Dead Poets Society with Nia DaCosta

We don't listen to and record podcasts because it's cute. We listen to and record podcasts because we are members of the human race and the human race is filled with passion and medicine, law, business, engineering. These are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But podcasts, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I did that as vocal warmups. Now look, there are not really doing, huh? You know, he's not really doing. No, but you still need to do it to get into the quiet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then when he does like the Brando impression, you're like, right, he needed just five minutes to just be silly guy. Let's just get straight into this. Okay. Okay. It is kind of astonishing. I know this has been much discussed, but it's the first time we've tackled any of the movies in this set, okay? That Robin Williams has four Oscar nominations. He wins his fourth, right? He wins the fourth time. Yeah. So I was saying his fourth Oscar. Okay. He won, he won his fourth nomination for supporting actor. He had three best actor nominations. By the time he gets good will hunting, it's like, is he overdue? Right. The three movies all where they didn't give him the award feel like, hey, wow, incredible. You have found a movie where you can use Robin Williams as your dramatic actor. And yet you're still let him do his thing. So the first nomination, of course, was for good will. Sorry. Good morning Vietnam, which is he's at his most Robin Williams, you and he's on the microphone and all that, right? Right. So good morning Vietnam. Loses to Michael Douglas for Wall Street. Okay. Kind of a freight train. Yeah, I think so. This year he loses to Daniel Day Lewis for my left foot. Quite a good performance. And it's another freight train. He was never going to win because Tom Cruise was supposed to win. Right. And Day Lewis for born on the Fourth of July. And Daniel Day Lewis kind of comes on late. Fisher King. Fisher King is his third nomination loses to Anthony Hopkins, Silenced Alams. Is that a good performance? I would argue that. Is that one lodged in the culture? Yet another freight train. There was this feeling perhaps of like, oh, he keeps being up against Titans. Obviously Robin Williams is beloved and he's just over time becoming only a bigger and bigger star. But I also think there was this feeling of, are we going to give him the Oscar when he's still kind of doing the Robin thing? Right. Like people were applauding the fact of like, oh my God, he can like carry a drama and he can like carry these emotions and whatever. And yet all these movies, Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society are kind of ingeniously constructed to tap into the emotional sensitive side of Robin Williams and surprise you and yet allow him to do fucking riffs. Yeah. Like within the structure of him being an unconventional teacher and a radio host, he can just do 90 seconds of impressions in the middle of the movie. Right. Then Fisher King is like, what if he doesn't do the riffs? Right. He's sad. It's a dramatic version of the manic comedy energy. Sure. Whereas Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society are like dramatic tenor Robin Williams, who occasionally does comedy riffs. And so it's good. Well, hunting basically does Vincent being just be sensitive and make us cry. Listen. Yeah. Yeah. And it felt like they were like, there we go. Yeah. We just need to see that you could drop all of it. Yeah. I do think he was also overdue. And obviously that's a role where it's just, you know, monologues and speech of fine and like, you see, you know, making us cry and all that. Who do you beat out there? It was he beat up. Bert Reynolds was seen as maybe it was the competition. The odd favorite to win. But for Broogie Nights. Who's great. But Perfect on Latch. Yeah. No, we can't be doing all that. Yeah. Right. That's crazy. It's one of, it's a thing we're fascinated with. It's another example of someone like sweeps all the precursors and then you get to the Oscars and they lose. And it's like, because too many people in this academy have worked with that person. Or their speeches. I love when you watch like a Oscar like race or tour or whatever. And all the speeches before are so insufferable that by the time they get to the Oscars, it's just like, no, we're not doing it. There's absolutely that part of it. Yeah. But I think I always cite Eddie Murphy and Sylvester Stallone. Eddie Murphy would have been Dreamgirls. Yes. They were really, yeah. He examples of like they're winning everything until the big show. And the big show is a lot of people who are like, I fucking work with him. And also them being like, we'll let you know that how you're all wrong. Right. Yeah. Right. This movie has a lot of quotable dialogue. Sure. What's that face? I don't like the screenplay for this movie at all. I think it's not not a fan. You know what's interesting? I remembered in an episode, I think this is kind of like the not a very good movie that is just so handsomely made and well acted that it kind of puts a spell on you a little bit. I don't like this movie that much. Fundamentally. This is very upsetting. This is very, I'm sorry. This is such a bomb drop. I'm not trying to be a joke. David kind of coming in with like a near the cost on the fog. I know, I know. I was literally just thinking about. Nia, congratulations. He's off you. David's fucking taken the slingshot. I was really, you know, I'm still aware of how depressing that episode was for everyone. So thank you so much, David, for taking the mantle. Of course. I'd like to give a speech of any kind. Yeah. Do you want to accept this honor of being the bad guy? Am I the bad guy? Am I just giving voice to some people who agree with me? I don't know. I don't. I can see where like in the structure of the screenplay, for example, it's a bit loosey goosey, you're like, we're over here, we're over there. I had questions actually about the ending spoiler alert, like how earned. I would agree with Dr. Wilson, where his story ends up. Yes. Dr. Wilson for the proper time. Leonard. You will forever be Dr. Wilson. Unfortunately. And but I think you're absolutely right in that it's so handsomely made. Like I was thinking so much about this, like how beautifully shot it was, how wonderfully acted it was, because those scenes, like those like two or three scenes leading up to that to him taking his own life are so upsetting and so beautifully acted like his conversation with his father, his conversation. Perwood Smith on fire. Whoa, red. In full foot in your ass mode. That's true. It is so funny that like to our generation. He wants to put his foot in your ass. You watch that 70s show and then you go back and you see like fucking Robo Cop and dead. The scary or Kurt Woods. And you're like, oh, it's weird to see like scary red foreman. Also, it's great casting them. You're like, oh, that makes sense that you would cast. Yeah, because to everyone, like 10 plus years older than us, they're like, how funny is it that that guy ended up being a scumbag? I'm sure the rebound of how intense he is. No, it's it's okay. Have you seen the reboot? No, no, but it's all him, right? It's him with like the grandkids. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's it's it's it's always that weird in uncanny valley of like a modern three camera, like multi-camera. Yes. Um, but he's just I just love him so much. He rolls. Yeah, sorry, you were about to say handsomely made earned. What? Those scenes. I feel like, yeah. Nia's well, Nia was possibly like inching towards the Vegas agreement with sort of my sense. What I'm not going to do is go back to the fuck. So I love this movie and made me cry. Yeah. I took a lot of notes and realized so much of my life is sort of I went to New England boarding school for five years. So I was like, I know these people. Right. That's right. Right. You had this sort of experience. I mean, not in the fifties, obviously. Yeah, you're Wikipedia famously the most reliable resource. Yeah. Says that you were originally intended to be a poet. Oh my gosh. Is that based on the truth? Yeah. Well, when I was six, if okay. Six. Okay. So it's going to be a really interesting was to be a poet. No citation. No citation. And when you were 16, apparently this must be from an interview game or something. You took an AP English class and you read Heart of Darkness. And that led you to Apocalypse Now and that led you to cinema. Well, what led me to cinema was my parents divorced and becoming a latchkey kid. Sure. It's all a lot of movies, baby. All of this was good. And I'm watching HBO for hours during the summer. And being like, I don't know what's going on in full metal jacket, but I want to keep watching it. We sent you. Let me, let me, first off, let me just say, this will be very clear. This is blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. A little slow. A little slow. I was looking at this Wikipedia page. It's a podcast about filmography is directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby, my captain. Mm hmm. To the earlier point, I was setting up the other crazy thing about those four Robin Williams movies I cite is all four of them were huge motherfucking hits. This guy was such a star at an era where the fucking Hollywood system still worked where his cloud as a comedian could make a drama a blockbuster. This movie made two hundred and forty million dollars worldwide in 1989. This was a huge hit. Fisher King, I would say, is the one of the four. It was all hit. It was not a hit on the same worldwide. Forty. Like Fisher King was just kind of like a made its budget back. Worldwide was. That's a great. That's great for telling you. Relax. We're upset. What was the other three were huge. I think it's no. Okay, let's see. Yeah, see, this is what I'm saying. It's domestic was 40. There we go. And it's worldwide was 70. Totally fine. Totally fine. But like the other three were genuine. Good morning, Vietnam. This hundred million dollars. The other obviously was a big hit. I mean, you know what else is a big hit was a lot of Aladdin and Mrs. Doubtfire. I'm just saying this guy. Those are the bird kids. Bird kid was a huge hit. His is a ton of money. We're going to talk about this. His 90s were incredible until the fall of the cliff. Basically, right after he wins the Oscar. Well, he's started. I mean, God bless him. He started making really bad movies. Like, I mean, he I don't know. What was the first bad one? I mean, I think Griffin's right that it's sort of like right after the Oscar, he starts to pick out these projects that are so trickly. Jacob the liar. So well, what dreams may come? Patch Adams, Jacob the liar, Bicentennial man. So it's like these movies that are all like big, expensive movies that he will be the star of. Patch Adams is a giant hit. The other three are flops of Patch Adams is also immediately re-biled. Like it being a hit made people hate it more. And I feel like actors do this a lot, though, where. They are like, now I'm a lead. And it's like, well, sometimes that supporting part is the best part of the movie. Poets Society is great. Exactly. He's on screen for 30 minutes. Stop. Right. Is that a best actor nomination? He's above the title. He's Robin Williams. He's sort of the lead, although it's an ensemble, I guess. There's no real. Yeah, because not even Robert Sean Leonard or Ethan Hawker really. Like it's like there's not even a lead kid. I think it's Robert Sean Leonard. Sort of. But I looked up, there's the one account that does the fucking stop watching. Yeah. And it's 33 minutes out of two hours and eight minutes. Let me just finish the intro because we're obviously getting deep into the weeds here. Some main series on the film, so Peter Weir is called Podneck at Hanging Cast. Today we're talking about dead poet society. We are the dead podcaster society. Sure. Podke Castam. OK. Producer Ben. Producer Ben is, yeah, he's outfitted. He's fitting the dress code for the first time. We've always recommended a dress code here on Blank Check that we fail to abide by. But Ben has shown up in his finest morning school. Yeah, wearing a striped tie. I have a nice brown sports jacket on. Some loafers. Yes. I guess the only thing I'm wearing denim that wouldn't be allowed at a prep school. You have your glasses on. At my school, you got to wear. Well, my first morning school, every other Saturday we had a class for half day, which obviously is terrorism. That's actually the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. I know it's terrible. And then and then what we got to wear jeans. We're casual. Oh, yes. Yes, I got it right. Sure. Sure. My I had to wear a uniform, which is so common in Britain, private school, public school. Like it's like I think it's still kind of the norm for so many schools. I've I say, and what was it recommended that you should really like just wear like whatever household. I have shared this before. But in my freshman year at St. Anne's, the horrible school I went to. Where's St. Anne's? Brooklyn Heights. Prep school. No, it's like a fancy school. The fanciest fucking. Oh, water, sorry, energy. Yeah, I mean, like it was once back and it was founded as we're going to be alternative. It was founded as what if you build a whole school out of John Keating's. Right. But also maybe half of those John Keating's were sexual predators. Well, that's what we find out later. Yeah. But but now it's just a very fancy school. There's lots of rich people in Brooklyn who want to send their kids to fancy private schools. I as some weird met a conceptual bit, being the most annoying precocious child at the worst school in freshman year wore my own version of a school uniform for a month. Sounds sounds cool. That was my big act of rebellion of like you're also fucking rebellious. I'm going to dress like I'm part of the book. You're sheep. There was Griffin. So I did kind of dress the way Ben's dressed today. That doesn't look impressed. No. Our guest today returning to the show for the fourth time. Fourth appearance. Yes. Nia Dacosta. Hello. We are recording this very far in advance because you're a very, very busy. Well, you're around and you got a couple of movies in the can. We've recorded with directors who were like, oh, and by the time this episode comes out, your movie will have come out. You were the first person where we're recording at a point where by the time the episode comes out, two films will have come out. That's crazy. Yeah. When does Heta come out? Director of Heta and 28 Days Later, Colin, The Bone Temple. Yeah. I like to go 28 days, 28 years later. Excuse me. Part two, The Bone Temple. I then ask everyone, where does the colon go? These are the questions. I noticed the most, the new trailer that just came out at the time we were recording this didn't have the part two. It doesn't. I just like to add it. Okay. We went to see the film. Heta. I'm sorry. Well, we saw Heta, but also when Ben and I saw 28 years later. Yes. Right. At the end, the lights come up, right? After there's the big, the jimmies. That's crazy ending. And Ben turns to me and he goes, I like how random that ending was, but part of me just wishes I could watch an entire movie of that. And I said, Ben, do I have great news for you? It's already in the can. It's directed by our friend and it's subtitled The Bone Temple. And it was like his eyes turned into like three sevens. My eyes started turning into like like a slot machine and it just landed on bones. You're talking flopped out of your mouth. Yeah, exactly. Yes. That I will say tonally, my film is quite different from the energy of that scene. But yeah, it is the jimmies are a focal point in the film and they're just. Is The Bone Temple going to be okay? I understand you probably can answer this question. I'll just be clear. By the time this episode comes out, we will have recorded an episode on us. That's true. Having seen the film. I'm like, they're going to fuck up all this bone. Yeah, let's keep the bones intact. It worked so hard on that. It is okay, man. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, thank God. That's actually great news. I'm actually buoyed by that. That's great. Yeah. We saw ahead of though. Oh, thank you for going. Thank you so much. Which I love. Oh, thank God. Which sucks. Yeah. No, no, no, it's actually awesome. Yes, thank you. I really loved it. I did ask your dad. I said, did Griffin like it? He met my dad as well. Yeah, which was amazing. Yes. My dad also loved it. Let's talk about the dead pod society. Come on, guys. Okay. So you go to boarding school. Yeah, I went to boarding school. Does this happen after your parents divorced? Where is this in the timeline? I want to put all this together. My parents got divorced when I was nine. Okay. Rude. Yeah, I know it was very disrespectful, but thank God they did. Okay, fair enough. Yes, you're right. Yeah. I guess I give you the right thing. I went to boarding school for eighth through 12th grade. Okay. But I was in a private school when I was younger, and then public school for a bit, right after my parents divorced. My mother's huge in education, and she was like, we're not doing this anymore. She was like, you know, like in New York City, you have to go to the school where you're living. Yes. And so the first thing we tried was, she gave her office address, so I can go to a better school downtown. Okay. And like day one, they were like, can we have Neeta Costa come to the principal's office, please? Fucking... They were like, get out. They rumbled you. Yeah, they did. But then I went, ended up going to Robert Wagner on the Upper East Side. Okay. And then when it came time to leave. You grew up in Harlem? Yeah, more or less, yeah. Yeah, I was born in Brooklyn, raised mostly in Harlem, had a stint in Korea. East or west? West. Okay. So I was like kind of like near 145th ABCD station, yeah. You see that? And yeah, exactly. And we, I think seventh and sixth and seventh grade, my mom was like, you know, we can do better. And so we started looking at private schools. I almost went to Spence, which would have been, I think I would have been a shell of a person. I don't, these, you know, upper crust, upper upper crust places, I can't imagine what the kids are like. No, I know some Spence girls and they're like, you escaped? I bet it has some dead poet society energy. I'm sure it does. I met a girl who went to one of those schools. I don't think it might have been. Nightingale Banford. Yeah. And like, I was like, oh, I grew up in New York. Like, you know, I said something about how I always love taking the subway as a kid because I did. This came up. Sure. And she was like, yeah, I never took the subway until I was a grown up. And I was, it was just, I was like, and you went to school, like. Fucking, you know, across the park from where I grew up, and like you'd never, ever, like it was like a whole other life. Sorry? How old were you for your first subway ride? Yeah. I would, a baby, I imagine. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, solo, solo. Oh, that's a good question. You know, I started, well, I moved to London by then. But I started taking myself to school when I was 10. And my guess would be that would be like when I was first. Yeah, mine was nine. Yeah. See, my thing was, right, nine, 11 happens when I'm 12. I feel like I had just started to get independent subway, right? And then I got knocked back. Then there was, there was a year my parents being like, the subway is going to be blown up. You cannot get on it. My parents are weirdly fucking not subway riders. What neighborhood did you go to? I grew up in the West Village, but it's, they're just crazy people. My dad would fucking like, would lease a car and drive it everywhere and just be upset all the time. This is what I'm talking about. But, but he lived in New York for decades. So I had to like come by my love of the subway. Yeah. On your own time. Not that they didn't take me on it, but it was not their, yeah. Ben, you want to weigh in? Yeah, I just wanted to share. I actually went to an unprep school. Oh. Where are you from, Ben? You were unprep. Jersey. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah. Continue. Yeah, yeah. They wanted you not prepared for anything. So you prepared, it was an unprepared Tory school. Yeah, good. That I left and I didn't know what the fuck I was going to do. It is so rude that prep schools, I didn't, you know, like I never went to a prep school, but like they're like, we're prep school. The backhanded implication. Are there schools not generally? Unlike some of these other schools. It's the fairsley difference. Why do you get to be the prep school? We always have. I never thought about that. Anyway, I assume it's probably rooted in some, you know, awful thing of Victorian. I'm absolutely something dark. But were you in like, like what part, what kind of Jersey were you in? So just an hour outside of the city. My city, the city. Yeah. In my city. So sorry. I was just like, I just started thinking about Jersey cities. So extremely suburban. Yeah. Like kind of near Patterson, that area. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It was a small area, only a couple of bone temples. Not like a major hub. What boarding school did you end up going to? I went to the Rumsey Hall School in Connecticut. Okay. And then I went to the master school in Westchester. You, that's an intense name for a school. The master school. Yeah. Yeah. It used to be all girls. Elizabeth Masters was the founder of the school. There we go. It wasn't like we're going to be masters of the universe. Or it wasn't like big Paul Thomas Anderson fans, or they were just like. No, no, thank God. Founded in 2013. No sad pan jobs. Actually probably. Real high school students after all. I'm sure a San Jose job or two. You can lie to that pan job. I'm so sorry. I'm not a promise. I know. That's a math resource center. No, because we, knowing you had like a back to back press tours coming up and you were going to be in town now. Yeah, those feet are weird. We gave you like the schedule for the whole first six months of 26. And you threw it a couple, but we were immediately like dead poets. Is interesting, not knowing the level of connections. Well, that was what was so crazy because I literally, and I guess we can talk about them in a minute now, but I literally when I got to the Yopsy, I was like, oh my God, Mr. Ketchum made us go outside and Yop. I was like, and I'm like, he was so. What is this word you are using? Yop. The thing you mix Ethan Hawking. Yeah. The primal Yop. But Mr. Ketchum was your Mr. Keaton. Absolutely. Keating-ish Ketchum. Yeah. Ash Ketchum. Yeah. He taught you how to rear Pokémon. He taught me how to rear Pokémon. And the Griffin in this episode. But he was amazing. And when I started, I think we were in eighth grade, in the equivalent of whatever APing should be for an eighth grader, but we were reading like Faulkner and Mull Whitman and E Cummings and William Carlos Williams. And now I look back at it, I'm like, of course we're yapping. Like Arbor Bark, Yop, whatever. It's like, so I was like, oh, he's clearly watched this movie and he's obsessed. When did you see it? The first time? Yeah. Well, it was on TV a lot, wasn't it? Yeah. I saw it on TV in high school. Absolutely. I never, I have the same experience of Sound of Music where it's so long because of the commercials that you never get to the Nazis. I never got to the suicide. And so I rewatched it a couple of years ago and I was like, no. What's happening? It's fair. It was so crazy. Yeah. Because I feel like, right, everyone's like, yeah, he gets fired and they all get on their desks, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, that's sort of what everyone references with Poet Society. I saw this film when I was like 12 or 13 years old. We rented it with my friend, Sava, and she loved Ethan Hawke. And she was like going through Ethan Hawke phase. Okay. And she was like, I want to rent this movie from like, it was back in the day when you still would be like, we're going to go to the video store and rent a movie. And I was like, yeah, I've never seen that movie. I know that. That's like a good movie, right? And I watched it with her and I thought it was okay. And we both cried and I never saw it again. And then I watched it today or not, you know, the other couple of days ago. And I was kind of impressed by how obviously it's a culturally significant, like it's in the air. Yeah. But I was like, damn, I remember like almost all of this. I haven't seen it like 25 years. Yes. And it made me cry. When they said, oh, Captain, my captain. And I was kind of like, this is bullshit. Cause like, I don't even like this movie that much. Well, I'm a pretty easy cry, but I'm like, I know they're going to do it. I guess I'm not exactly like getting caught off guard by Oh, Captain, my captain. It's like kind of a magic trick movie in that sense, where you're just like, you can't not It did work me up. I cried a couple of times watching it. And I have kids now. And there's things that this, they're buttons. You yell at your children every day that they got to be doctors yelling at twin babies. It's just such a weird, never do a play. Like, it can't be an amateur actor in any sense. Also, just like, I'm sorry, if your son is Robert Sean Leonard, you're not changing that path. He has the most fucking theater actor he faced. So no one has ever looked pretty little face like an actor and had the demeanor of an actor, the Robert Sean Leonard. Doesn't the acting thing come so late in the game? Pretty late. Because I was like, did I miss him mentioning liking acting before he was like, it's my passion in life? No, it like finds him like halfway through. Right. And then he's immediately in the play. Yeah. He's sort of like, it feels like he auditions without having told you or anyone that it's a thing he's ever had desire for. And he immediately is like, which, you know, there are certain, there is a type of actor who is like that. Who's just like, yeah, my friend asked me to like be in their short film. Now I'm actually thinking I might have like started auditioning and stuff. Maybe I want to do this. I saw it in high school. Similar to you, like high school was just like cable movie channels all the time. I'm like checklist obsessive. I need to watch all the movies and anything like this that was referenced so much that I knew had Oscar nominations. It's like that's stuff you have to cross off the list, right? Haven't seen it since then. David, I feel like at some point the last year or two of the podcast, it maybe came up in a box office game. It certainly did because the box office game we'll be playing is a movie we've covered before, I think. And you said like, does dead poet society suck? And I was a little surprised by that take knowing that you love Peter Weir and this is love Peter Weir. Yeah. The big movie series. And honestly, I love Robin Williams. You've been beating the drum for for so long. And I love private preparatory education single set. That's how I think it should be done always. Not having seen this movie in 20 years, I was like, huh, that the take kind of sounds. I could buy that. If I watch that now, am I going to roll my eyes at all of this, right? And then I watched the last night and I was like, I think this thing totally works. I do not think it is one of Weir's best films. And I agree with you that it's like what works is, I think, the decision and the control and the taste that he applies to it. But I also like, I think this script works. I think it is like. No, I agree with that, that it works. It's a well, yes, yes. It's a machine like that. It does what it's supposed to do. I was very ready for in my mind's eye, not having seen since I was a teenager, being like, I'm going to be more cynical about this now. I'm going to have my bullshit meter up really high for like manipulation, you know. And I think the script is like pretty controlled. Now we'll talk about it. The guy had one of the most insane post Oscar careers that we've discussed before. Peter Weir. No, not Peter Weir, the screenwriter who wins the Oscar for this. Tom Shulman. This was wasn't this his first, you know, exactly. And he goes on. It's a semi-autobiographical script that he. It's about a teacher who inspired him, yada, yada, yada. He gets put on, honey, I shrunk the kids. His job is to make it a comedy. Is that right? Yes. It was like a late rewrite thing. From the Stuart Gordon version, which I think was more sci-fi, which of course he wanted to call Teen U Weenies. And then it's like a bunch of big scripts. Well, too. What about Bob? Yeah. Uh, which is, you know, it's a bad movie. It's a fun movie. It's kind of a hit. And Medicine Man, George Miller's Medicine Man. Sorry, John McTurden is Medicine Man. Right. That's why we talked about horrendous. A horrendous movie. And then like who the fuck wrote this movie? Did I watch it? Yeah, go ahead. You know what? You kind of should watch it. I should watch All Dawn McTurden. You should. Yeah. Yeah. Then he wrote and directed the film Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. A bank favorite. A Joe Pesci comedy. Is it? Have you ever seen it? No. It's pretty fun. I should watch All the Joe Pesci's. There's like eight heads in a duffel bag. Interesting. Tell me more. And so basically. It gets lost or something. I watched it. It gets lost. Joe Pesci plays a hit man. You know, I'll hold my questions until after I observe the film. His last, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, he should hold your question. His last, oh no, no, Jesus. Then it's Holy Man, the Eddie Murphy. Which I watched for the first time recently. And it's one of the most insane films I have ever. Wait, is that the, no, I'm thinking of Golden Child. Never mind. Golden Child's all right. I enjoy that. Holy Man. I want to watch. The hit man is like almost impossible to describe. But it feels like trying to make a dead poet society for Eddie Murphy. It is weirdly like more of a drama and also much like dead poet society. Eddie Murphy is maybe only in 30 minutes of the movie and Jeff Goldblum is actually the lead. Definitely. But the premise is that Eddie Murphy is like a weird spiritual guru. They find on the side of the road who may be magical or is like a lunatic, someone with like mental illness and amnesia. I think I've seen this. And Jeff Goldblum is an exec who works for a cable shopping channel. Who like makes him a sort of TV star. And he puts him on the air and it almost becomes like a network thing where he like goes on these long rants like anti-consumerist rants. Interesting, yeah. But it makes the sales go up. So he's commodifying this. It's insane, insane. Is that, do you think that was an inspiration for 1 million merits? Absolutely. Good, I love 1 million merits. Oh well. Welcome to Mooseport is his final base. Which I mean Mooseported recently and is not a very good movie. The Fleece of Jean Hackman's final film. That guy just starts his career with like a fucking seismic. He wings the Oscar for an original screenplay and then you're just like. That happens not infrequently. Absolutely. It's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Blankies quick question and be honest. When was the last time you actually thought about how much fiber you were eating? Not protein, not calories, fiber. In the US, fewer than one in 10 adults hit their daily recommended intake. And fiber isn't a bonus nutrient. It's foundational. 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So Tom Shulman was disheartened, I guess the early arc of his career, trying to be a Hollywood screenwriter. He was writing stuff, probably trying to get stuff sold, right? He was just writing genre stuff and comedies and whatever. He writes dead poets, not thinking of it as a commercial script, but more, you know, calling card writing sample. Paying homage to this teacher he had. He said a very volcanic teacher who talked about theater and acting and movies and we'd all go out to drinks and he imbued me and my, not him and the teacher, I think him and the other students, but they were all fired up by this teacher. I feel like that classic story of someone's trying to break through in Hollywood, no one will open the door for them and then someone gives them the advice of just like, write the movie that only you can write. What's the personal story that only you have? That's the thing, right? So he's got all this nostalgia. He went to Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. And he also, I guess, had a stern dad who didn't want him to, you know, be a Hollywood screenwriter or whatever. Didn't want him to be in Hollywood. Right. No son of mine will ever put heads in a duffel bag. The real teacher's name is Samuel F. Pickering, Jr. And much like the character in Dippo Society, he was an alum who had returned as a teacher and much like Dippo Society, he left pretty quickly. I'm not sure if he got fired or anything, but like he moved on and then he ends up at the University of Connecticut. He becomes a bit of a minor celebrity after this movie comes out, obviously, because he's the real Dippo Society guy. Shulman decides to set the film in the 50s, even though he, this I think had more of this experience in the 60s, he'd been born in the 50, in 1950. I do think this movie is, has no sense of when it's set. I agree. And it sort of gets away with it because boarding schools are weird and hermetic and like trapped in time or whatever. But I think it was, I think it was, I was reading old reviews of it and I was like, this movie set in the 50s, there's no sense of that. Like there's no music, there's no sense of what's going on in the world. I'm wondering if I clocked it until you're saying that right now. I would say I think a third or two thirds into the film someone mentioned, it's 1950 something and I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Maybe a wiki to actually. First, he writes it more about the teacher, he returns to the script, he revised it, makes it more about the students, you know, which there you go. And he thinks about Neil as the sort of student that goes too far, I guess is sort of whatever. I mean, too far doing that. I don't know, getting too into acting. I mean, this script is so. JJ. This interview is making me feel justified. No, but I mean, I totally got that. But I think it's like, I was thinking about the holdovers when I was watching it. Yes. And I think that feeling of the script being a bit like, what's happening? Why does it matter? And like the fact that all the boys have these completely different sort of needs and things that they do because they're inspired. And one of them is kissing a girl while she's sleeping, which is very distressing. It is the element of this movie. Josh, make you kind of tip your. I was like, what's happening? All of that's inspirational. Yeah. This is like, I have to do it. I just, I'm so sorry. I have to. This is so distressing. But it is sort of, it just, but it feels very like it's like vibes, you know? Yes. It's like we're in this place, man. It certainly has like a very kind of comforting, autumnal feeling. Yes, exactly. And also this sort of, I know this movie is 89, but it feels like it's starting to synthesize the look that I feel like becomes the dominant 90s prestige drama look. Yeah. Yes. This kind of. I mean, I have to write golden color. Yes. Absolutely. I mean, and in this movie, again, it's got a great director. It's got an incredible John Seale, incredible DP. Like, but anyway, he's taking the script around. Nothing's really happening. He's not getting any traction. And then at some point, Jeffrey Katzenberg at Disney calls and it's basically like, I hear someone wants this script. I want it now. You know, and he was basically like $4 million. Like give it to me immediately. Like, some. Yeah, right. You know, and. It basically became a one person bidding war. I guess so. Yeah. The way he puts it is everyone else had passed on the script and not really read it. Jeffrey had actually read it and he had someone who's gone to private school. He had whatever, you know, resonated with him or whatever. And he just got super excited. This is also fairly early Touchstone, which was such a big project for Eisner and Katzenberg. And a lot of their thing and trying to find like, what are the grown up movies that Disney makes through this offshoot was like, find good vehicles for depreciated stars. That was a lot of their strategy was like, being like Richard Dreyfus, Bed Midler, you know, like, making splash, you know, like, what are the scripts that everyone else in town is passing on that we can make with someone who has name value, but has a couple flops in a row. So you can get them for cheaper. It's like they'll be more interested in doing something about it. Yeah. But you could see the script being a good vehicle for that kind of thing of like, you got this big showy teacher role that you could get a former A-lister to do without having to work that many days. Was Robin in that space in his career though at the time? Well, so let's get to that. He was hotter. Yeah. He's was so. Okay. But they bring aboard Jeff Cane, of course, the director of revenge on the nerds. Right. The director of this film. Katzenberg is so hot on this movie that they cannot find a star and Katzenberg is like, don't worry about it. We'll find the star, start scouting locations, get ready. And so they're all set to go and then Disney finally is like, kill this project. There's no start. Like, what are you fucking doing? Yeah. And they all get someone to the office and Katzenberg is like sort of monologuing about what a great job they did. And Cane says, let's get on with it. I feel like I'm having my back rubbed until I die. And Katzenberg is like, okay, we're firing you. Sorry. No, JJ, who is not fired because he did his job correctly on this one had alerted us a couple of weeks ago. There was a crazy sentence on the Wikipedia and I need to research it. And what David just read is the actual researched answer to what happened. The way the Wikipedia recounts it, which is insane, is that they hired Jeff Cane, then hired Robin Williams, but Robin Williams didn't want to do the movie with him. So he signed on, then refused to show up to filming during the first day of shooting. So until they fired him and then they burned the sets down. That's what I read. And I was like, I thought you were going to say. No citation. I don't think that's what happened. No, it's not what happened. What you just read happened. Jeff Cane was fired from. Williams had been considered, but he never got an attach. He's expensive. He's a big star. It was more like that it was someone like that they'd circles. I just don't even know how that Wikipedia story comes about. It's very dramatic. So then it gets shopped around at a certain point. They are told that Cane can still direct it if they can get Alec Baldwin or Liam Neeson, which is crazy. Neeson is crazy because he's not that famous. Has he done that? He'd do that jelly foster movie yet. He must have. No, no, that's later. That's like early 90s. He's like an odd choice. I mean, he would be good. Why did Taken come out? I'm kidding. Rip out those fucking pages. I miss, you know, actor, Liam Neeson. A very particular set of poems. Occasionally you get it with silence or whatever. Have you seen Naked Gun? No, I need to. It rules, but the thing that gets so right is how funny it is to have him say anything with that level of intensity. And they use both like Taken intensity, Neeson, but also like Schindler's List intensity, Neeson. Give him a fucking paragraph monologue of the dumbest shit in the world and just tell Neeson to play it. Like it's the most important thing ever. That's like Andre Brower and Broken 99. It's exactly like that. All this doesn't work out. The rights are back to Disney and about a year after Katzenberg is like Dustin Hoffman. How about that? I just saw him. You just saw Dustin Hoffman at Megalopolis? Who's he going like this? I still haven't seen it. I bought it and I'm like, I can't wait to watch and I just haven't brought myself to it. And I think Tessa had a moment where they're trying to hug each other and then they tried to, she tried to lift him. It was like very, he's very old and small, but I was like, Dustin, anyway, continue. He wanted to direct it and star in it, which sounds complicated. I agree. He's got a bit of a reputation even at this time for being kind of wishy-washy. You know, like he'll get involved in a project, he'll get really nitpicky and perfectionist about it and then he'll drop out. Does he actually only makes three movies in the 80s? Am I correct about that? I feel like the 80s for him are Ishtar. It starts to get out of control. And Rain Man. Really? He like slows way the fuck down partly because he like freaks out over the failure of Ishtar and partly because he becomes so controlling that he kind of boxes himself out. I think he is legendarily controlling at that point. I'm going to give you the full list of movies he made in the 80s. Sorry. Because like his 60s and 70s are obviously coming like this. It's Ishtar and Rain Man and family business in 1989 right at the end there. So it's four. Four. And then there is also the death of a salesman that he does first on stage. And then Tisha. Sure, sure, sure. Which is very bad. Yes. And you know Hoffman is going crazy. Now a big thing in the original script is the Keating is dying of cancer. Insane. Yeah, yeah. And Hoffman is like I'm going to lose all this weight to like portray this. Thank God they cut that out of the movie. Or I mean whatever. Yes. That's like and I'm going to have that. You also can't have a kid committing suicide. It's too much. It's like too much fucking darkness. I assume that was a Peter Weir judgment call. I don't know. But anyway, he's going crazy basically with his Oterodom, but then he drops out. And they go back to Robin Williams. Robin Williams has obviously made Good Morning Vietnam, which was a hit. But then since then he's had a couple flops. But he hasn't really done anything. Well, so Good Morning Vietnam is 86. 