Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush. Flop House Special, Part three, the final.
Speaker 1: I'm very sad that this is over, everybody, because we're
Speaker 1: finishing up with Elliott kalin Um, one of the great
Speaker 1: floppers of the three. Uh. Elliot's a great guy. He
Speaker 1: I think we've we've spoken on the phone before, but
Speaker 1: I've never met him. Well, I still have a met
Speaker 1: him in person, but we met over the internet via
Speaker 1: video Skype call, and he was kind enough to take
Speaker 1: time out of his busy life to talk about the
Speaker 1: taking of Pellem one to three. Uh, the original nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four great Great seventies in New York movie version,
Speaker 1: not the remake, although we do talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. But you know, Elliott's work from The Daily Show.
Speaker 1: We talked about his work on The Daily Show and
Speaker 1: how he spent his formative years working his way up
Speaker 1: the ladder. They're very cool story, and Elliot's just He's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite podcasters and a good dude. And
Speaker 1: I can't think him enough for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: So here we go, finishing out the Flop House Special.
Speaker 1: Everybody with Elliott klin on the Taking of Pelham one
Speaker 1: two three. I was listening to Dan's episode. I thought
Speaker 1: was really good. Oh yeah, he got a lot out
Speaker 1: of that. That shy boy that he's He's strangely, he's
Speaker 1: very shy on his own show, but when he's on
Speaker 1: other people's show. Maybe it's because he doesn't have the
Speaker 1: pressure of having to like carry any responsibility. It's like
Speaker 1: he's he seems it's used to free him up to talk. Oh,
Speaker 1: he says, um, this is a show where we watch
Speaker 1: a bad movie and we talk about it every week.
Speaker 1: I mean, if he remembers to say it, if he
Speaker 1: remembers what it is. Yeah, I think he broke down
Speaker 1: your roles on the show on my podcast as Elliott's
Speaker 1: the motor mouth. Uh, he said, what do you say
Speaker 1: Stewart was? He said, I'm the exasperated one. And I
Speaker 1: can't remember how he described Stewart's role exactly. I mean,
Speaker 1: Stewart's basically the cool one. He's like the you know,
Speaker 1: he's like the cool dude. And if we were if
Speaker 1: it was like the Burger King Kids Club, then I
Speaker 1: would be i Q's like the nerdy one, and Stewart
Speaker 1: would be I don't remember the other kid. The only
Speaker 1: other Burger Kan Kids Club character remembers Wheels, and he's
Speaker 1: not Wheels because Wheels is in a wheelchair, which could
Speaker 1: be I mean, Wheels was pretty cool and you haven't
Speaker 1: seen him in person in a little while. No, that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could be. I mean he he had he know,
Speaker 1: he had had COVID, So who knows what he's doing now,
Speaker 1: But there was and uh, it's Stewart would be her name,
Speaker 1: like Ace or like uh like like Spike, you know,
Speaker 1: like and Dan would be uh but you know, like
Speaker 1: kind of the anxious one. He'd be the one that's
Speaker 1: kind of like worrying about everything. Now, where are you
Speaker 1: originally from? I grew up in New Jersey in a
Speaker 1: town called Milburn, which is uh, it's known. It's best
Speaker 1: known for three things. One is Anne Hathaway, who she
Speaker 1: was a year behind me in high school. Two is
Speaker 1: the Short Hills Mall. We're officially it's called the Mall
Speaker 1: at Short Hills, which is just a fancy mall. And
Speaker 1: three is there's a theater. They're called the paper Mill Playhouse.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty fair sized regional theater. And when I
Speaker 1: was growing up there, Like my family had season tickets
Speaker 1: to its stuff, and they would get really good performers.
Speaker 1: Because they're so close to New York, you could get
Speaker 1: Broadway actors to be there, and like I saw shows
Speaker 1: there with like bigger name people then you'd expect to
Speaker 1: find in a New Jersey regional theater. Like I remember
Speaker 1: seeing a show there with John Mahoney in it, and
Speaker 1: a show with with Eddie Bracken, although Eddie Bracken lived
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, so I guess it wasn't that it
Speaker 1: wasn't that hard to get him, but like seeing someone
Speaker 1: who was in movies in the forties, they're performing there.
Speaker 1: It was amazing and like so we but but this
Speaker 1: town moment, it's like a upper class, upper middle class,
Speaker 1: affluent New Jersey suburb. I didn't particularly like it there
Speaker 1: so much, but looking back on it, it was fine.
Speaker 1: You know now feel like it was really like American
Speaker 1: beauty type territory, even though that doesn't take last New Jersey.
Speaker 1: It was very much like that. Um I lived in
Speaker 1: New Jersey for about four years after college. I lived
Speaker 1: in um Bernardsville near basking Ridge, near Morristown, Okay. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Milburne is very close to Marristown. Yeah, I thought it
Speaker 1: was sort of Central Jersey, right, yeah, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: central it's like the like northern Central Jersey. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like Marstown. We'd go to Mars d to
Speaker 1: go to the movies all the time. There was that
Speaker 1: the movie theater that was in the Morristown Mall was
Speaker 1: and there was like a real tiny Superhero store for
Speaker 1: therefore a compook store there for a while. Uh and
Speaker 1: until Superhero. I mean it's it's in some ways it's
Speaker 1: more accurate because it's not like they were like enter
Speaker 1: the world of graphic storytelling. This interested in the issue
Speaker 1: of American splendor. Like it was just superher stuff. And
Speaker 1: then finally a Combo store opened in Millburne when I
Speaker 1: was at adolescent. But before then, this town, this this store,
Speaker 1: and I think that I'm pretty sure it was in
Speaker 1: the Morstown Mall. I was just like it was tiny.
Speaker 1: It was this tiny, tiny store, but I'd be like,
Speaker 1: can we go, can we go? Can we go? Can
Speaker 1: you go to the compost store? And there was like
Speaker 1: very little there to look at or do. And I
Speaker 1: remember they had like an animation cell on the wall
Speaker 1: from the X Men animated special that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be the pilot for an animated series, but it didn't
Speaker 1: do well enough, so they just lived on on a
Speaker 1: home video for years and years. But then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this must be the most expensive piece of
Speaker 1: art in the world. How did they get how did
Speaker 1: they get their hands on it? Now? When I lived
Speaker 1: there from late nine to like ninety nine ish m
Speaker 1: and I remember I saw the Star Wars re release there.
Speaker 1: That was when that came out, and uh, we would
Speaker 1: go to dinner beforehand. It some restaurant in that mall
Speaker 1: that was just a mall restaurant. I can't remember the name.
Speaker 1: It was probably like a Hula Hands or a Ruby
Speaker 1: Tuesdays or something. I'm guessing I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of my my childhood being taken to middle
Speaker 1: like upper scale chain restaurants t J Fridays or Hula
Speaker 1: Hans or Chilies or not fast food, but like places
Speaker 1: where it was like Bennigan's or they were all named
Speaker 1: after Most of them were named after a fictional irishman
Speaker 1: who supposedly started this company. Hula Hands are Bennigan's or
Speaker 1: Shaughnessy's or Railies or you know, yeah, that's good stuff.
Speaker 1: That was. That was around the time I think we
Speaker 1: weren't going to the Marstown Theater as much because there
Speaker 1: was a big Lows which then became so there was
Speaker 1: in East Hanover I think it was, and it was
Speaker 1: like and that was, you know what a real, real
Speaker 1: multiplex where you know, there was tons of movies going
Speaker 1: on at any given point and my dad could could
Speaker 1: like drop us off and then we could just sneak
Speaker 1: from movie to movie the day. You know, my dad
Speaker 1: would take us to movies there and he would leave
Speaker 1: kind of like ten minutes before the movie was over
Speaker 1: to go scout out what was starting in the other theaters,
Speaker 1: and he'd come back and he'd be like, hey, so
Speaker 1: this I remember seeing Fargo there with him and him
Speaker 1: leaving before the movie was over, and it was on
Speaker 1: Fargo was a simple plan. Seeing a simple plan there,
Speaker 1: which is similar to Fargo. You can see how I
Speaker 1: got the mixed up in my head. They look the same,
Speaker 1: but but uh, leaving watching a simple plan and him
Speaker 1: leaving and coming back and going, hey, a bug's life
Speaker 1: is about to start. Should we hop over there, and
Speaker 1: just being like, I don't know if I can handle
Speaker 1: that that clash of tones go straight from a Simple
Speaker 1: Plan into a bug's life. Those are two very different films.
Speaker 1: I loved a Simple Plan. That was a good movie.
Speaker 1: Oh it really good. It's a it's there's a whole,
Speaker 1: there's a whole of the direction that like Sam Raimi's
Speaker 1: career could have gone in if that movie had like
Speaker 1: been bigger. But not that. I don't like the way
Speaker 1: his career has gone because he's made a lot of
Speaker 1: great stuff. But uh, but that's a real that's some
Speaker 1: movie I should see again. I'll put that on my list.
Speaker 1: I have this list for when my son is like
Speaker 1: fourteen movies I can't show him now. And I tease
Speaker 1: him with him all the time, like someday, Sammy, we're
Speaker 1: gonna watch RoboCop, but you can't watch it now. Now
Speaker 1: how old is Sammy? And now you said six? He six?
Speaker 1: Now he'll be six and a half fries Okay, yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: what what are you diving into now movie wise that
Speaker 1: you're kind of excited about with him? Like we showed
Speaker 1: Ruby the Gooneys a couple of weeks ago, and we
Speaker 1: thought that was maybe a stretch, but she was fine. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: he's it's mostly right now, taking advantage of the fact
Speaker 1: that he'll watch older movies and he hasn't yet decided
Speaker 1: that they're boring yet. So like on Father's Day, I've
Speaker 1: been trying to get him to watch The Adventures of
Speaker 1: Robin Hood Errol Flynn one for I think months now,
Speaker 1: since I recorded it off to you c M and
Speaker 1: for him to watch, and finally on Father's Day, I
Speaker 1: was like, for Father's Day, you're gonna sit and watch
Speaker 1: some of this movie with me, and he really got
Speaker 1: into it. And so since THENT every day is like,
Speaker 1: can we watch more Robin Hood? So like getting him
Speaker 1: to watch old movies especially, but like I showed him
Speaker 1: The Iron Giant when he was too young and he
Speaker 1: doesn't really remember it now, so I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: showing that to him. And uh, when he was younger,
Speaker 1: we were doing a thing. We were watching all the
Speaker 1: Marx Brothers movies in chronological order, and we never finished
Speaker 1: because we got to like room service, and I think
Speaker 1: his interest started flagging around then and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally understand it. I can't I'm not going to
Speaker 1: push the Big Store, Go West or a night in Casablanca.
Speaker 1: That hard on you. But the it's like, I need
Speaker 1: to sit down and come up with the movies that
Speaker 1: are appropriate for that age that I really want to
Speaker 1: show him, because most of the movies I'm excited to
Speaker 1: show him. I think when he's around ten he'll be
Speaker 1: able to start like Hitchcock movies and things like that.
Speaker 1: And but right now he's really into We've gotten him
Speaker 1: super into, uh, certain types of musicals, so like singing
Speaker 1: in the Rain is a is a regular thing at
Speaker 1: our house, and uh, he's in the middle of you know,
Speaker 1: we watch movies and chunks with him a lot of time,
Speaker 1: so like he were in the middle of Eastern Parade,
Speaker 1: So movies with with like tap dancing, he's usually he's
Speaker 1: usually into watching plenty of if it's got Gene Kelly
Speaker 1: or Fred Astare and the tap and there's more tap
Speaker 1: dancing than ballroom dancing than he usually he's on board
Speaker 1: for it, which is great because at some point he's
Speaker 1: gonna be like, oh, gool, why aren't this I could
Speaker 1: just see this on TikTok, you know, whatever they're using.
Speaker 1: I don't know that, man. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: good if you start him young like that with an
Speaker 1: appreciation for older films and black and white films. Uh,
Speaker 1: they may develop a taste for it, like clearly you did.
Speaker 1: Is that something you did as a kid with your dad? Uh?
Speaker 1: Not not as much with my dad, but more with
Speaker 1: my mom a little bit. There was a point when
Speaker 1: when I was about ten, and I think I have
Speaker 1: a twin sister. She's about ten and my younger brother
Speaker 1: was about six and a half or so, she was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to start showing you Hitchcock movies. And before
Speaker 1: then we were always a movie family, Like we would
Speaker 1: if we were going to do anything outside the house,
Speaker 1: half the time it was going to be going to
Speaker 1: the movie theater. So like during the summer, we'd see
Speaker 1: every movie that came out, you know, we went to
Speaker 1: the movies a lot. Uh. And we'd go to the
Speaker 1: video store and rent movies. And for years the only
Speaker 1: movies I would rent were Gremlins and Gremlins too. And
Speaker 1: my parents, I think, never realized they should just buy
Speaker 1: me the tapes and we would save much more money
Speaker 1: because it probably cost hundreds of dollars over over years
Speaker 1: for me to rent Gremlin's two over and over again.
