190: The Coen Brothers

SPEAKER_03 0:00

It's just one thing, dude. What's that?

SPEAKER_04 0:04

You have to use so many cuss words. What the fuck are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Hey everyone, welcome to What Are You Watching? I'm Alex Wither and I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal. What's the rubis there, Barton Fink?

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Oh, whoa! Whoa, we got it like that.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Two of them.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Thank you for giving me that one. That's a that's that's two in a row.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

I've gotten, I've gotten, I've gotten I didn't know if you would take Barton Fink as a compliment or or no, because he's he's a bit of a lost man. Oh, he he he sure is.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

But I but I suppose I wouldn't I wouldn't not relate to him. Um, but it's so funny because I remember I texted you this whole entire like hubbub about uh what's the rumpus as I was pondering such you know important questions that one has in life is when I put on Miller's Crossing. And then dude, they're all they're saying is what's the rumpus.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Wow, that is hilarious. I you sent me a voice memo. I thought you sent that voice memo after watching Miller's Crossing. Nope. It well, that's weird because yeah, if for those who you know haven't seen Miller's Crossing or haven't seen it in a while, that's their common catchphrase. It's as common as oh yeah, from Fargo. Like it is every pretty much a lot of people in the movie that that's how they start every conversation. What's the rumpus? So that is hilarious that you did. Yeah, I know. Can you imagine? We are here today to talk about the Cohen Brothers who made 18 films together so far. Joel and Ethan Cohen. We're gonna do Blood Simple 1984 through 2018's The Ballad of Buster Scrugs. We will leave the uh so far three solo films for and maybe we can talk about them on Patreon because we'll do our Patreon Cohen Brothers Oscar episodes, but episode rather. But today we got 18 features, and I am excited. I know you're excited. It's fun to talk about the Cohen Brothers because they're so popular, and just about everyone has seen at least a movie by them, whether or not they know it was them. A lot of people, not movie freaks like us, but like you know, the normal folks out there, may have seen two of their movies, and had there are people who could have seen Big Lebowski in No Country and have no idea that's by the same filmmakers. And I love that. So one of the reasons why they're gonna be so fun to talk about 18 movies. Here's what, in terms of genres they've tackled Neo Noir, legit noir, screwball comedies, satires, farces, dark comedies, crime comedies, gangster movie, tone poems, musical, bona fide western, anthology film. They have remade Hollywood classics, they've adapted Homer, and they won Best Picture. I guess I didn't say horror, but there are aspects of No Country for Old Men that are like a horror movie. They have done it all very, very successfully. I don't flip out over all of their movies, but even I ranked them on Letterboxd and like a private list. The lowest one, I still the like the lowest ranked one, number 18, I gave three and a half stars to. Like that's not bad. And it doesn't take long to get to the five-star area, four and a half, five star, and then you just coast for like 10 movies. I love this filmography, loved them since I was a kid.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Well, I mean, I think if you're our age, then you really grew up with these guys. Yeah, yeah. You started to become very familiar with the Cohen brothers around the early 90s, like it started to become a thing. Then of course you get the success of Fargo. And that was the sensation.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah, that was an indie, that's one of the biggest indie films of the 90s, right up there with pulp fiction. Huge sensation.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

And that it was like it almost I remember even before I was really, you know, quote unquote into film, that that that was the movie where I would just hear that. It was the most popular thing, and then and then they're just cruising from there, and they kind of developed their their sort of brand, I suppose, but it's not really a brand because it's just who these guys are. I I did like a couple of like I found like these words that sort of kind of encapsulates what they sort of do or what they bring to the table in terms of their artistry and their creativity and intelligence. Very intelligent, historical, religious, America. They may be one of the most um profound contemporary filmmakers that are attracted to American landscapes and stories all over. Oh yeah, mostly, you know, in the kind of weirder areas of it, but nonetheless, they are America. Ecentric, fatalistic, ironic, foolish, which also goes around with humorous, but different because their humor is unlike really anybody else. And then I'm fucking hungry now, you know. And then what makes the Cohen brothers so special on top of all of these? Language, language, language.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yeah, very good that you repeated that three times because that is part of it. And hence what's the rupus? You know, they have this repetition of language that is so so funny. And I yeah, I would add one word to what you said, but continue your your no, that was I I ended with the language one, so give it to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Horny. Very what is with this? You I okay, you said to me one time that the uh Lady Killers was the most horny movie that they no Lady Killers is the crassest, crass is not the crass is like you brought your bitch to the waffle house.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

That is crass, like that is insulting her. I'm saying that the lady killers is that is the one that I probably would put in number 18 if I was ranking all of them. But that is and it's not the they made two in a row, intolerable cruelty, and lady killers back to back that you know kind of miss people a little bit. So I was not necessarily looking forward to re-watching the lady killers, and I put it on and I went, Oh, this is a hard R crass movie. They are dropping a ton of racial language, like it is it it's intense, but it's not no. I mean, the horniness is there's no one in the world watching Burn After Reading who can assume that George Clooney's making what he's making. There's no one. Oh, there's no one that can assume that he's doing that. The horniness becomes way more prevalent when you start looking at Ethan Cohen's solo director career, because that's when we realize, oh, I see where it is now. But yes, these are with their sense of humor, comes a devilish horniness that is accompanied with almost every movie. Think about how horny the characters are in Blood Simple and how much that gets them into trouble. Miller's Crossing, Jesus Christ, everybody sleeping with everyone, including a lot of the men, on and on and on. It is a constant. I mean, Fargo, what gets them in trouble is that they want to get laid. And you know, that's who Marge ends up talking to. It's so many of them. I could Big Lebowski, what does Tara Reed say? It goes, the man who wasn't there, what does Scarlet Johansson do? There are many, many, many things where they are inserting this stuff where they do not need to, and they are doing it because they think it is funny. And I love that shit. Well, I think it's also because they also don't they don't make it very pronounced. Like, there's not much gritty. Well, that's what I mean. There's not that's what I mean. Horniness is not, there's not a lot of actual frank sexual activity. All the sex scenes I can think. There's no like piano playing, wind blowing the curtains. There's none of that. They look at this stuff with such this objective lens. Their funniest sex scene, one of the funniest sex scenes in the history of film is Fargo. When they're like, you know, I could like I I know where we can get pancakes and get laid, okay? And then we just see them like with their girls right next to each other, fade out, fade up, and they're watching the tonight show, and that's all from these master shots in the corner of the room. It's fucking hilarious, but there's no one who would make Fargo, especially before Fargo, where you have these two sociopathic hitmen, and we have to stop for three minutes just to see them get laid, and then it comes up again because the police investigating them, the officer has to talk to the two prostitutes. It's fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yes, these two are very, very horny directors, extremely and there is a case to be made that the whole entire reason why Lou Ellen, uh in No Country for Old Men, perishes is because he might be distracted with a bit of horny.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Horny beer leads to more beer. You can it's in all look what happens even in a serious man, the neighbor on the like there's so many things. I'm not saying it's everywhere, like true grid is not an inherently horny movie. It's you know, raising Arizona, they bring up swinging. Like, yeah, there is come on now. But you don't have to look that hard to see. We've covered other directors who have 18 movies or more. Steven Soderberg is not a horny director, Jim Jarmus is not horny. They are not. These guys think sex can be hilarious. All right, I love that about them because there are very, very few mainstream directors who were like, nah, I'm gonna do like this epic sex scene. No, not that. But even what they suggest with I always okay, I always got mad that the man who wasn't there was rated R because on when it says it's rated R for a scene of violence, and that's the one killing in the movie that you see, and I'm like, Well, come on now. I've seen worse than that on TV, even in 2001. But then you get toward the end, and I'm like, no, this movie's rated R because it suggests that a teenager was about to perform Fellatio on a grown man while he was driving. That is why this movie is rated R. It's a very horny. You never see Ed Crane animated at all unless he's talking to that girl. Horny directors, man. They're fucking hilarious. I love it. Heaven's a Betsy, yeah. Uh, so that's another reason why I you're right. I love him. And and yeah, we did grow up with them because Fargo was, you know, I'm 11 when Fargo comes out. My parents didn't take me to see that in a theater, but they went and saw it and they were talking about it non-stop. And I'm just hearing all of my parents and or my parents and all of their friends, you know, oh yeah, oh, don't you know, all the time. I'm hearing like they're laughing about a wood chipper. I'm like, what is this? And then when Fargo came out on VHS, it was a blockbuster mainstay. This was one of the movies, and my parents were like, It does this is fine, there's nothing too bad in it. So maybe that gives some insight into what I was allowed to watch, and we watch it together all the time. Fargo was one of my mom's top 10 favorite movies, watched it constantly. So that is when I become Cohn's aware. Between 96 and 98, I watch their previous work and I understand some of it, I don't understand a lot of others. I don't see Big Lebowski in the theater, I rent it the weekend, it's out, and I turn it off because I don't understand it at all. Because I'm 13 and I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? Not there are a few instances of Cohen Brothers movies that I watched the first time and went, I don't get it. I okay, and everyone says this is funny. Now, of course, I love Big Lebowski. They've yeah, they have been with us forever, and I've loved tracking their horny career.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And you and you and I just always think, imagine with with that word that it's just something really raunchy, but no, you're right. There's there's a lot of undertones to it. They don't make the same movie back to back. Like I remember being thrown when No Country for Old Men came out, and then they followed that up with Burn After Reading. I was expecting, and this is also what we talk about in this pod, never go into a movie with expectations. They can't go well, these guys, especially not these guys. But I remember not liking burn after reading because I was like, wait, these are the guys that just made No Country for Old Men, and now they've given us this comedy, and but then like I didn't think about how the majority of their career has been rooted in comedy. Oh, yeah. You know, when you kind of look at these 18 movies, they were probably in these places where it's like, well, we want to have fun now, we want to put on the fucking boots and we want to go and make something that we've never made.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

And like sucker proxy, yeah, yeah, is them going, okay, we have a little more money, we have we want to have fun. It does not do well, it does okay with critics. It's it's really their it's their biggest bomb of their career. And then, yes, they go, okay, we gotta kind of get serious and make something, then they make Fargo. And then with the goodwill of that, they go, let's fuck her out again. Lebowski, Lebowski doesn't do well. Uh, let's adapt Hober into some like farcical musical comedy. Oh, brother, it's an absolute smash sensation. The soundtrack wins album of the year Grammy. Next year, man who wasn't there, ice cold, like fucking new bar, black and white doesn't make money. Yeah, they keep doing this. The biggest example of this is Intolerable Cruelty in 2003 and the Lady Killers in 2004. Both movies they wrote but were not planning to direct. They got so much more money for those movies because they're huge studio ventures. And I am telling you, I was there for all of it, but uh O Brothers, the first one I see in theaters, I've seen all of them in theaters since. The narrative around the Lady Killers was have these guys lost it? Yeah, or are they like did they just give us a little bit? And now it's like, uh, okay, where it is this what they are reduced to now is remaking, you know, not like terribly well-known, but somewhat well-known Hollywood old Hollywood movies like the Lady Killers, or taking like the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s, like with intolerable cruelty. These movies didn't really do that well. They take three years off. No one expects no country. No one. That's another absolute sensation that a lot of listeners of this pod are probably now aware of because I bet a lot of people were around in 2007, and yeah, it just I mean, it won all those Oscars, it won Best Picture, and it's and then yeah, you get burned after reading, and then after that, an even weirder one, a serious man. That's nothing, and then you get a dead serious western true grit. They are making these year after year after year and doing it constantly their own way with little to no studio involvement, and it's always like a swing and a miss thing. That's why when they make take big swings, Hudsucker proxy is a big swing, and tolerable cruelty, cruelty is I go, I appreciate it. I don't know if I'm gonna rewatch it all the time, but I get it, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

And they really don't actually have almost any movie that is not rewatchable. You're right.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

I was dying laughing during the lady killers, and again, that's my 18, and I was like, whole it in 2004 in the theater, everyone talked like that in movies, like we we just weren't used out. Now, when I go back, I'm like, Holy shit, this this is a fucking Tom Hanks movie, like a Tom Hanks studio movie. And there is I you know, there is some very charged language in it that just would never get made today, honestly. And I I I was stunned, I did not remember that. Hadn't seen it in like 18 years, maybe, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Well, that that is so funny because that was one of the notes that I wrote down for the lady killers. I was like, this was definitely a 2004 movie, yeah. Yeah, it was all the yes, that's how we that's how movies talked back then.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

And it it is like a place in time, it's a relic of time now, for better or worse, but it is it really is. So, to prep for this pod, this is the only time I've done this. Last year, we we were like we didn't know if we were gonna do Jim Jarmish or the Cohen brothers, and I started for no reason just re-watching all the Coens, and it was up in the air, and then I'm like, no, we'll do Jarmish, like you know, that's your guy, let's do that. But I watched so I watched all of their movies last year, the Coens in Order, and then I did it again this year to prep for this. So I am I am ready, and that's another thing. Like, I was never okay. I gotta do this one now. It's not like that. I enjoy re-watching all of them, all like genuinely.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

These are really even like for any of them, they are easy watches. There, there is not a Cohen Brothers movie that feels like a slog to get through. It's never too heavy to where you gotta be in the mood. I suppose No Country for Old Men might be the only one where if you're kind of like, all right, uh because there's no music, there's not a lot of dialogue, you know, like that it's a very specific type of movie. But I mean, two hours is almost like the like other like ballad of the Buster Scrugs.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Rarely Buster Scrugs because it's an anthology, but still, like you still have all those Netflix credits at the end. They if they bump up at two hours, that's a long movie for them. Yeah, like they they know what they're doing, they know how to tell a story, how to string it along, how to move it rather, without going over two hours.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

It's kind of incredible. There is something for everybody. I don't know a single person, and this is true. I I have never met a single person that says that they don't like the Collin Brothers.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

If I met someone who said that I'd been, I'd be like, You've only seen one or two. Like, what kind of movie do you like? Uh, I just yeah, I saw No Country, I tend to like screwball comedies. Step this way, I got a bunch for you. Yeah, there's there is something for everyone. Not and we're not saying that every single person who watches, I don't know, Blood Simple will love it. No, but that you can have people who watch Blood Simple and don't really like it, but then watch their next movie, Raising Arizona, and it's one of their favorite comedies of all time. This is very common when discussing the Cohen Brothers.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

And this is also where I think their two biggest uh strengths come into play, which is what we did talk about, which is language and humor. I don't know a single person that does not find humor in the Cohen Brothers movies. What whether it's like, you know, No Country for Old Men or Raising Arizona, where you get two completely different types of comedy, but they are very, very highbrow, intelligent people that know a lot about um America history, and they often showcase the lesser intelligent people of this country, but yet they're still so smart about the way that they depict them. It might not be in the language that that particular character uses. Well, you look at William H. Macy and Fargo, that is not an intelligent man whatsoever. What do you mean? The heck do you mean? But but you can feel the intelligence of the movie. This is their stamp, I think. I think when you talk about what directors have that makes them so unique is that you cannot really get away from the intelligent humor and language of the Coens. The Coens do not really do a lot of interviews, they don't like to really kind of do a lot of stuff to let people know about them.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

And when they do, they are very intentionally fucking with us. Yes. If they are being asked a question like, so what does Barton think about? Like, I I feel a lot of you know philosophical references. Oh no, we were just writing. That is nonsense. They know what they're doing, but no, they have a very, oh, just a very careful jabbing way with the press where they don't they they just never let on more than they need to. It's like they have discussed this before the press cycle begins. Like Ethan rarely talks, you can see this in the no country for old men. Oscar wins, it's hilarious. And yeah, I it's that is part of their allure and mystery.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

And for anyone who ever works with them, they love it. They it it seems to be the most efficient team that's almost like ever existed. Everyone they they work with a lot of the same people all the time, which again is very common. For I mean, I think every director that we have covered has their team in terms of like they found their people and that's who they work with. These guys, like they they finish each other's sentences, they're basically one person. That's the biggest thing you always hear. They're one, yeah. Same person with two heads.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Another thing about their intelligence is that they don't they never very rarely hold the audience's hand. Fargo is the best example of this. No one can watch Fargo and tell me or the explain why does William H. Nacy, why does William H. Macy need money? No one knows, like it's never explained because he what he's trying to get, you know, he's five done all these numbers wrong and he's gotten this huge loan out. So when we meet him, he is trying to make to get money, fleece over his father-in-law to pay off these loans. Loans for what? What has this guy done? So you're always being strung along and never you just have to watch and pay attention and know that things are gonna land or they're not. And my god, I've taught we did a whole commentary on No Country for Old Men. There is a scene I wrote about it on my blog more than 10 years ago. It still gets active comments when Tom Ely Jones goes back to where Josh Brolin was killed and he's waiting outside that motel room. We cut and Inside and see Javier Bardam waiting for him, and that he kicks in the door. Javier Bardam is not there, he is not behind the door. That's ridiculous. So where did he go? I've listened to entire podcast episodes just talking about this scene, and it's never been explained. And that shit I love. I love that, like, yeah, you know, figure it out. Whatever, whatever you think.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

I I've I've come up to my own definitive conclusion, which we'll get to when we talk about that scene. But I I've I figured it out.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Okay, yeah. If it is, he's a manifestation of Ed Tom's fear, doesn't really track because he has no idea what Anton Shagore looks like. So there's this, believe me, I've gone frame by frame and studied that scene. He's not in the next room. It's so I actually do believe it's just a manifestation of his fear, but then they are giving it that little credence of like he thinks he could be behind the door. So we as an audience just have to go, okay, whatever he assumes that's what he looks like. Maybe I shouldn't think too much of this stuff. But the people who think he's on the other side of the door is absurd because if you've ever tried to stand behind a door when someone kicks it open, it hits you like he's a huge man.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

So that's what I mean. It's more absurd to think that he was in the room than it was a manifestation.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Right, but he was in the room at some point because he's taken a part that whatever vent. But uh even still, I've read reviews still to this day about inside Louin, not Llewellyn, Lewin Davis, that those that family that he's going to visit, that husband and wife are the parents of his bandmate who's died by suicide. And I'm like, no, they aren't. And people go, Yeah, they are. And I go, no, what? And so this again are thing, it's all these little things that make talking about their movies really, really fun.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

And I'll bring up a big one when we get to true grit, because you want to talk about not taking an audience for granted. The the language alone that they are writing with in that movie. Brilliant. It well, it is, it is. It it, I think I actually think that's their most brilliant written movie that they've ever done, actually, in a lot of ways, because of how specific it was to that time period, but it's almost harder than Shakespeare. Because Shakespeare, like, yes, there's a rhythm, and you're not gonna get certain words, but you can kind of put together. There are some phrases and sentences that these people in that movie use. They're not even words that we are even familiar with anymore. And you're like, no idea what he just said, literally and like audibly. I don't know what you just said. And when I saw the subtitles, I go, couldn't even in a million years put together what that sentence actually means. But that's again how smart they are. She should have won the Oscar for that.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

She, when she talks that like horse trader or whatever into that, no, you owe me this about, this, about, you're like, what the guy? And then she comes back and he's like, No, no, no, not this. Yeah, it's a great, and then you get all the way down to Josh Rowland, like, who are you, girl? Yeah, owe you so much that I did not do that. Uh, all right, let's get into the filmography though. We got 18 flicks to punch through, starting with a fantastic debut in 1984. Indie filmmakers are trying to break through. It's like, what how do we how do we do it? These two yokels get it in their head, hey, because their buddy Sam Raimi had made Evil Dead and they were, you know, friends with him. And they say, What if we create a fake trailer and then shop that trailer around to try to get investors for this script we we wrote called Blood Simple, and it works. I mean, they had a you know, they had a lot of trouble getting the money together, and they're getting it from like dentist, literally, and they're just getting it where they can. And I remember seeing this movie for the first time and being like, Whoa, because it was after Fargo. I had seen Fargo. This is an extremely layered neo-noir that I've had a really interesting time with just in the year of watching it, re-watching it. The whole movie is about what people don't say, it's all about the lack of communication, and how everyone in it thinks this is what we're talking about. They all think they are smarter than they are, and they write down until the very last, the last line that is said in is a laugh. And we're talking about humor. Like, this is not an out and out humorous movie, but it's the irony of the very end of this misidentity. It's so uh, I I love this movie, I really do. And I just I bought the criterion and watched the 4K and special features. Guillermo del Toro is interviewed on one of these special features, says it brilliantly. He says Blood Simple is the best type of film debut because it gives you something to aspire to while still seeing you know the crumbs of what made them good directors. He's like Citizen Kane, masterpiece movie. That's a terrible first movie because you can never get back to that again. That so it's a really hard first movie for a director. Blood Simple is like it's not perfect, it's not a perfect movie, but it is a great first movie, and I never really thought about it that way. And I think he's right. I love this movie so much.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

This movie is a bit of uh I I this was not my favorite of how many times have you seen it? Once. So here we are. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

So you just saw it. Yes. So I saw this for the first time when I was like 11 and have seen this upwards of 20 times. So oh man, first viewing is not very rewarding because you're like, what the fuck is like what is going on here? It's like 96 minutes, double, triple, quadruple crosses, but again, it's all what's yeah, not said. So let's hear it.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Well, well, and I and I and I definitely like I said, like, there isn't a movie on here that I didn't enjoy. There's a lore behind this movie that I have heard about forever. And I'm like, all right, let's see what this is all about. Now, again, I also knew, especially when we like the opening sequence, which was very, very cool. I was like, all right, we have like no budget, absolute 1984 trying to make a movie. That is a whole different time. So I I loved and respected all of that stuff, and I did dig it. I the the lighting, the neons, the colors, I love the look of everything. Dan Hidaya, I fucking love that guy. He is out of his mind, and there's like one particular shot where she kicks him in the nuts.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Oh, yeah, it's one of the most realistic nutshots I've ever seen. He vomits can happen. Oh, oof. I've seen it. I've I've witnessed it on a soccer field. Oh, god.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

