Newcomers: Sports, with Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus - Gangs of New York (w/ Griffin Newman & David Sims)

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

This week, Lauren and Nicole are joined by very special guests Griffin Newman and David Sims (Blank Check) to debrief Scorsese’s 2002 film Gangs of New York starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz. Beloved by some and missing-the-mark for others, the group discusses this early-aughts epic while also getting into Lauren’s childhood production of Les Misérables, the unique and powerful smell of 1860’s New York, as well as officially define what an iPhone Face is. Follow Griffin: Instagram, TwitterFollow David: TwitterNext week tune in for our next episode covering The Aviator (2004)! Like the show? Rate Newcomers 5 stars on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave a review for Nicole and Lauren to read on the pod!Follow the podcast on Letterboxd.Advertise on Newcomers via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Original. Winner two 2002 Golden Globe Awards and nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture. On my challenge, Tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh, tell him, oh For the foreign hordes! Yeah! With this knife that struck him down, let me put to rest my father's ghost. Who are you? You're the priest's son, aren't you?

His name's Amsterdam. Amsterdam? I'm New York. Everything you see belongs to me. The moose boys and quick thieves and Blind Tigers here in Paradise. Everybody owes, everybody pays. What do you think you're doing? I'm dancing.

So why aren't you dancing with him? I'm not in love with him. There's more of us coming off these ships every day. 15,000 Irish a week get all of us together and we ain't got a gang. We got an army. Challenge. Challenge. Challenge accepted. I stole the father.

Now I'll take the son. I give you my word. This'll all be finished tomorrow. No, it won't. Newcomers Okay, I'm Nicole Byer. I'm Lauren Lapkus. And boy, oh boy, this season we're working our way through the filmography of the esteemed director, Martin Scorsese. Also, producer Allie and producer Anya are here.

We're doing 10 episodes this season, so we have picked all the essential movies of Scorsese's super long and prolific career. But of course, we can't get to everything. a long and prolific career, but of course we can't get to everything. So today we're going to be discussing the film based on Herbert Asbury's book of the same name, Gangs of New York. Wow. I didn't know it was a book. Well, Gangs of New York is available for free on Max, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or for a fee on any other major streamer. We're going to spoil it. So if you want to watch it, you should should but if you don't keep listening we are so excited for our guests today griffin newman is an actor and comedian known for playing orco in netflix's masters of the universe and wado in the cult favorite the george lucas talk show

and david sims is the staff film critic for the atlantic together they are the dynamic duo that hosts the incredible podcast blank check which directors' complete filmographies episode to episode. Thanks for being here, you guys. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah. Oh, my God. The Bowery Boys, we're here. We're a couple Bowery Boys.

We're a couple dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers. We're here to tell you about how much more dangerous New York City used to be. Oh, my God. I know. You could have gotten stabbed at any moment, it seems. In the 1800s, you wanted to buy a beer, you had to pay for it with an ear. That was the price of a beer.

It was also so dirty back then. What is your guys' relationship to Omar de Sassez? First of all, you know, a lot of people mispronounce his name and i it's so true you're really nailing it that's the both of you just really clearly got it i know yeah i think i said score my lab is you mean i don't know what i was saying like you just ran and you're kind of like exhaling like it has to come out of you like that you know i i this is the first marty movie i saw in the theater i just realized that i'm thinking it was the same for me it had to have been yeah because i was too little for yeah for his other stuff in theater have you guys covered all of his stuff on your show

no i mean you said the thing that we cover complete filmographies, which is a reason that Scorsese and a lot of other seminal filmmakers are uncovered on our show because it's like, if we were to do Marty, it would take us six months. It's a lot of movies.

See, we can slap it out in 10 weeks. We can do a quick slap out. Efficiency. I mean, we should learn some lessons from you guys. David, I truly also, we would like curl into a ball

ripping our hair up going like, okay, so which music documentaries do we have to cover? Which ones are on Patreon? Which ones are on Main Feed? Which ones are essential

to his career arc? Yeah. Versus just like hitting the big notes. Well, you know, the benefit of us not knowing anything

is that we don't know what we're missing so it's just we don't sure wait have you two seen all of his movies sorry lauren i have seen every martin's you've seen everyone feature i don't think i've seen all the documentaries uh yeah not to not to brag but i've seen every movie have you not Griff? what's missing for you? no I think I've seen the majority but I haven't seen all of them even the shorts?

I have seen the shorts I've seen the shorts I have that disc I literally just haven't seen I never saw the Rolling Stones music movie I never saw the Rolling Stones music movie. I never saw that one. That one apparently sucks. Everyone says that

one sucks ass. I never saw that George Harrison one. He did like that's it. I haven't seen like those. I've even seen like all the stuff he shot of like Fran Lebowitz just sitting in a diner booth going like the arc is used to read more books. I hate the subway, you know all that, but I did watch all of that and I loved that. used to read more books. I hate the subway. You know, all that stuff.

I did. I did watch all of that. And I loved that. Of course, it's great. It's so good. While Marty's just sitting there going like, ah, ah, ah, Fran, you're crazy. I mean, it's good stuff.

That is quietly. You should watch that. Yeah, I was quietly one of the best things he's ever been associated with. And I would say is more newcomers coded than anything else in his filmography. I think I watched one of his short films

and I think it was about a man shaving. But I also feel like I'm making this up. The Big Shave. Well, that's a short film. The Big Shave. That's one of his early ones.

Wait, really? Oh, yeah. That sounds so fake. I did not believe you. It did. And I was like, I think I'm lying. It's an allegory

for the Vietnam War. Okay. Is it? Yeah. This is bloody. He shaves too much. Why do we, we shouldn't even been shaving in the first place. Wow.

I didn't know there were shorts. Yeah. I'm late to the game. I mean, this is like, you ask us what our relationship is to him. And I feel like David and I are joking about it because the answer is we are like so thoroughly the classic type of Scorsese nerd film boy. Yeah.

I love him very much. Yeah. And I'm just like... That was so genuine. Anytime he complains about the kids today, I'm like, he's right and everyone should shut up. But also, like, I remember seeing this movie in theaters when I was 13 years old. And I was like, well, here we go.

It's finally time for Marty to win his Oscar. And I hadn't seen any of his movies. But it was like, if you're our type of film nerd who's growing up, like, obsessively following the oscars you're basically inheriting the narrative of like this is the goat this is our living legend this is the guy who's at the absolute nexus of like highest art and popular culture like spielberg's a little too mainstream and these guys are a little too are lynch is too up his own ass and Scorsese is like undeniable, you know? Yeah. Oh. Okay, this is, so what,

did you see this movie when it first came out? Yeah. And did you watch it again for this, or you're well-versed? Okay, so what do you feel? I've seen it many times. What do you feel? You love it.

You've watched it many times. You go first, David. So this is one of my favorite marty movies which is i think that is that is so fascinating wait what are your top what are your top two marty movies you want my top two oh i can call up a letterboxd list i mean you know like i'm ready um my top two are probably good fellas and probably good fellas and after hours I get you guys

are probably not doing this was one of your top ones it's one of my top he's got a lot of good movies movies yeah they're all tied for number one okay I get it I get it but this is this might be you know six or seven for me, Griff.

I don't know where you have it in your Marty rankings, Griff. But it's always been a big one for me. Yeah. Yeah. I know you love this movie and watch it a lot. I saw it when it came out. I watch this movie a lot. The hype for this movie was so out of control.

I'm sure we will talk about this. But it was just like the lead up to this film was masterpiece incoming. Like the bar for this movie was if it's anything less than one of the greatest movies of all time, it's going to be seen as a disappointment. And I think that was kind of how it was seen. Everyone was sort of like, he got close.

What a shame. This was his big Oscar swing and it didn't quite work and then the aviator is like he's trying it again and then the weirdness is the departed felt like him saying like you know what i'm done chasing the oscar i'm ready to make one of my kind of movies again and then they gave him all the oscars but this movie when it came out was like he's getting the biggest budget he's ever had this is the film he's been waiting to make for like 25 years he's coaxed like one of the greatest living actors out of retirement he's sort of like anointing dicaprio as the new guy yeah i was like leonardo caprio was retired but like dicaprio took a big break. You know, this was like him coming back after a couple years.

