, I think pregnant with one of their children. Good looking guy. Good looking guy.
He is.
A sweetie pie.
He is a sweetie pie.
But yeah,
and Stockwell's so good.
Yeah.
He just kills all that.
And then as David and I learned,
he would stay in character
the whole movie.
Which is wild.
Do you think he wore the white suit
the whole time?
He had to have.
He must have kicked open the trailer door.
There's something about his skin,
like his face skin,
that you're just like,
you're like,
what a sleazebag.
It's funny.
It's so funny because
he's got good eyebrows.
Quantum meat.
Quantum meat?
Jesus.
Quantum leap turns him into kind of a buddy,
right?
Like more of a sidekick.
And like,
he's got such good villain energy.
When he's in Battlestar Galactica
years later
you're like right
this guy is frightening
and like in
The Player
which he's so good in
he plays like
a desperate sad sack
like
sort of like
Hollywood
hustler
he's so good
he's just an
A plus character
but it's such a weird
character choice in this
where he's like
playing the exact
midpoint between like
super stylized modern italian gangster and super old-fashioned 1940s rko picture gangster like
there's something very like zoot suit to his energy right and there's also something kind of
like overly slick and modern about his energy so it's like a very broad theatrical performance of
a very kind of quietly menacing guy. Right.
He's great. And then of course
Mercedes rule. She's kind of not in the
middle of the movie. She rules though. Mercedes
does rule. She rules. Yeah she's fun.
She just gets peppered in through
like she just kicks down doors and is like
where's Tony? She has that scene
when her and Modine finally go out
the second time that Pfeiffer runs
into Modine after the first time where he's pinned against the wall of the elevator with the chair, which is such a good use of the Demi POV close-ups of just having them separated by the chair and squished.
But the second time she runs into him and – or she goes up to his apartment to ask him out.
Oh, what?
Michelle Pfeiffer?
Right, because there's that scene where she asks him out and Oliver Platt is like
hiding behind the door.
Right.
And later that night,
Connie kicks down the door
when he's invited back to her place.
Right, that's the thing.
They have such a nice
like little date night
dancing and having a fun time.
And then there's that weird level
of intimacy in them
talking to each other,
which is then totally disrupted by
the fact that they also just keep drinking club soda.
But Mercedes' role just coming in like a ton of bricks
and not wanting Mercedes' role to see
that she's with another man
because she thinks that will make her look bad
so shortly after her husband's death.
But Mercedes' role interprets that as you're hiding my husband in here
because he's already come to visit her at that point.
Yes.
And given the gifts and everything.
And she's so like on guard about it.
And I love that Michelle Pfeiffer the entire time does not know that anyone would have seen
Tony try to kiss her at the funeral.
Right. Like she's just like this guy's been creeping on me, but there's no way anyone else would know this. not know that anyone would have seen Tony try to kiss her at the funeral.
She's just like, this guy's been creeping on me, but there's no way anyone else would know this.
So she doesn't know that the other wives have seen it.
She doesn't know that...
At the grocery store, it sort of becomes
clear.
I forgot that too, but that's my favorite thing where
she's like, look, Tony's just
not my type. And she's like,
Tony is everyone's type. She's like, I'm not interested. He's like, look, Tony's just not my type. And she's like, Tony is everyone's type.
She's like, I'm not interested.
He's like, everyone's interested in Tony.
Like, there's such a weird ego to Mercedes-Benz.
It's like, don't touch my husband, but also, I want you to admit that you want to fuck my husband.
Because my husband's the most fuckable, and don't you dare fuck him.
That spray tan glows.
It glows.
I mean, I think the Mercedes-B pieces, like everything from like her hearing honeymoon
suite and being like, just give me the fucking ticket, like all that, to her jumping.
She jumps on your moving plane.
It's so good.
It's so good.
After saying forget about it.
Oh, it rules.
Dare I say it?
Mercedes house rules.
Sure.