But this this movie did the thing that you you already know where I'm going with this, where where I go, why are you doing these things? Like, what like yeah, like so that so this kind of grated at me a little bit. Like, there like why didn't when the main guy was Rex, right? Rex or John Getz? John Getz, yeah. You know, I'm I'm jumping around here, but this is an example. Like, he's trying to move the body of somebody, and he has like an incinerator that he goes and dumps something, I go, just shove the fucking body in there.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

You're you're gonna put yourself into a twist if you start asking the why didn't they do this of blood simple? And this is the point. They're all stupid. I know, I know all fucking idiots who think that their competency is so much higher than it is, and they think that they're so smart that they can walk into a back office, witness a crime scene that maybe happened an hour ago, and know why it happened, who did it, the motivation of it, and because they know this for certain, they don't have to ask, they just know, but they're dead wrong about everything. Yes, they're they are literally blood simple, they're stupid because they're so fucking fixated on money, sex, or violence. They are they're like these simple people. That's what that's what it means. But I dude, believe me, every single thing you have to say about it, just all I'm like, hey, I get it. And I had that when I rewatched it a year ago, I was like, damn, this the entire movie can be solved with just a few sentences. Hey, I I went I went ahead and killed that guy for you. What, huh? What? That is the thing of the movie. And when you go back and watch these old noirs that I love, they're doing this all the time. The men always think they are so smart and they can take care of everything for the poor little girl, for the poor little damsel in distress, and they're oh, they're usually two or three steps behind, and it ends up getting them uh mortally wounded, I'll say. But yeah, I'm not disagreeing, I'm not disagreeing with you. I get but dude, how about I mean that fucking ending that oh my god, the whole staging of it, the silence, the hand, the gunshot, Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Well, but again, like I like girl, get out of the house. What are you doing? Why she lingers around there forever, and I'm like leaves right, but and I'll bleep this part out.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

It's because she's so he she has to like finish it. It's not a movie you can fully grasp with one viewing. It's not, I didn't know you had only seen this once. It's it's and and if people want to be like, well, then that's not a good movie if I have to re-watch it multiple times. The Big Sleep, the Howard Hawkes movie, which is a big inspiration for them. That movie does not make fucking sense. I've seen it so many times, it doesn't make sense. They did what uh Faulkner wrote it. It's like you know, Barton Fink is connected to it as well. It's so blood simple makes sense. You just have to understand, like no, it makes sense. Oh, there's so many things that are not being communicated here, and dude, even if we're talking about dumb stuff, it is so fucking moronic that he would bring back those fish and just put them on his table. Fish smell, fish out of the water, smell like it would that doesn't make any sense. But again, you I and then like he's obsessed with his lighter, but he leaves it there. It's all these little things, man. I and oh man, and the fucking burial, god, the burial scene is so like the the burial scene's really great, Mr. Oh, yeah, I did all this perfect. Like, I brought him out here, buried him, and then that wide shot of him trying to leave, and the car won't start. And look at these tire tracks. You didn't bury him in a in a it was a very shallow grave.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Like, this dude is a fucking idiot. It I mean, absolutely, and but that that whole sequence is really, really something, and you can actually even see when you're talking about what Guillermo del Toro was saying, how like you fast forward 10 years later and you have the Fargo like with the com like all of that was blood simple, but now they're like, all right, well, we're more refined now, we've got a bigger budget.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

That is what Guillermo del Toro is talking about. Like, they started with this neon noir, they never really use neon again in any of their no, they never really have. There's a fantastic special feature on Criterion with the Cohen brothers and Barry Sonnenfeld, who was a cinematographer of their first three movies before he switched to directing. He did Adam's Family, Get Shorty, Men in Black, very big director. They're sitting there with like the oh god, like the Madden, John Madden type pen where you can highlight stuff on the screen, and they're like, they're like, Barry, where'd this light come from? What's motivating that? They're just making fun of how bad the cinematography is in the movie, and I watch it, I go, Jesus, I think this thing looks great. There's like, where's this neon coming from? It's so funny, but again, refinement, refinement.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Well, and yeah, and also I I actually dug the look of the movie. I actually I thought it looked really, I thought that was one of the actual like um strengths of it. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know, this would this would be a good commentary to do, and then uh for for someone who's gonna walk and be like, all right, Mr. Mr. Mr. Man, it'd be a good uh uh one for us to kind of like work our way through scene by scene.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I would be interested like in a few months if you go back to it and go, you know, it's only like it's 90 minutes with credits and stuff, so let me just like put it on. I want to listen to the four tops a little bit, keep hitting that song. I love it so much. Like all good noirs, more is revealed to you the more times you watch this. And um, out of the past, one of my favorite film noirs ever. I talking to you right now, maybe if I think about it, but I don't have every beat of that movie memorized. I forget some of them, and then when I rewatch, I'm like, oh yeah, and there's there's a lot of good shit in Blood Simple about now. We're you know, we're with this character and we know just enough. So then we get moved over to this character, we know just enough. Yeah, but I I totally understand how someone seeing it for the first time might be like, Whoa, there's a I got I got questions about this.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yeah, that that was sort of how I left I go, all right. This was their first effort. I see the beginnings of like really great filmmakers here, but as like there were just a couple things where I was like, I just don't really what do you mean that was her she heard him yelling?

SPEAKER_02 35:05

See, this is why you need to watch it again. I'm telling you, when you go back and watch it, everything tracks based on what is not said. It is it's not miscommunication, it is a complete absence of communication because everyone thinks they have everything figured out. That little poison that Dan Hedea puts in John Gates's head, you know, I didn't do nothing or what I do, wait till she says that to you, and then she says it and his face like melts and changes. And instead of going like, have you been out fucking around on me? No, like, no, it's not when the movie begins, they have not had an affair, they are starting that affair that they only sleep together that once, and then lack of communication. By the end of that, they're like sleeping in different areas of the bed, and you're like, What the hell's going on here?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Well, and uh John Gitz has a great monologue when he comes back from that whole entire like thing.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah, the the shock that he wears during that monologue is really great, really because and all he needs to say is hey, I just yeah, what he wants to say is I saw your sloppy crime scene. If they that's two sentences, and then she's gonna go, What the fuck are you talking about? And then they can calmly explain the movie, but that's not what this movie is because this is Texas, and down here you're on your own. Emmy Matt Walsh thinks he's smarter than Dan Hedea. He's not, it's it's this whole thing. Everyone is blood simple, everyone is either money, blood, or sex simple in this movie. So yeah, please, everyone and yourself, try to go watch it again because that man, that final scene and that final line, the irony of it is truly exquisite. She has no idea why any of this is happening. Next one. Now we're gonna change a little bit. I think so actually, because I was raised with blood simple. Raising Arizona, this is an outrageous comedy that if you did not grow up with, I don't know if it hits you as hard as when you did grow up with it. So here's the thing I saw Raising Arizona for the first time in my early 20s. Never saw it, never saw it growing up, was not on in the house, we have time, never saw it on TV, never. So when I came to it, it's just what you're saying about Blood Simple. I was like, Oh, this was what I've heard about all like so so much, one of the best comedies ever made. And I'm like, This is it's really slapstick and madcap and all this. And I did not like Raising Arizona the first time I saw it because I just didn't I didn't get it. I'm like, what the fuck is this tone? What's going on? Now I have come to appreciate it a great deal and think a lot of it is really hilarious. But this is gonna be a common theme. I feel we're already, you know, first movie and now second movie, where one of us saw it at a time, you know, different from the other person and had this huge impact on us. But yeah, this is one that I like now, but in in the moment, like so. I have no culture. I did not see this until after No Country for All Men came out.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Seriously. And and then you bring up an interesting thing, is I wonder what people would think of this movie now. Like, if you've never seen it, it I think people would be like, What the fuck is this?

SPEAKER_02 38:11

Like, this is so crazy. And it it is a it is the highest slapstick tone you can basically get in a movie. And we don't really do movies like this anymore, but it is. I mean, again, there's a lot of shit in this that happens that could be, you know, resolved with just a simple conversation, but that's not that these are also not very intelligent people that we are dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

No, not at all. And this uh, you know, it's funny that I I know I have brought this up, but this is my earliest movie memory of all time. I know, and that is that is crazy, yeah. It's crazy, yeah. The the earliest movie memory I had was when Nicolas Cage is running through the supermarket with the diapers. So, like it was like the first like visual I've ever retained from watching something on a screen was this. This is uh I I think this is the funniest movie that the Coens have made. This is my particular favorite comedy. I will be laughing from start to finish with this movie.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Yeah, see, and that is this wouldn't make my like top eight favorite comedies by then. Oh, it's because you either grew up with it or you didn't, yeah. So that's it's funny, it's very amusing.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And this is one of my all-time favorite Nicolas Cage performances. Like he he is so damn like he's so dumb, but he's also so charming. Yeah, he's sweet. He's and and and he really doesn't believe in himself at all. Like, he really like he he he's sort of like like there's a ceiling to his to his capability that he thinks that he has is what is kind of what the arc, I suppose, of his of his character is because he eventually thinks that he needs to leave because he's not capable of being a dad and a husband and all that. But uh man, I like when he when he says to her, you're a flower, you are in the beginning when he's getting arrested. That's just that's just a great line. But like he makes all of these ridiculous lines work and like the hair, the outfit, everything about it. I I fucking love it.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

It's interesting to note that as eccentric as Nicolas Cage has gotten in his performances, he did not have a good time making this because he did not understand, you know, he didn't the Cohen brothers didn't have like a relationship with Hollywood yet. He didn't really know what they were going for until after when he saw the movie and he went, Oh, okay, okay, I kind of I get it now. I should have said Francis McDormand, like that's in Blood Simple, she's in Blood Simple. That's her and Joel Cohen get married that same year, and she shows up in this as you know, a supporting performance. But Holly Hunter is as Ed that Nicolas Cage is high, A J McDutta. It's great, and I mean, my favorite aspects of the movie now when I watch it are Goodman and John Goodman, William Forsyth. Oh my god. John Goodman is breaking out of that fucking escape tunnel, and that roar is just one of the that I is like top five funniest moments in a Cohen Brothers movie to me. That thing is the roar of just and pulling him up by his feet. You're like, what doesn't make any sense? And yeah, we start to get these things of like what the hell is going on? This does like the guy on the bike, like the the madman on the bike chasing them, these lone figures start to become important to the Cohen Brothers movies. You're like, who the fuck is this guy? Why is this guy here? And and all this is being done in I th I would probably guess maybe 97 minutes less 94 minutes breeze by. But again, and again, I do not want to say just because, like, oh, it's not my favorite Cohen comedy, or I oh, I came to it late, doesn't mean it's not a great movie. I still really, really love Raising Arizona. I'm glad this one is so funny to you. It seems like you told me you and your mom watched it a lot too. It was just like on.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

It was just on, but I uh I I still that's the thing is like I can't even really compare this movie to another movie of its type in terms of both like the way that people are performing, the tone, and some of just like the like the actual action, like that that uh fight sequence that happens in the house. It's like it's like what like what like we've we've we're bouncing back and forth between all these different types of tones in terms of the comedy. It's funny because when I think about the Nicolas Cage, is that I imagine like for him to be struggling during the filming of what he was doing, but there is something that he is very grounded in. He's very honest in this work, I think. He's very honest for being so silly, he's a sweet person, but he just had and he has his own belief system in terms of how he operates in the world. But when that's confronted with the slightest bit of doubt, he's done. Like he just like he just like crumbles. But like when he's got that thing, I dude. Anytime someone's about to take a picture of me and they're taking their time with it, you will always hear me say, We're about to pop, honey. Honey, we're about to pop. Like pop. Like, why is he keeping he's making his family picture and she just talking, he doesn't care at all. He's like, We're about to pop.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

He's got like this idea, it's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Yeah, he's like, All right, let's go, we're about to pop. This will cue us into the next movie, too. But Nathan Arizona Senior in this film is played by Trey Wilson, he's really funny, just like a very good presence. Everyone in the cast is great. Francis McDormand shows up for a little bit, she's great. But then Trey Wilson was actually cast as the Albert Finney character in Miller's Crossing, and it was Go, and he died unexpectedly two days before they began filming. So it's not just like that is really sad because he would have been great and the Albert Finney part, but to get Albert Finney. That quickly, who comes in and you know, they hold for a few days and then he crushes this part in Miller's Crossing. That's another thing of them. They can pivot really quickly, they can get confused or bored with the script as they did with Miller's Crossing, and literally put it in a drawer and just go make a movie about because they have writer's block with Miller's Crossing. So then they go make them write a script about a writer with writer's block called Martin Fink. It's crazy that they do this shit. But first up is Miller's Crossing, released in 1990, came out exact same time as Goodfellas, which is a much more modern, gritty urban take on gangsters. And this is a prohibition era masterpiece of sorts because of all the twists and turns. And there's some Kirasawa in here, some Yojimbo about one guy trying to manipulate two gangs in one town. But I don't know how familiar were you were with Miller's Crossing either. But this is another one. Watch it after Fargo. And man, I took this one to college, and we just god, we watched this movie so many times. I'm gonna explain this, but we watch Miller's Crossing so many times that I cannot upgrade to the criterion, and I'll explain why. I have to hang on to my DVD. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this isn't this is just another one that, like Blood Simple, every time I watch it, if it's been a year or so, I do not remember everything. And there's a lot that is said in dialogue that we don't see in terms of like physical relationships people are having, all that stuff. Yes, there's another one that I liked right away, but there's a term that neither of us have said yet that you're gonna hear a lot. A lot of Cohen Brothers' movies, when they were first released, did not rub people the right way. And they're like, What is this? The most famous example is the Big Lebowski, because when that was released, no one understood it, and then it gains steam, it doesn't go away, and it develops this thing called a cult classic. And a lot of their movies have transformed into cult classics, raising Arizona, blood simple. That's very important to their career. Cult classic, it means a bunch of weirdos somehow found this movie, and they're like, What the fuck are you all talking about, stupid critics? This movie rules. Miller's Crossing kind of did well when it was released, didn't make a lot of money, but it again has gone on to live in reputation. But yeah, I I love this one. Gabriel Byrne in the middle trying to mix it up between the Italian mob in town and the Irish mob in town.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

It's great. I mean, and this is also one too where you you really do have to pay attention. Like, this is very much from the start. Like, you if you're if you're not tracking the names of people, like this is what I mean with the that intelligence. And I feel like we lose a lot of this nowadays, where like you need to explain so much where the Cohen's are just sort of like, nope, we haven't even met four people that Gabriel Byrne is going to be dropping names of, but you're gonna remember them and then start putting it together for yourself as it goes on. But one of my favorite things I liked about this movie when you talk about like opening shots, the Cohen brothers are a fantastic filmmakers for these opening shots because it's an opening shot of whiskey. So we immediately understand something about this movie right now. We understand that alcohol is an important part of what this is, and then you get the prohibition times and all that. So it's a it's a very it's a very, very good way to start it. And then yeah, the the language that these guys are using is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Yeah, it's it's so intricate and appropriate for the time. I mean, they cast Steve Buscemi specifically because he could do the rat-ta-ta-da-da-tat, he could just spit those lines out quick, quick, quick, quick. You got to keep track of like the Dane, Mink, Bernie, Burn Bomb, and then you apparently everyone's gay as well. So you have to be tracking that. You're like, there may be some incest going on. There, everyone's sleepy with everyone. It's so crazy and out there, but yeah, you do you have to pay attention and test loyalties, and it's like, was Tom it did he have his finger on the pulse of all of it? Is he it? It's just it's great for that reason. And you know, the first two movies had really good casts, but now we're jumping into they make they're making a name for themselves, and they can just cast these lights out, amazing character actors that largely have been have had bigger careers because of them. John Totoro, Steve Buscemi, like there are a ton that fit this bill, and a lot of them are in this.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

And I even love that one scene with Steve Bushimi because they uh, you know, you get that that personality, but even in the writing, Gabriel Byrne calls him, he's like, You're a fickle boy. So you you so you're getting information already, because we don't even see much of Bushimi much. No, it's like he's not important. Yeah, but that's how specific that they are. They're letting you know all even about this little guy right over here. It's like, oh, maybe don't trust him because he's fickle. Also, one of my favorite actual shot sequences in this movie, the sunlight is beautiful, but it's like morning. We see the dog, and then it cuts to a kid, then it cuts to a dead guy, and then it cuts to the master of all of it. It's just tiny, tiny little things like that. It just uh it's just speaking that cinematic language, which this movie does very, very well.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

Yeah, and even the what it withholds, like someone shows up at someone's door, there's a conversation, then the door closes, they go into a bedroom. Whoa, look out. Gabriel Byrne gets home, and there's just that small little um, as I've come to know it, it's called a cuck chair. Small little cuck chair to sit in there, and he go and he answers the phone or doesn't, and then who's in the cuck chair? And you're like, oh wow. One reason why this was such a hit in college is you know, a lot of us had seen Fargo, so I was I was all I've always been the guy who's like, Oh yeah, you like Fargo. I gotta I got one for you that was a little earlier. Watch this. This movie has some fantastic and hilarious set pieces that you graduate to. Be I mean, the oh my god, just Albert Finney with that fucking Tommy gun and the way he like runs from puts on the slippers, runs from one room to another, jumps out the window. It's amazing. And then um Gabriel Bird kind of does the same thing when he's chasing after Birdie, jumps out, you know, no shoes on, and then the Tommy gun thing, you get the classic gangster thing of this gun will not run out of bullets, it's just gonna have an unlimited amount of bullets. It's a Tommy gun, baby. And he's an oh dandy boy's playing. Then the cops come and blow the ever-loving hell out of the bar, and then not even an action set piece, but look into your heart is maybe the first true Cohen Brothers like standout set piece scene that people are now quoting, and they're remembering like John Totoro. I mean, it's the cover of the box, it gets it's referenced in Oceans 12. Like it is a huge cultural landmark of a scene, really announces John Totoro as the strong actor. I mean, Gabriel Byrne never starred in a movie, and he's fantastic in this. So you have that, and then it's just one of those things how you're saying you got funny lines from Raising Arizona. There's a scene when Gabriel Byrne needs is gonna have the shit kicked out of him because you know he's pissed off John Polito, and it's it's it's way it's gotta go down. So they're gonna send in big old Mike Starr there to go kick the shit out of him, and everything's you know nice. And Gabriel Byrne's like, hold it, takes off his jacket, his hat, and he just picks up this wooden chair and whips Mike Starr in the face with it. And Mike Starr takes his paws and goes, Jesus, Tom, and then like saunters out of the room and goes and gets this older guy who just walks in and like points at Gabriel Byrne, they give him a beating. I, you know, director, it's their movie, they're allowed to do whatever the hell they want with it. But I have learned that in their criterion releases, the Cohen brothers have combed through their movies. I guess all of them. This is the most egregious one. They took out Jesus Tom, they just took it out, like they edited it out of Criterion. And when I heard that, I went, Well, wait a minute, because my oh my god, I've not talked to my college roommate in probably 18 years, just not at all. If I had his number and texted him, Jesus Tom, he would know exactly what I'm talking about, exactly like and there's just no question. We said this all the fucking time to each other. Up there were like four of us, we said this all the time, and then they edit it out. And I go, Well, I can't buy that criteria, no way. Like, they took out one of my favorite lines. It's I don't know, I don't know why directors do this, it makes me mad, but Jesus Tob. Like, I love that line delivery, I love it so so much.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Well, I do too, because I didn't even um know about all that.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

I didn't either. I heard it on a podcast and I went, wait, and then I looked it up and they they did there. I guess when uh Gabriel Byrne rushes into the the women's room and all the women are screaming, we get a close-up of a woman like kind of screaming, oh, they took that out. Albert Finney's also in that scene, by the way, dressed in drag for no reason. He just wanted to. Oh fucking, let's go.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

If you go frame by frame, he's one of the first women that steps up and runs out of the bathroom. It's fucking great.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

That's ridiculous, that's amazing. But no, yeah, the Jesus Tom thing that I I resonated with that scene because, well, one, it's it's so humorous, it's so funny, but like you like you, there's also like a real human element to that. Like, regardless of it. Yeah, exactly. And and you know, this is a guy that can take care of himself too, you know. It's like, you know, he's not this is not a guy who's never been hit in the face before, but yeah, and but there was just such a vulnerability and an honesty to that. Oh, Jesus, Tom, you didn't have to fucking have to go get the smaller, older guy's attention. It's like what? I don't know, man. I think that's a huge error on their part because um it's such a deep little cut that no one would probably even recognize, but I think it matters a lot. And so yeah, I think it's stupid that they cut that out.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

Uh yeah, I agree, but just universally great cast. John Polito is gonna show up a few times in their movies, and I love him as Johnny Casper, just you know, when he smacks his kid.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

Oh, yeah. You gotta have a strong hand. Did someone hit you? Like, Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

He's like, kids, you gotta be firm. You gotta be firm with them. And he's like, I and then one of the expressions that I love in this movie, besides what's the rumpus, is he's giving me the hi hat. Give me the hi-hat in. That's John Polito the whole entire time. Everyone's giving him the hi-hat all the time.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

So you think he's gonna have a heart attack in his speech there, like he's gonna just pass out.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Well, that's just John Polito. That yeah, that that is uh that is a staple from 80s and 90s movies. I fucking love John Polito, one of the my favorite character actors of all time. He showed Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I thought you love him, the Rocketeer. Oh god. I mean, dude, anything because he's always kind of the same guy. Yeah. Like, like there's different versions of him. Like, because like even when you get to him in The Man Who Wasn't There, there's there, I mean, that's actually a pretty layered kind of performance from him. But you can't look like that man and work in this business and not be cast similarly because you are the small, like chubby, bald guy with that pencil thin mustache. The crow, he's in the crow. Like, oh yeah, he's always the guy that's gonna be kind of looking for some type of power that can't get it. Like, that's just who he is. And and he's got such a mouth on him that God, he really does. That he can he can do it all. Like, I fucking love yeah, because he because he should because he actually gets this is one of his bigger roles, like in in his career. Like, you know, he he pretty much kind of gets things like The Crow or like The Rocketeer, where he's those are the two movies that are coming to my mind right now, but like um he's not the main heavy, he's a a nuisance to to somebody in some way, right?

