Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush. Oscar round table
Speaker 1: a dish. We are talking uncut gems. On my right,
Speaker 1: I have Mr Ksey pet grum, that's it, that's the intro.
Speaker 1: On my left have nol p p p. He's getting interesting.
Speaker 1: Finger and wait to see what across from me. That's
Speaker 1: my new thing for the year. By the way, his
Speaker 1: finger and sound effects corresponding, you're stealing with thunder. Hello Paul, Paul.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, that's so Paul. The quiet restraint, I love
Speaker 1: it is. This is class In fact, Casey was classy.
Speaker 1: No one's the only one who guttered this up. Pew
Speaker 1: pew finger. I missed my cue one time. So now, well,
Speaker 1: I try to be on top of that. Casey to
Speaker 1: kind of a Fawns kind of thing. That's sort of
Speaker 1: a yeah, and I'm trying not to do that. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do the A and I don't want
Speaker 1: to do the what I read you want to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: well that's weird, straightforward. Almost every time I see you
Speaker 1: in the office, you go your favorite song comes on
Speaker 1: the leather jacket. Every year, al right, Casey. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm not eve gonna who you are anymore? Real show
Speaker 1: boat over there. So, dudes, we are here to talk
Speaker 1: about uncut gems. Uh. And I will go ahead and
Speaker 1: spoil by saying it was my favorite movie of the year,
Speaker 1: my number one movie up there for me. It was
Speaker 1: everything about it. It was fucking perfect. It was my
Speaker 1: number two, but it was neck and neck with my
Speaker 1: number one. Hold your thumbs. So we all liked it.
Speaker 1: Unless Paul's like me. It was kind of okay. I
Speaker 1: thought the acting was not so great. Was always the
Speaker 1: wild card act. You never know what that beauty. We
Speaker 1: had a Richard Jewel discussion at the question Mark table
Speaker 1: yesterday and I was there was a good discussion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I respect your opinion as always. Yeah, thank you, I
Speaker 1: respect yours usually. Thanks. Okay, that's fine, I'll take that. Uh.
Speaker 1: So the Safty Brothers, uh, the only movie I've seen it.
Speaker 1: There's a Good Time or is it good Times? Good Time?
Speaker 1: Good Time? Which was great. Yeah, I've not seen the
Speaker 1: one with the young junkie woman who heaven knows what
Speaker 1: ye did anyone see that? It seems very unpleasant. I
Speaker 1: meant to get around to it. I actually saw a
Speaker 1: deleted scene from it on YouTube. But I have not
Speaker 1: seen the Straightforward Future yet. I just knew, I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew in advance that it involves cutting, and I
Speaker 1: don't like. I'm not I don't like cutting. Cutting freaks
Speaker 1: like suicide. That's start of triggering from me. So I've
Speaker 1: avoided it. Um cutting in Heroin Addiction and all that.
Speaker 1: It just seems, like I said, very unpleasant some Sammarial
Speaker 1: pink music. Well, I mean the Safty brother is. One
Speaker 1: thing they're not out to do so far in their
Speaker 1: career is make anyone feel comfortable and smiley in a
Speaker 1: movie theater. Yeah, yeah, they're They're very much. Watching one
Speaker 1: of their movies is like having a panic attack or something.
Speaker 1: So especially and I would argue it a perfectly enjoyable,
Speaker 1: exciting experience, like I can't wait to see this again.
Speaker 1: It's not one of those are like that again, I'm
Speaker 1: going tonight. Yeah, it's fantast I've seen it twice already.
Speaker 1: So another thing too, that has just hit me. There
Speaker 1: are so many great filmmakers out there right now. Then
Speaker 1: we're really lucky. But to be like our age, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm much older than you guys, we don't need to
Speaker 1: say the obvious, but you know, to be a movie
Speaker 1: going person and to be seeing their career at the
Speaker 1: very beginning at this juncture is like, I just feel
Speaker 1: so excited about what's to come. Although they've they've been
Speaker 1: doing it since mid two thousands, I want to say
Speaker 1: they have like yeah, Pleasure, Pleasure, being robbed, and Daddy
Speaker 1: long Legs a k A. Go get some Rosemary. I
Speaker 1: think those are the four features they've done that in
Speaker 1: Good Time and uncut gems. They might have one more
Speaker 1: in there, but shorts, yes, tons of shorts, and also
Speaker 1: some documentary work and you know they're there. I DVS
Speaker 1: is quite full of stuff, but they're only now. Like
Speaker 1: good Time was kind of like the moment where they
Speaker 1: really popped, and then as far as big mainstream American films,
Speaker 1: and then certainly like that like Good Time was the
Speaker 1: thing that allowed them to get Sandler for this movie.
Speaker 1: And so it's just all kind of snowballing. And we
Speaker 1: had briefly talked on the last Mini Crush episode we
Speaker 1: recorded about how they had this script like right at
Speaker 1: a film school, and I think I read that it
Speaker 1: went through like over a hundred revisions and they had
Speaker 1: kind of been nursing it for about ten years and
Speaker 1: they wrote it for Sandler, but they weren't famous enough
Speaker 1: to get him, uh. And they got it to one
Speaker 1: of his reps and they you know passed or just
Speaker 1: you know, just sat in a stack or something. And
Speaker 1: then when Pattinson, you know, was it was involved in uh,
Speaker 1: good Time and you know, made such a splash. I
Speaker 1: think Sandler saw it like a venice or yeah, and
Speaker 1: he like, there's Uh. I was listening to one of
Speaker 1: the mini podcasts that the Staftis have been doing to
Speaker 1: promote this, and um, one of the I forget if
Speaker 1: it was Joshua Binny, but got a text. They're just
Speaker 1: saying like, hey man, you was great. And he wrote
Speaker 1: back like hey, who's this. He's like Sandler and he's
Speaker 1: like what so and so Sandler like you know some
Speaker 1: guy that he knew. He's like, no, no, no, the
Speaker 1: famous one. And he named some other guys like an
Speaker 1: architect or something. He's like, no, dummy, the comedian, the
Speaker 1: famous guy. He's like, oh ship, you know that. And
Speaker 1: what's interesting too about the way Good Time came about
Speaker 1: was that Robert Pattinson saw Kevin knows what. Apparently he didn't.
Speaker 1: He saw still from like a screenshot from the movie,
Speaker 1: and he loved it so much that he got in
Speaker 1: touch with the Saftias and said, I want to work
Speaker 1: with you guys from from a screen shot, you know,
Speaker 1: like some some purple and they that they at that
Speaker 1: time they were trying to get I mean for a
Speaker 1: long time get uncut Gems made, but then when Pattinson
Speaker 1: came along, they were like, this isn't really something that
Speaker 1: works for him. Let's just put uncut Gems aside and
Speaker 1: we're going to write something totally new for him. We
Speaker 1: got somebody like a big star. It's crazy that they
Speaker 1: the genesis of that was kind of like, let's write
Speaker 1: something that they did and they bust out good time,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. That's crazy. And who was the one
Speaker 1: that was in that movie, which Benny? Oh yeah, Benny
Speaker 1: is the brother brother boy. He was good too. It's
Speaker 1: almost like an of Mice and Men kind of that
Speaker 1: movie where it's like he's the younger, kind of super
Speaker 1: conniving kind of huckster that's trying to protect his brother
Speaker 1: but ultimately puts him in harm's way. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: what A what a movie. Yeah, highly recommended. I think
Speaker 1: you can watch that, Uh yeah, as well as Annie
Speaker 1: in the City A and then E Y in the
Speaker 1: City Amazon Prime. There you go right now, uncut. Jim's
Speaker 1: uh little background. They wrote this film a long time ago,
Speaker 1: like you said, but apparently they grew up with a
Speaker 1: father who worked in the Diamond district and that's why
Speaker 1: this film feels so authentic. Um. They read one article
Speaker 1: where they spent a lot of these years getting in
Speaker 1: on the inside, because apparently the Diamond district and these
Speaker 1: dudes are just very protective and very skeptical, and it
Speaker 1: took him years to get access and to get behind
Speaker 1: these doors. And they finally sort of and this is
Speaker 1: like their father worked in the Diamond district and it
Speaker 1: was still hard for them to get sort of the
Speaker 1: insider look, and they did and they used you know,
Speaker 1: they're there. I think, next to the Cohen Brothers, the
Speaker 1: greatest directors we have so far about using real people
Speaker 1: as actors. Um. It's and I always wonder why more
Speaker 1: directors don't do that, because it makes such a difference
Speaker 1: when you have someone that's clearly not an actor doing
Speaker 1: a good job. And I think it's hard. Yet I
Speaker 1: think it's a real skill. It's a real long process
Speaker 1: of finding those people. Number one, finding somebody interesting who
Speaker 1: comes from that world, but then also somebody who has
Speaker 1: all those characteristics but can also still be natural on
Speaker 1: camera and not panicked that they're in his scene with
Speaker 1: Adam Sandler. For success. It's in fact that the lead
Speaker 1: actor in this where is she what's her name? I
Speaker 1: got it right here in front of me, Julia Fox. Yes,
Speaker 1: she was the first time actor. Yeah, yeah, she's I
Speaker 1: was not familiar with her, but I guess she's got
Speaker 1: a rep as like kind of a in uy C socialite,
Speaker 1: like means kind of person. Yeah, it's sort of like
Speaker 1: that that woman in the Florida Project who was like
Speaker 1: an Instagram model or something and she just crushed. And
Speaker 1: again that's another great example of like that's about being
Speaker 1: a good director. Like that's about like, how do you
Speaker 1: put this person in context? And then like and actually
Speaker 1: you know you have to you know how you know
Speaker 1: how many cuts there are in scenes, and how so
Speaker 1: many of them are pieced together from little fragments and stuff.
