Speaker 1: Hey, folks, and welcome to Movie Crush. It's Chuck Bryant here,
Speaker 1: and I am in New York City. Actually, so I'm
Speaker 1: not recording at our our lovely home base at Pond
Speaker 1: City Market in Atlanta, but I am on tour with
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know doing shows at the Bell House
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. And so while I was here, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I should really try and take advantage of the celebrity
Speaker 1: of New York and get someone in here in a
Speaker 1: in our partners studio here at c d M Studios,
Speaker 1: and Mr A J. Jacob's acquiesced. He's uh, he's a pal.
Speaker 1: He's an email pal and a lunch in New York pal.
Speaker 1: He reached out just a couple of years ago as
Speaker 1: a Stuff you Should Know listener, and um just a
Speaker 1: super nice guy. A J. Is A is a book author,
Speaker 1: and um, boy, how should I describe his books? He's
Speaker 1: he's one of those guys that kind of goes deep
Speaker 1: in his own life in order to write a book
Speaker 1: about what he's doing. So, for instance, his great book
Speaker 1: The Year of Living Biblically, he he lived according to
Speaker 1: the Bible for a full year as strictly as possible,
Speaker 1: which included everything from like wearing white all the time
Speaker 1: to growing his beard out to ridiculous links, which I
Speaker 1: know his family sort of enjoyed. And he's just a
Speaker 1: great guy. So hit a j up in his favorite movie. Well,
Speaker 1: actually his first pick was Groundhog Day, but that had
Speaker 1: been used by Griffin McElroy. So he had a solid
Speaker 1: backup plan with a clockwork orange, the Watershed monumental Stanley
Speaker 1: Kubrick classic. And we had a really great conversation here
Speaker 1: in New York about a clockwork orange. It was pretty
Speaker 1: exciting for me. So here we go with a J.
Speaker 1: Jacobs and a clockwork orange. Are you native New Yorker?
Speaker 1: I am? Okay, I thought, So where'd you grow up?
Speaker 1: I grew up right here on the on the Upper
Speaker 1: East Side, and there was a video store two blocks away,
Speaker 1: and uh and it was a good one. It was not.
Speaker 1: It was like they had a serious selection. And I
Speaker 1: went every day and watched a movie after school every
Speaker 1: day through in high school. So okay, starting in high school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I had and the pretentious ones too. They had
Speaker 1: a lot of like far and they had like the
Speaker 1: petite charm of the pourgeoisie or whatever it was. So
Speaker 1: you got into good movies at a younger age. You
Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, I'm not sure they were good, but
Speaker 1: they were pretentious, critically acclaimed at least. Yeah, exactly about
Speaker 1: my age, right, I'm forty nine, Okay, a couple of
Speaker 1: years old during forty six. There you go. So it's
Speaker 1: in the wheelhouse, It's in the And that is one
Speaker 1: of the shocking things to me is watching these movies
Speaker 1: as an older guy and revisiting some yeah, and just
Speaker 1: how different it is. I mean, even like Ferris Bueller,
Speaker 1: uh or Fast Times. I watched Fast Times recently. It
Speaker 1: is a great movie. But I was watching and I
Speaker 1: was like, Mr hand is talking about the Cuban Revolution,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, tell me more. This sounds interesting. And
Speaker 1: then Jeff Spiccauley Pizza comes in and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what are you doing, you dick? Uh And I had
Speaker 1: the same reaction. I watched Ferris Bueller with my kids
Speaker 1: and uh, and Ben Stein was talking about like trickle
Speaker 1: down economics, and I'm like, I want to hear it.
Speaker 1: First of all, Ben Stein is crazy, you know, he's
Speaker 1: a crazy conservative. I want to hear his take on
Speaker 1: trickle down economics. And uh, you know, the deal with
Speaker 1: that scene was that he that was just him talking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he wasn't an actor at the time. Um and
Speaker 1: John Hughes. And the only reason I know this because
Speaker 1: I was supposed to record yesterday with someone on Ferris
Speaker 1: buell Er. So I've done my deep dive this week
Speaker 1: on that. And um, John Hughes I think was a
Speaker 1: conservative too, so they were friends. Yeah, which was sort
Speaker 1: of sad for me to learn. I guess I don't
Speaker 1: know what I expected, but um, yeah, So anyway, he
Speaker 1: uh over or ben Stein was talking to some crew
Speaker 1: members about that and he overheard it and he said,
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly what you need to do in the scene.
Speaker 1: That is funny And it wasn't some dead pan stick.
Speaker 1: It was just ben Stein that is, So I had
Speaker 1: no idea. Yeah, well I do remember watching it with
Speaker 1: my end when I was like the principal now or
Speaker 1: is the vice principal whatever? Free Jones. Yeah, Like he
Speaker 1: makes sense. I feel I've become. So I had the
Speaker 1: same reaction with Cat and the Hat. You know, the
Speaker 1: fish is the one who's like, what are you doing? Why?
Speaker 1: Like you're you're letting this stranger into the house and
Speaker 1: he's like causing chaos and you're not going to tell
Speaker 1: your parents. I'm like, the fish is all right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I've become very old. I've decided when you're identifying Mr Hand,
Speaker 1: then you know you've crossed the other side. I read Um.
Speaker 1: I reread Catcher in the Rye about every five or
Speaker 1: six years since I was probably twenty um. And it's
Speaker 1: just one of those books that I have done that
Speaker 1: on purpose because I had heard that, like, your perspective
Speaker 1: can switch on it, and yeah, I mean for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know if it's switch so much.
Speaker 1: I mean definitely when you're younger. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of the Holden Caulfield and many of us
Speaker 1: the phonies of the world, but sometimes it's reinforced as
Speaker 1: you get older, right right, you know, I haven't read it,
Speaker 1: and since I was holding coff Field stage, i'd like, yeah,
Speaker 1: or maybe just wait for the big movie. Yeah that?
Speaker 1: Did they ever make them? No? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think that's sort of animable movie, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess so. I don't know. They seemed to show them
Speaker 1: a lot, so uh watching videos were also going out
Speaker 1: to the movie theaters. I guess here in New York
Speaker 1: I was I was a little Yeah, I remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: we would get high and go to the Pink Floyd
Speaker 1: to the wall. That was a big memory, very exciting.
