Speaker 1: Well, Merry Christmas. Many of you that may be listening
Speaker 1: right now, you might be traveling to go see family
Speaker 1: right now, and we thought we would pause from politics
Speaker 1: on this Christmas and first off just say Merry Christmas,
Speaker 1: but also to talk about something completely different, and that
Speaker 1: is center. People that don't know you, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give them a little bit of a clue. You absolutely
Speaker 1: love movies, and you put together a list of your
Speaker 1: favorite movies and also series and shows that you watch.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever wondered what Senator Cruz is watching
Speaker 1: when he's flying all the time, here's a really good
Speaker 1: list we're gonna be giving you on this Christmas.
Speaker 2: Well, and let me just echo that Merry Christmas. I
Speaker 2: hope you're having a wonderful and blessed day. I hope
Speaker 2: Sanna came down the chimney and your kids are overjoyed,
Speaker 2: and you're spending time, maybe with some hot cocoa. We
Speaker 2: often do Christmas by the tree, where all be in
Speaker 2: my bathrobe. We'll all be in our pajamas, the kids
Speaker 2: will be opening presents. We all actually have cups of
Speaker 2: hot cope coat and it's a beautiful time and it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful time to reflect not just on the love
Speaker 2: your family has for each other, but the love God
Speaker 2: has for us and the salvation He sent for us. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but over holidays, what my
Speaker 2: family has always done is we go to movies. We
Speaker 2: go to movies over Thanksgiving break, we go to movies
Speaker 2: over Christmas break. I love movies. As a kid, both
Speaker 2: my parents love movies. I would go to movies with
Speaker 2: my mom and dad when I was a little kid.
Speaker 2: I still go to movies with them now.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you're a movie theater guy. Just so
Speaker 1: people know this, I like.
Speaker 2: The real theater, so I like the big screen. I
Speaker 2: like popcorn and gummy bears, and you know, the experience
Speaker 2: of being there. And by the way, I'm also rabid
Speaker 2: about staying until the very end, till the last moment
Speaker 2: of the credits play. I will not get up and leave.
Speaker 2: There's a sense of completeness of appreciating the entirety of
Speaker 2: the movie. And so what we decided we do today
Speaker 2: is put together just a compilation of movies that that
Speaker 2: I love, that I recommend to you, and and hopefully
Speaker 2: as you're taking some time with your family, maybe you'll
Speaker 2: go watch one of them and laugh or cry, and
Speaker 2: it'll touch you and you'll enjoy it. And I think
Speaker 2: art and storytelling are beautiful, beautiful things.
Speaker 1: So that being said here in the big shows and
Speaker 1: the big movies on Senator Cruise's list, Merry Christmas. I
Speaker 1: get asked all the time from many of you guys
Speaker 1: that are watching or listening right now, what is Ted
Speaker 1: Cruz like behind the scenes. So we thought we'd have
Speaker 1: a little fun. I'm gonna ask him some questions, and
Speaker 1: you're even gonna find out what his favorite movies are. Senator,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a little fun. I get asked all
Speaker 1: the time when I'm all over the country. In half
Speaker 1: of this last week in New York, so what is
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz really like behind the scenes? And I say,
Speaker 1: I actually, if people got to see the side of
Speaker 1: you that I know, you're actually really fun to be around.
Speaker 1: You're also a huge movie buff as well, and so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask some fun questions just to kind of
Speaker 1: let people know behind the curtain who you really are.
Speaker 1: So let's start with this. What is the last thing
Speaker 1: you watched on a plane?
Speaker 2: What is the last thing I watched on a plane?
Speaker 2: Was outer Banks. Okay, which is a series. It's a
Speaker 2: teeny bopper series, and it's phenomenal. I am in the
Speaker 2: middle of season three. And there's a reason I'm watching
Speaker 2: a teeny bopper series, which is my youngest daughter, Catherine
Speaker 2: loves Outer Banks. She's at camp right now, yep. And
Speaker 2: when I dropped her off at camp, she said, Dad,
Speaker 2: I want you to watch out her Banks, and I
Speaker 2: want you to write to me in letters and tell
Speaker 2: me what you think is the season's progressing. And so
Speaker 2: I've been regularly. I write to her about every couple
Speaker 2: of days and I tell her, Okay, here's where I am.
Speaker 2: I'm at this point. I'm at this point. This character
Speaker 2: just my favorite character, JB. Yeah too, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: So she asked me that I'm a little troubled. Her
Speaker 2: favorite character is JJ who who is kind of a
Speaker 2: look I guess if you're a thirteen year old girl,
Speaker 2: he's you know, he's always doing the dumbest thing imaginable,
Speaker 2: but he's kind of a I like John B. John
Speaker 2: B is a good character.
Speaker 1: It's such a fun show. So when you were growing up,
Speaker 1: what was it that you were watching high school college?
Speaker 2: But by the way, spoiler alert. I apologize if you
Speaker 2: haven't seen seen it, I'm gonna give a spoiler alert
Speaker 2: right now, So just fast forward through this if you
Speaker 2: don't want a spoiler alert. But in season two, when
Speaker 2: when when Ward is blown blown up, I knew Ward
Speaker 2: was not blown up, and so I wrote her, I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: Ward just died. I'm very confident he's alive. And I
Speaker 2: remembered they keep scuba gear in the boat. He got
Speaker 2: in the scuba gear and then like seven.
Speaker 1: EPs books remember those there you got to figure it out,
Speaker 1: and you're like, they got to keep this, they gotta
Speaker 1: keep the series.