He'd only really done one movie since Titanic. Yeah. There was a lot of hype around him. He does Titanic. Then he does The Beach. And that was weird, right? Which people don't like. It's a very weird movie.

Never seen it. Is it just him on the beach? It's a nice time. It's like he's like digital and like things happen that are like weird. I don't know anything. I mean, your summary isn't wrong, Nicole. Essentially, it is a movie about him on the beach having a nice time. Things go wrong.

But I think the main conflict is that he's like, I'm having a nice time. Can everyone please chill out around me? Yeah, he finds a really cool beach. He has a good time for a while. People get a little too intense about it. And he's like, I guess I gotta go. That's kind of the story. He fucks really cool beach. He has a good time for a while. People get a little too intense about it. And he's like, I guess I gotta go. He fucks too many women. He has a lot of sex.

He does a fair amount of drugs. Classic ugly American. There's a scene where he hallucinates and thinks he's in a video game. That's the part that I'm aware of, I feel like. Super Nintendo video game. He's walking around like he's Donkey Kong with like a power bar above his head.

You'd love this scene. You know, I think I have to see it. Yeah. You're selling it real well to me. It's interesting. But that was like his post-Titanic, like the audience is going to follow Leo to anything. He makes that.

The audience is like, you might be on probation. The beach is too far. Yeah. And then he's like, I'm doing Catch probation. You're too far. Yeah. And then he's like, I'm doing Catch Me If You Can and Gangs of New York. Gangs of New York takes so long that this ends up coming out a week before Catch Me If You Can. But he made them back to back. And it was like, here are his first movies in two years. And this is like the two greatest, you know, kind of most iconic american directors claiming him as like their new leads daniel day lewis hadn't made a movie in a couple years

cameron diaz was like about as hot as she could be at that moment but everything was like this is the one he's been trying to make since the 70s and they're finally letting him do it they pushed it back an entire year. And I remember going to see it with my mom, having very little understanding of the Scorsese context. Then probably after this, circling back and watching a bunch of his movies on video. But my take at the time as a 13 year old was like, everything with the young cast sucks and it's really boring. And anything with the older character actors and daniel day lewis is like the coolest shit i've ever seen anything that's like old guys with a

lot of face doing accents i love and anything that's like the young hot leads i'm so bored by and i've never re-watched it and i've always been meaning to and i was like i'm gonna come back to this as like a dude in his mid-30s who has a movie podcast. And I'm going to have like a more nuanced, interesting take. And I watched it and I was just like, I basically land in the same place. I feel like I can express it slightly better now. But I do think there's like the world of this movie I find fascinating. I think this movie looks amazing. Like I do love the dirt and the smelliness.

And anytime it gets into the hard history of like, that's so weird. Like all the little sort of like Wikipedia sidebars of this movie where they're explaining subcultures. Anyone in this cast born before 1970, I think is giving a great performance. And then everyone else feels like a kid playing dress up to me like it reminds me of when i was like doing school plays and we had to like do shakespeare

and all of us would just turn to each other and be like we don't know what we're saying right yeah i remember we did um we did a production of lay miz that was extremely truncated um when i was in fourth and fifth grade. This was a fourth and fifth grade. It was like a student from Northwestern came to our school to teach us, to like lead this. It was probably some project he had to do.

Was it Les Mis Junior? It was, it was, it was just, it was Les Mis. Okay. But I never knew what was going on. And I was like, in the background holding a shovel being like,

what? Like, I just like. That's so funny. Another thing where everyone's dirty too. Everyone's like got dirt on their face

in Les Mis. Yes. The dirtiness of this movie, like, we are coming off of like feeling so great about these movies and I feel like that's,

that was, this was a hard. You've been on a positive run. Okay this this was a hard turn um it's just so different first of all and i think because it's maybe because it's a book that he's adapting and that but he did adapt it wasn't goodfellas a book too yeah so i don't know by nicholas the pelt did you just know that i did okay it sounded i just remembered wait what is it it's not nicholas no it's nicholas no pelagey who's pelts who's the guy who's fighting for control of disney whose daughter is married to brooklyn victoria beckham's son? I didn't even know that. I gotta say,

Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz looked too contemporary and I feel like there was some vanity going on because I was like, you got your face fucking branded and I can't see it. He said he's like to walk around with this and it was gone. I was like, you got healed up?

I thought that was shocking. I was like, got healed up his i thought that was shocking i was like it healed really well considering they don't have like bandages and they have they're like the dirtiest rats i've ever seen it should be the most infected shit in the world yeah instead this guy like doesn't have pores yeah he looks fantastic he looks unbelievable well i like by the end he had like little beads or something in his hair and his hair was in a little bun i said okay oh he found some moose or some jail i didn't yeah i didn't like when he had that little braid i didn't know what was happening his little jedi paduan braid yeah um you're asking about the book thing yeah see look at this journey you've been on i know i know we oh my god can you believe all the stuff we know now it's crazy

crazy no the book thing is interesting because that was like part of the struggle with this movie is it's a it's it's like a like a historical book it's not like a narrative i i i have read it uh it's a it's an awesome book but it is very much like so this is what new york was like in the 19th century there was this there was this like there were these gangs like it's not there's no hero and there's no one to follow i mean there's all this stuff that's in this movie is from the book but you know like not this is a fictionalized narrative grafted onto the sort of details of the book but it even felt that way to me a little bit that there kind of was no story. Like it kind of felt like, okay, I guess I care what happens to him.

But part of that was because I Googled to understand what was happening as I was watching it. And I was like, okay, I guess I care about his character. Like it was just kind of like, well, we'll get into all that. Let's do our quick segment called spotted. Okay. This is our segment where we, we see if today's movie has any of the following celeb sightings.

Do we get one of Marty's boys? Do we get Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Joe Pesci, Leonardo DiCaprio. This is the intro of Leo. And do we get Marty's mom, Catherine Scorsese?

No, I wish we did. I don't think so. It would be amazing. I don't think so. It would be amazing. I don't think people got that old at that time. I want to say she passed at this point. Everyone dies at 50. Yeah.

And then do we see Marty himself? Yep. Yes. We do? What? I keep missing him. Fancy New Yorker. Cameron robs him.

He's like, where's Waldo? He's the fancy man that Cameron robs at one point. Oh, my God. She sneaks into his house, right? Oh, yeah. They're the Uptown family? I need to look at that again. Because when they're like women.

They're having tea. Oh, wow. Yeah, truly did not. I got to really up my game on knowing what Marty looks like. Did he have his glasses on? He doesn't. No, but he's got those. He's got them caterpillars.

He's got the two black eyebrows. The Peter Gallagher's. Yeah. Okay, well, let's take a quick break and then we'll jump in with the Gangs of New York. We're back with Gangs of New York. Guess what? It was released December 20th, 2002,

just in time for Christmas. And then we had a group of friends writing Jay Cox, Stephen Zalanan and then Kenneth Lonergan yeah it's gotta be wild having a last name like Cox yeah poor Jay C-O-C-K-S

it's not spelled differently it's not C-O-X I think that one you kind of just let it go yeah that's fine but this one is it's the plural of penises it's the plural of penises yeah that's just one of the most famous one of the most famous film critics to film writers ever he was a big film in the 70s you know that's kind of great though because it's like when someone's a critic and then you're like you try it then he's like how about i did and it's great or whatever when scorsese made it scorsese straight up hired him to write the screenplay in 1979 what what that's how long it took and this movie went through like

every studio that's why the expectations were out of control but also that's what's wrong with it i often think if a director spends too long trying to make a movie it can never live up to the energy like there are so many examples of that i can't name them now but i know that this has happened where you're like oh my god they tried to make that for 20 years it was like why did they keep trying i think it's especially tough with this where it's clearly like well we have to have this right we got it you know like oh we have to have Tammany Hall and we have to have the firemen and we have to, you know, and it's like, whatever, like, you know, I'm sure Jay Cox is just sitting there writing things down,

