Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody chuck here. If you were on the Movie
Speaker 1: Crush Facebook page, then you saw two things this week.
Speaker 1: You saw me give a coming attractions post for this
Speaker 1: is Spinal Tap with guest Brian Cook, the drummer for
Speaker 1: the band Blitz and Trapper, one of my favorite bands,
Speaker 1: and Brian's a great guy. Uh. Then if you saw
Speaker 1: the post from yesterday, then you saw that we had
Speaker 1: an audio issue and lost the entire interview. Very disappoint Obviously,
Speaker 1: it was a good talk, and unfortunately you can't just
Speaker 1: redo that and recreate a conversation, an organic conversation that
Speaker 1: would just be weird. Maybe on down the line, once
Speaker 1: that one is wiped from the memory bank, I can
Speaker 1: get Brian back in here and we can talk about
Speaker 1: Spinal Tap, because I really want to. We had so
Speaker 1: much fun. Uh So I'm very sorry. That's the first
Speaker 1: time that's ever happened in the history of this show.
Speaker 1: Recording from home. Um is not easy, and this happened,
Speaker 1: so all apologies, and I was going to try and
Speaker 1: put something else together, but you guys, it just didn't
Speaker 1: have Uh. I didn't have time to get someone book,
Speaker 1: someone watched the movie, take notes on the movie and
Speaker 1: get the recording in the can and then edited and
Speaker 1: everything by Friday. So one of the movie crushers said
Speaker 1: something about, hey, why don't you rerelease a classic episode
Speaker 1: like you do for stuff you should know it's no
Speaker 1: big deal. So because this one guy said that was okay,
Speaker 1: I decided that it was okay, and I'm letting myself up. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it was really easy for me. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: so many of the episodes that I've been able to
Speaker 1: do these interviews over the past couple of years, but uh,
Speaker 1: Paul Schneider's really stands out for Back to the Future.
Speaker 1: Paul is a pal of mine and we've become even
Speaker 1: better bud since that interview. I had a little mandate
Speaker 1: in New York when I was there and went to
Speaker 1: dinner and had a nice walk and talk and we
Speaker 1: talk on the phone now and chit chad and text
Speaker 1: and we're just birds of a feather to Southern boys
Speaker 1: trying to work it out here in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: And Paul is awesome, And like I mentioned on a
Speaker 1: on a mini crush, he has just had his first
Speaker 1: little baby. He has a beautiful little baby girl. He
Speaker 1: and his lovely wife and it's just there over the
Speaker 1: moon about it, and I'm really excited. So we've been
Speaker 1: texting a lot about fatherhood and stuff. So Paul's been
Speaker 1: on my mind lately, and we, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: have a great episode on a great movie, Back to
Speaker 1: the Future, and if you've heard it, I encourage you
Speaker 1: to listen to again. If you haven't heard this one, boy,
Speaker 1: you were in for a treat because Back to the
Speaker 1: Future is a great, great movie. And Paul brings his
Speaker 1: uh his insider scoop for his comments, and we had
Speaker 1: a great talk about acting and stuff. It was just
Speaker 1: a good conversation. One of my favorite episodes. So all
Speaker 1: apologies about the rerun. Uh, this won't happen again, I hope.
Speaker 1: And we'll be back with the new interview movie edition
Speaker 1: next Friday. Noel and I will be back on Monday
Speaker 1: for our mini crush And here we go, everyone with
Speaker 1: the classic episode Paul Schneider on Back to the Future.
Speaker 1: I wrote down notes for your for your program, so
Speaker 1: I'm not I mean, I'm taking it very seriously. Are
Speaker 1: you still teaching? No, I'm not. How what was that
Speaker 1: all about? Was it acting or directing or writing or
Speaker 1: I talked directing actors who graduate school directing student Columbia
Speaker 1: at Columbia. How'd that go? Um? I really, I really
Speaker 1: loved it. Um. I didn't go back because I kind
Speaker 1: of needed to work for money. Um. But it was
Speaker 1: explaining to the you know, explaining to these kids, like
Speaker 1: what what I felt like actors needed in that situation
Speaker 1: was like a pretty surprising that they didn't know and
Speaker 1: be kind of easy that it's basically just kind of
Speaker 1: psychology what I want. It's like and like being a
Speaker 1: good coach, you know, like encouragement, you know, like say
Speaker 1: three nice things before you give a criticism. And it's
Speaker 1: like life skills almost. It's very um all I needed
Speaker 1: to know I learned in kindergarten stuff. It's crazy when
Speaker 1: I hear stories about these directors, like the tyrannical directors
Speaker 1: who I just don't get that, and I don't the
Speaker 1: whole William Friedkin, you know, shooting guns next to Ellen
Speaker 1: Burston's head, and yeah, I just I there's no way
Speaker 1: I would deal with that. I There's just no fucking
Speaker 1: way that I would. I just wouldn't deal with It's
Speaker 1: just this is not you know, this is not the
Speaker 1: end of the world type stuff right in the movie.
Speaker 1: You know it should be fun. Yeah, that's why I
Speaker 1: don't understand auditions sometimes, because the amount of time they
Speaker 1: give you to prepare, the quality of air in the room,
Speaker 1: I mean just in terms of sort of attitude in
Speaker 1: the room, the vibe. I guess, it doesn't give you
Speaker 1: a chance to like, if I want to know what great,
Speaker 1: how great an actor you are, I am going to
Speaker 1: make you comfortable as comfortable as I can. I'm going
Speaker 1: to kind of free up ourselves in terms of conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna not shut it down your ideas. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make sort of a free flowing, brainstormy comment so that
Speaker 1: I get all of Chuck. I see, oh, he's got
Speaker 1: this idea about this and that idea about that. But
Speaker 1: when I sort of close it all down, all I'm
Speaker 1: getting is the very cocoons protected Chuck who's only throwing
Speaker 1: out ideas that he's pretty sure he's already kind of
Speaker 1: vetted in his brain. It's like writing and editing at
Speaker 1: the same time. It's just so hard. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: have to write and then go back right, which is
Speaker 1: why when I'm working with. I brought this, I brought this,
Speaker 1: I brought this T shirt for you. I wore this
Speaker 1: T shirt for you. I should say I saw these
Speaker 1: T shirts and I and they when they're online, and said, like,
Speaker 1: directed by Martin Schrissese, directed by all these people, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, well, I have been directed by Jane Campion.
Speaker 1: That's great, that's awesome. So it's it's like, this is
Speaker 1: a yeah, literal interpretation of the shirt. Yeah, everyone, he's
Speaker 1: wearing it, directed by Jane Campion. Shirt because you were
Speaker 1: We'll take it. We'll take a picture of it later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, we're going to get a photo. Um. One
Speaker 1: thing I always appreciate about you, though, is that you
Speaker 1: sort of have a aside from obviously having to make
Speaker 1: a living, you've always seemed to have a take it
Speaker 1: or leave it attitude, Like I always get the feeling
Speaker 1: that you could just go away from it all at
Speaker 1: any moment. Well yeah, sure, yeah, I always was it.
Speaker 1: Rick moranis who just like up in and and to
Speaker 1: be with his kids after his wife died, like to
Speaker 1: be a father who could possibly be offended by that,
Speaker 1: and and I one thing that I've always thought about
Speaker 1: is in acting and sort of this bologny celebrity culture
Speaker 1: we live in. If you're not if your next thing
Speaker 1: isn't double the size of your last thing, if you're
Speaker 1: not constantly being more, if your image is not constantly
Speaker 1: more and more propagated, if people don't seem more and
Speaker 1: more of you, then the idea is somehow things have
Speaker 1: gone wrong. And I you know, when I left Parks
Speaker 1: and Recreation, I was this like this was I was
Speaker 1: doing the size movies, you know, like Bright Star that
Speaker 1: I really love doing. Um, you know, I have financial
Speaker 1: concerns like everyone else. I want things, you know, I'd
Speaker 1: like to spend summers in Spain or whatever. But my
Speaker 1: overhead is, my personal overhead is really low. And I
Speaker 1: like the idea of being sort of a a middle
Speaker 1: class actor, if you know what I mean. Like I
Speaker 1: of course I want to work with great I want
Speaker 1: to work with Jane Campion and and you know, the
Speaker 1: people that I really really loved when I was growing up. Um,
Speaker 1: but I but I just can't. I can't see myself
Speaker 1: doing something that I don't really like. Two for what like,
Speaker 1: what's what's the payoff? Is it? Is it money? Well? Yeah, sure?
Speaker 1: And and that's great. But I've I've met a lot
Speaker 1: of insanely wealthy people, and the general vibe I get
Speaker 1: is not and I mean like at film parties or
Speaker 1: film festivals or at panels or whatever, you know, And
Speaker 1: the vibe you get from some of these folks that
Speaker 1: are at the tippy top of the acting profession, it's
Speaker 1: not a contented dolli lama esque vibe. Man. It is
Speaker 1: like bundles of insecurity and bundles of nerves. And I
Speaker 1: have that just just myself. You know, I don't need
Speaker 1: to go get more of that. Um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I was talking to my wife about this and and
Speaker 1: I just I mean, obviously it's all about the material.
Speaker 1: Everyone says that, but it's it's true. I'm not concerned
Speaker 1: about where I shoot or how much money I make.
Speaker 1: It's all about, like, do I feel attached to whatever
Speaker 1: this guy is there suggesting I play? And do I? Um?
Speaker 1: And it doesn't even have to be like a great
Speaker 1: entire script. I might want to do a character just because,
Speaker 1: like I I don't think the script is great, but
Speaker 1: there's something I like about the character himself. Um. But
Speaker 1: it's like there's there's there's got to be something that
Speaker 1: I can add to it. But I feel like only
Speaker 1: I can add to it. Um. Not that anybody else
Speaker 1: couldn't do a good job, but but I but there's
Speaker 1: a reason why I could say, excuse me, let me,
Speaker 1: let me take a crack at this. Um. And oftentimes
Speaker 1: characters written you know, I think I think sometimes the
Speaker 1: larger the budget and the larger you might be paid,
Speaker 1: and the larger your image, you know, the more your
Speaker 1: image might be propagated, and the more quote famous you
Speaker 1: might get. Oftentimes those roles because they have to appeal
Speaker 1: to the broadest possible audience to make back their cap investment.
Speaker 1: It can't be that specific, it can't be that interesting.
Speaker 1: It has to be sort of a bland lead character
Speaker 1: that everyone can sort of find something to invest in. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a broad a broad drawing, not
Speaker 1: every deep drawing. Yeah, because I mean you get into that.