I shouldn't care. You're supposed to, Mercedes house rules. Sure. It's something like,
you're supposed to
stay in your seat
or whatever.
She's like,
honey,
forget about it.
And her hair,
every time they cut her,
her hair gets bigger
and more,
like it looks like
she stuck her fingers
in an electrical socket.
Also the bit too
is like when they're waiting,
they're like,
that's the cops,
they're kicking down the door
and then it's fucking Connie
with ginormous hair.
It's like you know it too.
The audience knows that the gag is coming.
Tony's not afraid of the cops.
He's afraid of his wife.
After he's in jail,
he just dreams of her fucking
shooting his nuts off.
And like,
it's just,
you know,
to have this sort of
hand-pecking,
ball-busting,
battle-axe wife,
it's a classic joke.
And I think it's a good idea to just dial it up to 50 rather than, like, try and underplay it.
To almost make her, like, a supernatural force.
Exactly.
That's funnier.
Right.
This is, like, what Angela could be.
This is, like, the cliche, the contrast.
Her line, look, I fight for what's mine.
She's so devoted to her husband.
I fight for what's mine. I make devoted to her husband I fight for what's mine
I make no apologies
you can call me a ball buster
but it's just the way I am
right
I like that
like yeah she leaves
and she was like
I was wrong
but like
I got my eye on you
yeah
I don't care
and it's so great
that like her
like springing up
in bed
in the morning
being like
Tony
it's just like
he didn't kiss me goodbye
like I need to be on guard about this.
And he's so scared.
He's like, Connie, hi, in the airport.
Oh, God.
They're trying to like quietly escort Michelle Pfeiffer onto the plane.
Because the showdown in the movie is they reveal to Angela that they are.
She finds out that they're the cops.
She gets hauled in.
But they reveal, right,
because they bring her in.
But how do they realize that she's not...
Oh, it's when Mercedes' rule comes over.
Right, right, right.
And then she confesses.
When Matthew Modine says,
like, I've misjudged her,
like to Mercedes' rule or whatever.
Right, but Pfeiffer confesses everything,
sort of explains the situation.
Not knowing he's a cop.
Right, hitting on her.
And you realize she's been fully taken advantage of by everybody.
But also the most romantic thing in the world that they just literally spend the night fully clothed in bed together.
Yeah.
Holding each other.
I find really, really sweet.
It's a very Griffin thing.
Yes.
Oh, it is so Griffin.
It is such a Griffin move.
It really is.
Not that it's a move, but it is such a Griffin.
It's such a Griffin move.
It really is.
Not that it's a move, but it is such a Griffin.
Like, those are my weird sexual fantasies of, like, what if we just talked and then spent the night fully clothed in bed together?
I'm a broken person.
But the fact that they, like, don't even start kissing until they wake up in the morning.
Yeah.
Like, it's like they wake up and then suddenly they're deciding to get physical, but then the knock on the door happens. That's what happens when a star is born.
Yeah.
A thing I like in a star is born.
Oh, yeah.
In a perfect movie?
Yeah.
Great movie.
The best thing in a movie that I like parts of.
But Platt knocking on the door.
Everyone's sort of like getting angry at him.
Right.
Oh, because the burger massacre had happened the night before.
Right.
He was busy.
Burger massacre.
Well, I also love – can we just talk about how he's like, you know, I misjudged you and he's getting into bed with her
while he's doing that, he's taking
all the bugs that he planted in her farm.
Yes, so good.
But, right, that they
are like, there's a massacre happening
and you were like getting laid
and he can't explain to them that they didn't have
sex, but also that
he knows that she's innocent but that he's
not biased. So they're just like, you're in too deep on all's innocent, but that he's not biased.
So they're just like, you're in too deep on all of this.
Your eye's off the ball.
You're fucking off.
We're bringing her in.
We're making a deal.
And this like gross intimidation scene.
It's great.
It's just, yeah, please, like just have them not be heroes.
I love it.
Right.
Right.
And to have them be like, we will put you in jail for 10 years for donating everything you own to Goodwill.