like, okay, okay, include this, include this. But it's like, but also there should be a hero and a love story and a villain and, you know, like it's a tough challenge. But also like the term, to throw out another term that now exists in the newcomer's lexicon, you almost end up with this kind of, like, multiverse thing where if you're Martin Scorsese and you're getting ready to actually make this movie, you're like, well, this movie

has at different points over the last two decades been a billion different things in my mind. I've developed different versions at different times, at different budget levels, different drafts with different writers. different versions at different times at different budget levels different drafts with different writers and like there are accounts that on set on the day every morning everyone would get to set and scorsese would just be in his trailer with like 40 different scripts picking like do i take elements from this and elements from this this this is this is something i've i've uh experienced before and it's it's it's scary because you're like,

you could be having a lot of fun in every scene and feeling like every scene is really good. And then it's like, when it's all coming together, like, yeah, cause it's like so much pressure every day to like figure out what you're doing,

which should not be what you're thinking about when you're about to start shooting. That's interesting. That's so, it's so interesting. Cause I really like good fellows. It's like one of my new favorite movies like i love it yeah it's so seamless and this movie i just kept thinking like that's an interesting set oh that's a this that's a that like i was kind of like looking at all the pieces that were making as opposed to just being

swept up by the story also goodfellas felt of the period this did not feel of the period he was shooting it felt like it was made in 2002 like the like slow-mo fighting to like i want to talk about that what are we what this is interesting that was so trendy i was so confused i was like that's so not his style from what i have now learned from the few things I've seen. But I'm like, I'm just going like, this feels like it's trying to be trendy. And that just seemed weird. I put this on last night for the first time in like 22 years, almost. And I had the exact same experience for the first five minutes of the movie that I felt watching as a 13 year old where I was like, oh, this is the greatest movie ever made. The first couple of minutes with Neeson and the kid and going in the

underground, he's ever done. And then the door kicking open and you see the snow and the introduction of Dale Day Lewis. And I'm like, I am here all day for this. Please give me seven hours of this. And then the moment where he starts doing the like juddery shutter speed in

the fighting, it goes into what I just have to call ba-wit-a-ba mode, where the music starts sounding like Kid Rock. It starts looking like a Kid Rock video from this era. There are many theories. There were famously a lot of battles between Martin Scorsese

and infamous hero of Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, over this movie, and the final cut, and a lot of them related to how violent the movie could be. And I wonder how much of that editing style in the opening sequence was to mitigate the goriness and kind of abstract it. Because it's kind of silly almost. There's like a guy dies and he's like,

his eyes like cross. Also, there's no blood in the beginning of the fight and there's only blood towards the end. And I kind of was like, wait, but Marty shows so much blood. I'm kind of missing the violence. But like from that moment, I start to question the movie and then watching it again. I'm like every 10 minutes I'm in and out. There's stuff in it that I think is unbelievable.

And then there's stuff that does feel like weirdly 2002 specifically in a way I don't really think his other movies are. Like even every other era of Scorsese, he is doing something kind of unique that is not in conversation with the trends of movies at that time, which I love about him. He's always doing his own thing.

And I don't know how much of this was like Weinstein just kind of beating him down to some extent which he was famous for doing at this point but um yeah I mean here's my my big take on this and then I I David should make his yeah and then shut up because you're're wrong. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. Scorsese always says this thing that people interpret as like him being self-deprecating, where he's like, I don't think I've ever made a movie with a plot. I don't think I know how to tell a story.

Like, he always says stuff like that. Oh, that's funny. And people are like, what are you talking about? You're Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest filmmakers. But then you watch this movie, and you compare it to his other movies, and it is true that kind of like the beauty of his best films is that they're just kind of like the most interesting scenes. He's not interesting in doing A to B shit.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's kind of why like, I mean like Taxi Driver and I'm thinking of Goodfellas, like that they're, and even Raging Bull too. It's like, it's kind of just like these slice of life moments that then up a story like you feel like there's a story because but you're kind of

you are watching someone go through their existence in a way this guy is only showing you the most interesting scenes from any other movie and he's cutting out like all the connective tissue you know he's only keeping in the things that feel like they have some like honest energy to them and that's also it them and he also it rules and he's also better than almost anyone at building movies around unlikable people and making them deeply compelling you know yeah and this is a movie where it feels like maybe because of the size of the budget the expectations the pressure on it it feels like he was trying to place a kind of normal story into the middle as a spine of what he really wanted to do.

Where it's like, can I establish a kind of classical, like old Hollywood epic? Here's the hero, the kid of the father who has to get vengeance. And you have your pretty young MV stars and their romance. And that stuff to me doesn't feel perfunctory. romance and that stuff to me doesn't feel perfunctory but it's just like all i want is for the camera to move over from them to john c reilly like i don't know eating a rabbit with his right yeah it does feel like you would get more of that like it was missing that feeling of like any sort of the random little slices yeah and i feel like all the other movies we've seen like you said are deeply unlikable people that you kind of root for and i feel like all the other movies we've seen like you said are deeply unlikable

people that you kind of root for and i felt like leonardo caprio was just like okay whatever and then daniel day lewis i wasn't necessarily rooting for him i thought he did a great job but it wasn't like enough i guess i wanted the story to be more about him with leonardo like little little dips and outs but like I guess in Goodfellas, I loved that there were so many characters, but it was Ray Liotta's movie. Yeah. And we don't like that.

You don't know enough about Leo's character to get so invested. Like I, I understood that it was him. So let's read, let's read a little bit of the summary so we can jump in and talk about the plot, but, and,

and talk about that more. So in the slum neighborhood of Five Points, Manhattan in 1846, two gangs have a final battle in Paradise Square. The nativist Protestant natives, led by William Bill the Butcher Cutting, who's Daniel Day-Lewis, and the Irish Catholic immigrant Dead Rabbits, led by priest Valen, Liam Neeson. Bill kills Valen and declares the dead rabbits outlawed having witnessed this valen's young son hides the knife that killed his father and is taken to an orphanage on blackwell's island so like i'm kind of like already piecing together that this kid this kid is seeing his dad be killed and he's pushed away and whatever and then we we quickly cut to 16 years later like okay i assume that's him and he's now gonna try to do something it when i googled to kind of like make sure i was on the

right page because i wasn't really sure who all i don't feel like it was clear enough who all these different people were and why they were fighting i was like so he's gonna try to infiltrate to like get revenge or whatever which which I almost was like, Oh, it's sort of like mafia ish. Like it's sort of like mob ish, but it just didn't do it in that way. Like it's like he,

it just felt kind of slow and like private that he's doing this the whole time. Like it didn't have like a sort of like tough energy to it. Do you know? I, I fully agree. Cause he didn't have to sneak around. He kind of was just like, hello! And then he was like,

I'm Bill The Butcher. But David, you love this and I want to hear more about why this is good. I'll try to be brief. I mean, I will say, I love this movie despite its mess. I can't deny that there's things about it that are very messy. Which I

just, is part of sort of the romance of the movie for me, because it's set in a messy time, in a messy place, and like Griffin's saying, so much of the movie is just Marty's like, I built these sets, we've recreated this lost history of New York, it used to look like this,

and we're just gonna hang out in it, and we're gonna meet all kinds of different people that were v like vying for power and it's like that's cool i'm fine with that and i agree like where you have trouble with the movie it sounds like for you guys and i think for most people it's like yeah it's like how much am i supposed to care about leo he's kind of a whiny baby face like yeah like his mission is sort of unclear through like why doesn't he just like stab bill the butcher or the yeah he has so many opportunities right you know yeah and it's because like that's not what it's about at all like the movie starts with like this giant war between uh you know the the irish immigrants and the quote-unquote nativists who are really just

like people who got there a little earlier like everyone obviously is an immigrant uh which is what scorsese is kind of fascinated by like this idea of like what's american right and like who's you know who gets to be in charge and the minute amsterdam meets bill the butcher as a grown-up just like us we're just like completely transfixed by this guy who is like obviously evil he's like this cackling like circus madman with like a crazy mustache and a metal eye and a stovepipe hat and he talks you know insane and he talks crazy i looks crazy he's great. And he's a good guy. And he's got good ideas. Yeah. You're watching the movie and you feel that way.