Speaker 1: You've got to like direct the hell out of these people.
Speaker 1: A lot of the time I imagine, you know, maybe not,
Speaker 1: but she was fantastic. So Kevin Garnett was good. He's
Speaker 1: a non actor. I'm such a sports non person. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know he was a real bad and you
Speaker 1: don't even know how to say that you're not into sports. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly a sports and non person on person. But it
Speaker 1: makes sense after the fact, cause all those games were real,
Speaker 1: all the best basketball games, and like the stats were
Speaker 1: all real stats. And because guy can imagine how much
Speaker 1: it would it costs the stage those just to have
Speaker 1: them on TV, you know, like, but he like they
Speaker 1: were Obviously he's been out of the game for a while,
Speaker 1: so he's retired. Yeah, finals, And I was just reading
Speaker 1: there's a great New Yorker profile on the Safteas and
Speaker 1: the movie, and one of the most fascinating tidbits about
Speaker 1: it is that they did not license the NBA footage
Speaker 1: that they used in the movie. They just they just basically,
Speaker 1: quote unquote stole it. And they're going to defend it
Speaker 1: as fair use because they didn't alter the outcome or
Speaker 1: change any thing of the order of what happened in
Speaker 1: it is the NBA made a statement, I don't think,
Speaker 1: so it's just insane to me, Like, you know, professional
Speaker 1: sports to me is like when it comes to licensing
Speaker 1: footage really, especially like say the NFL, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know the NBA specifically, but the fact that the Saftys
Speaker 1: were just like, you know, what fun it, We're just
Speaker 1: gonna do. It's pretty that the studio was like standing
Speaker 1: behind them for it, which is crazy. That's like trying
Speaker 1: to use an Eagle song in your movie because Don
Speaker 1: Henley will fucking sue you're ask if you look at
Speaker 1: them sideways. Yeah, I don't understand how fair use supplies
Speaker 1: to that, because it's not. I mean, I guess part
Speaker 1: of a fair use argument is that you're transforming it
Speaker 1: or making it like satire or something like that. But
Speaker 1: like if they're just using it as is in their movie,
Speaker 1: I guess if it's if you regarded it as almost
Speaker 1: like history or something. But I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's like, I don't think, I don't think.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're not really commenting on it either. They're
Speaker 1: kind of they're building a story around it, but they're
Speaker 1: not like saying, this is the story of what happened
Speaker 1: in that series. But that's right, they're they're fictionalizing, you know.
Speaker 1: But also fair use usually has to have some sort
Speaker 1: of newsworthy element to it as well, which this obviously
Speaker 1: doesn't either. I mean, it's good for the NBA, fascinating,
Speaker 1: it really gets people talking about basketball, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's a central part of the film absolutely, And
Speaker 1: how it like ruins people those lives and sports betting? Man,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't know what I'm saying that, dude,
Speaker 1: let's get into that just well. I have a little
Speaker 1: history there does anyone else overbet on sports? I didn't
Speaker 1: even know if I didn't even I mean, is that
Speaker 1: how like you know you could bet on sports. I
Speaker 1: thought you had to have like a bookie or something.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you could just walk into a casino
Speaker 1: and do it Vegas. Yeah, it's called the sports Book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't in a room with five hundred TVs And
Speaker 1: it's the greatest place. Was there not a time where
Speaker 1: that kind of betting was not legal? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: it depends on It's illegal in Georgia, but there's still
Speaker 1: bookies in Georgia because I used to bet. I've had
Speaker 1: two experiences with gambling, well, let's say three in college
Speaker 1: I bet on college basketball when uh, I don't know
Speaker 1: if if you're into basketball a little bit, right, but uh,
Speaker 1: the UNLV Rebels in the in the nineties with Larry
Speaker 1: Johnson and Stacy Augman, it was it was like a
Speaker 1: like infamous legendary college basketball team. So during that era,
Speaker 1: I bet on college basketball, but it was always like
Speaker 1: college book, Key's twenty bucks on a game or uh.
Speaker 1: The flash forward to when I lived in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: I bet on sports with my friend James, and I
Speaker 1: got a little more serious and it built up to one, uh,
Speaker 1: uncut gim z moment when I was down a thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which was a really really big deal to me at
Speaker 1: the time. It was pretty catastrophic. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I had a thousand dollars, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: would have gotten like my legs broken. Was that kind
Speaker 1: of deal. But it was a big deal. And I
Speaker 1: that weekend do not advise us anyone placed three And
Speaker 1: this was all bet so like hundred fifty bucks. Maybe
Speaker 1: it just I kept getting, you know, I kept losing,
Speaker 1: and it's on a weekly thing. So I lost a week.
Speaker 1: Going into the weekend, I was down a thousand and
Speaker 1: I placed three fifty dollar bets and one of them
Speaker 1: all and didn't bet again after that that. I was
Speaker 1: out after that. Then. The only time I've bet since
Speaker 1: in the third wave was I hate Vegas, but occasionally
Speaker 1: I've had to go. When I was living in l A.
Speaker 1: And I would I would always go into the sports
Speaker 1: book with like two bucks and put some money on
Speaker 1: some games. I like just walking through that room because
Speaker 1: you can feel the energy. You can feel kind of
Speaker 1: that and it's fun to just kind of like cruise
Speaker 1: through there for a minute and kind of observe that world.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting. And I will say this as
Speaker 1: a as a big sportsman, um, gambling on sports is
Speaker 1: really like invigorating. How to make it count, right, that's
Speaker 1: how to like the stakes and get involved in the
Speaker 1: game big time. It's a fucking rush, Like I get it.
Speaker 1: When I was watching this movie, I totally got it.
Speaker 1: And the end, I don't bet anymore. It's been a
Speaker 1: long time. That was like the most I've ever understood
Speaker 1: watching sports was watching Sandler watch that game and just
Speaker 1: every every victory, like the fucking tip off, the sickness
Speaker 1: of parleying the tip off into the other stomach ache
Speaker 1: when he made that the opening because just so you
Speaker 1: don't so you know, a Parlaby, you have to win
Speaker 1: all three bets it to win the bet, right, and
Speaker 1: the first one is just nonsense. But but but he's so
Speaker 1: confident that's going to happen, and then it does and
Speaker 1: it's like that could have tanked everything. That was the
Speaker 1: hardest one. Yeah, that was the hardest one. Guys, Everything's
Speaker 1: good from Everything's Good. Yeah, maybe smile spoilers right, um yeah.
Speaker 1: Man again, I'm not a sports guy. I don't really
Speaker 1: get get it, but I got it when when there
Speaker 1: are those steaks. And also but the way he behaves,
Speaker 1: he's like a drug addict. He's like a junkie and
Speaker 1: he's just you know, he all rhyme. A reason goes
Speaker 1: out the window and he starts to like you start
Speaker 1: to almost develop this weird kind of admiration for him
Speaker 1: where you're like, he knows something that I don't know
Speaker 1: and this is a skill for him. But then you
Speaker 1: also realize he doesn't but maybe he does. And the
Speaker 1: way he's talking to Gardnette, when he's like he gets
Speaker 1: worked up into this frenzy where he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is how I win the big big line for
Speaker 1: the movie where he talked he he thinks he's got
Speaker 1: some sort of insight into this guy's mind and how
Speaker 1: he's gonna behave because of his Jim. He's like his totem.
Speaker 1: Now that this mystical quality, you know, So I think
Speaker 1: I think there's something there's an element of something valid
Speaker 1: there because I know, like a lot of athletes are
Speaker 1: are very superstitious, and it's like I gotta have my
Speaker 1: special glove and my special pants, my special socks or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you know it may bee bs in the kind
Speaker 1: of material objective domain, but if it's affecting the psychology
Speaker 1: and the confidence of that player, it is as real
Speaker 1: as anything else. So he knew that that Jim was
Speaker 1: like the thing that was gonna make KG crushed that game.
Speaker 1: He could feel it, and so that gave him that edge.
Speaker 1: It's almost like insider trading, Like he knows this guy
Speaker 1: is going to go out there and just like go
Speaker 1: go nuts. Insider trading, but like, how are you going
Speaker 1: to enforce Like you know, you knew that he had
Speaker 1: the magic stone, that there is ging like that is
Speaker 1: all about trying to get as much insider information as possible,
Speaker 1: like in in Casino when de Niro finds out, you know,
Speaker 1: is the quarterback's girlfriend pregnant? Like what what kind of
Speaker 1: wood is on the court? All that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: Like any edge you can get, it's gonna move. The
Speaker 1: idea of edge, it's nonsense, like on a on paper
Speaker 1: kind of way. But to the person in their mind,
Speaker 1: and if you think you have an insight into that,
Speaker 1: it's it's money in the bank, I guess theoretically, but
Speaker 1: it's all bullshit. It's bullshit to the guy who thinks
Speaker 1: this is a magic rock, but he believes it, therefore
Speaker 1: it's not. Maybe he's playing better, you know. So I
Speaker 1: like what you said about you as a view you
Speaker 1: kind of developing an admiration for Sandler's character. Um, and
Speaker 1: right before we came in here, I pulled up the script,
Speaker 1: which you can find online, and the cover page of it,
Speaker 1: under the title, it just says, in all capitals in
Speaker 1: Howard we try. And I think there's a sense that
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, you know, the movie was probably loosely inspired,
Speaker 1: like we said, by their father, but there's a sense
Speaker 1: of like, even though he is kind of a scumbag
Speaker 1: in some ways, the Saftis clearly have a lot of
Speaker 1: love or admiration for them, even though they still acknowledge
Speaker 1: he's he's in a downward spiral, you know, in all
Speaker 1: the negative qualities of him, there's something I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's sort of it almost relates to like the American dreams.