That's trafficking.
I mean, it's just classic FBI intimidation bullshit.
Well, yeah, you've seen that in any kind of cop show.
But when you see it when the character's obviously trying to protect their husband.
Like all that shit.
He'll go into care.
And they also use her employer as leverage.
Like so awful.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
But the fact that, like, the only way for her to get out is to now reaffirm the way
everyone views her.
Like, she's trying so hard to get away from this perception.
And they're like, your only way out of this situation is to play up the mob wife stuff,
seduce Tony.
Right.
Lay a trap for Mercedes Rule.
Right. You know, like, all this shit. Like, the only way wife stuff, seduce Tony. Right. Lay a trap for Mercedes Rule. Right.
You know, like, all this shit.
Like, the only way out is, like, through.
And she has to do this, like, uncomfortable theater and, like, resubmit herself to the world, show up, interrupt a meeting with Grandpa Monster.
Right.
Totally seduce Tony.
Hang out with Tony, who's been, like, aggressive and gross to her.
She's nervous.
Of course.
It's like, you know, it's the big lie.
She plays it so well.
And she plays it so well.
Yeah.
And then we're in Miami.
Great place to end a movie.
Always a good place to end a movie.
Right.
And they're just like.
Miami showdown.
So fucking well done.
Like if I saw mainstream comedy with a moment like this in it.
When Modine walks in, makes the fatal mistake of doing the head nod.
Right. when Modine walks in, makes the fatal mistake of doing the head nod, right?
And then you just see the exact same piece of coverage repeated five times in different devices.
Different outfits.
And then Tony walking over to the mirror,
Mercedes' rule coming over his shoulder.
Leaves in.
And saying, you wouldn't believe this jamoke,
you know, the look of this guy she was actually with.
Right.
And he just puts it all together.
But the fact that that's entirely visual.
I love it. It's so expressive.
And just the, it's like, yes, let's exit
reality for a second. It's fun. We're in a movie.
Who cares? It's a movie. Exactly. This movie is so
in love with the fact that it is a movie.
Hell yeah. And the opportunity of like
anything you can do in a movie at any point in time.
Yeah.
But I love that they like break Modine
by like appealing
to like this guy
seems like fun.
This guy's a one man party.
He's on vacation.
He's from the book.
Yeah.
Is Matthew Modine
the original Vacation Jason?
He probably is.
No come on
this shootout
it's so fun.
So fun.
I don't like anyone
except for Angela.
I'm cool with every
that's why I like it. Any of them getting shot. Yeah it's just and also there I don't like anyone except for Angela I'm cool with every that's why I like it
any of them getting shot
yeah it's just
and also there's this
the guy gets shot
I like the penthouse though
I didn't want the penthouse
to get ruined
yeah whatever
the guy gets shot
and he's like
oh you'd have to do that
for his last words
I love the weird
sort of like gross
cartoony
like where it's
kind of scary
kind of funny
once again no blood
just kind of like
dramatic falling
you're like
oh I guess they got that
guy.
Modine keeps on
saying like you're
under arrest.
The whole place is
bugged.
We got you.
There are a bunch
of cops outside.
He clearly has like
no power.
Fuck you.
I don't care.
You won't make it
stick.
And then Mercedes
Rule comes in and
Tony's like actually
scared.
He's sweating.
They cut to his
face and he's
leaking like Jordan
Peel.
And he would also
clearly rather get murdered than lose his genitalia.
Like she's figured out the thing of greatest possible threat to him, which is living without a penis.
And then Angela gets to punch her in the face.
And a true classic 80s like really wind up and punch the camera.
She looks like a full Popeye, like,
clockwise line. Yeah.
It's great. It's so good.
And then the cops bust in.
Yeah. She knocks out Connie, and then
the cops get Tony when he
tries to run away. But then, to me, the funniest
thing is just Tony then having another
dream about his wife shooting his dick off.