You're kind of like, I think the butcher rocks. And this is just like Scorsese's like, this is the story of America for like 300 years. This is us being drawn to this like violence and nativism and like, you know, this, this kind of leadership. And it's the story of movies, which are what I make. And I love movies, the story of New York movies, right? You know, like, it's you getting suckered in by this, like, sort of magnificent, but kind of evil guy, very evil. He's not kind of evil. He's like fully evil. Yeah, he loves throwing knives at people

for fun. Yeah, he literally like literally like exactly he's not just gonna like punch leo in the face he's like let me stage an elaborate knife throwing circus act to like cuck him before i then punch him in the face um and headbutt him like 80 times uh but uh like that the the sort of romance quote unquote between leo and bill the butcher like that's that's what i love about gangs in new york yeah okay i can get behind that okay i know it's a hot take like no no it's good we need that we need that here i also love like the history of new york city and like i love the book and i love seeing all the it's so funny to think about these guys in stovepipe hats called the bowery boys and it's like these were

the scariest people in new york i know well one thing i i love thinking about with like that time period and watching this i was like they think they're at like and they were at like peak technology and like everything was like as good as it could be and so they like feel like they're at like, and they were at like peak technology and like everything was like as good as it could be. And so they like feel like they're kind of killing it, which I guess like we feel now and maybe it'll get so much better that we'll look back and be like, we really didn't know how good we could have it. But like, they're all like covered in dirt. They're like, they live like trash. Dirty teeth. They're all like the stinkiest people.

They're all like the stinkiest people. And even like when, when like Leonardo, which we'll get to, but he like refuses to have sex with Cameron Diaz, this character. And then I was like, cause she like,

she like slept with other people and she's like a prostitute or something. I was like, you, there's no way you're clean. Like, yeah. No one is judging her. The sex probably stunk.

Like, oh, and like the sort of when like, when they have sex and it's like all sudden I'm like we need rags we need to get the wet rag we gotta fuck uh just to go on a little bit more of the summary so in 1862 16 years later amsterdam returns to five points seeking revenge he retrieves the knife uh that killed his father an old acquaintance johnny uh i don't know how to say his last name played by henry thomas familiarizes himself with the local clans of gangs who all pay tribute to bill who remains in control of the territory amsterdam soon becomes attracted

to the pickpocketer and grifter jenny everdeen played by cameron diaz who I think has the best Irish accent I have ever heard with whom Johnny is also infatuated with so the accents were all over the place in this movie a lot of choices were made well I like googled it because I was like is Leonardo doing what like I couldn't tell what was happening and then I just kind of felt like

I found threads of people being like it's because at this time it was a melting pod and like anybody's acting. So you kind of like, everything is kind of like, okay, it's fine. Like, because everyone's doing different things. It was a time of choices. Everyone was

kind of like, I talk like this now, you know, like, right? It's when all that's happening. And of course, and you do have Bill the Butcher in the middle of it being like, well, I'm Bill the Butcher. And you're like, what is that? Who talks like this? But you just are cool with it. I would say most of the cast, it does feel like they are making a choice.

I do love the sort of mishmash of it. Diaz and DiCaprio, I feel their self-consciousness in this movie of being like, how hard should I commit to this? Am I allowed to go as like grungy as everyone else is? Is my job to be pretty? You know, do I need to be likable? Like they feel like the only two actors who are burdened with some sort of movie star pressure, which also is probably not helped by their characters being less interesting. Yeah. which also is probably not helped by their characters being less interesting.

There being a kind of like story weight on them that the other characters don't have, where it's like, hey, guess what? You get to just be the craziest man who ever lived. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like her, you know, she was definitely like in so many movies at this time, but nothing like this. And so it's like to see her in this context,

I'm sure that the pressure was on to like deliver a certain thing. And I'm sure that was scary, honestly. Because she's such a rom-com, like Charlie's Angel, like that kind of thing. And like then to have to do this, which it would be really intimidating. I mean, I'm not saying she didn't rise to the challenge, but I'm just like, I can just imagine that would feel like,

oh God, I have to like be like an 1800s sex worker now and also this movie was so huge at the time and was seen as such a risky bet that there's just no way it's getting made without two conventionally huge young movie stars like i just don't think they ever could have considered not placing characters like this at the center whereas i i agree with you nicole that i when i watch this movie i want to watch the movie that is like 80 bill the butcher right yeah and the dicaprio character is kind of flittering around the edges that's what i that's what i wanted i honestly pictured him like wado when you said that well the ultimate flitterer okay so amsterdam is introduced to bill but keeps his past a secret as he seeks recruitment into the gang he learns many of his father's former lieutenants are now in bill's employ despite

his anti-irish views each year bill celebrates the anniversary of his victory over the dead rabbits and amsterdam secretly plans to kill him publicly during this celebration that's kind of exciting a little it's kind of a thrilling premise if you ask me totally it is it is a good premise i just i just i was a little bogged down by the execution okay so amsterdam gang gains bill's confidence and becomes his protege involving him with the dealings of corrupt uh what is it tammany hall uh politician william m tweed jim broadbent who i know from moulin rouge baby hello harold ziggler right around the same

time it was when if you needed a guy with like a big mustache he was your guy he did that's who you went to yeah uh well amsterdam saves bill from an assassination attempt and is tormented by the thought that he may have done so out of honest devotion honestly i read that on wikipedia and i didn't quite get that from the movie i didn't think that at all and i was debating this with with my husband because he was he was like oh he saves him and i go no he like jumped away i thought he was like trying to get away from the from the bullet and because it could hit him because he was right next to him so it's like he seemed to kind of just like scoot out and then but but it, and like, and Bill still got hit.

So I didn't get how it was saved. Kind of yells like Bill, watch out. Like there's a little bit of a, you know, I guess, I guess we'll give him that one. Um,

okay. So on the evening of the anniversary, Johnny and a fit of jealousy over Jenny reveals Amsterdam's true identity and intentions to Bill. Bill baits Amsterdam with a knife throwing act involving Jenny. That was really crazy. As Bill toasts priest Valen, Amsterdam throws his knife, but Bill deflects it and wounds Amsterdam with a counter throw. Bill proclaims that rather than dying, Amsterdam shall live in shame and burns his cheek with a hot blade. Going into hiding, Jenny nurses Amsterdam back to health and implores him to escape with her to San Francisco.

Yeah, I mean, I liked all this. I thought it was really interesting. I just really wanted Amsterdam to have a like a like a nasty fucking scar. Like I really wanted him to look different because he literally says you're gonna have to walk with this scar or whatever he says and then it was like oh all better okay still pretty i know he looked great he's he's he's a handsome boy i mean you know yeah i guess they phantom of the opera him right like that's sort of like i'm hideous and you're like you're fine you have like a little birthmark. David, everything you said you love about this movie,

I also love about this movie. With the exception of the one thing I don't totally lock into is the romance, as you put it, between, well, the romance between DiCaprio and Diaz, I'm 100% out on. That's just like a non-starter for me. It's part it's the least it's not really included here but it's like they have like a sort of will they won't they thing where she keeps kind of like getting in his way and then he keeps being like what's your deal like get out of here and then they like fuck and that's kind of it yeah it feels very perfunctory to me. It feels like contractual obligation shit.

The thing I want to work for me in the movie is what you said, like the love story, the weird love story between Bill the Butcher and Amsterdam. This odd, like, here's a guy coming to get revenge, and yet he's kind of lured in by this whole thing. You know, the moment you were just talking about of him sort of preventing the assassination, like, why is he saving this guy? Is he actually, like,

developing feelings? Does he like this lifestyle? He just wants a daddy. His daddy dies when he's a little baby. I'm serious, you know, right?