Speaker 1: You got the Parks and Wreck, which was a great show,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of the golden goose for a lot
Speaker 1: of actors to get that weekly network series. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, I've read and I've talked to you about
Speaker 1: it and read articles and interviews and stuff. It just
Speaker 1: that seems to kind of have been the case. There's
Speaker 1: like it just wasn't character wise, didn't offer you enough,
Speaker 1: and you were I think brave enough to say, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, this isn't my bag. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, and and they were brave enough to say
Speaker 1: this isn't your bag. I mean it was a mutual Uh,
Speaker 1: it was mutual. Um us not being into it, but
Speaker 1: but the you know, because you know, the forces being
Speaker 1: what they were. I kind of signed on for one
Speaker 1: character that I thought was specific and interesting that being
Speaker 1: a guy who he he was this really promiscuous guy,
Speaker 1: but he was kind of an Eddie Bower guy, like
Speaker 1: I really kind of buttoned up dude. But he had
Speaker 1: also had sex with everyone in town and I couldn't
Speaker 1: remember who he had had sex with, and but he
Speaker 1: was very polite about it. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: super funny. Um. And then later kind of because um,
Speaker 1: you know, as the characters were kind of shaken down
Speaker 1: and and I guess they figured out like how do
Speaker 1: we you know, wait, these characters properly. Um, I think
Speaker 1: my characters specificity sort of you know, was diluted, and um,
Speaker 1: I think both they and myself realized that I, you know,
Speaker 1: for myself, I just need to go in there and
Speaker 1: be challenged. It's not um. If the way I think
Speaker 1: of it is like this, I've got twelve, you know, horrifying,
Speaker 1: angry sled dogs in my head. And if those sled
Speaker 1: dogs have nothing to pull, I'm screwed, you know, free time,
Speaker 1: not being challenged not you know, And I think this
Speaker 1: is probably true for all of us. But when those
Speaker 1: sled dogs have something heavy to pull, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: like like in Bright Star, I was terrified. I had
Speaker 1: a lot going on. I was asked to do a
Speaker 1: lot of things that I was pretty sure I couldn't do.
Speaker 1: And that made me kind of, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: terrified and satisfied at the end of every day. Well,
Speaker 1: those sled dogs want, they want to run, that's all
Speaker 1: they want to do, you know, And I can't. I'm
Speaker 1: not the solo artist, you know, I'm the collaborator artist.
Speaker 1: And I can't. I can't. I can't give them a
Speaker 1: sled to pull myself usually. UM. But anyways, are you
Speaker 1: looking to direct again about Yeah? I'd love to. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, directing is certainly something that I feel most
Speaker 1: like wrung out doing um, even when I was teaching
Speaker 1: and talking about directing with the students, it was wrung
Speaker 1: out in a satisfying sense, absolutely satisfied, you know, like
Speaker 1: like a just like a rag, completely you know, wrung out,
Speaker 1: and um yeah, yeah, I think of that as a
Speaker 1: very positive thing. Um. So yeah, as far as directing,
Speaker 1: uh performance is concerned, you know, there's there's you know,
Speaker 1: some things being written. There's some you know, play ideas
Speaker 1: being kicked around. Um. You know, I'd love to direct
Speaker 1: theater and that's kind of you know, those those projects
Speaker 1: are all in sort of germinating stages. And I had
Speaker 1: Tony shalubin here yesterday. He said he met you a
Speaker 1: few times. Really have you met him? Or was he
Speaker 1: thinking of someone else? He uh? He and I may
Speaker 1: have terrible memories. Okay, that's possible. I love Tony Shalub.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was great. It was very cool. It was
Speaker 1: Barton Fink was like the first thing I saw him
Speaker 1: in this one of my altimp faves, so totally. In fact,
Speaker 1: in fact, I have the kind of memory where if
Speaker 1: I had met someone that I really admire, I would
Speaker 1: not remember it because my brain would convince me that
Speaker 1: I I wouldn't be so lucky to have met him.
Speaker 1: That's funny. I have a pretty poor memory for a
Speaker 1: lot of things, but like when it comes to stuff
Speaker 1: like that, it's locked. See I can tell you the
Speaker 1: first American to to climb out Everest, who wasn't Jim
Speaker 1: Whittaker um or the or the first you know, the
Speaker 1: first person to climb it without the oxygen um ryin
Speaker 1: Hold Messner. But but I can't. You know, Yeah, wife's birthdays, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just sort of a mess of congratulations
Speaker 1: on getting married too. By the way, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Since i've seen you last that happened. Yeah, it's good. Huh.
Speaker 1: She's a lot smarter than me. Yeah, well that's that's
Speaker 1: what you should always do. Yeah, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: terrifying prospect um. So as far as you're like, you
Speaker 1: grew up in North Carolina, I did, right, No, No,
Speaker 1: I lived. I moved there when I was four. Okay,
Speaker 1: where are you born? I was born in outside of Oakland, California.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, so you end up in uh, what part
Speaker 1: of North Carolina? Was it? It was when I grew up.
Speaker 1: It was just outside of the Asheville city limits. This
Speaker 1: was pre cool hip Asheville. I just went last year.
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, and when I sure, but you know, hometowns
Speaker 1: are sort of you know, I have a sort of
Speaker 1: a love hate relationship with it because you sort of
Speaker 1: want you were you grew up outside of yeah, just
Speaker 1: outside of Atlanta, right, and you know you kind of
Speaker 1: want your hometown to stay like a little um, like
Speaker 1: a snow globe. You know, we live these crazy transient
Speaker 1: lives and everybody's changing, but you want this memory to
Speaker 1: stay completely fixed, and it's just it just doesn't. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's of course it doesn't. That's
Speaker 1: my fault for wanting to wanted it something to happen.
Speaker 1: That's impossible, but um. But yeah, I when I was there,
Speaker 1: you know, there was only one you know, the only
Speaker 1: music scene was like one trip concert a year. And
Speaker 1: the last time I went there, like well a few
Speaker 1: years ago. I went there and then like ghost Face
Speaker 1: Killer was playing. I was like, what the hell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like if we if we had this. But when
Speaker 1: I was there, you know, we would read the liner
Speaker 1: notes of a you know of of like physical graffiti
Speaker 1: or you know, another Leeds up on album, and we
Speaker 1: would just say like, who are these people? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it just seemed like they were making this music on
Speaker 1: Mars or something. It was just so far away from
Speaker 1: But same with movies, and same with actors, and same
Speaker 1: with directors, and you know the idea of being involved
Speaker 1: with that world was really just in fact, the idea
Speaker 1: didn't occur to you. Yeah, I've talked about that very
Speaker 1: thing on this Um. I've had friends that have that
Speaker 1: knew that. It seems like they almost had to have
Speaker 1: grown up in l A and maybe New York, but
Speaker 1: definitely l A to know that, like that's a job
Speaker 1: that you can go get. But for dudes like us
Speaker 1: that grew up in the South, in these kind of
Speaker 1: smaller southern cities, I didn't know that that was an
Speaker 1: option or even I mean, I guess, I guess one
Speaker 1: way it could happen is if you know your dad
Speaker 1: or mom had a friend who ran the community theater
Speaker 1: in the small town or something. But but I but
Speaker 1: my parents didn't know those people either. So even someone
Speaker 1: you know in the the small town version of the
Speaker 1: arts did, I didn't know those people. And um, my
Speaker 1: parents weren't even big movie or music people. Not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was on my own. My brother was obviously an
Speaker 1: older brother always helps o sibling. Yeah, but you need
Speaker 1: those influences. Yeah, otherwise you're just adrift. And and the
Speaker 1: times that you're adrift, you know, when you do you know,
Speaker 1: when I did discover Peter Greenaway, like on my own,
Speaker 1: you know, when I saw you know, when I saw
Speaker 1: the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover when
Speaker 1: I was I guess like eighteen, Yeah, I saw that
Speaker 1: in the theater. For some weird reason, I did too.
Speaker 1: Like that, when you find something like that on your own,
Speaker 1: you feel like this is mine, you know, like nobody
Speaker 1: knows about this, you can be the influencer. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that kind of stuff is a
Speaker 1: little more you know, it's little more hard one and
Speaker 1: it's a little more um, I guess it's a little
Speaker 1: more specialty because because nobody gave it to you, you you
Speaker 1: just kind of you kind of. But that was why
Speaker 1: I got into That was why I went to film
Speaker 1: schools because my I mean I've told this story before,
Speaker 1: but because my parents and I saw the piano. Oh
Speaker 1: really wow, and then you end up working with her.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's pretty amazing. Yeah, before the piano, it was
Speaker 1: I think I really didn't have any career. I just
Speaker 1: didn't have any career thoughts. I mean, it was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I just thought I would smoke pot and
Speaker 1: that would be whatever job that whatever job that is.
Speaker 1: And then after I saw the piano, it was it
Speaker 1: was really just like a light switch. Like before it
Speaker 1: was no film school, and then after it was you know,
Speaker 1: film school. So that was the North Carolina School of
Speaker 1: the Arts. Yeah, that's right. Wow. So before that, were
Speaker 1: you did Were you going to movies with your parents
Speaker 1: or friends? Do you have siblings that I do have
Speaker 1: an older brother, um My, we we liked we went
Speaker 1: to movies as a family. And I think we probably
Speaker 1: you know, if if if one is a family that
Speaker 1: doesn't go to movies at all together and ten is
Speaker 1: a movie Yeah, and ten was a family that went
Speaker 1: to like every movie together. We were probably like a
Speaker 1: A A four. Um. And but I do remember my
Speaker 1: dad taking me to see die Hard in Pretty Cool.
Speaker 1: That was and I was twelve, and that just ripped
Speaker 1: my brain open. And and uh, and I you know,
Speaker 1: in the list of questions that you sent me, you
Speaker 1: asked about R rated movies. And I don't remember my
Speaker 1: first R rated movie. But I did remember going to
Speaker 1: see I Harve and my dad and yeah, and then
Speaker 1: Good Fellas with my dad, and both of those were
Speaker 1: very um, well, you know, impactful, affecting. Yeah. So when
Speaker 1: you get to UM and we can get into however
Speaker 1: much of this you want to. But at North Carolina School,
Speaker 1: the arts is where is that where you met David,
Speaker 1: Gordon Green and um, Danny McBride and all those guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you were all just dudes in school together. We
Speaker 1: were all just duding dudes in school together. That's kind
Speaker 1: of crazy. Yeah, we were making short films together. Wow,
Speaker 1: I was you know, David. David was in my short film.
Speaker 1: I mean, we made many short films, but like you
Speaker 1: know one, David was one of in one of my
Speaker 1: short films. I was in his short film. I was
Speaker 1: in Danny short film. And actually Danny had made a
Speaker 1: short film that was a riff on back to the
Speaker 1: Future where I was wearing this, you know, this facsimile
Speaker 1: of of Marty's um the vest you know that everyone
Speaker 1: mistakes as a life life vest. But but yeah, we
Speaker 1: were all there and it's it's it's very strange too.
Speaker 1: I actually watched a really amazing documentary series recently about
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, it's it's about the like the
Speaker 1: the avalanche or a mountains services rescue team in Shamony
Speaker 1: in France, and it's just this great group of French
Speaker 1: guys and women and they get on helicopters and they
Speaker 1: save tourists that are like have fallen down these ice
Speaker 1: you know, chasms and U and I you know. And
Speaker 1: then the series ended and I realized another guy that
Speaker 1: we went to school like with produced it. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this guy named Brian Mandel. Yeah, that's crazy just to
Speaker 1: have that amount of talent come out of a smallish
Speaker 1: town one of the lesser uh known film schools probably
Speaker 1: well and when we were there was we were in
Speaker 1: the second class. What does that mean? Like it was
Speaker 1: ever yeah, like so when we graduated, we were in
Speaker 1: the second graduating class. So yeah, that's crazy. You know
Speaker 1: the movie I can't think of the name of it now,
Speaker 1: like A Dummings did and look it up. But the
Speaker 1: indie that I saw you and not too long ago
Speaker 1: they Goodbye to all that Yeah, yeah, with Heather Graham
Speaker 1: and so good. Yeah, and Angus McLaughlin who we shot
Speaker 1: that in in Winston Salem. Oh really who directed that?
