The Color of Money with Chris Ryan

Famously, 1986's The Color of Money was a money gig for Scorsese after a bunch of big-budget bounces. But it sure as hell doesn't feel like one! Chris Ryan joins us to talk about the original legacyquel, which passed the torch from Newman to Cruise. We're also chatting snooker, Atlantic City, and Warren Zevon this week, so grab your balabushka and chalk. It's in the way that you use it. Get your tickets to the LIVESTREAM of Blank Check's sold out Bell House show on Fri, Oct 16 at 7:30pm ET! https://www.dynasty.tv/products/blank-check-live-10-16-26-4-30pmpt-7-30pmet Watch our Scorsese-spectacular live with your fellow Blankies or on VOD (for a limited time). Get Tickets to Blank Check Presents: The Garbage Pail Kids Movie on Sun, Oct 25, 7:30pm at the Refocus Film Festival in Iowa City https://tickets.icfilmscene.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=1026937~73f00f5b-a703-472f-975d-5ae901133780&epguid=8214219d-d011-48e5-9822-7cbf57941a30&mdy=10/25/2026& Get your hands on Minnesota Fats: Pool Legend. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Minnesota+Fats%3A+Pool+Legend&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2512315.m570.l1313 Check out Amsterdam Billiards. https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&pf=1&ai=DChsSEwi_7aHliPmWAxWcR38AHWAJK4cYACICCAEQARoCb2E&co=1&ase=2&gclid=CjwKCAjwwrPVBhA1EiwAv_YO-X_DFnamWZ8CrLCVhBnxV5-taPJeubHAImmdbSVol-oWvJFwrt4CqhoCbz4QAvD_BwE&ei=c6ytatasJYDNp84Pyd2k6Qo&cid=CAASugHkaOSiqILZnd_JZYS6Z_sMNHsBLb5e__5WbPMr4Ojvrcd_v88b3oWsSwgQPkvrpLtAuBh5masP-U2XDhSLyt6K12QkjgUwS5NZzHwJxWviRpJiQJ7AQX5eLUKKV4iQ2IJe2g5AaK5wy-r_5p7evgv1I9HsJNB5fWIAkT1dSEnRdHwQGCP8ZcDPP0NUF9j1qxF6KdswqZvfMP6qrzOMflLDEL2Nrd4Jic76k_WU_Ywn-P-lLS-V8vEaem4&cce=2&category=acrcp_v1_32&sig=AOD64_3lE1TfDe5ZOehohW8srt0-LXHQoA&q&sqi=2&nis=4&adurl=https://amsterdambilliards.com/?gad_source%3D1%26gad_campaignid%3D122839401%26gbraid%3D0AAAAAD1QVMdYL7YML34HlrHHM7We6dOsR%26gclid%3DCjwKCAjwwrPVBhA1EiwAv_YO-X_DFnamWZ8CrLCVhBnxV5-taPJeubHAImmdbSVol-oWvJFwrt4CqhoCbz4QAvD_BwE&ved=2ahUKEwiWspzliPmWAxWA5skDHckuKa0Q0Qx6BAgkEAs Watch Sandler do Werewolves of London. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JyQKSociLQ Listen to David discuss the novelization of Species https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/species-by-yvonne-navarro-w-david-sims/id1581002450?i=1000571420295 and Species 2 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/species-ii-by-yvonne-navarro-w-david-sims/id1581002450?i=1000764626852 on the Authorized podcast. Listen to The Physical Media High Council episode. https://open.spotify.com/episode/473KvDt39eRr02oaQZAds1 Listen to The Watch https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-watch, The Big Picture https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-big-picture and The Rewatchables https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/the-rewatchables Read Chris' Dad's Writing https://www.amazon.com/stores/Desmond-Ryan/author/B001KE48BM/allbooks?ccs_id=5c20b75f-a625-49b3-ab44-bb60796dfc1a 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.

• 0:22David Sims?

  You gotta have two things to podcast. You gotta have brains and you gotta have balls. And you got too much of one and not enough of the other. It's hard to do old Newman.

• 0:30Griffin Newman?

  It's a very distinct voice.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yeah, good. Yeah, he's got that, you know, how do you do that? Come on.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Cause it does feel like the second he, he obviously was a man who went gray early. But there was the moment where the switch flipped and he was like, I'm elder statesman now. And he added some sort of patrician kind of effect to his voice.

• 0:52David Sims?

  But when it, when does old Newman begin? Is it Butch Cassidy? Is it the Sting?

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  No, I'm saying later. Verdict? Sting, he's playing mentor.

• 1:00David Sims?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, that's when it begins, right?

• 1:03Griffin Newman?

  Then he's still kinda badass. I'm like, is it verdict?

• 1:07David Sims?

  No, but verdict, he's old. Yes, that's for sure. No, but like Absence of Malice, he's the same vibe, right?

• 1:14Griffin Newman?

  Maybe it's that. But you know what I'm saying? The voice changes. He becomes Doc Hudson. It gets a little gravelly. It gets a little, there's a little cigar.

• 1:23David Sims?

  Yeah, but what about like Slapshot? It's like, I guess, you know what? He's a man who aged perfectly, like every single decade. He wasn't the Tom Cruise thing of like, I'm fucking clinging on, clinging on, like, and then by collateral, he's like, what if I show you a glimpse and then I'll pull it back?

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay. Here's a question that I'm certain our guest can answer, and I think you can answer as well, David. I have never seen Ford Apache, Apache, the Bronx. Absence of Malice feels to me like the earliest I can identify he is playing old man. What is the voice like in Ford Apache?

• 1:55David Sims?

  I don't remember the voice, but he's definitely like in a veteran in that, right? Like he's like the old fucking drunk at the office.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:03David Sims?

  I mean, the precinct, uh, and then they're gonna have to shoot a bunch of.

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  I think that there's also like a, a relationship to how much a character drinks in the movie that dictates the voice.

• 2:14David Sims?

  Right. Like how, how gravelly does he want to go because he, well, like Quintet, what's he like in that?

• 2:19Griffin Newman?

  I just remember him being cold.

• 2:21David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a cold ass movie.

• 2:22Griffin Newman?

  I think it's an eighty thing. I think it's the secondhand enters the eighties. And as you said, he aged perfectly. And I, I think one of the things that people study about Paul Newman is how distinct his eras were without bumps, where he kept adjusting to the time. And, and identifying correctly, what is the best movie star I could be right now? How do I fit the culture?

• 2:44David Sims?

  I think this is only our second Paul Newman film we've ever discussed. After the Hudsucker proxy.

• 2:49Griffin Newman?

  Which Hudsucker, he's obviously doing full on old man, but also full on evil. He's playing sort of the comedic, the comedically heightened version of this guy.

• 3:00David Sims?

  What's your favorite Newman? Is it this?

• 3:02Griffin Newman?

  Well, I would probably say it's this or Slapshot.

• 3:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I mean, like, that's a really hard question, cause the second you ask that, five movies jump into like the front of my mind.

• 3:14David Sims?

  Not ten, yeah.

• 3:14Griffin Newman?

  But it's this Slapshot verdict. I, verdict, I think is his best performance.

• 3:19David Sims?

  I agree.

• 3:20Griffin Newman?

  It's the one he should have won the Oscar for, right? Not to be rude to today's film, but that's, that's, who beats him that year?

• 3:27David Sims?

  Ben Kingsley.

• 3:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:29David Sims?

  Can't beat him.

• 3:29Griffin Newman?

  We always come up against this.

• 3:31David Sims?

  It's like, it's, it's just a lot of those Newman losses.

• 3:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:35David Sims?

  You're like, well, how did he lose? And then you're like, oh, that, I guess that was a big one.

• 3:38Griffin Newman?

  We've covered a couple of these films where you go, I don't understand how it's possible Nick Nolte didn't win best actor for Prince of Tides. Oh, it was the Silence of the Lambs year.

• 3:47David Sims?

  Cause you're like.

• 3:48Griffin Newman?

  Where you're like, the most historic buzzsaw is the only thing that could have beaten this performance.

• 3:53David Sims?

  How did he lose for Hud? He lost to Sidney Poitier.

• 3:56Griffin Newman?

  Historic.

• 3:57David Sims?

  How did he lose to, for Cool Hand Luke, which he maybe like, you know, maybe that's it. He loses to Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night. Steiger's a legend.

• 4:07Griffin Newman?

  That was a major, major film. Yeah.

• 4:09David Sims?

  It's a major film.

• 4:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:11David Sims?

  But it's also like, he's also up against Warren Beatty for Bonnie and Clyde and Dustin Hoffman for The Graduate. So it's like, there's three young stars all in kind of their most iconic role. Yeah.

• 4:22Griffin Newman?

  But then it's interesting, cause he's.

• 4:23David Sims?

  And so the Oscars are just like Steiger.

• 4:25Griffin Newman?

  He's the older guy. You say young star, but there's like a big difference between Beatty and Hoffman are breaking through at a whole new level. That's Newman identifying his second phase arguably. That, that's the whole thing is like, he was the one guy who really successfully, without a hitch, made the transition from being a studio system star to a new Hollywood star by seeming like the cool, slightly older guy who gets it. The way that he kind of treats age in a lot of his movies from like the late sixties on or like early seventies on is always really interesting to me because I think in Slapshot,

• 5:07Griffin Newman?

  he's supposed to be playing somebody who's like forty-one.

• 5:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 5:12Griffin Newman?

  Who's at the absolute end of the line, like as a hockey player, but is like, he looks like he's sixty and then in Color of Money, I think he's supposed to be in his sixties, but looks kinda like a guy who could be like forty-five at times, you know, like the way he dresses, the way he moves. It's fascinating. And he obviously remained unbelievably handsome until his dying day. But there's a lot of power in the fact that he didn't fight it, right? That he didn't try to look younger, that he wasn't worried about seeming cool or hot. I, I think this is part of what made him survive was that it was like, he could always play, oh, it's surprising how much this guy is still kinda got it.

• 5:53Griffin Newman?

  Versus being like, he's trying to act a little more, he's got it than he is. Yeah, like all those movies that like he kind of capped his career with, I felt like he was incredibly comfortable in his own skin. He may not have been, but like when he's making like, what, Nobody's Fool and stuff like that. Cars, you're just like, I mean, it was that like metallic sheen felt so natural on him. Doc Hudson, that grill, he wore it with such comfort and grace.

• 6:20David Sims?

  I've never seen any Cars.

• 6:22Griffin Newman?

  Well, he's the local judge of a town. He's also a car. He used to be a race car. He was the fabulous Hudson Hornet. And then unfortunately he made a mistake. He turned too hard.

• 6:34David Sims?

  David, how do we stop this? I don't know. I'd love it to stop. Um, is that what it is? He turned too hard? I've seen the movie.

• 6:41Griffin Newman?

  It was like, he basically was, he invented drifting is kind of the tragic backstory of Cars. Is he really? Yeah, kind of. Like American drifting, not Tokyo drifting. Correct.

• 6:52David Sims?

  Have you seen Cars?

• 6:53Griffin Newman?

  I haven't.

• 6:54David Sims?

  So it's like Lightning McQueen, Lightning McQueen's like, I wanna be the, the Piston Cup champion or whatever. And he's like, well, I was that. And he's like, fuck you. No, you weren't. He's like, I've got the trophies right here, bitch. And then he's got all these like fifties trophies.

• 7:08Griffin Newman?

  Cars is Doc Hollywood basically beat for beat, but the reveal is that the grumpy old man in town who's like, I force you to community service. Is like, actually I used to be the best racer in the world.

• 7:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 7:19Griffin Newman?

  And then he sees him out in the desert, just fucking drifting.

• 7:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 7:23Griffin Newman?

  And Owen Wilson's like, what? You're Doc Hudson?

• 7:25David Sims?

  Do that?

• 7:26Griffin Newman?

  I can't believe this. Wow. And he's like, there, there was a fault in my tires.

• 7:31David Sims?

  You know, I auditioned for Nobody's Fool, right?

• 7:33Griffin Newman?

  You've told this story many times. Did you really? Your only audition, right?

• 7:36David Sims?

  I think so. I mean, audition is too strong, but like they came to my school and they.

• 7:41Griffin Newman?

  Well, I've also forgot you auditioned for Elizabeth Slender, but that was such a big casting call.

• 7:45David Sims?

  And I pierced my nipple.

• 7:47Griffin Newman?

  The original.

• 7:47David Sims?

  And no, for Fincher.

• 7:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:49David Sims?

  And Fincher was like, Rooney already did that. It's not, I'm not impressed.

• 7:53Griffin Newman?

  But people forget just how wide that casting net was. No, Nobody's Fool was when you were still living in New York, right?

• 7:59David Sims?

  Yeah, cause that movie came out in ninety-four. They came to PS eighty-seven and they just talked to a bunch of kids. I mean, I assume they were just, you know, casting a net for, I don't even know what the kid, who the kid is.

• 8:09Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes I, I push back and I, I acknowledge the privilege I have experienced in my life. But sometimes I push back on what I feel like from our listeners is an attitude of everything in New York is like dainty little privileged bubble shit. And then I consider the fact that basically if you are a child in any school in New York City, at some point you probably get lassoed into an audition.

• 8:33David Sims?

  It was just a public school, but yeah, I mean, I do think.

• 8:36Griffin Newman?

  Genuinely, like movies that would film in like the tri-state area, maybe it happens less now in the era of fucking self tapes and zooms and whatever. But I would say like through the two thousands, there was a kind of like New York City, if they're looking for a kid and the director's like, we want someone who's not polished.

• 8:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 8:53Griffin Newman?

  They would just like put up flyers at every single school. Yeah, they were, they would shoot that stuff around here too. Like they, they shot like basketball diaries. I can't remember if it was at my wife's school or if it was at the like adjacent boys school, but it was like, they were, they were just Hollywood East. They were just letting it rip.

• 9:10David Sims?

  Uh, the role went to, uh, Alexander Goodwin, who, uh, then appeared in Box of Moonlight and Mimic.

• 9:18Griffin Newman?

  That could have been you.

• 9:19David Sims?

  Could have been me? That was about it.

• 9:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And you should watch Cars. Okay. No. Should I like now and then we'll, I'll come back?

• 9:26David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, what is that? An eighty-five minute movie? I mean, he'll.

• 9:29Griffin Newman?

  No, it's long.

• 9:30David Sims?

  Oh God, it's almost two hours long. That movie is so bad. It's really bad. It's like indefensible.

• 9:36Griffin Newman?

  Well, but here's the thing. Cars two is so much worse. And then Cars three isn't great, but it's so much of a rebound that I would argue that Cars two makes Cars three look like Cars one. Do you come out of Cars thinking car excellence is not about excellent driving? I mean, that, that is what the movie's about. Okay.

• 9:56David Sims?

  You mean kind of the, uh, the F1 argument of like, what's the driver really doing here?

• 10:02Griffin Newman?

  Well, more just like you have to be a study of human moves, you know? That, that is what the movie's about.

• 10:06David Sims?

  I only seen F1 once and I didn't realize, I wasn't picking up what you were putting down.

• 10:11Griffin Newman?

  I'll say it's even more.

• 10:14Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's, it's about, it's about the driver. It's about the heart of the driver. It's about the character of the driver. This movie has good dialogue.

• 10:25David Sims?

  Yeah. This movie? Yeah.

• 10:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And I would say the lesson of Cars and the lesson of, uh, The Color of Money is, uh, it's in the way that you.

• 10:35David Sims?

  Who's it? Uh, I.

• 10:38Griffin Newman?

  Which to be clear is not actually a line of dialogue in the script.

• 10:41David Sims?

  No.

• 10:41Griffin Newman?

  Although it would be cool.

• 10:43David Sims?

  It would be funny if Cruz is like, I got any advice? And Newman went.

• 10:50David Sims?

  One day, if I curate, you know, rep screenings or whatever at my local theater that I own in this paradise world, I imagine, right? Where I'm like, ah, David, this would be part of a series that I would like to think about of like, movies where you want to live the objectively like stressful, low life of the people involved. Like you watch it and you're like, what's cooler than being a pool hustler who lives at bars? And it's like, excuse me, that's, that's not a good life. You don't want, I'm like, no, I think I want it. I think I want to hang out with these guys all the time.

• 11:24Griffin Newman?

  I was rewatching The Hustler the other night and texting you guys about it. And I said, this is just the best life possible, right? You got a perfect face and you're a piece of shit.

• 11:34David Sims?

  It's, it's.

• 11:34Griffin Newman?

  Your life sucks.

• 11:35David Sims?

  I think that the festival could be like, I want to live inside of this.

• 11:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And a lot of it is, that's the key. It's like, you're watching movie stars play this. You're watching people with supernatural charisma and incredible good looks live through objectively the dregs.

• 11:52David Sims?

  Yeah, they're exchanging twenties. Like, it's just like guys smoking and being like, you owe me 20. Now you owe me 40.

• 12:01Griffin Newman?

  The Hustler is also a tragedy. Like, I forgot how much that movie is.

• 12:05David Sims?

  Straight up.

• 12:05Griffin Newman?

  Bummer.

• 12:06David Sims?

  A tragedy. It's a guy whose life is broken and in trying to sort of solve himself, he experiences greater tragedy.

• 12:13Griffin Newman?

  Right, but.

• 12:14David Sims?

  And that's all the backstory for this movie, which is so interesting that he doesn't give the big monologue explaining what happened in the first film.

• 12:22Griffin Newman?

  Kid, I was a hustler.

• 12:23David Sims?

  He sort of alludes to it.

• 12:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:26David Sims?

  If Piper Laurie shows up in your movie, nothing good's happening. It would be funny if they did like one legacy call like, your next opponent is Minnesota Fats. Like, you know, Out Comes From The Shadows, Gleason Old. I mean, was Gleason still alive?

• 12:39Griffin Newman?

  Do you know?

• 12:40David Sims?

  So. Cause he's obviously in like Smoking In The Bandits and stuff, right?

• 12:43Griffin Newman?

  In the, there was a.

• 12:44David Sims?

  He was, oh, one year from death.

• 12:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:47David Sims?

  Gleason dies the next year.

• 12:49Griffin Newman?

  This is the whole backstory.

• 12:50David Sims?

  Okay, okay. No, no, no, tell me, cause I haven't looked at the.

• 12:53Griffin Newman?

  We'll get through it more in depth, but there was a sequel book called The Color Of Money. They basically only take the title from it, but the book has major Minnesota Fats.

• 13:03David Sims?

  Which makes sense if you're gonna write a sequel to The Hustler.

• 13:05Griffin Newman?

  Like, even when they start developing scripts and go like, throw all that out, start fresh. They kept writing in parts for Minnesota Fats and Newman was like, I think we should get Gleason back. And they finally were like, it only made sense to basically have like one extended scene. We couldn't justify making him a bigger part, but they offered it to Gleason and he was like, too small, not gonna do it.

• 13:26David Sims?

  Yeah, he, I mean, like, and Newman was like, he, he said, and I agree that his like, participation in the movie wouldn't really do much for the story. It was more like of being a forced ghost, you know, like.

• 13:37Griffin Newman?

  It, we were, Sims and I were explaining this movie.

• 13:41David Sims?

  Like, he's just old, like, and sitting in a chair.

• 13:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes, we were explaining this movie to your friend, Ellen Cushing, a co-host of your secret podcast.

• 13:48David Sims?

  It's different, everyone subscribe. I have a baseball podcast.

• 13:51Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you do?

• 13:51David Sims?

  Yeah, I just recorded at my friend's house.

• 13:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But we were trying to explain what this movie is, she hadn't heard of it. And I was like, it's the original legacy sequel. And David went, yeah, you're right.

• 14:03David Sims?

  Like.

• 14:04Griffin Newman?

  And Minnesota Fats would have been the original sort of like cheap pop.

• 14:08David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:08Griffin Newman?

  If he showed up for one scene or showed up in the post credits, that would have been the original, like, the audience applauds when it happens, but 10 minutes later, they feel gross about it.

• 14:19David Sims?

  I also don't know that The Hustler exists in people's like collective imaginations as like a sentimental favorite that they're like, could we bring, could we bring Minnesota Fats back? Like, it's a cool, it's a cool character.

• 14:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:32David Sims?

  But it's like, that wouldn't hit the way, like, the way we like work these.

• 14:36Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 14:37David Sims?

  Like, legacy cameos into these new movies.

• 14:39Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, Jackie Gleason was so iconic that, that maybe there's a degree of that.

• 14:46David Sims?

  When's the movie he makes with, uh, Jack, with Richard Pryor? The Toy?

• 14:50Griffin Newman?

  Oh, that's early, that's 82?

• 14:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Griffin Newman?

  His final film is Nothing In Common, which is the Gary Marshall, Tom Hanks, Bad Dad comedy.

• 14:59David Sims?

  Where, where they're both, they're looking at each other on the poster going like, hmm, but Gleason's got a stogie.

• 15:03Griffin Newman?

  Told the story many times.

• 15:05David Sims?

  And cigar.

• 15:05Griffin Newman?

  But there, there was, uh, the, the foundation of our friendship, Sims and I, was doing movie trivia night together at a bar called Videology. And there was a question of what is the name of the movie that Jackie Gleason and Tom Hanks did together? And I was like, oh, fuck, I can picture the poster and the two of them looking at each other. And it's not nothing but trouble. It's nothing, nothing, nothing. And I couldn't figure it out. And I looked at one of our teammates, whose name is K A M E N. And I went, common.

• 15:39Griffin Newman?

  I wouldn't have got it if I wasn't looking at his face and remembering what his name is. Gleason could have done it, but yeah. Uh, what, why was I saying this? Oh, that you, it's like, does Minnesota Fats hold the same sort of like cultural memory?

• 15:52David Sims?

  Is he Yoda?

• 15:53Griffin Newman?

  You did discover, Sims, that there was a licensed, but not connected to the movies, licensed off the books only Sega Genesis game.

• 16:02David Sims?

  Genesis and Saturn.

• 16:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 16:04David Sims?

  Called Minnesota Fats Pool Legend. Did you, did you check that out? Did you, uh, did you buy a Saturn maybe?

• 16:09Griffin Newman?

  And no, but like, I think the first thing I do is go to eBay and buy a Saturn to get this. It's just so funny. I, I was seeing that it's technically the sequel to a different billiards game. And clearly they were just like, we need our Madden-esque hook. What's the name that moves units? We're not gonna pay the Jackie Gleason likeness rights, but can we just get the name of the character from the book? And put some other fat guy on the.

• 16:36David Sims?

  Yeah, they have some full motion video of just a Minnesota Fats type. Mostly it's, you know, pool. Mostly you're playing pool.

• 16:44Griffin Newman?

  So that looks like basically like a bar blackjack machine version of it.

• 16:49David Sims?

  It does.

• 16:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I can't remember if I've ever played a pool video game. It never really came into the rotation.

• 16:54David Sims?

  Doesn't feel like a good translation. I would also say the fact that billiards is a tabletop game.

• 16:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I like to play video games of things I can't do.

• 17:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  You know?

• 17:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 17:03Griffin Newman?

  Like, right.

• 17:04David Sims?

  You're like, street fighting.

• 17:06Griffin Newman?

  You're playing Sega Genesis in like a rumpus room in your dad's basement.

• 17:10David Sims?

  You guys want to play pool?

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  There's a 20% chance. There's already a billiards table next to the Genesis.

• 17:17David Sims?

  No, no, no, no, just over here, it's even better, cause it's on the TV. All right. What is our podcast, Griffin?

• 17:23Griffin Newman?

  Our podcast is called Blank Check With Griffin And David. I am Griffin.

• 17:26David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 17:27Griffin Newman?

  And it's in the way that we use it.

• 17:28David Sims?

  That's right.

• 17:29Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy, passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This is the film that is derisively thought of as his purest paycheck gig. That is sort of the weird legacy of this movie within his career. We were both arguing that's kind of bullshit, but it certainly got hit with that at the time. Must admit though, it is the guarantor that allows him to immediately then make Last Temptation Of Christ and Goodfellas.

• 18:04David Sims?

  And it's.

• 18:04Griffin Newman?

  Neither of those movies happen in that way if not for this. It stabilizes his career is the right way to put it.

• 18:09David Sims?

  It, it just, it, right. His career is in trouble and he takes a gig. He does a fucking great job with it.

• 18:16Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't feel dispassing.

• 18:17David Sims?

  Oscar, it.

• 18:18Griffin Newman?

  It's a line drive down the middle.

• 18:20David Sims?

  Right. And it's so well made.

• 18:22Griffin Newman?

  In the lexicon of Blank Check, this would be, you say stabilizer, it's like the guarantor, like. Guarantor is the term we usually use that is.

• 18:29David Sims?

  Like the thing that gets you.

• 18:31Griffin Newman?

  It's the hit that lets them give you the blank check.

• 18:34David Sims?

  And you can't call Last Temptation a blank check, cause that's him being like, I'm gonna spend every penny.

• 18:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:39David Sims?

  Like, but I don't get that much, you know, we're gonna.

• 18:42Griffin Newman?

  Last Temptation is you mortgage the house.

• 18:44David Sims?

  Right. And he's like, if we put a pipe of fire, that'll, that can be saved.

• 18:48Griffin Newman?

  If I promise to make Kate Fear, will you let me do this?

• 18:50David Sims?

  But that movie was so risky and he had tried to do it for so long. Like, his blank check is Gangs Of New York.

• 18:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:56David Sims?

  That is his true, like, I really, this nonfiction book about Bowery gangsters, can I have $100 million?

• 19:03Griffin Newman?

  New York, New York, New York is also the first blank check.

• 19:06David Sims?

  That's the first.

• 19:06Griffin Newman?

  That's a pure blank check.

• 19:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:08Griffin Newman?

  And I would say basically post Gangs Of New York, most of his 21st century work is blank checky.

• 19:13David Sims?

  But Gangs Of New York is the most.

• 19:15Griffin Newman?

  No, 100%.

• 19:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:17Griffin Newman?

  But then I think he just enters a phase where it's like, here's the deal, if you want to make a Marty movie. Unless it's Silence, unless he's back to Last Temptation, I know this is so risky that I gotta make the smallest version of it possible. He's like, I want a nine month shoot and $150 million.

• 19:35David Sims?

  Yeah, and then he also gets, uh, I guess, continue the, the language, to use the language of it. Once the Departed comes along and he does the run with DiCaprio, it's like, well, I have, I have this guy co-signing the lease.

• 19:49Griffin Newman?

  So.

• 19:49David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 19:50Griffin Newman?

  But, but stabilizer is a term we haven't used before. And, and you're right, it's, let's add it to the lexicon because it is a thing that's, sometimes we'll talk about a comeback film.

• 19:59David Sims?

  He's like getting his credit limit back up.

• 20:02Griffin Newman?

  That's what it is.

• 20:03David Sims?

  To the 700s. It was like 492.

• 20:06Griffin Newman?

  Like Raiders Of The Lost Ark as a comeback post 1941 is a pure, like, he bottomed out and then he struck gold as hard as you possibly could. This is just like, everything is kind of safe again. You know? He still has to like put a lot on the line to make Last Temptation. But notably, this was his one movie where he was like, I'm coming in, under schedule, under budget to prove a point.

• 20:32David Sims?

  You know, I looked on Reddit, uh, Color Of Money is generally agreed to on to be the first legacy sequel. Some people are like, does Return To Oz count? It's the year before. I'm like, not really, like, because it's not, I mean, yes, it has the characters, but like, it's too weird and.

• 20:49Griffin Newman?

  It's too weird, you're not repeating the same designs, obviously not repeating the same cast.

• 20:53David Sims?

  Some people are like.

• 20:54Griffin Newman?

  Same iconography.

• 20:55David Sims?

  Dawn Of The Dead kind of counts because it was a long, like, wait between movies. But like, they don't have the same characters. It's just a sequel.

• 21:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 21:03David Sims?

  Yeah. And this, like, the tagline for this movie was, The Hustler, capital H Hustler.

• 21:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 21:09David Sims?

  Isn't what he used to be, but he has the next best thing, a kid who is. So it's very much like, The Hustler's here, our friend.

• 21:16Griffin Newman?

  The rejected tagline for this movie was Nine Ball Is Rotation Pool.

• 21:23David Sims?

  Who's our guest?

• 21:24Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today, in person, in studio for the first time. Very excited.

• 21:28David Sims?

  So exciting.

• 21:29Griffin Newman?

  Chris Ryan, off of, well, not by the time this comes out, but you're, you're still kind of coasting off of CR month.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:36David Sims?

  CR month is extending into CR year.

• 21:38Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, it might be a CR decade now.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  I hope.

• 21:41David Sims?

  I mean, yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  I guess.

• 21:43Griffin Newman?

  Why not me, right? Why not you?

• 21:46David Sims?

  Everybody else is getting smacked, kind of, into CR month.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  But I got to be there.

• 21:50David Sims?

  You got to be there, and they got to beat the Celtics.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:53David Sims?

  Which was great, and we salute them and thank them for doing that.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  I salute them and thank them for doing that, and, and, and thank you to Daryl Morey, who, as of this recording, had just lost his job after putting together that team.

• 22:02David Sims?

  Will he, like, have another NBA job, or is this it?

• 22:08Speaker 02

  I wonder whether or not this is.

• 22:09David Sims?

  Sorry to do two minutes.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  This is like.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Did we say the team name?

• 22:12Speaker 02

  I'll allow it. The Sixers.

• 22:13David Sims?

  Philadelphia.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  The Philadelphia 76ers, and this is their general manager, president, who got fired after the season.

• 22:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  And I.

• 22:19David Sims?

  And kind of a king of NBA dorkdom, who has maybe, you know, become a little bit of a fossil.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  I think he could do, like, a very successful podcast if he wanted to do it.

• 22:28David Sims?

  Oh, he absolutely could do that, yeah, but like, does he want to run into the, I don't know.

• 22:32Griffin Newman?

  I will call out that this is a mini-series on the films of Martin Scorsese. It's called Podcast Fellas. Today, we're talking about The Color of Money. We were originally trying to, it felt obvious to get you on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and we were like, last time we did it over Zoom, it'd be really nice to do it in person, schedules weren't lining up, and around the time where it was like, do we just do Master and Commander over Zoom? Is there a chance you end up coming here? We're like, we're in the middle of our March Madness thing, and it looks like it's probably gonna shake out to be Tony Scott versus Martin Scorsese. And you said, well, if that happens, I'm moving to New York, and I'm on every episode. It did kind of feel like, you know what? Let's, let's save it, because between those two guys, you're gonna have a pick you're passionate about.