Speaker 1: You're rooting for him, Yeah, you are, even though you
Speaker 1: know this is only gonna end one of two ways.
Speaker 1: You know it can only go the most that you
Speaker 1: can only have the best possible outcome or the worst
Speaker 1: possible there's no middle ground. And what I love about
Speaker 1: the lead up to the very ending when he's watching
Speaker 1: the game is how his the sort of antagonists of
Speaker 1: the movie are no who also happens to be his
Speaker 1: like brother in law. Yeah yeah, yes. When he's locked
Speaker 1: in that that entryway, he's so fed up with Sandler's actor.
Speaker 1: But as the game is going on, he's getting in,
Speaker 1: he's getting into it, and he's sort of you know
Speaker 1: this might actually happen. He's asking his henchmen, like what
Speaker 1: does this say on the screen? Are we winning? What's
Speaker 1: going on? Like he can't start to lighten up, and
Speaker 1: he can't help but be drawn in just the way well,
Speaker 1: and that's why, I mean, we can go ahead and
Speaker 1: talk about the ending of That's why the ending is
Speaker 1: such a fucking good tragic because he wins. He's happy, guys,
Speaker 1: let me let you out of your little prison. We
Speaker 1: did it, We did it. Boom shot, unceremonious. And then
Speaker 1: the fact that Arnold gets off. Yeah, man, I didn't
Speaker 1: find it sad per se. It's not in a way
Speaker 1: because you think, like, realistically, what's this kind of guy
Speaker 1: gonna do with that million? He's gonna go fucking bet
Speaker 1: that too, like like anything's gonna happen. What did any
Speaker 1: of that? Like, I mean, it's just like you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's gonna keep doing it until he can't do
Speaker 1: it anymore. Right, So at least this way he goes
Speaker 1: out like on top up, he's experiencing this moment of
Speaker 1: like pure extasy and victory and so on. It isn't
Speaker 1: happen before that. He's not laying there thinking like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I've been killed because of my actions. Like
Speaker 1: it's just he's sitting up in heaven going what happened?
Speaker 1: That was great? And what I love too is, uh,
Speaker 1: the person who actually ends up with the money is
Speaker 1: Julia Fox's character, and you know, who knows what's going
Speaker 1: to happen after the fact, but I like the idea
Speaker 1: that she kind of might end up with all this money.
Speaker 1: She's kind of the the unsung hero, you know. And
Speaker 1: it was so interesting too, because at first you think
Speaker 1: that she's like using him, or that she's some sort
Speaker 1: of like here, that she's using him, or that she's
Speaker 1: in some way playing him, you can realize that she
Speaker 1: genuinely I think they do love each other. Is that
Speaker 1: the take think? I think I think that, and I
Speaker 1: heard there's a deeper theme of like she's kind of
Speaker 1: the only one in a way that sees the true
Speaker 1: potential maybe of Howard, that that he is this sort
Speaker 1: of uncut gym, that he has this thing within him
Speaker 1: that is, you know, um, worth loving, worth caring about,
Speaker 1: where everyone else just sees a complete screw up, you
Speaker 1: know man, his family, his daughter and his wife, it's
Speaker 1: just they just fucking loathe him. It's so cutting both
Speaker 1: of those scenes, the one with a daughter at the fridge,
Speaker 1: he's inconsequential, and then the stuff with a wife at
Speaker 1: the end when she's laughing in his face. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want you to hit me and she fakes it whatever.
Speaker 1: The thing too that was really striking about like the
Speaker 1: different environments that he kind of inhabits. When he's at home,
Speaker 1: he feels so out of his element. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense for him to be there. When he's at that
Speaker 1: school play, so out of his elements, always trying to leave,
Speaker 1: he's well, yeah, and he's always on his phone. That's
Speaker 1: that was a thing that resonated with me. Actually, just
Speaker 1: the obsession with like go go, go, constantly update, update check,
Speaker 1: you know, all even about his social stats and you know,
Speaker 1: tag me on Instagram and that whole ship. Like he's
Speaker 1: so obsessed with that too. Yeah, well again, he's he
Speaker 1: is this embodiment almost of like a certain American nous,
Speaker 1: you know, of of like contemporary americanness, let's say, like
Speaker 1: the the obsession with the kind of um narcissism, the
Speaker 1: the sort of like obsession with online, the obsession with
Speaker 1: just what's new, what's hot, what's what's coming in, you know,
Speaker 1: in status and and and winning and and um novelty
Speaker 1: and and and you know, he's he's on this sort
Speaker 1: of like it feels like with with the Julie Fox character,
Speaker 1: He's not really. I mean, I guess he's into it
Speaker 1: in some ways, but it almost seems like he's just
Speaker 1: kind of going through the motions in a way of
Speaker 1: having this like apartment and like this kind of like
Speaker 1: mistress and um, it just feels like he he doesn't
Speaker 1: really derive any pleasure from anything other than the gambling,
Speaker 1: you know, other than like yeah, and everything else is
Speaker 1: just kind of like you know, um, just what he
Speaker 1: feels obligated to do, I guess in some weird way.
Speaker 1: And it's the It's that it's the thrill in the
Speaker 1: high from like you said, the constant hustle, not just
Speaker 1: of the winds, but also of the loss. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like he he loves both of them, just to
Speaker 1: be in it and you know, being able to sort
Speaker 1: of craft some high stakes life for himself. You have
Speaker 1: a chance to dig yourself out if you're losing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what's more in big I mean, I had my
Speaker 1: stupid little story and I gotta tell you dudes, when
Speaker 1: I won those three bets, I that was better than
Speaker 1: my wedding day. Yeah. It's a high, you know, to
Speaker 1: feel because you feel like you've beaten someone. Well, it's
Speaker 1: like Howard says, you know, he said he wins one,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's it's when he gets the gym, I think,
Speaker 1: and he says, holy sh it, I'm gonna come. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really funny. There's there's this moment where the saft
Speaker 1: he's actually you c g I to shrink his eyeballs
Speaker 1: down and make them smaller. Nobody nobody noticed this, but
Speaker 1: um somebody compared a screenshot of like the same shot
Speaker 1: from before and then after. If you do it side
Speaker 1: by side, it's like, yeah, you like physically shrunk down own.
Speaker 1: There's this really funny thing on Twitter where somebody tweeted
Speaker 1: that at the Safty's and they replied like, you know,
Speaker 1: good good eye, like nice catch. But then they were
Speaker 1: also like, how did you get the screenshots because it's
Speaker 1: not in the trailer. It's not funny, it's from a screener.
Speaker 1: That's wait a minute, and then then they went, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: well you stole from the NBA exactly. It's interesting too,
Speaker 1: because like by all accounts, like by any metric that
Speaker 1: anybody like like like the four of us would have, Um,
Speaker 1: he's successful, he's got the apartment in the city, he's
Speaker 1: got Long Island or whatever. He's got the Dina Menzel's
Speaker 1: his wife. You know, he's got the kids, he's got
Speaker 1: the car, he's got the successful jewel shop or whatever.
Speaker 1: I wonder is is it, like, is he maintaining I
Speaker 1: think it's just about the obsession in the high I
Speaker 1: don't think he's I think he doesn't need the money
Speaker 1: per se. I think the like the passover sne especially,
Speaker 1: I feel like is really showing that to somebody else,
Speaker 1: this could be just a great life, just to be
Speaker 1: content with what he has, this family, this tradition, his success,
Speaker 1: and so on. But to him, it's like nothing. He
Speaker 1: takes it all for granted, and the only way he
Speaker 1: can feel alive is to just up the stakes and
Speaker 1: risk it all and almost throw it all away or whatever.
Speaker 1: That sort of gets to the contemporary American nous of
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and and the fact that too, like
Speaker 1: the reason he's doing all this is probably because he
Speaker 1: sees it as an escape from kind of the boring, suburban,
Speaker 1: mundane life of being a husband and a father. Like
Speaker 1: I love when he's at home and his his wife
Speaker 1: keeps telling him to go, uh, talk to his son
Speaker 1: in bed, you know, put him put in bed, and
Speaker 1: then he finally does, and then he's just on his
Speaker 1: phone watching the game the whole time breath and then
Speaker 1: his older kid, his older son has basically become him.
Speaker 1: He's he's already bet on the game too, but you know,
Speaker 1: he's got all the basketball memorabilia and he's clearly like
Speaker 1: thinks his dad as the coolest person in the world.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, let's jump back real quick to the beginning.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things about this movie is, and
Speaker 1: they didn't have to do this, but they started out
Speaker 1: in the mind and the gym mine and it was
Speaker 1: just like there's something about that sequence and following that
Speaker 1: gemstone that really and and you know, and then how
Speaker 1: it ends to which we'll get to. Um, just really
Speaker 1: like knocked my socks off added a lot to the
Speaker 1: movie and a sense of scale, a sense of scale,
Speaker 1: and I think it it reminds you of the sort
Speaker 1: of the class and racial context of the movie. Much
Speaker 1: like a lot of people have talked about how Good
Speaker 1: Time is very aware of how Robert Pattinson's character is
Speaker 1: this white man who's able to do all these things
Speaker 1: at the expense of people of color. Uh, this movie,
Speaker 1: with that opening kind of reminds you of where all
Speaker 1: this is coming from and the exploitation of labor and
Speaker 1: all that. And it gets addressed in the movie when
Speaker 1: him and KG are talking about the gem, what did
Speaker 1: you pay for it? Vers? What are you going to
Speaker 1: being honest there? Do you think he paid a hundred
Speaker 1: grand for it? And I think, actually I didn't notice
Speaker 1: this until the second time watching it, but it's a
Speaker 1: hundred k that he owes to Arno in the first place,
Speaker 1: So I think that's the hundred k that he borrowed
Speaker 1: from him to buy the opal in the first place.