No, no, I agree with you. It's a very profound moment. Right, yeah. But that's the thing, like,

on paper, I'm like, yes, I find that to be compelling that is emotionally compelling to me and i don't totally buy the execution of it within the movie i agree because i think if he did something that like uh questioned his like his morals or something for bill the butcher that would have been something where he's like i'm gonna do this thing even though like i know i shouldn't because of my dad or whatever but does it anyway so i don't know like i i just want it more like i wanted to actually feel his allegiance to bill the butcher

i didn't really feel it i just don't i feel like dicaprio wasn't quite ready to pull this off at this point this was the narrative at the time people were like yep oh was it caprio proven to be you know doesn't have the juice titanic was a one-off or whatever oh no they said he didn't have the juice country if you can't came out at the same time and people like that but because he's playing a younger you know he's playing like a teenager in that everyone was like well sure he can play a teenager but he can't play a grown-up and i don't know when he turned it around griff i guess it was kind of like the departed right like blood diamond the departed my aviator the way i the way i view it and we've covered a lot of these surrounding movies on the podcast of these movies but like

catch me if you can i think is one of his best performances ever if not his very best and standing in opposition to this movie the two of them coming out a week apart you're like this is dicaprio doing the thing that no other star on the planet could have done at that moment like he is just bottling all of his like insane boyish charm the ability to sell anyone anything and it's like this weird chameleonic performance, but that's going off of his intense likeability rather than him trying to seem tough and intense and serious,

which I think at this point he was like, I don't want to be seen as a teeny bopper. I don't want to be seen as a heartthrob. I want to be an adult, serious filmmaker. I want to be Robert De Niro. That's who I want to grow into. And he and Scorsese formed this really strong bond that also is beneficial to Scorsese to help get his movies financed. I think he's a lot better in The Aviator where it's sort of finding a role of a real guy who coasted off a lot of that similar kind of

boyish charm in a more serious film, but bottling that same energy. And then Departed for me is the one where it totally clicks because Departed is not to get ahead of movies you'll be covering here. It's about a guy trying to prove his own craft. Yes, that's the thing. And it's like a movie about a guy basically saying, please, I can be in a Scorsese movie. Let me be in a Scorsese movie. I can pull pull this off and I think he's so good in that and that's the movie where he like clicks it I don't think he's consistently great every time from them on and I tend to prefer the times that Leo is fun to the times that Leo is like self-serious like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Wolf of Wall

Street Catch Me If You Can are the movies where I'm like no one else could do this yeah but yeah I he gets to better grown-up serious performances later after this and I know part of this is that he is supposed to be the kid right he is supposed to be in and over his head but I feel his pressure of I'm trying to prove myself as a serious actor rather than the character trying to prove that he can like hack it with these other guys yeah yeah it i did feel myself just very removed watching a lot in ways that i just didn't with other ones so that makes sense then i said it before i also just think everyone looking so current, like everyone looked very contemporary

and that really took me out of it. Well, and it's weird because like, so in the beginning we have that sort of current music and then you don't have that again, like throughout the whole thing. I think we get it again at the end. At the end there's a U2 song. You get the U2 song.

That's a U2 song? Oh yeah. But I'm like, why? I only knew that because the captions were on and it said u2s made in america plays or whatever but i was like why do we not have that in the middle like because that's a choice you can make stylistically when you do something like that's a period piece but with current music and that could be really cool but it didn't it was kind of like it felt like random it felt like it was supposed to suck you in at the beginning and then you're like but no it's all irish jig music or whatever and like i'm not gonna hear that again i don't know i didn't get it um i know people say you have iphone

face now right but there's no iphones in 2002 so you say it's like Nokia face? What's the 2002 version? They have flip phone face, right? Because it's like the specific, that's like what you, what's iPhone face? Yeah, what is that? I've never heard of an iPhone. Like, does he have like, you know, power book face? I'm just trying to think of like, what was a thing in 2002? iPhone face is like a young actor in a period movie

where people go, that is a face who has seen an iPhone. I don't buy them existing in this setting. This person has apps. It was especially when Dakota Johnson played a Jane Austen character. People were like, no, no, no.

Dakota Johnson. Yeah, exactly. Has apps. She's not, she doesn't live in a house in England. Nicole and Lauren, did you recognize henry thomas in this have you put this together no what is this no henry thomas is his like young friend in the movie the guy who kind of brings him

into the world yeah okay yeah and he is elliot from.T. Oh! Oh! Wow! Oh, that's cool. Would have never, ever known. I know, and then there's kind of this side story with him where he's like, I wish I was with Cameron Diaz. And then, like, no one cares. Like, it's like... Yeah, nobody gives a shit. But then they kill him.

I like him a lot as an actor. And he's, like, obviously incredible in E.T. And then the last 10 years, he's kind of had this amazing resurgence in horror movies. But I put him in the same box with DiCaprio and Diaz in this. I'm just like, I don't care when they're talking. Wow. What about their struggles, Griffin? What about all their struggles?

Did you know that New York, there used to be just a big lake in Chinatown, okay? Like things were tough back then. The corners. People had metal birds in their eyes they could have had big buildings but they didn't know how there's ladies called hellcat maggie walking around taking that lady was wild her teeth were all pointed and then she had claws i said wow that's devotion glee's job is to hit people with a stick mark how many people he hits and then he's like i hit this many people give me my money that's his whole job they love him notch he's so good in this and his son is my crush. Oh my God. Warren. Let's fight. Let's fight. Oh my God.

Have you seen About Time? Of course I have. I've watched it so many times. He's so charming in it. He's so good. Did you watch Run on HBO? Yes. And I really liked that too.

I loved him in it. I love him. Did you watch The Patient? Oh, I did watch. That's the one where he's crazy karell he's yeah he needs a therapist for some bad stuff he'd be doing i actually don't think i saw the end i think that that one was too too scary this is obviously like pure hypothetical flight of fancy but now this side tangent has made me think of this i I'm like, were he the right age at this point?

Oh. Donald Gleeson, I could have bought his Amsterdam. Yes. Would have been amazing. Yes. We need him in some period piece. He hasn't really done that, I feel like. Yeah, he's got a good period phase.

True Grit, he's got like one amazing scene in. Never seen True Grit. He's in The Revenant. People forget. Yeah. I've also never seen that. Sorry to tell you. He's in Brooklyn.

That's a period piece. Sir Sharonan lives in Brooklyn and she's Irish. I shouldn't say someone hasn't done something when I like. When we haven't seen a movie. I've only seen the rom-coms. It's like, yeah, of course. Brooklyn is like hookups of New York. It's like the period love triangle movie between an Irish immigrant and an Italian immigrant.

Oh. Yeah. Okay. I could get into that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's keep going with our plot here. So Amsterdam returns to the Five Points seeking vengeance and announces his return by hanging a dead rabbit in Paradise Square.

Bill sends a member of his gang to investigate, but Amsterdam kills him and hangs his body in the square. In retaliation, Bill has Johnny severely beaten and run through with a pike, leaving it to Amsterdam to end his suffering. The incident garners newspaper coverage and Tweed presents Amsterdam with a plan to defeat Bill's influence. Tweed will back the candidacy of Monk McGinn, Brendan Gleeson for sheriff. Monk wins in a landslide and a humiliated Bill murders him.