• 23:17Griffin Newman?

  And then when it landed on Marty, we said, what are your, you know, and you said, like, obviously, I do any of them, but these five are the big ones. Immediately felt like Color of Money just sort of jumps out as being correct, the best possible episode in a lot of ways.

• 23:29David Sims?

  There is a Rewatchables Color of Money episode. I listened to it.

• 23:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:33David Sims?

  You, Bill, and Sean, the big three, you know, it's great. I don't remember all the specifics.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  I'm just not done talking about it. You know, it's like, I was kind of like, with Master and Commander, I was like, ooh, this would be fun, because I've never actually done it. I've never actually like.

• 23:45David Sims?

  How is that not been a re, I guess, whatever.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Maybe eventually it will be, and that could have been one, because like, during CR month, I had, I would say, 85% curatorial power, you know? Or I would, I would be making the suggestions, and then, or Bill would be making the suggestions, and I would pick, or I would.

• 24:01Griffin Newman?

  As Christopher Nolan always says, it's never truly a blank check.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  It's collaborative, you know what I mean? We all have bosses.

• 24:06Griffin Newman?

  There are always conditions.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  But what were some of the picks?

• 24:09Speaker 02

  For CR month, it was Sicario.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Sick.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Fargo.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  Sicario.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Sicario, Fargo, To Live and Die in L.A., L.A. Confidential, and I feel like.

• 24:21Griffin Newman?

  Nice guys.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Nice guys.

• 24:23David Sims?

  Which I feel like that was.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Which was weirdly like a bunch of L.A. movies, which I didn't intention, intentionally do.

• 24:27David Sims?

  It's true, you didn't do like, an East Coast movie.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  But it was a very cool month to be able to just be like, fuck, they shot that right there.

• 24:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  This is awesome, you know?

• 24:34Griffin Newman?

  It's become a less frequent occurrence as the years have gone on, just because our schedule is, has, has too many masters to serve. But Ben, we, we allot, Ben's Choice.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 24:46Griffin Newman?

  Every once in a while.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  It used to be.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  As like, sort of a palate cleanser between a series.

• 24:50Griffin Newman?

  But kind of our closest equivalent, but that, if you want to just tell Chris some of the Ben's Choice canon.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Let's hear it.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Blatch.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Bang.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Under Siege 2.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:59Griffin Newman?

  Has never seen Under Siege 1. Oh, now has.

• 25:01David Sims?

  I have.

• 25:01Griffin Newman?

  At the time, hadn't.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Not a legacy sequel, really.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Clifford.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  Not the dog.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  What's, what is it, then?

• 25:09David Sims?

  The Martin Short movie.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:11David Sims?

  Have you not seen it?

• 25:12Speaker 02

  I have not.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  I'll, I'll check it out.

• 25:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  It's worth it.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's basically the most evil 14, or like, child, 12-year-old child.

• 25:22David Sims?

  Martin Short plays a child who torments Charles.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Oh, I remember this, actually. Yeah, I never saw it, but I do remember like.

• 25:27Griffin Newman?

  It's sort of like The Omen, if it's not supernatural, but the child is played by an adult.

• 25:32David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, it's really fun.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  It feels like he possesses a cosmic evil, but he doesn't actually have powers.

• 25:37David Sims?

  Sure.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Right. Assassin's Creed.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Yep. Fast Bender one?

• 25:42David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm not aware of another.

• 25:45Griffin Newman?

  Similarly, a movie Ben loves, despite at the time he picked it.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Assassin's Creed, the original one? Okay.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  No.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Not the old version. David, just don't talk for a while.

• 25:55Griffin Newman?

  Similarly, Ben had never played a second of any Assassin's Creed game before.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 25:59Griffin Newman?

  Choosing it for an episode, having watched the movie 20 times.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  Sure. And then, most recently, Edge of Tomorrow.

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, Edge of Tomorrow's great. But anyway, I mean, like, the, I, I, I had not talked about Master and Commander before, but I, obviously, I have spoken about Color of Money on Rewatchables, and then in various, like, forms of the big picture, but I still feel like there's chalk, chalk on the stick, you know what I mean?

• 26:21Griffin Newman?

  I've done like, 15 fucking episodes on the Muppet Movie, while still, every year, pushing David to be like, can we do the proper Henson Oz combo series? And I question, like, have I just shot, you know, my load on this? Have I shared the takes everywhere else? I'm like, every time I watch that movie, I got new thoughts.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:37Griffin Newman?

  It's an endless well. I'm never gonna run out of stuff to say, and they're very similar movies, the Muppet Movie and Color of Money.

• 26:43David Sims?

  I'm gonna string a little hammock right under the desk for those.

• 26:45Griffin Newman?

  David's fucking rude joke, that he says he's gonna go on vacation.

• 26:48David Sims?

  I'll just fucking.

• 26:49Griffin Newman?

  Leave me in a room alone to monologue.

• 26:51David Sims?

  You won't even notice.

• 26:52Griffin Newman?

  My swimming to Cambodia.

• 26:53David Sims?

  Another thing about the Swedish Chef.

• 26:57Griffin Newman?

  He's not, I wouldn't have much to say. He's not a major part of that film.

• 27:00David Sims?

  Yeah, fucking right.

• 27:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 27:03David Sims?

  Oh, went to, we went to baseball yesterday, I was so happy.

• 27:06Griffin Newman?

  We went to baseball, as they say.

• 27:08David Sims?

  We went to see the Mets defeat the Tigers, and going tonight, too.

• 27:11Griffin Newman?

  You're going tonight?

• 27:12David Sims?

  Yeah, Subway Series, gotta see them.

• 27:15Griffin Newman?

  Oh, the Subway Series is starting?

• 27:16David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, the Mets Yankees.

• 27:18Griffin Newman?

  I liked that as a kid.

• 27:19David Sims?

  Sure.

• 27:20Griffin Newman?

  It's fun.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  It's very rare, as a kid.

• 27:22Griffin Newman?

  Rare.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  Good hook. Now, in case the listeners were wondering, you know, was this just a regular sort of night, or day, I should say, out at the, the baseball game?

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Why, why was I so interested in going?

• 27:35David Sims?

  It was funny that, right, Griffin was like, should we go to like, a baseball game? David's so into the Mets, we could do it as a team. One second later, just texts like, Star Wars Day, I found this, we're going to this one.

• 27:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Free bobblehead, we gotta go.

• 27:48David Sims?

  Oh, you have the bobblehead to show, great.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  I think we should also.

• 27:51David Sims?

  Unfail.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Unfail.

• 27:52David Sims?

  Nolan McLean.

• 27:53Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 27:55Griffin Newman?

  Very cool.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  I do think we should leave some of this for the Mandalorian.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, we love to talk about that.

• 28:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, it happened, we're just telling Chris.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:02Griffin Newman?

  Okay, cool.

• 28:12Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 28:13David Sims?

  Yes.

• 28:16David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's Cow?

• 28:18Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's Cow is back.

• 28:19David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 28:20Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:25David Sims?

  Okay.

• 28:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 28:30David Sims?

  Wow.

• 28:31Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 28:33David 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.

• 28:40Griffin Newman?

  Well, Movie 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 Movie does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, one of my favorite movies of the year.

• 28:53David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 28:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:00David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 29:01Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, Past and Future Guest.

• 29:04David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest, great friend.

• 29:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 29:10David Sims?

  This movie rocks, it's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, you know, legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 29:17Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 29:19David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 29:20Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 29:21David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 29:22Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 29:23David Sims?

  Such a cool movie, won the Queer Palm at Cannes. 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 Movie.

• 29:33Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the 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.

• 29:47David Sims?

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

• 29:52Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 29:54Griffin 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.

• 30:04David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on Movie, and you can try Movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash Blank Check. That's M U B I dot com slash Blank Check, for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 30:16Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it, for 30 days for Miasma.

• 30:27Speaker 03

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• 31:07Speaker 03

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• 31:51Speaker 03

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• 32:32Griffin Newman?

  When did you first see this film?

• 32:34Speaker 02

  This is some kind of VHS rental in like 88, 89.

• 32:38David Sims?

  Right. In 86, how old are you?

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Nine.

• 32:41David Sims?

  Yeah, you're.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. So a little, but I wouldn't put it past my dad to have this on.

• 32:46Griffin Newman?

  And I could see nine year old being, you being obsessed with this movie immediately.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  And I have very early memories because it was the eighties that like, I would spend Sundays, not in pool halls, but in bars with my dad where he would be like, here are some quarters to go play video games over in the corner and I'm going to sit here for five hours and watch football. And that's how we built this country.

• 33:12David Sims?

  We need to go back.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  Exactly. How close or far are you from being able to do that with your children?

• 33:19David Sims?

  Pretty far.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty far.

• 33:20David Sims?

  Pretty far. I mean, and also, and I wouldn't like, you know, it's not like, but like, I, especially in Britain, when I moved there and you would like hang out with your friends dads, they'd be like, we're going to the pub.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:34David Sims?

  I don't want to look at your faces. Like, I will be seen.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  Try not to inhale too much secondhand smoke.

• 33:40David Sims?

  You kids run around. Like, sometimes you would go to like a pub that had like a backyard and be like, just fucking get out of here. If you want some chips, I'll get you some chips.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  But like the, when I saw the movie, even before I understood any of what I was watching, I understood the, the accuracy in which it captured like a certain feeling of those places.

• 34:01Griffin Newman?

  I was going to say, I, when I tried to imagine the cartoon child version of you, I, I imagine you were a little similar to my brother who, if a movie was about sports in any way, he was 1,000% locked in, especially if it's about like the actual, the psychology, the milieu, the world, the business, any of those things. It didn't matter how mature it was, how dry it was. He was just like, I, this is a portal into a world I want to understand. As I've said before in the show, his ninth birthday party was making all of his friends at school, watch a VHS of Michael Mann's Ali. And it was his seventh time watching it. He's nine.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  So it was like his Assassin's Creed.

• 34:46Griffin Newman?

  Right. And he's like, it's interesting politically what he's like, you know? It was just like, if, if there's some prism of sports through this, that's then like an understanding of how adults function or history or.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Talking about this with somebody else, because I was talking about Excalibur with Paul, who works at Radiance and Transmission, the DVD label. And we, we did a pod of, of his podcast called Old Movies. We were talking about Excalibur. And I was like, man, that, that time in your life where you're actually just watching movies entirely based on your own personal passions, but not movies. You're like, so if this movie is about a thing that I love, like King Arthur or baseball or whatever, then I'll watch the movie no matter how good or bad it is. And I'll watch the movie 45 times. But then eventually that turns into, I love movies. So I want the movie itself to be successful in some aesthetic way.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  And it's like, this, this is right at a turning of the page for me. Like whenever I actually watched it. And then I've just returned to it over and over again, just because at any given point in my life, I'm deeply fascinated by some aspect of it, whether it's Richard Price or Scorsese or Newman or Cruise or whatever. So it's just always been there.

• 36:02David Sims?

  Is this, do you think this would have been the first Scorsese you saw? You know, if you're like 10, 11 years old, like it's like, you know.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  That's a great question.

• 36:10David Sims?

  Seen like Taxi Driver or Raging Bull yet? Like probably not.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  No. And if I did, because like my parents would watch movies while I was like, kind of like upstairs and I would come to the landing and sort of peek down the stairs to see what they were watching. This is why I remember Miami Vice always the, the TV show so vividly is that I was like, I was not allowed to be there.

• 36:32David Sims?

  Too grown up, but.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  But I would watch it from like 30 feet away on a down angle.

• 36:36Griffin Newman?

  It was my mom with ER and Seinfeld, the only two TV shows she respected.

• 36:40David Sims?

  My mom also ER was like.

• 36:42Griffin Newman?

  It was the double barrel.

• 36:42David Sims?

  ER and NYPD Blue were the big two. I remember where it's like, all right, out of the room. And then pretty quickly with ER, I got to stay in the room because she was like, I guess it's medical. Like it's not.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  It's like you're learning lessons.

• 36:53David Sims?

  Yeah. It's like, it's not that lurid.

• 36:55Griffin Newman?

  Maybe I'll become a doctor instead of a dirty film critic.

• 36:58David Sims?

  Then instead I watched Ally McBeal with her and was like, I want to be a lawyer. They all hang out in a fun office and do songs and see babies.

• 37:05Griffin Newman?

  That was Ed for us. We were, we were into the bowling alley lawyer, not the sexy lawyer.

• 37:10David Sims?

  Did your dad take you to screenings?

• 37:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Well, this was my other question, just of, of the era. Was your dad ever getting screeners for reviews or was he always going to?

• 37:20Speaker 02

  They had like a pretty robust, like the Philadelphia critics would go see and it would be the Inquirer and the Daily News and the TV critics and, you know, the WHYY critic and the NPR person.

• 37:30David Sims?

  Back when fucking things were correct. There was like a robust local journalism.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  I mean, I went to a, my, my sort of earliest, most crystal clear memory of this, of, of being with him is for Rocky IV at a real palace on Chestnut Street in Philly.

• 37:48David Sims?

  And that's the year before. Rocky IV is 85, right?

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. And him snapping at someone for talking during Rocky IV, the premiere of it. And me being like, touch of the, please, like.

• 37:59David Sims?

  This is Rocky IV and we are in Philadelphia. There might be some crowd going.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Go get a rock. And it's just like, I'm watching this. It's like, can't you put it together? What's happening here?

• 38:08Griffin Newman?

  I'm watching here. I, I was always fascinated by like, especially I feel like talk shows in the nineties where the host would talk about like, hey, I, so I saw your movie. The studio sent me a screener. And I would be like, right. So like David Letterman is watching a new release movie before it's come out on VHS in bed.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Do you think he's watching Color of Money and then just like Newman's here tonight?

• 38:33Griffin Newman?

  That would always be the implication. And I was always curious about like, what percentage of film critics are being sent these screeners versus they're telling them they have to go to the theater?

• 38:40Speaker 02

  I don't ever remember there being an advanced tape at my dad's house.

• 38:43Griffin Newman?

  I think it was just a lazy fucking talk show host thing. Yeah.

• 38:47David Sims?

  I probably didn't see this movie till I was in college and was sort of like embarking on being like a Scorsese completist or whatever. And was like, oh, I should watch that one. I definitely saw The Hustler when I was a teenager because my dad loved that movie.

• 38:58Griffin Newman?

  I saw The Hustler in high school as sort of my, my self-imposed film education.

• 39:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 39:05Griffin Newman?

  I had never seen this movie in full. I had basically, this was like a Cloverfield monster. Like watching it, I was like, I have seen almost every scene of this.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:15Griffin Newman?

  But it was a, oh, I'm watching 20 minutes on cable. I'm seeing scenes on YouTube kind of thing.

• 39:21David Sims?

  And this is like a big cable movie, right? Like this is all.

• 39:24Griffin Newman?

  But I had never truly like sat down, watched it from beginning to end. Very, very little of it felt totally new to me, but the experience of watching it as a whole was.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:34Griffin Newman?

  And I re-watched The Hustler and then watched this straight through.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  And I would say probably in, there's, there's a long period of time where I watched the first hour of this a lot. The first hour of this is like better than Citizen Kane. And then, and then it goes into the kind of Twilight of middle aged, like.

• 39:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Which is good.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Which is really good.

• 39:57David Sims?

  It's a little less thrilling.

• 39:58Griffin Newman?

  There is a drop off for me. We've been talking about this because some of the weird movies have this as well, where we were like, a movie that remains excellent, but the first 45 minutes to an hour feels like hypnotic, like supernaturally powerful.

• 40:14David Sims?

  This is dancing on the edge of a pin. Like this is the best thing I've ever seen.

• 40:17Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 40:17David Sims?

  And then, right. And then the third act, you're kind of like, I guess that makes sense that they did that, but I'm a little less.

• 40:24Griffin Newman?

  The original Hustler, by the way, sort of has that too, where like the, the opening Minnesota Fats like challenge is half an hour. There's basically a mono scene. That is like, there's a little cold open of seeing him do one hustle. And then there's basically half an hour of like one endless night that is transfixing. It's hypnotic.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  So the other thing that immediately grabbed me about this movie when I was young, even if I couldn't finish it or found the second half of it to be like incomprehensible just because of like, what emotional pain is this guy going through as he gets manipulated by Forest Whitaker and stuff? Like it was the language and immediately, immediately responding in a way like with Price and with Mamet when I was young, I was like, nobody's taught, like, I've never heard people talk like this, but this is how people talk. And that's, that was always the thing and continues to grab me about it.

• 41:21Griffin Newman?

  I, I think similarly, any movie that introduces its own vocabulary immediately has me leaning in. If it's a vocabulary that is real, I get the sense of, this is giving me a look into a world where people talk this way, rather than just making up fake like planet names or whatever. Especially the vocabulary of con artists, scams, crimes. It, it's just crack to me.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and pool hustlers. And I mean, I just, I still remember her, her saying on the Snap Vincent, just being like, what? A woman will say on the Snap.

• 42:01David Sims?

  Do or did you ever play a lot of pool?

• 42:04Speaker 02

  I did play a fair amount of pool. I was never that good, although.

• 42:08Griffin Newman?

  I'm sure that's what you say.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:10Griffin Newman?

  Pretending you're drunk.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  This is crazy. I've never done this before.

• 42:15David Sims?

  I'll take any old cue. It's fun.

• 42:17Griffin Newman?

  Weird luck.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  But I got, I got, I think enough of a run in a time in American history where it was pretty routine to have a pool table in a bar. And now it is increasingly rare.

• 42:26Griffin Newman?

  That is true. I, I can't remember the last time I was at a bar that had a billiards table.

• 42:32David Sims?

  So I used to, it's so funny that you keep saying billiards table, which makes it sound very classy.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  I'm a classy man.

• 42:37David Sims?

  I used to hang out at two bars that still have pool tables, basically for all my twenties. My, my best friend was in a band and every Saturday band would rehearse. Then I would hang out with them at the bar.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  You should just say Jared Leto, 30 seconds tomorrow. You don't need to be.

• 42:51David Sims?

  My best friend Molly is the bassist in an art rock band called Thrillington.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  I went to some of those concerts with her.

• 42:56David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, great band.

• 42:57David Sims?

  I was always at a, and a full circle bar in Williamsburg, which I think is still there, where you get free drinks on your birthday. And buttermilk in Park Slope, which is still there and has a pool table on a, you know, slight slant, but you know, it's there. And I would play pool all night. I'm terrible, I think objectively, but what's better than fucking racking some balls with your bros?

• 43:21Speaker 02

  There's also like, for most of those bar pool tables, they're like, you know what? The other side of this is right against the wall. So don't, don't put yourself in any kind of position where you have to shoot from that side of the table.

• 43:31David Sims?

  Love it whenever that's the situation.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  When it's like a Friday night and like, you know, someone is trying to play pool, but it's so packed that you're like, just getting hit by a stick when you're on your way to the bathroom.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  The circumstances, the setup, the equipment is not ideal, but it's in the way that you use it.

• 43:49David Sims?

  There's also, I live near a pool hall, like not that far. Like in Park Slope, there's Ocean's Gate, which still exists.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Yes, right.

• 43:55David Sims?

  Which is like a classic.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Directed by Gary Ross, yeah.

• 43:57David Sims?

  Yes, a classic dingy ass, like basement with like 20 pool tables. And like, I've not been there in years. I, the guys who are there are a certain kind of guy. And I'm not up to playing pool with any of them.

• 44:13Speaker 02

  They abide by the Assassin's Creed.

• 44:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 44:17Griffin Newman?

  What's, what's the one near Astor Place?

• 44:21Speaker 02

  On University, uh, it's, I think it might be University Billiards or something like that.

• 44:26David Sims?

  That sounds right.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  And that is the classic architecture of up, up a relatively narrow staircase.

• 44:33David Sims?

  Amsterdam Billiards.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, Amsterdam. And then you're like, how, wait, when I lower outside of this thing.

• 44:39David Sims?

  Tables underneath.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  It's just a storefront. And when you go inside, it's like, did Charlie Kaufman direct this? Like, how is, how did you guys find like a full city block of pool tables that go back this way?

• 44:52Griffin Newman?

  It's like Disney World where the rides are never actually in the building they pretend the ride is in.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:58Griffin Newman?

  It's in some weird warehouse to the side.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  You take a tram to get to the pool tables.

• 45:01Griffin Newman?

  They lower you down underground. It's also one of those places where like, it does not matter what time of day it is. If you walk up those stairs and look out the window, it's night now.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's like, they, they basically have poker room lighting where it's just like, yeah, man, like whatever. It's okay if you're here at 11 a.m. It's, it's, it's 9 p.m.

• 45:19David Sims?

  I can't say, I don't think I've ever played nine ball. I always played eight ball, obviously, like what any idiot knows how to play. I played snooker in Britain sometimes, but snooker is incredibly difficult.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  So I was gonna ask.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, please.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Do they have a different name for pool hall? Like, do they call it like a, I don't know, like a fucking snooker parlor?

• 45:39Speaker 02

  You know what? I think they spelled with a U.

• 45:41Griffin Newman?

  A snookery?

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Do they have snookeries? Like, or is it just there's a snooker table?

• 45:47David Sims?

  Okay, so this, you guys are doing something that is what Americans do, which they say snooker. I remember my mom would say snooker. Like, I moved to England where they televised snooker on primetime television. Like you turn on, I would turn on the TV and she'd be like, are you watching someone play pool? And I'm like, it's snooker. Like, it's like, it's fun. It's, it's cool to watch.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  And it has the, is it where they have the little wood, like things on the table? Or is that something else?

• 46:11David Sims?

  I have no idea with that.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Are you talking about Baccarat?

• 46:15Speaker 03

  No, there's like a version of pool where they have little like, oh, things on the tabletop. I remember my uncle had it growing up. I'll look.

• 46:22David Sims?

  I don't know. I mean, in Britain, you, you call it a, a pool parlor, a billiard hall, whatever, like, you know, but you know, snooker is surely.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  I do know snooker, but snooker and cricket remain like, I, I could watch this for 300 years and not know the rules.

• 46:34David Sims?

  There's nothing like, just Google like Ronnie O'Sullivan doing like a perfect break in snooker. It's so cool. But it's like, it's nine reds and then six or seven colored balls. And you have to do red, then color, red, then color, red, then color. And then you have to pocket all of the colors in a specific order. It's like very complex and it's all about like, snukering someone is putting the ball where the other player's gonna be fucked.

• 46:55Griffin Newman?

  This sounds like some Van Hemersley teaching by billiards bullshit. To invoke one of my favorite comedy sketches of all time.

• 47:02Speaker 02

  I think one of the most ingenious parts of Color of Money is actually like, Scorsese sets up nine ball pretty well. You're like, yeah, you know what? I get it. You know, like broadly, I understand.

• 47:11David Sims?

  One to nine, baby.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then it's for TV and that it moves fast and they play a lot of games and you can get lucky.

• 47:16Griffin Newman?

  No, it's, it's true.

• 47:18David Sims?

  He's so good at not bothering you at all with like details about it without, right? Like ignoring it. I, he, he.

• 47:25Griffin Newman?

  It's also the second anyone's like, ah, that's like Scorsese picking up a paycheck. You're like, do you think he's anything less than thrilled by the potential of how to shoot this game? Cause this is not just like flash, a style over substance shit. He's got like, you know, Paul Newman in a Richard Price script, but I feel he is as cinematically activated.

• 47:47David Sims?

  First script.

• 47:47Griffin Newman?

  That's wild.

• 47:48David Sims?

  You know, kind of like, hey, this celebrated novelist is writing a screenplay. Like, it was like a big deal.

• 47:53Griffin Newman?

  But you just feel him like rubbing his hands together and going like, oh shit. On the impact of the cue hitting the ball, I could move the camera from here to here. And it's all like, you have found a way to make this game feel ecstatic.

• 48:07David Sims?

  The, the, I mean, we'll talk about the movie, but like the crash zoom when like, when Newman breaks. And you're just like, oh, Martin Scorsese loves cocaine. Like, you know, like, like, it's just like, Martin Scorsese, who I don't even know where he, but like, he's like, he understands. Like, you're just like, Newman's like, oh shit, this is the greatest feeling in the world. I forgot. Like, with the way it like just jumps on his face.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  I think.

• 48:30David Sims?

  When he finally picks up a cue again.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  I think he's kicked it by this point.

• 48:33David Sims?

  I think he has, but Scorsese's like, I know how I would feel.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:37David Sims?

  If someone like gave me a line.

• 48:39Griffin Newman?

  He's basically making a movie as he's just put his Vince to bed. And is trying to be in his Fast Eddie, I just sell liquor era.

• 48:49David Sims?

  I'm gonna open the dossier, Martin Scorsese. I'm gonna tell you guys a little bit. I do want to tell you that right before, uh, this movie, he did direct a, an episode of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories called Mirror, Mirror.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  We will be covering that on Patreon.

• 49:02David Sims?

  Uh, I don't know much about it. Have you seen?

• 49:05Speaker 02

  I've only seen the title card that says directed by Martin Scorsese and people being like, we used to do great things with television.

• 49:12Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I was gonna say, pretty good title card.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:15Griffin Newman?

  To put on, on anything. A sign of quality. Ben has just.

• 49:19David Sims?

  Kind of like a horror thing.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Texted us a photo of a billiards table.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  It's called bumper pool.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Bumper pool.

• 49:24Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  It looks like a fucking pinball table.

• 49:27David Sims?

  Yeah, this looks very complicated, I will say.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  And it was like a thing where I like, I would have loved to have played when I was at my uncle's house, but I was like, I don't know what this is. I don't know how to play this, but I, that's what I thought snooker was. I, I, anyway.

• 49:42David Sims?

  It's 24 minute television film, six day shoot. He didn't have final cut, so I don't know that he really enjoyed it, but it was his first ever horror movie or horror thing. And he loves like, you know, Val Luton, he loves like Mario Bava. Obviously he's very into like Cronenberg, like he, he's into horror. It's funny that he never.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Shutter Island.

• 50:03David Sims?

  Shutter Island's the closest.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Shutter Island is his.

• 50:06Griffin Newman?

  Cape Fear's pretty hard.

• 50:07David Sims?

  Yeah, both of those, I would, I would still fundamentally call thriller. Shutter Island is definitely the closest.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  Shutter Island, he's really using.

• 50:15David Sims?

  He's, he's.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  The horror imagery of those filmmakers.

• 50:18David Sims?

  The touchstones of, of these guys, right? And it's kind of sounds like this new thing.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  I think Fear as well, yeah.

• 50:22David Sims?

  This new, uh, what's it called? It happened at night originally. It's gonna have a touch of that, right?

• 50:27Speaker 02

  I hope so.

• 50:27David Sims?

  I mean, it's gonna be a little Rebecca year or whatever. Right, yeah. It's the only time he ever works with Michael Kamen. I don't know why I'm talking about this. It's not important.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  We will have covered it on Patreon.

• 50:36David Sims?

  Right, exactly.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  Or we'll cover it right after this.

• 50:38David Sims?

  In 86. He's in a film that I watched relatively recently, cause I'm watching a lot of 1986 movies for a big picture draft that may or may not ever happen.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Yes, an undated big picture.

• 50:48David Sims?

  He is kind of like the third or fourth most important character in Round Midnight, the, uh, trivia movie.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:55David Sims?

  He is like when Dexter Gordon comes to New York, the fast talking like guy who's like, okay, let me take you to the bars. You know, like, I'll, I'll take you to your concert, mister, mister Dexter Gordon.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Chris, we saw The Mandalorian and Grogu last night.

• 51:07David Sims?

  Was telling him.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  We just went to meet up with him at a bar.

• 51:09Griffin Newman?

  And how is Dexter Gordon in it?

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:13Griffin Newman?

  Scorsese is so good in it. It's insane.

• 51:15David Sims?

  It actually is crazy how suited he is to it.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  He, what he came in and told me that Scorsese's in it. And for like a full minute, I was like, so Martin Scorsese just walks into the bar at Man, in The Mandalorian and starts doing Martin Scorsese. I didn't know he was doing the voice of like, of an alien.

• 51:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and I don't know if it's mocap. I don't think they do much mocap in these movies, but I will say the creature, they really got his mannerisms down.

• 51:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 51:42Griffin Newman?

  You do feel like you're seeing a true representation of Scorsese on screen and the performance is so good. And I would say basically everyone else in the movie is so wooden. And David and I were like gripping our armrests, being like, holy shit, he's so fucking locked in.

• 51:57David Sims?

  The other one who's good is Stephen McKinley Henderson.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  He is.

• 52:00David Sims?

  He's also great as another alien, yes.

• 52:03Griffin Newman?

  But it is this thing, and I felt the same way watching, uh, his, his arc on, uh, the studio last season where I'm like, look, he's, he's arguably the greatest living American filmmaker. I want him to make as many movies as he can with his remaining years, which hopefully are decades ahead of us. I would love if he got some more acting roles in there as well. I'm always so happy anytime he is acting in something. He is always so fucking good.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  I don't want him to be like, ah, you know what? It's fun being unshrinking. I'll just do that instead of making films.

• 52:34Griffin Newman?

  No, but I, I'd love him to do more one, two scene things.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:40David Sims?

  Um, well, Round Midnight's an example that he, uh, had been in Paris. He was scouting locations for Last Temptation, like, you know, a prior version of it. And like, was like hanging out with Bertrand Tavernier, the guy, you know, the director, links him with Erwin Winkler, his producer, Scorsese. And is basically like, you know, he wants to make a film set in New York, blah, blah, blah. And Bertrand is like, you will have to play the owner of the club, you know, like when I do this. And so that is why he's in that film. He's very good. Last Temptation, obviously, is Scorsese's eighties.

• 53:16David Sims?

  Mountain that he's trying to climb.

• 53:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:18David Sims?

  You know, and he's trying to do it in the early eighties. It fails. And so he makes after hours as a sort of pivot out of that of like, I'll just do something.

• 53:28Griffin Newman?

