Speaker 1: Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz. This is Ted Cruz.
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a wonderful Valentine's Day. I hope
Speaker 1: you find the love of your life and give them
Speaker 1: a hug, give them a kiss, and let them know
Speaker 1: they mean the world to you. Unfortunately, today Ben is
Speaker 1: sick in bed with a nasty flu. So rather than
Speaker 1: do our normal pod, what we're going to do is
Speaker 1: we're going to rebroadcast our Christmas Day pod. And the
Speaker 1: Christmas Day Pod was one It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: It recounted some of my favorite movies, some of the
Speaker 1: movies I enjoy watching the most. I am a movie guy.
Speaker 1: I love movies. I've loved movies my whole life, and
Speaker 1: so I hope today on Valentine's Day, you listen to
Speaker 1: the pod, you enjoy it. Maybe go out and watch
Speaker 1: a movie and take your wife or husband or boyfriend
Speaker 1: or girlfriend and have a great time at the movies,
Speaker 1: and we will see you. We'll do our regular week
Speaker 1: in review tomorrow on Saturday, and Ben and I will
Speaker 1: both be back. God will into the creek, don't rise
Speaker 1: on Monday morning. Enjoy.
Speaker 2: But I mean, you're a movie theater guy. Just so
Speaker 2: people know this, I like.
Speaker 3: The real theater, so I like the big screen.
Speaker 1: I like popcorn and gummy bears, and and you know
Speaker 1: the experience of being there. And by the way, I'm
Speaker 1: also rabbit about staying until the very end, till the
Speaker 1: last moment of the credits play. I will not get
Speaker 1: up and leave. There's a sense of completeness of appreciating
Speaker 1: the entirety of of the the movie. And so what
Speaker 1: we decided we do today is put together just a
Speaker 1: compilation of movies that that that I love, that I
Speaker 1: that I recommend to you, and and and hopefully as
Speaker 1: you're taking some time with your family, maybe you'll go
Speaker 1: watch one of them and laugh or cry, and it'll
Speaker 1: touch you and you'll enjoy it. And I think art
Speaker 1: and storytelling are beautiful, beautiful things.
Speaker 4: So that being said, and here in the big shows
Speaker 4: and the big movies on Center Cruise's list, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 4: I get asked all the time from many of you
Speaker 4: guys that are watching or listening right now, what is
Speaker 4: Ted Cruz like behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: So we thought we'd have a little fun.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna ask him some questions and you're even gonna
Speaker 4: find out what his favorite movies are.
Speaker 2: Senator, We're gonna have.
Speaker 4: A little fun I get asked all the time when
Speaker 4: I'm all over the country. In half of this last
Speaker 4: week in New York, so what is Ted Cruz really like.
Speaker 2: Behind the scenes?
Speaker 4: And I say, I actually, if people got to see
Speaker 4: the side of you that I know, you're actually really
Speaker 4: fun to be around. You're also a huge movie buff
Speaker 4: as well, and so I'm gonna ask some fun questions
Speaker 4: just to kind of let people know behind the curtain
Speaker 4: who you really are. So let's start with this. What
Speaker 4: is the last thing you watched on a plane?
Speaker 1: What is the last thing I watched on a plane
Speaker 1: was Outer Banks?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Which is a series. It's a teeny bopper series, and
Speaker 1: it's phenomenal. I am in the middle of season three.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason I'm watching a teeny bopper series,
Speaker 1: which is my youngest daughter, Catherine loves Outer Bank.
Speaker 3: She's at camp right now, yep.
Speaker 1: And when I dropped her off at camp, she said, Dad,
Speaker 1: I want you to watch out her Banks, and I
Speaker 1: want you to write to me in letters and tell
Speaker 1: me what you think is the season's progressing. And so
Speaker 1: I've been regularly I write to her about every couple
Speaker 1: of days and I tell her, Okay, here's where I am.
Speaker 1: I'm at this point. I'm at this point. This character
Speaker 1: just my favorite character, JB. Yeah, I too.
Speaker 3: So she asked me that I'm a little troubled.
Speaker 1: Her favorite character is JJ, who who is kind of
Speaker 1: a look I guess if you're a thirteen year old girl,
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's always doing the dumbest thing imaginable,
Speaker 1: but he's kind of a I like John B.
Speaker 3: John B is a good character.
Speaker 2: It's such a fun show.
Speaker 4: So when you were growing up, what was it that
Speaker 4: you were watching high school college?
Speaker 1: But by the way, spoiler alert, I apologize if you
Speaker 1: haven't seen it. I'm gonna give a spoiler alert right now,
Speaker 1: so just fast forward through this if you don't want
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert. But in season two, when when when
Speaker 1: Ward is blown blown up, I knew Ward was not
Speaker 1: blown up, and so I wrote her, I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: Ward just died. I'm very confident he's alive. And I
Speaker 1: remembered they keep scuba gear in the boat. He got
Speaker 1: in the scuba gear and then like sevens.
Speaker 3: There you got to.
Speaker 4: Figure it out, and you're like, they got to keep this,
Speaker 4: they gotta keep the series.
Speaker 1: So I felt pretty good that I was at least
Speaker 1: a step ahead of the teeny Bopper series.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 4: So what were you watching in high school? Like, what
Speaker 4: were your favorite shows? What was your favorite movie?
Speaker 3: So I love movies.
Speaker 1: My parents love movies, like like we would, you know,
Speaker 1: this is what we do. So so every holiday, every Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: every Christmas, my family would go out and watch.