Speaker 2: So I felt pretty good that I was at least
Speaker 2: a step ahead of the teeny Bopper series.
Speaker 1: I like that. So what were you watching in high school?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What were your favorite shows? What was your favorite movie?
Speaker 2: So I love movies. My parents love movies, like like
Speaker 2: we would, you know, this is what we do. So
Speaker 2: so every holiday, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, my family got
Speaker 2: and watch movies.
Speaker 1: I heard a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2: Of course it is okay good, absolutely, yes, there's only
Speaker 2: one right answer. Guy Heart is absolutely a Christmas movie.
Speaker 2: But we would go out and do movies When I
Speaker 2: was a kid, when I was like eight nine years old,
Speaker 2: my dad would drop me off at the theater all
Speaker 2: Saturday and I'd watch like five movies. I'd go from
Speaker 2: one theater to the next to the next and just
Speaker 2: watch everything there. It's we all love movies. So what
Speaker 2: I've done done today for this show is I put
Speaker 2: together a list of twenty five movies. Now this is
Speaker 2: not exclusive, this is not the only twenty five movies
Speaker 2: I like, and I don't even know that it's my
Speaker 2: twenty five favorite. But it's twenty five awesome movies, which
Speaker 2: if you haven't watched, I recommend you watch. You will
Speaker 2: enjoy them. You will laugh, you will be moved, you
Speaker 2: will get good things from them. So let's go through
Speaker 2: the twenty five.
Speaker 1: I gotta ask for one more question for your twenty
Speaker 1: five What movie have you watched the most in your
Speaker 1: life over and over again?
Speaker 2: Well, that actually happens to be number one on the list.
Speaker 1: I knew it. I like this.
Speaker 2: So my favorite movie of all time is The Princess Bride. Really,
Speaker 2: I love The Princess Bride the Prince. I think every
Speaker 2: character in it is exquisite. Every line from every character
Speaker 2: is fantastic. I'll tell you. In college, we used to
Speaker 2: play a game called Drinking Princess Bride. And so the
Speaker 2: way you play Drinking Princess Bride as you sit down
Speaker 2: with a bunch of college kids, you put the movie
Speaker 2: on and you try to say each line immediately before
Speaker 2: it's said. If you get it right, you point at
Speaker 2: somebody they have to drink. If you screw it up
Speaker 2: even slightly, you drink. And if two or more people
Speaker 2: say the same line at the same time, everybody drinks.
Speaker 2: So when you get to the wish, why you.
Speaker 1: Were so sober in college now I understand.
Speaker 2: Look, when you get to the as you wishes, everyone
Speaker 2: can get them. So they're all socials and it is
Speaker 2: a fun game. My problem is I know just about
Speaker 2: every line from the movie, but I'll screw them up slightly,
Speaker 2: so I end up kind of getting myself because I
Speaker 2: try an awful lot of them. But is an exquisite movie.
Speaker 2: I probably watched The Princess Bride, I don't know a
Speaker 2: couple hundred times. No way, it is fantastic. So that's
Speaker 2: number one on your list, far and away. Number two
Speaker 2: on my list is The Godfather Saga.
Speaker 1: Couldn't agree with you more? One of the best series
Speaker 1: ever made, period.
Speaker 2: And I'm not gonna break it down between one, two
Speaker 2: and three. I even like three, which is a bit
Speaker 2: of a heretical idea. I think three stands on its
Speaker 2: own as its own movie. The least that three only
Speaker 2: makes sense in conjunction with one and two.
Speaker 1: Which is when you're in the club. I kind of
Speaker 1: like that, like you can't fake it and go see
Speaker 1: number three and and think oh, that was incredible. You
Speaker 1: have to be in it.
Speaker 2: And look, I quote all of them all the time,
Speaker 2: you know, from three. Every time I get out, they
Speaker 2: keep pulling me back in. I will say it was
Speaker 2: a little depressing with with my team where I turned.
Speaker 2: You know, senate staffers are all children. You know, your
Speaker 2: average to put that on a T shirt, your average
Speaker 2: senate staffer is like twenty three, twenty four, twenty five.
Speaker 2: So so things like Godfather quotes they just don't get.
Speaker 2: And so I said something, I said, you know, this
Speaker 2: is the business we have chosen, and like everyone looked
Speaker 2: at me confused, and I said, okay, I like six
Speaker 2: staffers there. I said, all right, do any of you
Speaker 2: have any idea what I'm saying. They're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I said, okay, this is Godfather too, And this is
Speaker 2: a conversation between him and Roth, who is clearly modeled
Speaker 2: after Myer Lanski, hym And Roth and Michael Corleoni. And
Speaker 2: they're down in Miami and Hyman Roth goes Michael. I
Speaker 2: had a friend. I had a friend since childhood, Moe
Speaker 2: Green was his name. And one day somebody put a
Speaker 2: bullet in his eye. I did not ask who was responsible.
Speaker 2: I did not seek retribution. I said, this is the
Speaker 2: business we have chosen. None of them had any idea
Speaker 2: what I was talking about.
Speaker 1: Team building night in the Senate. You should totally. You
Speaker 1: should totally bring them in one, two and three.
Speaker 2: It's nine hours.
Speaker 1: This is what you're gonna do. That's team building.
Speaker 2: One one Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday.
Speaker 1: A favorite line from any of the Godfather is the
Speaker 1: best one. Mine's a canoli.
Speaker 2: Leave leave the gun, take the canola.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no brainer. Number three on your list Scarface? Really?