  After Hours is kind of an interesting, it's like a partial reset movie where he just needed to show that he could make something that wasn't a disaster. A he needed to like, get back on the horse.

• 53:40David Sims?

  Yes.

• 53:41Griffin Newman?

  And not just like curl up in a ball.

• 53:42David Sims?

  Incredible movie.

• 53:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. It rules.

• 53:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 53:45Griffin Newman?

  But it was a cheap movie. It was made independently. Warner Brothers releases it. It does. Okay. He's sort of back in like a safety zone without necessarily the studios trusting that they could give him a lot of resources and that he would use it responsibly.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  That is also another movie, which is somehow not made on cocaine.

• 54:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Where it's just, but it is, it is the sense memory of cocaine for me.

• 54:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's both of these movies feel like if I, if I'm going to truly not touch that shit anymore.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  It will be the central preoccupation of my art.

• 54:18Griffin Newman?

  I need to like work through what it meant to me.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  Guide of everything I do.

• 54:23Griffin Newman?

  I would say like through Goodfellas, right? Like Last Temptation is the interruption, but he's like, I need to cinematically say goodbye to this.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. It really culminates with the helicopters above Henry Hill.

• 54:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then it's like goodbye to cocaine.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  No, I'm, I think I'm good.

• 54:37David Sims?

  I think Casino's got, got some coke in its blood.

• 54:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. That's some, but I would not say Casino is like a movie where, you know, cocaine is a main character in the same way.

• 54:49Speaker 02

  For Sharon Stone is.

• 54:50David Sims?

  I think, I think you're gonna, you're gonna remember when you rewatch.

• 54:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 54:54David Sims?

  Casino. Some other movies he was linked to around them. Dick Tracy.

• 54:59Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 54:59David Sims?

  We'll talk about this whenever we do Warren Beatty, but he was a contender to direct with Warren starring, I believe.

• 55:04Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, right.

• 55:06David Sims?

  Winter's Tale, which is eventually turned into one of the oddest movies ever made, but at the time. Yes.

• 55:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:12David Sims?

  At the time is like a hot new book. He's attached to that. But Mark Halperin, I believe is the novelist. A biopic of Gershwin, written by Paul Schrader, which has never come to pass.

• 55:28David Sims?

  And an adaptation, can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine? An adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel La Brava

• 55:38David Sims?

  that Dustin Hoffman wanted to make. I've never read La Brava.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  I think that's one of the Detroit ones.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  So I think that's a Detroit crime one.

• 55:47David Sims?

  No.

• 55:48Speaker 02

  No, is it a Western?

• 55:49David Sims?

  I'm not, no, it's like Joe LaBrava, former Secret Service agent.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  Oh, is he in Florida taking pictures?

• 55:54David Sims?

  He gets involved with a former movie star. Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  That's Florida.

• 55:59David Sims?

  I've never, yeah. Hoffman, you know, who's famously like the most gigantic pain in the ass in the world is trying to make it into a movie for years. It ends up a canon.

• 56:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:09David Sims?

  It never happens.

• 56:10Griffin Newman?

  Life's too short to work with Dustin Hoffman was a oft repeated phrase in Hollywood for decades.

• 56:16David Sims?

  Now, color money. Michael Ovitz. Guys heard of him? Speaking of guys with normal energy. Super agent who founded CAA. One of his biggest clients is Paul Newman. And he's, you know, trying to win his guy an Oscar. Paul Newman watches Raging Bull on, I guess, Ovitz's recommendation and says like, that's one of the best things I've ever seen. And Ovitz is like, why don't you fucking make a movie with Marty? Like.

• 56:41Griffin Newman?

  Well, let's call out another connection. Jake LaMotta is in The Hustler as a bartender.

• 56:47David Sims?

  Oh shit. Sure. The real Jake LaMotta.

• 56:49Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 56:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 56:50Griffin Newman?

  So that's A, one of the reasons that Paul Newman is leaning in and watching that movie is like, you know, oh, I'm interested. I knew Jake LaMotta. I interacted, I interfaced with this fucking guy and he's seeing like, man, Scorsese got him right and is connecting those dots. There's also, you know, Ovitz was Scorsese's neighbor for a long time. I think he lived underneath him.

• 57:09David Sims?

  He, and he'd shared an office with Harry Offland, who was Scorsese's agent back in the seventies.

• 57:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 57:16David Sims?

  So he's always been into him.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  But, but like, do you think Ovitz lived near Scorsese during Scorsese and Robbie Robertson staying up all night watching horror movies when they're?

• 57:27David Sims?

  Yeah. And Ovitz just had like a big funnel and he would suck the coke fumes from the next door window.

• 57:32Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if it's in the dossier here, but it sounds like Ovitz, when he was like young and getting started.

• 57:38David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 57:39Griffin Newman?

  Was living adjacent to Scorsese in that time and that Scorsese would like loan him movies, show him movies, bring him upstairs to show him a VHS, that there was a little bit of cinematic education.

• 57:50David Sims?

  This is an example of what Ovitz was sort of smart about is like Newman's like, I'd like to work with Marty. Sure. And Ovitz is like, write him a letter. It's going to mean a lot. And Paul Newman's like, what? And he's like, right. Just trust me. Write him a letter saying you admire him. He admires you. Paul Newman's like, he does? And he's like, yeah, sure. Like, you know, like convinces him to do this. Drops the letter personally to Marty, like gives him a, and he says like, Scorsese like opens the letter and like it lights up. Even though it is a, it is addressed to Michael Scorsese.

• 58:22David Sims?

  But he forgives that.

• 58:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 58:24David Sims?

  He's still charmed. And, you know, like, you know, I, my guess is it's sort of like, Ovitz is like, I know he's an artiste. He's probably not going to want to do like a commercial thing. So I'm going to try and like nudge him towards something commercial.

• 58:39Griffin Newman?

  Can I do a minute or two on Ovitz quickly? Cause I do.

• 58:41David Sims?

  We've talked about him before.

• 58:42Griffin Newman?

  But I, I think this movie is a good.

• 58:44David Sims?

  This is a big Ovitz project.

• 58:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. So for people don't know, Michael Ovitz was one of the founders of CAA, right? And he basically becomes the archetype of the modern agent. And part of that is sort of being an agent who also functions a little bit more like a manager. And I think the genius of what he did, and you know, normal guy in our parlance, but to give credit to what he did successfully, and it had certain negative end tail effects on the industry. It was sort of like, he recognized a gulf in the collapse of the studio system that used to be invested in people's careers. It would have a director or an actor under contract and they would be managing them long-term. Not just thinking about how do I get them a gig, but like, what's the arc we're building here? What's the next era we want to go into?

• 59:30Griffin Newman?

  That falls apart. Artists get their own independence, but suddenly it's like, if you're Warren Beatty and you've got really good taste and you're smart and you're driving everything and you have that level of power, you're fine. You just need an agent to fucking make your contracts, close your deals. But some people don't have the same kind of vision. And Ovitz is like, this is what we're going to build our business on is that we are thinking long-term. It is a career business. It's not a gig to gig business. And the other part of it is the beginning of like super packaging, right? And that's what this movie is a great example of, of just like, oh, fuck. If I can put like three insane elements together on paper and then go to the studios and say like, fuck you, you have five minutes to decide.

• 1:00:14Griffin Newman?

  This is a bidding war. It starts to change Hollywood.

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  It's about pool. Nobody's happy.

• 1:00:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Five minutes to decide.

• 1:00:21Griffin Newman?

  His famous example of this is that he puts together like Ghostbusters and goes to all of the studios and is like, like it's on everyone's table, you know, like start bidding. Here's everything. It's like the two funniest men in America from the director of Stripes. And the other guy from Stripes is co-writing and he's in it and we're going to have special effects.

• 1:00:44David Sims?

  And Slimer.

• 1:00:44Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:00:45David Sims?

  Slimer's aboard. Cause Slimer's tough.

• 1:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Slimer was tough to get.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  Slimer's offer only.

• 1:00:50Griffin Newman?

  He was a CAA client.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  Slimer also huge coke problem.

• 1:00:54Griffin Newman?

  It's funny. It's funny that you said that.

• 1:00:56David Sims?

  Kind of a huge slime problem.

• 1:00:57Griffin Newman?

  There was this Ovitz dance of him knowing that Scorsese was such an artistically driven man. To, to drop my one story I have of working on vinyl where I had this incredible extended conversation with Scorsese that I sort of lucked into, where he was talking fairly vulnerably about the criticism of him becoming a paycheck guy. That he was like still very sensitive about the criticisms of his later period and the idea that he doesn't care or does things for money now. And he was like, I very earnestly like every movie I've made, I deeply care about. And like some of them I made more money on and some of them are more passionate to me and some things I developed and this and that.

• 1:01:40Griffin Newman?

  But I like, never made a movie just for money. And, you know, he, he said to me, I remember Mike Ovitz coming up to me at a party. I'm trying to think what the timeline of this would have been. It must've been pre-after hours, right?

• 1:01:57David Sims?

  It, well, it's post-Raging Bull, but I don't know.

• 1:02:01Griffin Newman?

  Sometime in this era, Raging Bull, King of Comedy, Mike Ovitz comes up to him at a post-screen party or post-premiere party for one of his movies and says, you know, Marty, there is a way to make money doing this.

• 1:02:16David Sims?

  I mean, look, we're going to get there.

• 1:02:18Griffin Newman?

  That was a line he used to lure him into color of money. And there was sort of the dance of him being like, I'm not going to do something just for money. And he's like, but there's a way to do both. There is a way to make a movie the way you want to with like incredible assets like Paul Newman and also get paid, not lose your house trying to get it made and have it be commercially successful, which will ultimately, speaking to this long-term career vision, help you get shit like Last Temptation or Gangs of New York made. They're not going to give you that if you keep making shit like King's, King of Comedy.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I'm sure also, I mean, it appeals to two sides of his sensibility. He's at once like, I have archived a neo-realist Serbian movie that eight people have seen. And he's also like, Humphrey Bogart, love him. Like let's make, like movie stars are awesome and Hollywood is great.

• 1:03:05David Sims?

  It's the best about him.

• 1:03:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And so many of the filmmakers he grew up loving had careers like that.

• 1:03:23David Sims?

  1984 Walter Tevis publishes The Color of Money, sequel to his novel The Hustler. He dies of lung cancer just a year later. Paul Newman is into it because he's, he feels differently about Fast Eddie, basically, than any other part he's played. And he's like, Eddie's not complete at the end of The Hustler. It's not like Butch Cassidy or whatever. Like, I often wondered about what he would be doing now. Like, it's not like a thing where like his story just, because obviously The Hustler ends with him basically like in a hole.

• 1:03:55Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if this is controversial to say, but upon rewatching it, I think this is the best of the young Newman performances. I know he's incredible in Butch Cassidy and Cool Hand Luke and whatever, but like, it does feel like The Hustler gets something very unique out of it.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, my favorite's Hud.

• 1:04:10David Sims?

  It's Hud. To me, it's like 100% Hud. That's like the best screenplay performance of all time.

• 1:04:15Griffin Newman?

  He's pretty fucking astonishing in Hustler, though.

• 1:04:19David Sims?

  Yeah, he's awesome in Hustler. He's so awesome, yes.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  And it's great because he's so hot and he's so charming. And he plays such assholes in these movies.

• 1:04:30David Sims?

  He sure does.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  You know, it's like, he actually, like, whatever he saw when he looked in the mirror, is so divorced from what everybody sees when they look on screen.

• 1:04:39Griffin Newman?

  It's fascinating because it does feel like there are, there are actors like him who want to play unlikable because they feel burdened by their charisma, you know, or, or the accessibility they have to people's interests.

• 1:04:55David Sims?

  Right, ugly me up or make me scarier. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:57Griffin Newman?

  And it feels performative and it feels hollow or it feels kind of like self punishing.

• 1:05:02David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:04Griffin Newman?

  And with him, it feels like a genuine, not like a genuine reflection of a self hatred, but there is a very honest probing into the darkest sides of the psyche that don't feel stunt-y.

• 1:05:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:20Griffin Newman?

  And in some ways, maybe a perfect foil or a perfect partner for Scorsese because Newman's like, look, like, I flash the baby blues and everybody comes to the movie, but then they get confronted with like the dregs of the human condition. And Scorsese is like, I make camera move fast, but we're gonna, we're gonna actually get in to some pretty dark stuff here. So it's like, it's the perfect medicine and sugar, right?

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the other thing that like Newman's seeing in Raging Bull of like, man, this guy's really good at dissecting what makes men terrible. He really gets it. He's not trying away from it.

• 1:05:57David Sims?

  Um, okay, so the novel, right? He's into it. Tevis is given a shot at writing a screenplay. He writes a draft. Another writer does another draft, no name for that one.

• 1:06:08Griffin Newman?

  I've never read any, I didn't, I didn't read Color of Money, the, the novel, the Tevis novel. I don't think, I don't know if the screenplay is around anywhere, but the reporting on the screenplay is like, it's basically a two-hander with Fats and Eddie.

• 1:06:25David Sims?

  It's more going by the book, right?

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  It's like Rocky II.

• 1:06:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  It's just like, it's like, we're old now and it's Florida, but like, we're doing cable TV, like exhibitions, but then we're also hustling each other.

• 1:06:38Griffin Newman?

  It's more like Creed II.

• 1:06:42David Sims?

  Newman, still remember Scorsese? Loved Raging Bull. Scorsese has just done, just finished On After Hours and Paul calls him and is like, do you want to do a sequel to The Hustler? Obviously, like, Scorsese is like, my taste is not in sequels, but I do love Paul Newman. Like, I mean, how do you, it's like the president calling you, being like, I need you to be the Secretary of State or whatever.

• 1:07:07Griffin Newman?

  Also.

• 1:07:07David Sims?

  It's fucking Paul Newman.

• 1:07:09Griffin Newman?

  This held the record for a long time of the biggest gap between sequel and original film. As you said, there was the, the return to Oz thing that doesn't really count. And now we get more and more like your, your Sean Legacies and your Top Gun Mavericks where it's just casually, fucking right, 37, 40 years later, whatever the fuck it is. You know, Blade Runner, obviously the Star Wars sequels. At this time, I think that already sounded novel and different.

• 1:07:34David Sims?

  It's novel. It's novel for sure. But there's, but also back then, sequels are so derided.

• 1:07:40Griffin Newman?

  Right. Godfather II is the only one that basically is taken seriously.

• 1:07:45David Sims?

  Um, yeah. So Newman sits down with him and he's like, Eddie reminds me of, you know, characters you've dealt with. I feel like we should hear more from him. I've got a script. Scorsese is intrigued. He does not like the script because it is a literal sequel. Like, you know, basically, like, it even had, like, it was supposed to start with like stuff from The Hustler.

• 1:08:07Griffin Newman?

  I think it starts with like a 10 or 12 minute, like, or 12 page, like, this is from The Hustler. Yeah.

• 1:08:13David Sims?

  Right, yeah. And so, uh, you know, they let the writer who wrote this script, the unnamed writer, one more draft, that still doesn't, they don't like it. He doesn't really like the novel either. So then he's basically like, can we just drop the novel? We'll keep the title, but otherwise, can we just like do something else?

• 1:08:32Griffin Newman?

  This is the power of the package is you don't go like, well, sorry, you don't like the script. Thanks for considering this film. Let's find a new director. You go, no, the selling point here is Scorsese makes The Hustler sequel.

• 1:08:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:08:44Griffin Newman?

  So let's figure out the version he wants to make.

• 1:08:47David Sims?

  So Richard Price, who had written these books like The Wanderers and Blood Brothers and see, you know, like Price is sort of like, was sort of early-ish in his career, but.

• 1:08:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I think he's written like three or four books and then this marks his departure from novels to do screenplays until he comes back to write Clockers.

• 1:09:02David Sims?

  Which Clockers is so good. Lush Life is like the novel he wrote. That's such a good book.

• 1:09:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07David Sims?

  Um, and he worked on The Wire later in life and all that. You know, he became such a luminary. He'd never written a screenplay that had been produced. He'd done some, you know, he'd done some stuff in Hollywood. He was like a little hung up on a novel, I guess. And obviously, you make a lot more money writing movies than you do writing novels that may or may not get published.

• 1:09:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's, I rewatched Martin Fink again recently because it was playing at the Paris with Turturro doing a Q and A. And I, you know, it's, it just made me think about like, right, that's how Hollywood used to run is they would just go to all great novelists and playwrights and go like, look, you're sitting in an office, you're gonna get paid a lot more and then you can go back and write your little things. And now it feels like they are the exceptions to the rule. There are the couple you can call out where you're like, that guy kind of successfully made the leap.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, who's like the most recent person? I mean, Gillian Flynn kind of did that.

• 1:10:02David Sims?

  Yeah, that's a good example, for sure.

• 1:10:03Griffin Newman?

  I mean, like, Benioff is that.

• 1:10:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:07David Sims?

  David Benioff.

• 1:10:07Griffin Newman?

  It's sort of forgotten now.

• 1:10:09David Sims?

  Like, he did like two novels and was like, forget it, I'm done. So Newman, Scorsese and Price sit down in Malibu. This is how Price describes it. Me and Marty, the two New York guys, were on the beach. Marty's sitting there with his jacket and his nasal spray. I'm smoking a cigarette, hunched over coughing. Newman comes out all tanned up, Mr. Sienski eating a grapefruit. We were two clowns with the Hollywood platinum. And then we just hammered out a plotline, like, you know, in one day, essentially. Like, what's fucking Eddie doing now? The novel, he like hooks up with a professor. It's like a romance.

• 1:10:43Griffin Newman?

  It's weird, like they open an antique store.

• 1:10:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:10:46Griffin Newman?

  Seriously, the antique store gets burned down. Sorry for spoiling this novel. Yeah.

• 1:10:51David Sims?

  So like, so Scorsese is basically like, it's not like he's just been doing nothing. He's just gotten like tougher and meaner to survive or whatever. Like, that's kind of, you know, um, but he needs to sort of re-educate himself to play again. Like, that's, that's, you know, the age of 52. He's, you know, blah, blah, blah. And first time I met Paul Newman, I asked him why this guy would start playing pool again in his 50s. I said to Paul, why do you race if you don't win every time? Because Paul Newman loves a fucking, you know, race car, right? And Newman just sort of looks at him and goes like, that's the picture. And like, fucking great stuff, you know?

• 1:11:33David Sims?

  Because I mean, that is like, we're just like, Paul, you're the hottest man alive. Everybody loves your lemonade.

• 1:11:39Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:11:40David Sims?

  Why do you also go to like Le Mans and drive a car for a day? Like, are you not satisfied? And he's like, I don't know, there's something in me.

• 1:11:49Griffin Newman?

  You got a happy marriage. You basically have an uninterrupted, decades-long, like minted movie star streak. You still keep on getting in these crazy cars.

• 1:11:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:11:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59David Sims?

  The first draft comes in too dark. Newman's like, I think this is too, you have made him a nightmare piece of shit.

• 1:12:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's like Eddie Felton dragged up to Gold Goth. Wait a second.

• 1:12:14David Sims?

  So they're like, look, we're making a star vehicle. The way Scorsese puts it is like, we're making a suit for the man, you know? It's got to come out of Paul Newman. Like, you can't just like, write like all this like piece of shit dialogue. Like, you have to imagine like Paul Newman will be saying this. Like, there needs to be some class.

• 1:12:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31David Sims?

  Um, and so, you know, they calibrated and all that. And it's interesting that like Cruz is not mentioned for a while.

• 1:12:38Griffin Newman?

  This is like, the most fascinating thing about reading about the making of this movie is this guy's in Top Gun.

• 1:12:43David Sims?

  The same, like, it comes out, what, four or five months earlier, basically?

• 1:12:47Griffin Newman?

  Uh, so they hit the lottery in that sense, but he is not in any way doing Tom Cruise things where he's like, it's important that this happens to my character and it's important, like, that's all.

• 1:12:56David Sims?

  Right, which is all you hear about.

• 1:12:57Griffin Newman?

  This might be the last movie where that happened.

• 1:12:59David Sims?

  And it's funny because like, his rep is like, after this is like, oh, he wants to work with Oliver Stone and all these big, right, he wants to work with big. And you figure he's the one who's like, Paul, let's get Marty, you know, or whatever. Like, he's not. He comes in later.

• 1:13:13Griffin Newman?

  Obviously, uh, you know, Risky Business was big and predated this, but it is fascinating that I think of this movie and his arc as being like, this is him grabbing the torch and being like, I'm, I'm on the run now. Here we go. I'm, I'm, I'm racing towards the fucking Olympics. And, uh, this felt like the last time he was just like hired to do something.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  I watched, he was on Graham Norton during the pandemics. Like, because I watched the clip and they were all sitting very far apart each. And so, uh, he told this story about doing what sounds like the aftermath of the Werewolves of London scene where he's outside of the car and he's freezing, the coat anecdote. And the way he tells it, it's not like, and then of course, Paul and I became best friends after. I mean, I know that they were close, but it sounds like Newman's like, ah, kid, you know, like, hey, but it's just like, you're the supporting actor in this movie.

• 1:14:10Griffin Newman?

  You know, Tom Cruise, the most controlled man in the world, has 10 anecdotes he will share. There are 10 personal things he will say, right? And one of them, which I feel like he only started sharing in the last 10 years, because I've seen him do in a couple other places. I know he did it on the fucking Nerdist podcast, but the anecdote is that they're filming this thing outside and they call cut and immediately Paul Newman has like a P A come over and put a really warm coat on him.

• 1:14:33Speaker 02

  And he has like an electric heater. Yeah.

• 1:14:35Griffin Newman?

  Right. And, and Tom Cruise is like rubbing his arms and like freezing. And Paul Newman says something like, 54 pictures, kid.

• 1:14:45Griffin Newman?

  Basically implying like, I've learned how to make movies. I know what I need. And that Tom Cruise looks at it as this moment of like, that's what I'm working towards. Not just the quality of the movies and the consistency of the run, but to understand how to do this as a job. You know, and know every angle of what I need to be on top of.

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz he does his wardrobe fitting in the summer. So he's like, it'll be cool if I'm wearing a leather jacket and a T-shirt. And it's like, they're shooting in Chicago in January.

• 1:15:13David Sims?

  It's gonna be so cold.

• 1:15:14Griffin Newman?

  The subtext of the story is that Paul Newman has the level of experience where he can do the math on every one of these things. He's not just thinking creatively, he's also going like, oh wait, when is this scene gonna film? And that's an exterior and this and that. And I feel like-

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  And he's like, Richard, I think it would be good if I was inside the Cadillac for that night.

• 1:15:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Chronologically, that feels like the last story he shares in which there is anything aspirational in the Tom Cruise persona. When he talks about anything he worked on after that, it is just like, I sat at the table and I said, this is what we need to do. Right? He tells the stories that are like, I was a little boy and I would repeat movie dialogue while staring at the ceiling. While my family life was depressing. And then there's, I look at Paul Newman and I go, this is the guy I wanna be. And after that, he is self-actualized. It is fascinating that, I was saying to you, he must have shot this before Top Gun cuz he still looks kinda funky in this. But he shoots Top Gun first, then shoots this, and then has to go back and do reshoots for Top Gun.

• 1:16:13Griffin Newman?

  There's the scene where he's coming out of the shower in Top Gun. And that's because they had to wet his hair because he had grown it out the fall.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  And it was like kinda wavy with, yeah.

• 1:16:22David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they shoot the love scene in like total shadow for the same reason or something like that.

• 1:16:27Griffin Newman?

  But it's like, he doesn't seem to know what Top Gun's about to do for him.

• 1:16:31David Sims?

  No, none of them do. The way Scorsese puts it is like, we're getting a little bit of money because of risky business. Like, he's not an unfamous person.

• 1:16:38Griffin Newman?

  This casting is closer to hiring Miles Teller for Top Gun because you're like, he was good in Whiplash.

• 1:16:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:16:43Griffin Newman?

  Not like, this is clearly the guy.

• 1:16:47David Sims?

  Fox, they get Cruise aboard. Fox turns it down, Columbia turns it down. This is kinda crazy, given the like, the package or whatever. Katzenberg and Eisner at Disney, grab it. Put it on, you know, it's gonna be a touchstone film.

• 1:16:58Griffin Newman?

  They've just taken over there after leaving Paramount.

• 1:17:00David Sims?

  But they make Newman's salary insurance against Scorsese going over budget. So like, Scorsese has such a reputation post-New York, New York and such, that they're like, eh eh eh, even with all this, you know.

• 1:17:13Griffin Newman?

  Even with after-hours being cheap and yeah.

• 1:17:14David Sims?

  Right, yeah, yeah. Um, so he's got the big stars. It's his first time, he says, working with a movie star. Like, it's not like De Niro where like, it's his friend, like-

• 1:17:25Griffin Newman?

  Right, it's different when it's a movie star you helped forge, who's like your brother.

• 1:17:28David Sims?

  The way he puts it is like, right, like, I'm looking at a face that I've been looking at since I was 12. There's a thousand movies on his face. Uh, Newman loves Scorsese, says he's got an incredible eye, he's on you like a hawk. You can't do like, your mannerisms with, around him, you know what I mean? Like, he, he's like, uh, he's immediately like, don't do that, you know, like, or whatever. And Newman's like, right, can't be lazy or what, I can't like, do whatever the, the usual shit is.

• 1:17:54Griffin Newman?

  I also saw him say the best direction Scorsese gave him was, uh, don't try to be funny.

• 1:17:59David Sims?

  Right, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:00Griffin Newman?

  As an overall, and he was just like, that's like really smart, mature direction.

• 1:18:05David Sims?

  Um, another, right, Cruise connection, you know, Michael Chapman, who is Scorsese's cinematographer for like Raging Bull and stuff, directed all the right moves. So that was another reason Scorsese had his eye on Cruise.

• 1:18:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17David Sims?

  Um, uh, obviously, everyone does their own pool playing, you know, cuz, you know, they, they gotta do it. And obviously Cruise gets so into it.

• 1:18:27Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, it is part of the Cruise mythology is I feel like this is the first time you hear about him going turbo on crap.

• 1:18:33David Sims?

  The, the, the, the jump ball shot is the one that an expert does.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  That's the one that he was like, I'm sure you could make this.

• 1:18:39David Sims?

  It'll take days.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  But it'll be like nine days to get one shot.

• 1:18:43Griffin Newman?

  But also feels like that's the thing he regrets for the rest of his career.

• 1:18:46David Sims?

  I couldn't get that, I couldn't have done it, I could have figured it out.

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  I had more in me, I could have done it.

• 1:18:51David Sims?

  Um, you know, uh, Marty's parents are with him. I don't really, do Marty's parents just kinda travel around with him? They shot this movie in Chicago.

• 1:19:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:02David Sims?

  But I guess they're just there.

• 1:19:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04David Sims?

  Uh, Cruise like has dinner with him every night, you know, he really loves Marty. Yeah, I mean, that's just what he's like.

• 1:19:10Speaker 02

  Sauce, sauce is good.

• 1:19:13David Sims?

  And they rehearse the whole thing, like Newman's very into rehearsals. They block all the scenes out. They do like tons and tons of rehearsals, basically like word for word. So they're incredibly prepared. Uh, and so they shot for like 10 weeks and they did it like, you know, no problem. They didn't go over budget or time.

• 1:19:33Griffin Newman?

  It was under, it was under on both.

• 1:19:34David Sims?

  And it's the only- 13 million, under 14.5 budget.

• 1:19:38Griffin Newman?

  It's the only time he did that in his career and it felt like he needed to do that to prove a point.

• 1:19:42David Sims?

  Right. Um, they wanted to shoot in New York, but all the kinda classic, interesting pool halls were kinda gone. Uh, Toronto, you know, a cheap city, obviously, but like way too clean is basically how they put it. Um, and so they end up in Chicago. Uh, they use St. Paul's Billiards, Chris's Billiards, Chris's Billiards.

• 1:20:03Griffin Newman?

  Chris's Billiards.

• 1:20:04David Sims?

  Chicago's finest, the North Center Bowl, uh, this famous old bar Fitzgerald's, which I feel like is like still kind of a classic place that they, they turned that into a pool room. There's so many, I mean, there's that place, what's it? That storefront that's like Lincoln, what, you know, like, that's still there. Um, they, and they, they do go to Atlantic City for one day, uh, to shoot the big tournament with all the, uh, you know, the-

• 1:20:30Griffin Newman?

  Did they shoot any of this tournament stuff on stages or was that all?

• 1:20:33David Sims?

  Yes, they staged most of it in Chicago's Navy Pier. Like, like, but they did some, you know, kinda like establishing.

• 1:20:39Griffin Newman?

  There is a, uh, strange relationship cuz this movie is kind of a road movie.

• 1:20:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:44Griffin Newman?

  Because they're shooting it all in Chicago, you're kinda like-

• 1:20:47David Sims?

  Are they traveling?

• 1:20:48Griffin Newman?

  Are you traveling from the north side of Chicago to the south side of Chicago?

• 1:20:50David Sims?

  Driving.

• 1:20:51Griffin Newman?

  Um, but I always just in my mind imagine it being like Cleveland, Detroit, you know, Chicago, one more stop, Atlantic City, like Philly, Atlantic City or something like that.

• 1:21:02David Sims?

  This is his second Ball House movie. Ball House shot after hours. JJ editorializing here, our researcher, says, best, best DP that Scorsese ever worked with. I think that's probably true.

• 1:21:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but also JJ, you're fired, we don't pay you for your opinions.

• 1:21:15David Sims?

  Um, but, uh, you know, there's a lot of stuff here about, you know, the kinda bounce lights he used. I'm not gonna go into all of this, come on now.

• 1:21:22Griffin Newman?

  What do they call the, um, the, when they, the cameras that could go right behind a cue ball or a pool ball?

• 1:21:28David Sims?

  I, I, I mean, they, I don't know, but I love all that-

• 1:21:31Griffin Newman?

  Lifted cameras.

• 1:21:31David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, great name, there you go. Uh, they move the camera a lot. Like Ball House is like, I think out of every, like seven out of every 10 shots, the camera's moving. Like, it's a tracking shot or a moving shot or something. Like Marty loves to move the camera, I love to move the camera.