Speaker 2: Movies that Diehard a Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: Of course, it is okay, good, absolutely, yes, there's only
Speaker 1: one right answer. Diehart is absolutely a Christmas movie. But
Speaker 1: we would go out and do movies. When I was
Speaker 1: a kid, when I was like eight nine years old,
Speaker 1: my dad would drop me off at the theater all
Speaker 1: Saturday and.
Speaker 3: I'd watch like five movies.
Speaker 1: I'd go from one theater to the next to the
Speaker 1: next and just watch everything there.
Speaker 3: It's it's we all love movies.
Speaker 1: So what I've done done today for this show is
Speaker 1: I put together a list of twenty five movies. Now
Speaker 1: this is not exclusive. This is not the only twenty
Speaker 1: five movies I like. And I don't even know that
Speaker 1: it's my twenty five favorite, but it's twenty five awesome
Speaker 1: movies which if you haven't watched, I recommend you watch.
Speaker 1: You will enjoy them. You will laugh, you will be moved,
Speaker 1: you will get good things from them. So let's go
Speaker 1: through the twenty five.
Speaker 2: I gotta ask for one more question for you.
Speaker 4: Twenty five what movie have you watched the most in
Speaker 4: your life over and over again?
Speaker 3: Well, that actually happens to be number one on the list.
Speaker 2: I knew it. I like this.
Speaker 1: So my favorite movie of all time is The Princess Bride. Really,
Speaker 1: I love The Princess Bride, the PRIs I think every
Speaker 1: character in it is exquisite. Every line from every character
Speaker 1: is fantastic.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: In college, we used to play a game called Drinking
Speaker 1: Princess Bride. And so the way you play Drinking Princess Bride,
Speaker 1: as you sit down with a bunch of college kids,
Speaker 1: you put the movie on and you try to say
Speaker 1: each line immediately before it's said. If you get it right,
Speaker 1: you point out somebody they have to drink. If you
Speaker 1: screw it up even slightly, you drink. And if two
Speaker 1: or more people say the same line at the same time,
Speaker 1: everybody drinks.
Speaker 3: So when you get to the asu wish why you
Speaker 3: were so sober in college. Now I understand.
Speaker 1: Look when you get to the as you wishes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone can get them. So they're all socials and it
Speaker 1: is a fun game. My problem is I know just
Speaker 1: about every line from the movie, but I'll screw them
Speaker 1: up slightly, so I end up kind of getting myself
Speaker 1: because I try an awful lot of them. But is
Speaker 1: an exquisite movie. I probably watched The Princess Bride, I
Speaker 1: don't know a couple hundred times. No way, it is fantastic.
Speaker 1: So that's number one on your list, far and away.
Speaker 1: Number two on my list is The Godfather Saga.
Speaker 4: Couldn't agree with you more. One of the best series
Speaker 4: ever made, period.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to break it down between one,
Speaker 1: two and three. I even like three, which is a
Speaker 1: bit of a heretical idea. I think three stands on
Speaker 1: its own as its own movie. The least that three
Speaker 1: only makes sense in conjunction with one and two.
Speaker 2: Which is when you're in the club.
Speaker 4: I kind of like that, Like you can't fake it
Speaker 4: and go see number three and and think, oh that
Speaker 4: was incredible.
Speaker 2: You have to be in it.
Speaker 1: And look, I quote all of them all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, from three. Every time I get out, they
Speaker 1: keep pulling me back in. I will say it was
Speaker 1: a little depressing with with with my team where I turned.
Speaker 1: You know, senate staffers are all children.
Speaker 3: You know your.
Speaker 1: Average to put that on a T shirt, Your average
Speaker 1: senate staffer is like twenty three, twenty four, twenty five.
Speaker 1: So so things like Godfather quotes they just don't get.
Speaker 3: And and so I.
Speaker 1: I said something. I said, you know, this is the
Speaker 1: business we have chosen. And like everyone looked at me confused,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 3: Said, okay.
Speaker 1: I had like six staffers there. I said, all right,
Speaker 1: do any of you have any idea what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They're like no, no, no. I said, okay, this is
Speaker 1: Godfather too. And and this is a conversation between Hym
Speaker 1: and Roth, who is clearly modeled after myerland Ski, Him
Speaker 1: and Roth and Michael Corleone, and they're down in Miami
Speaker 1: and him and Roth goes Michael. I had a friend.
Speaker 1: I had a friend since childhood, Moe Green was his name,
Speaker 1: And one day somebody put a bullet in his eye.
Speaker 1: I did not ask who was responsible. I did not
Speaker 1: seek retribution. I said, this is the business we have chosen.
Speaker 3: None of them had any idea what I was talking
Speaker 3: about team.
Speaker 4: Building night in the Senate. You should totally you should
Speaker 4: totally bring him in one, two and.
Speaker 3: Three nine hours.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is what you're gonna do. That's team building.
Speaker 1: One won Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday.
Speaker 4: A favorite line from any of the Godfather is the
Speaker 4: best one. Mine's the Canoli.
Speaker 3: Leave, leave the gun and take the cannola.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no brainer. Number three on your list Scarface? Really?
Speaker 3: Oh, I love me some scarfing.
Speaker 1: Why I notice Pacino has two spots in my top
Speaker 1: three here. I like Pacina, Okay, I love crime movies
Speaker 1: and look Scarface, Stony Montani's Cuban.