Speaker 2: Oh I love me some scarface. Why notice Pacino has
Speaker 2: two spots in my top three here? I like Pacina, Okay,
Speaker 2: I love crime movies and look Scarface. Stony Montani's Cuban.
Speaker 2: I'm Cuban. It's you know, it is larger than life.
Speaker 2: I can quote a lot of lines from it. To
Speaker 2: be honest, I'm not going to because they're pretty off
Speaker 2: color and I'm going to avoid putting out on the
Speaker 2: podcast some of the language uh from from it. But
Speaker 2: uh it is. So crime genre is your thing and
Speaker 2: I like Pacino.
Speaker 1: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2: So my favorite TV show is Criminal Minds. I love
Speaker 2: Criminal Minds.
Speaker 1: I'm actually shocked by that one because if there is
Speaker 1: only one box that I can take with me my
Speaker 1: whole life, like if I was stuck on it as
Speaker 1: a island, it'd be West Wing.
Speaker 2: West Wing is fabulous. I've watched every episode of West Wing.
Speaker 2: I've watched every episode of Criminal Minds. But Criminal Minds
Speaker 2: is I just find it fascinating. Heidi hates it, by
Speaker 2: the way, when Criminal Minds is on, She's like, turn
Speaker 2: that garbage off because you know you've got evil, vicious murderers.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, no, they're the bad guys though, it's
Speaker 2: all about stopping them. But she just doesn't like that.
Speaker 2: In the house, all right. Number four Fletch never seen it.
Speaker 2: You've never seen Fletch. Go home tonight and watch Fletch.
Speaker 2: It may be the funniest movie ever made. Really, Chevy
Speaker 2: Chase plays Irwin Fletcher, an undercover investigative reporter. It is
Speaker 2: absolutely hysterical. You know, I love Tivy Chase.
Speaker 1: So that's that's It's.
Speaker 2: Chevy Chase's best movie, much much better than Lampoon's Vacation,
Speaker 2: much better than and He's Done It. I love chevy Chase.
Speaker 2: But Fletch is head and shoulders above them all. You know, Grant,
Speaker 2: who heads up my security detail. Grant and I quote
Speaker 2: Fletch lines back and forth at each other every week.
Speaker 1: Really, it is Go and watch the movie. Never seen it.
Speaker 1: It is spectacular, all right, Fletch, I'm on it all right,
Speaker 1: Number five amazing. Grace also never seen it.
Speaker 2: A lot of people have not seen it, but it
Speaker 2: is a very good It is the true story of
Speaker 2: William Wilberforce. Now William Wilberforce was a member of Parliament
Speaker 2: in the United Kingdom who led the effort to abolish
Speaker 2: the slave trade.
Speaker 1: Very cool, is it true? Store?
Speaker 2: True? Store and Wilberforce. So when he started as a
Speaker 2: young MP, the slave trade was the United Kingdom's single
Speaker 2: greatest source of revenue. It was their business. And he
Speaker 2: begins as this young MP arguing we must end the
Speaker 2: slave trade. It is wrong, it is immoral, and everyone
Speaker 2: laughs at him. And it would be like if you
Speaker 2: were in Texas standing up saying we should ban oil
Speaker 2: and gas.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was that absurd of an idea back then.
Speaker 2: And he spends fifty years battling for it, and the
Speaker 2: movie ends with him successfully championing and passing the legislation
Speaker 2: abolishing the slave trade and shutting down their most lucrative
Speaker 2: business because it was evil. And by the way, the
Speaker 2: title amazing grace, you know where it comes from. What
Speaker 2: So the person who wrote the hymn amazing Grace was
Speaker 2: a friar who had been the former captain of a
Speaker 2: slave ship. Really, he was the captain of a slave ship.
Speaker 2: And think of the words of the song, amazing grace,
Speaker 2: amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch
Speaker 2: like me. I once was lost, but now and found,
Speaker 2: was blind, but now I see and imagine the person
Speaker 2: writing that in that context was the captain of a
Speaker 2: slave ship. Presumably he had murdered people, he had beaten people,
Speaker 2: he had whipped people. He I mean, I mean, you
Speaker 2: think of the evil entailed in being the captain of
Speaker 2: a slave ship, and then the amazing grace that that
Speaker 2: that God offered redemption even in the face of the
Speaker 2: horrific evil. It puts a whole different character that the
Speaker 2: book is is by Eric metaxash' A, who's a fantastic author.
Speaker 2: Christian author does great biographies. I highly recommend Amazing Grace
Speaker 2: Number six. Unforgiven, Never seen it? Oh, Unforgiven is.
Speaker 1: This is why it makes me laugh when we get
Speaker 1: to do shows like this, because I I mean, I
Speaker 1: will go watch these now.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Unforgiven Best Western ever made won the Academy
Speaker 2: Award for Best Picture. Clint Eastwood is in it.
Speaker 1: I could I could do an age joke. Here was
Speaker 1: it in black and white?
Speaker 2: No? No, no, no, it was actually laid Eastwood. You
Speaker 2: were actually out of diapers when it came out.
Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 2: Morgan Freeman is in it. Gene Hackman is in it.
Speaker 2: Gene Hackman is spectacular. What's interesting about Unforgiven that is
Speaker 2: so powerful is it turns all of the stereotypes of
Speaker 2: the Western on its head. So, for example, Clint Eastwood
Speaker 2: plays this this outlaw who had turned over a good
Speaker 2: leaf and was good and then was going back gets hired.