Speaker 1: But the but Hitchcock movies were like the first old
Speaker 1: old movies. And then when I was around thirteen, I
Speaker 1: like kind of made the decision to get into movies, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I really like movies. I'm gonna really get into them,
Speaker 1: and like, uh, like Citizen Kane was gonna be on PBS,
Speaker 1: and I had heard of that movie, but I had
Speaker 1: never seen it, and so I taped it and watched it,
Speaker 1: and I watched over and over and over again. I
Speaker 1: just loved that movie and like really loved the way
Speaker 1: the music and the and the images worked together, and
Speaker 1: like how it was really serious but they were like
Speaker 1: really funny parts and just how cool it looked, like
Speaker 1: all the crazy like deep focus shops in it, and
Speaker 1: they're like a couple of moments watching movies that like
Speaker 1: really made a huge impression on me. And like my
Speaker 1: dad showing me RoboCop when I was eight, when I
Speaker 1: was for it and he hadn't seen it. He was
Speaker 1: like my friend, his friend who was also named Elliott,
Speaker 1: He's like, Elliott says, this is really cool. So we
Speaker 1: started watching it and seeing Ed tow O nine just
Speaker 1: blow away that guy in the beginning and being like
Speaker 1: this is the most most horrifying thing I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: and the guy who's gets falls in the toxic waste
Speaker 1: where talks to waste falls on him and then he
Speaker 1: gets splattered by that car at the end. I was
Speaker 1: like so both horrified and and in love with it,
Speaker 1: and like like that and seeing making my family take
Speaker 1: me to see Gremlin's Too in theaters when it's clear
Speaker 1: nobody else in the family was interested in it, and
Speaker 1: just being like blown away by how meta it was.
Speaker 1: And my my mom's showing me Hitchhock movies, and my
Speaker 1: grandmother who lived in Manhattan, I would go in to
Speaker 1: visit her and she would take me to film for
Speaker 1: him to see, like she she took me to old
Speaker 1: movies there a lot, and we would be She took
Speaker 1: me to a double feature it was probably fourteen or
Speaker 1: so of Unfaithfully Yours and Miracle of Morgan's Creek. And
Speaker 1: I've never seen any Presdons Jurgis movies before that, and
Speaker 1: the Miracle of Morgan's Creek is still like my third
Speaker 1: favorite movie. It's like, I think it's so funny and
Speaker 1: just seeing those things and like, you know, my friends
Speaker 1: are not talking about them, like the only way I'm
Speaker 1: going to find out about them is either from my
Speaker 1: parents or my grandmother or literally. What I would start
Speaker 1: doing is going through the TV guide and just like
Speaker 1: seeing what movies we're gonna be playing on AMC and
Speaker 1: then on TCM when we got it. Then they're just
Speaker 1: setting up tapes. And I still do that with with
Speaker 1: the DVR here, I'll just go through the Turner Class
Speaker 1: Movies Guide and any foreign movie I've never heard of,
Speaker 1: I record, so our DVR has I'm constantly playing this
Speaker 1: game where we're running out of it's like two percent
Speaker 1: left and we have certain like it's like Top Chef
Speaker 1: is on, so I know we're gonna need to record that,
Speaker 1: so I gotta I gotta watch some of these movies fast,
Speaker 1: free up some room. I'm a big Top Chef guy too.
Speaker 1: Are you watching the season? Oh? Yeah yeah? We uh
Speaker 1: we we we it was. Have you finished it or no? No,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm in the Italy now though, okay, it's the
Speaker 1: it's the it's the only show that we watched like
Speaker 1: as soon as possible, and the but seeing them wandering
Speaker 1: around Italy and just like every it's so hard to
Speaker 1: watch it and not be like they can't do that
Speaker 1: right now just like how free everybody moves right throughout
Speaker 1: the season. When they'd be like, you just won two
Speaker 1: tickets to the Olympics in Japan. You just want tickets
Speaker 1: to the Trolls World Tour premiere, and it's like all
Speaker 1: these tickets. I know, it's definitely interesting. That's um. Top
Speaker 1: Chef is one of the I mean, I don't even
Speaker 1: like to call it a reality show, but that's one
Speaker 1: that has maintained its dignity all these years. I think
Speaker 1: because they've stayed on the level and not they never
Speaker 1: sold out to to try and increase the drama or anything.
Speaker 1: It's it's still about the food and the chefs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they've they've kind of enhanced their like over time.
Speaker 1: I feel like they have built dignity by by keeping
Speaker 1: that standard going. And like this thing that could easily
Speaker 1: have been kind of like a joke, like oh, a
Speaker 1: Top Chef like has becomes such a coveted uh. I
Speaker 1: guess because it's easier to get to get customers when
Speaker 1: you can say top Chef and you've become famous, like
Speaker 1: so many chefs have become famous off of it. But
Speaker 1: like to see it become like a real coveted thing,
Speaker 1: and like this last season it's all all stars and like,
Speaker 1: you know, Brian Voltage is there for the third time,
Speaker 1: chasing after this dragon that he's that he knows if
Speaker 1: he's going to get it. I feel like a the
Speaker 1: it's it's a it feels like seeing there's something about
Speaker 1: seeing the old contestants come back as judges, and different
Speaker 1: chefs that were judges before coming back and talking to
Speaker 1: the newer chefs and like chefs who have been through
Speaker 1: this process before, Like it starts to really feel like um,
Speaker 1: like the X Men Academy or something where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this like large family of special skilled individuals
Speaker 1: and it's like a school and they're all learning from
Speaker 1: each other and there's like different configurations and like oh,
Speaker 1: fordge is coming back, like he's gonna like how how
Speaker 1: is he interact with these people? You know, Like it's
Speaker 1: a it's it's one of the few shows that I
Speaker 1: watched where this is a weird comparison, but it reminds
Speaker 1: me of like Madmen were. At a certain point. I
Speaker 1: wasn't watching Madmen for like the plot. I was just
Speaker 1: watching it because I had lived with these characters for
Speaker 1: so long and I wanted to spend time with them
Speaker 1: and see how they like grew and changed. And so
Speaker 1: when when these people are on, it's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: eight years ago when this person was the show, they
Speaker 1: were like this like hot headed young chef and now
Speaker 1: they're back on and they have a family, and just
Speaker 1: seeing how they've how they've changed over time, it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's like maybe instead of the X ME Kid,
Speaker 1: I should have compared it to like the Michael Apted
Speaker 1: seven Up movies that would have been the classy comparison. Well,
Speaker 1: it is interesting when the chefs come back UM and
Speaker 1: do like a guest judging appearance or whatever, like when
Speaker 1: Blaze was coming back a lot, or when they'll have
Speaker 1: one of the former contestants. They always come back with
Speaker 1: a little bit of an air, a little bit of
Speaker 1: an attitude, like well, I'm on this side of the
Speaker 1: table now, yeah I made the jumpt do you guys?
Speaker 1: Are you guys gonna make it here? We'll see what
Speaker 1: when did you get into um? Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: do you know Anne Hathaway were friends? Not not particularly well,
Speaker 1: she like my sister knew her a little bit and
Speaker 1: like she was a year behind us in school, so
Speaker 1: like we had not I had no reason to know,
Speaker 1: and she was like the star of all the high
Speaker 1: school productions. Kind I auditioned to a couple of times
Speaker 1: for those and did not get picked for any of them,
Speaker 1: so there was no uh, but she was already, like
Speaker 1: I mean, she was on a TV show I think
Speaker 1: when she was finishing high school or like a junior
Speaker 1: or something, so like it was everyone kind of knew.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, this is a person who's like
Speaker 1: going to have a career already, And and my mom
Speaker 1: would get mad. She would be a guest on the
Speaker 1: Daily Show and my mom would be like, did you
Speaker 1: go say hi to Annie? And I'm like why what?
Speaker 1: She doesn't know who I am? Like what? And my
Speaker 1: mom would be like, she knows who you are. The
Speaker 1: next time she's on, you say hello, And then I
Speaker 1: wouldn't and it would make my mom son, But so
Speaker 1: like what am I gonna go down and say and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, we went to same high school.
Speaker 1: I don't really know you. Well, they'd be kind of
Speaker 1: I think she'd probably get a kick out of that,
Speaker 1: or and she did at least pretend like she did.
Speaker 1: She would pretend like she got a kick out of it, probably,
Speaker 1: but there were there were enough other writers who were
Speaker 1: like eager to go see whatever guest was down there
Speaker 1: and pretend to like know them, and it's like I
Speaker 1: didn't need to be one of them unless it was
Speaker 1: like like Petero Tool when he was promoting Venus, I
Speaker 1: think like near the end of his life. He was
Speaker 1: a guest on the show and I was really out
Speaker 1: and the guest booker, Hillary Kane, I was like, Hilly,
Speaker 1: can I meet Petero Tool? And she was and she
Speaker 1: was like, let me see what condition he's in and
Speaker 1: she was and she was like she was like they
Speaker 1: say that he can't he you can't really, but like
Speaker 1: if you want to wait outside when he's leaving the studio,
Speaker 1: so I did that. So like I hung around the
Speaker 1: studio exit when he was but it was just just
Speaker 1: to see him, like just to see him in like
Speaker 1: like I didn't interact with him at all, but just
Speaker 1: to like just to see him and to know that
Speaker 1: I've seen him in person. And I saw him and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, he's He would not have
Speaker 1: survived a meeting with me, I think he would, like
Speaker 1: my enthusiasm would have been too much and he would
Speaker 1: have crumpled. But because of the drink, oh, because of age.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, he's who knows what how much
Speaker 1: drinking contributed to his life, but he was he was
Speaker 1: just a very old man and a very frailment he
Speaker 1: had when he was like he was one of those
Speaker 1: things where you see like a very distinguished old man
Speaker 1: who looks like he's already a ghost, Like it looks
Speaker 1: like he's made out of like just the most like
Speaker 1: delicate materials, and you kind of don't want to breathe
Speaker 1: too close to him because you're worried like just blow
Speaker 1: away in the wind. But I would there there were
Speaker 1: times when like like Isabella Rosselini was was a guest
Speaker 1: when I was a production on the show, and there
Speaker 1: one of my jobs was to open the studio door
Speaker 1: for the guest, so like when I was a production assistant,
Speaker 1: So like I did get to see some of them,
Speaker 1: but like seeing her and being like I had to
Speaker 1: stop her when she was leaving, which is very unprofessionally.
Speaker 1: He was like, I love the saddest music in the world, Like,
Speaker 1: how are you going to make any more movies with
Speaker 1: Guy Madden? And she was so she seems so baffled
Speaker 1: that anyone was was asking her about that movie in particular.
Speaker 1: But the that was when I learned doing that stuff
Speaker 1: that like when you talk to a famous person, they
Speaker 1: really like it when you talk to them about something
Speaker 1: that which you probably don't sort of like they took
Speaker 1: you talk to them about the thing that is not
Speaker 1: the thing everybody else talks them about. So especially like
Speaker 1: if I had seen a guest when they when they
Speaker 1: did a theatrical production, like they'd be more interested if
Speaker 1: I talked like, um, Billy krut Up was a guest
Speaker 1: when Watchman came out and John John was like, I
Speaker 1: need you to explain to me what this is, like
Speaker 1: what it like? Who is this character? Like what does
Speaker 1: he do? So I was John's like Watchman guy, to
Speaker 1: explain what Dr Manhattan is? And John was like, well,
Speaker 1: let me introduce you to him. And he introduced me
Speaker 1: to to him as like his his He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's Eliot. He's been teaching me about Watchman. And I
Speaker 1: think Billy Krudup had probably had enough already of comic
Speaker 1: book people like wanting to tell him what he got
Speaker 1: right or wrong about Dr Manhattan and so, and he
Speaker 1: was like, oh hey, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: saw you in the Coast Utopia Lincoln Center. This this
Speaker 1: cycle of Tom Stoppard plays about cool about Russian revolutionaries
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, which was an amazing play cycle.
Speaker 1: And instantly he was like, oh really, let me tell
Speaker 1: you about that. And it was like, oh, he never
Speaker 1: gets to talk about Coast to Utopia with anybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally like so, and this makes Stewart and Dan mad
Speaker 1: because I'll bring up all the time, my families to
Speaker 1: go to the theater a lot, and so like I'll
Speaker 1: bring up when we see a movie with an actor
Speaker 1: and who has been theater, I'm like, well, I saw
Speaker 1: them in this product, Like oh Jake Jillen Hall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well when I was in London I saw him in
Speaker 1: This Is Our Youth. And they're like, great, who cares?