Speaker 1: Angus McLaughlin. He wrote, um, fu, you gotta edit this.
Speaker 1: He wrote, uh, what's that's right? We can what's the
Speaker 1: movie with the one that Amy Adams got really famous?
Speaker 1: It's Alexandra Novola and it's like set in North Carolina
Speaker 1: about an art. Oh, June Bug. June Bug. Yeah, Angus
Speaker 1: wrote june Bug and then he uh, I believe this
Speaker 1: was his his directorial debut, that one based on his script. Well,
Speaker 1: and I've talked to UM. I do these smaller UM
Speaker 1: non interview shows now for this where I have a
Speaker 1: lot of interaction with like people from the listeners, like
Speaker 1: emails and top ten lists and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: I do a recommended viewing. And I did All the
Speaker 1: Real Girls for one of the installments. And still just
Speaker 1: one of the great great romance movies ever to me,
Speaker 1: such a sweet, genuine movie. Yeah, it really, I mean
Speaker 1: it's such a weird it's you know, it's like looking
Speaker 1: in your own It's like it's like it's like looking
Speaker 1: at your photo album with an audience. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: very I mean, you know, I have obviously, I've mixed
Speaker 1: feelings about it because you know, it's like I can't
Speaker 1: it's hard to get totally on board. I mean as
Speaker 1: a piece of sort of if I can view it
Speaker 1: as a piece of separate art, like yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: I like it for that reason. I also like it
Speaker 1: for the reason that it was just a group of
Speaker 1: friends and we're just trying to do this thing, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was really great. Um, but also it's
Speaker 1: kind of it's kind of tough to get it. You know.
Speaker 1: My memories of it were so you know, it was
Speaker 1: about such a horrible uh uh, you know, it was
Speaker 1: about such a horrible breakup in my early life, and
Speaker 1: you know, all the amount of emotion that was poured
Speaker 1: into it and pain that was poured into it, and
Speaker 1: and uh and maybe that's what makes it enjoyable for
Speaker 1: other people. But it's sort of you know when you
Speaker 1: when you make something, you know, when you kind of
Speaker 1: make something out of a a crappy situation, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's and people love people love it, and then
Speaker 1: you think like, oh that's great, but yeah, man, it
Speaker 1: was hard, was it? Yeah? Sure, yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 1: it was it was so real and everyone I think
Speaker 1: I think the reason why people love that movie is
Speaker 1: because you can just so identify with that raw emotion
Speaker 1: of being that age and just how important those first
Speaker 1: loves were. Yeah, you know, I mean there's nothing like it.
Speaker 1: You can go on your life and have a million relationships,
Speaker 1: but those first ones are just so impactful and raw
Speaker 1: because you don't know how to deal with any of
Speaker 1: those feelings yet, and the chemicals in your brain are
Speaker 1: like roaring all over the place. I mean it every
Speaker 1: day feels like a Mogwai song. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, missing missing a phone call, especially that you
Speaker 1: know in those days when there was you know, when
Speaker 1: there were no cell phones, you really must have you know,
Speaker 1: when somebody when you get home and your mom said
Speaker 1: some a young lady called it felt like it's like
Speaker 1: a Magway song did start in your head and you
Speaker 1: were like, what was her name? She's like, what does
Speaker 1: she sound like? I don't And You're like, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so funny, that's so true. All right, Well we
Speaker 1: can get the back to the future now. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I should tell everyone that the original not the original plan,
Speaker 1: but the plan that you hatched a couple of days
Speaker 1: ago was Hey, why don't you come over and watch
Speaker 1: it the night before, and I thought that was a
Speaker 1: great idea. But then you, very wisely, I think, said
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe, um, maybe we should not watch
Speaker 1: it together because then we'll be recreated, because there's no
Speaker 1: way we could have sat down and watched it and
Speaker 1: I talked about it, yeah, in real time. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I think I watched it last night and said a
Speaker 1: lot of the lines out loud, and I just, you
Speaker 1: know it, think it was better that I was, better
Speaker 1: that I was alone, Yeah, for sure. And I did too.
Speaker 1: So I like to think it's kind of funny that
Speaker 1: you and I were both in New York here. Let
Speaker 1: do you want to go through the questions first? Because
Speaker 1: I don't want to forget your questions because I like
Speaker 1: the idea of a beat. Yeah, because I like the
Speaker 1: idea of your like consistent you know, like consistent questions
Speaker 1: for each guest. I think that's great. Um. Also, I
Speaker 1: have a great first movie for you. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: then let's go into five questions. Was the first movie
Speaker 1: you remember seeing in the theater? Uh? The Elephant Man
Speaker 1: by David What? What's going on? This is a this
Speaker 1: is a true thing. Uh. It came out in when
Speaker 1: I was four, And this is right before we moved
Speaker 1: from California to North Carolina. UM, and my mom had
Speaker 1: she did daycare, so she brought a gang of us
Speaker 1: to the movie Song of the South, a movie that
Speaker 1: was rereleased in nineteen eighty and now banned because it's
Speaker 1: horrifyingly racist. But at that time it was Disney. Um,
Speaker 1: and we all know Disney is is lily white and
Speaker 1: pure and perfect, remember the re release for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when I worked in in Raleigh, North Carolina, do
Speaker 1: I worked in a tape duplication place, duping videotape and
Speaker 1: a lot of people wanted they wanted pale transfers to
Speaker 1: NTSC of Song of the South on videotape, So I
Speaker 1: would make up a lot of those transfers. But what
Speaker 1: happened is my mom took all the kids to uh
Speaker 1: the Song of the South, I think, not having any
Speaker 1: idea of its racist overtones. Um. And then I needed
Speaker 1: to use the restroom, and I remember was one of
Speaker 1: those early situations where uh, you have to go into
Speaker 1: the ladies restroom with your mom when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: and that's a little whatever, it's strange, and so uh
Speaker 1: we walked out of the restroom together and she, I
Speaker 1: guess wasn't paying attention, but I walked right into uh,
Speaker 1: The Elephant Man, which was playing in the theater next
Speaker 1: next to Song of This House. And I walked in
Speaker 1: and it was you know, it was black and white,
Speaker 1: and I was sitting I was standing there staring at
Speaker 1: the screen, and it was a moment where, uh, John
Speaker 1: Merrick is in the in the hospital and this nurse
Speaker 1: is bringing him up some tea and she sees him
Speaker 1: for the first time and she drops the the the
Speaker 1: the tea tray. And when I, as a four year old,
Speaker 1: saw his face and his hair and in you know,
Speaker 1: in a suit, the way he was addressed, I just
Speaker 1: you know, it was like, it's probably traumatizes. It was.
Speaker 1: It was really shocking, like my whole nervous system was
Speaker 1: kind of stopped. And to this day, strangely, it's sort
Speaker 1: of it's it's um, it's become something where the song
Speaker 1: Zippity Dude from Song of the South terrifies me. But
Speaker 1: I love the movie The Elephant Man. That's like it
Speaker 1: still is you know, you only you you have like
Speaker 1: a hundred top five films, well twenty top five films,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely one of those, but that song that
Speaker 1: conjures up fear still the song uh yeah, the song
Speaker 1: Zippity dudea um not unlike the Magician's Apprentice from Fantasia.
Speaker 1: Those kind of happy, happy sounding things are just like
Speaker 1: a broken carousel for me. Yeah, it's funny how those songs, Uh,
Speaker 1: whatever trauma is going on in your life when you're
Speaker 1: a kid, those songs years later. I have one from
Speaker 1: the BGS, How Deep Is Your Love? I had a
Speaker 1: very dark, scary day in elementary school. Uh one day
Speaker 1: and my father was my high school principle, ran into
Speaker 1: my dad's office crying and that song was on. So
Speaker 1: to this day, I mean, all these years later, that
Speaker 1: fucking song comes comes on and it just triggers something.
Speaker 1: It's like it's science in my body. I guess Oliver
Speaker 1: Sacks would have talked about how the song, the music
Speaker 1: would imprint deeper than the visuals, because when I'm gathering
Speaker 1: when I'm telling you that story, and I'm gathering together
Speaker 1: the visuals of what happened that, you know, the dress
Speaker 1: my mom is wearing, I know, is a dress I
Speaker 1: saw in a photograph of you know, like I'm sort
Speaker 1: of cobbling things together. But the feeling of the song
Speaker 1: is not cobbled together, it's it's in there. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: what was your first R rated movie? I don't know.
Speaker 1: What I do remember is somebody in a couple of
Speaker 1: neighborhoods over had HBO and Clan of the Cave Bear
Speaker 1: was playing. I never saw it, but the rumor around
Speaker 1: school was Darryl Hannah and her boobies were on We're
Speaker 1: on screen, um, and and I had I didn't like
Speaker 1: the guy who had HBO. But I tried to get
Speaker 1: involved in the sleepover that was happening, but I just
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I couldn't do it. Those early cable TV
Speaker 1: days were pretty special, totally. There's a lot of clandestine viewing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: late night viewing, even setting your alarm clock at midnight
Speaker 1: so you wake up exactly. But I do you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, die hard like we said. And Good Fellas
Speaker 1: was pretty massive. And there was a moment where I
Speaker 1: rented My mom loves a good mystery, and uh, she's
Speaker 1: also a very a very good Christian woman and delightfully
Speaker 1: so and so at the video store that I later
Speaker 1: worked at when I was a teenager, Ah, I convinced
Speaker 1: her to uh to rent the name of the rose
Speaker 1: based on the invererto echo right, and it's sort of
Speaker 1: like a monk as Sherlock Holmes. And she was like,
Speaker 1: this is great, you know, it's Jesus and the Lord.
Speaker 1: It's Sherlock Holmes coming together. Yeah. And what she didn't
Speaker 1: take into account was this insanely explicit sex scene between
Speaker 1: Christian Slater and this woman whose name I should have
Speaker 1: looked up. She was this beautiful I think she was
Speaker 1: an Italian actress that I'd never seen and have never
Speaker 1: seen again. Um, but she was this sort of peasant
Speaker 1: who who picked through the trash that the monastery throughout
Speaker 1: the back of their castle ball or something. And when
Speaker 1: she you know, ripped off Christian Slater's clothes, it was
Speaker 1: my first watching the sex scene with your mom situation.
