New York, New Yorkwith Lin-Manuel Miranda

Start spreadin' the news, we're podding today... Broadway icon (and newly minted Disney Legend!) Lin-Manuel Miranda joins us to talk about what is possibly Scorsese's biggest bounce - 1977's New York, New York. Cocaine, unchecked ambition, and a misguided attempt to try and get Liza Minnelli to do improv led Marty to some dark places. But hey - at least Robert De Niro learned how to play the saxophone! Expect lots of Broadway talk on this episode - with, of course, much props to the "Homie John Kander." Check out the Disney Legends alongside https://d23.com/disney-legends-in-conversation-lin-manuel-miranda/ Lin https://d23.com/disney-legends-in-conversation-lin-manuel-miranda/ Read Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9781984854278 Watch Mick respond to Mulaney https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/magazine/mick-jagger-interview.html Watch The Songwriters: An Evening with The Homie John Kander & Fred Ebb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtW9lBH3GtY Read Colored Lights https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781429928328/coloredlights/ Check out The Drama Bookshop https://dramabookshop.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorC8LRsx8_Gt1EXX64K5v4GG0CoqxqRNkhiwT4ihc9GAr7wfuQC Theme from Blank Check, Blank Check Produced and mixed by “Synth Horn Savant" Kyle Joseph https://www.kylejoseph.com/ Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:21Griffin Newman?

  A love story is like a podcast. It's beautiful while it lasts.

• 0:26David Sims?

  Is that the tagline?

• 0:27Griffin Newman?

  It's one of two taglines.

• 0:28David Sims?

  Okay, alright, that's fine.

• 0:29Griffin Newman?

  A love story is like a song. It's beautiful while it lasts. Quite a good tagline, I would say.

• 0:34David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:34Griffin Newman?

  And pretty-

• 0:35David Sims?

  That's a, that's an apt and good tagline.

• 0:37Griffin Newman?

  Pretty nail on the head for this movie. That's the best way you could sell this movie accurately.

• 0:42David Sims?

  The war was over and the world was falling in love again. That's a classic tagline for this movie as well. I remember that one.

• 0:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Now, I don't think that represents the film very well because that makes you think that you're gonna see a sweeping love story about a functional relationship.

• 0:54David Sims?

  A post-war romance.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  The war was not over.

• 0:57David Sims?

  The war doesn't end. That is so true.

• 1:00Griffin Newman?

  I just think it's-

• 1:00David Sims?

  The war ain't over.

• 1:01Griffin Newman?

  I think it's arguable if these characters ever fall in love.

• 1:05David Sims?

  Well, uh, I, okay, fair enough. Sure.

• 1:08Griffin Newman?

  I, I think that's part of what makes the movie interesting and break, also gets to the fundamental brokenness of this movie. What makes it such a thorny text to wrestle with. Yes.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  But I don't, I don't think they do.

• 1:20David Sims?

  You don't think they fall in love?

• 1:21Speaker 02

  I, I kind of think they do.

• 1:23David Sims?

  Falling in love is maybe too nice.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Improv their way to the scene where they fall in love and they never got it.

• 1:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27David Sims?

  Yeah, they, they fall into an intense connection, I guess is the best way to put it, right? Like, it's like, when, when he's screaming at her in the cab and then she goes into labor, he does react, maybe not with, you know, the sort of, not romantically, but like, there, and she, you know, they, there's something there, right? Like, there is, there's an understanding between them that is deeper than they just don't like each other.

• 1:57Griffin Newman?

  But I-

• 1:58David Sims?

  But I don't know if I could call it love.

• 2:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I think part of what's interesting about this movie, conceptually, but is dramatically almost impossible to execute, which leads to why this movie can be such a trying watch, is that I think it's two people who know how lonely they are and know how much chemistry they have together performing, and they convince themselves that the other stuff works, sometimes.

• 2:23David Sims?

  And look, we will talk about it. This movie is about, you know, putting a, a modern and complex relationship into a vintage setting.

• 2:33Griffin Newman?

  Can I throw-

• 2:33David Sims?

  And everyone was like, ah! You know, everyone's reacting at the time is like, ah!

• 2:37Speaker 02

  I hate it, I hate this.

• 2:38David Sims?

  Oh, no!

• 2:39Speaker 02

  These ethics you never have met.

• 2:41David Sims?

  Right, why are they yelling at each other?

• 2:43Griffin Newman?

  May I throw out my hottest take right off the bat?

• 2:45David Sims?

  Go ahead.

• 2:46Griffin Newman?

  And I'm, I'm really, I was running through my head and I'm like, I think, I, I stand by this. In the pantheon of Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro collaborations, is this the bottom of the list last De Niro character you wanna date?

• 3:00David Sims?

  Yes. Uh, oh, not only date, honestly, fucking meet.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  I don't wanna be on a subway car with this guy, much less watch him fucking movie with him.

• 3:08David Sims?

  And I'm weird that he did Cape Fear. Like, I know that there's Cape Fear.

• 3:12Griffin Newman?

  This is the least criminal character out of all of them, and yet all the other guys undeniably are rizzling Jimmy Doyle off the stage.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  It's like if the guy from Cape Fear wandered into the bandwagon.

• 3:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:24David Sims?

  Yes. I mean, I, like, my friend Caitlin, who's in a, who loves this movie, this, calls him the scariest man on two legs. That's her Letterboxd review.

• 3:33Griffin Newman?

  It's crazy, yes.

• 3:34David Sims?

  And, I mean, yeah, I-

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Through fake limping, maybe never even served legs.

• 3:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:39David Sims?

  This is very true. Where'd he get that Hawaiian shirt?

• 3:42Griffin Newman?

  But you're like, every other Scorsese, De Niro character is on paper the scariest man who ever walked on two legs, and yet in the execution, you're like, I think I could fix him, though. And this guy is broken.

• 3:54David Sims?

  Or you're like, he's charming.

• 3:55Griffin Newman?

  There's something.

• 3:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  My hottest take is that, um, I think two-thirds of the way through this podcast, you should interrupt it with the Last Waltz podcast, cuz that's basically what happened. He was like, I didn't, I didn't get it on this one. Let me go make the last Waltz. Like, it actually, it should actually crash in to like whoever you're interviewing.

• 4:14Griffin Newman?

  You know what's wild, too? That is exactly what happened, basically, like, direct one-to-one with Jonathan Demme, making Stop Making Sense in the middle of Swing Shift.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  Really?

• 4:25Griffin Newman?

  Which is like the movie that almost broke him.

• 4:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 4:28Griffin Newman?

  And then he just like-

• 4:28David Sims?

  Big movie, right? Fight to the Stars in the studio.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Can I go make a-

• 4:31David Sims?

  Gets taken away from him.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  I'm stuck with my friend.

• 4:33Griffin Newman?

  Get something out of my fucking system.

• 4:34David Sims?

  Can I do something fun? Right, exactly.

• 4:36Griffin Newman?

  And then they rebound hard.

• 4:37David Sims?

  I don't know, I think there was more drugs for, for the New York, New York and Last Waltz, is my guess.

• 4:44Griffin Newman?

  There is an ex-

• 4:45David Sims?

  Than for Swing Shift and Stop Making Sense.

• 4:46Griffin Newman?

  I noticed at the end credits, there, that Cocaine has an executive producer.

• 4:50David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 4:51Griffin Newman?

  Title on this film.

• 4:51David Sims?

  Cocaine, uh, executive produced by Cocaine.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Catering by-

• 4:55David Sims?

  Right. Associate producer affairs. Everyone's just having like four affairs.

• 4:59Griffin Newman?

  Cocaine Pictures presents an adultery production.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Columbia shouted out in the credits.

• 5:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's Columbia.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Oh, I see.

• 5:08David Sims?

  Oh, right, you were, you thought it was just the com, the country. They wanted to give it a little, right?

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Ben, that is a good joke.

• 5:14David Sims?

  Thank you, guys.

• 5:15Griffin Newman?

  This, of course, is United Artists picture. I don't want people thinking I don't know my stuff, of course. Yes.

• 5:19David Sims?

  Um, yeah, no, cuz there's, right, Johnny Boy Mean Streets, Travis Bickle. I mean, that's a tough cookie, Travis Bickle, I will say.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  Well, we talked about it in our episode. Travis Bickle adjacent.

• 5:27Griffin Newman?

  The early scenes, you kinda see it. You see why Sybil Shepherd falls for it and misses the red lights, the warning signs.

• 5:34David Sims?

  Jake Clamata. I am also just remembering the very obvious fact that, uh, Robert De Niro played a lot of tough cookies for Martin.

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  I guess.

• 5:43David Sims?

  Then Rupert Pupkin, who's a dreamboat compared to a lot of these guys.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. The difference is, those were rehearsed scenes.

• 5:50David Sims?

  Yes, that helps to rehearse. No, wait, no, wait. You, you think rehearsing is helpful? What do you know about this? You don't have any experience with that kind of thing.

• 5:58Griffin Newman?

  You love to wing it.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  I, I, I love to, I love to move it, move it, and I love to wing it. I, um, I, I was reading a bit of Liza's autobiography on the train down here, guys, and she has, she talks about these scenes and being like, you know, Marty and, and Bob were very into improvising and, you know-

• 6:18David Sims?

  Which she had never done.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  In my first scene, I just said no. And then they were like, try it again. I just said no in lots of different ways. And that is the first scene of this movie. It's just her saying no in as many ways as possible.

• 6:29David Sims?

  As he keeps trying it.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  And then they forgot to write the part where they fall in love.

• 6:32Griffin Newman?

  It's so wild.

• 6:34David Sims?

  It is crazy what they, yes, that they threw that at Liza. Uh, Jimmy Conway, Goodfellas, just going through the other scary guys. Obviously, Max Cady in Cape Fear.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Bad grandpa, war with grandpa.

• 6:48David Sims?

  Ace Rothstein in Casino.

• 6:50Griffin Newman?

  When's he gonna fish his grandpa trilogy?

• 6:53David Sims?

  De Niro?

• 6:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 6:54David Sims?

  So there's Bad and Dirty? Uh, no, sorry, not Bad.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Bad and War With.

• 6:58Griffin Newman?

  Bad is Jackass, Dirty is De Niro.

• 7:00David Sims?

  Right, Dirty and War with Grandpa.

• 7:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 7:03David Sims?

  So should there be like a serious grandpa movie? Like, or should Grandpa, maybe a Christmas movie? Like-

• 7:08Speaker 02

  An Autumn with Grandpa.

• 7:09David Sims?

  Grandpa Claus.

• 7:10Griffin Newman?

  Grandpa Claus.

• 7:11David Sims?

  That's fun.

• 7:12Griffin Newman?

  Grandpa Claus.

• 7:13David Sims?

  And it's just like, you know, kids sitting on his lap, he's like, huh, what's going on with you?

• 7:19Griffin Newman?

  I like the idea of kids sitting on De Niro Santa Claus's lap and him treating it like any late night talk show interview he's ever done.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  I, I don't know. What do you want from me?

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:29David Sims?

  Yeah, I try my best to-

• 7:31Speaker 02

  What do you want to say?

• 7:32David Sims?

  Bring, bring the presents?

• 7:32Speaker 03

  I'll bring you-

• 7:33David Sims?

  I think there's a bad guy in the White House right now, though.

• 7:37Griffin Newman?

  And then pumps his fist. Born in the USA, please.

• 7:41David Sims?

  What's this podcast, Griffin?

• 7:42Griffin Newman?

  This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin and David.

• 7:45David Sims?

  That's so true.

• 7:45Griffin Newman?

  Blank Check, Blank Check.

• 7:47David Sims?

  Yes, with Griffin and David, Griffin and David.

• 7:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes, Griffin, Griffin, David, David. Uh, it's a podcast, I'm, I'm Griffin.

• 7:56David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm David, yep.

• 7:57Griffin Newman?

  I'm Griffin.

• 7:57David Sims?

  Yep, David, stop it.

• 7:59Griffin Newman?

  That's the end of it. That's the last time I wanna do it.

• 8:01David Sims?

  Okay.

• 8:01Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce, baby. We are talking about the films of Martin Scorsese. This mini-series is uncontroversially called Podcast Fellas. I've never felt more confident-

• 8:20David Sims?

  I love our name, mother.

• 8:20Griffin Newman?

  About the naming of a series ever.

• 8:22David Sims?

  Yeah, Podcast Fellas.

• 8:23Griffin Newman?

  People think we didn't consider the other options.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Podcast, podcast?

• 8:28Griffin Newman?

  We considered everything. Podcast Fellas brings me so much joy to say.

• 8:33David Sims?

  Me too.

• 8:33Griffin Newman?

  I was talking to our producer, Ben Hozley, right before you guys came in, and I, I argued, I said, this is like the only true bounce of his career. This is the only movie of his that did not work on any level when it came out.

• 8:47David Sims?

  Sure.

• 8:47Griffin Newman?

  And has not been fully reclaimed.

• 8:49David Sims?

  He has other financial failures that were well-regarded. He has other commercial, the okay movies that were not, maybe, but yeah.

• 8:56Griffin Newman?

  But have become canonized.

• 8:59David Sims?

  And it's like rude to call like Kunduna bounce.

• 9:01Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 9:02David Sims?

  Cuz it's like, oh, your Dalai Lama movie wasn't a huge hit. Like, it's a, it's a kind of a mean thing to say.

• 9:07Griffin Newman?

  But this is a classic bounce.

• 9:09David Sims?

  And it is the classic bounce of like, they were high on themselves. They were like, we can do anything. This movie can be as long as we want it to be. We can improvise every scene. We can do as much coke as possible, like, and I can have multiple affairs. His wife was having a kid. He was getting divorced. He's having an affair with Liza Minnelli. She's having an affair with someone else as well, I think.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Barishnikov.

• 9:35David Sims?

  Barishnikov. Everyone's just being insane, basically, at all times. And that's one of those things where you watch the movie and you're like, kind of feels like everyone's going crazy while they're making this. Like, it's just right on the surface of it.

• 9:47Griffin Newman?

  It is so fascinating to, like, study the other films that came out in 1977.

• 9:53David Sims?

  Star Wars?

• 9:54Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's the thing. It's, other than Star Wars.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  You guys have experience in the Star Wars universe?

• 9:58Griffin Newman?

  A touch. A little touch, a pinch.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  You know a little bit about that era?

• 10:02Griffin Newman?

  But you just read the stories about the making of this movie and you just imagine across town, the returns on Star Wars and the people at United Artists going like, "Cool, so we'll never make something like this again."

• 10:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Griffin Newman?

  Why would we ever?

• 10:15David Sims?

  Close the door on this.

• 10:15Griffin Newman?

  Put up with this, this entire, like, school of thinking is dying.

• 10:20David Sims?

  Who's our guest?

• 10:21Griffin Newman?

  Our guest.

• 10:22David Sims?

  Okay.

• 10:22Griffin Newman?

  Today, and this is the first time, I'm saying it a little prematurely, you're about to be coined a Disney legend, correct?

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yes, I am.

• 10:32Griffin Newman?

  You are.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  By the time this airs, I will.

• 10:34Griffin Newman?

  You're a Disney legend?

• 10:35Speaker 02

  I will have the parking in Burbank that befitting a Disney.

• 10:38David Sims?

  What is, yeah, what is that?

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Uh, it's basically, I think it's sort of.

• 10:42David Sims?

  If you wish upon a star, you get your dreams come true.

• 10:44Griffin Newman?

  In perpetuity.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Um, as memorialized in the Disney animation feature, Wish.

• 10:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes. People don't know that movie's about you.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's about me. Ariana DeBose played me. Um, the, uh, yeah, no, uh, this Sunday, D23, they like, they give, it's kind of the, like, silver watch.

• 11:02David Sims?

  It's like a Hall of Fame.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Done a lot of Disney stuff, so.

• 11:04David Sims?

  Right, yes.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  I mean, I thought I banked it with Odd Life of Timothy Green, but.

• 11:08David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  I had to write a lot more to get that Disney legend status.

• 11:13Griffin Newman?

  You want to be one and done.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  It's about the leaves.

• 11:15David Sims?

  The weirdest Disney legend.

• 11:17Griffin Newman?

  I know all four Golden Girls are Disney legends.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Okay, I will tell you the weirdest substrata of Disney legends is that Disney owns a lot of things that aren't associated with Disney.

• 11:27David Sims?

  Sure.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  So there's lots of, like, ESPN folks.

• 11:29David Sims?

  Right, I guess that makes sense.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Whoa, right, all right, Bob Costas, Disney legend or whatever.

• 11:34David Sims?

  I saw Bob Costas at the West Side Diner on Broadway and 69th Street, just holding court. That is just a guy I think that anyone wants to talk to if he's just sitting at a diner, you know what I mean? Everyone was just, like, bothering him and he was just like, "Yeah, no, I remember the 96 World Series." But, you know, he's immediately getting into it with them.

• 11:53Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today is Lin-Manuel Miranda.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you.

• 11:54Griffin Newman?

  Returning to the show. Have I shared this story before that I saw Al Gore at a Delta Sky Lounge? And he was working that buffet and I said, "This man would have won the president." If they had, if they had.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  He would have won the president.

• 12:09Griffin Newman?

  He would have won the presidency. And he would have won over.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  He would have won.

• 12:14Griffin Newman?

  Any president. He would have won as a prize, like at a claw machine. No, I just wa- watched him work this room. And I was like, "This guy was never allowed on the public stage." And I don't know.

• 12:26David Sims?

  Right, he, he was too boring on stage.

• 12:28Griffin Newman?

  If he hadn't uncorked it yet, or they were like, "This is a little too loose." And it wasn't like he was doing anything wild, but he was, like, walking through the buffet line and he was like, "Mashed potatoes, I want to, but my stomach is gonna kill me on this one." And I was like, "This guy is funny."

• 12:47Speaker 02

  That feels too private. It's telegraphing. That feels private.

• 12:49Griffin Newman?

  Everyone was, like, laughing.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  I feel like you're telling tales out of school. I feel like Sky Lounge. I don't know.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  It didn't even feel.

• 12:54David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, it's like there's a cone of silence.

• 12:55Griffin Newman?

  A little cone of silence.

• 12:56David Sims?