Speaker 1: Goodnight movie or just no regular regular. I had a curfew,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't that much of a rebel. Uh. And
Speaker 1: also I do remember seeing m Richard Pryor's stand up
Speaker 1: at at the zig Field. That was amazing. I remember
Speaker 1: being blown away or saw the movie. No, I just
Speaker 1: saw the movie. I saw the movie live. So what
Speaker 1: that would have been that sunset strip? Maybe? I think so? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh he was something else? Yeah so yeah, no, I listen,
Speaker 1: I love the movies. And uh. And I remember when
Speaker 1: I was in college, I had a poster of a
Speaker 1: clockwork orange on my wall and it was worse than that.
Speaker 1: Though it was in Italian. I didn't see it in Italian.
Speaker 1: I don't speak Italian. Yeah, but you're a New York kid.
Speaker 1: But I went, Yeah, I went to like village. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It was not cool. I think, uh no,
Speaker 1: that's super cool. Yeah right, I think so. I always
Speaker 1: feel if I met myself as a teenager, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: what a dick? We were all little ticks. I think,
Speaker 1: all right, that makes me feel better. Um. So, well,
Speaker 1: before we dive into clockwork Orange, though, I do want
Speaker 1: to bring up Groundhog Day because, um we went back
Speaker 1: and forth on email and I felt bad because you
Speaker 1: had picked groundhog Day originally, and just for the listeners
Speaker 1: out there, we had ed Griffin McElroy in of my brother,
Speaker 1: my brother and Me the podcast, one of the three
Speaker 1: McIlroy brothers, and he and I talked about that last
Speaker 1: week and I told him that you had wanted it,
Speaker 1: and he kind of felt bad, but he said, but listen, man,
Speaker 1: He said, did you have a solid backup? And said,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, he had a pretty instant back up because
Speaker 1: I don't. And he said, not only do I not
Speaker 1: only is that my favorite movie, he said, of all time,
Speaker 1: but he said, I feel like it's the best movie
Speaker 1: of all time. Well I listened, so, but I do
Speaker 1: want to hear your thoughts. Well, I appreciate his passion
Speaker 1: because I too love that movie, and I, um, I
Speaker 1: actually just watched it a couple of months ago and
Speaker 1: I was weeping. I was weeping at the like the
Speaker 1: ending scene when he's like helping all the people. So
Speaker 1: I've become a total sap. It's quite embarrassing. Uh, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved that movie and I saw the musical with
Speaker 1: my kids. They took me for Father's Day. Is like
Speaker 1: a special Father's Day. I forgot it was a musical.
Speaker 1: It was. I really liked it. But I will say
Speaker 1: at intermission, you know, one of the themes is that
Speaker 1: these people, these small town people are like they're wonderful,
Speaker 1: They're better than the big city people. And uh, but
Speaker 1: an intermission, I was like, wait a second, they're in Pennsylvania, right,
Speaker 1: And I googled it and Puxtani went for Trump. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that really hurt because then I spent the second half
Speaker 1: of like did the mayor vote for Trumps? Like that
Speaker 1: the the guys at the bar who voted for Trump?
Speaker 1: And I came up with though this made me feel better,
Speaker 1: like if we could do a sequel like Election Day
Speaker 1: where it's like November nine and he has to convince
Speaker 1: all the people not to vote for Trump or else
Speaker 1: he doesn't get to move on. So the next day
Speaker 1: that was that made me feel good. But I did.
Speaker 1: I do love that movie, and um, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a perfect little movie. And rewatching it recently because I've
Speaker 1: seen it quite a few times. But with the show,
Speaker 1: I do, you know, sort of through the critical eye
Speaker 1: and take notes and really get in there, and it
Speaker 1: really it is a great Bill Murray comedy. And if
Speaker 1: you just want to look at it that way, you've
Speaker 1: got plenty of that going on. But there's so much
Speaker 1: more happening in that film, and it could have been
Speaker 1: so cheesy and so spoon fed and Griffin and I
Speaker 1: were talking about that. Usually in a movie like that,
Speaker 1: there's some wise mentor who shows in them way, or
Speaker 1: just the main character will we'll figure it out and
Speaker 1: discover it. But he fails so many times. He really
Speaker 1: doesn't get it until kind of like the last ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes of the movie, and he fails so spectacularly.
Speaker 1: I love the different failures. Um And Yeah, the other
Speaker 1: thing that was exciting is I didn't know this, but
Speaker 1: I'm acquaintances with this guy whose brother was the one
Speaker 1: who came up with the idea, Danny Rubin and him.
Speaker 1: On Facebook, I made some comment I think I commented
Speaker 1: about the stage show, and Annie Ruben, who is a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend, commented that no, he said he
Speaker 1: thought I should do a book where I have to
Speaker 1: live the same day over and over again, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: this is the great moment in my life. That's all
Speaker 1: that the Yeah, that's not a bad idea, but I
Speaker 1: don't know how you would do that without being so
Speaker 1: like just sort of set up and canned, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would need an actual curse on my Well. That
Speaker 1: was the other cool part about that movie too, I thought,
Speaker 1: is that it didn't um, I was never explained. I
Speaker 1: love that it just happened and the studio wanted it
Speaker 1: to and that they they wanted a genie or whatever.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was that was remarkable And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. It is a perfect little movie. And and
Speaker 1: it also it becomes more meaningful for me because I think,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, I become more and more sappy.
Speaker 1: You know, my teenage self would hate the Scott the
Speaker 1: guy I've become. He'd be like, you hate your teenage self.
Speaker 1: We hate We hate each other so much. We have
Speaker 1: so much self loathing. Uh but yeah, because I do
Speaker 1: feel like my my moral journey has similar, Like you know,
Speaker 1: I've I was, I was an asshole and now I'm
Speaker 1: slightly less of an asshole. Hope time believing that the
Speaker 1: slightly less of an ass. No, the first part, I
Speaker 1: think just a great dude. I can't imagine that being
Speaker 1: a very kind I'm not sure that's true. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's get into Clockwork Orange. I just finished it
Speaker 1: this morning. I watched about three quarters of it last
Speaker 1: night after my show, and then picked it up at
Speaker 1: six thirty am. That's tough to watch in the morning.
Speaker 1: But um, and this is what I've obviously seen quite
Speaker 1: a few times, but it had been a while. I
Speaker 1: realized I haven't seen it in about twenty years? Is
Speaker 1: that right? Fifty years? And I watched it recently. I
Speaker 1: did watch it like a week ago for the show.
Speaker 1: Of course. I will say this that I think as
Speaker 1: a movie fan, you'll be horrified, as many of your
Speaker 1: listeners will be. But if you download it on YouTube,
Speaker 1: which is you can watch it in double speed. Oh really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I did? Did I know? Isn't it terrible? No?