McGinn's death prompts Amsterdam to challenge Bill to a gang battle in Paradise Square. And then city draft riots break out just as the gangs are preparing to fight and Union Army soldiers are deployed to control the rioters. As the rival gangs face off, cannon fire from naval ships are fired directly

onto Paradise Square. Between the cannons and soldiers, many of the gang members are killed. Bill and Amsterdam face off in a fun ghost fight where Bill is just like, hoof, hoof, hoof oh oh oh and then bill is severely wounded by a piece of shrapnel which i didn't i didn't get that uh he's finally killed by amsterdam who along with jenny leaves new york and starts a new life in san francisco there's like that moment when you i thought leo died and he's like laying on the ground and then jenny comes over and he's like mommy and i thought he's

taking a nap he's fine and then they then they go and look at the graves that overlook new york city which i often actually i brought these up recently that like when you're driving into new york from like the airport and then like you pass by like all those graves that look over the city and it feels so like dark because you're just like, we're going to be that. And like, I don't know. I always think that when I see that. We're going to be dead soon. It's like this landscape view of just like tons of tombstones under buildings and you're just like basically cannot uh enter or leave uh new york city without being reminded of the inevitable

specter of death yeah it's like it's like they just stack cemeteries like all outside of the perimeter of manhattan and you're just like okay because i guess there's no room in there it's only like in manhattan i guess there's like two like really old cemeteries that I remember seeing. And then that's about it. They're like ancient. But so then they, the, the like sort of amazing moment we're supposed to have is that this fight

happens. All these people die right here and right over there, they're building the buildings. And then like all, then the graves get covered in grass and no one ever remembers that they ever existed. Which is true. In Manhattan, there are so many people buried in Manhattan that are in unmarked graves.

Oh, really? Oh. Yeah, of course. And there's lots of national monuments now, little signs that are like, yo, by the way, there's like a giant cemetery underneath your feet right now. That's fucking nuts.

Which is cool. It's cool it's cool like so new york not to be nerdy but new york used to end at chambers street um which is where city hall is and where gangs in new york is set is right above chambers street right is it's chinatown now and that's why it was so scummy because it used to be like outside the city quote unquote and that's where all the crazy stuff was happening. And yeah, you know, you know, it can like. That's interesting though. It's like when do we.

Some cool stuff. When do we decide to just put a building on top of a cemetery? Like. I think a lot of crazy decisions were being made back then. I mean. It seems pretty fucked up. And people were wearing stealth type hats, you know, while they made those decisions.

And they were like, gosh, let's do this. Whoever the first guy was. Firemen who like punched each other instead of fighting fires because we were like, this is our fight. Like that's all real. Like that's stuff that would just happen back then. They try to punch the fire see if that would put it out. And they yell at it.

Yeah. Not to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but does Martin Scorsese make sure to include the N word in every movie? I was waiting to bring this up because I felt like it was so heavy in this movie. This one was heavy. Yeah. And I think it said it. It said in Goodfellas. It said it in every movie.

It's every movie we've seen. And I'm like, hey, Martin, I really like you. And why? And there was also the blackface scene in the like when they're doing like a play or something well the the the throwing of the knives happened and then the person in blackface is like oh i better cheer everybody up it's very strange yeah and it felt if every time felt extremely unnecessary i i so I, so is the N word also used toward Irish people at this time?

That was something that I was like. Certainly. It's the, it's the idea of the nativism, right? It's like they're, they're very, you know, intensely prejudiced against the Irish as immigrants, like basically in a similar kind of way. It was one of those things where I was like, the story can be told without that language. But then I wonder if, I was going to say,

I wonder if we're at a point now where that wouldn't be true, but then there's still lots of movies being made where people are throwing that out. The play you're seeing is Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was obviously like the best-selling book at the time. Oh, I didn't know that. Because it's in the middle of the Civil War.

Wait, they had books back then? So were they reading in mud? What about Shakespeare, Nicole? Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Wait, I do like the idea, though, that they would just read dirt. Like a book of dirt. I guess I just couldn't

fathom any of those dirty people going to a bookstore and sitting in a book. I don't think a lot of our characters are probably cracking open books, but that's like uncle. It was like it was a way to rally people for the union and for Lincoln was the popularity of that. Yeah, yeah.

That's why there's it's it's all part of the like rich cauldron of history that Martin Scorsese is presenting to you and gangs in New York. I just think about the actors. I can feel the heat. Everyone's so excited. I'm sorry, Carrie. No, thinking about the actors having to do it,

it's just so aggressive. I find that to be so off-putting that it's like, why is that? If that wasn't in there, I wouldn't miss it. Yeah. It doesn't add to the world. Here's what I would say I would imagine would be his argument is I think for him, like the whole thing this movie stems out of, the reason why he became obsessed with this book and spent 20 years trying to make it is he grew up in this period that was sort of like the transition,

the beginning of the end of New York City being like, everyone keeps to themselves and doesn't trust the others, right? Like the neighborhoods are very sectioned off by like, the Italians hate the Irish. Yeah. And he said like when he was young, he got obsessed with learning what existed before him, right? Like, he grows up in Little Italy. And then he's like, wait, we took over this? This used to be an Irish neighborhood?

And before that, it was what? You know, New York City is this melting pot of immigration, and then everyone landed here, and we're fighting over who is the real type of American, who is the real type of New Yorker. They're like holding on to their culture and legacy and trying to make that the default state while fighting against everyone else know, and that energy, which he's very obsessed with of people like fighting over territory. And the territory isn't just physical space. It's identity. It's like notions of power and all of that. And he's also he just grew up rough. So he's just like, I'm going to show you all the worst shit.

People are going to do fucked up shit and say fucked up things in my movies yeah sure I still think he could get the same idea across without the use of the word cause it literally doesn't I'm like okay so I see someone

their blood splatter I'm like okay that's intense but like hearing that word doesn't make me go wow that was more intense no it's like now i'm taking out a little bit yeah right that's just yeah my my it's completely fair especially in a movie about 98 white people yelling yeah and then the two black people i know and they are brutally murdered And I'm like, cool. It's so terrifying. And almost felt like it wasn't part of the story. You're like, no.

That guy just wandered in. And then they're like, get him. It's like, no. Get him. I guess to more succinctly answer your question, they don't use the N-word in Hugo. So it's not literally every movie. OK. OK, good. What's Hugo about so it's not literally every movie. Okay.

What's Hugo about? That's that one with the big clock. Yeah, it's about kids who love movies. It's about kids in Paris. They love movies and they ride the train and there's a clockwork robot. So it's like cute. If he was throwing racial slurs in that one, I would pull him aside and say

like Marty. Jesus Christ. What the hell is going on going on you have a serious problem didn't nickelodeon produce this movie marty aren't you just rein it in well let's talk about the reception of the film so the film has a 72 on rotten tomatoes i'm a little confused because i thought david you were saying people were like no on this one but it landed on critics' best of the year list and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. It's what Griffin's saying. The hype for this movie was it's going to win him his long-awaited Oscar. He'd never won an Oscar.

It's going to be his biggest hit ever because of the scale of it. And so on and so forth. And instead, 72%. It's like, that's not bad. Rotten Tomatoes is a bit of a flawed metric because like a mildly positive review is fresh but like you know i feel like griff the critical reception at the time was he could tell i'm a film critic complaining about rotten tomatoes uh yeah like

the the reception at the time was like your reception basically of like this it's so impressive the ambition's incredible like a lot of it doesn't work for me, seven out of 10, right? Yeah. The positive reviews had this note of frustration to them where they're like, it's so close. And I was going back and rereading a lot of the reviews from the time before we started recording.

And it's fascinating how a lot of them try to qualify it with like, maybe if I watch it five more times, I will come around to it being a masterpiece. That's what I did. They're trying to compare it to the Scorsese classics at that point that had already been canonized.

And it feels a little like the reviews of Phantom Menace when it came out, where they're like, we might just be too close to this. Yeah. But you want to like it. Totally. So it's that. Yeah. And it got you want to like it. Totally. So it's that.

And yeah. And it like, it got 10 Oscar nominations, but it won zero. Even going into the night, people assumed that Martin Scorsese was going to win best director. And there was this attitude of like, no,

I think they did. Who do you think was the odds on prediction to win best director that night? Rob Marshall, which is crazy. But then he lost and it was a surprise. I disagree with that. What was the movie that won that year?

Scorsese won the Golden Globe. Rob Marshall won the DGA. And Roman Polanski won the Oscar. For what movie? For The Pianist. Which was also a Harvey Weinstein movie and kind of took a lot of... And people thought Daniel Day-Lewis. It was either going to be Daniel Day-Lewis or Jack Nicholson winning.