Speaker 1: Nothing worse in the world as a as a young boy,
Speaker 1: as a nothing more uncomfortable. I don't know was it
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve or some somewhere in there, but it was,
Speaker 1: you know, you just lock up. That should companically yea
Speaker 1: completely and it was. And I think part of the
Speaker 1: panic was due to the the the you know, the
Speaker 1: battling forces of you know, titilation, you know, because blood
Speaker 1: is still rushing to your penis, whether you like it
Speaker 1: or not. Biology exactly. Science can't fight with science. And
Speaker 1: then your mom's sitting right there and um, and you
Speaker 1: hear her her hand moving more and more and more
Speaker 1: slowly to the popcorn bowl into her mouth, and finally
Speaker 1: it just she just stops eating popcorn and the chewing
Speaker 1: of her popcorn completely stops. And I, um, and I
Speaker 1: remember as I was looking at it, ah, well, two things.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to the bathroom or I act
Speaker 1: like I, oh, excuse me, mom, I just needed to,
Speaker 1: you know, use the rastroom. But I felt like I
Speaker 1: was would make more of a deal had I done
Speaker 1: that than I wanted to. And I thought, well, this
Speaker 1: will be over soon. It wasn't over soon. It was
Speaker 1: really explicit and incredible and um and and also uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you just wanted to stay completely still. But
Speaker 1: then you think, well that's not very natural. So you
Speaker 1: do like you so you stretcher, you yawn, but that
Speaker 1: seems very self conscious. And I remember at one point
Speaker 1: my mother said, um, after the chewing and the popcorn
Speaker 1: eating had stopped. I remember she said, um, she said,
Speaker 1: well that's very explicit. Yeah, And I didn't say anything
Speaker 1: and then and then it stopped, but I knew. I
Speaker 1: think I looked at the VCR like counter, you know,
Speaker 1: the time coach, that fake time code, and I had
Speaker 1: an idea where that scene was so that when she
Speaker 1: went to bed, you could rewatch it. And I think
Speaker 1: she even yeah, so I think I think she even
Speaker 1: like took the video cassette and like put it by
Speaker 1: the by her car keys or something like I'm taking
Speaker 1: this back immediately. Um. But of course I went back
Speaker 1: and watched it later that evening, and it was gorgeous
Speaker 1: and delightful and and well, it's good filmmaking. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful woman, it's a beautiful man. Everything was
Speaker 1: nice about it. Yeah, if your mom was like, um,
Speaker 1: my parents, that for them, that probably let them off
Speaker 1: the hook from ever having to talk to you about sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure she she checked some box in her head.
Speaker 1: I don't have to do that now. Uh. Number three,
Speaker 1: will you walk out of a bad movie? I will.
Speaker 1: I will walk out of a bad movie. And it's
Speaker 1: horrible today in New York because it's like a seventeen
Speaker 1: dollar situations. It's a loss. It's a it's a big loss. Um.
Speaker 1: Supposedly you can get your money back if not too
Speaker 1: much time has passed. I've heard really Paula Thompkins said
Speaker 1: that he's asked and that if it's within a certain
Speaker 1: time frame, then they'll they won't give your money back,
Speaker 1: but they'll give you a pass to come back. That
Speaker 1: Well that I did that with um god him blanket
Speaker 1: on the movie now it's it's that German film about
Speaker 1: the mother and the father and he come. It was
Speaker 1: like the best film of last year or something. It
Speaker 1: was Erama or footballs. Anyways, I did that recently at
Speaker 1: the soon to be closed Lincoln Plaza cinemas because there
Speaker 1: was nowhere to sit. Oh yeah, there there were seats
Speaker 1: at the you know and at the Vario Edges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and because the guys there have to deal with so
Speaker 1: many cranky septagenarian New Yorkers because it's like right there
Speaker 1: at Columbus, you know, it's it's a couple of blocks
Speaker 1: up from from Lincoln Center. Um, my friend and I
Speaker 1: just so politely and patiently, I'm you know, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to bother you about this, and they give us a pass.
Speaker 1: So actually, no, they did give us our money back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I didn't go back. What do you have you
Speaker 1: walked out of one lately that you just hated not lately?
Speaker 1: And I and I did, Um, I did try to
Speaker 1: remember the few that I have. I walked out of.
Speaker 1: The one that I remember from a long while ago
Speaker 1: was Strange Days, all right, Katherine Bigelow. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think I even saw that. I remember the movie. It
Speaker 1: was pretty bad. Yeah, and it was great too that
Speaker 1: that just must have been a missed up. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I don't know, I don't know where I am
Speaker 1: with Katherin Bigelow. Well, I thought the h and Zero
Speaker 1: Dark thirty were both great. I'll say that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you're definitely right. Um. But there was some There
Speaker 1: was a san in Strange Days where there was some
Speaker 1: kind of like there was some you know, sort of
Speaker 1: future hairnet you put on your head where you see
Speaker 1: through someone else's eyes who you know. I put on
Speaker 1: the hairnet and I see you looking at me in
Speaker 1: my brain, and uh, it was some sort of future
Speaker 1: contraption like this. And there was a woman, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, there was a woman being raped and this
Speaker 1: bad guy had stuck the hairnet on her, so she
Speaker 1: was seeing her own self being raped in her brain
Speaker 1: and eyes. That's and I just I just said, this
Speaker 1: is this is this is enough. By the same token,
Speaker 1: I saw it Irreversible for the fourth time last weekend,
Speaker 1: and I still think that's a brilliant, amazing movie. What
Speaker 1: is that It's gas bar and away Monica Blucci in
Speaker 1: a ten minute, horrifying rape scene, right. And And the
Speaker 1: reason I like that film so much is because I
Speaker 1: don't think it treats rape cheaply. It's so it's it's
Speaker 1: definitely the most visceral film I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: When they there was a murder on on on screen,
Speaker 1: I thought it was I thought to myself, Jesus, they've
Speaker 1: kidnapped someone and they've murdered a vagrant on on on screen.
Speaker 1: And I feel like in that film they treat these things.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you're gonna mess around with something like rape,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's either do it or not do it.
Speaker 1: You know, let's you can't go halfway on this. And
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason I was so offended
Speaker 1: by it in strange days was because he was going halfway,
Speaker 1: or they were going halfway well, and to use it
Speaker 1: as a as a plot device. Yeah, and and and
Speaker 1: in Irreversible. And there's lots of people that hate that
Speaker 1: film and I just don't care. But um, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what the whole movie is about. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna explore that subject, well then I should.
Speaker 1: It should be what the whole movie is about. We're
Speaker 1: making something else. And also, Monica Bluetoo deserved a fucking
Speaker 1: Academy Award for that movie because she I mean scraping
Speaker 1: cement and fingernails and bloody knees and you know, he said.
Speaker 1: Gas barn Away said that she had watched a lot
Speaker 1: of Deliverance and I spit on your grave And when
Speaker 1: she did this ten minute scene with this kickboxer who
Speaker 1: was the guy, um, I mean besides the nudity, I
Speaker 1: mean it was like every she was kind of throwing
Speaker 1: everything with his performance, and it was and to be
Speaker 1: one of the biggest stars in Europe and and in
Speaker 1: the world, especially at that time, I mean, I just
Speaker 1: haven't seen um, I haven't seen actors, definitely female actors. Um.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen anyone go for it like that in
Speaker 1: a physical way. I would like. I saw her. It
Speaker 1: was it was terrifying. I gotta check that out because certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly in films, we have this way of
Speaker 1: you know, we keep we keep the very beautiful actresses
Speaker 1: in a glass box on on film, and we kind
Speaker 1: of let the less attractive people kind of do the
Speaker 1: dirty work or do the stunts, or do the you know,
Speaker 1: the supporting role type stuff. You know, they're the ones
Speaker 1: who goes through the death scenes or have the gore
Speaker 1: splattered on or whatever. And this was Monica Blucci taking
Speaker 1: the whole film like by the throat and saying, no, no,
Speaker 1: I got this. And it was I don't know what
Speaker 1: year was that. It was the year No, no, it
Speaker 1: was two thousand one. Maybe it was the year that
Speaker 1: All the Real Girls was at Sundance, because I saw
Speaker 1: it At Sundance, people uh, somebody fainted, somebody threw up.
Speaker 1: An enormous amount of people walked out, and they didn't
Speaker 1: just walk out, they screamed obscenities at the screen. While
Speaker 1: they were walking out. The girl next to me sort
Speaker 1: of jumped over my legs and collapsed into the lap
Speaker 1: of What I came to understand was her boyfriend who
Speaker 1: was sitting on this side of me, Um, and spent
Speaker 1: the whole the whole rest of the movie sort of
Speaker 1: crying in his lap while he was like he was
Speaker 1: holding her and you know, staring at the screen. That's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was the nuttiest time I've had. And
Speaker 1: then and then of course after the screening, Guess Barnoy,
Speaker 1: you know, he stood on on stage and said, what's
Speaker 1: the big deal? You know that's all the European exactly. Uh,
Speaker 1: do you have guilty pleasure movies or a movie? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. If I don't guilty pleasure movies, I've
Speaker 1: got guilty pleasure to be. If I were to throw
Speaker 1: out some guilty pleasure movies, it would be like Sound
Speaker 1: of Music. But that is an incredible, incredible film. So
Speaker 1: it's not like yeah, yeah, that's that. But but what
Speaker 1: about guilty Pleasure TV? Then? But I what we watch
Speaker 1: a Sound of Music every Christmas, and then I think
Speaker 1: every time it's sort of maybe it's just a very
Speaker 1: that's not guilty, that's just a very pleasurable movie. Um.
Speaker 1: And I was I was thinking about this, and all
Speaker 1: of my stuff is like, to me, these are legitimate pleasures,
Speaker 1: but it's America's funniest videos. Um still yo, yeah yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I know I don't watch the Alfonso Roberto stuff. I
Speaker 1: watched Tom bergeron the o G. Well, no, Bob sag
Speaker 1: it was the o G and then it was John
Speaker 1: fuel sang in Daisy Forentez. Yeah, okay, so you go
Speaker 1: deep and well I go, I go just the Tom
Speaker 1: bergeron this sort of section and uh and so I
Speaker 1: do that. That's that's what I do. Um, and that
Speaker 1: that was like the one show that my all my
Speaker 1: family could get get on the pot. Yeah and uh
Speaker 1: and then I do um. Bud Greenspan made these Olympics
Speaker 1: documentaries for every like every for every Olympic games. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he still does them, and I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure how far they go back, but I
Speaker 1: just will turn on YouTube and grab one of these,
Speaker 1: like you know, the Calgary Winter Olympics, and it's like
Speaker 1: all the backstories of all the Olympics or all the Olympians. Um,
Speaker 1: you know this, you know check Skier and how her
Speaker 1: father passed away and he you know, all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and and how they they carried rocks up
Speaker 1: the mountain to train and all that stuff. And for
Speaker 1: some reason, definitely like sports documentaries are do it for me?
Speaker 1: Remember Wild Wild World of Sports when we were kids.
Speaker 1: That was just like appointment television on Sunday afternoons, and
Speaker 1: that's where as a kid we would be exposed to
Speaker 1: stuff that you had never seen before. And I felt
Speaker 1: like they always told a bit of a story to write. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It was like the prep story like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh that and and Great British Baking Show okay, oh
Speaker 1: those yeah that I love any kind of the I
Speaker 1: like the Kids Baking Championship. Yeah. I'm a big cooking
Speaker 1: show guy. Really yeah, top Chef yeah forever. Yeah, see
Speaker 1: I could. I had to do Great Great British because
Speaker 1: it's like it's so multiculty and everyone roots for each other.
Speaker 1: And you know that one of the winners was this
Speaker 1: beautiful young you know, a Muslim woman who you know
Speaker 1: with an English accent, and she's got four kids, and
Speaker 1: they showed her at home and every time someone gets,
Speaker 1: you know, voted off, they surround her or him with
Speaker 1: hugs and and it's not it's like the anti Gordon Ramsey.
Speaker 1: You know, there's not a lot of yelling or anything
Speaker 1: like that. And then and then it's so funny because
Speaker 1: they do all the competitions on the grounds of some
Speaker 1: Downton Abbey looking estate and so the b roll it's
Speaker 1: always like baby lambs and like or like drips of
Speaker 1: you know, do sort of coming off a blade of grass.