Speaker 3: I'm Cuban.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it is larger than life. I can
Speaker 1: quote a lot of lines from it. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to because they're pretty off color and
Speaker 1: I'm going to avoid putting out on the podcast some
Speaker 1: of the language from it.
Speaker 3: But uh, it is, so crime genre is your thing,
Speaker 3: and I like Pacino.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's amazing.
Speaker 1: So my favorite TV show is Criminal Minds. I love
Speaker 1: Criminal Minds.
Speaker 4: I'm actually shocked by that one, because if there was
Speaker 4: only one box that I can take with me, my
Speaker 4: whole life.
Speaker 2: Like if I was stuck on it as island, it'd
Speaker 2: be West Wing.
Speaker 1: West Wing is fabulous. I've watched every episode of West Wing.
Speaker 1: I've watched every episode of Criminal Minds. But Criminal Minds
Speaker 1: is I just find it fascinating. Heidi hates it, by
Speaker 1: the way, when Criminal Minds is on, She's like, turn
Speaker 1: that garbage off because you know you've got evil Vicious.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, they're the bad guys though, it's all
Speaker 1: about stopping them. But she just doesn't like that. In
Speaker 1: the house, all right. Number four Fletch never seen it.
Speaker 1: You've never seen Fletch. Go home tonight and watch Fletch.
Speaker 1: It may be the funniest movie ever made.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase plays Irwin Fletcher, an undercover investigative reporter. It
Speaker 1: is absolutely hysterical. You know you love chevy Chase, so
Speaker 1: that's It's chevy Chase's best movie. Mut much better than
Speaker 1: Lampoon's Vacation, much better than and He's Done a ton
Speaker 1: I love chevy Chase, but Fletch is head and shoulders
Speaker 1: above them all. You know Grant, who heads up my
Speaker 1: security detail. Grant and I quote Fletch lines back and
Speaker 1: forth at each other every week.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: Also never seen it.
Speaker 1: A lot of people have not seen it, but it
Speaker 1: is a very good It is the true story of
Speaker 1: William Wilberforce. Now William Wilberforce was a member of Parliament
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom who led the effort to abolish
Speaker 1: the slave trade.
Speaker 2: Very cool, is it? True? Store?
Speaker 3: True store?
Speaker 1: And Wilberforce So when he started as a young MP,
Speaker 1: the slave trade was the United Kingdom's single greatest source
Speaker 1: of revenue. It was their business. And he begins as
Speaker 1: this young MP arguing we must end the slave trade.
Speaker 1: It is wrong, it is immoral, and everyone laughs at him.
Speaker 1: And it would be like if you were in Texas
Speaker 1: standing up saying we should ban oil and gas.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was that absurd of an idea back then.
Speaker 1: And he spends fifty years battling for it, and the
Speaker 1: movie ends with him successfully championing and passing the legislation
Speaker 1: abolishing the slave trade and shutting down their most lucrative
Speaker 1: business because it was evil. And by the way, the
Speaker 1: title amazing grace. You know where it comes from. What
Speaker 1: So the person who wrote the hymn amazing Grace.
Speaker 3: Was a friar.
Speaker 1: Who had been the former captain of a slave ship.
Speaker 1: Really he was the captain of a slave ship. And
Speaker 1: think of the words of the song, amazing grace, amazing grace,
Speaker 1: how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
Speaker 1: I once was lost, but now and found, was blind,
Speaker 1: but now I see and imagine the person writing that
Speaker 1: in that context was the captain of a slave ship.
Speaker 1: Presumably he had murdered people, he had beaten people, he
Speaker 1: had whipped people. He mean, I mean you think of
Speaker 1: the evil entailed in being the captain of a slave ship,
Speaker 1: and then the amazing grace that God offered redemption even
Speaker 1: in the face of the horrific evil. It puts a
Speaker 1: whole different character. The book is by Eric Metaxas, who's
Speaker 1: a fantastic author, Christian author does great biographies. I highly
Speaker 1: recommend Amazing Grace number six. Unforgiven, never seen it? Oh, unforgiven?
Speaker 4: Is this is why it makes me laugh when we
Speaker 4: get to do shows like this, because I mean, I
Speaker 4: will go watch these now.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Unforgiven best Western ever Made won the Academy
Speaker 1: Award for Best Picture.
Speaker 3: Clint Eastwood is in it.
Speaker 2: I could do an age joke. Here was it in
Speaker 2: black and white?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, it was actually laid Eastwood. You were actually
Speaker 1: out of diapers when it came out.
Speaker 2: Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Morgan Freeman is in it. Gene Hackman is in it.
Speaker 1: Gene Hackman is spectacular. What's interesting about Unforgiven that is
Speaker 1: so powerful is it turns all of the stereotypes of
Speaker 1: the Western on its head. So, for example, Clint Eastwood
Speaker 1: plays this this outlaw who had turned over a good
Speaker 1: leaf and was good and then was going back gets hired.
Speaker 1: What happens is a woman who is a prostitute is
Speaker 1: badly cut up by a drunk cowboy, and they put
Speaker 1: out a reward to kill the cowboy who cut her up.