87. Yeah, he hasn't really done anything. This is this is saying he has flops, but he has nothing. It's just maybe it's been as personal as is. Is JJ fired? Well, it's a quote from somebody. But anyway, I feel like he has a run of flops leading into Good Morning Vietnam. Yeah, exactly. Like Mosca on the Hudson, Best of Times, Club Paradise, Seize the Day, all these kind of nothing. Never heard of any of this. It is crazy that he made a movie called Seize the Day. Yes. Based on the Saul Bellow book. A pretty limp film and like his first attempt at doing this kind of drama. Peter Weir has Green Card, which is a movie he wrote. He's been trying to make it. It just got delayed for a year for whatever reason. Katzenberg calls him up and is like, Hey, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm fucking waiting on this green card thing and I'm going to the supermarket. That's the quote Peter Weir gives. And this green card, Merrimax? I don't know. Okay, I saw it. I saw it. Does Merrimax even exist then? What? It's 1989. Who releases Green Card? Green Card was of course released by Disney. Touchstone. There we go. And so Katzenberg's like, well, you want to make a movie? Like I got a movie. Yeah. And Katzenberg had worked with him on Witness and is like sends him the script. Peter Weir is like, Oh, it's about a school. I don't care about that. But then he reads the script and he's like, I like this. Yeah, right. Right. Then he says, this cancer reveal sucks. There we go. Get this out of the script. I mean, emblematic of Peter Weir's value on this movie where you're like, this is a film of tremendous judgment and good taste. Right? Right. Like his skills director in this film is largely invisible in terms of the craft. It's very unshoey. But like, I think the things that like you're slightly allergic to in this movie, I watch and I'm like, I am so impressed he stays just on the right side of these things. Right. Because almost anyone else making this movie would probably make me vomit. And just knowing that it was supposed to have suicide end cancer is a perfect. Right. Yeah. In case. Look, Tom Shulman is like, this is my script. This is the ending. You want me to take this out? Are you crazy? Peter Weir is just like, look, I, you don't have to, but I'm not going to make the movie. Like, so it's like me or the, you know, this plot twist. And it was set up as Robin Williams. That you don't know he's been dying. It's the third act thing. And then Robin Williams comes aboard and Peter Weir says to him, like, by the way, we're losing the cancer thing. And Robin was like, oh, good. And so Peter Weir went to private school as well. The Scots College in Sydney. He said it was an ironbound school. I was a terrible student. So I did relate to that. And I did have a poetry lecture on William Blake, where the teacher like, you know, woke me up and like, you know, excited me about that. And so I kind of tried to put that into the movie. So, you know, he relates to it, but it is a little bit of a higher job for Peter Weir. Yeah. Right. Like he is coming aboard pretty late. Ethan Hawke, who he obviously works with on this movie, gave his interview like a year or two ago, where he basically announced Peter Weir's retirement and it got a lot of headlines. Is it? He was doing probably some film festival retrospective talk or whatever, and they asked him about working with different director, where's Peter Weir? Why has he made stuff? And he's like, he's basically retired. And then that headline carried over, right? He's just like, he just was kind of worn down by the industry. But he had this line, I think, about a lot, and that I probably will bring up many, many times across the series, where he's just like, he was this really rare thing and that he was a popular artist. And just the succinctness of defining him that way, where you're like, this was a guy who mostly worked within the studio system with major A-list stars and made like intelligent mainstream movies. He was like with actual art and craft, making movies for grownups that were commercial plays. To find coogler vibes. But you know. Yeah, but like weirdly, in a certain way, he starts out making these personal films that are so much about like Australia and its legacy and whatever. And then he becomes this like very emotionally invested director for hire in a bizarre way. But I think, I think, you know, we're so invested in like the auteur story, but like directing, like, I don't know, it's like it's job, you know? And I think when people, someone like him, it's like, he's just good at the job. That's the thing. And can be like, there's just some, oh my God, I'm blanking. Send help, like Jack. Mad Max, George Miller. Yes, George Miller, he said, which I thought, hello. He said, you have to, so much of directing is learning when to be passionate and dispassionate. Yeah. And I'm like, that's so true. And I think that's how you do that. Because if you're passionate all the time, you will burn yourself into silvers. And you'll be Dustin Hoffman and you're like, why am I losing all this weight to this movie? Coogler's magic to me is that like, he cannot make a film that isn't somehow, him making the most personal statement he can at that time. And yet he is able to make it in a way that connects to everybody, which is kind of like a Spielberg magic. Exactly. And he calls himself a populist filmmaker. Right. Coogler's very clear about that. Right, that's just the language he works in. Peter Weir, like, has this sort of like, not bifurcation in his career, but there's definitely the shift where so much of his value comes from A-list fucking leading men, love him, respect him, trust him. And he becomes this director for hire in a certain way, but none of them feel like dispassionate jobs, you know? But it's like, this is an error where you still could have that level of clout because you're like, hey, Robin Williams wants to work with him. Harrison Ford wants to work with him. Mel Gibson wants to work with him. Russell Crow wants to work with him. Jim Carrey wants to work with him. These guys are fucking turnkeys. And if this is the director they want, they get to make whatever fucking movie they want. And this isn't treated as, well, this is Robin's little weird indie project. No, this is a big studio movie. All right, so when they're making it, you guys might be shocked to learn. Robin Williams kind of liked to sort of be a little goofy and funny when he was doing his teaching scene and stuff, kind of like going to comedy mode. You do one take as written and then the second take, well... So Peter Weir had to put the brakes on that and said, like, look, the guy's not an entertainer. Like, that's not what this character is. Like, he's not the funny teacher, exactly. Like, he's, he makes jokes and he smiles, you know, and Womly and... Another example of good judgment. I think Peter Weir used just enough of the Robin stuff. A thousand percent. It's like these sorts of, like watching the movie and watching Robin, like, he has such deep, like, sadness in him. He does, which is the magic of Robin Williams. Exactly. And for him to use, and his deep empathy, and it's just like for him to use that, to not be able to go to the comedy completely to be the shield for all of that. Which he does it again with Jim Carrey in Truman Show. We'll talk about that a lot, but there's so many interesting stories he tells about the process. He's really good at, and even Witness is a version of this, where like... He's made such good movies. It's crazy. That's a Harrison Ford movie, star movie, where he's playing a cop and where he's, like, really drilling down into, like, there's like a sadness in you that other people kind of like... Haven't been... Well, it's also because Harrison Ford's making that movie, like, after three, you know, Star Wars and two Indiana Jones, and like, it's like, yeah. Play a guy. Right. You're gonna play a guy now. I think he's really... John Book. But this is like why these guys wanted to work with him, is he was really good at, like, taking someone with a movie star persona and all that heat, and being like, who's the real guy at the center of this? Yeah. And you can trust me with that guy. Right. I'm pulling something honest from deeper within you. Yeah. So, Robin Williams, yes, classically, yes, he would make you do one serious, then one silly, then one whatever. They did have a half day there. They just let him go nuts, unscheduled, kind of didn't tell Disney about it. That's where the Brando and John Wayne stuff comes from. Sure. A real... Ethan Hawke recently say how much he just hated him because he was so not serious, but Ethan Hawke is so overly serious, so I could see that. Ethan Hawke, I think, also is very upfront about how fucking serious he was then. Like, maybe he's a little more retrospective now, but like that he was so up his own ass as this young actor. Right. That he didn't get it, that it was like, why isn't this guy treating this like the most important thing that has ever happened. I think all these young actors, like Josh Charles and him, and, you know, like, he talks about it. Like, they were in that pool of young actors in the early 90s, along with like Damon and Brendan Fraser and all those guys who were like coming up for all these roles at the same time. There was a really intense crop of young, white, brunette. Mm-hmm. What? But all of these, yes, the school ties group and the dead poets group, all these people who were overlapping. It is funny, Hawke's casting here, and obviously he was kind of like the most experienced of all the actors because he had been a child star, kid movie. But the rest of them were pretty much the first big film, yeah. He's like playing the least hockey of the kids. Yeah, that's so true. Like, Hawke is the ultimate like, man, you got to go out and learn and take your experiences. He's not the later, you're right. He's not Richard Linklater's Ethan Hawke or Reality Bytes Ethan Hawke or whatever. Like, Hawke's persona as a person now is like forever student, right? That like every interview with him is just, man, I get so excited. So you put him in the museum and you see a painting and it makes you feel something. And so watch him in this being the young guy who you know was that serious and that artistically driven be like, I don't know if we should be doing this. Can you stop talking around, Mr. Williams, please? Let's improve. He wouldn't say action, you know, we're, he would just throw a piece of, balled up piece of paper at the head of the person who's supposed to speak first. I like that. Instead of yelling cut, he would wrap his coffee cup with a teaspoon. I assume you do the Clint Eastwood thing of you say go ahead and that's enough of that, right? Yes. And then I don't realize it's a rehearsal. Yeah. I read the Clint biography that Sean Levy just wrote, like not director Sean Levy, critic Sean Levy. Uh-huh. It's just so good. And it does talk about how he would just start filming rehearsals. Like as a matter of fact, they'd actually be like, what the fuck are you doing? It's very authentic. I love shooting. I mean, I always tell an actor when I'm rolling or if I'm like, they're doing it, do it, and then I'll go talk to them afterwards. But I remember, do you remember when it felt like, I feel like it was again, when we were in our early 20s, when the industry was acting as though women had just started directing films and television. Yeah, it was a technological breakthrough. Yeah, it was insane what we did. And then there was such a story around women not saying action because action was so male and not saying cut because it was so aggressive. And I was just like, gee, can everyone fucking relax? So on my sets, my AD says action and my AD says cut. But to be fair, I am... You're in like an egg. No one is allowed to look at you. I don't know what to say. You're wearing a parade. I direct for my helicopter. Right, exactly. And the AD are all the lines. And your helicopter is 20 feet above the ground. Exactly. Really? It's very windy. Sound department hates me so much, but they keep going back. No, but I do sometimes, depending on the scene, sometimes I say, I'll call it. Yeah. And then I'll just give it whenever you're ready. Because sometimes you can just tell when they're like, oh, they need a little something or whatever. But there's also, I mean, it is a thing. When Clint doesn't like the take, he says, that's enough of that. Yeah. Is Clint Eastwood the only director to ever call print on auditions? That's generally... The book really lays down how philosophical. Throw it in the air. Like the book is definitely not like he just wants to eat lunch because it's like he was been doing this since the 70s. Yeah, yeah. Yes. He's a very good director. And that he's just like, the more we do it, the more you're fucking it up. Like I like whatever you... I see that David Fincher. Well, but that's the thing. But then some actors would come. I'm sorry to talk about Clint Eastwood, but I did just read this one. Like Meryl Streep or whatever, and be like, what? Like you're not going to let me find it? Yeah. And he'd be like, no, you're great. Standing right there, you look great. This is great. Like we're done. You know, and Kevin Costner famously fought with him on Perfect World. And he was like, I'll shoot with a stand-in. Like Costner had to back off. But to your point, he's been doing this for so long. Yeah. It's like what you're saying of like, it's a job. He knows how to treat it like a job. Yeah. And when he's working with fucking Costner and Meryl Streep, those are like two of the best performances those actors have given. Definitely. Where he gets into trouble is when he hires people. I agree. Right? That's the thing. Literal, non-professional actors like great. And it's like, it's not going to get better than that. And it's like, it probably would. I could. Yeah. If you work with them a little bit. Yeah. Also, it's so funny because I always like, like I had an actor who was like, I'm not going to be the first take girl. Like it's not going to be me. So I'm like, okay, I'll then I'll cover you second. Like, you know, like so you start to learn on that. So it's so interesting. I mean, that's like a lot of directing in my opinion is understanding the different flows of different actors. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess she'd already done this show. Like the Marvels is like her first movie. Iman Vellani. Oh my God. I love her so much. She's so good. But she's done the show. So she was. She did the show, but no, it was actually quite great because we, I got her, it was similar to getting Alfie after he did 28 years later because that was his first movie. But it rolls. That gets incredible. He was great. Yeah. He's so funny. I think yeah. Yeah. I think I think the first movie she's just surrounded by adults, but my movie, he has like a bunch of teens and so they all belated me and he made fun of me because it took me too long to finish untarded. I was like, okay. I'm directing a film, bro. Like, sorry. We're trying to a hundred percent out or just get to the end of the. It's not like I was in story mode. I was in normal mode. Okay. But I think, I mean, to be fair, it's not a long game and it's not untarded for. It's the first and charted. I was just, I'm going to completionist. I was like, I'll play it. Boring the first untarded. I mean, there's stuff about it that's fun, but then it's like, okay, now I have to duck behind this fucking statue and shoot 18 people. Yeah. I played the first three on. I mean, well, the story of untarded famously starts with Nathan Drake being a young boy, his uncle before he has a mustache. Right. He's talking about that. Okay. I was like, I don't remember that. Yeah. The movie that was, you know, that was a time. It's just one of the funniest things to me that's ever happened in Hollywood development. It's such a weird casting. All the casting is so strange. They took so long that they were like 15 years of just gotta be the fucking uncle now. We got to beef that roll up. But also it's like he like, they're just, and I listen, I appreciate a book. United's Mark Wahlberg. I love Tom Holland. I think he's a search for normal actor. They're both miscast. It's just like, doesn't make any sense. It was just so funny to me. They spent 15 years trying to do the version of that movie that everyone wanted to see. And then they were like, but here's how we know we have failed to make the actual Nathan Drake adult movie that you all imagine. What if we did a prequel instead? And also the thing is Tom Holland is never going to grow into being Nathan Drake. No, that's the thing with casting him. It's like, what do you think is coming out of here? It's like Timothee Swisschallé is never going to grow into being the Messiah of Dune. Well, I disagree with you on that. Ooh, fun. But didn't you find it strange? No, I love those movies, but didn't you find it strange how in the first movie, he has this flash forward. Right. And to him is. And he's in a stuntman's body with his VFX eyes. You're right. He's never going to. That's not that. His body is not going to change. It will never change. But you are also right that it is the exact thing that makes Tom Holland the most incredible Spider-Man casting of all time. Of like, they finally got a guy who you can have play 24 ever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's also so good at Spider-Man. He's really good as well. Yes. Yes. Let me give you some takes from, you know, Ethan Hawke has talked about this, about how Peter Weir likes to quote cast for the final color. And, you know, what does that mean? Because he was basically like Robert Sean Leonard is very shy and introverted. So he didn't make sense to me as this role. And I am the opposite. And so I didn't make sense of this role either. Yeah. But Robert Sean Leonard said that we are said to him like, don't think about the suicide at all. Like. Yeah. You are not playing this as a boy who's doomed. You're playing this as a kid who's going on to stuff. And Hawke calls the yacht scene, your favorite scene, the most significant professional day of his life is the first time I really felt the experience of being an actor where I could lose myself in a story and lose myself inside a collective imagination. They're doing steady cam. So it's like this, you know, cool, long thing that I don't know. Yeah. He liked it. All right. Fine. What? This is a boring quote. At least someone like the film. I love Ethan Hawke, but that's kind of his vibe. He'll monologue, you know, and you're like, yeah, you liked it. Thank you, Ethan. Yeah. I probably agree with you. Yeah. And then they had fun making the movie. They like they truly did. I think it was freezing, but apart from that, like everyone was into it. Where'd they shoot? Delaware. I guess the budget was $16 million and the schedule was pretty tight. 16. 16. 16. 16. Peter, we apparently selects music for each scene and plays the music while everyone's lighting and rehearsing stuff. And then it will fade out right as he is starting shooting. So he's trying to sort of like set a tone. And when I know the guy who has to like determine when it's time to. I know, right. It's like, oh, God. And I was going to say, harder to fucking do in like a pre-ipod era. Yeah. Yeah. Now directors do that. I'm like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking found a Bluetooth speaker. We all read the Quentin Tarantino interview. Right. You just hit the volume slider down. That must have been like actually a somewhat complicated maneuver anyway. I don't do music on set like that at all. No? No. I mean, occasionally if we're doing a nightjacks, I'll have a dance party. But that's fine. Yeah. And then there's a party scene and had a. We. The whole movie's a party. Yeah. That's right. Or like the scene where everyone's just like, we genuinely had like the best like club music playing and everyone was like, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, it was great. I'm sure some of my extras were drunk. I've had directors do that and I do find that it helps sometimes. Cameron Crowe is famous for that. I'm sure there's a version of it that is annoying. But like if it's really. ADs usually hit it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. If it's really being used as like a mood setting. Exactly. That's what it can help with. I feel like sometimes if it's well curated. One thing I love about Depp Oates Society and do you want to give this movie its flowers where I, you know, sometimes is the opening just to start talking about the movie. Sure. Because it feels like a funeral. Yes. And you are watching it not knowing what this movie is about being like, oh, did somebody die? And then it's like, no, school is beginning. The spirits are dying. Yes. Like is there all like filing into this church? Yes. And it's so somber and it's so like funerial. The Great and Normal Lloyd. You know, we'd love to welcome fucking Hagrid will be teaching creature, you know, department. It just feels like Hogwarts like suddenly. It is like it's like a wake for their fucking happiness. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. All these boys, these, you know, preppy Protestant boys who are going to, I mean, become the leaders of America, I guess, right? Did you have to pray? No, you wouldn't have prayed at your school. No. See, they were fucking praying at my school. I'm like, you have to pray to who? We had to God. God? To the Christian God. To white Jesus. And specifically, right? Protestant, you know, waspy God. Yes. We had to, it was at Rumsie Hall. So we did the Lord's Prayer. Right. And then we had the Pledge of Allegiance, which it's so weird doing the Pledge of Allegiance. Yeah. It's crazy. When you look back on it. And I remember the first time I realized I didn't have to say it was I saw this Korean student, also a boring student, was like not saying it. I was like, oh. Because she doesn't pledge allegiance to our flag. Yeah. I'm like, that person's not from this country. And I was like, I'm from here, but I also could just not. No one's going to know. Yeah. There was no prayer in my New York City public schools, obviously. Because that is against the law, at least for the next six months. Yeah, but we'll see how long the last two. But then I moved to England and there was praying because it is a religious country, 40 Anglicans, yeah. And, but I remember I was told as a nine-year-old, it was like, you don't have to, if you don't want to. I didn't get that. Because I, one, didn't know what to say. But they would say the Lord's Prayer. St. Anne's was originally run out of the basement of a church, a block away. Yeah, right, of course. That is the St. Anne's church. So it took that name. And then once they had their own building, they kept the name. And they killed God. They killed God. But it's the most heathenest place on earth, quite possibly. But people would always be like, oh, shit, you went to Catholic school? Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you. Could they hit the kids? No, no. I went to a Catholic school where they could hit the kids. No, there was the wrong kind of touching. We'll see. This is the thing. This is one document. Honestly, Google it. I'll say this. As someone, there's moments where Robin Williams. David's wife also went to my high school. She did. And she is a public school teacher now. I want to clarify. Yeah, she's not a private school teacher. She made it out. Yeah. But there's moments in this where Robin Williams is really grabbing the students, like by the shoulders and stuff. And he's being very physical with them. And I was like, it doesn't seem unrealistic to me, but I was shocked by it. He's like, you cannot touch students. Well, sure. But I also think that's a good. Now, I mean, yeah. I think that's good judgment from where you're like, yeah, like it's a fireable offense. You know, like this movie has to end with the guy being fired. He's a good teacher. I. OK. This is the central question of dead poets. The side, they mostly seem to just hang out. I also think it's a poetry class. It is cool though. Yes. I think a lot of this is excited by art. Cultural legacy, right? Our age growing up, watching as we for the first time in a world where we've already heard the things repeated all of us. Carpe diem. The fucking beats and the parodies and whatever. I feel like the last 20 years of dead poet society has been mostly a lot of things making fun of this type of teacher. Yeah. Right. Like that's the community episode about it. The community episode is a great one. But the idea of just the Colin Joe's sketch on SNL where they all stand up and like one of them, their heads get caught. Yes. Yes. Right. But just this idea of like we all find this fun and inspiring, but actually. I don't know, guys. I disagree. I had a couple teachers like him and like I had Mr. Rothwell when I was in public school for two years. He and I came from a Catholic school where they get hit the kids and it was so I was like, I didn't know what was going on. Sure. I was like, I saw a nun hit a kid and she was too angry, you know? Was it done? That's not God. It was the nun. And so I know all about her. So if you want to know more about her past before she was killing people. But no, I had this teacher, Mr. Rothwell, and like he was very similar in the sense that and he was absolutely ridiculous. He was an actor, of course. And when he was white and when we were doing Raisin' in the Sun, he was like, I'll be the part of this person. And I was like, oh, that's great. Cool. But he really wanted us to like learn how to think. And it was so clear, even though he was ridiculous, we all were like, oh, like. That's what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah. But we also were like, but I mean, I got myself in trouble. He was like, challenge, where are your sources in history class? And so in history class, I was like, what are your sources? And my teacher was like the textbook. Don't flip it back on me. Yeah. She was like, shut up. Yeah. This has been vetted. Exactly. I had a couple of teachers that meant a tremendous amount to me that changed my life that all did that. Like all the people who meant something to me were the. They made you rip out pages. No, but I'm teaching you how to think not what to think. Totally. Absolutely. And like it felt empowering in that way and had that kind of like, I'm putting this out there waiting to see the kids who need to hear this and who will respond. And then I'm really going to lock in with them. You know, it's a very interesting. So the movie is about his year as a teacher with these boys. You don't see him teaching any other classes. I assume he does teach other classes. Like he's not just teaching, you know, juniors or whatever they are. He's not the POV character. We start the movie with the boys. I mean, even to your point, the opening of this film, it's like, you start with a shot of a mural of a painting of these well behaved boys, right? Like literally like, this is the model of how we want you to look. And then the camera pans down to a small child being dressed up in his uniform. The sort of feeling of the factory line of like, this is we're molding you to just be this. And then going into this funerial procession, as you said. And then he's introduced that is the announcement like, oh, he's an alumnus and we're all welcoming Mr. Keating. But we're seeing him basically from the POV of these boys in the pew, as they're seeing just this guy sitting at the end of the line on the stage. And it's an interesting high school movie in that there's no bully, really. There are meaner kids and like less kids who are less into it. One kid is a fucking think. Yeah, one kid who is a thing. He's more like a little coward like think, right? He just he caves. Yeah. But it's like, I watched this movie and I hadn't seen that. And I was like, oh, yeah, does Josh Charles play the bully? Because like that's what he usually would play in every other. Just plays a normal forehead kisser. He plays a prince charming. All he's trying to do is rescue princesses by kissing them illersly. But like, right, it's about this like largely very sincere group of boys. Yeah. Yeah. Who seem I sort of, I guess the movies, you know, arguing like, oh, Mr. Keating helped them, you know, learn to think and love poetry and all that. So like taught them how to be in touch with their emotions. Yeah, exactly. That's the big, really feely boys. And it feels like they're pretty on board with him pretty much right away now. I do find this movie interesting to watch now in a kind of peak our young men OK area. Right. Where this is a movie that, as you said, it is kind of about him teaching them to not be afraid of their own emotions. Yeah, because they're basically like, should we have a secret poetry society where we could like so work it up about Shakespeare and shit? And I'm like, is this the healthiest version of a man cave ever? But I mean, I went to a school where I loved English, I love poetry, I love Shakespeare and all that. It's like, it wasn't, I wasn't finding like tons of other kids who were like, let's do some late night Shakespeare shit together. Bring the fucking cool lamps into the cave. And then girls and that's when things went off. Yeah. Well, the thing about theater, which I did in high school was that was how you got to meet girls. Yes, yes. So that was crucial. What does he say that this, this is no Greek society? Hmm. Does he say that? To no pedderast. There's the point where they're like, what, you just hang out in a cave reading poems with other boys? And Williams kind of does the eyebrow wiggle of like, not just boys. Right. He says, I'll find the fucking line. But yes, it does feel like he knows wisely, much like theater teachers often weaponize this, as you said, to be like, Hey guys, don't you want to like know how to talk to women? Yeah, yeah. You have to trap them. Right. Obviously, there's no homosexual overtones in this movie, despite it being like a movie about a bunch of boys at school. Another thing that's surprising. Well, it's not surprising because of the ear. No queer themes, no boys. Did you go to all boys in England? Yes, I did. Okay. Have you heard of Meat Lips? Oh boy. Oh, don't Google that. I like this is going. I like this is going. Did you go to all boys, Griffin? No. Okay. Did you go to all boys? No. So I go to England. He's like Ben fucks. I go to England, I go to public school, you know, at my local school when I'm nine years old. And then I, to everyone's surprise, I tested into this like good school. Like, but that was a boy school. My mom was like, I must have been so hard for my mom, like in retrospect, was like, I'm going to send him to like a all boys school where he wears a fucking tie. Like I was living in New York two years ago. Like what is going on? Were you so adorable? I was very adorable. Of course. I have to take a picture when we're done. Sure. I'll find a picture. But no, I don't know what Meat Lips is. Is that what you just said? Okay. Yeah. So, so, so from at my brain school, some boys came from an all boys school and Meat Lips is basically where a boy would go into his pants, rub his balls with his hands and then smack a boy on the, on the mouth and go, Meat Lips. I am British. I would say this is a boy. But I would say that's what new and sort of stuff was happening plenty. I was always so worried about, I want to say I thought I was like, are Will I get meat? Meadow, okay. Are men okay? Men are not okay. Men are not okay. No, no, no, no. Okay. Yeah. It was really crazy how focal your penises were in your daily lives. Getting pants was a big thing about boys. The thing about a boys school is, yes, like there's, there's maybe too much familiarity and discussion of everyone's penises. Yeah. Like where it's like, you know, if there are girls around or there, maybe everyone kind of like knows to just sort of chill out a little bit. That's the problem with a boys school. The advantage of boys schools is that everyone's just lazy and stinky. Mm. Like because there's no. I'm sorry. That's the advantage. Well, I just like, it smells bad. Like to me, what was crazy about going to a boys school was girls schools because all the girls I knew who went to girls schools, those places were crazy. Like it was so much psychological torment and awful shit. Girls were seeing so mean to each other. Whereas if you put boys together, yeah, there's a little bullying and stuff. Like there's some jocks and door, but like mostly it's just like 14 year old boys who're just like, we're just disgusting. Yeah. We're just all disgusting together. So it's sort of like a. Keeping you contained. Quote, quote, chill atmosphere, I guess. Yes. Interesting. I don't know. Meet lips. It's really unchilled to me. That sounds quite unchill. Yeah. Maybe it's England's different. I don't know. No, England's different. Actually, no, it's not. No, it's actually terrible. Well, I have a couple of guy friends who went in England who went to boarding school and from the age of like eight and they're all very sad about it. Well, that and especially boarding school in England. And I would meet people, you know, and their parents would have gone to boarding school and they had never gotten over it. Yeah. Because I feel like it's, you know, the role doll books and all that about his experience in boarding school of like just just institutional bullying, like where it's like that sort of the older boys, like the structure of like, well, I was bullied. So now I'm going to bully you. Yeah. The hierarchy. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Like it just seems awful. And you're like, obviously. Yeah. Obviously. And then like teaching would be, I mean, the guy he's telling them to rip the book out. Right. That's a real thing that some fucking famous academic from the early 20th century is like, poetry should be like put on a graph of like how good it is. That is actually the most insane. It's not made up like this. It's so crazy. Yeah. And like, I mean, good for him being like that silly, like or whatever. But like, yeah, it's like that was, I guess, how frigid their education was supposed to be. Did you guys have this game? Uh-oh. Oh boy. Uh-oh. Of course. I'm not looking. Ben. Yeah. I'm not looking. I'm nervous. Did you like? Go ahead. Oh. Ben, I was going to say. I was punching boys. Yeah. Doorknob and safety really were cast a big shadow over my adolescence. What does that mean? Doorknob safety? That if you fart, you have to call safety before anyone else calls it, calls you out on it. And if they say doorknob and correctly accuse you of farting before you've said safety, then they get to keep punching you until you touch a doorknob. Oh my gosh. That one I don't know. That was a thing. That was crazy. I don't know if that's sounding big. It's so, the mind of a teenager, like the sort of like inventiveness of punishment. This is the other thing. Look, the internet existed when we were teenagers, but like social media didn't exist in the same kind of way. These things were an open source. Yeah, the most we had was like some instant messaging trauma. But like whatever you experience at your school, you're like, this must be the most universal thing in the world. I just assumed all three of you were going to laugh uproariously when I said doorknob and safety. For all I know, maybe no one else has ever done this. How do I Reddit our nostalgia? This is why no one else plays safety doorknob when farting is a kid. We couldn't go to Reddit to find out if this was a game. Do you want to Reddit Meat Lips? Yeah, Reddit Meat Lips, r slash Meat Lips. David? Yes. Ah. Ah. Oh, god. This is life throwing another thing at me. Oh no, did you catch it? No, I got hit with it. I got pelted pretty hard. It's going to leave a bruise. How's that to-do list? It's tough. It's tough and life keeps throwing more things at me. Okay, well, is there maybe something that we could take off your plate, have someone else help you out with? Perhaps a trusted tasker from TaskRabbit. David, I would love nothing more. My ideal life is to do as little as possible, as much as can be off my plate the happier I am. I have two children. I have logistical responsibilities often of like, I need to build a piece of furniture. I need to whatever, you know, learn about this for the first time, but sure, I'll buy into the premise, the bit of this ad. And I've used TaskRabbit multiple times for it is literally always like, that is the best money I ever spent in my life. You know what I mean? Where you're basically like, it would have been six hours of me building this bookcase. And instead, like I did whatever the other task I had to do, you know, like- Sleeping. Could be sleeping or- Eating a meal of food. Making like shopping for food or whatever. But like, while that got done and it's like, it's always just so rewarding. I had a Tasker come and build a grill for me when I bought my grill. Oh, well, my ears are burning. Or should I say, smoking. And that was one of those things where I was not only was I like, this will be, this will take a long time. I was like, looking at all this, you know, masonry, all these like, where I was like, I will mess this up. Like, I just won't do this. Right. Hey, David, no need to speak in generalities to me. What kind of bad boy would we talk about here? What model you buy? It's a Weber grill. I'm not going to tell you the model. Okay, we can talk about it off my- Look, Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture. Completed 700,000 home repairs have handled 1.5 million moves in counting. That's quite impressive. Obviously, you know, you guys probably know already, but you can search on TaskRiver for Tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, past client reviews. You know exactly who's showing up. You can have confidence that they know what they're doing. So when life happens, your to-do list grows, get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRiver.com or on the TaskRiver at using promo code check. Taskers book up fast, especially for same day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That's $15 off your first task using promo code check with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. David! Yes. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul. Did you say that? What does that make our glasses? The windows. The window frames? I don't know. The curtains? Yeah, the curtains. The point is, if you are glasses where I am or our own producer ban is, it's a big decision. Sure. Because this is how you introduce yourself to the world. This is how you engage with other people. You make eye contact through the frames. Sometimes it's just time for a refresh. Totally agree. All right. Well, so what about Zeni optical? Oh, the fine folks say Zeni glasses. The eyewear, they got fun shapes, sizes, and colors. They got a lot of colors. Right. Statement pieces. Bold statement pieces, they call them. And they're inexpensive, I would say. They're an online eyewear shop with prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, all starting at under $30. That's crazy. That is very low. I feel like glasses often cost more than $30. Way more. But you go to Zeni.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription, they ship it to your door. No appointment, no store, no off-sale at the counter. Easy. At that price, something kind of shifts. You're not like, do I need new glasses? You're like, why don't I try something fun? Because sometimes you've got an old pair, they got a scratch on them, it's annoying, but you're like, am I going to go through the hassle? Or the screws start to get loose, and you find yourself taken out that microscopic little screwdriver over and over again to tighten them up. At this price, why not just get another pair? Ben, I ordered a pair of the Magoo. I think this is funny. Okay. We all know from Mr. Magoo, the cartoon character who can't see, and Zeni is saying, let's solve that problem, let's give you glasses called Magoo. They're blue and green, two of my favorite colors. A nice boxy frame. You're not agonizing over one pair that has to do everything for the next two years. Get the ones for work. Yeah. Get the fun ones. Get some options. Get the pair that only matches one outfit at under $30. You don't have to justify it. Exactly. They've got 150,000 five-star reviews. Yeah. And if you've never won glasses online before, they have a virtual try-on, so you can see how to look on your face before you commit. If your glasses are overdue for refresh now's the time, go to zeni.com.se and use code podcast15 for 15% off your first order. The style sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I.com.se, promo code podcast15. The line William says is we weren't a Greek organization. We were Romantics. Oh, sure. Yes. I mean, it was. Which I guess is more of a fraternity. Right. I mean, the, you know, the, what Keating is doing is just being like, hey, this textbook is silly. We're going to like think about art in a more meaningful way, Bob. Right? Yeah. But then the kids are so into him that they are like, what was your, they find the old yearbook. And they're like, oh, you had the Dead Poets Society. What was that? And he's like, And they're like almost half mocking, even though they like him, they're like, what is this dorky thing? And the way that he with such inner confidence like says the thing about like, we suck the marrow out of life. Like we like fucking lived it up. This shit was rad. Right. You see them all get sparked of like, oh, fuck, is it cool to care about shit? But that's the age when you're, you're so receptive to that. Absolutely. You need someone to tell you like, it's okay to feel things. Yeah. It's okay to be like genuine. Yeah. And that scene is so intoxicating. Yeah. We're, we're jumping ahead now. But yes, it is crazy to me rewatching this, how like the first 15 minutes of the movie, you're like, oh shit, almost all of the iconic stuff happens in the first 15 minutes. It's a lot of the big, the carpet DM, the ripping out the, yay. Oh, Captain My Captain, like all that was mentioned. Is set up basically in the first class alone. Yeah. You're like, most of the cultural reputation of this movie is basically the first 15 minutes in the last five. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with like the stuff in the middle is the stuff that I think, not that's forgotten, but is less discussed. But it's less exciting. Like, yeah. Josh Charles kissing a girl and like, you know, her boyfriend and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, I don't care. It's my, yes. I think the middle act of this movie is pretty dull. Yeah. Yeah. It's the duller part. Yeah. But yes, he hits the ground running. This guy, he fucking first class. It's just like, here's my deal. Another question about this guy, I hate to nitpick this guy, but it's like, right. He's so, he had such an exciting high school life, by guess. Okay. Went to Cambridge. Yeah. We learned and studied English. Now he's fucking back at like his private school that he went to. He says it. He said, I love teaching. Just go teach somewhere else. Where's his partner? Yeah. Who's he married to? She's in England. Yeah. It's a girl friend. Get back to England then. Fucking what's doing here in that no snow town. Broadcast letter. Massachusetts. Doesn't the autumn and the winter, doesn't it look so nice? It's very romantic. It's so romantic. You guys have a few teachers. I had a few teachers in my school who had gone to the school, like in my high school, who were like alumni, like two or three. And I remember being just like, you wanted to come. I mean, I liked the school fine, but I was like, you want to come back here? You didn't want to come somewhere else. But do you find now that you have people you went to school with, who are now doing that? Because I have, there are a couple people I went to high school with. And I'm like, it's a good question. Just go somewhere else. It's just like, it's fine. There must be one or two. Go Carpe Diem in like Baltimore or something. Yeah, actually Carpe Diem here. I will say those also weren't the teachers that like changed my life. I definitely had a couple who had gone to the school. They were not the ones who really stuck with me, whatever that says. There's the scene, the Robert Schoen Leonard scene, it does feel like he says that, where he's just like, if you're so great, what the fuck are you teaching here? And his answer is, it's what I love doing. And I think the subtext of that also is that like, because when he shows up on the class the first day, he's like, what's the name of the fucking school? The school that they're at? Yeah. Welton Academy. Right. He says, right. I'm also a help. Wait a second. Cragulate. Like he's leading with this sort of sense of, I know how much this place sucks. I'm someone who made it out the other side. I think the reason he goes back there is because he wants to like repay the loop of like, these are boys who are going to get fucking crushed. Like save them. Which that makes sense to me is sort of like, that's his noble mission. Although, it's interesting. Again, it's like, there's a lot of movies in this movie that I am maybe more interested by because like there's the scene early, Ashon, where the other teacher, not a administrator, kind of calls him out being like, you're doing what? Like you're not pages and shit. You're his are running around. They're friends though, right? And they're friends. And he's kind of saying it's like, oh, you're a cynic and he goes, no, I'm a realist. Yeah. Exactly. The guy's basically saying like, look, I'm not mad about you doing it, but right. But like, I don't think it's going to work out for you. Why are you telling them all that they can be artists? You're going to turn them all into frustrating fit, frustrated failed artists, right? Like he's basically saying, don't empower all of them. Yeah. Like just keep it cute. You know, right? They don't want to. Yeah. Giving the advice essentially of like also like, don't like make a false promise of they're going to be able to do whatever they want. And I guess that's pointing to the end of the movie. But I find the end of the movie a little dishonest. Well, at the end of the movie, that friend of his, he's walking with his class outside. And he gives him a nod. Yeah. He's like just like keatings up in the tower. Yeah. That's the other thing. I don't think this guy's ever long for the school. He doesn't fight the firing. It feels like even if they hadn't fired him, I wouldn't be surprised if this guy left every year. It feels like he wants to go back there. Right. He wants it to be something and he wants to be able to do this. But it's like the principle of the school is like, well, I think children are awful. And books should be shouted at them. And I will paddle anyone who disagrees of it. He's like the worst guy in the world. Oh, the paddling scene is so icky. The paddling scene kind of rocks. We kind of knocked that out of the park. Yeah. Yeah, I know he does. He does. It's really, really bad. But I think they don't expand on it that much. It's a throwaway moment. But the very attractive blonde woman, he has a frame photo on his desk who's in England. I just have to imagine that this is sort of like, you know what, I'll go back there and teach for a year. Yeah. While she's doing a graduate program abroad or something. It feels like there's some reason why he has to be long distance with his girlfriend for a year. It doesn't come up, but yeah. And so why not do this rather than I want to be a fucking part of the firm in this place for decades. Yeah, even when he shows up, his energy is just so, I mean, it's very Robin Williams-y, but it's so like, I don't know, ephemeral. It is a perfect use of him. You were saying how important Robin Williams was to you. He was just like, for our generation, in the 90s, he was the biggest. He's the guy. He was the guy. Yeah. And to be a child and be like, this guy makes like the best family movies. He also feels like the ultimate celebrity. Anytime he shows up on TV, he's going to be funny. And yet you're aware, like he is taken seriously by grownups. Yeah. There's this side of him that I'm not getting yet. Yeah. He's not just inventing Flubber out here. Yo, Flubber was my shit. Flubber Rolls. Flubber Rolls. I haven't seen it in 30 years. I remember having a couple of notes on that one as well. When you were eight with your pen. I think I was 11 when I saw Flubber, and I was too old for Flubber, possibly. When the Flubber was 97? Yeah, that was 11. 97, 98. Remember Jack? Jack's kind of fun. Jack, I've often referred to as my least favorite movie ever made. Jack is tough. Yeah. That's a tough movie. But sad at the end. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's also sad at the beginning. Sad the whole time. That's all he ages. He ages a lot. Yeah. That's what I'm setting. Directed by? Oh yeah, Francis Cuocopola. His low point. But Francis, okay, we can't talk about Frank. Okay. We can't. We can't. Yeah. No, it's too much. You haven't lopped it off yet. You got to lop it off before we talk about Frank. We lop it off. I'm a megalopolis. Oh, oh, I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, exactly. You got to lop it off. Oh, yes. Listen, I bought it. I was so excited. I went to see it in theaters or I wanted to. And then I just never got around to it. And then I just, yeah. Do I have time of the day? Look, he's starting to recut it. It's not finished. There'll probably seven more versions of megalopolis. Yeah. Based on an era where it was like, here's the director's cut and the extended cut and the this cut and the that cut. And it's like, but you made the movie with your own money, so it should just be your cut, right? It's like, who's fighting with? No, it's Franny. Yeah. He did an interview and maybe it's already come out by this point. I bet it was normal. But he did interview recently, very normal, where he was like, am I trying doing a weirder cut? And I'm like, a weirder cut, my guy? You had no notes on this fucking self-funded fever dream? By all means, go. I'll show me your weirder cut, but why wasn't that the first cut? I'm sure it doesn't happen. It's long as well. It's pretty long. It's pretty long. It's not like the longest movie, but like it's up there for length. Yeah, the shortest either. Dev Ho to decide. He said, yeah, you know, they were about the book and he says Carpe Diem. I like that they don't pathologize this character too much, that they don't over-explain him, that he does feel a little magical. Well, because now if the movie came out now, there'd be a scene where you'd see, they'd realize he's an alcoholic and blah, blah, blah. There would be 20 scenes. Right. There's this sort of purity to just like, yeah, we don't really know. We know he's an alum. It would absolutely open with this guy like walking into the building with his briefcase on the first day. Yeah, I mean, I love The Holdovers, a movie I think you only like. I like. That to me is a better sort of version of the, because the same vibe obviously, it's actually a period boarding school in Massachusetts, where it's just like, the teachers are like, I'm a crusty piece of shit. I shouldn't be here. If I wanted to, if I'd achieved my goals, like I wouldn't be here, but I can still help you. Like hurt people can still help each other. That movie is almost the exact shadow self of this movie. Right? That's a guy who's stuck here forever, and you're like, why? You seem tortured and you're torturing others. And also it is from his perspective more than the kid. Yeah. But it is a similar feeling. I had a similar feeling of like, oh, I'm just, we're just vibing out. We're just, look at the dorm, look at the school, look at the architecture. New England. It's gorgeous. Yeah. Deppote Society is a beautiful movie. And it really, anytime I'm sort of just like, when I was watching it, I'm like, I don't really care. I was just like, this looks so fucking awesome. Of course I do, awesome. But I'm like, the, the, autumn. New Hollywood, right, brings about a kind of shift in the visuals of American film, I would argue, where people were trying to avoid a feeling of like overly manicured sumptuousness, right? Yeah, which then you're like, why is it so oaky? Even a lot of the big epics of the 70s and 80s were like lit. Hey, Puccino, why is it so oaky? Why is it so oaky, baby? We're lit a lot more flatly than the like, equivalent movies of the 60s and before that, right? Because there was this feeling of like, we're going for a naturalism, a roughness. This movie still has like the grain structure of like, the 80s before the 90s, really like, improved film speeds. And then you get these films that just look like, immaculately shiny and glossy. And it feels like that style comes back into fashion, but it does feel like this movie establishes like, a color palette and a lighting scheme that then kind of becomes the default for like, sensitive, serious studio, dramedy. Yeah. John Seale. Who called this a dramedy? I would call it a dramedy. Yeah. A light drama. It was not made as a drama in the Golden Globes. I would call this a drama. I would call this a straight up drama. It has suicide and stuff in it. I guess it's light-ish in that like, the first chunk of it is like, oh, he's a nice teacher. But like, it's kind of a sad movie. Like, even when he's being, it's just like, you're just like, this sucks. Fucking sucks. These boys got to go to this fucking place. Norman Lloyd, not, yeah, Norman Lloyd, right? Is the principal, you know, who's like, he is great. So good. You know, it's just like, this sucks. John Seale who shot it just to reference that, you know, Weir picks him up from out of Australian Obscurity for Witness. And he had done, you know, Mosquito Coast, he'd been working with Weir for a second. But he'd also done, right before this, Gorillaz and the Mist and Rain Man, which are similar vibes. Yeah. Where it's like, we're going back, like you're saying, to this kind of like, burnished, more lush, kind of prestigey look for these kinds of movies. And then right after this, he does Lorenzo's Oil, which is a gorgeous movie. Right. But that feels like the fully burnished version of it, as you're saying. But then like, and then of course, he wins the Oscar for English Patient a few years from now, which is the ultimate. Which is the apex of it, exactly. Yeah. Right. I'm like, that's, we finally perfected the 90s Oscar movie look. Right. And then people are like, enough already, you know, like, Yeah, because now people are like, is that movie even good? Right. And then he shot Fury Road, right? Yeah. I saw him high school. He sure did? Five seconds. He shot Fury Road. And 3000 years along, he's only worked, he's basically retired, but he's... Isn't he a hundred? John Steele is eighty. He's so old. I honestly, George Miller and him shooting Fury Road, I'm just like, baby, are you okay? It is, it is the ultimate. I feel like with each passing year, it just becomes harder to understand how that movie was made. And the more information that comes out, and especially just here. Well, they took all these vehicles onto the Fury Road. Oh, of course. Okay. And the Dewphoria was there and so on and so forth. But I do feel like it is the ultimate movie that filmmakers cite, where they're just like, I can't get my head around this. It's like, I cannot, it's sort of Burke's famous quote where he's like, my three questions are, how did they ever finish making this movie? How did no one die? And I forget what the third one is. Yeah. The fact that it's like a masterpiece, let alone a movie that cuts together isn't. Yeah. No, it's, I find it especially like, because I read Kyle's book about it and, yes, who I think is such a great writer. And you're just like, I could have never done that, because I, the amount of fighting he had to do, obfuscating, ignoring. I don't know, running off into the wilderness to avoid. You know, it's crazy. And also like 15 years of not making it, being like, no, not right. Yeah. You know, like I got to stay on my ground. I know exactly what this fucking thing is. And then it's just like, everyone hated him while he was making it. And then saw the screening and was like, oh, you were right. Yeah. Like how the fuck do you like have that clear sense of it in your head? Yeah. And somehow get exactly what you want out of everybody, even in a way at a time where you can't communicate it to them. Yeah. Yeah. It's madness. Fascinating. Madness. Okay. So what else happens? They wrote the book. Same one. The page is carpet DM. He sparks them pretty quickly. Yeah. They're on board. As you said, he has the conversation with the other teacher. What were you going to say, Nia? Well, I mean, the boy's no wonder. My favorite. He's my favorite. And he doesn't really act after it. I know. He's good. High level studio exec. He did. I was like, yeah. Gail Hansen, I believe is his name. Yes. Yes. He was so cute. I sort of flipped over to being in the career business. Where I worked under his wife, who was just like, you know what's weird? My husband was the was that guy in Dead Poets Society. And he kind of never acted again. Yeah. I'm good for him. I thought he was really good. He's really good. He's good. All the kids are good. Would you agree? I mean, like. Yes. Yeah. I mean, but they all and they all, I was just like, amazing how good the casting was because they all are like, you know, even rock, Dr. Wilson. Yes. And that ginger bastard. But it is it is this like era of, as David was saying, there was just like a crop of brown haired boys who were all just ready to go. And there were all these movies that kept being like, we need four of you. That's the right now, though, don't you think? I think we're finally back at it. It was so I because I was also, I was talking to someone. I'm like, who's a movie star because there's so many white boys right now. Yes. But are any of them actually bankable? It's really interesting. I think the bankability is a question and it's very much still in flux. I think Tim is the only one who has like definitively proven himself in that area. But it does feel like there is a really strong crop of young white guys for the first time like 20 years. Yeah. And they're all just and they're, I think similar energy. They're all battling out until someone is like, you know what? I need five of you. I'm like, oh, thank God. Like, you know, but the other the other differences, it feels like these guys all are a little bit Ethan Hawke, where they're just like, I fucking care about this. And I want to do it right. And I don't care about seeing being seen as dorky about loving acting. And I want to work with good people. They're not just like doing the movie star playbook. A hundred percent. They want to be like important in a way that is was seen as embarrassing for a while. And I think that's finally come back around. 10,000. It's interesting that like Hawke, who, as you say, like had already done kid performances, he goes on to obviously be pretty quickly. He's a star. Yeah. Like by 94, we've got reality bites. Yeah. And but even in 91, he did like white fang. He was doing kind of like, you know, but by reality bites, he is like a fully defined. Robert Sean Leonard, I feel like just became one of those guys everybody likes. Yes. But that it's the house role is sort of like a whole read invention for him. What is that? Then it was like, yeah, we love him and he does theater and I was going to say, I feel like he was one of those ultimate guys who was like, he's not that interested in chasing the Hollywood thing. He loves doing theater. He's so well regarded in theater and he's Tony has won. I don't know. I think you're right. I think no, you are wrong. You got a Tony nomination for Candida. Okay. I'm not sure if he did Arcadia. He did the invention of love. Oh, he won a Tony for the invention of love. Yay. Two. Another Tom Stopper boy. But did he do Arcadia? I'll find out. Okay. I think I did the music man at some point as well. That also sounds right. He sings? Remember, yeah. Yeah, he replaced Craig Birko in that music man. That's funny. With Chenoweth? I don't know. Sounds right. He, yes, incredibly respected. David, I've never been wrong once on this podcast. Not seeing Chenoweth. But you know, Chenoweth. Look at the Arcadia thing because I need to be proven correct about this. He did Arcadia. Thank you guys so much. What I was going to say is it's funny that it was like Victor Garber, Jim body, who had this heat when he was young and such a huge part and such a huge movie that it was like, and then he kind of like eschewed that whole thing and really focused on theater. And then you're like, right. And he did 10 years of house. Yeah. He probably made one trillion dollars. Oh my God. And it's such a life. That house role, it's the perfect fucking role because it's like, you probably only work one day. Perfect work. Like mostly Wilson in that show is sitting behind his desk and house comes in and is like, fucking house and a rascal. You know, and Wilson's like, oh boy. And then like once in a while he does more stuff, but usually you just do that. He got paid like $150,000 per eye role at the thing house says. That show was so great. I was rewatching it and it's really good. Especially I would say the first three, four seasons. Yeah. Yeah. I've gone beyond the point. I've just seen it off a bit. On fire is like one of the most undeniable performances. But also so inappropriate. Oh my God. But I think the episode three stories, I mean, house is like beloved and people watch it all the time, but yet it's sort of forgotten in that early prestige era. Three stories, which is from the first season of house. It is one of the most amazing pieces of TV. Is that the one? It's the one that reveals how he got the lead. It's like an early season one. When he's being, he's cutting forces him to do the lecture. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The dead post aside, so he rips out the pages and he says, Carpe diem. Wait, wait, no, no, no. So this is what I was actually getting to, which was like the boys, they each have a thing they do, right? So the one boy is like, I'm going to kiss a girl without her consent. The another one is, I like theater now all of a sudden. Nwanda is, I'm just going to change my name to Nwanda. I'm going to write appropriate every culture. Exactly. But he's also like, I'm going to live that life. Yeah. Yeah. He's kind of the original Jake Sully. Sure. Get in that he draws some paint on his face. Okay, guys, thank you so much. Thank you so much for the... We got to go. Got to get out of here. Oh, man. Yes. No, they each have a little kind of mini arc of like, what does he empower them to be able to do? Yeah. It is funny that with distance, you're like, a few of these kids didn't need the empowering. Yeah, let me get out of here. Ethan Hawke, he empowers to be able to say a sentence out loud at room tone. Which I like that scene. It's really good. Yeah. I feel like this movie, what this movie does really well, it's very hard in the film to show an audience art and be like, this is good. Or to explain passion for an art form. It is the Mr. Holland's opus thing that David always talks about. Which is what? You spend an entire movie being like, this guy's fucking life's work and you do the opus at the end and it sucks ass. And you're like, this guy doesn't sell the audience on the power of music and his music is bad. To get mad about the Reddit, but there was some thread about my common complaint about Mr. Holland's opus, which is of course that yes, his opus is toilet. And people like, he doesn't get the message that like, actually all the kids he taught over the years, her is up and so I'm like, I got that message. They kind of hammer it home. I know. The movie's not like fucking China town. I actually read that thread. You were telling us before you recorded that you read the Reddit way too much. I do. I do. We are your opus and he's like, I guess so. I mean, like to be clear in the movie, he's such a curmudgeon. But then he's like, oh yeah, sure. And then they're like, and now you're opus. And they're like, it's just. Also here's a retort. Or a bodge. If the kids are as opus, is that that much of an accomplishment either? They stink. They all stink. I sell this thing for a second. But you were right. I do think this is a movie that like actually sells you, the audience on what it's trying to sell the kids. Yes. Yes. And not super. I also think it's a really good screenwriting decision that they like are sparked by the guy. They're like, what's this guy's fucking deal? They go and find the yearbook. They find the weird thing that they bring to him almost half mocking Lee. He doesn't say like, boys, this is what you need to do. Yeah. Go find a cave and read the actual poems. Girls will show up. He's sort of beyond reproach to me personally. I mean, mine is destroying school property of the books. But I'm like, it's really, it's not. Well, they go off. They go off. I like that they're basically self-motivated. They are. Yeah. Well, there's this question of like, right, you know, at the end of the movie, Robert Trondlander's character says, you know, seeks his advice on the whole, like, I want to act and my dad doesn't want me to do it. That scene is so good. That's incredible. The scene is really well acted. Keating doesn't do anything wrong. No. But Keating definitely sort of knows, like you can see on Williams' face, like, his dad's not going to go for this. This isn't going well. Like, you know, like, because Keating says, like, look, talk to him. Tell him how you feel about this. Exactly what you're saying to me. Right. And then they have this second conversation where he's like, and you talk to him. And he's like, yeah, it didn't go well. But, you know, and you're kind of like, no, it's not like Keating is responsible for this kid then killing himself or whatever. But you are kind of like, but it is, it's all a little out of hand. Right. Like, you know, he's not doing much communication up or with the parents or whatever. Like, he could be trying to intervene a little more. The other thing I think Williams plays really well is you get the sense in him that he is questioning, am I responsible for this in any way? Right. That he plays that very quietly. It's another thing that's helped by him not being the POV character of the movie. Right. So he's sort of in and out and you're not sure, like, how involved. But it doesn't feel like he fights the firing. And it's obviously not his fault. But there is this part of him of just like, I'm just telling kids to fucking, yeah, you know, say whatever they want and do whatever they want. And I'm not really thinking about. And you can't not feel totally somewhat not responsible. But yeah, in a way, guilt has no logic really, you know, so. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And it's just crazy that the dad and then the administration blames his teaching instead of looking at the obvious, which is that the dad is forcing his son to do stuff that he really doesn't want to do. Right. But the school can't deal with that. Right. No, I understand. But it's just such an annoying example of bureaucracy that really gets under my skin. Oh, absolutely. So stupid. But I also think the school exists to mirror that viewpoint of the dad, right? Like the the function of this school in terms of what it's promising parents is like, we're going to kick all the fucking. Right. Right. We're going to get your kids ready for doctoring and lawyering and whatever. Like that that's the promise of the premise. You know, that's what's on the bottle here is like, we're going to make them fucking upstanding citizens of society. Yeah. Right. And it's just like they're just printing doctor, lawyer. Yeah. Right. Right. And you see them side eyeing Williams from the beginning, even before there's any demonstrable damage of what he's done. Yeah. Even before the Gail Hansen character has the act out or whatever and there's anything they can sort of like reprimand Williams for it. They're already like, this could be dangerous. You know, we don't need these kids like fucking believing in themselves. Yeah. That's not what they're paying us for. I had it with my teacher, Mr. Raffle in middle school. He got into trouble because he wanted us to read Antigone. And we were sixth graders, I think. It's a little orderly for Antigone. Dude, Antigone, but my wife teaches Antigone. What age? Double brand. Like I would say more like ninth grade. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, yes. Me, however, I don't really read it because I'm a loser. And I, but I was like, yeah, there's a lot of suicide in that. Very dark things. I think incest is an Antigone as well. You know. I mean, it's the Antigone is the sequel to Oedipus. Yeah, exactly. And yeah. So, but. I could have an Oedipal complex. If you really think about it. That's my thing. If we really just read it. Griffin. Sorry. Absolutely. Sorry. No, I always forget like when I'm in the presence of it, I'm always like. Oh, of his bullshit? It's just unstoppable. Yeah, you're, however I've told you, you're a BitBoy. You're not wrong. This is like when Kevin Durant went on Bill Simmons years ago and started talking about the blog boys. You're a BitBoy. You're gonna make a t-shirt. I'm a fucking BitBoy. BitBoy over here. I'm a nasty little BitBoy. I was, I was telling a friend of mine who's a BitBoy. I was like, oh, you're such a BitBoy. He's like, what's a BitBoy? I'm like, you're a boy doing bits. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah, laser accuracy. Yeah. BitBoy. Yeah. I love it for you though. But this is your world. BitBoy away. Look, hey, the bits paid for all of this. You're sitting in a home of Bit. Look upon the toys. Look how many fucking toys there are. All those figures paid for with bits. I also, sorry, because the monologue is like a long bit, but it's also like you are an actor. So it's like this, like it's in a bit. Sort of middle space. Oh, excellent. Jesus Christ. David did a bit at some point. I don't remember if it was on my, if it was off my, it's a really good question. It's kind of, that's become a bit of an Andy Kaufman thing where it's hard to tell where the bit is. Is he still in control of it? I don't know. It makes me, I'm so nervous. Oh, I forgot to call my friend. So we're all just taking phone calls now? Sorry, excuse me. Hello? No. Okay. Um, yeah. He, David's at some point a couple of years ago did an impression of his daughter being a teenager and being dismissive about the podcast and angrily saying, those bits you're making fun, they paid for all of us. They paid for your education. Disgusting. It's disgusting. Yeah. Oh my God. Disgusting. Costs covered by his bits. My fucking bits. Bits pay the bills. Let's talk more about depot society. Yeah. What is that? Just kidding. Um, he fucking rips out the page. Carpe diem. And then they paddle his ass. Yeah. That was, I found it so upsetting. Principal paddled Robin Williams. Oh, that's a different kind of story. My guess is they're leaving it downstairs. Don't worry. It's fine. Um, I just sorted it because I know I'm going to have to go pick up my daughter after this. I got a couple of minutes and you can leave me in the car. Oh, should we talk about the script? I'm going to go. Yeah. Carpe diem does feel like it does not become a thing that anyone can say in any conversation and is understood without that. With this movie, right? Like it does feel like even if people don't know that it's from dead poet society anymore. Well, Griffin, it's Latin. It's right. It's of course from Morris's hoods. I'm saying how many Latin phrases can you drop into any conversation without the need to translate? Certainly, Carpe diem has always been in my life and this movie came out when I was three. So yes, maybe it's all just. Even just like a basic kind of like frat boy level like Carpe mother fucking diem. Here's that. The fact that you can just. Do you think it's funny that Robert Schoenlander wants to be an actor? This school, of course. The page doesn't have a book. This school doesn't have drama. No. So it's like he doesn't get to do a school play. He has to do like local theater. No, it's a girl's school. Isn't the girls school? Yeah. So sometimes the schools will. That is something that is something. They say it's like two areas. Interesting. Yeah. All right. All right. I think that's when they meet all the girls at the dance, right? From there. The Laura Walters basically cut out of the film. The Laura Flamboyle is one of the actresses in the play. Yeah. Oh, totally. Interesting. He plays Puck. I played Puck. Oh, you have Puck energy. Thank you. Yeah. I'll take that. Was he Grumpy Puck? Huh? Was he a Grumpy Puck? Yeah. Me? What? You just told all the characters to get along with it. Whatever. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like, yeah, yeah. Fucking girdle around the earth. 20 minutes. Yeah, I'm dunking out. What do you want to say? What do you want from me? Wait, how old were you when you played Puck? Uh, I was like 14 maybe. Yeah. 14 or 15. Are you a good actor? No. No, very bad. Me either. I had a sparkly... Near the cops to the house. I had this sparkly sweater. David seems to leave past of next feature. Yeah. You're going to be mid-term. No, it's not. I'm doing my luck. No, I'm a bad actor. I'm a bad actor. I like drama because I like theater and I like Shakespeare. And I like, you know, like I dug the class and all that. Like I did it entirely in school. But I just, you know, as Griffin knows, I sort of... I don't have a performance drive that engages enough or something. And I just would kind of, I mean, I don't know. I think I wasn't like blowing my lines. I think I was just kind of flat. Yeah. I was just kind of whatever. You have pretty severe stage anxiety, if not stage fright. Yes, I know. But then I think we were kind... I just don't like it. Well, this is the bigger thing I was going to say. Because I'm not like some people where like true people are like having a panic attack or throwing up before they get on a stage. When we started doing live shows and we don't do them often. Yeah, as I was saying. And it felt like it was a little bit of an uphill battle to get you to do them. I felt like you had more acute anxiety leading up to the first couple. And then there was the moment where Ben and I were like, he's going to get out there and realize like the audience will be happy whatever he says. And he's going to get the bug. And I remember you walking off stage one time and being like, yeah, I just feel nothing. Yeah. It doesn't like, I feel a relief of the anxiety I have before. But like, I guess I don't have the chance that makes people want to do this. Because it's like, it's a sickness to want to do like open mics, right? Because it's like you're punishing yourself. Sure. Because you're going in front of these people who are hostile. Absolutely. And being like, hey, so here's what's up with my deck. You're broken if you need that. I saw on Picture View dressed up as Wato. Oh, yeah. And I just really, because I think as listeners know, my first impression of Griffin is and David are trivia monsters because they're so good and he never would win. And the second is as just like a comedian doing VH1 bits. Right. Right. So to see you dressed as Wato, I was like, oh, this is his true form. It is. Yeah. I just, yeah, I sort of like. But speaks to that exact, what is broken inside me that I have to put on a Wato costume? Exactly. Right. I like whatever rush I should be, visceral rush I should be getting from performing. I think I'm not getting it. Yeah. That would drive me to want to do it. But that's, yeah. Then what are you going to do? We just got to though say that you are really great. You're very nice of you. I think I'm totally fine. I only in front of fans of blank checks who are obviously a warm audience. But no, but you do come alive doing it and then you just walk off and you're like, huh, so you guys like love doing it. I'm not dismissive at all to be clear. I don't want it to sound like I am. We always get feedback where people are like, David's so great. Yeah. He's so good live. But that's, that means your mental hygiene must be really good. Yeah. He's the most normal man alive. Wait a second. There's plenty wrong up here. Let me open my fifth spreadsheet. That's where it's all. It is another like, I just think like masterfully realized and judge sequences in this movie is Robert Sean Leonard after the play back. And just a series of like very kind of understated moments of just that feeling of, oh my God, I found my thing. He's and I was entirely on this kid's face. He's really good before too when he's nervous and he knows his dad's out there and you can see him again just on his face, like, should I just fucking not do this? Well, and you also hope that it's like the dad's going to come up and be like, I was wrong somewhere you did out there. I want to put my foot in your critics ass. Yeah. So Sister Act 2, you know, it's like you think. Yeah. You want it to be a school of rock moment where they're all like, we were wrong. Yeah. You get it. You have to do this. Yeah. And yeah, the fact that he has this sort of like private moment backstage, not even with the rest of the cast, we're all complimenting him, but then he like goes into the blind spot behind the curtain and just kind of like takes a breath in. And it's just like you're like, this guy feels complete for the first time in his entire life. And he knew it from the moment he auditioned that there was something there. But having completed it so successfully. And thinking also maybe my dad's, I'm showing my dad and now he's seen me. He's in that one moment of maybe. Yeah. Because then he has, but then his, because then he's like, oh, your dad's like is back there. And he has a moment where he's like, maybe, oh fuck. He comes around. Yeah. He comes around the curtain and he looks and his dad is still just standing against the back wall. And the audience is basically emptied out. And it's like, oh my God, he's here. Yeah. He stayed through it. He's waiting to talk to me. Yeah. Isn't, correct me if I'm wrong because I only seen the movie once in the last 25 years or whatever. It's like, Kerwood Smith's character. It's like they're not old money, like some of these kids. Correct. He's successful. He's like a doctor or something. He grew up kind of poor. It's implied that he grew up. Correct. And so he has a little bit of the kind of like, you cannot be fucking around. He keeps saying we don't have the kind of money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the suicide scene is like, I mean, it's very like tastefully done by weird or whatever. But the mom saying he's okay is like very upsetting. The whole thing is awful. And Kerwood Smith's response at the same time. I know. Right. It's, it's, I don't like that he kills himself. Because I don't think he should have done that. No, it just feels like. You cast judgment. I don't quite know if the movie earns it entirely. I have a similar feeling. I had, but yeah. It's like, why did he do it? His dad wouldn't let him act. I'm just like, I don't think we got there guys. Yeah. And then more feels like the movie just had to have an ending that was sad. It's, what were you going to say? And then he walks crying in the snow. I was just going to, I just wanted more because I think part of, and I understand where telling Wilson not to do like the whole not to, to lead up to the, to the suicide, not to have that. You don't play that over your head. Yeah. I think I needed, and also to be fair, like, you know, I mean, I went in, right? Did you go to the radio too? I didn't. I dropped out of Cal Arts. Okay. Beautiful. Yeah. Went on the radio and like when I was there, someone killed themselves in bobs in the library because you could, before you could jump over them into the lobby. It would be kind of infamous. Yeah. Yeah. And several people had done that. And, you know, and I, you know, so, you should, and, Of course, people, No, but the way people have talked about them was like, was like, oh, they seem like I'd never expected, but I think in the context of a film, obviously, the point is emotional eligibility, unless you're making head of gobbler. And, and it's like, If you're making, you know, someone's going to fucking do something. I wanted to die. But, but, you know, I just felt like it didn't, the math wasn't completely I'm laughing. Yeah. For me, I think, yeah, I in rewatching it thought I was going to reject it feeling like too much of a push. Narratively, it went down more smoothly. I bought it more than I was expecting to. It's mostly because it's so well done. Again, it's mostly because he knows the sequence kind of dreamlike. And I think by giving it that space and making it largely wordless and making it feel kind of like weirdly magical. Right. Yeah. There is this sense of, and I think it's what you're talking about with like how many college suicides there are. And even like at places like this, at boarding schools like this, I think these places that are this like high pressure concentration of energy about your future. We are preparing you for your future. We are trying to break you down to be able to accomplish great things. It's a very like combustible kind of potion. They're brewing of like you're making people think so much about the pressure of this moment as a fulcrum point as in a series of fulcrum points to be able to unlock the future you want or not. And is it the future you want or is it the future you were told you need to pursue or whatever it is. Right. And I think you do get young people under tremendous amount of pressure who just like break on a bad night. Yeah. Not it being the end result of years of suicidal ideation, but this feeling of, you know, I think it is there is a narrative convenience to it. Look, just a little bit just by a little bit. But I think what it sells fairly well that I just buy enough is that like the high high and the low low so close together. Right. Yeah. Of this guy finding this moment. This teenage calibration. Exactly. And his dad's like you're going to go to here. That it's like a manic cycle of just like I have just found myself for one solitary moment. I'm immediately told that door is closed. It is impossible. In that moment, it's you know, what you hear about a lot with teen suicide is just like you wish you could tell them that like you will get past this, right? That this is like a bad night that this is not the rest of my life. Keating says, well you're 218. You can do whatever you want. Totally. And so and I think that was the one line for me where I was like, oh, because again, like not like almost like forgetting what was coming. I'm like, oh yeah, he'll do that. But he's fighting so hard. You don't know my dad. You don't understand. You understand Keating's like, no, truly trust me, trust me, just say it. He'll see it. And when he's been told that he wants to believe that he feels such a sense of euphoria from the performance and then his dad comes down. Right. So fucking hard. So that's the thing that makes sense. Totally. And in a way that's not even vindictive as much as just like. This is fucking reality. It's not happening. We can't afford this. We don't have generational wealth. You need to keep this up. There are no other choices. The house is too big for him to be gone on like that place. I agree. That's the thing that also is a little bit confusing for the dad's math where I'm like, because my dad's in a similar, we haven't spoken in many years, but it's like the logic is less about like, it's all about his trauma. Exactly. And his inability to feel. That's the whole thing. And I think the moment where he talks to his mom and his mom's like, sorry, you're just like, oh, like he, he just really feels alone. Well, Kurt Woodsmith's like, I had it rough. And this is what I had to do to become successful. And the proper way for me to parent you is to do that as well rather than being like, I went through that to be able to give you a better, more supportive life. Right. Where you do have options and autonomy. I also think it's such a good choice that like, Kurt Woodsmith has his like sort of like complete immediate breakdown at like my son, my son, my son. And then his wife comes in and is in absolute denial at it and he starts yelling at her. Right. He lashes out at a current anger. He shows genuine vulnerability. But it's a very, very honest moment. Exactly. There's genuine vulnerability and guilt when he sees his son's body. And then when his wife comes in and starts reacting emotionally, he's, stop it, stop it. Yeah. Like it's that guy. He's controlling. He's like, she does not have the emotional freedom to be able to really help any of the people in his life, even at his absolute lowest moment. Yeah. I love the way, because I, you know, you always think with like suicide scenes, like, okay, then he finds a gun, then gonna be, boom, you hear the gunshot. And the fact that there's no gunshot. Instead of just the dad waking up being like, oh my God. Another excellent. And then he walks around and sees every. Weird nose just to pull back. Yep. Like, you know, and that's why this movie works. Yeah. I agree. Um. Are you coming around too? This is, I gave it three stars on Letterbox. It's how, and that was the rating I had it. Yeah. Like I was just like, this is a movie that totally works for me. I just think it kind of undeniably works. David. Yep. I love Warren hats. Oh. I'm a hats man. You are. What do you, if I said it was a hats man, I would agree. Certainly. And much like Daniel Plainview, I love starting businesses. Yeah. But I'll tell you the one part of the starting a business I don't like. Having to wear so many hats all at once. I'm a one hat at a time guy. Okay. Well, I guess you can only have one hat at a time and, uh, you know, you're just going to be intimidated and lonely. That's the concern. But here's an option. Uh-huh. What if Shopify could metaphorically take some of those hats off your head and start wearing them themselves? Look, Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. 