Speaker 2: What happens is a a woman who is a prostitute
Speaker 2: is badly cut up by a drunk cowboy and they
Speaker 2: put out a reward to kill the cowboy who cut
Speaker 2: her up. And Clint Eastwood, as this retired outlaw, needs
Speaker 2: the money and so is coming to collect the reward,
Speaker 2: and and Morgan Freeman, his partner, comes with him. But
Speaker 2: there's a point where where Clint Eastwood, you know, there's
Speaker 2: there's a young kid who wants to be a gunslinger
Speaker 2: and and he's like practicing on shooting fast, and like
Speaker 2: Clint Eastwood says, well, you know, for me, this is
Speaker 2: about as fast as I can draw my gun, point it,
Speaker 2: aim at it, pull the trigger, and hit what I'm
Speaker 2: aiming at. And he said, in most firefights, people are
Speaker 2: scared out of their mind and they're just terrified. And
Speaker 2: whoever can kind of calmly engages who wins. And there
Speaker 2: are scenes where like everyone's like, oh crap, and they
Speaker 2: shoot their foot and they drop their gun and they're
Speaker 2: like freaking out. And he kind of and he would
Speaker 2: just get drunk and just sort of systematically bang, and
Speaker 2: it really did invert many of the conventional wisdom.
Speaker 1: Of being a fast draw on everything else.
Speaker 2: And Gene Hackman's character is hysterical. It is. He's the
Speaker 2: sheriff who initially you think might be the hero, but
Speaker 2: he very quickly becomes an anti hero. So excellent. Movie
Speaker 2: number eight, Team America.
Speaker 1: I've actually seen it, Hilary.
Speaker 2: And I'm going a little edgy. So Team America, Team America,
Speaker 2: World Police. It's a puppet movie.
Speaker 1: I remember when it came out. Everybody was in shock,
Speaker 1: but I was dying laughing.
Speaker 2: So Heidi didn't like movies very much. I took Heidi
Speaker 2: to see it. She almost fell to the floor laughing.
Speaker 1: So she y'all clicked on that.
Speaker 2: It is screamingly funny. Now it makes fun of both sides.
Speaker 2: It makes fun of Republicans, Democrats, every ding. It's the
Speaker 2: guys who do South Park who did it? It is puppets.
Speaker 1: They are truly equal opportunity offenders.
Speaker 2: It is now. I'm going to give a warning. Every
Speaker 2: third word is a profanity. If you're offended by profanity,
Speaker 2: skipped this suggestion, I will say. When we were fairly
Speaker 2: newly weeds, we went on vacation with Heidie's parents down
Speaker 2: at Lake Powell, which is fabulous, and we brought it
Speaker 2: with us and we sort of like, Heidi and I remember,
Speaker 2: this is really really funny, and I think we didn't
Speaker 2: quite remember that every third word is a profanity. And
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there with Heidie's parents as we're listening to
Speaker 2: the blinkety blink blink blink, blink blink. We didn't finish
Speaker 2: the movie really, like ten minutes into it.
Speaker 1: We just I can't believe you brought this in front
Speaker 1: of your parents, right, yeah, it was, but it's still
Speaker 1: funny as I'll get it, all right.
Speaker 2: Next movie, Patten.
Speaker 1: Yep, amazing, amazing movie. I've watched Patton probably five six
Speaker 1: times in my life.
Speaker 2: All Right, do you know what I did before every
Speaker 2: Supreme Court argument I ever did?
Speaker 1: Well, I can figure it out now you watch Patten.
Speaker 2: Not the whole thing, just which scene the opening speech? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: just the opening speech George C. Scott in front of
Speaker 2: the gigantic flag, standing up and saying, men, the objective
Speaker 2: is not to give your life for your country. The
Speaker 2: objective is to make that other poor son of a
Speaker 2: bitch give his life for his country. I mean, I
Speaker 2: can dig that.
Speaker 1: I can dig that.
Speaker 2: It is sound advice. If you can watch that speech
Speaker 2: and not be inspired, you're dead. Yeah, like it is.
Speaker 1: See, those are my weakness movies. I love true stories.
Speaker 1: I love good versus evil movies. I absolutely love sports
Speaker 1: movies as well, but there's always usually a big speech
Speaker 1: in those.
Speaker 2: By the way, a buddy of mine collects historical military
Speaker 2: equipment and clothing and uniforms, and he has patents dog tags,
Speaker 2: no way, And I actually have worn Patten's dog tags.
Speaker 2: They have rested on my bare chest and I literally
Speaker 2: felt like I was ready to pull out a pistol
Speaker 2: and start shooting in an airplane. Like it made you.
Speaker 2: You think about that that actually rested right above the
Speaker 2: heart of patent.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly wild. That's a good thing known all right.
Speaker 2: Next movie The Sting Classic. Have you seen this? You've
Speaker 2: never seen the sk.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what it's about.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh, Benjamin Benjamin Benjamin The Sting All time classic.
Speaker 2: Robert Redford, Paul Newman, they're they're con men. It is
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: This is when I can really mess with. Wait. Newman
Speaker 1: does something outside of like SASA like.
Speaker 2: It is hysterical. It is beautifully done. Go and watch
Speaker 2: what's it about? It's about conmen, okay, and it's it's
Speaker 2: worth watching. I'd probably watched it one hundred times in way.
Speaker 2: Such a good movie. All right, next movie, Awakenings. Yes,
Speaker 2: I've seen that, so Awake. It's only one. So Awakenings
Speaker 2: is fabulous. Robert de Niro, you're a de Niro fan.