• 1:21:46Griffin Newman?

  Marty Scorsese likes to move the camera?

• 1:21:48David Sims?

  And you're playing pool, which is just, it is a game where you just think about people just kinda like rotating around the table constantly, right? You know what I mean? Like, there is a movement to it.

• 1:21:57Griffin Newman?

  He's doing like all the Spielberg, uh, like coverage with camera movement. So it'll be like, push in Vince, pan Moselle, back to Vince, tilt down to the pool cue, tilt up to Moselle. And that, you know what I mean? And it's like, oh, that's like seven shots, but you just did it with move, movement. Which, I, I think that's part of the under-schedule, under-budget thing, right? That's always been a famous Spielberg thing, that he's so forged in the failure of 1941.

• 1:22:29David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:29Griffin Newman?

  That he adopts that style-

• 1:22:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:32Griffin Newman?

  For Raiders of just like, I'm gonna figure out on the day, what's the quickest, cleanest, smartest way to do this? Um, and then he holds himself to that standard for the rest of his career. Scorsese obviously does not, but it does feel like he strategically knows, I gotta figure out a way to compress this, to, to make everyone trust me again. But those morphing kinda master shots are just exquisite. It also, we've talked about, maybe it has been since Ali, but how there's such a disproportionate amount of great boxing movies to other sports.

• 1:23:10David Sims?

  It's such a cinematic sport.

• 1:23:12Griffin Newman?

  It, part of it is that it's so contained and there's so few things you have to track. And it's in such a manageable visual space. A thing I'm sure we've talked about extensively on a Raging Bull episode. But Billiards is like an even tinier version of that. You know, it's basically a widescreen frame and you're just like, it's bright colors? It's crazy that actually The Hustler works as well as it does in black and white.

• 1:23:37Speaker 02

  It's such a strange sports movie, this one, because first of all, I think I take it for granted that, you know, people would unnecessarily grasp at any given moment where they are in terms of the, the scale, the scales of who's winning and who's losing in a match. Because for one thing, some of the times they're intentionally losing. Sometimes they're winning to set up the fact that they might lose. It's rotation pool. So it's like, sometimes they're kicking ass, but then a guy is like, it's my turn. You know, like I, I get to come in. Boxing is so simple. It's like, you can have never seen boxing before and be like, I get it. They punch each other until one guy falls down.

• 1:24:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:24:16Speaker 02

  And it's, and it's like pool and the way he shoots pool. It's like, there are often times where I'm like, I wonder if this is the fifth rack.

• 1:24:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  Is it the ninth rack? Like how, like, how, it's so interesting that he can pull it off without ever being like, I have to stop and explain everything that's happening here.

• 1:24:31Griffin Newman?

  It's very reliant on the actress performances in that way. Cause you need to look to them as a guide of them playing, what's the status of the game right now? And are they working someone or not? But it also means that basically you just need to depict trick shots. You just need to show us things that look impressive or look unimpressive in a basic binary way. And then it's helpful that like, you can do these fucking crazy camera moves, but actually you're just moving the camera two feet because you're tracking a very small ball in a very contained space.

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  And a shiny ball moving on felt is really cool.

• 1:25:04Griffin Newman?

  It's really fucking cool.

• 1:25:05Speaker 03

  And aren't the rules of nine ball pretty straightforward?

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  They are.

• 1:25:09Speaker 03

  I think there's something to that versus it being eight ball.

• 1:25:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:12Speaker 03

  Where it's just like, it's very simple. If you get on a run and then you're able to be the one to get the nine ball in, you win. Like, it's just, yeah.

• 1:25:20David Sims?

  I think eight ball is also pretty simple. Eight ball is just solid stripes.

• 1:25:24Speaker 02

  I like to play one ball. That feels like for me, the cleanest attract of just take one ball, even leave the cue to the side.

• 1:25:32Speaker 03

  But they say.

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  And then you just pick it up with your hand and you drop it into the pocket, game over.

• 1:25:35Speaker 03

  They say in the movie that like nine ball is more action based.

• 1:25:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's for TV.

• 1:25:39Speaker 03

  Faster.

• 1:25:40Speaker 02

  It's like Texas Hold'em. It's like they, it's like the thing you created to make it feel more like a real sport. Not that it's not a real sport.

• 1:25:47Speaker 03

  I.

• 1:25:47Speaker 02

  Well, that's arguable, but yeah.

• 1:25:49David Sims?

  I mean, I've watched, like I said, I've watched televised snooker. I've never really seen televised pool. Like, I'm not really aware of like.

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  You clearly are not watching ESPN two late enough into the night.

• 1:26:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:00Speaker 03

  2:00 AM?

• 1:26:01Speaker 02

  In the 90s. Yeah.

• 1:26:02Griffin Newman?

  I feel like they were built on that, right?

• 1:26:05David Sims?

  Yeah. Like, I don't know what, what's the like state of professional pool playing these days?

• 1:26:11Speaker 02

  I don't know, actually. Like there was a, I, I'm not being funny. Like there was a run there where there would be tournaments.

• 1:26:17David Sims?

  Had less stuff.

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  And when they were just, it's bowling and pool after SportsCenter. Like that's what we got. But I don't remember the last time I, I was like, this is the most famous pool player.

• 1:26:29David Sims?

  I was about to say like, right. Who's the best pool player? Whereas like in, again, I can, Ronnie O'Sullivan, baby, like Stephen Hendry. I can name like the great snooker players of my childhood. Uh, but I don't know who's good at pool. Like once in a while, you'll see a bowling clip, which is always fun. Like, you know, some guy being like, ah, that's, that's why I'm the goat. And you're like, I guess that guy's the goat.

• 1:26:51Speaker 02

  And those guys now all wear like Thanos gloves to bowl. Like, wait, isn't that just like a cybernetic arm? Is that fair?

• 1:26:59David Sims?

  Is that allowed? Obviously there's like, Britain has darts, which is the funniest televised sport because everyone is more bitterly obese. And it's in a giant bar where every, like the whole crowd is just hammered.

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  That honestly though, is like maybe the greatest televised.

• 1:27:15David Sims?

  It's so good.

• 1:27:16Speaker 02

  It's watching guys do walk up songs. And it's like, they're all named Ronnie, you know, and, and like people are losing their minds.

• 1:27:25David Sims?

  180. There's the guy who yells. Um, and the other, God, the crazy thing about snooker is it's always like best of 33 games. Like where you're like, what's the score? And he's like, he's up 11 to seven. And I'm like, and what does he need? They're like, I don't know. 18. Like, it's like, it's such a, I don't understand.

• 1:27:43Speaker 03

  Who's going to see it in person?

• 1:27:45David Sims?

  You go to Sheffield, it's called the crucible, the, the place where they, and it's, it's crazy. There's a packed crowd watching it.

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  It can't be a real country.

• 1:27:53Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 1:27:53Speaker 02

  I was gonna say also, why does it feel like so many British sports are like durational to prove a point? Like people complain about American baseball, American baseball.

• 1:28:03David Sims?

  You know what?

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  Talking about.

• 1:28:04David Sims?

  We have enough listeners. Someone explain this because I don't know. The answer is probably like, oh, what do you mean? Like a snooker game is 20 minutes. Like it has to be that. I have no idea. Like, I don't know. All I know is I used to watch when I was a kid, the game show, The Big Break hosted by Jim Davidson, who later became one of Britain's more prominent pro Brexit celebrities. Back in the day, a hilarious live entertainer that was like a snooker game show. That's how popular snooker was in Britain. Anyway.

• 1:28:31Speaker 03

  Okay. I looked it up. Carlo Beato of the Philippines won the 2025 World Pool Association Nine Ball Championship.

• 1:28:40David Sims?

  He, he kinda looks like a badass. I kinda like his vibe.

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  Maybe if we ever get a, a color of money where Vince is the old man, Carlo couldn't be the Vince.

• 1:28:51Speaker 03

  Like, do you need to be in good shape to be good at pool?

• 1:28:56Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean, you have to stand a lot.

• 1:28:58Speaker 03

  You gotta bend over.

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  You get, you need a good back.

• 1:29:00Speaker 03

  Need a good back. Do you need like, you know, some shoulder strength?

• 1:29:04Speaker 02

  For sure. Right.

• 1:29:05David Sims?

  You know how like professional video game players like get worse when they're older? And you're like, really? And it's like, yeah, man. Like being young, like your brain works better. You know, where it's like even.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  The thumbs fail.

• 1:29:14David Sims?

  Even fucking this, like you, it is better when you're younger.

• 1:29:18Griffin Newman?

  I know we need to dig into the movie proper. I just need to pick up this thread that CR just dropped. Cause I was thinking this while watching. Like if Digger doesn't work, does Cruz go, it's time to make the Vince Legacy sequel? Watching this, it felt really obvious to me that if he.

• 1:29:36David Sims?

  You can't have Newman.

• 1:29:37Griffin Newman?

  No, but he's the guy now.

• 1:29:39David Sims?

  No, I understand. It would just be like cool to have Newman.

• 1:29:42Speaker 03

  That would suck.

• 1:29:43David Sims?

  Have the one scene where he's like, kid, you got it.

• 1:29:45Griffin Newman?

  Who would be the young then casting?

• 1:29:48David Sims?

  I don't know. It was Miles Teller in Maverick.

• 1:29:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:50David Sims?

  Who, who is it now? I don't know.

• 1:29:52Griffin Newman?

  I don't, I don't know who it is, but I just was like, of all the legacy sequels, he's talking about doing Days of Thunder two, he's talking about doing Maverick.

• 1:30:01David Sims?

  He really shouldn't do Days of.

• 1:30:02Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 1:30:02David Sims?

  That is a huge mistake.

• 1:30:04Griffin Newman?

  Especially post F1, there's nothing that needs to be said.

• 1:30:07David Sims?

  There's no room for you here and you're too old.

• 1:30:09Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:30:10David Sims?

  Is there, yeah. Is there another Cruz legacy sequel that makes sense?

• 1:30:13Griffin Newman?

  The other part of that is that Cruz does genuinely love racing. And he said that Paul Newman's the one who got him into it on, while filming this movie.

• 1:30:19David Sims?

  Sounds like the kind of bullshit he'd said.

• 1:30:21Speaker 02

  Have you read the script for Rain Men yet?

• 1:30:25David Sims?

  Let's get Hoffman back now.

• 1:30:27Speaker 02

  But it's just also like a bunch of, yeah, many, many. Yeah.

• 1:30:31David Sims?

  Oh, he's right. He's, he's had a lot of kids.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:34David Sims?

  They have to go collect all the Rain Men.

• 1:30:36Griffin Newman?

  It's just such an obvious thing where like the color of money Oscar feels like shorthand for a kind of gold watch performance, you know? It, it becomes the representation for even what, what true grit is of like, what's the obvious kind of elder statesman? You are looking back on your legacy and sort of like your movie stardom. We gotta give it to this guy. Oscar win.

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  Well, to your point about him obviously taking a supporting role and being like, in some ways, third chair on, on, on this movie compared to Newman and Scorsese. It's you, not maybe not unique in his films, but it is very, it's, it's very clear that like Vince is almost the villain of the end of this movie in some ways. And that.

• 1:31:24Griffin Newman?

  The, the movie frames it as like, this is the problem. This is what we lost culturally.

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yes.

• 1:31:30Griffin Newman?

  Look at how unseemly these guys are.

• 1:31:33Speaker 02

  And then it's like, for the first two thirds of the movies, he's just like regarding Newman. Yeah. He gets mad at him a couple of times, but for the most part, he's just like, Eddie, you're, you're the man. Like just show me the ways of the force, you know, like, and it's, it's so different from the way he now is so in touch with, I want people to think this about me at this moment in the movie, you know? And then they have to think this is gonna happen, but they know I'm gonna prevail, you know?

• 1:32:02Griffin Newman?

  Also the fact that Cruz keeps making baton pass movies where he refuses to pass the baton. You know, obviously there's the whole Renner thing with Mission Impossible, but then it's also what's fascinating about Maverick is that it's like, no, I'm not gonna die. I'm gonna save Miles Teller. The movie ends with me being like, and I'm still fucking.

• 1:32:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, Maverick, you did it.

• 1:32:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's not about me elevating the other guy.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:26Griffin Newman?

  It, it does feel like, I don't know. If they announce tomorrow, like he's got Benny Safdie or Josh, Josh Safdie, I guess is the more exciting pick, right? Working on.

• 1:32:39Griffin Newman?

  A Vince movie.

• 1:32:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:32:40Griffin Newman?

  Do people get interested?

• 1:32:41David Sims?

  If it's Josh Safi, sure.

• 1:32:43Griffin Newman?

  If it's the right writer.

• 1:32:45David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. I mean, this is the one where you're like, well, I could buy him playing pool.

• 1:32:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:50David Sims?

  Like versus Days of Thunder where it's like, get out of the car, Tom. Like, you know, like, come on. Jesus Christ. You know, like, I'm trying, I'm looking at his eighties. It's funny, it's like, he's good in this movie.

• 1:33:00Griffin Newman?

  Is Cocktail the movie right after this?

• 1:33:02David Sims?

  Cocktail is in eighty-eight, so he doesn't make a movie in eighty-seven. Yeah, so Cocktail is his next film.

• 1:33:07Griffin Newman?

  Feels like what you're saying of the first time where he's like.

• 1:33:09Speaker 02

  No, I'm the best bartender.

• 1:33:11Griffin Newman?

  Right, the arc of that movie is guy stumbles into a thing, immediately comes better than everyone else in the world. His challenge is that no one will give him that credit, basically. And then, and then a woman dies.

• 1:33:24David Sims?

  So Cocktail is, apologies to Bill Simmons, a terrible movie.

• 1:33:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Tremendous amount of fun.

• 1:33:30David Sims?

  It's a good fun.

• 1:33:30Griffin Newman?

  It's a dogshit movie for idiots.

• 1:33:32David Sims?

  Stupid, stupid movie.

• 1:33:34Griffin Newman?

  I love it.

• 1:33:35David Sims?

  But it's fun. But he, you know, he's got that in eighty-eighty, balances it with Rain Man where it's like, once again, I'm working with a big director. I'm opposite a bigger actor. He, in my opinion, he steals Rain Man out from Hoffman.

• 1:33:47Griffin Newman?

  I feel like that's sort of become the majority opinion of that's, that's the performance.

• 1:33:52David Sims?

  At the time, obviously, that's not the case.

• 1:33:54Griffin Newman?

  Didn't even get nominated.

• 1:33:55Speaker 03

  How do people feel about Rain Man now?

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  We did it as rewatchable recently. Have you guys done it? In a.

• 1:34:00David Sims?

  We've never done Levinson because he's one of those classic guys of like, the latter half of his career is a slog.

• 1:34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you'd be like watching The Bay, which I kind of like, but, but you'd be like, okay.

• 1:34:09David Sims?

  You'd be watching like Rock the Cash Box.

• 1:34:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:34:12David Sims?

  Or whatever. Like, I mean, I don't know, what, like, the one where Ben Foster is a boxer.

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  Right, that's an HBO one, maybe we could skip that.

• 1:34:19Griffin Newman?

  It's just a, it's a really weird movie.

• 1:34:22David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a very, very watchable movie.

• 1:34:24Griffin Newman?

  For sure, but it's just like, you're like, oh, this is about a car salesman who has a little bit of money trouble and then finds out he has a brother.

• 1:34:30David Sims?

  Right, the stakes of it are oddly low. It's, the thing about it is, is obviously, you could never do a movie like that today. The Hoffman performances would now be seen as insensitive or whatever. It's an incredibly moving movie, just like, you know, just the gut, you know, the way it works.

• 1:34:46Griffin Newman?

  But I think most of that's Cruise also.

• 1:34:48David Sims?

  Oh, Cruise is good script.

• 1:34:49Griffin Newman?

  But.

• 1:34:49David Sims?

  It's a good script.

• 1:34:50Griffin Newman?

  It is crazy.

• 1:34:51David Sims?

  It's not a movie I've seen a lot. I've seen like twice.

• 1:34:53Griffin Newman?

  It's crazy when you look at it and you're like, everyone wanted to make that script. There were so many versions of that movie with different A-list actors and different directors where you're like, you know, Spielberg almost makes it with Bill Murray in the Hoffman Park. Like, people were like tripping over themselves to get the chance to make this film. And then it sweeps the Oscars and it's the highest grossing film of its year.

• 1:35:16David Sims?

  It sure was. And so like, I guess that's part of the Cruise touch at that point. And then the next year he does Born on the Fourth of July, which I feel like is the moment where it's like, okay, you're a certified great actor. But then he follows it with like Days of Thunder, Far and Away, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Interview with the Vampire, Mission Impossible. A lot of like, very sort of, sort of crowd forward movies. Like, he doesn't make another really like, I mean, I guess Far and Away is trying to be a serious movie.

• 1:35:43Speaker 02

  Far and Away is trying, yeah. And I think all those movies, the.

• 1:35:46Speaker 03

  Sorry, I was just, I got excited, A Few Good Men, like a sequel.

• 1:35:50David Sims?

  The Last Good Man.

• 1:35:52Speaker 03

  A bunch of great people.

• 1:35:55David Sims?

  Well, you're going more. Well, there's, you know what, there's a lot of great people in the military these days. That's, that's the argument for the movie.

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

  Nothing excites me more than the sound of a, um.

• 1:36:05David Sims?

  Look, Nicholson's still alive. He appears to be retired.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  Guantanamo, you know, just gone through a couple of iterations since.

• 1:36:12David Sims?

  I was gonna, Demise, you know, rebounded, like, you know.

• 1:36:16Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say Sorkin legacy sequel are the scariest words currently plaguing the modern movie landscape.

• 1:36:23David Sims?

  He's up to no good right now.

• 1:36:24Griffin Newman?

  But then I'm realizing that's, that's another example of, it's not Fincher doing the legacy sequel with an entirely different cast, but it is Sorkin making his own legacy.

• 1:36:35Speaker 02

  He'll beat Heat Two to the punch on that.

• 1:36:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Griffin Newman?

  Oh, right, we were talking about that off mic. We were saying how weird it is that Heat Two is the same guy making a movie.

• 1:36:43David Sims?

  New cast, uh, as the same characters.

• 1:36:46Griffin Newman?

  Characters recasting every role.

• 1:36:48David Sims?

  Yeah, A Few Good Men, obviously, Rob Reiner recently died. That is tragic. That probably makes A Few Good Men like a sequel even less likely. Uh, also, what would it be about? Also, what are you, what, what are we doing here?

• 1:37:00Speaker 02

  Also, apparently, I mean, are there still lawyers who prosecute the military?

• 1:37:06David Sims?

  The judge checks.

• 1:37:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:07David Sims?

  The Truth Social feed and sees what Trump has said and makes his decision, like.

• 1:37:12Griffin Newman?

  I mean, by the time this episode comes out, maybe the Social Reckoning trailer is out there, almost definitely. That movie is by all accounts, like ninety percent courtroom? It sounds like that's the, the gist of it.

• 1:37:23David Sims?

  He's really good at that stuff.

• 1:37:25Griffin Newman?

  He is.

• 1:37:26David Sims?

  You know, or like, he knows how to.

• 1:37:27Griffin Newman?

  But that might be.

• 1:37:28David Sims?

  What if you do?

• 1:37:29Griffin Newman?

  Your, your A Few Good Men legacy sequel might be a few bad websites.

• 1:37:32David Sims?

  Listen, Tom Cruise is a, Tom Cruise is a judge advocate general in A Few Good Men.

• 1:37:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:36David Sims?

  He's a Jack. As we all know, NCIS is based on Jack, is a spinoff, technically a spinoff of the TV show Jack.

• 1:37:43Speaker 03

  We all know this.

• 1:37:44David Sims?

  The legacy sequel is them untangling the media rights of NCIS in a court.

• 1:37:48Speaker 02

  Oh, that would be fun.

• 1:37:49David Sims?

  And it's just kind of like, oh wait, and this counts too? Like LL Cool J's testifying for some reason, right? You know, just like digging into all of that.

• 1:37:56Speaker 02

  Cause now there's the NCIS spinoff that's young Mark Harmon, that's created by Mark Harmon's son, but Mark Harmon's son doesn't play.

• 1:38:03David Sims?

  He was recast.

• 1:38:04Speaker 02

  Young Mark Harmon, even though he played young Mark Harmon on.

• 1:38:08David Sims?

  And Jack.

• 1:38:09Speaker 02

  So in this iteration, is Chris O'Donnell gonna play the Kiefer Sutherland role of like vaguely like MAGA kind of like.

• 1:38:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:38:18David Sims?

  Like somewhat coded, right? Where you're like, were you, what were you doing? No, uh, that's, um, let's talk about the color money.

• 1:38:25Griffin Newman?

  Let's talk about the color money.

• 1:38:26David Sims?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:38:26Griffin Newman?

  It opens, like many great films do, with Martin Scorsese, the director, doing voiceover, even though he's not a character in the film.

• 1:38:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:34Griffin Newman?

  Just being like, let me explain a thing to you.

• 1:38:38Speaker 02

  The most grotesque and also the most beautiful image of a cigarette, where you're like, I gotta have that.

• 1:38:44David Sims?

  Immediately.

• 1:38:45Speaker 02

  I'm just also like, look at that.

• 1:38:47Griffin Newman?

  Smoke and drink so badly.

• 1:38:48Speaker 02

  Look at that ash falling off of it, that's what goes into your lungs. This is the worst thing that we've ever done to ourselves.

• 1:38:55Speaker 03

  As a former smoker, this is triggering.

• 1:38:57David Sims?

  You wanted to.

• 1:38:58Speaker 03

  This made me want to drink and smoke so bad.

• 1:39:00David Sims?

  Never smoked a cigarette in my life. Movies like this, I'm just, again, I'm like, I need to move into a pool hall. I need to become addicted to brown liquid that makes my head swell.

• 1:39:11Speaker 03

  Was like, this needs to be a mandatory road trip thing where like, uh, like some old head and like a twenty-something have to like be linked up. And it doesn't even have to be like that I need to learn how to be a pool hustler.

• 1:39:26Griffin Newman?

  But they have to learn some.

• 1:39:27Speaker 03

  But I just want to like scum apprenticeship.

• 1:39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, scum apprentice would be a great franchise.

• 1:39:32Speaker 03

  My, interesting, interesting.

• 1:39:35Speaker 02

  Ben has a franchise he's been trying to launch for children called Scum Friends.

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  Okay. Look, it's a big ten, you know, we could have G-rated stuff, but we could also then scum apprentice is like, we're going in and we're learning about hustling and cons and.

• 1:39:49Griffin Newman?

  Scum Friends is sort of, that's metaphorically what it's about, that we should not cast judgment on the.

• 1:39:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, scum needs friends too.

• 1:39:56Griffin Newman?

  Society, but it's literally physical manifestations of like the scum and pipes.

• 1:40:01David Sims?

  Yeah, it's like, I'm a professional.

• 1:40:03Griffin Newman?

  I knew Chris would get this.

• 1:40:06David Sims?

  I'm a professional pool player, I say to a woman in a bar.

• 1:40:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:10David Sims?

  And she's like, oh, so you're like a lowlife. Then below that is like, I'm a professional pool player who often pretends to be bad and so I can score money off of people. And maybe I'm gonna get knifed outside, where it's like, wait, you found a scumier version of professional pool player to be? Like, were you not satisfied just being in pool halls all day?

• 1:40:32Griffin Newman?

  Here's another thing about how appealing the world of this movie is to us. My friend Alejandro had a joke he used to tell about where he would refer to liquor as magic water that makes you sick.

• 1:40:44Griffin Newman?

  And for how much this movie is about drinking and he's a liquor salesman and it makes it look fucking awesome. You're also like.

• 1:40:49David Sims?

  He's like putting glasses into people's mouths, being like, taste that sweet, sweet whiskey.

• 1:40:54Griffin Newman?

  But it's also, this isn't like Mad Men drinking. This is like, you see like, oh, right, the magic water makes you sick. This guy looks bad. He's depressed.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  I've been on the East Coast for five days, I haven't had a vegetable and.

• 1:41:07Griffin Newman?

  It's not even like focused, romantic, like self punishing Bukowski drinking. It's actually just like.

• 1:41:13Speaker 02

  No, but I can feel my body slowly dying, just doing like three days of this. And that's what he does every morning, like he probably are no mornings because all he does is get up at four PM.

• 1:41:23Griffin Newman?

  You feel this movie in your tummy.

• 1:41:24Speaker 02

  And meets with a woman who's inexplicably wearing a kimono and is like, try this old McDonald's.

• 1:41:30David Sims?

  It's like, I mean.

• 1:41:31Speaker 02

  It's bonded.

• 1:41:33Griffin Newman?

  Magical water.

• 1:41:35Speaker 02

  In your lips.

• 1:41:37David Sims?

  It's the, the Mulaney joke of like, did the, did the bathrooms is Sterling Cooper's paper price sound like a haunted house?

• 1:41:45David Sims?

  I, I'm not watching this movie being like, I wonder what kind of shits Paul Newman takes, but like the second you start thinking about it, like, right, you're like, right, we're not watching six hours of the guy on the john with a paper, like, which is must be built into his life.

• 1:41:58Griffin Newman?

  They're eating at diners in White Castle.

• 1:42:00David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:42:00Griffin Newman?

  And they, and they smoke and drink all day.

• 1:42:03David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:42:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And he's the hottest any man has ever been.

• 1:42:06David Sims?

  But in that way, same as Slapshot.

• 1:42:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:09David Sims?

  He is, he's correctly depicted as a like, as a like battered piece of shit. And yet he's still the hottest thing you've ever seen.

• 1:42:17Griffin Newman?

  Him in The Verdict, like this era.

• 1:42:19David Sims?

  Well, in The Verdict, you're like, oh no. Like, I mean, and like, he is so fucked up.

• 1:42:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:24David Sims?

  And in The Verdict, he's also like, I'm an ambulance.

• 1:42:26Griffin Newman?

  He's like, check out my apartment, which is also my office.

• 1:42:30Speaker 02

  That movie rolls.

• 1:42:31David Sims?

  This one, it's like, you're like, air pool player, that's cool. The Verdict, you're like, wow, you, you suck.

• 1:42:38Griffin Newman?

  There's like, the first time you see The Verdict.

• 1:42:40David Sims?

  He's not gonna put on cool glasses, you know? The first time you see The Verdict, sorry.

• 1:42:44Griffin Newman?

  Oh no, when you first watch it, you're just like, boy, are there gals out there like Charlotte Rampling or gopher guys like this? Cause that could open up a lot of windows for me. And then you realize it's a scam, but.

• 1:42:54Speaker 02

  He's doing things right. He's the hustler in that movie. I think on, on the, the big pick legal draft, I call that, uh, the greatest burnished wood movie of all time.

• 1:43:03Griffin Newman?

  This one has a, but this is in, on the podium with that.

• 1:43:06Speaker 02

  It's in there.

• 1:43:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I, uh, I, I asked for and did not receive, uh, one of the most unique creations in furniture history, which is the pool hall chair.

• 1:43:16David Sims?

  Okay, talk about this. You wanted to podcast from.

• 1:43:19Griffin Newman?

  Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes. You sent us a photo.

• 1:43:21Speaker 02

  It's this.

• 1:43:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's the screenshot.

• 1:43:22Speaker 02

  Elevated wooden throne.

• 1:43:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:24Speaker 02

  That overlooks so that you get like a good angle on the action.

• 1:43:28David Sims?

  It's technically known as a spectator chair.

• 1:43:30Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, it almost looks like a lifeguard chair or, or like a fucking tennis referee.

• 1:43:34David Sims?

  Like a director's chair at a weird kind of a way.

• 1:43:36Speaker 02

  And it also looks a little bit like a shoe shine chair, but like the way that in that opening sequence, uh, when Vince is playing Julian, Carmen's there, we're meeting all the main characters, he kinda just saddles up there and is like, I'm gonna stretch my legs out and put my arm out over like the other side of the chair, but I'm looking down on Carmen and like, where did you fucking find this stuff? I mean, I guess it's still, this was made at a time when they just still had those places look like they did in the late 50s.

• 1:44:05Griffin Newman?

  I think so. They'd just been frozen in amber. Also, man, Newman just fucking knew how to strike a pose and he could do it in a way where it felt natural. It wasn't like he was doing some overly expressive John Wayne thing, but that guy could just fucking sit and hold the frame and just know, like, if I just lean like 10% of my weight over to this side.

• 1:44:27Griffin Newman?

  The king.

• 1:44:28David Sims?

  He is retired. Uh, he's a liquor salesman. He lives in Chicago.

• 1:44:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:33David Sims?

  But he still hangs out at pool halls all the time and dates younger players.

• 1:44:39Griffin Newman?

  He wants to watch.

• 1:44:41David Sims?

  Yeah, he likes to watch. He's got a, definitely not at all long suffering girlfriend, played by Helen Shaver.

• 1:44:48Griffin Newman?

  No, who becomes like one of TV's.

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's done a bunch of station 11.

• 1:44:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54David Sims?

  That's, oh, I didn't really, yeah, wow. She has a huge directing career.

• 1:44:57Griffin Newman?

  Like she directed like two episodes of The Penguin. Like she's still to this day, uh, one of the most awarded TV directors.

• 1:45:04David Sims?

  Yeah, she's working hard.

• 1:45:06Griffin Newman?

  Uh, but yes, no, a tough break for her.

• 1:45:09David Sims?

  Yeah, dating him? Sure. Yes.

• 1:45:11Griffin Newman?

  Um, and he's, uh, the player he's staking is, uh, John Turturro, who is calm, cool, collected.

• 1:45:18Speaker 02

  He's on cocaine and getting.

• 1:45:21David Sims?

  Just back then.

• 1:45:21Speaker 02

  Raced by a guy who likes to play video games.

• 1:45:23David Sims?

  When the phone, when the phone rang.

• 1:45:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:28David Sims?

  John Turturro's house, it's like, hey, we want you to play a little rat piece of shit.

• 1:45:33Griffin Newman?

  He's playing a squiggle is what it's like.

• 1:45:37Speaker 02

  Does my character have any cool traits?

• 1:45:39Griffin Newman?

  He's like, yeah, you have a rock of coke in your nose.