  Like, Susan Lucci is a Disney legend.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  That's like, that's like publishing the DM.

• 13:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a li- a little bit, a little bit.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  I mean, I feel weird knowing that. Although it's a very funny story.

• 13:08Griffin Newman?

  It was, he was just incredible. Yeah, but I imagine Bob Costas was a similar kind of.

• 13:13David Sims?

  You know, I gotta shout out the Disney legend process. I'm really not seeing any, like, odd names on this. This is all people where I'm either like, "Well, this is an animator I've probably never heard of."

• 13:22Speaker 02

  I'm excited to meet Susan Egan.

• 13:23David Sims?

  Or a Parks legend.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Bell, let's go.

• 13:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Bell and Meg.

• 13:26David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. Oh, wow. Your list is great. Well, for one, Bruckheimer is on your list, which rocks.

• 13:30Griffin Newman?

  Incredible.

• 13:31David Sims?

  Uh, as is Dwayne Johnson.

• 13:33Griffin Newman?

  Uh-huh, the Rock. They call him sometimes.

• 13:35David Sims?

  Of course, uh, you wrote Music Four with Moana.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 13:38Griffin Newman?

  Did he thank you for that?

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Yes, and you know that.

• 13:40David Sims?

  And what did you say?

• 13:41Griffin Newman?

  And what did you say?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  I said, "Of cour- of course."

• 13:45David Sims?

  Alan Tudyk, who is a true Disney legend.

• 13:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yes, this is true.

• 13:49David Sims?

  Who sort of became the John Ratzenberger of, like, Disney Animation, right? Where it's like, "Let's throw him into every movie."

• 13:54Griffin Newman?

  A deserving quantity play. He has certainly put in the work.

• 13:57David Sims?

  And indeed, Susan Egan, who is Bell, uh, and Megan, Hercules, uh, and, uh, is the best. And my daughter's had a big Beauty and the Beast phase lately, so I've been hearing a lot of her voice, her beautiful, perfect voice. Uh, I still think it's crazy that in Beauty and the Beast, though, that the book she's so proud that she read is Jack and the Beanstalk. And then the guy's like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." And she's like, "Oh, no one understands anything in this town." And I'm like, "I think they just don't want to hear the plot of Jack and the Beanstalk."

• 14:25Griffin Newman?

  It's just not that interesting, a tale.

• 14:26David Sims?

  You know?

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:27David Sims?

  This is a man, he owns like a bakery or whatever. He's gotta make bread and she's like, trying to tell him about Jack and the Beanstalk.

• 14:33Griffin Newman?

  Not only is that one of the only, like, real canonical, public domain fairy tales that Disney hasn't adapted to a feature-length film, but they, like, announced it 10 years ago.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, they've tried.

• 14:45Griffin Newman?

  And canceled it.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:46Griffin Newman?

  They've tried. There's the Mickey short that I think is part of Fun and Fancy Free, but like, they, they themselves know there's not that much juice in the Beanstalk. It can't fill 90 minutes.

• 14:57David Sims?

  No, I mean, that's true.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Did Into the Woods.

• 15:01David Sims?

  Went to the Woods, does really good stuff with it, but obviously builds a lot around it.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:06David Sims?

  But it is, Into the Woods is funny and there's the cow, you know?

• 15:11Griffin Newman?

  We love Into the Woods.

• 15:12David Sims?

  Yeah. Um, have we said his name?

• 15:14Griffin Newman?

  We did.

• 15:15David Sims?

  Okay.

• 15:15Griffin Newman?

  Disney legend.

• 15:16David Sims?

  He's here. He's here for the third time.

• 15:18Speaker 02

  Per my writer, thank you.

• 15:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes. So you're two away from becoming a Blank Check legend, which is an esteemed class.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 15:25David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, five timer, five timer. You gotta do five, five times.

• 15:28Griffin Newman?

  Susan Egan hasn't even gotten that.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Jeez, please.

• 15:31David Sims?

  Um, but, uh, welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Always a pleasure.

• 15:35David Sims?

  Uh, that's really nice of you to say. You're quite busy, I feel.

• 15:38Griffin Newman?

  You're a very busy man. Now, the first time you did this podcast was for All That Jazz.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  I was over-prepared.

• 15:44Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no.

• 15:45David Sims?

  You weren't over-prepared, but you, you, you brought the juice.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:49Griffin Newman?

  It is often thrown out. Our, our, our listeners, protective as they are, once a month wring their hands and go, "Is the show becoming too big? Is it just gonna be a press stop?" And then there will always be the argument of, "I think when very famous people have come on the show, they have been good, they have been well-curated." And people will always cite, "Remember when Lin came on so prepared for All That Jazz?" as a positive. As a, "He knew the show he was on, he came correct."

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 16:21Griffin Newman?

  But we finished recording that and off mic, you told us that you were about to start working on New York, New York.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  That's right. Yeah.

• 16:30Griffin Newman?

  So when we commit to doing this, email you and go, "Hey, know you're crazy busy. Any chance you want to do this?" You make a big confession.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  I have not seen the movie New York, New York. And this is my, and again, I'm nervous because first time I came in guns blazing with research and books, this is the first time I said yes to you guys without having seen the movie I have agreed to.

• 16:50David Sims?

  Your other appearance was Hook.

• 16:52Griffin Newman?

  Now at this point.

• 16:53David Sims?

  Your other appearance was Hook, a childhood favorite.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, Hook, I was, I was here to defend Rufio and little else.

• 16:58David Sims?

  I love Rufio. Uh, but you did, of course, work in some capacity, not in, not in a huge capacity, right? But I don't actually know what capacity.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:07David Sims?

  On the musical New York, New York.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  And I was instructed by the homie John Kander, as, as we refer to him.

• 17:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  99 and thriving. Um, don't watch the movie. I, I told him I haven't seen the movie. Uh, and he said, "Oh, don't watch it. It has very little to do with what we're making."

• 17:22Griffin Newman?

  It was a real.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  And it was not a knock on the, he was like, he wasn't knocking the film. He was just like, "We're doing a different thing." Their goal with the stage adaptation was to sort of tell a lot of New York stories through the lens. And Jimmy and Francine were like, "One subplot." But the horn player had his own subplot and, and was sort of like, uh, "Well, if we, if we had one more workshop." It's one of those things, like, it would have become the story of the making of the band in the major chord. And, um, and like lots of different slices of different strata of New York life. And then there was also. Kind of becoming a home for orphaned Candor and Eb tunes and just Candor tunes?

• 18:03David Sims?

  Right, because of course Fred Eb had had left this mortal coil.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:06David Sims?

  But there was, there was stuff.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, but there was, there was stuff that found a home in that show. A song I'd written with John called cheering for me now.

• 18:14David Sims?

  Yes.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  That's how I got involved, actually. John kind of sheepishly asked me, hey, I think the song would work as the opening number.

• 18:21David Sims?

  The opening number, I remember.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  And I said, great, this is a show tune without a show, like go with my blessing. And then I said, and if you need any more lyrics, it would be a joy to write with you. And so I wrote lyrics for like six more songs on that thing with him, including like kind of just adding tiny touches to like some Candor Neb tunes that had never found a home. My favorite one in the show, which is not in the movie, is a song called Light. That's about Manhattan Hinge.

• 18:46David Sims?

  That's the Manhattan Hinge moment, right at the end. That was a very cool part of the show. I saw this show, to be clear. I saw it.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  It was a very cool part of the show.

• 18:54David Sims?

  Cause the show was like incredibly big, like it had this crazy set.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:59David Sims?

  And then, right.

• 18:59Griffin Newman?

  Won the Tony for production design?

• 19:01David Sims?

  It won a, it won a Tony. Yeah, yeah. It won a set design, scenic design, right. And it had like, what, didn't Susan Stroman do the choreography?

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:08David Sims?

  Crazy, big dance numbers.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Helm of the thing, yeah, amazing dance.

• 19:12David Sims?

  There was like a whole thing where they were all dancing on the girders, you know? You know, like the guys up on the girders building the skyscrapers and they all did a dance.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  This movie, I think there's a great show in there somewhere.

• 19:22David Sims?

  It had its defenders.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  There were, there were too many stories and we didn't want to go endless workshops because our composer was 97 years old. And, and so like we kind of rushed to Broadway for the right reasons, like out of love, like we want to make this and we want to make it with John. I think there's, there's a world in which some of those subplots are thinned out and the essence of the show is, is in there. But the same issue with the show is the issue with this movie, which I just recently saw, which is, God, Jimmy's an asshole.

• 19:51David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  And even in the show.

• 19:52David Sims?

  Even though you chilled him out a little bit, yes.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  Still an asshole. And, and everyone who sees the show and sees the movie goes, why is she with him?

• 20:01David Sims?

  Yeah. And it's tough to shake it. And like, I remember when the show was announced, I was like, they can't be adapting that movie. Cause like, what the fuck? That movie can't be.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were adapting like a quarter of the movie.

• 20:11David Sims?

  Right. You know, cause like, like yells at her, induces labor, she has a baby and he's like, no, thank you. And I'm like, you can't be ending Broadway shows that way. Like, that's not really how you send the tourists, you know, onto 46th Street, you know? And right, obviously the show didn't really do that, but right, it does fundamentally have the thing of like, this guy can't get out of his own way. Right? Like the main character can't get out of his own way. And, but in the Scorsese movie, it's more hostile even than that. You are like, I wish he'd stop fighting with everyone, but you're also just kind of like, does he have like a personality disorder?

• 20:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I also, I was, I was thinking about, um, Inside Llewyn Davis while rewatching this, because we covered that fairly recently.

• 20:57David Sims?

  We did. Do you like that movie?

• 20:59Griffin Newman?

  I do.

• 20:59David Sims?

  The Coen Brothers movie? Yes.

• 21:01Griffin Newman?

  That is a movie where a guy fundamentally cannot get out of his own way. He keeps fucking shit up.

• 21:05David Sims?

  And he's talented as a musician and he's trying to.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:08David Sims?

  The, you know, find his spot.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Pretty early.

• 21:12David Sims?

  They do.

• 21:12Speaker 02

  Forty minutes before we see this man hold a saxophone.

• 21:15David Sims?

  They show his flirting talent, Lynn, right away.

• 21:18Griffin Newman?

  Right away.

• 21:18David Sims?

  They sure show, show how good he is at hollering at people.

• 21:21Griffin Newman?

  No doesn't exist is his philosophy. Yeah.

• 21:25David Sims?

  Yeah. Okay. But you're thinking about Inside Llewyn Davis.

• 21:27Griffin Newman?

  I, I think that movie, as maddening as it is to watch this guy fuck up, there's something in the way, not just the performance, but I think the way that film is written and the way the character is presented, where you feel bad for him against your better judgment. It's like the way the Carey Mulligan character views him, where it's just like, I fucking hate that you have any hold on me. That you have such a sad sack quality that you make people worry about you. And Jimmy Doyle is so high functioning that you're not worried about him ever?

• 21:57David Sims?

  No.

• 21:57Griffin Newman?

  So then you're just like.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Just worried about anyone in his orbit.

• 22:00David Sims?

  Anyone near him.

• 22:00Griffin Newman?

  Chill the fuck out and don't talk to anybody. I do need to call out Marika Brownlee, who works on the podcast, our operations manager.

• 22:08David Sims?

  Yes.

• 22:08Griffin Newman?

  A legend, saw the Broadway production three times.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 22:14David Sims?

  Which is impressive, given that it did not run for even one year.

• 22:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:18David Sims?

  Right? Like, yeah.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  No, no, we, yeah.

• 22:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 22:20Griffin Newman?

  Refers to Jimmy Doyle as, quote, my husband.

• 22:23David Sims?

  Yeah. She, she loved Colton's performance.

• 22:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:26David Sims?

  Tony nominated, Colton Ryan, very talented guy. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah.

• 22:31Griffin Newman?

  But it is one of those things, like Scorsese's main thought is, the, the dynamite idea at the center of this movie, as he described it to Liza Minnelli, was, I grew up in New York City, seeing Hollywood make films about New York City, and those two realities couldn't have been more different. What was outside my window and what I saw on the screen, and I wanted to put the real New York inside the fake New York. And you're like, holy shit, that should be the greatest movie of all. You're telling me Martin Scorsese made that? With De Niro and Liza Minnelli at their peak.

• 23:03David Sims?

  At their peak?

• 23:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:04David Sims?

  I mean, and he made it in between Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. So he was at his, and Last Waltz is, you know, sprinkled in there too. Like, so isn't this good?

• 23:14Speaker 02

  I.

• 23:15David Sims?

  And, and, and guess what the title song is? You've heard it. It's a good song.

• 23:22Griffin Newman?

  We talked about on our fucking loser episode, Amy Heckerling's loser, about how that is a movie where it spawning Teenage Dirtbag by Weidis is the weird example of a song so largely outshadowing the movie that it came from. I don't know if we failed to mention in that discussion.

• 23:41David Sims?

  New York, New York.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  At its best, this movie exists as a seed for that song to exist.

• 23:46Griffin Newman?

  A song that it's impossible to like, consider had to be created. A song that feels like it was placed on this earth like water.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  And you know, the story that like, out of spite, it's a spite song.

• 23:58Griffin Newman?

  It's a spite song?

• 23:59Speaker 02

  They, so, and Candor's told this story many times. I'm not telling tales out of school. Candor and Eb, Fred and John play the songs they've written for the movie, and the world goes round, happy endings, banger, banger, banger. And they wrote another song called New York, New York. That was like given to them. It had to be called New York, New York. They were threatened with legal action from the On The Town team. And so it's actually.

• 24:24David Sims?

  This is our town.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  It's actually called Theme from New York, New York.

• 24:28David Sims?

  Yes.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  And they play it and De Niro doesn't like it. And again.

• 24:35David Sims?

  Have you heard this song?

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Cares about because it's the one his character supposedly wrote.

• 24:40Griffin Newman?

  Right. He needs to be smart.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Not good enough.

• 24:43David Sims?

  Does this song, like, do we know this song? Like, does it exist?

• 24:46Speaker 02

  And by the way, John's like, I don't even remember the other song. But it was sort of like, they basically left the room, Marty very apologetically, apologetically asking them to try again on the theme. Uh, and then they're like, fucking actor telling us how to write a song. And they banged out New York, New York in 45 minutes. And.

• 25:06David Sims?

  He's just like, fine.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Like that famous amp is just the first four notes of the melody of the song.

• 25:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Dun, dun, dun, na, na.

• 25:14David Sims?

  It's ragtime, right?

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  It's just him playing the first four notes until he starts the melody. And they just bang the shit out and it's, and that's why it's a New York anthem, is it's made to say fuck you.

• 25:27David Sims?

  It's got an I'm walking here.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  You want a good song?

• 25:30David Sims?

  You want a good song?

• 25:34Speaker 02

  And they write the anthem.

• 25:35Griffin Newman?

  The anthem.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  That like, they play Liza's version when they lose and Frank's version when the Yankees win.

• 25:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 25:40Griffin Newman?

  It's both. An anthem that can do both.

• 25:43David Sims?

  I think it's rude that they do that, I will say.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Why?

• 25:46David Sims?

  I think they should play Liza's when they win and Frank's when they lose.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  I a hundred percent agree.

• 25:50David Sims?

  Yes.

• 25:50Griffin Newman?

  But that speaks to the cultural memory of.

• 25:52David Sims?

  Of course. Frank took control of the song, you know, sort of like unavoidable.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  And John, they're like, we're very grateful that he recorded it and made it a hit, but like, he changed all the lyrics. He railroaded the lyrics. A number one, they didn't write that shit.

• 26:05Griffin Newman?

  He did it his way?

• 26:06David Sims?

  He just likes steak sauce. He just wanted to get some, some A1 in there.

• 26:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  I think he says top of the heap twice.

• 26:14David Sims?

  I mean, this is top of the heap.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  He's just kind of going and that's the classic.

• 26:19David Sims?

  But look, Sinatra, we've talked about Sinatra and we, we even watched Ocean's Eleven, the Sinatra version, which is a bit of a snoot.

• 26:27Griffin Newman?

  Had a great nap.

• 26:29Griffin Newman?

  Sleepiest movie ever made.

• 26:30David Sims?

  You know, he's one of those guys where you're like, well, this guy's sort of, you know, sort of an asshole, but then you're also like, he's kind of the fucking best. Jesus Christ, he's so good at this. Like, you know, you can't really deny it, but I love Liza's version.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Oh, it's incredible.

• 26:43David Sims?

  Even more, right?

• 26:44Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I defend this movie and I've seen it three times now.

• 26:48David Sims?

  Okay.

• 26:49Griffin Newman?

  And.

• 26:49David Sims?

  Congratulations.

• 26:50Griffin Newman?

  The first, thank you very much. I appreciate that. The first 90 minutes, I'm like, I, I like this movie? Am I sure I like this movie? And then the last hour just like pays off so greatly for me.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Is the reason it's a movie.

• 27:04Griffin Newman?

  It's the reason it's a movie.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  And by the way, they shot that first.

• 27:07David Sims?

  Yes. I think they were a little more together.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  They were shooting the musical sequence, Vincent Minnelli is visiting his daughter on set and like, fucking Marty's like, I've never been so happy in my life.

• 27:18David Sims?

  And I'm sure Marty also was like, I want to impress my like icon that I worship, like, and I, right. And also, yeah.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  And then they just forgot to write the part where they fall in love.

• 27:28David Sims?

  It's a good take.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  So they fum for their, their way there for a fucking hour.

• 27:32Griffin Newman?

  In a super perverse way, the fact that the first 90 minutes are such a slog, makes the last hour even more like redemptive. But I don't think the movie couldn't be more functional up until that point and still work.

• 27:48Speaker 02

  But I find amazing is that they, they cut, you know, turned in like a four hour version, sniffing and being like, it's perfect.

• 27:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  And, and what I find amazing is that what they cut for theatrical release was happy endings.

• 28:03Griffin Newman?

  This is what's crazy.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  I was like, there's the whole first third.

• 28:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Like, start with the audition, like, literally make a meet cute at the audition where he's gotta go to the audition.

• 28:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Un begrudgingly accompanies him there and they fall in love because of their talent.