Speaker 1: Like it's so anti what America is right now. And
Speaker 1: uh and that is Yeah, when Fall hits, I just
Speaker 1: kind of rewatched all those seasons. I've heard that other
Speaker 1: people talk about the show. I need to I need
Speaker 1: to get into that. Well, now it's become something else.
Speaker 1: I mean, they change rations and so the first I
Speaker 1: think the first four seasons are kind of where um
Speaker 1: and that you know, they've got these two hosts, these
Speaker 1: two comedians mel and another woman whose name I can't remember,
Speaker 1: who are who just you know, and it's it's such
Speaker 1: an amazing mix of like soft and sweet English gentility
Speaker 1: plus like insane sexual innuendo. Yeah, it's just that it's
Speaker 1: like that that britt humor thing, you know, this very
Speaker 1: kind of like this kind of upright, upright presentation but
Speaker 1: with a little sort of dark underpinning. And then the
Speaker 1: craziest cookies you've ever seen in your life. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you get that Yeah, and then I head to
Speaker 1: the store sadly movie going one on one? What's your
Speaker 1: jam at the theater? Um? I wear a hoodie okay
Speaker 1: to block out sounds? Oh, you wear it during the movie? Yes,
Speaker 1: to make sure I don't hear any talking. Physically isolate yourself,
Speaker 1: I do. I do. Also. I also it kind of
Speaker 1: like cuts out the visual field, right, so I like
Speaker 1: just have the screen. And also people around you think,
Speaker 1: is that Paul Schneider or I don't think they just
Speaker 1: creep in a hood? I think I think they think
Speaker 1: it's just a creep in a hood. And they're right.
Speaker 1: If they said I was a creep in a hood,
Speaker 1: they would be more right than if they said I
Speaker 1: was Paul Schneider. I mean, deep inside, I feel more
Speaker 1: like a creepy hooded guy than I do. Like whoever
Speaker 1: Paul Schneider is. Um, are you by yourself or do
Speaker 1: you go with Do you shut out your wife and friends?
Speaker 1: Do they do they just? I mean I would say no,
Speaker 1: but you'd have to ask my wife and friends. But
Speaker 1: so you do it when you go with them though
Speaker 1: a little bit, yeah, because sometimes I'll tuck my ears
Speaker 1: out of the hood, so I don't miss any of
Speaker 1: the surround um. And that's either. Lately it's been a
Speaker 1: lot of um like cold water and sour patch kids. Um.
Speaker 1: If I feel like it, I can do some snow
Speaker 1: caps um. And a couple of times my wife and
Speaker 1: I have sat at the way back of the theater
Speaker 1: and brought in some boxed wine. Oh and popcorn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had an amazing screening of the live action Beauty
Speaker 1: and the Beast um and sat at the back and
Speaker 1: got drunk as a couple of ship house rats and
Speaker 1: eat you know, a popcorn and had the greatest time
Speaker 1: watching that. That's great sneaking in booze. And with the
Speaker 1: box wine, you don't have to cough loudly while you
Speaker 1: open a beer can. No, yeah, no, you just twist
Speaker 1: it right off and you're you know, you know shabli. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea because my wife and I can't um. Well,
Speaker 1: we have a kid now, so we never get two
Speaker 1: movies much anymore. But even before that, we would go
Speaker 1: to dinner and then you know, have a little wine
Speaker 1: at her and then she's not one. She's like after
Speaker 1: I've had she didn't want to drink in the movie.
Speaker 1: She's like, after I've had a glass of wine or two,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go sit in a movie there.
Speaker 1: I'll get tired, or I'll say we'll go or stop
Speaker 1: drinking is her thing, So we'll go to the We'll
Speaker 1: go to the theater where you can have the glass
Speaker 1: of wine. But that never worked either, And well now
Speaker 1: they have a lot of them. You know, all the
Speaker 1: theaters have food. And he was there, but that's also
Speaker 1: us walking to the movie theater. You know that, it's
Speaker 1: not like you have to drive blocks away. So that's
Speaker 1: why we like where we live. That's great. Uh, where
Speaker 1: are you guys? You in Brooklyn? No, h okay, that's
Speaker 1: what I thought. Alright, back to the future. Bring it
Speaker 1: all right, let's do this. I watched it last night
Speaker 1: again for the I don't even know how many times.
Speaker 1: I assume the same is probably true for you. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a damn near perfect movie. And I did see
Speaker 1: where USC Film School uh rots it out as the
Speaker 1: perfect screenplay and their classes. Um, so let's talk about it,
Speaker 1: which to me means oftentimes that I won't like it
Speaker 1: because it's if it's the if it's the perfect screenplay,
Speaker 1: because when I was in film school and I was
Speaker 1: watching movies like Mike Lee's Naked and uh, keys lov
Speaker 1: Skis the Three Colors Trilogy and yeah totally and um
Speaker 1: and or Peter Greenaway or whatever, I felt like for
Speaker 1: something to be good, they had to be vaguely negative.
Speaker 1: You know. It was sort of like they had to
Speaker 1: be sort of dark and talking about serious things and
Speaker 1: that's what made them good and smart. Couldn't be just
Speaker 1: a big Hollywood feel good fundment, right and then and
Speaker 1: of course I saw you know, Back to the Future
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and it was great, and
Speaker 1: then I didn't see it for many years. And then
Speaker 1: I saw it after film school, and I start sarted
Speaker 1: to get into the idea of like the science of
Speaker 1: plotting and the science of you know, you take Joseph
Speaker 1: Campbell and then you lay in math and then you
Speaker 1: get you know, you get you know, inside in incidents
Speaker 1: and lock ins and second act breaks and you know,
Speaker 1: um um, these elements that when I was when I
Speaker 1: was younger, I thought were sort of you know that
Speaker 1: that's too prescriptive and it's too formulaic, and it's just
Speaker 1: not you know, that doesn't create a pleasurable experience for me.
Speaker 1: And also the subject matter has to be dark for
Speaker 1: it to be good. And and then when I saw
Speaker 1: Back to the Future later, I kind of really got
Speaker 1: into and started to admire, like the science and the
Speaker 1: math of amazing plotting. And then it was so tight
Speaker 1: it's it's last night. I I I was thinking about
Speaker 1: how many clocks there are in the movie. I never
Speaker 1: thought about that before. Obviously it begins, yeah, obviously that,
Speaker 1: But then, um, you know when when he you know,
Speaker 1: when he oversleeps, when he's headed out to meet Doc Brown,
Speaker 1: you know, at the Twin Pines Mall to see the
Speaker 1: DeLorean for the first time, there's a clock at the mall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a and there's a clock on his like
Speaker 1: a an alarm clock on his um on his bed
Speaker 1: as he wakes up and goes, oh, shoot, I'm late
Speaker 1: or whatever. And actually there was another moment last night
Speaker 1: where he pulls out the video camera to start recording
Speaker 1: Doc explain, you know, the DeLorean and the flux can
Speaker 1: pastor or whatever, and uh and actually Marty looks at
Speaker 1: his watch and he shakes it, this little digital Washington
Speaker 1: shakes it as if it's not working. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just all over. Yeah. So they were really toying
Speaker 1: with the idea of time and and at the end,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that interrupts Doc from
Speaker 1: fixing the wire that connects to you know, the lightning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the pole to the thing. It's the it's the the
Speaker 1: alarm or the bell of the clock tower, and it's
Speaker 1: it's ringing and he can't hear anything. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: all over. I just I mean, if you see I
Speaker 1: think part of the enchantment of the Sea dance. I think,
Speaker 1: if I'm not wrong, it might pull out from the
Speaker 1: clock face. At some point, there's you know, of course,
Speaker 1: and then there's George McFly looking at his his watch,
Speaker 1: going I'm late to save Lorraine from this fake right,
Speaker 1: fake assault, right, which turns out to be a real assault,
Speaker 1: which turns out to be super insanely um serious and
Speaker 1: and man like. When when I was a kid, it's
Speaker 1: just seems so light, but now when you see things
Speaker 1: to adult eyes, that scene, yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: an attempted rape, totally and scary. Well. I I remember
Speaker 1: when I was a kid seeing it and thinking, um,
Speaker 1: seeing seeing it and thinking this is really bad and
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't grasp exactly what's going on, but
Speaker 1: especially when Leah Thompson leans up and says, George help me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's really panicked totally and and at that moment, and
Speaker 1: it's like last night when I watched it, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is really serious, Like this is this is really bad, um,
Speaker 1: And I'm surprised that I that that it was. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was treated lightly back then, but I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know if they would film it the
Speaker 1: same way now. Probably not. Yeah, Yeah, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Anytime you go back and watch movies from
Speaker 1: the eighties, uh through today's lens, there can be problematic, sure,
Speaker 1: but there was that. And of course the The White
Speaker 1: Man really discovers rock and roll, Chuck Berry copies him, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure at the time they just thought, what
Speaker 1: a clever little thing here, this is how Chuck Berry
Speaker 1: got his thing, and they don't think about, oh wait
Speaker 1: a minute, what are we saying here really, or Goldie Wilson.
Speaker 1: It was a very sort of step and fetch it
Speaker 1: stereotyped black character with a gold tooth, and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of I'm going to clean up this town, and
Speaker 1: that was sort of like, it was surprising to see
Speaker 1: that character so one dimensional when all the other guys
Speaker 1: were fully realized and definitely pretty pretty lame way to
Speaker 1: do that. And the Libyan terrorists in their p W butts,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, that could drive as fast as a DeLorean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and well whatever that. You know, obviously terrorism is
Speaker 1: a whole another deal. But part of the reason I
Speaker 1: liked um I liked well, what when I was thinking
Speaker 1: about it last night, I was thinking, why is this
Speaker 1: thing so enjoyable? And I think part of what I
Speaker 1: came up with is seeing doubles. Yeah, Like we see
Speaker 1: one version in and we see one version for almost everything,
Speaker 1: even the dog Einstein, who would never live for thirty years,
Speaker 1: but we see a puppy in you. And I think
Speaker 1: in general, there's like this deep sort of brains sort
Speaker 1: of reptilian brain stems satisfaction in seeing growth and decay
Speaker 1: in time. We see you know, the the you know,
Speaker 1: the pediments of um Um of the lion estates, the
Speaker 1: concrete line estates. In the future they're kind of crumby,
Speaker 1: and in the past they're bright and shined up. And
Speaker 1: and obviously the same is true with the town and
Speaker 1: we see how people have turned out, and just like
Speaker 1: we see um, you know, just like when we see
Speaker 1: YouTube videos some father taking a photograph of his daughter
Speaker 1: the first day of school for eighteen years, right, and
Speaker 1: there's there's it's some it must be some deep human
Speaker 1: enjoyment of seeing time pass um and sort of seeing
Speaker 1: how things work out. And and you know that that
Speaker 1: movie gives us a real thirty year jump. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't have to wait thirty years to see how
Speaker 1: George turns out or Lorraine turns out or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing these things through Marty, and he's
Speaker 1: just as kind of blown away as we would be
Speaker 1: if we, you know, if we were in that situation.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's something in like seeing doubles and
Speaker 1: seeing time pass in an instant well, and obviously backwards
Speaker 1: and forwards. But I mean like, if that's your sort
Speaker 1: of central core idea, then I think it's automatically enjoyable
Speaker 1: to a human being. Yeah, and it's there's uh I forget,
Speaker 1: I forgot what a magical feeling it was. As soon
Speaker 1: as he uh, he crashes into the barn, gets shot at, leaves,
Speaker 1: ditches the DeLorean and walks into town and right when
Speaker 1: he comes around that corner when Mr Sandman started, it's
Speaker 1: like it was magic. It was like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: like you're right, Like he goes back to the glory
Speaker 1: days of that town before it was graffitied up and
Speaker 1: there was the porno theater I think multiple porno Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, sure,
Speaker 1: uh and yeah, it's it was a magical experience even
Speaker 1: as an adult watching that when he comes around and
Speaker 1: you hear that bum bum bum bum bum, because I
Speaker 1: think we all sort of idealize that time. But what
Speaker 1: he what he learned was it was mom drinks and
Speaker 1: mom will get into a car and make out with
Speaker 1: a guy. And it wasn't idealized under once he once
Speaker 1: he scratched the surface, you know know. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: interesting because sort of people have obviously, people have all
Speaker 1: the I mean, I mean, clearly people have all the
Speaker 1: problems you know now that they did then and then
Speaker 1: as they do now. But um, but there was a
Speaker 1: real I don't know if this is a real term,
Speaker 1: but I always think of it as like psychological logic.