SPEAKER_02 56:14

This is one of his biggest bigger roles, which is again what I'm talking about that they're they see this character actor and they're like, no, let's give him let's give him you know a juicy party. I wish he was nominated for this.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Oh, I wish he was too, yeah. But again, this is also a movie that you actually like you you listen to as much as you see, because it's it's really all in the way that these guys are talking to each other and and just like the snide little comments. Um it it it really is, and uh Marsha Gay Harden does a great job of playing the dame.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

Yeah, that's a layered performance too. There's all there's a lot going on there. The more times you watch it, you're like, oh, she's uh she yeah, she has her she is playing the game as well. I'll I guess I'll put it that way. But yeah, and then the I mean the set piece, like what Gabriel Byrne does in the end, how that all resolves itself, and you know, what heart. Oh, it's great, man.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

This is also a movie where you brought it up earlier, where plays do this a lot because they kind of have to, because you can't really see the action in a lot of plays, like so it's always it's always the next scene you find out information. It's tricky to do that in a movie because you hear the plan, and then that plan happens off screen, and then we hear about it in like maybe the next scene or two scenes later, and then you put together, but you you can't just run over that information, like because we as the audience need to understand it.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

Like, it can't be a subtle kind of like information, like it's gotta be like we're oh the biggest one is we know when they went out to Miller's Crossing and he was sent out in that field, we know he didn't do what he was supposed to do. So when he is being taken back out there, we're like, uh-oh, and they find a body. And we, along with Tom, are going, Who the fuck is that? Like, we and blood. This is what Blood Simple is really good at to a frustrating degree. Sometimes is like when we are passing off that information. So, how much do we want the characters to know and the audience? Do we want the audience to know just a little more than Tom? Do we want to know less so that we can't figure him out? That and all this is so twisty and turny. This is why when they're writing it, they kind of put their hands up in the air and they're like, We don't fuck, we don't really know like how this resolves or how many twists and turns here. So they put it in a drawer, write Barton Fink very, very quickly. That's that's what they do. They usually talk about something for a while. And I think Barton Fink they wrote in three weeks. So they they're just sitting there going boom, boom. And then when that's done, they put that in a drawer, they finish Miller's Crossing, film Miller's Crossing, and when that's going the studio is like, What do you want to do next? And they go, Boom, we got Barton Fink, let's do it. And so it's already it's ready to go. And yeah, we could this is a good that's a good way just to move on to it. Segway. I mean, the most there might be the most here of any Cohen Brothers movie. I've I watched this. Um, I've I own it, I've seen it a few times, but I watched this uh when I was doing my Cohen Ben binge last year. Oh, it had been a while, been over a decade, and I went, okay, there's way more here than I remember. And this is the one in the year that we've been kind of loosely prepping for this that I've actually gone back to the most because to me it's always been an A or an A plus movie, but there's just so much every time. I can't even every time we could absolutely do a three-hour deep dive about. I mean, just go on the fucking Wikipedia, it just keeps going and going and going, like inspirations, illusions, themes, we're bringing in like World War II, uh, fascism, all the so much stuff. Most special to my heart is that for the first time the Cohn brothers are going back to old Hollywood and they are telling an old Hollywood story, and they're doing it in a marvelous black comedy, satirical way. And I I love Barton Fink, and I really I don't really think there's a one-to-one with this. We can think of some other movies that they based it on and other inspirations they got, but this is a a completely singular film that we're talking about intelligence and not treating your audience like an idiot. Just go watch the final 15 minutes and then come have a conversation with me about what does it all mean, professor? Because no, I mean how can you explain it all in you know a movie they made for nine million and are saving the majority of that money for that hallway scene, like they're putting probably 50% of their budget into that, and that thing, as baffling as it is, as the the final closing line of the scene is Heil Hitler. Why? I don't know, but it just goes, and that is a scene that will live in Cohen Brothers' infamy. The hallway scene, John Goodman. This is a fucking this is a movie right here, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:56

I fucking love Barton Fink so much. Yeah, there is so yeah, I I don't even you're you hit the nail on the head. There's so much going on in this movie. And but at the heart of it really is about a guy who um are he he is completely conflicted artistically. He like he his his heart belongs in one part of the world in one genre of theater, but then he's being tasked to write a screenplay for a boxing movie. He knows nothing about boxing, and he's always talking about like the the common man, you know, like that's you know that's his I write for the common man, but then he doesn't even understand how to write a common man story, like a wrestling picture. Yeah, he doesn't like yeah, and and but he it and then but he's going through like the throes of what I think like a writer goes through. Like it it's uh it's a very singular experience for John Taturo, who we're following. Pretty like he's he's our guy, but I mean, yeah, then there's all this other stuff that you're talking about that's like peppered into this movie, and none of it kind of comes to a real actual conclusion.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

It it can't be, I'll put it this way, it's not gonna be packaged up in a little box full. No, I'll put it that way. Not nothing, you can't just like open this little magic box and have everything unpacked. That is right, I mean, more so than any movie they've done so far. They're like, uh, here we go, folks. Here's our id, here's whatever it is, but we are not gonna sit here in the press and take tedious amounts of time to explain all this to you. Nah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

In damn near every single Cohen Brothers movie, I believe they have a running. There is a man with power behind a desk. They do, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

I mean, the Cohen are fascinated with people with power, with capitalist structures. I mean, you even go to yeah, I mean, Jonah Hill, even in Hail Caesar, but I mean Josh Brolin in Hail Caesar. Yeah, it's a big, I mean, Hudsucker proxy, that's like the thing that's the boss behind the desk. So, yeah, it's a great observation. They all have it. Gatekeepers behind the desk. Yeah, yeah. The Malibu Sheriff and Big Lebowski. I don't like your stupid name. Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, well, well, even the big Lebowski, the actual Lebowski. Like he's yeah, yeah. I'm going for like these really small examples. Yeah, there's these huge ones like that, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

The big Lebowski behind the intolerable cruelty, even has it with the guy with the tank, a serious man. Like, even no country has it. It's uh it's something that I've really started to notice with this one because you have Lutnick, the main guy who's like the movie producer, Michael Lerner. And he's so fucking great, but I I love that idea because like there is something about what the visually, the way that they film it that is always there and it's living, and I think that's so great.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:47

He I he got nominated for this, and it it felt like kind of felt like the nomination they should have given John Plito the year before, you know, the fast talking. But then Michael Lerner, I I can't even uh fathom how fast he's going when he's just like, oh you know, but you you you're the writer, you'll figure that out, baby. Coffee, you know, yeah, offers him coffee in the same breath, and like give us a give us a coffee. How dare you, Lou? And you know, the nasty Jewish language that is said you almost always by Jewish people, uh, you know, the detectives are not, but there's just there's all these weird things going on within it, and you're trying to always grasp what's going on. Using so many different sources for inspiration helps because Barton Fink himself is very loosely based on Clifford Odettez, who wrote plays for things like Golden Boy and Clash of Night, which were both turned into fantastic Barbara Stanwyck movies. He also wrote the script for a sweet smell of success. Uh John Mahoney is loosely based on William Faulkner, and I say loosely because they're showing him as like, you know, a lush and everything and a drunk and all that stuff. Closely based because these two look exactly alike. If you look up John Mahoney in this movie, he looks exactly like William Faulkner. It's fucking crazy. That is exactly what he looked like. It and I went, oh, like I thought a picture of William Faulkner was John Mahoney from this movie, but he's great. I love that. Apologies about the Oda. Oh my god. He's like Geisler. It's like he can't keep correcting, but then sometimes he'll get the wrong. Uh it's yeah, I mean, it's perfect. It's per John Goodman says easiest thing in the world at some point, which is oh yeah, what JK Simmons says of Lady Killers. There's so much, but the studio bosses, they they base that guy, Lipnik, on the studio bosses of the time, and one of them, I don't remember which one, started dressing in a military uniform after we started World War II, like in his office.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

Jesus Christ. God, you can see the handle.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

These weren't even Americans, they weren't even Americans. He says, I'm from Minsk originally. Like they're not, it's the whole thing. They're touching on all of this without explicitly going into it, and you just have to keep watching and have it let it wash over you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

And then there's a couple of themes that I wanted to kind of point out just since. Some of these specifics that I picked up. One, you got this color palette, which is just awful.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

Like these first Roger Deacons movie with the Coens, and it is a nasty, gross palette, and it still looks great. And it looks amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

Brown, like these pure greens, these browns. Yeah. Pay attention to the specificity of John Taturo's physicality that he brings to this. Like there is a hunched over, like finger grasping that he does. He's just very nervous. Twitchy, yeah. Yeah, very twitchy. And and then John Goodman is so sincere, but he's also dangerous and charming. I love their scenes because two guys who just want to talk about themselves. Yeah. And then they they like in every single scene, it's about what they want to talk about, but they position it as if they are there for the other person. It's it's just really fucking great shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:02

Lipnik, like the first meeting with them, it's just this grooming thing of like writers are the most important thing, their opinion matters above everyone else. And then you jump to his last seed, and he's like, if I wanted your opinion, I'll, you know, I would pay someone better. Like he they don't care, and it's this constant hustle of the writer doesn't mean anything. It's just oh the the different layers of it are great. And then after the movie comes out, this is actually a really big deal. So what they use a lot for the inspiration in those rooms, the peeling of the wallpaper, the mystery of everything. That's all early Roman Polanski. All that the tenant, repulsion, most of all, cul-de-sac. That is that's him, and that's what they're you know using as their basis. So they do that, they're not they're not hiding that. That you know, it's pretty obvious. So they take Barton Fink to the Khan Film Festival. It does so well at the con film festival, winning picture director, and actor that they change their rules. And from that day forth, you are not allowed to have no movie at con can win more than two awards, which is really interesting. So they did that with Barton Fink. Who was the jury president that year? Roman Polanski, dude. So Roman Polanski ends up very coincidentally being the jury president of that cod, and he sees this and he's like, What the fuck? These boys, like uh, here we go. So they give it, they shower it with praise to the point where they have to redo the con film festival awarding rules. And I just love that story. Joel Cohen said it was extremely embarrassing that they had no idea Polanski was gonna be the jury president. He's like, Oh my god, this is and I they probably thought it was gonna backfire, but you know, it was the opposite. It did went over like gangbusters.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

I did manage to find the Cohen Brothers' top 30 favorite movies, and in their top 10, six of those movies are Roman Polanski movies.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

Yeah, I I've been spending the past year filling the gaps of watching a lot of that stuff, like a lot of Preston Sturge's, a lot of Howard Hawk's screwball comedies that I hadn't seen. So yeah, uh the movies I referenced like Sweet Smell of Success is a huge inspiration for them. That's what's interesting because when you think of Polanski, it's like it's very eerie, moody tone, and the Coens can do that, but they just tend to inject a little more humor into it. Yeah, so it's it's kind of this funny farce. So again, you just see these inspirations of like no one's gonna say that the Cohen brothers are the modern day Polanskis. That's not what they do, but they can take these little inspirations, put it in here. You can take Kirasawa, put that into Miller's Crossing. It's all these different threads of yeah, it's it's movies that they're inspired by, but probably moreover than anything, it's books, it's writers. Oh I've never read anything by Clifford Odets. I don't want to say that I have, I just know his film work a little bit. But these these are two extremely intelligent, well-read men, Joel and Ethan Cohen. They so they're putting all of that into it and this fascination with just America in general, like we're talking about the the grand sweeping history of this fucked up country.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when we're talking about like exactly like all these references where as clear as day is what they're doing, but yet they do not feel like ripoffs in any moment. No, you're right, though, it's because they're infusing it with their humor and their intelligence that's giving these things that are clearly from Polanski, from Preston Sturgis, and all this, but it's so uniquely them. This is this is what it means to be an artist.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:27

Yeah, I mean, from something as kind of internal as Barton Fink to moving on to something you like this one a lot, as big and as external. Yeah, I knew this one wouldn't be for you. So the Hudsucker proxy is probably the in the immediacy of watching it. Because again, I watched this right after I saw Fargo. So as a kid, I just went, I really don't get this, and the lore of it is you know, it was this bomb, critics didn't get it, audiences didn't get it, premiered at Sundance, studio dumped it out a few weeks later. It is not really talked about that much, it gets talked about more now, and it has developed a bit of a cult following. I watched it once, maybe a few times, wrote about the Cohen's in 2012 on my blog. It was like, yeah, you know, okay, here's what I'll say about it. This movie is so much better if, like me, for some reason you've decided to become obsessed with films of old Hollywood and the screwball farcical comedies of old Hollywood. And that is that's just what they're doing here. They're doing a Howard Hawk's fast talking comedy, and you can either get on board with that or not, but it's far from my favorite Cohen Brothers movie. Let me be clear. But I I really do love the oddball humor of it, that is just it's so I mean, even the double stitching flashback. I don't even know where the hell you come up with that. You're like, what the fuck? This doesn't even involve any character. Like, we should not know that this guy, like, what why are we going? And then we double back. Oh, I like him so much. I will give him a double stitch. You're like, what? You know, for kids, like the whole thing is it's this madcap tone that's mixing in like Fritz Lang metropolis style architecture, and it may not work for you, and it certainly didn't work for me the first several times. I just have a newfound appreciation for it. That that's where I land, but it's not my top 10.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:20

This one it hooked me at it, like it took a little bit to kind of get into because by by the time we're like midway through, I think it was probably like this the that the single stitch, double stitch flashback, where I think like the movie had finally kind of kicked in for me because we like the blue letter is a big is a big one. Like the blue, like that, that's like a big like I remember that being I'm like, okay, I just see what we're at right here. We're we're a complete farce with this. And then from there, I thought the movie really started to cook. And I love Tim Robbins when he gets into like the the fight song for this uh for his his high school it's a Muncy, a Muncy Girl. Muncy girl, yeah. Muncy fight song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Muncie fight song.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:07

And Jennifer Jason Lee is just doing his girl Friday, like she's just doing and even with the voice and talking like that's the voice. It's and the movie. I don't I actually don't know how many people are familiar with this one. The setup's kind of it's it's easy. This guy, Hudsucker, just you know, does himself in one morning, and then the new kind of guy in charge, Sydney J. Musberger, played by Paul Newman, love Paul Newman in this, decides, you know, we need to bring this stock all the way down of this company so that we can sell it back, you know, blah blah blah. So they hire some dope Tim Robbins to head the company to be a proxy for Hudsucker, knowing that this guy will steamroll the company into the ground, but he has an idea, he has a circle on a piece of paper, you know, for the kids and what's gonna happen. So that's that's the world we're set into. But yeah, it's a very even you know, it's like a fantasy movie too, with the the clocks and New Year's Eve and the jumping and the stopping. Like, yeah, it's it is a very strange film where they are flexing one of the oddest sides of their sense of humor with no, there's not much to really like latch onto. You either get the tone or you don't. Out of hope, out of rope, out of tone. So, did you have you only seen this one once? You just watch it for the first time for this.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

Okay, yeah, I watched it for this one. You're exactly right. I like that uh Fritz Lang kind of like combination, Metropolis with that Howard Hawks. That's exactly what this is. And I think Tim, I I really can't say enough good things about Tim Robbins. Like he plays that dope so well, wide-eyed and dumb. It's just the right amount of over the top, but it gives him room to actually care because you do kind of like hope that things go well for him, but then he's got some of like it's like with the ridiculous lines. Like when they first kiss, like, what would they come back as as an animal? He goes, That kind of person would come back as a wilder beast.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:02

Yeah, it's just it's just like the humor of the writing, yeah. They're the writing is always so good. Yeah, it didn't when it comes out, it doesn't really do that well. I think I think people honestly, in the beginning part of their career, I just don't I don't think they can get a handle on these guys, and that's annoying the mainstream critical consensus. And you can see this if you go back and read a lot of the early reviews that people just aren't getting them.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:29

Well, and and honestly, I can't really blame them because up until this point, what's to get? Like, you've got you've got these guys who make this cartoon of a movie in Raising Arizona, and then you get this gangster movie that is so intelligent and and well done, and then you get this artsy fartsy movie in Barton Fink, and then you get this. I think there's also like a part of it where it's like, is this based on a true story? Is this a movie about the in a certain invention? Because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, because what that the reveal of the circle is honestly brilliant, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

I I'm glad you like that. I had no idea the first time I saw it, and then you're like, oh, that's it's so obvious that it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:19

It's hilarious, and but I could imagine there because like that doesn't come up until like you know, three quarters into the movie, until when you actually find out like what this actually is. My understanding of the movie was was that this was a movie about this invention, and then I'm watching it and I go, When the hell is this invention gonna fucking show its face? And then you realize, oh, I don't this isn't movie, it's not about that, it's a part of it for sure, but it's not about that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:49

And that again, I kind of in the intro talked about how they're going back and forth, like uh Barton Frank wins the Palme d'Oir, Khan. That's a you know big deal, but then yeah, now they're given Hudsucker Proxy, and there's this consensus of like because we can't get a handle on them, we don't know what to do with them. So we don't know how to review them, we don't know how to talk about them, whatever. I guess every every Cone Brothers movie is just in this open gamble. We don't know what we're gonna get. They uh just are always making the movie that they want to make, and that brings us right to because if you watch all these movies in order and you're going and you're like, Yeah, you know, I like this one and that one, it's really hard to adequately explain how important Fargo was for the American independent film movement. It was a cultural sensation. Everyone was talking about it, everyone took the country by storm, just like Pulp Fiction in '94, just you know, like uh usual suspects in leaving Las Vegas did a lot for this for Indies in '95. And then by '97, we got, you know, Goodwill hunting, and it just goes on and on and on until we get to what we get. These are two directors chiefly responsible for making this movement so big. And you have this confident. I don't even know how to explain how good this movie is. Fargo is an American classic, it's a masterpiece, it is one of my favorite movies, I think, just of all time. I watched it prepping for this episode. I watched it three times last year in a week for no reason. I just kept watching it. I love this movie. I would love to do a full episode on Fargo. I still think that's the plan. If you want to, that's what we had scheduled. You're the doc doc. All right, good. So we're gonna unpack it more because there's so much to say. But every single time I put this on, every single person I've shown it for, it just works. And talk about college sayings. I mean, you're a bald-faced liar, a fucking liar. I mean, oh my god, just every quote, every line is quotable, every scenario. And when we fully unpack the movie, I'm gonna get into like how important the Mikey Anagita scenes are and how important uh the bartender that the cop just goes and talks to on the street, all that stuff. But this is this is as good as American movies get, uh, certainly in the 90s. And you even saying that, like Hudsucker, you thought that was based on a true story. This movie just starts with these title cards saying this is a true story, they change names out of respect for the victims. People, let me tell you, while the internet did exist in 1996, it was not on a mass level. People believed this was a true story for damn near 10 years, like it just kept going that this lore actually did happen, and they just did that because they thought it was funny. That's a great place to start talking about Fargo.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:35

Yes, everyone, this movie was not based on a true story, and but it works so well, but you could also believe it. And that's their point. Like, their point is like this country is so dumb. People like this exist, and it's more common for people like this to exist than the opposite. But like, what is an accent that exists that sounds so ridiculous that it's just going to enhance this thing that we have?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:07

Now, I don't know which came first, the the idea of shooting it in Minnesota or the or the story itself, but so they grew up in this area in the Minnesota area, and they always wanted to make a movie that was kind of set there, but moreover, you know, they love contrast, so they wanted this juxtaposition of like this horrible, not based on a true story, but true story crime, mixed in with this idea of Minnesota nice, that everyone in this area, their default setting is nice, maybe to a fault. And we meet someone half hour into the movie, our main character, Marge Gunderson. But we meet her, and she is the epitome of this. She's so nice that it takes this weird again. I'll unpack all this in the deep dive, but it takes this weird, like lunch uh date of sorts with this old classmate of hers for her to realize oh, and it's not even that meeting. The meeting's weird. It's a phone call she has with her friend later when she learns that that former classmate has been lying the whole time, and she's like, Oh, people can lie like this. They just this is not how my husband and I are. This is, but I'm an officer, like I'm not naive. And then she doubles back to William H. Macy's office, and that's when she starts putting stuff together. But again, none of this is ever explained, none of this is spelled out. Like, Marge, what what made you realize that Jerry Lundegaard may have been, you know, not telling the truth? That that's a whole that's like a 20-minute scene now in a movie, but no, there's none of that. She just puts the pieces together, and then the whole ethos of the movie that you already talked about about how like this is America and people do this shit all the time. I I watch and listen to a lot of true crime. Husbands have been doing terrible shit to their wives for a lot less money than this for uh you know, a lot longer than this movie has existed. So, yeah, these stories happen absolutely, and they know that. But again, putting it in this Minnesota nice thing is just it's a brilliant way to capsule the movie, and you have these these warring factions that are battling. Heck do you mean? It's all it's that versus like I'll shoot you in the fucking face, you know. That's what it's that's what we're battling up against.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