Speaker 1: And Clint Eastwood, as this retired outlaw, needs the money
Speaker 1: and so is coming to collect the reward, and Morgan Freeman,
Speaker 1: his partner, comes with him. But there's a point where
Speaker 1: where Clint east Wood, you know, there's there's a young
Speaker 1: kid who wants to be a gunslinger, and and he's
Speaker 1: like practicing on shooting fast and like Clint Eastwood says, well,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, this is about as fast as
Speaker 1: I can draw my gun, point it, aim at it,
Speaker 1: pull the trigger, and hit what I'm aiming at. And
Speaker 1: he said, in most firefights, people are scared out of
Speaker 1: their mind and they're just terrified. And whoever can kind
Speaker 1: of calmly engages who wins. And there are scenes where
Speaker 1: like everyone like, oh crap, and they shoot their foot
Speaker 1: and they dropped their gun and they're like freaking out
Speaker 1: and he kind of and he would just get drunk
Speaker 1: and just sort of systematically banged and it it really
Speaker 1: did invert many of the conventional wisdom.
Speaker 3: Of being a fast draw on everything else. And Gene
Speaker 3: Hackman's character is hysterical. It is.
Speaker 1: He's the sheriff who initially you think might be the hero,
Speaker 1: but he very quickly becomes an anti hero. So excellent
Speaker 1: movie number eight, Team America.
Speaker 2: I've actually seen it.
Speaker 1: Hilarious, okay, and I'm going a little edgy, So Team America,
Speaker 1: Team America, World Police.
Speaker 3: It's a puppet movie.
Speaker 1: I remember when it came out, every red was in shock,
Speaker 1: but I was dying laughing. So Heidi didn't like movies
Speaker 1: very much. I took Heidi to see it. She almost
Speaker 1: fell to the.
Speaker 2: Floor laughing, so she y'all clicked on that.
Speaker 1: It is screamingly funny. Now it makes fun of both sides.
Speaker 1: It makes fun of Republicans, Democrats, everything. It's the guys
Speaker 1: who do South Park who did it.
Speaker 3: It is puppets.
Speaker 2: They are truly equal opportunity offender.
Speaker 1: It is now I'm gonna give a warning. Every third
Speaker 1: word is a profanity. If you're offended by profanity, skip
Speaker 1: this suggestion.
Speaker 3: I will say.
Speaker 1: When we were fairly newlyweds, we went on vacation with
Speaker 1: with Heidie's parents down at Lake Powell, which is fabulous,
Speaker 1: and and we brought it with us and we sort
Speaker 1: of like, Heidi and I remember this is really really funny,
Speaker 1: and I think we didn't quite remember that every third
Speaker 1: word is a profanity. And I'm sitting there with Heidie's
Speaker 1: parents as we're listening to the blinkety blink blink blink
Speaker 1: blink blink. We didn't finish the movie, like ten minutes
Speaker 1: into it. We just can't believe you brought this in
Speaker 1: front of your parents. Right, Yeah, it was, but it's
Speaker 1: still funny, as I'll get it all right, next movie Patten.
Speaker 4: Yep, amazing, amazing movie. I've watched Patten probably five six
Speaker 4: times in my life.
Speaker 1: All right, do you know what I did before every
Speaker 1: Supreme Court argument I ever did? Well, I can figure
Speaker 1: it out now. You watch Patten the whole thing. Just
Speaker 1: which scene the opening speech?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, just.
Speaker 1: The opening speech, George C. Scott in front of the
Speaker 1: gigantic flag, standing up and saying, men, the objective is
Speaker 1: not to give your life for your country. The objective
Speaker 1: is to make that other, poor son of a bitch
Speaker 1: give his life for his country.
Speaker 2: I mean I can dig that. I can dig that.
Speaker 2: It is sound advice.
Speaker 1: If you can watch that speech and not be inspired,
Speaker 1: you're dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it is.
Speaker 2: See, those are my weakness. Movies.
Speaker 4: I love true stories. I love good versus evil movies.
Speaker 4: I absolutely love sports movies as well, but there's always
Speaker 4: usually a big speech in those.
Speaker 1: By the way, a buddy of mine collects historical military
Speaker 1: equipment and clothing and uniforms, and he has patents dog tags,
Speaker 1: no way, And I actually have worn patents dog tags.
Speaker 1: They have rested on my bare chest and I literally
Speaker 1: felt like I was ready to pull out a pistol
Speaker 1: and start shooting in an airplane like it made you
Speaker 1: You think about that, that that actually rested right above
Speaker 1: the heart of Paton.
Speaker 2: That's incredibly wild. That's a good thing, all right.
Speaker 3: Next movie The Sting Classic. Have you seen this? You've
Speaker 3: never seen The Sting.
Speaker 2: I don't even know. It's about.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, Benjamin, Benjamin Benjamin the Sting. All time classic.
Speaker 1: Robert Redford, Paul Newman. They're they're con men.
Speaker 2: It is this is this is what I can really
Speaker 2: mess with. Wait. Newman does something outside of like Sasa.
Speaker 1: It is hysterical, it is beautifully done. Go and watch
Speaker 1: what's it about? It's about conman? Okay, and it's it's
Speaker 1: worth watching. I probably watched it one hundred times. It's
Speaker 1: such a good movie.
Speaker 3: All right. Next movie Awakenings.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've seen that, so Awake. It's only one.
Speaker 3: So Awakenings is fabulous. Robert de Niro.
Speaker 2: You're a de Niro fan.
Speaker 1: I like de Niro a lot. Not a fan of
Speaker 1: his politics, but a big fan of his acting.
Speaker 3: Is a great actor.
Speaker 1: Although as much de Niro got all the acclaim, but
Speaker 1: I actually thought Robin Williams stole the show.
Speaker 2: I love Robin Williams, so this is what this is
Speaker 2: right at my alley.