Speaker 1: Like as much as they didn't draw the Goldie Wilson
Speaker 1: character correctly, they drew so many other characters correctly. And
Speaker 1: I remember I just wrote a note, so I wouldn't
Speaker 1: I wouldn't forget it, Oh right, right right, So like
Speaker 1: the psychological logic of when Larraine, when when Marty's back
Speaker 1: in at the very beginning of the movie and he
Speaker 1: comes home and they slapped down Uncle Joey's you know,
Speaker 1: parole cake with that sound effect that is really it's
Speaker 1: always been really jarring to me, that whack the metal
Speaker 1: pan on that table. Yeah. Um, there's a real logic
Speaker 1: to when Lorraine describes the night she met George. Um,
Speaker 1: she talks about him having been hit by the car
Speaker 1: and then her father bringing him and bringing him in,
Speaker 1: and she says he was like a little lost puppy.
Speaker 1: He was so helpless. And that is not the makings
Speaker 1: of a good marriage. People don't start great marriages with
Speaker 1: that first attraction being of of something that is helpless.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't. And and you and it, and it
Speaker 1: makes sense that they'd be kind of in this kind
Speaker 1: of fracturess laborious, drunken relationship, or at least her her
Speaker 1: half of it was drunk um. That raised a couple
Speaker 1: of sort of you know annoying kids, and you know,
Speaker 1: a father who's totally withdrawn living in the past through
Speaker 1: Jackie Gleeson and everything else. And of course, in the
Speaker 1: same way that that same woman, Lorraine, who who friendly,
Speaker 1: you know, needed some kind of feeling of protection. She
Speaker 1: got it from George and the second version of the
Speaker 1: past when he said to Biff, no, if you leave
Speaker 1: her alone. And then and what did he do. He
Speaker 1: punched her out, or punched Biff out, and then he
Speaker 1: brought Yeah, definitely, and Crispin, I mean Crispin Glover's performance
Speaker 1: we could talk about for an hour. But he punches
Speaker 1: Biff and he's looking at his hand and he's going yeah,
Speaker 1: and then he turns back to Lorraine who's on the ground,
Speaker 1: and Leah Thompson is looking looks gorgeous and that you
Speaker 1: know in those moments, and he um. He turns to
Speaker 1: her and he stops his his sort of heavy I
Speaker 1: can't believe what I just did breathing, and he goes,
Speaker 1: are you okay? You know, and and he's sort of
Speaker 1: he's just enough of a hero, like you're not going
Speaker 1: to take that guy and turn him into into John McClean.
Speaker 1: He it's a believable version of hero, and he's just
Speaker 1: as amazed that he did what he did as as
Speaker 1: as his schoolmates are when they run up and say,
Speaker 1: was that George mcfive. Yeah, I mean it's a little
Speaker 1: ham fisted, but also very sweet when it's is that George?
Speaker 1: You ever thought about running for class president? Yeah? For sure,
Speaker 1: But I mean that punch was that was what changed
Speaker 1: the future and set up that perhaps the most satisfying
Speaker 1: ending in movie history. Totally Uh well, we'll we'll get
Speaker 1: to that in a second. But um, but that that
Speaker 1: and there was another moment that I saw last night,
Speaker 1: or that I've seen forever, but I love at the beginning,
Speaker 1: right when Marty meets George, the young version of George,
Speaker 1: and the diner at the diner um and Biff comes
Speaker 1: in with Billy Zane and I didn't realize it was
Speaker 1: Billy's anti last night. Yeah, and Casey size Maco and
Speaker 1: the other actor who's who's I'm sure as brilliant and
Speaker 1: a great person whose name I can't remember, but they, um,
Speaker 1: they you know, Biff starts bullying George about you know,
Speaker 1: him having to you know, recopy some some reports he
Speaker 1: was going to play giarize um and uh and the
Speaker 1: guy in the back with the you know, with the
Speaker 1: cut off fingered gloves, he says to be if like,
Speaker 1: look at this guy, he's like, you know, he looks
Speaker 1: like he's in the navy here, what's with his life preserve?
Speaker 1: And so Biff turns to him, and the whole gang's
Speaker 1: focuses back onto Marty and they're kind of the there's
Speaker 1: like a moment of making fun of Marty. And in
Speaker 1: that moment when they cut back to Biff, Crispin Glover
Speaker 1: as George is also making fun of Marty. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what a dorky guy. And it was the perfect right,
Speaker 1: It's the perfect moment of like, this guy is the
Speaker 1: victim and now the focus of the bullies and the
Speaker 1: gangs are on someone else. And what does he become.
Speaker 1: He becomes his own version of a bully, just he's
Speaker 1: desperate to get to not be a victim. Man, I
Speaker 1: never noticed that. Oh man, it's the great I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's Bob Zemeckis or Crispin Glover or what,
Speaker 1: but it was such the most real, like that's the
Speaker 1: psychological logic that I don't that I don't see in
Speaker 1: Hollywood A ton and I certainly don't see in those
Speaker 1: you know, very formulaic screenplays A ton and Um, I
Speaker 1: just didn't. Uh again, I don't know if it's Crispin
Speaker 1: or Zemeckis, but oh man, it was like to me
Speaker 1: and and for and for an audience member, I see that,
Speaker 1: I see that serious, sort of scalpel lesque version of
Speaker 1: truthful behavior, and I can believe sort of the rest
Speaker 1: of the movie. You know, I'm on board with so
Speaker 1: much of the rest of the movie based on a
Speaker 1: couple really seriously observed moments. I'm sort of on board
Speaker 1: with kind of whatever they do, and of course what
Speaker 1: happens is great, but but they can make mistakes along
Speaker 1: the way, I'd still be on board. Yeah. Another moment
Speaker 1: that I thought was really kind of subtle, as that
Speaker 1: you see differently as adults is when at the end
Speaker 1: when Marty says, you know, if I only had more time,
Speaker 1: I could go back and save doc. I got a
Speaker 1: time machine ten minutes all to do it. And as
Speaker 1: an adult, I'm thinking, oh my god, give yourself ten hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the day before, like, why do you want to cut
Speaker 1: it that close? So I was laughing at that, but
Speaker 1: then I thought, no, you know what, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old kid would do. Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: don't think in those terms at sixteen you would because
Speaker 1: I never noticed that when I saw it as a kid,
Speaker 1: I probably thought, yeah, ten minutes is great, Yeah, plenty
Speaker 1: of times, plenty of time to save him from Libby
Speaker 1: and terrorists. And I don't remember that the last time
Speaker 1: I did this, the car cut out and I couldn't
Speaker 1: get it started, right, you don't consider those things, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I just now, you know, And and just after
Speaker 1: he types that in the car wouldn't start us, clearly
Speaker 1: a problem with the car start. Well, and that's that's
Speaker 1: that's that's that's the true of DeLorean. Well yeah, that's right, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: But there were so many little like the car not
Speaker 1: starting them at the end, DOC not being able to
Speaker 1: plug in the thing. Like just when you think all right,
Speaker 1: they've got it, Zamkas throws one more little wrench in
Speaker 1: the plan. And all that does is just ramp up
Speaker 1: the tension and the stakes. And as a fifteen year old,
Speaker 1: you don't know that's what's happening. You just know you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, not that, not that right? And and
Speaker 1: of course the lightning scene is is my wife actually
Speaker 1: came in and we we you know, like that scene
Speaker 1: was on and it's just like it's undeniably tense, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it just keeps on working. And I think
Speaker 1: part of the reason it works so well is because
Speaker 1: all the all the moments of ratching, all the moments
Speaker 1: of tension being ratching it up are realistic. You know.
Speaker 1: Of course, the branch comes down, and you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's it's it's there's not really a
Speaker 1: jump into unrealistic action. I mean, maybe the one moment
Speaker 1: is when he drops that connector and it rips into
Speaker 1: his pants. Maybe that's a little hard, but like you said,
Speaker 1: you're already on board, right because because other things seem
Speaker 1: to realistic. Um, which makes me think you know, the
Speaker 1: other thing that made made me really you know, I
Speaker 1: think admire that film once I started acting in films,
Speaker 1: was this idea of um, the courage it takes for
Speaker 1: especially Christopher Lloyd and Crispin Glover to be so out
Speaker 1: there in their performances before they knew that the that
Speaker 1: that out their style of acting would fit into this movie. Yeah, Crisp,
Speaker 1: I mean the casting of Crispin Glover and that performance
Speaker 1: just gave it enough weirdness totally, you know, But the
Speaker 1: movie it's you know, like I I you know, when
Speaker 1: I'm making films, I'm always not sure at the beginning,
Speaker 1: like is it, you know, is this small realistic acting?
Speaker 1: Is this kind of does this have a mumble core
Speaker 1: vibe or is that what we're doing? Or is this
Speaker 1: you know, is this um you know, you know Charlie
Speaker 1: and the Chocolate Factory. I mean, are we like really
Speaker 1: out there? Can we do anything? Or are we or
Speaker 1: can't we? And you know there are moments in you know,
Speaker 1: there's Robertson Here's performance in Cape Fear the remake. He's
Speaker 1: so out there and his Southern accent is so bad.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, I'm into it, like I buy
Speaker 1: it for some reason, and he knew how far to
Speaker 1: push it, and I'm I'm really interested in performances like
Speaker 1: Christopher Lloyd's and Crispin Glovers where they can push it
Speaker 1: as like like as far as they can to the
Speaker 1: edge of a realistic performance and then they stop. Whereas
Speaker 1: that another actor who was maybe less ballsy, sort of
Speaker 1: keep it, keep it in the middle somewhere because they
Speaker 1: weren't sure what style of movie was around them, right.