10% of all e-commerce in the U S. It's a pretty crazy stat. Uh, you know, we've, we're working on getting our own Shopify page up. We're relaunching our merch with our own Shopify page and they're the dream business part. But like, you know, Mama Fuku, Heinz, Mattel. Oh yeah. Heard of them? I just bought a lot of He-Man toys and got tracking updates from Shopify. So Shopify obviously, you know, gets you started with your own design studio. They got hundreds of ready to use templates. You can build a big, beautiful online store matching your brand style. Get, uh, you know, you can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns where wherever your customers are scrolling and strolling. I like that. I love this. That's really good language. And David. Yes. I enjoy as a consumer on the other side of the transaction that I can open my Shopify app and I see all my orders there. I see the tracking updates. I can keep track of what I've ordered. Can't tell you some things I ordered recently. Vinegar syndrome, the fine folks at Vinegar syndrome. Love them. I ordered Rod A. Jude's Dracula, which is not part of her upcoming Patreon series, but I thought it was good. Supplemental watching. Yeah. And Young Sanktmeyer's Faust. Very good. Lovely diss from those fine folks. Thank you. I bought an action figure of Andor and his droid friend. What's this? D.T. Emo from the fine folks at Twink. The store is called Twink, but now that I finally watched Andor and I'm Andor Pilled, we love it. I had to ask Twink. We support you. To give me an Andor figure in exchange for money. Right. I also bought replicas of the sunglasses from They Live from the fine folks at Fright Rags. These are things I'm keeping track of that are very important and mature. Yeah. Look, you could be like some of the brands that are selling griffins. You can either start a business and look for griffins to sell things to, or you can be a griffin and buy too many things. So start your business today with the industry's best business partner Shopify and start hearing Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash check. Go to Shopify.com slash check. That's Shopify.com slash check. Cha-ching. You're treaching? Yeah. Okay. Can we have a letter box moment? Please. Okay. So I don't even want to say this. We can always cut it out. Okay. I have a secret letter box. Hell yeah. I just started it because Max Minghella was like, you need to do it. It's absolutely not. No, I'm not telling anyone. No, no, no. I'm not letting any of my friends know because then people might find the clues and it's stressful. But I have an experience where I rated a film two stars but then I also put like it. Have you done this? Sure. I think that is a very good way to think about that. Because people get very tied up on letter box. So like, well, what should my rating scale be? Or do I just not do ratings and I just do hearts? And I'm like, two stars and a like? That's a kind of movie that I have in my, we have absolutely. Deep Blue Sea is probably a two star and a like movie. Deep Blue Sea is a perfect example. I cannot defend a second of that group. Our friend named it Ben David Gruberbensky. He goes five stars or nothing. Well, I basically do that. I now only give a star rating if it's five or if I really think of things stinky poo poo and I want to make a statement with a one. Right, you're going one. And that's usually I'm like this movie is like cynical like end of culture bullshit. But I used to do more starings. Now I'm just like, I give it five stars if I'm like, I'm officially ready to say I think this is a perfect masterpiece. Officially, what the fuck am I talking about? But otherwise it's a it's a binary like heart or no heart. Sure, sure. And I'm just like, and it used to be like heart means I love it. And now I'm like, heart means I like it. Yeah, yeah. If I'm like positive. Positive, yeah. Yeah, I think we have to step up. I think especially with like review aggregators, which are so upsetting. I just feel like ratings mean less and less. Like reviews are so much more interesting than like. I don't give grades as a critic because the Atlantic doesn't do that if I worked somewhere else like that did that, I guess. But the people don't really do that much anymore. Yeah, no, because it is it's a bit weird to be like to. But I love my litter box star ratings. And I love how mad they make people not famous people or important people, but weird nerds who are like, well, he gave three stars to this. And then, you know, I also see that he's going to get a wind down half a story. I can't be as mad as David Arlick's reviews makes people because that is the fuck. Like he cracks me up. You know what's so funny is that people get so mad and they're like, this guy fucking sucks. His opinions suck. And then when he swings in and is like one battle after another five stars, people are like, we're cooking. Yeah, we're so back. Or like likes it. Like Hamlet. Yeah, yeah. When he likes the movie, you're excited about. Yeah. Suddenly. But if he doesn't like it means a lot. Exactly. The weird thing that they'll do with him is they're like, well, he didn't like it. That means I'll like it. Yeah, I'm like another. Masterpiece income. Right. Yeah. I have a reviewer that's like that for me where I'm like, I love the reviews, but I name me. Can you bleep it? Yeah, of course. Oh, yeah. Yes. He's the best example. Yes. I love his reviews. But like great writer. He rated. Bleep this movie as well. Really highly. And I was like, that's one of the worst films I've seen. And I would say that. Well, I can't talk about this. Here's like a very specific example to you. Right. I'd never seen the Annabelle movies. I'm like, I should fucking watch the Annabelle movies. The first Annabelle movie. I saw you logging it. The first one is. Such absolute dog shit. Yeah. It was astonishing how bad it is, right? Then the second one is like one of the best like. That's one set in the past, right? It's it's very good. The one with the Athena Poly. Right. And I was just sort of like, oh, this one's like resetting the table and just ignoring the first one. And then the last 20 minutes, it finds a way to tie back into everything that was bad in the first one, but make it good retroactively. It's very solid movie. And I was like, holy shit. Heart. Isn't that the best kind of surprise when you it's like when I watched the Conjuring for the first time? I was like, who rules? Yeah, good director. So I watch I watch that Annabelle creation creation. Then I go see your movie head up, right? And then I'm like, yeah, loved it. Heart. And then I go home and I'm like. Time for Annabelle to come home. And I watch Annabelle come home and I'm like, yeah, pretty good. Heart. And then I'm like looking at it and I'm like, does this look weirdly? Is that about I don't think I've seen her come home. Me either. I think it's quite good. Oh, I want to watch that. But I'm like, if you're like two junkie horror sequels that I'm giving hearts in a sandwich around a movie that our friend made. Am I like being rude to Heta or devaluing that? No, I'll share space. My answer is I watched three Annabelle movies. I don't have a sliding scale of Annabelle movies. And I'm like, two of these are good at the assignment of making Annabelle. Yeah, we're completely agree. And because the first one is so bad, I'm like giving the other two positive reviews. Also, Annabelle and Heta are both two women who are in a world that has boxed them in. Annabelle is literally in a doll sitting in chairs, causing chaos, sitting in chairs and beautiful dresses, causing chaos. Causing chaos. I got it at the real era. Annabelle is just a fucking ragged. Do you know this is the real Annabelle? Yeah, straight up. Yeah. And then you see the guy who died. Yeah. And then they were like, we found out the cause of death. Cardiac event. And I'm like, fucking Annabelle event is what that was. Cotton in his mouth. I should have been touching that doll. It's a fucking stitched up. Dude, the whole thing is. And Matt Reif bought the. Matt Reif bought the fucking Warren house. Matt Reif owns Annabelle. I hope Annabelle. He's too powerful. He's giving tours of the fucking Annabelle house. Anyway, I think both of the Annabelle sequels are good. Fair enough. Yeah. I haven't seen Annabelle come home and I haven't seen the curse of La. I'm halfway through that. I watched the other plane ones. I always mess up the pronunciation. Here's what Annabelle comes home does that is smart. Here's what Annabelle comes home with since Martin says, is we get ready to wrap up on dead poets society. Patrick Wilson, Vera, and Ega are back in it as the war. They're only at the beginning in the end. And the movie is basically their young daughter who's McKenna Grace. It's her birthday and they're like, but we got called in to do some demonic thing. We're sorry we're missing your birthday. We have a babysitter who's going to watch you. And teen girl watching McKenna Grace. Sad. Oh, I have seen this. Who's starting to get the feelings and is like struggling with being seen as like the creepy girl. Invites her friend over to help babysit with her. Yeah. And her friend is like, oh, the house with all the creepy shit. And she starts fucking with stuff. And then the movie is basically like a haunted house movie set in the Warren house when they're not there. And then we get Vera sometimes being like something's happening. Very beginning, very end. The superstructure of the movie is basically what if two teenagers are stuck in the Warren house without them there. And they're like, what's this bowling ball? And they're like, no, that bowling ball killed eight people in Shady Delaware. Because the front of Annabelle doesn't come to life. She doesn't move. She sits in a chair and the bad shit happens. It's crazy they made three Annabelle movies without. So they clearly knew there was not a third movie worth of Annabelle shit. So they were like, put her back in the house and then everything in the house can go wrong. Yeah. Yeah. It's smart. I guess I haven't seen the nun too. The nuns are my next. I'd never watched any of the spin-offs. Yeah. I was a man. They're not actually. The Conjuring, nothing has met the Conjuring. I agree. Where it is. The Conjuring to me is like one of the best horror films that have come out. That's why I think it's so good. I wish Juan had come back and done three. He's so good. He's so good. You mean done three or done four? Well, both. But it felt like they didn't make three for so long and started making all the spin-offs because they were like. He's not busy. He's really busy and he wants to come back eventually. And then it was like he's never coming back. Is it because he was doing aqua? He did Aquaman and he did. Malignant. I mean, I love that he did malignant. I love that he did malignant. Malignant rocks. I, yeah, I had so many emotions watching that film. I love that movie. That picture. Yeah. So he, Carpe Diem. He breathes the pages out. He breathes the pages out. What are some other moments that we like? I like when they kick the ball and they have to quote lines of poetry. I think that's really cool. I like the Yop scene where the camera's spinning around them. And I was like, this is such a great way to just like the energy of it's so good. I love when Ethan Hawke has to say a one sentence and that's his entire plot. Someone said to me before I started watching it, they were like, yeah, it's interesting because like, basically, Ethan Hawke's the lead of the film and I watched it and I was like, he's not, he's not less than Robin. Yeah, he's important. He's offline. He's kind of the passive POV character. Right. I mean, you know, I'm kind of crucial to the end. He's the one saying to him like, they made a sign that like, you know. He's like the silent. Okay, I'm sure I'm captain. You're just kind of pinning throughout the whole movie and then he doesn't really come alive until the end. We're kind of like referencing, I think Keating's getting out the door for his next. Next. Yeah. He's not even like to England where they don't have internet, so they don't know about. Too appaddling. I know we've made jokes, but can we talk about the Josh Charles thing a little bit? Because it's you said, each of the kids has like a thing they need to self-actualize. It like really does not play well today. I'm not even saying this with like modern like, you know, politics. You're just like, it is kind of just like such a creepy movie construction. It is also what our friend Chris Gethner calls an ultimate, but I like her plot. Alexander Powers is the actress playing on it. Who's very pretty and has become a Scientologist. Oh, is that right? Her Wikipedia is just like, and then in 2010, she figured it out by becoming a Scientologist. I did see this. Yes. It has a section of like, and then everything got figured out. Listen, life's hard, man. You gotta sometimes you gotta just, you gotta carpet the deal. Something to help you shoulder the weight of meaningless university. But Gethner's point was basically for decades, many, many movies could get away with if a nice boy cares really deeply, his crush is very genuine. Right. He's not threatening. He's just Charles. But I like her. You just stay with it until she finally gives in and is like rewarded for it. So upset. And then the story just kind of drops. Look, I think he's goodness and he's sweet and he's charming and you're like, the behavior is so bizarre. He's selling it in a way where you're like not, you're almost falling for it. But she like answers a door and he's like, that is the love of my life. And people are like, okay, can you go off? Yeah. And then he's just like, truly, I'm not giving up on this. And they're like, she's got a boyfriend. She's setting boundaries. She said, no, thank you. She said, don't come to my school. And she's like, yeah, she said, no, thank you for now. Exactly. Exactly. You know this character in SWAT was called? What? TJ McCabe. Cool. That's great. High school parties are, they have that specific thing where people make out just publicly in front of everyone. Sure. And that only kind of, I feel like last for a little bit. By college, it's like get a room. Yeah, exactly. It is just so funny to me that the construction of these types of plotlines is so often, oh, sweet, sensitive, nice boys, self-insert for screenwriter has crush on beautiful, unattainable girl who is dating like meathead, sort of like emotionally unbalanced jock, right? This is something that is common in life, in the time period. It's just like, that's so many stories. I think it is the way that a certain type of person who is very prone to becoming a screenwriter likes to reframe their experiences. I'm not being liked. Yes. She's trapped by that hot guy. Or make the kind of revisionist history of like, and this is how I wish it had turned out. But it is always kind of pinging on this moment of the guy lashes out and beats the shit out of the nice boy. And that's the moment that makes her wake up from his spell, right? And then has to sort of like Florence Nightingale tend to him and be like, he's so awful. I can't believe it. And see it. Because no one in movies can ever put a bandit on by themselves. Right. It is so crazy that the version of that that happens in this movie is a moment where Josh Charles is empirically in the wrong. That the thing that makes the guy punch him in the face is actually valid. She's passed out on a couch and he's stroking her face and kissing her forehead. Where I'm like, even if I did, there was no background. If this is their first time seeing this guy, it'd be like, who the fuck are you? Yeah. Yeah. And because she's also like, yeah. Yeah. Yes. She wakes up and is freaked out. Yeah. And he's just like, but. But. I like you. What if you come to your plate with me? Yeah, exactly. And she's like, I guess I'm going to see the play. You're like, it's very, but no one has really significant Nwanda again. My baby girl. Love Nwanda. He's the one who I'm most impressed by. And then he disappears. Because he gets. It's interesting because he's right. He's the defiant one who's like, we got to do all this and we got to have depot society and all that. That Robin moment is good too. When he comes back in, he's like expecting to get like applause. Oh yeah. Yeah. And he's just like, no, dumb. Dumb. Don't get kicked out. Like then all of this was for nothing. Exactly. And use your privilege. Nwanda is the one who gets his name is Charlie. I'm sorry. Is the one who gets paddled. And I do think the paddling scene is good because it's so ineffectual and yet also horrible. Like it's like on the one hand, this kid's getting beaten by his teacher and institutional. And the other hand, it's just so weird. It's just like this grown kid, like across the knees of an old man who's got this like. Also watching him to see how painful it is. It's just like it's. But I also think it's good character construction for Keating that he's just like, no, I'm not telling you to just like fuck everything up. Like I still want you to learn shit. If you get kicked out of this school, no one's benefiting and I'll get fired. You know. And it's the part of him that you could see so quickly blaming himself, at least partially for the suicide. Because it's like, I'm trying to push them just up to the line. Without breaking them. Yeah. Look, the end is Captain my captain. It pays off like a sloppery. I teared up. Yeah. Can't believe it. It is just incredibly effective. Shout out wall. So good. Well, Whitman the best. Mr. Whitman. Of course, my captain is actually about Abraham Lincoln as as Keating says in the movie. I have that in the Marvel movie that I made. Oh, Captain my captain. I forgot. Wait, wait. Well, unless they cut it. Did you not go to? No, I just miss Marvel. I just spent so. To Captain Marvel? Yeah. She's like, she's like zooming around, like killing all these creep in these ships. And then she goes, oh, Captain my captain. And then we went pan over to Monica and she's like, are you good girl? Like, you're crazy. Yeah, it was funny. But we had a whole. You had a scene where all the. All the creep got up on her chair. I was okay. I was gonna let the crew get on their desk. I stole the bit from the bit boy. They get on their desk. Have fun with that. Thank you so much. It's yours. That's your take home. People forget. This film won Best Picture at the British, the BAFTAs. Yeah, it also won Best Foreign Film. With the Cesar's. And the Italian. Oh, Davide D'Aunatello. Yes. Like this was kind of the most respected American film in Europe. Do you think it's because of the suicide? Partially. Yeah, come on. I think it's also because it's like a movie about like the power of poetry. It's a very romantic film about culture. Did it lose Best Picture too? Perfect. What year is this? 1989. So this is the year after Rain Man. It loses Best Picture to... It dances with wolves? Nope, that's the year after. Fuck. Oh, that was my guess. What's the thing in between? It's not the most memorable Best Picture winner. It's... Oh. It is... You've watched them all. I have not. To date, it is the worst Best Picture winner I have seen. Oh, it's not even close to the worst I have seen. It's not a very good movie. Try Miss Daisy. Oh, no. It felt like it was confounded by watching it for the first time last year. Really? I just think that movie's nothing. It's not much. It's not nothing. It's fine. I think it's nothing. I was expected to be more like outraged by it while also being... I have it seven for a while. But it's like a manipulative. It kind of works. And I was just like, this movie's like just a... It just feels so slight to me. It's pretty slight. I mean, this is my... It's a stage play. I'm like crazy tight. Green Book is better than Driving Mistaze. I have Green Book won above Driving Mistaze on the Best Picture list. That is so crazy. Yeah. No, Driving Mistaze is not very good. It's the year that Born on the Fourth of July is sort of the frontrunner and wins Best Director. And then Driving Mistaze, I guess, is the little movie that could for whatever reason. But it is also obviously forever the year that is defined by not nominating Do the Right Thing. Do the Right Thing is obviously resigned to supporting actor and screenplay. But it's also... It's like three of the other nominees are my left foot inspirational true story drama, dead poet society, inspirational quasi true story drama, and then Field of Dreams made up inspirational... Wait, Field of Dreams is an Oscar moment. Don't you come to my house and come at Field of Dreams after defending dead poet society. It's just treacle. You know what it is? I think I saw that movie at a time where a lot of those baseball men in cornfield movies were out. Yes. Or at least the collection of them, exactly. Sure. And so they all sort of are the same in my head because I've not seen them since the 90s. Field of Dreams is... Is it amazing? It's pretty... It's one of those movies that you're just like this should not work. It's like Bull Durham. I'm kidding. No, Bull Durham is the flip side which is like baseball is fucking horny and we're all just here. Bull Durham is just like straight up the best movies. Field of Dreams is just like I miss my dad. I think I need to build a cornfield to summon the