Speaker 1: Robin Williams is one of my all time favorite actors ever.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's an incredible comedica.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna laugh.
Speaker 4: I was asked the question if you could have dinner
Speaker 4: with like any five people who would be at your table,
Speaker 4: living or alive or dead. I had Robin Williams for
Speaker 4: years in my list because I think he's just one
Speaker 4: of the most brilliant actors and genuinely funny human beings.
Speaker 1: So when Robin Williams passed, I genuinely cried and I
Speaker 1: wrote a long statement about Robin Williams on Facebook that
Speaker 1: I put up and it just I hammered it out
Speaker 1: of my iPad because he he is so funny. His
Speaker 1: stand up if you've ever watched his stand.
Speaker 3: Up routine on golf, yeah, I've watched.
Speaker 1: The one on golf is again profane language, but as
Speaker 1: funny as anything that has ever been said, like screamingly
Speaker 1: funny awakenings the portrayal he gives. I actually like Robin
Speaker 1: Williams even better in dramatic performances than comedy, and he's
Speaker 1: one of the funniest human beings ever alive, So awake
Speaker 1: on the list, Yes, fabulous, all right. The next two
Speaker 1: I view together Braveheart and Gladiator.
Speaker 3: Both amazing, no brainers, incredible and.
Speaker 4: Mel Gibson Russell Crowe right, yes, back to back, how
Speaker 4: can you get that wrong?
Speaker 1: And both standing and fighting and fighting against oppression and
Speaker 1: their epic epic movies. Again, if you're not inspired by them,
Speaker 1: you're dead. I will say, Mike Lee, there's an app
Speaker 1: where you couldn't can put yourself you speaking into an
Speaker 1: audio clip. And he and I used to send things
Speaker 1: back and forth. And you know at the end when
Speaker 1: when mel Gibson is being executed, he screams freedom. So
Speaker 1: Mike would send me videos of him screaming to mel
Speaker 1: Gibson's voice Freedom. It was pretty powerful, all right. Next
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Cop.
Speaker 4: Hands down one of the funniest movies ever.
Speaker 1: Just screamingly funny. Eddie Murphy, you're gonna laugh.
Speaker 4: I consider that a Christmas movie because it's like Days Off.
Speaker 4: I want to watch the classic. I watch that.
Speaker 3: It is, every moment of it.
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy remains one of my favorite actors of all times.
Speaker 4: I just got a new one coming out, a sequel
Speaker 4: coming out on Amazon I think it's on Amazon Prime.
Speaker 4: Did you see that recently? I just saw it this
Speaker 4: last week. I don't know which one it was, but they.
Speaker 1: Were teasing, Yes, they're doing a Beverly Hills Cop.
Speaker 2: Too, Okay, is that what it is?
Speaker 3: Or A three?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: But look, the original Beverly Hills Cop is screamingly funny.
Speaker 1: And I actually have three Eddie Murphy movies in a
Speaker 1: row because I love Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, Yes,
Speaker 1: and Coming to America.
Speaker 4: So Coming America is one of the first movies that
Speaker 4: was like really edgy that I remember, like in my
Speaker 4: adolescent seeing hilarious.
Speaker 1: Again, screamingly funny, and Eddie Murphy in Arcindeo Hall and
Speaker 1: they play multiple characters and all the different you know
Speaker 1: in the barbershop. When you have Eddie Murphy in our
Speaker 1: Senel Hall going back and forth. I mean, it's amazingly
Speaker 1: And you know what, they probably wouldn't let you make
Speaker 1: that movie.
Speaker 3: Today because it it.
Speaker 1: Gets racially edgy in a way that like now you
Speaker 1: know the woke world.
Speaker 3: No, no, you can't laugh about that. No no, no, no, no, you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 1: You can't have any of that humor. By the way,
Speaker 1: you want funny humor, go back to Young Eddie Murphy
Speaker 1: on SNL when he was like nineteen years old, brilliant
Speaker 1: and just edgy, comedic like brilliance.
Speaker 3: I love.
Speaker 1: He's by far my favorite character ever on SNL was
Speaker 1: Young Eddie Murphy because it was just so funny.
Speaker 2: I like it. Mine's Farley by the way.
Speaker 3: Look he was he was great and he put his
Speaker 3: hole into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, I also love that.
Speaker 3: Man and a little Jackelie, that man down by the river.
Speaker 4: I mean, but I also love like comedy when there's
Speaker 4: people falling over, and he could do that.
Speaker 3: This physical comedy is incredible, all right.
Speaker 1: Next on the list, Wall Street, Yep, just all time
Speaker 1: Gordon Gecko, one of the great all time classics. By
Speaker 1: the way, a line that I quote frequently. Gordon Gecko
Speaker 1: is in the locker room getting cleaned up after playing racketball,
Speaker 1: and he turns to Charlie Sheen and he goes, I'm
Speaker 1: on the board of the Bronx Zoo. Cost me a
Speaker 1: million bucks. That's the thing about wasps love animals, hate people.
Speaker 3: There's some insight there.
Speaker 2: There is some insight there for sure.
Speaker 1: Hidden Figures. Yes, wonderful movie. Incredible movie about the African
Speaker 1: American female mathematicians who were foundational to America going to
Speaker 1: the Moon. And for me, there are two kind of
Speaker 1: personal reasons why that movie is significant to me.
Speaker 2: Well, it's got to be because of Houston.
Speaker 1: Well, when we went to see the movie, I took
Speaker 1: my mother to the movie. I took Heidi to the movie.