Speaker 2: I like de Niro a lot. Not a fan of
Speaker 2: his politics, but a big fan of his acting. He
Speaker 2: is a great actor. Although as much de Niro got
Speaker 2: all the acclaim but I actually thought Robin Williams stole
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: Well, I love Robin Williams, So this is what this
Speaker 1: is right at my alley.
Speaker 2: Robin Williams is one of my all time favorite actors ever.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's an incredible comedic actor, so.
Speaker 1: You're gonna laugh. I was asked the question if you
Speaker 1: could have dinner with like any five people who would
Speaker 1: be at your table, living or alive or dead. I
Speaker 1: had Robin Williams for years in my list because I
Speaker 1: think he's just one of the most brilliant actors and
Speaker 1: genuinely funny human beings.
Speaker 2: So when Robin and Williams passed, I genuinely cried and
Speaker 2: I wrote a long statement about Robin Williams on Facebook
Speaker 2: that I put up, but it just I hammered it
Speaker 2: out of my iPad because he he is so so funny.
Speaker 2: His stand up If you've ever watched his stand up
Speaker 2: routine golf, yeah, I've watched the one on golf is
Speaker 2: again profane language, but as funny as anything that has
Speaker 2: ever been said, like screamingly funny. Awakenings, the portrayal he gives.
Speaker 2: I actually like Robin Williams even better in dramatic performances
Speaker 2: than comedy. And he's one of the funniest human beings
Speaker 2: ever alive. So Awakening on the list, Yes, fabulous, all right.
Speaker 2: The next two I view together, Braveheart and Gladiator.
Speaker 1: Both amazing, no brainers, incredible and all Gibson Russell Crowe right, yes,
Speaker 1: back to back. How can you get that wrong?
Speaker 2: And both standing and fighting and and fighting against oppression
Speaker 2: and their epic epic movies. Again, if you're not inspired
Speaker 2: by them, you're dead, I will say, Mike Lee. There's
Speaker 2: an app where you could can put yourself you speaking
Speaker 2: into an audio clip. And he and I used to
Speaker 2: send things back and forth. And you know at the
Speaker 2: end when mel Gibson is being executed. He screams freedom,
Speaker 2: so Mike would send me videos of him screaming to
Speaker 2: Mel Gibson's voice Freedom. It was pretty powerful, all right. Next,
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: Cop hands down one of the funniest movies ever.
Speaker 2: Just screamingly funny. Eddie Murphy, you're gonna laugh.
Speaker 1: I consider that a Christmas movie because it's like days off.
Speaker 1: I want to watch the classic. I watched that.
Speaker 2: It is every moment of it. Eddie Murphy remains one
Speaker 2: of my favorite actors of all times.
Speaker 1: He's got a new one coming out, a sequel coming
Speaker 1: out on Amazon. I think it's on Amazon Prime. Did
Speaker 1: you see that recently? I just saw it this last week.
Speaker 1: I don't know which one it was, but they were teasing.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're doing a Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: Cop too, Okay, is that what it is? Three?
Speaker 2: But look, the original Beverly Hills Cop is screamingly funny
Speaker 2: and and I actually have three Eddie Murphy movies in
Speaker 2: a row because I love Eddie Murphy. Beverly Hills Cop,
Speaker 2: Trading Places, Yes, and Coming to America.
Speaker 1: So Coming America is one of the first movies that
Speaker 1: was like really edgy that I remember, like in my
Speaker 1: adolescent sing hilarious.
Speaker 2: Again, screamingly funny, and Eddie Murphy and our Cineo Hall,
Speaker 2: and they play multiple characters at all the different you
Speaker 2: know in the barber shop, when you have Eddie Murphy
Speaker 2: in our Senel Hall, going back and forth. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's amazingly And you know what, they probably wouldn't let
Speaker 2: you make that movie today because it gets racially edgy
Speaker 2: in a way that like, now you know the woke world. No no, no,
Speaker 2: you can't laugh at me that no, no, no no
Speaker 2: you can't. You can't. You can't have any of that humor.
Speaker 2: By the way. You want funny humor, go back to
Speaker 2: young Eddie Murphy on sen L when he was like
Speaker 2: nineteen years old, brilliant and just edgy, comedic like brilliance.
Speaker 2: I love He's by far my favorite character ever on
Speaker 2: SNL was young Eddie Murphy because it was just so funny.
Speaker 1: I like it. Mine's Farley by the way.
Speaker 2: Look he was he was great and he put his
Speaker 2: hole into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, I also love that man
Speaker 1: and a little Jack, that man down by the river.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I also love like comedy when there's
Speaker 1: people falling over and he could do that. His physical
Speaker 1: comedy was incredible, all right. Next on the list, Wall Street, Yep,
Speaker 1: just all time Gordon Gecko one of the great all
Speaker 1: time classics. By the way, a line that I quote
Speaker 1: frequently Gordon Gecko is is in the locker room getting
Speaker 1: cleaned up after playing playing racquetball, and he turns to
Speaker 1: Charlie Sheen and he goes, I'm on the board of
Speaker 1: the Bronx Zoo. Cost me a million bucks. That's the
Speaker 1: thing about wasps love animals, hate people.
Speaker 2: There's some insight.
Speaker 1: There is some insight there for sure.
Speaker 2: Hidden figures. Yes, wonderful movie. Incredible movie about the African
Speaker 2: American female mathematicians who were foundational to America going to
Speaker 2: the Moon. And for me, there are two kind of
Speaker 2: personal reasons why that movie is significant to me.