Speaker 1: So when when we meet Christopher Lloyd and he says, Marty, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's like if I was on set and
Speaker 1: I saw that, I'd be like, oh man, this guy
Speaker 1: is going back way too far right exactly, And same
Speaker 1: with Crispin Glover. But those guys are so locked in
Speaker 1: and it's almost like the movie itself sort of rose
Speaker 1: up to meet their performance. Um. I mean, granted, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a time machine movie, so you know, obviously
Speaker 1: there's some some room to play well. And they got
Speaker 1: to shoot a lot of that twice though, because you
Speaker 1: know the Eric Stolts thing. Yeah, I mean they shot
Speaker 1: five weeks. Um. If you listen to the Thomas Wilson
Speaker 1: the guy played off, he will say that they shot
Speaker 1: most of the movie. I don't think that's quite true.
Speaker 1: But uh, I did think it's interesting and I have
Speaker 1: seen have you seen some of the footage. Definitely freaky,
Speaker 1: you see, but I think it's interesting to get a
Speaker 1: redo for the other actors. Uh. And what if that
Speaker 1: changed anything on their end? You know? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially if they saw any of the dailies, which I
Speaker 1: bet they didn't. But um, I mean the idea of
Speaker 1: a redo is. I mean, that's I would be incredible
Speaker 1: as an actor to be able to oh man, because
Speaker 1: all I mean, all you do after or all I
Speaker 1: do when I'm done acting is um, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks go by and then I just you know,
Speaker 1: I just think like I could have done that better,
Speaker 1: or I think natural Yeah, yeah, but it's it's surprising
Speaker 1: to me sometimes, you know, when you perform, how you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was in this Janumo film, uh, Flowers
Speaker 1: of War, I was. I was in it for like
Speaker 1: thirty seconds. But when we shot it, um, it was
Speaker 1: Christian Aileen. I in a scene and the English translation
Speaker 1: of the Chinese script was it was just kind of
Speaker 1: wonky and it just didn't It was like a literal
Speaker 1: translation which is not which doesn't work. And I asked
Speaker 1: Jenumo sort of politely, I said, hey, can I can
Speaker 1: I monkey around with the script a little bit? This
Speaker 1: doesn't sound American at all? And he said, what does
Speaker 1: monkey around me? Exactly? Exactly exactly. I know. His daughter
Speaker 1: is his sort of translator and assistant and editor, and
Speaker 1: she's just this, you know, really super intelligent, capable woman
Speaker 1: and um, and so Christian Bale and I sat down
Speaker 1: and kind of scooched the script around, at least this
Speaker 1: English part of the script around, and we kind of
Speaker 1: came up with what we were going to say, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes before we shot it. And the budget on
Speaker 1: this thing was insane. Um. You know, there were a
Speaker 1: hundred extras as dead bodies as I'm running through the
Speaker 1: streets of this doubt, you know, uh Chinese village. And
Speaker 1: it was amazing to me that we had sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, not written the script, but we've sort of
Speaker 1: come up with the script or that scene minutes before
Speaker 1: we shot it. We shot it on a steady cam
Speaker 1: um with this hot shot operator. I think we had
Speaker 1: just done Old Boys. So everyone was I really wished
Speaker 1: that I really, I really wanted to have some I
Speaker 1: wanted some to get some stories for him, but he
Speaker 1: was clearly busy. Um. But you know, we did it. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we probably did it four four times on
Speaker 1: my side, we probably did it four times on Christian side.
Speaker 1: And that was it. And it's it's it's crazy that
Speaker 1: most of the time while I'm acting, I'm doing something
Speaker 1: for basically the first time ever in my life as
Speaker 1: someone who I'm not ever supposed to have been, and
Speaker 1: we're filming it and that's pretty much it. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: So every movie is like me getting on the you know,
Speaker 1: the pictures mound during the World Series. I've never pitched before.
Speaker 1: And then it feels like the next movie is like
Speaker 1: me in the NBA Championship. I've never played basketball before,
Speaker 1: you know, and then it's like the finals of Wimbledon.
Speaker 1: I'm not a tennis player. You know. It feels like
Speaker 1: every movie is me doing something for the first time
Speaker 1: at the highest level. Are kind of with the most
Speaker 1: nerves attached, and you kind of have to to just
Speaker 1: kind of do it. Yeah. That doesn't sound to me though,
Speaker 1: like like a typical actors in security though, that sounds
Speaker 1: like something different, almost like you just have to have
Speaker 1: faith of saying, all right, well, this is this is
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. I'm want to try to throw
Speaker 1: a fastball. Yeah. And and I obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: it is is kind of learning how to look like
Speaker 1: you know how to do something. And because I edited,
Speaker 1: I studied editing in film school. I I mean, the
Speaker 1: acting thing is very kind of late coming, and I
Speaker 1: didn't really mean to do it. But um, because I
Speaker 1: spent so much time editing performances in film school, you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of learn how much, ah, how much power
Speaker 1: you have in changing or or um or improving a performance,
Speaker 1: secure a secure feeling. Yeah, definitely. So I think in
Speaker 1: that respect, when I'm acting, I'm sort of into the
Speaker 1: idea of kind of giving someone options, I mean, options
Speaker 1: that are within the bandwidth of what I think is
Speaker 1: realistic for this character in this situation. But I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, when I when I hear awards, acceptance speeches
Speaker 1: or people refer to some you know, supreme authorship of
Speaker 1: their performance, I think to the actor, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I always want to see the shot of the editor
Speaker 1: when you know, when an actor is getting an oscar
Speaker 1: saying yeah exactly, and they say like, I couldn't have
Speaker 1: done this without X, Y and Z, and I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to. I want to think to myself, like,
Speaker 1: you absolutely couldn't have done this without the editor. You know,
Speaker 1: like you think the editor no, and that they should
Speaker 1: thank costuming and hair and makeup and directing, but they
Speaker 1: never thank the editor. But I would say, I mean
Speaker 1: all that stuff is as clearly it's legit and a
Speaker 1: big deal. But there's nobody in the in the filmmaking
Speaker 1: process that's spending more time staring at you and your
Speaker 1: body and your ticks and your mannerisms and your behaviors
Speaker 1: endlessly than the editor. Yeah, like stressing over individual frames
Speaker 1: of film aims you see as good as possible. Right,
Speaker 1: So this person has seen like the pixels of your performance.
Speaker 1: And what do you do? You thank the producer or
Speaker 1: the studio exactly. And I mean, obviously that's about getting
Speaker 1: your next job, and I understand that, but I mean
Speaker 1: as far as as far as what who's really making
Speaker 1: your performance happen, it's you and the editor, not even
Speaker 1: the director. You know, the directors there is they're sort
Speaker 1: of you know, they're they're you know they are. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're um, they're kind of a passenger on your
Speaker 1: particular journey. UM, and they're helpful to point in certain directions,
Speaker 1: but you're you have to get there. And that that
Speaker 1: brings me back to Michael J. Fox and how you
Speaker 1: know how a lot of times the lead character, like
Speaker 1: we've talked about, has to sort of he has to
Speaker 1: be bland, you know, to be able to glom onto
Speaker 1: as an audience member and go on his journey. He
Speaker 1: can't be too specific. I thought Marty was very specific,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously not quite as sort of out there
Speaker 1: as Christopher Lloyd or or Crispin Glover or Thomas Wilson um.
Speaker 1: But he was in no way bland. And I think
Speaker 1: part of what I really enjoyed about his performance, like
Speaker 1: like after I watched it again last night, was the
Speaker 1: physicality of it. He is sprinting from one scene to
Speaker 1: the next. He is playing guitar, and when he plays, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously he didn't play guitar, but he learned
Speaker 1: the chords apparently to Johnny be Good, so he was
Speaker 1: he was sinking along with the chords. And I also
Speaker 1: respect a movie where the drummer because I used to
Speaker 1: play drums, the drummers were both drummers were on point.
Speaker 1: The drummer for the Pinheads at the beginning where Hummy
Speaker 1: Lewis is one of the judges. He was playing the
Speaker 1: drums properly, and then the drummer for um Marvin Barry
Speaker 1: and the Starlighters. There you go. Um, he was on it.
Speaker 1: But but Michael J. Fox is jumping off of the amp,
Speaker 1: landing on his knees, you know, sliding on his knees
Speaker 1: when he when he sees Um Biff sort of slide
Speaker 1: off the back of UM. I guess it's probably Doc
Speaker 1: Brown's car that he borrowed, right, So when he slides
Speaker 1: off the back of Doc Brown's car after George just
Speaker 1: punched him out, UM Marty's and then the people behind
Speaker 1: him say, you know, is that is that George McFly
Speaker 1: and um. When Michael J. Fox sort of realizes what
Speaker 1: time it is and sort of busts through this crowd
Speaker 1: of extras to go get the guys to get back
Speaker 1: on stage. He sort of climbs over this one woman's
Speaker 1: like for you know, mink stole or whatever she has on,
Speaker 1: and really he pushes them out of the way. That's
Speaker 1: just not something that happens on a movie set. You
Speaker 1: don't sort of grapple with the extras. He's a flip
Speaker 1: over a lady at one point too, onto the sidewalk
Speaker 1: um where he like he bombs into her and sort
Speaker 1: of like he runs into her with the skateboard. Now,
Speaker 1: I can't remember which part it was, but it struck
Speaker 1: me as well of like how he kind of went
Speaker 1: for it physically totally as a but well, like if
Speaker 1: I'm if I'm running through a bunch of extras, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm a bad actor, but like I don't, I don't
Speaker 1: sort of check them with my shoulder as I'm going
Speaker 1: past them. But he I mean, but it makes total sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy is you know, the stakes used
Speaker 1: to be that he would be stuck in That sucks.
Speaker 1: But then once once he starts seeing his brother and
Speaker 1: sister disappear, he's his life. His life is threatened, and
Speaker 1: so that whole formulaic script, those whole like you know,
Speaker 1: the math of a great script. You know, you have
Speaker 1: to have the same goal, but the stakes of that
Speaker 1: goal have to keep rising, and the strategy for which
Speaker 1: you achieve that goal has to change. According to um
Speaker 1: the skills that you've learned along the way, and the
Speaker 1: only way you're going to completely achieve the goal is
Speaker 1: if you can finally do at the end what you
Speaker 1: were scared of at the beginning. That's like deeply Joseph
Speaker 1: Campbell ship, well, yeah, and at the beginning the pinheads fail.