Speaker 1: I took both my daughters to the movie. And it
Speaker 1: was interesting my girls. It was the first time they'd
Speaker 1: seen a movie that had segregation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the bathroom is the most one of the most
Speaker 4: iconic scenes in that whole.
Speaker 1: Movie, and it led to I had a long conversation
Speaker 1: with both of them and they were like, well, why
Speaker 1: would people have done that? And to talk about segregation
Speaker 1: and civil rights and just sort of walk through the
Speaker 1: history of it. It prompted really good conversations with my girls.
Speaker 1: But secondly, so my mom. My mom graduated from Rice
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty six and she had a math degree
Speaker 1: and she went to work as a computer programmer at Shell.
Speaker 1: She subsequently went to work at the Smithsonian. And you
Speaker 1: remember the movie Hidden Figures begins with Sputnik being launched
Speaker 1: instead of the space race being beginning. One of my
Speaker 1: mother's first assignments at the Smithsonian was to help compute
Speaker 1: the orbits of Sputnik. And so in front of the girls,
Speaker 1: I asked my mom. I said, Mom, you were doing this,
Speaker 1: and in fact, you were doing it ten years earlier.
Speaker 1: You were doing it in the fifties. Hidden Figures is
Speaker 1: set in the sixties, And I said, how accurate is it?
Speaker 1: And my mother thought it was very accurate, that it
Speaker 1: did a really good job of conveying what it was
Speaker 1: like to be a woman in space and science and
Speaker 1: in a technical environment. And I commented to her, I said, okay,
Speaker 1: one of the strange things to a more modern ear
Speaker 1: is that they referred to the women there as computers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we think of a computer as a piece of metal.
Speaker 4: But they were actually called computers because they were actually
Speaker 4: doing the math.
Speaker 1: And my mother started laughing at me, and she said
Speaker 1: her first job title was computer and when she started
Speaker 1: at Shell, she had a business card that said eleanor
Speaker 1: Darra computer No way.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: In response to that, I introduced legislation to rename the
Speaker 1: street in front of NASA headquarters Hidden Figures Way. And
Speaker 1: this is actually a really cool story. I introduced that
Speaker 1: legislation before it could pass, and we would have gotten
Speaker 1: it passed. But a DC City councilman saw that legislation
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, that's a great idea. And
Speaker 1: the DC City councilman introduced it in the DC City council.
Speaker 1: Guy's a Democrat. Yeah, and he got it passed. So
Speaker 1: the DC City Council passes it.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 1: So I went to the street signed dedication and that
Speaker 1: that is the street sign there, and I was there,
Speaker 1: I spoke at the denawary it it is the headquarters
Speaker 1: of NASA in Easy and so NASA, the address of
Speaker 1: NASA is one hidden Figure's way. And so I spoke
Speaker 1: of the dedication. The DC City councilman spoke, and he's
Speaker 1: a Democrat. I'm a Republican. And I told the story
Speaker 1: of my mom, which was really cool to get to tell.
Speaker 1: And I said, look, at some level, you might say, listen,
Speaker 1: the street sign's not that big.
Speaker 2: A deal, that one is.
Speaker 1: But at another level, you know, fifty years from now,
Speaker 1: one hundred years from now, some little girl, some little
Speaker 1: boy is going to come visit NASA and they're gonna
Speaker 1: look up and see the street sign, and they're gonna say.
Speaker 3: Hey, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're going to hear the story of the
Speaker 1: pioneering African American women who were the mathematicians that got
Speaker 1: us to the moon. And so it's where movies and
Speaker 1: stories are powerful.
Speaker 3: Did any of the characters of the movie, Did any
Speaker 3: of them get to come to.
Speaker 1: That that they had passed by the time we did that?
Speaker 1: So no, all right, we just got a few more.
Speaker 3: Shindler's list one of the hardest movies to watch. Yes.
Speaker 4: The other one is that I can I've only watched
Speaker 4: it one time because I just can't bring myself to
Speaker 4: watch it again. Is Lone Survivor. Those two movies to
Speaker 4: me are must sees. But I just I don't know
Speaker 4: if it's because I've become a dad and having kids
Speaker 4: now and watching the kids. I just can't watch them
Speaker 4: like I used to.
Speaker 1: So, as you know, a couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 1: was at Normandy for the eightieth anniversary of D Day,
Speaker 1: and wildly enough I got to meet Steven Spielberg and
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks, which was really cool, and I had pretty
Speaker 1: extended conversations with both of them, and they've done look
Speaker 1: their politics are both left to center, but they've done
Speaker 1: an amazing job really honoring and telling the stories of
Speaker 1: the greatest generation, whether saving Private Ryan, whether Band of Brothers,
Speaker 1: whether the Pacific And so they were talking about that,
Speaker 1: and I was talking with Spielberg about about Schindler's List
Speaker 1: and just you know, talking with the heroes, the World
Speaker 1: War II heroes who almost all say, well, I could
Speaker 1: have done more. I could have done more, and the
Speaker 1: real heroes are under those crosses behind us. And I
Speaker 1: was telling Spielberg, I said, hearing them say that reminds
Speaker 1: me of the end of Schindler's List, where Oscar Schindler
Speaker 1: is like, I could have done more, and he looks
Speaker 1: down at his gold watch and he said, this watch,
Speaker 1: this watch could have saved three more people. Three more
Speaker 1: people are dead because I kept my watch. And you
Speaker 1: think about the heroism of his rescuing Jews from the
Speaker 1: Nazis and the incredible courage, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: the like, why didn't I do even more? And that that,
Speaker 1: to me, is the most beautiful moment of that movie,
Speaker 1: is the the sort of did I do enough? Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a detour, a detour to the world
Speaker 1: of musicals.