• 28:17David Sims?

  It is amazing.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  That's something.

• 28:19David Sims?

  How much of this long movie is Jimmy fucking up a meeting? There's like eight different scenes that's like, let's meet with this guy and Jimmy's just being a pig.

• 28:28Griffin Newman?

  You won't believe how much he's gonna fuck this up.

• 28:32David Sims?

  And you're like, I think we could have lost like three of these meetings. Yes.

• 28:35Griffin Newman?

  Ben was asking me about the differences, right?

• 28:37David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 28:38Griffin Newman?

  It was released.

• 28:39David Sims?

  It was released around two and a half hours.

• 28:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Griffin Newman?

  It was released right after Star Wars and they were panicking and they were like, you gotta just cleave thirty, forty minutes off of this thing. So they release it a little over two and the two, it's basically the only difference are two sequences. Happy endings, which is like, the reason this movie is so gorgeous. It exists to get to happy endings and her singing New York, New York. That's why you make this movie. And to cut one of those two things out is absurd. And then the whole extended sequence at the, the very red nightclub where they kick him out in the tunnel of the light bulbs and everything, which I would argue, if you're going to include one sequence of Jimmy fucking up a deal, that's the one to keep.

• 29:25Griffin Newman?

  They cut out two of the best things in the movie, which are both like fifteen minutes long and they just.

• 29:31David Sims?

  Right, because they were like, it's slowing the movie down.

• 29:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:34David Sims?

  Which, sure, but as you're saying, right, the slowness had actually already happened. But no, they released it at one fifty-five, Griff. Then they cut it to one thirty-five.

• 29:42Griffin Newman?

  That's the European cut, which circulates now, because the one fifty-five cut was, was only out there very briefly.

• 29:48David Sims?

  Right, was thrown away when the thing basically immediately bombed.

• 29:50Griffin Newman?

  That had the fight scene, but it didn't have happy endings.

• 29:53David Sims?

  And then they re-release it in nineteen eighty-one, I guess sort of post-Raging Bull of like, okay, okay. Marty and Bobby like did a good one again, so can we, can we redeem this one a little bit? And, you know, by the eighties or what, people are sort of like, I get what you were going for. Becomes the kind of.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Happy endings for a second though, because that last sequence is such a perfect dream ballet in the style of Vincent Minnelli's great movies. In American in Paris, that fucking dream ballet is the reason the movie exists.

• 30:25Griffin Newman?

  Totally. It's why that movie won best picture.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, the bandwagon, where like they put on their quote unquote show.

• 30:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  And it's eight musical numbers that have nothing to do with each other, but then there's the incredible like basis for Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal. Like that whole unbelievable detective sequence.

• 30:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  That is the most stunning thing you will ever see in your life and is also, what's amazing about those dream ballets is they're the movie in musical miniature. And what's incredible about the happy ending sequence is it is an incredible movie in miniature for a movie that doesn't exist.

• 30:59Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  It's because that's not what we've seen advertised.

• 31:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it's the more interesting movie in a way.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  Oh my God, if, if De Niro and her had met cute at a movie theater, like the beginning of Happy End, like I'd watch the shit out of that movie. Like, I'd watch anything that happy endings alluded to.

• 31:14David Sims?

  Something, you know, it cost an incredible amount of money to make it, the happy ending sequence. And it is, you're right, like it was one of the first things they'd done. It is.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  If you're listening at home and you didn't see this, just start the movie at whatever that time code, can we get them the time code to just start it at the musical sequence?

• 31:31David Sims?

  There's the huge issue, of course, that this movie is not really streamable. Like you have to watch a disc.

• 31:36Griffin Newman?

  About a three and a half hours ago, when I sat down to watch this movie, that it's just nowhere. It's nowhere to be found. I had to watch some weird bootleg Russian streaming version. And I was very unclear of even what version I was watching, but I guess I.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  I had a limited, I had a special edition Blu-ray that I had never watched, but I bought it back when I was actively collecting discs.

• 31:59David Sims?

  Like your assistant being like, by the way, he's got a disc, right? Cause like this shit ain't on fucking iTunes. It's like, yeah.

• 32:04Griffin Newman?

  And I then. Like that Blu-ray came out like fifteen plus years ago. It's out of print. It just got reissued on four K, which came out like a week ago.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Does that have his video introduction where he's basically like, we were trying something?

• 32:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Sorry, we were trying something, sorry.

• 32:28Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 32:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 32:32David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 32:34Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 32:35David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 32:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 32:41David Sims?

  Okay.

• 32:42Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 32:46David Sims?

  Wow.

• 32:47Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 32:49David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up. While, while you, while you tell the, the great listeners about the great stuff on movie.

• 32:56Griffin Newman?

  Well, MUBI is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you, curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked, always. That's what MUBI does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, one of my favorite movies of the year.

• 33:09David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 33:10Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 33:16David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 33:17Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, past and future guest.

• 33:20David Sims?

  Past and future guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest, great friend.

• 33:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:26David Sims?

  This movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 33:30Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 33:31David Sims?

  Legends and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 33:34Griffin Newman?

  Friend of the show.

• 33:35David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry. Also in it.

• 33:38Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 33:39David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. Won the Queer Palmitan. If you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like it obviously has, it was out in theaters this summer and now it's on MUBI.

• 33:49Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays a filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to, to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 34:04David Sims?

  Yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 34:08Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 34:10Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 34:20David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on MUBI and you can try MUBI free for thirty days at MUBI.com slash blank check. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 34:32Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it. The thirty days for Miasma, I love it.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  Hey Blankies, producer Ben here. Don't you hate when you record a three hour plus podcast on an empty stomach? And then you are so hungry, you start hallucinating that David is a big turkey and that Griffin is a glazed ham? Well, thankfully, with today's sponsor Huell, I don't ever need to attempt eating the two friends. The Huell Black Edition Powder is a complete meal that's ready in just thirty seconds. That's what I love about Huell. It's not just a supplement, it's a complete meal you have instead of food. Not some other powder you shake on top of other food. Now, can I be honest about my relationship to high protein?

• 35:29Speaker 03

  Honestly, guys, and I won't lie, I'm just winging it. But with Huell Black Edition Powder, I get forty grams of protein at less than three dollars per meal. All I need to do is mix it with water or milk and in thirty seconds, bing, bang, boom, I got twenty-seven essential vitamins and minerals with no artificial sweeteners, colors or flavors. And with the RTD bottle, it's grab and go version, I get thirty-five grams of protein, seven grams of fiber, all for under five dollars a meal.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  So once again, with Huell, which is spelled H U E L, I don't need to eat Griffin and David. I can have a complete meal fast. So get this limited time offer, make healthy eating simple. Get Huell today with our exclusive offer of fifteen percent off online with code CHECK at huell.com slash CHECK. New customers only. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show.

• 36:48David Sims?

  I mean, that's absolutely how I was introduced to this movie was in like documentaries about Scorsese or the history of film or TV specials or like biographies or whatever. I just remember watching some TV doc thing where they go like, and then of course in 1977 came New York, New York. And I don't know if it was anything about Scorsese, De Niro or Minnelli, but just all three of them in Talking Heads going like, we were trying something and people got angry.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Because it also has become part of the narrative of we gave the filmmakers too much power.

• 37:21David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  That was a mistake.

• 37:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  So it's like in the heavens gate.

• 37:25David Sims?

  It is very much right sorcerer, like those movies of like, okay, new Hollywood's over, guys, time for you all to have some guardrails. I can tell you, I'm going to open the dossier here that Martin Scorsese, one day opened the Hollywood Reporter, I guess after he's made Taxi Driver. No, it's before he's made Taxi Driver, but he's made Mean Streets and I guess he's maybe made Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Uh, just reads that Irvin Winkler, the Hollywood mega producer, like, you know, big name, wants to make a movie about like the big band era called New York, New York. And he's just like, I want to do that. I did like, I love big band music. I grew up with it. I loved, you know,

• 38:06David Sims?

  jazz and like my parents were obsessed with Django Reinhardt and Stephanie Creppelli or whatever. And like I, my parents, like, you know, like pictures of my family members, like in World War II uniforms, like having come, right? Like this is all in the soup for me and I fucking love old Hollywood musicals. Like I love Vincente Minnelli. Like I love all this shit.

• 38:27Griffin Newman?

  It's what's awesome is he basically, despite being the king of new Hollywood, right?

• 38:33David Sims?

  He's a big nerd.

• 38:34Griffin Newman?

  No, but beyond that, he's also like, I got to Hollywood too late. I grew up wanting to make a big old artificial Hollywood show movie. And I got here and I got stuck being the fucking figurehead of the lousy new Hollywood moment. Like, it's so funny to think about that now when we all idolize what he represented.

• 38:54David Sims?

  Well, but that's like what is what's happening right now with Christopher Nolan, where he's like stroking his chin, being like Crimson Tide is one of the great films of all time. And I'm like, I agree with you, Chris, but clearly you just wish it was the nineties. Like, you know, it's my, and I love the movies you're making right now, but he's like, that was a good era, you know?

• 39:10Griffin Newman?

  Right. Scorsese shows up in the seventies and he's like, I wish it was the forties.

• 39:15David Sims?

  He says the movies he's thinking about, The Man I Love, which is like a Raoul Walsh forties film noir, which has all these Gershwin songs in it, Roadhouse, which is like a Richard Widmark movie. And then obviously the Minnelli Technicolor films, like that Valentine to Hollywood is his idea. It is so funny to hear him say that in these interviews. This movie is a Valentine to nobody. Like, I mean, that's, I mean, I guess it's like, like you're saying, stuff like happy endings, a little bit, but mostly no.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  It reminds me of that one line in Xanadu and don't come for me, Xanadu lovers.

• 39:48David Sims?

  They're out there.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Um, where they're like.

• 39:50David Sims?

  On roller skates.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  It's like the forties meet the eighties. And it's like, I don't think those were meant to meet, my guy. Like, I don't think those are too great tastes that don't taste great together. And that's Xanadu. But like, they say it with such pride in the text of Xanadu. And that's sort of what happens here is like, I'll do my, my kind of thing, but I'll use old school Hollywood sets and I'll use the daughter of Judy Garland, star of these Minnelli movies as like a proxy for that era. And frankly, when you have like De Niro, like making shit up on an old set with Liza Minnelli there, the deck stacked against De Niro. Like he's the one who looks like he's in the wrong movie.

• 40:33David Sims?

  He does. Yeah. He's, he's the weirdest fit for this movie. Yeah. It doesn't really work as, as, as much as he had spent like this early part of his career, I feel like kind of being able to do anything.

• 40:44Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's like sandwiched in between these two guys together, creating two of the greatest performances in the history of cinema.

• 40:52David Sims?

  Taxi Driver.

• 40:53Griffin Newman?

  The leading man roles that will be studied by everyone.

• 40:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Griffin Newman?

  Forever. And that go against all the rules of the kind of character you want to place at the center of the movie, a character that no one would root for, all of that. And this is the one where they just clearly think they're untouchable. And it is bizarre because watching these early films, we just keep being like, God, De Niro was so fucking hot. He was so handsome and so charming. It's hard to like place yourself back in that headspace where you were like, he was like exciting and dangerous and full of life, you know? And so like we were saying in the Taxi Driver episode, you're like, you kind of see it at moments. You kind of see why Sybil Shepherd is tricked by him. You kind of see how Rupert Pumpkin could maybe get a good five minutes together.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  He says like 20 words in Godfather two, and you're like, that's fucking young Brando.

• 41:43David Sims?

  Coolest guy in the world. Absolutely.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  There he is, the Rizler.

• 41:47Griffin Newman?

  Fascinating thing about this movie to me.

• 41:48David Sims?

  He's the Rizler.

• 41:50Griffin Newman?

  He was the Rizler.

• 41:51David Sims?

  He's the original Rizler.

• 41:52Griffin Newman?

  Don Rizler. Can someone please make a poster? Rob De Niro is Don Rizler.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  What if I rot?

• 42:00David Sims?

  Yes, right. Or put the Rizler in his outfit. Yes. Anyway, he's great.

• 42:04Griffin Newman?

  Also, Grand Puck Lass. Um, no, I was going to say the fact that this movie is developed basically concurrently with Taxi Driver and Scorsese even said that he thought he was going to make this first. And that because Taxi Driver was lower budget, suddenly the money came together quickly. I think after De Niro's Oscar win and that got fast tracked. Can you imagine the reality in which the order of these two films is flipped? Because if he makes this before Taxi Driver, there are rails. There's no way they let him go this wild.

• 42:34David Sims?

  Or does Taxi Driver even happen? Or does it happen the way it did?

• 42:36Griffin Newman?

  It does fuck it up so badly that no one ever, right?

• 42:39David Sims?

  Do you like the films of Martin Scorsese?

• 42:40Speaker 02

  I am a big fan of the films.

• 42:42David Sims?

  Major admirer. And you like, you like Taxi Driver, say, or.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:46David Sims?

  Or whatever.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  I celebrate his entire catalog.

• 42:49Griffin Newman?

  Well directed film.

• 42:50David Sims?

  Right, right. Um, well, his, yes. As we sort of said, his, his pitch here is like, it'll look like a film.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  The forties meets the eighties.

• 42:57David Sims?

  From the forties, right? But it will have, the sets will be fake, but we'll approach the characters in the foreground like a documentary. We'll combine the two techniques. Uh, so we're kind of like, you know, we're bringing in like Italian neo-realism into like a, you know, phony looking Hollywood movie. Brilliant, right? And I can imagine the producers being like, yeah, yeah, that'll work. Okay. I mean, sure. And that's going to be expensive, huh? And he's like, yeah, it's going to be expensive. They're like, okay, well, sure. Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli, though, they're famous. Like, that's good, right? And she can sing. And, and he's learned, he's method. So he'll learn the saxophone or whatever.

• 43:33Griffin Newman?

  With those two stars on paper, you go, it has to work. You have the two people who most embody the two sides of what you're trying to do.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  James Franco and Hathaway, let them host the Oscars.

• 43:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  Chocolate and peanut butter, baby. Let's go.

• 43:48David Sims?

  Felt for five minutes that that was working. I remember when it kicked off and they had like the video where they were, I was like, yeah, yeah, this is all right. Yeah. And then like.

• 43:57Griffin Newman?

  They are the ones that I want.

• 43:58David Sims?

  Five minutes later, you're like, huh, it's kind of fucked up. Huh?

• 44:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:02David Sims?

  What's going on here? That is one of those things that I don't remember.

• 44:07Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 44:07David Sims?

  Like generally, like you saying, and I'm like, right, of course they did that, but it's just gone.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  But it's a similar mindset of like, it's, they're just are different.

• 44:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 44:14David Sims?

  Yeah. But everyone loves both of them. So, right.

• 44:18Griffin Newman?

  It's nice that our generation had a Rob Lowe sings with Snow White, you know?

• 44:23David Sims?

  That kind of.

• 44:23Griffin Newman?

  That growing up as Oscar nerds, you're like, oh, and the worst stuff happened before I could watch.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  We've had the crash dance.

• 44:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  The recent dance.

• 44:33David Sims?

  Seth MacFarlane singing, we saw your boobs. Remember that?

• 44:36Griffin Newman?

  That was quite an opener.

• 44:37David Sims?

  How do you feel about him singing a Muppets album?

• 44:39Griffin Newman?

  Bad.

• 44:40David Sims?

  Okay.

• 44:40Griffin Newman?

  Bad. Someone on the Reddit today was saying, David's going to make fun of this and Griffin's going to argue it's a great idea. I just think it's weird.

• 44:47David Sims?

  But I mean, clearly he loves the Muppets. I assume that's why he's doing it. So it's an homage.

• 44:53Griffin Newman?

  He's got a beautiful singing voice.

• 44:54David Sims?

  Seth MacFarlane is releasing like a Muppets album, like where he sings like Muppets standards, I guess.

• 44:59Griffin Newman?

  Cause you know, he does like old school.

• 45:01David Sims?

  He does like Sinatra, right?

• 45:02Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 45:02Speaker 02

  He's, he's, he's.

• 45:03David Sims?

  He's got a good voice.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Creator family guy and he's a buble on some time.

• 45:06David Sims?

  He does. He does kind of.

• 45:08Griffin Newman?

  He's a bit of a buble.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  He's a bit of a buble.

• 45:10Griffin Newman?

  The man ruble.

• 45:11David Sims?

  Buble.

• 45:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But I just like, I don't, I've never wanted to hear the songs of the Muppets reinterpreted in crooner style.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  I can't bash anyone's side projects. You do what sounds good at the time.

• 45:24David Sims?

  I don't, I almost releasing a book of tweets back then.

• 45:28Griffin Newman?

  That is true. That was the thing to do. Uh, Scorsese even beyond the like forties meets the eighties thing was like, I'm, this film is going to catalog like these two characters across decades. I want the style of the movie to evolve with.

• 45:44David Sims?

  He had that notion. It'll be a forties movie, then it'll be a fifties movie. Insane.

• 45:48Griffin Newman?

  We're going to study the styles of how sets were built, how makeup was done, camera movements and whatever, and, and do all of that. And then the whole idea of like, how do you place a documentary inside of this is very strange because he would cite Italian neo-realism, but this is not what neo-realist films feel like.

• 46:05David Sims?

  No, this is not what they feel like at all. Like that's them, no, yeah.

• 46:09Griffin Newman?

  I would argue this feels a lot like an attempt at doing Cassavetes, who was obviously one of his mentors.

• 46:15David Sims?

  Sure.

• 46:15Griffin Newman?

  But Cassavetes, it's always the, the fallacy that his movies were improvised, when in fact, there was a lot of improv, kind of Mike Lee style used in the development.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 46:26Griffin Newman?

  And then the script was really, really locked down.

• 46:29David Sims?

  Yes. Instead, Marty, as you say, makes Taxi Driver before this because the funding comes here quickly, wins the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. And so he says, he crashes into this movie with just like the biggest ego. There's a script by Earl McRouach, Rock, the guy who eventually wrote Buckaroo Bounsi, right?

• 46:50Griffin Newman?

  Just the wildest two films for one person to have written.

• 46:53David Sims?