Speaker 1: A little bit. We have people that listen to stuff
Speaker 1: you should know on double speed? Well I do that, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you? I'm a double speeder y thing about the
Speaker 1: movies people find particularly offensive because it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: emotional journey. I mean, I have the emotions just more quickly.
Speaker 1: And uh, I mean it was also interesting because there's
Speaker 1: that scene with the teenage girl. So yeah, that's that
Speaker 1: was very hot to follow. That was lightning fast. So
Speaker 1: obviously did the great Stanley Kubrick in uh doing his
Speaker 1: Kubrick thing to the fullest. Yeah, which is wonderful. Income McDowell,
Speaker 1: Patrick McGee, Adrian Corey just so many great small roles
Speaker 1: in that movie from another one that just was killing me.
Speaker 1: And I found so much more of the comedy this
Speaker 1: time in it than I've ever really noticed before, the
Speaker 1: dark comedy. But the prison the main prison guard, he's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's just fantastic. And do you know what I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I I just looked up, like, you know, weird fun
Speaker 1: facts about the clock. We're right, Darth Vader. Did you
Speaker 1: see that? Yeah? That was him, right, the bodyguard guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the man servant who was with a very tight shorts
Speaker 1: was was Darth Vader, which I did not know. So
Speaker 1: that's a nice little easter egg. Well one of uh, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I should mention, I, uh, when I
Speaker 1: lived in New York, New Jersey twenty years ago and
Speaker 1: we would come into New York all the time. My
Speaker 1: friends and I did for Halloween one year dress up
Speaker 1: as the Drugs. How did it go? How was your
Speaker 1: cod piece? Uh? It was pretty solid, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you use for I just used a regular,
Speaker 1: just athletic jock strap. So it wasn't as authentic as
Speaker 1: like the real you know, the one in the movie.
Speaker 1: But we did okay, and um, you know, I put
Speaker 1: on the eyelash on one eye and had the hat
Speaker 1: and the cane, and it was it was weirdly, uh,
Speaker 1: you kind of like, you know, we had a few
Speaker 1: drinks and we're walking around the city and you kind
Speaker 1: of fall into Obviously we didn't do anything nefarious, but
Speaker 1: right we were kind of like puffing our chest out
Speaker 1: a bit. You know. That isn't well. I find that always,
Speaker 1: like the way you dress really doesn't. Because I did
Speaker 1: a book on living by the Rules of the Bible.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and one of them was you can only
Speaker 1: wear white clothes. So I was wearing white all the time,
Speaker 1: and it really did affect my mind. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I was feeling much more. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm so spiritual. I'm wearing white. You know,
Speaker 1: Either that or I'm like gonna play Wimbledon or go
Speaker 1: to p Diddy's party. But it definitely affects the outer
Speaker 1: effects the inter so I would not want my kids
Speaker 1: to dress up as uh as Alex. Yeah, how's how's
Speaker 1: the show going? Which one? Uh? Your show? I don't know,
Speaker 1: You've got several shows. Uh, it's good. I would just
Speaker 1: went out there to see a taping on it was why.
Speaker 1: I am very bizarre and I have no control over it,
Speaker 1: so that's a little bit terrifying. Yeah, but I signed
Speaker 1: it away with God go with god less moons, that's right.
Speaker 1: I I see it as like I gave them here's
Speaker 1: a potato and then they can make French fries or
Speaker 1: ash Brown. Who knows what they're going to make. But um,
Speaker 1: but it was fun and I love the guy who's
Speaker 1: playing the character loosely based on me. He's very loosely Ferguson. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's terrific. He's great. He was in mad Men and
Speaker 1: he had a huge beard and mad Men that's why
Speaker 1: I thought they cast him because I had a beard
Speaker 1: in the book. But but they're actually not letting him
Speaker 1: grow the beard and until season two. Okay, that'll be
Speaker 1: the season two arc. Yeah, that's the Well, that's nice
Speaker 1: to hear. There's a season two in the works already.
Speaker 1: That's great. Oh no, I don't know if that's true,
Speaker 1: but yes, there I got you. Um So, First of all,
Speaker 1: the movie Clockwork Orange opens um with just that red
Speaker 1: screen and that, uh you know. Most of the the
Speaker 1: score is the symphonic classical music of Beethoven, but there's
Speaker 1: also that Kubrickian move synthesizer. It is just so loud
Speaker 1: and powerful right from the beginning. And it's funny. When
Speaker 1: I heard that for the first time in fifteen years,
Speaker 1: it brought back it was like my my Madeline and
Speaker 1: it was like wow, like, oh man, that puts me
Speaker 1: and just so Kubrickian, you know now that you know.
Speaker 1: When I saw when I was in college, it was
Speaker 1: one of my first kubrick movies probably i'd seen. But
Speaker 1: now that I've seen, like most of the body of
Speaker 1: his work, what else where else does he have that moves?
Speaker 1: And well, I don't know if just that synthesizer, but
Speaker 1: just that sort of in your face, uh loud music.
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of been a hallmark of his
Speaker 1: for sure. Maybe I'm just thinking of this, Well, I
Speaker 1: do you know you have the Thus Spake Zamathustra or
Speaker 1: whatever it's called. Two one. Yeah, that's pretty memorable. And
Speaker 1: this was I think just after that, if I'm not mistaken, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I only know that because I read
Speaker 1: some article there. Uh Malcolm McDowell didn't know who Kubrick
Speaker 1: was like this. He did two thousand and one, yeah,
Speaker 1: which actually I watched about ten years ago, and that
Speaker 1: did not hold up as well. Really, I found it
Speaker 1: a little slow. I should have watched it in double speed.
Speaker 1: A little slow double speed might be just right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that one, which is probably harrisy, you know, for most people.
Speaker 1: But yeah, two thousand one is drags a bit. I do.
Speaker 1: But I do think the uh doctor Strange Love, that
Speaker 1: definitely holds up for me. Yeah, I watched that every
Speaker 1: few years. Still. Yeah, that's I don't like favorites. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's what made me kind of I think I
Speaker 1: saw Strange Love even after I was all out of
Speaker 1: order with Kubrick, just as I discovered his movies over
Speaker 1: the years. So I saw a Strange Love after Clockwork Orange,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't pick up on any of the
Speaker 1: dark comedy in Clockwork Orange, and then when I saw
Speaker 1: Strange Love, I sort of got his sense of humor
Speaker 1: a bit more. And watching it last night and today,
Speaker 1: I was like, there were definitely a lot of times
Speaker 1: I was like, this is there's a lot of funny
Speaker 1: stuff going on, a lot of horrifying stuff too, but
Speaker 1: he really just gone horrifyingly funny. And I will say,
Speaker 1: I remember my other strong memory of h of Kubrick
Speaker 1: was I got Barry Linden from that same video store,
Speaker 1: and I remember it also was a little slow, I found.