Speaker 1: Well, it's got to be because of Houston.
Speaker 2: Well, when we went to see the movie, I took
Speaker 2: my mother to the movie. I took Heidi to the movie.
Speaker 2: I took both my daughters to the movie. And it
Speaker 2: was interesting my girls. It was the first time they'd
Speaker 2: seen a movie that had segregation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the bathroom is the one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: scenes in that whole movie.
Speaker 2: And it led to I had a long conversation with
Speaker 2: both of them and they were like, well, why would
Speaker 2: people have done that? And to talk about segregation and
Speaker 2: civil rights and just sort of walk through the history
Speaker 2: of it. It prompted really good conversations with my girls.
Speaker 2: But secondly, so my mom. My mom graduated from Rice
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty six and she had a degree and
Speaker 2: she went to work as a computer programmer at Shell.
Speaker 2: She subsequently went to work at the Smithsonian. And you
Speaker 2: remember the movie Hidden Figures begins with Sputnik being launched
Speaker 2: and sort of the space race being beginning. One of
Speaker 2: my mother's first assignments at the Smithsonian was to help
Speaker 2: compute the orbits of Sputnik. And so in front of
Speaker 2: the girls, I asked my mom. I said, Mom, you
Speaker 2: were doing this, and in fact, you were doing it
Speaker 2: ten years earlier. You were doing it in the fifties.
Speaker 2: Hidden Figures is set in the sixties, And I said,
Speaker 2: how accurate is it? And my mother thought it was
Speaker 2: very accurate. That it did a really good job of
Speaker 2: conveying what it was like to be a woman in
Speaker 2: space and science and in a technical environment. And I
Speaker 2: commented to her, I said, okay, one of the strange
Speaker 2: things to a more modern ear is that they referred
Speaker 2: to the women there as computers. Yeah, and we think
Speaker 2: of a computer as a piece of metal.
Speaker 1: But they were actually called computers because they were actually
Speaker 1: doing the math.
Speaker 2: And my mother started laughing at me and she said
Speaker 2: her first job title was computer and when she started
Speaker 2: at Shell, she had a business card that said eleanor
Speaker 2: dearra computer No way. And so in response to that,
Speaker 2: I introduced legislation to rename the street in front of
Speaker 2: NASA headquarters hidden Figures Way. And this is actually a
Speaker 2: really cool story. I introduced that legislation before it could pass,
Speaker 2: and we would have gotten it passed, but a DC
Speaker 2: City councilman saw that legislation and said, you know what,
Speaker 2: that's a great idea. And the DC City councilman introduced
Speaker 2: it in the DC City council. Guy's a Democrat, and
Speaker 2: he got it passed. So the DC City Council passes.
Speaker 1: It's cool.
Speaker 2: So I went to the street signed dedication and that
Speaker 2: that is the street sign there, and I was there,
Speaker 2: I spoke at the denaway it is the headquarters of NASA, Inc.
Speaker 2: And so NASA so the address of NASA is one
Speaker 2: hidden figure's way. And so I spoke of the dedication.
Speaker 2: The DC City councilman spoke, and he's a Democrat. I'm
Speaker 2: a Republican. And I told the story of my mom,
Speaker 2: which was really cool to get to tell. And I said, look,
Speaker 2: at some level, you might say, listen, the street sign's
Speaker 2: not that big a.
Speaker 1: Deal, that one is.
Speaker 2: But at another level, you know, fifty years from now,
Speaker 2: one hundred years from now, some little girl, some little
Speaker 2: boy is going to come visit NASA and they're gonna
Speaker 2: look up and see the street sign and they're gonna say, hey,
Speaker 2: what does that mean? Yeah, and they're going to hear
Speaker 2: the story of the pioneering African American women who were
Speaker 2: the mathematicians that got us to the moon. And so
Speaker 2: it's where movies and stories are powerful.
Speaker 1: Did any of the characters of the movie, Did any
Speaker 1: of them get to come to.
Speaker 2: That that they had passed by the time we did that?
Speaker 2: So no, all right, we just got a few more.
Speaker 1: Schindler's List one of the hardest movies to watch. Yes,
Speaker 1: The other one is that I can't. I've only watched
Speaker 1: it one time because I just can't bring myself to
Speaker 1: watch it again. Is Loan Survivor. Those two movies to
Speaker 1: me are must sees. But I just I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's because I've become a dad and having kids
Speaker 1: now and watching the kids, I just can't watch them
Speaker 1: like I used to.
Speaker 2: So, as you know, a couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 2: was at Normandy for the eightieth anniversary of D Day,
Speaker 2: and wildly enough I got to meet Steven Spielberg and
Speaker 2: Tom Hanks, which was really cool, and I had pretty
Speaker 2: extended conversations with both of them, and they've done Look,
Speaker 2: their politics are both left of center, but they've done
Speaker 2: an amazing job really honoring and telling the stories of
Speaker 2: the greatest generation, whether saving Private Ryan, whether Band of Brothers,
Speaker 2: whether the Pacific and so we're talking about that, and
Speaker 2: I was talking with Spielberg about about Schindler's List and
Speaker 2: just you know, talking with the heroes, the World War
Speaker 2: Two heroes who almost all say, well, I could have
Speaker 2: done more. I could have done more, and the real
Speaker 2: heroes are under those crosses behind us. And I was
Speaker 2: telling Spielberg, I said, hearing them say that reminds me
Speaker 2: of the end of Schindler's List, where Oscar Schindler is like,
Speaker 2: I could have done more, and he looks down at
Speaker 2: his gold watch and he said, this watch, this watch
Speaker 2: could have saved three more people. Three more people are
Speaker 2: dead because I kept my watch. And you think about
Speaker 2: the heroism of his rescuing Jews from the Nazis and
Speaker 2: incredible courage. But at the same time, the like, why
Speaker 2: didn't I do even more? And that that, to me,
Speaker 2: is the most beautiful moment of that movie, is the
Speaker 2: sort of did I do enough? Yeah, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take a detour, a detour to the world of musicals.