And and William H. Macy is so good in this, like he he is so aggravating. Oh my god, he's such a fucking idiot. But like there's also a really good conversation. Yeah, I I think he actually goes more into the realm of psychopath than I do, I think he does sociopath here, because he I don't believe he actually cares. I like it and the way he switches, it there's just some I'm just saying there's some of that there.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:52

No, for sure. He to me, I mean, one of the main characteristics of either of those people, sociopath or psychopath, is there they are narcissists, like they yes, they cannot receive help because they're these egomaniacal, and he is too. Like, he thinks, no, if I can just get this and then get this loan with these cockamamy schemes he's coming up with and do all this stupid shit that I can figure it out, I can dig myself and my family out when again we don't even know where the real trouble is started from. Like, why did he borrow all the money against those cars? We don't know. Is it I've heard people theorize it's gambling, like we see golf trophies in his office that we don't know, we never get that. So, I mean, so he's definitely got narcissistic tendencies, he's almost got like some borderline thing where I mean, probably best realized when his father-in-law's like right-hand man assistant is like, so you know, what about your kid? And he's like, Oh, yeah, Scotty, geez, like, yeah, you haven't even thought about your teenage son and how he might react to his mother getting kidnapped. Like, oh yeah, gee. No, he's just thinking about his his money, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:56

He's that's exactly it. Like, and I don't like I I one of the most interesting questions that I would actually have for him. What was your opinion of your wife? Yeah, she seems just like she's a pawn, and he absolutely is playing some type of thing where there isn't really love there, like there couldn't be because you you well, one you if you really love someone, you probably wouldn't put them in this position. No, and then as it doubles down and keeps getting worse and worse, you can clearly see he actually doesn't really care about her, he only cares about her. He at least he says lines, don't you hurt a hair on her head. I can't do the accent, but well, he does that in front of it's performative, yeah. Yeah, and and otherwise he puts that phone down, he goes, I don't really care. Like you can just see it, like there's no caring there, but that's a very, very like specific thing that he has to be playing. It's so great.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:54

Oh geez, oh everybody's practicing the call. Like, oh, wait, yeah, he's practicing the call. Oh, geez, perfect, yeah. And it's because yeah, if you if you love someone, you don't like first that that's the whole thing about the movie. Like, why not? If there's love there, you go hat in hand to your, by all accounts, extremely loving, nice, kind wife who has this richer than hell father, yeah, who happens to adore her, and you go, Look, sweetie, I got myself a no jam and you ask for the money, but he can't do that. It's this whole scheme of like, first of all, he does he is not fully aware, he's just meeting these kidnappers for the first time. He doesn't know what they're capable of. We never hear him say, Yeah, so just don't, you know, don't hurt her, don't do anything because they're pretty rough with her, and he yeah, he does not care. The last time he sees her is the last time we see him see her is at that dinner. He never sees her again, nor does Scotty. It's yeah, so he is one character, and then you have this complete beacon of light, Frances McDormand who comes in. But when you were like, What is the the point of all this? Like, just a little bit of money, that's what she says. Like, she crystallizes that at the end, and it's a beautiful day. Like, what was the point of this? This is so stupid, and that must have been your accomplice in uh wood chipper there. She's so good. I mean, all the characters, like I could talk, I could sit here and talk about Buscemi and Storm Air back and forth for uh an hour, just all you know, total fucking silence. Two can play that game, all of it, man. It's uh every beat of it is perfect, and it's like 96 minutes, it's it's just incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:29

It's it's so it's a perfect like bow, like it really is. Yeah, but in talking about the end of that movie, like for what? I think those two words with it pose as a question, that is what the Coens are after, and damn near almost everything. It's one of those things where this idea of for what this is something that is coming up. I mean, no country for old men. I mean, Jesus Christ, that's that's that's that's all what it is. Burn after reading. They even end the movie. What the hell? Like, well, like well, yeah, like I guess we should never do this again. This idea is really permeating through almost everything. Raising Arizona is even got a little bit of in there, like, what did we actually do all this for in terms of this kidnapping? Yeah, man who wasn't there. Big Lebowski.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:20

Big Lebowski has a big money scheme that like doesn't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:24

Yeah. And then the other thing I wanted to kind of highlight is you talk about the casting. I don't know how the Cohen brothers do this, but there is never a movie that is miscast. Like they and there is never not not one performance that doesn't work. These Cohen brothers get the absolute best of these actors for what they need them for. These are down from your stars down to like the guy in Fargo who tells the story. Yeah, Mr. Mora.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:57

And uh I said, what do you think? Um Crazy up at the lake there. What do you got? What do you got going on? And I thought I'd call it in. So I called it in. Yeah, there's yes, I mean, all casting, they they tend to it. I mean, once they hit their stride, certainly by far go on. They have the ability to write for people. They're writing for friends of theirs, also. But then also being like, I mean, Harv Presnell, who plays Wade in this, hadn't been in a movie in decades, and they brought him back for that. And then, you know, he's the boss in uh face-off. Like he's he comes back and starts to have a proper career again. So they know so there's that aspect of it that they're very good at casting. And then these are some of the writer directors who go say what's on the page, don't say what's on the page deviations for it. We they write pauses, they write ums, they write ahs, and if you and they act all of them out themselves so that they're like, if you do the musicality to this, it will it can go back and forth and kind of play. Even Peter Stormair saying he thought there was a typo in the script, and his first few takes, he he's like, Where is Pancake House? Because it's you know, and he's like, No, where is pancakes house? They're like, You have to say pancakes house, and he's like, Well, that's not correct. And they're like, We know. Yeah, we get it, we get it. That's that's what makes it funny. Where where is pancakes house? It you know, fucking ate pancakes for breakfast. Are you kidding? Shade smoking, and so all this stuff we're talking about, often with their movies, like great casting, great acting, dialogue, dialogue, all the language, language, the plotting, all this stuff. That's you know, kind of like the big uh movie podcast stuff. To just speak very basically and very generally, this movie has a 10-minute sequence in a car where they get pulled over that is second to none. It is just a fucking brilliant 10-minute set piece of our bad guys are getting pulled over, the woman they have kidnapped is in the back, don't say anything, or we'll, you know, shoot ya. And again, these big bad criminals are so smart. Beginning with Steve Buscemi holding his face up to the glass because he can't see the reflection. Oh my god, to yeah, you forgot to change the fucking dealer plates, like you idiot. And then I'll take care of this. Yeah, I thought we could take care of this right here in Brainerd. Trying to the honest Minnesota nice cop trying to you know fade him off of the $50 bill, and it just everything goes wrong. And then now you gotta clean up the body, and now that car's fighting you that uh it's just Grant Carter Burwell who does all the score. Oh, yeah, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and we're going in storm air, like flicking the cigarette out the window, and he's into it. Like when he's he thinks he's gaining on him, like he's fucking moving it back and forth like he's excited. And then where'd the car go? It just the whole thing is and I mean we're really getting there, like, oh, this this guy in particular does not fuck around, and when it has to get to it, he'll shoot a cop in the head, he doesn't give a shit at all. Oh, yeah. So that that is who this Jerry Lundegaard, you know, had uh willingly kidnap his wife, these fucking psychos.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:04

I'm not gonna debate you, Jerry.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:06

Yeah, I'm not gonna debate you, I'm not gonna sit here and debate. But I just wanted to call that out that when they when they want to, need to, or have to, they can put on a banger action set piece. That if they show that to anyone and they're like, whoa, I'll watch this movie. Oh shit, this is great.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:23

And they're never flashy. That's what I mean. No, it's action done where you it's just like down like in dirty on the ground with it, but done very well, so you understand everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:34

Conversation's not done on Fargo, it just is for this episode. But I imagine we'll talk about it later because there's so much to unpack. There we didn't even, I mean, we didn't even mention John Carroll Lynch, who's like one of the most believable, terrifying serial killers ever in Zodiac. But in this, he's just this ball of like love and joy, you know. He's you went ahead and married Norm, son of a Gunderson.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:57

Son of a Gunderson.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:59

Uh but yeah, let's move on to oh boy. I'll start. This this may be the biggest cult classic of their career and just one of the biggest cult movies of all time. The big Lebowski. Fargo is a sensation. It wins two Oscars, it wins them best original screenplay, and it wins Francis McDormand Best Actress. It's a big, big deal. Then their next movie is The Big Lebowski, which is this like weird Raymond Chandler esque comedy that opens all these doors and it's like this LA shaggy dog thing. And yeah, I didn't see it in the theater, but when I rented it, when it was out, it's just what we talked about. Like maybe you go, you know, watch uh Barton Fink, and you're like, Oh yeah, let's see what's next. And you see Hudsucker, and you're like, What the fuck is this thing? And with me with Big Lebowski, way too young, what when I saw it just way over my head. And this, I think, is a really common theme. Most people I know who saw this movie in 1998 or 1999 really it didn't connect with them right away. Go read reviews of it. Critics did not get it, they did not get it at all. I've read some of the most scathing film criticism for this movie, and then just a few years later, those same critics would be writing another piece going, I got this wrong. This movie is fucking hilarious, and I was just, I missed it. There's so much in it. It's packed. Yeah, that's a weird thing to say with the big Lebowski, the subtlety of it, because there is some there, there's quite a bit of subtlety that is fucking hilarious to me that the bigger stuff gets mentioned, of course. But let's just, I'm you know, all this to say I sh I quickly grew to love the film. Another big college movie. We had it on all the time. I mean, you know, shut the fuck up, Donnie is uh immortal, it just lives forever. But all of it, like, oh yeah, which one's log jamming? That's what I mean. Like the subtlety of it. It's uh god, I love this. I didn't know that you know that that was Ben Ghazaro the first time I saw it. Now I love Ben Gazaro, so stuff, but yeah, this is talk about a rewatchable movie. We've watched this one a few times together, I feel like.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:00

I think that this is their most rewatchable, really. Wow, like you just can't, like, there's something so easy. So you could choose to do one of two things with this movie. You could either really sit down and pay attention to it, or you could just sit back, relax, and just hang out with it. Like, there really isn't a bad time, and the tone is so perfect. It might not be their most accessible, I don't, but maybe it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:25

Maybe that it's not because part of the part of the thing's no, no, no, no. This is this is an inaccessible movie because I've shown it to so many people for the first time, and they have the same experience a lot of people do, whereas they don't get it. And if you're sitting there watching it with two other people who are laughing at every single line, and they're like, What the fuck is funny about this? And you go, That's it, like it's just it's just funny. So I've had some difficulty showing this to someone for the first time at least. Then if they get on board with it, you can go back and re-watching it. But this is not an accessible movie, it's not still talk to people who are like, What the fuck was that? I got one of the best, it was a crowning achievement of my movie life. I got into a uh spirited debate with a lady once about 10 years ago about this movie, and she's you know, she hated it, said it was dumb, and all this stuff. And she's like, and part of the thing is it's way too long. Like, why do you need to make a movie like that that's two and a half hours? And I went, Oh no, it's under two hours. And she was so emphatic that I was wrong that we ended up betting uh kind of a substantial amount of money on it. And I was looking at her going, What you're doing right now isn't fair to you. How do you possibly know that? And I go, You don't understand who you're talking to. Like, I'm I'm out of my mind. So then we looked it up and I was right. So that's another thing. Like people who don't, you know, like it, they just think it's this like long slog and it doesn't necessarily land anywhere. But uh all again, all that to say that this is like one of the most beloved comedies of our lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:56

Well, you're right though, because I mean you are sort of almost on like an inherent vice like type journey, but it doesn't feel to me because like I have problems with that movie because of the uh misdirection that it goes to, where it doesn't lead to anything. I mean, and that's essentially what this entire movie is. This entire movie is everything that they choose to do, they're wrong about. Like my favorite is the is Larry's homework. The one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my entire life in a movie. But but when you're looking at like the plot of that whole entire thing is like he gets his car back and he just finds this sheet of paper that's got this homework in it, and they follow that trail.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:45

As if that is going to We're gonna go to the home of Arthur Digby sellers, and he's so proud and leans back in the chair. He's like, The fuck is Arthur Digby Sellers?

SPEAKER_02 1:36:56

He's so uh pleased with himself. Like, who is Arthur? Oh my god, it's amazing. You're you're killing your father, Larry.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:05

Have you ever heard of Vietnam? Oh my god. I've made reference to some of my favorite movie characters of all time, not exactly performances, but characters. Walter Sabchek is one of my favorite movie characters of all time. I love John Goodman's performance. This is my favorite John Goodman performance I've ever seen. This is a guy who really only cares about being viewed upon by everyone as being right. He's like, Am I wrong? Am I wrong? Am I wrong?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:39

Whatever, you're not wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:41

You're just an asshole. You're just an asshole. My favorite line, he goes, Why does everything have to be such a fucking catastrophe with you, man?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:49

Those brave men who fought in Vietnam. And then the ashes, I mean, oh my god. Knowing that this is one of your favorite characters. Is he an actual veteran? I've heard this tossed around a lot. Was he actually in Vietnam? I've heard a lot of people say no. I I think he was, but I think he was. Yeah, there's a read on it that he's just like, you know, this big talker, basically.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:13

I could wrap my head around that theory. I think he definitely was because there is an honor to him. He like he does stand for things. He I don't think he's a perpetual liar. I don't think he's just a talker for like that. Would be more the Barton Fink guy. Yeah, I would go on more in the line that there's your liar, there's your guy. Like, I don't think Walter's lying about anything. I think he's wrong. I think I think he's I think he's incorrect. Like the weirdness of him probably comes from being a guy who was at war. Yeah. The idea of carrying a gun in your bag and pointing it at someone, meaning with every five or year being to kill them and not seeing it as a big deal, and the rest of the world thinks that you're crazy, that tracks.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:02

When you go back and re-watch it, we're talking about the language and how good it all is. A lot of the stuff is are in these master shots, like these long shots where it's just three of them. And you know, Steve Buscemi like has to be waiting to interject, like just at that right time. Yep. Yeah, there is a language and a poetry and a musicality to it of like that that rug tied the room together, did it not? And knowing that that line is gonna, you know, be the button of the scene, you know, did it not. What room? The walrus. I know shut the fuck up, Donnie. And the boom, ba boom, ba boom. Oh, the three of them we're talking about casting. What a combo to put these three together in the different roles that they play. And just, you know, you got the perpetual stoner, the hot-headed veteran, and then the nice, nice little meek Donnie who I'm throwing them tonight and just always getting strikes. Oh man. Oh man, yeah. I there's so again, that's so much to unpack. Like how I love how Walter is not phased by Jesus at all. He's just like kind of sitting there, like, yeah, whatever. But then when he hears the word that they're nihilists, he's like, Nihilist.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:03

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:04

Oh, geez. That's why I love them so much, is because you do see the things that do bother him and the things that don't. And it's so interesting to start to track all of them exactly. Like, but and then the way he gives the information about Jesus, he goes, Yeah, well, he's a pervert. And he's like, What do you mean? What do you mean? He goes, No, I'm serious. He's a registered sex offender. Registered sex offender. And this is right after we've got the most brilliant character introduction ever. You've got John Totoro dressed in this ridiculous purple outfit with the fucking hairnet, the glove, the dance, the like lick of the ball, like everything about like what you would just visually take in with this guy just to find out that he is a registered sex offender, and that they have this like flashback clip of John Totoro in normal clothes walking around from house to house, having to go and knock on people's doors and tell them that he lives in the area. And then you get this one big guy, and then you just see John Toturo take this breath because he has to go and say this, and they cut. It's just a brilliant thing because you just imagine what the rest of that scene is. It's more funny to imagine that that scene did take place and we don't see it than if we actually did.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:22

I I mean, and his and he's like this iconic character, and he's barely in the movie. Nobody's in two scenes. Like, exactly, he's barely in it. I mean, Philip Seymour Hoffman is great, and he's like the like the eighth lead of the movie, and just all of his reads are uh fucking David Thuhlis shows up as Knox Harrington. What the fuck is with this guy?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:43

Oh my god, I fucking love that. And really, the dude, he's just really being taken around by everything, like he doesn't really make any choices himself. Walter's usually the one that kind of gets him into things, he just kind of goes with it. But Phil's character is that very specific type. Like everything about him is like the way that he like talks, or like my favorite is when um when he brings the dude over, and there's gonna be the news that Bunny's been kidnapped, and he's but he basically says Mr. Lebowski has been like inconsolable, and he does this really long arm stretch and opens the doors yeah, opens the door and he goes, just just you can't even look at it. Like it's just so fucking good.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:26

Yeah, he's the only one who calls it like we're incredibly concerned, dude. This is our concern, dude. He's so like concerned, yeah. Matter of fact, and love and he repeats that line when he's showing him around all the like the I I don't even remember what the line is, but the you know, this is the this is the oh, please don't touch that. The Cohen's kept that in, like, yeah, he's got an answer for everything, he's just here to maintain the ruse of the big Lebowski, which he himself is totally full of shit, as we learned from his daughter Bob, which is hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:55

We gotta talk about Sam Elliott.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:57

Who better to narrate a story about a guy named the dude than Sam Elliott? And then you actually put him into scenes of the movie, and they're just uh again, all the language they're saying, like take a sarsaparilla, dude flies in, couple of oats sodas, Gary. Like, do you have to use so many cursed words?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:15

What the fuck are you talking about, man? I didn't like seeing Donnie go, but it makes me feel better that there's a guy. Like, so there very much is like this sort of idea that this there's a uh a god type figure that's that's kind of carrying us through this whole ridiculous story.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:32

And it's it's a movie full of these red herrings, like the car Larry's, you know, the car. Oh what why would Larry have that car, Walter?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:39

That doesn't make sense. And that's exactly right. That's why it's so perfect. And what's truly one of the one of the greatest fucking lines in all movie history is like this is what happens, Larry, when you fuck a stranger in the ass.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:53

And then saying it over and over and over. That's what I mean. That is the Cohen's, like the it's the repetition, it's but it's the crassness of the language, and it doesn't even make any fucking sense. And he's just going off. It doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:08

Yeah, like these lines, like um, like was even saying Barton Finn because he's running down the hall. I'll show you like the the mind of a man, or the life of the mind, I'll show you the life of the mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:19

Life of the mind, I'll show you the life of the mind. Like what you just keep saying. We've never heard characters say this stuff in a movie before, like ever.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:27

No, yeah. And and and and what would possess someone to say what Walter says to Larry right there? Like, what the hell does this have to do with anything?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:37

Do you see what happens, Larry? When you fuck a stranger in the god, that must have been fun for him just to beat the shit out of that car. God. Oh my god, yeah. The neighbor comes out and he's like, Oh, oh, sorry. And it's great because then he starts beating up the dude's car.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:55

He's like, That's not that's not his car, man.

unknown 1:44:57

Fuck, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:59

And they drive off and the car's off. We didn't even talk about Jeff Bridges, who's really the one who is actually most known for this. This is probably his most his most famous role.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:08

I mean, yeah, the dude, the dude abides. It it it really brought Jeff Bridges, who had been around for a while, but into like the the cool public conscious, and now he could get kind of whatever role he wants, and people are gonna be on board with it. But yeah, just he constantly says is the only direction he needed is he would go up to one of the brothers before and say, Did the dude burn one down before this scene? And they'd say yes or no, and he'd go, All right, good. Like, thanks, that's all I need to know. All right, oh brother, where art thou? The year 2000. Still the best adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey. Obviously, that's a joke. I know this thing was a sensation, though, largely because of the screenplay, or sorry, largely because of the soundtrack. The thing just kept playing over and over. This movie stayed in the theater. I remember I saw this movie when it came out, and then I saw it like it was still in the theater uh the next summer in 2001, and I was seeing it summer 2001 taking people, and it was such a hit. And then, you know, it's a huge movie, a lot of men talked about it. Two things I want to talk about is that they loosely adapted it from Homer's The Odyssey, which is having a huge pop now, thanks to Christopher Nolan's film. And I had a lot of fun going back and seeing the parallels, some as obvious as the sirens to John Goodman is, you know, doing Cyclops. But then there's a lot of stuff. There's you know, being turned into a toad as kind of the same as being turned into pigs. There's a lot of yeah, similar parallels, but then also one thing that I really love about this movie is that it was the first mainstream American movie to use to digitally alter the look of the film because they shot this straight. Like it did not look like that. You can go on my DVD, they have some great special features about how in post-production they had this digital intermediate to where they could go and touch up all the shots to make it look yellow and sepia. And it's crazy to go look at like you know, that water was blue, all the grass was green, and that you can see all these different colors in the sky, and they just took all that out and muted it to this yellow sepia thing that I love, but this was really the first movie to do that, and so many movies have done it since. Like, so so many, and this was the first time, and it it paid off well. They've done it elsewhere where I don't think it's paid off, but it paid off well here.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:33

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the thing is like this movie looks so amazing for its artificiality in that way. Like, like it doesn't, it doesn't look bad, it looks great. Like, as soon as anyone says to me, Oh brother, where art thou? The first thing that pops in my head is the visual look of the movie. Like, I see these colors right before anything else. And there's so much to go with, like the soundtrack, which is what it was famous for. You arguably have George Clooney's best performance here. I think a lot of people would say that this is up there for him. It's one of his most well-seen, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:10

It's just so funny that like Clooney as his star is rising, like out of sight, Oceans 11. This is a guy being branded as Mr. Cool. Yeah, and the Coens are like, Yeah, we see all that. We just want to cast you as fucking morons over and over. And it works. It works. Yeah, he's Everett McGill. Uh, or no, it's it's uh you, yeah, Ulysses.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:29

Ulysses, that's what it is. Ulysses Everett McGill. The you know that's exactly like a window into what the Coens think is funny is let's take like the coolest guy in Hollywood and just make him look like an idiot as much as we can. Like that's they they they you can tell that they just get a kick out of that. And and George Clooney is up for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:50

Exactly. That's what that's what I was gonna say. If you get a huge movie star who's game, perfect, awesome, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:56

And he does because Clooney does not perform like the way that he performs with the Coens in any other types of roles, even when he's doing other comedies. Like, there's there's something Clooney is totally on board for for being like it's with his eyes, like he has such these funny expressions he does that are just completely like over-the-top film acting, but they work perfectly for the Cohen's material, what they need him to do. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:26

How big they can go and moving his face all around and just all these, you know. And then I love when they get caught in the repetition of damn, we're in a tight spot.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:35

We're in a tight spot over and over. I love it when we every time he wakes up, my hair.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:40

Yeah, my hair, my hair. And yeah, getting him to Toro and Tim Blake Nelson together, they cast Tim Blake Nelson because they really like his voice. But I mean, seriously, re watching Nolan's movie, there's so many parallels. Like Ray McKinnon, when he gets back, that's like a suitor for his wife Penelope. Like, there's there's some the blind guy in the beginning is. You know, sending them on their journey. So I like envisioning all that stuff too. And then it just has some. This is a weird sentence. You know, you we're talking about the look of the movie, and Deacons, Deacons is on fire.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:10

The Klu Klux Klan scene is like one of the most amazingly well-shot sequences, and you're like, Holy shit, when the hell did we come across this?