Speaker 1: I love it, man. I mean part of what I
Speaker 1: love about the Flap House is that dynamic. And I
Speaker 1: talked to the other guys about this. When when you
Speaker 1: will bring up something like that and you inevitably here
Speaker 1: Dan kind of groaning under his breath or you know,
Speaker 1: my favorite, very favorite thing on the show, and this,
Speaker 1: of course we'll just upset them to no end. Is
Speaker 1: is your songs and you're singing and appreciate it's the
Speaker 1: best man, And I rewind them and I listened to
Speaker 1: them over and over, and it's just, you know, flop
Speaker 1: houses been my comfort food anytime I'm going through a
Speaker 1: stressful situation, uh, including quarantine, flat house has been my
Speaker 1: comfort food. So thank you. It's it's good stuff. And
Speaker 1: I love the songs. Keep coming no matter so much.
Speaker 1: Dan has taken to literally getting up from the table
Speaker 1: and I'll see him. I'll see him overscape just get
Speaker 1: up and put his headphones down and walk away. And
Speaker 1: my favorite thing now is when I go into a
Speaker 1: long bit sometimes the song, but also a bit is
Speaker 1: when Stewart just goes uh huh yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I think, yeah, it's like it's such a slick
Speaker 1: way to take me down. But but they like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, the the uh I get. I
Speaker 1: get immense joy out of irritating them. And so even
Speaker 1: if people were like, we hate the songs, it's our
Speaker 1: at least favorite thing, I'd be like, sorry, I can't
Speaker 1: help it. Sometimes I just know, I just know Dan
Speaker 1: wants to get to the next segment and I want
Speaker 1: nothing more than to obstruct him well, and you can
Speaker 1: hear him getting more and more agitated as you go,
Speaker 1: and then the song is but in any other bit
Speaker 1: would be over, and then you started another verse and dance.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, come on, are you serious,
Speaker 1: because that's the favorite. That's I love it when something
Speaker 1: when you think something is over and then it starts up.
Speaker 1: And I used to do when I just stand up
Speaker 1: very briefly and I stand up. Bit that I love
Speaker 1: to do was one that I called fantasy where I
Speaker 1: where that involved me was I say, like, I was
Speaker 1: in bed with my wife and she asked me to
Speaker 1: tell her my my my biggest fantasy. And I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what. I wasn't sure she ready for this, and
Speaker 1: she said, no, come on, I'm your wife, you can
Speaker 1: trust me. What's like, there has to be some fantasy
Speaker 1: that's like so weird you never thought you'd be able
Speaker 1: to tell anybody else, and they okay, well, get ready,
Speaker 1: and then it's just it's like like a shadow hangs
Speaker 1: over the kind of bizarre from the iron mountains of
Speaker 1: the North where we're ringing eternal at the sound of
Speaker 1: dwarf and hammer on iron and it goes on like
Speaker 1: that for a while, and then and I would try
Speaker 1: to see how long I could go with this prologue
Speaker 1: to this like BS fantasy story, and then I would stop,
Speaker 1: and then I'd go chapter the one, and like that
Speaker 1: was where the where the joke of it was to me,
Speaker 1: and like I did that. I did that. There was
Speaker 1: a I was on a like a daily show, like
Speaker 1: a very short daily show USO Tour years ago, and
Speaker 1: it was so I had so much fun doing that
Speaker 1: bit for like these groups of either soldiers or air
Speaker 1: force pilots where you have like three people in the
Speaker 1: audience who were loving it, and everybody else was like
Speaker 1: what was like why is he saying these things? And
Speaker 1: but then whenever I would get to chapter the one,
Speaker 1: and I'd start that pretty like, oh, we get it.
Speaker 1: The joke is just that it's long. We didn't have
Speaker 1: to pay attention to any of that. The only joke
Speaker 1: is that it goes on for a long time. That's great, now,
Speaker 1: do you. I find myself explaining um, sort of the
Speaker 1: rules of comedy to Ruby, uh, like there's this when
Speaker 1: she's on a swing out. From the very beginning, I
Speaker 1: would act like I was on the cell phone and
Speaker 1: she would kick it out of my hands, and she
Speaker 1: thought it was the funniest thing. And she would say, dude,
Speaker 1: the phone thing. And I said, I'm only gonna do
Speaker 1: it if you call it the phone bit, and so
Speaker 1: she started calling it the phone bit, and then you know,
Speaker 1: if she'll do something funny, you know, kids, I want
Speaker 1: to do it like eight ten times. After the fourth
Speaker 1: or fifth time, I so Ruby that bit doesn't have legs,
Speaker 1: and I'll explain to her very seriously, like if something
Speaker 1: has legs, that means that you can get a lot
Speaker 1: of humor out of it. Some doesn't have legs, or
Speaker 1: the rule of threes, and I kind of explain all
Speaker 1: these things to her. I should I should do that
Speaker 1: more systematically. I feel like Sammy has a real, uh
Speaker 1: intuitive knack for comedy, and he was since he was
Speaker 1: very young, like he just kind of gets it, uh,
Speaker 1: and he has he so he wrote so during Quarantine,
Speaker 1: he's been writing a novel called The Mystery of the
Speaker 1: Stinky Cheese. And the thing that I love about this
Speaker 1: book so much, I tried to read it in a
Speaker 1: flop house many episode and Sammy heard me doing it
Speaker 1: literally walked in and told me to stop. But every chapter,
Speaker 1: as the mystery is about to happen or and it's
Speaker 1: very elaborate, there's this these mice have their cheese stolen
Speaker 1: by these tigers, and they're going to fight at the
Speaker 1: tiger's headquarters, which is a volcano, and there's some mysterious
Speaker 1: figure called the Great Old Tiger and the and but
Speaker 1: every time they're about to do something, they devolve into
Speaker 1: an argument where it's like, hey, stop looking at me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't looking at you. Yes you were, yes you are.
Speaker 1: Stop it. You're still looking at me. I'm not looking
Speaker 1: at you. And it's and it's literally like it's the
Speaker 1: it's the opening scene from from Holy Grail where where
Speaker 1: King Arthur is trying to get trying to get the
Speaker 1: quest going, and they're like, wait, but where'd you get
Speaker 1: the coconuts from? Hold on a second, like Sammy picks
Speaker 1: that picks that them so intuitively, whereas uh my younger one, Gabriel,
Speaker 1: he's he's he's doing this kind of stuff like like
Speaker 1: Ruby's doing wear I have a bit weird. I smell
Speaker 1: one of his feet and I and I it smells
Speaker 1: like roses, and I love it. And I smell his
Speaker 1: other foot and it smells terrible, and I make faces
Speaker 1: and he's like again a word, very quickly forever, but
Speaker 1: like good stuff. When Sammy was like when Sammy was little,
Speaker 1: when he was like three, you know, we'd watch these
Speaker 1: Marx Brothers movies and then he'd want to act doubt
Speaker 1: the different scenes. And there's like a scene in Animal
Speaker 1: Crackers where Chicko wants a flashlight and Harpo keeps giving
Speaker 1: him things that sound like the word flash. He gives
Speaker 1: him a fish, and he gives him a flask and
Speaker 1: he takes out a flute. And Sammy would be like,
Speaker 1: let's play the game where I'm your Chicko and I'm
Speaker 1: Harpo and and he we called them because they're trying
Speaker 1: to rob a painting. He go, let's do the painting
Speaker 1: scene where your Chicko and I'm Harpo and I'm giving
Speaker 1: you want the things that I'm giving you the wrong things,
Speaker 1: and we just act out that scene and he thought
Speaker 1: it was so funny, and I was like, he totally
Speaker 1: gets why this scene is funny, Like Chicko wants this thing,
Speaker 1: Harpo's deliberately giving him the wrong things. And then Chicko
Speaker 1: is also mispronouncing half of it, so he like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just he's been like sucking it up. He's been,
Speaker 1: he's been sucking up things through those mostes. He was
Speaker 1: playing the other day with his figures and apparently turned
Speaker 1: to my wife when he went that's the cold open
Speaker 1: and then went on with the rest of play. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, industry child. Yeah, it's fun at that
Speaker 1: age because it's it's perfect sort of for my comic sensibilities. Um,
Speaker 1: like the stinky foot and then the pleasant smelling foot,
Speaker 1: just any anything unexpected Pratt falls walking into a wall.
Speaker 1: My wife just thinks, you know, I'm a I'm a moron.
Speaker 1: But Ruby eats it up, and I know I've only
Speaker 1: got a few more years of this, so I'm it's
Speaker 1: the same here. It's a sad thing when your child's
Speaker 1: sense of humor becomes too sophisticated for you, and we're like,
Speaker 1: You're like, don't you think poop is funny anymore? And
Speaker 1: they're like, Dad, like I'm dreading that day. That's gross. Um,
Speaker 1: when did you get formally into comedy? I heard you
Speaker 1: say you were peeing on the Daily Show. Was that
Speaker 1: your sort of move to try and get in there,
Speaker 1: I guess in a in a professional sense, so like
Speaker 1: I've been I was a big the same way that like, uh,
Speaker 1: I was into movies at when I was young, Like
Speaker 1: I like, I feel like I grew up at the
Speaker 1: time when it was like the best time to watch
Speaker 1: stand up comedy on television. There were so many stand
Speaker 1: up comedy shows, and like especially on Comedy Central was
Speaker 1: really new and they had short attention span theater. It
Speaker 1: was just like, we're gonna show you one bit from
Speaker 1: a person's routine and then so the parts that I
Speaker 1: hate it, which is when the person is introduced and
Speaker 1: you have to sit through the applause and then the
Speaker 1: person says good night and walks off. Since I was like, jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes,
Speaker 1: I don't want this, give me jokes, I don't want this,
Speaker 1: Like that was the best, and so I was always
Speaker 1: like a comedy like I always loved stand up in
Speaker 1: sketch comedy when I was young, and like I have
Speaker 1: a I was talking about these like formative like film
Speaker 1: experiences earlier, like I have this, I had this, I
Speaker 1: have this like such a strong memory of knowing the
Speaker 1: name Monty Python but not really knowing what it was,
Speaker 1: and seeing a picture in the TV guide of the
Speaker 1: cast of Holy Grail and seeing Monty Python in their
Speaker 1: night's costumes and not knowing anything else about it, and
Speaker 1: being like, I have to find out what this is,
Speaker 1: Like I was so magnetic to me and going to
Speaker 1: the video store that day and renting Holy Grail and
Speaker 1: watching the first half hour of it, and I was
Speaker 1: so excited about it that I had to call my
Speaker 1: best friend and tell him to come over to watch
Speaker 1: the movie with me, and he didn't get at all,
Speaker 1: and our friendship kind of dissolved from that point on.
Speaker 1: And that like, but just be like being so inflamed
Speaker 1: by it that I had to like I had to
Speaker 1: be like someone else sees this, right, Like I need
Speaker 1: to know what this is and someone else has to
Speaker 1: see it. And so I was always kind of like
Speaker 1: writing funny things, like when I was a teenager, I
Speaker 1: wrote some like humorous articles for this like website for
Speaker 1: college kids and the when I was and in college, Uh,
Speaker 1: one of my one of my close friends and I
Speaker 1: we started like a sketch duo and performed for a while.
Speaker 1: Where was Yu. So I went to I went to
Speaker 1: n y U for for for screenwriting. And this was
Speaker 1: long enough ago that there was my last semester there,
Speaker 1: there was a sitcom class that they were just starting out,
Speaker 1: because while I was there, television was considered not worth teaching,
Speaker 1: and it was you were either a playwright, in which
Speaker 1: case you were an artist, or you were a screenwriter,
Speaker 1: in which case you were going to go to l
Speaker 1: A and get chewed up and then come back to
Speaker 1: n y you and become a professor. Like that seemed
Speaker 1: like the two the two tracks that they had you on.
Speaker 1: And and at the very last semester they hired a
Speaker 1: TV writer. Uh this this writer Charlie Rubin who had
Speaker 1: worked on Seinfeld and a number of other things, and
Speaker 1: he taught a sitcom class and eventually that became a
Speaker 1: bigger Now I think you can specialize in television writing
Speaker 1: at that program. The But like me, my friend Brock
Speaker 1: Mahan and I we started a sketch to what we
Speaker 1: called ourselves, the Hypocrites, and we performed for a bunch
Speaker 1: of years and we would like rent out a theater,
Speaker 1: put on a show for just two people we knew,
Speaker 1: and we would make like a hundred dollars and then
Speaker 1: you know, we write all new material and then rent
Speaker 1: a theater again producer. We were so obsessed with like
Speaker 1: putting on new material and not redoing the old material.