Speaker 1: So it's all circular. And the crazy thing about it
Speaker 1: is is that you know, when it goes to auction
Speaker 1: it finally sells for what one judge her, he's going
Speaker 1: to have to pay him back. I think it's almost
Speaker 1: forty grand on top of just giving the money back.
Speaker 1: So now he's only made what like one that makes
Speaker 1: it one what thirty five or something? Well, and that's
Speaker 1: when we're talking about when KG asked him, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was kind of one of the and then and then,
Speaker 1: like you, you think about all this other money that
Speaker 1: he's got tied up and like pawning the watch or
Speaker 1: planning the championship, bringing everything, like he's probably gonna break
Speaker 1: even at the end of all. That's like if he lives,
Speaker 1: you know, if he doesn't place that, which is a
Speaker 1: win for him though. Addict is a gambling addict and
Speaker 1: break you and you're like, all right, I'm not out
Speaker 1: any money, but that's and I gotta rush for a
Speaker 1: few days. When he when he gets that money, you know,
Speaker 1: he gets like the he's finally got it. He can
Speaker 1: just give the money over to Arnold in the in
Speaker 1: the Goons and the many moments where I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a movie about a character who does nothing but make
Speaker 1: the wrong decisions. Starting from the very beginning, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh God, don't let him leave without sucking Jim like
Speaker 1: it's Kevin Garnett. But still just don't do it, man,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a bad thing. And do some
Speaker 1: paperwork or something. Yeah, bare minimum and he lets him
Speaker 1: walk out like he Stanfield is so good. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's great and everything. He was really instrumental. It's great.
Speaker 1: Great to compare his performance in this and his performance
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, he's two adversaily different characters. And first
Speaker 1: of all, I think he's he's brilliant. He feels like
Speaker 1: one of the like he could be one of the
Speaker 1: non actors that they cast or something. He's he just
Speaker 1: fits that role so like he just he just seems
Speaker 1: like a natural thing. Yeah yeah. Or the non actors
Speaker 1: in this were great. Some of those creeps. The one
Speaker 1: guy that heavy kind of popping up, Oh yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean I can't remember how much he owes him. It's
Speaker 1: not even that much, sort of a small time, but
Speaker 1: he's always there. Just sort of I think to drive
Speaker 1: home that thing of like this guy walks a block
Speaker 1: down New York and there's not gonna be someone that's like, hey, hey, wait,
Speaker 1: come on, like what do you owe me? I actually
Speaker 1: thought I thought this was really smart. I kind of
Speaker 1: thought they were planting the seed for that guy to
Speaker 1: like take him out because him he was being so
Speaker 1: like dismissive to him because he only owes him thirty
Speaker 1: k or whatever, and he's like fucking funk out of
Speaker 1: my face. I think I think it was too, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it definitely was because he kept popping up
Speaker 1: and like knocking on the door, and I figured there
Speaker 1: was gonna be that one time or he just walks
Speaker 1: up and shoot him in the face. You know. There's
Speaker 1: there's there's a bunch of miss tres in the movie.
Speaker 1: Like there's that scene where Adam Sandler and his family
Speaker 1: get home and his wife tells him to take out
Speaker 1: the garbage, and it follows him for a really long
Speaker 1: time while he's rolling these trash cans down the driveway
Speaker 1: and the la it feels like he's going to get
Speaker 1: down to the end of the driveway and Arna is
Speaker 1: gonna be there or whatever, something's gonna happen. Similarly, when
Speaker 1: he goes to the apartment and like the Madonna long
Speaker 1: as playing and you think she's gonna be dead or something,
Speaker 1: and that's what I thought. She's gonna be, like hanging somewhere,
Speaker 1: dead in the bathtub or something, and nothing happened. She
Speaker 1: just had taken her stuff very orderly, you know. But
Speaker 1: there's there's there's several moments like that where we're trained
Speaker 1: as a viewer to get really tense and expect the
Speaker 1: worst and then just nothing happened. They the Safeties are
Speaker 1: playing the audience like a fucking fiddle because they give
Speaker 1: you those little reprieves every now and then, But other
Speaker 1: than that, it's just, uh, the passover scene was probably
Speaker 1: the quietest, longest quiet sequence. But other than that, it's
Speaker 1: just a wire that they just it's like a guitar
Speaker 1: string you keep tightening and you're like, oh god, when
Speaker 1: is that? Even the stuff at the house is tense,
Speaker 1: just the dynamic between him and his family and his
Speaker 1: wife and his constant obsession, and you realize, dude, you
Speaker 1: are fucking up as a family man, like you are
Speaker 1: a terrible father and and you know me as a
Speaker 1: as a father, I see that and that's triggering for me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, do you suck like you're you know? And
Speaker 1: it made me see like maybe I'm on my phone
Speaker 1: too much, maybe I not being president enough for my kids.
Speaker 1: But this guy is the extreme version of that, and
Speaker 1: he felt like a pretty good dad walking out of
Speaker 1: It's so sad too, like when he's he's never gotten
Speaker 1: shoved naked into a trunk and it's it's so sad
Speaker 1: when he's he's he's telling his kids like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go into the city, feel like tonight is
Speaker 1: this guy the weekend? You know? And they're just like,
Speaker 1: you're not cool, dude, Like you shouldn't be tried to
Speaker 1: be cool with your kid does. He isn't cool, He's
Speaker 1: a joke. He's a bummer. Yeah, and he's we're wearing
Speaker 1: this goofy outfit and everyone else is young and sexy
Speaker 1: and cool, and he's just so out of place and
Speaker 1: making a scene and like gets thrown out on his ass.
Speaker 1: Got the sequence where he, uh where la Keith Stainfield
Speaker 1: shows up. He doesn't have the gym, and he's like,
Speaker 1: you're fucking driving me to Philly right now, and they
Speaker 1: go down there. He gets all the way to Philly
Speaker 1: and gets because he goes to take a layup and
Speaker 1: like play around for a second and then gets locked
Speaker 1: out of the locked out of the locker room, and
Speaker 1: Laki Standpielle is just like Nope. I kept thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's gonna come back and get him, but no, he
Speaker 1: has to get on the plane to go back to
Speaker 1: New York. Unbelieve you make it back to his kids recital.
Speaker 1: He did it all do themselves. You know, he shouldn't
Speaker 1: have given him the gem in the first zone Worst
Speaker 1: Enemy in that way. That does remind me of the
Speaker 1: scene or when he's watching the basketball game at the end,
Speaker 1: there's a shot of Cage Kg like in the locker
Speaker 1: room at halftime, and you hear the coach's voice like
Speaker 1: giving them the pep talk and they actually got Doc Rivers,
Speaker 1: Like in the credits, it's actually Doc Rivers. They got
Speaker 1: to do the voice of that. Did he That was
Speaker 1: an a d R line? Yeah? Interesting? Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. And I think it was meant to be footage.
Speaker 1: Was it meant to be, Like, well, no, it's a
Speaker 1: shot they recreated the locker room. Yeah, but you hear
Speaker 1: like the coach kind of giving the remember that pep
Speaker 1: talk about that is the actual the guy who's the
Speaker 1: actual page. I mean, if you know you know Doc
Speaker 1: Rivers voice, then I see I didn't. I didn't know
Speaker 1: his voice. I like, I wonder if that was And
Speaker 1: then the credits like, yeah, that's pretty great and uh
Speaker 1: that that reminds me of the way the film weaves
Speaker 1: actual history with this story, which is pretty great. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you read some interviews with them talking
Speaker 1: about how they got the movie made, like one of
Speaker 1: the reasons they kept rewriting the script was because depending
Speaker 1: on which basketball player they might be able to get,
Speaker 1: they would have to rewrite it, you know, to take
Speaker 1: series different years, different different series, different finals or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like at one point they were talking to Amri Staudenmeyer.
Speaker 1: I think that a few other people and so, you know,
Speaker 1: me watching it, I didn't. I didn't remember the outcome
Speaker 1: of of the finals. I didn't either, man, you know,
Speaker 1: and I remember that series. And that's interesting because I
Speaker 1: was thinking, I mean, that's part of the great you
Speaker 1: know thing about that sequences. You don't know which way
Speaker 1: it's going to go and the way it sort of
Speaker 1: rewrites history. It's high at all to the gem and
Speaker 1: then how the actual NBA footage at the end the
Speaker 1: interview KG and he's like, it was just me and
Speaker 1: the rock and of course he's talking about the basketball.
Speaker 1: But it's funny. My friend from Boston, Mark Finney, he's
Speaker 1: a filmmaker. Um, good dude. I know him through Emily
Speaker 1: beck In in the l A Days. He uh, great
Speaker 1: small independent film he made called Fat by the Way.