  Right. Uh, they hate the script. Obviously Marty Martin, who is a Marty collaborator, comes in and works on it later. But the true answer is that there's no script. There's just not a script.

• 47:04Griffin Newman?

  Like five different people work on it.

• 47:05David Sims?

  Five different people work on scripts.

• 47:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 47:07David Sims?

  That Marty and De Niro keep going like, not good enough. Like, you know, like.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  No fun A.

• 47:12David Sims?

  I think about that all the time. That's why I need to re-Jagger.

• 47:16Griffin Newman?

  I love that he had to defend that.

• 47:18David Sims?

  I think about that all the time.

• 47:20Griffin Newman?

  Do you see that?

• 47:21David Sims?

  He also talks about how-

• 47:22Griffin Newman?

  Jagger about that?

• 47:23Speaker 02

  No, what'd he say?

• 47:24David Sims?

  He was like, well, you know, you want things to be at a certain level.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Good. I love, I love they didn't deny it. Good for him. Ten toes down. Not funny.

• 47:32David Sims?

  He also says during that bit that Mick Jagger also at one point went, Diet Coke? And someone just like brought one to his hand and he's like, it's just another plane of existence.

• 47:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yes.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Shine a light coming to this mini series?

• 47:44David Sims?

  We're gonna do something. We're gonna talk Mick Jagger. I wanna talk about Mick Jagger.

• 47:48Griffin Newman?

  This is a good excuse to talk about Mick Jagger.

• 47:50David Sims?

  But my, who famously-

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Just planting seeds for you guys out there.

• 47:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:52David Sims?

  Famously-

• 47:53Griffin Newman?

  That's some real Patreon shit.

• 47:55David Sims?

  My father went to like a Stones gig when they were brand new. He, this is a story he used to tell. Liked it when they're whatever, when they're nobodies. Snuck into like, what did the green room? Like to try and like hang out with them. And Mick Jagger just went, fuck off. And he was like, okay.

• 48:11Griffin Newman?

  So it was always, he was always on that plane of existence.

• 48:14David Sims?

  He always had it. So a month before the film was gonna shoot, Earl Mack Rock Rouch, sorry.

• 48:21Griffin Newman?

  I think it's Rouch?

• 48:22David Sims?

  Yeah. He's like, I quit. I gotta do other shit. I'm sorry. I can't deal with this anymore. So-

• 48:27Speaker 02

  I got a bonsai calling my name.

• 48:28David Sims?

  Yeah. So then Marty says, Bobby and I had some ideas about improvisation. And we felt like we'd known Liza for about a year and-

• 48:40Griffin Newman?

  Those are deadly words.

• 48:41David Sims?

  Maybe she'd be comfortable doing it. Marty comes in to basically structure the scenes, I guess. But uh, he said, Marty Martin says, everyone was just trying to improve it by improvisation all the time. The film never really had an ending. We came up with like a dozen endings and never like found one that worked. Uh, or when, you know, Winkler helps, Jay Cox, who's a big Marty collaborator, helps, helps.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  Can I, can I interject for one second with Liza Minnelli's story?

• 49:11Griffin Newman?

  Of course, please.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Again, I'm-

• 49:13David Sims?

  Also still with us. A lot of these people are still with us.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, Liza's still with us. And, and, and again, I was, I was reading her autobiography on the way down here, the, the Salient Chapters. And uh, you have to understand how much Liza was not an improviser. Like she, there's an amazing video, I'm sure it's YouTube-able of um, Kander and Ebbs singing their own songs. It was like a Songwriters on Songwriting series. It had like eight people and then everyone realized no one cares about songwriters singing their own stuff. But it's Fred singing like some of Liza's standards, Liza with a Z, ring them bells. And when you watch it, you'll be like, holy shit. Fred Ebbs, every mannerism or Liza's mannerisms.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  Like he taught her how to sing. He taught her how to use her hands. Like they were really like instrumental in helping her find her own persona distinct from her mother, which was a huge shadow. It, it's amazing to watch Fred Ebbs perform because you're just watching like a man performing as Liza Minnelli, but it was him first. I tell you that story to like, imagine then being thrown into, to a situation where it's just like, we're gonna make it up. When like she has been so, like she is a, like an eight shows a week.

• 50:28David Sims?

  She's a stage performer, yes.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's like a Broadway-

• 50:30Griffin Newman?

  You're gonna work it out rigorously until it's perfect.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. She worked with Bob Fosse. Like these people rehearse. Like theater people fucking rehearse. Um, and, and all that to say, I think she holds her own beautifully.

• 50:44David Sims?

  She's extremely good in the movie because she's a good actor, because I think she's such a sympathetic actor.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:50David Sims?

  That because she's under siege in this movie, you're just so with her.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  The only strike against her is that like, the character Francine would ever fall for this guy's bullshit and you never really buy it.

• 51:01David Sims?

  You never really buy it.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  It has to happen because the movie has to happen.

• 51:04Griffin Newman?

  I mean, you saying that, that when they ran the first scene and she said no, and they were like, you can't just shut him down immediately. So the scene keeps going. It's like, no, but she had the right improv instinct. Which is play it real, play to the top of your intelligence. You know, I know you want to yes and, but maybe the way this scene moves forward is you reject him and the guy has to get more creative.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 51:25Griffin Newman?

  And instead the guy is just-

• 51:26Speaker 02

  Just grabbing a wrist and shit.

• 51:28David Sims?

  Now, an issue also that they have, according to Marty Martin, is Liza had a commitment to go to Vegas or something. One assumes to do a Bay Old show. And so they just have to start shooting. They don't have a script, like whatever. They never figured it out, but they're like, well, we gotta start. De Niro famously, the worst interview of all time, God bless him, is basically like, I practiced really hard like on the tenor sax. That is his takeaway from this film.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  That's, he was great.

• 51:55Griffin Newman?

  Paid off.

• 51:56David Sims?

  Yeah. He's like, I didn't wanna look like an idiot and so I really learned that shit and I think I did a good job on the tenor sax.

• 52:01Griffin Newman?

  Every time he picks up the sax, I, I was blown away at how much he tells it.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  He's next to Clarence fucking Clemens and he looks like he's doing it.

• 52:08Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's really, really good. I wanna just throw out Julia Cameron, who was Scorsese's wife at the time, did a lot of writing work on this. She gets a special call out giant, special thanks to Julia Cameron standalone credit card at the end of the movie.

• 52:23David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:24Griffin Newman?

  Um, just an interesting-

• 52:26Speaker 02

  A lot of heavy size for me, given the backstory on all of this.

• 52:28David Sims?

  Yep. A lot of heavy size. She gave birth to their daughter, Domenica, in 1976.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Wesleyan alum, go Wes.

• 52:35David Sims?

  Absolutely. What's, and what was the mascot? What's the mascot of Wesleyan?

• 52:38Speaker 02

  Cardinals.

• 52:38David Sims?

  The Cardinal, go Cardinals. I don't know. I visited the campus once. It seemed really nice.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  I, uh, when I was a pre-fresh, I, the reason I went to Wes is because I snuck into a Hitchcock class and she was a TA for the class I snuck into. She was graduating the year I was a pre-fresh.

• 52:51David Sims?

  Oh, well, that is cool. I know Wesley has-

• 52:53Speaker 02

  I rushed with Domenica Scorsese in a discussion of Bunny Lake is Missing and I said, I wanna go here.

• 52:59David Sims?

  Michael Bay, Michael Bay.

• 53:01Griffin Newman?

  Michael Bay.

• 53:01David Sims?

  Friend of the show Katie Rich went to, went to Wesleyan.

• 53:04Griffin Newman?

  I thought you were about to say friend of the show, Michael Bay.

• 53:06David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Michael Bay, call us.

• 53:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Um, Friends, the show, Rayson, Tori and Jordan Fish.

• 53:11David Sims?

  That's-

• 53:11Griffin Newman?

  This is a segment that could go on far too long.

• 53:13David Sims?

  Sure. Um, but-

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Big West film, no?

• 53:14David Sims?

  But, but basically like she's, the way Marty puts it, I've read in it, is like, he's like, I know she's, she gives birth to my daughter and I know we're getting divorced. And I know I'm like, not gonna be present for this kid. Like this is all happening in his head and it's so in the movie.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  So in the movie.

• 53:31David Sims?

  Right. Like it's so like, you know, he's just like, I'm a piece of shit. Like I'm abandoning a child, right? You know, like it's so obviously in the movie. And it's funny because in like the Mr. Scorsese doc that they did recently, like Domenica's there and she's like, we figured it out.

• 53:45Griffin Newman?

  We figured it out.

• 53:46David Sims?

  But like, I had to basically be a grown up. You know what I mean? Like, and as did he essentially. Like we figured it out years. It's so good. Because everyone's like, you know, happy to be candid at that point, like by the time they did that.

• 53:59Griffin Newman?

  I just, I, I think it is sometimes over discussed, the Catholic guilt in Scorsese's work, because that's a very obvious read. I think what is kind of equally present is him just kind of constantly trying to study, why the fuck are men wired this way? And for the first half of his career, he's studying that while he's making all of the mistakes. He's doing them in real time and he's kind of putting himself on the slab and being like, the fuck is it with our brains? You know, not to be like, uh, binary about it.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and honestly, to his credit, the moment the pregnancy storyline starts, you're like, okay, now we're in a movie.

• 54:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, this is a dilemma.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  It's not just a non-courtship of nagging for 40 minutes.

• 54:46David Sims?

  While they like tour.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's like, oh, okay. I can tell he is not gonna be Father of the Year if he's even gonna stick around to the, like, there's something happening. And, and something interesting is suddenly happening with De Niro's character because he's saying, yeah, I'll be there. Uh, maybe have the ba- Like there's, there's something going on.

• 55:04Griffin Newman?

  That's where the movie really starts. And I, I remember seeing this at the Metrograph maybe 10 years ago. And you, it's playing to a lot of silence, you know, and there's music in the movie, but there's not even a lot of musical numbers up until that point. There's like two or three in the first 90 minutes. And you get to that scene in the delivery room after the character is just like, kind of hit his bottom. And the audience starts like gasping at the shit he's saying. And for the first time, you're like, he's bad in a way that's dramatically interesting.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 55:38Griffin Newman?

  It's no longer just frustrating.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  The guy you're avoiding making eye contact with on the tree.

• 55:42Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And I think that guy that they depict for the first half of the movie is a real guy. He's a very specific guy. He's well observed. He's just a guy you run away from. You don't wanna spend time with him. He's not shitty in a compelling way, which is what these two guys are usually really good at figuring out how to put on screen.

• 56:14David Sims?

  One more thing from Liza that I do think is interesting. She said, "My singing performance is very different than anything I've done before because I studied the way big band singers sang, even how they held their hands. You didn't go out as the star, you went out as part of the arrangement. And I went so overboard that I almost backed up too much and I guess wasn't being kind of like dominant enough." I don't, I don't know what she sort of means by that. But she said she'd studied it all as a kid and it was very fun to like tailor herself to like big band era singing. I don't know what your take is on that.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Well, let me back up even just a step before that, which is the other tragedy of this is Scorsese's only quote unquote musical. Is it's not even like a musical.

• 56:54David Sims?

  Not really.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Like the music is all diegetic, except the musical number, even the musical number at the end. It's, it's her in a musical or in a, in a movie musical. And when you think of the movies he reveres and the way they go from speech to song, like think about like, "I got rhythm in an American in Paris." And you got the little kids going, "I got rhythm, I got." It's so fucking delightful, the way they manage that leap that we take for granted when we go to the theater, but it's really hard to do in a movie of like going from, "Hey, how you doing today?" To, you know.

• 57:29David Sims?

  So it is.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  "I need six eggs, Beauty and the Beast."

• 57:33David Sims?

  "I need six eggs." She needs to cut that woman some eggs. As someone who feeds his sons essentially six eggs a day. I understand her energy in, in that song. It is the number, it is the, it is the, the barrier to entry for some people, right? With musicals that they just are like, "I don't buy it when they start singing." Even if it's on Broadway or whatever, like it does, it does feel like the hardest thing to get people over. I don't know what it is.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  But imagine that same opening sequence, which is genuinely stunning. Like it is Scorsese flexing on us, like hundreds and hundreds of people. And it's deep, it's like victory day. And then there's the arrow pointing at De Niro in the crowd and so incredible. Imagine they'd gone inside that ballroom and De Niro was playing sax and singing a song. Suddenly I love this guy, even if he's a total piece of shit.

• 58:23David Sims?

  You cold open with a good performance.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Like if you just had the, just the wherewithal to like lean all the way in and make a fucking musical.

• 58:32Griffin Newman?

  It is what I find most fascinating about this film. There's the sort of anti-musical that people attempt a couple of times a decade. That is, well, people have this barrier to entry, what you're talking about, David. They just think it's corny or it strains credulity or they can't buy in at that point. So can you make a musical where it doesn't feel like a musical and it doesn't have the tone of a musical? Or structurally that's like this. And I feel like those are often made by people who secretly hate musicals.

• 58:57David Sims?

  There's a bit of hostility to the musical.

• 58:59Griffin Newman?

  The number one.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Or they love it and they're ashamed.

• 59:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I don't feel that he's ashamed here. It feels like he's trying so hard to prove a different point, even though he loves this so unabashedly. Where you're just like, you wish someone could have grabbed him and gone like, Marty, if these dialogue scenes are 90 seconds and you have five more numbers that actually play out in full and you go off in the first 90 minutes, people might enjoy watching this.

• 59:32David Sims?

  Liza, just to flesh up behind the scenes drama. She is of course married to Jack Haley Jr., the son of Jack Haley, the Tin Man, who starred in The Wizard of Oz with her mother Judy Garland, which is already crazy. And she's having an affair with Mikhail Baryshnikov, who might be the hottest person alive, like right then.

• 59:52Griffin Newman?

  I feel like you've been making this case a couple of times recently.

• 59:54David Sims?

  He is unbelievable. And like you were at the critic circle where he presented, right? You know, he presented at the New York Film Critics Circle last year. And he's, I mean, how old is he now? Like in his late seventies or whatever, you know? And you're still just kind of like, I mean, he's 78. You're still just kind of like, God, this is like the coolest fucking guy in the world. Like this guy is really hot and really smart.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  I'm old enough to remember his arc on Sex and the City where you're like, is that Baryshnikov? And then he leaps across a pile of garbage and like, oh my God, he's the hottest old man alive.

• 1:00:24David Sims?

  He was the hottest with the scarves. Um, that show did him dirty, in my opinion.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:30David Sims?

  So, so she's already in a dalliance with him. And then of course, Scorsese and Liza begin a romantic dalliance. And then of course.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Passionate, talented Italian.

• 1:00:40David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, he's magnetic. And of course, then he also directs her in The Act, which was a sort of failed show.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  I really want to discuss this.

• 1:00:49David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  Because this is not in the, in the doc at all.

• 1:00:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  They just, they just say, "We're sticking to the movies."

• 1:00:56David Sims?

  It's a Candor and Ebb show.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  It's a Candor and Ebb show.

• 1:00:58David Sims?

  That premieres in 77.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  They kind of inherited, like Hamlish was going to do it, then didn't want to do it.

• 1:01:02David Sims?

  That's right.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  And.

• 1:01:03David Sims?

  It was initially called Shine It On.

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, something like that. And, and again, like, you have to understand, Candor and Ebb are like her theater parents. Like they truly take care of her. And there's a very, I'm, I'm, I'm holding my copy of Colored Lights, which is Candor and Ebb's sort of oral history of their own stuff. Like they did a book where they just talk about their own things. And there's a very sweet quote where Fred says something to the effect of, uh, she, she was very adamant that Scorsese could do anything. And he had to direct the show, even though he had never been near theater in his life.

• 1:01:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  But, but the sweet thing he says is like, "I think she kind of figured we could get her out of any jam." Which is like, you know, and, and I think she knew she was on a subconscious level. She was in a emotional mess, a drug fueled mess with him that needed detangling. So she brings him along for this and, and Fred tells the stories. He literally would go to rehearsals, film it and go home and edit it to try to figure out how to direct like theater, which is wild.

• 1:02:06David Sims?

  It's not how you're supposed to do it.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  And by the way, and Candor goes to great pains in the book to say like, listen, he was, Marty was a wonderful guy. He was not malevolent. They were just really bad into drugs. And, and I think that was his way to try to get his head around how deep in over. He was like, "Let me do the one thing I do know how to do, and maybe that will give me a clue on how to do this." And they tell this story in the book. I recommend the book on sale at the Drama Bookshop.

• 1:02:33David Sims?

  Okay, Drama Bookshop. And also we recommend the Drama Bookshop, a wonderful one.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Yes, thank you. Where I live and, and I live upstairs like the Phantom. And the, uh, but they tell the story about like them getting to rehearsal. Again, this is like Broadway rehearsal at like two in the afternoon. And they say that they were in this horrible wreck and her neck hurts. And the more they ask about the wreck, the more the story starts to fall apart. And, and it's just sort of like, nope, drugs and tiredness got them there laid. And she was very embarrassed that she was sort of in it so deep. And like, it's, it's very heartbreaking. And she, in her book, she says she's the one who had to fire him basically, because she's the one who insisted on him. And then a Gower Champion kind of came in and steered it towards a show, like being an actual show.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  The thing Candor and, Candor and Ebb were just so embarrassed because it was like not working on fundamental, like this isn't even like, have a sheen of professionalism because no director has touched this yet. And then, you know, steers her towards her first, her third Tony win.

• 1:03:34David Sims?

  She unbelievably wins a Tony, yes, for it, despite it largely being forgotten and of sort of a flop. Right. Uh, I do want to note that its ticket prices were $25, which at the time was an all time high. And now that would be considered quite cheap for Broadway. I don't know if you guys know that.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 1:03:52David Sims?

  Uh, but yeah, it was a bomb or whatever. But it's just so crazy to think that in the middle of all this, Marty tried and failed to direct a Broadway show, which is hard to do.

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:01David Sims?

  Like directing a Broadway show is not something you can phone in, correct?

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 1:04:06David Sims?

  If, now if it is something you can phone in, I'm available. Like I'll do it.

• 1:04:11Griffin Newman?

  David's ready to phone shit in.

• 1:04:12David Sims?