Speaker 1: Right at the end, he succeeds as a musician if
Speaker 1: he didn't know how to play guitar because it's just
Speaker 1: so perfectly set up totally with Marvin hurting his hand,
Speaker 1: so Marty has to literally save himself and his life
Speaker 1: by getting his parents to kiss. And even when even
Speaker 1: there you think, alright, great, he's playing guitar, they're gonna kiss,
Speaker 1: Zemeckis throws that dickhead in there who breaks in and
Speaker 1: so this is my dance or whatever? Can I cut
Speaker 1: in just another little level of oh my god, will
Speaker 1: you plead? Like yeah? And I realized so scared that
Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna happen. Yeah, the red haired kid bothers me,
Speaker 1: maybe as much as Biff bothers me um as an actor. Well,
Speaker 1: just because he comes in at that moment of like
Speaker 1: a moment of high stress. I mean like he sort
Speaker 1: of adds like the top layer of sweat on my
Speaker 1: forehead in that scene. And I realized last night he
Speaker 1: was one of the three kids who was kicking Crispin
Speaker 1: Glover in the butt in the hallway when he had
Speaker 1: to kick me sign on his back and Strickler Strickland
Speaker 1: guys name, um, he said, you know he you know,
Speaker 1: he grabbed the sign off his back and said, you know,
Speaker 1: get your ship together. But he but the red Haired
Speaker 1: kid was one of those least I don't think I
Speaker 1: realized that any old man. And he had that laugh
Speaker 1: and the and Alan's Sylvestry's music at that point was
Speaker 1: just like at its crescendo. Um, yeah, like that that's
Speaker 1: the last scene, you know, that scene and then the
Speaker 1: one leading up to the lightning bolt scene. It's just
Speaker 1: like if you're falling asleep, which you shouldn't anyways, but
Speaker 1: like if you're falling asleep and in that screening you're awake,
Speaker 1: then yeah, it's just so expertly put together. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then that ending, of course, satisfying ending in n and
Speaker 1: then I just remember being fifteen or whatever, um when
Speaker 1: did'st and um, when the future had changed and his
Speaker 1: parents had money and he had that money ruck and
Speaker 1: Biff was the car waxer. Uh. It just doesn't get
Speaker 1: any better than that. Even though seeing it as an adult,
Speaker 1: I thought, why is his brother having at home? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And it suits so you know, of course now I
Speaker 1: thought that was kind of fun, but um, it's just
Speaker 1: such a satisfying ending for a kid to see, and
Speaker 1: as an adult because I think all kids think like
Speaker 1: especially if you become like you know, we did, like
Speaker 1: little middle middle class kids like man, I wanted the
Speaker 1: shiny truck. I didn't want the hand me down Volkswagen Beetle. No. Um.
Speaker 1: I was happy to have it or the or the ninety. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what was great is that, like during the opening
Speaker 1: sequence of the clocks and the dog food and the
Speaker 1: plutonium and all that stuff, there was a you know,
Speaker 1: during that kind of Rube Goldberg machine, the robot arm
Speaker 1: or whatever. At some point the um, the radio gets
Speaker 1: flicked on, I mean the TV gets flicked on as well,
Speaker 1: and she talks about the plutonium being stolen and um,
Speaker 1: and they say that it's just a clerical error. Um,
Speaker 1: it's missing being a clerical error. At some point the
Speaker 1: video has turned on and there's an advertisement for Statler Toyota. Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't notice that, which becomes, you know, the Toyota
Speaker 1: truck that he has at the end. So dense. It's
Speaker 1: so dense, but for some reason it doesn't. That crap
Speaker 1: can get very annoying in some movies, and I don't
Speaker 1: understand why it's not this time. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: because you can't say it's subtle either, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's not it's one of those weird things that all
Speaker 1: just worked, you know. I mean there was that you know,
Speaker 1: when he jumps into the there was one point where
Speaker 1: Marty jumps into the Dolorean and there's a tiny tilt
Speaker 1: down to the video camera and his walkman um. And
Speaker 1: of course those become such big deals later on when
Speaker 1: he gets you know, when he convinces yeah, exactly, um
Speaker 1: van Halen, it's great. Uh. And then maybe one of
Speaker 1: the best. I'm a big fan of movies that have
Speaker 1: great last lines and um, and usually it's like an
Speaker 1: indie film and not some big Hollywood movie where I
Speaker 1: think it has a great last line. But Roads, where
Speaker 1: we're going we don't need Roads, is like Hollywood history
Speaker 1: right there. And I don't think they. I don't think they.
Speaker 1: I would really like to know what what was, what
Speaker 1: was improved, or what moments they because I think it's
Speaker 1: easy to to think that nothing was nothing wasn't pre planned.
Speaker 1: But I also don't think that if you do that,
Speaker 1: you get the life and the vitality. Sometimes it unless
Speaker 1: you know how movies are made in reality, right, But
Speaker 1: you know, when you get that much pre planning, you
Speaker 1: know that much kind of you know, over Hitchcock, you know,
Speaker 1: movie making. To me, it really presses down on on everything. Now. Granted,
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with like a mathematician like Hitchcock, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: he was the best mathematician, and so we enjoy a
Speaker 1: lot of his films. But you know, you could feel
Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart or you could feel Carry Grant like trying
Speaker 1: desperately to like kind of you know, kind of molt
Speaker 1: out of this snake skin of of oppression. And certainly
Speaker 1: we know that the women he worked with were just
Speaker 1: like put in a you know, trapped in a box,
Speaker 1: um and you know, gazed at with you know, insanely
Speaker 1: creepy eyes. Of course, when Grace Kelly, you know, leans
Speaker 1: in in rear window. I mean, you know, who's not
Speaker 1: a creep looking at Grace Kelly? Um? But uh, but
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you feel that that math
Speaker 1: happened in a screenplay, for me, it it sort of
Speaker 1: strangles the ability for anyone to pop out like David
Speaker 1: Fulis in Naked. You know, you never get that much
Speaker 1: of a barf of like humanity. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: Back to the Future still has that, And I wonder
Speaker 1: how much was pre planned, how much was improved and
Speaker 1: I and I bet as much as that movie feels
Speaker 1: like a constructed, rudimented, structured affair, I bet that there
Speaker 1: are moments in there of just happy accidents of of
Speaker 1: of you know, because when you sort of set everything
Speaker 1: in a very particularly particular direction, I think you you
Speaker 1: make you know, you make those other moments possible. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure this is not the case, but
Speaker 1: but like you make possible someone. You know that last
Speaker 1: line someone could you know, Christopher Lloyd is so in
Speaker 1: the head of Doc Brown that I'm sure if they
Speaker 1: didn't write that line for him but instead said, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: if you if there's anything you'd like to say during
Speaker 1: this last point in the movie, like go for it,
Speaker 1: you know, improvo line, say whatever is on your mind.
Speaker 1: I bet you wouldn't. It wouldn't be so bad, you know,
Speaker 1: it would probably be in line with what they wrote anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: but everything was so popping in that movie, Like you know, Leah.
Speaker 1: I was looking at Leah Thompson and I was just like, man,
Speaker 1: of course, like she was great. Yeah, and the whole
Speaker 1: cow you know yeah, I mean, like it still makes
Speaker 1: me laugh. It totally calls him Calvin and and the
Speaker 1: amount of physical comedy that that Michael J. Fox throws
Speaker 1: in when he's putting on his pants and then fall
Speaker 1: to the floor and he's like getting out of her bedroom.
Speaker 1: There's at Dean Cundy actually sets the mirror of her
Speaker 1: in her bedroom at like this vanity mirror in the bedroom,
Speaker 1: so so so we can see the door as she's
Speaker 1: leaving the bedroom. We can see her at the doorway
Speaker 1: and we can see um, uh Michael J. Fox in
Speaker 1: sort of like the you know, the right third of
Speaker 1: the frame, and we see in the reflection of the mirror.
Speaker 1: She opens the door and looks back at one more
Speaker 1: you know, one more view of a male in his
Speaker 1: underwear and then runs out. You know, she smiles with
Speaker 1: those bouncing curls and then she like and she runs out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so cool. Uh really quickly, I need to
Speaker 1: tell you about them. When I went to visit my
Speaker 1: brother who was in the DJA training program in the
Speaker 1: early nineties, I had never been to l A, went
Speaker 1: and visited him. He was working at Universal at the time,
Speaker 1: and uh I went to get him pick him up
Speaker 1: very late after work one night, and it was it
Speaker 1: was empty. There was no one there at UNI and
Speaker 1: he said here, go down here, go around the corner
Speaker 1: and pull around here. And sure enough, man, I pull
Speaker 1: around the corner. And this was in nineteen like probably ninety,
Speaker 1: so not very long after this movie was out, and
Speaker 1: I look up ahead and it's fucking Hill Valley town Square.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the back lot. I mean it may still
Speaker 1: be there as part of the tour, but there was
Speaker 1: the strip of road that was the movie theater, that
Speaker 1: was the clock tower, and I just a chill ran
Speaker 1: up my spine. It was like the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah, it was great, and it was empty,
Speaker 1: that was It was probably one in the morning. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if they you, I mean, certainly they must
Speaker 1: have used that in another films. Yeah. Actually, um Tony
Speaker 1: Shaloubzin movie was The Sting, and the diner from The
Speaker 1: Sting was the same as it had already been there.
Speaker 1: They used it for Back to the Future, So it's
Speaker 1: just a working back lot um that they tricked out
Speaker 1: with certain things, obviously to make it Hill Valley. But
Speaker 1: I think it's probably still there. I haven't been on
Speaker 1: the touring forever. I've never done it. Yeah, they I
Speaker 1: mean they left it for years because Back to the Future,
Speaker 1: of course went on to be one of the legendary
Speaker 1: movies of all time. But it's definitely cool man, even
Speaker 1: as adult, like to walk around that set and that
Speaker 1: lot with that clock tower. And there's some documentary they
Speaker 1: just had out about the DeLorean. I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a hotshit car. It was for a minute,
Speaker 1: and there was um there was Oh I lost what
Speaker 1: I was gonna say. That's all right? Do you feel
Speaker 1: good about this? Yeah? Did we cover it? Yeah? We
Speaker 1: sure did you see if I had any other notes
Speaker 1: that I wanted to Goldie Wilson, Toyota Rt. Lorraine space Cample.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, god, that was great totally. I just watched
Speaker 1: some kind of wonderful again The End of the Night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that for I've seen that once. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Eric Stolts, Yeah right, I forgot. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: in that together. Yeah, and um, I should know this,
Speaker 1: but who was the who was the young woman with
Speaker 1: the short the drummer with the short blonde hair. Oh
Speaker 1: Mary Stewart Masterson right as Um, she was like the
Speaker 1: ducky character in that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good one. Um that that she may have started my
Speaker 1: um my her and Carry Lowell in License to Kill
Speaker 1: the I think the second Timothy Dalton James Bond film.
Speaker 1: They both sort of jump started my insane sexual attraction
Speaker 1: for women with short hair, the pixie haircut. Watts that
Speaker 1: was her name, some kind of wonderful. Of course it
Speaker 1: was a masculine name. Well he named it was after
Speaker 1: Charlie Watts. All the characters were named after Rolling Stones.
Speaker 1: I well, good for him. I never would have thought that.
Speaker 1: All right, man, thanks amazing, this is great. I might
Speaker 1: have to go and watch the DVD extras now I
Speaker 1: think maybe we should do that. Yeah, all right, thanks,
Speaker 1: all right everybody. That was Back to the Future with
Speaker 1: Paul Schneider. Back to the Future plus and a whole
Speaker 1: lot more. It was fun to talk to Paul, and
Speaker 1: I wish we lived in the same town because I
Speaker 1: think Paul and I would be pretty good buds, is
Speaker 1: my hunch. He's a good dude, and it was great
Speaker 1: of him to come in here and watch the movie
Speaker 1: the night before and take notes. It always is better
Speaker 1: when people do that and take it as seriously as
Speaker 1: you can take a fun little show like this. So
Speaker 1: many thanks to Paul. I can't wait to see what
Speaker 1: he has coming out in the hopper next. He's a
Speaker 1: discerning guy as uh as you learned, so I guarantee
Speaker 1: whatever he's gonna be in is gonna be pretty great.
Speaker 1: So thanks a lot, everybody, Thanks for joining, and until
Speaker 1: next week, remember it's one point one chick Abats movie.
Speaker 1: Crush has produced, edited, engineered, and scored by Noel Brown
Speaker 1: from our podcast studio at Pond City Market, Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.