SPEAKER_02 1:50:19

And it again, just out of nowhere, you get this like brilliant set piece that under the auspice of something really, really terrible. Like they're about to kill this poor, this poor guy. It's just yet another thing that makes the movie keep going. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:33

Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that in a weird way, like that is sort of like the uh the the the the battle of Troy in the middle of the a little bit? Like, do you think it's true in their fighting? They sneak in just like one of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:47

So, yeah, there's yes. I I mean there's there are so many reads on they they said again, I don't know if this is true or not, that they didn't they never read the Odyssey, they were just using things they heard about it. I don't believe that. I think maybe they could have read it when they were young or in college, but I don't know if they like had it open on their desk. Tough to tell by then, yeah. I don't think they had it open on their desk as they're writing, and they just do the shit that they think is funny. Uh do not sink the treasure. Oh, that's the best shit ever. But then, yeah, so they I mean Big Lebowski, not necessarily a hit. Oh, brother, huge hit musical. What are they gonna do next? They go to this stark, ice cold noir. The man who wasn't there is not a neo-noir like blood simple, it is a legit, fantastic film noir that is filmed like one, what we see and don't see in the stories that we hear and the different fates. It is just it's grade A noir, and I I forget how much I like this one every single time. And then when I put it on, I'm like, man, all the twists and turns of it. I love the man who wasn't there, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:51

I do too. This movie is so good, and I cannot think of another working actor that is as able to be as disgusted with his station in life than Billy Bob. Yes, absolute like disgust with himself. Like, if it wasn't for kind of like what Billy Bob brings to the table, he is such a good actor. I love him so much in this. I don't think anyone else, I don't think this movie would work the way that it does if it wasn't for him.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:24

Yeah, it's perfect casting. He's so down, and like the narration is perfect, and the way that he's yeah, you know, seeing everything, and just and again, back to this Cohen's thing of just a little money. Like he gets a little whiff of like, oh, could I still have this money and like it go into this new business of dry cleaning? But yeah, it it had it really has a classic setup of like he thinks that his wife is involved with her boss, but he doesn't really care until that becomes a thing. And and also when I'm watching, it's impossible to predict where it's going, especially up toward the end. And talking about casting again, we got John Polito back as I mean, that's a great scene that they have. Was that a pass? You're way out of line, mister. Way out of line. Way out of line.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:08

Way out of line. Oh, yeah. This is my this is, I'd say, my second favorite John Polito with with uh the with the Coens. Yeah, I love him in this. I've always really loved him. There's just things that are going on in this movie that are so good, but the look of this movie is absolutely gorgeous. The black and white, the shadows, the composition, the setup of everything. This is one of my favorite-looking Cohen Brothers movies.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:34

This, you know, when we get to our Cohen's brothers Oscars, this is right at the top for being my favorite looking. Like, this is and this is in an era when this movie didn't make a lot of money because like people did not want to go see a black and white movie. Now that's a it's that's lessened a little bit, but at the time it was like, nah, we're not forking out money to go see this. And Billy Bob is great as Ed Crane, Francis McDormant is great as his wife. But then we get old Tony Shaloub there as Freddie Reed and Schneider. The rat-a-tat back to that like really fast talking coin cities, uh, he's so good. It's kind of a version of what he's doing in Barton Fink, but I love you know, he orders that big meal and he's like, I'm gonna eat when we talk. Do you mind? You don't mind, and oh man, it's great. And then like the interrogation when Billy Bob says, Well, I killed him, you know, just throwing that out there, and then Francis picks up on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:26

Oh, it's great. It's why it's a perfect thing for the man who wasn't there because he essentially gives away Billy Bob right then and there, the truth. And then for the lawyer, ah, he he wouldn't care at all if that was the truth. But he's like, That's not gonna play. Because that what this doesn't work. You're gonna be that, you're gonna be that. Doesn't work, doesn't work. We need something better than that. He's like, Come on, like what people, you can't help each other out like that. Like, what a thing to say. Like, like that's the you just gave him the truth, and he goes, People, you can't help each other like that. It's so good. And uh, yeah, I litigate, I don't capitulate.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:59

Yes, for I love the I don't want to say what it is, but the the first court case, how it resolves itself in his dissatisfaction. He's just shaking his head at the table. Yeah, Billy Bob doesn't know what's going on. He's like, We really could have had this one, we really could have had it. But yeah, when he's yeah, when he's being told the truth by the husband, like, well, I couldn't, why'd you do it? Did it how? Did and he doesn't it doesn't believe it. It's just again, it's like this pop in the middle of the movie, and then it's just gonna go away.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:25

Now we get Scarlet Johansson who shows up. It starts out one way, and you're really kind of following a very kind of traditionalistic noir. There's so much really more happening throughout this movie that I think it lets on, and it just starts to reveal itself more and more as it goes.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:43

Yeah, you it again, like bringing up where the the back half of the movie, you're like, Oh, I didn't expect that stuff, and like James Gandalfini's in it, he has a few great scenes, and the the woman that plays his wife, she shows up and it gets really weird and like awkward, but it uh yeah, it's a very mysterious movie. I can see why it didn't do that well when it was released, but it's weird in a good way.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:05

Richard Jenkins, I love his performance. He is teetering between passing out from being drunk and being like a really helpful person.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:15

Yeah, and he's gonna start showing up a lot more in their movies. And I yeah, he played he's Scarlett Johansson's dad, but again, seeing like Ed Crane now get a little interested when he meets little Bertie, it's so like in her music, and then being told she's you know not that good, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:31

Oh, yeah, they're like that's what I mean. Like you're kind of hit in the head with some things, and but he believes so much in her. It's why it's really it's heartbreaking for him because he's just a dope. Yeah, at the end of the day, he is just a dope, kind of lost in himself.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:45

The man who wasn't there, the man who wasn't there. Oh, I love it. So that I I saw that one in the theater, liked it a lot, and then we get two odd ones for them in a row because intolerable cruelty was not one that they wrote and not one that they were gonna direct. And then, and that's the same with the lady killers, and it just so happens like things fall through, there's directors involved, it doesn't it doesn't work out. So, what makes Intolerable Cruelty so odd is that it is their most expensive film by far. By uh that's crazy, it's a huge amount. They made it made it for 60 million because this is like a Brian Grazer movie. So when you watch it, it's just guys who don't need a lot of money who were given all of the money, another mad cap, very like high glossy thing. But again, same with Hudsucker Proxy. The more I go back and watch old Hollywood screwball comedies, this is what they're doing. It's it's just a version of that, yeah. And this is really like a Barbara Sandwick movie. It's like the Lady Eve, or it just the the rat-a-tat-tat back and forth, the woman who's got it like all figured out, the dope at the center, me as someone who also loves process and bureaucratic nonsense. That's what all this is about. Like, you have all these people who have kind of talked themselves out of love because they've come up with so much bureaucracy around it. So it's still entertaining. I I I enjoy the film.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:04

Oh, yeah, I enjoyed it. I I had a great time with it. But you know, you're right, these are like the lesser two back-to-back ones. There's nothing really at stake for George Clooney's character until we're too far in. He's just watching and observing, and he's falling in love with her. But when you finally meet what he can put up to lose to love, we're too far in. But there's some great. I I laugh my ass off in this movie. There's some really funny side characters that are going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:37

I I think so too. The movie has a big tone. Lady Killers has just it's a big kind of farce, farce tone. There's not there's not too much subtlety in it, but yeah, I do laugh aloud at both movies. I own Intelli War Cruelty. I bought it ages ago for I don't know, for whatever damn reason. And I just have fun re-watching it. I mean, there's some good twists and turns. Billy Bob is hilarious in it. Oh, I love you like a son of a bitch. Doyle Loyal. He just keeps going, wind him up. And he it's so funny when you watch that based. I mean, he says more words in one scene and in tolerable cruelty than he does in all of the man who wasn't there.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:15

I know, seriously. It's so funny. And and I love how everyone likes one of the big themes is like, you're exposed, you'll be exposed. And like that, everyone keeps saying that, like, in terms of not having the right kind of like contract, you're exposed. You're exposed. And George Clooney really does have, like, you know, I mean, again, you know, you're talking about like one singular monologue that he's got between like love versus cynicism, and he knacks it out of the park because he's George Clooney, it's what he does. But like that scene, I love that monologue. I was like, it's a great fucking little scene right here. There's stuff to like, I think, in Intalibur cruelty, amidst what you know, some of those things that kind of get in its way. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:56

Same with the lady killers, too. Now, I actually don't know how you think about this one either. And yeah, there's a lot that I'm like, there's a lot of silliness in the lady killers from hiding under the bed to all this stuff. But yeah, you just you kind of have to give in that we have two movies in a row here that are not the best of what they're capable of. I'd be extremely surprised if these two movies were anyone's favorite Cohen Brothers movies. But when you watch them and you go, the context and then they weren't supposed to direct them, all that, but like I said in the beginning, there's still a lot of shit that I laugh out loud at at the lady killers.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:29

Oh yeah, like you you're right. I don't think anyone would say that these are their favorites, but if you kind of just go into it with all of that, there is a lot of enjoyment here. I think the biggest thing for the lady killers that gets in its way, it's the specificity of this heist. I think this movie could have been a lot better if there was just a little bit more of let's have fun with heists, because every heist movie, it's always the fun of it, is is in the how, is in the process of the heist. This movie kind of kind of goes over that, and then we're spent with the second half, which is how do we hide it all? Both are very, very comical things that just didn't really have it like the best sort of payoff. But my biggest thing is why is this movie called The Lady Killers? That the original was. Then what was that one?

SPEAKER_02 2:01:18

You're like, why is that one called it? That I think because that's like what they could do, and that that's the that's what's under all of this is that if they did just take her out, it could maybe be smooth sailing here. So I think it's just a play on like that's what these people could be up to, you know, they're gonna they're gonna kill this poor lady to get this money, and that you know, that becomes kind of the great irony of the movie. Oh, I agree. It's they wrote this for Barry Sonnenfeld. This was for Barry Sonnenfeld to direct. And if you look at Barry Sonnenfeld's career, once we get into the 2000s, this feels much more akin to something he would have done as opposed to the Cohen brothers.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:59

And there, I mean, and Tom Hanks does do an amazing characterization of this guy. Like he he really goes for it with what he's putting together and all this, which is really fun to watch Tom Hanks do this.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:12

And the hyper articulate again, the language, like saying uh 48 words when two will do, like, yeah, it's it's funny. You have to find the humor in it. And then I love um old lump there, Ryan Hurst showing up as mentor in the Odyssey. He's great. That's how I remember him. I remember him as like this guy is uh like playing those type of dudes, and he's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:36

JK and uh JK Simmons, yeah, easiest thing in the world.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:40

Garth Pancake is his name. Me and Mountain Woman here. Oh my dude, dude.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:46

That is that I fucking burst out and he goes, Me and Mountain Girl, and and everyone gives him shit about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:55

And uh, and then when he blows his fucking finger off, his reaction to having his finger blown up is the funniest thing. Yeah, so there's good stuff in both of these movies. These are not like, you know, like sometimes we like we talk about certain directors, and we're like, all right, so this one something happened here. This isn't really the case with the Coens. Like, there is enjoyment to be had in both of these movies, it's just not on the level of what they normally do. Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:24

But yes, we have covered some directors where we get to movies and I'm like, yeah, this one was just a miss. Like all around, just yeah, and a universal objective miss. I don't have that feeling about any of theirs. What last year, when I was like, Oh, it's time for the lady killers now, okay, I'll do it. But then I put it on and went, Well, fuck, I'm laughing a lot at this. This isn't like this is not a bad experience. You can spend your time worse for sure. Absolutely. Oh my god, absolutely. Not with the next one.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:54

But here's one where you're yeah, yeah, not with the next one. See how we both had that? That was a nice segment. Organic.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:59

Organic. Organic as fuck. I'm telling everyone, the narrative was that have these guys like, is it just gonna be these high comedies where they're remaking stuff or paying homage to slapstick? And then I mean, we've talked about this movie so much. What can we even say about No Country for Old Men? Episode 71, my favorite book to movie reviews, which this is a such a loyal, great adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, though there are some differences, and I want to go back and re-reread the novel. But then episode 75, our favorite films of 2007, where this ranked very highly. Episode 112, our no country for old men commentary. Episode 148, our top 25 of the century so far. This made next list. We'll see if it does in the amendment episode. I it's just it's one of the best American movies made so far this century. Definitely, I can say that, if not like uh ever.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:50

It's a damn near perfect movie. And this might just be where I'm at right now, but I when I just re-watched this, and I've seen this movie like dozens of times, I really connected with with Tommy Lee's character here. I I even in the opening scene where he talks about like in the voiceover, like these somebody has always like wondered how I'd measure up with the old timers. Like, what would they do like right now? Like, like his generation, when they got to be their age, they looked up to the past. You know, maybe in the generation, maybe Gen X, they were kind of the first generation to kind of be like, fuck the old timers. Well, and that's where this is. This takes Yeah, it makes such an interesting case because that has definitely progressed through our millennials. Like, we don't really look back at the old timers as something to look up to, certainly not Gen Z. You know, so just seeing where all that changes. So I thought about that for the very first time watching this and and how that was, and I I just really, really enjoyed that um the poeticism of this movie, because that lives in it as much as the actual plot.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:07

Yeah, the plotting, the violence, the money, that's all like the fun stuff to the psychopath. That's all fun to watch and track. And then as the movie finds, basically after Brolin dies, you know, when it finds its third act, third gear, and it becomes more of Ed Tom's story. That's what harkens back to the title. That this guy no longer under I mean, he says in the very, very beginning, a crime like this, it's hard to even take its measure. He doesn't understand that, like, so this is all just happening for a little bit of money. Okay, like I I get that there is badness in the world, but does this ever get better? No. And then he, you know, goes and visits his uncle and always saw God would come into my life, and he didn't. And it's yeah, it becomes this more philosophical thing, leading to obviously the ending, which is you can read so much into, but yeah, I I love that the movie str intentionally struggles, like, who is our main character here? Because none of these three ever interact, which is a fucking brilliant trick in the movie that Brolin, yeah, Bardem, and Jones never meet face to face. And then it's like, oh, that the last the last man standing here is Ed Tom, and he doesn't what was this all about? Like it's the same, it's not a dissimilar ending to burn after reading, just a very different tone. Like, what the fuck did I do here? Did I do anything? Like, what what what even happened? And what for? For a little money and some dead, dead people and some dope. Like, uh uh, okay, I don't get this anymore. This is not like what I signed up for to be a lawman. So he's happy to retire, and then what's he gonna do now?

SPEAKER_01 2:07:38

Think about his dreams. Oh man, there's a cinematic process to this movie that is just absolutely brilliant, and it I kind of just phrased it as we see something as a result of seeing that, we know something. As a result of that, we see the character then take action. It follows that pattern and it doesn't really divert it because that's the way that we start to track everything in our in our minds. That's why we're so like compelled through all this, is because if we knew what the character was going to do and then we saw them do it, it wouldn't be as interesting as us figuring out the pieces and then being surprised by what the character does. We're seeing it, we're understanding, and then we're seeing what they do next. And it's surprising every time, and it's letting us know these guys' flaws, especially Brolin's. Javier Bardum doesn't really have too many. He does, though, he makes his mistakes, but he's much more strategic in it.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:41

His mistake is that he's so zeroed in, and like he promised Brolin, if you bring me the money now, I won't kill your wife. But if you don't, then I'm making you a promise that I will. He's so, I mean, if he didn't go kill that wife, which he does, he doesn't get in a car accident and have his arm broken, you know. So it is all these things. But this right here, Brolin, Llewellyn Moss, is a great one-to-one with John Getz from Blood Simple. He's a little more intelligent. You can tell he has some Vietnam training from like, if you did it, you did it in shade. And uh, yeah, I would have walked away. I came. He's not dumb. You know, I need I need a tent, uh the one with the most polls. Like he knows what he's doing, but he thinks he's smarter than everyone. And he is just like Woody Harrelson says, buddy, you were way out of your league here. You have no idea like what you're up against. And when he's on the phone with Shigore, it's not all right, cool. It's yeah, you become a new project of mine. And you're like, all right, buddy, yeah, see how that's gonna fucking work out for you. I really never realized this until this most recent viewing, and this is bonkers, and I never realized this. He only kills one person with that fucking cattle prod thing, that guy in the very beginning. That's the only time we ever seen him do it. It's just weird that and it has such a lasting impact. It it's so because we've never seen someone die that way on screen before. Yeah, it's right in the beginning. I I just need you to step out of the car, sir. And then we see him do it with locks, and then the other thing, and then I did not track in that hotel scene when Josh Brolin is, you know, he's checked in and he's waiting, and then he hears Shigore going, the only injury Brolin incurs there is the lock hitting him. That's it. Shigur never shoots him, it's just that lock. That's what he has to go to Mexico for to get to the hospital. And I thought he got shot up, and I'm like, no, he didn't. It's just that lock, which shows how, oh, and that grunt when he receives that hit that oh, like you can just feel that. But yeah, I love processed movies, and this is you get long passages of no dialogue of how to dress a wound, how to run away from cartels who have pit bulls. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:44

Brilliant, brilliant, and it all makes sense. Oh, yes, yes. I'm sure I've told you that I you've you know, you've you you talk about how I have these crazy takes. This is my biggest one. Oh god, Anton Shigur is some sort of like agent of pure evil from hell. I somehow he got out of hell and is now just doing these things. And then you've got the Woody Harrelson character that is in its way sent from that big building where you get like that elevation. This is sort of like whatever version of maybe heaven or whatever version. I don't believe this is based in Christianity or anything, but there's someone that needs to be sent to balance this out. Like one of those fuckers from hell got out and is wreaking havoc. We need you, uh, Carson, to go and and and just get him out. Take care of this. Like he's done this too many times. That to me is the whole entire point of Woody Harrelson's character. It's why he's dressed in white, that's why he's the complete antithesis of this, and he is sent from another place to go and do this. And he fails miserably. He doesn't do it right. Who hired Shigore? Because Steven Root did though. Yeah, I know. That's why it all kind of takes place in this sort of like outside of our realm. I can't not look at this movie with all of that at play. I think it makes it so much more interesting.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:17

Yeah, we've this has been brought up a lot on the pod, and I kind of I realize it in text with you this week or last. This is how some people view movies. They they put a lot into it and they have these, I mean, they're called fan theories. That's all this is. Like there's these different fan theories.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:35

Well, I think mine are not fan theories because I won't I wouldn't expect anyone to gravitate. So these are just sort of things that come up for me that that that but I don't like fan theory because I'm not saying that because theorizing is saying that this is what it is. I just say I take it this way, and it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:54