• 1:45:42Speaker 02

  He looks like Fear from Inside Out.

• 1:45:46Griffin Newman?

  So goodness.

• 1:45:48David Sims?

  He's great. He's great. He's always good in these movies. Like.

• 1:45:50Griffin Newman?

  Incredible.

• 1:45:51David Sims?

  To Live and Die in L.A. is around this time.

• 1:45:52Griffin Newman?

  For how early this is in his career, it's insane how he's already shorthand casting.

• 1:45:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:59Griffin Newman?

  In a way that is so powerful.

• 1:46:00David Sims?

  The audience is just like, boo.

• 1:46:03Griffin Newman?

  John Turturro type.

• 1:46:04David Sims?

  Find Tom Cruise immediately.

• 1:46:06Speaker 02

  I think the first time I saw him was Miller's Crossing and I was like, you fucking piece of shit.

• 1:46:10David Sims?

  Fucking, it's just like this Miller's Crossing quiz show, that kind of trifecta of everyone just being like, there's something I don't like about you.

• 1:46:18Griffin Newman?

  I, I, I rewatched Quiz Show, I guess after Redford died. It does feel like a movie I watch once a year. And every time I watch it, I just don't understand how he didn't like win the Oscar that year, let alone get nominated. But because it's the meta textual one where it's just like, even if you're the best, we just kinda, there's something about you. I feel like he's, he's settled into his own interesting elder statesman mode.

• 1:46:44David Sims?

  Turturro? Yeah. I mean, like, think about him in the Batman.

• 1:46:46Griffin Newman?

  Has that energy.

• 1:46:47David Sims?

  Like him in the Batman where it's like, I can play like an icy mob boss.

• 1:46:51Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:46:51David Sims?

  With like, you know, shaded glasses and people are like, yeah, of course you're, you are an elder statesman, like you fit.

• 1:46:56Griffin Newman?

  And he's like hot now too. You're also like, old Turturro's hot.

• 1:47:01Speaker 02

  He's got a, he directed a film that's coming out soon, right? Like the only pickpocket in New York or something?

• 1:47:05Griffin Newman?

  No, Noah Seigun directed that.

• 1:47:07Speaker 02

  Oh, he directed, but Turturro's in it.

• 1:47:09Griffin Newman?

  But I've heard Turturro's incredible in that. Like a friend of mine who saw that movie was like.

• 1:47:12David Sims?

  I heard the movie's good.

• 1:47:13Griffin Newman?

  This is like the Turturro career, lifetime achievement.

• 1:47:17David Sims?

  Obviously, yeah, he has directed many a great film, such as The Jesus Rolls.

• 1:47:21Griffin Newman?

  Are you aware? So I, cause I, I brought this up to someone else recently who was astonished by this news. The Jesus Rolls, which of course was the Jesus Santana, uh, sidequel to Big Lebowski that he made without the participation of the, uh, the Coen Brothers.

• 1:47:36Speaker 02

  With their blessing?

• 1:47:37Griffin Newman?

  The passive blessing.

• 1:47:38David Sims?

  Yeah, they were like, okay.

• 1:47:41Griffin Newman?

  If we don't have to show up, you can do whatever you want. That movie is a remake. In addition to being a sidequel to Big Lebowski, it is him transposing that character onto a straight remake of Going Places. The movie hitmaker recently called out the Depardieu, Bertrand Bilia. Yep. A hundred percent. It is like, it, it's a sex challenge, road trip movie. It is credited as like based on Going Places.

• 1:48:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:48:11David Sims?

  No.

• 1:48:11Griffin Newman?

  And I, I want to remind everyone that the character of the Jesus in the Big Lebowski is a.

• 1:48:16Speaker 02

  Sexual predator. Yeah.

• 1:48:17Griffin Newman?

  Or convicted child molester.

• 1:48:18Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:48:19Griffin Newman?

  And John Turturro was like, you know, it'd be good. Make a whole movie out of that guy.

• 1:48:23Speaker 02

  And have him horny on the road.

• 1:48:24Griffin Newman?

  Is it his redemption? No, it's like him and his friend like daring each other to do weird sex stuff. Just one of the weirdest things ever made. People were like, why aren't you guys covering that on Patreon? I'm like, I don't know. I want to be able to sleep at night.

• 1:48:38David Sims?

  So he's staking Vincent Loria, right? I know, sorry. Uh, no, Vincent is Thomas, uh, Tom Cruise. Uh, what's, uh, just taking Julian, right? Vincent kicks his ass. And what's the video game he's obsessed with?

• 1:48:51Griffin Newman?

  Stalker.

• 1:48:51David Sims?

  Is that, is that a real video?

• 1:48:53Griffin Newman?

  It apparently influenced the, the, the actual video game Doom. Uh, but I, to me, it just looks like Spy Hunter or like Pole Position or some eighties, you know, car racing game.

• 1:49:03Speaker 02

  And now where would you guys rank this in the, the Tron franchise? I think I like the original Tron more than this, but this one's better than Aries or Legacy.

• 1:49:13Griffin Newman?

  What was the video game in, uh, Last Starfighter? Was it just called Last Starfighter?

• 1:49:18Speaker 02

  It's called Starfighter.

• 1:49:18Griffin Newman?

  Starfighter.

• 1:49:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:19Griffin Newman?

  That was always pretty sick to me, but yeah. Uh, Stalker seems pretty. It's weird that he's like, my, my like motor skills are so elevated because of Stalker. And I'm like, that doesn't really, that's not how it happens, but.

• 1:49:31Speaker 02

  I'm sure it's a Disney thing, but I just genuinely love that there's a Tron cabinet in this. And obviously the Tron cabinet was like real and was more successful than the movie and stayed in arcades for years, but it does make it feel like this is a movie that takes place in the world of Tron.

• 1:49:44Griffin Newman?

  That would be so incredible.

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:46David Sims?

  So he, you know, Vincent, uh, he's, he's got charisma. He's got a hot girlfriend named Carmen, played by Mary Elizabeth Mastantonio. I don't know where she was in her career at this point. Like, oh, it's her second movie. She's in Scarface.

• 1:50:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Scarface is her first.

• 1:50:04David Sims?

  She apparently is an extra in The King of Comedy, but I doubt like Marty did her from that.

• 1:50:08Griffin Newman?

  No, it must've been just from, from Scarface.

• 1:50:11David Sims?

  She's, I'm just gonna say it, uh, total smoke show.

• 1:50:15Griffin Newman?

  She is.

• 1:50:16David Sims?

  She's so good in this movie.

• 1:50:17Griffin Newman?

  She's, she's an actress I like a lot, uh, generally, but I feel like, uh, she is attractive in this. She's activating things in me, watching this, that I don't usually feel from her performances. Like she fucking rules in the abyss.

• 1:50:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. When she comes back, when he gives him the balabushka, uh, but then like Newman's like driving him crazy. Like go, go be, be really remote. And then she comes back in packing her pack of cigarettes. I was just like, well, just take my life. Like.

• 1:50:48Griffin Newman?

  Fascinating. Cause it's like, I was gonna say it's take my life.

• 1:50:54Griffin Newman?

  It's fascinating because it feels like he's having a love at first sight moment with them, with just their dynamic, witnessing the whole kind of operation of what's happening, the energy around them, the potential.

• 1:51:06Speaker 02

  I think there's also like a charisma.

• 1:51:08Griffin Newman?

  A not too hidden, like there's a longing for sexual vitality. Uh, cause he's talking omelets and these guys are, are, are just like, she's, she's talking about like the loudness of his break, you know? And he's watching him, you know, with this stick in his hands and dancing around the table and doing his samurai sword stuff.

• 1:51:29Speaker 02

  But to your point, there's also like a relapse element.

• 1:51:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:31Speaker 02

  Right? Like watching Turturro play billiards.

• 1:51:37Griffin Newman?

  Is is safe for him. It's like drinking a non-alcoholic beer, right? It's sort of just like, you know what? This was such a structure of my life that I need a version of this for the routine, for the habit that isn't actually harmful to me and habit forming. And then he witnesses like the uncut shit. It's it's right there and he's just like, oh, fuck. I I remember being that guy. What if I was her? What if I was managing someone like him? Like every angle of it is so activating to him.

• 1:52:10David Sims?

  Isn't it also, it's like, because they're a package? He's like, you guys just hustle so well together.

• 1:52:14Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:52:15David Sims?

  Yeah, cuz you guys are so good together.

• 1:52:17Griffin Newman?

  Which is part of what he misses is the symbiotic nature of it. You know, in The Hustler, the original film is so much about that dynamic, the sort of tragedy of him fucking up the partner he had who he valued and felt safe with, and then getting fucked by the new flashier partner who like destroys his life. Uh, and that pushed him away from all of it. Right. And it's like, yeah, part of him, you know, having this long-term stake in Totoro is like, how extreme is that ever gonna get?

• 1:52:46Speaker 02

  Well, I say the the economics of it are also kind of interesting because inflation aside, like they're they're passing twenties back and forth, right? Like, I don't know. Yeah, he's like, if when they talk about going on the road, he's like, we could make five grand, you know, which is a lot of money in 1986. But it's, I don't know if it's down payment money.

• 1:53:06David Sims?

  Yeah, that's not my one last score kind of money.

• 1:53:09Speaker 02

  So it's kind of like, this is, it's a grind. Like, and it's just like, you're trying to find fun in the grind, but I don't.

• 1:53:16Griffin Newman?

  Also, he seemingly has money. He's like, seemingly well enough off.

• 1:53:21Speaker 03

  Sure. He's firing around wads.

• 1:53:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:24Speaker 02

  Well, she's like.

• 1:53:25David Sims?

  But like, does he have like a bank account?

• 1:53:29Speaker 03

  He's just got a shoebox.

• 1:53:30David Sims?

  I think he's one, one. Yeah, exactly. So what happens? I mean, they pretty quickly go to.

• 1:53:38Speaker 02

  He's like, I gotta take her out to dinner.

• 1:53:39Griffin Newman?

  He goes to dinner.

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  There's the whole dinner scene.

• 1:53:41Griffin Newman?

  And he does that whole like, kind of scam, basically.

• 1:53:45David Sims?

  Yeah, like, I'm gonna take this girl. She's gonna reject him in 30 seconds. I walk out of here.

• 1:53:49Griffin Newman?

  Much like The Hustler, like this opening scene, the whole like Helen Shaver trying to sell the liquor, the Totoro noticing them, starting to talk to Master Antonio, like buttonholing her. All of that is basically a sustained like 20-minute chunk of the movie, much like The Hustler, where you're just really staying in this space and the dynamics of all of it.

• 1:54:11Speaker 02

  There's also like, that's where you start to get the rhythms and the intonations of the script. And I do love all of the lore about them working Price to the bone and sending him back and back and back to just tighten it and tighten it. And Price has talked about like, I, you know, you, I would write this stuff and I would be like, this sounds incredible in my head. And then they would say like, it's too written, it's too written. And so there is this like.

• 1:54:36David Sims?

  Feels like a classic novelist screenplay problem.

• 1:54:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, but a lot of that opening sequence that you're talking about, so much of it is just them giving each other looks. So like, when, when Vincent is like, let's just play, play. Let's just play for play, cuz I think the money is getting in in your head. And Newman just like looks up and he's just like, what the fuck did he just say? But he doesn't say like, no one ever talks like that in the pool hall. You know, it's just a look, but it tells you everything. And when Vincent is asking that, Carmen is like, Vincent? Cuz she's like, we do this as a job. Like, this is how we make money. You can't be throwing away games against Julian here cuz he's $20 rack. It's just like such a perfect setup for that world. You can just know without knowing what you're dealing with.

• 1:55:21Griffin Newman?

  It's also the classic movie star thing, you know, insecure actors in sort of leading positions. You always hear, want more dialogue, more jokes, more awesome moments. And the guys and gals who are just completely minted are like, take all this out. I can sell that in a look. I don't need this paragraph to explain it. Give me the three line, the three-word version of that line, or let me truly just do it in a glance. And like Newman knows that.

• 1:55:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wonder what the longest stretch of uninterrupted speaking from Felsen is in this movie. It can't be, is there a monologue in this movie, really?

• 1:55:59Griffin Newman?

  I mean, there's him in the car with Cruz, but that's pretty short. I would say it's after Forest Whitaker. That's that's when it is.

• 1:56:05David Sims?

  Right, where he's been brought low.

• 1:56:07Griffin Newman?

  Right, but I I love that this movie doesn't translate at all to that point, that you feel like the worst version of this movie, even though it would have a kind of trashy joy to it, is one where Newman's like, kid, I'm gonna teach you the ropes. And then he breaks down every single thing. Even just the way he starts saying at this dinner scene, which to your point is very sexually charged. The whole thing feels like, is he sexually coveting Cruz? Is he trying to cuck Cruz? Is he trying to be the third? He's also sort of like trying to show his sexual prowess through the scam of him pretending he's picking up the woman, like all that stuff. But, um.

• 1:56:47Speaker 02

  And that's Lorraine Bracco's sister.

• 1:56:50Griffin Newman?

  Hey now.

• 1:56:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:52David Sims?

  It's with Bracco.

• 1:56:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:53David Sims?

  Huh, who knew? And she's Vito's wife in The Sopranos? I don't think I knew that.

• 1:56:59Griffin Newman?

  I am realizing we're finally making good on our promise that we have to cover Goodfellas on this podcast because this podcast has been so damaging to Lorraine Bracco, where we have only covered her worst performances ever.

• 1:57:12David Sims?

  Apart from Medicine Man, what's the other one?

• 1:57:13Griffin Newman?

  Pinocchio?

• 1:57:15David Sims?

  Forgot about that.

• 1:57:16Griffin Newman?

  Chris, how how recently have you watched Robert Zemeckis's Pinocchio? When was the last?

• 1:57:20Speaker 02

  Actually, I've never seen it.

• 1:57:21Griffin Newman?

  Cuz you did a rewatch of it.

• 1:57:22David Sims?

  Wait, what? Did you check that one out?

• 1:57:24Griffin Newman?

  You mean, you haven't seen it yet this calendar year?

• 1:57:26Speaker 02

  No, but I was listening to, um.

• 1:57:27David Sims?

  Today.

• 1:57:28Speaker 02

  I was listening to Fearless. And I just wanted to say, Zemeckis-wise, I I will sometimes watch Flight on a flight.

• 1:57:36David Sims?

  That's absolutely.

• 1:57:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm I'm like.

• 1:57:39Speaker 02

  Cuz the action is the juice.

• 1:57:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm I'm like you.

• 1:57:42David Sims?

  Do you like navigate to it on the in-screen entertainment?

• 1:57:45Speaker 02

  I haven't saved on my phone. I would download it and I'll just be like.

• 1:57:48David Sims?

  They're like, we don't have that movie, you maniac. And they're like, fine, let's crack the iPad open.

• 1:57:52Griffin Newman?

  You hold on to an iPod video just to have Flight in your pocket at all times?

• 1:57:56Speaker 02

  But I do it, I roll it, so I watch it upside down.

• 1:57:59David Sims?

  Yeah, right, when he's rolling it.

• 1:58:02Griffin Newman?

  Um, no, she she plays a seagull in the Zemeckis Pinocchio. That's an added character that is horrendous.

• 1:58:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:09Griffin Newman?

  It sounds like she is dying.

• 1:58:12David Sims?

  She's a great actor.

• 1:58:13Griffin Newman?

  But it's her being like, Pinocchio!

• 1:58:16Griffin Newman?

  The fuck is going on? That was all the money we had, Pinocchio! And we've like, maybe there's a third one I'm forgetting, but she is so.

• 1:58:25David Sims?

  That's probably it.

• 1:58:25Griffin Newman?

  She is so shrill and unpleasant in that and in Medicine Man. Both of which are just horrible miscastings in ill-begotten films, where we've had to be so rude to her and we've said like, I think we must do Marty at some point just to put some respect on Lorraine Bracco's name. I'm glad we'll get to do it.

• 1:58:42David Sims?

  I don't know how many other movies we'll even ever like hit with her.

• 1:58:46Griffin Newman?

  She doesn't have that many films.

• 1:58:48David Sims?

  If we do Gus Van Sant, we'll get even cowgirls get the blues.

• 1:58:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:51David Sims?

  That's, that might be it, like, I mean, we're not, yeah. Maybe we do Richard Donner, Radio Flyer?

• 1:58:59Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:59:00David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't know. She didn't make a ton of, oh, you know what? We'll do Penny Marshall, Riding Cars with Boys.

• 1:59:05Griffin Newman?

  A penny for our.

• 1:59:06David Sims?

  Isn't that one where she's like, get pregnant? Like, I didn't see that movie since.

• 1:59:10Griffin Newman?

  Don't ride in cars with boys! Ride on bicycles alone!

• 1:59:15David Sims?

  They were gonna find it!

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  But it's like, isn't that Goodfellas broke her a little bit of like, you can scream your head off in that movie, it makes sense.

• 1:59:26Speaker 02

  Just put a revolver in your underwear.

• 1:59:28David Sims?

  It's funny cuz she rarely ever raises her voice in The Sopranos, like, at all.

• 1:59:31Griffin Newman?

  No, she's also quiet for long stretches of Goodfellas. He uses that as a superpower.

• 1:59:36Speaker 02

  And she has good reason to scream in Goodfellas.

• 1:59:39David Sims?

  Yeah, stressful.

• 1:59:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:59:41David Sims?

  And also, everyone's fucking screaming, except for De Niro.

• 1:59:45Griffin Newman?

  At the dinner scene, and I just like even the the sexual energy of him propositioning her for dinner and being like, what do you mean you wanna take us out? Like, she clearly at first views it as this old man is hitting on me and I don't know if I'm interested or not, but then doesn't understand what he wants out of the two of them together.

• 2:00:07Speaker 02

  Uh, and then he goes on to explain it where he's like, he's a thoroughbred. Like, you make him run, you make him feel good, I teach him how to play.

• 2:00:15Griffin Newman?

  Cuz I think to her, she's like, if it's about the pool, then why is he even bothering with me?

• 2:00:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 2:00:21Griffin Newman?

  And if it's about me, then why is he even bothering?

• 2:00:23Speaker 02

  Because he has to construct this entire like, she's getting bored of you working at Toys R Us or Child World.

• 2:00:29David Sims?

  Child World, of course. I I I'm thinking of reviving Child World, by the way. What do you guys think?

• 2:00:35Speaker 02

  That's where the third Jesus Sin Dino movie happens.

• 2:00:41David Sims?

  It's just like, you see something like this and you're like, what child wants to go in there?

• 2:00:47Speaker 02

  That was like private equity before there was private equity. Like, can we just get a kid world or a child world even?

• 2:00:53Griffin Newman?

  Could you imagine the fucking Field Day Fox News would have with child world today? The conspiracies are just right themselves.

• 2:01:00Speaker 02

  Just camped outside. Yeah. Just the only other thing on the dinner is shout out to whoever was the like the food, food art person in this, cause it's, because it's like the chocolate mousse, the cup of coffee, the after the digestive, it's all like a raid there at the perfect level of like, I had three bites of that. I had a sip of this. I had a sip of that. Like it's the, we've had a big, long steakhouse dinner dessert.

• 2:01:27Griffin Newman?

  And like Paul Newman, 50 pictures kid shit. Like he knows exactly how to eat on camera, what to eat, when to take the bites for emphasis. To the point of the movie not feeling the need to hold your hand or translate things. The way he talks about like, you're quite a character kid. And Cruz is like, yeah, right. And he's like, no, I mean, in a negative way. You're a flake, but it's hard to be a flake and this and that. And you're just like, great. I know enough. I don't need you to spell this out to me. I understand what you're saying. I understand there's more to it. If I dug deeper to this lingo, but let's just, we're off to the races. This guy knows everything. And they just want to be next to him and I'm not gonna.

• 2:02:05David Sims?

  Vincent is like, you know, raw putty, like he's going to get molded.

• 2:02:09Griffin Newman?

  But we're not going to watch him do like training montages with them.

• 2:02:12David Sims?

  There's one montage in the film. It's well deployed. It's much later. Like, yes, there is no point in he's like, and you know, you gotta pop the balls one to nine as we all remember or whatever. Okay. So they go to Atlantic City, right? The next, the next chunks in Atlantic City, right?

• 2:02:28Speaker 03

  Well, it's leading up to.

• 2:02:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. They, they do a whole road trip around the Midwest.

• 2:02:32David Sims?

  They're on the road. They're ending up in Atlantic City. Right. But that's.

• 2:02:36Speaker 02

  It's like, hey, why don't we go on the road, couple of weeks, we're going to make a couple of grand and then we're going to go to Atlantic City. And all the games outside of the tournament are where you make all your money.

• 2:02:45David Sims?

  Right. We'll get in my caddy. I get, how much does he get? Like 60% of their winnings or something?

• 2:02:51Speaker 03

  But he's, but he's paying for the lodging and food.

• 2:02:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:56Griffin Newman?

  And, and by the way, in the hustler, it's 75. That's George C. Scott's deal with him.

• 2:03:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:03:02Griffin Newman?

  I do think it's important that he's offering a better deal than the one he was given.

• 2:03:06David Sims?

  Yeah. They should have gotten George C. Scott back.

• 2:03:08Griffin Newman?

  They should.

• 2:03:09David Sims?

  He's still alive at this point, right?

• 2:03:11Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah. Cause his last.

• 2:03:13David Sims?

  Oh, no, I'm sorry. He was federally barred from entering any pool halls. The drunkest man in the world.

• 2:03:18Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:03:20Griffin Newman?

  His last film was Angus, I think, which is like 96.

• 2:03:24David Sims?

  Right. Yeah. Haven't seen.

• 2:03:26Speaker 02

  US Marshals pull him out of any bar.

• 2:03:29David Sims?

  Right. Well, no, it's just more like they're like, George C. Scott went in a bar filming. It's been delayed by eight days. Like it's just, I mean, that was like the vibe back then.

• 2:03:36Griffin Newman?

  George C. Scott win best actor once or twice?

• 2:03:39David Sims?

  Just once.

• 2:03:39Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Just for Patton.

• 2:03:40David Sims?

  Yeah. He was nominated for the hustler.

• 2:03:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:03:42David Sims?

  It's, I think it's part of why Gleason doesn't win is there's two hustler supporting actor nominees.

• 2:03:47Griffin Newman?

  We were, cause we were talking about this the other day. I was calling out how crazy it is that Gleason also never won an Emmy. And your point was, well, the honeymooners only ran for one season.

• 2:03:56David Sims?

  I mean, like he was nominated twice before for, I did research on this, the Jackie Gleason show, which of course had like the Ralph Cramden sketches in it. Like it was like the originator.

• 2:04:05Griffin Newman?

  Producing nominations, writing nominations, acting nominations.

• 2:04:08David Sims?

  Ran for one year.

• 2:04:09Griffin Newman?

  And also there was.

• 2:04:10Speaker 02

  I, I always thought honeymooners was like 500 episodes.

• 2:04:12David Sims?

  What everyone thinks. Like, and it was like one of those, like I love Lucy type shows. But yeah, 30 episodes for one year or whatever.

• 2:04:18Griffin Newman?

  The other thing is he was nominated, I think in 1952 for best comedian, which was just a category. It wasn't comedy special.

• 2:04:26Speaker 02

  At the Oscars?

• 2:04:26Griffin Newman?

  No, for the Emmys. It was like best host and best comedian. And I think he lost to Duranty, maybe?

• 2:04:34Speaker 02

  I wouldn't put it past the Oscars. What about best comedian?

• 2:04:37David Sims?

  They said do that.

• 2:04:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:39David Sims?

  I've been an awful lot. Kind of what the globe tried to do. Right. You know, it like, it didn't work out.

• 2:04:44Griffin Newman?

  The thing I was going to say is just to tell Ben, uh, cause I think you would appreciate this. George C. Scott, most ornery man in the world, uh, from the hustler. That's his first nomination.

• 2:04:56David Sims?

  His first nomination is for anatomy of a murder.

• 2:04:58Griffin Newman?

  Oh, good call.

• 2:04:58David Sims?

  Second is for the hustler, refuses the nomination.

• 2:05:02Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing. There's a big note on the Oscars for that year, which is George C. Scott refused the nomination. He refused to accept it as valid.

• 2:05:11David Sims?

  George C. Scott was very anti awards show.

• 2:05:14Griffin Newman?

  He was just like, it's acting shouldn't be a competition. This is ridiculous. Never showed up. Anytime they nominated him, he was like, fuck off.

• 2:05:21Speaker 03

  So he just publicly was like, fuck that.

• 2:05:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. He wasn't like, I'm, I'm not going to show up. He was like, I call bullshit on your whole thing.

• 2:05:28Speaker 02

  So he would, he reject the nomination and they would then give it to like the next alternate or?

• 2:05:33David Sims?

  No, they just were like, well, you're nominated. And he's like, well, I refuse. And they're like, too bad.

• 2:05:37Griffin Newman?

  Go on a Wikipedia and IMDb. It always has like parenthetical, George C. Scott didn't show up, refused the nomination.

• 2:05:43David Sims?

  And then he wins for Patton in 70 and obviously does not show up. And then he was nominated once more for the hospital.

• 2:05:50Griffin Newman?

  That's, I couldn't remember if he also won for the hospital, but yeah.

• 2:05:53David Sims?

  No, they gave it to him the one time for Patton where they're like, look, you're one of the greatest actors ever. And you just were in this movie that's winning best picture and you're so good in it. And he was like, I refuse.

• 2:06:02Griffin Newman?

  Fuck you.

• 2:06:02David Sims?

  We're giving it to you anyway, Georgie.

• 2:06:04Griffin Newman?

  How funny would it be if he showed up for the hospital Oscars and was sitting there like really nervous with his.

• 2:06:10Speaker 02

  He was like for Exorcist three. I really think I nailed it this time.

• 2:06:13David Sims?

  He's fucking good.

• 2:06:15Speaker 03

  I regret not going and giving a speech.

• 2:06:18David Sims?

  So, all right, call our money. Come on, guys.

• 2:06:20Speaker 03

  The first pool hall he tries to take them to is now just like a furniture salon.

• 2:06:25David Sims?

  That's the Lincoln place.

• 2:06:27Speaker 03

  There's something to that of just showing that he's like an old man now.

• 2:06:32David Sims?

  You're an artifact. Yeah.

• 2:06:34Speaker 02

  Now, when you watch it.

• 2:06:35David Sims?

  Tap room. That's what it's called.

• 2:06:36Speaker 02

  Right. And then when you watch it, you're kind of like, at what point do these people start playing one another? Right? Like at what point is Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio, is Carmen starting to think about, well, how will we get out of this guy? Why are we giving him this percentage? And what point is he like, I'm using Vincent as a mechanism to like get myself back into this?

• 2:06:55Griffin Newman?

  What's the long play?

• 2:06:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. But like, I don't think that the, the pool hall that never opened, but that leads to, I believe the next place is the.

• 2:07:05Speaker 03

  He's playing the old man with the trach.

• 2:07:06Speaker 02

  Old man with the trach.

• 2:07:08Speaker 03

  It's like kind of a shitty, almost like VFW hall.

• 2:07:10Speaker 02

  And that's the fight where he's just like, family, goddamn it. Get your hands off.

• 2:07:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. And he plays, pretends to be his dad.

• 2:07:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:18Speaker 03

  Who's disappointed in.

• 2:07:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:07:20David Sims?

  When does he lecture Master Antonio? I feel like that's pretty early on, when she's kind of like sitting around brawls.

• 2:07:26Speaker 02

  That is, uh, they've arrived already at Bill Cobb's house of, houses of the whole.

• 2:07:30Griffin Newman?

  It's after Cruz has gotten the shit kicked out of him.

• 2:07:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And he goes in and they, this is the most kind of like, um, I think legible, like pool hall where they walk in and they're like, that's the best guy, but that's the richest guy. And if you beat the best guy, the richest guy won't want to play you. But if you fumble around for a while, the richest guy might get curious. And then we're working with thousands of dollars, but Mozzell, you're just playing this guy for 20 bucks a throw. And it's Cobb, like Cobb's so good in this.

• 2:08:05Griffin Newman?

  I know.

• 2:08:06Speaker 02

  He also just basically doing a paragraph of dialogue with a look in this.

• 2:08:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I mean, that, that man could really sell a, a hundred years of life with a, just like a glance.

• 2:08:19Speaker 03

  He's the, he's the owner of.

• 2:08:20Speaker 02

  He's the owner.

• 2:08:21Griffin Newman?

  Steadiest fucking hand in the world.

• 2:08:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. And.

• 2:08:24Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's also the, um, the magical janitor in Hudsucker Proxy, but he's in 8,000 things.

• 2:08:33Speaker 02

  But this is, the scene you're referring to is when Newman goes into the motel room and she's in her underwear and a flannel shirt tied up around her stomach.

• 2:08:43Speaker 03

  And he goes, keep the shirt. Nice touch.

• 2:08:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then he says, you know, where's the balabushka?

• 2:08:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:08:50Speaker 02

  And she's like, well, he went out. It's like, and you let him? And he has to go after.

• 2:08:56Griffin Newman?

  The other, the other thing with the, this scene, uh, Ben, you know, a lot of the hustler, which I assume you haven't seen the original.

• 2:09:04David Sims?

  You'd probably like.

• 2:09:04Speaker 03

  You would love it.

• 2:09:05David Sims?

  I want it. I just, I didn't get time. No, no, I know. I'm just saying like, you'd probably dig a lot of it. It's five.

• 2:09:10Griffin Newman?

  The movie is basically equally a very tragic love story.

• 2:09:16David Sims?

  It's got a very, very, very dark romantic.

• 2:09:18Griffin Newman?

  Piper, Piper Laurie as sort of a very broken woman. They're two kind of broken people who find each other in their dysfunction. And, uh, the, the way he's talking to Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio in this scene where he's clearly attracted to her, but he's also saying like, and would you dress like this if any man walked in here? And what if it was a guy like this? It's all kind of like fascinating, not overstated echoes of him, uh, still struggling to process the tragedy of, uh, the original film. Yes. There, there is a whole situation in that movie of men in sexual violence.

• 2:09:57Speaker 03

  And you kind of, this is the first time where Cobb mentions that you get at least just a little bit of sense of the legacy of this guy. And they, they, I think that's the first time where they've referred to him by his nickname.