Speaker 1: So we never got we never got as good as
Speaker 1: we could have gotten at it because instead of becoming
Speaker 1: like a finely honed machine who were constantly trying out
Speaker 1: new sketches and uh and uh, my last semester at
Speaker 1: and I was already a big Daily Show fan, and
Speaker 1: my last semester at n y U, I interned there.
Speaker 1: And they have they luckily were had a P a
Speaker 1: spot that was opening up. One of the one of
Speaker 1: their pas, this woman Campbell Smith, who's now a television executive,
Speaker 1: and uh, she was moving up to become a researcher.
Speaker 1: And so they asked me to interview for that job,
Speaker 1: and I and hired me for that job. And then
Speaker 1: it was just like I was at the Daily Show
Speaker 1: for like the next two over thirteen years. I had
Speaker 1: always wanted to be in like in movies or comedy.
Speaker 1: And it was funny that while I was a p
Speaker 1: at the Daily Show, I was still doing these shows,
Speaker 1: these sketch comedy shows as the hypocrites. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: the Hypocrites is how I'm gonna make it, Like that's
Speaker 1: I'm going to break in, like the Daily Show will
Speaker 1: pay the bills. Well, then I'm like a segment produced
Speaker 1: with the Daily Show. I'm like, but really, the Hypocrites
Speaker 1: is what's gonna do? And then like I'm a writer
Speaker 1: at the Daily Show. Me at that point, I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe you know what, maybe this is my career now,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe no one's gonna swoop in and offer brocking
Speaker 1: me a sketch comedy show when when as that was
Speaker 1: a format that was dying out, although now sketches coming back,
Speaker 1: So I don't know now, And you ended up head
Speaker 1: writer at Daily Show, right, yes, I was the head
Speaker 1: writer for the last kind of like a year and
Speaker 1: a half of John's run there, and the uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It was an amazed in place to be
Speaker 1: like I started there as an intern and I ended
Speaker 1: at my run there as head writer, and like I
Speaker 1: was twenty when they when they brought me in where
Speaker 1: I think I turned twenty one while I was interning
Speaker 1: right right as they were hiring was a p A.
Speaker 1: And then when I left, I was married and had
Speaker 1: a child, and I remember I got I got very
Speaker 1: emotional when the night of the last show, and I
Speaker 1: was saying to my wife, I was like, I don't like,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be so hard for me to find something
Speaker 1: like this again. And she was like, you're never gonna
Speaker 1: find something like She's like, you're never gonna grow up
Speaker 1: at a show again. Like she's like, you're in your
Speaker 1: thirties now, like you're never going to be the kid
Speaker 1: at the show. And it was a very it was
Speaker 1: just like a real I still haven't like fully processed
Speaker 1: the full experience because it was such a big chunk
Speaker 1: of my life for such a for a real form
Speaker 1: at a time. But I would still have like I
Speaker 1: would go to friends sketch shows and it would be
Speaker 1: like they've packed this sixt theater and they're loving it.
Speaker 1: If I didn't have this television job, I'd be able
Speaker 1: to focus on my sketch comedy. That's really cool, man,
Speaker 1: that you're all your entirety of your twenties was spent
Speaker 1: climbing your way up the ladder from PA to eventual
Speaker 1: head writer. That's an amazing story. Oh yeah, I mean that. Thanks.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's certainly a story that's gotten me,
Speaker 1: that's opened doors. But it's yeah, it's a crazy event,
Speaker 1: and it like but now and now, of course it's
Speaker 1: long enough ago. You know, I'm thirty eight now and
Speaker 1: I left the show about but five years ago, so
Speaker 1: like it feels long enough ago that, uh, it feels
Speaker 1: like it was somebody else's experience, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: was so young then, and but even at the time,
Speaker 1: I felt like a like you know, I was like, like,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this so long. I gotta get out
Speaker 1: of here. I gotta do something else. And they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it was such a baby. I was like I was.
Speaker 1: I was so ready to go, but it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was my whole twenties, was working on
Speaker 1: that show. And so people all the time they asked me,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, what would you what what's your advice
Speaker 1: for someone who wants to become a television writer around
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, start out really young so you can
Speaker 1: really take your time. It had like someone will a
Speaker 1: friend of my parents will be like, how do I
Speaker 1: get into TV writing? And I'm like, you can't. It's
Speaker 1: too late, Like I apologize, but it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: You're sixty five years old, and you're a lawyer who
Speaker 1: is retiring, Like this is not a second career you
Speaker 1: can slide into, Like do you want to take a
Speaker 1: p job? I don't think so. Now I think, didn't
Speaker 1: Wyatt start out as an intern to or did I
Speaker 1: get that wrong? Not at not at the Daily Show?
Speaker 1: He was he interned, He interned for Conan or Letterman
Speaker 1: or somebody. He well, he interned at SNL. Okay, that's right.
Speaker 1: Why I interned at sn L And then he was
Speaker 1: in l A for a while and that's when he
Speaker 1: worked on like King of the Hill and he came
Speaker 1: to The Daily Show as a correspondent, and um, I
Speaker 1: owe him an email. You reminded me, why is someone
Speaker 1: who like the who I don't talk to him as
Speaker 1: much as I would like to, but I feel close
Speaker 1: to and I always want to work with him again. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had he would have these stories about like he
Speaker 1: had so I don't want to tell his stories, I guess.
Speaker 1: But he had a story about like playing soccer in
Speaker 1: the hallways sn L and Norm McDonald getting mad at him,
Speaker 1: I think, and they almost got into a fight or
Speaker 1: something like that soccer game that they're playing. But he uh,
Speaker 1: I remember when he when he first started the Daily Show,
Speaker 1: I was working I was a writer when he was
Speaker 1: starting as a correspondent, and we were working on a
Speaker 1: chat for him, and I didn't know him super well yet,
Speaker 1: and just like he seemed like such a such an
Speaker 1: outsider figure, being a guy who just just came in
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles. And he's like he was like, he's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they repossessed my car because I I overcharged my credit
Speaker 1: card buying a bear costume for a sketch for a
Speaker 1: sketch show I was doing. He's like, I think I
Speaker 1: still have the bear costume in a storage space in
Speaker 1: l A. And I was just like, this guy's life
Speaker 1: is glamorous, Like that's like a real Hollywood life. And
Speaker 1: now and now, when I think of whyatt, he feels
Speaker 1: so indelibly like Brooklyn. To me, that period that he
Speaker 1: was in Los Angeles is probably like a strange blip
Speaker 1: in his life. But when I first met him, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is an l A guy, Like this
Speaker 1: guy New York. Yeah. Now he's a yeah, sorry, what
Speaker 1: do you What are you doing these days? Any anythings
Speaker 1: you can talk about or is it all kind of
Speaker 1: hush hush um, I can tell you about it. I guess, Oh,
Speaker 1: actually you know what they remind me? You mentioned on
Speaker 1: on the episode with Dan you mentioned Jimmy Donne. Who
Speaker 1: was Who was he? He and I were pas together
Speaker 1: the Daily Show and we moved up together quite a bit.
Speaker 1: So like when you when you mentioned his name, I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, I have to get in touch with Jimmy.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to him forever. How does Chuck know him?
Speaker 1: But the what I'm working on now, I hope I
Speaker 1: can talk about it. It's been I mean the show
Speaker 1: has been announced that but right now I'm writing on
Speaker 1: a a new animated sitcom for Fox, uh called Housebroken.
Speaker 1: That's about that's a show about pets. And the cast
Speaker 1: in it is really amazing. It's like Lisa Coudreau and
Speaker 1: Sharon Horgan and will Forte Richardson and Tony Hale, like
Speaker 1: it's an amazing cast and the it's working. This is
Speaker 1: my first time I've been working on a like a
Speaker 1: scripted what they call scripted show, which is a dumb
Speaker 1: name because all television show those are scripted. But you
Speaker 1: know the implication is that a show like The Daily
Speaker 1: Show is like kind of half made up or that
Speaker 1: like a late night talk show is kind of like
Speaker 1: it's super loose. Who knows what's going to happen when
Speaker 1: we're just like scripted down to the meal a second.
Speaker 1: But and it's been a really it's I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a really good show, and it's been a
Speaker 1: really fantastic experience. Like I love working on it. I
Speaker 1: would I would like a few things more than for
Speaker 1: it to continue on for a long time and for
Speaker 1: me to get to be a part of it for
Speaker 1: a long time. So that sounds craty, So stay tuned
Speaker 1: fox Spring. That's great, I'm allowed to talk about it.
Speaker 1: That's a good racket to be in right now. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: animation is the best to be in right now because
Speaker 1: you can do it from your house, so you don't
Speaker 1: need to get a ton of people in a room
Speaker 1: together to to shoot it and make it happen. I
Speaker 1: know it was. This was like a uh, it was
Speaker 1: a real It was a real godsend to be working
Speaker 1: on this show. And I'm really I'm really thankful to
Speaker 1: be on it. I think it's I mean that makes
Speaker 1: me sound like I was if I put it that way.
Speaker 1: I am genuinely thankful, But it makes me sound like
Speaker 1: I was struggling, which is not the case. But like,
Speaker 1: but like it was. It was a real It was
Speaker 1: a really great opportunity to get onto that kind of
Speaker 1: show because yeah, any shows that involve human beings being
Speaker 1: in a room together are are on hold at the moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool that you're pressing forward. Um, well, should we
Speaker 1: talk about the Taking of Pelham one to three? Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: let's do it. That's what we're supposed to. I'm spilling
Speaker 1: all these beans about these secret projects and I was
Speaker 1: allowed to tell anybody about Uh. But so Taking Pellam
Speaker 1: onto three is a movie that I honestly, for all
Speaker 1: these movies that I've seen, where I like so vividly
Speaker 1: remember the experience. I don't remember the first time I
Speaker 1: saw it. It feels like my first memory of it.
Speaker 1: I had already seen it probably three or four times,
Speaker 1: and like my my strongest memory of watching it is
Speaker 1: probably when I first started dating my wife. Me and
Speaker 1: my friend Brock, who I had been sketch partners with.
Speaker 1: We the two of us already loved this movie, and
Speaker 1: me and Brock taking her to see like a midnight
Speaker 1: screening of it at this movie theater and that used
Speaker 1: to be New York called the Sunshine Theater. That doesn't
Speaker 1: exist anymore, but it's a really fantastic theater, and the
Speaker 1: just like for some reason, this movie. I cannot remember
Speaker 1: when I started watching this movie, but I've probably seen it,
Speaker 1: I don't know how, like dozens of times now. It's
Speaker 1: one of the few movies where I watch it and
Speaker 1: as soon as it's over, I'm like, I should probably
Speaker 1: watch the sake of Hell I'm one to three. When
Speaker 1: was the last time I watched that? I probably watch
Speaker 1: it again. And there's a couple of movies where, even
Speaker 1: though I've seen them, I'm still in suspense when I'm
Speaker 1: watching it, like an alien when she goes back to
Speaker 1: get the cat. Every time I watch it, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You never can get back to
Speaker 1: the capsule in time, even tho I've seen the movie
Speaker 1: so many times. Now, that's such a cool thing about
Speaker 1: a movie that it can do that after you've seen
Speaker 1: it so many times. You know, the sort of the
Speaker 1: magic of movie making where suspense can be carried over
Speaker 1: after a dozen viewings. Oh yeah, Like, I know they're
Speaker 1: going to get I know they're you know spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: they don't murder all the hostages. That this is for
Speaker 1: anyone who hasn't seen it who might be listening, that's
Speaker 1: a movie about a subway car that gets taken hostage,
Speaker 1: and the hostage here say give us a million dollars
Speaker 1: in one hour, or for every minute you're late, we're
Speaker 1: going to kill one hostage. And obviously the bad guys
Speaker 1: don't murder a subway car full of people. But like
Speaker 1: the oh, this is the project I should have anyway,
Speaker 1: it reminds me there's a project I should have told
Speaker 1: you about that makes that's much more closely related to this,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't thinking about it at the time. The
Speaker 1: but I'm still every time, I'm like, they're not going
Speaker 1: to get the money to them in time? Come on,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Like hurry up? And it's such
Speaker 1: a I feel like growing up in New Jersey in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, the idea of New York in
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, just like primal myth in the
Speaker 1: background of like this crazier, dirtier, like more dangerous time
Speaker 1: that my parents and my grandparents had lived through but
Speaker 1: which I would never know. And there's something about ugly
Speaker 1: and grimy things that in real life they look disgusting,
Speaker 1: but in movies they look really there's something really attractive
Speaker 1: about them that I can't quite put my finger on. Like, like,
Speaker 1: growing up, I always wanted I always loved like punk aesthetic,
Speaker 1: and then when I was actually hanging out with punks,
Speaker 1: I would be like, this is disgusting, Like there was this,
Speaker 1: there was this there s bar in New York called
Speaker 1: Mars Bar, and I would be like, I am never
Speaker 1: going in there again. That place is gross. But like
Speaker 1: if I was, but like, um, I watched the movie
Speaker 1: Uh Dudes for the first time recently with John Cryer,
Speaker 1: where it's like these punks that go out West and
Speaker 1: they're living in filth and I'm like, awesome, this looks great,
Speaker 1: Like why couldn't I have done that? And it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you had your chance to do that when you were young.