  If, if it's that I show up to the theater and I'm like, "Everything looks great. You guys are beautiful."

• 1:04:18Speaker 02

  I'm going to sing it and edit it when I get home. Liza tells a story that apparently on the first day Marty comes in and says, "Where is my dressing room?"

• 1:04:25David Sims?

  Oh, sure. And it's like, we don't have a lot of those back here.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  No. That's not how it works. Directors don't get a dressing room. They just hang out in the stage manager's office. There's no space.

• 1:04:35David Sims?

  Right. It's like, you know how when you're making a movie, your dressing room has to be in a special truck, right? Do you see any space for trucks in this little building?

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  But like, that's how much he didn't know about what he didn't know.

• 1:04:45David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, because I don't, it's, he loves musicals, but I feel like he loves movie musicals. I like, he doesn't really talk about, despite being a New York boy, being a New York theater boy.

• 1:04:55Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:04:55David Sims?

  And this, you know, this way that he's got like Liza, right? You know, white hot Liza.

• 1:05:03Griffin Newman?

  Can we just break down the sort of where Liza's at for a moment?

• 1:05:06David Sims?

  And it's not like he missed, well, he does miss user in that he tried to make her improvise an entire movie, which doesn't seem like the right, but she's still good in the movie, but it does feel like he didn't know what he had on his hands.

• 1:05:16Speaker 02

  And then when it comes to the actual musical ass musical that finally starts.

• 1:05:21David Sims?

  You're like taken away.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  In sequence.

• 1:05:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:23Griffin Newman?

  It's extraordinary.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  He's channeling her dad. He's channeling her mom.

• 1:05:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Speaker 02

  In a way that feels like positive and cathartic, not in a like.

• 1:05:33Griffin Newman?

  No, it doesn't feel ghoulish or creepy.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. It just feels like, yeah, she's stepping into these shoes and they fit just fine. And she's extraordinary in those sequences. I mean, like she'd grown up in the studio system and that's when they're at their best. Like both of them are at their best. Like his directing is just peak and she gets to do what she does, uh, which is sing like her life.

• 1:05:58David Sims?

  Yes, like she's falling apart.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  We're like, oh, you can't hold that note any longer than that. Oh, you did.

• 1:06:04Griffin Newman?

  She's also such a good example of the like, good singing is storytelling kind of thing. You're like, she is conveying things to you with every inflection, with every gesture. It's not just about hitting notes. But the thing that's so fascinating about her to me is she is like a razzle dazzle star in the seventies. At a moment where Hollywood is kind of rejecting razzle dazzle. And they're like, razzle dazzle is for TV. That is for variety shows. Movies don't have space for this anymore. People like Streisand toned down the razzle dazzle when they get to the seventies. And they're like, I make comedies now. I make romantic dramas.

• 1:06:41David Sims?

  Yeah, I play human beings. I play, right, like.

• 1:06:44Griffin Newman?

  And then I'll do concerts, but like you gotta split these things up.

• 1:06:47Speaker 02

  Well, she had the advantage of coming into the movie business with like the one director who came from theater.

• 1:06:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  Mr. Old Bobby Fosse, who also, but also knew how to cut a seventies movie, right?

• 1:07:01David Sims?

  He's both of it, right?

• 1:07:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's what makes her such a unique star is that she is the center of a musical that somehow figured out how to serve both sides.

• 1:07:10David Sims?

  It's what's funny about what Marty's trying to do where it's like, you know, Fosse kinda already did that, but like, and it's like, it was not as artificial, but like Cabaret basically already did what you're thinking of, which is sort of like a more real feeling musical film, like, you know, like, you know.

• 1:07:24Griffin Newman?

  Also was like a little unreplicable.

• 1:07:26David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:27Griffin Newman?

  It was so specific to the structure of that show itself and the text of that show.

• 1:07:31David Sims?

  Her other films, if you want me to bring them up, Griff, are Lucky Lady, which is the Stanley Donahue movie with Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds. That's like a prohibition, like comedy. I've never seen it. It, it's a famous bomb. Like, I don't know if you've seen it, Lynn. I mean, you know.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  And I didn't have the DVD of that one.

• 1:07:49David Sims?

  No. And then A Matter of Time, which is the movie that her dad directs, that has Kander and Ebb songs and like old Gershwin songs.

• 1:07:56Griffin Newman?

  She plays herself in Silent Movie as well.

• 1:07:58David Sims?

  Well, yeah, but I'm forgetting the cameo. So I'm saying like, you know, that where she's playing like an Italian like Duchess or whatever. I've never seen it either.

• 1:08:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:06David Sims?

  Her dad's very old when he's making it and, you know, I think it might be his last movie or close to it. So it's not like post Cabaret, she hasn't really had hits.

• 1:08:15Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:08:16David Sims?

  But she's famous.

• 1:08:17Griffin Newman?

  She's super famous.

• 1:08:18David Sims?

  And she's done lines with a C.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  The fact that she's two strikes in when.

• 1:08:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Griffin Newman?

  She needs another win.

• 1:08:23David Sims?

  And this is a miss. And then she doesn't do anything for four years. And then she does, I mean, obviously she doesn't, she doesn't do any more movies. She does other stuff. But then she has Arthur in the eighties, which I feel like does give her a bit of a new lease.

• 1:08:35Griffin Newman?

  Arthur's four years later and is a huge hit.

• 1:08:37David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:08:37Griffin Newman?

  But then the next credit after that is Muppet Stick Manhattan cameo as herself three years later. Then three years after that, she does Rent a Cop. Then the year after that, she does Arthur Two on the Rocks.

• 1:08:48David Sims?

  I mean, she mostly is a Broadway star.

• 1:08:50Griffin Newman?

  Totally, right?

• 1:08:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:51Griffin Newman?

  And like, whatever. Disabused her on movies a little bit.

• 1:08:54David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:55Griffin Newman?

  You know?

• 1:08:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:56Griffin Newman?

  And certainly she, there's, I've never seen Stepping Out, which is kind of like the late in life Liza legacy sequel. A has been Broadway performer gives up tap lessons to a group of misfits.

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  The nineties meet the fifties in that one.

• 1:09:11Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 1:09:12David Sims?

  They should.

• 1:09:12Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 1:09:13David Sims?

  Let's have a meet. She replaces Gwen Verdon in Chicago on Broadway.

• 1:09:18Speaker 02

  I mean, that's an incredible story.

• 1:09:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  Which deserves like a second, which is that Gwen Verdon basically.

• 1:09:24David Sims?

  The queen.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  The queen.

• 1:09:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  She's with Bobby Fosse, serial philanderer, serial drug taker, but she's like, we're doing Chicago.

• 1:09:30Griffin Newman?

  He's a bit of a Jimmy Doyle, except.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  He's a bit of a Jimmy Doyle, except.

• 1:09:33David Sims?

  Very talented, right?

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  Unbelievable, maybe one of the most talented people alive.

• 1:09:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:37Speaker 02

  And, um, and she's like, we're doing this. It's double act, like her and Cheetah Rivera. She inhales like some confetti on stage, like has a freak accident where she inhales some confetti on the set, like it damn it, seriously damages her lungs. And Liza, who basically was like, my theater parents are Kander, Ebb and Fosse are like, she basically says, can I go in? Like, can I just go in and, and, and she even confesses in her autobiography, I knew they'd make a movie of this someday. I thought if I went in, they might see me for the movie version, some point down the line. She didn't know it was gonna take 30 years. But she says, and I don't want to disrespect Gwen, so they don't even put her name on the marquee.

• 1:10:18Speaker 02

  She goes in as basically like the most famous swing performer of all time.

• 1:10:23David Sims?

  Right? Like it was like.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  She had a week to learn it. She did it for five weeks.

• 1:10:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:10:26Speaker 02

  And it was just like this open secret, like, yo, Liza's in fucking Chicago right now.

• 1:10:32David Sims?

  But it exploded the understudy, right?

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  And, and they would surprise people every, this is before social media too. So they would say like, tonight, the role of, uh, you know, Roxy. Well, and you'd feel the audience go, oh, we'll be played by Liza Minnelli.

• 1:10:46David Sims?

  What?

• 1:10:48David Sims?

  It is very cool. Cause it was Jerry Orbach, right? As well.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, Jerry Orbach, Cheetah Rivera.

• 1:10:54David Sims?

  And then she did, I, you must know a little bit about, I just, and then we can, you know, but the, the rink, right? That's the Kander Ebb thing, where she reunites with Cheetah Rivera. And it's about, they own like a roller skating rink.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05David Sims?

  And it's like dilapidated. Do you know about this show?

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  Before, no.

• 1:11:08David Sims?

  Like an eighties.

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  So Starlet Express could fly.

• 1:11:10David Sims?

  Right. An eighties somewhat forgotten, like, have they ever done this one at encore type?

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  But you know what? Again, like some of these things are just seeds for your favorite thing. Just like this movie is a seed for New York, New York, the greatest New York song of all time. There's a song by Kander and Ebb in there called A Quiet Thing, that I think is the best Kander and Ebb song of all time. It was, we read it at the vows for my wedding. Like it is, it is one of the most beautiful, uh, songs you'll ever hear and Liza sings it. Happiness comes in on tiptoe. It's a quiet thing. It's a great song. Actually, we, we put that in New York, New York too. It's, uh, again, it became like an orphan show for all the great Kander and Ebb songs that, uh, didn't have, uh, a prominent home.

• 1:11:51David Sims?

  Huh, Liza. I, I think you're right, Griff, that like, it does sort of, it's not like it stops her being in movies, but it does kinda.

• 1:11:59Griffin Newman?

  This experience, she was just sort of like, maybe that's not my primary medium. And things like Arthur are like a much lighter lift for her where it's like, oh, you want me to be like the fun gal next to Dudley Moore? I don't have to be like singing my heart out. I don't need to be the big open wound of the movie. I also, I think you saying Sims, like Marty comes in with this pitch and Hollywood's like, that sounds incredible. The other part of it is, I think the movie musical in the 1970s, the studio probably felt about it the way they feel about the superhero movie now. Where the public keeps being like, we're maybe over this. And they're like, how do we get you back? This was kind of our bread and butter. And if something like Cabaret works, they're like.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  Travis Bickle was a musical, you guys.

• 1:12:43Griffin Newman?

  No, but they're like, Cabaret works. And they're like, okay, so you do still like them sometimes. How do we replicate this?

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:49Griffin Newman?

  What, what is the element that makes it work? This is what we're best at.

• 1:12:53David Sims?

  And, you know, Winkler had also done They Shoot Horses, don't they? Which is not a musical, but has again, that kind of like, we're mixing realism with movie mania. You know, like, can we do this in a, in a more structured way? They shoot the film at MGM. Old Hollywood master Boris Levin does the sets. He had done Sound of Music, right? He'd done Scarlet Empress, the Von Sternberg movie, you know, like, he's like Ted Marty, like a king, like West Side Story. So he's like, I want to recreate the mythical city, you know, the high curbs. And like, you know, what, what else does he want? You know, like everything's, uh, just gonna look a little fantastic. They, they had Giorgio Armani, oh no, right, the shoulder pegs and the, the wide ties.

• 1:13:36David Sims?

  Giorgio Armani saw this movie and inspired him to make his clothes. Yes.

• 1:13:42Griffin Newman?

  Seeds.

• 1:13:42David Sims?

  Um, Laszlo Kovac shoots it. Obviously he shoots Last Waltz with Scorsese at the same time. This is the only time that they work together. Movie is those two movies.

• 1:13:51Griffin Newman?

  Unbelievable.

• 1:13:52David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:13:52Griffin Newman?

  Gorgeous movie.

• 1:13:53David Sims?

  And, you know, he moves the camera a lot because he's Martin Scorsese, obviously. He's always fucking moving the camera.

• 1:13:59Griffin Newman?

  And said like, hold my fucking Steadicam.

• 1:14:02David Sims?

  But yes, obviously on every other Martin Scorsese movie before now, even Boxcar Bertha. He had done so much pre-production work on like storyboarding, how every shot's gonna work. Everything is laid out, even Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore or whatever, where it's like very simple. They, they are, they, they know exactly what they're doing.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  And then on the genre that requires the most prep.

• 1:14:25David Sims?

  Prep. And they throw it all out. They have no script and they shot like a million feet of film or whatever, right? Like they just like, that mean, you know, and they went eight weeks over budget, 14 weeks turned into 22 weeks. Winkler had never made a musical before. He didn't realize that they'd take a long time. So they madly underscheduled. Martin Scorsese, in retrospect, I don't think we should have been given that free a hand. That's his quote. So even he's like, I need like some guard rail.

• 1:14:56Griffin Newman?

  I think it is telling that this is the only time he's gone back and like reworked one of his movies. You know, he's very adamantly anti-director's cut. And he's like, A, try to fight for that the first time, but B, like when the movie is released. That's the movie that the culture forms a relationship with, and it is what it is. And stuff like Gangs of New York, where there was a lot of interference, but he's refused to ever go back. Partially because I think it's too raw and partially because he's just like, is what it is. And this is the one time where like three years later, he was like, guys, can I just try to explain myself a little bit? And it does feel like it's because he knows he shouldn't have gotten away with it.

• 1:15:37David Sims?

  There's one moment where he's shooting a scene with Bobby and Liza. It's gone to like nine o'clock at night. They're on the 20 second take. Evelyn's exhausted. The next day they have a day shoot or whatever. It's not like they can, you know, the problems are multiplying. Winkler says, we've done 22 takes. Do you think you're done? And Marty's like, I just, there's this tear coming out of Liza's eye. I think two or three more takes, I can really get it. Can I go for the tear? And Winkler's like, go for the tear. Like, that's what this movie is. They just keep thinking they're gonna get it. Happy endings, perfectly scheduled, shot in 10 days. They did it right at the start. That worked great.

• 1:16:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:11David Sims?

  And so of course they cut it out of the film. Right. Like, you know what I mean?

• 1:16:14Griffin Newman?

  It's the most insane, like, I'm just like, in the world where they're watching this movie and go, oh, it's a mess. Audiences are gonna hate this. I don't understand how they don't get to the conclusion of the movie starts one hour in. We're cutting all that shit out. Obviously we keep the big musical number. But I think it speaks to how allergic people were to old school song and dance at this moment in movies.

• 1:16:35David Sims?

  As Lynn says, the original, the, the, the sort of assembly cut is four and a half hours long. They cut it down to about 2:45. You have three editors, not, not a good sign when you have three editors.

• 1:16:45Griffin Newman?

  Marshall Lucas has a supervising editor of credit, which is separate from the three credited editors.

• 1:16:50David Sims?

  George Lucas watches it as they're all friends and says like, I think you'll make more money with a happy ending. What do you think? And Marty's like, that's not the movie we're making. And he's like, okay.

• 1:17:01Speaker 02

  Can you imagine if they'd ended up together though?

• 1:17:03David Sims?

  That's the thing, it wouldn't actually work.

• 1:17:04Griffin Newman?

  He's right about that. I also think you were saying, I think it was Mardik Martin said like, we never had an ending. So we didn't know what to improvise towards.

• 1:17:12David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:17:12Griffin Newman?

  I think the ending to this movie is correct.

• 1:17:14David Sims?

  It is totally correct. The whole thing of, I keep thinking about La La Land with this movie. Cause La La Land is like a high functioning version of this movie.

• 1:17:21Griffin Newman?

  The other seed. La La Land is, I know how we could make this work. You like the couple and you like them together.

• 1:17:27David Sims?

  You like the couple, but you understand eventually they're consumed by their artistic passions. It drives them apart.

• 1:17:33Griffin Newman?

  It's a shame this didn't work out.

• 1:17:35David Sims?

  They're basically like, we both kind of figured it out.

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  Bobby De Niro had explained jazz.

• 1:17:39David Sims?

  That would be great. To John Lennon.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  To Liza Minnelli. Let me explain music to you.

• 1:17:44David Sims?

  Explain music to you.

• 1:17:45Griffin Newman?

  The movie feels like he could do that at any minute.

• 1:17:48David Sims?

  It's A, B, C, D.

• 1:17:51David Sims?

  Yeah. Right. Like La La Land, I feel like is Gisele just kind of being like, can I, can I just kind of make that a much more functional thing?

• 1:17:57Griffin Newman?

  I can't remember.

• 1:17:58David Sims?

  And it does work great.

• 1:17:59Griffin Newman?

  The first time I saw this was either right before La La Land came out or right after La La Land came out. And it was just immediate, the connection of like, oh, he clearly spent 20 years thinking to himself, could I make a version of New York that works?

• 1:18:14David Sims?

  In New York, New York. Right. Yes. And the ending of New York, New York is, I agree with you, the right ending. The plot of the film is that Jimmy Doyle, who is, I guess a veteran, although you're right, is he?

• 1:18:29Griffin Newman?

  I question it.

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  I question it.

• 1:18:31Griffin Newman?

  I question anything this guy says.

• 1:18:32Speaker 02

  He knows, he knows guys.

• 1:18:34David Sims?

  He knows guys.

• 1:18:35Speaker 02

  We never see him decorated. We never see him in uniform.

• 1:18:37David Sims?

  It's like a VJ Day celebration.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  And she's in a Hawaiian shirt and everyone else is in uniform.

• 1:18:42David Sims?

  Everyone else is in a uniform.

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  He tells us already, he's full of shit.

• 1:18:45David Sims?

  She's in a uniform because she's like a USO performer. And he just will not stop pestering her. So she finally gives up a phone number.

• 1:18:53Griffin Newman?

  We see him strike out on like three other women first, and then he hones in on her because she looks lonely. And it's like, he's more offended that she rejected him than anyone else. Because in his mind, he thinks he was taking pity on her. And then he doubles down. So it's the worst start for a relationship possible. And she is.

• 1:19:12Speaker 02

  What's the opposite of a meat, meat cute? It's a meat shit.

• 1:19:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, truly.

• 1:19:16David Sims?

  The meat nasty. This is nasty.

• 1:19:19Griffin Newman?

  It's a meat nasty. But she's not into him. And there's a certain point where she starts laughing at like, this is egregious. Like it's getting absurd how hard he's trying now, but there's no point where she's like, I don't know, he's kind of cute. Like she's playing it real.