You think that Tony's sort of getting out of it
and gaming the system and then you
realize that was his
dream of how well
things could have
worked out for him
followed by the
nightmare of the
worst case scenario
which also means Tony
kind of prefers to be
in a shithouse present
I think Tony's like
you know what I'll
stay in jail.
Yeah.
And then Modine
comes back asking for
a second chance.
Yeah.
Which is fine.
You gotta end the
movie that way.
I get it.
Yeah.
I love the end credits
where it's just like recycled scenes from the movie. way. I get it. Yeah. I love the end credits where it's just like
recycled scenes
from the movie.
So that's what it is.
It's deleted scenes
that he liked a lot.
He was just like,
let's just play them out.
Put them in there somewhere
and they sort of form
like a recap
of the basic plot events
of the film
except you're seeing
alternate scenes.
I love that
sort of 80s font too.
The kind of,
you know what I mean?
Sort of graffiti.
And then it ends again
with like the guys
with like long shadows in a sound mean sort of graffiti and then it ends again with like the guys with like long shadows
in a sound stage
with Tommy guns
and then the logo
getting shot to Swiss cheese
right and then there's
a post credits thing
of them dancing
on the steps of
60 Center Street
there's a post credits scene
it's just like
it's cute
it's just them
Modine and Michelle
and then Nick Fury
comes in and gives them
a pager
yeah that's right
he says
I have news for you.
Martin Scorsese no longer likes this movie.
And he says, I need you to go into the quantum zone.
That's right.
I mean, this film is, to be fair,
prequel to Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Like any Michelle Pfeiffer movie,
it takes place in the quantum zone.
Yeah, of course.
Should we play the box office game, please?
We should.
It's a good one.
August 19th, 1988. Okay. shall we play the box office game we should it's a good one August
19th
1988
okay
Married to the Mob opens
number 7
not in the top 5
not a big hit
no but it did end up grossing
21 million dollars
which is double it's budget
gets an Oscar nomination
gets a bunch of critics
I don't think anyone was particularly
upset about this movie
I think National Border Review
gave supporting actor
and supporting actress
to Rule and Stockwell.
Let me
give you
I think you're talking about
the National Society Film Critics
are much better than
the National Border Review
no offense to either organization.
Pardon my slip.
So you have Stockwell
got an Oscar nomination
Michelle got a Golden Globe nomination.
It got a Golden Globe
for best musical or comedy?
No just Michelle.
Just Michelle?
Just Michelle.
What a shame.
National Society did give
as you say those two acting awards.
And New York Film Critics also gave Dean Stockwell their award.
Okay.
So, number one at the box office is a horror sequel.
Actually, we're kind of just discussing it.
Oh, because you've been going through the franchises.
No, but it's, well.
Well, what?
Take your guess, but no, it's not that.
But I'm saying, we were talking about you're trying to go through all the franchises.
That's true.
It's true.
Okay.
Is it one of the franchises?
It is.
It is.
What number film is it?
Four.
So it's not Jason.
No.
Is it Halloween 4?
No.
It's not Nightmare on Elm Street 4?
It is.
It is.
And what's the subtitle?
And that one is The Dream Master?
Correct.
Made 50 mil. Yeah. We were saying that's the highest grossing one. That's why subtitle? And that one is The Dream Master. Correct. Made 50 mil.
Yeah.
We were saying that's the highest grossing one.
That's why I was saying we were actually kind of discussing it.
It opens to 12 million this weekend.
Yeah.
Big hit.
It's my favorite horror franchise because even in the lesser entries,
you have weird, surrealistic, well sequences.
I mean, that's what it's always had going for it.
Now, number two is a Western.
Love, Freddy, terrific guy, known for 15 years.
Is a Western with many a cutie in the cast.
Some of his women, even on the younger side.
We've done that a lot.
We've done that a lot.
I know, but I'm just going to keep doing it because the world's terrible.
Okay.
It's a comedy with many a cutie?
No, no, a western.
Oh, is it Young Guns?
Young Guns.
The Young Guns.
Give me some of the cuties.