Speaker 1: You thought it was gross, but uh, there's like but
Speaker 1: this movie so captures that feeling of like this city
Speaker 1: that is in like a bad state and crumbling and
Speaker 1: falling apart, and the people they are constantly mad at
Speaker 1: each other. These things that I used to take pride
Speaker 1: in as an East coaster until I moved to l
Speaker 1: A and I was like, oh, people are really happy
Speaker 1: out here and they're mad at each other all the time.
Speaker 1: Like it feels like it captures that so well, and
Speaker 1: it's like super suspenseful, but it's also super funny and
Speaker 1: I don't know, and it looks great like they did
Speaker 1: uh Owen Roisman who did the uh who did that
Speaker 1: cinematography for it, Like they do such an amazing job
Speaker 1: of just like making everything look making these subway cars
Speaker 1: and like the transit hubs and everything looks so cool.
Speaker 1: And you'll see these people running at a late twentieth
Speaker 1: century subway system using boards that are just covered in
Speaker 1: little blinking light bulbs and they're just tracking trains and
Speaker 1: You're like, this is amazing. Like it feels like I'm
Speaker 1: watching the old world, you know, die as the New
Speaker 1: World rises from its ashes, have to live through that
Speaker 1: that chasm, you know. Yeah, it's a movie that's um
Speaker 1: I mean, And there are a lots so many movies
Speaker 1: that capture New York so well, but this movie is
Speaker 1: almost about New York in a certain way. Um. Every
Speaker 1: character in it, from the um from everyone at Command Center,
Speaker 1: everyone's always angry everyone's tough. Uh, the passengers that are hostages,
Speaker 1: the people on the street, the little wooseye mayor like
Speaker 1: it's just such a New York in the seventies movie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so. It's there's such unrelenting hostility between from everyone
Speaker 1: to everyone in the movie, like the movie where Walter
Speaker 1: math I was like the most laid back guy and
Speaker 1: even he like is like that's a crazy movie and
Speaker 1: like a that he uh that, Like the hostages are
Speaker 1: like how much you're asking for? Like they need to
Speaker 1: know how much that the hostage sakers rising and they
Speaker 1: go thirteen millions, they go one million dollars and the
Speaker 1: guy goes, that's not so good, like like and that
Speaker 1: uh that there you know the U A trans officers
Speaker 1: just walking by somebody or maybe or maybe it's transit
Speaker 1: officer if it's cast allow, it's one of the one
Speaker 1: of the transit bosses who's like walking by somebody who's
Speaker 1: been forced off a subway trainer this and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sue your ass. I'm gonna sue you. It's
Speaker 1: like I shut up. Like everyone's just so mad at
Speaker 1: each other, and I think, what that there's I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought about this war. But what it feels like to
Speaker 1: me is it's like every character in the movie thinks
Speaker 1: they are the star of the movie. There's nobody, including
Speaker 1: the extras. They all think that they're the start of movie,
Speaker 1: which is the way real life is, the way that
Speaker 1: New York City is. Everyone in New York thinks that
Speaker 1: New York is their city. That they then it's the
Speaker 1: story is all about them, and so like, certainly I
Speaker 1: felt that when I was walking down the street in
Speaker 1: New York, it was like, Yep, I'm the star. You
Speaker 1: guys are the backgrounds. That's the crazy guy who's like
Speaker 1: local color for my for this scene right here, like
Speaker 1: where you watch a movie like um like Taxi Driver
Speaker 1: kind of carries that captures that a little bit too,
Speaker 1: where it's like everyone in New York is convinced that
Speaker 1: they're the star of New York and like everyone in
Speaker 1: Taking Time one Too three has like that moment where
Speaker 1: they get they do not show the difference that a
Speaker 1: supporting character and extra usually shows to the leads, the
Speaker 1: lead characters in a movie like It's so there's such
Speaker 1: a lack of respect from everyone very well, which I love.
Speaker 1: It's like they're in this like Marx Brothers world where
Speaker 1: nobody respects anybody, which would be terrible to live in,
Speaker 1: which is why I live in Los Angeles now, partly
Speaker 1: because I got tired of it, Like it takes so
Speaker 1: much energy to live in New York and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm tired every day, Like it feels like I live
Speaker 1: in like a termite hive and everyone's just kind of
Speaker 1: like crawling all over each other and you never see
Speaker 1: the sun. And but we watch in a movie and
Speaker 1: you're like, this is cool, Like I wish I liked there.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you're right, there's I didn't really notice that.
Speaker 1: But there's no deference to anyone. Um, there's no respect
Speaker 1: for the bosses. There's no respect for the mayor from
Speaker 1: the deputy mayor. Um, there's uh, there's no respect for
Speaker 1: women anywhere in the movie. It's definitely doesn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's things that I think. The one thing that really
Speaker 1: doesn't age well for me, and it is Walter Matthew
Speaker 1: being racist to the Japanese metropoli, the Japanese subway guys
Speaker 1: with Tokyo subway guys who comes and like he gets
Speaker 1: like a tiny come up in and that like they
Speaker 1: knew they could understand him the whole time, but it's
Speaker 1: not enough. That's the that's the part I was years ago.
Speaker 1: I was trying to pitch a book called How to
Speaker 1: Watch Old Movies, and nobody was still buying it. Very rightfully.
Speaker 1: They were like, anyone who is interested in watching old
Speaker 1: movies watches them already, Like no one is going to
Speaker 1: go get a book to teach them how to watch
Speaker 1: old movies. And I was like, that's a fair reason
Speaker 1: not to publish this book. I bet it would be funny,
Speaker 1: though it would have been. I wrote, I have to
Speaker 1: look it up. I find it somewhere. I wrote two
Speaker 1: chapters of it, and I wanted to talk about something
Speaker 1: that I was going to call the classic movie cringe,
Speaker 1: just like it's gonna happen if you watch an old movie.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a moment where there's a made character,
Speaker 1: where there's some comment or joke when you're like, that's
Speaker 1: not okay, Like it's never okay, but it's especially not okay,
Speaker 1: like and but you just kind of like power through those.
Speaker 1: So it's it's this. The one thing in this movie
Speaker 1: that really bothers me is that thing and the misogyny
Speaker 1: is there all over the place. But I feel like
Speaker 1: that's that's where I'm like, well, these are these I'm
Speaker 1: judging these characters the movies. I mean, these are not
Speaker 1: so often the people who are misogysts or not. Like
Speaker 1: the reason that I think it hurts that Walter math
Speaker 1: is doing this because he's the hero of the movie,
Speaker 1: you know. But yeah, and the you know the character
Speaker 1: that the one the first guy to get shot down
Speaker 1: in the tunnel um that amazing as actor. He uh.
Speaker 1: I think the line he has is he he says
Speaker 1: he curses in the room or something with the sort
Speaker 1: of new female employee and they say to watch his mouth,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you can't even curse anymore with these
Speaker 1: women around. He was like, how am I supposed to
Speaker 1: run a railroad if I can't swear? But he's like,
Speaker 1: I was that character. I think about him because like
Speaker 1: I love him in the movie, but I would hate
Speaker 1: to interact with that human being on any level. Yes,
Speaker 1: similar to how like Grimy New York looks really attractive
Speaker 1: in the movies, Like there's something about that guy in
Speaker 1: a movie. I'm like, this is hilarious, but if but
Speaker 1: to encounter that person in real life. I've encountered guys
Speaker 1: like that. I'm like, what can I what what do
Speaker 1: I have to do to end this conversation right now?
Speaker 1: Like what do I have to do? Never involve myself
Speaker 1: with this human being again, because he's like objectively terrible.
Speaker 1: But and there's no deference for him either with um well,
Speaker 1: there's no deference to any of the hijackers because the
Speaker 1: guys on the back of the train with a gun,
Speaker 1: he's like, you stop right there, man, and he's like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, I'm coming on that train. And every everyone
Speaker 1: that talks to Robert Shaw through the whole movie, it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, listen here, you son of a bitch,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you need to give us more time.
Speaker 1: The guy, he's, uh, which guy is that? Who it's Frank?
Speaker 1: I think is the is the guy who is like
Speaker 1: manning the desk at first, And he's like he's like
Speaker 1: listening to him, maniac, We're not gonna do whatever you say.
Speaker 1: And it's like he's talk this is he's talking to
Speaker 1: the hostage taker like there's no and what what seems
Speaker 1: to Mark Walter Matho is weak in the other character's eyes,
Speaker 1: is that he's willing to negotiate with the hostage teaker
Speaker 1: because all he cares about is keeping those hostages alive.
Speaker 1: He's the only one I think that cares about keeping
Speaker 1: them alive. It feels like everyone else is just so
Speaker 1: focused on getting the getting the trains moving, or the
Speaker 1: votes or and he's and even he the guy who's
Speaker 1: at least engaging with the hostages. Even he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you should really think of getting therapy after all this,
Speaker 1: And even he is not is not respectable. That's a
Speaker 1: great line. It's fun. I mean, Walter math Out is
Speaker 1: one of the greats, and it's kind of fun seeing
Speaker 1: him play a little bit against type. Here I guess
Speaker 1: um and that it just wasn't a comedy, although he
Speaker 1: gets his his laughs here and there, same as Jerry
Speaker 1: Stiller is so funny and where when uh, he's the
Speaker 1: Walter math is showing around the guys from the Tokyo Subway.
Speaker 1: He goes, here's and here's Terry Stealer's character name. I
Speaker 1: gotta look at him. Here's Rico's right, and here's and
Speaker 1: here's Rico. On on weekends he freelances for the mafia
Speaker 1: and and he's sitting there with it. He's sitting there
Speaker 1: with a newspaper open. He goes, Zack, I'm busy, Like
Speaker 1: he's literally just sitting there reading the newspaper. But like
Speaker 1: they walked by a they walked by a police officer
Speaker 1: who's like so bored that he's like drawing something on
Speaker 1: the side of a cup, on the side of the stone.
Speaker 1: Was like, here's our here's our in house artist in
Speaker 1: residents like Walter math is just like there's there's a
Speaker 1: line because that we're Uh, he's talking about the the
Speaker 1: crimes that they deal with, and he's on any given day,
Speaker 1: the transit police deals with climes including it's like murder,
Speaker 1: loitering and uh, and he goes michigas and that, and
Speaker 1: that's not in the That's not in the script, so
Speaker 1: I have to assume that he added it in or
Speaker 1: that it was adit like it's so funny, like he's
Speaker 1: he's brought so much to it. But there's a it's
Speaker 1: a there you talk about the mayor and like the
Speaker 1: mayor is so funny, like that the mayor, that the
Speaker 1: the and these characters. It's like a very ensembly movie
Speaker 1: in some ways, and that characters kind of like pop
Speaker 1: up and drop out of the movie. Asn't necessary that
Speaker 1: this mayor, he's sick in bed, no one, no one
Speaker 1: respects him. His deputy mirror bosses him around, and uh,
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm gonna go there as a show of strength.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go there to the subway entrance. And
Speaker 1: you see these police officers outside the subway entrance and
Speaker 1: you just here boos, just booing, and the cup goes, Oh,
Speaker 1: the Mayor's here, And that's the last you hear of
Speaker 1: the mayor for the risk of the movie. Like he
Speaker 1: ends being booed off screen. Yeah, he never he never
Speaker 1: gets his bullhorn speech does He doesn't deserve it, doesn't
Speaker 1: need it. Like it's such a Yeah, it's such a
Speaker 1: It's like the whole movie at times is it feels
Speaker 1: like a like a political cartoon that's come to life
Speaker 1: and sing this and this this is the this is
Speaker 1: the project. I should have mentioned earlier. I'm gonna gonna
Speaker 1: insert a plug here, which non organic cliss. There's what
Speaker 1: I should have mentioned is there's a complex series that
Speaker 1: I've written that is going to come out next year
Speaker 1: from Aftershot Comics called Maniac of New York where I
Speaker 1: basically was like I wanted to do a kind of
Speaker 1: like kind of what if there was a in some ways,
Speaker 1: what if there was a version of Jason Takes Manhattan
Speaker 1: that was that actually was in New York, didn't spend
Speaker 1: most of its time in Vancouver. But like, how the
Speaker 1: way that problems that show up nowadays, it seems like
Speaker 1: there's always there's always like a big burst of attention,
Speaker 1: and then it kind of becomes this widespread idea that
Speaker 1: it's kind of easier to live with a problem to
Speaker 1: actually try to solve it. And so there's this kind
Speaker 1: of like, uh, this mask you know, in more, this
Speaker 1: masked unkillable slasher that's rampaging through New York and nobody
Speaker 1: could solve the problem in the first couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: So now it's years later and it's just a thing
Speaker 1: that New Yorkers have to deal with, and the and
Speaker 1: that like you may and uh the New York One
Speaker 1: Rail and Road Report now also has a tracker for
Speaker 1: the Maniac where it's like the Maniac was sited in
Speaker 1: Lower Manhattan, so like if you work there, maybe stay
Speaker 1: home today. The and in this in the first storyline
Speaker 1: in the series, he gets loose on a subway train,
Speaker 1: and the whole and the whole thing. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to do the Taking of
Speaker 1: Peem one to three but with like a slasher slasher murderer,
Speaker 1: but also trying the way the taking Peem one two
Speaker 1: three is about kind of like when there's a crisis,
Speaker 1: everyone is just kind of they can't lose sight of
Speaker 1: their immediate interest, you know. Yeah, it's it had a
Speaker 1: very low fi that way. Yeah, and this and this,
Speaker 1: uh in this storyline is kind of similar. So Maynia
Speaker 1: come New York from Aftershot Comics coming out in February.