• 1:19:36David Sims?

  It's also the vibe of this entire movie, which is like, the scene feels five minutes too long. It gets uncomfortable. It kind of gets somewhere where you're like, well, this is sort of authentically like difficult and nasty. And then you're just sort of like, can we move along? Like, why is this still happening?

• 1:19:54Griffin Newman?

  Does not have that many scenes.

• 1:19:56David Sims?

  No, all the scenes are so long.

• 1:19:58Griffin Newman?

  Most of the scenes are 10 to 15 minutes long.

• 1:20:00David Sims?

  My wife was just like, what is this movie about? And I was like, I don't know.

• 1:20:04Griffin Newman?

  The worst guy.

• 1:20:04David Sims?

  It's not nice. It's about he's not nice. So they get in a cab and like, they go to an audition together and they kind of get put together as a boy, girl act because they're both talented at the same time together. And I guess they sort of artistically vibe, but I feel like even that isn't actually very inherent to it.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  They stumbled on that as a point. That was the point.

• 1:20:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:28David Sims?

  It's more just kind of like, okay, well you two can kind of be a double act. And then they're just on the road for like a ton of the movie.

• 1:20:35Speaker 02

  A lot of New York, New York does not take place in New York.

• 1:20:37David Sims?

  No, 100%. It takes place in like empty, nor New York, not New York, nor New York.

• 1:20:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43David Sims?

  Like empty ass like ballrooms.

• 1:20:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:20:46David Sims?

  And they're just kind of bickering or fighting with someone else.

• 1:20:49Griffin Newman?

  Built as like the grandest sets you've ever seen. I do want to call out the kind of continuation of the meat nasty, which on paper, sounds like a meat cute. Is like their friends hook up. So then they're both kind of waiting for the other friend to vacate the room. So then they run into each other in the lobby of the hotel and he's trying to skirt his bill. And she's looking for him. And then she drags him into it. So then he's so angry that she exposed him, that that's basically how he loops her into the audition. Because he's trying to steal her cab. So like, it's like a complete, like in a charming movie, it's like, oh, this series of misunderstandings that lead to them in the back of a cab together. And instead it's just like, this guy fucks every single thing up.

• 1:21:34Griffin Newman?

  He's been staying at like seven different luxury hotels, dining out on this idea that he's a veteran, pretending he's gotten a wooden leg and PTSD and all of this. It really does make me think he's lying about all of it.

• 1:21:47David Sims?

  Yeah. And he doesn't have much of a backstory. So we don't really understand why he's like this.

• 1:21:53Griffin Newman?

  But I just wanted to clarify.

• 1:21:55David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:56David Sims?

  No clarifying.

• 1:21:56Griffin Newman?

  No, that the audition isn't even like, well, he warms her up to the idea of maybe if we tried playing together. Like even that is a thing they fully stumbled into.

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah. She's like, play a quieter song. He's like, fuck you. She's trying to help you and she's not supposed to be here.

• 1:22:15David Sims?

  I cannot overstate then how much of the movie is him being a jerk before she goes into labor. It is a full hour plus. Like there is not really much movement in the plot.

• 1:22:26Griffin Newman?

  No. What we've discussed to this point is the first 30 minutes.

• 1:22:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:30Griffin Newman?

  And then there was an hour before the movie really kicks into gear.

• 1:22:33David Sims?

  I, right?

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

  And it's stuck in a cul-de-sac of just these people. It's, you're at a bar and you watch two people fighting and you're like, that looks like a terrible relationship.

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  I was so grateful for like a guy who seems to have a lived experience. He's like, yeah, she's great. No, I'm not gonna tell you where she is. I really like her. I like being her agent. You're like, yay, a person. Do you know what I think?

• 1:22:56David Sims?

  Part of the difference. Actors in the American place, obviously.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  American place is great.

• 1:23:01David Sims?

  Barry Primus.

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, Liza, but you know.

• 1:23:04David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:23:04Speaker 02

  Holding down the band.

• 1:23:05Griffin Newman?

  If, if we're looking at the, the Lewin Davis, Jimmy Doyle spectrum, right? I think part of it is that like Jimmy Doyle is such a know it all. He's so convinced that he has everything figured out, that he's the most talented guy. And the two things that trigger him more than anything are if anyone upstages him. And if anyone dares suggest there's anything he could do to improve his act. Versus Lewin Davis kind of knows he's fucking up. He's frustrated at the world, but he's just like, I need something to make it all click into place for me. This guy is just like immovable.

• 1:23:44Speaker 02

  Right. Well, what do we do when we see like broken men in media? Like we can understand them if, or difficult men in media, I guess. Like if they're a little bit broken and we understand the wound, we can empathize. If they're super talented, we go, oh, they're so talented, it's a shame they're so.

• 1:24:00David Sims?

  Right. They're wasting this talent.

• 1:24:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And by being self-destructive or whatever, Jimmy Doyle has neither of these things. So because it takes forever for us to see his talent, which is considerable once it shows up. But by then we hate him so much and we never see the wound. We, he's kind of grifting everybody all the time.

• 1:24:18Griffin Newman?

  I, I just saw Manhunter last night. They were screening the, the new cut.

• 1:24:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:24Griffin Newman?

  Which adds in happy endings.

• 1:24:26Speaker 02

  Just adds in 40x.

• 1:24:28Griffin Newman?

  12 minutes of, of New York, New York. No, but there's, there's a line in that film where William Peterson is trying to pathologize Dollar Hyde. And it says like, it sounds like you feel bad for him. And he says something to the effect of like, I'm allowed to like empathize with the child while still hating the monster that child became. And this movie never really presents to you. Yes. And it's, it's not like you want some crazy backstory dump, but you need something.

• 1:25:01David Sims?

  No, it's not like this movie is fixed if he's like, and by the way, my dad was a jerk.

• 1:25:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:25:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  I'm an incredibly lonely taxi driver.

• 1:25:09Speaker 03

  It's so humorless, too.

• 1:25:11Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:25:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's not funny at all.

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  Well, he's funny in this era. This is a funny De Niro era.

• 1:25:18David Sims?

  I think so much of the scene in The Irishman where he's mad that Stephen Graham's wearing shorts, which is one of the like greatest scenes Scorsese ever.

• 1:25:24Griffin Newman?

  A little late.

• 1:25:25David Sims?

  And.

• 1:25:26Griffin Newman?

  Got to account for traffic.

• 1:25:27David Sims?

  And like, I was like, now there's a, a, a meeting that goes wrong that takes too long in a Scorsese movie that I could watch on YouTube once a day, right? Just like De Niro giving this guy shit, you know, you're right, like, and like, why are all those scenes in this movie just kind of like painful and like, kind of just, you're just sort of like waiting for them to be over. And it's because they're not very funny.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  I also think there's a contrast between the care Scorsese is taking to make a beautiful movie and the nothing of thought that has gone into what they're actually.

• 1:25:59David Sims?

  It's all behind them. All the work has, is the sets.

• 1:26:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and actually, this is a good transition. I did get an email from the, the, the homie, John Kander. I asked him, New York, New York memories, like anything you have. Yeah. I asked him about the movie.

• 1:26:13David Sims?

  If it'd be fun if he was like, you know, Broadway, Battery Park, he's just telling you.

• 1:26:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. But I will, you know.

• 1:26:19David Sims?

  Got a subway.

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  Kander served in World War II. He is one, he'd be one of those guys at that party, one of those hundreds of guys at that party. And he said, uh, it was not a terrible experience. In fact, it provided one day of the most glamorous Hollywood experience I've ever had. I had never visited or worked on a huge Hollywood soundstage before and Scorsese had reinvented 1945 inside this great big building filled with people, lots of soldiers in uniform and the proper haircut, a big band with the visual double of Tommy Dorsey leading it. Everything felt exactly like that year. I was in the service then. I walked inside that building and was kind of overwhelmed. It was real time travel. Then I walked out of the main door and onto Sandy Road where it was 55 years later. And I jumped back into 1945 and then jumped back into the dusty present.

• 1:27:04Speaker 02

  It was bizarre, thrilling and confusing. Um.

• 1:27:09David Sims?

  He served in Korea as well. Although I think he didn't actually go maybe into like the battlefield or whatever, but he was on active duty. Yes.

• 1:27:17Speaker 02

  But he, I mean, like, again, a testament to how much care is in every frame of the look of the movie. And then they just said, we'll figure out how they fall in love later.

• 1:27:27Griffin Newman?

  Well, this, this is the other thing. Like, it's not just that Scorsese was given too much rope, but at this moment, De Niro is the new Brando. De Niro is the guy, right?

• 1:27:38David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:27:38Griffin Newman?

  And there has to be this feeling of like, whatever he's doing is gonna be compelling. And even if you're sitting there watching it, you know, on the set, you're like, I bet it edits together. This guy can make anything.

• 1:27:51David Sims?

  Well, three editors tried.

• 1:27:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:53David Sims?

  I mean, he is compelling because he is De Niro. He's compelling, I guess.

• 1:27:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:57David Sims?

  It's not my favorite De Niro performance.

• 1:27:59Griffin Newman?

  You just want to get away from this dude.

• 1:28:01David Sims?

  Take. Yes.

• 1:28:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That's the problem is he feels so unfixable.

• 1:28:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:07Speaker 02

  And, and unformed by De Niro standards, too.

• 1:28:10David Sims?

  I think so. Apart from he really plays that saxophone.

• 1:28:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Except when he's playing sax, there's Jimmy Twill.

• 1:28:18Griffin Newman?

  But like, part of the other extended sequence that gets lifted for the European cut of the movie, uh, is the, uh, it's the, the fight in the red room and all of that. But also when they start writing the song together was one of the things they cut out at one point.

• 1:28:34David Sims?

  Where he's like noting her lyrics or whatever. He's like.

• 1:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Beyond the fact that it's exciting because you're starting to hear the familiar strains and it's really exciting to watch today because you're like, oh, they're in the process of writing one of the most immortal songs ever. It is the best encapsulation of their dynamic within one scene.

• 1:28:54David Sims?

  Yeah. Another scene that's very, very painful and tough is their wedding where they like throw, they like break the window of a justice to the peace.

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  That's maybe the only moment that made me laugh.

• 1:29:04David Sims?

  It's funny because it's insane.

• 1:29:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:07David Sims?

  And then he's like, yeah, can you guys married? And then Liza's like, takes him aside. He's like, wait, is that the proposal to me? Is this, is this it? This is the conversation about us getting married? Uh, but it's a hard scene, obviously. And then like, eventually we just build to him berating her so insanely in a cab that she goes into labor. And then he's like, okay, okay, okay, okay. Takes her to a hospital and is like, by the way, not raising a kid.

• 1:29:32Griffin Newman?

  I couldn't be more out.

• 1:29:33David Sims?

  Which, fair. He knows himself, I guess, enough to be like, yeah, no, not gonna be a present father. And then she becomes famous because of a song, because of, uh, but the world goes around. I'm, I'm telling you the plot of the movie as like, as much as I can.

• 1:29:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I mean, I, it, it gets incredibly repetitive while looking really, really beautiful. And you just watch as she clearly knows what she's doing, but doesn't have the confidence to speak for herself. He is so overpowering and so repugnant that, uh, it feels like anyone who kind of sniffs around them is scared off. And people usually try to leave with some parting words of like, hey, lady, you know what you should do. But it takes a while for anyone to actually kind of break through. Um, when she tells him that she's pregnant, he does not seem very excited. He doesn't know how to process it. He like runs away and then acts like he's doing a bit of him rewinding it, which is

• 1:30:27Griffin Newman?

  a little bit charming. It's the closest he comes to being like funny to her in the movie. But then I think the movie comes alive at the scene in the delivery room where it's like, he starts, she names the kid Jimmy Junior. The kid is later in the movie played by Erwin Winkler's son.

• 1:30:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:30:46Griffin Newman?

  Which is also fascinating. Um.

• 1:30:49David Sims?

  Adam Winkler, yes.

• 1:30:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But he starts the scene getting angry at her for not letting him weigh in on the name of the kid.

• 1:30:57Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, there's no world in which he is a halfway decent human.

• 1:31:01Griffin Newman?

  Totally. It's, it's like such asshole shit and it's such a bad argument. And then he basically gives it up that he doesn't really care and he was looking for a reason to be angry. He basically starts breaking down. It's like his only moment of vulnerability in the movie up until that point where he doesn't respond to something with escalating anger. He like just stops. And even when he's chewing her out for naming the kid without him, after him.

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  After him.

• 1:31:30Griffin Newman?

  He's doing it in a very quiet, intense way, which is a little interesting. And you speaking about him not being as funny as he usually is in this movie, David, I think a lot of funny De Niro, like the short scene in Irishman, is the slow burn, is the, he's starting so small.

• 1:31:45David Sims?

  He's getting a little irritated.

• 1:31:46Griffin Newman?

  And so quiet.

• 1:31:47David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:47Griffin Newman?

  Right. And you're waiting for it to pop.

• 1:31:49David Sims?

  Explosive right away.

• 1:31:50Griffin Newman?

  Beginning to end.

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  I have nipples, Greg.

• 1:31:53Griffin Newman?

  You want him to bring up that he has nipples and then escalate to.

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  Can you milk me?

• 1:31:58Griffin Newman?

  Right. These things have to come in two separate beats. I, I think that scene is really fascinating because he basically starts admitting, I know I can't do this. I know I'm not gonna raise this kid. I was trying to come up with an argument to get into a fight to get you to kick me out. Is like what he lacks the emotional intelligence to actually say. And you watch this guy just like completely crumble and tap out.

• 1:32:23Speaker 03

  Now, when she goes back to New York, he stays on the road. They get a replacement singer. Do they have an affair together?

• 1:32:30Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:32:31Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:32:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's got a one night with Mary Kay Place.

• 1:32:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. He's a bad guy.

• 1:32:35Griffin Newman?

  He's a bad guy.

• 1:32:35Speaker 03

  He's not the best.

• 1:32:36Speaker 02

  There's also, there's also a scene where he kind of has a lingering look with the young woman in the Harlem club who sings Honey Suckle Rose, who like, cut it if I'm wrong, but I think was De Niro's wife at the time.

• 1:32:48David Sims?

  Correct. A hundred percent. Yes.

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  Yes. Um, so there's all like, yeah, like they, they, they kind of give each other a look. She goes, family night, huh? So I was like, oh, so you fucked her too? Like.

• 1:32:58David Sims?

  Yeah. I think that's sort of the, she's in Taxi Driver as well, Diane Abbott. And like, is that where they met? I can't remember.

• 1:33:04Speaker 03

  I believe so. I feel like we talked about it.

• 1:33:06David Sims?

  But I can't, but you know, but yes. So she's basically in this, but it's like beyond a cameo because she like belts a number beautifully.

• 1:33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sounds great on Honey Suckle Rose.

• 1:33:14Griffin Newman?

  Which also.

• 1:33:14Speaker 02

  But it's like, there's, all are punished. Like anyone in his orbit. Right. He's either gotten in a fight with or had sex with.

• 1:33:21Griffin Newman?

  And it's also, no, David.

• 1:33:22David Sims?

  No. And, and his peak is that he's gonna own a club, like, which does feel like what Jimmy's gonna be capable of. Like she becomes a movie star or whatever. Like she becomes like a, you see a record selling singer, you know, right? Like, but he's gonna be like a good musician who owns a club.

• 1:33:37Griffin Newman?

  But they.

• 1:33:37David Sims?

  Chicken on a stick.

• 1:33:38Griffin Newman?

  They each have, they each have one half of a song.

• 1:33:42David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:33:43Griffin Newman?

  Right? She.

• 1:33:44David Sims?

  She's got New York and he's got New York.

• 1:33:46Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:33:47David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 1:33:47Griffin Newman?

  Right. They thought the city's so nice, you name it one.

• 1:33:51Speaker 03

  He is from.

• 1:33:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Um, no, he, he comes up with the riff.

• 1:33:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55Griffin Newman?

  And then she tries to write these lyrics that he's really dismissive of.

• 1:34:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's bagging on shoes.

• 1:34:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:34:03David Sims?

  That's the vibe.

• 1:34:03Griffin Newman?

  It's enough to make him like a one hit wonder, which he then takes all the way to owning a club and being a minor celebrity, which is all, I think this guy really cared about. But, um, it's, it's a structural issue in the movie where we're saying like, Mary Kay Place has a really good number, right? Diane Abbott has a really good number. Liza like lacks many numbers until the end because.

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  Has all the numbers. Yeah.

• 1:34:26Griffin Newman?

  But part of the conceit of the movie is, well, she's sort of a little trepidatious. She was sort of like a lower tier USO girl. It takes a lot for her to come into her power. So the movie's depriving us of Liza doing the Liza thing.

• 1:34:41David Sims?

  It does kind of yada yada that part.

• 1:34:43Griffin Newman?

  For a long time.

• 1:34:44David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:45David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:45Griffin Newman?

  When you get it, ultimately.

• 1:34:46David Sims?

  It rocks.

• 1:34:47Griffin Newman?

  Super satisfying.

• 1:34:48Speaker 02

  There is one other number, which is the, the Harlem number where De Niro's playing with Clarence Clemons's character and they just fucking blow. And it's pure jazz, like crazy hot jazz. And it's just, no one's singing. It's just great. And he shoots the shit out of it.

• 1:35:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:05Speaker 02

  And it's like, oh, if Jimmy could just keep the fucking saxophone in his mouth, the rest of the movie would be golden.

• 1:35:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. There's like an alternate like human centipede version of this movie where they send him to a surgeon.

• 1:35:16David Sims?

  He's glued to the saxophone at all times.

• 1:35:19Griffin Newman?

  And then she's like, yeah, we, we make our marriage work.

• 1:35:21David Sims?

  Yeah, it's fine. He's, he's one two, one two for yes. Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, uh, and I remember the show had like the Harlem, like concert.

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35:33David Sims?

  Like, you know, the.

• 1:35:34Speaker 02

  Took that guy.

• 1:35:34David Sims?

  And there was like the San Juan Club or like you were trying to incorporate, right? Like all of New York's myriad musical movements in this way that made sense. Uh, and this movie is.