Well, I don't think you're alone in that like Cormac McCarthy making religious allegories, and yeah, the very nature of one is dressed in black, one is dressed in white. Yeah, I I think all of that is at play at a very minor subtextual level, and you're just like, hey, it's fun to I just I'm just I'm I'm elevating it to a whole other thing. Yeah, Anton Shigore is absolutely the personification of evil, he does not feel like a real entity. I totally am totally with that. So I don't I don't think it's that far-fetched. So your theory then for the hotel thing when he's in there is that that he's just like evil and evil can be anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:32

That is sort of my take on it, because if I'm imagining to give a reason as to why I believe that Tommy Lee Jones is having that manifestation of that idea, even though he's never seen what Anton Sigur looks like, because that is what throws the hole in here, then my exact theory of it would be is that if this is the face of what pure evil is, then that is why Tommy Lee is seeing it, is because he is rooted in his own version of what uh evil is, and he's imagining that that's what's there. And it turns out that he's absolutely right. His fear, biggest fear and idea of what pure evil looks like is exactly Anton Sugar. So even though he never ends up seeing him, he is correct in that way.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:27

Yeah, my read of it because he goes and has that coffee with the other sheriff, and he's like, and then he just walked right back into the hotel, same one he was in the night before. So that gets Tommy Lee's wheel spinning, and he's like, Oh yeah, maybe I'll go back there and maybe he will be back. So my whole read on it is that he's waiting and he's thinking, like, okay, that it could be him on the other side of the door. Like, there's a really high probability that he is, but like, here we go. I'm just gonna go check it out. And yes, Shigore has been in the room because we see the vents, like he knows the vent trick. So he now is in possession of the money. That's who has the money. No mention is really made of the buddy after this. It's just Shigur got it back, his job should be done, but it's not. He's gotta go kill, he's gotta go kill the poor, the poor wife there. So yeah, yeah, I just I think Tommy Lee Jones is basically like, fuck, as soon as I kick this door in, I could be killed because this crazy bastard very well could be on the other side of this door, but he just missed him by a little bit. That's all. I don't, I really don't think Anton Shagur was ever leaning against the wall, looking at the keyhole. That I don't think. I just think those are that's all in his head, but he missed him by could have missed him by 30 seconds, could have missed him by, you know, a couple hours.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:38

I just don't think there's any other way to take it. I because because he goes into that room, and the reality is is Shagur is not in there.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:47

Well, that's the number one and the most obvious right is that he's behind the door. That's just silly. Javier Bardem is a very large man. Believe me, I have tried this. I've had friends kick a door open with me on the other side of it. I'm not nearly as big as Javier Bardem. You can tell that I am on the other side of it. A door in a it's so that's that's the famous one. And then the other one is that he's just in the other room, which visually and narratively makes no sense that they would be cutting to that.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:13

So I don't know because he got what he wanted. He wouldn't, yeah, and also the he wouldn't stay hiding if he was behind that door. He would just kill, yeah, he would just kill Tommy Lee Jones because he doesn't give a shit. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:28

That's he would have no issue with just blowing this guy away and then leaving. He's not gonna hide behind a door, and then what when Ed Tom goes to the bathroom, Anton Shagordis tiptoes out of the room. No, that's ridiculous. But that's not this is not a guy who tiptoes. Exactly, not at all. He might take his shoes off so he can bust into a room easier, but alright, no country. God, just what a classic. I mean, next up, you win best picture from this like revisionist western moody tone poem thing, and then you make one of the most outrageous comedies that I've ever seen. Burn after reading is one of my top five favorite comedies of all time, let alone the funniest movie I think the Cohn brothers have made. This is my exact sense of humor. I love everything about this movie. I can watch it anytime. And despite not really being filmed in DC, they had some pickup shots. Still a very good DC movie. I love Burn After Reading. This is not one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:27

This is uh I I've never fucking I've never connected with this movie, and I've I've tried it a lot of times. I really wow, I thought you liked it. I mean, I don't, I mean, well, again, like we're talking about the Coens, like, there isn't a single one of here that I don't like, but for whatever reason, this one does not hit my funny bone the way that it hits uh most other people.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:54

Yeah. The funniest thing to me in this movie is George Clooney. But every time this movie's ended, and we get to that whole entire thing of like, you know, uh, what did what did we all learn? I'm like, I've I I I try with this movie as I may, and at the end of it, after every single time, I'm like, I don't know what I just spent my time doing. Hot take, hot take.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:17

Damn, that's funny to me because we have inside jokes about this one. I feel this is yeah, I mean, this is probably our biggest disparity so far because I just everything about it is like line after line, hysterical to me. Like pretty much everything anyone says, including Brad Pitt. It's one of my favorite performances from him.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:36

Oh, well, he's great. No, I like this movie, it's just it's not my favorite. Yeah. Well, that's all.

SPEAKER_02 2:18:43

It's one of mine. So I'm gonna keep talking about it because I like it. We never had a chance to talk about it before. Jesus, you're like, yeah, it's not one of mine. Next movie. I'm like, I'm talking about it. I'm talking about burn after reading great DC set movie. No, I wouldn't know. You have to talk about it. I have I have a bunch of stuff I like about it. Yeah, again, you have absolute morons who think they know more than they do trying to make a little money, like selling these files, man, selling it back to them. But yeah, this the the humor of it is very like big and broad. I definitely, you know, accept all of that, but uh all all the ins and outs of it. I yeah, I think it's their best comedy. I mean, not even close to me, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:27

No, I mean it will it will it's it's and it's pretty airtight in that way, too. Like, this is everything that they that they do really, really well. And there is just no doubt that Brad Pitt is an absolute child. Oh, like and if you look at everything he does, that's a five-year-old. And if you track it that way, it makes his performance even funnier because the way that he doesn't like get something that he wants, like he can't get like he doesn't have the electrolytes. So he pouts about it. You know, when he when he gets hit in the face, he's like, he hit me. It's a schwin. Like he cares more about the guy thing. He doesn't know that his bike is a schwin. That's a kid being like, you know, oh no, that's this toy. You know, he is completely operating, playing as like a five-year-old on the phone. Like he's like, uh, you know, like what's his name? Like um, something cox. Like I forgot my Osborne Cox. Well, Os Osborne, Osborne Cox, the security of your shit.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:26

Shit. Yeah, it's hilarious. It's why it's one of their best comedies, their best comedy. I can't believe this one doesn't fully work for me.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:35

The thing is, is like I what there's movies where I look at the comedy and I'm recognizing it how good it is. It just doesn't make me laugh. That's all. That's like like, and I laugh, but I don't, I don't, it's listen. I think the funniest scene put to tell to put to movies is when McGruber is having sex with Kristen Wig in McGruber. All right, yeah, it's hilarious. Yeah, but that's a little different than like this highbrow stuff that we're talking about here. This is comedy, like like very taut. I have a drinking problem. Fuck you, you're a moron next to the deal.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:10

We all have drinking problems. I know who you are, fucker. Yeah, the way the total sweat and is such like she's so cold, but apparently like this Minx. And then I mean, we have really one of the great all-time uh shocking death scenes. I don't even want to say who it is in case someone hasn't seen it. I was like, what the hell? It completely scared the shit out, or just surprised the shit out of me. And then you have the um what George Clooney's making in his basement. Another great surprise that I love the two meetings with JK Simmons as the CIA superior, who's like, what the fuck is going on here? Like, what, huh? And the political bureaucratic stuff of it of how they're always talking themselves out of like, no, we gotta do this one, huh? Well, no, no, no, leave the body there. No, of course, no, dump it there. It's so funny. I this one just it always got right to my funny bone, and I thought the a perfect mix of their crassness, their writing, the humor mixed with the politics of it, yeah, works for me on genuinely on all levels. Like going to the Russians, like they just fucking drive to the Russians. Yeah, they people are so fucking stupid. Uh Linda Litsky, and then at the end, it's like, uh, she uh wanted quite a few um surgeries to just do it.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:24

It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:27

Each character is actually really grounded in very, very real wants. Like, like Linda really like to her, like in order for her to be happy, she needs to get this work done. Richard Jenkins is just hopelessly in love with her. George Clooney, like, he's caught in all like Tilda Swinton wants a divorce and wants to be with Clooney, but Clooney just he's his character is like he he he's just so he wants it all. He wants it all, but he also wants none of it. Like, he he because he every time he's like he's like, so it's me and you, right? And then she goes, Yeah, and he goes, Yeah, yeah, me and him. And his muttering that he does in this movie is hilarious. You get John Malkovich, who's just completely grieving his life, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:12

His his uh career, you know, he's been let go from the agency and he just like drinks all day. He's on his boat doing shitty exercises. It's so fucking it's just so outrageous. And then there's this also this other thing, like who's watching Clooney? And we're like, oh, this is gonna be important. Nope, just some divorce lawyer. It's like what poor Richard Jenkins, though. I mean, yeah, like who's watching who, like someone's watching everyone else, and then it all comes to this conclusion that we don't even see, it's just explained to us, which again I think is hilarious. But yeah, I mean, I I understand how it's not for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:47

I didn't well no, I think it is for everyone because everyone finds this movie really funny. Not for you, this is no, not for me, but I see the I laugh at it, but I it it's just it's just not I don't I don't know. Like it's it's not, it's it's it's always to me one where I'm like, yeah, I've never really gotten what everyone else gets with it, and but I still like it. That's all I'm saying. All right, fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:24:10

This is like you're uh you're raising Arizona, yeah. You you said that's like their funniest to you. Yeah, I I again this is what makes them so fun to talk about because you're and I I'm actually just gonna transition because there are there are two movies in the back half of the Cohn brothers' career that have reached enormous acclaim. Uh, we're talking about best movies of the century so far. On more than I think four, I saw a serious man ranked at least in the top five for quite a few people. I know people, major critics who think this is the best film the Cohn's have made. Now we're full on into religious allegory and all that that entails. And this is this is a well-made movie, it's well shot, it is bonkers, it's just really uh kind of out of its mind and all, you know, the best ways, but I also think that I'll just put it this way I know a few Jewish people who say this is the most Jewish film ever made, ever. And I've asked people who are in their 60s, I've asked people who are in their 20s, and they go, uh there's just no question that is it.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:19

I saw this movie maybe around like 2014, and I didn't get it. It didn't connect. And then I just watched it for this pod. I fucking love this movie. I can't even really kind of like describe why. I think you know, I'm just watching this one guy just kind of going through it, like everything is is kind of going wrong for him. I really, really liked it. I don't know what I can say. I have a bunch of stuff here that I wrote down, but none of it really makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:56

Well, yeah, that's kind of the movie, and and and don't get me wrong, I like it too. It's but yeah, when I first saw in the theater, I went, Whoa, okay, that wasn't okay, there's something, there's something kind of else here, but I bought it for this, and because I bought it on Blu-ray because it's never available on streaming, and I wanted to like watch it a few times, and I'm like, man, they are tapping into a tone they really didn't get to at like just committing full on to this like pitch black comedy thing. They really haven't made another movie like this. There's not that many other movies like this, period. This is another one-to-one thing that I am extremely impressed with, always.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:34

And here's a guy that by all accounts does do everything right, and then everything starts going wrong, and then but these aren't like huge things, but it feels like they are. Like the I imagine like this is probably something that comes up for not just you know, people of the Jewish faith, but anyone where you've put your stock into a way of thinking, and then all of a sudden life kind of says otherwise. And it's like, well, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 2:27:05

Well, yeah, I mean, my my running, my favorite running thread, and there are a lot. There's like the three rabbis, this you know, the son, the damn song, it's yeah, none of them know anything exactly. But I love Clive, you know, Clive the student coming in and like this decision weighing over, and then when he makes that final decision is when boom, like literally like the hammer of whatever of God, or okay, if I grew up in this world, I would understand a lot more of this, but I didn't, and I'm okay with that. And I think that is a huge feat of the movie that you don't have to like, you know, have grow you don't have to have a have been bar mitzvah to understand this movie. No, I don't feel that way at all.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:43

That's an important thing, and then I can imagine if I did have you know a connection, you know, much like in that religion in that way, to where it it actually makes even more sense or it really is like tailor-made. But no, I got a very universal sense of all this in a way where I certainly didn't get the first time. Same here, yeah, same here. And I think it's also just because, like, I don't know, I think again, like, you know, I saw this movie 12 years ago. I was in my 20s. Getting older.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:15

As he's doing the uncertainty principle in the math equation, and he goes, So it proves you can't figure anything out if the whole entire chalkboard is full with so all this is to say that you can't actually solve this, which is I think a part of the what the movie is saying, like the futility of it of yeah, all this stuff putting your putting your literal faith or your trust into these systems, and yeah, the big we get the men behind the desk again, like man behind the desk.

SPEAKER_01 2:28:46

Absolutely, these and what and what does he say? Be a good boy, you know, like you know, follow like yep, but but there's even like lines where it's like everything I thought was one way turns out to be another. Except the mystery. And I love the accept the mystery because that's a great line to say in thematic tone with this movie, but he's also the guy who says that to him is the guy that's cheating on his wife. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:11

That he's like the most like the nicest guy's calm. Yeah, Cy Abelman, this calm presence, and it's like, you're you're sleeping with my wife.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:21

He's hugging him, he's like, How are you doing? Because you know I'm sleeping with your wife, but are you all right?

SPEAKER_00 2:29:28

Like I love that guy. It's like, how much disrespect did one man take?

SPEAKER_02 2:29:33

Exactly. You can't Larry Gobnik is a man on the edge. Oh man, so yeah, so he's great, Michael Stolbarg.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:40

Yeah, so I I really I had a big turnaround to this movie where I think everything that we just talked about is what is kind of existing in this movie, and uh, and I get it, I feel it, and I like it. The tornado at the end is is is an interesting one. I don't know what to make of that. Oh, that's the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:56

That's like yeah, I mean, he's caved, he's changed the grade. So, like, what now? Look, you know, here it comes. Here comes perhaps the hand of God coming down. I love it. Yeah, exactly, and what the weight of that is, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've liked it more. I've I think I've seen it four times now total, but I've liked it more every time I've gone back to it. And that'll probably happen with you the more you go to burn after reading. I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:30:21

Um, all right, here's the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:30:22

I tried for 20 years with this movie, it just never reached the point that everyone else has with it. That's all. Now let's talk about a movie that I can't watch without subtitles.

SPEAKER_02 2:30:33

Well, yeah, you go, What do you mean, girl? What are you talking about, girl? Oh man, I love true grit. First of all, gotta say, this is not a remake of the 1969 film, which won John Wayne his only Oscar, and that was not a well-deserved Oscar anyway. That's not really that good of a movie. I've never liked it, but I had seen it before this, and I went, that's what they're gonna do. And they went back to the book, which I still haven't read, but the language is taken from the book, the end I hear is taken from the book, and this is just like how The Man Who Wasn't There is a bona fide, legit noir. This true grit is a bona fide western, not a revisionist western. And my god, I love this movie. And I I really think this is a rare film that actually gets better with like each 20 minutes. You're just leading to a thrilling conclusion. Yeah, it it has this narrative propulsion, it keeps building, building, building. And I mean, how great to see Roland, yes, but then Barry Pepper. Barry fucking pepper like Barry, where you been, man? And he is great. Oh, cows, girl, you know I will. Oh man, I fucking love this movie.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:38

And yeah, the language of it is beautiful. This is, I mean, it this is beyond anything. And uh, and I really, I really have to kind of say, like, I like when we talk about subtitles, the reason I did put them on was because in the first like five minutes of the movie, I was just catching words that I was I just kept like double double checking. I'm like, wait a second, is that what they said? I don't know what that word means. I put on the subtitles, and I was just floored with the brilliance of the Coens because they just wrote a fucking movie of that time period that is it when you're reading it and you're hearing what they're actually saying, it's some of the most brilliant stuff I think they've ever done. I really do. Like that it is yeah, it is tailor-made to every character in terms of where they are in terms of like intelligence, class, the bravado. The way that Haley Steinfeld like handles this character, I can't imagine anyone else doing it. She has this maturity, this capability, this toughness, doesn't ever feel like it's forceful, but she's you also still are reminded of her youth in the best way possible. It's exactly what the movie needs. And but yeah, I did have to put on the subtitles for this, and I'm glad I did because what I got out of this movie was so much more than I could have ever gotten out of it any other way, which is why you always say to watch them with subtitles.

SPEAKER_02 2:33:11

Yeah, that's true. It's literally true of every movie, but yeah, but I mean, the this doesn't this movie doesn't really work unless they nail Maddie Ross. And I don't know how they found her. I don't, and now Haley Steinfeld is you know very famous. My wife and has not seen True Grit. I was watching it and she walked in. It's Josh Allen's wife, right? And my wife walked in, and I was like, That's Haley Steinfeld, like as a kid, and she went, Really? And then she sat down and watched a few of her scenes and she went, Holy sh she can act. And I go, Yeah, she was nominated for this, and she had some really, really tough competition. I mean, it would have been it would have been great if she won. I it just wouldn't have happened. This is the Melissa Leo year. She won for the fighter. Oh, yeah. So she's up against she was up against some heavy hitters, but yeah, I mean, it is it is a truly star making performance. And she's like 14. You're like, what the hell going toe to toe with Jeff Bridges, who I mean is astounding Matt Damon, who I always get a huge kick out of just his arrogance. I'm a Texas Ranger, leaf. And so much again, talking about your competency, thinking it's so much better than it is. But and then also, what I love to say about this movie, this is fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_03 2:34:21

This movie's PG 13, and you see dudes just like getting fucking iced out, like shot to the head over and over.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:29

And you know, man who wasn't there being rated R for one scene of violence. And I think that was some other stuff too, but officially rated R for one scene of violence. And you go to True Grit and you're like, Jesus Christ, there's so many. It's a pretty violent movie, but yeah, I love it. And then really uh like one of the best third acts of their career, I think. Basically, when they meet, when they you know run into the gang, yeah, up until the end, the snake pit, the all of it, like fuck, and just really kind of find this melancholic gear toward the end that I you certainly don't expect from the the original movie. And then you're like, Jesus, this is oh man, it's like really beautiful and just melancholic and perfect. And the whole thing, like, I want this is one where uh you know, in the days leading up to the pod, I'm like, all right, let me try to get in a few more viewings. So I like I did Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, and I'm like, Oh, maybe I'll get another true grip. And then I remembered you just watched it two weeks ago, like you don't need necessarily boom again, but I can watch it anytime. I love I love the language of it, the look of it. Their most nominated film, 10 Oscar nominations, zero wins, of course, but yes, it deserves all of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:35:37

It's it's that good, and it's really like it it sets itself up so well, too, because you really feel like how long it's taking Maddie to get all this together. Like, because the amount of days that she's spending in Grandma Turner's, you know, bed and all this, but the bargaining that she's doing, like the process of what she's doing, and then trying to get Jeff Bridges to get along with this, and then they finally embark on the journey. I love the one scene because like this was one of the ones with like the subtitles on, where I was like, without this, I wouldn't have caught any of it. But like the first real Damon Bridges argument that they have is they mention uh the assassination of Dusty James, they mention um uh Billy Boyd uh Anderson or Bill uh Bloody Bill, Bloody Bill. And Jeff Bridges is like, those are American heroes. And oh yeah, and Damon is like, I cannot be a part of this, like you like you know, and and then I think this is one of the best like Western scenes ever. I mean, it's done in a lot of different types of movies, but uh Jeff Bridges and and Haley are on the roof and they're expecting like to have the shootout, but then Damon shows up and we're seeing all of that action from afar. Fucking brilliant. We're trusting in in Jeff Bridges because he's telling her how this is gonna go down, but we don't know because we're only watching the action, but we're feeling the safety of the situation because of Bridges. But you're imagining like this must be what Haley's character is feeling because we don't know how this is gonna go. But Jeff Bridges is sort of being like, Well, see what he does first. Well, that didn't go as planned, so now we're doing this, you know, and it it's just it's really, really, really well done.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:25

Oh, yeah, I love that scene, the whole setup, and then you know, Damon gets dragged off, and we're like, holy shit. And then, yeah, leading up to that, the final set piece of you know, on the hill and the screaming back and forth, that's all brilliant too. So, yeah, I really can't recommend true grit highly enough for people who I don't know, maybe there's some people who haven't seen it. I don't it it's a big hit and it's usually easy to find. And I I really love all the mechanics about it, and again, not a revisionist Western, a true blue western, and that's uh Cole Younger and Frank James at the end that she's talking to. I didn't even realize that until this one, so yeah, that's Jesse James's older brother there at the Wild Wild West show. All right, this is a big one. This is a big one for when I was seeing a lot of top 25 of the century so far lists, or just you know, favorite movies of the century so far. I'm seeing this pop up a lot. This one I definitely saw hit a couple number one spots, but it's it's not uncommon for it to be very, very loved inside Lewin Davis. I always want to say Llewellyn because of No Country for Old Men. Yeah, and yeah, so this is a beloved one, but we've gone back and forth about this one personally, just off mic, and I guess I've talked about it here and there on like in various episodes, but we're gonna set the record straight here. But what do you think about this movie?