Speaker 1: I guess, so maybe don't release this episode until realized
Speaker 1: of promoting a lot of stuff for next year, we
Speaker 1: can rerelease it, you never know, Yeah, they yeah, perfect, oh, great, great, excellent,
Speaker 1: This is the this is the advanced buzz. And then
Speaker 1: but the yeah, there's a that like something objectively terrible happens,
Speaker 1: and all that the people in different areas of power
Speaker 1: can think of is how does this affect me and
Speaker 1: my priorities? Like, my job is not to save people's lives,
Speaker 1: My job is to keep a train running. Has this
Speaker 1: affect the train I'm the mayor. My job is to
Speaker 1: stay mayor and be re elected, So how does this
Speaker 1: affect that? Whereas Walter Matheo is the one guy in
Speaker 1: it who's kind of like, well, I'm my job is
Speaker 1: to not let people die, and so I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to let that happen. And he's even with the
Speaker 1: with the stuff with it, with the Tokyo guys, he's
Speaker 1: kind of trying to grope towards not woke because they
Speaker 1: didn't have that same kind of concept as widespread back then,
Speaker 1: I guess. But like how they like, oh, there's an
Speaker 1: undercover cop on the train, how do we know? How
Speaker 1: he hasn't done anything? And he's like, could be a sheet,
Speaker 1: And then the movie he keeps going back to the
Speaker 1: idea like it could be a woman who's the undercover cop.
Speaker 1: And then the undercover cop happens to be dressed as
Speaker 1: a hippie, and Walter Matho at the end sees him
Speaker 1: from behind. It just sees the long hairs like, don't worry, miss,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get an ambulance over here. But that he is,
Speaker 1: even in his attempt to be open minded, he is
Speaker 1: he is still incredibly close minded, but That's one of
Speaker 1: the cool things about this movie. That was you had this, um,
Speaker 1: you've got the hostage situation going on, and then you've
Speaker 1: also got off to the side this other sort of
Speaker 1: mini mystery of who's the undercover cop? Uh and then
Speaker 1: it occurred to me not only through the naming conventions,
Speaker 1: but with who's the undercover cop? I was like, this
Speaker 1: is Quentin Tarantino completely ripped this off for Reservoir Dogs Obviously?
Speaker 1: Well he was, Yeah, he was, he was, he was
Speaker 1: he was borrowing from it, you know, seeing as seeing
Speaker 1: as I just wrote a complic story that's like Jason
Speaker 1: on Kellum one to three. I can't go after Aline
Speaker 1: Tartino for stealing some names. But but like the but
Speaker 1: it's very like, um, it's there's a no, I don't
Speaker 1: remember what I was gonna say. Actually, let's if if
Speaker 1: you could take out that part in case anyone from
Speaker 1: involved in Jason tries to assume me at some point,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. Uh. Sure, the the it's there's a
Speaker 1: what you were saying, Quentin Tarantino took it for Reservoir Dogs,
Speaker 1: and I think it's definitely it's definitely. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: he likes stealing from it, but he's definitely borrowing from
Speaker 1: it in the way that he does. But it's such
Speaker 1: a he was up front about it, you know. It's
Speaker 1: not like he tried to get away with anything. No,
Speaker 1: that's true. He didn't make a movie that was called
Speaker 1: like the Stealing of Oldham four or six, and he
Speaker 1: was like, I've never heard of the old one. There
Speaker 1: there was one before. But there's something about the movie
Speaker 1: that is so specific to the time it's in, but
Speaker 1: it's also very universal in terms of like people are
Speaker 1: always going to be butting heads about different conflicts and crises,
Speaker 1: and there's so many things in it that are so
Speaker 1: like that. The thieves in it are so not cool
Speaker 1: that they become cool to me. They're like the dowdiest
Speaker 1: kind of like they all have these like big fake
Speaker 1: glasses and big fake mustaches and these big coats on,
Speaker 1: and they're not trying to be cool. And when they
Speaker 1: did the remake of it, one of many things that
Speaker 1: I didn't like about it is that John Travolta, I think,
Speaker 1: was supposed to be kind of like a cool, like
Speaker 1: funny bad guy. And what I like so much about
Speaker 1: the bad guys in this is that they feel like
Speaker 1: four dudes who are just in this job together and
Speaker 1: they're not cool, they're not funny, they don't particularly like
Speaker 1: each other, they don't puly trust each other, and it's
Speaker 1: just like this is a job and there's It was
Speaker 1: only during the Quarantine that I finally read the book
Speaker 1: that it's based on, and it was interesting. For the book,
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. There's so much of the there's so
Speaker 1: much in the movie that's good that comes directly from
Speaker 1: the book, like lines of dialogue that comes straight from
Speaker 1: the book, and the plot mostly runs the same, Like
Speaker 1: Walter Mathos character is kind of a combination of two
Speaker 1: characters that are in the in the in the book,
Speaker 1: but the book is one it's like crazily overwritten, like
Speaker 1: there's there's so much overwriting. But also it's told from
Speaker 1: a couple of different characters inner monologue points of view.
Speaker 1: So the undercover cop, you know who he is through
Speaker 1: the entire book because you're in his head it because
Speaker 1: he's like, should I do anything? I'll just sit here
Speaker 1: for right now. I'm dating this girl who's a revolutionary
Speaker 1: who hates the police. I can't I revealed I was
Speaker 1: a policeman. Oh boy, was this mean for that? Let
Speaker 1: me have a fan let me have a flashback about
Speaker 1: when we had sex. One Sometimes it was like, and uh,
Speaker 1: Robert Shaw's character, you learn a lot more about like
Speaker 1: who he is and and and it was like the
Speaker 1: movie benefits so much from stripping it down to where
Speaker 1: you're not really in anyone's head. You don't really know
Speaker 1: anyone's backstory. This is just a day that happened to them,
Speaker 1: and you are kind of you're just seeing people in
Speaker 1: a city kind of thrown together in this instance, as
Speaker 1: opposed to like, Okay, here's our five main characters that
Speaker 1: were really going to get to know and everybody else.
Speaker 1: But there's But I was amazed reading through the book.
Speaker 1: I'm like it was almost like a disappointing at times
Speaker 1: where I would be like, Oh, this whole section of
Speaker 1: dialogue that I love from the movie has just taken
Speaker 1: wholesale from the book, and I should think that's great,
Speaker 1: I said. I was like, well, I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: that to be a special thing for the movie. They're
Speaker 1: literally just taken from the book. But it's a very
Speaker 1: it's like a there was like you learn more about
Speaker 1: the characters but it feels like a lesser experience in
Speaker 1: some ways. Yeah, I think the movie, um, because it
Speaker 1: was a product of his time, was underdone. There wasn't
Speaker 1: like if that. I mean I didn't see the remake,
Speaker 1: but I picture if it would be made today as
Speaker 1: as a brand new movie, the Walter Matthew character would
Speaker 1: have had some like falling down esque backstory like Robert
Speaker 1: Duval had where it's his last day on the job
Speaker 1: and he's too old for this ship. And in the
Speaker 1: new one, it's like it's Denzel Washington plays that part,
Speaker 1: and it's like he had a history where he got
Speaker 1: in trouble with that he's under suspicions somewhat. And and
Speaker 1: and John Travolta's character is like a former day trader
Speaker 1: who's trying to use this crisis to like sink the
Speaker 1: price of gold or something like that. You don't need
Speaker 1: such a more elaborate plot, Yeah, you just don't need it.
Speaker 1: And the it was almost like like there's something inherently
Speaker 1: ridiculous about someone taking a train for ransom, because as
Speaker 1: as they keep pointing out in the movie, they're like
Speaker 1: Jerry Stiller's like, I think I figured out what they're
Speaker 1: gonna do. They're gonna I think they're gonna fly the
Speaker 1: train to Cuba and and well, I was like, you're
Speaker 1: a sick man, Rico. But that that like they keep
Speaker 1: pointing out, this is a crazy plan. It's a stupid plan,
Speaker 1: like they're trapped underground, and it's almost like in the
Speaker 1: remake they were like, this is a dumb plan. We
Speaker 1: better try to clever it up a little bit. Instead
Speaker 1: they just super complicated everything. But I love the idea that, like, uh,
Speaker 1: Zachary Garber went to work. The first time we see him,
Speaker 1: he is literally napping on a bench outside of the
Speaker 1: outside the office. And then he expected he was going
Speaker 1: to have a boring day. He had this incredibly ridiculous day.
Speaker 1: He and that Rico then have to go around trying
Speaker 1: to find the final man who wasn't caught, and then
Speaker 1: he's just gonna go home and like tomorrow is gonna
Speaker 1: go back to work, and like that's it and it's
Speaker 1: just gonna go back home and do whatever they do
Speaker 1: the next day. And he's such a one man show.
Speaker 1: It's almost surprising that he takes Rico with him at all,
Speaker 1: because in a modern film that would have been such
Speaker 1: a bigger action sequence when he finally goes down into
Speaker 1: the tunnel at the end to you know, to solve
Speaker 1: the crime and face Robert Shaw. He's by himself. He
Speaker 1: would have it would have been such a and I'm
Speaker 1: sure in the remake it was. It was played up
Speaker 1: as such a bigger thing with like a squad of
Speaker 1: elite cops behind them. And I'm trying to remember what
Speaker 1: happens there, like on a bridge, and I think there's
Speaker 1: a gunfight, but I can't quite remember. Holding I apologize,
Speaker 1: I have to. I keep hearing the doorbell ringing, and
Speaker 1: it's probably coming through on the recording, but I should
Speaker 1: see who it is that. I don't expect anyone, But
Speaker 1: I'll be back. Sorry about this, all right, Elliott is back. Uh.
Speaker 1: We we heard the beginning when the doorbell rang and
Speaker 1: you had to leave, and then I just want to
Speaker 1: let you know from my point of view, what happened
Speaker 1: is I saw you leave the room and shut the door,
Speaker 1: and then I heard these sort of muffled voices, and
Speaker 1: I totally thought I was going to be in the
Speaker 1: middle of a Hitchcock movie for a second, where I
Speaker 1: would hear a scuffled breakout and you would fling the
Speaker 1: door open, bleeding and like crawl back to the computer
Speaker 1: and say, Chuck, solve the find my killers, avenge me.
Speaker 1: If only, Oh man, it truly felt like a Hitchcock movie.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden. I was like, oh man, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hear a gunshot any second now, if only my
Speaker 1: life is that interesting. In fact, just just tear away
Speaker 1: the curtain for the audience. We have a shower drain
Speaker 1: that has backed up and it's really disgusting. And so
Speaker 1: that was The plumbers arrived a little earlier than I expected.
Speaker 1: And and not like the movie plumbers who are like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're the plumbers, you know, we paint houses, but like
Speaker 1: a just a disguise who handle plumbing. So what what neighbor?