• 1:35:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does. Like, that, that number's the only kind of head nod towards that direction.

• 1:35:49David Sims?

  Right. This movie's a more, well, I don't know what, I mean. I don't know what I don't want to sound dismissive of it.

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  You know.

• 1:35:58David Sims?

  It's a fascinating film and it looks incredible. And there are parts of it that really sing that you guys are talking, you know, that are noting. And if it wasn't such a punishing first half, I think the second half could be like, you know, whatever, like, there's probably a better version of this movie, not with more stuff, though.

• 1:36:17Speaker 02

  No, no, less stuff.

• 1:36:18David Sims?

  And yet the thing they took out was the wrong thing, but you know.

• 1:36:21Speaker 02

  It's such an anxiety dream of like, man, we've got everything right. And the one thing we don't like, it's like, it's like the nightmare of you go to school and you have not studied this test. Like, yeah, it's the, it's, okay, it's, it's the day to shoot. Did you write the scenes where they fall in love?

• 1:36:39Griffin Newman?

  But, but you do hear about movies where it's like, do you know they shot a completely different version? Yeah, there's a whole hour they cut out that was supposed to be the opening. Or like this character just got removed entirely. Like, it feels like it needed like major, major surgical intervention, but I think they were so.

• 1:36:57David Sims?

  They just had to start making it is what happened. And then they made it.

• 1:37:00Griffin Newman?

  Even in post.

• 1:37:00David Sims?

  No, sure.

• 1:37:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:02David Sims?

  And I think they even did some reshoots like based on, you know, what they were cutting together, but not much. I mean, this movie has an ace in the hole, which is that the last thing that's going to happen is Liza Minnelli is going to sing New York, New York.

• 1:37:15Speaker 02

  And it works. Theme from New York, New York.

• 1:37:16Griffin Newman?

  The theme from New York, New York.

• 1:37:18David Sims?

  Theme from New York.

• 1:37:18Speaker 02

  The movie you are watching.

• 1:37:20David Sims?

  Yes. It'd be funny if every time Sinatra tried to be like, anyway, this is a little song called Theme from New York. And you had to say it for legal purposes.

• 1:37:27Speaker 02

  A number one.

• 1:37:28David Sims?

  Theme from New York, comma, New York. Uh, and it does send you out of the theater satisfied at least from that.

• 1:37:41Griffin Newman?

  Beyond that, she follows that up by standing him up and standing up for herself.

• 1:37:46David Sims?

  Yes, you're at least like Jimmy is not triumphant.

• 1:37:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:49David Sims?

  That is true.

• 1:37:50Griffin Newman?

  Loses.

• 1:37:51David Sims?

  The evil has been defeated.

• 1:37:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:37:53David Sims?

  Sort of.

• 1:37:54Speaker 02

  Even when she sings that triumphant rendition, he's like, you do it different than I do it.

• 1:37:58Griffin Newman?

  It's incredible.

• 1:38:00Speaker 02

  It's like he's noting her after he, it was Liza Minnelli singing New York, New York.

• 1:38:05Griffin Newman?

  He's got like three swipes.

• 1:38:06Speaker 02

  You should have added an A number one.

• 1:38:09David Sims?

  I mean, Variety's review was like, Minnelli tears into the title song and it's a wowzer. You know, like, that was, the good reviews were mostly like, I loved it when she sang. She's great at that.

• 1:38:21Griffin Newman?

  They reviewed it like Mission Impossible, uh, Final Reckoning, where they're like, well, at the end, he does climb on a plane. It takes two hours to get there, but there's like three swipes he has at her in that final scene where he, he calls the movie sappy endings. And she goes, happy endings. And he goes, yeah, yeah, right. Uh, he says, uh, you sung it differently. And there's one other one, but, but it's like incredible where he just, he cannot give her an inch. He cannot let anyone have anything on him.

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  Oh, he says, I'm proud of you in a way.

• 1:38:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yes.

• 1:38:55Speaker 02

  In a way, I'm proud of you.

• 1:38:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. You know what? You're going to find this funny. I'm almost proud of you.

• 1:39:01David Sims?

  Yeah. The film cost $9 million, which was a lot for them. It grossed 16. So it didn't even like flop in the terms of like, it couldn't, you know, made its budget back, but obviously the expectations for it were high and critics didn't like it. Kambi says it runs out of steam and calls it a film buff essay on pop film form, you know, like, but you know, like he, they're sort of calling it out as kind of like, we get that you like old movies, but that doesn't mean you made a good one. Ebert gives it three stars, which for Ebert is like a pan, like, you know, because Ebert loves Scorsese so much and it's just kind of like, never really pulls itself together. Zero Academy Award nominations, which is bananas because it has the song Theme from New York, New York.

• 1:39:46Griffin Newman?

  Five banger Cantor Neb song.

• 1:39:48David Sims?

  Here are the nominees for best original song. And I, I wondered if, uh, you know, the homie John Kander was going to complain about this, but I guess he, you know, he's,

• 1:39:56Speaker 02

  No, he had nothing but delightful things to say. He's a delight.

• 1:39:59David Sims?

  Candle on the Water from Pete's Dragon.

• 1:40:01Griffin Newman?

  That is quite a good song.

• 1:40:02David Sims?

  A lovely song from Pete's Dragon.

• 1:40:04Griffin Newman?

  Lynn, Candle on the Water thoughts?

• 1:40:05Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:40:06Griffin Newman?

  I, I, okay, okay. I'm not going to fight you.

• 1:40:08Speaker 02

  I honestly don't remember Pete's Dragon. That's more my sister's.

• 1:40:11David Sims?

  I can't say I remember the, the movie or the song very well.

• 1:40:14Griffin Newman?

  I think the song is better than the film.

• 1:40:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:40:16Griffin Newman?

  And Bunny Prince Billy did a cover for the David Lowery version. That's very good as well.

• 1:40:20David Sims?

  My pick for winner from these five, which unbelievably does not win. Nobody does it better from The Spy Who Loved Me, which is a great James Bond song.

• 1:40:27Griffin Newman?

  A song that rocks and rolls.

• 1:40:28David Sims?

  Right. Like, nothing wrong with that one. Like, if you told me that beat New York, New York, I would be like, well, it's not as good, but I get it. That was a, you know, Carly Simon, obviously.

• 1:40:36Griffin Newman?

  But it didn't win.

• 1:40:37David Sims?

  Did not win. No. You've also got The Slipper and the Rose Waltz, He Danced With Me, She Danced With Me from The Slipper and the Rose, The Story of Cinderella.

• 1:40:44Speaker 02

  That must've had a bang and interpretive dance at the end of that year.

• 1:40:46David Sims?

  I'm sure no one knows what that is, but it's a British musical from the seventies.

• 1:40:50Speaker 02

  Up there with Crash.

• 1:40:51David Sims?

  Yes. Yeah. Someone's waiting for you from The Rescuers, the Disney Mouse movie.

• 1:40:55Griffin Newman?

  Don't care for that song.

• 1:40:56David Sims?

  I don't remember that song.

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  I don't either. I only remember Down Under. I'm an eighties child.

• 1:41:00David Sims?

  Absolutely. Agreed. Better movie.

• 1:41:02Speaker 02

  Didn't have a song, I don't think.

• 1:41:03David Sims?

  Probably. I might've slipped in some didgeridoo at the end or something. Right? Like, I don't know, right? Did they do something? Yes.

• 1:41:10Griffin Newman?

  They must have.

• 1:41:11David Sims?

  And the winner was You Light Up My Life.

• 1:41:14Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:41:15David Sims?

  Which, you know.

• 1:41:16Griffin Newman?

  But that's an infamous one.

• 1:41:17Speaker 02

  That, yeah, no, no, that's one where you put it on and my parents looking at each other and go, remember? And like get like kissy.

• 1:41:24David Sims?

  Which of course is from the Joseph Brooks, uh, kind of like weepy, uh, You Light Up My Life starring, uh, D. Tom Joseph.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  If you want to like sort of light candles for my parents and say, they say, leave us alone, put on like Through the Years, Kenny Rogers, You Light Up My Life. Those are like the seventies jam.

• 1:41:41Griffin Newman?

  That is a movie that was a mega hit based on the song, basically. The song propelled it to cultural dominance.

• 1:41:48David Sims?

  Yeah. I still think there's room, hot take for Theme from New York, New York.

• 1:41:53Griffin Newman?

  I think maybe.

• 1:41:54David Sims?

  Along with some of the other songs they wrote for this movie. Uh, right? I mean, don't you agree? Like, I mean, World Goes Round is a great song.

• 1:42:03Griffin Newman?

  Also, in an objective world, this movie like deserves a cinematography nomination, an art direction nomination.

• 1:42:10David Sims?

  Art direction and stuff. I mean, I think obviously that this probably just like the Academy Awards are like.

• 1:42:17Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's mouth.

• 1:42:18David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, well, no, that was a flop. So we'll just ignore it. I mean, I'm like, that is the Star Wars year, obviously. So that's winning things like production design. You've got Close Encounters that year. That's a big one. Can't deny that.

• 1:42:31Griffin Newman?

  I mean, a funny comparison point is obviously Annie Hall wins best picture this year and Annie Hall is a movie where they cut like 45 minutes out of it because it originally had like a murder plot and things that they were like, we conceived this and it doesn't work. So cut it down to the only stuff that is good.

• 1:42:49David Sims?

  Yes. And that worked.

• 1:42:50Griffin Newman?

  What New York, New York should have done.

• 1:42:52David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:42:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:53David Sims?

  Um, Scorsese basically says like, maybe if I was a European director, I could have gotten away with that movie, but I was promising them something that I couldn't deliver, which was kind of this throwbacky musical, right? This kind of magic thing. Uh, he's like, it was funny that we re-released in 81 and got better reviews for basically the same movie, although they had put back in the best number. But, uh, a week after they opened, he, he, Scorsese thinks Star Wars opened after them. It actually opened before. He doesn't really remember. He was high on coke. I mean, sorry. And he's just like, we just look so old fashioned compared to Star Wars. Like Star Wars is just so crazy and new. And we're like, ba, ba, ba, you know, like we got these old sets and every, and everyone's just like, you're, this ain't it.

• 1:43:37Griffin Newman?

  It's why the panicked last minute cuts happened is because they saw Star Wars in theaters and they were like, we suddenly look fucking ancient. We know this isn't going to fly with people.

• 1:43:47David Sims?

  Guess who did love it? Jean-Luc Godard.

• 1:43:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:43:49David Sims?

  Comes over for lunch and is like, I loved, you know, what pieces of shit those characters were. Essentially, I love that it was about jealousy and envy and all that stuff. And again, I think Marty is not like, oh, he's right. I'm brilliant. He's more like, right, that, there's a version of this kind of thing that could work in the, in the hands of that kind of a director. But I was, yeah, I was biting off more. I could chew. He doesn't like this movie. He's like, I still don't like it. In a way, I love it. In a way, I can see there's, there's some truth to it, but like, he's like, I don't, you know, he doesn't think fondly of New York.

• 1:44:22Griffin Newman?

  I mean, it's just an idea in so many ways.

• 1:44:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:44:25Speaker 02

  And both professionally and personally, like he's also going through the worst stuff.

• 1:44:30Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:44:30Speaker 02

  And it's every, it's not like the movie's about a different thing than the things he's going through. It's.

• 1:44:37Griffin Newman?

  I, I think the other times he ended up getting attacked, it was for things he cared about more, you know?

• 1:44:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:45Griffin Newman?

  Like, he does not discuss the experience of living through Last Temptation of Christ as easy.

• 1:44:50David Sims?

  No.

• 1:44:50Griffin Newman?

  But it was like.

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  But he's like, this is the movie I tried to make.

• 1:44:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. Right. I, I knew I needed to make this. I think this was like, this would be a fun idea for a movie, right?

• 1:45:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:45:00Griffin Newman?

  And then everything torpedoed.

• 1:45:02David Sims?

  Uh, it does get four Golden Globe nominations, uh, for, you know, musical or comedy for De Niro and Liza.

• 1:45:08Griffin Newman?

  And for song?

• 1:45:09David Sims?

  And for song, losing again to You Light Up My Life.

• 1:45:12Griffin Newman?

  It was unstoppable.

• 1:45:13Speaker 02

  Unstoppable.

• 1:45:13David Sims?

  Uh, Liza loses to Diane Keaton. Uh, yeah.

• 1:45:17Speaker 02

  La di da, la di da.

• 1:45:18David Sims?

  And, uh, and De Niro loses to, uh, Richard Dreyfuss, right? Who won the, yeah.

• 1:45:24Griffin Newman?

  Oh, for Goodbye Girl.

• 1:45:25David Sims?

  Okay. Yeah. So anyway.

• 1:45:37David Sims?

  The box office game, Griffin, if you would like to hear about it. Okay. Number one at the box office is not Star Wars. That is number two. Just to give away.

• 1:45:47Griffin Newman?

  What month is it?

• 1:45:48David Sims?

  This is basically 4th of July weekend, 1977.

• 1:45:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:45:54David Sims?

  Which like, what the fuck, by the way, opening this in the middle of summer?

• 1:45:57Griffin Newman?

  Insane.

• 1:45:58David Sims?

  It doesn't seem like a good idea.

• 1:45:59Griffin Newman?

  So Star Wars obviously opens May 22nd.

• 1:46:01David Sims?

  Yeah. So Star Wars has been out for a good six weeks and I think is, is doing okay business.

• 1:46:06Griffin Newman?

  It will return to number one. This is not its final.

• 1:46:09David Sims?

  Indeed, it returns to number one the very next week, but number one this week is, you know, Jaws?

• 1:46:17Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 1:46:17David Sims?

  What else has that guy written? Let's make anything that guy has fucking written right now into a movie. Oh my God.

• 1:46:23Griffin Newman?

  It's not Orca, is it?

• 1:46:24David Sims?

  No. Orca wasn't even a Benchley novel.

• 1:46:26Griffin Newman?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:46:27David Sims?

  Orca was just like, what's another kind of fish that bites you?

• 1:46:30Griffin Newman?

  Is it about a creature?

• 1:46:31David Sims?

  Yeah, I think it's about the water.

• 1:46:33Griffin Newman?

  It's about the water. Is it the deep?

• 1:46:35David Sims?

  The deep.

• 1:46:36Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 1:46:36David Sims?

  It is the Peter Yates film, The Deep, starring Robert Shaw. You know him from Jaws?

• 1:46:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:41David Sims?

  A young Nick Nolte.

• 1:46:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:43David Sims?

  Jacqueline Bisset.

• 1:46:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:46:45David Sims?

  I've never seen it.

• 1:46:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:46:46David Sims?

  Uh, but it's like a scuba diving movie, I think.

• 1:46:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes, they go quite deep.

• 1:46:51David Sims?

  Good for them. Louis Gossett Jr. is there? Eli Wallach? I mean, this sounds pretty fun.

• 1:46:56Griffin Newman?

  There used to be a kind of good formula.

• 1:46:58David Sims?

  Yeah, it's just so funny to me that they're just like Jaws hit and they're like, you there? It's like, what else is in that bookshelf?

• 1:47:04Griffin Newman?

  But look, there was, there was like a Crichton feeding frenzy after Jurassic. Sometimes this happens. Yeah, we're, we're in the Colleen Hoover sense right now.

• 1:47:12David Sims?

  All right. So number two is Star Wars. You're a fan?

• 1:47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:15David Sims?

  You like Star Wars?

• 1:47:15Speaker 02

  Not a fan. Seen it.

• 1:47:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:17David Sims?

  Um, you're, you're.

• 1:47:18Speaker 02

  My youngest has just done the original trilogy.

• 1:47:21Griffin Newman?

  How'd that go over?

• 1:47:22Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:47:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  And you just. Now he knows what everyone's talking about.

• 1:47:25David Sims?

  And you started.

• 1:47:25Griffin Newman?

  He understands English.

• 1:47:26Speaker 02

  Started four, five, six.

• 1:47:27David Sims?

  You were like, we're doing four, five, six.

• 1:47:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:47:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. His brother's seen everything.

• 1:47:31David Sims?

  Okay, right.

• 1:47:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Who's his favorite character?

• 1:47:34David Sims?

  Was he scared? I mean, you're, no, you're, the younger is like.

• 1:47:37Speaker 02

  No, and, and like, I remember, I have video of my oldest, like, seeing the twist of like, I am your father. Uh, and it's like, what? How is that robot his father? Like, he just looked really confused.

• 1:47:48Griffin Newman?

  He rejected it.

• 1:47:49Speaker 02

  He rejected it, whereas Frankie was like, I knew this.

• 1:47:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:52Speaker 02

  Like, there are kids books about Darth Vader.

• 1:47:54David Sims?

  They're little golden books, basically.

• 1:47:57Speaker 02

  There were no surprises for him. It's probably Luke. Luke's probably the favorite. Luke's pretty great.

• 1:48:02David Sims?

  Luke's pretty great. Who's your favorite?

• 1:48:05Speaker 02

  Oh. I don't know. I, I do like the snatches of occasional Spanish you hear Jabba the Hutt say, like una puta solo. Uh, in Return of the Jedi, which is like a whore solo. I'm partial to Hatties. I did get to write a song in Hatties for episode seven.

• 1:48:22Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 1:48:23David Sims?

  That's right. I, I mean, I remember the song you wrote. I guess I never thought about that it was in Hatties, but right.

• 1:48:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm partial to the Spanish adjacent that is Hatties.

• 1:48:31David Sims?

  I remember.

• 1:48:31Speaker 02

  Una puta solo.

• 1:48:33David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah. I like that play. What's her, Maz Kanata?

• 1:48:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:37David Sims?

  What's she up to?

• 1:48:37Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. We gotta get her back in movies.

• 1:48:39David Sims?

  Yeah, where's Maz?

• 1:48:40Griffin Newman?

  I was thinking about her recently, actually.

• 1:48:42David Sims?

  She's, she, remember how she has a crush on Chewbacca?

• 1:48:45Griffin Newman?

  She loves him.

• 1:48:46David Sims?

  Remember when we were all just kind of like, yay, Star Wars is back. And then we're all like sick of it. Let's get it back. Let's, come on.

• 1:48:51Griffin Newman?