Speaker 1: You can seek that out. But Finny is um obsessed
Speaker 1: with this movie. Favorite movie, like of the year for
Speaker 1: sure on Facebook. But he's a big Boston guy, So
Speaker 1: I'm curious if he remembered the outcome and how that affected.
Speaker 1: It's got to take something out of if you're like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I remember the Celtics one and KG had
Speaker 1: like whatever, definitely covered his point total maybe, but you
Speaker 1: don't know, you may not remember that he made the
Speaker 1: tip off or something. You know, there's little like the
Speaker 1: kind of nonsensical parley stuff the problem. Ye, nobody would
Speaker 1: remember unless and I had never heard that bet where
Speaker 1: everything counts as a point, like a basket, a rebound.
Speaker 1: He's just gotta cover twenty six like whatever. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so nerve wracking. Um, let's talk about the score for
Speaker 1: a second, because maybe my favorite score of all time.
Speaker 1: Now it's it's way up there. I mean it's it
Speaker 1: was like classic and like uh and and sort of
Speaker 1: shouted out to like Vangelis and some of this. Uh
Speaker 1: there's one of these one that's very very much like
Speaker 1: something on the Kia soundtrack. Yeah, but yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: just in the one with it like the chanting, which
Speaker 1: is very kind of class like that. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: kind of coral minimalist that you know. Daniel L. Patton
Speaker 1: the composer, he's he's remixed Philip Class, he's remixed Steve Reich.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's he's very very very aware of
Speaker 1: a lot of trends in in twentieth century composition, you know,
Speaker 1: classical experimental pop as well. Um, yeah, he's he's a
Speaker 1: very very um important figure I think in contemporary music overall. Well,
Speaker 1: he's essentially credited with inventing the vape, which is sort
Speaker 1: of like a re contextualization of like esoteric eight He's
Speaker 1: in nineties um easy listening type music or video game music,
Speaker 1: and and it'll sample things from like old TV commercials,
Speaker 1: and it's all this kind of mash up but ultimately
Speaker 1: danceable and kind of fun chill wave, kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, sound almost it's like a commentary on like
Speaker 1: the the emptiness of of that. There's there's stuff. And
Speaker 1: then his his solo stuff is as Tricks one of Tricks,
Speaker 1: Point never really takes that even further and gets even
Speaker 1: more like I don't know, it's he's forging his own
Speaker 1: kind of mash up genre. And then his film work
Speaker 1: is much more are Peggie. It's synth driven and percussion
Speaker 1: and much more like like you said, like a Van
Speaker 1: Gellis or like a Tangerine Dream or something. It's very
Speaker 1: much the eighties. There's there's a track of contemporary but
Speaker 1: very very much. So, Yeah, there's a track in this
Speaker 1: that's also quite similar to one of the tracks on
Speaker 1: Sorcerer that Tangerine Dream scored for WAYA Friedkin, which I
Speaker 1: think Friedkin is a big and fluence on the saft
Speaker 1: teas in general clearly, and I'm a huge fan of
Speaker 1: that sound like Georgio Moroder, Tangerine Dream, all that stuff, like,
Speaker 1: I really really love that and it works in this
Speaker 1: movie so well. I mean, part of being a good
Speaker 1: score is working with the film and not just being
Speaker 1: like some awesome piece of music, and it just it
Speaker 1: just really provided the perfect sort of background to all
Speaker 1: this stuff. I read a thing where the ratio of
Speaker 1: music parts to non music parts is very high. It's music,
Speaker 1: I think, something that I haven't listened to it yet,
Speaker 1: just I've been listening to it a lot. He did
Speaker 1: the good Time soundtrack as well, which is this is
Speaker 1: almost like a jacked up version of the good Time soundtrack,
Speaker 1: very similar, but this one clearly there was more budget,
Speaker 1: Like it's more orchestral and as much more of these
Speaker 1: huge well and the chanting sort of recalled the early
Speaker 1: stuff the gym mind. It just sort of work together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was listening to yet another podcast, I think with
Speaker 1: the Safteason UM. But Daniel L. Patton was there as well,
Speaker 1: and he basically was say that what they were trying
Speaker 1: to do with the score was almost bring out the
Speaker 1: inner life, the inner feeling of the Howard Rattner character,
Speaker 1: something that not to just reinforce what's on screen, but
Speaker 1: to give it like another dimension, and I think it
Speaker 1: really really works. There's some of these UM tracks you
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily um they're they're not the obvious way to
Speaker 1: score the scenes. Let's say, um, they are certainly driving,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times they're these kind of like
Speaker 1: major key, like upbeat sort of things, and you know,
Speaker 1: you may be feeling like this guy's destined for like
Speaker 1: tragedy as you're watching it, but you're feeling this this
Speaker 1: kind of lift and it's kind of giving you insight
Speaker 1: into his own internal kind of state that he's in
Speaker 1: a state of kind of ecstasy or something in these moments,
Speaker 1: even though we as viewers know that he's kind of
Speaker 1: maybe doomed. Um. It's just a very very interesting way
Speaker 1: that that they work with music. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: traditional film scoring. That's really interesting. It almost puts you
Speaker 1: in his mindset exactly. Yeah, and they druggy movie somehow, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: well good time as well, maybe even more so. The
Speaker 1: mixed lighting and it's kind of psychedelic but also obviously
Speaker 1: super speedy like that. It's there's a couple of druggie feelings.
Speaker 1: And yet no one does drugs in this movie. Actually,
Speaker 1: well the weekend does coke in the Yeah, there's but
Speaker 1: that's that's a very quickward. How would never do drugs? No,
Speaker 1: this is his drug? I don't think he does. I
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't think either. I don't think he
Speaker 1: does an you never know. Even that party to party,
Speaker 1: he's there to like get his sole and get his
Speaker 1: gem back and just kind of make the scene. Make
Speaker 1: the scene. Yeah, how Howard got his gem back? The sequel, Wow,
Speaker 1: I think my favorite let's name our favorite non actor
Speaker 1: in the movie, because mine, hands down, Helicopter Pilot is
Speaker 1: the fucking dude that helps out Julia Fox. That guy's
Speaker 1: name is I forget the name, but his last name
Speaker 1: is literally diamond really, and he's a real guy. He's
Speaker 1: like a real billionaire, like spray Tan kind of do
Speaker 1: man that hair and and in the end he like
Speaker 1: legit helps her. That's misdirection too, because you think he's
Speaker 1: going to do something super sky and then he ultimately
Speaker 1: just like helps her out. You know. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he's the way I read his character sort of afterward,
Speaker 1: because the whole time I was thinking the same thing, like, man,
Speaker 1: she's going to go to his room and he's going
Speaker 1: to do something really bad. I think he just likes
Speaker 1: the company of of a young hot woman like that.
Speaker 1: He's like the he's kind of the old sad guy,
Speaker 1: like they don't have to sleep together. If they do, great,
Speaker 1: but if not, like come and hang out in my suite,
Speaker 1: orders some shrimp, cocktail and a lobster, and like have
Speaker 1: a good time. It's so interesting. He just wants the company.
Speaker 1: Probably he was perfect. He was my favorite by by
Speaker 1: a mile by him, and that not not like not
Speaker 1: get to side track, but like that was an thing.
Speaker 1: Like nothing aside from Howard getting killed obviously and his brother,
Speaker 1: which is tragic, nothing really horrific happens to anybody in
Speaker 1: this movie, well in a way like win it for
Speaker 1: the end, No one gets their fingers smashed. None of
Speaker 1: those like like like gambling movie cliches full and like
Speaker 1: that was That was the thought that I had watching
Speaker 1: at the first time, was kind of like, these guys
Speaker 1: are a little soft on him, Like I think, like
Speaker 1: a real life, you know, heavy and booky situation, they
Speaker 1: would be. He got his break kicked at one, but
Speaker 1: you don't realize that minute. And that's why he's that's
Speaker 1: why he's able to push the envelope so much, is
Speaker 1: because he does have that family connection and Arnold's not
Speaker 1: going to just take it all the way there? Did
Speaker 1: you get the sense that Arnauld was over and over
Speaker 1: his head time through. You can really see the fear
Speaker 1: in his when he's just like, these guys now are
Speaker 1: way more hard for Yeah, it's like spiraled out of
Speaker 1: control for him too, which is what's so scary about
Speaker 1: the ending, when you know he shoots him in the head,
Speaker 1: and then that the panic that Arnold has in that
Speaker 1: moment and he's he's got the gun against his head,
Speaker 1: he's on the counter, he's saying, let me out, I
Speaker 1: want out, you know, and then he walks away from
Speaker 1: him for a second. He makes that one last desperate
Speaker 1: dash for the door, and then he just shoots him
Speaker 1: in the head. I think too, there's this this sense
Speaker 1: of you know, like you said, there isn't much violence
Speaker 1: in the movie. To me, there was this sense of
Speaker 1: with Arno and Howard, like these very well to do
Speaker 1: you guys sort of feeling like they can dip their
Speaker 1: toes into quote unquote the criminal underworld without having to
Speaker 1: like get dirty and get dirty and really suffer the
Speaker 1: consequences of how it would be for for most people
Speaker 1: who are deep into this world. And again that speaks
Speaker 1: to the idea of like class differences. I do think
Speaker 1: Howard understands it way more than probably. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: good point. Arno probably just out of desperation, because Howard
Speaker 1: was probably just going to blow him off forever, you know,
Speaker 1: like my brother in law, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: And and that's probably it was out of desperation that
Speaker 1: he probably turned to these guys in the first place
Speaker 1: and set the whole train in motion. I was another
Speaker 1: bit of misdirection, is I thought that Julia Fox was
Speaker 1: going to funk up the bet somehow. Yeah, because he
Speaker 1: gives her these you know, it's so explicit, And what
Speaker 1: I thought was gonna happen was he was gonna think
Speaker 1: he won the bet, but she had put it in wrong.