Sheen.
Estes.
Estes.
Is Slater in that?
No.
Lou Diamond Phillips is.
Kiefer Sutherland?
Oh, yeah.
A young Dermot Mulroney.
Jason Patrick?
Not that I know of.
Jack Palance and Terrence Stamp round up.
The youngest.
So young.
The youngest actors of their day.
Young Guns.
Young Guns.
Opening to, I don't know, this is its second weekend and it is made 16 million.
It's on its way to 44, but a classic Brat Pack movie.
I wish someone would do a movie like that today where it's like, we just put all the
guys.
Chalamet.
Next wave.
Michael B. Jordan.
Right?
Like any guy in their 20s who's hot stuff.
Yeah.
Like, I don't know.
Lucas Hedges.
Yeah.
Right.
The guy from Waves.
Kelvin Harrison.
Put them all in one movie.
Um, all right.
Along with Tommy Lee Jones.
Yeah, right.
Number three.
Yeah.
Is, um is quite a big
hit of the year. Good movie.
Action film.
Quite famous.
Big hit of the year.
1988.
Is it a sequel?
No, but it spawned many.
It's not Lethal Weapon.
No.
It's a secret.
I believe it.
Oh, Die Hard.
Oh, well, that gives it away.
I wasn't sure.
No, and you might have to cut it out because we can't have that leaking out to the public.
Die Hard knows it's a...
It doesn't.
It doesn't.
Don't tell me.
Okay, don't tell anyone.
Die Hard.
Yes.
Good movie.
A great film.
Real good.
A perfect film.
Number four.
I rewatched it last year when Skyscraper came out, and I was like, I just want to watch Die Hard. A great film. Real good. A perfect film. Number four.
I rewatched it last year when Skyscraper came out, and I was like, I just want to watch Die Hard.
Agreed.
Number four is a big comedy of the year, Oscar winner.
I've only seen it once.
I remember finding it very funny.
Fish Called Wanda?
That's correct.
Few comedies win Oscars. That's true.
That was kind of a giveaway.
Well, all right then. Kevin Kies win Oscars. That's true. That was kind of a giveaway. Well, all right then.
Yeah.
Kevin Kline, of course.
That is the oldest best director nominee of all time.
Charles Crichton?
Yeah.
That sounds right.
I think he was like 87.
He was real old.
Yeah.
And he hadn't made a movie in like 50 years.
Yes, and he was like an old ailing guy.
It was crazy.
It's nuts.
Good movie though.
Number five is a movie we discussed.
Oh, I finally threw the mouth organ. That is also one of those movies that I have not seen since I was a child. It's nuts. Good movie, though. Number five is a movie we discussed. Oh, I finally threw the mouth organ.
That is also one of those movies that I have not seen since I was a child.
Remembered liking.
Wonder how it would play for me now that sex is not a supernatural concept.
Do you ever have that experience where you watch a movie you watched as a kid and it felt like a fantasy film because sex was a prevalent element?
You're right.
You're right.
It might, yes.
And you're like, oh, this now just feels like a workplace comedy.
This is like the commonplace elements of being a human being.
Number five.
It's got a big star.
We talked about it on this episode.
This specific movie.
Talked about in this episode is a cocktail.
It's a cocktail.
Kokomo.
Yeah.
Aruba.
That's where I want to gouba He's doing this Big hit
Tommy couldn't miss
When he rains he pours
I believe is the
tagline
A film based upon
Do you guys know this?
I think I do but go ahead
When he pours he rains
That's a great tagline It's a great poster You guys know this? I think I do, but go ahead. TGI Fridays. When he pours, he rains. Yeah.
That's a great tagline.
It's a great poster.
Even though it's like, you're like, well, wait, what's the plot?
It's like, I don't know.
He's a fucking cocktail waiter. It looks like it would just be a character poster now.
I know, right?
Exactly.
It would be one.
He would be the bartender in Thor.
Is Brian Brown his backup?
Wow.
Yeah.