  It's all, everyone forgets how triumphant it felt when Force Awakens came out. I'm not claiming that everyone in the world loved that movie, but there was a general consensus like.

• 1:49:01Speaker 02

  It felt great.

• 1:49:01David Sims?

  It's nice.

• 1:49:02Griffin Newman?

  It's safe again.

• 1:49:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:03Griffin Newman?

  Star Wars is back where it belongs.

• 1:49:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:07Griffin Newman?

  Maz Kanata has really tiny eyes.

• 1:49:08David Sims?

  And then she like zooms in with them.

• 1:49:10Griffin Newman?

  Her goggles are huge.

• 1:49:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:11Griffin Newman?

  They, they magnify them. She goes click, click, click. And she opens up a case and says, we'll talk about this later.

• 1:49:18David Sims?

  Yeah, there's a lot of that in Force Awakens. They're like, don't worry, we'll get to that.

• 1:49:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, we'll get to that.

• 1:49:22David Sims?

  Hey, you're gonna get, um, number four at the box office is not a movie I know, although I know the title, so I'm gonna look it up. Uh, it is, I'm gonna guess it's a thriller. It's based on a novel. Uh, okay, this is calling it a drama. Okay.

• 1:49:38Griffin Newman?

  David feels defeated by this.

• 1:49:40David Sims?

  Okay, all right. This film is best known as being part of a package deal 20th century Fox's American distributors arranged to ensure uh, a film, the, the company had little confidence in a little film called Star Wars would also be exhibited. So these film, Star Wars and this film were released together. This film was a flop. It got poor reviews. It was seen as long and bloated. Uh, it's based on a novel. It stars Susan, a young Susan Sarandon, uh, the French actress, uh, Marie-France Pissier.

• 1:50:09Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 1:50:10David Sims?

  I don't know, man.

• 1:50:11Griffin Newman?

  I probably will recognize this title because of that Star Wars trivia. I feel like I remember that story.

• 1:50:16David Sims?

  It is called The Other Side of Midnight.

• 1:50:18Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:50:19David Sims?

  Mm-hmm. I don't know.

• 1:50:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:21David Sims?

  It says it's a romance of passion and power.

• 1:50:23Griffin Newman?

  Isn't it funny to like, consider that there are movies like that, that people work just as hard on as the greatest films ever made? And it only exists as a footnote of, hey, you know, they bundled this flop with Star Wars? Like, that's that movie's entire legacy now.

• 1:50:36David Sims?

  That is true. Number five.

• 1:50:40Griffin Newman?

  What, what is a legacy? And that's a Disney legend asking that question.

• 1:50:44David Sims?

  Number five is another film that I feel like for a long time was famous for coming out against Star Wars and flopping. It is a masterpiece. It's a great movie.

• 1:50:52Griffin Newman?

  Sorcerer.

• 1:50:53David Sims?

  It is William Friedkin's Sorcerer.

• 1:50:54Griffin Newman?

  Bam, bam, bam.

• 1:50:56David Sims?

  Right? Like famously got its lunch eaten by Chewbacca and company at the time.

• 1:51:01Griffin Newman?

  Is Heaven's Gate?

• 1:51:03David Sims?

  Eighty, uh, sorry, 78, maybe. Let me look it up. Uh, no, even, no, even later. Eighty, nineteen eighty. Yes. That's the end.

• 1:51:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:10David Sims?

  That's the like, pack it up, boys.

• 1:51:12Griffin Newman?

  It's wild to have Sorcerer and New York, New York at the same time, because that's like two strikes new Hollywood.

• 1:51:16David Sims?

  But De Niro's in this in 77. In 78, his comeback or whatever is Deer Hunter.

• 1:51:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:21David Sims?

  And then of course, two years later, chimino fucks it up with Heaven's Gate.

• 1:51:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:25David Sims?

  Uh, your other, your rest, A Bridge Too Far, which is another kind of like bad movie that was like a giant, you know what I mean? Like another movie that Star Wars kind of showed up. It's like a Richard Attenborough movie. It's like three hours long. It's a giant war epic.

• 1:51:38Griffin Newman?

  That's the one that has every single actor in it.

• 1:51:41David Sims?

  Connery, Kane, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, like, you know? And what's it about? It's like, the war! We had to, you know, like, we had to do the war.

• 1:51:51Griffin Newman?

  We had to do the war.

• 1:51:52David Sims?

  I don't know what it's about.

• 1:51:52Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is the thing.

• 1:51:53David Sims?

  And William Goldman writes, he wrote it and he writes, you know, he, he roasts it in one of his books, but a famous sort of flop.

• 1:51:59Griffin Newman?

  The cream really rises to the top in the seventies and what we remember and not just the masterpieces, but even the kind of schlocky stuff like The Deep. You know, when we got the disaster movie, right? And stuff like that. It is fascinating to do these seventies top 10 lists, or even when you and I have been doing like seventies Letterboxd lists. And you're just like, and then the remaining 70% is nothing.

• 1:52:20David Sims?

  Well.

• 1:52:21Speaker 02

  Well, it's funny that like, my kids and all our kids will grow up like loving Airplane and not understanding that that was like an annual type of movie that came out in the seventies that they were spoofing. And we're just like, what a weird, funny movie it was.

• 1:52:36David Sims?

  Right. They don't get the joke, the, right, the parody, but they, the movie's funny, so they don't care.

• 1:52:41Griffin Newman?

  It's the magic of Airplane is Airplane works minus any context.

• 1:52:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:52:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:45David Sims?

  Uh, the rest of the list is Exorcist 2: The Heretic, another famous bomb of the year, John Borman's sequel to The Exorcist. The great Robert Altman film, Three Women, is opening this week at number eight.

• 1:52:55Griffin Newman?

  But that's another one where we're not gonna let people do this again.

• 1:52:58David Sims?

  No, a movie, of course, based on a dream that he had.

• 1:53:00Griffin Newman?

  Based on a dream by Robert Altman.

• 1:53:02David Sims?

  Uh, number nine is Annie Hall, which is a giant hit. Number 10, a disaster film starring George Segal, Roller Coaster.

• 1:53:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 1:53:10David Sims?

  Which was shown in Sense around the 4DX of its day. Where they would rumble your seats or whatever.

• 1:53:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:17David Sims?

  Uh, where, I don't know, something happens on a roller coaster? I actually.

• 1:53:21Griffin Newman?

  I think that just got announced on 4K. I think, I think, you know, Lurbur just.

• 1:53:25David Sims?

  Are we done with this?

• 1:53:26Griffin Newman?

  We're almost done. We're almost done with the discs.

• 1:53:29David Sims?

  George Segal.

• 1:53:30Griffin Newman?

  You're not a movie disc collector in a major way, are you?

• 1:53:33Speaker 02

  No, I, I, now I use movie disc to get like the gaps in what I can get.

• 1:53:38David Sims?

  Yeah, right. The stuff that's not available, like the New York, New York's of the world.

• 1:53:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, I, I had New York, New York back from when I was still collecting. And then I actually just bought Little Night Music, because that's like how Prince is only moving.

• 1:53:48Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:53:49Speaker 02

  And I've never seen it.

• 1:53:50David Sims?

  I've never seen it either.

• 1:53:51Griffin Newman?

  Sims and I are both so down bad with the sickness these days.

• 1:53:54David Sims?

  It's bad.

• 1:53:55Griffin Newman?

  It's bad. It's bad. We're in a group text. We're, we're texting each other stacks. What stack has arrived?

• 1:54:02David Sims?

  I'm trying to take it easy for now, because I got, you know, I got to back into baseball cards. That sort of consumed me for a while. There's only so many.

• 1:54:08Griffin Newman?

  You texting those stacks to people?

• 1:54:10David Sims?

  You wanna see my cards?

• 1:54:11Griffin Newman?

  Texting those tops?

• 1:54:12David Sims?

  Come over. Yeah, I'm getting some tops.

• 1:54:14Griffin Newman?

  Stacks of tops?

• 1:54:15David Sims?

  You know, come on. So that's the top 10. Uh, New York, New York. Yes, obviously it's a flop. Sorry, doesn't make a lot of money. And yet it endures partly because of the talent, partly because of the song, right?

• 1:54:31David Sims?

  I mean, it's not forgotten, but it's certainly one of Marty's least

• 1:54:36Griffin Newman?

  No, and it's

• 1:54:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's semi disowned.

• 1:54:38David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:54:38Griffin Newman?

  But it also, I think, stands as his most like interesting experiment because anything else you could frame as an experiment on his part ended up being proven right at some point and then became influential where it's no longer something that feels risky to have

• 1:54:56Speaker 02

  Babylon's got bits of New York, New York in it.

• 1:54:58Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:55:00Speaker 02

  I mean, La La Land, we already mentioned.

• 1:55:02David Sims?

  But I mean, this movie exists, and yet when you were brought in to help with the musical and were told, don't watch it. Number one, you were told, don't watch it. And two, you hadn't seen it. Cause you know, people haven't seen this movie. Yes. It was like easy to tell you not to watch it. That's like, that's, that's where this movie's at. There's probably only like three other Marty movies you could say that of, like, that are kind of just in that sort of like, eh, nope. Like Kundun is there. No offense to Kundun, which is a good movie. But like, nobody's seen Kundun, right? Nobody's really seen Boxcar Birth. I mean, that doesn't even really

• 1:55:35Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I think this movie's really similar to Who's That Knocking at My Door, where it's like a movie fighting itself. And what I find interesting about it is that it's like there's a cancer in the body and the body is attacking it.

• 1:55:47David Sims?

  But Who's That Knocking is him with no money, trying to figure out how to be a filmmaker.

• 1:55:51Griffin Newman?

  Seventy-five minutes long.

• 1:55:51David Sims?

  This is him after Taxi Driver, a good filmmaker, learning his limits, I would say, or and learning his

• 1:55:59Speaker 02

  And impaired, and impaired by

• 1:56:01David Sims?

  And somewhat impaired to the point that, and we'll talk about it next week on Raging Bull, he crashes out and Bobby sort of rescues him with Raging Bull. Like, he's basically in the hospital and Bobby De Niro is like, I want to play Jake LaMotta. And Scorsese's like, I don't think I care about that, like boxing, you know? And he's just like, you're just gonna do it, you know?

• 1:56:18Griffin Newman?

  And the wildest thing is that Raging Bull is also Erwin Winkler.

• 1:56:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:23Griffin Newman?

  Who's willing to roll the dice on him again after this.

• 1:56:26David Sims?

  Well, he fucking made Taxi Driver, bitch.

• 1:56:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:29David Sims?

  He made a movie where it's like, what's the premise of this movie? It's like, a crazy guy shoots up, uh, like, a house and he's a cab driver and no one likes him. And you're like, that's the premise of the movie. Like, yeah, it's gonna make money. People are gonna see it. Like, uh, and, and, and so

• 1:56:44Griffin Newman?

  And get like many, many Academy Award nominations. I mean, that is his guarantor because it is, it's the perfect example of a movie where you go on paper, this should not work and it should not be a hit. And no one had really pulled it off before. And when you nail something like that, even if you step in shit a couple of times in a row, people step back and go like, there's something he gets that we can't get from anywhere else. There's something he knows how to do.

• 1:57:11Speaker 02

  In that way, New York, New York is the blank checkiest.

• 1:57:15Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:57:16David Sims?

  Definitely.

• 1:57:16Speaker 02

  Of all of these.

• 1:57:17David Sims?

  It is a huge blank check for him.

• 1:57:19Griffin Newman?

  And it's a failure

• 1:57:20Speaker 02

  The title of this podcast?

• 1:57:20David Sims?

  That's the title of this podcast. And I don't think there's anything until Gangs of New York that's quite as blank checky for him and quite as crazy in terms of scale. And that's another movie, a movie that I love that also goes over weird.

• 1:57:32Griffin Newman?

  But this is, this is the start of him being always on slight probationary status until the 2000s, when he becomes an elder statesman. 90s, he's having to like, I'll do one for them in order to get to make my edgy passion project and, and things are up and down.

• 1:57:50David Sims?

  Lynn, tell us about your edgy passion projects as we wrap this podcast.

• 1:57:54Speaker 02

  I'm edgy passion projects all the way down, boys. Uh, I'm doing a Broadway musical of the Warriors.

• 1:58:00David Sims?

  Yeah, that's gonna rock.

• 1:58:01Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna rule.

• 1:58:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I'm in, we're in rehearsals for the workshop of that right now. So that means we're basically like figuring out how to sing and fight at the same time.

• 1:58:10David Sims?

  Right. Will there be a subway train on stage at all times?

• 1:58:15Speaker 02

  There, you will see a subway car.

• 1:58:17David Sims?

  Thank God.

• 1:58:18Speaker 02

  I think that's a spoiler, but you will definitely see a subway car.

• 1:58:20Griffin Newman?

  And who is playing the subway car?

• 1:58:24David Sims?

  You're looking at a lot of D trains right now.

• 1:58:30Speaker 02

  So yeah, so we're, we're in the thick of that. And, uh, I am on, basically while I work on this, I'm on a six week hiatus from the edit of Octet, which I shot this spring with, uh, fellow blankie Rachel Zegler.

• 1:58:44David Sims?

  Rachel.

• 1:58:45Speaker 02

  Rachel Pedia, as known to her castmates.

• 1:58:48Griffin Newman?

  You were saying this, that she, she pulls out the facts.

• 1:58:50Speaker 02

  She's a, she's a freakish, uh, pop culture prodigy.

• 1:58:53David Sims?

  Frickin', you know, Philip Asu and Miranda Seyfried and right, it's her show, me Ralph, uh, Tramel.

• 1:59:00Speaker 02

  It's all killers. Tramel Telman, Shirley Ralph, Jonathan Groff.

• 1:59:03David Sims?

  Gaten Matarazzo.

• 1:59:04Speaker 02

  Gaten Matarazzo.

• 1:59:04David Sims?

  I saw in Sweeney Todd.

• 1:59:06Griffin Newman?

  You cite this performance a lot.

• 1:59:08David Sims?

  And I was like, damn.

• 1:59:09Speaker 02

  No, no, he's

• 1:59:10David Sims?

  Stranger Things kid's good.

• 1:59:11Speaker 02

  He's legit incredible. He's, these baby Gavroches and baby Billy Elliot's grow up and rule the world.

• 1:59:17David Sims?

  That's, this is true.

• 1:59:18Griffin Newman?

  The baby Billy Elliot pipeline. And, and baby Matildas too.

• 1:59:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:59:21Griffin Newman?

  Quite a few.

• 1:59:22David Sims?

  Who's a baby Matilda?

• 1:59:24Griffin Newman?

  I always forget her name, but from Hereditary.

• 1:59:26David Sims?

  Oh yeah, that's her, um, fuck, what is her name?

• 1:59:28Griffin Newman?

  Is Matilda.

• 1:59:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:59:29Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and Abigail's a Matilda. Remember, remember Abigail doing the ballet?

• 1:59:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:34Griffin Newman?

  Biting people's necks?

• 1:59:34David Sims?

  I like that movie. Sort of. Millie Shapiro.

• 1:59:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes. There we go. Yeah.

• 1:59:39David Sims?

  Yeah. And yes, of course, Tom Holland was a Billy Elliot, right?

• 1:59:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:42David Sims?

  Not an original Billy Elliot, but he was a Billy Elliot.

• 1:59:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was a British Billy Elliot. He was a UK Billy Elliot. Um, yeah, those are the two things I'm working on.

• 1:59:49David Sims?

  You got shit cooking.

• 1:59:50Speaker 02

  I got shit cooking.

• 1:59:51David Sims?

  Yeah, that's kind of exciting.

• 1:59:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59:53David Sims?

  I don't know. Thank you for coming on our show while you're busy doing all this stuff.

• 1:59:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's my pleasure. I'm, I'm always here when you got, you guys always have sort of the, like, the thing I cannot say no to.

• 2:00:03David Sims?

  Right. We like to A fun one.

• 2:00:05Griffin Newman?

  And we try to make our asks count.

• 2:00:06David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly. We're not gonna

• 2:00:08Speaker 02

  New York, New York, I have to do it.

• 2:00:09David Sims?

  We're not gonna just every so often be like, right, I don't know, what's a random, you know, loser, Amy Heckerling's loser, unless you do have teenage drip

• 2:00:17Speaker 02

  I do love Amy Heckerling.

• 2:00:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:18Griffin Newman?

  Heckling rules. Yeah.

• 2:00:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:00:21David Sims?

  Griffin, I don't know. We're done.

• 2:00:23Griffin Newman?

  Griffin, I don't know.

• 2:00:24David Sims?

  Is there anything else? I'm trying to

• 2:00:26Speaker 02

  Theme from Blank Check, Blank Check, take it away.

• 2:00:28Griffin Newman?

  Theme from Blank Check, Blank Check. We should, we should, we should.

• 2:00:32David Sims?

  Yeah, we could commission that, right?

• 2:00:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:35Speaker 02

  Blank Check. And that's when you, and that's when you start the Last Waltz podcast.

• 2:00:39Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:00:39Speaker 02

  Like right there when you said that.

• 2:00:42Griffin Newman?

  The machete cut, the proper listening order is pause right now, listen to our Last Waltz episode, then come back here as I do the outro. So rather than the outro, the opening of the episode will be the same. But rather than the outro being our usual instrumental version, I'm gonna do the outro and then theme from Blank Check, Blank Check is gonna play.

• 2:01:02David Sims?

  And you're on coke now.

• 2:01:04Griffin Newman?

  Yes. That's the other thing that's happened while you guys were listening to the Last Waltz episode.

• 2:01:10Speaker 02

  Developed a debilitating cocaine.

• 2:01:11Griffin Newman?

  I've been chipping cocaine left and right.

• 2:01:13David Sims?

  You're chipping. Oh, you're chipping.

• 2:01:15Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Tune in next week for Raging Bull, but Last Waltz will be happening on Patreon.

• 2:01:24David Sims?

  That's right. Sorry to last fall.

• 2:01:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:01:27David Sims?

  I mean, but also, we decided to talk about last fall.

• 2:01:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And as always, the making of New York, New York was normal.

• 2:02:26Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lin Montgomery and the great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly 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

• 2:03:08Speaker 03

  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.