Speaker 1: Who you went out there? I meant to ask, I
Speaker 1: live in Eagle Rock, which is like that's where. Oh really,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that that's right, because you know what,
Speaker 1: now I'm remembering when we had that call with you
Speaker 1: and Andy Daly. We were joking about the rock the
Speaker 1: actual eagle, right, and that's right? And Andy Daly was like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look that much like an eagle you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I lived on Las Colinas Avenue. Okay, sort of behind
Speaker 1: Senior Fish. Okay, yeah, we're not too far away. We're
Speaker 1: kind of like on the we're closer to where like
Speaker 1: the Trader Joe's is. Yeah yeah, and uh yeah, we
Speaker 1: just moved here last year. I really love it out here.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's cool. We we we got a
Speaker 1: house and I'm like, all right, I could see living
Speaker 1: here until I die. This is hounds pretty this is
Speaker 1: pretty good. We can stay in this house for thirty
Speaker 1: forty years and then some one day I'll just they'll
Speaker 1: just find me on a lounge chair outside, just not
Speaker 1: reathing anymore. That sounds all right, right, so uh we
Speaker 1: can wind it up with Pelham. We were talking when
Speaker 1: the doorbell rang about how a movie, uh and I
Speaker 1: imagine the remake was just so much more overblown at
Speaker 1: the end, and you were talking about how they had
Speaker 1: some big shootout on the bridge. I think I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember it well because it wasn't like it was
Speaker 1: like I don't think it's like an army of cops
Speaker 1: versus the hostage, but it was definitely like Denzel Washington
Speaker 1: become more becoming more of a man of action than
Speaker 1: Walter math hous in this and the what I what
Speaker 1: I want to say was that lot And I know
Speaker 1: people who like at the remake somewhat it's not my
Speaker 1: it's a it's a Tony Scott movie. And like Tony
Speaker 1: Scott movies have never been like totally my cup of tea,
Speaker 1: except for something like The Hunger Truman, like The Hunger,
Speaker 1: which I think is such a strange movie where you're
Speaker 1: watching it and you're like, I can't quite tell what
Speaker 1: this This movie is beautiful, but I don't really know
Speaker 1: what's going on at any given point with these characters.
Speaker 1: But the it's like that. It makes me think because
Speaker 1: like the taking of Pelum one two three is such
Speaker 1: a I feel like if there's any movie that is
Speaker 1: like this is New York in the mid seventies, like
Speaker 1: this is that movie. And from the with the remake,
Speaker 1: they really had a chance to be like this is
Speaker 1: post nine eleven New York, Like let's show that in
Speaker 1: a movie, and they like didn't do it, They like
Speaker 1: couldn't pull it off. Maybe I think they just weren't
Speaker 1: trying that hard. But I wanted to point to the
Speaker 1: movie Inside Man, Spike Lee movie, which is great and
Speaker 1: which I think is that movie, like Inside Man is
Speaker 1: the taking of Pelum one, two, three, four and immediately
Speaker 1: post nine eleven New York, where it was like it's
Speaker 1: really talking about like what's going on in the city
Speaker 1: and what it is, what it lives, what's like to
Speaker 1: live in that city, but still super suspenseful, and there's
Speaker 1: still funny parts in it. And the only thing that
Speaker 1: rings not totally true to me is Denzel Washington's sexy
Speaker 1: wife just lying around in her underwear all day, calling
Speaker 1: him on the phone constantly to get him to come
Speaker 1: home and have sex with her, and well he's busy
Speaker 1: with this case, and it's like this is is someone
Speaker 1: from a different movie calling him, like what's going It's
Speaker 1: feels so so strangely out of place. But the but
Speaker 1: that's the movie where if there's any movie that kind
Speaker 1: of like picks up the torch from Taking a Palamont
Speaker 1: to the original, it's not the remake, but it's the
Speaker 1: but it's Inside Man. Yeah, I mean, I was just
Speaker 1: sort of thinking about the third act and the end
Speaker 1: of this film is such a great third act because
Speaker 1: there's so much suspense with um the literal ticking clock,
Speaker 1: which is always fun when someone literally starts a time
Speaker 1: or in your movie and you've got this cash on
Speaker 1: the way, You've got Matthou bluffing, um, you've got the
Speaker 1: Runaway Train being intercut with uh, with math Ow going
Speaker 1: down there by himself to confront Robert Shaw. And there's
Speaker 1: kind of a lot going on, but it's still sort
Speaker 1: of I keep saying low fi. It's just it's underdone
Speaker 1: in that perfect seventies movies way. Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's a there's a sequence that where they they've got
Speaker 1: to get the money together too, and this at a
Speaker 1: time period when New York as a city had no money,
Speaker 1: Like this is right before the Like yeah, he've been
Speaker 1: said in the movie, like we we can't afford this
Speaker 1: is a city a million a million dollars. The idea
Speaker 1: that New York City can't bring up a million dollars
Speaker 1: in cash at a given moment is a crazy scenario.
Speaker 1: But that's how it was at the time, And like
Speaker 1: New York really looked like it was, you know, dying.
Speaker 1: It was just crumbling. And there's a sequence where they
Speaker 1: have to get the cash to them and you're just
Speaker 1: watching women's hands counting out bills and putting rubber bands
Speaker 1: around the stacks, and they throw the bills into a
Speaker 1: shopping cart that has to be walked down the down
Speaker 1: the hallway, and there's a in the beginning of Zode Act,
Speaker 1: there's like an inter office shopping car like this that's
Speaker 1: we walked around and I have to assume it's a
Speaker 1: it's a pelleam like and uh. And then they got
Speaker 1: to put it in a bag and the bag has
Speaker 1: got to be handed to some cops in a cop car.
Speaker 1: And the cop car literally has to race from the
Speaker 1: bank downtown up to where the to where the train is.
Speaker 1: And it's like the it's so like you're saying it's
Speaker 1: low five. There's no like, well we'll just well okay,
Speaker 1: well ven moow the money to your account. And they're
Speaker 1: like the transfer got got interrupted. Oh no, It's like
Speaker 1: this is physical money. We've got to count it, we've
Speaker 1: got to stack it, we've gotta rubber bands around it,
Speaker 1: we gotta put it in a bag, we gotta hand
Speaker 1: it to guys in a car. They've gotta physically take
Speaker 1: it up there. Then it's gonna be taken onto the
Speaker 1: tracks to take the train. And it's so like a
Speaker 1: and they shot most of it, I think all of it.
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't I'm trying to remember if any
Speaker 1: of it was shot outside of New York, like almost
Speaker 1: all of it was shot. It's and it's all like
Speaker 1: the in the in the abandoned subway station that is
Speaker 1: now where the New York Transit Museum is, and just
Speaker 1: on the streets of New York. So that's the other
Speaker 1: thing that it's like a personal thing for me is
Speaker 1: seeing these street corners that I know really went like
Speaker 1: seeing Astor Place in nineteen seventy four and seeing like
Speaker 1: Union Square East, these areas that because I went to
Speaker 1: n y U like I was around all the time,
Speaker 1: and seeing them just and like being like, that's what
Speaker 1: that building was before it was a Barnes and Noble
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Like there's a there's a movie
Speaker 1: called The Landlord The How, a Shoby movie with Bow
Speaker 1: Bridges that's set in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where I lived
Speaker 1: for a number of years, and it's set in it's
Speaker 1: from nineteen sight I think, and so it's Park Slope,
Speaker 1: which is now like the most it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a very pleasant place to live. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: the most kind of like bougie. You know, it's where
Speaker 1: the big food co op is and you can't afford
Speaker 1: to buy a house there. They all cost, you know,
Speaker 1: millions of dollars, these old brown stones. But it's set
Speaker 1: when this was still when it was still a majority
Speaker 1: black neighborhood and white people with money we're just starting
Speaker 1: to come in and there's so many buildings in it
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh, that's what that building was, like
Speaker 1: that yoga studio used to be. He used to be
Speaker 1: a hairdressers. And there's a same where Bobridges is driving
Speaker 1: his car and in the background you can see a
Speaker 1: pizzeria sign that has this huge Coca Cola bottle cap
Speaker 1: on it. And until four years ago, that sign was
Speaker 1: still up on that pizzeria, and I would love to
Speaker 1: see it and be like, oh, I know that pizzeria.
Speaker 1: I go there and it was and this sign was
Speaker 1: there at the time. So like it's there's a I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not above getting a thrill out of seeing
Speaker 1: things that I've known in movies. There's a there's a
Speaker 1: very bad movie called Robot in the Family. Uh Strangoe Pangliano,
Speaker 1: Uh that it's it's not very good at all, but
Speaker 1: so much of it is shot around the antique stores
Speaker 1: that are between fourteen Street and like twelfth Street on
Speaker 1: Broadway in Manhattan, and again like that was the neighborhood
Speaker 1: I was walking through all the time, so it would
Speaker 1: be like it's a terrible movie, but watching it, I
Speaker 1: still got that thrill of like, I know that store,
Speaker 1: I've walked by there, I know that stretch of pavement.
Speaker 1: But team went Pelmento three like it. It benefits much
Speaker 1: from being in the city. And apparently it was a
Speaker 1: nightmare to shoot. I was listening. I was watching an
Speaker 1: old interview recently with the Joseph Sergeant, the director who
Speaker 1: passed away a few years ago. When did he die?
Speaker 1: He died in if I died about six years ago,
Speaker 1: and he was talking about how because they were literally
Speaker 1: in a subway tunnel all day every day shooting that
Speaker 1: it was so depressing and just and I hadn't even
Speaker 1: thought about that. I was like, oh, yeah, they didn't.
Speaker 1: They were the air and subway tunnels is horrible and
Speaker 1: it was probably worse then, and there was no sunlight,
Speaker 1: like it must have been so nasty to be just
Speaker 1: spending all day in a subway car like the and
Speaker 1: it all comes it sounded miserable, terrible, and it all
Speaker 1: comes through the movie. Like the characters in the movie
Speaker 1: really feel like they hate being there, like it's so
Speaker 1: whereas in like a in the remake, like they can
Speaker 1: get an Internet signal down there, and this is before
Speaker 1: they had WiFi in the real subway systems, and like
Speaker 1: the characters seemed to be able to like open the
Speaker 1: doors for fresh air, and it's like that's not how
Speaker 1: the subway works, Like the air down there gross. And
Speaker 1: also they keep the doors closed. But it's such a
Speaker 1: now I don't even remember how we how we got
Speaker 1: into this, but there there's it's that it's a it's
Speaker 1: a low fi world that you're saying, and it feels real,
Speaker 1: Like it feels like really in this space because they
Speaker 1: were in that space. They were really When when you
Speaker 1: see the cop car like tearing down the street and
Speaker 1: the one cop who's driving turns to the other mose,
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do this. We're scaring the ship
Speaker 1: out of everybody and people are like diving out of
Speaker 1: this car. Like, I mean, it looked real. All the
Speaker 1: streets stuff looked really good. It sort of reminded me
Speaker 1: of Dog Day Afternoon at times. How that felt really
Speaker 1: real too, Yeah, yeah, because it's all like we're gonna
Speaker 1: take a real place and we're gonna shoot in it,
Speaker 1: and they, I mean dog Day after It's another one
Speaker 1: where it's like New York's a grimy, gross place to live.
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at, like what what life is
Speaker 1: like for ordinary people there? And uh, there's a I
Speaker 1: remember the first time I saw I was I was.
Speaker 1: It was a while before I finally saw The French Connection,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like in a similar type of movie,
Speaker 1: and I had a real chip on my shoulder when
Speaker 1: I finally saw I was probably like twenty when I
Speaker 1: finally saw it, because I kept comparing it to Pelham
Speaker 1: one to three and being like, this is best picture Pelamon.
Speaker 1: There is a better movie than this. But the French
Speaker 1: Connection is great too. But how you see these scenes
Speaker 1: where it's like Gene Hackman living kind of like a
Speaker 1: blue collar life as a cop, and then the drug
Speaker 1: dealers living a white collar, rich life. But even the
Speaker 1: drug dealers stuff looks really chancy and bad, like even
Speaker 1: their furnishings and their houses look like seventies crappy, and
Speaker 1: there's just something about it that's like, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: like on film, it looks so attractive to me to
Speaker 1: live in this like grimy, ugly world, but in real
Speaker 1: life living in it, you'd be like, this is terrible.
Speaker 1: I need something like this is I wish I didn't
Speaker 1: live in a place where everything was dirty, and the
Speaker 1: best I could get is this shag carpet that looks
Speaker 1: that's like orange, This orange shag carpet. Uh. Well, I
Speaker 1: think the last thing we should cover with the movie
Speaker 1: is that very last scene and shot when they you know,
Speaker 1: they set it up so obviously but so well with
Speaker 1: the sneezing and the gazoo tight throughout the movie, you
Speaker 1: know it's going to be how the guys found out,
Speaker 1: and uh they in the movie on a almost like
Speaker 1: in a sit commy way, if anyone's listening hasn't seen it,
Speaker 1: one stop listening and then go watch it. But like
Speaker 1: all throughout Martin Balsom's character, who is the most reluctant
Speaker 1: of the of the thieves. Uh he's an ex motorman
Speaker 1: on the subway and he's he's the one who has
Speaker 1: the no house that they can pull off this heist,
Speaker 1: but he's the least hardened of all the of of
Speaker 1: the three others, Robert Shaw, who is you pick up
Speaker 1: is a mercenary who has commanded African armies and shooting rebels.