SPEAKER_01 2:38:47

Well, here's the thing the first time I ever saw this movie, and this was when it came out, and I did not like it, I didn't get it at all. I was so against it. I was like, this movie is just about an asshole, and there's nothing and I'm not against those types of movies, like five easy pieces, basically any Jack Nicholson movie. Um, but I just didn't really see what this movie was after. Then, funny enough, I told you about my feelings about this movie, and you were the one that encouraged me to see this a second time and be like, uh, I would maybe suggest going back to it. And then I saw it a second time, and then I did the biggest 180 I've ever done on it, and I really liked it, but something must have happened because this must have been the time that you and I were working together for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 2:39:41

This is the about face episode that we did. You mentioned this in the about face episode. Yes, so it's all coming back. Yes, yes. We have okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:39:47

So we and so I something happened within those like three years of being out here in LA. And I suppose I really under kind of I have really understood this artist plight that that Lewin Davis is going through. He just is a very, he's just a dick. That's literally, it's not, there's no other way to describe it. He is. Um, but I really liked it, and then I watched it again this time, and then I had since heard some of your um criticisms for this movie, but I now look at this movie, I like it a lot. I I I I understand what you're saying and what we're gonna hear you say because I'm I'm looking forward to actually hearing your take on this because I don't think you're wrong either. I kind of think this is a movie about forgiveness. Oh, okay. That's interesting. Who who's forgiving who? Well, I don't know necessarily if it's uh necessarily a movie about who's forgiving who, but I suppose maybe the movie is asking, can we forgive ourselves? Do we learn from our mistakes and be better? I suppose there's another way of kind of looking at things too. It leaves you in a space where I think there's a lot of cool questions to be asking from what we just watched with this. But yes, I like this one a lot.

SPEAKER_02 2:41:03

Yeah, yeah, most people do. I don't, I definitely do, I don't dislike it. I'm gonna talk about one specific aspect of it. But to start with kind of the theme, I personally def I don't get anything about forgiveness with it. I do get something of can we like learn from our mistakes and get better? And I think we're witnessing someone who, at least in the week that we see him, he does not. I mean, there's no that that's my read on it. There's a few things here. The first one, when you're talking about he's a dick, he's an asshole. I actually, when I watch this movie, I don't know what I am supposed to be left with. If it's nothing, fine, but I don't know what the Coans want me to think about this guy. If they ever want me to have if they ever want me to care about him at all, then that it didn't work for me at all. Because I don't I like watching him get his ass kicked. I like watching him fail because to me there is no redemptive quality about this guy. And I like movies about characters like that too, but I'm just when when it ends, I'm going, okay, so he may be destined to repeat himself, maybe not. But that's I actually don't have a problem with any of this aspect of it. I don't, I I like the yeah, I've always found it a very difficult movie to talk about because there are a lot of people who just don't understand that in the beginning when it fades after he gets punched, all we have done is faded to a week ago. They just don't give us a title card that says a week ago, but I mentioned the loop thing, and people are like, What do you mean? Anyway, that aspect I like. I like the narrative deception of like he's a victim of his own mistakes, so that's you know, his asshole. So, yeah, no problem with that. Here's the thing I and I actually disagree with you. I think I am wrong in this take, and here's why. Because this movie was nominated for two Oscars, and um, I want to start this by saying that Amalie from 2001 is one of my favorite-looking movies ever. I love the saturation of it, I love how it just feels warm and full of life. The cinematographer of that film is Bruno Del Benell. I'm probably saying the last name wrong, I'll just call him Bruno. He has a style now, he has a look, it evolved into like what this thing is, and I'll just like cut out the sugar. I think this movie genuinely looks terrible. I think it is the worst-looking Cohen Cohen Brothers movie. I I don't and everything I read about it, it's like, you know, Bruno came on board because Roger Deacons, who always shoots her stuff, was busy, I believe with Skyfall, if my if memory serves, which he got nominated for. Yeah, so I and it's not anytime that's happened, like uh Chivo, Emmanuel Lubeski shot burn after reading. Same thing. He was I forget what he was on then, but it was it might have been the no country Jesse James one-two punch, maybe. Inside Lewin Davis, the more research I do on it, very similar to what they did with Oh Brother were Art Thou, all of that blue haze was added in post-production. This heavy, heavy diffusion is all in post-production, and I genuinely think it looks terrible. And when you go on a Cohen's binge, if I as I have two years in a row, you watch True Grit and you're like, God damn, look at this. You watch Hail Caesar and you're like, Okay, this is very intentionally saturated, but wow, look at these colors. And then in the middle, I just I don't understand why they wanted the movie to look this way, but why I think I'm wrong. The movie was nominated for best cinematography, that Oscar. And Allie's favorite film franchise is the Harry Potter franchise. We took a week watching them all in 4K. We get to Half Blood Prince, and we are both like, what the fuck is wrong with this movie? It looks like shit. It just looks like there's this brown haze over everything. And I went, man, I look it up. Bruno shot that one, and take a wild guess of every Harry Potter movie, only one of them has been nominated for Best Cinematography. Which one? Half Blood Prince. This is a personal taste thing. Most people dig it. I I cannot get on board with it. That's my my speech is done.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:06

No, and it's but it's a fair speech, though, because I mean at the end of the day, listen, I I don't mind the way that this movie looks. So I I can sit on the other track here of what you're saying, but I can't sit here and tell you that you're wrong in terms of the manipulation that is done with this movie. It it does not look real. Yeah. But in the same way, but but it doesn't look as good as O Brother Where Art Thou. Exactly. Where oh O Brother Where Art Thou is as manipulated color-wise as this movie is. I I like the idea, and I think it's because there's enough going on. Like if I if I were to stare at every single aspect of the of what's going on in the frame of this movie, what I'm initially hit with is the color and mood. And that is what I dig about the movie. But if you were to, and I know because you've shown me text messages, it's so funny. I love getting these from you. Where you'll you'll because you're you're paying attention to every single thing that's going on. And then and the closer, it's almost like the man, uh, the man who wasn't there, like the closer you look, like the like the more like you, you in this case it is the closer you look, the more you do see. Because the closer you do look into this movie, you do start seeing how fake so much of it looks. If you start doing that, it does start to take away from the entire what you're trying to experience with the movie. So knowing full well with all of the text that I've gotten from you, and then re-watching this movie, I I'm like, yeah, you're right. Kind of, and I guess this asks an interesting question is should you have to kind of separate yourself knowing full well how much is being manipulated, and then how much can I just like just keep like almost set up a boundary for and just be like, I like it, but I don't want to look too far into it because then I'm gonna see the cracks.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:11

Yeah, that I mean, fair question. You can say that you can say that for a lot of things for just about any movie that we love passionately, where that's one of the things we have to do is like defend those cracks, defend the scenes. I mean, as someone who loves Christopher Nolan movies, that's largely when you're talking to someone, what about that? What about that? And you're like, Yeah, okay, I get it. Like, I get it. And I actually because you started with your history with the movie, I did see this in the theater, and I was like, Okay, I it was Christmas 2013, and I went, All right, yeah, it's okay. I also saw I saw like Wolf of Wall Street the next day and went, Well, yeah, so it that overtook my thinking. So then the next time I saw it, I went, Okay, I appreciate it. This was on a TV. Then that's when you you and I had our conversation there somewhere, and I was like, No, I think there's a little more in it about latching more onto the themes of it, like we're talking about, kind of ignoring the look. Yeah, and then last year I just I watched it on my nice 4K TV and went, What the fuck is this? But I never watched all their movies in a row, so I was like knocking them out and going, This does not look like I mean, this is crazy. It's not unlike to me what Scream 4 did, and I mention that all the time, but all that like hazy, very soft focus is all in post-production. And I can just I really wonder if they would, you know, do this now. They released it on Criterion, but I I I mean, if they remade the movie, would they do that those kind of filter and effects now? I I don't know that Bruno also shot Buster Scrugs, and I see some of this hate, not really though, but like the final, the final chapter, yeah, is when I'm like, this again, this is not the look for me, even but noting noting all of that, all the somewhat negative stuff I said there and the character about Lou and like I don't really like the guy. I love Oscar Isaac in it, I love his singing voice, I love the songs. I laugh hysterically every time Carrie Mulligan speaks in this. Like, oh, it's so great. Do you know someone from before whatever Diane? It's so fucking funny. And so I love her. And then I mean, uh, we're talking about these standalone set pieces. You get Garrett Headland and John Goodman. That's an astounding 15 minutes, 10-15 minutes of them, just perfect.

SPEAKER_01 2:49:26

Yeah, there's just so much more to kind of unpack with this movie, much more than meets the eye. That's very true. Very true. I think it's very personal too, because like there is an absolute intention to lead with your main character not having any redemptive qualities, not giving him a redemption, if he like he sort of more accepts that he's just an asshole rather than maybe being like, maybe I shouldn't be an asshole. So, but this makes an interesting question. So, what is what are the Cohen brothers after here? That, yeah, and I think there really is something, and that's what makes the movie really sort of thought-provoking in a lot of ways. It does not the the Cohen's are too good to be just making a movie that's about nothing, correct.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:12

Because of the constant love this movie continues to receive, it's definitely not a movie about nothing. And I think actually, I think there's a great triple feature parallel with Barton Fink, a serious man, and Lewin Davis. I just these movies that focus on first two are eccentric, and I mean, well, Lewin is pretty eccentric as well because he just has this. I mean, he's a narcissist essentially, but yeah, I mean, so is Barton Fink kind of. So I don't know, but yeah, yeah, they all have these parallels of these very oddball characters. But every time I watch it, the next time I watch it, it's not like I'm never gonna see it again, I will be chill on the way that it looks now that I've spoken my piece and like who cares if I decide to re-watch it, it's not like I can change the way it looks, so I just have to accept it. But yeah, I'll I'll study the themes a little bit more. I mean, what F. Murray Abraham says to him at the end of that edition is fucking perfect because I agree. And I mean, that's what he needs. But instead of taking that and being like, okay, I could change, just doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 2:51:15

It's like it's hilarious. If someone were to tell me that they don't see any money here, that has nothing to do with whether or not you're talented. No, not at all. Not at all. But but I think a lot of artists don't understand that. I think a lot of artists were sort of like, well, then what you what do you mean? This is good. This is money. That's not true. It's not that you're not talented, but there's nothing about you. That's why you don't see that, and that's why it was honestly so great to kind of have the Bob Dylan thing come in at the very end because here's a guy who's essentially Oscar Isaac playing the exact same type of music that Bob Dylan is. But what makes Dylan money and what makes Lewin Davis not? There's a there's an honest question there. Yeah, I think Lewin Davis could be money, but he needs to figure out what it is about him that actually creates that thing. It's it's it's a very, very interesting uh assessment. And I love that scene because of it.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:17

Yeah, though I really do appreciate the movie. I do appreciate its tone. I just wonder how much more I would like it if Roger Deacon shot it when uh he would have never allowed that post-production stuff to be done to it. I don't I really don't think so. So it's I don't know. I do like the film though.

SPEAKER_01 2:52:35

It's a fair question.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:36

All right, let's move on to yet another one that I saw in the theater, and when it was done, I was telling people, you know, Hail Caesar, yeah, it's like a it's a B B plus Cohen Brothers movie, and I I enjoyed it, but I was not head over heels about it and thought I was kind of missing something. Honestly, the coolest thing about it is I had just shot a few scenes from my music video Fossils in uh a bar that George Clooney, sorry, in a bar that Josh Brolin keeps meeting the guy in. And I was just uh good luck bar. Good luck bar, yeah. We could say because it's not there anymore. So yeah, but I had there anymore. I had filmed that like a few months earlier, not yet, literally, like a few months, maybe even a few weeks, and then I go see Hail Caesar, and I'm like, holy shit! So I was just sitting there dying laughing, thinking of how much the Cohen's must have paid to get that location. I went in there like on a Thursday night and just stole some shots. Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything. This is another one I've come around to, and wow, do I love it? Man, I I love Cohen's doing old Hollywood and I fucking love Hail Caesar. I think this movie is hysterical. It's just me though. This is the Cohen's thing I love.

SPEAKER_01 2:53:48

Yeah, I'm I I'm more of your first uh feeling on it because the first time I saw it, I honestly didn't really think too much about it. It's weird. I mean, it's weird. It's it's like 20 minutes of communist conversation. You're like, what? And he goes, and he's now with you know communists. Um, but to me, the the shining star of this movie is uh Alden Aaron Reich.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:13

Oh my god, made him a star, I think. I mean, it really he had been in a few things, but wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:19

He to me is the reason to watch this movie. I would have rather have watched an entire movie about the making of the one scene that he's in with Ray Fines, which holds a special place in my heart because Ray Fines, his portrayal of that director is to a T. My my very first like acting teacher slash acting director that I had in college. Really? Is oh my god, I'm not joking.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:47

He's supposed to be like George Cooker, that old school director.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:51

And my my mentor, Don Youngstrom, was exactly that. Was an old-time, classically trained thespian, gay, he would wear the um, there's a name for they're not scarves. The the uh ascot. Oh, yeah. He would wear, he would wear the ascot, and I just see my mentor right here, and it cracks me up. But the other line that Alden has that's just like is when he's like, You gotta look into those extras. When he's talking to Josh Brolin, he's like, You look into the eyes of an extra, you don't know what he's thinking.

SPEAKER_02 2:55:27

So for yes, I agree. He is the highlight, and this is a movie starring Josh Brolin in the second lead is George Clooney, and it has a stacked cast. And I don't even know if Aaron Reich is on the poster. Maybe he is. I'm gonna start calling him Hobie. Maybe Hobie, because that's his character name. I mean, we meet him with all the horse tricks, and he Alden actually, you know, learned how to do that stuff with the rope, which is great, like jumping in and out of it. The date he has with the with that girl is so sweet. I could watch a whole movie about him, about them like yeah, falling in love, filming the movie, but then yeah, the criteria. Crowning achievement of the movie. And this is, I mean, we're talking no bullshit. Like Fargo, Car Chase, um, no country, Josh Poland getting chased on foot, you know, by the cartels, the all-timer Cohen scenes. This is up there for me. You have this veteran pro, yeah, doing an amazing portrayal of that type of director, up with this actor who's his cowboy, and they're just going back and forth of like toy that it was so simple. Toy that it was so simple. And then we're talking about the language and the repetition, the him calling him Mr. Lawrence, and then getting erected, you know, Lorenz. And then the one time Ray Fide switches and he goes, Mr. Lawrence, and he goes, Lawrence, you see. Yeah, Alton Air Reich look off screen, and Blake could be like, Well, I thought it was Mr. Lawrence, and he's like, No, we're on first names now, and he plays it so perfectly. And I remember seeing this going, Who the hell is this kid? Because this I don't this movie was like spring, I think, 2016. No, this movie was February 2016. Jesus, I just shot my music video. That's insane. Like, I shot it the week before I saw it. But yeah, I was like, Who the hell is this kid? And weapons, Oppenheimer. Like, I love this guy now. I've I'm a really big fan of his. And you saw him on on Broadway what he won his Tony for.

SPEAKER_01 2:57:15

Yeah, he won his Tony for, yeah, well-deserved, yeah, amazing actor. He's just really, really great. Um, I've I've never seen him deliver a bad performance, even you know, say what you will about the Hans Solo movie. That wasn't that's not his fault. Innocent. That's not his fault.

SPEAKER_02 2:57:29

Like, yeah, Alden Aaron Reich, innocent. That was not his fault at all. Talk about a movie that is filmed by a great cinematographer that looks uh whoo anyway. Man, that guy shot a rival. Like, what what happened? Anyway, okay, hail Caesar, Christopher Lambert. We get Christopher Lambert for the case. Yeah, Christopher Lambert, yep, Tilda Switten in dual roles. I I mean everyone, but yeah, the extras. You know, I look over there at the lighting grip and I say, That's Bob the Lighting Grip, but these extras, you don't you don't know about him. And I mean he's right.

SPEAKER_01 2:57:57

And I love that scene too, because it is like one of those moments where it's like a rare, vulnerable moment for Josh Brolin. Like, I don't think I don't think Josh Brolin knew going into that scene his character was going to reveal this giant secret to this actor. Yeah, and the way that Alden, he the way that he takes it too, he's not worried, he goes, This is bad for movie stars everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 2:58:18

Yeah, right. That's what he looks at him and he's like, and you know, he decides to trust Toby. Like, this is you know, someone's like, Yeah, I love that. Just how he he tags right onto it. Then, you know, he helps, he starts helping.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:30

And one more thing, as we're just really, you know, like glorifying Alden here. That that date scene he has when he's lassoing with the spaghetti, which is real, which is real. Like that you like that is an actor who did his prep.

SPEAKER_02 2:58:44

Oh, he said that was the hardest thing of all the prep in the entire movie, and he tricked practiced forever to try to do that, and it is impressive. But yeah, you're right, it's an actor prepping, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:54

Yeah, it's an actor prepping right there. Yeah, it's really great.

SPEAKER_02 2:58:57

We're not gonna have a chance to mention this with the final feature. So I I just want to call out like uh give a little attention to I don't even know what to call them, but the Cohen brothers love these fucking meetings, like you said about someone sitting behind the desk, like the communist meetings in this, but it's also like the USO dance scene in Barton Fink, the uh out of nowhere Princeton reunion in burn after reading. They just love these like I don't these institutions of white men acting like fucking idiots, and I love it.

SPEAKER_05 2:59:26

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 2:59:27

So I just because I just wanted to call that. Not to say the communists are acting like idiots, don't take me the wrong way here. You know, don't don't at me. I'm just saying they are, you know, it's a very specific uh way of thinking.

SPEAKER_01 2:59:39

Well, no, I mean, but that's exactly what the Cohen's do. And again, we're talking about the George Clooney thing. I think the Cohen's think it's hilarious to dress George Clooney up like he's Julius Caesar, and then and then have him be kidnapped and stuck into a room full of communists. Yeah, like that's just the Cohen brothers like humor. They're like, who's gonna be it's George? That's George, that's George's job. What should it be? Caesar, yes, yes, we got it, yes, we got it, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:00:05

So now we come to their final feature together. Although, to me, honestly, Hail Caesar feels like their final, like legit feature because they had never done an anthology before. I don't know. The anthology thing leading into dual solo careers feels I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:00:21

No, yeah, no, it's true. I didn't think of it like that, but yeah, there it definitely I mean uh they didn't individually direct some of these, and that's what that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 3:00:30

And it's basically an even split for me, you know. Premiered on Netflix. I actually think I saw this in the theater. I think like Alamo played it, so I went to see it, and I I was like, okay, and every time I go back to it, it's just an even split. I like three, and the other three, I'm like, it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:00:45

I gotta say, man, I really like this. Okay, cool. Cool. I am a fan. I think there is some gold in some of these that is some of the best work I've ever seen from the Cohen Brothers uh, period.

SPEAKER_02 3:01:00

This is actually part of the issue with me because I think the gal who got rattled is an A plus masterpiece short with a perfect conclusive ending going back to the picture. That is one of my favorite. I get chills talking about it, and that is so good. And for well, nothing else in the movie lives up to that to me, but then like for second place is all gold canyon, like yeah, that's just like that. That could be Daniel Plainview's like grandfather or something, and the way Tom Waits plays it, like it's fucking it's beautiful, and that the totality of all gold canyon is better than that movie The Sisters Brothers, which is about the exact same thing, and it was a full feature, yeah, and it was not good feature. And then I I really enjoy the first one because I think Tim Blake Nielsen is funny, and it's such a Cohen Brothers conclusion, like that is hysterical because you are the fastest gun in the West until the new fastest gun in the West. The other three, I I think slow it down a little bit, and I just don't get much out of them. That's all. So that what you just said is the problem for me. The girl who got rattled, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:04

That I well, I think I actually, you know, this is this is a hot take. I actually like near Al Gadonis a lot. That's the uh the the James Franco one.

SPEAKER_02 3:02:13

Yeah, it's not bad. I like the news thing, I like you the whole setup of that. I I don't dislike any of them. I'm the I the last one doesn't do anything for me, but I don't like hate it.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:23

The the the reason why the last one does it for me is just because of um the uh the basically the performance from Chelsea Ross. Yeah, Chelsea Ross is the man. Chelsea Ross. I mean, major league. I love Chelsea Ross. Everything that comes out of that man's mouth in that whole entire short to me is is exactly what you get when you get really good Cohen Brothers writing with the right actor to play it. Yeah, not not all of that one works for me. Not all of Meal Ticket works for me, but there, but there are things going on in all of these where um there I I would never skip through any of them. Okay, yeah. So to say that about it, like there are ones that are certainly better. And I think, yeah, the gal who got rattled and all gold canyon, those are A plus shorts. But I wouldn't give any of these any grade less than a B plus.

SPEAKER_02 3:03:19

Yeah, that's fair. Mortal Remains, I'd give like a B, and that's my kind of last place. I'll let you keep going. Meal Ticket, I I love the ending because that perfectly encapsulates one of the themes we keep talking about with the Coens, which is that capitalism always wins. Whatever can make more money with you know takes less time, that's going to win. But but I I tune out during it because I think it takes a while to get to that. And then Mortal Remains, I do. It's not that I want to skip it, but I'm like, I just tune out. I I you know, but but I love I love Chelsea Ross. Like I love him.

SPEAKER_01 3:03:51

I love him. I think the reason why meal ticket, you kind of do, is because there is, I suppose, an argument that you could make where you could make that probably five minutes shorter. Scene that sequence in particular could use five minutes less, but maybe that's been explored, and the ultimate best version of it is what we have. That was sort of the impulse feeling that I got from it.

SPEAKER_02 3:04:11

Yeah, that's all fine. Let's talk a little bit more about the girl who got rattled.