Did he think it was called the penis? Harvey Weinstein? Yes. Yeah. People voted for it because they thought it was called the penis. And that's why Harvey acquired it. You know, everyone was initially like excited about Jay Cox,

but then the penis, they were like simpler. Well, that's yeah. We know it's not even slang anymore. We know what it is yeah i mean this is a matter of perspective david and you could argue that it was like an unclear field but i remember watching the show that night going i guess scorsese probably still wins by default no definitely not even even thinking chicago was gonna win best picture i had no belief that Rob Marshall was going to win Director.

We all thought it was going to be old Robbie Marshall. Well, and I say we all thought it was going to be Scorsese. And what did Rob Marshall direct? Chicago. Chicago, which won Best Picture. Oh. It was his first movie. Oh, I did like Chicago. That was the other thing.

It was Miramax had all three big movies that year. It was Harvey competing against himself with like Scorsese's overdue epic, a Holocaust movie made by a child molester and a big flashy musical. And Chicago kind of like rose up at the last minute and took over. It's a weird Oscar year chicago was just a movie everybody liked everyone yeah had a nice time with chicago it's fun it had songs like it was just one of those things where all the more complex and super ambitious you know flawed stuff everyone was like i'm just gonna vote for Chicago. Everyone was

having their own time. Was John C. Reilly in this movie? Yeah, but it was brief. He's in this. He's the police. And he's also in Chicago. Yeah. That must have been a fun year for him. As an Oscar nerd, there's a thing I like to call the John C.

Reilly Award. An honorific in my mind for the person who is in the most best picture nominees in any given year. Wow. Where John C. Reilly this year was in The Hours, Chicago, and Gangs of New York. He was in three out of the five. Yeah. And I'm like. That's so cool.

There was the year where Lucas Hedges was in Lady Bird, Manchester. There are a couple times people have gotten close then was it was it Lady Bird and Three Billboards were the same year yeah right right right two is impressive

yeah that's pretty wild I think one's amazing honestly I wouldn't pick one out of bed so cameron diaz had a divisive performance as an irish immigrant pickpocket um and has been cited as an example of poor casting and one of the worst irish accents in film oh that's mean poor cam. Because she was so hot, right? Like, right then, that was when she was, like, at her, you know, everyone was like, she's about to be a big serious actor, you know?

But it isn't. It was tough casting. Being John Malkovich and stuff. There's a rate in being John Malkovich. Oh, I love that. So good. I just watched that this year. And I'm like, why aren't we still talking about it? I just watched that this year, too. And I was like, this movie's really good. Everyone's like, yeah. that. So good. I just watched that this year. And I'm like, why aren't we still talking about it?

I just watched that this year, too. And I was like, this movie's really good. Everyone's like, yeah. It's so good. Yeah, same. Every time I mention it, people are like, yeah, people talked about it in 1999. But every choice they could make, they made. And it's so fun.

It does feel in a slightly bummer way, though. Like, DiCaprio obviously pushes through this, right? Mm-hmm. And, like, wins the battle of how he wants to be perceived. Diaz, it feels like, takes this really hard and basically doesn't try to do something even close to this ever again. Right.

Oh. No. That makes sense, though. I feel like that, it seems like... Well, she did play Miss Hannigan in Annie. She sure did. Which she should have done with an Irish accent. Basically her final role.

Yeah. And then she retired, but then she came out, right? She came out of her retirement. She's got a Netflix movie with Jamie Foxx. She's in a movie. Yeah. And she has her wine company. It has not come out yet.

Yeah. So here's a little trivia. So this is crazy stuff. To simulate Bill the But butcher's fake eye. Daniel Day-Lewis had his own eyeball covered in prosthetic glass. He learned to tap his fake eye with the tip of a knife without blinking. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. That's wild. That's scary. So he must've had that in all the time, knowing he's like a method actor. So he was just like, getting really used to it. Just like poking it with shit. This movie also filmed for like a year straight.

What? I'm just like doing the math. 365 days? For how like hard Daniel Day-Lewis goes, he usually doesn't have to go that hard for that long. That's so long. That's crazy. It just kind of kept stretching out.

I mean, to be clear, it filmed for about four months, but then I think they kept returning. Coming back. They did more and more reshoots. It was not an apocalypse now. Do you think he stays in character in between when he knows there's going to be

another round of reshoots? I hope so. And his children are like, Dad, they haven't given you a date for that yet. I'm not Dad, I'm the butcher. They only need to see your hand, Dad. It's a pickup. They don't even

need you. It can be a double. It's gotta be me. I'm not Dish and Hash, the butcher. They only need to see your hand, dad. It's a pickup. They don't even need you. It can be a double. It's gotta be me. I'm not dishing hands, Johnny Boy. Yeah. More trivia. I don't want to hear that. A little bit more trivia. Marty Scorsese hired the magician,

an Italian man famous for a 30-year career as a pickpocket, to teach Cameron Diaz about the art of picking pockets. That's fun. That's cool. She got to learn a little skill. I wonder if she still does it for fun. Passive income. Yeah. I like when she has all of them on her neck. All the necklaces?

And she's like, ugh. Yeah, take one. Which one is it? And to talk about Daniel Day-Lewis again, Leo broke Daniel Day-Lewis's nose by mistake, by accident, while filming a fight scene. And Daniel Day-Lewis continued to film the scene despite the injury.

So that checks out. He probably was like, yes, we're really doing it. David, is this the movie where they have to pull him out of cobbling or was it the boxer supposedly

this is the one he was a cobbler for I right I mean I don't there are so many stories about Daniel Day-Lewis being insane and it's hard to know what's real or not but yeah supposedly he was a cobbler he definitively at a point in time said i can't act

anymore it takes too much out of me i just want to make shoes oh yeah and he was just a cobbler yeah in between the boxer and this so he didn't make a movie for five years he supposedly moved to italy and became a cobbler i is adam sandler was harder to check on someone that's what the adam sandler movie should be it started out as a biopic and then they it kind of went through enough passes that it got far away from the original story uh we do have to take one more break Okay, we're back! This is our segment, the New Academy Awards. So despite his films having been nominated for over 100 combined Academy Awards,

Marty himself has only won one. And we're here to correct the record, presenting the prestigious first annual New Academy Awards. So we're going to read off some categories and nominees, and then we'll all pick our favorite person to win. The first category is Best Dressed. The nominees are Jenny Everdeen, Cameron Diaz, Amsterdam, Leo, Bill the Butcher, or Priest Valen, Liam Neeson.

Who had the best outfits? Bill. I think it's Bill. I it's bill and in a walk uh i think i like about this movie a lot is they talked about for how much research there was done and how much money was spent on the costumes and building the city and everything they weren't going for realism and i feel like this movie looks like muppet Christmas Carol in a way that I like. It's a little heightened and a little storybook-y for how grimy and edgy it is. And Build-A-Butcher is just the perfect encapsulation of that.

That is so funny. That's really true. And I feel like the hats told a whole story. It was like, for a while, they all had really tall hats, and then they came back with bowler caps, and I was like, oh, now everyone's into this. Something's changed yeah so the new academy award goes to bill the butcher thank you um now we have best line delivery the nominees are whoopsie daisy bill the butcher it's a funny feeling being taken under the wing of a dragon.

It's warmer than you think. Amsterdam. Amsterdam, I'm New York. Don't ever come in here empty-handed again. You gotta pay for the pleasure of my company, Bill the Butcher. I'm gonna vote for Whoopsie Daisy, just because it's just a little silly. It's definitely Whoopsie Daisy. Whoopsie Daisy?