• 2:10:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And there's, this is also the first time he plays pool in the movie. Is when he's playing with Vincent just to, just to hit the ball, hit some balls and to like draw a little bit of attention.

• 2:10:21David Sims?

  Crash through.

• 2:10:22Griffin Newman?

  And yeah.

• 2:10:23David Sims?

  Fuck, I'm alive.

• 2:10:26Griffin Newman?

  The, uh, which I guess kind of brings us to werewolves.

• 2:10:33Speaker 02

  And I wanted to ask you guys about this. I think I've, I, this is an idea that like I, I, I'm obsessed with is the, the Flight of the Valkyries problem in a movie.

• 2:10:44Griffin Newman?

  When it peaks too early.

• 2:10:45Speaker 02

  When you peak at minute 55.

• 2:10:47Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:10:47Speaker 02

  And when, if, if anything was better than this, it would be like the greatest movie of all time.

• 2:10:53David Sims?

  Yeah, I will say this. This film has an incredible ending.

• 2:10:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:58David Sims?

  Like literally like the last two minutes of this film, you're like, hell yeah. But yes, this is tough to top this moment.

• 2:11:05Griffin Newman?

  Interesting, cause I, Flight of the Valkyries problem is the exact right way to put it.

• 2:11:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:11:10Griffin Newman?

  There are movies where.

• 2:11:11David Sims?

  Everyone's like, I love Apocalypse Now. I of course always stop watching about 65 minutes.

• 2:11:16Griffin Newman?

  It's one of these things. It's not like all movies usually great films peak at the ending. You go through history and you're like, what's the best scenes? Sometimes it's the opening. Sometimes it's the middle. Sometimes it's here or whatever. It is a distinct thing of a movie hitting a level of transcendence where you're just like, this is as good as shit gets. I, I wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the world right now. I could watch this forever. And you feel them sort of like not fully successfully dismount off of that. The movie doesn't comfortably transition you from that high into something that feels equally satisfying, where even if the movie still remains excellent, you're just like, I am thinking about how much better I felt 20 minutes ago, though.

• 2:12:01Speaker 02

  He has, um, I'm sure you guys will talk about all of them throughout this series, a series of moments in his movies that remain transcendent despite the level of analysis. So you can watch the Copacabana Wonder, or you can watch Werewolves of London, or you can watch like all these different scenes and you can just be like, I can watch this and think about every single thing that has to happen for this shot to work. Or I can just listen to the music and watch the guys.

• 2:12:29Griffin Newman?

  I can just vibe.

• 2:12:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it, it never, the magic never goes away, even once you know what the trick is.

• 2:12:35Griffin Newman?

  Goodfellas is an interesting comparison point because it has like four of these. And is the problem that if you have multiple scenes at that level of transcendence, it evens out. You have multiple tent poles that are elevating us and bringing us down versus if there's just one kind of peak moment at the middle that is so perfect. But I feel like I can watch the fucking shine box scene 8,000 times, never get tired of it. But when that scene ends and the movie continues, if I'm watching Goodfellas in full, I'm not disappointed. I'm not like, can we rewind back to shine? I, I was rewinding this. I was literally just kind of like going like, let me go back to the beginning of this one more time.

• 2:13:19Speaker 03

  Just when he hits though, the line, his hair is perfect. And you realize that Tom Cruise is like, it's not just being played over the scene. He's in it. Like the song is being played in the room.

• 2:13:29Speaker 02

  There's also early Robbie Robertson, like dub master stuff going on here where.

• 2:13:36David Sims?

  Robbie stuff in this is so fucking.

• 2:13:37Griffin Newman?

  The score is excellent.

• 2:13:38Speaker 02

  It goes from, first of all, like they're playing, well, first of, first of all, in the script, it's James Brown. So that's, it's supposed to be James Brown, not Werewolves of London.

• 2:13:47Griffin Newman?

  Werewolves of London is the perfect choice.

• 2:13:49Speaker 02

  I know, but that's like, it's the difference between Scorsese and Richard Price. Richard Price is like, yeah, he's listening to fucking James Brown. And then Mark Scorsese is like, what have we did? But the.

• 2:13:57Speaker 03

  What James Brown song would it be? Like the big payback?

• 2:14:00Speaker 02

  No, it's faster. It was, I can't remember what it is. I have the script on the laptop. I'll look for it. But the, uh, it's like diegetic. So it's like playing through a P A system at the pool hall and they're playing Clapton. And then when they cut to Werewolves, it's Paul Newman driving down to the pool hall to meet them. And in the opposite lanes or whatever, whatever sound design choice they made, the car horns are in time to the beat of the song. And you're like, who thinks of this?

• 2:14:30Griffin Newman?

  That's the shit that gets me.

• 2:14:33Speaker 02

  Like with the fucking song.

• 2:14:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:14:36David Sims?

  I'm a huge Warren Zevon guy. I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the show before.

• 2:14:40Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 2:14:41David Sims?

  Are you a, you guys pro Warren?

• 2:14:43Speaker 03

  I think it's that one album of his that I really love.

• 2:14:45David Sims?

  The second album, the self titled?

• 2:14:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:14:47David Sims?

  Yeah. That is the greatest rock album like of the seventies.

• 2:14:50Speaker 03

  He's just such an unusual guy.

• 2:14:53David Sims?

  There is nobody like him.

• 2:14:54Speaker 03

  This career is so weird.

• 2:14:57Speaker 02

  Excitable Boy is the album you're talking about, right?

• 2:15:00David Sims?

  Excitable Boy is his third album, which has Werewolves of London on it, which is a good album. His second album, Warren Zevon, is the greatest rock album of the seventies. It is the best. The one that begins with Frank and Jesse James, ends with Desperados, Some of the Eves. It's basically like hanging out all night in an LA bar. The last song, it's four in the morning and you're like, we should all kill ourselves. It'll be so great.

• 2:15:23Speaker 02

  What's his first album then?

• 2:15:24David Sims?

  His first album is called Wanted Dead or Alive. And he's like, you know, it's got some stuff, but like Warren Zevon, he never topped it. Like the, the second album. Like he, he made music for another 50 years.

• 2:15:36Griffin Newman?

  Well, he had kind of that.

• 2:15:37David Sims?

  He kind of became the Werewolves of London guy in a weird way.

• 2:15:39Speaker 03

  Last album when he.

• 2:15:41David Sims?

  The Wind, which is really good.

• 2:15:45David Sims?

  Enjoy Every Sandwich stuff and all that, which like I, you know, that was all very profound. I'm not like shitting on it.

• 2:15:51Speaker 02

  Have you guys ever heard or seen Adam Sandler doing Werewolves of London?

• 2:15:56Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 2:15:57David Sims?

  You know what? I can imagine it. Him going, ah, woo.

• 2:16:01Griffin Newman?

  But he like crushes it. There's that thing with Sandler where he's an incredible singer.

• 2:16:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:06Griffin Newman?

  But it feels like he's almost embarrassed by how beautiful a voice he has. So even when, especially when does his comedy music, he kind of like does a comedy voice on top of it. Uh, and, and other things where he sung, but then there were like the scenes in Wedding Singer where people are like, this is dubbed, right? He's not this good of a crooner. And all of it's real. When, uh, Zevon died, they did a tribute album called, uh, Enjoy Every Sandwich, which was his quote from his final Letterman interview. And Sandler did Werewolves of London as a recording, but also performed it live on Letterman. And it's incredible.

• 2:16:39Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 2:16:39Griffin Newman?

  And you're sort of like, oh, what? He's having fun. I can imagine. Yeah. Doing like Werewolves of London, but he just sings the shit out of it. Uh, it's awesome. I highly recommend it. Uh, the song is awesome. I also love that Cocktail is the beginning of, and I guess it starts in Top Gun, but it's only after the success of Top Gun that Cruise identifies this. In Top Gun, it feels more reflective of the Bruckheimer Simpson worldview. And then Cruise takes it with him until the couch jump roughly early 2000s, let's say, late 90s. Uh, Tom Cruise movies are primarily about a guy who is the fucking

• 2:17:22Griffin Newman?

  best at something. Either he's always been the best or he's immediately. He becomes the best so quickly.

• 2:17:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:17:28Griffin Newman?

  And people doubt him. They're like, hey, hot shot, too fast, too much. You're feeling yourself. Like take it down a peg. And he's like, fuck you.

• 2:17:37Speaker 02

  But then I'm, I'm the only one who can save us.

• 2:17:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm better than you think I am, and I'm going to prove you wrong. There's like a distinct lack of learning in, in a kind of like peak Tom Cruise movie star movie. And part of what's so electrifying of the Werewolves of London scene is you're like, this guy is going to crash. You're watching a guy who's just like feeling himself way too hard. When he starts doing the fucking karate moves, you know, him singing along, as you said, that he's like making the lyrics about himself in a way. And you're watching Newman watch him and be like, this guy doesn't understand how much suffering he has ahead of him in his life.

• 2:18:16Speaker 02

  He also, but like, he's so bad at being a, it's the flake thing. It's like, he's so bad at throwing or at, at like sandbagging so that they can entice this guy because he's beating Moselle one-handed. He's like, I'm, I'm just fucking dancing around the table and Moselle sits down like, he's like, I know, I'm not going to hit again. You know, like.

• 2:18:38David Sims?

  And like, that's where Eddie chews them out of like, you're losing us money, right? Like you're, yeah, if you, if you're this good, no one wants to play you or no one wants to.

• 2:18:46Griffin Newman?

  You're losing, you're, you're making money on this game. You're losing money on the next five games. Everyone else who's standing around watching you is never going to fucking approach the table.

• 2:18:54Speaker 02

  It's the, it's the incredible like paternal figure thing where he'll, he yells at him. And then he's like, Vincent, get in the car. You're like a high school girl who got felt up at a drive-in, you know, like.

• 2:19:06Griffin Newman?

  Ben, the hustler is like very existential. And the main thing in the movie is this guy is really good. Even the elder statesmen are kind of acknowledging like, fuck, in like a year, he might be the best in the world. But there's this early scene where George sees Scott calls him a loser after he's like won and is just sort of like fundamentally, you're a loser. Like you have the mentality of a loser. And what he's calling out is a certain vulnerability of this guy so badly needing to be seen as the best. And that desperation, even though he doesn't do this kind of peacocking, even though he is good at like throwing people off, there's, he wants it a little too badly.

• 2:19:43Speaker 02

  That's what undoes him when the Forest Whitaker character in Color of Money beats him is he's like, basically like, I've uncovered the old wound of where you're just like, you're, you're a dupe.

• 2:19:53Griffin Newman?

  Cause without fully spoiling it, where the hustler ends is he experiences this like tremendous tragedy. And at the end he shows up and he's like, I'm a winner, you're a loser. Basically because I've lost everything and I'm hollowed out now inside. Like I, I don't feel the stakes of losing. I have nothing left to lose, which makes me invincible. And you see the Jackie Gleason character who is the best in the world, look at him and be like, fuck, this guy's dangerous now. You know, he doesn't even try to step up to him. And so there is this whole feeling of Newman lashing out at him being like, this guy doesn't understand that like eventually something in his life will humble him, that he is going

• 2:20:34Griffin Newman?

  to be hollowed out. And he is peacocking so much more than I did at my peak, that like this fall is going to be fucking brutal. And it's, it's, yes, the, the Forest Whitaker thing is it hits him so hard because he.

• 2:20:50Griffin Newman?

  Newman thinks he is decades past being able to care that much.

• 2:20:54David Sims?

  Right. It's not just that he got hustled, it's how it hurts.

• 2:20:57Griffin Newman?

  Well, he gets hustled at the thing that he says he's the expert.

• 2:21:00David Sims?

  Right, exactly.

• 2:21:01Griffin Newman?

  Cause he gets, he says like pool excellence, it's not about excellent pool, it's about being a student of human moves. And he just misses that Forrest Whitaker's playing him, you know? He thinks he's just, he's got another guy that he's gonna take 40 bucks off of or 80 bucks off of.

• 2:21:14David Sims?

  Can't see the forest in the trees. I mean, it's kind of vital because.

• 2:21:16Griffin Newman?

  He literally can't see the forest through the trees.

• 2:21:18David Sims?

  Well, that is so true. But like, it is kind of vital in a way to me because I am like, how does this economy work? How can there be this many people who you can hustle enough to continue eating food?

• 2:21:30Griffin Newman?

  But Forrest Whitaker.

• 2:21:30David Sims?

  And it's like, you know what? Fucking sometimes this shit happens even to supposedly like wise guy.

• 2:21:36Griffin Newman?

  Forrest Whitaker also has an entirely different style.

• 2:21:39David Sims?

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:21:40Griffin Newman?

  You get that he, he would be duped by him because he's not playing.

• 2:21:45Speaker 02

  I used to be like, I, I was working at a medical school, like participating in lab experiments. Like, he seems like a complete freak.

• 2:21:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. He's got a totally different backstory. He's got a totally different demeanor. And part of it is that Forrest Whitaker is such a unique performer.

• 2:22:00David Sims?

  Uh, you're like, I mean, is there anyone like Forrest Whitaker before or now?

• 2:22:05Speaker 02

  Like, hey, can I ask you something? Do you think I should lose some weight? It's like, it's like, you're asking Paul Newman that.

• 2:22:10Griffin Newman?

  But yes, yes. But it's right. And like, even in that moment, you're like, is this still some part of like some fucking mind game? Or is this just him spiting him to be like, on top of it, I'm still gonna pretend like I'm just sort of an idiot savant?

• 2:22:26Griffin Newman?

  Or is it like a genuine moment of vulnerability being like, hey, now that I've beaten you? And I maybe have your respect, can you tell me, do you think losing weight would help my hustle? Like, there's, there's a read on it like that, but he's.

• 2:22:39David Sims?

  Yeah, kind of like it's the Jersey swap moment afterwards where he's like, you know, yeah, like, can I, hey, like, I know you're an expert or you're an old hand.

• 2:22:48Griffin Newman?

  Forrest Whitaker is just kind of like, like a universal monster where you're like, this guy who is so intimidating and scary and sad simultaneously. Just always feels so tragic and so vulnerable. And is a guy who feels like he's being explosive and loud, even when he's like literally whispering. Is this platoon year?

• 2:23:08Griffin Newman?

  Is it 86?

• 2:23:09David Sims?

  86 is platoon.

• 2:23:10Griffin Newman?

  So he does, he's in, he's in platoon.

• 2:23:12David Sims?

  Yeah, like before this is only credits are, uh, Fast Times, something called Tag, the Assassination Game, the Nick Castle movie, which I think he has a tiny part. And, uh, Vision Quest, the, uh, Matthew Modine movie. He's got a tiny part in that.

• 2:23:26Griffin Newman?

  About this in the Fast Times episode though, he gets a couple of parts early on and he's like, I don't know enough about acting. And basically pulls himself out of auditioning and is like, I need to study more seriously. And 86 is his reemergence year of like, I think I, I can be at the table.

• 2:23:41Speaker 02

  To work with Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone. It's not bad.

• 2:23:43Griffin Newman?

  I can hold my own against Paul Newman. This is, this is the moment that like really kind of defines the rest of his career, right? The fact that he's able to fucking nail this scene?

• 2:23:55David Sims?

  Yeah, cause the next year he's got Good Morning Vietnam, which is like a pretty big role. Like, that's pretty much.

• 2:24:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:03David Sims?

  And then the year after that is Bird, which is just, I mean, it's one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies. It's probably my favorite Forrest Whitaker performance. Like, and it's like, did that make him a star? No, because like Forrest Whitaker, like you say, is so specific, but it made him an enduring Hollywood figure.

• 2:24:20Griffin Newman?

  He's like a Giamatti, where you're like, this guy has a number of excellent vehicles under his belt. And Forrest Whitaker obviously won a leading act, acting Oscar, even though that's kind of supporting performance.

• 2:24:33David Sims?

  It kind of, yeah, but you know, whatever.

• 2:24:35Griffin Newman?

  But you're like, he's primarily a character actor who a couple of times the right project has met him exactly where he's at. And it's the kind of movie that could only be led by.

• 2:24:43David Sims?

  He's also like Ghost Dog. Like, it's just like, kind of like, and like, no one could have been fucking Ghost Dog.

• 2:24:48Griffin Newman?

  But I'm like, like Ghost Dog, Bird, Last King of Scotland, The Butler.

• 2:24:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:24:53Griffin Newman?

  You're like, he has like a collection of movie star movies.

• 2:24:56David Sims?

  And then, but then it's also like, is there a hostage situation in a movie? Guess what? Tired cop is picking up the phone right now.

• 2:25:03Griffin Newman?

  The guy who's being held hostage.

• 2:25:05David Sims?

  He plays, or he's that.

• 2:25:06Griffin Newman?

  Either, please, please.

• 2:25:08Speaker 02

  He's a very effective psychic cop in, uh, Species.

• 2:25:11David Sims?

  Oh, God, the fucking weirdest movie ever made.

• 2:25:13Speaker 02

  Where he walks into rooms, he's like, someone was hurt here.

• 2:25:16David Sims?

  And there's like 14 gallons of blood on the floor.

• 2:25:19Griffin Newman?

  We should do Species on Patreon, only, only so that we can hear Ben's sort of, if I were in this movie, it'd end with me owning an island.

• 2:25:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:27Griffin Newman?

  If I were.

• 2:25:28David Sims?

  I would not make any mistakes.

• 2:25:29Griffin Newman?

  I'd have a bunch of good sex and still be alive.

• 2:25:32Speaker 02

  He would recognize that I was cool and not tear my spine out.

• 2:25:37David Sims?

  One and two.

• 2:25:38Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 2:25:39David Sims?

  I haven't seen three, but which I think was straight to TV or whatever. But some have told me is not bad.

• 2:25:46Griffin Newman?

  Is that still Henstridge?

• 2:25:48David Sims?

  I think Henstridge might just be doing a little cameo.

• 2:25:52Griffin Newman?

  And it was directed by La Vida, right? Who did that?

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  Three was directed, of course.

• 2:25:57Griffin Newman?

  That was written by Schrader.

• 2:25:59David Sims?

  By Brad Turner, a TV, mostly a TV guy.

• 2:26:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay, Henstridge reprises the role briefly in the opening scene. It was a SyFy Channel original.

• 2:26:11David Sims?

  Yes, but there's an uncut.

• 2:26:13Griffin Newman?

  Unrated.

• 2:26:13David Sims?

  Correct. There's like a sexier version of it that I have been told. I know this because.

• 2:26:18Griffin Newman?

  You've heard that the sexy version's the good one? Is that what you're saying?

• 2:26:21David Sims?

  Uh, no, I know that, you know, I did both Species one and two on the Authorized Novelizations Podcast. I picked Species one kind of because I was like, that's funny. There's an official novelization of that. And then of course was hit with the news by over B of, and don't you worry, there was a novelization of Species two as well. Both written by a woman.

• 2:26:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, hey.

• 2:26:42David Sims?

  Uh, and, uh, so I watched one and two.

• 2:26:45Griffin Newman?

  There's a fourth one as well.

• 2:26:46David Sims?

  There is.

• 2:26:47Griffin Newman?

  Species, The Awakening, standalone sequel, not a direct follow up.

• 2:26:51David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm sure fans are furious. I don't know.

• 2:27:06Griffin Newman?

  I do want to call out that Species four was briefly titled Species Colon Quattro.

• 2:27:12Speaker 02

  Was it really?

• 2:27:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, which I'm realizing, I don't know if any franchise has done that.

• 2:27:17David Sims?

  Not yet.

• 2:27:18Griffin Newman?

  Right?

• 2:27:19Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:27:20Griffin Newman?

  The, the never made old school sequel is supposed to be called Old School Dose.

• 2:27:25David Sims?

  Uh, sure. Yeah.

• 2:27:27Griffin Newman?

  I just think they untapped potential here.

• 2:27:29David Sims?

  Let's do it.

• 2:27:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:31David Sims?

  I think that saying Natasha Henstridge should be like part of like a president's cognitive test.

• 2:27:36Griffin Newman?

  I noticed that you've only said Mary Elizabeth Mastantonio once.

• 2:27:40David Sims?

  Mem.

• 2:27:40Griffin Newman?

  In, in entirety, and it is one of the great, I trip over the last names.

• 2:27:44David Sims?

  Mary Elizabeth Mastantonio, what was the tennis player in the nineties?

• 2:27:48Griffin Newman?

  Uh.

• 2:27:50Speaker 02

  Mia Mast? No, no, who are you talking about?

• 2:27:53David Sims?

  Sanchez Vicario.

• 2:27:54Griffin Newman?

  Oh yeah, Alexis Sanchez Vicario.

• 2:27:56David Sims?

  I just always was, I, I loved a name where it's like, this is, this is, uh, no, it's, uh, right, Arant, Aranta. Or, uh, I didn't know, I don't know how you say your first name, but you know, I loved a meal of a name.

• 2:28:08Griffin Newman?

  Mary Elizabeth Mastantonio feels like a roller coaster. It's fun to say, you feel satisfied when you, you come into the landing.

• 2:28:16Speaker 02

  Do you think her and Stuart Masterson were just in a death stare about who got the three names?

• 2:28:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:22David Sims?

  Now, Mary Stuart Masterson is the daughter of Peter Masterson, who was like a big actor, right? Like she was, uh, she was, um, you know, Hollywood royalty, whereas Miss, uh, Mary Elizabeth Mastantonio's father worked, operated a bronze foundry in Oak Park, Illinois. So she was, uh.

• 2:28:41Griffin Newman?

  How did she get Scarface?

• 2:28:44David Sims?

  I don't know, man.

• 2:28:45Griffin Newman?

  She was on Broadway in various musicals, including as an understudy in the 1980 run of West Side Story. But that's like three years before Scarface.

• 2:28:53David Sims?

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, she rocks. She's got an interesting career in that she's made very few movies.

• 2:28:57Griffin Newman?

  She was in the original production of Amadeus.

• 2:29:00David Sims?

  That sounds good.

• 2:29:01Griffin Newman?

  Um, but that must have led to, yeah, it feels like she gets cast in Scarface off of that. Yeah, she's in very few movies.

• 2:29:07Speaker 02

  I wonder if just like Pacino scenes are on Broadway or something like that.

• 2:29:11Griffin Newman?

  It, it has to be.

• 2:29:12David Sims?

  Right, yeah, cause she wrecked.

• 2:29:13Griffin Newman?

  Obviously, that's a humongous show, uh, and she's in the original cast, but.

• 2:29:18David Sims?

  Done a fair amount of theater, but like, it's just crazy that like, it's like her movie credits are Scarface, Color of Money, Slam Dance, January Man, The Abyss. That's her whole eighties.

• 2:29:28Griffin Newman?

  She has made only three films this century and one of them's a short film.

• 2:29:35David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:35Griffin Newman?

  She was in a film in 2015 called A Muck.

• 2:29:37David Sims?

  She basically hasn't made a movie since The Perfect Storm.

• 2:29:39Griffin Newman?

  She basically hasn't made a movie since The Perfect Storm. She also, her husband directed The January Man. Is that right? Yes. She's married to Patrick O'Connor, who directed most of what she has made since the nineties.

• 2:29:55David Sims?

  Right. Who made the terrible film Stars and Bars, which I talked about on a big picture episode one.

• 2:29:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:29:59David Sims?

  One of the least relevant Daniel Day Lewis movies ever made.

• 2:30:02Griffin Newman?

  Is it fair to say the least relevant?

• 2:30:04David Sims?

  Probably.

• 2:30:05Griffin Newman?

  Is anything really competing with that?

• 2:30:06David Sims?

  I don't think so.

• 2:30:07Griffin Newman?

  Um, but yeah, no, it's, it's like Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves is kind of her final major movie star move.

• 2:30:15David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, which she's good in that, I guess.

• 2:30:19Griffin Newman?

  She is good in that. I like that movie so much.

• 2:30:21David Sims?

  You like that movie so much?

• 2:30:23Griffin Newman?

  I really do. I think that movie's.

• 2:30:24David Sims?

  I haven't seen that movie since I was like a kid.

• 2:30:25Griffin Newman?

  Really fucking fun. I rewatched it when we were doing Costner.

• 2:30:28David Sims?

  Rickman's so good.

• 2:30:29Griffin Newman?

  And then folded.

• 2:30:29Speaker 02

  That movie is also long.

• 2:30:30Griffin Newman?

  I, I was like, we should fold this. But there are also like two different versions now.

• 2:30:34David Sims?

  Right, right. All right, we should just like, Costner Ghost directed this, let's just do it on like the Costner series.

• 2:30:41Griffin Newman?

  We were debating whether or not to do it and the Costner series was short, but then we did a Waterworld episode. So I was like, I should rewatch Prince of Thieves, a movie I similarly had like watched in pieces on cable and maybe never sat down and watched from beginning to end. And I just, maybe it was the contrast between the two. There's a lot I like in Waterworld, but it's obviously so long and it bloated. And Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, I thought was like so much fun from beginning to end. Got, got that Kino 4K pre-ordered?

• 2:31:10David Sims?

  Oh, oh, do you?

• 2:31:12David Sims?

  I, I, it's, you know, I think I have.

• 2:31:14Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, you know, it's, what the fuck am I talking about? It's so embarrassing.

• 2:31:17David Sims?

  Embarrassing.

• 2:31:17Griffin Newman?

  Trace is gonna fucking eat me for watching.

• 2:31:21David Sims?

  But like Tracy, I just feel like, like pallets arrive at his house every day and they just get added to the pile, right? Like, I mean,

• 2:31:29Griffin Newman?

  I have questions. I'm like, is he on the subscription list? Is he on press lists? Is he just pre-ordering everything à la carte, one by one? I don't know.

• 2:31:40Speaker 02

  The methodology for, he was very open about his AV man. He was very open on the big picture physical media episode about

• 2:31:48Griffin Newman?

  when he reads

• 2:31:49Speaker 02

  who he watches movies with.

• 2:31:50Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 2:31:51Speaker 02

  But he was a little bit

• 2:31:52Griffin Newman?

  circumspect about like, where does it all come?

• 2:31:54Speaker 02

  Where does it all come from?

• 2:31:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:55Speaker 02

  Which, you know, it's the real question of life. I mean, it's, it's the essential question we all grapple with. Uh, when he read off the AV man's text, A, I could not believe

• 2:32:05Griffin Newman?

  probably the peak of podcasting.

• 2:32:06Speaker 02

  I truly, yeah, truly, truly, truly, beyond that, maybe the peak of human language. I was like, I could not believe how well-written this text was. I think you called out, you were like, is this how he typed it out?

• 2:32:18Griffin Newman?

  Because it felt like the part nanny hall where he brings McLuhan out from behind the poster. He's like, in fact, I have my AV man right here. I was like, did you know that we were gonna ask you this and had him pre-write it?

• 2:32:30Speaker 02

  It was insane how good it was and how thorough it was. And just if I were reading that out in text, I think it would give me goosebumps. Have Tracy be the one to give it a dramatic.

• 2:32:42David Sims?

  He's a good reader. I mean, he, he can lend a lot of gravitas to something.

• 2:32:47Griffin Newman?

  The highest grade in British silicone.

• 2:32:50Speaker 02

  The British acoustics.

• 2:32:51Griffin Newman?

  To the excellence.

• 2:32:52Speaker 02

  And German engineering.

• 2:32:53Griffin Newman?

  From a rent.

• 2:32:54David Sims?

  Doesn't it kind of lock you into where you live?

• 2:32:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:56David Sims?

  You're like, fuck, I can't leave now.

• 2:32:58Speaker 02

  I don't think he's planning to.

• 2:32:59Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't think we get tempted about it.

• 2:33:01David Sims?

  Right. He's building a castle.

• 2:33:02Speaker 02

  He's got the movie theater.

• 2:33:03Griffin Newman?

  My question is like, how do I become the next nanny?

• 2:33:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:33:06Griffin Newman?

  Like, how do I move in there? Do we need a court jester? Like, what, what, what roles are still open in that household?

• 2:33:12David Sims?

  I, I think, uh, yeah, I don't know. What does Tracy eat? I could, I could cook.

• 2:33:16Speaker 02

  I could, Tracy very convincingly could have appeared in this film.

• 2:33:20Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yeah.

• 2:33:21Speaker 02

  Especially as the guy who loses to Eddie and then is like, can I buy you a drink? And Eddie's like, let me buy you a drink. Uh, I don't know who that guy is. He's probably like an actual pool hall Denzyan that they found.

• 2:33:34David Sims?

  I mean, like the Kevin McCready is in this film who is a real-life hustler.

• 2:33:39Speaker 02

  He's Brady Seasons or is he somebody else?

• 2:33:41David Sims?

  He is, uh, Brady Seasons. He is a, a real hustler who plays under the name Earthquake, who has an unusual like side form, uh, which I think is part of his hustle.

• 2:33:54Speaker 02

  He's very poetic when he's around the table.

• 2:33:56David Sims?

  Right. Like he doesn't look like a sort of like traditional, uh, pool pro or whatever.

• 2:34:01Speaker 02

  Worth mentioning, I guess Iggy Pop also.

• 2:34:03Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, yeah.

• 2:34:04Speaker 02

  Fantastic Iggy Pop.

• 2:34:05David Sims?

  Is credited as skinny player on road. Um, yep.

• 2:34:10Speaker 02

  Did you guys wish there had been a couple of more like, uh, two brothers and a stranger style cons in halls? Because I also wanted to interrogate the fact that Newman's like, it's, have you ever done two brothers and a stranger? And it's like, it involves me grabbing your girlfriend's ass. And I was like, where's the two brothers? Like, if we were doing two brothers, would we also be like grab assing or what?

• 2:34:37Griffin Newman?

  Like, I don't need them to explain them to me, but I do wanna see multiple types of hustles.

• 2:34:42David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah. I love, I love any kind of like con stuff.

• 2:34:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:46David Sims?

  You know, I also wanna shout out, um, uh, Paul Herman, who's, he was Beanzy in The Sopranos. He's another of the pool.

• 2:34:55Speaker 02

  Oh, he's the guy at Atlantic City who's just like, I'm gonna give you 1500 and you give me 800 and I have to beat you eight times, but you have to beat me nine times.