Speaker 1: But then the ending, they had this chiron on the
Speaker 1: screen that I still think about all the time, and
Speaker 1: I'm I don't remember the exact words, but it was
Speaker 1: basically these events took place the reign of King George
Speaker 1: the Third, and uh, all the players, whether they were
Speaker 1: rich or poor, or good or bad, they're all equal. Now,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, so it was it's like everybody died.
Speaker 1: Pretty much the ending to any movie you could do
Speaker 1: pretty much a chiron and then everyone died. But I
Speaker 1: do think about that a lot. You know, it's it
Speaker 1: was a very good It was a momento Maori. Uh
Speaker 1: you know we uh, we're all going to die and
Speaker 1: last Aubrey de Gray is right and we can live forever.
Speaker 1: He could see one of those two. Well. Cooper definitely
Speaker 1: takes his time in all his movies, um, which I
Speaker 1: appreciate for sure, especially these days when I feel like
Speaker 1: the movie seemed to be long, but they're not taking
Speaker 1: their time. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just seen after seen. I will say though, I
Speaker 1: was immediately hooked by a clockwork orange. I mean that
Speaker 1: starts out strong, him staring at you, the great voice over,
Speaker 1: and that bar is quite startling. Yeah. Yeah, the milk
Speaker 1: bar and just that long dolly back revealing everything and
Speaker 1: also just the milk coming from the woman's breast like
Speaker 1: and and I mean, you know, the idea of milk
Speaker 1: the most innocent. I think that's the one thing he
Speaker 1: does very well, was, you know, taking these very innocent
Speaker 1: things and making them really malevolent, like milk as a
Speaker 1: drug or singing in the rain. I mean he is
Speaker 1: good at ruining uh, innocent stuff. Yeah. Well, and even
Speaker 1: Alex as a whole, Like part of the complexity of
Speaker 1: that character is that he is He's just like the
Speaker 1: nice boy next door by all outward appearances. The way
Speaker 1: he converses with everyone and interacts, it's usually very respectful. Uh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't, you know, that's part of the sinister thing
Speaker 1: is buried underneath, which makes it frightening. But that he
Speaker 1: didn't make him just like a hooligan or a thug. No.
Speaker 1: And the way he talks, it's so lovely and flower like. Uh,
Speaker 1: even when he insults people, He's like you, Eunich, jelly,
Speaker 1: thou has made me last. The way he talks, Uh,
Speaker 1: clear as and as you were sky and deepish summer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. So good. Um. So the other thing
Speaker 1: that struck me was, um, the just utter lack of backstory,
Speaker 1: Like the movie just starts in that milk bar and
Speaker 1: it just shows the drugs doing their thing and there's
Speaker 1: no sense of And I guess that was part of
Speaker 1: the point. There's no sense of why he was like
Speaker 1: this to begin with. And he was a true sociopath.
Speaker 1: The other guys were clearly sort of along for the ride,
Speaker 1: but he was the one that was genuinely a sociopath.
Speaker 1: Inic Well, what's fascinated me is reading about it. I
Speaker 1: did not know about out this final chapter that Anthony
Speaker 1: Burgess wrote that was cut out of the American version,
Speaker 1: in the final chapter, Uh, Alex grows up. He basically
Speaker 1: he you know, he he gets the Ludovico treatment out
Speaker 1: of a system and he goes back to raping and pillaging,
Speaker 1: and then he gets bored and he's like, you know
Speaker 1: what this is not And then he sees one of
Speaker 1: his friends, I don't know, maybe one of the drugs
Speaker 1: was with kind of family, and he's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe that would be better. And he becomes like this
Speaker 1: bourgeois like nice, like uh, middle class working guy. And
Speaker 1: I think so that was Anthony Burgess is ending, and
Speaker 1: he was very nervous about the Kubrick version, where where
Speaker 1: Alex just continued to be this horrible sociopath. So I
Speaker 1: thought that was fascinating. I did not, and I would
Speaker 1: actually that would be an interesting sequel just Alex as
Speaker 1: like a middle class guy going that's like a incredibly
Speaker 1: dull movie. But um, but that was I think that
Speaker 1: when I read that, that definitely changed it for me,
Speaker 1: because that appeals to the old me, the new the
Speaker 1: me now like okay, he finally like he got some morality,
Speaker 1: whereas the version where he stays the sociopath appeal to
Speaker 1: my teenage self. He's like, yeah, right, you know this.
Speaker 1: The system. The system is terrible. I'm gonna I'm glad
Speaker 1: that he's back to being horrible. Well, it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you say that, because now that I know that that
Speaker 1: chapter exists, maybe he is not a sociopath. Was he
Speaker 1: just aboard disaffected youth? Yeah, it's a good I mean,
Speaker 1: he certainly does seem like a sociopath. I mean the
Speaker 1: joy that he seems to derive from ultra violence, because
Speaker 1: it's not just he's doing it to get something, like,
Speaker 1: he actually enjoys the violence. But maybe you out I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that that is a nice thought. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's true that people change. I hope it's true.
Speaker 1: I think I've changed. I've become as I say, I
Speaker 1: do think I'm less of an asshole. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope that that's true. Well, I really I really like
Speaker 1: the part um sort of early on in that first
Speaker 1: act when the other fellows try to challenge his power
Speaker 1: and it obviously none of that works out, and he
Speaker 1: re establishes himself and sort of a comically brutal way.
Speaker 1: When you look at the scene now, although it was
Speaker 1: in slow motion, you saw it at double speed walking
Speaker 1: by the river bank. But that's when I that's when
Speaker 1: I really solidified. I was like, no, this guy is
Speaker 1: really crazy. And his friends just they're just they're the
Speaker 1: board ones, right right right, They're just following along basically,
Speaker 1: especially Dim, I mean he's obviously yeah he's challenged. I shall,
Speaker 1: but yeah, well it is I have to say slow
Speaker 1: motion violence. I guess that was must have been an
Speaker 1: early a literally version of it. Like now, I guess
Speaker 1: it's probably cliche, but but then I mean it did
Speaker 1: look lovely. Yeah, like the way he splashes into the
Speaker 1: river after he's hit. Uh, there is something I do.
Speaker 1: I am a sucker for slow motion violence with classical
Speaker 1: music in the background, I think really does go together.