Speaker 1: And Hector Alisando, who's like, they make a bigger case
Speaker 1: of this in the book, but he's like the guy
Speaker 1: who has kicked out of the mafia for being too crazy,
Speaker 1: like he's too violent, and in the book he is
Speaker 1: just such a disgusting, despicable person and he spends most
Speaker 1: of the book trying to figure out how to have
Speaker 1: sex with the prostitute on the train right while still
Speaker 1: doing it, and like the book is the book is
Speaker 1: so much more sex heavy than the movies. And Earl
Speaker 1: hind In, who's like the quiet but also clearly a
Speaker 1: professional soldier, and it's hard for me to every time
Speaker 1: I watch and I'm like, oh, that's Wilson from Home
Speaker 1: Improvement and he's one of the hijackers, the guy that
Speaker 1: Tim Allens always getting great advice from. But uh, but
Speaker 1: Martin Balston has a cold and yeah, and over the
Speaker 1: radio he's always sneezing, and Walter Mouth will be like,
Speaker 1: gazoom tight and then they go to Martin Balstom's house
Speaker 1: because he's the last name on their list of motor
Speaker 1: men who are fired from the job or suspects. And
Speaker 1: he gets and he lives in this disgusting apartment. It's
Speaker 1: so gross, like a rat hole, and there's like all
Speaker 1: these boxes of old cereals sitting on like just in
Speaker 1: piles on the on the refrigerator, like against the window.
Speaker 1: He's so lived in gross, and he's like wearing this
Speaker 1: like greasy bathrobe, but he looks so he's wearing like
Speaker 1: these these soiled long John's. It's so it's great. It's
Speaker 1: so disgusting. And and they get and they talk to him,
Speaker 1: and he starts feeling really cocky and it's like, how
Speaker 1: dare you come in here and accuse me of this stuf?
Speaker 1: Da da da da. And as they're leaving, he sneezes
Speaker 1: and yeah, Waltimatate goes zoom tight and then just like
Speaker 1: opens the door and just like gives him, Yes, sitcom
Speaker 1: look like wop wop. It's so funny, and it's like
Speaker 1: it's something I went through real cycles with first being like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a two that's too silly a way
Speaker 1: to end this movie, but then really loving it because
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, these are just these dudes, and like
Speaker 1: there's so much you can read into Walter math As
Speaker 1: face that that expression is so New York to me,
Speaker 1: because it's like, are you fucking kidding me? Like seriously,
Speaker 1: like come on, dude, like and but also like the
Speaker 1: look in his face, but he almost seems disappointed that
Speaker 1: that's how they caught the guy was because the guy sneezed,
Speaker 1: you know, at the wrong time. Yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 1: it sounds like there's some kind of crisis going on
Speaker 1: in my family at the moment outside the door, so
Speaker 1: I shouldn't unfortunately take too much longer. But h I
Speaker 1: apologize this has been a This has been a much
Speaker 1: more disjointed recording than I hoped it would be. But
Speaker 1: it's like, but but sorry to act the ending. But
Speaker 1: there's something about that look that is so like it's
Speaker 1: just another thing where like you can't write in the script.
Speaker 1: Detective Garber gives a look to the almost to the
Speaker 1: camera as if to say, can you believe this guy?
Speaker 1: Like it's only it's something you can only do when
Speaker 1: you have Walter Math how in the cast, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'll have to go back and look at the
Speaker 1: look at the script and see how they describe it.
Speaker 1: But it's just one of those moments that like, it
Speaker 1: feels like, yeah, it feels sitcom me. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's like, in the world of this movie, this is
Speaker 1: just a crazy thing these people have gone through. It's
Speaker 1: not the biggest event in their lives, you know. And
Speaker 1: so for Tim to be like, all right, okay, well
Speaker 1: we're done with this now. I mean, in As doesn't
Speaker 1: have to drive around anymore looking talking to people. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's such as. I'm just such
Speaker 1: there's so much about this movie that I'm recommended to
Speaker 1: people all the time. And when I'm recommending and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this feels so keyed into the things that I like,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to imagine people enjoying it the
Speaker 1: same way. But I hope they do. That's great. It's
Speaker 1: a wonderful movie. Um, we'll do with speed around here.
Speaker 1: At the end, we do five questions. And I know
Speaker 1: that both of our families are probably mad at us
Speaker 1: right now, so very much. This has been a podcast
Speaker 1: heavy week for me, So I think my wife is
Speaker 1: like another one okay, all right, we'll do it. We'll
Speaker 1: do it very fast. What's the first movie you remember
Speaker 1: seeing in a theater? The first one I remember seeing
Speaker 1: in the theater was probably like a rerelease of Cinderella.
Speaker 1: I think. I think that's the first time I remember
Speaker 1: seeing like going as a kid, either that or when
Speaker 1: they re released Fantasia when I was a kid and
Speaker 1: my parents were like, We're going to see this movie.
Speaker 1: This is a special movie, and we waited outside the
Speaker 1: movie there in the rain for some reason until the
Speaker 1: time for the movie to start. I think that might
Speaker 1: be my first one, but it was. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: some It's some Disney rerelease was my first time memory.
Speaker 1: First R rated movie you saw that was Ierod either RoboCop,
Speaker 1: and it must have been RoboCop, like when I was
Speaker 1: eight and my dad borrowed it from his friend and
Speaker 1: was like, I heard this is really cool, and we
Speaker 1: watched it and it was the most It was the
Speaker 1: bloodiest thing I've ever seen. And I have this such
Speaker 1: a clear memory of ed to a nine killing that
Speaker 1: guy and me putting my hands in front of my
Speaker 1: eyes just by in shock, and then like slowly pulling
Speaker 1: the hands away from my eyes because I really wanted
Speaker 1: to see what happened next, and my dad was not like,
Speaker 1: let's turn this off right now. He just kept it going,
Speaker 1: so we watched the whole movie. It was either that
Speaker 1: or we used to watch Coming to America a lot
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, like, it's so funny, and
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it in years, but I meaning, we
Speaker 1: watch it, like, and there's so much about it that
Speaker 1: I'm sure I did not get as a kid, but
Speaker 1: it's so funny, all right. Number three? And I asked
Speaker 1: the other guys this, this is the standard question, but
Speaker 1: you do a bad Movie podcast, but I still have
Speaker 1: to ask this question. Do you actually walk out of
Speaker 1: a bad movie? Uh? There have been movies I've watched
Speaker 1: at home where I've been like, I don't need to
Speaker 1: finish this, but if I'm seeing a movie in the theaters.
Speaker 1: I can really only think of one movie that I've
Speaker 1: walked out of, which was my grandmother. When I was
Speaker 1: a teenager. We went to the Museum Modern Art and
Speaker 1: Norman Mailer's Dead Men Don't Dance was playing there and
Speaker 1: neither of us knew what it was, and my grandmother
Speaker 1: was like a free movie, okay, And about ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Ten minutes in, my grandmother said this isn't for us
Speaker 1: and got up and we walked out. All right. Number four,
Speaker 1: you're a big fan of old school comedies and comedies
Speaker 1: from the screwball comedies. What classic comedy do you wish
Speaker 1: you had been able to be in a writer's room
Speaker 1: if they had one. I really wish I could have
Speaker 1: worked on any Mark's Brothers movie, even the Bad Ones,
Speaker 1: even like even like Go West, like they seem to
Speaker 1: be such They're so important to me as like a
Speaker 1: singular comedic energy and talent, and I just there there's
Speaker 1: there are people where every now and then I'll realize
Speaker 1: like I'm never going to meet this person, like the
Speaker 1: uh my wife and I took a trip to Springfield,
Speaker 1: ILLINOIL years ago so I could see Lincoln's tomb in
Speaker 1: his house. And it was only when I was standing
Speaker 1: at Lincoln's tomb that I was like, oh, I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna meet Abraham Lincoln, Like it really could really hit
Speaker 1: me hard. I'm never gonna get to meet I think
Speaker 1: about him every day and I'm never gonna get seem
Speaker 1: but the Mark's Brothers are similar, like just I'm sure
Speaker 1: it would have been a terrible experience. But because they
Speaker 1: didn't stick, they didn't stick to their lines, and groud
Speaker 1: Show was genuinely nasty to Pep like, he just was
Speaker 1: always making fun of people, and they were very hard
Speaker 1: to get ahold of anyone who worked on our March
Speaker 1: for this movie. They seemed to not enjoy the experience.
Speaker 1: But I really wish that I could have just to
Speaker 1: just to have like it's been around their energy, you know,
Speaker 1: just to have met them. Although Harpo everyone says nothing
Speaker 1: but good things about He's the one brother everybody loved.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, although the one movie he made that was
Speaker 1: just him was terrible. But anyway, Uh. And then finally
Speaker 1: movie going one on one? What is what is your
Speaker 1: movie ritual? At the theater? Where do you go, where
Speaker 1: do you sit? What do you eat? Um? Uh, that's
Speaker 1: a good question. For years and years I would go
Speaker 1: to when I when I was young, I would go
Speaker 1: to the film Forum after work and I would bring
Speaker 1: in a package of goldfish with me and I would
Speaker 1: just eat that throughout the movie. And then by the
Speaker 1: end of the movie, I would be so tired that
Speaker 1: I would be falling asleep and my eyes would close
Speaker 1: and the movie would continue in my head and then
Speaker 1: I'd open my eyes and be like, this isn't what
Speaker 1: was happening in the movie. Like so they're like the movie, Um,
Speaker 1: I Live in Fear, the Characro Song movie. I'm still
Speaker 1: not quite sure how it ends, because I can't remember
Speaker 1: what I imagined while watching it and what it actually happened.
Speaker 1: But these days it's uh Dan, I listen to Dan's episode,
Speaker 1: who was talking about going to the Alamo Drafthouse, Like
Speaker 1: that's pretty much the place, that place I go to
Speaker 1: see movies when I very rarely get to see movies
Speaker 1: in the theater these days. Uh, but I'll go there
Speaker 1: and I'll order there. They have like a huge chocolate
Speaker 1: chip cookies, and while I'm eating the cookies, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is bad for me. And I'll just sit and
Speaker 1: watch the movie and uh, I'll get there, you know,
Speaker 1: a half hour ahead of time, and like read a
Speaker 1: book until the movie starts. And there's always that moment
Speaker 1: when the lights are really going down and I can't
Speaker 1: read anymore, and for a split second, I'm like, but
Speaker 1: I was reading, and then I remember then I got
Speaker 1: to see a movie, and I'm like, oh no, this
Speaker 1: is good. This is why I'm here. That's awesome, Mallet.
Speaker 1: This has been a lot of fun, man. Thanks for
Speaker 1: taking the time. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: This has been so much fun and uh and I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. And I just apologize that my life
Speaker 1: is a chaotic rolwind and so no, this has been great.
Speaker 1: Where can people for all you on Twitter, please follow
Speaker 1: me at just at Elliott Kalin E L l I
Speaker 1: O T T K A l A M at Twitter
Speaker 1: and you'll see me occasionally tweet about politics or for
Speaker 1: a little bit, I was tweeting about the closed captions
Speaker 1: on the print of Bad Taste that's in Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm being called somewhere, so unfortunately, have to run.
Speaker 1: But all right, thanks a lot, Elliott, Thank you later,
Speaker 1: see you later. Talked to you later. Thanks all right, everyone.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
Speaker 1: I think, through the magic of editing, Ramsey will be
Speaker 1: able to put that together in a pretty coherent story.
Speaker 1: But we had a lot of weird interruptions, stops and starts,
Speaker 1: and uh, we we worked our way through it. This
Speaker 1: is called podcasting and quarantine. But Elliott was a true
Speaker 1: gentleman and a champion for kind of working his way
Speaker 1: through that with me and being patient as my recording
Speaker 1: stopped and I had to restart. But that just shows
Speaker 1: what a good guy he is. So thanks to Elliott
Speaker 1: for coming on follow him on Twitter like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: and um, we all look forward to that animated show
Speaker 1: coming out on Fox next year. That sounds fantastic, as
Speaker 1: well as the comic book that he was running for.
Speaker 1: So support Elliott anyway. You can support the Flop House
Speaker 1: over at Max Fun. Those are great guys. It's just
Speaker 1: a treasure trove of hysterical podcast about bad movies to
Speaker 1: listen to. So I'm sad this is over, but I'm
Speaker 1: glad we got to pull it off and get these
Speaker 1: three in a row in they can. So big thanks
Speaker 1: to Elliott, and big thanks to the Flop House and
Speaker 1: Max Fund for this crossover series, and thanks for listening everyone.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next week. Movie Brush is produced, edited
Speaker 1: and engineered by Ramsey Yount. You're in our home studio
Speaker 1: at pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia, or I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,