• 2:35:02David Sims?

  Yes. Yes. Yeah. Love that guy.

• 2:35:04Speaker 02

  I was like, why don't you guys just play pool for money?

• 2:35:06David Sims?

  A guy's a top. Right. Why doesn't it just be like whoever wins, wins the money?

• 2:35:11Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:35:12David Sims?

  It feels easy enough.

• 2:35:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's an Irishman.

• 2:35:14David Sims?

  Yeah. He's in a ton of, uh, like

• 2:35:17Griffin Newman?

  Pass away recently.

• 2:35:18David Sims?

  He died recently.

• 2:35:18Griffin Newman?

  But I always think of him

• 2:35:19Speaker 02

  He is the, uh, gun dealer from Pittsburgh and Goodfellas. He's like, you want to see helicopters?

• 2:35:23Griffin Newman?

  He's also, he's, um, De Niro's main Eagles buddy in Silver Linings playbook.

• 2:35:31David Sims?

  Yes, he's in Silver Linings, right.

• 2:35:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:35:33David Sims?

  Which is sort of like a gangster movie without gangsters and that everyone in that movie is kind of all life, right?

• 2:35:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's, that's, I, that's one, I, I have not had the courage to re-watch that movie and I really wonder how it would go down right now. Not even in a like, is it problematic way, but just like, were we all drunk? What was the fucking thing?

• 2:35:53David Sims?

  I didn't love that shit at the time.

• 2:35:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:35:56David Sims?

  So like, I don't know. Like I, I was not, uh, I, I like my opinion of all the, I liked, um, The Fighter a lot.

• 2:36:05Griffin Newman?

  The Fighter's really good.

• 2:36:06David Sims?

  Fighter really nailed the whole kind of like dirtbag.

• 2:36:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:09David Sims?

  And after that, I just felt like he was kind of losing it more and more with every movie.

• 2:36:13Griffin Newman?

  All, all three of those worked for me until Joy, where it fell apart so hard and I have not re-watched any of them.

• 2:36:19Speaker 02

  That's the vacuum.

• 2:36:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And in my mind's eye, I'm like, well, The Fighter still is legitimately pretty great.

• 2:36:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:36:26Griffin Newman?

  And then

• 2:36:26David Sims?

  Silver Linings, it's like, the performances are good. It's kind of an over raw movie.

• 2:36:30Griffin Newman?

  American Hustle, which I loved at the time. I'm just like, I know I would hate that now.

• 2:36:34Speaker 02

  I, I remember being so hyped for American Hustle and midway through it.

• 2:36:39David Sims?

  You wanted to get over on all these guys.

• 2:36:40Griffin Newman?

  You did wanna get over.

• 2:36:41Speaker 02

  To get over.

• 2:36:41Griffin Newman?

  It's gotta be the best we've ever done.

• 2:36:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36:43Griffin Newman?

  Gotta be the best we've ever done.

• 2:36:44David Sims?

  That movie, I mean, I hated at the time.

• 2:36:47Griffin Newman?

  I know. We fought, we fought about it.

• 2:36:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:49Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, it's fun. And now when I like replay scenes in my mind, I'm embarrassed. But The Fighter, I wonder if it, if it is actually the last good one, or if we watched it now, we'd be like, I wanna see the signs of where this is going.

• 2:37:03David Sims?

  Probably a little bit. It also was just more of a novelty. It was like, oh, the I heard Huckabee's guy made this like, you know, Lowell, Massachusetts, like everyone screaming at each other.

• 2:37:10Speaker 02

  But Oscar bait thing. Yeah, right.

• 2:37:12David Sims?

  And it's like, oh, it's got some grit to it. It's a good movie.

• 2:37:14Griffin Newman?

  Adams is so good in that.

• 2:37:16David Sims?

  Amy Adams?

• 2:37:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:16David Sims?

  Amazing in that one.

• 2:37:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yes. Um, it's, it's, I mean, well, this conversation's irrelevant because obviously he rebounded and hit his peak form in Amsterdam. I mean, he figured the whole thing out.

• 2:37:28Speaker 02

  And now his, his upcoming Al Davis movie should be, should be pretty solid.

• 2:37:31Griffin Newman?

  Christ, I fucking forgot. I forgot that was

• 2:37:36David Sims?

  I'm a little excited for that.

• 2:37:37Speaker 02

  Well, I just, Bale's dedication to him is kind of impressive.

• 2:37:42David Sims?

  Bale's dedication.

• 2:37:43Speaker 02

  Bale is like, gotta be one of the greatest homies ever to be like, whatever you wanna do, man.

• 2:37:47David Sims?

  I mean, it's my beef with it is that Bale's

• 2:37:49Griffin Newman?

  Cold Road Amsterdam?

• 2:37:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:37:51David Sims?

  My beef with it is that Bale doesn't make a ton of movies and has

• 2:37:53Griffin Newman?

  That's my beef.

• 2:37:54David Sims?

  wasted a lot of time making David O. Russell movies and where I'm like, he could've worked with some other guy.

• 2:37:58Griffin Newman?

  It is a stat I love to repeat, which is Christian Bale, one of our greatest living actors, in my opinion, one of the great screen actors.

• 2:38:05David Sims?

  Great actor.

• 2:38:06Griffin Newman?

  And we think of as being such a dramatic, intense actor. All of his Oscar nominations are either for Adam McKay

• 2:38:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:13Griffin Newman?

  or David O. Russell movies.

• 2:38:15David Sims?

  Correct.

• 2:38:15Griffin Newman?

  They're his two guys now.

• 2:38:17David Sims?

  It's, and you know, it's tough. But like, the idea of Bale being like, I've studied Al Davis tape for two years. I'm going to occupy Al Davis in a way no one ever has. And Cage is like, get that wig on me. I think I could do Madden in five minutes.

• 2:38:32Griffin Newman?

  I saw Madden in 1983. Who is Al Davis?

• 2:38:36David Sims?

  Al Davis was the, I mean, he was the owner

• 2:38:38Speaker 02

  Of the Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders.

• 2:38:40David Sims?

  Of the Raiders. Wasn't he also kind of the GM or whatever? Like?

• 2:38:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. He was an old school, like I'm king. Like I, I get, I'm the owner, I'm the GM. I also am the offensive coordinator.

• 2:38:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:38:50Speaker 02

  And, uh, everybody runs fast and the quarterback

• 2:38:54David Sims?

  Just win, baby.

• 2:38:55Speaker 02

  And we just win.

• 2:38:56David Sims?

  His famous motto. But he was like a genuinely transformational figure in football who like helped bring down collar barriers and like, right? He was like, he was a force for good by and large.

• 2:39:05Griffin Newman?

  But Ben, this is Madden, a David O. Russell film coming out this year.

• 2:39:09David Sims?

  Was John Madden, who even at the time was a living cartoon character before he then literally became one.

• 2:39:14Griffin Newman?

  Nicholas Cage is playing him basically in like the suit from The Whale on loan.

• 2:39:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:21Griffin Newman?

  Giving like, what looks like a Mad TV performance. And I love Cage, right? This movie is by all accounts primarily about the video game, about how he licensed his name and likeness to the video. Everything I've heard is that like, that is the main story.

• 2:39:36David Sims?

  Certainly a big part of the movie. And like, John Mulaney is playing Trip Hawkins, who's the, like, the guy from 3DO who like bitches him on the game.

• 2:39:44Speaker 02

  Are you kidding me? I thought this was like, this is how they won the 70s.

• 2:39:47David Sims?

  No, it's primarily about the game. There will be some of that. I do think.

• 2:39:50Griffin Newman?

  I have heard from reliable people, I believe there was a Radiolab episode about how that game came into being.

• 2:39:55David Sims?

  Right. It's an interesting story.

• 2:39:56Griffin Newman?

  And I have heard that is the primary text that this movie was

• 2:39:59Speaker 02

  Oh my god, this is incredible.

• 2:40:00Griffin Newman?

  Based on. And yes, it has, uh, right. John Mulaney playing the founder of Electronic Arts.

• 2:40:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:05Griffin Newman?

  Shane Gillis, Sienna Miller, Catherine Han, just the most obvious cast in the world.

• 2:40:11David Sims?

  It was gonna be Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell's gonna be mad.

• 2:40:13Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:40:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:14Griffin Newman?

  Which makes a ton of sense.

• 2:40:15David Sims?

  Makes a ton of sense, right? It's just the thing with Cage is it's just like, you're handing him lit firecrackers. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, he's a good actor, but now we're just kind of back to post-long legs. These directors being like, do you wanna cut loose? And he's like, sure, you know, I can do that.

• 2:40:30Griffin Newman?

  Now he's doing like a Long Legs prequel or Long Legs is immortal?

• 2:40:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's Fast Eddie Long Legs.

• 2:40:35Griffin Newman?

  I love Long Legs.

• 2:40:36David Sims?

  I was, I was into Long Legs. I don't know if you wanna go back to that well.

• 2:40:40Griffin Newman?

  That announcement struck terror in my heart.

• 2:40:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:43Griffin Newman?

  I don't think there's any need to return to that.

• 2:40:45David Sims?

  Fan?

• 2:40:46Speaker 02

  I was, when I saw it, it was somewhat impacted by the fact that, uh, I watched it and the second I came out, uh, Trump got shot at, in Pennsylvania.

• 2:40:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh my god.

• 2:40:56Speaker 02

  And I was just like, holy shit. And I immediately forgot all of Long Legs.

• 2:41:00David Sims?

  You know? Long Legs just gets like photocopied over and

• 2:41:05Speaker 02

  Or I was like, this will be the most memorable movie I've ever seen because

• 2:41:10David Sims?

  It's the day that Trump got shot.

• 2:41:11Speaker 02

  But instead it was like, neither or.

• 2:41:13Griffin Newman?

  I, I was at a wedding, my, my, my dear friends Pat May and Ashley Warren, two of the best people I know. And

• 2:41:20David Sims?

  Pat May?

• 2:41:21Griffin Newman?

  Pat May, Patrick May.

• 2:41:23Speaker 02

  Dear friends, Pat May and Anakin.

• 2:41:25Griffin Newman?

  My dear friends, Pat May and Anakin.

• 2:41:26David Sims?

  There's a secret wedding. Anakin has a robot arm. He recently lost his account.

• 2:41:30Griffin Newman?

  Bless their love. Nothing bad will happen. Uh, but I was at their wedding.

• 2:41:34Speaker 02

  Weird speeches. Don't worry about it.

• 2:41:35David Sims?

  That guy really is a beef with sand.

• 2:41:38Griffin Newman?

  Was at their wedding.

• 2:41:40Speaker 02

  We're talking a lot about taxes in this one.

• 2:41:42Griffin Newman?

  Someone ran up and, and just in like one burst went like, Trump was shot, or there was a shooter at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but Trump is safe.

• 2:41:51David Sims?

  Oh, the more recent.

• 2:41:52Griffin Newman?

  You cannot give me that.

• 2:41:53David Sims?

  Don't do that.

• 2:41:54Griffin Newman?

  That much information that quick in one sentence.

• 2:41:57David Sims?

  I understand wanting to get all the information out at once.

• 2:42:00Griffin Newman?

  Emotional roller coaster.

• 2:42:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:42:02David Sims?

  Uh, so

• 2:42:04Griffin Newman?

  The color of money.

• 2:42:05David Sims?

  Color of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:42:06Griffin Newman?

  We left off kind of where Eddie, Carmen and Vincent part ways.

• 2:42:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:42:10David Sims?

  Right. Eddie gets hustled. It shatters his image. I feel like

• 2:42:14Speaker 02

  And he basically half fires them.

• 2:42:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:17Speaker 02

  Half.

• 2:42:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like a soft dumping.

• 2:42:20Griffin Newman?

  Set them free.

• 2:42:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:42:22Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. You actually don't need me anymore. I'm doing you a favor.

• 2:42:26Speaker 02

  But it's like, don't look at me, I'm disgusting.

• 2:42:28David Sims?

  You have the money, go to Atlantic City, but right, that's exactly, I feel like he's all confidence and now it's gone.

• 2:42:34Griffin Newman?

  And the other part of it is him being like, I fucked up, I need to pull the eject lever like as quickly as I can. I need to get out of here. This thing has gotten its hooks into me more deeply than I thought.

• 2:42:48Speaker 02

  And then this, this movie turns into a, a sort of, an advertisement for optometry because it turns out that a lot of his problems were just that he needed a prescription glass.

• 2:42:58David Sims?

  He needed to get the coolest prescription sunglasses in the world.

• 2:43:02Griffin Newman?

  Fucking cool.

• 2:43:03Speaker 02

  He was cool getting his eyes tested.

• 2:43:06Griffin Newman?

  He really does.

• 2:43:07David Sims?

  He makes it all work for him. It is like a Thanos getting a power glove where he's like, you don't understand.

• 2:43:14Speaker 02

  I can read the newspaper now. I wonder like how long he's been like, I have no idea who's president. I haven't seen an actual pool ball in clarity in 10 years.

• 2:43:26David Sims?

  Do you think Fast Eddie votes? I feel like he probably doesn't vote too much.

• 2:43:30Griffin Newman?

  No, I don't know how many things he does.

• 2:43:33Speaker 02

  What it feels like he looks a very Just like I was all in on Stevenson and when that didn't happen, I checked out on the political process.

• 2:43:40David Sims?

  Honest liberalism.

• 2:43:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then he kind of, it's just a bit of a wander. It's a bit of a wander. There's a really good montage, like you mentioned.

• 2:43:48David Sims?

  There's a great montage of him getting his game back, but it is, I feel like actually without Cruz, like a little, like the energy's gone a little bit.

• 2:43:55Speaker 02

  Well, this is where it should be a sports movie and the sports movie should end with game seven of the world series or like the game that they, and Newman has in other, like this is not unlike Slapshot where the movie's culmination is, I'm going to take all my clothes off and skate around in circles, you know, like rather than we beat these guys. And, and color of money is sort of like, well, there's the tournament, there's Fast Eddie's kind of re, resort, he, you know, cause he beats, no, Tom Cruise beats Grady. Fast Eddie gets to the semifinals against Vince or the finals against Vince and

• 2:44:30Griffin Newman?

  The, the crane shots of the pool, the stadium, I was gonna say pool hall, but this like stadium with like fucking 40 tables. And then craning down to from behind Fast Eddie's head, just looking at like his Valhalla.

• 2:44:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then all the, like the behind the scenes stills, the production stills of this movie where it's like, a track that goes around like goddamn Big Thunder Mountain. And then there will be like, you know, the pool tables are all up against one side and then everything else is, is dolly track.

• 2:45:01David Sims?

  I was recently in Atlantic City.

• 2:45:04Speaker 02

  For what?

• 2:45:05David Sims?

  My birthday.

• 2:45:06Griffin Newman?

  You went to Atlantic City for your birthday?

• 2:45:08David Sims?

  Yeah, baby.

• 2:45:09Griffin Newman?

  I don't think you were relaying this to us.

• 2:45:10David Sims?

  No, he told me.

• 2:45:11Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 2:45:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:12Speaker 02

  Where's this gambling text?

• 2:45:13Griffin Newman?

  Borgata?

• 2:45:14David Sims?

  Ocean.

• 2:45:15Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:45:15David Sims?

  Borgata was fully booked.

• 2:45:17Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 2:45:18David Sims?

  Jerry Seinfeld was playing.

• 2:45:19Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh boy.

• 2:45:20David Sims?

  So I went to the ocean, gotta recommend the ocean, really nice time. I mean, Atlantic City, however.

• 2:45:25Griffin Newman?

  Not in the best

• 2:45:26David Sims?

  David is making two thumbs up, smile.

• 2:45:30Griffin Newman?

  Everything's good.

• 2:45:30Speaker 02

  Haven't been to Atlantic City since Sean's fantasies bachelor party.

• 2:45:34David Sims?

  And tell me everything about Sean fantasy's bachelor.

• 2:45:37Speaker 02

  That was where I discovered Gasolina, which is tequila and Red Bull or, and we got one of Sean's family members to get bottle service at a nightclub.

• 2:45:48David Sims?

  Now, I've only met Sean's family once, which was at the live show we did. It is crazy when they all show up and you're like, why does Sean not have a thick lung? You know what I mean? Like, right? Do you remember this Griffin from the?

• 2:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sorry. My grandmother's sending very insane emails right now.

• 2:46:04David Sims?

  Classic Griffin situation.

• 2:46:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:07David Sims?

  Anyway, like, it's just funny that this movie's like, we're gonna make it to Atlantic City. Having been to Atlantic City, I'm like, you don't want to make it there. You need to leave Atlantic City. Like, you could spend a night, maybe two. But I guess it was, it's like, I think, like Atlantic City, I think was ruined by like plane travel, basically, right? And like Indian casinos.

• 2:46:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:27David Sims?

  Where it's basically now, it just became, it's like, well, why would you want to go there? You can go somewhere else.

• 2:46:31Speaker 02

  Well, it's the same. And, and now Vegas is being decimated by the fact that you don't have to go there to bet on sports, among other things.

• 2:46:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:46:39David Sims?

  So what's gonna happen to these places? I mean, I guess what's happening to Atlantic City might happen to other places.

• 2:46:44Griffin Newman?

  Possibly. Is good old fashioned American gambling about to collapse? Like, are these prediction markets just like, to your point, I just hadn't considered this, but like, do people even bother to learn how to play poker? Not to be, to be waxing poetic.

• 2:46:58Speaker 02

  To like feel it in their hands and like to study another man and be like, okay.

• 2:47:02Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this is sort of what this movie is about of like needing to basically like elevate these things to an art form. And, and a psychological sort of exploration, you know, a game of, of, of people reading and everything.

• 2:47:17Speaker 02

  And just as much of that, I think it's like, I know this is gonna sound really corny, but it is a celebration of a certain kind of American third space that is disappearing.

• 2:47:27David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:47:27Griffin Newman?

  Chris, 100%.

• 2:47:28Speaker 02

  And it is like

• 2:47:29David Sims?

  We're talking about physical media, video stores, there's another one, you know?

• 2:47:33Speaker 02

  And I don't think in 20 or 30 years, people are gonna care that this is what American bars looked like in 1986.

• 2:47:40Griffin Newman?

  Right. And you're just like, okay, so now you're like

• 2:47:41Speaker 02

  But I care.

• 2:47:42Griffin Newman?

  You're sitting there, you're sitting at home doing an IG live, like betting $50 that Lady Gaga's gonna fart at the Grammys. Like, what, what are we now?

• 2:47:53David Sims?

  Right. Griff, that, that got me $4,000. Paid for my rent.

• 2:47:57Griffin Newman?

  Congrats to you and your family.

• 2:48:00David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Uh, yes, let's get rid of phone gambling and have more real gambling. That's my take.

• 2:48:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:07David Sims?

  Right? No more phone.

• 2:48:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:48:09David Sims?

  Phone gambling, bad.

• 2:48:10Griffin Newman?

  Really bad.

• 2:48:11David Sims?

  Real gambling, let me at it.

• 2:48:13Griffin Newman?

  David loves it.

• 2:48:14Speaker 02

  Do you actually, are you, are you a fan?

• 2:48:15David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:48:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:48:16David Sims?

  But it's very good that I don't get to do it much.

• 2:48:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I only, at the casino, I really only play blackjack and it's just over really fast.

• 2:48:24David Sims?

  I, not to brag, I had an incredible night. I, I made like 600 bucks.

• 2:48:27Speaker 02

  Way to go, man.

• 2:48:28Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm gonna say something on mic that I really, just knowing we, you know, record this podcast a bit in advance. I hope these are not famous last words. I am so relieved that my father has not gotten into the prediction markets.

• 2:48:43David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:48:43Griffin Newman?

  My father, a former gambling addict who has stayed on the good side of that.

• 2:48:48David Sims?

  Say, right. It's a long time. It's, it's in the, right. It's in the rear view, his gambling days.

• 2:48:53Griffin Newman?

  And like, growing up, we would go to a fucking, you know, a, a Superbowl party or an Oscar party where you could like fill out a form and I didn't see it break him. He didn't start sweating and going like, oh fuck, I'm remembering. But I just feel like the, the low bar for entry on the phone shit.

• 2:49:11Griffin Newman?

  Beyond just the prediction markets, even just how easy sports betting is.

• 2:49:13David Sims?

  Frictionless gambling.

• 2:49:14Griffin Newman?

  Which sports betting was this whole fucking thing.

• 2:49:16David Sims?

  Yeah. That's right. The other thing is I, I love gambling. I don't care about sports gambling. It never does much for me. I love like the absolute coke rush of, I put chips on numbers and maybe I won.

• 2:49:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:49:29David Sims?

  Like, I'm just like, what? You know, like I just, I, it does something for me that drinking, I don't know, one of the other, you know, drugs, these things have never done. You know, Ben, you've seen me.

• 2:49:40Griffin Newman?

  I have.

• 2:49:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:49:40Griffin Newman?

  You just get very serious.

• 2:49:41David Sims?

  You really go into a different mode. Yeah. We should have someone on who, it was, I basically was like, it was, cause my wife was like, just do your bachelor party. I turned 40.

• 2:49:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:49:50David Sims?

  She was like, just do your bachelor party. Like, you were gonna do it, your friends, Alex and Eric, like just fucking go, go gamble for a night. Like, you never got to do your bachelor party.

• 2:49:58Speaker 02

  Most incredible pod, things I've ever, podcasting moments I've ever witnessed in person was when we would go to Caesar's in Vegas for NBA summer league, which is where the NBA teams go and let their newly drafted players play in like exhibition tournament, basically.

• 2:50:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:50:16Speaker 02

  It's also just an opportunity for everybody to gamble. So I

• 2:50:18David Sims?

  Right, but you're all chatting of sources and all that shit.

• 2:50:21Speaker 02

  Bill Simmons, his longtime podcast co-host on Sunday nights, cousin Sal.

• 2:50:25David Sims?

  Great cousin Sal.

• 2:50:26Speaker 02

  Super chef, Dave Chang and Bill Simmons buddy, Joe House.

• 2:50:30David Sims?

  The great, the great Joe House.

• 2:50:31Speaker 02

  On the back end, like the, the fumes of what was like basically an all night gambling run, all night blackjack run, where House and Chang had only left the blackjack table to go get off strip gumbo in Vegas and then came back at like

• 2:50:47David Sims?

  Strip gumbo, it's not

• 2:50:48Speaker 02

  10 or 11 AM to do like a long, long podcast about the layers of gambling that they participated in last night that involved like Chang winning a bone white chip that needed like his social security number to cash out.

• 2:51:03Griffin Newman?

  Bone white.

• 2:51:04Speaker 02

  And they're all betting

• 2:51:05David Sims?

  An alabaster.

• 2:51:06Speaker 02

  Not only on their cards.

• 2:51:07Griffin Newman?

  It was actually made of bone.

• 2:51:09Speaker 02

  But they're betting on other guys at the table where they're like, I'm, I'm doing like layered bets on

• 2:51:14David Sims?

  I'm essentially staking this guy's next thing.

• 2:51:16Speaker 02

  Even though he's not asking.

• 2:51:17David Sims?

  Right, right, right, right. But he's hot. So, yes. I like when you can do that in craps. Like, I like when you start making bets for the, you know, the, the, the group ears, pit bosses, whatever, you know, like that's fun. No, I, but I play every, blackjack, craps, roulette. Like, those are, yeah.

• 2:51:34Speaker 02

  You like it go, you like it fast. You do not like long poker nights.

• 2:51:38David Sims?

  No, I enjoy poker, but right.

• 2:51:40Speaker 02

  You're impatient. Is that fair to say?

• 2:51:41David Sims?

  I guess so. I think I also have a good metronome. That's at least what everyone was, who was watching me that night was saying of like, I'm pretty good at being like, I think I'm done. And like, you know, like

• 2:51:52Speaker 02

  You're an incredible flake.

• 2:51:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:54Griffin Newman?

  Such an incredible flake.

• 2:51:56David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm the flaky one.

• 2:51:58Griffin Newman?

  All right, let's close out.

• 2:51:59David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:51:59Griffin Newman?

  Talking about the plot.

• 2:51:59Speaker 02

  Really rude thing to throw at Ben backhandedly.

• 2:52:02David Sims?

  I'm joking, I'm joking.

• 2:52:04Griffin Newman?

  How dare you imply that Ben is flaky and late to records and Fills the office with too many toys.

• 2:52:11David Sims?

  No one's flaky. No one fills the office with too many toys. Ben, by the way, has built a Star Destroyer sized cabinet behind him.

• 2:52:19Griffin Newman?

  Sound insulation.

• 2:52:22David Sims?

  Wait, is that part of the argument?

• 2:52:23Griffin Newman?

  This is Griffin's new argument for bringing a bunch of like random crap into the office. Is that it's helping to insulate?

• 2:52:29David Sims?

  The Funko Pops absorb the sound.

• 2:52:31Griffin Newman?

  I need to once again remind you, we have very few Funko Pops in this office.

• 2:52:36David Sims?

  I know.

• 2:52:37Griffin Newman?

  It is not.

• 2:52:37David Sims?

  I know. I love saying Funko Pops.

• 2:52:39Griffin Newman?

  My chosen expression.

• 2:52:40David Sims?

  I know it gets your goat, you know?

• 2:52:42Griffin Newman?

  I just think they're low quality.

• 2:52:43David Sims?

  Sure, sure.

• 2:52:44Griffin Newman?

  In every sense.

• 2:52:45David Sims?

  I've never owned one.

• 2:52:46Griffin Newman?

  The plastic tolerance is terrible. The designs are uninspired.

• 2:52:50David Sims?

  Right, right. They kind of, they kind of pump those out. But if someone made a Funko Pop of you, you would want it.

• 2:52:54Griffin Newman?

  Well, maybe that's why I dislike them because it feels sometimes like they have notably made an effort to not make one of me.

• 2:53:00David Sims?

  Feel like we could get some Podcaster Funko Pops made.

• 2:53:03Griffin Newman?

  Really? I don't, cause I, I mean,

• 2:53:04David Sims?

  No, okay.

• 2:53:05Griffin Newman?

  You're forgetting that the peak of the tick, I was on like fucking phone calls with like Sony licensing department.

• 2:53:11David Sims?

  Where's the pop?

• 2:53:12Griffin Newman?

  And they were making bullshit excuses to me.

• 2:53:15David Sims?

  Uh, all right. Okay. We gotta wrap this up. So, uh, the, the end of this movie is, it's interesting cause like, it's what you were saying about Slapshot. It's like, there is, the, the triumph is, um, is fake.

• 2:53:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Eddie beats Vince, but Vince was basically throwing it because he was laying bets against himself.

• 2:53:34David Sims?

  Comes to the hotel room afterwards. It's like, here's your cut. Like I dumped that game. Like, but I'm gonna win a bunch, you know, I'm gonna win a bunch of money later. Eddie forfeits the game, like the next game, right?

• 2:53:45Griffin Newman?

  Well, because it, it just fucks with his confidence again.

• 2:53:47David Sims?

  Right. Like, and gives Vince the money back and is like, you know, let's do, it's like Rocky versus Apollo Creed in private. Like, let's just face off for real. It's beautiful. I'm back. It's the best.

• 2:53:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's really.

• 2:53:59David Sims?

  I mean, like, everyone's walking out happy, right?

• 2:54:01Griffin Newman?

  I think everybody's walking out happy, but I think a lot of people are walking out being like, what just happened?

• 2:54:05David Sims?

  Sure. You think like, maybe the movie needs the triumphant final game or something?

• 2:54:09Griffin Newman?

  Or I think that it's part of it becoming a little bit of a solo album in the back half of the movie and less about like his, his, like, there's so much potential in his relationships to Vince and Carmen and even with Janelle and even with these others background characters that you're, I think in another kind of movie, you'd probably want, if not resolution, like development or deepening with that. I think you're right that it is, it is an excellent ending taken on its own, but it undercuts the movie a little bit in that it does start to make you feel like all of that was just a distraction. And it's not like I only want this to be a mentor mentee movie, but it does sort of deflate that having been so much of the engine up until that point.

• 2:54:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And it's where, you know, you can watch this and you kind of walk out of it and you have maybe like a thousand different interpretations of what it means, but because it is a little bit of a like, I can do this with a look or I can do this with two words. There isn't like a feeling of, and then Eddie Felsen went on to win 10 championships or like became the, the most respected liquor salesman on the eastern seaboard, you know? I, there is no, there, there is, there is, there is a kind of, it's a vibe, not a resolution. Yeah. And in a way I respect, I like that the ending, the ending is a little bit haunted in that it's like, is it good that this guy's playing fool again? Where does this go?

• 2:55:33David Sims?

  It feels about as, cause it's gonna get for him.

• 2:55:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And the original title for this movie was as good as it gets.

• 2:55:39David Sims?

  As good as it gets for him. I, I mean, like, look, when you compare the ending of this movie to The Hustler.

• 2:55:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:55:45David Sims?

  You're like, hey, this is a, this is a bouncy ending. Like, this is great.

• 2:55:49Griffin Newman?

  But the ending of The Hustler is the absolute, um, it is them making good on the promise of the setup, right? The entire movie is this existential journey of this guy trying to figure himself out. And he doesn't like the answer he finds, but the movie is an answer to the question that it poses. Well, it's also like, there's this weird, like, it's not a one last job movie. It's a, I'm getting back into bank robbing movie. And none of the people in this movie are saying, what I'd love to do is get the hell out of pool halls. They're all like, I have found my preferred environment.

• 2:56:23David Sims?

  That's why I like it. And not a Hectoring movie about like, this is a bad life. I'm like, I know it's a bad life. I don't care.

• 2:56:29Griffin Newman?

  I mean, in your parlance, David, this is, this is an imperfect movie, but it is like drugs. It is unbelievable to watch.

• 2:56:37David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:56:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:38David Sims?

  Uh, I think that's Marty. Like, I, I think a different filmmaker would insert a more moral slant to it or insist on a more maybe like conventional arc to it or something.

• 2:56:49Griffin Newman?