Speaker 1: But they already did that, ye, Like he thought he
Speaker 1: was one big and then and then and his brother
Speaker 1: stopped the beat, Like, but you're right now, there's so
Speaker 1: many things that could have gone wrong. She seemed like
Speaker 1: a little bit of an airhead kind of like like
Speaker 1: maybe she wasn't gonna you know, follow through or like
Speaker 1: like funk up or something like that. But she was.
Speaker 1: She's perfect. She did it exactly. She aside from Wayne Diamond,
Speaker 1: she's she was my favorite, Like you said, she wasn't.
Speaker 1: This was her first acting role, so she's gonna be
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I think she was just great in
Speaker 1: this for all the reasons. I think of her as
Speaker 1: that's acting, like Wayne Diamond is sort of a character
Speaker 1: like a true true. But but I watched a few
Speaker 1: video interviews and things with her, and she's you get
Speaker 1: the sense that she's very much kind of just being
Speaker 1: herself on camera, Like I mean, she is acting, but
Speaker 1: her personality is definitely a little bit like this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that the Safti seemed that someone's strength. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Saftys seem to if you read interviews with them, they
Speaker 1: meet somebody interesting. And in New York, there's plenty of
Speaker 1: people like that, and they'll start a conversation with them,
Speaker 1: and then maybe that person will get a call a
Speaker 1: few weeks later and say, hey, you want to be
Speaker 1: in this movie? You know. And I think they're really good,
Speaker 1: like we said, and not just identifying people who would
Speaker 1: work well in those situations, but just directing them really well.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, that's something that you could easily
Speaker 1: overlook with sort of the powerhouse performance of Sandler. You
Speaker 1: know that they're so good at directing all these these
Speaker 1: people in smaller roles, especially like somebody like KG, like Be,
Speaker 1: you know keep Yeah, yeah, people who who are in
Speaker 1: the public eye. Is almost painful. They get a really
Speaker 1: good performance out of honest seems he really has to,
Speaker 1: like Be. It's not like a cano. He is like
Speaker 1: one of the central characters that really needs to work
Speaker 1: for this whole thing to it could have fallen apart.
Speaker 1: And I love Mesican thing where they could have had
Speaker 1: to stop shooting if it didn't well right. I love
Speaker 1: that Kevin Garnett's willingness to sort of have this narrative
Speaker 1: revolve around something that actually happened to him that he's
Speaker 1: so stoked, dude, he's gonna be going to the Oscars
Speaker 1: and he's gonna be the most noticeable guy there. Like
Speaker 1: and you think that was his actual ring he used
Speaker 1: in the movie. Probably they probably would have been. They
Speaker 1: would have insisted when he immediately could set ring and
Speaker 1: goes and ponds it eight away. It's like the junkie
Speaker 1: going to get his next fix. He had to do it. Um.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite motifs was the double doors to
Speaker 1: get into what was the name of the shop again,
Speaker 1: I never caught a name. It didn't think of the
Speaker 1: initials or something. You're right, it's like KM or kate whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: The dormotif of the double doors. You gotta get buzzed
Speaker 1: to get in. You're in that little vest of you
Speaker 1: or you gotta get buzzed again. Uh, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people are outside trying to get in there on camera.
Speaker 1: They they worked that for They milked it for everything
Speaker 1: they could. That where they show up and they can't
Speaker 1: get it to open, and they're trying everything. Everyone's open everyone.
Speaker 1: You know, you've been stressed for these arrival in the
Speaker 1: first place. Finally they're here and you can't get in.
Speaker 1: But they're they're brilliant at creating that kind of like
Speaker 1: that that sense of just being overwhelmed with like too
Speaker 1: many things happening at the same time, and being like, no,
Speaker 1: stop doing that, that's not going to help, and and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, like they're they're so good.
Speaker 1: It reminded me actually of certain moments and Punch Drunk
Speaker 1: Love with Sandler as well, where he's walking around his
Speaker 1: warehouse and and like stuff's falling off the shelves and
Speaker 1: and and he's he's trying to talk to somebody, and
Speaker 1: somebody else's BUGGINGHI about this other thing, and he's got
Speaker 1: a phone call from his sister. You know. It's that
Speaker 1: sense of again, just like overload, sensory overload complete, just
Speaker 1: like panic and and and anxiety, and they're they're they
Speaker 1: capture it so well here, but he thrives on it. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's he's not. Another bit of misdirection there that just
Speaker 1: I just remembered is the shot of the the the
Speaker 1: magnet or the whatever that it shows that shot of
Speaker 1: it on the floor, and I'm like, obviously, like someone's
Speaker 1: gonna get stabbed with that thing right through the eyeball.
Speaker 1: That's how this moke is gonna end. You know. He's
Speaker 1: like they're they're going to leave right when he's placed
Speaker 1: the bet. They're piste off at him, and and they're
Speaker 1: just like, you know, Arnod says to him, like you're
Speaker 1: an idiot, and and and they go to leave, and
Speaker 1: there that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna walk out
Speaker 1: of the building. And he gets them buzzed in the
Speaker 1: first part, and then the second part that thing falls
Speaker 1: out purely by chance, and then he he looks at
Speaker 1: it and he has moment. It's a parlay. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like it's like, oh, I could I could up
Speaker 1: this even first ride. Yeah, whereas he could have. They
Speaker 1: could have just gone and then maybe they intercept her
Speaker 1: on the way to the casino where she gets the
Speaker 1: bet in and who knows that's why he trapped him,
Speaker 1: because they were they were going to get right right.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's like things could have played out
Speaker 1: so differently. It wasn't like he had the plan in
Speaker 1: his mind that he's going to trap them in there
Speaker 1: again in his mind, you know. And it's not like
Speaker 1: he cared about the girl. He cared about the bet. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he cared about her a little. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I don't give him much capacity for caring about anybody
Speaker 1: other than himself. There's also that moment where Um, the
Speaker 1: other the big heavy I think his name is Phil
Speaker 1: in the movie and the actor's name is Keith. First time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's amazing to um. But there's a moment where
Speaker 1: he's on his cell phone to somebody you don't know
Speaker 1: who's talking to her what he's saying, and Sandler sees
Speaker 1: that happening, and then he goes over to his phone,
Speaker 1: calls his wife and makes up the story about a
Speaker 1: gas leak because he's just saying, get goes somewhere safe,
Speaker 1: because they might send somebody to kill you. But he
Speaker 1: can't say that, so he makes up the thing about
Speaker 1: the gas leak. But he he's getting some sense of
Speaker 1: the stakes are this high that they might just start
Speaker 1: killing my family or something, but he's still willing to
Speaker 1: do it. Of course it's not gonna stop. Course another
Speaker 1: one again, he doesn't care about it, Yeah, exactly. Another
Speaker 1: One of my favorite scenes acting wise, even though the
Speaker 1: whole movie is just acting Powerhouse, is the fight between
Speaker 1: he and Julia Fox outside the club with a taxi. Um,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been to New York City, like more
Speaker 1: than once, like a Friday or Saturday night and you're
Speaker 1: out late, chance you have seen a couple of fighting
Speaker 1: outside of the club, exactly, like I've seen it dozens
Speaker 1: of times. And then when it was so real when
Speaker 1: she's doing the Walk of Shame back kind of she's
Speaker 1: just talking, you know, like that's real. It's so you're
Speaker 1: the one standing on the side. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's
Speaker 1: a great moment. Well, let's pay honor to Adam Sandler
Speaker 1: here for a second. We've talked around a lot of this,
Speaker 1: but it's just if it would be one of the
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of great acting this year,
Speaker 1: but it will be one of the great crimes if
Speaker 1: he doesn't win the Oscar. Right now, he's a lot
Speaker 1: right Sandman, And like, in terms of the casting, it's
Speaker 1: so important that it is somebody like Sandler that is
Speaker 1: like inherently, intrinsically unavoidably likable. You just want to root
Speaker 1: for the guy you just talked about that no matter
Speaker 1: what you do, no matter what he does, you're there's
Speaker 1: still a part of you that's kind of rooting for him.
Speaker 1: And it's so important. There could be so many other
Speaker 1: actors that might be excellent in other ways, but they
Speaker 1: don't invoke that sympathy from the audience or somebody. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, he could he could do in the face anyway,
Speaker 1: could be very convincing, degenerate gambler, but you would have
Speaker 1: less sympathy. You'd just kind of be like, well, you
Speaker 1: made your bed and I sleep in it kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But how are you don't want to see that happen?
Speaker 1: You don't think Sandlers squandered or so much social like
Speaker 1: will because he's made so many terrible jokeing for me,
Speaker 1: he's still Yeah, he'll always be opera man. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: he he has like a real apparently he's he's one
Speaker 1: of the nicest people in Hollywood. Is extremely loyal to
Speaker 1: his very hard work. That's it's like a good point.
Speaker 1: You know you look at like the whole orbit around
Speaker 1: him of all these guys that pop up in like
Speaker 1: every movie he does, and a guy for wanting to
Speaker 1: make twenty million dollars, yeah, like a dumb comedy. You're right.