Speaker 1: That they're gon a movie. Then, uh, the prison check
Speaker 1: in scene is one of my favorite scenes when and
Speaker 1: that's just a perfect example of Kubrick just taking his time,
Speaker 1: like that could have been a throwaway scene or it
Speaker 1: could have been eight seconds long, and he just lets
Speaker 1: it go on and on, and I just like I
Speaker 1: started found myself laughing out loud. And what he was
Speaker 1: it was the guard was saying all of his personal effects,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, he's like yeah, you have a comb and
Speaker 1: yeah that was falling piece of chocolate. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know he makes a stand behind the line. It just
Speaker 1: goes on and on and on. But he's get the
Speaker 1: sense that Kubrick just I mean, I guess some people
Speaker 1: have called himself indulgent, but I don't really see it
Speaker 1: that way. I think he's definitely kind of fucking with people,
Speaker 1: um for his own amusement sometimes, and maybe that is
Speaker 1: total self indulgence. Maybe he's got a little Alex in him.
Speaker 1: He's like sadistic. He's like, you're gonna watch this, and
Speaker 1: like the Ludovico technique. The fact that he like made
Speaker 1: us watch that for so long. Yeah, yeah, that was
Speaker 1: not a quick thing either. Yeah that's interesting. I wonder.
Speaker 1: I mean, I will say that watching um Eyes Wide Shot,
Speaker 1: I felt like he was torturing me. You didn't like it?
Speaker 1: Not a very divisive movie. I haven't seen it since
Speaker 1: it came out. Now I get it, man, very divisive movie. Um,
Speaker 1: A lot of people hate that. Fucking what do you
Speaker 1: like about it? I'm interested. I think I was just
Speaker 1: so in on Kubrick that, Um, I'm just I'm just
Speaker 1: all in. So I love again. I love the pace.
Speaker 1: I love how slow it was and how it revealed itself.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, man, I just loved it. And and hearing
Speaker 1: the backstory behind it, I think it was sort of oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know the back story, Well, just how long
Speaker 1: it took. It was just years and years, and and
Speaker 1: put that couple the real life couple at the time
Speaker 1: with cruising kidmen through hell to do takes, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's the madness of it. It's just striking to
Speaker 1: me that that man as a filmmaker and this is
Speaker 1: the quickest movie he's ever made. That's one. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think it took a year to to get into theaters,
Speaker 1: which for Kubrick was just like a rapid pace. That's funny.
Speaker 1: Well no eyes wide shot. It ruined Orgy's for me.
Speaker 1: For I am never going to go to an o FO.
Speaker 1: It just looks so boring. Yeah, and the masks so silly.
Speaker 1: It was very silly. But I was all in and
Speaker 1: it was just such a beautiful looking movie, Like his
Speaker 1: aesthetic has just always blown me away. It Also, I
Speaker 1: mean I still do this is in retrospect that I
Speaker 1: have issues with Tom Cruise, but because of the you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: Matt it's hard to separate the art from the artists
Speaker 1: in that case, it is. Yeah, I think about that
Speaker 1: a lot more and more. How do you separate the
Speaker 1: art from the artist because it's toss Uh. This was
Speaker 1: shocking to me. I did some research and I read
Speaker 1: that the book, which I had read back in high
Speaker 1: school but I had forgotten. In the book, Alex is
Speaker 1: even worse than he is in the movie. He do
Speaker 1: you remember the scene with the two girls they go
Speaker 1: to the music store and then he some home. Was
Speaker 1: the fast forward sexy In the book, they were ten
Speaker 1: years old. Oh my god, I know it's unsavable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well younger obviously ten is is a crime, no matter what.
Speaker 1: But I think in the movie he's seventeen and the
Speaker 1: book he's more like fifteen. But um still, that's horrifying.
Speaker 1: It was horror fine, And he doesn't seem seventeen in
Speaker 1: the movie either. I know he was older when he
Speaker 1: played him, but I don't. In fact, until I researched it,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that he was supposed to be that young. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always thought the song was like, yeah, same here,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Yeah, it was. But there's a part about
Speaker 1: him not going to school that I never just sort
Speaker 1: of picked up on because it just seems always roaming
Speaker 1: around whatever they call high school in England. Uh So,
Speaker 1: obviously the movie was maligned by many critics and the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church for sure. Um and it's it's certainly horrifying
Speaker 1: all the violence in the sex at a time when
Speaker 1: I think, you know, putting those two things together on
Speaker 1: screen was was a maverick move for sure. But Kubrick
Speaker 1: just I forgot about the part where he full on
Speaker 1: goes Roman soldier torturing Christ. In that one scene he
Speaker 1: has the fantasy and it shows Jesus, Jesus being whipped
Speaker 1: and then it pans it, you know, pulls back and
Speaker 1: reveals that he's the Roman soldier. That was very yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was like they, of course, the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: like you can't show that. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: was when he was fantasized, he's reading the Bible and
Speaker 1: he's loving the parts which are about like the sex
Speaker 1: and you know, eating the grapes and having the orgies,
Speaker 1: which was funny to me because I spent a year
Speaker 1: and a half really studying the Bible. There's all the
Speaker 1: especially the Old Testament, there is some serious craziness and perversion. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I can see how someone from his mindset. I
Speaker 1: mean there are scenes like where lots of escapes. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, Lot's wife has turned into a pillar of salt.
Speaker 1: He escapes with his daughter. These daughters think they're the
Speaker 1: last people on earth and get them drunk and sleep
Speaker 1: with him. And I'm like, my god, I don't want
Speaker 1: my kids reading this. So but yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was remarkable. It's no, it is no wonder. I mean
Speaker 1: it made me think a lot about the deeper moral messages. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this idea because I am very torn. Uh And
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't expect you or anyone to
Speaker 1: agree with me, but I don't really believe in free will.