SPEAKER_01 3:04:15

Oh god, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:04:17

Yeah, Granger Hines is who she engages in the fight with. That's Mr. Arthur, I believe. Yeah, and I mean, just the way that he plays that, like, we're about we're gonna have a fight, and I mean, that's like that old west sensibility that I love in you. See that stuff in like Red River, or I just where they're like, nope, we are and what that dude's saying is like a very high possibility that I could die here and you too, honey. But like, this is what the wild west is, sweetie. So here we go. I should have killed that fucking dog.

SPEAKER_01 3:04:46

Oh man, it really is something. And you know, Jeff Bridges exudes a little bit of this in true grit as well. Yeah, like yeah, we like like when he's explaining to Haley like how this is gonna go down. Oh shit, no, not like that anymore. Yeah, no, the way that he plays this scene is is fantastic, and then you think you're out of the woods, but you're not because they come back for a second round, uh, and he still maintains the composure that he has. And I really love Bill Heck. I do too. That gentleman kind of aspect quality to him, he's not exact, he comes off capable and he's got this maturity to him. But bottom line is he couldn't even kill the dog because like it ran away, and he's like shooting like a couple times, and he comes back a sensitive little cowboy, you know. That's less like what he is. Yeah, you know, like he's not capable, I don't think, in the way that Granger Hines' characters. Let's put it this way: if Granger had to kill that dog, that dog would have been dead. Dead, dead many times. It wouldn't have even been, it wouldn't have taken that long. And uh, and then you've got uh, you know, Zoe Kazan, who I mean, her eyes are some of the most expressive eyes. I I just kept being bowled over by her throughout that whole entire uh uh piece of business because it it she just killed me every time. I crashed every single time. Crashed, you crashed and burned, fell in those foxholes or rabbit hole or prairie dog holes, whatever they are. Well, the last one I'll say is Tom Waits in All Gold Canyon. In terms of his acting, I think that's the best performance he's ever given. That was my that was gonna be my take. I thought you might have bit my head off, dude.

SPEAKER_02 3:06:23

I agree. He's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 3:06:24

No, there is something so sweet about this man as he's like, Mr. Pocket, Mr. Pocket, like he's scared, but he's also like elated, and he's like, there is so much emotion coming out of him from joy to fear to like victory, and he's crying it all out as he's just screaming these words that he's saying. And I don't that that's that's really good acting. Yeah, it is like it's all of it, all in one.

SPEAKER_02 3:06:56

It's it's it's incredible stuff. We are both fans of a lot of aspects of it. It just sounds like some of the shorts work a little bit more than you, but that's okay. That is just that's the genuine, that's the general nature of anthology films. Not all of them are gonna hit the same way.

SPEAKER_01 3:07:10

So you're never gonna have a like 10 for 10.

SPEAKER_02 3:07:13

That would be really wild because no, of all the ones I've seen, it's yeah, that is very difficult to achieve that like 10 for 10. That's the filmography. That's it. That's it. That's that's the Cohen Brothers. That's the Cohen Brothers. That's all 18. From Blood Simple to Buster Scrugs, real quick before we do the top 10. Most expensive movie was Intolerable Cruelty. They got a 60 million dollar budget for that. That is way more than they've gotten for other things, and that was just because it was gonna be set up for other studio directors, and they just kind of went in and did it. Now their highest grossing films are by a huge margin. Number one, true grit, 252 million. That's crazy for them. And then second place is no country with 172 million, so that's like 80 million difference. So that's I just wanted to list those. That's pretty cool. True grit was a big, big hit. I got 10 Oscar nominations and goose egg wins, zero. How many did King Speech get that year? When's the last time anyone watched King Speech? Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_01 3:08:15

I didn't even like it when it came out.

SPEAKER_02 3:08:16

I didn't either. All right, top 10 Cone brothers. We're gonna be nice, everyone's gonna be nice. We we've acknowledged that we both like all of their films. I yeah, when I said that what the one I would put at 18, I would still give like a B or B minus to, and that ain't bad. Not even, because that would be Lady Killers, and I would give that a B because I think that movie is unexpectedly hilarious and a 2004 time capsule.

SPEAKER_01 3:08:40

Well, I mean, it's like I said, like I I it much to the chagrin, I did not dislike burn after reading, but you will not find it on my top 10 list. Yeah, you're gonna have a few that you're not gonna find on mine either, and that's okay. I guess the big question is is the bet that we should have is how many do you think we're gonna share? I think five.

SPEAKER_02 3:09:02

Yeah, good question. I I mean, I know one for sure that I'm gonna you just admitted one, so I know one as well, so that cancels out. I I think the ones we're not gonna have, the eight we're not gonna have will largely match up. I'll go with six.

SPEAKER_01 3:09:15

I think I think we'll have six. You think six as well? I think okay, we'll go with six, but I guarantee you we're not gonna have the same number one. And I think I damn well know what your number one is.

SPEAKER_02 3:09:24

I actually have a guess what yours is. I doubt we have the same number one, but my one and two, man, the past like few top tens we've done. Spielberg is tough for me. What's the last one? We just did it. Damn it. We redid Nolan. That's oh my god, that is so difficult for me. This one is two. I mean, people can kind of guess what my one and two are, but I've definitively put a two and a one. This is gonna be fun. Yep. So we'll do, you know, you do ten, I do ten, nine, nine.

SPEAKER_01 3:09:49

So you go. No, and that's the and that's the same way that I feel. Like it was it. I I made my definitive ones and I and I stand behind them. The Ignolan one was harder for that. All right, starting at number 10. With their last one. That's right. I am putting the ballad of Buster Scrubs in my top 10. I think that there is gold in there more than there's not, and I think some of that gold is some of the best stuff they've ever done. So, Buster Scrubs, number 10 for Nick.

SPEAKER_02 3:10:19

Fair argument. I mean, if we were, we didn't, we don't this is already gonna run long as shit. So we don't we didn't space this out. But if we had like set pieces, if we even had set pieces, the whole standoff with them, you know, with Zoe Kazan and that that that's that's in there. Absolutely. That is up there with what I'm saying, Fargo Chase, everything. So that's cool that it made your list. It's not gonna make mine. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:10:40

That's all right. What's your number 10? What are you starting with, Hawk?

SPEAKER_02 3:10:43

This was a kind of a late decision. I had two here and I wanted to bump, you know, had to bump one out, and I'm going with Hail Caesar. I really enjoyed it. I really, really did. I was wondering if this was gonna make it. Your number nine, you're gonna hate my number nine. You're gonna hate that it's here, and I'm sorry. I thought about it, I can't help it.

SPEAKER_01 3:11:00

Well, I don't even think that's this is why it's gonna get crazy, is because you're gonna hate my number nine. Okay, because you're not gonna believe well, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna appreciate that I have it on here, but you are not gonna like that. My number nine is Miller's Crossing.

SPEAKER_02 3:11:13

No, that's okay. That's I mean, no, you own that. So how many times did you have you seen that one? Well, this was my first time seeing it. Oh, okay. So that I can tell you right now, like Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple, it's just not gonna hit on first viewing. But again, it's no movie should require you to watch it multiple times. So, like your assessment of both films is completely fair. They are fucking twisty ass movies, but it still made the list.

SPEAKER_01 3:11:38

Bo no, but it still made because it's it's it's it's kind of undeniable. Like it really is. Like it it's it is that good of a movie, and that writing it it it reminds me of true grit a lot in terms of just their specificity, yeah, in that time period and the and all that. I mean, that's it, it that's hard as fuck, and they do it really well. My number nine, I'm sorry, Barton Fink.

SPEAKER_02 3:12:01

I love the film.

SPEAKER_01 3:12:02

Oof. I know. All right, I know. I just had to hit it. We'll come back, we'll we'll come back to that.

SPEAKER_02 3:12:07

Oh, we'll come back to Miller's Crossing too. You're number eight. Number eight, here we are. A serious man. Oh, good. Okay, wow. This really had a pop for you because you it really weren't really looking forward to re-watching it, and I'm so glad it hit.

SPEAKER_01 3:12:23

I really am, and it really hit from in every way, like I was absorbed. Like I was like, there, like there, like I really got I laugh outside of that very beginning. Like once we got through the because I'm like, Michael, yeah, I was like, all right, so all right, all right, all right, let's see. But then, you know, you know, you get that the whole idea of that curse and all of that, and and then we're off to the races. Got a Jefferson airplane.

SPEAKER_02 3:12:46

So yeah, they look I love the songs in there. I'm gonna make like a playlist of the songs that are just repeated a lot, like the four tops one in Blood Simple. That one, that's a that's a good call. I didn't remember that it's in there, and I love that last guy. You know, that's one of the judges for Brounders, like the very last rabbi is the let's say I'll put you at the top of the list if you're right. That's that guy. Oh, really? Yeah, oh shit. They just aged him, aged him up big time. But yeah, I don't I don't take bets like that. The hell you know what the what did you say? The fuck you know what we all have. Um, all right, number eight is serious, man. For mint Nick, my number eight, true grit. And I love true grit. Let me be clear. So we're uh we're pretty much in A plus territory for me now. True grit, I'd give an A, the next one, an A, and then I'm pretty much A plus. Like these are these are unassailable great films to me. And we are also in the extremely rewatchable category. I rewatch all of these a lot.

SPEAKER_01 3:13:41

They might be the most re-watchable directors ever. The most I would venture out to say is True Grid. And that's not even asking a lot, you know?

SPEAKER_03 3:13:50

Like that's Bruce Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 3:13:52

Yeah, you're just you're just you're just getting into just like a western. That's all it is, you know. Like yeah. Number seven. Uh, inside Lou and Davis.

SPEAKER_02 3:14:01

Wow, we have more unin common than I thought. So that's okay. I know.

SPEAKER_01 3:14:06

I had a feeling this was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 3:14:09

Nice spelling, you jackass. I know. I spell it like Lou N. I think it's funny. I do that because I think it's funny. Hey, it made you laugh. Okay, my number seven, we have none in common so far, is their first film, Blood Simple, which I know did not make your list.

SPEAKER_01 3:14:24

It did not, it did not. Yeah, so this is what I mean. This is gonna be very interesting to see like what we have. Like this one, I'm just gonna say this was my hardest one. Was between what was gonna be in the top five and what wasn't. But at the end of the day, I had to put this here. I wish it could be in the top five, but my number six is The Man Who Wasn't There. Okay. I love, love, love, love this movie.

SPEAKER_02 3:14:49

I do too. Now, how many times had you seen this?

SPEAKER_01 3:14:52

Now, this was probably my third or fourth time rewatching.

SPEAKER_02 3:14:56

I forgot to ask you that. I love knowing just how many times you've seen each movie. I just I it just helps give me context. I totally forgot to ask you. No, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:15:05

Yeah, yeah. Like uh, I well, I'll I'll say this. I these are from here on out, I've seen countless times.

SPEAKER_02 3:15:12

Same, same. My number six is Miller's Crossing.

SPEAKER_01 3:15:16

Ah, oh, I what wow. I would have actually put money that I don't have on that would have been in your top five.

SPEAKER_02 3:15:26

As long as it makes the list, that's all that matters. And that's our first one in common. So here we go. Are we gonna get on a tear? I know we're gonna have one. I think the the comedies we won't have in common. Those will cancel themselves out, and then I think the other remaining ones we'll have in common.

SPEAKER_01 3:15:39

But your top five. Number five. Top five, baby. And we're starting with uh their uh Academy Award winner. We got no country for old men.

SPEAKER_02 3:15:49

Oh, that surprises me. I thought that would have been closer to your one or two. Hey, good for you.

SPEAKER_01 3:15:54

I it's it's it's um it's kind of in it's kind of crazy. It's that it's number five.

SPEAKER_02 3:15:59

I agree. That is kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_01 3:16:01

My number five, the dude abides, the big Lebowski. Ah, yep, yep, yep. See, I actually wondered if this was actually gonna make your list. I didn't know if you were a big fan of this.

SPEAKER_02 3:16:11

I've seen so many times. Well, you've met my buddy Brent. This was that and Days and Confuse were our movies for a few years, and it was constant rewatches, you know, like hung over on Sunday mornings watching them. We made um, oh my god, the time he had me make White Russians the way the dude does with the fucking powder coffee creamer. Uh, we drank them all weekend at the beach once. Yeah, I love that movie. That's disgusting. Yeah. Oh at the beach. I'm gonna send him this clip of all places. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah, I'm gonna send him this clip. He'll know what I'm talking about. But yeah, I love Lebowski. All right, and I know it's gonna pick your list. I'm excited to get there.

SPEAKER_01 3:16:49

Number four from you. Number four, we have got the one I know will not be on your list, but this is an all-timer for me, raising Arizona.

SPEAKER_02 3:16:57

Yeah, and it's not like again, if I watched it a bunch more times, I it's just not the Cohen comedy I go to first, but it's all how we get it. It's oh, what are you gonna say? I don't have a sense of humor. Oh, yeah, I don't like good things. Go on, hit me with it. I don't like good things. Big asshole. Is your number four gonna be the one where I don't have the sense of humor? Man who wasn't there is my number four, my friend. Whoa! Yeah, and I love The Man Who Wasn't There. This is an A plus movie. Yeah, I love the Man Who Wasn't There.

SPEAKER_01 3:17:29

Oh wow, this is crazy. This is crazy. I don't know what to tell you, man. You don't know me. You don't know me. You're number three. All right, number three, we've got the big Lebowski. Okay, good, good, good. I think, I think this is the most rewatchable Cohen Brothers movie of all time. Every time you watch it, it just gets better and better and better. And it's just so well done. Totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 3:17:52

I don't know. We'll see what your favorite comedy is, but that's definitely comedy. My favorite Cohen Brothers comedy, one of my top five comedies of all time, Burnout. After reading. It was difficult for me to do the placement with this and the man who wasn't there, but I just, I mean, every time I put this on, it is my funny bone. Just all of it. You know, you really are an angry person. Like I just I walking out of the house, going up the stairs to get the mattress to coming back down. I don't know. I think it's I think it's great. But yeah, I, you know, I totally get anyone's position on it because it's outrageous.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:27

Completely well, no, I I I'm the weird one here. Everyone loves this movie. I'm the minority. Of your shit. All right, two and one.

SPEAKER_02 3:18:35

Give me your two.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:38

I can't believe this. My number two is Fargo.

SPEAKER_02 3:18:43

Wow. So my number one that I was gonna guess is correct. That's okay, so you really love it. I thought that would be for you. That's why I called you that in the beginning. Just give me your one. It's Barton Fink. That's wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:54

I love that. Yup. I love that. I I had a long time thinking about this. Now, here's the thing. Fargo, I think, is their most supremely well-made movie of all time. Like that, like that movie is a damn near that's a that's an N D W A Y W uh N P M. Damn right. It's a Nick Dostal, what are you watching? No perfect movie. But there is something about Barton Fink that the very first time I saw it just connects with me on a certain level. There's a weirdness to it. There's this sort of mysteriousness to like everything that that movie does. I just I don't know what I can say. There's I love it. I love it so much. There's something so weird and wrong about it that I can't get it out of my fucking veins. And I've always felt that way. I've always, always had a relationship to that movie in that same way. And I've seen it countless times, and every time I'm due, I'm still in a in a like in a state of wonderment about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:19:56

I love that. It just it taps into stuff, and like we said, there's no one-to-one for that. Like a serious man's good. No, that's you can watch that with it, but there ain't no one-to-one for Barton Fink. Like it is completely on its own, in and of itself. Like it's just so yeah, strange and great. So that's a really spirited number one. My two and one. I had a lot of trouble with this because I love no country for old men and I love Fargo. I love them both to death. I'll just do it real quick because we're running long. Number two, no country. Number one, Fargo. And the reason I knew it why I ultimately went with that is because I've had some conversations with people about no country where I have to justify the final scene, the dream, and yeah, and justify why one of the main characters that we're following for the entire movie, why we don't see him be killed on screen. You don't have to justify anything with Fargo. It has I have a 100% hit rate with it. Every single person I've ever recommended it to likes it. It's just perfect. And we're not the the conversation on this pod is not done with Fargo. It would make for I've always wanted to do a commentary for it, but then would also make for a deep dive. I almost wonder if Blood Simple would be better as a deep dive because then we have time. It's gonna go so fast in a commentary to try to explain things. But we'll we'll talk. We're we're gonna do at least a Cohen another Cohen Brothers episode. But yeah, we have Miller's Crossing, Man Who Wasn't There, Big Lobowski, Fargo, No Country, Barton Fink. So we did have six.

SPEAKER_01 3:21:24

Well, look at that. It's crazy that my no country's at five, but I mean when I look at the rest of them, just for me personally, I'm like, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 3:21:30

We should watch next time we're together, a double feature of Raising Arizona and Burn After Reading. And just like sit on Burn After Are I have you for Raising Arizona showing because we've done burn after reading together.

SPEAKER_01 3:21:44

Well, this was I was gonna say because you and I were talking about this right before we went um on air. Well, we were talking about this separately. Was that when we did watch Burn After Reading, I was laughing a lot more than I usually do because of how much you were laughing at.

SPEAKER_02 3:21:59

And and that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_01 3:22:00

Yeah. That that makes your experience watching a movie better when who you're with and sharing that company with is really enjoying themselves. You can't help but kind of enjoy your experience more because of that. So I remember that was my favorite time ever watching that movie. I mean, yeah, I die laughing every time.

SPEAKER_02 3:22:21

I crash, I crash every time. All right, let's do what are you watching? Let's go as quickly as possible. Or you know, as quickly. Oh, am I? Okay, here's you are you go first, hit me.

SPEAKER_01 3:22:33

Well, um, so everyone, I'll wrap, I'll make this as quick as I can, but uh your faithful and mine, Alex Withrow, has uh on many occasions sent me movies that that he just felt that I would just like. And um, me being me, um take my sweet ass time getting around to them. And so I was very happy to last night, I popped in a 1996 movie that you said don't don't read the back, don't do anything, don't look it up, just pop this in your Blu-ray and just watch it. And that is Lone Star directed by John Sales. And wow, dude, you were right. Did you love it? Really, yeah, really, really enjoyed this.

SPEAKER_02 3:23:18

It just reminds me of you, like it reminds me of a movie that you would like, and that I will it we will not say what it is, but that final scene, my god, I it's really hard to and it's a conversation, folks. This is not like some big spectacle thing, it's a conversation, blows me up and just knocks me out. Knocks me out.

SPEAKER_01 3:23:39

Well, that's that's the whole movie. The whole movie like you don't expect these individual scenes to kind of start to cut deep, but they do. Yep, yep. And uh, and it speaks so much, I mean, about like racism and big time. And I mean, it there is there is so I I did not expect that, but I didn't expect not only did I expect that the kind of content, but I didn't expect the kind of uh honesty that that movie brings forth in situations when you're dealing with these issues because it doesn't solve any of these and doesn't try to, but it definitely does just it lets you know that this is how people feel. Really, really something, really something.

SPEAKER_02 3:24:21

Okay, way earlier in the pod, you mentioned you found a list of the Cohen Brothers' favorite 30 films. I do want to clarify that these lists are just some writer like has to file an article. So they went and found a bunch of Cohen Brothers interviews and like put a list together of every movie they had mentioned. So when you said like there's six Polanski in the top 10, the ranking is completely arbitrary. It's just like what some writer put on it. Noting all of that, there's still the most directors, the same directory. That is very true. They mention Polanski, which you wouldn't really think of, but they do mention him a lot. And actually, knowing how much you love Barton Fink, you gotta go watch those early ones like Repulsion with Catherine Deneuve, they just took right from that for the stuff in his hotel room. And that's a great movie. I love Repulsion. Knife in the Water. Oh my god, yeah, they're great. But I went a little lighter and I found they are huge fans of Preston Sturges, so I went a little lighter with something called the Palm Beach Story from 1942. I just loved it. I mean, I I'm a huge fan of The Lady Eve, it's one of my favorite Barbara Stanwyck movies. That's what Preston Sturgis did the year before. And it is, he also did uh Sullivan's Travels in 1941. Like these directors back then were just cranking them out. Palm Beach story was great. It has like these wild and hilarious book end scenes that I go, yeah, that's okay. So, like, this is where your book end scenes come from. It has nothing to do with a serious man, it's not like that at all. But I'm like, all right, I see, I see like your inspiration. It's just it was really funny. This mad cap thing, and as I get more into old Hollywood, Palm Beach story makes me appreciate things like Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty, intolerable cruelty. That's a tough one. That much more. So yeah, fun stuff. I'm so glad you watched Lone Star and liked it. I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_01 3:26:08

Yeah, I mean there are some good special features on there. I haven't yet to see those yet.

SPEAKER_02 3:26:14

Good, good. All right, cool. Well, that was the Coden Brothers. Wow, that was fun. Make sure you go to Patreon because now we're gonna record the Coden Brothers Oscars where we are picking our own nominees and winners. So it's not, you know, we're picking all of our own nominees. It's not it's gonna be great. It's not just listing the winners. So head over there, patreon.com slash W A Y W. Also W A Y W podcast.com for all of your what are you watching needs. But as always, thanks for listening and happy watching. Go to our brand new website, wawywpodcast.com, for everything. You can write to us, donate if you're feeling generous, buy our brand new merch, and you can find our new Patreon link, What Are You Watching bonus features. We are on Patreon now, so for just a few bucks a month, you can get so much more WAYW content. Go to wawywpodcast.com for all of your what are you watching needs. Next time we need a full episode for it, Joel and Ethan Cohen's Fargo. We're gonna dive all the way into it, break down each scene. There are so many subtleties to this movie that are hilarious. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Stay tuned.