Speaker 2: So I like musicals.
Speaker 1: Do you like Broadway?
Speaker 2: I do. I love Broadway absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Like you if you go to New York, you would
Speaker 1: put it on your list to go see a show.
Speaker 2: I love Broadway, and I'm gonna have four musicals on here.
Speaker 1: I'm ready.
Speaker 2: So number one is my father's favorite movie of all time,
Speaker 2: which is My Fair Lady. Okay, and My Fair Lady
Speaker 2: is fantastic.
Speaker 1: I've seen it because of my mom and my sister
Speaker 1: multiple times.
Speaker 2: I've met the English.
Speaker 1: I've never watched that.
Speaker 2: You've got children how to speak, Norwegians learned, Norwegians the
Speaker 2: Greeks are taught their Greek.
Speaker 1: See, this is why I said this show would be entertaining,
Speaker 1: because I would have never thought you were musical. It
Speaker 1: is Spectator Broadway you've ever been to.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get to that.
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead, going to get to that.
Speaker 2: So the second one there is Oliver. Yep, great, Oliver
Speaker 2: is spectacular. So so look, I was in high school.
Speaker 2: I was president of the drama club.
Speaker 1: I have way too many one liners, but I'll leave
Speaker 1: that for another show. Keep going.
Speaker 2: You were captain of the tennis team. I was president
Speaker 2: of the drama club. Okay, I get that. There's a
Speaker 2: reason why you would have stuck me in the locker.
Speaker 1: If if that would have that would have gotten you
Speaker 1: a SmackDown for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But so look, I all politicians are frustrated actors.
Speaker 2: It's just it's just part of the the it is.
Speaker 1: You act in high school?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, a lot were you in? So I did?
Speaker 1: Do we have eight tracks of this or what what
Speaker 1: was it? Beta? Can there?
Speaker 2: They may be somewhere. So let's see, I've done Sound
Speaker 2: of Music twice.
Speaker 1: What did you play?
Speaker 2: So I played the first time I played Rolf?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Uh, you know and I warbled out, you are sixteen
Speaker 2: going on seventeen, no way. And then the second time
Speaker 2: I played max Yep, I also so I did Oliver
Speaker 2: and Oliver.
Speaker 1: Is a fabulous classic.
Speaker 2: So Oliver was my senior year, and the head of
Speaker 2: the music department told me, hey, we're doing Oliver next year,
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, I'd love to have you
Speaker 2: play Fagan if you can sing it. And and my curse, Look,
Speaker 2: I'm a terrible singer. I cannot carry just save my
Speaker 2: in a bucket like like I wish I could I have,
Speaker 2: you were not given to it. And so I actually
Speaker 2: went and for like six months I took voice lessons,
Speaker 2: so try to get be able to sing Fagan is such?
Speaker 1: Did you get any better in the six months?
Speaker 2: A little bit? And so what happened? And the nice
Speaker 2: thing about Fagan is is Fagan's songs are more spoken
Speaker 2: than saying. So for example, the song reviewing the situation
Speaker 2: a man's got a hot, hasn't he? Joking apart? Hasn't he?
Speaker 2: And though I'd be the first to admit that I
Speaker 2: wasn't a saint, I'm finding it hard to be really
Speaker 2: as bad here I.
Speaker 1: See your dad next I'm gonna say, those six months
Speaker 1: is worth it now right, I'm.
Speaker 2: A viewing the situation. Can a fellow be a villain
Speaker 2: all his life, all the trials worry about? To settle
Speaker 2: down and get myself away.
Speaker 1: And you remember.
Speaker 2: I will cook and sew for you, and comfort you
Speaker 2: and go for what are you in? Golder?
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 2: And nagget you the finger? She will wag at you.
Speaker 1: How many tickets they sell for? This is what I
Speaker 1: really want to know.
Speaker 2: So I prepared that song was one. Now it's mostly spoken,
Speaker 2: it's not release, so I could do it marginally competently
Speaker 2: after six months practicing. I did that at the trio
Speaker 2: and then and then afterwards music director said, hey, Ted,
Speaker 2: stick around, and he went to the piano and he
Speaker 2: said sing this, and he went d and I went
Speaker 2: and he did it like three times and he goes, okay,
Speaker 2: damn it not happening. So I was cast as Bill Sykes.
Speaker 2: It's the second male lead with no singing. It's a
Speaker 2: fun role. You're the villain. You get to like beat
Speaker 2: up Oliver, twist and like you're but but I wanted.
Speaker 2: I wanted to play that role badly, and I did
Speaker 2: not get it. All right. Two more musicals. Hamilton, which
Speaker 2: is utterly exquisite. I've seen it multiple times. It is brilliant,
Speaker 2: it is beautiful, it is powerful. My girls know the songs.
Speaker 2: There are few things that make me happier than when
Speaker 2: my daughters are singing songs from Hamilton. I mean it
Speaker 2: was there was a period where they were obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: You and I were talking about this the other day.