Speaker 1: I think you know, we are basically meet robots. Uh,
Speaker 1: we feel compassion. I'm all for that, but to me,
Speaker 1: like I'm torn on the Ludovico technique, Like if you
Speaker 1: could do this pav law technique and reform criminals, would
Speaker 1: that be okay? And part of me is like, you
Speaker 1: know what, having him depriving him of the so called choice,
Speaker 1: the delusion of voice not to rape someone that doesn't
Speaker 1: bother me that much, you know, like if I could
Speaker 1: have a society where really horrible sociopath did feel physically
Speaker 1: ill if they were about to rape someone. I may
Speaker 1: be okay with that. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: would agree with you. Yeah, what about this one. I
Speaker 1: don't know this one. I think I'm out on a
Speaker 1: very small minority the minority report. Yeah, Like from a
Speaker 1: utilitarian point, yeah, having three people have pretty terrible life
Speaker 1: to make the rest of the world happy and safely,
Speaker 1: is it worth Like if the precogs were truly good people,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, you know what, I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: I hate it. It's horrible, but I'm gonna do it
Speaker 1: to save other people. So that's the problem, right, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And that's the trolley problem. And I am one of
Speaker 1: the uh. I am one of the people who would
Speaker 1: pull the lever. Yeah, and I know I'm in them,
Speaker 1: and I think it's ten of people and I am
Speaker 1: one of those. And it was very disturbing. I was
Speaker 1: just looking it up. I saw a study recently that
Speaker 1: people who would pull the lever I have a high
Speaker 1: degree of like sociopathy, And yeah, yeah, they're horrible people.
Speaker 1: But I hope that I'm not horrible. But I still
Speaker 1: would pull the lever. No, I don't think that makes
Speaker 1: you horrible at all. It just makes you one of
Speaker 1: the ten percent, from the freakish ten percent. Well with
Speaker 1: Alex so at Kubrick, especially in that third act, he
Speaker 1: really just goes total sort of mind funck on the
Speaker 1: audience to where he is eliciting sympathy now because this
Speaker 1: monster is now a pawn of the government and a
Speaker 1: lab rat essentially, and um, he clearly making a statement there.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. And the way that he portrayed the liberal guy,
Speaker 1: you know, the guy um who takes him in was
Speaker 1: the victim of the initial crime. He portrays him as
Speaker 1: a psycho as well, So no one comes off very
Speaker 1: well but neither side. Uh yeah, it was. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting I did I think as a teenager, I definitely
Speaker 1: I like that part because I could like empathize with
Speaker 1: the rebel Alex, like for Alex being screwed by society. Now,
Speaker 1: the character I empathized with most is the old homeless
Speaker 1: guy who gets beat up like like yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's like I was rooting for him when he was
Speaker 1: beating up aalley the old people like attack him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like good for old people. Yeah, yeah, it is funny.
Speaker 1: That is it is a very like, yeah, anti old people,
Speaker 1: it is Yeah, old people are terrible. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not even sure what Kubrick's uh, and I
Speaker 1: don't know that he probably wanted it that way to
Speaker 1: not have a very sort of clear cut, black and
Speaker 1: white statement on this stuff. I think he wanted to
Speaker 1: leave it very murky um and leave people scratching their
Speaker 1: heads and contemplating this when theater, and it worked. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was slightly on the side of freedom
Speaker 1: of choice. Uh, you know that this is an authoritarian
Speaker 1: way to engineer people to like make them feel sick. Um.
Speaker 1: But he did a very good job of showing both
Speaker 1: sides and making fun of the liberal side. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean that scene where they're feeding Alex dinner and you
Speaker 1: know it's the reformers feeding Alex and he's like more water.
Speaker 1: That made me laugh very hard watching at this time. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Acdell was so good in this movie. He is
Speaker 1: and like the innocence he has in that scene where
Speaker 1: he's like yeah, oh and you know what else, It
Speaker 1: makes me laugh that Malcolm at like the joy, the
Speaker 1: innocent joy he gets at the end where they're showing
Speaker 1: him the cartoons he has to come up and Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just the laughter he gets from like I wanted
Speaker 1: no time for the check the meter, just time for
Speaker 1: the in out, in out, whatever it was, and his
Speaker 1: laughter and that is Uh, he's a remarkable actor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it just shows like he is sort of a
Speaker 1: kid in this movie. Um, and the way his parents
Speaker 1: treat him, you know, his weird mom with the purple
Speaker 1: hair there, it's almost like that it's almost like his
Speaker 1: parents were drugged and it was all just I don't know.
Speaker 1: It just killed me to see that his family had
Speaker 1: no idea what he was doing, and he was laying
Speaker 1: in bed. She's trying to get him to go to
Speaker 1: school and he's like, no, mall just you know, just
Speaker 1: need to get my self right, and that you know,
Speaker 1: she leaves them alone. Well it terrified me, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean I was not a particularly bad kid, but
Speaker 1: I remember I definitely snuck out. I had my curfew
Speaker 1: at midnight. I would come in say good night to
Speaker 1: my parents, and then I would go out. I would
Speaker 1: take the elevator. I would go down the stairs to
Speaker 1: the one floor below and take the elevator there because
Speaker 1: I was worried the sound of the elevator would wake
Speaker 1: my parents up. So, yeah, I am. My kids are
Speaker 1: getting to be teenagers now, and I'm just terrified of
Speaker 1: what they are going to do that I don't know about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it's good now that like you can basically
Speaker 1: it is a uh this dystopian future where you can
Speaker 1: track everyone all the time. So I suppose I'll have
Speaker 1: I can probably figure out where they are at any time,
Speaker 1: which is good and bad. Uh. So there's a few
Speaker 1: bits of trivia here. Let me see if these are interesting. Oh,
Speaker 1: here's one. I thought it's very Kubrick in he and
Speaker 1: you may know some of these, but he apparently had
Speaker 1: his assistant destroy all the footage that he didn't use. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Yeah that it just seems like
Speaker 1: a very Stanley Kubrick thing because and I'm sure they
Speaker 1: were control freak. There were eight takes, yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: like basically, no one's ever going to change this movie
Speaker 1: or use any of this for anything. Well, another thing
Speaker 1: I read that I didn't know is that he got
Speaker 1: Kubrick got death threats in England after the movie came out,
Speaker 1: and saying that they were going to do a home
Speaker 1: invasion of Kubrick and he refused to let it be
Speaker 1: shown in England after that until after he died, so
Speaker 1: it was never screened in England. Wow. Well, I think
Speaker 1: really that was certainly it was on the internet, but
Speaker 1: has to be true. Uh. He also was so worried
Speaker 1: that um, the theater owners themselves would cut parts of
Speaker 1: it out that he apparently had UM had new prints
Speaker 1: shipped every week and off them out for the current print,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Yeah, that's a level of control that
Speaker 1: even shocking to me. Uh. Here's when Gene Kelly met
Speaker 1: Malcolm McDowell years later at a party and walked away
Speaker 1: and discussed Yeah, and he was not happy about the
Speaker 1: Singing in the Rain bit. Oh, I thought, I was
Speaker 1: thinking in my mind, Gene Hackman, I'm like why, like
Speaker 1: Gene Kelly, Yeah, well, it's shocking to me that they
Speaker 1: got the rights to that. How did they get the rights? Lord?