Speaker 1: And also, like I was, I was listening to a
Speaker 1: podcast where they were saying, like, he does this so
Speaker 1: he can hang out with his friends make the next way,
Speaker 1: what is it the one with Spade and all those
Speaker 1: grown up and like another grown up so we can
Speaker 1: go to Cabo and just kick it with our families.
Speaker 1: He like he has in his contract like that he
Speaker 1: has to kind of you know, take his kids to school,
Speaker 1: pick them up from school every day, like when they're shooting.
Speaker 1: So he really likes to have this kind of like
Speaker 1: very um, let's say, like traditional conventional family life. He
Speaker 1: had a tuxedo made for his goddamn dog for his
Speaker 1: wedding made. But he just was like a phenomenally well
Speaker 1: adjusted person given how famous and how rich he is,
Speaker 1: you know what is he good in this? I mean
Speaker 1: just vanishes from your consciousness And yeah, he's not. He's
Speaker 1: not doing what we think of so sort of the
Speaker 1: Adam Sandler stick, you know, whereas even Punch Trunk Love,
Speaker 1: which he I'd say just as good in He's still
Speaker 1: he's still a little more channeling that traditional yeah where
Speaker 1: this one he just like you said, he disappears into
Speaker 1: this role even just the way he walks and the
Speaker 1: way he delivers lines and the way his voice. He
Speaker 1: sort of has an accent, like a little bit of
Speaker 1: an accent, which is yeah, he disappears into it. He's
Speaker 1: wearing a prosthetic teeth. Oh yeah, and um and and
Speaker 1: he the only time that I kind of see maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit of his of his other performances in
Speaker 1: this is when he has those flare ups of anger
Speaker 1: when he starts yelling or something. That's when, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I can kind of think back to other other things.
Speaker 1: But his his kind of just like you know, baseline
Speaker 1: in this movie is something we really haven't seen him
Speaker 1: do it before. No. And then he also gets the
Speaker 1: you know Oscar Bates scene, you know, where he finally
Speaker 1: breaks down, which this movie needed. I think it was
Speaker 1: because he's so just sort of up here and consistently hustling. KG,
Speaker 1: come here, come come on over here, let me show
Speaker 1: you what I got here. This is the most fantastic
Speaker 1: thing is that for just so long and then he
Speaker 1: finally breaks down there and that scene just like Seal
Speaker 1: the dealing for him for this offesome. I love that
Speaker 1: they they let that scene play out. But then they
Speaker 1: also have the kind of like comedic element of her
Speaker 1: getting the tattoo and sort of being like because it's funny,
Speaker 1: Like it's funny, but it's also sad. When he he's
Speaker 1: just sort of like, no, I'm not worth it. I
Speaker 1: don't deserve that. Like he's the self loathing that's kind
Speaker 1: of buried underneath all that stuff. And then he even
Speaker 1: has that that greatest side about like now we can't
Speaker 1: even be buried next to each other, which is a
Speaker 1: Jewish tradition. You know, if you're tattooed, you can't be buried,
Speaker 1: and like oh yeah, yeah, which is it's just the
Speaker 1: funniest side. Um that That's something that I think is
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about the subtext of this
Speaker 1: movie or or some of the deeper themes, there's a
Speaker 1: lot in there about you know, Jewish identity in America. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously the source of the of the Opal
Speaker 1: in the first place, or the Ethiopian Jews that are
Speaker 1: kind of stranded and and um yeah, and and like
Speaker 1: the obviously like this this movie has a scene that
Speaker 1: takes place during Passover. But when they talked about their
Speaker 1: other contingencies, if they had to go with a different
Speaker 1: basketball player and it's going to be a different time
Speaker 1: of year, there was always going to be some Jewish
Speaker 1: holiday that was going to coincide with that, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole story happening. So it was very important for
Speaker 1: the Safti's to kind of work that in work that
Speaker 1: kind of like I don't know, like the sense of
Speaker 1: like trying to assimilate into American society and become quote
Speaker 1: unquote fully American, but still maintain um the tradition in
Speaker 1: a way. Yeah, Like he's he's this one miles an
Speaker 1: hour full time hustler, but he still stops for passover. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like he has to be the honor that. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: even does the reading right right, and and and it's
Speaker 1: probably the most present with family that he ever is
Speaker 1: an any other point for that three minutes, not really
Speaker 1: not really on his phone for one. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: saying that because he clearly respects the tradition and that
Speaker 1: element of family and being part of that crew, even
Speaker 1: though it's so weird to see the guy that's literally
Speaker 1: been chasing after him trying to be his ass, sitting
Speaker 1: across the table from him, and like it was being
Speaker 1: so good jud hirsh so good to see him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's fantastic. I was. I think we share a birthday,
Speaker 1: so every since I was a kid, I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: me and jed Hurst I was big. I was a
Speaker 1: big taxi fan. Was that sequence kind of when you
Speaker 1: really realize they were family, or there's a cuts down,
Speaker 1: like mean mugging across the table, you're like, oh, I see,
Speaker 1: and then you're still not sure it makes sense. That's
Speaker 1: why he's being a little Their relationship always seemed a
Speaker 1: little strange. Yeah, in the very big right, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not really until the scene right after where he's
Speaker 1: you know, it's sund Or and Jed hirsh And and
Speaker 1: Jed hirsh is saying to him like, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know about this guy, you know, like he's he he said,
Speaker 1: you know, happy holidays to me, like it's fucking Christmas,
Speaker 1: and you know he's he just he doesn't like the guy.
Speaker 1: And said I was like, ah, he's all right, I
Speaker 1: don't worry about you know. He's like, well, hey he
Speaker 1: didn't marry your daughter, you know, so good. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then the end um shot to me is the thing
Speaker 1: that like takes in sort of the beginning to and
Speaker 1: that all this psychedelics use of color, that's what takes
Speaker 1: this movie and elevates it to something better than just
Speaker 1: your standard street hustler kind of thing. They really just uh.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I sentenced to Noel, I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: it because I was very curious, have you guys read
Speaker 1: any of the script he had it. We looked at
Speaker 1: the last page and I pointed out, I pointed out
Speaker 1: what you had sent me. Read that for the benefit
Speaker 1: because the very ending, and I had a great shot
Speaker 1: zooming in and they didn't make it super bloody or gross.
Speaker 1: This tiny entry his cheek. Uh. I can't imagine what
Speaker 1: the back of his head books. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's that pool of blood that kind of spreads, but
Speaker 1: it's still pretty subtle. It's not like brains everywhere or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the traditional trophy pull of blood had a little small
Speaker 1: hole under his eye, right in the cheek. And then they,
Speaker 1: you know, they push in on that wound and go
Speaker 1: inside of it. And this is how they wrote that
Speaker 1: in the script. Listeners, The zoom closes in on the
Speaker 1: bullet hole in Howard's face and continues onward into the wound.
Speaker 1: Swirls of red, pink, and white engulf the frame. As
Speaker 1: we travel through blood, bone, and tissue. The zoom pushes
Speaker 1: through this material plane into a landscape of kaleidoscopic abstract
Speaker 1: shapes and flickering iridescent light. The digetic audio in the
Speaker 1: km A gems that's the name showroom decays and a
Speaker 1: wash of reverb overtaken by a vast soundscape of crystal
Speaker 1: tinkles and warm electronic tones. That's great. I mean, that's realized,
Speaker 1: fully realized vision. Man, Like they didn't get this idea later.
Speaker 1: That was from the beginning then of of And it's
Speaker 1: so funny too to kind of like zoom in on
Speaker 1: the diamond and you're seeing like all these colors and
Speaker 1: so on, and then it becomes Sandler's colin, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And you realize as you retroactively pull out,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I've just been inside the guy's ass.
Speaker 1: Like it's very it's very like juvenile and funny but
Speaker 1: cosmic joke. Yeah, And it also puts you in the scene,
Speaker 1: which is another important point of a misdirection. If you
Speaker 1: think he's going to have colon cancer and the doctor
Speaker 1: just don't want nothing to worry about. Well, that reminds me,
Speaker 1: like a lot of people have drawn comparisons between this
Speaker 1: movie and the Cohen Brothers. A serious man, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to say that that that sense of like, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of book of job idea of like somebody
Speaker 1: who's just like doomed and tested and like nothing can
Speaker 1: go right for you, and you're just kind of cursed,
Speaker 1: profoundly cursed, and and yeah, so to have that red
Speaker 1: herring of like he's getting his coal and checked and
Speaker 1: you're not sure what the results are going to be,
Speaker 1: and then he's just fine. He even says that like
Speaker 1: a lot of movies, I think that would be a
Speaker 1: constant thing that keeps coming up. And it's just like
Speaker 1: a random phone call later where he's like everything's clear,
Speaker 1: and as when the doctors say, like calling cancer, paid
Speaker 1: for my house in Hamptons, Like he's like, you, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, jusing calling cancer. I don't know.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, I just paid for my beach house
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. And that's that's in the middle of
Speaker 1: when when Lucky Stanfield is freaking out and like I
Speaker 1: think there's probably one or two other things happening at
Speaker 1: the same time, Like he puts the whatever the drink
Speaker 1: is in the fish tank and all that's going down
Speaker 1: at the same time, and the doctor is finally just
Speaker 1: like all right, I'm gonna hang up now, Like I
Speaker 1: love how important the fish are too. He wasn't. I
Speaker 1: was waiting for him to be like, oh, you fucking asshole.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, come here, I'm gonna get let me
Speaker 1: get you out of there. But does have a sweetness
Speaker 1: to him. Actually that's yeah, you're right. It may be
Speaker 1: arbitrary and it may be kind of misplaced, like he
Speaker 1: cares more about the fish, and it seems like he
Speaker 1: hears about his family. Perhaps he's more, he's more immediately
Speaker 1: concerned for them, but it's still relatable. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to go back to to the last shot it
Speaker 1: again because I feel like the first time I saw it,
Speaker 1: I was okay on this two shots it reminded me
Speaker 1: a little bit of like fight Club or something. We're
Speaker 1: kind of like flying around brain the synapse. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've kind of seen this before, but it's still pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But in a way I didn't really know what it
Speaker 1: was necessarily doing in the movie, and the second time
Speaker 1: watching it, thinking more in terms of his character being
Speaker 1: this person that that lives this hyper um materialist, hyper
Speaker 1: superficial existence to then go inside him at the very
Speaker 1: end to see like the kind of like the uncut gym,
Speaker 1: the opal within him in a way, and then for
Speaker 1: that to become you know, blood, and then for that
Speaker 1: to become like space like stars in the sky and
Speaker 1: so on. To me, it kind of it had like
Speaker 1: a on almost like spiritual dimension where it's saying that
Speaker 1: this guy contained multitudes, he contained all this you know,
Speaker 1: depth and and uh, parts of himself that he never explored,
Speaker 1: that he never knew about because he he's living in
Speaker 1: the society that's so superficial, but that it's a sort
Speaker 1: of idea, you know, Buddhist or something that we all
Speaker 1: contain within us. Like I think Julia Fox sees that too. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: They don't play it up too much. But he's not
Speaker 1: just a sugar daddy. Yeah, yeah, he's a lot more
Speaker 1: than that. Yeah, and his wife does not see that.