That movie is based on TGI Fridays, which was originally a Hell's Kitchen bar and was the first singles bar.
Right, right, right, right.
It's like a fun new concept in the 80s.
Does TGI Fridays La Chain now exist because of Cocktail?
No, no, no, no.
Cocktail was like—
Like the success of this movie.
No, no.
I think it had already started franchising out at that point.
But when it was founded, I think in the late 70s. Late 60s. Late 60 No, no. I think it had already started franchising out at that point. But when it was founded,
I think in the late 70s,
it was like...
Late 60s.
Late 60s, geez.
It was like the first
like singles bar.
Like this is where
you go to hook up.
It's legitimate.
It's not some skid row
like flea bag,
like joint.
And there's the theatricality
of like real mixed drinks,
people like throwing
the bottles and everything.
And it was also, T.J. Friday's created the velvet rope.
Hey, man.
Because it was like such a big deal to get in that they had to put a velvet rope outside this like bar in like the West 50s or something.
It was the East 50s.
But, yeah.
It was on the Upper East Side.
It was by the Queensborough Bridge, I think.
It's like a classic bridge and tunnel. Yeah. It was on the Upper East Side. It was by the Queensborough Bridge, I think. It's like a classic
bridge and tunnel.
It was huge, and by this point
it had become a nationwide franchise, and Tom Cruise
was making a movie that was loosely
based on the real story of the guy.
Aruba, Jamaica, boy, I want to take her.
Mambo, Italian.
And now there's this whole sort of style of bartending
called, it's like bar flair.
And I worked with a guy who competed oh and like bartending championships yeah and like competitions and he was showing me all
his like different like sort of like his routine if you will it's almost like figure dancing in
that way yeah it was really impressive he was flipping bottles all over the place all because
of tgi fridays wow um some other films. Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Good movie.
Another perfect.
1988 is an absolute barnstormer year.
Yeah.
It is like,
I have my list and like,
it's like 20 movies I love.
So what's your number one of 88?
Roger Rabbit.
I was going to say,
yeah,
Roger Rabbit is a good take.
I think that's a really good take.
Yeah.
And above movies I adore,
like The Last Temptation of Christ
which is very similar
to Rue Fremont.
Yeah.
Totoro,
Beetlejuice,
Midnight Run,
Die Hard,
Dead Ringers,
Bird which is one of the
great Clint Eastwood movies.
Still never seen it.
Fantastic film.
I know you're all telling me that.
Married to the Mob,
They Live,
This is a great list.
The Thin Blue Line,
Bull Durham
which you just saw.
I just saw last night.
Women on the Verge
of a Nervous Breakdown,
you got Big, you got Heathers.
I mean, it's just fireball.
And the amount of films there
that are major studio commercial films.
I haven't even gotten to Rain Man,
that year's Best Picture winner,
or Working Girl, which was a colossal hit,
or Dangerous Liaisons,
which is a sexy period drama
that was like people were fucking howling at the screen.
You know what a movie that came out of the air?
Twins.
Oh, huge.
Where someone was like, let's take this huge movie star and package him in a comedy and it fucking killed.
Yeah, another Trey Wilson vehicle.
In my seven unsuccessful months of film school before I dropped out of college,
one of my professors was Tom Anderson,
the noted film critic and video essayist who made
the film Los Angeles Plays itself,
which is kind of legendary for a long time.
It's a great film that for a very long time
was impossible to watch because it was
all using clips from other movies and
the fair use laws weren't working to his advantage.
And now it's finally, I think, visible online.
It used to be like once a year he'd maybe screen somewhere and you could see it.
But he screened it for us and he would – I was in his class.
It was just like a lecture class where he would just ramble for two hours and it was the most engrossing thing in the world.
Because he was one of those guys who when he talks, it feels like his brain is on Jupiter and he's trying to explain to you what he's seeing.