I used to be able to do it really well. Well, the new Academy Award goes to Whoopsie Daisy. And our final category is Best Hair. The nominees are Jenny Everdeen, Amsterdam, or Bill the Butcher. I'm going to go with Bill. Oh, I was going to say Amsterdam had that little braid, you know. Oh, yeah yeah I did like that braid Jenny and Jenny's

hair was was nice had some nice curls but I wasn't blown away I didn't love it and I didn't hate it it wasn't if it was a wig it was it was a pretty decent wig it definitely was I don't think she was like red I feel like she didn't go I think she's disqualified for it being a wig

no offense and I think dicaprio has very pretty hair in this but i almost think that's a strike against him yeah yeah like bill the butcher has the right hair for this movie he has the most severe hat hair i've ever seen where it's just like permanently like matted and the flip from underneath the brim of his hat. It's such a good look. Yeah, I think we all agree the new Academy Award goes to Bill the Butcher. Great hair. Congrats.

And it's now time for Score Sazzy. So it's time for reviews. So we're going to be reading reviews from letterboxd and then we're gonna each give it a one sentence review and a star rating if you don't know what letterboxd is i'm confused because we talk about it every episode so this this review is from maria daniel day lewis has more talent in his fake eye than i do in my entire body. Maria, don't say that about you. Oh, Maria. Well, she gave it five stars.

She did, five stars. That's wild. Anya and Allie are also going to weigh in with their one sentence reviews. So if anybody has one and wants to go first, feel free to take the floor. I'll go first. I would give it three stars

and I would say the greasy hair made my skin crawl the entire time um okay i'm gonna give this movie two and a half stars i'm gonna say um you know there was we didn't talk about that part where all those women had their boobs out but oh yeah um i want to say you know the maybe the stinkiest sex i've ever seen on screen not the point of the film but that's the part that stuck with me the most i'm gonna give it three and a half stars because i could smell the movie, which I didn't love. But I think if

everything looked less current, it would have been better. But also it was fun to look at as it was. This is a bad review, but I stand by it. Okay. I did just type out my Letterboxd review, which is basically a rephrasing of what I said earlier. I'm giving it three and a half stars. Movie basically goes up a full star whenever there are no actors born after 1970 on screen. That's my take. I love it.

Okay. I love it. Anya or David? David. It's five stars from David. Wow. Everyone's got a stars from David. Wow. Everyone's got a nice big hat. Everyone's got a nice big hat?

Is that what you said? Yeah. Can't argue with that. It can be that simple, yeah. Yeah, it can. I feel like we should have ended on David's because I'm going to go to stars. Marty, we expected better.

Yeah, I think it's fair. It's fine. Sorry. You know, okay, so I didn't love it, but I also didn't, like, hate it's fair it's fine sorry you know okay so i didn't love it but i also didn't like hate it hate it the way i've hated other things do you know what i mean well this is why we why i always say i mean i but i just feel like my bar is is high for his movies right now and so i have to be like just compared to i've given five stars out of maybe once or twice already i'm like so it's not that it's not one i'm gonna revisit but also i like also i i just forgive marty for this one do you know what i mean like i'm like marty i still think you could do no wrong like

i love you i have problems but like it's okay no and i think griffin you were saying that he was like kind of doing things to get an oscar sort of and then goes away from that with the next one so it's like that makes sense to me like it's sort of like oh i'm trying something here like it's a movie we've been talking about for 30 years or whatever and like then you know let's not try that again like it'll make sense aviator he's still gunning for oscar but i like that one a little bit better and And then past Aviator, he's like, I'm doing my own fucking thing. He has this kind of incredible run of being like, you know what, from here on out,

you're giving me $100 million every time, and I'm not conceding on anything. I'm doing shit my way just with huge stars and massive budgets now. Yeah. Okay. I'll also say, because I know the nature of this podcast is you're you're trying to cover the big ones the totemic movies uh but that's a good word thank you a lot of my favorite

scorsese movies are the like quote unquote minor ones because he has his major films and his movies that are kind of his epics and are the ones that are sort of what's your favorite one my favorite is after hours which is like oh yes you did your new york comedy i mean it's it's hard to make a movie i would like more than that down to it starring an actor named griffin and it just being a neurotic guy in new york city getting like fucked over and stressed out by everything um but that's a movie I love. And that's thought of as like, oh, this is like kind of a fun lark he did. His sort of zags in between the serious movies

often are the ones that I love. So, I mean, I'm thrilled to hear that the two of you have been enjoying your Scorsese journey. I'm sorry, Scorcese journey. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And I think you'll enjoy the

second half uh of movies uh after gangs more but i also i would encourage you to go back later points and fill in some of those gaps and some of the weird ones yeah i i would like to watch that i'm like i literally can't watch it until we're done with this season because i don't have time to watch another movie but i uh I just looked it up and it looks fun. And it's very highly rated. Cheech and Chong are in it. Catherine O'Hara is in it. Oh.

Wow. Okay. Well, you guys, you were the best to grace us with your presence and talk about this movie. I feel very lucky that we got to hear your opinions on this and help us learn more about Martin Tordesi. Educated. Our pleasure. Do you guys have anything you want to plug?

Blank Check's our podcast. Blank Check? We're doing... When will this come out? May or something. So we will be doing Satoshi Kon at that point? Yeah, we're doing Satoshi Kon, the great Japanese animator, Satoshi Kon.

Oh, okay. That's fun. I'll bike check. Yes, it is fun. Finishing up John McTiernan. Nicole, you were on a handful of years ago, Deep Pandemic. You did Back to the Future Part 2 with us.

Yes. Yes, I did. That's right. One of the great American epics. Did I like it? I don't remember. My memory is you did. You liked it?

Yeah. I think you're proud. The first one's so much better, though. The first one is, but I have a lot of love for it, too. Lauren, you're very first one's so much better though the first one is but I have a lot of love for two Lauren you're you're very overdue to come on we have to find something I know do you guys ever talk about

blank check because that's the only one I want to talk about we'll do it again yeah a couple years into doing the show we did one episode on blank check because people kept asking us if we had done an episode on Blank Check. But maybe it's time for another one.

I've never seen Blank Check. Blank Check is so crazy. It is one of the most bananas movies ever made. A grown woman kisses a child. Whoa, no. It's honestly the weirdest. That is true. It's so weird.

And when you're a kid, you're like, yay. And when you're an adult, you're like, why is she doing that? Wait, the film follows a boy who inherits a blank check and uses it to buy a house what yeah so he gets hit by a car yeah nicole you read that premise and you're probably like imagining what kind of family movie is i swear to you there are scenes in this movie that feel like they're out of the fucked up mind of martin scorsese fucking grown-ups holding guns to his head yeah as lauren said fucking tongue kissing adult women it's like a 12 it's like a disney movie though right like literally yeah but he wow he gets hit by a car and then the the guy like is like oh uh here i'll get right to checking a new bike

and then like he like doesn't he doesn't fill in the amount. And so then he's like, I could do anything with this. He makes up a fake businessman and says that he is the 12-year-old personal assistant to this businessman and buys a mansion. Got it. Yeah. Buys a mansion, yeah.

The man who wrote this screenplay then went on to write the book, Save the Cat, which everyone invokes all the time as like, well, the obvious guide on how to write a perfect screenplay. He came off of writing Blake Check and was like, I think I've cracked it.

I think I know everything. My favorite thing ever because people all, that book is like supposed to be like, that's the book on how to write a movie. And then I always go, why hasn't he written 40 movies then? And I'm like,

if you have the exact model of what is exactly perfect, why don't you have a hundred movies? I, I, it just doesn't make sense, right? No. It's really funny.

Yeah. Yep. It's just the weirdest movie for someone to walk away and go, I think I've mastered the form. Time for me to spread my teachings. That's so confident. But you know what? Honestly, that book is probably his blank check. He's probably going to get so

much money. That's a good point. That's a good point. He figured it out. Well, please, everyone, write a review for Newcomers on Apple Podcasts and rate the podcast on Spotify. Five stars only, of course. We'll be back next week with The Aviator. See you then.

Newcomers is a HeadGum original hosted by us, Nicole Beyer and Lauren Lapkus. Our executive producer is Anya Kenovskaya and our producer is Ali Khan. Our theme music, editing, sound mixing and mastering is done by Ferris Monchi. Listen to new episodes wherever you get your podcasts every Tuesday. That was a Hiddem Original.