Speaker 1: My dad I took him to New York for the
Speaker 1: first time ever for seventh birthday, and you said, did
Speaker 1: you go see a show? And I was like, do
Speaker 1: you want to see Hamilton? He's like, I'd rather go
Speaker 1: the Yankees game. And then the next night I was like,
Speaker 1: we just that I'd rather have a nice meal. I
Speaker 1: tried hard. I tried to get him to Hamilton. It
Speaker 1: just wasn't on the list.
Speaker 2: And then my favorite music of all time is Lemis
Speaker 2: Really and I love le miss I think, do you
Speaker 2: get choked out?
Speaker 1: Be honest, because I'm a sucker for this. I get
Speaker 1: I get the lump in the throaked up. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: So what song gets you choked up? Oh? The one
Speaker 1: that the most famous. I'm terrible with it. It's the
Speaker 1: one that Anne Hathaway does It's so good.
Speaker 2: Oh, and she won won the Academy Awards. One every
Speaker 2: time it gets me, so that is beautiful. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you that the two that get me choked up are
Speaker 2: number one, when John Valjean is saying let him live, yep,
Speaker 2: and he's looking down and he says, you know, if
Speaker 2: I die, that one's InCred to me die. Yeah, let
Speaker 2: him live. And it's a prayer to God to let
Speaker 2: him live every time. I have tears every time. Then
Speaker 2: the other one that gets me is the song empty
Speaker 2: chairs and empty tables at the end when everyone has died.
Speaker 2: And I will confess at the end of the presidential
Speaker 2: campaign in twenty sixteen, as I walked through the empty
Speaker 2: campaign office and I saw the empty chairs and empty tables,
Speaker 2: I heard that rephrames of that song, so les miz
Speaker 2: is exquisite. All right, by the way, when I was
Speaker 2: all right, So nineteen ninety three, I was just finished
Speaker 2: my first year of law school, and I had a
Speaker 2: job in New York. I was working in a law
Speaker 2: firm in New York for the summer, and I decided
Speaker 2: to fly my mom to New York for the weekend,
Speaker 2: and so it's nineteen ninety three. So actually fedexed a
Speaker 2: plane ticket. And this is back when a plane ticket
Speaker 2: was a piece a piece of cardboard. Yeah, I fedexed
Speaker 2: a plane ticket to her with nothing else. It was
Speaker 2: literally she opened the FedEx package and just a plane
Speaker 2: ticket to New York fell out. And she called me
Speaker 2: and she's like, Ted, I assume this is you. I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I had no note, no nothing, just a plane ticket
Speaker 2: and the FedEx thing.
Speaker 1: Get on the plane. I'll see you soon, mom.
Speaker 2: So I fleird in New York and we went out
Speaker 2: to dinner at Boulet, which at the time was the
Speaker 2: nicest restaurant in New York. Was fabulous, and then I
Speaker 2: took her one night to see Camelot, which was really fun. Yep,
Speaker 2: and then the next night to see Le Miz And
Speaker 2: did she love it? She loved it?
Speaker 1: And it I that's one of those ironed memories for
Speaker 1: us of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that. That was just very cool to
Speaker 2: go do that. All right, So we have a total
Speaker 2: of three more. I'm gonna say the Magnificent.
Speaker 1: Seven, incredible, watch it ten times, the original one? Yes
Speaker 1: with my dad? All right, all right, that's like in
Speaker 1: my Dad's like I grew up on John Wayne and
Speaker 1: war movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Magnificence seven and that was, like, I remember
Speaker 2: what the unforgiven The Magnificent seven is the greatest Western
Speaker 2: that's actually originally at a Western. I'm forgiven. It was
Speaker 2: sort of a modern remake format, but Magnificent seven exquisite
Speaker 2: with you know, Uill Brenner and Charles Bronson.
Speaker 1: And that was the Moss Coburn. Oh, when mom was
Speaker 1: out of town, that was one of the movies we watched.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was so good. It's it's a fabulous movie.
Speaker 2: And then I'm gonna end with two Quentin Tarantino, is it?
Speaker 1: The Inglorious Bastards? Is that where we're going with this?
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna start with pulp fiction, okay, which is fantastic,
Speaker 2: and then the last one is in Glorious Bastard yep.
Speaker 2: And I feel bad that I left Reservoir Dogs off
Speaker 2: because Reservoir Dogs is exquisite too. But if you made
Speaker 2: me pick two, I go with pulp fiction and Inglorious.
Speaker 2: Inglorious Bastards is a spectacular movie. So that's twenty five movies,
Speaker 2: which if you've got some downtime, download them. Watch them.
Speaker 2: You will enjoy them, you will laugh, you will be moved,
Speaker 2: you will be.
Speaker 1: And send your critiques on Twitter. We'll take them. And
Speaker 1: let me ask you one of the question. If you
Speaker 1: can only take one movie and one TV series to
Speaker 1: a desert island with you, what would you pick? Only
Speaker 1: one movie and only one TV series? That's all you
Speaker 1: got to watch.
Speaker 2: The Princess Bride and Criminal Minds.
Speaker 1: There you go, that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1: See now we know a little bit more about you.
Speaker 1: Don't forget we do the show Monday Wasday Friday. Every
Speaker 1: once in a while we get to do something fun
Speaker 1: like this. So make sure you get that subscriber auto
Speaker 1: download button and the sin and I will see you
Speaker 1: back here in a couple of days.