But he always talked about how like there is an argument for Roger Rabbit
being one of the greatest and most serious
LA films ever made and it
never gets the respect where he's like this movie
actually digs into
everything like he was like
life in Hollywood which is like a weird cartoon town
but also like up against
this really seedy world
but also the
corruption leading to the death
of the public transit system
which used to be
the best in the country.
Like all these things
he would always
and it was like
a somewhat scandalous claim
but he'd always be like
like Roger Rabbit
is so much more insightful
than fluff like
L.A. Confidential.
Well he had a weird beef
with L.A. Confidential.
He doesn't like L.A. Confidential.
He would just call it
a bad film.
Well he is a bad person.
No he's not. He's a good man. We also got Tucker the Man in his Dream. He would just call it a bad film. He is a bad person. No, he's not.
He's a good man.
We also got Tucker the Man and His Dream.
We got Coming to America, another 88 classic.
And Midnight Run, which is fucking perfect.
It's perfect.
Like Midnight Run, which is a movie in some years I might have been like, well, I can't beat that.
Have you seen Midnight Run, Ange?
You'd love it.
These two guys, they're no good.
But we love them.
Grodin.
So grouchy. Grodin is grouchiest. De Niro at his, they're no good. Yeah. But we love them. Grodin. So grouchy.
Oh, Grodin is grouchiest.
De Niro at his, I don't know, he's really run down in that movie in a fantastic way.
I think he's incredible.
It's incredible.
I think it's one of his top five performances.
Agreed.
Agreed.
And it is, my argument is, it is the best De Niro movie star performance.
He is usually one of those guys where he's better when you give him more of a character to latch on to.
And if you go just do the De Niro thing, he can kind of sleepwalk through it.
And that's the one time that someone crystallized all the weird movie energy.
His star energy.
Yeah, no, that's fine.
I'm into that call.
He's also, I rewatched it with someone who hadn't seen it before.
And the whole time they were like, wait a second, De Niro is so fucking hot in this.
This is the only time I've ever found him hot De Niro is so fucking hot in this this is the only time
I've ever found him
hot
his hair is unbelievable
his leather jacket
I mean I think it's crazy
to not find him hot
in Godfather 2
but like that's crazy
I think he's hot
in a lot of movies
he's hot in a lot of movies
he is
so hot in this
I'm making a De Niro face right now
the other thing
with Midnight Run Ange
yes
is that you're watching it
the whole time
and you're like
this is just really good entertainment
this is perfectly made
and the end makes you cry and you're watching it the whole time and you're like, this is just really good entertainment. This is perfectly made and the end makes you cry.
And you're like, how the fuck?
I didn't think I cared.
Yeah, Ficados are good enough.
The whole cast. The whole cast is good.
Dennis Farina?
Oh, God.
We've had some times on this podcast.
We have. We've talked about some movies.
Married to the Mob, another great one.
Another great one. Next week, Silence of the
Lambs. Good movie. Good hot take. Movie. yeah married to the mob another great one another great one next week silence of the lambs
good movie
good
hot take
movie
we got Emily Vanderwerf
coming up on that
that's right
it's in the can
it's in the canderwerf
it's in the can
Ange
yeah
thank you for being here
thanks for having me
of course
part of the family
your family
I also did demand
I do this episode
once we do Demi.
That was an exciting thing about
was a contender.
It was an exciting thing
about Demi though
that like the second
he was sort of
really making himself
known as a
a combatant
so many people
came out of the woodwork
and were like
this is my guy.
This is our guy.
Put my name down.
Who's your guy?
Who's my guy now?
I love Demi.
She's doing a Marin joke. Oh yeah sure. Who are your Demis? Who are your Demis? She's doing a Marin joke.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Who are your demis?
Who are your demis?
David's like so exhausted by that bit.
He's like, I already ate that one.
I'm tired.
Thank you all for listening.
Real quick, I just want to plug my brand congratulations.
If you go to my Twitter, you can see the store.
I'll be offering stuff once a month.
The jeans will have been dug up by the time this episode comes out, correct?
The jeans come out March 1st.
But when are they being undug?
They come out, and when do they come out?