Speaker 1: Are they allowed to you? Well? The story I read
Speaker 1: was that he um he had he said, you know,
Speaker 1: can you do a little dance or something? And the
Speaker 1: only song that Malcolm McDowell could remember was Singing in
Speaker 1: the Rain and so Kubrick loved it, and it said
Speaker 1: quickly secured the rights for ten thousand dollars the next day. Uh.
Speaker 1: And clearly gene Kelly didn't have anything to do with
Speaker 1: it or or it wasn't clearly you know, stated like
Speaker 1: how it was going to be used one or the other.
Speaker 1: But they got the rights and gene Kelly was not.
Speaker 1: I did get to meet Malcolm McDowell. Uh wow, and
Speaker 1: I was I was a reporter and entertained in Weekly
Speaker 1: and they were doing a reboot of Fantasy Island and
Speaker 1: he was Mr Rourke could be kind of perfect at
Speaker 1: that role. He was a great Mr Rourke. The show
Speaker 1: did not Actually I liked the show. It was Barry
Speaker 1: Sonnefeld was a director. I think, really yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good degree. I did interview and I did like do
Speaker 1: my fawning, like I love glug. We're gone very polite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't scoff or anything, you know, he was like
Speaker 1: thank you. Well he didn't um. I think that he
Speaker 1: and Kubrick didn't speak for quite a while after, and
Speaker 1: that really disappointed him. And I think Kubrick has a
Speaker 1: track record of not staying friends like he and Peter
Speaker 1: Sellers didn't speak again really during their lifetime, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: but he was he didn't cut them off, I think so.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a rule or it's just
Speaker 1: happened a lot, but um, you know, he was always
Speaker 1: accused of sort of treating the talent like cattle and
Speaker 1: not really caring or seemingly caring much for the actors
Speaker 1: and their well being and their welfare by grinding them
Speaker 1: through these processes. Um. But Malcolm McDowell was friends with
Speaker 1: Mrs Kubrick and they kept in touch and uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's said years later after his passing, he he
Speaker 1: went with her to his grave and like really kind
Speaker 1: of broke down. It's pretty interesting. That's nice because he
Speaker 1: was young, you know when they made it. I mean
Speaker 1: I know he wasn't seventeen, but I think he was
Speaker 1: twenty two or twenty three, and that was his first big,
Speaker 1: big thing. He had been in other movies as well. Well.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I mean that brings up the whole issue
Speaker 1: to me of like, is it okay for a director
Speaker 1: to be cruel and sadistic if it gets this amazing
Speaker 1: performance out of them? What are the ethics of that?
Speaker 1: Because there's like Hitchcock. That guy was a terrible human
Speaker 1: being his actors and actresses, and uh, that's a tricky one.
Speaker 1: It is a tricky one. I remember reading when I
Speaker 1: took a film class at the senior year in high school,
Speaker 1: and I remember reading about Public Enemy, the original with
Speaker 1: Jimmy Cagney and how they there's a famous scene where
Speaker 1: he takes a grape fruit at breakfast and then and
Speaker 1: just shoves it in his girlfriend's face, mashes it, and uh,
Speaker 1: and they didn't tell her that this was going to
Speaker 1: happen because they wanted to say real reaction. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that's probably astly not a good idea,
Speaker 1: but it is interesting because you do get a different Uh,
Speaker 1: you had a different reaction, I'm sure, and much more. Alright,
Speaker 1: So we wrap up here on movie Crush with a
Speaker 1: couple of quick segments. One it's called what Ebert said,
Speaker 1: This movie is a complete disappointment. How do you like it?
Speaker 1: He didn't interesting? And this is one of those and
Speaker 1: he's done a few movies where he had gone back
Speaker 1: later and said, hey, I admit I was wrong. I
Speaker 1: didn't get it. It's clearly a classic, but he stuck
Speaker 1: to his guns on this one. M did not like it.
Speaker 1: He gave it two stars, and he says this, and
Speaker 1: this I think kind of summarizes a lot of critics
Speaker 1: issues with it in general, because I read a bunch
Speaker 1: of reviews. Uh. Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork, Oranges and Ideological Mess
Speaker 1: a paranoid right wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning.
Speaker 1: It pretends to oppose the police state and forced mind control,
Speaker 1: but all it really does is celebrate the nastiness of
Speaker 1: its hero, Alex. Alex is violent because it is necessary
Speaker 1: for him to be violent in order for this movie
Speaker 1: to entertain in the way Kubrick intends, he has been
Speaker 1: made into a sadistic rapist, not by society, not by
Speaker 1: his parents, not by the police state or the centralization,
Speaker 1: and not by creeping fascism, but by the producer, director,
Speaker 1: and writer of this film, admin attack. I know he
Speaker 1: goes on to explain and that he does know it
Speaker 1: is a book that it was based on, but um,
Speaker 1: he really lays it all at the feet of Stanley
Speaker 1: kuber That isn't well, it is you know, the whole
Speaker 1: idea of like glorification of violence, even when you're pretending
Speaker 1: to be making a state. Yeah, and just in general,
Speaker 1: like Oliver Stone's Wall Street, I'm sure inspired thousands of
Speaker 1: kids to go into Wall Street and be like, greed
Speaker 1: is good. So even if you do have the intention,
Speaker 1: which I think kuber culpefully had, Yeah, and of course yeah.
Speaker 1: And then finally we finished with five questions. Um, and
Speaker 1: these can be as diccinct as you want, or you
Speaker 1: can elaborate. The first movie you remember seeing in a theater?
Speaker 1: I remember seeing it was some Charlie Brown movie and
Speaker 1: I was terrified. We had to my parents had to
Speaker 1: take me out because it was like they were too big.
Speaker 1: I was like, what are these giants moving around on
Speaker 1: the screen. So I've since I can see movies in theater.
Speaker 1: I'm not too scared. Uh. Do you remember the first
Speaker 1: R rated movie you ever saw? I do. It was
Speaker 1: Blazing Saddles for my friends. I he must have been
Speaker 1: we must have been like eleven, I don't know, and
Speaker 1: his babysitter took us all too for a birthday to
Speaker 1: a double feature of Bananas and Blazing Saddles. And my
Speaker 1: my mother was horrified. She was like, they took you
Speaker 1: to an R rated movie? That is absolutely inappropriate. Speaking
Speaker 1: of movies that could never be made today, certainly Blazing Saddles, Right, Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's funny because I saw that. Um, I don't count
Speaker 1: that it's my first R rated movie, um, because I
Speaker 1: was too young to really get it. But I did
Speaker 1: go to the drive in for a double feature and
Speaker 1: Blazing Saddles was one of those movies. But I was
Speaker 1: five or six, and um, I just remember the horse
Speaker 1: punching scene. That's literally the only thing that stands out
Speaker 1: of my mind as a child. And did you were
Speaker 1: you horrified or you liked it? No? I think I
Speaker 1: was asleep in the seat and cup and like saw
Speaker 1: that part and then went back to sleep. So I
Speaker 1: don't I don't count as my first already. I mean
Speaker 1: the fart scene appealed for a kid that age, right
Speaker 1: and my age two. Mus be honest, will you walk
Speaker 1: out of a bad movie? And do you remember doing that?