ghosts of the Chicago Black Sox. That's what I thought. Field of Dreams is like Ratatouille where if you like lay out the plot you're like are you insane? What do you mean that's your right? Field of Dreams though it's about like the sort of the boomer dream like coming you know where the boomers are like... What? What? I'm grown up now. What the fuck? You know? We're forgetting another inspiring film of course Major League one and two. Very inspiring. Let's go win this fucking thing. I love the one and two of it all. You learn. Let's have some fun. Play baseball. Those are great movies. Williams loses to Dane of the Lois. Williams loses to Dane of the Lois. Supporting. Well there's no nominees for support. I know but I'm saying I love rewatching the fucking Siskelneber Oscar specials and it's a big thing that whole season where they're just like... And by the way it is in same category for other Robin Williams's in the... They were just banging that drum. Wait who won by supporting that year? Denzel Washington won best supporting actor for glory. Okay so he wasn't going to beat Denzel. Actually no. Wait who was? Oh Robin? No. I want you to do the mental exercise. You both got Martin Lando and Crimes and Misdemeanors which is an incredible informer. It wouldn't have mattered. They wanted to do the right thing. You just wanted to do the mental exercise. No. That was all. It is a lead performance in that same way as Hannibal Lecter. It's energetically... It is spiritually in the entire movie. He is the focus of the movie in this weird way. It's like it's not a supporting performance. It's nonsense. I think it's a lead performance. I think Lecter... I agree with you, Lecter being the lead. Who would be the lead of the movie? The prop-con learner in my opinion. No. David made the stinky poopoo face. No. And Brenda Fricker won best supporting actress for my left foot which is a lovely performance and she's a wonderful actor. And Tandy wins actress. It's an odd you know... And just Tandy of course wins with actress. This dead pot society filled with ladies. Lead roles. No. But dead pot society does win. Best writing screenplay written directly for the screen over. Take a listen to this. Okay. So listen to who is... Oh no. It beats... It's a fireman. It beats... Listen to me. Listen to me. Crimes and misdemeanors, would he out? Yeah. Say what you will, one of his best. Perhaps his best work. Do the right thing by Spike Lee. Sex, Lies and Video tape by Steven Soderbergh. And when Harry met Sally by Nora Ephronk. What the actual rock? By far the worst number. I agree. Not even close. I hate the moving out too. It's a piece of shit. I get your ire at the screenplay. It is fucking bananas. Any of those wins would be great. Yeah. Any of those wins... I mean Woody Allen would be kind of like he has enough Oscars. Fuck that. But I mean Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Nora it's crazy. That is crazy. And obviously... Also all first time... That's the thing. Yeah. I think at the time it's sort of like oh well they're all up and coming but guess who else was up and coming? The fucking eight heads in a duffel bag guy. I know. And he had up and came to nothing. It ends up being like... Right. Okay. Easy. Easy. How bad that guy is. The eight heads in a duffel bag. The anointment is almost like a death sentence for Shulman. Whereas everyone else. I mean obviously he had a totally solid Hollywood career. But it's just nuts to look at that list. And you're just like what? That is crazy. And it is 89 Oscars is the most like ghastly Oscars. Because they're like no I think I feel the drive of this thing. You know like they're watching cinema change around them. And they're like no no no no no let me hold this close. Who directed Dr. Mastese? Of course Bruce Beres for director. And it was infamously at the time one of the only examples of a movie winning best picture without a best director nomination. Bruce Beres for director. Wow. Which leads to the like even the attitude of that movie at the time. Yeah. It's sort of like he was a good director. Breaker Marantz a great movie. Tender Mercies is an amazing movie. Crimes of the Heart is alright. I like his pre-driving Mastese. Exactly. And then he kind of became more of like a Hollywood hack in the 90s. Mr. Church is like one of the worst things I've ever seen. Double Jeopardy he directed not bad. Yeah. Is that one of the Ashley Judds? Double Jeopardy. Love the Ashley Judds of the 90s. If you were Ashley Judd in the 90s. Your husband was always trying to kill you. Yeah girl good luck. You're the star of the movie but you've been on any swivel. This film came out June 9th 1989. In. Little the summer. Somewhat limited release 600 screens. So it's opening at number three 7.5 million dollars which is an amazing first screen average. 680 screens. And it ends up at like 101 domestic. It made domestically come on the numbers 95 and worldwide 239. And I think worldwide it was the fifth biggest movie of the year. Yeah crazy. And it is crazy that came out in summer because this is like the most fall wintery movie. But it ran and ran. The true dominance of 90s Robin Williams is you have these like huge hits that are like of course that's what Robin Williams does like Aladdin and like Doubtfire and Birdcage. Is Jack Black the heir to Robin Williams right now? It's a fair. In the sense of like I mean I watched a Minecraft movie on the plane. And I feeling I run on the thing that you hate that movie so much with a deep passion or did you like it? What? Yeah. I did not I did not like it. I kind of enjoyed that movie. I found it very. It was great for the plane. The plane was louder so. I also I think Jack Black is one of those guys where it's like even the sort of silliest nothing. He's he really has been talking about that. Minecraft does feel like the moment where you're like it is undeniable. He is the greatest family comedy star of all time. He certainly is the most dominant of all time. Where you're basically like from the school of rock and roll. But Robin Williams is a good comp in terms of that kind of like family. Absolutely star who made tons of money. I guess he doesn't have the drama. Not as much. He's done some. Right. I think what happened with Jack Black is obviously like cool edgy comedy guy. Right. Then like makes surprising like crossover success into family comedy star. Surprising in a way that retroactively makes perfect sense. Right. And then he's like does some things like Margot at the wedding where he's like trying to stretch himself. The holiday. No. But it's like right those things don't go over well at the time. His adult comedy start bombing and he's like I guess the only zone I play in is like family comedy star. So he like doubles down on that while doing his YouTube videos and tenacity and he does YouTube video Jables. I don't I don't do the YouTube. But yes he like just really was like as a movie actor my career is family comedies and I'm going to embrace this and never fucking phones it in. And if you zoom out you're just like the guys basically untouched for like a 25 year run. And he means like as much to my little like six year old cousin as he did to like my sister when she was six. And to me and whatever. Whereas Robin Williams it's like by the time you get to the 2000s the family movies don't work anymore. The 90s were his sweet spot for that. Yeah. I would like to see Jack Black be able to like find his dead poet society. Goodwill. School rock is his dead poet society but like maybe an even more traumatic version of it. But the way we were talking with Robin Williams that he found these movies. That weren't like playing against his comedy. Yeah. But they recontextualized it and like pulled he needs like a Peter weir or someone to pull. Listen up. I have to tell you that maybe it's you. Disney was freaked out about the title and they almost called the movie the unforgettable Mr. Keating. Well fuck that's so hard. Help so much. And they also registered Keating's way which is even that's like nobody's going to want to see that. That's so horrifying. Cutter's way was pretty recent. Yeah that's true. But weir was like this is an accessible movie like they're freaking out about nothing and it starts to test and they got like insane scores and they essentially were like oh shit you know. So they moved it right to the middle of summer. It is one of those movies where the ending is so fucking strong that people are going to be coming out of the theater pumping their fucking fist. And this is an era where like word of mouth could really make a movie a hit over a sustained period of time. Oh I thought Ben was going to punch you again. He's getting me a sour patch kid. And you're pointing out the screenplay Oscar win. It's just like it does feel like this movie was so huge they had to give it something. I think a little bit but I also yeah I think all the other movies we listed are were challenging and this is not as challenging a movie. Now number one of the box ups though June 9th 1989. Now wait what what's going on. Apparently it opened on eight screens the week before which is not even listed on the numbers. Do you want to do that one. We've done the October. We've done the June 9th. Let's do the eight. Tell me. Not the same movies number one. June 9th one is by the way Star Trek five the final frontiers. Got it. That's why we've done it. Okay. Okay. But so the week of June 2nd. Let's do this. Number one of the box office is a big sequel that we've covered on this podcast. So a great move. In 1989. Mm-hmm. It's a great film says David. It's also fun. Lots of fun. Been out for two weeks. It's made seventy seven million dollars. It's not die hard too. Nope. I don't like that movie. I know that's why I'm surprised. But it's not that. I'm surprised at the version of you I created my mind. Huge, huge frame. It's a huge, huge frame. Is it a two? Three. It's a three. And for a long time it was the last but they made two cents. Is it the um the Beverly Hills cop person? What's up? Do a guess. Nope. We covered our main theater patreon. Main feed. Main feed. We covered them and we cover all of them. It's not. We've covered four. Oh it's. Fuck. I was going to guess. Not covered the fifth. I was going to guess it's beyond Thunderdome but now I there's been one since. It's made seventy seven million dollars in two weeks. It's a huge hit. There's been one since that we haven't covered. Is that where you're telling me the most recent one we did? We have not covered the fifth. Is it Ghostbusters 2? No. No, come on. You wouldn't call that a great film. It's a third. Is that right? It's an 89 film. It's a third. Come on. You're gonna be so mad. Oh I'm gonna be so. Is it like a is it one of my franchises? You love this movie. This is your favorite of this franchise. Oh wow. This is favorite of a franchise. It's a three and then there was a big gap and we did four but we didn't do five. And are they all the same director? No, the first four. That's why we've done those four. What the fuck? You're gonna be so mad at yourself. Is it like based around a character? Yeah. Fuck. Wow. What is it? It's not. Yeah I'm thinking too. Dye heart. It's not Mad Max. It's not like and it's the fucking who's. Oh my god everyone's screaming at us right now. Yeah absolutely. It's crazy. I'm gonna hang it up. It's a big ass hit. Probably the biggest movie in that too. Oh oh god what is it? Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. There you go. Wow. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Wow. Yeah everyone's right to be angry at me for that one. Especially the clue of like director did four but not the fifth. I know. I know. I know. Number two at the box office is new this week. It is an action film starring a sort of a sports entertainer I would call him. Is it a wrestler? Yes and he recently left this mortal coil. Is it suburban commander? It is not that. But I have the right actor I believe. I believe that is a Hulk Hogan film. Is it No Holds Bar? It is No Holds Bar. That was his real debut Star of the Mortal. Correct. No Ring No Reff No Rules. Obviously his debut is what Rocky III. But this is a wrestling movie in which he is the lead fighting Zeus tiny listener. Yeah I've never seen it. I have no idea if it's good but I'm going to guess. We just let people do whatever they wanted then didn't we? It sure did. We used to be a proper country. Wow. We used to be a proper country. But what I like is back then. We used to let Hulk Hogan do whatever he wanted. He would be like Hulk Hogan you want to be in a movie? Your movie will cost like eight million dollars. He's like it's not going to be a big movie. Sure. You know it'll be a cheap little action movie basically. Yeah. And you'll be playing a wrestler. I mean you know it's a version of this that I like that like the first nobody made like 30 million dollars. Totally. And they were like make a nobody too. Who gives a shit? Yeah. Doesn't need to make a hundred million dollars. That's my favorite thing. It's cheap and you want to show up. Yeah. We can keep these things play on Netflix. Right. There needs to be different scales of success. A thousand percent. Number three is a comedy. It's not in my opinion. We've covered it. I think we've talked we have not covered it but we've talked about this one before. We've discussed it. I think it's not good. I've not seen it. In a franchise? No but it's a star duo that made four films together. This is their third. So it's a prior Wilder. It is. It is Richard Pryor. Ben's Beloved. See no evil here no evil. It is. Yeah. A movie that. Which is the one aging. Where is it? Gene Wilder is deaf and Richard Pryor is Brian. Blind. Correct. Yes. Oh they're. And they witness a they witness a murder and they each only can attest the part of it. Is it the other way around though? I think it's the other way around. Didn't they not really get along but they knew that they were great together. But they didn't not get along. They were just like yeah we had like no personal relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Gene Wilder was like one time we went and saw a movie together. And we didn't have we like went out to dinner and didn't have anything to talk about. But we had chemistry. What was the fourth? Obviously Silver Streak and Stir Crazy. What's the fourth? Oh another. Another you which is the true disaster. Pryor is already really sick. But Donvich was fired off of it halfway through filming. Oh Jesus. Yeah. Anyway so that's number three. Number four is a film I brought up. I know I was yelling at Nia about recently like 10 minutes ago. It was not my best picture. It's one of the most beautiful movies ever made about the great sport of baseball. I can't wait to watch it again. It does roll. Number five is also new this week. Okay. And it is not a movie I'm that familiar with. It's an you know action movie with a couple members of I guess they were called the Brat Pack. An action movie. It's an action it's a Brat Pack action. That feels so scary. It's not wisdom is it? No. It is not. I don't even know what that is. Yeah. It's a good poll. Wisdom is oh. You're the wrong poor. Very nice. Okay so it's got two Brat Packers in it. It's not trying to be good is it? Nope. Action. I don't know if you're going to know this movie. I've never heard of it. Can you give me the Packers? Key for Sutherland. Okay. And Lou Diamond Phillips. And the tagline feels like they could have maybe worked hard on this one is the boys are back in town. It's not young guns too. It is not. Because that one's got like eight Brat Packers in it. I know that is a movie about boys being back though. Yeah we are back in town with young guns. Yeah I don't know if I know what this is. This film is called Renegades. Can't tell you that I know anything else about it. Sure like 10 people text us and be like I can't believe you guys haven't seen Renegades. It's Jack Shoulder directed it. Who's the guy who made that movie The Hidden which is a movie I like a lot. And he made Nightmare 2 the gay one. So he's got cool movies but I've never heard of this one really. But it looks like they've got guns and the boys are back in town. Can I make my joke please. I was written by Jack and he is produced by Jack Toast. BitBoy. BitBoy. Number six of the box office is the eternal cult legend hit Road House. Sure. Number seven is the film that I've always described as what if Clint Eastwood played Gene Parmesan pink Cadillac where he's like I'm an investigator. I'm a master of disguise and his disguise is like I'm a yo hat guy. He puts on a hat. Or it'll see me coming. Pretty fun movie. I'm holding a finger under my nose like it's a mustache. Number nine is Ben what'd you think of this movie K9. That's Belushi and the dog. I've never seen it. It's Jim Belushi and the dog obviously. I feel like it didn't come up with the Patrick Willems. Yes he did his business. There's also Cop and the half. Well no it's the Turner and Hooch. Turner and Hooch. And K9 are the same year. The two dog cop partner buddy movies. Wait guys sorry I just realized I looked at my notes. I just want to make sure I showed you this picture of Nwanda and Wilson. Oh my goodness. It's from the fashion. Why didn't they make out? I could have made out. They're so cool. I'm doing that. Oh my god I'm doing that video podcast thing. Ugh terrible. One thing. Where you like look at this thing on my phone. Oh sure. And I can't describe that well. Oh right right right. No I can see it. I love you're like you're in front of me I can see. That's the mystery though. I feel like I'm on. Text it to me. Yeah put it on your whatever. I'll put on blankies. Yeah put it on those. Uh number nine of the box office is the pet cemetery movie which is a good movie. The first one. Yes good. Yeah not the one that was released recently which is in Clark. Mary Lambert. Yeah that's good. Fun movie of my favorite Stephen King book. And then number 10 Ben. We hit movies guys. Yeah. Major League. Nice. And number 11 just to shout it out is Rain Man. Yeah. Still fucking hanging out six months later. Yeah I just like that you were like I did the video podcast thing that no one can see. I just then remembered Ben is wearing a full schoolboy uniform. Oh yeah. The amount of energy Ben puts into visual. I watched it and I was like Ben you look so fancy and he was like yeah dead poet society. Are you meeting with your account master this? No it is like because I sit across from Ben and I record. Yes. And I you're just always smiling and you're always just like present and you you're something to be seen. He's our beautiful boy. Maybe if you do video it's just Ben. Just Ben. That's I like this. We did it that's good. Interesting. That's good. All right. I wouldn't infuriate people at all. I love this. Ben puts this much more. Ben mostly like doing work you know like you know checking things on the internet. Into bits for other people to describe on like. Exactly. That was so good. It's theater of the minds. It's theater of the minds. I have to go pick up my daughter. Okay enjoy. I have to say humble brag again. Enjoy your lunch. Nia thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. This was so fun. I'm gonna say everyone should watch The Bone Temple and head up both of which have now been on VOD. Probably. Yeah probably. For months. Yeah. But really really loved Heta. Thank you. Yeah. And excited to see Bone Temple. Which we will have seen and talked about in our Patreon at this point. Rilled to watch Bone Temple. And then whatever you do next will be so exciting. Head up really rocked. I watched. I didn't get to see it in the theater. I watched the screener but I had such a great time. It really affected me where I realized I need to start playing more games with people in my life. No you shouldn't. I need to show. No no no don't don't don't. Don't take lessons from your life. She's not. No that was my take away. Nope. She's not well. Everyone has their own take away at the end of the film. It's an ambiguous ending. No thank you guys that means a lot. You're asking questions. I'm really I think I emailed you guys. I was like I'm so proud of these two movies. I'm so happy. I'm very happy making movies that you can when we see you be like. I'm excited. Yeah. It's very exciting. Yeah I know. It's nice. In the arc of the time since we found out. It because you're like you're saying like at the beginning like every time you see me I've been like well. Like smoking a cigarette. Yeah. Yeah. You vent all the stuff that we can't say on mic. I'm like yeah. Always a pleasure. Have a good one. Thank you guys. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Tune in next week for. Yeah great question. Green card is next. Is that right? I think you're right but I'm just double checking this. You finally got to make green card because of the success of this. Yeah it was some we'll get into but it was a thing where schedule set to wait or whatever. But yes. Yeah. Next is the wonderful in my opinion film green card. Starring Unproblematic Fave. Dipper Doom. Dipper Doom. It was the 90s. And as always Carpe Diem. Yeah rip. I got to do my Robin vocal warm up. Okay terrible impression coming. Blank check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me Ben Haussli. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ Mackeyan. This show is mixed and edited by AJ Mackeyan and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.