They come out on the same day I buried them, so sometime in mid-February.
Okay.
I'll unearth them, and they will be for sale.
How has this nightmare only been going on for a year?
It's real
Can't wait to read a local news story
Man arrested digging up his own yard
Clearly murdered someone
I wish I could remember right now
But someone so bizarre recently asked me
How are the genes going?
Wow
What if I dug up the genes and there was a person inside Ben?
Anyone else got any 2020 predictions?
2020 predictions.
January now.
My birthday comes out.
My birthday comes out.
My birthday drops a week after this episode, so I'm just going to shout out myself.
What are you going to do?
What's the birthday?
I don't know.
I have always wanted to go to Medieval Times, but it's very hard to coordinate.
Please let me organize your Medieval Times
birthday next year.
So my birthday
is January 20th.
We love it.
And I'm going to plug
my Twitter handle.
You can follow me
at...
Magnafarta.
At Magnafarta.
I also do comics
and doodles on Instagram,
but it's at
The Magnafarta.
I have reached out.
Someone took Magnafarta
and I'm going to see
if they can swap.
I hate to see it.
Maybe look up both. But right now, I'm at The Magnafarta. Check it out. Someone took Magna Farta and I'm going to see if they can swap. I hate to see it. Maybe look up both.
But right now,
I'm at the Magna Farta.
Check it out.
Thanks, guys.
And thank you all
for listening.
And follow Blank Check.
Yes.
Follow Blank Check.
Pod.
Blank Check pod, right.
The actual handle.
Yes.
Please remember to rate,
review, subscribe,
and follow our social media handles.
Go to our Patreon
where we're now
doing Star Wars.
If you've been holding off because you didn't want to hear us talk about Marvel movies.
Martin Scorsese, we're talking to you.
Yep.
Yep.
Now we're in Star Wars.
That's right.
That's exciting.
We're covering the wars.
Yeah.
The ultimate squad.
That's right.
Hashtag squad.
Hashtag squad.
Yeah.
But right around the time of this release.
We just released, as long as we don't change the schedule, our solo episode. Yeah. But right around the time of this release we just released as long as we don't
change the schedule
our solo episode
which comes earliest
in continuity.
Yes.
And then on the
21st we will have
Rogue One with
Chris Weitz the
writer of the film.
Yes.
Watching it with us.
Spilling a lot of
tea.
He does a thing in
the first.
I needed a whole roll of paper towels and big knives
to clean up all that tea.
Your coach, Jesus Christ,
your couch was soaked.
He does something
in the first five minutes of the episode that
blew my mind.
That I don't even want to tip my hand to
at all, but it was
perfect. We love you, Chris. Come back.
Let's say he walked away
with a big bag
of comedy points
yes he did
so listen to that
subscribe
blank check
special features
on Patreon
next week
Sansa Lambs
with Emily Vanderwerf
oh I'm skipping
thanks to
Joe Bone and Pat Rounds
for our artwork
Liam McGrath
for our theme song
Angela Farraguto
for our artwork. Liam McGrath for our theme song. Angela Farraguto for our social media.
David Dogson, thank you.
Yes.
And as always,
just don't act crazy about the Shaq franchise.
I'm not crazy.
I'm big.
Boo. I'm like... Boo!
I'm right.
Okay, so look.
Wait a second.
What are you talking about?
That's not how the show starts.
We gotta start with the Blimp Award in 2017.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Well, now this has to go at the end of the episode.
Of course it does!
Ben, cut it out.
You psychopath! You're really amped up to go at the end of the episode. Of course it does! Ben, cut it out. You psychopath!
You're really amped up.
Griffin's already fucking with the level.
There's a tradition!
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
We're 260 episodes in?
Isn't that many?
Hey, mumbo!
Mumbo Italiano!
Hey, mumbo!
Mumbo Italiano!
Go, go, go! you mixed up Sir Giuliano
All you Calabrasi do the mumbo like a crazy with a
MUMBO ITALIANO