Speaker 1: She hates his guts for good reason, for absolutely well,
Speaker 1: you know she said either way, like financially, so yeah,
Speaker 1: she wants him gone. I love that scene where like
Speaker 1: she doesn't even say a word when he's in the
Speaker 1: trunk of the car naked and she just looks at
Speaker 1: him for a minute. It's like, I don't even need
Speaker 1: to say anything. We know what a screw if you are.
Speaker 1: And the thing two is it doesn't get into like
Speaker 1: the kind of over the top verbal abuse you might
Speaker 1: normally see. She just says, you're the most annoying person
Speaker 1: I've ever known my entire life. And that's more cutting
Speaker 1: than Moucker slapping him or like you know, screaming or whatever.
Speaker 1: That is more and you see the puppy dog hurt,
Speaker 1: and that would have been the trophy way to play it,
Speaker 1: I think is for her to blow up and you
Speaker 1: know what the fund is wrong with you? You don't
Speaker 1: care about your family, and she steals herself and he
Speaker 1: doesn'tee her, don't you know? He doesn't mean my anger,
Speaker 1: he merrits. Three years ago she might have had that
Speaker 1: reaction and she's gone. And that's the funny thing, too,
Speaker 1: is that when she laughs at him, I think it's
Speaker 1: because she realizes he has such a superficial understanding of
Speaker 1: what a relationship is and that she's been just completely
Speaker 1: detached for however long and he still thinks like, oh,
Speaker 1: you look good in your what is your bottress? I've
Speaker 1: been thinking, you know, maybe it's just because things have
Speaker 1: gone south with Julia Fox that he's like, oh, maybe
Speaker 1: I should go back to my wife and there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's the way he puts Julia Fox down to
Speaker 1: his wife was like she's trash. I know, she's trash. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know he's elevator scene when yeah, he tells her off,
Speaker 1: I don't want you my life and the door closes
Speaker 1: and he's in there full of people. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, what does he say? It's a great line
Speaker 1: about just like my life or something. He's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it just like you guys know the half of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: such a trial with this person. Oh man, um, all right,
Speaker 1: I think we get to the rating now. If you're
Speaker 1: new to the show, we give ratings between one and
Speaker 1: five thumbs. Uh yeah, I know. You know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, five thumbs. My favorite movie the year Lights
Speaker 1: Out with a bullet same five thumbs, four and a
Speaker 1: half thumbs and nothing. I mean, there's nothing that I
Speaker 1: can say to criticize the movie, but just more so
Speaker 1: comparing it to the other movies I saw this year.
Speaker 1: Like I recently did my like top ten of the year,
Speaker 1: and this was on the list. Yeah I saw that,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't quite at the top. So that's was
Speaker 1: it Silver Tier for you? It was Silver Tier by
Speaker 1: Silver Silver Brown rather than just a simple one through ten,
Speaker 1: I make it overly complicated and it made the Silver Tier. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's yeah, great movie, though, Casey, I will go
Speaker 1: with the full five. This wouldn't be my number one
Speaker 1: of the year. That would be The Irishman by Martin Scorsese.
Speaker 1: Heard of that, but yeah, that was That was Scorsese's
Speaker 1: second best movie of the year documentary I need to
Speaker 1: I've heard that's really interesting, Like it's got characters that
Speaker 1: were actually there at the time. Interesting. What was So
Speaker 1: what was your favorite movie the year? Irishman? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: was your Parasite? Oh, that's right, that's right, we discovered
Speaker 1: that and none Cut Gems was my second. But they're
Speaker 1: they're just two very different kinds of movies, even though
Speaker 1: they're both interesting social commentaries, but they're just like, to me,
Speaker 1: parasites more of like almost a who done it? Like
Speaker 1: hitchcocky kind of stylized thing, whereas this is just pure grit,
Speaker 1: just like you know. And by the way, I just
Speaker 1: looked up amazing article on interview. Um it's uncut Gim's
Speaker 1: handsome older man Wayne Diamond establishes a new legacy, and
Speaker 1: he is apparently a very wealthy New York socialite type dude.
Speaker 1: And he um got his start in the dieting and
Speaker 1: on the Diamond district, in the garment district. Um and
Speaker 1: used to be a really weird drugge clubby kind of guy,
Speaker 1: what you could imagine. And then reviewers sits down with
Speaker 1: him at some bar and he drinks like five vodkas
Speaker 1: and two red wines at like two o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Ramsey a producer, let's hear your thumbs five films, any
Speaker 1: other comments? Uh favorite movie the year? All right, yeah,
Speaker 1: there you have it. I do before we go, we
Speaker 1: should we should also shout out Darris Kanji, the director
Speaker 1: of photography, who is legendary in his own right and
Speaker 1: doing something very very different here than he normally does
Speaker 1: in his films, where he likes to work on much
Speaker 1: wider lenses typically. He he's he's sort of like a
Speaker 1: you know, the Victorious starar idea of like painting with
Speaker 1: light is very much what what Kanji is, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: more more comfortable. And let's say he did delicate tests.
Speaker 1: He's done. He's it's my favorite look at everything he's done, saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: UM just a massive, massively talented cinematographer and for him
Speaker 1: to adapt that kind of fastidious, like perfection based style
Speaker 1: to this film, which is so much more about UM
Speaker 1: being able to shoot in any direction, which cinematographers usually
Speaker 1: hate because you want to light to the shot, not
Speaker 1: to the room. UM working on way longer lenses. They
Speaker 1: had a lens on this that they talked about on
Speaker 1: the podcast with UM Paul Thomas Sanderson actually, who also
Speaker 1: just worked with Darris Kanji on Animal Tom York podcast.
Speaker 1: They were highly recommend checking that out. But there's like
Speaker 1: a three fifty millimeter lens that they found, UM anamorphic
Speaker 1: lens that you know that that's a ridiculously long lens
Speaker 1: and you put that on the camera and it's like
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to like track the Actually yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, and it it works beautifully in this film.
Speaker 1: And UM yeah, there's there's there's so much more to
Speaker 1: say about just the technical aspect of this film. That's
Speaker 1: that's very very impressive. UM. It's it's a mix of
Speaker 1: film and digital. UM mostly film, but some of the
Speaker 1: nighttime exteriors are digital. Um, but it all feels completely
Speaker 1: you know, seamless, and uh yeah, um it's I feel
Speaker 1: like we should mention the cinematographer Sean Price Williams who
Speaker 1: they worked with previous to this and Kanji to come
Speaker 1: in and kind of like step up the game or
Speaker 1: just bring them to that next level of glossiness but
Speaker 1: still being gritty at the same time. I got to
Speaker 1: imagine that other cinematographer was bummed out. I know, I
Speaker 1: wonder a little bit about that. I feel kind of
Speaker 1: bad because because it sort of bit his style at
Speaker 1: Yer pushed it over the know, but the whole thing
Speaker 1: was a more over the top version or a more
Speaker 1: dialed in version of good time. Yes, because because Sean
Speaker 1: Price Williams is very well known for his his handheld
Speaker 1: in his like super telephoto close ups of faces and
Speaker 1: so on. Yeah, different different ones, yes, bad joke. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: Almost perfect score except for Paul my opinion and you're
Speaker 1: half a thumb. I got a place for your half
Speaker 1: a thumb, my friend. What can I say? I got
Speaker 1: to be the contrary? No, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: That's that's great. Almost a perfect score. Go see it
Speaker 1: uncut Jim's can't wait to see it again again. Emily
Speaker 1: was like, what I like it? I went new you
Speaker 1: would not. Emily does not like anxiety and using films.
Speaker 1: I was like, stay far, far away. I'm taking my
Speaker 1: girlfriend tonight. I'm not sure if she's gonna like it
Speaker 1: or not, but I really hope she does all right. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks guys, this is great one. Thank you for more
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