  I think that that, that's a nice like button at the end for Newman. I mean, it's like such an easy like, and give this guy the Oscar moment, but the, the last 30 minutes of the movie is if the first hour of it feels like coke, it's the last 30 minutes are kind of a come down and the last 30 minutes are a little jittery and you don't know who to trust and you don't know if life's gonna work out. And it's kind of, it's kind of like a, it's more of a feeling than it is like a statement, but I like the feeling a lot.

• 2:57:17David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. Now here's,

• 2:57:19Griffin Newman?

  You're coming down and the screenplay for Scum Apprentice doesn't feel like it's necessarily going in the right direction. Yeah.

• 2:57:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:27Griffin Newman?

  Um, here's the question for you guys to run through this exercise. This is kind of one of the most famous gold watch Oscar wins, right? They give it to him the year after they give him the lifetime achievement award. He doesn't show up to the ceremony. There's a lot of sliding doors of like, obviously they should have given it to him for the verdict. When they don't do that, it feels like they give him the lifetime because they know they kind of fucked up, uh, even though Gandhi was undeniable. Um, and then this feels like it's served to them on a platter. It is fascinating to look at the fact that I think he won the national board of review for best actor and zero other precursors. He doesn't win the Golden Globe this year. Obviously there were less things in 86.

• 2:58:11David Sims?

  Huh. Who won the Golden Globe?

• 2:58:12Griffin Newman?

  I believe it was.

• 2:58:13David Sims?

  Did Hoskins win?

• 2:58:14Griffin Newman?

  I think he did. I think Hoskins really kind of ran the table.

• 2:58:17David Sims?

  Yeah. Cause Hoskins is certainly right. The critical favorite that year.

• 2:58:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:58:21David Sims?

  For Mona Lisa. Uh, yeah. He won the Golden Globe.

• 2:58:25Griffin Newman?

  That's what's fascinating is he always talked about like, I love.

• 2:58:27David Sims?

  Now had Newman maybe like already won Golden Globes? I can look that up. Like, you know, it's possible the Globes didn't care.

• 2:58:33Griffin Newman?

  But it does, when you look at it, feel like it must've been a little surprising on Oscar night.

• 2:58:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:58:39Griffin Newman?

  Because the momentum was not clearly behind him, even though he's Hollywood royalty and this thing was a hit.

• 2:58:45David Sims?

  I know. I, I would need to read more about it of like, what was the press drumbeat at that point of kind of like, guys, Newman's up again. You're not gonna fucking do this again, are you? You know, like?

• 2:58:55Griffin Newman?

  But also he showed up to the ceremony for the lifetime achievement year when that was still part of the main broadcast. And I think there was a fulfillment moment there, even if it's like, this is embarrassing that we've never given this guy a competitive.

• 2:59:08David Sims?

  Totally.

• 2:59:09Griffin Newman?

  Hoskins and Mona Lisa is the better performance, right?

• 2:59:12David Sims?

  Uh, it's an incredibly good performance. So sure. But I do love this performance.

• 2:59:18Griffin Newman?

  I do too. Who beats him the nobody's fool year? Oh, that's a good question. This is my question.

• 2:59:24David Sims?

  So like, imagine we wait that long. Okay. So.

• 2:59:26Griffin Newman?

  Cause it's also less embarrassing that it's. But then it becomes dire. If it's, if you're waiting till nobody's fooled, you're like, it doesn't matter if Daniel Day Lewis.

• 2:59:36David Sims?

  Tom Hanks beat him for farce.

• 2:59:38Griffin Newman?

  But that's the second.

• 2:59:39David Sims?

  I don't think, but there's a reason Tom Hanks won.

• 2:59:42Griffin Newman?

  There was no universe in which he wasn't gonna win.

• 2:59:45David Sims?

  I mean, like, and Paul Newman's good in Nobody's Fool, but that's not a movie where you're like, well, that's one of Newman's best either. I mean, he's good.

• 2:59:50Griffin Newman?

  I love that performance.

• 2:59:52David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, he's, he's good.

• 2:59:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:54David Sims?

  I mean, like, he's incredible in Road to Perdition, which is his last nom.

• 2:59:58Griffin Newman?

  And that's Chris Cooper beating him?

• 2:59:59David Sims?

  Sure. But that would have been the true gold watch of like, you old guy, like, you know, you, you did 15 great minutes in a supporting role. Like, here's your Oscar. I mean, like, I don't know. I mean, like, he should have won earlier. Uh, like I said, he lost, like, you know, he loses for The Hustler to Maximilian Schell for Judgment at Nuremberg. It's a pretty good movie and Schell's amazing in it. Obviously Paul Newman back then is young. Like, he, he, his first nom is for Count on a Hot Tin Roof. He loses to David Niven for Separate Tables. I'm not gonna litigate that right now. Like, I don't know. Like, I'd be like,

• 3:00:36Griffin Newman?

  Not right now.

• 3:00:37David Sims?

  I can't do that. We're at three hours.

• 3:00:39Griffin Newman?

  I also think his brick is interesting, but maybe not entirely successful. Is that a wild pick?

• 3:00:44David Sims?

  That movie stinks. Yeah. That movie is like a neutered, you know, version of the movie. Like, I mean, he's good.

• 3:00:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:50David Sims?

  Of the place, you know? And then like, yeah, he loses to Poitier, loses to Steiger. Those are pretty, you know, and then he loses for Absence of Malice the year, like a few years before this, to Henry Fonda for On Golden Pond. But like,

• 3:01:05Griffin Newman?

  Was he not nominated for Luke?

• 3:01:06David Sims?

  I know. He's nominated for Luke. He loses to, uh, Steiger. That's the Steiger loss.

• 3:01:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Was he nominated for HUD or no?

• 3:01:13David Sims?

  Nominated for HUD, lost to Sidney Poitier.

• 3:01:16Griffin Newman?

  And he's not nominated for Butch Cassidy or Sting. Redford gets the Sting nomination.

• 3:01:22David Sims?

  Gets the Sting nomination.

• 3:01:23Griffin Newman?

  Redford's only acting nom, which is wild.

• 3:01:27David Sims?

  And like, you know, I mean, obviously Newman's great in those movies, but they're not like demanding in the same, I don't know, whatever. They're not Oscar-y performances, I guess. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, he's one of the best, so he should have an Oscar. He got an Oscar for a good movie. It's funny that then Scorsese wins an Oscar for The Departed. And also that has the gold watch sort of asterisks put on it, even though The Departed's incredible.

• 3:01:52Griffin Newman?

  And it kind of kicks off like a whole new late period for him.

• 3:01:55David Sims?

  Right. But like, that, that is a narrative around Scorsese a lot. I mean, and like, doesn't he direct Ellen Burst into a win right after The Exorcist?

• 3:02:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:03David Sims?

  Right? Which is another one where it's kind of like, damn, does she rock? Like, did we fuck up not giving it to her for the, I don't know.

• 3:02:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:08David Sims?

  Yeah. What are you looking at? I feel like you're trying to find something.

• 3:02:10Griffin Newman?

  No, no, I was just like, I said the Redford thing and I was like, did I just say something that's false? But it's true. It is insane that Redford's only acting nomination is for The Sting. When you consider that like, Out of Africa won best picture and they didn't even nominate him, that like neither of them got nominated for Few Good Men, or not Few Good Men, uh, All the President's Men. Did he get nominated for Candidate? None, none.

• 3:02:33David Sims?

  No. That's a wild one.

• 3:02:35Griffin Newman?

  Best actor in a leading role. That is it. His first nomination is 1974 for The Sting. And then it's two best director nominations, best picture nomination for Quiz Show and honorary award in 2002.

• 3:02:47David Sims?

  Okay. Right.

• 3:02:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:49David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I, he didn't attend, so there's no speech. So yeah, I have no like, right? There's no big, uh,

• 3:02:59Griffin Newman?

  I forget, was he filming something or did he just?

• 3:03:01David Sims?

  Probably.

• 3:03:01Griffin Newman?

  Was he like, I went last year.

• 3:03:04David Sims?

  I don't need to go again. Uh, yeah. Uh, and he's, you know, continues to make good movies. Robert Wise, right. Robert Wise accepts on his behalf. And then I think it's like Betty Davis is also on stage.

• 3:03:18Griffin Newman?

  This was Marie was sending us the clip yesterday where you said like, God, we really did used to let people just be so fucking old.

• 3:03:25David Sims?

  Robert Wise looks ancient.

• 3:03:27Griffin Newman?

  But I looked it up and Betty Davis was 79 in that clip. And then I texted everyone a photo of Susan Sarandon today.

• 3:03:35Griffin Newman?

  And they're the same age.

• 3:03:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It's just like, old people used to be very different.

• 3:03:40Speaker 02

  Cruz, as old now as Newman was when he did Color of Money.

• 3:03:44Griffin Newman?

  Has to be older, right?

• 3:03:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03:47David Sims?

  Uh, I can, wow. The Oscars have transcripts of every speech. Robert Wise saying like, Paul wanted everyone to know that after coming here for seven other occasions like this. And then Betty Davis goes, Robert, for two minutes, let me say something about you. Then starts talking about Robert Wise's career. And she's like, Robert Wise is the winner of two Oscars himself for The Sound of Music and West Side Story. And Robert Wise goes, thank you. And she says, that's right. And this speech is over.

• 3:04:16David Sims?

  They do not mention Paul Newman again.

• 3:04:18Griffin Newman?

  Would they play people off?

• 3:04:20David Sims?

  I mean, yeah, they would. And I think also they think the producer is probably like, this is not going to go in a good direction.

• 3:04:27Griffin Newman?

  Tom Cruise is in fact, older today than Paul Newman was when they filmed The Color of Money by like a year or two.

• 3:04:32David Sims?

  Pretty cool.

• 3:04:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, I mean, it's one of my favorite moments in television history is when they had Mickey Rooney present best supporting actress at the SAG Awards. And he got up there and treated it as if he was receiving a lifetime achievement award. He like made his seventh wife stand up in the crowd and made everyone applaud her. He like went through, like it's, it's a 15 minute.

• 3:04:55David Sims?

  And the nominees are.

• 3:04:59Griffin Newman?

  Judy Dench and Chocolat.

• 3:05:01David Sims?

  Let's play the box office game.

• 3:05:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:02David Sims?

  October 17th, 1986. This movie's opening number two.

• 3:05:06Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:05:06David Sims?

  $6.3 million. It makes 52 domestic, which is pretty good.

• 3:05:10Griffin Newman?

  Scorsese doesn't have a movie hit 100 million domestic until The Aviator.

• 3:05:15David Sims?

  Aviator.

• 3:05:16Griffin Newman?

  But this is certainly the most.

• 3:05:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:05:18Griffin Newman?

  Straightforward, conventional hit he has had since Taxi Driver.

• 3:05:21David Sims?

  It gets four Oscar noms, supporting actress for Mary Elizabeth Mastin Tronia, who is very good. She loses to Diane Wees for Hannah and her Sisters.

• 3:05:29Griffin Newman?

  Pretty deserving win.

• 3:05:30David Sims?

  Great win. Uh, adapted screenplay art direction, which is kind of a cool nom because it's such a trashy thing.

• 3:05:37Speaker 02

  And I also fully agree with. Yeah. Like, yeah, there's, there's just like, they get like the tile floors right. Like, it's perfect.

• 3:05:45David Sims?

  It gets pretty good reviews. Ebert was kind of soft on it. He gave it two and a half stars. I mean, I think a lot of people were basically like, you know, smarty, you can do better, you know?

• 3:05:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. I was, I was interested in going back and reading how tepid people were. I was kind of like, you guys know what?

• 3:05:59David Sims?

  Pauline Kael got all over it, but Pauline Kael was, it's bested by the ladies.

• 3:06:03Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this feels, it feels very akin to The Untouchables to me where you read those reviews and you're like, it's more summer popcorn fluff. And I'm like, this thing is directed by Brian De Palma. It has costumes by like Armani. It has a Morricone score.

• 3:06:17Speaker 02

  I recently found out.

• 3:06:18Griffin Newman?

  Mamet dialogue. We didn't know how fucking good we had it.

• 3:06:22Speaker 02

  I recently found out that my dad, I don't know, I don't think it was when it was released. I think it was in a video guide. And this is a opinion that he never shared with me or I blocked out. It's like Godfather two cash grab.

• 3:06:35Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing. I'm like, even, even something like Untouchables, which I'm not arguing is one of the great American movies. You're like, if this is what popcorn movies were, we'd be living in a perpetual golden age. No one could complain about anything.

• 3:06:48Speaker 02

  We would not be gambling on sports on our phones.

• 3:06:50Griffin Newman?

  Right. I, I would guess that part of the energy of the reviews at the time were, is this now the turning point in Scorsese's career? Does Scorsese become just a studio system hired gone? Is he, movie stars just want him to lend a little credibility to their passion projects? And so, once he follows this up with like, two of his most personal movies and two of his purest artistic statements. It does feel like almost immediately, the, the retrospective view of this film gets better.

• 3:07:24Speaker 02

  I love this part about his careers that talking about it in the moment of when, like, looking at it in the moment of when it happened versus as part of a series of films about decaying masculinity, it just completely changes the, the sort of circumstances of the context in which you view it.

• 3:07:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, and also it's to invoke this, like one conversation I had with him on set where he was around all of the time. But there was a moment where I responded to a thing he said, and he clearly was like, you know, ball, you know, movies. And his assistant was like, Marty, I think we have like 40 minutes before the next shot. If you want to go back. And he's like, no, no, I want to talk to this kid. And then just talk to me for 20 minutes, which was one of the greatest experiences of my entire life. It was unbelievable. But what was fascinating about it was he was just sort of talking about this of like, the narratives around me were this, and this is how I felt. You know, like I was being discussed in this way and everyone was sort of like pocket watching my career moves.

• 3:08:23Griffin Newman?

  And like, I was a guy struggling. And he even called out like, you know, amongst the movie brats, I never had the seismic hit early on that all of those guys had, that minted them forever.

• 3:08:35David Sims?

  Lucas had American Graffiti or whatever. Spielberg had Jaws.

• 3:08:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing Color of Money. I'm doing Cape Fear. And these guys are like, Marty's selling out. And it's like, right. I didn't even have Carrie, you know? I didn't have Godfather. Like, not only did I not have an Oscar win, but I didn't have a straight down the middle blockbuster that made me a safe bet for studios where I can always default back to, what if I gave you another one of those? And it was fascinating to be like, this guy really doesn't seem to still, I mean, I say to this day, this was 10 years ago. View himself as, obviously I'm minted and I'm undeniable. And you especially think about him in the eighties when it was this weird battle between people being like, obviously Martin Scorsese is the greatest filmmaker alive.

• 3:09:21Griffin Newman?

  And also he kind of can't catch a break. And we give him a hard time every time.

• 3:09:25Speaker 02

  I think even, I think even with some of the, the more recent efforts where it's like, yeah, he did, like he'll, he got to make Irishman and Flower Moon, but had to do them for tech companies and had to like, you know, like there wasn't, there hasn't always been just like a Nolan in a studio and they're just like, whatever you need, brother.

• 3:09:46Griffin Newman?

  No, and even his last couple of movies have all been like 10 nominations, zero wins.

• 3:09:51Speaker 02

  Yes. And three and a half hours. And people are like, I loved it. But it's like, did you finish it? Like, yeah. I mean, I.

• 3:09:56Griffin Newman?

  We did, but like, yeah.

• 3:09:58Speaker 02

  He's the best.

• 3:10:00David Sims?

  Number one of the box office, Griffin, is a film we've covered, one of the biggest hits of 1986. We covered it on our Patreon.

• 3:10:05Griffin Newman?

  We covered it on our Patreon. It's one of the biggest hits of 1986.

• 3:10:08David Sims?

  Would love to know what Chris thinks of it.

• 3:10:09Griffin Newman?

  It's comedy.

• 3:10:10David Sims?

  Oh.

• 3:10:11Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it's Crocodile Dundee.

• 3:10:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:10:13Griffin Newman?

  The first one.

• 3:10:14David Sims?

  The first.

• 3:10:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:10:15Speaker 02

  I, I literally may not have seen this since 1987. Yeah.

• 3:10:18David Sims?

  Did you like it then?

• 3:10:19Speaker 02

  I did.

• 3:10:19Griffin Newman?

  It kind of rolls.

• 3:10:20David Sims?

  Got a big knife.

• 3:10:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:21David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, number two is Color Money. Number three is a film we will cover one day. If we cover this director, I think it's her directorial debut.

• 3:10:30Griffin Newman?

  Is it a Spheres?

• 3:10:31David Sims?

  Nope.

• 3:10:32Griffin Newman?

  It's not a Penny Marshall.

• 3:10:33David Sims?

  It is.

• 3:10:34Griffin Newman?

  It's Jumpin' Jack Flash.

• 3:10:35David Sims?

  Jumpin' Jack Flash.

• 3:10:36Griffin Newman?

  We will, let's say, we will cover this.

• 3:10:38David Sims?

  We'll do Penny Marshall.

• 3:10:39Griffin Newman?

  Boring catastrophe.

• 3:10:41David Sims?

  Have you seen Whoopi Goldberg, Jumpin' Jack Flash?

• 3:10:44Griffin Newman?

  I don't think I saw Jumpin' Jack Flash. I saw Eddie, but Jumpin' Jack.

• 3:10:48David Sims?

  Well, Eddie's good. That's a sports movie. I mean, that's, that's tough. Jumpin' Jack Flash, very strange film. You haven't seen, right?

• 3:10:53Griffin Newman?

  Haven't seen.

• 3:10:54David Sims?

  Very odd.

• 3:10:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Excited to watch it.

• 3:10:56David Sims?

  Sure. Jonathan Pryce, big Jonathan Pryce part.

• 3:10:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. That was the whole thing where they got him to do a screening at Metrograph.

• 3:11:02David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:11:03Griffin Newman?

  He was coming to do a screening for, uh, Listen Up Philip with ARP.

• 3:11:08David Sims?

  And then they were like, we're fucking showing Jumpin' Jack Flash.

• 3:11:10Griffin Newman?

  Pearl and was like.

• 3:11:12David Sims?

  Swim by.

• 3:11:12Griffin Newman?

  Let me get a print and put it on the other screen and make him do an intro for that one as well on the same night.

• 3:11:16David Sims?

  And he's like, I guess I'm in this.

• 3:11:18Griffin Newman?

  I don't remember.

• 3:11:19David Sims?

  Number four, uh, is a film from a great auteur who's, uh, you just invoked one of his movies. Your dad thought his movie was a cash grab. This is a later effort from him.

• 3:11:29Speaker 02

  Is this Tucker?

• 3:11:30David Sims?

  No, Tucker, correct, correct director.

• 3:11:33Griffin Newman?

  Is this Peggy Sue?

• 3:11:35David Sims?

  Peggy Sue got married.

• 3:11:36Griffin Newman?

  A movie I like a lot.

• 3:11:37David Sims?

  Not a bad movie.

• 3:11:38Griffin Newman?

  I used to bump on and I, it's really kind of warmed its way into my heart.

• 3:11:41Speaker 02

  Did Tucker ever sniff top 10 box office?

• 3:11:43David Sims?

  Yeah. Tucker was such a bomb. That's a good movie. That's a.

• 3:11:47Griffin Newman?

  But that's also a movie where it bombing only helps its legacy. Like it like feels like in the text of the movie that the movie itself also can't work.

• 3:11:55David Sims?

  Now, number five is a film I don't know. It's a old guy comedy. Uh, like I've heard of it, but like, I've never seen it.

• 3:12:01Griffin Newman?

  It's not a, a lemon math out.

• 3:12:03David Sims?

  No.

• 3:12:04Griffin Newman?

  Is it like, it's an old guy, is it a, a team returning?

• 3:12:08David Sims?

  No, it's just two really famous old actors. I mean, they've made movies together, I guess. Uh, but, uh.

• 3:12:15Speaker 02

  Hume Cronin?

• 3:12:16David Sims?

  No, no. It's a really great actor. Like these are, these are big, famous Hollywood actors. They're old now. Old as fuck.

• 3:12:24Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 3:12:25David Sims?

  Uh, well, I guess they're still making.

• 3:12:26Griffin Newman?

  The milieu. What are these old guys doing?

• 3:12:29David Sims?

  They're being gangsters. They got hats on and they got guns.

• 3:12:31Griffin Newman?

  Wise guys?

• 3:12:32David Sims?

  Yeah. It's called Tough Guys.

• 3:12:35Griffin Newman?

  And it's Kirk Douglas.

• 3:12:36David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 3:12:37Griffin Newman?

  And the other one is Burt Lancaster?

• 3:12:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:12:39Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:12:40David Sims?

  And I guess like they were like, they made a lot of westerns together and then they made like Seven Days in May.

• 3:12:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:44David Sims?

  But I mean, I don't know if audiences in the eighties were like Kirk and Burt back together?

• 3:12:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:49Speaker 02

  Who directed that?

• 3:12:51David Sims?

  Uh, let's find out. Have you seen Tough Guys?

• 3:12:53Griffin Newman?

  Canoe?

• 3:12:53David Sims?

  It's Jeff Canoe.

• 3:12:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:55Speaker 02

  Wow. What a whole.

• 3:12:56David Sims?

  That is crazy. The director of Revenge of the Nerds.

• 3:12:58Griffin Newman?

  That's why I was just like, it was a weird kind of like, does he want to level up?

• 3:13:02Speaker 02

  Did Kirk Douglas go to canoe and just say like, I love what you did with the nerds?

• 3:13:06David Sims?

  I love Booker.

• 3:13:07Griffin Newman?

  I love what?

• 3:13:08David Sims?

  They stole those pants.

• 3:13:09Speaker 02

  Ogre, really? What a, what a villain.

• 3:13:12Griffin Newman?

  Hey, R I P Ogre. He just passed away.

• 3:13:14David Sims?

  Uh, so.

• 3:13:15Griffin Newman?

  Great.

• 3:13:16David Sims?

  Yeah. Number six is Children of Our Lesser God, a film I watched recently because I'm trying to watch eighty six movies. That is kind of, I mean, like, it's kind of what you think it is. Marley Malin is pretty darn great in it. Number seven, Top Gun. So Cruz has got two, two movies up here. Number eight is Deadly Friend, the insane Wes Craven movie.

• 3:13:37Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 3:13:37David Sims?

  Where someone throws a basketball through a woman's whole head.

• 3:13:42Griffin Newman?

  That's right.

• 3:13:42David Sims?

  It's like a movie where he like, he kind of made like a paranoid, like, kind of like romantic, you know, team. And they were like, why do no basketballs get thrown through anyone's heads in this movie? And he was like, what? And they were like, don't worry, we're filming some pickups. Not a great movie. Number nine is Stand By Me. A film I've never loved, but obviously a classic. I don't know if you care. I, I'm too young for it, maybe like it was not.

• 3:14:07Griffin Newman?

  Perfect time for me. It was like, yeah, like nine, 10 minutes.

• 3:14:10David Sims?

  I've seen it like one and a half times.

• 3:14:11Griffin Newman?

  But I think it totally works, like kind of undeniably.

• 3:14:14David Sims?

  Yeah. And then number 10 is That's Life. What's that again?

• 3:14:19Griffin Newman?

  That's life. That Mel Brooks?

• 3:14:21David Sims?

  No, no, Blake Edwards.

• 3:14:22Griffin Newman?

  Blake Edwards.

• 3:14:23David Sims?

  So yeah, yeah, it's Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews, made independently by Edwards, using his own money.

• 3:14:30Griffin Newman?

  Have you guys ever done Blank Check Blake Edwards?

• 3:14:33David Sims?

  So we had him on a bracket once.

• 3:14:35Griffin Newman?

  And we discouraged listeners from voting for him.

• 3:14:38David Sims?

  He's made like thirty five movies.

• 3:14:40Griffin Newman?

  And the last fifteen are rough.

• 3:14:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:14:43Griffin Newman?

  We basically, we had one year, the great, I had the conceptual idea. What if we did a March Madness bracket where one side is all Oscar winners for best director? And one side is all Razzie winners for worst director.

• 3:14:57David Sims?

  Cause you got like Costner in there, Prince, there's weird Razzie winners.

• 3:15:02Griffin Newman?

  Hoven.

• 3:15:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:15:03Griffin Newman?

  There were interesting people in there and.

• 3:15:05David Sims?

  But to fill it out, we had Blake Edwards.

• 3:15:07Griffin Newman?

  It truly, we could not fill out the bracket unless Blake Edwards was in there. So we basically messaged to people, by technicality, we had to put him in here. Don't vote for him.

• 3:15:17Speaker 02

  Don't break the game by making us.

• 3:15:18Griffin Newman?

  It will end the show.

• 3:15:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'll reject this.

• 3:15:21David Sims?

  Yeah, for a movie called Sunset, the, the Bruce Willis James Garner movie is what he won his Razzie for.

• 3:15:27Griffin Newman?

  Like, it's just insane that Blake Edwards directed fully three Pink Panther movies after Sellers died.

• 3:15:34David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:15:34Griffin Newman?

  People forget that he took three stabs at that.

• 3:15:37Speaker 02

  That's like Species Quadro.

• 3:15:39Griffin Newman?

  Right. You're like Pink Panther.

• 3:15:41David Sims?

  Movie was Son of the Pink Panther, which was the Beni one.

• 3:15:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But then there's like.

• 3:15:46David Sims?

  There's the clip show ones where they're like, he, uh, Clouseau is around the corner.

• 3:15:50Griffin Newman?

  There's a clip show one, and then there's a Ted Wass one, like Ted Wass from Soap was, you've revealed to also be a son of Clouseau at the end, I think.

• 3:15:58David Sims?

  Is that Curse, I think?

• 3:16:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And Trail is the clip show one.

• 3:16:02David Sims?

  Trail's the clip show one.

• 3:16:03Griffin Newman?

  Trail is like, he's here somewhere and they open a door and they show you outtakes from one of the earlier movies.

• 3:16:12David Sims?

  You know, people used to suck down anything back then.

• 3:16:14Speaker 02

  Repressed by AI, but like, that's totally fine.

• 3:16:17David Sims?

  Yeah, that shit was great.

• 3:16:18Griffin Newman?

  So dead.

• 3:16:19David Sims?

  I mean, I like, it's true. Like, we're like, God, shit used to be so much better. We used to make TV. And then you like, would watch TV shows where they're like, ah, I'm having memories of my, and they would just do a clip show. Like there's, there's the Star Trek where Riker has like memory syndrome.

• 3:16:33Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:16:33David Sims?

  And like, it's just like they cutting to like, we have to operate on him. And then he just remembers a mission they did.

• 3:16:38Griffin Newman?

  Also like Bruce Lee died and they would just like pick some guy and be like, your name is now Bruce Lee too.

• 3:16:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:16:44David Sims?

  We've taken too much of Chris's.

• 3:16:45Griffin Newman?

  We have. Chris, thank you for this.

• 3:16:48Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:16:49Griffin Newman?

  Thank you for everything.

• 3:16:49David Sims?

  Sorry we went so long.

• 3:16:50Speaker 02

  I'm so excited that I got to do this with you guys in person.

• 3:16:52Griffin Newman?

  Such a pleasure.

• 3:16:53Speaker 02

  Open range. It felt like we were.

• 3:16:55David Sims?

  A great movie.

• 3:16:56Speaker 02

  But we like, I was reaching across the void on Zoom, so I'm really glad to have done it in person.

• 3:17:00Griffin Newman?

  It's not the same.

• 3:17:01David Sims?

  Hopefully we can, we drafted together last year on stage. Hopefully we'll draft together on the big picture sometime. At the watch.

• 3:17:07Griffin Newman?

  The watch, people should listen to the watch.

• 3:17:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:17:10Griffin Newman?

  Anything else you want to plug?

• 3:17:12Speaker 02

  No, I think the watch, the big picture, the rewatchables, I make appearances on Wait A Second, where I discuss the news.

• 3:17:19David Sims?

  Is that Jason's show?

• 3:17:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:17:20David Sims?

  Yeah, enjoying that.

• 3:17:21Griffin Newman?

  And.

• 3:17:22Speaker 02

  We gotta get Jason on again.

• 3:17:23David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 3:17:23Speaker 02

  Been too long.

• 3:17:24David Sims?

  Yeah. He left the basketball text thread I'm in, I'm in fury because of God had too many Pistons fans.

• 3:17:30Griffin Newman?

  Did it really? I thought you left that thread or did you just mute it?

• 3:17:34David Sims?

  I take breaks from it. Yeah, I take mental health breaks from it. There's too many people in it. But Jason, you know, he was just like, too many fucking Pistons fans.

• 3:17:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:17:43David Sims?

  We ever, we're not even playing the Pistons yet.

• 3:17:46David Sims?

  Yeah, but.

• 3:17:48Griffin Newman?

  Thank you, C R.

• 3:17:49Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:17:50Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Next week is the Last Temptation of Christ.

• 3:17:55David Sims?

  Oh, gosh.

• 3:17:56Griffin Newman?

  Assuming new releases don't move into those slots.

• 3:17:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:59Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 3:18:00David Sims?

  Yes. Guest Jamel Bowie.

• 3:18:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:02David Sims?

  Also, we should mention today over on our Patreon. Releasing an episode where we're pairing New York stories and amazing stories.

• 3:18:10Speaker 02

  Oh, so yeah, as teed up in this, yes.

• 3:18:13Griffin Newman?

  The stories, bud.

• 3:18:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:18:15Griffin Newman?

  Are you guys gonna do bad?

• 3:18:17David Sims?

  We're definitely gonna do a music videos.

• 3:18:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. So much kind of ancillary, of course, any stuff that's actually worth talking about that we're still strategizing how to do it, but I think yes.

• 3:18:28David Sims?

  But we have a special guest that maybe we shouldn't announce because it isn't locked in, but pretty exciting.

• 3:18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if it is locked in, then we'll drop the name in here.

• 3:18:38Griffin Newman?

  Barack Obama.

• 3:18:40Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 3:18:42Speaker 02

  Wow, can't believe that worked out.

• 3:18:45Speaker 02

  So yeah, tune in next week for that. And as always.

• 3:18:50Speaker 02

  I feel like I didn't hit it.

• 3:18:58Griffin Newman?

  Guys, that was awesome.

• 3:19:02Speaker 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 A J McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A J McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J J Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minic. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to Blank Check Pod dot com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 3:19:47Speaker 03

  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.