Speaker 1: I have done? My wife refuses to. She's like, once
Speaker 1: you pay to her, in which I think is you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's a logical fallacy. It's like the sunken
Speaker 1: cost I think there's an even name for but I
Speaker 1: I will, I will walk out. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: what was the last one. I mean, I've very rarely
Speaker 1: see movies in the theater anymore, so I think a
Speaker 1: lot of us are in that boat. It's much easier
Speaker 1: to pause, and a lot of times you'll pause and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'll get back to that tomorrow, and then
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Ye. That sort of the modern equivalent of
Speaker 1: what exactly, um, do you have a guilty pleasure that
Speaker 1: that you kind of go back to that you can
Speaker 1: think of? Question? Uh, well, is watching Woody Allen's and
Speaker 1: feeling movies and feeling guilty? Does that count? Maybe? I
Speaker 1: do love Usually guilty pleasure is like a not so
Speaker 1: great movie, right, Yeah, I know what you mean. Stuff
Speaker 1: these days, I'm well, this is not I mean I
Speaker 1: I could have chosen for this, and it was between
Speaker 1: Groundhogs Day, a Clocker Carns, and an Albert Brooks movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just any of them. Any Real Life
Speaker 1: was one of the greatest movies in romance. So let
Speaker 1: me think, what are some other guilty pleasures? Well, you
Speaker 1: know what I feel, I feel very guilty about this.
Speaker 1: They did. I wished to work at Entertainment Weekly and
Speaker 1: they were doing a guilty Pleasure's issue and Uh. So
Speaker 1: everyone had to pitch, and I pitched the Earnest movies
Speaker 1: like Earnest to Deal Even Well. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: as I had never actually seen one. I just thought
Speaker 1: the idea was funny. So I pissed him. They're like, yeah, wesh,
Speaker 1: I got it. So then I had to watch Earnest
Speaker 1: Goes to Jail movies. I'm like, these are these are terrible.
Speaker 1: They're not even pleasures. They're not even so bad they're good.
Speaker 1: They're just so bad they're bad. So if anyone reads
Speaker 1: that essay I wrote about Ernest, I apologize that is
Speaker 1: a misrepresentation. That is terrible journalism. Uh. And finally question five,
Speaker 1: we end with movie going one oh one. I know
Speaker 1: it's you don't get to the theater much anymore, but um,
Speaker 1: what what are your movie rituals when you were going
Speaker 1: to the movies where there are certain theaters or a
Speaker 1: certain seat or confessions that you would always get. I'm
Speaker 1: always I I do the the aisle seat. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because when when I when my wife and I would
Speaker 1: go when we first started dating. I remember like holding
Speaker 1: hands during um, Shakespeare in Love, like one of the
Speaker 1: great moments of my life, Like sweet one of the
Speaker 1: first times I held her hand. Now she likes to
Speaker 1: have a seat in between. That's very symbolically evolution of
Speaker 1: our marriage. I don't need to sit next to you.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk to you today, and if
Speaker 1: you check your iPhone that's gonna drive me crazy. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, I guess that's my ritual, is sitting a
Speaker 1: seat away from my wife. Uh but I do you know,
Speaker 1: I do love the movies and kind of say, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see how long this this will last
Speaker 1: as a you know, how is it? Because it has
Speaker 1: lasted a long time. The the idea of like an
Speaker 1: hour and a half two hour movie where you just
Speaker 1: sit there and watch. But you know, are my grandkids
Speaker 1: gonna be like what were you thinking? Like he didn't
Speaker 1: get to shoot anyone, You weren't in the scene, you
Speaker 1: weren't like interacting with the actors, you were just watching.
Speaker 1: Very interesting And also you know what I feel, I
Speaker 1: feel lucky that we were in the era of the
Speaker 1: movie sets where they have these in norm because I
Speaker 1: am and in like fifty years, c G. I'll be
Speaker 1: so good a recreated Yeah, Like, why would you spend
Speaker 1: a million dollars to recreate New York when you can
Speaker 1: have This is a made you know perfectly. So I
Speaker 1: love the fact that we still live in the era
Speaker 1: of these crazy sets are made up good stuff. Man,
Speaker 1: I loved it. Thank you. I could talk all day
Speaker 1: that all right? Thanks a lot, Bud, Thanks John. All right,
Speaker 1: So another one in the can uh here in New
Speaker 1: York City. That was A. J. Jacobs really great guy
Speaker 1: and it was it was kind of fun to talk
Speaker 1: to a native New Yorker about his experience growing up
Speaker 1: in the city and uh and kind of how he
Speaker 1: spent his time and his movie watching time. Very very
Speaker 1: good guy and really loved hearing his insight not only
Speaker 1: on a clockwork orange, but his what he had to
Speaker 1: say about Groundhog Day, which is pretty cool. Um. So
Speaker 1: thanks to A. J. If you want to read his books,
Speaker 1: there are many worse ways to spend your time, let
Speaker 1: me tell you. Check out. The Year of Living Biblically
Speaker 1: is one. The Know It All is another great book.
Speaker 1: Drop Dead Healthy is another book, The Guinea Pig Diaries.
Speaker 1: They're all really terrific. In his brand new book with
Speaker 1: Simon and Schuster called It's All Relative Adventures Up and
Speaker 1: Down the World's Family Tree. This one is excellent. He
Speaker 1: sent me an advanced copy and I've already read it
Speaker 1: and it's really really wonderful. It's it's sort of just
Speaker 1: tackles the notion, uh that we are all related in
Speaker 1: this world, and um, he does a deep dive on that,
Speaker 1: and it's really terrific. So thanks to a j Thanks
Speaker 1: to you all, and we will see you next week
Speaker 1: on movie Crush. And until next time, I am going
Speaker 1: to be cleaning some disgusting stuff off the bottom of
Speaker 1: my shoe. Movie theaters are gross.