Speaker 3: So I like musicals.
Speaker 2: Do you like Broadway?
Speaker 3: I do. I love Broadway absolutely.
Speaker 4: So like you, if you go to New York, you
Speaker 4: would put it on your list to go see a show.
Speaker 1: I love Broadway, and I'm gonna have four musicals on here.
Speaker 2: I'm ready.
Speaker 1: So number one is my father's favorite movie of all time,
Speaker 1: which is My Fair Lady. Okay, and My Fair Lady
Speaker 1: is fantastic.
Speaker 4: I've seen it because of my mom and my sister
Speaker 4: multiple times.
Speaker 2: I've never English, I've never watched that.
Speaker 1: He's had of children how to speak, Norwegians learn Norwegians.
Speaker 1: The Greeks are taught their Greek.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 4: This is why I said this show would be entertaining,
Speaker 4: because I would have never thought you were musical. It
Speaker 4: is spec favorite Broadway show you've ever been to.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get to that. Okay, go ahead, let me
Speaker 1: get to that. So the second one there is Oliver. Yep, great,
Speaker 1: Oliver is spectacular. So so look, I was in high school.
Speaker 1: I was president the drama club.
Speaker 2: I have way too many one liners, but I'll leave
Speaker 2: that for another show. Keep going.
Speaker 1: You were captain of the tennis team. I was president
Speaker 1: the drama club. Okay, I get that. There's a reason
Speaker 1: why you would have stuck me in the locker if
Speaker 1: you if yeah, that.
Speaker 2: Would have that would have gotten you a SmackDown for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so look, I I all politicians are frustrated actors.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just part of the the it is
Speaker 3: high school. Oh yes, a lot. What were you in
Speaker 3: so I did?
Speaker 2: Do we have eight tracks of this or what? What
Speaker 2: was it? Beta camp?
Speaker 3: There?
Speaker 1: They may be somewhere. Okay, So let's see. I've done
Speaker 1: Sound of Music twice.
Speaker 2: What'd you play?
Speaker 3: So I played?
Speaker 1: The first time I played Rolf Yeah, uh you know,
Speaker 1: and I warbled out you are sixteen going on seventeen,
Speaker 1: no way. And then the second time I played Max yep.
Speaker 1: I also, so I did Oliver, and Oliver is.
Speaker 2: A fabulous classic.
Speaker 1: So Oliver was my senior year and the head of
Speaker 1: the music department told me, hey, we're doing Oliver next year,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, I'd love to have you
Speaker 1: play Fagan if you can sing it, and and my curse, look,
Speaker 1: I'm a terrible singer. I cannot carry save in a
Speaker 1: bucket like like I wish I could.
Speaker 3: I have you were not.
Speaker 1: It, And so I actually went and for like six
Speaker 1: months I took voice lessons to try to get be
Speaker 1: able to sing that Fagan is such a thing.
Speaker 2: Did you get any better in the six months?
Speaker 3: A little bit?
Speaker 1: And so what happened? And the nice thing about Fagan
Speaker 1: is is Fagan's songs are more spoken than sang. So,
Speaker 1: for example, the song reviewing the situation, a man's got
Speaker 1: a hot, hasn't he? Joke a pot, hasn't he? And
Speaker 1: though I'd be the first to admit that I wasn't
Speaker 1: a saint, I'm finding it hard to be really as bad.
Speaker 2: So you want to see you dad next ti, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna say, there's six months is worth it?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: I'm a viewing the situation? Can a fellow be a
Speaker 3: villain all his life?
Speaker 1: All the trials to settle down and get myself a wife?
Speaker 2: And you remember.
Speaker 1: I will cook and sew for you, and come for you,
Speaker 1: and go for you, and go for you and nagget
Speaker 1: you the finger, she will wag at you.
Speaker 3: How many tickets they sell for? This is what I
Speaker 3: really want to know. So I prepared that song was one.
Speaker 1: Now it's mostly spoken, it's not release, so I could
Speaker 1: do it marginally competently after six months practicing. I did
Speaker 1: that at the trial and then and then afterwards, music
Speaker 1: director said, hey, Ted, stick around, and he went to
Speaker 1: the piano and he said sing this, and he went
Speaker 1: and I went and he did it like three times
Speaker 1: and he goes, Okay, damn it not happening. So I
Speaker 1: was cast as Bill Sykes. It's the second male lead
Speaker 1: with no singing. It's a fun role. You're the villain.
Speaker 1: You get to like beat up Oliver, twist and like
Speaker 1: you're but but I wanted.
Speaker 3: I wanted to play that.
Speaker 1: Role badly, and I did not get it all right.
Speaker 1: Two more musicals Hamilton, which is utterly exquisite. I've seen
Speaker 1: it multiple times. It is brilliant, it is beautiful, it
Speaker 1: is powerful. My girls know the songs. There are few
Speaker 1: things that make me happier than when my daughters are
Speaker 1: singing songs from Hamilton. I mean it was there was
Speaker 1: a period where they were obsessed with it.
Speaker 4: You and I were talking about this the other day.
Speaker 4: My dad I took him to New York for the
Speaker 4: first time ever for seventieth birthday, and and you said,
Speaker 4: did you go see a show? And I was like,
Speaker 4: do you want to see Hamilton. He's like, God, I'd
Speaker 4: rather go the Yankees game. And then the next night
Speaker 4: I was like, which is that? I rather have a
Speaker 4: nice meal. I tried hard, I tried to get him
Speaker 4: to Hamilton. It just wasn't on the list.
Speaker 3: And then my.
Speaker 1: Favorite music of all time is limis Really and I
Speaker 1: love le miss I think, do you.
Speaker 2: Get choked up? Be honest, because I'm a sucker for this.
Speaker 2: I get I get the lump in the.
Speaker 3: Rooked up all right? So what song gets you choked up? Oh?
Speaker 4: The one, the most famous. I'm terrible with it. It's
Speaker 4: the one that Anne Hathaway does. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Oh and and she won won the Academy Awards for
Speaker 1: every time it gets me, So that is beautiful. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that the two that get me choked.
Speaker 3: Up our number one.
Speaker 1: When John Valjean is saying let him live, yep, and
Speaker 1: he's looking down and he and he says, you know,
Speaker 1: if I die.
Speaker 3: That one's to me die, yeah, let him live.
Speaker 1: And it's a prayer to God to let him live
Speaker 1: every time. I have tears every time. Then the other
Speaker 1: one that gets me is the song Empty Chairs and
Speaker 1: Empty Tables. At the end when everyone has died, and
Speaker 1: I will con fest at the end of the presidential
Speaker 1: campaign in twenty sixteen, as I walked through the empty
Speaker 1: campaign office and I saw the empty chairs and empty tables,
Speaker 1: I heard that rephrames of that.
Speaker 3: Song, so les Miz is exquisite. All right, by the way,
Speaker 3: when I was all right.
Speaker 1: So nineteen ninety three, I was just finished my first
Speaker 1: year of law school, and I had a job in
Speaker 1: New York. I was working in a law firm in
Speaker 1: New York for the summer, and I decided to fly
Speaker 1: my mom to New York for the weekend. And so
Speaker 1: it's nineteen ninety three. So I actually fedexed a plane ticket.
Speaker 1: And this is back when a plane ticket was a
Speaker 1: piece of cardboard. Yeah, I fedexed a plane ticket tour
Speaker 1: with nothing else. It was literally she opened the FedEx
Speaker 1: package and just a plane ticket to New York fell out.
Speaker 1: And she called me. She's like, Ted, I assume this
Speaker 1: is you. I said, yeah, I had no note, no nothing,
Speaker 1: just a plane ticket and the FedEx thing.
Speaker 2: Get on the plane. I'll see you soon, mom.
Speaker 1: So I flird in New York and we went out
Speaker 1: to dinner at Boult, which at the time was the
Speaker 1: nicest restaurant in New York.
Speaker 3: Was fabulous.
Speaker 1: And then I took her one night to see Camelot,
Speaker 1: which was really fun. Yep, and then the next night
Speaker 1: to see Le miss and did she love it?
Speaker 3: She loved it?
Speaker 2: And it I that's one of those ironed memories for
Speaker 2: us a life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that. That was just very cool to
Speaker 1: go do that. All right, So we have a total
Speaker 1: of three more. I'm gonna say the Magnificent seven incredible,
Speaker 1: watch it ten times the original one, yes with my
Speaker 1: dad all right, all right, that's like in my dad's
Speaker 1: like I grew up on John Wayne and war movies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like Magnificence seven and that was like I remember what
Speaker 1: was the unforgiven Magnificent seven is the greatest Western that's
Speaker 1: actually originally in a Western.
Speaker 3: I'm forgiven.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a modern remake format, but Magnificent
Speaker 1: seven exquisite with you know, Yule Brenner and Charles Bronson.
Speaker 2: And that was the Moss Coburn. Oh, when Mom was
Speaker 2: out of town, that was one of the movies we watched.
Speaker 3: Oh, it was so good.
Speaker 1: It's it's a fabulous movie. And then I'm gonna end
Speaker 1: with two, uh, Quentin Tarantino.
Speaker 2: Is it? The Inglorious Bastards? Is that where we're going
Speaker 2: with this?
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna start with pulp Fiction, okay, which is fantastic,
Speaker 1: and then the last one is in Glorious Bastard yep.
Speaker 1: And I feel bad that I left Reservoir Dogs off
Speaker 1: because Reservoir Dogs is exquisite too. But the other view
Speaker 1: may be if you made me pick two, I go
Speaker 1: with pulp Fiction and in Glorious and Glorius Bastards is
Speaker 1: a spectacular movie. So that's twenty five movies which, if
Speaker 1: you've got some downtime, download them, watch them. You will
Speaker 1: enjoy them. You will laugh, you will be moved, you
Speaker 1: will be.
Speaker 4: And send your critiques on Twitter. We'll take them. And
Speaker 4: let me ask you one other question. If you can
Speaker 4: only take one movie and one TV series to a
Speaker 4: desert island with you, what would you pick? Only one
Speaker 4: movie and only one TV series? That's all you got
Speaker 4: to watch.
Speaker 3: The Princess Bride and Criminal Minds.
Speaker 2: There you go, that's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like it. See now we know a little
Speaker 3: bit more about you.
Speaker 2: Don't forget. We do the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Speaker 4: Every once in a while we get to do something
Speaker 4: fun like this, So make sure you that subscriber auto
Speaker 4: download button and the center and I will see you
Speaker 4: back here in a couple of days